Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just absolutely really.
Pamous blood on his clothing the day after the alleged.
Attamp on a shallow mud bank and it fits Roy River. Basically.
I think most of the people are used to me are good people.
I think a really important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the blinds to shine a light on the.
Darkest parts of our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm Amy Maguire.
And I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Now, if you've been listening to the podcast from the very beginning, you would remember the interview that got Martin interested in Kevin Henry's case.
Martin joined me on the Aboriginal.
Talkback program Let's Talk last year to discuss the case of Rodney Reid, who currently is on death row over in the United States, and it was through his investigation into Rodney's case in particular, that I began to realize that Martin might be able to help with Kevin Henry in my hometown of Rockampden.
Now this episode, we're going to look.
Back at Rodney.
Reed's case in particular.
Martin, are there any updates in Rodney's case.
Yeah, We've actually had some really big developments in Rodney's case in the last week. But I'll give a little background of the case for those who didn't hear that interview we did more than a year ago. Rodney was sentenced to death for the murder of a woman named Stacy Stitz, and there was virtually no evidence again against Rodney. The only evidence they had at the time was a small bit of DNA evidence, and Rodney was able to easily explain that Rodney had been in a relationship with
Mistites for about four to five months. Now, Rodney's an African American man in an almost exclusively white town in rural Texas, and many of the issues in terms of racism in the justice system that Aboriginal on Torres Strait Islander people face in Australia and in Kevin's case in Queensland, nearly identical to what African American people suffer, particularly in a state like Texas that still has the death penalty
and has these towns where segregation almost still exists. So the mere fact that Mistites was a white woman and that mister Reed was a black man and they had been having a relationship was controversial. What made it more controversial Misdites was engaged to one of the town's police officers. Now, after a long investigation that was conducted by one of that police officer's best friends and his next door neighbor, also a police officer, Rodney was found guilty and sentenced
to death. Now, twice the state of Texas have tried to execute Rodney, and twice we've been able to head that off at the last minute. And this is largely because there is basically no evidence against Rodney other than this small piece of DNA, and that piece of DNA is easily explainable because they were in a relationship. Now we also go to the issue of the police in vas instigation, and here it is very similar to the
case of Kevin Henry. Kevin, like Rodney, there was no eyewitness that saw either Kevin nor Rodney involved in the murder of either Stacy or Linda in any way. In Kevin's case, there is no forensic evidence at all, and in Rodney's case, there's no blood or anything like that. There's no murder weapon, there's no evidence of Rodney at the murder scene. There's just the DNA that would match up with the fact that they had been in a relationship.
And as we've talked about before, in Kevin's case, the police grabbed their man almost immediately, and once they'd fixated on Rodney, they didn't look anywhere else. And just like Kevin's case, there were problems with the way the evidence was handled, and we can go through some of those
similarities throughout this episode. But now that you have a little idea of what happened in Rodney's case, this can help explain what we're dealing with in Kevin's at the moment, which is a very common question I get about both cases. Why is Kevin and Rodney still in jail when there's so much evidence they didn't commit the crime, And in
both cases the answer is very similar. Despite the fact Rodney's in Texas and Kevin is in Queensland, and we're dealing with two very different legal systems, and that is, once your appeals are exhausted, just as Rodney's and Kevin's have been, the onus becomes not on you to prove that you are innocent, not only to prove that there was doubt in the initial trial, have to prove that not only did you not do it, but that someone else did and explain, in the case of Kevin to
the Attorney General and the governor for a pardon, how the crime happened and who did it, and in the US case, through the courts. And you're largely restricted on the evidence that you can use to do that, because even if what happened at the initial trial is clearly flawed and faulty, much of that evidence is considered matters of fact, and that's how they refer it to it
in Queensland and in Texas. So the latest development in Rodney's case is not all the new evidence we have uncovered that show Rodney did not commit the crime, and we can go into that evidence and it clearly shows
he was not involved. The only thing we can do is show that the real killer lied to police, and so that is the latest in Rodney's case is that a judge has set a new hearing for October and that we'll be able to show that a witness at the time, a person who we believe killed misstites and is the real killer, lied to police. We won't actually be able to present any of the new evidence that clears Rodney's name. And it's very much the same in
Kevin's case. That the State of Queensland considers the ruling made by the judge in Kevin Henry's trial that was reiterated by the appeals court judge to be a matter of fact, and even if we've got evidence to show that that's not the case, we actually have to come up with something completely different and completely new.
So Marlin Ronnie read what evidence.
Was that he was.
The evidence is quite similar to Kevin's in that it deals with the forensic evidence as well as eyewitnesses. I'll deal with the forensics first. So obviously, in Kevin's case, there was no forensic evidence linking Kevin whatsoever to the crime.
But what we've been able to do is show that there's forensic evidence to show Kevin couldn't have committed the crime, such as the fact that the body had to have been placed on the north side of the river, that there was no DNA evidence of any kind like blood that would have been present on Kevin the mud had he weighed in to the water, and in Rodney's it's quite similar. There's no DNA evidence at all that places Rodney read at the crime scene. But this is the
evidence we discovered. There is evidence placing other people at the crime scene. There is evidence placing police at the crime scene. There is evidence placing the police who investigated the murder of Stacy Stites at the crime scene. And one of those police officers is mister Fanell Stacy Stites as fiance who had discovered his white fiancee was having an affair with a black man, and we've uncovered forensic evidence and DNA that places him at the scene where
Stacy was murdered. And worse than any of that is that this scene, the house of misdits, a woman who was missing and then found murdered, was never looked at by a police. It was a house she shared with her police officer fiance, and the investigat was done by his neighbour and a best friend, who were both fellow police officers, and they never once went into the house. Had they done so, they would have found a large amount of blood, they would have found the murder weapon.
And because of the stupidity of these police officers, they then left DNA evidence and forensic material where they placed Mistites's body. So it's quite similar to Kevin's case in that where the murder took place and where the body is found are two different places. Just like Kevin, Rodney had an alibi for ever being where the body was placed and had to be placed, and there is no forensic evidence linked whatsoever for either gentleman to the crime
scene or being involved in the murder. And here in Rodney's case, we have evidence that implicates the fiance, a police officer of Mistites, and his colleagues at the murder scene and where the body was placed.
So I'm just wondering, given thing that you've been working on this case for the past decade and uncovering a lot of this evidence, has this ever gone back to the police, They ever conducted their own investigations into whether the police were complicited.
In sadly not, And I think this is a real problem, just as we've exposed in Kevin's case a large number of police failings. In Rodney's case, those failings are clearly much more egregious or or at least more obvious. There's no doubt that they litter Kevin's case too. But here you have the fiance of a police officer and they allow his best friend and his colleague to invest instigate
her murder. Now, what makes this even worse and why Rodney's case should have been elevated up the hierarchy inside the police, is that the fiance of mistites the woman Rodney is supposed to have murdered. He was a police officer who had had other issues involving women that should have created an instant cloud over him. In fact, I can tell you he is currently in prison for kidnap and sexual misconduct in an unrelated case that took place
ten years after his own fiancee was murdered. Now, how he was investigated and tipped off about that was that a very junior police officer who had once been in the police academy with this gentleman, told her superiors years earlier that she believed he was capable of killing his own girlfriend, and that he'd said to this fellow police officer a young woman that if he'd ever caught Mistite's cheating, he would strangle her and kill her, and that is
exactly what happened to her. And yet, despite this information having been passed on by a fellow police officer, it took ten years for the police to investigate him. And they only did so because he was caught red handed kidnapping and sexually assaulting a person in his custody, and
that took place in two thousand and seven. And yet, despite that, despite all the DNA evidence linking this man, who clearly now can be shown to have this despicable criminal attitude towards women who had admitted to doing what he would later do, who would be convicted of doing something very similar, the State of Texas would twice after that try and execute Rodney, and up until last week, when we won the chance to have a judge look at just a little bit of this new evidence, the
State of Texas was planning on executing Rodney for a third time. So I think you can't get a more obvious case of where the police need to pass on an investigation either to another authority, or that that investigation of a fellow police officer be observed by an independent statutory authority, And in neither Kevin's case nor Rodney's case has that ever occurred. And what we're dealing with is
police investigating each other. In Rodney's case, it was the person we will clim is the true murderer, his next door neighbor and his best friend doing the investigation. In Kevin's case, it was always police from the same small regional town of Rockhampton. I don't think anyone could say that this is in any way a credible way to get to the truth, let alone insure justice is done.
If these police are so convinced of mister Reed's guilt, if they are so convinced of mister Henry's guilt, so convinced that, in Rodney's case, they want him dead, and in Kevin's case, they want to see him locked up for the rest of his life. Why would they not be willing to hand over that investigation to a third party, or be willing to at least have an independent party
observe and analyze their own investigation. And the answer is clear, because they know their own investigations are flawed, so flawed because they covered up vital facts and they know deep in their heart they got the wrong person, and you know about.
That piece of evidence being taken. That's pretty much how.
How would you describe got a long fight just to get this most case, how long it has taken, and how you described the process.
It's very exhausting. I think as people have heard listening to Kevin's case, you're talking about events that happened over twenty years ago, so finding witnesses who remember what happened, and of course, because you have this high threshold, you need to prove that. Not only do you have to prove your client innocent, you have to basically solve a murder that police either couldn't solve or deliberately painted. And so it's an enormous amount of work. It's thousands of hours.
It's finding forensic and DNA evidence that was missed and that was one thing that we were able to do was find DNA evidence that was missed by the police in Rodney's case. And this whole time, both Rodney and Kevin can wait years at a time for new pieces of information. For Kevin, he's desperate to get out knowing he's an innocent man. For Rodney, he's watching a clock, looking at a calendar, knowing his execution date is fast approaching, and we haven't wrung them yet to say we've found
the evidence that's going to get you off. So for both men it's enormously stressful. For those investigating what's gone on, you really have a countdown clock, and there's enormous amount of stress, and largely because the police are so uncooperative and often have done a really flawed case. It's virtually
impossible to prove what you need to prove. But in each case, I'm confident that we have And it really comes down to how hard you're willing to work, how much you're willing to push, and the fact you're just not going to give up. And in Rodney's case, again twice, he's come within moments. You know, he's eaten his last meal, he's said his last prayer, and the State of Texas have been unsuccessful in their attempts to try and kill him.
And that's purely because of the investigative work. And I should say that none of this is ever assisted by the courts or by police. It's not funded by anyone. This is all being done by a handful of people who believe in these two men's innocence, and who believe that these men are innocent and that the crime is being committed against them, and that there is a shocking crime committed against both women for whom there have been
no justice. For twenty years. The families of Mistites and the family of Linda have not been able to sleep knowing the person who really killed their loved one is in prison. And it's for that that we just don't stop.
Working on Kenvidan case for the past year and a half. But already we've said this one of the podcast we've covered keep witnessing at that place. Two are the men at the end of the crime that show how was transferred over the river and put it into.
The water away.
So it's actually relatively compared working on Rodney. I mean, we've actually shown that the people who most likely could it have.
Done this time.
And what does that say the Kevin O case.
That that we have already found the evidence that shows the portray may.
Have been Yeah, it's a really good question. It's a really good observation because it's considered fairly normal that these things take a very long time, and the ten year investigation and my involvement with Rodney's case. While it probably seems very slow to a lot of people, and it sure is slow for Rodney sitting on death row for that long twenty years in total, ten years, why we try and prove his innocence. Kevin's case, we've been able to investigate and find so many key facts so quickly.
We've been able to find eye witnesses, of which there were none presented at the Troy. We've been able to find flaws in the forensic evidence, and new forensic evidence. We've been able to not only show Kevin had an alibi, but have eyewitnesses point the finger at two people who
did commit the crime who don't have an alibi. We've also been able to show that the way these two men disposed of Linda's body matches with our own forensic investigation and actually matches with the police's initial forensic investigation. And all that has happened in around about a year's time, and so I think it shows two things. Kevin Henry
is quite clearly an innocent man. In a year, we've uncovered with really just a very small team of us doing this work, that Kevin is innocent, and that two other people involved in the murder of Linda who have never faced justice, and we've been able to uncover more than what a much larger team in the United States has been able to uncover in a ten year period.
I also think what it shows is the fact that we've been able to do it with no resources at all, doing at twenty something years after the crime took place. That clearly the police investigation was a disgrace. They had the resources available to them, the murder had just taken place, They had all the forensics, they had access to all the witnesses, and they had access to the full weight of the State of Queensland and its justice system. That means they could call in police experts from all over
the state and they did it. Means they could have called in forensic experts from all over the state and they did.
It.
Meant they had access to experts on the river and its tidal movements. They had access to experts who should have been able to uncover Linda's cause of death and the fact that her body had been moved and where it had been placed. But either they were incompetent and couldn't, or the investigation was a farce. And a sham, and in the time they had and with all their resources, they got it so wrong. And we've shown twenty six years later they had absolutely no excuse for getting it
so badly wrong. And I have to say, of all the cases I've worked on, largely on people on death row where investigations can take up to ten years to prove their innocence, to have uncovered this much to show Kevin Henry is innocent in just a year, facing all the obstacles we've had to overcome with the least resources I've ever had to work with, I think says everything about Kevin Henry's innocence and everything you need to know about how the Queensland Police conducted this investigation.
That's the human that we've talked about in being a part of that within a statement that they passed away and the alleged perpetrator is in jail on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault, would that affect Kevin's.
Passed away.
Yeah, it's a good point, although obviously we should explain that those people were still very much alive when Kevin and went to trial and could have been called as witnesses. They were known to police, but they weren't investigated. It does make it harder now because we don't have people to point to and say, these are the people that
did it. They're still alive, they've never faced justice and perhaps even have them admit to their guilt, given the sheer weight of evidence we do have of their involvement in the crime, and not all of which have we revealed yet on this podcast. And as you say, in Rodney's case, you've got the extra evidence of the perpetrator being the fiance having confessed to a fellow female officer that if he'd caught his fiancee of achieating, he would
strangle her and that is how Stacy was killed. And the fact he had such disregard for human life and particularly women, that he would go on to commit quite a similar crime and a very violent, horrific crime, even while being an officer, clearly is more evidence in Rodney's favor than we have in Kevin's. But I still think what we've got in both cases is overwhelming, and what should really concern people is in both cases it's not
an issue of evidence. There is more than enough evidence to prove both men are innocent, that other people committed the crime and exactly how that crime was committed. The hold up is that everyone passes the buck. In Texas, the governor could have pardoned Rodney a long time ago. In Texas, the governor could have ordered an investigation into how the police were investigating their own friends, that the police were involved in this murder and helping their fellow
officer cover up the killing of his fiance. In Kevin's case, the attorney general could have long looked, long ago looked into Kevin's case. And there's been requests by Kevin Henry himself from nineteen ninety three onwards for exactly that both men have always maintained their innocence. But no one in the government in Texas or in Queensland has been willing to lift up this scab on this wound that won't close,
that hangs over both states' heads. And it's that they will lock up black men and take their lives away despite knowing they did not commit the crime for which they're accused. And so while it's quite clear that the police have a lot to answer for and that courts have made terrible mistakes, people in government have the power. The governor in Texas, any general in Queensland have the authority to reinvestigate these cases and to pardon both men, and they've refused to do that, and I don't think
we should overlook that fact. You're elected to public office to make the tough decisions, and sometimes that means scrutinizing the people that work for you and if they've made a mistake, correcting it and making sure the right thing
is done. I don't think anyone in society wants to see murders go unsolved because they are unsolved when you have the innocent in prison, To have two men losing their lives sitting in prison cells as we speak, for crimes they didn't commit, and to have people who have committed murder get off scot free, and I think overwhelmingly
the public would find that disgraceful. And yet the public servants at the highest level, the governor and the Attorney rule of Texas and of Queensland, have refused to take any responsibility and intervene in these cases, when quite clearly they are entitled to do so.
And that's why we have a precision and calling on the else an intervene in Kevin case. You can find facebook page by faasal thing incurred in the podcast or I don't know how, like in the podcast dot com.
That was an episode early four of Curtain