who was accused of sexual assault in 1995. authorities involved in the stacy stites murder investigation run reed s dna against the sample found inside stites body. it s a match. reed s mother sandra told me that she answered the door when the sheriff first came looking for her son. i asked can you tell me what this is for? and they, this young gentleman said, and looked at me teary eyed, and he said no, i can t. that was shocking. and then i said oh my god, is it that bad? and he looked at me and he just shook his head. well rodney wasn t there. later that day, rodney reed turns himself into police for what he thinks is a drug charge.
we spent the last two months pouring over rodney reed s case and i still don t know if he is innocent or guilty for the reason he is on death row. what i know is that i don t trust the criminal justice hmm in texas or anyone else frankly in a nation that puts more people behind bars than almost any other country on earth. a nation where nearly 150 people on death row have been exonerated. i also know that immersing myself in the details of this case has on strengthened my feeling that the state has no business killing people. if we can go back to 1998 when rodney reed was on trial for murder, and give him access to the best legal representation, i have a feeling he would not be facing execution by the state.
did it feel real to you? it was a feeling, you know, it really was unbelievable. i just, it felt like i was in a dream. it felt like it wasn t real. it wasn t real. like this can t be happening. to this day, reed maintains his innocence. all of that evidence has been out there, it has always been out there. it has been in the state s hands all this time. decades old institution in over 300 wrongfully convicted people through dna testing. they believe there is enough new information to clear rodney reed. this case has everything wrong with it that is wrong with the american criminal justice testimony today.
reaching the former da. all in all, after repeated requests, no one would speak to us on the record for this piece. we did speak to several other people including rodney reed himself. i traveled to see him, ask him about the case, and ask what his life has been like the last 16 years on death row. were you scared? you re told that you re being sent to go live with the worst monsters in texas. the people who have done the most heinous acts and you re going to be around them. no, i can t say they was scared. i can t say that i was scared. i didn t want to come here, but once i got here, some of these guys used to be someone else s neighbor, someone s brother, someone s father. you know what i m saying? you don t know what may have happened in their lives that brought them here.