Stoll S News Today

Shelter, stoll is ever thankful for his freedom. >> hear the birds? pretty nice. and theres a big beautiful stream down there. and johns son and i go fishing. >> the one person youre not able to go fishing with is your own son. >> yeah. yeah. a loss of 20 years. i can put that away but i cant put jed away. you know, thats always there. because one day i went out fishing, we were having a good time and all of a sudden i get in a terrible funk because i thought about jed. i thought man, he could b...

Decision day in the retrial of john stoll. what the judge rules will determine stolls fate. back to prison as a sex offender or out as a free man. >> the ruling on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is as follows -- >> from the start it looked bad for john stoll. the judge pointed out some inconsistencies in the boys 20-year-old recollections. >> a judge talked about everything that was bad about our case. >> the judge also pointed out that not only had stolls son jed testified that his fa...

Didnt think about it. >> prosecutors accused them all. stoll, self, grafton, and her boyfriend, of raping boys from 5 to 8 years of age. and one of the star witnesses was graftons 7-year-old son, donald, who took the stand and said not only that stoll had molested him, worst of all, he told the jury, his own mother had forced him into orgies. you were accused of sexually molesting your own son? >> yes. just the thought that everybody in the world thought that i had done that was devastating. it ...

Against him, stolls conviction seemed all but assured. so the prosecutors offered stoll what appeared to be a generous plea bargain. what deal did they offer you? >> 12 years. >> why didnt you take it? >> im no child molester. >> or so he said. but then john stolls son jed and five other little boys took the stand and gave humiliating testimony before a judge and jury. the children hung their heads and answered yes or no to explicit questions about horrific acts of molestation. youre down there ...

Months passed, the wait seemed interminable. and then finally the decision. motion granted. a judge would rehear the case against stoll. no cameras were allowed during the testimony. but outside the courtroom, those little boys, now men, described circumstances in 1984 which they said were surreal. terrifying. so how did all this stuff get started? >> the sheriffs came to my house and told my parents that other kids had seen stuff happen to me. >> what kind of stuff? >> that sexual acts occurred...

At all. found guilty of molesting children. >> im sorry, but im no child molester. >> john stoll protested his innocence, but authorities claimed otherwise. stoll used his swimming pool as bait, they said, an operation so successful prosecutors argued that stoll was more than just a calculating molester. but the mastermind of a depraved sex ring that preyed on young children. margie grafton was a friend of stolls, and at that time a young mother with two little boys. you knew john stoll? >> yes,...

I didnt molest him. >> our interview had come at the conclusion of that court hearing. the result, partly because of what jed had said, was anything but certain. >> thanks, everybody. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> now as the interview ended, stoll was led away to await whatever his fate might be. freedom or more years in prison as a confirmed sex offender. whom would the judge believe as he weighed his decision? coming up -- >> the ruling on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is as ...

Interview, issuing instead a few months after stolls release, this statement standing by the conviction. my office remains convinced, based on the evidence presented at the 1984 trial and 2004 evidentiary hearing that the children were, in fact, molested by john stoll. the sheriffs officer who interviewed the kids feels the same way. social worker velda morillo declined to comment. and stoll, though finally free from prison, can never recover his lost life or the time he lost with his son. >> th...

Guilty, guilty, guilty. yes. >> convicted of crimes so heinous, she received a murderers sentence. >> i was given 48 years. >> 48 years? >> 48 years. and no contact with my children. >> ever? >> ever. i couldnt call them, i couldnt write them. >> a heavy sentence. but that seemed to be just what bakersfield and the rest of the country wanted. when grafton and stoll were sentenced, child molestation, a crime kept hidden in years past for wont of shaming the victim, had burst forth from a dark clo...

Opinion and shared oh, my god, hes innocent. weve got to get him out. >> but what would the alleged victims of stolls sex ring have to say about that? one by one stolls lawyers tracked them down. remember little donny grafton? margie graftons son? he testified in 1984 that stoll and his mom forced him into orgies. didnt they? >> she never did anything wrong. >> donald grafton, now grown, says it never happened. he tells us authorities pressured him to lie. >> i was just tricked into lying to put...