#173 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Ricky Davis

of Ricky committing the crime. Based on Connie's false statement, Ricky spent twelve years in prison until very recently when he and his mother Maureen, finally had something to be thankful for. I think it's important to realize that on the road to a wrongful conviction there's a lot of road kill. There's the defendant who gets wrongfully convicted. There's the defendant's family who has to live with the fact that their loved one is going away for a long

period of time or sentenced to death. Yeah. In this case, it was Ricky's mom, Maureen, who had to bear the brunt of that pain. And then there are witnesses sometimes who are pressured to lie to save their own skin. Witnesses like Connie Doll and they have to live with

the guilt that accompanies that lie. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean when you think about Connie and Maureene in that courtroom, one woman is being forced to talk and one woman is being prevented from talking, and of course the two of them have two very different stories to tell about who Ricky Davis is and what Ricky Davis did. And so the notion of powerlessness that Maurene experienced in this

case is something that we see all the time. I mean, while the trial is happening, there's nothing more can do to stop the training from running over her son, and Connie's being forced to drive that train. She's a victim here too. Today's story starts in El Dorado Hills, California, an upper class suburb about twenty miles east of Sacramento. In so many ways, El Dorado Hills epitomizes the American dream. It's filled with expensive homes that back up onto lush

golf courses. Its shopping centers are filled with luxury stores and fancy restaurants. It's families, by and large live lives of privilege and peace. Ricky Davis's story is still unfolding today, but it began back in Ricky was twenty years old. He lived in El Dorado Hills in a large home on Stanford Lane, along with his mom, Maureen. Now Ricky and Maureen were pretty different from their wealthy neighbors. Maureen had been a teenage mom. By the time she turned twenties.

She was raising Ricky and his three sisters in southern California without much support from their dad. Maureen worked to pay the bills by waitressing. She and Ricky had come to El Dorado Hills just a few years before our story begins. Ricky's grandmother, a successful businesswoman, had recently moved the area, and she bought the house on Stanford Lane for them. This family might not have been classic El Dorado Hills, but they were close knit and loving. No secrets,

no drama, no lies. Ricky had a nineteen year old girlfriend, Connie Doll, who spent plenty of nights at the Stanford Lane house. Now Ricky's mom, Maureen wasn't thrilled with Ricky and Connie's relationship because Connie had a pretty serious meth habit. Ricky smoked pot, It's true, but he wasn't into harder stuff, and Maureen worried that Connie would drag Ricky into trouble. But unlike Ricky, Connie didn't have a stable home. Sometimes she had no home at all and slept in her car.

Once she and Ricky started dating, Connie often spent the night at Ricky's house, climbing in his bedroom window after Maureen was asleep. One Friday, July five, the Stanford Lane house gained two more residents. Rickie's grandmother was in the real estate business, and she had recently learned that one of her employees needed a temporary place to stay. Fifty four year old Jane Hilton had been fighting with her husband over money, and those fights had apparently turned violent.

When Ricky's grandmother found out about this, she offered Jane and her thirteen year old daughter Autumn a spare bedroom on Stanford Lane as a safe harbor. They moved in on Friday July five, but that harbor wasn't quite as safe as it seemed. The next day, Saturday, July six, the house emptied out, at least for the most part. Ricky's mom, Maureen, took off in the middle of the day to go camping with her boyfriend. In the evening, Ricky and his girlfriend Connie headed out to a party.

Even thirteen year old Autumn left the house to meet up with some new friends, three teenage boys she had met earlier that day. For her part, Autumn's mom, Jane, stayed home. Ricky and Connie got back at around three thirty Sunday morning. When they arrived at the house, they found Autumn outside standing alone in the front yard. Autumn told them she'd been home for an hour, but she

hadn't gone inside yet. She was worried about getting in trouble with her mom for being out too late, she said, and she was hoping Ricky and Connie would go inside with her. The three going together upstairs, there's no sign of Autumn's mom, Jane, so Ricky and Connie leave Autumn in her room and had for bed themselves. But as they walked down the hall, Ricky spots blood on the carpet outside the master bedroom, whereas mom Maureen usually sleeps.

She's on a camping trip, he reminds himself. He pushes the door open and finds a nightmare. It's not his mom, but Autumn's mom, Jane Hilton. She's lying on the bed wearing only a nightgown, and she's clear really dead. Jane's been stabbed thirty nine times and is covered in blood. She's got defensive wounds up and down her arms. One of her fingernails is missing, and her hand is clutching a tuft of someone's hair. There's even a bite mark on the back of her left shoulder. Ricky and Connie

were horrified. They called the police, who arrived and interviewed both of them on the spot. Ricky and Connie told the police they'd been at a party all night and it was pretty easy to corroborate their story. The hood of Ricky's car was still warm, suggesting he and Connie were being honest about only recently getting back to the house, and thirteen year old Autumn told police she'd seen Ricky

and Connie arrive home and gone in with them. To these officers at the scene, it seemed pretty clear that Ricky and Connie were innocent, so clear that the police didn't bother to interview the other people who had been with them at the party. Of course, those people would have been alibi witnesses. Instead, police moved on to check out the obvious suspect, Jane's husband the guy with whom she had been fighting, but he seemed to have an

alibi too. He'd apparently spent the evening at a local restaurant. So next the police tried to find the three teenage boys Autumn had been hanging out with earlier that night. The problem was Autumn only knew first names for two of them, Michael and Calvin. After scanning through a few yearbooks from local high schools, the detectives came up with nothing. Unfortunately, that was it for the investigation. Without any suspects or solid leads, the case went cold for fourteen years. Fast

forward from July to November. Ricky and Connie had broken up long ago. Their relationship ended up lasting less than a year. Since then, Connie had continued using meth off and on. For his part, Rickie had spent those years in and out of prison for a series of relatively minor offenses, mostly drug related crimes and robbery, but neither of them had ever been involved in anything close to murder. In nine nine, the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office decided

to reinvestigate Jane Hilton's killing. Two detectives were assigned to this cold case, and they started by reviewing old news coverage. Their attention was caught by a story that had run in a local newspaper just a few days after the murder. A reporter from the paper had shown up at the Stanford Lane house. Connie had let her in and shown

her the room where Jane had been killed. The reporter asked a bunch of questions about finding the body, and that's when Connie had said something that struck these new detectives as suspicious. Connie had told the reporter that Jane's body had been positioned on the bed as though she were sleeping. Whoever had killed Jane, Connie speculated, must have

moved her body onto the bed afterwards. Connie's comment was pretty obviously a guess, but the police began wondering if she actually might know something about the body being moved. So over the next fifteen months, between November and February two one, the police decided to interrogate Connie on three separate occasions. It was all caught on videotape, every last word, and that videotape makes it clear the police weren't aiming

only for Connie. They wanted her to confess to being present when Jane died, and they wanted her to name her ex boyfriend, Ricky Davis as the killer. The theory was that Jane was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by a man, and demand that the police officers had

in mind was Ricky Davis. Police officers often go after ex girlfriends or ex wives on the assumption that there was a bad breakup, that there's some animous there that may motivate the aggrieved party into revealing information that they had been unwilling to reveal at the time of the investigation. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is the thinking here. Connie is first brought in for questioning only

days after the new cops take over the case. At first, she insists repeatedly that she had nothing to do with Jane's murder, that all she remembers is coming home and finding the body. But right away Connie is hit with a barrage of lies. Police tell her that a witness had placed her in Ricky at the homicide scene, although no one had. Police tell Connie the d n A established her presence in Jane's bedroom even though it didn't, and they tell Connie that the hairs found clenched in

Jane's hand belonged to Ricky. Another lie. Police had actually lost those hairs. They were never tested at all. Were present in the house when this happened. I was not. What do you mean? Like I said, you know, we've got all kinds of physical evidence there happened. Oh my god, there's no way. Over time, though, the police's cascading lies

begin to break Connie down. Like most of us, Connie has no idea that police are allowed to lie during interrogations, So after hearing all this apparent evidence of her own involvement, Connie starts questioning her memory of what happened all those years ago. Okay, if I was there, I had no memory of that. She's desperately trying to make sense of what they're saying, and eventually tells the investigators that maybe

she was there and just couldn't remember it. The investigators suggest that Ricky had programmed her memory so that Connie would blank out her recollections of the crime. She agrees, maybe I have amnesia. I couldn't watch that happen. That would have been if I've written happening. At least she wouldn't hive pointed at they are absolutely confusing the hell

out of her. They are causing a crisis of confidence where she begins not only to doubt her memory, but she can't really distinguish between what she actually remembers and what she thinks she might remember. Investigators Warren Connie that if she doesn't somehow recover her memories, they might have to interrogate her again, and they say that could lead

to her arrest. On the other hand, they imply that Connie will receive leniency, even immunity from prosecution, if she provides them with a statement, right now, we're first one to jump on the brandwagon. I always get the easiest ride.

And so what happens here is that the police provide incentives to adopt their preconcy theory, promises of leniency or threats of harm, suggestions that the first person to jump on the bandwagon is going to get the best deal, and that if she doesn't jump on first, someone else is going to take your spot and she's going to get punished more severely. These tactics work. Connie breaks and agrees to confess, to say that she helped Ricky killed Jane,

but she has no idea what to say about the crime. Remember, Connie wasn't actually there to help her out. Investigators feed Connie everything they know about Jane Hilton's murder and everything they think happened to Here's the story that Connie ultimately agreed to repeat. She said she was there while Ricky and Jane were arguing about whether Jane's daughter Autumn could go out that night. During the argument, Connie said, Ricky

punched Jane in the face. The altercation escalated. Eventually, Connie went downstairs and acted as a lookout while Ricky stabbed Jane. Then, Connie said she came back to the room and helped Ricky move Jane's body onto the bad So to me, what makes this case different is that we have a sort of recipe, if you will, for a persuaded false confession. What's unique about a persuaded false confession is that the

suspect comes to doubt their own memory. They get to a place where they think the police officers are telling me I committed this crime. They're telling me they have evidence that proves that I committed this crime, but why

can't I remember it? And when a suspect gets to that place of uncertainty, the police officers provide an answer, the events that you saw were so traumatic that they caused you to repress these memories, and so the interrogation becomes an exercise in pulling these memories out of the suspect's mind. But they're not real memories. They don't exist. At times, Connie's language reveals her own uncertainty. Even while she's confessing I think I did that, I probably did that.

I seem to remember that. There's a tentativeness that you wouldn't have if they were real memories, and we see that throughout Connie's interrogation telling Lee. When Connie's not fed information, she can't get anything about the story right. She's not able to tell the police what the murder weapon looked like, where Ricky got it, or how he disposed of it. The detectives are shaping her memories, they are feeding her facts,

and the final story here is really their story. It's their preconceived theory of the crime come to life through the words of Connie Doll. Strangely enough, the police don't arrest anyone right away. Instead, they leave Connie alone for a while and interview Ricky himself. He vehemently denies any involvement whatsoever. So the police come back to Connie in January two thousand to see if she can give them any more information, and they remind her that the more

details she can provide, the better off she'll be. During this interrogation, officers play Connie the crime scene video that was recorded the night Jane died to see if they can quote refresh her memory. Now. I've seen this video myself, and it's horrifying. It's almost totally silent as the videographer walks from room to room, ending up in the bedroom where Jane died. The camera documents every wound, every injury, from her missing fingernail to her eyes which were still open.

It's the kind of crime scene that makes even people who see this all the time sick to their stomachs. Connie watches the video and agrees to add more detail to her story. She says she heard Jane plead for her life, but Ricky didn't listen. She says she heard Jane make gurgling noises as Rickie stabbed her, and after the attack, Connie says she saw Rickie covered in blood. The police still don't arrest Connie, but they also don't

leave her alone. Instead, they come back a third time in two thousand one to try to get even more details. This time, detectives tell her that she'll either be charged with a misdemeanor accessory type of thing, or she'll go down as a full blooded half partner in the murder. It all depends on her credibility. Now, Connie's got two young children. The police tell her that if she continues to cooperate, she'll be able to go home to her kids. But they warn her saying I don't know isn't going

to help you at all. They bring up the subject of her children repeatedly throughout the interrogation, and the message to Connie is crystal clear. If I don't tell them what they want to hear, I'm gonna lose my children. So they play on her emotions as a mother. These kinds of tactics are very common when a woman is a suspect to her witness, because police officers know that most women would walk across a field of glass in

order to protect their children. To satisfy her interrogators, Connie adds another detail to her story, and it's a big one. She wasn't just a lookout. She says she was in the room during the murder and tried to intervene. And remember that bite mark on the back of Jane's shoulder. Connie ends up saying she was responsible for it, that

she accidentally bit Jane during the struggle. Finally, Connie's story was good enough one two thousand two, paced only on Connie's confession, the El Dorado County District Attorney's office filed murder charges against Ricky Davis. And here's the thing. When the cops told Connie she wouldn't be charged, turns out they were lying again. Connie was charged with murder two

as an accomplice. A few months later, prosecutors told Connie that if she agreed to testify against Rickie at trial, she could plead guilty to manslaughter and get a huge reduction in her sentence. They decide exactly how much of a reduction. After she testified. With no good options left, Connie pled guilty and agreed to take the stand. I didn't like her to start with. That's Maureen Kleine, Ricky Davis's mother. Remember, she's always had an opinion about Ricky's

ex girlfriend, Connie. Ricky and I have always been very close. He had a horrible father, so I think the closeness was because I was all Ricky really had. Even as a teenager, he would call me his best friend. So this situation was extremely devastating. In two thousand two, Maureen learned that Ricky was being charged with murdering Jane Hilton, based on the testimony of a girl he dated fourteen

years ago. Marine couldn't believe it. She knew her son was no killer, and the police had seemed to acknowledge his and Connie's innocence years ago. As she processed the news, Maureen struggled to understand why Connie would falsely confess. Connie had problems obviously, and she let the detectives talk her into believing that she had something to do with the murder. I was very angry at Connie, and I couldn't believe

that she was lying this out and out lying. I don't understand how somebody could convince you that you participated in a murder that you didn't. The idea that Connie would confess to a murder she didn't commit, it was impossible for Maureen to believe. I understand and sympathize with Maureen about her anger towards Connie, But Connie's a tragic

victim in this too. She didn't start out by naming Ricky Davis as a murderer, and it was only the lies and the manipulation by the detectives in that cold case squad that gave her really no choice but to change her story in ways that pleased them, or else she was going to lose her kids. After Rickie was charged, Maureen sat down and watched Connie's interrogation videos. As Maureen watched,

she began to see how police manipulated Connie. She started realizing that the problem was much bigger than her son's ex girlfriend. Connie did stay in the starting of one of the interviews that she had been up on mess for twenty four hours prior, so that in itself, I would think they wouldn't have interviewed her at that time, but they did. Anyway, she would say exactly what the scold it to. You could tell that they would turn

up the recording and get her back on track. They kept did tell Connie that once Ricky was convicted that she would go free, And I guess they threatened her with her children and stuff. I didn't believe anything would come of it, because I knew Ricky had no part of it. I knew he was innocent. Maureen was right that Ricky was innocent, but she was wrong that nothing would come of Connie's story. In June two thousand five, Ricky went on trial for Jane Hilton's murder. Prosecutors called

Connie doll as their star witness. From his seat at the defense table, Ricky watched Connie testify. He hadn't seen her in almost twenty years, and he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Connie knew he was innocent. The two of them had discovered Jane's body together somehow, though the system had put them on opposite sides. For her part, Maureen sat in the front row of the courtroom, right behind Ricky as prosecutors told the jury an unthinkable story

about her son. The way they portrayed him, like he was some vicious animal, that was hard to take. I was surprised that the jurors believed Connie. To me, she didn't sound very incredible. The way she answered was what she was told to say, but they did believe her. Obviously, I couldn't say anything. At times, I wanted to yell out and react, but I knew that if I did, I wouldn't be allowed in the courtroom, So it was a helpless stealing. In exchange for Connie's testimony, prosecutors agreed

that her sentence should be reduced to time served. The next day, she walked free, but Ricky Ricky wasn't as lucky. Based on Connie's false testimony, Ricky was convicted of murdering Jane Hilton. He was given a sentence of sixteen years to life. It was like a bad movie. I mean, I know, no systems perfect, but there was just no way I thought it could be convicted under the circumstances. But he was. Everything about my life changed in the moment that he was convicted. It seemed to me my

whole personality changed. I became angry at everything I We should be kept each a horrible things in their life. I mean, I'm sorry that that's the way I feel. After his two thousand five conviction, Ricky Davis was sent to a California prison hours away from El Dorado Hills. His ex girlfriend Connie was free, but she never shook her myth habit. In two thousand and fourteen, Connie died of an overdose. For her part, Maureen moved out of the Stanford Lane house she couldn't be there alone and

started living with her mom. Every month, Maureen drove to visit Rickey in prison year after year after year. Said there's a lot of bad people whom they deserved to be in there, but there's seems to be a lot that they shouldn't be in there. With no money, you're going to do time period that was just cut and try, and it pretty much is the way it is. This is the same with different nationalities. They don't get the same justice that a rich white person does, and that's wrong.

Shortly before Connie's death, the Northern California Innocence Project agreed to take on Ricky Davis's case, and in two thousand fourteen, attorneys from the project sought DNA testing on a host of items from Jane Hilton's murder scene. The crime lab started with that bite mark on the back of Jane's shoulder, the mark that Connie told police had been left by her teeth. Whoever left that mark bit through Jane's nightgown. Sure enough, the lab found saliva on the nightgown. And

developed a full DNA profile of an unknown male. Obviously, the biter was not Connie Doll, and it wasn't Ricky Davis either. Next, the lab tested DNA from skin cells that were left underneath Jane's fingernails from when she'd scratched her attacker whose DNA was it the same unknown man who had left his saliva on Jane's nightgown. The profile was run through the local and national DNA databases with

no luck. The attacker couldn't be identified, but it was crystal clear that whoever had killed Jane Hilton was not Connie or Ricky. Ricky's attorneys filed a post conviction petition based on this new evidence. In two thousand nineteen, the court throughout Ricky's conviction. That was great news, but Ricky's fight wasn't over. Even though the DNA excluded Ricky, prosecutors weren't ready to drop charges until they knew whose DNA it was, so they began preparing to retry Ricky for

Jane's murder, and Ricky had to stay behind bars. But in the meantime, prosecutors tried a brand new method to identify the DNA genetic genealogy, and it led investigators back to someone whose name they hadn't heard in twenty five years. Genetic genealogy searches public databases like ancestry, dot com and twenty three and me to look for matches to evidence that's found at a crime scene. Police officers start examining the family trees and look for people who have a

connection to the crime scene. In Ricky's case, the process led the d a's office to fifty one year old Michael Green, who is Michael Green. Turns out he was one of the three teenagers that Jane's daughter Autumn had been with the night her mother was killed at Long Last. Twenty five years after Jane's death, the authorities had found her killer. In February, Michael Green was charged with Jane's

murder and was booked into the Eldorado County Jail. He entered a plea of not guilty and is awaiting trial today now. Because Green's case is still unfolding, we don't have clear answers yet about why he attacked Jane or how he did it. We just know the d n A was his. That's pretty close to case closed on February a judge declared Ricky Davis factually innocent and dismissed the case against him after serving twelve years for a murder he did not commit. Ricky walked out of prison

right into the arms of his mom. The judge exonerate him, which he said, that was the first time he had ever done it. That was such a great feeling. And didn't see him walk out of the jail was It's the craziest thing. Everybody was there to care him coming down and hugging him and stuff. To see him smiling because he was happy instead of having to go back into the sales as I was leading him. Yeah, it was fantastic feeling. Unfortunately, the same couldn't happen for Connie.

She remains in death a convicted participant in Jane Hilton's murder. There were two wrongful convictions here, and this DNA evidence proved that Connie's story was false. It also proved that she didn't bite Jane Hilton, so she deserves to be exonerated posthumously. This year, Ricky Davis will be spending its first Thanksgiving in nearly twelve years with his mom Maureen. Well, I'll make dinner that Thanksgiving Turkey. That's the only time of a year I can afford it. But his sister's

and nephew will be here, and that'll be nice. I'm not the best cook today, but it's more having everybody together and happy. That's the best part of it. He's a very affectionate person. When he comes in and helps me, it's best stealing in the world. I feel lucky, blessed every time I look at him. Hello, Hey, Ricky, how are you. I'm doing good? How do you see goody? Laura, tell me about those first moments of freedom, what it felt like to walk out those doors. Long time come. Yeah,

I've seen the video a lot of people there. I saw you eating some pizza. You went right for the comfort food. You know, what are your toppings of choice? All the good stuff. Do you see your mom much these days? Yes? I do. Yeah, I love her very much. And her since we're talking about food and pizza and everything else, is there's something your mom makes for you. It's something she used to cook that you missed and that she can make for you again. Not that you're out.

I have a funny story for that, you know. A few days after it was out. Tell her you know my vision waking up in the I you couldn't be breakfast and she says, well, you were visioning vision a different mom. Oh my god, that's amazing. Strong to the end. I love it. And that's the story of Ricky Davis. Next week we'll tell you about Michael Hash and his childhood friend Eric Weekly. When Eric was accused of killing an elderly woman, the pressure of the interrogation room caused

him to falsely implicate Michael. Michael's parents never stopped fighting for their son's innocence, and now that he's been exonerated, they're fighting to clear Eric's name. Too. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to our executive producers Jason Flom and Kevin Wardis. Our production team is headed by senior producer and Pope, along with producers

Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed by Jeanie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our music was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura ni Writer, and you can follow me on Twitter at s Driven for more information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction