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#119 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Matt Livers · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
0:04
Speaker 1: writer and.
0:05
Speaker 2: I'm Steve Drisen.
0:07
Speaker 1: Sometimes farm life isn't as tranquil as it seems. Today
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Speaker 1: we take you to small town, Nebraska, where two murders
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Speaker 1: shattered a peaceful Easter Sunday. This is the story of
0:18
Speaker 1: Matt Livers, a case with more plot twists than I've
0:21
Speaker 1: ever seen, a coerced confession, dirty cops who planted evidence,
0:26
Speaker 1: and a mysterious clue that led to a pair of
0:29
Speaker 1: natural born killers. This story gives Tarantino a run for
0:33
Speaker 1: his money. Horrible crimes can happen anywhere, even where you
0:46
Speaker 1: least expect it. And if you've learned one thing by
0:48
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, I hope it's that false confessions
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Speaker 1: can also happen anywhere, at any time.
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Speaker 2: I want them to learn a second thing. It's that
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Speaker 2: a confession is only as good as the evidence that
1:00
Speaker 2: corroborates it. And in this case, it looked like there
1:03
Speaker 2: was perfect corroboration. There was evidence that seemed to prove
1:07
Speaker 2: the confession true. But what happens when new evidence surfaces
1:13
Speaker 2: that causes the confession to unravel? That makes the narrative
1:16
Speaker 2: seem to be false.
1:18
Speaker 1: What do you do when a case like this starts
1:20
Speaker 1: falling apart? Do you double down? Or do you fix
1:24
Speaker 1: it up? Today's story begins in Murdoch, Nebraska. It's a
1:31
Speaker 1: tiny town about halfway between Lincoln and Omaha. Murdoch is
1:36
Speaker 1: barely more than a few dozen homes, surrounded by fields
1:39
Speaker 1: of corn and the occasional outlying farmhouse. The population just
1:44
Speaker 1: two hundred and sixty nine people, only sixty six families,
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Speaker 1: and one of Murdoch's most respected families was the Stokes,
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Speaker 1: headed by Wayne and Sharman Stoke, both in their mid
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Speaker 1: fifties when our story starts on Easter Sunday two thousand
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Speaker 1: and six. And now, Wayne and Sharman were good people,
2:02
Speaker 1: god fearing, well known Murdock residents who lived in an
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Speaker 1: immaculate farmhouse near town. Wayne was a successful businessman for years,
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Speaker 1: he'd run the Stoke Hay Company, growing bundling selling hay
2:14
Speaker 1: to all the local farmers, and Sharman was a teacher's aid.
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Speaker 1: She ran a popular cake business out of their home.
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Speaker 1: So it's that Easter Sunday, April sixteen, two thousand and six,
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Speaker 1: it unfolded like many holidays for the Stokes. It was
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Speaker 1: a family occasion. That morning, Wayne and Sharman went to church,
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Speaker 1: followed by Easter traditions. Right they had brunch with their family.
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Speaker 1: They had an Easter egg hunt with their grandkids. It
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Speaker 1: was a lovely but unremarkable day, and Wayne and Sharman
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Speaker 1: went to sleep that night in their farmhouse as usual.
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Speaker 1: The next day, April seventeenth, rolls around. Wayne and Sharman
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Speaker 1: are early risers, but when their adult son, Andy arrives
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Speaker 1: at the farmhouse about nine am, he doesn't see any
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Speaker 1: sign of his parents. He goes inside. He moves through
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Speaker 1: the tidy but silent first floor. He goes upstairs and
3:03
Speaker 1: he finds the worst, his dad's body in a blood
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Speaker 1: spattered second floor hallway. Wayne's head had nearly been blown
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Speaker 1: away by a gunshot blast. Now Andy calls the police
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Speaker 1: and the Cass County Police arrive. Murdoch's Way too small
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Speaker 1: to have its own police force, and soon enough investigators
3:22
Speaker 1: find a double tragedy, not only as Wayne dead, but
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Speaker 1: Sharmon's body is found in the bedroom, wedged between the
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Speaker 1: bedside and the wall. She's been shot in the head too,
3:31
Speaker 1: and a phone court is wrapped around her body like
3:34
Speaker 1: maybe she'd been trying to call for help. This was
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Speaker 1: a double murder of the worst kind, something that Murdoch,
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Speaker 1: Nebraska had never seen before.
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Speaker 2: Seasoned crime scene veterans and officers in the area looked
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Speaker 2: at this crime scene and it made them physically ill.
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Speaker 2: They had never seen so much carnage before, certainly not
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Speaker 2: in Murdoch, Nebraska exactly.
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Speaker 1: So as local police are this scene, processing this trauma
4:02
Speaker 1: that they're seeing in front of him, they realize they're
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Speaker 1: in a bit over their heads, so they call in
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Speaker 1: the big guns. They call on the Crime Scene Investigation
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Speaker 1: Division of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. It's basically the
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Speaker 1: state's leading crime scene forensic experts. Now, the investigators find
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Speaker 1: several items of interest at the scene. They find shells
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Speaker 1: from a twelve gage shotgun that are littered around the
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Speaker 1: whole area. They find a silver flashlight with blood on it,
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Speaker 1: and sitting in the Soaks driveway, there's a red and
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Speaker 1: silver marijuana pipe. Now, both the flashlight and the marijuana
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Speaker 1: pipe are potentially DNA testable. There's also a damaged window
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Speaker 1: in the Stokes laundry room. It suggests that maybe somebody
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Speaker 1: had broken into the house, and inside police observe in
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Speaker 1: the blood spray that had been left on the wall,
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Speaker 1: there's a human silhouette. It implies that there had been
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Speaker 1: two people present, one to shoot and one to get
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Speaker 1: sprayed by all that blood.
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Speaker 2: What a visual blood spray to human silhouette.
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Speaker 1: Exactly, It's like a movie scene. And on the otherwise
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Speaker 1: spotless kitchen floor, police find a golden ring with an
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Speaker 1: unusual inscription, an inscription that didn't seem to relate to
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Speaker 1: anyone in the Stoke family. It said love Always, Corey
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Speaker 1: and Ryan.
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Speaker 2: There's no signs and anything's been stolen from the house.
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Speaker 2: Wayne and Sharman's children can't pinpoint anything that seems to
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Speaker 2: be missing. That leads the police officers to believe that
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Speaker 2: this crime was not some random break in, but that
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Speaker 2: it was personal, that it was an act of vengeance,
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Speaker 2: and that whoever slaughtered the Stokes had an axe to
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Speaker 2: grind with them.
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Speaker 1: Police start asking Stoke family relatives who might have wanted
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Speaker 1: to harm Wayne and Sharman, and some of Sharman's family
5:52
Speaker 1: members start wondering out loud about the person they thought
5:55
Speaker 1: of as the black sheep of the family. Sharmon's nephew,
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Speaker 1: Matt Liver. Matt was twenty eight years old and had
6:03
Speaker 1: no criminal record whatsoever, but he'd had his share of
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Speaker 1: challenges because of his severe mental limitations. Matt had struggled
6:11
Speaker 1: with getting through school as a boy and trying to
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Speaker 1: hold down a job as an adult. The Stokes were
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Speaker 1: a family that prided themselves on their success and by
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Speaker 1: their standards, Matt Livers stuck out like a sore thumb.
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Speaker 1: He'd also argued recently with Wayne and Sharman about whether
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Speaker 1: he was getting a sufficient share of a family inheritance,
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Speaker 1: and it was this feud that made police focus on
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Speaker 1: Matt as a suspect in the Stokes murder. At about
6:38
Speaker 1: ten forty five pm on the day that the Stokes'
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Speaker 1: bodies are discovered, the police decide to interview Matt Livers.
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Speaker 1: The interrogation lasts four hours until almost three o'clock in
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Speaker 1: the morning, but Matt tells the cops he's there to
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Speaker 1: cooperate and he has only good things to say about
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Speaker 1: the Stokes. He downplays this idea of a family feud
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Speaker 1: and that makes officers.
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Speaker 2: And he does what many people who are innocent do.
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Speaker 2: He says I want to cooperate. Take my DNA, take
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Speaker 2: my hair, take my saliva, take my fingerprints. I'll even
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Speaker 2: come back for a polygraph. I had nothing to do
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Speaker 2: with this. I'm an open book.
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Speaker 1: And based on all that, for the time being, Matt
7:21
Speaker 1: Livers is released. Meanwhile, the police are interviewing others too,
7:25
Speaker 1: and they do get a lead. Right there's a local
7:27
Speaker 1: newspaper carrier who tells the police that he had seen
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Speaker 1: a car carked near the Stokes property on the morning
7:35
Speaker 1: of the murders. It's a tan four door midsize sedan. Now,
7:39
Speaker 1: this guy doesn't know whether the vehicle was related to
7:42
Speaker 1: the crime or not, but he did recall seeing an
7:45
Speaker 1: OH in the license plate.
7:47
Speaker 2: Now, Matt Livers drives a red convertible, but his cousin,
7:52
Speaker 2: Will Sampson drove a tan four door Ford Contour, which
7:56
Speaker 2: made investigators become suspicious. Now, Will's Contour didn't have an
8:02
Speaker 2: O in its license plate, but oddly enough, it had
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Speaker 2: been professionally cleaned and detailed right after the murders, and
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Speaker 2: that gave the police reason enough to want to search
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Speaker 2: Will's car.
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Speaker 1: They even go to the auto detail shop itself. They
8:17
Speaker 1: go through the vacuum bags that were used when Will's
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Speaker 1: card was cleaned, but they find zero incriminating evidence. Now
8:24
Speaker 1: this is strange. The crime scene was incredibly bloody. It
8:29
Speaker 1: would have been almost impossible even for the most professional
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Speaker 1: detailers to erase every molecule of evidence, but the investigators
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Speaker 1: found nothing. Despite all this, police are still suspicious. Now
8:40
Speaker 1: they discover that Will Samson, the guy who owns the contour,
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Speaker 1: did have an alibi on Eastern night, which is when
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Speaker 1: the crime presumably occurred. But Nick Samson, another one of
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Speaker 1: Matt Lever's cousins, did not have an alibi, and soon enough,
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Speaker 1: Matt Livers and Nick Samson become the prime suspects. Fast
9:08
Speaker 1: forward to eight days after the Stokes' bodies are discovered.
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Speaker 1: It's April twenty fifth. Police ask Matt to come in
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Speaker 1: for questioning a second time, but this time they take
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Speaker 1: him an hour away to the Cass County Law Enforcement Center.
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Speaker 1: He is held there for questioning a total of eleven hours,
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Speaker 1: most of it video recorded. Now Matt doesn't know it
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Speaker 1: at the time, but he wasn't going to return home
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Speaker 1: for months because here comes the interrogation, the line of
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Speaker 1: questioning designed to break Matt livers. Let's just get this
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Speaker 1: out over.
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Speaker 2: Okay, we are watching.
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Speaker 3: You're in this up to your ears.
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Speaker 2: You were involved in it. We need to know what happened.
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Speaker 2: As typical in these interrogations, the investigators start by accusing
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Speaker 2: that of killing his aunt and uncle. It's not whether
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Speaker 2: or not you committed this crime, they say, we already
10:01
Speaker 2: know that. You have to tell us why you committed
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Speaker 2: this crime.
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Speaker 1: And Matt denies it right. He says, I'm not that
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Speaker 1: kind of person. All he remember is sleeping in my
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Speaker 1: bed that night.
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Speaker 2: I do.
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Speaker 1: He goes on to deny and deny and deny eighty
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Speaker 1: six times, and then, just as in so many other cases,
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Speaker 1: he offers to try to prove his own innocence. He
10:24
Speaker 1: agrees to take a polygraph, which the police build up
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Speaker 1: to him as foolproof.
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Speaker 2: You answers and the questions that you're asked about. Matt
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Speaker 2: takes the exam. He's excited. He thinks he's going to
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Speaker 2: pass the exam and this will all be over. But
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Speaker 2: the polygrapher comes into the room and tells him that
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Speaker 2: he had failed this test miserably.
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Speaker 1: This way, when he continues denying his involvement, the police
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Speaker 1: can point to his test results as evidence of his guilt.
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Speaker 1: They tell him that these polygraph charts leave absolutely no doubt, and.
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Speaker 2: Holding the results in his hand, the Nebraska State Patrol
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Speaker 2: officer says to Matt, we ask you a question that
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Speaker 2: specifically has to do with the death of Wayne. You
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Speaker 2: fly off the chart.
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Speaker 1: Now, this is a lie. Like in so many of
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Speaker 1: these other cases, Matt did not actually fail this polygraph exam.
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Speaker 1: It was confirmed after the fact by a polygraph expert.
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Speaker 1: But we know, as always the police are allowed to
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Speaker 1: lie during interrogations, and that's what they're doing here, lying
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Speaker 1: to him about lying again.
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Speaker 2: It's like seeing the same script play out over and
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Speaker 2: over and over again. In these stories.
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Speaker 1: The whole point is to bring Matt Livers down to
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Speaker 1: this place of hopelessness.
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Speaker 2: Nebraska is a death penalty state, so what do the
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Speaker 2: interrogators do. They introduce the idea to Matt that he's
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Speaker 2: going to get the death penalty unless he confesses to
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Speaker 2: this crime.
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Speaker 1: If he doesn't, then they promise him they're going to
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Speaker 1: go the hard.
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Speaker 2: Route, and they get graphic, they get specific. When I
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Speaker 2: first saw this tape, my jaw dropped. Matt Lyvers is
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Speaker 2: told by one of the Cass County investigators that he's
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Speaker 2: gonna personally make sure that Matt is executed for this
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Speaker 2: crime if he doesn't confess.
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Speaker 1: If I and you don't meant to me exactly what
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Speaker 1: you've done, I'm gonna do my love best to hang
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Speaker 1: your ass from the highest tree.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to do my level best to hang your
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Speaker 2: ass from the highest tree. Done, you are done. I
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Speaker 2: will go after the death penalty.
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Speaker 1: They're re citing all the different ways the death penalty
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Speaker 1: can be administered, electric chair, gas, lethal injection. They tell
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Speaker 1: him his asses on the line, and you're in the
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Speaker 1: frying pan right now.
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Speaker 3: I'll push and.
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Speaker 1: I push until I get everything. I mean to make.
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Speaker 2: Sure you move on hard for this, make no mistake
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Speaker 2: about it. Matt is beginning to break down, and make
12:56
Speaker 2: no mistake about this as well. These investigators know that
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Speaker 2: Matt has intellectual disabilities exactly.
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Speaker 1: He's giving them these really clear signals during the interrogation
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Speaker 1: that he's limited. At one point, one of the police
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Speaker 1: says to him, you know many people have tried and
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Speaker 1: failed to outsmart us. Matt turns to him and assures
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Speaker 1: him that he's not trying to do that. I'm dumb
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Speaker 1: as a brick, he says. And when one of the
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Speaker 1: interrogators urges Matt to confess, to stand up and to
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Speaker 1: be a man, Matt takes them literally.
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Speaker 2: He is a concrete thinker, and he interprets that to
13:32
Speaker 2: actually mean that he's going to stand up and get
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Speaker 2: up out of his chair.
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Speaker 1: These are terribly frightening, terribly coercive interrogation tactics, and it's
13:41
Speaker 1: not the way someone with these kinds of disabilities should
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Speaker 1: be questioned.
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Speaker 2: I am so tired of law enforcement officers pretending that
13:50
Speaker 2: they didn't know the person they were interrogating had some disabilities.
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Speaker 2: This willful ignorance on their part has got to stop.
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Speaker 2: Their worst strong signs that they were dealing with somebody
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Speaker 2: who was disabled and they just treated him like he
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Speaker 2: was any other normal adult, and they plowed ahead and
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Speaker 2: used the same tactics and got false confessions away.
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Speaker 1: This is a high profile case, will not go away.
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Speaker 1: This pressure builds actually goes on for about six and
14:22
Speaker 1: a half hours until we start to see signs that
14:25
Speaker 1: Matt is finally beginning to crack under the pressure. He
14:29
Speaker 1: looks up at his interrogators and he says, all I
14:32
Speaker 1: want to do is go home.
14:34
Speaker 2: Now.
14:34
Speaker 1: The interrogators take that as their cue, and they start
14:38
Speaker 1: telling Matt that he must have been tired of being
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Speaker 1: put down, shut out, kept out of the family inheritance
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Speaker 1: by his aunt and uncle, And slowly Matt begins to
14:47
Speaker 1: respond affirmatively agree with a series of leading questions from
14:52
Speaker 1: officers who literally start walking him through the story.
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Speaker 2: The truth is, you got a gun, right or wrong,
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Speaker 2: and you took that gun back to your uncle Wayne
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Speaker 2: and Ann Sharman's house, right right. Eventually they come around
15:08
Speaker 2: to the murder itself, and you fired a shot at
15:11
Speaker 2: your uncle Wayne, Wayne. Matt gives a series of one
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Speaker 2: word wrote answers, agreeing to the suggestions of these interrogators
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Speaker 2: about how this crime took place. The only answers to
15:26
Speaker 2: these questions. They've scripted it, and Matt is just agreeing
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Speaker 2: to it.
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Speaker 1: You know, you listen to this, and you get the
15:32
Speaker 1: impression that if the next question was and this crime
15:35
Speaker 1: happened on the moon, right, Matt, he would say right too.
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Speaker 1: He was that much under their control, and.
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Speaker 2: He walked upstairs in our house after hours. Originally he
15:44
Speaker 2: takes sole responsibility for the murders, but remember these investigators
15:48
Speaker 2: have good reason to think that at least two people
15:51
Speaker 2: were involved in the crime.
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Speaker 1: Right because of the silhouette and the blood sprayed wall.
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Speaker 2: So after another lengthy series of questioning, Matt finally impled
16:00
Speaker 2: Kate's his cousin Nick Sampson too, saying that it was
16:03
Speaker 2: Nick that gave him the murder weapon and the keys
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Speaker 2: to the Ford Contour.
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Speaker 1: Based on this statement, both Matt Livers and Nick Samson
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Speaker 1: are arrested and charged with murder. Now, the very next day,
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Speaker 1: Matt is facing yet another polygraph exam. Right, questioning is
16:24
Speaker 1: continuing for him even after he's arrested and charged. But
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Speaker 1: the very next day he recants on videotape the whole thing.
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Speaker 1: He says, you know, I've just been making things up
16:34
Speaker 1: to satisfy you guys and basically fitting in answers to
16:37
Speaker 1: what you guys have been asking. He later explained to
16:40
Speaker 1: a court appointed psychologist that he confessed because he wanted
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Speaker 1: to go home.
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Speaker 2: Case closed. This is front page news in both Lincoln
16:52
Speaker 2: and in Omaha. We got our men exactly.
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Speaker 1: They're facing charges both in the courtroom and the court
16:58
Speaker 1: of public opinion. But the case against them is problematic
17:03
Speaker 1: because there's no physical evidence implicating them. Police try to
17:07
Speaker 1: match those twelve gage casings that they found at the
17:09
Speaker 1: crime scene to a shotgun that they found in Nick
17:11
Speaker 1: Samson's bedroom, but there is no match. What about the
17:15
Speaker 1: marijuana pipe that they found in the Stokes driveway, Well,
17:17
Speaker 1: there was DNA on it and it excluded both Matt
17:22
Speaker 1: and Nick. And the same thing goes for that strange
17:24
Speaker 1: golden ring that was found in the Stokes kitchen. It
17:28
Speaker 1: did contain DNA from two unknown people, but that DNA
17:31
Speaker 1: did not belong to Nick or Matt. The police were
17:34
Speaker 1: in desperate need of some corroboration for Matt Liver's confession.
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Speaker 1: So what do they do? They call in David Kofode. Now,
17:43
Speaker 1: David Cofode was the commander of the Douglas County Sheriff
17:47
Speaker 1: CSI unit. He's widely viewed as a statewide law enforcement hero.
17:53
Speaker 2: He was also a shameless self promoter. He was not
17:57
Speaker 2: only a legend in law enforcement circles, but he was
18:00
Speaker 2: also a legend in his own mind right.
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Speaker 1: David was the guy who had the magic touch. He
18:06
Speaker 1: had a reputation for closing cases by finding forensic evidence
18:10
Speaker 1: that all the other officers had overlooked, and David Cofote
18:14
Speaker 1: was brought in and asked to take a second look
18:17
Speaker 1: at Will Samson's ford contour. Now, Cofote examines the contour personally,
18:23
Speaker 1: and true to his reputation, he claims to have found
18:27
Speaker 1: blood under the dash. He swabs the blood and it
18:30
Speaker 1: tests positive. The blood belongs to Wayne Stoke. The case
18:36
Speaker 1: against Matt Levers and Nick Sampson just became devastating, or
18:40
Speaker 1: so it seemed. Meanwhile, other officers were continuing their investigation
18:45
Speaker 1: and they focused on that strange golden ring from the
18:48
Speaker 1: Stoke's kitchen. Now, there were two marks on that ring.
18:51
Speaker 1: The first one was the inscription that we already talked
18:53
Speaker 1: about Love Always, Corey and Ryan. But there was also
18:57
Speaker 1: a jeweler's mark on the inside of that ring, a
19:01
Speaker 1: mark made by the manufacturer, and police were able to
19:04
Speaker 1: trace that mark to a jeweler in New York.
19:07
Speaker 2: This jewelry business is going out of business, and the
19:11
Speaker 2: Nebraska investigator calls up and gets a woman on the
19:14
Speaker 2: phone who is closing down the office, and she says,
19:18
Speaker 2: can you help me track this ring? Where did this
19:21
Speaker 2: ring go after it was manufactured? And do you have
19:25
Speaker 2: any idea about this inscription.
19:27
Speaker 1: And on the day before this jeweler is literally closing
19:30
Speaker 1: its doors in New York. Its employees tell investigators that
19:34
Speaker 1: that ring was shipped off to a Walmart in beaver Dam, Wisconsin,
19:39
Speaker 1: where it was purchased by a woman named Corey for
19:42
Speaker 1: her boyfriend Ryan.
19:43
Speaker 2: Had this phone call come a day later, they may
19:47
Speaker 2: never have been able to trace that.
19:49
Speaker 1: Ring, and we might never know who actually killed Wayne
19:52
Speaker 1: and Sharman Stoke.
19:53
Speaker 2: It was a miracle. It was a break, and it
19:55
Speaker 2: was a break that was generated by really good police work.
19:59
Speaker 1: Unbelievable tracis ring them from Nebraska to New York to Wisconsin,
20:03
Speaker 1: where they'd discover the story about Gregory Fester and Jessica
20:06
Speaker 1: Reed stealing the truck in which the ring had been left.
20:08
Speaker 2: Now, who are these two?
20:12
Speaker 1: Jessica Reid grew up in Wisconsin in a small town
20:15
Speaker 1: called Horicon. Jessica was an honors student when she fell
20:19
Speaker 1: in love with greg who was an older, really troubled teenager.
20:23
Speaker 1: And the more detectives dug into Greg and Jessica, the
20:26
Speaker 1: more there was to learn. It turns out they'd stolen
20:29
Speaker 1: a twelve gage shotgun and the pickup truck where Corey
20:32
Speaker 1: and Ryan had left that Golden ring. Greg and Jessica
20:36
Speaker 1: had gone on a drug fueled interstate crime spree, breaking
20:40
Speaker 1: into houses in rural Iowa and Nebraska. They eventually ran
20:44
Speaker 1: out of money and abandoned the truck in Louisiana on
20:47
Speaker 1: April eighteenth. Somehow they made it back to Wisconsin, where
20:50
Speaker 1: they were arrested a week later for car theft. Police
20:55
Speaker 1: questioned Greg and Jessica and began connecting the dots. According
20:59
Speaker 1: to Jessica, she and Greg started their bender in Wisconsin
21:02
Speaker 1: and we're passing through Nebraska when the truck began running
21:05
Speaker 1: out of gas. They were tired, cranky, coming down from
21:09
Speaker 1: a cough seer up high and looking for a house
21:12
Speaker 1: to rob. That's when Greg and Jessica came across the
21:15
Speaker 1: Stoke home in Murdoch. Greg goes in through a downstairs window,
21:22
Speaker 1: Jessica said, and he lets her in at the front door.
21:25
Speaker 1: They go upstairs and are confronted by Wayne and Sharman Stoke.
21:30
Speaker 1: Greg lifts up his shotgun and he fires one at Wayne,
21:34
Speaker 1: hitting him in the knee. He and Jessica back out
21:36
Speaker 1: of the room. They get into the hallway and Jessica
21:38
Speaker 1: looks at Greg and says, do something.
21:43
Speaker 2: So one of them goes back into the room, we
21:46
Speaker 2: don't know which one and finish his wayne off with
21:49
Speaker 2: a shotgun blast at close range to the back of
21:52
Speaker 2: his head. Meanwhile, Sharman is calling the police, and one
21:57
Speaker 2: of these two natural born killers opens fire and charm
22:02
Speaker 2: and shoots her in the face and her body falls
22:06
Speaker 2: down next to the bed and it's wedged between the
22:09
Speaker 2: bed and the wall.
22:10
Speaker 1: Greg and Jessica don't steal a thing. They just get
22:13
Speaker 1: out of that farmhouse, get back into their vehicle, and
22:16
Speaker 1: drive off into the night. Now, Jessica's story smacked of truth,
22:31
Speaker 1: and it was soon corroborated. Wisconsin detectives in Jessica and
22:35
Speaker 1: Greg's DNA to Nebraska and lo and behold, their DNA
22:39
Speaker 1: was consistent with the DNA on the marijuana pipe and
22:42
Speaker 1: on the Golden Ring. Investigators also found wayIn Stokes blood
22:46
Speaker 1: in the truck and on clothes and shoes that had
22:49
Speaker 1: belonged to both Greg and Jessica. They even found a
22:53
Speaker 1: chilling entry and Jessica Read's diary I killed someone, She wrote,
22:58
Speaker 1: I loved it. I wish I could do it all the time,
23:02
Speaker 1: and they find a cigarette box in Jessica's home containing
23:05
Speaker 1: a letter to Greg and a spent twelve gage shell
23:09
Speaker 1: casing from the murders. In the letter, she wrote, this
23:13
Speaker 1: is something I did for you, for you to love
23:16
Speaker 1: me as much as I love you. This is a
23:19
Speaker 1: crazy story. It's something straight out of Natural Born Killers.
23:22
Speaker 2: This was a thrill kill by two drug crazed teens
23:26
Speaker 2: who actually thought they were in Iowa, not Nebraska.
23:30
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the discovery of Jessica and Greg up
23:34
Speaker 1: ends the case against Matt Livers and Nick Samson. After
23:38
Speaker 1: Jessica and Greg are arrested and implicated in the Stoke murders,
23:41
Speaker 1: Nebraska investigators travel out to Wisconsin to question them.
23:46
Speaker 2: And they do so because Jessica and Greg are telling
23:49
Speaker 2: a story that doesn't involve Matt Livers and Nick Sampson,
23:54
Speaker 2: so they play the same card they played with Livers.
23:57
Speaker 2: Wisconsin is not a death penalty state, they say, but
24:01
Speaker 2: Nebraska is. And if you don't come clean to having
24:05
Speaker 2: committed this crime with Matt and Nick, we're going to
24:08
Speaker 2: seek the death penalty against you as well. And for
24:12
Speaker 2: a brief moment, Jessica comes up with a wild story
24:15
Speaker 2: about how she had met Nick Sampson at a bar
24:18
Speaker 2: and had gone with them into the stokehouse. But she
24:21
Speaker 2: immediately recants once those Nebraska investigators leave the room. As
24:25
Speaker 2: soon as she's alone with this Wisconsin investigator, she says
24:30
Speaker 2: to him, these guys keep wanting me to pin this
24:33
Speaker 2: murder on two people I have never met. During one
24:40
Speaker 2: of my many searches of cases with the words false confession,
24:44
Speaker 2: I came upon this case and I knew the psychologist
24:47
Speaker 2: who had been hired by Matt Livers's attorney, Julie Bear.
24:51
Speaker 2: So I reached out to Julie and played a sort
24:54
Speaker 2: of behind the scenes consulting role. She didn't need me.
24:58
Speaker 2: This case was beginning to crash on its own.
25:02
Speaker 1: That psychologist Steve knew. His name is Scott Presler. Scott's
25:07
Speaker 1: report for the defense team gave a fuller picture of
25:09
Speaker 1: the motivations behind Matt's confession.
25:12
Speaker 3: I have results that clearly showed that Matt was very
25:16
Speaker 3: vulnerable and low functioning and had personality characteristics in which
25:23
Speaker 3: he wants to please other people, wants to be complying
25:25
Speaker 3: with other people, and has a very low tolerance for stress.
25:29
Speaker 3: And when he didn't do well on particular kinds of tests.
25:33
Speaker 3: It's because he didn't understand it, so he would make
25:36
Speaker 3: up stuff, which is interesting because he confabulated the whole
25:39
Speaker 3: scenario that the police took cook Line and Sinker, which
25:43
Speaker 3: they thought indicated that he was guilty.
25:46
Speaker 1: Scott also presented his analysis of Matt's personality to an
25:49
Speaker 1: expert from the prosecution side, and that expert was shocked
25:53
Speaker 1: by what he saw.
25:54
Speaker 3: And he said, Oh my god, I think that this
25:57
Speaker 3: is a real false confession.
25:59
Speaker 1: It becomes clear Jessica and Greg committed this crime on
26:02
Speaker 1: their own.
26:02
Speaker 3: So I'm at this meeting with the prosecuting attorney and
26:06
Speaker 3: he's visibly emotionally shaken by everything that's happened. Right after
26:11
Speaker 3: that meeting ended, he announced his decision to release matth
26:16
Speaker 3: So I was right there when Matt walked out of
26:17
Speaker 3: jail when all the press were there, and saw match
26:22
Speaker 3: reaction to seeing his family, and of course he gave
26:25
Speaker 3: me a big hug and thanked me. It was a
26:28
Speaker 3: very emotional scene.
26:34
Speaker 1: You know, this case shows the difference between bad police
26:37
Speaker 1: work and good police work. On the one hand, we
26:39
Speaker 1: have cops trying to solve this case by breaking an
26:42
Speaker 1: obviously vulnerable man through an insanely coercive interrogation. Compare that
26:47
Speaker 1: to the gumshoe investigator who focused on the physical evidence.
26:51
Speaker 1: That investigator traced the golden ring to the New York Jewelers,
26:55
Speaker 1: which led to the Wisconsin Walmart, which led to Corey
26:57
Speaker 1: and Ryan and their pickup truck getting stolen, the ring
27:00
Speaker 1: and the glove compartment, and that twisted path finally ends
27:03
Speaker 1: with Greg and Jessica. That's great police work. And we
27:07
Speaker 1: know it's great because in fact, Greg and Jessica's DNA
27:11
Speaker 1: and forensic evidence was found all over the scene. We
27:14
Speaker 1: know they're guilty because the science tells us that they are.
27:18
Speaker 2: Without that dogged investigative work, these two young men very
27:23
Speaker 2: well might have been on death row.
27:27
Speaker 1: Both Jessica and Greg went on to be prosecuted for
27:29
Speaker 1: the murders of Wayne and Sharman Stoke. They were convicted
27:33
Speaker 1: and sentenced to life in prison. But hang on a second,
27:36
Speaker 1: because there's one other question here, right, What about that
27:38
Speaker 1: blood stain in the forward contour?
27:41
Speaker 2: How did that bloodstain get there if the car had
27:44
Speaker 2: nothing to do with this crime.
27:46
Speaker 1: Well, it turns out the blood had been planted by
27:50
Speaker 1: none other than the state's star crime scene investigator himself,
27:54
Speaker 1: David cofot. Turns out, the guy with the magic touch was,
27:58
Speaker 1: in this case, little more than a Nebraska prosecutors ended
28:02
Speaker 1: up charging Cofode with planting that blood in the contour.
28:06
Speaker 1: He was convicted and sentenced to spend between twenty months
28:10
Speaker 1: and four years behind bars. Prosecutors called it poetic justice.
28:16
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about David cofod because he's
28:18
Speaker 1: one of the interesting figures in this case. Why would
28:21
Speaker 1: someone do something like this. He literally framed two innocent
28:26
Speaker 1: men by claiming that he'd found Wayne Stoke's blood in
28:30
Speaker 1: the contour. This is what happens when someone believes that
28:34
Speaker 1: the end that they're pursuing is just, and that therefore
28:38
Speaker 1: they can cut corners and do unethical things in service
28:41
Speaker 1: of the just goal.
28:43
Speaker 2: I don't buy that he did this because he never
28:46
Speaker 2: imagined that that confession would be false. So I figured,
28:51
Speaker 2: I'll just strengthen the case and I'll get away with it,
28:54
Speaker 2: and I'll be a hero and nobody will think twice
28:58
Speaker 2: about it. Got caught, Thank god for that. I helped
29:03
Speaker 2: Matt Livers get an attorney to bring a civil suit
29:06
Speaker 2: against the Cass County officers and the others involved in
29:10
Speaker 2: his arrest. When that case settled, something was said by
29:16
Speaker 2: Nebraska Attorney General John Bruning that bothers me to this day.
29:22
Speaker 2: He said, the only reason we're settling this civil suit
29:26
Speaker 2: is because of David kofodes criminal activity. My investigators did
29:31
Speaker 2: nothing wrong here. They acted honorably. Nothing could be further
29:36
Speaker 2: from the truth. They threatened Matt Livers with the death
29:39
Speaker 2: penalty to get him to confess. They threatened Jessica Reed
29:43
Speaker 2: with the death penalty to get her to implicate Livers
29:46
Speaker 2: and Samson. There's nothing honorable here about what these detectives did.
29:52
Speaker 2: Jessica Reed was more honorable than they were. She told
29:57
Speaker 2: the truth, believe it or not. In the Animal False Confessions.
30:04
Speaker 2: There are other cases of people who have been wrongfully convicted,
30:09
Speaker 2: only later to be exonerated when it turns out the
30:13
Speaker 2: people on a multi state crimes where you're responsible.
30:17
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the interesting thing about so many cases
30:19
Speaker 1: that we're talking about on this podcast, because you have
30:22
Speaker 1: innocent people going down for these horrific crimes based on
30:26
Speaker 1: false confessions, while people who really need to be stopped right,
30:30
Speaker 1: whether they're serial rapists.
30:31
Speaker 2: For serial killers right are.
30:33
Speaker 1: Out there doing terrible things while the innocent person does
30:37
Speaker 1: their time.
30:38
Speaker 2: Justice was eventually done here, but for Matt and for Nick,
30:42
Speaker 2: scars remain. Matt moved to Texas, but the legacy of
30:46
Speaker 2: these murders still haunts him. His relationship with Nick and
30:50
Speaker 2: other family members has been forever frayed.
30:53
Speaker 1: Nick Samson drifted apart from his cousin. He could never
30:56
Speaker 1: accept that Matt had falsely implicated him during that interrogation.
31:00
Speaker 1: Both of them sued the state of Nebraska and ended
31:03
Speaker 1: up recovering some compensation for their ordeal, although of course
31:07
Speaker 1: nothing can properly repay them for the harm that they underwent. Matt, Nick,
31:13
Speaker 1: you both endured ordeals that would test anyone. Your stories
31:17
Speaker 1: stand both as a warning for those police officers who
31:19
Speaker 1: want to breach trust and cut corners, but also as
31:23
Speaker 1: a testament to the justice that can be brought by
31:25
Speaker 1: good police work, the work done by those who trace
31:28
Speaker 1: that golden ring. To Greg and Jessica, we wish you
31:32
Speaker 1: peace and happy futures. Thanks for listening as we've told
31:39
Speaker 1: this story of Matt Livers and Nick Samson. Next week,
31:42
Speaker 1: we're going to tackle the story of tana Pora, a
31:45
Speaker 1: story that hails all the way from New Zealand, because
31:48
Speaker 1: false confessions aren't just a problem here in the US,
31:51
Speaker 1: It's a global problem. Until then, thanks for listening to
31:54
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a
32:03
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
32:07
Speaker 1: Company Number One. Special thanks to our executive producer Jason
32:11
Speaker 1: Flamm and the team at Signal Company Number one. Executive
32:15
Speaker 1: producer Kevin wardis Senior producer and Pope, and additional production
32:19
Speaker 1: and editing by Connor Hall. Our music was composed by
32:22
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter
32:26
Speaker 1: at Laura Nightrider and you.
32:28
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
32:31
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
32:35
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
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Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction