This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject to monitoring and recording.
I can tell you.
Fathlet eleven, and it hasn't been easy.
One hundred years, I said, man, I'm a kid.
I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know that.
Was a that was real painful, man, you.
Know, because my life was discarded as if you know, like I was a piece of trash or something, you.
Know, one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted to do things.
I wasn't committing crimes, you know. I was a very good young man.
That is what happened in so many cases. The cops have a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene, they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch, they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off march in the wrong direction, and that happens in some any of these wrongful convictions.
They open the cell door and I walk down stiff, and I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt very strange to be, like I said, to be walking without no chackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream.
This is wrongful conviction. So we all we all hooked up.
Here are we here?
We're here Test one two three. Sheriff Chip Harding, Albamarle County, Virginia.
MS.
Paul is from a correction facility and it's subject to monitoring and recording.
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. It's me. I'm your host, and today we have an episode that is h going to rock your world. We have three guests today. I'm gonna save the best for last, but we have John Grisham in the studio with us. John welcome, delighted to be here, and Sheriff Chip Harding of Albemarle County. Yes, sir,
good to be here Virginia. And on the phone is Yen Surring, one of the most remarkable people I know and one of the most extraordinary cases of injustice that we've ever covered on this show. So Yen's I always say, I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here.
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the student and I'm thanks to Chip in John as well.
So this is a case that takes us back to the eighties, believe it or not, a case that has all the makings of a John Grisham novel, actually, because this goes back to Yen's when you were first an exchange student from Germany, a brilliant young scholar. From everything I'm told, this is a Jefferson scholar, a freshman at the Universe of Virginia. And yeah, and do you want to do you want to take us back there and tell us how this started?
Sure, this was in nineteen eighty four in the fall. I arrived at the University of Virginia as a freshman, be called christ new students there, and I met a young woman there who was two and a half years older than I was Elizabeth Hasen, and we were both in the same dormitory. She had entered the university late
because she had had an adventurous youth. She had gone to an English boarding school and run away with her girlfriend to Europe, things like that, And so she came to UVA quite a bit older than the rest of us in that dormitory. And I was not an American citizen. My father was a German diplomat. That's why I was living in a United States. And her family came from South Africa and from Canada. So we were drawn to each other.
As being foreigners, not Americans, and the parts of.
That false semester. In nineteen eighty four, we fell in love, and you know, it was quite a surprise to everybody else in the dormitory because she was very experienced but very mature. And I was, I guess, a nerd, an uber nerd and virgin to boot. So she was my very first girlfriend.
You were a German uber version nerd. It's quite a combination, Yen. And she was a beautiful young woman, a striking woman who you know, anyone in your situation would have probably fallen head over heels for considering the circumstances. But the you know, it was of course a faithful star across love affair.
Yes, and yeah, it was a very short lived love
affair as well. Three months after we started dating, or maybe four months after we started dating, we went to Washington, d C. Spend a weekend together, and in the course of that weekend, she told me that she was still using drugs, which she had previously told me she had to stop doing, and that she needed to use our rental car to run some drugs from Washington, d C. To her dealer, who was also the university student back in Charlottesville, and I wanted to come along, but she
wouldn't let me because she said that I was such a nerd. Nobody would no drug dealer would want to do business around me. So she drove off in the car by herself and came back eight hours later until she had killed her parents. And she said that you know, the drugs had made her do it, and they had deserved it anyway, and if I didn't help her, she would be executed. She would be back then they used the lecture too, She said that they would fry her. She said that I should be her alibi and tell
the police she was with me in Washington. And I told her that that would never ever work, because the police never believed boyfriends or husbands or wives people like that. So I came up with this brilliant idea based on Charles Dickens, a Tale of two Cities, of all things. But I would take the blame for her.
I would take the rap for her and save her life.
Was based on a character in the Charles Dickens's novel Sydney Carton, who did that in this novel. The difference was that in the novel that particular character actually did get fixed. Whereas my father was a German diplomat, I thought I had diplomatic community. I thought that I could take the blame for her crime, and all that would happen with me was about be sent back to Germany and put in prison there, and a trevenile prison for
about ten years. And I thought that given ten years of my life, was worth saving her life from the electric too.
Yeah, it's sort of a twisted nobility. It's you know, it's sort of very hard to imagine. But at the same time, people do crazy things for love all the time. And you know, as you and I have spoken on the phone at lengthy ends about this and the fact his wars have been started over love affairs, so you know, you're not the only person by far that's ever done something so crazy, but this is certainly an extreme example. And then yeah, go ahead, Jensory, not just.
Say it's a bit like at the end of the movie Titanic, right when Leonardo DiCaprio lifts Kate Winslet onto that door to save her life and then he sort of sinks away and gives his life for her, you know, except I didn't lift Kate winslet up on that door. I looked at Sharon Stone from basic instinct upon that door, and then, you know, sacrifice myself for her.
Yes, we were talking about this earlier and I said that it's such a strange fate that you happen to have only been with one woman and she turned out to be the devil. It's really something that is unimaginable.
You know, It's calling her the devil is a little oversimplified. She was later diagnosed with a very severe personality disorder, so you know, she actually had serious mental health issues. And and of course she claimed that her mother had sexually abused her with the knowledge and cooperation of her father, and you know, there's there's some indications that that may have actually been true. Of course, we'll never know for sure now, but you know, she she was a troubled young woman.
This I want to fast forward a little bit because I want to get into the current circumstance and how we can hopefully make a difference and get you home where you belong. But as things developed, you initially were not suspects and but then at some point you decided to to make a getaway. And this is back in the days when for people don't remember in the eighties, you can sort of travel the world under a different name. And it wasn't all these different It wasn't you know,
so tightly monitored or regulated. And so you guys went around the world and ultimately ended up in England, which is also sort of a crazy adventure to think about these two lovers running away from the authorities, traveling the world with a suitcase, and you know, it's you know, sort of a it sounds sounds kind of romantic and
adventurous and you know, cinematic at the same time. And you ended up in England, and that's when things began began to go wrong, right because you were ultimately arrested for passing bad checks, as I understand it. And then and then we get to the point where the false confessions come in, or your false confession.
So the police both Elizabeth and me back from the jail to the police station and they actually wrote into the police station lab book that I was to be held in Kaninocado. In other words, I was to be isolated from the outside world and not given access to my lawyer. And that's exactly what they did. For four days.
They interrogated me for four days, many many hours, at dozens and dozens and dozens of hours, and then finally, on the fourth day, I decided to keep my promise to Elizabeth that I had made fifteen months earlier, and I decided to take the blame for what she did. And that's what I did. I told them the story that she and I had cooked up. And of course that false confession contained many mistakes that the real killer
would not have made. I described the clothing of one victim incorrectly, and I placed the other in the wrong room, and there were numerous mistakes like that which you should have learned the police to the fact that I might
not be telling the truth. In addition to that, of course, at that time the police who were interrogating me were in possession of an FBI crime scene profile by one of the people invented crime scene profiling, one of the leading special agents, and that profile said that the crime had been committed by a woman in a close relationship
to the victims. And of course I was a man, and I didn't know the victims like the one time for twenty minutes, so they should have known that what the story I was telling them was not true nevertheless. And then, of course, the other thing that happened is that just a couple of hours after I told the police that I did it, Elizabeth told the police that she did it. She said, I did it myself. I got off on it. But by that space the police
had decided that I was a guilty one. So they actually let her withdraw that confession, which is hilarious in a way because they found hosting the prince at the crime scene and not mine. And you know, it's quite incredible that they let her with god that confession, but they did. And so they ended up charging me with being the killer, and they charged her with being the accomplice.
You have one minute remaining. They charged me with being the killer, and they charged her with being an accomplice. And in nineteen ninety they put me on trial and convicted me of something that I did not do. But we get back. I could talk about the blood which they used at the trial and look changed later on. So let me hang up and call back.
We're back.
Hey, we're back.
So there's there's a lot of things wrong with this case. There's so many it's hard to even fit them into an episode of the show, but one of them that I talk about, and as you know, you know, we've known each other quite some time, been advocating alongside this
amazing team of people that you have. And what I say to anyone that will listen to me is this is an unusual situation because normally in false confession cases you have people who are trying not to implicate themselves and who may be of limited mental abilities as well in some cases. In your case, you were trying to implicate yourself, right, so there would have been no reason for you not to tell the truth if in fact
you knew what it was. But the reason that you were wrong about these details is because you just didn't know. So here you had a guy who were stually the smartest guy in the room, and you were trying the best to save your the love of what you thought was the love of your life, and yet you were unable to get almost anything right because of the fact
that you weren't there. So that makes it hard. And I do want to bring John and Chip into the conversation too, just to talk about this scenario that took place in England and the immediate aftermath of it. John, you want to jump in here.
Yeah, it goes back to a confession, false confession, because there there's no other proof to convict ends of the murder, so you've got all they have is a false a confession, And with any false confession case, what you would hope that the authorities do is once they managed to extract the confession and whatever technics they used to do that is that they will match it up to the physical events to see if it in fact matches and false
confessions virtually never match up because there are too many details. There are too many uh, specifics in the murder, the method of murder, the place, the blood, the blood splatter, the clothing, the room, whatever. There's a whole fingerprints, footprints, and there's a long list of items that you know.
The police go through any investigation, and with a false confession, it's usually fairly simple to uh to realize once you start matching the confession given by somebody who wasn't there, it's impossible for them to remember all the details that the real killer would actually know, where he left the bodies, how he killed them, Well you know who who did what, what was on the kitchen table, what was knocked over, what was spilt these are all, you know, it's fairly
common common sense. And then in Yen's case, you know there were so many discrepancies between his confession and the actual physical crime scene. You just want to scream and say, why didn't somebody put these together, match them up? And somebody, whether the cops and the local boys, are you know, not always that reliable, especially in a rural county like Bedford, Virginia, where you know they don't see a lot of murders and the cops are not that well trained and sophisticated.
You just you you want to say, why can't you guys look at what's obvious. What frustrates me is when you get to trial and you have what you think should be a competent defense lawyer who cannot walk through the confession step by step by step and show the discrepancies between the confession and the actual crime scene. I'm not sure if this was done or attempted in Yuen's case,
but it certainly was not effective. And so that's that's what we always start in a false confession case is let's match it up with the proof, and it never matches up.
It never does. And this was a crazy case because on top of all the other, you know, factors that led to his wrongful conviction. I think there was an inherent bias. I can't prove this because of the fact that it was Bedford County, which ironically is the county that lost more soldiers in World War Two to the Germans per capital than anywhere else in the United States.
It's why the World War Two Memorial is there. And so I think that there's at least an argument that there could have been a the odds wood stacked against the ends from the beginning. I want to bring Sheriff
Harding into the conversation. Sheriff Harding is a Ford You've been in law enforcement for several decades, four decades, right, and have been recognized by it's I mean, his resume is nuts when you look at the number of accreditations he has and the number of awards he's won, and he's one of the most accomplished people in law enforcement in the United States. And you've been You've dived into this case with I mean, with all guns blazing, so
to speak. And is it possible, Sheriff You've examined this evidence eighteen ways till Sunday. Is it theoretically possible that Ian's committed this crime.
Is it possible, I mean he could have been dropped down with us from a spaceship and done it. But is it logical he was there when these murders occurred. Extremely unlikely he was there. There's nothing that puts him there other than this false confession. And as John was saying earlier, the confession didn't match the crime scene when you look at it, I mean, there was some huge discrepancies.
That weren't followed up.
You had a young investigator, his first homicide case she'd ever investigated, and I'm reading a transcript going, you got to be kidneyed. You didn't do any follow up. Plus they didn't tape the confession. So when he gets to court, very skillfully, the prosecutor only asked questions that were consistent with the cram scene in the event and omitted the inconsistencies.
And as John was pouring out, he had a very very ineffective defense attorney that didn't bring that to the attention of the jury.
Among other things. And yet take us back in your you know, from your perspective, this this is a nightmare that no one can imagine living through you were. You had been in jail in England for quite some time before you even came to trial. You had nothing in your life experience that would prepare you for any of this, And now here you are in the in the grip of the justice system in Virginia as a sort of an arch villain, right, And what was this like for
you to go through this at the time? Did you believe that you would be that you would actually win this case?
Can I go in a couple of other factories and then answer your question details that corroborate the confession. At the time of the trial, the prosecutor pointed out to the jury twenty six times that the police found some O type blood at the crime scene, and that I was the only person involved in the case who had type old blood. The victims did not have Type O blood,
and my girlfriend did not have type of blood. The only person involved in the case was type oh blood was meat, is what the prosecutor told the jury twenty six times. And it would take another two and a half decades to find out through DNA testing that indeed that was type of blood that was left by somebody else. So what is the fact that seemed to corroborate the confession at the time of the trial. It's now shown to actually prove the confession.
And talk more about that, Sheriff Harding, what percentage of the population has this type of blood? I think it's about forty five percent, isn't it. It's pretty high, right, So I mean that really is I mean, it's a ridiculous thing to try to pin anything on, but yet the prosecutor mentioned it for twenty six times. It's also worth mentioning that Yenz's lead trial lawyer was disbarred a few years after your your false, your wrongful conviction, and
he was disbarred because of mental illness. Drugs were a factor in all of this, and it was shown that he was suffering from this, this this profound problem during the time of your trial. So that's just another important thing to recognize.
You feel like you wanted to know what it felt like at that stage in nineteen ninety, I had already been in prison for four years, finding expedition from England to the United States. For most of those four years, I was convinced that all my lawyers were convinced and everybody thought that I was definitely be sentenced to death. So I spent four years in prison in effect psychologically
on death row. I was Everybody, including my own team, told me that I had no chance of avoiding the Electric two, and then at the last minute that was avoided. We won an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights and I was brought back to America. And that sort of thing has an effect on you psychologically.
Living in prison for four years believing.
That you're going to die pretty increasingly in the Electric two, and then I got that brought back to his virginion. Everybody hated me. Everybody was convinced I was guilty, and it was you know, he was really scary. I was. It was very frightening experience and I did not handle
it well. I did not handle it well. But again you have to put them against the background of my having spent you know, three years under commin a breath of death and then coming into the zo atmosphere and having to see Elizabeth Haysen, a woman that that sacrificed myself for get up understand and Toldure herself and tell all these lies to put me away in prison. And when I say that, she toldured herself, that's not just the claim I make. Twenty six years later, she actually
admitted that in a newspaper interview. She admitted that she told her herself at that trial. But at that time nobody knew that, and nobody caired. They just wanted a witness to point the Fingrette mean, and she did that job. And that and my own false confession and the type of blood.
That's what did me in and the sock print, of course, was a ridiculous piece of evidence that no serious person should have ever even it shouldn't been allowed in court, and it shouldn't have been in the way that was done was very devious. But I want to go back to John and Chip here, because John, you were a criminal defense lawyer in your younger years, and Chip obviously you were very accomplished investigator. How would you guys have handled this? And do you think what could have been
done to save YenS? And if you were, if you were representing him back then, what would you have said.
It's difficult to, you know, project myself into that situation, especially now many years later. I only practiced law for ten years, and my dream when I was very young was to become an accomplished courtroom lawyer, a big time trial lawyer, and to do that, I volunteered for all of the indigen cases that I could possibly get because I needed to work, but also it got me in the courtroom. And within within two years of finishing law school, I had tried two murder cases by myself, no second chair.
They weren't capital cases, but they were murder cases, and I had won both of them not guilty. And so I was in the courtroom a lot. I did win many cases because they weren't supposed to be one. Uh, most of my clients went to prison. But anyway, that was that was my world back then, was criminal defense law, and I wanted to parlay that into you know, a courtroom resume for for big cases. And so that was
very much the way I lived back then. And when I read these cases, and I read a lot of them now being on the board of the Innocence Project and working with innocence cases, and you see some of the defense work by lawyers. And this was a private attorney that he and his family provided, a guy who was not even from the area. I think he's from Detroit to someplace. But to see the incompetence of defense lawyers and the lack of effort, the lack of integrity
and challenging the prosecution, even challenging the judges. It's extremely frustrating and we see it all the time in wrongful conviction cases where you have all the reasons, all of the factors that lead to wrongful convictions, whether it's junk science or jail house niches or false confessions or whatever.
You have a list, But the one that really irritates me a lot is the incompetent defense work, because there's no excuse for it's a question of simple hard work or saying no to a case you shouldn't take to begin with. So I can't tell you specifically what I would have done thirty years ago to save Yen's I can't do that. I'm not that smart. But hard work. There's rarely a substitute for hard work and fortitude in challenging the facts, and I didn't see it in this case.
And Tariff harding. I want to talk to you because it's interesting to me that you know YenS has assembled this remarkable team and it's a great credit to him. And you're an interesting character in this because you're a conservative guy or a guy who's obviously law and order guy, and yet you have devoted yourself selflessly and spent time that you could have been doing anything else to hundreds of hours to this case. So can you talk about that?
And then can you talk about the actual forensic evidence?
Right?
Well, his attorney, Stephen Rosenfield, asked me to take a look at part of the pardon petition to see if I could find a way to strengthen it or to see if he's miss missed.
Something in it.
And I told Steve at the beginning, I felt like you was guilty based on everything I'd seen. I know Governor Kane had tried to send him back to Germany. I was opposed to that because I felt like he was guilty. He shouldn't been given any special consideration just because he was a German. But so Steve gave me the case, said won't take but a couple hours. Well, I ended up taking a bunch of stuff home at night.
My wife thought I'd lost my mind because I spent basically the whole weekend the dining room table covered with material that Steve gave me, and I said, oh my god, this is nothing like what.
Was represented and in conclusion.
I ended up writing a nineteen page letter to the governor breaking down the closing arguments of the case. You know, that's the strength of the government's case. Last bitey to Apple and I.
Broke that down.
And then after that was published, I had another investigator worked with me for twenty five years, said, let me help form an FBI agent that I know that I worked another case with jumped in and one of the original Bedford investigators said he felt like Yen's had been railroaded and was innocent also, So the four of us had been working it collectively. We've given a couple of thousand hours, and you want to talk briefly about to forensics.
The old blood was very powerful, as was mentioned, and I will say if I was on that jury, I would have convicted him based on it the way the evidence was represented so skillfully by the prosecutor. The old blood now we know absolutely no one can test the fact that it's not insurting. He's not been detected in
the crime scene. But two other males, one with a b blood and one with old blood, have been detected in the crime scene, and we have not identified those people have not in my opinion, Bedford County should consider having an open homicide investigation. Then you look at the next piece of evidence that was pretty powerful.
The Commonwealth.
Originally got a certificate of analysis from the State Bureau Forensics saying.
That the shoes you have one minute remaining.
The shoe in sox size was consistent with a six and a half to seven and a half woman shoe a man five or six they originally had.
And this just blew my mind.
They originally had a small female as a prime suspect in this thing. And the prosecutor wrote a letter and we got a copy of it attached with a draft after David saying that he wanted this woman's blood, finger prints, and shoe impressions because her shoe was consistent with what was in the crime scene. Now you turn around and go to trial, you don't hear anything. The defense attorney brings nothing up. They bring in a non qualified individual
to testify. He did a what we like to refer to as a magic trick, created an over delay of an impression of Yen's foot and said it basically fits like a.
Glove, reminds you of oja.
And he was even instructed he could not testify as an expert. But when you look at the closing arguments of the prosecutor, he says it can.
Only fit one man.
One man in the world could fit and he points at yensering and we know that's hooplaw, that's junk evidence. And the same man that put this on in front of the jury, Robert Haylett, did the same thing in another case where a man was given the death penalty, and thank god.
It took a few years. He did not get executed.
DNA proved he absolutely didn't do it. So here you have the same junk science being used again. There was a jura that gave an affidavit to the attorneys that said it was tied six' six in the jury. Room they wanted to take a look at the sock and shoe evidence again and he said that's what turned the. Tide and we know, now we know now that's. Ludicrous there are really two. Parts you've got a false confession
and you also have a false. Alibi you've Got elizabeth whose claims she stayed at the hotel room and When yen's came, back she, Said YenS comes back that night after midnight in a sheet covered in blood from head to toe in the rental, vehicle And YenS asked her
to clean it up with coca. Cola yet that vehicle was tested with, luminol And i've never had a case where blood had been, present Even bleach had gotten it all, out no indication of any blood at, all and was testimony from the folks at the rental agency that the car was in immaculate, condition no signs of any coca.
Cola we have since.
Learned and digging in the little limited, information we can see that there was actually blood found in the trap of the shower of the master, bedroom and that shower wall illuminated like fourth Of, July so it gives us the impression as investigators at least one of the participants in this homicide took a, Shower so why would he be covered in blood from head to? Toe it's, Impossible and there are three or four more things That elizabeth
says that. Occurred we can disprove with her. Alibi as a matter of, fact in our, clothes we have not everything that has.
Come out of that woman's.
Mouth we can either prove is provable that she's, lying or it's highly suspect she's. Lying we've looked very hard at everything At yen's has, said and we have not caught him in a. Lie everything that he, said we have no reason not to believe.
Him there's a book That yen's wrote With Bill seismore Called The Far Far Better thing in on page two, Twenty i'm going to read. This Russell, johnson a fully qualified footprint, expert was so outraged that he wrote a letter to the editor of The Roanoke newspaper declaring that the sockprint evidence was worthless junk. Science he, said there appeared to have been a slide in the heel before it came to, rest which of course would invalidate any
attempt to size the thing. Up and then he made a very strong quote that said that the bloody sock print quote provides no evidence whatsoever that Mister surring was at the scene of the. Crime so the idea that this was the thing that the jurors cite as the thing that broke them from a six to six tie to it ultimately a unanimous guilty, verdict it should be offensive to anyone who believes in truth and, justice and
certainly is to, us which is why we're here. Now john do you look like you have something on your?
Mind, No i'm just fascinated by the level of junk science that permeates our quote room still. Today it's sock print analysis or bite mark, analysis or hair analysis or boot print. Analysis there's a long said list of these analyzes that have put so many people in, prison uttered
by people who are not. Qualified you you, know you can go to a weekend seminar and study blood splatter, analysis get a certificate and call yourself an, expert and some prosecutor somewhere can call you in at a murder trial and, you you, know pretty much say whatever you
want you to. Say at The Instance, project we are laboring to provide some national standard for forensic, sciences to get to clean up the courtroom and get all the crap out of, it so we have, good qualified experts who give valid scientific opinions about things that are, really really. Important you, know The Ron williamson, case the BOOK i wrote about the innocent. Man he was convicted in part because of hair analysis provided by The Oklahoma State Crime.
Lab and this expert took some scalp and pubic hair from the crime scene and, said, yeah it's a bit Matches, ron and the jury ate that. Up ten years later that same hair When ron was tried in eighty, seven there's NO. Dna ten years later we HAD dna and all seventeen hares were excluded BY dna From Ron. Williamson and then later a few years, ago THE fbi admitted that when it comes to hair, analysis ninety five percent of their OWN fbi examiners got it. Wrong, okay that's THE,
fbi that's the cream of the. Crop can you imagine what the numbers are for the state crime. Lab so the junk science is just, sickening And YenS is in prison today because of junk.
Science it's there's so much because this, case we were talking about a case in which a couple was brutally, murdered stabbed multiple, times each of them very bloody crime, scene full rich with biological evidence from the actual. Killers in, theory you also had a logical explanation for this in That elizabeth had said multiple times that she had been sexually abused by her, mother that her father may have been involved in.
This in some.
Way there was a clear. Motive in that, sense you had, drugs which no one ever claimed that you were on. Drugs but we know that she was doing hard drugs and that she was running with a, very very nefarious crew back then and would have had access to the type of people who might commit a murder like. This people who knew you back, then including some people for law, enforcement said that it Was Even elizabeth said it was ludicrous to think that you could have committed a brutal
crime like this because you're not a physically imposing. Guy it would have had to overpower to. Adults none of it ever made any, sense and there should have been it should have been relatively. Simple and, now of, course so many people have weighed in on, this Including Chuck, read one of the original investigators in the, case who has said in emphatic terms that it could not have been, you that he doesn't believe it was. You and yet we still find ourselves in this situation where we're still
all trying to get you. Out and it's also worth talking about the fact that you have while in, prison distinguished yourself in ways that are almost, unprecedented writing nine books widely published As Educating, yourself becoming a Tai chi, master and meditation, teacher and of course having had an absolutely perfect record behind, BARS i often talk about the fact that you've, never to my, knowledge never even spilled your, Coffee so it's remarkable in what it says about, you
and also about the idea that we are a nation supposedly of second chances of. Forgiveness so why anyone would want to keep you in even if they are unwilling or, unable unwilling to look at or able to understand the scientific evidence of your, Innocence the idea that we still keep you behind, bars it's just it's an affront to anyone who believes in and just. Decency, well it's been, very very difficult for, me especially over the last.
Two and a half years since the pardon petition was submitted based on THE dna. Evidence it's been really difficult for me because for.
Thirty years we thought there was NO.
Dna evidence in this case that could prove my, innocence and then after thirty years in, prison was ACTUALLY i on the, phone worked my, Lawyer Steve, rosensfield flipping through some old forensic. REPORTS i found it in, evidence and you, know that's the pardon detriction is based. On years, later we cannot get anybody to act on, that's you, know.
The thirty years of wishing for THE, dna and THEN.
I finally get THE, dna and then nobody is going to listen more do anything about.
It let me jump in for a, second because we have here an, interesting, uh such an amazing, group. Right we Have John, grisham who is you, know one of the most, famous if not the most Famous virginian legendary figure from the literary, world and who is certainly no stranger to politics or. Justice and we Have Sheriff, harding who knows his way around law enforcement as well or
better than anybody in the. State and maybe you guys can try to give me some insight as to why this case is such a difficult one to resolve in the face of such overwhelming evidence of, innocence you, know and such a strong group behind the. ENDS i mean
WHEN i say a strong. Group Angela. Merkel Angela merkel spoke To President obama on several occasions About YEN'S i, mean when have we ever heard of that the, president the former president Of, Germany President, schultz flew To virginia just for the purpose of meeting with the parole board to say send him. Home i'll take care of. HIM i want to house. HIM i want to get him a.
JOB i want to you, know mentor. HIM i, mean you have the one of our most important allies in the, world who have made it a national priority at the highest levels to Extricate YenS from this impossible situation and bring him back to his own. Country and yet here we. Are can you guys touch on? This how do you explain?
This?
Well touch, ON i can't explain. It AND i think you Know jason from your work in the innocence. World as frustrating as this, is it's not. Unusual we've had cases before where we have to fight tooth and nail to OBTAIN dna testing for one of our, clients and we get THE dna, testing all the objections of the local prosecutors and local law, enforcement we get THE dna. Testing it clears our client slash inmate, whatever and so he's. Cleared. Okay then it takes a year procedurally to get him.
Out oftentimes the prosecutor will, say, WELL i don't really believe THE dna. Results we're going to try you, again and so they bring him back to the local jail where they can keep him. Forever and a year goes. By two years. Ago you know this is not again as frustrating as it, is as maddening as it, Is i'm ashamed to say it's not that. UNUSUAL i think In yen's, case, though we are pressing ahead with the full court press on many, fronts we are cautiously optimistic
that the right people are listening to. Us we are almost sanctimonious in our belief that we are right and everybody else is, wrong and it's time to make something good. Happen and that's why we are going to these. Efforts and we're not Gonna we're not gonna, stop slow down or be. Quiet we're just going to get more and more vocal and push harder and harder until we get.
Justice sheriff harding on top of all the other evidence AND fbi agents Like Ed salzback who came forward and others to say that there had been evidence that had been hidden or not turned, over not disclosed in the way that the law mandates that it must. Be there's also in chapter eighteen of the book THAT i referenced, before there's the story of the car in the woods, right which would, again if you would think that this
alone would be enough to Send yen's, home you. Know And i'm going to quote from the book, again you. Know in twenty, Eleven Tony, buchanan the retired owner of A lynchburg area auto transmission, shop said that three to five months after the murders in nineteen eighty, five a car was towed into his shop for. Repairs it's undercarriage matted with grass and, mud as if it had been sitting in the woods for a. While the tow truck driver Told buchanan the two Door chevrolet belonged to quote
some college. Kids and here's the important. Part he, said in a sworn statement that when he looked, inside he saw that the floorboard on the driver's side was quote full of dry. Blood beside the console between the front, seats also covered in dried, blood was a single edged hunting type, knife the same type that was used to kill The. Haysums Now i'm sitting, Here i've got chills just reading. That and you, know he this same guy, testified or swore and offidated that neither none of those
people Were. Ends ends was not one of the people that returned the. Car elizabeth was, one and somebody else was the. Other but yet here we go.
Again, yeah he, claimed it's just a. Shame so much time has. Passed he claimed that he called and spo To Ricky, gardner who was the lead investigator now chief deputy In, bedford and told him about. This gardner denies, that says it didn't, happen so so much time has.
Passed some of.
The investigators did work that, lead and we kind of ran it out because time was not on our. Side we tried to find any, documentation material checks and all that kind of. Stuff the banks just don't have it
from back in nineteen eighty. Five but if they'd been followed up on properly at the, time same, way if they had sent investigators to the hotel they'd stayed, at it had cleared it up right away That ens was, there she wouldn't it was his story of what he purchased was consistent with the hotel bill which she said she purchased when she stayed there was very inconsistent way over with the bill showed in't. It but you, know
the bottom. Line most frustrated for me the law. Enforcement i'm in law, enforcement AND i Hope i'm respecting law. Enforcement i'm a sitting sheriff And yet the sitting sheriff In Bedford county refuses to meet with me and even discuss the. Case the lead investigator won't meet with the four of us who've given thousands of hours pro gone or we don't have anything in. It we're just looking for.
Justice we asked one hour and he says he doesn't have. Time, however we do have him caught on videotape saying a few years, ago this, happened thirty years, ago he was convicted in. Court why do we need to go any further? Then AND i think that's the, attitude which is it's really shut.
Down from an investigative.
Standpoint we've not had access to the investigative files or any further testing Because i'm out of my jurisdiction and getting absolutely no cooperation From. Bedford we have proved absolutely that they lied and concealed the fact that there was AN fbi profile. Done my buddy who's RETIRED fbi. Agent we had asked THE fbi several times and they couldn't find any. Information, This Ricky gardner, said, absolutely one hundred
PERCENT pi if it was not. Done we now have actual documents from nineteen eighty five from THE fbi that indicated profile was done In, Quantico. Virginia so you, know my buddy form MY fpi agen, said if they were allowed about that and it won't, cooperate what else is? There it certainly raises a red flag with us as. Investigators do we have any form of corruption or wrong or.
Doing, yeah they won't even allow you to test THE dna of two guys that we know are in for committing similar crimes in another county In, virginia who we. Don't we have no idea whether they committed this crime or, not but there's there's some reason to believe that They there were these two.
Guys in knife demand multiple times.
To death within a few, days and that far from The haysom, residents whether those victims were, located and these two, folks one of them at least, was according to his background that we've, read was involved in heavy drugs in The lynchburg, area as we Believe elizabeth. Was she was a omitted heroin, user and THE dna should be in
the data. Bank they're both doing life for that. Murder and we simply, asked would you take those, profiles compare them to the crime, scene and the state, says can't do. It it's got the jurisdiction where they offense. Occurred they have to request.
It and to our, knowledge they're not doing, anything.
Which is just, remarkable right when you think about the idea that they just refuse to test something that can only prove like one or, another either these guys did it or they. Didn't why wouldn't we want to?
Know we want to know from an investigator, standpoint do we want to keep following those two guys as a lead or can they be excluded based on THE dna very simply would take about three or four minutes to compare those bar.
Codes it's so.
Frustrating i'm used to working in my own. Jurisdiction IF i want something to, TESTED i ask a lab to do, it they do. It IF i want to search, ONE i get. It IF i have witnesses and we have two or three people that need to be interviewed in this, case they refuse to cooperate. WHATSOEVER i don't have any grandeur authority to service a pena on.
Them SO i really feel for The innist's.
PROJECT i see what they go through now now That i'm on the other side of the, FENCE i feel like you operating with both hands tad behind your. Back everything's working against. You so you got to put a lot more work and effort into it than you really should and try to get to the, truth which we all should. Want but apparently we don't all always want the truth and.
Justice you.
Know it's also SOMETHING i want to touch on BEFORE i turn over To john for a, second which is that back in two thousand and eight or, nine with the support Of Bishop sullivan and other luminaries both religious and political, Figures Governor kine granted a conditional pard AND i guess we would say would have allowed you to go back To. Germany and this is such an unbelievable thing to even think. About WHEN i hear myself tell the story to, PEOPLE i don't even believe it, myself
BUT i know it's. True and then as literally as you were packing your, bags the, governor the new governor came, In governor, McDonell and he revoked for the first time and then two hundred and thirty four year history Of. Virginia he revoked the previous governor's order and decided that you would be kept in prison for the rest of your. Life which is just an unbelievable thing to, process and it.
Is it is remarkable going back and thinking about the number of, people on the quality of people that have come to your, defense and even now the support of amazing people from journalism The Washington post who are even here today covering the. Story so many of the literally the finest organizations and the leaders of different from all all parts of the country have have taken up this. Cause AND i wanted to ask, You, john of all the millions of things you could be doing with your
time right. Now and we know that with about you, know the estimates are five percent of people in prison In, america which is about one hundred thousand, people are. Innocent there's so many innocent. People and again there's so many other things that You sheriff, me the millions of the pro bono lawyers who have helped you in throughout the years and still help them. Now Steve, Rosen Phelps, northulp and. Others why are you so obsessed with this? CASE i wouldn't Say i'm.
Obsessed i'm very concerned about. It Since The Innocent man was published in two thousand and six AND i joined the board of The innocence project In New. York i've done a lot of this type of work as.
You, Have.
JASON i haven't done as much as you, have but, we as individual, members we tend to get involved in cases that we hear. About i'm still involved with the two guys In. Oklahoma there's a case In mississippi That i'm involved. With i've known about the End searing case here for twenty Five we've lived here twenty five years In, charlottsville And i've read about the case a long. Time BECAUSE i didn't pay much attention to. IT i saw that it was a. CONFESSION i, figured, well, okay they got
the right. Guy was never too involved in the. Case and then a couple of years, ago.
Talked To Steve.
Rooseveld we you, know we had we had a, coffee talked about the, case and he asked me to take a look at. It, well by then the case had been looked, at, uh so many different ways by so many different. People And Chip harding, also uh you, know spoke about the case and said he by then he had five hundred hours in the. Case he's probably got five thousand.
Now BUT.
I just started reading about the. Case he read read the, book saw the movie and realized this took, place you, know very close to WHERE i. LIVE i was, convinced became convinced it was a huge miscarriage of, justice AND uh became fascinated with. It and you, KNOW i thought about writing the. STORY i thought about writing the. Book. Uh these instance cases always inspire me to write the story because the stories are so almost all of them
are so, fascinating, compelling. Heartbreaking. Uh but they're just, good, rich, deep complicated, stories AND i love that type of a.
Story so.
You, KNOW i talk to You. Jason we we've known each other for a long. Time we we sort of got involved in the case after you and and here we. Are and the more work THAT i, Do i'm still catching up to you. Guys but the more we work, together the more were the more determined we are to to get a just decision in this. Case and we have you, know we have several avenues. Left it's not it's not helpless by any. Means we don't view it as. Hopeless we we think we can smell.
Victory john was.
Just speaking about the multiple avenues. Available most innocence cases have only one real, option and that's hardened and that's usually a full, part and that makes it very difficult because somebody has to admit that they made a terrible. Mistake my case is a little bit unusual and that the state actually has. Stilling they have the option of an absolute, pardon which would be to player my innocence and actually admit what really, happened which was that this
is a wrongful. Conviction but they have other.
Options they have a conditional, pardon.
Which would be just to say that there's a lot of, doubts but not to Say i'm actually, innocent just to say there's a lot of questions and a lot of, doubts you can't be. Sure and then there's a third, option and that would be. Parrole so one of mystifying things to me about this is my case in comparison to other, cases is that they have a whole smorgas board of options to choose from full pardon or absolute, pardon conditional, pardon and then prow and they're choosing not.
To exercise any of these.
Options AND i find that.
Pruggling Suf F, Haardine i'm gonna put the same question to. YOU i, MEAN i have my own, REASONS i mean different cases affect all of us. Differently you're Both virginia of.
Guys i'm A New york, guy but you, KNOW i recognize injustice WHEN i see, it AND i also recognize in this case the added tragedy of human potential in That end's and he AND i have talked about this at, length the idea that Y ends could BE i, mean he has contributed a lot to society even from the inside of these maximum security prisons he's been stuck in for all these. Years but the idea that he could be, out you, know doing great things with his intellect and
with his spirit and his. Courage but what is it about this case in particular that makes you want a devote your free time when you, know again you could be out fishing or whatever it, is playing.
Golf, well this just came to me And i'm captivated by. It like you, say you really have to dig into.
It what to really grab hold of.
YOU i first got it really interested in this type of, work innocence, work by Reading John grisham's book back when it first came, Out The Innocent. Man and THEN i became friends With Brandon garrett used to be a professor here At UVa's At Duke. University now he has a book Out Wrong Full, Convictions how criminal prosecutions Went, wrong
and he's got a lot of research. Data i'm not, bragging BUT i worked as an investigator and investigative supervisor for over thirty years AND i never lost a case and always THOUGHT i did it.
Right but after Reading john's book With Holy.
TALEDA i don't THINK i ever wrongly convicted, someone but the opportunity surely was. There you tend to get tunnel, vision just like these folks did. Here you tend to go in those gray areas that you think because you think you've got the right, guy you're doing the right thing to protect your, community and you're not necessarily doing. That so in looking at this, Case i'm seeing all of those. Things i'm seeing tunnel. Vision i'm seeing junk.
Science i'm seeing so much wouldn't be interesting IF i had to sit in jail like he is to look at. It But i'm finding it a fascinating case to dig. INTO i read some of the. Letters it just blew me. Away there was one By elizabeth that she wrote ninety days before the murder that, Said i'd always believe THAT i made men fall in love with me SO i could take out all the HATRED i felt for them
by humiliating. THEM i despised their cheap lust and easy, passions and in the END i made them hate themselves for loving me and the torture, inflicted so she might be enjoying him sitting. There the other part of it is looking At Jim, updyke who give him. CREDIT i Thought edi did a good masterful job of winning the. CASE i don't know if it was about, justice he wrote in an interview That i've got a copy. Of on one, hand she freely admitted her parents wouldn't be
dead if not for. HER i agree with that she onaned them. Dead on the other, hand she was a great assistance to, Me updyke, said hastim helped him gather the evidence against, sowing and even outlined the whole case for. Him got to be kidding, Me but you see this stuff all over the, country you know right, Now i've got a lot of invested in, this as do the other, investigators and and we'll do anything we can.
Prove his innocence if he's we do feel like he is, innocent.
And we will prevail because we're not going As john, said we're not going to. Stop we're going to keep fighting until we get him out and then we'll move on to the next. One but until that's, done we're Not we're just going to get noisier and we're going to get more efficient and uh we're going to, uh you, know ultimately. PREVAIL i think, that you, know we do have a state here WHERE i think there's a number
of very good people in the. SYSTEM i think that people on the parle board are very well meaning, people AND i think the governor is a is a good governor who cares about this, stuff cares about. JUSTICE i don't think that's true in all states by any, means BUT i think that that is true, here and we're gonna we're gonna find out just how true it is by shining a light on all these different aspects of the.
Case Yen's before we, CLOSE i did want to ask you about your your current, team what they've meant to, you as well As Gail Starling marshall and you, know if you can just touch on, THAT i had a really really.
Bad Child lodger who was eventually, desparred like you, mentioned But i've.
Also had really really fantastic.
Loveness fighting, fully including Former Deputy.
Attorney General Gale Starling marshall Also glad and it's in the, movie and of Course.
Steve, rosenstield who has suffered with me not in so many, years And Steve. Multin you, know there's you, know lawyers cut a lot of, blame.
But there's some really wonderful loveness as, well and and that has been.
Really really helpful to me as well to know, that you, know not everybody in the legal possession is.
Awful there are some really really fantastic human beings working of ers and and.
Then you know the stuff you guys have had wonderful.
People like you and and telling posession and nine seine to.
Just to read it to the editor public yesterday in The Richmond.
Times of that.
You, know the people who really have more enplightan and better things to do with their life than to worry about, me.
You, know stepping into my life and trying to help.
Me that's that's really really encouraging.
And and and has given me hope and.
And it gives me the hope to.
Try to hold on a little while, longer.
You, know to see whether this can be.
Resolved in some way Super flan BEFORE i die of all, WAIT.
I can tell you exactly eleven, okay every two, years eight months and eleven.
Days and it hasn't been, easy but that's What he's wonderful.
People you do have an extraordin an extraordinary, team including the leaders of Of, germany so past and. PRESENT i want to tell the audience there's there's the Movie killing For love and the book is a far far better thing by ensuring And Bill sizemore a far far better. Thing and for audience members who want to get, involved you can send an email To ALINA. A. L. E N a Dot, yarmofsky which is WHY A R M o S K why At governor Dot virginia dot. Gov or you can go to the website which Is governor
Dot virginia dot. Gov That's governor Dot virginia dot. Gov and then this is the part of the show that we've become known. For IT'S i think everyone's favorite part of the. Show it's. Mine and this is a part of the show WHERE i get to thank our. Guests in this case of Course John, Grisham, john thanks for being. Here And Sheriff Harding Sheriff Chip harving Our Albumla. Accounting of course You yen's thanks for participating in this and
sharing your thoughts and experience and educating our. AUDIENCE i want to turn it over to each of you just for brief closing, thoughts and of course we'll end with You yen, Anyway john final.
Thoughts as far As, Yeah i've said it, before these rawful conviction stories are always compelling and tempting from my point of view to write about, them to tell the fantastic, stories as sad as they, are but to also hopefully raise. Awareness HAD i not Written The Innocent man published it what thirteen years, ago there would not be The netflix series, now which is getting far more attention in the, book
which is all. Good but as far as these stories, go you, Know i've gotten my top five innocent stories That i've went across in the past twelve, years And yens's case has got to be in the top. Three it's just such a compelling story of wrongful conviction in all the different ways the things that go wrong with our, system and also the relationship with his accuser is. FANTASTIC
i hope there's a happy. Ending we believe it's going to be a happy ending because we're all working hard with a game plan to Get yen's out and then getting back To, germany And yenz AND i have this kind of a running gag that one day soon we're going to be drinking a beer together In munich At.
Octoberfest i'm coming, Too and by the, way HE i have the same. Deal so you, KNOW i don't want to make you not feel, special but we've got the Same he's got you paying for, It.
John we're all.
Invited we're all invited To.
Octoberfest that's, Right Sheriff harding final.
Thoughts UNTIL i got involved in this kind of, WORK i always thought that you were found guilty beyond a reasonable. Doubt but it looks like In, america once you're found, guilty to be found innocent or, pardon it almost has to be your innocent beyond a shadow of a.
Doubt the standard is way too.
High it's shameful for me to have fifty years in the justice system and to see the, pushback not just in this, case but Other i've read three or four hundred cases from prosecutors in law enforcement that don't man up and step up and admit they make mistakes and seek the. Truth and no one has ever held accountable in the first two hundred and fifty cases That Brandon garrett,
examined in many cases prosecutors with hell exculpatory. Evidence so did law enforcement in that one single case that one officer ever go to trial or spend one day in.
Jail so we can't police.
Ourselves how do we anticipate the public's going to have the confidence in us to police?
Them and, now saving the best for, last yends your final.
Thoughts thank.
YOU i think it's important for your audience.
To realize that.
They're estimated one hundred thousand rightly convicted prisoners.
In The United. States that's a small, city And i'm far from the only. One i'm, not, really really so grateful to the three of, You John, GRISHAM Chi, partying And Jason.
Flom for drawing attention to my.
Case but let's not forget the other nine victims of mischaracters of. Justice one of the things THAT i really would hope for is that If i'm ever, RELEASED i can maybe help draw attention to all those other people and work towards systemic changes so that things like this don't happen to other people in the.
Future it's give, us you, know something to think.
About there's one hundred thousand innocent people in prison in The United. States somebody should be really bothered by. That AND i hope out your audience thinks about them as. Well AND i want to thank.
For today talk About thank, You John, Grisham Sheriff Chip harmon of Baub Blamare county And Yen serring ends thank. You don't forget to give us a fantastic. Review wherever you get your, podcasts it really. Helps And i'm a proud donor to The Ennescence, project AND i really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful. Convictions go To innocenceproject dot
org to learn how to donate and get. Involved i'd like to thank our production, Team Connor hall And Kevin. Wartis the music in the show is by three TIME oscar nominated Composer Jay. Ralph be sure to follow us On instagram At Wrongful conviction and On facebook At Wrongful Conviction. Podcast Wrongful conviction With Jason flamm is a production Of lava For Good podcasts association with Signal company number one