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In 2010, timothy hennis went on trial for a third time for the murders of katie eastburn and her daughters. but a scandal rocked the state lab that identified hennis dna. the lab had been skewing results to help prosecutors. the woman who handled the sample back in the 80s got in trouble for mixing up some dna samples in another case. and almost put an innocent guy in prison. they didn t do a good job of preserving the evidence. three people had been arrested for evidence-tampering. hennis lawyers asked for a postponement to investigate the lab. the judge refused. meanwhile, military prosecutors found a second smear from the rape kit. they sent it to a new lab, and the results also pointed to ....
He was a big blond kid with a blond mustache. it just fit. it just fit like a glove. during the retrial richardson kept his discovery from the prosecution. timing the mystery walker s entrance for maximum impact. the back doors burst open, defense calls john ropa and at 3:30 in the morning you couldn t help but think, could that be who patrick cone saw on the road. here s another tall white guy, blond, walking down the street. it was effective. it was just one of those magical moments in the courtroom. the walker gave that jury a reason to have reasonable doubt. it gave them a reason to say it wasn t tim. when the walker took the stand, richardson asked what he wore on his nightly walks down summerhill road. he often wore a beanie hat and he had a members only jacket, black members only jacket. after the walker s testimony the defense moved to have the case thrown out. defense accused the prosecution of just out right ....
Eastburn home on the night of the murders? billy was going door to door, interviewing every neighbor. why don t you talk to that kid that walk the street. i see that fella all the time. he walks the neighborhood all the time. they didn t know who he was. so billy did a vigil, became this quest for the mythical figure of the walker. you cannot win your case sitting in your office so i sat out there for six weeks. richardson even hoped he might find the real perpetrator but he came up empty-handed. then before the second trial richardson hired an investigator to renew the search. and finally, they found their mystery man. no murderer but a high school senior who worked at the local supermarket. a kid by the name of john ropa lived down the street from the eastburns. he was an uneasy sleeper and he had a habit of walking the neighborhood on summerhill road at 3:00 in the morning. ....
Forms of evidence. if he s innocent then who is guilty? the state of north carolina didn t pursue this for 17 years. why isn t somebody trying to find who is guilty? somebody was stalking that woman for weeks. miss eastburn was writing her husband for weeks saying, there say fool out there following me, i don t like it. what do i do about it? why isn t that being looked at? who does it lead to? after witnesses discussed the evidence detective trotter approached him privately. he said, i just want you to know that the way they investigated this case 20 years ago, we re not like that anymore. i said, somebody should reinvestigate this case. i think it can be solved now. technology has improved. that s how we left it. in fact, trotter had been assigned by the sheriff s office to review cold cases. we had well over 100 unsolved cases at this time. as i went through it, the docket, i realized that they had a vaginal swab. ....
on cross-examination the prosecutor confronted hennis with the alleged motive for the murder. the prosecutor says, you lost your cool. and went in there and tried to have sex with her and when she refused, you snapped and killed her. they were trying to provoke tim hennis on the stand and he had to calmly say, no, i did not. no, i did not. he said, i never had sex with that woman. that never happened. when it was over we had not got the reaction i wanted to. see him in a different light than first jury had seen him. made a huge difference. at the first trial the absence of blood on hennis jacket had helped convict him as the state s expert insisted dry-cleaning had removed any blood stains. but richardson saw it differently. i talked to the dry-cleaner and he said you have to use a special chemical to remove blood. i said, well, did you use it in this case? he said, no. i just used ordinary dry-cleaning. when the prosecution challenged the dry-cleaner s knowledge, richar ....