All language subtitles for True.Crime.Story.It.Couldnt.Happen.Here.S01E11.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_Eng_sdh

I am at the residence
of Cora and Bearnhardt...

This appears to be
a .25-caliber bullet.

Somebody was in there
looking for something.

Who would want them dead?

That's the
million-dollar question.

There's all kinds of
stories about who did it.

There was an outcry.
I mean, people are scared.

[suspenseful music]

♪

[mellow acoustic guitar music]

♪

You know, you've got these
beautiful rolling hills,

with all the crop just
newly planted here.

We just pulled
into Portage County, Ohio,

which is a very rural part
of the state, a lot of corn

and peas and cows.

It is the heartland
of America.

Atwater Township,
founded as a township 1810.

My family has been
a part of Atwater

for about 100 plus years.

The church behind me,
my great-grandfather

built that chimney
way back in 1933.

It's basically
small-town USA.

People out here love
each other,

yeah, and you can see it.

If people need help,
there's always somebody there.

My neighbor will call me
up if my car is

out in the driveway too long
and not put away.

She'll say, "Are you okay?"

This is the rural farm road
here in Atwater

where, in April of 1990,

an elderly couple was murdered
brutally in their kitchen.

And so this very
small community

was rightfully horrified.

One day,
I received notification

that a man had not seen his
neighbor for a couple days.

He went over and kind of
checked the house out,

everything was, uh, secure.

But he looked in, and he saw
two bodies laying in the house.

[bird chirping]

He called the Portage County
Sheriff's Department.

My detective bureau
and deputies responded.

[camera shutter snapping]

It is approximately
8:33 p.m.

I am at the residence
of Cora and Bearnhardt

H-A-R...
- All right, well, I think

that's all I need right now.
- T-I-G.

[camera shutter snapping]

From the observation

of the arrangement
of the chairs,

it appeared that Mr. and Mrs.
Hartig were both shot

sitting at the kitchen table.

Mrs. Hartig had been shot
five times.

And Mr. Hartig
had been shot three times.

This appears to be
a projectile,

possibly the
...25-caliber bullet.

There were
...25-caliber casings.

[camera shutter snaps]

That would be a total
of seven shell casings

at this point,
plus one projectile.

The detectives
started searching

the rest of the house.

There was no sign
of forced entry,

and it didn't appear there was
any struggle of any kind.

It appeared to me
that it had to be

somebody who was welcomed
into their home.

Come to the bathroom,
the one cabinet door is ajar.

The detectives went through

and you could see
the drawers pulled out,

and just papers thrown around.

Papers on the floor
in disarray.

The end table,
two drawers open.

The house
had been ransacked.

Somebody was in there
looking for something.

I asked the detectives,

"Do you know
if anything was taken?"

And they said no.

Watches and things were
still in the drawers.

There wasn't anything
of any value taken.

[camera shutter snapping]

[suspenseful music]

When the murders happened,
it was the talk of the town.

Everybody was
concerned about it.

Nobody knew why it happened.

This was big, big
news in Portage County

because it was so odd.

I'm Andrea Simakis.

In the 1990s, I was working at
the Cleveland "Plain Dealer,"

doing investigative reporting.

According to friends
and neighbors,

the Hartigs were quiet

and well-thought of
in the community.

Mr. Hartig was a butcher.

He was retired
at the time of the murders.

And Cora was a homemaker.

It's not usual to have

a--a well-known, well-liked
elderly couple

gunned down in their own homes.

It--it frightened people.

There's all kinds of stories

about what happened
and who did it.

It causes fear,
and people lock their doors.

It's terrible to have to feel
that way in a town like this.

[train signal clanging]

In April of 1990,
when they found

this 81-year-old couple
murdered in their kitchen,

it was shocking.

The pressure
on elected officials

to get to an answer quickly
was immense.

People want to be able
to sleep at night.

We're meeting
with Vicki Buck Walter,

who has worked
as an investigator

here in Portage County.

She got involved in this case
very early on.

Vicki?
- Yes. How are you?

- I'm Hillary.
- Hi.

- It is so nice to meet you.
- You too.

Thank you so much
for meeting today.

Oh, you're welcome.

This is a heinous murder
of an elderly couple.

What did you know
when you first saw this case?

There was no forced entry,
and there were no fingerprints.

Was there a murder weapon
found on scene?

There was no murder weapon,
um, but they did determine

that the Hartigs were both shot
with a .25 automatic pistol.

So where did
the police start looking?

They started doing, um,
searches of crimes in the area.

Okay.

And there were some
home invasion robberies

in Alliance, Ohio, which was
ten miles maybe from Atwater.

And they were done
by just kids.

And they immediately
got on the radar

of the sheriff's department.

They were doing what they
referred to as car shopping,

where they would go around and
see if car doors would open,

and then they'd take change out
of there or take credit cards

and buy pizza, and,
you know, drugs and alcohol,

things like that.

Tell me a little bit
about these kids.

Just teenagers
ranging from 14 to 21.

They were a group
of young guys.

They were crashing in the home
of one of their friends.

They had no supervision.
They could do what they wanted.

And they were, like,
lost boys.

Tyrone Noling was the leader
of this gang of lost boys.

He was 18 at the time.

He had a long juvenile record.

Following him
was Joey Dalesandro.

Joey was also 18,
and they were tight.

Gary St. Clair was 21,
a high school dropout.

And then, uh,
rounding out this group,

a 14-year-old Butch Wolcott.

On April 4th, 1990,
their petty crimes escalated

to a true home invasion.

They knocked on a door

nearby the place
where they were crashing.

There was an elderly couple.

And the ruse was,
they said their car broke down

and they needed help.

They were invited in.

Tyrone went in with a shotgun.

While inside,
they stole cash, jewelry,

and a .25-caliber pistol.

The very next day,
Tyrone did the same thing

at another neighbor's home,
another elderly couple.

And this time,
Tyrone was armed

with the .25-caliber pistol
he had taken

in the previous robbery.

Anything that wasn't
nailed down was taken--

cash, jewelry taken off hands,
watches taken off wrists.

Tyrone is in the bedroom,

and he's got the gun
in his hand,

and he's loading up things
in this pillowcase,

and it caused his trigger
finger to shoot the gun.

- Right.
- And he was freaked out.

He was described by the woman
as a scared rabbit.

He asked her, "Are you okay?
Are you okay?"

Then got out of there.

Witnesses saw them
running from the home

in broad daylight

carrying a VCR with a cord
trailing behind them.

It is a serious crime
to walk

into anybody's house
and pull a gun on them.

These boys were suspect
right from the go

of the Hartig murder.

You have home invasions,
older couples

home at the time,

and chiefly,
a .25 caliber is used

in the last robbery
in Alliance

and to murder the Hartigs.

For the police,
the similarities

were too hard to ignore.

Very close in time

to when the Hartigs'
bodies were discovered,

in the nearby town of Alliance,

there were similar home
invasions of elderly couples

which made those robberies
very interesting to police.

You're walking
a very fine line there

of--of a juvenile
high jinks like breaking

into cars and stuff.

And now you're venturing
into very adult,

very criminal behavior.

It was known that Tyrone
had a .25-caliber weapon.

And right away,
everybody thought

this could be the weapon that
was used in the Hartig case.

And the detective bureau
went to interview these kids

about the Hartig murder.

Tyrone readily admitted

his culpability
in the Alliance robberies,

but he says he has nothing
to do with the murders,

as do his friends.

[suspenseful music]

♪

And so, while
they're locked up,

does the investigation into
the Hartig murders continue?

Yeah, yeah.
It does continue.

The county sheriff
is investigating

the surface similarities
of the crimes--

home invasions, elderly couple.

But after those
surface similarities,

the cases diverge.

Nothing is taken out
of the Hartig home.

Money is left
in Bearnhardt's pocket.

Cora's wedding ring
is on her finger.

Why leave everything behind

when your previous MO
had you taking

everything in sight?

The murder weapon was a .25,

which really got these guys
on the radar.

And so they did
ballistics testing,

and the gun that Tyrone shot
at the second robbery

came back to not be
the murder weapon.

- It's not the same gun.
- Not the same gun.

Police also recovered

a cigarette butt
on the Hartigs' driveway

they thought could have been
dropped by the killer

because neither
of the Hartigs smoked

and Bearnhardt kept
a very clean driveway.

There was DNA tests
performed on the cigarette.

But the four boys,
it was none of their DNA.

I feel like the sheriff's
department was probably like,

"Yes, we figured it out."

And then, for the
gun not to match

and for the cigarette butt not
to match any of the four guys,

how do you tie them in then?

You don't.
[chuckles]

- Okay.
- And they didn't.

I don't believe
there was anything

found in possession
of these boys

that would put them
at the house.

There was nothing
that could hold them

as suspects for this crime.

What can you tell me
about the Hartigs?

Who would want them dead?

Well, that's
the million-dollar question.

Mr. Hartig had clearly
saved throughout his life.

And he was known
to be a person

you could go to
for personal loans.

In their investigation,
they found out

that there was a doctor

that was--was friends
with Mr. Hartig.

And the doctor said that
he had talked to Mr. Hartig

the day
before they were killed.

- Okay
- And he said

that Mr. Hartig had loaned
his insurance man,

Lewis Lehman, $10,000,

and it had come due.

He was gonna meet
with the insurance man

to get his money,
and Mr. Hartig said,

"I haven't heard
a hide nor hair from him.

"Something doesn't
smell right,

"and I'll be calling him

as soon as we hang up
the phone here."

Mr. Hartig was gonna have
words with his insurance guy.

That was the last thing
the doctor

ever heard from them?

Yes.

Investigators
naturally wanted to speak

to this insurance agent,
Lewis Lehman,

if he was indeed the
last call Bearnhardt Hartig

might have made in anger.

And significantly,
they also found out

that this insurance agent
had a .25-caliber pistol

registered to him.

They brought him in.
They questioned him.

When they asked him
to produce the weapon,

he said he'd sold it,

he couldn't remember to whom,
and he couldn't remember when.

Then investigators
rightfully question

Lewis Lehman about the loan.

Lewis had said that yes,
he did know the Hartigs

but that he didn't
owe them any money.

He said he didn't
owe them any money?

Said he didn't
owe them any money.

The doctor said he had

a very detailed
repayment schedule.

But When police
searched the house,

they could not find
any such record

for this insurance agent.

And so they let him walk
out of the door.

We didn't have
enough evidence

to pursue anybody, really.

I would say
it became a cold case.

The, uh, sheriff's department
was kind of at a loss.

There was an outcry.
I mean, people are scared.

Portage County prosecutor
David Norris

was under enormous
pressure to solve

this murder in this sleepy town

that never should have happened.

David Norris brought in
his bulldog, his enforcer,

an investigator named
Ron Craig,

to take a look
at this cold case

and see what he could do.

Ron Craig is a guy who
has a reputation

of getting confessions
from people.

He is the prosecutor's
investigator?

Correct.

Why was he considered
successful?

He got convictions.

What did they do?

Two years after the murders,

they decided to refocus
on Tyrone Noling and friends.

Tyrone is doing time
for the Alliance robberies.

So is Gary St. Clair.

Joey was in and out of jail
for unrelated drug crimes.

And Butch is out.
Butch is free.

So Ron Craig goes
right to Butch Wolcott,

who's still a teenager.

He's 16 at this time.

Ron Craig was, uh, intense,
to say the very least.

Ron Craig and the prosecutor,

they interrogated me
for a long time.

They started to grind
on me, you know,

because I wasn't admitting it.

The thing that scared me
the most was they said

that they had some
utility worker up on a pole

that's seen us there.

And that, to me, was scary
because that's an eyewitness.

They also tell him
that there was a match

on the cigarette butt to him.

And I'm sure
Butch is thinking,

"If they say that there's
evidence putting me there,

"then I'm in trouble.

I'm in big trouble."
- Yeah.

And they said,
"We'll prosecute you.

"Even though you're a juvenile,
you might not get death row,

but you'll get
the rest of your life."

And they start saying,
"Hey, if you say

"that Tyrone was involved
in these murders,

"then we'll wipe your record.

We'll give you immunity
on the murders."

When they say, "Well,
we'll give you immunity,"

that was my life's breath.

That was the--the thing
that was gonna save me.

I said I--I was there.

So Butch had said
they drove

from Alliance to Atwater
in Joey Delasandro's car.

They saw the Hartigs' house.

Butch and Joey stay
in the car.

And Tyrone and Gary go inside.

While inside,

that is when Tyrone executes
the Hartigs.

- Who do they go to next?
- They go to Joey next.

And they have Butch
saying he was the driver.

And Joey does take a deal.

So the dominoes are starting
to fall.

And then there's Gary.

Well, he's already in
for 5 to 25

on this first conviction.

What is the investigator
and the prosecutor,

um, threatening him with?

Oh, they're threatening
him with death.

Mm-hmm.

"We know you were
in the house.

"Butch puts you in the house.
Joey puts you in the house.

We know you were in the house."

[suspenseful music]

♪

Ron Craig has done his job.

Now three guys--
Butch, Joey, and Gary--

are pointing the finger at the
triggerman, Tyrone Noling.

♪

He refuses the deal
to save his life.

He refuses the deal that
would keep him off death row.

He knows three people are
going to take that stand

and say he killed the Hartigs,

and yet, he does not cave
under the pressure.

That blows me away.

So how do you get
involved in this case?

At that time, I was working

for a private
investigation firm.

I was hired by Tyrone Noling's
defense attorneys

to investigate the murder
to prepare them for court.

Okay.

What's the evidence that
the state puts forward

to try and convict Tyrone?

They didn't have
a murder weapon.

They didn't have
any DNA evidence.

Um, they had the boys
who were testifying.

Butch testified
that he saw smoke

coming out of Tyrone's gun

as he was fleeing
the Hartigs' home.

Then Joey takes the stand
and says

that Tyrone calls him
from jail.

And he tells him,

"Joey, you've got to get rid
of a murder weapon.

It's in the glove compartment
of your car."

Joey testifies
that he sells it to a fence.

And that's how
the murder weapon disappears.

At the trial,
everything lines up

just like Tyrone was told
it would

except for one thing.

When it's Gary St. Claire's
turn to take the stand,

he drops this bombshell.

Gary gets up there and says,

"We weren't there.
Tyrone wasn't there.

"He didn't do it.
I didn't do it.

None of us did it."

Did the state freak out?

Yeah, they treated him
as a hostile witness.

What does that mean?
What do they do?

They get up there
with his prior statements,

and they tried to impeach him.

- Mm-hmm.
- "Didn't you say that?"

and "Didn't you say this?"

And so Gary was forced
to say yes, yes, yes.

You would think
that would create

reasonable doubt in the jury's
mind, but somehow, it did not.

[suspenseful music]

♪

So for a young man

who declares his innocence
this whole time,

is sentenced to death,
what do you do?

He got
a post-conviction attorney...

- Mm-hmm.
- And that's where I came in.

- You came back in?
- I came back in.

So what did you do?

I wanted to find Butch
so bad.

One day,
this pretty little lady

was knocking on my door,

and, um, she asked me
if--if she could talk to me,

and I'm like, "Yeah, sure."

I said, "I'm here about
the Tyrone Noling case."

He thought I was from
the prosecutor's office.

I was in a ton of fear
at this point in my life.

I thought, "They're
gonna wrap it up somehow

and get me in prison too."

When I told Butch that I
just wanted to hear his story,

his legs went weak because
he was so relieved.

She said, you know,
"You--you can change everything

and say which--
what the truth is."

I was like,
"Yes, let's do that."

Butch said,
"I will do whatever it takes

"to make this right.

"The testimony that I gave
put this man on death row.

I can't live with myself
for what I did."

Ronald Craig,
the devil incarnate.

That's not a joke.

When you don't say
what he wants you to say,

there's tons of pressure,
tons of, uh, intimidation.

They wouldn't let my dad
into the interrogation room.

I probably got a good 40,
50 hours of interrogation,

which is very terrifying
to go through,

especially when people have
your freedom in their hands.

Ron Craig realized
he had a problem, and that was,

Butch didn't know anything
about the crime.

He didn't know anything
about the crime scene.

He couldn't even describe
the Hartigs' house.

Nothing.

So to solve this problem,

the Portage County
investigative team

brings in a psychologist
to unearth buried memories.

They told me
he was gonna

get the memories to come out.

Now, I had no reason to
believe that they were lying.

"Okay, I did forget it.

"So yeah, let me go
see this doctor,

and let's get
these memories out

so I'm not holding on to this."

Butch said that
they fed him information.

So after he tells them that
he can't describe the house,

they drive him to the house.

So there's myself,
the doctor, and Ron Craig,

all driving down this road.

Everything was normal,
conversation was normal.

And then as we were
coming up on the house,

everything got quiet.

The car slowed down--

slowed down enough
for him to look at the house

and then look
through the rearview mirror

directly into my eyes,
and then back at the house.

And that was my signal.

"That's the house.
That's the one. That's it."

Nobody sees what
Ron Craig's doing.

He's not making any noises.

Everything is subliminal.

This is what I should be
describing to them

because this is what
they obviously want to hear.

The doctor told
the prosecution team,

Ron Craig et al,

that he was concerned

that the more
they pressed Butch,

the more frightened he was
that what they were doing

was pushing him
to make a false statement.

He warned them that
it might be going too far.

Prosecutors ignored that
and continued

to condition
and rehearse Butch.

I was telling lies, lies,
lies, lies, to do what?

Save myself.

And they put me
in a predicament

where it was okay to lie.

It was like being molested,
but in your brain.

He was manipulated.

If you think about how old
he was, it was child abuse.

Here's what didn't happen.
None of it.

The whole thing is made up.

We were never there.

The car never went there.

Those tires were
never on that road.

It didn't happen.

♪

Joey says that Ron Craig
et al were yelling at him,

telling him he's got
to come through for them.

They all had the same story.

They have a choice:
lie, confess, or die.

You have kids
without advocates.

You have a crime that
everyone's desperate to solve.

It's a perfect storm
to create a false confession.

We have three affidavits.

The only people who could
put Tyrone in that house,

they've all recanted.

I'm over the moon
excited about it.

And so what does
that mean, if that's

what the state's case
was based on

and they all take it back?

Portage County actually
gave us an evidentiary hearing.

But the bad thing is,
you have a county

who prosecutes these guys...

- Mm-hmm.
- And then you have judges

in the same county
that you have to deal with.

So when we got to the hearing,

the judge wouldn't let
the boys testify.

And the attorney is like,
"You have to hear these boys.

They're credible."

And judge goes, "Nope."

So basically,
it was dead in the water.

Nothing?
[sighs]

Did the court not care
about new information?

It's almost impossible
to get a conviction overturned.

The anchor of the case
against Tyrone

are these three
eyewitness testimonies.

But all three of them
have been recanted.

Why do you feel like
there's so much pushback?

If you have a
wrongful conviction,

not only are they gonna
owe Tyrone Noling a lot

of monetary value,
but they're also

gonna have to maybe go back
into all of their cases

that investigator was involved
in and take a second look.

So they'd rather kill
a potentially innocent person

than go back
and check their work?

That's my view.

I mean, reputation trumps life.

[suspenseful music]

This is the neighborhood

where Tyrone and Gary
and Joey and Butch

were all living together.

The boys' goal was to rob
people so they had money,

they could buy beer,
they could buy weed.

Their whole MO was to
stay local and find places

that they can access on foot,
that these boys would make

the commute from here, almost
10 miles out, to a place where

you have no connection,

and then murder
an elderly couple

and not take anything.

I don't know how you make that
motive make sense to a jury.

Hey, hey.
- Hey. How are you?

How great to meet you.

Yeah, I'm so happy
to meet you.

I have such respect
for the work that you do.

Thank you.

Tell me about this case
as an investigative journalist.

I had done some work
on wrongful convictions

in the past.

You have to be really careful
about what cases you go after.

Well, 'cause do you feel like
your reputation is on the line

when you dig in to something?

100%, but this case started
bothering me out the gate.

I mean, if you're at
14, 16, 18, 20, right,

and you're hearing, "You can
either tell us Tyrone did it,

or you are going to die,"
that's a death threat.

It's a--they're being
threatened with death,

the ultimate penalty.

I started looking into the
case and I'm like, "Oh my God,

"wait, so no hair,

"no physical evidence whatsoever,

"no blood, no saliva,
no weapon,

nothing, nothing, nothing,
right?"

You can send somebody
on death row with nothing?

And yeah, the answer
is yes, you can.

So I tried to find
every living human being

who would talk to me
that touched the case,

and one of those people
was an Alliance cop

who impounded Joey's car,

because at trial,
Joey got on the stand

and explained
the reason the murder weapon

wasn't in Tyrone's possession.

Joey said they left
the murder weapon

in the glove compartment
of the car.

And after they
were all arrested,

Tyrone told him
to get rid of it.

But Joey couldn't have
gotten rid of the gun

because no gun existed

because police had already
searched the car.

He didn't find the murder
weapon 'cause it wasn't there.

And when I asked
the prosecutor,

Vigliucci, about this, yeah,

he said, uh, the cop
was clearly mistaken.

In this situation,
the prosecutor

is undermining
the Alliance Police Department.

Yeah--that car was impounded,
and it was searched,

and there was no .25
in the glove compartment,

and you're telling us
we should disregard that?

That's ridiculous.

♪

In the prosecutor's files,
I found evidence

that wasn't presented
to the jury

that is
about alternative suspects.

The insurance agent
interested me.

Not only because
he had confirmed

to have had the same
caliber weapon

as was used in the murders,

but that he had a relationship
with the Hartigs.

He had been
in the Hartig home.

And if we go back
to the crime scene,

there were papers everywhere,

as if someone was looking
for something.

They certainly weren't
looking for money.

They left jewelry
and they left $160 in cash.

Could there have been a record
of a loan that had gone bad,

and could that be the reason
that the Hartigs were killed?

I don't know, but it's
a legitimate thing to ask.

The jurors never
heard about it.

Andrea laid it out
like a roadmap,

everything that was done
in this case

and about the coercion.

She wrote a beautiful article

about what can happen in
a little small town like this.

When your article comes out,

is the newspaper confident

or are they nervous about
attacking elected officials?

They would not have
published it

had they not felt
it could stand up to scrutiny.

And I was really hopeful that
it would blow it wide open,

it would make a difference.

And certainly,
Tyrone's attorneys

were excited by it
because they said

there were other things
I found in the court record

that they didn't know about.

So we decided
to publish all of it.

We put it online so anybody
could have access to it.

Is anything found
post-conviction

that should have been flagged?

Tyrone's attorneys were able
to pluck documents

that they say
were not heard at trial.

Police during the
initial investigation

talked to a lot of people.

And one of the people
told them

about a young man who told
someone at his school

that his foster brother
had killed the Hartigs,

but the police
just dropped it,

and Tyrone's attorneys
found this document

and then they found
this young man,

Nathan Chesley,
who's now an adult,

and what he had to say,
it's shocking.

My name is Nathan Chesley.

And in 1990, I was 17.
I was a ward of the state.

Then they sent me
to a foster home

in Atwater, Ohio.

Dan Wilson also stayed there.

Dan Wilson had various
crimes as a child,

but the biggest one
was murder.

Dan was robbing an elderly man.

Threw him down the stairs.
Killed him.

Everybody knew
Dan was a murderer.

When I was in foster care,

where we were staying
in Atwater was

within about a mile
of the Hartigs' house.

Dan knew the Hartigs.

He mowed their grass.

One night after the murders
of the Hartigs, Dan came in.

I could tell he was drunk.

He had that look on his face,

and he was talking
in a different tone.

And he explained that
he had killed the Hartigs.

And he was just kind of,
like, confessing on himself.

He never went
into why they were killed.

But I was
100% for sure he did it

because he had a .25,
uh, auto handgun.

Dan was a very violent person.

Anything was possible.

[suspenseful music]

♪

I was just waiting
for a--a knock on the door

from law enforcement,
but they never did.

After that,
Dan left right away.

The next time I heard
about him--

on the news
they were talking about

"Dan Wilson, Ohio,
is gonna be executed."

♪

Dan Wilson kidnapped
a young woman,

put her body in the trunk,
and set the car on fire.

I thought he looked better
as a suspect

from a psychological standpoint

than scared rabbit Noling
and his gang.

I wanted to talk to Norris
and ask him

why he discounted this suspect.

He never gave me
a satisfactory answer.

♪

We're looking for cases
where there is new evidence

that can be raised
to the court.

There were documents
in the files

of Tyrone's co-defendants

that do not appear to be
in Tyrone's file.

What these notes show is that
even prior to Tyrone's trial,

police had thought enough
of Dan Wilson as a suspect

to compare his blood type
to the blood type from saliva

from the cigarette butt found
in the Hartigs' driveway,

and found that
it was consistent.

So the DNA tests
had definitively

excluded Tyrone
and his co-defendants.

But Dan Wilson
could not be excluded.

You have a very credible lead

against a p--a person who had

committed other violent crimes,

who lived right next door
to the Hartigs,

and the jury never got to hear
any of that.

♪

Justice is not just
having a guy in jail.

It's having
the right person in jail.

The Innocence Project
wanted me to get my story

to the court.

So I went to Portage County
and sat there

and sat there.
[chuckles]

Literally, I sat there
probably four or five hours

on a bench waiting to get
called in to tell the judge

what I had to say about Dan.

♪

They just let me go
and wouldn't hear anything.

They didn't care
that it could be Dan.

There are lots of things
at the scene

that were likely last touched

by the person
who committed the crime--

10 casings
from the .25-caliber pistol,

ring boxes that were opened
and rummaged through.

Touch DNA is something we
could never have done in 1990.

But now, we have
state-of-the-art testing

that can pick up just if you've
touched something, right?

This perhaps would be
finally the exoneration

Tyrone has sought.
- Yeah.

It could also lead us
to the real killer.

♪

This case stinks.
We all know it.

And yet one prosecutor,
with Ohio judges' help,

is looking the other way.

You have no idea
how deep inside of me

I want to say I'm sorry.

And the saddest part is,

if I wasn't a kid
and so scared,

then I would have told
the truth from the beginning,

and none of this
would have happened.

People love true crime.

They love solving the puzzle.

But then it's really easy
to turn the channel

or turn the television off
and forget that

there is a potentially innocent
person who's going to die.

He's going to die
if something isn't done.

[somber music]

♪

I'm sorry, it's overwhelming.
It just hits you sometimes.