#276 Jason Flom with Charles McCrory

worry when she did not show. After several unanswered calls from Charles and his parents, Charles's father was the first to discover Julie's body just inside her front door. It was determined that she had died of blunt force head trauma sometime in the early hours of the morning. A red bandanna was found in the body, and a clump of hair as were found in her hand that did

not belong to her or Charles. Besides conflicting and dubious reports of a car that looked like Charles's at Julie's house that morning, no evidence connected him to the crime. Despite a similar instant it within a month committed by a man known to wear red bandanas. The police maintained their focus on Charles. Since the district attorney was reluctant to charge Charles, Julie's family hired a private prosecutor team who sought the help of notorious junk science dentist Dick Superan.

Superan testified that some of Julie's wounds were not only bite marks, but that they were made by Charles at the time of death, effectively sealing his fate. Suparan has since recanted that testimony, including the assertion that the wounds were even bite marks at all. Yet, somehow Charles is still serving a life sentence in an Alabama prison. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to ronal conviction. You know, when listeners of our show asked me, what are some

of the most disturbing cases I've ever heard of? I will list off Vincent Simmons, Richard Gloss of pedro Rena. So, I mean, there's so many others I could mention, But before we even start today, I think Charles McQuary has to be added to that horrifying list. Joining us. Besides the man himself, we have his attorneys, first from the Southern Center for Human Rights, Mark Loud and Brown, Mark, welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thank you very much for having

and a voice you'll all recognize, I'm sure. Chris Fabric Kent. Chris is the strategic Litigation director at the Innocence Project, the author of the fantastic book You've heard me talk about it before, Junk science and the American criminal justice system. And he's also a frequent guest on the show and was featured on our Junk Science podcast hosted by Josh Dubin where he talked about bite mark analysis, which was the pivotal thing in this case. And so Chris, welcome

back to Wrongful Conviction. It's great to be back. Jason, thanks for having us and now calling in from an Alabama prison where he's been locked up for I hate that I even have to say this for over thirty seven years. Charles mccruary, thank you for joining us. Well, thank you app Well, we're happy to have you here. Despite the reason why you're here, or more to the point where you are as you call us today, and that reason is bite mark analysis, which is a proven

junk science. It fails that not only reliably concluding who made a bite mark, but also a reliably identifying wounds as bite marks at all, especially because these wounds are found on skin and the medium itself is elastic and usually changing over time as it heals or decomposes or grows.

And then some Charlotte comes into court claiming that they can match a suspects teeth to usually a photograph of an injury, and they say they can do this to the exclusion of every other set of teeth on the planet. It's just in bananas. But it's only recently that lawyers like Chris and Mark been battling these junk science experts in post conviction because at the time of conviction, everybody

bought into these lies. And Chris, I've been quoting your book left and right, And of course the book I'm talking about is junk science and the American criminal justice system. But what are some of the other common threads between these wilful convictions that are based on junk science and

bite mark analysis in particular. But I've seen in all of these cases, I feel like I've been involved in all the bite mark cases over the last ten years, is that I have never seen an effective cross examination of a bite mark expert at trial, and all the transcripts that I've read, I've never even seen the question,

you know, even the most basic one. You know, you think about when an injury is inflicted, usually during the crime itself, nobody was there, Nobody knows the position that the perpetrator or the victim was in at that time. But we know one thing is that it's on a mortuary slab where the photographs were taken of this injury.

And we know that the injury has changed, often quite dramatically as a result of decomposition of the body, and they continue decomposition, So you may match quote unquote a bite mark quote unquote one day and not the next. You might be one hour and not the next hour, right, because skin is changing all the time, particularly with the deceased victim. So you never see that type of cross examination, and you never see like, how is it that you

know that this is a bite mark? What is it about being a dentist that makes you an expert in diagnosing an injury as a bite mark? Right with the proximity to teeth? Nonsense? Right, So you never see those and I think that just as a general matter on junk science, convictions. Broadly speaking, is that it's almost impossible to cross examine your way out of a wrongful conviction

with junk science. Once the judge lets it in, you got two strikes against you anyway, you know, And I'm not sure Johnny cochrane could have saved Charles McQuary once Dick Subran gets on the stand and you know, spouts these invented credentials, right the American Board of Forensic go to intology. It's That's what I wrote about this in the book. It's just an invented organization. Never tested any of their members on their abilities to actually match bike

marks or even diagnose them. They just gave each other board certifications to bring into court and wild jurors in places like in Louise, Alabama, and they led to a lot of wrongful convictions, including at least three others by Dick sub Ran. And we'll go further into how this junk science applies to Charles's case in just a bit, but first I'd like to go back to before all of this happened. Tell us Charles about your life growing up.

Were you born in Alabama? I was born actually in the Panhandle of Florida, and UH lived in Mobile a couple of years when I was in first or second grade, But anyway, we moved to in Blujia at the beginning of my third grade year and grew up there and graduated in Blujia High School. Went to UH Junior College there at Earley and Wallace for a year or so, and then I transferred to McArthur Tech College and Op, which is just fifteen miles or so away, and finished

a associate degree in computer science. A few months later. They started working for the junior college that I had been a student at previously, and was set up and then later ran the computer center there. They didn't really have one when I started there. You know, this was back in seventy nine, so we're in a very early period as far as computers were concerned. And worked there for five years and then had gone over to the Power Company album Electric co Op it was called in

this now Power South. So pretty much if our living, that's all I'd really ever done full time was computer work. So okay, you were working in the field that has become central to all that we do, so plenty of potential in your life. And I understand you were also a volunteer e MT. The rescue Squad as it was called in Andalusia, Alabama. Yeah, the rescue Squad was all volunteer organizations, about thirty men that provided damns and rescue for that area. You know, reward didn't work to say

the least. Yes, saving wise kind of the freaking opposite

of being a murderer, right, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And of course during this rise in your career, both professional and in the volunteer space, you had married your high school sweetheart, Julie Bonds, had a great job fulfilling community service and had your son Chat in two, through which you and Julie shared a bond that could not be broken even if your marriage was going through a rough patch, and it was, you know, the little back is just

a lot of poor decisions on probably both of our part, but certainly on mine, and we kind of grew apart, I guess, you know. I said we had We had a good relationship, very very amicable to say the least. We were together pretty much every day. Even during the time that we later separated and I had an apartment across town. We were still very involved, of course with our sons. As well as mutual friends and things like that.

And we were together constantly even though we were we were separated and trying to work out you know, merrity issues and so forth. Yeah, and it seems that things may have worked out in your marriage had all of this tragic series of events not come to pass. The night before Julie died, you two had actually spent the

evening together, correct that night, I've been over there. We had actually been to see a marriage counsel, right, had had an affair before that for the for several months prior to that, and then had ended it, although I was you know, still talking to the little lady for a while there, and and anyway, June and I were trying to work through those things, and so we had actually had an interview with the marriage counselor that night, if and then we were actually met back over the

house later and stayed at the house for I guess a couple of hours or so, left around tim fIF ten thirty, somewhere in that range. And this affair that you mentioned, the woman you're referring to is Gloria Wiggins, who, at least from trial testimony, said that you had called her on the phone from your apartment. I remember this is the era before cell phone, so this is decriborative evidence that you were actually at the apartment. You know,

I had that phone call. I'm at the apartment when I made the call, and then you know, I just go to sleep, and then the next morning, I get up at whatever time, six thirty six, had to be

at work at seven thirty. Okay. So this is the morning of May thirty first, and you were having what you thought it was going to be a normal day, and as per usual, your parents were waiting for Julie to drop off chat at their house on her way to work right usually around eightish, and so there was times when she'd bring me breakfast her you know whatever. And so that morning I had called her about that and picking up something on her way, and then get

an answer and turned around call right back. I figured I'd just died the wrong number something. Still didn't get answer, and even then it didn't particularly along. You know, you just think, Okay, she left for work a little earlier something. I really thought a little of it, and then um, later on it was I believe after a I called my mom's house and she hadn't got there yet. And my mom, of course I want something like that, and

she just starts worrying. So, you know, I called the house a couple more times and getting no answer, and so eventually I called her a workplace. They had not seen her either, and about that time, you know, my mom was like, so he dad is going to check on said okay, okay, I'll go there, and just doing you're kind of like we're leaving, you know, fears so speaking.

So I leave work, go towards the house, and many of the rescue squad members we had two way radios in our personal vehicles, and so as I'm going to the house, I hear him on the radio call about an enamous going to beside Charles mccroary's house or near Charles mccroary's house. And even then, you know, my thought was maybe a neighbor in trouble or somebody outside, or I call and tell them, you know, look, I'm on

my way over there anyway. And when I get there, my dad's outside and he's just you know, he's upset, and he said, something's wrong with Julie, you know where he issue. So he just kind of like going towards the house and I said, where's Chaid, And he said, I've I've already got Chad. He's at the neighbors. He had he had already been in the house and found or the front door was a jar when he got there.

So your father was the first to see this horrible crime scene before whisking away your three year old boy, who was thankfully unharmed. It's the only silver lining in this whole thing. And as you mentioned, he had taken him to the neighbors. Julie, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. She had been beaten to death. Rigor mortis typically sets in about three to six hours after death, and by the time investigators arrived on scene around nine am, rigor mortis had not yet set in, so the murder

must have occurred sometime between three and six am. Well, you hadn't seen her since about ten fifteen pm, despite conflicting and dubious reports of a car that looked like yours having been allegedly seen at the house during those hours. And we're going to get to that in a bit, but first I want to talk about the crime scene itself. Now, this was a terribly violent struggle. A stocking had been

tied to her right wrist. Haro was founded her left hand hair that must have logically belonged to the person with whom she was fighting for her very life. There was also a red bandanna found near the body. Now the fire poker from the fireplace appeared to be missing

and was never found again. From the autopsy, it appears that she was struck four times in the back of the head, with one wound to the side of the head, blunt trauma to the left part of the skull, eleven puncture wounds to the left breast, fractures on both mandibles, bruises on her face and ribs, and two bruises that may or may not have been bite marks on her right shoulder. So this is your wife, the mother of your son, and now you've come upon this unbelievably bloody

and brutal crime scene. When you when you walk in and see that, you just mean, you don't know, you just don't know what to do. I mean, you don't know what to think. Is so shocking that there's really no standard response for it, you know, after it had saying that Julie was dead, and then the riscue score got there right after that and of course, you know, I knew all the guys on the squad. They were all friends of mine, and they were, you know, wanted

to see. At that point, the police had not arrived or anything. And and so after we do that, I come out and I go across the street to Chad, and I remember, I remember holding him and just really the thought to come to mind is, my God, what has happening? Remember him kind of pushing back a little bit. I guess I was squeezing him too tight or something. But and then in the coming days, you know, he would ask far and which try to answer him as best you can. This is an incredibly brutal crime, and

the perpetrator undoubtedly would have been very bloody. And there was only alleged to have been about four hours past between the last time that Mr McQuary he saw the victim in this case and when he was first questioned by police at that time. They turned over all of his clothes, They started the inter of his car, they searched his house. They found no trace of blood on anything. Then they examined the hairs that were clutched in the victim's hand. Those hairs were not from the victim and

they were not from Charles mcquarie. In other words, they were from a third person. We still don't know whose hairs those were. There was also a red bandanna found near the victim's body. There was a construction worker that worked next floor to the victim's house who was known to wear a red bandanna. There was an open window on that side of the house, the same side as the construction site, that had a fresh bootprint outside that window.

The police took an impression of that bootprint, but then never compared it to anything or anybody, and never dusted the window sill that was open for fingerprints. But we know that a man who worked at that construction site named Ainsworth was known to wear a red bandanna. And we know that a few weeks after this murder, Key committed a home invasion rape and served twenty years in prison for that crime, was never investigated as a suspect

in this case. Then we also know that Mr McCary had been entirely cooperative with the prosecution from beginning to end, had voluntarily supplied samples of his hair, his DNA, his body, all of which was exculpatory, nothing to point to Mr McQuary's guilt. The only physical evidence was concocted, and we'll

talk about the bite marks in a second. The only other evidence was that neighbor across the street who claimed that around four o'clock in the mornings, nineteen year old kid decides to get up and check on the garden, but he wasn't sure of the date, and he isn't sure of the truck, but he thought that on the date in question, that he had seen a truck similar

to Mr mcquarie's. And despite this extremely dubious teenage middle of the night gardening scenario, we also found out later that he and later his grandfather not only exaggerated their vantage point, but also several other neighbors with much more credible recollections reported only Julie's car in the driveway on the date and time and question. That's the only evidence that they had apart from the spike mark and the

bite mark. Even their trial expert, Dick Suberan years later admitted that he wasn't even sure if it even was a bite mark at all. But even back in other than the refuted recollection of this teenage middle of the night gardener and his grandfather all other evidence pointed away from Charles, but tunnel vision had already set in, and some say that it came back to something Charles had said at the crime scene and what later the prosecutor

tried to use against him at trial. It was when at the scene, looking at the body with the other rescue squad guys and police and seeing the gash on the back of her head, Charles said something to the effect that do you think it was the licks to

her head? Is that what killed her? So they just totally ignored the clump of hair in her hand, the red bandanna, any alternative suspects, the lack of blood on anything that Charles owned, and started turning their focus on him anyway, on Charles, do you remember when that happened? I do know there was a time when the fielding is almost like the atmosphere changed. You could just fill

it in the air. And in fact, I believe later Saturay I told my mom that looked, you know that they're they're turning this on me, They're looking at me. And then it was on Saturday night. The mayor of Andalusia was a man named Chalmers Bryant. He was a long time family friend of ours. He was a diggon in our church and I had known Challenge a long time. He was also one of the charld members of the Rescue Score, so I knew him through that. He called me and said, look, I want to talk to you.

So we talked on Saturday night for a good while and Chelmers told me then he said, you know they think you did this, he told me, said, I don't believe that, he said, But I'm the mayor. I can't get involved in this, you know, I've got to let the police do their work. Wow. So, okay, if you're at home listening to this insane story right now and thinking, well, okay, but you're somehow safe, You're somehow insulated from the possibility of being the victim of a wrongful conviction. Are you

friends with the mayor? Because even a friendship like that couldn't save Charles, which shows us, in very stark terms that none of us are safe. So, just after Julie's funeral on that Monday, they brought you in for a more accusatory interview that ended up in your arrest. Did they try to extract a confession as we saw off and see? Oh? Yes? Act as we were walking over to the county jails when one of them said, you know,

we can help you on this. You've got a long record of community service, you come from a good family. You know, all these kinds of positive things about in my life that they seem to soon forget. But they say, you know, we can do a deal here where you know, we'll talk to the d A and see if we can't. You know, I think we can do ten years that time manslaughter without a weapon. I believe it was called for like ten years is the max. And said, you know you'd be home and two or three years for

Chet even gets in school. Good. You know you'd already be home. So I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do. And and that kind of ended that discussion. And oddly enough, the Coving and County d A. Great Elandier had no plans on indicting you none. The case against you was just too weak. A false confession would

have definitely changed his tune. But you didn't crumble. This is why Julie's family, on this bizarre Alabama law, was able to bring in private prosecutors to do with Great Elanier rightfully did not want to do he declined to

do it, Mark, do I have that right? That's right from talking to folks in the community that he was, at best lukewarm about the prospect of indicting Mr mccruary and trying the case, as you would think he would be, because, as you've pointed out, there was no evidence against Mr mccruary, and the evidence that there was was exculpatory, right, And so I believe it was Julie's uncle approached this father son duo of Frank and Harvey Tippler, who were very

well known trial attorneys, and so he went out and paid them to prosecute the case. And I think that's the point at which this alleged bite mark sort of as Chris said, it's concocted. There were a number of puncture wounds on the victim's body. It was the Tipplers who took this injury and decided that these were potentially teeth marks, and it took this evidence to Dr Dick Subaran, who rose to fame as one of the forensic odentologists.

Is to like to call themselves when they're in court, it's just a fancy way of saying forensic dentist and Subaran decides that these R and D teeth marks, but he's very you know, noncommittal about associating these teeth marks with Mr McCrory. Then the case gets closer and closer to trial. And you see this in wrongful conviction after

wrongful conviction, particularly as it relates to junk science. And this is why junk science is so convenient, because it really can say whatever you needed to say, and it wasn't saying enough before trial. But by the time it got to trial, Dick Subran was saying that it was Mr mccrary's teeth to exclusion for everybody else on the

planet's teeth that made this particular bite mark. So according to this letter from Suberan to the Tipplers that was hidden from the defensive trial, Suberan shared his own doubts about making that match in court, but then he later did it anyway a trial. Now how he squared that circle for himself, we don't know. But the Tipplers now had their, you know, the piece of evidence that they needed to win, not to get justice, but to win for trial. And this is just five months later in October.

And remember Charles was doing well in life, so he was able to hire a real solid team Bubba, Marcel and Larigos said, who were experienced defense laws. They just couldn't overcome what was eventually the recanted false testimony of Dick Subran. So it's a short trial, a couple of days. What is frustrating is that the opening and closing statements are not transcribed, so we only have the testimony of the witnesses. And like you mentioned, it really comes down

to the bite mark right after suv run. But in addition to that, the Tipplers presented the marriage counselor as well as the woman with whom Charles had had an affair, Gloria Wiggins, to solidify their narrative that marital trouble was a potential catalyst or motive. But oddly enough, this woman, Gloria Wiggins, actually corroborated that Charles was back in his

apartment around him thirty pm, not at Julie's. They also brought up this comment from Charles at the crime scene about the quote licks to the back of her head. Now again he was making an observation and she had a massive gash to the back of her head. So far, this is not a compelling case at all. Then they brought out the nineteen year old with the crazy midnight gardening story, Willie Meeks, who had been staying with his grandfather,

Hubert Walker, Julie's neighbor, who also testified. There's this teenager kitty corner from Julie's home who claims that he was out at four thirty five o'clock in the morning checking on his grandfather's garden. It may have been the morning of May one, he's not really sure. And he sees this car that looks similar to the one that Mr mccruary drives parked at Julie's house, right, so whatever that

is worth um. Interestingly, his grandfather there, who lives in that home, also testifies and claims that he is also up in the morning and also says that he sees a similar car, but he says that the car has parked somewhere else, in a different location. So, like you have these two stories that I think the prosecution probably hoped would corroborate each other, which actually didn't corroborate each other,

probably because they were inaccurate. You know. Meek said that he saw the truck there and and my attorney had him draw a sketch, and that's part of the trial records. There's actually a hand drawn sketch of where the truck was parked. And I think it's the point a lot of people just didn't catch in the jury at the time. The house has a double driveway in it, and Julie's car would always would always parked it, you know, closer

to the front door. My Bronco was hit beside it, but there was plenty of room in the driveway for both vehicles. So when I got there, my dad's car was already there, park beside Julie's car in the dry so I just pulled up behind him over on the grass to the left side of the driveway. And then Danny leaves to go tell mother what had happened. And so when he leaves, that leaves an opening in the driveway.

And so that's exactly how Meeks drew it on his diagram, and to me is obviously what Meeks saying, that's what he'd remember seeing that morning after the police got there and after all this had happened, And there's an aerial photo of the scene taken by the police that shows that. So it seems like maybe this kid was interviewed in the aftermath about seeing Charles's car a few days after the fact, and his recollection was a bit fuzzy. Perhaps

his memory was enhanced by that aerial photo. Will never know. Perhaps, as we've seen in other cases, you just had a kid who for whatever reason, wanted to insert himself into an investigation to help the police. However, what we found out just before the evidentially hearing that Chris and Mark recently tag team was that an investigator working for Chris checked out the properties and get this, the vantage point

that Willie Meeks and his grandfather had. They checked it out, and what they found is that that vantage point was totally misrepresented to the jury. The jury had been told that they were right across the street, but if you were standing where they said they were standing and looking at Julie's house, you would not have been able to see the driveway in the way that they claimed. This kid who testified he was checking the garden as the father of a teenager. It struck me when I read

the transcript, was like, who does that? Who gets up? But like, you know, I think that you know, normally when you would have a testimony like that at a trial that you would have some sort of explanation. Yeah, it was part of my job, like to go out and you know, make sure that the garden was still there at four thirty in the morning, when it's still

basically dark out. The defense called two other neighbors, one of whom had an actual explanation that was credible for why they were out on the morning of May thirty one. That is, they were getting in their car to go to work. These were, you know, and it was an adult who had had a job. These two witnesses said

there was no car there, meeting that description. So this midnight, pre dawned gardening teenager and his grandfather, who remember, whose accounts did not corroborate each other, were refuted by two other neighbors with credible recollections of that morning who said that both said that Charles's car was not there. And in in addition to this weak evidence, the Tipplers presented no confessions, eyewitnesses,

forensic evidence because there wasn't any. The hairs found in Julie's hand were not a match for Julie or Charles. Charles's clothes, his car, fingernails, his apartment, no blood evidence at all was found and that get this prior to trial. At one point they even claimed that they had found blood on his tennis shoes, but when it came back

from the lab it turned out to be Coca cola. Now, the defense presented Charles, who, of course reiterated the same statement that he had been making since day one, recounting

his every step and maintaining his innocence. The defense tried to ing up the evidence of an intruder coming through the open rear window, the bootprint, and the red bandanna, as well as the construction worker Ainsworth who worked behind Julie's house and committed a rape and home invasion just a month after Julie's murder, but none of it gained enough traction to overcome the testimony of Dick Subaron. Dr

Richard subern fresh off his testimony convicting Ted Bundy. Dr Suberon is a charismatic guy, one of the sort of godfathers of forensic ode antology. Right. He's got resume full of credentials, at least he did in at the time of this trial. Fancy doctor flies up to Andalus al Obama from Miami and wow's the jury with this quote

unquote science. And you know, I think the private prosecutors, the Tipplers, knew how important he was because they saved him till the end of their case against Mr McQuary, And right at the end of his testimony, they do this series of questions, Is this a bite mark? Yes? Did Mr mccruary make the light mark? Yes? Did he do it during the murder? Essentially yes? And if you're

a juror, that's hard to overcome. Um. You know, yeah, there's tons of all their exaltatory information out there, obviously, but you just had this fancy doctor who flew up from Miami saying this guy bait her while he was killing her. You know. It's usually at this point that I asked if you were still holding out hope that the jury got it right, but it doesn't sound like

anyone did. Can you take us back to that moment, that awful moment when the jury came back in, well, when when they walked in, I mean, I could have told you the verdict before they read. I just jurors that were smiling and looking at us and so forth. But when they came back in that they were not looking our way. And I knew then, you know that it was over when Jorge Bowen, you know, wound guilt. I told him then that I didn't kill her. I knew he wasn't gonna make any real difference, but there's

something I felt I had to say. I had to tell him personally as it listen, you know, I wanted to say in front of everybody, I did not do this. And we were surprised that the judge allowed me to remain out on bond until citizen and that was just don't heard of. And I've often thought that maybe that was a little bit of how he felt about the case, because you just don't get convicted of murder and stay out on bonding. And I went out for ten more days.

Prison is is a is a horrible place. You don't want to be there, and you don't want your family there, to say the least, there's a real adjustment. Is not the word for it is culture shock. I mean, it's just not something I ever dreamed in the worst nightmare, whatever happened. And so to get sentenced to life sentences, you know, it takes a while to adjust to that. There's no way I ever want to even imagine, much

un less live through it. So I mean, seeing what Dick S. Hoover did, did you have any hope that this could ever be undone? Uh, well, we we've of course did a direct appeal to criminal core appears like he normally would, and that was shot down, although there were some comments in their opinion that you know, they agreed that Suberan's testimony had substantially changed from the time he wrote the letter until he actually came in the courtroom and that should have been revealed to us under

discovery lass. But the judge said that Marsil my attorney, did not object at the proper time to preserve it for appellate review. And it's like, I couldn't believe that your attorney doesn't object even though they think there's an issue here. And then of course we didn't. We didn't know until after I was at Kilby for a while at a hearing on a motion for a new trial.

The d a greatly near at the time great and made the comment about Harvey went down there one day, and that's when we first learned that Harvey Tippler, the young the son of the Tipplers, had act that gone down to Carl Gave with Florida, met with Suberan from the time of the letter until the time of the trial. So now it's like, Okay, now we're seeing some understanding. Why did this testimony changed like it did? Wow, So now things begin to appear a bit clearer. You know,

another thing happened after this case. The Tippler is younger member of their duo went to federal prison serving life sentence for solicitation and murder as an aside. Right, So these are the guys that prosecuted an innocent man. So it appears Harvey Tippler may have been willing to fudge evidence to ruin an innocent man's life, which makes his solicitation of murder conviction not that surprising, let's face it. So what did the Alabama Supreme Court do with this information?

Supreme courts, they really just didn't do anything with it, and then it just set for a while in I'm not sure the date here, in the early two thousand's or someone the two thousands that the cases involved in Michael and the dental mess over there in Mississippi were two different men were sentis to death row. Yeah, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer. It was like two thousand seven two eight Michael West that was basically exposed as being

a fixer for hire. If you didn't have the evidence you needed to convict, he basically just show up and match any teeth to almost any injury, right exactly. That case became public and we got wind of it and Newsweek magazine, I believe it was. And so after that we filed a Rule thirty two trying to attack the dental evidence, but at that point we didn't have near the resources. Any serious ammunition didn't come up until I

got a letter from Mark earlier. The Innocence Project of New York had asked if we would be willing to provide records they were doing, i think a task force or studying dental cases around the country. So we provided all the records. You know, when we in strategic litigation at the Innocence Project decided to focus on rankmark comparison.

That evidence we identified as well as we possibly could every bite mark conviction in the history of time, and we focused on death penalty cases initially, and then we started, you know, litigating all of these cases because we know that any conviction that rests on junct science is inherently unreliable and because Mark and I have litigated many post convicsion cases previously, including another wrongful conviction of Sheila Denton

in Georgia that was also bite Mark case. We reached out to Mark, you know, because Mark and the Southern Center for Human Rights Liddy Gates and Georgia and in Alabama, and referred Mr McClory's case to him. I read the transcript and I thought, yep, we're gonna take this. You know, Mr McClory's lead trial councils deceased now, but the junior trial attorney at the time is not. And you know,

he was practicing in 's still practicing. So that's a career of something like thirty seven thirty nine, forty years. When I walked into his office after I learned of this case a couple of years ago, he had Mr McCrory's file sitting behind his desk and he said, that's where I keep my file because this is that case, this is the case that haunts me. One of the first things we did was we've talked with Chris and he said, wow, let's just see if Dr Suberan what

he thinks today. And so we asked him, you know, I'm not very popular with the dentists, as you can imagine, particularly after publishing my book, But I do have respect for forensic analysts of any discipline that are willing to review their prior case work and to recant when they know they've been wrong, when they know that their opinion may have led to the conviction of an innocent person.

And I think that with notable exceptions that we've talked about um on your show before, Jason, but most forensic analysts are trying to do the right thing. They're not trying to frame innocent people for crimes that they didn't commit.

And you know, when you have the influence of you know, prosecutors saying that you know, this guy is a guilty murderer and we need your opinion to help put them away, you know, many friends ag analysts believe that they're doing the right thing by giving the opinion to the prosecution that they want. Dick s Uberan went back, he reviewed his testimony, he reviewed the evidence at issue, and he

entirely recanted his opinion. Once that happened, Mark and I decided to co counsel this case together, and we filed a petition for a new trial untainted by false, misleading evidence that was presented, nonetheless is so called scientific evidence

to Mr mccorary's jury. So that's what we want. We filed this motion for a new trial in the case, and we were granted an evidentiary hearing, and in the lead up to this evidentry hearing, the day before, we got an offer from the prosecution for time served, which means that all Mr McCory has to do is accept responsibility for this murder, and he goes home that day. That day, goes back to his son, to his sisters, to his life after thirty seven years in prison. He

did not hesitate for one second in rejecting it. I think I'd plead guilty almost anything to get out of prison after being in for that long. And to me, that was as much evidence as anything else that Mr mcquarie is an instant man. And the fact that it was offered in the first place, and the fact that they let him go home after he was sentenced, but before he went to prison, all of it adds up to an even more seering indicting of the whole system.

Someone asked me recently, did you entertain it? And I didn't know I didn't entertain him. I'm not about to plead guilty to a murderer that I did not do for many reasons. I mean, obviously I want to get out of prison, but we want to know what happened and who did it and so forth, and it seems to be that we're the only ones chasing those answers. The police have long since given up on trying to help that. It seemed like in many ways they've tried

to cover their tracks on their uh in epiness. Back when all this occurred, I mean the early and he's investigator Blade Garrett destroys and burns several things that could have been used for DNA. That's when DNA was just becoming known and just becoming popular, and yeah, he burns

these things. Now, we would love to do DNA testing of the fingernail scrapings that were taken from Julie right despite no scratches im Mr McQuary, the hair that was found clutched in her head, the red bandanna like the one that Ainsworth War. We would love to test all of that for DNA, but one of the police officers burnt it all and so it's unavailable for testing. Who burns evidence. This is insane, like, at least lie lie to us, right, lie it was tell us that you

lost it, but you burned it. It just speaks to the fact that all the people in positions of power really must know that he's innocent. It's just astonishing. So we proceed to the hearing, and in addition to the recantation that was done in an Affidavid and you know, notably, the prosecution did not call pick Subran to try to

rehabilitate him or to try to salve at his conviction. Instead, we put on the evidence, and we put on to forensic dentists Adam Freeman and Cynthia Brazowski, both of whom are to extent that anybody can be well qualified in this field. They're both very well qualified, and we've studied it, and they both opined that this was not a bite mark.

They looked at the other injuries that had not been called teeth marks and pointed out that these things that were called teeth marks and these other things that weren't appeared to be the same instrument that created all these

injuries which were not teeth right. And then additionally and importantly, we had an investigator go out to the scene a couple of days before the hearing and take a look at the vantage point that the kid across the street and his grandfather claimed to have seen Mr McQuary's truck or something that looked like his truck, maybe on the day of the murder, maybe not. And the description of the vantage point that they gave to Mr mccary's jury,

it was described as being directly across the street. But if you were standing where they said they were standing, and you were looking towards the victim's house, you would not have been able to see the driveway in the way that they claimed. And when we put our investigator on the stand, we showed evidence from the nineteenes that showed that the houses were in the same position, that there were no new structures, and that they were the

same when we did the hearing last year. So even this one shred of weak evidence was further undermined at this hearing. To sort of close out the rest of the hearing, you know, we we felt like we did it. That's the only evidence. It's not there anymore, right, And so what does the prosecution do. The prosecution has an investigator from their office read the direct testimony of some of the witnesses who testify it in so this guy

is just literally reading the transcript. He's not reading the cross examinations, he's not reading any of the defense witnesses. He's just reading certain prosecution witnesses from which seems to me a concession that they have no response to anything that we've we've said, and then enclosing argument, get up and create an entirely new theory of guilt. Right. Liliana Sigoura and Jordan Smith did an article for The Intercept on this case, and they called the closing argument a

fever dream. It was just this story that the new prosecutor made up, completely inconsistent with the theory that the prosecution had at the time. And so we're sitting there like, what is going on? What? What is this? This makes no sense? This is a totally new theory. And so a few days after the hearing, an investor, Guiter and I went down to the prison where Harvey Tippler was serving his prison since he was agreeable he knew the

case well. He has since passed away. He spoke with us for quite a while about his memory of the case because I mentioned at the outset. We didn't have the opening statement and the closing argument, and so we didn't know what the prosecution argued in closing. So we went to the source and we said Mr Tippler, what did you say in closing? And he said, oh, is

the bite mark? That was all we had, you know, And so we submitted a notice to the court saying we would like to let the court know that Mr Tippler, the lawyer who tried the case, disagrees with the new tact, essentially that the prosecution has taken and the court didn't allow us to add that to the record, so they had no response to the new evidence and instead made up this story. And the real kicker was when they said that the jury was free to decide for itself

that it was Mr McQuary's bite mark. So, notwithstanding three dentists who said it's not a bite mark, let alone mr mcquarie's, the execution said, well, but the jury could have decided that it was, and therefore his conviction should stand. So, to put it differently, lagers are more capable of engaging in junk science than the junk scientists themselves, right, and so that the idea is is that you don't even

need an expert witness. We can just put this junk science in front of the jury and that would be good enough for government work. You know what, did you bring in somebody like Sue or on with these big fantasy pictures and all that, and they're gonna believe what he says. And the idea that somehow they can take that out and the jury would have reached the same verdict is ridiculous. It's unfucking real. And then on the first of March, you guys filed the motion to reconsider

the order. In it, you've described all of the other White Mark cases that resulted in overturned convictions, and this motion began. I think this is so powerful just with the names of thirty five people who combined probably served over a thousand years in prison. If I to guess, and we know some of these names because they've been on the show, and I mean we can read them one at a time, I feel like we should go in,

like each take turns reading the names. Keith Harward, Robert Stinson, Gerard Richardson, Willie Jackson, Roy Brown, Ray Crone, Calvin Washington, Joe Williams, James O'Donnell, Levon Brooks, Kennedy Brewer, Benny Starks, Michael Christini, Jeffrey Mouldwan, Anthony Kiko, Harold Hill, Dan Young Jr. Greg will Hoote, Crystal Wimer, Stephen Cheney, William Richards, Alfred Swinton, Sherwood Brown, John Cunso, Gary Sazari, Sheila d Robert du Bois,

Eddie Lee, Howard, Gilbert Pool, and of course the man we're talking about today, Charles mccruary. And each of these people was wrongfully convicted due to bite mark evidence, and there are countless other names that could be added to this list that we haven't been able to help yet. So with that, Charles is in your thirty seven of this slow moving train wreck. You know, I want to find out from you guys, is there any steps that people can take? Is their petition? Is there someone? What

can people do? We are appealing the case. We've partnered with some Alabama lawyers who are are helping us do the best we can to try to convince the appellate court that the trial court will cut it wrong. And so that's the next step. And I think just the more people who know about the case, the better we share the podcast the articles to those listeners in Alabama too, right into your lawmakers and question you know why Charles McQuary and instant man is still in prison, and this

is correctible. Charles McQuary can still live the rest of his life and be reunited with his family. So I hope that listeners will help spread the word, help put pressure on the decision makers to do the right thing. We really want people in Alabama to know that this is happening in their backyard and this is not a right or a isssue. This is a human rights issue. There should be no politics in freeing the innocent, so please do get involved. We'll put links in the bio

to action steps you can take. Again, Chris Fabric can't go get the book junk Science. Some of these stories are just too crazy to be believed. But you'll understand the issue so much better. And it's a great reading reason like a novel. And now we turn to the part of our show that I know everyone looks forward to like I do, which is called closing arguments. And Chris, you know how it works. Um, Charles was going to tell you how it works right now, and Mark Um,

so basically I thank you closing arguments. I'm going to turn my microphone off and leave it on for each of you guys to share any thoughts that you have, anything we may have left out, or anything else you want to say. So we'll go Chris, then over you Mark, and then of course Mr McQuary, Charles, please close it out.

I like people to retain their skepticism and that it's really important that we all serve on juries, that we have skeptical jurors and that don't believe anything that somebody tells you just because they're board certified or they're wearing a white lab coat. I want to just read a quote that I think is is important for people to keep in mind. You know, Chris and I have mentioned a few times that we represented a woman by the

name of of Sheila Denton in Georgia. It was a bite mark case and in two thousand and twenty Miss Denton was granted a new trial. This is down in Waycross, Georgia, conservative part of of Georgia, and the judge chief judge wrote, quote, proven unreliable scientific evidence should never serve as the basis of a conviction and should be dealt with by the

courts if and when it is found. And like Dr Suvaran, who we applaud for admitting his mistake, like this judge who wrote this, who applaud for being courageous enough to overturn a murder conviction because it was based on proven, unreliable scientific evidence. I just hope that there are more judges and prosecutors out there who have the courage that this judge did to see that and to enforce that. Well. Again, I appreciate uh your interest in the case, and I

just say that I think I wrote this recently. There should not be a finality in a case where an innocent person is in prison, and I think what some courts want to do is close the door. This is not the only case we know of thirty something exoneries just from dental evidence alone, and how many others are

out there so juries. While they try to make I think, good decisions, they do not make perfect decisions, and there should be a real process that for people seriously look at this when people claim innocence, and I appreciate groups like yourself and others that are working on that. Thank you for listening to raw full conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Wardis,

with research by Lila 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 flom Raleful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one