July 3, 2023 • 30 mins
Have you heard about New Zealand's Brendan Dassey?
Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin take us across the globe to New Zealand with a story that hits way too close to home: a sixteen-year-old boy confessed to a rape and murder he didn’t commit. His wrongful conviction allowed the real offender, a serial rapist, to assault dozens of other women -- while Teina Pora languished behind bars for 20 years.
We are sharing this updated episode to announce that shortly after the original episode aired, New Zealand opened the Criminal Cases Review Commission, similar to a Conviction Integrity Unit, to investigate possible wrongful convictions. This is a step in the right direction.
To learn more and get involved, visit: https://www.centeronwrongfulconvictions.org/
Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey there, it's Laura and I writer. I am here
with an update on a case we shared with you
back in Season one of False Confessions. It's the story
of Tana Porra, which is perhaps the most famous wrongful
conviction in New Zealand. Shortly after our episode aired, New
Zealand officially opened the Criminal Cases Review Commission or CCRC
to investigate other possible wrongful convictions. Like Conviction Integrity Units
(00:29):
here in the US, the CCRC will reinvestigate cases and
present its findings to the court, which will then weigh
the evidence and grant relief if they see fit. Since
the CCRC began operation in New Zealand in twenty twenty,
the work of its investigators has led to one exoneration
already and three more seem likely in the near future.
(00:51):
This is a hugely positive step in New Zealand, where
justice can move really slowly and exonerations like these have
been exceedingly rare. But with the CEA CRC, true justice
seems a lot closer at hand. Welcome to wrongful conviction,
False Confessions. I'm Laura and I Writer and.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm Steve Drissen.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So far we've told you false confession stories that span
the United States, from urban Chicago to rural Nebraska. Today,
we'll take you across the globe to New Zealand with
a story that still hits way too close to home.
A sixteen year old boy who confessed to a rape
and murder he didn't commit. His wrongful conviction allowed the
(01:35):
real offender, a prolific serial rapist, to assault dozens of
other women, while a teenager languished behind bars after making
(01:57):
a murder. Came out season two, Steve and I have
had an opportunity to travel around the globe talking to
audiences about the problem of false confessions and the need
for criminal justice reform. We've spoken everywhere from the United
States to the United Kingdom, to Ireland to Australia. You
remember this guy, Steve, who traveled around Australia with us.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh God, this guy, this guy was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
What was his name, Jimond?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
His name was Si Simon. Simon. Simon was like a
roadie from the nineteen seventies, always wearing black T shirts
and deep into the heavy metal scene.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Somehow, poor Simon gets assigned to the lawyers who are
traveling around talking about false confessions. One of my personal
points of pride though, is that by the end of
this trip around Australia, he seemed to like what we
were trying to do, so we had a great time
with him. But Simon kept asking us, as did everybody
else we met around Australia. Have you heard about Tana Pora?
Have you heard about New Zealand's Brendon Dassy? And that's
(02:53):
exactly who Tana is.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Police officers around the world are often trained in very
similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I
expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places
like Japan and Korea and other Commonwealth countries like Australia
and New Zealand and Canada.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
These are stories that hit home around the globe, whether
it's for you know, social justice driven lawyers or heavy
metal roadies. You know Tanapora, Brendan Dassy. We all know
someone vulnerable like them, and we can all see the
need to do justice in cases like these. Tanapora's story
(03:39):
starts about eight thousand miles away from where Steve and
I are sitting right now in the United States. It
starts in South Auckland. That's an urban area on the
southern edge of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home
to a large minority population, including Maureed's, the indigenous Polynesian
population of New Zealand. Parts of South Auckland can have
(03:59):
no negative connotations. Too often it's associated with poverty and crime.
When our story starts in nineteen ninety two, South Auckland
was home to a thirty nine year old woman named
Susan Burdette. Susan lived alone in a tidy house on
Paw Road. She worked days as an account's clerk at
a chemical manufacturing company, and on the evening of March
(04:21):
twenty third, nineteen ninety two, Susan leaves her weekly bowling
league meet up and drives home under a night of
beautiful stars. Susan's a hard worker, so when she doesn't
show up at work the next few days, her colleagues
get concerned. They call her friend Steve eventually to find
out if he knows where she is. Steve gets worried
(04:42):
and he ends up going over to Susan's house that Wednesday,
March twenty fifth, at about twelve forty pm. He finds
the front door unlocked, goes inside and is greeted with
a horrible sight. Susan is lying horizontally on her waterbed
and she's clearly dead. The upper half of her body
is wrapped in a duvet and there's a wooden baseball
(05:04):
bat lying on the bed next to her. Her legs
are dangling off the side of the bed and they're crossed.
Someone whoever did this had positioned her that way. The
police arrived, they remove the duvet and they find that
Susan had been beaten badly about the head, very likely
with the baseball bat. She'd also been sexually assaulted, and
there's plenty of DNA left behind seamen, as well as
(05:27):
a bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands
were covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she'd fought
back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the
baseball bat as belonging to Susan. She had kept it
next to her bed for her own protection. The police
begin by investigating Susan's other friends, but DNA and alibis
(05:49):
clear them all and the investigation quickly stalls. The pressure
is building building, that is until about a week after
the murder. That's when police get a call from a
woman named Garry McLaughlin, and she tells them a story
about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired,
baby faced mawory kid named Tana Pora.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, let's talk about Tana for a bit. Tana had
it rough growing up. His mother died when he was
a young boy, and his father left shortly afterwards. He
then got passed around from family member to family member
and ultimately ended up in his aunt Terry's house.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
A few days after Susan Burdett's murder made headlines, Tana
and some friends found a baseball bat in the local
park and they were joking about it being the murder weapon.
Back at Aunt Terry's house, Tana kept talking about the bat.
Tana had a history of run ins with the law,
nothing really serious, but enough for Terry to want him
out of her house. She called the police over and over,
(06:49):
insisting that Tana knew something about Susan Burdett's murder. But
police quickly come to the conclusion that Tana and his
buddies were just over excited teens who are talking shit.
They interview Tana, they take his DNA, They even execute
a search warrant, but Tana and his friends are ruled
out conclusively as Susan Burdett's killers. The DNA doesn't match,
(07:13):
the search warrant turns up nothing, and while tana does
have a record, there is nothing in his background that
would suggests this level of violence or depravity.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Now, let's fast forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteenth,
nineteen ninety three. We're almost a year out now from
the discovery of Susan Burdett's body. In the course of
police investigations. That's a lifetime and this is the only
unsolved homicide from nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Tana Pora is seventeen years old. Now he still has
that babyface, but his police record has grown. During a
routine interview with Tana about a car theft, police get
an anonymous phone tip about Susan Burdett's murder. This caller
links the murder to a local gang called the mongrel
Agang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so the
(08:04):
police decide to keep him at the station for questioning.
His interrogation begins at nine am and continues for the
next four days.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
The police have Tana Pora in the interrogation room and
he's telling multiple different stories. The stories don't make any sense.
It's not an interrogation with banging of the table or
raised voices or threats or even promises.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
To unite a comment that you're gonna tell us more?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Okay? Well, tell us this is a seventeen year old
kid who is highly suggestible and eager to please the authorities.
They're applying him with cigarettes and fast food and drinks.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
You head spring raw bodog chips and drink.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
The detectives even mentioned twenty thousand dollars as a reward
for information about Susan Burdette's rape and murder. Tana's story
keeps evolving, and the camera keeps getting turned on and off.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
You said you were going to tell us everything.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
First, Tana tells the police that he drove two other
men to Susan's house and waited outside while they went
into attacker. Are you telling us about a person called
dog raping this woman?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Did you hear any more or see any more? It's
outside in the caravan.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Eventually he changes that story.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I thought what you've said so fair that you've climbed
it in the bedroom window and you've gone through to
open the door up for the other two.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
All right, now he's climbing in through one of Susan
Burdette's windows and letting the other two in through the
front door.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And you were inlier.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
You could see quite clearly what was happening, Is that right?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I was just watching and you were just watching.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And in the end, after four days, Tana confesses to
being in the room, to actually holding Susan down while
his two associates raped her.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And you were in the room some of this time
while this was happening. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You are holding Susan dan?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And that last story, the one that ultimately seals Tana's fate.
It comes after a break in the tea room, where
of course, the cameras are turned off at.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
The suggestion of the police. Tana identifies this two supposed
accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that local gang.
The police bring in those two individuals that Tana had named,
but their DNA doesn't match the DNA found on Susan's body.
They're cleared and they're released. Things don't go as smoothly
for Tana. He's arrested based on his confession. He's charged
(10:43):
with Susan Burdett's rape and murder, and fourteen long months later,
prosecutors try Tana Porra for participating in the murder of
Susan Burdett along with two unknown accomplices.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Now let's stop right here for a minute. This is
round one of the battle of these two titans of evidence,
confessions versus DNA. DNA seemed to clear Tanapora of any
role in this cry, but it's the confessions that ultimately
lead to his conviction.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
On June sixteenth, nineteen ninety four, a jury took less
than ninety minutes to convictaan Apora of rape and murder.
He received a life sentence and was shipped off to prison.
At the same time, the New Zealand Police are beginning
(11:39):
a focused investigation into six rapes that had occurred between
nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety two in the Auckland area,
including Susan Burdette's rape. Now, these attacks were all similar
enough that some police officers began to worry that they
had a serial rapist on their hands. All of them
involved a lone wolf attacker who broke into women's homes,
(12:02):
wrapped their heads in blankets or duveys and repositioned them
so that they lay sideways across the edge of the
bed during the attack. And by April nineteen ninety six,
a few years after Tana's conviction, the investigation into these
rapes linked them all, including Susan Burdett's attack, to the
DNA of the same person, a man named Malcolm Raywa.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Now, who is Malcolm Rewa? First of all, he's twenty
years older than Tana Porra. And while I usually try
to avoid characterizing my fellow humans like this, Raywa is
a monster. He's a terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
He's the kind of predator that women worry about. He's
the worst nightmare.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Raywak committed his first rape in the nineteen seventies. His
wife was in labor giving birth to their child at
the time, so Raywa took the oppertains unity to sexually
assault a nurse in a hospital bed.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Unbelievable four and a.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Half years in prison he spent for that awful crime.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So Raywah gets out of prison and apparently rapes again
from then on. Over the dozens of rapes that he
went on to commit, Raywa started developing a pattern an
m O. He'd carefully select his victims, who tended to
be single women, professionals who were home alone. He'd stake
out their homes in advance and plan his attacks meticulously,
(13:30):
and then always the same thing, a surprise attack after
the woman had fallen asleep, a physical attack first to
subdue her, then the blanket or duvet around her head,
and a rape at the side of the bed.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And raa would hide in their homes. He would wait
for them to get into bed and begin to fall asleep,
and then he would attack.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Raywa apparently suffered from a rectile dysfunction, which is why
he positioned his victims in a way that allowed him
to maintain sexual coind during his attacks. That's also why
he acted alone. He didn't exactly want an audience. Ray
was arrested on May thirteenth, nineteen ninety six. It's a
pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police had been planning
(14:13):
this for quite some time. When he tries to run,
police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now, the
police remember that Tanapora had already confessed to one of
the rapes, to which Reywa is tied by DNA, so
they immediately ask him if he knows Tana Pora. Reywa
is crystal clear never met him. Based on the arrest
(14:36):
of Malcolm Rawa, the Court of Appeals throws out Tana's
conviction in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Nine, never met him. Now, at this point in time,
where you have a prolific serial rapist operating in the
same neighborhood as the Burdette murder and his DNA is
at the crime scene and he's telling you I don't
know Tanapura, most prosecutors and police officers would throw their
hands up and say we can't go forward with a
(15:04):
reprosecution of Tana Pora. We have to free him.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
But instead Tana is retried, and if you've listened to
this podcast, you know what's coming. Prosecutors change their theory
of the case and argue at Tana's second trial that
he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdett together, even
though Rewa had denied knowing Tana, even though Rewa always
(15:28):
acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted
some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So now we have round two of a battle between
confession evidence and DNA evidence, except this time we know
whose DNA it is. It's the DNA of a serial
rapist named Malcolm Rewa. Will Tana's confession bring him down?
Or will the jury side with the science and recognize
(15:58):
that Tanapora and Malcolm had never met.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Sure Enough, despite all hopes that the DNA evidence would
be enough to clear Tana, Tana was convicted a second
time of raping and murdering Susan Burdette and sent back
to his life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Raywa himself stood trial
for three months in nineteen ninety eight on what amounted
to forty five counts of rape, involving twenty seven different women.
(16:30):
His trial ended with convictions for sexually assaulting twenty five
of them, including Susan Burdett. Just like Tana, he was
shipped off to prison for decades. Now, this is justice
for Rewa, but for Tana Porra it's anything but. And
for years Tana served as time with little hope of freedom,
and things might have stayed bleak for him had it
(16:52):
not been for a man named Tim mckinnal.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Now, who is Tim.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Mckinnal At the moment, Tom is self employed, private and vistageta.
But when I finished university. I joined the police as
a twenty two year old.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Tim McKinnell started out his career as a cup, a
good cup, one of the best cups. Tim had become
a member of the South Auckland Police Force in the
late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by the
year two thousand. That year, the force had been divided
over the case of Tanapura.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
A lot of chat went on in the police bar
at the time, and there was a real disconnect between
two different groups of people. People that thought Tana Porter
was a guilty man and had been involved in the
rape and murder of Susan Bidett, and there was another
camp of experienced police officers who thought that he was
an innocent man.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
In fact, Tim remembers seeing all manner of drunken arguments
at police bars and he was struck by the passion
of those who believed in Tana Pura.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Tim never forgot those arguments or his own growing doubt
about Tana's guilt, even after he eventually left the police force,
and as many retired officers do, he became a private investigator.
Now in two thousand and seven, Tim attended a local
conference on wrongful convictions and false confessions, and that conference
brought up those old, lingering questions that Tim had about
(18:16):
Tana's case. The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed
in his thirties with a rare blood disorder, not exactly
a death sentence, but the kind of health scare that
led him to reevaluate his priorities and seek out more
meaningful work like freeing the innocent. Eventually, Tim decided to
take the plunge. In two thousand and nine, he visited
(18:39):
Tana Pora, who was then thirty four years old in prison.
Tana was no longer that teenage car thief Tim had
read about. He was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm.
Tim begins to feel an urge to help this guy.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
But there's the matter of Tana's confession. Tim starts by
digging up videotapes of Tina's interrogation, and they're not easy
to find. They're on old VHS tapes in boxes in
police departments. But he gets them and he sits down
to watch them, and he is blown away by what
he saw.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
When you examine what he was able to say on
day one. In the first few interviews on tape, and
you compare that to what he was able to say
four days later, there are marked differences. There were some
very particular things that happened in Susan's house that the
offender would know, and it's clear from the interviews that
Tana Porter had no idea about any of them.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Despite four days worth of trying, Tina just was not
able to tell a story that matched what actually happened.
When police asked him to describe Susan Burdette, he says
she was chubby, even though she was actually quite athletic.
Tina is asked to draw a picture of how he
left Susan's body. Remember she'd been found horizontally with her
legs dangling over the side of the bed, but he
(20:01):
draws her lying vertically on the bad. When he was
asked whether there was anything special about Susan's bad, Tina
can't come up with the fact that it was a water.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Bad, and so one of the questions that arises about
that is how did he come to know things on
day four that he didn't know on day one.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
The interrogators take Tina on a field trip to Susan
Burdett's street so that he can point out details of
the crime to them in person, and they videotaped the
whole thing.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
He started giving them directions that were taking them away
from her house, so though helpfully tried to direct him
back towards her house, it was pretty clear on tape
that he still had no idea where he was going
and wasn't able to identify anything familiar. In the end,
they took him to the outside of the house where
(20:50):
Susan had been raped murdered and asked him if he
recognized anything, and again he didn't, so the police officer
and it's really chilling, really chilling to watch it. He said, Look,
it's clear you don't recognize what it is you're looking for.
So do you think it would help if I showed
you house? And that's an extraordinary thing for a police
(21:10):
officer to do.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He
was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until
Tina Poora was cleared. But he needs to present more
evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to
get involved in this case.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So Tana's case isn't one that was only scarred by
false confession. There were the other issues that were beginning
to arise with the involvement of Tana's family.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Tina's cousin became a key witness for the prosecution against Tina.
She claimed that she had seen Tina with Rewa on
multiple occasions, including once at Tina's girlfriend's home.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
There was evidence of paid witnesses, including his cousin and
his auntie. Those family members gave evidence against him, and
we know that at least one of them was paid
five thousand dollars for her trouble.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Tim tracks down Fiona, Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that
she has no idea who Malcolm Rawell was and that
he was never in her home. From his time on
the police force, Tim was well acquainted with the various
gangs operating around South Auckland, so for him, one piece
of the prosecution's argument was clearly ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Malcolm Rawa was a senior member of the Highway sixty
one motorcycle Club, Mortal Enemies of the Mongrel Mob and
Sotana Porter as somebody who was supposedly involved with the
Mungrel Mob. Going to Susan Burdette's house late one night
with a senior member of the Highway sixty one's to
(22:56):
commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows anything
about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you that
that's just nonsense.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Tim doesn't stop there. He also starts assembling an all
star team of experts, starting with an Icelandic professor and
former detective himself, Geisley good Johnson, who was a professor
by that time in London. Now. Geasley essentially created the
field of falls confession science. He's the father of everything
we're talking about during this podcast, and after Tim sends
(23:28):
him Tane's interrogation videos, Geezley agrees to write a report
deconstructing Tana's statements and deeming them unreliable.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Next, Tim enlists the help of respected local New Zealand
journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the States case
against Tanner for years and is happy to help, and
Phil delivers. In twenty twelve, as the case for Tana's
innocence is building, Phil releases a bombshell article titled Innocent
(23:59):
Man in Jail for twenty Years, and in it Chuck Henwood,
the detective who had developed the original criminal profile of
Malcolm Rewa says the cops got it horribly wrong in
Susan Burdett's case. Tana had nothing to do with this.
Now this is a huge deal because Chuck Henwood is
the most famous criminal profiler in New Zealand, a bit
(24:22):
like John Douglas of the mind Hunter fame.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
For somebody like Chuck Henwood come out and express a
firmly hell conviction that Tana Porter was innocent was hugely
important in terms of public perception and momentum for our
appeal work on Tana's case.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And in the middle of this, there's this remarkable moment
when Susan Burdett's brother Jim comes forward and says, I
too believe that Tana Pora is innocent, and he actually
meets with Tana Pora. It's this incredible moment of reconciliation
and grace.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Momentum is building a across the board, but there's still
one more piece. Can Tim provide a better understanding, a
better explanation of why Tana confessed to a crime he
didn't commit.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
We had a documentary maker called Michael Bennett making a
documentary about Tana's case. Perhaps the most significant development in
twenty years occurred because the person that had been watching
it was a woman called doctor Valerie McGinn.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Doctor McGinn provides Tim with the answer he needs. She
writes report, saying, your clients, mister Tana Pora sounds very
similar to many people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She
even attaches a journal article that details how individuals with
FASD are at an increased risk of getting arrested. And
(25:43):
more importantly, people.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
That have it can be impulsive, they suggestible, they eager
to please figures of authority. And so when you look
at those types of behaviors and then you consider the
position Taner was in when he was in the police
station in nineteen ninety three, it almost makes it inevitable
that he was going to confess to something.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Doctor mcginnon confirms categorically that Tena suffers from an FASD disorder,
he was uniquely susceptible to falsely confessing in the interrogation room.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
One of the things that really bothered me about Tana's
case is we could never understand why he did what
he did, the things he said, and the people he implicated.
It just none of it made sense to us, and
we couldn't explain that to the courts, and so once
we got this diagnosis of feder Welck whole spectrum disorder,
it all became clear. It was the final piece of
(26:34):
the puzzle and we finally understood what it was we
were dealing with.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And that does it. All the pieces are assembled for
Tim and his team to appeal Tena's conviction and they
bring the case in November of twenty fourteen to the
Privy Council in London, the final Court of Appeal where
Commonwealth countries like New Zealand can bring cases like Tena's.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It's the court of last resort and it's staffed with
senior judge some of the best and brightest minds in
the entire Commonwealth.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Now this is Tana's last shot, and his lawyers put
his FASD disorder at the front of their case, arguing
that judges in the nineteen ninety four and two thousand
trials weren't aware of his disability and if they had been,
they would have ruled differently.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
There was a big group of people that gathered at
Michael Bennett, the documentary maker's house, waiting for that decision
to be announced, and it was an extraordinary moment. We
only got to tell Taneer about an hour before the
whole world found out that he had his conviction quashed
and he was no longer a rapist and murderer. It
was incredibly emotional for him.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
On March third, twenty fifteen, in the case of poorra
Versus the Queen, the Council of rules that Tina's confessions
must be thrown out, and they quashed his conviction for
the rape and murder of Susan Burdett. Two weeks later,
the Crown prosecutors dropped their case and declined to reap Tina,
(28:01):
and after more than twenty years, tana Pora was officially exonerated.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
You know what his first concern was for was for
the police officers that had interviewed him. He didn't want
their reputations to be tarnished because of what had happened.
One of his first thoughts was for other people, and
that was that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
In so many of these wrongful conviction cases, you see
people go through so much pain, and they have every
right to be bitter, resentful, angry, all of those things,
but so often you see them express, at least publicly,
these incredible acts of grace. It's almost as though they've
lived through so much pain they don't want to cause anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
In twenty sixteen, Tana received a sum of money to
compensate him for the time he had spent in prison
for a crime he did not commit. He also received
an apology from the New Zealand government.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Tana grew up in prison. He was there for twenty
two years and he struggles every day. We keep in contact,
but life isn't great for him. The money makes some
things easier, but it doesn't repair the psychological damage. It
doesn't bring the years back, and it doesn't make his
life easy now. It is incredibly difficult to watch him
(29:16):
struggle through life after everything he's been through.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Tana, we salute your sheer endurance, your will to keep
on fighting and surviving and living through this ordeal from
the other side of the planet. Know that we won't
forget your name or what you've been through, and all
of us together, we're fighting to make sure it doesn't
happen again. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is the production of
(29:48):
Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number
one Special thanks to our executive producer Jason Flamm and
the team at Signal Company Number one executive producer Kevin
warda Senior producer and Pope, and additional production and editing
by Connor Hall. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph.
You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura
(30:11):
Nyrider and you.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Twitter at wrong Conviction
Hey there, it's Laura and I writer. I am here
with an update on a case we shared with you
back in Season one of False Confessions. It's the story
of Tana Porra, which is perhaps the most famous wrongful
conviction in New Zealand. Shortly after our episode aired, New
Zealand officially opened the Criminal Cases Review Commission or CCRC
to investigate other possible wrongful convictions. Like Conviction Integrity Units
(00:29):
here in the US, the CCRC will reinvestigate cases and
present its findings to the court, which will then weigh
the evidence and grant relief if they see fit. Since
the CCRC began operation in New Zealand in twenty twenty,
the work of its investigators has led to one exoneration
already and three more seem likely in the near future.
(00:51):
This is a hugely positive step in New Zealand, where
justice can move really slowly and exonerations like these have
been exceedingly rare. But with the CEA CRC, true justice
seems a lot closer at hand. Welcome to wrongful conviction,
False Confessions. I'm Laura and I Writer and.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm Steve Drissen.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So far we've told you false confession stories that span
the United States, from urban Chicago to rural Nebraska. Today,
we'll take you across the globe to New Zealand with
a story that still hits way too close to home.
A sixteen year old boy who confessed to a rape
and murder he didn't commit. His wrongful conviction allowed the
(01:35):
real offender, a prolific serial rapist, to assault dozens of
other women, while a teenager languished behind bars after making
(01:57):
a murder. Came out season two, Steve and I have
had an opportunity to travel around the globe talking to
audiences about the problem of false confessions and the need
for criminal justice reform. We've spoken everywhere from the United
States to the United Kingdom, to Ireland to Australia. You
remember this guy, Steve, who traveled around Australia with us.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh God, this guy, this guy was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
What was his name, Jimond?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
His name was Si Simon. Simon. Simon was like a
roadie from the nineteen seventies, always wearing black T shirts
and deep into the heavy metal scene.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Somehow, poor Simon gets assigned to the lawyers who are
traveling around talking about false confessions. One of my personal
points of pride though, is that by the end of
this trip around Australia, he seemed to like what we
were trying to do, so we had a great time
with him. But Simon kept asking us, as did everybody
else we met around Australia. Have you heard about Tana Pora?
Have you heard about New Zealand's Brendon Dassy? And that's
(02:53):
exactly who Tana is.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Police officers around the world are often trained in very
similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I
expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places
like Japan and Korea and other Commonwealth countries like Australia
and New Zealand and Canada.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
These are stories that hit home around the globe, whether
it's for you know, social justice driven lawyers or heavy
metal roadies. You know Tanapora, Brendan Dassy. We all know
someone vulnerable like them, and we can all see the
need to do justice in cases like these. Tanapora's story
(03:39):
starts about eight thousand miles away from where Steve and
I are sitting right now in the United States. It
starts in South Auckland. That's an urban area on the
southern edge of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home
to a large minority population, including Maureed's, the indigenous Polynesian
population of New Zealand. Parts of South Auckland can have
(03:59):
no negative connotations. Too often it's associated with poverty and crime.
When our story starts in nineteen ninety two, South Auckland
was home to a thirty nine year old woman named
Susan Burdette. Susan lived alone in a tidy house on
Paw Road. She worked days as an account's clerk at
a chemical manufacturing company, and on the evening of March
(04:21):
twenty third, nineteen ninety two, Susan leaves her weekly bowling
league meet up and drives home under a night of
beautiful stars. Susan's a hard worker, so when she doesn't
show up at work the next few days, her colleagues
get concerned. They call her friend Steve eventually to find
out if he knows where she is. Steve gets worried
(04:42):
and he ends up going over to Susan's house that Wednesday,
March twenty fifth, at about twelve forty pm. He finds
the front door unlocked, goes inside and is greeted with
a horrible sight. Susan is lying horizontally on her waterbed
and she's clearly dead. The upper half of her body
is wrapped in a duvet and there's a wooden baseball
(05:04):
bat lying on the bed next to her. Her legs
are dangling off the side of the bed and they're crossed.
Someone whoever did this had positioned her that way. The
police arrived, they remove the duvet and they find that
Susan had been beaten badly about the head, very likely
with the baseball bat. She'd also been sexually assaulted, and
there's plenty of DNA left behind seamen, as well as
(05:27):
a bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands
were covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she'd fought
back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the
baseball bat as belonging to Susan. She had kept it
next to her bed for her own protection. The police
begin by investigating Susan's other friends, but DNA and alibis
(05:49):
clear them all and the investigation quickly stalls. The pressure
is building building, that is until about a week after
the murder. That's when police get a call from a
woman named Garry McLaughlin, and she tells them a story
about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired,
baby faced mawory kid named Tana Pora.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, let's talk about Tana for a bit. Tana had
it rough growing up. His mother died when he was
a young boy, and his father left shortly afterwards. He
then got passed around from family member to family member
and ultimately ended up in his aunt Terry's house.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
A few days after Susan Burdett's murder made headlines, Tana
and some friends found a baseball bat in the local
park and they were joking about it being the murder weapon.
Back at Aunt Terry's house, Tana kept talking about the bat.
Tana had a history of run ins with the law,
nothing really serious, but enough for Terry to want him
out of her house. She called the police over and over,
(06:49):
insisting that Tana knew something about Susan Burdett's murder. But
police quickly come to the conclusion that Tana and his
buddies were just over excited teens who are talking shit.
They interview Tana, they take his DNA, They even execute
a search warrant, but Tana and his friends are ruled
out conclusively as Susan Burdett's killers. The DNA doesn't match,
(07:13):
the search warrant turns up nothing, and while tana does
have a record, there is nothing in his background that
would suggests this level of violence or depravity.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Now, let's fast forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteenth,
nineteen ninety three. We're almost a year out now from
the discovery of Susan Burdett's body. In the course of
police investigations. That's a lifetime and this is the only
unsolved homicide from nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Tana Pora is seventeen years old. Now he still has
that babyface, but his police record has grown. During a
routine interview with Tana about a car theft, police get
an anonymous phone tip about Susan Burdett's murder. This caller
links the murder to a local gang called the mongrel
Agang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so the
(08:04):
police decide to keep him at the station for questioning.
His interrogation begins at nine am and continues for the
next four days.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
The police have Tana Pora in the interrogation room and
he's telling multiple different stories. The stories don't make any sense.
It's not an interrogation with banging of the table or
raised voices or threats or even promises.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
To unite a comment that you're gonna tell us more?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Okay? Well, tell us this is a seventeen year old
kid who is highly suggestible and eager to please the authorities.
They're applying him with cigarettes and fast food and drinks.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
You head spring raw bodog chips and drink.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
The detectives even mentioned twenty thousand dollars as a reward
for information about Susan Burdette's rape and murder. Tana's story
keeps evolving, and the camera keeps getting turned on and off.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
You said you were going to tell us everything.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
First, Tana tells the police that he drove two other
men to Susan's house and waited outside while they went
into attacker. Are you telling us about a person called
dog raping this woman?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Did you hear any more or see any more? It's
outside in the caravan.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Eventually he changes that story.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I thought what you've said so fair that you've climbed
it in the bedroom window and you've gone through to
open the door up for the other two.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
All right, now he's climbing in through one of Susan
Burdette's windows and letting the other two in through the
front door.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And you were inlier.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
You could see quite clearly what was happening, Is that right?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I was just watching and you were just watching.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And in the end, after four days, Tana confesses to
being in the room, to actually holding Susan down while
his two associates raped her.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And you were in the room some of this time
while this was happening. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You are holding Susan dan?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And that last story, the one that ultimately seals Tana's fate.
It comes after a break in the tea room, where
of course, the cameras are turned off at.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
The suggestion of the police. Tana identifies this two supposed
accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that local gang.
The police bring in those two individuals that Tana had named,
but their DNA doesn't match the DNA found on Susan's body.
They're cleared and they're released. Things don't go as smoothly
for Tana. He's arrested based on his confession. He's charged
(10:43):
with Susan Burdett's rape and murder, and fourteen long months later,
prosecutors try Tana Porra for participating in the murder of
Susan Burdett along with two unknown accomplices.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Now let's stop right here for a minute. This is
round one of the battle of these two titans of evidence,
confessions versus DNA. DNA seemed to clear Tanapora of any
role in this cry, but it's the confessions that ultimately
lead to his conviction.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
On June sixteenth, nineteen ninety four, a jury took less
than ninety minutes to convictaan Apora of rape and murder.
He received a life sentence and was shipped off to prison.
At the same time, the New Zealand Police are beginning
(11:39):
a focused investigation into six rapes that had occurred between
nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety two in the Auckland area,
including Susan Burdette's rape. Now, these attacks were all similar
enough that some police officers began to worry that they
had a serial rapist on their hands. All of them
involved a lone wolf attacker who broke into women's homes,
(12:02):
wrapped their heads in blankets or duveys and repositioned them
so that they lay sideways across the edge of the
bed during the attack. And by April nineteen ninety six,
a few years after Tana's conviction, the investigation into these
rapes linked them all, including Susan Burdett's attack, to the
DNA of the same person, a man named Malcolm Raywa.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Now, who is Malcolm Rewa? First of all, he's twenty
years older than Tana Porra. And while I usually try
to avoid characterizing my fellow humans like this, Raywa is
a monster. He's a terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
He's the kind of predator that women worry about. He's
the worst nightmare.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Raywak committed his first rape in the nineteen seventies. His
wife was in labor giving birth to their child at
the time, so Raywa took the oppertains unity to sexually
assault a nurse in a hospital bed.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Unbelievable four and a.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Half years in prison he spent for that awful crime.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So Raywah gets out of prison and apparently rapes again
from then on. Over the dozens of rapes that he
went on to commit, Raywa started developing a pattern an
m O. He'd carefully select his victims, who tended to
be single women, professionals who were home alone. He'd stake
out their homes in advance and plan his attacks meticulously,
(13:30):
and then always the same thing, a surprise attack after
the woman had fallen asleep, a physical attack first to
subdue her, then the blanket or duvet around her head,
and a rape at the side of the bed.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And raa would hide in their homes. He would wait
for them to get into bed and begin to fall asleep,
and then he would attack.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Raywa apparently suffered from a rectile dysfunction, which is why
he positioned his victims in a way that allowed him
to maintain sexual coind during his attacks. That's also why
he acted alone. He didn't exactly want an audience. Ray
was arrested on May thirteenth, nineteen ninety six. It's a
pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police had been planning
(14:13):
this for quite some time. When he tries to run,
police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now, the
police remember that Tanapora had already confessed to one of
the rapes, to which Reywa is tied by DNA, so
they immediately ask him if he knows Tana Pora. Reywa
is crystal clear never met him. Based on the arrest
(14:36):
of Malcolm Rawa, the Court of Appeals throws out Tana's
conviction in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Nine, never met him. Now, at this point in time,
where you have a prolific serial rapist operating in the
same neighborhood as the Burdette murder and his DNA is
at the crime scene and he's telling you I don't
know Tanapura, most prosecutors and police officers would throw their
hands up and say we can't go forward with a
(15:04):
reprosecution of Tana Pora. We have to free him.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
But instead Tana is retried, and if you've listened to
this podcast, you know what's coming. Prosecutors change their theory
of the case and argue at Tana's second trial that
he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdett together, even
though Rewa had denied knowing Tana, even though Rewa always
(15:28):
acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted
some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So now we have round two of a battle between
confession evidence and DNA evidence, except this time we know
whose DNA it is. It's the DNA of a serial
rapist named Malcolm Rewa. Will Tana's confession bring him down?
Or will the jury side with the science and recognize
(15:58):
that Tanapora and Malcolm had never met.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Sure Enough, despite all hopes that the DNA evidence would
be enough to clear Tana, Tana was convicted a second
time of raping and murdering Susan Burdette and sent back
to his life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Raywa himself stood trial
for three months in nineteen ninety eight on what amounted
to forty five counts of rape, involving twenty seven different women.
(16:30):
His trial ended with convictions for sexually assaulting twenty five
of them, including Susan Burdett. Just like Tana, he was
shipped off to prison for decades. Now, this is justice
for Rewa, but for Tana Porra it's anything but. And
for years Tana served as time with little hope of freedom,
and things might have stayed bleak for him had it
(16:52):
not been for a man named Tim mckinnal.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Now, who is Tim.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Mckinnal At the moment, Tom is self employed, private and vistageta.
But when I finished university. I joined the police as
a twenty two year old.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Tim McKinnell started out his career as a cup, a
good cup, one of the best cups. Tim had become
a member of the South Auckland Police Force in the
late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by the
year two thousand. That year, the force had been divided
over the case of Tanapura.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
A lot of chat went on in the police bar
at the time, and there was a real disconnect between
two different groups of people. People that thought Tana Porter
was a guilty man and had been involved in the
rape and murder of Susan Bidett, and there was another
camp of experienced police officers who thought that he was
an innocent man.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
In fact, Tim remembers seeing all manner of drunken arguments
at police bars and he was struck by the passion
of those who believed in Tana Pura.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Tim never forgot those arguments or his own growing doubt
about Tana's guilt, even after he eventually left the police force,
and as many retired officers do, he became a private investigator.
Now in two thousand and seven, Tim attended a local
conference on wrongful convictions and false confessions, and that conference
brought up those old, lingering questions that Tim had about
(18:16):
Tana's case. The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed
in his thirties with a rare blood disorder, not exactly
a death sentence, but the kind of health scare that
led him to reevaluate his priorities and seek out more
meaningful work like freeing the innocent. Eventually, Tim decided to
take the plunge. In two thousand and nine, he visited
(18:39):
Tana Pora, who was then thirty four years old in prison.
Tana was no longer that teenage car thief Tim had
read about. He was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm.
Tim begins to feel an urge to help this guy.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
But there's the matter of Tana's confession. Tim starts by
digging up videotapes of Tina's interrogation, and they're not easy
to find. They're on old VHS tapes in boxes in
police departments. But he gets them and he sits down
to watch them, and he is blown away by what
he saw.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
When you examine what he was able to say on
day one. In the first few interviews on tape, and
you compare that to what he was able to say
four days later, there are marked differences. There were some
very particular things that happened in Susan's house that the
offender would know, and it's clear from the interviews that
Tana Porter had no idea about any of them.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Despite four days worth of trying, Tina just was not
able to tell a story that matched what actually happened.
When police asked him to describe Susan Burdette, he says
she was chubby, even though she was actually quite athletic.
Tina is asked to draw a picture of how he
left Susan's body. Remember she'd been found horizontally with her
legs dangling over the side of the bed, but he
(20:01):
draws her lying vertically on the bad. When he was
asked whether there was anything special about Susan's bad, Tina
can't come up with the fact that it was a water.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Bad, and so one of the questions that arises about
that is how did he come to know things on
day four that he didn't know on day one.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
The interrogators take Tina on a field trip to Susan
Burdett's street so that he can point out details of
the crime to them in person, and they videotaped the
whole thing.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
He started giving them directions that were taking them away
from her house, so though helpfully tried to direct him
back towards her house, it was pretty clear on tape
that he still had no idea where he was going
and wasn't able to identify anything familiar. In the end,
they took him to the outside of the house where
(20:50):
Susan had been raped murdered and asked him if he
recognized anything, and again he didn't, so the police officer
and it's really chilling, really chilling to watch it. He said, Look,
it's clear you don't recognize what it is you're looking for.
So do you think it would help if I showed
you house? And that's an extraordinary thing for a police
(21:10):
officer to do.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He
was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until
Tina Poora was cleared. But he needs to present more
evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to
get involved in this case.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So Tana's case isn't one that was only scarred by
false confession. There were the other issues that were beginning
to arise with the involvement of Tana's family.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Tina's cousin became a key witness for the prosecution against Tina.
She claimed that she had seen Tina with Rewa on
multiple occasions, including once at Tina's girlfriend's home.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
There was evidence of paid witnesses, including his cousin and
his auntie. Those family members gave evidence against him, and
we know that at least one of them was paid
five thousand dollars for her trouble.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Tim tracks down Fiona, Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that
she has no idea who Malcolm Rawell was and that
he was never in her home. From his time on
the police force, Tim was well acquainted with the various
gangs operating around South Auckland, so for him, one piece
of the prosecution's argument was clearly ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Malcolm Rawa was a senior member of the Highway sixty
one motorcycle Club, Mortal Enemies of the Mongrel Mob and
Sotana Porter as somebody who was supposedly involved with the
Mungrel Mob. Going to Susan Burdette's house late one night
with a senior member of the Highway sixty one's to
(22:56):
commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows anything
about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you that
that's just nonsense.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Tim doesn't stop there. He also starts assembling an all
star team of experts, starting with an Icelandic professor and
former detective himself, Geisley good Johnson, who was a professor
by that time in London. Now. Geasley essentially created the
field of falls confession science. He's the father of everything
we're talking about during this podcast, and after Tim sends
(23:28):
him Tane's interrogation videos, Geezley agrees to write a report
deconstructing Tana's statements and deeming them unreliable.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Next, Tim enlists the help of respected local New Zealand
journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the States case
against Tanner for years and is happy to help, and
Phil delivers. In twenty twelve, as the case for Tana's
innocence is building, Phil releases a bombshell article titled Innocent
(23:59):
Man in Jail for twenty Years, and in it Chuck Henwood,
the detective who had developed the original criminal profile of
Malcolm Rewa says the cops got it horribly wrong in
Susan Burdett's case. Tana had nothing to do with this.
Now this is a huge deal because Chuck Henwood is
the most famous criminal profiler in New Zealand, a bit
(24:22):
like John Douglas of the mind Hunter fame.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
For somebody like Chuck Henwood come out and express a
firmly hell conviction that Tana Porter was innocent was hugely
important in terms of public perception and momentum for our
appeal work on Tana's case.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And in the middle of this, there's this remarkable moment
when Susan Burdett's brother Jim comes forward and says, I
too believe that Tana Pora is innocent, and he actually
meets with Tana Pora. It's this incredible moment of reconciliation
and grace.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Momentum is building a across the board, but there's still
one more piece. Can Tim provide a better understanding, a
better explanation of why Tana confessed to a crime he
didn't commit.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
We had a documentary maker called Michael Bennett making a
documentary about Tana's case. Perhaps the most significant development in
twenty years occurred because the person that had been watching
it was a woman called doctor Valerie McGinn.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Doctor McGinn provides Tim with the answer he needs. She
writes report, saying, your clients, mister Tana Pora sounds very
similar to many people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She
even attaches a journal article that details how individuals with
FASD are at an increased risk of getting arrested. And
(25:43):
more importantly, people.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
That have it can be impulsive, they suggestible, they eager
to please figures of authority. And so when you look
at those types of behaviors and then you consider the
position Taner was in when he was in the police
station in nineteen ninety three, it almost makes it inevitable
that he was going to confess to something.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Doctor mcginnon confirms categorically that Tena suffers from an FASD disorder,
he was uniquely susceptible to falsely confessing in the interrogation room.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
One of the things that really bothered me about Tana's
case is we could never understand why he did what
he did, the things he said, and the people he implicated.
It just none of it made sense to us, and
we couldn't explain that to the courts, and so once
we got this diagnosis of feder Welck whole spectrum disorder,
it all became clear. It was the final piece of
(26:34):
the puzzle and we finally understood what it was we
were dealing with.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And that does it. All the pieces are assembled for
Tim and his team to appeal Tena's conviction and they
bring the case in November of twenty fourteen to the
Privy Council in London, the final Court of Appeal where
Commonwealth countries like New Zealand can bring cases like Tena's.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It's the court of last resort and it's staffed with
senior judge some of the best and brightest minds in
the entire Commonwealth.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Now this is Tana's last shot, and his lawyers put
his FASD disorder at the front of their case, arguing
that judges in the nineteen ninety four and two thousand
trials weren't aware of his disability and if they had been,
they would have ruled differently.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
There was a big group of people that gathered at
Michael Bennett, the documentary maker's house, waiting for that decision
to be announced, and it was an extraordinary moment. We
only got to tell Taneer about an hour before the
whole world found out that he had his conviction quashed
and he was no longer a rapist and murderer. It
was incredibly emotional for him.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
On March third, twenty fifteen, in the case of poorra
Versus the Queen, the Council of rules that Tina's confessions
must be thrown out, and they quashed his conviction for
the rape and murder of Susan Burdett. Two weeks later,
the Crown prosecutors dropped their case and declined to reap Tina,
(28:01):
and after more than twenty years, tana Pora was officially exonerated.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
You know what his first concern was for was for
the police officers that had interviewed him. He didn't want
their reputations to be tarnished because of what had happened.
One of his first thoughts was for other people, and
that was that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
In so many of these wrongful conviction cases, you see
people go through so much pain, and they have every
right to be bitter, resentful, angry, all of those things,
but so often you see them express, at least publicly,
these incredible acts of grace. It's almost as though they've
lived through so much pain they don't want to cause anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
In twenty sixteen, Tana received a sum of money to
compensate him for the time he had spent in prison
for a crime he did not commit. He also received
an apology from the New Zealand government.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Tana grew up in prison. He was there for twenty
two years and he struggles every day. We keep in contact,
but life isn't great for him. The money makes some
things easier, but it doesn't repair the psychological damage. It
doesn't bring the years back, and it doesn't make his
life easy now. It is incredibly difficult to watch him
(29:16):
struggle through life after everything he's been through.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Tana, we salute your sheer endurance, your will to keep
on fighting and surviving and living through this ordeal from
the other side of the planet. Know that we won't
forget your name or what you've been through, and all
of us together, we're fighting to make sure it doesn't
happen again. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is the production of
(29:48):
Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number
one Special thanks to our executive producer Jason Flamm and
the team at Signal Company Number one executive producer Kevin
warda Senior producer and Pope, and additional production and editing
by Connor Hall. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph.
You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura
(30:11):
Nyrider and you.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Twitter at wrong Conviction
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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