Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #173 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Ricky Davis

Transcript

#173 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Ricky Davis · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
0:05
Speaker 1: writer and I'm Steve Drisen. Today we're going to tell
0:09
Speaker 1: you about a California man named Ricky Davis. In nineteen
0:13
Speaker 1: eighty five, Ricky and his girlfriend Connie found their roommate
0:16
Speaker 1: brutally stabbed to death. Without any leads, the case went
0:20
Speaker 1: cold for fourteen years. That's when detectives convinced Connie that
0:24
Speaker 1: she had repressed memories of Ricky committing the crime. Based
0:28
Speaker 1: on Connie's false statement, Ricky spent twelve years in prison
0:32
Speaker 1: until very recently when he and his mother Maureen, finally
0:36
Speaker 1: had something to be thankful for.
0:49
Speaker 2: I think it's important to realize that on the road
0:52
Speaker 2: to a wrongful conviction, there's a lot of road killed.
0:56
Speaker 2: There's the defendant who gets wrongfully convicted. There's the defendant's
1:02
Speaker 2: family who has to live with the fact that their
1:06
Speaker 2: loved one is going away for a long period of
1:08
Speaker 2: time or sentenced to death.
1:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:10
Speaker 1: In this case, it was Ricky's mom, Maureene, who had
1:12
Speaker 1: to bear the brunt of that pain.
1:14
Speaker 2: And then there are witnesses sometimes who are pressured to
1:20
Speaker 2: lie to save their own skin.
1:23
Speaker 1: Witnesses like Connie Dahl, and they have.
1:25
Speaker 2: To live with the guilt that accompanies that lie.
1:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean when you think about Connie
1:32
Speaker 1: and Maureene in that courtroom, one woman is being forced
1:35
Speaker 1: to talk and one woman is being prevented from talking,
1:38
Speaker 1: and of course the two of them have two very
1:40
Speaker 1: different stories to tell about who Ricky Davis is and
1:44
Speaker 1: what Ricky Davis did.
1:45
Speaker 2: And so the notion of powerlessness that Maureen experienced in
1:51
Speaker 2: this case is something that we see all the time.
1:56
Speaker 2: I mean, while the trial is happening, there's nothing more
2:00
Speaker 2: can do to stop the train from running over her son.
2:05
Speaker 1: And Connie's being forced to drive that train. She's a
2:07
Speaker 1: victim here too. Today's story starts in El Dorado Hills, California,
2:15
Speaker 1: an upper class suburb about twenty miles east of Sacramento.
2:19
Speaker 1: In so many ways, El Dorado Hills epitomizes the American dream.
2:23
Speaker 1: It's filled with expensive homes that back up onto lush
2:26
Speaker 1: golf courses. Its shopping centers are filled with luxury stores
2:30
Speaker 1: and fancy restaurants. Its families, by and large live lives
2:34
Speaker 1: of privilege and peace. Ricky Davis's story is still unfolding today,
2:39
Speaker 1: but it began back in nineteen eighty five. Ricky was
2:43
Speaker 1: twenty years old. He lived in El Dorado Hills and
2:46
Speaker 1: a large home on Stanford Lane along with his mom, Maureen. Now,
2:51
Speaker 1: Ricky and Maureen were pretty different from their wealthy neighbors.
2:54
Speaker 1: Maureen had been a teenage mom by the time she
2:57
Speaker 1: turned twenty. She was raising Ricky and his three sisters
2:59
Speaker 1: in southern California without much support from their dad. Maureen
3:04
Speaker 1: worked to pay the bills by waitressing. She and Ricky
3:07
Speaker 1: had come to El Dorado Hills just a few years
3:09
Speaker 1: before our story begins. Ricky's grandmother, a successful business woman,
3:14
Speaker 1: had recently moved to the area, and she bought the
3:16
Speaker 1: house on Stanford Lane for them. This family might not
3:20
Speaker 1: have been classic El Dorado Hills, but they were close
3:22
Speaker 1: knit and loving. No secrets, no drama, no lies. Ricky
3:28
Speaker 1: had a nineteen year old girlfriend, Connie Dahl, who spent
3:31
Speaker 1: plenty of nights at the Stanford Lane house. Now, Ricky's mom, Maureene,
3:35
Speaker 1: wasn't thrilled with Ricky and Connie's relationship because Connie had
3:39
Speaker 1: a pretty serious meth habit. Ricky smoked pot. It's true
3:43
Speaker 1: but he wasn't into harder stuff, and Maureen worried that
3:46
Speaker 1: Connie would drag Ricky into trouble. But unlike Ricky, Connie
3:50
Speaker 1: didn't have a stable home. Sometimes she had no home
3:53
Speaker 1: at all and slept in her car. Once she and
3:56
Speaker 1: Ricky started dating, Connie often spent the night at Rickey's house,
4:00
Speaker 1: climbing in his bedroom window after Maureen was asleep. One
4:04
Speaker 1: Friday in nineteen eighty five, July fifth, the Stanford Lane
4:08
Speaker 1: house gained two more residents. Ricky's grandmother was in the
4:11
Speaker 1: real estate business, and she'd recently learned that one of
4:14
Speaker 1: her employees needed a temporary place to stay. Fifty four
4:18
Speaker 1: year old Jane Hilton had been fighting with her husband
4:21
Speaker 1: over money, and those fights had apparently turned violent. When
4:25
Speaker 1: Ricky's grandmother found out about this, she offered Jane and
4:28
Speaker 1: her thirteen year old daughter Autumn a spare bedroom on
4:31
Speaker 1: Stanford Lane as a safe harbor. They moved in on Friday,
4:35
Speaker 1: July fifth, but that harbor wasn't quite as safe as
4:38
Speaker 1: it seemed. The next day, Saturday, July sixth, the house
4:42
Speaker 1: emptied out. At least for the most part. Ricky's mom, Maureen,
4:46
Speaker 1: took off in the middle of the day to go
4:48
Speaker 1: camping with her boyfriend. In the evening, Ricky and his
4:51
Speaker 1: girlfriend Connie headed out to a party. Even thirteen year
4:54
Speaker 1: old Autumn left the house to meet up with some
4:56
Speaker 1: new friends, three teenage boys she'd met earlier that day.
5:01
Speaker 1: For her part, Autumn's mom, Jane, stayed home. Ricky and
5:05
Speaker 1: Connie got back at around three thirty Sunday morning. When
5:08
Speaker 1: they arrived at the house, they found Autumn outside standing
5:12
Speaker 1: alone in the front yard. Autumn told them she'd been
5:15
Speaker 1: home for an hour, but she hadn't gone inside yet.
5:18
Speaker 1: She was worried about getting in trouble with her mom
5:21
Speaker 1: for being out too late, she said, and she was
5:23
Speaker 1: hoping Ricky and Connie would go inside with her. The
5:26
Speaker 1: three go in together. Upstairs, there's no sign of Autumn's mom, Jane,
5:32
Speaker 1: so Ricky and Connie leave Autumn in her room and
5:34
Speaker 1: head for bed themselves. But as they walked down the hall,
5:38
Speaker 1: Ricky spots blood on the carpet outside the master bedroom,
5:42
Speaker 1: where his mom, Maureen usually sleeps. She's on a camping trip,
5:46
Speaker 1: he reminds himself. He pushes the door open and finds
5:50
Speaker 1: a nightmare. It's not his mom, but Autumn's mom, Jane Hilton.
5:56
Speaker 1: She's lying on the bed wearing only a nightgown, and
5:59
Speaker 1: she's clear really dead. Jane's been stabbed thirty nine times
6:04
Speaker 1: and is covered in blood. She's got defensive wounds up
6:08
Speaker 1: and down her arms. One of her fingernails is missing,
6:11
Speaker 1: and her hand is clutching a tuft of someone's hair.
6:14
Speaker 1: There's even a bite mark on the back of her
6:16
Speaker 1: left shoulder. Ricky and Connie were horrified. They called the police,
6:21
Speaker 1: who arrived and interviewed both of them on the spot.
6:24
Speaker 1: Ricky and Connie told the police they'd been at a
6:26
Speaker 1: party all night and it was pretty easy to corroborate
6:30
Speaker 1: their story. The hood of Ricky's car was still warm,
6:33
Speaker 1: suggesting he and Connie were being honest about only recently
6:37
Speaker 1: getting back to the house, and thirteen year old Autumn
6:40
Speaker 1: told police she'd seen Ricky and Connie arrive home and
6:43
Speaker 1: gone in with them. To these officers at the scene,
6:46
Speaker 1: it seemed pretty clear that Ricky and Connie were innocent,
6:50
Speaker 1: so clear that the police didn't bother to interview the
6:52
Speaker 1: other people who'd been with them at the party. Of course,
6:55
Speaker 1: those people would have been alibi witnesses. Instead, police moved
6:59
Speaker 1: on to check out the obvious suspect, Jane's husband, the
7:03
Speaker 1: guy with whom she'd been fighting, but he seemed to
7:05
Speaker 1: have an alibi two he'd apparently spent the evening at
7:08
Speaker 1: a local restaurant. So next the police tried to find
7:12
Speaker 1: the three teenage boys Autumn had been hanging out with
7:14
Speaker 1: earlier that night. Problem was, Autumn only knew first names
7:18
Speaker 1: for two of them, Michael and Calvin. After scanning through
7:23
Speaker 1: a few yearbooks from local high schools, the detectives came
7:26
Speaker 1: up with nothing. Unfortunately, that was it for the investigation.
7:30
Speaker 1: Without any suspects or solid leads, the case went cold
7:35
Speaker 1: for fourteen years. Fast forward from July nineteen eighty five
7:40
Speaker 1: to November nineteen ninety nine. Ricky and Connie had broken
7:43
Speaker 1: up long ago, their relationship ended up lasting less than
7:47
Speaker 1: a year. Since then, Connie had continued using meth off
7:51
Speaker 1: and on. For his part, Ricky had spent those years
7:54
Speaker 1: in and out of prison for a series of relatively
7:56
Speaker 1: minor offenses, mostly drug related crimes and robbery, but neither
8:00
Speaker 1: of them had ever been involved in anything close to murder.
8:04
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, the el Dorado County Sheriff's office
8:08
Speaker 1: decided to reinvestigate Jane Hilton's killing. Two detectives were assigned
8:12
Speaker 1: to this cold case, and they started by reviewing old
8:16
Speaker 1: news coverage. Their attention was caught by a story that
8:19
Speaker 1: had run in a local newspaper just a few days
8:21
Speaker 1: after the murder. A reporter from the paper had shown
8:25
Speaker 1: up at the Stanford Lane house. Connie had let her
8:27
Speaker 1: in and shown her the room where Jane had been killed.
8:30
Speaker 1: The reporter asked a bunch of questions about finding the body,
8:33
Speaker 1: and that's when Connie had said something that struck these
8:37
Speaker 1: new detectives as suspicious. Connie had told the reporter that
8:41
Speaker 1: Jane's body had been positioned on the bed as though
8:43
Speaker 1: she were sleeping. Whoever had killed Jane, Connie speculated, must
8:48
Speaker 1: have moved her body onto the bed afterwards. Connie's comment
8:52
Speaker 1: was pretty obviously a guess, but the police began wondering
8:55
Speaker 1: if she actually might know something about the body being moved.
8:59
Speaker 1: So over the next fifteen months, between November nineteen ninety
9:03
Speaker 1: nine and February two thousand and one, the police decided
9:06
Speaker 1: to interrogate Connie on three separate occasions. It was all
9:11
Speaker 1: caught on videotape, every last word, and that videotape makes
9:15
Speaker 1: it clear the police weren't aiming only for Connie. They
9:19
Speaker 1: wanted her to confess to being present when Jane died,
9:22
Speaker 1: and they wanted her to name her ex boyfriend, Ricky Davis,
9:25
Speaker 1: as the killer.
9:35
Speaker 2: The theory was that Jane was brutally beaten and stabbed to
9:40
Speaker 2: death by a man, and the man that the police
9:44
Speaker 2: officers had in mind was Ricky Davis. Police officers often
9:49
Speaker 2: go after ex girlfriends or ex wives on the assumption
9:53
Speaker 2: that there was a bad breakup, that there's some animists
9:57
Speaker 2: there that may motivate the aggrieved party into revealing information
10:04
Speaker 2: that they had been unwilling to reveal at the time
10:06
Speaker 2: of the investigation. Hell hath no fury like a woman
10:10
Speaker 2: scorned is the thinking here.
10:13
Speaker 1: Connie is first brought in for questioning only days after
10:16
Speaker 1: the new cops take over the case. At first, she
10:19
Speaker 1: insists repeatedly that she had nothing to do with Jane's murder,
10:22
Speaker 1: that all she remembers is coming home and finding the body.
10:26
Speaker 1: But right away Connie is hit with a barrage of lies.
10:29
Speaker 1: Police tell her that a witness had placed her in
10:32
Speaker 1: Ricky at the homicide scene, although no one had. Police
10:36
Speaker 1: tell Connie that DNA established her presence in Jane's bedroom
10:40
Speaker 1: even though it didn't, and they tell Connie that the
10:43
Speaker 1: hares found clenched in Jane's hand belonged to Ricky. Another lie.
10:48
Speaker 1: Police had actually lost those hairs. They were never tested
10:51
Speaker 1: at all.
10:52
Speaker 3: We know that you were present in the house when
10:54
Speaker 3: this happened.
10:55
Speaker 2: I know I was not.
10:57
Speaker 3: We already know that. What do you mean, Well, like
11:01
Speaker 3: I said, you know, we've got all kinds of physical
11:03
Speaker 3: evidence I may happened. Yes, Oh my god, there's no way.
11:09
Speaker 1: Over time, though, the police's cascading lies begin to break
11:13
Speaker 1: Connie down. Like most of us, Connie has no idea
11:16
Speaker 1: that police are allowed to lie during interrogations, So after
11:20
Speaker 1: hearing all this apparent evidence of her own involvement, Connie
11:24
Speaker 1: starts questioning her memory of what happened all those years ago.
11:28
Speaker 3: Okay, if I was there, I had no memory of that.
11:31
Speaker 1: She's desperately trying to make sense of what they're saying,
11:34
Speaker 1: and eventually tells the investigators that maybe she was there
11:38
Speaker 1: and just couldn't remember it. The investigator suggests that Ricky
11:42
Speaker 1: had programmed her memory so that Connie would blank out
11:45
Speaker 1: her recollections of the crime. She agrees, maybe I have amnesia.
11:51
Speaker 3: I couldn't have watched that happen.
11:52
Speaker 1: That would have been.
11:55
Speaker 3: If I've writteness for that happening, that.
11:58
Speaker 2: At very least you would I blinted out. They are
12:02
Speaker 2: absolutely confusing the hell out of her. They are causing
12:06
Speaker 2: a crisis of confidence where she begins not only to
12:11
Speaker 2: doubt her memory, but she can't really distinguish between what
12:15
Speaker 2: she actually remembers and what she thinks she might remember.
12:21
Speaker 1: Investigators warn Connie that if she doesn't somehow recover her memories,
12:25
Speaker 1: they might have to interrogate her again, and they say
12:28
Speaker 1: that could lead to her arrest. On the other hand,
12:31
Speaker 1: they imply that Connie will receive leniency, even immunity from
12:35
Speaker 1: prosecution if she provides them with a statement right.
12:38
Speaker 2: Now, well, first one to jump on the bandwagon, I always.
12:41
Speaker 3: Sisus ride right.
12:44
Speaker 2: And so what happens here is that the police provide
12:48
Speaker 2: incentives to adopt their preconceived theory, promises of leniency or
12:54
Speaker 2: threats of harm, suggestions that the first person to jump
12:58
Speaker 2: on the bandwagon is going to get the best deal,
13:02
Speaker 2: and that If she doesn't jump on first, someone else
13:06
Speaker 2: is going to take your spot, and she's going to
13:09
Speaker 2: get punished more severely.
13:13
Speaker 1: These tactics work, Connie breaks and agrees to confess, to
13:17
Speaker 1: say that she helped Ricky kill Jane, but she has
13:21
Speaker 1: no idea what to say about the crime. Remember, Connie
13:24
Speaker 1: wasn't actually there to help her out. Investigators feed Connie
13:28
Speaker 1: everything they know about Jane Hilton's murder and everything they
13:32
Speaker 1: think happened too. Here's the story that Connie ultimately agreed
13:36
Speaker 1: to repeat. She said she was there while Ricky and
13:39
Speaker 1: Jane were arguing about whether Jane's daughter Autumn could go
13:42
Speaker 1: out that night. During the argument, Connie said, Ricky punched
13:46
Speaker 1: Jane in the face. The altercation escalated. Eventually, Connie went
13:50
Speaker 1: downstairs and acted as a lookout while Ricky stabbed Jane.
13:55
Speaker 1: Then Connie said she came back to the room and
13:57
Speaker 1: helped Ricky move Jane's body onto the bed.
14:01
Speaker 2: So, to me, what makes this case different is that
14:04
Speaker 2: we have a sort of recipe, if you will, for
14:08
Speaker 2: a persuaded false confession. What's unique about a persuaded false
14:13
Speaker 2: confession is that the suspect comes to doubt their own memory,
14:20
Speaker 2: they get to a place where they think the police
14:23
Speaker 2: officers are telling me I committed this crime. They're telling
14:27
Speaker 2: me they have evidence that proves that I committed this crime,
14:32
Speaker 2: but why can't I remember it? And when a suspect
14:35
Speaker 2: gets to that place of uncertainty, the police officers provide
14:40
Speaker 2: an answer. The events that you saw were so traumatic
14:45
Speaker 2: that they caused you to repress these memories, and so
14:49
Speaker 2: the interrogation becomes an exercise in pulling these memories out
14:57
Speaker 2: of the suspect's mind. But they're not real memories. They
15:02
Speaker 2: don't exist.
15:04
Speaker 1: At times, Connie's language reveals her own uncertainty. Even while
15:08
Speaker 1: she's confessing.
15:10
Speaker 2: I think I did that, I probably did that. I
15:13
Speaker 2: seem to remember that. There's a tentativeness that you wouldn't
15:17
Speaker 2: have if they were real memories, and we see that
15:22
Speaker 2: throughout Connie's interrogation.
15:25
Speaker 1: Telling LYE. When Connie's not fed information, she can't get
15:28
Speaker 1: anything about the story right. She's not able to tell
15:32
Speaker 1: the police what the murder weapon looked like, where Ricky
15:35
Speaker 1: got it, or how he disposed of it.
15:37
Speaker 2: The detectives are shaping her memories, they are feeding her facts,
15:44
Speaker 2: and their final story here is really their story. It's
15:49
Speaker 2: their preconceived theory of the crime come to life through
15:54
Speaker 2: the words of Connie Doll.
15:57
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, the police don't arrest anyone right away. Instead,
16:00
Speaker 1: they leave Connie alone for a while and interview Ricky himself.
16:04
Speaker 1: He vehemently denies any involvement whatsoever. So the police come
16:09
Speaker 1: back to Connie in January two thousand to see if
16:12
Speaker 1: she can give them any more information, and they remind
16:14
Speaker 1: her that the more details she can provide, the better
16:17
Speaker 1: off she'll be. During this interrogation, officers play Connie the
16:22
Speaker 1: crime scene video that was recorded the night Jane died
16:26
Speaker 1: to see if they can quote refresh her memory. Now.
16:29
Speaker 1: I've seen this video myself, and it's horrifying. It's almost
16:33
Speaker 1: totally silent. As the videographer walks from room to room,
16:37
Speaker 1: ending up in the bedroom where Jane died. The camera
16:40
Speaker 1: documents every wound, every injury, from her missing fingernail to
16:45
Speaker 1: her eyes which were still open. It's the kind of
16:48
Speaker 1: crime scene that makes even people who see this all
16:51
Speaker 1: the time sick to their stomachs. Connie watches the video
16:56
Speaker 1: and agrees to add more detail to her story. She
16:59
Speaker 1: says she heard Jane plead for her life, but Ricky
17:02
Speaker 1: didn't listen. She says she heard Jane make gurgling noises
17:05
Speaker 1: as Ricky stabbed her, and after the attack, Connie says
17:09
Speaker 1: she saw Ricky covered in blood. The police still don't
17:13
Speaker 1: arrest Connie, but they also don't leave her alone. Instead,
17:17
Speaker 1: they come back a third time in two thousand and
17:19
Speaker 1: one to try to get even more details. This time,
17:23
Speaker 1: detectives tell her that she'll either be charged with a
17:26
Speaker 1: misdemeanor accessory type thing, or she'll go down as a
17:30
Speaker 1: full blooded half partner in the murder. It all depends
17:34
Speaker 1: on her credibility. Now, Connie's got two young children. The
17:38
Speaker 1: police tell her that if she continues to cooperate, she'll
17:41
Speaker 1: be able to go home to her kids. But they
17:44
Speaker 1: warn her saying, I don't know isn't going to help
17:48
Speaker 1: you at all.
17:49
Speaker 2: They bring up the subject of her children repeatedly throughout
17:53
Speaker 2: the interrogation, and the message to Connie is crystal clear.
17:58
Speaker 2: If I don't tell them what they want to hear,
18:02
Speaker 2: I'm going to lose my children. So they play on
18:05
Speaker 2: her emotions as a mother. These kinds of tactics are
18:09
Speaker 2: very common when a woman is a suspect to her witness,
18:13
Speaker 2: because police officers know that most women would walk across
18:18
Speaker 2: a field of glass in order to protect their children.
18:22
Speaker 1: To satisfy her interrogators, Connie adds another detail to her story,
18:26
Speaker 1: and it's a big one. She wasn't just a lookout.
18:29
Speaker 1: She says she was in the room during the murder
18:32
Speaker 1: and tried to intervene. And remember that bite mark on
18:35
Speaker 1: the back of Jane's shoulder. Connie ends up saying she
18:38
Speaker 1: was responsible for it, that she accidentally bit Jane during
18:42
Speaker 1: the struggle. Finally, Connie's story was good enough. On May
18:48
Speaker 1: twenty first, two thousand and two, based only on Connie's confession,
18:52
Speaker 1: the El Dorado County District Attorney's office filed murder charges
18:56
Speaker 1: against Ricky Davis. And here's the thing. When those cops
19:00
Speaker 1: told Connie she wouldn't be charged, turns out they were
19:03
Speaker 1: lying again. Connie was charged with murder II as an accomplice.
19:08
Speaker 1: A few months later, prosecutors told Connie that if she
19:11
Speaker 1: agreed to testify against Ricky a trial, she could plead
19:15
Speaker 1: guilty to manslaughter and get a huge reduction in her sentence.
19:19
Speaker 1: They decide exactly how much of her reduction. After she testified.
19:23
Speaker 1: With no good options left, Connie pled guilty and agreed
19:27
Speaker 1: to take the stand.
19:38
Speaker 3: I didn't like her to start with.
19:41
Speaker 1: That's Maureen Klein, Ricky Davis's mother. Remember she's always had
19:45
Speaker 1: an opinion about Ricky's ex girlfriend, Connie.
19:48
Speaker 3: Ricky and I have always been very close. He had
19:52
Speaker 3: a horrible father, so I think the closeness was because
19:57
Speaker 3: I was all Ricky really had. Even as a teenager,
20:00
Speaker 3: he would call me his best friend. So this situation
20:04
Speaker 3: was extremely devastating.
20:06
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, Maureen learned that Ricky was
20:09
Speaker 1: being charged with murdering Jane Hilton, based on the testimony
20:12
Speaker 1: of a girl he dated fourteen years ago. Mariene couldn't
20:16
Speaker 1: believe it. She knew her son was no killer, and
20:19
Speaker 1: the police had seemed to acknowledge his and Connie's innocence
20:22
Speaker 1: years ago. As she processed the news, Maureen struggled to
20:26
Speaker 1: understand why Connie would falsely confess.
20:30
Speaker 3: Connie had problems obviously, and she let the detectives talk
20:35
Speaker 3: her into believing that she had something to do with
20:37
Speaker 3: the murder. I was very angry at Connie, and I
20:40
Speaker 3: couldn't believe that she was lying this out, not lying.
20:45
Speaker 3: I don't understand how somebody could convince you that you
20:50
Speaker 3: participated in a murder that you didn't.
20:52
Speaker 2: The idea that Connie would confess to a murder she
20:55
Speaker 2: didn't commit, it was impossible for Maureen to believe. I
21:01
Speaker 2: understand and sympathize with Maureen about her anger towards Connie,
21:06
Speaker 2: But Connie's a tragic victim in this too. She didn't
21:10
Speaker 2: start out by naming Ricky Davis as a murderer, and
21:14
Speaker 2: it was only the lies and the manipulation by the
21:18
Speaker 2: detectives in that cold case squad that gave her really
21:21
Speaker 2: no choice but to change her story in ways that
21:25
Speaker 2: pleased them, or else she was going to lose her kids.
21:29
Speaker 1: After Ricky was charged, Maureen sat down and watched Connie's
21:33
Speaker 1: interrogation videos. As Maureen watched, she began to see how
21:37
Speaker 1: police manipulated Connie. She started realizing that the problem was
21:41
Speaker 1: much bigger than her son's ex girlfriend.
21:44
Speaker 3: Connie did stay in the starting of one of the
21:47
Speaker 3: interviews that she had been up on mess for twenty
21:50
Speaker 3: four hours prior, so that in itself, I would think
21:54
Speaker 3: they wouldn't have interviewed her at that time, but they
21:58
Speaker 3: did anyway, she would say exactly what they sold it to.
22:03
Speaker 3: You could tell that they would turn off the recording
22:05
Speaker 3: and get her back on track. The captives did tell
22:08
Speaker 3: Connie that once Ricky was convicted that she would go free,
22:12
Speaker 3: and I guess they threatened her with her children and stuff.
22:17
Speaker 3: I didn't believe anything would come of it because I
22:21
Speaker 3: knew Ricky had no part of it. I knew he
22:23
Speaker 3: was innocent.
22:24
Speaker 1: Maureen was right that Ricky was innocent, but she was
22:27
Speaker 1: wrong that nothing would come of Connie's story. In June
22:30
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, Ricky went on trial for Jane
22:33
Speaker 1: Hilton's murder. Prosecutors called Connie Dahl as their star witness.
22:38
Speaker 1: From his seat at the defence table, Ricky watched Connie testify.
22:42
Speaker 1: He hadn't seen her in almost twenty years, and he
22:45
Speaker 1: couldn't believe what he was hearing. Connie knew he was innocent.
22:49
Speaker 1: The two of them had discovered Jane's body together somehow,
22:52
Speaker 1: though the system had put them on opposite sides. For
22:56
Speaker 1: her part, Maureen sat in the front row of the courtroom,
22:59
Speaker 1: right behind Ricky as prosecutors told the jury an unthinkable
23:04
Speaker 1: story about her son.
23:05
Speaker 3: The way they portrayed him, like he was some vicious animal.
23:09
Speaker 3: That was hard to take. I was surprised that the
23:13
Speaker 3: jurors believed Connie. To me, she didn't sound very credible.
23:17
Speaker 3: The way she answered was what she was told to say,
23:20
Speaker 3: but they did believe her. Obviously, I couldn't say anything.
23:24
Speaker 3: At times, I wanted to yell out or react, but
23:29
Speaker 3: I knew that if I did, I wouldn't be allowed
23:31
Speaker 3: in the courtroom. So it was a helpless feelings.
23:34
Speaker 1: In exchange for Connie's testimony, prosecutors agreed that her sentence
23:38
Speaker 1: should be reduced to times served. The next day, she
23:42
Speaker 1: walked free, but Ricky Ricky wasn't as lucky. Based on
23:47
Speaker 1: Connie's false testimony, Ricky was convicted of murdering Jane Hilton.
23:51
Speaker 1: He was given a sentence of sixteen years to life.
23:58
Speaker 3: It was like a bad movie. I mean, no systems perfect,
24:05
Speaker 3: but there was just no way I thought it could
24:08
Speaker 3: be convicted under the circumstances. But he was. Everything about
24:14
Speaker 3: my life changed in the moment that he was convicted.
24:18
Speaker 3: It seemed to me my whole personality changed. I became
24:22
Speaker 3: angry at everything I wish I was detecting nothing but
24:27
Speaker 3: horrible things in their life.
24:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm.
24:30
Speaker 3: Sorry that that's the way I feel.
24:34
Speaker 1: After his two thousand and five conviction, Ricky Davis was
24:37
Speaker 1: sent to a California prison hours away from Eldorado Hills.
24:42
Speaker 1: His ex girlfriend, Connie was free, but she never shook
24:45
Speaker 1: her math habit. In twenty fourteen, Connie died of an overdose.
24:50
Speaker 1: For her part, Maureen moved out of the Stanford Lane house.
24:53
Speaker 1: She couldn't be there alone and started living with her mom.
24:57
Speaker 1: Every month, Maureen drove to visit Ricky in prison year
25:00
Speaker 1: after year after year.
25:03
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of bad people and they deserve
25:05
Speaker 3: to be in there, but there's seems to be a
25:08
Speaker 3: lot that shouldn't be in there. With no money, you're
25:12
Speaker 3: going to do time period. That was just cut and dry,
25:16
Speaker 3: and that pretty much is the way it is. It's
25:19
Speaker 3: the same with different nationalities. They don't get the same
25:24
Speaker 3: justice that a rich white person dev and that's wrong.
25:29
Speaker 1: Shortly before Connie's death, the Northern California Innocence Project agreed
25:33
Speaker 1: to take on Ricky Davis's case, and in twenty fourteen,
25:36
Speaker 1: attorneys from the project sought DNA testing on a host
25:40
Speaker 1: of items from Jane Hilton's murder scene. The crime labs
25:43
Speaker 1: started with that bite mark on the back of Jane's shoulder,
25:46
Speaker 1: the mark that Connie told police had been left by
25:49
Speaker 1: her teeth. Whoever left that mark bit through Jane's nightgown.
25:53
Speaker 1: Sure enough, the lab found saliva on the nightgown and
25:57
Speaker 1: developed a full DNA profile of an unknown mail. Obviously,
26:02
Speaker 1: the bier was not Connie Dull and it wasn't Ricky
26:04
Speaker 1: Davis either. Next, the lab tested DNA from skin cells
26:09
Speaker 1: that were left underneath Jane's fingernails from when she'd scratched
26:12
Speaker 1: her attacker. Whose DNA was it the same unknown man
26:16
Speaker 1: who'd left his saliva on Jane's nightgown. The profile was
26:19
Speaker 1: run through the local and national DNA databases with no luck.
26:24
Speaker 1: The attacker couldn't be identified, but it was crystal clear
26:27
Speaker 1: that whoever had killed Jane Hilton was not Connie or Ricky.
26:31
Speaker 1: Ricky's attorneys filed a post conviction petition based on this
26:34
Speaker 1: new evidence. In twenty nineteen, the court threw out Ricky's conviction.
26:39
Speaker 1: That was great news, but Ricky's fight wasn't over. Even
26:42
Speaker 1: though the DNA excluded Ricky prosecutors weren't ready to drop
26:46
Speaker 1: charges until they knew whose DNA it was, so they
26:50
Speaker 1: began preparing to retry Ricky for Jane's murder, and Ricky
26:53
Speaker 1: had to stay behind bars. But in the meantime, prosecutors
26:57
Speaker 1: tried a brand new method to identify the DNA genetic genealogy,
27:02
Speaker 1: and it led investigators back to someone whose name they
27:04
Speaker 1: hadn't heard in twenty five years.
27:07
Speaker 2: Genetic genealogy searches public databases like ancestry, dot com and
27:14
Speaker 2: twenty three in meters to look for matches to evidence
27:19
Speaker 2: that's found at a crime scene. Police officers start examining
27:24
Speaker 2: the family trees and look for people who have a
27:27
Speaker 2: connection to the crime scene.
27:29
Speaker 1: In Ricky's case, the process led the DA's office to
27:31
Speaker 1: fifty one year old Michael Green, who is Michael Green.
27:35
Speaker 1: Turns out he was one of the three teenagers that
27:38
Speaker 1: Jane's daughter Autumn had been with the night her mother
27:41
Speaker 1: was killed at Long Last. Twenty five years after Jane's death,
27:45
Speaker 1: the authorities had found her killer. In February twenty twenty,
27:50
Speaker 1: Michael Green was charged with Jane's murder and was booked
27:53
Speaker 1: into the Eldorado County jail. He entered a plea of
27:56
Speaker 1: not guilty and is awaiting trial today now. Because Green's
27:59
Speaker 1: case is still unfolding, we don't have clear answers yet
28:03
Speaker 1: about why he attacked Jane or how he did it.
28:06
Speaker 1: We just know the DNA was his. That's pretty close
28:10
Speaker 1: to case closed. On February thirteenth, twenty twenty, a judge
28:16
Speaker 1: declared Ricky Davis factually innocent and dismissed the case against
28:21
Speaker 1: him after serving twelve years for a murder he did
28:24
Speaker 1: not commit. Ricky walked out of prison right into the
28:27
Speaker 1: arms of his mom.
28:32
Speaker 3: The judge exonerated him, which he said that was the
28:35
Speaker 3: first time he had ever done it. That was such
28:39
Speaker 3: a great feeling. And didn't see him walk out of
28:41
Speaker 3: the jail, it was It's the crazest thing. Everybody was
28:45
Speaker 3: there to hear him coming down and how getting him
28:47
Speaker 3: and stuff, to see him smiling because he was happy
28:50
Speaker 3: instead of having to go back into the sal as
28:52
Speaker 3: I was leading him. Yeah, it was fantastic Stevening.
29:00
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the same couldn't happen for Connie. She remains in
29:05
Speaker 1: death a convicted participant in Jane Hilton's murder.
29:09
Speaker 2: There were two wrongful convictions here, and this DNA evidence
29:14
Speaker 2: proved that Connie's story was false. It also proved that
29:20
Speaker 2: she didn't bite Jane Hilton, so she deserves to be
29:25
Speaker 2: exonerated posthumously.
29:28
Speaker 1: This year, Ricky Davis will be spending its first Thanksgiving
29:31
Speaker 1: in nearly twelve years with his mom Maureen.
29:35
Speaker 3: Well, I'll make dinner back Thanksgiving Turkey as the only
29:39
Speaker 3: primal year I can afford it. But his sisters and
29:43
Speaker 3: nephew will be here and that'll be nice. I'm not
29:47
Speaker 3: the best cook day, but it's more having everybody together
29:52
Speaker 3: and happy. That's the best part of it. Ricky's a
29:55
Speaker 3: very affectionate person. When he comes in and hus me,
30:00
Speaker 3: it's the stealing in the world. I feel lucky, blessed
30:03
Speaker 3: every time I look at him.
30:09
Speaker 2: Hello, Hey, Ricky, how are you?
30:12
Speaker 3: I am doing good? How are you stud good? Hi? Laura?
30:16
Speaker 1: Tell me about those first moments of freedom, what it
30:18
Speaker 1: felt like to walk out.
30:18
Speaker 3: Those doors longtime?
30:20
Speaker 1: Con Yeah, I've seen the video. A lot of people
30:24
Speaker 1: there that was I saw you eating some pizza.
30:28
Speaker 2: You went right for the comfort food.
30:30
Speaker 1: You know, what are your toppings of choice?
30:33
Speaker 2: Saso kept burning Lagusa All the good stuff.
30:38
Speaker 1: Do you see your mom much these days?
30:41
Speaker 3: Yes? I do. Yeah, I love her very much. I
30:43
Speaker 3: thank seeing her.
30:44
Speaker 1: Since we're talking about food and pizza and everything else.
30:47
Speaker 1: Is there something your mom makes for you, something she
30:50
Speaker 1: used to cook that you missed and that she can
30:52
Speaker 1: make for you again now that you're out.
30:53
Speaker 3: I have a funny story for that. You know. A
30:55
Speaker 3: few days after I was out, I tell her, You know, Mama,
30:58
Speaker 3: envision waking up in the morning as you couldn't be breakfast,
31:01
Speaker 3: And she says, well, you were vision and listened, you'd
31:03
Speaker 3: vision a different mom.
31:08
Speaker 2: There you go.
31:09
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's amazing.
31:11
Speaker 3: Strong to the end. I love it.
31:20
Speaker 1: And that's the story of Ricky Davis. Next week we'll
31:23
Speaker 1: tell you about Michael Hash and his childhood friend Eric Weekly.
31:26
Speaker 1: When Eric was accused of killing an elderly woman, the
31:29
Speaker 1: pressure of the interrogation room caused him to falsely implicate Michael.
31:33
Speaker 1: Michael's parents never stopped fighting for their son's innocence, and
31:36
Speaker 1: now that he's been exonerated, they're fighting to clear Eric's name.
31:40
Speaker 3: Two.
31:43
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for
31:46
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company. Number one special
31:51
Speaker 1: thanks to our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis.
31:55
Speaker 1: Our production team is headed by senior producer and Pope,
31:58
Speaker 1: along with producers Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is
32:02
Speaker 1: mixed by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern.
32:06
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
32:09
Speaker 1: me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura and I Wrider,
32:13
Speaker 1: and you.
32:13
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
32:16
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com.
32:21
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
32:25
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
32:29
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction