joe s court-appointed lawyer convinced him to waive his right to a jury trial. i haven t a clue of the law. so whatever they said, i did. the prosecution was handled by a tough veteran litigator named carmen marino. on this case from my standpoint it was a job well done by the police officers. they investigated a good case and brought in good witnesses. there was nothing in this case that i had to do that the police didn t already do. that s rare. at trial, the state s case hinged on eddie espinoza s eyewitness account of the murder and the testimony of stoney lewis. to defend himself, joe took the stand. but his only alibi was that he was home alone sleeping. the prosecutor just tore me apart. you know. my attorneys did absolutely nothing and that was it. the case was over. they found me guilty of this crime.
of the truck and was standing behind anthony telling him, where is stoney? where s stoney? and he kept saying i don t know where he is. keenan says put your head back. and that s when he come out with an 11-inch hunting knife and slit his throat. pushed him into the creek and told joe d ambrosio, finish the job. at this point, espinoza said he heard tony screaming for mercy, crying out, please don t kill me. joe grabbed the knife, jumped into the creek and put three big holes in that boy s chest. and killed him. that s eddie espinoza s story. my partner and i both felt that this man was telling us the truth. based mainly on espinoza s account, police charged mike keenan and joe d ambrosio with aggravated murder. each would face the death penalty.
for half my life. so to sit in utter silence is amazing because that s what i used to do when i was at the house. i would turn off the lights and i would sit in utter silence for hours. ah. but there was still one more battle to go. as joe s retrial was finally about to start, news broke that eddie espinoza had died of liver failure. espinoza had served only 12 years in prison before being set free. despite losing their star witness, the state asked the court to admit into evidence espinoza s testimony from 1988. i said no, because mr. d ambrosio would have not had his constitutional right to confront someone who is not there. i didn t see any reason to permit testimony from years ago
i drank like a fish. right across the street from where i was living was a bar called the saloon. and i was in there throwing darts one day and ed espinoza, the foreman for mike keenan, came in and threw out a general question, who needs a job? and he hired me as a landscaper plus home repair work. i started work the next day, september 1st. september 26th, i m sitting in jail. in contrast to joe s story, neil discovered that the man who put joe on death row, eddie espinoza, had a very checkered past. eddie espinoza was someone who in court admitted that he was an alcoholic. also a drug abuser, a welfare he was someone who was known to drink a 12-pack of beer, would follow that up with snorting cocaine and then follow that up with tequila shots. but eddie espinoza had agreed to
had witnessed a rape and that the rape victim was a young man by the name of christopher longenecker. you don t really hear about male on male rape all that often. and to me that suggests a whole other degree of violence. but then it went a step further because it listed that the man who had been arrested for the rape was stoney lewis. the same stoney lewis who had first tipped off police that joe, keenan and espinoza might be the ones responsible for tony s murder. my heart just dropped into the pit of my stomach. and i m thinking, oh, my god, the deceased in this case has witnessed a rape. and the rapist is the man who s pointing his finger at other men. but if neil was able to connect these two cases in an afternoon, why hadn t police and prosecutors done the same? the prosecutor of joe s case was carmen marino.