Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #328 Jason Flom with Keith Cooper

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#328 Jason Flom with Keith Cooper · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: On October twenty ninth, nineteen ninety six, Elkhart, Indiana police
0:05
Speaker 1: were called to the apartment of a Michael Kirshner and
0:08
Speaker 1: his mother known a Canal. Allegedly, while they and four
0:12
Speaker 1: friends were watching a movie, two men forced their way in,
0:16
Speaker 1: demanding money and drugs. After the taller of the pair
0:20
Speaker 1: allegedly shot at his friends and missed. A struggle between
0:23
Speaker 1: Michael Kerscher and the shooter resulted in a non fatal
0:26
Speaker 1: gunshot wound to Michael's abdomen. The gunman's hat fell off
0:30
Speaker 1: during the struggle, and the two assailants fled. The police
0:34
Speaker 1: collected no evidence from the scene, but took statements from
0:37
Speaker 1: the witnesses and victims, who described the shooter as tall
0:40
Speaker 1: and skinny carrying a long silver gun, and the other
0:44
Speaker 1: man as short and stocky with no weapon. Two days later,
0:48
Speaker 1: one of the witnesses, Eddie Love, allegedly identified a short
0:52
Speaker 1: and stocky man named Chris Parrish. About three months later,
0:55
Speaker 1: a suspected persnatcher named Keith Cooper was identified as the
0:59
Speaker 1: taller shooter from a photo lineup. Even though the jury
1:03
Speaker 1: was presented with DNA results from the sweatbed of the
1:05
Speaker 1: shooter's hat that were allegedly inconclusive. The identifications appeared conclusive
1:11
Speaker 1: enough to separately convict both matt But this is wronful conviction.
1:22
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
1:23
Speaker 1: right back. The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of
1:27
Speaker 1: this episode of Wrawful Conviction and of the Last Mile organization,
1:31
Speaker 1: which provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals
1:35
Speaker 1: successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation
1:39
Speaker 1: is committed to improving the lives of hoosiers across Indiana,
1:42
Speaker 1: supporting organizations that are dedicated primarily to helping young people
1:46
Speaker 1: and students. For more information on the work of the
1:49
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile program, visit Pacersfoundation dot
1:53
Speaker 1: org or the Lastmile dot org. Welcome back to Raeful Conviction. Today,
2:05
Speaker 1: we're going to tell the story of a man who
2:07
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted in a place that, well, with what
2:11
Speaker 1: has been uncovered there already, in such a small population,
2:15
Speaker 1: it just might be the per capital wrongful conviction capital
2:20
Speaker 1: of this country and therefore the world a dubious distinction.
2:24
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about Elkhart, Indiana. But first let's introduce
2:29
Speaker 1: the man himself, Keith Cooper. I mean, I'm sorry you're
2:32
Speaker 1: here because of the reason why you're here and what
2:34
Speaker 1: you had to go through, but I'm really happy and
2:37
Speaker 1: honor that you're here with us today.
2:39
Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here.
2:40
Speaker 1: And with him is his civil attorney and our resident
2:43
Speaker 1: Elkhart expert, who you might remember from our coverage of
2:46
Speaker 1: Andy Royer's case, which we're going to have linked in
2:48
Speaker 1: the bio. This man is an adjunct professor at Notre
2:51
Speaker 1: Dame Law, a staff attorney at the Exoneration Clinic out
2:54
Speaker 1: of the University of Chicago, and a partner at the
2:56
Speaker 1: nationally recognized civil rights law firm Lovy and Loby, where
2:59
Speaker 1: he was an investigator before he even passed the bar.
3:03
Speaker 1: That's some that's some impressive resume, and we're honored to
3:07
Speaker 1: have you here with us again.
3:10
Speaker 3: Elly is Low Sarry, thanks Jason, thanks so much for
3:12
Speaker 3: having us on.
3:13
Speaker 1: Now, Keith, you didn't always live in card Indiana. You
3:16
Speaker 1: weren't born and raised there, right, You started off on
3:18
Speaker 1: the South side of Chicago, So tell us a little
3:20
Speaker 1: bit about that.
3:21
Speaker 2: I grew up in a single family hall. My mother
3:24
Speaker 2: was raising three of us. It was kind of rough.
3:28
Speaker 2: As I got older, I started having babies, and then
3:33
Speaker 2: I got married with my wife. You know, the valance
3:36
Speaker 2: ate was on my rise in Chicago doing in the nineties,
3:40
Speaker 2: and I didn't want that kind of atmosphere round for
3:43
Speaker 2: my children. So we decided to move the air car
3:47
Speaker 2: because she had family there, and I was like, okay,
3:49
Speaker 2: we'll cool. I'll give it the shot. I was twenty
3:52
Speaker 2: eight going on twenty nine, and I had three children's
3:56
Speaker 2: at the time. And then when I got there, it
3:59
Speaker 2: was started a smooth and didn't take me no longer
4:02
Speaker 2: than fourteen days before I got my first job at
4:05
Speaker 2: Bank's Lumber and life was great.
4:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, twenty nine years old,
4:11
Speaker 1: three kids married, you know, more or less living. What
4:14
Speaker 1: sounds like the you know, personification of the American dream.
4:19
Speaker 1: And what's ironic is that you left Chicago, which had
4:21
Speaker 1: not only had a rise in crime at the time,
4:23
Speaker 1: but then the police were also very dangerous. The police
4:29
Speaker 1: in those days, and this is not hyperbole. We're regularly
4:31
Speaker 1: torturing people. They were bringing them to a warehouse instead
4:35
Speaker 1: of the police station, not just suspects but also witnesses.
4:38
Speaker 1: They were subjecting them to beatings, genital electrocution, suffocation, putting
4:43
Speaker 1: bags over their head while they were chained to a wall,
4:45
Speaker 1: beating them with telephone books. And they did that not
4:49
Speaker 1: only the suspects again, but also the witnesses in order
4:51
Speaker 1: to extract confessions but also testimonies that they needed to
4:55
Speaker 1: make cases against others. Sticks So check out our coverage
4:58
Speaker 1: of Marcus Wiggins, their youngest victim, and he was thirteen
5:02
Speaker 1: years old when they subjected him to this torture. We're
5:04
Speaker 1: going to have that linked in the bio as well.
5:06
Speaker 1: So anyway, you had jumped out of the literal frying
5:09
Speaker 1: pan into what you didn't know was another one in
5:12
Speaker 1: the form of the town of Elkhart, Indiana.
5:16
Speaker 3: You're right, Elkhart is a city of manifest and justice.
5:21
Speaker 3: To date, there's been five exonerations from Elkhart. Our clinic
5:25
Speaker 3: represents another dozen in terms of the number of wrongthully
5:28
Speaker 3: convicted people from there. You know who knows what that
5:31
Speaker 3: number is. I'm sure there's hundreds more.
5:34
Speaker 1: I mean hundreds more. That would be crazy in a
5:37
Speaker 1: big city, but we're talking about a town of fifty
5:41
Speaker 1: thousand of that's really disturbing. And as you can hear
5:45
Speaker 1: in our coverage of Andy Royer's case, which we're also
5:47
Speaker 1: going to link in the bio, there's coerced false witness statements,
5:49
Speaker 1: fraudulent fingerprint analysis, a false confession from a cognitively impaired man,
5:54
Speaker 1: and the kicker. The prosecutor watched it happen and not
5:57
Speaker 1: only did she not stop it, but rather she used
6:00
Speaker 1: it to wrongfully convict not one, but two people in
6:03
Speaker 1: this case. And then I mentioned that she is the
6:05
Speaker 1: current elected prosecuting attorney for Elkhart County. And even more disturbing,
6:09
Speaker 1: with how small a town it is, all of these
6:12
Speaker 1: bad actors know one another, are aware of each other's misdeeds.
6:16
Speaker 1: And one of the detectives in the case we're going
6:17
Speaker 1: to cover today became the chief of police and that
6:20
Speaker 1: lasted until twenty eighteen, and that's ed Winbigler. And by
6:24
Speaker 1: the end of this episode, you're also going to be
6:27
Speaker 1: acutely aware of his partner, the lead detective in this case,
6:30
Speaker 1: Steve Rizzuko. Elliott, can you give us some background on Razuko?
6:35
Speaker 4: You know, something that we would later obtain on the
6:37
Speaker 4: civil side of things was Razuko's application of the Okar
6:41
Speaker 4: Police Department and so they conduct, you know, a background
6:44
Speaker 4: investigation to Berzuko, and then they go to like three
6:47
Speaker 4: references that he actually lists. You know, this is like
6:51
Speaker 4: when you're applying to a job, You're like, hey, let
6:52
Speaker 4: me list like the three most favorable people to be
6:55
Speaker 4: in the world. And at each of those three places,
6:59
Speaker 4: they gave them terrible references. You know, one of the
7:01
Speaker 4: people is like, I would never hire him again. This
7:03
Speaker 4: guy was overly aggressive, you know, like every red flag.
7:08
Speaker 1: He had, bad credit, was deep in debt, going through
7:10
Speaker 1: a bankruptcy, several arrests for reckless driving, fighting, an accident
7:15
Speaker 1: with a parked car, and a high speed chase with
7:17
Speaker 1: the police.
7:19
Speaker 4: So nothing in this background investigation was like, Steve Rzuko,
7:24
Speaker 4: let's give that guy a badge and a gun and
7:27
Speaker 4: see what he can do for the citizens of Belcar.
7:30
Speaker 1: But at least one former supervisor seemed to have found
7:33
Speaker 1: value in Razuko, saying, quote, he knew all the drunks,
7:38
Speaker 1: all the bandits, and all the prostitutes. He's a big guy,
7:42
Speaker 1: and he's been in some bar scrapes and come out
7:44
Speaker 1: the winner. End quote. This guy was an uber, aggressive
7:47
Speaker 1: dirt bag with plenty of friends in the underbelly of town.
7:50
Speaker 1: And what you'll come to know about this guy is
7:52
Speaker 1: that his emo was not solving crimes, but rather finding
7:55
Speaker 1: a target of his investigation, just fixing all the facts
7:58
Speaker 1: and coerciing not only usfect but witnesses as well to
8:01
Speaker 1: give statements that fit his target.
8:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, this guy was willing to violate the constitutional rights
8:07
Speaker 4: of anyone in the community, especially people of color or
8:11
Speaker 4: people without financial resources to take him on, and got
8:15
Speaker 4: away with committing criminal offenses for decades.
8:20
Speaker 1: And well, we'll go a bit further to what those
8:21
Speaker 1: criminal acts were later on, but bear in mind he
8:25
Speaker 1: wasn't the only problematic dirt bag investigating in this case.
8:28
Speaker 1: There's also Ed wind Bigler, who eventually became the chief
8:32
Speaker 1: of police, and another detective named Steve Ambrose.
8:36
Speaker 4: Steve Ambrose later was implicated in serious misconduct as well,
8:41
Speaker 4: including shooting and killing a black man in the Elkhart
8:44
Speaker 4: community by the name of Derek Connors. And everybody that
8:47
Speaker 4: I had spoken to an elk Cart has serious concerns
8:51
Speaker 4: about whether Detective Ambrose murdered Derek Connors without justification, and
8:56
Speaker 4: there was an investigation into that in a lawsuit.
8:58
Speaker 1: So this town that Keith had moved to in search
9:01
Speaker 1: of a safe place to raise his family. Wasn't actually
9:03
Speaker 1: so safe with these guys protecting and serving. Now, not
9:08
Speaker 1: only was it unsafe for Keith and his family, but
9:11
Speaker 1: also another young man named Chris Parrish, who was also
9:13
Speaker 1: wrongly targeted by Razuko, Ambrose and wind Bigler. Now Chris
9:18
Speaker 1: was almost ten years younger than Keith and had grown
9:20
Speaker 1: up in Elkhart.
9:21
Speaker 4: I think with Chris Parrish something to keep in mind,
9:24
Speaker 4: as he was a real young kid whose family had
9:27
Speaker 4: run ins with the police department. And you know, as
9:30
Speaker 4: we talk about this case, you'll see that the police
9:33
Speaker 4: went out of their way to manufacture a keys against
9:36
Speaker 4: Chris Parish when all the evidence credibly showed that he
9:39
Speaker 4: was innocent all alone.
9:41
Speaker 1: So it was these previous run into with the law,
9:43
Speaker 1: which were nothing serious, by the way, but they offered
9:46
Speaker 1: a motivation for the police to try to frame Chris,
9:49
Speaker 1: who already had a mugshot from when he was fourteen
9:52
Speaker 1: years old, which made it even easier for them. But
9:54
Speaker 1: with you, Keith, you were brand new to town, unknown
9:58
Speaker 1: to local law enforcement, so you see, like a pretty
10:01
Speaker 1: random choice, but they went ahead and did it anyway,
10:04
Speaker 1: did you know Chris Parrish before all this happened.
10:06
Speaker 2: No, I never knew Chris Pare.
10:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Christopher Parris and Keith Cooper never met each
10:13
Speaker 4: other until a decade after Chris's exoneration. And you know,
10:18
Speaker 4: a couple of years after Keith was exonerated, they had
10:21
Speaker 4: separate defense attorneys. You know, Chris was from Elkhar, Keith
10:26
Speaker 4: was from Chicago. They lived different lives. Frankly, there are
10:29
Speaker 4: different age groups. You know, Keith was the period with children,
10:32
Speaker 4: Chris was in his early twenties.
10:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, Keith was like nine years older than him and
10:37
Speaker 1: living a totally different lifestyle. So the idea of the
10:39
Speaker 1: two of you committed an arm robbery together, on its face,
10:43
Speaker 1: makes no sense. So let's get into the climate itself. Now,
10:46
Speaker 1: this incident may not have even happened in the way
10:48
Speaker 1: that the victim described it. The police really never did
10:51
Speaker 1: collect any evidence at the scene, but rather it was
10:54
Speaker 1: collected later for them by the alleged victims. But it's
10:58
Speaker 1: really all we have to go on. So on October
11:02
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen ninety six, allegedly, there were about six
11:04
Speaker 1: people in an apartment in a public housing project in Elkhart,
11:07
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Michael Kershner, his mother, Nona Canal, and
11:11
Speaker 1: then about four of Michael's friends, including fifteen year old
11:15
Speaker 1: Eddie Love and another guy named Jason Ackley and two others,
11:18
Speaker 1: and they said that they were watching a movie, that
11:21
Speaker 1: ridiculous movie, Don't be a Menace to South Central while
11:24
Speaker 1: drinking your juice in the hood when they allegedly got
11:27
Speaker 1: a knock on the door from two black men, one short,
11:29
Speaker 1: one toll with a hat on, and they were looking
11:31
Speaker 1: for someone named Shell. Whether that was short for Michelle,
11:35
Speaker 1: we don't know.
11:36
Speaker 4: In either event, they had the wrong apartment, according to victims.
11:40
Speaker 4: You know, their account is that when they deny that
11:43
Speaker 4: Shell was there, these two guys forced their way into
11:46
Speaker 4: the apartment because the victims had like a bag of
11:50
Speaker 4: like laundry coins on the living room table, and there
11:54
Speaker 4: was an skas rifle. Ultimately there was a scuffle and
11:59
Speaker 4: in the midst of the scuffle, one of the victims,
12:02
Speaker 4: Michael Kirshner, was shot.
12:05
Speaker 1: Right He allegedly got in between his mother and the gunman,
12:09
Speaker 1: which was the taller of the two assailants, and took
12:11
Speaker 1: a non fatal gunshot to the abdomen, which, if true,
12:15
Speaker 1: is very heroic. Now, the taller gunman was the role
12:18
Speaker 1: in this crime that Keith later got saddled with. Also
12:22
Speaker 1: notable by the way, during that tussle, the taller man's
12:24
Speaker 1: hat fell off.
12:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it wasn't just any hat, you know back
12:28
Speaker 3: in the eighties and nineties, you know, when they had malls.
12:31
Speaker 3: It was like one of those hats that you can customize.
12:34
Speaker 3: There were like rhyan stones on it that formed the
12:36
Speaker 3: letter J. Notably, you know, Keith Cooper doesn't have the
12:40
Speaker 3: letter J anywhere in his name. But when the shooter
12:45
Speaker 3: and the second person left the apartment, they left that hat,
12:48
Speaker 3: and on that hat was DNA evidence that has excluded
12:52
Speaker 3: Keith Cooper since the time of trial.
12:55
Speaker 1: And we'll get into how that played out at trial
12:57
Speaker 1: in a bit. And from what I can understand, this
13:00
Speaker 1: hat and any other physical evidence from the scene, none
13:03
Speaker 1: of it was even initially collected by the police on
13:06
Speaker 1: the scene. What the hell is that all about?
13:08
Speaker 4: There are two different perspectives to this. You know, later
13:11
Speaker 4: there were some evidence that came out during Chris Parish's
13:14
Speaker 4: post conviction litigation that alleged that the shooting happened in
13:19
Speaker 4: a parking lot, and if they happen in a parking lot,
13:22
Speaker 4: that might tend to explain why there wouldn't be any
13:25
Speaker 4: physical evidence in the apartment. There's a second explanation, which
13:28
Speaker 4: is that it's not just detectives and Elkhart that are
13:31
Speaker 4: completely incompetent, but also crime scene technicians. And so the
13:35
Speaker 4: crime scene technician when he went there, he didn't actually
13:38
Speaker 4: do his job and look for physical evidence from the shooting.
13:43
Speaker 4: And so two days later, when the victims came home
13:46
Speaker 4: from the hospital, they were the ones who recovered the hat,
13:50
Speaker 4: the shellcasings, called the police back and that's when the
13:54
Speaker 4: Olkhar Police Department came and seized the physical evidence.
13:57
Speaker 1: So there are some chain of custody issues from the
14:00
Speaker 1: get go here. But nonetheless, they had some bullets, shellcasings,
14:04
Speaker 1: the hat with the DNA that excludes Keith. And then
14:07
Speaker 1: the witness's descriptions, right, two young black men, one was
14:10
Speaker 1: short and stocky, and then the tall gunman who had
14:13
Speaker 1: a long silver gun and was described as wiry. But
14:16
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if Keith ever was wiry. It certainly
14:19
Speaker 1: doesn't appear that way. Now.
14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, Keith is tall, but he's never been a wiry guy.
14:24
Speaker 3: You're totally right about that. And in this case, there
14:27
Speaker 3: was a composite that was created early on, and it's
14:30
Speaker 3: like the most generic looking composite you'll ever see. I
14:34
Speaker 3: mean it like basically was a human being. There was
14:37
Speaker 3: no detail to it that would like lead you one
14:39
Speaker 3: way or the other to who actually did the shooting.
14:42
Speaker 1: And we'll link that in the bio as well. So
14:44
Speaker 1: this generic composite leaves room for a very loose interpretation
14:48
Speaker 1: as to which direction to take this investigation. So two
14:51
Speaker 1: days after the crime, one of the witnesses, a fifteen
14:54
Speaker 1: year old kid named Eddie Love, who may or may
14:56
Speaker 1: not have been at risk of his own charges, had
14:58
Speaker 1: a highly pressurized sit down with ed Win Bigler. And
15:03
Speaker 1: it's been theorized that Winn Bigler may have been pushing
15:06
Speaker 1: the idea that Chris Parrish was involved. So what is
15:09
Speaker 1: the result of this conversation.
15:11
Speaker 3: What's fascinating is there are like two different versions of
15:14
Speaker 3: this based on the reports. So, like Detective Winn Bigler's
15:18
Speaker 3: report said that Eddie Love said that the person look
15:21
Speaker 3: like a person he knew named Chris Parrish, he didn't
15:25
Speaker 3: say it was Chris Parrish. So he was like clearly
15:29
Speaker 3: telling the cops like, hey, you know, like, I know
15:31
Speaker 3: this guy, Chris Parrish, the guy you're looking for, looks
15:34
Speaker 3: like him. But Detective Verzuko would later write a report
15:39
Speaker 3: saying that Eddie Love named Chris Parrish as a person
15:42
Speaker 3: who did this.
15:44
Speaker 1: So, whether they had already planned on doing this or not,
15:47
Speaker 1: they now have a reason to place Chris Parrish's photo
15:50
Speaker 1: in a lineup to be viewed by Michael Kershner, Nona Kanell,
15:53
Speaker 1: and the other four robbery victims. Now, remember they only
15:57
Speaker 1: had a picture of Chris from when he was fourteen,
16:00
Speaker 1: even though Chris was twenty years old at the time
16:02
Speaker 1: of the crime, So the lineup was totally suspect. Plus
16:07
Speaker 1: they knew that he was in Chicago.
16:10
Speaker 4: You know, which is about two hours from Malcart, Indiana,
16:14
Speaker 4: and he had somewhere around fifteen alibi witnesses who testified
16:17
Speaker 4: his criminal trial, including a minister and Brizuko would testify
16:23
Speaker 4: later on in Chris's civil case. This is like fifteen
16:27
Speaker 4: years later. I believed when the trial was over that
16:30
Speaker 4: Chris was going to be exonerated because I believed as
16:32
Speaker 4: out by witnesses. That's a quote from Brazuko, And it
16:38
Speaker 4: really is a striking admission, because if you believe Chris
16:42
Speaker 4: Parish is out by witnesses, that Chris is innocent, then
16:45
Speaker 4: how does a police officer somehow get a half dozen
16:49
Speaker 4: people to make a positive identification with Chris Parish?
16:54
Speaker 2: Right?
16:54
Speaker 4: Both can't be true. Sure, maybe there's some statistical probability
16:58
Speaker 4: that one person could mistakenly pick Chris out of a
17:02
Speaker 4: photo ray, But how do you get a half dozen
17:04
Speaker 4: people to mistakenly pick Chris Parrish? I have a photo ray? Well,
17:08
Speaker 4: you do it by putting a fourteen year old juvenile
17:11
Speaker 4: photo in an array with five adult men, knowing that
17:15
Speaker 4: they described the person as younger looking, and you lead
17:17
Speaker 4: your eyewitnesses to misidentify somebody who's innocent.
17:20
Speaker 1: So they made this suggestive array with Chris's juvenile photo
17:23
Speaker 1: and led the six witnesses to id him. Chris was
17:26
Speaker 1: charged shortly after the actual incident, to later be taken
17:30
Speaker 1: to trial. But Keith, you were brand new in town.
17:33
Speaker 1: They didn't even know you, let alone have a photo
17:36
Speaker 1: of you. So how did you get pulled into this?
17:40
Speaker 2: That all started for the They said, I arrived later
17:43
Speaker 2: for a purse.
17:45
Speaker 3: So a personatching happened. But Keith was like literally walking
17:49
Speaker 3: on the street his car broken down. He went to
17:52
Speaker 3: go get some like groceries, and the detective saw a
17:56
Speaker 3: tall black guy and was like, oh, there was a
17:59
Speaker 3: person with a tall black eye. Let me just bring
18:02
Speaker 3: this guy over. So he drove Keith over to the
18:05
Speaker 3: victim's house.
18:06
Speaker 2: And I saw the lady on the porch with the
18:08
Speaker 2: other officers, and I'm saying to myself, how she gonna
18:12
Speaker 2: be a just identify me when I'm sending in the backseat,
18:16
Speaker 2: and they squad covered these little gates around the window
18:20
Speaker 2: where you can't even really see inside.
18:22
Speaker 1: Was she white?
18:23
Speaker 2: She was white? Yes, you were, okay, So.
18:26
Speaker 1: We have a crossracial identification from a distance through a
18:31
Speaker 1: window which is screened, as you said, so I barely
18:34
Speaker 1: could see in it all. And the suggestive nature of
18:37
Speaker 1: it is extreme.
18:39
Speaker 2: Right then and there, my life went to shits. Well,
18:43
Speaker 2: she identified me as the person at you. That was
18:46
Speaker 2: a lot when I got to the police station. A
18:49
Speaker 2: lot of things they did at the police station. It
18:53
Speaker 2: went untold because see they had me take a lot
18:56
Speaker 2: to take the test to prove that I was innocent
18:58
Speaker 2: of that case. But it did no good because Zuko's
19:02
Speaker 2: had other flanks would be And.
19:04
Speaker 3: This is like from Detective Razuko's own mouth. You know,
19:07
Speaker 3: he's testified to this. Detective Razuko sees Keith in there
19:11
Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, tall black guy, that must be
19:13
Speaker 3: the tall black guy I'm looking for in the cursion shooting.
19:15
Speaker 3: I mean like it literally could have been like any
19:18
Speaker 3: tall black guy in America who could have been brought
19:21
Speaker 3: into that station and their life would have been ripped
19:24
Speaker 3: away because Razuko just wanted to close the case instead assaulted.
19:45
Speaker 1: Here, you have two separate incidents involving a tall black man,
19:48
Speaker 1: and then both the pers snatching detective and Razuko just
19:52
Speaker 1: picked out any old, tall black guy and it just
19:56
Speaker 1: happened to be Keith both times. So you you were
20:00
Speaker 1: in jail for two months of waiting trial on the
20:02
Speaker 1: per snatch correct, Well, how much was bail on that case?
20:07
Speaker 2: Uh? It was ten thousand thousand ago to a bond out.
20:13
Speaker 1: And not having access to that money like so many
20:16
Speaker 1: other people, you're stuck in his jail.
20:19
Speaker 2: I'm stuck. I'm set waiting trial. Right before I was
20:24
Speaker 2: getting ready to go to trial for the personnatch, I
20:27
Speaker 2: get a visitor. The visit was Detective Zip Goes. He
20:32
Speaker 2: had me come down to his office and I sat
20:34
Speaker 2: down across from him and told me. He said, hey,
20:37
Speaker 2: if you take this personatching case to trial, and if
20:41
Speaker 2: you do win this, I have another case fate. I said,
20:45
Speaker 2: I didn't commit this personatcher, the I i't do anything
20:47
Speaker 2: else out here in their car. He said, if I
20:50
Speaker 2: got six people to save the difference, And he gave
20:53
Speaker 2: me a police report and I'm read and he tells
20:57
Speaker 2: me that you're the one who attempted to rob these
21:00
Speaker 2: people in shop with Michael Curse. And at that time
21:02
Speaker 2: I'm like no, I said I didn't do it. He said, well,
21:05
Speaker 2: you take this egg and you lay on it because
21:09
Speaker 2: if you, if you get found out give to that Battley,
21:11
Speaker 2: you will be faced with this hid And as I'm
21:13
Speaker 2: sitting there awaiting for trial that he was on the
21:16
Speaker 2: visit I was getting in the county jail, and this
21:19
Speaker 2: time he was letting me know, hey, this is your baby.
21:24
Speaker 2: You're sitting on that egg. Yeah, you gonna get found
21:26
Speaker 2: gifted this what you he was threading me. After a
21:29
Speaker 2: couple of months went past, I went to trial. I
21:31
Speaker 2: was I was acquitted of that there right when they
21:34
Speaker 2: were processing me out. They came with a benchwarm and
21:38
Speaker 2: I asked him for what he said, timper arm Rob
21:41
Speaker 2: right there, and that I knew missus wasn't gonna let
21:44
Speaker 2: me go home.
21:46
Speaker 1: No, he was not. Like he had already explained to you,
21:48
Speaker 1: he had six people that were ready to identify you,
21:51
Speaker 1: and all of those ideas, with the exception of Eddie Love,
21:53
Speaker 1: were going to be cross Rachel, which I'll say it again,
21:56
Speaker 1: in study after study has been proven to be less
22:00
Speaker 1: accurate than guessing. So we had your picture now, and
22:02
Speaker 1: you put it into another suggestive lineup.
22:05
Speaker 3: What's remarkable about Elkhart is even though they had the
22:08
Speaker 3: ability to do live lineups back in the nineties, they
22:12
Speaker 3: declined to do it. All of the identifications in this
22:16
Speaker 3: case were made on photo rays, and if you look
22:21
Speaker 3: at the photo rays, it's like, yeah, canel id Keith
22:27
Speaker 3: kurshioner ide Keith And you're like, oh wow, these are
22:29
Speaker 3: positive identifications. You know, there's no reports about you know,
22:35
Speaker 3: confidence levels, or whether they're done sequentially or together. And
22:40
Speaker 3: it took, frankly about fifteen years for that story to
22:45
Speaker 3: really unravel and for us to learn how those identifications
22:49
Speaker 3: were manufactured. So you know, once we began the investigation
22:55
Speaker 3: into what was really going on, the victims told us
22:58
Speaker 3: all this information about the identification process. They told us
23:03
Speaker 3: that they were telling Razuko the whole time they didn't
23:06
Speaker 3: know if Keith Cooper was really the person. They actually
23:08
Speaker 3: were like demanding a live lineup to Detective Razuko, saying like,
23:13
Speaker 3: we want a live lineup because we're not sure, you know,
23:15
Speaker 3: we don't want to misidentify somebody, and he just kept
23:18
Speaker 3: telling them, I got the right guy, I got the
23:20
Speaker 3: right guy. He also told him that he didn't have
23:22
Speaker 3: enough tall black people in Elkhart to do a live lineup,
23:25
Speaker 3: which is also a lie.
23:26
Speaker 1: It sounds like the basis for probable cause was a
23:29
Speaker 1: lie as well. These IDs were not positive ideas and
23:33
Speaker 1: the lead up to trial, but Razuko was able to
23:36
Speaker 1: shore them up later in the meantime leading up to trial,
23:40
Speaker 1: they had the DNA from the sweatband and the results
23:42
Speaker 1: came back telling the state definitively that Keith was not
23:48
Speaker 1: and could not have been involved, which should have put
23:50
Speaker 1: an end to this crazy prosecution.
23:54
Speaker 3: Totally like one hundred percent, but instead the state enters
23:59
Speaker 3: into this stipulation with this defense attorney that Keith had
24:03
Speaker 3: saying that if the State Lab analysts were to testify
24:07
Speaker 3: a trial, she would testify that the hat neither included
24:11
Speaker 3: nor excluded Keith Cooper from having worn it, and that
24:14
Speaker 3: is like the opposite of what the actual DNA results say,
24:19
Speaker 3: which is that like he's excluded from being a contributor
24:22
Speaker 3: to any of the DNA on the hat.
24:24
Speaker 1: I'm planning. It hard to understand why his attorney would
24:27
Speaker 1: do something so stupid. I mean, did you know that
24:30
Speaker 1: your attorney was allowing this shit to go on?
24:32
Speaker 2: No? No, no. When the DNA, I felt confident that
24:36
Speaker 2: that's going to be the way I get out. But
24:39
Speaker 2: the negu the stipulation, which I didn't understand at the
24:41
Speaker 2: time what the word meant. My lawyer told me that
24:44
Speaker 2: when he agreed to that, that it's going to be
24:47
Speaker 2: into my favor if I agreed to the stipulation. I said, okay, cool.
24:50
Speaker 3: What ended up having a trial is like you know
24:52
Speaker 3: is in many of these cases, right, you've got police misconduct,
24:56
Speaker 3: you've got overzealous prosecutors, you know, they just want to
24:58
Speaker 3: get a conviction. And he had a defense attorney who
25:02
Speaker 3: was checked out. Are we going to say his name, Yeah,
25:06
Speaker 3: Jack's meeting. He did not protect Keith Cooper had trial.
25:10
Speaker 3: And you know when I say trial like that is
25:14
Speaker 3: like charitable. This was a half day bench proceeding that
25:18
Speaker 3: sent Keith to prison wrongfully for a decade of his life.
25:22
Speaker 1: It's chilling to think that he said to you. He
25:25
Speaker 1: was actually being honest, but not in a good way,
25:28
Speaker 1: because he said, I'm going to take a bench trial
25:31
Speaker 1: so we could get this over with, right he was
25:33
Speaker 1: he was not. I mean, any lawyer would know that
25:37
Speaker 1: you're better off with twelve jurors where you only need
25:40
Speaker 1: one to say, hey, this doesn't make any sense.
25:43
Speaker 2: I thought that way too, But he kept on telling me, saying,
25:47
Speaker 2: you bet off facing the judge because the judge just
25:49
Speaker 2: familiar with the laws, and I'll better for you to
25:52
Speaker 2: do it with this judge and have to go through
25:54
Speaker 2: the twelve people because the judge know more about your
25:57
Speaker 2: case than they do. And like I said, I know
26:01
Speaker 2: about the system. So I went with what he was
26:03
Speaker 2: saying because you know, hey, he represented me, but he wasn't.
26:07
Speaker 2: He was just getting basic. He just wanted me to
26:09
Speaker 2: cop out.
26:10
Speaker 1: It seems like that's what the court was greased up
26:13
Speaker 1: to do. I don't even understand how the judge could
26:16
Speaker 1: have allowed that stipulation to come to pass, honestly, But
26:19
Speaker 1: everyone seemed on board with just ignoring the clear cut
26:23
Speaker 1: evidence of your innocence leading up to trial, except for
26:27
Speaker 1: the people who didn't know about the DNA evidence. The eyewitnesses,
26:31
Speaker 1: who it seems to me, were probably the only people
26:34
Speaker 1: trying to do the right thing here.
26:35
Speaker 3: Canel Mike Kirshner, They like, were so insistent regarding their
26:41
Speaker 3: doubts in this identification that Razuka was like, fine, show
26:46
Speaker 3: up to the courthouse at this time and maybe in
26:49
Speaker 3: this location, and the date was Keith Cooper's trial, the
26:53
Speaker 3: location was the hallway, and the time was before the
26:56
Speaker 3: trial started. And so Razuko has these witnesses lined up
27:02
Speaker 3: in the hallway as Keith Cooper is walking up with
27:05
Speaker 3: his wife and children. And what the witnesses and the
27:08
Speaker 3: victims say is a Rezuko turned to them and so
27:12
Speaker 3: that's the guy. That's the guy you're going to go
27:14
Speaker 3: in there and identify as the shooter. And they did
27:18
Speaker 3: what the cop told him to do.
27:20
Speaker 1: So they trusted the detective that he had the right guy. Meanwhile,
27:24
Speaker 1: he knew otherwise all along. In fact, Berzuko, Winn Biggler,
27:28
Speaker 1: and Ambrose knew that the case was so weak with
27:31
Speaker 1: the shaky IDs and DNA evidence exonerating Keith, that they
27:35
Speaker 1: had to come up with even more bullshit.
27:38
Speaker 3: So at some point prior to trial, detective Razuko and
27:42
Speaker 3: Wim Biggler get a jail house informant involved named de
27:45
Speaker 3: Barry Coleman, and they promised to Barry Coleman as consideration
27:49
Speaker 3: and fed them information in order to fabricate a statement
27:53
Speaker 3: alleging that Keith confessed to him when they were incarcerating
27:56
Speaker 3: together in a trial. One of the remarkable things they
27:59
Speaker 3: were Marry Coleman actually refused to testify there, and the
28:03
Speaker 3: judge allowed for a detective to testify to the statement
28:07
Speaker 3: that he took from the jailhaus informant without any defense
28:11
Speaker 3: having the ability to cross examine the informant who is
28:13
Speaker 3: refusing to testify.
28:15
Speaker 1: That is off the rails. Everybody who knows anything about
28:21
Speaker 1: the law or legal proceedings knows that there can be
28:24
Speaker 1: no testimony for either side unless the other side has
28:27
Speaker 1: an opportunity to counter it by cross examining the witness.
28:31
Speaker 1: I've seen wrongful convictions happen for that reason.
28:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, but apparently like Razuka was like not convinced that
28:37
Speaker 3: Keith was going to get wrongfully convicted, and so like
28:41
Speaker 3: he goes out into the hall and gets us witness
28:44
Speaker 3: Jason Ackley, who was at the time of the shooting
28:47
Speaker 3: in the shower, is not in the living room when
28:49
Speaker 3: the shooting's going on, and he tells Aclee that he
28:52
Speaker 3: needs them to go in there and identify Cooper's voice
28:56
Speaker 3: as the voice that he heard through the walls. Well,
29:00
Speaker 3: he's showery as the perfid who fire the shot. I mean,
29:04
Speaker 3: it's the most absurd thing. And so they bring this
29:06
Speaker 3: guy out from the hallway and they have Keith, you know,
29:08
Speaker 3: say some ridiculous thing in court, and Actly it's like, oh, yeah,
29:12
Speaker 3: that's the voice I heard.
29:13
Speaker 1: Not only is voice recognition totally unreliable, but for anyone
29:17
Speaker 1: who's ever taken a shower, we all know that identifying
29:19
Speaker 1: a strange voice over the water through the wall and
29:23
Speaker 1: maybe the shower curtain or the glass door and whatever
29:25
Speaker 1: else is between you and whatever is going on, This guy,
29:28
Speaker 1: actly is totally full of it. So, Keith, you'd watched
29:32
Speaker 1: all this go down the eyewitnesses gave positive i DS
29:35
Speaker 1: in court, the judge a lot of detectives to read
29:37
Speaker 1: in the jailhouse snitch statement after the snitch refused to testify,
29:40
Speaker 1: and your defense attorney entered into that DNA stipulation. Hell,
29:44
Speaker 1: this is a freaking bench trial. And the judge went
29:48
Speaker 1: ahead and allowed that stipulation. I mean, I don't know
29:51
Speaker 1: how you could have held out any hope that you'd
29:53
Speaker 1: still be acquitted after that.
29:55
Speaker 2: No, something my body told me, man, I was going
29:58
Speaker 2: to perison wh to use the DN neighbor when it
30:01
Speaker 2: proved that I was innocent that when they said inconclusive,
30:04
Speaker 2: when they threw that to the side, I knew I
30:05
Speaker 2: was going to prison. The judge mine was already made
30:09
Speaker 2: up and we had recess. When we came up to recess,
30:11
Speaker 2: I was found gifted. I looked at my turn and
30:13
Speaker 2: I said, how you let this happened when the DNA
30:17
Speaker 2: was there? And he said, but I did what I could.
30:19
Speaker 2: It's like a little Grimace grens about itself, you know, like, hey,
30:22
Speaker 2: I did what I can do.
30:24
Speaker 1: Wow. I mean, this is really devastating just to hear
30:30
Speaker 1: about it, and you had to live through it, and
30:35
Speaker 1: then you got taken off the prison, facing forty years
30:41
Speaker 1: to life.
30:42
Speaker 2: During my sentences, I had told my wife she had
30:45
Speaker 2: to get on with her life. Don't worry about me,
30:47
Speaker 2: because I can't help her or my three babies. I
30:51
Speaker 2: have to now worry about having or surviving this prison,
30:53
Speaker 2: and you have to worry about how you and the
30:55
Speaker 2: kids going to survive because I don't have no source
30:57
Speaker 2: of help, and better help myself now this time. So
31:01
Speaker 2: you know, i'm'a lost the words, and she lost the
31:04
Speaker 2: words too, cause we both got a journey on our
31:07
Speaker 2: own now separate ways. All the best value where they
31:26
Speaker 2: sent me to it was the ride, the long ride
31:29
Speaker 2: down then that Uh it took its toll on me
31:32
Speaker 2: cause I had to think about how I was gonna
31:34
Speaker 2: survive in that prison, and uh they thought about me
31:37
Speaker 2: not saying my babies again, that was taking the toll.
31:41
Speaker 2: The close I got to that penitention, the more I
31:43
Speaker 2: really I wasn't gonna see my kids, you know. Then
31:47
Speaker 2: when I got inside the PENITENTI it was I knew
31:51
Speaker 2: that was gonna be my home for the next forty
31:53
Speaker 2: years if I lived, And that was scary cause I
31:58
Speaker 2: was in a place where I know nobody, nobody, And
32:03
Speaker 2: now then I had to deal with the mentality of
32:06
Speaker 2: the prison yard. Everybody in there is taking a frustration.
32:10
Speaker 2: I don't one another, and no matter how you try
32:14
Speaker 2: to avoid it, you couldn't shake it. It came. It
32:18
Speaker 2: always presented itself where you had to knuckle up, you
32:21
Speaker 2: had to throw your hands, you had to fight. I
32:24
Speaker 2: was getting tired of people. Man. Every morning, Man, somebody
32:27
Speaker 2: manhod is getting tested. It's like, I'm tired of fighting. Man.
32:31
Speaker 2: I'm gonna end up man actually committing a crime in
32:35
Speaker 2: this place, and I know they was going to eventually
32:38
Speaker 2: and kill me up in there.
32:40
Speaker 1: How did you survive and how did you maintain hope
32:43
Speaker 1: in a place that, I mean hope was lost.
32:46
Speaker 2: I got on my knees and I just prayed. Man,
32:48
Speaker 2: I asked God, I asked God's a guy that helped
32:50
Speaker 2: me get through this year. I wasn't really get in
32:53
Speaker 2: no help until I got the point in another lawyer,
32:55
Speaker 2: Radio Pelaski, and he came into my life. That's when
32:58
Speaker 2: the hope, when everything began change for me. After nine year,
33:01
Speaker 2: it took me nine years to see that they're like
33:04
Speaker 2: you said, man, I looked through your cage I see
33:06
Speaker 2: with the DNA here, I'm gonna have to redo your DNA.
33:09
Speaker 3: So you know Keith's case. You know, in the early
33:12
Speaker 3: two thousands, there was more DNA testing down on the
33:16
Speaker 3: hat and they were able to run the profile from
33:20
Speaker 3: thisweatban through the code of database and they got a
33:23
Speaker 3: hit to a person named Jolana Servant who was convicted
33:27
Speaker 3: of murder with a similar type weapon in a town
33:31
Speaker 3: that was less than thirty miles from Elkhart and to
33:35
Speaker 3: match the description that the witnesses really gave. So when
33:39
Speaker 3: the system fails and the wrong person goes in, it
33:43
Speaker 3: fails the victim's family, Keith Cooper and his family. But
33:46
Speaker 3: here's a situation where like, because the detectives went so
33:51
Speaker 3: far out of their way to put an innocent guy
33:54
Speaker 3: in prison, the real perpetrator not only stayed free, but
33:57
Speaker 3: he actually committed another murder. They had actually done their
34:00
Speaker 3: job originally, maybe they could have prevented that. So when
34:04
Speaker 3: the hit happened, Keith was litigating a post conviction petition
34:08
Speaker 3: and the judge gave Keith's attorney, who is at the
34:11
Speaker 3: Public Defender's Office, and Keith a choice either he will
34:16
Speaker 3: grant a new trial, and at that point, the defense
34:19
Speaker 3: attorney who was representing Keith. You know, these victims, you know,
34:23
Speaker 3: they were identifying Keith for all he knew, you know,
34:25
Speaker 3: he didn't talk to them, and there was some fear
34:27
Speaker 3: by the attorney that Keith could get re wrongfully convicted
34:31
Speaker 3: or the offer that was presented is that the state
34:35
Speaker 3: would modify Keith's sentence on the wrongful conviction to time
34:39
Speaker 3: serve so that he could go home to his family.
34:42
Speaker 2: I want to go home because I had got a
34:44
Speaker 2: letter from my sister telling me that my family was
34:47
Speaker 2: living in the shelter, and that was what made me
34:51
Speaker 2: really won't understand that paper maps I can come home
34:53
Speaker 2: because I didn't want my people living in the shell,
34:56
Speaker 2: especially my little daughter, because I was locked up with
34:59
Speaker 2: the perverted guy. As you hear, they tell their stories
35:02
Speaker 2: how they find to get their victims, and that made
35:05
Speaker 2: me realize, Man, I need to get a body history
35:08
Speaker 2: as fast as possible.
35:09
Speaker 1: That's a sophie's choice. You know, Yes, you get to
35:11
Speaker 1: go home to your family, but you get to live
35:14
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life as a convicted violent felon,
35:17
Speaker 1: you know, Or of course you have to go back
35:19
Speaker 1: to jail await trial in a hellish place, which could
35:23
Speaker 1: take years to get back to another trial. And then
35:26
Speaker 1: you've already seen the worst of what the system has
35:28
Speaker 1: to offer, and you know they're capable of faming and
35:31
Speaker 1: they can just do it again. So who would want
35:33
Speaker 1: to have to make that choice? I think for someone
35:35
Speaker 1: in Keith's position in Elkhart, Indiana at that time, it
35:37
Speaker 1: was probably the only only rational choice to make.
35:40
Speaker 2: When I got out in two thousand and six, my
35:44
Speaker 2: kids didn't even know who I was, and I bet
35:46
Speaker 2: they recognized them because they had grew up. It was
35:49
Speaker 2: teenagers now, they was just little babies when I went
35:52
Speaker 2: into that, you know, being raised without me and their life.
35:55
Speaker 2: He had some little resentments that I had to deal with.
35:59
Speaker 2: I had to let them know it wasn't like I
36:00
Speaker 2: just walked out your life. I was kidnapped. They took
36:04
Speaker 2: me out from y'all, you know. So there was a
36:08
Speaker 2: hard pill for all of us to swallow. Whom we
36:09
Speaker 2: got reunited.
36:11
Speaker 1: This is something that will have a lasting impact on
36:13
Speaker 1: them for as long as they live. Right, the children
36:16
Speaker 1: need their dad, they need their parents.
36:18
Speaker 2: And be all right now. I mean, I'm so happy
36:22
Speaker 2: I got my grandkids around me. They keep me motivated.
36:25
Speaker 2: You know, I might have missed out on raising my
36:27
Speaker 2: own kids, but at least my kids give me the
36:30
Speaker 2: luxury of raising their children. So I'm grateful.
36:33
Speaker 1: What do they call you? They call you Grandpa, grabs
36:35
Speaker 1: pop pap, or they call you.
36:37
Speaker 2: They call me Paul, Paul. They love they Paupaul.
36:40
Speaker 1: That's great, And I understand you got remarried as well,
36:44
Speaker 1: to your wife, Nicole Slaton Cooper in twenty ten.
36:48
Speaker 2: Oh. I love my wife. She's beautiful. She's been very
36:51
Speaker 2: supportive of me. And the personal I got to get
36:55
Speaker 2: high honors to is God first. Then my lawyer fly
37:00
Speaker 2: brother's last frame. Yeah, Ellis. So when he stepped that
37:04
Speaker 2: came to my life. I was given. Man. I knew
37:07
Speaker 2: I had a chance man to make things right.
37:10
Speaker 3: So, you know, I learned about Keith Cooper when I
37:12
Speaker 3: was investigating the case of his co defend at Christopher Pierrish,
37:16
Speaker 3: who had already been exonerated. You know, he was in
37:18
Speaker 3: the middle of a civil lawsuit. I was like, not
37:21
Speaker 3: even in law school yet. When I was working on
37:23
Speaker 3: that as an investigator, and when I talked to the
37:27
Speaker 3: victims and they told me what Detective rzuco really did
37:32
Speaker 3: to get these false identifications. You know, I went back
37:35
Speaker 3: to the firm to my boss and I was like, Chad,
37:39
Speaker 3: Keith Cooper is super innocent, and these people all feel
37:44
Speaker 3: terrible that they ripped his life away. We've got to
37:47
Speaker 3: We've got to tell him. So I met Keith that
37:50
Speaker 3: way and ended up, you know, promising him, you know
37:54
Speaker 3: that we would do everything that we can to help
37:56
Speaker 3: him get his name back.
37:58
Speaker 1: Since your investigation of Keith case really began with Chris
38:01
Speaker 1: Parrish's case, we need to revisit what that investigation and
38:04
Speaker 1: the civil suit uncovered. Now he filed the wrongful conviction
38:08
Speaker 1: lawsuit in twenty ten, so take us through that.
38:11
Speaker 3: During Parish's civil lawsuit, Keith Cooper's wrongful conviction unraveled, the
38:16
Speaker 3: eyewitnesses revealed that they were manipulated into misidentifying Keith Cooper
38:22
Speaker 3: the joehas informant to Barry Coleman. You know, he refused
38:26
Speaker 3: to testify trial, right, So Coleman you know, revealed like, hey, yeah,
38:29
Speaker 3: I didn't testify trial because A it was false and
38:32
Speaker 3: B they didn't satisfy their promises to me, and I
38:35
Speaker 3: wasn't going through with it. I wasn't going to let
38:38
Speaker 3: them give me up there to put an incant guy
38:40
Speaker 3: in prison. Jason Ackley, the guy in the shower, testified
38:44
Speaker 3: that Detective Verzuko was out in the hallway and just
38:46
Speaker 3: told him what to do, and he would do anything
38:49
Speaker 3: to help Detective Razuko and you know, the family get
38:51
Speaker 3: a conviction. So he was just doing what Razuko said.
38:54
Speaker 1: Parish presented evidence that a Kirsha was shot in the
38:58
Speaker 1: parking lot outside the building and about it because he
39:01
Speaker 1: said it was in the apartment because he was on
39:03
Speaker 1: home detention for a gun charge. So that's a bombshell
39:07
Speaker 1: right there. Okay, then Love testify the police coerced him
39:10
Speaker 1: to identify Parish. DNA test conducted after the trial, and
39:14
Speaker 1: the hat showed not Keith Cooper, of course, but as
39:17
Speaker 1: you said, DNA of a man named Jolanis Irvin who
39:20
Speaker 1: was later convicted of murder.
39:22
Speaker 3: It would later be proven that Detective Razuko, the same
39:26
Speaker 3: guy who was telling the eyewitnesses who to select in
39:28
Speaker 3: the hallway with Keith Cooper, was using a child photo
39:32
Speaker 3: of Chris Parrish so that they knew who to identify
39:35
Speaker 3: and his arrays. And then Razuko would later admit under
39:38
Speaker 3: oath that when he watched Chris Parrish's trial, this frame
39:41
Speaker 3: job that he like orchestrated, and he admitted in the deposition,
39:45
Speaker 3: like they convinced me. I thought they were going to
39:47
Speaker 3: find him not guilty.
39:49
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, the state's case had been laid to waste. Right,
39:52
Speaker 1: it was just laying there in tatters. And there's still
39:55
Speaker 1: so much more that was revealed, and we'll get to
39:57
Speaker 1: that in a minute. But Keith's best shot at Exander
40:00
Speaker 1: was an actual innocence pardon from the governor. And this
40:03
Speaker 1: was Governor Pence at the time, and it was filed
40:06
Speaker 1: in like twenty thirteen, Right, wasn't he released in two
40:10
Speaker 1: thousand and six?
40:11
Speaker 3: In Indiana? They had this real antiquated rule at the
40:14
Speaker 3: time where if you had been released from prison, then
40:18
Speaker 3: you had to wait five years to file a pardon
40:21
Speaker 3: our parle application.
40:23
Speaker 1: So all of this information had already been accumulated. No
40:26
Speaker 1: one could deny his innocence. They couldn't have back in
40:29
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, even though they would have tried.
40:31
Speaker 1: But now he's out and ready for the fight. So
40:33
Speaker 1: this goes in front of the Pardon and Parole Board
40:35
Speaker 1: and there's an even better case made for then Governor
40:37
Speaker 1: Pence to do the right thing. Here.
40:39
Speaker 3: What's remarkable is that the part of parle board did
40:42
Speaker 3: a unanimist recommendation. They recommended the actual innocence pardon the victim.
40:47
Speaker 3: Michael Kershner testified on Keith Cooper's behalf, apologized to him,
40:51
Speaker 3: told him what Detective Razuko did, you know, begged the
40:54
Speaker 3: part and parle board to do the right thing, beg
40:56
Speaker 3: the governor to do the right thing. A number of
40:58
Speaker 3: other people gave statements, and probably you know, the most
41:01
Speaker 3: critical thing was a letter from the trial prosecutor who's
41:05
Speaker 3: now a judge, an Elk Card, Judge Christefino. It was
41:09
Speaker 3: a letter directed from the trial prosecutor to Governor Pence,
41:12
Speaker 3: and in the letter, mister Cristeffino admitted that the evidence
41:18
Speaker 3: available to the State of Indiana at this time exonerates
41:21
Speaker 3: Keith Cooper, and justice demands that mister Cooper be pardoned.
41:26
Speaker 3: As an attorney, he begged the governor to undo Keith
41:31
Speaker 3: Cooper's tragic, wrongful conviction. And then Pence sat on this
41:35
Speaker 3: thing for years and instead, once he got nominated by Trump,
41:42
Speaker 3: they wrote a public letter that they submitted to the
41:46
Speaker 3: press saying that the governor wasn't going to act on
41:50
Speaker 3: the actual instance pardon even though it was bored, unanimously
41:54
Speaker 3: recommended that it be granted, and telling Keith Cooper to
41:57
Speaker 3: go back to court and file a post viction petition.
42:01
Speaker 3: And we went back to court, we filed the post
42:03
Speaker 3: conviction petition. We were going to call the bluff. What
42:06
Speaker 3: ended up happening is Keith's case became a political issue
42:12
Speaker 3: and a civil rights issue in Indiana. During the gubernatorial election,
42:16
Speaker 3: there was even a debate where the candidates were each
42:19
Speaker 3: asked the question, will you parting Keith Cooper in your
42:22
Speaker 3: first three days in office? That is how like big
42:25
Speaker 3: this guy? And so the momentum could not be stopped.
42:28
Speaker 2: I felt like a celebrity. I tell you that God
42:32
Speaker 2: is good. Hey he put me out there when I
42:35
Speaker 2: heard that part. And I was at work on a
42:37
Speaker 2: forklift truck loading the FAED except and one of my
42:42
Speaker 2: guys ran on the back of the truck. He said, Keith,
42:45
Speaker 2: you've just been pawned. I didn't know. He said, man,
42:48
Speaker 2: you gave me pint. I thought it was a game
42:50
Speaker 2: he was just going to play. If I say, man, got
42:52
Speaker 2: time for them, I'm loading this truck. Let me work.
42:54
Speaker 2: He said, come and look, and I look. There was
42:57
Speaker 2: every hope and pardoned Keith Cooper and then I couldn't
43:00
Speaker 2: do nothing. Man, But as a man, I tried to
43:03
Speaker 2: hold back my feelings, but the tear just just flooded.
43:07
Speaker 2: And Uh, everybody on my job, they was all happy
43:10
Speaker 2: because they had the word that got out and on Uh,
43:14
Speaker 2: I had to leave work. I was suicided. I was free.
43:18
Speaker 2: I went home and and just got on my knees
43:23
Speaker 2: a minute, just let it all. I just tears are
43:26
Speaker 2: just overwhelming, and they were just flooding the revers with
43:29
Speaker 2: my eyes. Man, I couldn't stop. And I was thankful
43:33
Speaker 2: because it was like a dream had just come true
43:36
Speaker 2: for me. The burden, all that weight there was, all
43:38
Speaker 2: my chests is just a thousand pounds were just lifted
43:41
Speaker 2: off my chest, man, and I was free. My name
43:44
Speaker 2: was cleared, and I made history in the state of Indiana.
43:49
Speaker 3: The person who ultimately won that election, Governor Eric Holcombe,
43:52
Speaker 3: who was the lieutenant governor two Pence. Like this is
43:56
Speaker 3: somebody who was on Pence's ticket previously, and within his
44:01
Speaker 3: first thirty days in office, he granted Keith Cooper, the
44:05
Speaker 3: State of Indiana's only ever actual innocence part.
44:10
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
44:10
Speaker 1: Finally now comes the good stuff. Right now you get
44:15
Speaker 1: to take these people to task. So, of course, in
44:18
Speaker 1: November twenty nineteen, Keith filed the federal lawsuit against the
44:21
Speaker 1: City of Elkhart and four of its police officers. What
44:24
Speaker 1: did you learn during the civil proceedings, because this is
44:29
Speaker 1: this is deep.
44:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, we ended up filing the civil lawsuit, you know,
44:32
Speaker 3: as a federal lawsuit on behalf of Keith Cooper. We
44:36
Speaker 3: sued Detective Razukodwynn Bigler, A Ambrose, and the City of Elkhart,
44:40
Speaker 3: and that civil lawsuit unraveled what is going to be
44:46
Speaker 3: decades of exonerations people who were wrongfully convicted, just like
44:52
Speaker 3: Keith was. We ended up on covering these internal affairs
44:56
Speaker 3: files that were never disclosed to Keith Cooper prior to
45:00
Speaker 3: his trial in a parish's civil lawsuit. So like, not
45:04
Speaker 3: only was this stuff withheld on the criminal side from
45:06
Speaker 3: both of them, but like the City of Belcart literally
45:09
Speaker 3: litigated an entire lawsuit without turning it over, which is shocking.
45:13
Speaker 3: But those internal affairs files showed two different internal affairs
45:18
Speaker 3: investigations into Detective Verzuko, one in nineteen ninety six before
45:23
Speaker 3: Keith Cooper was ever wrongfully convicted, and another one in
45:26
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, and the nineteen ninety six I investigation,
45:30
Speaker 3: Detective Razuko admitted to paying an informant for sexual acts
45:36
Speaker 3: and she was used as a witness in a homicide investigation.
45:41
Speaker 3: Admitted to that, and the only thing that the department
45:45
Speaker 3: did was take away three of his vacation days. And
45:50
Speaker 3: in two thousand and one, Detective Verzuko was caught in
45:54
Speaker 3: another internal affairs investigation prompted by other law enforcement. He's
46:00
Speaker 3: coming into Elkhart and saying, we have evidence showing what
46:06
Speaker 3: your detective is doing paying informants and prostitutes for sexual
46:11
Speaker 3: interactions dating back to nineteen ninety four. Like, we have
46:15
Speaker 3: affidavits from these women who he was sexually assaulting, right, Like,
46:19
Speaker 3: there's no actual consent here when it's a law enforcement
46:22
Speaker 3: officer with a badge and a gun, Like, they don't
46:24
Speaker 3: really have a choice. But he was not only paying
46:26
Speaker 3: them for sexual interactions, but he was then fabricating statements
46:30
Speaker 3: for them to falsely implicate people in crimes, including murder.
46:33
Speaker 3: These people were going on the stand and testifying to
46:36
Speaker 3: frame innocent people like Keith Cooper. They ultimately sustained an
46:40
Speaker 3: allegation of malfeasans against him, which by definition is a
46:44
Speaker 3: criminal act, and he was allowed to resign and then
46:48
Speaker 3: get this. Between the time that the malfeasans finding happened
46:52
Speaker 3: and his resignation, a supervisor of his at the Elkcar
46:56
Speaker 3: Police Department and a supervisor in the Yolker Kennedy Prosecutor
47:00
Speaker 3: Office literally wrote letters of recommendation on letterhead to a
47:04
Speaker 3: different law enforcement agency so that he could get hired.
47:08
Speaker 3: And then the chief of police went to the Board
47:11
Speaker 3: of Public Safety and thanked Razuko for his years of
47:15
Speaker 3: public service. Like nobody knew about it. They buried it,
47:19
Speaker 3: all these people that he helped frame for crimes that
47:22
Speaker 3: he commit, a lot of clients in ours who were
47:24
Speaker 3: still wrongfully in prison, and then they buried it. And
47:27
Speaker 3: then Elkhart allowed Rezuko even after he resigned with this
47:31
Speaker 3: malfeasans finding, they were allowing him to testify in criminal
47:34
Speaker 3: cases like even murder trials without ever disclosing it to
47:38
Speaker 3: the defense for years. And we uncovered that, we uncovered
47:43
Speaker 3: a ton of other misconduct and exculpatory information that was withheld,
47:47
Speaker 3: and we ultimately filed avotion for sanctions against Detective Razuko
47:51
Speaker 3: for committing perjury and withholding evidence, including dating back to
47:55
Speaker 3: the parish lawsuit, and we sent him written discovery request
47:59
Speaker 3: that was like, maybe every informant you ever had, tell
48:02
Speaker 3: us the name of every informant you ever had sexual
48:04
Speaker 3: interactions with. Tell us the name of every informant you
48:07
Speaker 3: had sexual interactions with that you use as a witness
48:10
Speaker 3: in a criminal investigation. And the night before his response
48:15
Speaker 3: to the sanctions was due, and the night before his
48:17
Speaker 3: written discovery responses was due, he committed suicide.
48:24
Speaker 2: Wow.
48:27
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry for his family, but the fact
48:31
Speaker 1: is that everyone's safer with him not being in a
48:36
Speaker 1: position to hurt other people and abuse his power. You know, again,
48:40
Speaker 1: I wish it was the only time I'd heard a
48:41
Speaker 1: story like that. You know, the Pippo and Krevac case
48:44
Speaker 1: in Westchester had similar levels of police criminality. And then
48:47
Speaker 1: there's that horrible cop in Kansas City from the Lamont
48:51
Speaker 1: McIntyre case and so many others. You know that what
48:53
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, Yeah, yeah, Glubski, Jesus Christ.
48:57
Speaker 3: There's one more wild thing Jason that our law stud uncovered,
49:00
Speaker 3: you know, the detective who assisted Razuko and Fabricaine at
49:04
Speaker 3: Joha's informant statement at Win Bigler. He would later rise
49:07
Speaker 3: to the ranks of chief of police, Like he was
49:09
Speaker 3: chief of police in Elkhart through twenty eighteen. Like, this
49:13
Speaker 3: isn't even something that happened decades ago. And what we
49:17
Speaker 3: uncovered in Keith Cooper's civil lawsuit was that in the
49:20
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties there was a group of white officers in
49:24
Speaker 3: the Elkhart Police Department who refer to themselves as the Wolverines.
49:30
Speaker 3: Like people in the department have testified about this. Everybody
49:32
Speaker 3: up to the mayor has testified that they knew about
49:35
Speaker 3: the existence of this group existing within the department, And
49:40
Speaker 3: people have testified that the Wolverines originated. The name originated
49:44
Speaker 3: from this movie called Red Dawn from the nineteen eighties,
49:49
Speaker 3: which is real timely given what's going on with Russia
49:52
Speaker 3: and Red don was premised on this theme that a
49:56
Speaker 3: group of white suburban teenagers would resort to gorilla war
50:00
Speaker 3: in order to keep invaders out of their community. And
50:03
Speaker 3: these officers apparently saw people of color as invaders of
50:08
Speaker 3: their community and resorted to police abuse, police misconduct, framing
50:15
Speaker 3: innocent people, and mister Winbigler actually has admitted under oath
50:20
Speaker 3: to being associated with this group. And so the existence
50:24
Speaker 3: of the Wolverines is going to further unravel Elkhart's epidemic
50:30
Speaker 3: with wrongful convictions because those officers, time and time again
50:35
Speaker 3: have been implicated in framing other innocent people for crime sed.
50:39
Speaker 1: Incommit I hate to say, but it's almost like the
50:41
Speaker 1: Catholic Church. You know, you go to whichever city you
50:44
Speaker 1: go to, and you hear stories like this. We hear
50:46
Speaker 1: it day in and day out here as we interview
50:49
Speaker 1: people like Keith who've been through this. So since you've
50:51
Speaker 1: pursued civil litigation Indiana, that means you've forfeited the right
50:55
Speaker 1: to state compensation. But aren't you glad you did, because
50:58
Speaker 1: after hearing all the things that Elliott has been able
51:01
Speaker 1: to uncover here, which is nothing short of incredible by
51:03
Speaker 1: the way, you were able to win your civil suit.
51:06
Speaker 1: I mean, he really drew out the truth here and
51:09
Speaker 1: no one could hide from it.
51:10
Speaker 2: The truth never changed no matter how long it takes,
51:14
Speaker 2: the truth always remained the same. I favored my truth,
51:17
Speaker 2: and God pabil they could say whatever they want to say,
51:21
Speaker 2: and then God Pavel and he's not done with Elcot either.
51:25
Speaker 2: A whole lot of truth for the come out of
51:27
Speaker 2: al cut Yes, sir hey man.
51:30
Speaker 1: So we have a tradition here wrongful conviction. It's called
51:34
Speaker 1: closing arguments. It's how we close the show, and it
51:37
Speaker 1: works like this. First of all, I thank each of
51:41
Speaker 1: you guys for being here and sharing this truly incredible story.
51:45
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to turn my microphone off, kick
51:49
Speaker 1: back in my chair, put my headphones on, and just
51:51
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you want to share with me
51:54
Speaker 1: and our incredible audience. Elliott, let's let you go first,
51:58
Speaker 1: tell us what's on your mind, and then Keith can
52:01
Speaker 1: take us out.
52:02
Speaker 3: The epidemic in Elkhart is only beginning to unravel. Yeah,
52:12
Speaker 3: there are so many other Keith Coopers who continue to
52:15
Speaker 3: be wrongfully incarcerated, whether they were framed by Detective Razuko
52:20
Speaker 3: or other members of the Alkar Police Department. But one
52:24
Speaker 3: thing that Keith did through his fight over the past
52:29
Speaker 3: twenty six years, it shine a light on a community
52:35
Speaker 3: that was riddled with police and proscatorial misconduct. And Keith,
52:45
Speaker 3: through shining that life will be the main reason why
52:50
Speaker 3: so many other wrongfully convicted people will be set free. Recently,
52:56
Speaker 3: in seven point five million days different ways, the city
53:02
Speaker 3: of Elkhart acknowledge the egregious wrong in suffering that happened
53:08
Speaker 3: to Keith Cooper. And it's no coincidence that Keith received
53:16
Speaker 3: the largest wrongful conviction settlement in the state of Indiana.
53:21
Speaker 3: That settlement is a result of everything that Keith On
53:26
Speaker 3: earthed and that the city of Elkhot did not want
53:30
Speaker 3: a jury to hear. So while Keith's story is heartbreaking
53:39
Speaker 3: and tragic and so preventable, you'll be hearing about a
53:44
Speaker 3: lot of other Keith Cooper's being set free from Elkhart
53:50
Speaker 3: in the years to come.
53:52
Speaker 2: I just want to let people know, man, that the
53:56
Speaker 2: justice system can be fixed, and there's people are here
54:00
Speaker 2: that's working every day to see that folks like myself
54:06
Speaker 2: that a rawfully convicted do have a chance to get
54:10
Speaker 2: out because there's people out here working and they're looking
54:13
Speaker 2: into cases and they digging up the dirt on these wrongful,
54:19
Speaker 2: unlawful police prosecutors, even states attorneys and even the judges.
54:26
Speaker 2: They come in after them a loan as they keep
54:29
Speaker 2: they hope and stay in their faith. Whatever they faith
54:33
Speaker 2: may be, stay with it because God gonna send these
54:38
Speaker 2: folks around here. These people say out here to help,
54:41
Speaker 2: and I learned it. That's what I close.
54:51
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
54:54
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Warnis,
54:57
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
55:01
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
55:04
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
55:08
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
55:12
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55:15
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55:18
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