after the sixth hour of interrogation, there s a turning point. lowery breaks down and confesses. he says he broke down the front door of the house and found the woman sleeping. he says he covered the woman s face, hit her in the head with the butt of a knife, and raped her. and that s when they stopped the interrogation and they actually arrested me for rape, aggravated burglary, and aggravated assault. the prosecutor pat caffey, kansas versus lowery, seems like an open-and-shut case. he never denied that he made the confession. there wasn t a situation where he said, no, i didn t really confess. this was he never said that. i thought it was a solid confession and that he was guilty. but almost immediately, eddie lowery hires an attorney and recants the confession. he really didn t realize at that point the consequences of
he has to say is i don t want to talk to you anymore. i just find it amazing that he would do that. amazing or not, lowery s argument convinces at least a few jurors as his first trial ends in a hung jury. but the second trial is different. the prosecutor argues it s easier to believe lowery s confession than to believe his recantation. did he lie and say that he did commit a brutal rape? or did he lie and say that he did not commit a brutal rape? which one is the lie? you ve got somebody up there who s accused of raping an elderly woman against two law-abiding detectives. who is the jury going to believe? i knew i was in trouble. coming up, the verdict. and later, an old envelope turns the case upside down.
both the victim and the prosecutor are satisfied. they think eddie lowery should be off the streets. it appeared to be a situation where justice was done. lowery is sentenced to 13 years to life. he s hauled off to lansing correctional, the state s oldest and biggest prison for the worst of the worst. he is just 22 years old. i just kind of sunk. you know, i was like, you know, i can t believe this. you know, i just ruined my life and i m accused of rape. i m a sex offender. man, i thought my life was over. this is really one of the only times i thought about suicide. i was scared. i didn t know what to do. i was i didn t know if i was going to make it in prison. in his first year behind bars, lowery loses everything in his life that has meaning. he s dishonorably discharged from the army. his family rarely visits.
the rapist. i don t know. barry scheck reacted strongly when told of the former prosecutor s statement. you re telling me that eddie lowery gave a false confession that he and he alone committed this crime and protected brewer, a serial rapist who was raping other people in the neighborhood? that s what you re telling me? then you ve learned nothing. and that kind of prosecutor who refuses to learn anything, we don t need. you might say freedom is a theme for eddie lowery. today he lives in a town called liberty. and he s written a song about his life titled, what else, freedom. i write music and speak at different places, and people have asked me, you know, do i get bored? i m never bored. i am enjoying life. i think among all the exonerees, there s a strong
to relive all this again, and i would never take that. though the riley county police department never admits wrongdoing, the county releases a statement noting that some police interrogations are now videotaped. the detectives who coerced eddie lowery into falsely confessing, douglas johnson and harry malugani, have left kansas and are now retired from law enforcement. in depositions for the civil suit, doug johnson suggested perhaps eddie lowery was still involved with the rape. he was so defiant still at that time that he put the right person in prison that he started he made up an excuse how i could have been there. i still believe it s possible that he may have been at the scene or that he may have patrick caffey, the prosecutor who convicted lowery, made a similar statement during msnbc s interview with him. maybe he did know something about the crime. i don t know. i don t know that. how would he know anything about the crime?