June 13, 2022 • 39 mins
On New Year’s Eve 1993 in Pampa, TX., Hank Skinner fell asleep early on his couch after being rendered comatose from a cocktail of vodka, xanax and codeine. His girlfriend at the time, Twila Busby, left for a party, and when she returned, she and her two sons were bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Law enforcement knew Hank from his work in civil rights and he soon became a suspect. Despite clear evidence that Hank was incapacitated at the time of the killings and therefore incapable of committing these murders, Hank was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995. Maggie speaks to Hank Skinner, Rob Owen Esq. Hank's attorney, and Sandrine Skinner his wife.
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Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Maggie, what did you take away from your recent visit
to death Row? Was there something surprising or you know,
was it kind of what you expected? I mean, I
think I was surprised that the person I was visiting
is still in good spirits after having multiple stays of execution,
(00:21):
being within twenty minutes of being killed by the state,
um having that last meal, the fact that he's can
still smile, make jokes, be excited for life still. I
don't even know how to put into words the way
that it made me feel, but I think it made
me feel like so many of my problems in a
(00:41):
daily basis are so insignificant, and I think that was
just so. The willpower is amazing. Well, Texas crazy, and
they've tried to kill me five times, so I believe
that they very serious about that. But I think with
(01:04):
the evidence we have now that there's no way they
they're going to have to let me go, and they're
going to have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I don't
see any other way from LoVa for good. This is
wrungful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Hank Skinner on December
(01:35):
thirty one, thirty one year old Hank Skinner was pregaming
for a New Year's Eve party. He was with his
girlfriend of seven months, forty one year old Twilight Buzzby,
and her two adult children, Scooter and Randy. Hank passed
out before ten PM from a potent combination of vodka, codeine,
and zanex. Despite his condition, Twila left for the party
(01:58):
without him. When she were turned, she was strangled and
blunted to death. Her two sons were stabbed to death.
Hank was the sole survivor and was instantly the prime suspect,
despite evidence that Hank was incapable of committing these murders
and that another more probable person of interest exists. Hank
has spent nearly thirty years on Texas death row awaiting execution.
(02:26):
I'm sixty years old. I've spent my whole, the best
years of my life in here, from thirty to sixty.
I want out of here. I shouldn't be here. I
never should have been here to start with. Hank Skinner
(02:53):
was born on April four, ninety two. He's the oldest
of four kids. I'm from r janr Okay. I was
born in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in
Franklin County, Virginia, which is the moonshine capital of the
United States. His dad was part of the local industry.
He was a foreign car mechanic as well as a moonshiner.
(03:15):
So he had three eight hundred gallons steam steals and
fired on butane. He made the best sugar looking you've
never drank and see moonshine. If it's made correctly, it's
a lot better than a storebault liquor. And so my
dad's stuff burned clear, and I mean he was about
a hundred forty proof. You can just get a four
ounce glass to do ice cubes sip on it all.
(03:38):
So did you just grew up drinking moonshine? When was
the first time you drank it? Six years old? And
I stole it from my dad. Growing up, Hank felt
like he had the best parents in the world. He
takes pride that he was named after his dad. I'm
actually a junior, but when my dad passed, I took
(04:01):
his name and somehow I'm just Henry Skinner. Hank Skinner.
Hank is a nickname for him. He loved Hank Williams, Sr.
And I love Hank Williams Jr. And Hank the third Yeah.
In the same way, Hank learned a lot from his dad.
Like my dad, he taught me how to slaughter holls
and slaughter cow and he worked for his dad too young.
(04:23):
Hank was a skilled laborer and free spirit. We were
just a bunch of wild, roumbunctious kids having a good time.
We had field keg parties and cow pastors. There was
bikers up there everywhere. That's who I grew up with.
But Hank also had a soft spot for the female
role models in his life. Like his mom and grandma,
(04:45):
Han grew up learning a lot from them, including how
to respect women. If you want to if you want
to find out anything in life, it really means something
to find out from a woman. They know how to
do everything, and so I can sew, I can alter clothes.
I used to make dresses for my little sister on
(05:05):
my Mama's song scene. I make quilts. I know how
to do everything. I know how to can vegetables, you know,
out of the garden. We used to do this every year.
The women are the ship. That's all there is to it,
you know what I mean. Hank also learned a lot
about women after he married quite young. I was nineteen,
(05:26):
My wife was sixteen, and we had just gotten married
because she was already pregnant. I had a daughter, Natalie Joe.
I wasn't so in love with her when she was born.
Natalie Joe was the light of Hank's life, but Hank's
marriage to Natalie Joe's mother was another story. He and
his wife struggled to get along. According to Hank, she
(05:47):
had substance abuse issues. She was strongly out on cocaine.
We had a big argument and fight going on all
the time, and so she's my daughter. Stayed with her.
That was the only thing that was acceptable to her.
My mama wanted her, but she wouldn't let my mama
have her. And so my wife was doing crazy things
(06:10):
when we do wors. So I just said this, I'm done.
I left, and I went first to Georgia. They're in Georgia.
Hank worked at a casino whose high earning customers were
catered to by women. And these are gamblers and their
high rollers, and so they want a woman on their arm.
You know. Hank took it upon himself to look out
(06:31):
for these women if they get two hands at like,
you know, I'm a guy who steps in and tells
him and I know, you know it can't be doing that.
And so have you ever seen that movie Roadhouse with
Patrick Sways? Because that's what I did. I was a
cooler just like he was in that movie, but not
in a bar in the gambling establishment. And so I
(06:52):
lived in an old, old ramshackle rooming house that had
three stories and had big stucko porch on top. And
so I could sit up there and drank beer and smoke.
We watch all the cars go by, holler at the girls.
I was the rooster of the him house. I had
it all in his mind. Hank was living the life.
So how did you wind up in Texas? So when
(07:14):
I came out here, I came out here because I
wanted to break out in the old field because I
heard about the old field was a good place to
make money, and I did. I made a lot of
money out here. I ended up moving to Papa. It's
an old field town. In Pampa, Hank found kindred spirits
and the lifestyle he enjoyed, But soon he was charged
(07:35):
and convicted for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and
was on parole. He started going to a a as
part of his parole, and that's where he met Twila Busby.
These two guys were picking on her, and so I
dried up her tears and I talked to her and
got her all right. She was just they were just drilling.
(07:56):
I mean the way they were mistressed. What were they
picking on her for. She's a whore, She's a sorry bit.
She drank, you know, she ain't never go sober up.
It was just horrible. So anyway, I ended up giving
her a round home. On the way, Hank asked if
she wanted to stop for a cup of coffee, and
(08:19):
we sit down and started talking, and he was like,
just like instantly, we've been together for fifty years. I mean,
she was so easy to talk to and and she
told me, she said, I have never met anybody like
you in my life. What are you some kind of magician?
And I'm like, why do you say that? She said,
I don't know what it Since I sat down and
(08:40):
you started talking, you know, I have just started feeling
some kind of way. Twilight and Hank started spending all
their time together. Twilight our soul mates. We could just
look at each other and know what the other was
thinking and what to say, you know, And whenever we
went to another people's house, she always said in my lap.
People said we were like two high school kids, and
(09:02):
we were so in love. She was a lot older
than you, right, that's not a lot. Twilight had two sons, Elwyn,
who went by Scooter and Randy was twenty, and Hank
took on the young men as his own. The three
(09:23):
of them had even worked together in a landscaping business.
Hank had a previous hand injury that left his right
dominant hand virtually useless, so the boys were a big help.
So I laid out the plans and showed them what
to do and how to do it, and they did
all the manual labor and we made good money. Everything
(09:44):
was going great for Twilight and Hank until seven months
into their relationship New Year's Eve, when it all came
crushing down. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
(10:06):
a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
in the lives of its employees and in the communities
where we work and live. In light of the compelling
need for pro bono legal assistance and in recognition of
a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
(10:28):
The a i G Pro Bono Program provides free legal
services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On
December thirty one, Hank, Twila, and Twila's sons were all
(10:49):
at home preparing for their evening celebration. Although it could
be a dangerous combination, Hank took some Xanex and drank
the better part of a fifth of vodka, and then
he accidentally started sipping Twilight's drink, not realizing that she
had spiked it with coding that in class look the
same as mine, and I grabbed it and drink from it,
(11:13):
and I had no idea what was in it. Hank
wound up passing out that night from the combination of substances.
He also says he's allergic to coding. It makes me sick.
It gives me vertigo. I can't stand up. Um, it
makes me very lethargic. UM. I lose my balance. I
(11:33):
can't talk well. It feels like my throne is constricting,
like my loans or full of cotton. I can't get
a deep breath. Do you remember feeling any of that
whore you're already really drunk, though I remember feeling all
of that before I passed out. Around ten fift PM,
Hank and Twila's friend, Howard Mitchell came to pick them
up to drive them to attend his near's Eve party.
(11:56):
When Howard arrived, he found Hank in a practically comatose state.
He tried to rouse his friend but got no reaction.
According to Howard, Hank was out cold, so he and
Twila left for the party without Hank. So but nobody
called nine one to make sure you're okay. We're all
a bunch of parties that everybody passes out. How many
(12:18):
times a year been no party and it's three or four.
Motherfucker's laying on larnd the corner and I've been passed
out before, but not like that. At the party, Twilight
encountered her uncle, Robert Denell. He was incredibly drunk, following
Twilight around and making sexual advances. They had previously had
(12:41):
a sexual relationship, although Twila's consent to the relationship was questionable.
She had allegedly told people her uncle had raped her
more than once. Twilok on uncomfortable, and Howard took her home.
They arrived back some time between eleven and eleven fifteen
after the What happened is not totally clear, but here's
(13:03):
how Hank remembers it. Sometime that night, Hank says he
was shaken a week by Scooter, and when I first
woke up, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't see where
the funk I was at. I couldn't, I don't say,
I couldn't think in words, and I'm seeing blood all
(13:26):
over the walls, but I didn't recognize it as Blum,
thinking what in the fucking people slinging all over this
living room? And so he got me up and he
gave me my pants and he told me put them on.
We got to get the funk out of here. And
he was already injured, yes, And I didn't know that
Scooter had been stabbed in the chest and stomach area,
but he was still managing to move around. I was
(13:48):
trying to save both of their lives, he said. He said,
we gotta get out of here, Hank. They're coming back,
and I'm thinking, who's coming back? What did the funk
are you talking about? Remember him saying they're yes, yes,
And he was saying it in a high streamed voice.
That's one of the things I remember. Scooter was a
(14:08):
big guy, six ft six and about two pounds, and
despite his injuries, he was able to lift Hank up
and help him out. Was anything registering at this point,
A feeling whatever has happened. It's bad, this is bad.
We have got to get the funk out of here.
(14:30):
But I wasn't thinking in words. I was just thinking
any emotions. Still on steady on his feet, Hank started
looking around. But when I did, I lost my balance
and fell face forward and the floor, And so I
remember looking across the floor, got up on my elbows,
(14:50):
trying to get up, but I couldn't do it. And
I remember looking across the floor and I could see
my girlfriend and all I could see was a mass
of her hair and blood from this black tinning the
edges of everything, and everything was looking alternately red and
green and I but her face was gone. Twilight had
(15:13):
been strangled and blunting to death. Someone had hit her
fourteen times in the head with the handle of a pickaxe.
When she was found, her pants were unzipped and her
shirt was lifted up. As Hank was still trying to
absorb everything Scooter was pulling him to go check on
his younger brother, Randy, and so we get in the
(15:34):
bedroom and he leans me against the dresser so he
can see about his brother. And I couldn't even stand up,
even holding on with the dresser, and I fell in
the floor. And this is something I remember. I don't
remember falling. I don't remember trying to get up, but
I remember looking up at him, and he's looking at
his brother, and he's got this horribly sad expression on
(15:55):
his face, and so I know he's dead. Randy had
been stabbed in the heart through his back while he
was asleep. He had died on the top level of
the bunk bed he shared with Scooter. That's when I
realized my hand was cut. And I didn't know how
it had gotten cut, but I had a vague memory
(16:17):
of somebody standing over top of me with a knife
and I threw my hands and up and they cut
my hand and it was burning, and so I didn't
know if that really happened or if I was just
dreaming it. Hank wasn't dreaming that his hand was cut.
That was real. He and Scooter moved through the house
(16:37):
trying to escape, but they were bleeding everywhere, and so
we got out into the backyard and we went through
the gate, and I didn't know where we're going, but
we had to get the funk out of there. That's
all I knew. And so um I fell in the
alley and he told me, Hank, I can't keep picking
you up. And I said, don't worry about me, just
(16:58):
go go get help. Go at help. And so I
remember seeing him walk off towards the street light through
the alley. Hank passed out again, So he didn't know
that Scooter had made it to the neighbor's porch, where
(17:18):
he finally succumbed to his wounds and collapsed. A neighbor
found Scooter and called nine one one, and he was
immediately brought to the hospital. They're am Scooter died. When
the police showed up and found out where Scooter lived,
they immediately went to the house. When they arrived, they
(17:40):
found a massacre. There was a trail of blood from
the fence to the front porch. The front storm door
was smeared with blood. Once inside, police found multiple bloody
handprints on doors and door knobs in the bedroom, kitchen,
utility room, and on the door leading out to the backyard,
along with bloody handprints and blood smeared throughout the house.
(18:03):
Police also found a black plastic trash bag containing a wet,
brown stained towel and a knife. They found the bloody
pickaxe handle used to blood in Twila, as well as
a knife that was on the porch. They also found
a man's windbreaker, and of course, the bodies of Twila
and Randy. Almost immediately the police started looking for Hank,
(18:31):
the living boyfriend. They found him at Andrea Joyce Reed's house,
where Hank had gone for help after he came to consciousness.
Andrea was a neighbor and she was also hank sex girlfriend.
Hank became the prime suspect. The reason he was accused
of the crime, I think is because in fact, he
was the only survivor from the scene, which was both
(18:52):
very lucky because the assailant didn't kill Hank, but it's
also very unlucky because it meant all the fingers were
immediately pointed at um. This is Rob Owen. I'm a lawyer.
I live in Chicago. For many years, I've practiced in
Texas doing mostly death penalty cases, and during that time
was when I became one of the members of Hank
Skinner's defense team. The police assumed that this was an
(19:15):
open and shot case. They assumed that he had to
be the killer. He had some of the blood of
Twilight Busby and the other victims on his clothing, for example,
and Hank says the blood very likely came from touching
Twilight to see if she was okay. I think that
was all. It was very easy for the cops to
assume that they had the right guy. Hank was taken
(19:38):
to the police station and booked, but he was still
so messed up from the alcohol and coding that he
couldn't even stand on his own while his photograph was taken.
The police had to hold him up. He was eventually
taken to the hospital. Hanks cut hand was treated, and
he voluntarily gave blood samples. Results of those samples were
used to calculate Hank's blood alcohol levels at the approximate
(19:59):
time of the murder. They showed that at the time,
Hank's blood alcohol content was almost three times the drunk
driving standard and his coding level was two and a
half times the recommended dose. And so this is Hank's alibi.
Hey couldn't have committed this murder. Are these murders because
he was simply physically incapable at the time of carrying
(20:22):
them out. Remember, Hank was virtually comatose when Howard came
to pick him up for the party, and Twilight came
home from that party only about an hour later. Hank
couldn't have possibly sobered up by the time the murderers transpired.
Hank could only have been able to sort of at
most stand and stagger like That would have been about
(20:43):
the sum of his physical ability based on the volume
of alcohol and codeine and his bloodstream. Police searched the
house for ten days without a warrant, but they failed
to collect key evidence, including not on bloody finger and handprints.
Vaginal swabs were taken from Twila, and despite one detective
(21:05):
urging him to do so, Gary Stallings, the criminalist who
was leading the forensics team, did not believe Twila was
raped and did not have the swabs tested. None of
the evidence directly linked Hank to the crime. Yes, his
bloody handprints were there, but he also lived in the
house and says he was attacked. There was also d
NA and at least one handprint that was not Hanks,
(21:28):
Twila's Scooters or Randy's. But despite all of that, Hank
was prosecuted for the murders. His trial began a little
over a year later. In March, he faced the death penalty.
(21:50):
District Attorney John Mann was the prosecutor in the case.
At trial, Man rested his argument on two key testimonies,
that of state witnesses Howard Mitchell and Andrea Joyce Read.
No actual forensics linking Hank to the crime were presented
at trial. In fact, Stallings, the criminalist, conceded that just
because the evidence proved Hank was there at the house
(22:12):
does not identify him as the murderer. Howard Mitchell testified
for the state and said that Hank was completely comatose
when he arrived to take them to his party. But
he also said that when Twila's uncle, Robert Dunnell was
harassing her at his house, Howard took her home and
that they shared a friendly kiss on the porch. Man
used Howard's testimony to argue that Hank killed Twila, Scooter,
(22:35):
and Randy in a jealous rage. Andrea Joyce Read hank
sex girlfriend and neighbor, also testified that she came in
and said, well, when he got to my house on
the night of the crime, he was behaving in ways
that didn't seem that messed up. He was obviously intoxicated,
but he was able to walk into the house under
(22:56):
his own steam. He was able to take off his shirt.
He was able to stitch up the severe cut that
he had sustained on one hand using thread and needles
that Andrea Reid provided him. Her testimony was a blow
for the defense. Harold Comer, who happened to be a
former prosecutor, was Hank's court appointed defense attorney. Comer argued
(23:17):
that Hank survived the attacks because the perpetrator didn't perceive
him as a threat in his condition. He also argued
that Hank's pre existing injury had left his right hand
with nerve and tissue damage. He did not have the
strength to carry out these brutal murders. William T. Lowry,
a forensic toxicologist for the defense, also said that it
was quote highly improbable that Hank could have committed the
(23:41):
murders based on how intoxicated. He was. In a later
AFFI David he added to his argument. He said, quote
Mr Skinner at best would have been in a stuporous state,
barely able to stand without assistance, and completely without the
physical coordination or mental acuity required to commit these murder
by strangulation, beating, and stabbing end quote. According to Dr Lowry,
(24:06):
Hank was likely exerting whatever strength and energy he had
just to stand up and walk. Based on Hank's bloody
handprints around the walls of the house and his inability
to stand for a photo at the police station, this
was likely the case. Hank's defense attorney also presented Twilight's uncle,
Robert Dennell, as an alternate suspect, but he failed to
(24:26):
make a strong case of reasonable doubt for Hank, and
on March eighteenth, the jury deliberated for only two and
a half hours before finding Hank guilty. Five days later,
they handed him a death sentence. And I just can't
believe they're done is to me because I'm innocent and
they know they knew I was innocent before they arrested me.
(25:05):
The fact that the country in the Western world still
executed citizens is beyond shocking. This is Sandrine A George Skinner.
I am French, spending half my time in Texas and
half much time in France. Sandrine and Hank have been
married since two thousand eight, and Hank is anxious to
get out of prisons. They can be together because of
(25:27):
the pandemic. They hadn't seen or heard each other for
almost three years until recently. So for three years, you
guys have just been writing letters. Yeah, that's correct. How
did you hear about Hank? And you know you're in France?
What interested you and somebody in in Houston, Texas? Well?
(25:50):
I had a friend in France who was a young
lawyer and he wrote his thesis on the death penalty
in Texas and he sent me a copy read it,
and I just of my chair. I couldn't believe that
the legal system in the US was so poor and
so flawed. Um, and you told me at the time
about an organization that was set up and run by
(26:11):
the death row prisoners in Texas and they had a
sort of a trimesterral newsletter. And he said, you know,
if you want to translate it in French, we could
distribute in France and get people, you know, a bit
more aware about what's going on there. And so I
did a couple of times, and he said, well, she
want to correspond with people there I'm thinking of free
(26:31):
guys I'm sure you'll get along with. And Hank was
one of those three guys. That's how we started writing
in nineteen ninety six, s Drines as They corresponded for
about four years before she went to visit Hank on
Death Row, a place where prisoners are confined in cells
alone and do everything alone. When she met Hank on
(26:52):
death Row, that's when she felt he was more than
just a pen pal. And you know, he's very smart,
he's very funny, is very strong, as you can imagine
with what he's been through. And we just clicked instantly,
even at a distance and in writing, and we clicked
(27:12):
even more when we met in what ways? I mean
you might think, you know, you'd see your world's apart. Literally,
I mean, you're a woman in France and he's a
man on death Row, totally different culture, different background. Well, yeah,
you know kindred spirits, I guess, no, no boarders. So
you guys have never been able to be intimate in
(27:32):
any kind of way. You've never even touched his hand? No, never,
What is that like? It's um, well, I'm not a
maso kist, but honestly, it is a torture. It is
a torture. It really is a torture because you look sometimes,
you know, when you even with your friends. I mean,
I don't know here in the US, but in France,
we are very philly, touchy. We need to be close.
(27:54):
We kiss, we hug, so you know someone's sent the ski.
You know, you know a lot of things. So basically,
our sensoryr memories of each other's are the sound of
our voices and our eyes and the look in our eyes.
And not knowing his skin, not being able to comfort
(28:15):
him is very, very hard m Through the years, Sandrine
has flown back and forth between France and Houston to
visit Hank on death row. Although she was not originally
involved in Hank's innocence claim, Sandrine eventually became convinced of
his innocence. And I read tons and tons of paperwork
(28:39):
and and to me it was obvious, I mean physically, scientifically,
for a number of reasons, it was very clear that
he was innocent. And indeed, the one key witness that
hanks fate rested on, Andrea Joyce read recanted her statement
here's robo in again. After Hank was convicted and said
to death row. Andrea contacted Hank's lawyers and said that
(29:02):
testimony wasn't true. I was really afraid because I thought
I was likely to be accused of being some sort
of accomplice or having assisted Hank in some way that
would put me into legal jeopardy. She was at the
time trying to regain custody of a child, and she
thought that that would certainly be unlikely if the if
the authorities were angry at her or believed she had
(29:24):
some role in this crime. So she she essentially went
to trial and exaggerated systemically and repeatedly, uh the things
that Hank was able to do. What she said in
her recantation was in fact, Hank was not able to
get into the house on his own. She had to
go outside basically drag him up the steps and into
(29:44):
the house. But when she recanted, Prosecutor Man was not pleased.
John Mann dragged Andrea Reid before a grand jury after
she gave her affidavit recanting her trial testimony and threatened
to prosecute her for perjury if she persisted, and to
her great credit, she she did not back away from
(30:05):
the recantation, and she said, I don't want false testimony
on my conscience, and so I'm going to stick now
telling the truth, no matter what the consequences for me
personally are. But I think that says a lot about
Mr Mann that he was willing to threaten to prosecute
her in order to keep her truth from coming out.
Hank filed multiple appeals, one based on Andrew's recantation, but
(30:28):
clearly none were sufficient for the court to free him.
He was only met with execution dates. Sandrin and Hank
kept up their relationship for nearly fifteen years before Hank
got another execution date in March. This time it was serious.
He was transferred to one of the cells near the
death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. They killed my first brand
(30:52):
March the second. They killed my second brand, Marcy eleven.
And he're gonna kill me March four, thirteen days later.
What is that? What is that like? When you when
you know you're going to die? It's indescribable. The last
seven days you don't sleep at all, You're hyper vigilant.
(31:13):
Your mind starts unrolling all of the things you've done
in your life that you wish you hadn't done, the
things you could have done better. I'm sitting there looking
at that journey that they're fixing to put me on.
I could see it through the door. They had the
door open. I could see the microphone, I could see
the straps, arm boards, and I was absolutely convinced I
(31:37):
was fixing to die. I just, I just knew that
I was going to die, because the courts, he just
give me the short shrift every time we had fall,
something like fuck you, you die, and so I felt
like that was it. Did you get a last meal? Yes?
I did, Papaye's fried chicken uh a cheese a double
(32:01):
cheese burger with onions and tomatoes and lettuce, and chocolate pudding,
chocolate cake, and a chocolate milkshake. And I ain't ever
been of it. Fortunately, Hank's execution was stayed by the U. S.
(32:25):
Supreme Court less than an hour before he was set
to be killed. Today, Hank spends his time as a
jailhouse attorney, helping other prisoners with the law and their cases.
And although he's in solitary on death row, incarcerated people
do have a right to provide legal help to one another,
so that's really his only social interactions. Hank has maintained
(32:50):
his innocence for nearly thirty years to this day. He
believes he was framed by Twilight's uncle, Bob Dnelle, and
at one of Hank's later hearings Danelle, his longtime neighbor,
Deborah Ellis, testified that she saw Dannelle in his yard
a few days after the murders took place. He was
giving a frenzied cleaning to his old beat up pickup truck,
(33:11):
taking out the seeds, throwing away the carpet, and scrubbing
the floorboards within a stringent cleaner. Ellis found his behavior
strange because Robert reportedly rarely cleaned his truck. Hank's theory
is that after Twilight left the party with Howard, Dannelle
followed them home. When Howard Mitchell testified at trial, he
(33:32):
said that when he returned to the party, Dinnell was gone.
Hank thinks he left to confront Twilight at home and
when he saw Hank passed out, he left him as
the sole survivor, knowing how that would look. And if
you remember, there was a men's windbreaker jacket that was
taken as evidence, however it was never tested, clearly has
potential evidentiary value. It's got blood spatter on the sleeves,
(33:57):
it's got sweat stains on the collar, it's got their's
on the interior lining. Over the years, Rob and Hank's
team have tried to test all the evidence they could,
but it was only once we got into court that
the state came in and said, oh, well, we all
know what happened to the jacket. The jacket is lost.
And it's also a little weird that it's the only
(34:18):
piece of evidence that they say is lost. Right, They
had all the other evidence of the same. They got
the blood swabs, they got the knives, they've got fingernail clippings,
they've got hairs, but somehow they managed to lose an
object as large as a man's wind breaker jacket. So
I'm not going to vouch for their claim to have
lost this jacket. I think they should still be looking
(34:38):
for this jack. DNA testing that was able to be
done on the items from the crime scene has been completed.
None of the results have implicated Hank at the murderer. However,
the court's ruled that even if the DNA testing and
results have been available at the time of trial, it's
not reasonably probable that the jury would have found him
not guilty, meaning the judge who decided the verdict would
(34:59):
have reached the same conclusion. Hank has appealed this to
the Texas Highest Criminal Court. It's currently pending a decision.
When I met with Hank at the Polunski death Row unit,
I asked him, do you wish you were killed that
(35:21):
night instead of winding up here? There have been times
when I wish that, because, especially in the first days
after this happened and I was in jail cell by myself,
it would have been so much better, you know what
I mean? All right? I just could not believe that
(35:44):
they were gone. I mean, the three people I love
most in this world, hears sons, were my best friends.
We spent all our time together, and so to wake
up one morning and there's all gone, and you know,
Survivor's guild. I didn't do this. There's nothing in the
(36:06):
world and could have made me do it. But I
felt so responsible because I was the king of that castle,
and instead of passed out drunk on the fucking couch,
I should have been awake and able to do something.
(36:39):
Can you envisional life outside of here? Sure? What does
that look? Like me with saying dream, do you think
you'll go to France? Absolutely, you're gonna get out of here? Why,
I'm out of this country? They let me out of here.
I'm so out of here and ain't fund you. Do
you think you're going to get out? Well? It takes
(37:01):
us crazy, and they've tried to kill me five times,
so I believe that they were very serious about that.
But I think with the evidence we have now that
there's no way they're going to have to let me go,
and they're gonna have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I
don't see any other way, you know. I think, after
(37:25):
all I've suffered that I deserve a chance, I deserve
to be with my wife. I deserve to have a life.
I deserve to be released and get the hell out
of here, and I want out. I'm telling you something,
you know. It was just so amazing to find love
a second time, and I love her endlessly, man, And
(37:47):
I mean we are really truly soul mates. Hank is
still eligible for execution, but he will not get a
new eight as long as litigation is pending. If you
want to help Hank, you can go to Justice for
(38:08):
Hank dot Org Forward Slash Help next time I'm Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling Carla Badet. They were telling me
that I abuse kids. It was painful because I love
this kit so much. She's thinking that you abuse somebody
(38:31):
so innocent, and then they were saying that I did that.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in our bio to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam and
(38:52):
Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea,
researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul with a dish
production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music in
this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
(39:15):
Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Freeling is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in
association with signal company Number one
Maggie, what did you take away from your recent visit
to death Row? Was there something surprising or you know,
was it kind of what you expected? I mean, I
think I was surprised that the person I was visiting
is still in good spirits after having multiple stays of execution,
(00:21):
being within twenty minutes of being killed by the state,
um having that last meal, the fact that he's can
still smile, make jokes, be excited for life still. I
don't even know how to put into words the way
that it made me feel, but I think it made
me feel like so many of my problems in a
(00:41):
daily basis are so insignificant, and I think that was
just so. The willpower is amazing. Well, Texas crazy, and
they've tried to kill me five times, so I believe
that they very serious about that. But I think with
(01:04):
the evidence we have now that there's no way they
they're going to have to let me go, and they're
going to have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I don't
see any other way from LoVa for good. This is
wrungful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Hank Skinner on December
(01:35):
thirty one, thirty one year old Hank Skinner was pregaming
for a New Year's Eve party. He was with his
girlfriend of seven months, forty one year old Twilight Buzzby,
and her two adult children, Scooter and Randy. Hank passed
out before ten PM from a potent combination of vodka, codeine,
and zanex. Despite his condition, Twila left for the party
(01:58):
without him. When she were turned, she was strangled and
blunted to death. Her two sons were stabbed to death.
Hank was the sole survivor and was instantly the prime suspect,
despite evidence that Hank was incapable of committing these murders
and that another more probable person of interest exists. Hank
has spent nearly thirty years on Texas death row awaiting execution.
(02:26):
I'm sixty years old. I've spent my whole, the best
years of my life in here, from thirty to sixty.
I want out of here. I shouldn't be here. I
never should have been here to start with. Hank Skinner
(02:53):
was born on April four, ninety two. He's the oldest
of four kids. I'm from r janr Okay. I was
born in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in
Franklin County, Virginia, which is the moonshine capital of the
United States. His dad was part of the local industry.
He was a foreign car mechanic as well as a moonshiner.
(03:15):
So he had three eight hundred gallons steam steals and
fired on butane. He made the best sugar looking you've
never drank and see moonshine. If it's made correctly, it's
a lot better than a storebault liquor. And so my
dad's stuff burned clear, and I mean he was about
a hundred forty proof. You can just get a four
ounce glass to do ice cubes sip on it all.
(03:38):
So did you just grew up drinking moonshine? When was
the first time you drank it? Six years old? And
I stole it from my dad. Growing up, Hank felt
like he had the best parents in the world. He
takes pride that he was named after his dad. I'm
actually a junior, but when my dad passed, I took
(04:01):
his name and somehow I'm just Henry Skinner. Hank Skinner.
Hank is a nickname for him. He loved Hank Williams, Sr.
And I love Hank Williams Jr. And Hank the third Yeah.
In the same way, Hank learned a lot from his dad.
Like my dad, he taught me how to slaughter holls
and slaughter cow and he worked for his dad too young.
(04:23):
Hank was a skilled laborer and free spirit. We were
just a bunch of wild, roumbunctious kids having a good time.
We had field keg parties and cow pastors. There was
bikers up there everywhere. That's who I grew up with.
But Hank also had a soft spot for the female
role models in his life. Like his mom and grandma,
(04:45):
Han grew up learning a lot from them, including how
to respect women. If you want to if you want
to find out anything in life, it really means something
to find out from a woman. They know how to
do everything, and so I can sew, I can alter clothes.
I used to make dresses for my little sister on
(05:05):
my Mama's song scene. I make quilts. I know how
to do everything. I know how to can vegetables, you know,
out of the garden. We used to do this every year.
The women are the ship. That's all there is to it,
you know what I mean. Hank also learned a lot
about women after he married quite young. I was nineteen,
(05:26):
My wife was sixteen, and we had just gotten married
because she was already pregnant. I had a daughter, Natalie Joe.
I wasn't so in love with her when she was born.
Natalie Joe was the light of Hank's life, but Hank's
marriage to Natalie Joe's mother was another story. He and
his wife struggled to get along. According to Hank, she
(05:47):
had substance abuse issues. She was strongly out on cocaine.
We had a big argument and fight going on all
the time, and so she's my daughter. Stayed with her.
That was the only thing that was acceptable to her.
My mama wanted her, but she wouldn't let my mama
have her. And so my wife was doing crazy things
(06:10):
when we do wors. So I just said this, I'm done.
I left, and I went first to Georgia. They're in Georgia.
Hank worked at a casino whose high earning customers were
catered to by women. And these are gamblers and their
high rollers, and so they want a woman on their arm.
You know. Hank took it upon himself to look out
(06:31):
for these women if they get two hands at like,
you know, I'm a guy who steps in and tells
him and I know, you know it can't be doing that.
And so have you ever seen that movie Roadhouse with
Patrick Sways? Because that's what I did. I was a
cooler just like he was in that movie, but not
in a bar in the gambling establishment. And so I
(06:52):
lived in an old, old ramshackle rooming house that had
three stories and had big stucko porch on top. And
so I could sit up there and drank beer and smoke.
We watch all the cars go by, holler at the girls.
I was the rooster of the him house. I had
it all in his mind. Hank was living the life.
So how did you wind up in Texas? So when
(07:14):
I came out here, I came out here because I
wanted to break out in the old field because I
heard about the old field was a good place to
make money, and I did. I made a lot of
money out here. I ended up moving to Papa. It's
an old field town. In Pampa, Hank found kindred spirits
and the lifestyle he enjoyed, But soon he was charged
(07:35):
and convicted for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and
was on parole. He started going to a a as
part of his parole, and that's where he met Twila Busby.
These two guys were picking on her, and so I
dried up her tears and I talked to her and
got her all right. She was just they were just drilling.
(07:56):
I mean the way they were mistressed. What were they
picking on her for. She's a whore, She's a sorry bit.
She drank, you know, she ain't never go sober up.
It was just horrible. So anyway, I ended up giving
her a round home. On the way, Hank asked if
she wanted to stop for a cup of coffee, and
(08:19):
we sit down and started talking, and he was like,
just like instantly, we've been together for fifty years. I mean,
she was so easy to talk to and and she
told me, she said, I have never met anybody like
you in my life. What are you some kind of magician?
And I'm like, why do you say that? She said,
I don't know what it Since I sat down and
(08:40):
you started talking, you know, I have just started feeling
some kind of way. Twilight and Hank started spending all
their time together. Twilight our soul mates. We could just
look at each other and know what the other was
thinking and what to say, you know, And whenever we
went to another people's house, she always said in my lap.
People said we were like two high school kids, and
(09:02):
we were so in love. She was a lot older
than you, right, that's not a lot. Twilight had two sons, Elwyn,
who went by Scooter and Randy was twenty, and Hank
took on the young men as his own. The three
(09:23):
of them had even worked together in a landscaping business.
Hank had a previous hand injury that left his right
dominant hand virtually useless, so the boys were a big help.
So I laid out the plans and showed them what
to do and how to do it, and they did
all the manual labor and we made good money. Everything
(09:44):
was going great for Twilight and Hank until seven months
into their relationship New Year's Eve, when it all came
crushing down. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
(10:06):
a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
in the lives of its employees and in the communities
where we work and live. In light of the compelling
need for pro bono legal assistance and in recognition of
a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
(10:28):
The a i G Pro Bono Program provides free legal
services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On
December thirty one, Hank, Twila, and Twila's sons were all
(10:49):
at home preparing for their evening celebration. Although it could
be a dangerous combination, Hank took some Xanex and drank
the better part of a fifth of vodka, and then
he accidentally started sipping Twilight's drink, not realizing that she
had spiked it with coding that in class look the
same as mine, and I grabbed it and drink from it,
(11:13):
and I had no idea what was in it. Hank
wound up passing out that night from the combination of substances.
He also says he's allergic to coding. It makes me sick.
It gives me vertigo. I can't stand up. Um, it
makes me very lethargic. UM. I lose my balance. I
(11:33):
can't talk well. It feels like my throne is constricting,
like my loans or full of cotton. I can't get
a deep breath. Do you remember feeling any of that
whore you're already really drunk, though I remember feeling all
of that before I passed out. Around ten fift PM,
Hank and Twila's friend, Howard Mitchell came to pick them
up to drive them to attend his near's Eve party.
(11:56):
When Howard arrived, he found Hank in a practically comatose state.
He tried to rouse his friend but got no reaction.
According to Howard, Hank was out cold, so he and
Twila left for the party without Hank. So but nobody
called nine one to make sure you're okay. We're all
a bunch of parties that everybody passes out. How many
(12:18):
times a year been no party and it's three or four.
Motherfucker's laying on larnd the corner and I've been passed
out before, but not like that. At the party, Twilight
encountered her uncle, Robert Denell. He was incredibly drunk, following
Twilight around and making sexual advances. They had previously had
(12:41):
a sexual relationship, although Twila's consent to the relationship was questionable.
She had allegedly told people her uncle had raped her
more than once. Twilok on uncomfortable, and Howard took her home.
They arrived back some time between eleven and eleven fifteen
after the What happened is not totally clear, but here's
(13:03):
how Hank remembers it. Sometime that night, Hank says he
was shaken a week by Scooter, and when I first
woke up, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't see where
the funk I was at. I couldn't, I don't say,
I couldn't think in words, and I'm seeing blood all
(13:26):
over the walls, but I didn't recognize it as Blum,
thinking what in the fucking people slinging all over this
living room? And so he got me up and he
gave me my pants and he told me put them on.
We got to get the funk out of here. And
he was already injured, yes, And I didn't know that
Scooter had been stabbed in the chest and stomach area,
but he was still managing to move around. I was
(13:48):
trying to save both of their lives, he said. He said,
we gotta get out of here, Hank. They're coming back,
and I'm thinking, who's coming back? What did the funk
are you talking about? Remember him saying they're yes, yes,
And he was saying it in a high streamed voice.
That's one of the things I remember. Scooter was a
(14:08):
big guy, six ft six and about two pounds, and
despite his injuries, he was able to lift Hank up
and help him out. Was anything registering at this point,
A feeling whatever has happened. It's bad, this is bad.
We have got to get the funk out of here.
(14:30):
But I wasn't thinking in words. I was just thinking
any emotions. Still on steady on his feet, Hank started
looking around. But when I did, I lost my balance
and fell face forward and the floor, And so I
remember looking across the floor, got up on my elbows,
(14:50):
trying to get up, but I couldn't do it. And
I remember looking across the floor and I could see
my girlfriend and all I could see was a mass
of her hair and blood from this black tinning the
edges of everything, and everything was looking alternately red and
green and I but her face was gone. Twilight had
(15:13):
been strangled and blunting to death. Someone had hit her
fourteen times in the head with the handle of a pickaxe.
When she was found, her pants were unzipped and her
shirt was lifted up. As Hank was still trying to
absorb everything Scooter was pulling him to go check on
his younger brother, Randy, and so we get in the
(15:34):
bedroom and he leans me against the dresser so he
can see about his brother. And I couldn't even stand up,
even holding on with the dresser, and I fell in
the floor. And this is something I remember. I don't
remember falling. I don't remember trying to get up, but
I remember looking up at him, and he's looking at
his brother, and he's got this horribly sad expression on
(15:55):
his face, and so I know he's dead. Randy had
been stabbed in the heart through his back while he
was asleep. He had died on the top level of
the bunk bed he shared with Scooter. That's when I
realized my hand was cut. And I didn't know how
it had gotten cut, but I had a vague memory
(16:17):
of somebody standing over top of me with a knife
and I threw my hands and up and they cut
my hand and it was burning, and so I didn't
know if that really happened or if I was just
dreaming it. Hank wasn't dreaming that his hand was cut.
That was real. He and Scooter moved through the house
(16:37):
trying to escape, but they were bleeding everywhere, and so
we got out into the backyard and we went through
the gate, and I didn't know where we're going, but
we had to get the funk out of there. That's
all I knew. And so um I fell in the
alley and he told me, Hank, I can't keep picking
you up. And I said, don't worry about me, just
(16:58):
go go get help. Go at help. And so I
remember seeing him walk off towards the street light through
the alley. Hank passed out again, So he didn't know
that Scooter had made it to the neighbor's porch, where
(17:18):
he finally succumbed to his wounds and collapsed. A neighbor
found Scooter and called nine one one, and he was
immediately brought to the hospital. They're am Scooter died. When
the police showed up and found out where Scooter lived,
they immediately went to the house. When they arrived, they
(17:40):
found a massacre. There was a trail of blood from
the fence to the front porch. The front storm door
was smeared with blood. Once inside, police found multiple bloody
handprints on doors and door knobs in the bedroom, kitchen,
utility room, and on the door leading out to the backyard,
along with bloody handprints and blood smeared throughout the house.
(18:03):
Police also found a black plastic trash bag containing a wet,
brown stained towel and a knife. They found the bloody
pickaxe handle used to blood in Twila, as well as
a knife that was on the porch. They also found
a man's windbreaker, and of course, the bodies of Twila
and Randy. Almost immediately the police started looking for Hank,
(18:31):
the living boyfriend. They found him at Andrea Joyce Reed's house,
where Hank had gone for help after he came to consciousness.
Andrea was a neighbor and she was also hank sex girlfriend.
Hank became the prime suspect. The reason he was accused
of the crime, I think is because in fact, he
was the only survivor from the scene, which was both
(18:52):
very lucky because the assailant didn't kill Hank, but it's
also very unlucky because it meant all the fingers were
immediately pointed at um. This is Rob Owen. I'm a lawyer.
I live in Chicago. For many years, I've practiced in
Texas doing mostly death penalty cases, and during that time
was when I became one of the members of Hank
Skinner's defense team. The police assumed that this was an
(19:15):
open and shot case. They assumed that he had to
be the killer. He had some of the blood of
Twilight Busby and the other victims on his clothing, for example,
and Hank says the blood very likely came from touching
Twilight to see if she was okay. I think that
was all. It was very easy for the cops to
assume that they had the right guy. Hank was taken
(19:38):
to the police station and booked, but he was still
so messed up from the alcohol and coding that he
couldn't even stand on his own while his photograph was taken.
The police had to hold him up. He was eventually
taken to the hospital. Hanks cut hand was treated, and
he voluntarily gave blood samples. Results of those samples were
used to calculate Hank's blood alcohol levels at the approximate
(19:59):
time of the murder. They showed that at the time,
Hank's blood alcohol content was almost three times the drunk
driving standard and his coding level was two and a
half times the recommended dose. And so this is Hank's alibi.
Hey couldn't have committed this murder. Are these murders because
he was simply physically incapable at the time of carrying
(20:22):
them out. Remember, Hank was virtually comatose when Howard came
to pick him up for the party, and Twilight came
home from that party only about an hour later. Hank
couldn't have possibly sobered up by the time the murderers transpired.
Hank could only have been able to sort of at
most stand and stagger like That would have been about
(20:43):
the sum of his physical ability based on the volume
of alcohol and codeine and his bloodstream. Police searched the
house for ten days without a warrant, but they failed
to collect key evidence, including not on bloody finger and handprints.
Vaginal swabs were taken from Twila, and despite one detective
(21:05):
urging him to do so, Gary Stallings, the criminalist who
was leading the forensics team, did not believe Twila was
raped and did not have the swabs tested. None of
the evidence directly linked Hank to the crime. Yes, his
bloody handprints were there, but he also lived in the
house and says he was attacked. There was also d
NA and at least one handprint that was not Hanks,
(21:28):
Twila's Scooters or Randy's. But despite all of that, Hank
was prosecuted for the murders. His trial began a little
over a year later. In March, he faced the death penalty.
(21:50):
District Attorney John Mann was the prosecutor in the case.
At trial, Man rested his argument on two key testimonies,
that of state witnesses Howard Mitchell and Andrea Joyce Read.
No actual forensics linking Hank to the crime were presented
at trial. In fact, Stallings, the criminalist, conceded that just
because the evidence proved Hank was there at the house
(22:12):
does not identify him as the murderer. Howard Mitchell testified
for the state and said that Hank was completely comatose
when he arrived to take them to his party. But
he also said that when Twila's uncle, Robert Dunnell was
harassing her at his house, Howard took her home and
that they shared a friendly kiss on the porch. Man
used Howard's testimony to argue that Hank killed Twila, Scooter,
(22:35):
and Randy in a jealous rage. Andrea Joyce Read hank
sex girlfriend and neighbor, also testified that she came in
and said, well, when he got to my house on
the night of the crime, he was behaving in ways
that didn't seem that messed up. He was obviously intoxicated,
but he was able to walk into the house under
(22:56):
his own steam. He was able to take off his shirt.
He was able to stitch up the severe cut that
he had sustained on one hand using thread and needles
that Andrea Reid provided him. Her testimony was a blow
for the defense. Harold Comer, who happened to be a
former prosecutor, was Hank's court appointed defense attorney. Comer argued
(23:17):
that Hank survived the attacks because the perpetrator didn't perceive
him as a threat in his condition. He also argued
that Hank's pre existing injury had left his right hand
with nerve and tissue damage. He did not have the
strength to carry out these brutal murders. William T. Lowry,
a forensic toxicologist for the defense, also said that it
was quote highly improbable that Hank could have committed the
(23:41):
murders based on how intoxicated. He was. In a later
AFFI David he added to his argument. He said, quote
Mr Skinner at best would have been in a stuporous state,
barely able to stand without assistance, and completely without the
physical coordination or mental acuity required to commit these murder
by strangulation, beating, and stabbing end quote. According to Dr Lowry,
(24:06):
Hank was likely exerting whatever strength and energy he had
just to stand up and walk. Based on Hank's bloody
handprints around the walls of the house and his inability
to stand for a photo at the police station, this
was likely the case. Hank's defense attorney also presented Twilight's uncle,
Robert Dennell, as an alternate suspect, but he failed to
(24:26):
make a strong case of reasonable doubt for Hank, and
on March eighteenth, the jury deliberated for only two and
a half hours before finding Hank guilty. Five days later,
they handed him a death sentence. And I just can't
believe they're done is to me because I'm innocent and
they know they knew I was innocent before they arrested me.
(25:05):
The fact that the country in the Western world still
executed citizens is beyond shocking. This is Sandrine A George Skinner.
I am French, spending half my time in Texas and
half much time in France. Sandrine and Hank have been
married since two thousand eight, and Hank is anxious to
get out of prisons. They can be together because of
(25:27):
the pandemic. They hadn't seen or heard each other for
almost three years until recently. So for three years, you
guys have just been writing letters. Yeah, that's correct. How
did you hear about Hank? And you know you're in France?
What interested you and somebody in in Houston, Texas? Well?
(25:50):
I had a friend in France who was a young
lawyer and he wrote his thesis on the death penalty
in Texas and he sent me a copy read it,
and I just of my chair. I couldn't believe that
the legal system in the US was so poor and
so flawed. Um, and you told me at the time
about an organization that was set up and run by
(26:11):
the death row prisoners in Texas and they had a
sort of a trimesterral newsletter. And he said, you know,
if you want to translate it in French, we could
distribute in France and get people, you know, a bit
more aware about what's going on there. And so I
did a couple of times, and he said, well, she
want to correspond with people there I'm thinking of free
(26:31):
guys I'm sure you'll get along with. And Hank was
one of those three guys. That's how we started writing
in nineteen ninety six, s Drines as They corresponded for
about four years before she went to visit Hank on
Death Row, a place where prisoners are confined in cells
alone and do everything alone. When she met Hank on
(26:52):
death Row, that's when she felt he was more than
just a pen pal. And you know, he's very smart,
he's very funny, is very strong, as you can imagine
with what he's been through. And we just clicked instantly,
even at a distance and in writing, and we clicked
(27:12):
even more when we met in what ways? I mean
you might think, you know, you'd see your world's apart. Literally,
I mean, you're a woman in France and he's a
man on death Row, totally different culture, different background. Well, yeah,
you know kindred spirits, I guess, no, no boarders. So
you guys have never been able to be intimate in
(27:32):
any kind of way. You've never even touched his hand? No, never,
What is that like? It's um, well, I'm not a
maso kist, but honestly, it is a torture. It is
a torture. It really is a torture because you look sometimes,
you know, when you even with your friends. I mean,
I don't know here in the US, but in France,
we are very philly, touchy. We need to be close.
(27:54):
We kiss, we hug, so you know someone's sent the ski.
You know, you know a lot of things. So basically,
our sensoryr memories of each other's are the sound of
our voices and our eyes and the look in our eyes.
And not knowing his skin, not being able to comfort
(28:15):
him is very, very hard m Through the years, Sandrine
has flown back and forth between France and Houston to
visit Hank on death row. Although she was not originally
involved in Hank's innocence claim, Sandrine eventually became convinced of
his innocence. And I read tons and tons of paperwork
(28:39):
and and to me it was obvious, I mean physically, scientifically,
for a number of reasons, it was very clear that
he was innocent. And indeed, the one key witness that
hanks fate rested on, Andrea Joyce read recanted her statement
here's robo in again. After Hank was convicted and said
to death row. Andrea contacted Hank's lawyers and said that
(29:02):
testimony wasn't true. I was really afraid because I thought
I was likely to be accused of being some sort
of accomplice or having assisted Hank in some way that
would put me into legal jeopardy. She was at the
time trying to regain custody of a child, and she
thought that that would certainly be unlikely if the if
the authorities were angry at her or believed she had
(29:24):
some role in this crime. So she she essentially went
to trial and exaggerated systemically and repeatedly, uh the things
that Hank was able to do. What she said in
her recantation was in fact, Hank was not able to
get into the house on his own. She had to
go outside basically drag him up the steps and into
(29:44):
the house. But when she recanted, Prosecutor Man was not pleased.
John Mann dragged Andrea Reid before a grand jury after
she gave her affidavit recanting her trial testimony and threatened
to prosecute her for perjury if she persisted, and to
her great credit, she she did not back away from
(30:05):
the recantation, and she said, I don't want false testimony
on my conscience, and so I'm going to stick now
telling the truth, no matter what the consequences for me
personally are. But I think that says a lot about
Mr Mann that he was willing to threaten to prosecute
her in order to keep her truth from coming out.
Hank filed multiple appeals, one based on Andrew's recantation, but
(30:28):
clearly none were sufficient for the court to free him.
He was only met with execution dates. Sandrin and Hank
kept up their relationship for nearly fifteen years before Hank
got another execution date in March. This time it was serious.
He was transferred to one of the cells near the
death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. They killed my first brand
(30:52):
March the second. They killed my second brand, Marcy eleven.
And he're gonna kill me March four, thirteen days later.
What is that? What is that like? When you when
you know you're going to die? It's indescribable. The last
seven days you don't sleep at all, You're hyper vigilant.
(31:13):
Your mind starts unrolling all of the things you've done
in your life that you wish you hadn't done, the
things you could have done better. I'm sitting there looking
at that journey that they're fixing to put me on.
I could see it through the door. They had the
door open. I could see the microphone, I could see
the straps, arm boards, and I was absolutely convinced I
(31:37):
was fixing to die. I just, I just knew that
I was going to die, because the courts, he just
give me the short shrift every time we had fall,
something like fuck you, you die, and so I felt
like that was it. Did you get a last meal? Yes?
I did, Papaye's fried chicken uh a cheese a double
(32:01):
cheese burger with onions and tomatoes and lettuce, and chocolate pudding,
chocolate cake, and a chocolate milkshake. And I ain't ever
been of it. Fortunately, Hank's execution was stayed by the U. S.
(32:25):
Supreme Court less than an hour before he was set
to be killed. Today, Hank spends his time as a
jailhouse attorney, helping other prisoners with the law and their cases.
And although he's in solitary on death row, incarcerated people
do have a right to provide legal help to one another,
so that's really his only social interactions. Hank has maintained
(32:50):
his innocence for nearly thirty years to this day. He
believes he was framed by Twilight's uncle, Bob Dnelle, and
at one of Hank's later hearings Danelle, his longtime neighbor,
Deborah Ellis, testified that she saw Dannelle in his yard
a few days after the murders took place. He was
giving a frenzied cleaning to his old beat up pickup truck,
(33:11):
taking out the seeds, throwing away the carpet, and scrubbing
the floorboards within a stringent cleaner. Ellis found his behavior
strange because Robert reportedly rarely cleaned his truck. Hank's theory
is that after Twilight left the party with Howard, Dannelle
followed them home. When Howard Mitchell testified at trial, he
(33:32):
said that when he returned to the party, Dinnell was gone.
Hank thinks he left to confront Twilight at home and
when he saw Hank passed out, he left him as
the sole survivor, knowing how that would look. And if
you remember, there was a men's windbreaker jacket that was
taken as evidence, however it was never tested, clearly has
potential evidentiary value. It's got blood spatter on the sleeves,
(33:57):
it's got sweat stains on the collar, it's got their's
on the interior lining. Over the years, Rob and Hank's
team have tried to test all the evidence they could,
but it was only once we got into court that
the state came in and said, oh, well, we all
know what happened to the jacket. The jacket is lost.
And it's also a little weird that it's the only
(34:18):
piece of evidence that they say is lost. Right, They
had all the other evidence of the same. They got
the blood swabs, they got the knives, they've got fingernail clippings,
they've got hairs, but somehow they managed to lose an
object as large as a man's wind breaker jacket. So
I'm not going to vouch for their claim to have
lost this jacket. I think they should still be looking
(34:38):
for this jack. DNA testing that was able to be
done on the items from the crime scene has been completed.
None of the results have implicated Hank at the murderer. However,
the court's ruled that even if the DNA testing and
results have been available at the time of trial, it's
not reasonably probable that the jury would have found him
not guilty, meaning the judge who decided the verdict would
(34:59):
have reached the same conclusion. Hank has appealed this to
the Texas Highest Criminal Court. It's currently pending a decision.
When I met with Hank at the Polunski death Row unit,
I asked him, do you wish you were killed that
(35:21):
night instead of winding up here? There have been times
when I wish that, because, especially in the first days
after this happened and I was in jail cell by myself,
it would have been so much better, you know what
I mean? All right? I just could not believe that
(35:44):
they were gone. I mean, the three people I love
most in this world, hears sons, were my best friends.
We spent all our time together, and so to wake
up one morning and there's all gone, and you know,
Survivor's guild. I didn't do this. There's nothing in the
(36:06):
world and could have made me do it. But I
felt so responsible because I was the king of that castle,
and instead of passed out drunk on the fucking couch,
I should have been awake and able to do something.
(36:39):
Can you envisional life outside of here? Sure? What does
that look? Like me with saying dream, do you think
you'll go to France? Absolutely, you're gonna get out of here? Why,
I'm out of this country? They let me out of here.
I'm so out of here and ain't fund you. Do
you think you're going to get out? Well? It takes
(37:01):
us crazy, and they've tried to kill me five times,
so I believe that they were very serious about that.
But I think with the evidence we have now that
there's no way they're going to have to let me go,
and they're gonna have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I
don't see any other way, you know. I think, after
(37:25):
all I've suffered that I deserve a chance, I deserve
to be with my wife. I deserve to have a life.
I deserve to be released and get the hell out
of here, and I want out. I'm telling you something,
you know. It was just so amazing to find love
a second time, and I love her endlessly, man, And
(37:47):
I mean we are really truly soul mates. Hank is
still eligible for execution, but he will not get a
new eight as long as litigation is pending. If you
want to help Hank, you can go to Justice for
(38:08):
Hank dot Org Forward Slash Help next time I'm Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling Carla Badet. They were telling me
that I abuse kids. It was painful because I love
this kit so much. She's thinking that you abuse somebody
(38:31):
so innocent, and then they were saying that I did that.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in our bio to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam and
(38:52):
Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea,
researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul with a dish
production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music in
this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
(39:15):
Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Freeling is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in
association with signal company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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