Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #366 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Ricky Davis

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#366 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Ricky Davis · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Hi there, it's Lauren I writer, and this time I'm
0:06
Speaker 1: here with some really encouraging news for anyone committed to
0:09
Speaker 1: true justice in this country. Back in twenty twenty, we
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Speaker 1: brought you the story of Ricky Davis, a California man
0:15
Speaker 1: who spent fifteen years in prison for murder he didn't commit.
0:20
Speaker 1: This is one of those bone chilling cases that reminds
0:22
Speaker 1: you a wrongful conviction can happen to anyone. Police were
0:26
Speaker 1: allowed to use deceptive interrogation techniques to convince someone they'd
0:30
Speaker 1: witnessed a crime when they hadn't been there at all. Thankfully,
0:34
Speaker 1: this is changing. In September twenty twenty two, the actual
0:38
Speaker 1: murderer was caught. He was convicted of the murder and
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Speaker 1: sentenced to fifteen years to life. To help make sure
0:45
Speaker 1: this never happens again, California has enacted new legislation. Now
0:50
Speaker 1: the state bans police from using the kinds of deceptive
0:54
Speaker 1: interrogation tactics that were used to produce the statement the
0:57
Speaker 1: convicted Ricky Davis. And this this new law was made
1:01
Speaker 1: possible with the support of District Attorney Verne Pearson, the
1:05
Speaker 1: very same prosecutor who exonerated Ricky and convicted the real killer.
1:10
Speaker 1: We applaud this positive step toward justice, and I hope
1:13
Speaker 1: it'll inspire sorely needed changes just like this around the country.
1:24
Speaker 1: Welcome to wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
1:27
Speaker 1: writer and I'm Steve Dreson. Today we're going to tell
1:31
Speaker 1: you about a California man named Ricky Davis. In nineteen
1:35
Speaker 1: eighty five, Ricky and his girlfriend Connie found their roommate
1:38
Speaker 1: brutally stabbed to death. Without any leads, the case went
1:42
Speaker 1: cold for fourteen years. That's when detectives convinced Connie that
1:46
Speaker 1: she had repressed memories of Ricky committing the crime. Based
1:50
Speaker 1: on Connie's false statement, Ricky spent twelve years in prison
1:54
Speaker 1: until very recently when he and his mother Maureen, finally
1:58
Speaker 1: had something to be thankful for.
2:13
Speaker 2: I think it's important to realize that on the road
2:16
Speaker 2: to a wrongful conviction, there's a lot of road kill.
2:21
Speaker 2: There's the defendant who gets wrongfully convicted. There's the defendant's
2:26
Speaker 2: family who has to live with the fact that their
2:30
Speaker 2: loved one is going away for a long period of
2:32
Speaker 2: time or sentenced to death.
2:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, in this case, it was Ricky's mom Maureene, who
2:37
Speaker 1: had to bear the brunt of that pain.
2:38
Speaker 2: And then there are witnesses sometimes who are pressured to
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Speaker 2: lie to save their own.
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Speaker 1: Skin, witnesses like Connie Dahl, and they have.
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Speaker 2: To live with the guilt that accompanies that lie.
2:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean when you think about Connie
2:56
Speaker 1: and Maureene in that courtroom, one woman is being forced
2:59
Speaker 1: to talk and one woman is being prevented from talking,
3:02
Speaker 1: and of course the two of them have two very
3:04
Speaker 1: different stories to tell about who Ricky Davis is and
3:08
Speaker 1: what Ricky Davis did.
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Speaker 2: And so the notion of powerlessness that Maureen experienced in
3:15
Speaker 2: this case is something that we see all the time.
3:20
Speaker 2: I mean, while the trial is happening, there's nothing that
3:24
Speaker 2: Maureene can do to stop the train from running over
3:28
Speaker 2: her son.
3:29
Speaker 1: And Connie's being forced to drive that train. She's a
3:32
Speaker 1: victim here too. Today's story starts in El Dorado Hills, California,
3:40
Speaker 1: an upper class suburb about twenty miles east of Sacramento.
3:43
Speaker 1: In so many ways, El Dorado Hills epitomizes the American dream.
3:48
Speaker 1: It's filled with expensive homes that back up onto lush
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Speaker 1: golf courses, its shopping centers are filled with luxury stores
3:54
Speaker 1: and fancy restaurants. It's families, by and large, live lives
3:58
Speaker 1: of privilege and peace. Ricky Davis's story is still unfolding today,
4:03
Speaker 1: but it began back in nineteen eighty five. Ricky was
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Speaker 1: twenty years old. He lived in El Dorado Hills and
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Speaker 1: a large home on Stanford Lane along with his mom, Maureen.
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Speaker 1: Now Ricky and Maureen were pretty different from their wealthy neighbors.
