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Transcript

Ashley Estell Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathwe Chile for part two of
0:34
Speaker 1: our series about the murder of Ashley Estell. Robin, do
0:37
Speaker 1: you want to catch everyone up on what we talked
0:39
Speaker 1: about in our previous episode.
0:41
Speaker 2: Well, this is a heartbreaking case involving a seven year
0:43
Speaker 2: old victim named Ashley Estelle who lived in Plano, Texas
0:47
Speaker 2: in September of nineteen ninety three, and she was going
0:50
Speaker 2: to her brother's soccer tournament in the middle of a
0:52
Speaker 2: public park and she separated from her parents for a
0:55
Speaker 2: few minutes to go play in the playground. But even
0:58
Speaker 2: though there were hundreds of people around, she somehow got
1:01
Speaker 2: abducted without anyone seeing or hearing anything, and the following day,
1:05
Speaker 2: her murdered body would be discovered next to a remote
1:08
Speaker 2: country road and would turn out that she had been
1:10
Speaker 2: strangled to death. It was long before a potential suspect
1:13
Speaker 2: named Michael Blair popped up on the radar. He was
1:16
Speaker 2: a convicted sex offender who had spent time in prison
1:20
Speaker 2: for attempting to sexually assault and kidnap a young girl
1:24
Speaker 2: from her bedroom, and even though he received a ten
1:26
Speaker 2: year prison sense, he was released after only serving eighteen months.
1:32
Speaker 2: He caught on the investigator's attention because he drove by
1:35
Speaker 2: Ashley Estelle's murder scene and he seemed to have a
1:38
Speaker 2: weird obsession with the case, so they gradually built a
1:41
Speaker 2: case against him, and he was finally charged with Ashley's murder,
1:45
Speaker 2: and it turned out that most of the case against
1:47
Speaker 2: him was based on what we now know as junk science,
1:49
Speaker 2: because they found hairs on Ashley's body, but of course
1:53
Speaker 2: they did not match Blair, and they found hairs and
1:55
Speaker 2: fiber evidence in his car, but of course none of
1:58
Speaker 2: it could be linked to Ashley or the murder scene.
2:01
Speaker 2: And Blair was definitely a bad guy because he did
2:04
Speaker 2: have an extensive history of molesting children and because he
2:07
Speaker 2: was painted as such a monster in court. He was
2:10
Speaker 2: convicted at his trial, but surprisingly he spent eighteen years
2:15
Speaker 2: on death row. But they did DNA testing against the evidence,
2:19
Speaker 2: and surprisingly it turned out that none of it actually
2:23
Speaker 2: match Blair. He was exonerated as being responsible for Ashley's murder,
2:27
Speaker 2: but because while he was in prison he had confessed
2:30
Speaker 2: to molesting some other children before he was charged with
2:33
Speaker 2: the murder, he wound up getting some additional life sentences
2:37
Speaker 2: added to his original death sentence. So even though he
2:39
Speaker 2: was taken off death row, he was not released from prison.
2:43
Speaker 2: Emerald Man incarcerated for the rest of his life because
2:45
Speaker 2: of his other child sex offenses. So they've attempted to
2:50
Speaker 2: try to figure out who Ashley's real killer might be.
2:53
Speaker 2: They looked at an unnamed individual named Suspect number four,
2:56
Speaker 2: who has since passed away, but they've yet to find
2:59
Speaker 2: any evidence such as DNA which proves he could have
3:02
Speaker 2: been responsible for murdering Ashley. So officially, after thirty years,
3:07
Speaker 2: more than thirty years, this crime is still unsolved. Now.
3:11
Speaker 2: This is definitely one of the most complex wrongful conviction
3:14
Speaker 2: cases I've ever come across, and it's pretty remarkable to
3:17
Speaker 2: see how this story has evolved over the past three decades.
3:21
Speaker 2: If you type Ashley Estelle's name into YouTube, you'll find
3:24
Speaker 2: a one hour clip which is a compilation of local
3:27
Speaker 2: news segments which aired in the year following her murder
3:30
Speaker 2: and chronicled the investigation and arrest of Michael Blair, along
3:34
Speaker 2: with his subsequent trial and conviction. And if you were
3:38
Speaker 2: following the media coverage at that time, it would really
3:41
Speaker 2: be hard to imagine Blair being innocent of this crime.
3:44
Speaker 2: There was zero doubt that Blair was a dangerous sexual
3:47
Speaker 2: predator who armed children, and many of those aforementioned news
3:51
Speaker 2: segments put a heavy emphasis on the fact that he
3:53
Speaker 2: was senced to ten years in prison for attempting to
3:56
Speaker 2: assault and abduct an eleven year old girl, but he
3:59
Speaker 2: wound up being after serving only eighteen months. This escalated
4:04
Speaker 2: into quite a scandal, as the Texas Board of Pardons
4:06
Speaker 2: and Pearles tried to do a lot of covering up
4:09
Speaker 2: to justify their decision, such as concocting a really lame
4:13
Speaker 2: story about how the paperwork about Blair's attack on the
4:16
Speaker 2: girl was mistakenly left out of his file at his
4:19
Speaker 2: parole hearing. Well, the fact of the matter is that
4:22
Speaker 2: Blair's early release was due largely to an epidemic of
4:25
Speaker 2: serious prison overcrowding which took place in Texas during the
4:29
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties and early nineties. It reached the point where
4:32
Speaker 2: as many inmates as possible had to receive parole or
4:35
Speaker 2: early release in order to deal with this issue, and unfortunately,
4:40
Speaker 2: this meant that some dangerous criminals were allowed to walk
4:42
Speaker 2: back out under the streets and wound up reoffending. So
4:46
Speaker 2: you can imagine the outrage when everyone believed that Blair
4:49
Speaker 2: murdered Ashley Estelle during a time period he should have
4:52
Speaker 2: been behind bars serving a ten year sentence. As we
4:56
Speaker 2: mentioned in our last episode, this whole controversy led to
4:59
Speaker 2: the passing of Ashley the Laws, which ensured that sex
5:02
Speaker 2: offenders who harm children when receive harsher sentences lesser chances
5:06
Speaker 2: of parole and mandatory sex offender registration if they did
5:09
Speaker 2: get released. Now, even though he did not actually kill Ashley,
5:13
Speaker 2: we know that Blair did molest some children after he
5:17
Speaker 2: was parolled, so the decision to release him still had
5:20
Speaker 2: negative consequences. Those who champion Ashley's Laws do not believe
5:24
Speaker 2: Blair's exoneration made the legislation any less worthwhile, and I
5:28
Speaker 2: do agree with that though it's pretty ironic how these
5:31
Speaker 2: laws stem from a case which turned out to be
5:34
Speaker 2: a wrongful conviction.
5:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you step back and you think about these laws,
5:39
Speaker 3: that Ashley's Laws that come out, I don't think anyone
5:42
Speaker 3: would say those shouldn't be in place.
5:44
Speaker 4: When you look at the idea that it.
5:47
Speaker 3: Took a person who was wrongfully convicted of the murder
5:52
Speaker 3: of a child for these laws to pass, none of
5:55
Speaker 3: these laws are about murder. There to get a notification
5:59
Speaker 3: and I didn't vcation and awareness about who sexual predators
6:02
Speaker 3: are in the community and to get higher punishments for
6:06
Speaker 3: these sex offenders. That should have been in place long
6:09
Speaker 3: before Ashley Estelle was ever killed. That should have been
6:12
Speaker 3: in place when they started to pay attention to the
6:15
Speaker 3: serial nature of child sex offenders, when they started to
6:18
Speaker 3: pay attention to the fact that once they start offending
6:22
Speaker 3: against a child, it's likely that that's something that is
6:24
Speaker 3: going to be continuous. It's something that will escalate, it's
6:28
Speaker 3: something that's really difficult to overcome. And so why it
6:32
Speaker 3: took Ashley's death is what's frustrating. And you do have
6:36
Speaker 3: to step back and say, you know, are we basing
6:39
Speaker 3: it on his sexual offenses that he committed, because we
6:43
Speaker 3: know that Blair did have sexual offenses against children. So
6:47
Speaker 3: Blair alone could have been an example for Ashley's law
6:50
Speaker 3: without Ashley's murder. So the part that maddens me is
6:53
Speaker 3: that the murder of this little child should have had
6:56
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the existence of these laws in
6:58
Speaker 3: the first place. But I I'm grateful as a mother
7:01
Speaker 3: and a community person and someone who wants to protect
7:03
Speaker 3: the children of our communities that these laws are on
7:06
Speaker 3: the books.
7:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I should have mention that the overcrowding in
7:10
Speaker 2: prisons in Texas was a serious issue during the nineteen eighties,
7:13
Speaker 2: and there were criminals even worse than Michael Blair who
7:16
Speaker 2: wound up getting released even though they really shouldn't have been.
7:19
Speaker 2: And one of those is serial killer Kenneth McDuff, who
7:22
Speaker 2: was originally sentenced to death for a murder from the
7:25
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, got it commuted to life imprisonment, but then
7:28
Speaker 2: got released in nineteen eighty nine because the prisons were
7:31
Speaker 2: so crowded that they just had to start releasing dangerous
7:35
Speaker 2: offenders and hope they had rehabilitated. And then Kenneth McDuck
7:38
Speaker 2: went on to kill more people before he was recaptured.
7:41
Speaker 2: So this was a rampant problem. And it is a
7:44
Speaker 2: big shame that Michael Player, even though he did not
7:46
Speaker 2: kill Ashley, did wind up harming other children after his
7:50
Speaker 2: early release.
7:51
Speaker 1: I don't know how I didn't know that about Texas.
7:54
Speaker 1: I had this idea in my head that they're so
7:56
Speaker 1: tough on crime that I thought that it wasn't possible
7:59
Speaker 1: that they would rule least all of these prisoners prematurely.
8:02
Speaker 1: It goes against this obviously false belief that I held.
8:05
Speaker 1: This is really wild, but as sho, didn't you live
8:08
Speaker 1: in Texas for a while.
8:09
Speaker 3: I did, And I believe that McDuff actually told the
8:13
Speaker 3: prison officials and the sheriff that if you release me,
8:16
Speaker 3: you're going to have another body on your doorstep. And
8:19
Speaker 3: he followed through with that after he was released, and
8:21
Speaker 3: so they it was almost no systematic approach to it.
8:26
Speaker 3: It was, oh, you murdered someone, likelihood you'd kill again
8:30
Speaker 3: is lo How do you know that?
8:32
Speaker 4: Right?
8:33
Speaker 3: Because he was a dangerous offender, and so he even
8:37
Speaker 3: said you should not release me, and then he went
8:40
Speaker 3: on to kill. Beyond that, it became to the point
8:42
Speaker 3: where it was just so overcrowded they desperately had to
8:45
Speaker 3: start opening doors and figuring out, you know, we're going
8:47
Speaker 3: to take a gamble, and a lot of those gambles
8:49
Speaker 3: did not pay off. Texas is crazy. It's very very
8:53
Speaker 3: harsh on crime. But then they do just like every
8:56
Speaker 3: other you know, corrections department, when they don't have the
9:01
Speaker 3: budget and they don't have the space, it almost seems
9:03
Speaker 3: like they're not really looking at the data when they
9:06
Speaker 3: make some of these decisions.
9:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a situation where they were
9:10
Speaker 2: just too tough on crime and as a result, they
9:12
Speaker 2: did not have a space for all their prisoners.
9:15
Speaker 1: So there's really no other way to say this. Michael
9:18
Speaker 1: Blair is a sick human being and he most definitely
9:22
Speaker 1: deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life.
9:25
Speaker 1: This isn't like most other wrongful conviction cases, as there
9:29
Speaker 1: was no emotional scene where an innocent person walked out
9:32
Speaker 1: of prison to experience freedom for the first time in years.
9:37
Speaker 1: Even though his death sentence was overturned ensuring that he
9:40
Speaker 1: would not be executed for murder, Blair had already received
9:44
Speaker 1: multiple life sentences for molesting other children, so the only
9:48
Speaker 1: change was that he was transferred from death row to
9:51
Speaker 1: the prison's general population. I know everyone was pretty insulted
9:55
Speaker 1: when Blair sought one million in compensation for his wrongful conviction.
10:00
Speaker 1: A few years earlier, Texas had passed a bill called
10:03
Speaker 1: the Tim Cole Act, named after a young man who
10:06
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted of rape and died in prison before
10:09
Speaker 1: his family used DNA evidence to exonerate him and earn
10:13
Speaker 1: him a posthumous pardon. The Tim Cole Act ensured that
10:17
Speaker 1: anyone who was wrongfully convicted would receive one hundred and
10:21
Speaker 1: sixty thousand for each year of incarceration, but Cole's brother
10:25
Speaker 1: publicly stated that awarding that type of compensation to Blair,
10:29
Speaker 1: who was guilty of a number of other terrible crimes,
10:33
Speaker 1: would soil his brother's name and memory. It's a valid
10:36
Speaker 1: point since the money is supposed to help wrongfully convicted
10:39
Speaker 1: people to readjust to society, and there's no reason a
10:43
Speaker 1: child molestor who is going to remain locked up for
10:46
Speaker 1: the rest of his life needs one million dollars, which
10:49
Speaker 1: is why his request was ultimately rejected.
10:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, honestly, when you look at Blair's case,
10:56
Speaker 3: a lot of states have these clauses built in that'll
10:59
Speaker 3: say if if you are a dangerous offender, if you
11:01
Speaker 3: have a record, if you have things that would have
11:03
Speaker 3: made the police more likely to include you in a
11:08
Speaker 3: suspect pool or elevate your suspects status, that those things
11:12
Speaker 3: can all chip away into the compensation decision. And so
11:16
Speaker 3: even though there are compensation statutes on the books, there's
11:20
Speaker 3: also exceptions woven in to say, oh that would take
11:23
Speaker 3: off half of the money. Oh, this would actually exclude
11:25
Speaker 3: you from getting money. And so again I don't think
11:28
Speaker 3: anyone with Blair is going, oh, this poor man, he
11:31
Speaker 3: has to be made whole again. His family needs to
11:33
Speaker 3: be made a whole again.
11:35
Speaker 4: But when you look.
11:36
Speaker 3: At the laws, they're very very pro state. There to
11:40
Speaker 3: protect the Department of Corrections in the state. They are
11:42
Speaker 3: not to protect someone who's wrongfully convicted. So when it
11:45
Speaker 3: isn't someone like Blair. You look at these compensation statutes
11:49
Speaker 3: and on paper, some of them look pretty powerful, but
11:52
Speaker 3: then you'll start to see things where it says, unless
11:54
Speaker 3: it's a DNA exoneration, you will get nothing, and there's
11:58
Speaker 3: these kind of just crazy restrictions on them. Some people
12:03
Speaker 3: walk away with nothing when truly they were not dangerous
12:07
Speaker 3: offenders that put themselves at the heart of the crime.
12:10
Speaker 1: Quick question for you, Ash, I don't know if you
12:12
Speaker 1: know the stats on this, but just maybe in your
12:15
Speaker 1: personal opinion, what percentage of people who are wrongfully incarcerated
12:20
Speaker 1: actually get the compensation that they deserve. And I don't
12:23
Speaker 1: mean people where they've said like you are absolutely factually
12:27
Speaker 1: like innocent of this, but just those who are wrongily
12:31
Speaker 1: incarcerated and who get let out. And I know there's
12:34
Speaker 1: different types of designations or results for that, like you
12:39
Speaker 1: are innocent, you're pardoned of the crime, and then sometimes
12:42
Speaker 1: they're just let out. What percentage did those people get compensation?
12:47
Speaker 3: So a quick surge when you look at it, it
12:49
Speaker 3: says as of twenty twenty three that it looks like
12:53
Speaker 3: around forty one percent of exonerated individuals who have sought
12:58
Speaker 3: payment received it. Now that means that there has to
13:02
Speaker 3: be an attorney who's teaching them and saying, hey, you're
13:05
Speaker 3: eligible for it, you need to go after it, and
13:08
Speaker 3: here's what you should be compensated with.
13:12
Speaker 4: Do people not seek after it if.
13:14
Speaker 3: They know that they're in a jurisdiction where they are
13:17
Speaker 3: not eligible given a set of circumstances. So I think
13:20
Speaker 3: that's a misleading stat I think it's low. And remember too,
13:25
Speaker 3: a lot of people are exonerated or freed, but their
13:30
Speaker 3: criminal record is not always expunged and they're not always
13:33
Speaker 3: released with this freedom pass. And so remember things like
13:36
Speaker 3: an Alfred plea or making an agreement with the state
13:39
Speaker 3: is part of the release of that prisoner, and so
13:43
Speaker 3: in those cases, they aren't able to come after compensation,
13:47
Speaker 3: because they'll say, we'll let you walk today. If you
13:51
Speaker 3: want to plead guilty, we'll let you walk today. If
13:53
Speaker 3: you want to take an Alford plea, you can walk
13:55
Speaker 3: today if you'll sign that you agree that you're not
13:59
Speaker 3: coming after the state. So I mean there's deals like
14:02
Speaker 3: that made all the time. And so if eligible and
14:05
Speaker 3: they've applied for it, forty one percent, I would say
14:08
Speaker 3: a very glow percentage actually get compensated for what they
14:13
Speaker 3: are eligible for what they deserve.
14:17
Speaker 2: It's hard to understand what Blair's motivation might have been
14:20
Speaker 2: when he decided to confess to molesting all these other
14:22
Speaker 2: children while he was on death row. Perhaps he felt
14:25
Speaker 2: there was no way his death sentence was going to
14:27
Speaker 2: be overturned, and he just wanted to clear his conscience
14:30
Speaker 2: before he was executed. I did not want to go
14:33
Speaker 2: into explicit detail about Blair's crimes on these episodes, but
14:36
Speaker 2: if you want to learn more information, go check out
14:39
Speaker 2: the article published in d magazine by Jackie Hilburn in
14:42
Speaker 2: two thousand and one. She interviewed Blair and had to
14:45
Speaker 2: read all those letters he sent her in which he
14:47
Speaker 2: described all his abuse against children in graphic detail. And
14:51
Speaker 2: being a mother herself. This made Hilburn physically ill. It's
14:55
Speaker 2: definitely a good thing that Blair wound up being convicted
14:57
Speaker 2: of additional crimes while he was on death row, because
15:00
Speaker 2: if he had walked out of prison after his murder
15:02
Speaker 2: conviction was overturned, I think it's pretty much a guarantee
15:05
Speaker 2: he would have attempted to harm more children, because it
15:08
Speaker 2: looks like he was one of those serial predators who
15:11
Speaker 2: just cannot stop.
15:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Blair is someone who has an affinity for
15:19
Speaker 3: hurting innocent children. And so when you look at this
15:22
Speaker 3: idea that he is, you know, convicted of these additional crimes,
15:25
Speaker 3: he's put in life, into prison for life. Even though
15:29
Speaker 3: he's exonerated for this murder conviction, it's still incredibly powerful
15:35
Speaker 3: to say, thank goodness someone like this was locked up right.
15:38
Speaker 3: Like you said, there's no grief loss, there's no sadness here,
15:42
Speaker 3: there's no rallies outside saying free this man. He's innocent,
15:46
Speaker 3: you know, release him back into the community where he
15:49
Speaker 3: can be a successful member of our society. I think
15:53
Speaker 3: people were pretty quiet when Blair's conviction was overturned, and
15:57
Speaker 3: like you said, when you look there's a whole lot
15:59
Speaker 3: of def details about Blair and the death of Ashley
16:02
Speaker 3: a stealth and so for on his front, I don't
16:07
Speaker 3: think many people were very upset that he ended up
16:11
Speaker 3: serving life in prison anyway.
16:15
Speaker 1: In most cases, I'd be pretty agast at the idea
16:18
Speaker 1: that the jury at his murder trial took only twenty
16:21
Speaker 1: seven minutes to find him guilty. But I can kind
16:24
Speaker 1: of understand why it happened here. The jury wouldn't have
16:28
Speaker 1: known the physical evidence against him was junk science, or
16:31
Speaker 1: been aware of the credibility issues with Charles Lynch, the
16:34
Speaker 1: forensic analyst who testified against him, And even though Blair
16:38
Speaker 1: denied being a murderer, the trial did not shy away
16:42
Speaker 1: from sharing some of his other heinous crimes, which included
16:45
Speaker 1: raping his six year old half sister when he was
16:48
Speaker 1: a teen. So I can definitely see why the jury
16:51
Speaker 1: would believe that he was more than capable of killing Ashley.
16:56
Speaker 1: It's no secret that Texas is the most pro death
16:59
Speaker 1: penalty state there is, and to sent a number of
17:02
Speaker 1: people to death row who turned out to be innocent.
17:05
Speaker 1: But that doesn't necessarily mean all of those exoneries were
17:08
Speaker 1: good people. If you're on our Patreon pages. You might
17:12
Speaker 1: recall that Robin and I once did an exclusive bonus
17:15
Speaker 1: Minnesot about the nineteen seventy nine murder of Deborah Jackson,
17:19
Speaker 1: who spent forty years as an unidentified Jane Doe known
17:22
Speaker 1: only as Orange Socks. Notorious serial killer Henry Lee Lucas
17:27
Speaker 1: was sentenced to death for her murder after he falsely
17:29
Speaker 1: confessed to it, but the sentence was later commuted to
17:32
Speaker 1: life imprisonment because the evidence clearly showed that Lucas was
17:36
Speaker 1: in an entirely different state at the time the crime
17:39
Speaker 1: took place. Like Michael Blair, Lucas was a vile individual
17:44
Speaker 1: who was guilty of other crimes and deserved to be
17:46
Speaker 1: locked up. But no matter what your views on the
17:49
Speaker 1: death penalty might be, if you execute these monsters for
17:52
Speaker 1: the crimes they did not actually commit, that allows the
17:55
Speaker 1: real killer to get away with it.
17:58
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, Juels for the people in the back,
18:01
Speaker 3: you got to say aloud, right, it allows the real
18:04
Speaker 3: killer to get away with this. So I've often heard
18:07
Speaker 3: people when we're sitting around and we're talking and someone says, oh, yeah,
18:11
Speaker 3: did you hear there's this guy who might not have
18:12
Speaker 3: done this crime and people say, who cares, right, who
18:16
Speaker 3: cares this guy's trouble anyway, or oh man, that guy's
18:19
Speaker 3: been scum ever since you know, he's been here and
18:22
Speaker 3: everyone knows he's a bad guy.
18:24
Speaker 4: And I'm thinking you should care. I care.
18:28
Speaker 3: We care because if the wrong person is locked up
18:32
Speaker 3: and a guilty person is now on the streets, and
18:36
Speaker 3: with crimes like this, with crimes against children, sexual crimes
18:40
Speaker 3: against children, crimes that are going to escalate in intensity,
18:44
Speaker 3: who's the next child that's going to be hurt by
18:48
Speaker 3: this person who actually killed Ashley Stell or Orange socks? Right,
18:52
Speaker 3: So if you do not get the correct defender, if
18:55
Speaker 3: you do not lock up the right person, even though
18:59
Speaker 3: a wrongful conviction should may get someone like Henry Lee
19:02
Speaker 3: Lucas in prison or his sentence elongated, you have a
19:08
Speaker 3: killer or a sexual sadist or someone walking around and
19:12
Speaker 3: everyone is now at risk. So all of us should
19:15
Speaker 3: be carrying. And on the flip side, when you look
19:18
Speaker 3: at people who are executed, same kind of thing where
19:22
Speaker 3: people go, yeah, but they had done all these other things, Well,
19:25
Speaker 3: you want to make sure that our justice system is
19:27
Speaker 3: always getting it right. And with the death penalty, and
19:31
Speaker 3: things like that. If there's a chance that people get
19:33
Speaker 3: it wrong, which we know we see in wrongfulu miicture cases,
19:38
Speaker 3: you just got to be really careful with those kind
19:40
Speaker 3: of ultimate decisions because you can't take them back.
19:44
Speaker 2: And in these situations, I often think of Stephen Avery
19:47
Speaker 2: because no matter what you think of him, he was
19:49
Speaker 2: genuinely wrongfully convicted for the rape charge from nineteen eighty
19:53
Speaker 2: five and served eighteen years for a rape he did
19:56
Speaker 2: not commit. And some people might think, well, he was
19:58
Speaker 2: a terrible person anyway, so he deserved it. But then
20:01
Speaker 2: you remember that the real rapist in that case, Greg Reallen,
20:04
Speaker 2: he wound up braping I think two or three other women. Well,
20:07
Speaker 2: Avery was incarcerated in prison. So that's yet another example
20:10
Speaker 2: where even if someone's a bad human being, you put
20:13
Speaker 2: him in prison for the crimes that you do not commit,
20:15
Speaker 2: and the real killer, the real perpetrator, is free to
20:17
Speaker 2: harm other people. So let's go back to the beginning
20:22
Speaker 2: and see how this crime unfolded. This is another one
20:25
Speaker 2: of those heartbreaking cases in which a child was murdered
20:28
Speaker 2: after seemingly being abducted in the blink of an eye.
20:31
Speaker 2: To recap Ashley Estelle's parents took her to a soccer
20:34
Speaker 2: tournament in Carpenter Park and only let her out of
20:37
Speaker 2: their sight for a few minutes so she could use
20:39
Speaker 2: a swing set at a playground located just a couple
20:42
Speaker 2: yards away. But even though there were literally over one
20:45
Speaker 2: thousand people in the park that day, an unknown perpetrator
20:48
Speaker 2: somehow managed to abduct Ashley and flee the area without
20:52
Speaker 2: anyone seeing anything. This story is every parent's worst nightmare
20:56
Speaker 2: and shows just how easily something horrible like this can
20:59
Speaker 2: have happen. What's even more incredible is that a number
21:03
Speaker 2: of people were filming the soccer games that day, which
21:06
Speaker 2: prompted law enforcement to collect and extensively study their footage,
21:10
Speaker 2: but it doesn't sound like anyone captured anything which provided
21:13
Speaker 2: clues about Ashley's abduction. One of the biggest points which
21:17
Speaker 2: was made in Michael Blair's defense is that there were
21:19
Speaker 2: no witnesses who could place him and Ashley together that day.
21:23
Speaker 2: But there were also no witnesses who could place Ashley
21:26
Speaker 2: with anyone else who might have abducted her, which is
21:28
Speaker 2: why this case is so frustrating.
21:31
Speaker 3: You know, you got to think about what a soccer
21:33
Speaker 3: field looks like when there's a tournament going on, or
21:35
Speaker 3: there's a ton of kids and families. I mean, there's
21:39
Speaker 3: moms and dads there, and so we'd like to think
21:42
Speaker 3: that a sexual predator or a child rapist or killer
21:46
Speaker 3: is going to look like a monster from a movie,
21:51
Speaker 3: but they probably look like a soccer dad or just
21:56
Speaker 3: somebody who's at the public park. So there's no way
22:00
Speaker 3: of saying, oh, you know, this guy was so scary looking,
22:04
Speaker 3: he was so suspicious looking, because there's thousands of people there.
22:09
Speaker 3: There are men and women and children, and so it's
22:13
Speaker 3: you would have to do something pretty grand to stand
22:18
Speaker 3: out amongst those people. Again, at the playground, how many
22:21
Speaker 3: parents were not at the field where their kids were
22:24
Speaker 3: playing and instead we're sitting there watching the playground like
22:29
Speaker 3: a hog. Probably not many, because everyone's kind of centered
22:33
Speaker 3: around that playground, but also watching the soccer field where
22:37
Speaker 3: their other child's playing. And so I just don't think
22:39
Speaker 3: anybody had sharp eyes on the playground. What if someone
22:43
Speaker 3: walked by with a dog on a leash and just
22:44
Speaker 3: gently walked by and said, hey, you want to pet
22:47
Speaker 3: my puppy. Come when you'll come walk the puppy with
22:50
Speaker 3: me and walked off, or oh, did you see that
22:53
Speaker 3: ball over there by the woods? Come help me get
22:55
Speaker 3: that ball in the woods. And just as they're walking
22:58
Speaker 3: by and just take this little one and walk keep walking.
23:02
Speaker 3: Who would beat their eye and think that's not her dad,
23:04
Speaker 3: you know, unless they were looking and hearing and watching
23:06
Speaker 3: that interaction. Specifically, if I just saw a little girl
23:09
Speaker 3: and a younger or average age man walking away, I
23:14
Speaker 3: would think that's that little girl's dad or uncle or
23:17
Speaker 3: coach or something like that. So that situation is just
23:20
Speaker 3: so scary to think of from this perspective, because predators
23:24
Speaker 3: don't stand out. That's how they're successful at getting people
23:28
Speaker 3: to look the other way, or to do things under
23:31
Speaker 3: the noses of people who are watching.
23:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm guessing you ever this person was, it was
23:36
Speaker 2: probably someone very nondescript, not someone that you would just
23:40
Speaker 2: look at and say, ooh, look at that creepy guy
23:42
Speaker 2: over there. That's not someone I want hanging around children.
23:45
Speaker 2: And they were likely able to blend into a crowd,
23:47
Speaker 2: and that might be why they were able to lure
23:49
Speaker 2: Ashley an abductor without anyone seeing anything.
23:53
Speaker 1: It's scary to think that some predators seem to be
23:56
Speaker 1: the best profilers, like they're able to pick just the kid,
24:00
Speaker 1: and they're able to blend in so seamlessly that nobody
24:03
Speaker 1: notices and nobody can clock like what their monstrous intentions
24:08
Speaker 1: are now Well, there are some wrongful conviction cases where
24:12
Speaker 1: it's obvious the authorities knew they were railroading an innocent person.
24:16
Speaker 1: I have no problem believing that the authorities in this
24:19
Speaker 1: case genuinely believe that Michael Blair was the right guy,
24:23
Speaker 1: even putting aside his past record for crimes against children.
24:27
Speaker 1: He first showed up on the police's radar by driving
24:30
Speaker 1: by the murder scene several times. He had a flyer
24:33
Speaker 1: for Ashley's disappearance in his vehicle and a stuffed bunny,
24:37
Speaker 1: which totally fits the profile of a sexual predator using
24:40
Speaker 1: toys to lure children. Blair's alibi on the day of
24:44
Speaker 1: the crime was that he was sleeping in his apartment
24:46
Speaker 1: alone and there was a period of several hours where
24:49
Speaker 1: no other eyewitnesses could account for his whereabouts. Blair's roommate
24:54
Speaker 1: verified that he returned home and found Blair sleeping at
24:56
Speaker 1: four thirty pm, and while the timeframe for Lair to
25:00
Speaker 1: have murdered Ashley and make it back to his apartment
25:03
Speaker 1: by four point thirty would have been tight. It was
25:05
Speaker 1: not impossible, since forensic science was nowhere near as advanced
25:11
Speaker 1: back then as it is today. I'm sure it was
25:13
Speaker 1: easy to believe that the Charles Lynch's testimony about the
25:16
Speaker 1: hair and fiber evidence linking Blair to the crime was legitimate. However,
25:21
Speaker 1: the one thing about the prosecution's case which I did
25:24
Speaker 1: find a bit unethical was placing so much emphasis on
25:29
Speaker 1: some clump of hairs found at Jack Carter Park and
25:32
Speaker 1: having experts testify that the hairs were consistent with Ashley
25:35
Speaker 1: and Blair. This location was two miles away from Carpenter Park,
25:41
Speaker 1: and since there was no evidence that either of them
25:43
Speaker 1: went to that park to begin with, the clump of
25:46
Speaker 1: hairs likely had no connection to the case. If this
25:49
Speaker 1: crime had taken place in the era before DNA testing,
25:53
Speaker 1: I don't think there's much chance that Blair would have
25:55
Speaker 1: been exonerated, but DNA evidence doesn't lie. Though the Colin
26:00
Speaker 1: County District Attorney's office was initially reluctant to acknowledge that
26:04
Speaker 1: they may have convicted the wrong man, to their credit,
26:08
Speaker 1: they did finally change their tune once it became obvious
26:11
Speaker 1: that none of the forensic evidence matched Blair. I'm sure
26:15
Speaker 1: the knowledge that Blair was going to remain incarcerated for
26:18
Speaker 1: his other crimes made the decision to overturn his death
26:21
Speaker 1: sentence much easier.
26:23
Speaker 2: Oh.
26:23
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And when you do have the DNA evidence, it's
26:27
Speaker 3: not guaranteed, but it's much easier to say, hey, look
26:30
Speaker 3: we got it wrong. It's not an argument at that point,
26:34
Speaker 3: and so I think it gave peace of saying he's
26:36
Speaker 3: going to get exonerated for this, but don't worry, he
26:38
Speaker 3: can't be released. But I have to go back to
26:41
Speaker 3: when you're talking about the testimonies. You know, by default,
26:44
Speaker 3: if you think about the way our justice system is designed,
26:47
Speaker 3: it's quote innocent until proven guilty. But by the time
26:50
Speaker 3: you walk into a courtroom in a prison jumpsuit or
26:54
Speaker 3: you know you're being called the main suspect, the jury
26:57
Speaker 3: already believes that the state must have gotten it right,
27:00
Speaker 3: or you wouldn't have gotten that far because we all
27:03
Speaker 3: know of cases that should have been brought to prosecution
27:06
Speaker 3: and they weren't. And so if it makes it that far,
27:09
Speaker 3: the jury already thinks. I'm pretty sure the state knows
27:12
Speaker 3: what they're doing, and so there is an inclination to
27:15
Speaker 3: trust everything that prosecution witnesses say, everything that forensic experts
27:21
Speaker 3: say from a prosecution standpoint, and to automatically cast doubt
27:25
Speaker 3: or lower the significance of any defense witness or defense
27:29
Speaker 3: expert that's put on the stand. And so just by
27:32
Speaker 3: the nature of our justice system, you're in trouble if
27:35
Speaker 3: you're sitting in the defendant seat. And then here at
27:39
Speaker 3: the time, remember, we didn't know as much information about
27:43
Speaker 3: the subjective nature of forensic science, about this junk science
27:47
Speaker 3: that comes about. And even today, if you called one
27:52
Speaker 3: of us up to the stand to testify about issues
27:55
Speaker 3: with eyewitness identification, but a woman gets up and says,
27:58
Speaker 3: I'm one hundred percent sure, and she has tears in
28:00
Speaker 3: her eyes, I will never forget the face of this man,
28:04
Speaker 3: and she's one hundred percent sure. On the day of trial,
28:07
Speaker 3: even with scientific evidence showing a jury why that's not
28:11
Speaker 3: one hundred percent, I still think jurors, as human beings
28:16
Speaker 3: and not scientists, are going to side with the emotional,
28:20
Speaker 3: the kind of normal nature that the prosecution tells the
28:23
Speaker 3: truth that the prosecution is always right and the defense
28:26
Speaker 3: is just trying to get their person off. So it's
28:29
Speaker 3: really complicated.
28:31
Speaker 1: Is that like the Ronald Cotton case? It was it Ronald.
28:33
Speaker 4: Cotton so great.
28:34
Speaker 3: Ronald Cotton is one of the best best cases to
28:37
Speaker 3: look at for a wrongful conviction.
28:38
Speaker 4: Yes, Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton.
28:42
Speaker 2: And I'm sure even though the jury would never admit this,
28:44
Speaker 2: I bet they were influenced by the fact that all
28:46
Speaker 2: of Blair's crimes against children, his sexual offenses were introduced
28:50
Speaker 2: during the trials. So they're thinking to themselves, I'm supposed
28:53
Speaker 2: to remain unbiased. I'm supposed to only look at the
28:55
Speaker 2: evidence which alleges that he killed Ashley. But I'm sure
28:58
Speaker 2: in the back of their mind certain things. There's no
29:00
Speaker 2: way I want to let this man back on the
29:02
Speaker 2: streets because he's obviously, even if he didn't commit this crime,
29:05
Speaker 2: he's still a danger to society. So if the killer
29:08
Speaker 2: wasn't Blair, then who really did abduct and murder Ashley? Well,
29:12
Speaker 2: ironically enough, Blair's defense team spent years pointing the finger
29:16
Speaker 2: at Josh Crowley, an alternate suspect who also turned out
29:19
Speaker 2: to be innocent. Again, I can totally see why people
29:23
Speaker 2: would believe that Crowley was capable of this crime. He
29:26
Speaker 2: had a previous history of child molestation and had fled
29:29
Speaker 2: to Texas from South Carolina to avoid those pending charges,
29:33
Speaker 2: and unlike Blair, Crowley could definitively be placed in Carpenter
29:37
Speaker 2: Park since he was refereeing the soccer games that day.
29:41
Speaker 2: Crowley was briefly questioned by police during the initial stages
29:44
Speaker 2: of the investigation, prompting him to immediately leave town. But
29:48
Speaker 2: as suspicious as that look, I'm sure that was due
29:51
Speaker 2: to the fact that he was wanted on other charges
29:53
Speaker 2: in South Carolina. When questioned about his potential involvement in
29:57
Speaker 2: Ashley's murder, Crowley kept pleading the fil amendment, but when
30:01
Speaker 2: all was said and done, the DNA evidence did not
30:04
Speaker 2: match him either. Strangely enough, even though Crowley was not
30:08
Speaker 2: involved in Ashley's murder, his very presence in the park
30:11
Speaker 2: that day was another strong argument for Ashley's laws. Here
30:15
Speaker 2: was a lot to child molester who somehow managed to
30:18
Speaker 2: obtain a job refereeing children soccer games, So that was
30:21
Speaker 2: probably another sign that stronger measures needed to be taken.
30:26
Speaker 3: It's really really interesting when you look at what sex
30:29
Speaker 3: offenders are able to do what they're able to qualify for,
30:33
Speaker 3: and then some of the things that they're not allowed
30:35
Speaker 3: to do, and some of them just are nonsensical. And
30:38
Speaker 3: then you think of loopholes and things like this where
30:41
Speaker 3: you know, like parent teacher conferences. Right, so if a
30:44
Speaker 3: parent's a convicted sex offender and it's a direct event
30:47
Speaker 3: related to their child, open house, parent teacher conferences, whatever,
30:51
Speaker 3: they can come up to the school for a school
30:53
Speaker 3: event pertaining to their child, Well that is legitimately an
30:57
Speaker 3: event designed around children. And so there's all these very
31:01
Speaker 3: complex and you know nuances, and here you have someone who, oh,
31:05
Speaker 3: there's a child's soccer game, I'm going to referee the
31:08
Speaker 3: children's soccer games. No hard pass. That should not be allowed.
31:12
Speaker 3: He shouldn't be allowed near the children's park. All of
31:15
Speaker 3: those things should have disqualified him from that position. But again,
31:18
Speaker 3: even though he's a dangerous offender, he was not the
31:21
Speaker 3: one who killed Ashley, and he was one of the
31:24
Speaker 3: suspects that was on the radar. I think them looking
31:29
Speaker 3: at the small list around that area of child sex
31:32
Speaker 3: offenders only is where they fell short. We said it
31:36
Speaker 3: on the last episode, But what if it was someone
31:38
Speaker 3: not from the area. What if it's someone who had
31:40
Speaker 3: never been convicted or caught for their crimes against children?
31:44
Speaker 3: What if that's why and how they were able to
31:46
Speaker 3: escalate their crimes and get away with it for so
31:48
Speaker 3: long is because they're an established criminal who's never been caught.
31:53
Speaker 4: So that small scope.
31:55
Speaker 3: Yes, there's people that you should look at, But if
31:57
Speaker 3: you only look at convicted sex offenders, what about the
32:00
Speaker 3: ones who have successfully gotten away?
32:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, because there were a thousand people in the park
32:05
Speaker 2: that day, and I do think there's a good chance
32:07
Speaker 2: that besides Crowley, there were probably other sex offenders there,
32:11
Speaker 2: and some of them probably did not have records at
32:13
Speaker 2: that point and were completely under the radar. So it
32:16
Speaker 2: would not surprise me at all if the same thing
32:18
Speaker 2: applies to Ashley's killer.
32:20
Speaker 1: It now seems like authorities now leaned towards the real
32:24
Speaker 1: killer being a man known only as suspect number four,
32:28
Speaker 1: But since this person has been deceased for two decades,
32:31
Speaker 1: they have elected not to publicly disclose his identity without
32:34
Speaker 1: conclusive evidence. I know that following Blair's exoneration, Barry Sheck,
32:39
Speaker 1: who was quoted as saying that the apparent real perpetrator
32:42
Speaker 1: had no record, though it's unclear if he was specifically
32:46
Speaker 1: referring to Suspect number four. If that's true, then this
32:50
Speaker 1: man obviously slipped through the cracks. There are definitely some
32:55
Speaker 1: things about him which looks suspicious as hell, particularly how
32:59
Speaker 1: he made sure to get at a burial plot as
33:01
Speaker 1: close as possible to Ashley's grave and fabricated a story
33:05
Speaker 1: about having his own child abducted and murdered in a
33:08
Speaker 1: manner which was disturbingly similar to what happened to Ashley.
33:12
Speaker 1: All that being said, there have been a number of
33:14
Speaker 1: documented cases involving missing and murdered children in which a
33:18
Speaker 1: potential suspect popped up on the radar because they seemed
33:22
Speaker 1: to have a creepy obsession with the crime, but then
33:24
Speaker 1: it later turned out that they had no involvement. You
33:27
Speaker 1: could also apply this same logic to Michael Blair, because
33:30
Speaker 1: the only reason he even got implicated in Ashley's case
33:34
Speaker 1: to begin with was because he kept driving past the
33:37
Speaker 1: murder scene. So even those Suspect number four seemed to
33:40
Speaker 1: have his own unhealthy obsession with Ashley, that doesn't necessarily
33:44
Speaker 1: mean he killed her, and the physical evidence does not
33:47
Speaker 1: conclusively link him to the crime.
33:49
Speaker 3: And that's another fact they're tying a lot of these
33:52
Speaker 3: men to they knew Ashley, they went to church with Ashley,
33:55
Speaker 3: they had a familiarity with Ashley. I don't think that's
33:59
Speaker 3: what happened in this case. I think someone said, Hmm,
34:02
Speaker 3: if I want to take a child, where should I
34:03
Speaker 3: go a very populated area so that I'm not actually
34:07
Speaker 3: seen or alone with children. There's going to be so
34:10
Speaker 3: many people, no one will be paying attention. I'm going
34:13
Speaker 3: to look for a child who doesn't seem to have
34:15
Speaker 3: any parents close by, or who seems distracted, or who
34:20
Speaker 3: looks like I don't know my type, and see if
34:23
Speaker 3: I can get her. I know the child that responds
34:26
Speaker 3: to me. And so I don't think he knew Ashley.
34:29
Speaker 3: I think this was a crime of opportunity and something
34:31
Speaker 3: that happened very quickly, and it was an emo that
34:34
Speaker 3: he had successfully done many times, and Ashley just so
34:37
Speaker 3: happened to be there and be the right kind of
34:38
Speaker 3: kid that he could take.
34:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it might be a thing where I'm going
34:42
Speaker 2: to go to a park where all these kids are,
34:43
Speaker 2: I'm going to look for one who's alone, not being
34:45
Speaker 2: watched for by any adults. And because Ashley just happened
34:49
Speaker 2: to be playing on a swing set by herself without
34:51
Speaker 2: her parents watching her, she became the wrong victim who
34:54
Speaker 2: is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
34:57
Speaker 1: And it's so scary too to think about the fact
34:59
Speaker 1: that we know so much about these perpetrators. We think
35:02
Speaker 1: about like the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit and how they've
35:06
Speaker 1: studied all of these murderers and serial rapists and child
35:10
Speaker 1: predators and they found all these different commonalities. But just
35:14
Speaker 1: to think about for a second that we only know
35:18
Speaker 1: these things about people who were caught, those people that
35:21
Speaker 1: made mistakes. The ones that didn't make mistakes, we don't
35:24
Speaker 1: know anything about.
35:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it just makes you wonder, is Ashley's killer
35:29
Speaker 2: someone who got away with it indefinitely and was never
35:32
Speaker 2: arrested for any crime because they just kept managing to
35:35
Speaker 2: get away with it. So the details about the DNA
35:38
Speaker 2: evidence are a bit confusing. It's been stated that suspect
35:42
Speaker 2: number four was excluded as the source of the DNA
35:44
Speaker 2: on the hairs found on Ashley's body and the skin
35:47
Speaker 2: underneath their fingernails, but could not be excluded as the
35:50
Speaker 2: source of the male DNA found on Ashley's shoes. We
35:53
Speaker 2: can't even be one hundred percent certain if the DNA
35:56
Speaker 2: on the shoes belonged to the killer, but since it
35:58
Speaker 2: was not consistent with ashley father or brother, there's a
36:01
Speaker 2: good chance it is the perpetrators. But what's particularly interesting
36:06
Speaker 2: to me is that DNA profiles for two separate males
36:09
Speaker 2: were apparently found on the skin under Ashley's fingernails. So
36:13
Speaker 2: does this mean that multiple people were responsible for Ashley's murder?
36:16
Speaker 2: This is what makes me ponder the possibility that suspect
36:19
Speaker 2: number four was involved in the crime but had an
36:22
Speaker 2: unidentified accomplice who might still be out there somewhere. Of course,
36:26
Speaker 2: the best case scenario is that suspect number four committed
36:29
Speaker 2: the crime alone. Since he's now deceased and cannot harm
36:32
Speaker 2: anyone else, there's a compelling, circumstantial case against them. But
36:36
Speaker 2: it seems that with the evidence they have available, investigators
36:40
Speaker 2: just cannot definitively prove or disprove that suspect number four
36:44
Speaker 2: is connected to the crime. But luckily, as I'm sure
36:47
Speaker 2: you're well aware, the crime fighting technique known as genetic
36:50
Speaker 2: genealogy has helped close the books on a number of
36:53
Speaker 2: cold cases these past several years. In some of these cases,
36:57
Speaker 2: the perpetrator was already dead, but genealogy was able to
37:01
Speaker 2: link them to the crime and prove beyond a shadow
37:04
Speaker 2: of a doubt that they did it. So I think
37:06
Speaker 2: the best chance of achieving closure in Ashley's case would
37:10
Speaker 2: be to upload the DNA evidence they have to a
37:12
Speaker 2: genealogy database and see if it leads to anyone. This
37:16
Speaker 2: could be the best strategy for figuring out whether suspect
37:19
Speaker 2: number four was involved in this crime, and if there
37:22
Speaker 2: were multiple perpetrators.
37:23
Speaker 3: Could you imagine if there were two perpetrators and you
37:27
Speaker 3: have a man who walks by and he's like, have
37:29
Speaker 3: you seen a white dog? And she's like no, And
37:32
Speaker 3: he says, oh my gosh, can you do me a favor?
37:34
Speaker 3: Can you look in those bushes over there or in
37:36
Speaker 3: the woods right there. I'm going to go over here.
37:38
Speaker 3: Can you look in the woods there and come back
37:40
Speaker 3: and tell me if you see my white dog?
37:42
Speaker 4: I'm so sad.
37:43
Speaker 3: And she walks towards where he tells her to walk,
37:45
Speaker 3: and then there's somebody else who's grabbing her and then
37:48
Speaker 3: they meet up. So I mean it is possible that
37:50
Speaker 3: there's a ruse of two men who are hurting and
37:54
Speaker 3: taking children and each have a different role in the process.
37:57
Speaker 4: It would be amazing if genetic genails. She was used here.
38:02
Speaker 1: And one last thing. Only two and a half years
38:05
Speaker 1: after Ashley's murder, another similar crime took place in Texas,
38:10
Speaker 1: which also led to the passing of new legislation named
38:13
Speaker 1: after the victim. On January thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, nine
38:18
Speaker 1: year old Amber Hagerman was abducted while she was out
38:21
Speaker 1: riding her bicycle, and her murdered body was found four
38:24
Speaker 1: days later. As you probably know, this crime led to
38:28
Speaker 1: the implementation of the Amber Alert program, which as a
38:32
Speaker 1: means of spreading the word about child abductions as quickly
38:35
Speaker 1: as possible. Amber's murder is still unsolved, and while there
38:39
Speaker 1: is no evidence to link this crime to Ashley's murder,
38:42
Speaker 1: the fact that it took place in Arlington, just over
38:45
Speaker 1: forty miles away from Plano, has led to speculation that
38:48
Speaker 1: the same perpetrator could have been responsible for killing both girls.
38:53
Speaker 1: But until these crimes are solved, the possibilities are endless.
38:57
Speaker 4: It's so sad.
38:58
Speaker 3: That's exactly what we were saying earlier. You have the
39:01
Speaker 3: risk now are these two girls linked? Are there four
39:05
Speaker 3: other girls? Are there ten other girls? How many children
39:09
Speaker 3: were hurt or killed by the person who who killed Ashley?
39:14
Speaker 3: So without knowing the right person, they were given a
39:17
Speaker 3: free pass because Blair was arrested for this crime. It's
39:20
Speaker 3: absolutely heartbreaking.
39:23
Speaker 2: If by chance, Ashley Estelle and Amber Hagerman's killer are
39:26
Speaker 2: the same person. Amber's murder took place after Blair had
39:29
Speaker 2: already been convicted and sent to death Rose, So I'm
39:32
Speaker 2: sure the perpetrator felt more enabled thinking that they got
39:35
Speaker 2: away with it once, so they'll have no problems getting
39:37
Speaker 2: away with it again. So if you have been to
39:40
Speaker 2: have any information about the unsolved murder of Ashley Estelle,
39:44
Speaker 2: please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley any final thoughts
39:48
Speaker 2: on this case.
39:50
Speaker 3: It's heartbreaking when you think about the grief in this case,
39:54
Speaker 3: and it's not just isolated to the horrific horror that
40:00
Speaker 3: family experienced. Think about the grief of your child being
40:04
Speaker 3: hurt by someone and then murdered, the unfair guilt that
40:10
Speaker 3: that family placed on themselves because they were at this
40:13
Speaker 3: public facility, The way friends and family felt when they said, hey,
40:17
Speaker 3: we were there, what if we missed something right, But
40:20
Speaker 3: then this feeling that we're getting justice for her, we're
40:23
Speaker 3: getting at least accountability for the person who killed her,
40:27
Speaker 3: and feeling that we're going to go through all the
40:29
Speaker 3: horror of a trial. Hear these horrific details, get this
40:33
Speaker 3: man put behind bars, and you step back and you
40:35
Speaker 3: start to say, now we have to.
40:36
Speaker 4: Fight to heal.
40:38
Speaker 3: And then you find out it wasn't him, and so
40:41
Speaker 3: that kind of you know, the how the world is
40:44
Speaker 3: unfair and doesn't work and the justice system failed you,
40:47
Speaker 3: and the fear of how many other little girls could
40:50
Speaker 3: have been hurt and who did it?
40:52
Speaker 4: All of those things add to.
40:54
Speaker 3: The weight of grief on the family, on the friends,
40:57
Speaker 3: on the community. And then again, like we said, we
40:59
Speaker 3: don't know, oh how far reaching the implications are here,
41:02
Speaker 3: because because the right killer knew I got away with it,
41:07
Speaker 3: I have a successful MO and this probably wasn't the
41:10
Speaker 3: first time he heard a child that he continued to
41:13
Speaker 3: likely offend after that. And so my gut turns when
41:16
Speaker 3: I think of a case like this where someone thought
41:19
Speaker 3: I got away with it. I wonder who else I
41:21
Speaker 3: could hurt And it's horrifying. My heart breaks for everyone
41:25
Speaker 3: involved and for the community as a whole as well.
41:30
Speaker 1: Not having that resolution and not knowing who the real
41:33
Speaker 1: killer is and if this suspect number four is indeed involved,
41:38
Speaker 1: and not having that conclusive evidence, it just leaves that
41:41
Speaker 1: gaping hole where some kind of closure or resolution should be,
41:45
Speaker 1: not closure, because we talked about that so often that
41:48
Speaker 1: it truly really isn't such thing as closure. But what
41:52
Speaker 1: I find really striking here is just this idea that
41:56
Speaker 1: Blair was driving past where Ashley's house was. He had
42:00
Speaker 1: a flyer about her disappearance. And it makes me think
42:04
Speaker 1: how many other cases that are like this, where you've
42:07
Speaker 1: got either serial murderers or rapists, child predators, and they're
42:13
Speaker 1: studying the work of others that are like them, maybe
42:17
Speaker 1: to gain inside and information, maybe they get off on
42:20
Speaker 1: it on some level. And how many other cases have
42:24
Speaker 1: they been implicated Like we'd mentioned earlier about the Orange
42:27
Speaker 1: Socks slash Deborah Jackson case where Henry Lee Lucas had
42:32
Speaker 1: admitted to that. And it's really interesting to think that
42:35
Speaker 1: there could be and also horrifying to think that there
42:38
Speaker 1: could be all of these cases out there where you
42:40
Speaker 1: have the wrong person incarcerated on the real killer or
42:45
Speaker 1: child abductor or rapist got away with it because the
42:50
Speaker 1: person that was maybe having some evidence to do with it,
42:53
Speaker 1: or not direct evidence, it would be maybe circumstantial things
42:57
Speaker 1: like a flyer, they were just a fan, or they
42:59
Speaker 1: were just a admiring that work, and they were a
43:01
Speaker 1: bad person, kind of like Blair is here. It just
43:04
Speaker 1: feels like so much time was wasted because of that,
43:07
Speaker 1: and we are at a different place as far as
43:09
Speaker 1: forensic evidence goes today, so I would truly hope that
43:13
Speaker 1: that wouldn't happen in present, But the details of this
43:17
Speaker 1: case were just really mind boggling.
43:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember when I was looking for cases for
43:22
Speaker 2: us to discuss and I was thinking, we haven't done
43:25
Speaker 2: a wrongful conviction case in a while. What's a unique
43:27
Speaker 2: one that we can discuss with Ashley? And this one
43:30
Speaker 2: is stowed out from the others because we have one
43:32
Speaker 2: where someone was convicted and sent to death row for
43:36
Speaker 2: a horrific murder who is undeniably a bad person who
43:39
Speaker 2: has committed some other horrific crimes, but was conclusively proven
43:43
Speaker 2: innocent of this particular crime. And it's just kind of
43:47
Speaker 2: a story where just so many things went horribly wrong,
43:49
Speaker 2: where even though you can kind of understand why a
43:53
Speaker 2: jury would convict Blair, because if you look at his background,
43:56
Speaker 2: you look at the suspicious things he did, you can
43:59
Speaker 2: understand why so many people legitimately believed that he was
44:02
Speaker 2: the real killer. Yet at the same time, he kind
44:05
Speaker 2: of started this mess because he was the one who
44:07
Speaker 2: drew the police's attention by driving by Ashley's murder scenes
44:10
Speaker 2: several times and acting very strangely. And of course he
44:14
Speaker 2: was convicted on evidence that we now know as junct science.
44:18
Speaker 2: But I think that the people in power did legitimately
44:21
Speaker 2: think they were doing the right thing at the time
44:23
Speaker 2: and that they had found the right guy. And of
44:25
Speaker 2: course it also put this whole state of Texas and
44:28
Speaker 2: their board of Pardons and Paroles under scrutiny, because, no
44:32
Speaker 2: matter what you think of his involvement in this particular crime,
44:35
Speaker 2: he got off as easy. He should have served at
44:37
Speaker 2: least ten years in jail for attempting to abduct and
44:41
Speaker 2: sexually assault and eleven year old girl, but he was
44:44
Speaker 2: released after only serving eighteen months. So that was another
44:47
Speaker 2: outrage because he was put in a position to harm
44:51
Speaker 2: other children, even though we never should have. So all
44:54
Speaker 2: these years later, they have found other potential suspects, like
44:57
Speaker 2: suspect number four, who could be the real killer of Ashley,
45:01
Speaker 2: but they've just never been able to conclusively prove it
45:04
Speaker 2: because they don't have that one piece of definitive forensic evidence.
45:08
Speaker 2: But then you just realize that, well, if this crime
45:11
Speaker 2: had happened today, I think Blair would be cleared as
45:14
Speaker 2: a suspect very quickly because DNA testing has advanced so much,
45:18
Speaker 2: and that they would be able to perform a proper
45:20
Speaker 2: investigation and potentially find the real perpetrator. But unfortunately, because
45:25
Speaker 2: over thirty years have passed, we still don't know who
45:27
Speaker 2: is responsible. But I do hope that one of these
45:30
Speaker 2: days they do perform genetic genealogy, put the offenders DNA
45:34
Speaker 2: into a database, and then maybe make a conclusive match
45:37
Speaker 2: and figure out who did this. And even if this
45:40
Speaker 2: person like Suspect number four, has already passed away, at
45:44
Speaker 2: least they can say with one hundred percent certainty who
45:46
Speaker 2: the killer was and finally close the books on this
45:49
Speaker 2: one for good.
45:51
Speaker 5: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
45:52
Speaker 5: about the Trailment cold patreon.
45:54
Speaker 2: Yes, the trail Cold patreon has been around for three
45:57
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer the standard bonus features like
46:01
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
46:04
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
46:07
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
46:09
Speaker 2: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
46:17
Speaker 2: the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
46:20
Speaker 2: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
46:23
Speaker 2: the ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer
46:26
Speaker 2: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
46:30
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
46:33
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
46:37
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
46:40
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
46:43
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
46:47
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
46:50
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
46:52
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
46:55
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
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Speaker 2: Tier three.
46:59
Speaker 5: So I go to let you know a little bit
47:01
Speaker 5: about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
47:04
Speaker 5: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
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Speaker 5: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
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Speaker 5: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
47:12
Speaker 5: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
47:15
Speaker 5: so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
47:17
Speaker 5: them in the show notes.
47:19
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
47:21
Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
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47:26
Speaker 2: appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy