Welcome back to the Path with Chili for part two of our series about the
murders of Harold and Thelma Swain. So now let's dive right back into what
we were discussing and getting back to Vanzola Williams. Like when she first looked
at the photograph, she failed to identify Perry, but then she changes her
mind and says, oh, now that I look at his photo, that
might be the guy I saw, even though by this point nearly fifteen years
have passed, so her memory is obviously going to be more hazy and lo
and behold. When they had a pre trial hearing, like Vanzola in her
initial statement did not discribe the killer as wearing glasses, but then she suddenly
changes her mind and then says that, oh, yeah, I remember him
wearing glasses. So it's kind of those things where she's not being nefarious,
but you're kind of thinking that she's suffering from confirmation bias because police have told
her that, well, we think this guy's the killer, and we think
he wore glasses. At the time, she's thinking to herself, well,
maybe I misremembered things and I really did see this guy and he was wearing
glasses, and unfortunately this became the primary evidence and led to Dennis being charged
with murder. That's super frustrating because you've got situations where you're showing one picture,
which is not protocol. There's typically like what like six or eight photos,
And I've heard of investigators using like a photo where it's closer up,
or there's one color photo and the rest are black and white. Things like
that where maybe they're subconsciously doing it right, they're trying to make it so
that the witness picks that person out, but maybe they don't realize that they're
doing it. But you can't really excuse me way Bundy's methods here. He
knows better that isn't the way that it's done, and it wasn't done that
way in nineteen eighty five either, So he has no excuse. And when
you got one witness that's on the ground after an accident and you're bothering her
with questions about this cold case, you couldn't wait until after she got the
care that she needed at a hospital. Just it's just like his lack of
self awareness is just I'm baffled, exactly. And just so when you think
that this guy was supposed to be a specialist, Like they used money to
bring him in to solve cases like this, and he's using like all these
terrible methods. And then you make a comparison to the original investigator, Joe
Gregory with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who was no longer at the case
at this point, but like we said, he did a throw check into
Dennis Perry's alibi. He cleared him as a suspect. And it's pretty crazy
to think that Gregory would later testify at the trial, and he also make
remarks to the newspapers after Dennis Perry's conviction where he flat out said this guy
did not do it. The wrong guy is in prison right now. And
it's very rare to see this conflict between different investigators on a case where one
of them is certain they've got the right guy and that they've solved the case,
but one of the previous investigators is saying is willing to publicly say they've
screwed this up in a big way and they've gotten the wrong guy. Wow,
it's just across the board. I'm like you, I'm not usually shocked
with these cases, but this one is, like, it's mind boggling.
I don't even know how the investigators could have behaved the way that they behaved
here, and how this could have even happened, how Dennis Perry could have
been brought up on charges. I'm just pulling my hair out. And what's
even worse is that after Dennis was charged with two counts of a first degree
murder, he was offered a plea deal in which he could plead guilty to
two charges a voluntary manslader, and in exchange he would only receive a twelve
year prison sentence, which all thinkings considered that this was a cold blooded murder
in which he walked into a church and shot to innocent peace people, that
would be a pretty good deal if he was guilty, But nonetheless, Dennis
still turned it down, saying I did not commit this crime. I want
to go to trial. And it's always a red flag when they offer such
light senses to people who commit murders, which makes you think the evidence against
them must not be that strong. So they really just are hoping that it'll
take a plea deal and we can count this as a win and we can
just brush it under the rug and never have to refer to it again.
It's sort of like with the West Memphis three, Right, It's like,
oh, so you're just gonna let three quote child murderers out. It's like,
you know that you don't have enough evidence to hold them and eventually they're
going to have to be let go and then they're going to be able to
sue the States. So the way that they went about it, they protected
themselves so that they couldn't be suedents so that they wouldn't have to pay out
the money that they likely should have. And in this case, you're offering
six years a piece for a cold blood and murder that was premeditated. I'm
shocked that they would offer that, Like they knew there was a lot of
holes in the case, or there was a lot of questions surrounding certain methods
of investigators, Bundy or I don't know what the district attorney was thinking,
but they probably looked at everything that was available and went, well, you
know, maybe we could convince a jury, maybe not, but it might
be smart to plead this out exactly because the only real evidence they had was
Jane Biever's testimony, and we know she had credibility issues. He had the
eyewitness accounts from Cora Fisher and Banzola Williams. But we know that sometimes eyewitnesses
are not reliable. But there was no actual physical evidence placing Perry at the
murder scene, and I guess all else he had was his alleged confession,
which there was no recording of, there was no notes of. So I
can definitely see the district attorney thinking, well, it's kind of a crapshoot
if we're going to get a guilty verdict, so let's offer him a plead
deal and hope he takes it and then we don't have to take this to
trial. Yeah, that just sounds like an incredibly light sentence. The fact
that, like you said, it's always suspicious when they're going to offer a
very light sentence for murder one. This is not manslaughter, So yeah,
I think they're showing their hand there. And another big issue is that a
lot of the evidence, the physical evidence which was available, had been lost
in the past fifteen years since the murder took place. We already talked about
how the glasses had gone missing and how this could have been used to exonerate
Perry because he had twenty twenty vision. He didn't have to wear glasses,
so there's no reason for them for him to have worn them to the murder
scene. So I think like the prosecution tried pushing away from them, saying
that well, maybe the glasses were left there at a previous time by someone
else who entered the church and they did not actually belong to the killer.
And there was another piece of evidence was the phone box that the killer had
used to disconnect the phone lines before they went in. They thought, well,
maybe there's fingerprints on there, and if they don't match Dennis, then
that will exonerate them. But the phone box also conveniently went missing. They
didn't preserve some evidence, but it's awfully convenient that the stuff that could have
proved that Dennis was not the killer just seemed to go missing before the trial
happened. That seems incredibly convenient, especially when we look at the methods the
Bundy used. I mean, I don't know what this district attorney was like,
or what the other investigators were like, but I think we can definitely
call into question maybe they just conveniently lost certain items because it could prove that
their suspect that they're taking to trial here for murder didn't actually do this.
Well. The good news is that the most important piece of evidence that was
preserved were a pair of hairs that had been found in the hinges of the
killer's glasses, and they did testing on this and the hares did not actually
match Dennis Perry, which should have been good news for the defense, but
they made kind of a crucial mistake with their strategy because you'll remember Donnie Berenine,
the alternate suspect. They did DNA testing for him as well, and
the hares did not match him either, and this was kind of bad news
from the defense because they were planning, as part of their strategy, was
hoping to point towards Barentine as an alternate suspect. But the police actually offered
Barentine immunity from prosecution if he would testify at the trial and deny his involvement
in the murders. And the thing was, if the defense brought up the
DNA results at the trial, they would have to acknowledge that they didn't match
Barentine, and that would go against their strategy at pointing towards Barentine as an
alternate suspect. So I've read the trial transcripts and the only time that the
defense mentioned that the hairs did not match Dennis Perry was during the opening statement.
But they didn't mention the DNA testing or the hairs for the rest of
the trial because then they would have had to admit in open court that they
did not match Donny Bearantine either. What year was the trial again, it
was in two thousand, when DNA profiling was not as big a piece of
evidence in criminal investigations as it is now. And Ret Trepe I think they
should have put a lot more focus on the DNA and the hairs because they
don't have to prove who the real killer is. They just have to prove
to a jury that Dennis Perry did not do this. But because they focus
so much on Barentine, they downplayed the U, the DNA testing, and
the hairs even though disproved that Dennis did not do it. Yeah, given
the same evidence today, it would have been I mean, they wouldn't bring
charges, but say that they did. It would have been a completely different
strategy by the defense attorney. I'm sure that they would have hammered home that
DNA because of the CSI effect. That's what juries want to see. You
want to see good circumstantial evidence and good forensic evidence, and I think you've
got both to prove that he didn't do this. The fact that they only
mentioned it in opening arguments, they didn't mention it during their clothes or anytime
throughout the trial is shocking exactly. Like that's what we always say about defense,
is that all you have to do is generate reasonable doubt. You don't
have to prove to a jury who actually he was the real killer. And
they kind of made a mistake there, which is because they wanted to focus
so much on Barentine. But the situation with Barentine was similar because he had
time cards showing that he was working until three point thirty on the day of
the crime, and well, he theoretically could have made it all the way
from Florida to Camden County, Georgia within that window of five hours. It
still would have been a tight timeline. So they should have put a lot
more focus on the fact that, hey, our guy was working that day
and he couldn't have driven that time frame within four hours to commit the murders.
But unfortunately they just kind of used the wrong strategy and focused on the
wrong guy. They got tunnel vision as well. I think so yeah,
because they were so certain that Barentine was the killer, even though in retrospect
it looks like he was a major red herring. And speaking of which,
like I mentioned earlier, that when Joe Gregory looked at Perry as a suss
back back in the nineteen eighties, he talked to his foreman at the construction
company he worked out Atlanta and said that he was working till this time.
There's no way he could have made it to Camden County during this timeframe.
But unfortunately, by the time the trial happened, this construction company had closed
down, so they didn't have any records or time cards which proved that Dennis
was working there until five o'clock. They did call up his coworker, Charlie
Williamson, to testify on the stand to say that he had driven Perry back
to his home and dropped him off at five point thirty. But unfortunately,
by this point, Charlie Williamson was seventy six years old, he had already
suffered two heart attacks, and he seemed like a very frail old man.
So the prosecution just tried to attack his credibility, saying that well, it's
been a while, you're kind of old, now, is it possible you
could have misremembered the date and did not actually drive Dennis home on this particular
date. And I think this did an effective job at sowing the seeds with
the jury where they sought that, well, this whole thing about Dennis being
at work is probably mistaken. He probably went to Georgia the day before,
and Charlie Williamson is just mips remembering the date. So unfortunately his alibi I
didn't save him from being convicted. It's too bad, because somebody's going to
have a lot more accurate of a memory when you question them, you know,
within like a few days or weeks of an event, but questioning him
fifteen years later, it's pretty easy to poke holes in someone's memory and make
them doubt themselves exactly. Yeah, And I think Charlie Williamson was even doubting
himself because he was not in the best of health at that point. It
had been about eighteen years so, and because they didn't have any like hard
like evidence paper evidence like documentation like time cards to believe that to show that
Dennis Perry was at work on this particular date, the jury just thought everyone
was misremembering things and that he had gone down to Camden County the day before
the murders. Especially when you have people of authority who are the ones who
are poking holes, You've got nothing to substantiate that memory, like nothing concrete.
So you've got these people telling you, hey, do you think that
there's a potential that you could be wrong, that this is the wrong day,
that maybe he wasn't there that day. I think the more that people
are trying to question your memory, it's really easy to want to please people
who are in a position of authority, and that could have been the case
here as well, with subconsciously not like it's a conscious decision, oh exactly.
Yeah, And I think that was the way with some of the other
eyewitnesses like dan Zola Williams and Cora Fisher, who just felt, well,
the authorities told me that this is the guy that I saw such and such
on this date, so they must be right, so I'm going to just
say what they want me to say. So the jury actually surprisingly only deliberated
for three hours before they found Dennis guilty on two counts of felony murder.
And this is where things get even more shady. Before sensing could take place,
the prosecutors actually got Dennis into a room and said that if you have
been found guilty, we will give you the death penalty, but we will
make a deal with you. If you agree to waive your right to appeal,
we will not give you a death sentence, and we will still give
you two consecutive life sent and you will still be eligible for parole after you
serve a minimum of twenty years. And they pretty much just gave him this
offer like into his face, Like they pretty much didn't give him any time
to think about it or consult with his attorneys or consult with his family.
And Dennis would later say that I was terrified I was going to be executed.
Like he didn't really understand the whole appeal process that even if you're sent
to death row, it could be several years before you're actually executed. So
he was just so terrified that he agreed to the deal that he would accept
these two consecutive life sentences as long as he waived his right to ever file
any appeals for his conviction. And I cannot think of another case like this
where like they course like a defendant into giving up the right to appeal in
exchange for not receiving the death penalty. So this was another warning sign that
they were terrified that their case against him was not that strong and that if
he tried to appeal his conviction it would get overturned. So they found a
loophole around it. He's so unfortunate too, because they obviously are trying to
just give him this offer to scare him so that he takes it, so
that it covers their butt, because clearly they've got a reason to be worried,
and I think that they must be a little bit scared here, hence
the reason why they offered that sweetheart deal of twelve years for both murders in
the beginning. So now they're again going, Okay, well we've got this
conviction, but let's just make sure this never sees an appeals court because this
could embarrass us all exactly. And I know this started getting media coverage in
the years following his conviction where they would interview Perry in prison and he says,
yeah, I totally regrets like taking this deal because now I can't appeal
my conviction except under extreme circumstances. But at that time, I was just
terrified that I was going to be executed, and I didn't get enough time
to think about it. So he was just kind of in a knowing situation
where he could shout to the rooftops that I'm innocent, that a lot of
misconduct happened in my case, But because he had waived his right to appeal,
he was kind of helpless to do anything until the Georgia Innocent Project got
involved, and this case wound up being featured on Undisclosed in twenty eighteen.
So for the Undisclosed podcast, I know that Susan Simpson started working with the
Georgia Innocent Project and did like a new deep dive investigation. They were just
trying to find any other loopholes which would give him the right to appeal his
conviction in spite of that deal, and they discovered that the day after Dennis's
arrest, Jane Beaver had asked for a twelve thousand dollars reward for her information
leading to his being captured, and the authorities actually paid it out to her,
But because this information about the reward was not shared with the jury at
Perry's trial, they filed a new appeal saying that his constitutional rights had been
violated. By twenty eighteen, Jane Biab was already deceased, so she couldn't
really answer these allegations. But that is a pretty big deal where it's like,
not only did this woman like do her own independent investigation and get and
Perry thrown behind bars because she just didn't like him, she seemed to have
a personal grudge against him, but she also received a twelve thousand dollars reward
for it. And the defense attorneys argued if the jury had known this,
they might not have put as much credibility into her testimony. So for this
reason, his conviction should be overturned and he should receive a new trial.
And I also feel like the jury should have heard from Caroline as well.
Right, Carolyne did testify at the trial, but they didn't put much credence
into what she said. It's really too bad because the mother was the one
that had this like vendetta against him. And when you've got the daughter who's
saying, oh, no, this isn't actually accurate or true, then you've
got to question a whole lot of other things with regards to the investigation.
Because what prompted it would have been her vendetta, right, so she's not
a very credible witness, and the fact that she got a twelve thousand dollars
reward, the jury very much should have been aware that fact exactly. But
there was still some argument, though, is this information good enough to overturn
his conviction after he waived his right to appeal. So they knew that they
were going to have to find some much stronger evidence in order to do this,
and thankfully there was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution named Joshua Sharp
who did his own deep, deep dive investigation and discovered some shocking new information
that he shared in an extensive article which was titled The Imperfect Alibi, and
I'm going to explain why it has that title momentarily. So he found out
about a guy named Eric Sparr, who was fifty six years old at this
point, who had been investigated as a potential suspect early on in the investigation.
He had originally grown up in Brunswick, Georgia, where he lived,
but he had spent some time in the Waverly area, and he was a
really bad guy who had a history of abuse against his ex wives and He
first popped up unto the radar in nineteen eighty six when his ex wife Emily
said that he constantly harassed and threatened me, he abused me, and that
there was one time where he was so angry that he flat out said to
me that I killed two people in a church, and I will do the
same thing to you if you don't behave and do what I say. And
he actually used like the N word to say, I'm the guy who killed
those two N words in that church. And of course she found she started
looking back and found out that on the day of the murder, when the
Swains were killed, spar had left their house wearing dark clothing, but when
he came back the next morning, he was wearing a white T shirt which
did not match the which was different than what he was wearing. And he
also apparently liked to wore scuff snake skin boots like the ones worn by the
killer. And the strongest piece of evidence is that Eric apparently had his own
pair of beat up glasses that he had constructed using from different pairs of other
glasses, which matched the description of the glasses found at the crime scene,
and he apparently lost these glasses sometime when the murders took place, so and
he also worked as a welder, and they suspected that a welding torch had
been used to construct these glasses. So on the surface, he seemed like
a very promising suspect, and his name was given to the authorities. But
as I'm going to talk about normentarily, he wound up being cleared early on
because of what was described as a imperfect alibi. Wow, that is some
interesting information, I would say, given the glasses, that's almost bombshell information.
And the fact that he liked to wear scuffed snakeskin boots, yes,
and that on that day he went he left the home wearing one thing,
came back wearing another, and then also with the whole using the racial slurs
and admitting that this is looking like a very promising suspect. This is looking
better than Dennis Perry. Well, the reason he got cleared early on,
this is just going to blow your mind. I have never heard anything like
this in a case. But Agent Gregory, the same guy who investigated Dennis
Perry, he decided to check into spars whereabouts on the night of the crime.
He worked at a wyin Dixie grocery store in Brunswick, and he obtained
the phone. I think when he questioned Sparr he received the phone number for
his manager and said that, oh, yeah, I was working on the
night of the crime, and if you talk to this manager, he'll tell
you that I was there and verify my alibi. And he provided the name
of a guy named Donald Mobley and provided his so called phone number. So
Agent Gregory phoned this number, talked to someone claiming that they were Donald Mobley
and said, oh yeah, I can verify that spar was working this night,
and this is why Gregory cleared him as a suspect. But many years
later, this reporter I mentioned Joshua Sharp, decided to take a closer look
at this alibi and found out that when he called this number, he looked
at the original police notes and looked at the number that spar provided and called
it and found out this was not a number for a grocery store. This
was fair a woman who was an acquaintance of Eric Sparrer at that time,
and she said, yeah, my mother used to live at this number and
she had a phone in the back of the shed. But I don't know
why this number would be in the police files, so they finally, Joshua
Sharp decided to try to track down Donald Mobley, this manager that Agent Gregory
had supposedly talked to, but then found out that the name of the actual
manager at the time was David Mobley. This was not even the correct name.
So he finally talked to David Mobley and he said, no, my
name is not Donald. I don't know anyone named Donald. There was no
Donald Mobley working at the wind Dixie grocery store in Brunswick back in nineteen eighty
six. And I have no recollection of ever talking to the police and verifying
an alibi for Eric Sparr. I have no idea what you're talking about.
So in retrospect, it appears that Eric Sparr provided a fake number, a
fake name, and that when Agent Gregory phoned it, either SPA or someone
else impersonated his own manager, gave him a fake alibi, and the police
believed it, and that's why he was cleared as a suspect. Oh wow,
that is pretty shocking that, I mean, okay, so did Bundy
have already in his head that it was Dennis Perry when he did this investigation?
Because it feels like this is just lazy police work. You're not meeting
with anybody in person, you're not confirming that that phone number is actually for
the wind Dixie or for any employee of the wind Dixie, and you're not
even confirming anything with the manager. Like none of this makes sense and far
seems to be such a great suspect as compared to Dennis Perry. The only
thing I guess is that you don't have Jane Beaver breathing down your neck saying
that it had to have been Perry. But I'm just so confounded by this
information. Just to clarify, this wasn't a Bundy, this was Joe Gregory,
the original investigator. Oh okay, and this was back in the late
nineteen eighties, So I don't think Bundy ever looked at Eric Sparr at all,
because he'd he'd already been cleared as a suspect. But I have a
feeling that agent Gregory just had the same mentality, like this is what he
did when he cleared Dennis Perry. He called his foreman and talked to him
and said, oh yeah, I can verify that he was working on this
particular night and that's why Perry was cleared as well, and it looks like
he did the same thing to Eric Sparr. And even though it seems like
spar impersonated his own manager and provided a fake alibi. I actually talked to
Susan Simpson about this. I saw her again at the True Crime Podcast Festival
in Austin a few months ago, and she thinks an alternate possibility is that
agent Gregory was just playing lazy. He never made the phone call to check
the alibi. That maybe he just felt spar was not a logical suspect,
so he just wrote down in his notes that he called this Donald Mobley guy.
But it never actually happened, And it was not until like thirty years
later when this journalist decided to you actually tried to number and talk to the
real guy that he found out. No, I never actually provided an alibi
for Eric Sparr. Wow. I mean that wouldn't really surprise me, right
if you just got sheer laziness, like I'm not going to double check this,
why bother, I've already got my suspect in mind. But it is
shocking when you're looking at a case that's a death penalty case right, and
you'd think that you would dot your eyes and cross your te's here exactly like
it just is. I know, this was like the eighties where you actually
had to do more legwork to travel around, Like you couldn't talk to someone
on FaceTime in order to verify that you're actually speaking to that person on the
phone. But it just seems like if you have a guy where he had
allegedly bragged about like killing like a priest inside a church, that you should
look at him more thoroughly rather than just making a phone call to his so
called manager and taking their word for it that e n alibi that night.
Yeah, like you're trusting some random person. If we're to believe the phone
call was made whomever answered the phone, you're believing that they are who your
suspect says that they are. They could just be your suspect's brother or friend
or whomever. And you're saying, oh, yeah, so if a person
calls you are this person. It's like on Seinfeld Vandaline, Yeah, exactly,
same type of thing. Yeah, And while we're on the subject,
it would turned out that sometime in the late nineteen nineties, another ex wife
of Eric Sparr would come forward and said that he was a guy who loved
to change his voice and impersonate other people on the telephone, which is what
probably happened here. And she told a very similar story. She said he
was an abusive guy, he was a drug user, he was a racist,
and that at one point he got angry with her, held her down
on the bed and put a pillow over her face and said that I'm gonna
kill you like I killed those people in Camden County. And apparently he specifically
mentioned Harold Swain's name. But of course, by the time this woman came
forward in the late nineteen nineties, they had already focused on Dennis Perry as
a suspect, so her tip was pretty much ignored, and it was on
until Joshua Sharp, the reporter, reinterviewed her in twenty nineteen, when he
began to realize, oh yeah, we've now got two separate ex wives telling
two different stories about how he bragged about killing a black couple in a church.
This really sounds like this guy could be the real killer. I mean,
given all the evidence we have, the cobble together glasses, the boots,
the fact that he keeps confessing to this, it sounds like he is
a likely suspect. But do we know what would have been his motivation.
That's unclear because I know that he lived in the area in Waverley at some
point, so it sounds like he was familiar with the Swains, but he
was living in Brunswick at that point, So I don't know what it was
that would compel him to make this lengthy drive down there on this particular night
in order to kill these two people. It could be a thing where he
was just simply on drugs or something like that, or just had hate in
his heart and just felt, I just want to kill a random black person
tonight. So unless he is charged with this crime, we may never know.
But as far as I can tell, they have never found any real
connection between Harold Swain and Eric Sparr to figure out why he would feel compelled
to kill him. But sometimes racist people just don't need a reason. They
just want to kill the first black person that they see. That is very
true. We could be looking for a motive when it's nothing more than this
person is a racist and they're going to this church and they know that there's
black parishioners, a black preacher and maybe they want to make a mark on
the black community and murdering a man of God would be a good way to
do so. But the most important thing that differentiates him from Dennis Perry is
that spar actually owned a vehicle at that time, so he could have actually
made the drive from another town to do there and then drive back. Yet
you're focusing on the guy who doesn't have any form of transportation. Totally logical,
Oh, definitely logical, makes one hundred percent sense. So in early
twenty twenty, the Georgia Innocence Project, now that they knew Eric Sparr was
a potential suspect, they wanted to do new DNA testing on the hairs that
were found in the killer's glasses. Of course, like spar himself, was
not going to hand over his own DNA, so they decided to collect it
from his mother, Gladys spar and do some mitochondrial DNA testing, and sure
enough, the results wound up being a match. It didn't say conclusively that
the DNA on the hairs belonged to Eric Sparr, but because it was mitochondrial
DNA testing, but the results showed that someone in the spar family was likely
the source of this hairs, so, of course the pretty much. Even
though Perry had waived his right to appeals, these DNA results compelled his attorneys
to file in extraordinary motion for a new trial, arguing that this is strong
enough evidence that you have to overturn his conviction. And if these DNA results
have been available for Eric Sparr back when he went on trial in two thousand
and three, then he probably never would have been convicted. No kidding.
You've got me convinced with the evidence that you put forth so far that clearly
it's not done as Perry and it's is our likely killer here exactly. So.
I know that the district attorney in Camden County at that time was Jackie
Johnson, and she put up a major fight in trying to get this conviction
overturned. And around the same time period she would find herself at the center
of controversy for another reason. You're probably familiar with the Ahmad arbery case,
right, yes, yes, well, as I'm sure you're well aware.
He was a black man who was murdered by two racist guys while he was
jogging, and the whole thing was videotaped. It was a clear cut vigilante
killing. But Jackie Johnson was the district attorney at the time who was very
reluctant to file charges against these two men. And I think it was about
a year or two ago she was actually indicted for withholding evidence and for hindering
an investigation. So she has not gone to trial for this yet, she's
still a free woman. But when you realize the character of her, that
she was trying to cover up this other hate crime taking place in her county,
then it's somehow not surprised that she was reluctant to overturn Dennis Perry's conviction
and sends him free from prison. Yeah, that's not surprising. It's not
a good look and it's clearly a criminal offense exactly. But thankfully, in
spite of Johnson's resistance, the evidence was presented in a judge named Steven Scarlett,
and he decided on his own accord to overturn Dennis's conviction and grant him
a new trial, saying that if these DNA results have been available when he
went on trial the first time around, the verdict might have been different.
So he's entitled to go on trial again. So in July of twenty twenty,
he was finally released from prison. And I'm sure you're all aware,
July of twenty twenty was a very rough time. We were in the middle
of COVID. There was a lot of chaos going on in the world.
But this was my bright spot for the year, seeing a guy because apparently,
like prisons were a terrible place for COVID back in twenty twenty, because
it was so easy for the virus to spread around. Well, all these
people were incarcerated and cramped together. So not only was is great for Dennis
Perry to finally have his freedom again, but he was finally out of prison
this haven for COVID, and so he'd be a lot more safer. So
it was such a satisfying feeling seeing him finally walk out of prison after serving
seventeen years. Wow, that must have been something. Can you imagine you
go in in like nineteen eighty five? Was it? No? When was
his trial two and three? It was nineteen eighty Yeah, nineteen eighty five,
the crime was committed, two thousand and three goes and he's into prison,
And the world was very different in two thousand and three than twenty twenty,
and to be released in the middle of a pandemic when everybody is freaked
out. There's social media, which there wasn't in two thousand and three.
Just the landscape of technology had changed so much. So do we know about
what Dennis Perry has been up to since he was released. He seems to
be doing well. I spoke to Susan Simpson about it, and she said
that now that he's a free man, he's living his bad life. Of
course, when Jackie Johnson was still the DA, she was reluctant to drop
the charges against him. She still seemed to insist that she was going to
take him to trial again, but thankfully she lost the reelection and the newly
appointed Camden County District Attorney, Keith Higgins, pretty much said that, yeah,
we take him to trial again. There's no way we're going to get
a conviction. This is a complete waste of time. So he finally dropped
the charges against him and officially exonerated Dennis, and in April of twenty twenty
two, he was finally awarded one point two million dollars in compensation for his
wrongful conviction. And I hope he is using that money to live his best
life because he got railroaded in a huge way, I hope so, And
like it just doesn't sound like enough, does it. I mean, I
guess what do they calculate, like one hundred thousand dollars a year or something
like that. It just doesn't seem like enough for the emotional pain and suffering
that is inflicted upon somebody. Their family is destroyed. There's a cascade of
downstream effects from a conviction for murder like that, for not just the end
of vial, before the totality of their entire family and friend network. And
it's just like, here's one point two million. I feel like, you
know, here's five million would be a better way to say sorry, you
know what I mean exactly, Like I've seen someone's where they award as much
as ten or twenty millions. So even though one point two million is a
good sum, it's nowhere near enough considering like how badly he was railroaded and
the fact that he was like coerced into waving his right to appeal. So
I can't imagine though, how he must feel because back in like the late
two thousands, he was probably thinking I screwed myself. There's no way they
can even overturn my conviction, I'm going to be in prison for the rest
of my life. So like, thank God for the George Innocence Project and
the Undisclosed pod past, and for Joshua Sharp for overturning this new information where
they were finally in the position where they forced the state's hand and they said,
Okay, there's no way we can keep this guy in prison. We
have DNA evidence implicating an entirely new suspect. We have to finally let him
go. Yeah, at that point, it's like, why would you bring
this back to trial unless you've got a personal vendetta or you're a racist.
I wonder what her deal was, Like, what was her motivation? Is
it just that she hated black people? Or was she just a horrible person?
Are you talking about Jackie Johnson? Yeah, I don't know. Like
maybe we'll learn more about her when she goes on trial for obstructing justice in
the in the Ahmad Arbory case. But like you remember the fear of though
that they had this video of this black man being killed by two white men,
like was clearly cold blood and murder, And it was months before they
finally filed charges against these men and they were indicted. I mean, thankfully
they've been convicted and sent to prison. But everyone was asking Jackie Johnson,
you have video evidence, why don't you prosecute these guys? So, I
don't know, maybe she has some racist beliefs deep down. Yikes. It
just doesn't seem like there's any good reason for that, especially given the solid
evidence that they had. Well, speaking of people who are wrongly accused,
there's Donnie bearnine. If you go back and you watch the Unsolved Mystery segment
and they talk about the evidence against him, he seems like a pretty logical
alternate suspect. But then when Dennis went on trial, they did DNA testing
and it showed that the hairs in the DNA in the hairs and the glasses
did not match Barentine either, so he was technically wrongfully accused as well.
He's not particularly a sympathetic individual, like he had to spend time in prison
for firearms violations, but it's kind of crazy to think that he was the
big red herring in this case where everyone thought he was the real killer for
like two decades, but then they did the DNA testing and it's like,
no, you you were just a guy who apparently liked to drunkenly brag about
killing people that you did not actually kill, and for that reason, you
were falsely accused of the murder. I was listening to an FBI profiler talk
on I think they were on the murder sheet or something, and she worked
at Quantico for many, many years, and she said, oftentimes it comes
up where there is the perfect person. They seem to fit that profile,
and everything seems to line up, and you're really or that it's them,
and then somebody else comes on the radar and it proves to be an entirely
different person who just shares a lot of commonalities with that person. And so
I think that we see this in cases all the time, where there's this
person that is clearly just a red herring, but on paper they seem to
be like a perfect suspect and he sounds like a good suspect until we find
out the DNA doesn't match, and then we've got SPA comes on the scene
and it's like, whoa, We've got a DNA match and all this circumstantial
evidence. Yeah, it's kind of crazy, Like it unfolded like a movie
or a work of fiction where a lot of the time you'll have like someone
falsely accused of a crime, and then they'll point at someone else and say,
oh, this looks like the killer. And then they'll have this last
minute twist that shows no such and such as the killer. That's exactly what
happened in this real life case with Dennis Perry Donnie Barentine, and then it
turns out, oh, it was Eric sparr all along. Yeah, this
is really crazy. It does play out like a movie, and maybe they'll
make a movie about this case one day, because it is inspirational when you
hear that somebody gets that justice and that the judges. It is so hard
to overturn a conviction when you got a judge what was the judge's name again,
Judge let me look that up here, Judge Stephen Scarlett. When you've
got Judge Stephen Scarlett, who I think is the unsung hero in this case.
It's often set up in the system so that it is so hard to
get a case overturned that even though it seems so clear that these people haven't
done it or there's a better suspect, the system seems to protect itself rather
than necessarily the rights of the individuals, and we see the judges seem to
have the backs of other judges, and it's an extremely nuanced, complex conversation
that quite frankly, the people on Undisclosed would be far better at having than
me. But I'm just so happy that Dennis Perry got out in any of
these wrongful conviction cases when we see somebody get out, get the compensation that
they deserve and be able to be reunited with their loved ones and live a
normal life, a typical life, a life where they get to look at
the sun, where they get to put their feet on the grass, These
things that should be a basic human right of the innocent that has been that
they've been deprived of for all of these years. Exactly Like I remember when
I started digging into this case in twenty eighteen, I was thinking, well,
this might be useless and stuff, because it's possible Dennis Perry is the
right guy. This is technically a close case and no one will ever hear
of his story. But then I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that
Undisclosed was covering it. And then in the long run their work paid off
and he wound up being released about only two years after they featured him on
the podcast. But I bet you're wondering about Eric Sparr. Well, here's
another surprise twist in this story. As you might recall, when they were
trying to obtain his DNA, they actually consulted his mother, Gladys Spar and
got it in February of twenty twenty, and the results showed that there was
a mitochondrial match to the hair found in the glasses. Well surprised. Only
a few days after Dennis Perry's conviction was over, TI heard and was released
from prison, Gladys spar was found dead in her home. Now, to
be fair, she was seventy nine years old at the time, so it
could have been natural causes. And I don't know if they were ever able
to confirm the exact cause of death, and if they have, they haven't
released it publicly. But now that I've heard about what I've heard about Eric
Sparr, it would not surprise me in the least that he might have been
furious that his mother voluntarily turned over the sample of his DNA, and that
when he found out that the guy who committed his crime was released from prison,
he decided to get revenge on her and kill his own mother. I'm
not saying what that's one hundred percent what happened. It could just be a
coincidence because of her advanced age. But if that's what happened, then Gladys
Spar is just another victim in this whole saga. Ugh, if he killed
his own mother, I mean I wouldn't put it past him based on everything
that we know about him. He sounds like a pretty abhorrent individual. But
ugh, if he did that to her, that is just so harp game
exactly. And you might be wondering why Spar has not been charged with this
crime because it's been over three years since the DNA match. But the problem
is that it's mitolchondrial DNA testing, which only shows that a member of the
Spar family is likely the source of the hairs. But they haven't given more
advanced testing to prove beyond a shadow of bit of a doubt that the hair
belongs to Eric. Why not? I don't know, because as it is
right now, Eric does have a brother. So if they arrested him right
now on the mitolchandrial DNA evidence, technically, as attorneys could say, oh,
it could have been his brother that left the hairs behind or something like
that, that's the killer, and there's still reasonable doubts. So that's what
makes me wonder, why aren't you doing more advanced DNA testing to prove beyond
a shadow of a doubt that the hair belongs to him. But when I
talk to Susan Simpson a few months ago, she thinks that this is such
an embarrassment for Camden County that they don't want to arrest another suspect. They
don't want to admit that they were wrong. So unless there's someone with a
lot of initiative who really wants this to be conclusively solved, Eric Sparr is
going to remain a free man for the foreseeable future. Oh, it sounds
like a slam dung to me. I get that it's embarrassing, but it
wasn't under the tutelage of whomever is at the helm now. It was from
a long time ago, so it's not your mess, it's your predecessor's mess.
And I get that it is embarrassing for the county, but it does
seem like a slam dung, And there is like a hero element in actually
getting the real killer after the person has been wrongfully convicted, and it's like,
look, we're actually sweeping up the mess that we help to create,
exactly Like I mean Dennis Berry, he's already been released, he's been awarded
a million dollars in compensation, So there's really no reason to not admit you're
wrong anymore. I mean, it's decades after the fact. The original investigators
and the prosecutors are either dead or retired. So who has ever taken the
reins now they can take They can take comfort in the fact that this is
not my fault. I was not around when they put the wrong person in
prison, so why can't I just do the right thing and make sure that
the real perpetrator is put in prison for this crime. I do know that
in twenty twenty they exhumed Harold Swain's body because I think they were looking for
additional DNA evidence. But it's been three years and I haven't heard anything,
so I assumed they didn't find anything of evidentiary value. And I guess maybe
their biggest obstacle is that they have to get a warrant to obtain a real
DNA sample from Eric spar I know it happens sometimes in these cases where they'll
shadow a suspect and when they throw away like a paper cup or a personal
item like a cigarette, they'll like take it up and then do DNA testing
and then conclusively match it to the evidence. But who knows, Maybe they're
just paranoid that Eric Sparr will just say, well those glasses. I was
in the church and I lost the glasses, but I did not actually pull
the trigger and kill Harold. This is just a red herring. But like
you said, it just does seem like a slam dunk. I have seen
people convicted on evidence much weaker than this, So it's very frustrating that it's
now been nearly four years and they still have not charged him with this crime.
But the good news, though, is that I remember when they uploaded
this segment to Unsolved Mystery several years ago, they just had a brief text
update which said that this case is solved. A man named Dennis Perry was
charged and convicted of the murders of Harold and thelmas wayIn. So looking at
that, you figured this case was conclusively resolved and there was nothing more to
this story. But to the credit of film Rise, who runs the channel,
where Unsolved Mysteries is available. They have actually inserted a new title card
mentioning that Dennis Perry had his conviction overturned, was exonerated and released from prison,
So the whole world knows the update to this story. But the sad
part is is that this is technically an unsolved mystery again, and Harold and
Thelma will not receive justice until they are finally until someone else, presumably Aeric
spar Is finally charged with his murder. That part is so frustrating. I
really wish that the district attorneys would go, Okay, we've got good circumstantial
evidence here. People aren't getting any younger. Let's go forward with this.
We've likely got a slam dunk. We've already been embarrassed as much as we're
going to be embarrassed. I mean sure, there's going to be maybe certain
things that are brought up that maybe they would like to see the light of
day, but I think they're getting a conviction would trump that because it would
make them look good, like, hey, we've cleaned up this mess.
Look at us. We care about justice, we care about Thelma, and
we care about Harold because they're the victims here. And their families that don't
really have a resolution, And I think that is the really heartbreaking part of
it here, exactly Like I always talk about wrongful conviction cases, how hard
it is for the victims' families because they are given the impression that they finally
receive justice, that the proper person has been put in prison for the crime,
but then decades later you find out, oh, we put the wrong
person in and that the real killer is still out there. So it must
be just like a huge roller coaster ride of emotions. And I feel so
bad for the Swayin family because from all accounts, Harold and Thelma are genuinely
kind, generous and decent people who were were always willing to help anybody,
and it just sounds like that they cross paths with like a complete racist who
wanted to kill a pair of black people for no reason whatsoever except to satisfy
their own hate. And after all these years they have still not received complete
justice. So yeah, I think that about brings an end to this.
I've pretty much gone over the case. Like I said when I covered this
on the podcast back in twenty eighteen, I did not expect all these new
developments to take place, and that Dennis would be released from prison and that
this case would be looked at in a new light. But that's the main
reason I wanted to talk about it on this episode and revisit it, because
there were just so many new developments to discuss, and I'm sure I provided
you with some truly jaw dropping moments which shock the hell out of you.
You really did. There was a bunch of moments throughout this where I was
like, what like, especially with regards to Perry's alibi, them not looking
into it, the DNA hatches, all of these things. It was just
like, how did this even happen? And the fact that he hasn't been
convicted at this point, that he's still a free man, that they haven't
got a warrant to get his DNA based off the bitochandrial is shocking. But
this is a fascinating case and I'm really happy that you shared it with me.
Great. Thank you. It was great to discuss it and hear your
reactions. My only regret is that Ashley was not here, because I think
she would have given off a few audible gasps and gotten really angry, and
a lot of the things we talked about definitely, So she'll be back for
our next series, Yeah, definitely, and we'll definitely have to get her
to listen to this because she'll be shocked at what she hears because she talks
a lot about wrongful convictions. So thanks for discussing this case for me and
we will see you again next week with our friend Ashley back. So until
then, have yourself a good week and thanks for your support. Robin.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now,
and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I
also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with
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if you join our highest tier tier three, the ten dollar tier. One
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Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original
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playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases
featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did
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So until next time. Be sure to bundle up, because cold trails and
chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy