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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 6: Good evening in the tight knit community of Lorain, Ohio.
Speaker 6: A whirlwind of horror swept through as unsettling allegation surface.
Speaker 6: A trusted bus driver and her alleged companion accused of
Speaker 6: shattering the innocence of preschoolers in the recent expected head
Speaker 6: Start program. The verdict lifelong prison sentences that would cast
Speaker 6: a shadow over a community and initiate an untiring quest
Speaker 6: for truth. The Edge of Doubt is a meticulously researched
Speaker 6: true crime narrative that delves into the reverberations of a
Speaker 6: sensational trial. This gripping tale is anchored in three decades
Speaker 6: of unwavering claims of innocence. As the pages turn, you'll
Speaker 6: find yourself torn between the scales of justice and the
Speaker 6: resilience of the human spirit. In a world that is
Speaker 6: quick to judge. The Edge of Doubt compels you to
Speaker 6: lend an ear to the whispers of truth. This is
Speaker 6: your invitation to dive into a powerful account that will
Speaker 6: challenge your assumptions and unveil the complexities of human nature.
Speaker 6: Read it and prepare to see the world with new eyes.
Speaker 6: The book that we're featuring this evening is The Edge
Speaker 6: of Doubt, The Trial of Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen,
Speaker 6: with my special guest, retired attorney and author David Morldy.
Speaker 6: Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for
Speaker 6: this interview. David Marldy.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Dan. It's my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 6: It's my pleasure to have you and such a fascinating story.
Speaker 6: Congratulations on this book.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 6: As you do in this book, you get right down
Speaker 6: to business and you talk about August fourth, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 6: Judge Lynette McGuff and it involves preschooled children participating in
Speaker 6: the Lorraine head Start program. Tell us about the allegations
Speaker 6: and just a description of the people involved, as you
Speaker 6: do right away.
Speaker 5: The case actually began May seventh of nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 5: when Nina Zorich came home from the head Start school.
Speaker 5: She was in the afternoon class and she told her
Speaker 5: mother that she hadn't gone to school that day, that
Speaker 5: the bus driver in Nancy Smith It said school was
Speaker 5: closed and she went to Nancy's house where she and
Speaker 5: three other head Start children ages four and five years old.
Speaker 5: I met Nancy's so called boyfriend now, who they described
Speaker 5: as an African American. Nancy is white, and at Nancy's home,
Speaker 5: they claim that various sex acts were done to them
Speaker 5: by Nancy and Joseph. They also claimed that they were
Speaker 5: urinated upon and had to drink urine, which is sort
Speaker 5: of a satanic element to it. The police then got involved,
Speaker 5: and I don't know how much you want me to
Speaker 5: go into what followed up until Nancy's arrest and that
Speaker 5: of Joseph Allen, but I'm happy to get into that.
Speaker 6: Well, let's get into the investigation of these allegations. You
Speaker 6: right away introduce Detective Tom Cantu from the Lorraine Police Department.
Speaker 6: So tell us about these allegations, some more about them,
Speaker 6: and then how the Lorraine Police Department how they proceeded.
Speaker 5: Well. Tom Cantu was the initial detective on a case.
Speaker 5: He interviewed obviously Anina Zorich. He also contacted Nancy Smith.
Speaker 5: Nancy Smith was a single mother with four children at home,
Speaker 5: who lived with her parents, had no criminal record, not
Speaker 5: even a speeding ticket. He tried to ferret out if
Speaker 5: anything had happened at Nancy's house, Canvass the neighborhood, talked
Speaker 5: to Nancy, talked to her parents, and he had some
Speaker 5: doubts about it. And at the same time, Nina's mother,
Speaker 5: Marge Bronson, was talking to other parents in the head
Speaker 5: Start program, and two in particular and said, oh, my
Speaker 5: daughter said that your son was with her, your daughter
Speaker 5: was with her at this house, and then explained what
Speaker 5: had happened to her. And then of course Cantu had
Speaker 5: to investigate all of those elements. He eventually talked to
Speaker 5: all eleven children that were on the school bus. Wally
Speaker 5: denied that anything had happened, that they liked Nancy, and
Speaker 5: eventually she was vehement that she had not done these things,
Speaker 5: that she did not have a black boyfriend named Joseph,
Speaker 5: she had a white boyfriend named Charles, and she voluntarily
Speaker 5: agreed to a polygraph which says she was telling the truth.
Speaker 5: In the meantime, Nina's parents went to a local television station,
Speaker 5: they went to the newspaper and lo and behold, you
Speaker 5: have fifteen other parents coming forward with their children, ten
Speaker 5: of whom were not on Nancy's bus. One. It didn't
Speaker 5: it wasn't even the head Start program. But there was
Speaker 5: tremendous pressure in a hysteria in the Lorain community. And
Speaker 5: Cantu was told he was being promoted to a desk
Speaker 5: job and the investigation was being turned over to another detective.
Speaker 5: So at that point we have another detective involved who
Speaker 5: is basically stymied as well. He reinterviews the children. There's
Speaker 5: all kinds of conflicts in their testimony. They provide different
Speaker 5: locations as to where this happened. One boy identifies someone
Speaker 5: who the police later clear the descriptions of this Joseph,
Speaker 5: this elusive Joseph. He's a black man. He's a white man.
Speaker 5: He's a white man with black makeup on his face.
Speaker 5: He's a young man, he's an old man with receding hairline.
Speaker 5: He has blue eyes, he has dark eyes. They're all
Speaker 5: over the place. But they identify Nancy as the person
Speaker 5: who took them to Joseph. And with all of this pressure,
Speaker 5: The police continue their investigation the last about six months
Speaker 5: until they are working on another case and man by
Speaker 5: the name of Joseph Allen, a black man, a painter,
Speaker 5: a handyman, comes to their attention. He is an African American.
Speaker 5: He does have some white splotches on his skin, some burns.
Speaker 5: He has a prior conviction for sex abuse of a minor.
Speaker 5: He'd spent three years in prison. And they go to
Speaker 5: search his home and they find children's toys, clothing, books,
Speaker 5: and they think they've got their man now. They fail
Speaker 5: to really consider that he sometimes had woman and her
Speaker 5: two children living with him, and nieces and nephews. But
Speaker 5: now they finally feel that they have the elusive Joseph
Speaker 5: Allen and they can proceed. And even though they had
Speaker 5: a photo lineup where the children could not identify him
Speaker 5: or only maybe one did they and probably get to
Speaker 5: this s latter, they also had a live lineup that
Speaker 5: is just an absolute disgrace in terms of went on
Speaker 5: there and identifying Joseph Allen.
Speaker 6: You talk about the prosecutor in this case, Rosenbaum, and
Speaker 6: how he conducted himself at this trial as well. He
Speaker 6: was known as by the book, and what does buy
Speaker 6: the book mean as a prosecutor in terms of an
Speaker 6: advantage for the prosecutor and the disadvantage for the defense.
Speaker 5: In nineteen ninety three nineteen ninety four, there's a term
Speaker 5: that we use in both civil and criminal case called discovery.
Speaker 5: It means what the other side is entitled to receive
Speaker 5: from the prosecution in preparation for the trial. And in
Speaker 5: Ohio at that time, the obligation was to turn over
Speaker 5: what is known as exalatory evidence, that that those types
Speaker 5: of things that tend to show that the defendants were innocent.
Speaker 5: But there's also an aspect the police take a number
Speaker 5: of statements, both recorded and written statements, but under the
Speaker 5: law at that time, of the discovery law, those statements
Speaker 5: did not have to be turned over to the defense
Speaker 5: attorneys until that witness testified at trial. And then after
Speaker 5: that the witness testified on direct examination, they go into
Speaker 5: the judges chambers, they pull out the statement, the judge
Speaker 5: listens to it, see if there's inconsistencies, and then it's
Speaker 5: turned over to the defendant attorneys to cross examine that
Speaker 5: that witness. And you know, it's a it's a it's
Speaker 5: a it's a huge disadvantage today and that and by
Speaker 5: when you ask the question by the book prosecutor, he
Speaker 5: follows that rule. Some prosecutors are a little more open
Speaker 5: than that would provide those statements earlier. But you know
Speaker 5: he was he was within his rights not to turn
Speaker 5: those statements over, at least under the discovery rules about inconsistency. However,
Speaker 5: if there's anything exculpatory in those statements, then he did
Speaker 5: have a duty to turn that over. And that's one
Speaker 5: of the big issues in the case.
Speaker 6: Joseph Allen has a previous record. How was it that
Speaker 6: the attorneys were not able to separate those trials given
Speaker 6: the risks of the association with a convicted felon.
Speaker 5: It's within the discretion of the judge to whether to
Speaker 5: consolidate two matters, and in this case, you know that
Speaker 5: the judge considers the economy of having one trial. She
Speaker 5: considered the trauma of having the children testify in two trials,
Speaker 5: and that's weighed against the prejudice, particularly here of Nancy Smith,
Speaker 5: of being in the courtroom with a convicted sex offender,
Speaker 5: and was within the judges discretion to do that, and
Speaker 5: that was upheld on appeal, but it obviously had very,
Speaker 5: very dire consequences for Nancy Smith.
Speaker 6: Give us some of the highlights or low lights of
Speaker 6: this trial where Nancy testifies at this trial, but give
Speaker 6: us some of the issues that were raised at this
Speaker 6: trial that will become again issues that they fight for
Speaker 6: later on.
Speaker 5: Well the trial. My description of the trial ASTs for
Speaker 5: chapters and chapters. I think what comes through, and it's
Speaker 5: not evident at the time of the trial, is that
Speaker 5: several key witnesses have verdured themselves. We're talking about two
Speaker 5: parents of the child quote unquote victims. Well, another bus
Speaker 5: striver who claims that she saw Joseph Allen and Nancy
Speaker 5: Smith together, which is a very I don't think there's
Speaker 5: any question that it was an exaggerated, fabricated type thing,
Speaker 5: So that's certainly critical. The other is, whenever you have
Speaker 5: witnesses who are four and five years old, the judge
Speaker 5: is the gatekeeper yes on whether they are competent to
Speaker 5: testify and judgment. Can they tell the difference between right
Speaker 5: and wrong, between a lie and the truth? Will they
Speaker 5: be punished if they tell a lie? And the judge
Speaker 5: makes that determination in her courtroom, it was a very
Speaker 5: low bar for these kids for her to say that
Speaker 5: they were competent to testify, and that's extremely important in
Speaker 5: any child sex abuse case. If the child testifies that
Speaker 5: these things happen, that is extremely powerful testimony. It's very
Speaker 5: hard for a jury to ignore that. And we can
Speaker 5: go into why the children's testimony was so powerful and
Speaker 5: how they can be so effective if in fact, what
Speaker 5: they were telling had happened, and that has to do
Speaker 5: with the interview process and how they had been conditioned
Speaker 5: and programmed to tell their stories. But I'll wait for
Speaker 5: a question from you on that one.
Speaker 6: Well, that's what you get to. In part two, you
Speaker 6: introduce a journalist named Paul Fassinelli and who had joined
Speaker 6: the Chronicle in nineteen eighty six, and he had a
Speaker 6: popular column and he was intrigued by one of the
Speaker 6: people that wrote in letters to the editor, a Raymond Kant,
Speaker 6: and so he had read a few of these letters
Speaker 6: and he was intrigued. Tell us about what interested him
Speaker 6: about those letters and as a result, what did he
Speaker 6: do well, Paul.
Speaker 5: It was somewhat of an outspoken journalist. He had his
Speaker 5: detractors and he had his fans, but one of the
Speaker 5: letters to the editor directed him towards a child psychologist
Speaker 5: who had written a book about how you question young
Speaker 5: children about sex abuse, and he got copies of the statements,
Speaker 5: the interviews of the children, you know, the original interviews,
Speaker 5: which were disclosed you know, at trial, and were available,
Speaker 5: and he did some research and sent them to two
Speaker 5: child psychologists who were known for their expertise in partying
Speaker 5: out whether the interviews were tainted or contaminated right. And
Speaker 5: when he sent them to the two psychologists, they both
Speaker 5: agreed to review them, but no charge, and both were
Speaker 5: appalled by the way the children had been questioned. They
Speaker 5: didn't believe that the police and the social workers had
Speaker 5: broken the rules of interrogation on purpose, but they had. Nonetheless,
Speaker 5: they were some of the worst interviews that they had
Speaker 5: ever seen. And there's a proper way to interview children
Speaker 5: about sex abuse four and five year olds. The first
Speaker 5: is you don't ask eating questions, because the children are
Speaker 5: smart enough they want to please the person who's questioning them,
Speaker 5: and they will usually agree with a leading question. You
Speaker 5: don't repeat questions, you know, until I mean, the child
Speaker 5: will eventually change the answer. And you don't want a
Speaker 5: questioner who has bias a confirmation bias. There's these things
Speaker 5: happen and he or she is trying to confirm that,
Speaker 5: and so all of these things happened. You don't reward
Speaker 5: the child. Oh yeah, you can have a can of
Speaker 5: pop if you answer this question. You know, if you
Speaker 5: don't answer this, your sister is going to be attacked
Speaker 5: by it. By Joseph. The proper way to do it
Speaker 5: is to ask open ended questions. You should develop a
Speaker 5: rapport with the child and say, hey, I understand things
Speaker 5: have been happening at the school. Tell me what's happened,
Speaker 5: and don't leave out any details, and then you let
Speaker 5: the child talk. That's called spontaneous recall. And that is
Speaker 5: the most reliable information that anyone can get. You only
Speaker 5: you try to limit your number of interviews. One is great,
Speaker 5: two is probably adequate. But in this case, we have
Speaker 5: four statements of Nina Zorich that are that were recorded.
Speaker 5: They're probably more, and as they continue, they become more
Speaker 5: and more unreliable. And that's exactly what happened in this case.
Speaker 6: Now you're talking is called part three, and you talk
Speaker 6: about the civil case, the incredible civil case in July
Speaker 6: twenty third, nineteen ninety six, and with and you introduce
Speaker 6: the character William Thomas Locke, executive director of Lorraine County
Speaker 6: Community Action Agency, that the organization that oversaw the Lorraine
Speaker 6: County head Start program.
Speaker 5: Right in the bus drivers.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, So tell us what he believes about this
Speaker 6: Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen and what he does.
Speaker 5: Well, he was when the verdicts came out. He was outraged. Shevy,
Speaker 5: He could not believe this had happened. First of all,
Speaker 5: there were certain safeguards that were involved in the head
Speaker 5: Start program. Nancy was you know, the allegations were that
Speaker 5: Nancy would leave three or four children on the bus,
Speaker 5: not let them get off at the school, and then
Speaker 5: take them to Joseph's house. Well, they had besides Nancy
Speaker 5: and the bus, there was an AID. So they had
Speaker 5: to argue that it had happened on a day when
Speaker 5: there wasn't an AID, and sometimes if there wasn't an AID,
Speaker 5: there was, you know, a parent that was on board.
Speaker 5: So and the teachers came out from the school and
Speaker 5: met each bus they were unloaded one at a time.
Speaker 5: He just couldn't believe that this had happened, and he
Speaker 5: was roundly criticized in the newspapers for not agreeing with
Speaker 5: the jury verdict, you know, and one newspaper actually called
Speaker 5: for his resignation because he the jury heard all the
Speaker 5: evidence and obviously he had not. He enters the story
Speaker 5: when no surprise for the parents. After there have been
Speaker 5: these convictions and the appeals have been exhausted for Nancy Smith,
Speaker 5: they filed civil lawsuits against the head Start program, Loraine
Speaker 5: County Community Action Agency, which you said was the umbrella organization,
Speaker 5: claiming that they're responsible, they were negligent, that they were
Speaker 5: negligent in hiring, supervising and retaining Nancy Smith, that they
Speaker 5: failed then to protect the children from these awful things
Speaker 5: that happened. And this then became a very long drawn
Speaker 5: out lawsuit which had an unfortunate ending for those of us,
Speaker 5: at least from my perspective. The insurance company eventually capitulated
Speaker 5: and offered settlements of one point five million to each
Speaker 5: of the four families. Now, you've got to understand, the
Speaker 5: issue in this case was not whether Nancy Smith and
Speaker 5: Joseph Allen had done these things that had been established
Speaker 5: in the criminal case, and so you know, it was
Speaker 5: an open question whether that can be re litigated. The
Speaker 5: question was whether the head start of the agency was
Speaker 5: put on notice of some things that had happened regarding
Speaker 5: Nancy that have larded them that she was going to
Speaker 5: do these things. And the insurance company, after I can't
Speaker 5: recall it was eight or nine years of litigation, finally
Speaker 5: wanted to get the book, get the case off their books,
Speaker 5: and they paid on it.
Speaker 6: You talk in part four. You introduced the Ohio Innocence
Speaker 6: Project July two thousand and six, the two thousand and seven,
Speaker 6: and it's based in Cincinnati, and you introduce two important characters,
Speaker 6: Mark Gotsey who's the founder, and Jenny Carroll, former public defender,
Speaker 6: and a couple of students, students in their second year,
Speaker 6: Chef and Madonna. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: what happens with the Ohio Innocence Project being involved, getting
Speaker 6: involved and Amber Brnish.
Speaker 5: There are a number of chapters there, but the Innocence
Speaker 5: Project got involved when all of the peals had been
Speaker 5: exhausted for Nancy Smith. Several years thereafter. It had come
Speaker 5: to their attention through another investigator, someone that had been
Speaker 5: hired by the family, who worked for them trying to
Speaker 5: find exculpatory evidence. Right after the trial, and he continued
Speaker 5: to work for the family for free. He had a
Speaker 5: lot of reliability for the Ohio Innocence Project and when
Speaker 5: he brought this case to them, Mark Godsei reviewed it
Speaker 5: and was convinced that, you know, a miscarriage of justice
Speaker 5: had occurred. He read those statements of the children's statements
Speaker 5: that showed contamination and also, we haven't talked about it.
Speaker 5: The children at trial had no difficulty pointing out who
Speaker 5: Joseph Allen was in the corporate However, it came to
Speaker 5: light through Fatchinelli's article that there was a videotape of
Speaker 5: that lineup to show the children and how they reacted.
Speaker 5: There were seven children went in for absolutely could not
Speaker 5: identify him. One looked as if the father had whispered
Speaker 5: in his ear as to it's number two. And then
Speaker 5: we have Nina Zorich and her mother eight nine agonizing
Speaker 5: minutes where she had entifi' is the wrong person. He's
Speaker 5: given second and third chances. The mother points at point says, oh,
Speaker 5: it's this person. It's just an incredible videotape. It's available
Speaker 5: online if people want to watch that. But anyway, Gatzi
Speaker 5: had seen that, and he obviously met with Nancy and
Speaker 5: became very much an advocate for her. Because there were
Speaker 5: no appeals left, her best chance of getting out of
Speaker 5: prison was through paroles. She was going to have a
Speaker 5: parole hearing. One of the difficulties with the parole hearing
Speaker 5: was that they want to know that The parole board
Speaker 5: wants to know that you've been rehabilitated, which means that
Speaker 5: you have admitted that you've done these things, You've taken
Speaker 5: a sex offender course, and you're ready to be reintegrated
Speaker 5: into society. Nancy will not do that. And you know,
Speaker 5: they put together a great document for the parle board.
Speaker 5: It shows the likelihood that the jury had gotten it wrong.
Speaker 5: It also showed, you know, what an exemplary person she
Speaker 5: had been in prison, the things that she had done.
Speaker 5: But she would not admit to these crimes and she
Speaker 5: knew that that would probably end her opportunity for parole,
Speaker 5: and in fact, her parole was initially what was denied.
Speaker 5: And then you asked me about Amber Brownish, and I'll
Speaker 5: go in to that. You know, after her parole was denied, Amber,
Speaker 5: who had been fifteen I think at the time her
Speaker 5: mom had been convicted, was now an adult, was her champion.
Speaker 5: She was always uppering the attorneys and prodding them to
Speaker 5: do things, and she decided she had to do something
Speaker 5: on her own. So she contacted the Lorraine police, not
Speaker 5: expecting anything to happen. But the police chief who had
Speaker 5: been involved and been in charge of the detectives when
Speaker 5: her mom was convicted, that's the person that I know.
Speaker 5: He since passed away Sea rivera very warm, a good individual,
Speaker 5: and he said, come on in. He gave her, you know,
Speaker 5: let's talk about it. And he suggested to her that
Speaker 5: she go to the alleged victims who were now adults,
Speaker 5: and see if they would admit that these things hadn't happened.
Speaker 5: And he even gave her a tape recorder and so
Speaker 5: she could secretly tape record Christmas. Allowed in Ohio only
Speaker 5: one person has to consent to that. That didn't work out,
Speaker 5: and then he said he would help her with filing
Speaker 5: some paperwork for a clemency. Then, when the place chief
Speaker 5: was contacted by Mark Gotsey from the Ohio Innocence Project,
Speaker 5: he was not as cooperative, and Amber went in and
Speaker 5: tape recorded some of their conversations in hopes that that
Speaker 5: would speed her mother's release.
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Speaker 6: of two thousand and eight, and you write that he's
Speaker 6: considered a maverick. Tell us about what the Maverick judge
Speaker 6: does all right.
Speaker 5: Jim Burge, at age fifty nine, decides to run for
Speaker 5: Judge mcguff's seat. Judge McGuff was retiring. Jim Burge had
Speaker 5: been a criminal defense attorney in his entire life and
Speaker 5: won that election. He brought a new perspective to that
Speaker 5: judge ship early in his in his judge ship, he
Speaker 5: contested Ohio's lethal injection and found that it was unconstitutional
Speaker 5: as cruel unusual punishment. He was completely different personality than
Speaker 5: Judge McGuff, who relished her reputation as a tough on
Speaker 5: crime judge. Judge Jack Bradley, who we haven't talked about,
Speaker 5: who was Nancy's original attorney and was still working on
Speaker 5: her case even though the Innocence Project is involved, filed
Speaker 5: emotion based on a technicality in the sentencing order. There
Speaker 5: had been a recent High Supreme Court case that said,
Speaker 5: when somebody has found guilty, the journal entry has to
Speaker 5: say how they were found guilty. Was it by the judge,
Speaker 5: was it by a jury? Had they pled? And in
Speaker 5: Judge mcguff's journal entry, she just simply said that she'd
Speaker 5: been found guilty, and most people thought, well, this is
Speaker 5: no big deal. You know, you just have to amend
Speaker 5: that entry and say that she's found guilty by a
Speaker 5: jury and the original sentencing would be in effect. But
Speaker 5: Judge Burge looked at it that, hey, this was never finalized.
Speaker 5: This case is still open to me. I can re
Speaker 5: sentence her if I want. And it was a novel idea.
Speaker 5: So he decided to read the entire transcript, read the
Speaker 5: children's statements to see what would be a proper sentence,
Speaker 5: and in so doing he had no confidence in the verdict.
Speaker 5: And to the surprise of everyone, a gathered everyone together
Speaker 5: and said, I am issuing an acquittal for Nancy Smith
Speaker 5: and Joseph Allen. And he had said, and in doing
Speaker 5: so he had said, well, you know, there have been
Speaker 5: some changes in the loss since nineteen ninety four. Number one,
Speaker 5: the parents could testify as to what their children said
Speaker 5: about the sex acts which happened in this case, and
Speaker 5: that that rule was later found to be unconstitutional. Right
Speaker 5: because they said that, you haven't, defendant has a right
Speaker 5: to confront the actual person who said that. Not this
Speaker 5: this hearsay. The other thing is he looked at the
Speaker 5: statements and he said, these are all exculpatory why weren't
Speaker 5: these turned over to the defense attorneys? And when he excluded,
Speaker 5: when he exclude those things, are provide for those things,
Speaker 5: there was no basis for a conviction. And then this
Speaker 5: said in progress appeals that went all the way to
Speaker 5: the Ohouse Supreme Court as to whether he had the
Speaker 5: right to do what he did, and the ultimate answer
Speaker 5: was they said no.
Speaker 6: But for the interim, Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen are free.
Speaker 5: Yes incredible, Yes, yes they're They're free for several years.
Speaker 5: But there's a tremendous pressure on Judge Burge to set
Speaker 5: a hearing to correct the journal jury and send them
Speaker 5: back to prison, which he basically refuses to do. And
Speaker 5: so other than the Ohio Innocence Project says what can
Speaker 5: we do for Nancy? And they really do a two
Speaker 5: prong attack. They talk to the prosecutor's office about perhaps
Speaker 5: arranging a sentencing agreement that could override the sentences. And two,
Speaker 5: they have a petition for clemency that they file with
Speaker 5: down in Columbus to try to prove that this was
Speaker 5: a wrongful conviction and they should grant her clemency, grant
Speaker 5: her freedom, and the Ohio Innocence project in Cincinnati enlisted
Speaker 5: a top notch New York City law firm, Davis Polk
Speaker 5: that does pro bono work, who put together an incredible brief,
Speaker 5: you know, with three hundred pages of exhibits, And then
Speaker 5: they had a full hearing with the eleven member Parole board,
Speaker 5: with the New York attorney putting on the testimony of
Speaker 5: a psychologist showing the unreliability of the interviews. Tom Canto testified.
Speaker 5: They had two of the daughters testify and it was
Speaker 5: a very impressive performance, but only two of the eleven
Speaker 5: members seemed to be in favor. They would make a
Speaker 5: recommendations to the judge as to whether the grant clemency,
Speaker 5: and that can take months and time was running out.
Speaker 5: The other surprising witness at the clemency hearing was Judge
Speaker 5: James Burge, who said he was convinced that she was innocent.
Speaker 5: Now what that meant he no longer could preside over
Speaker 5: her case. He had to re accuse himself, and so
Speaker 5: once he had testified, then the Supreme Court brought in
Speaker 5: someone else, a visiting judge from another county, and the
Speaker 5: Innocence Project Mark Gotsey knew that time was of the
Speaker 5: essence and Sharon Katz, who was the attorney from New York,
Speaker 5: worked out a sentencing agreement where Nancy was there were
Speaker 5: certain findings that you know, the jury, the jury had
Speaker 5: found her guilty. They changed the gross sexual imposition sentenced
Speaker 5: to twelve years. He'd already served fifteen years, so she
Speaker 5: was free. Not so lucky for Joseph Allen, the judge
Speaker 5: that had been appointed. They had been apparently worked out
Speaker 5: a similar deal for him, but he would be free
Speaker 5: on time served. But because he had a prior record,
Speaker 5: the prosecutor had had him examined by a psychologists and
Speaker 5: they thought that he should be supervised once he was free.
Speaker 5: And the judge said no, and so he insisted that
Speaker 5: although he reduced it to one kind of rape and
Speaker 5: a sentence of twenty five years, Joseph Allen had not
Speaker 5: served that, and he was going back to prison, and
Speaker 5: did go back to prison until we get to part five, yes, yes.
Speaker 6: And before that you introduced another character, of course, Rocko Bronson, junior,
Speaker 6: brother of Nina Zor.
Speaker 5: Right, that's in part five, that's correct. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: we've got we've got Nancy free in Lorraine. We have
Speaker 5: we have Joseph Allen in prison. And I'll tell you
Speaker 5: that's what intrigued me about the case. Initially, I mean
Speaker 5: to start writing about it because I thought, here, we
Speaker 5: have Joseph Allen in prison, a black man. We have
Speaker 5: Nancy Smith free, a white woman. You know, that was
Speaker 5: one of the things that one of the reasons I
Speaker 5: got the transcripts and got into this case. And when
Speaker 5: I write my book, I write the first chapter and
Speaker 5: my last chapter. And when I had and I was
Speaker 5: writing it, my last chapter had been Joseph Allen going
Speaker 5: back to prison. Yeah, well, little did I know that.
Speaker 5: About a couple months after I wrote that, Rocco Bronson
Speaker 5: content it was contacted. Mark gotsee late at night and said, hey,
Speaker 5: my mom coached my sister to say those things. She
Speaker 5: promised her a trip to Disney World, she said she
Speaker 5: was going to get and she's trying to do that
Speaker 5: with me and trying to gain custody of my daughter,
Speaker 5: her granddaughter. She's accused my wife of abusing our daughter.
Speaker 5: She accused that this happened during a supervised visit with
Speaker 5: Children's Services, with the potential that there would be a
Speaker 5: claim against Children's Services. And so Mark Gotsey got a
Speaker 5: Virginia Brayden, who was an investigator AHD to look at
Speaker 5: those allegations and others and father the motion for a
Speaker 5: new trial based on newly discovered evidence.
Speaker 6: You talk about Rocco Bronson. Police ask him because he
Speaker 6: says he was only six years old when this occurred
Speaker 6: back in ninety four, in that who else would support
Speaker 6: some of the things? He said, who does he say
Speaker 6: the supports?
Speaker 5: He said, my father will, My father will. And at
Speaker 5: the time his father was divorced from Marge Bronson. He
Speaker 5: had the rock O Bronson Senior had two children with Marge,
Speaker 5: and he would come for visitation to pick them up,
Speaker 5: and he you know, he overheard, I mean his ex
Speaker 5: wife told him, yeah, I'm gonna get paid for this.
Speaker 5: One of the amazing things about Rocco Bronson's affidavit in
Speaker 5: his testimony is that he said that his mom had
Speaker 5: set up almost like a school in the basement, you know,
Speaker 5: with desks, whether the kids would recite what they were
Speaker 5: supposed to say, and they had a picture Joseph Allen,
Speaker 5: and they would advance from desk to desk, you know,
Speaker 5: the better that they performed. And he also claimed that
Speaker 5: some of the things that were allegations of sex abuse
Speaker 5: were things that had he claimed had happened to him. Now,
Speaker 5: the other side of the coin is Roco Bronson Junior
Speaker 5: had drug issues. The prosecutor was investigating whether he had
Speaker 5: planted drugs in his mother's home. I mean, was he
Speaker 5: was not a he was he was not your perfect witness. However,
Speaker 5: the Lorraine County Sheriff's Department had investigated the claim about
Speaker 5: whether the granddaughter was sexually abused by her mother, and
Speaker 5: they found that Marge Bronson had been coaching her. They
Speaker 5: had left the videotape on one point where the little
Speaker 5: girl was practicing how to cry. So as it would
Speaker 5: later turn out, you know, Mark Gazzi was able to argue, hey,
Speaker 5: we're not you don't have to rely on Rocko. Look
Speaker 5: at you know, she's doing the same thing. You've got
Speaker 5: the Lorraine County Sheriff's Department saying that she coached these children.
Speaker 5: And you know, this is bombshell evidence. We couldn't possibly
Speaker 5: have had that in nineteen ninety four. And that's a
Speaker 5: test for newly discovered evidence. You know, it has to
Speaker 5: be something that would really shift the needle and was
Speaker 5: not discoverable in nineteen ninety four, and that was their argument.
Speaker 6: You introduced j D. Tomlinson. When you talk about this
Speaker 6: new evidence claim, tell us about j D. Tomlinson.
Speaker 5: Well, again, when you talk about Jim Burge taking over
Speaker 5: for Judge McGuff, you also talk about j. D. Tomlinson,
Speaker 5: a criminal defense attorney, defeating the current, the past prosecutor,
Speaker 5: Dennis Will. And so it was. You know, Dennis Will
Speaker 5: had always been a prosecutor, been a police officer, and
Speaker 5: one of his one of j. D. Tomlinson's campaign promises
Speaker 5: was he was going to look into the head startcase again.
Speaker 5: And indeed, once he was elected, he had two investigators too,
Speaker 5: both were retired detectives, one from the Lorraine Police department,
Speaker 5: went from the Illyria who went through the transcript, went
Speaker 5: through all of the statements, the police reports, talked with
Speaker 5: the number of people and they came back to Tomlin
Speaker 5: and said these people are innocent. So you know that's
Speaker 5: happening at the same time that Mark Gatzi is receiving
Speaker 5: this information from Rock Bronson.
Speaker 6: So tell us about what happens next in this fight
Speaker 6: for again for justice.
Speaker 5: The judge, Judge Burgess is no longer in that courtroom
Speaker 5: that had been Judge mcguff's. Judge Burge had left and
Speaker 5: Judge Cook had been elected, so this case came to him.
Speaker 5: And Judge Cook had a pretty extensive background. He'd been
Speaker 5: a prosecutor. He'd also been in a law firm that
Speaker 5: included Jack Bradley, Nancy Smith's attorney. But he understands that
Speaker 5: he wants, he wants to hold a hearing and make
Speaker 5: sure he gets this right as to whether he should
Speaker 5: grant a new trial. And most thought that this was
Speaker 5: going to be you know, the prosecutor was you know,
Speaker 5: this was going to be an easy thing because the
Speaker 5: prosecutor was not contesting, you know. And in fact, the
Speaker 5: prosecutors sent a letter said we believe she's innocent. But
Speaker 5: the former prosecutor, Jonathan Rosenbaum, who was no longer a
Speaker 5: prosecutor but in private practice, was hired by two of
Speaker 5: the alleged victims to contest this motion for a new trial.
Speaker 5: And in Ohio we have something called Marci's Law, which
Speaker 5: was actually a constitutional amendment that gave victims certain rights
Speaker 5: and it allowed them to be heard at any hearing.
Speaker 5: And John Rosenbaum of strenuously objected to this motion for
Speaker 5: a new trial. He thought that there should be a
Speaker 5: special prosecutor. Pointed that Tomlinson could not be fair, and
Speaker 5: that was partly because Tomlinson had hired Jim Burge to
Speaker 5: be his chief of staff. And he said, well, you
Speaker 5: know he's already he should there's a conflict of interest here.
Speaker 5: Fortunately for Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen, Judge Cook had
Speaker 5: like twenty five years of experience dealing with ethical claims
Speaker 5: and was on a state board that investigated claims against
Speaker 5: judges and lawyers. And he said, no, this doesn't apply.
Speaker 5: Prosecutor's office is different than a law office, and Jim
Speaker 5: Burge is excluded from participating, but no one else's. But
Speaker 5: he became quite heated battle and wrote. Judge John Rosenbaum claimed, hey,
Speaker 5: they can't you know, I, you know, I don't have
Speaker 5: a conflict of interest in this case. In the judgeable,
Speaker 5: I think you do. You represented the state of Ohio.
Speaker 5: How can you be here arguing a position contrary to
Speaker 5: your former client? And Rosenbaum said, well, I'm just saying that,
Speaker 5: you know, putting forth an argument that is consistent with
Speaker 5: what we argued back in ninety four. Judge said, well,
Speaker 5: can't a client change is there her mind? You know,
Speaker 5: does a former attorney. You have the right to tell
Speaker 5: a client what it can or cannot do. And ultimately
Speaker 5: John Rosenbaum withdrew that he had a conflict of interest,
Speaker 5: and the last chapter of the book is Judge Cook
Speaker 5: rules that they have they're entitled to a new trial,
Speaker 5: and the prosecutor gets up and tells the judge, we
Speaker 5: are not going to be pressing charges. We want this
Speaker 5: case dismiss, dismissed with prejudice. We apologize to Nancy Smith
Speaker 5: and Joseph Allen for this ill conceived prosecution. And then
Speaker 5: Nancy Smith gets up and she says that she it
Speaker 5: is a statement against you know, Marge Bronson. So you
Speaker 5: don't know what you did to me. I'm not the
Speaker 5: only victim. My whole family were victims. You took me
Speaker 5: away from my children in their most crucial period and
Speaker 5: wanted to be known that what you did was it
Speaker 5: was a horrible, horrible thing. With that, the judge granted
Speaker 5: the motion to dismiss and the case was over. Twenty
Speaker 5: eight years later.
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Speaker 6: You say that it took that twenty seven years to
Speaker 6: get this the high of exoneration that Nancy Smith had
Speaker 6: wanted all the time. We spoke earlier, and you talk
Speaker 6: about the plea agreement that Nancy was given early on
Speaker 6: and the what she would have done in the parole
Speaker 6: hearing if she was if she were smarter, tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit more about Nancy and when we talked
Speaker 6: about that. It isn't exactly an exoneration that she was
Speaker 6: looking for that she received.
Speaker 5: Well, it's really a question of, you know, what is
Speaker 5: an exoneration. The University of Michigan keeps the role of
Speaker 5: all the people who have been exonerated, and she and
Speaker 5: Joseph Allen are on that list. Some say that you're
Speaker 5: not completely exonerated until there's been a case for wrongful
Speaker 5: imprisonment filed and that that has concluded. And in a
Speaker 5: wrongful imprisonment lawsuit, the first step is you file something
Speaker 5: in the county court to hear is Lorraine County, and
Speaker 5: it's tried to the judge and he determines whether you
Speaker 5: were innocent of those charges. And once there's that finding,
Speaker 5: and there's the second part to the case, and it
Speaker 5: is transferred to the Ohio Court of Claims in Columbus,
Speaker 5: who then makes a decision as to what award of
Speaker 5: damages that person is entitled. To this point, that case
Speaker 5: is still pending. I think. I think for all intents
Speaker 5: and purposes, both she and Joseph Allen have been exonerated,
Speaker 5: but compensation for their wrongful imprisonment is still in the offing.
Speaker 6: In this book, throughout you provide for the reader the
Speaker 6: reasons why you believe that this conviction occurred in the
Speaker 6: first place. She was given thirty years minimum ninety years maximum.
Speaker 6: He was given the life sentence, and so all throughout
Speaker 6: this book, Nancy you mentioned just her statement at the
Speaker 6: very end, but the terrible time she had in prison,
Speaker 6: the way she was looked attorneys when they came to
Speaker 6: visit her, the despair that she had over this conviction
Speaker 6: and that she would never get out and see her
Speaker 6: children again. You put the reasoning for this, and we
Speaker 6: talk about those detectives, the initial detectives that conducted those interviews,
Speaker 6: and the over zealous, to say the least, prosecutor Rosenbaum.
Speaker 6: Tell us how you believe that this really was perpetrated
Speaker 6: and Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen were wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 5: Well, one of the things that I always try to
Speaker 5: do when I was a trial lawyer and talking to
Speaker 5: the jury, I didn't like to preach to them and
Speaker 5: tell them this is why they should find One way,
Speaker 5: I think both a trial lawyer and an author leads
Speaker 5: the reader with presenting to them the facts and allowing
Speaker 5: that reader to draw their own conclusions. That being said,
Speaker 5: I'm not aware of anybody who's read my book who
Speaker 5: doesn't believe that this was a grave miscarriage of justice,
Speaker 5: although I'm careful not to express my opinion. But what
Speaker 5: did happen here. First of all, we are told that
Speaker 5: we have, you know, the best criminal system of justice
Speaker 5: in the world, which we do. We have all of
Speaker 5: these protections, right against self incrimination, presumption of innocence, all
Speaker 5: these things, so we believe that innocent people aren't convicted.
Speaker 5: In law school, we're told, given to the mantra, it's
Speaker 5: better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent
Speaker 5: person be convicted. But what we're discovering, particularly with DNA evidence,
Speaker 5: that these people who have been convicted and exhausted all
Speaker 5: their appeals, there's DNA evidence that shows that they didn't
Speaker 5: do it. So we're suddenly aware that our system does
Speaker 5: make mistakes and why does it make mistakes? And I
Speaker 5: can't talk to you on a macro level. I can
Speaker 5: only talk to you about this case. And I think
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to show through this case is it
Speaker 5: can happen to anyone. If it can happen to Nancy Smith,
Speaker 5: it can happen to you. And I think that that's
Speaker 5: an important message. You know, it's just not the story,
Speaker 5: it's just it's a cautionary tale that you know, we
Speaker 5: just have to be vigilant, but you know, to try
Speaker 5: to answer your question, you know a little more with
Speaker 5: a little more specificity. This was a perfect storm. I mean,
Speaker 5: when the system fails, it's not just one thing that
Speaker 5: goes wrong. It's usually four or five or six things
Speaker 5: that go wrong. You have to look at the police investigation,
Speaker 5: you know, was it shoddy, was it biased? You have
Speaker 5: to look at the prosecutor. Did the prosecutor follow the
Speaker 5: guidelines in the law in terms of turning over evidence?
Speaker 5: Was the judge fair? Was you know, was the judge biased?
Speaker 5: You know, did he or she favor one side or
Speaker 5: over the other? Where the defense attorneys prepared, you know,
Speaker 5: was there perjured testimony or is there a witness who
Speaker 5: later recants? And then you add this final element in
Speaker 5: this case, which is these horrible, horrible allegations of child
Speaker 5: sex abuse, and there's a hysteria, a pressure on the jury.
Speaker 5: I've had prosecutors tell me that if they can get
Speaker 5: a child to testify that sex abuse happened, the case
Speaker 5: is over. You know, it's extremely powerful testimony, and that's
Speaker 5: why in this case it was extremely important for the
Speaker 5: defense to have an expert to come in and explain
Speaker 5: how the children's memories can be molded and programmed, and
Speaker 5: once the story has been cemented, it's as real to
Speaker 5: that child as any other memory. So it's a perfect storm.
Speaker 5: And I really have highlighted, you know, six different things
Speaker 5: that that probably led to it, and each case is different,
Speaker 5: but certainly there were failures in a lot of sectors.
Speaker 6: It's very interesting too that you're able to in the
Speaker 6: end of the book sort of wrap up this ultimate
Speaker 6: motivation for this Marge Bronson coming forth, which was just money,
Speaker 6: and so it explains so many things that aren't wrapped
Speaker 6: up to the very end with this Marge Bronson.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, she's an interesting character. I think, you know,
Speaker 5: I've never met her, never talked with her, and she's
Speaker 5: a very attractive woman. I think she was a very
Speaker 5: persuasive woman, and she could really excite others and convince
Speaker 5: them that certain things had happened. I think one of
Speaker 5: the tragedies in this case is that at the trial
Speaker 5: it was never disclosed that she was a convicted fella herself,
Speaker 5: that it sold cocaine out of her house. That was
Speaker 5: information that the defense should have had, and then they
Speaker 5: used that as a basis for a new trial. However,
Speaker 5: the prosecutor said I asked her whether she had any convictions.
Speaker 5: It was a federal conviction, and she said that she hadn't.
Speaker 5: And there were some other things, you know, dealing with
Speaker 5: Jack Bradley's involvement in that case that you know, they're
Speaker 5: able to say, well, you should have known that she
Speaker 5: was a convicted fella, But I think that would have
Speaker 5: tremendously discredited her, discredited her if it had been known
Speaker 5: at trial.
Speaker 6: It's also an interesting case in that it demonstrates how
Speaker 6: when she went to other parents and reformed their child's
Speaker 6: memories to line up with her own daughter's memories. It's
Speaker 6: very interesting that it seems very comparable to some of
Speaker 6: the other cases where this hysteria doesn't start off right away,
Speaker 6: but bouncing it grows as a result.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no question. From nineteen eighties to the early
Speaker 5: nineteen nineties, there was a proliferation of these bacare cases.
Speaker 5: And you know, in fact, the McMartin case in California
Speaker 5: it was, you know, nineteen eighty four, seven years no
Speaker 5: one was convicted. There were convictions on almost more than
Speaker 5: half of them. They were eventually overturned, but it usually
Speaker 5: started with one parent and in the McMartin case she
Speaker 5: was a paranoid schizophrenic, you know, that made these allegations,
Speaker 5: and then the way that the children were questioned. I mean,
Speaker 5: at one point there were eight people that had been
Speaker 5: were arrested, you know, and with satanic rites. I mean,
Speaker 5: it was something that was not just happened in Lorraine.
Speaker 5: It happened all over the country. And I mean the
Speaker 5: surprising thing is there was plenty of literature on it
Speaker 5: at the time that these things happened in Lorraine. You
Speaker 5: would think that the police, the judge, the prosecutor, and
Speaker 5: the defense attorneys, you know, should have been aware of
Speaker 5: what had happened in these other cases and learned from
Speaker 5: the fact. You know, one of the books that Fatchinelli
Speaker 5: referred to in his articles was by It was in
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety. It was you know, sex Abuse Hysteria the
Speaker 5: Salem Witch Trials Revisited. That's a nineteen ninety book, you know,
Speaker 5: showing it is how unreliable these cases were. But it
Speaker 5: was as if Lorraine was in a vacuum year, but
Speaker 5: they weren't looking at what had happened and had been
Speaker 5: debunked throughout the country.
Speaker 6: It's an extraordinary story. You Chronicle too, because of all
Speaker 6: the really extraordinary efforts from so many people, you know,
Speaker 6: law firms conducting the case pro bono and some really
Speaker 6: unlikely allies and surprising allies as well.
Speaker 5: In this I like like any book, it has its
Speaker 5: good guys and bad guys, and not going to go
Speaker 5: into the bad guys. I'll let the make that decision themselves.
Speaker 5: But you can go right down the list. Paul Fatchinellie,
Speaker 5: the journalist, Judge Burge, innocent project of people involved there,
Speaker 5: Tom Can't, the original detective Jack Bradley who didn't give
Speaker 5: up on his client, and Judge Chris Cook for finally
Speaker 5: putting an end to it. So and they are lesser
Speaker 5: good characters as well, but a lot a lot of
Speaker 5: people were involved. But it's it's a tragedy that it
Speaker 5: took so long to write this injustice.
Speaker 6: It's interesting too, the rule of the media immediately not
Speaker 6: inflaming the public and inflaming the case as a result.
Speaker 6: But the Fascinelli and the Chronicle and their series really
Speaker 6: helped the counter and were well really countered the disturbance
Speaker 6: that the earlier media accounts created.
Speaker 5: Well. Unfortunately, by the time the articles came out and
Speaker 5: Joseph Allen and Nancy Smith were in prison and the
Speaker 5: appeals and then exhausted, so that all that they could
Speaker 5: do was try to change public opinion and perhaps place
Speaker 5: in pressure for the prosecutor's office to look at the
Speaker 5: case again. But you know, once someone's been convicted and
Speaker 5: it's gone through the system, our criminal justice system is
Speaker 5: loath to correct a mistake. And the earlier media attention
Speaker 5: that you mentioned was extremely damaging. I mean it pushed
Speaker 5: the police to continue on with a case that they
Speaker 5: should have dropped, and it caused all of these other
Speaker 5: children to come forward, two of whom hadn't been contacted
Speaker 5: by Marge Grondin but became part of the case. But
Speaker 5: that was all because of that earlier media frenzy.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, it's an incredible case and an incredible book.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for coming on and talking about
Speaker 6: the edge of doubt the trial, Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen.
Speaker 6: For those people that might want to take a look
Speaker 6: at further at this case and your other work, do
Speaker 6: you have a website that they might take a look at,
Speaker 6: and do you do any social media?
Speaker 5: They can go to my website. Davidmuraldy dot com. I
Speaker 5: also have a Facebook page. It's David Marldy author. I
Speaker 5: will say my first book, if I can give a
Speaker 5: little plug for that, I did a personal connection. It
Speaker 5: was my dad murder trive that my dad handled you
Speaker 5: back in the sixties. Man was accused of drowning his
Speaker 5: wife and scalding water. I found his file decades after
Speaker 5: he died, and it cast a spell on me. That
Speaker 5: that first book won an International Book Award and right
Speaker 5: now a Lionsgate is looking at it in terms of
Speaker 5: a mini series, So if they're interested in that book,
Speaker 5: and then I'll put a plug in if I can
Speaker 5: for my second book, Edge of Malice. Here, my wife's
Speaker 5: best friend was shot at a Burger King while she
Speaker 5: was going through the drive through. She was an attorney,
Speaker 5: and it's her struggle for the the Cramo and civil
Speaker 5: justice system. I was involved in a civil case against
Speaker 5: the burger king where this happened. But it's her journey
Speaker 5: and how she eventually deals with the anger and the
Speaker 5: hate and the fear towards her assailant. And that's a
Speaker 5: fascinating story. Even if you don't read my book, if
Speaker 5: you read another account of it, she's another courageous, courageous.
Speaker 6: Woman and a very very interesting Thank you so much,
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, David MORELDI for coming on and
Speaker 6: talking about the Edge of Doubt, the trial of Nancy
Speaker 6: Smith and Joseph Allen. Thank you so much for this interview,
Speaker 6: and you have a great evening and good night.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you,