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

mom found evidence that blew this case wide open. Michael Hash and Eric Weekly were childhood friends, longtime friends, and to see the way the systems split them apart in this case, it's terrible. It's not uncommon for one co defendant to turn on another code defendant, especially in a state where the death penalty is on the table, and it's really understandable how that could have destroyed Eric's relationship with Mike and Mike's whole family. But that's not what happened.

One of the most incredible things about Wrongful Convictions work is that you encounter these pockets of grace in the most unexpected places, some of the most unbelievable humans. You'll ever meet. Are people like Pam hash who son Mike was falsely implicated by his one time childhood friend. You know, that's a situation that could have led to a lot of rage and a lot of anger, and a lot of blame. Yeah, I mean vengeance, anger, hatred. They can

keep somebody stuck. But Pam realized very early on that that was wasted energy and that she needed to spend all her time learning about the case, finding the right lawyers, doing your own digging, and pushing the authorities to come to the right solution. She turned all of that into forgiveness. That's pretty incredible. Today's story starts in Culpepper County, Virginia, about ninety minutes west of the Washington d C Beltway. Culpepper is a popular weekend getaway spot for the d

C crowd. It's got bed and breakfasts, art boutiques, and plenty of fancy cafes. Architectural Digest even named Culpepper the prettiest area in Virginia. But for all its beauty, Culpepper is also home to an unremedied injustice, one that stains the county to this day. That injustice began back in in Lignum, an unincorporated part of Culpepper that hadn't quite caught up to the rest of the county's growing prosperity.

Lignum was where seventy four year old Thelma Scroggins had lived her whole life, in the same two story frame house where she'd been born. Thelma was a petite, curly haired lady who had attired from her work as a mail carrier. She had been widowed years earlier, and since then she lived alone. But Thelma's life was still full and active. She had plenty of friends and liked to spend time playing the organ at the Baptist church across

the street. It was the evening of Saturday July and Thelma was on the phone with one of her girlfriends. At about nine pm, Thelma told her friend that she had to go. Someone was knocking at the door. The friend called back fifteen minutes later, but got no answer. She tried again the next morning, still no answer. When Thelma didn't show up at church that Sunday morning, her friends really started worrying. One of them, Richard Hicks, went over to Thelma's house. As he pulled up outside, he

could hear Thelma's TV blasting at top volume. Richard let himself inside the front door wasn't locked, and found pink hair curlers scattered across the living room floor. He went in further and saw Thelma slumped over in front of her bedroom door. Or She had been shot in the head four times. It seemed the TV had been turned up to mask the sound of the gunshots. Police arrived

and quickly canvassed the scene. They found that Thelma's jewelry was still sitting on her dresser, but her purse was missing, along with her green Ford pickup truck. A month later, a deer hunter found the truck abandoned in a wooded area about a mile and a half away from Thelma's home. Her purse was there too, with its contents scattered on the ground nearby. But despite this discovery, police couldn't develop any viable suspects or leads. A few months later, the

case went cold. Three years later, in November nine, a new DA was elected in Culpepper on a promise to solve cold cases. Shortly after he took office, new detectives were assigned to investigate Thelmas Scroggin's murder. They started off by visiting a local prison to interview a young woman named Alicia Shelton. Alicia had just been convicted of shooting a man in the heads six times. The cops figured her crime was similar enough to what happened to Thelma

to make Alicia worth questioning. On audio tape, Alicia told the investigators that she didn't know anything about Thelma's murder, But then one detective offered what he called a little foundation. He suggested that Alicia might get a reduced sentence if she provided information about her teenage cousin, Michael Hash. Then silence. The tape was shut off, supposedly for a cigarette break. When the recorder got turned back on, Alicia was suddenly

full of ideas. She said she'd overheard her cousin Michael, discussing his involvement in Thelma's murder. She said Michael did it along with his buddies Eric Weakley and Jason Klobe. Alicia Shelton was looking at a lot of time and desperate for a way to get out from underneath the

weight of a heavy sentence. I don't know what happened when the camera was off, but there had to be some powerful inducement to get her to change her story from I don't know what you're talking about two, fingering her own cousin and his friends for this cry in. When Thelma was killed, Michael was fifteen, Eric was sixteen, and Jason was eighteen. They had grown up together, writing go karts as kids and crushing on girls as teenagers. Michael and his parents, Jeff and Pam Hash, lived within

a mile of Thelma's house. In fact, Thelma had been the Hash family's mail carrier, delivering birthday cards and letters to the home with her typical friendly wave. Michael was a good kid. There was no reason whatsoever to suspect him and his friends of killing Thelma's croggins. It's true that Michael used to frequent a campsite near the wooded area where Thelma's truck had been found, but that was

a pretty thin connection. Somehow, though, Michael Hash, Jason klobe and Eric Weakley found themselves at the center of a cold case murder investigation. In April two thousand. Police decided to interrogate, but they don't start with Michael Hash or Jason Klobey. They start with Eric Weekly. By this time, Eric was nineteen years old with a reputation as a follower, someone who could be easily intimidated. Eric Weekly was a weak link. He had a little daughter that he cared

very much about. He had a prior record, which gave interrogators leverage. They started with him because they felt that he was the most likely to break and it worked. Eric said his factory job. When two detectives approach him and start asking about Thelma's murder. Eric is shocked. He had nothing to do with it. He tells the detectives they're crazy and says he has to get back to work. The cops leave, but not for long. They follow Eric everywhere,

the gas station, the grocery store. They show up at Eric job over and over. These detectives would not leave him alone. They hounded him, They stalked him, They kept coming to his workplace trying to question him. It got to the point where his employer just was fed up and he fired Eric. And Eric got worried that he would never be able to get another job because everywhere he would go, these cops would just show up at

his work again. So he gave up and he agreed finally to go to the police station and answer their questions. Over the next several weeks, Eric and Doors not one, not too but a whole chain of interrogations as the police keep insisting he come back again and again. Some of these interrogations last longer than twelve hours. Only a few are recorded, but what did get caught on tape is enough to make anyone skeptical. During the first few interrogations,

Eric protests his innocence over and over. He doesn't have the mind or the heart to kill somebody, he tells police, and I'm sitting he had tell him no, and he still not believe. I'm sitting here telling you no, I did not shoot this woe. The police won't listen to Eric. They insist he's guilty, and they chip away at him slowly and steadily over the course of weeks. Why do you sit here and try to lie to me about that today? Then the police tell Eric that if he cooperates,

he can go home. If he just repeats the details they feed him, the police can work with him, even help him come from That helps here. But if Eric holds back, if he refuses to say he was involved, they say that'll hurt him. If he doesn't confess, he might not get to see his daughter anymore. These interrogations continue off and on for weeks, but Eric still won't confess, so the cops pull out a tried and true attacked.

Finally they say, okay, Eric, if you have nothing to do with this, would you at least come down and take a polygraph exam? And Eric did. He took that exam to get these police officers off his back, and then they told him he failed the exam, which got him talking. The polygraph finally does it. Eric weakly realizes he'll never be able to get the police to believe him, and he breaks. He agrees to tell the cops a story. Eric says that he, Michael, and Jason chopped Thelma's body

up with an axe. Their motive, he said, was robbery. They stole diamond rings, vases, and necklaces from her home, a king's ransom in treasure. This was a confessional, right, but none of it came close to what actually happened. Thelma wasn't attacked with an ax, and what little jewelry she owned was found sitting on her dresser. So police accused Eric of lying. Again, Eric's response, I'm just telling you what you want to hear, so I can go the hell home. The police don't let him go the

hell home. They've got to clean up Eric's story and it takes hours. They cut him short when he begins to describe the jewelry because none of it had actually been taken. They show him photos of the crime scene so that he can see Thelma's body wasn't mutilated with an axe. In fact, they end up straight out telling Eric that Thelma had been shot, and all these details provided by the police are what end up in Eric's confession. Eric's story becomes final on May six, two thousand, He's arrested.

Immediately that same night, police come for Jason Klobe and Michael Hash. The night that he was arrested, it was it was a total shock. That's Pam Hash. She's Michael Hash's mom. It was about one o'clock in the morning. Everybody had gone to bed, and all of a sudden, there's barking dogs, people banging on the door, yelling. My husband got up, went to the door and they pretty much just barged into the home. They were wanting Michael.

She had, of course the boxers on, nothing else, and I begged them to let him have at least shirt and shoes. They let him take it with him, and in a matter of minutes he was loaded into the car, and all these cars left, and who got dressed and followed them. It was all so quick, it felt like it was in a movie. It was just a nightmare. Pam's nightmare had just begun. She would soon find out her son, Michael, along with his buddies Eric and Jason,

had been charged with capital murder. Culpepper County Commonwealth Attorney Gary Close prosecuted each of the three boys, starting with Jason Klobe, but the prosecution had a problem. There was no evidence against Jason except for Eric's statement, and prosecutors could only use Eric's statement against Jason if Eric agreed to testify in person against him. It's not enough to simply play Eric's confession during the trial of Michael and Jason,

because lawyers can't cross examine a confession. They need to be able to cross examine Eric about what he says on that tape. It's part of a constitutional right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses the right of cross examination. The prosecution needed Eric weakly to get up on the witness stand and testify to get him there. They offered him a deal. If Eric agreed to testify against both Jason and Michael, the state would reduce Eric's charges to

second degree murder. That charge carried at most twenty years behind bars, sometimes much less. If Eric didn't take the deal. On the other hand, he was facing life in prison if convicted. Eric was in despair. He felt cornered by the confession that detectives had wrung out of him. Like so many people before him, Eric felt that he had no real choice. He took the deal and agreed to testify against his friends. Once you confess, the pressure to

plead guilty on these suspects is even greater. Of all the exonerations in the DNA database, twelve percent involve people who pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit, and each one of those please involved someone who was represented by counsel and who weighed the options and decided it was in their best interests to give up all of their rights, to give up their right to testify, their right to appeal, their right to prove their innocence, in order to plead guilty.

Eric was now a lock for the prosecution. In November two thousand, it was time to try Jason Klobe as he had agreed to do. Eric took the stand and testified that Jason had participated in the murder. But Jason's defense lawyers had an ace in the hole, an alibi. They brought in several witnesses who testified that Jason had been visiting his dad in Pennsylvania at the time of Felmus murder. It took the jury less than two hours

to find Jason Klobe not guilty. If Jason wasn't present during this crime, then that undermines Eric's entire confession because he has Jason right there being a major actor along with Michael in the murder of Thomas Croggins. Once these detectives learned that Jason had an alibi, they should have walked away from this case, But detectives didn't walk away. Instead, they plowed ahead with the trial of Michael hash After Kloby was acquitted, I kept telling Mike, you're next. They

know the truth from Chloe's case. Your next, You'll be next. You're coming home now. Michael didn't have a strong alibi like Jason did. When Thelma died, Michael had been right there in Culpepper County, hanging out with some buddies. But even though Michael's defense was weaker, the prosecutors decided to leave nothing to chance. They knew that Eric Weekly's testimony alone wasn't going to be enough to get a conviction against Michael. So what did they do? They manufactured more evidence.

They went to a seasoned serial snitch, a jailhouse informant who had worked with them in the past and testified in other cases, Paul Carter. About a week after Michael had been arrested, he met Paul Carter in jail. At the time, it seemed like a random encounter. Later, at Michael's trial, Carter testified that when they met, Michael had admitted to killing Thelma. During cross examination, Eric's defense attorney suggested Car it was getting some benefit in exchange for

fabricating testimony against Michael, but Carter denied it. He said he wasn't receiving anything for his cooperation. He was a pretty career criminal and he knew what he was doing, even though he's up there telling the jury that he is only there because this was somebody's mother or grandmother. You know, he's looking for something, and I thought the jury would see right through that. The prosecutor backed up his witnesses claim, telling the jury that, of course, the

state hadn't made any deal with Carter. After testimony concluded, the jury deliberated for six and a half hours. As the clocks neared midnights on February nine, two thousand one, they returned a verdict guilty. It's a sound that I think out here for the rest of my life. When they came back and said that they found him guilty, it's almost likely you hear guilty, guilty, guilty, just echoing, and quite frankly, I don't remember a whole lot after that.

I know that I broke down and they took Michael immediately out of the courtroom. I remember my husband putting me in the backseat of the car, and don't really remember a whole lot after that Until the next morning. At sentencing, Michael told the judge, you've convicted an innocent person, but it was too late. Michael Hash was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. A lot of defendants in Michael's situation might have played guilty and accepted a

much shorter sentence, but Michael didn't confess. That's important. It's never wrong to assert your innocence. For his part, Eric weakly had finally satisfied the state he'd lived up to his end of the bargain and testified against his friends. In exchange, the state reduced Eric's charges to second degree murder, to which Eric formally pled guilty on June thirteenth, two thousand one. He would go on to serve six years and eight months in prison. Eric implicating Michael and Jason

and even himself. It angered me, but I would always go back to I know he's not doing this, and just knowing Eric, somebody is making him say these things. They're threatening him. He had a child by then, a young child, and I knew that that was probably his main focus was I've got to do whatever to get back to my child. And I can't be mad at

that because I'm a mom. Eric weekly served his time and was freed in two thousand six, but Michael remained behind bars, serving a life sentence, even as he pursued his appeals. You know, each year at Christmas time, I'd have that faith he's going to be home this year, and I'd buy him Christmas presents, just like I did every year. Before i'd wrapped them I'd have them under the tree. I'd always after Christmas take him up, pack them away in a box, and add to it each

Christmas that he didn't come home. When Michael's last appeal ended fruitlessly, pam Hash drove to the office of her son's lawyers and took his paperwork. I didn't know anything about the legal system or law I worked as a foal designer, but she was a mother and she was going to help her son. I went to the office and picked up of what must have been a dozen legal boxes, pens, the thousands of papers just thrown in

the box in no particular order. And that's pretty much when I started searching the internet on false confessions, asking questions, looking up people that I could call, that I could beg for help. Steve Grison was one of the first people that I contacted. I knew that Eric had given a false confession, and I thought maybe Steve could help me. I sent utters to him. I made phone calls and bless his hard I think he took my call just so that maybe I would shut up. Pam Hash would

call me, would send me information. She sent me a VHS of Eric's interrogation. I reviewed those transcripts and talked about the case with her. Pam was a very forceful advocate for her son. She believed that he was absolutely innocent and was willing to go to the ends of the earth to prove it. Steve put Pam in touch with several people in Virginia, everyone from lawyers to axonorees like Beverly Monroe, who we talked about in Emerson Stephen's story.

In fact, it was Beverly who told Pam Hash to go to the federal courthouse and pull the file on Paul Carter that jail house snitch prosecutors had denied making a deal with. I went to the Federal Court and I asked the clerk of the to look through his files. Her exact remark to me was, and this is the clerk of the Federal court Paul Carter. She said, Oh, he got the deal of the century. Turns out Paul Carter had been serving a fifteen years sentence on federal

drug charges after he testified against Michael. Though Carter was immediately released time served, he sure did get the deal of the century to get out of jail free card. It also turned out that Michael had been moved to a different jail for two nights for no other reason than to put him together with Paul Carter. None of this had been disclosed to Michael's defense or to Eric Weakley's defense. Pam may have started out as a floral designer,

but her legal work was pretty kick ass. She had singlehandedly demolished Carter's value as a witness against her son. She had proven that the prosecutor lied when he told the jury there was no deal with Carter. The only evidence against my Chael that remained was Eric Weekly. A few years after Eric's released from prison, two lawyers from the University of Virginia Innocence Project knocked on his door. Eric was rebuilding his life as best he could, but

his friend Michael Hash was still behind bars. Did Eric want to tell them anything about his testimony against Michael? Eric nearly broke down. His false testimony against Michael had sat for years on his shoulders like a lead weight. He had been coerced into confessing by police and into pleading guilty by prosecutors. But fairly or unfairly, he blamed himself. Could he really take it all back? Try at last

to do right by his friend? Eric was at risk of being charged with perjury if he came forward and said that everything he had testified to was a lie. The sad part is that even when witnesses recant their statement, prosecutors and judges most of the time don't believe them. They think that the initial statement is the true statement and that the recantation is a lie. So Eric risked doing it all for nothing, because if the courts didn't believe him and Michael stays in prison, Eric decided the

risk was worth it. On March twenty one, two thousand eleven, he signed an affid davit recanting everything. I had nothing to do with Thelmas Groggin's murder, and neither did Michael hash He wrote, we are innocent of this crime. Instead, he explained that police had fed him information about Thelma's murder and coerced him into repeating it. This was courageous, and I think that Pan and Michael recognized as such.

I was so happy when Eric came board because I knew how much he stood to lose, yet he was still doing this, and it just was maybe here's some more hope. Maybe this will be something that will turn the case around. Now, Eric couldn't benefit directly from his affidavit, because, as we mentioned before, when you plead guilty, you give up your right to prove your own innocence. But Michael Hash could benefit. He hadn't pled guilty, he'd been convicted

at trial. That meant that legally he was still able to challenge his conviction in court. Michael's lawyers at the mid Atlantic Innocence Projects snapped into action, with Pam Hash right alongside them. They filed a petition to overturn Michael's conviction, with Eric's affidavit and the secret deal with Paul Carter as the centerpieces. Pam Hash knew from day one that

her son was innocent. Her investigative work, together with Eric's recantation, had proved it, but every time she'd spoken out in the past, authorities had told her to shut up, sit down, stopping so dramatic. I knew exactly what called Pepper County was capable of. It's blatant that this was a setup, that he was put in with a snitch. And I was told, Mrs Hash, you watched too much TV. This is real life, that doesn't happen. Would this time be different?

Would someone finally listen on February two twelve, Pam got her answer a federal judge throughout Michael's conviction. The judge ruled that Eric's recantation was more believable than his confession. As for Pam's discoveries about Paul Carter, the judge said prosecutors had out and outlied when they denied cutting Carter a deal. Real life had met real justice. It was like, yes, yes, somebody finally gets it after so many doors being shut.

This was amazing for once we won something. Two weeks later, Michael was released from prison. He had been behind bars for nearly twelve years. It was an absolute perfect day. I hugged him and all I could think to telling was no more chains, Mike, no more chains. After he came home, I gave him this huge box with all of his Christmas presents in it, and some of them were twelve years old, so the wrapping paper was faded and like a delmi. I had bought chocolate well that

had melted and rehardened and melted and turned white. He started opening video games that you couldn't even get the computer to play them on anymore, but he loved it just the same. We cried a lot of sad tears and a lot of happy tears. A few months later, all charges against Michael Hash were formally dismissed. That day, Pam wrote an email to Steve just three words long. We one, Steve. I almost fell out of my chair. I was ecstatic. As for Eric Weekly, the judges's decision

took a twelve year burden off his shoulders. I'm glad that man's home, Eric told the local news. I feel like I amended my wrong. Since the charges were dismissed, Michael Hash has been making the most of his freedom. In two thousand and fifteen, he got married. His parents were there, his lawyers were there, and you know who else was there? Eric Weekly, celebrating with all his heart. All had been forgiven. It was as if nothing happened, and this was Mike's decision. But why not? We were

friends then, we're still friends now. Why shouldn't I invite him to my wedding? And the prosecutor who secured Michael and Eric's convictions he resigned one day before Michael walked free. That prosecutor was later reprimanded by the Virginia bar for lying to the jury about Paul Carter's get out of jail free card. As for Eric himself, he remains convicted of second degree murder. Remember, he doesn't have access to

post conviction relief because he pled guilty. Eric Weekly brought justice to Michael Hash by making right and old wrong. Now it's time to bring justice to Eric too. In two thousand and eighteen, Eric's attorneys filed a pardon petition with the Governor of Virginia. While he waits for an answer, Eric has to face everybody, from employers to landlords, with a murder conviction on his record. A formal pardon from the governor would change that. It would exonerate Eric Weekly.

And that's what Eric deserves. But don't take our word for it. Here's what Michael Hash thinks. Absolutely. I think the governor shippornerk. I think he was made to do what he did. And uh, he's still a part of this ordeal just as I am. So he deserves just as much as anybody else does in this case to have themselves vindicated. Hello, Hey, Eric, this is Laura and Steve. How are you doing all right? Great? How are you

are you spending your time these days? Living life? Sometimes with my wife and kids and grand baby and all that good stuff. Grand baby, that's exciting, wonderful. Yeah, how old she's a year and I have now. Wow, that's great. I got a call from Pam Hash about your case actually when she was fighting to get Michael freed. The day that Michael got released from president was the greatest day of my life. Man. After it was all over where me and Michael had a long conversation and we

made amendsum about each other. That's how friends do that. To see my friend come home and just do his thing and live his life free from all of it now and it's a great feeling. Eric. What would it mean to you to receive a pardon from governor of Virginia? We all fourteen years, I went back to president, got a beautiful wife's got a beautiful family, and still fighting it and I still keep my head held high. But

it would be a life altering thing. I can actually go out and I'm not worried about having to put down the problem, Okay, Victor Sellon or not. I mean, it will mean the world for me, just to solidify that, you know, me, Mike and Jason were innocent of all of it. So I don't know how I'm going to react until I had the paper in my hand. I mean, I might just break down and cry like a little girl.

You know what I mean? You never know. The fact of the matter is that if you have a murder conviction on your record, that's an incredible yoke to have to carry with you for the rest of your life. That's right. I mean, Jason Klobe was found to be not guilty. Michael Hash now has been exonerated. Eric Weakly's is innocent. It's the other guys, and it's time for the governor to declare that Eric is actually innocent. If you want to support Eric Weekly's pardon petition, you can

write to the Governor of Virginia. To find the governor's contact information, check out this episode's description on your podcast app, or visit my Instagram page at Laura ni Writer. And that's the story of Michael Hash and Eric Weekly. Join us next week when we tell you about Michigan police officer Ray McCann. Ray found himself accused of a brutal murder that he'd helped investigate. His story is proof that interrogators lies can trap anybody in a wrongful conviction, even

a cop. 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 Flam and Kevin Wardis. Our production team is headed by Senior producer and Pope, along with producers Josh Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is next 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