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#552 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Robert Bintz · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: This episode of Wrongful Conviction contains discussion of sexual assault.
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Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care.
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Speaker 2: At five a m. On August third, nineteen eighty seven,
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Speaker 2: at the Good Times Tavern in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the
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Speaker 2: opening bartender discovered that the lights were still on, the
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Speaker 2: safe was open and empty, and the previous night's bartender,
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Speaker 2: Sandra Lyson, her car was still in the parking lot.
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Speaker 2: The following day, her body was discovered in a forest
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Speaker 2: about thirty miles north of Green Bay. She had been
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Speaker 2: fatally strangled, and seamen was collected in a rape kit.
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Speaker 2: Investigators interviewed people who had gone to the tavern that night,
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Speaker 2: including thirty one year old Bobby Bentz along with his
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Speaker 2: brother David. The case went cold for nearly twelve years
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Speaker 2: until David Bentz was in prison for an unrelated crime
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Speaker 2: and allegedly confessed to a cellmate that he'd killed Sandra
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Speaker 2: Lyson with his brother Bobby. This is wrongful Conviction. The
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Speaker 2: Fox Foundation is proud to support this episode of wrongful
1:10
Speaker 2: Conviction and the work of After Innocence, a nonprofit that
1:14
Speaker 2: helps hundreds of people nationwide rebuild their lives after wrongful
1:18
Speaker 2: incarceration each year. Innocent people are released after spending years
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Speaker 2: behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. Nearly all of
1:26
Speaker 2: them leave prison with nothing more than the clothes on
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Speaker 2: their backs, with no help or compensation from the state
1:32
Speaker 2: as they face the steep challenges of rebuilding their lives
1:35
Speaker 2: after wrongful imprisonment. After Innocence is changing that After Innocence
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Speaker 2: help to more than eight hundred exoneries across forty six states,
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Speaker 2: working tirelessly to ensure that no one released after wrongful
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Speaker 2: incarceration is left behind. Learn more at after dash innocence
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Speaker 2: dot org and join after Innocence to support exoneries as
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Speaker 2: they rebuild their lives. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm
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Speaker 2: Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this story takes us to Green Bay, Wisconsin,
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Speaker 2: where a bartending mother of two was tragically taken from
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Speaker 2: her children, while another mother lost two of her boys
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Speaker 2: to the system. And today Bobby Bent joins us, thank
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Speaker 2: you for being here.
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Speaker 1: You're welcome.
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Speaker 2: We also have this attorney from the Great North Innocence Project,
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Speaker 2: Jim Mayer. Welcome, thank you very much, and later we
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Speaker 2: will speak to his brother David as well. Now, Bobby,
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Speaker 2: you guys grew up in Green Bay, which is a
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Speaker 2: big sports town. Were you and your brother into sports.
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Speaker 3: When we were We all got together and played to
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Speaker 3: the ball around, football, baseball when we were kids.
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Speaker 2: Were you too competitive with one another?
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Speaker 1: Well, we're pretty close together a.
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Speaker 2: Year apart, right, yeah. And who's the big brother.
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Speaker 3: I got old brother Eddie too, David the oldest brother
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Speaker 3: of me, Lauren.
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Speaker 4: I was going to mention one thing if you wanted
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Speaker 4: some more filled in detail about their childhood. They did
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Speaker 4: live together on a farm, a foster home kind of
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Speaker 4: during their high school years, where they did a lot
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Speaker 4: of work on a farm. Is kind of interesting.
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Speaker 3: We would clean all the pens out and the gutter
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Speaker 3: and it was a rough childhood.
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Speaker 2: From what we understand. There were substance abuse issues at
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Speaker 2: home that resulted in the boys moving to foster care.
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Speaker 2: But by the time of this crime, Bobby was thirty
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Speaker 2: one years old and despite suffering from intellectual disabilities, both
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Speaker 2: Bobby and David were doing well.
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Speaker 3: I was an East Side of Green Bay, and I
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Speaker 3: worked at a grocery store. I'm a driver, legad my
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Speaker 3: own car. I always went to work. I was a
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Speaker 3: meat wrapper clerk. I cleaned the meat room up really good,
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Speaker 3: and my boss really enjoyed my work. I had to
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Speaker 3: adopt for ten years.
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Speaker 2: And what was David doing at the time.
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Speaker 3: Dave had a house on State Tree in Green Bay,
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Speaker 3: and he had a garage who worked on cars self employee.
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Speaker 3: He had an auto salvage business. I helped him to
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Speaker 3: pull motors out and put other motors in, clean them
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Speaker 3: out and junk them. And you sell cars to it.
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Speaker 3: I helped them all once a while.
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Speaker 2: So you guys both like cars.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh cars.
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Speaker 2: Now, the night that this happened, you guys had been
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Speaker 2: to the bar, which was called the Good Times Tavern
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Speaker 2: to buy beer.
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Speaker 3: I went and had a soda, and then I bought
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Speaker 3: a case of beer. I went back to David's Houston.
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Speaker 3: Then after that he went home.
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Speaker 2: And you were upset because you realized you may have
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Speaker 2: been overcharged for the beer.
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Speaker 1: Davi was upset.
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Speaker 2: David believed that the bar's price for a case of
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Speaker 2: beer should have aligned more closely with that of a
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Speaker 2: typical retailer, so we called the Good Times Tavern to
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Speaker 2: voice his outrage, but nothing further. According to the other bargoers,
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Speaker 2: the closing bartender, Sandra Lison, kicked everyone out by about
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Speaker 2: two am. They also mentioned a stranger in a flannel's
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Speaker 2: shirt which seemed off due to the balmy August weather,
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Speaker 2: and then around five AM, a Good Times Tavern employee
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Speaker 2: named Robert Miller came in to get the day started.
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Speaker 4: The man who came in to clean the Good Times
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Speaker 4: Tavern in the morning noticed that something was wrong. The
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Speaker 4: Sunday night bartender Sandra Lyson. Her pack of cigarettes was
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Speaker 4: sitting on the bar, her car was still in the
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Speaker 4: parking lot. The tavern had not been locked and the
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Speaker 4: safe was opened, so clearly something had gone wrong, and
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Speaker 4: Sandra Lyson was nowhere to be seen, so he called the.
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Speaker 2: Police and then her body was found.
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Speaker 4: The body was found about forty eight hours later in
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Speaker 4: a wooded area in a state forest about thirty miles
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Speaker 4: or so north of Green Bay.
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Speaker 2: Curiously, the first responders reported not seeing any drag marks,
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Speaker 2: so perhaps the attack occurred somewhere else. Additionally, she was clothed,
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Speaker 2: but there were leaves and other debris inside her undergarments.
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Speaker 4: The medical examiner actually came out to investigate and examine
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Speaker 4: the body formed the conclusion that the victim had likely
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Speaker 4: been beaten and sexually assaulted and the cause of death
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Speaker 4: was strangulation. So a rape kit was performed. They took
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Speaker 4: samples and they did detect the presence of seamen, which
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Speaker 4: was recovered from the victim's leg and underclothing and dress,
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Speaker 4: and also from a vaginal swab.
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Speaker 2: Now I know that Bobby, you mentioned that David had
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Speaker 2: been upset about the cost of the beer from the
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Speaker 2: night before. So when did the police question you?
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Speaker 3: A couple of days later? This is where you at
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Speaker 3: the bar of the night you a mission. I remember
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Speaker 3: seeing her and the bar I've seen man, but I
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Speaker 3: remember seeing her.
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Speaker 2: Did you think anything else of it? No, we're not
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Speaker 2: sure what happened to any other leads that the police
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Speaker 2: were following, but the case went cold for about four years,
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Speaker 2: at which time sandra license purse was discovered in the
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Speaker 2: woods about ten miles south of Green Bay, so in
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Speaker 2: the opposite direction of where the body was discovered, and
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Speaker 2: who even knows when the purse was deposited there. And
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Speaker 2: then another seven years passed during which time David Bentce
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Speaker 2: was convicted of an unrelated crime and his cellmate Gary
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Speaker 2: Swinby alleged that David Bentce was saying disturbing things in
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Speaker 2: his sleep like quote, killed the bitch Bob unquote.
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Speaker 4: As you mentioned, this cellmate of David's came forward and
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Speaker 4: claimed that he'd been saying things in his sleep. The
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Speaker 4: staff at the prison encouraged the cellmate to engage David
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Speaker 4: in conversation when he woke up. This all leads to
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Speaker 4: the cellmate making a statement to and authorities indicating that
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Speaker 4: he says David had confessed to the crime and implicated
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Speaker 4: his brother Bobby as well. I think people who have
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Speaker 4: prior convictions are always an easier target for a wrongful conviction,
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Speaker 4: as are people who may have particular psychological or intellectual vulnerabilities.
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Speaker 4: You know, those people sometimes get preyed upon. They're not
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Speaker 4: able to defend themselves adequately, and they're at much greater
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Speaker 4: risk of a false confession, of a wrongful conviction, of
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Speaker 4: all kinds of bad outcomes in the criminal legal system.
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Speaker 2: David agreed to speak with us about his unrecorded interrogation
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Speaker 2: in which investigators confronted him with what his cellmate had
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Speaker 2: alleged this guy.
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Speaker 5: I think he thought he could get something out of it.
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Speaker 1: What staff.
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Speaker 5: I never talked to my sleep, never have. When a
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Speaker 5: tectives came and questioned me, as you said I could
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Speaker 5: get up any time of water, they said, I can
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Speaker 5: get up any time of wan. And I know I
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Speaker 5: was alive because they were going to be going till
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Speaker 5: they got a confession. I was in it room for
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Speaker 5: seven hours.
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Speaker 2: You know, we know that best practic this is no
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Speaker 2: more than four hours should somebody be interrogated. And after
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Speaker 2: six hours the incidences of false confessions skyrocket.
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Speaker 5: They won't let me go.
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Speaker 1: So we know you did it. We know you did it.
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Speaker 5: So I said anything to get out of her.
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Speaker 4: We don't know one hundred percent because this was an
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Speaker 4: unrecorded interrogation. This was, from all accounts, an aggressive interrogation,
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Speaker 4: one that was designed to secure a confession to try
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Speaker 4: to solve this cold case. David says several times that
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Speaker 4: he was at home on the night Desander license disappears
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Speaker 4: that he didn't know what happened to her, But at
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Speaker 4: the same time, when they would confront him with the
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Speaker 4: statement from the cellmate, he would say things like you've
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Speaker 4: got it right there. It's in black and white. And
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Speaker 4: so it was sort of a conversation that started going
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Speaker 4: in circles.
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Speaker 2: So it wasn't a clearer confession that would.
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Speaker 4: Be putting it generously, but they made the decision that
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Speaker 4: that was close enough to a confession to focus once
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Speaker 4: again on the Vince brothers.
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Speaker 2: Do you remember, Bobby, when you heard that your brother
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Speaker 2: had been accused of talking in his sleep and it
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Speaker 2: named you.
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Speaker 3: I remember people talking about it, but he never talks
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Speaker 3: in his sleep.
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Speaker 2: But now they have a false confession from David, and
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Speaker 2: then they go to you, Bobby, and say you're under arrest.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: They rested me at my apartment. They said you're under
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Speaker 3: arrest for the murder of Sandral License. And I had
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Speaker 3: my girlfriend in my house too with me, and she's, honey,
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Speaker 3: no go, I said I have to, So you put
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Speaker 3: the couch on me.
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Speaker 2: What went through your head? Did you think that this
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Speaker 2: was some big mistake?
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Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 5: I was.
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Speaker 1: I was scared and upset.
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Speaker 2: And sometime between as a rest and trial, the state
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Speaker 2: found someone who was willing to claim they'd heard Bobby
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Speaker 2: confess as well.
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Speaker 1: That was Joan Andrews.
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Speaker 4: So this witness told the court in Bobby's trial that
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Speaker 4: she had been giving him a ride to go and
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Speaker 4: visit his mother up north in the direction of the
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Speaker 4: Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and that during that ride he
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Speaker 4: had somehow confessed to being involved in Sandra License murder.
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Speaker 4: Of course, what also came out at the trial, though
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Speaker 4: it didn't end up making any difference, was the fact
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Speaker 4: that his mother had never lived up in that area,
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Speaker 4: in fact, lived south of Green Bay.
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Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, yep, okay, So can you tell me,
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Speaker 2: Jim about the DNA evidence that they were aware of
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Speaker 2: before the brothers even were put on trial.
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Speaker 4: Well, as you can recall, in nineteen eighty seven, at
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Speaker 4: the time that the murder happened and the body was recovered,
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Speaker 4: DNA testing was not quite as advanced and widespread. And
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Speaker 4: then if we fast forward the twelve years to and
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Speaker 4: they are thinking about charging the Vince brothers, they realize
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Speaker 4: we've got this rich source of DNA from the crime scene.
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Speaker 4: They get a search warrant to take samples from Bobby
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Speaker 4: and David to compare against the profile from the semen
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Speaker 4: left at the crime scene. And when they did that comparison,
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Speaker 4: both brothers were excluded as the source of the semen.
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Speaker 2: So of course they called off the trial and let
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Speaker 2: the brothers.
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Speaker 4: Go right, No, that we wouldn't be here if that
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Speaker 4: had happened. But of course they were at a crossroads.
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Speaker 4: Do we go with the physical evidence, which we know
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Speaker 4: is strongly indicative of a sexual assault and strongly suggesting
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Speaker 4: that the person whose bodily fluids are at the crime
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Speaker 4: scene is the person responsible. Or do they abandon that
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Speaker 4: and go after these two guys who have no connection
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Speaker 4: to the crime based on the physical evidence, and they
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Speaker 4: chose the latter. They chose to go after Bobby and David.
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Speaker 4: The state very strongly argued at both trials, this is
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Speaker 4: obviously not a sexual assault. This is simply a robbery
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Speaker 4: and a murder. Any previous thoughts that this may be
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Speaker 4: a sexual assault were pure speculation and not true.
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Speaker 2: Remember, the body was discovered clothed, but with leaves and
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Speaker 2: other debris in the undergarments, suggesting that the body was
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Speaker 2: likely unclothed outdoors. Then there was semen collected from her leg,
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Speaker 2: clothing and inside her body. So the theory was that
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Speaker 2: the sperm came from consensual sex that occurred prior to
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Speaker 2: her fourteen hour bartending shift, and that she simply let
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Speaker 2: the seamen just live on her leg and clothing. And
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Speaker 2: then they called experts to the stand to corroborate that theory.
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Speaker 4: They present a testimony from a couple of different experts
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Speaker 4: about when the semen would have been deposited based on
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Speaker 4: the condition they found it in, and what the medical
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Speaker 4: examiner said on the witness stand was this most likely
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Speaker 4: was deposited either after the death up to twenty four
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Speaker 4: hours after the death, most likely recent and what the
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Speaker 4: specific words were, seventy five percent likelihood that the sperm
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Speaker 4: was left there within twenty four hours of the death,
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Speaker 4: which makes it very implausible that this was a consensual
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Speaker 4: sexual encounter because she was working a twelve to fourteen
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Speaker 4: hour bartending shift right before this event. You know, she
14:14
Speaker 4: got up in the morning, she went to a bartending shift,
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Speaker 4: and it was implausible enough that she would have had
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Speaker 4: this sexual encounter and not cleaned up or anything. But still,
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Speaker 4: even so, in the closing argument, the prosecutor twisted those
14:26
Speaker 4: words around and said it was most likely between twenty
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Speaker 4: four and forty eight hours when it was deposited. At
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Speaker 4: least that's what he said at Bobby's trial, and so
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Speaker 4: I read that transcript and I just get angry. I
14:38
Speaker 4: don't know that that made the difference, but it makes
14:40
Speaker 4: you think that sometimes this is a game of inches
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Speaker 4: and prosecutors and everyone involved in the system needs to
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Speaker 4: be scrupulously honest when they're talking about the evidence.
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Speaker 2: Bobby, tell me about the trial from your perspective.
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Speaker 3: Well, when I went to court, I was really upset.
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Speaker 3: And the guy that said David talking and sleep, his
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Speaker 3: name was Gary Swenbee.
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Speaker 1: He got out.
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Speaker 3: I couldn't cross examine him because he got killed in
15:07
Speaker 3: a car accident a month before my trial. I couldn't
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Speaker 3: cross examine a piece of paper, you know. So I
15:14
Speaker 3: didn't get a fair trial in Green Bay at all.
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Speaker 2: All right, So take me to the moment of the
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Speaker 2: verdict guilty.
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Speaker 3: The judge said, I send you to the prison the
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Speaker 3: rest of your natural life. I just broke down in tears.
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Speaker 3: I just broke down, and the daughter stood up in court.
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Speaker 3: I said, I'm sorry for what happened, but I said,
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Speaker 3: I did not kill your mom. Well, it's really nasty
15:51
Speaker 3: in there, and it's filthy, and the medical hsu A
15:55
Speaker 3: health department is terrible. I went to the hospital almost
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Speaker 3: every week by resis squad from the prison.
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Speaker 1: I got asthma real bad.
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Speaker 2: Were you guys held anywhere near one another?
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Speaker 3: We're at Green Bay together for a few years. I
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Speaker 3: was in a dorm with Dave. You're so glad to
16:15
Speaker 3: see me when I came in.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, a lot of people form relationships
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Speaker 2: like brothers when they're serving time together. But was it
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Speaker 2: somewhat of a comfort that you guys were in the
16:28
Speaker 2: same place even though you were both living the same nightmare?
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Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Did you guys think that it was just a matter
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Speaker 2: of time before they realized they had made a mistake?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it took a few.
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Speaker 2: Years, fortunately for both of them. David's case was picked
16:50
Speaker 2: up by the Wisconsin Innocence Project. After all, despite his
16:54
Speaker 2: previous conviction, he too had been wrongfully convicted of this crime,
16:59
Speaker 2: and there was biological evidence that could exonerate him and
17:03
Speaker 2: his brother. They secured additional DNA testing in two thousand
17:07
Speaker 2: and six.
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Speaker 4: Additional testing had shown that there was male blood on
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Speaker 4: the victim's dress, and the person who deposited the blood
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Speaker 4: on the victim's dress was the same person who deposited
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Speaker 4: the semen. So that really strongly supported the initial conclusion
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Speaker 4: that this was a sexual assault and that the person.
17:26
Speaker 4: It sounds crazy that I even have to say it,
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Speaker 4: that most likely the man whose blood and semen was
17:31
Speaker 4: on the crime scene was responsible for the crime. So
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Speaker 4: the Wisconsin Innocence Projects sought post conviction relief for David.
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Speaker 4: They tried to get his conviction tossed out, get him
17:40
Speaker 4: a new trial. The state opposed relief for David. This
17:44
Speaker 4: is just speculation to say that this man's blood and
17:47
Speaker 4: semen on the victim are indicative of sexual assault. And
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Speaker 4: the court unfortunately agreed with the state, denied the motion
17:54
Speaker 4: that was affirmed on appeal and the bench Brothers would
17:57
Speaker 4: spend another fifteen years in prison after that decision was made.
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Speaker 2: That decision seems completely divorced from reality, and this was
18:06
Speaker 2: obviously a major setback. How do you come up with
18:09
Speaker 2: more convincing evidence than that, Well, that's what the Great
18:13
Speaker 2: North Innocence Projects set out to do in twenty eighteen, and.
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Speaker 4: So we set out to test every piece of physical
18:20
Speaker 4: evidence remaining at that crime scene, every bloodstain, every hair,
18:24
Speaker 4: everything we could get a profile from, and nothing from
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Speaker 4: that crime scene of this supposedly very intimate physical crime.
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Speaker 4: Nothing from that scene connected either Bobby or David Bince
18:35
Speaker 4: to the murder, but what we did see was the
18:37
Speaker 4: same unknown male profile that kept coming up.
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Speaker 2: Since the unknown male profile cannot be identified in CODIS,
18:45
Speaker 2: they tried another path. The lab was able to develop
18:49
Speaker 2: a special kind of DNA profile, which can be used
18:52
Speaker 2: to trace ancestry through public genealogical databases. They worked with
18:57
Speaker 2: a genealogist going through birth, death and other public records
19:02
Speaker 2: to close in on the origin of this profile. It
19:05
Speaker 2: took almost five years.
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Speaker 4: After a long, long stretch of doing that work and
19:12
Speaker 4: almost giving up, we finally were able to narrow the
19:16
Speaker 4: search to one family that had three male children who
19:19
Speaker 4: were all of suitable age and living in the Green
19:22
Speaker 4: Bay area at the time of the crime. One of
19:24
Speaker 4: those three was William Hendrix, and he immediately stood out
19:27
Speaker 4: because of his past. He had prior convictions for sexual assault.
19:31
Speaker 4: Their victim in that case said that he had threatened
19:34
Speaker 4: to strangle her at some point, which, of course was
19:36
Speaker 4: sandra License cause of death. He had just been released
19:40
Speaker 4: from prison less than a year before Sandra Lyson was abducted.
19:44
Speaker 4: We also know that he previously lived about thirty to
19:47
Speaker 4: forty miles north of Green Bay, so that he would
19:50
Speaker 4: have driven by that state forest where the body was
19:53
Speaker 4: found many many times as he went back and forth
19:55
Speaker 4: between that old place where he lived and Green Bay.
19:58
Speaker 4: And at the time of the abduction, he lived in
20:00
Speaker 4: the neighborhood of the Good Times Tavern.
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Speaker 2: But once they'd made this potential match, they needed to
20:06
Speaker 2: compare the DNA profile with a sample from William Hendrix himself. However,
20:12
Speaker 2: Hendrix had died in April of two thousand.
20:15
Speaker 4: After securing a court order to exhume the body, it
20:18
Speaker 4: was transported to the Brown County Medical Examiner's office and
20:22
Speaker 4: samples were taken and then sent off to the lab
20:25
Speaker 4: for DNA analysis.
20:26
Speaker 2: And when they came back.
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Speaker 4: I'll never forget the day that they came back with
20:30
Speaker 4: the results testing the femur that was taken from the
20:33
Speaker 4: body and comparing it to the crime scene evidence, and
20:36
Speaker 4: the number that was given to us by the Wisconsin
20:39
Speaker 4: State Crime Lab was that this was a match with
20:41
Speaker 4: a likelihood of one in three hundred and twenty nine trillion.
20:46
Speaker 2: Beyond a doubt. How did you share the news with Bobby?
20:52
Speaker 4: We called Bobby that day, and I'm looking at him
20:54
Speaker 4: because I'm sure he remembers that phone call. He's smiling,
20:57
Speaker 4: so blessed and we finally got the truth. And I
21:01
Speaker 4: was really emotion on the phone. I chears in my
21:06
Speaker 4: eyes and just emotional. I could hardly talk. We said,
21:09
Speaker 4: we knew this was gonna be happen, but now it
21:11
Speaker 4: finally has. You're gonna be able to go home soon.
21:14
Speaker 3: It would just say happy, said feeling, But it's a
21:17
Speaker 3: good feeling. I told the guys just keep your head
21:20
Speaker 3: up and keep the faith. And one guy, she let
21:22
Speaker 3: me give you a hug. And I know you're not
21:24
Speaker 3: a gilt I told you from the get go. I
21:25
Speaker 3: wouldn't hurt him fly, I would never kill anybody. Backed
21:29
Speaker 3: myself and left everything behind and just grow up my
21:32
Speaker 3: paperwork and all that stuff. And boy was I blessed
21:35
Speaker 3: to have good attorneys out of Teat like you and
21:37
Speaker 3: Chris Well.
21:38
Speaker 4: There's no better days than the day that someone like
21:41
Speaker 4: Bobby walks out of prison and you can be there
21:43
Speaker 4: to enjoy it with him. And so it was, you know,
21:46
Speaker 4: I think he said it best. It was happy, sad.
21:48
Speaker 4: You're so pleased to see him free. You're so happy
21:51
Speaker 4: to see him on the outside, but you're also struck
21:53
Speaker 4: by the enormity of the loss and the suffering and
21:56
Speaker 4: the years that he can never get back. So it's
21:58
Speaker 4: it's bittersweet. But it was a really, really a wonderful
22:01
Speaker 4: day and it was great to drive Bobby away from
22:03
Speaker 4: that prison. While he was eating his barbecue chips, drinking
22:07
Speaker 4: his son what was it coke?
22:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and having served out his sentence for his prior conviction,
22:15
Speaker 2: David was now also free from his wrongful conviction.
22:19
Speaker 5: When I was walking on I didn't know that the
22:22
Speaker 5: Innocent Project was coming to pick me up.
22:24
Speaker 6: And I walk outside there was an Innocent Project, Rachel
22:27
Speaker 6: and Zoe and mister Keuneham. There was like three carfuls
22:30
Speaker 6: of people out there.
22:34
Speaker 1: Take your time.
22:37
Speaker 6: I was emotional. My mom just pushed it over the
22:40
Speaker 6: edge when she had two sons locked up for a
22:42
Speaker 6: GRAM and they commit and she was here to see this.
22:49
Speaker 6: You never got a takeod by her.
22:50
Speaker 3: Not my mom said before she passed away. My sister
22:57
Speaker 3: brought her up to visit me and she says that
22:59
Speaker 3: I hope you out some day, asked Mom, today I
23:01
Speaker 3: get out of Printon, You'll be Dan for joy in
23:03
Speaker 3: heaven and I lost my niece to my sister's daughter
23:08
Speaker 3: horrible drunk driver car act. Horrible car accident, and I
23:13
Speaker 3: was in there for my niece and every birthday's and
23:16
Speaker 3: visit them like I used to.
23:19
Speaker 2: Now, I want to talk to you guys about that,
23:21
Speaker 2: and I'll ask you Jim first. You know, we've been
23:25
Speaker 2: asking people a lot about the concept of accountability. I
23:29
Speaker 2: know that you know there's a monetary aspect, but that
23:33
Speaker 2: doesn't buy back time. I think of twenty five years
23:38
Speaker 2: for each of you for something that you were innocent
23:42
Speaker 2: of the entire time. But it also seems in this
23:44
Speaker 2: case that that was known even before they set foot
23:50
Speaker 2: and trial. When you look at a case like this, Jim,
23:54
Speaker 2: where do you point blame?
23:57
Speaker 4: That's a really difficult question. I guess I would have
23:59
Speaker 4: to start by saying where I don't point blame and
24:02
Speaker 4: where I want to give credit. There's the current Brown
24:04
Speaker 4: County District Attorney. They weren't involved in the original prosecution.
24:08
Speaker 4: This guy was not involved in David's previous petition for
24:11
Speaker 4: post conviction relief. So when we came forward and we
24:14
Speaker 4: said we wanted to do more testing in this case,
24:17
Speaker 4: the current Brown County District Attorney said, go ahead, test
24:19
Speaker 4: whatever you want. I won't oppose it. I'll stipulate to it.
24:22
Speaker 4: And he could have opposed us, he could have stood.
24:24
Speaker 1: In our way.
24:24
Speaker 4: We would have had to bring a motion in court,
24:26
Speaker 4: and we very well may have lost that motion. The
24:29
Speaker 4: testing never would have happened, and Bobby and David would
24:31
Speaker 4: still be in prison. But he didn't. He said go
24:34
Speaker 4: ahead and test. I won't stand in your way. And
24:36
Speaker 4: then finally when we came to them with the results
24:39
Speaker 4: of the testing and the genealogy and the lead of
24:42
Speaker 4: William Hendrix, they agreed with us that this was significant,
24:46
Speaker 4: that the case needed to be reopened and reinvestigated. And
24:49
Speaker 4: then once we confirmed it didn't happen as quickly as
24:51
Speaker 4: I had hoped that. Once we confirmed that William Hendrix
24:54
Speaker 4: was the one, they agreed with us and stipulated to
24:57
Speaker 4: vacating the conviction and freeing. These men want to give
25:00
Speaker 4: credit where credit is due. I appreciate their approach to
25:03
Speaker 4: the case.
25:04
Speaker 2: It is inspiring to know that there are people in
25:09
Speaker 2: positions of power who are ready and willing to acknowledge
25:13
Speaker 2: that mistakes happen, even though they didn't necessarily happen on
25:17
Speaker 2: their watch.
25:18
Speaker 4: We need more of that. We need more of that
25:20
Speaker 4: among prosecutors. We need them to take their role as
25:23
Speaker 4: a minister of justice seriously and not simply as being
25:27
Speaker 4: someone whose job is to convict convict. We need prosecutors
25:31
Speaker 4: who are willing to look at the evidence and do
25:33
Speaker 4: the right thing in every case. And we need an
25:36
Speaker 4: informed public who makes electoral decisions for these offices based
25:40
Speaker 4: on that, not simply based on who can say their
25:43
Speaker 4: toughest on crime.
25:44
Speaker 2: Amen to that. And so now I'd like to ask
25:47
Speaker 2: for what you want people to take away from this story.
25:51
Speaker 4: When I think about what happened to them when they
25:53
Speaker 4: were initially convicted and then again when they sought post
25:57
Speaker 4: conviction relief over fifteen years ago, I just think about
26:00
Speaker 4: the fact that the state is asking everyone to believe
26:03
Speaker 4: something that's really unbelievable. That you've got a crime scene
26:07
Speaker 4: with the victim whose clothing is partially removed, where you've
26:10
Speaker 4: got blood and semen from a man on that crime scene,
26:14
Speaker 4: and you've got debris underneath the victim's underclothing.
26:20
Speaker 1: You know what happened.
26:23
Speaker 4: If we had known who that person was at the time,
26:26
Speaker 4: that person would have been prosecuted, but we didn't know
26:29
Speaker 4: who that person was, and somebody had to pay. And
26:32
Speaker 4: that is the kind of thinking that we need to
26:34
Speaker 4: get away from the idea that it's more important that
26:37
Speaker 4: someone pay than that we get the right person. We
26:41
Speaker 4: talk a lot in this country about the expression it's
26:45
Speaker 4: better to let ten guilty people go free than to
26:47
Speaker 4: put one innocent person in prison. But if you actually
26:50
Speaker 4: do a poll in the United States, many people really
26:53
Speaker 4: don't believe that to be true. In fact, most people
26:56
Speaker 4: think it's just as bad to allow a guilty person
26:59
Speaker 4: go free as it is to allow an innocent person
27:02
Speaker 4: to be imprisoned, and a substantial number of people even
27:06
Speaker 4: think that it's worse to let a guilty person go
27:09
Speaker 4: free than it is to imprison an innocent person. Forgetting,
27:12
Speaker 4: of course, that every time an innocent person is imprisoned,
27:15
Speaker 4: that means, by definition, the guilty person has gone free.
27:19
Speaker 4: It's important for everyone in the system, including the jurors,
27:21
Speaker 4: to take their oaths and their duties very seriously. We
27:25
Speaker 4: have these burdens for a reason is to protect people's rights.
27:30
Speaker 3: I want people to believe that I'm not guilty, that
27:33
Speaker 3: I'm really innocent of this I want people who believe
27:36
Speaker 3: that they see the truth. Because wrongful convictions are terrible
27:40
Speaker 3: Wisconsin and the justice system is terrible. I want people
27:45
Speaker 3: who believe that I'm a good person.
27:53
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
27:56
Speaker 2: to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
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Speaker 2: early and add free by subscribing to Lava for Good
28:02
Speaker 2: Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank our production team,
28:05
Speaker 2: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers
28:08
Speaker 2: Jason Vlahm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
28:12
Speaker 2: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
28:15
Speaker 2: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
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Speaker 2: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
28:21
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
28:24
Speaker 2: Lauren Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
28:27
Speaker 2: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
28:31
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
28:33
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
28:36
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28:38
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of lava for good,