September 2, 2020 • 36 mins
Josh Dubin speaks with Bill Osinski, journalist and author of “Guilty By Popular Demand.”
Even when done correctly, impression analysis of evidence, like shoe prints and tire tracks, is purely subjective. Many experts recognize its limitations. But one so-called “expert” in particular pushed the limits of this forensic discipline to produce horrific outcomes.
Learn more and get involved.
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/junk-science
Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a clear fall day in America's heart land. You
sit in a chair outside your trailer contently looking out
over your farm. It's cool and the sun is setting
behind the dense forest that surround your property. Everything seems
just right. That evening, your stepdaughter and Nette, stops by
(00:21):
with her boyfriend. You and your wife were pretty upset
when Annette told you she was moving away from the
farm and moving in with her boyfriend, Todd and his
parents downtown. You don't want a Nette to be caught
up with someone from town. All those townies seemed to
care about his church and gossip. You want nothing to
do with them, and they don't seem to want anything
(00:42):
to do with you. But in Net's already eighteen, she's
an adult. You can't really control her. You try to
act supportive, so you nod to Todd and helping Nette
pack the last of her things into his trunk. You
give her a hug before she gets into the car
with him, and you watch as Todd pulls away to
(01:02):
drive them back into town, and you're feeling a little helpless.
The next day is pretty routine for you. You pick
up loads of hay to bring to your barn, it's
strenuous work. You work hard all day, you're exhausted, and
you go to bed early. The next morning, the phone rings.
(01:23):
It's Todd's mother. She says, Arend and Todd with you? No,
you say, I thought they were with you. Todd's mother
becomes frantic. She says, the kids went for a walk
around four pm yesterday and they never came home last night.
But there's something else going on there. There's a hint
(01:44):
of something, a tone of accusation in her voice, like
she's somehow blaming you. You hang up and call the
police immediately. You wait all day, hoping to hear something,
but there's nothing. You're just waiting and waiting, and the
police finally get back to you in the evening. They
can't find them. One sleepless night bleeds into another, and
(02:09):
then another and another. This is one terrible nightmare for
you and your wife. Ten days go on like this.
All you and your wife can do is sit and worry.
You're not eating, you're not sleeping, you don't know what
to do with yourselves. It's raining outside. When you finally
(02:30):
get a call from an officer, and you can hear
it in the tone of their voice. This is not
going to be good. Um, the news I have for
you is not going to be easy to hear. He says,
we found Todd in the net in the Hawking River.
Oh my god. You you can't stand. Your body is trembling.
(02:55):
You try to restate what the officer just said. You're
trying to wrap your head around what this means. You
found their bodies, their dead bodies. The officer says, they
didn't find their whole bodies, just their torsos. Their bodies
have been dismembered. You're completely sick. Officers spent two days
(03:23):
searching the corn fields between the railroad tracks and the
river where the torsos were found. They find Todd in
the nets, limbs and heads buried in shallow graves. You
and your wife drive into town to the police station,
and you're taken aback by the attitudes of these cops.
When you're separated from your wife and pulled into an
(03:43):
interrogation room, officers tell you to take off your boots,
your shirt, your pants. You sit shivering in your underwear
for eight and a half hours, and then the detective
comes in. He sits down right next to you, puts
his finger in your face and says you did this.
(04:04):
We know you did this. We found your bootprint down
by the river bank. Once we match that boot to
the print that was left at that river bank, it
will prove you were there. You kill your stepdaughter, and
then you, sick bastard, you cut off her arms, her legs,
her head. You better confess, because I'll tell you right now.
(04:26):
It's gonna get worse for you if you don't. You say,
over and over and over again, what in the world
are you talking about. I didn't murder a net. I
just came here to help you find out who did.
What is this all about. They don't have enough evidence
to charge you for the murder of Annette and Todd,
(04:48):
so they have to let you go. They impound your
car so it can be searched for evidence. It's dark
and cold when they drive you home. They let you
and your wife out of the car and you're still
naked except for your underwear. You walk barefoot to your trailer.
Your toes are totally dumb by the time you get
to the door. Downtown, rumors start to spread. People are
(05:13):
saying this murder must have been some kind of cult ritual,
that it must have been you who did it? The quiet,
stern stepfather who never says much, never goes to church,
keeps his family hidden away. Who knows what goes on
at that farm. They didn't like you before, but now
they're straight up hostile. They crossed the street to get
(05:34):
away from you when they see you coming. It takes
them a year to build a case against you. Are
they even looking at other suspects. The whispering of your
name around town grows to a fever pitch. You can
hear their accusations ring in your ears. Murderer, molester. You're
(05:57):
eventually arrested in charge with the butchering murder of your
stepdaughter in Net and her boyfriend Todd. When you finally
go to court, you do something very out of the ordinary.
You waive the right to a jury trial. Finding twelve
impartial people in Logan, Ohio really not gonna happen. The newspapers,
(06:20):
everyone around town, they all think you're guilty. Everyone just
wants to feel safe again. They won't be satisfied until
someone is convicted and they are sure that person is you.
Instead of a jury, you put your fate in the
hands of a three judge panel. A jury might not
(06:40):
see it. But three judges they have to. It's their
job to apply the facts to the law without any
outside influence from the court of public opinion. Your lawyer
calls to the standard FBI analysts, who says the plaster
mold of what the prosecution claims is your bootprint at
the river bank is quote unquote unsuitable. The analyst says
(07:03):
it lacks sufficient detail for meaningful comparison, and that it
looks more like the footprint of someone who was walking barefoot.
There is no way to claim your boots match that print,
so you're optimistic. But then the prosecution calls an anthropology
professor to the stand. She says she studied footwear impressions
(07:24):
of countless samples. Her delivery is slow and deliberate and
really credible. She says, quote, no person's footprints are the
same as another. There is unique as a fingerprint. I've
analyzed the wear patterns and the inside of the defendant's boot,
and I can say with certainty, scientific certainty, that the
(07:47):
footprint found by the river bank was made by the defendant.
This sounds unbelievable, but you see the judges are nodding along.
There's no whether buying this is there after a very
short deliberation, the judges apparently believed the testimony of the
prosecution's anthropologists who put you right at the scene of
(08:09):
the crime. They convict you, and you are sentenced to death.
The story you just heard is based on the murders
of Annette Cooper Johnston and Todd Schultz Dale. Johnston was
wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in he was exonerated
(08:32):
in over twenty years after the murder, the true killer
finally confessed, but even then the people in the town
of Logan still chose to believe that Dale was guilty
in one way or another. On today's episode, we're going
to examine how a supposed footprint put an innocent man
(08:52):
on death row. I'm Josh Duban, civil rights and criminal
defense attorney, an innocence ambassador to the Innocence Project in
New York. Today, on Wrongful Conviction junk Science, we examine
footwear comparison evidence, even when done correctly, impression analysis of
(09:13):
evidence like shoe prints and tire tracks as purely subjective.
Many experts recognize its limitations, but one so called expert
in particular pushed the limits of this forensic discipline to
produce horrific outcomes. It turns out that Dale Johnson wasn't
the only innocent person to be convicted of a crime
(09:34):
based on faulty footwear comparison evidence. The Pacers Foundation is
a proud supporter of this episode and of the Last
Mile organization, which provides business and tech training to help
incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The
(09:56):
Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of hoosiers
across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people
and students. For more information on the work of the
Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program, visit Pacers Foundation
dot org or the Last Mile dot org. In archaeologists
(10:23):
made one of the most exciting discoveries of our time.
They found footprints dating back three point seven million years
immortalized in the volcanic ash in Tanzania, and they looked
like human prints. Archaeologists were thrilled. They thought these footprints
could shed some light on when human beings began walking
(10:45):
upright on two ft. Luis Robbins was an anthropology professor
at the University of North Carolina. At Greensboro. She too
was excited about these footprints and wanted to know exactly
who left them behind. Louise had been conducting her own
studies and footprint analysis. She started collecting footprints from people
(11:08):
who were still alive. Five people put ink onto their
feet and then stood on a piece of paper. Based
on those prints, Louise tried to find characteristics and feet
that were specific to age, sex, stature, and wait. Using
her own system of measurement. She would then compare those
characteristics to the footprints found in the caves. Her conclusion,
(11:33):
no two footprints are the same. In fact, she thought
she could tell a great deal about a person just
by looking at their footprint. Her methods were never tested
by her peers, nor were they confirmed by other scientists,
But Louise she thought she was onto something. She claimed
to do something. No one else could identify a person
(11:55):
solely through their footprint, and so in n to eight,
when a team of scientists went to excavate the site
in Tanzania where the prehistoric footprints were found, Louise went
to when she saw the prince, she claimed that one
of them was left by a woman that was five
and a half months pregnant. Now, other scientists on the
(12:17):
expedition scratched their heads. It was hard enough to figure
out if the prints that they were looking at were
even human at all. No one had ever claimed to
know the gender of the person that made the print,
let alone of that person was carrying a child. Then
Louise took a dangerous leap. She positioned herself as a
forensic expert, authoring a book on footprints. She didn't write
(12:41):
this book with her scientific peers in mind, but she
wrote it for law enforcement and crime labs. Only five
pages in this book were dedicated to the analysis of
actual shoe prints, and yet based on these five pages,
Louise claimed that she was an expert in this area
of forensic science. Lawyers began to hire her as an
(13:05):
expert witness. They told judges that her work was on
the cutting edge of forensic science. Critics of her work
called it Cinderella analysis. After all, she usually made sure
that the shoe fit when she matched the suspects foot
to the shoe prints found at a crime scene. In
the more than twenty cases for which she testified, twelve people,
(13:28):
some of whom who have since been proven to be
innocent were sent to prison, including Dale Johnston, who was
sentenced to death. Dale Johnson and his wife Sarah at
the time, came down to Logan several days after the
bodies had been discovered, and they they came to the
(13:52):
Logan police department. They wanted to be helpful to them,
and Dale was immediately taken up to an interrogation where
him his boots, his pants, his shirt, we're all confiscated.
So he was sitting there in the chair and his
underwear and they were bombarding him. You did it, didn't you,
And we know you did it, over and over and
(14:13):
over again. He kept saying, no, I had nothing. I
just came. I came into town to try to help.
Here today is Bill Osinski, a journalist who covered the
Dale Johnson case for years and wrote a book about
it called Guilty by Popular Demand. So Bill, tell us
a little bit about yourself and how you started covering
(14:34):
this case for nearly forty years. I was a reporter.
I worked for eleven different newspapers around the country. I
worked for the Acron Beacon Journal at that time, which
is nearly two hundred miles away from Logan on Hio,
where the murders took place. But in those days, the
newspapers valued a major story and would make that kind
(14:57):
of an investment in time and resources to cover a
widely publicized case like that. So, Bill, you actually went
to Logan, Ohio to cover Dale's trial? What was that Like?
I drove into Logan, which is about thirty five miles
southeast of Columbus, Ohio. Never been there before, and I
(15:17):
drove in on a January morning, and it was one
of the coldest days I can remember. Temperatures were well
below zero. And I went to the center of the
little town and found the courthouse. And here, you know,
eight o'clock on a weekday morning, there was a line
outside the courthouse. People were standing in that below zero
(15:40):
cold waiting for a chance to get into hear all
this salacious details of this horrific murder of a teenage
couple who were found uh, dismembered parts of their bodies
buried in a cornfield near the Hocking River in Logan, Ohio. Wow,
this is a really brutal crime. I mean, you have
(16:02):
body parts buried in in fields. And the prosecutors claimed
that del Johnson committed these murders and putting aside what
his motive would have been. Um, how did they claim
he committed the murders? The prosecutor alleged in a scenario
that Dale Johnston had kidnapped these two kids in downtown Logan,
(16:26):
made a stop on his way home at a doctor's
office and drove him on to his trailer, where they
got into an argument about a little used car that
the parents were supposed to have given a net but
hadn't yet. And out of that argument, Dale went into
a jealous fit and pulled out a gun which they
(16:47):
never found, and shot his stepdaughter and a boyfriend, and
then took them outside apparently and butchered them, and then
brought them back to on town Logan where they had
last been seen, and put some body parts, heads and
limbs in the cornfield. I mean, it just it made
(17:12):
absolutely no sense. They had no evidence that that he
was actually back in town at night trying to bury
these bodies. But that's what they all let Dale was
not a warm guy. I mean he you know, he
was the outsider. He didn't have a high opinion of
the locals. They didn't like him, you know, he was
(17:33):
convenient guy for them to hang it on. So Bill
did anyone think that Dale was innocent. I mean, what
was your sense of of the you know, atmosphere surrounding
the case. There was such an atmosphere of the cages
having been already tried in the court of public opinion
before the trial even started. More than a year passed
(17:54):
between the murderers and the trial, and obviously the only
story coming out of the instigation was that Dale Johnson
did it. So that in effect, was why the defense
waved a jury trial and asked for a three judge panel,
because they knew that that people in Hockey County were
so predisposed to believe that Dale Johnson was the killer. Now,
(18:26):
very little evidence was found at the scenes where these
body parts were found, but we know investigators found some
sort of print in the mud by the river bank.
And Dale goes down to the police station with his
wife Sarah, and he thinks he's going there to help
them find the killers, but they confiscate his boots, and
(18:48):
of course those boots would be compared to the impression
found at the scene. So tell us a little bit
more about what happened. There were so many cops out
there that, according to the testimony of an Ohio Bureau
of Investigation agent. They totally ruined the crime scene as
far as being able to collect any valid evidence. They
(19:09):
were they were cops pomping all over. Well, what happened
was the sheriff of Hockey County had a impression made
of a depression in the river bank and they made
it casting, and they sent it off to the FBI,
and it was examined by a nationally known footprint expert
(19:29):
at the FBI, and he was brought in to testify
to his findings, and he testified that, well, all he
could say that this casting was more likely a footprint
than any kind of a shoe print or bootprint. And however,
he forwarded this plaster casts at his own volition to
(19:52):
a woman anthropologist, Louise Robbins, for her examination. And she
had a a theory of how he could identify footprints
from the wear patterns on the inside of someone's footwear.
She had this cockamami theory that by examining the interior
(20:16):
of a footwear she could get wear impressions and use
that to analyze the casting of a print from a
shoe or a boot. And so she she testified and
trial that, well, you can't really say that Dale Johnson's
boot fits this, but from the wear patterns that she
(20:39):
observed from the interior of the boot, when you looked
at it that way, then yes, this was made by
Dale Johnson's boot. And you know, I had never heard
of that before. It didn't make any sense to me.
It was only later, after the damage was done, that
it came out how irresponsible and unreliable and untrue. Her
(21:01):
testimony was, so let me hit this straight. This is like,
you know, kind of mind blowing here. Louise Robbins said
that she could match the depression found by the river
bank to Dale based on where patterns made by his
foot inside his boot. I mean, it just sounds ridiculous.
I've never even heard of that before. This seems to
(21:23):
go so far outside the bounds of any verifiable science.
And you know, it's important for our listeners to keep
in mind that with impression pattern matching methods, um, that's
that's the type of signs we're talking about, or ledge
science that we're talking about. With shoe prints and tires,
there's a database that experts have and they refer to
(21:46):
this database when they're matching a shoe or a tire
to an impression at a scene, and tires and shoes
are mass produced, so the same rubber mold is used
to make them. But that just tells an expert what
class that piece of evidence came from. So, for instance,
they can say that this footwear impression was made by
(22:08):
a size ten Nike Air Jordans. But the problem is
a lot of people own a size ten Nike Air Jordan's,
so it's not enough to put somebody at the scene.
So impression analysis really comes down to the individual characteristics
in the specific shoe or shoes that belong to the accused,
(22:28):
and we're talking about things like um cracks in the
sole of the shoe, gums stuck to the bottom of
the heel, you know, characteristics that are often caused by
routine wear and tear. But the problem is there is
no standard regarding the number of unique characteristics that are
needed to make a positive identification. And it sounds like
(22:52):
from the mold they were working with in this case
that the FBI analysts couldn't even tell if the impression
was made by a bare foot or a shoe, let
alone what kind of a shoe. So that should tell
you something about the quality of the impression they were
working with. But miss Robbins makes this huge leap, and
(23:12):
it's really really hard to imagine that this could have
been allowed in a courtroom when someone's freedom was on
the line. And yet here she is one of the
prosecution's key witnesses when it came to analyzing the physical
evidence of the scene. Um So, how prominently did Miss
Robin's testimony play in the prosecution's closing arguments? Bill, Well,
(23:36):
it was very prominent because it was the only piece
of evidence that link they'll Johnson to the murder shape.
I thought it was a very weak link to begin with,
but apparently it was strong enough for three judges. His
closing line was, murder is the ultimate form of molenstation,
(23:58):
so you must be guilty of murder too. He had,
of course, been alleging without evidence that deal Johnson had
inappropriate relationship with Annette. So after he's convicted, um and sentenced,
what happens next? Bill? He was sent immediately to death row.
But you know, it was such a weird, hostile atmosphere
(24:22):
in that town. I mean, I will never forget. When
it came time for the verdict, all the spectators had
gathered on the lower level of the courthouse that listened
to the verdict by radio, and I will never forget
that when the guilty verdict was announced, there was this
eerie cheering that came from below, you know, that filled
(24:45):
up the core room. And these people wanted somebody to
pay and deal. Johnston happened to be the guy who
they were able to hang it on. I mean, it
seems Bill that they didn't even have anything other than
a hunch um that Dale Johnston did this. I mean,
I it's hard to make sense of this. I mean,
(25:06):
do you think that they did this on purpose? Do
you think that they set out to frame Dale Johnson? Well,
I don't think anyone wants to accept that the prosecutors
and police would knowingly fabricate an entire case against the
murder defendant. And uh, I know, I came down to
(25:28):
Logan with no preconceptis I do remember, you know, having
the belief that you know, the state wouldn't bring these
charges unless they had something against this guy. And by
the end, I said, where is the case? I was
shocked at the prosecutor's summary. I mean it was it
(25:49):
was total high opera and total total fantasy. Everything that
was presented in that trial was alive. I believe somewhere
before I die, I'm going to learn the truth in
this case. And and then just so happens that I did.
(26:20):
You know, it's interesting that oftentimes, when one of these
disciplines of junk science is used in a case and
the person is convicted, it's not the exposure of that
junk science as being total bullshit that leads to the exoneration.
It's often that DNA testing is used to prove that
(26:40):
they have the wrong person. Um. What's really interesting about
this case is that Dale is eventually released from prison
because his lawyers were able to prove that some of
the evidence that was used to convictim was not admissible.
