testimony could save joe s life. i wasn t able to do anything for tony because and so i figured, if i could help someone else, then i ll do that. chris, who is legally blind and was born with a physical disability on the left side of his body, was 22 years old and tony klann s roommate back in 1988. he told the court what happened one evening when he was hanging around with his downstairs neighbor, stoney lewis. we went back to his place to hang out. and decided to make something to eat, i guess. and he started pressing up against me and crap. and i was like, dude, what the hell are you doing? i told him i wasn t into that. and he was a little bit more
joe was not allowed to leave death row. so a catholic priest and former lawyer named neil kookoothe decided to attend her funeral on joe s behalf. i asked the corrections officers, would you let me talk with joe for just a few minutes so that i can walk him through his mother s funeral. and while joe was very appreciative of it, it was obvious that my goal for that meeting and his goal were not the same. i m like, oh, man. a real human being i can talk to. i need help. nobody will help me. i didn t do this. and i was very resistant to doing that. i knew that these death row cases were immense cases. 5, 10, 15 volumes long. i m like no, it s one volume big. that s all it is. one volume? that s where the attorney of him kicked in. i was just stunned that a man could be brought to trial for his life and be convicted in the
amount of space it took to record that event was in one volume. so i thought, whoa. something is not right. in addition to being a priest and a lawyer, neil was a registered nurse with 15 years experience in critical care. it s one of those like if you re a believer it s a god moment. a priest who was an r.n. and an attorney. where did that come from? and he shows up right at joe s cell. the thing that struck me right away was the coroner s testimony. anthony klann had sustained a very significant and deep neck wound from ear to ear. that neck wound opened up two large holes in anthony s trachea. but at trial state eyewitness eddie espinoza claimed he heard tony klann scream for mercy after his throat had been slit. i worked with trachea patients every day. so i knew if you could find the hole in your trachea, you could plug it perhaps, you might be able to make noise. it might sound something like this. so there is no way that anthony klann could be running down a creek bed
it s the biggest smoke-screen i ve ever seen in my life. there s a body in the water. he was butchered and murdered. many people proclaim their innocence. in this case there are a number of things that stink. this man is remorseless. he needs to pay for it with his life. the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. cleveland is like a big small town. we have like one of everything you need. literally has the houses like stacked on top of each other so close. and it seems like everybody knows somebody that knows somebody. so for this to happen in little italy it was a horrible crime in
that at the very least, the withheld evidence provided reasonable doubt the crime could have happened differently than the state presented at trial. in july 2004, joe s team went before judge o malley to obtain a new trial. we put up all our witnesses. the newly discovered people, the newly discovered evidence. by far the most powerful witness at the hearing was chris longenecker, stoney lewis alleged rape victim who had been found living in florida. neil convinced chris his testimony could save joe s life. i wasn t able to do anything for tony because so, i figured, if i could help someone else, then i ll do that. chris, who is legally blind and born with a physical