Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #174 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Eric Weakley and Michael Hash

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#174 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Eric Weakley and Michael Hash · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
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Speaker 1: writer and I'm Steve Drissing. Today we'll bring you to
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Speaker 1: Culpepper County, Virginia to tell you the story of teenage
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Speaker 1: buddies Eric Weekly and Michael Hash. Local police solved a
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Speaker 1: murder case by coercing Eric into falsely confessing and into
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Speaker 1: falsely implicating his friend Michael as an accomplice. For years,
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Speaker 1: lawyers couldn't get justice for either of them until Michael's
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Speaker 1: mom found evidence that blew this case wide open. Michael
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Speaker 1: Hash and Eric Weekly were childhood.
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Speaker 2: Friends, longtime friends.
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Speaker 1: And to see the way the systems split them apart
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Speaker 1: in this case, it's terrible.
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Speaker 2: It's not uncommon for one co defendant to turn on
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Speaker 2: another co defendant, especially in a state where the death
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Speaker 2: penalty is on.
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Speaker 1: The table, and it's really understandable how that could have
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Speaker 1: destroyed Eric's relationship with Mike and Mike's whole family. But
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Speaker 1: that's not what happened. One of the most incredible things
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Speaker 1: about Wrongful Convictions work is that you encounter these pockets
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Speaker 1: of grace in the most unexpected places, some of the
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Speaker 1: most unbelievable humans. You'll ever meet. Are people like Pam
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Speaker 1: hash whose son Mike was falsely implicated by his one
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Speaker 1: time childhood friend. You know, that's a situation that could
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Speaker 1: have led to a lot of rage and a lot
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Speaker 1: of anger, and a lot of blame.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean vengeance, anger, hatred. They can keep somebody stuck.
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Speaker 2: But Pam realized very early on that that was wasted
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Speaker 2: energy and that she needed to spend all her time
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Speaker 2: learning about the case, finding the right lawyers, doing her
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Speaker 2: own digging, and pushing the authorities to come to the
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Speaker 2: right solution.
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Speaker 1: She turned all of that into forgiveness. That's pretty incredible.
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Speaker 1: Today's story starts in Culpeper County, Virginia, about ninety minutes
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Speaker 1: west of the Washington d C Beltway. Culpeper is a
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Speaker 1: popular weekend getaway spot for the d C crowd. It's
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Speaker 1: got bed and breakfasts, art boutiques, and plenty of fancy cafes.
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Speaker 1: Architectural Digest even named Culpeper the prettiest area in Virginia.
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Speaker 1: But for all its beauty, Culpeper is also home to
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Speaker 1: an unremedied injustice, one that stains the county to this day.
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Speaker 1: That injustice began back in nineteen ninety six in Lignum,
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Speaker 1: an unincorporated part of Culpeper that hadn't quite caught up
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Speaker 1: to the rest of the county's growing prosperity. Lignam was
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Speaker 1: where seventy four year old Thelma Scroggins had lived her
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Speaker 1: whole life in the same two story frame house where
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Speaker 1: she'd been born. Thelma was a petite, curly haired lady
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Speaker 1: who'd retired from her work as a mail carrier. She'd
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Speaker 1: been widowed years earlier, and since then she lived alone.
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Speaker 1: But Thelma's life was still full and active. She had
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Speaker 1: plenty of friends and liked to spend time playing the
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Speaker 1: organ at the Baptist church across the street. It was
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Speaker 1: the evening of Saturday, July thirteenth, and Thelma was on
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Speaker 1: the phone with one of her girlfriends. At about nine pm,
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Speaker 1: Thelma told her friend that she had to go. Someone
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Speaker 1: was knocking at the door. The friend called back fifteen
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Speaker 1: minutes later, but got no answer. She tried again the
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Speaker 1: next morning, still no answer. When Thelma didn't show up
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Speaker 1: at church that Sunday morning, her friends really started worrying.
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Speaker 1: One of them, Richard Hicks, went over to Thelma's house
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Speaker 1: as he pulled up outside, he could hear Thelma's TV
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Speaker 1: blasting at top volume. Richard let himself inside. The front
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Speaker 1: door wasn't locked and found pink hair curlers scattered across
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Speaker 1: the living room floor. He went in further and saw
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Speaker 1: Thelma slumped over in front of her bedroom door. She'd
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Speaker 1: been shot in the head four times. It seemed the
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Speaker 1: TV had been turned up to mask the sound of
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Speaker 1: the gunshots. Police arrived and quickly canvassed the scene. They
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Speaker 1: found that Thelma's jewelry was still sitting on her dresser,
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Speaker 1: but her purse was missing, along with her green Ford
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Speaker 1: pickup truck. A month later, a deer hunter found the
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Speaker 1: truck abandoned in a wooded area about a mile and
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Speaker 1: a half away from Thelma's home. Her purse was there too,
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Speaker 1: with its contents scattered on the ground nearby. But despite
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Speaker 1: this discovery, police couldn't develop any viable suspects or leads.
