Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the murder of Crystal Champagne. Robin,
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up on what we
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a wrongful conviction case which took place
Speaker 2: in Westwega, Louisiana in nineteen ninety six, and the victim
Speaker 2: was a girl named Crystal Champagne who was only fourteen
Speaker 2: years old. She went out to go to the supermarket,
Speaker 2: but she never returned home, and twenty four hours later
Speaker 2: her body would be found in a wooded area and
Speaker 2: she had been badly beaten to death and strangled, but
Speaker 2: even though her jub shirt was pulled up and her
Speaker 2: pants were pulled down, it did not appear that she
Speaker 2: had been raped. At the time. A step cousin of
Speaker 2: Crystal's name, Damon Thibodeau, who had originally lived in Texas,
Speaker 2: was visiting and staying with the family, and he was
Speaker 2: already in police custody being questioned at the time that
Speaker 2: Crystal's body was discovered, but they decided to relentlessly interrogate
Speaker 2: him for the next several hours, and because Damon was
Speaker 2: already exhausted by that point, he decided to make a
Speaker 2: confession of the crime, pretty much to make it end,
Speaker 2: and by the time he was arrested in charge with
Speaker 2: the murder, he immediately recanted his confession, but in spite
Speaker 2: of this, they still went to trial even though there
Speaker 2: was literally no other evidence linking him to the crime scene.
Speaker 2: All of the physical evidence did not match him, but
Speaker 2: in spite of this, the jury felt that the confession
Speaker 2: was strong enough evidence that they decided to find him
Speaker 2: guilty and he received the death penalty and Damon would
Speaker 2: have remain in prison for sixteen years and it would
Speaker 2: not get his conviction overturned until his defense team tryingly
Speaker 2: approached the original process secutter who put Damon behind bars
Speaker 2: at his trial, Paul Konig Junior, and he agreed to
Speaker 2: do a joint investigation, and of course they found out
Speaker 2: that none of the physical evidence matched Damon. A lot
Speaker 2: of experts testify that his confession had been coerced and
Speaker 2: was not legitimate, as a lot of the details he
Speaker 2: shared did not match the evidence, such as Damon claiming
Speaker 2: that he raped Crystal even though there was no evidence
Speaker 2: that she had been sexually assaulted, and Paul Konic Junior
Speaker 2: surprisingly decided to agree to the motion to overturn his conviction,
Speaker 2: and after serving sixteen years, Damon was finally released from
Speaker 2: death row. He became an anti death penalty advocate for
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions, but unfortunately, in twenty twenty one, he wound
Speaker 2: up dying due to complications of COVID nineteen and he
Speaker 2: was only forty seven years old. And even though the
Speaker 2: investigation into the murder of Crystal Champagne was reopened, they
Speaker 2: have never found any alternative suspects, so the case technically
Speaker 2: still remains unsolved and we have no idea who actually
Speaker 2: committed this crime. So, as you well know, wrongful convictions
Speaker 2: are incredibly sad stories to cover because not only does
Speaker 2: an innocent person have to serve time in prison for
Speaker 2: a crime they did not commit, but much of the time,
Speaker 2: the actual victim does not receive justice. Whenever someone goes
Speaker 2: through the ordeal of being wrongfully convicted and has many
Speaker 2: years of their life stolen away, I always hope that
Speaker 2: they received the opportunity to live their best possible life
Speaker 2: once they are released from prison. So it's incredibly tragic
Speaker 2: when this doesn't take place. In spite of what he endured,
Speaker 2: Damon Thibodeau was only thirty eight years old when he
Speaker 2: was released from death Row, and he still had many
Speaker 2: years ahead of him. Prior to his arrest, Damon had
Speaker 2: already endured a very difficult, abusive childhood, but it sounds
Speaker 2: like he went on to enjoy nine very productive years
Speaker 2: of freedom before he succumbed to COVID. The Innocents Project
Speaker 2: referred to Damon as an incredibly kind and gentle person
Speaker 2: in his obituary, as he was attempting to use his
Speaker 2: experience behind bars to do good. Damon was particularly outspoken
Speaker 2: against the practice of solitary confinement, deeming it to be
Speaker 2: cruel and unusual punishment. During his time on death Row,
Speaker 2: Damon would spend twenty three hours per day in a
Speaker 2: small cell, and even after his release, he wound up
Speaker 2: suffering from frequent nightmares because of the experience, and initially
Speaker 2: at trouble adjusting to the outside world. At one point,
Speaker 2: Damon testified at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on human
Speaker 2: rights and admitted that the experience was so torturous that
Speaker 2: there were times when he just wanted the execution to
Speaker 2: move forward rather than fight for his exoneration. He stated, quote,
Speaker 2: I did not want to live like an animal in
Speaker 2: a cage for years on end, only to lose my
Speaker 2: case and then have the state kill me anyway. I
Speaker 2: thought it would be better to end my life as
Speaker 2: soon as I could and avoid the agony of life
Speaker 2: in solitary end quote. Unfortunately, Damon never received any compensation
Speaker 2: for his wrongful conviction because even though all the evidence
Speaker 2: against him was discredited, the Louisiana Attorney General's office stated
Speaker 2: that he would need to prove his factual innocence. So
Speaker 2: even though there was no trace of Damon's DNA found
Speaker 2: on the victim or anywhere near the murder scene, it's
Speaker 2: not like they could perform DNA testing on a definitive
Speaker 2: piece of evidence, such as a semen sample, to prove
Speaker 2: beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not
Speaker 2: commit this crime. Damon did attempt to file a federal
Speaker 2: civil rights lawsuit, which was put on hold in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: and his claim was still pending at the time of
Speaker 2: his death.
Speaker 3: There's so many things that made me so upset and
Speaker 3: frustrated by what you just said. When you look at Damon,
Speaker 3: when you look at the fact that he was wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 3: He lost not only those years of his life, but
Speaker 3: he lost time with his son. Didn't he have a
Speaker 3: son when he went to prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we mentioned that his son was only about four
Speaker 2: or five years old at the time he was arrested,
Speaker 2: and because the mother had custody, he didn't really know
Speaker 2: him all that while, didn't spend much time with him.
Speaker 2: But when Damon was on death row, his son decided
Speaker 2: to reach out to him and they started corresponding, but
Speaker 2: Damon said, no, do not visit me because I don't
Speaker 2: want our first time to meet is me when I'm
Speaker 2: inside a prison. So they did not actually meet for
Speaker 2: the first time until he was released, and they did
Speaker 2: develop a strong relationship, but unfortunately Damon died nine years
Speaker 2: after that.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, you think about it, the ability for
Speaker 3: him to form a kind of relationship he wanted. Yes,
Speaker 3: maybe he didn't have one when he went into prison,
Speaker 3: but he had a lot of the ability to form
Speaker 3: a healthy relationship with his son if that was something
Speaker 3: they both wanted because he was behind prison bars. And then,
Speaker 3: like you said, they had this amazing relationship when he
Speaker 3: got out, but that was short lived. He passed away
Speaker 3: a few years after he was released. But going back
Speaker 3: to what the state did to him, when you look
Speaker 3: at the Louisiana Attorney General's office saying you can't prove
Speaker 3: your factual innocence, all that is is we want to
Speaker 3: cover our own butt and not pay you money. It's
Speaker 3: infuriating because in the American justice system, you don't have
Speaker 3: to prove your actual innocence. You have to just make
Speaker 3: sure that your rights were either not met and or
Speaker 3: the state didn't do their job, which was to properly
Speaker 3: prosecute you and show beyond a reasonable doubt that you
Speaker 3: did do it. So when you look back and he's
Speaker 3: advocating for please can you help me financially? I don't
Speaker 3: have years of experience, and I have this felony hanging
Speaker 3: over my head where I was on death row and
Speaker 3: people think I could have killed somebody even though I'm free.
