Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Sharon McLane Part Three: The Wrong Man

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The Murder of Sharon McLane Part Three: The Wrong Man · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. On the evening of December eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, thirty two year old Sharon maclain finished
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  Speaker 1: her shift at Advantage Renekar and returned to her apartment
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  Speaker 1: in Bedford, Texas. At about eleven pm, she spoke on
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  Speaker 1: the phone with a man she was dating in Salt
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  Speaker 1: Lake City, Utah. He described Sharon's mood as good, nothing
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  Speaker 1: seemed unusual, and nothing suggested that her life was in
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  Speaker 1: any danger at all. But sometime in the following twelve
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  Speaker 1: hours or so, someone entered Sharon's apartment, and what happened
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  Speaker 1: next was violent. She was stabbed and slashed at least
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven times. Detectives later found a bloody, partial palm
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  Speaker 1: print beneath her body, alongside three knives. Witnesses reported hearing
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  Speaker 1: screams so disturbing the years later they still remembered them.
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  Speaker 1: The investigation quickly began moving in conflicting directions. There was
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  Speaker 1: the mysterious stranger, a white guy in a cowboy hat.
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  Speaker 1: The married couple who had heard the screams saw him
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  Speaker 1: near Sharon's apartment, possibly leaving about thirty minutes after a
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  Speaker 1: maintenance worker also saw him. Detectives developed a composite sketch
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  Speaker 1: and focused heavily on identifying him. Then there was Sharon's friend,
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  Speaker 1: John Earl Noley. He had been in her apartment that night,
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  Speaker 1: a fact he kept from police at first. When he
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  Speaker 1: finally admitted he'd been there, Noley explained to detectives that
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  Speaker 1: he was on probation, and since he'd gone to Sharon's
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  Speaker 1: place to sell her pot, he didn't want to say
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  Speaker 1: he was there. He and Sharon had drank a couple
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  Speaker 1: beers and shared a joint. He said that hesitation to
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  Speaker 1: tell the truth would become one of the things used
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  Speaker 1: against him. In nineteen ninety eight, a Tarrant County jury
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  Speaker 1: convicted John Earl Noley of Sharon mac Lean's murder and
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  Speaker 1: sentenced him to life in prison. The case appeared closed,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: but as the investigation into Sharon's murder was unfolding, hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of miles away, another investigation was under way. A series
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of restaurant robberies and murders in Tennessee had law enforcement
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  Speaker 1: scrambling to identify a killer who seemed capable of extreme violence,
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  Speaker 1: A killer who left behind scenes so brutal they shocked
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  Speaker 1: even veteran detectives. His name was Paul Dennis Reid. Back
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  Speaker 1: in Texas, Noley's defense attorney tried to use Reed as
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: an alternate suspect theory in court, even with witness testimony. However,
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  Speaker 1: the jury didn't buy it. But what if the wrong
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  Speaker 1: man had been convicted for Sharon McLean's murder. By the
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  Speaker 1: spring of nineteen ninety nine, Paul Dennis Reid was already
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  Speaker 1: becoming one of the most notorious murder suspects in Tennessee history.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: More than two years had passed since his arrest. The
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  Speaker 1: case had been delayed repeatedly by pre trial motions, hearings,
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  Speaker 1: and disputes over his mental competency. Even nature threw in
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  Speaker 1: a wrench when a tornado damaged the Montgomery County courthouse
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  Speaker 1: and forced additional delays. Jury selection ultimately had to take
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  Speaker 1: place two hours away in Knox County before proceedings could
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  Speaker 1: finally begin, in order to pick folks who weren't inundated
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  Speaker 1: with constant news coverage about the fast food murders. When
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  Speaker 1: Reid entered the courtroom on April twelfth, nineteen ninety nine,
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  Speaker 1: he wore a remotely controlled stun belt. Authorities considered him
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  Speaker 1: dangerous enough that extra precautions were deemed necessary. The belt
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  Speaker 1: was described as something that would stop him dead in
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  Speaker 1: his tracks if he became violent. Two days later, the
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  Speaker 1: jury needed less than four hours to convict him of
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  Speaker 1: murdering Captain D's restaurant employees Steve Hampton and Sarah Jackson.
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  Speaker 1: The defense attempted to save his life. During the punishment phase.
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  Speaker 1: Jurors heard about injuries he suffered during childhood and heard
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  Speaker 1: testimony suggesting brain damage. They heard about a mental illness
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  Speaker 1: diagnosed dating back to nineteen seventy four, about delusions possibly
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  Speaker 1: stemming from what was described as a horrific childhood. A
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  Speaker 1: former fiancee had testified that she had never witnessed him
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  Speaker 1: commit violence, but it didn't matter. The jury returned two
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  Speaker 1: death sentences. Afterward, Reed blew a kiss to his sister
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  Speaker 1: before being escorted from the courtroom. Five months later, he
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  Speaker 1: stood trial again. This time, prosecutors accused him of kidnapping
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  Speaker 1: and murdering sixteen year old Michelle Mace and twenty one
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  Speaker 1: year old Angela Holmes after abducting them from a baskin
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  Speaker 1: Robbins in Clarksville. Before the trial could begin, Reid created
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  Speaker 1: new complications. He claimed his attorneys were working with Satan
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  Speaker 1: and insisted God wanted him to die for murders he
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  Speaker 1: supposedly didn't commit. Proceedings stalled again while courts tried to
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  Speaker 1: determine whether Reed was mentally competent. Experts couldn't agree. Some
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  Speaker 1: believed he was faking psychosis to avoid prosecution, while others
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  Speaker 1: believed he suffered from severe mental illness. Eventually, the trial
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  Speaker 1: moved forward. This time, prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence,
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  Speaker 1: a bloody pair of Nike shoes recovered during a search warrant.
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  Speaker 1: The blood on those shoes matched Angela Holmes. According to
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  Speaker 1: the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the probability it belonged to
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  Speaker 1: someone else was approximately one in one million, eight hundred
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  Speaker 1: ten thousand. Investigators also connected Reed to a Texico station
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  Speaker 1: located within two miles of the Baskin Robbins. The receipt
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  Speaker 1: placed him there at nine fifty four pm that night,
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  Speaker 1: just minutes before Angela Holmes and Michelle Mace disappeared. Investigators
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  Speaker 1: also found matching fibers on the victim's clothing and inside
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  Speaker 1: Reid's red Ford escort. There were eleven separate matches involving
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  Speaker 1: four different fiber types. Even witnesses stacked up. One woman
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  Speaker 1: testified that she saw a man resembling Reed near Dunbar Cave,
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  Speaker 1: the location where Angela and Michelle's bodies were later found.
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  Speaker 1: Both had been stabbed and slashed repeatedly. Another witness saw
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  Speaker 1: a car matching Reed's description near Baskin Robbins, and someone
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  Speaker 1: else reported seeing a similar vehicle near Dunbar Cave Park
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  Speaker 1: the night of the murders. Several people described seeing a
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  Speaker 1: small red car that night. There was also evidence involving
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  Speaker 1: a knife. When Reid threatened a former employer in an
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  Speaker 1: attempt to get his job back at Shoney's, he displayed
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  Speaker 1: a knife with an approximately nine inch Prosecutors argued it
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  Speaker 1: was consistent with the weapon used in the murders. On
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  Speaker 1: December eighteenth, nineteen ninety eight, jurors found him guilty. Two
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  Speaker 1: more death sentences followed at that point. Reid's execution date
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  Speaker 1: was set for April twenty third, two thousand, exactly three
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  Speaker 1: years after the Baskin Robbins murders, but the date was
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  Speaker 1: more assemble than something set in Stone. Nobody seriously expected
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  Speaker 1: it to hold, as appeals were inevitable and anyway, another
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  Speaker 1: trial still awaited him. The next case involved three McDonald's employees,
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  Speaker 1: Andrea Brown, Robert Sewell, and Ronald Santiago. Unlike the Baskin
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  Speaker 1: Robbins prosecution, there was virtually no physical evidence tying Red
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  Speaker 1: to the murders. The States case relied heavily on the
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  Speaker 1: testimony of surviving victim Jose Gonzales. Gonzales had been stabbed
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  Speaker 1: repeatedly and left for dead alongside his co workers, who
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  Speaker 1: were all shot to death execution style. On the stand,
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  Speaker 1: jurors saw the scars when he lifted his shirt, and
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  Speaker 1: they heard him described the attack. Most importantly, they heard
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  Speaker 1: him identify Paul Dennis Reed as the man responsible. The
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  Speaker 1: jury believed him, and Reid was convicted again. Three more
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  Speaker 1: death sentences followed, bringing him a total of seven. Even
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  Speaker 1: before his trials, as investigators dug deeper into his past,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: they began considering whether Red might be connected to additional
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: murders in Tennessee and Texas. Some suspected him in the
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  Speaker 1: killing of a Nashville Shoney's manager, Charles Thowitt Junior, who
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: was shot to death a few weeks before the Captain
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  Speaker 1: Demon murders in January of nineteen ninety seven, just after
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  Speaker 1: Reid returned to Nashville. Others wondered whether he was responsible
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  Speaker 1: for murders involving women in multiple jurisdictions. His name even
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  Speaker 1: surfaced in connection with the infamous Fairlaneses Bowling Alley murders
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  Speaker 1: in Houston. Another man had been charged and would eventually
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  Speaker 1: die for those murders, though there was widespread doubt about
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  Speaker 1: his prosecution. Many of the suspicions never resulted in charges,
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  Speaker 1: but they revealed something important. Investigators increasingly viewed Reed as
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: a potential serial killer whose known victims might represent only
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  Speaker 1: part of the story. There was also evidence he might
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  Speaker 1: be responsible for a murder in Bedford, Texas, the December
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six case of Sharon Maclain. In the trial
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  Speaker 1: of John Earl Knowley for that brutal crime, that evidence
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  Speaker 1: was presented, providing ample reasonable doubt, but it wasn't enough
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  Speaker 1: for the jury to the jury. The case against John
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  Speaker 1: Earl Noley for the murder of Sharon Maclin seemed straightforward.
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  Speaker 1: Noley knew Sharon he had been inside her apartment on
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  Speaker 1: the night she was killed, and had lied about it
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  Speaker 1: at first. His fingerprint was found on a beer bottle
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  Speaker 1: in her trash, and witnesses claimed he had acted suspiciously
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  Speaker 1: during the time case closed, But from the beginning there
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  Speaker 1: had been another suspect, not a vague lead or some
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  Speaker 1: anonymous tip, rather an actual suspect who had attracted investigator's
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  Speaker 1: attention immediately after Sharon's murder, a tall, white man wearing
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  Speaker 1: a black cowboy. According to testimony presented at Noley's trial,
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  Speaker 1: witnesses saw that man near Sharon's apartment complex the afternoon
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  Speaker 1: after investigators believed the murder occurred. Witnesses placed him there
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  Speaker 1: between approximately three point fifteen and three forty five in
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon on December twelfth, nineteen ninety six, roughly thirty
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  Speaker 1: minutes after they reported hearing what they described as blood
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  Speaker 1: curdling screams. A maintenance worker at the complex also saw
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  Speaker 1: the man. At the time, Bedford detectives considered him whoever,
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  Speaker 1: he was, their best suspect. They had a physical description
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  Speaker 1: and had developed a composite sketch eventually after he was
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  Speaker 1: arrested for the fast food murders in Tennessee. That description
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  Speaker 1: in Texas began pointing toward Paul Dennis Reed. One of
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  Speaker 1: the most troubling aspects of the case involved timing. Reed
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  Speaker 1: wasn't tied down by work obligations during the period surrounding
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  Speaker 1: Sharon's murder. He was off work both the day Sharon
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  Speaker 1: was stabbed to death and the following day, when he
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  Speaker 1: eventually returned to his job. A local shownees. A witness
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  Speaker 1: reported that he had cuts on his hands. Stabbing attacks
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  Speaker 1: often result in injuries to the assailant. Blood makes the
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  Speaker 1: handle slick and the knife's slips cutting them. When Noley
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  Speaker 1: was questioned, the police examined his hands and found no
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  Speaker 1: evidence of wounds, nor did anyone he worked with report
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  Speaker 1: any injuries. There was also Reed's sudden departure. According to
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  Speaker 1: defense attorney Gary Medlin, Witnesses identified Reed as the man
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  Speaker 1: near Sharon's apartment complex around the time of the murder.
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  Speaker 1: Witnesses also placed him with Sharon at the rental car
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  Speaker 1: agency where she worked, and then, as Medlin later pointed out,
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  Speaker 1: he skipped town and went back to Tennessee. Once there,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the violence escalated rapidly. The Captain D's murders in February
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, then those at the McDonald's a month later,
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  Speaker 1: and finally the Baskin Robbins killings in April. As far
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  Speaker 1: as the latter is concerned, some examining Sharon McLean's murder
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  Speaker 1: in Texas saw similarities they found difficult to ignore. It's
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  Speaker 1: reported that the stab patterns on Sharon McLean's body were
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  Speaker 1: very similar to the wounds inflicted on Angela Holmes and
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  Speaker 1: Michelle Mace during the Baskin Robbins murders. That alone wasn't
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  Speaker 1: enough to prove red murdered Sharon, but similarities become more
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  Speaker 1: significant when combined with other factors. Witnesses seeing a man
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  Speaker 1: matching Reid's description near the crime scene and then identifying
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  Speaker 1: him as that man, read being off war and appearing
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  Speaker 1: with cuts on his hands afterward, his sudden departure from Texas,
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  Speaker 1: and later murder convictions. Viewed individually, none of those facts
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  Speaker 1: established read as Sharon's killer. Viewed together, however, they created
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  Speaker 1: a troubling alternative explanation. Those details became even more troubling
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  Speaker 1: as attorneys began re examining the evidence used to convict
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  Speaker 1: John Earl Noley and the fact that there was virtually
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  Speaker 1: no physical evidence connecting him to Sharon Maclean's murder. The
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  Speaker 1: strongest physical evidence against Knowley presented at trial was a fingerprint.
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  Speaker 1: But it wasn't found on Sharon's body or on the
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  Speaker 1: murder weapons. It wasn't found in blood or in some
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  Speaker 1: location that suggested he'd taken part in a struggle. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: it was found on a beer bottle in Sharon's trash,
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  Speaker 1: and the significance of that evidence shrank con siderably once
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  Speaker 1: you considered a basic fact. Noley had already told police
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  Speaker 1: he had been there. He told them he had visited
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  Speaker 1: Sharon sometime after nine pm on December eleventh, the last
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  Speaker 1: night anyone heard from her. The two shared beers and
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  Speaker 1: smoked pot. He then returned home at around eleven fifteen pm.
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  Speaker 1: According to his fiancee, Amy de Gear. She said he
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  Speaker 1: wasn't injured or even bloody. So a fingerprint on a
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  Speaker 1: beer bottle inside an apartment where a person admittedly drank
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  Speaker 1: a beer wasn't exactly shocking. What prosecutors really needed was
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  Speaker 1: something that connected Noley to the actual murder, and they
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: found informants who provided them with just that. Three informants
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  Speaker 1: for years Noley tried appealing his conviction, even flying solo
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  Speaker 1: after getting on the waiting list for the Innocence Project
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  Speaker 1: two years after his conviction. Four years later, while still
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  Speaker 1: waiting for help, he filed his own request seeking DNA testing.
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  Speaker 1: Acting without an attorney, he attempted to use evolving forensic
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  Speaker 1: science to re examine the evidence. The request was denied.
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  Speaker 1: When the Innocence Project was finally able to take on
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: his case in two thousand and six, they discovered that
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the informants presented a major problem for the prosecution. They
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: discovered things about those witnesses that jurors never heard. Had
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  Speaker 1: they heard them, the outcome may have been very different.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: The most important witness against Knowley may have been a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: man named John O'Brien. O'Brien claimed that while he and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Noley were in custody together, Noley confessed to Sharon maclean's murder.
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  Speaker 1: According to O'Brien, that confession occurred in the jail library.
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  Speaker 1: For jurors, a confession can be powerful evidence, even when
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  Speaker 1: it comes through someone else's mouth, especially when that someone
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  Speaker 1: appears to have no reason to lie. O'Brien assured jurors
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  Speaker 1: exactly that when he denied receiving favorable treatment or trading
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: information for personal benefit. He had no history as an informant,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: he told the court. But as they investigated Noley's conviction,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the Innocence Project found out those claims simply weren't true.
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  Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, they'd been reviewing the case for years
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  Speaker 1: with the cooperation of the Arrant County District Attorney's Office.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: That year, the office had created the Conviction Integrity Unit
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: or CiU, who, alongside the Innocence Project, uncovered evidence showing
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  Speaker 1: that informant John O'Brien had spent more than a year
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  Speaker 1: and a half actively seeking opportunities to test against criminal
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: defendants in exchange for favorable treatment. In his own case,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the felony theft of farm equipment. At the time he
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: testified against Noley, O'Brien faced the possibility of decades in prison. Instead,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: he received a plea arrangement that kept him out, and
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  Speaker 1: O'Brien had in fact served as a state informant in
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: numerous cases. It was discovered information demonstrating that history existed
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: inside the District Attorney's office but had never been provided
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  Speaker 1: to Noley's defense team. The implications of that were enormous.
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  Speaker 1: At trial, O'Brien testified that he had never been an informant,
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  Speaker 1: and he lied. Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project later
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: described the contrast between what jurors were told and what
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  Speaker 1: investigators discovered as breath taking. More important, they discovered that
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  Speaker 1: the details of Noley's supposed confession, as told by O'Brien
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  Speaker 1: didn't even fit the known facts of Sharon McLean's murder,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and investigators weren't finished finding problems. Jason Vandergriff had known
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Noley for years. The two had played football together in
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: high school. At trial, Vandergriff and his girlfriend, Delenda Garza
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  Speaker 1: testified about incriminating statements allegedly made by Noley. They also
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  Speaker 1: described a pair of supposedly bloody shoes that Noley wanted hidden,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: but police never recovered those shoes, and when investigators compared
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Vandergriff's trial testimony with statements he made before the grand jury,
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  Speaker 1: they discovered significant contradictions in his testimony that helped secure
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: an indictment. Vandergriff had told the grand jury that Noley
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: had never indicated he stabbed or cut anyone. At trial,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: jurors heard the opposite. They heard only the version that
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: helped secure a conviction. Then investigators found something that may
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: have been even more significant, a simple note. At the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: scene of Sharon McLean's murder, detectives discovered a bloody, partial
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: palm print on a piece of paper located beneath her body.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: At trial, jurors heard testimony suggesting the print could not
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: be used for comparison purposes. Essentially, they were told the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: evidence was inconclusive. But buried inside the prosecution file was
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a handwritten question from the grand jury prosecutor. The note read,
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  Speaker 1: how can we indict Nolly if bloody palm is not his?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: The word not was underlined twice. The defense never saw
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: that note. The Innocence Project believed it revealed something important.
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  Speaker 1: Noley had not merely failed to match the print. He
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: had been excluded from its source. And this wasn't just
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  Speaker 1: any print. It was a bloody palm print found underneath
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the victim's body, one that also didn't belong to her.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: If she or Noley didn't leave it, the prosecution had
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a serious problem. While the Innocence Project reinvestigated the case
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: against John Earl Noley for the nineteen ninety six murder
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of Sharon Maclain. Forensic evidence was undergoing a second look.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Technology had changed dramatically since nineteen ninety eight. Evidence that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: once yielded little information could now be examined in ways
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: investigators previously thought in pops Possible items submitted for testing
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: in Noley's case included a beer can, a coke bottle,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and a black jacket. The evidence was sent to the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: University of North Texas Health Science Center for advanced analysis.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Testing continued while the legal process moved forward, but even
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: before all the results were completed, confidence in the conviction
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: was crumbling. Witness credibility had been undermined completely undisclosed evidence
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the Grand juror note about the palm print had surfaced.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: The office that originally prosecuted the case, the Terrant County DA, themselves,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: were beginning to agree that something had gone wrong. By then,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: John Earl Noley had spent more than fifteen years in prison.
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  Speaker 1: The system that convicted him was now beginning to admit
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it may have made a terrible mistake. For the first
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  Speaker 1: time since nineteen ninety eight, freedom was starting to look possible.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: By the end of spring twenty sixteen, the case that
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: had once seemed settled was unraveling in public. The Innocence
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Project had spent years examining the conviction. The Arrant County
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit had reviewed evidence that nobody
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: had seen during the original trial, not the defense team
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: or the jury. At least, witness testimony had been challenged,
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  Speaker 1: informants discredited, questions had emerged about forensic evidence, and perhaps
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: most significantly, prosecutors themselves were no longer defending the conviction
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: with the same certainty that existed in nineteen ninety eight.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: The case had reached a point where continuing to ignore
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: those issues was no longer possible. For John Earl Knowley,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: that moment had been nearly two decades aides in the making.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Among the people watching events unfold was Gary Medlin, Noley's
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: court appointed defense attorney. At his murder trial, he had
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: argued that investigators were overlooking Paul Dennis Reid and pointed
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to witnesses who saw a man matching his description. He
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: had pointed to Reed's presence near Sharon Maclain and his
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: abrupt departure from Texas, and he lost. Now nearly twenty
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: years later, Medlin was seeing information that had never been
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: turned over to the defense. It was information that challenged
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the credibility of key witnesses and that cast doubt on
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: evidence presented to jurors. Information he believed could have changed everything.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: The entire situation, Medlin said, had taken far too long.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: If I'd been given all the material, he said, confidently,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: we would have won. That wasn't the opinion of a
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: defense lawyer speaking immediately after a conviction. It was the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: assessment of a man who had spent years believing his
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: client was innocent and was now watching evidence emerge piece
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: by peace that supported that evidence that should have been
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: available from the beginning. In May twenty sixteen, Arrant County
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Criminal District Court Judge Lewis Stearns took a remarkable step.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The same government that had secured the conviction was now
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: acknowledging serious problems with the case. At the request of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: both the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office and the Innocence Project,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Nolly's writ of habeas corpus and vacate the conviction. On
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: November seventeenth, twenty sixteen, John Earl Noley walked out of
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: custody after spending nineteen years in prison, long enough for
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: people outside prison walls to build careers, raise families, buy homes,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: loose parents, celebrate birthdays, and experience thousands of ordinary moments
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: that someone behind bars never gets back. For Noley, all
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: of that time was gone. When reporters met him after
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: his release, Knowley was surrounded by family members. His sister
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: was there, and so were his sons. The boys who
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: had been toddlers when Noley went to prison were now
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: grown men. There were grandchildren too, children he had never
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: been able to hold until now. It's overwhelming, he said,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: too many emotions to focus or channel in on one.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: At another point, he reflected on the day in simpler terms,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I've been blessed. I have my family with me and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: everything I love. It's time to move on. When asked
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: whether he ever believed this moment would come, his answer
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: was immediate, Yes I did, Yes, I did. The significance
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of the case extended far beyond one man's fight for freedom.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Around the same time, lawmakers and criminal justice reform advocates
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: across Texas were examining wrongful convictions. What they found was
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: recurring themes, discredited informants and failures of the prosecution to
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: disclose exculpatory evidence were two problems at the top of
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a list of many. Representative John Smithy later said that
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: once investigators looked closely at many wrongful convictions, the mistakes
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: became surprisingly easy to identify. In some cases, he suggested
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the problems involved lazy defense work. In others, over zealous prosecutors.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Sometimes judges failed to ask enough questions. The point wasn't
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: that any single problem caused every wrongful conviction, but that
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: systems can fail, and when multiple failures occur at the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: same time, even a single failure, really innocent people can
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: lose years or decades of their lives. John Noley's case
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: had become one of the clearest examples, particularly because of
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the role played by informants. By twenty seventeen, Texas lawmakers
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: acted the state passed what was described as the toughest
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: anti snitch law in the nation. Now, prosecutors were required
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: to maintain detailed records regarding jail house informants, including benefits received,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: criminal histories, and previous testimonies. Defense attorneys would have access
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to that information. The law was modeled in part after
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: reforms developed through Tarrant County's Conviction Integrity Unit, and the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: first major case handled by that unit had been John
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Earl Noley's, A conviction that helped send a man to
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: prison for nearly two decades ultimately became one of the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: catalysts for statewide reform. But there was still one final
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: step in Noley's case. The conviction had been questioned and challenged,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and the newly discovered evidence had given the man back
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: his freedom. Now that conviction had to be formally erased.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: On October third, twenty eighteen, prosecutors dismissed their case. After
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: twenty one years of fighting, nineteen years in prison, and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: two more years waiting for his name to be cleared,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: John Earl Noley was no longer a convicted murderer. During
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a brief hearing, Judge Louis Stearns addressed him directly. I've
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: signed the order dismissing your case, he said. I want
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to apologize for what happened to you. I realized that
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I cannot take back twenty one years, but to the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: extent that words can express our sorrow, I apologize for
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: what happened. Noley responded with gratitude, thanking the judge, District
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Attorney Sharon Wilson, and the Bedford Police Department. In the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: two years since his release, he had reconnected with a
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: childhood friend, married her, and the two welcomed a child
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: into their lives. Holding his infant son in his arms,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Noley walked out of the courtroom, finally free, officially no
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: longer out on a recognissance bond or awaiting a further
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: review of his case. Just free. Finally he got justice,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: but Sharon Maclain never has. Despite everything that happened afterward,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the overturned conviction, the reforms, the compensation granted to Noley
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: that eventually reached approximately one point five million dollars, one
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: fact remained unchanged. Sharon was the victim of murder. Someone
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: committed a brutal stabbing and walked away, leaving a bloody
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: palm print behind. That person was not John Earl Knowley.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Paul Dennis Reid was convicted of seven murders in Tennessee
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: and suspected in others. Witnesses had placed a man matching
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: his description near Sharon's apartment. Witnesses had even placed him
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: with Sharon. His later crimes, especially the Baskin Robbins murders
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: in April of nineteen ninety seven shared troubling similarities with
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Sharon Maclin's slang. In November twenty thirteen, Paul Dennis Reed
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: died of complications from pneumonia. With his death an opportunity
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: to fully test the theory that he killed Sharon Maclain
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: in court disappeared, and the woman at the center of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it all is left have never received the certainty that
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a solved case is supposed to provide. For John Earl Notley,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the story ended with freedom. For Texas, it ended with reform,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: But for Sharon, the story remains unfinished, and nearly three
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: decades after her murder, the most important question is still
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the same one investigators were asking in Bedford in December
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six, who killed Sharon Maclain. If you
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: have any information about the murder of Sharon McLain, please
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: contact the Bedford Police at eight one seven nine five
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: two two one two seven. If you'd like to join
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Gon Cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved homicides
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and missing persons cases, get the show at free and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: have access to bonus content. You can at Patreon dot
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: com Slash Gone Cold podcast. You can also support the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: show by leaving a five star rating and written review
• 34:05
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• 34:10
  Speaker 1: choose to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,