July 20, 2023 • 40 mins
On April 5th, 1990, Bernhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81, were shot to death in their Atwater, OH home with a .25 caliber gun. Miles away, 18-year-old Tyrone Noling was involved in two non-violent robberies – in one, he stole a .25 caliber gun and in the second, it accidentally discharged, hurting no one. This gun, however, was not the Hartig murder weapon, and despite other, more viable suspects, Portage County investigators targeted Tyrone and convinced his friends to testify against him. All witnesses have since recanted, but after 3 decades, Tyrone is still on death row. Jason talks to Tyrone Noling and Brian Howe, Tyrone's attorney.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our original coverage of Tyrone Noling's case was released on
December one, twenty twenty one. Since then, there have been
some developments. This reissue comes with an update from Ohio
and Is Project staff attorney Brian Howe on where Tyrone's
case currently lies. In nineteen ninety, eighteen year old Tyrone
(00:20):
Noling lived with friends whose ages ranged from fourteen to
twenty in Alliance, Ohio. With no real adult supervision or resources.
The boys engaged in several minor robberies, including one where
Tyrone had accidentally fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol
into the floor and no one was hurt. The young
men were arrested and Tyrone and his friend Gary Saint
(00:41):
Clair pled guilty around that same time. One county away
in Atwater, Ohio, on April fifth, nineteen ninety, Bernhardt and
Cora Harding were shot to death in their home with
the twenty five caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had
several leads, including Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics
testing showed the Tyrone's twenty five caliber gun was not
(01:02):
a match to the murder weapon, and with no other
physical evidence or eyewitness accounts, Tyrone and his friends were
dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless, when the investigation failed to nail
the other more viable suspects, investigators turned back to Tyrone
and his friends, who were coerced into turning on one
another by lies about non existent evidence and the real
(01:22):
threat of the death penalty. His friends Joey Dallasandro, Butch Walcott,
and Gary Saint Clair agreed to tout the false narrative in
which Tyrone and Gary Saint Clair murdered the Hardings testimony
they all later recanted. However, without knowledge of the much
more likely suspects, and only presented with the false testimonies,
(01:43):
the jury sent Tyrone to death row, from where he
and the Ohioanists Project continue to fight to clear his
name to this very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(02:09):
back to wrongful conviction. This is a hard one even
for me, because this is one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical,
and I'm gonna say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of,
And of course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Noling.
Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over
(02:32):
thirty years, where he remains to this day and with
us today to talk about the case is a man
who knows it like the back of his hand, Brian How.
Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian,
I'm glad you're here, but Jesus, this is gonna be
a tough one. Thanks Jason, and Tyrone, I'm so glad
you're here with us today, even though I'm so very
(02:54):
sorry because of the reason why you're here and even
more so because of where you are.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So Tyrone, let's start by going back before everything that's happened.
What was your life like growing up?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I grew up in a small town outside of Kanton, Ohio,
in Stark County called Alliance.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I grew up in a one parent home with four.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Other siblings, and my childhood was like any other childhood.
Did sports, went to school, and as I got older,
I got in a little trouble, but for the most part,
life at home was pretty good. Turned eighteen and pretty
much found myself on my own, just hanging out with
a group of friends that I.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Had grew up with, and the group of friends that
you mentioned here. You're talking about Johnny Trandafair, Gary Saint
Clair and Joseph Dlasandra and Butch Walcott and the latter
three all play a part in this wrongful conviction. Now,
you all were staying together in the same house, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Didn't really know, Butch Wilcock. I grew up with Gary
Saint Clair and Joey Dallas Sandro. We lived pretty much
in the same neighborhood and knew each other since kindergarten.
Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house became vacant,
so we all just started congregating there.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
We were just hanging out. We were doing.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Dumb stuff, you know, bought pizza, chase, girls, stayed up late.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And Brian, I want to bring you back in here. So,
like Tyrone says, he was getting into some trouble, which
is what leads to the connection with this crime, right sure.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I mean the reason that Tyrone was on the radar
of investigators was that there were two burglaries that happened
the next county over the Tyrone was ultimately arrested for
completed guilty to and those robberies were what made him
a target in the Harding murder investigation to begin with.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Right, Tyrone and the other young men were involved in
some burglaries, and in one he did have a gun
that they got from another robbery, and the gun went
off accident and shot directly into the floor. But Tyrone
made sure that no one was hurt before running away.
I mean, this is not a guy who was out
to hurt anyone. He was definitely doing some very dumb things,
(05:14):
but not a violent guy. And he was arrested for
those robberies, pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison.
And that leads us up to this crime, which happens
fathfully around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth,
nineteen ninety, which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both
eighty one years old, were shot to death in their
(05:34):
own home. From the look of things, they had been
doing some spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting
at their dining room table. This isn't at Water, Ohio,
which is a rural town in Portage County.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And if you don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost
a stretch to call it a town. The people who
live within a square mile of this you could count
on your hands.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seventh, nineteen ninety.
At six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified
by dispatcher Kathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and
reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen
floor at a neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived
next door to the Hartigs for thirty years, asked him
(06:20):
to go check on them when she noticed their garage
had been opened with the lawnmower outside for almost three days.
There was no answer when he knocked on the door,
and their car was in the garage. He looked inside
and saw the heardgs laying on the kitchen floor. Now
ten twenty five caliber shellcases were found on the floor
of the Hartig home. Papers from the living room desk
were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes
(06:42):
were opened and had been rifled through. At this point,
Detective Kayley reported that they didn't seem to be any
signs of struggle from the victims. Mister Hardigs wallet was
in his pocket and the money was still inside, so
there was no force entry found in the house, and
it seemed as if there had been at least one
other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to
(07:04):
take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Sure, so, it's not a usual occurrence in at Water,
Ohio to have a double murder, especially eighty plus year
old victims. And so the Sheriff's department began investigating. One
of the first leads that they had, and this is
even as they are processing the scene, they get a
call from a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away,
(07:31):
and there is a person there saying that he lost
a twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. He
was looking for it, trying to see if anyone had
turned it in. He was worried that some kids were
going to find it. And the person is a man
named Dennis van Steinberg who lived in the area. Police
investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are sort
(07:54):
of pouring in. Right This is a big deal in
the county, it's a big deal in the city. One
of the tips they get again almost right away, is
from a high school student named Nathan Chesley, and he
says that my foster brother told me that he was
the person who had killed the Heartiggs. And so police
are investigating that lead as well.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, so right off the bat, they have some pretty
strong leads here, right, So what's going on with the
first guy, Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
did have a twenty five. I don't know where it went.
It must have fallen out of my car or something
like that around the time of the murders. He said
he had found it. So the police check the pistol
to the ballistics of the rounds recovered from the scene
and it's not a match. And so at that point
the investigation into van Steinberg sort of fades away. In
(08:46):
the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan Chesley's tip.
They go to his house, which is a woman who
had fostered a lot of sort of troubled teens in
the area. It's less than a mile and a half
from the scene. And you remember, there's not a lot
of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley did
(09:06):
to the victims in this case. And so the police
ask whether there's a foster brother around who they can interview,
and they're told there's a foster brother. He's only fourteen
years old. And they eliminate this foster brother pretty quickly.
In the meantime, they also get a tip from the
neighboring county, Stark County. Stark County has been investigating a
(09:28):
series of break in where a group of teenagers has
been going to various houses saying my car broke down
and I'd like to use your telephone. When they're let
inside the house, they then produce a shotgun and it
turns out to be a fake thirty eight caliber revolver
and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry, things like that,
(09:50):
and that turns out to be Tyrone Noling and his
co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with his co defendants
and they find a twenty five caliber gun, so now
it's very interesting to the Porge County authorities. They test
that one for ballistics and it turns out that it
does not match the one that was used in the crime.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, there's no getting around that. So at this
point the sheriff knows that these guys, Tyrone and his
friends are not involved in the murders.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
So at that point the investigation sort of stalls out
for about a year. The detectives are facing pressure, they
come up with another lead, this time they talk to
the Hardiggs doctor doctor Canone. The week before the bodies
were found, mister Hardigg told doctor Canone that he had
lent ten thousand dollars to an insurance salesman, that the
(10:40):
insurance salesman had failed to pay when the loan had
come due on April first, that something fishy was going
on with this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation
for why I refused to pay, and as soon as
he got off the phone with doctor Canone, he was
going to go sort this out with the insurance salesman.
The police start to look at insurance salesmen that the
Heartiggs had dealt with, and they find a man named
(11:01):
Lewis Leman. Lewis Leman denies having taken out alone, but
he was the insurance salesman for the Hertiggs. And what's more,
he had a twenty five caliber pistol as well. Unlike
the other two pistols that the police have compared, they're
able to look up the make and model and see
that the pistol Lehman had was consistent with the general
(11:23):
rifling characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house.
They asked Leman where his twenty five pistol was. He said, well,
I must have sold it. I don't remember who bought it,
I don't remember when I sold it, and I'm done
answering questions from you all. He refused to take a
lot of detector test and basically stopped talking to detectives,
(11:45):
and at that point the investigation had basically completely stalled out.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So this lead with Lehman, I mean, if this was
a movie script, you'd say that this is it was
too obvious. Right. What I'm trying to wrap my head
around here is this sounds like the investigators are just
bungling this at every stage and we haven't even gotten
to one of the craziest leads, and that is this guy,
(12:11):
Dan Wilson.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
That's right. Dan Wilson is arrested for a murder a
few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk,
put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night
in the trunk of his car, and set the car
on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement
across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every
(12:36):
unsolved murder that they had that included the Portis County
Sheriff's department. When they did that, they discovered something about
Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that
he was a foster brother of Nathan Cheese, the very
kid who came to them the day after the murder
and said, my foster brother confessed to that. When the
detectives followed up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley,
(13:00):
eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots
to Dan Wilson. They never bothered to interview Nathan Cheslin,
and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of
the house and who police now believe is a serial killer,
was known to them almost immediately after the murder, and
they let it slip through their fingers. He went on
(13:20):
to kill another woman.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
This podcast is brought to by Ohio Justice and Policy Center,
a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for people to
directly impact it by Ohio's criminal legal system. OJPC provides
free legal services to currently and formally incarcerated people. Through
its Beyond Guilt Project. OJPC works to free over punish
people who have rehabilitated themselves. Ojpc's Second Chance Clinic help
(14:00):
individuals with criminal records, remove barriers to employment and house it.
Ojpc's Human Rights in Prison project represents people who face
denial of medical care. In its twenty five year history,
OJPC has worked at the policy level and won numerous
victories in Ohio, including ending juvenile life without parole and
exempting seriously mentally ill people from the death penalty. To
(14:23):
learn more about Ohio Justice and Policy Center and how
you can support its mission, visit OHIOJPC dot org. That's
OHIOJPC dot org, Ohio Justice and Policy Center. We don't
write people.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Off, you know, at the very least. I think it
must have been embarrassing to the office that they had
this tip within days of the murder and they didn't
realize their mistake until Dan Wilson had committed another very
high profile murder. Right at the same time that that's happening,
(15:02):
someone gets a call from a woman named Marlene van Steinberg.
She is, I believe the aunt of Dennis van Steinberg again,
who was the very first person who they looked at
and who they eliminated after he turned in his weapon. Well,
Marlene says that in those first days of the investigation,
Dennis's father had come over to their house and asked
(15:23):
his brother, who is Marlene's husband, if he could borrow
his twenty five caliber pistol for a few weeks. And
when Richard van Steinberg asked, why do you need my
twenty five, the response was, well, Dennis had to get
rid of his because he was in some sort of
trouble with the police, and he needed a different one
(15:43):
to give the police, and so they ultimately gave it
to him, and that was the weapon that was turned
into the police and eliminated. What's more, Marlene says that
she called the police to tell them this during that
original investigation, So the police should have been on notice
that Dennis van Steinberg is turning in the wrong gun
(16:04):
for comparison purposes, and they still eliminated van Steinberg as
a suspect. So those two things are happening right back
to back. Dan Wilson comes to light and it comes
to light that they basically wasted a blistic comparison on
what they should have known was the wrong gun for
Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
So we have these incredibly powerful leads that should have
led them not towards but away from those four boys
because there's no connection between these nefarious characters and the
four kids. What happens next, So that.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Is when the Porridge County Prosecuting Attorney's office takes over
the investigation and they assigned their own investigator to the case,
a man named Ron Craig.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yes, Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From
my understanding, he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques,
for playing fast and loose with the rules in order
to get results that he wanted.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's right. Ron Craig was a person who the prosecuting
Attorney's office turned to who could crack this case open
through aggressive interrogation get results. That is what he was
known for at that time. If you look at where
the investigation was when they took it over, Dan Wilson
at that time was under indictment for murder. You could
(17:26):
not interview him without an attorney. Lewis Lehman at that
point was not cooperating. He had gotten an attorney as well.
Maybe the most logical place for Ron Craig to go
was back to these other four kids who had also
been eliminated through ballistics and try to see what he
could do in terms of interrogating them. And so he
(17:47):
started with Butch Walcott, who was sixteen years old at
the time.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, and this part it gets more and more disturbing
because they took these four young kids, and with the
very real threat of the death penalty, they were able
to scare these kids and brow beat them into saying
things that they knew weren't true because they weren't there
and they didn't know anything. And basically, as in other
(18:15):
false confession cases or false eyewitness cases that we've seen
over and over again, they were fed the information by
the police and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice,
either you lie and implicate your friends, or we are
going to send you to death row. Right, am I
missing ay saying no?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
And I mean for Butcher if you read the series
of interrogations and statements that he makes, at least my
impression is that he was terrified, and it's clear as
he's just trying to do his best. He continues to
insist he wasn't there, he had nothing to do with this.
He tells them everything they want to know about the
two robberies that happened in Stark County, but he says,
we never went to Fordage County. We never went out
(18:55):
to atwater. He doesn't know where it is. And that's
not an answer that ron Craig is going to accept.
So what they do is they send him to a
child psychologist who then puts Butch, the sixteen year old kid,
under hypnosis in order to recover what they allege our
repressed memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they
(19:18):
would ask things like when did the murder take place?
And Butch would say, well, it was not quite dark,
but it was not quite light. I don't know, maybe
somewhere in between. I just don't remember. And he would
give answers like that to every question, and even these
psychologists at the time that if we keep this up,
he's just going to say false things to try and
make the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it
(19:40):
didn't stop.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
It, right, And I want to also mention that this
detective Ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from his father.
This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying directly to
the kid. That's right, that he had hard evidence implicating him,
including a witness and DNA matches, right, so you know,
you can imagine what's going on in poor kid's brain,
(20:01):
where it's just getting completely scrambled. He's just given these
answers that don't make any sense. And let us not
forget that the tape recorder was only turned on when
Walcott finally made statements that had been fed to him
that were consistent with what they wanted to hear. Right,
that was when he implicated the subject of our show today,
(20:21):
Tyrone Noling. And then Craig turned to one of the
other kids, the Alessandro, who said he knew nothing about
the murders, but his own attorney convinced him and his
family that he should plead bargain to avoid the electric chair.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's right, Yeah, I mean once they can get Butch
Wolcott to come up with the story, the rest sort
of fall in line at that point. They don't need
to go any further. Tyrone's the main target, and he's
indicted for aggravated murder with capital specifications.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay. In addition to the other guys, Saint Clair pled
guilty to the Hertig murders as well. Right, he had
given into pressure from Detective Craig as well as his
own attorneys and its family, and he was understandably scared
out of his mind about the death penalty. And then
Tyrone Knowling is indicted initially for the murders in nineteen
(21:11):
ninety three. But this is when things get even weirder.
In June nineteen ninety three, the court entered a nol pross,
which means that the prosecutor or plaintiff states that they
will no longer pursue the matter, so they dismissed the case.
The whole thing should have wrapped up right there. That
should have been it.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well, that's right, And the reason that the case was
initially dismissed was that almost as soon as they had
made the deals, both Joey Delassandro and Gary Saint Clair
started taking them back. You know, it's one thing under
a lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered,
to sort of agree to it in the abstract, under
that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
(21:55):
Delessandro recanted asserted their innocence, We had nothing to do
with this. When Gary Saint Clair recant did in a
prison interview, said we lied, we were pressured, We had
nothing to do with this, and at that point I
think state had no choice but to gree to dismiss
the case and tyrone.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
This all has to be so crazy because you have
your friends and these guys you've known most of your
life saying things about this crime that you know you
weren't a part of, but you're indicted for it. And
then they dropped the charges.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a
lie detector test and it was placed on the prosecutor's
desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were rushing me
in the back of a courtroom with a judge saying,
you know, you need to cop out. I don't want
to sence you to death. And I'm pleading with.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Them back there and I'm telling them I didn't do this,
and so they send me.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Back and I'm talking to my dad on the phone
and I'm crying and I'm saying I don't know what
to do.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
And my dad says, did you do this?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And I said no, and he just said, well, then
you stick to your guns.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
And that's what I did, even though I knew the
osber against me.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So the next day I go back into the courtroom
and I stand up and the judge says, the prosecutor
wants to say something, and he just misses every charge
against me.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
And I can't even explain the feeling at that point.
I was happy. I wanted to cry, I wanted to yo.
I just wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I can't even imagine to have them trying to get
you to take a deal while they know their case
is falling apart, but they're still trying to force you
into it with the very real threat of death, of
the death penalty, and then to just drop it. It's
like you get dizzy from this, right, So what happened next?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
For three years almost I didn't hear nothing, and then
all of a sudden, the new prosecutor comes in, and
now they got Joey back on board. Once he realizes
all the time he's about to do on other charges
and decides that he's just going to make up some
stuff and remembers everything they want him to say, and
I'm being charged again.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Happens once again, Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here
with the election of the new prosecutor in Portage County
and Joey Dallas Sandro coming back on what's going on there?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Well, Joey at that point had been serving time on
unrelated charge and was sort of unhappy with his circumstances
and his sentence. He reached back out and explored the
option of what would happen if he did go back
on his recantation and agree to cooperate, which he ultimately
agreed to do. That is what caused the state to
(24:36):
reindict Tyrone. Knowing and now with both Butch and Joey Delissandro,
they were ready to reprosecute the case.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
So Tyrone's trial begins in January of nineteen ninety six,
six years after the crime. Right, so, Walcott, dallas Sandro,
and Saint Clair will call this prosecution witnesses. But the
former two boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent details,
but they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They said that
(25:05):
after the second robbery and their alliance Ohio neighborhood, all
four boys allegedly drove to Atwater, where Tyrone allegedly chose
the house to rob. Once they were at the Harding house,
Dallesandro or Walcott said they waited in the car while
Noling and Saint Clair allegedly went to the front door.
Some time later, according to Walcott and Dallasandro, Nolan and
(25:29):
Saint Clair came running from the Harding House and got
back into the car. Dalasandro testified that he allegedly smelled
smoke coming from Nolan's gun, and that Walcott said he
saw the gun smoking. They also said that Nolan confessed
to them. So, Tyrone, you're a trial and you see
(25:49):
your friends they're telling these crazy lies. Can you take
us back to that moment?
Speaker 4 (25:53):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I've known these guys for all my life and for
them just to disregard my life life and just to
sit up and they couldn't even look me in the face.
They just kept their eyes on the prosecutor. And I
wanted to get up and screen. I wanted to ask,
why are you doing this?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And so dallas Andre and Walcott are saying these things.
But Saint Clair decides not to lie for the state anymore.
He recanted his statement before trial and again courageously did
it again on the stand. He denied going to Atwater
and committing the murders. And then he was declared a
hostile witness. And get this, the state read the entirety
(26:34):
of his prior statement to the jury, which when I
was reading about this case, I was like, how can
that even for me? That seems beyond the pale. So Brian,
what did the defense attorney say, I mean the other suspect?
What about the other suspects?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, all of these plausible and I think likely ultimate
suspects who the police had originally investigated and who the
police hadn't really excluded. None of those names came up
during Tyrone's original trial, and it's plausible to believe that
it's because that information wasn't turned over to the defense
(27:12):
at the time of trial. There was only one theory
ever presented to the jury about who committed the crime,
and there were problems with that theory. There were holes
in that theory. You remember, the twenty five caliber gun
that Tyrone and his friends had taken in the prior
robbery was still excluded. It was not the murder weapon.
So they just had to come up with another story
about how they must have had a second twenty five
(27:32):
caliber gun and they must have picked it up somewhere
and then they got rid of it somewhere. And there
were things about this that didn't make sense. But I
think the community was still really hurt and outraged by
this murder, and they were only really given one theory
as to what happened, and despite the problems in that theory,
(27:53):
he was convicted.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Huh So, Tyrone, when the jury went out to deliberate,
did you have any hope at all all the things
were going to go with your favor.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I always stayed optimistic, even though I knew the cars
were stacked against me.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
And I kind of remember when they came and got
me from the county jail.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
They was taking me up the steps and they were
lined up with deputy sheriffs all the way up, and
that had never happened before.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So my heart just sank at that point.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
And I remember being in the courtroom and the jury
coming in and one of the young ladies that was
a juror, she sat down and she looked at me
and she started crying, and I knew it was over.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Then.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I was scared to death. I'm about to go someplace
that they say is the worst of the worst. You're
sentenced to death, You're sentenced to dot people that have
committed haineus crimes.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
I mean, I'm still young man.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I don't know what to expect and I have no
choice because they're going to take me regardless.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
So you have a good team of attorneys filing post
conviction motions, but they were all denied. And it's important
to mention here that all of the prosecution's witnesses, all
of them, Walcott, Dallas, Angele, and Saint Clair, every single
one of them has since recanted their testimonies. Right. Then,
in two thousand and six, the Ohio Innos's Project took
(29:27):
on your case. Can you tell us how that came about.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, my investigator, Vicki buck Walter, was hired on and
she stayed with me after my conviction because she could
not believe what happened. She helped me contact people, write letters,
and we contacted the Enniscence Project. It was kind of
weird because Markazi showed up with a couple of students
and I thought I was just going there for an
(29:51):
attorney visit. I told me I thought he had the
wrong room, and then he proceeded to tell me who
he was, and I just sat down and I felt
away off. My soul has defined and they finally somebody's
going to help me. I had a lot of respect
from gratitude.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
For them in those ensuing fifteen years, bringing us right
up to the present day, they bound a ton of
stuff that made it seem like the doors of the
prison should have sprung open by now and you should
have walked free right out into the sunshine. But of
course we know that that's not how the justice system
works in Ohio or unfortunately in the rest of our country. So, Brian,
(30:30):
can you tell us what the Ohio in this Project
has been doing to fight this case.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Originally, the Ohio Innescence Projects was representing Tyrone just for
the purposes of trying to get DNA testing. There are
a few things that we know one were last touched
by the person who committed the crime, and that is
the ten shellcasings that were found at the scene, and
the ring boxes and other items that the perpetrator had
rifled through after the crime or during the crime. DNA
(30:57):
technology today is since enough to develop profile from even
just a few human cells, and so the hope was
that if we were able to conduct DNA testing on
those items, that you would develop a clear profile. And
if that profile does not match Tyrone Knowling or any
one of his co defendants, that's going to be very,
(31:18):
very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately, we were not
able to convince the court to allow us to conduct
that DNA testing, and so to this day that evidence
has not been tested. In the meantime, Tyrone's other attorneys
had filed a motion for new trial based on very
specific pieces of evidence that were uncovered at the end
(31:39):
of the original investigation by the Sheriff's Department, Specifically, first
of all, the Nathan Chesley tip that was uncovered in
Tyrone's co defendants files. Secondly, the statement by Marlene van
Steinberg that the gun that had been eliminated from Dennis
man Steinberg was not the actual gun that he had
on the night that the murder may have taken place.
And finally, it had been own at the time. The
(32:01):
police had excluded Tyrone and his friends from the cigarette
butt using DNA testing, but they had been concerned enough
about Dan Wilson as a suspect that they had tested
Dan Wilson against that cigarette butt and he was not
able to be excluded using the prior permit of technology
that was not turned over we believe to the defense
(32:23):
at the time of the original trial either now here
Today we are still waiting for an opportunity to fully
examine the prosecutor's files, to fully examine the sheriff's files,
to try to see what if anything, was in these
files that was subject to disclosure back at the original
trial in nineteen eighty five ninety six.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Since we last spoke, Brian Howe and the Ohio Ness
Project have been fighting Tyrone's case by trying to prove
that compelling leads and evidence had been concealed from the
defense and trial, specifically the insurance salesman Lehman, the Nathan
Chesley tip, Marlene van Steinberg, and Dennis van Steinberg's gun,
and the fact that primitive DNA testing had excluded Tyrone
(33:05):
and his friends from the cigarette butt, yet an alternative suspect,
Dan Wilson, was not excluded by zerology. All of this
can be cleared up by access to the state's file
in this case, and with a procedural rule from the
Ohio Supreme Court Rule forty two that took effect in
twenty seventeen, broad access to those files shall be granted
(33:25):
in the review of a capital case. And shortly after
the original release of this episode, there was an exciting
development right so in.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
March of twenty twenty two, the Eleventh District Court of
Appeals did order the tyrone be given access to the
States file. We are today discussing with the State how
to move forward on the Rule forty two access. Specifically,
there's an issue about the extent to which the defense
expert is going to have access to the state's file.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
So it's taken a year and a half of pushback
from the State to decide the conditions of the release
of these documents.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, and I think really more importantly, these were ques
were in years ago, and in fact, the original remand
order that said the prosecutor's file should be turned over,
I mean that was from twenty fourteen. It's I think
frustrating how long the process has taken. What he's asking
for couldn't be more reasonable. I mean, he's asking for
(34:17):
documents that the State says that they've already turned over
to him. Once all of that being said, I mean,
the state has agreed to now cooperate and move forward
with at least part of the access that was requested
and ordered by the Eleventh District. So I think, you know,
we're at a stage now where progress is happening.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And maybe the pushback on the progress is telling, because
if the state had turned over everything at the time
of trial, then why bother with the feet dragging here. Meanwhile,
he continues to sit on death row for a crime
for which DNA testing had excluded him and his friends.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
They tested the cigarette but originally at the time of trial,
and Tyrone and all of his co defendants were excluded
from the cigarette but they knew at the time that
Dan Wilson was a possible contributor or at least had
a consistent blood type, and decided not apparently to seek
additional testing with him at the time of trial. And
we believe the idea that Dan WILSLM was even a
(35:10):
possible contributor to this life when the cigarette butt was
covered up or at least not disclosed to Tyrone's defense
attorneys at the time of trial.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
How this even went to trial, let alone continues is
totally beyond me. The only evidence against him were the
coerced words of his code defendants who were fearing for
their own lives in the face of the death penalty.
And yep, you guessed that all of those guys have
since recanted. While this battle for clarity about this wrongful
conviction rages on. We will return now to the episode
(35:42):
as it ended in this ever twenty twenty one, with
Tyrone still in the same freaking cell as we continue
to hope against hope that Brian and the Ohioanis's Project's
efforts when Tyrone a new trial.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
If he were to get a fair trial to day,
with all of the evidence that we know in front
of a jury, there's no chance that he would be convicted.
And to be in a world where this is all
sort of continuing to happen, it's continuing to advance in
slow motion, I mean, it's surreal. Certainly. Our hope is
(36:18):
that he is successful in his current post conviction litigation,
that we're able to put this evidence finally in front
of a jury and give him a fair day in court.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Aymen to that, and Tyrone, for our audience listening today,
for someone who wants to see you have that fair shot,
which I'm sure everyone in our audience does, and who
wants to help and to get involved with writing this
wrong Is there something that you'd like to ask them
to do.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I would encourage them to reach out to our governor,
to reach out to state and local politicians.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
I would ask them to be a voice.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Somebody out there knows something, and they can go to
Tyroneoling dot com or they can get a hold of
the Innocence Cincinnati and is this project if they're willing
to help or to be a voice, because I need
a voice.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
I need that more than anything.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, we'll definitely have Tyrone Noling dot Com linked in
our bio, so please go there and learn what steps
you can take to help. And I also want to
mention there's a TV docuseriies called death Row Stories that
did a piece on this case last year called The
Lost Boy, which shows a very powerful case for the
actual innocence of Tyron. And with that we turn now
(37:30):
to closing arguments. This is the part of our show
where I thank you Tyrone Noling for just being with
us today sharing your story, and also Brian Howe for
fighting tirelessly. So again, thank you for doing what you're
doing and for being here and sharing this awful story
with our audience. And now closing arguments works just like this.
I'll kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off,
(37:51):
leave my headphones on, close my eyes and just listen
to any final thoughts you want to share. So Brian,
why don't you go first and we'll save the best last.
And that's of course that to you Tyrone. So Brian
closing arguments, well, you know.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
First, let me thank you Jason for what you all
are doing here. As surreal as it sometimes seems that
this is still happening, it feels good to know that
people care, that people are paying attention. It feels good
to know that there are people who care about what's
happening in this case and what's happening to Tyrone. Again,
our hope is that people understand what's happening, that Tyrone
(38:30):
get a fair day in court. And the other thing
is is that the fact that Tyrone is innocent, but
I'm personally one hundred percent convinced of You know, I'm
not familiar with every death row case in the country,
but I wouldn't be surprised if he were the strongest
case of innocence of anyone currently on death row. That
means that there's someone who is responsible for this crime
(38:50):
that was never brought to justice, And it means that
there could be someone out there right now who knows
something that may have, for whatever reason, not wanted to
come forward and I wanted to get involved. I really
truly hope that that person is out there and that
they will reach out and come forward with any information
that they might have about the hard and murders. There
(39:11):
is a man's life on the line, an innocent man,
and if people have information, I truly truly hope that
they'll come forward with it and allow it to be
raised and brought before the court.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
And now over to you, Tyron Well, I would like.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
To first thank you and again I think the most
important thing here is a voice. I'm an innocent person
on Ohio's death Row and I don't belong here and
I need help.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Now's the time. This is difficult.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
It's difficult cleaning for your life, especially when you haven't
been heard for a long time. So I would just
like to thank everybody and to encourage him again to
look into my case, to get involved, to be a
voice for me, and to help me get out of
here because I'm innocent.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
I don't want to be here, So please.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cleiburn,
and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied 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
(40:28):
on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
and association with Signal Company Number one
Our original coverage of Tyrone Noling's case was released on
December one, twenty twenty one. Since then, there have been
some developments. This reissue comes with an update from Ohio
and Is Project staff attorney Brian Howe on where Tyrone's
case currently lies. In nineteen ninety, eighteen year old Tyrone
(00:20):
Noling lived with friends whose ages ranged from fourteen to
twenty in Alliance, Ohio. With no real adult supervision or resources.
The boys engaged in several minor robberies, including one where
Tyrone had accidentally fired a stolen twenty five caliber pistol
into the floor and no one was hurt. The young
men were arrested and Tyrone and his friend Gary Saint
(00:41):
Clair pled guilty around that same time. One county away
in Atwater, Ohio, on April fifth, nineteen ninety, Bernhardt and
Cora Harding were shot to death in their home with
the twenty five caliber gun. The sheriff's office immediately had
several leads, including Tyrone and his friends, but after ballistics
testing showed the Tyrone's twenty five caliber gun was not
(01:02):
a match to the murder weapon, and with no other
physical evidence or eyewitness accounts, Tyrone and his friends were
dismissed as suspects. Nevertheless, when the investigation failed to nail
the other more viable suspects, investigators turned back to Tyrone
and his friends, who were coerced into turning on one
another by lies about non existent evidence and the real
(01:22):
threat of the death penalty. His friends Joey Dallasandro, Butch Walcott,
and Gary Saint Clair agreed to tout the false narrative in
which Tyrone and Gary Saint Clair murdered the Hardings testimony
they all later recanted. However, without knowledge of the much
more likely suspects, and only presented with the false testimonies,
(01:43):
the jury sent Tyrone to death row, from where he
and the Ohioanists Project continue to fight to clear his
name to this very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(02:09):
back to wrongful conviction. This is a hard one even
for me, because this is one of the most twisted, entangled, nonsensical,
and I'm gonna say evil, wrongful convictions that I know of,
And of course I'm referring to the case of Tyrone Noling.
Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over
(02:32):
thirty years, where he remains to this day and with
us today to talk about the case is a man
who knows it like the back of his hand, Brian How.
Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Brian,
I'm glad you're here, but Jesus, this is gonna be
a tough one. Thanks Jason, and Tyrone, I'm so glad
you're here with us today, even though I'm so very
(02:54):
sorry because of the reason why you're here and even
more so because of where you are.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So Tyrone, let's start by going back before everything that's happened.
What was your life like growing up?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I grew up in a small town outside of Kanton, Ohio,
in Stark County called Alliance.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I grew up in a one parent home with four.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Other siblings, and my childhood was like any other childhood.
Did sports, went to school, and as I got older,
I got in a little trouble, but for the most part,
life at home was pretty good. Turned eighteen and pretty
much found myself on my own, just hanging out with
a group of friends that I.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Had grew up with, and the group of friends that
you mentioned here. You're talking about Johnny Trandafair, Gary Saint
Clair and Joseph Dlasandra and Butch Walcott and the latter
three all play a part in this wrongful conviction. Now,
you all were staying together in the same house, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Didn't really know, Butch Wilcock. I grew up with Gary
Saint Clair and Joey Dallas Sandro. We lived pretty much
in the same neighborhood and knew each other since kindergarten.
Gary's stepdad had an accident and the house became vacant,
so we all just started congregating there.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
We were just hanging out. We were doing.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Dumb stuff, you know, bought pizza, chase, girls, stayed up late.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And Brian, I want to bring you back in here. So,
like Tyrone says, he was getting into some trouble, which
is what leads to the connection with this crime, right sure.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I mean the reason that Tyrone was on the radar
of investigators was that there were two burglaries that happened
the next county over the Tyrone was ultimately arrested for
completed guilty to and those robberies were what made him
a target in the Harding murder investigation to begin with.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Right, Tyrone and the other young men were involved in
some burglaries, and in one he did have a gun
that they got from another robbery, and the gun went
off accident and shot directly into the floor. But Tyrone
made sure that no one was hurt before running away.
I mean, this is not a guy who was out
to hurt anyone. He was definitely doing some very dumb things,
(05:14):
but not a violent guy. And he was arrested for
those robberies, pled guilty, and ended up serving time in prison.
And that leads us up to this crime, which happens
fathfully around the same time. I'm talking about April fifth,
nineteen ninety, which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both
eighty one years old, were shot to death in their
(05:34):
own home. From the look of things, they had been
doing some spring cleaning and they were shot while sitting
at their dining room table. This isn't at Water, Ohio,
which is a rural town in Portage County.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And if you don't know at Water, Ohio, it's almost
a stretch to call it a town. The people who
live within a square mile of this you could count
on your hands.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So let me set the stage. Saturday, April seventh, nineteen ninety.
At six fifteen pm, Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified
by dispatcher Kathy Rabino that Jim Rabino had called and
reported that there were two people laying on the kitchen
floor at a neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived
next door to the Hartigs for thirty years, asked him
(06:20):
to go check on them when she noticed their garage
had been opened with the lawnmower outside for almost three days.
There was no answer when he knocked on the door,
and their car was in the garage. He looked inside
and saw the heardgs laying on the kitchen floor. Now
ten twenty five caliber shellcases were found on the floor
of the Hartig home. Papers from the living room desk
were scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes
(06:42):
were opened and had been rifled through. At this point,
Detective Kayley reported that they didn't seem to be any
signs of struggle from the victims. Mister Hardigs wallet was
in his pocket and the money was still inside, so
there was no force entry found in the house, and
it seemed as if there had been at least one
other person sitting at the kitchen table. You want to
(07:04):
take it from here, because this gets weirder and weirder.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Sure, so, it's not a usual occurrence in at Water,
Ohio to have a double murder, especially eighty plus year
old victims. And so the Sheriff's department began investigating. One
of the first leads that they had, and this is
even as they are processing the scene, they get a
call from a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away,
(07:31):
and there is a person there saying that he lost
a twenty five caliber pistol there on Friday night. He
was looking for it, trying to see if anyone had
turned it in. He was worried that some kids were
going to find it. And the person is a man
named Dennis van Steinberg who lived in the area. Police
investigate that, but while they're doing that, leads are sort
(07:54):
of pouring in. Right This is a big deal in
the county, it's a big deal in the city. One
of the tips they get again almost right away, is
from a high school student named Nathan Chesley, and he
says that my foster brother told me that he was
the person who had killed the Heartiggs. And so police
are investigating that lead as well.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, so right off the bat, they have some pretty
strong leads here, right, So what's going on with the
first guy, Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
did have a twenty five. I don't know where it went.
It must have fallen out of my car or something
like that around the time of the murders. He said
he had found it. So the police check the pistol
to the ballistics of the rounds recovered from the scene
and it's not a match. And so at that point
the investigation into van Steinberg sort of fades away. In
(08:46):
the meantime, a police have followed up on Nathan Chesley's tip.
They go to his house, which is a woman who
had fostered a lot of sort of troubled teens in
the area. It's less than a mile and a half
from the scene. And you remember, there's not a lot
of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley did
(09:06):
to the victims in this case. And so the police
ask whether there's a foster brother around who they can interview,
and they're told there's a foster brother. He's only fourteen
years old. And they eliminate this foster brother pretty quickly.
In the meantime, they also get a tip from the
neighboring county, Stark County. Stark County has been investigating a
(09:28):
series of break in where a group of teenagers has
been going to various houses saying my car broke down
and I'd like to use your telephone. When they're let
inside the house, they then produce a shotgun and it
turns out to be a fake thirty eight caliber revolver
and they take various valuables VCRs, jewelry, things like that,
(09:50):
and that turns out to be Tyrone Noling and his
co defendants. So Tyrone is arrested with his co defendants
and they find a twenty five caliber gun, so now
it's very interesting to the Porge County authorities. They test
that one for ballistics and it turns out that it
does not match the one that was used in the crime.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, there's no getting around that. So at this
point the sheriff knows that these guys, Tyrone and his
friends are not involved in the murders.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
So at that point the investigation sort of stalls out
for about a year. The detectives are facing pressure, they
come up with another lead, this time they talk to
the Hardiggs doctor doctor Canone. The week before the bodies
were found, mister Hardigg told doctor Canone that he had
lent ten thousand dollars to an insurance salesman, that the
(10:40):
insurance salesman had failed to pay when the loan had
come due on April first, that something fishy was going
on with this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation
for why I refused to pay, and as soon as
he got off the phone with doctor Canone, he was
going to go sort this out with the insurance salesman.
The police start to look at insurance salesmen that the
Heartiggs had dealt with, and they find a man named
(11:01):
Lewis Leman. Lewis Leman denies having taken out alone, but
he was the insurance salesman for the Hertiggs. And what's more,
he had a twenty five caliber pistol as well. Unlike
the other two pistols that the police have compared, they're
able to look up the make and model and see
that the pistol Lehman had was consistent with the general
(11:23):
rifling characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house.
They asked Leman where his twenty five pistol was. He said, well,
I must have sold it. I don't remember who bought it,
I don't remember when I sold it, and I'm done
answering questions from you all. He refused to take a
lot of detector test and basically stopped talking to detectives,
(11:45):
and at that point the investigation had basically completely stalled out.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So this lead with Lehman, I mean, if this was
a movie script, you'd say that this is it was
too obvious. Right. What I'm trying to wrap my head
around here is this sounds like the investigators are just
bungling this at every stage and we haven't even gotten
to one of the craziest leads, and that is this guy,
(12:11):
Dan Wilson.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
That's right. Dan Wilson is arrested for a murder a
few counties over in northern Ohio. Dan had gotten drunk,
put a young woman that he'd met earlier that night
in the trunk of his car, and set the car
on fire. This was very big news, and law enforcement
across northeast Ohio started looking at Dan for basically every
(12:36):
unsolved murder that they had that included the Portis County
Sheriff's department. When they did that, they discovered something about
Dan Wilson that they'd missed earlier, and that is that
he was a foster brother of Nathan Cheese, the very
kid who came to them the day after the murder
and said, my foster brother confessed to that. When the
detectives followed up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley,
(13:00):
eliminated the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots
to Dan Wilson. They never bothered to interview Nathan Cheslin,
and so Dan Wilson, who lived within a mile of
the house and who police now believe is a serial killer,
was known to them almost immediately after the murder, and
they let it slip through their fingers. He went on
(13:20):
to kill another woman.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
This podcast is brought to by Ohio Justice and Policy Center,
a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for people to
directly impact it by Ohio's criminal legal system. OJPC provides
free legal services to currently and formally incarcerated people. Through
its Beyond Guilt Project. OJPC works to free over punish
people who have rehabilitated themselves. Ojpc's Second Chance Clinic help
(14:00):
individuals with criminal records, remove barriers to employment and house it.
Ojpc's Human Rights in Prison project represents people who face
denial of medical care. In its twenty five year history,
OJPC has worked at the policy level and won numerous
victories in Ohio, including ending juvenile life without parole and
exempting seriously mentally ill people from the death penalty. To
(14:23):
learn more about Ohio Justice and Policy Center and how
you can support its mission, visit OHIOJPC dot org. That's
OHIOJPC dot org, Ohio Justice and Policy Center. We don't
write people.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Off, you know, at the very least. I think it
must have been embarrassing to the office that they had
this tip within days of the murder and they didn't
realize their mistake until Dan Wilson had committed another very
high profile murder. Right at the same time that that's happening,
(15:02):
someone gets a call from a woman named Marlene van Steinberg.
She is, I believe the aunt of Dennis van Steinberg again,
who was the very first person who they looked at
and who they eliminated after he turned in his weapon. Well,
Marlene says that in those first days of the investigation,
Dennis's father had come over to their house and asked
(15:23):
his brother, who is Marlene's husband, if he could borrow
his twenty five caliber pistol for a few weeks. And
when Richard van Steinberg asked, why do you need my
twenty five, the response was, well, Dennis had to get
rid of his because he was in some sort of
trouble with the police, and he needed a different one
(15:43):
to give the police, and so they ultimately gave it
to him, and that was the weapon that was turned
into the police and eliminated. What's more, Marlene says that
she called the police to tell them this during that
original investigation, So the police should have been on notice
that Dennis van Steinberg is turning in the wrong gun
(16:04):
for comparison purposes, and they still eliminated van Steinberg as
a suspect. So those two things are happening right back
to back. Dan Wilson comes to light and it comes
to light that they basically wasted a blistic comparison on
what they should have known was the wrong gun for
Dennis van Steinberg.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
So we have these incredibly powerful leads that should have
led them not towards but away from those four boys
because there's no connection between these nefarious characters and the
four kids. What happens next, So that.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Is when the Porridge County Prosecuting Attorney's office takes over
the investigation and they assigned their own investigator to the case,
a man named Ron Craig.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yes, Ron Craig, let's not skip over this character. From
my understanding, he was known for his extremely aggressive interrogation techniques,
for playing fast and loose with the rules in order
to get results that he wanted.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's right. Ron Craig was a person who the prosecuting
Attorney's office turned to who could crack this case open
through aggressive interrogation get results. That is what he was
known for at that time. If you look at where
the investigation was when they took it over, Dan Wilson
at that time was under indictment for murder. You could
(17:26):
not interview him without an attorney. Lewis Lehman at that
point was not cooperating. He had gotten an attorney as well.
Maybe the most logical place for Ron Craig to go
was back to these other four kids who had also
been eliminated through ballistics and try to see what he
could do in terms of interrogating them. And so he
(17:47):
started with Butch Walcott, who was sixteen years old at
the time.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, and this part it gets more and more disturbing
because they took these four young kids, and with the
very real threat of the death penalty, they were able
to scare these kids and brow beat them into saying
things that they knew weren't true because they weren't there
and they didn't know anything. And basically, as in other
(18:15):
false confession cases or false eyewitness cases that we've seen
over and over again, they were fed the information by
the police and then they were given basically a Sophie's choice,
either you lie and implicate your friends, or we are
going to send you to death row. Right, am I
missing ay saying no?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
And I mean for Butcher if you read the series
of interrogations and statements that he makes, at least my
impression is that he was terrified, and it's clear as
he's just trying to do his best. He continues to
insist he wasn't there, he had nothing to do with this.
He tells them everything they want to know about the
two robberies that happened in Stark County, but he says,
we never went to Fordage County. We never went out
(18:55):
to atwater. He doesn't know where it is. And that's
not an answer that ron Craig is going to accept.
So what they do is they send him to a
child psychologist who then puts Butch, the sixteen year old kid,
under hypnosis in order to recover what they allege our
repressed memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they
(19:18):
would ask things like when did the murder take place?
And Butch would say, well, it was not quite dark,
but it was not quite light. I don't know, maybe
somewhere in between. I just don't remember. And he would
give answers like that to every question, and even these
psychologists at the time that if we keep this up,
he's just going to say false things to try and
make the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it
(19:40):
didn't stop.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
It, right, And I want to also mention that this
detective Ron Craig made sure to separate Butch from his father.
This detective pressured young Butch Walcott relentlessly lying directly to
the kid. That's right, that he had hard evidence implicating him,
including a witness and DNA matches, right, so you know,
you can imagine what's going on in poor kid's brain,
(20:01):
where it's just getting completely scrambled. He's just given these
answers that don't make any sense. And let us not
forget that the tape recorder was only turned on when
Walcott finally made statements that had been fed to him
that were consistent with what they wanted to hear. Right,
that was when he implicated the subject of our show today,
(20:21):
Tyrone Noling. And then Craig turned to one of the
other kids, the Alessandro, who said he knew nothing about
the murders, but his own attorney convinced him and his
family that he should plead bargain to avoid the electric chair.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's right, Yeah, I mean once they can get Butch
Wolcott to come up with the story, the rest sort
of fall in line at that point. They don't need
to go any further. Tyrone's the main target, and he's
indicted for aggravated murder with capital specifications.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay. In addition to the other guys, Saint Clair pled
guilty to the Hertig murders as well. Right, he had
given into pressure from Detective Craig as well as his
own attorneys and its family, and he was understandably scared
out of his mind about the death penalty. And then
Tyrone Knowling is indicted initially for the murders in nineteen
(21:11):
ninety three. But this is when things get even weirder.
In June nineteen ninety three, the court entered a nol pross,
which means that the prosecutor or plaintiff states that they
will no longer pursue the matter, so they dismissed the case.
The whole thing should have wrapped up right there. That
should have been it.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well, that's right, And the reason that the case was
initially dismissed was that almost as soon as they had
made the deals, both Joey Delassandro and Gary Saint Clair
started taking them back. You know, it's one thing under
a lot of pressure, under threats, with deals being offered,
to sort of agree to it in the abstract, under
that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
(21:55):
Delessandro recanted asserted their innocence, We had nothing to do
with this. When Gary Saint Clair recant did in a
prison interview, said we lied, we were pressured, We had
nothing to do with this, and at that point I
think state had no choice but to gree to dismiss
the case and tyrone.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
This all has to be so crazy because you have
your friends and these guys you've known most of your
life saying things about this crime that you know you
weren't a part of, but you're indicted for it. And
then they dropped the charges.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
see it coming. They offered a deal. I took a
lie detector test and it was placed on the prosecutor's
desk on that Friday. By Monday, they were rushing me
in the back of a courtroom with a judge saying,
you know, you need to cop out. I don't want
to sence you to death. And I'm pleading with.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Them back there and I'm telling them I didn't do this,
and so they send me.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Back and I'm talking to my dad on the phone
and I'm crying and I'm saying I don't know what
to do.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
And my dad says, did you do this?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And I said no, and he just said, well, then
you stick to your guns.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
And that's what I did, even though I knew the
osber against me.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So the next day I go back into the courtroom
and I stand up and the judge says, the prosecutor
wants to say something, and he just misses every charge
against me.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
And I can't even explain the feeling at that point.
I was happy. I wanted to cry, I wanted to yo.
I just wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I can't even imagine to have them trying to get
you to take a deal while they know their case
is falling apart, but they're still trying to force you
into it with the very real threat of death, of
the death penalty, and then to just drop it. It's
like you get dizzy from this, right, So what happened next?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
For three years almost I didn't hear nothing, and then
all of a sudden, the new prosecutor comes in, and
now they got Joey back on board. Once he realizes
all the time he's about to do on other charges
and decides that he's just going to make up some
stuff and remembers everything they want him to say, and
I'm being charged again.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Happens once again, Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here
with the election of the new prosecutor in Portage County
and Joey Dallas Sandro coming back on what's going on there?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Well, Joey at that point had been serving time on
unrelated charge and was sort of unhappy with his circumstances
and his sentence. He reached back out and explored the
option of what would happen if he did go back
on his recantation and agree to cooperate, which he ultimately
agreed to do. That is what caused the state to
(24:36):
reindict Tyrone. Knowing and now with both Butch and Joey Delissandro,
they were ready to reprosecute the case.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
So Tyrone's trial begins in January of nineteen ninety six,
six years after the crime. Right, so, Walcott, dallas Sandro,
and Saint Clair will call this prosecution witnesses. But the
former two boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent details,
but they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They said that
(25:05):
after the second robbery and their alliance Ohio neighborhood, all
four boys allegedly drove to Atwater, where Tyrone allegedly chose
the house to rob. Once they were at the Harding house,
Dallesandro or Walcott said they waited in the car while
Noling and Saint Clair allegedly went to the front door.
Some time later, according to Walcott and Dallasandro, Nolan and
(25:29):
Saint Clair came running from the Harding House and got
back into the car. Dalasandro testified that he allegedly smelled
smoke coming from Nolan's gun, and that Walcott said he
saw the gun smoking. They also said that Nolan confessed
to them. So, Tyrone, you're a trial and you see
(25:49):
your friends they're telling these crazy lies. Can you take
us back to that moment?
Speaker 4 (25:53):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I've known these guys for all my life and for
them just to disregard my life life and just to
sit up and they couldn't even look me in the face.
They just kept their eyes on the prosecutor. And I
wanted to get up and screen. I wanted to ask,
why are you doing this?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And so dallas Andre and Walcott are saying these things.
But Saint Clair decides not to lie for the state anymore.
He recanted his statement before trial and again courageously did
it again on the stand. He denied going to Atwater
and committing the murders. And then he was declared a
hostile witness. And get this, the state read the entirety
(26:34):
of his prior statement to the jury, which when I
was reading about this case, I was like, how can
that even for me? That seems beyond the pale. So Brian,
what did the defense attorney say, I mean the other suspect?
What about the other suspects?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, all of these plausible and I think likely ultimate
suspects who the police had originally investigated and who the
police hadn't really excluded. None of those names came up
during Tyrone's original trial, and it's plausible to believe that
it's because that information wasn't turned over to the defense
(27:12):
at the time of trial. There was only one theory
ever presented to the jury about who committed the crime,
and there were problems with that theory. There were holes
in that theory. You remember, the twenty five caliber gun
that Tyrone and his friends had taken in the prior
robbery was still excluded. It was not the murder weapon.
So they just had to come up with another story
about how they must have had a second twenty five
(27:32):
caliber gun and they must have picked it up somewhere
and then they got rid of it somewhere. And there
were things about this that didn't make sense. But I
think the community was still really hurt and outraged by
this murder, and they were only really given one theory
as to what happened, and despite the problems in that theory,
(27:53):
he was convicted.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Huh So, Tyrone, when the jury went out to deliberate,
did you have any hope at all all the things
were going to go with your favor.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I always stayed optimistic, even though I knew the cars
were stacked against me.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
And I kind of remember when they came and got
me from the county jail.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
They was taking me up the steps and they were
lined up with deputy sheriffs all the way up, and
that had never happened before.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So my heart just sank at that point.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
And I remember being in the courtroom and the jury
coming in and one of the young ladies that was
a juror, she sat down and she looked at me
and she started crying, and I knew it was over.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Then.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I was scared to death. I'm about to go someplace
that they say is the worst of the worst. You're
sentenced to death, You're sentenced to dot people that have
committed haineus crimes.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
I mean, I'm still young man.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I don't know what to expect and I have no
choice because they're going to take me regardless.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
So you have a good team of attorneys filing post
conviction motions, but they were all denied. And it's important
to mention here that all of the prosecution's witnesses, all
of them, Walcott, Dallas, Angele, and Saint Clair, every single
one of them has since recanted their testimonies. Right. Then,
in two thousand and six, the Ohio Innos's Project took
(29:27):
on your case. Can you tell us how that came about.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, my investigator, Vicki buck Walter, was hired on and
she stayed with me after my conviction because she could
not believe what happened. She helped me contact people, write letters,
and we contacted the Enniscence Project. It was kind of
weird because Markazi showed up with a couple of students
and I thought I was just going there for an
(29:51):
attorney visit. I told me I thought he had the
wrong room, and then he proceeded to tell me who
he was, and I just sat down and I felt
away off. My soul has defined and they finally somebody's
going to help me. I had a lot of respect
from gratitude.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
For them in those ensuing fifteen years, bringing us right
up to the present day, they bound a ton of
stuff that made it seem like the doors of the
prison should have sprung open by now and you should
have walked free right out into the sunshine. But of
course we know that that's not how the justice system
works in Ohio or unfortunately in the rest of our country. So, Brian,
(30:30):
can you tell us what the Ohio in this Project
has been doing to fight this case.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Originally, the Ohio Innescence Projects was representing Tyrone just for
the purposes of trying to get DNA testing. There are
a few things that we know one were last touched
by the person who committed the crime, and that is
the ten shellcasings that were found at the scene, and
the ring boxes and other items that the perpetrator had
rifled through after the crime or during the crime. DNA
(30:57):
technology today is since enough to develop profile from even
just a few human cells, and so the hope was
that if we were able to conduct DNA testing on
those items, that you would develop a clear profile. And
if that profile does not match Tyrone Knowling or any
one of his co defendants, that's going to be very,
(31:18):
very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately, we were not
able to convince the court to allow us to conduct
that DNA testing, and so to this day that evidence
has not been tested. In the meantime, Tyrone's other attorneys
had filed a motion for new trial based on very
specific pieces of evidence that were uncovered at the end
(31:39):
of the original investigation by the Sheriff's Department, Specifically, first
of all, the Nathan Chesley tip that was uncovered in
Tyrone's co defendants files. Secondly, the statement by Marlene van
Steinberg that the gun that had been eliminated from Dennis
man Steinberg was not the actual gun that he had
on the night that the murder may have taken place.
And finally, it had been own at the time. The
(32:01):
police had excluded Tyrone and his friends from the cigarette
butt using DNA testing, but they had been concerned enough
about Dan Wilson as a suspect that they had tested
Dan Wilson against that cigarette butt and he was not
able to be excluded using the prior permit of technology
that was not turned over we believe to the defense
(32:23):
at the time of the original trial either now here
Today we are still waiting for an opportunity to fully
examine the prosecutor's files, to fully examine the sheriff's files,
to try to see what if anything, was in these
files that was subject to disclosure back at the original
trial in nineteen eighty five ninety six.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Since we last spoke, Brian Howe and the Ohio Ness
Project have been fighting Tyrone's case by trying to prove
that compelling leads and evidence had been concealed from the
defense and trial, specifically the insurance salesman Lehman, the Nathan
Chesley tip, Marlene van Steinberg, and Dennis van Steinberg's gun,
and the fact that primitive DNA testing had excluded Tyrone
(33:05):
and his friends from the cigarette butt, yet an alternative suspect,
Dan Wilson, was not excluded by zerology. All of this
can be cleared up by access to the state's file
in this case, and with a procedural rule from the
Ohio Supreme Court Rule forty two that took effect in
twenty seventeen, broad access to those files shall be granted
(33:25):
in the review of a capital case. And shortly after
the original release of this episode, there was an exciting
development right so in.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
March of twenty twenty two, the Eleventh District Court of
Appeals did order the tyrone be given access to the
States file. We are today discussing with the State how
to move forward on the Rule forty two access. Specifically,
there's an issue about the extent to which the defense
expert is going to have access to the state's file.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
So it's taken a year and a half of pushback
from the State to decide the conditions of the release
of these documents.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, and I think really more importantly, these were ques
were in years ago, and in fact, the original remand
order that said the prosecutor's file should be turned over,
I mean that was from twenty fourteen. It's I think
frustrating how long the process has taken. What he's asking
for couldn't be more reasonable. I mean, he's asking for
(34:17):
documents that the State says that they've already turned over
to him. Once all of that being said, I mean,
the state has agreed to now cooperate and move forward
with at least part of the access that was requested
and ordered by the Eleventh District. So I think, you know,
we're at a stage now where progress is happening.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And maybe the pushback on the progress is telling, because
if the state had turned over everything at the time
of trial, then why bother with the feet dragging here. Meanwhile,
he continues to sit on death row for a crime
for which DNA testing had excluded him and his friends.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
They tested the cigarette but originally at the time of trial,
and Tyrone and all of his co defendants were excluded
from the cigarette but they knew at the time that
Dan Wilson was a possible contributor or at least had
a consistent blood type, and decided not apparently to seek
additional testing with him at the time of trial. And
we believe the idea that Dan WILSLM was even a
(35:10):
possible contributor to this life when the cigarette butt was
covered up or at least not disclosed to Tyrone's defense
attorneys at the time of trial.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
How this even went to trial, let alone continues is
totally beyond me. The only evidence against him were the
coerced words of his code defendants who were fearing for
their own lives in the face of the death penalty.
And yep, you guessed that all of those guys have
since recanted. While this battle for clarity about this wrongful
conviction rages on. We will return now to the episode
(35:42):
as it ended in this ever twenty twenty one, with
Tyrone still in the same freaking cell as we continue
to hope against hope that Brian and the Ohioanis's Project's
efforts when Tyrone a new trial.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
If he were to get a fair trial to day,
with all of the evidence that we know in front
of a jury, there's no chance that he would be convicted.
And to be in a world where this is all
sort of continuing to happen, it's continuing to advance in
slow motion, I mean, it's surreal. Certainly. Our hope is
(36:18):
that he is successful in his current post conviction litigation,
that we're able to put this evidence finally in front
of a jury and give him a fair day in court.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Aymen to that, and Tyrone, for our audience listening today,
for someone who wants to see you have that fair shot,
which I'm sure everyone in our audience does, and who
wants to help and to get involved with writing this
wrong Is there something that you'd like to ask them
to do.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I would encourage them to reach out to our governor,
to reach out to state and local politicians.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
I would ask them to be a voice.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Somebody out there knows something, and they can go to
Tyroneoling dot com or they can get a hold of
the Innocence Cincinnati and is this project if they're willing
to help or to be a voice, because I need
a voice.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
I need that more than anything.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, we'll definitely have Tyrone Noling dot Com linked in
our bio, so please go there and learn what steps
you can take to help. And I also want to
mention there's a TV docuseriies called death Row Stories that
did a piece on this case last year called The
Lost Boy, which shows a very powerful case for the
actual innocence of Tyron. And with that we turn now
(37:30):
to closing arguments. This is the part of our show
where I thank you Tyrone Noling for just being with
us today sharing your story, and also Brian Howe for
fighting tirelessly. So again, thank you for doing what you're
doing and for being here and sharing this awful story
with our audience. And now closing arguments works just like this.
I'll kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off,
(37:51):
leave my headphones on, close my eyes and just listen
to any final thoughts you want to share. So Brian,
why don't you go first and we'll save the best last.
And that's of course that to you Tyrone. So Brian
closing arguments, well, you know.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
First, let me thank you Jason for what you all
are doing here. As surreal as it sometimes seems that
this is still happening, it feels good to know that
people care, that people are paying attention. It feels good
to know that there are people who care about what's
happening in this case and what's happening to Tyrone. Again,
our hope is that people understand what's happening, that Tyrone
(38:30):
get a fair day in court. And the other thing
is is that the fact that Tyrone is innocent, but
I'm personally one hundred percent convinced of You know, I'm
not familiar with every death row case in the country,
but I wouldn't be surprised if he were the strongest
case of innocence of anyone currently on death row. That
means that there's someone who is responsible for this crime
(38:50):
that was never brought to justice, And it means that
there could be someone out there right now who knows
something that may have, for whatever reason, not wanted to
come forward and I wanted to get involved. I really
truly hope that that person is out there and that
they will reach out and come forward with any information
that they might have about the hard and murders. There
(39:11):
is a man's life on the line, an innocent man,
and if people have information, I truly truly hope that
they'll come forward with it and allow it to be
raised and brought before the court.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
And now over to you, Tyron Well, I would like.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
To first thank you and again I think the most
important thing here is a voice. I'm an innocent person
on Ohio's death Row and I don't belong here and
I need help.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Now's the time. This is difficult.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
It's difficult cleaning for your life, especially when you haven't
been heard for a long time. So I would just
like to thank everybody and to encourage him again to
look into my case, to get involved, to be a
voice for me, and to help me get out of
here because I'm innocent.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
I don't want to be here, So please.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cleiburn,
and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied 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
(40:28):
on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
and association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com