Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #220 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Emerson Stevens

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

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