September 3, 2026 • 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 more than 3 decades, Tyrone is still on death row. Jason talks to Tyrone Noling and Brian Howe, Tyrone's attorney, with an update from attorney Dan Nadratowski on Tyrone's pending clemency petition before Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.
To learn more and get involved, visit:http://www.tyronenoling.com/
Read the Ohio Parole Board’s clemency recommendation:https://drc.ohio.gov/about/resource/reports/clemency-reports/clemency-report-for-tyrone-noling
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is difficult.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's difficult cleaning for your life, especially.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
When you haven't been hurt for a long time. I'm
an innocent person on Ohio's death row. I don't belong
here and I need help.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now's the time.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over
30 years, where he remains to this day.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
On August 25th, the Ohio Parole Board issued a recommendation
for executive clemency in the form of commutation from death
row to life, eligibility for parole. Two members of the
board opposed clemency. One member supported Tyrone's request for a
full pardon in his immediate release. We're encouraged that members
of the parole board agree that executive clemency is appropriate
(00:51):
and recognize the serious problems in Tyrone's case. We think
it's highly significant that the board member who actually voted
for a full pardon was a former prosecutor. Typically, former
prosecutors are among the most critical reviewers during the post-conviction
review process. The parole board makes a recommendation, but the
ultimate decision belongs to Governor DeLay. The governor is not
(01:14):
limited to the particular form of clemency recommended by a
majority of the parole board. Governor DeWine has the unique
authority here to look at all of the circumstances in
the case and the record that's existed for over 35 years.
He is not subject to the same time constraints and
restrictions that sometimes exist on the court, so he can
send Tyrone home a meet. We very much appreciate Governor
(01:37):
DeWine's consideration of that request.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I would just like to thank everybody involved And to
encourage them again.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Look into my case. To get involved. To be a
voice for me. Because I don't belong here.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I wish I could say more, but being in this
situation for this many years, you don't know what to
say anymore. You just want to go in a hole
and never come out.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But I'm going to keep fighting.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I hope that people will fight with me and for me.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Welcome 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 going to 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
(02:43):
Ohio for over 30 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 Howe. Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project.
So Brian, I'm glad you're here, but Jesus, this.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
Is going to be a tough one. Thanks, Jason.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
And Tyrone, I'm so glad you're here with us today,
even though I'm so very sorry because of the reason
why you're here and even more so because of where
you are.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So, Tyrone, let's start by going back to before everything
that's happened. What was your life like growing up?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I grew up in a small town outside of Canton, Ohio,
in Stark County called Alliance.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I grew up in a one-parent home with four other siblings.
And my childhood was like any other childhood. Did sports,
went to school.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And as I got older, I got in a little trouble.
But for the most part, life at home was pretty good.
Turned 18.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And I pretty much.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Found myself on my own, just hanging out with a
group of friends that I had grew up with.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And the group of friends that you mentioned here, you're
talking about Johnny Trandefer, Gary St. Clair, Joseph D'Alessandro, 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?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, I didn't really know Butch Walcott. I grew up
with Gary St. Clair and Joey D'Alessandro. 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.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So we all just started congregating there. We were just
hanging out.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
We were doing dumb stuff, you know, bought pizza, chased girls,
stayed up late.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
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?
Speaker 6 (04:40):
Sure. I mean, the reason that Tyrone was on the
radar of investigators was that there were two burglaries that
happened the next county over that Tyrone was ultimately arrested
for and pleaded guilty to. And those robberies were what
made him a target in the Harding murder investigation to
(05:02):
begin with.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
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 accidentally
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.
(05:23):
He was definitely doing some very dumb things, 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 fatefully
around the same time. I'm talking about April 5th, 1990,
which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both 81 years old,
(05:46):
were shot to death in their 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 is in Atwater, Ohio, which is a rural town
in Portage County.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
And if you don't know Atwater, 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 4 (06:10):
So let me set the stage. Saturday, April 7th, 1990,
at 6.15 p.m., Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified by
dispatcher Kathy Rubino that Jim Rubino had called and reported
that there were two people laying on the kitchen floor
of the neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived next
(06:30):
door to the Hardigs for 30 years, asked him to
go check on them when she noticed their garage had
been open 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. She looked inside
and saw the Hardigs laying on the kitchen floor. Now, 10.
25 caliber shell cases were found on the floor of
the Hardig home. Papers from the living room desk were
(06:52):
scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes were
open and had been rifled through. At this point, Detective
Cayley reported that there didn't seem to be any signs
of struggle from the victims.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
Mr.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Harding's wallet was in his pocket and the money was
still inside. So there was no forced 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 take it from here because this gets
weirder and weirder.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Sure. So it's not a usual occurrence in Atwater, Ohio
to have a double murder, especially 80 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
(07:41):
a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away. And
there is a person there saying that He lost a.
25 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 Steenburg
(08:01):
who lived in the area. Police investigate that, but while
they're doing that, leads are sort 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 Hartigs.
(08:23):
And so police are investigating that lead as well.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
So right off the bat, they have some pretty strong
leads here, right? So what's going on with the first guy,
Dennis Van Steenburg?
Speaker 6 (08:35):
They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
did have a 25. 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 Steenburg sort of fades away. In
(08:59):
the meantime, the 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 Chesley There's not a
lot of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley
(09:19):
did 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 14 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
(09:40):
investigating a series of break-ins 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
what turns out to be a fake. 38 caliber revolver.
And they take various valuables, VCRs, jewelry, things like that.
(10:04):
And that turns out to be Tyrone Rowling and his co-defendants.
So Tyrone is arrested with his co-defendants and they find
a 25 caliber gun. So now it's very interesting to
the Porch 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 4 (10:24):
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 6 (10:33):
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 Hartig's doctor, Dr. Canone, the week before the bodies
were found. Mr. Harding told Dr. Canone that he had
lent $ 10, 000 to an insurance salesman, that the insurance salesman
(10:54):
had failed to pay when the loan had come due
on April 1st, that something fishy was going on with
this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation for why
he refused to pay. And as soon as he got
off the phone with Dr. Canone, he was going to
go sort this out with the insurance salesman. The police
start to look at insurance salesman that the Hardings had
dealt with, and they find a man named Louis Lehman.
(11:15):
Lewis Lehman denies having taken out a loan, but he
was the insurance salesman for the Hardigs. And what's more,
he had a. 25 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 rifling
(11:37):
characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house.
They asked Lehman where his. 25 caliber 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
lie detector test and basically stopped talking to detectives. And
(11:58):
at that point, the investigation had basically completely stalled out.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
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,
(12:24):
Dan Wilson.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
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
(12:50):
unsolved murder that they had. That included the Portage 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 Chesley. very kid
who came to them the day after the murder and said,
my foster brother confessed to that. When the detectives followed
(13:10):
up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley and eliminated
the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots to
Dan Wilson. They never bothered to interview Nathan Chesley. 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
(13:31):
They let it slip through their fingers. He went on
to kill another woman.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
This podcast is brought to you by Ohio Justice and
Policy Center, a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for
people directly impacted by Ohio's criminal legal system. OJPC provides
free legal services to currently and formerly incarcerated people. Through
its Beyond Guilt project, OJPC works to free overpunished people
who have rehabilitated themselves. OJPC's Human Rights in Prison project
(14:13):
represents people who face denial of medical care. In its
25-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 learn more about Ohio Justice and Policy Center and
how you can support its mission, visit OhioJPC.org. That's O-H-I-O-J-P-C
(14:40):
dot org. Ohio Justice and Policy Center. We don't write
people off.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
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, someone gets
a call from a woman named Marlene Van Steenburg. She is,
I believe, the aunt of Dennis Van Steenburg, again, who
(15:16):
was the very first person who they'd 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
his brother, who was Marlene's husband, if he could borrow his.
25 caliber pistol for a few weeks. And when Richard
(15:38):
Van Steenburg asked, why do you need my.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
25?
Speaker 6 (15:40):
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 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.
(16:04):
So the police should have been on notice that Dennis
Van Steenburg is turning in the wrong gun for comparison purposes,
and they still eliminated Van Steenburg 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 ballistic comparison on what they should
(16:27):
have known was the wrong gun for Dennis Van Steenburg.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
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?
Speaker 6 (16:42):
So that is when the Portage County Prosecuting Attorney's Office
takes over the investigation, and they assign their own investigator
to the case, a man named Ron Craig.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
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 6 (17:10):
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
(17:32):
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
(17:53):
started with Butch Wolcott, who was 16 years old at
the time.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
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 browbeat 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 false confession
(18:22):
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 anything?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
No, and I mean, for Butch, 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
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,
(18:58):
we never went to Portage County. We never went out
to Atwater. He doesn't know where it is, and that's
not an answer that Ron Craig is willing to accept.
So what they do is they send him to a
child psychologist who then puts Butch, the 16-year-old kid, under
hypnosis in order to recover what they allege are repressed
(19:21):
memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they 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 the psychologist
at the time said, if we keep this up, he's
just going to say false things to try and make
(19:43):
the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it didn't
stop it. Right.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
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.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
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 this poor kid's brain. where it's
just getting completely scrambled. He's just giving 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
(20:21):
consistent with what they wanted to hear, right? That was
when he implicated the subject of our show today, Tyrone Knolling.
And then Craig turned to one of the other kids, D. Alessandro,
who said he knew nothing about the murderers. But his
own attorney convinced him and his family that he should
plea bargain to avoid the electric chair.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
That's right. Yeah, I mean, once they can get Butch
Wolcott to come up with this 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. Okay.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
In addition to the other guys, St. Clair pled guilty
to the Hardick murders as well, right? He had given
in to pressure from Detective Craig. as well as his
own attorneys and his family. And he was understandably scared
out of his mind about the death penalty. And then
Tyrone Knolling is indicted initially for the murders in 1993.
(21:17):
But this is when things get even weirder. In June 1993,
the court entered a null pros, 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 6 (21:37):
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 D'Alessandro and Gary St. 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
(21:57):
that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
D'Alessandro recanted. asserted their innocence. We had nothing to do
with this. And Gary St. Clair recanted in a prison interview, said,
we lied, we were pressured, we had nothing to do
with this. And at that point, I think the state
had no choice but to agree to dismiss the case.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
And Tyrone, this all has to be so crazy because
you have your friends, 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 1 (22:32):
You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
see it coming. They offered a deal.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
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 sentence you to death. And I'm
pleading with them back there and I'm telling them I
didn't do this. And so they send me back and
I'm talking to my dad on the phone and crying
(22:57):
and I'm saying, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And my dad says, did you do this? And I said, no.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And he just said, well, then you stick to your guns.
And that's what I did, even though I knew the
odds were against me. 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
dismisses every charge against me.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And I can't even explain the feeling at that point.
I was happy. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell.
I just wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
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 1 (23:46):
For three years almost, I didn't hear nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And then all of a sudden, a 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. The nightmare happens once again.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here with the election
of the new prosecutor in Portage County and Joey D'Alessandro
coming back on, what's going on there?
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Well, Joey at that point had been serving time on
an 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
(24:41):
to re-indict Tyrone Noling. And now with both Butch and
Joey D'Alessandro, they were ready to re-prosecute the case.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Because So Tyrone's trial begins in January of 1996, six
years after the crime, right? So Walcott, D'Alessandro, and St.
Clair were called as prosecution witnesses, but the former two
boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent, unsignificant details, but
they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They said that after
(25:11):
the second robbery in 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,
D'Alessandro or Walcott said they waited in the car while
Nolan and St. Clair allegedly went to the front door.
Sometime later, according to Walcott and D'Alessandro, Nolan and St.
(25:35):
Clair came running from the Harding house and got back
into the car. D'Alessandro 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 at trial and you see your friends,
(25:55):
they're telling these crazy lies. Can you take us back
to that moment?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I've known these guys for all my life and for
them just to disregard my life and just sit up
there 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 scream.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I wanted to ask him, why are you doing this?
Speaker 4 (26:16):
And so D'Alessandro and Walcott are saying these things, but St.
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.
(26:36):
And get this, the state read the entirety of his
prior statement to the jury and 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, what about
the other suspect?
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Well, all of these plausible and I think likely alternate
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.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
It's plausible to believe that it's because that information wasn't
turned over to the defense 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.
25 caliber gun that Tyrone and his friends had taken
in the prior robbery was still excluded. It was not
(27:33):
the murder weapon. And so they just had to come
up with another story about how they must have had
a second. 25 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
(27:55):
one theory as to what happened. And despite the problems
in that theory, he was convicted.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
So Tyrone, when the jury went out to deliberate, did
you have any hope at all that things were going
to go in your favor?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I always stayed optimistic, even though I knew the cards
were stacked against me. And I kind of remember when
they came and got me from the county jail, they
was taking me up the steps and they were lined
up with deputy sheriffs all the way up.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And that had never happened before. So my heart just
sank at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
And I remember being in the courtroom and the jury
coming in.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
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 then. I
(28:53):
was scared to death.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I'm about to go someplace that they say is the
worst of the worst. You're sentenced to death. You're sentenced
to die. People that have committed heinous crimes. I mean,
I'm still a young man. I don't know what to expect.
And I have no choice because they're going to take
me regardless.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
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, D'Alessandro,
and St. Clair, every single one of them has since
recanted their testimonies. Right? Then in 2006, the Ohio Innocence
(29:31):
Project took on your case. Can you tell us how
that came about?
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Well, my investigator, Vicki Buckwalter 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 Innocence Project. It was kind of
weird because Mark Godsey showed up with a couple of
students and I thought I was just going there for
(29:55):
an attorney visit. I told him 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 a weight off my shoulders to finally, finally, someone's
going to help me. I have a lot of respect
and gratitude for them.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
And in those ensuing 15 years, bringing us right up
to the present day, they found 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 you,
we know that that's not how the justice system works
in Ohio or, unfortunately, in the rest of our country. So, Brian,
(30:35):
can you tell us what the Ohio Innocence Project has
been doing to fight this case?
Speaker 6 (30:39):
Originally, the Ohio Innocence Project was representing Tyrone just for
the purposes of trying to get DNA testing. There are
a few things that we know 100% were last touched
by the person who committed the crime, and that is
the 10 shell casings 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.
(31:02):
DNA technology today is sensitive enough to develop a 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 Noling's or
any one of his co-defendants, that's going to be very,
(31:23):
very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately, we're not able
to convince a 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 of
(31:45):
the original investigation by the Sheriff's Department specifically. First of all,
the Nathan Chesley tip, that was uncovered in Tyrone's co-defendant's files. Secondly,
the statement by Marlene Van Steenburg that the gun that
had been eliminated from Dennis Van Steenburg was not the
actual gun that he had on the night that the
murder may have taken place. And finally, it had been
known at the time that police had excluded Tyrone and
(32:09):
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 prior
primitive technology. That was not turned over, we believe, to
the defense at the time of the original trial either. Now,
(32:30):
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 1995-1996.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Since we last spoke, Brian Howe and the Ohio Witnesses
Project have been fighting Tyrone's case by trying to prove
that compelling leads and evidence had been concealed from the
defense at trial, specifically the insurance salesman Lehman, the Nathan
Chesley tip, Marlene Van Steenburg, and Dennis Van Steenburg's actual gun.
and the fact that primitive DNA testing had excluded Tyrone
(33:10):
and his friends from the cigarette butt. Yet, an alternative suspect,
Dan Wilson, was not excluded by its serology. All of
this can be cleared up by access to the state's
file on this case, and with a procedural rule from
the Ohio Supreme Court, Rule 42, that took effect in 2017,
broad access to those files shall be granted in the
(33:30):
review of a capital case. And shortly after the original
release of this episode, there was an exciting development.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Right.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
So in March of 2022, the 11th District Court of
Appeals did order that Tyrone be given access to the
state's file. We are today discussing with the state how
to move forward on the Rule 42 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 4 (33:57):
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 6 (34:02):
Yeah, and I think really more importantly, these requests 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 2014. 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 documents that the
(34:23):
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 11th District. So I think, you know, we're at
a stage now where progress is happening.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
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 6 (34:52):
They tested the cigarette butt. originally at the time of trial,
and Tyrone and all of his co-defendants were excluded from
the cigarette butt. They knew at the time that Dan
Wilson was a possible contributor, 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
(35:13):
the idea that Dan Wilson was even a possible contributor
to the saliva on the cigarette butt was covered up,
or at least not disclosed to Tyrone's defense attorneys at
the time of trial.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
How this even went to trial, let alone continues, is
totally beyond me. The only evidence against him were the
coerced words of his co-defendants, who were fearing for their
own lives in the face of the death penalty. And, yep,
you guessed it, all of those guys have since recanted.
While this battle for clarity about this wrongful conviction rages on,
(35:44):
we will return now to the episode as it ended
in December 2021, with Tyrone still in the same freaking cell.
as we continue to hope against hope that Brian and
the Ohio Innocence Project's efforts win Tyrone a new trial.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
If he were to get a fair trial today 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
(36:22):
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 4 (36:34):
Amen 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 righting this wrong,
is there something that you'd like to ask them to do.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I would encourage them to reach out to our governor,
to reach out to state and local politicians.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I would ask them to be a voice.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Somebody out there knows something and they can go to
TyroneNoling.com or they can get a hold of the Cincinnati
Innocence Project if they're willing to help or to be
a voice because I need a voice.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I need that more than anything.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Yeah, we'll definitely have TyroneNoling.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 docuseries 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 Tyrone.
And with that, we turn now. to Closing Arguments. This
(37:36):
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, leave my headphones on,
(37:57):
close my eyes, and just listen to any final thoughts
you want to share. So Brian Howe, Why don't you
go first and we'll save the best for last. And that's,
of course, that's you, Tyrone. So, Brian, closing arguments.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
Well, you know, 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,
(38:33):
that Tyrone get a fair day in court. And the
other thing is that the fact that Tyrone is innocent,
which I'm personally 100% convinced of, 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 that was never
(38:56):
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, not 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 Harding murders. There is a man's life on the line,
(39:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Brought before the court.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
And now over to you, Tyrone.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Well, I would like 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 1 (39:42):
Now's the time.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
This is difficult. 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
them again to look into my case, to get involved,
to be a voice for me and to.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Help me get out of here because I'm innocent. I
don't want to be here.
Speaker 6 (40:04):
So please.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team, Conor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburn,
and Kevin Wardus, with research by Lila Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three-time Oscar-nominated composer J. Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
(40:33):
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 Flom. Wrongful Conviction is
a production of Lava for Good Podcast in association with
Signal Company No. 1.
This is difficult.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's difficult cleaning for your life, especially.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
When you haven't been hurt for a long time. I'm
an innocent person on Ohio's death row. I don't belong
here and I need help.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now's the time.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Tyrone has been on death row in Ohio for over
30 years, where he remains to this day.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
On August 25th, the Ohio Parole Board issued a recommendation
for executive clemency in the form of commutation from death
row to life, eligibility for parole. Two members of the
board opposed clemency. One member supported Tyrone's request for a
full pardon in his immediate release. We're encouraged that members
of the parole board agree that executive clemency is appropriate
(00:51):
and recognize the serious problems in Tyrone's case. We think
it's highly significant that the board member who actually voted
for a full pardon was a former prosecutor. Typically, former
prosecutors are among the most critical reviewers during the post-conviction
review process. The parole board makes a recommendation, but the
ultimate decision belongs to Governor DeLay. The governor is not
(01:14):
limited to the particular form of clemency recommended by a
majority of the parole board. Governor DeWine has the unique
authority here to look at all of the circumstances in
the case and the record that's existed for over 35 years.
He is not subject to the same time constraints and
restrictions that sometimes exist on the court, so he can
send Tyrone home a meet. We very much appreciate Governor
(01:37):
DeWine's consideration of that request.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I would just like to thank everybody involved And to
encourage them again.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Look into my case. To get involved. To be a
voice for me. Because I don't belong here.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I wish I could say more, but being in this
situation for this many years, you don't know what to
say anymore. You just want to go in a hole
and never come out.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But I'm going to keep fighting.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I hope that people will fight with me and for me.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Welcome 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 going to 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
(02:43):
Ohio for over 30 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 Howe. Brian is an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project.
So Brian, I'm glad you're here, but Jesus, this.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
Is going to be a tough one. Thanks, Jason.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
And Tyrone, I'm so glad you're here with us today,
even though I'm so very sorry because of the reason
why you're here and even more so because of where
you are.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So, Tyrone, let's start by going back to before everything
that's happened. What was your life like growing up?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I grew up in a small town outside of Canton, Ohio,
in Stark County called Alliance.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I grew up in a one-parent home with four other siblings.
And my childhood was like any other childhood. Did sports,
went to school.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And as I got older, I got in a little trouble.
But for the most part, life at home was pretty good.
Turned 18.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And I pretty much.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Found myself on my own, just hanging out with a
group of friends that I had grew up with.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And the group of friends that you mentioned here, you're
talking about Johnny Trandefer, Gary St. Clair, Joseph D'Alessandro, 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?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, I didn't really know Butch Walcott. I grew up
with Gary St. Clair and Joey D'Alessandro. 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.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So we all just started congregating there. We were just
hanging out.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
We were doing dumb stuff, you know, bought pizza, chased girls,
stayed up late.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
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?
Speaker 6 (04:40):
Sure. I mean, the reason that Tyrone was on the
radar of investigators was that there were two burglaries that
happened the next county over that Tyrone was ultimately arrested
for and pleaded guilty to. And those robberies were what
made him a target in the Harding murder investigation to
(05:02):
begin with.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
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 accidentally
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.
(05:23):
He was definitely doing some very dumb things, 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 fatefully
around the same time. I'm talking about April 5th, 1990,
which is when Bernhardt and Cora Harding, both 81 years old,
(05:46):
were shot to death in their 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 is in Atwater, Ohio, which is a rural town
in Portage County.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
And if you don't know Atwater, 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 4 (06:10):
So let me set the stage. Saturday, April 7th, 1990,
at 6.15 p.m., Chief Detective Dwayne Cayley was notified by
dispatcher Kathy Rubino that Jim Rubino had called and reported
that there were two people laying on the kitchen floor
of the neighbor's house. Jim's mother, who had lived next
(06:30):
door to the Hardigs for 30 years, asked him to
go check on them when she noticed their garage had
been open 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. She looked inside
and saw the Hardigs laying on the kitchen floor. Now, 10.
25 caliber shell cases were found on the floor of
the Hardig home. Papers from the living room desk were
(06:52):
scattered around the room. Dresser drawers and jewelry boxes were
open and had been rifled through. At this point, Detective
Cayley reported that there didn't seem to be any signs
of struggle from the victims.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
Mr.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Harding's wallet was in his pocket and the money was
still inside. So there was no forced 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 take it from here because this gets
weirder and weirder.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Sure. So it's not a usual occurrence in Atwater, Ohio
to have a double murder, especially 80 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
(07:41):
a roller rink, maybe a couple of miles away. And
there is a person there saying that He lost a.
25 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 Steenburg
(08:01):
who lived in the area. Police investigate that, but while
they're doing that, leads are sort 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 Hartigs.
(08:23):
And so police are investigating that lead as well.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
So right off the bat, they have some pretty strong
leads here, right? So what's going on with the first guy,
Dennis Van Steenburg?
Speaker 6 (08:35):
They go talk to him. He says, well, yes, I
did have a 25. 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 Steenburg sort of fades away. In
(08:59):
the meantime, the 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 Chesley There's not a
lot of people who live as close as Nathan Chesley
(09:19):
did 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 14 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
(09:40):
investigating a series of break-ins 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
what turns out to be a fake. 38 caliber revolver.
And they take various valuables, VCRs, jewelry, things like that.
(10:04):
And that turns out to be Tyrone Rowling and his co-defendants.
So Tyrone is arrested with his co-defendants and they find
a 25 caliber gun. So now it's very interesting to
the Porch 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 4 (10:24):
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 6 (10:33):
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 Hartig's doctor, Dr. Canone, the week before the bodies
were found. Mr. Harding told Dr. Canone that he had
lent $ 10, 000 to an insurance salesman, that the insurance salesman
(10:54):
had failed to pay when the loan had come due
on April 1st, that something fishy was going on with
this loan and with the insurance salesman explanation for why
he refused to pay. And as soon as he got
off the phone with Dr. Canone, he was going to
go sort this out with the insurance salesman. The police
start to look at insurance salesman that the Hardings had
dealt with, and they find a man named Louis Lehman.
(11:15):
Lewis Lehman denies having taken out a loan, but he
was the insurance salesman for the Hardigs. And what's more,
he had a. 25 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 rifling
(11:37):
characteristics of the rounds that were found in the house.
They asked Lehman where his. 25 caliber 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
lie detector test and basically stopped talking to detectives. And
(11:58):
at that point, the investigation had basically completely stalled out.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
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,
(12:24):
Dan Wilson.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
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
(12:50):
unsolved murder that they had. That included the Portage 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 Chesley. very kid
who came to them the day after the murder and said,
my foster brother confessed to that. When the detectives followed
(13:10):
up on that, they never interviewed Nathan Chesley and eliminated
the wrong foster brother. They never connected the dots to
Dan Wilson. They never bothered to interview Nathan Chesley. 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
(13:31):
They let it slip through their fingers. He went on
to kill another woman.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
This podcast is brought to you by Ohio Justice and
Policy Center, a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for
people directly impacted by Ohio's criminal legal system. OJPC provides
free legal services to currently and formerly incarcerated people. Through
its Beyond Guilt project, OJPC works to free overpunished people
who have rehabilitated themselves. OJPC's Human Rights in Prison project
(14:13):
represents people who face denial of medical care. In its
25-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 learn more about Ohio Justice and Policy Center and
how you can support its mission, visit OhioJPC.org. That's O-H-I-O-J-P-C
(14:40):
dot org. Ohio Justice and Policy Center. We don't write
people off.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
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, someone gets
a call from a woman named Marlene Van Steenburg. She is,
I believe, the aunt of Dennis Van Steenburg, again, who
(15:16):
was the very first person who they'd 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
his brother, who was Marlene's husband, if he could borrow his.
25 caliber pistol for a few weeks. And when Richard
(15:38):
Van Steenburg asked, why do you need my.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
25?
Speaker 6 (15:40):
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 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.
(16:04):
So the police should have been on notice that Dennis
Van Steenburg is turning in the wrong gun for comparison purposes,
and they still eliminated Van Steenburg 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 ballistic comparison on what they should
(16:27):
have known was the wrong gun for Dennis Van Steenburg.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
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?
Speaker 6 (16:42):
So that is when the Portage County Prosecuting Attorney's Office
takes over the investigation, and they assign their own investigator
to the case, a man named Ron Craig.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
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 6 (17:10):
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
(17:32):
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
(17:53):
started with Butch Wolcott, who was 16 years old at
the time.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
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 browbeat 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 false confession
(18:22):
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 anything?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
No, and I mean, for Butch, 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
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,
(18:58):
we never went to Portage County. We never went out
to Atwater. He doesn't know where it is, and that's
not an answer that Ron Craig is willing to accept.
So what they do is they send him to a
child psychologist who then puts Butch, the 16-year-old kid, under
hypnosis in order to recover what they allege are repressed
(19:21):
memories of the murder. And so under hypnosis, they 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 the psychologist
at the time said, if we keep this up, he's
just going to say false things to try and make
(19:43):
the investigators happy because he's so terrified. But it didn't
stop it. Right.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
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.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
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 this poor kid's brain. where it's
just getting completely scrambled. He's just giving 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
(20:21):
consistent with what they wanted to hear, right? That was
when he implicated the subject of our show today, Tyrone Knolling.
And then Craig turned to one of the other kids, D. Alessandro,
who said he knew nothing about the murderers. But his
own attorney convinced him and his family that he should
plea bargain to avoid the electric chair.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
That's right. Yeah, I mean, once they can get Butch
Wolcott to come up with this 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. Okay.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
In addition to the other guys, St. Clair pled guilty
to the Hardick murders as well, right? He had given
in to pressure from Detective Craig. as well as his
own attorneys and his family. And he was understandably scared
out of his mind about the death penalty. And then
Tyrone Knolling is indicted initially for the murders in 1993.
(21:17):
But this is when things get even weirder. In June 1993,
the court entered a null pros, 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 6 (21:37):
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 D'Alessandro and Gary St. 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
(21:57):
that very immediate pressure. But as the court date actually approached,
D'Alessandro recanted. asserted their innocence. We had nothing to do
with this. And Gary St. Clair recanted in a prison interview, said,
we lied, we were pressured, we had nothing to do
with this. And at that point, I think the state
had no choice but to agree to dismiss the case.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
And Tyrone, this all has to be so crazy because
you have your friends, 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 1 (22:32):
You know, when they dropped charges against me, I didn't
see it coming. They offered a deal.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
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 sentence you to death. And I'm
pleading with them back there and I'm telling them I
didn't do this. And so they send me back and
I'm talking to my dad on the phone and crying
(22:57):
and I'm saying, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And my dad says, did you do this? And I said, no.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And he just said, well, then you stick to your guns.
And that's what I did, even though I knew the
odds were against me. 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
dismisses every charge against me.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And I can't even explain the feeling at that point.
I was happy. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell.
I just wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
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 1 (23:46):
For three years almost, I didn't hear nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And then all of a sudden, a 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. The nightmare happens once again.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Brian, what Tyrone is talking about here with the election
of the new prosecutor in Portage County and Joey D'Alessandro
coming back on, what's going on there?
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Well, Joey at that point had been serving time on
an 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
(24:41):
to re-indict Tyrone Noling. And now with both Butch and
Joey D'Alessandro, they were ready to re-prosecute the case.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Because So Tyrone's trial begins in January of 1996, six
years after the crime, right? So Walcott, D'Alessandro, and St.
Clair were called as prosecution witnesses, but the former two
boys gave testimonies that were very inconsistent, unsignificant details, but
they nevertheless supported the state's narrative. They said that after
(25:11):
the second robbery in 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,
D'Alessandro or Walcott said they waited in the car while
Nolan and St. Clair allegedly went to the front door.
Sometime later, according to Walcott and D'Alessandro, Nolan and St.
(25:35):
Clair came running from the Harding house and got back
into the car. D'Alessandro 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 at trial and you see your friends,
(25:55):
they're telling these crazy lies. Can you take us back
to that moment?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I've known these guys for all my life and for
them just to disregard my life and just sit up
there 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 scream.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I wanted to ask him, why are you doing this?
Speaker 4 (26:16):
And so D'Alessandro and Walcott are saying these things, but St.
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.
(26:36):
And get this, the state read the entirety of his
prior statement to the jury and 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, what about
the other suspect?
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Well, all of these plausible and I think likely alternate
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.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
It's plausible to believe that it's because that information wasn't
turned over to the defense 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.
25 caliber gun that Tyrone and his friends had taken
in the prior robbery was still excluded. It was not
(27:33):
the murder weapon. And so they just had to come
up with another story about how they must have had
a second. 25 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
(27:55):
one theory as to what happened. And despite the problems
in that theory, he was convicted.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
So Tyrone, when the jury went out to deliberate, did
you have any hope at all that things were going
to go in your favor?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I always stayed optimistic, even though I knew the cards
were stacked against me. And I kind of remember when
they came and got me from the county jail, they
was taking me up the steps and they were lined
up with deputy sheriffs all the way up.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And that had never happened before. So my heart just
sank at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
And I remember being in the courtroom and the jury
coming in.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
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 then. I
(28:53):
was scared to death.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I'm about to go someplace that they say is the
worst of the worst. You're sentenced to death. You're sentenced
to die. People that have committed heinous crimes. I mean,
I'm still a young man. I don't know what to expect.
And I have no choice because they're going to take
me regardless.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
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, D'Alessandro,
and St. Clair, every single one of them has since
recanted their testimonies. Right? Then in 2006, the Ohio Innocence
(29:31):
Project took on your case. Can you tell us how
that came about?
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Well, my investigator, Vicki Buckwalter 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 Innocence Project. It was kind of
weird because Mark Godsey showed up with a couple of
students and I thought I was just going there for
(29:55):
an attorney visit. I told him 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 a weight off my shoulders to finally, finally, someone's
going to help me. I have a lot of respect
and gratitude for them.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
And in those ensuing 15 years, bringing us right up
to the present day, they found 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 you,
we know that that's not how the justice system works
in Ohio or, unfortunately, in the rest of our country. So, Brian,
(30:35):
can you tell us what the Ohio Innocence Project has
been doing to fight this case?
Speaker 6 (30:39):
Originally, the Ohio Innocence Project was representing Tyrone just for
the purposes of trying to get DNA testing. There are
a few things that we know 100% were last touched
by the person who committed the crime, and that is
the 10 shell casings 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.
(31:02):
DNA technology today is sensitive enough to develop a 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 Noling's or
any one of his co-defendants, that's going to be very,
(31:23):
very strong evidence of his innocence. Unfortunately, we're not able
to convince a 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 of
(31:45):
the original investigation by the Sheriff's Department specifically. First of all,
the Nathan Chesley tip, that was uncovered in Tyrone's co-defendant's files. Secondly,
the statement by Marlene Van Steenburg that the gun that
had been eliminated from Dennis Van Steenburg was not the
actual gun that he had on the night that the
murder may have taken place. And finally, it had been
known at the time that police had excluded Tyrone and
(32:09):
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 prior
primitive technology. That was not turned over, we believe, to
the defense at the time of the original trial either. Now,
(32:30):
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 1995-1996.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Since we last spoke, Brian Howe and the Ohio Witnesses
Project have been fighting Tyrone's case by trying to prove
that compelling leads and evidence had been concealed from the
defense at trial, specifically the insurance salesman Lehman, the Nathan
Chesley tip, Marlene Van Steenburg, and Dennis Van Steenburg's actual gun.
and the fact that primitive DNA testing had excluded Tyrone
(33:10):
and his friends from the cigarette butt. Yet, an alternative suspect,
Dan Wilson, was not excluded by its serology. All of
this can be cleared up by access to the state's
file on this case, and with a procedural rule from
the Ohio Supreme Court, Rule 42, that took effect in 2017,
broad access to those files shall be granted in the
(33:30):
review of a capital case. And shortly after the original
release of this episode, there was an exciting development.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Right.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
So in March of 2022, the 11th District Court of
Appeals did order that Tyrone be given access to the
state's file. We are today discussing with the state how
to move forward on the Rule 42 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 4 (33:57):
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 6 (34:02):
Yeah, and I think really more importantly, these requests 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 2014. 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 documents that the
(34:23):
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 11th District. So I think, you know, we're at
a stage now where progress is happening.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
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 6 (34:52):
They tested the cigarette butt. originally at the time of trial,
and Tyrone and all of his co-defendants were excluded from
the cigarette butt. They knew at the time that Dan
Wilson was a possible contributor, 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
(35:13):
the idea that Dan Wilson was even a possible contributor
to the saliva on the cigarette butt was covered up,
or at least not disclosed to Tyrone's defense attorneys at
the time of trial.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
How this even went to trial, let alone continues, is
totally beyond me. The only evidence against him were the
coerced words of his co-defendants, who were fearing for their
own lives in the face of the death penalty. And, yep,
you guessed it, all of those guys have since recanted.
While this battle for clarity about this wrongful conviction rages on,
(35:44):
we will return now to the episode as it ended
in December 2021, with Tyrone still in the same freaking cell.
as we continue to hope against hope that Brian and
the Ohio Innocence Project's efforts win Tyrone a new trial.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
If he were to get a fair trial today 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
(36:22):
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 4 (36:34):
Amen 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 righting this wrong,
is there something that you'd like to ask them to do.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I would encourage them to reach out to our governor,
to reach out to state and local politicians.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I would ask them to be a voice.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Somebody out there knows something and they can go to
TyroneNoling.com or they can get a hold of the Cincinnati
Innocence Project if they're willing to help or to be
a voice because I need a voice.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I need that more than anything.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Yeah, we'll definitely have TyroneNoling.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 docuseries 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 Tyrone.
And with that, we turn now. to Closing Arguments. This
(37:36):
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, leave my headphones on,
(37:57):
close my eyes, and just listen to any final thoughts
you want to share. So Brian Howe, Why don't you
go first and we'll save the best for last. And that's,
of course, that's you, Tyrone. So, Brian, closing arguments.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
Well, you know, 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,
(38:33):
that Tyrone get a fair day in court. And the
other thing is that the fact that Tyrone is innocent,
which I'm personally 100% convinced of, 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 that was never
(38:56):
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, not 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 Harding murders. There is a man's life on the line,
(39:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Brought before the court.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
And now over to you, Tyrone.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Well, I would like 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 1 (39:42):
Now's the time.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
This is difficult. 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
them again to look into my case, to get involved,
to be a voice for me and to.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Help me get out of here because I'm innocent. I
don't want to be here.
Speaker 6 (40:04):
So please.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team, Conor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburn,
and Kevin Wardus, with research by Lila Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three-time Oscar-nominated composer J. Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
(40:33):
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 Flom. Wrongful Conviction is
a production of Lava for Good Podcast in association with
Signal Company No. 1.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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