The Confession Tapes (2017) s01e03 Episode Script

[man.]
I love my country.
But these, um police officers they, um they killed me in '97.
They, um mind-raped me and made me believe I killed someone I loved.
[man.]
People look you right in the eye and lie to you and destroy you and do it on purpose.
[woman.]
As a television reporter on the scene, I've asked the question many times, "Did you do it?" And this was the first time that somebody actually said, "Yes.
" You feel any remorse about what happened? I wanna apologize to the family for what I've done.
I've committed a crime that I can't take back.
Police say Myers beat and strangled Haught before setting fire to the Mill Inn early Thursday morning.
[woman.]
And I have played that night, that moment, the questions that I asked, over and over in my own head.
He says he's sorry and he didn't mean to do it.
I have no idea what kind of pressure and what kind of questions need to be put upon someone in order to go from, "No, I really didn't do it," to, "Okay, yes, I did.
" [man.]
The police didn't give a damn.
It was all a set-up.
[woman.]
You don't know what goes on behind the closed doors.
You don't know what's being said.
I loved Teresa very much.
And I'm very sorry for the hurt I've put on my family, her family.
[woman.]
Usually, if somebody says, "I did it," you take them at their word.
But things aren't always as they seem.
[man.]
I met Wesley second grade.
I mean, I don't know how old I was in second grade.
I can't do the numbers in my head, but [Terry.]
We just used to play in the creeks and fish down in the pond.
His mother and father's just as much of a mother and father to me.
I think he was like ten years old when I met him the first time.
His mother and I worked in Charleston County.
I was the music teacher, and she was the art teacher.
He wandered over into my room and brought his guitar and sat down and played a song for me that he had written and sang.
[Wesley.]
Grew up, I had a great family.
Then I was married and my wife, she was pregnant, and a child was born.
About three months after that, my wife, because she had knots on her neck and you could feel them, we went to the doctor, and I knew as soon as I walked in there, and the look on his face that it was cancer.
And she had AML leukemia.
It destroyed her.
Before she died she actually told me to go find somebody.
And, uh, we separated.
I met Teresa at the Mill Inn.
Her mom ran it then.
We danced.
I've been told I look pretty good on the dance floor.
Then we started seeing each other.
[man.]
Everybody drank back then.
It was a different time.
And I smoked pot and drank like a fish and all that other kind of thing.
And there was occasionally a little cocaine around.
It was always a love-and-hate relationship with Teresa and Wesley.
You know, whether they were mad on Wednesday, they were great on Friday.
And they always ended up back together.
For whatever reason, love is like that.
[Terry.]
I tried to get him away from her 'cause I didn't like any of those people that hung out there in that area, that part of North Charleston.
Didn't like them, didn't trust them.
They were the lower-lifes.
Hanging around that crowd, he was he was in pitiful shape, as far as drinking and just partying and It's just that lifestyle they had down there.
[Myers.]
I drank a lot.
Everybody drank a lot.
[chuckles.]
I normally drank until I would black out.
[McKeithan.]
I've never seen him actually punch her or hit her.
I've seen probably Teresa be the more of an aggressor on some occasions, trying to get something from Wes, back from Wesley, or something along those lines.
They loved to hate each other.
It's the only way I could put it.
[Myers.]
She was a pretty tough girl.
And she would fight man or woman, it didn't matter.
And especially if she'd been drinking some.
It was a road to nowhere.
And I didn't wanna see him go down there.
But love is blind.
[Myers.]
I was at my mom and dad's.
In fact, there was ice skating of some sort.
And Dad and I watched a little bit of it.
Then I went to bed because I had work the next morning.
[match striking.]
[siren wails.]
When we arrived, there was heavy smoke and fire coming from the front of the structure.
[Cornell.]
And we went in.
We was hitting the hot spots.
There was a lot of flame, a lot of smoke.
You couldn't see.
I happened to notice something laying on the floor.
At first when I seen it, I thought it was a mannequin, and I had I had to take another look.
And that's when I realized that it was a human body laying there.
And I called the battalion chief on the radio and notified him that I had a victim inside that was deceased.
I was heading to Texaco to go to work.
She slept in the bar quite often, so I was gonna go by, like I normally did, to check on Teresa and that.
Parked my truck, got out, and was met by a fireman, and I asked what was going on.
And he informed me there had been a fire, and I asked about Teresa.
[Cornell.]
He said, "That's my girlfriend's car sitting there.
" And I walked over and told the arson investigator that this man walked up and stated that that was his girlfriend's car.
And he said, uh "Well, there's a body in there but we don't know who it is 'cause it's been burned.
" And, uh "Do you have any pictures of her?" And I did in my glove box.
So I run to the truck and got a picture and took it to him.
And, uh, they informed me it was Teresa.
And I started crying.
[Myers.]
That's when Detective Payne showed up and said he wanted to talk with me.
He said, "Well, we need to eliminate you so we can move on.
" I said, "No problem.
I didn't do it.
" [man.]
I like to get out of the office.
I like to see where it happened.
I like to see the people, the place, take pictures.
I gotta feel the case.
And so, I don't hesitate putting on blue jeans and going out and knocking on doors and talking to people and seeing for myself.
It was obviously a very serious case.
His girlfriend had been murdered with a wine carafe, and the police collected a number of things from the scene.
One of the things they collected was the hair purportedly found in Teresa's hand.
The watch that was found at the crime scene under or near Teresa's body.
There was a bloody dollar bill and the wine carafe, in pieces, that had blood spatter on them.
It wasn't the kind of case where there was overwhelming evidence.
[Myers.]
That afternoon, I went to Shores, and everybody was talking about what happened, who done it, what's going on.
I had a few drinks, and Paul attached himself to me.
[McKeithan.]
Well, I was coming home from work, and there was everybody at Shores, and it was emotional.
He had a picture of Teresa, he was talking about wanting to be with her.
Just how much he missed her and all that kind of thing.
And at the time, I'd had some friends that committed suicide and things, and I was very concerned for Wesley.
That particular night, everybody knew what had happened.
As soon as he walked in, everybody, you know, come to him.
So I think he wanted to go to a place that wasn't known.
[Myers.]
And he said, "Let's go find another place to drink.
" Well, I knew that the Joker was open, so we went to the Joker.
It's a strip joint.
[McKeithan.]
At that time of night, that's all that's left that's open, more or less, especially down Dorchester and all that kind of road back then.
It wasn't like he was up there dancing with the girls and sticking dollars in their drawers or nothing.
We just sat down at a table with a cold beer and, you know We ended up back at Teresa's house, a couple blocks from the bar.
And he went upstairs to her room, and I stayed downstairs and slept on the stairs, because that way he couldn't step over me and get out of the house without waking me up or something.
[Myers.]
That next morning, I went home and my dad said, "The police have been calling for you.
They need you at the station.
" Then I went down there, and they asked if I had a problem taking a lie detector test.
And I said no.
I told them I would do anything to help them get this solved.
Well, they got me back in the back room, and they started asking me questions.
[detective.]
In the last 24 hours, how much alcohol have you had in your body? Probably a case of Budweiser.
When you say "case," how many beers are you talking? Twenty-four.
[detective.]
In most domestic-type murders the husband's always the first one to be dragged in.
Well, that's natural.
Nobody likes to ask people these questions.
This is why I get paid to do what I do.
Okay? And I gotta ask you.
The obvious question I'm gonna ask you first is, did you kill her? No, sir, I didn't.
Okay.
Why wouldn't you? I loved her.
And I'm not that I'm not someone that would kill nobody.
Is there any reason, Wesley, that you can think of that I won't be able to clear you? - No.
- Okay.
Is there any physical evidence that you know of, that she was in possession of, that would tie you to where she was found? - No.
- None at all? Okay.
Did you kill her and not mean to? - Did you? - I did not kill Teresa Haught.
- Did you get in a fight with her? - No, I did not.
Okay.
[Myers.]
Eliminating me is what they kept telling me.
The boyfriend's always, or the husband is, a suspect.
But they said, "We do this, we can move on and get the real murderer.
" And I believed them.
[detective.]
When was the last time that you saw her alive? 3:30 and I left there about 15 minutes later.
At the bar.
[detective.]
Okay.
Now I want you to honestly honestly, think for a minute.
And think about who could have seen wherever you were I did not see Teresa again.
I I talked to her on the phone at four o'clock.
My son and I did.
I never seen her no more after that.
- Four o'clock in the afternoon? - No, it was like quarter to 4:00.
I picked my son up, and we got home at 4:00.
- Okay.
- And I did not see her again.
They threw different scenarios at me.
[detective.]
We both know, Wesley, and let's be honest with each other, the people that generally get you the most pissed off in all the world are people you love.
They are the ones who push the buttons, okay? I've been married 20 years, and I tell you what, I've never thought about divorce, but I have sure thought about killing her.
- You know what I'm saying? - I imagine.
And the thing is, we've all been angry to the point of wanting to just choke the living snot out of a wife.
[Margiotta.]
He said it's okay for men to push women and told Wes that it was all right for a man to get in a rage and react and do something that he wouldn't normally do.
[detective.]
Having been there myself and knowing and dealing with cops who are there and dealing with a lot of domestic disputes in the past if you had if you had gotten in an argument with her and you ended up hitting her, or she ended up hitting you or scratching you or striking you in some way there's going to be physical evidence tied to that.
And us having that physical evidence and then you lying about either the fight or some part of that, is going to make it unbelievably hard to clear you.
Right.
Even if you are actually innocent of the deed itself.
Okay? I was thinking I was helping because that's what they assured me of, and I was ignorant.
[detective.]
Now they tell me that they have found a hair.
- Is there any way that hair is yours? - No, sir.
- No way that hair could be yours? - No way.
I wasn't there.
Okay.
What if the hair was yours? I'd freak.
I would freak out.
- Okay.
I mean, how - How How - How would you explain it? - I couldn't explain it.
- My hair isn't going to show up there.
- Okay.
My Nothing I am not guilty of this crime.
[Myers.]
I didn't know I was being filmed and come to find out they were taping it all and seeing how I was reacting.
That black-and-white videotape was surreptitiously made from a tissue box camera.
That's not a comforting thought.
[detective.]
All right, let me tell you where we're at, Wesley.
Obviously, we're always in we're always in a hurry in law enforcement to get these things over with.
But you haven't had any sleep in a while.
You know what I'm saying? He said I was unfit to be given a lie detector test.
[detective.]
Physiologically, right now, you're you're starting to go down.
I mean, you you are dragging butt right now.
It's obvious, okay? If I hooked you up right now to this thing, you're gonna have real flat reactions.
[Myers.]
And they said that they'd talk to me in the morning.
Everything he said, through that whole supposed polygraph pretest, laid the foundation for his subsequent very intense interrogation.
[Myers.]
The next morning, Denver Clayton come pick me up.
And then we went on down to North Charleston Police Department.
I was in an examining room, I reckon.
They were talking with me and discussing the facts of what they thought had happened.
[Myers.]
They had done told me numerous times, whoever's hair this is, the hair is gonna prove who killed him, "God put that hair there for us to solve this murder.
" And Melvin Cumby received a phone call and left the room and come back.
He said, "The worst has happened.
" He said, "Wes, the hair come back yours.
And I can even tell you what part of the head it came from.
It was a match.
" And I said, "There's no way.
" He said "You done.
" [Kulp.]
There wasn't anybody on the phone.
Joe Powell, the analyst, didn't even work that day.
I couldn't believe it.
And I was questioning myself.
It got real intense.
They told me that I had blacked out.
They said, "That's why you can't remember.
But the evidence proves you done it, Wes.
We got a hair that matches you.
" And he kept saying that.
I mean, this didn't just go on for 30 minutes.
This went on for hours.
"You need to apologize.
I told you God would put the hair in and whosever it was.
You're in denial.
" I mean, it's just a steady and there's three of them.
And then they come back in with, "We got an eyewitness.
" Then they come back in with, "Oh, we've got bloody prints.
" And that it was on my clothes in my truck.
He said, "We've got you.
But if you confess, they'll go lighter on you.
" I said, "I don't remember none of this.
" "You most likely blacked all this out.
And that's why you can't remember.
" Everything Then I was in a haze.
They were throwing pictures down in front of me of Teresa's burned body, beaten face, brutalized, swollen up awfully.
And telling me I needed to apologize to her.
They said, "Look, you might not think you done it, but you done it and you're going to jail.
" And I had gotten kind of angry and I said, "Well if y'all got all that, I must've done it.
" And they jumped up like a bunch of cheerleaders and said, "We got him.
" As the police reported, "I guess" I'll remember this forever.
"I guess I must have did it, then.
" [Myers.]
They brought Teresa's mother, Dixie, down there to talk to me.
Told me I needed to apologize to her.
And at that point, I would've done whatever they wanted.
When she was gone and he didn't call me to let me know or come to the house to be with us then I knew something was not right.
[Justis.]
The police called me and said that he wanted to see me.
Would I go see him? So, they set it up.
I said, "Yeah, I would go see him.
" I wanted to look at him, and I wanted him to tell me.
As close as we're sitting, he told me face-to-face that he did it and he was sorry that he did it.
And he didn't his words he didn't know why he did it.
He loved her.
I I can't actually recall.
I know I said, "I'm sorry.
" [Myers.]
After that, they'd written up a confession.
And they read it to me.
It was in their handwriting.
At that point I was numb.
Everything just seemed to be distant.
And I signed the confession.
They'd done convinced me that I'd done it.
[Myers.]
They said, "Now, the news media is out back, and you need to apologize to the world.
" They walked me down these stairs.
I remember watching the two officers in front of me.
And they said, "We got to get all gussied up for the cameras.
" And then they opened them doors.
And it was nothing but bright lights.
[woman.]
North Charleston police say they suspected Wesley Myers all along.
And, Lee, I'm told he will face the judge tomorrow morning.
Back to you.
I grew up in a television household.
My father ran radio and television stations.
I said, "Oh, good Lord, I wanna be in the newsroom.
This is where things happen.
This is where things are exciting.
I wanna just do this.
" I was at work, and Mel Cumby called at the station and said, "Hey, you know, we've got an arrest in that murder in North Charleston.
We've got the guy here.
We're gonna walk him.
We think he's probably gonna make a statement.
You might wanna get up here.
" [Lothery.]
They walk Wes Myers out of their holding area.
I thought, "Hey, I thought they said he was gonna make a statement.
He didn't say anything.
So, I might as well shout out a question.
" [Lothery.]
You feel any remorse about what happened? I wanna apologize to the family for what I've done.
I've committed a crime that I can't take back.
I loved Teresa very much.
I was absolutely stunned.
I said, "Oh, my goodness, this man just confessed on camera.
" [Lothery.]
How many times did you strike her? [Myers.]
I'm not sure.
[Lothery.]
Myers, who said he was not under the influence at the time of the crime, was picked up in Hanahan this morning.
It looked like Wes was just in a daze.
Almost as if he'd been drugged.
[Margiotta.]
And they presented it as three confessions.
[Kulp.]
One, they got him to sign a statement.
Number two, they brought the victim's mother, Dixie, there and suggested he apologize, confess to her.
And the third might be characterized as what happened during the perp walk.
[Kulp.]
It's horrible.
It's certainly doing very little to protect a accused and presumed innocent person's right to a fair trial.
It's just bad.
It's bad and it shouldn't have been done.
[McKeithan.]
I believed he was innocent until I saw him on the news.
You're gonna confess to something that's so horrible, you know, setting this woman on fire, you know, and you didn't do it? No way.
No way.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.
[Lothery.]
Tonight, police have charged Wesley Myers with murder and 3rd degree arson.
He's currently sitting in the Charleston County Jail.
He says he's sorry and he didn't mean to do it.
Tomorrow, Wesley Myers will have his chance to tell it to the judge.
[man.]
There are many who will say, " I would never confess to something I didn't do.
" That's not true.
Almost anyone can under the right circumstances.
[detective.]
If you killed her, you would still be in the throes of self-denial, okay? Wes was interrogated for between 15 and 20 hours over a three-day period.
They plotted this out that they were gonna, you know, bring him back in, that they were gonna lie to him about the results of the testing and tell him that this hair had been conclusively determined that was found in Teresa's hand to be his.
All for the purpose of trying to, you know, get him to make a statement.
[detective.]
As hard as I am on people when I'm pressing them, when they feel that pressure internally I can never ever replace the pressure in a person that that person - will put themselves under.
- Right.
If they have a conscience at all.
The police had so sort of broken Wes down by the time that he confessed, by the time they lied to him about the hair, that at that moment, he, in fact, may have even actually believed himself that he did it.
[detective.]
If you're just a sick motherfucker and you've got the conscience of a wall, okay? And you killed her, accidentally or not, okay? If you are that sick individual, okay? You, right now, are seriously being eaten up, internally.
Whether you're sorry or not, you are seriously dealing with that.
[Blume.]
Law enforcement believed that their job was over.
They thought, "Okay, we've got our man.
And, you know, we're just gonna let the system play out.
" And I think what they didn't do was continue to do the type of work that you would hope that law enforcement would do in these situations, which would continue to follow credible leads.
It wasn't, say, a situation where no other person could have had access to her.
[Kulp.]
She was in a bar that was pretty much a public club.
It was in an area where people hung out late at night.
It was rough.
And rough people came in there and went out of there.
[detective.]
Let me ask you, who do you think could have done this thing? I don't trust the boy, Dana.
Dana was the primary suspect, at least, in the minds of the defense in the case because he was seen at the Mill Inn that night, approximate to the departure of the two bartenderesses and was acting weird and had kind of the hots for Teresa.
He was arrested by the police as kind of a suspect in the case.
There were a lot of things pointing to him.
[Kulp.]
We tried to interview him in the past.
He was extremely reluctant to even talk to us.
Bingo! This is it.
Yeah.
Mr - [man.]
What? - I wanna talk to you.
[man speaks indistinctly.]
- What? - [man.]
What for? About Wes Myers' case.
Back at the Mill Inn? 1997? - [man.]
He confessed.
- Sorry? [man.]
He confessed, you idiot! Go away! - He confessed? - [man.]
Of course he did it! [man.]
Go the hell away! Dana was seen outside the bar the night of the incident.
He tried to force his way in.
[Blume.]
Then when he was interviewed, he initially denied being there at all.
And he had also altered his appearance.
He had shaved some of his facial hair and altered it in a way from the night of the offense.
He was arrested by the police near the scene in a car, and he was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
And there were some other things in the car.
[Blume.]
There was a watch found near the body, and there was a band similar to that which was in his truck.
Also, probably, even more to me, more shocking than that was, they initially took some of his blood and had it available for DNA testing and never developed a DNA profile on it.
So, that's lost now, and so we can't compare any DNA evidence which might have existed on the dollar bill or the hair to his DNA profile.
I don't think that Let's just be as fair as possible.
That appropriate measures were taken to exclude him as being involved in the murder.
[Kulp.]
Every criminal defense case is an uphill climb.
Because the state has the edge, they have the burden of proof, but they have an edge, the pointing finger of accusation.
[woman.]
It was a little nerve-racking to know that I was being selected for a murder trial.
[Meeks.]
We were given the video in the police station.
We also viewed the newscaster's video, and then we were also given the written confession.
They had the dollar bill with blood on it.
Back then, they couldn't determine if it was blood.
It was DNA commingled with Teresa's blood.
[Meeks.]
They had the hair they found in her hand.
The forensic science they'd applied was a microscopic hair comparison between an unknown sample and a known sample that would lead someone to say, "It is similar to," or, "I can't say that it isn't.
" Phraseology that just stayed away from the term "match.
" Now, at that time, we kind of looked at each other and said like "For a case that's a confession case, we're not doing that bad.
" Because, at that point, the confession was the only thing putting him in the bar.
So, we went to court the next day, and then, all of a sudden, the solicitor comes over, Bruce, and says, "I got something to tell you about.
" I said, "Okay.
" And I said, "You gotta be kidding me.
" [Meeks.]
I do remember the last-minute witness.
It was kind of exciting, shook up the courtroom for a minute.
I was there the night of the murder, just before it happened.
I ran into one of the bartenders that worked here, Tammy.
And she told me that Wesley was on trial at that time and that he was about to get off because he's saying he wasn't there.
And I told her, "Well, I know he was there 'cause I was there.
" She said, "Well, you need to call the prosecutor.
" So I did, and the next morning, they picked me up and took me down to the courthouse.
[Kulp.]
And there she was, in court the next day.
I raised hell with the judge about it, but my efforts to have her excluded from testifying were did not work.
[Villalobos.]
Well, I remember that night very well.
It was March 13th.
It was my brother's birthday.
We were out partying at a club on Dorchester Road.
And I was getting close to running out of money, and he didn't have any at all.
So, I thought about Teresa and her coming over Letting me come over and cash a check since she was still there.
When I arrived, I had to knock on the door because the place was closed.
And Wesley opened the door and let me in.
She gave me half the money for the check and told me she'd give me the rest on Friday.
And I noticed that she was crying because her makeup was completely just running down her face.
So, I knew she was upset, and I asked her if she needed me to stay there with her for a while, and she told me, "No, it's just Wesley.
I can handle him.
I've been doing it for years.
You go ahead and do what you're gonna do.
" And I left, and he locked the door behind me.
The strongest thing, on short notice, that I could come up with to impeach her credibility before the jury was this.
Simple, what we call "cornering" in cross-examination.
[Kulp.]
"You know this occurred almost four years ago.
" "Yes.
" "And I'm sure that you saw it in the press, either television coverage or in the newspaper.
" "Yes.
" "And so, I would imagine that that being the case and considering your testimony here today that you immediately picked up the phone and called the police and went down to the police station and said, 'You know what? That guy was in the bar.
'" "No, I didn't do that.
" And I said, "So, at any time since that almost four years ago event, your viewing of him in the bar, have you mentioned to any other person that you saw him in the bar?" "No.
" "So, the first time that came to mind was last night, when you're in a bar and a friend of the victim's is telling you she's worried that the case is going down the tubes and then you recalled it and told her about it.
Is that correct?" "Yes.
" So, you know, pulling that out of your back pocket, I mean, what else are you gonna do? Laurie has a record as long as a door.
[Myers.]
What had actually happened she'd come by that Monday to get a check cashed and I told Teresa I wouldn't give her all the money for it 'cause it may be a bad check.
And she didn't, and Laurie got a little hostile about it.
I never I never did anything.
I never went to the police or I assumed since the man confessed, he was just going to prison from there.
And apparently, he confessed on CNN, and the whole world saw it.
So, why would? I never thought there would be a trial.
I thought, "He confessed, he's going to prison.
" It's, you know Isn't that the way it works in America? I guess she seemed credible at the time, relatively.
And I do recall that that did play into our decision, you know, when we deliberated.
You know, to be accused is not supposed to shift the burden of proof to you.
Everyone under the Constitution is presumed innocent.
But, in reality Based on the little bit of evidence that we had, the hair could have been his, we found him guilty.
Wesley admitted what he did.
He was tried.
He was found guilty.
I thought they all they did their job.
They did what they were supposed to do.
We just felt that no one would confess three times if they didn't do it.
[Myers.]
I'm gonna tell you something.
When you go to prison, the little things that mean something to you like the sound of a creek a hug I missed fishing, the outdoors, the woods.
I lived in them.
I loved them.
Quiet.
They took that love away from me.
I remember the first time I went up to Kirkland to see him.
And it was just nice just to be able to sit and talk.
We played gin rummy every time I went.
And whoever won was, you know, the rummy champion of the world.
[Margiotta.]
When I was there, he tried to be very upbeat.
But, um when he would come out, his eyes would be just rimmed with black.
And, I mean, I knew he was living in hell.
I actually got the case because a private investigator, who I've worked with on a number of other cases of wrongful imprisonment, thought that Wes had been wrongfully convicted and asked if I would look into the case.
Truthfully, I often enter it with a sense of skepticism about it.
I review many cases, and truthfully, I take very few.
But this was a family who felt very strongly that their son was wrongfully convicted of a crime that he didn't commit.
So, I met with them.
I reviewed the files.
I went and talked with Wes on a number of occasions.
I hired a private investigator to look into several of the allegations.
And, eventually, I became convinced myself that Wes was, in fact, not guilty of this.
[Blume.]
According to the state law enforcement division they did what they call "microscopic hair analysis," which is, somebody looks at the hair in the microscope.
Then they look at a sample of Wes Myers' hair and said they thought the hairs were consistent.
Since then, the hair's been tested through DNA evidence and has been conclusively determined to not be Mr.
Myers' hair.
In addition to that, there was a bloody dollar bill found in her jean's pocket.
And a DNA expert was able to conclusively testify that the source of the DNA, the male DNA on the dollar bill was the blood that was on it and that the blood was not Mr.
Myers' blood.
So, you have male DNA on a bloody dollar bill found in the victim's back pocket, which wasn't Mr.
Myers' and belonged to someone else.
The evidence that he did this, if you take away the confession, is virtually nonexistent.
Other than Ms.
Villalobos, there's no one who can put Wes near the scene that night.
His mother, who was People might be skeptical of his mother, but his mother was a very credible person.
She was, you know, a school principal in the area for many years, was insistent that Wes never left the home.
There's no physical evidence at all.
No fingerprints, no DNA, no hair, no fiber that links Wes to this offense.
The physical evidence which does exist suggests that he's not the perpetrator.
So, like, you see where sayings come from, like "so close and yet so far away" and stuff like that because For instance, when my case got overturned by Judge Dennis I'm going, "Yay, I'm gonna be home soon.
" It took the State Supreme Court three years to write one line to vacate my affirming Judge Dennis' sentence.
I stayed in prison three years waiting for that.
And, uh why did it take so long? Uh [pan sizzling.]
I love to cook.
I like to eat.
Both of us have that in common, that we both love to eat.
[laughs.]
I never ever would have saw myself with a younger man.
But it's happened and it's It's really wonderful for me because he's a wonderful person.
Wes and I played cards, and we always kept score, and, um I always took the scorecard home with me.
And somewhere in a box in my closet, I've got all of them, but this is one of them from February the 25th, 2012.
Towards the end, before he got out of prison I realized how deeply I felt about him.
After he got out, everything just really fell into place.
It's just been a long time.
I'm very tired, very tired.
They have hardened me.
I have a hard time signing my name to anything.
[Myers.]
I do a lot of my thinking time and that out here walking through the orchard.
I'm not a number.
And I ended up being one.
27-33-28.
It's implanted in me.
I recited it four times a day for all these years.
And, uh I blame myself for being weak for confessing to something I didn't do.