in front of judge quinlan. and quinlan vacated the death sentence but he refused to vacate guilt. judge quinlan refused to grant a new trial. we were devastated. yes, it was wonderful to have john thompson spared from execution, but we were still looking at a man in his 30s who was going to be facing the rest of his life in jail. so you re going to take the death penalty back and give me a life sentence? i was scared to death even more so now. you tell me i m never going home again? that didn t give me no relief, none whatsoever. i was doomed. michael and gordon appealed the judge s decision, they knew this would be thompson s last chance for a new trial. john s going to go free or spend the rest of his life in prison.
john thompson s testimony was that he did have the gun, but he had bought that from kevin freeman. kevin freeman sold the murder weapon to an unwitting john thompson. john was involved in buying and selling some stolen property. it s not something he s proud of. i was a dope dealer. he was a burglar, you was a robber, you wanted dope, you need to bring me some type of collateral. he was bringing me tv, guns, jewelry. that was a part of a drug trade, being a fence. i m sorry, that s how i came about being in possession of the murder weapon. the defense rested and the case was handed over to the jury. the jury gets up and leaves with your fate in their hands and you try to smile while they re leaving. all them passing right by you. all of them looking you in your face like for the last time. the pressure was enormous, it was almost like you couldn t breathe. there s a lot of nervous energy and small talk that goes on. before we can sit down and
the d.a. s office, harry connick sr. had retired and the new d.a. had run for office on an anti-corruption campaign. now, he wanted to make a deal. the district attorney s office was not really ig eager to go try this case again based on the evidence as it then existed. john could plead to some lesser offense and be immediately released from prison. i m like, hell no. i m not pleading guilty to nothing. after all this stuff we proved, these people are still trying to make me plead guilty to something i didn t do. the jury got it wrong twice before, there was some risk that a jury would get it wrong again, no matter how strong the evidence was. much as we were convinced of john s innocence, we had to think about getting him out of jail as our first priority. was like, john, we re not talking to you no more as attorneys. we re getting ready to talk to you as a friend.
this happen to me? it s not what are you going to do to save my life? h it was about making us feel better about what we d done for him and making sure his son was going to be okay. that s the kind of guy john thompson is. we were mostly silent on the way from angola to new orleans. there was very little to be said. on the way, gordon checked his voicemail. gordon had a message from elisa. so they re driving very solemnly. like, it s over. as they re exiting angola, they had no cell phone coverage for miles and miles and miles. and i, of course, calling their office in philadelphia, just berserk. i m going nuts. there on my voicemail was a message from elisa saying i found something very important. i think this is really big. you have to call me right away. end of message. family. ones for the
contacted me. with john thompson scheduled to be executed in less than a month, defense investigator elisa abolafia desperately searched for answers. i, of course, was a complete nervous wreck because john was facing an execution date, may 20th. so i began with the carjacking case. first, i read the police report. in 1985 john thomson was convicted of carjacking three teenagers at gunpoint. without that conviction, thompson would have been much less likely to get the death sentence for the murder. elisa found reports from the first officer to respond to the carjacking scene. warren pope. when we got there, two cars were involved in a traffic accident, and i noticed some spots of fresh, wet blood. one of the victim s shoes, there was also blood on one of his pants legs. he was uninjured so was his brother and sister. so we assumed that it was perpetrator s blood. police files confirmed the carjacker s blood had been