All language subtitles for the.confession.tapes.s01e03.720p.web.x264-strife

[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.