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#234 Jason Flom with Tyrone Noling · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety, eighteen year old Tyrone Noling lived with
0:06
Speaker 1: friends whose ages ranged from fourteen to twenty in Alliance, Ohio.
0:10
Speaker 1: With no real adult supervision or resources, The boys engaged
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Speaker 1: in several minor robberies, including one where Tyrone had accidentally
0:18
Speaker 1: fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol into the floor
0:21
Speaker 1: and no one was hurt. The young men were arrested
0:24
Speaker 1: and Tyrone and his friend Gary Saint Clair pled guilty
0:28
Speaker 1: around that same time. One county away, in Atwater, Ohio,
0:31
Speaker 1: on April fifth, nineteen ninety, Bernhardt and Cora Harding were
0:35
Speaker 1: shot to death in their home with a twenty five
0:37
Speaker 1: caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had several leads, including
0:41
Speaker 1: Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics testing showed that
0:45
Speaker 1: Tyrone's twenty five caliber gun was not a match to
0:47
Speaker 1: the murder weapon, and with no other physical evidence or
0:50
Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts, Tyrone and his friends were dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless,
0:56
Speaker 1: when the investigation failed to nail the other more viable suspects,
0:59
Speaker 1: investigators turned back to Tyrone and his friends, who were
1:02
Speaker 1: coerced into turning on one another by lies about non
1:06
Speaker 1: existent evidence and the real threat of the death penalty.
1:09
Speaker 1: His friends Joey Dallasandro, Butch Walcott and Gary Saint Clair
1:13
Speaker 1: agreed to tout the false narrative in which Tyrone and
1:16
Speaker 1: Gary Saint Clair murdered the Hardings testimony they all later recanted. However,
1:22
Speaker 1: without knowledge of the much more likely suspects, and only
1:25
Speaker 1: presented with the false testimonies, the jury sent Tyrone to
1:30
Speaker 1: death row, from where he and the Ohioanists Project continue
1:34
Speaker 1: to fight to clear his name to this very day.
1:37
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. This
1:56
Speaker 1: is a hard one even for me, because this is
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Speaker 1: one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical and I'm gonna
2:05
Speaker 1: say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of. And of
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Speaker 1: course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Noling. Tyrone
2:13
Speaker 1: has been on death row in Ohio for over thirty years,
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Speaker 1: where he remains to this day and with us today
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Speaker 1: to talk about the case. Is a man who knows
2:24
Speaker 1: it like the back of his hand. Brian how Brian
2:27
Speaker 1: is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian,
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Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here. But Jesus, this is gonna be
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Speaker 1: a tough one. Thanks Jason and Tyrone. I'm so glad
2:36
Speaker 1: you're here with us today, even though I'm so very
2:39
Speaker 1: sorry because of the reason why you're here and even
2:42
Speaker 1: more so because of where you are. Thank you So, Tyrone,
2:47
Speaker 1: let's start by going back before everything that's happened. What
2:52
Speaker 1: was your life like growing up?
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Speaker 2: I grew up in a small town outside of kant
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Speaker 2: Ohio in Star County called Alliance. I grew up in
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Speaker 2: a one parent home with four other siblings, and my
3:03
Speaker 2: childhood was like any other childhood. Did sports, went to school,
3:07
Speaker 2: and as I got older, I got in a little trouble,
3:10
Speaker 2: but for the most part, life at home was pretty good.
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Speaker 2: Turned eighteen and pretty much found myself on my own,
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Speaker 2: just hanging out with a group of friends that I.
3:19
Speaker 3: Had grew up with.
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Speaker 1: And the group of friends that you mentioned here. You're
3:24
Speaker 1: talking about Johnny Trandafer, Gary Saint Clair and Joseph Alasandra
3:28
Speaker 1: and Butch Walcott, and the latter three all play a
3:31
Speaker 1: part in this wrongful conviction. Now, you all were staying
3:35
Speaker 1: together in the same house, right.
3:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't really know Butch Wilcock. I grew up
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Speaker 2: with Gary Saint Clair and Joey Dallas Sandro. We lived
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Speaker 2: pretty much in the same neighborhood and knew each other
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Speaker 2: since kindergarten. Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house
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Speaker 2: became vacant, so we all just started congregating there.
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Speaker 3: We were just hanging out. We were doing dumb stuff,
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Speaker 3: you know, Bot pizza Chase.
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Speaker 1: Girl was stayed up late and Brian, I want to
4:03
Speaker 1: bring you back in here. So, like Tyrone says, he
4:06
Speaker 1: was getting into some trouble, which is what leads to
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Speaker 1: the connection with this crime.
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Speaker 4: Right sure, I mean the reason that Tyrone was on
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Speaker 4: the radar of investigators was that there were two burglaries
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Speaker 4: that happened the next county over that Tyrone was ultimately
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Speaker 4: arrested for I'm pleaded guilty to. And those robberies were
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Speaker 4: what made him a target in the Harding murder investigation
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Speaker 4: to begin with.
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Speaker 1: Right, Tyrone and the other young men were involved in
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Speaker 1: some burglaries, and in one he did have a gun
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Speaker 1: that they got from another robbery, and the gun went
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Speaker 1: off accidentally and shot directly into the floor. But Tyrone
4:48
Speaker 1: made sure that no one was hurt before running away.
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Speaker 1: I mean, this is not a guy who was out
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Speaker 1: to hurt anyone. He was definitely doing some very dumb things,
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Speaker 1: but not a violent and he was arrested for those robberies,
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Speaker 1: pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison. And
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Speaker 1: that leads us up to this crime, which happens faithfully
5:11
Speaker 1: around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth, nineteen ninety,
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Speaker 1: which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both eighty one
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Speaker 1: years old, were shot to death in their own home.
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Speaker 1: From the look of things, they had been doing some
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Speaker 1: spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting at their
5:25
Speaker 1: dining room table. This isn't at Water, Ohio, which is
5:29
Speaker 1: a rural town in Portage County.
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Speaker 4: And if you don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost
5:34
Speaker 4: a stretch to call it a town. The people who
5:37
Speaker 4: live within a square mile of this you could count
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Speaker 4: on your hands.
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Speaker 1: So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seventh, nineteen ninety,
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Speaker 1: at six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified
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Speaker 1: by dispatcher Kathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and
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Speaker 1: reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen
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Speaker 1: floor at the neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived
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Speaker 1: next door to the Heartigs for thirty years, asked him
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Speaker 1: to go check on them when she noticed their garage
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Speaker 1: had been open with the lawnmower outside for almost three days.
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Speaker 1: There was no answer when he knocked on the door,
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Speaker 1: and their car was in the garage. He looked inside
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Speaker 1: and saw the Heardgs laying on the kitchen floor. Now
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Speaker 1: ten twenty five caliber shellcases were found on the floor
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Speaker 1: of the Hartig home. Papers from the living room desk
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Speaker 1: were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes
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Speaker 1: were open and had been rifled through. At this point,
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Speaker 1: Detective Kayley reported that there didn't seem to be any
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Speaker 1: signs of struggle from the victims. Mister Hardigs wallet was
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Speaker 1: in his pocket and the money was still inside, so
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Speaker 1: there was no force entry found in the house, and
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Speaker 1: it seemed as if there had been at least one
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Speaker 1: other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to
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Speaker 1: take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder.
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Speaker 4: Sure, so, it's not a usual occurrence in at Water,
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Speaker 4: Ohio to have a double murder, especially eighty plus year
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Speaker 4: old victims, and so the Sheriff's department began investigating one
7:05
Speaker 4: of the first leads that they had, and this is
7:08
Speaker 4: even as they are processing the scene, they get a
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Speaker 4: call from a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away,
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Speaker 4: and there is a person there saying that he lost
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Speaker 4: a twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. He
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Speaker 4: was looking for it, trying to see if anyone had
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Speaker 4: turned it in. He was worried that some kids were
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Speaker 4: going to find it. And the person is a man
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Speaker 4: named Dennis van Steinberg who lived.
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Speaker 3: In the area.
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Speaker 4: Police investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are
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Speaker 4: sort of pouring in. Right, this is a big deal
7:40
Speaker 4: in the county, it's a big deal in the city.
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Speaker 4: One of the tips that they get again almost right away,
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Speaker 4: is from a high school student named Nathan Chesley, and
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Speaker 4: he says that my foster brother told me that he
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Speaker 4: was the person who had killed the Heartiggs and so
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Speaker 4: police are investigating that lead as well.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so right off the bat, they have some pretty
8:02
Speaker 1: strong leads here, right, So what's going on with the
8:05
Speaker 1: first guy, Dennis van Steinberg.
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Speaker 4: They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
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Speaker 4: did have a twenty five. I don't know where it went.
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Speaker 4: It must have fallen out of my car or something
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Speaker 4: like that around the time of the murders. He said
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Speaker 4: he had found it. So the police check the pistol
8:20
Speaker 4: to the ballistics of the rounds were covered from the
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Speaker 4: scene and it's not a match. And so at that
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Speaker 4: point the investigation into van Steinberg sort of fades away.
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Speaker 4: In the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan
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Speaker 4: Chesley's tip. They go to his house, which is a
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Speaker 4: woman who had fostered a lot of sort of troubled
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Speaker 4: teens in the area. It's less than a mile and
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Speaker 4: a half from the scene, and you remember, there's not
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Speaker 4: a lot of people who live as close as Nathan
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Speaker 4: Chesley did to the victims in this case, and so
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Speaker 4: the police ask whether there's a foster brother around who
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Speaker 4: they can interview, and they're told there's a foster brother.
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Speaker 4: He's only fourteen years old, and they eliminate this foster
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Speaker 4: brother pretty quickly. In the meantime, they also get a
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Speaker 4: tip from the neighboring county, Stark County. Stark County has
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Speaker 4: been investigating a series of break in where a group
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Speaker 4: of teenagers has been going to various houses saying my
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Speaker 4: car broke down and I'd like to use your telephone.
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Speaker 4: When they're let inside the house, they then produce a
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Speaker 4: shotgun and it turns out to be a fake thirty
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Speaker 4: eight caliber revolver, and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry,
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Speaker 4: things like that, and that turns out to be Tyrone
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Speaker 4: Noling and his co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with
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Speaker 4: this code defendants and they find a twenty five caliber gun,
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Speaker 4: so now it's very interesting to the Porche County authorities.
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Speaker 4: They test that one for ballistics and it turns out
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Speaker 4: that it does not match the one that was used
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Speaker 4: in the crime.
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Speaker 1: I mean, there's no getting around that. So at this
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Speaker 1: point the Sheriff no Oh is that these guys, Tyrone
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Speaker 1: and his friends are not involved in the murders.
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Speaker 4: So at that point the investigation sort of stalls out
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Speaker 4: for about a year. The detectives are facing pressure, they
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Speaker 4: come up with another lead. This time they talk to
10:15
Speaker 4: the Hardiggs doctor doctor canone. The week before the bodies
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Speaker 4: were found, mister Hardigg told doctor Canon that he had
10:22
Speaker 4: lent ten thousand dollars to an insurance salesman that the
10:25
Speaker 4: insurance salesman had failed to pay. When the loan had
10:28
Speaker 4: come due on April first, that something fishy was going
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Speaker 4: on with this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation
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Speaker 4: for why I refused to pay, and as soon as
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Speaker 4: he got off the phone with doctor Canone, he was
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Speaker 4: going to go sort this out with the insurance salesman.
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Speaker 4: The police start to look at insurance salesmen that the
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Speaker 4: Heartiggs had dealt with. Then they find a man named
10:46
Speaker 4: Lewis Leman. Lewis Leman denies having taken out alone, but
10:51
Speaker 4: he was the insurance salesman for the Heartiggs. And what's more,
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Speaker 4: he had a twenty five caliber pistol as well. Unlike
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Speaker 4: the other two pistols that the police have compared, they're
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Speaker 4: able to look up the make and model and see
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Speaker 4: that the pistol Leeman had was consistent with the general
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Speaker 4: rifling characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house.
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Speaker 4: They asked Leman where his twenty five cal pistol was.
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Speaker 4: He said, well, I must have sold it. I don't
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Speaker 4: remember who bought it, I don't remember when I sold it,
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Speaker 4: and I'm done answering questions from you all. He refused
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Speaker 4: to take a lot of detector test and basically stopped
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Speaker 4: talking to detectives, and at that point the investigation had
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Speaker 4: basically completely stalled out.
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Speaker 1: So this lead with Lehman, I mean, if this was
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Speaker 1: a movie script, you'd say that this is it was
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Speaker 1: too obvious. Right. What I'm trying to wrap my head
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Speaker 1: around here is this sounds like the investigators are just
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Speaker 1: bungling this at every stage and we haven't even gotten
11:52
Speaker 1: to one of the craziest leads, and that is this guy,
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Speaker 1: Dan Wilson.
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Speaker 4: That's right, Dan Wilson is arrested for a murder a
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Speaker 4: few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk,
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Speaker 4: put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night
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Speaker 4: in the trunk of his car, and set the car
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Speaker 4: on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement
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Speaker 4: across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every
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Speaker 4: unsolved murder that they had that included the Portis County
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Speaker 4: Sheriff's Department. When they did that, they discovered something about
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Speaker 4: Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that
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Speaker 4: he was a foster brother of Nathan Chesney, the very
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Speaker 4: kid who came to them the day after the murder
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Speaker 4: and said, my foster brother confessed to that when the
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Speaker 4: detectives followed up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley
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Speaker 4: and eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the
12:48
Speaker 4: dots to Dan Wilson, they never bothered to interview Nathan Chesley,
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Speaker 4: and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of
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Speaker 4: the house and who police now believe is a serial killer,
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Speaker 4: was owing to them almost immediately after the murder, and
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Speaker 4: they let it slip through their fingers. He went on
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Speaker 4: to kill another woman. You know, at the very least,
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Speaker 4: I think it must have been embarrassing to the office
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Speaker 4: that they had this tip within days of the murder,
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Speaker 4: and they didn't realize their mistake until Dan Wilson had
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Speaker 4: committed another very high profile murder. Right at the same
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Speaker 4: time that that's happening. Someone gets a called from a
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Speaker 4: woman named Marlene van Steinberg. She is, I believe the
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Speaker 4: aunt of Dennis van Steinberg, again, who was the very
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Speaker 4: first person who they'd looked at and who they eliminated
13:50
Speaker 4: after he turned into his weapon. Well, Marlene says that
13:53
Speaker 4: in those first days of the investigation, Dennis's father had
13:58
Speaker 4: come over to their house and asked his brother who
14:01
Speaker 4: is Marlene's husband if he could borrow his twenty five
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Speaker 4: caliber pistol for a few weeks. And when Richard van
14:09
Speaker 4: Steinberg asked, why do you need my twenty five, the
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Speaker 4: response was, well, Dennis had to get rid of his
14:15
Speaker 4: because he was in some sort of trouble with the
14:18
Speaker 4: police and he needed a different one to give the police,
14:22
Speaker 4: and so they ultimately gave it to him, and that
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Speaker 4: was the weapon that was turned into the police and eliminated.
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Speaker 4: What's more, Marlene says that she called the police to
14:32
Speaker 4: tell them this during that original investigation, So the police
14:36
Speaker 4: should have been on notice that Dennis van Steinberg is
14:39
Speaker 4: turning in the wrong gun for comparison purposes, and they
14:44
Speaker 4: still eliminated van Steinberg as a suspect. So those two
14:49
Speaker 4: things are happening right back to back. Dan Wilson comes
14:52
Speaker 4: to light, and it comes to light that they basically
14:55
Speaker 4: wasted a ballistic comparison on what they should have known
14:58
Speaker 4: was the wrong gun, Dennis van Steinberg.
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Speaker 1: So we have these incredibly powerful leads that should have
15:05
Speaker 1: led them not towards but away from those four boys,
15:08
Speaker 1: because there's no connection between these nefarious characters and the
15:10
Speaker 1: four kids. What happens next.
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Speaker 4: So that is when the Porridge County Prosecuting Attorney's office
15:17
Speaker 4: takes over the investigation and they assigned their own investigator
15:20
Speaker 4: to the case, a man named Ron Craig.
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Speaker 1: Yes, Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From
15:28
Speaker 1: my understanding, he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques,
15:35
Speaker 1: for playing fast and loose with the rules in order
15:39
Speaker 1: to get results that he wanted.
15:41
Speaker 3: That's right.
15:42
Speaker 4: Ron Craig was a person who the prosecuting Attorney's office
15:46
Speaker 4: turned to who could crack this case open through aggressive
15:51
Speaker 4: interrogation get results. That is what he was known for
15:55
Speaker 4: at that time. If you look at where the investigation
15:58
Speaker 4: was when they took it over, Dan Wilson at that
16:01
Speaker 4: time was under indictment for murder. You could not interview
16:04
Speaker 4: him without an attorney. Lewis Lehman at that point was
16:07
Speaker 4: not cooperating. He had gotten an attorney as well. Maybe
16:10
Speaker 4: the most logical place for Ron Craig to go was
16:14
Speaker 4: back to these other four kids who had also been
16:17
Speaker 4: eliminated through ballistics and try to see what he could
16:21
Speaker 4: do in terms of interrogating them. And so he started
16:25
Speaker 4: with Butch Walcott, who was sixteen years old at the time.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this part it gets more and more disturbing
16:33
Speaker 1: because they took these four young kids, and with the
16:37
Speaker 1: very real threat of the death penalty, they were able
16:41
Speaker 1: to scare these kids and brow beat them into saying
16:45
Speaker 1: things that they knew weren't true because they weren't there
16:49
Speaker 1: and they didn't know anything. And basically, as in other
16:52
Speaker 1: false confession cases or false eyewitness cases that we've seen
16:56
Speaker 1: over and over again, they were fed the information by
16:59
Speaker 1: the police and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice.
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Speaker 1: Either you lie and implicate your friends, or we are
17:05
Speaker 1: going to send you to death row. Right, am I missing?
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Speaker 4: I say no, and I mean for Butch. If you
17:11
Speaker 4: read the series of interrogations and statements that he makes,
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Speaker 4: at least my impression is that he was terrified, and
17:17
Speaker 4: it's clear as he's just trying to do his best.
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Speaker 4: He continues to insist he wasn't there, He had nothing
17:24
Speaker 4: to do with this. He tells them everything they want
17:26
Speaker 4: to know about the two robberies that happened in Stark County,
17:29
Speaker 4: but he says, we never went to Fordage County, we
17:32
Speaker 4: never went out to Atwater. He doesn't know where it is,
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Speaker 4: and that's not an answer that ron Craig is going
17:38
Speaker 4: to accept. So what they do is they send him
17:41
Speaker 4: to a child psychologist who then puts Butch, the sixteen
17:47
Speaker 4: year old kid, under hypnosis in order to recover what
17:50
Speaker 4: they allege are repressed memories of the murder. And so
17:55
Speaker 4: under hypnosis, they would ask things like when did the
17:57
Speaker 4: murder take place? And Butch would say, well, it was
18:00
Speaker 4: not quite dark, but it was not quite light. I
18:02
Speaker 4: don't know, maybe somewhere in between. I just don't remember.
18:05
Speaker 4: And he would give answers like that to every question,
18:07
Speaker 4: and even these psychologists at the time that if we
18:10
Speaker 4: keep this up, he's just going to say false things
18:13
Speaker 4: to try and make the investigators happy because he's so terrified.
18:17
Speaker 4: But it didn't stop.
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Speaker 1: It, right, And I want to also mention that this
18:21
Speaker 1: detective ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from his father.
18:25
Speaker 1: This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying directly to
18:30
Speaker 1: the kid. That's right, that he had hard evidence implicating him,
18:33
Speaker 1: including a witness and DNA matches, right, so you know,
18:35
Speaker 1: you can imagine what's going on in this poor kid's
18:37
Speaker 1: brain where it's just getting completely scrambled. He's just giving
18:41
Speaker 1: these answers that don't make any sense. And let us
18:44
Speaker 1: not forget that the tape recorder was only turned on
18:48
Speaker 1: when Walcott finally made statements that had been fed to
18:51
Speaker 1: him that were consistent with what they wanted to hear. Right,
18:55
Speaker 1: that was when he implicated the subject of our show today,
18:59
Speaker 1: Tyrone noling. And then Craig turned to one of the
19:02
Speaker 1: other kids, the Alessandro, who said he knew nothing about
19:06
Speaker 1: the murders, but his own attorney convinced him and his
19:09
Speaker 1: family that he should plead bargain to avoid the electric chair.
19:12
Speaker 4: That's right, Yeah, I mean, once they can get Butch
19:15
Speaker 4: Wolcott to come up with the story, the rest sort
19:19
Speaker 4: of fall in line at that point. They don't need
19:21
Speaker 4: to go any further. Tyrone's the main target, and he's
19:24
Speaker 4: indicted for aggravated murder with capital specifications. Okay.
19:28
Speaker 1: In addition to the other guys, Saint Clair pled guilty
19:30
Speaker 1: to the Hartig murders as well. Right, he had given
19:33
Speaker 1: into pressure from Detective Craig as well as his own
19:37
Speaker 1: attorneys and his family, and he was understandably scared out
19:42
Speaker 1: of his mind about the death penalty, and then Tyrone
19:45
Speaker 1: Noling is indicted initially for the murders in nineteen ninety three.
19:49
Speaker 1: But this is when things get even weirder. In June
19:52
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, the court entered a nol pross, which
19:56
Speaker 1: means that the prosecutor or plaintiffs states that they will
20:00
Speaker 1: no longer pursue the matter, so they dismissed the case.
20:04
Speaker 1: The whole thing should have wrapped up right there. That
20:07
Speaker 1: should have been it.
20:08
Speaker 4: Well, that's right, And the reason that the case was
20:11
Speaker 4: initially dismissed was that almost as soon as they had
20:15
Speaker 4: made the deals, both Joey Delassandro and Gary Saint Clair
20:19
Speaker 4: started taking them back. You know, it's one thing under
20:22
Speaker 4: a lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered,
20:25
Speaker 4: to sort of agree to it in the abstract, under
20:28
Speaker 4: that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
20:32
Speaker 4: Delessandro recanted, asserted their innocence, We had nothing to do
20:36
Speaker 4: with this, and Gary Saint Clair recanted in a prison interview,
20:40
Speaker 4: said we lied, we were pressured, we had nothing to
20:43
Speaker 4: do with this. And at that point I think the
20:45
Speaker 4: state had no choice but to gree to dismiss the case.
20:48
Speaker 1: And Tyrone this all has to be so crazy because
20:52
Speaker 1: you have your friends and these guys you've known most
20:54
Speaker 1: of your life saying things about this crime that you
20:57
Speaker 1: know you weren't a part of, but you're indicted for it.
21:00
Speaker 1: And then they dropped the charges.
21:03
Speaker 2: You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
21:06
Speaker 2: see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a
21:08
Speaker 2: lot detector test and it was placed on the prosecutor's
21:11
Speaker 2: desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were rushing me
21:16
Speaker 2: in the back of a courtroom with a judge saying,
21:18
Speaker 2: you know, you need to cop out. I don't want
21:20
Speaker 2: to sentence you to death. And I'm pleading with them
21:22
Speaker 2: back there and I'm telling them I didn't do this,
21:25
Speaker 2: and so they send me back and I'm talking to
21:27
Speaker 2: my dad on the phone and I'm crying and I'm
21:29
Speaker 2: saying I don't know what to do.
21:30
Speaker 3: And my dad says, did you do this?
21:32
Speaker 2: And I said no, and he just said, well, then
21:35
Speaker 2: you stick to your guns.
21:36
Speaker 3: And that's what I did, even though I knew the
21:38
Speaker 3: ODSBA against me.
21:38
Speaker 2: So the next day I go back into the courtroom
21:41
Speaker 2: and I stand up and the judge says, the prosecutor
21:44
Speaker 2: wants to say something, and he just misses every charge
21:47
Speaker 2: against me.
21:48
Speaker 3: And I can't even explain the feeling at that point.
21:50
Speaker 3: I was happy. I wanted to cry, I wanted to yell.
21:53
Speaker 3: I just wanted to get out of there.
21:55
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine to have them trying to get
21:59
Speaker 1: you to take a deep while they know their case
22:02
Speaker 1: is falling apart, but they're still trying to force you
22:06
Speaker 1: into it with the very real threat of death, of
22:09
Speaker 1: the death penalty, and then to just drop it. It's
22:13
Speaker 1: like you get dizzy from this, right, So what happened next?
22:18
Speaker 2: For three years almost I didn't hear nothing, and then
22:21
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, a new prosecutor comes in, and
22:23
Speaker 2: now they got Joey back on board. Once he realizes
22:26
Speaker 2: all the time he's about to do on other charges
22:29
Speaker 2: and decides that he's just going to make up some
22:31
Speaker 2: stuff and remembers everything they want him to say, and I'm.
22:35
Speaker 3: Being charged again. The nightmare happens once again.
22:39
Speaker 1: Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here with the election
22:43
Speaker 1: of the new prosecutor in Portage County and Joey Della
22:46
Speaker 1: Sandro coming back on what's going on there?
22:50
Speaker 4: Well, Joey at that point had been serving time on
22:54
Speaker 4: unrelated charge and was sort of unhappy with his circumstances
22:59
Speaker 4: and his sentence. He reached back out and explored the
23:02
Speaker 4: option of what would happen if he did go back
23:05
Speaker 4: on his recantation and agree to cooperate, which he ultimately
23:08
Speaker 4: agreed to do. That is what caused the state to
23:13
Speaker 4: reindict Tyrone Knowling and now with both Butch and Joey Delissandro,
23:20
Speaker 4: they were ready to reprosecute the case.
23:22
Speaker 1: So Tyrone's trial begins in January of nineteen ninety six,
23:25
Speaker 1: six years after the crime. Right so, Walcott, Dallesandro, and
23:29
Speaker 1: Saint Clair will call this prosecution witnesses. But the former
23:32
Speaker 1: two boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent unsignificant details,
23:38
Speaker 1: but they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They said that
23:42
Speaker 1: after the second robbery and their alliance Ohio neighborhood, all
23:45
Speaker 1: four boys allegedly drove to Atwater, where Tyrone allegedly chose
23:50
Speaker 1: the house to rob. Once they were at the Harding house,
23:54
Speaker 1: Dallesandro or Walcott said they waited in the car while
23:58
Speaker 1: Noling and Saint Clair allegedly went to the front door.
24:02
Speaker 1: Sometime later, according to Walcott and dallas Sandro. Nolan and
24:06
Speaker 1: Saint Clair came running from the herding house and got
24:09
Speaker 1: back into the car. Dallasandro testified that he allegedly smelled
24:14
Speaker 1: smoke coming from Nolan's gun, and that Walcott said he
24:18
Speaker 1: saw the gun smoking. They also said that Nolan confessed
24:22
Speaker 1: to them. So, Tyrone, you're a trial and you see
24:26
Speaker 1: your friends they're telling these crazy lies. Can you take
24:29
Speaker 1: us back to that moment?
24:31
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable.
24:32
Speaker 2: I've known these guys for all my life and for
24:35
Speaker 2: them just to disregard my life and just sit up
24:38
Speaker 2: and they couldn't even look me in the face. They
24:41
Speaker 2: just kept their eyes on the prosecutor. And I wanted
24:44
Speaker 2: to get up and screen. I wanted to ask them,
24:46
Speaker 2: why are you doing this?
24:47
Speaker 1: And so Dallasandra and Walcott are saying these things, but
24:50
Speaker 1: Saint Clair decides not to lie for the state anymore.
24:55
Speaker 1: He recanted his statement before trial and again courageously did
24:59
Speaker 1: it again on the stand. He denied going to Atwater
25:03
Speaker 1: and committing the murders. And then he was declared a
25:07
Speaker 1: hostile witness. And get this, the state read the entirety
25:12
Speaker 1: of his prior statement to the jury which when I
25:15
Speaker 1: was reading about this case, I was like, how can
25:18
Speaker 1: that even for me? That seems beyond the pale. So Brian,
25:23
Speaker 1: what did the defense attorney say, I mean the other sect?
25:26
Speaker 1: What about the other suspect?
25:27
Speaker 4: Well, all of these plausible and I think likely alternate
25:31
Speaker 4: suspects who the police had originally investigated and who the
25:34
Speaker 4: police hadn't really excluded. None of those names came up
25:40
Speaker 4: during Tyrone's original trial, and it's plausible to believe that
25:45
Speaker 4: it's because that information wasn't turned over to the defense
25:49
Speaker 4: at the time of trial. There was only one theory
25:52
Speaker 4: ever presented to the jury about who committed the crime,
25:55
Speaker 4: and there were problems with that theory. There were holes
25:57
Speaker 4: in that theory. You remember, the twenty five caliber gun
26:00
Speaker 4: that Tyrone and his friends had taken in the prior
26:02
Speaker 4: robbery was still excluded. It was not the murder weapon.
26:06
Speaker 4: So they just had to come up with another story
26:07
Speaker 4: about how they must have had a second twenty five
26:10
Speaker 4: caliber gun and they must have picked it up somewhere
26:13
Speaker 4: and then they got rid of it somewhere. And there
26:14
Speaker 4: were things about this that didn't make sense. But I
26:18
Speaker 4: think the community was still really hurt and outraged by
26:22
Speaker 4: this murder, and they were only really given one theory
26:27
Speaker 4: as to what happened, and despite the problems in that theory,
26:30
Speaker 4: he was convicted.
26:32
Speaker 1: Huh so, Tyrone, when the jury went out to deliberate,
26:35
Speaker 1: did you have any hope at all that things were
26:37
Speaker 1: going to go with your favor?
26:39
Speaker 2: I always stayed optimistic, even though I knew the cars
26:42
Speaker 2: were stacked against me. And I kind of remember when
26:46
Speaker 2: they came and got me from the county jail. They
26:48
Speaker 2: was taking me up the steps and they were lined
26:51
Speaker 2: up with deputy sheriffs all the way.
26:52
Speaker 3: Up, and that had never happened before. So my heart
26:55
Speaker 3: just sank at that point. And I remember being in
26:58
Speaker 3: the court room and that the jury coming in and
27:00
Speaker 3: one of the young ladies that was a Jersey, she
27:03
Speaker 3: sat down and she looked at me and she started crying,
27:06
Speaker 3: and I knew it was over.
27:08
Speaker 1: Then.
27:25
Speaker 3: I was scared to death.
27:26
Speaker 2: I'm about to go someplace that they say is the
27:29
Speaker 2: worst of the worst. You're sentenced to death, You're sentenced
27:32
Speaker 2: to doc people that have committed haineous crimes.
27:36
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm still a young man.
27:38
Speaker 2: I don't know what to expect, and I have no
27:40
Speaker 2: choice because they're going to take me regardless.
27:43
Speaker 1: So you have a good team of attorneys filing post
27:45
Speaker 1: conviction motions, but they were all denied. And it's important
27:49
Speaker 1: to mention here that all of the prosecution's witnesses, all
27:52
Speaker 1: of them, Walcott, Dallas, Angele, and Saint Clair, every single
27:56
Speaker 1: one of them has since recanted their testimonies. Right. Then,
28:01
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, the Ohio Innocon's Project took
28:04
Speaker 1: on your case. Can you tell us how that came about?
28:08
Speaker 2: Well, my investigator, Vicki buck Walter, was hired on and
28:12
Speaker 2: she stayed with me after my conviction because she could
28:14
Speaker 2: not believe what happened. She helped me contact people, write letters,
28:19
Speaker 2: and we contacted the Enniscence Project. It was kind of
28:22
Speaker 2: weird because Markazi showed up with a couple of students
28:26
Speaker 2: and I thought I was just going there for an
28:28
Speaker 2: attorney visit.
28:30
Speaker 3: I told me I thought he had the wrong room.
28:32
Speaker 2: And then he proceeded to tell me who he was,
28:34
Speaker 2: and I just sat down and I felt a weight
28:37
Speaker 2: off my shoulders to finally, finally somebody's going to help me.
28:40
Speaker 3: I had a lot of respect from gratitude.
28:42
Speaker 1: For them in those ensuing fifteen years, bringing us right
28:46
Speaker 1: up to the present day. They found a ton of
28:48
Speaker 1: stuff that made it seem like the doors of the
28:51
Speaker 1: prison should have sprung open by now and you should
28:55
Speaker 1: have walked free right out into the sunshine. But of
28:58
Speaker 1: course we know that that's not how the justice system
29:01
Speaker 1: works in Ohio or unfortunately in the rest of our country.
29:07
Speaker 1: So Brian, can you tell us what the Ohio Inns
29:09
Speaker 1: Project has been doing to fight this case and where
29:12
Speaker 1: things are at today.
29:13
Speaker 4: Originally, the Ohio Innescence Project was representing Tyrone just for
29:17
Speaker 4: the purposes of trying to get DNA testing, specifically on
29:20
Speaker 4: a cigarette butt that was found at the scene. The
29:23
Speaker 4: heartings were very sort of meticulous people. They were not
29:25
Speaker 4: the kind of people to leave a cigarette butt in
29:27
Speaker 4: the middle of their driveway, and so there was an
29:28
Speaker 4: idea that this might have been left by the killer.
29:31
Speaker 4: It was eventually tested, and of course Tyrone all of
29:36
Speaker 4: his co defendants were excluded. But there are a few
29:38
Speaker 4: things that we know one percent were last touched by
29:43
Speaker 4: the person who committed the crime, and that is the
29:45
Speaker 4: ten shell casings that were found at the scene, and
29:49
Speaker 4: the ring boxes and other items that the perpetrator had
29:52
Speaker 4: rifled through after the crime or during the crime. DNA
29:55
Speaker 4: technology today is sensitive enough to develop profile from even
30:00
Speaker 4: just a few human cells, and so the hope was
30:04
Speaker 4: that if we were able to conduct DNA testing on
30:07
Speaker 4: those items, that you would develop a clear profile, and
30:11
Speaker 4: if that profile does not match Tyrone Knowling or any
30:14
Speaker 4: one of his co defendants, that's going to be very
30:16
Speaker 4: very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately, we were not
30:20
Speaker 4: able to convince the court to allow us to conduct
30:22
Speaker 4: that DNA testing, and so to this day that evidence
30:26
Speaker 4: has not been tested. In the meantime, Tyrone's other attorneys
30:29
Speaker 4: had filed a motion for new trial based on very
30:33
Speaker 4: specific pieces of evidence that were uncovered at the end
30:37
Speaker 4: of the original investigation by the Sheriff's department. Specifically, first
30:41
Speaker 4: of all, the Nathan Chesley tip that was uncovered in
30:44
Speaker 4: Tyrone's co defendants files. Secondly, the statement by Marlene van
30:49
Speaker 4: Steinberg that the gun that had been eliminated from Dennis
30:52
Speaker 4: mann Steinberg was not the actual gun that he had
30:54
Speaker 4: on the night that the murder may have taken place.
30:56
Speaker 4: And finally, it had been known at the time that
30:59
Speaker 4: police had excluded Tyrone and his friends from the cigarette
31:03
Speaker 4: butt using this more primitive protein testing, but they had
31:08
Speaker 4: been concerned enough about Dan Wilson as a suspect that
31:11
Speaker 4: they had tested dan Wilson against that cigarette butt and
31:15
Speaker 4: he was not able to be excluded using that prior
31:18
Speaker 4: primitive technology that was not turned over we believe to
31:22
Speaker 4: the defense at the time of the original trial either
31:25
Speaker 4: now here today. We are still waiting for an opportunity
31:29
Speaker 4: to fully examine the prosecutor's files, to fully examine the
31:32
Speaker 4: sheriff's files, to try to see what, if anything, was
31:36
Speaker 4: in these files that was subject to disclosure back at
31:38
Speaker 4: the original trial nineteen eighty five, nineteen ninety six.
31:43
Speaker 1: God, it's just too much. I mean this one, really,
31:45
Speaker 1: it just goes beyond my ability to comprehend. There's so
31:49
Speaker 1: many things, and it seems like any one of them,
31:52
Speaker 1: in a fair and just system would be enough for
31:56
Speaker 1: an adult somewhere to step in and go. This has
32:00
Speaker 1: gone on too long, but on it goes, and Tyrone
32:03
Speaker 1: remains on death route right now while we're having this conversation.
32:06
Speaker 4: If he were to get a fair trial today, with
32:10
Speaker 4: all of the evidence that we know in front of
32:12
Speaker 4: a jury, there's no chance that he would be convicted
32:15
Speaker 4: and to be in a world where this is all
32:19
Speaker 4: sort of continuing to happen. It's continuing to advance in
32:22
Speaker 4: slow motion. I mean, it's surreal. Certainly. Our hope is
32:27
Speaker 4: that he is successful in his current post conviction litigation,
32:31
Speaker 4: that we're able to put this evidence finally in front
32:35
Speaker 4: of a jury and give him a fair day in court.
32:38
Speaker 1: Amen to that, And Tyrone for our audience listening today,
32:42
Speaker 1: for someone who wants to see you have that fair shot,
32:45
Speaker 1: which I'm sure everyone in our audience does, and who
32:48
Speaker 1: wants to help and to get involved with writing this wrong.
32:51
Speaker 1: Is there something that you'd like to ask them to do.
32:55
Speaker 2: I would encourage them to reach out to our governor,
32:57
Speaker 2: to reach out to stay and local politicians.
33:00
Speaker 3: I would ask them to be a voice.
33:02
Speaker 2: Somebody out there knows something, and they can go to
33:05
Speaker 2: tyroneoling dot com or they can get a hold of
33:08
Speaker 2: the Cincinnati Innosis Project if they're willing to help or
33:12
Speaker 2: to be a voice, because I need a voice.
33:14
Speaker 3: I need that more than anything.
33:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely have Tyrone noling dot Com linked in
33:20
Speaker 1: our bio, so please go there and learn what steps
33:23
Speaker 1: you can take to help. And I also want to
33:25
Speaker 1: mention There's a TV docuseriies called death Row Stories that
33:29
Speaker 1: did a piece on this case last year called The
33:31
Speaker 1: Lost Boy, which shows a very powerful case for the
33:34
Speaker 1: actual innocence of Tyron. And with that we turn now
33:39
Speaker 1: to closing arguments. This is the part of our show
33:41
Speaker 1: where I thank you Tyrone Noling for just being with
33:45
Speaker 1: us today sharing your story, and also Brian Howe for
33:48
Speaker 1: fighting tirelessly. So again, thank you for doing what you're
33:51
Speaker 1: doing and for being here and sharing this awful story
33:54
Speaker 1: with our audience. And now closing arguments works just like this.
33:57
Speaker 1: I'll kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off,
34:00
Speaker 1: leave my headphones, I close my eyes and just listen
34:03
Speaker 1: to any final thoughts you want to share. So, Brian,
34:06
Speaker 1: why don't you go first and we'll save the best
34:08
Speaker 1: for last. And that's of course that's you Tyrone. So
34:12
Speaker 1: Brian closing arguments.
34:14
Speaker 4: Well, you know, first, let me thank you Jason for
34:17
Speaker 4: what you all are doing here. As surreal as it
34:19
Speaker 4: sometimes seems that this is still happening, it feels good
34:22
Speaker 4: to know that people care, that people are paying attention.
34:26
Speaker 4: It feels good to know that there are people who
34:29
Speaker 4: care about what's happening in this case and what's happening
34:32
Speaker 4: to Tyrone. Again, our hope is that people understand what's happening,
34:38
Speaker 4: that Tyrone get a fair day in court. And the
34:40
Speaker 4: other thing is is that the fact that Tyrone is innocent.
34:44
Speaker 4: But I'm personally one hundred percent convinced of You know,
34:46
Speaker 4: I'm not familiar with every death row case in the country,
34:49
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't be surprised if he were the strongest
34:52
Speaker 4: case of innocence of anyone currently on death row. That
34:55
Speaker 4: means that there's someone who is responsible for this crime
34:59
Speaker 4: that was never brought to justice. And it means that
35:02
Speaker 4: there could be someone out there right now who knows
35:04
Speaker 4: something that may have for whatever reason, not wanted to
35:08
Speaker 4: come forward and not wanted to get involved. I really
35:11
Speaker 4: truly hope that that person is out there and that
35:15
Speaker 4: they will reach out and come forward with any information
35:17
Speaker 4: that they might have about the hard and murders. There
35:20
Speaker 4: is a man's life on the line, an innocent man,
35:23
Speaker 4: and if people have information, I truly truly hope that
35:27
Speaker 4: they'll come forward with it and allow it to be
35:29
Speaker 4: raised and brought before the court.
35:31
Speaker 1: And now over to you, Tyron.
35:33
Speaker 2: Well, I would like to first thank you and again,
35:37
Speaker 2: I think the most important thing here is a voice.
35:41
Speaker 3: I'm an innocent person on Ohio's death brow and I
35:43
Speaker 3: don't belong here, and I need help. Now's the time.
35:47
Speaker 3: This is difficult.
35:49
Speaker 2: It's difficult cleaning for your life, especially when you haven't
35:52
Speaker 2: been heard for a long time.
35:54
Speaker 3: So I would just like to thank everybody.
35:57
Speaker 2: And to encourage him again to look into my case,
36:01
Speaker 2: to get involved, to be a voice for me, and
36:04
Speaker 2: to help me get out of here because I'm innocent.
36:07
Speaker 3: I don't want to be here, So please.
36:16
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
36:19
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Kleibern,
36:22
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wartis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
36:26
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
36:29
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
36:33
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
36:37
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
36:40
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, You can also follow
36:43
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
36:47
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
36:50
Speaker 1: and association with signal Company number one