and what do you know? tommy new old man bob. owed him money. used drugs. even told friends he was going to visit bob that night. they prepared a lineup. but when they show the picture to that eyewitness, he didn t pick up pick out tommy. he punted to tommy s brother, ray. he told police he was positive, 100 percent sure, wray was one of the young men running down the driveway and helping in the car after the murder. so, both were arrested and tried. and convicted. and sitting in the courtroom, the and who had loved them all their lives was devastated. i can t even imagine why they got life without parole, even without parole. this is ant jan. it was very hopeless, very hopeless. did you believe that they
to hang over your head? absolutely not. even though last year we have allowed it to hang over our heads. we moved on. we ve moved on our lives. we are going to continue to do that. the wayne county prosecutor, kym worthy, who declined dateline s requests for an interview. took parting shot at the. brothers issued a statement saying quote, just as we do 26 years ago, we firmly believe in the evidence in this case. we have worked diligently to bring this case to trial. with the passage of time, it is an unfortunate reality that this case cannot be put back together and we must dismiss it. sadly, in this case, justice was not done. end quote. really? said the people who freed tommy and ray. it was really disingenuous. it was not right. disingenuous is such a polite word. what does it really mean? it means they were saving face. it put the stain on them that they don t deserve. they already have the stain of
that s why i m today, president made this man. my morals, my integrity s. in a way, a positive experience but one you wouldn t wish on yours enemy. exactly. you still hold on to the light, and you just push forward every day. what s on the agenda today, guys? after their release they moved in with their and jan, and wart tethers to monitor their whereabouts. await into the real world, learning to use cellphones. getting their drivers licenses. i waited to get that all my life. first when i ever had. and getting up in the morning and going to work. ray, at an industrial company, tommy, at a maintenance at an apartment complex. and at the very same time, the wing county prosecutor s office was preparing its case against them, to put them back into prison for life. preparing it as we sat here talking. so as the brothers told us here, the da has put an offer on the
being in touch with long lost friends from the neighborhood. including a couple of brothers, old friends from the neighborhood, who she remembered with a twinge, did not turn out so. well tommy and ray highers. went to prison in fact, for murder. mary followed the case we back then in 1987. remembers just how she felt when they were found guilty. i was shocked. you know? i was shocked to hear that. i thought, no way. did it sound like them to you? no. anyway, there she was thinking about them again, fondly. so, she wrote a line about the missing them whenever she hears a certain song on the radio. and then she side and pushed the send button. and, look out. people might have trouble believing that such a simple thing as posting on facebook could make a whole world change. a lot of people ask me, well what was it? what did you do?
wouldn t have done it? never, i never believed it for one minute. the family stuck by tommy and ray as the man watched their twenties and then their thirties come and go, in prison. and now, where they were in their mid forties. still telling anybody and everybody, including us, that they did not kill old man bob. i just walked with the fate. you know, like this is not the end. the brothers had turned down any and all plea deals, determined instead, to clear their names. they joined every prison program. took every class they could to prove improve themselves. we schooled ourselves. we always took any kind of programs they had to offer. both of you? yeah, absolutely. worked every day. and just held our heads up. but to prove their innocence, they needed some solid new evidence. and by 2009, after 22 years, even their family had about giving up on that. how do you actually gotten to the stage where you thought, well, they re just going to be there for the rest of their l