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#120 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Teina Pora · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer.
0:05
Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drusen.
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Speaker 1: So far, we've told you false confession stories that span
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Speaker 1: the United States, from urban Chicago to rural Nebraska. Today,
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Speaker 1: we'll take you across the globe to New Zealand with
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Speaker 1: a story that still hits way too close to home.
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Speaker 1: A sixteen year old boy who confessed to a rape
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Speaker 1: and murder he didn't commit. His wrongful conviction allowed the
0:27
Speaker 1: real offender, a prolific serial rapist, to assault dozens of
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Speaker 1: other women, while a teenager languished behind bars after making
0:47
Speaker 1: a murder. Came out season two, Steve and I have
0:49
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to travel around the globe talking to
0:53
Speaker 1: audiences about the problem of false confessions and the need
0:55
Speaker 1: for criminal justice reform. We've spoken everywhere from the United
0:59
Speaker 1: States to the United Das Kingdom, to Ireland to Australia.
1:02
Speaker 1: Can you remember this guy, Steve, who traveled around Australia
1:05
Speaker 1: with us?
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Speaker 2: Oh God, this guy, this guy was beautiful. What was
1:09
Speaker 2: his name, Jimon? His name was Simon. Simon. Simon was
1:12
Speaker 2: like a roadie from the nineteen seventies, always wearing black
1:17
Speaker 2: T shirts and deep into the heavy metal scene.
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Speaker 1: Somehow, poor Simon gets assigned to the lawyers who are
1:24
Speaker 1: traveling around talking about false confessions. One of my personal
1:27
Speaker 1: points of pride though, is that by the end of
1:29
Speaker 1: this trip around Australia, he seemed to like what we
1:31
Speaker 1: were trying to do, so we had a great time
1:33
Speaker 1: with him. But Simon kept asking us, as did everybody
1:36
Speaker 1: else we met around Australia. Have you heard about Tana Pora?
1:40
Speaker 1: Have you heard about New Zealand's Brendon Dassy And that's
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Speaker 1: exactly who Tana is.
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Speaker 2: Police officers around the world are often trained in very
1:49
Speaker 2: similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I
1:54
Speaker 2: expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places
1:59
Speaker 2: like Japan and Korea and other Commonwealth countries like Australia
2:05
Speaker 2: and New Zealand and Canada.
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Speaker 1: These are stories that hit home around the globe, whether
2:12
Speaker 1: it's for you know, social justice driven lawyers or heavy
2:15
Speaker 1: metal roadies. You know Tanapora, Brendan Dacy. We all know
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Speaker 1: someone vulnerable like them, and we can all see them
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Speaker 1: need to do justice in cases like these. Tanapora's story
2:29
Speaker 1: starts about eight thousand miles away from where Steve and
2:32
Speaker 1: I are sitting right now in the United States. It
2:35
Speaker 1: starts in South Auckland. That's an urban area on the
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Speaker 1: southern edge of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home
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Speaker 1: to a large minority population, including Mao Reed's, the indigenous
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Speaker 1: Polynesian population of New Zealand. Parts of South Auckland can
2:50
Speaker 1: have negative connotations too often. It's associated with poverty and crime.
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Speaker 1: When our story starts in nineteen ninety two, South Auckland
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Speaker 1: was home to a nine year old woman named Susan Burdette.
3:03
Speaker 1: Susan lived alone in a tidy house on Paw Road.
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Speaker 1: She worked days as an account's clerk at a chemical
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Speaker 1: manufacturing company, and on the evening of March twenty third,
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Susan leaves her weekly bowling league meet
3:16
Speaker 1: up and drives home under a night of beautiful stars.
3:21
Speaker 1: Susan's a hard worker, so when she doesn't show up
3:24
Speaker 1: at work the next few days, her colleagues get concerned.
