In nineteen eighty eight, roommates Chris Ochoe and Richard Danziger worked at two different Pizza Hut locations in Austin, Texas. When a robbery, rape, and murder occurred at another location in the early morning hours of October twenty fourth, Nancy Dupriest led in a man disguised as a repairman, who would later admit to committing the crime alone. However, before this spontaneous admission of guilt, the lack of forced entry
led police to focus on other Pizza Hut employees. Several were brought to a notorious interrogator, Detective Hector Polanco, including Chris Ochoa. As we commonly see in pattern and practice from investigators all over the country, Polanco lied about crime scene evidence, polygraph results, and made threats of the death
penalty and prison rape. To coerce a statement from a frightened young man, Chris gave false statements implicating himself and Richard Danziger to avoid Polanco's threats of a death sentence. The prosecution passed off primitive and inconclusive DNA test results, as well as dubious hair microscopy as evidence of guilt, but Chris's false confession was really all they needed to
set both of them away for life. Both Chris and Richard languished in prison until the Wisconsin Innis's Project was finally able to present modern DNA test results that only corroborated what the real rapist and killer had been confessing to multiple authorities as early as nineteen ninety six. This is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episode.
I guess if you were to say, can you point to a case that highlights everything that's wrong with our system, you could easily say, let's talk about the case of Chris Ochoa, sometimes referred to is the Pizza Hut case. But we have the man here today himself in person with us. Chris o'choa. I'm very honored to have you here today on the show.
Thank you for having me.
Jason. Joining us today is John Pray. John is a retired clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, was a driving force in the exoneration of Chris o'choa and has been a force for good for many years for many different innocent people. So John, I'm very very grateful to you for being here today as well.
Thanks for having me'm I'm happy to be here.
And this case, like many of our cases, involves a young man Chris, who was twenty two years old at the time, who had never had any real issues, was an honor student editor of the high school literary magazine. Sort of mild mannered guy. You're still a mild matter guy, Chris winchesday amazingly.
Unless you give me in a court room a story.
Well said, so says I mentioned was a good kid, and I'm going to say you, at twenty two years old, you're still a kid. But there were forces of evil that were overwhelming in this instance, right, Not just the evil that was perpetrated on the victim in this case, in what is a grotesque crime by anybody's definition, but also the evil compounded on itself by virtue of the fact that Detective Hector Polanco was the detective who railroaded Chris,
who allowed the actual perpetrator to remain free. It's hard to overstate the misdeeds that he committed, not just in your case, but in many others. John, Can you tell us about this Polonco character and what his history tells us. And this is even before Chris ever had the misfortune of coming on to his radar.
We didn't know about mister Polanco until we got involved with Chris's case, of course, but I think we were investigating that we had learned that he had had a history of playing somewhat loose with the facts. I guess you could say on some other cases.
Yeah, I mean his name featured prominently and in the most sinister ways in the cases of Alan Causey, Bruce Bowser, Richard osase Edia, a Nigerian student who falsely confessed if.
I remember right. One of them was called the Yogurt shop cases. I think he had been instrumental in creating some false confessions in that case.
The infamous Yogurt Chop murders took place in December nineteen ninety one, where four girls were murdered and the crimate remained unsolved for eight years, And that's when police announced the rest of four suspects who had come under the radar after very suspicious confessions that were very similar to Chris's and that were not coincidentally conducted by Detective Polanco.
So we knew that he had some kind of history, and we do know that he was in charge of the case for Chris and led that interrogation. There were other people in the room at the same time, but I think he was the I think he called himself the bogey man.
Let's just say that Chris, being sort of a mild mannered honor student, was not prepared in any way when he was interrogated by Detective Bilanco. Now let's go back to the crime itself, Okay, because this crime I think really shocked the local community, and brace yourself. On October twenty fourth of nineteen eighty eight, a twenty year old girl named Nancy the Priest was working alone in a Pizza Hut restaurant in Austin, Texas, and it was during
her shift that the store was robbed. The Pizza Hut was robbed, and she was tied up with her bra raped and then shot in the head. Now, when this happened, you, of course lived in the area. Where were you and your co defendant, Richard Danziger I'm talking about, of course, where were you, guys? And when did you first hear about this?
Well, me and Richard worked at different pizza huts when the crime happened. So when that crime happened, Richard was late for a shift at his pizza hut. So they called the apartment and I didn't answer the phone. One of my other roommates censored it. You know, I heard the phone, I rolled back to sleep, and then I woke up and I turned on the news, and that's
when I saw the coverage. So I was shocked as much as everybody else in Austin, and particularly that I was an employee at another pizza hut.
And police they began investigating pizza hut workers because they believed, I don't know whether they had reason to believe it, but they did believe that a master key was used
to gain entry to the restaurant. And of course, where this starts to, you know, really go downhill fast, is that a few days later, an employee at the pizza hut saw you, Chris and Richard, who was only an eighteen year old kid at this time, right, eating pizza, drinking beer in the restaurant and raising a toast, or so they thought to the victim in this case, in
her honor. And you guys worked at different pizza huts in the area, and so this was when detectives had this sort of Eureka moment or whatever, and decided that you must be good for it, because otherwise, why else would you be acting this way. I mean, this is obviously nothing like evidence. So what happened next?
Several days later, two Austin detectives went to the pizza hut where I worked at in downtown Austin. It was not Polanco. It was some white detective and this female Espanily detective that showed up. They wanted to ask me questions about a burgery, so they drove me to the police station. They asked me some maybe two or three questions about some burglary, which was nothing, but it didn't take about five minutes, and then they shifted me to
what I now know is the interrogation room. After they left, then barges in Hector Bolanco, and he looks me up and down. Look, I mean, he looks me from head to toe and he tells me, do you know what they called me on street in Spanish? And I have no idea, So that he tells me that they call him the boogeyman. I guess he's trying to instill fear in me. Then he starts asking me questions about the pizza robbery, and I tell him I don't know anything
about it. And then he starts launching into this if you know something about this crime or this murder or this robbery, and if you don't cooperate with us, you're going to get the death penalty. He started using the death penalty from right off the top. If you don't tell us, you're going to die. And I mean, it was relentless, and I kept saying, I don't know what you're talking about. If I knew what, I would certainly cooperate, but I don't know anything. And this is a turgetion.
It took hours. He would walk out, and then another detective, the poor good cop after Malaysia, so saying, hey, my partners are hot head, just tell us what you know and then you can go home. He walks out and walks Polanco again starts threatening me with a death penalty. At some point he walks out and a female spanded detective and this is I think a couple of hours into the interrogation, asked, what do you think I can have an attorney? And she said no. She got rips
that you can't have one. So you're officially charged. So we all know that that's not right. But at that time, she walked out, and then Polanco walks back in starts threatening me with a death penalty again. She grabbed my arm, tap my arm, the needles are gonna go one of those veins or something like that. I'm gonna make sure I'm there to see it. And it took hours, and at some point they just broke me down. Polanco had say,
you know, I'm getting tired of your bullshit. I'm just gonna put you in jail, and in there, you're going to be fresh meat for the prisoners because you're young. I know you don't have a record. He and you had to have a record. When he turned prison house rate. That was the end of my rope. I told him, what do you want me to say? I wanted it over. I just wanted to go home. That first interrogation, they were fixated on Richard Danziger. They said, did Richard Danziger?
Did he come back and tell you? So the first statement that they forced me into signing was that Richard did it and he came home from the apartment and told me.
And then they gave you a confession to sign. And here's the crazy thing. They didn't even need to write the confession because this Polanco, the detective, has used the same exact confession on two previous suspects. All he was doing was whiting out the names, just white it out and then put in the name Chris o'choa sign here. I mean, this is madness, this is America, right.
And so they brought Richard and they said he had to face's accuser. They took me to see him. Shortly that after they pulled me out and then I asked, can I go home now? And they said no, we're afraid for your safety. He just gave a statement against Richard. He could hurt you. We're going to put you up at a hotel in Austin. Well on Quin mentioned the DNA, some new science and you can tell them you're there.
You're not.
Said we need you to give blood samples, hair samples. Of course, the DNA at the time and eighty eight was not as advanced as it is now. But I said, sure, if that's going to help you show that I wasn't there. So they took me to the hospital. I gave them blood samples, hair samples that I cooperated.
They did do a rape kid Unfortunately this was late eighties. They did do some DNA analysis, However, it was not the kind of DNA analysis that later proved Chris's innocence. In Richard's innocence, it was a more primitive form called d Q alpha, and it showed that one in six Hispanic Americans could have done this, and Chris was among the one in the six, and so they used that
as some degree of evidence. They also had a hair that was found on the body of Nancy DePriest and they looked through a microscope with that hair and they said that is consistent with the hair of Richard. And they made a big deal out of that, showing it looks like his hair, it is his hair. And you know, they didn't have the benefit of DNA analysis that hair,
which would later show that it excluded Richard. You know, the technology improved later, but at the time they made a bigger deal out of that hair than was justified.
So they're coercing you with threats of prison, rape, and the death penalty while also using the junk science of har microscopy, which don't even get me started on how subjective and meaningless, utterly meaningless that is. But not only that, they're using this primitive DNA testing, acting like being able to say that you and the actual assailant fall into the same sixteen percent of the Mexican population, which basically
comes down to about one in six Mexicans. I mean, it's unbelievable that this was even considered or ultimately past as evidence. But okay, so now they've got the statement about Richard out of you, but they're still only halfway done. So it's a Friday, and they basically kidnapped you, call it what it is, and put you up at a hotel for the weekend. I mean, you could have left, but you didn't know that, right, I mean, that's that's
another sick thing about this. And now Monday rolls around and they've got even more dirty tricks up their sleeve.
So comes Monday, Holanko and the other detective Malaysia show up to the hotel room take me. They want to take me back to station to ask me more questions. But then they said that they wanted me to take a polygraph test. A lion took to polygraph test. They said, I registered deception. I was an a kid. I don't know. It was a stress test and not a light detective test. They said we think you were in there.
I think the main purpose of a lie detective test is whatever it might yield, they are going to go back to the suspect and say, well, you failed it, and now we have that against you, and it just gives them a reason to say, well, I guess maybe I should confess because apparently they think I was lying. But part of their technique is to make lies about the evidence they have, and they try to convince you that they know you're guilty. Your only way out of
it is to confess. And I think when someone I think it could be anybody, but especially young people or people who are nai is confronted with a detective saying we have evidence that isn't true, but you don't know that, and your only way out of this is to confess, and that's the only way your life is going to be spared or you're not going to be thrown into a jail cell as fresh meat.
And in this case, my understanding is not only did they do all the things that you talked about, Chris, but also Polanco threw a chair at you, showed you photographs of death row where you're going to end up if you didn't confess, and there's a quote from him that sends the chills up my spine where he said, quote, we're going to charge you with this crime, whether you had anything to do with it or not, because this is a real big case and they want somebody.
So now Polanco wants me to say that I was in the Pizza Hut with Richard allegedly saying that I and Richard rape Nancy the priest, and that we did all kinds of horrible things. But so he started taping it. He said, well, now, when you walked at the Pizza Hunt with Richard, was there an item that what was in there? I didn't know, and I would stop and stutter, and he would say, well, was it there an apron there? Oh? Yeah,
that was an apron. So he would stop the tape, rewind it, and then I would repeat what he wanted me to say, and he said, well, tell us what color the april once as well? Black or red? I don't know. I kept guessing the whole publish spectrum. So I got it right. Then he would stop the tape, rewind it and record it. You know, he will coach me on what to say. So the tape of that late statement he was feeding me all the details.
So the state offered to give you a life sentence. What a great deal that is? Not for something for doing nothing, for having a toast, basically right. So I offered to give you a life sentence if you could deplete guilty and testify against Richard. And your alternative, of course, was to face the death penalty. So after two twelve hour interrogation sessions, think about how long that is to be stuck in an airless room. I'll talk to the audience now. Of course, with these people who are literally
trying to take your life away from you. You signed the confessions which were totally concocted by the police, with the white out and the whole thing. I mean, did you even have an attorney at this point.
When those statements are signed? I never had an attorney. I didn't get an attorney until I was actually charged and waned, and I believe a magistrate she asked me, do you have an attorney, misscho So I do not. I said, do you know what you're charged with? You was shocked. Recess to court took me into her chambers and I remember she calling somebody another daight. I don't know what she called. She was said, why has this man not been afforded an attorney yet? That's when the
attorney stepped in the defense attorneys. I was appointed defense attorney and I told him exactly what I'm telling you, how these statements came about. And she said, there's no way an innocent person would give such a detailed confession. So he didn't believe that. You know, they coerced me.
So at the next quarter appearance, I asked I wanted to fire the attorney, then insteaded appointing another defense attorney who had more experience, and I told him the same story when I interviewed with him the first time, and I said, isn't it your job through my innocence, you should investigate this? He said, no, my job is to save your life. In a way, he was right, but no, your job is to prove innocence. First, my defense attorneys
did no investigation. You mentioned law enforcement had a theory that a master key was used to get into the pizza hut because there was no evidence of breaking of an entry into the pizza hut. This pizza hut two doors. I know the detective wanted me to say that we had a master key to get in a pizza hut and we came into a certain door. Right, I don't know what door it was. But after John the Innis's project investigated the whole thing, it turns out that there's
no way I could have gone through that door. That polock hoomness is no way because that key didn't open that door. There's no way because that door could not be opened with any key. It was just jammed, had to be opened from the inside.
Right. The classic hallmark of a false confession when the facts of the crime scene don't even match the information that they're feeding to.
You had, mister start. My defense attorneys gone and see how wiable it is is go ask questions. The prosecutor should have done that. Your job as an attorney is to look at the conficion Does this really match the evidence that these guys have? And they don't, But the prosecute should be the one, Hey, I can't use this.
I think the defense attorneys looked at the confession and they thought that's the end. There's no point in investigating this any further. They didn't look into like, I wonder if this confession could be suppressed because he did ask for an attorney. They didn't look at that. They didn't look at the alibi evidence that there was, they didn't look at the physical evidence that there was. They just saw the confession and said, well, that's he's going to be convicted. So my job is to make sure he
doesn't get the death penalty. So we can do that by having Chris plead guilty. And you know, when your attorney's telling you that Chris believed that. And when I called the defense attorney when we were investigating it, this is twelve years later, we asked him what he had done and he said like, well, did Chris tell you that his fingerprints were found on the gun and things like that? And I said no, So I go back to Chris and say, Chris, you didn't tell us your
fingerprints were on the gun. And of course it turns out that that was just a lie, or that he had forgotten that Polanco and made up his own evidence to make him think that Chris was guilty. There were no fingerp rents on any gun, so he just I think early on, decided my job is to keep him from being executed, and therefore we're going to push this flea through and get him life in prison. And that's exactly what they did.
One of the reasons I essentially pled guilty after a year in jail was because apparently my defense attorney and I don't know who else was calling my mom pretty much every day telling her that she should get me to plead guilty or she's going to lose her son. You're going to murder her son. So essentially my mom got to the point of a stroke, was brought on by stress, and at that point I called whoever I had to call, I'll plead guilty. I played guilty for
my mom. So at that point, the DA tells me, okay, we're going to charge you with rape and they're trying to get Richard on capitol murder.
So at this point your fate was sealed. Chris. You had nobody to help you. The system had failed you and failed as the priest as well, and the public and her family and everybody else, and you were doomed. Part of your deal was that you were basically compelled to testify against Danziger. Right you were convicted, as was Danziger in February nineteen ninety and both of you were sent to life in prison.
The moment to gab Will hit any sentencement. It came crashing down. I was like, I wasn't shocked. First night in the Texas prison when they slammed door shut, the metal clangs once that door slammed. That was when night crap. I mean here now.
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As time went on, it felt like the world got about me. You know, fewer people right, And I know I tried my best to survive, and I know Richard had it worse. But I know at some point I had already done ten years. I used to see the newspaper, my hotel newspaper. All my friends from high school had kids, had wives, had careers, and I felt like such a bad through no fall of my home. So Christmas Eve, I didn't get a Christmas card that year. On time, I had lost hope. So I made up my mind.
I went up to my cell and I broke open a razor blade because that night I was going through this pain. That alcohol drug doesn't get rid of the pain. So I wanted to run it up my arm so that I could bleed out and just send it. But at that point I remember what the nuns told me in Tetholic school, that I didn't have the right to take anybody's life, not even my own, because God gave it to me. So by through the razor blade and I flushed it and I got through that night. Somehow
I grabbed onto faith the way I survived. I went to school. Music was my escape. That's what got me through prison, school, Faith and the radio.
What I think we have to shine a light on is the fact that behind the scenes and unbeknownst to you. In February of nineteen ninety eight, a man named Aquem Joseph Marino, a convict who was serving three life sentences in the Texas Prison for aggravated robbery, wrote a letter to the governor, who was George W. Bush at that time, and mister Marino had become a born again Christian who, as part of his AA and Narcotics Anonymous program, had
been obligated to confess. Right. It's part of the cleansing, the twelve step program, right. And as part of that, he felt obligated to confess to the murder that he had committed, which was the one that you were charged with of mis the Priest. His letter began it was quote remurder confession, you know, ra Colan murder confession. In the letter, mister Marino said, quote my conscience sickens me. End quote, and he went on to say that he alone raped and murdered ms the Priest, that you and
Danziger were not involved. Quote I tell you this, sir, I did this awful crime and I was alone. Now Here's where it gets even deeper, okay. Marino said that evidence tying him to the crime and him alone, including the victim's keys could be found at his parents home. He said that he had begun writing and confessing to the police years earlier, back in ninety six, as well as a newspaper and even the ACLU, but after getting no response, he was now going all the way to
the governor governor push to take action. After the police received another letter from Marino that contained a detailed description of the crime scene, they finally began reinvestigating. And when they went to Marino's parents' home, what did they find? Guess what? They found the keys, as he said they would, as well as the other evidence, including bank ouches and a pistol. So this should have been at that very moment, this should be over. They should have come right to
the prison apologize to you and to Danziger. I would say they should have just yanked you right out of there that day, but you know that's not how it works. But that process should have been started immediately with urgency, because every day in that prison was risking your life and his and his case, he almost lost his life. But finally they went to mister Danziger and to you, and unfortunately Danzeger had sustained permanent brain damage and had injuries while he was in prison and was now in
a mental institution. A tragedy upon another tragedy. But you, Chris, at that time, told the same story that you had told the trial.
At that point I knew that there was something going on in the case. At some point I ended the interview saying, look, I did this crime. Let me do my time. And the only reason I did that to the cops told him that is I wanted to throw him off a scent because I thought, if these guys sniff it, I'm claiming innocent. What if there's evidence of innocence and they go destroy like chelsh agridem should kind of you know, they were trying to link me and Richard to a king Reno.
I think they just could not get it through their heads that it's possible that Chris could have lied in the confession. You would never confess to a murder he didn't do. And so their theory when Marino came on the scene was that, Okay, it must have been three of you, and we know Chris confessed, so we know he's did it. We know Danziger did it. So if Marino's confessing and he's got the gun, and he's got
the key. I think their mindset was now that Marino's saying he did it, Okay, it must have been the three.
As a matter of fact, they showed me photo lineups. I mean, I recognize myself in one and I recognized denzigrin the other one. But then they showed me another lineup. I guess we Marino. At the time, I didn't know anybody who was confessed. I had no idea. They asked me why, and I didn't recognize anybody on that photo. I guess Marina was in there. And now that I recall, the Texas ranger and the cop looked at themselves when they saw I did wreck because Marino.
And they did do some investigation on that to say were they ever in the same prison together? Did they have any communication with each other? And all that came out that no, there's no way that those people had ever interacted or intersected in their lives.
So immediately after that, there was a friend of mine who was leaving on parole, and I told him a little bit about what was going on in the case, but I told him that I needed him to reach out to Barry Scheck and Innes's project in New York, and he did I think he mailed them, and I think, well, you know, they have a lot of cases, the backlogs. So they emailed some addresses of innocence projects at that
time in the country. But on that list that they said, I saw the Wisconsin Innoces Project and I don't know why I circled that Wisconsin. I had no clue even where Wisconsin was on the map. I just circled it and I wrote a letter. A couple of weeks later, I get a phone call from Wisconsin and it's project. It took my case.
This is now June ninety nine, and this is when, of course, in steps the Wisconsin Innocence Project be headed by my friend Keith Findley, who people have heard his name on the podcast. He's got an incredible reputation, has done incredible work, and of course John Pray.
Wisconsin's the project did get Chris's letter. The thing that grabbed our attention was that there was evidence taken from the rape kit. Well, now we have some new DNA technology, we could re examine the DNA evidence to see if Richard and Chris could be excluded. So what we did is sent a letter to the authorities in Texas saying we are representing Chris or we're looking into Chris's case, and we want you to preserve any kind of evidence
that may have existed. The authorities in Texas were cooperative and let's yeah, let's do tests as evidence. And so we didn't have to fight for that and didn't take too long to have the testing exclude Chris and Richard and then match Marino. So at that point the case became not too difficult because they realized they got the wrong guy. But like I said, they still had to investigate whether there was a connection between Marino and Chris and Richard.
Right, But you and the wisconsinenci's project, knowing that you could have been up against a well an unscrupulous prosecutor, you continue to investigate. What else did you find out?
So what we were doing in the meantime, once we had the DNA test, as we were looking at all other aspects of the case and calling other witnesses. There was one particular witness who said that the police had threatened to take her son away if she didn't testify in a certain way, and so there were all kinds of things like that. The medical examiner. It was very interesting. The medical examiner was privy to Chris's confession and so
they knew the kind of injuries. Well, one of the things they said in the confession was there had been an anal rape. So they said, okay, let's look for anal tears or evidence of an anal rape. Well, it turns out once the confession is known to be false, because the DNA proves its false, you go back to the medical examiner. He says, oh, upon second look, I guess that was a terror caused by the instruments that were used to look in that area instead of oh,
this is actual evidence of a rape. So you know, when you're doing a medical examination and you have a predisposed notion that, oh, this was from an anal rape because that's what the confession said, well then you kind of see what you want to see. So there are all kinds of things that we could look at later that once you know that that's a false confession, the house of cards falls quickly.
And Chris, you had mentioned the part of your false confession about the alleged master key and how the door was actually jammed. It couldn't have been opened by any key right, So just one of the many inconvenient ways in which your false confession didn't match reality. What else was learned about how Marino gained entry to the pizza hut?
What was later found out is that Marino said that as the priest, lettermakers key disguise themselves a repair man or something like that.
Really, a cursory examination of the evidence, the alibis, the physical evidence the keys, would have yielded pretty quickly that this has to be a false confession. But that wasn't in the repertoire of the attorneys, the police, the judges. No one was thinking of false confession as possible. You wouldn't confess to something you didn't do.
So it turned out that the DNA evidence excluded Richard and Chris, but included Marino, and now it was going to be respected but confused by the false confession. The States still wanted to make sure that there was no connection between the guys and Marino before finally letting Chris and Richard go.
So that took him longer than we were comfortable with. It took him a few months. Where Chris is sitting in prison where everybody knows he didn't do it. So that was agonizing for Chris. I know it was agonizing for us. But after a few months of figuring out whether any connections at all, they finally agreed to throw out this case for both Richard and Chris. So in the fall of two thousand, I think we were all
certain this was going to happen. We had the agreement of the DA, we knew he would be getting out, but it was agonizing waiting for several months for the actual date. And I just remember being terrified that Chris is going to be assaulted by someone else in prison, or something's going to happen, and what are we waiting for? But we just couldn't get it done until January of two thousand and one, and that was That was a big day in Chris's life, in all of our lives,
and it was quite a sensation in Austin. It was a very exciting day with a packed court room and dozens of news people and photographers.
I remember vividly when I was they said I was free to leave. I guess I'm shocked the bailiff had to tell you to show show you know you can walk out the door. And I remember going on to see a cameras and at hearing my mom was there and I became very good friends. Well Ansis project did with the mother of net See the Priests, Jeanette Pop. I got to speak to her. I got my hunger. I you know, was I guess bittersweet that I got up,
but you know her daughter let's gone. But I remember she was happy for me, and she gave me a welcome home gift. He watched present time meets nothing and there's no time. She said, Now time matters to you. I had support from my family. I think Dannis was project and John for I did an excellent job of keeping me grounded. Jumping really forward to just to say
how instrumental John has been in my life. I know when I got accepted to law school in Wisconsin, I went up there to try to find an apartment, and you know, I had a lot of advice from mother's mentors. But when I went to get my first apartment in Madison,
I remember John Pray went with me. He read over the lease, he looked sculpted out walking distance from the law school and from the bars, because I did, in turn with a judge before I went to law school, and he said, you know in law school, you're probably going to drink, so I would suggest getting an apartment walking distance to the bars so you can stumble home. But John was very, very instrumental in helping me.
One other thing I wanted to double back on. I'm really glad Chris brought up Jeanette Pop, but I think it bears just a little bit more explanation. Janette Pop is the mother of the victim of Nancy DePriest in this case, she very early on identified with Chris, and one might say, well, why would she do that. Chris was convicted of killing her daughter, but she recognized that
it was a false confession. And what pained her so much was that for twelve years, while Chris was in prison, she was under the mistaken belief that her daughter had been tortured, had been raped multiple times in this restaurant. And that was the story from the confession that she believed. And it turns out when we got the true story, what came. Marino said, A murder is a murder, and that can't be sugarcoated. But the torture, the multiple rapes, did not occur. It was a shot to the back
of the head. And so this suffering that she had lived with and thought of her daughter's last hour of life of being an utter hell was what tortured her. And when she realized that it's because of this coerced false confession that made her believe that, you know, it just it just was such a relief to her that her daughter had not undergone the kinds of things that had been coerced from that confession. And that's one reason why Jeanette pop was such a strong ally of Chris and Richard.
So, Chris, as we wind down the show here, is there anything you want to ask our audience, anything they can do for or with you, or an issue that you'd like to highlight.
I think my biggest thing is donating to the Wisconsin Insterest Project. They're the reason why I'm here outside. But right now, what's on the forefront of my mind is the Melissa Lucille case out of Texas. When I saw that documentary, I just I got floored. She's innocent, plain and simple. Support. Melissa sees she's got just days till she's executed. She's murdered. I'm not going to say executed, murdered. That's what I asked the people to watch that documentary.
Donate bring away as the social media right now, there's a petition that was sent to the governor or clemency from Alissa Luzio for pressure on Texas too. It really really irritates me and upsets me. This happened in two thousand and seven. Texas, the whole country at two thousand and seven. They know what mistakes they've done, what they do to people, and yet Texas has not learned their lesson at all, and they don't care all the pain
that we exigneries have gone through. No, we testify in Congress and we do stuff like this so that others won't go through it. Yet Texas assists of doing the same thing over and over and over again. And until we get rid of these people working the system, our system is not going to work. It works if you have people that are doing it for the right reasons, not to get power, not to get money for apparently from the Melissable seal case, I see that's pretty honous.
It was all about power and position.
Chris, we'll have the same action steps here that we did last week for Melissa. She's scheduled for execution. I hate saying these words on April twenty seventh. This is not a drill, this is real, so please join us in saving her from imminent danger. We'll have the Wisconsin Intersce project linked in the bio as well. Please donate to help them continue the great work that they do, just like they did for Chris and so many others.
And now, as we go to the closing of our show, which is called Closing Arguments, this is where, of course I'm gonna thank you for joining us today and sharing Chris's story with us. And now I'm just going to turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, and just focus on the sound of your voice. Is you leave us with any and all final thoughts you want to share now, John, no offense, but we're going to save
the best for last. And of course our guest of honor, Chris o'choa, is the man, so please start it off for us and then let Chris take us out.
Well, I don't know how long you want me to go on. I could go on a long time about this, but I'll keep it reasonable. It's an extraordinary story in one way, you look at what happened. On the other hand, it's not unique. This happens with too much frequency, and if we don't learn from these situations, then we're destined to continue to repeat them. So it's an extraordinary story. It shows the weakness of confessions that they can be false. It shows the weakness of defense attorneys who don't do
their job seriously. But it's more than that. It's a testament to the strength of Chris Ajo, who endured hell for twelve years, the hell of the interrogation room, those four days, the hell of going through a trial, and then the hell of twelve years of incarceration and then you get out. He could have given up, but what does he do. He decides to get his education completed.
He finished his undergraduate degree, then he came to Wisconsin law school, went through three years of very hard, difficult work, worked in a district attorney's office for a time, worked with a Wisconsin innocence project. He really endured. I suppose you could say, hey, if you can get through prison, you can get through law school. And Chris endured. He's continued to show his dedication to public service and making
sure these types of things don't happen. So the whole thing is really a tribute to Chris and his amazing spirit and energy to endure and make life better for the rest of us.
Thank you, John, I said earlier, you know, for the Innocence Project, John Pray and the Gousninesss projects around the country. Justice, true justice, wouldn't be accomplished. What I see is tragic was happening in the law enforcement currently. I don't know where the disconnect is between law enforcement and normal citizens. When I was exonerated, right before I walked out of prisoner or I don't know what, shortly before, my Texas Attorney Bill Allison told me, look your case, the justice
system fell apart at every angle. Everything failed you, and people are going to get scared, even people that don't get in trouble, they're going to lose faith in the system. And when people lose faith in the system, chaos happens. And he said, it would be good if you would come out and talk that the system's not bad. You got to inform it and there's a lot of things that needs to be done so that it worked the way it was intended to work. But he said, but
you don't have to. You've already done enough, You've done time. You can walk away from this. You don't and anybody any faith. So I decided that I would start advocating for the system because in the end it was a judge that it was a court that got me exonerated and released me. But me and John Pray have talked
to law enforcement. I mean, we have talked to these guys and academies that don't beat up the Look, you gotta be real careful in your investigations because once you said those recommended charges of the DA, you're already skewing the ball. The defense attorney will start looking at at a certain way if you're accusing something that you didn't do, but you're just the mere accusations, that will take a
snowball effect. And I personally have told law enforcement, you guys have a big job to do, but you guys can't be rushing what you do. You gotta be careful because your people, they're not gonna trust you anymore. If these are realnful convictions, keep rapping, they're gonna lose shut. But fast forward to George Floyd. That only exposed what all of us then advocate for wrongfully convicted for justice
and only confirmed what we already know. These cops beat killed the man on camera and the only reason we know because we have video. But now you see in the news officer response to a call, he gets shot. And now the law enforcement is crying all they're attacking us, but they failed to realize they're the reason that that is happening, because society has lost all faith and trust in law enforcement. Now you have chaos and the only mess I got law enforcement. You got to get it together.
Stop blaming somebody else. I'm speechless in a sense. And it hurts all of us. Ex reaes over one hundred. How many of us are there now in the thousands, so that law enforcement would get direct together, courts, prosecutor. It has gotten worse, so our suffering essentially has been in vain the evidence system. Listen, will see it is
still happening. I hope that the public. Hey, let's start electing DA's that are going to do right thing and start getting police chiefs that are going to do the writing. I'm not advocating for not arresting folks. You know you still have your un going to rust back people. There's some people in prison that I met that I don't want my family around them. Well let's get it right.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wartis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one