Transcripts For CNNW Early Start With John Berman And Christ

CNNW Early Start With John Berman And Christine Romans June 16, 2015

Peaceful and quiet. In 1988, Debbie Loveless and her two daughters from a previous marriage, amy and april, moved in with john miller. He, too, was divorced and worked in the construction industry. My marriage with john was good. He was a very good man. Took care of me and the kids real well, and we had a happy home life. We had a lot of fun together, the children. We did a lot of things with the children. We didnt leave them home when we went somewheres. We took them with us. And had a family a very closeknit family, really. John, debbie, and the two girls moved onto a five acre farm just a few miles outside of town. It was complete with a house, barn, horses, and family pets. And for the children, freedom to roam and play among the beauties of nature. 4yearold april loved living on a farm. She loved to play outside. She loved, you know, being outside. And she liked to climb trees a lot. So i had a time keeping her out of trees. She was just bubbly. I mean, she was just full of life. She just got into everything. She was always running. I dont think she knew how to walk. She just ran everywheres. Just a bundle of fun. Just after christmas, on january 4th, 1989, the couples older daughter, amy, headed for school. April went outside to play. Debbie did her chores. John was working on an old building on the corner of the property. Around noon, debbie called for april to come home for lunch, but there was no response. Then john came running towards the house, carrying april, who was bleeding profusely from a severe leg wound. She didnt have any clothes on. And i couldnt do anything but scream. I was hysterical. I mean, i was just her right leg fell open, and there was a large gash in it all the way to the bone. I knew that this was a very serious wound. She had already bled out. She has a very small amount of time in which to get help and survive. Even though john was a trained paramedic, there was little he could do. April had lost too much blood. The four by sixinch gash in aprils leg had torn away a large portion of her femoral artery. It is like that whole section of her leg was just gone. It was just like it had been ripped out. Doctors did everything they could to save aprils life, but the damage was just too great. She just couldnt make it. 4yearold april died on the operating room table. John told police that he found his stepdaughter nude under a tree and bleeding profusely from a leg wound. According to john, april said the dogs did it. The sheriff ordered an autopsy. The suspicion was murder. John miller said his daughter april, before her death, told him that the dog caused her fatal leg wound. The local Sheriffs Department suspected foul play. Journalist David Hanners covered this story for the dallas morning news. They had a dead child on their hands, so they needed to investigate it, and i think their immediate thinking was someone killed her. During the autopsy, the pathologist noticed long vertical marks and puncture wounds all over aprils body, which he believed were indicative of some form of abuse. And he saw no indication that aprils leg wound was caused by a dog since the wound did not have the jagged edges often seen in animal bites. The wound was cleanly cut, and the pathologist concluded it had been made by a knife. His finding was that april had been murdered. As john and debbie returned from aprils funeral service, they faced a fullscale investigation. The police were everywhere. They felt like that dogs couldnt have done that to her. It was very scary. I couldnt figure it. I couldnt understand how somebody could have come and done that. Police found aprils blood on a fence post and some leaves, but found no other outward signs of any dog attack. There were three dogs on the property. Two belonged to the family, the third belonged to a neighbor. None of the dogs had shown any hint of violence before. In the couples home, investigators found paraphernalia allegedly linking the couple to the occult. They thought maybe the cutting of aprils leg was a bloodletting ceremony for a cult and that thats why she died or that thats why this was done. And that was one theory that they investigated heavily. Police also collected an electric curling iron, thumb tacks, and push pins items suspected of causing the scratch marks and puncture wounds on aprils body. Next, they asked the couple repeatedly for the knife. We were grilled for hours about the knife that supposedly had made the cut on her leg. Did i have the knife . Where was it . Johns hunting knife was confiscated, and all of the items were sent to the crime lab for analysis. A presumptive test showed possible signs of blood on the knife, and with that finding, john miller and Debbie Loveless were charged with murder. The visions that it evoked are just horrendous, of them holding this little girl down, gashing her leg with this knife, i mean cutting out a large chunk of skin and artery with this knife, and then whacking her repeatedly with this curling iron and then sticking little push pins in her. John and debbie were both given lie detecter tests. Debbie passed, but john did not. The state police and local police held the polygraph against us saying, you flunked it, so you must have done it. I had never seen any kind of violence, any kind of anything out of john. And these Police Officers were telling me that he did this. I couldnt understand it. It made no sense to me. At the trial, john and debbie were represented by courtappointed attorneys. One of the lawyers did not want to use the dog attack story as a defense. The other lawyer came in and said, look, we cant pursue the dog attack. He said the d. A. Threatened us that he can just blow us out of the water. Theres nothing there to show a dog attack. So basically, i have nothing to fight with. Prosecutors portrayed john as the enraged stepfather who got angry with april, lost his temper and abused and murdered her. Debbie was portrayed as a battered wife, too afraid to do anything about it. Submitted into evidence was the autopsy report that april had been murdered and the items from the couples home which were suspected of causing the wounds. Johns courtappointed attorney Paul Chitwood asked the judge for more time to interview prosecution witnesses. And he also requested funds to hire his own forensic expert. Both requests were denied. A defense chemist testified that the original test on johns hunting knife, which found blood, was presumptive. Further testing on the knife showed it wasnt human blood, and no blood was found on the curling iron, the push pins, or thumb tacks. The possibility of a dog attack was never presented to the jury. In final arguments, one of the defense lawyers admits it was murder. Admits that april was murdered by someone. Says, you know, she was murdered. I dont know who did it, but the state hasnt proved my client is the one who did it. The jury found both john and debbie guilty of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. The first time that steel door clanged behind me, theres no sound that you have ever heard that sounds like that. It has a distinct sound that will just make your hair stand on end. You know thats not going to open again. I couldnt close my eyes and see anything except for the way she was when we found her and way she looked when she died. I didnt sleep for a long time. I thought i was going to be there for the rest of my life. Every day people fall, from a simple misstep, to tripping over a rug, to just losing their balance. And not being able to get up from a fall can have serious lifetime consequences. Being prepared is important. 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I had written to congressmen. When youre put in that position and youre convicted of something that you didnt do, you just i just lost all hope of anything good ever coming from it. You know . For it ever to be turned around. I knew i was innocent, i knew debbie was innocent, and i was not going to stop fighting until i found somebody to prove we were innocent. As the years passed in prison, debbie love less and johns first concern was for their older daughter amy who was living in foster care. The other concern was finding a way to prove their innocence. I never knew innocent people went to prison or were convicted for something they didnt do. And i just i guess i was naive and stupid thinking that it didnt happen. John and debbie maintained that april was playing outside and was unclothed because it was a warm day. They believe that one of the dogs attacked april while she was playing. At lunchtime when they were looking for april, they saw the dogs were agitated. When john followed them into the woods, he found april bleeding profusely from a leg wound. John said april told him that the dogs did it, before she lapsed into unconsciousness, but the pathologist who performed the autopsy ruled the death a homicide. Attorney robert ardis was assigned to handle the couples appeal. Robert ardis is one of those attorneys that renews your faith in the legal profession. He has a good heart. He wont stop digging until he gets where he thinks he ought to be. While in the courthouse, sifting through the evidence, ardis found a box containing hundreds of photographs of aprils wounds. Most were autopsy photos, which had been shown to the jury at the trial. But he also found another set of photos taken just after april entered the emergency room. These were photos that had not been shown to the jury, and it wasnt clear whether john and debbies original defense lawyers had even seen them. When ardis compared the two sets of pictures, he made a startling discovery. The pictures of aprils leg wound were different. The pictures looked like a dog had been involved in this death. Ardis sent the photos to dennis asen, a forensic pathologist at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Science in dallas. After studying the photos, he said that this child had been attacked by a dog. He said i can tell you its something with canine teeth. What we were able to show how a dogs teeth would just overlay exactly on the puncture wounds around where the place had been taken out of the leg. Dr. Asen is a forensic odontologist and agrees that animal bites are often difficult to identify. He says that many animal bites dont look like bite wounds at all because animals often tear the flesh rather than biting it. When you have an injury pattern to determine whether its a bite mark or not, you need to look at the entire situation to see what other clues and evidence there might be. Is this truly a bite mark or not . But if dogs had caused aprils leg wound, why didnt the original pathologist see this . The answer was obvious. The wound looked different at the autopsy because it had been cleaned and trimmed with a scalpel while the surgeon attempted to repair the wound and save aprils life. When you go into surgery, the wound in this particular instance was very jagged, very uneven. And the surgeon using the scalpel will go in and clean the wound up and they will peel back and get back into fresh tissues there. And the new team of pathologists noted that many of the scratch marks on aprils back consisted of four parallel lines. Lines corresponding with the four nails of a dogs forefeet. Here was a paw print. Here was another paw print. Im told that as long as the person is alive, those particular bruises would not show up. But when she was on her back in the operating room and died on the operating table, then the blood puddled in those places, and it made it very apparent when you looked at them that here was a paw print. There was now hope for a new trial. You know, when i started my business, a lot of people didnt believe in me. But things took off when i got a domain and built my website all at godaddy. Now i can tell the doubters to stick it. Hey, honey. Stick it stick it stick it nana . Hi. Stick it can you give your mommy a message for me . Stick it get a domain website and email starting at 1 month all at godaddy. After spending five years in prison for the murder of their daughter april, john miller and Debbie Loveless finally had forensic evidence to corroborate their story that one of the dogs on their property attacked and killed april. Their new attorney, robert ardis, also uncovered a written deposition of a witness who had witnessed the dogs on john and debbies farm attack three different people on three separate occasions. She pointed this out to the sheriff. So the sheriff said, oh, they were just playing. But the woman wasnt called to testify at the original trial. Armed with this new evidence, ardis requested a new trial. His argument that john miller and Debbie Loveless did not have the adequate counsel at their original trial. Ironically, john millers original defense attorney Paul Chitwood agreed. Well, he was pissed off. Its nobody likes to be told that they did a bad job officially. And ineffectiveness of counsel basically says that. Although Paul Chitwood is now deceased, he testified on behalf of john and debbie at a pretrial hearing, reminding the court he requested and was denied access to the prosecution witnesses before the trial and was denied funds to hire an independent forensic expert to analyze the evidence. He had always felt that they were not guilty of the crime they were charged with. The Prosecutors Office would not comment on the allegation that some of the photographs in this case might have been withheld from the original defense team. In 1993, a judge dismissed the case against john miller and Debbie Lovelace citing overwhelming evidence in the couples favor. After five long years, they were finally released from prison. It was a very poor investigation by law enforcement. They didnt buy the dog attack theory. They didnt look into it. I couldnt believe it. I just it was scary because i had been in this place for almost five years. You know, and i just i cant even explain it. I dont think theres words to happiness that i was going home and i was going to see amy. The stress and strains of incarceration took its toll. After they were released from prison, debbie and john separated. I lost five years with my son and with amy and with debbie. So yes, i was walking out of prison but my life had basically been destroyed already. A bad investigation aided by bad science. Really was kind of frightening to me. This could have happened to, you know, any of us. Just the injustice of everything that was done. You know, how they crucified us for something that we didnt do. And i just and i dont understand why they did it. During an Evening Church service, 38yearold Steve Robards fell ill. He died that night later of a heart attack. One night, steves daughter studied the lines of claudis the king when he talked about revenge. My thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go. In these words, a clue to her fathers death. The cities of dallas and ft. Worth, texas, locals call it the metroplex. Its the largest consolidated metro area in the state known for the assassination of john f. Kennedy in dealy plaza in 1963. 38yearold Steve Robards was recently divorced and worked as a mail carrier for the United States postal service. Very proud of his job, which was a rural route postman, but he liked his job. He liked being outdoors and felt some pride in it. His 16yearold daughter marie had recently moved in with him after a disagreement she had with her mothers new husband. They were living in a onebedroom apartment at this time and he was on the list to get the next available larger apartment. He was happy about having his daughter in his life at this point. Marie enrolled in Eastern Hills high school. Quiet, elegant. The quiet girl you looked at twice and wanted to get to know because she seemed so reserved. By all accounts father and daughter enjoyed living together. Their lives changed on february 17th 1993. Just after dinner Steve Robards attended an Evening Church service. When he returned home he told his girlfriend and daughter he wasnt feeling well. After a little while, he started getting stomach cramps and they became more severe as the night progressed. Are you feeling any better . After a few hours, 911 was called and he went into what appeared to be a comalike state right there in the living room. He began to foam at the mouth and nauseous. By the time the ambulance guys got there, he was dead. An autopsy revealed the death was caused by cardiac arrest. I didnt want to believe how could it be that bad . He was 38. How could it be that serious . His heart was mildly enlarged. It was probably 25 too heavy for a man his age and size. And assigned it out as a natural death. Aft

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