And oddly enough, it wasn't the shoe evidence that was
thrown out, but another witnesses testimony. It turns out that
(27:02):
a witness had been hypnotized by a detective and was
persuaded to give this awful testimony against Dale at the trial,
and you know, testimony that he like forcefully put a
net in and Todd into a car. And that testimony
was never supposed to be admitted in court. Um, And
(27:23):
that was what was deemed inadmissible, and Dale was let
out because of that, and of course Louise Robbins testimony
about his you know, the inside wear patterns on his
boots um, you know, being definitive proof that the impression
left on the river bank was his that was left undisturbed.
And everyone still believed he was guilty. But then someone
(27:46):
else confessed to murdering a net and Todd, so Bill
tell us about that. Who actually committed this crime, a
sorry little fellow named Chester McKnight was nicknamed Chester the
Suster just because apparently because it was weird, and uh,
it was a habitual criminal, habitual drunk, even though he
(28:09):
had a history of assaults against women. And Chester actually
got married and then lasted a couple of weeks before
she kicked him out and left. And it was in
that atmosphere where Chester just went over the deep end
and was drinking day in and day out. He was
obviously depressed, the wife had left him, and he was
(28:32):
just drinking incessantly. He came on that afternoon, early evening
of October fourth, to Kenny Lynn Scott's house, a local
drug dealer. You know, they were drinking buddies. Anyway, there
was a kind of a makeshift party in Kenney's yard
and Chester joined in and here comes Todd in the net.
(28:55):
So they joined the party for a little while. I
think they may have had a beer, and uh, Chester
decided to hey, let's keep the party going. I've got
some I've got some stuff. And so they started walking
down the railroad tracks and according to Chester's account, he
wanted to have group sex with Annette, and she of course,
(29:18):
you know, and and Todd tried to get her out
of the situation, and that's when Chester pulled a gun
and shot him, and that started screaming. She shot her.
At that point, Chester and Kenny dragged the bodies down
to the riverfront at the edge of the cornfield and
(29:38):
dismembered them. And Kenny, maybe with help maybe not, got
the bodies back into the cornfield and dug shallow holes
and put the limbs and the heads into a kind
of a bare spot in the middle of the cornfield
that he knew about. And Kenny the next few nights
he would go out to that railroad bridge and cry
and moan, and friends say what's wrong Kenny, And he
(30:01):
told him, you know, you wouldn't understand his neighbors knew
what he was doing. His neighbors saw his behavior. His
neighbors told the police that they should be investigating him,
but they never did, and they did have a record then,
of this strange call made the night before the body
parts were found. Kenny Lynn Scott made the call and said,
(30:21):
have you found the bodies yet? And nobody at that
point knew that the kids were even dead or that
there were bodies to be found, And that call was
logged and it became the thing that that led to
Kenny and ultimately to Chester. And so I have a
law enforcement source that helped me with this, and he
(30:43):
told me that, you know, everybody knew Kenny was acting
weird after the killings, and he said, well, let's go
talk to Kenny. And the sheriff says, no, no, we
we can find him when the we need him. So
at the very beginning, Lynn Scott's name came up, but
yet the police just dismissed him right out of my hand.
In reflecting on all this, I just want to go
back to Louis Robin's testimony about the shoe print for
(31:06):
a moment. I understand why Jerry would be persuaded by her. Um,
she's got this anthropology degree, she's a professor, Um, she
comes across. I'm sure convincingly she went and studied these
ancient footprints in Tanzania. Um, that all makes sense. But
the three judges hearing this, you know, the inside were
(31:29):
patterns on the boot and that being definitive proof that
it was Dale Johnson's bootprint. I mean, what what did
they make of her testimony? I can tell you how
strongly her testimony was accepted. Years later, you know, when
the real truth came out. I interviewed two of the
(31:50):
three judges in the case and they both said, well,
we had Dr Robbins testimony before us, and that was
very convincing. This was even after they learned the truth,
after they learned that everything this woman said was was
a lie, they still wanted to wanted to believe in her.
(32:10):
I have summed up this case as a total collapse
of a local justice system and I and I still
believe that. It left me with such a sense of
outrage that this kind of thing can be done in
our system of justice. Tom, And I mean, you know
(32:33):
it was it was not even close. But the lies
that were told in that courtroom were enough to send
an end to Someman to death row sitting there through
the entire trial. It is they never they never presented
a rational case, and the evidence that they did present
was you know, challenged very successfully by the defense. I mean,
(32:56):
what I learned is that someone with an academic position
and and the claim of scientific expertise is automatically granted
some level of believability, even by judges and and and
prosecutors and investigators. And they really accepted Louise Robbins testimony,
(33:17):
and as fact I called it in my book Fantasy Forensics,
and as events have proven, it was totally fabricated. I
can only attribute it to the desire to get a conviction,
any conviction. That people in that town were petrified. The
judges knew it, They knew what would happen if they
(33:40):
didn't get a conviction, and they knew that they wouldn't
have another crack at Dale Johnson if they acquitted him.
So they convicted him and and just you know, went
went back home. The use of Dr Robbins is a
forensic expert, is an example of walking go horribly wrong
(34:01):
when courts allow unverified signs into our courtrooms. She testified
in twenty cases, truly a hired gun by attorneys looking
for a particular outcome. Her work was reviewed by a
panel of a hundred and thirty five anthropologists, forensic scientists, lawyers,
and legal scholars sponsored by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences,
(34:25):
and they concluded that her methodology for identification had no
basis in science, but the damage had already been done.
Dale Johnson spent four years on death row for a
double homicide that he didn't commit. But he was fortunate
and that even though his trial left him impoverished, his
(34:46):
attorney stayed on his case pro bono and took on
the appeals. The psychological trauma inflicted on those who were
wrongfully convicted, especially for people who are innocent and sit
on death row, is well documented. It isn't just the
conviction that stays with the wrongfully convicted, it's the aftermath.
(35:07):
Dale lost it all. He lost his step daughter, his property,
his wife divorced him. It wasn't until well into his eighties,
actually earlier this year, that Dale finally received some compensation
for his time spent in prison. The Innocence Project provides
support for therapy and social services for its clients who
(35:27):
are forced to cope with the harms associated with their
wrongful conviction. You can donate to the Innocence Project by
visiting www. Dot Innocence Project dot org, slash give. Next week,
we'll explore the junk science of fingerprint evidence. Wrongful Conviction.
(35:54):
Junk Science is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our
executive producer Jason Flom and the team, it's Signal Company
number One executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior producers Kara
corn Haber and Britt Spengler. Our music was composed by
j Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram at dubin dot.
(36:15):
Josh followed the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and on
Instagram at wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction
It's a clear fall day in America's heart land. You
sit in a chair outside your trailer contently looking out
over your farm. It's cool and the sun is setting
behind the dense forest that surround your property. Everything seems
just right. That evening, your stepdaughter and Nette, stops by
(00:21):
with her boyfriend. You and your wife were pretty upset
when Annette told you she was moving away from the
farm and moving in with her boyfriend, Todd and his
parents downtown. You don't want a Nette to be caught
up with someone from town. All those townies seemed to
care about his church and gossip. You want nothing to
do with them, and they don't seem to want anything
(00:42):
to do with you. But in Net's already eighteen, she's
an adult. You can't really control her. You try to
act supportive, so you nod to Todd and helping Nette
pack the last of her things into his trunk. You
give her a hug before she gets into the car
with him, and you watch as Todd pulls away to
(01:02):
drive them back into town, and you're feeling a little helpless.
The next day is pretty routine for you. You pick
up loads of hay to bring to your barn, it's
strenuous work. You work hard all day, you're exhausted, and
you go to bed early. The next morning, the phone rings.
(01:23):
It's Todd's mother. She says, Arend and Todd with you? No,
you say, I thought they were with you. Todd's mother
becomes frantic. She says, the kids went for a walk
around four pm yesterday and they never came home last night.
But there's something else going on there. There's a hint
(01:44):
of something, a tone of accusation in her voice, like
she's somehow blaming you. You hang up and call the
police immediately. You wait all day, hoping to hear something,
but there's nothing. You're just waiting and waiting, and the
police finally get back to you in the evening. They
can't find them. One sleepless night bleeds into another, and
(02:09):
then another and another. This is one terrible nightmare for
you and your wife. Ten days go on like this.
All you and your wife can do is sit and worry.
You're not eating, you're not sleeping, you don't know what
to do with yourselves. It's raining outside. When you finally
(02:30):
get a call from an officer, and you can hear
it in the tone of their voice. This is not
going to be good. Um, the news I have for
you is not going to be easy to hear. He says,
we found Todd in the net in the Hawking River.
Oh my god. You you can't stand. Your body is trembling.
(02:55):
You try to restate what the officer just said. You're
trying to wrap your head around what this means. You
found their bodies, their dead bodies. The officer says, they
didn't find their whole bodies, just their torsos. Their bodies
have been dismembered. You're completely sick. Officers spent two days
(03:23):
searching the corn fields between the railroad tracks and the
river where the torsos were found. They find Todd in
the nets, limbs and heads buried in shallow graves. You
and your wife drive into town to the police station,
and you're taken aback by the attitudes of these cops.
When you're separated from your wife and pulled into an
(03:43):
interrogation room, officers tell you to take off your boots,
your shirt, your pants. You sit shivering in your underwear
for eight and a half hours, and then the detective
comes in. He sits down right next to you, puts
his finger in your face and says you did this.
(04:04):
We know you did this. We found your bootprint down
by the river bank. Once we match that boot to
the print that was left at that river bank, it
will prove you were there. You kill your stepdaughter, and
then you, sick bastard, you cut off her arms, her legs,
her head. You better confess, because I'll tell you right now.
(04:26):
It's gonna get worse for you if you don't. You say,
over and over and over again, what in the world
are you talking about. I didn't murder a net. I
just came here to help you find out who did.
What is this all about. They don't have enough evidence
to charge you for the murder of Annette and Todd,
(04:48):
so they have to let you go. They impound your
car so it can be searched for evidence. It's dark
and cold when they drive you home. They let you
and your wife out of the car and you're still
naked except for your underwear. You walk barefoot to your trailer.
Your toes are totally dumb by the time you get
to the door. Downtown, rumors start to spread. People are
(05:13):
saying this murder must have been some kind of cult ritual,
that it must have been you who did it? The quiet,
stern stepfather who never says much, never goes to church,
keeps his family hidden away. Who knows what goes on
at that farm. They didn't like you before, but now
they're straight up hostile. They crossed the street to get
(05:34):
away from you when they see you coming. It takes
them a year to build a case against you. Are
they even looking at other suspects. The whispering of your
name around town grows to a fever pitch. You can
hear their accusations ring in your ears. Murderer, molester. You're
(05:57):
eventually arrested in charge with the butchering murder of your
stepdaughter in Net and her boyfriend Todd. When you finally
go to court, you do something very out of the ordinary.
You waive the right to a jury trial. Finding twelve
impartial people in Logan, Ohio really not gonna happen. The newspapers,
(06:20):
everyone around town, they all think you're guilty. Everyone just
wants to feel safe again. They won't be satisfied until
someone is convicted and they are sure that person is you.
Instead of a jury, you put your fate in the
hands of a three judge panel. A jury might not
(06:40):
see it. But three judges they have to. It's their
job to apply the facts to the law without any
outside influence from the court of public opinion. Your lawyer
calls to the standard FBI analysts, who says the plaster
mold of what the prosecution claims is your bootprint at
the river bank is quote unquote unsuitable. The analyst says
(07:03):
it lacks sufficient detail for meaningful comparison, and that it
looks more like the footprint of someone who was walking barefoot.
There is no way to claim your boots match that print,
so you're optimistic. But then the prosecution calls an anthropology
professor to the stand. She says she studied footwear impressions
(07:24):
of countless samples. Her delivery is slow and deliberate and
really credible. She says, quote, no person's footprints are the
same as another. There is unique as a fingerprint. I've
analyzed the wear patterns and the inside of the defendant's boot,
and I can say with certainty, scientific certainty, that the
(07:47):
footprint found by the river bank was made by the defendant.
This sounds unbelievable, but you see the judges are nodding along.
There's no whether buying this is there after a very
short deliberation, the judges apparently believed the testimony of the
prosecution's anthropologists who put you right at the scene of
(08:09):
the crime. They convict you, and you are sentenced to death.
The story you just heard is based on the murders
of Annette Cooper Johnston and Todd Schultz Dale. Johnston was
wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in he was exonerated
(08:32):
in over twenty years after the murder, the true killer
finally confessed, but even then the people in the town
of Logan still chose to believe that Dale was guilty
in one way or another. On today's episode, we're going
to examine how a supposed footprint put an innocent man
(08:52):
on death row. I'm Josh Duban, civil rights and criminal
defense attorney, an innocence ambassador to the Innocence Project in
New York. Today, on Wrongful Conviction junk Science, we examine
footwear comparison evidence, even when done correctly, impression analysis of
(09:13):
evidence like shoe prints and tire tracks as purely subjective.
Many experts recognize its limitations, but one so called expert
in particular pushed the limits of this forensic discipline to
produce horrific outcomes. It turns out that Dale Johnson wasn't
the only innocent person to be convicted of a crime
(09:34):
based on faulty footwear comparison evidence. The Pacers Foundation is
a proud supporter of this episode and of the Last
Mile organization, which provides business and tech training to help
incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The
(09:56):
Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of hoosiers
across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people
and students. For more information on the work of the
Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program, visit Pacers Foundation
dot org or the Last Mile dot org. In archaeologists
(10:23):
made one of the most exciting discoveries of our time.
They found footprints dating back three point seven million years
immortalized in the volcanic ash in Tanzania, and they looked
like human prints. Archaeologists were thrilled. They thought these footprints
could shed some light on when human beings began walking
(10:45):
upright on two ft. Luis Robbins was an anthropology professor
at the University of North Carolina. At Greensboro. She too
was excited about these footprints and wanted to know exactly
who left them behind. Louise had been conducting her own
studies and footprint analysis. She started collecting footprints from people
(11:08):
who were still alive. Five people put ink onto their
feet and then stood on a piece of paper. Based
on those prints, Louise tried to find characteristics and feet
that were specific to age, sex, stature, and wait. Using
her own system of measurement. She would then compare those
characteristics to the footprints found in the caves. Her conclusion,
(11:33):
no two footprints are the same. In fact, she thought
she could tell a great deal about a person just
by looking at their footprint. Her methods were never tested
by her peers, nor were they confirmed by other scientists,
But Louise she thought she was onto something. She claimed
to do something. No one else could identify a person
(11:55):
solely through their footprint, and so in n to eight,
when a team of scientists went to excavate the site
in Tanzania where the prehistoric footprints were found, Louise went
to when she saw the prince, she claimed that one
of them was left by a woman that was five
and a half months pregnant. Now, other scientists on the
(12:17):
expedition scratched their heads. It was hard enough to figure
out if the prints that they were looking at were
even human at all. No one had ever claimed to
know the gender of the person that made the print,
let alone of that person was carrying a child. Then
Louise took a dangerous leap. She positioned herself as a
forensic expert, authoring a book on footprints. She didn't write
(12:41):
this book with her scientific peers in mind, but she
wrote it for law enforcement and crime labs. Only five
pages in this book were dedicated to the analysis of
actual shoe prints, and yet based on these five pages,
Louise claimed that she was an expert in this area
of forensic science. Lawyers began to hire her as an
(13:05):
expert witness. They told judges that her work was on
the cutting edge of forensic science. Critics of her work
called it Cinderella analysis. After all, she usually made sure
that the shoe fit when she matched the suspects foot
to the shoe prints found at a crime scene. In
the more than twenty cases for which she testified, twelve people,
(13:28):
some of whom who have since been proven to be
innocent were sent to prison, including Dale Johnston, who was
sentenced to death. Dale Johnson and his wife Sarah at
the time, came down to Logan several days after the
bodies had been discovered, and they they came to the
(13:52):
Logan police department. They wanted to be helpful to them,
and Dale was immediately taken up to an interrogation where
him his boots, his pants, his shirt, we're all confiscated.
So he was sitting there in the chair and his
underwear and they were bombarding him. You did it, didn't you,
And we know you did it, over and over and
(14:13):
over again. He kept saying, no, I had nothing. I
just came. I came into town to try to help.
Here today is Bill Osinski, a journalist who covered the
Dale Johnson case for years and wrote a book about
it called Guilty by Popular Demand. So Bill, tell us
a little bit about yourself and how you started covering
(14:34):
this case for nearly forty years. I was a reporter.
I worked for eleven different newspapers around the country. I
worked for the Acron Beacon Journal at that time, which
is nearly two hundred miles away from Logan on Hio,
where the murders took place. But in those days, the
newspapers valued a major story and would make that kind
(14:57):
of an investment in time and resources to cover a
widely publicized case like that. So, Bill, you actually went
to Logan, Ohio to cover Dale's trial? What was that Like?
I drove into Logan, which is about thirty five miles
southeast of Columbus, Ohio. Never been there before, and I
(15:17):
drove in on a January morning, and it was one
of the coldest days I can remember. Temperatures were well
below zero. And I went to the center of the
little town and found the courthouse. And here, you know,
eight o'clock on a weekday morning, there was a line
outside the courthouse. People were standing in that below zero
(15:40):
cold waiting for a chance to get into hear all
this salacious details of this horrific murder of a teenage
couple who were found uh, dismembered parts of their bodies
buried in a cornfield near the Hocking River in Logan, Ohio. Wow,
this is a really brutal crime. I mean, you have
(16:02):
body parts buried in in fields. And the prosecutors claimed
that del Johnson committed these murders and putting aside what
his motive would have been. Um, how did they claim
he committed the murders? The prosecutor alleged in a scenario
that Dale Johnston had kidnapped these two kids in downtown Logan,
(16:26):
made a stop on his way home at a doctor's
office and drove him on to his trailer, where they
got into an argument about a little used car that
the parents were supposed to have given a net but
hadn't yet. And out of that argument, Dale went into
a jealous fit and pulled out a gun which they
(16:47):
never found, and shot his stepdaughter and a boyfriend, and
then took them outside apparently and butchered them, and then
brought them back to on town Logan where they had
last been seen, and put some body parts, heads and
limbs in the cornfield. I mean, it just it made
(17:12):
absolutely no sense. They had no evidence that that he
was actually back in town at night trying to bury
these bodies. But that's what they all let Dale was
not a warm guy. I mean he you know, he
was the outsider. He didn't have a high opinion of
the locals. They didn't like him, you know, he was
(17:33):
convenient guy for them to hang it on. So Bill
did anyone think that Dale was innocent. I mean, what
was your sense of of the you know, atmosphere surrounding
the case. There was such an atmosphere of the cages
having been already tried in the court of public opinion
before the trial even started. More than a year passed
(17:54):
between the murderers and the trial, and obviously the only
story coming out of the instigation was that Dale Johnson
did it. So that in effect, was why the defense
waved a jury trial and asked for a three judge panel,
because they knew that that people in Hockey County were
so predisposed to believe that Dale Johnson was the killer. Now,
(18:26):
very little evidence was found at the scenes where these
body parts were found, but we know investigators found some
sort of print in the mud by the river bank.
And Dale goes down to the police station with his
wife Sarah, and he thinks he's going there to help
them find the killers, but they confiscate his boots, and
(18:48):
of course those boots would be compared to the impression
found at the scene. So tell us a little bit
more about what happened. There were so many cops out
there that, according to the testimony of an Ohio Bureau
of Investigation agent. They totally ruined the crime scene as
far as being able to collect any valid evidence. They
(19:09):
were they were cops pomping all over. Well, what happened
was the sheriff of Hockey County had a impression made
of a depression in the river bank and they made
it casting, and they sent it off to the FBI,
and it was examined by a nationally known footprint expert
(19:29):
at the FBI, and he was brought in to testify
to his findings, and he testified that, well, all he
could say that this casting was more likely a footprint
than any kind of a shoe print or bootprint. And however,
he forwarded this plaster casts at his own volition to
(19:52):
a woman anthropologist, Louise Robbins, for her examination. And she
had a a theory of how he could identify footprints
from the wear patterns on the inside of someone's footwear.
She had this cockamami theory that by examining the interior
(20:16):
of a footwear she could get wear impressions and use
that to analyze the casting of a print from a
shoe or a boot. And so she she testified and
trial that, well, you can't really say that Dale Johnson's
boot fits this, but from the wear patterns that she
(20:39):
observed from the interior of the boot, when you looked
at it that way, then yes, this was made by
Dale Johnson's boot. And you know, I had never heard
of that before. It didn't make any sense to me.
It was only later, after the damage was done, that
it came out how irresponsible and unreliable and untrue. Her
(21:01):
testimony was, so let me hit this straight. This is like,
you know, kind of mind blowing here. Louise Robbins said
that she could match the depression found by the river
bank to Dale based on where patterns made by his
foot inside his boot. I mean, it just sounds ridiculous.
I've never even heard of that before. This seems to
(21:23):
go so far outside the bounds of any verifiable science.
And you know, it's important for our listeners to keep
in mind that with impression pattern matching methods, um, that's
that's the type of signs we're talking about, or ledge
science that we're talking about. With shoe prints and tires,
there's a database that experts have and they refer to
(21:46):
this database when they're matching a shoe or a tire
to an impression at a scene, and tires and shoes
are mass produced, so the same rubber mold is used
to make them. But that just tells an expert what
class that piece of evidence came from. So, for instance,
they can say that this footwear impression was made by
(22:08):
a size ten Nike Air Jordans. But the problem is
a lot of people own a size ten Nike Air Jordan's,
so it's not enough to put somebody at the scene.
So impression analysis really comes down to the individual characteristics
in the specific shoe or shoes that belong to the accused,
(22:28):
and we're talking about things like um cracks in the
sole of the shoe, gums stuck to the bottom of
the heel, you know, characteristics that are often caused by
routine wear and tear. But the problem is there is
no standard regarding the number of unique characteristics that are
needed to make a positive identification. And it sounds like
(22:52):
from the mold they were working with in this case
that the FBI analysts couldn't even tell if the impression
was made by a bare foot or a shoe, let
alone what kind of a shoe. So that should tell
you something about the quality of the impression they were
working with. But miss Robbins makes this huge leap, and
(23:12):
it's really really hard to imagine that this could have
been allowed in a courtroom when someone's freedom was on
the line. And yet here she is one of the
prosecution's key witnesses when it came to analyzing the physical
evidence of the scene. Um So, how prominently did Miss
Robin's testimony play in the prosecution's closing arguments? Bill, Well,
(23:36):
it was very prominent because it was the only piece
of evidence that link they'll Johnson to the murder shape.
I thought it was a very weak link to begin with,
but apparently it was strong enough for three judges. His
closing line was, murder is the ultimate form of molenstation,
(23:58):
so you must be guilty of murder too. He had,
of course, been alleging without evidence that deal Johnson had
inappropriate relationship with Annette. So after he's convicted, um and sentenced,
what happens next? Bill? He was sent immediately to death row.
But you know, it was such a weird, hostile atmosphere
(24:22):
in that town. I mean, I will never forget. When
it came time for the verdict, all the spectators had
gathered on the lower level of the courthouse that listened
to the verdict by radio, and I will never forget
that when the guilty verdict was announced, there was this
eerie cheering that came from below, you know, that filled
(24:45):
up the core room. And these people wanted somebody to
pay and deal. Johnston happened to be the guy who
they were able to hang it on. I mean, it
seems Bill that they didn't even have anything other than
a hunch um that Dale Johnston did this. I mean,
I it's hard to make sense of this. I mean,
(25:06):
do you think that they did this on purpose? Do
you think that they set out to frame Dale Johnson? Well,
I don't think anyone wants to accept that the prosecutors
and police would knowingly fabricate an entire case against the
murder defendant. And uh, I know, I came down to
(25:28):
Logan with no preconceptis I do remember, you know, having
the belief that you know, the state wouldn't bring these
charges unless they had something against this guy. And by
the end, I said, where is the case? I was
shocked at the prosecutor's summary. I mean it was it
(25:49):
was total high opera and total total fantasy. Everything that
was presented in that trial was alive. I believe somewhere
before I die, I'm going to learn the truth in
this case. And and then just so happens that I did.
(26:20):
You know, it's interesting that oftentimes, when one of these
disciplines of junk science is used in a case and
the person is convicted, it's not the exposure of that
junk science as being total bullshit that leads to the exoneration.
It's often that DNA testing is used to prove that
(26:40):
they have the wrong person. Um. What's really interesting about
this case is that Dale is eventually released from prison
because his lawyers were able to prove that some of
the evidence that was used to convictim was not admissible.
And oddly enough, it wasn't the shoe evidence that was
thrown out, but another witnesses testimony. It turns out that
(27:02):
a witness had been hypnotized by a detective and was
persuaded to give this awful testimony against Dale at the trial,
and you know, testimony that he like forcefully put a
net in and Todd into a car. And that testimony
was never supposed to be admitted in court. Um, And
(27:23):
that was what was deemed inadmissible, and Dale was let
out because of that, and of course Louise Robbins testimony
about his you know, the inside wear patterns on his
boots um, you know, being definitive proof that the impression
left on the river bank was his that was left undisturbed.
And everyone still believed he was guilty. But then someone
(27:46):
else confessed to murdering a net and Todd, so Bill
tell us about that. Who actually committed this crime, a
sorry little fellow named Chester McKnight was nicknamed Chester the
Suster just because apparently because it was weird, and uh,
it was a habitual criminal, habitual drunk, even though he
(28:09):
had a history of assaults against women. And Chester actually
got married and then lasted a couple of weeks before
she kicked him out and left. And it was in
that atmosphere where Chester just went over the deep end
and was drinking day in and day out. He was
obviously depressed, the wife had left him, and he was
(28:32):
just drinking incessantly. He came on that afternoon, early evening
of October fourth, to Kenny Lynn Scott's house, a local
drug dealer. You know, they were drinking buddies. Anyway, there
was a kind of a makeshift party in Kenney's yard
and Chester joined in and here comes Todd in the net.
(28:55):
So they joined the party for a little while. I
think they may have had a beer, and uh, Chester
decided to hey, let's keep the party going. I've got
some I've got some stuff. And so they started walking
down the railroad tracks and according to Chester's account, he
wanted to have group sex with Annette, and she of course,
(29:18):
you know, and and Todd tried to get her out
of the situation, and that's when Chester pulled a gun
and shot him, and that started screaming. She shot her.
At that point, Chester and Kenny dragged the bodies down
to the riverfront at the edge of the cornfield and
(29:38):
dismembered them. And Kenny, maybe with help maybe not, got
the bodies back into the cornfield and dug shallow holes
and put the limbs and the heads into a kind
of a bare spot in the middle of the cornfield
that he knew about. And Kenny the next few nights
he would go out to that railroad bridge and cry
and moan, and friends say what's wrong Kenny, And he
(30:01):
told him, you know, you wouldn't understand his neighbors knew
what he was doing. His neighbors saw his behavior. His
neighbors told the police that they should be investigating him,
but they never did, and they did have a record then,
of this strange call made the night before the body
parts were found. Kenny Lynn Scott made the call and said,
(30:21):
have you found the bodies yet? And nobody at that
point knew that the kids were even dead or that
there were bodies to be found, And that call was
logged and it became the thing that that led to
Kenny and ultimately to Chester. And so I have a
law enforcement source that helped me with this, and he
(30:43):
told me that, you know, everybody knew Kenny was acting
weird after the killings, and he said, well, let's go
talk to Kenny. And the sheriff says, no, no, we
we can find him when the we need him. So
at the very beginning, Lynn Scott's name came up, but
yet the police just dismissed him right out of my hand.
In reflecting on all this, I just want to go
back to Louis Robin's testimony about the shoe print for
(31:06):
a moment. I understand why Jerry would be persuaded by her. Um,
she's got this anthropology degree, she's a professor, Um, she
comes across. I'm sure convincingly she went and studied these
ancient footprints in Tanzania. Um, that all makes sense. But
the three judges hearing this, you know, the inside were
(31:29):
patterns on the boot and that being definitive proof that
it was Dale Johnson's bootprint. I mean, what what did
they make of her testimony? I can tell you how
strongly her testimony was accepted. Years later, you know, when
the real truth came out. I interviewed two of the
(31:50):
three judges in the case and they both said, well,
we had Dr Robbins testimony before us, and that was
very convincing. This was even after they learned the truth,
after they learned that everything this woman said was was
a lie, they still wanted to wanted to believe in her.
(32:10):
I have summed up this case as a total collapse
of a local justice system and I and I still
believe that. It left me with such a sense of
outrage that this kind of thing can be done in
our system of justice. Tom, And I mean, you know
(32:33):
it was it was not even close. But the lies
that were told in that courtroom were enough to send
an end to Someman to death row sitting there through
the entire trial. It is they never they never presented
a rational case, and the evidence that they did present
was you know, challenged very successfully by the defense. I mean,
(32:56):
what I learned is that someone with an academic position
and and the claim of scientific expertise is automatically granted
some level of believability, even by judges and and and
prosecutors and investigators. And they really accepted Louise Robbins testimony,
(33:17):
and as fact I called it in my book Fantasy Forensics,
and as events have proven, it was totally fabricated. I
can only attribute it to the desire to get a conviction,
any conviction. That people in that town were petrified. The
judges knew it, They knew what would happen if they
(33:40):
didn't get a conviction, and they knew that they wouldn't
have another crack at Dale Johnson if they acquitted him.
So they convicted him and and just you know, went
went back home. The use of Dr Robbins is a
forensic expert, is an example of walking go horribly wrong
(34:01):
when courts allow unverified signs into our courtrooms. She testified
in twenty cases, truly a hired gun by attorneys looking
for a particular outcome. Her work was reviewed by a
panel of a hundred and thirty five anthropologists, forensic scientists, lawyers,
and legal scholars sponsored by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences,
(34:25):
and they concluded that her methodology for identification had no
basis in science, but the damage had already been done.
Dale Johnson spent four years on death row for a
double homicide that he didn't commit. But he was fortunate
and that even though his trial left him impoverished, his
(34:46):
attorney stayed on his case pro bono and took on
the appeals. The psychological trauma inflicted on those who were
wrongfully convicted, especially for people who are innocent and sit
on death row, is well documented. It isn't just the
conviction that stays with the wrongfully convicted, it's the aftermath.
(35:07):
Dale lost it all. He lost his step daughter, his property,
his wife divorced him. It wasn't until well into his eighties,
actually earlier this year, that Dale finally received some compensation
for his time spent in prison. The Innocence Project provides
support for therapy and social services for its clients who
(35:27):
are forced to cope with the harms associated with their
wrongful conviction. You can donate to the Innocence Project by
visiting www. Dot Innocence Project dot org, slash give. Next week,
we'll explore the junk science of fingerprint evidence. Wrongful Conviction.
(35:54):
Junk Science is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our
executive producer Jason Flom and the team, it's Signal Company
number One executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior producers Kara
corn Haber and Britt Spengler. Our music was composed by
j Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram at dubin dot.
(36:15):
Josh followed the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and on
Instagram at wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.