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Speaker 1: A few months later, the case went cold. Three years later,
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Speaker 1: in November nineteen ninety nine, a new DA was elected
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Speaker 1: in Culpeper on a promise to solve cold cases. Shortly
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Speaker 1: after he took office, new detectives were assigned to investigate
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Speaker 1: Thelma Scroggin's murder. They started off by visiting a local
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Speaker 1: prison to interview a young woman named Alicia Shelton. Alisha
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Speaker 1: had just been convicted of shooting a man in the
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Speaker 1: head six times. The cops figured her crime was similar
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Speaker 1: enough to what happened to Thelma to make Alisha worth questioning.
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Speaker 1: On audiotape, Alicia told the investigators that she didn't know
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Speaker 1: anything about Thelma's murder, But then one detective offered what
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Speaker 1: he called a little foundation. He suggested that Alicia might
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Speaker 1: get a reduced sentence if she provided information about her
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Speaker 1: teenage cousin, Michael Hash Then silence. The tape was shut off,
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Speaker 1: supposedly for a cigarette break. When the recorder got turned
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Speaker 1: back on, Alicia was suddenly full of ideas. She said
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Speaker 1: she'd overheard her cousin Michael, discussing his involvement in Thelma's murder.
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Speaker 1: She said Michael did it along with his buddies Eric
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Speaker 1: Weekley and Jason Chlobe.
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Speaker 2: Alicia Shelton was looking at a lot of time and
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Speaker 2: desperate for a way to get out from underneath the
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Speaker 2: weight of a heavy sentence. I don't know what happened
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Speaker 2: when the camera was off, but there had to be
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Speaker 2: some powerful inducement to get her to change her story
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Speaker 2: from I don't know what you're talking about two fingering
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Speaker 2: her own cousin and his friends for this crime.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, when Thelma was killed, Michael was fifteen,
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Speaker 1: Eric was sixteen, and Jason was eighteen. They had grown
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Speaker 1: up together, writing go karts as kids and crushing on
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Speaker 1: girls as teenagers. Michael and his parents, Jeff and Pam Hash,
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Speaker 1: lived within a mile of Thelma's house. In fact, Thelma
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Speaker 1: had been the Hash family's mail carrier, delivering birthday cards
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Speaker 1: and letters to the home with her typical friendly wave.
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Speaker 1: Michael was a good kid. There was no reason whatsoever
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Speaker 1: to suspect him and his friends of killing Thelma Scroggins.
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Speaker 1: It's true that Michael used to frequent a campsite near
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Speaker 1: the wooded area where Thelma's truck had been found, but
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Speaker 1: that was a pretty thin connection. Somehow, though, Michael Hash,
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Speaker 1: Jason Chlobe, and Eric Weekley found themselves at the center
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Speaker 1: of a cold case murder investigation in April two thousand.
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Speaker 1: Police decide to interrogate, but they don't start with Michael
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Speaker 1: Hash or Jason Chlobe. They start with Eric Weekly. By
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Speaker 1: this time, Eric was nineteen years old with a reputation
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Speaker 1: as a follower, someone who could be easily intimidated.
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Speaker 2: Eric Weekly was a weak link. He had a little
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Speaker 2: daughter that he cared very much about. He had a
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Speaker 2: prior record, which gave interrogators leverage. They started with him
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Speaker 2: because they felt that he was the most likely to
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Speaker 2: break and it worked.
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Speaker 1: Eric's at his factory job when two detectives approach him
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Speaker 1: and start asking about Thelma's murder. Eric is shocked. He
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Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. He tells the detectives
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Speaker 1: they're crazy and says he has to get back to work.
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Speaker 1: The cops leave, but not for long. They follow Eric everywhere,
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Speaker 1: the gas station, the grocery store. They show up at
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Speaker 1: Eric job over and over.
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Speaker 2: These detectives would not leave him alone. They hounded him,
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Speaker 2: They stalked him, They kept coming to his workplace trying
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Speaker 2: to question him. It got to the point where his
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Speaker 2: employer just was fed up and he fired Eric. And
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Speaker 2: Eric got worried that he would never be able to
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Speaker 2: get another job because everywhere he would go, these cops
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Speaker 2: would just show up at his work again. So he
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Speaker 2: gave up, and he agreed finally to go to the
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Speaker 2: police station and answer their questions.
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Speaker 1: Over the next several weeks, Eric and doors not one,
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Speaker 1: not two, but a whole chain of interrogations as the
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Speaker 1: police keep insisting he come back again and again. Some
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Speaker 1: of these interrogations last longer than twelve hours. Only a
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Speaker 1: few are recorded, but what did get caught on tape
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Speaker 1: is enough to make anyone skeptical. During the first few interrogations,
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Speaker 1: Eric protests his innocence over and over. He doesn't have
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Speaker 1: the mind or the heart to kill somebody, he tells police.
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Speaker 3: And I'm sitting here telling me no, and you're still
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Speaker 3: not believe I'm.
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Speaker 2: Sitting here telling you.
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Speaker 4: No, I did not shoot this one.
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Speaker 1: The police won't listen to Eric. They insist he's guilty,
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Speaker 1: and they chip away at him slowly and steadily over
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Speaker 1: the course of weeks.
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Speaker 4: You saw that woman, to you too, you saw the blood.
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Speaker 3: Why do you sit here and try to lie to
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Speaker 3: me about that today?
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Speaker 1: Then the police tell Eric that if he cooperates, he
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Speaker 1: can go home. If he just repeats the details they
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Speaker 1: feed him, the police can work with him, even help him.
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Speaker 4: But if you saw blood come from the heat, that.
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Speaker 1: Helps Eric, but if Eric holds back, if he refuses
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Speaker 1: to say he was involved, they say that'll hurt him.
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Speaker 1: If he doesn't confess, he might not get to see
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Speaker 1: his daughter anymore. These interrogations continue off and on for weeks,
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Speaker 1: but Eric still won't confess, so the cops pull out
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Speaker 1: a tried and true tact.
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Speaker 2: Finally, they say, okay, Eric, if you have nothing to
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Speaker 2: do with this, would you at least come down and
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Speaker 2: take a polygraph exam? And Eric did. He took that
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Speaker 2: exam to get these police officers off his back, and
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Speaker 2: then they told him he failed the exam, which got
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Speaker 2: him talking.
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Speaker 1: The polygraph finally does it. Eric weekly realizes he'll never
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Speaker 1: be able to get the police to believe him, and
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Speaker 1: he breaks. He agrees to tell the cops a story.
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Speaker 1: Eric says that he, Michael, and Jason chopped Thelma's body
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Speaker 1: up with an axe. Their motive, he said, was robbery.
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Speaker 1: They stole diamond rings, vases, and necklaces from her home,
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Speaker 1: a king's ransom in treasure. This was a confessional, right,
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Speaker 1: but none of it came close to what actually happened.
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Speaker 1: Thelma wasn't attacked with an axe, and what little jewelry
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Speaker 1: she owned was found sitting on her dresser, so police
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Speaker 1: accused Eric of lying again. Eric's response, I'm just telling
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Speaker 1: you what you want to hear. I can go the
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Speaker 1: hell home. The police don't let him go the hell home.
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Speaker 1: They've got to clean up Eric's story and it takes hours.
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Speaker 1: They cut him short when he begins to describe the
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Speaker 1: jewelry because none of it had actually been taken. They
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Speaker 1: show him photos of the crime scene so that he
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Speaker 1: can see Thelma's body wasn't mutilated with an axe. In fact,
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Speaker 1: they end up straight out telling Eric that Thelma had
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Speaker 1: been shot, and all these details provided by the police
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Speaker 1: are what end up in Eric's confession. Eric's story becomes
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Speaker 1: final on May sixteenth, two thousand. He's arrested. Immediately that
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Speaker 1: same night, police come for Jason Chlobe and Michael Hash.
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Speaker 3: The night that he was arrested, it was it was
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Speaker 3: a total shock.
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Speaker 1: That's Pam Hash, she's Michael Hash's mom.
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Speaker 3: It was about one o'clock in the morning. Everybody had
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Speaker 3: gone to bed, and all of a sudden, there's barking dogs,
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Speaker 3: people banging on the door, yelling. My husband got up,
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Speaker 3: went to the door and they pretty much just barged
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Speaker 3: into the home they were wanting Michael. She had, of course,
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Speaker 3: his boxers on nothing else, and I begged them to
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Speaker 3: let him have at least a shirt and shoes. They
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Speaker 3: let him take it with him, and in a matter
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Speaker 3: of minutes he was loaded into the car, and all
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Speaker 3: these cars left, and we got dressed and followed them.
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Speaker 3: It was all so quick, it felt like it was
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Speaker 3: in a movie. It was just a nightmare.
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Speaker 1: Pam's nightmare had just begun. She would soon find out
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Speaker 1: her son, Michael, along with his buddies Eric and Jason,
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Speaker 1: had been charged with capital murder. Culpeper County Commonwealth Attorney
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Speaker 1: Gary Close prosecuted each of the boys, starting with Jason Chlobe,
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Speaker 1: but the prosecution had a problem. There was no evidence
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Speaker 1: against Jason except for Eric's statement, and prosecutors could only
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Speaker 1: use Eric's statement against Jason if Eric agreed to testify
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Speaker 1: in person against him.
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Speaker 2: It's not enough to simply play Eric's confession during the
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Speaker 2: trial of Michael and Jason, because lawyers can't cross examine
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Speaker 2: a confession. They need to be able to cross examine
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Speaker 2: Eric about what he says on that tape. It's part
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Speaker 2: of a constitutional right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses
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Speaker 2: the right of cross examination.
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Speaker 1: The prosecution needed Eric weekly to get up on the
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Speaker 1: witness stand and testify. To get him there, they offered
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Speaker 1: him a deal. If Eric agreed to testify against both
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Speaker 1: Jason and Michael, the state would reduce Eric's charges to
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Speaker 1: second degree murder. That charge carried at most twenty years
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Speaker 1: behind bars, sometimes much less. If Eric didn't take the deal.
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Speaker 1: On the other hand, he was facing life in prison
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Speaker 1: if convicted. Eric was in despair. He felt cornered by
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Speaker 1: the confession that detectives had wrung out of him. Like
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Speaker 1: so many people before him, Eric felt that he had
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Speaker 1: no real choice. He took the deal and agreed to
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Speaker 1: testify against his friends.
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Speaker 2: Once you confess, the pressure to plead guilty on these
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Speaker 2: suspects is even greater. Of all the exonerations in the
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Speaker 2: DNA database, twelve percent involve people who pledged guilty to
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Speaker 2: crimes they didn't commit, and each one of those pleas
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Speaker 2: involved someone who was represented by counsel and who weighed
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Speaker 2: the options and decided it was in their best interests
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Speaker 2: to give up all of their rights, to give up
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Speaker 2: their right to testify, their right to appeal, their right
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Speaker 2: to prove their innocence in order to plead guilty.
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Speaker 1: Eric was now a lock for the prosecution. In November
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Speaker 1: two thousand, it was time to try Jason Klobe, as
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Speaker 1: he'd agreed to do. Eric took the stand and testified
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Speaker 1: that Jason had participated in the murder, but Jason's defense
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Speaker 1: lawyers had an ace in the hole, an alibi. They
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Speaker 1: brought in several witnesses who testified that Jason had been
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Speaker 1: visiting his dad in Pennsylvania at the time of Thelma's murder.
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Speaker 1: It took the jury less than two hours to find
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Speaker 1: Jason Klobe not guilty.
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Speaker 2: If Jason wasn't present during this crime, then that undermines
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Speaker 2: Eric's entire confession because he has Jason right there being
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Speaker 2: a major actor along with Michael in the murder of
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Speaker 2: Thelmas Kroggins. Once these detectives learned that Jason had an alibi,
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Speaker 2: they should have walked away from this case.
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Speaker 1: But detectives didn't walk away. Instead, they plowed ahead with
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Speaker 1: the trial of Michael Hash.
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Speaker 3: After Chlobe was acquitted, I kept telling Mike, you're next.
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Speaker 3: They know the truth from Chlobe's cage you're next, You'll
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Speaker 3: be next, You're coming home now.
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Speaker 1: Michael didn't have a strong alibi like Jason did. When
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Speaker 1: Thelma died, Michael had been right there in Culpeper County,
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Speaker 1: hanging out with some buddies. But even though Michael's defense
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Speaker 1: was weaker, the prosecutors decided to leave nothing to chance.
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Speaker 2: They knew that Eric Weekly's testimony alone wasn't going to
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Speaker 2: be enough to get a conviction against Michael, So what
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Speaker 2: did they do? They manufactured more evidence. They went to
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Speaker 2: a seasoned serial snitch, a jailhouse informant who had worked
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Speaker 2: with them in the past and testified in other cases,
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Speaker 2: Paul Carter.
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Speaker 1: About a week after Michael had been arrested, he met
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Speaker 1: Paul Carter in jail. At the time, it seemed like
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Speaker 1: a random encounter. Later, at Michael's trial, Carter testified that
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Speaker 1: when they met, Michael had admitted to killing Thelma. During
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Speaker 1: cross examination, Eric's defense attorneys suggested Carl was getting some
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Speaker 1: benefit in exchange for fabricating testimony against Michael, but Carter
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Speaker 1: denied it. He said he wasn't receiving anything for his cooperation.
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Speaker 3: He was a pretty career criminal and he knew what
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Speaker 3: he was doing, even though he's up there telling the
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Speaker 3: jury that he is only there because this was somebody's
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Speaker 3: mother or grandmother. You know, he's looking for something, and
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Speaker 3: I thought the jury would see right through that.
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Speaker 1: The prosecutor backed up his witnesses claim, telling the jury that,
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Speaker 1: of course, the state hadn't made any deal with Carter.
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Speaker 1: After testimony concluded, the jury deliberated for six and a
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Speaker 1: half hours. As the clocks neared midnight on February ninth,
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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, they returned a verdict guilty.
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Speaker 3: It's a sound that I think I'll hear for the
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Speaker 3: rest of my life. When they came back and said
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Speaker 3: that they found him guilty, it's almost like you hear guilty, guilty, guilty,
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Speaker 3: just echoing, and quite frankly, I don't remember a whole
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Speaker 3: lot after that. I know that I broke down and
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Speaker 3: they took Mike immediately out of the courtroom. I remember
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Speaker 3: my husband putting me in the backseat of the car,
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Speaker 3: and don't really remember a whole lot after that Until
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Speaker 3: the next morning.
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Speaker 1: At sentencing, Michael told the judge, you've convicted an innocent person,
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Speaker 1: but it was too late. Michael hash was sentenced to
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Speaker 1: life without the possibility of parole.
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Speaker 2: A lot of defendants in Michael's situation might have pled guilty.
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Speaker 1: And accepted a much shorter sentence.
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Speaker 2: But Michael didn't confess. That's important. It's never wrong to
18:39
Speaker 2: assert your innocence.
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Speaker 1: For his part, Eric Weekly had finally satisfied the state
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Speaker 1: he'd lived up to his end of the bargain and
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Speaker 1: testified against his friends. In exchange, the state reduced Eric's
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Speaker 1: charges to second degree murder, to which Eric formally pled
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Speaker 1: guilty on June thirteenth, two thousand and one. He would
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Speaker 1: go on to serve six years an eight months in prison.
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Speaker 3: Eric implicating Michael and Jason and even himself. It angered me,
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Speaker 3: but I would always go back to I know he's
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Speaker 3: not doing this. Just knowing Eric, somebody is making him
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Speaker 3: say these things. They're threatening him. He had a child
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Speaker 3: by then, a young child, and I knew that that
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Speaker 3: was probably his main focus was I'm going to do
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Speaker 3: whatever to get back to my child. And I can't
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Speaker 3: be mad at that because I'm a mom.
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Speaker 1: Eric Weekly served his time and was freed in two
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Speaker 1: thousand and six, but Michael remained behind bars, serving a
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Speaker 1: life sentence, even as he pursued his appeals.
19:44
Speaker 3: You know, each year at Christmas time, I'd have that
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Speaker 3: faith he's going to be home this year, and I'd
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Speaker 3: buy him Christmas presents, just like I did every year.
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Speaker 3: Before i'd wrap them, i'd have them under the tree.
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Speaker 3: I'd always after Christmas take him up, pack them away
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Speaker 3: in a box, and add to it each Christmas that
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Speaker 3: he didn't come home.
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Speaker 1: When Michael's last appeal ended fruitlessly, Pam Hash drove to
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Speaker 1: the office of her son's lawyers and took his paperwork.
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Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about the legal system or law
20:20
Speaker 3: I worked as a floral designer.
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Speaker 1: But she was a mother and she was going to
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Speaker 1: help her son.
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Speaker 3: I went to the office and picked up what must
20:29
Speaker 3: have been a dozen legal boxes, tens of thousands of papers,
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Speaker 3: just thrown in a box in no particular order. And
20:37
Speaker 3: that's pretty much when I started searching the internet on
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Speaker 3: false confessions, asking questions, looking up people that I could
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Speaker 3: call that I could beg for help. Steve Grison was
20:50
Speaker 3: one of the first people that I contacted. I knew
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Speaker 3: that Eric had given a false confession, and I thought
20:57
Speaker 3: maybe Steve could help me. I sent letters to him,
21:01
Speaker 3: I made phone calls and bless his heart, I think
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Speaker 3: he took my call just so that maybe I would
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Speaker 3: shut up.
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Speaker 2: Pam Hash would call me, would send me information. She
21:12
Speaker 2: sent me a VHS of Eric's interrogation. I reviewed those
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Speaker 2: transcripts and talked about the case with her. Pam was
21:22
Speaker 2: a very forceful advocate for her son. She believed that
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Speaker 2: he was absolutely innocent and was willing to go to
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Speaker 2: the ends of the earth to prove it.
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Speaker 1: Steve put Pam in touch with several people in Virginia,
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Speaker 1: everyone from lawyers to exoneries like Beverly Monroe, who we
21:43
Speaker 1: talked about in Emerson Stephens story. In fact, it was
21:46
Speaker 1: Beverly who told Pam Hash to go to the federal
21:49
Speaker 1: courthouse and pull the file on Paul Carter that jailhouse
21:54
Speaker 1: snitch prosecutors had denied making a deal with.
21:57
Speaker 3: I went to the Federal court and I asked the
21:59
Speaker 3: clerk of the court to look through his files. Her
22:02
Speaker 3: exact remark to me was, and this is the clerk
22:05
Speaker 3: of the federal court Paul Carter. She said, Oh, he
22:09
Speaker 3: got the deal of the century.
22:11
Speaker 1: Turns out Paul Carter had been serving a fifteen year
22:14
Speaker 1: sentence on federal drug charges after he testified against Michael.
22:18
Speaker 1: Though Carter was immediately released time served, he sure did
22:23
Speaker 1: get the deal of the century, a get out of
22:25
Speaker 1: jail free card. It also turned out that Michael had
22:29
Speaker 1: been moved to a different jail for two nights for
22:32
Speaker 1: no other reason than to put him together with Paul Carter.
22:35
Speaker 1: None of this had been disclosed to Michael's defense or
22:38
Speaker 1: to Eric Weakley's defense. Pam may have started out as
22:44
Speaker 1: a floral designer, but her legal work was pretty kick ass.
22:48
Speaker 1: She had single handedly demolished Carter's value as a witness
22:51
Speaker 1: against her son. She had proven that the prosecutor lied
22:55
Speaker 1: when he told the jury there was no deal with Carter.
22:58
Speaker 1: The only evidence against Mia Michael that remained was Eric Weekly.
23:11
Speaker 1: A few years after Eric's release from prison, two lawyers
23:14
Speaker 1: from the University of Virginia Innocence Project knocked on his door.
23:18
Speaker 1: Eric was rebuilding his life as best he could, but
23:21
Speaker 1: his friend, Michael Hash was still behind bars. Did Eric
23:24
Speaker 1: want to tell them anything about his testimony against Michael?
23:29
Speaker 1: Eric nearly broke down. His false testimony against Michael had
23:33
Speaker 1: sat for years on his shoulders like a lead weight.
23:36
Speaker 1: He had been coerced into confessing by police and into
23:39
Speaker 1: pleading guilty by prosecutors. But fairly or unfairly, he blamed himself.
23:45
Speaker 1: Could he really take it all back, try at last
23:48
Speaker 1: to do right by his friend.
23:51
Speaker 2: Eric was at risk of being charged with perjury if
23:55
Speaker 2: he came forward and said that everything he had testified
23:59
Speaker 2: to was a lie. The sad part is that even
24:04
Speaker 2: when witnesses recant their statement, prosecutors and judges most of
24:10
Speaker 2: the time don't believe them. They think that the initial
24:14
Speaker 2: statement is the true statement and that the recantation is
24:18
Speaker 2: a lie. So Eric risked doing it all for nothing,
24:21
Speaker 2: because if the courts didn't believe him and Michael stays
24:26
Speaker 2: in prison.
24:27
Speaker 1: Eric decided the risk was worth it. On March twenty first,
24:31
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, he signed an affidavit recanting everything. I had
24:36
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Thelma s Groggin's murder, and neither
24:39
Speaker 1: did Michael hash He wrote, we are innocent of this crime. Instead,
24:44
Speaker 1: he explained that police had fed him information about Thelma's
24:47
Speaker 1: murder and coerced him into repeating it.
24:49
Speaker 2: This was courageous, and I think that Pam and Michael
24:54
Speaker 2: recognized it as such.
24:56
Speaker 3: I was so happy when Eric came forward because I
25:01
Speaker 3: knew how much he stood to lose, yet he was
25:05
Speaker 3: still doing this, and it just was maybe here's some
25:08
Speaker 3: more hope. Maybe this will be something that'll turn the
25:12
Speaker 3: case around. Now.
25:14
Speaker 1: Eric couldn't benefit directly from his affidavit because, as we
25:17
Speaker 1: mentioned before, when you plead guilty, you give up your
25:20
Speaker 1: right to prove your own innocence. But Michael Hash could benefit.
25:25
Speaker 1: He hadn't pled guilty, he'd been convicted at trial. That
25:28
Speaker 1: meant that legally he was still able to challenge his
25:31
Speaker 1: conviction in court. Michael's lawyers at the mid Atlantic Innocence
25:34
Speaker 1: Project snapped into action, with Pam Hash right alongside them.
25:38
Speaker 1: They filed a petition to overturn Michael's conviction, with Eric's
25:42
Speaker 1: affidavit and the secret deal with Paul Carter as the centerpieces.
25:46
Speaker 1: Pam Hash knew from day one that her son was innocent.
25:49
Speaker 1: Her investigative work, together with Eric's recantation, had proved it,
25:54
Speaker 1: but every time she'd spoken out in the past, authorities
25:57
Speaker 1: had told her to shut up, sit down, stop being
26:00
Speaker 1: so dramatic.
26:01
Speaker 3: I knew exactly what called Pepper County was capable of.
26:05
Speaker 3: It's blatant that this was a setup that he was
26:08
Speaker 3: put in with a snitch, and I was told, missus Hash,
26:12
Speaker 3: you watch too much TV. This is real life that
26:15
Speaker 3: doesn't happen.
26:16
Speaker 1: Would this time be different? Would someone finally listen? On
26:20
Speaker 1: February twenty eighth, twenty twelve, Pam got her answer a
26:25
Speaker 1: federal judge. Throughout Michael's conviction, the judge ruled that Eric's
26:29
Speaker 1: recantation was more believable than his confession. As for Pam's
26:33
Speaker 1: discoveries about Paul Carter, the judge said prosecutors had out
26:36
Speaker 1: and out lied when they denied cutting Carter a deal.
26:40
Speaker 1: Real life had met real justice.
26:42
Speaker 3: It was like, yes, yes, somebody finally gets it after
26:48
Speaker 3: so many doors being shut. This was amazing. For once
26:53
Speaker 3: we won something.
26:57
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, Michael was released from prison. He'd been
27:00
Speaker 1: behind bars for nearly twelve years.
27:03
Speaker 3: It was an absolute perfect day. I hugged him and
27:07
Speaker 3: all I could think to tell him was no more change, Mike,
27:11
Speaker 3: no more change. After he came home, I gave him
27:15
Speaker 3: this huge box with all of his Christmas presents in it,
27:18
Speaker 3: and some of them were twelve years old, so the
27:22
Speaker 3: wrapping paper was faded, and like a delmy I had
27:26
Speaker 3: bought chocolate well that had melted and rehardened and melted
27:32
Speaker 3: and turned white. He started opening video games that you
27:36
Speaker 3: couldn't even get the computer to play them on anymore,
27:39
Speaker 3: but he loved it just the same. We cried a
27:43
Speaker 3: lot of sad tears and a lot of happy tears.
27:50
Speaker 1: A few months later, all charges against Michael Hash were
27:53
Speaker 1: formally dismissed. That day, Pam wrote an email to Steve
27:58
Speaker 1: just three words long.
28:00
Speaker 2: One Steve, I almost fell out of my chair. I
28:04
Speaker 2: was ecstatic.
28:05
Speaker 1: As for Eric Weekly, the judge's decision took a twelve
28:08
Speaker 1: year burden off his shoulders. I'm glad that man's home.
28:12
Speaker 1: Eric told the local news. I feel like I amended
28:15
Speaker 1: my wrong. Since the charges were dismissed, Michael Hash has
28:20
Speaker 1: been making the most of his freedom. In twenty fifteen,
28:23
Speaker 1: he got married. His parents were there, his lawyers were there,
28:27
Speaker 1: and you know who else was there? Eric Weekly celebrating
28:31
Speaker 1: with all his heart. All had been forgiven.
28:34
Speaker 3: It was as if nothing happened, and this was Mike's decision.
28:38
Speaker 3: But why not? We were friends then, we're still friends now.
28:42
Speaker 3: Why shouldn't I invite him to my wedding?
28:45
Speaker 1: And the prosecutor who secured Michael and Eric's convictions. He
28:49
Speaker 1: resigned one day before Michael walked free. That prosecutor was
28:53
Speaker 1: later reprimanded by the Virginia bar for lying to the
28:56
Speaker 1: jury about Paul Carter's get out of jail free card.
29:02
Speaker 1: As for Eric himself, he remains convicted of second degree murder. Remember,
29:08
Speaker 1: he doesn't have access to post conviction relief because he
29:11
Speaker 1: pled guilty. Eric Weekly brought justice to Michael Hash by
29:15
Speaker 1: making right and old wrong. Now it's time to bring
29:18
Speaker 1: justice to Eric too. In twenty eighteen, Eric's attorneys filed
29:24
Speaker 1: a pardon petition with the Governor of Virginia. While he
29:27
Speaker 1: waits for an answer, Eric has to face everybody from
29:30
Speaker 1: employers to landlords, with a murder conviction on his record.
29:34
Speaker 1: A formal pardon from the governor would change that. It
29:37
Speaker 1: would exonerate Eric Weekly. And that's what Eric deserves. But
29:42
Speaker 1: don't take our word for it. Here's what Michael Hash thinks.
29:46
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I think the governors should poor and Eric. I
29:48
Speaker 4: think he was made to do what he did and
29:50
Speaker 4: now he's still a part of this ordeal just as
29:53
Speaker 4: I am. So he deserves just as much as anybody else.
29:56
Speaker 4: Does in this case to have themselves vindicated.
30:03
Speaker 1: Hello, Hey, Eric, this is Laura and Steve. How are
30:06
Speaker 1: you doing all right?
30:07
Speaker 3: Great?
30:07
Speaker 1: How are you are you spending your time these days?
30:12
Speaker 2: Living life palms, spend time with my wife and kids
30:15
Speaker 2: and my grand baby and all that good stuff.
30:19
Speaker 1: Grand baby, that's exciting.
30:21
Speaker 2: Oh wonderful.
30:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, how old?
30:24
Speaker 3: She's a year and a half now, Wow, that's great.
30:29
Speaker 2: I got a call from Pam Hash about your case,
30:33
Speaker 2: actually when she was fighting to get Michael freed. The
30:36
Speaker 2: day that Michael got released from prison was the greatest
30:39
Speaker 2: day of my life.
30:40
Speaker 3: Man.
30:41
Speaker 2: After it was all over with me and Michael had
30:44
Speaker 2: a long conversation and we made amendsum amongst each other.
30:47
Speaker 3: That's how friends do. Then to see my friend come
30:50
Speaker 3: home and just do his thing and live his life
30:53
Speaker 3: free from all of it now, and it's a great feeling. Eric.
30:57
Speaker 1: What would it mean to you to receive a pardon
30:59
Speaker 1: from the Governor of Virginia.
31:02
Speaker 2: Overin only fourteen years and I went back to present,
31:05
Speaker 2: got a beautiful wife, got a beautiful family, and still
31:07
Speaker 2: fighting it and.
31:08
Speaker 1: I still keep my head held high.
31:11
Speaker 2: But it'd be a life altering pain.
31:13
Speaker 1: I can actually go out and not worried about having
31:16
Speaker 1: to put down If I'm okay Victor Fellon or not.
31:18
Speaker 1: I mean, it will mean the world for me just
31:21
Speaker 1: to solidify that, you know me, Mike and Jason.
31:23
Speaker 2: Were anothing of all of it. I don't know how
31:26
Speaker 2: I'm going to react until I have the paper in
31:28
Speaker 2: my hand.
31:29
Speaker 3: I mean, I might just break down and cry like
31:31
Speaker 3: a little girl. You know what, I never know.
31:41
Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is that if you have
31:43
Speaker 2: a murder conviction on your record, that's an incredible yoke
31:47
Speaker 2: to have to carry with you for the rest of
31:49
Speaker 2: your life. That's right.
31:50
Speaker 1: I mean, Jason Chlobe was found to be not guilty.
31:53
Speaker 1: Michael Hash now has been exonerated. Eric Weekly's is innocent.
31:57
Speaker 2: It's the other guys, and it's time for the governor
32:00
Speaker 2: to declare that Eric is actually innocent.
32:05
Speaker 1: If you want to support Eric Weekly's pardon petition, you
32:08
Speaker 1: can write to the Governor of Virginia. To find the
32:11
Speaker 1: governor's contact information, check out this episode's description on your
32:15
Speaker 1: podcast app, or visit my Instagram page at Laura and
32:18
Speaker 1: I Writer. And That's the story of Michael Hash and
32:23
Speaker 1: Eric Weekly. Join us next week when we tell you
32:26
Speaker 1: about Michigan police officer Ray McCann ray found himself accused
32:30
Speaker 1: of a brutal murder that he'd helped investigate. His story
32:34
Speaker 1: is proof that interrogator's lies can trap anybody in a
32:37
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction, even a cop. Wrongful Conviction False Confessions is
32:42
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
32:46
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one Special thanks to our executive producers
32:50
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis. Our production team is headed
32:54
Speaker 1: by senior producer Ann Pope along with producers Joshi Hammer
32:58
Speaker 1: and Jess Shane. Our show is made by Genie Montalvo.
33:01
Speaker 1: John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our music was composed
33:05
Speaker 1: by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or
33:08
Speaker 1: Twitter at Laura and I Wrider, and you.
33:10
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
33:14
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com.
33:18
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
33:22
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
33:27
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction