November 27, 2025 • 28 mins
In August 1987, the body of 44-year-old single mother of two, Sandra Lison, was found in the Machickanee Forest in Green Bay, WI. She went missing from her bar the night prior. An autopsy showed that she was strangled and evidence suggested she was raped. Investigators interviewed the bar’s patrons, including brothers, 32-year-old David Bintz and 31-year-old Robert Bintz. No evidence suggested their, or anyone else’s involvement, and the case went cold for four years. In 1991, Lison’s purse was found 40 miles south of where her body was found. Yet, the case went cold again for the next seven years. Meanwhile, David was incarcerated for an unrelated crime, and a fellow inmate reported hearing David, who is intellectually disabled, sleep-talking about Lison’s death, apparently talking about killing her with his brother. This so-called confession gave investigators the lead they needed to arrest David and Robert. Once in custody, David confessed to the crime while simultaneously stating that he was at home at the time and not involved. What’s more – DNA evidence exonerated David and Robert from the rape before trial. The prosecution just changed their theory though, and David and Robert were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of Wrongful Conviction contains discussion of sexual assault.
Please listen with caution and care.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
At five a m. On August third, nineteen eighty seven,
at the Good Times Tavern in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the
opening bartender discovered that the lights were still on, the
safe was open and empty, and the previous night's bartender,
Sandra Lyson, her car was still in the parking lot.
The following day, her body was discovered in a forest
(00:32):
about thirty miles north of Green Bay. She had been
fatally strangled, and seamen was collected in a rape kit.
Investigators interviewed people who had gone to the tavern that night,
including thirty one year old Bobby Bentz along with his
brother David. The case went cold for nearly twelve years
until David Bentz was in prison for an unrelated crime
(00:52):
and allegedly confessed to a cellmate that he'd killed Sandra
Lyson with his brother Bobby. This is wrongful Conviction. The
Fox Foundation is proud to support this episode of wrongful
Conviction and the work of After Innocence, a nonprofit that
(01:14):
helps hundreds of people nationwide rebuild their lives after wrongful
incarceration each year. Innocent people are released after spending years
behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. Nearly all of
them leave prison with nothing more than the clothes on
their backs, with no help or compensation from the state
as they face the steep challenges of rebuilding their lives
(01:35):
after wrongful imprisonment. After Innocence is changing that After Innocence
helps exoneries get and make good use of essential services
like health care, dental care, mental health support, legal aid,
financial counseling, and more. Since twenty sixteen, they've brought that
help to more than eight hundred exoneries across forty six states,
(01:58):
working tirelessly to ensure that no one released after wrongful
incarceration is left behind. Learn more at after dash innocence
dot org and join after Innocence to support exoneries as
they rebuild their lives. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm
(02:23):
Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this story takes us to Green Bay, Wisconsin,
where a bartending mother of two was tragically taken from
her children, while another mother lost two of her boys
to the system. And today Bobby Bent joins us, thank
you for being here.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
We also have this attorney from the Great North Innocence Project,
Jim Mayer. Welcome, thank you very much, and later we
will speak to his brother David as well. Now, Bobby,
you guys grew up in Green Bay, which is a
big sports town. Were you and your brother into sports.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
When we were We all got together and played to
the ball around, football, baseball when we were kids.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Were you too competitive with one another?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Well, we're pretty close together a.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Year apart, right, yeah. And who's the big brother.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I got old brother Eddie too, David the oldest brother
of me, Lauren.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
I was going to mention one thing if you wanted
some more filled in detail about their childhood. They did
live together on a farm, a foster home kind of
during their high school years, where they did a lot
of work on a farm. Is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
We would clean all the pens out and the gutter
and it was a rough childhood.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
From what we understand. There were substance abuse issues at
home that resulted in the boys moving to foster care.
But by the time of this crime, Bobby was thirty
one years old and despite suffering from intellectual disabilities, both
Bobby and David were doing well.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I was an East Side of Green Bay, and I
worked at a grocery store. I'm a driver, legad my
own car. I always went to work. I was a
meat wrapper clerk. I cleaned the meat room up really good,
and my boss really enjoyed my work. I had to
adopt for ten years.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And what was David doing at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Dave had a house on State Tree in Green Bay,
and he had a garage who worked on cars self employee.
He had an auto salvage business. I helped him to
pull motors out and put other motors in, clean them
out and junk them. And you sell cars to it.
I helped them all once a while.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So you guys both like cars.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, oh cars.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Now, the night that this happened, you guys had been
to the bar, which was called the Good Times Tavern
to buy beer.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I went and had a soda, and then I bought
a case of beer. I went back to David's Houston.
Then after that he went home.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And you were upset because you realized you may have
been overcharged for the beer.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Davi was upset.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
David believed that the bar's price for a case of
beer should have aligned more closely with that of a
typical retailer, so we called the Good Times Tavern to
voice his outrage, but nothing further. According to the other bargoers,
the closing bartender, Sandra Lison, kicked everyone out by about
two am. They also mentioned a stranger in a flannel's
(05:19):
shirt which seemed off due to the balmy August weather,
and then around five AM, a Good Times Tavern employee
named Robert Miller came in to get the day started.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
The man who came in to clean the Good Times
Tavern in the morning noticed that something was wrong. The
Sunday night bartender Sandra Lyson. Her pack of cigarettes was
sitting on the bar, her car was still in the
parking lot. The tavern had not been locked and the
safe was opened, so clearly something had gone wrong, and
Sandra Lyson was nowhere to be seen, so he called the.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Police and then her body was found.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
The body was found about forty eight hours later in
a wooded area in a state forest about thirty miles
or so north of Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Curiously, the first responders reported not seeing any drag marks,
so perhaps the attack occurred somewhere else. Additionally, she was clothed,
but there were leaves and other debris inside her undergarments.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
The medical examiner actually came out to investigate and examine
the body formed the conclusion that the victim had likely
been beaten and sexually assaulted and the cause of death
was strangulation. So a rape kit was performed. They took
samples and they did detect the presence of seamen, which
was recovered from the victim's leg and underclothing and dress,
(06:40):
and also from a vaginal swab.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Now I know that Bobby, you mentioned that David had
been upset about the cost of the beer from the
night before. So when did the police question you?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
A couple of days later? This is where you at
the bar of the night you a mission. I remember
seeing her and the bar I've seen man, but I
remember seeing her.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Did you think anything else of it? No, we're not
sure what happened to any other leads that the police
were following, but the case went cold for about four years,
at which time sandra license purse was discovered in the
woods about ten miles south of Green Bay, so in
the opposite direction of where the body was discovered, and
(07:22):
who even knows when the purse was deposited there. And
then another seven years passed during which time David Bentce
was convicted of an unrelated crime and his cellmate Gary
Swinby alleged that David Bentce was saying disturbing things in
his sleep like quote, killed the bitch Bob unquote.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
As you mentioned, this cellmate of David's came forward and
claimed that he'd been saying things in his sleep. The
staff at the prison encouraged the cellmate to engage David
in conversation when he woke up. This all leads to
the cellmate making a statement to and authorities indicating that
he says David had confessed to the crime and implicated
(08:04):
his brother Bobby as well. I think people who have
prior convictions are always an easier target for a wrongful conviction,
as are people who may have particular psychological or intellectual vulnerabilities.
You know, those people sometimes get preyed upon. They're not
able to defend themselves adequately, and they're at much greater
risk of a false confession, of a wrongful conviction, of
(08:24):
all kinds of bad outcomes in the criminal legal system.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
David agreed to speak with us about his unrecorded interrogation
in which investigators confronted him with what his cellmate had
alleged this guy.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
I think he thought he could get something out of it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
What staff.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
I never talked to my sleep, never have. When a
tectives came and questioned me, as you said I could
get up any time of water, they said, I can
get up any time of wan. And I know I
was alive because they were going to be going till
they got a confession. I was in it room for
seven hours.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You know, we know that best practic this is no
more than four hours should somebody be interrogated. And after
six hours the incidences of false confessions skyrocket.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
They won't let me go.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So we know you did it. We know you did it.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
So I said anything to get out of her.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
We don't know one hundred percent because this was an
unrecorded interrogation. This was, from all accounts, an aggressive interrogation,
one that was designed to secure a confession to try
to solve this cold case. David says several times that
he was at home on the night Desander license disappears
that he didn't know what happened to her, But at
the same time, when they would confront him with the
(09:39):
statement from the cellmate, he would say things like you've
got it right there. It's in black and white. And
so it was sort of a conversation that started going
in circles.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So it wasn't a clearer confession that would.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Be putting it generously, but they made the decision that
that was close enough to a confession to focus once
again on the Vince brothers.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Do you remember, Bobby, when you heard that your brother
had been accused of talking in his sleep and it
named you.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I remember people talking about it, but he never talks
in his sleep.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But now they have a false confession from David, and
then they go to you, Bobby, and say you're under arrest.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
They rested me at my apartment. They said you're under
arrest for the murder of Sandral License. And I had
my girlfriend in my house too with me, and she's, honey,
no go, I said I have to, So you put
the couch on me.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
What went through your head? Did you think that this
was some big mistake?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:53):
I was.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I was scared and upset.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And sometime between as a rest and trial, the state
found someone who was willing to claim they'd heard Bobby
confess as well.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That was Joan Andrews.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
So this witness told the court in Bobby's trial that
she had been giving him a ride to go and
visit his mother up north in the direction of the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and that during that ride he
had somehow confessed to being involved in Sandra License murder.
Of course, what also came out at the trial, though
(11:29):
it didn't end up making any difference, was the fact
that his mother had never lived up in that area,
in fact, lived south of Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
If I'm not mistaken, yep, okay, So can you tell me,
Jim about the DNA evidence that they were aware of
before the brothers even were put on trial.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Well, as you can recall, in nineteen eighty seven, at
the time that the murder happened and the body was recovered,
DNA testing was not quite as advanced and widespread. And
then if we fast forward the twelve years to and
they are thinking about charging the Vince brothers, they realize
we've got this rich source of DNA from the crime scene.
They get a search warrant to take samples from Bobby
(12:09):
and David to compare against the profile from the semen
left at the crime scene. And when they did that comparison,
both brothers were excluded as the source of the semen.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So of course they called off the trial and let
the brothers.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Go right, No, that we wouldn't be here if that
had happened. But of course they were at a crossroads.
Do we go with the physical evidence, which we know
is strongly indicative of a sexual assault and strongly suggesting
that the person whose bodily fluids are at the crime
scene is the person responsible. Or do they abandon that
and go after these two guys who have no connection
(12:43):
to the crime based on the physical evidence, and they
chose the latter. They chose to go after Bobby and David.
The state very strongly argued at both trials, this is
obviously not a sexual assault. This is simply a robbery
and a murder. Any previous thoughts that this may be
a sexual assault were pure speculation and not true.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Remember, the body was discovered clothed, but with leaves and
other debris in the undergarments, suggesting that the body was
likely unclothed outdoors. Then there was semen collected from her leg,
clothing and inside her body. So the theory was that
the sperm came from consensual sex that occurred prior to
(13:24):
her fourteen hour bartending shift, and that she simply let
the seamen just live on her leg and clothing. And
then they called experts to the stand to corroborate that theory.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
They present a testimony from a couple of different experts
about when the semen would have been deposited based on
the condition they found it in, and what the medical
examiner said on the witness stand was this most likely
was deposited either after the death up to twenty four
hours after the death, most likely recent and what the
(13:57):
specific words were, seventy five percent likelihood that the sperm
was left there within twenty four hours of the death,
which makes it very implausible that this was a consensual
sexual encounter because she was working a twelve to fourteen
hour bartending shift right before this event. You know, she
got up in the morning, she went to a bartending shift,
and it was implausible enough that she would have had
(14:19):
this sexual encounter and not cleaned up or anything. But still,
even so, in the closing argument, the prosecutor twisted those
words around and said it was most likely between twenty
four and forty eight hours when it was deposited. At
least that's what he said at Bobby's trial, and so
I read that transcript and I just get angry. I
don't know that that made the difference, but it makes
(14:40):
you think that sometimes this is a game of inches
and prosecutors and everyone involved in the system needs to
be scrupulously honest when they're talking about the evidence.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Bobby, tell me about the trial from your perspective.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Well, when I went to court, I was really upset.
And the guy that said David talking and sleep, his
name was Gary Swenbee.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
He got out.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I couldn't cross examine him because he got killed in
a car accident a month before my trial. I couldn't
cross examine a piece of paper, you know. So I
didn't get a fair trial in Green Bay at all.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
All right, So take me to the moment of the
verdict guilty.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
The judge said, I send you to the prison the
rest of your natural life. I just broke down in tears.
I just broke down, and the daughter stood up in court.
I said, I'm sorry for what happened, but I said,
I did not kill your mom. Well, it's really nasty
(15:51):
in there, and it's filthy, and the medical hsu A
health department is terrible. I went to the hospital almost
every week by resis squad from the prison.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I got asthma real bad.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Were you guys held anywhere near one another?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
We're at Green Bay together for a few years. I
was in a dorm with Dave. You're so glad to
see me when I came in.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I mean, you know, a lot of people form relationships
like brothers when they're serving time together. But was it
somewhat of a comfort that you guys were in the
same place even though you were both living the same nightmare?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Did you guys think that it was just a matter
of time before they realized they had made a mistake?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, it took a few.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Years, fortunately for both of them. David's case was picked
up by the Wisconsin Innocence Project. After all, despite his
previous conviction, he too had been wrongfully convicted of this crime,
and there was biological evidence that could exonerate him and
his brother. They secured additional DNA testing in two thousand
(17:07):
and six.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Additional testing had shown that there was male blood on
the victim's dress, and the person who deposited the blood
on the victim's dress was the same person who deposited
the semen. So that really strongly supported the initial conclusion
that this was a sexual assault and that the person.
It sounds crazy that I even have to say it,
(17:28):
that most likely the man whose blood and semen was
on the crime scene was responsible for the crime. So
the Wisconsin Innocence Projects sought post conviction relief for David.
They tried to get his conviction tossed out, get him
a new trial. The state opposed relief for David. This
is just speculation to say that this man's blood and
semen on the victim are indicative of sexual assault. And
(17:50):
the court unfortunately agreed with the state, denied the motion
that was affirmed on appeal and the bench Brothers would
spend another fifteen years in prison after that decision was made.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That decision seems completely divorced from reality, and this was
obviously a major setback. How do you come up with
more convincing evidence than that, Well, that's what the Great
North Innocence Projects set out to do in twenty eighteen, and.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
So we set out to test every piece of physical
evidence remaining at that crime scene, every bloodstain, every hair,
everything we could get a profile from, and nothing from
that crime scene of this supposedly very intimate physical crime.
Nothing from that scene connected either Bobby or David Bince
to the murder, but what we did see was the
(18:37):
same unknown male profile that kept coming up.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Since the unknown male profile cannot be identified in CODIS,
they tried another path. The lab was able to develop
a special kind of DNA profile, which can be used
to trace ancestry through public genealogical databases. They worked with
a genealogist going through birth, death and other public records
(19:02):
to close in on the origin of this profile. It
took almost five years.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
After a long, long stretch of doing that work and
almost giving up, we finally were able to narrow the
search to one family that had three male children who
were all of suitable age and living in the Green
Bay area at the time of the crime. One of
those three was William Hendrix, and he immediately stood out
because of his past. He had prior convictions for sexual assault.
(19:31):
Their victim in that case said that he had threatened
to strangle her at some point, which, of course was
sandra License cause of death. He had just been released
from prison less than a year before Sandra Lyson was abducted.
We also know that he previously lived about thirty to
forty miles north of Green Bay, so that he would
have driven by that state forest where the body was
(19:53):
found many many times as he went back and forth
between that old place where he lived and Green Bay.
And at the time of the abduction, he lived in
the neighborhood of the Good Times Tavern.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
But once they'd made this potential match, they needed to
compare the DNA profile with a sample from William Hendrix himself. However,
Hendrix had died in April of two thousand.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
After securing a court order to exhume the body, it
was transported to the Brown County Medical Examiner's office and
samples were taken and then sent off to the lab
for DNA analysis.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And when they came back.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I'll never forget the day that they came back with
the results testing the femur that was taken from the
body and comparing it to the crime scene evidence, and
the number that was given to us by the Wisconsin
State Crime Lab was that this was a match with
a likelihood of one in three hundred and twenty nine trillion.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Beyond a doubt. How did you share the news with Bobby?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
We called Bobby that day, and I'm looking at him
because I'm sure he remembers that phone call. He's smiling,
so blessed and we finally got the truth. And I
was really emotion on the phone. I chears in my
eyes and just emotional. I could hardly talk. We said,
we knew this was gonna be happen, but now it
finally has. You're gonna be able to go home soon.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
It would just say happy, said feeling, But it's a
good feeling. I told the guys just keep your head
up and keep the faith. And one guy, she let
me give you a hug. And I know you're not
a gilt I told you from the get go. I
wouldn't hurt him fly, I would never kill anybody. Backed
myself and left everything behind and just grow up my
paperwork and all that stuff. And boy was I blessed
(21:35):
to have good attorneys out of Teat like you and
Chris Well.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
There's no better days than the day that someone like
Bobby walks out of prison and you can be there
to enjoy it with him. And so it was, you know,
I think he said it best. It was happy, sad.
You're so pleased to see him free. You're so happy
to see him on the outside, but you're also struck
by the enormity of the loss and the suffering and
the years that he can never get back. So it's
it's bittersweet. But it was a really, really a wonderful
(22:01):
day and it was great to drive Bobby away from
that prison. While he was eating his barbecue chips, drinking
his son what was it coke?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, and having served out his sentence for his prior conviction,
David was now also free from his wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
When I was walking on I didn't know that the
Innocent Project was coming to pick me up.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
And I walk outside there was an Innocent Project, Rachel
and Zoe and mister Keuneham. There was like three carfuls
of people out there.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Take your time.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
I was emotional. My mom just pushed it over the
edge when she had two sons locked up for a
GRAM and they commit and she was here to see this.
You never got a takeod by her.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Not my mom said before she passed away. My sister
brought her up to visit me and she says that
I hope you out some day, asked Mom, today I
get out of Printon, You'll be Dan for joy in
heaven and I lost my niece to my sister's daughter
horrible drunk driver car act. Horrible car accident, and I
(23:13):
was in there for my niece and every birthday's and
visit them like I used to.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Now, I want to talk to you guys about that,
and I'll ask you Jim first. You know, we've been
asking people a lot about the concept of accountability. I
know that you know there's a monetary aspect, but that
doesn't buy back time. I think of twenty five years
for each of you for something that you were innocent
(23:42):
of the entire time. But it also seems in this
case that that was known even before they set foot
and trial. When you look at a case like this, Jim,
where do you point blame?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
That's a really difficult question. I guess I would have
to start by saying where I don't point blame and
where I want to give credit. There's the current Brown
County District Attorney. They weren't involved in the original prosecution.
This guy was not involved in David's previous petition for
post conviction relief. So when we came forward and we
said we wanted to do more testing in this case,
(24:17):
the current Brown County District Attorney said, go ahead, test
whatever you want. I won't oppose it. I'll stipulate to it.
And he could have opposed us, he could have stood.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
In our way.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
We would have had to bring a motion in court,
and we very well may have lost that motion. The
testing never would have happened, and Bobby and David would
still be in prison. But he didn't. He said go
ahead and test. I won't stand in your way. And
then finally when we came to them with the results
of the testing and the genealogy and the lead of
William Hendrix, they agreed with us that this was significant,
(24:46):
that the case needed to be reopened and reinvestigated. And
then once we confirmed it didn't happen as quickly as
I had hoped that. Once we confirmed that William Hendrix
was the one, they agreed with us and stipulated to
vacating the conviction and freeing. These men want to give
credit where credit is due. I appreciate their approach to
the case.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
It is inspiring to know that there are people in
positions of power who are ready and willing to acknowledge
that mistakes happen, even though they didn't necessarily happen on
their watch.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
We need more of that. We need more of that
among prosecutors. We need them to take their role as
a minister of justice seriously and not simply as being
someone whose job is to convict convict. We need prosecutors
who are willing to look at the evidence and do
the right thing in every case. And we need an
informed public who makes electoral decisions for these offices based
(25:40):
on that, not simply based on who can say their
toughest on crime.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Amen to that. And so now I'd like to ask
for what you want people to take away from this story.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
When I think about what happened to them when they
were initially convicted and then again when they sought post
conviction relief over fifteen years ago, I just think about
the fact that the state is asking everyone to believe
something that's really unbelievable. That you've got a crime scene
with the victim whose clothing is partially removed, where you've
got blood and semen from a man on that crime scene,
(26:14):
and you've got debris underneath the victim's underclothing.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
You know what happened.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
If we had known who that person was at the time,
that person would have been prosecuted, but we didn't know
who that person was, and somebody had to pay. And
that is the kind of thinking that we need to
get away from the idea that it's more important that
someone pay than that we get the right person. We
talk a lot in this country about the expression it's
(26:45):
better to let ten guilty people go free than to
put one innocent person in prison. But if you actually
do a poll in the United States, many people really
don't believe that to be true. In fact, most people
think it's just as bad to allow a guilty person
go free as it is to allow an innocent person
to be imprisoned, and a substantial number of people even
(27:06):
think that it's worse to let a guilty person go
free than it is to imprison an innocent person. Forgetting,
of course, that every time an innocent person is imprisoned,
that means, by definition, the guilty person has gone free.
It's important for everyone in the system, including the jurors,
to take their oaths and their duties very seriously. We
have these burdens for a reason is to protect people's rights.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I want people to believe that I'm not guilty, that
I'm really innocent of this I want people who believe
that they see the truth. Because wrongful convictions are terrible
Wisconsin and the justice system is terrible. I want people
who believe that I'm a good person.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
early and add free by subscribing to Lava for Good
Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers
Jason Vlahm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
(28:15):
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Lauren Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of lava for good,
This episode of Wrongful Conviction contains discussion of sexual assault.
Please listen with caution and care.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
At five a m. On August third, nineteen eighty seven,
at the Good Times Tavern in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the
opening bartender discovered that the lights were still on, the
safe was open and empty, and the previous night's bartender,
Sandra Lyson, her car was still in the parking lot.
The following day, her body was discovered in a forest
(00:32):
about thirty miles north of Green Bay. She had been
fatally strangled, and seamen was collected in a rape kit.
Investigators interviewed people who had gone to the tavern that night,
including thirty one year old Bobby Bentz along with his
brother David. The case went cold for nearly twelve years
until David Bentz was in prison for an unrelated crime
(00:52):
and allegedly confessed to a cellmate that he'd killed Sandra
Lyson with his brother Bobby. This is wrongful Conviction. The
Fox Foundation is proud to support this episode of wrongful
Conviction and the work of After Innocence, a nonprofit that
(01:14):
helps hundreds of people nationwide rebuild their lives after wrongful
incarceration each year. Innocent people are released after spending years
behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. Nearly all of
them leave prison with nothing more than the clothes on
their backs, with no help or compensation from the state
as they face the steep challenges of rebuilding their lives
(01:35):
after wrongful imprisonment. After Innocence is changing that After Innocence
helps exoneries get and make good use of essential services
like health care, dental care, mental health support, legal aid,
financial counseling, and more. Since twenty sixteen, they've brought that
help to more than eight hundred exoneries across forty six states,
(01:58):
working tirelessly to ensure that no one released after wrongful
incarceration is left behind. Learn more at after dash innocence
dot org and join after Innocence to support exoneries as
they rebuild their lives. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm
(02:23):
Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this story takes us to Green Bay, Wisconsin,
where a bartending mother of two was tragically taken from
her children, while another mother lost two of her boys
to the system. And today Bobby Bent joins us, thank
you for being here.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
We also have this attorney from the Great North Innocence Project,
Jim Mayer. Welcome, thank you very much, and later we
will speak to his brother David as well. Now, Bobby,
you guys grew up in Green Bay, which is a
big sports town. Were you and your brother into sports.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
When we were We all got together and played to
the ball around, football, baseball when we were kids.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Were you too competitive with one another?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Well, we're pretty close together a.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Year apart, right, yeah. And who's the big brother.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I got old brother Eddie too, David the oldest brother
of me, Lauren.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
I was going to mention one thing if you wanted
some more filled in detail about their childhood. They did
live together on a farm, a foster home kind of
during their high school years, where they did a lot
of work on a farm. Is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
We would clean all the pens out and the gutter
and it was a rough childhood.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
From what we understand. There were substance abuse issues at
home that resulted in the boys moving to foster care.
But by the time of this crime, Bobby was thirty
one years old and despite suffering from intellectual disabilities, both
Bobby and David were doing well.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I was an East Side of Green Bay, and I
worked at a grocery store. I'm a driver, legad my
own car. I always went to work. I was a
meat wrapper clerk. I cleaned the meat room up really good,
and my boss really enjoyed my work. I had to
adopt for ten years.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And what was David doing at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Dave had a house on State Tree in Green Bay,
and he had a garage who worked on cars self employee.
He had an auto salvage business. I helped him to
pull motors out and put other motors in, clean them
out and junk them. And you sell cars to it.
I helped them all once a while.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So you guys both like cars.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, oh cars.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Now, the night that this happened, you guys had been
to the bar, which was called the Good Times Tavern
to buy beer.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I went and had a soda, and then I bought
a case of beer. I went back to David's Houston.
Then after that he went home.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And you were upset because you realized you may have
been overcharged for the beer.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Davi was upset.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
David believed that the bar's price for a case of
beer should have aligned more closely with that of a
typical retailer, so we called the Good Times Tavern to
voice his outrage, but nothing further. According to the other bargoers,
the closing bartender, Sandra Lison, kicked everyone out by about
two am. They also mentioned a stranger in a flannel's
(05:19):
shirt which seemed off due to the balmy August weather,
and then around five AM, a Good Times Tavern employee
named Robert Miller came in to get the day started.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
The man who came in to clean the Good Times
Tavern in the morning noticed that something was wrong. The
Sunday night bartender Sandra Lyson. Her pack of cigarettes was
sitting on the bar, her car was still in the
parking lot. The tavern had not been locked and the
safe was opened, so clearly something had gone wrong, and
Sandra Lyson was nowhere to be seen, so he called the.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Police and then her body was found.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
The body was found about forty eight hours later in
a wooded area in a state forest about thirty miles
or so north of Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Curiously, the first responders reported not seeing any drag marks,
so perhaps the attack occurred somewhere else. Additionally, she was clothed,
but there were leaves and other debris inside her undergarments.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
The medical examiner actually came out to investigate and examine
the body formed the conclusion that the victim had likely
been beaten and sexually assaulted and the cause of death
was strangulation. So a rape kit was performed. They took
samples and they did detect the presence of seamen, which
was recovered from the victim's leg and underclothing and dress,
(06:40):
and also from a vaginal swab.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Now I know that Bobby, you mentioned that David had
been upset about the cost of the beer from the
night before. So when did the police question you?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
A couple of days later? This is where you at
the bar of the night you a mission. I remember
seeing her and the bar I've seen man, but I
remember seeing her.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Did you think anything else of it? No, we're not
sure what happened to any other leads that the police
were following, but the case went cold for about four years,
at which time sandra license purse was discovered in the
woods about ten miles south of Green Bay, so in
the opposite direction of where the body was discovered, and
(07:22):
who even knows when the purse was deposited there. And
then another seven years passed during which time David Bentce
was convicted of an unrelated crime and his cellmate Gary
Swinby alleged that David Bentce was saying disturbing things in
his sleep like quote, killed the bitch Bob unquote.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
As you mentioned, this cellmate of David's came forward and
claimed that he'd been saying things in his sleep. The
staff at the prison encouraged the cellmate to engage David
in conversation when he woke up. This all leads to
the cellmate making a statement to and authorities indicating that
he says David had confessed to the crime and implicated
(08:04):
his brother Bobby as well. I think people who have
prior convictions are always an easier target for a wrongful conviction,
as are people who may have particular psychological or intellectual vulnerabilities.
You know, those people sometimes get preyed upon. They're not
able to defend themselves adequately, and they're at much greater
risk of a false confession, of a wrongful conviction, of
(08:24):
all kinds of bad outcomes in the criminal legal system.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
David agreed to speak with us about his unrecorded interrogation
in which investigators confronted him with what his cellmate had
alleged this guy.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
I think he thought he could get something out of it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
What staff.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
I never talked to my sleep, never have. When a
tectives came and questioned me, as you said I could
get up any time of water, they said, I can
get up any time of wan. And I know I
was alive because they were going to be going till
they got a confession. I was in it room for
seven hours.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You know, we know that best practic this is no
more than four hours should somebody be interrogated. And after
six hours the incidences of false confessions skyrocket.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
They won't let me go.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So we know you did it. We know you did it.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
So I said anything to get out of her.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
We don't know one hundred percent because this was an
unrecorded interrogation. This was, from all accounts, an aggressive interrogation,
one that was designed to secure a confession to try
to solve this cold case. David says several times that
he was at home on the night Desander license disappears
that he didn't know what happened to her, But at
the same time, when they would confront him with the
(09:39):
statement from the cellmate, he would say things like you've
got it right there. It's in black and white. And
so it was sort of a conversation that started going
in circles.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So it wasn't a clearer confession that would.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Be putting it generously, but they made the decision that
that was close enough to a confession to focus once
again on the Vince brothers.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Do you remember, Bobby, when you heard that your brother
had been accused of talking in his sleep and it
named you.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I remember people talking about it, but he never talks
in his sleep.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But now they have a false confession from David, and
then they go to you, Bobby, and say you're under arrest.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
They rested me at my apartment. They said you're under
arrest for the murder of Sandral License. And I had
my girlfriend in my house too with me, and she's, honey,
no go, I said I have to, So you put
the couch on me.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
What went through your head? Did you think that this
was some big mistake?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:53):
I was.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I was scared and upset.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And sometime between as a rest and trial, the state
found someone who was willing to claim they'd heard Bobby
confess as well.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That was Joan Andrews.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
So this witness told the court in Bobby's trial that
she had been giving him a ride to go and
visit his mother up north in the direction of the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and that during that ride he
had somehow confessed to being involved in Sandra License murder.
Of course, what also came out at the trial, though
(11:29):
it didn't end up making any difference, was the fact
that his mother had never lived up in that area,
in fact, lived south of Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
If I'm not mistaken, yep, okay, So can you tell me,
Jim about the DNA evidence that they were aware of
before the brothers even were put on trial.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Well, as you can recall, in nineteen eighty seven, at
the time that the murder happened and the body was recovered,
DNA testing was not quite as advanced and widespread. And
then if we fast forward the twelve years to and
they are thinking about charging the Vince brothers, they realize
we've got this rich source of DNA from the crime scene.
They get a search warrant to take samples from Bobby
(12:09):
and David to compare against the profile from the semen
left at the crime scene. And when they did that comparison,
both brothers were excluded as the source of the semen.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So of course they called off the trial and let
the brothers.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Go right, No, that we wouldn't be here if that
had happened. But of course they were at a crossroads.
Do we go with the physical evidence, which we know
is strongly indicative of a sexual assault and strongly suggesting
that the person whose bodily fluids are at the crime
scene is the person responsible. Or do they abandon that
and go after these two guys who have no connection
(12:43):
to the crime based on the physical evidence, and they
chose the latter. They chose to go after Bobby and David.
The state very strongly argued at both trials, this is
obviously not a sexual assault. This is simply a robbery
and a murder. Any previous thoughts that this may be
a sexual assault were pure speculation and not true.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Remember, the body was discovered clothed, but with leaves and
other debris in the undergarments, suggesting that the body was
likely unclothed outdoors. Then there was semen collected from her leg,
clothing and inside her body. So the theory was that
the sperm came from consensual sex that occurred prior to
(13:24):
her fourteen hour bartending shift, and that she simply let
the seamen just live on her leg and clothing. And
then they called experts to the stand to corroborate that theory.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
They present a testimony from a couple of different experts
about when the semen would have been deposited based on
the condition they found it in, and what the medical
examiner said on the witness stand was this most likely
was deposited either after the death up to twenty four
hours after the death, most likely recent and what the
(13:57):
specific words were, seventy five percent likelihood that the sperm
was left there within twenty four hours of the death,
which makes it very implausible that this was a consensual
sexual encounter because she was working a twelve to fourteen
hour bartending shift right before this event. You know, she
got up in the morning, she went to a bartending shift,
and it was implausible enough that she would have had
(14:19):
this sexual encounter and not cleaned up or anything. But still,
even so, in the closing argument, the prosecutor twisted those
words around and said it was most likely between twenty
four and forty eight hours when it was deposited. At
least that's what he said at Bobby's trial, and so
I read that transcript and I just get angry. I
don't know that that made the difference, but it makes
(14:40):
you think that sometimes this is a game of inches
and prosecutors and everyone involved in the system needs to
be scrupulously honest when they're talking about the evidence.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Bobby, tell me about the trial from your perspective.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Well, when I went to court, I was really upset.
And the guy that said David talking and sleep, his
name was Gary Swenbee.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
He got out.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I couldn't cross examine him because he got killed in
a car accident a month before my trial. I couldn't
cross examine a piece of paper, you know. So I
didn't get a fair trial in Green Bay at all.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
All right, So take me to the moment of the
verdict guilty.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
The judge said, I send you to the prison the
rest of your natural life. I just broke down in tears.
I just broke down, and the daughter stood up in court.
I said, I'm sorry for what happened, but I said,
I did not kill your mom. Well, it's really nasty
(15:51):
in there, and it's filthy, and the medical hsu A
health department is terrible. I went to the hospital almost
every week by resis squad from the prison.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I got asthma real bad.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Were you guys held anywhere near one another?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
We're at Green Bay together for a few years. I
was in a dorm with Dave. You're so glad to
see me when I came in.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I mean, you know, a lot of people form relationships
like brothers when they're serving time together. But was it
somewhat of a comfort that you guys were in the
same place even though you were both living the same nightmare?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Did you guys think that it was just a matter
of time before they realized they had made a mistake?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, it took a few.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Years, fortunately for both of them. David's case was picked
up by the Wisconsin Innocence Project. After all, despite his
previous conviction, he too had been wrongfully convicted of this crime,
and there was biological evidence that could exonerate him and
his brother. They secured additional DNA testing in two thousand
(17:07):
and six.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Additional testing had shown that there was male blood on
the victim's dress, and the person who deposited the blood
on the victim's dress was the same person who deposited
the semen. So that really strongly supported the initial conclusion
that this was a sexual assault and that the person.
It sounds crazy that I even have to say it,
(17:28):
that most likely the man whose blood and semen was
on the crime scene was responsible for the crime. So
the Wisconsin Innocence Projects sought post conviction relief for David.
They tried to get his conviction tossed out, get him
a new trial. The state opposed relief for David. This
is just speculation to say that this man's blood and
semen on the victim are indicative of sexual assault. And
(17:50):
the court unfortunately agreed with the state, denied the motion
that was affirmed on appeal and the bench Brothers would
spend another fifteen years in prison after that decision was made.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That decision seems completely divorced from reality, and this was
obviously a major setback. How do you come up with
more convincing evidence than that, Well, that's what the Great
North Innocence Projects set out to do in twenty eighteen, and.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
So we set out to test every piece of physical
evidence remaining at that crime scene, every bloodstain, every hair,
everything we could get a profile from, and nothing from
that crime scene of this supposedly very intimate physical crime.
Nothing from that scene connected either Bobby or David Bince
to the murder, but what we did see was the
(18:37):
same unknown male profile that kept coming up.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Since the unknown male profile cannot be identified in CODIS,
they tried another path. The lab was able to develop
a special kind of DNA profile, which can be used
to trace ancestry through public genealogical databases. They worked with
a genealogist going through birth, death and other public records
(19:02):
to close in on the origin of this profile. It
took almost five years.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
After a long, long stretch of doing that work and
almost giving up, we finally were able to narrow the
search to one family that had three male children who
were all of suitable age and living in the Green
Bay area at the time of the crime. One of
those three was William Hendrix, and he immediately stood out
because of his past. He had prior convictions for sexual assault.
(19:31):
Their victim in that case said that he had threatened
to strangle her at some point, which, of course was
sandra License cause of death. He had just been released
from prison less than a year before Sandra Lyson was abducted.
We also know that he previously lived about thirty to
forty miles north of Green Bay, so that he would
have driven by that state forest where the body was
(19:53):
found many many times as he went back and forth
between that old place where he lived and Green Bay.
And at the time of the abduction, he lived in
the neighborhood of the Good Times Tavern.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
But once they'd made this potential match, they needed to
compare the DNA profile with a sample from William Hendrix himself. However,
Hendrix had died in April of two thousand.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
After securing a court order to exhume the body, it
was transported to the Brown County Medical Examiner's office and
samples were taken and then sent off to the lab
for DNA analysis.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And when they came back.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I'll never forget the day that they came back with
the results testing the femur that was taken from the
body and comparing it to the crime scene evidence, and
the number that was given to us by the Wisconsin
State Crime Lab was that this was a match with
a likelihood of one in three hundred and twenty nine trillion.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Beyond a doubt. How did you share the news with Bobby?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
We called Bobby that day, and I'm looking at him
because I'm sure he remembers that phone call. He's smiling,
so blessed and we finally got the truth. And I
was really emotion on the phone. I chears in my
eyes and just emotional. I could hardly talk. We said,
we knew this was gonna be happen, but now it
finally has. You're gonna be able to go home soon.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
It would just say happy, said feeling, But it's a
good feeling. I told the guys just keep your head
up and keep the faith. And one guy, she let
me give you a hug. And I know you're not
a gilt I told you from the get go. I
wouldn't hurt him fly, I would never kill anybody. Backed
myself and left everything behind and just grow up my
paperwork and all that stuff. And boy was I blessed
(21:35):
to have good attorneys out of Teat like you and
Chris Well.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
There's no better days than the day that someone like
Bobby walks out of prison and you can be there
to enjoy it with him. And so it was, you know,
I think he said it best. It was happy, sad.
You're so pleased to see him free. You're so happy
to see him on the outside, but you're also struck
by the enormity of the loss and the suffering and
the years that he can never get back. So it's
it's bittersweet. But it was a really, really a wonderful
(22:01):
day and it was great to drive Bobby away from
that prison. While he was eating his barbecue chips, drinking
his son what was it coke?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, and having served out his sentence for his prior conviction,
David was now also free from his wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
When I was walking on I didn't know that the
Innocent Project was coming to pick me up.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
And I walk outside there was an Innocent Project, Rachel
and Zoe and mister Keuneham. There was like three carfuls
of people out there.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Take your time.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
I was emotional. My mom just pushed it over the
edge when she had two sons locked up for a
GRAM and they commit and she was here to see this.
You never got a takeod by her.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Not my mom said before she passed away. My sister
brought her up to visit me and she says that
I hope you out some day, asked Mom, today I
get out of Printon, You'll be Dan for joy in
heaven and I lost my niece to my sister's daughter
horrible drunk driver car act. Horrible car accident, and I
(23:13):
was in there for my niece and every birthday's and
visit them like I used to.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Now, I want to talk to you guys about that,
and I'll ask you Jim first. You know, we've been
asking people a lot about the concept of accountability. I
know that you know there's a monetary aspect, but that
doesn't buy back time. I think of twenty five years
for each of you for something that you were innocent
(23:42):
of the entire time. But it also seems in this
case that that was known even before they set foot
and trial. When you look at a case like this, Jim,
where do you point blame?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
That's a really difficult question. I guess I would have
to start by saying where I don't point blame and
where I want to give credit. There's the current Brown
County District Attorney. They weren't involved in the original prosecution.
This guy was not involved in David's previous petition for
post conviction relief. So when we came forward and we
said we wanted to do more testing in this case,
(24:17):
the current Brown County District Attorney said, go ahead, test
whatever you want. I won't oppose it. I'll stipulate to it.
And he could have opposed us, he could have stood.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
In our way.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
We would have had to bring a motion in court,
and we very well may have lost that motion. The
testing never would have happened, and Bobby and David would
still be in prison. But he didn't. He said go
ahead and test. I won't stand in your way. And
then finally when we came to them with the results
of the testing and the genealogy and the lead of
William Hendrix, they agreed with us that this was significant,
(24:46):
that the case needed to be reopened and reinvestigated. And
then once we confirmed it didn't happen as quickly as
I had hoped that. Once we confirmed that William Hendrix
was the one, they agreed with us and stipulated to
vacating the conviction and freeing. These men want to give
credit where credit is due. I appreciate their approach to
the case.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
It is inspiring to know that there are people in
positions of power who are ready and willing to acknowledge
that mistakes happen, even though they didn't necessarily happen on
their watch.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
We need more of that. We need more of that
among prosecutors. We need them to take their role as
a minister of justice seriously and not simply as being
someone whose job is to convict convict. We need prosecutors
who are willing to look at the evidence and do
the right thing in every case. And we need an
informed public who makes electoral decisions for these offices based
(25:40):
on that, not simply based on who can say their
toughest on crime.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Amen to that. And so now I'd like to ask
for what you want people to take away from this story.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
When I think about what happened to them when they
were initially convicted and then again when they sought post
conviction relief over fifteen years ago, I just think about
the fact that the state is asking everyone to believe
something that's really unbelievable. That you've got a crime scene
with the victim whose clothing is partially removed, where you've
got blood and semen from a man on that crime scene,
(26:14):
and you've got debris underneath the victim's underclothing.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
You know what happened.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
If we had known who that person was at the time,
that person would have been prosecuted, but we didn't know
who that person was, and somebody had to pay. And
that is the kind of thinking that we need to
get away from the idea that it's more important that
someone pay than that we get the right person. We
talk a lot in this country about the expression it's
(26:45):
better to let ten guilty people go free than to
put one innocent person in prison. But if you actually
do a poll in the United States, many people really
don't believe that to be true. In fact, most people
think it's just as bad to allow a guilty person
go free as it is to allow an innocent person
to be imprisoned, and a substantial number of people even
(27:06):
think that it's worse to let a guilty person go
free than it is to imprison an innocent person. Forgetting,
of course, that every time an innocent person is imprisoned,
that means, by definition, the guilty person has gone free.
It's important for everyone in the system, including the jurors,
to take their oaths and their duties very seriously. We
have these burdens for a reason is to protect people's rights.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I want people to believe that I'm not guilty, that
I'm really innocent of this I want people who believe
that they see the truth. Because wrongful convictions are terrible
Wisconsin and the justice system is terrible. I want people
who believe that I'm a good person.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
early and add free by subscribing to Lava for Good
Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers
Jason Vlahm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
(28:15):
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Lauren Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of lava for good,
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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