Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #169 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Emerson Stevens

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#169 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Emerson Stevens · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
0:04
Speaker 2: I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drisen.
0:07
Speaker 1: Today we'll tell you the story of Emerson Stevens, a
0:10
Speaker 1: fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was
0:14
Speaker 1: found murdered. It seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson
0:17
Speaker 1: until the case fell apart. Emerson survived thirty one years
0:22
Speaker 1: in prison with the help of an ally from across
0:24
Speaker 1: the bay. Now you can help him finally clear his name.
0:29
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on interviews with Emerson Stevens and
0:32
Speaker 1: his lawyers, along with legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve,
0:44
Speaker 1: today we're going to break the mold.
0:46
Speaker 2: We're going to break them mold. This is not a
0:48
Speaker 2: case that involves a false confession. This is a case
0:51
Speaker 2: that involves a false inculpatory statement. Sometimes detectives can't get
0:57
Speaker 2: a confession, but they'll settle for a fall and culpatory statement. Right.
1:02
Speaker 1: That's lawyer talk for something you say that makes you
1:04
Speaker 1: look really bad.
1:05
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie.
1:09
Speaker 2: And the same tactics that are used to get false
1:12
Speaker 2: confessions are often used to get these false inculplatory statements,
1:17
Speaker 2: and they.
1:17
Speaker 1: Can have the same devastating consequences.
1:20
Speaker 2: So when I think about this case, I think about
1:23
Speaker 2: it in terms of a puzzle. You know, when my
1:26
Speaker 2: family goes on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and
1:29
Speaker 2: we spend a lot of time putting that puzzle together.
1:32
Speaker 2: And anyone who puts puzzles together knows that there are
1:36
Speaker 2: a lot of times where the piece that you think
1:38
Speaker 2: will finish a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit.
1:42
Speaker 2: It looks like it should fit, but just a little
1:46
Speaker 2: bit off. And that's what happened with a lot of
1:50
Speaker 2: the evidence in Emerson Stephen's case. They manipulated the evidence
1:56
Speaker 2: to make it seem like it fit. The police theory what.
2:00
Speaker 1: Happens in runfuel conviction cases right tunnel vision makes police
2:03
Speaker 1: officers force these puzzle pieces together when in reality they
2:07
Speaker 1: might not fit at all.
2:08
Speaker 2: It was only after the fact that you could see
2:11
Speaker 2: that the pieces never really fit in the first place.
2:18
Speaker 1: Today's story takes place in Lancaster County, Virginia, a rural
2:21
Speaker 1: community nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Rappahannock River.
2:25
Speaker 1: It's a place that smells like ocean salt an honest
2:28
Speaker 1: sweat generations there have made a living with their hands,
2:31
Speaker 1: hauling fish out of the bay and crabs and oysters
2:34
Speaker 1: out of the river. In nineteen eighty five, this county
2:37
Speaker 1: was home to Mary Harding, who was Lancaster through and through.
2:41
Speaker 1: Petite and blue eyed, Mary was homecoming queen at Lancaster
2:44
Speaker 1: High before she and her high school sweetheart tied the knot.
2:48
Speaker 1: By age twenty four, Mary was working as a bookkeeper
2:51
Speaker 1: at the local bank while her husband was a fisherman.
2:54
Speaker 1: They had two young kids and a modest ranch home
2:57
Speaker 1: located just across the street from the cemetery. On Friday,
3:03
Speaker 1: August twenty third, nineteen eighty five, that modest home became
3:06
Speaker 1: the scene of a terrible discovery. On weekdays, Mary had
3:09
Speaker 1: a routine before work, she'd drop off her one year
3:12
Speaker 1: old at the home of her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker,
3:15
Speaker 1: But that Friday morning, Mary didn't show up. Virginia was worried,
3:19
Speaker 1: so she drove over to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted
3:22
Speaker 1: at the door by Mary's four year old son, who
3:25
Speaker 1: told her that he couldn't find his mom. The TV
3:28
Speaker 1: and lights were on throughout the house, Some unrensed comet
3:32
Speaker 1: was left in the bathroom sink, and the little boy's
3:35
Speaker 1: chicken dinner from the night before was still sitting on
3:37
Speaker 1: the table. Don't worry, the four year old assured his
3:40
Speaker 1: great grandma. In his mother's absence, he was taking care
3:44
Speaker 1: of the baby. Virginia knew there was no way Mary
3:47
Speaker 1: would abandon her children. There's only one explanation for her disappearance.
3:51
Speaker 1: Mary must have been taken. Virginia calls the police, and
3:55
Speaker 1: soon a state police detective by the name of David
3:58
Speaker 1: Riley arrives at the house. He finds cat litter scattered
4:01
Speaker 1: on the ground outside the back door, along with one
4:03
Speaker 1: of Mary's white sandals, but there's no sign of Mary.
4:08
Speaker 1: Pretty soon, word spreads and the whole community starts surging
4:11
Speaker 1: through the woods and along the shore. But they find nothing.
4:16
Speaker 1: Nothing that is until four days later. That's when a
4:19
Speaker 1: woman's body is found in the shallows of the Rappahannock River.
4:22
Speaker 1: The body is unclothed, badly decomposed, and hard to identify,
4:27
Speaker 1: but it's clear something horrific has happened. The woman's back
4:30
Speaker 1: is covered with deep, evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope
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Speaker 1: tied around her neck with a huge cinder block attached
4:37
Speaker 1: to the other end. A heavy chain is wrapped around
4:40
Speaker 1: the woman's right leg. Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms
4:44
Speaker 1: this is Mary Harding. She's been strangled to death. Now
4:48
Speaker 1: here's the thing. The rope and chain were the same
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Speaker 1: kind that you can find on most fishermen's boats in Lancaster.
4:55
Speaker 1: So suddenly this close knit community was being torn apart
4:59
Speaker 1: by suspicion. Everyone was wondering who would have done this
5:02
Speaker 1: to the homecoming queen. Before long, the authorities settled on
5:06
Speaker 1: a suspect, thirty two year old Emerson Stevens. Like so
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Speaker 1: many other Lancaster men, Emerson had worked on the water
5:14
Speaker 1: since he was a teenager. Emerson was a crabber and
5:17
Speaker 1: an oysterman who hauled his catch in on a boat
5:20
Speaker 1: named after his wife. He'd spent his life by the shore,
5:23
Speaker 1: the kind of guy who has salt water in his veins.
5:26
Speaker 1: It was Mary's husband who pointed police to Emerson Stephens.
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Speaker 1: Emerson had gone to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought
5:33
Speaker 1: Emerson seemed nervous there. Mary's husband also remembered that he'd
5:37
Speaker 1: once heard Emerson make a crude joke about female anatomy.
5:41
Speaker 1: This wasn't much to go on, but days later, a
5:44
Speaker 1: couple of people told police they had seen a light
5:46
Speaker 1: colored pickup truck outside Mary's home on the night she disappeared. Now,
5:51
Speaker 1: Emerson Stevens happened to drive a white Dodge pickup, so
5:55
Speaker 1: he quickly became the police's number one suspect. Detective Riley
6:01
Speaker 1: asks Emerson to meet him at Mary Harding's house and
6:04
Speaker 1: the two men sit down on the front porch. According
6:07
Speaker 1: to Emerson, Riley gestures to the street and asks, why
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Speaker 1: were you parked in front of this house the night
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Speaker 1: Mary vanished.
6:15
Speaker 2: If you question somebody on the porch, you're creating a
6:19
Speaker 2: context that is different from your standard police interrogation. You
6:23
Speaker 2: can tap into all of the emotions of This is
6:28
Speaker 2: where this woman lived, this is where she had her children,
6:31
Speaker 2: this is where she was last seen. This is not
6:35
Speaker 2: a police interrogation room.
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Speaker 1: It feels like the kind of place where you'd have
6:38
Speaker 1: a heart to heart conversation. And there's another thing that
6:41
Speaker 1: makes this porch interrogation even more emotional.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, not only was this the front porch of Mary's house,
6:49
Speaker 2: it was right across the street from the burial ground
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Speaker 2: where her headstone was.
6:57
Speaker 1: As the two men look out at the cemetery, he
7:00
Speaker 1: presses Emerson for information, but Emerson is stunned he hadn't
7:04
Speaker 1: been at Mary's house. He says he'd been at home,
7:07
Speaker 1: then he'd taken his kids over to the neighbors to
7:09
Speaker 1: watch TV and eat crab. They'd returned home together at
7:12
Speaker 1: about nine thirty PM, and Emerson's wife had gotten home
7:15
Speaker 1: from work shortly after. He tells Riley to talk to
7:19
Speaker 1: his neighbor and confirm the alibi, but Riley doesn't buy
7:22
Speaker 1: Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a search of Emerson's pickup truck.
7:27
Speaker 1: After digging through the truck for hours, police discover a
7:30
Speaker 1: single strand of hair. They send the hair off to
7:33
Speaker 1: the state crime lab for forensic analysis. The next week,
7:37
Speaker 1: Riley asks Emerson to come to a nearby Virginia police
7:40
Speaker 1: station for a polygraph. As soon as the polygraph's completed,
7:44
Speaker 1: Riley tells Emerson he failed. According to Emerson, Riley says
7:48
Speaker 1: he must either have killed Mary Harding or done something
7:52
Speaker 1: else related to her murder. Those are two pretty bad options,
7:55
Speaker 1: and Emerson is terrified. But then Riley offers Emerson a
7:59
Speaker 1: fat third choice that seems a lot better. Maybe you
8:04
Speaker 1: were at Mary's house that night doing something innocent. Maybe
8:07
Speaker 1: you were driving by and you stopped on the side
8:09
Speaker 1: of the road to take a leak. The fisherman takes
8:13
Speaker 1: the bait. He's desperate to please Riley and changes his
8:16
Speaker 1: story to exactly what Riley suggested.
8:19
Speaker 2: If detectives can't get a full confession, they'll settle for
8:23
Speaker 2: a false inculpatory statement. All the detective can get from
8:27
Speaker 2: Emerson is a statement that he pulled over on the
8:31
Speaker 2: side of the road a short distance away from Mary's
8:34
Speaker 2: house to relieve himself at the approximate time of death.
8:40
Speaker 2: That's the admission. I was in the vicinity of her
8:43
Speaker 2: home near the time where the medical examiner believes she
8:47
Speaker 2: was killed.
8:48
Speaker 1: That was all Emerson said. He did not confess, but
8:52
Speaker 1: he'd said enough to get himself in real trouble. He
8:55
Speaker 1: just placed himself at the crime scene. Detective was on
9:00
Speaker 1: high alert, but the case against Emerson was pretty damn
9:03
Speaker 1: thin until test results came back from the state crime
9:07
Speaker 1: lab on that hair from Emerson's truck. The lab had
9:10
Speaker 1: put the hair under a microscope and compared it to
9:13
Speaker 1: Mary Harding's hair, and the lab said it was an
9:16
Speaker 1: exact match. The police's thin case suddenly seemed rock solid,
9:22
Speaker 1: and in late October nineteen eighty five, Emerson Stephens was
9:25
Speaker 1: arrested for the abduction and murder of Mary Harding. The
9:39
Speaker 1: trial of Emerson Stephens was one of the most dramatic
9:41
Speaker 1: events Lancaster County had ever seen. To a packed courtroom,
9:45
Speaker 1: prosecutors described how they thought the crime unfolded. Emerson kidnapped Mary,
9:50
Speaker 1: they said, then strangled her and threw her body into
9:53
Speaker 1: the river. They even suggested that Emerson slashed Mary's back
9:57
Speaker 1: with his fishing knife in order to attract so there
10:01
Speaker 1: wouldn't be anything left of her body.
10:03
Speaker 2: The worst imaginable kind of crime. It's like throwing chum
10:07
Speaker 2: over the side of a boat to entice sharks.
10:11
Speaker 1: But there were problems with the prosecution's theory. They claimed
10:14
Speaker 1: that Emerson had thrown Mary's body into the river off
10:17
Speaker 1: the end of his own dock, but her body was
10:19
Speaker 1: actually found a full ten miles upstream.
10:25
Speaker 2: How does a body that is weighed down with a
10:28
Speaker 2: cinder block travel ten miles upstream? Upstream means against the current.
10:35
Speaker 1: That's the thing I mean to swim those ten miles
10:37
Speaker 1: upstream would have been crazy, let alone somehow to float
10:40
Speaker 1: a weighted down body that distance. It makes no sense
10:43
Speaker 1: at all. It's absurd, But prosecutors found a witness to
10:47
Speaker 1: bolster this theory insane, though it seemed. A marine scientist
10:51
Speaker 1: testified that it was possible for Mary's body to float
10:55
Speaker 1: against the current cinderblock and all for ten miles from
10:58
Speaker 1: Emerson's dock to where it was found, and there were
11:01
Speaker 1: other witnesses too. Detective Riley told the jury that Emerson
11:05
Speaker 1: claimed to have been near Mary's house on the night
11:07
Speaker 1: she disappeared, and the prosecution called two people to corroborate
11:11
Speaker 1: Emerson's statement, Clyde Dunaway and Anne Dick. They both claimed
11:16
Speaker 1: they'd seen a pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's
11:19
Speaker 1: house that night, and finally, the prosecution called a witness
11:23
Speaker 1: from the crime lab to testify that the hare and
11:25
Speaker 1: Emerson's truck seemed to match Mary's.
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Speaker 2: So it seemed at this point as though all the
11:31
Speaker 2: puzzle pieces fit together, and they painted a compelling portrait
11:36
Speaker 2: of Emerson's guilt. But this is not the end of
11:40
Speaker 2: the story, not by a long shot.
11:43
Speaker 1: When the defense's turn came, Emerson's lawyers put on a
11:45
Speaker 1: strong case of their own, no fewer than four alibi witnesses.
11:50
Speaker 1: In the end, the jury hung unable to reach a verdict.
11:54
Speaker 1: The prosecution was quick to retry Emerson, and on July eighth,
11:58
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, the second trial began. This time, the
12:01
Speaker 1: prosecution's case seemed, if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was
12:06
Speaker 1: a no show, so the prosecutor read the jury his
12:09
Speaker 1: testimony from the previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway,
12:13
Speaker 1: testified about seeing Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the
12:17
Speaker 1: crime lab technician repeated his previous testimony about the hair
12:20
Speaker 1: in the truck, and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's statements.
12:25
Speaker 1: During the second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on his alibi
12:28
Speaker 1: witnesses again, and Emerson himself took the stand. He tried
12:33
Speaker 1: to explain that he was innocent, that he hadn't actually
12:36
Speaker 1: pulled over near Mary's house that night. He'd only said
12:39
Speaker 1: that to satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you admit to
12:44
Speaker 1: us you lied, They asked, yes, I told that, Emerson
12:48
Speaker 1: answered Later he quietly added, I'm not a smart person.
12:54
Speaker 1: The case wasn't any stronger than at the first trial,
12:57
Speaker 1: But this time the jury reached a verdict and Emerson
13:01
Speaker 1: Stevens was sentenced to a prison term of one hundred
13:04
Speaker 1: and sixty four years. Fast forward to two thousand and two.
13:12
Speaker 1: During those sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his ged.
13:17
Speaker 1: He worked in the dusty prison wood shop, building furniture
13:20
Speaker 1: for state institutions. He wrote letters constantly to his family
13:24
Speaker 1: and to lawyers, begging for help with his case. When
13:28
Speaker 1: he wasn't working or writing, Emerson would dream about the
13:31
Speaker 1: smell of the shore. He wondered if he'd ever be
13:34
Speaker 1: on the water again. In April two thousand and two,
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Speaker 1: Emerson's attention was caught by a news story about a
13:40
Speaker 1: genteel Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a professional
13:45
Speaker 1: chemist whose upper middle class background seemed worlds away from Emerson,
13:49
Speaker 1: at least at first you see. Ten years earlier, fifty
13:53
Speaker 1: five year old Beverly had been dating a wealthy real
13:56
Speaker 1: estate mogul named Roger de la Bird. Roger lived on
14:00
Speaker 1: a massive estate in Virginia Horse Country. He claimed to
14:04
Speaker 1: be an art dealer who was descended from European nobility.
14:07
Speaker 1: But when Roger turned up dead one morning from a
14:10
Speaker 1: gunshot wound, police suspected Beverly of murder, even though she'd
14:15
Speaker 1: never had so much as a traffic ticket. The case
14:18
Speaker 1: against Beverly was absurd from day one. Beverly had a
14:21
Speaker 1: grocery store receipt proving she hadn't been at Roger's estate
14:24
Speaker 1: at the time he died, and Roger's death had been
14:27
Speaker 1: ruled a suicide. Turns out his life was falling apart.
14:31
Speaker 1: The FBI was investigating him for art fraud, and his
14:34
Speaker 1: claims of nobility were also being exposed as phony. But
14:38
Speaker 1: Beverly ended up being wrongly convicted of Roger's murder anyway.
14:42
Speaker 1: Why because in part of Detective David Riley, the same
14:46
Speaker 1: officer who'd built the case against Emerson Stevens. When Detective
14:50
Speaker 1: Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something she
14:53
Speaker 1: didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told Beverly
14:57
Speaker 1: she failed it, and then he suggested that she must
15:00
Speaker 1: have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley seems
15:04
Speaker 1: to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the scene
15:07
Speaker 1: of the crime, just like he seems to have done
15:09
Speaker 1: with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable.
15:13
Speaker 2: Beverly Monroe was wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that
15:20
Speaker 2: placed her at the crime scene, and Riley then built
15:25
Speaker 2: his case around that statement to make it look like
15:30
Speaker 2: this wasn't a suicide at all, that this was a murder.
15:34
Speaker 1: It's amazing, just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything.
15:37
Speaker 2: Same detective using the same modus operandi in order to
15:42
Speaker 2: get not a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement
15:47
Speaker 2: that was used to convict them and send them away
15:50
Speaker 2: for crimes they did not commit.
15:52
Speaker 1: A federal judge later called Riley's interrogation of Beverly Monroe
15:56
Speaker 1: deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly ended up serving ten
16:00
Speaker 1: years in prison before her conviction was thrown out and
16:03
Speaker 1: she was released in April two thousand and two. That
16:06
Speaker 1: news story Emerson saw on TV from behind bars was
16:10
Speaker 1: about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson didn't waste a minute.
16:15
Speaker 1: He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer, who agreed to take
16:17
Speaker 1: his case and When Beverly herself heard about Emerson, she
16:21
Speaker 1: got involved too.
16:23
Speaker 3: She went to the lawyers that had just exonerated her
16:26
Speaker 3: and said, now you need to do it again for
16:29
Speaker 3: this other guy, which, you know, to their credit, they did.
16:33
Speaker 3: They tried to reinvestigate as much as they could, and
16:36
Speaker 3: then when it became clear that they were sort of
16:39
Speaker 3: losing steam, Beverly turned her sights to me.
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Speaker 1: That's Deirdre Enwright, the director of the University of Virginia's
16:45
Speaker 1: Innocence Project Clinic. She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted
16:49
Speaker 1: to join Emerson's legal team.
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Speaker 3: Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years, writing
16:54
Speaker 3: to people about his case and begging for help. And
16:57
Speaker 3: if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you will
16:59
Speaker 3: learn that you will do anything that Beverly says to do,
17:02
Speaker 3: because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling.
17:07
Speaker 4: Beverly made it something of.
17:09
Speaker 3: A mission to help other people who were convicted by
17:13
Speaker 3: the evidence collected by the same detective.
17:15
Speaker 1: With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top notch legal team.
17:19
Speaker 1: And while the lawyers got to work, Beverly and Emerson
17:22
Speaker 1: began corresponding.
17:23
Speaker 3: Beverly is not only college educated, but she's a chemist
17:27
Speaker 3: and she lived a very extravagant life with her partner
17:30
Speaker 3: before this all happened. And Emerson is this waterman who
17:35
Speaker 3: grew up with his nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean,
17:39
Speaker 3: this is the classic thing that happens in these wrongful
17:42
Speaker 3: conviction cases, is that people who would never in a
17:45
Speaker 3: lifetime be near each other or connect do.
17:50
Speaker 1: Beverly and Emerson became friends. Beverly sendsed how much this
17:53
Speaker 1: fisherman longed for the water, and started sending him photographs
17:57
Speaker 1: of the place he missed most, the Chesapeake Bay.
18:00
Speaker 3: She was hyper aware of taking care of him while
18:03
Speaker 3: he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned, writing and
18:07
Speaker 3: calling and making sure he had money in his commissary
18:10
Speaker 3: and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking, she knows
18:14
Speaker 3: what he's feeling better than any of us. I think
18:17
Speaker 3: that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew that there
18:22
Speaker 3: was another person out there who was advocating for him ferociously.
18:26
Speaker 4: I mean, most people who.
18:27
Speaker 3: Are incarcerated don't have that person. And because she was
18:30
Speaker 3: so smart and because she had been through it, she
18:33
Speaker 3: wasn't going to hear that it couldn't be done.
18:35
Speaker 1: While Beverly was keeping Emerson's hope alive, his legal team
18:39
Speaker 1: was systematically unwinding the case against him, and, as it
18:42
Speaker 1: turned out, one piece of faulty evidence after another seemed
18:46
Speaker 1: to lead back to Detective Riley. First up was the
18:49
Speaker 1: claim that witnesses had seen a white pickup truck like
18:52
Speaker 1: Emerson's near Mary's house. A woman named Anne Dick had
18:55
Speaker 1: testified to that effect at the first trial, but her
18:58
Speaker 1: story had changed by the time of the second trial.
19:01
Speaker 1: There she swore that the person she saw driving the
19:04
Speaker 1: truck was not Emerson. Stevens when asked why she didn't
19:07
Speaker 1: say that to the first jury, and answered because Detective
19:10
Speaker 1: Riley told me not to. The other pickup truck witness,
19:14
Speaker 1: Clyde Dunaway Well, turns out he came forward only after
19:17
Speaker 1: police offered a twenty thousand dollars reward for information. He
19:22
Speaker 1: asked Detective Riley about the money during their very first conversation,
19:26
Speaker 1: but at Emerson's second trial, Dunaway swore he never asked
19:29
Speaker 1: anyone about the reward. Now Detective Riley was sitting in
19:33
Speaker 1: the courtroom listening to this, he must have known Dunaway
19:36
Speaker 1: was lying, but the detective never said a word. Eventually,
19:40
Speaker 1: Dunaway paid a price for his false testimony in Emerson
19:43
Speaker 1: Stephens case. He ended up pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.
19:48
Speaker 3: Once you dangle reward money, especially in a place like
19:52
Speaker 3: Lancaster where there's a lot of people living very much
19:56
Speaker 3: on a margin, the fact that Clyde Dunaway bit on that.
20:00
Speaker 4: Is hardly surprising.
20:02
Speaker 3: He repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get
20:04
Speaker 3: that money, and the detective would say, only after you testify.
20:08
Speaker 3: The upshot of the investigation is that Clyde Dunaway got
20:11
Speaker 3: in trouble and our dirty detective, who sat on that
20:15
Speaker 3: information during both trials, walked away unscathed.
20:18
Speaker 4: The little guy got it as usual.
20:21
Speaker 1: Next up was the bizarre claim that Mary's bodies cinder
20:24
Speaker 1: block and all floated upstream ten miles. That marine scientist
20:29
Speaker 1: who testified at the first trial, remember he was mia
20:32
Speaker 1: at the second trial. Prosecutors had to read the jury
20:36
Speaker 1: a transcript of his previous testimony. Why didn't he show
20:39
Speaker 1: up the second time? Well, Emerson's lawyers found a letter
20:42
Speaker 1: from the scientist to the prosecutor that provided a pretty
20:45
Speaker 1: clear explanation. After the first trial, the scientist wrote, Lieutenant
20:49
Speaker 1: Riley applied what maybe the correct term to my testimony
20:53
Speaker 1: in this case. He called it eyewash. Eyewash is Virginia
20:57
Speaker 1: slang for bullshit.
20:59
Speaker 2: Ugh God, the marine scientist, it's clear that the science
21:05
Speaker 2: that he put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even
21:08
Speaker 2: Detective Riley called this theory eyewash.
21:13
Speaker 3: Why a marine biologist went along with that the first time,
21:16
Speaker 3: I have no idea, But by the second time he
21:19
Speaker 3: clearly did not want.
21:20
Speaker 4: To do it and thought it was dirty.
21:22
Speaker 5: Right.
21:23
Speaker 3: That's what his letter suggested, is you're asking me to
21:25
Speaker 3: do something that's nonsensical.
21:27
Speaker 1: Suddenly there was reason to believe that Detective Riley had
21:31
Speaker 1: jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson, and it
21:33
Speaker 1: seems that Riley tried to take it even further. The
21:37
Speaker 1: owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers a
21:40
Speaker 1: sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried to
21:44
Speaker 1: get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me up
21:47
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night that Mary Harding disappeared
21:49
Speaker 1: so that he could buy five gallons of gas. Detective
21:53
Speaker 1: Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy insisting that I agree
21:57
Speaker 1: with his story even though it was not true. Was
22:00
Speaker 1: never woken up in the middle of the night by
22:02
Speaker 1: Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any.
22:04
Speaker 2: Reason, none of these pieces are the puzzle actually fit together.
22:08
Speaker 2: They were all manipulated by this detective so that they
22:12
Speaker 2: fit his theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime.
22:16
Speaker 2: Now that's the eyewash.
22:18
Speaker 1: The rest of the case crumbled too. Remember the theory
22:21
Speaker 1: that Emerson used his knife to slash Mary's back. A
22:25
Speaker 1: new assessment by the medical examiner showed that those evenly
22:28
Speaker 1: spaced gashes were probably made by a boat propeller, not
22:32
Speaker 1: by a human with a knife. And finally, what about
22:35
Speaker 1: the hair from Emerson's truck. Back in nineteen eighty five,
22:38
Speaker 1: the crime lab had put that hair under a microscope
22:41
Speaker 1: and claimed that it was an exact match to Mary.
22:44
Speaker 1: This technique, known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked.
22:49
Speaker 1: There's no way you can match hairs with that level
22:51
Speaker 1: of certainty just by looking through a microscope. In fact,
22:54
Speaker 1: more than seventy people have been exonerated after Bogus's hair
22:57
Speaker 1: evidence was used to convict them.
23:00
Speaker 3: There's just nothing to the science that you can microscopically
23:04
Speaker 3: compare hairs and identify anybody. We've had cases where people
23:09
Speaker 3: say that this is a human hair belonging to this victim,
23:11
Speaker 3: and it belongs to a dog. Even according to the FBI,
23:14
Speaker 3: hair microscopy is junk science.
23:18
Speaker 1: Decades later, Emerson's lawyers sought DNA testing, but it turned
23:22
Speaker 1: out the hair was too old to test. In other words,
23:25
Speaker 1: there's no way to know who it belonged to. It
23:27
Speaker 1: could have been Mary's, or Emerson's, or Emerson's wife's, it
23:31
Speaker 1: could have been anybody's. Armed with this new information, Emerson's
23:44
Speaker 1: lawyers filed a post conviction petition in twenty sixteen asking
23:47
Speaker 1: for his conviction to be thrown out, but it hasn't
23:51
Speaker 1: been yet. This is where Emerson's legal case has stalled.
23:55
Speaker 1: Despite skilled lawyers and compelling evidence of innocence, The courts
23:59
Speaker 1: have denied histition at every turn. But there has been
24:02
Speaker 1: one important victory. On May nineteenth, twenty seventeen, Emerson Stevens
24:08
Speaker 1: was paroled from prison. He'd spent thirty one years behind bars.
24:12
Speaker 3: His family filled the lobby of the correctional center, which
24:17
Speaker 3: is almost always absolutely empty, and then we came with students.
24:22
Speaker 3: And people who had been working on this case for years.
24:25
Speaker 3: We all hopped into cars and we asked Emerson where
24:28
Speaker 3: he would like to have his first free meal.
24:30
Speaker 1: So what was the fisherman craving after more than three
24:33
Speaker 1: decades of prison food.
24:34
Speaker 3: Emerson very quickly told us that he wanted to go
24:36
Speaker 3: to Cracker Barrel and he wanted the.
24:38
Speaker 6: Seafood platter at Cracker Barrel. And I don't argue with
24:40
Speaker 6: anyone who wants that.
24:45
Speaker 1: Like a tide that might never come back in Emerson.
24:48
Speaker 1: Stephen's life ebbed for thirty one years as he sat
24:51
Speaker 1: behind bars. Now his life is flowing again.
24:55
Speaker 6: You know, he's done such a great job of getting
24:58
Speaker 6: out and just sort of sliding back in to his life,
25:01
Speaker 6: moving back in, seeing family, going back to work immediately
25:06
Speaker 6: being a great worker. So in that part of his life,
25:10
Speaker 6: he's done a really wonderful job.
25:13
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he's still a convicted murderer,
25:16
Speaker 1: and that burden weighs on him every day.
25:19
Speaker 6: I think he feels that until he is cleared and
25:23
Speaker 6: other people are exposed, his life is.
25:26
Speaker 1: On hold until that happens. At least Emerson gets to
25:29
Speaker 1: see his kids and his grandkids he's back out on
25:33
Speaker 1: the water and his small aluminum boat, feeling the breeze
25:36
Speaker 1: on his face.
25:37
Speaker 3: I just said to him, the only thing you owe
25:39
Speaker 3: me is a trip to go oystering, and he will
25:42
Speaker 3: be good for that.
25:42
Speaker 4: I know it.
25:43
Speaker 3: I've been to a Stephen's cookout, and you know what
25:47
Speaker 3: they do is go crab and fish and come back
25:49
Speaker 3: and cook it all up in the yard and have
25:51
Speaker 3: huge tables of food and it's delicious.
25:53
Speaker 1: The case against Emerson Stephens has taken years to unwind.
25:57
Speaker 1: Sometimes fighting cases this thin can be rangely hard, almost
26:01
Speaker 1: like you're shadow boxing a ghost.
26:03
Speaker 2: Emerson should be pardoned, and Emerson's innocence needs to be
26:07
Speaker 2: recognized by the governor of the state of Virginia.
26:11
Speaker 6: In cases like this, it's just never the slam dunk
26:14
Speaker 6: that it should be. We immediately applied for an absolute pardon,
26:18
Speaker 6: which would exonerate him totally, and he pretty quickly got
26:22
Speaker 6: a letter that said, thanks for your petition, we probably
26:27
Speaker 6: won't be able to get to this for two years,
26:29
Speaker 6: and don't bother us. In the meantime. For Emerson to
26:32
Speaker 6: be pardoned would mean that he gets an absolute clean slate,
26:37
Speaker 6: and it's a gateway to maybe proving what people did
26:41
Speaker 6: to get him convicted. For people like him, you need that,
26:44
Speaker 6: you need the real story to be told.
26:47
Speaker 1: For her part, Beverly Monroe, now in her eighties, still
26:50
Speaker 1: supports Emerson, still talks to him regularly by phone, still
26:55
Speaker 1: is waiting for the day he'll be exonerated. We're waiting
26:58
Speaker 1: to Emerson, and we stand with you all the way.
27:08
Speaker 1: Hey is this Emerson? Yes, yes, Hey Emerson, It's Laura
27:13
Speaker 1: Ny writer and Steve Drisson.
27:14
Speaker 4: How are you?
27:15
Speaker 5: I'm doing good?
27:17
Speaker 1: So tell me Emerson, what have you been doing these days?
27:19
Speaker 1: How have you been keeping yourself busy?
27:21
Speaker 5: Uh? Well, my oldest brother he asked me if I
27:24
Speaker 5: would take his boat and get all this craft pops up.
27:27
Speaker 5: So I did that.
27:28
Speaker 1: You know, how was it?
27:29
Speaker 5: Oh?
27:30
Speaker 2: It felt great.
27:30
Speaker 5: It felt great being abaccoat on the water again. And
27:33
Speaker 5: then he wants me to go yestring with him.
27:36
Speaker 2: You know, so I'm.
27:38
Speaker 5: Thinking about it. I want to buy purchase a boat
27:41
Speaker 5: of my own, you know, like my brothers got, and
27:45
Speaker 5: be able to work on the water again.
27:47
Speaker 1: You know, what would you name your boat, Emerson?
27:51
Speaker 5: Well, these type of boats you don't really put names
27:54
Speaker 5: on them. But I don't know, misfit or something.
27:57
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's times that are enjoyable and wonderful,
28:03
Speaker 1: you're with your family, you're back out on the water.
28:05
Speaker 1: And there's times that are hard too, I'm sure.
28:07
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah. I lost my oldest daughter when I
28:10
Speaker 5: was in prison. She died at the age of forty,
28:13
Speaker 5: and that broke my heart. It's not a day that
28:16
Speaker 5: don't go by that I don't think about her.
28:20
Speaker 2: You know.
28:21
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry, Emerson. Yeah, yeah, Well, she's looking down
28:25
Speaker 1: from somewhere, I hope, and rooting for you, just like
28:28
Speaker 1: the rest of us.
28:29
Speaker 5: Are.
28:31
Speaker 1: Are you still in touch with Beverly?
28:33
Speaker 5: Oh? Beverly, She's been my number one fan. You know,
28:36
Speaker 5: She's always believed in me, and she's great. She's a
28:39
Speaker 5: great person. Every now and then I tetch her or
28:42
Speaker 5: call and talk to them, but she loves to talk now.
28:47
Speaker 5: She loves to.
28:47
Speaker 1: Talk to support Emerson Stevens. You can write the Governor
28:58
Speaker 1: of Virginia and ask him to grant Emerson in absolute pardon.
29:02
Speaker 1: You can find the address on my Instagram page at
29:05
Speaker 1: Laura Nywriter. And that's the story of Emerson Stevens. Join
29:11
Speaker 1: us next week when we tell you about a Philadelphia
29:14
Speaker 1: man named Walter Ogrod. Walter spent decades on death row
29:18
Speaker 1: until a new generation of prosecutors came to Philadelphia. They
29:22
Speaker 1: brought reform to the city and hope to Walter. Wrongful Conviction,
29:29
Speaker 1: False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
29:33
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to
29:37
Speaker 1: our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis. Our production
29:42
Speaker 1: team is headed by senior producer Ann Pope, along with
29:45
Speaker 1: producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed
29:48
Speaker 1: by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our
29:52
Speaker 1: music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me
29:55
Speaker 1: on Instagram or Twitter at Laura and Nywriter, and you
29:59
Speaker 1: can follow.
29:59
Speaker 2: Me on Twitter at Sdrizzen.
30:02
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com.
30:06
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
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Speaker 1: wrong Conviction