Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drewson.
Today we bring you back to Ada, Oklahoma for the second half of our story about Tommy Ward and Carl Fontana. When we left off last week, Tommy and Carl were sitting on death row after police turned Tommy's bad dream into a murder confession. This week, we'll tell you about some serious twists in the case, from the discovery of the victim's body to the revelation of hidden evidence that
turned this case upside down. We'll update you on everything that's happened since the twenty eighteen Netflix series The Innocent Man told Tommy and Carl's story. There's been some very good news for one of them and a lot of hope for the other. Steve. For those listeners who missed last week's episode, let's tell them what happened.
In Ada, Oklahoma. Denise Harroway, a twenty four year old woman, goes missing. She vanishes. The police bring Tommy Ward in for questioning.
And it got ugly fast. Tommy told the police about this nightmare he'd had about Denise's disappearance, and over a nine hour interrogation, police turned that dream into a confession. They even hauled in Tommy's friend, Carl Fontano and got him to confess too. But here's the thing. These confessions were riddled with errors. They named a third perpetrator who had a rock solid alibi. They repeated the stories that police fed to Tommy and Carl without adding anything new.
These confessions were obviously obviously false.
Now going into trial, the prosecutors have two confessions that are at odds with the objectively noble facts of the cry.
But they thought they had an ace in the hole.
And that ace in the hole was a single fact that both Tommy and Carl had told to police officers, a description of a blouse that Denise Harrowy was wearing at the time that she was abducted. A blouse that it turned out was missing from Denise's wardrobe, A blouse which even the police did not know about at the time they interviewed Tommy and Carl.
But based on this one detail in their confessions, Tommy and Carl were convicted of murder. And remember, her bodies still hadn't been found when they were convicted.
No body, no bones, no motive, nothing but a description of Denise Harroway's blouse, and they are on death row because of that. That's where we pick up the story.
Three months after Tommy and Carl were convicted, a wake up call arrived in the case that was built on a dream. On January twenty firstnineteen eighty six, a man was walking through a field in Gurdy, Oklahoma, when he found a skull under some brush. Police found more human remains spread across the field, and dental records confirmed a match. Finally, they'd found Denise Harroway. This discovery produced a new round
of problems with Tommy and Carl's confessions. Denise had been found unclothed, twenty miles away from where Tammy and Carl had said they'd left her. Her body hadn't been burned at all, despite the fact that Karl had said they'd set her on fire, and the medical examiner confirmed even though Tommy and Carl had said Denise had been stabbed that never happened. She had actually been shot in the head.
It's like they're describing completely different crimes from what happened to Denise Harroway.
Both Tommy and Carl's convictions were reversed on appeal, but not because Denise's body had been found. It was because the judge ruled they shouldn't have been tried together. Prosecutors went ahead and tried both Tommy and Carl again, this time separately, but using the same evidence as before.
When the second trial come up, before they had found her remains, and everything they found at that crime scene had proved Tommy's confession wrong. Nothing was right about it.
That's Tommy Ward's brother, Melvin. He's been advocating for Tommy's innocence for over thirty years.
Our hearts was a high. I mean, how can you ignore You know that she was shot back of the head, and here you got two boys saying it was she was sad. She was never stad. The evening in Corners from before states ad.
But believe it or not, the second trials were deja vu all over again, just like before. The prosecutors relied on the fact that Tommy and Carl had both said Denise was wearing a blue flowered, ruffled blouse. The police hadn't known anything about the blouse before the interrogation. The prosecutors insisted that fact couldn't have been fed.
Imagine you're a prosecutor, and you have to stand up and of a jury and present them with a confession. They can't tell you what happened, to denise who did it, or even where the crime occurred. That's what these prosecutors had to do. But they did it well enough, well enough to convict both Tommy and Carl a second time.
When Tommy heard the verdict, he began to sob uncontrollably. You're all liars, he shouted at the prosecutors. I'm being punished for something I didn't do.
I don't know. I still have a hard time. I actually thought it would be a hung jury the second one. Confessions are hard to get by. You know, people still believe that, you know, why did you confess if you didn't do it. So their confessions were similar, but they also was off. You know, I'm not a lawyer by any means, but I could not say how twelve adult jurors could just ignore all the other evidence. That's what they did had to have. Tommy was totally convicted on
his confession. Them confession sunk.
Them this time around. Tommy Ward and Carl Fontano were ultimately sentenced to life in prison.
That's been thirty five years ago plus thirty five years later, Tom's still waiting to get out.
Tommy and Carl went off to prison to serve their life sentences. Years passed and their appeals were denied one after another.
Tommy was a kid that he'd take his strays for instance. And what I mean by a strays, I don't meet just stray dogs. Like one time he found a hawk that had a broken wing. He took that hawk and nursed it back to help and let it go. Men a wife would would for years went and saw him, you know, every two three weeks, Mama religiously go see him. Even today, he calls me every week almost in prison. He got into caventry, and the way I understand it,
he's very good at it. He built a prefab homes there and everybody that knows Tommy, everywhere he's at, even in prison, everybody likes him.
You know.
He's a good Christian man. He's honest, and you know he just just not any aim to do what they claimed he did.
Tommy had befriended Carl Fontaneau when Carl had no family or home. He wasn't much different from those other strays Tommy took in in prison. While Tommy worked carpentry jobs, Carl pursued a different kind of woodworking. He taught himself the lonely skill of building picture frames out of toothpicks and glue, even though he didn't have any photos of loved ones to go in them. While Tommy and Carl sat in an Oklahoma prison, words started spreading about this
mysterious case that was built on a dream. Two books were written about it, one in nineteen eighty seven and a second in two thousand and six.
This was a case that captured the imagination of an investigative reporter named Robert Mayer, who wrote a classic wrongful conviction book entitled Dreams of Ada. And then none other than John Grisham wrote a book about this case.
This is the only non fiction book Grisham ever wrote, and, like he told us in the last episode, even he couldn't make up a story like this.
Eventually, Grisham's book The Innocent Man would be turned into a Netflix series, which was released in twenty eighteen.
Finally, somebody was taking notice as starting to believe in Tommy's story. I mean, it's even gone so far where I get on vicebook. People on the other side of the world, I mean Ukrainian and in Price's Italy, you know, wishing Tommy well and believing in his innocent It's just pretty amazing.
While journalists were telling Tommy and Carl's stories, the two men sat behind bars for decades. Both still insisted on their innocence. They needed post conviction lawyers to take their case, but any new legal team would face a problem. No DNA evidence existed that could prove Tommy and Karl's innocence. How on earth would any lawyers go about exonerating them.
It was a case, turns out that was made for the organization that Steve and I are lucky enough to co direct, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
The purpose of the Center on Wrongful Convictions is to identify and rectify wrongful convictions and other serious miscarriages of justice.
Here's the co founder of our center, renowned journalist Rob Worden.
We thought that it was important to have an organization that would investigate cases in which there was no DNA but there was other persuasive evidence of actual innocence. Now, these cases are much harder to prove than DNA, but they are no less compelling. The Center on Wrongful Convictions was a first innocence project in the country that was taking non DNA cases as well as DNA cases.
In two thousand and six, when the Center had been around for about seven years, Rob heard about Tommy Ward's case and he couldn't forget what he learned.
We wouldn't even have had a wrongful conviction movement were it not initially for vibrant investigative reporting. John Grisham and I had a conversation about the Tommy Ward case when he was in Chicago. The thing that was so striking about the Ward font No case was that the dreams conflicted with known physical facts of the crime. So we have this evidence that the dream confessions are false and that quite clearly the ideas here were implanted in the
minds of both Tommy and Carl by the police. The case probably never should have been brought. It still has immensely powerful evidence of actual innocence, and that's why the Center on Ronical Convictions got involved, and we've been involved in it for the ensuing a dozen or thirteen years, still fighting.
Now here's one thing that fascinated Rob about the case and about Ada, Oklahoma. Turns out Tommy Ward wasn't the only innocent man from Ada who was convicted of murder based on a dream confession.
Ron Williamson was a minor league baseball player who had been sentenced to death based on a dream that he described to police about the crime. He was exonerated by DNA. So this was an intriguing situation for me.
Of the twelve known dream confessions in the history of false confessions, we have two of them coming from Ada, Oklahoma, This small, fineteen thousand person town. What are the chances of that It's like a cancer cluster. What's going on here is that these interrogators were hell bent on solving high profile murders and they were converting dreams into confessions.
This was part and parcel of their arsenal of tactics to break suspects down and get them to confess, and they were getting false confessions.
If that other dream confession was false, if Ron Williamson had been exonerated, maybe Tommy and Carl could be exonerated too. Our colleagues at the Center on Wrongful Convictions partnered with Oklahoma attorney Mark Barrett to represent Tommy Ward. Carl fontane also got new representation. Together, both legal teams dug into the case of Denise Harroway's disappearance, and what did they find. Not DNA, but they did find evidence of innocence that
was equally compelling. A whole box of investigative reports that had not been disclosed to Tommy or Carl's defense, eight hundred and sixty pages of secret evidence, and the contents of those reports talk about a dream come true.
The discovery of this box is a development that occurred after all the books, after the Netflix series, and it's a development that blows this case wide open.
The prosecution, that turns out, as we now have learned, had concealed a huge body of exculpatory evidence, including evidence corroborating Tommy Ward's alibi that he had been at a party with a bunch of people at the.
Exact time of the abduction and couldn't.
Have been involved in that box. There was also a full recantation from Carl Fontaneau which he wrote just days after he confessed. There were police reports showing that the the only witness who put Tommy Ward at mcinally's that night, James Moyer, had completely changed his descriptions several times of whoever it was he saw. But what about that blouse
with the blue flowers and lazy collar. That magical proof that Tommy and Karl must be guilty because their interrogators didn't know what Denise was wearing.
In that box, the lawyers found a draft missing person's report written by the police but never actually circulated to either the public or to defense counsel in this case. That report described the blouse that Denise was wearing on the day she was abducted. It said that Denise Harvey was wearing a blouse with blue flowers and lace around the neckline. And that report was dated one day after
Denise's disappearance. That's months before the interrogations, so the police knew what Denise was wearing before they interrogated both Tommy and Carl.
And there was more in the box. Lawyers also found an undated report of an interview with Denise's sister, which is probably where police got the information for the missing person's bulletin. In it, she described Denise as wearing a button down blouse with small blue flowers that had lace around the collar and elastic on the sleeves. These are the same details, the same words that ended up in
Tommy and Carl's confessions. Not to play on stereotypes, but what are the odds that these two rough and tumbled dudes from rural Oklahoma would have described a woman's lacey blouse using exactly the same words as Denise's sister.
This eviscerates the state's case. The one fact, the blouse fact, that put these men on death row. We now know that the police knew about it before they interrogated Tommy and Carl. We now know that Denise's sister told them about it shortly after she disappeared. Now we know it must have been fed to them by the same police officers who fed so many other facts to them. The anchor that police claimed was the basis of conviction in
both Trial on and Trial two. You gotta pull that anchor up, because remember, there's nothing else in this case. There's no other evidence.
It was the one unanswerable fact, and.
Now it's answerable. The confessions no longer convict Tommy and Carl.
The detectives said they did not know the description of their shirt until after Tommy's and Carl's confession. Well, we kind of have personal that that's not true. These detectives got both of them to Menson Odell Tipsworth's name in there. They added the description of the shirt in there. It was just as much these detectives confession as it was Tommy and Carl's. I guess that's the best way of saying that.
So much for the prosecution's ace in the hole. Police had known all along what Denise was wearing when she disappeared. Tommy and Carl were in a I.
Don't know, I don't understand law or anything, but here you have a blatant miscarriage to justice because it's their job to hand over all the evidence to, you know, the defense, but the prosecuting attorney did not do that. That's a violation of their rights.
When you put this all together, there is just no question that Tommy Ward and Carl Fontineau are absolutely innocent of this crime and have been the victims of one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the history of the United States.
The confessions of Tommy Ward and Carl Fontineau are worthless. There is nothing holding this case together at all.
Based on these new discoveries, both Tommy and Carl filed petitions for relief, Tommy and state court and Carl in federal court. Carl's judge was the first to act. In twenty nineteen, he threw out Carl Fontineau's conviction. After thirty four years behind bars, Carl was released unbond. He's finally free.
I'm absolutely delighted that Carl Fontineau has been released. Of course, the damage that's been done to him can never be undone. Nobody can ever make this right for Carl. But at least he is no longer in prison.
And when he was released, he was welcomed with open arms by a new community, a new family, the community of Exoneries from the state of Oklahoma. But justice in this case won't be complete until Tommy Ward is free.
We're very happy for Carl, and Tommy's very happy for Carl. Of course, it shows hope for Tommy because a lot of the things that the federal judge had come out with it also falls under Tommy's case.
As of this recording, Tommy's still waiting behind bars for his judge to decide whether he can walk free too. Tommy's been waiting for that decision thirty five years, and God, we hope it's the right one.
I would guess Tommy would be dreaming about freedom.
Now in this case that's started with a nightmare. There are new things to hope for now, doors opening, chains being removed, family embracing you and taking you home. These are the things that all wrongfully convicted people hope for until finally, one day those dreams come true.
I have more hope for Tommy now than I've had in a long time. After thirty five years of knowing that your little brothers in prison for something he didn't do. You want him out. We want him out bad, and he deserves to be out. If there's any justice in this world, he'll be out one of these days.
Fifteen years after author John Grisham started researching this case, he still speaks with Tommy Ward all the time and remains a strong advocate for Tommy's freedom.
Tommy prays for me, will not pray for him. I will say, Tommy, relaxed, I'm okay, worry about you, sip. That's not the kind of guy is. He has a long prayer list and he keeps a lot of people on that list. And Tommy would probably go to work helping people when he got out. When he gets out, this is an innocent man.
Get him out of prison.
That's what should happen.
Hello, this is a collect call from Tommy, an inmate at Dick Connor Correctional Center.
You may start the conversation now.
Hello, Hey Tommy, This is Laura.
And this is Steve Tommy.
Hi Tommy, how are you doing?
Okay? The same my prayers that Mara be coming to an ends.
We sure hope.
So can you tell us how you u your time these days?
Well, I'm in trying to keep busy, you know. I do a lot of the hobby crams for you know, like Christmas presence or Birthday presence and kind of case. They're busy doing that.
You've had so many ups and downs over the past decades that you've been locked up. Do you allow yourself to think about what you're going to want to do when you get out.
Yeah. I like woodwork, and I'd like to open up my own wood shop. And I always thought of, you know a lot of elderly people were I could go in and maybe lower their cabinets for them and their hounsairs and like that, you know, make it like wheelchair accessible where they can stay at home longer instead of having to go to a nursing home.
Yeah, that was pretty meaningful work to do. Do you get letters from people who have watched your story on TV or who read the books?
Oh? Yeah, it's a lesson to hear from everybody that has written to me. Someone is to pick after the cares.
A lot of people care, Tommy, and just from talking to you now, I can see that you deserve every one of those blessings and a whole lot more. Tommy Ward is now sixty years old. Will he finally be able to reclaim what's left of his life as an exonerated man? We hope so, Tommy, we support you all the way. Your dream of freedom is our dream too.
Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis. Our production team is headed by senior producer and Pope a Lot with producers Joshi Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed by Genie Montalvo. John Colbert is our
intrepid intern. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura and I Wrider, and you can follow me.
On Twitter at Sdrizzen.
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