WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:03.879
Hi, listeners, I want to
tell you about a podcast that we think

2
00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:09.160
you'll enjoy called Suspect. Five Shots
in the Dark. The latest season looks

3
00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:14.439
at a case with two victims,
one murdered in cold blood and one imprisoned

4
00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:19.079
for a crying he didn't commit.
It follows Leon Benson's story, a man

5
00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:23.920
who spent more than half his life
a total of twenty four years in an

6
00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:29.120
Indiana state prison for the murder of
Casey Shane, a man he never met.

7
00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:33.679
Casey was murdered in the middle of
an August night, shot point blank

8
00:00:33.799 --> 00:00:39.359
while idling in his Dodge pickup truck
in North Indianapolis. There was no physical

9
00:00:39.399 --> 00:00:45.280
evidence, no known motive, and
no one coming forward with information except one

10
00:00:45.399 --> 00:00:51.399
woman who swears to this day she
saw Leon Detroit Benson pull the trigger.

11
00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:56.679
He was sentenced to sixty years in
prison, all because one person swore they

12
00:00:56.719 --> 00:01:02.439
saw something. But what if she
was wrong? From Wondering and Campsite Media

13
00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:07.200
comes season three of the hit podcast
Suspect. This is a story of a

14
00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:11.760
batched police investigation, the dangers of
shaky eyewitness testimony in a community who feared

15
00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:18.760
law enforcement with good reason. I'm
about to play clip from Suspect five Shots

16
00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:23.680
in the Dark while you're listening follow
Suspect wherever you get your podcasts. You

17
00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:29.239
can binge Suspect add free on Wondery
Plus, find Wondery Plus in the Wondering

18
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:34.400
app or on Apple Podcasts. A
long time ago, I remember watching an

19
00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:38.840
episode of Oprah about eyewitness testimony.
I actually I haven't been able to find

20
00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:44.000
the episode in question online. This
would have been like three decades ago,

21
00:01:44.159 --> 00:01:49.079
when I was a kid home from
school watching TV. It's entirely possible,

22
00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:52.920
I imagine parts of it, but
in my memory, Oprah, without telling

23
00:01:52.959 --> 00:01:57.040
anyone, has this guy run on
stage and snatch up a purse belonging to

24
00:01:57.079 --> 00:02:01.319
one of the panelists. And then
afterwards Opra asks everyone to identify the thief,

25
00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:07.560
but no one can. Each person
oper asks they've got a different answer

26
00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:10.360
as to what the guy looked like. I don't remember how the show ended.

27
00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:14.759
I probably went off and played some
duck hunt, but it lodged in

28
00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:19.360
my head. As I got older, started working in journalism and writing about

29
00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:23.319
the criminal justice system, it would
periodically pop back into my head, a

30
00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:30.120
reminder of just how fallible the human
eye and memory can be. So wait

31
00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:32.280
let me just back up. Okay, tell me when you first noticed the

32
00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:39.039
truck. Oh, probably like it
was maybe a block and a half north

33
00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:44.400
of there, but it was just
driving down Pennsylvania, passed where I was

34
00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:49.080
out of my Vehinder, Do you
think it stopped and then went around again

35
00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:52.199
or do you think it just went
by? You went around and came back

36
00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:55.000
around. The Oprah segment came to
mind the first time I heard this tape,

37
00:02:55.039 --> 00:03:00.080
which was recorded near Indianapolis in twenty
twenty two. The details aren't really

38
00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:04.599
important, not yet. For now. All you need to know is that

39
00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:08.719
the first voice belongs to Laura Basilon. She's a law professor. The second

40
00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:13.479
voice belongs to a woman named Christy
Schmidt. And yeah, those are wind

41
00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:20.120
chimes in the background. Nice right, Okay, So car stops, you

42
00:03:20.159 --> 00:03:23.520
don't think about it. That's you
hear something that sounds like firecrackers that turns

43
00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:27.159
out to be gunshots. You look
up, and what's the first thing you

44
00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:31.879
remember seeing when you looked up?
Just the gentleman outside the drug on the

45
00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:37.080
sidewalk, Yeah, on the sidewalk
on the passenger side. Can you describe

46
00:03:37.159 --> 00:03:40.639
whatever you remember him looking like?
You know, I really couldn't you know,

47
00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:46.360
like anything that you remember? I
would say, all I can really

48
00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:51.560
remember probably blackmail, And I remember
I believe it's black pants with white stripes

49
00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:54.280
on him. This blackmail was about
one hundred and fifty feet from Christy.

50
00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:00.879
It was early morning, dark and
misty. Still Later, Christy goes to

51
00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:04.039
a police station and picks a face
out of a photo array. There's the

52
00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:08.520
shooter. She says, do you
remember how you felt when you were looking

53
00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:12.879
at the pictures? And what kind
of a situation that was? Were you?

54
00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:15.639
How are you feeling? Well?
You know, I guess for lack

55
00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:21.079
of better I don't know, nervous, uneasy, but you know, but

56
00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:28.519
you know I don't and have never
in twenty four years have I even thought

57
00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:31.639
that I could have identified it wrong. And what makes you confident? You

58
00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:35.199
know? I have to say that
was one time that face literally jumped off

59
00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:42.800
that paper at me. I mean, it was basically went right back to

60
00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:48.560
that night. And I don't I
don't doubt one bit that I that I

61
00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:54.800
made a false accusation about it or
anything else. Well, Christy's saying here

62
00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:59.879
it sounds so unambiguous, so certain
certain enough that it would lead to an

63
00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:03.800
rest, an indictment, a guilty
verdict, and a sentence of sixty years.

64
00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:11.680
But here's the thing. It was
almost certainly wrong. What interests me

65
00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:16.000
most about that wrongness is not its
rarity, but its commonness. Dig deep

66
00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:21.759
enough into any questionable conviction, and
you'll inevitably find small errors that, over

67
00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:28.120
time have accrued their own terrible power, like a pellet of ice that becomes

68
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:33.360
a snowball that becomes an avalanche.
This is a story about one of those

69
00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:39.800
cases. But it's also a story
about how difficult, how nearly impossible,

70
00:05:39.879 --> 00:05:44.480
it can be to dig a person
out again, even when nearly everyone involved

71
00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:50.680
believes it's the right thing to do. Binge Suspect and Free on one Dry

72
00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:56.079
plus, Find one plus in the
one Dry app or on Apple podcasts