March 25, 2020 • 29 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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
writer and I'm Steve Drisan. 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
(00:22):
who confessed to a rape and murder he didn't commit.
His wrongful conviction allowed the real offender, a prolific serial rapist,
to assault dozens of other women, while a teenager languished
behind bars after making a murderer. Came out season two,
(00:49):
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,
you know, from the United States to the United Kingdom,
to Ireland to Australia. Do you remember this guy, Steve,
who traveled around Australia with us? Oh God, this guy
was This guy was beautiful. What was his name? His
(01:10):
name was Simon. Simon. Simon was like a roadie from
the nineties seventies, always wearing black t shirts and deep
into the heavy metal scene. Somehow, poor Simon gets a
signed 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,
(01:31):
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 Poora. Have you heard about
New Zealand's Brendan Dassy And that's exactly who Tana is.
Police officers around the world are often trained in very
similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I
(01:54):
expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places
like Japan, in Korea, and other Commonwealth countries like Australia
and New Zealand and Canada. 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 Tanapoura,
(02:17):
Brendan Dacy. We all know someone vulnerable like them, and
we can all see them need to do justice in
cases like these. Tana Pura's story 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
(02:39):
Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home to a large minority population,
including Mao Reads, the indigenous Polynesian population of New Zealand.
Parts of South Auckland can have negative connotations too often,
it's associated with poverty and crime. When our story starts
in South Auckland was home to a three nine year
(03:00):
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 Susan leaves her weekly bowling league meet
up and drives home under a night of beautiful stars.
(03:21):
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 and he
ends up going over to Susan's house that Wednesday, March
at about p m. He finds the front door unlocked,
goes inside and is greeted with a horrible sight. Susan
(03:46):
is lying horizontally on her water bed and she's clearly dead.
The upper half of her body is wrapped in a
duvet and there's a wooden baseball bat lying on the
bed next to her. Her legs are dangling off the
side of the bed and they're crossed. Someone who ever
did this had positioned her that way. The police arrived,
(04:06):
they removed the duvets, and they find that Susan had
been beaten badly about the head, very likely with the
baseball bat. She had also been sexually assaulted, and there's
plenty of DNA left behind semen, as well as a
bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands were
covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she had fought
back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the
(04:28):
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
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
(04:49):
woman named Terry McLoughlin, and she tells them a story
about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired,
baby faced Mauori kid named Tana Pora. Now let's talk
about Tina for a bit. Tina had it rough growing up.
His mother died when he was a young boy, and
his father left shortly afterwards, and then got passed around
(05:12):
from family member to family member and ultimately ended up
in his aunt Terry's house. A few days after Susan
Bardette's murder made headlines, Tina 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,
Tina kept talking about the bat. Tina had a history
of run ins with the law, nothing really serious, but
(05:35):
enough for Terry to want him out of her house.
She called the police over and over, insisting the Tina
knew something about Susan Burdette'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 Tina
they take his d n A. They even execute a
(05:56):
search warrant, but Tina and his friends are ruled outcome
conclusively as Susan Burdette's killers. The DNA doesn't match, the
search warrant turns up nothing, and while Tina does have
a record, there is nothing in his background that would
suggest this level of violence or depravity. Now let's fast
forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteen. We're almost
(06:19):
a year out now from the discovery of Susan Burdette's body.
In the course of police investigations. That's a lifetime and
this is the only unsolved homicide from Tina. Porra is
seventeen years old. Now he still has that baby face,
but his police record has grown. During a routine interview
(06:40):
with Tina about a car theft, police get an anonymous
phone tip about Susan Burdette's murder. This collar links the
murder to a local gang called the Mongrel Mob, a
gang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so the
police decide to keep him at the station for questioning.
His interrogation begins at nine am and continues for the
(07:01):
next four days. The police have Tana pour in the
interrogation room, and he's telling multiple different stories. The stories
don't make any sense, and it's not an interrogation with
banging of the table or raised voices or threats or
even promises. You're a comment that you're gonna sell us more.
(07:26):
Is that correct? Okay? Well, tell us this is a
seventeen year old kid who is highly suggestible and eager
to please the authorities. They're plying him with cigarettes and
fast food and drinks. You had spring row chips and correct.
(07:47):
The detectives even mentioned twenty dollars as a reward for
information about Susan Burdette's rape and murder. Tina's story keeps
evolving and the camera keeps getting turned on and off.
You said you're gonna tell us everything. First, Tina tells
the police that he drove two other men to Susan's
house and waited outside while they went into attacker. You
(08:08):
were telling us about a person called dog raping this woman.
Did you hear anymore or see anymore? It's outside. Eventually
he changes that story. I thought what you've said so
far that you climbed in the bedroom window and you've
gone through to open the door up for the other two.
(08:29):
Now he's climbing in through one of Susan Burdette's windows
and letting the other two in through the front door.
So when you were in there, you could see quite
clearly what was happening. Is that right? It's just watching
and you were just watching. And in the end, after
four days, Tina confesses to being in the room, to
actually holding Susan down while his two associates raped her.
(08:52):
And you were in the room some of this time
while this was happening, that right, you were holding Susan down?
Is there? And that last story, the one that ultimately
seals Taina's fate. It comes after a break in the
tea room, where of course, the cameras are turned off
at the suggestion of the police. Taina identifies this to
(09:13):
supposed accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that
local gang. The police bring in those two individuals the
Taina 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 Taina. He's arrested based on
his confession. He's charged with Susan Burdette's rape, and murder,
(09:36):
and fourteen long months later, prosecutors try Tina Pora for
participating in the murder of Susan Burdette along with two
unknown accomplices. And let's stop right here for a minute.
This is round one of the battle of these two
titans of evidence, confessions versus d N. A DNA seemed
(09:57):
to clear Tina Por of any rolling this cry, but
it's the confessions that ultimately lead to his conviction. On
June sixteenth, a jury took less than ninety minutes to
convicting a Pora of rape and murder. He received a
life sentence and was shipped off to prison. At the
(10:27):
same time, the New Zealand police are beginning a focused
investigation into six rapes that had occurred between night and
nine 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
(10:50):
who broke into women's homes, wrapped their heads in blankets
or debay's, and repositioned them so that they lay sideways
across the edge of the bed. During the Attack Act,
and by April nineteen ninety six, a few years after
Taina's conviction, the investigation into these rapes linked them all,
including Susan Burdett's attack, to the DNA of the same person,
(11:14):
a man named Malcolm Raywa. Now, who is Malcolm Raywa?
First of all, He's twenty years older than Tana Poorra.
And while I usually try to avoid characterizing my fellow
humans like this, ray What is a monster. He's a
terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist. He's the kind of
(11:37):
predator that women worry about. He's the worst nightmare. Ray
What committed his first rape in the nineteen seventies. His
wife was in labor giving birth to their child at
the time, so ray What took the opportunity to sexually
assault a nurse in a hospital bed. Four and a
half years in prison he spent for that awful crime.
(11:59):
So ray What gets out of prison and apparently rapes
again from then on. Over the dozens of rapes that
he went on to commit, ray Was started developing a
pattern and m o. He'd carefully select his victims who
tended to be single women, professionals who are home alone.
He'd stake out their homes in advance and plan his
attacks meticulously, and then always the same thing, a surprise
(12:23):
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,
and we we would hide in their homes. He would
wait for them to get into bed and begin to
fall asleep, and then he would attack. Rea apparently suffered
from erectile dysfunction, which is why he positioned his victims
(12:47):
in a way that allowed him to maintain sexual contact
during his attacks. That's also why he acted alone. He
didn't exactly want an audience. Ray was arrested on May six.
It's a pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police have
been planning this for quite some time. When he tries
to run, police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now,
(13:10):
the police remember that Tina Pora had already confessed to
one of the rapes to which Rewa is tied by DNA,
so they immediately asked him if he knows Tana Pora.
Rewa is crystal clear never met him. Based on the
arrest of Malcolm Rewa, the Court of Appeals throws out
Tana's conviction never met him. Now, at this point in time,
(13:35):
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 Tana Pora, most prosecutors and police officers would throw
their hands up and say, we can't go forward with
a reprosecution of Tina Pura. We have to free in.
(13:57):
But instead Tina 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 Taina's second trial that
he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdette together, even
though Rewa had denied knowing Taina, even though Rewa always
(14:18):
acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted
some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction. 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
(14:40):
Malcolm Rewa. Will Taina's confession bring him down or with
the jury side with the science and recognized that Tina
Pourra and Malcolm Rewa had never met. Sure enough, despite
all hopes that the DNA evidence would be an enough
(15:00):
to clear Tina, Tina was convicted a second time of
raping and murdering Susan Burdette and sent back to his
life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Raa himself stood trial for three
months on what amounted to forty five counts of rape
involving twenty seven different women. His trial ended with convictions
(15:22):
for sexually assaulting twenty five of them, including Susan Burdette.
Just like Tina, he was shipped off to prison for decades. Now,
this is justice for Rewa, but for Tina Porra it's
anything but. And for years, Taina served as time with
little hope of freedom, and things might have stayed bleak
for him had it not been for a man named
(15:44):
Tim McKinnell. Now, who is Tim McKinnel At the moment,
I'm of self employed, private and vistigheta. But when I
finished university I joined the police. As a twenty two
year old, Tim McKinnell started out his career as a cop,
A good cop, one of the best cap Tim had
become a member of the South Auckland Police Force in
the late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by
(16:08):
the year two thousand. That year, the force had been
divided over the case of Taina Pora. A lot of
chat went on and the police bar at the time,
and there was a real disconnect between two different groups
of people. People that thought China Porta was a guilty
man and had been involved in the ripe and murder
of Susan Badett, and there was another camp of experienced
(16:29):
police officers who thought that he was an innocent man.
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 Tina Pora. Tim never forgot
those arguments or his own growing doubt about Tana's guilt,
even after he eventually left the police force, and as
(16:52):
many retired officers do, he became a private investigator. Now,
in two thousand 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 Tina's case.
The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed in his
thirties with a rare blood disorder. Not exactly a death sentence,
(17:15):
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 nine, he visited Tina Pura, who was
then thirty four years old in prison. Taina was no
longer that teenage car thief Tim had read about. He
(17:37):
was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm. Tim begins
to feel an urge to help this guy. But there's
the matter of Taina's confession. Tim starts by digging up
videotapes of Taina's interrogation, and they're not easy to find.
They're on old VHS tapes in boxes and police departments,
(17:59):
but he gets them and he sits down to watch them,
and he is blown away by what he saw. 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
(18:21):
that happened in Susan's house that the offender would know,
and it's clear from the interviews that Tina Porter had
no idea about any of them. 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
(18:41):
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 draws her lying vertically
on the bed. When he was asked whether there was
anything special about Susan's bed, Tina can't come up with
the fact that it was a water bat, and so
one of the questions that arises about that is how
(19:03):
did he come to know things on day four that
he didn't know on day one? The interrogator's take Tina
on a field trip to Susan Bridette's street so that
he can point out details of the crime to them
in person, and they videot the whole thing. He started
giving them directions that were taking them away from her house,
(19:24):
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 I wasn't able
to identify anything familiar. In the end, they took him
to the outside of the house where Susan had been
raped murdered and asked him if you recognized anything, and
(19:45):
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 officer to do.
(20:09):
For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He
was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until
Taina Poorra was cleared. But he needs to present more
evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to
get involved in this case. So Taina's case isn't one
that was only scarred by false confession. There were the
(20:30):
other issues that we're beginning to arise with the involvement
of Taina's family. Tina's cousin became a key witness for
the prosecution against Taina. She claimed that she had seen
Taina with Raiwa on multiple occasions, including once to tain
his girlfriend's home. But Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony.
(20:53):
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. Tim tracks down Fiona,
Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that she has no idea
who Malcolm Rawall was and that he was never in
her home. From his time on the police force, Tim
(21:16):
was well acquainted with the various gangs operating around South Auckland,
so for him, one piece of the prosecution's argument was
clearly ridiculous. Malcolm was a senior member of the Highway
sixty one motorcycle Club, mortal enemies of the Mungrel Mob,
and certain a porter somebody who was supposedly involved with
(21:37):
the Mungrel Mob going to Susan Burdett's house late one
night with a senior member of the Highway sixty ones
to commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows
anything about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you
that that's just nonsense. Tim doesn't stop there. He also
starts assembling an all star team of experts, starting with
(22:01):
an Icelandic professor and former detective himself, Gisley good Johnson,
who was a professor by that time in London. Now,
Gisley essentially created the field of false confession science. He's
the father of everything we're talking about during this podcast.
And after Tim sends him tain his interrogation videos, Gisley
agrees to write a report deconstructing Taina's statements and deeming
(22:25):
them unreliable. Next, Tim enlist the help of respected local
New Zealand journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the
stage case against Tana for years and is happy to help,
and Phil delivers. In two thousand and twelve, as the
case for Taina's innocence is building, Phil releases a bombshell
(22:46):
article titled Innocent Man in Jail for twenty Years and
in it, Choke Henwood, the detective who had developed the
original criminal profile of Malcolm Reywa, says the cops got
it horribly wrong in Susan Burdette's case. Taina had nothing
to do with this. Now this is a huge deal
because Choke Henwood is the most famous criminal profiler in
(23:10):
New Zealand, a bit like John Douglas of the mind
Hunter fame. For somebody like Choke Hinwood come out and
express a family health conviction that Tina Porto was innocent
was hugely important in terms of public perception and momentum
for our appeal work on Tina's case. And in the
middle of this, there's this remarkable moment when Susan Burdette's
(23:34):
brother Jim comes forward and says, I too believe that
Tina Porra is innocent, and he actually meets with Tina Porra.
It's this incredible moment of reconciliation and grace. Momentum is
building across the board, but there's still one more piece.
Can Temp provide a better understanding, a better explanation of
(23:56):
why Tina confessed to a crime he didn't commit. We
a documentary maker called Michael Bennett making a documentary about
Tina'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. Dr McGinn provides Tim
with the answer he needs. She writes a report saying
(24:17):
your clients. Mr Tina Porra sounds very similar to many
people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She even attaches a
journal article that details how individuals with f A s
D are at an increased risk of getting arrested. And
more importantly, people that have it can be impulsive, the suggestible,
(24:37):
that eager to please figures of authority. So when you
look at those types of behaviors and then you consider
the position Tainer was in when he was in the
police station in it almost makes it inevitable that he
was going to confess to something. Dr McGinn confirms categorically
the Tina suffers from an f A s D disorder.
(25:00):
He was uniquely susceptible to falsely confessing in the interrogation room.
One of the things that really bothered me about Tana's
cases we could never understand why he did what he did,
The things he said, and the people he implicated, 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 fetowell whole spectrum disorder, it all became clear.
(25:23):
It was the final piece of the puzzle and we
finally understood what it was we were dealing with, and
that does it. All the pieces are assembled for Tim
and his team to appeal Tana's conviction and they bring
the case in November to the Privy Council in London,
the final Court of Appeal where Commonwealth countries like New
Zealand can bring cases like Tina's. It's the court of
(25:46):
last resort and it's staffed with senior judges, some of
the best and brightest minds in the entire Commonwealth. Now
this is Tina's last shot, and his lawyers put his
essay s D Disorder at the front of their case,
arguing the judges in and two thousand trials weren't aware
(26:07):
of his disability and if they had been, they would
have ruled differently. 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 Tana about an
hour before the whole world found out that he had
his conviction quashed and he was no longer a rapist
and murderer. That was incredibly emotional for him. On March three,
(26:33):
in the case of Porra 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 Burdette. Two weeks later, the Crown prosecutors dropped their
case and declined to retry Tina, and after more than
twenty years, Tina Poorra was officially exonerated. You know, what
(26:57):
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. 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
(27:19):
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. In Tina 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. Taana grew
(27:42):
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 like his life easy now.
(28:03):
Is incredibly difficult to watch him struggle through life after
everything he's been through. Tina, we salute your sheer endurance.
You will to keep on fighting and surviving and living
through this ordeal from the other side of the planets.
Know that we won't forget your name or what you've
been through, and all of us together, we're fighting to
(28:24):
make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's the story
of Tana Pora. Next week's episode takes us to El Paso, Texas,
where a total stranger became invested in the case of
Daniel Viegas and turned out to be his savior until then.
Thanks for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production
(28:52):
of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Number One. Special thanks to our executive producer Jayson Flam
and the team at Signal Company Number One. Executive producer,
Kevin Wardace Senior Producer and Pope, and additional production and
editing by Connor Hall. Our music was composed by j Ralph.
You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura
(29:15):
ni Rider and you can follow me on Twitter at
s driven. For more information on the show, visit Wrongful
Conviction podcast 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
Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
writer and I'm Steve Drisan. 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
(00:22):
who confessed to a rape and murder he didn't commit.
His wrongful conviction allowed the real offender, a prolific serial rapist,
to assault dozens of other women, while a teenager languished
behind bars after making a murderer. Came out season two,
(00:49):
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,
you know, from the United States to the United Kingdom,
to Ireland to Australia. Do you remember this guy, Steve,
who traveled around Australia with us? Oh God, this guy
was This guy was beautiful. What was his name? His
(01:10):
name was Simon. Simon. Simon was like a roadie from
the nineties seventies, always wearing black t shirts and deep
into the heavy metal scene. Somehow, poor Simon gets a
signed 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,
(01:31):
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 Poora. Have you heard about
New Zealand's Brendan Dassy And that's exactly who Tana is.
Police officers around the world are often trained in very
similar ways about how to interrogate suspects, and so I
(01:54):
expected and was beginning to discover false confessions in places
like Japan, in Korea, and other Commonwealth countries like Australia
and New Zealand and Canada. 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 Tanapoura,
(02:17):
Brendan Dacy. We all know someone vulnerable like them, and
we can all see them need to do justice in
cases like these. Tana Pura's story 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
(02:39):
Zealand's largest city, Auckland. It's home to a large minority population,
including Mao Reads, the indigenous Polynesian population of New Zealand.
Parts of South Auckland can have negative connotations too often,
it's associated with poverty and crime. When our story starts
in South Auckland was home to a three nine year
(03:00):
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 Susan leaves her weekly bowling league meet
up and drives home under a night of beautiful stars.
(03:21):
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 and he
ends up going over to Susan's house that Wednesday, March
at about p m. He finds the front door unlocked,
goes inside and is greeted with a horrible sight. Susan
(03:46):
is lying horizontally on her water bed and she's clearly dead.
The upper half of her body is wrapped in a
duvet and there's a wooden baseball bat lying on the
bed next to her. Her legs are dangling off the
side of the bed and they're crossed. Someone who ever
did this had positioned her that way. The police arrived,
(04:06):
they removed the duvets, and they find that Susan had
been beaten badly about the head, very likely with the
baseball bat. She had also been sexually assaulted, and there's
plenty of DNA left behind semen, as well as a
bloody smudge mark on a light switch. Susan's hands were
covered with defensive wounds, which indicates that she had fought
back against her attacker, and her friends later identified the
(04:28):
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
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
(04:49):
woman named Terry McLoughlin, and she tells them a story
about her then sixteen year old nephew, a shaggy haired,
baby faced Mauori kid named Tana Pora. Now let's talk
about Tina for a bit. Tina had it rough growing up.
His mother died when he was a young boy, and
his father left shortly afterwards, and then got passed around
(05:12):
from family member to family member and ultimately ended up
in his aunt Terry's house. A few days after Susan
Bardette's murder made headlines, Tina 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,
Tina kept talking about the bat. Tina had a history
of run ins with the law, nothing really serious, but
(05:35):
enough for Terry to want him out of her house.
She called the police over and over, insisting the Tina
knew something about Susan Burdette'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 Tina
they take his d n A. They even execute a
(05:56):
search warrant, but Tina and his friends are ruled outcome
conclusively as Susan Burdette's killers. The DNA doesn't match, the
search warrant turns up nothing, and while Tina does have
a record, there is nothing in his background that would
suggest this level of violence or depravity. Now let's fast
forward almost exactly twelve months to March eighteen. We're almost
(06:19):
a year out now from the discovery of Susan Burdette's body.
In the course of police investigations. That's a lifetime and
this is the only unsolved homicide from Tina. Porra is
seventeen years old. Now he still has that baby face,
but his police record has grown. During a routine interview
(06:40):
with Tina about a car theft, police get an anonymous
phone tip about Susan Burdette's murder. This collar links the
murder to a local gang called the Mongrel Mob, a
gang Tana is rumored to have connections with, so the
police decide to keep him at the station for questioning.
His interrogation begins at nine am and continues for the
(07:01):
next four days. The police have Tana pour in the
interrogation room, and he's telling multiple different stories. The stories
don't make any sense, and it's not an interrogation with
banging of the table or raised voices or threats or
even promises. You're a comment that you're gonna sell us more.
(07:26):
Is that correct? Okay? Well, tell us this is a
seventeen year old kid who is highly suggestible and eager
to please the authorities. They're plying him with cigarettes and
fast food and drinks. You had spring row chips and correct.
(07:47):
The detectives even mentioned twenty dollars as a reward for
information about Susan Burdette's rape and murder. Tina's story keeps
evolving and the camera keeps getting turned on and off.
You said you're gonna tell us everything. First, Tina tells
the police that he drove two other men to Susan's
house and waited outside while they went into attacker. You
(08:08):
were telling us about a person called dog raping this woman.
Did you hear anymore or see anymore? It's outside. Eventually
he changes that story. I thought what you've said so
far that you climbed in the bedroom window and you've
gone through to open the door up for the other two.
(08:29):
Now he's climbing in through one of Susan Burdette's windows
and letting the other two in through the front door.
So when you were in there, you could see quite
clearly what was happening. Is that right? It's just watching
and you were just watching. And in the end, after
four days, Tina confesses to being in the room, to
actually holding Susan down while his two associates raped her.
(08:52):
And you were in the room some of this time
while this was happening, that right, you were holding Susan down?
Is there? And that last story, the one that ultimately
seals Taina's fate. It comes after a break in the
tea room, where of course, the cameras are turned off
at the suggestion of the police. Taina identifies this to
(09:13):
supposed accomplices as senior members of the Mongrel Mob, that
local gang. The police bring in those two individuals the
Taina 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 Taina. He's arrested based on
his confession. He's charged with Susan Burdette's rape, and murder,
(09:36):
and fourteen long months later, prosecutors try Tina Pora for
participating in the murder of Susan Burdette along with two
unknown accomplices. And let's stop right here for a minute.
This is round one of the battle of these two
titans of evidence, confessions versus d N. A DNA seemed
(09:57):
to clear Tina Por of any rolling this cry, but
it's the confessions that ultimately lead to his conviction. On
June sixteenth, a jury took less than ninety minutes to
convicting a Pora of rape and murder. He received a
life sentence and was shipped off to prison. At the
(10:27):
same time, the New Zealand police are beginning a focused
investigation into six rapes that had occurred between night and
nine 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
(10:50):
who broke into women's homes, wrapped their heads in blankets
or debay's, and repositioned them so that they lay sideways
across the edge of the bed. During the Attack Act,
and by April nineteen ninety six, a few years after
Taina's conviction, the investigation into these rapes linked them all,
including Susan Burdett's attack, to the DNA of the same person,
(11:14):
a man named Malcolm Raywa. Now, who is Malcolm Raywa?
First of all, He's twenty years older than Tana Poorra.
And while I usually try to avoid characterizing my fellow
humans like this, ray What is a monster. He's a
terrifying figure, a prolific serial rapist. He's the kind of
(11:37):
predator that women worry about. He's the worst nightmare. Ray
What committed his first rape in the nineteen seventies. His
wife was in labor giving birth to their child at
the time, so ray What took the opportunity to sexually
assault a nurse in a hospital bed. Four and a
half years in prison he spent for that awful crime.
(11:59):
So ray What gets out of prison and apparently rapes
again from then on. Over the dozens of rapes that
he went on to commit, ray Was started developing a
pattern and m o. He'd carefully select his victims who
tended to be single women, professionals who are home alone.
He'd stake out their homes in advance and plan his
attacks meticulously, and then always the same thing, a surprise
(12:23):
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,
and we we would hide in their homes. He would
wait for them to get into bed and begin to
fall asleep, and then he would attack. Rea apparently suffered
from erectile dysfunction, which is why he positioned his victims
(12:47):
in a way that allowed him to maintain sexual contact
during his attacks. That's also why he acted alone. He
didn't exactly want an audience. Ray was arrested on May six.
It's a pretty dramatic sting operation. Actually, the police have
been planning this for quite some time. When he tries
to run, police dogs wrestle this guy to the ground. Now,
(13:10):
the police remember that Tina Pora had already confessed to
one of the rapes to which Rewa is tied by DNA,
so they immediately asked him if he knows Tana Pora.
Rewa is crystal clear never met him. Based on the
arrest of Malcolm Rewa, the Court of Appeals throws out
Tana's conviction never met him. Now, at this point in time,
(13:35):
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 Tana Pora, most prosecutors and police officers would throw
their hands up and say, we can't go forward with
a reprosecution of Tina Pura. We have to free in.
(13:57):
But instead Tina 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 Taina's second trial that
he and Rewa raped and killed Susan Burdette together, even
though Rewa had denied knowing Taina, even though Rewa always
(14:18):
acted alone, and even though Rewa would never have wanted
some teenager there to witness his sexual dysfunction. 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
(14:40):
Malcolm Rewa. Will Taina's confession bring him down or with
the jury side with the science and recognized that Tina
Pourra and Malcolm Rewa had never met. Sure enough, despite
all hopes that the DNA evidence would be an enough
(15:00):
to clear Tina, Tina was convicted a second time of
raping and murdering Susan Burdette and sent back to his
life sentence. Meanwhile, Malcolm Raa himself stood trial for three
months on what amounted to forty five counts of rape
involving twenty seven different women. His trial ended with convictions
(15:22):
for sexually assaulting twenty five of them, including Susan Burdette.
Just like Tina, he was shipped off to prison for decades. Now,
this is justice for Rewa, but for Tina Porra it's
anything but. And for years, Taina served as time with
little hope of freedom, and things might have stayed bleak
for him had it not been for a man named
(15:44):
Tim McKinnell. Now, who is Tim McKinnel At the moment,
I'm of self employed, private and vistigheta. But when I
finished university I joined the police. As a twenty two
year old, Tim McKinnell started out his career as a cop,
A good cop, one of the best cap Tim had
become a member of the South Auckland Police Force in
the late nineteen nineties, eventually rising to junior detective by
(16:08):
the year two thousand. That year, the force had been
divided over the case of Taina Pora. A lot of
chat went on and the police bar at the time,
and there was a real disconnect between two different groups
of people. People that thought China Porta was a guilty
man and had been involved in the ripe and murder
of Susan Badett, and there was another camp of experienced
(16:29):
police officers who thought that he was an innocent man.
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 Tina Pora. Tim never forgot
those arguments or his own growing doubt about Tana's guilt,
even after he eventually left the police force, and as
(16:52):
many retired officers do, he became a private investigator. Now,
in two thousand 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 Tina's case.
The last straw came when Tim was diagnosed in his
thirties with a rare blood disorder. Not exactly a death sentence,
(17:15):
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 nine, he visited Tina Pura, who was
then thirty four years old in prison. Taina was no
longer that teenage car thief Tim had read about. He
(17:37):
was polite, well mannered, surprisingly gentle, even warm. Tim begins
to feel an urge to help this guy. But there's
the matter of Taina's confession. Tim starts by digging up
videotapes of Taina's interrogation, and they're not easy to find.
They're on old VHS tapes in boxes and police departments,
(17:59):
but he gets them and he sits down to watch them,
and he is blown away by what he saw. 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
(18:21):
that happened in Susan's house that the offender would know,
and it's clear from the interviews that Tina Porter had
no idea about any of them. 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
(18:41):
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 draws her lying vertically
on the bed. When he was asked whether there was
anything special about Susan's bed, Tina can't come up with
the fact that it was a water bat, and so
one of the questions that arises about that is how
(19:03):
did he come to know things on day four that
he didn't know on day one? The interrogator's take Tina
on a field trip to Susan Bridette's street so that
he can point out details of the crime to them
in person, and they videot the whole thing. He started
giving them directions that were taking them away from her house,
(19:24):
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 I wasn't able
to identify anything familiar. In the end, they took him
to the outside of the house where Susan had been
raped murdered and asked him if you recognized anything, and
(19:45):
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 officer to do.
(20:09):
For Tim, that's it. This was a false confession. He
was motivated, fired up, and he would not rest until
Taina Poorra was cleared. But he needs to present more
evidence to the lawyers and other people he wants to
get involved in this case. So Taina's case isn't one
that was only scarred by false confession. There were the
(20:30):
other issues that we're beginning to arise with the involvement
of Taina's family. Tina's cousin became a key witness for
the prosecution against Taina. She claimed that she had seen
Taina with Raiwa on multiple occasions, including once to tain
his girlfriend's home. But Tim was able to discredit Martha's testimony.
(20:53):
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. Tim tracks down Fiona,
Tina's girlfriend, and Fiona says that she has no idea
who Malcolm Rawall was and that he was never in
her home. From his time on the police force, Tim
(21:16):
was well acquainted with the various gangs operating around South Auckland,
so for him, one piece of the prosecution's argument was
clearly ridiculous. Malcolm was a senior member of the Highway
sixty one motorcycle Club, mortal enemies of the Mungrel Mob,
and certain a porter somebody who was supposedly involved with
(21:37):
the Mungrel Mob going to Susan Burdett's house late one
night with a senior member of the Highway sixty ones
to commit a brutal rape and murder. Anybody that knows
anything about gang culture in New Zealand will tell you
that that's just nonsense. Tim doesn't stop there. He also
starts assembling an all star team of experts, starting with
(22:01):
an Icelandic professor and former detective himself, Gisley good Johnson,
who was a professor by that time in London. Now,
Gisley essentially created the field of false confession science. He's
the father of everything we're talking about during this podcast.
And after Tim sends him tain his interrogation videos, Gisley
agrees to write a report deconstructing Taina's statements and deeming
(22:25):
them unreliable. Next, Tim enlist the help of respected local
New Zealand journalist named Phil Taylor. Phil had questioned the
stage case against Tana for years and is happy to help,
and Phil delivers. In two thousand and twelve, as the
case for Taina's innocence is building, Phil releases a bombshell
(22:46):
article titled Innocent Man in Jail for twenty Years and
in it, Choke Henwood, the detective who had developed the
original criminal profile of Malcolm Reywa, says the cops got
it horribly wrong in Susan Burdette's case. Taina had nothing
to do with this. Now this is a huge deal
because Choke Henwood is the most famous criminal profiler in
(23:10):
New Zealand, a bit like John Douglas of the mind
Hunter fame. For somebody like Choke Hinwood come out and
express a family health conviction that Tina Porto was innocent
was hugely important in terms of public perception and momentum
for our appeal work on Tina's case. And in the
middle of this, there's this remarkable moment when Susan Burdette's
(23:34):
brother Jim comes forward and says, I too believe that
Tina Porra is innocent, and he actually meets with Tina Porra.
It's this incredible moment of reconciliation and grace. Momentum is
building across the board, but there's still one more piece.
Can Temp provide a better understanding, a better explanation of
(23:56):
why Tina confessed to a crime he didn't commit. We
a documentary maker called Michael Bennett making a documentary about
Tina'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. Dr McGinn provides Tim
with the answer he needs. She writes a report saying
(24:17):
your clients. Mr Tina Porra sounds very similar to many
people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She even attaches a
journal article that details how individuals with f A s
D are at an increased risk of getting arrested. And
more importantly, people that have it can be impulsive, the suggestible,
(24:37):
that eager to please figures of authority. So when you
look at those types of behaviors and then you consider
the position Tainer was in when he was in the
police station in it almost makes it inevitable that he
was going to confess to something. Dr McGinn confirms categorically
the Tina suffers from an f A s D disorder.
(25:00):
He was uniquely susceptible to falsely confessing in the interrogation room.
One of the things that really bothered me about Tana's
cases we could never understand why he did what he did,
The things he said, and the people he implicated, 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 fetowell whole spectrum disorder, it all became clear.
(25:23):
It was the final piece of the puzzle and we
finally understood what it was we were dealing with, and
that does it. All the pieces are assembled for Tim
and his team to appeal Tana's conviction and they bring
the case in November to the Privy Council in London,
the final Court of Appeal where Commonwealth countries like New
Zealand can bring cases like Tina's. It's the court of
(25:46):
last resort and it's staffed with senior judges, some of
the best and brightest minds in the entire Commonwealth. Now
this is Tina's last shot, and his lawyers put his
essay s D Disorder at the front of their case,
arguing the judges in and two thousand trials weren't aware
(26:07):
of his disability and if they had been, they would
have ruled differently. 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 Tana about an
hour before the whole world found out that he had
his conviction quashed and he was no longer a rapist
and murderer. That was incredibly emotional for him. On March three,
(26:33):
in the case of Porra 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 Burdette. Two weeks later, the Crown prosecutors dropped their
case and declined to retry Tina, and after more than
twenty years, Tina Poorra was officially exonerated. You know, what
(26:57):
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. 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
(27:19):
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. In Tina 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. Taana grew
(27:42):
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 like his life easy now.
(28:03):
Is incredibly difficult to watch him struggle through life after
everything he's been through. Tina, we salute your sheer endurance.
You will to keep on fighting and surviving and living
through this ordeal from the other side of the planets.
Know that we won't forget your name or what you've
been through, and all of us together, we're fighting to
(28:24):
make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's the story
of Tana Pora. Next week's episode takes us to El Paso, Texas,
where a total stranger became invested in the case of
Daniel Viegas and turned out to be his savior until then.
Thanks for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production
(28:52):
of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Number One. Special thanks to our executive producer Jayson Flam
and the team at Signal Company Number One. Executive producer,
Kevin Wardace Senior Producer and Pope, and additional production and
editing by Connor Hall. Our music was composed by j Ralph.
You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura
(29:15):
ni Rider and you can follow me on Twitter at
s driven. For more information on the show, visit Wrongful
Conviction podcast 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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