3:27
Speaker 1: They call her friend Steve eventually to find out if
3:30
Speaker 1: he knows where she is. Steve gets worried and he
3:33
Speaker 1: ends up going over to Susan's house That Wednesday, March
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Speaker 1: twenty fifth, at about twelve forty pm, he finds the
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Speaker 1: front door unlocked, goes inside and is greeted with a
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Speaker 1: horrible sight. Susan is lying horizontally on her waterbed and
3:48
Speaker 1: she's clearly dead. The upper half of her body is
3:51
Speaker 1: wrapped in a duvet and there's a wooden baseball bet
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Speaker 1: lying on the bed next to her. Her legs are
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Speaker 1: dangling off the side of the bed and there crossed.
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Speaker 1: Someone whoever did this had positioned her that way. The
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Speaker 1: police arrived, they remove the duvet and they find that
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Speaker 1: Susan had been beaten badly about the head, very likely
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Speaker 1: with the baseball bat. She'd also been sexually assaulted, and
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Speaker 1: there's plenty of DNA left behind seamen, as well as
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Speaker 1: a bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands
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Speaker 1: were covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she'd fought
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Speaker 1: back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the
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Speaker 1: baseball bat as belonging to Susan. She had kept it
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Speaker 1: next to her bed for her own protection. The police
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Speaker 1: begin by investigating Susan's other friends, but DNA and alibis
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Speaker 1: clear them all and the investigation quickly stalls. The pressure
4:44
Speaker 1: is building building, that is until about a week after
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Speaker 1: the murder. That's when police get a call from a
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Speaker 1: woman named Terry McLoughlin and she tells them a story
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Speaker 1: about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired,
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Speaker 1: baby faced mawory kid named Tana Poora.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about Tana for a bit. Tana had
5:04
Speaker 2: it rough growing up. His mother died when he was
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Speaker 2: a young boy, and his father left shortly afterwards. He
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Speaker 2: then got passed around from family member to family member
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Speaker 2: and ultimately ended up in his aunt Terry's house.
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Speaker 1: A few days after Susan Burdett's murder made headlines, Tana
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Speaker 1: and some friends found a baseball bat in the local
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Speaker 1: park and they were joking about it being the murder weapon.
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Speaker 1: Back at Aunt Terry's house, Tana kept talking about the bat.
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Speaker 1: Tana had a history of run ins with the law,
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Speaker 1: nothing really serious, but enough for Terry to want him
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Speaker 1: out of her house. She called the police over and over,
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Speaker 1: insisting that Tana knew something about Susan Burdett's murder. But
5:45
Speaker 1: police quickly come to the conclusion that Tana and his
5:48
Speaker 1: buddies were just over excited teens who were talking shit.
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Speaker 1: They interviewed Tana, they take his DNA, they even execute
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Speaker 1: a search warrant, but Tana and his friends are ruled
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Speaker 1: out exclusively as Susan Burdett's killers. The DNA doesn't match,
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Speaker 1: the search warrant turns up nothing, and while Tana does
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Speaker 1: have a record, there is nothing in his background that
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Speaker 1: would suggests this level of violence or depravity.
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Speaker 2: Now let's fast forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteenth,
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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. We're almost a year out now from
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Speaker 2: the discovery of Susan Burdett's body in the course of
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Speaker 2: police investigations. That's a lifetime, and this is the only
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Speaker 2: unsolved homicide from nineteen ninety two.
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Speaker 1: Tana Pora is seventeen years old. Now he still has
6:35
Speaker 1: that babyface, but his police record has grown. During a
6:39
Speaker 1: routine interview with Tana about a car theft, police get
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Speaker 1: an anonymous phone tip about Susan Burdett's murder. This caller
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Speaker 1: links the murder to a local gang called the Mongrel Mob,
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Speaker 1: a gang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so
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Speaker 1: the police decide to keep him at the station for questioning.
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Speaker 1: His interrogation begins at nine and continues for the next
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Speaker 1: four days.
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Speaker 2: The police have Tana Pora in the interrogation room and
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Speaker 2: he's telling multiple different stories. The stories don't make any sense,
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Speaker 2: and it's not an interrogation with banging of the table
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Speaker 2: or raised voices or threats or even promises to unite.
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Speaker 3: A comment that you're gonna tell us more?
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Speaker 2: Is that correct? Okay? Well, tell us this is a
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Speaker 2: seventeen year old kid who is highly suggestible and eager
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Speaker 2: to please the authorities. They're plying him with cigarettes and
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Speaker 2: fast food and drinks.
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Speaker 3: You had spring raw buckdog chips and drink.
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Speaker 2: Is that correct?
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Speaker 1: The detectives even mentioned twenty thousand dollars as a reward
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Speaker 1: for information about Susan Burdett's rape and murder. Tana's story
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Speaker 1: keeps evolving and the camera keeps getting turned on and off.
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Speaker 2: You said you were going to tell us everything first.
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Speaker 1: Tana tells the police that he drove two other men
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Speaker 1: to Susan's house and waited outside while they went into attacker.
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Speaker 2: Are you telling us about a person called dog raping
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Speaker 2: this woman? Did you hear any more or see any more?
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Speaker 2: I was outside in the carabeene.
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Speaker 1: Eventually he changes that story.
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Speaker 3: I thought what you've said so fair that you climbed
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Speaker 3: it in the bedroom window and you've gone through to
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Speaker 3: open the door up for the other two.
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Speaker 1: All right, Now he's climbing in through one of Susan
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Speaker 1: Burdett's windows and letting the other two in through the
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Speaker 1: front door.
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Speaker 2: And you were in there.
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Speaker 1: You could see quite clearly what was happening, Is that right?
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Speaker 2: Okay? I was just watching and you were just watching, okay.
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Speaker 1: And in the end, after four days, Tana confesses to
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Speaker 1: being in the room, to actually holding Susan down while
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Speaker 1: his two associates raped her.
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Speaker 2: And you were in the room some other's time while
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Speaker 2: this was happening.
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Speaker 3: Is it right? You were holding Susan down.
9:00
Speaker 2: And that last story, the one that ultimately seals Tana's fate.
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Speaker 2: It comes after a break in the tea room, where
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Speaker 2: of course, the cameras are turned off at.
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Speaker 1: The suggestion of the police. Tana identifies this to supposed
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Speaker 1: accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that local gang.
9:18
Speaker 1: The police bring in those two individuals that Tana had named,
9:22
Speaker 1: but their DNA doesn't match the DNA found on Susan's body,
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Speaker 1: they're cleared and they're released. Things don't go as smoothly
9:30
Speaker 1: for Tana. He's arrested based on his confession. He's charged
9:34
Speaker 1: with Susan Burdette's rape and murder, and fourteen long months later,
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Speaker 1: prosecutors try Tana Porra for participating in the murder of
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Speaker 1: Susan Burdett along with two unknown accomplices.
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Speaker 2: And let's stop right here for a minute. This is
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Speaker 2: round one of the battle of these two titans of evidence,
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Speaker 2: confessions versus DNA. DNA seemed to clear Tanapora of any
10:00
Speaker 2: rolling this crime, but it's the confessions that ultimately lead
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Speaker 2: to his conviction.
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Speaker 1: On June sixteenth, nineteen ninety four, a jury took less
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Speaker 1: than ninety minutes to Convictaan Apora of rape and murder.
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Speaker 1: He received a life sentence and was shipped off to prison.
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Speaker 1: At the same time, the New Zealand Police are beginning
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Speaker 1: a focused investigation into six rapes that had occurred between
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety two in the Auckland area,
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Speaker 1: including Susan Burdette's rape. Now, these attacks were all similar
10:42
Speaker 1: enough that some police officers began to worry that they
10:45
Speaker 1: had a serial rapist on their hands. All of them
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Speaker 1: involved a lone wolf attacker who broke into women's homes,
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Speaker 1: wrapped their heads in blankets or duveys, and repositioned them
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Speaker 1: so that they lay sideways across the edge of the
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Speaker 1: bed during the attack. And by April nineteen ninety six,
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Speaker 1: a few years after Tana's conviction, the investigation into these
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Speaker 1: rapes linked them all, including Susan Burdett's attack, to the
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Speaker 1: DNA of the same person, a man named Malcolm Raywa.
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Speaker 2: Now who is Malcolm Rewa? First of all, he's twenty
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Speaker 2: years older than Tana Porra. And while I usually try
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Speaker 2: to avoid characterizing my fellow humans like this, Raywa is
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Speaker 2: a monster. He's a terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist.
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Speaker 1: He's the kind of predator that women worry about. He's
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Speaker 1: the worst nightmare. Raywak committed his first rape in the
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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. His wife was in labor giving birth to
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Speaker 1: their child at the time, so Raywa took the opportunity
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Speaker 1: to sexually assault a nurse in a hospital bed. Unbelievable
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Speaker 1: four and.
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Speaker 2: A half years in prison he spent for that awful crime.
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Speaker 1: So he gets out of prison and apparently rapes again.
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Speaker 1: From then on, over the dozens of rapes that he
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Speaker 1: went on to commit, rey Wa started developing a pattern
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Speaker 1: an mo O. He'd carefully select his victims who tended
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Speaker 1: to be single women, professionals who were home alone. He'd
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Speaker 1: stake out their homes in advance and plan his attacks meticulously,
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Speaker 1: and then always the same thing, a surprise attack after
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Speaker 1: the woman had fallen asleep, a physical attack first to
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Speaker 1: subdue her, then the blanket or duvet around her head,
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Speaker 1: and a rape at the side of the bed.
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Speaker 2: And Raya would hide in their homes. He would wait
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Speaker 2: for them to get into bed and begin to fall asleep,
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Speaker 2: and then he would attack.
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Speaker 1: Ray Wall apparently suffered from a rectile dysfunction, which is
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Speaker 1: why he positioned his victims in a way that allowed
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Speaker 1: him to maintain sexual contact during his attacks. That's also
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Speaker 1: why he acted alone. He didn't exactly want an audience.
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Speaker 1: Ray was arrested on May thirteenth, nineteen ninety six. It's
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Speaker 1: a pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police had been
13:03
Speaker 1: planning this for quite some time. When he tries to
13:06
Speaker 1: run police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now,
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Speaker 1: the police remember that Tana Pora had already confessed to
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Speaker 1: one of the rapes to which Reywa is tied by DNA,
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Speaker 1: so they immediately ask him if he knows Tana Pura.
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Speaker 1: Raywa is crystal clear never met him. Based on the
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Speaker 1: arrest of Malcolm Rawa, the Court of Appeals throws out
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Speaker 1: Tana's conviction in nineteen ninety nine.
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Speaker 2: Never met him. Now, at this point in time, where
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Speaker 2: you have a prolific serial rapist operating in the same
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Speaker 2: neighborhood as the Burdette murder and his DNA is at
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Speaker 2: the crime scene and he's telling you I don't know Tanapura,
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Speaker 2: most prosecutors and police officers would throw their hands up
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Speaker 2: and say we can't go forward with the reprosecution of
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Speaker 2: Tana Pura. We have to free him.
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Speaker 1: But instead Tana is retried, and if you've listened to
14:01
Speaker 1: this podcast, you know what's coming. Prosecutors change their theory
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Speaker 1: of the case and argue at Tana's second trial that
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Speaker 1: he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdett together, even
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Speaker 1: though Rewa had denied knowing Tana, even though Reywa always
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Speaker 1: acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted
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Speaker 1: some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction.
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Speaker 2: So now we have round two of a battle between
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Speaker 2: confession evidence and DNA evidence, except this time we know
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Speaker 2: whose DNA it is. It's the DNA of a serial
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Speaker 2: rapist named Malcolm Rewa. Will Tana's confession bring him down
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Speaker 2: or will the jury side with the science and recognize
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Speaker 2: that Tana Pora and Malcolm Rewa had never met?
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Speaker 1: Sure enough, despite all hopes that the DNA evidence would
14:59
Speaker 1: be an enough to clear Tana, Tana was convicted a
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Speaker 1: second time of raping and murdering Susan Burdett and sent
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Speaker 1: back to his life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Rewa himself stood
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Speaker 1: trial for three months in nineteen ninety eight on what
15:14
Speaker 1: amounted to forty five counts of rape involving twenty seven
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Speaker 1: different women. His trial ended with convictions for sexually assaulting
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Speaker 1: twenty five of them, including Susan Burdett. Just like Tana,
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Speaker 1: he was shipped off to prison for decades. Now, this
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Speaker 1: is justice for Rewa, but for Tana Porra it's anything but.
15:36
Speaker 1: And for years Tana served as time with little hope
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Speaker 1: of freedom, and things might have stayed bleak for him
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Speaker 1: had it not been for a man named Tim McKinnell.
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Speaker 2: Now who is.
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Speaker 3: Tim McKinnell at the moment in time is self employed,
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Speaker 3: private and vistigator. But when I finished university I joined
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Speaker 3: the police. As a twenty two year old.
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Speaker 2: Tim mckinnall started out his career as a cop, A
15:58
Speaker 2: good cop, one of the best cops hoops. Tim had
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Speaker 2: become a member of the South Auckland Police Force in
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Speaker 2: the late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by
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Speaker 2: the year two thousand. That year, the force had been
16:11
Speaker 2: divided over the case of Tanapura.
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Speaker 3: A lot of chat went on and the police bar
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Speaker 3: at the time, and there was a real disconnect between
16:21
Speaker 3: two different groups of people. People that thought Tana Porter
16:23
Speaker 3: was a guilty man and had been involved in the
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Speaker 3: ripe and murder of Susan Beidett, and there was another
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Speaker 3: camp of experienced police officers who thought that he was
16:33
Speaker 3: an innocent man.
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Speaker 2: In fact, Tim remembers seeing all manner of drunken arguments
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Speaker 2: at police bars and he was struck by the passion
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Speaker 2: of those who believed in Tanapura.
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Speaker 1: Tim never forgot those arguments or his own growing doubt
16:48
Speaker 1: about Tana's guilt even after he eventually left the police force,
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Speaker 1: and as many retired officers do, he became a private investigator.
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Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, Tim attended a local conference
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Speaker 1: on wrongful convictions and false confessions, and that conference brought
17:04
Speaker 1: up those old, lingering questions that Tim had about Tana's case.
17:08
Speaker 1: The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed in his
17:11
Speaker 1: thirties with a rare blood disorder, not exactly a death sentence,
17:15
Speaker 1: but the kind of health scare that led him to
17:17
Speaker 1: reevaluate his priorities and seek out more meaningful work like
17:22
Speaker 1: freeing the innocent. Eventually, Tim decided to take the plunge.
17:27
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, he visited Tana Pora, who
17:30
Speaker 1: was then thirty four years old in prison. Tana was
17:34
Speaker 1: no longer that teenage car thief Tim had read about.
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Speaker 1: He was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm. Tim
17:43
Speaker 1: begins to feel an urge to help this guy.
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Speaker 2: But there's the matter of Tana's confession. Tim starts by
17:50
Speaker 2: digging up videotapes of Tana's interrogation, and they're not easy
17:53
Speaker 2: to find. They're on old VHS tapes in boxes in
17:58
Speaker 2: police departments. But he gets them and he sits down
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Speaker 2: to watch them, and he is blown away by what
18:06
Speaker 2: he saw.
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Speaker 3: When you examine what he was able to say on
18:10
Speaker 3: day one, in the first few interviews on tape, and
18:13
Speaker 3: you compare that to what he was able to say
18:16
Speaker 3: four days later, there are marked differences. There were some
18:20
Speaker 3: very particular things that happened in Susan's house that the
18:23
Speaker 3: offender would know, and it's clear from the interviews that
18:26
Speaker 3: Tana Porter had no idea about any of them.
18:29
Speaker 1: Despite four days worth of trying, Tina just was not
18:32
Speaker 1: able to tell a story that matched what actually happened.
18:36
Speaker 1: When police asked him to describe Susan Burdette, he says
18:39
Speaker 1: she was chubby, even though she was actually quite athletic.
18:43
Speaker 1: Tina is asked to draw a picture of how he
18:45
Speaker 1: left Susan's body. Remember she'd been found horizontally with her
18:49
Speaker 1: legs dangling over the side of the bed, but he
18:51
Speaker 1: draws her lying vertically on the bed. When he was
18:55
Speaker 1: asked whether there was anything special about Susan's bed, Tena
18:58
Speaker 1: can't come up with the fact that it was a
19:00
Speaker 1: wider bat.
19:01
Speaker 3: And so one of the questions that arises about that
19:03
Speaker 3: is how did he come to know things on day
19:05
Speaker 3: four that he didn't know on day one.
19:09
Speaker 1: The interrogators take Tina on a field trip to Susan
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Speaker 1: Burdett's street so that he can point out details of
19:15
Speaker 1: the crime to them in person, and they videotaped the
19:18
Speaker 1: whole thing.
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Speaker 3: He started giving them directions that were taking them away
19:22
Speaker 3: from her house, so they helpfully tried to direct him
19:26
Speaker 3: back towards her house. It was pretty clear on tape
19:29
Speaker 3: that he still had no idea where he was going
19:32
Speaker 3: and wasn't able to identify anything familiar. In the end,
19:37
Speaker 3: they took him to the outside of the house where
19:40
Speaker 3: Susan had been raped murdered and asked him if he
19:44
Speaker 3: recognized anything, and again he didn't, so the police officer
19:47
Speaker 3: and it's really chilling, really chilling to watch it. He said, Look,
19:52
Speaker 3: it's clear you don't recognize what it is you're looking for,
19:55
Speaker 3: So do you think it would help if I showed
19:56
Speaker 3: you house? And that's an extraordinary thing for a police
20:00
Speaker 3: officer to do.
20:09
Speaker 2: For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He
20:12
Speaker 2: was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until
20:16
Speaker 2: Tina Poora was cleared. But he needs to present more
20:21
Speaker 2: evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to
20:24
Speaker 2: get involved in this case.
20:25
Speaker 3: So Tana's case isn't one that was only scarred by
20:29
Speaker 3: false confession. There were the other issues that were beginning
20:31
Speaker 3: to arise with the involvement of Tana's family.
20:35
Speaker 2: Tina's cousin became a key witness for the prosecution against Tana.
20:40
Speaker 2: She claimed that she had seen Tina with Rewa on
20:45
Speaker 2: multiple occasions, including once at Tina's girlfriend's home.
20:49
Speaker 1: But Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony.
20:53
Speaker 3: There was evidence of paid witnesses, including his cousin and
20:57
Speaker 3: his auntie. Those family members gave evidence against him, and
21:01
Speaker 3: we know that at least one of them was paid
21:03
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars for her trouble.
21:05
Speaker 1: Tim tracks down Fiona, Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that
21:08
Speaker 1: she has no idea who Malcolm Rawell was and that
21:12
Speaker 1: he was never in her home. From his time on
21:15
Speaker 1: the police force, Tim was well acquainted with the various
21:18
Speaker 1: gangs operating around South Auckland, so for him, one piece
21:22
Speaker 1: of the prosecution's argument was clearly ridiculous.
21:25
Speaker 3: Malcolm Rawa was a senior member of the Highway sixty
21:29
Speaker 3: one Motorcycle Club Mortal enemies of the Mongrel Mob, and
21:34
Speaker 3: Sotana Porter as somebody who was supposedly involved with the
21:38
Speaker 3: Mungrel Mob going to Susan Burdette's house late one night
21:44
Speaker 3: with a senior member of the Highway sixty ones to
21:46
Speaker 3: commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows anything
21:50
Speaker 3: about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you that
21:52
Speaker 3: that's just nonsense.
21:56
Speaker 1: Tim doesn't stop there. He also starts assembling an all
21:59
Speaker 1: star team of experts, starting with an Icelandic professor and
22:03
Speaker 1: former detective himself, Geesley good Johnson, who was a professor
22:07
Speaker 1: by that time in London. Now Geasley essentially created the
22:12
Speaker 1: field of falls confession science. He's the father of everything
22:15
Speaker 1: we're talking about during this podcast. And after Tim sends
22:18
Speaker 1: him Tane's interrogation videos, Gezley agrees to write a report
22:22
Speaker 1: deconstructing Tana's statements and deeming them unreliable.
22:27
Speaker 2: Next, Tim enlists the help of respected local New Zealand
22:31
Speaker 2: journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the stage case
22:35
Speaker 2: against Tana for years and is happy to help, and
22:38
Speaker 2: Phil delivers in twenty twelve as the case for Tana's
22:42
Speaker 2: innocence is building. Phil releases a bombshell article titled Innocent
22:49
Speaker 2: Man in Jail for twenty Years, and in it, Chook Henwood,
22:53
Speaker 2: the detective who had developed the original criminal profile of
22:57
Speaker 2: Malcolm Rewa, says the cops got it horribly wrong in
23:00
Speaker 2: Susan Burdett's case. Tana had nothing to do with this. Now,
23:05
Speaker 2: this is a huge deal because chuk Henwood is the
23:08
Speaker 2: most famous criminal profiler in New Zealand, a bit like
23:12
Speaker 2: John Douglas of The Mind Hunter fame.
23:14
Speaker 3: For somebody like chuk Henwood to come out and express
23:17
Speaker 3: a family held conviction that Tana Porter was innocent was
23:21
Speaker 3: hugely important in terms of public perception and momentum for
23:26
Speaker 3: our appeal work on Tana's case.
23:28
Speaker 2: And in the middle of this, there's this remarkable moment
23:32
Speaker 2: when Susan Burdett's brother Jim comes forward and says, I
23:37
Speaker 2: too believe that Tana Pora is innocent, and he actually
23:42
Speaker 2: meets with Tana Pora. It's this incredible moment of reconciliation
23:47
Speaker 2: and grace.
23:48
Speaker 1: Momentum is building across the board, but there's still one
23:51
Speaker 1: more piece. Can Tim provide a better understanding, a better
23:55
Speaker 1: explanation of why Tana confessed to a crime he didn't commit.
24:00
Speaker 3: Documentary make it called Michael Bennett making a documentary about
24:03
Speaker 3: Tana's case. Perhaps the most significant development in twenty years
24:07
Speaker 3: occurred because the person that had been watching it was
24:10
Speaker 3: a woman called doctor Valerie McGinn.
24:12
Speaker 1: Doctor McGinn provides Tim with the answer he needs. She
24:16
Speaker 1: writes reports saying, your clients, mister Tana Pora sounds very
24:20
Speaker 1: similar to many people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She
24:25
Speaker 1: even attaches a journal article that details how individuals with
24:29
Speaker 1: FASD are at an increased risk of getting arrested.
24:32
Speaker 3: And more importantly, people that have it can be impulsive,
24:36
Speaker 3: They suggestible, they eager to please figures of authority, and
24:40
Speaker 3: so when you look at those types of behaviors and
24:42
Speaker 3: then you consider the position Taaner was in when he
24:46
Speaker 3: was in the police station in nineteen ninety three, it
24:50
Speaker 3: almost makes it inevitable that he was going to confess
24:54
Speaker 3: to something.
24:55
Speaker 1: Doctor mcginnon confirms categorically that Tena suffers from an FASD disorder,
25:00
Speaker 1: he was uniquely susceptible to falsely confessing in the interrogation room.
25:04
Speaker 3: One of the things that really bothered me about Tana's
25:06
Speaker 3: case is we could never understand why he did what
25:09
Speaker 3: he did, the things he said, and the people he implicated.
25:13
Speaker 3: It just none of it made sense to us and
25:15
Speaker 3: we couldn't explain that to the courts. And so once
25:18
Speaker 3: we got this diagnosis of feder work whole spectrum disorder,
25:22
Speaker 3: it all became clear. It was the final piece of
25:24
Speaker 3: the puzzle and we finally understood what it was we
25:27
Speaker 3: were dealing with.
25:28
Speaker 1: And that does it. All the pieces are assembled for
25:31
Speaker 1: Tim and his team to appeal Tena's conviction, and they
25:35
Speaker 1: bring the case in November of twenty fourteen to the
25:37
Speaker 1: Privy Council in London, the final Court of Appeal where
25:41
Speaker 1: Commonwealth countries like New Zealand can bring cases like Tena's.
25:46
Speaker 2: It's the court of last resort and it's staffed with
25:49
Speaker 2: senior judge some of the best and brightest minds in
25:52
Speaker 2: the entire Commonwealth.
25:55
Speaker 1: Now this is Tina's last shot, and his lawyers put
25:59
Speaker 1: his fa SD disorder at the front of their case,
26:03
Speaker 1: arguing that judges in the nineteen ninety four and two
26:05
Speaker 1: thousand trials weren't aware of his disability and if they
26:09
Speaker 1: had been, they would have ruled differently.
26:10
Speaker 3: There was a big group of people that gathered at
26:12
Speaker 3: Michael Bennett, the documentary maker's house, waiting for that decision
26:16
Speaker 3: to be announced, and it was an extraordinary moment. We
26:18
Speaker 3: only got to tell Taneer about an hour before the
26:21
Speaker 3: whole world found out that he had his conviction quashed
26:24
Speaker 3: and he was no longer a rapist and murderer. It
26:27
Speaker 3: was incredibly emotional for him.
26:31
Speaker 1: On March third, twenty fifteen, in the case of Poorra
26:35
Speaker 1: versus the Queen, the Council of rules that Tina's confessions
26:39
Speaker 1: must be thrown out and they quashed his conviction for
26:43
Speaker 1: the rape and murder of Susan Burdett. Two weeks later,
26:46
Speaker 1: the Crown prosecutors dropped their case and declined to retry Tina,
26:51
Speaker 1: and after more than twenty years, Tina Porra was officially exonerated.
26:56
Speaker 3: You know what his first concern was for was for
26:59
Speaker 3: the police officers that had interviewed him. He didn't want
27:01
Speaker 3: their reputations to be tarnished because of what had happened.
27:05
Speaker 3: One of his first thoughts was for other people, and
27:08
Speaker 3: that was pretty cool.
27:09
Speaker 1: In so many of these wrongful conviction cases, you see
27:12
Speaker 1: people go through so much pain and They have every
27:16
Speaker 1: rate to be better, resentful, angry, all of those things,
27:21
Speaker 1: but so often you see them express, at least publicly,
27:23
Speaker 1: these incredible acts of grace. It's almost as though they've
27:26
Speaker 1: lived through so much pain they don't want to cause anymore.
27:30
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, Tina received a sum of money to
27:33
Speaker 2: compensate him for the time he had spent in prison
27:36
Speaker 2: for a crime he did not commit. He also received
27:39
Speaker 2: an apology from the New Zealand government.
27:41
Speaker 3: Tyana grew up in prison. He was there for twenty
27:44
Speaker 3: two years and he struggles every day. We keep in contact,
27:49
Speaker 3: but life isn't great for him. The money makes some
27:52
Speaker 3: things easier, but it doesn't repair the psychological damage. It
27:56
Speaker 3: doesn't bring the years back, and it doesn't his life
28:01
Speaker 3: easy now. It is incredibly difficult to watch him struggle
28:06
Speaker 3: through life after everything he's been through.
28:09
Speaker 1: Tana, we salute your sheer endurance, your will to keep
28:14
Speaker 1: on fighting and surviving and living through this ordeal from
28:17
Speaker 1: the other side of the planet. Know that we won't
28:19
Speaker 1: forget your name or what you've been through, and all
28:22
Speaker 1: of us together we're fighting to make sure it doesn't
28:25
Speaker 1: happen again. And that's the story of Tana Pora. Next
28:33
Speaker 1: week's episode takes us to El Paso, Texas, where a
28:36
Speaker 1: total stranger became invested in the case of Daniel Viegas
28:40
Speaker 1: and turned out to be a savior. Till then, Thanks
28:43
Speaker 1: for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is the production of
28:53
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
28:57
Speaker 1: Special thanks to our executive producer Jason and the team
29:01
Speaker 1: at Signal Company Number One. Executive producer Kevin wardis senior
29:05
Speaker 1: producer and Pope, and additional production and editing by Connor Hall.
29:09
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
29:13
Speaker 1: me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nyrider, and you.
29:16
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
29:20
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
29:24
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
29:26
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
29:31
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction