The Innocent Man (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript
Man 1: I've been down
and read this case file.
Every interview,
everything that's in that file.
Where you live...
Man 2: I know it.
That's what gets me, man.
Man 1: You know?
Not a lot of very good suspects in there.
I know it.
Man 3: This girl passed
on the street and he said, "I'd like...
I'd like to rape her and kill her."
He had the knife in his hand like this.
And he was stabbing.
- Man 1: Hard?
- Yes.
- Man 1: How hard? Show me how hard.
- Enough to get the full blade in.
Man 1:
Did she beg y'all not to hurt her or...?
She goes, "Tommy, I didn't think
you'd ever do anything like this."
We had it all planned out, you know...
Man 1: What were you planning on doing
with her after you got her?
Raping her.
- Man 1: Raping her and then killing her?
- Yes.
[laughing]
I knew I wouldn't have done it
if I wasn't drunk.
'Cause I thought it was just a dream.
[country music playing]
♪ I left alone ♪
♪ My mind was blank ♪
♪ What did I see ♪
♪ Could I believe? ♪
♪ That what I saw that night was real
And not just fantasy! ♪
♪ Just what I saw ♪
♪ In my own dreams ♪
♪ Were the reflections of my warped mind
Starring back at me ♪
♪ Six ♪
♪ Six, six ♪
♪ The Number of the Beast ♪
♪ Hell and fire ♪
♪ Just want to be released! ♪
[birds tweeting]
[Pastor] What do you say there, young man?
- [man] Good. How you doing?
- I'm here.
- [man] Yup, me, too.
- I'm... [chuckles]
[Pastor] I'm just so happy.
Well, if I was any happier,
I'd be triplets.
- How about you?
- [man] Yeah.
Okay.
Two hundred and fifty-four.
[church organ playing]
[Pastor] Here we go.
♪ What a fellowship, ♪
♪ What a joy divine ♪
♪ Leaning on the everlasting arms... ♪
[Judge] Well, I tell people Ada's halfway
between Dallas and Oklahoma City
and a little bit east.
The smith plant located out there,
in the southwest part of town,
it's probably been there since 1906.
♪...Leaning, leaning ♪
♪ Safe and secure from all alarms ♪
♪ Leaning, leaning... ♪
Ada's not a bad town, uh,
you know, I grew up in towns like Ada.
Everybody goes to the high school football
game on Friday night and, you know,
the businessmen go to the Rotary Club,
and people hang out in the coffee shops
for breakfast, and, um...
You know, it's a close-knit community.
♪...Oh, how bright the path
Grows from day to day ♪
♪ Leaning on the everlasting arms... ♪
One of the things that people notice is
that when they come here,
we just about have a church
on every corner.
Lutheran, Methodist, lots of Baptist.
♪ Leaning, leaning... ♪
[Cristy] This area of the state
is really known for pecans.
We have a lot of pecan groves around here.
You know, some pretty views
and things like that.
[church song continues]
And then, sadly,
some, you know,
a couple of pretty notorious murders
that happened here.
[church song continues]
♪ Amen. ♪
[tsks] I've written 40 books.
And this was halfway through my career.
Innocent Man was book number 20 I think.
And it was my only, um...
foray in the nonfiction.
I'd never researched a novel
to that extent before.
If I wrote the...
The Innocent Man as a...
novel,
fiction,
folks probably wouldn't believe it.
[violin playing sadly]
[ignites car engine]
[knocking on door]
[door opens and creaks]
[Debbie gasps and grunts]
[thumping and grunting]
[woman] We're going to the storage unit,
uh... to see the exhibits
that are kept in storage.
My storage.
Any exhibit
that's been admitted into evidence
is kept by the court reporter.
So I still have all the exhibits.
This is "hair found under body."
This was under Debbie Carter's body
in her apartment.
And it's sealed.
It has not been opened.
These are the hair slides,
and you can see that they're labeled.
Um...
This is her western belt,
which has her name.
I don't know if you can see that or not.
It has "Debbie."
This is the electric blanket, um, cord.
[sighs]
[man] What was the significance of that?
Might be what they strangled her with,
or he strangled her with.
I'll turn it this way,
so that you can see it.
I don't really want
to pull that out of there.
I mean, for me to touch it.
I don't really want to.
- [woman] What is it?
- It's the ketchup bottle, um...
that was...
used on her.
Um...
I... A torture tool or a murder weapon.
I don't know what
you would have labeled it.
But the, um, ketchup bottle...
I mean, the lid, the ketchup bottle lid
was found inside of her body.
So he did stuff with this.
These are letters
from Debbie's family members.
This one is from Peggy Carter,
which is her mother.
It says, "The first thing I want people
to know about Debbie
is I loved her so much.
We were very close
and did a lot of things together.
We did friends things together.
She was not only my daughter,
but my friend.
She was a picky person. Feisty.
Full of energy and life.
She loved life.
She was very outgoing, a people person.
Almost always had a smile on her face
and very modest.
She was a quiet person.
She was a good girl with a lot of morals.
I've never heard anybody
who didn't like Debbie."
[woman] So...
this is where Debbie's apartment was.
She moved here on October the 8th,
and she was murdered on December the 8th.
So she lived here exactly two months.
[sighs]
It's heartbreaking to think that's...
that she died right in that room.
I have specific memories about Debbie.
I did go to her apartment
a couple of times.
There were still stuffed animals
on the bed.
I mean, it looked like
just a bigger version of,
you know, a teenager's room.
I was just so amazed by that.
Debbie was very independent.
She wanted to do her own thing,
and, you know, have things on her terms.
When she, um...
graduated high school, she moved out.
She had her own apartment.
She wanted to have her...
[stammers] a job, a career.
She wanted to be on her own,
make her own money.
She was employed at the Coachlight.
You might refer to it
as a boot scootin' bar.
There was lots of dancing and bands
and that sort of thing.
[Christy] One other memory that I have was
that we were sitting on the couch
and I was driving her crazy
about pulling me around the block
on my skates.
And, I guess I finally wore her down,
and she pulled me
around the entire block twice
on my skates before she went to work.
So, I guess I wore her down quite a bit.
[chuckles]
When Debbie was murdered,
she was actually...
lived a couple of blocks from my house,
where my mom and I lived.
So it was really a trying time for, not...
you know, not just my family,
but for the whole town
'cause nothing like that
had happened here before.
When Debbie was killed,
it really changed the dynamics
of our family.
Debbie's dad's name was Charlie
and my Aunt Peggy, we call her Peppy.
I'm Peggy Sue Carter
and I'm Debbie Carter's mother.
[Christy] Peppy likes to say
that she's the reason
that we're all here in Ada.
Because Peppy had come over here
when she married Charlie.
And everybody kind of followed.
[Peppy] Since '59...
I married her daddy in '59.
I had her oldest sister in, uh, '60.
A year later, I had Debbie, in '61.
Then I had my third daughter, in '63.
I got the three daughters.
See, I'd had this...
bad, weird feeling,
and I told Debbie about it.
She said, "Mama, you're so silly.
Don't be like that."
But I did.
I remember that feeling, it was awful.
That morning,
I know I was changing the sheets
on my bed.
And right after I talked to my sister...
I started... Went back in the bedroom
and started to put the sheet on
and the phone rung again.
[phone ringing]
[Peppy] So I picked it up. "Hello?"
And it's not my little sister.
It's Debbie's friend.
And she saw Debbie's car at home.
And she said,
as she started up the stairs,
she heard this loud...
music.
And then she said,
when she got to the porch,
"There's all this glass."
[Christy] Debbie's friend had found her...
and called my aunt.
She was very panicked
and told Peppy that,
you know, Debbie was laying
on the floor and that,
you know, there was blood.
So Peppy runs out, and... [sighs]
...her car won't start.
Probably by the grace of God.
[Peppy] I call Christy's mother, Glenna.
- There's no answer.
- [phone ringing]
I call Debbie's phone,
there's no answer.
I'm going crazy.
I don't know what to do.
I'm in there, in my dining room,
talking to Debbie,
talking to that picture.
"Honey, you're going to be okay.
Mom will be there
just as soon as I can get there."
I started walking up the hill there.
Well, I seen my best friend's car.
She had my sister in there.
Glenna, Christy's mother.
[Glenna] I remember,
she saw me sitting in a car...
And...
I never said a word, she just knew.
[Peppy]I don't know what happened to me.
I just... I couldn't help it.
I'm a-balling and a-squalling,
and just having a fit.
I guess, when I did believe it,
that night about 7:30.
This detective come by that...
I know he leaned down
and he kept patting me on my knee.
And he kept saying,
"Peggy, it happened.
It happened to Debbie."
And I just sit there and cry.
I just sit in that chair and cry.
I don't know what to do.
My girl... My daughter's gone.
I just kept looking at him
and he kept telling me,
"Peggy, it happened,
and it happened to Debbie.
It happened to you and Debbie."
[metallic drawers clanking]
[Dan] I first heard about this case
from a lawyer friend of mine in 2000.
And, uh, almost immediately,
we were surprised
at the way this case was handled.
Ada Police, Dennis Smith, was one
of the first investigators on the scene.
They had a, uh...
patrolman answer
and he called in Dennis Smith.
[Judge Landrith]
Uh, Dennis Smith was the...
senior detective
for the Ada Police Department.
His reputation,
as far as being a good officer,
was impeccable.
But he was normally
in charge of whatever...
big case was happening.
[Dan] Most people seemed to like him.
He was a pretty friendly guy.
And, as a matter of fact,
his daughter went to school
with Debbie Carter and they were friends.
So, he had a personal connection there.
The crime scene was a total mess.
Debbie's body was lying naked
on the floor,
except she had a cord wrapped
around her neck.
She had "Duke Graham" written on her back
and "die" on her chest.
On the walls was written,
"Jim Smith next will die."
And on the kitchen table was written,
"Don't look fore us or ealse."
And "for" and "else"
were both misspelled.
There was a palm print on the wall.
And, before she was killed,
someone had raped Debbie Carter.
And evidently, it was like
Grand Central Station over there,
as far as police officers
or a crime scene.
[Dan] Jim Smith and Duke Graham,
both of them had alibis, and...
well, neither one of them gave
statements that, that fit anything.
And they just didn't have anything
on either one of them.
Dennis Smith came in and immediately saw
that he would need some help,
so he called the Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation.
To help him with the crime scene.
Gary Rogers, he was the OSBI agent,
which is Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation.
Gary had been a former, uh, police officer
in Shawnee.
He was a rancher.
And always wore a hat and boots,
and jeans, and belt with a coat and tie.
[Dan]Dennis and Gary basically
worked the crime scene.
They would funnel their reports
to Bill Peterson,
who was the prosecutor of the case.
I've known Bill Peterson for all my life.
He, uh, went to Ada High School.
Um, he went to University of Oklahoma.
He did go through
some prep schools back East.
His father was a doctor
and his mother was a,
a member of the Norris family.
I would say Bill was
more of a folksy-type DA,
where he would, uh, tell stories.
Which is a very effective way.
When picking a jury
is to be somewhat folksy and tell stories.
He could get angry.[sighs]
I think we all feel the pressure
to do what's right.
And I know,
since my nephew is a prosecutor,
they have that kind of police mentality.
They're prosecutors for a reason.
You're not going to make a lot of money
in your life being a prosecutor.
You like to put...
bad people in jail.
And protect your constituents.
I believe that.
Somebody took some time
to really stage that crime scene.
You know,
most people panic and they leave,
and they leave all kinds of stuff.
This...
Whoever did this was really thinking
about trying to create a diversion.
Dennis Smith had made a comment
that before he retired...
that he would...
solve Debbie's case.
When something like this happens to...
your family or to the town, you know,
it's the ripple effect.
I always like to say
that it's like a tsunami.
You know, you don't even recognize
that it was coming.
It just takes everything away.
[Dawn] That was a huge shock.
You think, "Who was it?
Somebody in this community?"
[Grisham] I'm sure it was, um...
you know, terrifying
in a small town like that.
And then, um...
two or three years later,
Denice Haraway disappeared.
["Sweet Dreams (Of You)" playing]
♪ Sweet dreams of you ♪
♪ Every night ♪
♪ I go through ♪
♪ Why can't I forget you ♪
♪ And start my life anew... ♪
[door bells jingle]
♪...Instead of having sweet dreams ♪
♪ About you ♪
♪ You don't love me ♪
♪ I'ts plain ♪
♪ Why can't I forget my past ♪
♪ Start loving someone new ♪
♪ Instead of having sweet dreams ♪
♪ About you ♪
[police siren wailing]
[woman] Denice worked at
the little Quick Stop out on Highway One.
We were very concerned
because Denice had disappeared,
and so the word spread quickly.
By the way, Denice worked
for me for, um, a semester.
Part of a semester.
A real, sweet little girl,
and she worked for me
when she was in school,
at East Central.
She was working as a work-study student.
Just as sweet as could be. Nice.
Just a pretty little girl, you know,
that was in college
and needed a job.
And I had an opening
for a work-study student
to be my secretary.
The town was in disbelief, you know,
at what had happened.
They would search out by Lawrence
and out southwest of town.
And there was all kinds
of strange stories going around
where they were looking.
Because, apparently,
there was no rhyme or reason.
I don't know what was happening.
I just know that there were many rumors
about where she might be.
[Dan] On April 28th, 1984,
at about 8:30 at night,
Denice Haraway was working in the, uh...
a little convenience store
on the east side of Ada, Oklahoma,
when Gene Whelchel and his two nephews
were getting ready to go to a card game.
And they stopped by the convenience store
to get some cigarettes and some change.
They saw a man and a woman walk out
and get into the passenger side
of a pickup and drive off.
[door bells jingle]
So we stopped at, uh...
McAnally's to get change
for the poker game.
And I waited in the pickup.
My nephew went inside, Lenny.
And he came back out in a little bit
and said there wasn't anybody in there.
We went in and kinda looked
the place over. Discovered that...
Figured that something was wrong.
So we called the police.
[Dan] Money was taken out of their drawer.
Whoever was there made a quick grab
for the money and obviously took the girl.
Gene: I know it was her
that left as we pulled up.
[Dan] They put an APB out for a faded,
light blue pickup truck
with a straight bed,
with gray primer spots on it.
And they, uh, stopped a number of people,
and developed information,
but they didn't find the girl
with any of that.
Then, later on that night,
they went to a store just down the street.
J.P.'s
And the, uh, clerk there,
her name is Karen Wise.
She then reported
that she saw a couple of people
that she felt were suspicious
and she was worried about.
They kind of scared her.
They went into her store
just a few hours earlier.
She is also the one
that gave a composite sketch
of the two guys that she thought
was in her store that night.
They showed it to Gene Whelchel
and he said that he thinks
that looks sort of
like the guy that they saw.
Pretty soon, they published that composite
that she had made in the Ada newspaper.
People started calling in.
"I know a guy that looks like this.
I know a guy."
And all these names started pouring in.
A guy by the name
of Billy Charley was identified.
Billy Charley had an alibi.
He was home with his parents that night.
And then they started getting
quite a few calls about Tommy Ward.
[clock ticking]
Man 1: Okay, Tommy,
I've got a few things I need to say first.
The date today is October 18th, 1984.
We're at the headquarters office
of the Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation located in Oklahoma City.
I'm Deputy Inspector Rusty Featherstone.
Present also in the room,
is Special Agent Gary Rogers of the OSBI.
Out of the Ada office.
Captain Dennis Smith
of the Ada Police Department,
Detective Division.
I know we've already talked about it
a little bit,
but what I'd like you to do at this point,
is just start on that afternoon,
and just in your own words,
at your own speed,
I want you to go step by step through
everything that happened
through the rest of that evening,
involving this girl.
- Okay?
- Okay.
Featherstone: Just go ahead and begin.
My name is Johnny Lee Daniels.
I've known Tommy Ward...
since we were childhood kids.
Boy, we did a whole lot of
running around on the back roads
and drinking back in the day
when we was young
and didn't have no sense.
He was just, um...
a pretty quiet person in general.
Can you tell me
what her blouse looked like,
that she was wearing?
It was...
It was...
white with little blue...
uh, roses on it.
White with blue roses.
[lady] At that point in time,
you're kinda seen the downfall.
I didn't know if I was going to see him
when he wasn't...
on some kind of drugs or alcohol.
He was a total different person.
[man]
Tommy had his run-in with the police.
They looked at Tommy as a ruffian.
A lower class person.
And the police didn't like him
for some reason.
I have no idea why.
Unless it was just those things, you know?
I mean, Tommy liked to drink.
I... I was at a...
keg party.
And I ran into a couple of guys.
Asked me if I wanted to go riding around
with them and go get high,
and drink some beer.
And I told 'em, "Sure."
My name is Robert Mayer.
I'm originally from New York City.
When I graduated from college
and journalism school,
I became a reporter.
I had...
no conception whatever,
if these guys were guilty or innocent.
I thought, "Well, I'll look into it
and see how far it goes."
And so that's how I got into the book
that later became The Dreams of Ada.
And the confession of,
"Was anybody else there?"
"Yeah, well, the ringleader,
the guy who's idea it was,
was Odell Titsworth."
[door bells ringing]
[Robert] And Odell Titsworth was
this Indian fellow
who uh, was known,
had a reputation among the cops
as a bad dude.
Titsworth, he grabbed money
out of the register,
and we went out to the pickup.
Featherstone: Where did you go from there?
Out to the power plant.
Featherstone:
What did he say he was gonna do with her?
He told me that he was going to kill her.
Now, the other person
he had mentioned was...
Carl Fontenot.
Featherstone: What was the purpose
of taking her with you?
From the store?
To keep from her...
coming to y'all and letting y'all know.
I mean, was that the plan, though,
whenever you went there?
- Yes.
- Okay.
We had it all planned out, you know, to...
What were you planning on doing
with her after you got her?
- Raping her.
- Raping her and
- then killing her and getting rid of her?
- Yes.
Okay.
[Johnny] Karl Fontenot
I've known Karl Fontenot
since we were little kids.
Karl...
was a little slow
when it come to his thinking.
As we was going to McAnally's,
we stopped there at the apartments,
and decided to smoke some pot
and get high and everything.
We drank some.
[door bells jingle]
[bell dings]
Then when we got...
We planned it out before we got there.
And then, when we got there...
Odell...
set it up for us and everything.
He took her out of the store.
Brought her to the truck.
Featherstone: Where were y'all at? Karl?
Right there by the gas pumps.
[Johnny] He was just someone
that pretty much stayed to hisself,
even though he was not a violent guy
or anything like that.
He just pretty much stayed to hisself,
and then...
when his mom got killed,
I believe he seen his mom get killed,
he... he just kinda really
stayed more to hisself.
He, uh...
He had pretty much no ambition to work,
or really do anything.
[Robert] Karl's father used to beat Karl
when he was a little boy,
and they had dogs and cats and sheep
and whatever else you can think of
out there in that little yard.
And Karl's father...
would...
have sex with animals...
in front of Karl.
- Featherstone: Was she scared?
- She was scared.
- Featherstone: What was she saying?
- She was hollering for help.
And then there was nobody around
for to help.
[man]
I didn't know anything about Karl Fontenot
until I received a call
from, um, District Judge Ron Jones...
um...
asking if I would accept
a court appointment
to represent Mr. Fontenot.
And I thought he was competent
in, in all respects.
The real problem with that
was the confession tapes.
They were in bold color...
and, and, and basically were...
just came across really somewhat...
cold-blooded, matter-of-factly,
emotionless...
Featherstone: So...
Odell Titsworth crawled up inside
the pickup.
Fontenot: Yes.
Did he have something in his hand?
- Had his knife.
- Featherstone: Was it open?
Yes, it was open.
And he... he was attempting to stab her.
- And...
- Featherstone: Did you see him stab her?
- He was stabbing her.
- Featherstone: How did he do it?
- He had the knife in his hand, like this.
- All right.
And he was... stabbing.
- Featherstone: Hard?
- Yes.
How hard?
- Show me how hard.
- Enough to get the full blade in.
Like that.
Featherstone: Where was the first place
that she was cut with the knife?
In her side. Right here in the side,
that's where Titsworth cut her.
When he started to rape her, he goes,
"If you don't cooperate with me
and everything,"
he says, "I'll cut you deeper."
After that, me and Odell stood there
and holded her while Tommy raped her.
Okay.
She had tremendous cuts all over her body,
all in her sides and on her legs.
- Featherstone: Were they deep cuts?
- And on the side of her neck.
Yeah, the ones in her stomach was.
- How could you tell they were deep cuts?
- I could see her ribs and her insides.
Featherstone: Was she saying anything?
She was hollering for help
and telling us to stop.
Featherstone: Do you believe that she died
due to any other reason,
other than the stab wounds?
No, that's what she died of,
the stab wounds.
Featherstone: How many times did you cut
her with the knife, Tommy?
Twice. Once upon her side
and once down her arm.
Featherstone: What do you mean,
you had her "under control"?
Well, she was more or less giving up.
Okay.
At the end.
Featherstone:
Try and beg y'all not to hurt her or...?
She goes, "Tommy, I didn't think
you'd ever do anything like this."
[Johnny]I'd been in and out enough,
couple of times,
that I was in that bullpen with Karl.
He sat next to me
in that jailhouse and said... [sighs]
"I'm glad they're locking me up
because I don't have to worry
about a place to sleep
or where I'm going to get my next meal."
And that's exactly what he said.
Featherstone: Karl?
During the period of time
that we've interviewed you, today...
Once again, I'd like to ask you,
have we threatened you or...
- No.
- ...promised you anything?
You're making this of your own free will,
this statement?
It was of my own free will
to get this recorded.
Have you been allowed to smoke, drink,
- drink Cokes...
- Yes.
...anything that you wanted?
Yes, I was served
right during the meeting.
Once again, Tommy, I want to reiterate,
you're giving this statement
of your own free will?
Yes, sir.
Is there anything else that you'd like
to add, to this tape recording,
prior to us shutting it off?
I knew, if...
I knew I wouldn't have done it
if I wasn't drunk,
'cause I thought it was just a dream.
So immediately, and this was in...
And this was like...
around midnight,
or whenever they were questioned.
So, then they tell them,
"You're under arrest
for kidnapping, rape, and murder."
And then they called the headquarters
in Ada.
They sent cops to Odell Titsworth's house.
They knew him from various...
run-ins with the law.
[police radio speaking]
[Robert] They get to Odell Titsworth's
house and he's there with his mother
and they accuse him.
Anyway, the mother says,
"Odell couldn't have done that.
He was home with a broken arm
that the police broke two nights before."
So the cops are thinking, "That the police
broke? What are you talking about?"
[police siren wails]
[Robert]So that's what their description
of what Odell was doing
the night of the crime.
Well, that's easy enough to prove.
And so the police officers,
they go down to the hospital,
and they keep records.
And sure enough, on that date,
Odell Titsworth had been treated
and he had a broken arm,
the humerus, which is up here.
And was told that he's even going
to have to sleep in a chair
for like a month or so.
So the mother and Odell were not lying.
There was proof,
in the police department itself,
that he was in no condition
that night to lift bodies over fences
and so forth.
Now they've got a problem.
It's on the confession tape.
It's a big thing, a part of the tape,
like, Odell was the leader,
that he was at home
with a broken arm that night.
[woman] I was actually still in school,
but I was a radio newscaster at the time.
And we had the only radio news team
in the city, at the time.
And so we covered all of the trials
and any of the big news going on there.
I know that there were
several unsolved murders
of women at the time.
The Deborah Carter case was unsolved.
And, um, there was
a lot of public pressure being put
on the police department,
the District Attorney's office
to make sure that these were solved.
Dennis Smith told me one time,
and actually it was Labor Day.
Uh, we were sitting right in front
of the courthouse and Dennis told me
that, uh, he asked his wife,
"What do you want to do today?"
They both had the day off.
And she said...
"Let's...
Let's go look for Denice Haraway's body."
And this was, again, three months later.
That's how this town was, was gripped
by this thing.
The authorities
never found Denice Haraway's body
in the Ward and Fontenot case.
[Robert] I always thought...
that for a murder charge
you had to have the body.
And Bill Peterson explained to me,
and of course he was dead on right,
that corpus delicti means
"the body of the crime."
If that was not the law,
then anybody who was good at hiding a body
could get away with murder.
And that's why you don't...
they don't have to produce the body,
just evidence that a crime was committed.
But it doesn't have to be the body.
[Judge] The prosecution has to prove
that nobody's seen her here.
Nobody's seen her at church.
Nobody saw her at school.
Nobody saw her at home, etc.
It is very rare.
I only know of maybe
three cases where that's been done.
[Robert]
The date for the trial had been set.
So they were tried for robbery,
kidnapping, and murder.
The atmosphere was tense.
Some members of the Haraway family sat in.
Some members of Tommy Ward's family sat in
on the trial.
I was waiting for Denice Haraway
to walk back through the door.
- Yeah.
- I honestly was.
At the trial, just walk in.
- I honestly was.
- But never happened.
Never happened.
Both Don Wyatt,
who represented Tommy Ward, and I...
uh...
knew that we were facing uphill battles
because there was no body.
[Dan] Bill Peterson was
the main prosecutor. He had...
Chris Ross was helping with his case.
Chris was a very effective attorney.
Very smart. Could think on his feet.
[Robert] The prosecution,
as is normal in such cases, went first.
And Bill Peterson has a mindset
of presenting a story.
So he started
with the fellow who came and found...
you know, who saw the couple walking out
and thought they were lovers,
and then went in and found
that she was missing.
Like I said, I saw her periodically.
I didn't recognize her when she came out.
But after I got in the store
and nobody was there, I said,
"That girl that just left
is the girl that works here."
I told my nephews that.
No, I know.
There's no doubt in my mind
that she was taken.
As we arrived.
[Robert] They called Karen Wise.
The girl who worked up the road
at J.P.'s Pack-To-Go.
[Robert] And asked
if those were the two people
who were messing around in her store.
And she said, "Without a doubt."
She testified
that one of them was Tommy Ward.
There's a, uh, woman that testified,
called by the prosecutors,
that she had been
in the jail for several weeks
at the same time
that Tommy and Karl were there,
before the trial.
And she testified
that she overheard Karl confessing
to the crime,
how they had killed the girl.
"Question: 'Would you tell this jury
what he said?'
Answer:
'He said that Odell raped her first
and then it was Tommy's turn.
He bit her on the breast
and cut her down the arm.
And Odell killed her,
stabbed her to death and killed her.
And then Karl raped her.'
Question: 'When he told you this statement
Terri, what was your reaction to that?'
Answer: 'He scared me.'"
And then, for the denouement,
the final piece of testimony, of evidence,
they played the confession.
Featherstone: You said earlier
that you noticed, when you came back up,
a large amount of blood.
Where all was she bleeding from?
Mostly in her side.
Where the deep cut was.
- Featherstone: And where else?
- In the side of her neck, right here.
[Butner] There was only one leader
of this two-person church,
and that was Tommy.
I think that Karl's relationship
with Tommy was that
if Tommy Ward had anything
to do with that crime,
Karl would have been there
handing him what he needed.
- Featherstone: Was she conscious then?
- No. She wasn't very lively at all.
- How come?
- Because we'd all three raped her.
I knew that she was dead
because she was white.
We had to get rid of her and all,
and he asked me a good place
to get rid of her.
And I told him about a house,
and about this ditch down by the...
Sandy River.
And then he put her off
in the rotten place in the floor.
- Where was that?
- Over where the floor was missing.
[Robert] Once the tapes were played,
uh, the audience was...
the spectators in the room...
they were horrified.
And once people saw that...
these people were guilty.
How can anybody even say
they did things like that?
- Featherstone: You poured gasoline on her?
- Yes.
And then what? What did you do
after you poured the gas on her?
We lit the house.
We lit the gas
and burnt the house and her.
[Dawn] That was the first murder trial
that I had done
and it lasted two and a half weeks.
And, um...
I went home at the end
of it every day and cried.
[Dawn]Every day, hearing bad things...
and so much of it.
And I believed, I believed the evidence.
I think in these particular cases,
Mr. Peterson and Mr. Ross
were the prosecutors.
It's like they're telling a story
and a story unfolding, and, um...
for sure, Mr. Ross is a very good...
very good at his job.
[Robert]When Chris Ross began
his closing arguments,
he used psychiatry
as a way of explaining...
for where the third person came from
in the, uh, confession tapes.
[Robert]
"I submit, ladies and gentlemen...
everything Mr. Ward did in his confession,
things he did in reality,
he blamed on Odell Titsworth.
You'll notice that Odell and Tommy Ward
never did one single,
significant thing together.
I submit, ladies and gentlemen,
everything Mr. Ward did
in his confession.
He sees himself doing it
and then he says that Odell did it.
And this is confusing, but ladies
and gentlemen, when he's doing this,
and he recounts what happened,
and he sees it in his mind.
He sees himself doing something...
that he tells himself he would never do.
He says Odell did that.
I submit to you,
Odell Titsworth was Tommy Ward
and he raped her first,
and then Karl raped her.
And one of these two men
killed Denice Haraway.
One of these two men stabbed her to death.
I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen,
that man was Tommy Ward."
[Butner] Chris took the confessions
and wove a closing argument
and presented it,
and the jury bought it.
And that's what I think was the final nail
in that coffin of conviction.
The judge goes down all the jurors' votes.
And it was 12 to nothing on all counts.
Featherstone:
Are you confused about any of this today
or do you understand what's going on?
- Yes, I understand what's going on.
- Okay.
You understand
how serious this investigation is?
- Yes, I do.
- Okay.
We'll end the tape at this time.
I've got 7:29 p.m.
And we'll conclude the tape now.
Still present in the room...
Deputy Inspector Rusty Featherstone,
Special Agent Gary Rogers,
Captain Dennis Smith,
and Agent Dee Cordray,
as well as Tommy Ward.
["Lord Hold My Hand
While I Run This Race" playing]
♪ Oh, Lord, hold my hand ♪
♪ While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, hold my hand ♪
♪ While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, hold my hand ♪
♪ While I run this race ♪
♪ Well, I don't wanna ♪
♪ No, no, don't you lie... ♪
[song humming continues]
My name is Thomas Ward.
I've been in prison for the last 33 years
for a crime I did not commit.
♪ Oh, Lord, guide my mind
While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, guide my mind
While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, guide my mind
While I run this race ♪
♪ Well, and I don't wanna ♪
♪ No, no, don't you lie... ♪
[song humming continues]
and read this case file.
Every interview,
everything that's in that file.
Where you live...
Man 2: I know it.
That's what gets me, man.
Man 1: You know?
Not a lot of very good suspects in there.
I know it.
Man 3: This girl passed
on the street and he said, "I'd like...
I'd like to rape her and kill her."
He had the knife in his hand like this.
And he was stabbing.
- Man 1: Hard?
- Yes.
- Man 1: How hard? Show me how hard.
- Enough to get the full blade in.
Man 1:
Did she beg y'all not to hurt her or...?
She goes, "Tommy, I didn't think
you'd ever do anything like this."
We had it all planned out, you know...
Man 1: What were you planning on doing
with her after you got her?
Raping her.
- Man 1: Raping her and then killing her?
- Yes.
[laughing]
I knew I wouldn't have done it
if I wasn't drunk.
'Cause I thought it was just a dream.
[country music playing]
♪ I left alone ♪
♪ My mind was blank ♪
♪ What did I see ♪
♪ Could I believe? ♪
♪ That what I saw that night was real
And not just fantasy! ♪
♪ Just what I saw ♪
♪ In my own dreams ♪
♪ Were the reflections of my warped mind
Starring back at me ♪
♪ Six ♪
♪ Six, six ♪
♪ The Number of the Beast ♪
♪ Hell and fire ♪
♪ Just want to be released! ♪
[birds tweeting]
[Pastor] What do you say there, young man?
- [man] Good. How you doing?
- I'm here.
- [man] Yup, me, too.
- I'm... [chuckles]
[Pastor] I'm just so happy.
Well, if I was any happier,
I'd be triplets.
- How about you?
- [man] Yeah.
Okay.
Two hundred and fifty-four.
[church organ playing]
[Pastor] Here we go.
♪ What a fellowship, ♪
♪ What a joy divine ♪
♪ Leaning on the everlasting arms... ♪
[Judge] Well, I tell people Ada's halfway
between Dallas and Oklahoma City
and a little bit east.
The smith plant located out there,
in the southwest part of town,
it's probably been there since 1906.
♪...Leaning, leaning ♪
♪ Safe and secure from all alarms ♪
♪ Leaning, leaning... ♪
Ada's not a bad town, uh,
you know, I grew up in towns like Ada.
Everybody goes to the high school football
game on Friday night and, you know,
the businessmen go to the Rotary Club,
and people hang out in the coffee shops
for breakfast, and, um...
You know, it's a close-knit community.
♪...Oh, how bright the path
Grows from day to day ♪
♪ Leaning on the everlasting arms... ♪
One of the things that people notice is
that when they come here,
we just about have a church
on every corner.
Lutheran, Methodist, lots of Baptist.
♪ Leaning, leaning... ♪
[Cristy] This area of the state
is really known for pecans.
We have a lot of pecan groves around here.
You know, some pretty views
and things like that.
[church song continues]
And then, sadly,
some, you know,
a couple of pretty notorious murders
that happened here.
[church song continues]
♪ Amen. ♪
[tsks] I've written 40 books.
And this was halfway through my career.
Innocent Man was book number 20 I think.
And it was my only, um...
foray in the nonfiction.
I'd never researched a novel
to that extent before.
If I wrote the...
The Innocent Man as a...
novel,
fiction,
folks probably wouldn't believe it.
[violin playing sadly]
[ignites car engine]
[knocking on door]
[door opens and creaks]
[Debbie gasps and grunts]
[thumping and grunting]
[woman] We're going to the storage unit,
uh... to see the exhibits
that are kept in storage.
My storage.
Any exhibit
that's been admitted into evidence
is kept by the court reporter.
So I still have all the exhibits.
This is "hair found under body."
This was under Debbie Carter's body
in her apartment.
And it's sealed.
It has not been opened.
These are the hair slides,
and you can see that they're labeled.
Um...
This is her western belt,
which has her name.
I don't know if you can see that or not.
It has "Debbie."
This is the electric blanket, um, cord.
[sighs]
[man] What was the significance of that?
Might be what they strangled her with,
or he strangled her with.
I'll turn it this way,
so that you can see it.
I don't really want
to pull that out of there.
I mean, for me to touch it.
I don't really want to.
- [woman] What is it?
- It's the ketchup bottle, um...
that was...
used on her.
Um...
I... A torture tool or a murder weapon.
I don't know what
you would have labeled it.
But the, um, ketchup bottle...
I mean, the lid, the ketchup bottle lid
was found inside of her body.
So he did stuff with this.
These are letters
from Debbie's family members.
This one is from Peggy Carter,
which is her mother.
It says, "The first thing I want people
to know about Debbie
is I loved her so much.
We were very close
and did a lot of things together.
We did friends things together.
She was not only my daughter,
but my friend.
She was a picky person. Feisty.
Full of energy and life.
She loved life.
She was very outgoing, a people person.
Almost always had a smile on her face
and very modest.
She was a quiet person.
She was a good girl with a lot of morals.
I've never heard anybody
who didn't like Debbie."
[woman] So...
this is where Debbie's apartment was.
She moved here on October the 8th,
and she was murdered on December the 8th.
So she lived here exactly two months.
[sighs]
It's heartbreaking to think that's...
that she died right in that room.
I have specific memories about Debbie.
I did go to her apartment
a couple of times.
There were still stuffed animals
on the bed.
I mean, it looked like
just a bigger version of,
you know, a teenager's room.
I was just so amazed by that.
Debbie was very independent.
She wanted to do her own thing,
and, you know, have things on her terms.
When she, um...
graduated high school, she moved out.
She had her own apartment.
She wanted to have her...
[stammers] a job, a career.
She wanted to be on her own,
make her own money.
She was employed at the Coachlight.
You might refer to it
as a boot scootin' bar.
There was lots of dancing and bands
and that sort of thing.
[Christy] One other memory that I have was
that we were sitting on the couch
and I was driving her crazy
about pulling me around the block
on my skates.
And, I guess I finally wore her down,
and she pulled me
around the entire block twice
on my skates before she went to work.
So, I guess I wore her down quite a bit.
[chuckles]
When Debbie was murdered,
she was actually...
lived a couple of blocks from my house,
where my mom and I lived.
So it was really a trying time for, not...
you know, not just my family,
but for the whole town
'cause nothing like that
had happened here before.
When Debbie was killed,
it really changed the dynamics
of our family.
Debbie's dad's name was Charlie
and my Aunt Peggy, we call her Peppy.
I'm Peggy Sue Carter
and I'm Debbie Carter's mother.
[Christy] Peppy likes to say
that she's the reason
that we're all here in Ada.
Because Peppy had come over here
when she married Charlie.
And everybody kind of followed.
[Peppy] Since '59...
I married her daddy in '59.
I had her oldest sister in, uh, '60.
A year later, I had Debbie, in '61.
Then I had my third daughter, in '63.
I got the three daughters.
See, I'd had this...
bad, weird feeling,
and I told Debbie about it.
She said, "Mama, you're so silly.
Don't be like that."
But I did.
I remember that feeling, it was awful.
That morning,
I know I was changing the sheets
on my bed.
And right after I talked to my sister...
I started... Went back in the bedroom
and started to put the sheet on
and the phone rung again.
[phone ringing]
[Peppy] So I picked it up. "Hello?"
And it's not my little sister.
It's Debbie's friend.
And she saw Debbie's car at home.
And she said,
as she started up the stairs,
she heard this loud...
music.
And then she said,
when she got to the porch,
"There's all this glass."
[Christy] Debbie's friend had found her...
and called my aunt.
She was very panicked
and told Peppy that,
you know, Debbie was laying
on the floor and that,
you know, there was blood.
So Peppy runs out, and... [sighs]
...her car won't start.
Probably by the grace of God.
[Peppy] I call Christy's mother, Glenna.
- There's no answer.
- [phone ringing]
I call Debbie's phone,
there's no answer.
I'm going crazy.
I don't know what to do.
I'm in there, in my dining room,
talking to Debbie,
talking to that picture.
"Honey, you're going to be okay.
Mom will be there
just as soon as I can get there."
I started walking up the hill there.
Well, I seen my best friend's car.
She had my sister in there.
Glenna, Christy's mother.
[Glenna] I remember,
she saw me sitting in a car...
And...
I never said a word, she just knew.
[Peppy]I don't know what happened to me.
I just... I couldn't help it.
I'm a-balling and a-squalling,
and just having a fit.
I guess, when I did believe it,
that night about 7:30.
This detective come by that...
I know he leaned down
and he kept patting me on my knee.
And he kept saying,
"Peggy, it happened.
It happened to Debbie."
And I just sit there and cry.
I just sit in that chair and cry.
I don't know what to do.
My girl... My daughter's gone.
I just kept looking at him
and he kept telling me,
"Peggy, it happened,
and it happened to Debbie.
It happened to you and Debbie."
[metallic drawers clanking]
[Dan] I first heard about this case
from a lawyer friend of mine in 2000.
And, uh, almost immediately,
we were surprised
at the way this case was handled.
Ada Police, Dennis Smith, was one
of the first investigators on the scene.
They had a, uh...
patrolman answer
and he called in Dennis Smith.
[Judge Landrith]
Uh, Dennis Smith was the...
senior detective
for the Ada Police Department.
His reputation,
as far as being a good officer,
was impeccable.
But he was normally
in charge of whatever...
big case was happening.
[Dan] Most people seemed to like him.
He was a pretty friendly guy.
And, as a matter of fact,
his daughter went to school
with Debbie Carter and they were friends.
So, he had a personal connection there.
The crime scene was a total mess.
Debbie's body was lying naked
on the floor,
except she had a cord wrapped
around her neck.
She had "Duke Graham" written on her back
and "die" on her chest.
On the walls was written,
"Jim Smith next will die."
And on the kitchen table was written,
"Don't look fore us or ealse."
And "for" and "else"
were both misspelled.
There was a palm print on the wall.
And, before she was killed,
someone had raped Debbie Carter.
And evidently, it was like
Grand Central Station over there,
as far as police officers
or a crime scene.
[Dan] Jim Smith and Duke Graham,
both of them had alibis, and...
well, neither one of them gave
statements that, that fit anything.
And they just didn't have anything
on either one of them.
Dennis Smith came in and immediately saw
that he would need some help,
so he called the Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation.
To help him with the crime scene.
Gary Rogers, he was the OSBI agent,
which is Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation.
Gary had been a former, uh, police officer
in Shawnee.
He was a rancher.
And always wore a hat and boots,
and jeans, and belt with a coat and tie.
[Dan]Dennis and Gary basically
worked the crime scene.
They would funnel their reports
to Bill Peterson,
who was the prosecutor of the case.
I've known Bill Peterson for all my life.
He, uh, went to Ada High School.
Um, he went to University of Oklahoma.
He did go through
some prep schools back East.
His father was a doctor
and his mother was a,
a member of the Norris family.
I would say Bill was
more of a folksy-type DA,
where he would, uh, tell stories.
Which is a very effective way.
When picking a jury
is to be somewhat folksy and tell stories.
He could get angry.[sighs]
I think we all feel the pressure
to do what's right.
And I know,
since my nephew is a prosecutor,
they have that kind of police mentality.
They're prosecutors for a reason.
You're not going to make a lot of money
in your life being a prosecutor.
You like to put...
bad people in jail.
And protect your constituents.
I believe that.
Somebody took some time
to really stage that crime scene.
You know,
most people panic and they leave,
and they leave all kinds of stuff.
This...
Whoever did this was really thinking
about trying to create a diversion.
Dennis Smith had made a comment
that before he retired...
that he would...
solve Debbie's case.
When something like this happens to...
your family or to the town, you know,
it's the ripple effect.
I always like to say
that it's like a tsunami.
You know, you don't even recognize
that it was coming.
It just takes everything away.
[Dawn] That was a huge shock.
You think, "Who was it?
Somebody in this community?"
[Grisham] I'm sure it was, um...
you know, terrifying
in a small town like that.
And then, um...
two or three years later,
Denice Haraway disappeared.
["Sweet Dreams (Of You)" playing]
♪ Sweet dreams of you ♪
♪ Every night ♪
♪ I go through ♪
♪ Why can't I forget you ♪
♪ And start my life anew... ♪
[door bells jingle]
♪...Instead of having sweet dreams ♪
♪ About you ♪
♪ You don't love me ♪
♪ I'ts plain ♪
♪ Why can't I forget my past ♪
♪ Start loving someone new ♪
♪ Instead of having sweet dreams ♪
♪ About you ♪
[police siren wailing]
[woman] Denice worked at
the little Quick Stop out on Highway One.
We were very concerned
because Denice had disappeared,
and so the word spread quickly.
By the way, Denice worked
for me for, um, a semester.
Part of a semester.
A real, sweet little girl,
and she worked for me
when she was in school,
at East Central.
She was working as a work-study student.
Just as sweet as could be. Nice.
Just a pretty little girl, you know,
that was in college
and needed a job.
And I had an opening
for a work-study student
to be my secretary.
The town was in disbelief, you know,
at what had happened.
They would search out by Lawrence
and out southwest of town.
And there was all kinds
of strange stories going around
where they were looking.
Because, apparently,
there was no rhyme or reason.
I don't know what was happening.
I just know that there were many rumors
about where she might be.
[Dan] On April 28th, 1984,
at about 8:30 at night,
Denice Haraway was working in the, uh...
a little convenience store
on the east side of Ada, Oklahoma,
when Gene Whelchel and his two nephews
were getting ready to go to a card game.
And they stopped by the convenience store
to get some cigarettes and some change.
They saw a man and a woman walk out
and get into the passenger side
of a pickup and drive off.
[door bells jingle]
So we stopped at, uh...
McAnally's to get change
for the poker game.
And I waited in the pickup.
My nephew went inside, Lenny.
And he came back out in a little bit
and said there wasn't anybody in there.
We went in and kinda looked
the place over. Discovered that...
Figured that something was wrong.
So we called the police.
[Dan] Money was taken out of their drawer.
Whoever was there made a quick grab
for the money and obviously took the girl.
Gene: I know it was her
that left as we pulled up.
[Dan] They put an APB out for a faded,
light blue pickup truck
with a straight bed,
with gray primer spots on it.
And they, uh, stopped a number of people,
and developed information,
but they didn't find the girl
with any of that.
Then, later on that night,
they went to a store just down the street.
J.P.'s
And the, uh, clerk there,
her name is Karen Wise.
She then reported
that she saw a couple of people
that she felt were suspicious
and she was worried about.
They kind of scared her.
They went into her store
just a few hours earlier.
She is also the one
that gave a composite sketch
of the two guys that she thought
was in her store that night.
They showed it to Gene Whelchel
and he said that he thinks
that looks sort of
like the guy that they saw.
Pretty soon, they published that composite
that she had made in the Ada newspaper.
People started calling in.
"I know a guy that looks like this.
I know a guy."
And all these names started pouring in.
A guy by the name
of Billy Charley was identified.
Billy Charley had an alibi.
He was home with his parents that night.
And then they started getting
quite a few calls about Tommy Ward.
[clock ticking]
Man 1: Okay, Tommy,
I've got a few things I need to say first.
The date today is October 18th, 1984.
We're at the headquarters office
of the Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation located in Oklahoma City.
I'm Deputy Inspector Rusty Featherstone.
Present also in the room,
is Special Agent Gary Rogers of the OSBI.
Out of the Ada office.
Captain Dennis Smith
of the Ada Police Department,
Detective Division.
I know we've already talked about it
a little bit,
but what I'd like you to do at this point,
is just start on that afternoon,
and just in your own words,
at your own speed,
I want you to go step by step through
everything that happened
through the rest of that evening,
involving this girl.
- Okay?
- Okay.
Featherstone: Just go ahead and begin.
My name is Johnny Lee Daniels.
I've known Tommy Ward...
since we were childhood kids.
Boy, we did a whole lot of
running around on the back roads
and drinking back in the day
when we was young
and didn't have no sense.
He was just, um...
a pretty quiet person in general.
Can you tell me
what her blouse looked like,
that she was wearing?
It was...
It was...
white with little blue...
uh, roses on it.
White with blue roses.
[lady] At that point in time,
you're kinda seen the downfall.
I didn't know if I was going to see him
when he wasn't...
on some kind of drugs or alcohol.
He was a total different person.
[man]
Tommy had his run-in with the police.
They looked at Tommy as a ruffian.
A lower class person.
And the police didn't like him
for some reason.
I have no idea why.
Unless it was just those things, you know?
I mean, Tommy liked to drink.
I... I was at a...
keg party.
And I ran into a couple of guys.
Asked me if I wanted to go riding around
with them and go get high,
and drink some beer.
And I told 'em, "Sure."
My name is Robert Mayer.
I'm originally from New York City.
When I graduated from college
and journalism school,
I became a reporter.
I had...
no conception whatever,
if these guys were guilty or innocent.
I thought, "Well, I'll look into it
and see how far it goes."
And so that's how I got into the book
that later became The Dreams of Ada.
And the confession of,
"Was anybody else there?"
"Yeah, well, the ringleader,
the guy who's idea it was,
was Odell Titsworth."
[door bells ringing]
[Robert] And Odell Titsworth was
this Indian fellow
who uh, was known,
had a reputation among the cops
as a bad dude.
Titsworth, he grabbed money
out of the register,
and we went out to the pickup.
Featherstone: Where did you go from there?
Out to the power plant.
Featherstone:
What did he say he was gonna do with her?
He told me that he was going to kill her.
Now, the other person
he had mentioned was...
Carl Fontenot.
Featherstone: What was the purpose
of taking her with you?
From the store?
To keep from her...
coming to y'all and letting y'all know.
I mean, was that the plan, though,
whenever you went there?
- Yes.
- Okay.
We had it all planned out, you know, to...
What were you planning on doing
with her after you got her?
- Raping her.
- Raping her and
- then killing her and getting rid of her?
- Yes.
Okay.
[Johnny] Karl Fontenot
I've known Karl Fontenot
since we were little kids.
Karl...
was a little slow
when it come to his thinking.
As we was going to McAnally's,
we stopped there at the apartments,
and decided to smoke some pot
and get high and everything.
We drank some.
[door bells jingle]
[bell dings]
Then when we got...
We planned it out before we got there.
And then, when we got there...
Odell...
set it up for us and everything.
He took her out of the store.
Brought her to the truck.
Featherstone: Where were y'all at? Karl?
Right there by the gas pumps.
[Johnny] He was just someone
that pretty much stayed to hisself,
even though he was not a violent guy
or anything like that.
He just pretty much stayed to hisself,
and then...
when his mom got killed,
I believe he seen his mom get killed,
he... he just kinda really
stayed more to hisself.
He, uh...
He had pretty much no ambition to work,
or really do anything.
[Robert] Karl's father used to beat Karl
when he was a little boy,
and they had dogs and cats and sheep
and whatever else you can think of
out there in that little yard.
And Karl's father...
would...
have sex with animals...
in front of Karl.
- Featherstone: Was she scared?
- She was scared.
- Featherstone: What was she saying?
- She was hollering for help.
And then there was nobody around
for to help.
[man]
I didn't know anything about Karl Fontenot
until I received a call
from, um, District Judge Ron Jones...
um...
asking if I would accept
a court appointment
to represent Mr. Fontenot.
And I thought he was competent
in, in all respects.
The real problem with that
was the confession tapes.
They were in bold color...
and, and, and basically were...
just came across really somewhat...
cold-blooded, matter-of-factly,
emotionless...
Featherstone: So...
Odell Titsworth crawled up inside
the pickup.
Fontenot: Yes.
Did he have something in his hand?
- Had his knife.
- Featherstone: Was it open?
Yes, it was open.
And he... he was attempting to stab her.
- And...
- Featherstone: Did you see him stab her?
- He was stabbing her.
- Featherstone: How did he do it?
- He had the knife in his hand, like this.
- All right.
And he was... stabbing.
- Featherstone: Hard?
- Yes.
How hard?
- Show me how hard.
- Enough to get the full blade in.
Like that.
Featherstone: Where was the first place
that she was cut with the knife?
In her side. Right here in the side,
that's where Titsworth cut her.
When he started to rape her, he goes,
"If you don't cooperate with me
and everything,"
he says, "I'll cut you deeper."
After that, me and Odell stood there
and holded her while Tommy raped her.
Okay.
She had tremendous cuts all over her body,
all in her sides and on her legs.
- Featherstone: Were they deep cuts?
- And on the side of her neck.
Yeah, the ones in her stomach was.
- How could you tell they were deep cuts?
- I could see her ribs and her insides.
Featherstone: Was she saying anything?
She was hollering for help
and telling us to stop.
Featherstone: Do you believe that she died
due to any other reason,
other than the stab wounds?
No, that's what she died of,
the stab wounds.
Featherstone: How many times did you cut
her with the knife, Tommy?
Twice. Once upon her side
and once down her arm.
Featherstone: What do you mean,
you had her "under control"?
Well, she was more or less giving up.
Okay.
At the end.
Featherstone:
Try and beg y'all not to hurt her or...?
She goes, "Tommy, I didn't think
you'd ever do anything like this."
[Johnny]I'd been in and out enough,
couple of times,
that I was in that bullpen with Karl.
He sat next to me
in that jailhouse and said... [sighs]
"I'm glad they're locking me up
because I don't have to worry
about a place to sleep
or where I'm going to get my next meal."
And that's exactly what he said.
Featherstone: Karl?
During the period of time
that we've interviewed you, today...
Once again, I'd like to ask you,
have we threatened you or...
- No.
- ...promised you anything?
You're making this of your own free will,
this statement?
It was of my own free will
to get this recorded.
Have you been allowed to smoke, drink,
- drink Cokes...
- Yes.
...anything that you wanted?
Yes, I was served
right during the meeting.
Once again, Tommy, I want to reiterate,
you're giving this statement
of your own free will?
Yes, sir.
Is there anything else that you'd like
to add, to this tape recording,
prior to us shutting it off?
I knew, if...
I knew I wouldn't have done it
if I wasn't drunk,
'cause I thought it was just a dream.
So immediately, and this was in...
And this was like...
around midnight,
or whenever they were questioned.
So, then they tell them,
"You're under arrest
for kidnapping, rape, and murder."
And then they called the headquarters
in Ada.
They sent cops to Odell Titsworth's house.
They knew him from various...
run-ins with the law.
[police radio speaking]
[Robert] They get to Odell Titsworth's
house and he's there with his mother
and they accuse him.
Anyway, the mother says,
"Odell couldn't have done that.
He was home with a broken arm
that the police broke two nights before."
So the cops are thinking, "That the police
broke? What are you talking about?"
[police siren wails]
[Robert]So that's what their description
of what Odell was doing
the night of the crime.
Well, that's easy enough to prove.
And so the police officers,
they go down to the hospital,
and they keep records.
And sure enough, on that date,
Odell Titsworth had been treated
and he had a broken arm,
the humerus, which is up here.
And was told that he's even going
to have to sleep in a chair
for like a month or so.
So the mother and Odell were not lying.
There was proof,
in the police department itself,
that he was in no condition
that night to lift bodies over fences
and so forth.
Now they've got a problem.
It's on the confession tape.
It's a big thing, a part of the tape,
like, Odell was the leader,
that he was at home
with a broken arm that night.
[woman] I was actually still in school,
but I was a radio newscaster at the time.
And we had the only radio news team
in the city, at the time.
And so we covered all of the trials
and any of the big news going on there.
I know that there were
several unsolved murders
of women at the time.
The Deborah Carter case was unsolved.
And, um, there was
a lot of public pressure being put
on the police department,
the District Attorney's office
to make sure that these were solved.
Dennis Smith told me one time,
and actually it was Labor Day.
Uh, we were sitting right in front
of the courthouse and Dennis told me
that, uh, he asked his wife,
"What do you want to do today?"
They both had the day off.
And she said...
"Let's...
Let's go look for Denice Haraway's body."
And this was, again, three months later.
That's how this town was, was gripped
by this thing.
The authorities
never found Denice Haraway's body
in the Ward and Fontenot case.
[Robert] I always thought...
that for a murder charge
you had to have the body.
And Bill Peterson explained to me,
and of course he was dead on right,
that corpus delicti means
"the body of the crime."
If that was not the law,
then anybody who was good at hiding a body
could get away with murder.
And that's why you don't...
they don't have to produce the body,
just evidence that a crime was committed.
But it doesn't have to be the body.
[Judge] The prosecution has to prove
that nobody's seen her here.
Nobody's seen her at church.
Nobody saw her at school.
Nobody saw her at home, etc.
It is very rare.
I only know of maybe
three cases where that's been done.
[Robert]
The date for the trial had been set.
So they were tried for robbery,
kidnapping, and murder.
The atmosphere was tense.
Some members of the Haraway family sat in.
Some members of Tommy Ward's family sat in
on the trial.
I was waiting for Denice Haraway
to walk back through the door.
- Yeah.
- I honestly was.
At the trial, just walk in.
- I honestly was.
- But never happened.
Never happened.
Both Don Wyatt,
who represented Tommy Ward, and I...
uh...
knew that we were facing uphill battles
because there was no body.
[Dan] Bill Peterson was
the main prosecutor. He had...
Chris Ross was helping with his case.
Chris was a very effective attorney.
Very smart. Could think on his feet.
[Robert] The prosecution,
as is normal in such cases, went first.
And Bill Peterson has a mindset
of presenting a story.
So he started
with the fellow who came and found...
you know, who saw the couple walking out
and thought they were lovers,
and then went in and found
that she was missing.
Like I said, I saw her periodically.
I didn't recognize her when she came out.
But after I got in the store
and nobody was there, I said,
"That girl that just left
is the girl that works here."
I told my nephews that.
No, I know.
There's no doubt in my mind
that she was taken.
As we arrived.
[Robert] They called Karen Wise.
The girl who worked up the road
at J.P.'s Pack-To-Go.
[Robert] And asked
if those were the two people
who were messing around in her store.
And she said, "Without a doubt."
She testified
that one of them was Tommy Ward.
There's a, uh, woman that testified,
called by the prosecutors,
that she had been
in the jail for several weeks
at the same time
that Tommy and Karl were there,
before the trial.
And she testified
that she overheard Karl confessing
to the crime,
how they had killed the girl.
"Question: 'Would you tell this jury
what he said?'
Answer:
'He said that Odell raped her first
and then it was Tommy's turn.
He bit her on the breast
and cut her down the arm.
And Odell killed her,
stabbed her to death and killed her.
And then Karl raped her.'
Question: 'When he told you this statement
Terri, what was your reaction to that?'
Answer: 'He scared me.'"
And then, for the denouement,
the final piece of testimony, of evidence,
they played the confession.
Featherstone: You said earlier
that you noticed, when you came back up,
a large amount of blood.
Where all was she bleeding from?
Mostly in her side.
Where the deep cut was.
- Featherstone: And where else?
- In the side of her neck, right here.
[Butner] There was only one leader
of this two-person church,
and that was Tommy.
I think that Karl's relationship
with Tommy was that
if Tommy Ward had anything
to do with that crime,
Karl would have been there
handing him what he needed.
- Featherstone: Was she conscious then?
- No. She wasn't very lively at all.
- How come?
- Because we'd all three raped her.
I knew that she was dead
because she was white.
We had to get rid of her and all,
and he asked me a good place
to get rid of her.
And I told him about a house,
and about this ditch down by the...
Sandy River.
And then he put her off
in the rotten place in the floor.
- Where was that?
- Over where the floor was missing.
[Robert] Once the tapes were played,
uh, the audience was...
the spectators in the room...
they were horrified.
And once people saw that...
these people were guilty.
How can anybody even say
they did things like that?
- Featherstone: You poured gasoline on her?
- Yes.
And then what? What did you do
after you poured the gas on her?
We lit the house.
We lit the gas
and burnt the house and her.
[Dawn] That was the first murder trial
that I had done
and it lasted two and a half weeks.
And, um...
I went home at the end
of it every day and cried.
[Dawn]Every day, hearing bad things...
and so much of it.
And I believed, I believed the evidence.
I think in these particular cases,
Mr. Peterson and Mr. Ross
were the prosecutors.
It's like they're telling a story
and a story unfolding, and, um...
for sure, Mr. Ross is a very good...
very good at his job.
[Robert]When Chris Ross began
his closing arguments,
he used psychiatry
as a way of explaining...
for where the third person came from
in the, uh, confession tapes.
[Robert]
"I submit, ladies and gentlemen...
everything Mr. Ward did in his confession,
things he did in reality,
he blamed on Odell Titsworth.
You'll notice that Odell and Tommy Ward
never did one single,
significant thing together.
I submit, ladies and gentlemen,
everything Mr. Ward did
in his confession.
He sees himself doing it
and then he says that Odell did it.
And this is confusing, but ladies
and gentlemen, when he's doing this,
and he recounts what happened,
and he sees it in his mind.
He sees himself doing something...
that he tells himself he would never do.
He says Odell did that.
I submit to you,
Odell Titsworth was Tommy Ward
and he raped her first,
and then Karl raped her.
And one of these two men
killed Denice Haraway.
One of these two men stabbed her to death.
I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen,
that man was Tommy Ward."
[Butner] Chris took the confessions
and wove a closing argument
and presented it,
and the jury bought it.
And that's what I think was the final nail
in that coffin of conviction.
The judge goes down all the jurors' votes.
And it was 12 to nothing on all counts.
Featherstone:
Are you confused about any of this today
or do you understand what's going on?
- Yes, I understand what's going on.
- Okay.
You understand
how serious this investigation is?
- Yes, I do.
- Okay.
We'll end the tape at this time.
I've got 7:29 p.m.
And we'll conclude the tape now.
Still present in the room...
Deputy Inspector Rusty Featherstone,
Special Agent Gary Rogers,
Captain Dennis Smith,
and Agent Dee Cordray,
as well as Tommy Ward.
["Lord Hold My Hand
While I Run This Race" playing]
♪ Oh, Lord, hold my hand ♪
♪ While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, hold my hand ♪
♪ While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, hold my hand ♪
♪ While I run this race ♪
♪ Well, I don't wanna ♪
♪ No, no, don't you lie... ♪
[song humming continues]
My name is Thomas Ward.
I've been in prison for the last 33 years
for a crime I did not commit.
♪ Oh, Lord, guide my mind
While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, guide my mind
While I run this race ♪
♪ Oh, Lord, guide my mind
While I run this race ♪
♪ Well, and I don't wanna ♪
♪ No, no, don't you lie... ♪
[song humming continues]