The Innocence Files (2020) s01e01 Episode Script

[elevator bell dings]
[man 1] We get flooded with letters
from all over the country.
At least a couple of thousand letters
from incarcerated men and women a year.
A lot of these people have been in prison
for two, three decades.
They're out of time,
and so they write to us.
These letters all represent human beings
who are incarcerated,
claiming to be wrongly convicted.
In many respects,
we're the court of last resort.
And we can't take every case.
We can only take on
about 1% of the cases.
[man 2] I was convicted in 1983
for murder in the second degree
[man 3] This is a case
of mistaken identity.
- [man 4] The law clerk gave me
- [man 5] 20 years to life in prison
for a crime I had nothing to do with.
[man 6] I was found guilty
and received life
[voices overlap]
[man 7] I have been wrongfully imprisoned
for 18 years.
[man 8] My only hope
of proving my innocence
[man 9] I hope this letter
will cause interest in my struggle.
- [man 10] Please help. Blood, skin
- [man 9] I feel beaten down.
[man 10] As God is my witness
[man 9] I'm totally innocent of the crime.
"Back in 1992, I was accused
of killing a three-year-old child,
something I know I didn't do.
I've been on death row
in Mississippi for five years,
and I know
they have the wrong person locked up."
[man 1] This letter,
it was quite extraordinary.
As you read any of these letters,
you have no idea
about the the duration and density
of the journey before us.
We have to have good models in place
[Peter Neufeld] And you become, frankly,
more angry with how foul
the criminal justice system is.
People in the crime lab
saying the tire prints match,
the shoe prints match,
the hair matches,
the bite marks match.
Because of these unreliable methods,
innocent people are going to prison.
It's the whole profession.
It's the whole system.
It's the whole methodology.
It's all junk.
[opening theme music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[children laughing]
[man groans]
[laughter continues]
[woman] I don't remember a whole lot
about that night.
I know
we were home.
I am the oldest,
and then was Courtney,
and then there's Patria,
Patria's the baby.
I remember that night.
Just a normal night,
and I had gave all three of my kids a bath
and put them to bed, in my bed.
I know the way the bed was positioned.
It was pushed
up against the wall by a window.
Me and my sisters have always been close,
because we have shared the same room,
same bed.
Nothing unusual. We all slept together.
My mom was there
and my oldest brother was there.
He sleep-was asleep on the couch.
I thought that they was safe and okay.
[upbeat music playing in car]
[Sonya] Me and my best friend,
we'd just get together
and go to the club, you know?
[indistinct chatter]
[dog barks in distance]
[birds sing]
[Ashley] I remember waking up, because
I knew that Courtney was not there.
She was gone.
When I got home, my mom,
she asked me, was Courtney with me?
I said, "No, ma'am.
I thought she was here with you."
That's when we realized
that Courtney was missing.
And then we called the police.
[sirens wail]
Everyone walked around, calling her name,
knocking on different people's doors.
She never turned up.
[man 1] We thank you, Lord,
and we pray now that you would look upon
those that are here at this church.
Lord, as we come together,
to get strength for another week
out into this world
I like it when tornadoes come through,
because it causes
everybody to come together.
If there's no tornado,
there is a divided Mississippi still.
There is a white Mississippi
and a black Mississippi.
The majority of the people
in Noxubee County are low-income,
predominately black.
Mississippi has got a long way to go.
[man 2] It's not totally
separated,
other than
the most segregated hour of the week
being eleven o'clock on Sunday morning.
You know, justice prevails
in Noxubee County on most cases,
and I don't believe race figures into
much of what goes on
in the courtroom up there today.
But Noxubee County has a notorious,
horrible history.
There have been many cases
from way back
that blacks were mistreated horribly
in Mississippi.
I was a Mississippi state trooper
after I got out of the Marine Corps.
You know, the patrol was still
kind of like on the racist side
with, you know,
discriminating against black troopers.
So I ended up having to sue 'em
to get hired.
[chuckles]
They said I was too short.
[laughs]
So
I can remember that night pretty good
because we hardly ever have kids
come up missing.
It was a small house.
Kitchen, one bedroom, living room.
[Ashley] It was an old house, so
it wasn't
so hard for somebody to come in.
I don't think I slept that night.
All I know is that morning
around six or something,
Eichelberger said they found her.
She actually was found,
it was just a straight shot from here
going north to the pond.
[Ashley] I remember
everyone was crowded around the pond.
There was people and police.
When they said they found her
it was just so horrifying.
The crime scene was less than
a hundred yards from her residence.
She was about 10 feet out there.
She actually was found partially clothed,
face down, and then the water
was down a little bit more too.
[Scott Boyd] Steven Hayne is
a forensic pathologist,
and he worked with the state crime lab.
And I think he was one of the go-to guys
for a lot of death cases in Mississippi.
He noticed that
she'd been sexually assaulted.
And something kind of unusual,
some of the wounds
on Courtney Smith's body
were made from bite marks.
- How's it going today?
- Oh, doing all right. How you doing, sir?
- Pretty good. Been quiet, or busy?
- Been pretty busy.
[Scott] Steven Hayne recruited
Dr. Michael West,
a forensic dentist, on the case.
I go to the morgue and examine this child.
We photograph her,
we do the standard evidence collection.
Infant black female.
Approximately three years old.
Raped, sodomized, strangled, dead.
There were injuries all over this child.
There was a bite mark
on the wrist of Courtney Smith.
[Eichelberger] Courtney Smith,
the first child homicide case
I ever worked.
And
This was my first case
dealing with bite marks.
So I ain't know anything about 'em.
[R. H. Brown] Bite mark evidence
was new at the time.
You can compare
a bite mark on a victim
to someone who literally is a perpetrator.
Like fingerprints, for instance.
They now have a link
that they can pin straight to a suspect.
Usually, you find in these
aggressive, violent, sexual attacks,
that's where you'll find
a lot of bite marks.
Don't really know if I'm qualified
to get into all the sociology,
psychology of it.
But they turn animalistic.
Everybody that had access to the house
within the last 24 hours was picked up
and processed as a suspect.
[Dr. West] They come back
with a list of 12 people.
I go, "My God, I've never had this many."
So, we took 12 sets of impressions
of these people's teeth.
And actually,
you couldn't get any fingerprints
or anything like that at the house.
There wasn't no physical evidence
from the house.
And so, Ashley Smith was
our primary witness here in this case.
She wasn't all the way asleep.
She was laying there in the house
when Courtney Smith
was picked up out of the bed.
[Ashley] I was five years old,
and I don't remember a lot of it, but
I remember going to see Uncle Bunky,
to talk to him.
I don't remember what we talked about,
um, but I just remember going to see him.
[jolly music]
[man] He's Uncle Bunky,
the host of Fun Time,
a show he's been doing
for more than 30 years.
[R. H. Brown] Uncle Bunky
had this local television show
where he would draw animals,
and he would put weird parts
on the animals
and ask the kids to identify the animals.
[children laughing]
[R. H. Brown]In addition
to having his television show,
he also had a side gig with
the Lowndes County Sheriff's Department.
[male voice] Deputy Bunky Williams
has a knack for drawing.
It comes in handy
when he sketches crime scenes,
a grim task.
[R. H. Brown] What better guy to use
as an investigator
that would question children
about what they've witnessed?
[Uncle Bunky] All right, now,
this is Ashley, and what's your last name?
[young Ashley] Ashley Smith.
[Uncle Bunky] And today is
September 23rd, 1990,
and this is about oh, 9:57. How's that?
- [young Ashley] I got my watch on, see?
- [Uncle Bunky] You got your watch? Okay.
Now, then, write "Ashley" on that
Ashley was in the bed
the last time she saw Courtney.
And so Uncle Bunky, Ashley and myself
we were sitting there in the room
with a tape recorder.
[Uncle Bunky] Now, write Ashley on
that paper so I know that you can write.
Can you write numbers?
[Ashley] Uncle Bunky says,
"You told me he had something in his ear.
Do you remember what he looked like?"
I said, "He had a quarter in his ear."
[young Ashley] He had a quarter in his
[Ashley] Uncle Bunky says,
"Like the earrings there?"
- [Uncle Bunky] Like the earrings there?
- [young Ashley] Yeah.
[Ashley] And I said, "Yeah."
[young Ashley] An earring and a quarter.
"An earring and a quarter."
[Uncle Bunky] And a quarter? Really?
Okay.
What was that fellas name?
You said his name was what?
[young Ashley] Trevon.
[Uncle Bunky] Chevon.
That's who came and got Courtney?
Chevon.
And Ashley's story
was backed up with Sonya.
Eichelberger asked me
would I write a list of people that I knew
that was around Courtney,
you know, at the time.
[Eichelberger] Who'd you date then
that wear an earring in his ear?
[Sonya] This guy I used to go with
to the Santa Barbara.
He's the only one I know
got an earring in his ear.
[Eichelberger] What's his name?
[Sonya] Uh, Levon Brooks.
[Eichelberger] Levon Brooks.
[Sonya] Yeah.
[animal squeals]
[birds coo]
Eichelberger connected
a quarter in the ear to an earring,
and then an earring led to Levon.
When that crime happened,
I didn't understand what was going on.
It was really rough.
It was really rough.
And I heard they wanted me to the jail
for questioning.
So, I went all the way down
to the county jail and, uh,
they told me they wanted me
for questioning on a murder charge.
I said, "What murder charge?"
[Eichelberger] What could you tell me
about the death of Courtney?
[Levon Brooks]
I don't know nothing about that.
[Eichelberger] Did you know her?
[Levon] Talking about that little girl?
I just saw her.
[Eichelberger] When's the last time
you saw her?
[Levon] It's been a long time.
I know something wrong because
of the questions that he was asking me.
I said, "I was at the club Saturday night.
All the people that was up there
could verify that."
[music plays]
[indistinct chatter]
Levon worked at the club at night.
That was his job.
Levon was a typical gentleman.
He used to let me in the club free
because he liked me.
You know like a relationship,
if we get together, we get together,
or we don't.
Back and forth, back and forth.
That's how that was.
[Eichelberger] Okay, what time
did you leave the club?
[Levon] That night?
Okay, about 1:30.
Levon did have witnesses
and alibis at the club.
But the time frame that he's supposed
to have been at the club
and the child come up missing
did not correspond.
And Ashley described, you know,
Levon as a suspect to the T.
[Uncle Bunky]
And we got six pictures on here.
And I'm going to let you
look at them pictures, okay?
- And I want you to be sure now
- [Ashley] I
[Uncle Bunky] Let me tell you why now.
Listen to me. Just a second.
If you pick the wrong person, see,
we might put somebody, you know, in jail
for hurting your sister that didn't do it,
so I want to make sure
you know the right one, okay?
Now, one of these men
you think hurt your sister,
or took her out of the room.
By the hand, right?
And is his picture there?
[Eichelberger] She picked him
out of the line-up.
He had the earring in the left ear
as she described.
That's how he ended up
being our primary suspect.
EICHELBERGER: Mr. Brooks,
okay, so we're going to place you
under arrest for the suspicion
of the death of Courtney.
Until, you know,
we clear you of the matter,
and then you'll be released.
[birds squeal]
I built all this by myself.
'Coons and stuff like that,
I have seen them
on the back of the pen at night.
But they can't get in the pen,
because it's got a top on it.
I'm gon' show you my 'coon trap.
To set 'em
To set 'em, I do this.
Okay, see,
the corn is going to be right here.
See, that's where I got my corn.
When the 'coon walk in here,
and walk on that right there,
it locks.
See I thought that I was going to
go down to the county jail,
and by me coming in on my own
that I was going to get through with
whatever they had questioned me
and come back to my job.
But that didn't happen.
They did the teeth impression.
The whole goal of bite mark analysis
is to eliminate an individual.
If you can't eliminate, he gets closer
and closer and closer to a match.
The closer and closer I look,
the more he matches.
Levon Brooks is a really good match.
[Levon] So the next day,
Eichelberger told me
that your teeth mark
matches the little girl.
I was just so angry.
I did nobody wrong.
I know I hadn't hurt nobody.
"Why is they doing this?"
That's what I asked myself. "Why?"
[shouting in distance]
[woman] Man.
Why Levon?
You had a whole list of names,
but you just stuck with Levon.
Somebody else
doing something wrong round here.
They always say,
you don't question God.
But I did.
Why?
[woman] Two hundred fifty potential jurors
were summoned for the Brooks case
because of the notorious nature
of the charge.
Thirty-two-year-old Levon Brooks
is charged with capital murder
in the 1990 death
of three-year-old Courtney Smith.
It's the first capital murder case
in Noxubee County for decades.
I remember
I got this summons for jury duty,
and got to the courthouse,
or the courtroom,
Levon was there.
He was there with his lawyers.
I knew his family,
and I did not picture him as a criminal.
When my great-great-grandfather
came back from the Civil War,
he and his brother bought
970 acres.
In my early youth,
if you just looked out of the house
on a day in mid-summer,
you could have been in the 1880s.
You'd see ten, fifteen black people,
there'd be a whole family
out there chopping cotton.
Levon's family worked for my family.
So, Levon and I,
we were friends from way back.
Levon's house would have been
very similar to this one.
Not much left of this old place.
[door creaking]
As kids, we played together,
we ate at the same table
'cause Bos would come up to
my mother's house
and she finna' cook food
and stuff like that.
We'd sit and eat at the table
and talk and have fun.
Ain't never had no misunderstanding.
[Bos Stevens] The racial divide
was always there, always present,
but, you know,
I never thought a thing about it,
you know?
Just never thought about, you know,
why is their house different
than our house? You know,
just [chuckles]
You know, kids, you just accept what is.
I remember thinking,
"There's just no chance
they're going to pick me for the jury."
But
I think the district attorney
probably chose me because I was white,
thinking that that would mean I would be
more likely to convict a black person,
and the defense people say,
"Well, he's known this kid all his life,
he's not going to convict him." [laughs]
So I was caught both ways.
[chuckles]
Bos is a kind of fair man.
I felt like at the courthouse
he gon' give-
he gon' give me a fair shake.
[R. H. Brown] So this was a huge trial.
Everybody was talking about it.
Everybody's watching now to find out
what's going to happen to this guy.
Is he really the one
who, uh, did this horrible thing
to Courtney?
For the first 20 years
that I covered court in Noxubee County,
Forrest Allgood would always be
the prosecutor on the big cases.
[man] A capital murder is a murder
that's committed in the course
of another one of several felonies
that are enumerated.
In this particular instance,
it is charged that
he committed this homicide
while he was in the course
of sexually battering this child.
You had several things
that fell together.
You had an eyewitness
who said, "That's the guy
who came in and carried my sister off."
You had the fact that
Brooks knew the victim.
And that he was familiar with that house.
Then you had the bite marks, also.
So all the pieces that we were gathering
fit in.
They matched.
[Bos] Forrest is a very effective DA.
Very persuasive, and he has something
of a Southern preacher in him.
His opening statement was pretty powerful.
After that,
I looked at Levon a little differently.
I mean,
wow, you know, that was impressive. Uh
Dang, maybe he did do it.
[Ashley] I remember
being on the stand.
I remember them telling me
to point out who I knew,
and I remember pointing to Levon.
And, of course,
Levon had been around our house,
so
that's who I had seen.
She was convinced that
Levon had been the one
to come in that house
and take her sister out.
She was the only person
who had witnessed any part of it.
[Dr. West] In the trial of Levon Brooks,
I was asked by the prosecutor,
Forrest Allgood,
were there any areas of his dentition
that were unique?
"Yes.
The cutting edges of Levon's teeth
have very definite fractures and bevels.
They come down in an angle
and curve almost like an L"
On one tooth he has a chip
which has a scalloped out area
with a sharp edge.
the patterns that I saw in my photographs
were highly consistent with
the flaws and patterns that I found
on the backside of Levon's teeth."
[Bos] He was adamant about being right.
It was pretty clear
that West wanted you to believe
that he had the smoking gun
there in his hand.
[woman] District attorney Forrest Allgood
says the bite mark expert
was a key witness.
Using a doll, Dr. West demonstrated
that Courtney held her arm
in a defensive position
in front of her face when it was bitten.
This is not random,
this is not a coincidence.
It was this man,
indeed and without any doubt.
After the prosecution rested its case,
the defense moved for a mistrial
on numerous grounds,
including their claim that they didn't
have access to Ashley before she testified
and that, in their opinion, Ashley,
who was five years old
at the time of the murder,
is too young to be a good witness now.
Their motion was denied,
and now the defense
is presenting its case,
calling its own witnesses.
I was called to testify by the defense.
Did I think that he would do this?
I said no.
You know. That's all I said.
[Bos] Forrest's closing argument
was very eloquent,
it was forceful,
and it brought all the pieces together
into a coherent story.
It was very well done,
and much outclassed
the defense version of events.
I was astonished to be chosen foreman,
because I think there were
seven blacks and five whites, and, uh,
I just figured it would be
one of the black guys.
One of the black girls, even,
I don't know.
In the jury room, yeah, I
I probably was, by this time,
pretty much convinced that, uh,
you know, Levon, as much as I
didn't want to believe it,
had done this thing.
We filed back into the courtroom,
and I'm sitting on the corner.
The judge said, "What is your verdict?"
And I said,
"We find the defendant guilty."
[murmurs and background chatter]
[gavel bangs]
[Gloria] When they found him guilty,
everybody was like
"No!"
Like, a big blur came out of everybody.
I guess I just
basically just cried, hollered.
I just held my head down in disbelief.
I couldn't even believe that.
I held my head down
like this, this, this, this.
They asked him,
did he have anything to say?
He said
"I know y'all convict me
for capital murder,
but I didn't do it."
Them the only words that I said,
and I sat down.
[Bos] Then they started
the sentencing phase.
Several members of the family got up
and pleaded for his life.
My mom, she tried to get on the stand
to say something.
She was so tore up behind me being
sentenced.
It really hurt me to see her up there.
The pain that I went through
[sighs]
to see her like that.
[Bos] When we came back out
and made the announcement
of life imprisonment,
as opposed to a death sentence,
that was a relief.
I can't understand
how all this here happened.
I didn't-
I didn't understand none of that.
I know a lot of people
that got railroaded.
That's what happened to me.
A nightmare.
I said, "This ain't good."
[indistinct chatter]
And I'll never forget,
I'll never forget what night that was,
so I know that he didn't do that.
He didn't do that 'cause he said,
when they had the hearing,
he told my mom, he said, "Momma,"
he said, "I ain't do that."
He just started crying.
He said, "I didn't do it."
He was a scapegoat. That's all he was.
They needed somebody to take that charge,
- and he was a scapegoat.
- [woman 2] Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[Albert] Hey.
You look at the system back then,
he ain't have the money to fight it,
so they
Back then, they ain't had DNA
- Yeah.
- [indistinct chatter]
[Albert] And so he was the scapegoat.
And it's messed up.
It's really messed up,
because it's not fair.
He's been convicted for something
that he didn't do.
Yeah, you know, it's not fair,
'cause white folks make the rules.
And Hey, that's the truth.
Now, I ain't gonna lie about it.
[man 2] That is the truth.
[Albert] If you got a problem
about me saying that,
I wouldn't really give a shit.
But white folks make the damn rules.
- [man 3] Yeah.
- [Albert] They say It's supposed to be,
the law says, "Hey,
you're innocent till proven guilty,"
but, shit!
I don't know
where they got that shit from.
[chatter continues]
[Albert] Who next?
[Dr. West] This is a copy
of my professional résumé.
It's 28 pages long.
Usually when I submit it
to the court or attorneys,
they go,
"We've never seen anything this big."
I say, "Well, this is my story."
"I was a student
at the LSU School of Dentistry.
Took the class on forensic dentistry
at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
in Washington, DC.
I then started going to
the American Academy of Forensic Science.
Twenty-nine years in death investigation.
Fifteen years in the coroner's office.
Five years as coroner,
Chief Medical Examiner.
I've investigated over 5,200 deaths,
attended over 5,800 autopsies.
analyzed over 300 bite marks."
Mike West was a pioneer in the field
of forensic odontology at that time.
- [camera clicks]
- [man yells]
[Dr. Freeman]
He's having somebody bite him.
And excising the mark from his arm.
[Dr. West] That's what I wanted, buddy,
thank you.
His own arm. To show, at a cellular level,
how accurate this discipline is.
I find it kind of embarrassing
to repeat over and over
my credentials.
Personally, it sounds like
I'm, you know, blowing my own horn,
but I must, you know,
present these things in an open court.
Bite marks are better than fingerprints,
'cause they not only show
that you were present,
they show you were
in a violent confrontation
with that individual.
All right.
Proceed.
[gunshot]
My expertise in court
went beyond dentistry.
I had studied crime-scene analysis,
crime-scene reconstruction.
When you're ready, splatter him.
[gunshot]
Gunshot-residue analysis,
bloodstain-pattern analysis.
It's hydrodynamics, fluid under pressure.
Looking at these patterns,
you can go back and reconstruct,
to the best of our ability,
this is what happened
at a crime scene.
[man] As one of our featured speakers,
we're going to ask Dr. West
to join us in this photograph.
[Dr. West] How did I become an expert
in these fields?
Simply, I studied.
I attended seminars on presentations.
I took certifying classes and passed.
It's not rocket science.
This is a compression bite mark
[woman] His casework and research
in forensic odontology
is noted around the world.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. West.
[applause]
All talents,
all gifts that I possess
are directed straightly from God.
And I feel that it is a good fight,
and that is what I am here to do,
to fight this battle.
Man's inhumanity to man.
[background chatter]
[dog barks]
[woman] Two days of searching in rural
Noxubee County had turned up no clues
in the disappearance
of three-year-old Christina Jackson.
Her mother, Gloria Jackson,
and her mother's boyfriend, Kenny Brewer,
reported the child missing Sunday.
Authorities say the house
was locked from the inside,
but Jackson says she and her boyfriend
don't know how the girl got out
or where she is.
There was a window broken out
that had been broken out for a while,
and
So we really don't know at this time
how she got out of the house
or what happened.
We started a massive search
in the community looking for the child.
We brought in the dog team,
and each time the dog would go
down to the creek and they would hit,
and they would stop.
The thickness of the woods,
you couldn't get through there.
[helicopter whirs]
We took the helicopter to hover over
the water and circulate the water
and brought her to the top.
[Scott] Christine Jackson was found
floating in a body of water.
And she had been sexually assaulted.
We've never heard of this happening
in this community before and then, boom,
you've got two of them right back-to-back.
And then they said the little girl
had bite marks,
exactly the same like in my case.
How can this be?
That's what they had in the paper.
Because I didn't do it.
I was locked up.
[Bos] When I read about this new crime,
you know, there are bite marks,
it's like the same
it's like, "same song, second verse."
What? The same thing?
And I said, "Why is Levon locked up,
and this done happened again?
So that means Levon didn't do it."
With this new investigation,
you have the same players here.
You've got Dr. Hayne,
the medical examiner.
You've got Forrest Allgood, the D.A.
If we can't protect our children,
for crying out loud,
what the devil are we doing here?
What's the point?
[Forrest] So you had a replay
in that respect,
in that you had both Hayne
giving his opinion that there were marks
and, "Gee, they look like they might be
bite marks to me,"
and deferring to West,
and then West once again
identifies a bunch of different areas
of bite marks on the child.
Most of us involved
thought it was a copycat-type situation.
Two days later, after her body was found,
her mother's boyfriend,
Kennedy Brewer,
immediately became the suspect.
[Forrest] You've got to understand
the scenario.
We know Kennedy Brewer
was with Christine Jackson
inside that house that night.
When Gloria Jackson comes back
into that particular dwelling that night,
Gloria and Kennedy Brewer,
they both get into bed themselves
and sleep.
And it's not until 7:30 in the morning
when she discovers that Christine
had already disappeared from the house.
It was a locked-room mystery.
And it is difficult for me
to understand how the child
got out of that house
without Brewer's assistance.
[woman] The child's grandmother,
Liana Jackson,
told us the day of the disappearance
she believed Brewer knew
what happened to Christina that night.
He raped her,
and took her out and probably threw her
in the pool or something like that.
What's that?
That's Mommy with the video camera.
I was a part-time public defender
when I was appointed
to represent Kennedy Brewer.
My daughter was a toddler
at that point in time, and, uh,
I'd had a really hard time.
It's just impossible not to be
super upset with what was done,
what somebody did to that child.
Kennedy Brewer
insisted that he was innocent.
I'd handled enough cases by then
not for that to have
a hugely remarkable effect on me.
A lot of people say they're innocent.
Kennedy gave
a pretty ludicrous explanation.
He speculated that maybe
somebody crawled through a window
and took Christine.
But then we did take a plea agreement from
the District Attorney's office to Kennedy.
He turned it down flat,
which is interesting. Uh
He would not entertain
any idea of pleading guilty.
And I think I realized right then
that we might
really and truly have a situation
where an innocent man
had a chance to be not only convicted,
but get the death penalty.
Before anybody even know
what really had happened,
I knew that I'm innocent.
I knew they got me wrong.
They got all this wrong.
I didn't commit no crime like that.
I didn't commit no crime at all.
Noxubee County Jail,
they didn't look no further than me.
They didn't try to question nobody else
or nothin'. Just me.
Now, if you were a police or investigator,
or whatever,
anybody could've put two and two together
and know that them crimes
are similar to one another.
No,
never did put it together.
Then Dr. Michael West,
he just sat me in a room.
He came in there,
put this stuff like clay over your mouth,
and you bite down on it.
That was it.
[Thomas Kesler]
Dr. Michael West decided that there were,
I believe, 19 human bite marks
on that body.
The language that he used
to express his opinion
was something I'd never heard
a professional use.
"The bite marks found
on the body of Christine Jackson
were indeed and without doubt
inflected by Kennedy Brewer."
You know, that's pretty
pretty bold proclamation.
"Indeed and without doubt."
[man] Okay, now,
I've got the tape recorder going here.
This is actually the video I shot
of Christina Jackson.
We have dental molds
of Mr. Brewer's teeth,
and we're comparing them
directly to the tissue
and injuries on Miss Jackson's body.
We're doing a direct comparison.
What we're trying to illustrate here,
how would this man
have to bite this little girl's arm?
And you orient the teeth in that position.
You set them just juxtaposed
so you can see
the leading edges of the teeth
and the leading edges of the injury.
[man] Great, do it again.
[Thomas] He would take a dental mold
and he would hold it against the body
and make a declaration.
Is it a match?
[Dr. West] I always thought this case
had a high degree of correlation
between Kennedy Brewer's teeth
and her injuries.
[Thomas]
The state had this bite mark evidence,
and that was the main part of their case.
It can be devastating evidence
to overcome if it's not rebutted.
So I went to the court and I said,
"I've got to have a dental expert.
I've got to have a forensic odontologist."
And we wound up with a Dr. Souviron
from South Florida.
[man] Would you please state your name
for the record?
My name is Richard Souviron.
[Thomas] Dr. Souviron's claim to fame
was the serial killer Ted Bundy.
[man] And what is that?
This is a stone cast
of Mr. Bundy's upper teeth.
[Dr. West] The Ted Bundy case,
it was the biggest
and most famous of any
of the bite mark cases to date.
[man] in order to make an analysis.
[Dr. West] It brought bite mark analysis
to the public's view.
It also left a mark
towards the distal edge of that tooth.
[Dr. West]
And my idol in forensic odontology,
Dr. Richard Souviron
slanted like this
came and testified for the defense.
This is just two years,
1991 through '93.
Dr. West was 110% wrong.
None of those marks were bite marks.
They weren't bite marks,
because in every one of the 19 cases,
only the upper teeth marked,
according to him.
There's no such thing as a bite mark
with only the upper teeth.
Nineteen times Maybe one time,
maybe I'll give you one.
But how are you going to get
bite marks on somebody's foot?
What are you gonna do?
Stick the foot in the mouth?
I mean, it just doesn't happen.
[Dr. West]
Dr. Souviron has a problem with reality.
He's a "witness having other
reasonable explanations."
W-H-O-R-E.
[Dr. Souviron] We've dusted the bite mark.
I'm going to lift it with what's called
a gel lifter, just like a fingerprint.
When you lift a print,
we're lifting a bite mark.
I never use direct comparison
of a suspect's teeth
to a bite mark on the victim.
You can see clearly
that they're teeth marks.
Because placing the teeth on the body,
you can literally make a bite mark.
And he was able to take
the two front teeth and side teeth
and roll them
and twist them and turn them,
on a video that is so outrageous
This is crazy!
I mean, you've got to be kidding me!
[Dr. West] My critics
really hate direct comparison.
It's so damning in court.
The defense attorneys can't beat it.
So they use their defense experts
to try to have it outlawed,
because it shows the truth,
we can't get around it.
[Thomas] Absolutely,
I wanted the jury to see that video
because I wanted the jury
to share my opinion
that it was grossly unprofessional.
But, as it turns out,
the jury did not see that tape or hear it
'cause the trial judge
also thought it was, too,
and I want to say that
his word was "macabre."
I felt like he was a quack.
Which was why I wanted him
absolutely discredited.
[Dr. West] Kennedy Brewer
was in violent physical contact
committing felony child abuse
against this girl
within an hour or so of her death.
I'm here to present the truth
as I see it to the court.
It's the jury's decision
what to do with it.
[man] I think Dr. West had a big impact.
He was very positive about what he said.
You know, these were bite marks,
and these were bite marks
that were from
fending off somebody.
And Dr. Souviron comes up,
and I was unimpressed
with Dr. Souviron altogether.
He was too flippant about it.
Dr. West's testimony,
he was just more positive.
He acted as if he really knew.
When we were in deliberations,
it was just
that preponderance of evidence,
and the lack of any other suspect.
And
you've got to make a decision, so
The jury decided he was guilty.
[Dr. West] I'm not going to say nothing,
do nothing and be nothing.
I'm here to help advance the question,
"Did this man do this act?
Yes or no?"
So, if that makes me controversial,
suck it up, buttercup.
[Larry Ferguson]
It did weigh heavy on me.
It's just not an easy thing to do,
to say this man is guilty, first of all,
and then say he deserves to die.
It wasn't easy, but we'd done right.
[Scott] You know, there's something about
being in a courtroom
and hearing a judge announce,
"The accused has been sentenced to death."
It'll send a chill down your spine.
I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't,
I couldn't even describe how I felt.
Sad, hurt, disappointed, everything,
'cause I knew,
I knew that I didn't commit that crime.
I was-I was thinkin',
is they gon' ever find
the proof that I didn't commit this crime?
[Thomas] I was pretty upset.
On the way home,
I bought a 12-pack of beer.
I went home and I told my wife,
I said, "Y'all just leave me alone.
I'm going to sit out on the patio,
and I'm going to get drunk."
I got drunk, then I went inside,
and I got into bed and slept that off.
It was tough,
because I believed he was innocent.
I went to Unit 32, C Building.
That's where I was the whole time
in solitary.
They had me on lockdown,
in a one-man cell, by myself.
"How are you today?
I know you probably don't know me,
but the reason I'm writing is to ask,
can you help me out concerning my case?
Back in 1992, I was accused
of killing a three-year-old girl,
something I know I didn't do.
I've been on death row
in Mississippi for five years, and
and I know if I can
get someone to look into my case,
I know they will easily see
that they have
the wrong person locked up."
[closing theme music playing]