debbie reinboldt. debbie s testimony was a little bit of a revelation. she was vivid, convincing, and you ve got to remember, in champaign county, i m used to having witnesses testify on behalf of the state. those are the people who are present when homicides occur. after a one-week trial, the jury was out for just six and a half hours. i sat down next to my attorney, the judge ordered the jury to come in. i don t see their faces because they re looking at the tops of their shoes, and i know it s not going to be good. your stomach and your heart s in your throat because i m listening for two words, not guilty. and i only hear one word. it doesn t sink in until i hear my mother wailing behind me. i never will forget that.
testimony you re about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? i do. proceed. thank you, mrs. reinboldt, my name is michael metnick. and i am the attorney for randy steidl. do you understand that? yes, i do. why is it that you re here today? because there were some things that didn t weren t truthful in the testimonies and were you there? at the rhoads house the night they were killed? no. that s when i was done with the state s case. she was either there or she wasn t. who s she lying to? in either way, she s not credible. why did you mention randy steidl? why did i? yes. at that point? yes. because that s who everybody was saying did it. okay. around the time of reinboldt s recantation, bill clutter obtained a previously
randy and herbie and randy s vehicle drove to dyke and karen rhoads house the night of the murder, brought darrell herrington with them. asked him to wait in the car. as herrington stayed in the car, steidl and whitlock went to the front door to confront dyke rhoads. darrell herrington said he heard them arguing about money. when they argued, they could get very heated. herrington later heard screams. inside, he discovered the crime scene. what happened when you went in the bedroom, darrel? there was a body laying there. [ indiscernible ]. darrell encountered randy and herbie, bloody, and was told you didn t see this or the same thing will happen to you. [ indiscernible ] but police reports show debbie reinboldt also claimed to have been with steidl and
unknown box of records from the paris police department. we re able to go through and view all of the police reports that included polygraph reports that had never been disclosed to us. a polygraph report where darrell herrington had failed the polygraph. but if reinboldt and herrington were lying, why had both of them fingered steidl and whitlock for the crime? randy thought he knew. two weeks before the they were murdered, herb whitlock and myself had went to the fbi about prosecutor mike mcfatridge. they believed the state s attorney was unfairly targeting them for drug deals they had nothing to do with. and they provided information about the state s attorney. and the allegation they made to the fbi was that he was protecting drug dealers and gambling in paris, illinois. it was common knowledge to see the prosecutor out in bars
i looked her right in her eyes. and i said, mom, i ve done some bad things in my life, but i ve never done anything like this. you know i m not capable of doing anything like this. as soon as i got that out of my mouth, she was up and out of that visiting booth, slammed the door. when we left, she said he didn t do that, rory. i said, well how do you know? and she said by the way he answered my question. i looked him right in the eye. i know when he s lying to me. despite their mother s belief in randy s innocence, only hard evidence could shake rory s faith in the system. that evidence was about to come from an unlikely source. my epiphany came when i got the call from randy s attorney that said i just received a letter from debbie reinboldt that says your brother wasn t there. and that he had nothing to do with it, and that she s willing to speak to me. do you swear that the