Speaker 3: There's so many challenges he has now that he's out, socially, financially, emotionally,
Speaker 3: and he's asking for some compensation and they say no,
Speaker 3: they messed up, or he would not have been released.
Speaker 3: We see it time and time again where people that
Speaker 3: are innocent are not released. There's a reason why Damon
Speaker 3: was pulled from death row and then sent back into society.
Speaker 3: It's because they know they messed up. And to say,
Speaker 3: unless you can prove your factual innocence aka there's DNA
Speaker 3: linking someone else to the crime, you won't get any
Speaker 3: help is asinine. It is absolutely asinine. That is not
Speaker 3: the way our justice system worn't.
Speaker 1: In your opinion, Ash, what is the landscape like across
Speaker 1: the US with regards to like which states are more
Speaker 1: likely to give compensation and which ones are like the
Speaker 1: most likely to hold back and not provide any compensation.
Speaker 3: Okay, so there are laws on the books. I don't
Speaker 3: know state by state unless I looked it up, but
Speaker 3: there's there's laws on the books for every single state.
Speaker 3: There are some that are much more favorable to someone
Speaker 3: who is wrongfully convicted, meaning maybe they don't have a
Speaker 3: cap on the amount of money that you can get,
Speaker 3: but many states will limit no matter how long you
Speaker 3: were in for, no matter why you were there. There's
Speaker 3: many many states that say this is the max value
Speaker 3: you can get, whether it was five years or forty years, right,
Speaker 3: which is crazy because you should account for the multiple
Speaker 3: years that someone's in prison. There are some states that,
Speaker 3: just like Louisiana said, unless you can prove your factual innocence,
Speaker 3: meaning we can positively link DNA to someone else and
Speaker 3: prove that you didn't have something to do with it. Still,
Speaker 3: which is often where they'll go if they do have
Speaker 3: DNA evidence right, they'll say, well, you still could have
Speaker 3: been there, Well you still could have helped or participated,
Speaker 3: even though that's often not the case. So it almost
Speaker 3: is no matter what the laws are on the books,
Speaker 3: the state likes to have really clever ways to skirt
Speaker 3: around the boundaries that they put in place. Some say
Speaker 3: blank money per year to a max of blank. Some say,
Speaker 3: here's a blanket amount we give to anyone who serves
Speaker 3: time in prison and is released. But it's very difficult.
Speaker 3: People think you're going to walk out of prison after
Speaker 3: a wrongful conviction and be thrown millions of dollars. It
Speaker 3: just doesn't happen that way, even in states where it
Speaker 3: says it should happen that easily. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: red tape that they have to work through to say, well, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, you actually falsely confessed and so you actually
Speaker 3: contributed to your own conviction. That's not our fault, you
Speaker 3: misled us, and therefore you don't get confident. There's tons
Speaker 3: of laws in the books like that you aid in
Speaker 3: the wrongful conviction of yourself, you mislead the police, or
Speaker 3: you lied, and we can show you light at some
Speaker 3: point then you have to forego your rights. So it's
Speaker 3: very complex and it's not written in favor of the
Speaker 3: person being released.
Speaker 1: Do you think that a separate body should be evaluating
Speaker 1: these wrongful convictions outside of the justice system as it is,
Speaker 1: because if it's a system investigating itself like therein lies
Speaker 1: the problem.
Speaker 3: Yes, one thousand million percent, Jels, you absolutely nailed it.
Speaker 3: What the problem is here is ego and political clout
Speaker 3: and embarrassment. And so when you look at even people
Speaker 3: coming up and they have to go before the same
Speaker 3: judge who allowed them to be convicted, they're dealing with
Speaker 3: the same proscatorial office, it's nearly impossible to say all
Speaker 3: these people who have an ego and a political future
Speaker 3: are going to say, oh my god, we messed up.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, we messed up. Sometimes you do have
Speaker 3: incredible people like the prosecutor here that says, let me
Speaker 3: look at this again. Do you guys think I wrongfully
Speaker 3: convicted someone like not okay with me, let me look
Speaker 3: at this again. But it's very rare because they're admitting
Speaker 3: that they messed up. And so when their election comes
Speaker 3: back around and they're trying to you know, elect the
Speaker 3: next district attorney and things of that nature, who wants
Speaker 3: someone who makes errors right? Who wants someone who doesn't
Speaker 3: quote get justice right? And so judges, prosecutors, parole boards,
Speaker 3: all these people want to say, we didn't mess up
Speaker 3: blank happened that caused this and it wasn't our fault
Speaker 3: even when it was. So when you have things like
Speaker 3: you know, conviction integrity units that are third body parties,
Speaker 3: or have multiple team players who truly do have justice
Speaker 3: at the heart of it, I believe you have a
Speaker 3: much better chance of having a unbiased look at these cases.
Speaker 3: Or innocent projects can't do it by themselves, right, they
Speaker 3: can raise suspicion and questions, but you have to have
Speaker 3: a team on the inside. You have to have a
Speaker 3: team that truly wants to say, if someone's serving time
Speaker 3: and they didn't do it, what a travesty like that?
Speaker 3: That actually flies in the face of what our justice
Speaker 3: system should be, and that they're willing to take a
Speaker 3: second look. So yes, yes, yes, you cannot have the
Speaker 3: same people who tried and prosecuted and convicted this person
Speaker 3: be the people to say, oh, let's see if we
Speaker 3: went wrong and what we should do about it, because
Speaker 3: they're always going to cover their own Mirrand.
Speaker 1: One of the main reasons wrongful convictions happen is that
Speaker 1: when police are facing a lot of public pressure to
Speaker 1: solve the crime and focus on a promising suspect, they'll
Speaker 1: often develop tunnel vision and do everything in their power
Speaker 1: to make the case fit their suspect, even if the
Speaker 1: evidence points away from them. But in the case of
Speaker 1: Crystal Champagne's murder, there wasn't even time for public pressure,
Speaker 1: since Damon was charged within hours of her body being found.
Speaker 1: The problem is that Damon was already in custody for
Speaker 1: which should have been a routine interview. Once things evolved
Speaker 1: from a missing person's case to a homicide investigation, the
Speaker 1: police decided to pin the crime on him, even though
Speaker 1: there was really no evidence against him. That he happened
Speaker 1: to be present at Crystel's apartment at the time she
Speaker 1: went missing. This seemed like a case of making a
Speaker 1: suspect confess and then worrying about finding proper evidence after
Speaker 1: the fact. It seemed insane that, even with such a
Speaker 1: weak case against Gamon, the jury only deliberated for one
Speaker 1: hour before they found him guilty. But confessions, no matter
Speaker 1: how unreliable they may be, still seemed to hold a
Speaker 1: lot of weight with jurors who have a hard time
Speaker 1: grasping the idea that anyone would confess to a crime
Speaker 1: that they didn't commit. As the years go by, the
Speaker 1: public is becoming more educated on the issues of false confessions,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a particularly well known topic back in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. In Damon's case, he had gotten virtually
Speaker 1: no sleep after Cris disappeared and was utterly exhausted by
Speaker 1: the time he was brought in for questioning, and after
Speaker 1: being badgered for nine hours, Damon said he reached the
Speaker 1: point where he felt that the interrogation was never going
Speaker 1: to end unless he told the police what they wanted
Speaker 1: to hear. I think that many people who make false
Speaker 1: confessions assume that everything will eventually be straightened out once
Speaker 1: the evidence shows that they couldn't have committed the crime.
Speaker 1: But in most cases, once the suspect is charged with
Speaker 1: the murder. There's no turning back.
Speaker 3: Jewels are absolutely right when you look at this idea
Speaker 3: of people who falsely confess. I think one of the
Speaker 3: mannerisms of a false confession is this idea that I
Speaker 3: know there's nothing factually going to prove my guilt. So
Speaker 3: if I just say what they want to hear right
Speaker 3: this second, I can go home, I can get some help,
Speaker 3: I can have somebody help sort this out, and everything's
Speaker 3: going to be okay. But you also have to think
Speaker 3: about the fact that in that moment, Damon might not
Speaker 3: I have just been thinking that he could have actually
Speaker 3: started to believe that his reality was skewed or wrong,
Speaker 3: because remember, they were not only just having him in
Speaker 3: a situation where he was exhausted and that he was
Speaker 3: being confronted with the fact that he was a murder suspect,
Speaker 3: but he also is being told, Hey, those people that
Speaker 3: you say are your alibi witnesses, they're actually in the
Speaker 3: other room telling us that you weren't with them. We
Speaker 3: actually have evidence that links you directly to this murder.
Speaker 3: And they're continuing to tell him, Look, I know you're
Speaker 3: a good guy, but what happens if you weren't cognizant
Speaker 3: at the time. What if you had passed out or
Speaker 3: you had blacked out, and you did this when you
Speaker 3: weren't even aware that you had done it. We know
Speaker 3: you're good. If you can help us, now, we can
Speaker 3: help you on the other side, and he's literally going
Speaker 3: back and forth thinking, oh my god, could I have
Speaker 3: done this? And the more and more they lie to him,
Speaker 3: the more and more his reality is questioned. And it's almost,
Speaker 3: like I said in the first episode, like you're being gaslighted,
Speaker 3: and you keep questioning, am I crazy? Did I misremember
Speaker 3: the events of that night? Because they're telling me that
Speaker 3: even my friends are saying what they believe and that
Speaker 3: I could have done this. Maybe I did so in
Speaker 3: some ways, I wonder if Damon was in that state
Speaker 3: of just psychological torture where he starts to believe he
Speaker 3: actually could have not that he believes he did, but
Speaker 3: he's starting to teeter on this idea of could I
Speaker 3: have done this? And therefore he's able to get caught
Speaker 3: up in a false confession and or he believes I
Speaker 3: gotta say what they want so I can get out
Speaker 3: of here. It's really, really a slippery slope. That's why
Speaker 3: it's so questionable that, yes, if you had a suspect
Speaker 3: that your confident killed somebody, some of these tactics are
Speaker 3: amazing ways to get them to truly confess to a crime.
Speaker 3: But those same tactics, when used on an innocent person,
Speaker 3: can elicit a confession. And unfortunately, even though we have
Speaker 3: more information and more things that tell a jury, hey,
Speaker 3: this happens, here's how it happens. Very much progress has
Speaker 3: been made since nineteen ninety six, people haven't really changed
Speaker 3: their mind about confessions. When they hear that someone confessed,
Speaker 3: even today in twenty twenty five, they sit there and
Speaker 3: they say, I would never do that. There's no way
Speaker 3: someone would confess to something they didn't do to this magnitude.
Speaker 3: And still even when experts are telling them the breakdown
Speaker 3: of what and why this happens, they sit there and
Speaker 3: they go listen, he confessed. He had to have done it,
Speaker 3: because I would never falsely confess to something.
Speaker 2: And you were saying our last episode that you even
Speaker 2: had a discussion with Rebel a while back where you're
Speaker 2: talking about this topic, and even he had that mentality saying,
Speaker 2: why would someone confess to something he didn't do.
Speaker 3: He's like, there's no way. Like I was telling him
Speaker 3: about a case where a father actually confesses to sexually
Speaker 3: abusing his own daughter and hurting her to where she
Speaker 3: was hospitalized and all this stuff, and he didn't do it,
Speaker 3: and it was this horrific case that I was telling
Speaker 3: him about. He's like, not in a million years, you
Speaker 3: would have to kill me first before I said I
Speaker 3: hurt my baby, and I said, I don't think that's true.
Speaker 3: I started to tell him, you know, look, Rebel, when
Speaker 3: you look at the read techniques, the way police are
Speaker 3: actually trained in their academies and in the real world
Speaker 3: of how to interrogate somebody, they are pure psychological coercion. Yes,
Speaker 3: they're incredible techniques. Yes they get confessions from really horrible
Speaker 3: people or people who have done really horrible things. But
Speaker 3: they also are manipulative. And when you have someone who's tired,
Speaker 3: when you have someone who has, you know, mental health
Speaker 3: issues or maybe a lower cognitive ability, or are young,
Speaker 3: it's very easy to manipulate people's memories and so it's scary.
Speaker 3: My students always start the semester by saying, I would
Speaker 3: never ever, just like Rebel did. And by the end
Speaker 3: you have rebel who now says, please don't die or
Speaker 3: I'm going to be falsely accused, and who knows what
Speaker 3: they'll do to me if I'm held in an interrogation room.
Speaker 3: So once people do sit down and understand the facts,
Speaker 3: I think over time they can see how it happens.
Speaker 3: But I think a jury who's thrust into a decision
Speaker 3: box and said, hey, in the next week, you're going
Speaker 3: to decide this man's fate, I just don't think you
Speaker 3: can convince them in that short time that this happens.
Speaker 2: Another issue with Damon's trial is that he was represented
Speaker 2: by a public defender who happened to be a former
Speaker 2: police detective. Damon did not know this at the time,
Speaker 2: but his lawyer was actually in the midst of arranging
Speaker 2: a transfer to the District attorney's office, and well, you
Speaker 2: probably can't rely on someone like that to provide you
Speaker 2: with the best defense on the other side of the coin,
Speaker 2: One thing which really stands out about this case is
Speaker 2: the fact that the prosecutor who put Damon away, Jefferson
Speaker 2: Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Junior, actually worked with Damon's
Speaker 2: legal team to help get his conviction overturned and had
Speaker 2: no qualms about dropping the charges once it became apparent
Speaker 2: to him that Damon was innocent. As sad as this
Speaker 2: is to say, it's extraordinarily rare for prosecutors to admit
Speaker 2: they made a mistake and put the wrong person in prison,
Speaker 2: as they will often double down and stick to their
Speaker 2: guns even when faced with overwhelming evidence. Ironically, one prosecutor
Speaker 2: who had a notorious reputation for doing this is Paul
Speaker 2: Konnick Junior's uncle, Harry Connick Senior, the former District Attorney
Speaker 2: of Orleans Parish whose office has had a long checkered
Speaker 2: history of wrong convictions and sending innocent people to death row.
Speaker 2: And yes, Harry Connic Senior also happens to be the
Speaker 2: father of the famous jazz singer slash actor Harry Connick Junior.
Speaker 2: But thankfully, Paul Konnick Junior seems to have a much
Speaker 2: different attitude about justice than his uncle. To be fair,
Speaker 2: even though he presided over Damon's trial, he did not
Speaker 2: actually get elected to the position of District attorney until
Speaker 2: six months after Damon's arrest, so it's not like he
Speaker 2: was personally responsible for railroading him, and he genuinely believed
Speaker 2: that he was doing the right thing at the time.
Speaker 2: Many prosecutors are unwilling to admit to their mistakes for
Speaker 2: fear that it will damage their career. But here we
Speaker 2: are in twenty twenty five, and Konik has been reelected
Speaker 2: several times and is now entering his twenty eighth year
Speaker 2: as Jefferson Parish District Attorney. So I'm taking this as
Speaker 2: a hopeful sign that honesty does pay off.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I would prefer to vote for someone that I
Speaker 3: know truly holds justice at the core of their moral
Speaker 3: and ethical beliefs. Right that you are someone who says,
Speaker 3: I'm always going to fight the hardest to have a safe,
Speaker 3: healthy community. But if I get it wrong, if I
Speaker 3: happen to look at evidence in one way and years
Speaker 3: later it's shown to me that that way I looked
Speaker 3: at that evidence is not accurate. That I'm mature and
Speaker 3: moral and ethical enough to say something went wrong and
Speaker 3: I'm going to fix it because that is justice. Right.
Speaker 3: You can't ever make up to Damon and his family
Speaker 3: what you did and what you took away from him.
Speaker 3: But if you're always operating in a transparent light of
Speaker 3: saying I fight hard, but I'm gonna fight fair and
Speaker 3: I want to make sure the right person's behind bars.
Speaker 3: To me, wow, that makes you incredibly more attractive as
Speaker 3: a candidate and as a prosecutor. But I do think
Speaker 3: you look at all kinds of institutions. Usually it's cover
Speaker 3: your own rear end you do not fess up to
Speaker 3: having any kind of problems or any kind of issues
Speaker 3: within your institution or your position or things like that,
Speaker 3: and people often put their career over what's ethically right.
Speaker 3: The other problem that you mentioned, Robin, is that Damon
Speaker 3: had a public defender who in and of themselves had
Speaker 3: issues being about to be transferred to the district Attorney's
Speaker 3: office and things like that. But when you have a
Speaker 3: public defender, there's a lot of amazing human beings who
Speaker 3: are in that position, and they do the best they can,
Speaker 3: even if they don't have these other ulterior motives and
Speaker 3: things happening like this this man did. But their caseloads
Speaker 3: are so overwhelming in most jurisdictions that rarely do they
Speaker 3: have time to go sit down with their client. Rarely
Speaker 3: are they investing resources to go interview people to go
Speaker 3: you know, spend time to uncover evidence for their you know,
Speaker 3: the person they're defending, and so unlike a team that's
Speaker 3: getting paid bookho's of money because they're a private attorney
Speaker 3: for you. When you have a public defender, they're basically
Speaker 3: picking up your file saying like, oh man, I'm sorry, Look,
Speaker 3: this is going to be a pretty tough case. Here's
Speaker 3: our best bet. Let's just go stand before the judge
Speaker 3: and see what happens. And in Damon's trial, it's very
Speaker 3: very apparent no one fought to uncover the truth because
Speaker 3: had his attorney really said I believe you, Damon, then
Speaker 3: you would have seen the ability for this case to
Speaker 3: turn out very, very differently because I believe enough reasonable
Speaker 3: doubt in questions could have been raised in his case.
Speaker 1: And if they had somebody like you on the stand,
Speaker 1: they could have brought up something like Elizabeth Lostess's research
Speaker 1: which was available to them at the time, and she
Speaker 1: focused mostly on like the malleability of memories, and she
Speaker 1: did a bunch of different studies and they all showed
Speaker 1: that we as human beings, our memories are fallible and
Speaker 1: you can implant memories. She did one study I think
Speaker 1: it was called the lost in the mall technique, and
Speaker 1: she found out that it was basically telling people that
Speaker 1: they had been lost in the mall, if I'm remembering correctly.
Speaker 1: And then at the end, seventy five percent of people
Speaker 1: were like, no, I wasn't lost in the mall. You
Speaker 1: basically just told me that. But then twenty five percent
Speaker 1: of people believed that it actually happened. And those are
Speaker 1: likely the people, in my opinion, who would be susceptible
Speaker 1: to false confessions, and they had access to a lot
Speaker 1: of this information prior. It was just knowing which expert
Speaker 1: to be able to bring to the stand, to be
Speaker 1: able to share that information somebody would be incredibly valuable.
Speaker 1: But like Ash just said, and I think it is
Speaker 1: such an important point in these cases, is that public
Speaker 1: defenders just aren't equipped. They have an incredible case load,
Speaker 1: they're so busy at overworked, and they don't have the
Speaker 1: budget in order to be able to get these expert
Speaker 1: witnesses to come and testify.
Speaker 3: And think about it too. Let's say it wasn't there
Speaker 3: weren't any political issues or anything going on. You have
Speaker 3: seventy five cases on your desk, and it's time to
Speaker 3: go to Damon's trial, right, and you go meet him
Speaker 3: real quick. All you have is that he falsely con
Speaker 3: or that he confessed to this crime. And so in
Speaker 3: the back of many people's head you'd be like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, this guy's guilty. I'm just going to try
Speaker 3: to represent him the best of my ability so that
Speaker 3: his constitutional rights are met, and let's just get this
Speaker 3: over with. It's one more case on my desk.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: There just isn't that loyalty to say, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do this deep pursuit of justice, not because there
Speaker 3: isn't a desire to, there isn't the time to do that.
Speaker 3: And so I think when they saw that Damon had
Speaker 3: falsely confessed, but that had he had a confession on
Speaker 3: the record, and then now he wants to pull that back,
Speaker 3: a lot of people would assume, well, that's because you're
Speaker 3: you're literally up for the death penalty and things like that.
Speaker 3: So sorry, buddy, we just got to get through this
Speaker 3: case the best possible. Maybe you won't be given death.
Speaker 3: And here he was.
Speaker 1: But even though Connick was willing to admit the error
Speaker 1: of his ways, it appears the same can not be
Speaker 1: said for the Jefferson parish Sheriff's office, who continued to
Speaker 1: stick to their guns and insists that they arrested the
Speaker 1: right man even after Damon was released from prison. As
Speaker 1: you might recall, Damon claimed that he raped Crystal during
Speaker 1: his confession, even though no semen was found on her
Speaker 1: body or anywhere else at the scene. And I must
Speaker 1: say that the state's explanation about Meggot's consuming all of
Speaker 1: Damon's seminal fluids before Crystal's body was found is one
Speaker 1: of the most laughably absurd things that I've ever heard
Speaker 1: in a wrongful conviction case. When the British newspaper The
Speaker 1: Guardian published an article about this, they perfectly summed up
Speaker 1: the situation with this sentence. And lest there be any
Speaker 1: remaining doubt, a forensic expert on maggots such people do exist,
Speaker 1: testified that the theory of Stephen destroying maggots was balderdash.
Speaker 3: Absolute balderdash. I agree, this is absolutely insane. Damon when
Speaker 3: he said that he had raped her, it's because the
Speaker 3: police had added that into the narrative that they had
Speaker 3: him say. Remember, they only recorded what the last forty
Speaker 3: five minutes of a nine hour interrogation, and so when
Speaker 3: you have this story that Damon tells at the end.
Speaker 3: It has been crafted over and over again, and every
Speaker 3: time he tells it, the police recount and say, hey,
Speaker 3: why don't you try that again, Damon, that's not how
Speaker 3: she was killed. Tell us the truth, Damon that come on, now,
Speaker 3: her clothes were up around her breast and you know
Speaker 3: her pants had been pulled down. Come on, go ahead
Speaker 3: and tell us that story again, what you really did
Speaker 3: to her. And so they'll add in these details or
Speaker 3: say that's not right, tell me again, until you're telling
Speaker 3: them a story that fits the evidence that they believe
Speaker 3: that they have here. They thought that Crystal had been
Speaker 3: raped and or there was a high potential and so
Speaker 3: so when you look at this idea that he says that,
Speaker 3: and then when they find her there's no evidence of that,
Speaker 3: they have to somehow explain away how they could be
Speaker 3: wrong and Damon could still be the killer. And it's
Speaker 3: just it's kind of asinine. But that's why we should
Speaker 3: record every minute of an interrogation. If I have to
Speaker 3: tell you twenty five versions to get the story you like,
Speaker 3: as a police officer, something's wrong. That should raise red
Speaker 3: flags for everybody.
Speaker 2: And yes, That's why you check the evidence before you
Speaker 2: bring in someone for interrogation to make a confession, because
Speaker 2: obviously if they say I raped the victim and there's
Speaker 2: no semen found, then you have to run circles and
Speaker 2: twist everything in the knots trying to fake the evidence
Speaker 2: match your case. And I was almost hoping that Jewels
Speaker 2: would have read that last sentence in a British accent,
Speaker 2: because I love the term baldadash.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Like I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest tragedies of
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction cases is that there's so much focus on
Speaker 2: the person who is unjustly sent to prison that the
Speaker 2: actual victim of the crime is often overlooked. Damon Thibadeau's
Speaker 2: story has been well documented, but there's really not all
Speaker 2: that much information out there about Crystal Champagne and her life.
Speaker 2: All I know is that everyone who knew Crystel described
Speaker 2: her as a good kid, and it seems like she
Speaker 2: just happened to cross paths with the wrong person on
Speaker 2: what should have been a routine trip to the supermarket.
Speaker 2: I get the impression that after Damon was charged with
Speaker 2: Crystel's murder, her parents Don and CJ were convinced that
Speaker 2: he did it, even though there was a good chance
Speaker 2: that Damon was actually at the apartment at the exact
Speaker 2: time Crystal was killed, and the timeline would have made
Speaker 2: it impossible for him to commit the crime. This case
Speaker 2: was featured on forty eight Hours in March of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: and it featured interviews with Don who was still emotionally
Speaker 2: distraught about the loss of her daughter, but it's unclear
Speaker 2: if she changed her mind about Damon's guilt after his
Speaker 2: conviction was overturned. It sounds like Wendness is recalled seeing
Speaker 2: Crystal at the wind Dixie supermarket on the night she
Speaker 2: was killed, so she likely cross passed with her killer
Speaker 2: after she left. And since Crystal was found in Bridge City,
Speaker 2: which is five miles away, it's reasonable to assume that
Speaker 2: she was taken to the location in the vehicle. But
Speaker 2: was she forcibly abducted or did she climb into the
Speaker 2: vehicle of her own relition. Could she have been offered
Speaker 2: a ride by someone she knew and trusted. It's interesting
Speaker 2: how Crystal's body was partially nude, as her shirt was
Speaker 2: pulled up and her shorts and underwear were pulled down,
Speaker 2: but that perpetrator never actually went through the act of
Speaker 2: raping her, something obviously drove them into a violent rage,
Speaker 2: since they severely beat Crystal before. Stranglier, though, it is
Speaker 2: odd that they would leave the murder weapon the red
Speaker 2: industrial wire tied to a tree at the scene.
Speaker 3: It's really bizarre. I definitely it feels like Crystal would
Speaker 3: have known the person that abducted her.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: This should have been just a normal routine walk to
Speaker 3: the grocery store, like you said. But if she had
Speaker 3: gotten into someone's vehicle, it's very possible she knew them
Speaker 3: and maybe they said like, hey, we'll give you a
Speaker 3: ride up to the store, Hey, do you want us
Speaker 3: to give you a ride home? And she went with
Speaker 3: them because why not? I trust you. It's also possible
Speaker 3: that someone you know, asked for help or said, you know, hey,
Speaker 3: can you give me directions somewhere, and they overpowered her
Speaker 3: when she was leaning towards the car, or something of
Speaker 3: that nature. But it's very, very possible that this is
Speaker 3: someone that she knew, which is why I think they
Speaker 3: immediately went to Damon. Although his connection was quite loose
Speaker 3: to her, like they weren't best friends or anything like that.
Speaker 3: He had asked her to or she had asked him
Speaker 3: how did that work? She had asked him to hang out.
Speaker 2: She had asked him for a ride to the supermarket,
Speaker 2: and he said no. When you're thinking to yourself, if
Speaker 2: he was looking to like, sexually assault her, he would
Speaker 2: have said yes instantly and then drove her out to
Speaker 2: this location.
Speaker 3: Right, And he didn't. He said no, I'm actually going
Speaker 3: to hang out here, and so I don't think then
Speaker 3: he would go, oh, I'm going to go find her
Speaker 3: and assault her and you know, accidentally kill her or
Speaker 3: purposely kill her. To me, it seemed like it would
Speaker 3: be somebody else who had been seeking after Crystal and or,
Speaker 3: like I said, some one who happened to see her
Speaker 3: as just an opportune person to abduct at the time.
Speaker 1: Now, because Damon was charged with the crimes so quickly
Speaker 1: after Cristel's body was discovered, police never really performed a
Speaker 1: thorough investigation into other potential suspects, but there were apparently
Speaker 1: multiple individuals who lived in the area who appeared to
Speaker 1: be more likely candidates to have committed a crime like this.
Speaker 1: There aren't many specific details about these individuals, but there
Speaker 1: was apparently one relative of Crystal's who lived in an
Speaker 1: apartment two blocks from the crime scene, and he was
Speaker 1: a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of drug abuse and
Speaker 1: violence against women. Crystal also had friends in Bridge City,
Speaker 1: and one of them would later go on to receive
Speaker 1: a life sentence in prison for the aggravated rape of
Speaker 1: a juvenile. However, the one alternate suspect who has risen
Speaker 1: the most eyebrows is the person who found Crystal's body,
Speaker 1: John Tomlinson.
Speaker 3: So when you look at John Tomlinson, of course he's
Speaker 3: someone the police should have a questioned and talked to
Speaker 3: you because he found the body. I don't know any
Speaker 3: other details yet about who and how John Tomlinson would
Speaker 3: be linked to Crystal and her murder, But anytime you
Speaker 3: have the discovery of a body, you have to at
Speaker 3: least start by exploring that individual or the individuals who
Speaker 3: found the body and see how you can eliminate them
Speaker 3: from being the person who could have injured that person.
Speaker 3: Because again, especially if their bodies found not in a
Speaker 3: very public location, how and why did you happen to
Speaker 3: go to that area and find her? That needs an explanation.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's some more information about John Tomlinson. We
Speaker 2: already mentioned his name in our last episode, but here's
Speaker 2: some more backstory about him. At the time, he was
Speaker 2: the boyfriend of Stacy Mulanson, the family friend and neighbor
Speaker 2: who called the police to report the discovery of Crystal's body,
Speaker 2: and John also lived in the same apartment complex as
Speaker 2: the Champagne family. On July the eighteenth, Stacey had actually
Speaker 2: gone out drinking with Damon, Don and CJ and paid
Speaker 2: Crystal to spend the night babysitting her children. Stacy then
Speaker 2: brought Crystal home at two pm the following afternoon, just
Speaker 2: over three hours before she left to go to the supermarket.
Speaker 2: Sometime between five thirty and six pm on July the twentieth,
Speaker 2: while Crystal was still missing, Stacy picked John Tomlinson up
Speaker 2: at a shipyard as he worked as a deckhand on
Speaker 2: a tugboat. They proceeded to continue searching for Crystal by
Speaker 2: handing out missing persons flyers, and when they stopped at
Speaker 2: a Circle Cake convenience store in Bridge City, two eye
Speaker 2: witnesses recognized Crystal from her flyer and told him they
Speaker 2: had seen her walking along the levee next to the
Speaker 2: Mississippi River the previous night. But here's where things get odd.
Speaker 2: It was John's idea to drive Stacy to the levee
Speaker 2: to search for Crystal, but even though the witnesses said
Speaker 2: they had seen her about a mile away from the
Speaker 2: Huey Plung Bridge, John drove directly to the wooded area
Speaker 2: underneath the bridge. He told Stacy to wait in the
Speaker 2: car while he performed his search, and after walking down
Speaker 2: a path into the wooded area, John soon discovered Crystal's body. Now,
Speaker 2: the main reason we know this information about John is
Speaker 2: because he agreed to be interviewed on the aforementioned forty
Speaker 2: eight Hours episode, where he said that he had a
Speaker 2: unique ability to dream things which came true. John claimed
Speaker 2: that he once had a vivid dream where he found
Speaker 2: Crystal's body and looked up to see the Huey p
Speaker 2: Long Bridge above him, which is why he felt compelled
Speaker 2: to stop the car and search for her body in
Speaker 2: the wooded area underneath the bridge. Of course, at the
Speaker 2: time this happened, John never told the police about his
Speaker 2: so called dream and instead said that it was his
Speaker 2: quote unquote intuition which helped him discover Crystal's body. To
Speaker 2: their credit, they did find this statement to be suspicious,
Speaker 2: so John was taken to the police station and interrogated
Speaker 2: for hours. The problem David was interrogated right down the
Speaker 2: hallway at the exact same time, and when he confessed
Speaker 2: to Crystal's murder, John was no longer the focus of
Speaker 2: the investigation, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, here you have again, you have John who says, hey,
Speaker 3: I had this dream that her body would be located here.
Speaker 3: Do I believe there are people who have a gift
Speaker 3: to see visions or have you know, even a gift
Speaker 3: from the Holy Spirit or or whatever you believe that
Speaker 3: says hey, here's a vision of what I want you
Speaker 3: to know and see. Yes, does is that a common gift?
Speaker 3: I don't think so, And so I'd be very very
Speaker 3: suspicious if someone raised that to me. And like you said,
Speaker 3: you know, we talked about this just a minute ago.
Speaker 3: If it was in a public location, let's say she's
Speaker 3: not on a park bench in the French Quarter, it's
Speaker 3: not that suspicious when someone says, hey, there's a body.
Speaker 3: I just found a body. But this was a very bizarre,
Speaker 3: hidden away location that he just felt quote compelled to
Speaker 3: go check. That is highly suspicious. And like you said,
Speaker 3: what would have happened had Damon not been the one
Speaker 3: that they had already laser focused and narrowly focused their
Speaker 3: view on. What if they had been open minded at
Speaker 3: the time and said, Damon's one possibility, we really need
Speaker 3: to dig deep into John, who's across the hall Instead,
Speaker 3: I think they had blinders on, and I think they
Speaker 3: went after Damon with this laser. You know, we know
Speaker 3: he's guilty. We're gonna prove it, instead of saying, just
Speaker 3: do things automatically line up with Damon? Are there some
Speaker 3: questions here? Maybe we should be widening our net. What
Speaker 3: would have happened They had a person right across the
Speaker 3: hallway from him who might have also had some issues
Speaker 3: that they needed to explore further, and they just didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just pretty mind blowing to me that they
Speaker 2: have two people in custody and one of them seems
Speaker 2: to have an alibi who can place himself in the
Speaker 2: company of other people during the time period when Crystal
Speaker 2: was murdered, and this other guy, John Tomlinson, who says
Speaker 2: that he found her body in a concealed location because
Speaker 2: of a dream and his quote unquote intuition. So obviously,
Speaker 2: if you compare the two, John obviously looks a lot
Speaker 2: more suspicious, but I guess because Damon was taken in
Speaker 2: for interrogation much earlier. He was the one who confessed,
Speaker 2: and I do believe that led the investigation under the
Speaker 2: completely wrong direction.
Speaker 1: Okay, on the basis of his interview on forty eight Hours,
Speaker 1: John Tomlinson definitely comes across as an odd individual. There
Speaker 1: are numerous documented cases where a murder victim's body wound
Speaker 1: up being discovered by their killer, and they'll sometimes arrange
Speaker 1: this because they believe finding the body will help take
Speaker 1: suspicion off themselves. But this case is particularly troubling because
Speaker 1: the eyewitness who reported seeing Crystal placed her on the levee,
Speaker 1: about a mile from the location her body was found,
Speaker 1: Yet John did not even bother to search there and
Speaker 1: instead drove straight to the wooded area. Her body was
Speaker 1: pretty well concealed, and there's no way anyone could have
Speaker 1: seen it from the levee unless they made a calculated
Speaker 1: decision to walk down a path into the trees, which
Speaker 1: is what John decided to do. He otherwise should have
Speaker 1: had no reason to believe Cristel was there, except that
Speaker 1: he was supposedly following the whims of a dream. This
Speaker 1: is a big enough red flag, but what's even more
Speaker 1: disturbing is that, unlike Damon, John was a document sex offender,
Speaker 1: as two years before Cristel's murder, he served time in
Speaker 1: prison after being convicted of indecent behavior with a juvenile.
Speaker 1: Now during his forty eight hours interview, John explained this
Speaker 1: by claiming that he had sexual contact with a girl
Speaker 1: that he picked up at a bar, whom he believed
Speaker 1: was eighteen but did not realize that she was actually fourteen.
Speaker 1: But given the Crystal was fourteen at the time of
Speaker 1: her death, this might suggest a pattern of predatory behavior.
Speaker 1: Since the Champagne family was close friends with John's girlfriend
Speaker 1: and he lived in the same apartment complex, John certainly
Speaker 1: would have known who Cristel was, and is reasonable to
Speaker 1: assume that she might have trusted John enough to climb
Speaker 1: into a vehicle with him.
Speaker 3: And also he could have been in a position where
Speaker 3: he watched her and fantasized about her and had this
Speaker 3: kind of you know, she is a part of his
Speaker 3: quote circle and he wanted it to be something more
Speaker 3: than that. So he definitely had more access and ability
Speaker 3: to to kind of pervert the relationship that he had
Speaker 3: with her. I could see her one trusting him, But
Speaker 3: I could also see him being in a position where
Speaker 3: he said, I know her well enough to manipulate her,
Speaker 3: and he could he could have been the one to
Speaker 3: hurt her again. What's interesting. Do I believe that people
Speaker 3: can be given a vision? Absolutely, I truly do. My faith.
Speaker 3: My faith preaches that, right, But it's not something that
Speaker 3: a lot of people have. And in this case, John
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like the kind of person who's, you know,
Speaker 3: using this in any kind of other situation, except for
Speaker 3: the one moment he needs to walk down a unique
Speaker 3: path that the hidden location and find her body where
Speaker 3: most anybody else would have passed by it or never
Speaker 3: seen it. It just seems very very suspicious, right. It's
Speaker 3: not like everyone would be like, oh my gosh, we
Speaker 3: know that about John. You know, he's always the one
Speaker 3: telling us I feel this, I sense this, I worry
Speaker 3: about this because I have this feeling. We don't. No
Speaker 3: one has said that about John. Right, This is just
Speaker 3: this one time he seems to have this divine gift
Speaker 3: and it led him to the body of someone he knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very good point, because I've seen many
Speaker 2: other documented cases where these so called psychics will read
Speaker 2: about a case in the paper and say they have
Speaker 2: a vision where their body might be. Well, they'll do
Speaker 2: it multiple times because they just want to insert themselves
Speaker 2: in the investigation. But like you said, I don't think
Speaker 2: there are any other documented cases besides this one where
Speaker 2: John Ever said that he had a dream that he
Speaker 2: knew where someone had been murdered.
Speaker 1: I will say that I have had psychic dreams on
Speaker 1: several occasions that have accurately predicted things that I've told
Speaker 1: people about before they happened. But I wouldn't consider myself
Speaker 1: to be a psychic. It's not something that happens often.
Speaker 1: It's just something that has happened to me on several occasions.
Speaker 1: And I think all human beings have that ability, particularly
Speaker 1: when it's things that are tied to our own lives
Speaker 1: and our subconscious is interfering. I mean, if we think
Speaker 1: of time as this artificial construct, it isn't linear in
Speaker 1: the way that we humans perceive it, according to Einstein
Speaker 1: and according to physicists, So if everything is happening all
Speaker 1: at once, then potentially we're just tapping into something that
Speaker 1: we already know but we just don't have access to
Speaker 1: because we experience time in a linear fashion. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to explain psychic phenomenon, but it does happen.
Speaker 1: But it is a little bit of a red flag
Speaker 1: when we think of this, isn't something like Ashley said
Speaker 1: that people are bringing up often being like, yo, yes,
Speaker 1: he is a psychic, he's very sensitive. He has these
Speaker 1: dreams on a regular basis. But then it just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden happens when it's discovering the murdered body
Speaker 1: of Crystal Champagne. That is a red flag. So just
Speaker 1: the context of it all, and then him going to
Speaker 1: this wooded area, it's like either he has this gift
Speaker 1: that just touched him once or he's the one that's responsible.
Speaker 2: Now we're not necessarily saying that John murdered Crystal, but
Speaker 2: if he was the killer, it's pretty mind blowing that
Speaker 2: he was being interrogated at the exact same time as
Speaker 2: Damon and the police may have wound up charging the
Speaker 2: John even admitted that they pushed him pretty hard during
Speaker 2: his interrogation, so it's possible he could have eventually cracked
Speaker 2: and confessed to the crime. If he was guilty. For
Speaker 2: all we know, Damon may have unknowingly let the real
Speaker 2: perpetrator off the hook by confessing. I certainly don't blame
Speaker 2: the police for looking at both men as potential suspects,
Speaker 2: but considering that there was zero evidence against Damon, you
Speaker 2: think they would be more focused on the guy who
Speaker 2: actually found the victim's body and was unable to come
Speaker 2: up with a logical explanation to account for it. However,
Speaker 2: before we bring the hammer down on John, we have
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that he did have an alibi for the
Speaker 2: time period when Crystal was murdered, which is why he
Speaker 2: was not investigated any further by the police. We mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier that John worked as a deckhand on a tugboat
Speaker 2: which was cruising down the Mississippi River on the night
Speaker 2: of the crime. The boat's logs showed that John was
Speaker 2: on board, and he said he was sleeping when Stacy
Speaker 2: called to inform him that Crystal was missing. But there's
Speaker 2: been some question about how reliable these logs were because,
Speaker 2: by John's own admission, it wasn't uncommon for crew members
Speaker 2: to sneak off the boat without their supervisor's knowledge and
Speaker 2: cover for each other all the time. So theoretically John
Speaker 2: could have left the boat while it was doc and
Speaker 2: snuck back on without anyone noticing.
Speaker 3: And also keep in mind, he has a girlfriend, so
Speaker 3: there's a big reason for him to have this kind
Speaker 3: of secretive, you know, secretive missions that he's going on
Speaker 3: or trying to escape without anyone knowing for a few hours.
Speaker 3: So I think it's very possible. Yes, he might have
Speaker 3: been a deckhand that night, but also he could have left.
Speaker 3: Like you said, people could have covered for him. They
Speaker 3: might not have even known he was gone. So I
Speaker 3: think him having the girlfriend makes it where he had
Speaker 3: to make sure that his actions were very secretive, very purposeful,
Speaker 3: easy to cover up. And so I don't know, can
Speaker 3: we prove that he didn't know because the police didn't
Speaker 3: do their job and include him as a very probable
Speaker 3: suspect From the start, they considered him someone they just
Speaker 3: needed to talk to, and by the time Damon's in there,
Speaker 3: they said, well, we have our guy, and they let
Speaker 3: him go.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how John seems to contradict himself will discussing
Speaker 1: his alibi during his forty eight hours interview. So at
Speaker 1: one point Aaron Moriarty asks, now, at the time, though,
Speaker 1: you were told that it was impossible to get off
Speaker 1: the boat, and it wasn't, was it. John then replies, well, sure,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, no, it's not. It never is,
Speaker 1: you know, But I always let my boss know when
Speaker 1: I was getting off that boat. End quote. However, later on,
Speaker 1: Moriarty asked John if he ever snuck off the boat
Speaker 1: to see Stacy, and he confirms that he did so
Speaker 1: on a few occasions, and spent the night with Stacy
Speaker 1: instead of sleeping on the boat like he was supposed to.
Speaker 1: But this admission seems to be a sharp contrast to
Speaker 1: his previous claim that he always let his boss know
Speaker 1: whenever he got off the boat. Of course, John denies
Speaker 1: that he's snuck off the boat at any point on
Speaker 1: the evening of July nineteenth, nineteen ninety six, and if
Speaker 1: he is telling the truth, then he can be ruled
Speaker 1: out as having any involvement in Cristel's murder. While we
Speaker 1: know that Crystal left her apartment at five fifteen PM
Speaker 1: and was likely killed sometime between seven and eight, we
Speaker 1: don't have any specific details about the exact whereabouts of
Speaker 1: the tugboat during this time period, so for all we know,
Speaker 1: it may have actually been impossible for John to have
Speaker 1: committed this crime. Even if he sneaked off the boat
Speaker 1: and killed Crystal, he still would have had to sneak
Speaker 1: back on at some point, and if Stacy called him
Speaker 1: on the boat later that night to let him know
Speaker 1: Crystal was missing. Also, since Crystal was found five miles
Speaker 1: from the location where she was last seen, she probably
Speaker 1: would have needed someone with a vehicle to transport her there,
Speaker 1: and it's unclear if John had access to a vehicle
Speaker 1: at that time. Given the circumstances, it's possible that the
Speaker 1: logistics make it too difficult for John to commit the crime.
Speaker 1: But the issue is that Damon was charged with the
Speaker 1: murders so quickly, John never got the thorough investigation that
Speaker 1: he deserved.
Speaker 3: Exactly. He could be innocent too. He could have been
Speaker 3: in the same boat that Damon was in, and if
Speaker 3: Damon hadn't been pulled in, John could have been innocent
Speaker 3: and shown hey, look, we know you've snuck off before,
Speaker 3: we know you're a liar, we know you knew where
Speaker 3: the body was, you did it, and who knows, John
Speaker 3: could have been the one falsely confessing, or it's possible
Speaker 3: John did it. But again, because the police so quickly
Speaker 3: jumped on Damon, we just simply won't ever know now.
Speaker 2: At the time I released my original Trail and Cold
Speaker 2: episode about this case back in twenty twenty one, I
Speaker 2: had no idea of John's current whereabouts, but I was
Speaker 2: later contacted by a source who confirmed me that John
Speaker 2: has since passed away. But I've always wondered if his
Speaker 2: DNA was ever collected. Even though there was no seman
Speaker 2: found at the murder scene, there was a sample of
Speaker 2: blood with a male DNA profile on the red wire
Speaker 2: used to strangle Crystal. We know it did not match Damon,
Speaker 2: but I would really liked to see it compare to
Speaker 2: John's DNA, as even if he has already deceased, this
Speaker 2: could still prove that he was responsible for the crime.
Speaker 2: Unlike with many other wrongful conviction cases. The Jefferson Parish
Speaker 2: District Attorney's office said they would reopen the investigation into
Speaker 2: Crystal's murder following Damon's exoneration in twenty twelve. Thankfully, they
Speaker 2: did not go the traditional route of closing the case
Speaker 2: and maintaining they got the right killer all along, But
Speaker 2: it's unclear how much investigation has actually been done. It's
Speaker 2: possible they did take a closer look ato John Tomlinson
Speaker 2: and uncovered enough information to officially clear him as a suspect.
Speaker 2: But if not, I really wish investigators would do a
Speaker 2: DNA comparison so we can finally put this matter to
Speaker 2: rest once and for all. While Tomlinson's discovery of Crystal's
Speaker 2: body is still incredibly suspicious, there are way too many
Speaker 2: unanswered questions to say with one und present certainty that
Speaker 2: he is the guilty party. Crystal may have simply been
Speaker 2: abducted by a random stranger with no personal connection to her,
Speaker 2: But if John could be conclusively ruled out as being
Speaker 2: the killer, we can move on to other leads. As
Speaker 2: it stands right now, it's hard to believe that we're
Speaker 2: nearing the thirtieth anniversary of this crime and there are
Speaker 2: still no conclusive answers. Yes, Damon Thibodeau was technically exonerated,
Speaker 2: but his name will never truly be one hundred percent
Speaker 2: cleared unless the real perpetrator of the crime is identified.
Speaker 2: It's the least that can be done for Damon's legacy
Speaker 2: now that he's no longer with us, and of course
Speaker 2: Crystal should not be forgotten either, as she definitely deserves justice.
Speaker 2: So if you happen to have any information about the
Speaker 2: murder of Crystal Champagne, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules
Speaker 2: Ashley any final thoughts on this case.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is one of those where justice is such
Speaker 3: a complex term. Here you have not just Crystal who
Speaker 3: is yet to receive justice and her family who's sitting
Speaker 3: there thinking what happened? Who did this? Why? Right? Can
Speaker 3: we have some kind of answers and have the actual
Speaker 3: person held to justice, But you also have Damon and
Speaker 3: his family. Damon passed away, so but his family who knows.
Speaker 3: In some ways, it's possible John has suspicion around him
Speaker 3: for no reason. But we don't have an answer yet.
Speaker 3: And one of the main reasons that we don't have
Speaker 3: an answer is because there was such a rush to judgment.
Speaker 3: Police officers kept Damon. They used techniques that manipulated and
Speaker 3: convinced him to tell a story that he knew was
Speaker 3: not true or maybe was starting to question, you know,
Speaker 3: is it possible that it's true? And by the time
Speaker 3: he had clarity and could say, hey, I need help,
Speaker 3: he was given a public defender, which did nothing to
Speaker 3: help his case, and thank god, like you said, you
Speaker 3: do see an ounce of ethical behavior by a prosecutor
Speaker 3: who's willing to look at the case years later and say,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I think I could have made a mistake.
Speaker 3: Let's look harder at this, and then actually advocated for
Speaker 3: Damon to be released. That is rare, super rare for
Speaker 3: somebody to do, and so many kudos there. But you
Speaker 3: also have to think about Crystal's family when they thought
Speaker 3: that someone that they knew killed their daughter and he
Speaker 3: serves time in prison, so in their head, the right
Speaker 3: persons behind bars, he confessed, he's in prison, and then
Speaker 3: he gets exonerated. So there's a lot of guilt and
Speaker 3: kind of grief that re arises when you say, did
Speaker 3: they have the wrong person? Oh my god, the wrong
Speaker 3: person was sentenced for her death. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: trauma that goes into that and having to relive this
Speaker 3: idea that they thought they had gotten answers. Those answers
Speaker 3: were then reversed and they're still left wondering what happened,
Speaker 3: really really tragic, difficult case. At this point, we simply
Speaker 3: don't know because not enough questions were asked in the
Speaker 3: original investigation.
Speaker 1: My heart really hurts for both Damon Thibodeaux and Crystal
Speaker 1: Champagne and both of their families. Because Crystal was found murdered,
Speaker 1: she deserved a proper investigation. Everybody should have been investigated
Speaker 1: all at a You might have a suspect who's confessing,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that you should shut down the investigation.
Speaker 1: Crystal deserved more. And it's so fortunate that this prosecutor,
Speaker 1: was it Chonic senior or junior junior, that knic junior
Speaker 1: decided to go okay, like, I'm willing to look at
Speaker 1: this and potentially if I was involved in a wrongful conviction,
Speaker 1: I want to write that wrong We so infrequently see that,
Speaker 1: So I just commend him so much for what he
Speaker 1: did here. But it's such a tragedy that Damon his
Speaker 1: life ended for complications from COVID. But before that, like
Speaker 1: Ashley had mentioned before, he had to deal with the
Speaker 1: stigma of having this charge hang over his head. And
Speaker 1: that is just so unfortunate because proving that somebody else
Speaker 1: did it is really the only way that he would
Speaker 1: have been able to receive any compensation. The system makes
Speaker 1: it so difficult for those who have been wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: to be able to get that compensation that they deserve
Speaker 1: and to be able to really truly clear their name
Speaker 1: and to be able to remove that social stigma. So
Speaker 1: my heart breaks the fact that he died without being
Speaker 1: able to do that, And it's just so incredibly frustrating
Speaker 1: that the system is set up like this. And I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful that we had Ashley weighing in on all
Speaker 1: of these things. I just love hearing from you on
Speaker 1: these wrongful conviction cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember learning about this case many years ago,
Speaker 2: long before I started podcasting, on the episode of forty
Speaker 2: eight Hours, and thinking that it was one of the
Speaker 2: more egregious wrongful convictions I ever seen. I kind of
Speaker 2: forgot about it for a while, but then I remember
Speaker 2: reading the news during the summer of twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: that Damon had died from complications from COVID and he
Speaker 2: was only forty seven years old and only got to
Speaker 2: enjoy nine years of freedom after he was released from
Speaker 2: death row, but by that point he had already lost
Speaker 2: sixteen whole years to of his life. And of course
Speaker 2: this was one of those cases where literally the only
Speaker 2: evidence against him was a false confession, but that was
Speaker 2: enough to send him to death row. So I decided
Speaker 2: to take a fresh look at the case, and I'm
Speaker 2: glad I did. And the main reason I wanted to
Speaker 2: cover it is because this murder is still technically unsolved,
Speaker 2: because even though Damon was finally exonerated, we still don't
Speaker 2: know who killed Crystal. I mean, John Tomlins. It seems
Speaker 2: like a good candidate, but he may have had an
Speaker 2: alibi clearing them of any involvement. So, for all we know,
Speaker 2: maybe Crystal cross paths with someone else who coursed her
Speaker 2: into climbing into a car, or maybe forcibly abducted her
Speaker 2: and then proceeded to take her to this remote wooded
Speaker 2: area before attempting to sexually assaulting her and then murdering her.
Speaker 2: But sadly, this just shows like how badly an investigation
Speaker 2: could go when the police get tunnel vision because they
Speaker 2: wanted to bring in Damon for what should have been
Speaker 2: routine questioning, and then suddenly, after Crystal's body was found,
Speaker 2: they decided, hey, this must be the guy who did it,
Speaker 2: and they coursed him making a confession, and then later
Speaker 2: discovered that none of the other evidence matches him. So
Speaker 2: he never should have been convicted in the first place.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I do hope that one of these days
Speaker 2: that Crystal's family can receive justice. We can find out
Speaker 2: who actually killed her, and it would also be great
Speaker 2: for Damon's family and his loved ones. Like we also,
Speaker 2: we talked about how Yida's son that he reconnected with
Speaker 2: while he was on death row, and I'm sure he
Speaker 2: would like his father to be one hundred percent cleared
Speaker 2: by having the real perpetrator brought to justice because sadly,
Speaker 2: these wrongful conviction cases are just too common. And like
Speaker 2: I mentioned, we love hearing Ashley's thoughts on these wrongful
Speaker 2: conviction cases. And I think sometime in the future, I've
Speaker 2: got another egregious story like this from Louisiana that was
Speaker 2: prosecuted by Paula Connick Junior's uncle, Harry Connick Senior, and unfortunately,
Speaker 2: he did not have the same mentality as paul did.
Speaker 2: He was unwilling to admit that he made a mistake,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately he railroaded another poor innocent person and sent
Speaker 2: them to death row. So I hope we can talk
Speaker 2: about that case in the near future.
Speaker 4: On the Path with Chile, Robin do you want to
Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about the Trail went Patreon.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download commentary track at which I make more smart ass
Speaker 2: remarks about Jewel Kaylor than be sure to join Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
Speaker 4: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
Speaker 4: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 1: We'll link them in the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy