Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #489 Guest Host Conor Hall with Brian Pippitt

Transcript

#489 Guest Host Conor Hall with Brian Pippitt · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello everybody. Once again, this is Connor Hall, the producer
0:03
Speaker 1: for Wrongful Conviction, filling in for Jason Vlahm. I hope
0:05
Speaker 1: you enjoy it. On February twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight,
0:12
Speaker 1: eighty four year old Minnesotan Evelyn Mallin was discovered in
0:16
Speaker 1: her ransacked bedroom, strangled and beaten to death. Her small
0:21
Speaker 1: apartment was attached to her convenience store, but the store
0:25
Speaker 1: was undisturbed, including any signs of forced entry. There was
0:29
Speaker 1: a broken basement window, but it appeared to have been
0:32
Speaker 1: broken from the inside out. Yet, instead of focusing on
0:36
Speaker 1: personal or business relations with access to keys, the investigation
0:41
Speaker 1: targeted an Indigenous man named Brian Pippott and four of
0:44
Speaker 1: his male relatives, despite no evidence connecting them to the scene,
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Speaker 1: credible alibis, and an equally incredible theory of guilt. One
0:55
Speaker 1: of them made a statement. Two more pled. One was acquitted,
1:00
Speaker 1: but Brian wasn't so lucky. This is wrongful conviction.
1:09
Speaker 2: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
1:13
Speaker 2: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
1:17
Speaker 2: at eight three, three, two oh seven, four six sixty
1:20
Speaker 2: six and tell us how these stories make you feel
1:22
Speaker 2: and what you've done to help the cause, even if
1:25
Speaker 2: it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing
1:28
Speaker 2: on social media, and you might just hear yourself in
1:31
Speaker 2: a future episode call us eight three three, two oh
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Speaker 2: seven four six sixty six.
1:46
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we have a story
1:49
Speaker 1: about a group of indigenous men about an hour's drive
1:53
Speaker 1: north of Minneapolis, Saint Paul, the Malax Band of Vojaboy
1:57
Speaker 1: to be exact, but the theory of their involvement and
2:00
Speaker 1: the murder was so lazy and full of holes that
2:03
Speaker 1: authorities must have known it was also full of something else.
2:08
Speaker 1: And joining us to tell his story, still in Minnesota
2:12
Speaker 1: prison is Brian Pippott. Welcome Brian, and to help tell
2:18
Speaker 1: this story an attorney and investigator from probably the original
2:23
Speaker 1: innocence organization in this country, Centurion Ministries. Jim Cousins Welcome well,
2:29
Speaker 1: thank you, and before we even begin with Brian's personal history,
2:33
Speaker 1: I'd like to recognize the history of the Malax Band
2:36
Speaker 1: of Ojibweh as well as their relations throughout the area,
2:40
Speaker 1: whose roots are on the East coast, but as Europeans
2:44
Speaker 1: began their continental conquest about five hundred years ago, the
2:49
Speaker 1: Ojibwe were forced into a nomadic lifestyle. They eventually allied
2:54
Speaker 1: themselves with the French in the Seven Years War, a
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Speaker 1: relationship evidenced even by the name Lacks. It's French for
3:01
Speaker 1: a Thousand Lakes, a reference to the Great Lakes area
3:04
Speaker 1: in which the Jojubwe eventually settled a little over two
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Speaker 1: hundred years ago, and where they were later recognized by
3:10
Speaker 1: the US government as a sovereign nation. Spread among various reservations,
3:14
Speaker 1: some of which were in Aitkin County, Minnesota.
3:18
Speaker 3: Well, Aikin County includes the town or city of Aiken itself,
3:22
Speaker 3: and about twenty miles from there is a town called McGregor.
3:26
Speaker 3: That's where there's a small Native American reservation called the
3:31
Speaker 3: Sandy Lake Reservation. I understand that there's a fair degree
3:36
Speaker 3: of tension between the white community, law enforcement authorities from
3:39
Speaker 3: the Aiken County Sheriff's office, and the Native American community.
3:43
Speaker 1: That tension has made headlines in recent years as the
3:47
Speaker 1: current sheriff, Daniel Gaida, it appears, has accepted financial support
3:51
Speaker 1: from an oil conglomerate called Enbridge, and then it just
3:55
Speaker 1: so happens that protesters were treated pretty roughly for seeking
4:00
Speaker 1: to protect clean drinking water in the area where Brian
4:04
Speaker 1: was raised.
4:05
Speaker 4: List McGregor, mister two of malaccs the Sandy Lake Indian Reservation.
4:10
Speaker 4: We moved up in the late eighties to Sandy Lake
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Speaker 4: and a mother. She rented a parcel land up there
4:19
Speaker 4: for a dollar for fifty years and had a house built.
4:23
Speaker 4: She kept adding on to the house. She wanted a
4:27
Speaker 4: place for everyone, and we all lived in alsos around
4:32
Speaker 4: the Sandy Lake area. Had some brothers and they have
4:36
Speaker 4: all passed, and we had some good times going swimming
4:39
Speaker 4: in the lakes, going fishing, going hunt trapping with my
4:43
Speaker 4: uncles in the wintertime, harvesting deer, using everything of the
4:48
Speaker 4: tier and giving thanks for the deer, and offering tobacco.
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Speaker 1: Despite ugly efforts to the contrary, the Ojuboy and other
4:57
Speaker 1: Indigenous nations have been able to maintain their culture and
5:00
Speaker 1: self governance well. Folks like Ojiboy Elder Marge Anderson were
5:04
Speaker 1: able to make strides for their nations with the US government,
5:08
Speaker 1: like the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of nineteen eighty eight,
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Speaker 1: which brought much needed economic opportunities to their nation. In fact,
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Speaker 1: on February twenty third, nineteen ninety eight, Brian had accompanied
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Speaker 1: his nephew, Michael mus Squattis to an interview at one
5:23
Speaker 1: of those casinos.
5:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike Squads my sister Anita's son. He had a
5:29
Speaker 4: job interview that day and upon the radio for I
5:32
Speaker 4: don't know, thirty dollars or something for some extra money
5:36
Speaker 4: to go to a casino. I didn't drive at that
5:39
Speaker 4: time that I had a ride with him and my
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Speaker 4: other nephew, Brandon.
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Speaker 1: By all accounts, the trio returned to the area around
5:49
Speaker 1: eight thirty PM, and Brian was home for the night
5:52
Speaker 1: by ten. Then the following morning, February twenty fourth, nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety eight, eighty four year old Evelyn Mallin's body was
5:59
Speaker 1: to discovered in her bedroom in nearby tiny Shamrock Township.
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Speaker 3: The building is very small and houses not only her bedroom,
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Speaker 3: but also a little convenience store that has some three
6:13
Speaker 3: point two beer and cigarettes and other sundry items. And
6:17
Speaker 3: piecing together some of the witness testimony, she's probably murdered
6:21
Speaker 3: the night before, sometime between ten and ten thirty in
6:24
Speaker 3: the morning, her daughter, Norma Horner went to the store
6:28
Speaker 3: with her boyfriend Gerald Horsemen, and they knocked on the door.
6:32
Speaker 3: They knocked on the windows, they didn't get a response.
6:34
Speaker 3: They went around to the back door. There was a
6:37
Speaker 3: skeleton key broken off from the inside of the back door,
6:41
Speaker 3: so they couldn't open it, so they called nine to
6:43
Speaker 3: one one Aiken County Sheriff's Department. Kicking the back door,
6:47
Speaker 3: they find Evelyn Male and the victim in her bedroom.
6:51
Speaker 3: That she was strangled and beaten rather savagely, and there
6:55
Speaker 3: was fecal matter on her too. Now that may have
6:57
Speaker 3: been that she evacuated as a result of being strangled
7:00
Speaker 3: and beaten, but there's some other theories that who the
7:03
Speaker 3: ever of the assailant was took some vehicle matter from
7:06
Speaker 3: a little there's a bowl, I mean, there's no indoor
7:09
Speaker 3: plumbing in the store and through that on her. I
7:11
Speaker 3: don't know whether that's true or not. But they didn't
7:14
Speaker 3: see her immediately because her bedroom was ransacked. Things are
7:18
Speaker 3: thrown all over the place, and she was tossed off
7:20
Speaker 3: her ben There was a mattress on top of her.
7:22
Speaker 3: And then they went around throughout the building. They noted
7:26
Speaker 3: that the front and door locks were locked. They noted
7:30
Speaker 3: that a basement window was broken, and the store portion
7:33
Speaker 3: is utterly untouched.
7:36
Speaker 4: The back room was ripped apart, like whoever did that
7:40
Speaker 4: was looking for something particular.
7:43
Speaker 3: Thereafter, they interviewed Gerald Horseman and Norma Horner. Gerald Horseman
7:48
Speaker 3: was responsible for some of the inventory in the little store,
7:52
Speaker 3: and he told them at the time that there was
7:54
Speaker 3: no beer, no cigarettes missing. Subsequently, Merle Maylon, the victim's son,
8:00
Speaker 3: came up from his home in New Mexico several days
8:03
Speaker 3: after the murder. Theoretically there was some cash in a
8:07
Speaker 3: white envelope that she used to keep that he thought
8:10
Speaker 3: was missing.
8:11
Speaker 1: Initially, Gerald Horseman thought so too, as well as a checkbook,
8:16
Speaker 1: but both turned up. Yet Merle Mallin continued to allege
8:20
Speaker 1: that other items were missing.
8:21
Speaker 4: There was a mention of guns missing, biers, televisions, all
8:27
Speaker 4: kinds of stuff, and they were flying over the reservation
8:31
Speaker 4: looking in swamps for the stuff. And then oh no,
8:34
Speaker 4: this wasn't missing. Miss was a missing. Messing was missing.
8:37
Speaker 4: At trial he said, oh, we found them money.
8:41
Speaker 1: But Merle Malan has always maintained that beer, cigarettes, and
8:44
Speaker 1: a gun were stolen, which propped up the state's theory
8:48
Speaker 1: a robbery turned homicide. Despite what Horsemen, who actually kept
8:53
Speaker 1: the store's inventory has maintained all along that the store
8:56
Speaker 1: was undisturbed and no store items were missing. Interestingly, one
9:01
Speaker 1: of the alternative suspects was Merle's son, Mark Mallan.
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Speaker 3: The mourning of the murder, relatives actually pointed toward her grandson,
9:13
Speaker 3: Mark Maelon and he would help her at the store too,
9:16
Speaker 3: so he had access to the store and said that
9:18
Speaker 3: he could be violent, particularly was on something, and that
9:23
Speaker 3: Evelyn Malan used to give him money, and a couple
9:26
Speaker 3: of weeks before this incident, Mark Maelan asked her for
9:29
Speaker 3: four or five hundred dollars and it was one of
9:31
Speaker 3: the first times when she had refused him money. Others
9:34
Speaker 3: subsequently had said, we know that he's been rough with
9:37
Speaker 3: his grandmother before and he knows where she hides money
9:39
Speaker 3: in the store, but law enforcement didn't really follow up
9:42
Speaker 3: on that thread. Another alternative suspect was a man by
9:45
Speaker 3: the name of Terry Peat. He evidently was somebody that
9:48
Speaker 3: Evelyn Maylen was afraid of, and she expressed that fear
9:50
Speaker 3: to some others that bad news is back in town.
9:54
Speaker 3: He had been released from being incarcerated, and he had
9:57
Speaker 3: asked her to buy some pro pain on credit. And
10:00
Speaker 3: she had refused. He subsequently perished when his trailer caught fire.
10:04
Speaker 3: Several months later.
10:06
Speaker 1: But before the death of Terry Pete, as well as
10:09
Speaker 1: the specter of missing cash and dissipated, the rumor mill
10:12
Speaker 1: in Aiken County was quite active.
10:15
Speaker 3: There were rampant rumors, some of which are clearly untrue,
10:19
Speaker 3: that the assailants cut off her finger to take her
10:23
Speaker 3: ring off her, the assailants sexually assaulted her. I heard
10:27
Speaker 3: it was the Miss Squades. I heard it was this person.
10:29
Speaker 3: I heard it was that person. And so mister Bijurga
10:32
Speaker 3: from the BCA, which is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
10:36
Speaker 3: the equivalent of an FBI for the state, and Bruce
10:39
Speaker 3: Beck from the Aiken County Sheriff's Office went over to
10:43
Speaker 3: interview Michael MSS Squaddes, Keith MS. Squades, and Brandon Miss
10:46
Speaker 3: Squades as well. They are all the nephews of Brian Pippott.
10:49
Speaker 3: This is within I think a week of the murder.
10:52
Speaker 4: And they looked at Keith and checked his body for
10:57
Speaker 4: scrapes from Mars. He didn't have any, and they asked
11:00
Speaker 4: him where he was he was at home and Mike
11:04
Speaker 4: where he was.
11:05
Speaker 3: Michael Musquad says, what day is this now, Oh, that
11:09
Speaker 3: was the day I had my interview down at the
11:11
Speaker 3: Grand Casino. Brandon and my uncle Brian Piptt went with
11:15
Speaker 3: me as well. The authorities knew this now. They later
11:19
Speaker 3: interrogated Brandon Misquattis, who was fifteen at the time, in
11:22
Speaker 3: a very coercive interview where they kept saying to him,
11:25
Speaker 3: we know you were there. Your relatives have said you
11:28
Speaker 3: were there. Come clean, and he said, no, I wasn't there.
11:30
Speaker 3: I wasn't there. I was at the casino. They later
11:33
Speaker 3: acknowledged that his alibi was correct. So that's the same
11:35
Speaker 3: alibi that Brian Pippott has. So the alibi was established
11:40
Speaker 3: quite early on.
11:41
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, after a year had gone by, Terry Pete had passed,
11:45
Speaker 1: while Merle Mallin kept the specter of a robbery alive
11:49
Speaker 1: and the rumor mill led investigators to Brian Pippott, his
11:52
Speaker 1: nephews Raymond and Keith Musquattis, as well as his cousins
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Speaker 1: Neil King and Don Hill.
11:58
Speaker 3: Right after an award had been offered, Don Hill started
12:03
Speaker 3: a rumor that Brian Pippott said something along the lines
12:06
Speaker 3: of oh, she was already dead when I went in there,
12:08
Speaker 3: And then eventually Don Hill starts naming a few of
12:11
Speaker 3: these people that ultimately are selected as the assailants. And
12:16
Speaker 3: as they started to narrow down some of these rumors,
12:19
Speaker 3: they used tactics of saying to one so and so
12:23
Speaker 3: said you were there. Now you need to help yourself
12:25
Speaker 3: by saying you were there and admitting to things, and
12:29
Speaker 3: the first person to the trough gets the best meal
12:33
Speaker 3: or something.
12:33
Speaker 4: That was the line they used, yes live, threatening all
12:38
Speaker 4: your younger kids with long term prison ten and.
12:42
Speaker 3: So there was a carousel of interrogations of various people
12:46
Speaker 3: until they got somebody to say, okay, I was there,
12:50
Speaker 3: and that was Raymond Musquaddes. He had a couple of
12:53
Speaker 3: felonies pending, and there had been some rumors about him
12:57
Speaker 3: being there and not being there, and he is recanted
13:00
Speaker 3: completely and fully, genuinely, in detail and with specificity, and
13:05
Speaker 3: if you look at his various statements, I actually have
13:09
Speaker 3: a chart as to how they changed over time, you
13:13
Speaker 3: can tell he wasn't there.
13:14
Speaker 1: Raymond first said that around seven pm they arrived at
13:17
Speaker 1: the Dollar Lake store and Brian had kicked in the
13:20
Speaker 1: front door, both elements not true. So his story had
13:24
Speaker 1: to change alongside the state's narrative until they were the same.
13:29
Speaker 3: The state's theory is that these five men were driving
13:33
Speaker 3: around drunk and decided that they were going to go
13:37
Speaker 3: to the Dollar Lake store. The store was closed with
13:39
Speaker 3: the allegation is that Keith Musquades was able to get
13:42
Speaker 3: through a basement window, which by the way, would have
13:44
Speaker 3: entailed removing panes of glass with the little pieces of
13:48
Speaker 3: wood that separate the panes, reaching in and removing two
13:51
Speaker 3: wooden slats that were nailed across the window, squeeze down
13:56
Speaker 3: through the window, walk across a sandy basement floor, come
14:00
Speaker 3: up through a trapdoor, which, as far as we know,
14:04
Speaker 3: he would have no idea existed.
14:06
Speaker 4: Everybody forgets to mention that there was a chair on
14:10
Speaker 4: top of that trap door and it was wedged up
14:12
Speaker 4: against the window sill. It was in the police report
14:15
Speaker 4: that the police removed the chair from a trap door
14:19
Speaker 4: to get down.
14:19
Speaker 1: To the basement, so the back door was inoperable, the
14:23
Speaker 1: front door was dead bolted shut, and their suspects didn't
14:27
Speaker 1: have access to keys. Yet, this basement entry theory was
14:30
Speaker 1: still chosen despite its impossibility, and I guess since the
14:35
Speaker 1: front door was definitely not kicked in. Raymond changed his
14:38
Speaker 1: story from Brian kicking in the front door to an
14:41
Speaker 1: intoxicated Keith musquattis wiggling through a jagged basement window. And
14:46
Speaker 1: remember they examined him just days after the crime, and
14:50
Speaker 1: he didn't have a scratch.
14:52
Speaker 3: He said that Keith Musquades cut himself going through the window,
14:56
Speaker 3: but Keith Msquades had no cuts on him. There's no
14:59
Speaker 3: evidence anywhere that anyone went through that window, no fabric,
15:02
Speaker 3: no blood, no skin. There is some cat blood, so
15:05
Speaker 3: I guess a cat couldn't get through there without cutting itself.
15:08
Speaker 3: So he theoretically comes up opens up the trap door.
15:11
Speaker 3: Raymond says that they all came in and out through
15:14
Speaker 3: the front door, But we now know that the front
15:16
Speaker 3: door was locked with a dead bolt, that you needed
15:18
Speaker 3: a key to operate.
15:19
Speaker 1: Even with the alleged gymnastics, the theory still doesn't work
15:24
Speaker 1: without a front door key. But not according to BCA
15:27
Speaker 1: investigator David Bjurga.
15:29
Speaker 3: Mister Bjurga was questioned about that locked at the grand jury.
15:33
Speaker 3: He was asked, you can't get in and out of
15:35
Speaker 3: that door without locking the dead bold? Is that right?
15:37
Speaker 3: He said, well, that's right. We don't believe it was locked.
15:39
Speaker 3: Why do you think that, Well, because Raymond squads and
15:42
Speaker 3: Don Hill said they went through the door, so it
15:44
Speaker 3: couldn't have been locked. Well, that's completely circular logic. That's
15:47
Speaker 3: not saying anything about the forensics or the physics of
15:49
Speaker 3: the scene.
15:50
Speaker 4: Again with the door, prosscutter on around and evaded the question, said, well,
15:57
Speaker 4: I can't go into that because it's from the whole investigation.
16:01
Speaker 3: The theory on the door was that the dead bolt
16:04
Speaker 3: lock wasn't really locked. That was just the lock on
16:08
Speaker 3: the door handle that you could lock by pulling it shut.
16:10
Speaker 3: There's no merit to that whatsoever. The first responders all
16:14
Speaker 3: reported that door locked. The crime scene photograph shows that
16:18
Speaker 3: the dead bolt door locked. I had a forensic locksmith
16:20
Speaker 3: examined that photograph. He said, that's clearly a dead bolt
16:24
Speaker 3: and it's clearly locked. And when they took photographs of
16:27
Speaker 3: the lock when they disassembled it, they didn't show the
16:30
Speaker 3: actual bolt portion of it because that would show you
16:32
Speaker 3: that what you see in that photograph a dead bolt
16:35
Speaker 3: clearly locked. There's no real getting around that. Now they've
16:40
Speaker 3: lost the lock.
16:41
Speaker 1: However, Raymond was not aware of those damning specifics in
16:46
Speaker 1: real life or in the statements he was making.
16:49
Speaker 3: He said that he stayed in the car but he
16:51
Speaker 3: heard a crash. They come out with beer and cigarettes,
16:55
Speaker 3: and Brian comes out with some kind of bag with
16:58
Speaker 3: what they thought was a weapon in it, and the
17:00
Speaker 3: theory is that they then went back to Raymond's father's
17:03
Speaker 3: house and Keith Musquades and Brian Pippott confessed that they
17:07
Speaker 3: had killed Evelyn malon Or when she came out of
17:10
Speaker 3: her bedroom, but she didn't come out of her.
17:11
Speaker 1: Bedroom, according to other interviewees. BCA investigator David Bijerga routinely
17:17
Speaker 1: inserted this unfounded element into his questioning that the victim
17:21
Speaker 1: had discovered the assailants in the store and so they
17:24
Speaker 1: had to put her down, but the store was undisturbed,
17:27
Speaker 1: no signs of a struggle, according to both police reports
17:30
Speaker 1: and Gerald Horseman, who also maintained that no store items
17:34
Speaker 1: were missing. But instead Raymond conformed his statement to include
17:37
Speaker 1: unsubstantiated claims from Merle Mallin, the father of the only
17:42
Speaker 1: alternative suspect, about a stolen gun, cigarettes and beer. Mallin
17:47
Speaker 1: also testified that his mother wasn't able to lock the door,
17:50
Speaker 1: something that it appears he forgot, he had said when
17:53
Speaker 1: interviewed years later by a post conviction investigator, and again
17:56
Speaker 1: at a two thousand and six PCR hearing when he
17:59
Speaker 1: said that she could in fact lock the door. And
18:02
Speaker 1: there's even more nonsense to unravel.
18:05
Speaker 3: Ramus Squade said they went to an abandoned house that
18:09
Speaker 3: used to be his father's on the Sandy Lake Reservation,
18:11
Speaker 3: which was probably abandoned the last time he had been
18:14
Speaker 3: there years ago, but has since been remodeled and had
18:17
Speaker 3: residents in it. He said that they were all driving
18:21
Speaker 3: a gold Toronado, but no such car existed, so almost nothing,
18:24
Speaker 3: he said, matched with reality.
18:37
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18:55
Speaker 4: That was a reference that was a year later or something,
18:59
Speaker 4: and it was a significant time for me to remember anything.
19:03
Speaker 4: So I told him, well, I don't know where I was.
19:08
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until I read the report and my
19:12
Speaker 4: mother came to visit me, and she said, oh, yeah,
19:14
Speaker 4: that's that day that I had loaned a vent for
19:17
Speaker 4: the job interview and then you wrote along and I said,
19:21
Speaker 4: oh yeah, okay, well I would have a pond ticket
19:25
Speaker 4: for that data. And I called my investigator and he
19:29
Speaker 4: went over there and he's sure enough, there was that
19:31
Speaker 4: pon ticket. And it wasn't until later on that I
19:35
Speaker 4: was getting the discovery papers that I realized that the
19:39
Speaker 4: fat Mike and Brandon and my mother all confirmed my alibi.
19:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, in all likelihood this was you know, somebody that
19:47
Speaker 1: was related to her or had access to a key, right.
19:50
Speaker 4: Yeah. I remember sitting in the shell and reading a
19:54
Speaker 4: discovery and I said, huh, this is an inside job.
19:57
Speaker 4: And the police didn't pick up on that. They didn't
20:00
Speaker 4: pick up on the doors being locked, didn't pick up
20:04
Speaker 4: on the chair being on top of the trap door,
20:07
Speaker 4: even the tops he had report, Well, this person had
20:12
Speaker 4: a lot of anger towards.
20:13
Speaker 1: Her, But that, along with the gaping holes in Raymond's
20:17
Speaker 1: and the state's narrative, appear to have been ignored, as
20:20
Speaker 1: Raymond was offered five years and his other charges dropped
20:24
Speaker 1: to become the state star witness against his four relatives.
20:28
Speaker 3: Keith Msquades, Brian and Neil King denied having anything to
20:32
Speaker 3: do with it, and deny that to this day. They
20:34
Speaker 3: did get a sort of confession from Don Hill, except
20:37
Speaker 3: for it kept changing and changing and changing. He was
20:39
Speaker 3: going to testify and he would get five years and
20:42
Speaker 3: they would forgive some sexual assault pilonies. He never did
20:46
Speaker 3: testify because they recognized that nothing this guy said was true,
20:50
Speaker 3: even though he still got the deal, which was I
20:52
Speaker 3: think less than five years. Same with Raymond.
20:54
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Brian, Neil and Keith awaited trial in jail, with
20:59
Speaker 1: proceedings take plays between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand
21:02
Speaker 1: and one.
21:04
Speaker 3: Keith msquades he had a first degree sexual assault case
21:07
Speaker 3: pending against him. They dismissed that in exchange for his
21:10
Speaker 3: Alfred plea on the murder. I think it was manslaughter.
21:13
Speaker 3: He had nothing to do with it. He has an
21:15
Speaker 3: alibi as well. But he takes this plea on the
21:18
Speaker 3: theory that you know, I might be able to survive
21:21
Speaker 3: prison better if I'm a murderer as opposed to sexual assault.
21:25
Speaker 3: So he takes an Alfred plea. But then he tries
21:28
Speaker 3: to withdraw his plea within I think two weeks, and
21:32
Speaker 3: that's denied. So he serves I think fifteen years.
21:36
Speaker 1: So only Neil and Brian couldn't be coerced into a
21:40
Speaker 1: plea deal.
21:41
Speaker 3: Neil King has tried first, and he is acquitted by
21:44
Speaker 3: the judge at the conclusion of the state's evidence on
21:48
Speaker 3: two grounds. One that the only incriminating testimony against him
21:52
Speaker 3: was Raymond Musquaddes, who was an accomplice and in Minnesota
21:55
Speaker 3: unied corroborating evidence in addition to accomplice evidence. And the
22:00
Speaker 3: other thing is that Raymond Squatt said Neil King he
22:02
Speaker 3: was drunk in the backseat of the car, So there
22:05
Speaker 3: was no clear evidence that, even under Raymond's story, that
22:08
Speaker 3: Neil King had gone in and participated in the actual
22:11
Speaker 3: homicide or burglary. But in any event, he was acquitted
22:14
Speaker 3: based on the principle that there was no corroborating evidence.
22:17
Speaker 4: So the state right away started interviewing all my cellmates
22:23
Speaker 4: and trying to threaten them and getting them to say
22:26
Speaker 4: something against.
22:27
Speaker 1: Me, and they found jail house snitch.
22:29
Speaker 3: The jail house snitch is a guy by the name
22:31
Speaker 3: of Peter Arnaldi. It's a longtime con man, fraudster, and
22:36
Speaker 3: so Brian been told this guy knows his way around
22:39
Speaker 3: the court system, and Brian said, I've been wrongfully charged here.
22:42
Speaker 3: I mean, I said, what should I do? And he
22:44
Speaker 3: showed him the criminal complaint.
22:46
Speaker 4: I asked him to look at it, and I tell
22:47
Speaker 4: him what I'm being charged with. And then he said, well,
22:51
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take this to the room, and I'm thinking, okay, well, no,
22:56
Speaker 4: I'm going to need that back side grab it back.
23:00
Speaker 4: And that's the last I'm not saying there until a
23:03
Speaker 4: couple of years later when he was strolls into the
23:06
Speaker 4: courtroom wearing the street clothes and I didn't know that
23:08
Speaker 4: he was in federal custody for bank robbers and they
23:12
Speaker 4: had a player's system and then work it to his advantage.
23:16
Speaker 3: Peter Arnaldi subsequently says that Brian confessed this crime to me.
23:22
Speaker 3: The majority of what he attests to was in the
23:26
Speaker 3: criminal complaint which Brian had showed him, but he completely
23:30
Speaker 3: misconstrued it. He said, they stuffed Kleenex in her mouth
23:34
Speaker 3: to stifle her screams, and he got that because the
23:38
Speaker 3: criminal complaint in the autopsy said that she had soft
23:41
Speaker 3: tissue injuries around her mouth.
23:43
Speaker 1: Wow. But the county Attorney, Bradley Rhodes felt comfortable presenting
23:50
Speaker 1: this vailure in reading comprehension as corroborating evidence. Rhodes has
23:55
Speaker 1: since been disbarred for unrelated reasons. In addition, Brian's original
24:00
Speaker 1: judge had become ill, resulting in a mistrial and a
24:04
Speaker 1: change of venue. Then his original attorney, Chris Davis, chose
24:08
Speaker 1: this moment to retire.
24:10
Speaker 4: So they appointed me another attorney, that attorney who had
24:14
Speaker 4: never tried a murder case. I had a new investigator.
24:18
Speaker 4: I think that was his first case. So I had
24:22
Speaker 4: two people that really didn't know much about how to
24:26
Speaker 4: present a case.
24:27
Speaker 3: Tom Murtha, he was the defense counsel in this case
24:31
Speaker 3: where he was a year and a half out of
24:32
Speaker 3: law school. This case was dumped on and there was
24:35
Speaker 3: a change of venue so it was up in International Falls,
24:38
Speaker 3: right on the Canadian border. So he had to drive
24:40
Speaker 3: up there in a station wagon with the files in
24:43
Speaker 3: the back without much support.
24:46
Speaker 4: And I think they knew what they were doing. Minnesota's
24:50
Speaker 4: prejudice against state of Americans, and the farther you go
24:53
Speaker 4: up north, the more prende there. They had me at
24:56
Speaker 4: the tip of the state.
24:57
Speaker 3: Here's an interesting thing too. Before where the trial started,
25:01
Speaker 3: the judge brought the prosecutor in and Tom Earth and
25:05
Speaker 3: Brian in and said, look, can we do a deal here.
25:08
Speaker 4: Prosecutor said, well, we'll take life off the table and
25:11
Speaker 4: we'll give you seventeen or eighteen years something like that.
25:15
Speaker 4: And then the judge because, well, i'll tell you this,
25:18
Speaker 4: I don't care what he's cofering you. I'll give you
25:21
Speaker 4: seven years. And I already had two years in. I thought, well,
25:26
Speaker 4: three years left, and I said, well, that's an excellent deal.
25:29
Speaker 4: And if I was guilty, I would take it. But
25:32
Speaker 4: I'm not guilty, and I can't see myself admitting to
25:34
Speaker 4: something that I didn't do.
25:36
Speaker 1: So they moved ahead with trial in January two thousand
25:39
Speaker 1: and one, presenting the now congealed but still erroneous narrative
25:44
Speaker 1: through Raymond Asquattis, and to impeach him. Brian urged Tom
25:48
Speaker 1: Murtha to ask about the condition of the house to
25:50
Speaker 1: which they'd allegedly fled in the aftermath.
25:54
Speaker 4: And he described it as a hold born out, born
25:58
Speaker 4: down party house. The windows broke, red, shag carpeting, brown experior,
26:05
Speaker 4: and the house was enhing like that, and it been remodeled.
26:10
Speaker 4: My brother was living in there with his girlfriend Mary
26:14
Speaker 4: Bleacan at the time, so that couldn't have been possible
26:18
Speaker 4: the police knew this, the sheriff say this, Yet.
26:21
Speaker 1: This false narrative was still presented. Unfortunately, Tommrtha had not
26:26
Speaker 1: yet uncovered all the internal inconsistencies and blatant falsehoods, including
26:32
Speaker 1: the basement entry theory.
26:34
Speaker 3: The forensic technician from the BCA who testified to that
26:39
Speaker 3: did so in an extremely superficial way. He just said
26:42
Speaker 3: the point of entry was this window. There was no
26:45
Speaker 3: analysis done. Two different experts have reviewed the forensics and
26:50
Speaker 3: the physical evidence surrounding that window independently. They came to
26:54
Speaker 3: the conclusion that the window entry was staged, that the
26:58
Speaker 3: wooden slats were pried off the inside with a tool.
27:01
Speaker 3: There's tool marks, that the muntains that separate the panes
27:05
Speaker 3: were removed and placed neatly in a spot where they
27:07
Speaker 3: wouldn't have fallen. Two panes of glass were removed and
27:11
Speaker 3: placed outside. The other pane was broken, but the glass
27:15
Speaker 3: from that was actually in the window well, which means
27:18
Speaker 3: it was broken from the inside. And then there was
27:20
Speaker 3: large pieces of that pane that were placed again not
27:25
Speaker 3: where they would have fallen, in fact where they could
27:27
Speaker 3: not have fallen.
27:28
Speaker 1: So it appears that someone broke this window out from
27:31
Speaker 1: the inside. It may have been staged or maybe had
27:34
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this crime at all. It's unclear.
27:37
Speaker 1: But what is clear is the implausibility of an unscathed
27:41
Speaker 1: entrance through this basement window.
27:44
Speaker 3: There was a screw protruding into the area of the
27:47
Speaker 3: window that you would have caught something on if you
27:50
Speaker 3: had gone through there. Where the muntains were broken, there
27:53
Speaker 3: were pointed pieces that would have caught somebody's fabric if
27:57
Speaker 3: they had gone through there. There was no footprints or
28:00
Speaker 3: any sign that anybody landed on the boxes below. Nothing
28:04
Speaker 3: from the window well, which had leaves and pine needles
28:07
Speaker 3: and so forth, was discovered beneath the window. There's no
28:10
Speaker 3: set of footprints that lead from the window over to
28:14
Speaker 3: the trap door. So there's no forensic evidence supporting the
28:19
Speaker 3: idea that somebody went through this window other than the
28:21
Speaker 3: window was open, and all of the forensic evidence is
28:26
Speaker 3: that nobody did in fact go through the window. No
28:29
Speaker 3: part of that case with Stan's scrutiny in any respect forensically, physically,
28:35
Speaker 3: the objective evidence.
28:36
Speaker 1: And let's not forget the chair blocking the trap door,
28:39
Speaker 1: or the currently misplaced dead bolt that was locked and
28:44
Speaker 1: required a key, which would have destroyed the state's theory,
28:48
Speaker 1: but none of it was discovered by his trial attorney
28:50
Speaker 1: and pointed out to the jury.
28:52
Speaker 3: And fairness to Tom Mirtha, he had not tried to
28:55
Speaker 3: fell any case before. I'm not even sure he tried
28:57
Speaker 3: any cases before, but he did put on a defense.
29:00
Speaker 3: He called Michael Musquade says to the alibi the pawnshop
29:03
Speaker 3: operator to authenticate the pawnshop ticket.
29:07
Speaker 4: I had a charge of talents to get gas at
29:09
Speaker 4: the local gas station in town. I had a bart tab.
29:13
Speaker 3: And then the prosecute tried to argue that he fabricated
29:16
Speaker 3: this alibi while he was awaiting trial with his relatives. Unfortunately,
29:22
Speaker 3: his attorney at the time didn't make the point that
29:25
Speaker 3: they knew about this alibi back in March of nineteen
29:28
Speaker 3: ninety eight, so he didn't fabricate it. And they said, well,
29:30
Speaker 3: when we asked him about what he was doing that day,
29:32
Speaker 3: he didn't come up with the alibi. And Brian's answer
29:34
Speaker 3: to that is, I didn't know exactly what day this
29:36
Speaker 3: murder occurred. I had nothing to do with it, so
29:38
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily put together that I was at the
29:40
Speaker 3: casino until my nephews told me that and my mother, Agnes,
29:44
Speaker 3: chief said hey, wait a minute, you don't you have
29:46
Speaker 3: a pawn receipt from that day.
29:48
Speaker 4: None of that came in, and they call the head
29:52
Speaker 4: of security for Malax Casino and he says, yeah, we
29:57
Speaker 4: don't have any record of at Aime at Picsino. And
30:02
Speaker 4: that was all just for show because they knew that
30:05
Speaker 4: no records exist because they were changing the security systems
30:10
Speaker 4: at that time. There was no evidence linking me to
30:14
Speaker 4: any of us to the crime. No motivation, they said,
30:17
Speaker 4: motivate didn't have a factor in Minnesota courts, and the
30:20
Speaker 4: only thing I had was my nephew testifying and that
30:24
Speaker 4: jail house.
30:25
Speaker 3: In foremant, Peter Arnaldi said that Brian felt a great
30:29
Speaker 3: deal of remorse about what had happened, that they had
30:32
Speaker 3: killed this lady as part of a burglary, and he
30:34
Speaker 3: was going to try and get his relatives to conjure
30:38
Speaker 3: an alibi for him, and that they arrived in his
30:42
Speaker 3: mother's van and they had gone in and robbed the
30:45
Speaker 3: place of beer and cigarettes and murdered Evelyn mail It.
30:49
Speaker 3: He did have to admit that Brian had showed him
30:51
Speaker 3: the criminal complaint, and that's of course where the soft
30:53
Speaker 3: tissue injuries were disclosed, which were not Kleenex, and.
30:57
Speaker 4: Alas seemed like he was a professional. Even I thought, Wow,
31:02
Speaker 4: this guy, he really sounds like what he's talking about.
31:05
Speaker 4: If I was a jurior, I believe. I think we
31:08
Speaker 4: impeached Arnuldy and it really didn't add to the jury.
31:13
Speaker 4: They you now, like Native Americans up there in northern
31:17
Speaker 4: Minnesota was at the tip of the state. They don't
31:20
Speaker 4: even like outfighters.
31:21
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have hope that when they came
31:24
Speaker 1: back from you know, deliberation, that things might go your way.
31:27
Speaker 4: No, my attorney did. And then he said, well, what
31:30
Speaker 4: are you going to do when you get out? I said, well,
31:32
Speaker 4: this thing is not over it. I looked at the
31:35
Speaker 4: jury and and micarea or micro expression. I'm not planning
31:40
Speaker 4: on anything. And I believe it was three days later
31:43
Speaker 4: that they came back to guilty verdict. And I think
31:48
Speaker 4: the judge was so mad at me that I didn't
31:51
Speaker 4: take his seven year offer that he gave me a
31:55
Speaker 4: double maximum of two light sentences without stility of paroles.
32:16
Speaker 4: I got sent to fill Water prison and I guars
32:21
Speaker 4: a treaty according to here crime and Mane was a
32:24
Speaker 4: heinous crime against an old lady, so didn't treat me
32:27
Speaker 4: very fearly. I ended up in the hole quite a bit.
32:31
Speaker 4: I felt tough, kind of targeted. You passed the time
32:36
Speaker 4: by working, doing anything you can, staying as busy as
32:40
Speaker 4: you can't. I do that right now. I developed a routine,
32:44
Speaker 4: a routine that I fall every day and really go
32:47
Speaker 4: off course. I just stayed as busy as I can
32:51
Speaker 4: and it helps pass the time.
32:53
Speaker 1: Of course, part of that time was passed by appealing
32:55
Speaker 1: his conviction, which was upheld, but his sentence was ruled
33:00
Speaker 1: to be improper and he was resenced to one life
33:03
Speaker 1: term with parole eligibility. Meanwhile, he filed for post conviction
33:08
Speaker 1: relief and was granted a hearing in two thousand and six.
33:11
Speaker 3: The evidence that was presented there was they said there
33:14
Speaker 3: was a false evidence about the door lock, that Merle
33:17
Speaker 3: Malin testified that she wasn't able to lock the door
33:21
Speaker 3: at the trial, but then he admitted that she could
33:23
Speaker 3: lock the door, so that was one element. They had
33:26
Speaker 3: an ineffective assistance of council claim. They had an outdated
33:30
Speaker 3: from Keith Musquade saying that he wasn't there and that
33:33
Speaker 3: he knew that Brian came back from the casino that
33:35
Speaker 3: night at like ten something. Then there was a victim's
33:39
Speaker 3: advocate who had talked to Ray on the phone at
33:42
Speaker 3: some time after the trial, and Ray had said, I
33:45
Speaker 3: just told him what they wanted to hear to get
33:47
Speaker 3: out of this, but they couldn't find him testify. A
33:50
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Craig Lacari was housed with
33:54
Speaker 3: Brian Pippott and Peter Arnaldi, and he said that Arnaldi
33:58
Speaker 3: had told him that Brian's that he was innocent, that
34:01
Speaker 3: he had never said anything about Brian confessing.
34:03
Speaker 4: We pointed out the flaws and our nullity's testimony saying
34:08
Speaker 4: that there was toilet paper steps in her mouth and
34:12
Speaker 4: I complained for soft tissue injuries and somehow he converted
34:19
Speaker 4: that into tissue paper being put in her mouth and
34:23
Speaker 4: they ignored it.
34:24
Speaker 3: That was an affidavid from Lacari. The judge wouldn't rid
34:27
Speaker 3: him out. They didn't have Peter Arnaldi testify, they didn't
34:30
Speaker 3: have all the forensic experts that we've assembled testified. They
34:33
Speaker 3: didn't have Neil King testify. So it was really a
34:37
Speaker 3: pretty tepid presentation and it was denied and appealed and denied.
34:42
Speaker 1: At which point Brian began looking for meaningful pro bono help.
34:47
Speaker 3: Brian Pippott had written to Centurion, so I went out
34:50
Speaker 3: with two other members and we interviewed him, and everything
34:54
Speaker 3: he told me turned out to be true. It took
34:55
Speaker 3: me quite a long time to find Ramus Squades, but
34:58
Speaker 3: when I found him, he was forthcoming about his having
35:02
Speaker 3: not told the truth. I also found Peter Arnaldi initially said, well,
35:06
Speaker 3: you know, they raped her, and I said, Peter, I
35:08
Speaker 3: have the autopsy report. Whoever did this didn't rape her?
35:11
Speaker 3: He said, oh my god. I always thought that you know,
35:13
Speaker 3: these you know, he wasn't charitable about what he called them,
35:16
Speaker 3: went in and raped this old lady. He said, I
35:18
Speaker 3: think I have it all wrong.
35:20
Speaker 1: Perhaps this was just how Arnaldi internally justified his false
35:25
Speaker 1: testimony for personal gain. Either way, Jim continued his investigation,
35:30
Speaker 1: moving on to Neil King.
35:31
Speaker 3: Neil King, he said the basis of his defense was
35:34
Speaker 3: that he was drunk in the backseat of the car,
35:36
Speaker 3: and that wasn't even really the truth. He wasn't even
35:38
Speaker 3: there at all, but he didn't want that disrupted. He
35:41
Speaker 3: felt that Brian Pipptt had implicated him, so he didn't
35:43
Speaker 3: want to help him, even though that wasn't the truth.
35:45
Speaker 3: But he gave us a declaration saying he wasn't there
35:47
Speaker 3: at all. Keith Musquades gave us a declaration saying he
35:50
Speaker 3: wasn't there at all. And then I have this forensic evidence, locksmith,
35:54
Speaker 3: the two different crime scene specialists, and so I put
35:57
Speaker 3: together an application to the CRU in January of two
35:59
Speaker 3: thousand twenty two. It was about seventy five pages long,
36:02
Speaker 3: doing an analysis of the different stories that Raymond told,
36:06
Speaker 3: showing photographs of the lock, and the store supported that
36:09
Speaker 3: with an eight hundred page appendix. So the CRU took
36:13
Speaker 3: the application, they started their own investigation. There's a couple
36:16
Speaker 3: of aspects of that I think we're worth mentioning too,
36:19
Speaker 3: and that is Jim Rats, the County Attorney at the
36:22
Speaker 3: onset of the CRI investigation, signed a memorandum of understanding
36:26
Speaker 3: with the Attorney General's Office and CRU, and from what
36:29
Speaker 3: I understand, he asked for a phrase in that memorandum
36:33
Speaker 3: of understanding that said I'm paraphrasing him in the event
36:37
Speaker 3: that I don't want to support the recommendation of the
36:40
Speaker 3: CRU as the County attorney. If I don't want to
36:42
Speaker 3: execute that recommendation, then in that event I agree that
36:46
Speaker 3: I will surrender jurisdiction to the Attorney General's Office.
36:50
Speaker 1: So it's fair to assume that the county Attorney waived
36:52
Speaker 1: jurisdiction and that the Attorney General's Office Conviction Review Unit
36:56
Speaker 1: has the final say.
36:58
Speaker 3: And I have to say that their investigation is astonishing
37:02
Speaker 3: and how thorough it is. They were able to get
37:04
Speaker 3: in to interview Don Hill in the psychiatric facility, something
37:07
Speaker 3: I was not able to do. They reviewed literally thousands
37:11
Speaker 3: of documents. They interviewed either twenty five or twenty six witnesses,
37:16
Speaker 3: recorded interviews. There was no leading questions. They discovered an
37:21
Speaker 3: alibi witness for Keith Musquades, who I was unable to find.
37:25
Speaker 3: They interviewed the forensic specialists, they retained an expert of
37:30
Speaker 3: their own with respect to the false confession, and ultimately
37:33
Speaker 3: they issued a report that was one hundred and eighty
37:36
Speaker 3: pages long with nine hundred footnotes to source materials. And
37:39
Speaker 3: the guy who did the majority of the investigative work
37:43
Speaker 3: for the CIRIU was an Assistant Attorney General by the
37:45
Speaker 3: name of Carmen Leone and at the end of the investigation,
37:49
Speaker 3: they prepared a draft report that was reviewed not only
37:54
Speaker 3: by carmeon Leone's immediate boss, Carrie Spurling, but by her boss,
37:58
Speaker 3: the Deputy Attorney General, David Voyce. They presented a draft
38:01
Speaker 3: as a courtesy to the BCA and to the county
38:04
Speaker 3: attorney and to the sheriff guide and I said, we're
38:07
Speaker 3: inviting you to make comments on this, and the response
38:12
Speaker 3: was an extremely hostile one, and so they they're contesting it,
38:17
Speaker 3: even though they don't have any inherent standing to do that.
38:20
Speaker 4: I have nothing to hide. I waive attorney client privilege
38:24
Speaker 4: because I knew the county signed an agreement to go
38:27
Speaker 4: along with the filings, and so I've been waiting for
38:31
Speaker 4: two and a half years for this investigation to unfold.
38:35
Speaker 4: And then April I found out that, Hey, they found
38:39
Speaker 4: the truth. They found everything that was going on. This
38:43
Speaker 4: investigation was so thorough. They found stuff that we didn't
38:47
Speaker 4: even find out. And yes, the county didn't like that.
38:51
Speaker 3: The sheriff was very hostile. He said that two courts
38:55
Speaker 3: had already had judged this case. Of course that doesn't
38:58
Speaker 3: mean anything, because everything that we've produced, no court judge
39:01
Speaker 3: or jury hasn't it hurt any of this material? And
39:03
Speaker 3: then he said something along the lines of you have
39:05
Speaker 3: to prove to me beyond reasonable doubt that he didn't
39:09
Speaker 3: do this, and I don't think you're going to be
39:10
Speaker 3: able to do that. He also said at one point,
39:14
Speaker 3: you never did a reenactment of anybody going through that window,
39:17
Speaker 3: So how do you know that somebody couldn't get through
39:18
Speaker 3: the window. And then he also said something along the
39:21
Speaker 3: lines of I knew Keith Musquaddies from years ago. He's
39:23
Speaker 3: a very athletic guy. He could have gotten through the window.
39:26
Speaker 3: The position has never been that it's physically impossible for
39:29
Speaker 3: someone to get through the window. Oh, it's tough. It's
39:32
Speaker 3: that nobody did go through the window, given the forensic
39:34
Speaker 3: evidence at the scene. And when Carmen Leone said something
39:37
Speaker 3: along the lines of, well there was cat blood there.
39:40
Speaker 3: You know, I guess a cat couldn't get through it
39:42
Speaker 3: because I've lived with cats all my life. I no
39:44
Speaker 3: cat's going to cut itself. So Carmen said to him, well,
39:47
Speaker 3: how do you think the cat blood got there? This
39:49
Speaker 3: is the mentality we're dealing with. He said, I think
39:51
Speaker 3: the misquadies went out and killed a cat and put
39:53
Speaker 3: its blood on there to put us off the track.
39:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds reasonable.
39:56
Speaker 3: The BCA said we're going to do our own investigation,
39:59
Speaker 3: and they hired three outside people, was the experts. I
40:02
Speaker 3: don't know what the terms of those agreements are, and
40:05
Speaker 3: their motivation is undisguised that the purpose of their parallel
40:10
Speaker 3: investigation is to find something, anything, that they can use
40:14
Speaker 3: to discredit the CRU report, and so far their investigation,
40:18
Speaker 3: when you compare it to what the CRU did, is laughable.
40:21
Speaker 3: I mean, they interviewed George Horseman, but they didn't record it,
40:25
Speaker 3: and they got a summary of a statement from him,
40:27
Speaker 3: and what it was clear was that they were trying
40:29
Speaker 3: to get him to move off of his steadfast position
40:34
Speaker 3: that no peer, no cigarettes were missing. The store portion
40:37
Speaker 3: of the building was untouched, and they evidently they got
40:40
Speaker 3: him to look at some photographs and say, well, maybe
40:42
Speaker 3: there were some cigaretts there that are missing, and I
40:44
Speaker 3: guess he kind of went, well maybe, you know. Then
40:47
Speaker 3: they did a reenactment of someone making their way through
40:49
Speaker 3: the window. They were able to show that somebody could
40:51
Speaker 3: physically make their way through the window, but without the
40:54
Speaker 3: nail protruding, without the glass in it without the munting parts.
40:59
Speaker 3: Even then the kid was going through it caught his
41:01
Speaker 3: shirt on the wooden.
41:03
Speaker 1: Frame, which has always been the misunderstanding. The issue isn't
41:07
Speaker 1: whether someone could get through the window, but whether they
41:10
Speaker 1: could do it without leaving any evidence behind. Not even
41:14
Speaker 1: a cat could do it.
41:15
Speaker 3: Now, we labored under the impression that Jim rats the
41:18
Speaker 3: county attorney. He's a man of his word, because we
41:21
Speaker 3: could have been advancing our case through the court system
41:23
Speaker 3: as opposed to going through the cru which took two years.
41:27
Speaker 3: So he's renegged on that. He hasn't given any reason
41:31
Speaker 3: for that other than I think he's getting pressure from
41:33
Speaker 3: his sheriff there and maybe the BCA. So we filed
41:37
Speaker 3: a seventy five page petition with the Aiken County Court.
41:41
Speaker 3: We've asked for some discovery. I want to know what's
41:43
Speaker 3: going on with the so called consultants from the BCA.
41:47
Speaker 3: I want that DNA testing evidence from the BCA. There's
41:51
Speaker 3: a wallet that we believe the assailant touched the cuttings
41:54
Speaker 3: from the nightgown. Evidently there was some material under her fingernails,
41:59
Speaker 3: we understand, and last January, when the Attorney General's Office
42:03
Speaker 3: was investigating the case. Person from the BCA contacted Carmen
42:07
Speaker 3: Leones and said there's insufficient male DNA under her fingernails
42:12
Speaker 3: to warrant any further testing. So I have requested those
42:16
Speaker 3: test materials. There's evidently a quant test done. There must
42:20
Speaker 3: have been enough there for them to determine that it
42:22
Speaker 3: was mail DNA, and thus far they've not been forthcoming
42:25
Speaker 3: with providing that to us. And so the defense to
42:28
Speaker 3: our petition, our seventy five page petition was a nine
42:31
Speaker 3: page reply by the county attorney. It has some allegations
42:36
Speaker 3: that are demonstrably false, and it basically relies in kind
42:40
Speaker 3: of an amalgam of some technical claims. Well, this has
42:44
Speaker 3: already been adjudged. What are we doing here? That's the
42:47
Speaker 3: extent of what they've put in to defend against this.
42:50
Speaker 1: But there is a way to circumvent them.
42:52
Speaker 3: Tim Walls has the power to take the case from
42:55
Speaker 3: the county attorney and give it to Keith Ellison. He
42:58
Speaker 3: will not do that without Keith Ellison and formally asking
43:01
Speaker 3: him to do that. I think with the election pending,
43:04
Speaker 3: there's little appetite to do that. Keith Ellison also has
43:08
Speaker 3: to maintain working relationships with the various county attorneys, and
43:12
Speaker 3: taking this from the county attorney could be problematic for.
43:16
Speaker 1: Him, although I wish this was treated with the urgency
43:20
Speaker 1: it deserves. After November twenty twenty four, either Tim Waltz
43:24
Speaker 1: or Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who happens to be of
43:28
Speaker 1: the White Earth Band of Ojaboy, will be able to
43:31
Speaker 1: empower Keith Ellison to do what is right. We have
43:34
Speaker 1: linked a petition in the episode description to show your support,
43:37
Speaker 1: and with that we go to our closing, in which
43:40
Speaker 1: I'm going to thank our guests for joining us today
43:42
Speaker 1: and then just sit back and lock it up as
43:45
Speaker 1: they share their final thoughts.
43:47
Speaker 3: The bottom line is that Brian Pippott was not there,
43:50
Speaker 3: He had no involvement in this case. He doesn't know
43:53
Speaker 3: who did it, and he's been wrongfully charged and convicted,
43:57
Speaker 3: and the authorities at this point are not treating him fairly.
44:02
Speaker 3: Law enforcement's so called investigation of this, I have to say,
44:06
Speaker 3: is a discredit to law enforcement because it's not an
44:09
Speaker 3: honest investigation, and by that I mean the BCA and
44:13
Speaker 3: sheriff guide his investigation. The man should be let out.
44:16
Speaker 3: He's innocent. Anybody who's looked at this case in any
44:20
Speaker 3: real detail, which is my organization. The Attorney General's Office
44:24
Speaker 3: and Mitchell Hamlin Law School Clinic studied the case and
44:28
Speaker 3: did a pretty comprehensive job themselves, has determined that he
44:32
Speaker 3: is factually innocent. Yet he languishes in prison, has been
44:36
Speaker 3: there for twenty five years. His relatives have died in
44:39
Speaker 3: the meantime. Let the man out.
44:41
Speaker 4: I'd like to say Jim Cousins and the Centurion Ministries
44:46
Speaker 4: for helping me throughout Pears and the fear you for
44:51
Speaker 4: highly time and time and the truth. What's got made
44:54
Speaker 4: through this twenty six years is hope that the truth
44:58
Speaker 4: will come out. It has and as a state prosecutor,
45:03
Speaker 4: Keith ellis and he knows the truth. And I can't
45:07
Speaker 4: understand why he will not ask for this case because
45:12
Speaker 4: the way it was explained to me is that other
45:15
Speaker 4: prosecutors will get mad because he took the case away
45:19
Speaker 4: from accounting. Well, he's doing what's right. His job is
45:23
Speaker 4: not about making friends keeping friends, whether people will like
45:27
Speaker 4: what he does. It's his job, see and something he
45:34
Speaker 4: could do. Sixty two years old. Native Americans don't have
45:38
Speaker 4: that long of a lifespan, and I don't want to
45:41
Speaker 4: die in prison. I have this belief that your soul
45:45
Speaker 4: stays where you die, and I don't want my still
45:49
Speaker 4: staying around prison for eternity. And I wanted to be
45:54
Speaker 4: around family and around nature where I feel connection. I
45:58
Speaker 4: figure I've got ten years at the most, I want
46:02
Speaker 4: to live life lived.
46:09
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
46:12
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
46:14
Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
46:17
Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
46:20
Speaker 2: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
46:23
Speaker 2: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
46:26
Speaker 2: The music in this production was supplied by three time
46:28
Speaker 2: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
46:31
Speaker 2: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
46:34
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
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Speaker 2: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
46:40
Speaker 2: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
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Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
46:46
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
46:48
Speaker 1: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
46:51
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good