All language subtitles for Dog valley.en-HI

[engine idling]

[radio crackling]

[80s pop music]

[engine rumbling]

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-[footsteps]

[unsettling music]

[electronic music]

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[Burns] I got a call at
two or three in the morning.

I was told

that Lance Conway Wood
was at the sheriff's department.

Sergeant Frank Slack
is the one that called me,

and he said...
He's telling me this tale

about somebody
that was murdered.

"I think this guy
is on meth or crazy,

but could you come down
and help me with this?"

[police on recording]
2:40 in the morning.

We're at
the Iron County Jail facility

asking some questions
of Lance Wood.

Lance Wood informs
John Grath and Sergeant Slack

that he has some information

about a possible homicide.

He told a horrific tale.

[traffic ambiance]

[Wood] So it was me, Mike...

[police]
You're driving down the road.

[Wood] All I know is that...

he was driving
and Mike slit his throat.

-[police] While he was driving?
-[Wood] While he's driving,

and then he cut
his shoulders, too.

All the dude
says is "ouch," you know?

[police] And what
happened after he cut him?

[Wood] Cut him,
dude pulled over...

Mike had sex with him
on top of the...

-[police] With the guy?
-[Wood] With the guy.

I've stayed in the car
while this is happening.

He got out,

I know he picked up,
like, the tire iron,

start smashing his head.

[dull thuds]

[Burns] And I remember thinking,
This is too violent,

too sad,
too outrageous to be true.

[police] Mike tell you
why he killed this Church?

[Wood] 'Cause he's a faggot.
[chuckles]

[police] That's what he said?

[Burns] I was about ready
to wrap it up,

and then I remember
looking down on his shoe

and I saw one speck of blood.

And that changed
everything for me.

So I came
out of the closet in 2011

and moved to Utah.

At a certain point, I started
researching gay hate crimes.

You ever heard
of Matthew Shepard?

I remember the case.

Hit national news. It was huge.

And his name is remembered.

People honor him.
There are memorials

and funds and scholarships,
and...

-Gordon has been forgotten.
-Just kinda drifted away.

I mean, not forgotten
by his family, but--

No. No, I know what you mean.

[click]

[police on recording] Will
you tell us your name, please?

[Nancy] My name is Nancy Church.

[police]
And you live in Delta, Utah?

[Nancy] Yes, I do.

[police] Who is your spouse?

[Nancy] David Church.

[police] Can you tell us
if you have children,

and how many children?

[Nancy] Yes, I do.

I have three sons.

A son Craig,
who is in Cedar City,

a son Kevin,
who's in Philadelphia,

and a son, Gordon, who's dead.

[Anderson] The case
of Gordon Church

kind of took over my life
at a certain point.

It became kind of
a personal mission

to see Gordon
remembered and honored.

At the age of 28, he was living
in Cedar City, Utah,

attending
Southern Utah State College

as a theater tech major.

[Loy] He was a very small guy,
I mean, very skinny.

Very nice guy.

[Long] He had
the perfect '80s hair!

[chuckles] And just...

just a normal 28 year-old.

[Loy] He loved
his family very much,

and his personality
reflected that.

[click]

[police] With respect
to your son Gordon,

where did he live
in November of 1988?

[Nancy] November of 1988, he was
living in my mother's house.

He had decided that
he wanted to go back to school.

And so he rented
a room from my mother,

which was
more economical for him,

and it helped her out,

because she's retired
and living on limited money.

And then
he would shovel her snow

and take care of her,
and so it was a relief to us

to have someone with my mother.

[Kathy] We would meet
pretty much every day

after one of our classes
for coffee.

We would just talk.

[Loy]
We'd go cruise Main Street,

the whole five minutes,

and then we'd go park
in the park,

and just sit and chat.

[birds chirping]

[Kathy] He needed
an outlet that he...

someone that he could talk to,
and so did I.

He tended to seek out people
that wouldn't reject him

for what he was.

[Loy] We used to talk
about guys.

We both liked
the same kind of guy,

only difference is,
Gordon wanted one shorter.

I wanted a six foot two guy,

and he wanted
a five foot eight guy. [laughs]

[Jesse] When I met Gordon,
he was a lot more different.

Uh, he...

experimented,
is we will call it.

He had many boyfriends,
suitors, lovers.

[Loy] We actually
would go to 7-Eleven.

Gordon always
got his Mountain Dew,

or in the evenings,
the Diet Coke.

And he would get his cigarettes.

And that was,

I guess, you could say,
both of our vices.

[laughs]

[Jesse]
And when I got to college,

that was when I had my first
intimate experience ever.

And, Gordon
was a big part of that.

And I was like,
wow, this is a rush.

I don't want to leave
the house any more.

[laughs]

[Loy] Always relaxing,
always very comfortable.

He was a nice guy to be around.

Makes me miss him.

[crickets]

[police on recording]
Is what you told us...

freely and voluntarily and
comes from your own volition?

[Wood] Yes.

-[police] Nobody's forced you--
-[Wood] No.

I want to know
what protection I could receive,

can receive.

[police] Are you frightened
because you're afraid of Mike?

[Wood] Yeah and what
he might do, you know?

If he's in jail, you know,
for just a...

or for at least 72 hours,
I can try...

we can probably find
a new apartment.

[police] Or we can
do better than that.

We're gonna find the body.

-[Wood] Yes.
-[police] Okay.

[Wood]
An apartment for me, though.

[police] Yeah. All right.

Well, we got a long ways to go.
First, we gotta...

I'm concerned
Mr. Archuleta's on the street,

and in this type of murder...

The murder took place
one day ago.

I'm concerned that
it's 2:30 in the morning,

you say he's gonna "cruise."

-[Wood] Yeah.
-[police] It tells me

he's gonna leave the area,

and I want to...

make arrangements
to go pick him up.

So we'll conclude
the interview at this time.

-Thank you.
-[Wood] Alright.

So I remember I called
our sheriff, Ira Schoppmann.

And he said, let's put
this little feller in the car

and let's go see
if we can find us a body.

[tense music]

[Burns] We got to a turnoff,
mile marker 138,

and he said,
"I think it's over there."

[Anderson]
And they realized that

this was something very real.

They had a body on their hands.

And there was
a dangerous man still free.

So they rushed
back to Cedar City

to get Michael Archuleta.

[Burns] He was
with a girlfriend.

They were sleeping
in an apartment in a bed.

I remember
we kicked the door in.

And I distinctly remember,

because it was one of
the highlights of the day,

is a Cedar City police officer

shoving
a. 357 Magnum in his mouth,

and, you know,
begging him to move.

Archuleta was very compliant.

Denied everything.

And I think before we
even asked him any questions,

he was already
pointing the finger

at Lance Wood.

[Anderson]
Once Archuleta was in custody,

police went back with Lance Wood

to begin processing
the crime scene.

[police] The area
is Dog Valley area,

located approximately
milepost 138.

The scene of a homicide,
case number--

[Masner] As I walked forward,
taking photographs

from the freeway,

we could see that it was...

it was a red substance
on the road.

[camera shutter clicking]

Hair,

what appeared to be skin.

We knew we had
something serious here.

It kind of led us up a trail.

You could see
where something had been drug.

We got into the area

where we could see
what was underneath there,

and it was a human body.

And I, seeing the body
laying there, I thought,

why, I know this guy.
I know this guy.

[Masner] Took a picture
of the driver's license.

-[camera shutter clicking]
-And then had

Captain Dekker look at it.

And he identified our victim
as Gordon Church.

[Dekker] I remember
looking at that

and seeing
the address is Delta, Utah,

and I said, "Oh, crap,
I do know this kid."

I hollered up to my sheriff,

and I said, "Sheriff,
this is one of our residents."

And I remember
we called his neighbor,

the Churchs' neighbor,

was one of our deputies,

to go make the notification.

Now that was difficult for him,

because he lived three,
four houses away.

[Whatcott] When I
walked up to the door,

Nancy opened the door, she knew

right off something was wrong.
They had been expecting

a call from Gordon.

I think he was coming
home for Thanksgiving.

[police] At ten hundred hours,

reporting officer met
with Mr. and Mrs. David Church,

the parents of the victim,
in Delta.

The Churches
had several questions

as to the things
that had taken place

in reference to the homicide.

I mean, it just
tore them apart. I mean..

And it was tough,

toughest thing
I think I've ever done.

[news fanfare]

[announcer] This is KUTV News.

Lack of funding is forcing
Utah's first AIDS support group

to shut down in January.

We certainly
don't need homosexuals

teaching us about AIDS,

when we can thank
the homosexual community

for this scourge
in the first place.

[Jesse] But with
the fear of the AIDS crisis

that have just came out,
you almost fear like,

you know, I need to couple up

with somebody
who doesn't have it.

I don't even know
how you get it,

how you give it to somebody,

or how it's brought out
into the relationship,

but I need to find somebody
right away that doesn't have it.

[Kathy] Yeah,
being gay in the 1980s

was completely
different than it is now.

I mean, there were
more closeted gays.

It just wasn't as accepted.

[Loy] He tried to hide it.

He never wanted it to be seen.

And I was actually
part of his secret life.

As far as being in Cedar,

it's such a tight-knit
little Mormon community

that you just didn't show it.

[Kathy] He was...

I think, in his eyes,
disappointing his family.

[Whatcott]
The Church family was...

They were just
good home-grown people.

[Kathy] They kind of
knew that he was not...

that he was not
the good little Mormon boy

that they wanted him to be.

[Phillips] What had been...
I would describe it as a...

pretty happy and robust family,

the entire Church family.

They were always up,
so to speak, you know?

This incident just

virtually destroyed
that whole family.

It ruined Dave for a while.

He quit going to church.

Really got quiet,
never visited with anybody.

It tore him up pretty bad.

It was just a...

life-changing event
for a lot of people.

[Kathy] I did not attend
Gordon's funeral in Delta, no.

We knew that the family
didn't want us there.

Because that
would have meant to them

accepting the fact that
that Gordon was gay.

[Phillips] Well,
what I was told in my youth

and growing up years

is out in Dog Valley here

that it was heavily infested
with prairie dogs.

This is the typical temperature
and so on

of the exact morning
that all of this occurred,

and the days leading up to it.

It was damn cold weather.

At this point, we got Wood here,
we had heard his story.

He had indicated
where this had all happened,

the homicide had happened,
and where the body was.

[Masner]
And I worked the camera,

and on videotape,

he agreed to do what

I called a crime scene
re-enactment.

[static buzz]

[police] We'd be continuation
as if we're in a vehicle.

-[Wood] Okay.
-[police] Still in the vehicle,

Archuleta's still driving.

[Wood] Right.

[Dekker] And I thought,
man, this doesn't happen

very often,
you get somebody was there

can be a witness.

But as we walked around
that crime scene down there...

-You're still in the vehicle?
-We're still in the vehicle.

[Dekker] My gut started to churn
and I just thought,

this isn't right.

This guy is leading us down this

merry little path...

[speaking indistinctly]

...that he wants us to know,
and so I've started

correcting some of my questions
in a different way.

He opened the trunk, and...

he got jerked out of the trunk.

Church dude says, "You're
gonna kill me, aren't you?"

Archuleta goes,
"No, I'm not gonna kill you."

Lance seemed to be

really excited
about telling everybody.

[indistinct] started lifting him

and he started wrapping
the chains around him,

I think the chains,
he hooked the chains up.

And then he hooked the jumper
cables to the guy's balls.

[Phillips] I mean,
we just let him rattle on.

I mean, it's just amazing.

You know, we had decided

that's the take on it,

that's what we were gonna do.

I just didn't
trust him at the time.

I could just tell there was

more to it
than what he was saying,

and I think everybody
was the same way.

[unclear]

[coughs]

Archuleta told me
that he'd have to kill him.

[Phillips]
On and on and on that day,

from the time of the meeting
in Fillmore

on the ride out here,

battin' his gums,

and then out here,
he was just all show and tell.

Which arm and
which leg did he use?

The guy was laying like this,

so it had to be
this arm and this leg.

Was he laying on his back
or his stomach?

Oh, I think his...

back, I think, or stomach.
Probably stomach.

Lance was enjoying
everything he told us about it.

I could see that in his face.

He's, you know, he's laughing

and smiling about things, and...

My God, I wouldn't be

laughing and smiling about
beating somebody's head in.

Once again, he told you
why he killed Mr. Church?

Yeah, because he's a queer.

[reflective piano music]

[Jesse] With Gordon and I,

I wouldn't say
that we were flirtatious,

it was more like

we were just two friends
that just loved to giggle

and loved to laugh.

Thing is, as you know, I knew

Jesse was gay, and I knew
Gordon was gay,

so the fact that they were
together made me happy, too,

because, you know,
at least they had each other.

I think we were watching...

I know we were watching the
production of Hair. [chuckles]

He was on this side of me,

sitting on the floor,
on the couch.

And our hands kind of,

you know, I could feel that
my knee was touching his knee,

and that my hand was getting

really close
to touching his hand,

and it felt really comfortable,

it felt really good,
and he gave me a sense of...

I don't know, this is exciting.

This is something
I didn't think I was gonna have

with a really good
friend of mine.

There were times
when I would be around him,

and he would flame up,

so to speak,
and I could see the flames.

And he had a...

like a Streamline,
a Streamline trailer.

And so we went back there,

and stayed up till
all hours of the night

just sharing stories,

looking out one of the windows
and seeing the stars.

The stars was just insanely big
and beautiful at the time.

I remember, as a young adult,

that was the first time
I ever noticed that

the stars are so thick
down in southern Utah.

It's the sky, it's just so full.

And I remember
the phrase in my head

that I carried,
from now until then.

I just remember

when you're holding
each other so tight,

and it just feels so good
and so connected,

that when you
look down and you can't see

whose arm belongs to who,

and whose leg belongs to who,

and in the distance
you look out the window

and you just
see all those stars,

and I mean, I was in love.

Jesse left Cedar City
at a certain point,

and he and Gordon were dating
long distance for a while.

It put a lot of strain
on their relationship.

[Jesse] When we talked
on the telephone,

it was one of
the last conversations we had.

He would say
things are gonna be okay,

and I cried.

And I just thought

I don't understand
what's going on here right now.

A few months later, I remember,

getting a phone call from
one of my good friends, Loy.

Loy had told me that

that Gordon was dead.

[sobs]

I just couldn't understand.

[sobs]

I just couldn't understand
how somebody could do that.

How somebody could do that to
another human being, you know?

It was just not right.

Especially to Gordon.

[Jesse] I wish that
when he had passed away,

that I could tell his parents,

his family, you know,

that this is

not necessarily the way
he wanted to come out to you,

but he's a good person.

And he had a good soul
and a good heart.

Gordon wouldn't have
that kind of coming out story.

He wouldn't have
anybody to hold him.

This was how
the people were holding him.

They're killing him!

And there's nobody
in that room...

[sobs]

Who's gonna be able
to talk to him

and tell him, you know,

"I still love you," or,

"It's gonna be okay."

[sobs]

[Dekker] Some time later,
we decided

that we've got
to arrest this guy,

although we didn't have anything
to hold him on the murder.

When I got there, I was advised

to take custody of Lance Wood.

They wanted to do

what they call a Code R kit,
or a rape kit.

[Dekker] He wanted
to appear to be very helpful.

He wanted to appear to be
the good guy.

That his involvement
was minor and out here,

and this other guy
was the animal.

[Burns] At this point,
you have to understand

that we have
two criminal defendants,

two people
who just got out of prison,

pointing the finger
at each other.

We got Lance Conway Wood
with blood on his shoe,

and the person that
took us to the crime scene,

telling us that
he had nothing to do with it.

And then we have
Michael Anthony Archuleta,

saying, "What does
this have to do with me?

I did nothing,
I'm here with my girlfriend,

trying to sleep."

[Whatcott] So we
went back to Cedar City,

Thanksgiving night,

interviewed Archuleta till
wee hours in the morning.

[crackle]

[police] I guess,
why don't you just start

and just tell us
how did you meet this guy.

[Archuleta] On Main Street.

[indistinct]

[Whatcott]
He advised us at that time,

you know, that they were both...

he and Wood were both
willing participants in this.

[Archuleta]
Lance walked up to him.

He grabbed his neck
and tried to break it.

He grabbed it from, like this
behind and twisted it.

[Burns] They all lied.

Wood lied, Archuleta lied,

and, if you saw that scene,

I think anybody that was even
involved in that would lie,

because you do not want to be
associated with what happened.

[police] Yet Lance is saying
that you killed the man.

You're saying
that Lance killed him.

How are we gonna know
who's telling the truth?

[Archuleta] I guess
it's my word against his.

[police] Yeah, that's kind of
what it is, right now,

I guess.

The stories just
weren't making any sense.

They weren't from the beginning.

I've heard enough stories
to know when blinds are coming.

And I believed
blinds were coming.

[police] Things have
a way of working out.

The truth is gonna come out
sooner or later.

[Archuleta] Yeah.

[police] And it does.

Whether you want to tell
me the truth or not,

but, you know...

I'm gonna find out
what the hell the truth is.

It was a crime that
needed to be solved,

and it's too bad,

but in a way we owed that
to Lance Conway Wood.

But we still have him
being involved in the crime

and trying to get himself out

by coming to tell us
the things that he told us.

And saying, look at me,

I'm free and clean,
I didn't do this.

I'm just trying
to help you guys out,

'cause I'm a good guy.

He's not a good guy.

[police] If what you
tried to tell us thus far

were the truth,
then why were you lying to us?

About lots of things.

[Wood] Not lots of things.

There is just
a couple of things left out.

[police] You need
to level with us, young man,

if that's what you want to do.

I think that's the right
and the proper thing to do.

[Wood] And what's gonna
happen to me then, though?

[police] What do you mean,
what's gonna happen to you then?

[Wood] What's gonna
happen to me then, you know?

[police] I don't
understand the question

"What's gonna happen
to you then?"

[Wood] Uh...

The parts I told you
what happened

up at the murder scene was true.

Some parts I left out.

[police] You weren't sitting
in the car this whole time.

Don't give me that nonsense.

[Wood] I was sitting in the car.

[police] No, you weren't.

[Wood] Yes, I was.

[police] I don't believe that.

You know, if you want
to jerk us around,

play games, I'm not
gonna do that with you.

Lance, I'm telling you
that right now.

You know, you come to us

like you're
kind of the victim here,

that Archuleta
did the whole darn thing,

and you're scared of him,

and you didn't know what to do,
and all this nonsense.

And yet, you come with
a bunch of half-truths,

you leave out
a whole bunch of stuff.

It doesn't cut it, man,
you know, it doesn't wash.

You haven't told us the truth.

And there isn't
anybody in the world

who's gonna believe that.

And that doesn't look good
for you, I don't think.

You're sitting there
and trying to...

I don't know what the word is,

to manipulate the system.

You wanna get immunity,
and stuff like that.

It's not gonna work.

I can tell you that,
right up front.

I don't see any remorse in you,

right here, right now.

And I don't understand that.

[Wood] Remorse?
What do you mean?

[police] You know
what remorse means?

[Wood] Yeah, I know remorse,
but what? Remorse for what?

[police]
For killing a man's life!

And you were

very much involved
in that thing.

You didn't do a damn thing
to save him, did you?

You were involved--

[Wood] I tell you
lot of things, and...

I did what I had to do.

You can believe that or not,
but I can prove that.

[police] Why, that's what
you're gonna have to do,

-[police] young man.
-[Wood] I know.

The bottom line is,

both of those guys
killed this guy.

And nobody's
more innocent than the other.

Both of them were involved.
Both of them were...

devils.

[ominous music]

[Burns] I think both of them
lied to the bitter end,

and I think if you

interviewed them today,

they'd lie to you today.

Look.

And I don't make
any excuses what I did.

But some way, and the point,

is that I know that
I didn't murder Gordon Church.

[Stella] We were in shock.

Utter, I mean, shock,
couldn't even believe it,

He had just been
here at the house,

and I thought,
Well, Mike is not capable

of anything that bad.

But then I thought, you know,
something, when he's drugging

and drinking,

I guess he's capable
of just about anything.

[Peggy] So when
the police officers came here,

I came over
and sat with Mom and Dad,

and they went downstairs
into his room

and found some things that

had belonged to Gordon

that Mike had had and left
downstairs in our basement.

And so it just
it just went from there,

you know, the nightmare began.

Get that [beep] camera
out of my face.

[Anderson] Did Mike ever admit
to you what happened,

-or did he give you the details?
-No.

He's talked to Peggy

more than to
anybody else, I will say.

He's told me, he says,

I'll take responsibility
for what I did, Mom.

He says, and I know
what you've heard.

Here's what I want you to know,

that I didn't do
those horrible things,

but I did do some.

It's just shocking.

You just can't even believe that

my little brother, this little
boy that I, you know,

that I watched grow up,

that I knew
was a troubled young man,

that he was capable
of doing such things.

Archuleta's parents

were good people.

[Dekker] He was in a very

loving family setting
with his adopted parents.

Oh, he was
an adorable little boy.

First time I saw him,
he was hell on wheels.

[Peggy] We went to
the adoption agency,

and they
had him there to meet us.

And there was the cutest
little boy

with a head full of curls.

And he was sitting
in the middle of the floor,

and he'd emptied
a whole box of crayons,

and he was just
throwing them in the air,

just like raining down on him
and laughing.

And we're like, whoa,
but that was Michael.

I mean,
he was all over the place.

And I looked at him, and we were
gonna take him forever,

and I knew that little boy's
gonna be mine.

[Peggy] He arrived
with a paper bag

With some white t-shirts

and maybe a pair of jeans.

Those were
his worldly belongings.

He'd come to the door
and he says, "Hi, I'm Michael."

And I says, "And I'm Stella."

"Are you my mom?" I says,
"Yeah, I'll be your mom."

[Peggy] When we met Mike,

he had been in foster care
for a number of years,

and he had been placed
in numerous foster homes.

[Stella] They told us
seven different foster homes

in a four-year period.

[Peggy] From what we gathered,

he'd been born
to a teenage mother.

His mother had,

at 16, had actively been engaged

in drugs, alcohol
and prostitution.

And he had scars on his bottom,

like he'd sat on
or been sat on a hot grate.

He had little criss-crosses,
and he had

cigarette burn marks
on his legs.

[Stella] One time,
I had to go to his school,

'cause they called me
and told me

Mike has barricaded himself
in the bathroom

with a ball bat,
and he won't let nobody in.

So I went over there,

and I knocked on the door,

I says,
"Mike, are you in there?"

And he says,
"Yes, I'm not coming out."

I says, "Well, let me in."
He says, "Okay."

So I went in,
and I talked to him

and I got him out
and I took him home.

They says, Well,

we can't have him in class,
he's too disruptive.

[Peggy] He was a troublemaker.

He just seemed to always be in,
you know, in trouble.

Not that he was maliciously
trying to get in trouble,

but he just always found it.

[Stella] Went out for Halloween,

he says, "Those hippies
in that apartment down there

put razor blades in my apple."

And I says,

"What happened?" I mean,

"Did they check them out?"

they're not supposed to
give out apples, anyway."

"No," he says,
"It had razor blades."

Well, my mother
called me in the other room

and she says, "Well,
Jerry and I watched him,

and he put the razor blades
in that apple himself.

He's trying to get
somebody else in trouble."

[Peggy] He was always getting
expelled or asked to leave,

or he couldn't go back.

And so, he had
to go to school somewhere,

and so he started
going into facilities

in order to be able
to go to school.

It seems like he turned 13
at the state hospital.

And when he
came back from there,

he was different,
he was more quiet,

more subdued, more...

He wasn't so out in the open
with everything he did.

He was kind of
like more secretive.

We didn't learn it at the time,
we found out since.

There was,
a psych tech, they call him,

that had befriended him,

and used to take him
home on weekends

to help him do yard work.

And we found out then that

that he had been
sexually abusing Michael.

[Stella] And when he came out,
he was acting up more than ever.

He was sneaking cigarettes
and beer

and sneaking out the window
and little things like that.

[Peggy] He even went looking
for the person years later,

you know, going to the house

where he remembered
going to help

work in the yard,
looking for him to...

get even, retaliate,
I don't know.

But he had a lot of anger

and a lot of
bitterness about that.

[cheerful piano music]

[Anderson] Lance Wood
grew up in Bountiful, Utah,

in a very loving LDS family.

He was the youngest
of four kids,

and had
a pretty happy childhood.

[Wood] I found out
that I was adopted,

I believe,
when I was 12 years old.

I can't say that was
the beginning of my problems,

but it did escalate from there,

in all sense of the word.

I should have went to college,
I should have, you know...

Given all the things
that I went through,

and yet I chose a criminal life,

and just not the murder,

but my extensive
criminal activity

prior to that.

And there was
really no sense of it.

I mean,
I was stealing things that

I didn't want or need,

you know,
so maybe it was oppression.

when I was being oppressive

[Anderson] Tell me
when you first met Archuleta.

[Wood] In, I think...

Cedar City
Correctional Facility.

[Anderson] Now,
you've now been paroled.

And how is it you both ended up
back down here in Cedar City?

[Wood] Because of Paula.
Paula Jones.

[Anderson] Okay.
It's a girlfriend.

And you ended
up here because of...

[Wood] Brenda.

[Anderson] Brenda.

[Wood] And Paula, yeah.

Paula and Brenda
are living together.

[Anderson] Okay,
so prison inmates

meet local girls,

and come back
to live there. Okay.

[upbeat piano music]

And he was a nice-looking guy.

Not something that you would
expect to see behind bars.

[Wood] Well, she worked as a DJ
at the radio station.

I called them up
and donated some tapes

and we kind of
got hooked up from there.

Well, of course
it was behind glass,

but he would call,

and so we would talk for hours.

A lot of it was, you know,

about how he could
change his life

once he got paroled out.

We were supposed to get married.

Things worked a little different
once he got out.

[Wood] It's fortunate, probably,
that we didn't get married,

and, you know,
and all this, but...

It was difficult for her.

Lance was lazy, you know?

The things that
we had talked about...

It wasn't the same,
and there was just

a very strange feeling.

[Wood] Relationships that I had,

had not been
meaningful relationships,

and the feeling
of love is there,

but it's always the next one,
you know.

After that one,
I wanted to move on

to the next one
and the next one.

It was no difference
with Brenda.

[Brenda] And so I had
an apartment set up for him,

and the original plan was just,

you know, Paula and me and...

Lance, to live there.

[Peggy] And so Mike and Paula
started a relationship.

I think he thought he was
gonna go down there

and be with her and they were
gonna get married

and live happily ever after.

And then we found out
that Mike was on his way

up to Cedar City.

[Wood] Me and Brenda,
you know, we're scared.

We informed
my parole officer beforehand,

and they said they knew
that something was gonna happen.

And I warned them,

and they didn't
take precautions.

[police] Did he ever
threaten you

during any of these contacts?

[Wood] Not really,

but you could tell that he

had some kind of
problem with me.

[police] How could you tell?

[Wood] He just had
this attitude towards me.

[police] When, or did you
and him ever leave alone?

Did you and him
ever leave alone?

[Wood] 7-Eleven, sometimes.

[click]

[questioner] Can you tell
the court and the jury

when the last time was
that you recall seeing Gordon?

[David] November the 19th, 1988.

We had gone down to Cedar City,

to see our boys.

Gordon didn't make
too much money at K-Mart,

and I was always concerned

whether he had
enough money or not.

I asked him to...

you know, how things
were going financially.

I tried to do that in private
and those kind of things,

because he hated
to take money from me.

I asked him how he was doing,

and he said,
"Fine, pretty good."

And that's what he always
used to say, "pretty good."

And I always knew that meant,

"not really well."

So I just gave him
a 20 dollar bill.

[engine rumbling]

[Loy] The last time
I spoke to Gordon

I was sitting in my car.

And I looked up,

and I saw Gordon
with his backpack on,

and I had a feeling

it was the last time
I was gonna see him.

[Kathy] Gordon and I
were supposed to get together

to go to dinner, it was
the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

He had called and said
that he was going to run

to the 7-Eleven
to grab cigarettes

and then he was
going to be over and

we waited,
I think, about two hours.

[ominous music]

According to Lance,
this is where they met Gordon.

And Gordon agreed
to give them a ride around.

[police] You'd never met this--

[Wood] I never
met this guy before.

[police] What did he tell you,
did he live there in Cedar?

[Wood] Yeah, he told me
he lived there in Cedar.

Lived with his grandma,

explained about
his family on the way up.

[Wood] Him and Mike
communicated the most

during that period of time.

My concentration was the women,

you know, driving
up and down in the cars.

You're trying to
get them pulled over.

And that's what I believe

all of us were
trying to do at that moment.

Uh...

[Dekker] I'm not sure when

we found out
that Gordon was a homosexual,

or that...

these guys
may have been homosexual,

these guys being
Archuleta and Wood.

My biggest thing is,

is reflecting back now,
was that he knew Gordon.

You know, he knew whether--

He just didn't
meet him that night.

I mean, it wasn't like,

"Hey, can we go cruising
with you?"

or, "Hey, take us cruising."

It was like,
"Hey, get in the car."

Like he already
had talked to him.

He'd developed some kind of
rapport with Gordon.

[ominous music continues]

They went up to
Canyon Cedar City for what?

They went up there
for one reason.

They were gonna
have sex with Gordon.

And they ended up going to
a place they call Pussy Hollow.

[police] Did the subject
of sex come up?

[Wood] Yeah, that's when
he told us he was a homosexual.

[police] Out there by the river?

[Wood] Yeah.
[unintelligible] up there.

[unintelligible]

And I think
it just took off from there,

that, you know,

we're gonna
go work this gay guy over.

[Wood] My first thought was,

there was a time we used
to go to Salt Lake and...

go to the graveyard and roam.

Steal their jackets, you know,

and [unclear], you know,

gay individuals who were
out there we would roam,

we would chase them.

[ominous music]

That was my thought
we were gonna do.

[police] Was there
any argument or anything?

Was there
anybody mad at anybody?

[Archuleta] Not at that point.

You know, everything was okay.

[Wood] I believe, after a while,

nothing happened,
so I told them, let's go.

And that's when Mike
pulled out a knife

and put it to Gordon's throat.

I reached out
and grabbed his elbow.

That's when he kind of shot me

a look, a cold look.

And Gordon took off
at that time.

[Whatcott] He'd broke and run

and they tackled him
and he broke his arm.

[police] What did you do
while he took off running

after this stuff?

[Archuleta] I was just sitting
there, standing there.

Freaking out, [unintelligible]

And when they came back,

that's when Lance
cut his throat,

he cut him,
and I said, "Oh my God."

I didn't think he'd do it,
you know.

It wasn't until
after he caught him

and brought him
back up to the car,

that he cut him again.

And so that's
where you get the X mark.

He was calling out that
he has pain in his shoulders.

His leg hurt.

[Archuleta] Lance kept
telling him,

"You say anything,

we know you got family,"

that he would
kill his family, too.

He, uh...

bent Gordon over the...

the...

the hood of the car.

[slam]

[Wood] And the dude said,
"I want you to use a condom."

[police] Who's the dude?
The victim?

[Wood] Yeah,
and he gave Archuleta a condom.

[Archuleta] He pulled out
the rubber.

Handed it to me. He said,

Gordon said,
"Yeah, it's your game.

Do it to me."

He was asking for it,
I couldn't believe it.

[police] Did he?

'Cause the guy
had his throat cut,

his arm may be broke,

and banged up

and he's undoubtedly worried,

scared to death that
you're gonna kill him, right?

That don't make sense,
that he's asking you to

have sex with him
at that point, does it?

[Archuleta] No, it don't.

[police] Did you
have sex with this guy?

[Archuleta] No, I didn't.

[police] Did Lance?

[Archuleta] I didn't see him,
or anything.

Mike then turned to me
and asked me if I wanted any.

I shook my head, negative.

[Archuleta] There's only
one part that I'm lying about.

[police] And what is it?

[Archuleta] It wasn't
forcible or anything.

He wanted it.

[police] This is straight up,
okay?

[Archuleta] I did enter him,

and I backed right out.

I could--

I don't even
know why I did that.

I'd never done it
with anybody else before,

not even a woman.

I don't get off on
getting down on guys.

[unsettling music]

[Anderson] When Gordon got put
in the trunk of that car,

what did he think
was gonna happen to him next?

Exactly what I think we all
knew was gonna happen next.

He knew he was... gonna die.

[engine starts]

[heavy breathing]

[Anderson] They drove
from Cedar Canyon

to mile marker 138,

so that's got to be
70, 80 miles,

It's got to be over an hour
in the trunk of a car.

[Anderson] That hour or so,

as they drove north,

is the hardest part
of the story for me.

Knowing that
he was in that trunk,

having been raped,
with broken bones,

bleeding and gagged
and in chains.

Was he praying, was he weeping,

was he calling out
for his mother?

[click]

[Nancy] Well,
he didn't like elevators.

He would use the stairs
before he would use an elevator.

He didn't like to be

closed in a room
without a window in it.

He didn't like to have
anything held over his head.

Just, he didn't like to be where
he felt he couldn't get out.

[police] Were you
talking to him at all?

[Archuleta] Yes.

Yelled back there,
and asked him if he was okay.

Said, "Yeah, I'm alright."

All I know is Archuleta
was yelling back there,

"Don't break the lights,

don't mess with the lights."

Stuff like that.

Church was just saying,
"Okay, okay."

And how Lance told it,

saying we're gonna
go up to Bountiful,

where he is from.

They were gonna
drive Gordon's car off

this cliff.

[tense music]

[Archuleta] Lance
kept saying, "Well,

if we just
leave him in the trunk

someone can pick him up,"

so we went to Dead Man's Point

to let the car go off the edge.

They'll never find it there.

[police] What'd you say to that?

[Archuleta] Said,
"You're crazy, man."

We're both in a lot of trouble
right now as it is.

I told him, just--

"Leave the car, let the dude go,
and let's get out of here."

Lance kept saying,
"He's gonna rat on us,

he's gonna rat on us."

[Dekker] He said
they got driving along,

he says they got up north,

to the Dog Valley off-ramp.

[Wood] Archuleta
pulled off right here.

[police] Did he say
anything at this point?

He just pulled off?

[Wood] Yeah.

[Dekker] They went
underneath the freeway

and went to the west,
and north a little ways,

and stopped
in the middle of the roadway.

[tense music]

[Phillips] You know,
Gordon just terrified,

scared to death,
he'd already been through

a beating or two, and a rape.

And...

all in all, they were
gonna kill him here

or whatever, and...

they were trying to assure him
everything was gonna be okay.

I think,
one of the first things,

when they got him
out of the trunk of the car,

was an attempt by Archuleta

to break his neck.

[Wood] I heard the guy fall.

And Archuleta's talking to him,

[unclear]

I guess he was crying,
saying, "Please," you know.

[Masner] He said that
they took battery cable

and they tried
to jump-start him.

[Dekker] A couple of
real geniuses,

I don't know what
they're thinking about.

They're gonna
electrocute him or whatever.

[police] Tell me
how he hooked him up.

[Wood] Clipped them on
and said, "Go for it."

I don't know whether they were
feeding off of one another, like

"Look what I've done."

"I'm gonna do something worse.

Something more horrific."

What he did,

it didn't work, I guess,

because he reached in the trunk

and grabbed the tire iron

out of the trunk

and started beating
the guy on the head,

I don't know how many times.

Then, I guess that didn't work,

'cause he reached in
and grabbed the jack,

what you jack up the car with

and brought that out.

He's bringing it
to full swing on that,

Just like you would
swing an axe or something.

[thud]

[Masner] It was just...

a lot of blood.

Really a lot of blood on there.

[unsettling music]

[thud]

[thud]

[Anderson] You
didn't beat Gordon?

I didn't beat Gordon.

Did you punch him?

-I didn't punch him.
-Did you kick him?

I didn't kick him.

And you're saying
that you stayed in the car

while Mike beat Gordon to death?

Yeah.

[Wood] I didn't even hear when
he got him out of the trunk

I just heard a crack,
and I looked up.

Wham, hit him in
the back of the head with a

He looked at me all wild

and took a swing at me.

And I got out of the car

and I think what he'd done
is he took the...

tire iron and shoved it
up the guy's anal.

It was so brutal.

It was so ugly, it was so mean,

and I think, what--

What causes somebody to do that?

[unsettling music]

[Phillips] But they dragged him
off in this direction here.

And we found him up here under

a tree.

Probably...

could have been
any one of these trees,

but he was kinda tucked up under

the boughs of
one of these cedar trees

and somewhat concealed.

You know, and if,
in reality, if...

Wood hadn't
buckled his knees and got

trying to cover his ass,

it's hard to say

how long it
would have been before

Gordon's body
would have been discovered here.

[music fades]

Mike and Lance
drove Gordon's car

to Salt Lake City.

[newscaster] Millard
County deputies

searched the hillside
to find more clues,

but two key pieces of evidence

were found 175 miles north
in Salt Lake county.

And then Mike left this...

his murder victim's car

in the lot at his brother's
apartment complex.

[newscaster] Earlier today,
officers picked up

a pair of
blood-covered men's Levi's

on I15 at 45th South,

and impounded this 1978
Ford T-Bird in West Valley City.

Investigators
found blood smeared

in the back seat
and trunk of the car.

So Mike and Lance went on

a weird series of misadventures

as they kind of hitch-hiked
their way back to Cedar City.

Mike and Lance
ended up in Salem,

at Mike's home,

and his father Amos
made them eggs.

Mike went down
into his childhood bedroom,

which is where
he left Gordon's watch.

So again, he left Gordon's car

at his brother's
apartment complex,

he left Gordon's watch
in his parents' home,

for the police to go
gather this evidence later,

and they sat with his father
and ate eggs.

When they got back
to the apartment,

Mike had sex with his girlfriend
and fell asleep.

Lance went and talked
to his friend Tony,

and came up with
the plan to turn himself in,

so he went down
to the same 7-Eleven

where he had
picked up Gordon initially,

and called his parole officer,

John Grath, and said,
"I just witnessed a murder,

please come pick me up."

Before John arrived,
Lance threw away Gordon's wallet

out of his own pocket,
right there at the gas station.

[reflective music]

[Dekker] But I believe that
it was a hate crime, simply,

because of
the way he was treated,

the raping,

the breaking of arms
and the jaws and the

wrapping him in chains...

I'm--

I think it started out
as a hate crime.

I wouldn't know if the murder
would be a hate crime,

but I believe that
it started out to be hate,

'cause of who he was.

[Kathy] Wood and Archuleta
targeted Gordon,

merely for the fact
that he was gay,

and they were they were out
to teach the...

"the faggot" a lesson,

and that's not
a word that I use lightly.

You know, I always believed
that Archuleta had

homosexual tendencies,

and rage about that.

He chose the manner of death,
I think, to send a message.

[Peggy] Oh, well,
my brother Michael does not

consider the crime a hate crime.

He considers it
more of a crime of

excessive drug and alcohol,

and a whole lifetime
of making bad choices.

But he just really felt like

it was a night
that got out of control.

It just got away from him.

[music fades]

[Anderson] As
part of my research

into the Gordon Church case,

I put in
a request with the police,

and was given permission to

look at some of
their gathered evidence,

including
those crime scene photos.

Turning the pages
in that photo book,

they start off relatively...

tame.

They're showing the perimeter
of the crime scene.

There's dirt and sticks
and mud and snow and frost.

But then you start
seeing the blood,

you start seeing
the pieces of bone.

[Anderson] Look at
the blood. God.

There's the tire iron.

[Anderson] When you see
the pictures of the body,

I would not
recommend that to anybody.

Those images
will be in my brain forever.

It's heart-breaking.

There's something that just...

[Anderson] It's
one thing to read the story,

but to see it,

to see it, hurts.

[unsettling music]

Mike had a violent

way of dealing with things.

Maybe dealing
with his own demons.

If it's true that he knew Gordon

prior to that,

I believe now

it's Mike's doing.

He's gonna have to
answer that question

as to why Gordon died.

[police] Why
was this guy killed?

[Archuleta] I don't know
why he was killed.

I do not know why.

So much went on that night,

it's hard
to remember everything.

[Wood] I was weak.

But I gotta take responsibility

for actually causing his death
as much as Mike killed him.

In Provo today,
testimony wrapped up

in the trial of
Michael Archuleta,

accused of brutally killing
a Central Utah man.

[Whatcott] I'd been
to several trials at that time,

but there's nothing
like a homicide trial.

They are a total
different animal.

[rhythmic tense music]

[Stella] It was ugly.

It did affect our family.

And it affected
the extended family,

'cause some of them
didn't want to claim him.

They got on TV
and says, "Well, you know,

he's not even related to us,

he's adopted,
so we don't even know him."

And that was hurtful.

[Dekker] And Archuleta,

he tried to dress up in a suit
and a tie and look sharp,

but he still had his tattoos
showing above his shirt collar,

and just kinda hard
for him to hide

that he was a hardened man.

[Stella] He was this big, husky,

good-looking guy
with all this curly hair.

And a little bit
on the cocky side.

And he gave me the thumbs up,
like,

"It's gonna be okay, Mom."

But deep down I knew
that this was a horrible thing,

and it was not gonna be okay.

[Loy] They took me into
the courtroom, swore me in,

and...

they had me testify
that Gordon was gay.

Then, they actually

said that was enough.

And they had me
get up and leave.

And as I was walking out,

they brought Archuleta
out of the courtroom.

And he grinned at me.

And I was so mad

that I just wanted to slap
the smile off his face.

[Whatcott] Dave and Nancy,

they never missed a hearing,

they never missed
a minute of the court.

They was there the whole time.

And I know Nancy,

when she took the stand,
she stared at both of them,

each individual,
when she was on the stand,

of Archuleta.

Archuleta finally looked down.

He showed just a little bit
of remorse for her.

Wood never did.

Never would blink an eye.

[tense music]

[Brenda] I testified
at Michael's trial.

And even at the trials,
he was actually...

more friendly.

He would give me
eye contact and smile,

where Lance wouldn't,

and we were

engaged still, at that time.

[Whatcott] Archuleta knew that
he was in for the long haul.

I think he knew that he had

really screwed up bad.

[rhythmic tense music]

[Dekker] Mike Archuleta's trial

went very well, I thought.

I felt confident

in what was presented,
and how it was presented.

I mean, it just
went through the whole

episode here,

showing
both of their participations,

who was doing what.

[Peggy] And I didn't feel
like our attorneys at the time

did a real good job of

defending Michael.

[Loy] They were
trying to get him off

with the fact that
Archuleta had been

supposedly raped
by somebody that was gay,

or something like that,

or molested by
somebody that was gay.

[Anderson] Do you think race
played a factor as well?

Very possibly, mmh-hm.

One's last name
was Archuleta and one wasn't.

[tense music]

[Burns] I am incensed

when people use

the fact that "I'm a minority,"

or "I had a rough go."

A lot of people
had a rough go in life,

and they do not

torture, rape and kill

a kind and gentle

young gay man.

[news fanfare]

Good evening. I'm Michelle Kean.

And I'm Bob Evans.

Tomorrow, the jury begins
deliberations

in the Michael Archuleta
murder trial in Provo.

[Peggy] You know, they said

they had no idea
how long it was going to be,

and...

we came home,

and I got a phone call that
the jury had reached a verdict.

[tense music]

[Stella] And when I heard he'd
been found guilty, I just...

I don't know how I got to bed,

somebody put me there,

but I didn't get there
on my own power.

I don't know if I passed out
or what happened,

but the shock was...

'Cause it was so final.

It was so final.

But...

what could you do?

Condemned killer
Michael Archuleta

now has an execution date.

Fourth District Judge
George Baliff

signed Archuleta's
death warrant today,

scheduling him
to die by lethal injection

on February 19th.

[Burns] It's quiet joy

and satisfaction when

Archuleta
was sentenced to death.

I thought it was
the appropriate sentence.

[Kathy] For me, the fact that
he was going to be put to death,

seemed like justice.

Do you celebrate? No.

Are you happy it's over with?

Definitely happy it's over with.

And, you know,
I always recognized

that my brother's crime
was a horrible thing.

And maybe it's selfish of me,

but I really just don't
want to see him executed.

Do you believe Mike Archuleta
deserves the death penalty?

I believe so.

[Anderson] Why?

Because it was a ruthless

murder.

I believe everyone's
entitled to forgiveness.

I believe everyone has

the right
to be forgiven of things,

but I also believe that
there is a right for justice.

[tense music]

[Brenda] Lance's trial

happened in February of '90.

It was like the JonBenét Ramsey
of the time, you know?

It was huge.

Everybody in the state of Utah,

people in Idaho knew about it.

It was actually--

I believed that I wasn't...

going to lose, you know?

I believed that
I was gonna actually

witness that trial.

[Brenda] The courtroom was full,

all the time.

Yeah, he didn't
even cut his hair,

and I had girls chanting
for Lance, you know?

Now...

as a mother,

I can't even imagine

the pain and the horror

that I brought
to the Church family

by doing that.

[tense music]

My trial didn't go
as well as I thought it'd go.

You know?

He told me that
he was not supposed

to show any emotion at all.

So he was cold.

There's a feeling
that you get when you

know when you're screwed,

when you know you're kind of--

there is no hope
in that situation.

And I stayed the whole time.

Even after I gave my testimony,

I was not let back
into the courtroom.

I was considered
a hostile witness.

Because I was under such

the impression
that Lance was innocent.

It was almost as if

they were the enemy.

[Wood] And, you know,

I think the biggest thing

was in the closing arguments.

My attorney goes,

"Lance was not a bystander,

Lance is a liar."

And that was my own attorney,

stating that to the jury,
after I testified.

[Brenda] And when
the verdict was read,

there was cheering,

and there was booing.

For me, I was praying.

[attorney] Mr. Wood's continued

changing of his stories

was his effort
to avoid responsibility

for a crime he participated in.

And I think the jury saw that.

[Dekker] He'd
already been found guilty,

the same as Archuleta,

but now the sentencing
phase kicked in

and Lance's attorney

and his family brought in
just a bunch of people

to tell you
how good a guy Lance was.

[Stella] According to what
they said and everything,

he was a prize, man.

That guy was a number one kid.

But according to what happened,
I don't think he was.

I think he had the same
problems as Michael did,

but they made him look like

a sterling scholar
and the whole bit.

You know, they brought a lot of

religious background
into it, you know.

Well, they took in
his baptismal thing,

and they brought in
all his Scout

merit badges.

[Dekker] And they did
a pretty good job

making an angel out of this guy.

Well, he wasn't an angel.

I wanted to stand up
and yell at the jury

and say, "This isn't
the guy that did this!"

And so

he got off with...

with life.

[reflective music]

[Stella] I mean,
I just felt if two people

are involved in the same crime,

they should both have

the same punishment.

[Dekker] In my opinion,

both of them
deserved the death penalty.

Archuleta got it.
Lance Wood didn't.

Lance Wood should have.

I believe that some aspects,

like I said, I deserve time,

but what do I deserve time for?

[Burns] He didn't, because,

I think, as the facts shook out,

for lack of a better analogy,
he didn't pull the trigger.

He didn't impale Gordon,
he didn't rape Gordon.

You know, I guess a lot of Nazis

have that same defense

when six million
Jews were killed.

"Well, you know,
I was following orders,"

"I was afraid for my own life,"

or, "I just did what
I thought I should do."

[Loy] I know that
they said he just watched,

but he watched!

He shouldn't have been there,
he should've stopped it,

he shouldn't have...

let it happen.

To me-- I don't know.

I think they both should have
gotten death, to be honest.

It didn't really... matter.

The fact that
neither one of them

could hurt
someone else ever again

was the be-all and end-all.

[reflective music]

[Rosky] When Gordon Church
was murdered in 1988,

Utah didn't have
any hate crimes legislation.

But, within a few years,

representative David Litvack
introduced a bill

in the Utah legislature

to protect all groups
from hate crimes in Utah,

including gay people.

Unfortunately,
that bill was hijacked

by a Republican legislator,

and it really was sort of gutted

in a way that has
made it unenforceable.

[Perry] The original hate crimes
law just didn't cut it.

In fact, we actually had
a court case that came back

that clearly indicated
that the current hate crimes law

couldn't be applied
in most cases.

It was that weak
and that watered-down

that it was really,
truly, ineffective.

[Burns] Nobody
wants to come to terms with,

I punch someone in the face,

is a misdemeanor.

But I punch someone in the face

because they're gay
or they're black,

or they're Jewish,

makes it a felony.

It's interesting that
the pioneers who came to Utah

came here, trying to avoid hate

and people attacking them
for what they believed in.

And yet, it took us
a long time to figure out

that if we're gonna
have a law on the books,

we need to
have a law that works.

And that's kind of
how I came to the point

where I told Senator Thatcher,

"I wanna be your sponsor
in the House side."

[tense music]

[Thatcher] When someone
is convicted of a crime,

and only

after someone
has been convicted of a crime,

do we enter
the sentencing phase.

The sentencing phase
is when we decide,

"Okay, they did it,

how bad was it?

What should the punishment be?"

Now, some people,

and one of
the largest objections

that I've had to overcome

from people who don't like

the idea of
an enhanced sentence is,

"Well, a crime
is a crime is a crime.

We should treat
all crimes the same."

Well,
the challenge with that is,

that is literally
the exact opposite

of how our criminal
justice system works.

Kind of like murder.

Murder's broken down
into various categories.

So, a murder,
obviously you lose a life.

But if you have a murder
where somebody is drunk

and didn't mean
to kill somebody,

it's considered, uh,

I hate to say it,
but a lesser murder.

And they're
probably not gonna get

a death row
for something like that.

But I don't think
any of us can realistically say

that spraying
your girlfriend's name

on a fence or an overpass

is the same crime

as going to a Jewish synagogue

and spray-painting a swastika

and the words, 'Die, Jews.'

Now if you believe
that those are the same crime

because in both cases you still
have to clean up graffiti,

then with respect,

you probably will not
come on board for this bill,

and you probably
should vote against this bill,

if you truly believe

that those two crimes
should be punished the same.

The way our law's gonna work is,

we'll convict you
of the crime first.

And then we'll add
an additional penalty on

because the fact

your selection of your victim

had everything to do with

a particular character
or preference,

not because of anything else.

Can't prevent everything, but

this law, by passing it,

putting it in place with SB103,

I think, down the road,
will make a difference

in making people stop
and think about what they do

and why they're doing it.

[Thatcher] Let's move forward
with the solution

that we know
is 100% constitutional,

that we know
is 100% legally sound.

When we're looking at
complex legal issues,

if we're smart,

we listen to
our subject matter experts.

We listen to
the Sentencing Commission

who talks about
what punishments ought to be.

We should listen to
our Chiefs, our sheriffs,

we should listen to
our religious communities,

which are united.

I am not aware
of a single religion

that has come forward and said,

"We don't want this protection."

We should listen.

We should listen.

[music fades]

[reflective music]

[Anderson] After
Lance was convicted,

he was sentenced
to life in prison,

and ended up
in Draper, Utah, initially.

He became known as
kind of a prison snitch,

and after a while
they transferred him

up to Orofino, Idaho,
to serve his time.

While he was there,
he ended up having

several different
long-term sexual relationships

with female staff at the prison,

and so they transferred him
to Napa, Idaho,

which is where
he met Renee McKenzie.

[McKenzie] My ex-husband
was a senator,

a state senator.

Since I wasn't a politician,
I was kind of in the background,

and so I

learned a lot
about Idaho politics.

My first meeting with Lance was,

I went to prison and I said,

"I'm working on prison reform,

I'm writing

some legislation
for the parole board."

At first, I thought
it was a senator's

either daughter
or sister or relative,

because to me, in my mind,

senator, old,
you know, 98 years old.

You know, I didn't know,
so it was kind of,

"Hey, this is
pretty nice," you know?

All I wanted to talk
to him about was prison reform,

what could be done on
the inside of prison to improve,

you know, what Idaho had going.

Renee, much like me,

was enamored by this...

individual.

Uh...

[Anderson] So there was an
immediate attraction there then?

Immediate attraction to her.

And so I came home

that night,

and I remember
going in the computer room

and looking him up,

'cause I just thought, I
wonder what he's in prison for?

His crime
is absolutely horrific.

So, uh...

being the interrogator
that I am,

I wrote down
my thousand questions,

and went back and slapped

my folder on the table,
and I said,

"I got some questions for you,

and you're gonna
answer all of them."

She was drilling me, all right?

And it was funny as that,
for some reason,

I've always...

been not totally truthful

with... with everyone,

it just never happened.

But with her,
I just couldn't shut up.

So I feel like he was

transparent, I don't think
he was hiding anything.

He answered all my questions.

And at the end, she
closed the folder and said,

"I'm glad
that you didn't lie to me.

I'm glad that you were
actually honest with me."

She had

gotten the same types of
stories from Lance that I got.

And Lance was very convincing.

So we built
a real quick friendship.

We didn't become romantic,

but I think, when two people
are working on a cause

so hard and so emotionally,

you kind of click, as far as

what you're
trying to accomplish,

with prison reform.

[Anderson] Were you flirtatious?
Were you complimentary?

No, I was all business.

And it wasn't
until after our first trial

that we kind of
admitted to each other

that we had
feelings for each other.

[Anderson] Did you
and Lance fall in love?

Um...

Those are hard things
to answer and I don't know.

Yeah,
we absolutely fell in love.

[Anderson] When Renee's
husband found out

about
her relationship with Lance,

it hit the local newspapers
and there was a lot of drama.

Lance ended up
getting transferred again,

this time to a minimum security
prison in Pendleton, Oregon.

Renee moved there
to be with him,

after divorcing her husband.

And she and Lance
ended up getting married

in the prison there.

[reflective music]

[Anderson] Lance Wood was
sentenced to life in prison

with the possibility of parole.

He could see
the light of day again.

At this point,
he's applied for parole twice

and been denied both times.

Every denial as of yet has been

based solely
on the crime itself,

and not my behavior in prison.

Okay. Do you feel like
you've had good behavior?

You know, my ill behavior

is probably
the staff relationships.

I guess I'm not Irish,

but for the luck
of the Irish, you know,

the women have just
been coming to me, so...

[unsettling music]

Lance Wood is a very

charming person.

I was fired, let go
from Hospice Care

for having several relationships

with the female staff
down there, the nurses.

He's also very...

cunning.

[Anderson] In Lance's own words,
he's called himself a womanizer.

Lance is a womanizer.

[Anderson] What's
your opinion on that?

Um... He loves women.

And he went into prison
when he was, what, 21?

So think yourself,
in prison, at 21.

If you're a womanizer,
you're gonna womanize.

Let's see,
one was a Sandy Martin.

And...

Cheryl Davis,

and three others

that I don't wanna
mention their names

just because they--

we had never
met with any investigator.

I guess, the way I could

possibly best describe it, is...

Ted Bundy.

He is a very nice-looking man,

who...

who manipulates people.

Let us see, I followed suit
[unclear] down there.

Started
a few more relationships.

That's when I met Cheryl--
I mean...

Renee.

Yeah, when people go to prison,

they have nothing
but time on their hands,

and it sounds like
he's used that time to

continue to wreak havoc
in multiple people's lives.

[reflective music]

[Stella] He says,
"A lot of people believe

'an eye for an eye',"

he says, "How do you
feel about it, Mom?"

And I says, "Well,

that's what
it says in the Bible,

I guess, I've never read it.

But I don't know,
some people believe in it,

and I keep thinking, you--

you had to pay
for your mistakes."

[Peggy] When Mike
first went to prison,

he was very, very angry,

and he was very suicidal,
and he was very depressed.

[Stella] Well, at the beginning,
it was kind of hard on him,

I mean, he'd been incarcerated
before, many times.

But like he says,
"This is a big boy thing,"

this is not a

young punk, type thing,

this is... this is a big thing.

[Stella] I think finally
he just settled down

into the fact that
this is where he was.

This was his life,

and he got older, and matured.

Like he told me, he says,

"If I knew then what I know now,

and how many people
care about me

and what I could
have done with my life,"

he says,
"I've wasted my whole life

just being bitter and angry."

[music continues]

[Peggy] Michael talked about,

after the crime,

that he felt

that Gordon had come to him,

that he dreamed him regularly,
all of the time.

[Stella] He says,
"Like I could almost smell him,

it's like he died in my cell."

He says it was hard,

so he lost a lot of weight

because he just couldn't sleep.

[reflective music]

[Peggy] They work out a lot
at the prison,

and he had rigged up
his own weights,

milk cartons full of water,
and weights on them,

to pump iron, and ironically,

it was on the anniversary

of the date of his crime.

He says he heard a pop,

and the other guys around him

heard the pop
sound like a gunshot.

One of the elastics
snapped on his weights

and came back
and hit him in the eye

and ruptured his eye
and he lost his eyeball.

[Stella] He says,
"I should have been dead."

He says, "If that had gotten
just a little fraction

of an inch or whatever,"

he says "it would had
probably blown my brains out."

He says, "But there was
a reason why it didn't."

[Stella] He said
it was just so strange

that it was on that day.

He almost felt like

it released some kind of
almost, some guilt with him.

[Burns] Michael
Anthony Archuleta

has not been executed.

And, uh...

that's a tragedy, and
it's a failing of our system.

[Whatcott] I don't
know if they'll ever

execute Archuleta or not.

You know, he's been there for

thirty years, almost,
now, and...

still fighting it,
which is ridiculous.

[Merrill] Good morning again,
Mr. Chief Justice,

Associate Chief Justice,
members of the court.

May it please the court,
my name is Charlotte Merrill.

Again, I represent
Michael Anthony Archuleta.

So there are a lot of things
that came to light.

The sexual abuse, you know,
when he was at State Hospital.

Of course,
none of this was known

at the time of
his original trial.

Mr. Archuleta was entitled
to the effective assistance

of post-conviction counsel

in his initial
post-conviction proceedings.

But his counsel was conflicted,

under-qualified,
and under-funded,

and missed serious red flags,

that he was
intellectually disabled,

and, thus,

ineligible for execution.

He went through all of his state
appeals,

they finally finished,
I think, about five years ago.

And then
the federal appeals started.

And I don't understand why

all those appeals weren't
taking place at the same time.

I don't understand that.

You know, a wrongly-imprisoned

criminal defendant
who has claims,

has every incentive
to bring those claims early,

and to pursue them aggressively.

It's the opposite if you have
a guilty person on death row.

That person

has every incentive to wait
until the last possible minute

to bring claims to gum up
the works of litigation.

And all we're appealing now is,

little, teeny,
micro-technicalities,

and that's what's
drawing this whole thing out,

and keeping him alive.

I mean, they filed
their federal petition in 2012.

We're standing here in 2018,

and really nothing's
happened in the federal case,

because we've been
litigating these the whole time.

And that's already
a victory for their client.

Sitting on death row,
while intellectually disabled,

is not a victory.

Knowing the horrific situation
with Mr. Archuleta,

I don't know why we're paying
for all of his medical bills,

and all of the things
to keep him alive.

I think that,

realistically, the state of Utah
needs to carry out

what it's intended to do.

[Peggy] He's been
given execution dates,

that have come and gone,
but you never know when,

when it's not, you know?

So we've geared ourselves up,

and then it doesn't happen,

and then we geared ourselves up,

for many, many years.

We as prosecutors concentrate

on the victims,
and the victims' families.

And for them to wait

five years, and then a decade,
and then two decades...

It takes its toll

on the families.

[Peggy] The day may come,

and we've always known that,

but,

that's the one thing
I don't want

my Mom and Dad
to have to go through is,

his execution.

[music fades]

[reflective piano music]

[Jesse] The end of every story,

the one that
gets to tell the story

is usually the victor,

and in any case right now,

it seems like the only victor

is still the murderers,

so it almost feels like
they're the only ones that are

getting their stories told
and their intimate details,

not this amazing man
that they...

that they ended his life.

[reflective music continues]

[Burns] But I think
the Gordon Ray Church story

will help,

because we can look back
thirty years and say,

My God, I cannot believe
that happened in southern Utah.

[Perry] I think
the Gordon Church case

is one of those cases

that kind of shocked
the people's conscience,

and probably
moved us forward and said,

it's time for a change.

And I think SB103 is gonna
go down in history

as one of the defining
moments in Utah's history,

as far as making
the right decisions

and doing the right things.

You had me at SB103.

[Perry laughs]

Thank you
very much for your work.

I know this hasn't been easy,

but I'm very supportive.

[Anderson] After a long fight,
on April second of this year,

SB103 was finally
passed into law,

and we have hate crimes
legislation in Utah now.

[Perry] It was shocking,
the fact that we got

a veto-proof margin
in the House of Representatives,

to support this,

which tells me
that Utah has realized

that the time had come
to have a law that works.

And I think it may save lives.

I do believe that by having
a law like this on the books

is gonna send a message
to people that

we're a civil society
and a civil state,

and people can't get away with
these kind of crimes in Utah.

[Stella - voice breaking]
You have to love your kids,

no matter what.

You can't just love them
when they're good.

You have to love them
when they're bad, too.

That's all
there is to it, I mean,

that's how it is.

[melancholic music]

I think I've learned
from my parents

about unconditional love.

Never have they
quit loving Michael.

Never has my mom,

never have we denied him,

never have we
quit caring about him.

Never have we not

considered him
a part of our family.

And so if anything,

I have learned that
from my parents,

that if you really love someone,
you love someone.

[music fades]

[relaxing music]

[Burns] I would hope that

from this case,

people would be
more understanding

of their own children,

of their neighbors.

We're all different.

And because someone is black,

or bald, or short

or has a speech impediment,

or is gay,

is not license to treat them
with anything but

respect and love.

[Jesse] Gordon
should be remembered,

because of all the young kids
that are in this world right now

that are dealing with being gay,

and not have had the opportunity
to tell their parents.

That's a good thing,
because it allows people

to be who they are,

and not have to
hide in the shadows.

[Anderson] If you could
say anything to Gordon now,

what would you say?

[bitter-sweet music]

I just I don't have any words.
I--

I don't know,
just how sorry I am, and...

how the hell I wish somebody had

been able to
protect him at the time.

[Dekker] How'd we do?

Did we get it right?

Did we get it right for you,

did we represent you
as well as we could?

[Masner] Everyone who's
been involved in this case,

we did our very best,

I know he's in a better place.
Enjoy.

[Loy] I would...

He's so tiny, I'd pick him up.

[laughs]

And give him a nice big squeeze.

[Stella crying] He didn't
deserve to die.

I've got a gay grandson,

and I mean, I wouldn't
want anyone to do that to him

for that reason.

[Peggy] It just
breaks my heart that

somebody I know and love

has been involved in hurting
someone so much,

and wish I could change it,
and I just can't.

I'm so sorry.

Oh, so sorry.

[sobs]

[Jesse] I'd really like
the image of you being hurt,

to go away,
I don't want you to hurt.

I'd want you to go back
to that same moment,

from where we're
looking out the window,

and you see the stars so clear.

I just want to hold
each other and, you know?

One of the biggest things
anybody wants to hear

is that things are
just gonna be okay.

And when I hear that voice,
it's ever so soft in my head,

and I know a lot of times,

he's one of the voices
that says, it's gonna be okay.

And,

I would want to tell him
it's gonna be okay.

[music continues]

[music ends]

[ending music]

[music fades]