November 16, 2019 • 50 mins
Stacey Stites and Police Officer Jimmy Fennell were engaged, but Stacey was having an affair with Rodney Reed. On April 23rd, 1996, Stacey’s lifeless body was discovered, lying face up next to a dirt road near Bastrop, TX. Jimmy Fennell was a prime suspect until 3 spermatozoa found in Stacey’s body were matched to Rodney Reed. The state alleged that Rodney did not know Ms. Stites, intercepted her on her 3AM drive to work, raped and strangled her, and left her on the side of that dirt road, while abandoning the truck in a high school parking lot. With no other evidence of Rodney found in the truck, on the body, or at the scene; the state’s forensic experts incorrectly asserting that intact spermatozoa could not survive passed 24 hours; and Stacey’s whereabouts being known for the 24 hours prior to 3AM; Rodney Reed was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1998. The state’s forensic experts have since disavowed their testimony, and Rodney Reed continues to maintain that the presence of his semen was a result of consensual intercourse from late in the night of the 21st (early morning, 22nd). In this premiere episode of the 9th season of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom, we go to death row to speak with Rodney Reed. His attorney Bryce Benjet talks to us about the case. His brother Rodrick Reed tells us about his advocacy for his brother and the Reed Justice Initiative. And, forensic pathology legend Dr. Michael Baden retells his sworn testimony given at a hearing for a new trial in October 2017, disputing the time of death. The corrected time of death places Ms Stites in her apartment with Fennell when she died, according to his testimony at trial. When asked about this discrepancy, Mr. Fennell invoked his 5th amendment rights.
Rodney Reed was granted an indefinite stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, saving him from his November 20th, 2019 execution date, but his future is still in danger. He still needs our help.
This Episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom was produced in partnership with NowThis. https://nowthisnews.com/
Additional engineering for Dr Phil and Jason Flom’s interview by Freedom Wynn.
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Before we get into this episode, I have some breaking
news to share with you. Rodney Reid has been granted
a stay of execution, and I want to thank every
one of you who took action, who signed a petition,
who made phone calls, who wrote letters. Your actions matter,
and this is a good day. At least we have
(00:21):
a chance now to reopen this case and prove his
actual innocence once and for all. The year was Stacy
States and police officer Jimmy Finnell were engaged to be married,
but Stacy was having an affair with a man named
Rodney Reid. On April, Stacy's body was discovered strangled on
(00:45):
the side of a dirt road near Bastrop, Texas. Her fiance,
Jimmy Finnelle, was a prime suspect until three of Rodney
Reid's intacts bermative z OA were found inside her body.
During trial, the state alleged that Rodney intercepted Missty on
her three am drive to work and proceeded to rape
and murder her, with no other physical evidence of Rodney
(01:06):
in a car or at the scene. The forensic science
of the time incorrectly asserting that intact spermatis zoa could
not survive past twenty four hours, and Stacy's whereabouts being
known within the twenty four hours prior to her death,
Rodney Reid was sentenced to death. It is now common
knowledge that intax spermative zoa can be found at least
(01:27):
seventy two hours after release, and all of the state's
forensic expert witnesses have since disavowed their testimonies. Reid continues
to maintain that the spermative zoa that the investigation discovered
was the result of consensual intercourse that transpired well over
twenty four hours prior to her death. On this episode
of Rawful Conviction with Jason Flom, we go to death
(01:47):
Row to speak with Rodney Reid. Will also speak with
his attorney, Bryce ben Jet, his brother Roderick Reid, Dr
Phil and the world renowned forensic expert Dr Michael Boden.
Will retell his compelling sworn testimony that rules out Rodney
as the potential perpetrator and disputes the time of death.
This is Wrongful Conviction. Senior staff attorney for the Innocence
(02:17):
Project and Rodney's legal counsel, Bryce ben Jet, came by
to tell us about Rodney's case, and we know that
on April Stacy States was found strangled and killed in Bastrop, Texas.
She was last seen, of course, with her fiancee, Jimmy Finel,
and the search for Stacy started when she failed to
(02:38):
report for her three thirty am shift at the grocery
store where she worked. Jimmy's truck, of course, which he
testified that she used to drive herself to work that morning,
was found in a high school parking lot at five am,
and Stacy's body was discovered later that afternoon that same day,
lying face up near an unpaved road. So the state
(02:58):
argued that Rodney didn't know her, but rather that he
intercepted her on her way to work, gained entry somehow
to her truck, sexually assaulted and strangled her, and transported
her to the remote unpaved road where her body was discovered.
All the while and this is key not leaving any
other evidence behind other than the sperm in her body.
And this theory was built importantly on three pillars, the
(03:22):
three spermitive is zoa that were found right the testimony
for three forensic experts who maintained that sperm does not
stay intact for longer than twenty four hours after intercourse,
which of course we know that it does, and that
states whereabouts were accounted for most of the day before
she was murdered, thereby ruling out the consensual sex with
Reid as an explanation for the presence of his sperm,
(03:43):
And of course the testimony from Jimmy Finnell who said
that she left at three am for work in his truck.
But take us back and explain some of these circumstances
and how the state developed this narrative that we now
know not only isn't true, but couldn't possibly be true. Yeah,
it's interesting because when you go back and you look
(04:04):
at how crimes ought to be investigated, there were many
sort of obvious errors that were done. Initially, nobody looked
at the apartment that Stacy Stites shared with Jimmy Finnell,
even though that was the last place she was seen.
That is sort of police work one oh one. There
were not adequate notes taken of interviews of Jimmy Finnell,
(04:28):
who was later the key source of the timeline of
the state's case. But as the investigation actually progressed, Jimmy
Finnell soon emerged as the prime suspect in the case
and was investigated. He was aggressively interrogated, he was subjected
to polygraphs failed which he failed. And this took place
(04:51):
even after the police knew that it was not his
semen that was collected from Stacy's body, and so the
notion that the person who semen is in that body
must be a rapist and a murderer was not the
operating theory of the investigation until they matched that semen
(05:11):
to Rodney, a person of color. And so there is
where you have an investigation of the person who looks
like he had opportunity motive, um had a record consistent
with this kind of behavior. And as soon as Rodney
was identified as the source of that semen, this suddenly
(05:34):
turned around to a sexual assault murder that had to
be committed by him. So now Rodney becomes the suspect.
The state argued that Rodney didn't know the victim. He did,
in fact, he was having a relationship. And we now
have numerous witnesses that have come forth who had no
connection to Rodney right, not just the ones that did
have a connection to Rodney, his relatives wh knew he
was seeing her, but now others stranger strangers to him. Yeah,
(05:55):
and this was a big issue at the trial. Just
to back up, I mean, this ale was rushed to
say at the best. At the trial, the defense lawyers
were presenting what Rodney had told him, which he could
back up with witnesses. He said, I was seeing Stacy.
It was an occasional thing. It was casual. We were
(06:17):
with each other the night before her death, so not
the night of April. The night of April. So that
was the theory that was presented at the trial. But unfortunately,
the defense lawyers did not do the work or have
the time to do the work to actually present that
(06:38):
evidence to the jury. Even what little evidence that Rodney's
defense lawyers were able to present about this relationship about
the explanation was completely negated by the prosecution's experts, who
said that it was impossible for Rodney's seemen to be
(06:58):
there based on consensual sex because of this twenty four
hour time frame. At that point, right, any jury is
going to go, well, that's I mean, you can't explain
that a way. And it was clearly important to the
jury because they asked about it during their deliberations and
the judge actually read that invalid testimony back to them
while they were deciding whether or not to convict Rodney
(07:21):
read But now we know from the top experts in
the field, including Dr boden Um, that in fact, the
actual amount of time that the spermative zoa can survive
or that can be detected, I guess up to seventy
two hours. And all you need to do is open
a forensic pathology textbook, and they don't expert. And so
(07:43):
we've gone back now to the States forensic pathologist, the
person who did the autopsy, who has disclaimed the testimony
that was offered at the trial. We've gone back to
the Texas Department of Public Safety, who has clarified that
although their analysts said twenty four hours, the science says
seventy two. And we've gone back to the private DNA lab,
(08:06):
who their expert also testified about this twenty four hour
time frame, and that private DNA lab has likewise recanted
that opinion said it was in error um. And so
the foundation of the state's case, which completely negated Rodney's
ability to defend himself, is gone. And then in its place,
(08:29):
we've consulted with the leading forensic pathologists in the country,
U Michael boden Werner, spitz Leroy Riddick, and uniformly they
have said that when you look at this body, she
had been killed hours before the state alleged that she
was killed, which is a time that she, according to
(08:50):
Jimmy Finnell, was at home with him in her apartment.
My production crew and I flew to Houston, Texas, drove
about an hour outside the city to the Polunsky Unit,
where Texas Department of Criminal Justice houses death row inmates.
We were instructed to leave everything but are inspected and approved.
Production equipment in the car, went through security and finally
(09:12):
reached Rodney Read for our non contact interview through bulletproof
plexiglass on death row. Right, good afternoon. Are you doing.
I'm doing okay. I mean my heart is happy, honestly,
but I want to talk about you and thank you
for talking with me. First of all, how are you
(09:33):
doing now? I mean, you've been through this before. You
had an execution data two thousand fifteen, so this is
the second time around well as well as to be expected.
I mean, you know, I have my days, but I'm good,
you know, with meditation, reading, I tried to stay upon
current events. I tried to distract myself from what's going on,
(09:57):
you know, with other thing. You know, it's for stimulating
my mind. I'll read magazine, read newspapers. I really like
reading the comments with my supporters. You know, they have
comments that that I read there. They're inspiring to me. Well,
you're inspiring to them. I mean they're writing to the
(10:17):
government's signing petitions that I'm putting out that the instance
projects putting out on it's extraordinary. It's someone encouraging to
see that, you know, and I think it's going to
make a difference. I hope so and so I want
to go back, if it's okay with you, back to
the um, you're a young man, good looking guy. Um,
I'll young man. Yeah, you're still a good looking guy.
(10:40):
But um, but you're a young guy and you you
meet this woman Stacy Stie. It's a romantic situation. We
know it was a consensual situation. And you met her
uh at a at a doman was it was a
convenient story gas station like type, but they had a
game room and all that, And was it loving her sight?
(11:00):
Was it like a lightning bolt? Would I wouldn't say
it like that. You know. I was just there. We
were just hanging out. I'm at a jukebox selecting songs
and she walks in, you know. And I wouldn't say
it was no love at first sight, you know, because
we ended up playing pool, you know, striking up conversation
and it was just good. And then some time after that,
(11:23):
you obviously there was chemistry there, and you started seeing
each other discreet, you know, and then at some point
she started seeing Jimmy Finnell. No, she was already seeing him,
you know. I was already seeing someone else. You know.
That's what's part of the reason why we kind of
kept the screet. Do you think you were in love
with her or was it more just just young people
(11:46):
having fun. We were having fun. There was chemistry there,
but I wouldn't I wouldn't say that I was in
love with it because I think if I would have
been in love with her, how to cut everything else off,
you know. And I don't really think that she was
in love with me, because she would have been the
same way. She would cut everything off on that end.
You know, how long had you been seeing Stacy when
when she was murdered but I met her late October,
(12:09):
early in November. Of her death was in April, so
I will take able six months, six six months. And
how did you find out about on the news? Yeah? Yeah,
when I heard it on the news and talented athlete,
I didn't want to believe it. This is not the stacy,
So yeah, I was. I was. I was quite shocked
(12:33):
when they when they flashed her picture. I didn't want
to believe it because I was just with her. I
didn't want to believe it. It was just with her,
like late night Sunday, everday morning Monday, and she was
murdered on a Tuesday. All I can do is tell
you that I mentioned I had nothing to do with
(12:54):
that three sperms. I was with her the night before.
I mean, you learned that seybiology that in a pen
hit drop, you're looking at millions. That's just just a
pin drop. I mean, for the state's on experts to
come back in, we can't you know all three of them.
And then we know that Jimmy was the original suspect.
(13:17):
We know they kind of circled up the wagons and
you know protected him. He failed to polygraphs. We know
all the facts. What what would you most want people
to know about the evidence. If you were to say
to a stranger or somebody who's watching this right now, go, well,
I don't know he's in there. It must be something
that well, the time of death. Dr Michael Boden is
(13:42):
about as decorated a forensic expert as you can get,
including having served as chairman of the Forensic Pathology Panel
for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, investigating the assassinations
of no less than President John F. Kennedy and Martin
Luther King Jr. He studied the evidence in Stacy Styke's
murder case and gave testimony at a hearing back on
(14:03):
October eleventh, two seventeen, when Rodney receiving a new trial.
I think that my opinion is solid in this matter
and disagrees with the prosecutor's opinion. It disagrees on almost
every important point that the prosecution used to convict d Well.
It disagrees on the time of death, the place of death,
(14:27):
and whether or not a sexual assault that occurred. Right, well,
those are pretty much it. And then there's the issue
of vividity, which plays into all of these things. Lividity
is a measure of time of death. When we die,
certain processes in our bodies stop. The heart stops functioning,
blood stops moving around, and the blood itself. Similar to
(14:50):
when you give blood at a blood bank. The blood
is about solid material red cells, white cells, and platelets
and plasma on top of the yellow tinge clear fluid.
From the time of our birth to Tommy Dye, the
heart not only pumps blood around but also churns it up.
So when blood comes out, one sees red blood and
(15:11):
you don't see the separation. When blood goes into a
bag in a blood bank, after a few minutes, one
sees the solid materials settling down, so you have all
the red cells and the majority of the slaw material
coming to the bottom of the volume. That's what happens
after death. After we die, the blood, instead of being
(15:34):
well churned up, starts settling out, with the red blood cells,
white blood cells, and platelets settling to the bottom by gravity.
So whatever part of the body is downward against the ground,
we'll get a bluish purple color of the settled red
(15:54):
blood cells. That's called lividity. And why is this so
important in the case of stacy states because it tells
two things to the medical examine the coroner coming to
the scene. The first thing we look for always is
did the person die here? Was the body moved after death?
Just an automatic initial impression. When we see inappropriate lividity
(16:19):
that is lying on the back, as occurred here, but
the discoloration is in the front, it means that that
individual the decesions here was laying face down for at
least four or five hours for the blood to settle,
causing the bluish discoloration of lividity. She could not have
(16:42):
died in that position. If she had died in that position,
all the lividity would be near the ground. And that's
a certainty. That's that's a certain This is a change
in the body that happens to everybody after death. But
just the laws of gravity. But for the lividity to
settle and not turn. If a body is moved within
(17:02):
an hour after death, it's like when the snow blow
that you let the snow settle the bottom and you
turn it over, and that settles in the other direction.
If in an hour or two one turns the body over,
then all the blood goes in the other direction. But
after four or five hours, the lividity becomes fixed because
(17:23):
the red blood cells started going out of the blood
vessels and well, so that if you turn it over
after four or five hours, the inappropriate lividity will remain,
it won't disappear. So in order for us to see
the lividity on the front, not only was she laying
face down, but she was laying face down in these
circumstances at least four or five hours, So we could
(17:46):
tell from that that she was moved from a place
that she was laying face down, and that she had
to be in one position for at least four or
five hours before she was moved. Another thing that happens
when we die is that the tissues start to decompose
because it's not getting usual oxygen supply. So the first
tissues that decompose are the lining cells of the mouth,
(18:09):
the nose, and also the intestinal track. They just start
dying in the nose and mouth. The dying tissues mix
up with whatever fluids are present and a thick maroon
type discharge will occur. She had to be laying face
forward and nose a mouth free for fluids to leak out,
(18:32):
and this would happen in a car. The purge fluids
were in the passenger side, and that would be coming
out of her nose and mouth, and the lividity would
be developing to some extent on the fact that she's
leaning forward. In this case, since the prosecution argument is
(18:53):
that the defendant met her at three am and she
died after three am, laying in one position for at
least four or five hours until eight am, and there's
evidence that she was dead in the car before because
in the car one has purge fluids, so she's dead
for at least four hours before she's taken out of
(19:14):
the car. And of course we know that the car
was found at five am, so it actually is not possible.
This scenario cannot have happened. You can't have five hours
and two hours, that's right. The lividity and the purge
fluids of the car would establish that she was dead
laying face down closer to midnight, but definitely before three
(19:35):
o'clock in the morning. The fiance, Jimmy Finel, and his
own words under oath a trial. He stated that he
was home with her from eight pm the night before
until she left for work around three in the morning
the next day. And I think you've made it very
clear that it is your expert opinion, um to a
degree of a very high degree of certainty, that that
(19:57):
was the time that she was murdered. It is my
opinion that she was murdered and strangled well before three am,
closer to midnight, ah, and that Mr Finel was there.
Maybe somebody else came in and did it. I can't
say that he did it, except that he was the
only one there. How certain are you that Rodney could
(20:21):
not have committed this crime? I am certain beyond all
reasonable doubts that she was dead before she could possibly
have met with Rodney, that he could not possibly have
strangled Stacy after three o'clock in the morning to a
(20:42):
reasonable certainly. Maybe we're up from that. As far as
any testimony in any trial, in the standards used, he
could not have committed the crime. If this execution goes forward,
how are you going to process that information? It would
be terrible number of ways. Number One, there are people
(21:04):
when executed who turned out to be innocent. Clearly, even
if he's exonerated, it's horrible that he's been in prison
for so long, during which time, whoever the real murderer
is free to go about harming other people. I want
(21:31):
to talk about the fact that this officer had a
very troubling history of misconduct, and that, in fact, sometime
after Rodney's arrest and conviction, Jimmy himself was arrested and convicted. Yeah,
and I think we need to go back and just
look at who Jimmy Finel was at the time and
(21:55):
who he continues to be. Even before the time of
the murder, there were lines that things weren't right with Jimmy.
Um in February of this is two months a little
more before the murder, there's an incident in which he
chases down a young Hispanic man in the small town
that they he's a patrol officer. He's alleged to have
(22:18):
beat him and put a gun to this kid's head.
He was sued for that, alleging police misconduct and police brutality.
That suit was settled. So he had a record of misconduct.
And that's just not even be half of it. Just
looking from the time around the murder, a woman that
Jimmy Finnell was dating in Gettings described him as emotionally abusive, possessive,
(22:44):
virulent ly racist, and when she broke off with him,
the relationship. He stalked her. You know, I remember one day,
you know, opened up the newspaper and reading about Finelle's
rest for a alleged sexual assault while on patrol, and
he ultimately pled guilty too related charges that arose from
(23:06):
an incident in which he was called out to assist
a young woman and instead of helping her, drove her out,
kidnapped her, raped her, and then dropped her back off
in the situation that he was supposed to protect her from.
She with just incredible bravery, calls nine one and one
and reports it. And what happens. Jimmy Finnell comes back out,
(23:31):
intercepts her, arrests her, and thankfully of the police ultimately
took this seriously and Finell was prosecuted and convicted, fled
guilty to charges, served essentially every day of a ten
year since he was quote unquote one of the state's
(23:53):
finest a police officer. You know, and these things happen.
You know, you have police killings here, killing innocent people,
you know, unto people, and the first thing they say,
they put in fear for their lives. But then here
you have this police officer that's that's uh, it wasn't
a fear for his life, didn't give a damn about life,
and up until the time he got convicted of the crime,
(24:16):
he just got released from Uh. I feel like the
state enabled him that. I mean, they should have been
keeping an eye on it. When did you learn about
Jimmy being arrested and charged with kidnapping and rape, which
happened about ten years after you were convicted? Yeah, because
it's on TV. No. I was listening to the radio.
We don't have television here, you know, I listened to
(24:38):
an hour on the hour, you know, and just so happened.
I was and I heard them talking about an officer
being arrested for sexual assault Williamson County. And it was
getting close in club, and it would said Jimmy for Neil.
I tried to kick the door off the engines. I
was like, I was elated, you know, I was kind
of amped up. Really did you think they were at him? Uh? Yeah.
(25:05):
I It wasn't until later on my attorneys within this
project really start digging into that and pulling up the information,
and I was like, well, okay, he's charged with this,
But then they found out that he was under investigation
in it they found out about these other cases that
(25:26):
he had been charged with, that his fellow officers pushed
on the rug for him. You know, like, there's no
way this, this can't be happening. So even the law
enforcement day to see that he worked for was protecting him. Yeah,
in your case, we know that it was his best
friend on the forest who was one of the lead investigators.
(25:49):
When you look at the police investigation, this was not
a one offensive. Police reports indicate that he had uh
credible allegations of raping at least one other woman in
his custody and a pattern of abuse and sexual misconduct
that went back years. One of the police reports talking
(26:13):
about the rape allegations, where he was on patrol, he
rapes a woman and then gives her his card, saying,
you know, you want to go out on another date.
And so this is not somebody who's at least the
evidence shows, is tied to reality and somebody that we
should be concerned about. I read somewhere that Officer Finelle,
(26:35):
then Officer Finelle had been overheard by a fellow officer
bragging or exclaiming that if he ever found Stacy cheating
on him, he would strangle her with a belt. Is
that true? Yeah, So he was in a police training class.
Um he was a rookie cop when all this went down,
and a classmate of his was sort of in some
(26:59):
sort of an argument with him, and he said, well,
you know, if I ever catch my girlfriend cheating on me,
um me, I'd kill her. And she made some response
about how he would be you know, identified or something.
He said, no, they'll never give my fingerprints. I'll strangler
with a belt, um which you know obviously, where you
have Stacy strangled with a belt is just, you know,
(27:21):
hard to understand. But then you've got to put that
in the context of everything that the police reports indicated
about Jimmy and everything we subsequently know when he talked
to the police about this case early on, his statement
was riddled with inconsistencies. The morning she disappeared, but before
(27:42):
her body was found, took out all the money in
his bank account. Then the fact that two eyewitnesses have
recently come forward and submitted signed affid David's an insurance
salesperson who said that Vanelle threatened to kill Stacy while
ing for life insurance. A deputy in the Lee County
(28:02):
Sheriff's Office at the time of the murder, who fenilimated
a criminating statement too at Stacy's funeral, and Vanelle's best
friend at the time of the murder, Bass Trip. Sheriff's
deputy Curtis Davis, has now revealed that Finnelle gave an
inconsistent account of where he was on the night of
the murder. He claimed to Officer Davis that he was
(28:23):
out laid drinking, and he later testified at trial that
he had spent a quiet evening at home with Stites
at their apartment during what we now know to be
the time of her death, based on no less than
Dr Michael Boden's testimony. When asked to explain this discrepancy,
Finelle invoked his Fifth Amendment rights declined to testify to
a void possible self acrimination. So all of this adds
(28:47):
up to a mountain of ship. Also, um, the breaking
news is that there's a confession right that someone who
was in prison with him has now come forward and
signed it up for David, saying that Jimmy confessed to
this fellow that he was in prison with that he
(29:09):
had actually strangled her. Many of you know Dr Phil
for his accomplishments, his legendary career in TV and entertainment.
But what you may not know is that he was
the founder of Courtroom Sciences, the first organization that made
(29:30):
a science out of jury selection and other courtroom practices
that lead to the type of outcomes that we all want,
which is the right person getting convicted. You have made
a very conscious decision to use your personal capital, your
name value, your own financial resources, and most of all,
your time to fly around the country to spend hours
(29:53):
and hours helping someone who a few weeks ago was
a total stranger to you. What's going on here? Why
are you so passionately devoted to trying to save Rodney
Reid's life? And I don't and that's not hyperbole. Well,
I went down and spoke to the man, and I
did not go in there presuming he was innocent or guilty.
(30:17):
I went down to talk to him, and I looked
the man in the eye and asked him a lot
of in depth questions, asked him some questions that there
were right or wrong answers to in terms of whether
he was telling the truth or not. I came away
feeling like he was definitely a man of integrity and
(30:38):
was clearly being victimized here, and I really tried to
be empathetic and thought, if I was in that situation,
or one of my sons, which I have to we're
in that situation, what would I hope and pray someone
(30:58):
would do. And so I came back and really dove
into the science and the evidence here, and I was
appalled at what I found. This man has not had
due process. I mean, he's not had a fair trial yet,
and they've taken twenty two and a half years of
this man's life. And who knows what he would have
(31:19):
done in those twenty two years. You know, maybe he
would have saved some people's lives. Maybe he would have
gone to a rack, Maybe he would have been a
paramedic and save lives. Maybe he would have been a
thief and gotten shot. Who know, You don't know what
somebody would have done. But he had the right to
find out, He had the right to make those choices
(31:39):
and know, and that was taken from him. And I
frankly don't think this was a close call. I don't
know whether he did it or didn't do it. I
don't think it was a close call. And if you
watched the two hours that we devoted this on the air.
I brought on the defense lawyer for or her fiance.
(32:02):
I brought him on, and I gave him a platform
to speak from. I spoke to him after the show,
away from the cameras, and he does believe Rodney Reed
is guilty. And I let him speak and he said
every every reason that he thought I gave people that
I did not bury the negatives. I looked at both
sides of this, and then I looked at the science
(32:24):
and it was very clear to me he couldn't have
done this. Even if he was the kind of character
that would have done this, he couldn't have done this.
And I don't believe he's a kind of character that
would have done this. I didn't know him at the time,
but I know him now and I believe he is
a good man that would be a good addition to
(32:45):
this world, in this community. And I just felt like,
you know, I can't look this man in the eye,
know what I know in my heart from the training
that I have, and go home and go to dinner.
How do you do that? How do you know what
you know and don't do something about it. You can't.
(33:07):
I know it, that's for sure. First they sighted some
DNA evidence. They said there was Rodney sperm found inside
her body. And to me, that's a lie biomission because
supposedly a rape took place at three am the morning
that she died. Now they found her body at approximately
(33:30):
three in the afternoon, about twelve hours later. At that time,
had he raped her, there would have been million of
spermatozoa still viable inside her body. There were three sperm heads,
which means they had deteriorated to the point that the
bodies had fallen off the heads, and there were the
three little microscopic heads in there. So that's about, you know,
(33:55):
anywhere between three and and ten million off of the
count of what it would be if he had had
sex with her at the time that she was supposedly
raped and killed. But they had been seeing each other
and and he said he had sex with her before,
And was that relationship real or did he just make
that up? Well, people he knows knew about it, people
(34:19):
she knows knew about it, People that he didn't know
knew about it. So people from both of their lives.
They lived in two different worlds, and people in both
worlds that didn't know each other both knew about their relationship.
So the fact that they had a relationship to me
is confirmed by people who don't know each other telling
the same story. That explains to me the sperm in
(34:40):
her body. Then when they found their body, the science
of deterioration, lividity, the deterioration of the skin, what they
found in the truck, in terms of bodily fluids that
had had come up, all the things that you know
are on a timeline from death. This simply didn't match
(35:00):
that she had been dead for twelve hours when they
found the body. It suggested she had been dead a
whole lot longer than that. And she wasn't with Rodney
during those earlier hours. She was with someone else. That
is not contested. So if she was killed hours before
they say she was killed, which the science says is true,
(35:24):
he didn't do it. He wasn't with her, nobody says
he was with her, then she was with somebody else,
and that is uncontested. There were no fingerprints in the truck.
They didn't test for d N A. Of course we
now contest for contact DNA, etcetera, etcetera. But there they
didn't find any evidence of him being in that truck whatsoever.
(35:45):
And there's just no evidence that connects him with that crime,
and there is evidence that connects other people to that crime.
So if you believe these world class, world renewed round
experts that have done thousands and thousands of autopsies, they
(36:06):
say it's not possible that needed it. So given the science,
he was not with her when she was killed. Game over.
(36:33):
Roderick Read and his wife Juanna have put everything careers,
social lives, personal matters on hold to advocate for Rodney
and found time to sit down with me. Roderick, welcome
to law conviction. I'm sorry you're here, but hopefully we'll
be able to help make a difference together and get
the justice that we all want for Rodney. I wanted
(36:56):
to ask you about growing up with your older brother.
What was your childhood like with it a happy childhood?
Oh yeah, we had a good childhood. A matter of fact,
I come from a large family. I got five brothers,
five brothers. Rodney is the fourth and nine I'm the fifth.
You always want a little brother, and when I came along,
he had one and he doated over me. He's been
(37:18):
there every part of my life, he says. I can
remember up until when they convicted this crime. So, and
when did you find out about Stacy's murder? We found
about it out about it over the news, and uh
Me and Rodney talked about it, and and his assumption was,
(37:40):
I bet you I know that Jimmy Vanille did this,
you know. And that's when I said, Mancy, I told you,
you know, That's when I told you sold Star. But
at that time we had no idea. We never dreamed
Rodney would be charged for Stacy's murder. What was that
saying that your cousin had that that, you know, almost
(38:01):
portends this horrible scenario. It's never good to know adair
white woman. Something to that effect. It's profound and chilling
when you think about how it actually played out in
real life. UM, knowing the history of how many black
men were lynched for allegedly having sex, whether they did
(38:26):
or didn't, with a white woman, and those weren't even
cases in which an officer of the law was imposed,
as if fiance or anything else. Um And in fact,
I can't help saying this. It feels like we're doing
everything we can to prevent it. But if this, if
the State of Texas goes forward. This execution, it's hard
to call it anything other than a modern day lynching.
(38:48):
It's exactly what it is. It's murder. In my eyes,
they committed crimes when they convicted my brother, by withholding evidence,
by not giving them fair trial, by not testing all
the dinner, and now they said the site taking his life.
And that is something that I cannot just sit back
(39:09):
and say nothing or do nothing about. That's something that
I have to with every fiber in my body, stand
up against and just get his story out here, to
do all that I can do. You know, That's what
me and my family, that's what we're striving to do
all that we can do. And you are doing all
that you can do. And it's become a major national
(39:33):
news story and a major cause as more and more
people have become aware that this is such a only
tragic mischaracter justice, but also such an obvious mischaracter justice.
You've been out there, you've been meeting with everybody, You've
been on TV shows, you've been with sister Helen, You've
been criss crossing the country dropping everything else that that's
(39:55):
important to you to to fight this fight. Yeah, and
my hats off to you. How much hope do you
have that justice will be delayed but not denied in
this case. I'm very confident that after the world sees
this because I'm a back up my mom. Quote my mom,
(40:21):
when they convicted my brother on that day, she said,
y'all may do whatever you're gonna try to do to
my baby, but I guarantee you the whole world will
know about it. And when she said that, I didn't
realize that that's what really what it was going to take.
(40:45):
So I have great hope and in faith and confidence
that my brother will be vindicated and he is going
to come home alive and well. I believe that. I
have to believe that. I can't put nothing negati him
in my mind. I can't use my energy in that way.
(41:06):
I believe it too. And we're you know, there's there's
so many good people involved in this fight now, and
it's growing every day. It's growing every day, every day
and any day. And credit to you for for driving
that that forward. So Roger, people are listening. Now. What
can somebody's sitting home here? What can I do? First off,
I tell everybody contact Governor Greg Abbott, Okay, call his office,
(41:33):
writer's office, do the same with Ken Paxton, the Board
of Pardons and Paroles. Contact them, Contact even Brian Gertz
Bastop County District Attorney's Office. Pass the word. Tell everybody,
Tag everybody on your social media sites. Help us get
this word out, tell the story. Tell the story. Refer
(41:54):
people to our website. Facebook Forward, slash read just as initiative.
That's the Famine's website. My mom Sandraw read is a president.
Get with us so once again, that's Facebook dot com.
Slash read Justice Initiative at Facebook dot com. Slash read
Justice Initiative for the Innocence Project dot org. Follow at
(42:16):
Innocence Project. On Instagram posting about Rodney every day. I'm
posting about him just about every day on my Instagram
at It's Jason Flam. I appreciate you being here too,
you know, to shed light on this terrible injustice and
to try to, you know, raise more awareness. Maybe there's
someone listening who who knows the governor or who has outreach,
(42:40):
someone who's listening who can write an article or blog
or do whatever it is, or raise attention, raise hell,
because if not, it's going to be a very bad
day in Texas and in America at this point, we
have a feature in this show. It's my favorite part
(43:00):
of the show, and this is the part of the
show that I call closing arguments. It's where, first of all,
I thank you Roger for coming to New York, being
here in the studio with us, doing everything that you're doing,
and now I get to kick back and turn my
microphone off and leave it up to you for what
I call closing arguments. What I want everybody to know
(43:22):
is that read just as initiative, it's not just about Rotteney.
It's about other people that find themselves in a similar situation.
We're about getting justice for not just for Rotting, but
for Stacy, and we want to help anybody out there
that we can help along the way. But just know
that right now, after we get riding at home, we're
(43:44):
gonna be there to help anybody that needs help in
the capacity that we can. When we first started this thing,
it was all about Rotteney. Now we see that, hey,
there's a million of the Rodney reads out there, and
with the firing tenacity that we haven't bringing Rodney home,
we're gonna have the same tenacity as seeking justice and
abolishing the death PI, that's what we want to do. Amen.
(44:07):
Once again closing arguments with Price Benjet, We at the
Innocence Project are continuing to work on this case. Literally,
we will be filing appeals in every court available, and
we will investigate leads. So if there are folks out
there who may know something who have not come forward,
(44:27):
please reach out that the Innocence Project dot org and
there is a petition that you can sign up for,
but you can also send an email generally which will
ultimately get to me about any information that you have. Again,
we this is an active investigation. Www. Dot Innocence Project
dot org. Put Rodney read in the subject line Bryce
(44:49):
ben Jet as our guest and as Rodney's lead attorney.
We will investigate information that we get. And and obviously
this is a concern for everybody in our society because
when we enforce a judgment like this, it is in
the name of the people. UM. And so if this
is something that you are not comfortable with, and I
(45:11):
don't think you should be, UM, you should make your
voice hurt and uh stand up for what's right in
a case like this. Dr Phil, you know we're sitting
here in November and Thanksgivings and two Christmases have gone
by with Rodney Reid not being able to touch a
(45:38):
member of his family. And twenty two Thanksgivings and twenty
two Christmases have gone by with him thinking that all
the people that he does see are there to kill him.
They're just waiting for a green light to take his life.
And I am convinced that he's there with the full
(46:01):
knowledge that he did not do the crime that he's
in there for. And we have an opportunity to mark
this holiday season by giving him the gift of his
life back. And you know, sometimes we think that in
this world we're born, live and die and never make
(46:23):
a difference. This is one of those times that you
can make a difference. It doesn't take money, it doesn't
take time. It distakes your presence and you stepping up
and saying I stand with Rodney Reid and all the
other people that want him out of prison. And that
includes law enforcement officers, state and federal legislators, people from
(46:50):
all walks of life. Let's do a good thing. The
governor of Texas is a former judge, and I think
he's a fair man, and I think he hears enough
of us speak in a respectful way. I haven't gone
to Austin and made a big grandstand show, running up
the steps of the capital with my hair on fire,
(47:10):
trying to embarrass the governor and all that. I haven't
done that. I've been very respectful in the way that
we've gone about this, and I intend to continue to
do so if we keep making progress here and now
is the time to step up and make a difference.
We're coming up on three million signatures for this petition
(47:32):
for clemency. I would sure like to see that at
ten million, there's a point at which they simply cannot
ignore the outcry. Let's take this time to give him
the gift of his life back. And now, with a
heavy heart, but with optimism, I am going to introduce
(47:52):
our featured guest, Rodney Read. One thing that I really
missed was really being a father to my kids, you know,
and and really they have an opportunity to be the
grandfather to my grandchildren, you know. I just look forward
to being out there with my family, with my friends,
(48:16):
with my loved one, with my supporters. I would really
love to meet all my supporters because I feel that
the support that has been generated behind me, and that's
been a real push to keep me going. You know
when I when I read their mail, read their letters.
