September 1, 2021 • 32 mins
Sometimes when detectives can't get a confession they'll settle for a something else
Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin explore the story of Emerson Stevens, a fisherman from Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was found murdered, it seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson, until the case fell apart when a key witness was convicted of lying about the case and a forensic test technique was debunked and discredited.
Since the initial release of this episode, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam heard our voices, reviewed the case, and issued a pardon based on actual innocence. Emerson Stevens is finally free.
Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.
Learn more and get involved at https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/false-confessions
A portion of this podcast series’ proceeds will be donated to the Center on Wrongful Convictions. To donate, learn more, or get involved, go to http://www.centeronwrongfulconvictions.org/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey guys, it's Laura. I'm here with some breaking news.
In the season two of Wrongful Conviction and False Confessions,
Steve and I brought you the story of a Virginia
fisherman named Emerson Stevens. Emerson spent more than thirty years
behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. Remember this
is that crazy case where prosecutors tried to get an
expert to say that the victim's way down body floated
(00:29):
up the river against the current for miles before we're
landing near emerson stock. The expert ended up telling the
prosecutors their case was eyewash. That's Virginia slang for bullshit.
But Emerson was wrongly convicted anyway. We told his story
and we asked you to tell the governor of Virginia
(00:49):
that he should grant Emerson's request for a pardon. So
here's the breaking news. After more than three decades of waiting,
Emerson finally got justice. On August sixteen, Virginia Governor Ralph
Northam granted Emerson a pardon based on actual innocence. That
means that Emerson is now eligible for compensation from the state,
(01:11):
and it means his innocence has been publicly recognized once
and for all. Thank you to all our listeners who
supported Emerson. Congratulations to Emerson's longtime lawyers at the University
of Virginia Law Innocence Project and Emerson. This news is
the best hope you celebrate in style. We're re releasing
(01:31):
your episode in honor of you. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction,
False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drison.
Today we'll tell you the story of Emerson Stevens, a
fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was
found murdered, it seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson
until the case fell apart. Emerson survived thirty one years
(01:56):
in prison with the help of an ally from across
the bay. Now, oh, you can help him finally clear
his name. Today's episode is based on interviews with Emerson
Stevens and his lawyers, along with legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve, today,
(02:19):
we're going to break them old. We're going to break
them all. This is not a case that involves a
false confession. This is a case that involves a false
inculpatory statement. Sometimes detectives can't get a confession, but they'll
settle for a false inculpatory statement. Right. That's lawyer talk
for something you say that makes you look really bad.
(02:39):
That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie.
And the same tactics that are used to get false
confessions are often used to get these false inculpatory statements,
and they can have the same devastating consequences. So when
I think about this case, I think about it in
terms of a puzzle. You know, and my family goes
(03:01):
on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and we spend
a lot of time putting that puzzle together. And anyone
who puts puzzles together knows that there are a lot
of times where the piece that you think will finish
a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit. It looks
like it should fit, but just a little bit off.
(03:22):
And that's what happened with a lot of the evidence
in Emerson Stevens case. They manipulated the evidence to make
it seem like it fit the police theory. That's what
happens in runful conviction cases. Right tunnel vision makes police
officers force these puzzle pieces together when in reality they
might not fit at all. It was only after the
(03:43):
fact that you could see that the pieces never really
fit in the first place. Today's story takes place in
Lancaster County, Virginia, a rural community instled between the Chesapeake
Bay and the Rappahannock River. It's a place that'smells like
ocean salt, an honest sweat. Generations there have made a
(04:04):
living with their hands, hauling fish out of the bay
and crabs and oysters out of the river. In this
county was home to Mary Harding, who was Lancaster through
and through. Petite and blue eyed, Mary was homecoming queen
at Lancaster High before she and her high school sweetheart
tied the knot. By age twenty four, Mary was working
as a bookkeeper at the local bank while her husband
(04:27):
was a fisherman. They had two young kids and a
modest ranch home located just across the street from the cemetery.
On Friday, August, that modest home became the scene of
a terrible discovery. On weekdays, Mary had a routine before work,
she'd drop off her one year old at the home
(04:47):
of her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker. But that Friday morning,
Mary didn't show up. Virginia was worried, so she drove
over to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted at the door
by Mary's four year old son, who told here that
he couldn't find his mom. The TV and lights were
on throughout the house. Some unrinsed comet was left in
the bathroom sink, and the little boy's chicken dinner from
(05:10):
the night before was still sitting on the table. Don't worry,
the four year old assured his great grandma. In his
mother's absence, he was taking care of the baby. Virginia
knew there's no way Mary would abandon her children. There's
only one explanation for her disappearance. Mary must have been taken.
Virginia calls the police, and soon a state police detective
(05:31):
by the name of David Riley arrives at the house.
He finds cat litter scattered on the ground outside the
back door, along with one of Mary's white sandals, but
there's no sign of Mary. Pretty soon, word spreads and
the whole community starts searching through the woods and along
the shore, but they find nothing. Nothing that is until
(05:51):
four days later. That's when a woman's body is found
in the shallows of the Rappahannock River. The body is unclothed,
badly decomposed, and hard to identify, but it's clear something
horrific has happened. The woman's back is covered with deep,
evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope tied around her neck
with a huge cinder block attached to the other end.
(06:12):
A heavy chain is wrapped around the woman's right leg.
Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms this is Mary Harding.
She's been strangled to death. Now here's the thing. The
rope and chain were the same kind that you can
find on most fisherman's boats in Lancaster. So suddenly this
close knit community was being torn apart by suspicion. Everyone
(06:35):
was wondering who would have done this to the homecoming queen.
Before long, the authorities settled on a suspect, thirty two
year old Emerson Stevens. Like so many other Lancaster men,
Emerson had worked on the water since he was a teenager.
Emerson was a crabber and an oysterman who hauled his
catch in on a boat named after his wife. He'd
(06:55):
spent his life by the shore, the kind of guy
who has salt water in his veins. It was Mary's
husband who pointed police to Emerson Steven's. Emerson had gone
to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought Emerson seemed nervous there.
Mary's husband also remembered that he had once heard Emerson
make a crude joke about female anatomy. This wasn't much
(07:16):
to go on, but days later, a couple of people
told police they had seen a light colored pickup truck
outside Mary's home on the night she disappeared. Now, Emerson
Steven's happened to drive a white Dodge pickup, so he
quickly became the police's number one suspect. Detective Riley asks
Emerson to meet him at Mary Harding's house and the
(07:38):
two men sit down on the front porch. According to Emerson,
Riley gestures to the street and asks, why were you
parked in front of this house the night Mary vanished.
If you question somebody on the porch, you're creating a
context that is different from your standard police interrogation. You
can tap into all of the emotions of This is
(08:02):
where this woman lived, this is where she had her children,
this is where she was last seen. This is not
a police interrogation room. It feels like the kind of
place where you'd have a heart to heart conversation. And
there's another thing that makes this porch interrogation even more emotional. Yeah,
not only was this the front porch at Mary's house,
(08:23):
it was right across the street from the burial ground
where her headstone was. As the two men look out
at the cemetery, Riley presses Emerson for information, but Emerson
is stunned he hadn't been at Mary's house. He says
he'd been at home. Then he'd taken his kids over
to the neighbors to watch TV and eat crab. They'd
(08:45):
returned home together at about nine pm, and Emerson's wife
had gotten home from work shortly after. He tells Riley
to talk to his neighbor and confirm the alibi, but
Riley doesn't buy Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a search
of Erson's pickup truck. After digging through the truck for hours,
police discover a single strand of hair. They send the
(09:07):
hair off to the state crime lab for forensic analysis.
The next week, Riley asks Emerson to come to a
nearby Virginia police station for a polygraph as soon as
the polygraphs completed, Riley tells Emerson he failed. According to Emerson,
Riley says he must either have killed Mary Harding or
done something else related to her murder. Those are two
(09:28):
pretty bad options, and Emerson is terrified. But then Riley
offers Emerson a third choice that seems a lot better.
Maybe you were at Mary's house that night doing something innocent.
Maybe you were driving by and you stopped on the
side of the road to take a leak. The fisherman
takes the bait. He's desperate to please Riley and changes
(09:50):
his story to exactly what Riley suggested. If detectives can't
get a full confession, they'll settle for a false inculpatory statement.
All the detective can get from Emerson is a statement
that he pulled over on the side of the road
a short distance away from Mary's house to relieve himself
(10:11):
at the approximate time of death. That's the admission I
was in the vicinity of her home near the time
where the medical examiner believed she was killed. That was
all Emerson said. He did not confess, but he'd said
enough to get himself in real trouble. He just placed
himself at the crime scene. Detective Riley was on high alert,
(10:35):
but the case against Emerson was pretty damn thin until
test results came back from the State crime Lab on
that hair from Emerson's truck. The lab had put the
hair under a microscope and compared it to Mary Harding's hair,
and the lab said it was an exact match. The
police's thin case suddenly seemed rock solid, and in late October,
(10:58):
Emerson Stevens was a rested for the abduction and murder
of Mary Harding. The trial of Emerson Stevens was one
of the most dramatic events Lancaster County had ever seen.
To a packed courtroom, prosecutors described how they thought the
(11:21):
crime unfolded. Emerson kidnapped Mary, they said, then strangled her
and threw her body into the river. They even suggested
that Emerson slashed Mary's back with his fishing knife in
order to attract crabs so there wouldn't be anything left
of her body. The worst imaginable kind of cry. It's
like throwing chum over the side of a boat to
(11:43):
entice sharks. But there were problems with the prosecution's theory.
They claimed that Emerson had thrown Mary's body into the
river off the end of his own dock, but her
body was actually found a full ten miles upstream. How
does a body that is waged down with a cinder
block travel ten miles upstream upstreams against the current. That's
(12:09):
the thing. I mean. To swim those ten miles upstream
would have been crazy, let alone somehow to float a
weighted down body that distance. It makes no sense at all.
It's absurd, But prosecutors found a witness to bolster this
theory insane though it seemed. A marine scientist testified that
it was possible for Mary's body to float against the
current cinder block and all for ten miles from Emerson's
(12:33):
dock to where it was found, and there were other
witnesses to Detective Riley told the jury that Emerson claimed
to have been near Mary's house on the night she disappeared,
and the prosecution called two people to corroborate Emerson's statement,
Clyde Dunaway and and Dick. They both claimed they had
seen a pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's house
(12:53):
that night, and finally, the prosecution called a witness from
the crime lab to testify that the hair and emer'sons
truck seemed to match Mary's. So it seemed at this
point as though all the puzzle pieces fit together, and
they painted a compelling portrait of Emerson's guilt. But this
is not the end of the story, not by a
(13:16):
long shot. When the defense's turn came, Emerson's lawyers put
on a strong case of their own, no fewer than
four alibi witnesses. In the end, the jury hung unable
to reach a verdict. The prosecution was quick to retry Emerson,
and on July the second trial began. This time, the
prosecution's case seemed, if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was
(13:40):
a no show, so the prosecutor read the jury his
testimony from the previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway,
testified about seeing Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the
crime lab technician repeated his previous testimony about the hair
in the truck, and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's
statements to ring the second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on
(14:02):
his alibi witnesses again, and Emerson himself took the stand.
He tried to explain that he was innocent, that he
hadn't actually pulled over near Mary's house that night. He'd
only said that to satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you
admit to us You lied, They asked, yes, I told that,
Emerson answered. Later he quietly added, I'm not a smart person.
(14:28):
The case wasn't any stronger than at the first trial,
but this time the jury reached a verdict guilty, and
Emerson Stevens was sentenced to a prison term of one
hundred and sixty four years. Fast forward to two thousand two.
During those sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his g
(14:50):
e d. He worked in the dusty prison wood shop,
building furniture for state institutions. He wrote letters constantly to
his family and to lawyers, begging for help with his case.
When he wasn't working or writing, Emerson would dream about
the smell of the shore. He wondered if he'd ever
be on the water again. In April two thousand two,
(15:11):
Emerson's attention was caught by a news story about a
genteel of Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a
professional chemist whose upper middle class background seemed worlds away
from Emerson. At least at first you see. Ten years earlier,
fifty five year old Beverly had been dating a wealthy
real estate mogul named Roger de la Byrd. Roger lived
(15:34):
on a massive estate in Virginia Horse Country. He claimed
to be an art dealer who was descended from European nobility.
But when Roger turned up dead one morning from a
gunshot wound, police suspected Beverly of murder, even though she'd
never had so much as a traffic ticket. The case
against Beverly was absurd from day one. Beverly had a
(15:55):
grocery store received proving she hadn't been at Roger's estate
at the time he died, and Roger's death had been
ruled a suicide. Turns out his life was falling apart.
The FBI was investigating him for art fraud, and his
claims of nobility were also being exposed as phony. But
Beverly ended up being wrongly convicted of Roger's murder anyway.
(16:16):
Why because in part of Detective David Riley, the same
officer who had built the case against Emerson Stevens. When
Detective Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something
she didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told
Beverly she failed it, and then he suggested that she
must have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley
(16:37):
seems to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the
scene of the crime, just like he seems to have
done with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable. Beverly Monroe was
wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that placed her at
the crime scene, and Riley then built his case around
(17:01):
that statement to make it look like this wasn't a
suicide at all, that this was a murder. It's amazing,
just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything. Same detective
using the same modus operandi in order to get not
a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement that was
(17:21):
used to convict them and send them away for crimes
they did not commit. A federal judge later called Riley's
interrogation of Beverly Monroe deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly
ended up serving ten years in prison before her conviction
was thrown out and she was released in April two
thousand two. That news story Emerson saw on TV from
(17:43):
behind Bars was about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson
didn't waste a minute. He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer,
who agreed to take his case. And when Beverly herself
heard about Emerson, she got involved too. She went to
the lawyers that had just exonerated her her and said,
now you need to do it again for this other guy,
(18:05):
which you know, to their credit, they did. They tried
to reinvestigate as much as they could, and then when
it became clear that they were sort of losing steam,
Beverly turned her sides to me. That's dear to end Right,
the director of the University of Virginia's Innocence Project Clinic.
She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted to join Emerson's
legal team. Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years,
(18:27):
writing to people about his case and begging for help.
And if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you
will learn that you will do anything that Beverly says
to do, because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling.
Beverly made it something of a mission to help other
people who were convicted by the evidence collected by the
(18:48):
same detective. With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top
notch legal team, and while the lawyers got to work,
Beverly and Emerson began corresponding. Beverly is not only college
educ but she's a chemist, and she lived a very
extravagant life with her partner before this all happened. And
Emerson is this waterman who grew up, you know, with
(19:10):
his nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean, this is the
classic thing that happens in these wrongful conviction cases, is
that people who would never in a lifetime be near
each other or connect do. Beverly and Emerson became friends.
Beverly sensed how much this fisherman longed for the water,
and started sending him photographs of the place he missed most,
(19:33):
the Chesapeake Bay. She was hyper aware of taking care
of him while he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned,
writing and calling and making sure he had money in
his commissary and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking,
she knows what he's feeling better than any of us.
I think that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew
(19:55):
that there was another person out there who was advocating
for him ferociously. I mean, most people who are incarcerated
don't have that person. And because she was so smart
and because she had been through it, she wasn't going
to hear that it couldn't be done. While Beverly was
keeping Emerson's hope alive, his legal team was systematically unwinding
the case against him, and, as it turned out, one
(20:17):
piece of faulty evidence after another seemed to lead back
to Detective Riley. First up was the claim that witnesses
had seen a white pickup truck like Emerson's near Mary's house.
A woman named and Dick had testified to that effect
at the first trial, but her story had changed by
the time of the second trial. There she swore that
the person she saw driving the truck was not Emerson.
(20:39):
Stevens when asked why she didn't say that to the
first jury, and answered because Detective Riley told me not to.
The other pickup truck witness, Clyde Dunaway Well turns out
he came forward only after police offered a twenty thousand
dollar reward for information. He asked Detective Riley about the
money during their very first conversation, but at Emerson's second trial,
(21:01):
Dunaway swore he never asked anyone about the reward. Now,
Detective Riley was sitting in the courtroom listening to this,
He must have known Dunaway was lying, but the detective
never said a word. Eventually, Dunaway paid a price for
his false testimony in Emerson Steven's case. He ended up
pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Once you dangle reward money,
(21:24):
especially in a place like Lancaster where there's a lot
of people living very much on a margin, the fact
that Clyde Dunaway bit on that is hardly surprising. He
repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get that money,
and the detective would say, only after you testify. The
upshot of the investigation is that Clyde Dunaway got in trouble,
(21:46):
and our dirty detective, who sat on that information during
both trials, walked away unscathed. The little guy got it
as usual. Next up was the bizarre claim that Mary's body,
cinder block and all floated up stream ten miles that
marine scientists who testified at the first trial, remember he
was m i A. At the second trial, prosecutors had
(22:09):
to read the jury a transcript of his previous testimony.
Why didn't he show up the second time? Well, Emerson's
lawyers found a letter from the scientist to the prosecutor
that provided a pretty clear explanation. After the first trial,
the scientist wrote, Lieutenant Riley applied what maybe the correct
term to my testimony in this case. He called it
I wash. I wash is Virginia slang for bullshit. Oh god,
(22:34):
the marine scientists. It's clear that the science that he
put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even Detective Riley
called this theory eye wash. Why a marine biologist went
along with that the first time I have no idea,
But by the second time he clearly did not want
(22:54):
to do it and thought it was dirty. Right. That's
what his letters suggested, is you're asking me to do
something that's nonsensical. Suddenly there was reason to believe that
Detective Riley had jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson,
and it seems that Riley tried to take it even further.
The owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers
a sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried
(23:18):
to get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me
up in the middle of the night, that Mary Harding
disappeared so that he could buy five gallons of gas.
Detective Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy, insisting that I
agree with his story even though it was not true.
I was never woken up in the middle of the
night by Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any reason, none of
(23:39):
these pieces of the puzzle actually fit together. They were
all manipulated by this detective so that they fit his
theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime. Now that's
the eye wash. The rest of the case crumbled to
remember the theory that Emerson used his knife to slash
Mary's back. A new assess s meant by the medical
(24:00):
examiner showed that those evenly spaced gashes were probably made
by a boat propeller, not by a human with a knife.
And finally, what about the hair from Emerson's truck Back
in the crime lab had put that hair under a
microscope and claimed that it was an exact match to marry.
This technique, known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked.
(24:23):
There's no way you can match hairs with that level
of certainty just by looking through a microscope. In fact,
more than seventy people have been exonerated after bogus hair
evidence was used to convict them. There's just nothing to
the science that you can microscopically compare hairs and identify anybody.
We've had cases where people say that this is a
(24:43):
human hair belonging to this victim, and it belongs to
a dog. Even according to the FBI, hair microscopy is
junk science. Decades later, Emerson's lawyers sought DNA testing, but
it turned out the hair was too old to test.
In other words, there's no way to know who it
belonged to. It could have been Mary's or Emerson's, or
Emerson's wife's, it could have been anybody's. Armed with this
(25:16):
new information, Emerson's lawyers filed a post conviction petition in
asking for his conviction to be thrown out, but it
hasn't been yet. This is where Emerson's legal case has stalled.
Despite skilled lawyers and compelling evidence of innocence, the courts
have denied his petitions at every turn. But there has
been one important victory. On May nineteenth, two thousand seventeen,
(25:40):
Emerson Stevens was paroled from prison. He'd spent thirty one
years behind bars. His family filled the lobby of the
correctional center, which is almost always absolutely empty, and then
we came with students and people who have been working
on this case for years. We all hopped into cars
and we asked Emerson where he would like to have
(26:02):
his first free meal. So what was the fisherman craving
after more than three decades of prison food. Emerson very
quickly told us that he wanted to go to Cracker
Barrel and he wanted the seafood platter at Cracker Barrel.
And I don't argue with anyone who wants that like
a tide that might never come back in Emerson. Stephen's
life ebbed for thirty one years as he sat behind bars.
(26:26):
Now his life is flowing again. You know, he's done
such a great job of getting out and just sort
of sliding back into his life, moving back in, seeing family,
going back to work immediately being a great worker. So
in that part of his life, he's done a really
wonderful job. But on the other hand, he's still a
(26:48):
convicted murderer, and that burden weighs on him every day.
I think he feels that until he is cleared and
other people are exposed, his life is on hold until
that happens. At least Emerson gets to see his kids
and his grandkids. He's back out on the water and
his small aluminum boat, feeling the breeze on his face.
(27:11):
I just said to him, the only thing you owe
me is a trip to go Oystering, and he will
be good for that. I know it. I've been to
a Steven's cookout, and you know what they do is
go crab and fish and come back and cook it
all up in the yard and have huge tables of
food and it's delicious. The case against Emerson Stevens has
taken years to unwind. Sometimes fighting cases this thin can
(27:33):
be strangely hard, almost like your shadow boxing a ghost.
Emerson should be pardoned, and Emerson's innocence needs to be
recognized by the governor of the State of Virginia. In
cases like this, it's just never the slam dunk that
it should be. We immediately applied for an absolute pardon,
which would exonerate him totally, and he pretty quickly got
(27:56):
a letter that said thanks for your petition. We probably
won't be able to get to this for two years,
and don't bother us in the meantime. For Emerson to
be pardoned would mean that he gets an absolute clean slate,
and it's a gateway to maybe proving what people did
to get him convicted. For people like him, you need that,
(28:18):
You need the real story to be told. For her part,
Beverly Monroe, now in her eighties, still supports Emerson, still
talks to him regularly by phone, still is waiting for
the day he'll be exonerated. We're waiting to Emerson, and
we stand with you all the way. Hey is this Emerson? Yes, yes,
(28:45):
Hey Emerson, It's Laura night Rider and Steve Drison. How
are you? I'm doing good? So tell me, Emerson, what
have you been doing these days? How have you been
keeping yourself busy? Ah? Well, my oldest brother he asked
me if I would take his boat and get all
this crap pipes up. So I did that, you know,
Oh it felt great. It felt great being backward on
(29:06):
the water again. And then he wants me to build
orsting with him, you know, So I'm thinking about it.
I want to buy purchase a boat of my own,
you know, like my brother's got and be able to
work on the water again. You know, what would you
name you about, Emerson? Well, these type of boats, you
(29:27):
don't really put names on them. But I don't know,
misfit or something. I don't know. There's times that are
enjoyable and wonderful. You're with your family, you're back out
on the water. And there's times that are heard too,
I'm sure. Oh yeah, yeah. I lost my oldest daughter
when I was in prison. She died at the age
of forty and that broke my heart. And it's not
(29:50):
a day that don't go by that I don't think
about them, you know, I'm really sorry, Emerson. Yeah, well,
she's looking down from some I hope, and rooting for you,
just like the rest of us. Are. Are you still
in touch with Beverly? Oh, Beverly, she's been not my
number one fan, you know, She's always believed in me,
(30:12):
and she's great. She's a great person. Every now and
then I text Shaw call and talk to him, but
she loves to talk now, loves to talk to support
Emerson Stevens. You can write the Governor of Virginia and
(30:33):
ask him to grant Emerson an Absolute pardon. You can
find the address on my Instagram page at Laura and
I Writer. And that's the story of Emerson Stevens. Join
us next week when we tell you about a Philadelphia
man named Walter oh Grod. Walter spent decades on death
row until a new generation of prosecutors came to Philadelphia.
(30:56):
They brought reform to the city and hope to Walter.
Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special
thanks to our executive producers Jason Slom and Kevin Wardis.
Our production team is headed by Senior producer and Pope,
(31:18):
along with producers Josh Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show
is mixed by Jeanie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern.
Our music was composed by j Ralph. You can follow
me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura NI Writer, and
you can follow me on Twitter at s driven. For
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(31:40):
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wrong Conviction
Hey guys, it's Laura. I'm here with some breaking news.
In the season two of Wrongful Conviction and False Confessions,
Steve and I brought you the story of a Virginia
fisherman named Emerson Stevens. Emerson spent more than thirty years
behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. Remember this
is that crazy case where prosecutors tried to get an
expert to say that the victim's way down body floated
(00:29):
up the river against the current for miles before we're
landing near emerson stock. The expert ended up telling the
prosecutors their case was eyewash. That's Virginia slang for bullshit.
But Emerson was wrongly convicted anyway. We told his story
and we asked you to tell the governor of Virginia
(00:49):
that he should grant Emerson's request for a pardon. So
here's the breaking news. After more than three decades of waiting,
Emerson finally got justice. On August sixteen, Virginia Governor Ralph
Northam granted Emerson a pardon based on actual innocence. That
means that Emerson is now eligible for compensation from the state,
(01:11):
and it means his innocence has been publicly recognized once
and for all. Thank you to all our listeners who
supported Emerson. Congratulations to Emerson's longtime lawyers at the University
of Virginia Law Innocence Project and Emerson. This news is
the best hope you celebrate in style. We're re releasing
(01:31):
your episode in honor of you. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction,
False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer and I'm Steve Drison.
Today we'll tell you the story of Emerson Stevens, a
fisherman from Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. When a young mother was
found murdered, it seemed all the evidence pointed to Emerson
until the case fell apart. Emerson survived thirty one years
(01:56):
in prison with the help of an ally from across
the bay. Now, oh, you can help him finally clear
his name. Today's episode is based on interviews with Emerson
Stevens and his lawyers, along with legal filings and court opinions. So, Steve, today,
(02:19):
we're going to break them old. We're going to break
them all. This is not a case that involves a
false confession. This is a case that involves a false
inculpatory statement. Sometimes detectives can't get a confession, but they'll
settle for a false inculpatory statement. Right. That's lawyer talk
for something you say that makes you look really bad.
(02:39):
That's exactly right, and it's false. So it's a lie.
And the same tactics that are used to get false
confessions are often used to get these false inculpatory statements,
and they can have the same devastating consequences. So when
I think about this case, I think about it in
terms of a puzzle. You know, and my family goes
(03:01):
on vacation, we often buy a puzzle and we spend
a lot of time putting that puzzle together. And anyone
who puts puzzles together knows that there are a lot
of times where the piece that you think will finish
a part of the puzzle doesn't quite fit. It looks
like it should fit, but just a little bit off.
(03:22):
And that's what happened with a lot of the evidence
in Emerson Stevens case. They manipulated the evidence to make
it seem like it fit the police theory. That's what
happens in runful conviction cases. Right tunnel vision makes police
officers force these puzzle pieces together when in reality they
might not fit at all. It was only after the
(03:43):
fact that you could see that the pieces never really
fit in the first place. Today's story takes place in
Lancaster County, Virginia, a rural community instled between the Chesapeake
Bay and the Rappahannock River. It's a place that'smells like
ocean salt, an honest sweat. Generations there have made a
(04:04):
living with their hands, hauling fish out of the bay
and crabs and oysters out of the river. In this
county was home to Mary Harding, who was Lancaster through
and through. Petite and blue eyed, Mary was homecoming queen
at Lancaster High before she and her high school sweetheart
tied the knot. By age twenty four, Mary was working
as a bookkeeper at the local bank while her husband
(04:27):
was a fisherman. They had two young kids and a
modest ranch home located just across the street from the cemetery.
On Friday, August, that modest home became the scene of
a terrible discovery. On weekdays, Mary had a routine before work,
she'd drop off her one year old at the home
(04:47):
of her husband's grandmother, Virginia Walker. But that Friday morning,
Mary didn't show up. Virginia was worried, so she drove
over to Mary's house. Virginia was greeted at the door
by Mary's four year old son, who told here that
he couldn't find his mom. The TV and lights were
on throughout the house. Some unrinsed comet was left in
the bathroom sink, and the little boy's chicken dinner from
(05:10):
the night before was still sitting on the table. Don't worry,
the four year old assured his great grandma. In his
mother's absence, he was taking care of the baby. Virginia
knew there's no way Mary would abandon her children. There's
only one explanation for her disappearance. Mary must have been taken.
Virginia calls the police, and soon a state police detective
(05:31):
by the name of David Riley arrives at the house.
He finds cat litter scattered on the ground outside the
back door, along with one of Mary's white sandals, but
there's no sign of Mary. Pretty soon, word spreads and
the whole community starts searching through the woods and along
the shore, but they find nothing. Nothing that is until
(05:51):
four days later. That's when a woman's body is found
in the shallows of the Rappahannock River. The body is unclothed,
badly decomposed, and hard to identify, but it's clear something
horrific has happened. The woman's back is covered with deep,
evenly spaced slashes. There's a rope tied around her neck
with a huge cinder block attached to the other end.
(06:12):
A heavy chain is wrapped around the woman's right leg.
Soon enough, the medical examiner confirms this is Mary Harding.
She's been strangled to death. Now here's the thing. The
rope and chain were the same kind that you can
find on most fisherman's boats in Lancaster. So suddenly this
close knit community was being torn apart by suspicion. Everyone
(06:35):
was wondering who would have done this to the homecoming queen.
Before long, the authorities settled on a suspect, thirty two
year old Emerson Stevens. Like so many other Lancaster men,
Emerson had worked on the water since he was a teenager.
Emerson was a crabber and an oysterman who hauled his
catch in on a boat named after his wife. He'd
(06:55):
spent his life by the shore, the kind of guy
who has salt water in his veins. It was Mary's
husband who pointed police to Emerson Steven's. Emerson had gone
to Mary's funeral, and Mary's husband thought Emerson seemed nervous there.
Mary's husband also remembered that he had once heard Emerson
make a crude joke about female anatomy. This wasn't much
(07:16):
to go on, but days later, a couple of people
told police they had seen a light colored pickup truck
outside Mary's home on the night she disappeared. Now, Emerson
Steven's happened to drive a white Dodge pickup, so he
quickly became the police's number one suspect. Detective Riley asks
Emerson to meet him at Mary Harding's house and the
(07:38):
two men sit down on the front porch. According to Emerson,
Riley gestures to the street and asks, why were you
parked in front of this house the night Mary vanished.
If you question somebody on the porch, you're creating a
context that is different from your standard police interrogation. You
can tap into all of the emotions of This is
(08:02):
where this woman lived, this is where she had her children,
this is where she was last seen. This is not
a police interrogation room. It feels like the kind of
place where you'd have a heart to heart conversation. And
there's another thing that makes this porch interrogation even more emotional. Yeah,
not only was this the front porch at Mary's house,
(08:23):
it was right across the street from the burial ground
where her headstone was. As the two men look out
at the cemetery, Riley presses Emerson for information, but Emerson
is stunned he hadn't been at Mary's house. He says
he'd been at home. Then he'd taken his kids over
to the neighbors to watch TV and eat crab. They'd
(08:45):
returned home together at about nine pm, and Emerson's wife
had gotten home from work shortly after. He tells Riley
to talk to his neighbor and confirm the alibi, but
Riley doesn't buy Emerson's story. Instead, he orders a search
of Erson's pickup truck. After digging through the truck for hours,
police discover a single strand of hair. They send the
(09:07):
hair off to the state crime lab for forensic analysis.
The next week, Riley asks Emerson to come to a
nearby Virginia police station for a polygraph as soon as
the polygraphs completed, Riley tells Emerson he failed. According to Emerson,
Riley says he must either have killed Mary Harding or
done something else related to her murder. Those are two
(09:28):
pretty bad options, and Emerson is terrified. But then Riley
offers Emerson a third choice that seems a lot better.
Maybe you were at Mary's house that night doing something innocent.
Maybe you were driving by and you stopped on the
side of the road to take a leak. The fisherman
takes the bait. He's desperate to please Riley and changes
(09:50):
his story to exactly what Riley suggested. If detectives can't
get a full confession, they'll settle for a false inculpatory statement.
All the detective can get from Emerson is a statement
that he pulled over on the side of the road
a short distance away from Mary's house to relieve himself
(10:11):
at the approximate time of death. That's the admission I
was in the vicinity of her home near the time
where the medical examiner believed she was killed. That was
all Emerson said. He did not confess, but he'd said
enough to get himself in real trouble. He just placed
himself at the crime scene. Detective Riley was on high alert,
(10:35):
but the case against Emerson was pretty damn thin until
test results came back from the State crime Lab on
that hair from Emerson's truck. The lab had put the
hair under a microscope and compared it to Mary Harding's hair,
and the lab said it was an exact match. The
police's thin case suddenly seemed rock solid, and in late October,
(10:58):
Emerson Stevens was a rested for the abduction and murder
of Mary Harding. The trial of Emerson Stevens was one
of the most dramatic events Lancaster County had ever seen.
To a packed courtroom, prosecutors described how they thought the
(11:21):
crime unfolded. Emerson kidnapped Mary, they said, then strangled her
and threw her body into the river. They even suggested
that Emerson slashed Mary's back with his fishing knife in
order to attract crabs so there wouldn't be anything left
of her body. The worst imaginable kind of cry. It's
like throwing chum over the side of a boat to
(11:43):
entice sharks. But there were problems with the prosecution's theory.
They claimed that Emerson had thrown Mary's body into the
river off the end of his own dock, but her
body was actually found a full ten miles upstream. How
does a body that is waged down with a cinder
block travel ten miles upstream upstreams against the current. That's
(12:09):
the thing. I mean. To swim those ten miles upstream
would have been crazy, let alone somehow to float a
weighted down body that distance. It makes no sense at all.
It's absurd, But prosecutors found a witness to bolster this
theory insane though it seemed. A marine scientist testified that
it was possible for Mary's body to float against the
current cinder block and all for ten miles from Emerson's
(12:33):
dock to where it was found, and there were other
witnesses to Detective Riley told the jury that Emerson claimed
to have been near Mary's house on the night she disappeared,
and the prosecution called two people to corroborate Emerson's statement,
Clyde Dunaway and and Dick. They both claimed they had
seen a pickup truck resembling Emerson's near the victim's house
(12:53):
that night, and finally, the prosecution called a witness from
the crime lab to testify that the hair and emer'sons
truck seemed to match Mary's. So it seemed at this
point as though all the puzzle pieces fit together, and
they painted a compelling portrait of Emerson's guilt. But this
is not the end of the story, not by a
(13:16):
long shot. When the defense's turn came, Emerson's lawyers put
on a strong case of their own, no fewer than
four alibi witnesses. In the end, the jury hung unable
to reach a verdict. The prosecution was quick to retry Emerson,
and on July the second trial began. This time, the
prosecution's case seemed, if anything, weaker. The marine scientist was
(13:40):
a no show, so the prosecutor read the jury his
testimony from the previous trial. Only one witness, Clyde Dunaway,
testified about seeing Emerson's pickup near Mary's house, but the
crime lab technician repeated his previous testimony about the hair
in the truck, and Detective Riley testified again about Emerson's
statements to ring the second trial, Emerson's lawyer put on
(14:02):
his alibi witnesses again, and Emerson himself took the stand.
He tried to explain that he was innocent, that he
hadn't actually pulled over near Mary's house that night. He'd
only said that to satisfy his interrogator. Prosecutors pounced, you
admit to us You lied, They asked, yes, I told that,
Emerson answered. Later he quietly added, I'm not a smart person.
(14:28):
The case wasn't any stronger than at the first trial,
but this time the jury reached a verdict guilty, and
Emerson Stevens was sentenced to a prison term of one
hundred and sixty four years. Fast forward to two thousand two.
During those sixteen years behind bars, Emerson earned his g
(14:50):
e d. He worked in the dusty prison wood shop,
building furniture for state institutions. He wrote letters constantly to
his family and to lawyers, begging for help with his case.
When he wasn't working or writing, Emerson would dream about
the smell of the shore. He wondered if he'd ever
be on the water again. In April two thousand two,
(15:11):
Emerson's attention was caught by a news story about a
genteel of Virginia lady named Beverly Monroe. Beverly was a
professional chemist whose upper middle class background seemed worlds away
from Emerson. At least at first you see. Ten years earlier,
fifty five year old Beverly had been dating a wealthy
real estate mogul named Roger de la Byrd. Roger lived
(15:34):
on a massive estate in Virginia Horse Country. He claimed
to be an art dealer who was descended from European nobility.
But when Roger turned up dead one morning from a
gunshot wound, police suspected Beverly of murder, even though she'd
never had so much as a traffic ticket. The case
against Beverly was absurd from day one. Beverly had a
(15:55):
grocery store received proving she hadn't been at Roger's estate
at the time he died, and Roger's death had been
ruled a suicide. Turns out his life was falling apart.
The FBI was investigating him for art fraud, and his
claims of nobility were also being exposed as phony. But
Beverly ended up being wrongly convicted of Roger's murder anyway.
(16:16):
Why because in part of Detective David Riley, the same
officer who had built the case against Emerson Stevens. When
Detective Riley interrogated Beverly, she refused to admit to something
she didn't do, but Riley administered a polygraph and told
Beverly she failed it, and then he suggested that she
must have been present when Roger shot himself. Detective Riley
(16:37):
seems to have manipulated Beverly into placing herself at the
scene of the crime, just like he seems to have
done with Emerson. The similarities are unmistakable. Beverly Monroe was
wrongfully convicted based on inculpatory statements that placed her at
the crime scene, and Riley then built his case around
(17:01):
that statement to make it look like this wasn't a
suicide at all, that this was a murder. It's amazing,
just like Emerson, Beverly never confessed to anything. Same detective
using the same modus operandi in order to get not
a false confession, but a false inculpatory statement that was
(17:21):
used to convict them and send them away for crimes
they did not commit. A federal judge later called Riley's
interrogation of Beverly Monroe deceitful and manipulative. Even so, Beverly
ended up serving ten years in prison before her conviction
was thrown out and she was released in April two
thousand two. That news story Emerson saw on TV from
(17:43):
behind Bars was about Beverly's first moments of freedom. Emerson
didn't waste a minute. He immediately wrote to Beverly's lawyer,
who agreed to take his case. And when Beverly herself
heard about Emerson, she got involved too. She went to
the lawyers that had just exonerated her her and said,
now you need to do it again for this other guy,
(18:05):
which you know, to their credit, they did. They tried
to reinvestigate as much as they could, and then when
it became clear that they were sort of losing steam,
Beverly turned her sides to me. That's dear to end Right,
the director of the University of Virginia's Innocence Project Clinic.
She's one of the lawyers Beverly enlisted to join Emerson's
legal team. Emerson, you know, he had been trying for years,
(18:27):
writing to people about his case and begging for help.
And if you ever meet or speak to Beverly, you
will learn that you will do anything that Beverly says
to do, because she's absolutely charming but also absolutely compelling.
Beverly made it something of a mission to help other
people who were convicted by the evidence collected by the
(18:48):
same detective. With Beverly's help, Emerson now had a top
notch legal team, and while the lawyers got to work,
Beverly and Emerson began corresponding. Beverly is not only college
educ but she's a chemist, and she lived a very
extravagant life with her partner before this all happened. And
Emerson is this waterman who grew up, you know, with
(19:10):
his nine siblings in Lancaster. I mean, this is the
classic thing that happens in these wrongful conviction cases, is
that people who would never in a lifetime be near
each other or connect do. Beverly and Emerson became friends.
Beverly sensed how much this fisherman longed for the water,
and started sending him photographs of the place he missed most,
(19:33):
the Chesapeake Bay. She was hyper aware of taking care
of him while he was incarcerated so he didn't feel abandoned,
writing and calling and making sure he had money in
his commissary and holidays and birthdays. And I remember thinking,
she knows what he's feeling better than any of us.
I think that Emerson, once he had Beverly, he knew
(19:55):
that there was another person out there who was advocating
for him ferociously. I mean, most people who are incarcerated
don't have that person. And because she was so smart
and because she had been through it, she wasn't going
to hear that it couldn't be done. While Beverly was
keeping Emerson's hope alive, his legal team was systematically unwinding
the case against him, and, as it turned out, one
(20:17):
piece of faulty evidence after another seemed to lead back
to Detective Riley. First up was the claim that witnesses
had seen a white pickup truck like Emerson's near Mary's house.
A woman named and Dick had testified to that effect
at the first trial, but her story had changed by
the time of the second trial. There she swore that
the person she saw driving the truck was not Emerson.
(20:39):
Stevens when asked why she didn't say that to the
first jury, and answered because Detective Riley told me not to.
The other pickup truck witness, Clyde Dunaway Well turns out
he came forward only after police offered a twenty thousand
dollar reward for information. He asked Detective Riley about the
money during their very first conversation, but at Emerson's second trial,
(21:01):
Dunaway swore he never asked anyone about the reward. Now,
Detective Riley was sitting in the courtroom listening to this,
He must have known Dunaway was lying, but the detective
never said a word. Eventually, Dunaway paid a price for
his false testimony in Emerson Steven's case. He ended up
pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Once you dangle reward money,
(21:24):
especially in a place like Lancaster where there's a lot
of people living very much on a margin, the fact
that Clyde Dunaway bit on that is hardly surprising. He
repeatedly inquired about when am I going to get that money,
and the detective would say, only after you testify. The
upshot of the investigation is that Clyde Dunaway got in trouble,
(21:46):
and our dirty detective, who sat on that information during
both trials, walked away unscathed. The little guy got it
as usual. Next up was the bizarre claim that Mary's body,
cinder block and all floated up stream ten miles that
marine scientists who testified at the first trial, remember he
was m i A. At the second trial, prosecutors had
(22:09):
to read the jury a transcript of his previous testimony.
Why didn't he show up the second time? Well, Emerson's
lawyers found a letter from the scientist to the prosecutor
that provided a pretty clear explanation. After the first trial,
the scientist wrote, Lieutenant Riley applied what maybe the correct
term to my testimony in this case. He called it
I wash. I wash is Virginia slang for bullshit. Oh god,
(22:34):
the marine scientists. It's clear that the science that he
put forth at this trial wasn't real. Even Detective Riley
called this theory eye wash. Why a marine biologist went
along with that the first time I have no idea,
But by the second time he clearly did not want
(22:54):
to do it and thought it was dirty. Right. That's
what his letters suggested, is you're asking me to do
something that's nonsensical. Suddenly there was reason to believe that
Detective Riley had jinned up some of the evidence against Emerson,
and it seems that Riley tried to take it even further.
The owner of a Lancaster convenience store gave Emerson's lawyers
a sworn statement that reads as follows. Detective Riley tried
(23:18):
to get me to say that Emerson Stevens woke me
up in the middle of the night, that Mary Harding
disappeared so that he could buy five gallons of gas.
Detective Riley was extremely aggressive and pushy, insisting that I
agree with his story even though it was not true.
I was never woken up in the middle of the
night by Emerson Stevens. Ever, for any reason, none of
(23:39):
these pieces of the puzzle actually fit together. They were
all manipulated by this detective so that they fit his
theory that Emerson was guilty of this crime. Now that's
the eye wash. The rest of the case crumbled to
remember the theory that Emerson used his knife to slash
Mary's back. A new assess s meant by the medical
(24:00):
examiner showed that those evenly spaced gashes were probably made
by a boat propeller, not by a human with a knife.
And finally, what about the hair from Emerson's truck Back
in the crime lab had put that hair under a
microscope and claimed that it was an exact match to marry.
This technique, known as hair microscopy, has since been debunked.
(24:23):
There's no way you can match hairs with that level
of certainty just by looking through a microscope. In fact,
more than seventy people have been exonerated after bogus hair
evidence was used to convict them. There's just nothing to
the science that you can microscopically compare hairs and identify anybody.
We've had cases where people say that this is a
(24:43):
human hair belonging to this victim, and it belongs to
a dog. Even according to the FBI, hair microscopy is
junk science. Decades later, Emerson's lawyers sought DNA testing, but
it turned out the hair was too old to test.
In other words, there's no way to know who it
belonged to. It could have been Mary's or Emerson's, or
Emerson's wife's, it could have been anybody's. Armed with this
(25:16):
new information, Emerson's lawyers filed a post conviction petition in
asking for his conviction to be thrown out, but it
hasn't been yet. This is where Emerson's legal case has stalled.
Despite skilled lawyers and compelling evidence of innocence, the courts
have denied his petitions at every turn. But there has
been one important victory. On May nineteenth, two thousand seventeen,
(25:40):
Emerson Stevens was paroled from prison. He'd spent thirty one
years behind bars. His family filled the lobby of the
correctional center, which is almost always absolutely empty, and then
we came with students and people who have been working
on this case for years. We all hopped into cars
and we asked Emerson where he would like to have
(26:02):
his first free meal. So what was the fisherman craving
after more than three decades of prison food. Emerson very
quickly told us that he wanted to go to Cracker
Barrel and he wanted the seafood platter at Cracker Barrel.
And I don't argue with anyone who wants that like
a tide that might never come back in Emerson. Stephen's
life ebbed for thirty one years as he sat behind bars.
(26:26):
Now his life is flowing again. You know, he's done
such a great job of getting out and just sort
of sliding back into his life, moving back in, seeing family,
going back to work immediately being a great worker. So
in that part of his life, he's done a really
wonderful job. But on the other hand, he's still a
(26:48):
convicted murderer, and that burden weighs on him every day.
I think he feels that until he is cleared and
other people are exposed, his life is on hold until
that happens. At least Emerson gets to see his kids
and his grandkids. He's back out on the water and
his small aluminum boat, feeling the breeze on his face.
(27:11):
I just said to him, the only thing you owe
me is a trip to go Oystering, and he will
be good for that. I know it. I've been to
a Steven's cookout, and you know what they do is
go crab and fish and come back and cook it
all up in the yard and have huge tables of
food and it's delicious. The case against Emerson Stevens has
taken years to unwind. Sometimes fighting cases this thin can
(27:33):
be strangely hard, almost like your shadow boxing a ghost.
Emerson should be pardoned, and Emerson's innocence needs to be
recognized by the governor of the State of Virginia. In
cases like this, it's just never the slam dunk that
it should be. We immediately applied for an absolute pardon,
which would exonerate him totally, and he pretty quickly got
(27:56):
a letter that said thanks for your petition. We probably
won't be able to get to this for two years,
and don't bother us in the meantime. For Emerson to
be pardoned would mean that he gets an absolute clean slate,
and it's a gateway to maybe proving what people did
to get him convicted. For people like him, you need that,
(28:18):
You need the real story to be told. For her part,
Beverly Monroe, now in her eighties, still supports Emerson, still
talks to him regularly by phone, still is waiting for
the day he'll be exonerated. We're waiting to Emerson, and
we stand with you all the way. Hey is this Emerson? Yes, yes,
(28:45):
Hey Emerson, It's Laura night Rider and Steve Drison. How
are you? I'm doing good? So tell me, Emerson, what
have you been doing these days? How have you been
keeping yourself busy? Ah? Well, my oldest brother he asked
me if I would take his boat and get all
this crap pipes up. So I did that, you know,
Oh it felt great. It felt great being backward on
(29:06):
the water again. And then he wants me to build
orsting with him, you know, So I'm thinking about it.
I want to buy purchase a boat of my own,
you know, like my brother's got and be able to
work on the water again. You know, what would you
name you about, Emerson? Well, these type of boats, you
(29:27):
don't really put names on them. But I don't know,
misfit or something. I don't know. There's times that are
enjoyable and wonderful. You're with your family, you're back out
on the water. And there's times that are heard too,
I'm sure. Oh yeah, yeah. I lost my oldest daughter
when I was in prison. She died at the age
of forty and that broke my heart. And it's not
(29:50):
a day that don't go by that I don't think
about them, you know, I'm really sorry, Emerson. Yeah, well,
she's looking down from some I hope, and rooting for you,
just like the rest of us. Are. Are you still
in touch with Beverly? Oh, Beverly, she's been not my
number one fan, you know, She's always believed in me,
(30:12):
and she's great. She's a great person. Every now and
then I text Shaw call and talk to him, but
she loves to talk now, loves to talk to support
Emerson Stevens. You can write the Governor of Virginia and
(30:33):
ask him to grant Emerson an Absolute pardon. You can
find the address on my Instagram page at Laura and
I Writer. And that's the story of Emerson Stevens. Join
us next week when we tell you about a Philadelphia
man named Walter oh Grod. Walter spent decades on death
row until a new generation of prosecutors came to Philadelphia.
(30:56):
They brought reform to the city and hope to Walter.
Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one Special
thanks to our executive producers Jason Slom and Kevin Wardis.
Our production team is headed by Senior producer and Pope,
(31:18):
along with producers Josh Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show
is mixed by Jeanie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern.
Our music was composed by j Ralph. You can follow
me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura NI Writer, and
you can follow me on Twitter at s driven. For
more information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com.
(31:40):
Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
wrong Conviction
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
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.