4:18
Speaker 1: Maureen had been a teenage mom by the time she
4:21
Speaker 1: turned twenty. She was raising Ricky and his three sisters
4:24
Speaker 1: in southern California without much support from their dad. Maureen
4:28
Speaker 1: worked to pay the bills by waitressing. She and Ricky
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Speaker 1: had come to El Dorado Hills just a few years
4:33
Speaker 1: before our story begins. Ricky's grandmother, a successful business woman,
4:38
Speaker 1: had recently moved to the area, and she bought the
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Speaker 1: house on Stanford Lane for them. This family might not
4:44
Speaker 1: have been classic El Dorado Hills, but they were close
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Speaker 1: knit and loving. No secrets, no drama, no lies. Ricky
4:52
Speaker 1: had a nineteen year old girlfriend, Connie Dahl, who spent
4:55
Speaker 1: plenty of nights at the Stanford Lane house. Now Ricky's
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Speaker 1: mom Maureene wasn thrilled with Ricky and Connie's relationship because
5:02
Speaker 1: Connie had a pretty serious meth habit. Ricky smoked pot,
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Speaker 1: It's true, but he wasn't into harder stuff, and Maureen
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Speaker 1: worried that Connie would drag Ricky into trouble. But unlike Ricky,
5:14
Speaker 1: Connie didn't have a stable home. Sometimes she had no
5:17
Speaker 1: home at all and slept in her car. Once she
5:20
Speaker 1: and Ricky started dating, Connie often spent the night at
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Speaker 1: Rickey's house, climbing in his bedroom window after Maureen was asleep.
5:28
Speaker 1: One Friday in nineteen eighty five, July fifth, the Stanford
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Speaker 1: Lane house gained two more residents. Ricky's grandmother was in
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Speaker 1: the real estate business, and she'd recently learned that one
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Speaker 1: of her employees needed a temporary place to stay. Fifty
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Speaker 1: four year old Jane Hilton had been fighting with her
5:45
Speaker 1: husband over money, and those fights had apparently turned violent.
5:49
Speaker 1: When Ricky's grandmother found out about this, she offered Jane
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Speaker 1: and her thirteen year old daughter Autumn a spare bedroom
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Speaker 1: on Stanford Lane as a safe harbor. They moved in
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Speaker 1: on Friday, July fifth, but that harbor wasn't quite as
6:02
Speaker 1: safe as it seemed. The next day, Saturday, July sixth,
6:06
Speaker 1: the house emptied out, at least for the most part.
6:09
Speaker 1: Ricky's mom, Maureen, took off in the middle of the
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Speaker 1: day to go camping with her boyfriend. In the evening,
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Speaker 1: Ricky and his girlfriend Connie headed out to a party.
6:18
Speaker 1: Even thirteen year old Autumn left the house to meet
6:20
Speaker 1: up with some new friends, three teenage boys she'd met
6:23
Speaker 1: earlier that day. For her part, Autumn's mom, Jane, stayed home.
6:29
Speaker 1: Ricky and Connie got back at around three thirty Sunday morning.
6:32
Speaker 1: When they arrived at the house, they found Autumn outside
6:35
Speaker 1: standing alone in the front yard. Autumn told them she'd
6:39
Speaker 1: been home for an hour, but she hadn't gone inside yet.
6:42
Speaker 1: She was worried about getting in trouble with her mom
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Speaker 1: for being out too late, she said, and she was
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Speaker 1: hoping Ricky and Connie would go inside with her. The
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Speaker 1: three go in together upstairs, there's no sign of Autumn's mom, Jane,
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Speaker 1: so Ricky and Connie leave Autumn in her room and
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Speaker 1: had forbid themsels. But as they walked down the hall,
7:03
Speaker 1: Ricky spots blood on the carpet outside the master bedroom.
7:06
Speaker 1: Where his mom, Maureen usually sleeps. She's on a camping trip,
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Speaker 1: he reminds himself. He pushes the door open and finds
7:15
Speaker 1: a nightmare. It's not his mom, but Autumn's mom, Jane Hilton.
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Speaker 1: She's lying on the bed wearing only a nightgown, and
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Speaker 1: she's clearly dead. Jane's been stabbed thirty nine times and
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Speaker 1: is covered in blood. She's got defensive wounds up and
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Speaker 1: down her arms. One of her fingernails is missing, and
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Speaker 1: her hand is clutching a tuft of someone's hair. There's
7:39
Speaker 1: even a bite mark on the back of her left shoulder.
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Speaker 1: Ricky and Connie were horrified. They called the police, who
7:45
Speaker 1: arrived and interviewed both of them on the spot. Ricky
7:49
Speaker 1: and Connie told the police they'd been at a party
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Speaker 1: all night and it was pretty easy to corroborate their story.
7:55
Speaker 1: The hood of Ricky's car was still warm, suggesting he
7:58
Speaker 1: and Connie were being on it about only recently getting
8:01
Speaker 1: back to the house, and thirteen year old Autumn told
8:05
Speaker 1: police she'd seen Ricky and Connie arrive home and gone
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Speaker 1: in with them. To these officers at the scene, it
8:11
Speaker 1: seemed pretty clear that Ricky and Connie were innocent, so
8:14
Speaker 1: clear that the police didn't bother to interview the other
8:17
Speaker 1: people who'd been with them at the party. Of course,
8:20
Speaker 1: those people would have been alibi witnesses. Instead, police moved
8:24
Speaker 1: on to check out the obvious suspect, Jane's husband, the
8:27
Speaker 1: guy with whom she'd been fighting, but he seemed to
8:30
Speaker 1: have an alibi two he'd apparently spent the evening at
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Speaker 1: a local restaurant. So next the police tried to find
8:36
Speaker 1: the three teenage boys Autumn had been hanging out with
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Speaker 1: earlier that night. Problem was, Autumn only knew first names
8:43
Speaker 1: for two of them, Michael and Calvin. After scanning through
8:47
Speaker 1: a few yearbooks from local high schools, the detectives came
8:50
Speaker 1: up with nothing. Unfortunately, that was it for the investigation.
8:55
Speaker 1: Without any suspects or solid leads, the case went cold
8:59
Speaker 1: for four thirteen years. Fast forward from July nineteen eighty
9:04
Speaker 1: five to November nineteen ninety nine. Ricky and Connie had
9:07
Speaker 1: broken up long ago. Their relationship ended up lasting less
9:11
Speaker 1: than a year. Since then, Connie had continued using meth
9:15
Speaker 1: off and on. For his part, Ricky had spent those
9:18
Speaker 1: years in and out of prison for a series of
9:20
Speaker 1: relatively minor offenses, mostly drug related crimes and robbery, but
9:24
Speaker 1: neither of them had ever been involved in anything close
9:27
Speaker 1: to murder. In nineteen ninety nine, the El Dorado County
9:31
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office decided to reinvestigate Jane Hilton's killing. Two detectives
9:36
Speaker 1: were assigned to this cold case, and they started by
9:39
Speaker 1: reviewing old news coverage. Their attention was caught by a
9:43
Speaker 1: story that had run in a local newspaper just a
9:45
Speaker 1: few days after the murder. A reporter from the paper
9:48
Speaker 1: had shown up at the Stanford Lane house. Connie had
9:51
Speaker 1: let her in and shown her the room where Jane
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Speaker 1: had been killed. The reporter asked a bunch of questions
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Speaker 1: about finding the body, and that's when Connie had said
9:59
Speaker 1: so thing that struck these new detectives as suspicious. Connie
10:04
Speaker 1: had told the reporter that Jane's body had been positioned
10:07
Speaker 1: on the bed as though she were sleeping. Whoever had
10:10
Speaker 1: killed Jane, Connie speculated, must have moved her body onto
10:13
Speaker 1: the bed afterwards. Connie's comment was pretty obviously a guess,
10:18
Speaker 1: but the police began wondering if she actually might know
10:21
Speaker 1: something about the body being moved. So over the next
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Speaker 1: fifteen months. Between November nineteen ninety nine and February two
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Speaker 1: thousand and one, the police decided to interrogate Connie on
10:32
Speaker 1: three separate occasions. It was all caught on videotape, every
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Speaker 1: last word, and that videotape makes it clear the police
10:41
Speaker 1: weren't aiming only for Connie. They wanted her to confess
10:44
Speaker 1: to being present when Jane died, and they wanted her
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Speaker 1: to name her ex boyfriend, Ricky Davis, as the killer.
11:01
Speaker 2: The theory was that Jane was brutally beaten and stabbed
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Speaker 2: to death by a man, and the man that the
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Speaker 2: police officers had in mind was Ricky Davis. Police officers
11:14
Speaker 2: often go after ex girlfriends or ex wives on the
11:19
Speaker 2: assumption that there was a bad breakup, that there's some
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Speaker 2: animists there that may motivate the aggrieved party into revealing
11:29
Speaker 2: information that they had been unwilling to reveal at the
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Speaker 2: time of the investigation. Hell hath no fury like a
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Speaker 2: woman scorned is the thinking here.
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Speaker 1: Connie is first brought in for questioning only days after
11:42
Speaker 1: the new cops take over the case. At first, she
11:44
Speaker 1: insists repeatedly that she had nothing to do with Jane's murder,
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Speaker 1: that all she remembers is coming home and finding the body,
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Speaker 1: But right away Connie is hit with a barrage of lies.
11:55
Speaker 1: Police tell her that a witness had placed her in
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Speaker 1: Ricky at the homicide scene, although no one had. Police
12:01
Speaker 1: tell Connie that DNA established her presence in Jane's bedroom,
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Speaker 1: even though it didn't, and they tell Connie that the
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Speaker 1: hares found clenched in Jane's hand belonged to Ricky. Another lie.
12:14
Speaker 1: Police had actually lost those hairs. They were never tested
12:17
Speaker 1: at all.
12:18
Speaker 2: We know that you were present in the house when
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Speaker 2: this happened. I know I was not. We already know that.
12:25
Speaker 1: What do you mean, Well, like.
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Speaker 3: I said, you know, we've got all kinds of physical
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Speaker 3: evidence I happened. Yes, Oh my god, there's no way.
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Speaker 1: Over time, though, the police's cascading lies begin to break
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Speaker 1: Connie down. Like most of us, Connie has no idea
12:42
Speaker 1: that police are allowed to lie during interrogations, So after
12:46
Speaker 1: hearing all this apparent evidence of her own involvement, Connie
12:50
Speaker 1: starts questioning her memory of what happened all those years ago.
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Speaker 3: Okay, if I was there, I had no memory of that.
12:57
Speaker 1: She's desperately trying to make sense of what they're say saying,
13:00
Speaker 1: and eventually tells the investigators that maybe she was there
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Speaker 1: and just couldn't remember it. The investigator suggests that Ricky
13:08
Speaker 1: had programmed her memory so that Connie would blank out
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Speaker 1: her recollections of the crime. She agrees, maybe I have amnesia.
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Speaker 3: I couldn't have watched that happen. That would have been
13:20
Speaker 3: Oh if I've witness for that happening, that or at
13:25
Speaker 3: least you wouldn't I blanked it out.
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Speaker 2: They are absolutely confusing the hell out of her. They
13:30
Speaker 2: are causing a crisis of confidence where she begins not
13:37
Speaker 2: only to doubt her memory, but she can't really distinguish
13:40
Speaker 2: between what she actually remembers and what she thinks she
13:46
Speaker 2: might remember.
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Speaker 1: Investigators warn Connie that if she doesn't somehow recover her memories,
13:51
Speaker 1: they might have to interrogate her again, and they say
13:54
Speaker 1: that could lead to her arrest. On the other hand,
13:57
Speaker 1: they imply that Connie will receive leniency, even immunity from
14:01
Speaker 1: prosecution if she provides them with a statement right now.
14:05
Speaker 3: Well, first one to jump on the bandwagon, I always
14:07
Speaker 3: con sieius ride right.
14:10
Speaker 2: And so what happens here is that the police provide
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Speaker 2: incentives to adopt their preconceived theory, promises of leniency or
14:19
Speaker 2: threats of harm, suggestions that the first person to jump
14:24
Speaker 2: on the bandwagon is going to get the best deal,
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Speaker 2: and that if she doesn't jump on first, someone else
14:32
Speaker 2: is going to take your spot and she's going to
14:35
Speaker 2: get punished more severely.
14:39
Speaker 1: These tactics work. Connie breaks and agrees to confess, to
14:43
Speaker 1: say that she helped Ricky kill Jane, but she has
14:47
Speaker 1: no idea what to say about the crime. Remember, Connie
14:50
Speaker 1: wasn't actually there to help her out. Investigators feed Connie
14:54
Speaker 1: everything they know about Jane Hilton's murder and everything they
14:58
Speaker 1: think happened too. Here's the story that Connie ultimately agreed
15:02
Speaker 1: to repeat. She said she was there while Ricky and
15:05
Speaker 1: Jane were arguing about whether Jane's daughter Autumn could go
15:08
Speaker 1: out that night. During the argument, Connie said, Ricky punched
15:12
Speaker 1: Jane in the face. The altercation escalated. Eventually, Connie went
15:16
Speaker 1: downstairs and acted as a lookout while Ricky stabbed Jane.
15:20
Speaker 1: Then Connie said she came back to the room and
15:23
Speaker 1: helped Ricky move Jane's body onto the bed.
15:27
Speaker 2: So, to me, what makes this case different is that
15:30
Speaker 2: we have a sort of recipe, if you will, for
15:33
Speaker 2: a persuaded false confession. What's unique about a persuaded false
15:39
Speaker 2: confession is that the suspect comes to doubt their own memory.
15:46
Speaker 2: They get to a place where they think the police
15:49
Speaker 2: officers are telling me I committed this crime. They're telling
15:53
Speaker 2: me they have evidence that proves that I committed this crime,
15:57
Speaker 2: but why can't I remember it? And when a suspect
16:01
Speaker 2: gets to that place of uncertainty, the police officers provide
16:06
Speaker 2: an answer. The events that you saw were so traumatic
16:10
Speaker 2: that they caused you to repress these memories, and so
16:15
Speaker 2: the interrogation becomes an exercise in pulling these memories out
16:23
Speaker 2: of the suspect's mind. But they're not real memories. They
16:28
Speaker 2: don't exist.
16:30
Speaker 1: At times, Connie's language reveals her own uncertainty. Even while
16:34
Speaker 1: she's confessing.
16:36
Speaker 2: I think I did that, I probably did that. I
16:39
Speaker 2: seem to remember that. There's a tentativeness that you wouldn't
16:43
Speaker 2: have if they were real memories, and we see that
16:48
Speaker 2: throughout Connie's interrogation.
16:51
Speaker 1: Telling LYE, when Connie's not fed information, she can't get
16:54
Speaker 1: anything about the story right. She's not able to tell
16:57
Speaker 1: the police what the murder weapon looked like where Ricky
17:00
Speaker 1: got it or how he disposed of it.
17:03
Speaker 2: The detectives are shaping her memories. They are feeding her
17:09
Speaker 2: facts and their final story here is really their story.
17:14
Speaker 2: It's their preconceived theory of the crime come to life
17:19
Speaker 2: through the words of Connie Doll.
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Speaker 1: Strangely enough, the police don't arrest anyone right away. Instead,
17:26
Speaker 1: they leave Connie alone for a while and interview Ricky himself.
17:30
Speaker 1: He vehemently denies any involvement whatsoever. So the police come
17:34
Speaker 1: back to Connie in January two thousand to see if
17:37
Speaker 1: she can give them any more information, and they remind
17:40
Speaker 1: her that the more details she can provide, the better
17:43
Speaker 1: off she'll be. During this interrogation, officers play Connie the
17:48
Speaker 1: crime scene video that was recorded the night Jane died
17:51
Speaker 1: to see if they can quote refresh her memory. Now.
17:55
Speaker 1: I've seen this video myself, and it's horrifying. It's almost
17:59
Speaker 1: totally sign Island. As the videographer walks from room to room,
18:03
Speaker 1: ending up in the bedroom where Jane died, the camera
18:06
Speaker 1: documents every wound, every injury, from her missing fingernail to
18:11
Speaker 1: her eyes which were still open. It's the kind of
18:14
Speaker 1: crime scene that makes even people who see this all
18:17
Speaker 1: the time sick to their stomachs. Connie watches the video
18:22
Speaker 1: and agrees to add more detail to her story. She
18:24
Speaker 1: says she heard Jane plead for her life, but Ricky
18:28
Speaker 1: didn't listen. She says she heard Jane make gurgling noises
18:31
Speaker 1: as Ricky stabbed her, and after the attack, Connie says
18:35
Speaker 1: she saw Ricky covered in blood. The police still don't
18:39
Speaker 1: arrest Connie, but they also don't leave her alone. Instead,
18:43
Speaker 1: they come back a third time in two thousand and
18:45
Speaker 1: one to try to get even more details. This time,
18:49
Speaker 1: detectives tell her that she'll either be charged with a
18:52
Speaker 1: misdemeanor accessory type thing, or she'll go down as a
18:56
Speaker 1: full blooded half partner in the murder. It all de
19:00
Speaker 1: on her credibility. Now. Connie's got two young children. The
19:04
Speaker 1: police tell her that if she continues to cooperate, she'll
19:07
Speaker 1: be able to go home to her kids. But they
19:10
Speaker 1: warn her saying I don't know isn't going to help
19:14
Speaker 1: you at all.
19:15
Speaker 2: They bring up the subject of her children repeatedly throughout
19:19
Speaker 2: the interrogation, and the message to Connie is crystal clear,
19:24
Speaker 2: if I don't tell them what they want to hear,
19:28
Speaker 2: I'm going to lose my children, so they play on
19:31
Speaker 2: her emotions as a mother. These kinds of tactics are
19:35
Speaker 2: very common when a woman is a suspect or a witness,
19:39
Speaker 2: because police officers know that most women would walk across
19:44
Speaker 2: a field of glass in order to protect their children.
19:48
Speaker 1: To satisfy her interrogators, Connie adds another detail to her story,
19:52
Speaker 1: and it's a big one. She wasn't just a lookout.
19:55
Speaker 1: She says she was in the room during the murder
19:58
Speaker 1: and tried to intervene. And remember that bite mark on
20:01
Speaker 1: the back of Jane's shoulder. Connie ends up saying she
20:04
Speaker 1: was responsible for it, that she accidentally bit Jane during
20:08
Speaker 1: the struggle. Finally, Connie's story was good enough. On May
20:14
Speaker 1: twenty first, two thousand and two, based only on Connie's confession,
20:18
Speaker 1: the El Dorado County District Attorney's office filed murder charges
20:22
Speaker 1: against Ricky Davis. And here's the thing. When those cops
20:26
Speaker 1: told Connie she wouldn't be charged, turns out they were
20:29
Speaker 1: lying again. Connie was charged with murder II as an accomplice.
20:34
Speaker 1: A few months later, prosecutors told Connie that if she
20:37
Speaker 1: agreed to testify against Ricky a trial. She could plead
20:41
Speaker 1: guilty to manslaughter and get a huge reduction in her sentence.
20:45
Speaker 1: They decide exactly how much of her reduction. After she testified,
20:49
Speaker 1: With no good options left, Connie pled guilty and agreed
20:53
Speaker 1: to take the stand.
21:06
Speaker 3: I didn't like her to start with.
21:08
Speaker 1: That's Maureen Klein, Ricky Davis's mother. Remember, she's always had
21:12
Speaker 1: an opinion about Ricky's ex girlfriend, Connie.
21:15
Speaker 3: Ricky and I have always been very close. He had
21:20
Speaker 3: a horrible father, so I think the closeness was because
21:24
Speaker 3: I was all Ricky really had. Even as a teenager,
21:28
Speaker 3: he would call me his best friend. So this situation
21:31
Speaker 3: was extremely devastating.
21:34
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, Maureen learned that Ricky was
21:36
Speaker 1: being charged with murdering Jane Hilton, based on the testimony
21:40
Speaker 1: of a girl he dated fourteen years ago. Mariene couldn't
21:43
Speaker 1: believe it. She knew her son was no killer and
21:47
Speaker 1: the police had seemed to acknowledge his and Connie's innocence
21:50
Speaker 1: years ago. As she processed the news, Maureen struggled to
21:54
Speaker 1: understand why Connie would falsely confess.
21:57
Speaker 3: Connie had problems obviously and she let the detectives talk
22:02
Speaker 3: her into believing that she had something to do with
22:05
Speaker 3: the murder. I was very angry at Connie, and I
22:08
Speaker 3: couldn't believe that she was lying this out not lying.
22:12
Speaker 3: I don't understand how somebody could convince you that you
22:17
Speaker 3: participated in a murder that you didn't.
22:20
Speaker 2: The idea that Connie would confess to a murder she
22:23
Speaker 2: didn't commit, it was impossible for Maureen to believe. I
22:28
Speaker 2: understand and sympathize with Maureen about her anger towards Connie,
22:33
Speaker 2: But Connie's a tragic victim in this too. She didn't
22:37
Speaker 2: start out by naming Ricky Davis as a murderer, and
22:41
Speaker 2: it was only the lies and the manipulation by the
22:45
Speaker 2: detectives in that cold case squad that gave her really
22:48
Speaker 2: no choice but to change her story in ways that
22:52
Speaker 2: pleased them, or else she was going to lose her kids.
22:56
Speaker 1: After Ricky was charged, Maureen sat down and watched Connie's
23:00
Speaker 1: interrogation videos. As Maureen watched, she began to see how
23:04
Speaker 1: police manipulated Connie. She started realizing that the problem was
23:08
Speaker 1: much bigger than her son's ex girlfriend.
23:11
Speaker 3: Connie did stay in the starting of one of the
23:14
Speaker 3: interviews that she had been up on MES for twenty
23:17
Speaker 3: four hours prior, so that in itself, I would think
23:21
Speaker 3: they wouldn't have interviewed her at that time, but they did. Anyway,
23:27
Speaker 3: she would say exactly what they actually sold it to.
23:30
Speaker 3: You could tell that they would turn off the recording
23:33
Speaker 3: and get her back on track. They did tell Connie
23:36
Speaker 3: that once Ricky was convicted that she would go free,
23:40
Speaker 3: and I guess they threatened her with her children and stuff.
23:44
Speaker 3: I didn't believe anything would come of it because I
23:48
Speaker 3: knew Ricky had no part of it. I knew he
23:51
Speaker 3: was innocent.
23:52
Speaker 1: Maureen was right that Ricky was innocent, but she was
23:54
Speaker 1: wrong that nothing would come of Connie's story. In June
23:57
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, Ricky went on for Jane Hilton's murder.
24:02
Speaker 1: Prosecutors called Connie Dahl as their star witness. From his
24:06
Speaker 1: seat at the defense table, Ricky watched Connie testify. He
24:10
Speaker 1: hadn't seen her in almost twenty years, and he couldn't
24:13
Speaker 1: believe what he was hearing. Connie knew he was innocent.
24:16
Speaker 1: The two of them had discovered Jane's body together somehow,
24:20
Speaker 1: though the system had put them on opposite sides. For
24:24
Speaker 1: her part, Maureen sat in the front row of the courtroom,
24:27
Speaker 1: right behind Ricky as prosecutors told the jury an unthinkable
24:31
Speaker 1: story about her son.
24:33
Speaker 3: The way they portrayed him, like he was some vicious animal,
24:36
Speaker 3: that was hard to take. I was surprised that the
24:40
Speaker 3: jurors believed Connie. To me, she didn't sound very credible.
24:44
Speaker 3: The way she answered was what she was told to say,
24:48
Speaker 3: but they did believe her. Obviously, I couldn't say anything.
24:52
Speaker 3: At times, I wanted to yell out or react, but
24:56
Speaker 3: I knew that if I did, I wouldn't be allowed
24:58
Speaker 3: in the courtroom. So it was a helpless feelings.
25:02
Speaker 1: In exchange for Connie's testimony, prosecutors agreed that her sentence
25:06
Speaker 1: should be reduced to times served. The next day, she
25:09
Speaker 1: walked free, but Ricky. Ricky wasn't as lucky. Based on
25:14
Speaker 1: Connie's false testimony, Ricky was convicted of murdering Jane Hilton.
25:18
Speaker 1: He was given a sentence of sixteen years to life.
25:25
Speaker 3: It was like a bad movie. I mean, no systems perfect,
25:33
Speaker 3: but there was just no way I thought it could
25:35
Speaker 3: be convicted under the circumstances. But he was everything about
25:41
Speaker 3: my life. Changed in the moment that he was convicted.
25:45
Speaker 3: It seemed to me my whole personality changed. I became
25:49
Speaker 3: angry at everything I wish I was detecting. It's nothing
25:54
Speaker 3: but horrible things in their life. I mean, I'm sorry
25:57
Speaker 3: that that's the way I feel.
26:02
Speaker 1: After his two thousand and five conviction, Ricky Davis was
26:05
Speaker 1: sent to a California prison hours away from Eldorado Hills.
26:09
Speaker 1: His ex girlfriend, Connie was free, but she never shook
26:13
Speaker 1: her meth habit. In twenty fourteen, Connie died of an overdose.
26:18
Speaker 1: For her part, Maureen moved out of the Stanford Lane
26:20
Speaker 1: house she couldn't be there alone and started living with
26:23
Speaker 1: her mom. Every month, Maureen drove to visit Ricky in
26:26
Speaker 1: prison year after year after year.
26:30
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of bad people and they deserve
26:32
Speaker 3: to be in there, but there's seems to be a
26:35
Speaker 3: lot that shouldn't be in there. With no money, you're
26:39
Speaker 3: going to do time period. That was just cut and dry,
26:43
Speaker 3: and that pretty much is the way it is. It's
26:47
Speaker 3: the same with different nationalities. They don't get the same
26:52
Speaker 3: justice that a rich white person does, and that's wrong.
26:56
Speaker 1: Shortly before Connie's death, the Northern California Innocence Project agreed
27:00
Speaker 1: to take on Ricky Davis's case, and in twenty fourteen,
27:04
Speaker 1: attorneys from the project sought DNA testing on a host
27:07
Speaker 1: of items from Jane Hilton's murder scene. The crime lab
27:11
Speaker 1: started with that bite mark on the back of Jane's shoulder,
27:14
Speaker 1: the mark that Connie told police had been left by
27:16
Speaker 1: her teeth. Whoever left that mark bit through Jane's nightgown.
27:21
Speaker 1: Sure enough, the lab found saliva on the nightgown and
27:24
Speaker 1: developed a full DNA profile of an unknown male. Obviously,
27:29
Speaker 1: the bier was not Connie Dull and it wasn't Ricky
27:32
Speaker 1: Davis either. Next, the lab tested DNA from skin cells
27:36
Speaker 1: that were left underneath Jane's fingernails from when she'd scratched
27:39
Speaker 1: her attacker whose DNA was it? The same unknown man
27:43
Speaker 1: who'd left his saliva on Jane's nightgown. The profile was
27:47
Speaker 1: run through the local and national DNA databases with no luck.
27:51
Speaker 1: The attacker couldn't be identified, but it was crystal clear
27:54
Speaker 1: that whoever had killed Jane Hilton was not Connie or Ricky.
27:58
Speaker 1: Ricky's attorneys fell a post conviction petition based on this
28:01
Speaker 1: new evidence. In twenty nineteen, the court threw out Ricky's conviction.
28:06
Speaker 1: That was great news, but Ricky's fight wasn't over. Even
28:10
Speaker 1: though the DNA excluded Ricky, prosecutors weren't ready to drop
28:14
Speaker 1: charges until they knew whose DNA it was, so they
28:17
Speaker 1: began preparing to retry Ricky for Jane's murder, and Ricky
28:21
Speaker 1: had to stay behind bars. But in the meantime, prosecutors
28:24
Speaker 1: tried a brand new method to identify the DNA, genetic genealogy,
28:29
Speaker 1: and it led investigators back to someone whose name they
28:32
Speaker 1: hadn't heard in twenty five years.
28:35
Speaker 2: Genetic genealogy searches public databases like ancestry dot com and
28:41
Speaker 2: twenty three in meters to look for matches to evidence
28:46
Speaker 2: that's found at a crime scene. Police officers start examining
28:51
Speaker 2: the family trees and look for people who have a
28:54
Speaker 2: connection to the crime scene.
28:56
Speaker 1: In Ricky's case, the process led the DA's office to
28:59
Speaker 1: fifty one years old Michael Green, who is Michael Green.
29:03
Speaker 1: Turns out he was one of the three teenagers that
29:05
Speaker 1: Jane's daughter Autumn had been with the night her mother
29:08
Speaker 1: was killed at Long Last. Twenty five years after Jane's death,
29:13
Speaker 1: the authorities had found her killer. In February twenty twenty,
29:17
Speaker 1: Michael Green was charged with Jane's murder and was booked
29:20
Speaker 1: into the El Dorado County jail. He entered a plea
29:23
Speaker 1: of not guilty and is awaiting trial today now. Because
29:26
Speaker 1: Green's case is still unfolding, we don't have clear answers
29:30
Speaker 1: yet about why he attacked Jane or how he did it.
29:33
Speaker 1: We just know the DNA was his. That's pretty close
29:37
Speaker 1: to case closed. On February thirteenth, twenty twenty, a judge
29:44
Speaker 1: declared Ricky Davis factually innocent and dismissed the case against
29:48
Speaker 1: him after serving twelve years for a murder he did
29:51
Speaker 1: not commit. Ricky walked out of prison right into the
29:54
Speaker 1: arms of his mom.
30:00
Speaker 3: Ed exonerate him, which he said that was the first
30:03
Speaker 3: time he had ever done it. That was such a
30:06
Speaker 3: great feeling. And didn't see him walk out of the jail,
30:09
Speaker 3: It's the crazyest thing. Everybody was there to hear him
30:13
Speaker 3: coming down and how getting him and stuff. To see
30:16
Speaker 3: him smiling because he was happy instead of having to
30:18
Speaker 3: go back into the sales as I was leading him. Yeah,
30:22
Speaker 3: it was fantastic. Steaming.
30:28
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the same couldn't happen for Connie. She remains in
30:32
Speaker 1: death a convicted participant in Jane Hilton's murder.
30:36
Speaker 2: There were two wrongful convictions here, and this DNA evidence
30:41
Speaker 2: proved that Connie's story was false. It also proved that
30:48
Speaker 2: she didn't bite Jane Hilton, so she deserves to be
30:53
Speaker 2: exonerated posthumously.
30:56
Speaker 1: This year, Ricky Davis will be spending its first Thanksgiving
30:58
Speaker 1: in nearly twelve years with his mom Maureen.
31:02
Speaker 3: Well, I'll make dinner Thanksgiving turkey. That's the only prime
31:07
Speaker 3: of year I can afford it. But his sisters and
31:10
Speaker 3: nephew will be here, and that'll be nice. I'm not
31:14
Speaker 3: the best cook, to tell you, but it's more having
31:18
Speaker 3: everybody together and happy. That's the best part of it.
31:22
Speaker 3: Ricky's a very affectionate person. When he comes in and
31:26
Speaker 3: hugs me, it's best stealing in the world.
31:29
Speaker 2: I feel lucky.
31:30
Speaker 3: You're blessed every time I look at him.
31:36
Speaker 2: Hello, Hey, Ricky, how are you?
31:39
Speaker 3: I am doing good?
31:40
Speaker 2: How are you see good?
31:41
Speaker 3: Hi? Laura?
31:43
Speaker 1: Tell me about those first moments of freedom, what it
31:45
Speaker 1: felt like to walk up those doors longtime con Yeah,
31:49
Speaker 1: I've seen the video.
31:50
Speaker 2: A lot of people there.
31:52
Speaker 1: That I saw you eating some pizza.
31:54
Speaker 2: Well you went right for the comfort food.
31:57
Speaker 1: You know, what are your top is of choice?
32:02
Speaker 2: Lagusa, all the good stuff.
32:06
Speaker 1: Do you see your mom much these days?
32:08
Speaker 2: Yes?
32:08
Speaker 3: I do. Yeah, I love her very much.
32:10
Speaker 1: I just thank seeing her. Since we're talking about food
32:12
Speaker 1: and pizza and everything else. Is there something your mom
32:16
Speaker 1: makes for you, something she used to cook that you
32:18
Speaker 1: missed and that she can make for you again, Not
32:20
Speaker 1: that you're out.
32:21
Speaker 3: I have a funny story for that, you know. A
32:23
Speaker 3: few days after I was out, I tell her. You know, Mam,
32:25
Speaker 3: I vision waking up in the morning if you couldn't
32:28
Speaker 3: net breakfast, And she says, while you were envisioning this,
32:30
Speaker 3: did you vision a different mom?
32:36
Speaker 2: There you go.
32:37
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's amazing.
32:38
Speaker 3: Strong to the end. I love it.
32:48
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for
32:51
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special
32:56
Speaker 1: thanks to our executive producers Jason Slamm and Kevin Wardis.
33:00
Speaker 1: Our production team is headed by senior producer and Pope,
33:03
Speaker 1: along with producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show
33:07
Speaker 1: is mixed by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our Intrepid intern.
33:11
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
33:14
Speaker 1: me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura and I Wrider.
33:18
Speaker 2: And you can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
33:21
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com.
33:26
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
33:29
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
33:34
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction