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#154 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Footwear Comparison Evidence · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: It's a clear fall day in America's heartland. You sit
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Speaker 1: in a chair outside your trailer contently looking out over
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Speaker 1: your farm. It's cool and the sun is setting behind
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Speaker 1: the dense forest that surrounds your property. Everything seems just right.
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Speaker 1: That evening, your stepdaughter in Net stops by with her boyfriend.
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Speaker 1: You and your wife were pretty upset when Annette told
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Speaker 1: you she was moving away from the farm and moving
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Speaker 1: in with her boyfriend, Todd and his parents downtown. You
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Speaker 1: don't want a Nette to be caught up with someone
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Speaker 1: from town. All those townies seem to care about his
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Speaker 1: church and gossip. You want nothing to do with them,
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Speaker 1: and they don't seem to want anything to do with you.
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Speaker 1: But in Nette's already eighteen, she's an adult. You can't
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Speaker 1: really control her. You try to act supportive, so you
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Speaker 1: nod to Todd and help a Nette pack the last
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Speaker 1: of her things into his trunk. You give her a
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Speaker 1: hug before she gets into the car with him, and
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Speaker 1: you watch as Todd pulls away to drive them back
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Speaker 1: into town, and you're feeling a little helpless. The next
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Speaker 1: day is pretty routine for you. You pick up loads
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Speaker 1: of hay to bring to your barn. It's strenuous work.
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Speaker 1: You work hard all day, you're exhausted, and you go
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Speaker 1: to bed early. The next morning, the phone rings. It's
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Speaker 1: Tod's mother. She says, are nett in Todd with you?
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Speaker 2: No?
1:29
Speaker 1: You say, I thought they were with you. Tod's mother
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Speaker 1: becomes frantic. She says, the kids went for a walk
1:36
Speaker 1: around four pm yesterday and they never came home last night.
1:41
Speaker 1: But there's something else going on there. There's a hint
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Speaker 1: of something, a tone of accusation in her voice, like
1:48
Speaker 1: she's somehow blaming you. You hang up and call the
1:52
Speaker 1: police immediately. You wait all day, hoping to hear something,
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Speaker 1: but there's nothing. You're just waiting and waiting and the
2:01
Speaker 1: police finally get back to you in the evening. They
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Speaker 1: can't find them. One sleepless night bleeds into another, and
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Speaker 1: then another and another. This is one terrible nightmare for
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Speaker 1: you and your wife. Ten days go on like this.
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Speaker 1: All you and your wife can do is sit and worry.
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Speaker 1: You're not eating, you're not sleeping, you don't know what
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Speaker 1: to do with yourselves. It's raining outside. When you finally
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Speaker 1: get a call from an officer, and you can hear
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Speaker 1: it in the tone of their voice. This is not
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Speaker 1: going to be good. The news I have for you
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Speaker 1: is not going to be easy to hear. He says,
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Speaker 1: we found Todd in a net in the Hawking River.
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Speaker 1: Oh my god, you can't stand. Your body is trembling.
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Speaker 1: You try to restate what the officer just said. You're
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Speaker 1: trying to wrap your head around what this means. You
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Speaker 1: found their bodies, their dead bodies. The officer says, they
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Speaker 1: didn't find their whole bodies, just their torsos. Their bodies
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Speaker 1: have been dismembered. You're completely sick. Officers spend two days
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Speaker 1: searching the cornfields between the railroad tracks and the river
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Speaker 1: where the torsos were found. They find Todd in a
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Speaker 1: net's limbs and heads buried in shallow graves. You and
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Speaker 1: your wife drive into town to the police station, and
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Speaker 1: you're taken aback by the attitudes of these cops. When
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Speaker 1: you're separated from your wife and pulled into an interrogation room,
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Speaker 1: officers tell you to take off your boots, your shirt,
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Speaker 1: your pants. You sit shivering in your underwear for eight
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Speaker 1: and a half hours, and then a detective comes in.
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Speaker 1: He sits down right next to you, puts his finger
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Speaker 1: in your face and says you did this. We know
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Speaker 1: you did this. We found your bootprint down by the riverbank.
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Speaker 1: Once we match that boot to the print that was
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Speaker 1: left at that riverbank, it'll prove you were there. You
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Speaker 1: killed your stepdaughter, and then you, sick bastard, you cut
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Speaker 1: off her arms, her legs, her head. You better confess,
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Speaker 1: because I'll tell you right now, it's going to get
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Speaker 1: worse for you if you don't. You say, over and
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Speaker 1: over and over again, what in the world are you
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Speaker 1: talking about. I didn't murder a net I just came
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Speaker 1: here to help you find out who did. What is
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Speaker 1: this all about. They don't have enough evidence to charge
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Speaker 1: you for the murder of a net and Todd, so
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Speaker 1: they have to let you go. They impound your car
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Speaker 1: so it can be searched for evidence. It's dark and
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Speaker 1: cold when they drive you home. They let you and
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Speaker 1: your wife out of the car and you're still naked
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Speaker 1: except for your underwear. You walk barefoot to your trailer.
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Speaker 1: Your toes are totally dumb by the time you get
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Speaker 1: to the door. Downtown, rumors start to spread. People are
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Speaker 1: saying this murder must have been some kind of cult ritual,
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Speaker 1: that it must have been you who did it? The quiet,
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Speaker 1: stern stepfather who never says much, never goes to church,
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Speaker 1: keeps his family hidden away. Who knows what goes on
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Speaker 1: at that farm. They didn't like you before, but now
5:31
Speaker 1: they're straight a hostile. They cross the street to get
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Speaker 1: away from you when they see you coming. It takes
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Speaker 1: them a year to build the case against you. Are
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Speaker 1: they even looking at other suspects. The whispering of your
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Speaker 1: name around town grows to a fever pitch. You can
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Speaker 1: hear their accusations ring in your ears. Murderer, molester. You're
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Speaker 1: eventually arrested in charge with the butchering murder of your
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Speaker 1: stepdaughter and net and her boyfriend Todd. When you finally
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Speaker 1: go to court, you do something very out of the ordinary.
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Speaker 1: You waive the right to a jury trial. Finding twelve
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Speaker 1: impartial people in Logan, Ohio really not going to happen.
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Speaker 1: The newspapers, everyone around town, they all think you're guilty.
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Speaker 1: Everyone just wants to feel safe again. They won't be
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Speaker 1: satisfied until someone is convicted and they are sure that
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Speaker 1: person is you. Instead of a jury, you put your
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Speaker 1: fate in the hands of a three judge panel. A
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Speaker 1: jury might not see it, but three judges they have to.
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Speaker 1: It's their job to apply the facts to the law
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Speaker 1: without any outside influence from the court of public opinion.
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Speaker 1: Your lawyer calls to the stand and FBI analyst who
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Speaker 1: says the plaster mold of what the prosecution claims is
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Speaker 1: your bootprint at the riverbank is quote unquote unsuitable. The
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Speaker 1: analyst says it lacks sufficient detail for meaningful comparison, and
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Speaker 1: that it looks more like the footprint of someone who
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Speaker 1: is walking barefoot. There is no way to claim your
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Speaker 1: boots match that print, so you're optimistic. But then the
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Speaker 1: prosecution calls an anthropology professor to the stand. She says
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Speaker 1: she studied footwear impressions of countless samples. Her delivery is
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Speaker 1: slow and deliberate and really credible. She says, quote, no
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Speaker 1: person's footprints are the same as another. They're as unique
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Speaker 1: as a fingerprint. I've analyzed the wear patterns on the
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Speaker 1: inside of the defendant's boot, and I can say with certainty,
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Speaker 1: scientific certainty, that the footprint found by the riverbank was
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Speaker 1: made by the defendant. This sounds unbelievable, but you see
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Speaker 1: the judges are nodding along. There's no wather buying. This
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Speaker 1: is there After a very short deliberation, the judges apparently
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Speaker 1: believed the testimony of the prosecution's anthropologist who put you
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Speaker 1: right at the scene of the crime. They convict you,
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Speaker 1: and you are sentenced to death. The story you just
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Speaker 1: heard is based on the murders of Annette Cooper Johnston
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Speaker 1: and Todd Schultz.
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Speaker 2: Dale.
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Speaker 1: Johnston was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty four. He was exonerated in nineteen ninety, over twenty
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Speaker 1: years after the murder. The true killer finally confessed, but
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Speaker 1: even then the people in the town of Logan still
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Speaker 1: chose to believe that Dale was guilty in one way
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Speaker 1: or another. On today's episode, we're going to examine how
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Speaker 1: a supposed footprint put an innocent man on death row.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Dubin civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an
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Speaker 1: innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York. Today,
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Speaker 1: on Wrongful Conviction Junk Science, we examine footwear comparison evidence.
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Speaker 1: Even when done correctly, impression analysis of evidence like shoe
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Speaker 1: prints and tire tracks is purely subjective. Many experts recognize
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Speaker 1: its limitations, but one so called expert in particular, pushed
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Speaker 1: the limits of this forensic discipline to produce horrific outcomes.
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Speaker 1: It turns out that Dale Johnson wasn't the only innocent
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Speaker 1: person to be convicted of a crime based on faulty
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Speaker 1: footwear comparison evidence.
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Speaker 3: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
9:46
Speaker 3: and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and
9:49
Speaker 3: tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re
9:54
Speaker 3: enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving
9:58
Speaker 3: the lives of hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily
10:03
Speaker 3: to helping young people and students. For more information on
10:07
Speaker 3: the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program,
10:10
Speaker 3: visit Pacersfoundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, archaeologists made one of the most
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Speaker 1: exciting discoveries of our time. They found footprints dating back
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Speaker 1: three point seven million years immortalized in the volcanic ash
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Speaker 1: in Tanzania, and they looked like human prints. Archaeologists were thrilled.
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Speaker 1: They thought these footprints could shed some light on when
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Speaker 1: human beings began walking upright on two feet. Luis Robbins
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Speaker 1: was an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina
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Speaker 1: at Greensboro. She too was excited about these footprints and
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Speaker 1: wanted to know exactly who left them behind. Louise had
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Speaker 1: been conducting her own studies in footprint analysis. She started
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Speaker 1: collecting footprints from people who were still alive. Five hundred
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Speaker 1: people put ink onto their feet and then stood on
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Speaker 1: a piece of paper. Based on those prints, Louise tried
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Speaker 1: to find characteristics and feet that were specific to age, sex, stature,
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Speaker 1: and weight, using her own system of measurement. She would
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Speaker 1: then compare those characteristics to the footprints found in the caves.
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Speaker 1: Her conclusion, no two footprints are the same. In fact,
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Speaker 1: she thought she could tell a great deal about a
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Speaker 1: person just by looking at their footprint. Her methods were
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Speaker 1: never tested by her peers, nor were they confirmed by
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Speaker 1: other scientists, but Louise she thought she was onto something.
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Speaker 1: She claimed to do something no one else could identify
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Speaker 1: a person solely through their footprint, and so in nineteen seven,
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Speaker 1: when a team of scientists went to excavate the site
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Speaker 1: in Tanzania where the prehistoric footprints were found, Louise went too.
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Speaker 1: When she saw the prince. She claimed that one of
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Speaker 1: them was left by a woman that was five and
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Speaker 1: a half months pregnant. Now, other scientists on the expedition
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Speaker 1: scratched their heads. It was hard enough to figure out
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Speaker 1: if the prints that they were looking at were even
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Speaker 1: human at all. No one had ever claimed to know
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Speaker 1: the gender of the person that made the print, let
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Speaker 1: alone of that person was carrying a child. Then Louise
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Speaker 1: took a dangerous leap. She positioned herself as a forensic expert,
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Speaker 1: authoring a book on footprints. She didn't write this book
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Speaker 1: with her scientific peers in mind, but she wrote it
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Speaker 1: for law enforcement and crime labs. Only five pages in
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Speaker 1: this book were dedicated to the analysis of actual shoe prints,
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Speaker 1: and yet, based on these five pages, Louise claimed that
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Speaker 1: she was an expert in this area of forensic science.
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Speaker 1: Lawyers began to hire her as an expert witness. They
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Speaker 1: told judges that her work was on the cutting edge
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Speaker 1: of forensic science. Critics of her work called it Cinderella analysis.
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Speaker 1: After all, she usually made sure that the shoe fit
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Speaker 1: when she matched the suspects foot to the shoe Prince
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Speaker 1: found at a crime scene. In the more than twenty
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Speaker 1: cases for which she testified. Twelve people, some of whom
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Speaker 1: who have since been proven to be innocent, were sent
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Speaker 1: to prison, including Dale Johnston, who was sentenced to death.
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Speaker 2: Dale Johnson and his wife Sarah at the time, came
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Speaker 2: down to Logan several days after the bodies had been discovered,
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Speaker 2: and they came to the Logan police department. They wanted
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Speaker 2: to be helpful to them, and Dale was immediately taken
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Speaker 2: up to an interrogation room. His boots, his pants, his
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Speaker 2: shirt were all confiscated. So he was sitting there in
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Speaker 2: the chair in his underwear and they were bombarding him.
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Speaker 2: You did it, didn't you? And we know you did it?
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Speaker 2: Over and over and over again. He kept saying, no,
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Speaker 2: I have nothing. I just came. I came into town
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Speaker 2: to try to help.
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Speaker 1: Here today is Bill Osinski, a journalist who covered the
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Speaker 1: Dale Johnson case for years and wrote a book about
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Speaker 1: it called Guilty by Popular Demand. So Bill, tell us
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Speaker 1: a little bit about yourself and how you started covering
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Speaker 1: this case.
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Speaker 2: For nearly forty years, I was a reporter. I worked
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Speaker 2: for eleven different newspapers around the country. I worked for
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Speaker 2: the Akron Beacon Journal at that time, which is nearly
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Speaker 2: two hundred miles away from Logan, Ohio, where the murders
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Speaker 2: took place. But in those days, the newspapers valued a
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Speaker 2: major story and would make that kind of an investment
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Speaker 2: in time and resources to over a widely publicized case
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Speaker 2: like that.
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Speaker 1: So, Bill, you actually went to Logan, Ohio to Coverdale's trial?
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Speaker 1: What was that like?
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Speaker 2: I drove into Logan, which is about thirty five miles
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Speaker 2: southeast of Columbus, Ohio, never been there before, and I
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Speaker 2: drove in on a January morning, and it was one
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Speaker 2: of the coldest days I can remember. The temperatures were
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Speaker 2: well below zero. And I went to the center of
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Speaker 2: the little town and found the courthouse. And here, you know,
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Speaker 2: eight o'clock on a weekday morning, there was a line
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Speaker 2: outside the courthouse. People were standing in that below zero
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Speaker 2: cold waiting for a chance to get in to hear
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Speaker 2: all this salacious details of this horrific murder of a
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Speaker 2: teenage couple who were found dismembered, parts of their bodies
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Speaker 2: buried in a cornfield near the Hawking River in Logan, Ohio.
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Speaker 1: Wow, this is a really brutal crime. I mean, you
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Speaker 1: have body parts buried in fields, and the prosecutors claimed
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Speaker 1: that Dale Johnson committed these murderers, and putting aside what
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Speaker 1: his motive would have been, how do they claim he
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Speaker 1: committed the murderers.
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Speaker 2: The prosecutor alleged in his scenario that Dale Johnston had
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Speaker 2: kidnapped these two kids in downtown Logan, made a stop
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Speaker 2: on his way home at a doctor's office and drove
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Speaker 2: him out to his trailer, where they got into an
16:32
Speaker 2: argument about a little used car that the parents were
16:36
Speaker 2: supposed to have given a net but hadn't yet, And
16:40
Speaker 2: out of that argument, Dale went into a jealous fit
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Speaker 2: and pulled out a gun which they never found, and
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Speaker 2: shot his stepdaughter and the boyfriend, and then took them outside,
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Speaker 2: apparently and butchered them, and then brought them back to
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Speaker 2: downtown Logan where they had last been seen, and put
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Speaker 2: some body parts, heads and limbs in the cornfield. I mean,
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Speaker 2: it just it made absolutely no sense. They had no
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Speaker 2: evidence that he was actually back in town at night
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Speaker 2: trying to bury these bodies, but that's what they elect.
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Speaker 2: Dale was not a warm guy. I mean, you know,
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Speaker 2: he was the outsider. He didn't have a high opinion
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Speaker 2: of the locals. They didn't like him, you know, he
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Speaker 2: was convenient guy for them to hang it on.
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Speaker 1: So, Bill, did anyone think that Dale was innocent? I mean,
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Speaker 1: what was your sense of the atmosphere surrounding the case.
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Speaker 2: There was such an atmosphere of the case having been
17:48
Speaker 2: already tried in the court of public opinion before the
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Speaker 2: trial even started. More than a year passed between the
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Speaker 2: murderers and the trial, and obviously the only story coming
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Speaker 2: out of him instigation was that Dale Johnston did it.
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Speaker 2: So that, in fact, was why the defense waived a
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Speaker 2: jury trial and asked for a three judge panel, because
18:08
Speaker 2: they knew that people in Hockey County were so predisposed
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Speaker 2: to believe that Dale Johnson was the killer.
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Speaker 1: Now, very little evidence was found at the scenes where
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Speaker 1: these body parts were found, but we know investigators found
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Speaker 1: some sort of print in the mud by the riverbank.
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Speaker 1: And Dale goes down to the police station with his
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Speaker 1: wife Sarah, and he thinks he's going there to help
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Speaker 1: them find the killers, but they confiscate his boots, and
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Speaker 1: of course those boots would be compared to the impression
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Speaker 1: found at the scene. So tell us a little bit more.
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Speaker 2: About what happened. There were so many cops out there that,
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Speaker 2: according to the testimony of a Ohio Bureau of Investigation agent,
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Speaker 2: they totally ruined the crime scene as far as being
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Speaker 2: able to collect any valid evidence. They were cops stopping
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Speaker 2: all over. Well, what happened was the sheriff of Hockeing
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Speaker 2: County had an impression made of a depression in the riverbank,
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Speaker 2: and they made it casting, and they sent it off
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Speaker 2: to the FBI, and it was examined by a nationally
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Speaker 2: known footprint expert at the FBI, and he was brought
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Speaker 2: in to testify to his findings, and he testified that, well,
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Speaker 2: all he could say that this casting was more likely
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Speaker 2: a footprint than any kind of a shoe print or bootprint.
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Speaker 2: And however, he forwarded this plaster cast at his own
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Speaker 2: volition to a woman anthropologist, Luis Robbins, for her examination.
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Speaker 2: And she had a the theory of how he could
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Speaker 2: identify footprints from the wear patterns on the inside of
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Speaker 2: someone's footwear. She had this Kakamami theory that by examining
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Speaker 2: the interior of a footwear she could get wear impressions
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Speaker 2: and use that to analyze a casting of a print
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Speaker 2: from a shoe or a boot. And so she testified
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Speaker 2: and trialed it. Well, you can't really say that Dale
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Speaker 2: Johnson's boot fits this, but from the wear patterns that
20:38
Speaker 2: she observed from the interior of the boot, when you
20:43
Speaker 2: looked at it that way, then yes, this was made
20:46
Speaker 2: by Dale Johnson's boot. And I had never heard of
20:50
Speaker 2: that before. It didn't make any sense to me. It
20:53
Speaker 2: was only later, after the damage was done, that it
20:56
Speaker 2: came out how irresponsible and unreliable and untrue.
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Speaker 1: Her testimony was, so let me get this straight. This
21:04
Speaker 1: is like, you know, kind of mind blowing here. Louise
21:08
Speaker 1: Robbins said that she could match the depression found by
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Speaker 1: the riverbank to Dale based on where patterns made by
21:16
Speaker 1: his foot inside his boot. I mean, it just sounds ridiculous.
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Speaker 1: I've never even heard of that before. This seems to
21:23
Speaker 1: go so far outside the bounds of any verifiable science.
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Speaker 1: And you know, it's important for our listeners to keep
21:31
Speaker 1: in mind that with impression pattern matching methods, that's that's
21:36
Speaker 1: the type of science we're talking about, or alleged science
21:40
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. With shoe prints and tires. There's
21:43
Speaker 1: a database that experts have and they refer to this
21:46
Speaker 1: database when they're matching a shoe or a tire to
21:49
Speaker 1: an impression at a scene, and tires and shoes are
21:53
Speaker 1: mass produced, so the same rubber mold is used to
21:57
Speaker 1: make them. But that just tells an expert what class
22:01
Speaker 1: that piece of evidence came from. So, for instance, they
22:04
Speaker 1: can say that this footwear impression was made by a
22:08
Speaker 1: size ten Nike Air Jordan. But the problem is a
22:12
Speaker 1: lot of people own a size ten Nike Air Jordan,
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Speaker 1: so it's not enough to put somebody at the scene.
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Speaker 1: So impression analysis really comes down to the individual characteristics
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Speaker 1: in the specific shoe or shoes that belong to the accused,
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Speaker 1: and we're talking about things like cracks in the sole
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Speaker 1: of the shoe, comes stuck to the bottom of the heel,
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Speaker 1: you know, characteristics that are often caused by routine wear
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Speaker 1: and tear. But the problem is there is no standard
22:44
Speaker 1: regarding the number of unique characteristics that are needed to
22:47
Speaker 1: make a positive identification. And it sounds like from the
22:52
Speaker 1: mold they were working with in this case that the
22:55
Speaker 1: FBI analysts couldn't even tell if the impression was made
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Speaker 1: by a bare foot or or a shoe, let alone
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Speaker 1: what kind of a shoe. So that should tell you
23:05
Speaker 1: something about the quality of the impression they were working with.
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Speaker 1: But miss Robbins makes this huge leap, and it's really
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Speaker 1: really hard to imagine that this could have been allowed
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Speaker 1: in a courtroom when someone's freedom was on the line.
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Speaker 1: And yet he or she is one of the prosecution's
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Speaker 1: key witnesses when it came to analyzing the physical evidence
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Speaker 1: of the scene. So how prominently did Miss Robin's testimony
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Speaker 1: play in the prosecution's closing arguments?
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Speaker 2: Bill, Well, it was very prominent because it was the
23:38
Speaker 2: only piece of evidence that linked Dail Johnson to the
23:42
Speaker 2: murder scene. I thought it was a very weak link
23:47
Speaker 2: to begin with, but apparently it was strong enough for
23:50
Speaker 2: three judges. His closing line was, murder is the ultimate
23:57
Speaker 2: form of molestation, so you must be guilty of murder too.
24:01
Speaker 2: He had, of course, been alleging without evidence, that Dale
24:05
Speaker 2: Johnson had inappropriate relationship with Annette.
24:08
Speaker 1: So after he's convicted and sentence, what happens next?
24:13
Speaker 2: Bill? He was sent immediately to death row. But you know,
24:18
Speaker 2: it was such a weird, hostile atmosphere in that town.
24:23
Speaker 2: I mean, I will never forget. When it came time
24:26
Speaker 2: for the verdict, all the spectators had gathered on the
24:30
Speaker 2: lower level of the courthouse, but listened to the verdict
24:33
Speaker 2: by radio, and I will never forget that when the
24:37
Speaker 2: guilty verdict was announced, there was this eerie cheering that
24:43
Speaker 2: came from below, you know, that filled up the court room.
24:46
Speaker 2: And these people wanted somebody to pay, and Dale Johnson
24:50
Speaker 2: happened to be the guy who they were able to
24:54
Speaker 2: hang it on.
24:55
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems Bill that they didn't even have
24:59
Speaker 1: anything other than a hunch that Dale Johnson did this.
25:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to make sense of this. I mean,
25:06
Speaker 1: do you think that they did this on purpose? Do
25:08
Speaker 1: you think that they set out to frame Dale Johnson?
25:12
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think anyone wants to accept that the
25:17
Speaker 2: prosecutors and police would knowingly fabricate an entire case against
25:25
Speaker 2: a murder defendant. And I know I came down to
25:28
Speaker 2: Logan with no preconceptions. I do remember, you know, having
25:34
Speaker 2: the belief that, you know, the state wouldn't bring these
25:37
Speaker 2: charges unless they had something against this guy. And by
25:41
Speaker 2: the end, I said, where is the case? I was
25:44
Speaker 2: shocked at the prosecutor's summary. I mean it it was
25:50
Speaker 2: total high opera and total fantasy. Everything that was presented
25:57
Speaker 2: in that trial was a lie. I believe somewhere before
26:03
Speaker 2: I die, I'm going to learn the truth in this case,
26:06
Speaker 2: and that just so happens that I did.
26:20
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting that oftentimes, when one of these
26:24
Speaker 1: disciplines of junk science is used in a case and
26:27
Speaker 1: the person is convicted, it's not the exposure of that
26:31
Speaker 1: junk science as being total bullshit that leads to the exoneration.
26:37
Speaker 1: It's often that DNA testing is used to prove that
26:40
Speaker 1: they have the wrong person. What's really interesting about this
26:44
Speaker 1: case is that Dale is eventually released from prison because
26:49
Speaker 1: his lawyers were able to prove that some of the
26:52
Speaker 1: evidence that was used the convictim was not admissible. And
26:54
Speaker 1: oddly enough, it wasn't the shoe evidence that was thrown out,
26:59
Speaker 1: but another witness is testimony. It turns out that a
27:02
Speaker 1: witness had been hypnotized by a detective and was persuaded
27:08
Speaker 1: to give this awful testimony against Dale at the trial,
27:12
Speaker 1: and you know, testimony that he like forcefully put a
27:15
Speaker 1: net in and Todd into a car, and that testimony
27:20
Speaker 1: was never supposed to be admitted in court, and that
27:23
Speaker 1: was what was deemed inadmissible, and Dale was let out
27:26
Speaker 1: because of that, and of course Louise Robbin's testimony about
27:31
Speaker 1: his you know, the inside wear patterns on his boots,
27:36
Speaker 1: you know, being definitive proof that the impression left on
27:39
Speaker 1: the riverbank was his, that was left undisturbed. And everyone
27:42
Speaker 1: still believed he was guilty. But then someone else confessed
27:46
Speaker 1: to murdering a net and Todd, so Bill tell us
27:50
Speaker 1: about that. Who actually committed this crime.
27:53
Speaker 2: A sorry little fellow named Chester McKnight. Was nicknamed Chester
27:59
Speaker 2: the just because apparently because it was weird and was
28:04
Speaker 2: an habitual criminal, habitual drunk, even though he had a
28:09
Speaker 2: history of assaults against women. And Chester actually got married
28:15
Speaker 2: and it lasted a couple of weeks before she kicked
28:18
Speaker 2: him out and left. And it was in that atmosphere
28:22
Speaker 2: where Chester just went over the deep end and was
28:25
Speaker 2: drinking day in and day out. He was obviously depressed,
28:30
Speaker 2: the wife had left him, and he was just drinking incessantly.
28:34
Speaker 2: He came on that afternoon, early evening of October fourth,
28:39
Speaker 2: to Kenny Lynn Scott's house, a local drug dealer. You know,
28:44
Speaker 2: they were drinking buddies. Anyway, there was a kind of
28:47
Speaker 2: a makeshift party in Kenny's yard and Chester joined in
28:52
Speaker 2: and here comes Todd and Annette. So they joined the
28:56
Speaker 2: party for a little while. I think they may have
28:58
Speaker 2: had a beer, and Chester decided to hey, let's keep
29:03
Speaker 2: the party going. I've got some I've got some stuff.
29:06
Speaker 2: And so they start walking down the railroad tracks and
29:09
Speaker 2: according to Chester's account, he wanted to have a group
29:14
Speaker 2: sex with Annette, and she of course know and Todd
29:20
Speaker 2: tried to get her out of the situation, and that's
29:24
Speaker 2: when Chester pulled a gun and shot him, and that
29:28
Speaker 2: started screaming. She shot her. At that point, Chester and
29:32
Speaker 2: Kenny dragged the bodies down to the riverfront at the
29:36
Speaker 2: edge of the cornfield and dismembered them. And Kenny, maybe
29:41
Speaker 2: with help maybe not, got the bodies back into the
29:44
Speaker 2: cornfield and dug shallow holes and put the limbs and
29:47
Speaker 2: the heads into a kind of a bear spot in
29:50
Speaker 2: the middle of the cornfield that he knew about. And
29:52
Speaker 2: Kenny the next few nights he would go out to
29:55
Speaker 2: that railroad bridge and cry and moan, and friends saying
30:00
Speaker 2: what's wrong, Kenny, And he told him, Yo, you wouldn't understand.
30:03
Speaker 2: His neighbors knew what he was doing. His neighbors saw
30:06
Speaker 2: his behavior, his neighbors told the police that they should
30:09
Speaker 2: be investigating him, but they never did, and they didn't
30:13
Speaker 2: have a record then of this strange call made the
30:16
Speaker 2: night before the body parts were found. Kenny Linscott made
30:20
Speaker 2: the call and said, have you found the bodies yet?
30:24
Speaker 2: And nobody at that point knew that the kids were
30:27
Speaker 2: even dead or that there were bodies to be found,
30:31
Speaker 2: And that call was logged and it became the thing
30:34
Speaker 2: that led to Kenny and ultimately to Chester. And so
30:40
Speaker 2: I have a law enforcement source that helped me with this,
30:42
Speaker 2: and he told me that, you know, everybody knew Kenny
30:45
Speaker 2: was acting weird after the killings, and he said, well,
30:48
Speaker 2: let's go talk to Kenny. And the sheriff says, oh no,
30:51
Speaker 2: we confined him when them we need him. So at
30:54
Speaker 2: the very beginning, lin Scott's name came up, but yet
30:58
Speaker 2: the police just dismissed him right out of a hand.
31:01
Speaker 1: In reflecting on all this, I just want to go
31:03
Speaker 1: back to Luis Robin's testimony about the shoe print for
31:06
Speaker 1: a moment. I understand why jurors would be persuaded by her.
31:11
Speaker 1: She's got this anthropology degree, she's a professor, she comes
31:15
Speaker 1: across I'm sure, convincingly she went and studied these ancient
31:20
Speaker 1: footprints in Tanzania. That all makes sense. But the three
31:25
Speaker 1: judges hearing this, you know, the inside wear patterns on
31:29
Speaker 1: the boot and that being definitive proof that it was
31:33
Speaker 1: Dale Johnson's bootprint. I mean, what did they make of
31:37
Speaker 1: her testimony?
31:39
Speaker 2: I can tell you how strongly her testimony was accepted.
31:44
Speaker 2: Twenty five years later, you know, when the real truth
31:47
Speaker 2: came out. I interviewed two of the three judges on
31:52
Speaker 2: the case and they both said, well, we had doctor
31:56
Speaker 2: Robin's testimony before, so that was very convincing. This was
32:00
Speaker 2: even after they learned the truth, after they learned that
32:05
Speaker 2: everything this woman said was was a lie, they still
32:07
Speaker 2: wanted to wanted to believe in her. I have summed
32:11
Speaker 2: up this case as a total collapse of a local
32:17
Speaker 2: justice system, and I still believe that it left me
32:23
Speaker 2: with such a sense of outrage that this kind of
32:28
Speaker 2: thing can be done in our system of justice toom
32:31
Speaker 2: and I mean, you know it was it was not
32:34
Speaker 2: even close, but the lies that were told in that
32:38
Speaker 2: courtroom were enough to send an into some man to
32:41
Speaker 2: death row sitting there through the entire trial. Is they
32:46
Speaker 2: never they never presented a rational case, and the evidence
32:50
Speaker 2: that they did present was you know, challenged very successfully
32:54
Speaker 2: by the defense. I mean, what I learned is that
32:57
Speaker 2: someone with an academic position and mcclaim of scientific expertise
33:04
Speaker 2: is automatically granted some level of believability, even by judges
33:10
Speaker 2: and prosecutors and investigators. And they really accepted Louise Robins testimony,
33:17
Speaker 2: and as fact I called it in my book Fantasy Forensics,
33:23
Speaker 2: and as events have proven it was totally fabricated. I
33:28
Speaker 2: can only attribute it to the desire to get a conviction,
33:33
Speaker 2: any conviction. That people in that town were petrified. The
33:37
Speaker 2: judges knew it, They knew what would happen if they
33:40
Speaker 2: didn't get a conviction, and they knew that they wouldn't
33:43
Speaker 2: have another crack at Dale Johnson if they acquitted him.
33:46
Speaker 2: So they convicted him and just you know, went back home.
33:55
Speaker 1: The use of doctor Robins is a forensic expert, is
33:58
Speaker 1: an example of what can go horribly wrong when courts
34:01
Speaker 1: allow unverified signs into our courtrooms. She testified in twenty cases,
34:08
Speaker 1: truly a hired gun by attorneys looking for a particular outcome.
34:14
Speaker 1: Her work was reviewed by a panel of one hundred
34:16
Speaker 1: and thirty five anthropologists, forensic scientists, lawyers, and legal scholars
34:22
Speaker 1: sponsored by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and they
34:26
Speaker 1: concluded that her methodology for identification had no basis in science,
34:32
Speaker 1: but the damage had already been done. Dale Johnson spent
34:36
Speaker 1: four years on death row for a double homicide that
34:39
Speaker 1: he didn't commit. But he was fortunate and that even
34:43
Speaker 1: though his trial left him impoverished, his attorneys stayed on
34:47
Speaker 1: his case pro bono and took on the appeals. The
34:51
Speaker 1: psychological trauma inflicted on those who were wrongfully convicted, especially
34:56
Speaker 1: for people who are innocent and sit on death row,
34:58
Speaker 1: is well documented. It isn't just the conviction that stays
35:02
Speaker 1: with the wrongfully convicted, it's the aftermath. Dale lost it all.
35:08
Speaker 1: He lost his stepdaughter, his property, his wife divorced him.
35:13
Speaker 1: It wasn't until well into his eighties, actually earlier this year,
35:18
Speaker 1: that Dale finally received some compensation for his time spent
35:21
Speaker 1: in prison. The Innocence Project provides support for therapy and
35:26
Speaker 1: social services for its clients who are forced to cope
35:28
Speaker 1: with the harms associated with their wrongful conviction. You can
35:32
Speaker 1: donate to the Innocence Project by visiting www. Dot Innocenceproject
35:38
Speaker 1: dot org slash give. Next week we'll explore the junk
35:49
Speaker 1: science of fingerprint evidence. Wrongful Conviction Junk Science is a
35:55
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
35:58
Speaker 1: Company Number One. Thanks to our executive producer Jason Flamm
36:02
Speaker 1: and the team at Signal Company Number one executive producer
36:05
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis and senior producers Kara Kornhaber and Britz Spangler.
36:10
Speaker 2: Our music was.
36:11
Speaker 1: Composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram
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Speaker 1: at dubin Josh, follow the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook
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Speaker 1: and on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at
36:23
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction