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Harold & Thelma Swain Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

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Welcome back to the Path with Chili for part two of our series about the
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murders of Harold and Thelma Swain. So now let's dive right back into what
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we were discussing and getting back to Vanzola Williams. Like when she first looked
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at the photograph, she failed to identify Perry, but then she changes her
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mind and says, oh, now that I look at his photo, that
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might be the guy I saw, even though by this point nearly fifteen years
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have passed, so her memory is obviously going to be more hazy and lo
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and behold. When they had a pre trial hearing, like Vanzola in her
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initial statement did not discribe the killer as wearing glasses, but then she suddenly
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changes her mind and then says that, oh, yeah, I remember him
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wearing glasses. So it's kind of those things where she's not being nefarious,
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but you're kind of thinking that she's suffering from confirmation bias because police have told
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her that, well, we think this guy's the killer, and we think
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he wore glasses. At the time, she's thinking to herself, well,
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maybe I misremembered things and I really did see this guy and he was wearing
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glasses, and unfortunately this became the primary evidence and led to Dennis being charged
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with murder. That's super frustrating because you've got situations where you're showing one picture,
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which is not protocol. There's typically like what like six or eight photos,
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And I've heard of investigators using like a photo where it's closer up,
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or there's one color photo and the rest are black and white. Things like
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that where maybe they're subconsciously doing it right, they're trying to make it so
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that the witness picks that person out, but maybe they don't realize that they're
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doing it. But you can't really excuse me way Bundy's methods here. He
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knows better that isn't the way that it's done, and it wasn't done that
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way in nineteen eighty five either, So he has no excuse. And when
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you got one witness that's on the ground after an accident and you're bothering her
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with questions about this cold case, you couldn't wait until after she got the
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care that she needed at a hospital. Just it's just like his lack of
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self awareness is just I'm baffled, exactly. And just so when you think
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that this guy was supposed to be a specialist, Like they used money to
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bring him in to solve cases like this, and he's using like all these
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terrible methods. And then you make a comparison to the original investigator, Joe
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Gregory with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who was no longer at the case
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at this point, but like we said, he did a throw check into
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Dennis Perry's alibi. He cleared him as a suspect. And it's pretty crazy
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to think that Gregory would later testify at the trial, and he also make
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remarks to the newspapers after Dennis Perry's conviction where he flat out said this guy
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did not do it. The wrong guy is in prison right now. And
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it's very rare to see this conflict between different investigators on a case where one
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of them is certain they've got the right guy and that they've solved the case,
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but one of the previous investigators is saying is willing to publicly say they've
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screwed this up in a big way and they've gotten the wrong guy. Wow,
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it's just across the board. I'm like you, I'm not usually shocked
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with these cases, but this one is, like, it's mind boggling.
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I don't even know how the investigators could have behaved the way that they behaved
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here, and how this could have even happened, how Dennis Perry could have
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been brought up on charges. I'm just pulling my hair out. And what's
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even worse is that after Dennis was charged with two counts of a first degree
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murder, he was offered a plea deal in which he could plead guilty to
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two charges a voluntary manslader, and in exchange he would only receive a twelve
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year prison sentence, which all thinkings considered that this was a cold blooded murder
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in which he walked into a church and shot to innocent peace people, that
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would be a pretty good deal if he was guilty, But nonetheless, Dennis
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still turned it down, saying I did not commit this crime. I want
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to go to trial. And it's always a red flag when they offer such
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light senses to people who commit murders, which makes you think the evidence against
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them must not be that strong. So they really just are hoping that it'll
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take a plea deal and we can count this as a win and we can
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just brush it under the rug and never have to refer to it again.
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It's sort of like with the West Memphis three, Right, It's like,
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oh, so you're just gonna let three quote child murderers out. It's like,
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you know that you don't have enough evidence to hold them and eventually they're
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going to have to be let go and then they're going to be able to
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sue the States. So the way that they went about it, they protected
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themselves so that they couldn't be suedents so that they wouldn't have to pay out
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the money that they likely should have. And in this case, you're offering
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six years a piece for a cold blood and murder that was premeditated. I'm
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shocked that they would offer that, Like they knew there was a lot of
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holes in the case, or there was a lot of questions surrounding certain methods
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of investigators, Bundy or I don't know what the district attorney was thinking,
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but they probably looked at everything that was available and went, well, you
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know, maybe we could convince a jury, maybe not, but it might
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be smart to plead this out exactly because the only real evidence they had was
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Jane Biever's testimony, and we know she had credibility issues. He had the
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eyewitness accounts from Cora Fisher and Banzola Williams. But we know that sometimes eyewitnesses
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are not reliable. But there was no actual physical evidence placing Perry at the
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murder scene, and I guess all else he had was his alleged confession,
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which there was no recording of, there was no notes of. So I
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can definitely see the district attorney thinking, well, it's kind of a crapshoot
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if we're going to get a guilty verdict, so let's offer him a plead
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deal and hope he takes it and then we don't have to take this to
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trial. Yeah, that just sounds like an incredibly light sentence. The fact
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that, like you said, it's always suspicious when they're going to offer a
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very light sentence for murder one. This is not manslaughter, So yeah,
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I think they're showing their hand there. And another big issue is that a
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lot of the evidence, the physical evidence which was available, had been lost
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in the past fifteen years since the murder took place. We already talked about
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how the glasses had gone missing and how this could have been used to exonerate
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Perry because he had twenty twenty vision. He didn't have to wear glasses,
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so there's no reason for them for him to have worn them to the murder
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scene. So I think like the prosecution tried pushing away from them, saying
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that well, maybe the glasses were left there at a previous time by someone
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else who entered the church and they did not actually belong to the killer.
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And there was another piece of evidence was the phone box that the killer had
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used to disconnect the phone lines before they went in. They thought, well,
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maybe there's fingerprints on there, and if they don't match Dennis, then
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that will exonerate them. But the phone box also conveniently went missing. They
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didn't preserve some evidence, but it's awfully convenient that the stuff that could have
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proved that Dennis was not the killer just seemed to go missing before the trial
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happened. That seems incredibly convenient, especially when we look at the methods the
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Bundy used. I mean, I don't know what this district attorney was like,
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or what the other investigators were like, but I think we can definitely
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call into question maybe they just conveniently lost certain items because it could prove that
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their suspect that they're taking to trial here for murder didn't actually do this.
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Well. The good news is that the most important piece of evidence that was
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preserved were a pair of hairs that had been found in the hinges of the
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killer's glasses, and they did testing on this and the hares did not actually
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match Dennis Perry, which should have been good news for the defense, but
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they made kind of a crucial mistake with their strategy because you'll remember Donnie Berenine,
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the alternate suspect. They did DNA testing for him as well, and
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the hares did not match him either, and this was kind of bad news
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from the defense because they were planning, as part of their strategy, was
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hoping to point towards Barentine as an alternate suspect. But the police actually offered
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Barentine immunity from prosecution if he would testify at the trial and deny his involvement
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in the murders. And the thing was, if the defense brought up the
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DNA results at the trial, they would have to acknowledge that they didn't match
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Barentine, and that would go against their strategy at pointing towards Barentine as an
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alternate suspect. So I've read the trial transcripts and the only time that the
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defense mentioned that the hairs did not match Dennis Perry was during the opening statement.
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But they didn't mention the DNA testing or the hairs for the rest of
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the trial because then they would have had to admit in open court that they
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did not match Donny Bearantine either. What year was the trial again, it
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was in two thousand, when DNA profiling was not as big a piece of
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evidence in criminal investigations as it is now. And Ret Trepe I think they
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should have put a lot more focus on the DNA and the hairs because they
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don't have to prove who the real killer is. They just have to prove
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to a jury that Dennis Perry did not do this. But because they focus
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so much on Barentine, they downplayed the U, the DNA testing, and
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the hairs even though disproved that Dennis did not do it. Yeah, given
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the same evidence today, it would have been I mean, they wouldn't bring
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charges, but say that they did. It would have been a completely different
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strategy by the defense attorney. I'm sure that they would have hammered home that
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DNA because of the CSI effect. That's what juries want to see. You
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want to see good circumstantial evidence and good forensic evidence, and I think you've
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got both to prove that he didn't do this. The fact that they only
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mentioned it in opening arguments, they didn't mention it during their clothes or anytime
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throughout the trial is shocking exactly. Like that's what we always say about defense,
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is that all you have to do is generate reasonable doubt. You don't
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have to prove to a jury who actually he was the real killer. And
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they kind of made a mistake there, which is because they wanted to focus
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so much on Barentine. But the situation with Barentine was similar because he had
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time cards showing that he was working until three point thirty on the day of
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the crime, and well, he theoretically could have made it all the way
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from Florida to Camden County, Georgia within that window of five hours. It
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still would have been a tight timeline. So they should have put a lot
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more focus on the fact that, hey, our guy was working that day
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and he couldn't have driven that time frame within four hours to commit the murders.
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But unfortunately they just kind of used the wrong strategy and focused on the
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wrong guy. They got tunnel vision as well. I think so yeah,
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because they were so certain that Barentine was the killer, even though in retrospect
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it looks like he was a major red herring. And speaking of which,
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like I mentioned earlier, that when Joe Gregory looked at Perry as a suss
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back back in the nineteen eighties, he talked to his foreman at the construction
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company he worked out Atlanta and said that he was working till this time.
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There's no way he could have made it to Camden County during this timeframe.
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But unfortunately, by the time the trial happened, this construction company had closed
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down, so they didn't have any records or time cards which proved that Dennis
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was working there until five o'clock. They did call up his coworker, Charlie
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Williamson, to testify on the stand to say that he had driven Perry back
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to his home and dropped him off at five point thirty. But unfortunately,
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by this point, Charlie Williamson was seventy six years old, he had already
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suffered two heart attacks, and he seemed like a very frail old man.
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So the prosecution just tried to attack his credibility, saying that well, it's
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been a while, you're kind of old, now, is it possible you
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could have misremembered the date and did not actually drive Dennis home on this particular
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date. And I think this did an effective job at sowing the seeds with
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the jury where they sought that, well, this whole thing about Dennis being
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at work is probably mistaken. He probably went to Georgia the day before,
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and Charlie Williamson is just mips remembering the date. So unfortunately his alibi I
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didn't save him from being convicted. It's too bad, because somebody's going to
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have a lot more accurate of a memory when you question them, you know,
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within like a few days or weeks of an event, but questioning him
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fifteen years later, it's pretty easy to poke holes in someone's memory and make
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them doubt themselves exactly. Yeah, And I think Charlie Williamson was even doubting
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himself because he was not in the best of health at that point. It
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had been about eighteen years so, and because they didn't have any like hard
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like evidence paper evidence like documentation like time cards to believe that to show that
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Dennis Perry was at work on this particular date, the jury just thought everyone
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was misremembering things and that he had gone down to Camden County the day before
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the murders. Especially when you have people of authority who are the ones who
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are poking holes, You've got nothing to substantiate that memory, like nothing concrete.
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So you've got these people telling you, hey, do you think that
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there's a potential that you could be wrong, that this is the wrong day,
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that maybe he wasn't there that day. I think the more that people
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are trying to question your memory, it's really easy to want to please people
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who are in a position of authority, and that could have been the case
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here as well, with subconsciously not like it's a conscious decision, oh exactly.
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Yeah, And I think that was the way with some of the other
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eyewitnesses like dan Zola Williams and Cora Fisher, who just felt, well,
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the authorities told me that this is the guy that I saw such and such
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on this date, so they must be right, so I'm going to just
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say what they want me to say. So the jury actually surprisingly only deliberated
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for three hours before they found Dennis guilty on two counts of felony murder.
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And this is where things get even more shady. Before sensing could take place,
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the prosecutors actually got Dennis into a room and said that if you have
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been found guilty, we will give you the death penalty, but we will
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make a deal with you. If you agree to waive your right to appeal,
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we will not give you a death sentence, and we will still give
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you two consecutive life sent and you will still be eligible for parole after you
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serve a minimum of twenty years. And they pretty much just gave him this
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offer like into his face, Like they pretty much didn't give him any time
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to think about it or consult with his attorneys or consult with his family.
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And Dennis would later say that I was terrified I was going to be executed.
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Like he didn't really understand the whole appeal process that even if you're sent
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to death row, it could be several years before you're actually executed. So
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he was just so terrified that he agreed to the deal that he would accept
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these two consecutive life sentences as long as he waived his right to ever file
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any appeals for his conviction. And I cannot think of another case like this
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where like they course like a defendant into giving up the right to appeal in
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exchange for not receiving the death penalty. So this was another warning sign that
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they were terrified that their case against him was not that strong and that if
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he tried to appeal his conviction it would get overturned. So they found a
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loophole around it. He's so unfortunate too, because they obviously are trying to
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just give him this offer to scare him so that he takes it, so
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that it covers their butt, because clearly they've got a reason to be worried,
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and I think that they must be a little bit scared here, hence
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the reason why they offered that sweetheart deal of twelve years for both murders in
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the beginning. So now they're again going, Okay, well we've got this
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conviction, but let's just make sure this never sees an appeals court because this
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could embarrass us all exactly. And I know this started getting media coverage in
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the years following his conviction where they would interview Perry in prison and he says,
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yeah, I totally regrets like taking this deal because now I can't appeal
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my conviction except under extreme circumstances. But at that time, I was just
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terrified that I was going to be executed, and I didn't get enough time
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to think about it. So he was just kind of in a knowing situation
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where he could shout to the rooftops that I'm innocent, that a lot of
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misconduct happened in my case, But because he had waived his right to appeal,
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he was kind of helpless to do anything until the Georgia Innocent Project got
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involved, and this case wound up being featured on Undisclosed in twenty eighteen.
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So for the Undisclosed podcast, I know that Susan Simpson started working with the
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Georgia Innocent Project and did like a new deep dive investigation. They were just
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trying to find any other loopholes which would give him the right to appeal his
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conviction in spite of that deal, and they discovered that the day after Dennis's
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arrest, Jane Beaver had asked for a twelve thousand dollars reward for her information
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leading to his being captured, and the authorities actually paid it out to her,
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But because this information about the reward was not shared with the jury at
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Perry's trial, they filed a new appeal saying that his constitutional rights had been
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violated. By twenty eighteen, Jane Biab was already deceased, so she couldn't
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really answer these allegations. But that is a pretty big deal where it's like,
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not only did this woman like do her own independent investigation and get and
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Perry thrown behind bars because she just didn't like him, she seemed to have
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a personal grudge against him, but she also received a twelve thousand dollars reward
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for it. And the defense attorneys argued if the jury had known this,
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they might not have put as much credibility into her testimony. So for this
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reason, his conviction should be overturned and he should receive a new trial.
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And I also feel like the jury should have heard from Caroline as well.
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Right, Carolyne did testify at the trial, but they didn't put much credence
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into what she said. It's really too bad because the mother was the one
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that had this like vendetta against him. And when you've got the daughter who's
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saying, oh, no, this isn't actually accurate or true, then you've
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got to question a whole lot of other things with regards to the investigation.
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Because what prompted it would have been her vendetta, right, so she's not
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a very credible witness, and the fact that she got a twelve thousand dollars
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reward, the jury very much should have been aware that fact exactly. But
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there was still some argument, though, is this information good enough to overturn
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his conviction after he waived his right to appeal. So they knew that they
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were going to have to find some much stronger evidence in order to do this,
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and thankfully there was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution named Joshua Sharp
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who did his own deep, deep dive investigation and discovered some shocking new information
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that he shared in an extensive article which was titled The Imperfect Alibi, and
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I'm going to explain why it has that title momentarily. So he found out
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about a guy named Eric Sparr, who was fifty six years old at this
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point, who had been investigated as a potential suspect early on in the investigation.
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He had originally grown up in Brunswick, Georgia, where he lived,
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but he had spent some time in the Waverly area, and he was a
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really bad guy who had a history of abuse against his ex wives and He
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first popped up unto the radar in nineteen eighty six when his ex wife Emily
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said that he constantly harassed and threatened me, he abused me, and that
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there was one time where he was so angry that he flat out said to
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me that I killed two people in a church, and I will do the
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same thing to you if you don't behave and do what I say. And
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he actually used like the N word to say, I'm the guy who killed
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those two N words in that church. And of course she found she started
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looking back and found out that on the day of the murder, when the
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Swains were killed, spar had left their house wearing dark clothing, but when
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he came back the next morning, he was wearing a white T shirt which
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did not match the which was different than what he was wearing. And he
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also apparently liked to wore scuff snake skin boots like the ones worn by the
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killer. And the strongest piece of evidence is that Eric apparently had his own
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pair of beat up glasses that he had constructed using from different pairs of other
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glasses, which matched the description of the glasses found at the crime scene,
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and he apparently lost these glasses sometime when the murders took place, so and
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he also worked as a welder, and they suspected that a welding torch had
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been used to construct these glasses. So on the surface, he seemed like
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a very promising suspect, and his name was given to the authorities. But
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as I'm going to talk about normentarily, he wound up being cleared early on
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because of what was described as a imperfect alibi. Wow, that is some
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interesting information, I would say, given the glasses, that's almost bombshell information.
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And the fact that he liked to wear scuffed snakeskin boots, yes,
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and that on that day he went he left the home wearing one thing,
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came back wearing another, and then also with the whole using the racial slurs
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and admitting that this is looking like a very promising suspect. This is looking
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better than Dennis Perry. Well, the reason he got cleared early on,
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this is just going to blow your mind. I have never heard anything like
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this in a case. But Agent Gregory, the same guy who investigated Dennis
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Perry, he decided to check into spars whereabouts on the night of the crime.
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He worked at a wyin Dixie grocery store in Brunswick, and he obtained
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the phone. I think when he questioned Sparr he received the phone number for
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his manager and said that, oh, yeah, I was working on the
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night of the crime, and if you talk to this manager, he'll tell
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you that I was there and verify my alibi. And he provided the name
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of a guy named Donald Mobley and provided his so called phone number. So
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Agent Gregory phoned this number, talked to someone claiming that they were Donald Mobley
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and said, oh yeah, I can verify that spar was working this night,
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and this is why Gregory cleared him as a suspect. But many years
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later, this reporter I mentioned Joshua Sharp, decided to take a closer look
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at this alibi and found out that when he called this number, he looked
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at the original police notes and looked at the number that spar provided and called
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it and found out this was not a number for a grocery store. This
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was fair a woman who was an acquaintance of Eric Sparrer at that time,
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and she said, yeah, my mother used to live at this number and
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she had a phone in the back of the shed. But I don't know
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why this number would be in the police files, so they finally, Joshua
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Sharp decided to try to track down Donald Mobley, this manager that Agent Gregory
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had supposedly talked to, but then found out that the name of the actual
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manager at the time was David Mobley. This was not even the correct name.
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So he finally talked to David Mobley and he said, no, my
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name is not Donald. I don't know anyone named Donald. There was no
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Donald Mobley working at the wind Dixie grocery store in Brunswick back in nineteen eighty
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six. And I have no recollection of ever talking to the police and verifying
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an alibi for Eric Sparr. I have no idea what you're talking about.
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So in retrospect, it appears that Eric Sparr provided a fake number, a
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fake name, and that when Agent Gregory phoned it, either SPA or someone
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else impersonated his own manager, gave him a fake alibi, and the police
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believed it, and that's why he was cleared as a suspect. Oh wow,
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that is pretty shocking that, I mean, okay, so did Bundy
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have already in his head that it was Dennis Perry when he did this investigation?
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Because it feels like this is just lazy police work. You're not meeting
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with anybody in person, you're not confirming that that phone number is actually for
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the wind Dixie or for any employee of the wind Dixie, and you're not
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even confirming anything with the manager. Like none of this makes sense and far
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seems to be such a great suspect as compared to Dennis Perry. The only
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thing I guess is that you don't have Jane Beaver breathing down your neck saying
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that it had to have been Perry. But I'm just so confounded by this
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information. Just to clarify, this wasn't a Bundy, this was Joe Gregory,
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the original investigator. Oh okay, and this was back in the late
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nineteen eighties, So I don't think Bundy ever looked at Eric Sparr at all,
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because he'd he'd already been cleared as a suspect. But I have a
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feeling that agent Gregory just had the same mentality, like this is what he
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did when he cleared Dennis Perry. He called his foreman and talked to him
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and said, oh yeah, I can verify that he was working on this
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particular night and that's why Perry was cleared as well, and it looks like
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he did the same thing to Eric Sparr. And even though it seems like
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spar impersonated his own manager and provided a fake alibi. I actually talked to
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Susan Simpson about this. I saw her again at the True Crime Podcast Festival
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in Austin a few months ago, and she thinks an alternate possibility is that
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agent Gregory was just playing lazy. He never made the phone call to check
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the alibi. That maybe he just felt spar was not a logical suspect,
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so he just wrote down in his notes that he called this Donald Mobley guy.
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But it never actually happened, And it was not until like thirty years
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later when this journalist decided to you actually tried to number and talk to the
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real guy that he found out. No, I never actually provided an alibi
25:04
for Eric Sparr. Wow. I mean that wouldn't really surprise me, right
25:10
if you just got sheer laziness, like I'm not going to double check this,
25:12
why bother, I've already got my suspect in mind. But it is
25:18
shocking when you're looking at a case that's a death penalty case right, and
25:22
you'd think that you would dot your eyes and cross your te's here exactly like
25:27
it just is. I know, this was like the eighties where you actually
25:30
had to do more legwork to travel around, Like you couldn't talk to someone
25:33
on FaceTime in order to verify that you're actually speaking to that person on the
25:37
phone. But it just seems like if you have a guy where he had
25:41
allegedly bragged about like killing like a priest inside a church, that you should
25:45
look at him more thoroughly rather than just making a phone call to his so
25:48
called manager and taking their word for it that e n alibi that night.
25:52
Yeah, like you're trusting some random person. If we're to believe the phone
25:56
call was made whomever answered the phone, you're believing that they are who your
26:00
suspect says that they are. They could just be your suspect's brother or friend
26:04
or whomever. And you're saying, oh, yeah, so if a person
26:07
calls you are this person. It's like on Seinfeld Vandaline, Yeah, exactly,
26:14
same type of thing. Yeah, And while we're on the subject,
26:17
it would turned out that sometime in the late nineteen nineties, another ex wife
26:21
of Eric Sparr would come forward and said that he was a guy who loved
26:25
to change his voice and impersonate other people on the telephone, which is what
26:29
probably happened here. And she told a very similar story. She said he
26:32
was an abusive guy, he was a drug user, he was a racist,
26:36
and that at one point he got angry with her, held her down
26:38
on the bed and put a pillow over her face and said that I'm gonna
26:41
kill you like I killed those people in Camden County. And apparently he specifically
26:45
mentioned Harold Swain's name. But of course, by the time this woman came
26:49
forward in the late nineteen nineties, they had already focused on Dennis Perry as
26:53
a suspect, so her tip was pretty much ignored, and it was on
26:56
until Joshua Sharp, the reporter, reinterviewed her in twenty nineteen, when he
27:02
began to realize, oh yeah, we've now got two separate ex wives telling
27:06
two different stories about how he bragged about killing a black couple in a church.
27:10
This really sounds like this guy could be the real killer. I mean,
27:15
given all the evidence we have, the cobble together glasses, the boots,
27:18
the fact that he keeps confessing to this, it sounds like he is
27:22
a likely suspect. But do we know what would have been his motivation.
27:26
That's unclear because I know that he lived in the area in Waverley at some
27:30
point, so it sounds like he was familiar with the Swains, but he
27:34
was living in Brunswick at that point, So I don't know what it was
27:37
that would compel him to make this lengthy drive down there on this particular night
27:42
in order to kill these two people. It could be a thing where he
27:45
was just simply on drugs or something like that, or just had hate in
27:49
his heart and just felt, I just want to kill a random black person
27:52
tonight. So unless he is charged with this crime, we may never know.
27:56
But as far as I can tell, they have never found any real
28:00
connection between Harold Swain and Eric Sparr to figure out why he would feel compelled
28:04
to kill him. But sometimes racist people just don't need a reason. They
28:07
just want to kill the first black person that they see. That is very
28:11
true. We could be looking for a motive when it's nothing more than this
28:15
person is a racist and they're going to this church and they know that there's
28:19
black parishioners, a black preacher and maybe they want to make a mark on
28:23
the black community and murdering a man of God would be a good way to
28:27
do so. But the most important thing that differentiates him from Dennis Perry is
28:32
that spar actually owned a vehicle at that time, so he could have actually
28:36
made the drive from another town to do there and then drive back. Yet
28:38
you're focusing on the guy who doesn't have any form of transportation. Totally logical,
28:44
Oh, definitely logical, makes one hundred percent sense. So in early
28:48
twenty twenty, the Georgia Innocence Project, now that they knew Eric Sparr was
28:52
a potential suspect, they wanted to do new DNA testing on the hairs that
28:56
were found in the killer's glasses. Of course, like spar himself, was
29:00
not going to hand over his own DNA, so they decided to collect it
29:03
from his mother, Gladys spar and do some mitochondrial DNA testing, and sure
29:10
enough, the results wound up being a match. It didn't say conclusively that
29:15
the DNA on the hairs belonged to Eric Sparr, but because it was mitochondrial
29:19
DNA testing, but the results showed that someone in the spar family was likely
29:25
the source of this hairs, so, of course the pretty much. Even
29:29
though Perry had waived his right to appeals, these DNA results compelled his attorneys
29:34
to file in extraordinary motion for a new trial, arguing that this is strong
29:38
enough evidence that you have to overturn his conviction. And if these DNA results
29:44
have been available for Eric Sparr back when he went on trial in two thousand
29:48
and three, then he probably never would have been convicted. No kidding.
29:52
You've got me convinced with the evidence that you put forth so far that clearly
29:57
it's not done as Perry and it's is our likely killer here exactly. So.
30:03
I know that the district attorney in Camden County at that time was Jackie
30:07
Johnson, and she put up a major fight in trying to get this conviction
30:11
overturned. And around the same time period she would find herself at the center
30:15
of controversy for another reason. You're probably familiar with the Ahmad arbery case,
30:22
right, yes, yes, well, as I'm sure you're well aware.
30:25
He was a black man who was murdered by two racist guys while he was
30:29
jogging, and the whole thing was videotaped. It was a clear cut vigilante
30:33
killing. But Jackie Johnson was the district attorney at the time who was very
30:37
reluctant to file charges against these two men. And I think it was about
30:42
a year or two ago she was actually indicted for withholding evidence and for hindering
30:47
an investigation. So she has not gone to trial for this yet, she's
30:51
still a free woman. But when you realize the character of her, that
30:53
she was trying to cover up this other hate crime taking place in her county,
30:57
then it's somehow not surprised that she was reluctant to overturn Dennis Perry's conviction
31:03
and sends him free from prison. Yeah, that's not surprising. It's not
31:07
a good look and it's clearly a criminal offense exactly. But thankfully, in
31:11
spite of Johnson's resistance, the evidence was presented in a judge named Steven Scarlett,
31:18
and he decided on his own accord to overturn Dennis's conviction and grant him
31:22
a new trial, saying that if these DNA results have been available when he
31:26
went on trial the first time around, the verdict might have been different.
31:29
So he's entitled to go on trial again. So in July of twenty twenty,
31:33
he was finally released from prison. And I'm sure you're all aware,
31:37
July of twenty twenty was a very rough time. We were in the middle
31:41
of COVID. There was a lot of chaos going on in the world.
31:42
But this was my bright spot for the year, seeing a guy because apparently,
31:48
like prisons were a terrible place for COVID back in twenty twenty, because
31:52
it was so easy for the virus to spread around. Well, all these
31:56
people were incarcerated and cramped together. So not only was is great for Dennis
32:00
Perry to finally have his freedom again, but he was finally out of prison
32:04
this haven for COVID, and so he'd be a lot more safer. So
32:07
it was such a satisfying feeling seeing him finally walk out of prison after serving
32:13
seventeen years. Wow, that must have been something. Can you imagine you
32:19
go in in like nineteen eighty five? Was it? No? When was
32:22
his trial two and three? It was nineteen eighty Yeah, nineteen eighty five,
32:27
the crime was committed, two thousand and three goes and he's into prison,
32:30
And the world was very different in two thousand and three than twenty twenty,
32:36
and to be released in the middle of a pandemic when everybody is freaked
32:39
out. There's social media, which there wasn't in two thousand and three.
32:44
Just the landscape of technology had changed so much. So do we know about
32:51
what Dennis Perry has been up to since he was released. He seems to
32:53
be doing well. I spoke to Susan Simpson about it, and she said
32:57
that now that he's a free man, he's living his bad life. Of
33:00
course, when Jackie Johnson was still the DA, she was reluctant to drop
33:05
the charges against him. She still seemed to insist that she was going to
33:07
take him to trial again, but thankfully she lost the reelection and the newly
33:12
appointed Camden County District Attorney, Keith Higgins, pretty much said that, yeah,
33:15
we take him to trial again. There's no way we're going to get
33:17
a conviction. This is a complete waste of time. So he finally dropped
33:22
the charges against him and officially exonerated Dennis, and in April of twenty twenty
33:25
two, he was finally awarded one point two million dollars in compensation for his
33:30
wrongful conviction. And I hope he is using that money to live his best
33:34
life because he got railroaded in a huge way, I hope so, And
33:38
like it just doesn't sound like enough, does it. I mean, I
33:42
guess what do they calculate, like one hundred thousand dollars a year or something
33:45
like that. It just doesn't seem like enough for the emotional pain and suffering
33:51
that is inflicted upon somebody. Their family is destroyed. There's a cascade of
33:54
downstream effects from a conviction for murder like that, for not just the end
33:59
of vial, before the totality of their entire family and friend network. And
34:05
it's just like, here's one point two million. I feel like, you
34:07
know, here's five million would be a better way to say sorry, you
34:10
know what I mean exactly, Like I've seen someone's where they award as much
34:14
as ten or twenty millions. So even though one point two million is a
34:16
good sum, it's nowhere near enough considering like how badly he was railroaded and
34:22
the fact that he was like coerced into waving his right to appeal. So
34:25
I can't imagine though, how he must feel because back in like the late
34:29
two thousands, he was probably thinking I screwed myself. There's no way they
34:31
can even overturn my conviction, I'm going to be in prison for the rest
34:36
of my life. So like, thank God for the George Innocence Project and
34:38
the Undisclosed pod past, and for Joshua Sharp for overturning this new information where
34:44
they were finally in the position where they forced the state's hand and they said,
34:47
Okay, there's no way we can keep this guy in prison. We
34:50
have DNA evidence implicating an entirely new suspect. We have to finally let him
34:54
go. Yeah, at that point, it's like, why would you bring
34:59
this back to trial unless you've got a personal vendetta or you're a racist.
35:02
I wonder what her deal was, Like, what was her motivation? Is
35:07
it just that she hated black people? Or was she just a horrible person?
35:12
Are you talking about Jackie Johnson? Yeah, I don't know. Like
35:15
maybe we'll learn more about her when she goes on trial for obstructing justice in
35:19
the in the Ahmad Arbory case. But like you remember the fear of though
35:22
that they had this video of this black man being killed by two white men,
35:28
like was clearly cold blood and murder, And it was months before they
35:30
finally filed charges against these men and they were indicted. I mean, thankfully
35:35
they've been convicted and sent to prison. But everyone was asking Jackie Johnson,
35:38
you have video evidence, why don't you prosecute these guys? So, I
35:43
don't know, maybe she has some racist beliefs deep down. Yikes. It
35:46
just doesn't seem like there's any good reason for that, especially given the solid
35:52
evidence that they had. Well, speaking of people who are wrongly accused,
35:55
there's Donnie bearnine. If you go back and you watch the Unsolved Mystery segment
36:00
and they talk about the evidence against him, he seems like a pretty logical
36:05
alternate suspect. But then when Dennis went on trial, they did DNA testing
36:08
and it showed that the hairs in the DNA in the hairs and the glasses
36:14
did not match Barentine either, so he was technically wrongfully accused as well.
36:17
He's not particularly a sympathetic individual, like he had to spend time in prison
36:22
for firearms violations, but it's kind of crazy to think that he was the
36:25
big red herring in this case where everyone thought he was the real killer for
36:30
like two decades, but then they did the DNA testing and it's like,
36:32
no, you you were just a guy who apparently liked to drunkenly brag about
36:36
killing people that you did not actually kill, and for that reason, you
36:39
were falsely accused of the murder. I was listening to an FBI profiler talk
36:45
on I think they were on the murder sheet or something, and she worked
36:49
at Quantico for many, many years, and she said, oftentimes it comes
36:52
up where there is the perfect person. They seem to fit that profile,
36:57
and everything seems to line up, and you're really or that it's them,
37:00
and then somebody else comes on the radar and it proves to be an entirely
37:04
different person who just shares a lot of commonalities with that person. And so
37:09
I think that we see this in cases all the time, where there's this
37:13
person that is clearly just a red herring, but on paper they seem to
37:16
be like a perfect suspect and he sounds like a good suspect until we find
37:22
out the DNA doesn't match, and then we've got SPA comes on the scene
37:25
and it's like, whoa, We've got a DNA match and all this circumstantial
37:29
evidence. Yeah, it's kind of crazy, Like it unfolded like a movie
37:32
or a work of fiction where a lot of the time you'll have like someone
37:36
falsely accused of a crime, and then they'll point at someone else and say,
37:38
oh, this looks like the killer. And then they'll have this last
37:40
minute twist that shows no such and such as the killer. That's exactly what
37:45
happened in this real life case with Dennis Perry Donnie Barentine, and then it
37:49
turns out, oh, it was Eric sparr all along. Yeah, this
37:52
is really crazy. It does play out like a movie, and maybe they'll
37:55
make a movie about this case one day, because it is inspirational when you
38:00
hear that somebody gets that justice and that the judges. It is so hard
38:05
to overturn a conviction when you got a judge what was the judge's name again,
38:08
Judge let me look that up here, Judge Stephen Scarlett. When you've
38:14
got Judge Stephen Scarlett, who I think is the unsung hero in this case.
38:17
It's often set up in the system so that it is so hard to
38:22
get a case overturned that even though it seems so clear that these people haven't
38:28
done it or there's a better suspect, the system seems to protect itself rather
38:32
than necessarily the rights of the individuals, and we see the judges seem to
38:37
have the backs of other judges, and it's an extremely nuanced, complex conversation
38:43
that quite frankly, the people on Undisclosed would be far better at having than
38:45
me. But I'm just so happy that Dennis Perry got out in any of
38:51
these wrongful conviction cases when we see somebody get out, get the compensation that
38:54
they deserve and be able to be reunited with their loved ones and live a
39:00
normal life, a typical life, a life where they get to look at
39:02
the sun, where they get to put their feet on the grass, These
39:06
things that should be a basic human right of the innocent that has been that
39:09
they've been deprived of for all of these years. Exactly Like I remember when
39:14
I started digging into this case in twenty eighteen, I was thinking, well,
39:16
this might be useless and stuff, because it's possible Dennis Perry is the
39:21
right guy. This is technically a close case and no one will ever hear
39:23
of his story. But then I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that
39:27
Undisclosed was covering it. And then in the long run their work paid off
39:30
and he wound up being released about only two years after they featured him on
39:35
the podcast. But I bet you're wondering about Eric Sparr. Well, here's
39:39
another surprise twist in this story. As you might recall, when they were
39:44
trying to obtain his DNA, they actually consulted his mother, Gladys Spar and
39:47
got it in February of twenty twenty, and the results showed that there was
39:52
a mitochondrial match to the hair found in the glasses. Well surprised. Only
39:57
a few days after Dennis Perry's conviction was over, TI heard and was released
40:00
from prison, Gladys spar was found dead in her home. Now, to
40:05
be fair, she was seventy nine years old at the time, so it
40:07
could have been natural causes. And I don't know if they were ever able
40:12
to confirm the exact cause of death, and if they have, they haven't
40:15
released it publicly. But now that I've heard about what I've heard about Eric
40:19
Sparr, it would not surprise me in the least that he might have been
40:22
furious that his mother voluntarily turned over the sample of his DNA, and that
40:27
when he found out that the guy who committed his crime was released from prison,
40:31
he decided to get revenge on her and kill his own mother. I'm
40:36
not saying what that's one hundred percent what happened. It could just be a
40:38
coincidence because of her advanced age. But if that's what happened, then Gladys
40:43
Spar is just another victim in this whole saga. Ugh, if he killed
40:49
his own mother, I mean I wouldn't put it past him based on everything
40:52
that we know about him. He sounds like a pretty abhorrent individual. But
40:57
ugh, if he did that to her, that is just so harp game
41:00
exactly. And you might be wondering why Spar has not been charged with this
41:05
crime because it's been over three years since the DNA match. But the problem
41:08
is that it's mitolchondrial DNA testing, which only shows that a member of the
41:13
Spar family is likely the source of the hairs. But they haven't given more
41:17
advanced testing to prove beyond a shadow of bit of a doubt that the hair
41:21
belongs to Eric. Why not? I don't know, because as it is
41:24
right now, Eric does have a brother. So if they arrested him right
41:28
now on the mitolchandrial DNA evidence, technically, as attorneys could say, oh,
41:32
it could have been his brother that left the hairs behind or something like
41:36
that, that's the killer, and there's still reasonable doubts. So that's what
41:38
makes me wonder, why aren't you doing more advanced DNA testing to prove beyond
41:43
a shadow of a doubt that the hair belongs to him. But when I
41:45
talk to Susan Simpson a few months ago, she thinks that this is such
41:50
an embarrassment for Camden County that they don't want to arrest another suspect. They
41:53
don't want to admit that they were wrong. So unless there's someone with a
41:58
lot of initiative who really wants this to be conclusively solved, Eric Sparr is
42:01
going to remain a free man for the foreseeable future. Oh, it sounds
42:07
like a slam dung to me. I get that it's embarrassing, but it
42:09
wasn't under the tutelage of whomever is at the helm now. It was from
42:14
a long time ago, so it's not your mess, it's your predecessor's mess.
42:21
And I get that it is embarrassing for the county, but it does
42:23
seem like a slam dung, And there is like a hero element in actually
42:27
getting the real killer after the person has been wrongfully convicted, and it's like,
42:31
look, we're actually sweeping up the mess that we help to create,
42:36
exactly Like I mean Dennis Berry, he's already been released, he's been awarded
42:39
a million dollars in compensation, So there's really no reason to not admit you're
42:44
wrong anymore. I mean, it's decades after the fact. The original investigators
42:49
and the prosecutors are either dead or retired. So who has ever taken the
42:52
reins now they can take They can take comfort in the fact that this is
42:55
not my fault. I was not around when they put the wrong person in
42:59
prison, so why can't I just do the right thing and make sure that
43:01
the real perpetrator is put in prison for this crime. I do know that
43:06
in twenty twenty they exhumed Harold Swain's body because I think they were looking for
43:10
additional DNA evidence. But it's been three years and I haven't heard anything,
43:15
so I assumed they didn't find anything of evidentiary value. And I guess maybe
43:20
their biggest obstacle is that they have to get a warrant to obtain a real
43:24
DNA sample from Eric spar I know it happens sometimes in these cases where they'll
43:30
shadow a suspect and when they throw away like a paper cup or a personal
43:34
item like a cigarette, they'll like take it up and then do DNA testing
43:37
and then conclusively match it to the evidence. But who knows, Maybe they're
43:40
just paranoid that Eric Sparr will just say, well those glasses. I was
43:45
in the church and I lost the glasses, but I did not actually pull
43:47
the trigger and kill Harold. This is just a red herring. But like
43:52
you said, it just does seem like a slam dunk. I have seen
43:53
people convicted on evidence much weaker than this, So it's very frustrating that it's
43:59
now been nearly four years and they still have not charged him with this crime.
44:04
But the good news, though, is that I remember when they uploaded
44:07
this segment to Unsolved Mystery several years ago, they just had a brief text
44:09
update which said that this case is solved. A man named Dennis Perry was
44:15
charged and convicted of the murders of Harold and thelmas wayIn. So looking at
44:19
that, you figured this case was conclusively resolved and there was nothing more to
44:22
this story. But to the credit of film Rise, who runs the channel,
44:27
where Unsolved Mysteries is available. They have actually inserted a new title card
44:30
mentioning that Dennis Perry had his conviction overturned, was exonerated and released from prison,
44:36
So the whole world knows the update to this story. But the sad
44:39
part is is that this is technically an unsolved mystery again, and Harold and
44:44
Thelma will not receive justice until they are finally until someone else, presumably Aeric
44:49
spar Is finally charged with his murder. That part is so frustrating. I
44:52
really wish that the district attorneys would go, Okay, we've got good circumstantial
44:57
evidence here. People aren't getting any younger. Let's go forward with this.
45:00
We've likely got a slam dunk. We've already been embarrassed as much as we're
45:05
going to be embarrassed. I mean sure, there's going to be maybe certain
45:08
things that are brought up that maybe they would like to see the light of
45:10
day, but I think they're getting a conviction would trump that because it would
45:15
make them look good, like, hey, we've cleaned up this mess.
45:19
Look at us. We care about justice, we care about Thelma, and
45:23
we care about Harold because they're the victims here. And their families that don't
45:29
really have a resolution, And I think that is the really heartbreaking part of
45:32
it here, exactly Like I always talk about wrongful conviction cases, how hard
45:37
it is for the victims' families because they are given the impression that they finally
45:42
receive justice, that the proper person has been put in prison for the crime,
45:45
but then decades later you find out, oh, we put the wrong
45:49
person in and that the real killer is still out there. So it must
45:51
be just like a huge roller coaster ride of emotions. And I feel so
45:54
bad for the Swayin family because from all accounts, Harold and Thelma are genuinely
45:59
kind, generous and decent people who were were always willing to help anybody,
46:05
and it just sounds like that they cross paths with like a complete racist who
46:07
wanted to kill a pair of black people for no reason whatsoever except to satisfy
46:13
their own hate. And after all these years they have still not received complete
46:15
justice. So yeah, I think that about brings an end to this.
46:20
I've pretty much gone over the case. Like I said when I covered this
46:23
on the podcast back in twenty eighteen, I did not expect all these new
46:27
developments to take place, and that Dennis would be released from prison and that
46:31
this case would be looked at in a new light. But that's the main
46:34
reason I wanted to talk about it on this episode and revisit it, because
46:37
there were just so many new developments to discuss, and I'm sure I provided
46:42
you with some truly jaw dropping moments which shock the hell out of you.
46:45
You really did. There was a bunch of moments throughout this where I was
46:49
like, what like, especially with regards to Perry's alibi, them not looking
46:53
into it, the DNA hatches, all of these things. It was just
46:58
like, how did this even happen? And the fact that he hasn't been
47:00
convicted at this point, that he's still a free man, that they haven't
47:05
got a warrant to get his DNA based off the bitochandrial is shocking. But
47:09
this is a fascinating case and I'm really happy that you shared it with me.
47:14
Great. Thank you. It was great to discuss it and hear your
47:15
reactions. My only regret is that Ashley was not here, because I think
47:19
she would have given off a few audible gasps and gotten really angry, and
47:22
a lot of the things we talked about definitely, So she'll be back for
47:27
our next series, Yeah, definitely, and we'll definitely have to get her
47:30
to listen to this because she'll be shocked at what she hears because she talks
47:34
a lot about wrongful convictions. So thanks for discussing this case for me and
47:37
we will see you again next week with our friend Ashley back. So until
47:42
then, have yourself a good week and thanks for your support. Robin.
47:45
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
47:49
Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now,
47:52
and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I
47:57
also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with
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also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured
48:10
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if you join our highest tier tier three, the ten dollar tier. One
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of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved
48:23
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playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases
48:37
featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did
48:42
a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
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to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel
48:51
Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three. So I want to let
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you know a little bit about the Jeweles and Nashty Patreon. So there's early
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ad free episodes of The Path When Chili. We've got our Pathwent Chili mini's,
49:01
which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but
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they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing
49:08
those. So we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in
49:12
the show notes. So I want to thank you all for listening, and
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any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or to
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rate and review is greatly appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili
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at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin.
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So until next time. Be sure to bundle up, because cold trails and
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chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy