All language subtitles for True.Crime.Story.It.Couldnt.Happen.Here.S01E05.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_Eng_sdh

[dark music]

♪

When Deanie was missing,

I would pray real hard
and ask God,

"Help us find Deanie.

Show us where he is."

♪

I'm not a psychic,
I'm not crazy,

but God kind of showed me
a picture in my mind

of a river of muddy water

with weeds sticking up in it.

I was scared to death.

♪

[soft twangy music]

I've made my way out here
to Shelby County.

It is a very rural community
out here in Kentucky,

and you've got these little,
teeny, tiny jewel box towns,

and it's just beautiful.

And there's life on the water.

There's rivers, there's lakes,

you know, fishing
and being outdoors.

It's, like, a really nice,
quiet life.

And that's why
it's really shocking

when--obviously when
something terrible happens.

♪

[soft music]

I've lived here
for many years.

All in all, it's just a nice,
peaceful town and good people.

♪

Rural communities,
the individuals

take care of each other.

They truly watch out
for each other.

They are supportive
in law enforcement.

♪

I don't worry about somebody
breaking in on me or anything.

I'm just a country girl.

You gotta be free.

Open up doors,
open up your windows,

let it all hang out.

♪

Back in 1998,
a 40-year-old man

named Kyle Dean Breeden,
who went by Deanie,

he was a really loved
member of the community,

and so when he went missing,

there was a lot of heartache
in the town here.

And when his body showed up,
everyone was devastated.

Everybody in town was pointing
the finger at everybody else,

and so they could never
nail down a suspect.

It became a cold case.

And it was really important
to this community

that they find out who did it

and they get justice
for Deanie.

And I don't know
that he--the killer for Deanie

will ever be held accountable.

I'm going to meet
with Susan King,

who lives here
in rural Kentucky.

She, probably more
than anybody,

can give us insight

as to what went wrong
in this case.

[dramatic music]

♪

Hello? Susan?

- Yes.
- Hi!

- Hello!
- How are you?

I got a cold, wet paw here.

No, you're fine.
It's hot out here.

- I know it's hot out here.
- This is gorgeous!

Here, you've got a hair
out of place.

Thank you.

- 'Cause I'm a hair--
- You're a hairdresser.

- I'm a retired hairdresser.
- You gotta fix me.

You're in charge
of making me look cute today.

[both laughing]

♪

How did you know
Deanie Breeden?

I went to high school
with Deanie.

- Okay.
- And he was so cute.

And he was so funny
and so handsome.

And he was just hilarious,
his personality.

Oh, him and his buddies,
they were bad.

[laughs]

Fun ones are sometimes.

[laughing]

After school, I went my way,

and he was doing plumbing
with his father's business.

- Okay.
- And then it was in 1996,

I think, that he came over
with a cousin,

and I hadn't seen him in years
and years and years.

So we ended up
going out that night.

Next thing you know,
we were together.

Yeah.

Were you guys on or off
when Deanie went missing?

We were off.
I broke up with Deanie

about three months
before he went missing.

[foreboding music]

♪

The last day that anyone
saw Kyle Dean Breeden

was on October 26th of 1998.

He didn't show up for work
the next day.

I don't think anyone
actually suspected

any sort of foul play

or that anything
had happened to him.

I think people thought
that he must've just

been out partying
or just out having fun

and that he's gonna turn up
sooner or later.

He goes missing.

How do you find out about it?

His mom called me
and wanted to know

if Deanie was at my house,
and I said,

"No, I haven't seen him,
about three weeks."

The more time that passed,

I think the more concerned
people got.

Some of his friends
and a bunch of my friends,

we would get together
early every morning,

and we'd try to find him.

We looked everywhere.

My whole church
was praying for Deanie.

And I can pray,

and sometimes God answers you,
you know?

Yeah, I know.

I told him, I said,

"Lord, we need help
finding him.

Show me where he's at."

And what he showed me
was a river.

The water was muddy,
and it was rushing by

with a lot of weeds
sticking up at the bank.

On November 5th of 1998,

two fishermen were fishing
in the Kentucky River,

and they found a body floating
in the river near the reeds,

and it ends up
being Kyle Dean Breeden.

We all came across the news

about a body
they found in the river,

and the phone rang,
and it was his oldest brother.

It was just a terrible thing,

the way his mom and dad suffered.

It was devastating
to everybody.

♪

It's a lot to shoulder
when it's people

that you've known
your whole life.

This was the absolute
worst-case scenario

for a small town in Kentucky.

♪

The Kentucky State Police
took lead of the investigation

as soon as they found the body.

♪

My name is Todd Harwood.

I spent 21 years with
the Kentucky State Police.

♪

When Kyle Breeden's body

was floating
in the Kentucky River,

the body presented
evidence of bloating,

which means that the body
had been there for some time.

And there was
a guitar amplifier cord

wrapped around his legs.

Two gunshot wounds were found,
to the head.

It was very apparent
that this was a victim

of some type of foul play.

And once detectives picked up
the Breeden investigation,

their next task
is to canvass the community.

Initially,
they only had a body.

They didn't have any sort
of eyewitness.

So the state police
started interviewing

all of his friends and family
to see when he was last seen,

if they can put together
a timeline.

We know that at 10:00 a.m.,

he was at a bank
obtaining a $250 loan.

Between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m.,

he retrieved a fishing pole
from a pawn shop.

♪

Who was the last person
that had seen Deanie?

Probably his killer
was the last person he saw.

I thought it was
his drug dealer, one of them.

He had many.

I definitely thought it had
something to do with drugs.

- Was the drug scene big here?
- Yes.

Over in Shelbyville,
it's terrible.

- Really?
- Awful.

What are the drugs
of choice?

Deanie used crack cocaine.

That's what got him.

Deanie was a great guy.
He really was.

Right before your very eyes,

he went from the funny,
sweet, smiling Deanie,

and you could see
his face change.

He looked like
a completely different person.

Yeah.

I tried my best to make
Deanie quit that stuff.

I gave him the choice,
"Me or the drugs."

I thought I was so pretty

and so sweet and so nice
that he would choose me.

- Yeah.
- And he didn't.

He would often go
into different towns

and purchase drugs.

He would often borrow money
to do so.

He would ask for money
because he had people

hounding him to pay 'em back.

Nobody really knew
these people's names.

That he would ever come
to a bad end,

did that ever cross your mind?

Yes, it did.

Deanie lived a dangerous life
when he was using.

[dramatic music]

I knew he was dealing with

some people
that were bad news, probably.

Something that the police
were able to determine

is that Kyle seemed

a little bit scared
leading up to his death.

He would ask people
to pray for him.

I was afraid for his life
the whole time I was with him

'cause those people
don't fool around.

And everybody was afraid that
something was gonna happen.

♪

[soft twangy music]

♪

This main street
is beautiful.

♪

Here, "Straight from
Kentucky, a hometown show."

Oh, look, a meet and greet

with the Shelbyville
Police Department.

They have food,
family-friendly activities.

It's D.A.R.E.

Alive and well in Shelbyville.

Small towns have been dealing

with the drug epidemic
for decades,

especially in the '90s
when Deanie Breeden died.

And so people
in this community wondered,

"Was he murdered
by a local drug dealer,

or was it somebody
else entirely?"

♪

How do you go to church,

how do you go
to the supermarket,

not knowing who
your friend's killer is?

♪

He was purchasing crack
on a daily basis.

Any drug dealer
in that rural community

was immediately suspected
as being part of his death,

being some type of
a drug transaction gone bad.

That sent a whole list
of suspects.

We knew that he had
an inner circle--

individuals that he was close
to, his family, friends.

That was a list of suspects.

The original investigators
on the case beat the streets.

They interviewed
a ton of individuals,

but the problem is,
they were running in circles.

Because Kyle Breeden

was well-known
in the Shelbyville community,

rumor and innuendo
can affect all facets

of an investigation
such as this.

When individuals
know about each other,

care about each other,

they may not be as forthcoming
with information.

♪

Oh, everybody was suspicious
of everybody.

Deanie's parents wanted to know
what happened to their son.

It was heartbreaking.

[soft music]

Small town rumor mill
and word on the street

really complicated
this investigation.

It seems like, for every
member of Shelbyville,

there was a theory

on who could have
committed this crime.

So I am off to meet
Lauren Nichols,

who is an attorney
in Louisville,

and she had gotten very
heavily involved in this case.

And I think she has
a really good grasp

of who all the players are.

♪

How long after the murder
does it sit there?

For seven years,
it goes unsolved.

What happens that kind of
changes everything?

In May of 2006,
the Kentucky State Police

assigned the case
to Detective Harwood,

and he ran with it.

I did not get involved
in the Breeden investigation

until May of 2006.

My sergeant at the time
asked me

if I would look at several
particular cold cases

and see if I can
make headway with them.

The Breeden investigation
was one of those.

♪

I work sometimes
16- to 18-hour days,

beating the streets
of Shelbyville, Kentucky.

♪

The first place I like
to go to is barbershops,

bars, and preachers.

Anybody that I could talk to.

Many individuals had reported
that drug dealers

were somehow involved

in Deanie Breeden's
disappearance.

But when you talk
to these individuals,

every single one of them
said the same thing.

That anytime he would get in
debt or have financial issues,

his mother would bail him out.

"Why do we want
to take out the person

when we know we're always
gonna get paid?"

♪

So I had to look at the other
individuals in this case.

So Detective Harwood goes
through the suspect list,

and pretty early on,
he narrows in on Susan King.

[tense music]

The on and off again girlfriend.

♪

Susan King
was always a suspect.

The original investigator
actually went to her residence

and was able to obtain

a brief, limited interview
with her--

this is probably in 1999--

and observed bullet holes
on the floor

of Susan King's residence
at the time period.

♪

Investigators approached
the commonwealth attorney

for a search warrant.

He indicated there was not
enough evidence at that time

to move forward
with a search warrant.

Detective Harwood thinks
that it's very suspicious

that the police officer
saw before

that there were two
bullet holes in her floor.

That was in the previous
officer's notes?

Yes.

Working in rural communities,

especially cold cases,

a lot of times,
you know who did it,

you know how they did it,

but proving it
is another story.

Susan and Deanie

had a history
of domestic violence.

They would kind of
beat up on each other.

Was she the aggressor
in those situations?

She says, "No."
She says that she would

do whatever it took
to defend herself,

but that she was not
typically the aggressor.

Well, my relationship
with Deanie

was good one day
and bad the next,

because when he wasn't
on drugs,

he was a great person
to be around.

But then when Deanie
get on the drugs,

then yeah,
he'd come home, and--

and he'd hit me and stuff.

Don't like fighting,

but I don't like
to be mistreated.

When I looked into
Susan King as a suspect,

I found at least
three individuals

that she had put a gun
to their head,

threatening to kill them,
on separate instance.

And one of those identified
a .22 caliber weapon,

the same type

that Kyle "Deanie" Breeden
was killed with.

♪

The case was reopened
on May 22nd,

and by June 12th, he already
has a search warrant.

We pulled back the carpet.

The first thing we see
is four bullet holes.

They lift the floor out.

We immediately find that
there's a .22 caliber round

lodged in one
of the bullet holes

in that piece
that we lifted out.

What I think happened
is Kyle "Deanie" Breeden

gets to Susan King's
residence,

a domestic argument ensues,
and I think

Susan King finally made good
on those threats

and shot Kyle "Deanie" Breeden
right there in her residence.

♪

[soft twangy music]

Detective Harwood,

after his investigation concluded,

he put together a list

of why he thought Susan King
was the murderer.

♪

- So--
- Oh, yeah.

Here's his indictment request.

Oh, this is it?

He calls it "the big break,"

where they observed
bullet holes in her floor.

In one of the holes,
there was male human DNA.

♪

And then Susan
was an avid guitar player.

By the time
that Detective Harwood

is doing this investigation,
she owned an electric guitar.

♪

The victim was found
with a guitar amplifier cord

wrapped around his legs.

In a subsequent search
warrant, we found,

inside her residence,
guitar amplifier cords.

Did they ever find any DNA
on the amplifier cords

that would have tied her to it?

No. You can have a lot
of circumstantial evidences.

You don't have to have
a smoking gun.

Okay.

And so the fact
that she was a fisherman

and had experience fishing in
and around the Kentucky River,

in the Gratz area--

he was found at a place

that she had previously
fished before--

was significant to him.

♪

It was April of 2007.

This case was finally presented

before the Spencer County
Grand Jury.

I'm Thomas Clay,
I'm an attorney,

and I do criminal defense work

as well as plaintiff's
civil work.

♪

Nine years after the homicide,
the grand jury returns

an indictment for murder.

Well, the problem with that

is that there was
exculpatory evidence,

which tends to prove
that Susan King was innocent,

which was withheld,

such as Susan King
was involved

in an automobile accident

that resulted
in the loss of her leg.

♪

And not just
a little bit of it.

Her wound required them

to amputate her leg
up into her hip.

♪

Susan was confined
to crutches.

None of that was presented
to the grand jury.

That wasn't part
of their consideration

in indicting her.

The allegations against her

were that this 98-pound woman
who is disabled

somehow or another
murdered a 200-pound man,

and then take his body,

drag him down
several flights of steps,

bind his body,

put his body
into the trunk of a car,

and then throw him
over a bridge.

It's very apparent
that this woman

could not physically
have committed this murder

that she's in jail
for having committed.

They get to the point
where the case

is either gonna
have to go to trial,

or there's gonna be
a negotiated resolution.

♪

I didn't have money
for an attorney.

You know, my family,
they're comfortable,

but just your average person
doesn't have

millions of dollars
to give to a lawyer.

So I thought,
"Well, I didn't do it.

So it ought to be
pretty easy to prove."

So they appointed me
a public defender.

♪

My lawyer said they were

gonna try to get
the death sentence.

And then they come back
a little bit later,

and they said
if I would admit to it,

I could get life
instead of death.

♪

I didn't want
to plead guilty that day.

Sitting in jail,

waiting on a trial, she's told,

"Our wheels of justice
are really slow.

It's at least two years
for you to get a trial."

And then,
if a jury convicts you,

you have at least 25 years.

She trusted what people
were telling her.

She's scared,

and she thinks
the best thing for herself

is to take a plea deal.

But Susan is insistent
that she's innocent,

and so she wants to take
what's called an Alford plea.

♪

An Alford plea allows
the defendant

to go in front of a judge

and say, "Judge,
I didn't commit this crime.

"However, I recognize
that the evidence against me,

"the prosecution has,

"is sufficient
to convince a jury

beyond a reasonable doubt
that I'm guilty."

♪

Susan would have been
looking at about 25 years

if she was convicted of murder.
- Uh-huh.

Part of the Alford deal
was it would be down

to a ten-year maximum sentence

but that she would be eligible
for parole after six months.

- Oh, that's a no-brainer.
- Right.

Susan wanted to do
whatever it was gonna take

to get going
with her life again.

[soft music]

♪

At the time she entered
that plea of guilty,

she had served
enough time in jail

already to be eligible
for parole.

The parole board
expected her to acknowledge

she had committed this crime,
and Susan King

never, ever admitted
she had done this crime.

The irony
of the whole situation

is that the parole board said

that she didn't show
enough remorse.

But she said
she didn't do it.

Right.

And so they said,

"You don't seem remorseful
for your crime.

So now you have to serve out,"
which is 10 years.

♪

Susan says, "Wait a minute.

This is not the deal
that I signed up for."

On the surface,
the Alford plea makes sense,

'cause you are maintaining
your innocence,

and it's your way out.

In Susan's case,
they hold that against her.

So what's the right move?

It's impossible
to figure that out.

♪

It's hard to explain
what happens to you in prison,

what happens to your mind.

It was the awfulest place
that you could ever imagine.

The meanest people you've ever
wanted to deal with.

People I didn't even know
could be that mean,

and those were the ones
that worked there.

Girls ganged up on me

and were kicking me
in the ribs and stuff,

and all I could do was ball up
in the corner of that cell

and just ball up
in a ball and cry.

[soft twangy music]

♪

So this is the vantage point
with this bridge dump?

Yeah.

Ten years before,

they demolished
the old bridge.

Did the other bridge
also have

a retaining wall
like this one?

Yeah.

The state's whole theory
of the case

is that Susan
was able to obtain a car,

drive up here,

all on crutches,
park the car on the bridge,

and get a 200-pound body
over this retaining wall.

♪

You think
if the grand jury heard

that she only had one leg
and how much she weighed,

they would have gone for it?

Knowing
her physical condition

at the time of the murder,
I didn't believe it.

Yeah.

I weighed about 100 pounds,

and I didn't have but one leg,

and anybody with a right mind
wouldn't think that I would do

all the things
Harwood said I did.

It's my understanding that
a 98-pound person with one leg

is capable of pulling
a trigger on a firearm

and capable of pulling it
multiple times.

[tense music]

What I think
occurred after that,

Susan employed some help

to move that body
from her residence.

Could she have utilized
the Gratz bridge

to roll the body off
into the water?

Absolutely.

She could have also disposed
of a body utilizing a boat.

Both of those are theories.

We can't prove either-or.

♪

I was in law school in 2010,

and I was doing an internship
with the Innocence Project,

and I was assigned
Susan's case.

How old were you?

♪

22.

She's my first client.
She's my first case.

And our job is to see
if there's an actual potential

that this woman
could be innocent.

If there's anything there,

then the Innocence Project
will run with it.

But if there isn't,
then they've done their duty

in terms of looking
into the case.

What was your first meeting
with her like?

I distinctly remember her
saying to me,

"Honey, I'm not a saint,
but I'm not a murderer.

I didn't do this."

And it was eating her up

that the real killer
was out there somewhere.

I spent hundreds of hours,
over the course of 18 months,

digging through
all of the facts

and all of the evidence.

What did you guys uncover?

One of the most
interesting things

was listening
to the grand jury tape

and realizing
that Detective Harwood

glossed over the fact

that the ballistics
were definitively not a match.

The Kentucky State Police
lab reports indicated,

conclusively,

that the bullet fragments
found in her floor,

with those bullet holes,

did not match the bullets
that were found in his head.

It was a .22 Magnum
versus a .22 long.

Detective Harwood
says they're all .22s.

And then, when asked
about testing, he says,

"Oh, it's inconclusive
because they're degraded."

When you fire a bullet,
there's lands and grooves

on a bullet
that can connect that

to the firearm
that produced the bullet,

but because a .22 caliber,
it's a small and soft shell,

because of defamation,
you can't do that.

Harwood said they couldn't
be compared,

but they were compared,
and they were different.

So that's a substantial mischaracterization.

If the grand jury
had been told the truth there,

that those bullets
did not match,

it's very likely

they wouldn't have
returned an indictment,

and we wouldn't even
be sitting here today.

♪

There was bullet holes in
that house when I bought it,

but I put a couple of them
in there myself.

I was at home one day,

and this motorcycle
comes up my driveway.

This guy's on it,

and he just walked
right in my house,

drunk as he could be.

And I said,
"What are you doing here?"

He said,
"I've come to see you."

And then he got
getting closer to me

and started to touch me
and things,

and I got scared.

So I had a pistol.

But I pulled it out,
and I told him, I said,

"You need to leave now."

He said, "Oh, no, baby."

And so I--I put two holes
in the floor

and one in the ceiling,
and he left.

Detective Harwood makes
a big point of the fact

there was male human DNA,

but he took that portion
of her floor

eight years after Kyle Breeden
was murdered.

It could have been anybody's.

Oh, all right.

So his next point is that
Susan played the guitar.

His body was found
with a guitar amplifier cord

wrapped around his legs.

And she plays
electric guitar?

Susan says that she played
an acoustic guitar

and only got an electric
guitar after his death.

♪

This next point
is that she was a fisherman.

In river community,

is it rare for a woman to fish?

No, I don't think it's rare
for a woman to fish.

Okay.

You know, there's a lot
of people in this world

like to fish
and like to play guitar.

That don't mean
they murdered somebody,

and it doesn't mean
they need to get accused

of something they didn't do.

We determined that there was
not really a shred of evidence

to make us think

that Susan actually
committed this murder.

We couldn't find anybody that
would serve as an accomplice.

So what happens next?

Unfortunately,
from a legal perspective,

to be able to overturn
any sort of conviction...

- Okay.
- We have to have new evidence.

The fact that evidence
didn't exist isn't enough

to get somebody out of jail.

We had the tall task
of sitting down with her

and telling her that,
"We believe you're innocent.

"We believe you didn't commit
this murder,

"but we don't have
any new evidence

that's needed
to exonerate you."

What'd she say?

That was a really hard conversation.

She cried. She cried.

A lot. It was hard.

But she--honestly,
she thanked us.

She said, "You're one of the
only people that believe me.

"You're one of the only people
that knows

"I didn't commit this crime
and that actually believes me,

and that's gonna
have to be enough."

Jeez.

And at that point,
I graduated,

and I began practicing law,

and it was pretty
disheartening, to be honest,

to realize you're going
into a profession

that is supposed to be
promoting justice,

and my first case
is an obvious injustice.

♪

Then, about a year later,

I get a call from the Director
of the Innocence Project,

and I'm told,
"Are you sitting down?

We have new evidence
in Susan's case."

I'd never heard
of Susan King's name

until May 3rd in 2012.

♪

My name is Barron Morgan,

and I was
a narcotics detective

with Louisville
Metro Police Department.

I got a call
there was a shooting

at a location
I was investigating.

The suspect, his name
was Richard Jarrell.

He was in the drug business
for a while.

I just wanted to know
why was he shooting

at this particular house.

Within that conversation,
he stopped and said,

"Look here, Detective.

My brother got arrested
for 22 kilos of cocaine."

He said, "If you could
help my brother out,

I will tell you about
the first murder I committed."

Says this guy's name
was Deanie Breeden.

[tense music]

It's 2012,

Susan is five years into
a sentence for manslaughter

for the death
of Deanie Breeden,

and all of a sudden,
somebody else comes forward

with a totally different story
to tell.

♪

I interviewed
a lot of people in my life,

but when Richard Jarrell
told me this story,

he didn't skip a beat.

I believed him.

Richard told Breeden
that he was gonna take him

to his father's house
to get high,

but on the way there,

they stop
at a check-cashing place,

Breeden got some money out,

and then they drove
to this house.

He drove Breeden
to the Gratz bridge,

took him out of the car,

and the way he was
describing it,

you could tell that
he was reliving the case.

Every little piece
that I couldn't figure out

fit perfectly
in this confession tape.

The day that he was last seen,

Deanie went that morning
and cashed a $250 check,

and that there
was somebody in the car,

but nobody knew who that was.

Well, Richard Jarrell
talks about going

and getting the check cashed
earlier that day.

- Nuh-uh.
- Oh, yes.

He was the unknown person
in the car.

He was the guy in the car!

The most compelling thing
of all, Richard Jarrell says,

"I actually killed him
as a birthday gift to myself."

So when I look it up,
this man's 21st birthday

was the day
that he was last seen.

And that's far too much
of a coincidence

to be able to just make up.

- 14 years later?
- Mm-hmm.

That's nuts.

The scary thing
about it, though,

watching him tell that story.

He went deep,
and he was enjoying it.

And he told me at the end,

after he got done
talking to me,

he was like, "I felt so good."

I knew that we got a bad guy
we need to put away.

We got a innocent person
in prison we need to get out.

Barron Morgan
did four things.

Number one, you keep your
chain of command informed,

you notify
the commonwealth's attorney,

you notify the prosecutor,

and you notify
the Kentucky State Police.

I made a call
to the state police,

and, for some reason,

we couldn't get them
to come out that night.

I spoke with the Commonwealth
Attorney Office

in Jefferson County,

and we agreed to contact
the Innocence Project.

♪

I was sitting in prison
one day, scrubbing the toilet,

and they called my name
over the speaker.

I'm like, "Now what?

Now, what am I in trouble for?"

Of course,
they strip-searched me,

and then they put me
in the visiting room,

and in came three--
looked like angels

and said they were
with the Innocence Project

and that they had
some news for me.

And I said, "Well,
I could use some good news."

And they said,
"Susan, a man has confessed

"to killing Deanie.

He knew things nobody else
would've known."

Boy, my head went down
on that table,

and I cried and cried
and cried and cried.

I said, "Maybe everybody
will believe me now."

We took the confession tape,
and we're able to piece it

together with all of
the evidence that we had.

At that point,
we couldn't work fast enough.

It was working day and night

to put together a motion
to get it before the court

to say, "Here's the new
evidence that we need.

"There's an innocent woman
sitting in our jail system.

How do we get her out?"

♪

I remember getting
a phone call late at night

from a Louisville
investigator saying

that they had an individual
that they arrested

on an attempted murder charge
that was wanting to confess

to the Deanie Breeden investigation.

Jarrell was an enigma.

He was never mentioned
in the case report.

There was just nothing
in any way, shape, or form

to connect him
with Kyle "Deanie" Breeden,

with the exception
of Jarrell's statement.

♪

Detective Harwood,
he comes up to Louisville,

and he interviews
Richard Jarrell.

♪

I asked Jarrell point-blank,
"Are you full of [bleep]?"

I wanted to know.

And he even said it,
"I'm full of [bleep],"

and admitted to me
that he was being deceptive

because he wanted
to help out his brother.

Detective Harwood goes

and does an interview
with Mr. Jarrell,

and at that point, Mr. Jarrell
withdraws his confession.

The problem for us
is that nobody really knows

what was said
in that interview

except for the fact
that immediately after,

Richard Jarrell recants
his entire confession.

♪

Detective Harwood says
he recorded the conversation,

but that tape
was immediately stolen

out of KSP's
locked evidence file.

I had five
digital recorders.

I cannot account
for the recorder itself.

It was lost in the process.

Um, it has still not been
found today,

and it was obviously a huge
mistake in the investigation.

The confession
has been recanted.

What does that do to Susan's
chances of getting out?

It becomes
a credibility issue.

Was he telling the truth then,
when he confessed to the crime,

or is he telling the truth now,
when he says, "I didn't do it"?

So the prosecutor says to us,

"I'm gonna let
the judge decide."

[tense music]

At this point,
we have a long hearing,

and we present all of
the evidence to the judge.

Mr. Jarrell comes,
and he pleads the fifth.

So we play the confession tape.

♪

And then ultimately,
the judge rules,

"There's overwhelming evidence
of innocence,"

but he procedurally thinks
that because she took a plea,

rather than have let it gone on
to a jury trial,

he can't do anything legally.

But her plea
was to maintain her innocence.

Right.

Had this new piece of evidence existed,

would she still have taken
that plea?

'Cause it's a technicality, again.

It is. It's a technicality.

One of the procedural
problems with this was

that the motion they filed
under the rule they used

required there to be a trial.

Well, there was no trial,
so the judge concluded,

"Since there wasn't a trial,
I'm not gonna allow you

to withdraw your plea."

And Susan had to remain
in prison.

When I got back
from court that day,

the officers had already
packed up all my stuff.

They thought I was going home.

I couldn't believe
that I had to stay in there

after that confession,
but I did.

♪

Susan had already
served out her time,

and so at this point,
it's clearing her name.

Eventually, the court
of appeals agreed with us.

This procedurally can't stand.

This shouldn't be
the law of Kentucky.

It was a manifest
miscarriage of justice

to allow this innocent woman
to sit in jail.

♪

And so Susan's Alford plea
is removed from the record,

and she's deemed innocent.

This is not an exoneration.

This is an individual that
has been given a new trial.

However, you have to look
at the case.

And if we take this
before a jury,

one of them is gonna
believe Richard Jerrell

or put enough credence
to find her not guilty.

[solemn music]

♪

Susan King was a victim
of a flawed prosecution,

a prosecution that Todd Harwood
was responsible for.

♪

I think there might've
been an attitude

that the ends
justify the means.

He wanted to solve this case

and put this murder
on somebody,

and the person he selected
as a target was Susan King.

♪

So Susan came to me

to represent her
in a civil action

against the Kentucky State
Police and Harwood.

♪

Who is the civil suit
against?

Todd Harwood himself.

And what was the basis
of your claim?

Malicious prosecution.

That means he put me through
hell that he shouldn't have.

Lost all my animals.

I lost my cosmetology degree.

Now, you lost your house,

you lost your career,
your friends.

And time with my family.

Mentally,
it just tears you to pieces

going through
something like this.

I'll never get over it.

♪

[tense music]

♪

I'm so thankful that I got
enough money in my settlement

to buy a home.

But, see, I had a home,
and it was paid for.

And that's why--one reason
I settled out of court.

I didn't have to have millions
to make me happy,

but I did need enough money
to get me back what I had.

I'm hoping
it'll have some impact

on how they handle wrongful
convictions from now on.

When I heard that Susan King
was vindicated

and she was no longer
a convicted murderer,

it made my day.

But the Police Department,

they didn't want to admit
that they made a mistake.

After I gave them the
audiotape of the confession,

the state police weren't
that happy with me.

Matter of fact,
my chief of police

and a couple more majors,

they were pretty upset
with me.

I guess I crossed
that blue line.

When he disclosed this stuff,

it reflected adversely
upon KSP.

So he was subjected
to retaliation.

He was assigned to basically

an entry-level
patrolman's job.

That was his reward
for bringing forth the truth

on what had happened
to Susan King.

So then, at that point,

we filed
a whistleblower complaint

against the Louisville
Metro Police Department.

♪

There is so much loss
in this story.

There is Susan King,

who lost her whole livelihood,
her house.

And there's Barron Morgan,
whose career was derailed

and whose stellar reputation
was tarnished.

But the thing that gets lost
is that Deanie lost his life.

He's the victim.

And no one has ever been
convicted of his murder.

To hear Jarrell, like,
laugh and casually talk

about throwing a man's body,
a man who he murdered for fun,

according to him,
in this spot,

this, like, beautiful spot,
it just--it's unhinged.

♪

There's no justice.