of daniel brewer. he s arrested for the 1981 rape of the 74-year-old woman and the rape of another woman in ogden three months prior. on july 15th, 2011, brewer pleads guilty. it s taken 30 years. but eddie lowery believes a crooked case has finally been made straight. and i ll never understand all this why this all happened and all that stuff. you know, but, you know, the whole thing is coming around full circle. coming up, lowery s reunion with the daughter who was lost to a wrongful conviction.
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
and even more outrageous they never disclosed that. that s classic exculpatory evidence that should have been disclosed, and they covered it all up. in fact, the innocence project learns that detectives harry malugani and doug johnson were interrogating eddie lowery the very same day daniel brewer was booked into county jail in connection with another rape, a rape with a similar m.o. in the same neighborhood. and here they have lowery where there s no evidence where he s guessing at details that they re feeding him, and they know all this information. i mean it s inexcusable. both the individual officers involved in the case and the department itself declined repeated requests for interviews or a statement of any sort. on january 28th, 2010, nypd detectives along with agents of the kansas bureau of investigation knock on the door
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.
he goes you don t need a lawyer right now. all we want to do is ask you questions. you re not under arrest so you don t need a lawyer. though police will later dispute this, lowery says his repeated requests for a lawyer were denied. i don t know. maybe i should have had more backbone and said, you know, i m walking out of here and i m leaving, but i was so naive about my rights. i didn t know my rights. raised in covina, california, in a family with eight children, lowery had a conventional childhood. he played football in high school and graduated before entering the army. he had never been inside an interrogation room. in a case like eddie s where all of a sudden they tell you you can t have a lawyer, hey, gee, i thought that was part of the constitution. no, you can t have a lawyer. police officers in these situations can be extremely intimidating to the ordinary citizen.