Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Austin Yogurt Shop Pt. Two

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Austin Yogurt Shop Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part of our series about the Austin
0:32
Speaker 1: Yogurt shot murders and the recent resolution of the case.
0:37
Speaker 1: So I, given that this was the early nineteen nineties
0:39
Speaker 1: in Texas, I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn
0:41
Speaker 1: that we also have a touch of Satanic panic, because
0:45
Speaker 1: this is pretty much a kitchen sink case when it
0:47
Speaker 1: comes to finding colorful suspects. But the police started receiving
0:52
Speaker 1: tips about a group of local residents who were nicknamed
0:54
Speaker 1: the People in Black, who supposedly had an interest in
0:58
Speaker 1: the occult and vanism and would perform activities like dancing
1:02
Speaker 1: on tombstones, and of course there were rumors in the
1:05
Speaker 1: area that they were all part of a Satanic cult.
1:08
Speaker 1: The leader of the group was a woman called Claire LeVay,
1:12
Speaker 1: which is probably not a real name. I think she
1:14
Speaker 1: changed it as a homage to the Church of Satan
1:17
Speaker 1: founder Aunt Don Leavey. Yeah exactly. But what's hilarious is
1:21
Speaker 1: that forty eight hours this was when they started covering
1:23
Speaker 1: the Austin yogurt shop murders. You know, you know Aaron Moriarty, right, Oh, yes.
1:28
Speaker 2: I know who Aaron Moriarty is.
1:30
Speaker 1: Yes, this is pretty much one of her pet cases
1:32
Speaker 1: because she was assigned to cover it back in nineteen
1:35
Speaker 1: ninety two and then would keep covering the case for
1:38
Speaker 1: like the next thirty years. She came very passionate about it.
1:41
Speaker 1: But what's hilarious is one of her first assignments is
1:44
Speaker 1: when forty eight hours the camera crew was given permission
1:47
Speaker 1: when they performed a raid of Claire LaVey's house in
1:51
Speaker 1: order to bring her in for questioning and see if
1:53
Speaker 1: she had any knowledge of the yogurt shop murders. And
1:56
Speaker 1: when the police broke and burst down the door and
1:58
Speaker 1: came in with the camera crew, turned out that Claire
2:01
Speaker 1: LaVey was naked inside and pleasuring herself with a vibrator
2:05
Speaker 1: just when the police arrived, which is a very hilarious
2:09
Speaker 1: story in a very sad case. But they found like
2:12
Speaker 1: a skull inside, but it turned out it was made
2:14
Speaker 1: of wax, and she had some bones in there, but
2:17
Speaker 1: they belonged to animals like rats and squirrels. And of
2:20
Speaker 1: course when John Jones looked into her, he realized, no,
2:23
Speaker 1: she's got nothing to do with this. This is just
2:25
Speaker 1: like a false le at, a red herring, and they
2:27
Speaker 1: dropped it. But thankfully they had some good sense this time,
2:30
Speaker 1: because we've seen so many of the satanic panic lead
2:32
Speaker 1: to innocent people being railroaded. But in this case, Claire
2:35
Speaker 1: LaVey was just embarrassed rather than falsely in prison.
2:39
Speaker 2: I mean, get it, Claire Leavey don't want to yuck
2:44
Speaker 2: her yum. I mean, I can understand that she would
2:46
Speaker 2: have been embarrassed because you don't expect law enforcement to
2:49
Speaker 2: come bursting in. Well, one is in the act of
2:52
Speaker 2: pleasuring themselves. But you're right, that is a really hilarious
2:56
Speaker 2: spot in a very very dark case. And you can't
3:00
Speaker 2: have a nineteen nineties case it's unsolved without having like
3:03
Speaker 2: some kind of smattering of satanic panic, just like sprinkled
3:07
Speaker 2: in for good measure.
3:08
Speaker 1: It feels like pretty much. Yeah. And for the record,
3:11
Speaker 1: that footage of her with the vibrator did not make
3:14
Speaker 1: the forty eight Hours episode that they didn't want that
3:16
Speaker 1: going on a network TV. So there would be one
3:19
Speaker 1: more very interesting false lead, and this time it involved
3:22
Speaker 1: a gang of Mexican bikers from a gang called Nierrada's Punks.
3:27
Speaker 1: It was because an Hispanic looking man with long hair
3:30
Speaker 1: in a car had been seen parked outside the yogurt
3:32
Speaker 1: shop on the night of the murders, and the eventually
3:35
Speaker 1: I thought they had identified them as a trio of
3:37
Speaker 1: bikers named Alberto Jimenez, Cortes, Portfrio Villa Severrada and Ricardo Hernandez.
3:44
Speaker 1: And these were dangerous guys because three weeks before the
3:47
Speaker 1: yogurt shop murders they had actually abducted a young women
3:50
Speaker 1: from a nightclub in Austin and proceeded to gang Raper
3:53
Speaker 1: before letting her go. So they put out an a
3:55
Speaker 1: restaurant for these guys. They wondered if they might have
3:58
Speaker 1: been responsible for the yogurt shp crime, but they had
4:01
Speaker 1: escaped over the border into Mexico. But in October of
4:05
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, nearly a year later, they finally captured
4:09
Speaker 1: two of them, Cortes and Seretta, for other crimes such
4:12
Speaker 1: as drug trafficking and gun smuggling, and as we were
4:16
Speaker 1: being held in custody by the Mexican authorities, they both
4:20
Speaker 1: supposedly confessed to being responsible for the yogurt shop murders.
4:24
Speaker 1: But thankfully John Jones was still on the case and
4:27
Speaker 1: once he read the confession, he instantly became skeptical because
4:30
Speaker 1: there were a lot of incorrect details, because one of
4:33
Speaker 1: them even said that the girls were cut up and mutilated.
4:37
Speaker 1: So Jones decided to perform his own interview with these
4:40
Speaker 1: guys where they recanted these confessions and claimed that they
4:43
Speaker 1: had only done it because they had been tortured by
4:46
Speaker 1: the Mexican authorities, because obviously down there there's more human
4:50
Speaker 1: rights violations, and it seemed like the Mexican authorities wanted
4:54
Speaker 1: to take credit for solving this very infamous American crime,
4:58
Speaker 1: so they tortured these two by into making a false confession.
5:02
Speaker 1: And they weren't bad guys. They did go to prison
5:04
Speaker 1: for the gang rape, so they deserve to be locked up,
5:07
Speaker 1: but they were ultimately ruled out as being responsible for
5:10
Speaker 1: the yogurt shop murders. But it just kind of demonstrated
5:13
Speaker 1: what a big farce this case was becoming because we
5:16
Speaker 1: were finding all these colorful suspects, many of them were confessing,
5:19
Speaker 1: yet there was no evidence to implicate any of them.
5:22
Speaker 2: And like, Okay, the year's nineteen ninety one. We've got
5:25
Speaker 2: like really rudimentary internet. It's pretty basic, and I've just
5:31
Speaker 2: got to wonder what type of news media was reaching
5:35
Speaker 2: Mexico about the Austin yogurt shop murders. It wouldn't be
5:38
Speaker 2: like it is today. There wasn't social media, So like,
5:42
Speaker 2: what was going through these two Mexican or Mexican police
5:46
Speaker 2: officers who are questioning these bikers and they're like, hey, bro,
5:51
Speaker 2: let's just get these guys to confess so that we
5:54
Speaker 2: can take credit for solving the Austin yogurt shop murders.
5:58
Speaker 1: What I mean, I guess it'd be because it's near
6:00
Speaker 1: the Mexican border to Austin that maybe word has spread
6:03
Speaker 1: about it down there and they had heard of it.
6:05
Speaker 1: But I think they just saw it as an opportunity
6:07
Speaker 1: because maybe they saw in the police band that they
6:09
Speaker 1: were wanted for questioning and the yogurt shot murders, and
6:12
Speaker 1: once they realized that they had them in custody for
6:15
Speaker 1: other crimes, they said, oh, this will be a big
6:17
Speaker 1: coup for us if we can solve this case and
6:19
Speaker 1: make the Americans look bad. But of course they didn't
6:22
Speaker 1: do it, and all they got were false confessions. But
6:24
Speaker 1: it just showed how much time was wasted in the
6:26
Speaker 1: early years pursuing all these leads that ultimately went nowhere.
6:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like everybody who is faced with a suspect,
6:34
Speaker 2: no matter how credible they are or how credible the
6:37
Speaker 2: details that they give are, they're just so hungry for
6:41
Speaker 2: a result that they want to solve the case. And
6:44
Speaker 2: I'm sure that the motivations are many that some people
6:47
Speaker 2: who want to solve it, they truly have their eye
6:49
Speaker 2: on justice and they want to solve it because they
6:52
Speaker 2: want to give the families that resolution and to be
6:55
Speaker 2: able to give the community that resolution. And then there's
6:58
Speaker 2: other people where it's more of an ego project, right,
7:01
Speaker 2: and it's like, Okay, well, if I do this, it's
7:03
Speaker 2: going to make me look so good. And then Mexico
7:07
Speaker 2: doing that and be like, let's torture these guys and
7:09
Speaker 2: get this result. I'm not laughing at the torture, It
7:12
Speaker 2: just it seems absolutely absurd to me that they would
7:16
Speaker 2: then try their hand at this where these guys clearly
7:18
Speaker 2: didn't do it. Yeah, they're bad guys and they did
7:22
Speaker 2: deserve to be locked up, but not for the Austin
7:25
Speaker 2: yogurt chop.
7:25
Speaker 1: Murders exactly, because, as we're going to talk about, the
7:30
Speaker 1: real killer was getting away with it. And when we
7:32
Speaker 1: get to the end and I reveal who the real
7:34
Speaker 1: killer was, it's going to horrify you how many other
7:36
Speaker 1: crimes he was getting away with while they were looking
7:39
Speaker 1: at the wrong suspects in this case. So, unfortunately, the
7:43
Speaker 1: case would remain solid for the next several years. Like
7:46
Speaker 1: I said, John Jones was transferred off the case and
7:49
Speaker 1: everything went cold. But in August of nineteen ninety nine,
7:52
Speaker 1: the Austin pe decided to form a new task force
7:55
Speaker 1: to relaunch the investigation and would it be led by
7:58
Speaker 1: a homicide detective named Paul Johnson and assisted by some
8:02
Speaker 1: other detectives named Ron Laura, John Hardisty and Robert Merrill,
8:06
Speaker 1: who pretty much decided, we're going to solve this at
8:08
Speaker 1: any costs. So while looking back through the files, they
8:11
Speaker 1: found out about this whole lead involving Maurice Pearce and
8:14
Speaker 1: how he had implicated three accomplices, Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott
8:19
Speaker 1: and Forrest Wellborn, and they hadn't been looked at in years,
8:22
Speaker 1: and even though there was no evidence against them other
8:24
Speaker 1: than like a half ass confession from Maurice, they decide, well,
8:29
Speaker 1: they're in the mid twenties now and they're now living
8:32
Speaker 1: with jobs and they have families of their own. Some
8:34
Speaker 1: of them even have children, why not bring them back
8:37
Speaker 1: in and question them again? And like I mentioned back
8:39
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, they were all like kind of
8:42
Speaker 1: juvenile delinquents. They were high school dropouts who spent a
8:45
Speaker 1: lot of the time partying, didn't seem to have much
8:48
Speaker 1: focus in life. Some of them had some misdemeanor crimes.
8:51
Speaker 1: Maurice had been arrested once for drunk driving, Mike had
8:54
Speaker 1: been arrested once for possession of weed. Forrest had once
8:57
Speaker 1: been arrested for driving with a suspended license. Once again,
9:00
Speaker 1: none of these guys had any documented history of violence
9:03
Speaker 1: to suggest they were capable of a crime this heinous,
9:07
Speaker 1: and they were all teenagers at the time. We had
9:09
Speaker 1: two seventeen year olds, one sixteen year old and won
9:12
Speaker 1: fifteen year old. And the crime really looked like it
9:15
Speaker 1: was committed by an offender who had a lot of
9:17
Speaker 1: prior experience of that and may not have been their
9:20
Speaker 1: first murder. But regardless, they still wanted to question them again.
9:25
Speaker 1: So the next first person who was brought in was
9:27
Speaker 1: Michael Scott, and the first thing he said in his
9:30
Speaker 1: interrogation room was I got a sorry, guys, but I
9:33
Speaker 1: had memory issues. I may have trouble for getting stuff
9:36
Speaker 1: that took place nearly eight years earlier. And I think
9:39
Speaker 1: they took advantage of that because as they started interrogating
9:43
Speaker 1: him for several hours, they started planting the seat in
9:46
Speaker 1: the head that he may have committed the murder and
9:48
Speaker 1: completely blacked out and forgotten about it. So at one point,
9:52
Speaker 1: ten hours into his interrogation, Michael was given a cell
9:55
Speaker 1: phone in order to call his wife and he actually
9:57
Speaker 1: said to her, quote, I know more about this case
10:00
Speaker 1: than I thought I knew.
10:01
Speaker 2: Oh my god. That just gives me such a shudder
10:04
Speaker 2: to think that, like, poor Michael Scott, who's clearly got
10:07
Speaker 2: memory issues, and he's telling the police this and they
10:10
Speaker 2: seem to be weaponizing it against him. And I don't
10:14
Speaker 2: know how much of this is done in a calculated
10:17
Speaker 2: manner and that they actually believe that he's guilty, or
10:21
Speaker 2: if they're just like, this guy looks like he could
10:23
Speaker 2: be good for it. Let's just take advantage of this.
10:26
Speaker 2: It just seems like such low hanging fruit. When you
10:28
Speaker 2: take somebody who's got any type of mild cognitive impairment
10:33
Speaker 2: or somebody who is easily influenced, you can plant the
10:36
Speaker 2: seeds and make them believe that they did just about anything,
10:39
Speaker 2: which is why one of the techniques that is allowed
10:42
Speaker 2: in the US, I don't know if we allow it
10:44
Speaker 2: in Canada. That I hate is when police lie to
10:47
Speaker 2: suspects and they say, we have your DNA here, And
10:51
Speaker 2: I think that like when you say to somebody who
10:54
Speaker 2: has or suffers from any kind of cognitive issues or
10:58
Speaker 2: memory issues, or they're very easily influenced, that if you
11:03
Speaker 2: say that, then there's a strong likelihood that you're going
11:06
Speaker 2: to get a percentage of those people who are going
11:08
Speaker 2: to go, oh, my DNA was there, I must have
11:11
Speaker 2: been there, I must be guilty. And then it's just
11:14
Speaker 2: a really dangerous trajectory for the rest of the interrogation
11:18
Speaker 2: because you can very easily plant the seeds and make
11:20
Speaker 2: somebody believe that they themselves committed this crime, which seems
11:24
Speaker 2: like that's what happened here.
11:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like they did let Michael go go back home
11:29
Speaker 1: to his wife, but then they brought him in again
11:32
Speaker 1: the following day and continue to go at him for
11:34
Speaker 1: several more hours, and then finally, after being interrogated for
11:38
Speaker 1: a total of eighteen hours over the course of two days,
11:40
Speaker 1: he finally admitted that he participated the murders and then
11:43
Speaker 1: signed a fourteen page confession. But you talked about how
11:47
Speaker 1: they can lie to suspects to plant the seeds in
11:49
Speaker 1: their heads that they might have done it, and we
11:51
Speaker 1: have an example of it here because Michael claimed that
11:55
Speaker 1: his alibi around the time of the yogurt Chop murders.
11:57
Speaker 1: This is another colorful detail is that he and Robert
12:00
Speaker 1: Springsteen were attending a midnight screening of the Rocky Horror
12:04
Speaker 1: Picture Show, which is taking place at the local mall,
12:07
Speaker 1: and they at one point during the interrogation, what if
12:10
Speaker 1: I told you that we checked and the Rocky Horror
12:12
Speaker 1: Picture Show wasn't playing at the theater that night, And
12:15
Speaker 1: of course that wasn't true. They didn't go back and
12:17
Speaker 1: check records for a movie that took place eight years ago.
12:20
Speaker 1: They just said it randomly in the interview, and of
12:22
Speaker 1: course Michael started doubting himself. Oh so maybe I wasn't
12:26
Speaker 1: actually there. Maybe I could have been in the yogret
12:28
Speaker 1: shop committing these murders. And that's what eventually paved the
12:31
Speaker 1: way for him to confessing.
12:33
Speaker 2: And so often in these cases you see a situation
12:37
Speaker 2: where somebody will say I have memory impairment issues. They
12:42
Speaker 2: may take advantage of that by pushing really hard, not
12:46
Speaker 2: giving him a break. If he doesn't have access to
12:49
Speaker 2: a lawyer and he doesn't know to ask for when
12:51
Speaker 2: there's a problem, and if he doesn't have any food,
12:54
Speaker 2: he doesn't have any beverages, maybe he's not allowed to
12:56
Speaker 2: go to the bathroom. We don't know the whole scenario
13:00
Speaker 2: played out there or is there a video of it.
13:03
Speaker 1: There is some video tape interrogation, but he did get
13:06
Speaker 1: some breaks and stuff. But you're correct he did not
13:08
Speaker 1: have a lawyer there when he was doing this because
13:10
Speaker 1: he probably figured, well, I had nothing to do with this.
13:14
Speaker 1: Here we are years later. I'm just going to answer
13:16
Speaker 1: questions and make things easier for them, little knowing that
13:19
Speaker 1: they're trying to like extract a false confession from them.
13:22
Speaker 2: Well, in the nineties, that was kind of the idea, right, like,
13:25
Speaker 2: if you didn't commit the crime, if you are innocent,
13:28
Speaker 2: then you've got nothing to hide. Why would you need
13:31
Speaker 2: a lawyer? I think it's only upon examination of all
13:35
Speaker 2: of these wrongful conviction cases that we've seen, you absolutely
13:39
Speaker 2: need a lawyer, whether you're guilty or whether you're innocent.
13:43
Speaker 2: The police aren't looking out for your best interests. You
13:46
Speaker 2: need to preserve your interest and the only way that
13:49
Speaker 2: you can do that is hiring a legal professional to
13:53
Speaker 2: have them help facilitate that conversation.
13:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, exactly. And he never would have even considered that.
14:00
Speaker 1: I mean, all these four suspects, they're not considered to
14:02
Speaker 1: be disabled or anything. But when they were in high school,
14:05
Speaker 1: they had to take special education courses, so they weren't
14:08
Speaker 1: exactly very smart people. And obviously they're more kind of
14:11
Speaker 1: more simple minded, Like they can function on their own,
14:13
Speaker 1: they can live lives, have families, and have careers, but
14:17
Speaker 1: they're just not going to think to themselves that if
14:19
Speaker 1: the police are bringing me into question, to me, they're
14:21
Speaker 1: going to make me confess to something I didn't do.
14:24
Speaker 1: Since he implicated Robert Springsteen, he was brought in for
14:27
Speaker 1: questioning next. At this point, he had moved out of
14:30
Speaker 1: Texas and was living in West Virginia, so detectives Ron
14:34
Speaker 1: Laura and Robert Merrill went over there to question him.
14:37
Speaker 1: And when they brought Robert in, he had worked multiple
14:40
Speaker 1: shifts at his two jobs, so he had gotten virtually
14:42
Speaker 1: no sleep. And I think it had been up for like
14:45
Speaker 1: twenty hours at that point, so they only had to
14:48
Speaker 1: interrogate him for about four hours before he just got
14:51
Speaker 1: so exhausted that he told them what he wanted to
14:53
Speaker 1: hear and finally confess that he was involved in the
14:56
Speaker 1: murder as well. And I know that there was one
14:59
Speaker 1: point where he just got so frustrated when they tried
15:02
Speaker 1: to press him saying that you sexually assaulted this thirteen
15:06
Speaker 1: year old girl, Amy Errs, and he finally snapped and said, Okay,
15:10
Speaker 1: I did it. I put my dick in my pussy
15:11
Speaker 1: and I raped her. And of course he just said
15:14
Speaker 1: that out of frustration. He obviously didn't mean it. But
15:17
Speaker 1: they played the videotape of that at his trial, so
15:19
Speaker 1: you can only imagine what a terrible impression that set
15:22
Speaker 1: for the jury.
15:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't imagine that the jury would have listened
15:27
Speaker 2: to that and had any great thoughts about him. It's
15:32
Speaker 2: just so graphic, Yeah, exactly. And I think once they
15:36
Speaker 2: saw that, it didn't even matter what other evidence was
15:39
Speaker 2: against him, they pretty much probably decided this guy is guilty,
15:42
Speaker 2: because no one who was innocent would say something like that.
15:46
Speaker 2: So in the end, Mike and Rob gave these two
15:49
Speaker 2: different statements that had some contradictory details, but the police
15:53
Speaker 2: eventually kind of combined them together into what they believed
15:56
Speaker 2: was a scenario about what they believe happened. What both
15:59
Speaker 2: men said is that the mastermind of the crime was
16:02
Speaker 2: Maurice Pierce, and that was a robbery gone wrong, that
16:05
Speaker 2: the group had been casing the yogurt shop since the
16:07
Speaker 2: afternoon and after evening hit Maurice entered first and purchased
16:12
Speaker 2: a yogurt in order to keep Jennifer and Eliza distracted,
16:15
Speaker 2: while Michael and Roberts knucking through the back area and
16:19
Speaker 2: unlocked the rear door, and they proceeded to use a
16:22
Speaker 2: folded pack of cigarettes to prop the door open, which
16:25
Speaker 2: would allow them to exit the shop during closing time.
16:28
Speaker 2: They implicated Forrest well Born, but said he did not
16:30
Speaker 2: directly participate in the crime, that he just sat in
16:33
Speaker 2: the group's getaway car in order to function his a lockout,
16:36
Speaker 2: and that Maurice, Mike, and rob did the robbery themselves
16:39
Speaker 2: after eleven PM after closing, but were completely thrown off
16:42
Speaker 2: by the fact that Sarah and Amy were in the back,
16:46
Speaker 2: so they weren't expecting four girls to be there instead
16:48
Speaker 2: of two and their story was that after the register
16:51
Speaker 2: was opened, Maurice was angry because there wasn't as much
16:54
Speaker 2: hash in there as he was expecting, so he accused
16:57
Speaker 2: the girls of lying and demanded to know where the
16:59
Speaker 2: rest of the money was, even though they maintained there
17:02
Speaker 2: was no more money. They then forced the girls to undress,
17:05
Speaker 2: tied them up a gunpoint, and when Eliza and Jennifer
17:09
Speaker 2: continued to maintain that there was no additional money, Maurice
17:12
Speaker 2: shot them both in the back of the head, and
17:14
Speaker 2: then he ordered Robert to rape Amy, which he did,
17:18
Speaker 2: and he also ordered Michael to rape Sarah, but he
17:20
Speaker 2: says he couldn't go through with it because he was
17:22
Speaker 2: unable to achieve an erection, and then he told Michael
17:26
Speaker 2: to shoot the other two girls in the head or
17:28
Speaker 2: he would be mit next. So Mike complied, and of course,
17:32
Speaker 2: after Mike shot Amy twice in the head with a
17:34
Speaker 2: twenty two caliber gun, he pulled out a three eighty
17:36
Speaker 2: pistol to fire the kill shot. So they claimed that
17:40
Speaker 2: after that they set the girls on fire and used
17:44
Speaker 2: lighter fluid in order to get it started, but claimed
17:47
Speaker 2: that when they fled the shop, they discovered that forest
17:49
Speaker 2: well Born was no longer in the getaway car, so
17:52
Speaker 2: they climbed into the vehicle, drove after him and came
17:55
Speaker 2: across Forrest walking down the street, and then picked him up.
17:58
Speaker 2: And then they went to a bridge and toss the
18:00
Speaker 2: three eighty pistol into Lake Austin, which is one of
18:03
Speaker 2: the first strange details of the crime because they used
18:06
Speaker 2: two murder weapons. Yet why would they throw one of
18:08
Speaker 2: them into the lake and then hold on to the
18:10
Speaker 2: other one. I can see how like a jury, if
18:14
Speaker 2: they were going to listen to this, that they would think, Wow,
18:17
Speaker 2: this is highly specific. These guys have a lot of details.
18:22
Speaker 2: How would they have these details unless they themselves committed
18:25
Speaker 2: the murders. Because I don't think that most juries in
18:28
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties, especially ninety one, are going to look
18:31
Speaker 2: at it and think, oh, maybe the police fed them
18:34
Speaker 2: these details. Maybe this is BS. I would think that
18:38
Speaker 2: there was much more of a trust for law enforcement
18:41
Speaker 2: and the methods by which they would extract confessions. They
18:45
Speaker 2: would think these people are on trial, there's a reason
18:48
Speaker 2: for it. They're likely guilty. And if they're confessing and
18:51
Speaker 2: they're saying these things. If you go back to the
18:54
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties and what people's knowledge of false confessions was
18:57
Speaker 2: and the idea around law enforcement and extracting false confessions.
19:02
Speaker 2: I would think it would be much more centered around
19:04
Speaker 2: you're going to trust the police, these guys have too
19:07
Speaker 2: many details, they're probably guilty, or why would the prosecutor
19:11
Speaker 2: bring charges?
19:13
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much the mentality, because they would be
19:15
Speaker 1: charged without any other evidence besides these confessions. And sure enough,
19:20
Speaker 1: after Robert and Michael confessed, they charged both of them,
19:23
Speaker 1: as well as Maurice Pierce and Forrest Wellborn for the
19:26
Speaker 1: Roles and the yogurt chop murders. But there was a
19:28
Speaker 1: big problem because even though Maurice and Forrest were extensively interrogated,
19:33
Speaker 1: they maintained their innocence from the outset and never did confess.
19:37
Speaker 1: And of course, shortly thereafter, Robert and Michael both recanted
19:40
Speaker 1: their confessions, saying that they were under such pressure and
19:44
Speaker 1: were being manipulated that they finally told the police what
19:47
Speaker 1: they wanted to hear. So essentially, you're trying to put
19:50
Speaker 1: four guys on trial for the same crime on the
19:53
Speaker 1: basis of nothing more than two confessions that were only
19:56
Speaker 1: made by half of them. So the big problem here
19:59
Speaker 1: was forres wellb Born is figuring out how to charge
20:02
Speaker 1: him because in both the confessions they say that he
20:05
Speaker 1: did not directly participate in the murder. They just said
20:08
Speaker 1: that he was in the getaway car, he tried to
20:10
Speaker 1: run away. And with these confessions they couldn't even prove
20:13
Speaker 1: that Forrest knew that any murders were going to take place,
20:16
Speaker 1: So what exactly could they put him on trial with.
20:19
Speaker 1: There was really no evidence that had he even done anything wrong.
20:22
Speaker 1: So at one point he was approached by prosecutors and
20:25
Speaker 1: was given an offer to testify against his three co
20:28
Speaker 1: defendants in exchange for immunity. And this isn't a reduced
20:32
Speaker 1: sentence for a quadruple murder. This is immunity, which meant
20:35
Speaker 1: no jail time whatsoever. And he pretty much said, no,
20:38
Speaker 1: I was not involved in this, I didn't do it.
20:40
Speaker 1: I'm not going to testify, even though it meant he
20:42
Speaker 1: could have walked right then and there.
20:45
Speaker 2: Wow, Forrest, that's impressive because he looked at the picture
20:50
Speaker 2: holistically and it wasn't just hey, I want I'm out
20:54
Speaker 2: here for my own self preservation. He wasn't going to
20:56
Speaker 2: throw the other guys under the bus. Because he knew
20:58
Speaker 2: the entire story was bs and he wasn't involved, and
21:01
Speaker 2: so it's very likely that they weren't involved, and then
21:04
Speaker 2: none of this was true. But he very easily could
21:06
Speaker 2: have just been like, screw you guys. You implicated me.
21:10
Speaker 2: I never confess I'm in this position because of you.
21:13
Speaker 2: I'm going to testify against you and ensure that I
21:16
Speaker 2: never go to prison because of this. But he didn't
21:19
Speaker 2: do that, So that's pretty admirable.
21:21
Speaker 1: Pretty much. Yeah, and he wasn't even accused of being
21:24
Speaker 1: the murder. They just said he waited in the getaway car,
21:27
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't even admit to that. He just said
21:29
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, And he had a really low IQ.
21:32
Speaker 1: And even though people like that are generally coerced into
21:35
Speaker 1: making false confessions, he did the exact opposite. Where he
21:38
Speaker 1: seemed like a guy who was incapable of lying. He
21:41
Speaker 1: just seemed very earnest and genuine. And I mentioned earlier
21:45
Speaker 1: that forty eight Hours did a lot of coverage in
21:47
Speaker 1: this case over the years, and that Aaron Moriarty was
21:50
Speaker 1: the primary reporter, and she said her big turning point
21:53
Speaker 1: in the case is when she went to interview Forrest
21:56
Speaker 1: Welborn in jail, and she'd heard these guys a confess,
21:59
Speaker 1: so of course going in under the assumption that they're
22:01
Speaker 1: probably guilty. But she said, when I interviewed Forrest Welborn,
22:05
Speaker 1: he was so earnest and so direct and so genuine
22:07
Speaker 1: that I thought he was credible and that he was
22:10
Speaker 1: absolutely telling the truth when he said he didn't do this.
22:13
Speaker 1: And they couldn't even get an indictment on him, like
22:15
Speaker 1: they were able to get murder indictments for Robert, Michael
22:18
Speaker 1: and Maurice, But because Forrest, they said, had just waited
22:21
Speaker 1: in the car, they tried in front of two grand
22:24
Speaker 1: juries and they couldn't get any indictments on him for
22:26
Speaker 1: any crime. So they finally had no choice but to
22:29
Speaker 1: release him. So he never did go on trial.
22:32
Speaker 2: Well, the involvement, even the other guys implicated him, was minimal,
22:36
Speaker 2: I mean, if he was the getaway driver. But correct
22:39
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong. In certain states, if a murder
22:42
Speaker 2: is committed and somebody is the getaway driver, any person
22:45
Speaker 2: who's involved in the commission of that crime in any
22:48
Speaker 2: capacity can be charged with murder. Is that correct?
22:52
Speaker 1: I think it depends on state to state, Like I
22:54
Speaker 1: have seen cases. Yeah, yeah, I know. There's one a
22:57
Speaker 1: famous case in Florida where a guy just lent his
22:59
Speaker 1: car to someone who went to commit a murder, and
23:01
Speaker 1: he got charged with a felony murder even though he
23:04
Speaker 1: wasn't even there, So that can't happen. So, I mean,
23:07
Speaker 1: they could have charged Forrest with something even if it
23:10
Speaker 1: was not direct murder, but they just felt that the
23:12
Speaker 1: evidence was so weak because, unlike his alleged co conspirators,
23:16
Speaker 1: he never confessed, so what evidence was there to place
23:18
Speaker 1: him near the scene.
23:19
Speaker 2: Did you ever watch that documentary? It's really old. It
23:22
Speaker 2: was Werner Hertzogs into the Abyss.
23:26
Speaker 1: Yes they did, yeah, yeah.
23:27
Speaker 2: One of the guys on that I can't remember his name,
23:29
Speaker 2: it was so long ago that I watched it. But
23:32
Speaker 2: he was a getaway driver, I believe, and they had
23:35
Speaker 2: held up two of his cohorts or whatever it held
23:39
Speaker 2: that convenience store or something, and the clerk was killed
23:43
Speaker 2: during the commission of that robbery. And he was convicted
23:46
Speaker 2: of the murder as well because he was involved with
23:49
Speaker 2: that crime, even though he didn't kill anybody. And so yeah,
23:54
Speaker 2: he was on death row. And that's what I thought
23:57
Speaker 2: when I thought of Forrest was, they could have likely
24:00
Speaker 2: charged him with something. But if you can't get an indictment,
24:03
Speaker 2: if a grand jury doesn't want to indict, then why
24:06
Speaker 2: are you going to bother Because if you don't think
24:09
Speaker 2: that you can get a conviction, the prosecutors probably aren't
24:12
Speaker 2: going to bring it to trial. The other guys are
24:14
Speaker 2: more of a slam dunk because they actually.
24:15
Speaker 1: Confessed yes, and the way it works is that you
24:19
Speaker 1: can't use their confessions against another defendant on trial unless
24:23
Speaker 1: they testify, which Robert and Michael were not going to do.
24:27
Speaker 1: But it was kind of sad because even though Forrest
24:29
Speaker 1: was a free man again, everyone was just assuming that
24:32
Speaker 1: he was involved in a murder. At that point, he
24:34
Speaker 1: had started up an auto repair shop, but it wound
24:37
Speaker 1: up going out of business because of that publicity. He
24:40
Speaker 1: had a hard time finding employment after that, and he
24:42
Speaker 1: pretty much faded into obscurity. Like he has led a
24:45
Speaker 1: very private life the last twenty five years since he
24:48
Speaker 1: was released. He has not done any interviews since that
24:51
Speaker 1: forty eight Hours interview with Aaron Moriarty. He did not
24:54
Speaker 1: participate in the documentary, so he pretty much just decided
24:57
Speaker 1: to get out of the public spotlight. I hear he's
24:59
Speaker 1: doing well today, But he's just someone who thought just
25:02
Speaker 1: as one accusation completely ruined my life, so he tried
25:05
Speaker 1: to distance himself from it as much as possible, even
25:08
Speaker 1: though he never even did any they wrong. He didn't
25:10
Speaker 1: even confess.
25:12
Speaker 2: My heart goes out to Forest because I feel like
25:14
Speaker 2: they really tried to railroad him, and unfortunately, his friends
25:18
Speaker 2: were easily influenced and implicated him. Luckily they implicated him
25:23
Speaker 2: in a capacity. It wasn't like directly involved in the murder.
25:26
Speaker 2: But even though no charges robotic gainst him and that
25:31
Speaker 2: he didn't spend his life behind bars, the fact that
25:34
Speaker 2: it continued to reverberate outwards and it affected him in
25:38
Speaker 2: I'm sure a myriad of ways, right. I'm sure it
25:40
Speaker 2: affected his personal relationships. We know that it affected his
25:44
Speaker 2: income and his ability to get a job and to
25:47
Speaker 2: be successful in business, and then, like you said, he
25:50
Speaker 2: just faded into obscurity. So I really hope that everything
25:54
Speaker 2: went well for Forest, because I think that he's such
25:57
Speaker 2: a victim in this story and he truly did deserve
26:00
Speaker 2: what happened to him.
26:02
Speaker 1: Oh definitely, yeah, And we'll talk more about this later.
26:05
Speaker 1: But now that this case has been resolved. I'm really
26:07
Speaker 1: curious to see if any of these defendants are going
26:09
Speaker 1: to try to get a wrongful conviction lawsuit filed and
26:13
Speaker 1: finally get damages after all these years for being falsely
26:16
Speaker 1: accused of this crime. So before the trials even started,
26:20
Speaker 1: morehole started opening up and the cases against these guys.
26:23
Speaker 1: Because they tried showing the photographs of Mike, Maurice and
26:28
Speaker 1: Robert to some of the other customers who had gone
26:30
Speaker 1: into the yogurt shop that night, and none of them
26:33
Speaker 1: picked them out. And the two most important witnesses were
26:36
Speaker 1: Tim Striker and Margaret Sheen, but when they were shown photographs,
26:40
Speaker 1: they were unable to identify any of these suspects as
26:43
Speaker 1: the two men they had seen sitting at the table
26:46
Speaker 1: right before closing. And when you think about it, the
26:49
Speaker 1: confession kind of contradicted the story provided by Striker and
26:52
Speaker 1: she And because they said that they saw these two
26:55
Speaker 1: guys sitting in the store shortly before closing. Yet in
26:58
Speaker 1: the confession, Mike and said that we got in through
27:01
Speaker 1: the back door after the store was already closed. So
27:04
Speaker 1: you have these two promising suspects, these two unidentified men
27:08
Speaker 1: sitting at the table yet it seems pretty certain that
27:11
Speaker 1: this was not Michael, this was not Robert, this was
27:13
Speaker 1: not Maurice and lo and behold. When the trials started,
27:17
Speaker 1: Tim Striker and Margaret Sheen were never called upon to
27:20
Speaker 1: testify or tell the jury about their account because the
27:23
Speaker 1: prosecution pretty much feared this has gone to contradict the confessions,
27:28
Speaker 1: so we don't want to put these two on the stand.
27:31
Speaker 2: Well, that makes total sense, But you got to wonder
27:34
Speaker 2: did the defense have the information about Striker and Chienne.
27:39
Speaker 1: Ah, they did, yes, Like, guys, we're going to find
27:41
Speaker 1: out Oh, oh no, wait, maybe that he didn't. No,
27:43
Speaker 1: I don't think they knew about it. The prosecution did
27:46
Speaker 1: have the information, but the defense didn't.
27:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's what I was wondering. Is this like a
27:50
Speaker 2: Brady violation where you're going to hold something like that
27:52
Speaker 2: back because it certainly isn't going to benefit you as
27:56
Speaker 2: like being the prosecutor in that situation. So it's like,
27:59
Speaker 2: m were not going to put them on this down
28:01
Speaker 2: because it's not going to support our narrative. And why
28:04
Speaker 2: would we release the information to the defense because that's
28:08
Speaker 2: only going to help their.
28:09
Speaker 1: Case pretty much. And I've got another Brady violation to
28:12
Speaker 1: share with you. You might recall that when they confiscated the
28:15
Speaker 1: twenty two caliber pistol from Maurice back in nineteen ninety one,
28:19
Speaker 1: they did ballistic tests and compared it with the bullets
28:22
Speaker 1: from the murderers, but the results were inconclusive. So after
28:26
Speaker 1: they were arrested in May of two thousand, they decided
28:29
Speaker 1: to have the Bureau of Alcohol to back when firearms
28:32
Speaker 1: perform more advanced ballistics testing, and they ultimately issued report
28:36
Speaker 1: which showed that the results conclusively determined that Maurice's gun
28:40
Speaker 1: did not match the bullets and was not the murder weapon,
28:43
Speaker 1: which is all well and good, but it turned out
28:45
Speaker 1: that over a year later, in January of nineteen ninety nine,
28:49
Speaker 1: nearly nine months before the suspects were arrested, the Austin
28:52
Speaker 1: Pede had already performed their own ballistics tests on the gun,
28:56
Speaker 1: and once again the results showed that it did not
28:59
Speaker 1: match the bullets and was not the murder weapon. Yet
29:02
Speaker 1: they still decided to bring in Michael, Robert and Maurice
29:05
Speaker 1: for interrogation and hand the indictments down. And it turned
29:09
Speaker 1: out that this information about the ballistics tests from January
29:12
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety nine were not presented to the grand jury,
29:15
Speaker 1: which might have influenced their decision not to hand down
29:18
Speaker 1: the indictments. And when the question the lead detected Paul Johnson,
29:22
Speaker 1: he said, Oh, it was an unintentional oversight. I simply
29:25
Speaker 1: forgot the original ballistics tests.
29:28
Speaker 2: Sure, Paul, Sure. I think we see Brady violations so
29:32
Speaker 2: often because I think prosecutors will do it more often
29:36
Speaker 2: than we hear about because half the time we wouldn't
29:40
Speaker 2: find out about it because they don't know about it.
29:42
Speaker 2: So unless they discover the information on the defense side,
29:45
Speaker 2: then they're not going to know that there's a Brady violation.
29:47
Speaker 2: So I think most of the time it goes unnoticed,
29:51
Speaker 2: or they'll release it within like a huge data dump
29:54
Speaker 2: of like a ton of different documents and hope that
29:56
Speaker 2: it's hidden and then that way the defense has to
29:59
Speaker 2: go through thousands of pages and they'll bury it somewhere
30:02
Speaker 2: in there, but just to hold that information back because
30:05
Speaker 2: it doesn't serve their narrative. Like, I'm not surprised, but
30:09
Speaker 2: it's one of those things that you'd think there should
30:11
Speaker 2: be more of a penalty for prosecutors when they do that,
30:14
Speaker 2: but they seem to get a just a slap on
30:16
Speaker 2: the wrist pretty much.
30:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like to this day, no one has ever gotten
30:19
Speaker 1: any blowback for some of the unethical things that were
30:22
Speaker 1: done in this case. They pretty much got away with it,
30:24
Speaker 1: and they use the oh I forgot defense. It seems
30:26
Speaker 1: quite a lot. And here's another sneaky tactic. When Robert
30:30
Speaker 1: and Michael were put on trial, an intentional choice was
30:32
Speaker 1: made to only charge them with the murder of Amy Airs,
30:36
Speaker 1: which meant that if they were acquitted, that means they
30:38
Speaker 1: could charge them with the murders of the other three
30:40
Speaker 1: girls if need be. It's kind of like the Darley
30:43
Speaker 1: Routier case where they only charged her with the murder
30:46
Speaker 1: of one of her sons in case she was acquitted,
30:48
Speaker 1: because then they could put her on trial for the
30:49
Speaker 1: murder of her second son. And while I believe Darley
30:52
Speaker 1: Routier is guilty, I still think that's a very sneaky
30:55
Speaker 1: tactic which seems to happen a lot in Texas, and
30:58
Speaker 1: that certainly holds true here.
31:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to think that there was a possibility
31:03
Speaker 2: that Darley was innocent. I talked to Maggie Freeling about
31:06
Speaker 2: that case, and she believed in Darley's innocence. But the
31:09
Speaker 2: more that I've read on it and the more looked
31:12
Speaker 2: into it, my gut has told me that like she
31:14
Speaker 2: did it. There's just not enough evidence to support this
31:17
Speaker 2: intruder theory and the motivation is so unclear. But yeah,
31:21
Speaker 2: it totally made sense in that case. If you're looking
31:24
Speaker 2: at somebody who potentially murdered their children, you want to
31:28
Speaker 2: hedge your bets and you want to make sure that
31:31
Speaker 2: if you believe that this woman is guilty, or in
31:33
Speaker 2: this case, if you believe that these guys are guilty
31:36
Speaker 2: of killing these four girls, then you want to make
31:40
Speaker 2: sure that they're going to pay. And so to lump
31:42
Speaker 2: them all together into one that would be a really
31:46
Speaker 2: risky move. That's a gamble. And so I can understand
31:50
Speaker 2: their strategy.
31:50
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, because I guess they did have a lot
31:53
Speaker 1: of confidence in their cases and we're thinking, well, all
31:55
Speaker 1: we have is a confession here, but if we get
31:58
Speaker 1: it wrong this time, we have three more chance is
32:00
Speaker 1: to put them in prison.
32:02
Speaker 2: This way, you're going to get four bites at the apple,
32:04
Speaker 2: not one.
32:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So. Robert Springsteen's trial began in May of
32:09
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and he was informed that he
32:11
Speaker 1: would face the death penalty if he was found guilty,
32:14
Speaker 1: but he was offered a plea deal in which the
32:16
Speaker 1: death penalty would be taken off the table if he
32:19
Speaker 1: would testify against his co conspirators and he could receive
32:23
Speaker 1: a sense of no more than fourteen years in prison.
32:25
Speaker 1: But of course rob said, no, I'm not taking it
32:28
Speaker 1: because I didn't do it, so I'm going to take
32:30
Speaker 1: my chances at trial. So it was an awkward thing
32:33
Speaker 1: because Mike also turned down the same deal. He refused
32:36
Speaker 1: to testify against Robert at the trial, but they were
32:39
Speaker 1: able to read excerpts from Michael's confession which implicated Roberts,
32:44
Speaker 1: and it was kind of a thing where the only
32:46
Speaker 1: real evidence they have is snippets of a co conspirator's
32:49
Speaker 1: confession that they could read to the jury, but the
32:52
Speaker 1: co conspirator himself is not testifying. And there was more
32:56
Speaker 1: controversy because, as I mentioned earlier, when the original arson investigator,
33:02
Speaker 1: Melvin Stall, looked at the scene, he pretty much said
33:05
Speaker 1: that he thought that the metal shelves had been set
33:08
Speaker 1: on fire in the back room, and that they'd set
33:11
Speaker 1: fire to the combustible materials such as the cyrofoam cups.
33:15
Speaker 1: But the problem is that when Robert and Michael testified,
33:18
Speaker 1: they said that they had used an accelerant like lighter
33:21
Speaker 1: fluid to start the fire, which was a big contradiction.
33:24
Speaker 1: So they state got another arson investigator named Marshall Lyttleton,
33:29
Speaker 1: who once worked with the ATF as an explosives and
33:32
Speaker 1: fire investigator, and he expressed his belief that the fire
33:35
Speaker 1: had originated from the center of the room and that
33:38
Speaker 1: the defendants had used some accelerants and placed some flammable
33:42
Speaker 1: items on top of the victim's bodies and that's how
33:45
Speaker 1: they started the fire. So of course the defense wanted
33:48
Speaker 1: to bring in the original arson investigator, Melvin Stall, provide
33:52
Speaker 1: his theory of events, saying that, oh, well, if they
33:54
Speaker 1: started the fire on the shelf with the combustible materials,
33:57
Speaker 1: that totally contradicts the confession. But when Melvin Stall took
34:01
Speaker 1: the witness Dan, he said, yeah, I looked up Marshall
34:03
Speaker 1: Littleton's report and I'm now convinced that they used an accelerant,
34:07
Speaker 1: So I changed my mind from my original ruling, which
34:10
Speaker 1: was a major blow for the defense.
34:12
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's really convenient, isn't it.
34:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, they did try to point towards another suspect
34:19
Speaker 1: you may have heard of, Kenneth McDuff, who was a
34:21
Speaker 1: notorious serial killer who operated in Texas. It turned out
34:24
Speaker 1: that on December twenty ninth, nineteen ninety one, just over
34:27
Speaker 1: three weeks after the Yogret Shop murders took place, another
34:31
Speaker 1: horrible crime took place in Austin when a twenty eight
34:33
Speaker 1: year old woman named Colleen Reid was violently abducted from
34:37
Speaker 1: a car wash not too far from the yogre shop
34:40
Speaker 1: and she wound up being raped, tortured, and murdered, and
34:43
Speaker 1: the perpetrators were identified as Kenneth McDuff and an accomplice
34:47
Speaker 1: named al but Hank Whorley. So Kenneth McDuff. By this
34:51
Speaker 1: point he had already served time in prison, but got
34:54
Speaker 1: released in nineteen eighty nine because of overcrowding, even though
34:58
Speaker 1: he had committed three murders and he was a free
35:00
Speaker 1: man in nineteen ninety one when the Yogret Shop murders
35:03
Speaker 1: took place, and he was even though he lived in
35:05
Speaker 1: Waco at the time. He would reportedly make trips to
35:08
Speaker 1: Austin to score drugs. So the defense starts looking at
35:11
Speaker 1: the possibility what if Kenneth McDuff and albahnk Warley were
35:14
Speaker 1: the two men who were seen sitting at the table
35:17
Speaker 1: before closing, But they didn't really match the descriptions because
35:20
Speaker 1: they were described as being clean shaven men in their twenties,
35:23
Speaker 1: whereas Kenneth McDuff was forty five and albahank Warley had
35:27
Speaker 1: a long, bushy beard, so it was probably not them.
35:31
Speaker 1: During Robert's trial, the Austin TV station KVUE News reported
35:37
Speaker 1: that some anonymous sources had claimed that Kenneth McDuff had
35:40
Speaker 1: confessed to the yogret shop murders on the day he
35:42
Speaker 1: was executed in nineteen ninety eight, so they started looking
35:46
Speaker 1: into that, but unfortunately they cannot find any corroborating evidence.
35:50
Speaker 1: And apparently McDuff before he was executed, was asked about
35:54
Speaker 1: yoga chop murders and actually said, no, I did not
35:57
Speaker 1: do that crime, and I would have been proud of
35:59
Speaker 1: it if I had done it, so which is a
36:01
Speaker 1: very classy thing to say. So they didn't find enough
36:04
Speaker 1: evidence that McDuff was the real killer, so they couldn't
36:07
Speaker 1: introduce this evidence at trial. But for many years after that,
36:10
Speaker 1: some people started wondering, could Kenneth McDuff have been the
36:13
Speaker 1: real killer because this sort of crime faced his mo
36:16
Speaker 1: because he had at least nine confirmed victims that we
36:19
Speaker 1: know of, so killing four more would have been right
36:22
Speaker 1: up his alley.
36:23
Speaker 2: But it sounds like, just based on what he said,
36:26
Speaker 2: that there's an amount of humorous involved in that he's
36:29
Speaker 2: going out and maybe he would have liked to have
36:32
Speaker 2: taken credit for it if he did indeed do it,
36:34
Speaker 2: because he thought it to be impressive on some level,
36:37
Speaker 2: because you know, when it comes to killers, they seem
36:39
Speaker 2: to admire the work of each other. I mean, you
36:42
Speaker 2: can look at it two ways. He could have denied
36:44
Speaker 2: it if he was responsible, because he just wants to
36:47
Speaker 2: f with everybody and while he goes and not give
36:50
Speaker 2: them any breadcrumbs. Or he would own it and say yeah,
36:54
Speaker 2: I did it. I don't know. I can see why
36:57
Speaker 2: he was a really good suspect because obviously he had
37:00
Speaker 2: that many confirmed kills. It isn't a far reach to
37:03
Speaker 2: believe that he could be responsible.
37:05
Speaker 1: Yes, and spoiler alert, we're going to reveal that a
37:08
Speaker 1: serial killer was responsible for this crime, but it wasn't
37:10
Speaker 1: Kenneth McDuff. But when I covered this on the trail
37:13
Speaker 1: when cold two years ago, I thought that McDuff was
37:15
Speaker 1: a fairly intriguing alternate suspect. So Rob's trial lasted three
37:20
Speaker 1: weeks and when the case went to the jury, they
37:23
Speaker 1: deliberated for thirteen hours and they found him guilty of
37:26
Speaker 1: the murder of any Airs and he would be senced
37:28
Speaker 1: to death by a lethal injection. So Michael Scott's trial
37:33
Speaker 1: would begin over one year later in August of two
37:35
Speaker 1: thousand and two. And while I can understand separating the
37:38
Speaker 1: defendants and giving them separate trials, you just know that
37:41
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of bias there because
37:43
Speaker 1: no matter what the jury says, there's a good chance
37:46
Speaker 1: they probably heard that another defendant has already been convicted
37:49
Speaker 1: a co con spirit or of this same crime, and
37:52
Speaker 1: I think there's going to be a lot of bias.
37:54
Speaker 1: Once again, Robert refused to testify as a witness at
37:58
Speaker 1: Michael's trial, so other really had was being able to
38:01
Speaker 1: read some excerpts from Robert's confession without him actually going
38:05
Speaker 1: on the witness stand to corroborate any of it. But
38:07
Speaker 1: it still turned out to be enough to sway the jury.
38:09
Speaker 1: They deliberated for two days and found him guilty of
38:12
Speaker 1: Amy's murder. But since they cannot reach a unanimous verdict
38:16
Speaker 1: that they're sensing, he did not receive the death penalty
38:18
Speaker 1: and wound up receiving a sense of life imprisonment with
38:21
Speaker 1: no possibility of parole for thirty five years. But here's
38:24
Speaker 1: two separate trials to defendants where the only thing you
38:27
Speaker 1: had of them was their own confession and alleged co
38:29
Speaker 1: conspirators confession, and they were both found guilty, and.
38:33
Speaker 2: They'd both recanted their confessions by that point, correct, they did, Yes,
38:38
Speaker 2: So all you have is these initial confessions. But you also,
38:43
Speaker 2: I don't know if the defense knew this had confessions
38:46
Speaker 2: from what forty eight other people? Yeah, so, I mean
38:51
Speaker 2: how meaningful is that really when you don't have any
38:54
Speaker 2: physical or real circumstantial evidence to back this up other
38:58
Speaker 2: than the fact that they can.
39:01
Speaker 1: But as we talked about, these are juries in the
39:03
Speaker 1: early two thousands when there's not as much public knowledge
39:06
Speaker 1: above Faull's confessions. So they probably thought that was enough.
39:09
Speaker 1: They figured there's no way they would have done it,
39:12
Speaker 1: done these confessions unless they were guilty, and that influenced
39:15
Speaker 1: their verdict, but the state would face a bigger problem
39:19
Speaker 1: when Maurice Pierce was supposed to go on trial because
39:22
Speaker 1: he never did confess, so there really wasn't anything against
39:25
Speaker 1: him besides the confessions from Robert and Michael. And they
39:29
Speaker 1: have a rule that if you're implicated by a co conspirator,
39:33
Speaker 1: you can't use their confessions unless they take the witness
39:36
Speaker 1: stand to testify, and they refuse to do that. And
39:39
Speaker 1: it makes me think of the West Memphis three case
39:41
Speaker 1: where they had to do a separate trial for Jesse
39:44
Speaker 1: miss Kelly, who confessed, but when Jason Baldwin and Demon
39:48
Speaker 1: Eccles went on trial separately, Jesse refused to testify against them,
39:52
Speaker 1: so they were unable to use his confession as evidence
39:55
Speaker 1: against them at their trial. And this was a big
39:58
Speaker 1: problem with Maurice because the there was literally no other
40:01
Speaker 1: evidence besides the other confessions and they could not use them.
40:05
Speaker 1: So they ultimately decided to drop the murder charges against
40:09
Speaker 1: him before they went on trial, but they still said,
40:12
Speaker 1: we still believe he's guilty, but we just can't take
40:14
Speaker 1: him to trial with the evidence we have, so we
40:16
Speaker 1: have to let them go. And you can imagine what
40:19
Speaker 1: a bittersweet feeling that was for the victims' families because
40:22
Speaker 1: you've got two guys in prison right now, but the
40:24
Speaker 1: guy who has been accused of being the mastermind, they're saying, Oh,
40:28
Speaker 1: we can't take him to trial and we just have
40:30
Speaker 1: to let him go. So you've technically got a half
40:33
Speaker 1: solved mystery where two of the perpetrators are in prison
40:36
Speaker 1: and two of them are free.
40:38
Speaker 2: But literally, like when it comes down to cases, it's
40:41
Speaker 2: who can tell the best story, right, And for Maurice,
40:45
Speaker 2: what type of story would the prosecutor tell? You? Literally
40:48
Speaker 2: have zero evidence. He never confessed. You can't use those
40:53
Speaker 2: confessions because the other guys aren't going to testify at
40:56
Speaker 2: his trial. So you've got no physical evidence, no other
41:00
Speaker 2: circumstantial evidence.
41:02
Speaker 1: What would you present, Yeah, there's really nothing like he
41:06
Speaker 1: held out. He did not make his own confession, and
41:09
Speaker 1: there's no physical evidence against them. There's nothing placing him
41:12
Speaker 1: at the scene, and all they have are the confessions
41:15
Speaker 1: from his alleged co conspirators who refused to take the
41:18
Speaker 1: witness stand, so you can understand why they did this.
41:21
Speaker 1: But all you're thinking is maybe you should have thought
41:23
Speaker 1: about that before charging him in the first place, because
41:26
Speaker 1: he just had to spend four years sitting in a
41:28
Speaker 1: jail cell. And now you're letting him go, and you're
41:31
Speaker 1: just putting the victim's family through a ringer because now
41:34
Speaker 1: they believe that the alleged mastermind is going to walk
41:37
Speaker 1: free again.
41:38
Speaker 2: Well, they were probably just hoping that they could eventually
41:41
Speaker 2: get the guys to take the stand and to testify
41:44
Speaker 2: against him. That didn't happen. But it's unfortunate that he
41:47
Speaker 2: had to spend four years behind bars. But I'm sure
41:50
Speaker 2: that the prosecutor and the investigators weren't sad about that.
41:53
Speaker 2: They were like, at least that's some kind of justice,
41:56
Speaker 2: because they truly believe it seems that he was involved.
42:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they kind of justified it to themselves. And
42:02
Speaker 1: they did say that the door was open to charge
42:05
Speaker 1: him again if we could find new evidence, but of
42:07
Speaker 1: course they never did. That. Brings an end to part
42:10
Speaker 1: two of our series about the Austin yogurt chot murders.
42:13
Speaker 1: Join us again next week for part three.
42:16
Speaker 2: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
42:18
Speaker 2: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
42:20
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
42:22
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
42:26
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
42:29
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
42:32
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
42:35
Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
42:42
Speaker 1: the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
42:45
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
42:48
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
42:51
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries,
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Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
42:59
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
43:02
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
43:06
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
43:09
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
43:12
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
43:15
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
43:18
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
43:21
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
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Speaker 1: Tier three.
43:25
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
43:26
Speaker 3: about the jeweles Nashty patreons, So there's early ad free
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Speaker 3: episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent
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Speaker 3: Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're
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Speaker 3: not very mini, but they're just too short to turn
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Speaker 3: into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so
43:41
Speaker 3: we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them
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Speaker 3: in the show notes.
43:44
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
43:46
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
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43:51
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
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Speaker 1: the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
44:00
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chilly pass call for warm clothing.
44:03
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy