On January seventeenth, nineteen ninety three, a fire ripped through two adjacent apartment buildings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Many onlookers, including a man named Dan Carnivali, witnessed the mayhem that took three lives. Soon information was released to the media that two blank checks and a set of keys had been taken from the apartment building. Dan Carnivali's roommates once found a number of old checks from that apartment complex under
his bet, so they reported him to the police. After Dan convinced police that he had come upon the blaze after the fact, he was released and he moved to California. The case went cold for nearly fourteen years until an eyewitness came forward with a different account of Dan's whereabouts that night. Dan was dragged back to Pennsylvania, where he allegedly confessed to a fellow inmate while awaiting trial, saying that he was in fact the culprit all those many
years ago. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison. Now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us at eight three three two O seven four six sixty six and leave us a message, tell us how these powerful, often tragic stories make you feel outraged, inspired, motivated. We want to know. We may even include your story in a future episode. Call us A three three two O seven four six
sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got an alleged arson case out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, again involving ATF agents William Patritis and Jason Wick, as well as ATF chemist William Kinnard. And you may remember one or all of them from the cases of Greg Brown and Christine Bunch, and of course we'll have both of those stories linked in the episode description. But now we're going
to hear from another one of their victims, Dan Carnivale. Dan, I'm so sorry for the reason you're here and for what you went through, but we're so happy and honored to have you here today. Thank you and joining him. You may recognize her from our coverage of Greg Brown's case. She's the managing attorney of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, Liz Deloso.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Glad to have you, and last but not least, Dan civil attorney Alec Right, Alec, Welcome, to wrongful conviction.
Thanks for having me.
Now, Alec. My understanding is that you're also from Pittsburgh. But this fire happened way back in ninety three when you were still just a kid, while Dan at the time was already twenty nine. But crazily he didn't get prosecuted until weeen years after that. But before we unpack all of that, Dan, I want to hear more about what it was like growing up in Pittsburgh and being a teenager in the Steel City at that time. You were raised in Polish Hill, right.
Yes, I grew up on Polish Show in Pittsburgh. I mean I did everything every other teenager did, drank Bear in the Woods.
Well, if I grew up there, I pretty much can guarantee I would have been right next to you.
That makes all of us separality.
My house, Dan, just so you know, had the woods behind it where we stashed the beer Steel City reserved. Dan, Was that a beer that you guys had at Polish Hill?
Yeah, but I derailed the night train a few times too.
During his twenties, Dan moved across Pittsburgh to the tightly knit Italian neighborhood of Bloomfield, where he was familiar with the buildings in which the nineteen ninety three fire occurred.
I made some mistakes growing up, and I had some hard times in my twenties. I was a male thief. That was what linked me to the building, because I was still in their mail from their mailboxes. I would get the checks from the building and take them to poll the show and have somebody cash them for me. I mean, I drank out every night practically. I just I like to buy drinks and make myself look like
I had money, And that night was no exception. I just went to the Luna that of karaoke to have a DJ whatever, and I'd hang out there until they closed, and then I'd walk back to Bloomfield, where I lived. Most of that night I don't remember, but I do remember being at the sandwich shop and I was with other people watching the fire. There was just a load of people there and people hanging out the windows, people screaming and yelling. Just that's I remember that.
During the early morning hours of January seventeenth, nineteen eighty three, while Dan was closing down the Lunar Bar and headed to a local sandwich shop, a fire began at the nearby Columbia Apartment Building and spread next door to an apartment building called the Regal.
Emergency calls started to come in around four am. By five thirty, it's a six alarm fire. The fire has moved from where it began in the basement all the way to the roof, and the northwest corner of the Columbia Apartment building collapses. Three apartment residents are killed. One visitor is very severely injured.
That was twenty year old Linda McCutcheon who was staying with her friend. Twenty two year old Christopher Stallman who leaped to his death to escape the flames. Sixty three year old Lawrence Lychkoe and thirty one year old Anita Emery died from smoke in elation. Thankfully, twenty nine other residents managed to survive, and they all reported the same thing.
In the weeks prior to the fire. Witnesses would later tell investigators that they had like buzzing and clicking and banging within their radiators, that some apartments were really hot and some apartments were not receiving heat at all, and then justin the hours prior to like these nine to one one calls coming in we have a hissing, a buzzing,
and banging within the radiators. You know, later in litigation, as we are investigating Dan's case, or expert Douglas Carpenter, one of the things that really stood out to Doug was the fact that a manual boiler, so a boiler that really required someone to keep up with it and to manually feed the water into that boiler to make sure that it wasn't overheating. That boiler would have had all of these signs or symptoms if it was malfunctioning
in the days and weeks prior to the fire. Unfortunately, these apartment residents were not interviewed until days and weeks after the arson determination.
Before speaking with these folks, the Pittsburgh Arson Squad had called in the ATF to assist with the investigation.
These are two ATF agents that investigated the Greg Brown case, William Patritis and Jason Wick, and they're doing the same
thing right. They're making this arson determination very quickly after the fire has been suppressed on visual inspection alone, without the use of any other experts, without ruling out any additional accidental causes, without all of the chemical analysis having been even sent to the ACF laboratory without witness interviews being completed, and they're not using the NFPA nine twenty one, which at that point in nineteen ninety three was in its first publication.
The NFPA nine twenty one is the National Fire Protection Association's investigation guide that signaled a paradigm shift towards the scientific method and away from the myths and folklore nonsense that have been handed down by arson investigation predecessors visual cues that were believed to indicate that a fire had been intentionally set with accelerants. Modern science has proved that none of that stuff is true, but it was relied on, and sadly in some places it still relied on for
generations and generations and generations. We'll have our coverage of arson investigation on wrongful conviction junk science linked in the episode description as well. But anyway, these ATF agents totally ignored this paradigm shift from myth to science and instead search for support for that determination that they had already made, and they interviewed some of the people who worked at these buildings.
So the Regal Apartment building and the Columbia Apartment Building are connected in the basement via several locked doors. In the Regal apartment building, there was a can of laquer thinner near kind of like the back end of the basement. One of the maintenance men tells investigators, I can't find
that can. It may have been moved. Later, they find a can of lacquer thinner in the maintenance room of the Columbia Apartment building, and that starts to turn the wheels for investigators that that must have been the can of lacker thinner that was originally stored in the Regal
Apartment building. Although there are lots and lots of chemicals in this maintenance room, there is a insecticide, there's gasoline, there's a charcoal grill, there's lacquer thinner, there's no reason to believe that like this can of lacker thinner was intentionally moved by a perpetrator. It simply could have been moved by one of the maintenance men, of which there were several, or just a different can of laquer thinner. But that piques the investigator's interests.
Then Patritis and Wick sent fifteen samples from the building to their boy in the ATF Lab William Canard.
William Canard has a conversation with William Patritis prior to finalizing his report, and he says that in samples three, nine, ten, and six, there are elements that lead into believe that there was a presence of Lacquer Center, which was used as an accelerant to start this fire.
And now what they needed was the right suspect. At this point, they had heard from a guy named Chris palm Mary who found two sets of keys and blank checks from the Columbia in front of one of the building owners's homes, and this information was leaked to the local media, which piqued the interest of Dan's roommates Keith Playtech and Tammy Mancini.
The only thing that attached him to the Columbia apartment buildings at the time was Tammy Mancini and Keith Playtech saying, you know that they found these checks.
Yeah, they found checks under the mattress of the bed I slept in, but they were old. They just happened to have that address on them.
So when Dan was interviewed about that, you know, he readily admitted, yes, this was my cash cow. I stole checks from this place. So the police say, he needs your jacket for testing. He says, take my jacket for testing. They says, sit down for a polygraph test.
He sits down for a polygraph test.
Oh, add they lost the coat and they losched a polygraph test.
Both items cleared Dan, but if they hadn't, surely they would have been saved. Additionally, Dan had his alibi and no way of having been able to get into these buildings.
Every exterior door to this building was locked. The maintenance room where they say the fire started was locked. The office where two blank checks and keys that are later found on the owner of the building's doorstep after this fire was locked. The room in the regal building where Liz was describing, you name your accelerant, that's in this.
Room, okay. Locked.
The access to the regal building is an l two by four over the door. Can't get into it. Everywhere down of this basement locked, and everybody tells them this. August Paluso, the owner of the building, Orlando Syrium Belly, who is the person who actually goes in and locks the doors that night, and Ronald t who is one of the maintenance people at the time, all say everything's locked. Dan has only ever taken checks from an outdoor courtyard.
So if this had been arson, the assailant either had to have had keys or have broken in somehow. So the when this interviews continued and one building resident, Paul Parter, said that he had heard a party going on that night, which corroborated a statement from a guy named Sean Maxwell.
On January eighteenth of nineteen ninety three, the day after this fire, Sean Maxwell comes forward and says, the guy named Larry Steele shows up to my house a few hours after this fire. He's covered in soot, talking about how he broke into this Columbia apartment building with some friends. They were drinking, and he says, we burned down the building by accident. If you tell anybody about it, I
will kill you and I will kill your grandmother. Sean Maxwell tells police investigators, I know who did it, and I know the name of the guy that he was with. His name was Rob Zacharias. While this is going on, a couple other witnesses in the neighborhood, and you have
to understand Pittsburgh to really grasp this. Bloomfield is an old Italian town in Pittsburgh, and everybody knows everybody in the neighborhood, and one of the things that these individual residents are talking about is that there is an individual with long sandy blondehair's shoulder length in an army field jacket that we don't know who's watching this fire. They actually create a composite sketch, and this individual matches one of two people, First Rob Zacharias, who was the same
individual that Larry Steele said earlier he was with that night. Second, a former maintenance man by the name of Glenn Spoon, who is fired from the property a year ago, but Paul Potter says, is spotted a day or two before this fire, and one of the only individuals other than the owner of the building who have keys to those locked rooms. He matches the description of the composite sketch.
Two more individuals were identified who also matched this description. However, who even knows if this stranger had anything to do with the fire or if Larry Steele had ever even made this confession about him or about Rob Zacharias. Considering that this fire in all likelihood was a tragic accident, the presence of this alleged suspect with sandy blonde hair and an army field jacket had both dubious value and
was also definitely not Dan. The description set five to ten and Dan is six ' four, so that's not even close. And it appears that yet another witness named Shane Evans, confirmed that.
Shane Evans grew up with Dan CARNIVALI would know him from one hundred yards away, would know him from one hundred inches away. Shane Evans is watching the fire happen on January seventeenth, nineteen ninety three, four am, four fifteen, around five am, he leaves the fire. He finds a fire personnel and he says to them, I was walking by the Columbia about five minutes before the fire broke out. I heard a door close of the Columbia apartment building. I turned around in a very well lit area, could
not see his face. The person was unknown to me, but had sandy long blonde hair shoulder length.
And an army field jacket.
And fire personnel say go tell police investigators.
So Shane Evans did exactly that. He told three investigators what he had seen.
Wait do you hear what he said? Thirteen years later?
You're listening to wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. After Dan cooperated to the fullest with law enforcement, his jacket tested negative for accelerant. He passed a polygraph, which has limited value, but still he was released and he grew a bit cold on Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh was bad for me. All my friends were dying of overdoses. Everybody was dying of China White and Iroin and in this and that. I just I had to get away. I couldn't take it any where. The police were at my parents' house every other day about something stupid. Most of it I knew nothing about. About a month or or so after that, I moved to California. I have a friend who lives out there in Humble County. I called the police from California and told him I
was there. That you know, if you need me for any further questioning, this is where I'm at. It wasn't like I was living in the mountain siding from anybody. I just wanted to start over, so I left.
The case went cold for nearly fourteen years, and during that time Dan had built himself a happy, comfortable life.
I had a family. I had a wife, I had step kids, I had a house. I had a good job. I was working in a lumber mill eighty eighty five thousand a year. I finally was doing good in my life, finally, and then everything went down hill.
In early two thousand and six, Pittsburgh Police cold case detective Scott Evans and Jr. Smith inexplicably reopened. In nineteen ninety three Columbia fire investigation.
They do a huge press release where Scott Evans and Jr. Smith release all of the information that we've talked about so far out to the news. Then they put a ten thousand dollars reward in the paper for anybody for information, and thirteen years later on a ten thousand dollars reward. In this press release, they talked to Shane Evans, who says, now, in this well lit area, I saw six foot four Dan CARNIVALI face to face leaving that Columbia apartment building.
They asked Shane Evans in nineteen ninety three, did you know who Dan CARNIVALI was? And Shane Evans, of course says, I grew up with him my whole life. One hundred percent it was him, and I was watching the fire later and he came up to me unsolicited, unprovoked and screamed out loud. I was at the sandwich shop. And when he testifies at trial, he says those same things, except he also says, and by the way, Dan Carnivali was covered with soot. Now, let's remember some of the
things that we've talked about so far. Dan Carnivali had told everybody his alibi that he was at the sandwich shop after being at the lunar bar. We also know from the criminal investigation file that Larry Steele, in his confession was covered in soot. Shane Evans is receiving information somewhere from someone to add those two pieces of information into this situation. When he told everybody in nineteen ninety three, when the fire was still going, that he did not recognize the person.
All of a sudden, in two thousand and six, it was me. He saw me.
Ten grand can be pretty persuasive. And meanwhile, the state disposed of those original statements from nineteen ninety three in which Evans had said he could and identify the suspect, only sharing this two thousand and six David which goner the arrest wererant.
I was coming home from Warp one day, riding up to my house, and I knew there was a helicopter following me, and it was driving all the way up through fifty until I got close to my house, and then the car pulled out beside me and the lights went on, and then I seen the Pennsylvania badges, and then I was like, oh, what the hell. So then they started questioning me about the fire. I told them a million times I did not do this, You're making
a mistake. But all they kept doing was yelling at me, well, think about the people that are dead, Well, think about what you're doing. You're a resting or wrong person, so you know what I mean. That's all they kept telling me. I didn't know what to tell them. Finally I said, let me have an attorney. I don't want to talk to you'all anymore. Next thing you know, I'm sitting in the county jail.
And now emerge as a jail house informant by the name of Sean Burns. Here's what Sean Burns tells everybody in all of this time, Dan CARNIVALI explains to Sean burns.
This individual in protective custody the Alleghany County Jails that I didn't mean to burn down the building, but what happened was I was at the bar and somebody told me that it's possible that in the future they might put video surveillance on the Columbia Apartment building, and so in order to get ahead of them setting up video surveillance, I'm gonna break into the Columbia and I'm gonna go into the office, but I don't find any video surveillance.
It's not there.
But just out of an abundance of caution, I'm gonna take this can of lacquer thinner and I'm gonna douse the office, not the maintenance, from the office with this whole can, and then i'm gonna light a match. I'm gonna throw it behind me, and I'm gonna walk out with the can of lacquer thinner, get rid of it, and hopefully that fire will contain itself in that office and burn the video surveillance equipment that I couldn't find
in that I don't know exists. And in the process, I'm gonna take two blank checks in instead of on the owner, and then go set them down on the doorstep of the owner building.
The allegend motive was as far fetched as it was inconsistent with the ATFS theory, which if their theory is to be believed, then why was Burn's alleging that Dan burned the office, not the maintenance room and then left with the lacquer thinner when the can was in fact found in the building. Either way, Sean Burns did not make this statement for free.
Sean Burns had gun charges. He also had some kid charges, some child rape things, and if he would have went to state prison he wouldn't have made it through. So he was doing anything he could do to come up with getting himself out of jail, and he got out of jail four days after my trial.
What we later find out, Sean Burns has not only testified in Daniel Carnivali's case during two thousand and seven, He's testified on behalf of the commonwealth as an informant in two other cases just.
That year for the same prosecutor, for the very.
Same prosecutor, they got the deal of a century for cerial cooperation.
So it seems like this prosecutor, Jennifer di Giovanni was willing to overlook the inconsistencies in Burns's statement to try to close the Columbia fire case, and with Shane Evans and Sean Burns in her back pocket, she offered Dan three and a half to seven years. Pretty incredible deal if you think about it. If she really thought he was guilty of a triple murderer, I.
Wasn't taking a plea. I wouldn't care what they were giving me. I didn't do it, and I'm not taking a plea. I really thought that there was no way they could find someone guilty that wasn't guilty. I just I found out the hard way. I was roam.
Dan went to trial in August two thousand and seven with his attorney Frank Walker, and in addition to Evans and Burns, ATF agent William Patritis testified from memory. Right fourteen years removed from the investigation and testified from memory the physical evidence had all been destroyed, making it impossible
to do a full reinvestigation. Meanwhile, Patritis was sure that an alleged assailant started the blaze with lacquer dinner in the maintenance room, backing his claims up with ancient arson gobbledegook.
He says that the thing that really stood out to him was the low burn patterns that were present on like the doorway of the mechanical room, which today we know low burn patterns are not indicative of an unnaturally or an accelerant set fire. We know that if the structure reaches full room involvement, meaning flashover, that low burn
patterns are absolutely naturally occurring. But Patritis's testimony, you know, led the jury to believe that these low burn patterns were unnaturally occurring, were indicative of only a fire that could have been set through the use of an accelerant.
And this non scientific observation was then backed up by allegedly scientific analysis from ATF chemist William Cannard, whose credibility was falling apart in the lead up to Dan's trial. In two thousand and six, three fire scientists were hired to examine his analysis of an alleged arson in Indiana, the notorious Christine Blench case, in which he said there was presence of an accelerant in her son's bedroom when in fact there was none.
And William Canard is really exposed as having falsified report. We know that in August two thousand and seven, the ATF is asked to reevaluate William Cannard's original chemical analysis in Dan's nineteen ninety three case. Chief Julia Dolan real evaluates all of the gascarmatographs and she says that the levels of lackarthinner are so low as to be meaningless. She disagrees with every single finding. Canard has reported that report that Julia Dolan does is not shared with defense counsel.
But the Julia Dolan memo is dated August of two thousand and seven, and Dan was tried August twenty sixth. In August twenty seventh of two thousand and seven, so somebody knew. Somebody had the information. But Jennifer Digivanni gets Frank Walker croml defense attorney to just stipulate, Hey, you don't want.
To go get an expert.
Let's just accept the ATF just stipulate, don't get an expert.
This is legit.
And then Petritis just reads in William Connard's original chemical analysis telling the jury that lacquer thinner has been found in all of these samples.
And so that evidence was always just assumed to be one hundred percent true.
And then with all of the information that was withheld from defense counsel, any of the alternative perpetrators, the steel alleged confession, and Julia Dolan ATF report saying that the lack of Thurner conclusion was meaningless.
Dan was convicted of arson, burglary, aggravated assault, and three counts of second degree murder. So instead of three and a half years, he got three consecutive life sentences.
My trial lasted one day, by the way, I mean, I had a triple homicide. I picked the jury one day, which found guilty the next I was just shocked. I was in shocked for probably the first year. My personality got me through prison. I could be a comedian because I had to make it to where I wasn't going to get in trouble in jail, or have enemies or or whatever. I just did the best I could. I was in a supermax prison. You know, I had three
life sentences. It's bugging me right now. I can't get it out of my fucking hay, just hearing all the stuff that they did to me over and over. It's you know why, they had enough stuff to prove me innocent, but they lost it. All a little strange, ain't it?
Like, Let's just recap. They alleged to have lost the jacket that Dan turned over for testing as to whether he had any kind of like trace of accelerants on his jacket. They do not have the polygraph that Dan took, which you know, indicated that he was not being deceptive. At trial, they testified that they lost any indication that Shane Evans had come forward on the night of the fire and made original police statements.
Yet the original statements turned up years later, and with Shane Evans, who knew Dan CARNIVALI could not identify the man he saw. Rather, Evans had described someone who did not match Dan's profile. But before those statements were discovered, Dan's earlier appeals focused on the information Dan had received about Sean Burns.
This guy sent me a message to my self saying that he wanted to talk to me out in the yard about something really important. I'm starting to stress out what the hell is wrong now? So I go out in the yard and he tells me, hey, did you ever hear of David Dixon? I said no. Then he goes, well,
do you know Jennifer di Giovanni. I said yes, why And then he started explaining that she put him in jail, and they had Sean Burns as also as the jail how's informant, blah blah blah, and he ended up getting twenty years and he just wanted to let me know that it happened.
To him to David Dixon, who had spent time with Sean Burns, swore an affidavit that Burns had admitted fabricating Dan's alleged confession, which became part of a post conviction relief motion. Along with the sweetheart deal. Burns had received fourteen months and immediate parole eligibility. He was released four
days after Dan's trout. However, both Dan's post conviction motion and his habeas were denied by twenty sixteen, by which point the Pennsylvania Innocence Project had reviewed Dan's case and Liz paid him a visit.
Once Liz came to see me for the first time, everything changed. I knew that something was going to happen because I was innocent. I don't even know what the Saydal is anymore, because she's just like the best thing that ever happened to me.
I'm sorry, I love you too, and our first step was to retain our expert, Douglas Carpenter, and he did that review pro bono, even though we were missing quite
a bit of documentation. He really laid out for the court the evolution of the NFPA nine twenty one of how fire sigence and fire investigation what would have been done in twenty seventeen that just was not done in Night eighteen ninety three, was not even conceptualized in nineteen ninety three, and alleged that this fire should not have been determined an arson or intentionally set, that at the
very least, it should have been undetermined. And his theory was that it was an accidental fire and that the boiler overheated, causing superheating within the joists, and he, you know, talked very much about like the steam pipes and how they ran throughout the building, how they ran straight up into that northwest corner that collapsed, the ways in which witness statements afterwards really supported the fact that this could have been an accidental boiler overheating.
But the state argued that this was just a battle of experts and their petition was denied. However, Liz's work on Greg Brown's case another Canard victim, by the way, appears to have been the catalyst that brought the Julia Dolan report in Dan's case to light in twenty nineteen.
I can't say exactly what happened here, but if I had to assume, that assistant US attorney in Greg Brown's case requested all of the ATF files arson files that were conducted in Alleghany County through a specific time period, so nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety five. Right one of those case files was Dan Carnivali's and within that ATF case file was that Julia Dolan report saying that the Lacquer thinner results that were originally reported in Canards nineteen
ninety three report were meaningless. That was then turned over to the PCRA attorney that was working on Dan Carnivali's case. And thank goodness for the ethics of that PCRA prosecutor, because they turned it over to US as they have a constitutional duty to do. And because of that report, the Alleghany County District Attorney's office agreed that Dan deserved a new trial.
While the DA was deciding whether to even bother with a new trial, Liz reached out to Julia Dolan.
I was able to interview Julia Dolan and ask why, in two thousand and seven, very coincidentally, in the same month as Dan's trial, did you reevaluate Cannard's report? And the only response I was able to achieve was I
cannot recall. And I was like, was it a specific request from Alleghany County to reevaluate this analysis or were you doing a more systemic review of like analysis from this time from this particular chemist because he had been discredited in the Bunch case, and she says, I have never done a systemic review of one of my colleagues.
In addition to this Brady violation that should have prevented Dan's two thousand and seven trial from ever happening at all, Liz was now able to locate even more evidence.
In the District Attorney's response to our PCRA petition. One of the attachments was a document from the insurance agency that represented the owner of the Columbia building, and it gave me the actual name, which was Northwestern National Insurance. Many times, especially in these Arson cases, the insurance company will do a much more in depth investigation in order to determine whether they should pay the claim than sometimes
the Arson squad will. When I tried to locate how many Northwestern National insurance companies there were, there was like over two hundred. So I just made a list and started down this list. I think I got to probably seventy five, maybe one hundred calls when finally I spoke with this woman and I gave her the insurance claim number, and she said, yes, that reflects a claim number. That would have been a claim number that we used at
the time. But they were in the process of destroying all of these old documents, and I was like, stop where you are. If you have these old documents, I need them, And so immediately sent her a subpoena and she located six thousand pages of insurance documents and within that box were those original police reports from Shane Evans that the cold case detectives said were lost, and there
were three police reports. He did in fact speak with three police officers on that night, but despite his trial testimony saying it was light, I immediately recognized it as Daniel CARNIVALI his police report said unknown white male did not see face all three. And so when I presented this a district attorney's office finally said we're going to nol prost. We're going to pititition the court to withdraw all charges, and Dan was finally released and exonerated.
I got released March eighteenth, the first day of COVID that nobody was.
Allowed out of the house the very first day of like everybody was being kind of like sent home from your work.
I went out anyway I used to. I was walking all over Pittsburgh. I was taking money and giving fight older bills the homeless people down town Pittsburgh. So I haven't been in Pittsburgh for twenty six, twenty seven years. So I'm back in Pittsburgh. I'm living with my brother, and he's taking good care of me. Like he bought me a motorcycle. He let me use his car, He helped me get my driver's license. KK Radio station, helped me get the job. I mean, there was a lot involved.
I just oh, and I had a house something in Pittsburgh that my parents had and they had squatters and stuff living in it. So I just went there and cleaned it and we sold that. And it was pretty crazy when I got out, But life got so good. Then I met my wife, Donna, who's sitting next to me right everything changed. We're on our second home since I got out. You know, just I work ten hours a day, six days a week sometimes and just I'm loving life.
I will say that when I first met Dan, just the sweetest, most sincere man. And you know, Dan's case, Greg's case, every case that I work on is the best thing that I could possibly do with my jurse doctorate. But like knowing that I never have to have a conversation with Dan in those orange uniforms in that mind green room.
That's enough.
That's enough that I have done with my career.
I could stop today.
Dan is the most incredible person that I've ever met. He I have a four year old boy, my oldest boy. Dan is a very successful baker. He loves the bacon he bakes for one of the probably the most famous bakery in all of the Pittsburgh.
Areia, third best in the country, third best.
In the country.
On his own dime, Dan surprised my four year old's junior pre kindergarten class with Halloween cookies that he made for them. And then on Thanksgiving and we you know talk, if not every day every other day, said Alec, you gotta try my homemade pumpkin pie.
I do it.
I'm gonna get there, Dan, I'm gonna get there. And I said, I love pumpkin pie and he said it's cheesecake, but I do a special sauce on top. And so my family, my two boys, my wife, we all met Dan and he gave us this homemade pumpkin pie. And then we called Dan and I said, Dan, let's go to Eaton Park, sort of this well Owneditzburg dive. And we get there and Dan's talking about the super Burgers rave it about a super Burger.
You're so obsessed with Bidnax and Superburger.
Obsessed with it.
And I'm like, Dan, fuck the super Burger. I'm getting turkey dinner. And Dan looks at the waitress and he goes give me the exact same thing. And then this woman walked over unsolicited. Dan had a Steelers tattoo on the side of his head and said, sir, I love your tattoo. And Dan made a joke to her.
She lit up. He he is a guy that just makes everything better. You make everything better.
Okay, So just in case I find myself in Pittsburgh anytime soon, what's the name of this bakery.
Oakmont Bakery number one in Pittsburgh for sure.
Well shout out to Oakmont Bakery. We're gonna have them linked in the episode description as well. But meanwhile, we wish you all the best in the civil suit as we go now to closing arguments, where first of all, I thank you guys so much for sharing this story. And then I'm just gonna take these next few minutes to sit back in my chair and listen to anything else you feel is left to be said. So let's start with Alec, then Liz, and of course finally Dan.
There's nothing really for me to add except to reiterate.
You know, Dan, you know we all love you. This is about you.
Others are hurt, but you know we're in your fight and you really do make life better. You made my life better, You made my family's life better.
Thank you. I'll bring you some work cook.
Well, those compliments will only continue as long as you feed.
Me, right, Okay, Liz, what do you guys to say?
By takeaway? And I expressed this to Alec quite a bit, is I just don't understand why Dan was targeted, and not even in nineteen ninety three, right, it was years later in two thousand and six, it feels like more of an effort to target Dan as opposed to actually
following the tangible leads that they had. And I feel like, you know, when you lie, when you cover up, you not only have to remember the lies and the cover up that you did, but the lies and the cover up that you asked others to do, which seems much much more difficult than just conducting a really straightforward and logical investigation. And so I just will I will never understand this case. I will never understand why Dan was targeted,
especially because he was out of state. You know, he wasn't in our state, he wasn't in our community, he wasn't causing a problem, he wasn't making enemies. And so I hope someday, Dan, you have an answer to that. I would like to have some answers, and to have those particular people who cost you thirteen fourteen years of your life and all of the trauma that you experienced while you were in prison answer for that.
Yeah. I don't even know what to say. I just thank god things had happened the way they did. At the end, you know, I'm just happy to be living my life not inside that hole anymore. I can't understand it. I will never understand it. So that's about all I got to say. Thank you for having me on this show, Liz, thank you for being here analog. You know, I don't know what else is. I thought i'd ever eat a big bac again. I think that's why I like big macs much.
You know, I'll lead a big back with you.
Dan. All right, well, yeah, we could just do super burgers.
No, let's we'll get distracted by a turkey dinner.
Let's go get a big Mac.
They got double ones.
Oh, Chris.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company.
Number one
Was the wind that work and many dream