kept it from the prosecution for maximum impact. the back doors burst open. and at 3:30 in the morning, you wonder if that is who patrick cone saw on the road. this is another tall white guy blond walking down the street, and it is effective. it is one of those magical moments in the courtroom, and the walker gave that jury a reason to have reasonable doubt. it gave them a reason to say it was not tim. when the walker took the stand, richardson asked what he wore on the nightly walks down sommer hill road. he 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. the defense accused the prosecution of outright
he had killed two children and a woman. and how much will he suffer for the rest of his life. like it or not, tim is our client and if he dies, we will live with it. in the years that follow, the hennis case was the textbook case of wrongful prosecution. scott whisnant spoke about the case, and it was adapted into a tv movie. not everybody sitting in prison is guilty. north carolina now has a commission that actually has released a number of innocent people. despite all of the attention to hennis acquittal, the eastburn murders would go unsolved for 16 years until 20005 when scott whisnant spoke about the case at a criminology seminar, and he spoke at a seminar with larry fayetteville was in the audience. there were potentially other evidence out there. well, if he is innocent, who
we just broke down and started crying, because i knew what had they had been through. and next to marrying my wife and the birth of my children, that is probably the happiest day of my life. knowing what they had been through, it is a tremendous, tremendous load off of my shoulders. the jurors came out, and they were adamant that they needed to reinvestigate the case, and quit picking on the guy. why were they bothering this poor man and has he not suffered enough? talking about hennis, and hasn t he suffered enough? he had killed two children and a woman. and how much will he suffer for the rest of his life. like it or not, tim is our client and if he dies, we will live with it.
so the prosecutor had a field day. but before the second trial, richardson discovered why the paperwork went missing. the reason why is because the prosecutors had it. they didn t take a copy and leave it, they just took it. so this piece of evidence that would have exonerated him in 1986 was kept in the prosecutor s custody all of that time. and richardson also uncovered information that would undermine eyewitness pat cone. pat cone had helped them out in between trials and he was arrested using a stolen bank card. on another occasion, he was arrested for drinking, and being disruptive, and the state dropped the case. and he is known for telling people that the state couldn t touch him, because he was a prime witness. and pat is not a strong-willed person, and nice guy, and don t understand me, but he got into trouble there, but it was minor things.
out who it was. somebody was stalking that woman for weeks. mrs. eastburn was writing her husband saying somebody is stalking me, and why isn t that being looked at? who does it lead to? after the evidence was discussed, then he approached him privately. he said, i just want you to know that the way they approached that 20 years ago, we are not like that anymore and i think that somebody should reinvestigate the case and technology has improved, and that is how we left it. in fact, trotter had been assigned by the sheriff s case to review cold cases. we had over 100 unsolved cases, and as i went through the docket, i realized that there was a vaginal swab that never had been sent off for testing, and when the murder happened, dna was in the infancy, and the