Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Pathway Chili for our next series of episodes.
Speaker 2: Per usual, Ashley is still off for a little while,
Speaker 2: so Jules and I will be discussing a case where
Speaker 2: I share all the details and she will give off
Speaker 2: her live reactions. So, Jules, are you familiar with the
Speaker 2: murder of Holly Staker?
Speaker 1: No, I don't think I've ever heard of this case.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a wrongful conviction case about a man
Speaker 2: named Juan Rivera who was unjustly incarcerated for her murder,
Speaker 2: so it's technically still unsolved. This is the one I've
Speaker 2: talked about a lot. I covered it on The Trail
Speaker 2: Went Cold many years ago. I also did a cross-promotional
Speaker 2: episode with Aaron from Generation Y in which we discussed
Speaker 2: the case. And I wanted to do it now because
Speaker 2: just a couple weeks after we record this, I will
Speaker 2: be appearing at AdvocacyCon in Albuquerque, New Mexico and doing
Speaker 2: a presentation on wrongful convictions with Justin from Generation Y,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to talk about this case. And This
Speaker 2: is one of the most egregious wrongful convictions you're ever
Speaker 2: going to see, so I want to discuss it with
Speaker 2: you and see your live reaction, because I can guarantee
Speaker 2: there are some moments here that will absolutely disgust you.
Speaker 1: I love a wrongful conviction case because it points out
Speaker 1: all of the issues with the system, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to somebody of a lower socioeconomic status, if it's
Speaker 1: a person of color. then we see that the system
Speaker 1: seems to be rigged against certain people. And it also
Speaker 1: points out the damage that it can do to multiple
Speaker 1: families when law enforcement has tunnel vision and they get
Speaker 1: the wrong person. The victim's death isn't punished and you
Speaker 1: have the wrong person behind bars, so there's the familial
Speaker 1: ramifications that that causes. And it is a ripple effect.
Speaker 1: And it's not just those two families that are affected.
Speaker 1: There's a potential that the offender could then again re-offend
Speaker 1: and could hurt somebody else's child. So it is just
Speaker 1: such a complex topic. And I know we always love
Speaker 1: when Ashley weighs in on this because she's so great
Speaker 1: with wrongful convictions. So I will try to do it justice.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like this is pretty much an example of
Speaker 2: when the system went horribly wrong. Like everything you just
Speaker 2: talked about happens in this case where they put an
Speaker 2: innocent person in prison. and they pretty much harmed the family,
Speaker 2: and then you get evidence that the real killer may
Speaker 2: have harmed someone else while the wrong person was in jail.
Speaker 2: It's just an example where even after it seemed obvious
Speaker 2: that authorities got the wrong person, they refused to admit
Speaker 2: that they made a mistake and just kept keeping this
Speaker 2: going on for years and years and causing a lot
Speaker 2: of trauma for a lot of people. So the case
Speaker 2: takes place in 1992 in Waukegan, Illinois, and the victim
Speaker 2: is 11-year-old Holly Staker. And on the evening of August
Speaker 2: the 17th, she babysat the two children of one of
Speaker 2: her neighbors, Don Engelbrecht. The children were Don's 5-year-old son, Blake,
Speaker 2: and her 2-year-old daughter, Taylor. So they lived at a
Speaker 2: two-flat apartment house, and Holly was there for a couple hours.
Speaker 2: But when nightfall hit, Blake decided to go outside to
Speaker 2: play for a little while. But a short time later,
Speaker 2: he approached one of his neighbors to claim that when
Speaker 2: he tried to go back inside the house, the front
Speaker 2: door was locked, and even though he repeatedly knocked on it,
Speaker 2: no one answered. So the neighbor took Blake to the
Speaker 2: nearby tavern where Dawn was working her shift and explained
Speaker 2: the situation, and when Dawn attempted to call her house
Speaker 2: to speak with Holly, there was no answer, so she
Speaker 2: immediately became concerned and asked Holly's mother to meet her,
Speaker 2: at the house. And when they went inside, they did
Speaker 2: find Taylor, the two-year-old, but there did not appear to
Speaker 2: be any sign of Holly. And the back door appeared
Speaker 2: to be kicked in, so there were signs that there
Speaker 2: was an intruder there. And so they notified the police,
Speaker 2: and after they arrived, they went inside the children's bedroom
Speaker 2: and discovered that Holly had been murdered. Her body was
Speaker 2: partially clothed, and it turned out she'd been sexually assaulted, strangled,
Speaker 2: and stabbed 27 times.
Speaker 1: Wow, there's so much here. Firstly, what a symptom of
Speaker 1: the 1990s to have a five-year-old playing unattended outside. That's
Speaker 1: not something you're going to see happen if somebody's being
Speaker 1: babysat today. The fact that Holly is only 11, she's
Speaker 1: watching these children, and to think that there was somebody
Speaker 1: who was either aware that the parents were going to
Speaker 1: be away or out, or that they'd been watching the house...
Speaker 1: Because it seems unlikely that this is just some random
Speaker 1: crime of opportunity that somebody wasn't laying in wait for
Speaker 1: a moment where Holly would be alone and vulnerable. Because
Speaker 1: while the parents were there, nothing like this happened. But
Speaker 1: when she's alone, during this small window of time, she's attacked.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like this offender is emboldened enough to
Speaker 1: believe that these people aren't coming back right away. So
Speaker 1: that would lead me down the road that they must
Speaker 1: have been watching. Because if you were going to attack
Speaker 1: a young girl who's 11, the chances are good if
Speaker 1: you think that she lives there and you're not assuming
Speaker 1: she's the babysitter, that the parents could be home at
Speaker 1: any minute. So it's almost like this person knew this
Speaker 1: window of time that they had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is one of the big unanswered questions of
Speaker 2: this case. Was Holly specifically targeted? Did the offender know
Speaker 2: that she was going to be there alone babysitting? because
Speaker 2: it's not often that someone is just going to break
Speaker 2: into a stranger's house and kill the babysitter without knowing
Speaker 2: ahead of time that she's going to be there. But
Speaker 2: one of the weirdest details of this case that I
Speaker 2: don't think gets talked about enough is that when Dawn
Speaker 2: looked around, she did not think that anything was missing,
Speaker 2: so it did not appear that this was a botched robbery,
Speaker 2: but she did notice that a photograph inside a frame
Speaker 2: that she normally kept on her mantle had been stolen.
Speaker 2: And I think that's bizarre. It makes me wonder, was someone, like,
Speaker 2: targeting the Engelbrechts? Maybe they were going after Dawn and
Speaker 2: were attempting to kill her, but when they came inside,
Speaker 2: they did not expect her to not be home, and
Speaker 2: when they saw Holly there, they decided to take out
Speaker 2: their rage and kill her instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it could go either way. It could
Speaker 1: be somebody who were targeting the Engelbrechts, or you have Holly, who...
Speaker 1: is 11 years old and potentially there was somebody who
Speaker 1: knew that she would be babysitting, knew that she would
Speaker 1: be alone for a certain amount of time. Because I
Speaker 1: feel like if you're targeting the Engelbrecht to do it
Speaker 1: at that time of the day and to come in
Speaker 1: the home, wouldn't you have at least been watching a
Speaker 1: little bit first? So it sort of leads me to
Speaker 1: believe that Holly was the intended target. But the one
Speaker 1: question mark for me is the photo.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Was it because there was some element of recognition? Was
Speaker 1: it a trophy? Why? I don't understand that angle of it,
Speaker 1: if it was indeed targeted at Holly.
Speaker 2: And they haven't specifically said who was in the photograph,
Speaker 2: if it was Dawn or the entire family or the children,
Speaker 2: but I haven't heard anything about the Engelbrechts having any
Speaker 2: known enemies, like anyone that Dawn had a personal grudge
Speaker 2: with at the time who might have been compelled to
Speaker 2: break into her residence and kill her. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I don't think it's a coincidence that they
Speaker 2: decided to go in there when Blake, the five-year-old, was
Speaker 2: playing outside. And they seemed to have the wherewithal to
Speaker 2: lock the front door while he was out there to
Speaker 2: ensure that he didn't get back in there. And I
Speaker 2: guess this person might have think that, yes, the two-year-old
Speaker 2: girl is probably not going to put up any resistance,
Speaker 2: but perhaps the little boy might. So that's why I'm
Speaker 2: going to come in when he just happens to be
Speaker 2: playing outside.
Speaker 1: Question. Okay, so... It said that her body was found
Speaker 1: in like the children's rooms and it didn't say specifically,
Speaker 1: but could this potentially have been done in front of
Speaker 1: the two-year-old?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's going to be a big point that comes
Speaker 2: up because many years later, the two-year-old is going to
Speaker 2: be asked to testify as a witness. So she was
Speaker 2: definitely in the house when it happened, but it's unclear
Speaker 2: what exactly she saw, if she saw the murder or
Speaker 2: if she saw the killer's face. Because years later, she's
Speaker 2: going to say that she did, but obviously a two-year-old
Speaker 2: is not going to know for certain unless someone is
Speaker 2: coaching them. So they found a broken knife in a
Speaker 2: nearby yard, and they initially suspected it was the murder weapon,
Speaker 2: but I'll be getting back to that point later on.
Speaker 2: And the crime went unsolved for a month and a half,
Speaker 2: but on September the 29th, the police received a tip
Speaker 2: from a man named Ed Martin, who had been an
Speaker 2: inmate at the Lake County Jail, who claimed he had
Speaker 2: recently spoken with another inmate there named Juan Rivera, who
Speaker 2: was a 19-year-old from Puerto Rico who was currently incarcerated
Speaker 2: for stealing a car stereo. apparently Juan had told him
Speaker 2: that on the night of Holly Staker's murder, he was
Speaker 2: at a party at a house that was located near
Speaker 2: the Engelbrecht's residence and might have seen the killer. So
Speaker 2: the police brought in Juan for questioning, and he confirmed that, yes,
Speaker 2: he went to this party and he shared this story
Speaker 2: with Ed Martin, and he said that he had seen
Speaker 2: a man come and go from the party on multiple occasions,
Speaker 2: and the last time he saw him, he looked sweaty
Speaker 2: and out of breath and appeared to have a fresh
Speaker 2: scratch on him. Well, when investigators looked into this lead,
Speaker 2: they discovered that no party had actually taken place at
Speaker 2: this house on this particular evening, so it seemed apparent
Speaker 2: that Juan was lying. And this is a big unanswered
Speaker 2: question in the case, because we're obviously going to find
Speaker 2: out that Juan was innocent and had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this crime, but just for whatever reason decided to
Speaker 2: flat out make up this story about the party and
Speaker 2: the sweaty man, but he was also a guy with
Speaker 2: a 9th grade education and an IQ of 79, and
Speaker 2: he had a history of mental illness, depression, and even
Speaker 2: some prior suicide attempts, so maybe he's just someone with
Speaker 2: a mindset where he hears about a murder and will
Speaker 2: make up stories about it for just no reason, because
Speaker 2: that's just how his mind functions.
Speaker 1: That's possible, but it's also possible he felt like the
Speaker 1: blame could be put on him for one reason or another,
Speaker 1: and so in order to deflect blame, he conjured up
Speaker 1: this story about this man who was sweaty with a scratch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there was no known connection between
Speaker 2: the Rivera family and the Engelbrecht family, and as far
Speaker 2: as anyone could tell, he did not know Holly, but
Speaker 2: maybe he just felt, well, there's an unsolved murder that
Speaker 2: took place near where I live, so people are going
Speaker 2: to accuse me, so I'm just going to make up
Speaker 2: this story, but unfortunately it wound up backfiring on him
Speaker 2: in a huge way. So as you may have already guessed,
Speaker 2: because of his low IQ and his mental health issues,
Speaker 2: that he would be susceptible to interrogations, So on October
Speaker 2: the 27th, Juan was brought in for questioning again, and
Speaker 2: over the course of the next four days, he would
Speaker 2: be relentlessly interrogated without the presence of an attorney. He
Speaker 2: was interrogated for a total of 36 hours over the
Speaker 2: course of four days, and his final interrogation lasted 26
Speaker 2: straight hours without any sleep, or without him being able
Speaker 2: to contact attorneys or family members. He was given two
Speaker 2: polygraph tests, but the results were inconclusive, but he eventually
Speaker 2: reached the point where he admitted that yes, He had
Speaker 2: lied about being at the party, but he had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with Holly Staker's murder. But after the 26-hour
Speaker 2: interrogation session shortly before midnight on October the 30th, he
Speaker 2: finally broke down and confessed that he was responsible for
Speaker 2: Holly's murder. But as I'm sure you probably guessed, there's
Speaker 2: going to be problems with this confession.
Speaker 1: I mean, who wouldn't at that point in time? Because
Speaker 1: what is real and what is fake? You don't know
Speaker 1: which way is up and which way is down. When
Speaker 1: you've been deprived of sleep, potentially deprived of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: if he was deprived of food and water and bathroom breaks,
Speaker 1: but one can only assume. And I feel like a
Speaker 1: 26 hour interrogation is something that would, I feel like
Speaker 1: it would violate the Geneva convention. Don't you think?
Speaker 2: I think it is technically legal because I have seen, uh, issue, uh,
Speaker 2: like other cases like this where people are interrogated for
Speaker 2: like one or two days straight without any sleep, without
Speaker 2: any break. And, uh, I guess it's a matter of
Speaker 2: whether they informed him of his rights ahead of time
Speaker 2: and said that, yes, we haven't charged you with anything yet,
Speaker 2: so you can technically walk out right now or you
Speaker 2: can get a lawyer. But the issue with people like Rivera,
Speaker 2: who have IQs of like 79, is that they just
Speaker 2: do not understand their rights and pretty much figure, well,
Speaker 2: since I'm in here with the police, I can't do
Speaker 2: anything to defend myself. And then they just sit there
Speaker 2: and eventually break down and confess.
Speaker 1: And in 1992, who really understood their rights with regards
Speaker 1: to the police and interrogation? and when it would be
Speaker 1: acceptable to get up and leave. I think his IQ aside,
Speaker 1: I think you would get most people in a similar situation,
Speaker 1: and unless they were very wealthy, with access to attorneys
Speaker 1: who had given them the instructions that if this situation
Speaker 1: were to ever arise, you say, I want my attorney,
Speaker 1: and you stop the interrogation. That's common knowledge today, but
Speaker 1: not in 1992.
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely not in 92, because there wasn't as much
Speaker 2: awareness about wrongful convictions and false confessions back then, and
Speaker 2: Juan probably, he definitely was not from a rich family,
Speaker 2: so he figured that, well, I didn't actually commit the crime,
Speaker 2: so even if I confess, they will be able to, like,
Speaker 2: look back and find out that I wasn't the real killer,
Speaker 2: and then I will be free. But unfortunately, it didn't
Speaker 2: work out that way. So this is where it starts
Speaker 2: getting really problematic, because after he made his original confession,
Speaker 2: he was left alone in the interrogation room while the
Speaker 2: detectives started typing out a statement for him to sign,
Speaker 2: but then he started banging his head on the wall
Speaker 2: repeatedly before falling to the floor and curling up into
Speaker 2: a fetal position. He was then transferred to a padded
Speaker 2: cell to be treated by the jail's medical personnel, but
Speaker 2: during this time, a nurse witnessed him pacing back and forth,
Speaker 2: banging his head on the padded wall and pulling out
Speaker 2: clumps of hair, and rambling incoherently. So after this, they
Speaker 2: put him in shackles, and the nurse concluded that he
Speaker 2: was likely having a psychotic episode and had lost all
Speaker 2: touch with reality. But in spite of this, the detectives
Speaker 2: still brought the statement they prepared to Juan, and within
Speaker 2: hours of his initial breakdown, they had him sign it,
Speaker 2: even though he was clearly not in his right state
Speaker 2: of mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's very clear that law enforcement took
Speaker 1: advantage of his diminished mental capacity. And then they contributed
Speaker 1: to that further by depriving him of basic human rights,
Speaker 1: which would be sleep. And I don't know if he
Speaker 1: was deprived of other things, but I think the fact
Speaker 1: that they interrogated him for 26 hours straight speaks volumes
Speaker 1: to the way that he was treated. So anything that
Speaker 1: anybody signs at that point, I think, would not be
Speaker 1: reliable and should not stand up in court.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and what happened right after this is that the
Speaker 2: police brought his signed statement to the state's attorney's office,
Speaker 2: and there was concern because it had a number of inconsistencies,
Speaker 2: and he provided a number of details which did not
Speaker 2: match the facts of the crime. So most decent attorneys
Speaker 2: would say that, no, you have to find additional evidence
Speaker 2: besides this confession, or maybe you've got the wrong guy.
Speaker 2: But his mindset was, no, change the statement and make
Speaker 2: sure it starts fitting the facts of the crime, and
Speaker 2: then get him to sign it again. So he was re-interviewed,
Speaker 2: even though at this point he had not slept for
Speaker 2: over 24 hours, and he was also convinced to sign
Speaker 2: a rights waiver and change several details from his original statement,
Speaker 2: and when the detectives were satisfied that the statement was
Speaker 2: accurate and a closer fit to the real details of
Speaker 2: the crime, he signed it again, and shortly thereafter he
Speaker 2: was formally charged with first-degree murder.
Speaker 1: This is just so unfortunate because it's so easy for
Speaker 1: us to play Monday morning quarterback from a much different
Speaker 1: position with a greater understanding and just depth and breadth
Speaker 1: of knowledge about wrongful convictions, tunnel vision, false confessions, all
Speaker 1: of these things that were potentially starting to become a
Speaker 1: topic of conversation in the 90s, but not to the degree.
Speaker 1: We've seen the fallout in... you know, the 2010s to now, basically,
Speaker 1: where so many people were freed because of false confessions
Speaker 1: and because of evidence that came to light, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times because of faulty forensics, or we see
Speaker 1: a lot of cases where this pattern fits, and we
Speaker 1: see plenty of cases where there's still people languishing behind
Speaker 1: bars that are clearly not responsible for the crimes, like
Speaker 1: Tommy Ziegler is one that always comes to mind because
Speaker 1: it's Robin's pet case, but Florida likes to hold on
Speaker 1: tight to those people and doesn't seem to like to
Speaker 1: admit any wrongdoing or open themselves up to the financial
Speaker 1: ramifications of putting the wrong person behind bars because it
Speaker 1: could cost them millions of dollars. So we're seeing all
Speaker 1: of these red flags here and it's making me upset,
Speaker 1: but it is pretty much par for the course. We've
Speaker 1: seen it a million times.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and this took place near Chicago in Illinois,
Speaker 2: and I know that Chicago had an extensive history of
Speaker 2: corruption prior to this, prior to 1992, a lot of
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions based on false confessions. So this was pretty
Speaker 2: much par for the course, and I like to think
Speaker 2: that there's been a reduction to this, because I think
Speaker 2: that people in law enforcement now feel that we've seen
Speaker 2: so many wrongful convictions get all this exposure and cause
Speaker 2: a lot of backlash. So I'm hoping now that they're realizing, hmm,
Speaker 2: we better not try to get a false confession, and
Speaker 2: if we do, at least find other corroborating evidence, because
Speaker 2: if there's anything questionable about the conviction, then obviously it's
Speaker 2: going to come back to haunt us. And with Juan
Speaker 2: Rivera's case, there's just so many red flags spread about
Speaker 2: where it's like you see so many traits that have
Speaker 2: come forth again and again in wrongful conviction cases. But
Speaker 2: back in 1992, they had like decades of getting away
Speaker 2: with this and sending people to prison. So I'm sure
Speaker 2: they figured, well, we don't have any other evidence besides
Speaker 2: this questionable confession, but it's still going to work for us.
Speaker 2: So this was one of those confessions where Juan did
Speaker 2: not provide any details about the crime that were not
Speaker 2: public knowledge to show that he had been there, and
Speaker 2: there were points where police were happy to feed him
Speaker 2: details in order to fix some of his inaccuracies. Just
Speaker 2: as an example, Juan had initially stated that Holly was
Speaker 2: wearing a nightgown when he killed her, even though she
Speaker 2: was found wearing black stretch pants and a multicolored shirt.
Speaker 2: And when the detectives were helping Juan revise his statement,
Speaker 2: they'd say things like, she had a multicolored shirt on, right?
Speaker 2: So there they are, feeding him details which are not
Speaker 2: public knowledge, which you should withhold just to make sure
Speaker 2: that the confession is legitimate. And then he would agree
Speaker 2: to the changes, and then they would fix them in
Speaker 2: the statement before he signed it. And another big hole
Speaker 2: is that he initially claimed that the boy, Blake, was
Speaker 2: inside the apartment when he committed the murder, even though
Speaker 2: Blake was playing outside at the time and did not
Speaker 2: return home after the killer was gone. And even though
Speaker 2: Holly had been strangled, Juan never made one mention of
Speaker 2: this during the course of his interrogations because that was
Speaker 2: one of the details they withheld from the public, and
Speaker 2: not once during, like, all these hours of interrogation did
Speaker 2: he volunteer that information.
Speaker 1: It's so wild to me. All of these inconsistencies, things
Speaker 1: that would be holdback information because of guilt knowledge, the
Speaker 1: quote-unquote real killer that you guys have here and you're
Speaker 1: about to throw behind bars, he doesn't know these things.
Speaker 1: So my question that I always have in these cases is,
Speaker 1: did law enforcement know that he wasn't the guy and
Speaker 1: they're still trying to fit a square peg in a
Speaker 1: round hole because, like we always talk about, juking the stats.
Speaker 1: When you have a killer of an 11-year-old girl who
Speaker 1: was babysitting a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, you have a
Speaker 1: community who is terrified. So what do you want to do?
Speaker 1: Is you want to serve up that killer on a
Speaker 1: silver platter and you want to say, you have no
Speaker 1: reason to fear. because they're going to be getting pressure
Speaker 1: from politicians, from the mayor, from the police commissioner, from
Speaker 1: all of these people. So did you know that he
Speaker 1: was the wrong guy? Or did you believe that he
Speaker 1: was the right guy and he just wasn't very smart
Speaker 1: so he didn't have the details or he didn't remember
Speaker 1: accurately and that's why you're feeding him the information? Because
Speaker 1: to me, intent, when it comes to the way that
Speaker 1: they proceeded, matters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I have seen other cases where after they
Speaker 2: charge the suspect, they do everything in their power not to...
Speaker 2: admit that they were wrong and keep them in prison
Speaker 2: no matter what. But you get the sense that, at
Speaker 2: the outset at least, they initially believed that they got
Speaker 2: the right guy. But I'm not entirely sure that's the
Speaker 2: case here. I think it's the situation you described where
Speaker 2: there was so much pressure... from the community to solve
Speaker 2: this case, and they probably didn't have any solid leads,
Speaker 2: but then they're told, hey, there's a guy who's in
Speaker 2: jail for another crime who supposedly made these incriminating statements
Speaker 2: and lied about being at a party that night. He
Speaker 2: must be the guy, and then they're just going to
Speaker 2: interrogate him and interrogate him until he finally tells them
Speaker 2: what they want to hear. But of course, the big
Speaker 2: issue with the confession is that they could not find
Speaker 2: any other corroborating evidence to prove that he did it,
Speaker 2: because he willingly provided samples of his blood and hair
Speaker 2: to investigators, but they did not match any of the
Speaker 2: physical evidence from the murder scene, and they could not
Speaker 2: find any of Juan's fingerprints in the house. This was 1992,
Speaker 2: and DNA testing was still in its infancy, so they
Speaker 2: didn't use it at this point, though they would use
Speaker 2: it later. And not only that, but Juan's father and
Speaker 2: his girlfriend provided him with an alibi and confirmed he
Speaker 2: was home the entire evening. Now, obviously, if it's the
Speaker 2: defendant's family, then you have to take the alibi with
Speaker 2: a grain of salt, but on that particular night, Juan's
Speaker 2: mother was visiting a relative in Puerto Rico and called
Speaker 2: the residence and claimed that she spoke to Juan on
Speaker 2: the phone for about 20 minutes, and they checked phone
Speaker 2: records and confirmed that, yes, a call from Puerto Rico
Speaker 2: did go into the house on that particular night.
Speaker 1: It's just not adding up with Juan. Like, it would
Speaker 1: be so convenient if he were the guy. You've got
Speaker 1: somebody who's clearly already got a criminal record and he's
Speaker 1: in prison and he's making up this story. And then
Speaker 1: there's this false confession or they probably aren't saying it's
Speaker 1: a false confession. They're probably saying he confessed, he broke.
Speaker 1: And maybe they truly believe that that happened. But everything
Speaker 1: that we're seeing is showing us that this isn't the guy.
Speaker 1: But that is an inconvenient truth, right? Because if Juan's
Speaker 1: not the guy, then who is the guy? You've got
Speaker 1: no evidence to support any other perpetrator that we know
Speaker 1: of because you focused your energies on Juan. So even
Speaker 1: if there were other leads or other potential suspects, you
Speaker 1: poured all of your energy into Juan and him being
Speaker 1: the guy. And so that gives the potential perpetrator time
Speaker 1: to regroup, recalibrate, and reoffend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I think at that point they just had
Speaker 2: no other suspects, but I imagine putting myself into the
Speaker 2: shoes of a real killer, and you find out that
Speaker 2: someone has been arrested for your crime, you're just going
Speaker 2: to think to themselves, wow, this was so easy to
Speaker 2: get away with it, it's pretty much open season, I
Speaker 2: can probably go harm someone else, because I know that
Speaker 2: the police are no longer looking for me. So the
Speaker 2: next part I'm going to share is absolutely ridiculous, and
Speaker 2: this is the point when they should have decided, this
Speaker 2: is the wrong guy, we should drop the charges right
Speaker 2: now and start over. So I mentioned that Juan was
Speaker 2: in jail because he had been arrested for stealing a
Speaker 2: car stereo, and he initially was given probation, but because
Speaker 2: he wound up violating the probation, he was sent back
Speaker 2: to jail, and that's where he made those incriminating statements.
Speaker 2: But before this happened, one of the conditions of his
Speaker 2: probation was that he had to wear an electronic ankle
Speaker 2: monitor and was sentenced to home confinement. And guess what?
Speaker 2: They checked electronic monitoring system records, and they showed that
Speaker 2: this ankle monitor was was home the entire night of
Speaker 2: August the 17th when Holly's murder took place. So obviously,
Speaker 2: even though Juan had lied about attending a party that night,
Speaker 2: here was convincing evidence to show that he was at
Speaker 2: home the entire time and wasn't anywhere near the residence
Speaker 2: where Holly was killed. But he actually, like, questioned Juan
Speaker 2: about this, and he initially claimed that he had unplugged
Speaker 2: his ankle monitor, took it off, then went to the
Speaker 2: Engelbrecht's apartment to kill Holly, and then came back and
Speaker 2: put it back on before anyone noticed, but that's not
Speaker 2: how ankle monitors work. They're designed so that they will
Speaker 2: alert the police if you try to take them off
Speaker 2: or you sabotage them, so then the police change their
Speaker 2: tune and says, oh, it must have malfunctioned that night,
Speaker 2: and then he took it off and put it back on,
Speaker 2: and it started working again before anyone noticed.
Speaker 1: Okay, so like just for convenience sake, the one night
Speaker 1: that he decides to do that, it's a malfunction. It's
Speaker 1: like when cameras conveniently don't work. But my mind went
Speaker 1: to exactly what you said. I was literally going to say,
Speaker 1: that's not how ankle monitors work. It's not like you
Speaker 1: put it on a criminal and then they've got the
Speaker 1: ability to unplug it and plug it back in as
Speaker 1: they see fit. That would completely defeat the whole purpose
Speaker 1: of being able to track somebody 24 hours a day.
Speaker 1: seven days a week. There's no time off so you
Speaker 1: can just unplug it. It's not like this leisure time
Speaker 1: you get. And we also know that Juan has an
Speaker 1: IQ of 79. So I'm going to go out on
Speaker 1: a limb here and say Juan's not a tech genius,
Speaker 1: and I just don't see him being able to circumvent
Speaker 1: the functionality of an ankle monitor. And it feels like
Speaker 1: law enforcement jumped in here and was like, okay, we
Speaker 1: need to come up with a plan for why this
Speaker 1: isn't good evidence. Okay, it just, it malfunctioned and he
Speaker 1: went off and, you know, committed this murder and then
Speaker 1: came back. And it's like, again, you're now just trying
Speaker 1: to make this evidence, which should be pretty rock solid,
Speaker 1: that he could not have been in two places at once.
Speaker 1: The ankle monitor that is supposedly malfunctioning is saying that
Speaker 1: he's at home. So is it not working? Because if
Speaker 1: it's really malfunctioning, wouldn't we just see it not work
Speaker 1: or not track Juan? But again, it's saying he's there.
Speaker 1: So I'm just confused with this explanation, and I think
Speaker 1: they're confused with how to exactly make this fit into
Speaker 1: their story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like a thing where we charge him
Speaker 2: with the crime after making the confession, but we don't
Speaker 2: do our research to make sure that this case will
Speaker 2: stand up. And once they realize, oh, he was wearing
Speaker 2: an ankle monitor that evening, and records show that he
Speaker 2: was at home the entire night, how are we going
Speaker 2: to make this fit our narrative? And I'm sure there
Speaker 2: are documented cases of criminals who've been able to circumvent
Speaker 2: these things and take them off without sending an alert
Speaker 2: to the police, but like you said, Juan has an
Speaker 2: IQ of 79, so I don't think he's going to
Speaker 2: be able to do something that sophisticated without setting the
Speaker 2: ankle monitor off. So before Juan's trial was going to
Speaker 2: take place, his defense team were surprised to be informed
Speaker 2: by the prosecution that there might be physical evidence against
Speaker 2: him after all. because shortly after he was sent to
Speaker 2: the Lake County Jail for his probation violation, a wand
Speaker 2: had apparently traded a pair of his sneakers to another
Speaker 2: inmate in exchange for a TV set, and the inmate
Speaker 2: later turned the shoes over to the police, and they
Speaker 2: discovered that there was blood on them, which the authorities
Speaker 2: were convinced belonged to Holly. So this seemed like pretty
Speaker 2: incriminating evidence, but the defense conducted their own investigation and
Speaker 2: discovered that, yes, the shoes did belong to Juan, but
Speaker 2: they were not actually purchased until weeks after Holly's murder
Speaker 2: took place. They got a defense investigator to get a
Speaker 2: record to show that Juan's mother had purchased the sneakers
Speaker 2: from a Walmart and given them to them. And not
Speaker 2: only that, but this particular brand of sneakers was manufactured
Speaker 2: in Hong Kong and was not even available for sale
Speaker 2: in the United States at the time of Holly's murder.
Speaker 2: At that particular point, they would have been in a
Speaker 2: warehouse in California awaiting delivery to regional distribution centers. where
Speaker 2: they would be sold in stores, so they're thinking to themselves, okay,
Speaker 2: how come this blood from Holly conveniently got on these sneakers,
Speaker 2: when now we know it would have been physically impossible
Speaker 2: to want a wand to wear these sneakers on the
Speaker 2: night of the crime, since he did not even own
Speaker 2: them yet?
Speaker 1: It feels like every piece of their case is falling
Speaker 1: apart right now, and it's egregious to think that they
Speaker 1: would continue to persevere. I guess this is just what
Speaker 1: the definition of tunnel vision is. Either they are so
Speaker 1: steadfast in their conviction that he did it that they
Speaker 1: are willing to overlook evidence like the ankle monitor, like
Speaker 1: the sneakers, that he could not have worn them. It's
Speaker 1: not like there was online shopping in 1992, right? It
Speaker 1: wasn't like you were going to order these sneakers from
Speaker 1: Asia where they were maybe available and you could have
Speaker 1: received them earlier than you would have in the United States.
Speaker 1: If they weren't available in the United States at that
Speaker 1: point in time, then you weren't wearing them, unless you
Speaker 1: had gone overseas, flown, and purchased them there, and then
Speaker 1: brought them back, which I do not believe was the
Speaker 1: case with Juan, because of his socioeconomic status. This was
Speaker 1: not a rich individual, and to be flying overseas would
Speaker 1: have been a more expensive endeavor in 1992.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he was also on probation wearing an ankle monitor,
Speaker 2: so he's obviously not flying overseas to Hong Kong in
Speaker 2: order to purchase shoes. So when the defense team said
Speaker 2: that they were going to call it imported to testify
Speaker 2: that these sneakers would not have been available for purchase
Speaker 2: at the time of the murder, lo and behold, the
Speaker 2: prosecution decides, oh, you know what, we're not going to
Speaker 2: introduce these sneakers as evidence in the trial after all.
Speaker 2: And at the time, there was an assumption that, okay,
Speaker 2: maybe this blood on there was for a completely unrelated reason.
Speaker 2: But then many years later, they did some DNA testing
Speaker 2: on the blood and found out that it belonged to
Speaker 2: Holly Staker. And of course, obviously, Juan was not wearing
Speaker 2: these sneakers. when he killed her So the only way
Speaker 2: that Holly's blood could have wound up on the sneakers
Speaker 2: is if someone planted it there. So this is getting
Speaker 2: into a case where it's not just like an innocent
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction where they got the wrong guy but believe
Speaker 2: they were right. This shows that someone is planting evidence
Speaker 2: to try to frame an innocent man. And let's just
Speaker 2: say that Juan was incredibly lucky that they were able
Speaker 2: to find records that he did not purchase those sneakers
Speaker 2: until after the murder. Because otherwise, if he had purchased
Speaker 2: them beforehand and they found Holly's blood on there, how
Speaker 2: could they prove that it was planted?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he got very lucky. We probably wouldn't be talking
Speaker 1: about his wrongful conviction if they had been available in
Speaker 1: the US at that time period and Holly's blood was
Speaker 1: found on them. It would be really, really difficult for
Speaker 1: Juan to walk his way out of that one. even
Speaker 1: though there's evidence to the contrary, such as the ankle
Speaker 1: monitor evidence, which makes it look as though Juan could
Speaker 1: not have been there, and also the confession, where he
Speaker 1: wasn't able to accurately recall what Holly was wearing, or
Speaker 1: even bring up the method by which he supposedly decided
Speaker 1: to murder her, which would have been strangulation. So, I'm
Speaker 1: just so thankful that in a case where we have
Speaker 1: a wrongful conviction and so many things are overlooked, that
Speaker 1: there seems to be a little bit of luck on
Speaker 1: Juan's side with regards to just this small timeline of
Speaker 1: a few months, like these sneakers were not available, so
Speaker 1: he couldn't have had Holly's blood on these sneakers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and unfortunately, after all these years, it would be
Speaker 2: impossible to prove who planted the blood, but obviously the
Speaker 2: fact that there's no way these sneakers were anywhere near
Speaker 2: the crime scene shows that someone in law enforcement did that,
Speaker 2: and that they obviously knew that they were incarcerating an
Speaker 2: innocent man and had to fabricate new evidence by any
Speaker 2: means possible.
Speaker 1: Or do you think that it could have been the
Speaker 1: real killer, and the real killer could have potentially actually
Speaker 1: worn the sneakers, and then planted them after the fact?
Speaker 2: Probably not, because they were able to establish that they
Speaker 2: were in a warehouse in California on the night of
Speaker 2: the murder, so I don't think the real killer could
Speaker 2: have had access to them at that time.
Speaker 1: Okay, that definitely makes it an impossibility.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So Juan finally went on trial over a
Speaker 2: year later in November of 1993, and of course, other
Speaker 2: than his confession, there was no other real evidence against him,
Speaker 2: so the prosecution had to introduce another questionable tactic, and
Speaker 2: that was a jailhouse informant, which you often find are
Speaker 2: done out of desperation when the evidence is not that strong.
Speaker 2: One of them was a guy named Frank McDonald, who
Speaker 2: claimed that while he was serving time in Thloit County
Speaker 2: Jail on the burglary charge for stealing the car stereo,
Speaker 2: Juan had made some incriminating statements that he was responsible
Speaker 2: for Holly's murder. But of course, it turned out that
Speaker 2: McDonald was questioned by investigators shortly after Juan's arrest and
Speaker 2: initially said something like this, but then three days later,
Speaker 2: he approached investigators again and said that, oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: I did hear Juan confess, and can you help me
Speaker 2: with the sentence that I'm currently serving right now? And
Speaker 2: they found evidence that McDonald had attempted to sell information
Speaker 2: about Juan's so-called confession to a reporter from the Chicago Tribune,
Speaker 2: before he even approached the police, so obviously he was
Speaker 2: a very questionable witness. But this is 1993, and of
Speaker 2: course the general public isn't going to have as much
Speaker 2: knowledge about false confessions and jailhouse informants, so they believe
Speaker 2: that this was enough evidence to find Juan guilty, and
Speaker 2: he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1: Given the evidence that they have, and just everything related
Speaker 1: to this case, I feel like so much has to
Speaker 1: come down to the jury at the time in 1992,
Speaker 1: believing that why would you confess to something that you
Speaker 1: didn't commit? Because I think it's easy to almost like
Speaker 1: disregard everything else. And it's like, if this person themselves
Speaker 1: is saying that they indeed are guilty of the murder
Speaker 1: of Holly, then we should believe him. Because the sentiment
Speaker 1: about false confessions just wasn't out there with the public
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Like, there's so many wrongful convictions where I
Speaker 2: look at them from today's perspective, and I ask myself,
Speaker 2: how could the jury have believed this scenario? How could
Speaker 2: they find the defendant guilty? But then I'm thinking, back
Speaker 2: in 1993, I didn't have knowledge about false confessions or
Speaker 2: any of this stuff. So if I was on the jury,
Speaker 2: I might have believed it too. Because back then, people
Speaker 2: just couldn't grasp the concept that you would confess to
Speaker 2: a crime that you did not commit if you were
Speaker 2: completely innocent.
Speaker 1: I remember, I believe it was like on an episode
Speaker 1: of Forensic Files or something. It could have been like
Speaker 1: City Confidential. I remember one of those early true crime shows,
Speaker 1: watching it, and this probably would have been when I
Speaker 1: was a teenager in the late 90s, and thinking, why
Speaker 1: would somebody say that they committed a crime that they didn't?
Speaker 1: And believing that if somebody confessed to something, that they
Speaker 1: had to have indeed done that thing. And of course,
Speaker 1: my perspective changed when I had access to more information,
Speaker 1: but I do think that that would have been a
Speaker 1: really popular sentiment at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I seem to believe that my perspective on this
Speaker 2: changed from a case featured on Unsolved Mysteries about a
Speaker 2: guy named Johnny Lee Wilson who was wrongly convicted for
Speaker 2: making a false confession because much like Juan, he had
Speaker 2: a low IQ, he had a number of developmental disabilities.
Speaker 2: And the police took him into the station and says,
Speaker 2: if you just tell us you did it, we'll let
Speaker 2: you go home. And he had the mindset to believe it.
Speaker 2: I believe we did a couple episodes about this case
Speaker 2: like a couple years ago. And this was a real
Speaker 2: eye-opening one for me because I would have been in
Speaker 2: my teens when I saw it on TV. And I realized, oh,
Speaker 2: now I can see why people can be manipulated into
Speaker 2: confessing to crimes they did not commit. So Awan's defense
Speaker 2: team did appeal his conviction, and because the trial was
Speaker 2: filled with a number of procedural errors, the Illinois Appellate
Speaker 2: Court decided to overturn the conviction, and Awan was granted
Speaker 2: a second trial in 1998. So once again, the prime
Speaker 2: evidence against him was his own confession, but the original
Speaker 2: jailhouse informant Frank McDonald was unavailable to testify at the retrial,
Speaker 2: but the prosecution was allowed to read his transcribed statements
Speaker 2: to the jury, and lo and behold, they produced another
Speaker 2: jailhouse informant named David Crespo. So after Juan's conviction was overturned,
Speaker 2: he had been transferred to the Lake County Jail to
Speaker 2: await trial and became friends with Crespo, and claimed that
Speaker 2: after they took a Spanish Bible class together, he overheard
Speaker 2: Juan say that he had quote-unquote killed that little girl.
Speaker 2: But it would later turn out that Crespo was released
Speaker 2: from jail a short time later, and because he had
Speaker 2: become friends with Juan, his family generously decided to take
Speaker 2: him into their home. But he started using drugs, so
Speaker 2: Juan's family kicked them out, and then lo and behold,
Speaker 2: he got arrested again and was facing sentencing on a
Speaker 2: parole violation, and that's when he came forward with this
Speaker 2: story about having heard Juan confess to the crime. But
Speaker 2: put yourself in Juan's shoes. You've just had your conviction overturned.
Speaker 2: You're being sent to a jail to await a second trial.
Speaker 2: Are you really going to make incriminating statements to another
Speaker 2: inmate and claim that you committed the crime when this
Speaker 2: is your chance to get out of prison?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I truly don't think so. But I think when
Speaker 1: we look at jailhouse snitches or jailhouse confessions, we have
Speaker 1: to question what is the individual who's coming forward with
Speaker 1: this information getting from this? Are they receiving special privileges?
Speaker 1: Are they getting visits with family? Are they getting transferred
Speaker 1: to another unit, something more comfortable, less security? If they
Speaker 1: are receiving absolutely nothing for their testimony, then I would
Speaker 1: be much more inclined to believe it to be genuine,
Speaker 1: but I too, same as you, would call out the
Speaker 1: timing here. Juan is about to get what he wants,
Speaker 1: which is to potentially get out of prison, at least
Speaker 1: to have the evidence looked at again under a different light.
Speaker 1: When time has passed and perspective is had, And the
Speaker 1: understanding is a lot deeper on things like false confessions.
Speaker 1: So would he truly be out there talking about how
Speaker 1: he did it? I don't think so, even with an
Speaker 1: IQ of 79.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. And it just
Speaker 2: seems convenient to me that after Juan's family took Crespo
Speaker 2: in and he got kicked out for the house for
Speaker 2: using drugs and was potentially being sent back to jail
Speaker 2: for a parole violation, that's when he comes forward with
Speaker 2: this story. So like you said, it's the ultimate example
Speaker 2: where you have to see what a jailhouse informant is
Speaker 2: getting in return before you take their story seriously. But
Speaker 2: the other big piece of new evidence presented at this
Speaker 2: trial was testimony from Don Engelbrecht's daughter, Taylor. who was
Speaker 2: only two years old when Holly's murder took place, but
Speaker 2: was now eight years old, and she got on the
Speaker 2: stand to testify that she personally witnessed Holly's murder, and
Speaker 2: she was killed by a male who dragged her body
Speaker 2: into the bedroom, and she positively identified Juan as the assailant. But, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're putting your hands over your face right now, so
Speaker 2: I can understand your skepticism here, but yes, we just
Speaker 2: talked about this. This is a two-year-old, and while I
Speaker 2: do believe there's a good chance she witnessed the murder,
Speaker 2: I don't know how she could accurately recollect it in
Speaker 2: her memory after all these years, so it seemed pretty
Speaker 2: obvious here that she had been coached and told that, yeah,
Speaker 2: we are putting this Polly's killer back in prison, so
Speaker 2: get on the stand and identify this guy as the
Speaker 2: man you saw.
Speaker 1: We already have an issue with eyewitness identification with adults.
Speaker 1: And when we think of memories... And we think of
Speaker 1: our earliest memories. Most of us are going to recollect
Speaker 1: things from when we're three, maybe four years old, and
Speaker 1: they'll be fragmented. And we probably won't be able to
Speaker 1: tell how much of it is accurate or how much
Speaker 1: of it is true. Just what our young brains and
Speaker 1: our perspective took in at the time. And so to
Speaker 1: think that... you're going to have a memory from two
Speaker 1: years old that didn't come out through hypnosis with a
Speaker 1: psychologist who's trained would have me questioning this. I just,
Speaker 1: I've never heard of two people having memories from when
Speaker 1: they're two years old that just come out and so
Speaker 1: accurate that they're able to identify the perpetrator. And because
Speaker 1: she was questioned and because law enforcement probably spent a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time around her, I wonder if some
Speaker 1: of these details were fed to her. And then she
Speaker 1: genuinely believes that these are true memories because it is
Speaker 1: very easy to influence children. And at this point, she's
Speaker 1: only eight years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So, I'm sure she was convinced she was right,
Speaker 2: that she had seen this guy, but I'm sure you
Speaker 2: could say the same thing, that you don't remember a
Speaker 2: thing that happened when you were two years old, that
Speaker 2: sometimes I'm shown photographs of my parents of an event
Speaker 2: I was at when I was two, and I have
Speaker 2: no recollection of it whatsoever, so I seriously doubt that
Speaker 2: if I witnessed a murder at the age of two,
Speaker 2: that I would be able to recollect the perpetrator's face,
Speaker 2: and then remember it, like, six years after the fact.
Speaker 2: So that about brings an end to part one of
Speaker 2: our series about the murder of Holly Staker and the
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction of Juan Rivera. Join us again next week
Speaker 2: as we continue talking about this in part two.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Went Cold Patreon has been around for
Speaker 2: three years now, and we offer the standard... bonus features
Speaker 2: like 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 $ 5 tier,
Speaker 2: Tier 2, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which
Speaker 2: I talk about cases which are not featured on the
Speaker 2: 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: $ 10 tier, one of the features we offer is a
Speaker 2: audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where
Speaker 2: you can download an audio file and then boot up
Speaker 2: the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube
Speaker 2: and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
Speaker 2: where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases
Speaker 2: featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode
Speaker 2: that I did a commentary track over was the episode
Speaker 2: featuring this case. So if you want to download a
Speaker 2: commentary track in which I make more smart-ass remarks about
Speaker 2: Jewel Kaler, then be sure to join Tier 3.
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
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Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy.