michael callahan now knew the case against randy steidl was deeply flawed and needed to be reinvestigated. in the year 2000, he took his findings to his superiors. we went into lieutenant colonel parker s office. very plush. she closes the door, and she s in uniform. she sits down behind her desk. callahan walked parker through the evidence, the conflicting testimonies and the recantations. he even highlighted reports that detectives parrish and eckerty had plied reinboldt and herrington with alcohol to shape their testimony. she looks at us, and she says, you cannot reopen the rhoads case. it s too politically sensitive. i flash back to all the days i went undercover, risking my life, and believing we would
always do the right thing, no matter what. then you re told a murder is too politically sensitive, especially a murder where there s two innocent men in prison and there s misconduct by our own. you re ignoring this? callahan refused to comply with carper s orders and continued working on the case. those two guys were innocent. i had to keep going. he soon discovered a number of leads in the case that were never followed. there were any number of suspects. it was like murder on the orient express or something. when i reviewed the case, there were several other suspects that, for whatever reasons, the original investigators didn t follow those leads. one of the suspects in the case, phil stark, he was a banker by day. there was rumors that he was a peeping tom that was seen in the rhoads neighborhood at that time. that was never really investigated by the police.
i told mike i think that if you re quiet and not fighting back and not trying to reveal the truth and not speak out, then you re a part of the problem. callahan decided to defy colonel carper. he sent his findings to illinois attorney general jim ryan, but jim ryan declined to review callahan s report because he d been accepting campaign money from bob morgan, karen rhoads former boss and a suspect in the case. mike callahan was soon transferred back to patrol, a humiliation for someone who had been a commander of investigations. he goes, i guess i just tried to tell the truth. and he said, diane carper removed me from this case. that was a hard time. it was one of those fight or flight things where we just had to fight.
time. ever since the attorney general, lisa madigan, came in charge of the appeal, the case has been mismanaged either from indifference or incompetence. they were clearly capable of committing murder and that was proven. prosecutors to the bitter end always maintain that the person is guilty. because otherwise, it s to admit that they and the police that worked with them fabricated evidence. in the end, based on callahan s report and a lack of faith in the evidence, attorney general lisa madigan decided that judge mccuskey s ruling was the correct one. it s been 17 years, 3 months, 1 week and 2 days, and i m ready for it to end. we weren t willing to believe that randy was going to be freed until he actually walked through the doors. it was a perfect day, you know, the sun was out, not a cloud in the sky. they usher us all in.
that newly focused media attention might cause problems. my initial thought was, of course, they got the right guys. the illinois police don t make mistakes. we don t put innocent people in prison. but i will never forget the day i walked in and looked at the file sitting there, and i had not even turned the first page when i got a phone call from sergeant jake ekerty who was the sergeant on the case. and he blurted out, please don t ruin my reputation. i m not a dirty cop. so it was a definite red flag to me. callahan began by going through the prosecution s timeline of events, starting with darrell herrington s drinking with steidl and whitlock. later on that evening, what happened? randy and herbie in randy s vehicle drove to dyke and karen