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#283 Maggie Freleng with Marni Yang · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: So, Maggie, what about you?
0:03
Speaker 2: Is there anything that could make you confess to a
0:05
Speaker 2: time you didn't commit.
0:08
Speaker 3: I don't have kids, but I imagine, you know, maybe
0:15
Speaker 3: a situation where I would be looking to save somebody
0:19
Speaker 3: that I knew was for sure innocent, like a child
0:22
Speaker 3: or maybe even my mom, or you know, maybe there
0:26
Speaker 3: wouldn't be a situation where I would falsely confess to
0:30
Speaker 3: something to save somebody.
0:35
Speaker 4: I had reached a point where I felt so beaten
0:41
Speaker 4: down after seeing my son and daughter go through a
0:48
Speaker 4: mental breakdown. I had just decided I'm just going to
0:52
Speaker 4: tell them whatever they want to.
0:53
Speaker 5: Hear from LoVa for good. This is wrongful. Can with
1:00
Speaker 5: Maggie Freeling today Marnie Yang. On October fourth, two thousand
1:15
Speaker 5: and seven, forty two year old Ronnie Ryder was going
1:18
Speaker 5: about her morning at her apartment in Deerfield, Illinois. Suddenly,
1:22
Speaker 5: neighbors heard a short scream, loud bangs, and a crash,
1:27
Speaker 5: followed by silence. When police arrived, they found Ronnie lying
1:34
Speaker 5: face down on her kitchen floor in a pool of blood.
1:37
Speaker 5: A single bullet wound to the back of her head
1:40
Speaker 5: was the cause of death. She had also been shot
1:42
Speaker 5: two times in the stomach. Ronnie was seven months pregnant.
1:46
Speaker 5: The bullets killed her unborn child. At the crime scene,
1:53
Speaker 5: police found no indication of a struggle, nor were any
1:56
Speaker 5: items missing from the house. But what they did find
1:59
Speaker 5: was a threatening note inside Ronnie's purse discussing her boyfriend
2:03
Speaker 5: and baby's father, Sean Gail. Gail was a major NFL
2:08
Speaker 5: star for the Chicago Bears, and he and Ronnie have
2:11
Speaker 5: been dating for seventeen years. The note mentioned Gail's alleged
2:16
Speaker 5: affairs with sixteen other women, including Marnie Yang. Because she
2:22
Speaker 5: was on that list, police interviewed Marnie about the murder.
2:25
Speaker 5: They immediately honed in on her as a suspect. They
2:28
Speaker 5: eventually arrested her, believing she was a jealous girlfriend willing
2:31
Speaker 5: to commit murder to be with Gail, but none of
2:37
Speaker 5: the forensic evidence led back to Marnie. In fact, the
2:40
Speaker 5: neighbor said they saw a man running from the scene
2:42
Speaker 5: of the crime.
2:52
Speaker 4: At the time, I believed in the justice system. I
2:55
Speaker 4: believed that the law would do the right thing. I
3:00
Speaker 4: no longer believe that this was a huge wake up call.
3:06
Speaker 4: My name is Marty Yang. I've been wrongfully convicted for
3:09
Speaker 4: thirteen years.
3:21
Speaker 5: Marnie Yang was born December twenty ninth, nineteen sixty seven
3:25
Speaker 5: to Larry and Francine Marar and grew up in Skokee, Illinois.
3:30
Speaker 5: She's the oldest of three children.
3:33
Speaker 4: We grew up in basically a standard two parent household
3:37
Speaker 4: for the day. You know. My mother stayed home and
3:42
Speaker 4: raised us until we were a little bit older, and
3:45
Speaker 4: then she went to work for my father's company, and
3:48
Speaker 4: we had pretty much a standard childhood, I guess.
3:53
Speaker 5: Marnie graduated from Niles North High School in nineteen eighty
3:56
Speaker 5: six and went on to college at Illinois State University.
4:00
Speaker 5: That's where she met her husband, Yen Yang.
4:03
Speaker 4: I wouldn't exactly call it a blind date, because we
4:05
Speaker 4: knew each other in passing, but we were introduced formally
4:11
Speaker 4: by a mutual friend and we began dating. In college.
4:18
Speaker 5: Marnie got pregnant and gave birth to twins, Emily and
4:21
Speaker 5: Andrew in nineteen ninety one. Their younger brother, Brandon, was
4:24
Speaker 5: born four years later. A couple of years after that,
4:28
Speaker 5: Marnie and her husband divorced.
4:31
Speaker 4: I was a single parent by the time Brandon, my youngest,
4:35
Speaker 4: was an infant, and it was difficult financially. I always
4:41
Speaker 4: had to work like three jobs, but it was very,
4:45
Speaker 4: very rewarding. My children are amazing.
4:49
Speaker 2: My mom. She was a good person.
4:52
Speaker 5: This is Emily Marnie's daughter.
4:56
Speaker 2: Whatever dream we had, she would help us pursue it.
5:00
Speaker 2: She was very supportive. She would take care of our
5:05
Speaker 2: friends in the neighborhood kids whenever they got hurt.
5:12
Speaker 5: Emily especially remembers her mom loving animals.
5:16
Speaker 2: I remember her always bringing in stray dogs, cats, even squirrels.
5:25
Speaker 2: We had central air in the back, and I remember
5:30
Speaker 2: there was a baby squirrel stuck under it, and I
5:35
Speaker 2: put a laundry basket over it and put some water
5:39
Speaker 2: and some snacks, and I left it there. And when
5:42
Speaker 2: I came back, it wasn't there anymore, and I was confused,
5:47
Speaker 2: and I found out that my mom had brought it inside.
5:52
Speaker 5: Oh and did you guys keep it?
5:54
Speaker 2: We did. We'd bring it to the vet and everything.
6:04
Speaker 5: Marnie worked in real estate, but she wasn't making enough
6:07
Speaker 5: to support three kids on her own, so she picked
6:10
Speaker 5: up jobs here and there. She worked as a waitress,
6:12
Speaker 5: and she was an aspiring fitness model too, so she
6:15
Speaker 5: occasionally did photoshoots on the side. In two thousand and five,
6:20
Speaker 5: Marnie was working a security job at a Chicago Bears
6:23
Speaker 5: convention when a man introduced himself as Sean Gale. She
6:27
Speaker 5: later learned he was a defensive back in the NFL
6:30
Speaker 5: and a Super Bowl champion. He was a major celebrity
6:34
Speaker 5: in the football world.
6:38
Speaker 4: I mean, at the time, it didn't mean anything to me.
6:41
Speaker 4: I'm not a sports fan. I don't care. I mean,
6:43
Speaker 4: I was there working a job, but I kept seeing
6:47
Speaker 4: him throughout the weekend, and he kept talking to me
6:51
Speaker 4: and passing. So we started a conversation. Because I was
6:56
Speaker 4: also working in real estate at the time. It turned
7:00
Speaker 4: out that he said he was looking for some property,
7:03
Speaker 4: and I gave him my business card. He called me
7:07
Speaker 4: just a couple hours after the convention was over, and
7:12
Speaker 4: that's how we met. You know, we had started out
7:18
Speaker 4: talking about real estate. It really was not very long
7:24
Speaker 4: before he made the move towards a personal relationship.
7:36
Speaker 5: Marnie and Sean started spending time together, but she didn't
7:40
Speaker 5: consider their relationship all that serious, and her life was
7:43
Speaker 5: full enough already.
7:45
Speaker 4: I had three jobs, I had three kids. You know,
7:49
Speaker 4: it wasn't really something that I concerned myself with all
7:53
Speaker 4: that much. You know, I was doing me and living
7:56
Speaker 4: my life. He was doing him and living his life.
8:00
Speaker 5: She says it was a casual relationship that was never exclusive.
8:03
Speaker 5: She always expected he would be seeing other women too.
8:08
Speaker 5: One of those women was Ronnie Rider, who had been
8:11
Speaker 5: dating Gaile for seventeen years. They met in Platteville, Wisconsin,
8:15
Speaker 5: while Gaile was practicing with the Bears. Eventually, Ronnie left
8:19
Speaker 5: the small town she was living in to move to
8:21
Speaker 5: Chicago to be closer to Gayle. On October fourth, two
8:30
Speaker 5: thousand and seven, Ronnie, who was now seven months pregnant,
8:33
Speaker 5: was getting ready to leave her apartment for the day.
8:36
Speaker 5: At seven fifty am, her downstairs neighbor heard footsteps in
8:39
Speaker 5: Ronnie's kitchen. At seven fifty two, another neighbor leaving for work,
8:44
Speaker 5: saw a black male walk up the stairs to Ronnie's building.
8:47
Speaker 5: About a minute later, the neighbors heard a short scream
8:50
Speaker 5: and loud banging sounds what they described as a pop, pop,
8:54
Speaker 5: and a crash, and then silence. One of the neighbors
9:01
Speaker 5: saw a black man run through the parking lot, get
9:03
Speaker 5: into a black car, and drive away. Another called Ronnie's phone,
9:07
Speaker 5: but no one answered, so they called nine one one.
9:11
Speaker 5: When police arrived, they found Ronnie Writer laying face down
9:15
Speaker 5: on her kitchen floor in a pool of blood. There
9:18
Speaker 5: were multiple blunt force injuries to her head, and she
9:22
Speaker 5: had been shot seven times. A single shot to the
9:25
Speaker 5: back of her head was the immediate cause of death.
9:29
Speaker 5: Ronnie had also been shot twice in the stomach, killing
9:32
Speaker 5: her unborn baby. Police found no indication of a struggle,
9:38
Speaker 5: and nothing was missing from the house. What they did
9:41
Speaker 5: find were fingerprints on the doorknobs, which later returned without
9:45
Speaker 5: a match. Most importantly, though, police found a letter inside
9:50
Speaker 5: Ronnie's purse. It said that Ronnie should know that her
9:52
Speaker 5: boyfriend was cheating on her. The author of the letter
9:55
Speaker 5: wrote that Gail was spreading diseases and seeing other women
9:59
Speaker 5: all around the world. At the end of the letter,
10:01
Speaker 5: the author listed the names of sixteen other women, including Marnie,
10:06
Speaker 5: who Gail was apparently sleeping with.
10:09
Speaker 4: I never expected it to be exclusive relationships. I just
10:12
Speaker 4: I never found out until much much later that there
10:17
Speaker 4: were quite as many women as there were.
10:21
Speaker 5: Marnie herself found out about all these other women well
10:25
Speaker 5: before the crime, when she also began receiving these letters.
10:29
Speaker 5: In April two thousand and six, Marnie received numerous harassing
10:33
Speaker 5: phone calls, and then in May of that year, the
10:37
Speaker 5: letters came.
10:39
Speaker 4: I mean, I was getting letters in the mail based
10:42
Speaker 4: on you know, it was basically lists of names and
10:46
Speaker 4: phone numbers and information on who these women were. If
10:50
Speaker 4: I wanted to know who these women are, you know,
10:51
Speaker 4: what am I dealing with here? I have children, and
10:56
Speaker 4: is there anybody or anything within the letters that I
11:00
Speaker 4: I was getting that would indicate that there was something
11:01
Speaker 4: that I need to be worried about?
11:05
Speaker 5: So she started researching who these women were through online
11:07
Speaker 5: background checks. She says she wanted to make sure that
11:10
Speaker 5: her family was safe, but this would later come back
11:13
Speaker 5: to bite her. Eventually, the harassment extended beyond letters and
11:19
Speaker 5: phone calls. One day in two thousand and six, when
11:21
Speaker 5: Marnie was leaving Gail's house, she found dog feces smeared
11:25
Speaker 5: all over the door handle of her car, and her
11:28
Speaker 5: wiper blades were damaged.
11:31
Speaker 4: You know. At one point, I actually received a note
11:36
Speaker 4: that was left on my garage door saying you are
11:40
Speaker 4: next or I'm coming for you next, or something like that.
11:48
Speaker 5: One time, Marnie remembers she was out with Gail and
11:51
Speaker 5: he mentioned a woman he had gotten pregnant.
11:54
Speaker 4: He told her that he would take care of his
11:57
Speaker 4: financial responsibilities in this matter, but that he was not
12:01
Speaker 4: going to allow it to affect his life under any circumstances.
12:06
Speaker 4: And that's a direct quote that much I do remember.
12:11
Speaker 4: I think his exact words were that it was way
12:14
Speaker 4: too late for him to do anything about it. So
12:16
Speaker 4: he made it sound like whoever this woman was had
12:18
Speaker 4: already had a child and come back to him later
12:20
Speaker 4: with her basically with their handout looking for money.
12:32
Speaker 5: After Ronnie's murder, Gail was immediately questioned by police. At
12:36
Speaker 5: the time of the crime around eight am. Gail's whereabouts
12:39
Speaker 5: are unknown. He didn't have an alibi until around ten am,
12:43
Speaker 5: when he arrived at LeRoy's barber shop for a haircut.
12:47
Speaker 5: According to police interviews, Leroy, Gail's barber said that this
12:51
Speaker 5: was unusual. He never got his haircut in the morning.
12:54
Speaker 5: For seventeen years, he had been going to LeRoy's for
12:57
Speaker 5: haircuts always in the afternoon. Around one pm, after talking
13:03
Speaker 5: with Gail, police stopped pursuing an investigation on him. Instead,
13:07
Speaker 5: they turned their attention to interviewing his numerous alleged girlfriends,
13:12
Speaker 5: including Marnie.
13:17
Speaker 4: I thought to myself, well, I'm sure everybody's a suspect.
13:20
Speaker 4: I'm sure they're going to be questioning everybody. This is
13:22
Speaker 4: a horrible, horrible crime, and I basically just felt like, well,
13:28
Speaker 4: since we have nothing to hide, then you know, let
13:31
Speaker 4: him ask questions. I had no clue at the time
13:37
Speaker 4: it was going to snowball into anything like this.
13:47
Speaker 5: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
13:52
Speaker 5: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
13:56
Speaker 5: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
14:00
Speaker 5: the communities where we work and live. In light of
14:03
Speaker 5: the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and in
14:06
Speaker 5: recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
14:11
Speaker 5: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
14:15
Speaker 5: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Police also interviewed
14:24
Speaker 5: Barnie's children, and they zeroed in on Marnie's sixteen year
14:28
Speaker 5: old son, Andrew, five days after Ronnie and her unborn
14:31
Speaker 5: baby were killed. Andrew became a suspect when police reviewed
14:35
Speaker 5: his school attendance records and discovered that he hadn't been
14:38
Speaker 5: in school the day of the murder. Now the heat
14:41
Speaker 5: was on Marnie and her family. They were blindsided.
14:48
Speaker 4: I didn't see at the time that this was going
14:51
Speaker 4: to become some sort of twisted torture campaign.
14:57
Speaker 5: Marnie and her kids were extensively interviewed for day and
15:00
Speaker 5: hours on end.
15:02
Speaker 2: The police had taken my brothers and I from our
15:05
Speaker 2: house and brought us in.
15:08
Speaker 5: Officers George Falenko, Scott Frost, and Charles Schleitz started asking
15:13
Speaker 5: Mornie's kids about their relationship with their mom.
15:17
Speaker 2: I told them that my mom and I didn't have
15:19
Speaker 2: the best relationship. I as a young girl, I blamed
15:25
Speaker 2: her for my mom and dad divorcing. And from there,
15:31
Speaker 2: I think, in hindsight, they manipulated me. They told me
15:39
Speaker 2: that my brother and my mom both committed the murder together.
15:47
Speaker 2: They specifically told me that they knew that my mom
15:52
Speaker 2: had weapons, and that my mom and my brother cemented
15:58
Speaker 2: the murder weapon and a bucket and through it at
16:00
Speaker 2: the bottom of Lake Michigan.
16:03
Speaker 5: And so you are sixteen and you believe what the
16:08
Speaker 5: police say.
16:10
Speaker 2: Of course, they really got into my head and they
16:16
Speaker 2: made me believe it.
16:19
Speaker 5: Emily says the officers were relentless during interrogation.
16:24
Speaker 2: They questioned me for twelve hours straight and I kept
16:30
Speaker 2: saying that I don't know anything. And you know, after
16:34
Speaker 2: twelve hours of saying I don't know, it really broke me.
16:39
Speaker 2: I started banging my head on the table. They would
16:44
Speaker 2: not take I don't know for an answer, you know.
16:49
Speaker 2: And once I started banging my head, I get to
16:52
Speaker 2: the table. Is when they left the room.
16:57
Speaker 5: Emily thinks this is when they started trying to figure
17:00
Speaker 5: out how to get her to talk.
17:02
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen my dad in eight years. When he left.
17:05
Speaker 2: He he said he was moving out of the state
17:09
Speaker 2: to go live with his brothers in Massachusetts. And he
17:12
Speaker 2: said I'll call you when I get there. And I
17:14
Speaker 2: never heard from him again after that.
17:17
Speaker 5: The officers told Emily they would find her father for
17:19
Speaker 5: her if she wrote a statement. And seeing your dad
17:24
Speaker 5: was something you wanted.
17:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a dream for me, you know.
17:30
Speaker 2: So when they said, well, we can find them for you,
17:35
Speaker 2: I I jumped out. I'm jumped at it, you know.
17:42
Speaker 5: So Emily wrote a statement. Afterwards, she said officers Frost
17:45
Speaker 5: and Schletts ripped it up and said it wasn't good enough.
17:49
Speaker 5: She wrote another statement, but it still didn't meet their approval. Finally,
17:53
Speaker 5: Emily says she wrote what they wanted her to say. Andrew,
17:58
Speaker 5: Emily's twin brother, also in a similar position, but he
18:02
Speaker 5: actually ended up being accused of the murder. He said
18:06
Speaker 5: Officer Flenko threatened him by saying, quote, one of you
18:09
Speaker 5: are going to prison for the rest of your life.
18:12
Speaker 5: Will it be you or your mother.
18:17
Speaker 4: It was so bad that it got to the point
18:19
Speaker 4: where it drove Andrew to a mental breakdown. We had
18:27
Speaker 4: to put him in a psychiatric hospital for two weeks,
18:34
Speaker 4: and as a result of that, his twin sister also
18:37
Speaker 4: ended up having a breakdown and she was in the
18:40
Speaker 4: hospital for a week. That's what these people did to
18:44
Speaker 4: my family.
18:47
Speaker 5: Emily missed her prom because she was in a psychiatric hospital. Eventually,
18:52
Speaker 5: Marnie said enough.
18:55
Speaker 4: I had reached a point where I felt so beaten down.
19:04
Speaker 4: There was nobody that could help me at that point.
19:07
Speaker 4: My parents couldn't help They couldn't protect us. My attorney
19:12
Speaker 4: couldn't seem to protect us. I couldn't go to the
19:15
Speaker 4: police again. They were the ones that were terrorizing us.
19:23
Speaker 4: After seeing my son and daughter go through a mental breakdown,
19:31
Speaker 4: I had just decided I'm just going to tell them
19:33
Speaker 4: whatever they want to hear.
19:46
Speaker 5: Marnie found her opportunity one day when a business associate,
19:50
Speaker 5: Christie Passion, reached out inviting her to meet at Denny's.
19:54
Speaker 5: Marnie knew the police had talked to Christy and figured
19:56
Speaker 5: she could find out some information from her. At the restaurant,
20:01
Speaker 5: Marnie noticed that Christy was wearing a wire. It was
20:04
Speaker 5: sticking out of her coat. So Marnie decided this was
20:08
Speaker 5: her chance to save her son by falsely confessing to
20:11
Speaker 5: the murder.
20:13
Speaker 1: I remember.
20:16
Speaker 4: Giving my perception of how the crime played out based
20:23
Speaker 4: on the multiple interrogations that the police had done with
20:27
Speaker 4: me and the information that I had picked up from
20:30
Speaker 4: there from media accounts, you know, things like that, and
20:37
Speaker 4: come to find out later a lot of what I
20:39
Speaker 4: said was not even completely accurate.
20:44
Speaker 5: Marnie left out Andrew and her made up version of
20:46
Speaker 5: events since she wanted to protect him and she alone.
20:49
Speaker 5: Was arrested in early two thousand and nine. She was
20:52
Speaker 5: charged with the first degree murder of Ronnie Ryder and
20:55
Speaker 5: intentional homicide of an unborn child. The trial started in
21:08
Speaker 5: early March and lasted two weeks. The prosecutor was Assistant
21:12
Speaker 5: state's attorney Patricia Fix. As there was no forensic evidence
21:16
Speaker 5: implicating Marnie, the prosecution presented largely circumstantial evidence at trial.
21:21
Speaker 5: Among them was a video from a shell gas station
21:24
Speaker 5: showing a black Volkswagen fleeing from the scene of the crime,
21:27
Speaker 5: which they said was the exact car Marnie had rented
21:30
Speaker 5: that week for a modeling job. They also tried to
21:34
Speaker 5: prove to the jury that a silencer was used on
21:37
Speaker 5: the gun that killed Ronnie, and that Marnie must have
21:39
Speaker 5: built a homemade silencer from items she purchased at home depot.
21:49
Speaker 5: Then there were the background checks Marnie had done on
21:51
Speaker 5: the women named in the letters, and of course Marnie's
21:54
Speaker 5: alleged confession. The prosecution also attempted to show that Marnie
21:58
Speaker 5: had sent the threatening letters herself self. They cited several
22:01
Speaker 5: unsent letters nearly identical to the one found in Ronnie's purse,
22:06
Speaker 5: and address labels they claim or found in Marnie's home office.
22:12
Speaker 5: Gil's own testimony also became evidence use against Marnie, as
22:15
Speaker 5: did the testimony for Marnie's daughter Emily.
22:19
Speaker 2: The prosecutor, Pat Fix, came in right before I testified,
22:23
Speaker 2: and she said, you have to to testify on everything
22:30
Speaker 2: you made in your statement, otherwise you're going to get
22:34
Speaker 2: in trouble.
22:36
Speaker 5: So Emily took the stand against her mom.
22:40
Speaker 4: The state's attorney basically forced her to testify, forced her
22:44
Speaker 4: to give fast testimony on top of it.
22:51
Speaker 5: Marnie's defense attorneys were Jeffrey Lerner and William Hedrick. Their
22:55
Speaker 5: main defense was to cast doubt on Christie's credibility as
22:58
Speaker 5: well as point out that the investtigation was not thorough.
23:01
Speaker 5: They argued that it focused too quickly on Marnie and
23:04
Speaker 5: her family instead of following other possible suspects. This was
23:08
Speaker 5: the extent of their defense for Marnie.
23:13
Speaker 4: And I really believed that once we got to court,
23:17
Speaker 4: I really believed that the evidence, or lack thereof, would
23:22
Speaker 4: speak for itself and that the justice system would do
23:27
Speaker 4: the right thing. I had no clue that they were
23:30
Speaker 4: going to take all of these everyday things that were
23:36
Speaker 4: never really evidence in the first place and twist them
23:39
Speaker 4: into something nefarious.
23:45
Speaker 5: With a weak defense against the state's arguments. On March fifteenth,
23:49
Speaker 5: twenty eleven, Marnie Yang was found guilty of the murders
23:52
Speaker 5: of Ronnie Ryder and her unborn child. She was sentenced
23:57
Speaker 5: to two concurrent terms of imprisonment and for the drivation
24:01
Speaker 5: of her natural life without the possibility of parole. She
24:05
Speaker 5: was thirty nine years old. During her thirteen years of incarceration,
24:16
Speaker 5: Marnie has refused to let the system drag her down.
24:19
Speaker 4: I made a decision when I first got incarcerated, and
24:25
Speaker 4: I reminded myself that I have no choice about being here.
24:31
Speaker 4: I don't have the option to just get up and leave.
24:34
Speaker 4: But what I do have is the option of allowing
24:37
Speaker 4: it to consume me and eat me up inside and
24:44
Speaker 4: become bitter and angry, or I can use this time
24:48
Speaker 4: as positively and productively as possible. And I feel like
24:53
Speaker 4: that's what I've done. I'm a math teacher. I teach math,
24:58
Speaker 4: you know, and I try to have as pos of
25:00
Speaker 4: an impact on my immediate community as I can. But
25:05
Speaker 4: it's still a very difficult environment.
25:09
Speaker 5: Marnie has filed several appeals during her time in prison,
25:12
Speaker 5: but all have been denied. But in early twenty fourteen,
25:16
Speaker 5: Jed Stone of Stone and Associates came on the case.
25:20
Speaker 5: Jed immediately noticed glaring hallmarks of a wrongful conviction. Starting
25:25
Speaker 5: with the police force in Lake County, Illinois.
25:28
Speaker 1: What do we know about the Lake County Major Crimes
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Speaker 1: Task Force? They have been responsible for a myriad of
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Speaker 1: wrongful convictions, documented wrongful convictions. Lake County was the epicenter
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Speaker 1: of wrongful convictions in the United States.
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Speaker 5: And Jed can name plenty of examples of that.
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Speaker 1: Alejandro Dominguez is a freeman today, exonerated and wrongfully convicted.
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Speaker 1: Juan Rivera is a freeman today, exonerated and conviction reversed.
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Speaker 1: Benny Starks exonerated and free after a wrongful conviction, Jason
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Speaker 1: Strong the same, all.
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Speaker 5: Out of Lake County where Marnie was convicted. Jed believes
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Speaker 5: that Marnie's conviction fits into this pattern, particularly her confession.
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Speaker 1: There are hallmarks of false confessions. A number of wrongful
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Speaker 1: convictions come about because of a confession or statement by
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Speaker 1: the accused that at first blush implicates them in the crime,
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Speaker 1: but on careful analysis is shown to be a false confession,
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Speaker 1: and no one did that at Marnie's trial. Her description
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Speaker 1: of the physical promises was wrong, her description of the
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Speaker 1: order of bullets fired was wrong, and the way the
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Speaker 1: body was found as well as the way the body
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Speaker 1: must have fallen was wrong. Those immutable mistakes of fact
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Speaker 1: are evidence of a false confession.
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Speaker 5: So Jed's team hired a false confessions expert to evaluate
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Speaker 5: Marny's confession. David Thompson of Wicklander and Associates.
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Speaker 1: Yes, in fact, there are so many of them that
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Speaker 1: they are now international experts in this area, and he concludes,
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Speaker 1: and concludes correctly, that this has all of the hallmarks
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Speaker 1: of a false confession.
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Speaker 5: Another thing Jed points out were false claims made by
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Speaker 5: prosecutor Patricia Fix as well as by police officers including
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Speaker 5: George Falenko, Scott Frost, and Charles Schlitz.
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Speaker 1: The state claims that when the police executed a search warrant,
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Speaker 1: they found address labels in Marnie's apartment. I've seen how
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Speaker 1: the police are trained to execute a search warrant and
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Speaker 1: how they in fact execute search warrants. They document everything.
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Speaker 1: There was no photograph of address labels. That struck me
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Speaker 1: as so curious.
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Speaker 5: Jed believes the address labels never existed, and the quote
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Speaker 5: unsent letters prosecutors said were found in Marnie's home were
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Speaker 5: very simply the letters that Marnie had also been receiving.
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Speaker 1: These police officers should not, must not, cannot be trusted,
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Speaker 1: and the fact that these labels were never photographed is
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Speaker 1: damning as to their reliability and truthfulness.
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Speaker 5: There was also evidence that was never presented at trial
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Speaker 5: that is exculpatory for Marnie, like the fingerprints which were
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Speaker 5: tested and did not match her. There was no evidence
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Speaker 5: of Marnie ever being at Ronnie's home. Marnie's new team
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Speaker 5: of experts also investigated other claims the state made it
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Speaker 5: including that her rental car was seen on a gas
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Speaker 5: station surveillance camera near the crime scene.
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Speaker 1: They say in court, this video will capture a black
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Speaker 1: Volkswagen Rabbit, the very car that Marni Yang rented and
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Speaker 1: was driving in the neighborhood of the murder at the
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Speaker 1: time of the murder.
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Speaker 5: The post conviction defense team thought there might be something
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Speaker 5: amiss with that piece of evidence.
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Speaker 1: And so we went to the Shell gas station, looked
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Speaker 1: at the video camera. And the truth is that, to
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Speaker 1: a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, a video expert viewing
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Speaker 1: that video says that car is not a Volkswagen Rabbit,
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Speaker 1: It is not the car that was rented by miss Yang,
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Speaker 1: It is not even the same make or model of
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Speaker 1: the car as rented by miss Yang, and so the
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Speaker 1: jury was misl led. The evidence is unreliable and wrong.
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Speaker 5: Marnie's experts also determined that it was unequivocally impossible for
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Speaker 5: Marnie to have created a homemade silencer for the gun
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Speaker 5: that killed Ronnie. They even had a firearms expert test
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Speaker 5: the prosecution's theory, but even with his extensive experience, the
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Speaker 5: expert could not physically build a silencer with those materials
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Speaker 5: to fit on the gun used to kill Ronnie.
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Speaker 1: The place theory that she used c clamps from home
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Speaker 1: depot to fix a silencer on a gun is foolishness.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It cannot be made to work under
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Speaker 1: any circumstance.
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Speaker 5: The investigators also discovered roles of film taken at the
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Speaker 5: crime scene that were never developed. When they were the
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Speaker 5: photo showed bullet projectory patterns. Marnie's experts determined that at
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Speaker 5: just five feet, Marnie was not physically tall enough to
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Speaker 5: be the shooter. Witnesses descriptions the morning of the murder
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Speaker 5: also echoed the belief that it couldn't have been Marnie.
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Speaker 5: Several people reported seeing a six foot tall black man
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Speaker 5: in the area and even going up the stairs to
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Speaker 5: Ronnie's apartment.
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Speaker 1: And Marnie just so that everybody knows is a white
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Speaker 1: woman who is five feet tall.
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Speaker 5: So what about someone who better matches the description.
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Speaker 1: When we became miss Yang's lawyers, we asked for production
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Speaker 1: of the video surveillance tapes from a store next to
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Speaker 1: the barber shop to see if we could accurately determine
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Speaker 1: when Gail arrived and when he left.
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Speaker 5: Jed believes that pat Fix either lied or misled the
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Speaker 5: grand jury by saying Gail was out LeRoy's barber shop
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Speaker 5: at eight thirty am.
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Speaker 1: We determined that he arrived around ten o'clock, not eight thirty,
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Speaker 1: and we determined that he left somewhere after ten thirty.
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Speaker 5: And in December of twenty twenty one, a new witness
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Speaker 5: came forward with more pertinent information that again supported the
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Speaker 5: claim that someone other than Marnie was the perpetrator. Jed
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Speaker 5: and Marnie's team filed their most recent petition with all
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Speaker 5: of these details and more in December of last year.
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Speaker 5: In May twenty twenty two, the state submitted a motion
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Speaker 5: to dismiss their petition. The back and forth could go
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Speaker 5: on for months, and all the while Marnie will sit
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Speaker 5: in prison.
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Speaker 1: I firmly believe that Marni Yang is an innocent woman
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Speaker 1: languishing in jail for a crime she never committed. And
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Speaker 1: I firmly believe that the investoration and prosecution of her
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Speaker 1: case falls into a deep disturbing pattern of wrongful convictions
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Speaker 1: of innocent persons in Lake County, Illinois.
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Speaker 5: Prosecutor Patricia Fix is now a circuit court judge in
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Speaker 5: the nineteenth Judicial Court in Lake County, Illinois. After her conviction,
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Speaker 5: Marnie and her kids lost touch. Emily says she and
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Speaker 5: her mom did not speak for about eight years, and
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Speaker 5: do you guys have a relationship now?
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Speaker 1: We do.
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Speaker 2: We're as close as we can be. She calls me
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Speaker 2: her a happy place. I hope that we can heal
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Speaker 2: from this and her start her life again.
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Speaker 5: What would her starting her life again look like? Do
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Speaker 5: you have visions of of what you and your mom
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Speaker 5: and your brothers are doing?
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Speaker 2: Her cooking Thanksgiving dinner. My grandparents are there, and my
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Speaker 2: brothers and my best friend turkey stuffing, green bean castlele
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Speaker 2: sweet potatoes. My mom was the one always cooking and
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Speaker 2: we would always have it at her house. My mom
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Speaker 2: is innocent, and I hope that sooner rather than later,
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Speaker 2: we can connect in the physical together again.
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Speaker 5: Marnie also hopes that the truth will come out.
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Speaker 4: I did not commit this crime. I'm horrified by this crime,
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Speaker 4: and I never lose sight of the collateral damage that
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Speaker 4: this has impacted everybody, everybody. I want justice in this case,
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Speaker 4: for me, for Ronnie, and for everybody involved.
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Speaker 5: Marnie's children, Emily, Andrew and Brandon wrote a book about
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Speaker 5: their mom and her case. Searched the book, which is
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Speaker 5: called My Mom Marnie to learn more next time. On
35:30
Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, Tammy.
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Speaker 6: Poole, he kept reaching for the trigger and I had
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Speaker 6: my hands on the end of the barrel, and I
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Speaker 6: kept thinking, it's gonna shoot me, It's gonna shoot me,
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Speaker 6: and he he pussed your group.
35:54
Speaker 5: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
35:57
Speaker 5: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
36:01
Speaker 5: links in our bio to see how you can help.
36:03
Speaker 5: I'd like to thank our executive producers, Jason Flahm and
36:06
Speaker 5: Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea
36:10
Speaker 5: researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonia Paul, with additional production
36:15
Speaker 5: by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in this
36:18
Speaker 5: production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
36:23
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Speaker 5: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
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Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
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Speaker 5: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
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36:40
Speaker 5: Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
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Speaker 5: association with Signal Company Number one