A lot of them I don't respond to, you know,
(48:36):
but then there's there's so much mail. I really don't
have time to respond to all them because then I
have to I do have to get sleep, trying to
get some sleep. But knowing that the people that are
behind me, that are advocating for me, you know, I
can name them all. Julie, Judy, Tiffany very bad. Uh. Yeah,
(49:02):
they're on my real push. And my mom, my brothers
uh and my my daughter. My granddaughter's a beautiful smile.
You know that that that that keeps me, that inspires me.
When I see a beautiful smile, I look forward to
holding him before they get too damn big. Uh. There's
(49:25):
just so much, so much State of tex Is trying
to take my life, trying to execute me. Just drive
me to a table and in jack my body with
with poisons. Don't sit back and just let this happen.
Just stay up, stay involved, don't forget to give us
(49:50):
a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps.
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
importan and cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
(50:12):
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Before we get into this episode, I have some breaking
news to share with you. Rodney Reid has been granted
a stay of execution, and I want to thank every
one of you who took action, who signed a petition,
who made phone calls, who wrote letters. Your actions matter,
and this is a good day. At least we have
(00:21):
a chance now to reopen this case and prove his
actual innocence once and for all. The year was Stacy
States and police officer Jimmy Finnell were engaged to be married,
but Stacy was having an affair with a man named
Rodney Reid. On April, Stacy's body was discovered strangled on
(00:45):
the side of a dirt road near Bastrop, Texas. Her fiance,
Jimmy Finnelle, was a prime suspect until three of Rodney
Reid's intacts bermative z OA were found inside her body.
During trial, the state alleged that Rodney intercepted Missty on
her three am drive to work and proceeded to rape
and murder her, with no other physical evidence of Rodney
(01:06):
in a car or at the scene. The forensic science
of the time incorrectly asserting that intact spermatis zoa could
not survive past twenty four hours, and Stacy's whereabouts being
known within the twenty four hours prior to her death,
Rodney Reid was sentenced to death. It is now common
knowledge that intax spermative zoa can be found at least
(01:27):
seventy two hours after release, and all of the state's
forensic expert witnesses have since disavowed their testimonies. Reid continues
to maintain that the spermative zoa that the investigation discovered
was the result of consensual intercourse that transpired well over
twenty four hours prior to her death. On this episode
of Rawful Conviction with Jason Flom, we go to death
(01:47):
Row to speak with Rodney Reid. Will also speak with
his attorney, Bryce ben Jet, his brother Roderick Reid, Dr
Phil and the world renowned forensic expert Dr Michael Boden.
Will retell his compelling sworn testimony that rules out Rodney
as the potential perpetrator and disputes the time of death.
This is Wrongful Conviction. Senior staff attorney for the Innocence
(02:17):
Project and Rodney's legal counsel, Bryce ben Jet, came by
to tell us about Rodney's case, and we know that
on April Stacy States was found strangled and killed in Bastrop, Texas.
She was last seen, of course, with her fiancee, Jimmy Finel,
and the search for Stacy started when she failed to
(02:38):
report for her three thirty am shift at the grocery
store where she worked. Jimmy's truck, of course, which he
testified that she used to drive herself to work that morning,
was found in a high school parking lot at five am,
and Stacy's body was discovered later that afternoon that same day,
lying face up near an unpaved road. So the state
(02:58):
argued that Rodney didn't know her, but rather that he
intercepted her on her way to work, gained entry somehow
to her truck, sexually assaulted and strangled her, and transported
her to the remote unpaved road where her body was discovered.
All the while and this is key not leaving any
other evidence behind other than the sperm in her body.
And this theory was built importantly on three pillars, the
(03:22):
three spermitive is zoa that were found right the testimony
for three forensic experts who maintained that sperm does not
stay intact for longer than twenty four hours after intercourse,
which of course we know that it does, and that
states whereabouts were accounted for most of the day before
she was murdered, thereby ruling out the consensual sex with
Reid as an explanation for the presence of his sperm,
(03:43):
And of course the testimony from Jimmy Finnell who said
that she left at three am for work in his truck.
But take us back and explain some of these circumstances
and how the state developed this narrative that we now
know not only isn't true, but couldn't possibly be true. Yeah,
it's interesting because when you go back and you look
(04:04):
at how crimes ought to be investigated, there were many
sort of obvious errors that were done. Initially, nobody looked
at the apartment that Stacy Stites shared with Jimmy Finnell,
even though that was the last place she was seen.
That is sort of police work one oh one. There
were not adequate notes taken of interviews of Jimmy Finnell,
(04:28):
who was later the key source of the timeline of
the state's case. But as the investigation actually progressed, Jimmy
Finnell soon emerged as the prime suspect in the case
and was investigated. He was aggressively interrogated, he was subjected
to polygraphs failed which he failed. And this took place
(04:51):
even after the police knew that it was not his
semen that was collected from Stacy's body, and so the
notion that the person who semen is in that body
must be a rapist and a murderer was not the
operating theory of the investigation until they matched that semen
(05:11):
to Rodney, a person of color. And so there is
where you have an investigation of the person who looks
like he had opportunity motive, um had a record consistent
with this kind of behavior. And as soon as Rodney
was identified as the source of that semen, this suddenly
(05:34):
turned around to a sexual assault murder that had to
be committed by him. So now Rodney becomes the suspect.
The state argued that Rodney didn't know the victim. He did,
in fact, he was having a relationship. And we now
have numerous witnesses that have come forth who had no
connection to Rodney right, not just the ones that did
have a connection to Rodney, his relatives wh knew he
was seeing her, but now others stranger strangers to him. Yeah,
(05:55):
and this was a big issue at the trial. Just
to back up, I mean, this ale was rushed to
say at the best. At the trial, the defense lawyers
were presenting what Rodney had told him, which he could
back up with witnesses. He said, I was seeing Stacy.
It was an occasional thing. It was casual. We were
(06:17):
with each other the night before her death, so not
the night of April. The night of April. So that
was the theory that was presented at the trial. But unfortunately,
the defense lawyers did not do the work or have
the time to do the work to actually present that
(06:38):
evidence to the jury. Even what little evidence that Rodney's
defense lawyers were able to present about this relationship about
the explanation was completely negated by the prosecution's experts, who
said that it was impossible for Rodney's seemen to be
(06:58):
there based on consensual sex because of this twenty four
hour time frame. At that point, right, any jury is
going to go, well, that's I mean, you can't explain
that a way. And it was clearly important to the
jury because they asked about it during their deliberations and
the judge actually read that invalid testimony back to them
while they were deciding whether or not to convict Rodney
(07:21):
read But now we know from the top experts in
the field, including Dr boden Um, that in fact, the
actual amount of time that the spermative zoa can survive
or that can be detected, I guess up to seventy
two hours. And all you need to do is open
a forensic pathology textbook, and they don't expert. And so
(07:43):
we've gone back now to the States forensic pathologist, the
person who did the autopsy, who has disclaimed the testimony
that was offered at the trial. We've gone back to
the Texas Department of Public Safety, who has clarified that
although their analysts said twenty four hours, the science says
seventy two. And we've gone back to the private DNA lab,
(08:06):
who their expert also testified about this twenty four hour
time frame, and that private DNA lab has likewise recanted
that opinion said it was in error um. And so
the foundation of the state's case, which completely negated Rodney's
ability to defend himself, is gone. And then in its place,
(08:29):
we've consulted with the leading forensic pathologists in the country,
U Michael boden Werner, spitz Leroy Riddick, and uniformly they
have said that when you look at this body, she
had been killed hours before the state alleged that she
was killed, which is a time that she, according to
(08:50):
Jimmy Finnell, was at home with him in her apartment.
My production crew and I flew to Houston, Texas, drove
about an hour outside the city to the Polunsky Unit,
where Texas Department of Criminal Justice houses death row inmates.
We were instructed to leave everything but are inspected and approved.
Production equipment in the car, went through security and finally
(09:12):
reached Rodney Read for our non contact interview through bulletproof
plexiglass on death row. Right, good afternoon. Are you doing.
I'm doing okay. I mean my heart is happy, honestly,
but I want to talk about you and thank you
for talking with me. First of all, how are you
(09:33):
doing now? I mean, you've been through this before. You
had an execution data two thousand fifteen, so this is
the second time around well as well as to be expected.
I mean, you know, I have my days, but I'm good,
you know, with meditation, reading, I tried to stay upon
current events. I tried to distract myself from what's going on,
(09:57):
you know, with other thing. You know, it's for stimulating
my mind. I'll read magazine, read newspapers. I really like
reading the comments with my supporters. You know, they have
comments that that I read there. They're inspiring to me. Well,
you're inspiring to them. I mean they're writing to the
(10:17):
government's signing petitions that I'm putting out that the instance
projects putting out on it's extraordinary. It's someone encouraging to
see that, you know, and I think it's going to
make a difference. I hope so and so I want
to go back, if it's okay with you, back to
the um, you're a young man, good looking guy. Um,
I'll young man. Yeah, you're still a good looking guy.
(10:40):
But um, but you're a young guy and you you
meet this woman Stacy Stie. It's a romantic situation. We
know it was a consensual situation. And you met her
uh at a at a doman was it was a
convenient story gas station like type, but they had a
game room and all that, And was it loving her sight?
(11:00):
Was it like a lightning bolt? Would I wouldn't say
it like that. You know. I was just there. We
were just hanging out. I'm at a jukebox selecting songs
and she walks in, you know. And I wouldn't say
it was no love at first sight, you know, because
we ended up playing pool, you know, striking up conversation
and it was just good. And then some time after that,
(11:23):
you obviously there was chemistry there, and you started seeing
each other discreet, you know, and then at some point
she started seeing Jimmy Finnell. No, she was already seeing him,
you know. I was already seeing someone else. You know.
That's what's part of the reason why we kind of
kept the screet. Do you think you were in love
with her or was it more just just young people
(11:46):
having fun. We were having fun. There was chemistry there,
but I wouldn't I wouldn't say that I was in
love with it because I think if I would have
been in love with her, how to cut everything else off,
you know. And I don't really think that she was
in love with me, because she would have been the
same way. She would cut everything off on that end.
You know, how long had you been seeing Stacy when
when she was murdered but I met her late October,
(12:09):
early in November. Of her death was in April, so
I will take able six months, six six months. And
how did you find out about on the news? Yeah? Yeah,
when I heard it on the news and talented athlete,
I didn't want to believe it. This is not the stacy,
So yeah, I was. I was. I was quite shocked
(12:33):
when they when they flashed her picture. I didn't want
to believe it because I was just with her. I
didn't want to believe it. It was just with her,
like late night Sunday, everday morning Monday, and she was
murdered on a Tuesday. All I can do is tell
you that I mentioned I had nothing to do with
(12:54):
that three sperms. I was with her the night before.
I mean, you learned that seybiology that in a pen
hit drop, you're looking at millions. That's just just a
pin drop. I mean, for the state's on experts to
come back in, we can't you know all three of them.
And then we know that Jimmy was the original suspect.
(13:17):
We know they kind of circled up the wagons and
you know protected him. He failed to polygraphs. We know
all the facts. What what would you most want people
to know about the evidence. If you were to say
to a stranger or somebody who's watching this right now, go, well,
I don't know he's in there. It must be something
that well, the time of death. Dr Michael Boden is
(13:42):
about as decorated a forensic expert as you can get,
including having served as chairman of the Forensic Pathology Panel
for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, investigating the assassinations
of no less than President John F. Kennedy and Martin
Luther King Jr. He studied the evidence in Stacy Styke's
murder case and gave testimony at a hearing back on
(14:03):
October eleventh, two seventeen, when Rodney receiving a new trial.
I think that my opinion is solid in this matter
and disagrees with the prosecutor's opinion. It disagrees on almost
every important point that the prosecution used to convict d Well.
It disagrees on the time of death, the place of death,
(14:27):
and whether or not a sexual assault that occurred. Right, well,
those are pretty much it. And then there's the issue
of vividity, which plays into all of these things. Lividity
is a measure of time of death. When we die,
certain processes in our bodies stop. The heart stops functioning,
blood stops moving around, and the blood itself. Similar to
(14:50):
when you give blood at a blood bank. The blood
is about solid material red cells, white cells, and platelets
and plasma on top of the yellow tinge clear fluid.
From the time of our birth to Tommy Dye, the
heart not only pumps blood around but also churns it up.
So when blood comes out, one sees red blood and
(15:11):
you don't see the separation. When blood goes into a
bag in a blood bank, after a few minutes, one
sees the solid materials settling down, so you have all
the red cells and the majority of the slaw material
coming to the bottom of the volume. That's what happens
after death. After we die, the blood, instead of being
(15:34):
well churned up, starts settling out, with the red blood cells,
white blood cells, and platelets settling to the bottom by gravity.
So whatever part of the body is downward against the ground,
we'll get a bluish purple color of the settled red
(15:54):
blood cells. That's called lividity. And why is this so
important in the case of stacy states because it tells
two things to the medical examine the coroner coming to
the scene. The first thing we look for always is
did the person die here? Was the body moved after death?
Just an automatic initial impression. When we see inappropriate lividity
(16:19):
that is lying on the back, as occurred here, but
the discoloration is in the front, it means that that
individual the decesions here was laying face down for at
least four or five hours for the blood to settle,
causing the bluish discoloration of lividity. She could not have
(16:42):
died in that position. If she had died in that position,
all the lividity would be near the ground. And that's
a certainty. That's that's a certain This is a change
in the body that happens to everybody after death. But
just the laws of gravity. But for the lividity to
settle and not turn. If a body is moved within
(17:02):
an hour after death, it's like when the snow blow
that you let the snow settle the bottom and you
turn it over, and that settles in the other direction.
If in an hour or two one turns the body over,
then all the blood goes in the other direction. But
after four or five hours, the lividity becomes fixed because
(17:23):
the red blood cells started going out of the blood
vessels and well, so that if you turn it over
after four or five hours, the inappropriate lividity will remain,
it won't disappear. So in order for us to see
the lividity on the front, not only was she laying
face down, but she was laying face down in these
circumstances at least four or five hours, So we could
(17:46):
tell from that that she was moved from a place
that she was laying face down, and that she had
to be in one position for at least four or
five hours before she was moved. Another thing that happens
when we die is that the tissues start to decompose
because it's not getting usual oxygen supply. So the first
tissues that decompose are the lining cells of the mouth,
(18:09):
the nose, and also the intestinal track. They just start
dying in the nose and mouth. The dying tissues mix
up with whatever fluids are present and a thick maroon
type discharge will occur. She had to be laying face
forward and nose a mouth free for fluids to leak out,
(18:32):
and this would happen in a car. The purge fluids
were in the passenger side, and that would be coming
out of her nose and mouth, and the lividity would
be developing to some extent on the fact that she's
leaning forward. In this case, since the prosecution argument is
(18:53):
that the defendant met her at three am and she
died after three am, laying in one position for at
least four or five hours until eight am, and there's
evidence that she was dead in the car before because
in the car one has purge fluids, so she's dead
for at least four hours before she's taken out of
(19:14):
the car. And of course we know that the car
was found at five am, so it actually is not possible.
This scenario cannot have happened. You can't have five hours
and two hours, that's right. The lividity and the purge
fluids of the car would establish that she was dead
laying face down closer to midnight, but definitely before three
(19:35):
o'clock in the morning. The fiance, Jimmy Finel, and his
own words under oath a trial. He stated that he
was home with her from eight pm the night before
until she left for work around three in the morning
the next day. And I think you've made it very
clear that it is your expert opinion, um to a
degree of a very high degree of certainty, that that
(19:57):
was the time that she was murdered. It is my
opinion that she was murdered and strangled well before three am,
closer to midnight, ah, and that Mr Finel was there.
Maybe somebody else came in and did it. I can't
say that he did it, except that he was the
only one there. How certain are you that Rodney could
(20:21):
not have committed this crime? I am certain beyond all
reasonable doubts that she was dead before she could possibly
have met with Rodney, that he could not possibly have
strangled Stacy after three o'clock in the morning to a
(20:42):
reasonable certainly. Maybe we're up from that. As far as
any testimony in any trial, in the standards used, he
could not have committed the crime. If this execution goes forward,
how are you going to process that information? It would
be terrible number of ways. Number One, there are people
(21:04):
when executed who turned out to be innocent. Clearly, even
if he's exonerated, it's horrible that he's been in prison
for so long, during which time, whoever the real murderer
is free to go about harming other people. I want
(21:31):
to talk about the fact that this officer had a
very troubling history of misconduct, and that, in fact, sometime
after Rodney's arrest and conviction, Jimmy himself was arrested and convicted. Yeah,
and I think we need to go back and just
look at who Jimmy Finel was at the time and
(21:55):
who he continues to be. Even before the time of
the murder, there were lines that things weren't right with Jimmy.
Um in February of this is two months a little
more before the murder, there's an incident in which he
chases down a young Hispanic man in the small town
that they he's a patrol officer. He's alleged to have
(22:18):
beat him and put a gun to this kid's head.
He was sued for that, alleging police misconduct and police brutality.
That suit was settled. So he had a record of misconduct.
And that's just not even be half of it. Just
looking from the time around the murder, a woman that
Jimmy Finnell was dating in Gettings described him as emotionally abusive, possessive,
(22:44):
virulent ly racist, and when she broke off with him,
the relationship. He stalked her. You know, I remember one day,
you know, opened up the newspaper and reading about Finelle's
rest for a alleged sexual assault while on patrol, and
he ultimately pled guilty too related charges that arose from
(23:06):
an incident in which he was called out to assist
a young woman and instead of helping her, drove her out,
kidnapped her, raped her, and then dropped her back off
in the situation that he was supposed to protect her from.
She with just incredible bravery, calls nine one and one
and reports it. And what happens. Jimmy Finnell comes back out,
(23:31):
intercepts her, arrests her, and thankfully of the police ultimately
took this seriously and Finell was prosecuted and convicted, fled
guilty to charges, served essentially every day of a ten
year since he was quote unquote one of the state's
(23:53):
finest a police officer. You know, and these things happen.
You know, you have police killings here, killing innocent people,
you know, unto people, and the first thing they say,
they put in fear for their lives. But then here
you have this police officer that's that's uh, it wasn't
a fear for his life, didn't give a damn about life,
and up until the time he got convicted of the crime,
(24:16):
he just got released from Uh. I feel like the
state enabled him that. I mean, they should have been
keeping an eye on it. When did you learn about
Jimmy being arrested and charged with kidnapping and rape, which
happened about ten years after you were convicted? Yeah, because
it's on TV. No. I was listening to the radio.
We don't have television here, you know, I listened to
(24:38):
an hour on the hour, you know, and just so happened.
I was and I heard them talking about an officer
being arrested for sexual assault Williamson County. And it was
getting close in club, and it would said Jimmy for Neil.
I tried to kick the door off the engines. I
was like, I was elated, you know, I was kind
of amped up. Really did you think they were at him? Uh? Yeah.
(25:05):
I It wasn't until later on my attorneys within this
project really start digging into that and pulling up the information,
and I was like, well, okay, he's charged with this,
But then they found out that he was under investigation
in it they found out about these other cases that
(25:26):
he had been charged with, that his fellow officers pushed
on the rug for him. You know, like, there's no
way this, this can't be happening. So even the law
enforcement day to see that he worked for was protecting him. Yeah,
in your case, we know that it was his best
friend on the forest who was one of the lead investigators.
(25:49):
When you look at the police investigation, this was not
a one offensive. Police reports indicate that he had uh
credible allegations of raping at least one other woman in
his custody and a pattern of abuse and sexual misconduct
that went back years. One of the police reports talking
(26:13):
about the rape allegations, where he was on patrol, he
rapes a woman and then gives her his card, saying,
you know, you want to go out on another date.
And so this is not somebody who's at least the
evidence shows, is tied to reality and somebody that we
should be concerned about. I read somewhere that Officer Finelle,
(26:35):
then Officer Finelle had been overheard by a fellow officer
bragging or exclaiming that if he ever found Stacy cheating
on him, he would strangle her with a belt. Is
that true? Yeah, So he was in a police training class.
Um he was a rookie cop when all this went down,
and a classmate of his was sort of in some
(26:59):
sort of an argument with him, and he said, well,
you know, if I ever catch my girlfriend cheating on me,
um me, I'd kill her. And she made some response
about how he would be you know, identified or something.
He said, no, they'll never give my fingerprints. I'll strangler
with a belt, um which you know obviously, where you
have Stacy strangled with a belt is just, you know,
(27:21):
hard to understand. But then you've got to put that
in the context of everything that the police reports indicated
about Jimmy and everything we subsequently know when he talked
to the police about this case early on, his statement
was riddled with inconsistencies. The morning she disappeared, but before
(27:42):
her body was found, took out all the money in
his bank account. Then the fact that two eyewitnesses have
recently come forward and submitted signed affid David's an insurance
salesperson who said that Vanelle threatened to kill Stacy while
ing for life insurance. A deputy in the Lee County
(28:02):
Sheriff's Office at the time of the murder, who fenilimated
a criminating statement too at Stacy's funeral, and Vanelle's best
friend at the time of the murder, Bass Trip. Sheriff's
deputy Curtis Davis, has now revealed that Finnelle gave an
inconsistent account of where he was on the night of
the murder. He claimed to Officer Davis that he was
(28:23):
out laid drinking, and he later testified at trial that
he had spent a quiet evening at home with Stites
at their apartment during what we now know to be
the time of her death, based on no less than
Dr Michael Boden's testimony. When asked to explain this discrepancy,
Finelle invoked his Fifth Amendment rights declined to testify to
a void possible self acrimination. So all of this adds
(28:47):
up to a mountain of ship. Also, um, the breaking
news is that there's a confession right that someone who
was in prison with him has now come forward and
signed it up for David, saying that Jimmy confessed to
this fellow that he was in prison with that he
(29:09):
had actually strangled her. Many of you know Dr Phil
for his accomplishments, his legendary career in TV and entertainment.
But what you may not know is that he was
the founder of Courtroom Sciences, the first organization that made
(29:30):
a science out of jury selection and other courtroom practices
that lead to the type of outcomes that we all want,
which is the right person getting convicted. You have made
a very conscious decision to use your personal capital, your
name value, your own financial resources, and most of all,
your time to fly around the country to spend hours
(29:53):
and hours helping someone who a few weeks ago was
a total stranger to you. What's going on here? Why
are you so passionately devoted to trying to save Rodney
Reid's life? And I don't and that's not hyperbole. Well,
I went down and spoke to the man, and I
did not go in there presuming he was innocent or guilty.
(30:17):
I went down to talk to him, and I looked
the man in the eye and asked him a lot
of in depth questions, asked him some questions that there
were right or wrong answers to in terms of whether
he was telling the truth or not. I came away
feeling like he was definitely a man of integrity and
(30:38):
was clearly being victimized here, and I really tried to
be empathetic and thought, if I was in that situation,
or one of my sons, which I have to we're
in that situation, what would I hope and pray someone
(30:58):
would do. And so I came back and really dove
into the science and the evidence here, and I was
appalled at what I found. This man has not had
due process. I mean, he's not had a fair trial yet,
and they've taken twenty two and a half years of
this man's life. And who knows what he would have
(31:19):
done in those twenty two years. You know, maybe he
would have saved some people's lives. Maybe he would have
gone to a rack, Maybe he would have been a
paramedic and save lives. Maybe he would have been a
thief and gotten shot. Who know, You don't know what
somebody would have done. But he had the right to
find out, He had the right to make those choices
(31:39):
and know, and that was taken from him. And I
frankly don't think this was a close call. I don't
know whether he did it or didn't do it. I
don't think it was a close call. And if you
watched the two hours that we devoted this on the air.
I brought on the defense lawyer for or her fiance.
(32:02):
I brought him on, and I gave him a platform
to speak from. I spoke to him after the show,
away from the cameras, and he does believe Rodney Reed
is guilty. And I let him speak and he said
every every reason that he thought I gave people that
I did not bury the negatives. I looked at both
sides of this, and then I looked at the science
(32:24):
and it was very clear to me he couldn't have
done this. Even if he was the kind of character
that would have done this, he couldn't have done this.
And I don't believe he's a kind of character that
would have done this. I didn't know him at the time,
but I know him now and I believe he is
a good man that would be a good addition to
(32:45):
this world, in this community. And I just felt like,
you know, I can't look this man in the eye,
know what I know in my heart from the training
that I have, and go home and go to dinner.
How do you do that? How do you know what
you know and don't do something about it. You can't.
(33:07):
I know it, that's for sure. First they sighted some
DNA evidence. They said there was Rodney sperm found inside
her body. And to me, that's a lie biomission because
supposedly a rape took place at three am the morning
that she died. Now they found her body at approximately
(33:30):
three in the afternoon, about twelve hours later. At that time,
had he raped her, there would have been million of
spermatozoa still viable inside her body. There were three sperm heads,
which means they had deteriorated to the point that the
bodies had fallen off the heads, and there were the
three little microscopic heads in there. So that's about, you know,
(33:55):
anywhere between three and and ten million off of the
count of what it would be if he had had
sex with her at the time that she was supposedly
raped and killed. But they had been seeing each other
and and he said he had sex with her before,
And was that relationship real or did he just make
that up? Well, people he knows knew about it, people
(34:19):
she knows knew about it, People that he didn't know
knew about it. So people from both of their lives.
They lived in two different worlds, and people in both
worlds that didn't know each other both knew about their relationship.
So the fact that they had a relationship to me
is confirmed by people who don't know each other telling
the same story. That explains to me the sperm in
(34:40):
her body. Then when they found their body, the science
of deterioration, lividity, the deterioration of the skin, what they
found in the truck, in terms of bodily fluids that
had had come up, all the things that you know
are on a timeline from death. This simply didn't match
(35:00):
that she had been dead for twelve hours when they
found the body. It suggested she had been dead a
whole lot longer than that. And she wasn't with Rodney
during those earlier hours. She was with someone else. That
is not contested. So if she was killed hours before
they say she was killed, which the science says is true,
(35:24):
he didn't do it. He wasn't with her, nobody says
he was with her, then she was with somebody else,
and that is uncontested. There were no fingerprints in the truck.
They didn't test for d N A. Of course we
now contest for contact DNA, etcetera, etcetera. But there they
didn't find any evidence of him being in that truck whatsoever.
(35:45):
And there's just no evidence that connects him with that crime,
and there is evidence that connects other people to that crime.
So if you believe these world class, world renewed round
experts that have done thousands and thousands of autopsies, they
(36:06):
say it's not possible that needed it. So given the science,
he was not with her when she was killed. Game over.
(36:33):
Roderick Read and his wife Juanna have put everything careers,
social lives, personal matters on hold to advocate for Rodney
and found time to sit down with me. Roderick, welcome
to law conviction. I'm sorry you're here, but hopefully we'll
be able to help make a difference together and get
the justice that we all want for Rodney. I wanted
(36:56):
to ask you about growing up with your older brother.
What was your childhood like with it a happy childhood?
Oh yeah, we had a good childhood. A matter of fact,
I come from a large family. I got five brothers,
five brothers. Rodney is the fourth and nine I'm the fifth.
You always want a little brother, and when I came along,
he had one and he doated over me. He's been
(37:18):
there every part of my life, he says. I can
remember up until when they convicted this crime. So, and
when did you find out about Stacy's murder? We found
about it out about it over the news, and uh
Me and Rodney talked about it, and and his assumption was,
(37:40):
I bet you I know that Jimmy Vanille did this,
you know. And that's when I said, Mancy, I told you,
you know, That's when I told you sold Star. But
at that time we had no idea. We never dreamed
Rodney would be charged for Stacy's murder. What was that
saying that your cousin had that that, you know, almost
(38:01):
portends this horrible scenario. It's never good to know adair
white woman. Something to that effect. It's profound and chilling
when you think about how it actually played out in
real life. UM, knowing the history of how many black
men were lynched for allegedly having sex, whether they did
(38:26):
or didn't, with a white woman, and those weren't even
cases in which an officer of the law was imposed,
as if fiance or anything else. Um And in fact,
I can't help saying this. It feels like we're doing
everything we can to prevent it. But if this, if
the State of Texas goes forward. This execution, it's hard
to call it anything other than a modern day lynching.
(38:48):
It's exactly what it is. It's murder. In my eyes,
they committed crimes when they convicted my brother, by withholding evidence,
by not giving them fair trial, by not testing all
the dinner, and now they said the site taking his life.
And that is something that I cannot just sit back
(39:09):
and say nothing or do nothing about. That's something that
I have to with every fiber in my body, stand
up against and just get his story out here, to
do all that I can do. You know, That's what
me and my family, that's what we're striving to do
all that we can do. And you are doing all
that you can do. And it's become a major national
(39:33):
news story and a major cause as more and more
people have become aware that this is such a only
tragic mischaracter justice, but also such an obvious mischaracter justice.
You've been out there, you've been meeting with everybody, You've
been on TV shows, you've been with sister Helen, You've
been criss crossing the country dropping everything else that that's
(39:55):
important to you to to fight this fight. Yeah, and
my hats off to you. How much hope do you
have that justice will be delayed but not denied in
this case. I'm very confident that after the world sees
this because I'm a back up my mom. Quote my mom,
(40:21):
when they convicted my brother on that day, she said,
y'all may do whatever you're gonna try to do to
my baby, but I guarantee you the whole world will
know about it. And when she said that, I didn't
realize that that's what really what it was going to take.
(40:45):
So I have great hope and in faith and confidence
that my brother will be vindicated and he is going
to come home alive and well. I believe that. I
have to believe that. I can't put nothing negati him
in my mind. I can't use my energy in that way.
(41:06):
I believe it too. And we're you know, there's there's
so many good people involved in this fight now, and
it's growing every day. It's growing every day, every day
and any day. And credit to you for for driving
that that forward. So Roger, people are listening. Now. What
can somebody's sitting home here? What can I do? First off,
I tell everybody contact Governor Greg Abbott, Okay, call his office,
(41:33):
writer's office, do the same with Ken Paxton, the Board
of Pardons and Paroles. Contact them, Contact even Brian Gertz
Bastop County District Attorney's Office. Pass the word. Tell everybody,
Tag everybody on your social media sites. Help us get
this word out, tell the story. Tell the story. Refer
(41:54):
people to our website. Facebook Forward, slash read just as initiative.
That's the Famine's website. My mom Sandraw read is a president.
Get with us so once again, that's Facebook dot com.
Slash read Justice Initiative at Facebook dot com. Slash read
Justice Initiative for the Innocence Project dot org. Follow at
(42:16):
Innocence Project. On Instagram posting about Rodney every day. I'm
posting about him just about every day on my Instagram
at It's Jason Flam. I appreciate you being here too,
you know, to shed light on this terrible injustice and
to try to, you know, raise more awareness. Maybe there's
someone listening who who knows the governor or who has outreach,
(42:40):
someone who's listening who can write an article or blog
or do whatever it is, or raise attention, raise hell,
because if not, it's going to be a very bad
day in Texas and in America at this point, we
have a feature in this show. It's my favorite part
(43:00):
of the show, and this is the part of the
show that I call closing arguments. It's where, first of all,
I thank you Roger for coming to New York, being
here in the studio with us, doing everything that you're doing,
and now I get to kick back and turn my
microphone off and leave it up to you for what
I call closing arguments. What I want everybody to know
(43:22):
is that read just as initiative, it's not just about Rotteney.
It's about other people that find themselves in a similar situation.
We're about getting justice for not just for Rotting, but
for Stacy, and we want to help anybody out there
that we can help along the way. But just know
that right now, after we get riding at home, we're
(43:44):
gonna be there to help anybody that needs help in
the capacity that we can. When we first started this thing,
it was all about Rotteney. Now we see that, hey,
there's a million of the Rodney reads out there, and
with the firing tenacity that we haven't bringing Rodney home,
we're gonna have the same tenacity as seeking justice and
abolishing the death PI, that's what we want to do. Amen.
(44:07):
Once again closing arguments with Price Benjet, We at the
Innocence Project are continuing to work on this case. Literally,
we will be filing appeals in every court available, and
we will investigate leads. So if there are folks out
there who may know something who have not come forward,
(44:27):
please reach out that the Innocence Project dot org and
there is a petition that you can sign up for,
but you can also send an email generally which will
ultimately get to me about any information that you have. Again,
we this is an active investigation. Www. Dot Innocence Project
dot org. Put Rodney read in the subject line Bryce
(44:49):
ben Jet as our guest and as Rodney's lead attorney.
We will investigate information that we get. And and obviously
this is a concern for everybody in our society because
when we enforce a judgment like this, it is in
the name of the people. UM. And so if this
is something that you are not comfortable with, and I
(45:11):
don't think you should be, UM, you should make your
voice hurt and uh stand up for what's right in
a case like this. Dr Phil, you know we're sitting
here in November and Thanksgivings and two Christmases have gone
by with Rodney Reid not being able to touch a
(45:38):
member of his family. And twenty two Thanksgivings and twenty
two Christmases have gone by with him thinking that all
the people that he does see are there to kill him.
They're just waiting for a green light to take his life.
And I am convinced that he's there with the full
(46:01):
knowledge that he did not do the crime that he's
in there for. And we have an opportunity to mark
this holiday season by giving him the gift of his
life back. And you know, sometimes we think that in
this world we're born, live and die and never make
(46:23):
a difference. This is one of those times that you
can make a difference. It doesn't take money, it doesn't
take time. It distakes your presence and you stepping up
and saying I stand with Rodney Reid and all the
other people that want him out of prison. And that
includes law enforcement officers, state and federal legislators, people from
(46:50):
all walks of life. Let's do a good thing. The
governor of Texas is a former judge, and I think
he's a fair man, and I think he hears enough
of us speak in a respectful way. I haven't gone
to Austin and made a big grandstand show, running up
the steps of the capital with my hair on fire,
(47:10):
trying to embarrass the governor and all that. I haven't
done that. I've been very respectful in the way that
we've gone about this, and I intend to continue to
do so if we keep making progress here and now
is the time to step up and make a difference.
We're coming up on three million signatures for this petition
(47:32):
for clemency. I would sure like to see that at
ten million, there's a point at which they simply cannot
ignore the outcry. Let's take this time to give him
the gift of his life back. And now, with a
heavy heart, but with optimism, I am going to introduce
(47:52):
our featured guest, Rodney Read. One thing that I really
missed was really being a father to my kids, you know,
and and really they have an opportunity to be the
grandfather to my grandchildren, you know. I just look forward
to being out there with my family, with my friends,
(48:16):
with my loved one, with my supporters. I would really
love to meet all my supporters because I feel that
the support that has been generated behind me, and that's
been a real push to keep me going. You know
when I when I read their mail, read their letters.
A lot of them I don't respond to, you know,
(48:36):
but then there's there's so much mail. I really don't
have time to respond to all them because then I
have to I do have to get sleep, trying to
get some sleep. But knowing that the people that are
behind me, that are advocating for me, you know, I
can name them all. Julie, Judy, Tiffany very bad. Uh. Yeah,
(49:02):
they're on my real push. And my mom, my brothers
uh and my my daughter. My granddaughter's a beautiful smile.
You know that that that that keeps me, that inspires me.
When I see a beautiful smile, I look forward to
holding him before they get too damn big. Uh. There's
(49:25):
just so much, so much State of tex Is trying
to take my life, trying to execute me. Just drive
me to a table and in jack my body with
with poisons. Don't sit back and just let this happen.
Just stay up, stay involved, don't forget to give us
(49:50):
a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps.
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
importan and cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
(50:12):
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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