Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules.
Speaker 2: And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.
Speaker 3: July nineteenth, nineteen ninety six, Westwego, Louisiana. After leaving her
Speaker 3: apartment to walk to a supermarket, fourteen year old Crystal
Speaker 3: Champagne fails to return and is found strangled to death
Speaker 3: in a wooded area the following evening. When Crystal's twenty
Speaker 3: two year old step cousin, Damon Thibodeau, is interrogated by police,
Speaker 3: he confesses to her murder and is subsequently convicted sentenced
Speaker 3: to death. However, Damon maintains that his confession was coerced
Speaker 3: and none of the physical evidence from the crime matches him.
Speaker 3: After serving sixteen years, Damon's conviction is vacated and he
Speaker 3: is released from death row. But Crystal's real killer is
Speaker 3: never found.
Speaker 1: After that, the path went Chile. So today we're going
Speaker 1: to be exploring a crime which led to a wrongful conviction,
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety six murder of Crystal Champagne. Anyway, Crystal
Speaker 1: Champagne was a fourteen year old girl who went missing
Speaker 1: and was found strangled to death and Almost immediately after
Speaker 1: the discovery of her body, her step cousin, Damon Thibodeaux,
Speaker 1: confessed to the crime. Even though Damon recanted his confession
Speaker 1: and claimed he had been coerced, he was still charged
Speaker 1: and convicted of Crystal's murder and received the death penalty.
Speaker 1: Damon would spend sixteen years behind bars, but since none
Speaker 1: of the physical evidence matched him, he was eventually exonerated
Speaker 1: before his conviction was overturned and he was released. This
Speaker 1: story was once featured on an episode of the true
Speaker 1: crime TV show forty eight Hours, and I decided to
Speaker 1: cover it on The Trail Went Cold Back in September
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, shortly after learning that Damon Thibodeaux
Speaker 1: passed away due to complications from COVID nineteen. Well, it's
Speaker 1: good that Damon was exonerated before his death. The actual
Speaker 1: murder victim in this case, Crystal Champagne, has still never
Speaker 1: received justice. So on this series of episodes, we're not
Speaker 1: only going to explore what went wrong, but also try
Speaker 1: to figure out who the real perpetrator might have been.
Speaker 2: Well, I can already tell you a whole lot of
Speaker 2: things had to go wrong for it to get to
Speaker 2: a coerced confession. But then even a bigger sign that
Speaker 2: something went wrong is that it actually was his conviction
Speaker 2: was vacated, which is very, very difficult to do. If
Speaker 2: anyone listening has ever explored wrongful convictions, and you look
Speaker 2: at the idea that you know, people claim I'm innocent,
Speaker 2: there's innocence projects, there's people fighting to free individuals asking
Speaker 2: for DNA to be tested, to really from prison. It
Speaker 2: is nearly impossible to get the court system to reverse
Speaker 2: a ruling that they've made right because it's admitting we've
Speaker 2: made a mistake somewhere. We've allowed someone to be prosecuted
Speaker 2: and convicted when their rights were not met, when the
Speaker 2: evidence wasn't there, and or when they're innocent. And so
Speaker 2: the fact that not only did Damian confess, which shows
Speaker 2: a lot of problems in our system, but also the
Speaker 2: charge was vacated, the conviction was vacated, speaks volumes. This
Speaker 2: man was on death row. So for him to get
Speaker 2: vacated from death row, you have to be able to
Speaker 2: prove beyond a reasonable doubt and more that he's innocent,
Speaker 2: or that there's proof that his rights were not met
Speaker 2: and that something went wrong in the prosecution of this individual.
Speaker 2: So if you look at this one, I love it
Speaker 2: because I remember when I first started dating Rebel. I said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things I love to look
Speaker 2: at is wrongful conviction. And he said, oh, that stuff's
Speaker 2: so bizarre to me, Like, who would falsely confess to
Speaker 2: something they didn't do? And I have never been more
Speaker 2: excited in my life to teach somebody I love about something.
Speaker 2: You guys know me, and you can imagine, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: here we go. We're watching this documentary. In this documentary,
Speaker 2: I'm going to teach you about this and that false
Speaker 2: confessions are not as abnormal as you would think, because
Speaker 2: we train officers to use something called the read techniques.
Speaker 2: And when you combine the actual types of questions and
Speaker 2: scenarios they present to people being interrogated, and you add
Speaker 2: other elements like age, background, intellect, and ability those kinds
Speaker 2: of things, it's actually not that crazy to be able
Speaker 2: to convince somebody that they could have done a certain crime.
Speaker 2: And so I cannot wait to hear what happens in
Speaker 2: that interrogation room. What Damon eventually says occurs. Because keep
Speaker 2: in mind, the police who trust and we expect to
Speaker 2: bring justice to a scenario. If they believe somebody is guilty,
Speaker 2: they will go in with that assumption and do things
Speaker 2: like present false evidence, convince the person they failed to
Speaker 2: polygraph when maybe they didn't discuss how you know there's
Speaker 2: someone in another room as an eyewitness when there's not
Speaker 2: so when you have tons and tons of information like
Speaker 2: that being piled on you, long interrogations, best of luck.
Speaker 2: I would never want to be sitting in an interrogation
Speaker 2: room without an attorney because it's not it's not out
Speaker 2: of the question that someone who's innocent would confess to
Speaker 2: something they didn't do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we're going to talk about, this is going
Speaker 1: to be one of the weakest murder cases you've ever seen,
Speaker 1: which led to a conviction and someone being sent to
Speaker 1: death row. And in spite of this, it still took
Speaker 1: sixteen years to overturn his conviction, even though the only
Speaker 1: evidence against him was a false confession. But like your
Speaker 1: example you just mentioned with rebel, false confessions still have
Speaker 1: a lot of weight for people because even if there's
Speaker 1: no other evidence against this defendant, juries still will convict
Speaker 1: because they hold a mentality like why would you confess
Speaker 1: to a crime that you did not commit, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these cases, the person who makes the confession
Speaker 1: recancel immediately. In figure as well, they're going to find
Speaker 1: out I'm innocent, this is going to be sorted out
Speaker 1: and I'll be released. But more often not that doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: and it leads to tragic stories like this.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to hear all of your takes today,
Speaker 3: ash because I truly feel like this is where our
Speaker 3: girl shines. Ashley has her PhD in criminology, and when
Speaker 3: you get going on wrongful convictions, you always bring up
Speaker 3: the best points, So I can't wait to hear your
Speaker 3: thoughts on this case.
Speaker 2: Well thanks, Jules. Yeah, this is one of those places
Speaker 2: where I just get excited about criminal justice in general
Speaker 2: because we have a ways to go, and these are
Speaker 2: the cases that kind of highlight where some of those
Speaker 2: vulnerabilities in our justice system are. Robin nailed it. Rebel
Speaker 2: was not alone when he said, like, no one would
Speaker 2: falsely confess to something they didn't do. I ask my
Speaker 2: students every semester I teach this class, how many of
Speaker 2: you think you would ever falsely confess to a crime?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: None of them raise their hand. So if by the
Speaker 2: end of the class, just like poor Rebel who did
Speaker 2: not have to pay for a class on wrong convictions,
Speaker 2: I just gave it to him. But when by the
Speaker 2: end of class, almost all of them will raise their hand,
Speaker 2: understanding that false confessions are not that abnormal. But jurors
Speaker 2: don't sit through a college or a university course on
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions. They do exactly what Robin said. They do
Speaker 2: exactly what Rebel did. They do exactly what my students did,
Speaker 2: which is when you say, who wouldever falsely confess, the
Speaker 2: whole jury says no one. I would never do that,
Speaker 2: and so it didn't need any other evidence in this
Speaker 2: case when Damien said, when Damon said I did it,
Speaker 2: he was done. He was going to be convicted because
Speaker 2: that jury believes no one in their right mind would
Speaker 2: ever say I did it. Of course, quote everyone who
Speaker 2: commits a crime is quote innocent in prison, right, And
Speaker 2: they just go, hey, if he said he did it,
Speaker 2: he did it, and let's send him to prison. They
Speaker 2: sent this man to death row.
Speaker 3: Our story begins in nineteen ninety six in Westwego, Louisiana,
Speaker 3: a suburban community of New Orleans which lies along the
Speaker 3: west bank of the Mississippi River. Our central figure is
Speaker 3: fourteen year old Crystal Marie Champagne, who lives at the
Speaker 3: Tanglewood Apartments with her parents CJ. And Dawn Champagne. At
Speaker 3: around five fifteen pm on July nineteenth, Crystal left her
Speaker 3: apartment in order to walk to a nearby wind Dixie
Speaker 3: supermarket to purchase some noodles, but after an hour passed,
Speaker 3: she failed to return and her family went out and
Speaker 3: started searching for her. Crystal could not be found, so
Speaker 3: her mother reported her missing to Jefferson Parish Sheriff's office.
Speaker 3: Over the course of the next twenty four hours, a
Speaker 3: number of people canvass the area with missing persons, flyers
Speaker 3: for Crystal, and witnesses would recall having seen her at
Speaker 3: the Winn Dixie supermarket on the night she disappeared. Finally,
Speaker 3: at around seven forty p m. On the evening of
Speaker 3: July twentieth, a family friend and neighbor named Stacy Mulansen
Speaker 3: called the police from a payphone in the unincorporated community
Speaker 3: of Bridge City to inform them that Crystal had been
Speaker 3: found dead. Stacy claimed that she and her boyfriend John
Speaker 3: Tomlinson had shown Crystal's flyer to a pair of women
Speaker 3: at a convenience store in Bridge City who told them
Speaker 3: they were called seeing a girl matching Crystal's description walking
Speaker 3: down the levee next to the Mississippi River the previous evening.
Speaker 3: When Stacy and John went to the area, they soon
Speaker 3: discovered Cristel's body in a wooded area underneath the Huey
Speaker 3: Pea Long Bridge, the location which was about five miles
Speaker 3: from Cristel's apartment, and an autopsy would reveal that she'd
Speaker 3: been strangled to death and beaten with a blunt object,
Speaker 3: as she had a fractured skull and a missing tooth,
Speaker 3: as well as hemorrhaging to her right eye and forehead.
Speaker 3: A red industrial wire which had likely been used to
Speaker 3: strangle Crystal, was found tied to a nearby tree. Since
Speaker 3: her shirt was pulled off over her breath, and her
Speaker 3: shorts and underwear were pulled down, it appeared that Crystal
Speaker 3: had also been the victim of a sexual assault. It
Speaker 3: would later be estimated that Crystal had been dead around
Speaker 3: twenty four hours before she was found, placing her approximate
Speaker 3: time of death sometime between seven and eight pm on
Speaker 3: July nineteen Okay.
Speaker 2: Can you rewind and tell me you guys said that
Speaker 2: someone calls from a payphone saying that she's dead, But
Speaker 2: really the only information they have is that they had
Speaker 2: seen this woman walking and they knew it was her
Speaker 2: because of a flyer or they're the ones who actually
Speaker 2: found her body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody called from a payphone. It was Stacy who
Speaker 1: called the police from a payphone. She said that she
Speaker 1: had spoken to two people at a woman at a
Speaker 1: convenience store who said that they had seen a girl
Speaker 1: matching Crystal's description walking down next to the Mississippi River
Speaker 1: the previous evening. So that's what prompted Stacy and her
Speaker 1: boyfriend John to go check this area out, and that's
Speaker 1: when they found her body in the woods.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay. So when they find her body, clearly
Speaker 2: she's been a victim of a horrific attack. It appears
Speaker 2: she's been sexually abused, but the violence and the intimate violence, right,
Speaker 2: She's not shot, she's bludgeoned to death. Clearly, she's been strangled.
Speaker 2: Her tooth's missing, her skulls fractured. So it's someone with
Speaker 2: either who is desperate to make sure that she can't
Speaker 2: tell anyone what happened or there's a lot of anger
Speaker 2: and rage and power struggle there. It's a very disturbing
Speaker 2: scene that they stumbled upon when they find Crystal's body.
Speaker 1: And as we're going to talk about, even though her
Speaker 1: shirt was pulled up and her shorts and underwear were
Speaker 1: pulled down, she was not actually penetrated or raped. And
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder was someone planning to do so
Speaker 1: and maybe just couldn't get aroused or something like that.
Speaker 1: So it just caused them to get really irate and
Speaker 1: take out their aggression, and that's why they killed Crystal
Speaker 1: in such your brutal fashion.
Speaker 3: How far was this location on the Mississippi from the
Speaker 3: wind Dixie.
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure, Like I only know that it
Speaker 1: was five miles from her apartment, so I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: it was probably close to five miles from the wind
Speaker 1: Dixie because she was only planning to walk there from
Speaker 1: her place. So I have a feeling that she might
Speaker 1: have accepted a ride for someone or was abducted, and
Speaker 1: that they drove her down to this location and disposed
Speaker 1: of her body.
Speaker 3: Was it a common location that people would walk, like
Speaker 3: somebody said they saw somebody matching her description walking in
Speaker 3: that area.
Speaker 1: I think so, yeah. I mean, I guess it's just
Speaker 1: like a place maybe where tourists would go or something
Speaker 1: like that, just because it was near the river. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a thing here where it's like it's possible
Speaker 1: that the witness was mistaken, maybe just saw another girl
Speaker 1: matching that description or something like that down the river,
Speaker 1: and they just found it and it was just luck
Speaker 1: that Crystal was murdered at this place. So, before Crystal's
Speaker 1: body was found, investigators from the Jefferson Pair ofsh Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Office had already been interviewing a number of her friends
Speaker 1: and family members, including her twenty two year old step cousin,
Speaker 1: Damon Thibodeau, whose mother was once married to Cristel's uncle.
Speaker 1: Damon had lived in Midland, Texas, but weeks earlier, after
Speaker 1: traveling to New Orleans to attend his sister's wedding, he
Speaker 1: decided that he wanted to remain in the area to
Speaker 1: be closer to his family. He moved in with his
Speaker 1: mother and got a job as an offshore deckhand on
Speaker 1: a Mississippi River barge. Even though the Champagne family didn't
Speaker 1: know Damon all that well. They quickly befriended him, and
Speaker 1: on the night before Cristal went missing, he went out
Speaker 1: drinking with down In CJ and stayed over at their apartment.
Speaker 1: Damon was still there when Crystal left to go to
Speaker 1: the supermarket the following day, and she had even asked
Speaker 1: him for a ride, but he declined because he was
Speaker 1: busy fixing a watch. Damon actively participated in the search
Speaker 1: effort for Crystal before he returned to his mother's house
Speaker 1: on the evening of July the twentieth. Shortly after he arrived,
Speaker 1: investigators showed up there in order to question Damon, and
Speaker 1: he agreed to accompany them to the police station for
Speaker 1: an interview. However, shortly after the questioning started, investigators were
Speaker 1: informed that Crystal's body had been found, and they started
Speaker 1: focusing on Day as a potential suspect.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting because she asked him for a ride
Speaker 2: and he said, no, I'm busy fixing a watch. And
Speaker 2: if you thought there was some bizarre dynamic going on,
Speaker 2: because it's a step cousin, right, and he was once
Speaker 2: associated to her by Crystel's uncle. If there was something
Speaker 2: odd or some sexual frustration going on. If she had
Speaker 2: asked for him to do anything with her, it almost
Speaker 2: seems like he would jump and say, well, yes, of
Speaker 2: course I'll take you to work, right, of course, I'll
Speaker 2: go with you there, or maybe he wouldn't leave her alone,
Speaker 2: or he'd follow her. The fact that he's like, god,
Speaker 2: now this watch, I gotta work on this watch. It's
Speaker 2: so nonchalant of like not even interested right in engaging
Speaker 2: with her in a place outside of the home. So
Speaker 2: that's an interesting little quirk to me when you talk
Speaker 2: about someone who's going to bludgeon potentially attempt to sexually
Speaker 2: assault somebody. He had chances where he could be isolated
Speaker 2: alone with her and he turned those down.
Speaker 3: It's a good point because if he was a predator
Speaker 3: who was seeking this opportunity to like predate on her
Speaker 3: and potentially try to sexually assault her, then what a
Speaker 3: great opportunity that would be. So the fact that, like
Speaker 3: you said, he passes it up and he's so nonchalant
Speaker 3: about it, it does seem to speak to his innocence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is one of the reasons where I
Speaker 1: am kind of surprised that the police focused on him
Speaker 1: so quickly as a suspect, because in addition to that point,
Speaker 1: when you look at the timeline, you're gonna find out
Speaker 1: he really didn't have much of an opportunity to do
Speaker 1: this because his whereabouts are pretty well accounted for the
Speaker 1: entire night. So it really doesn't make much sense for
Speaker 1: her to ask him for a ride, for him to
Speaker 1: say no, I'm going to stay here, fix my watch,
Speaker 1: and then a short time later like leave and go
Speaker 1: after her and then abductor and murder her. So it
Speaker 1: still makes me wonder, like why they felt that Damon
Speaker 1: would be a likely suspect.
Speaker 3: All right, get ready to get pretty pissed off, Ashley,
Speaker 3: let's do it. So even though Damon had two previous
Speaker 3: marijuana possess charges on his record, he didn't have any
Speaker 3: known history of violence, and Crystal's family would later say
Speaker 3: that they never saw any warning signs of him being
Speaker 3: inappropriate with her. But in spite of this, police would
Speaker 3: spend the nine hours interrogating Damon without any legal counsel present.
Speaker 3: So at one point, Damon agreed to take a polygraph test,
Speaker 3: but he was informed that the results showed signs of deception.
Speaker 3: Damon provided the names of all the people that he'd
Speaker 3: been with during the previous twenty four hours and said
Speaker 3: they could function as his alibi witnesses, but the detectives
Speaker 3: lied to him by stating that these witnesses had already
Speaker 3: disputed his alibi. They told Damon they had evidence he
Speaker 3: killed Crystal, and even planted the idea into his head
Speaker 3: that he may have blacked out and committed the crime
Speaker 3: without even remembering it. The interrogation continued on until the
Speaker 3: early morning hours of July twenty first, and at four
Speaker 3: twenty one am, Damon finally confessed to Crystal's murder, stating quote,
Speaker 3: I didn't know that I had done it, but I'd
Speaker 3: done it. He claimed that he'd picked up Crystal in
Speaker 3: his car after she left the supermarket and proceeded to
Speaker 3: drive her to the levee under the Hueyplong Bridge. They
Speaker 3: began to have sex until Crystal yelled out, ouch it hurts,
Speaker 3: take it easy. When she resisted, Damon said it caused
Speaker 3: him to snap, and he proceeded to rape and beat
Speaker 3: Crystal before strangling her to death. Afterward, he returned to
Speaker 3: Crystal's apartment and assisted with the search effort for her.
Speaker 2: Okay, here it goes ready, ye ready, okay, all right,
Speaker 2: let's start with this. If you picture yourself in a
Speaker 2: tiny bathroom for nine hours at one time. Okay, we're
Speaker 2: talking like, I don't know, six by four for nine hours,
Speaker 2: where you have someone telling you, listen, damon, I know
Speaker 2: what you did. You're not getting out of here. There's
Speaker 2: only one way you're getting out of here, right, So
Speaker 2: tell us the truth. And you proceed to tell them
Speaker 2: the truth a million times.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I was with my friends. They back me up. I
Speaker 2: don't even know what you're talking about. This poor girl
Speaker 2: that I'm associated with somehow is dead and I didn't
Speaker 2: do it. I was fixing my watch. I was then
Speaker 2: hanging out with my friends. My friends can tell you that.
Speaker 2: So you're continuing to repeat the truth, and every time
Speaker 2: you repeat the truth, you're making the people in this tiny,
Speaker 2: tiny place more and more frustrated with you, and they're
Speaker 2: telling you you're wrong. And then they amp it up
Speaker 2: by telling you, oh, those witnesses that are going to
Speaker 2: have your back, your friends. Unfortunately for you, they've already
Speaker 2: flipped on you and turned on you. So psychologically you
Speaker 2: start thinking, what in the heck is happening? Right, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna stick with my story, and you know what,
Speaker 2: I'll take a polygraph test whatever, I'll take a polygraph
Speaker 2: and that'll prove that I'm telling the truth. And I'm
Speaker 2: assuming they lied to him that he failed the polygraph.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, So now you're telling me that I'm a liar.
Speaker 2: You're telling me that she's dead, and my friends who
Speaker 2: I was with already have told you I'm lying. Holy crap. Okay,
Speaker 2: now you're telling me that I failed a polygraph test.
Speaker 2: What is happening? Because I'm pretty sure I'm telling you
Speaker 2: the truth. It starts to become like gaslighting, okay, where
Speaker 2: I all of a sudden start questioning my own mentality,
Speaker 2: my own recall, my own memory. Now they're going to
Speaker 2: amp up even more. It's not just that we've got
Speaker 2: evidence that you actually killed her. We have your physical
Speaker 2: evidence at the scene. They're allowed to do that. It's
Speaker 2: part of the legal doctrine that if they need to
Speaker 2: falsify information to get a suspect of talk, they can.
Speaker 2: Well they did here, and that's another element that's leaning
Speaker 2: poor Damon to go wait what Okay, So he's continuing
Speaker 2: to be confused and frustrated and then they're going to say,
Speaker 2: you know what, Damon, I know you don't remember doing
Speaker 2: this because I don't think you would do that, right,
Speaker 2: You're a good man. So they're going to build him
Speaker 2: up now that they've torn him down. However, Damon, there
Speaker 2: we believe that you blacked out and then you did
Speaker 2: this crime like you wouldn't do it. You're a good human.
Speaker 2: We're going to make sure people know you're a good human.
Speaker 2: But you got to tell us the truth, Damon, because
Speaker 2: we think you blacked out, you don't remember everyone who
Speaker 2: knows you saying you did it. We have proof you
Speaker 2: did it, and you fail to polygraph, man, like, your
Speaker 2: only way out is to tell us the truth now,
Speaker 2: and maybe we can help you, right, maybe we can
Speaker 2: make this a little bit better on you. So Damon's
Speaker 2: doing one of two things, or maybe a combination of both.
Speaker 2: He's at the point where he's like, holy crap, nine
Speaker 2: hours into this, my only way out is going to
Speaker 2: be to lie because obviously people will know that this
Speaker 2: stuff is not true once I get on the other
Speaker 2: side and away from these people. Or two, he actually
Speaker 2: starts to slightly believe what they're saying because I am
Speaker 2: a good person. I was with my friends. If my
Speaker 2: friends are saying that I left or hurt her, and
Speaker 2: the police are saying there's evidence and that maybe I
Speaker 2: blacked out, and everybody's saying that, and I failed a polygraph.
Speaker 2: What if I did do this and just don't remember.
Speaker 2: And so what starts to happen is he will try
Speaker 2: to tell a story to the police that satisfy them,
Speaker 2: whether he's believing it or whether he's making it up.
Speaker 2: Then what's going to happen is he's gonna get facts wrong.
Speaker 2: She was I don't know. He would make up a
Speaker 2: fact that doesn't fit the police narrative, and they'd say, ooh,
Speaker 2: that's not quite right. Why don't you tell us again?
Speaker 2: But this time, what weapon do you think you used
Speaker 2: to hit her? Mm, it's not that. Nope, try again,
Speaker 2: And over the course of nine hours they're going to
Speaker 2: craft a beautiful story where by the very end, Damon
Speaker 2: is able to say, you know what happened. I picked
Speaker 2: up Crystal in the car after she left the supermarket.
Speaker 2: I drove her down to the levee under the Huey
Speaker 2: p Long Bridge. We started to have sex. Crystal yells
Speaker 2: out out it hurts take it easy. And when she resisted,
Speaker 2: I snapped. And then they're going to say, okay, good,
Speaker 2: that's good, good job, Damon, sign right here for us,
Speaker 2: and we're going to make sure that because you've told
Speaker 2: the truth, you know, like, we help you out, buddy.
Speaker 2: And when they walk out that door, Damon has completely
Speaker 2: sealed his fate, and in this case, sealed it to
Speaker 2: the point where the jury says, holy creud. The man
Speaker 2: just described verbatim what he did to her. He needs
Speaker 2: to be on death row, period. What the heck? Tragic,
Speaker 2: absolutely tragic. All without an attorney present. None of this
Speaker 2: would have happened. If he had just known to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I want an attorney, which most innocent people don't know
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: And I think you pretty much nailed it. And the
Speaker 1: thing about the attorney is that when he was originally
Speaker 1: brought to the station, when they asked him to gun
Speaker 1: down for questioning, they still had not yet found Crystal's body,
Speaker 1: so he had no inkling that he was going to
Speaker 1: be accused of murder. And while he was there, that's
Speaker 1: when they found Crystal and they're like, oh, he's in custody.
Speaker 1: Let's start working on him and get him to confess,
Speaker 1: and I haven't even mentioned yet that he had been
Speaker 1: up for a long period of time with no sleep,
Speaker 1: so he was completely exhausted by that point, So you
Speaker 1: can understand why nine more hours of interrogation he might
Speaker 1: actually get to the point where he's thinking, hmm, maybe
Speaker 1: I did block out, maybe I did it and don't
Speaker 1: even remember it. And he pretty much gets to the
Speaker 1: point where it's like, I will say anything to get
Speaker 1: this to stop.
Speaker 3: And do we know if they were withholding things like
Speaker 3: a drink or food or bathroom breaks as well.
Speaker 1: I don't know that specifically. I haven't heard anything about
Speaker 1: if they let him out to use the bathroom or
Speaker 1: gave him any food or drink. But that is a
Speaker 1: common tactic and a lot of these false confessions where
Speaker 1: they're just kept in a room and given none of
Speaker 1: that stuff and they finally just say, I'm probably never
Speaker 1: going to leave this room until I tell them what
Speaker 1: they want to hear. And I think that's what happened
Speaker 1: in this case too.
Speaker 2: Also, the interrogation is a Currane overnight, correct, so he
Speaker 2: might not have even gotten sleep. So when you talk
Speaker 2: about being sleep deprived, then emotionally and mentally manipulated and
Speaker 2: you're stuck in this tiny s with people yelling what
Speaker 2: a horrible human you are and that you killed someone.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about that. If he was sleep deprived,
Speaker 2: that adds an element to where he's losing the ability
Speaker 2: of to focus on reality. Like I don't know, Robin,
Speaker 2: you don't have to admit this, but Jules, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've ever been so exhausted that, like things
Speaker 2: seem so irrational, like everything's a big deal, everything's a problem.
Speaker 2: Reality is hard to decipher between you know, right and wrong,
Speaker 2: the truth or falls. So that would add a whole
Speaker 2: nother layer.
Speaker 3: Here, oh, one hundred percent. And when you have him
Speaker 3: completely under threat by authority, figures he doesn't have an
Speaker 3: attorney present, he's being faced with things like the death penalty,
Speaker 3: is being told that he murdered his step cousin. He's
Speaker 3: got to be so scared and the reptilian part of
Speaker 3: his brain is going to be taking over. And when
Speaker 3: that happens, your ability to be a complex problem solver
Speaker 3: goes out the window, and the only thing that is
Speaker 3: important is survival. And at that point, to survive, they're
Speaker 3: telling you what you need to do, and that is confess,
Speaker 3: and so it puts him in such a precarious position
Speaker 3: because he's almost willing to do anything to survive, and
Speaker 3: he's going to be going along with what these authority
Speaker 3: figures are telling him, not really realizing the repercussions and
Speaker 3: the ramifications for his choices at that time because he
Speaker 3: didn't have legal representation.
Speaker 1: So Damon was subsequently charged with first degree murder and
Speaker 1: aggravated rape, and was so exhausted by this point that
Speaker 1: he passed out while being transported to jail. However, once
Speaker 1: Damon woke up, he realized the full ramifications of what
Speaker 1: happened and immediately recanted his confession. Like we just said,
Speaker 1: by the time the interrogation started, Damon had gotten virtually
Speaker 1: no sleep during the previous thirty five hours, and he
Speaker 1: started to lose all sense of reality. He claimed that
Speaker 1: at one point, the detective threatened him with the death
Speaker 1: penalty and went into graphic detail about how painful it
Speaker 1: would be for him to die by a lethal injection.
Speaker 1: They told Damon that he might reci ove leniency if
Speaker 1: he confessed, so he finally decided to tell them what
Speaker 1: they wanted to hear in order to make the whole
Speaker 1: ordeal stop. Indeed, it turned out there were a lot
Speaker 1: of issues with the confession, as only fifty four minutes
Speaker 1: of the nine hour interrogation session were recorded, and Damon
Speaker 1: got a number of details wrong about the crime. For starters,
Speaker 1: Damon claimed that before he strangled Crystal with the wire,
Speaker 1: he had first choked her with his bare hands, but
Speaker 1: there were no injuries on her throat to support that will.
Speaker 1: It seemed clear that the red wire found tied to
Speaker 1: a nearby tree was the murder weapon. Damon said that
Speaker 1: he used a clear, black or gray speaker wire, which
Speaker 1: he had gotten from the trunk of his car. In fact,
Speaker 1: one if the detectives had even followed up this statement
Speaker 1: by asking Damon if he had any red wire inside
Speaker 1: his vehicle. Even though the severe injuries to Crystal's face
Speaker 1: indicated that she had been bludgeoned with the blunt object,
Speaker 1: Damon only mentioned hitting her with his fists, and while
Speaker 1: he said that Crystal's body was face down when he
Speaker 1: left the scene, she was actually found face up. The
Speaker 1: rubbling inconsistency was that Damon had confessed to raping Crystal
Speaker 1: and specifically mentioned ejaculating as he squeezed Crystal's throat, but
Speaker 1: there was no trace of any semen found in or
Speaker 1: on her body. In fact, even though crystal shirt had
Speaker 1: been pulled up and her shorts pulled down, it did
Speaker 1: not appear that she was sexually assaulted at all. Forensic
Speaker 1: testing would be performed on eighty six pieces of physical evidence,
Speaker 1: but nothing could be found to link Damon to the crime.
Speaker 1: And while some hares and fibers were taken from Damon's car,
Speaker 1: none of the match Crystal.
Speaker 2: It doesn't get much worse than this. Okay, here's what
Speaker 2: I want you guys to think about. You think this
Speaker 2: story is bad when it's lined up against the evidence,
Speaker 2: I want you to think of the fact that there
Speaker 2: is eight hours and fifteen minutes that the police are
Speaker 2: feeding him information, yelling at him, telling him he's a liar,
Speaker 2: telling him to try again. They're not going to record
Speaker 2: the interrogation until there's a story that is telling that
Speaker 2: they like, Like just me saying that that's so messed up, right,
Speaker 2: because he's innocent. I'm not saying if there's a suspect
Speaker 2: that's guilty and they're they're you know, getting an actual story,
Speaker 2: that's fine. But in this case, we we can look
Speaker 2: back and say it's a false confession. They have been
Speaker 2: feeding him information over and over again, that's not right.
Speaker 2: Try again, what did you use? How did you do it? Nope,
Speaker 2: try again, what did you use? How did you do it?
Speaker 2: And they keep having him alter it until they get
Speaker 2: a story that goes that's it, that's what works. And
Speaker 2: if he's telling them, he's got to be quote telling
Speaker 2: the truth right. Wrong. But they're only going to record
Speaker 2: this one moment where it looks like he walks in.
Speaker 2: They ask him some questions and he tells him everything
Speaker 2: they need to know. Yep, I killed her. Yes, I
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted her. Yes, I overreacted and beat her. Yes,
Speaker 2: I used this weapon. It's a story that has so
Speaker 2: much confidence behind it, which is why the jury at
Speaker 2: the moment he says I did it, and they see
Speaker 2: this easy recording of his story. Right, it's not nine
Speaker 2: hours they're watching, They're watching forty five minutes. At the end,
Speaker 2: they say he did it, even when you have forensic
Speaker 2: testing that shows, guys, there's nothing that lines up with
Speaker 2: what he said. They're so fixated on the fact that
Speaker 2: they would never say they did something they did not do.
Speaker 2: They're so fixated on that fact they actually let forensic
Speaker 2: testing go out the window and don't even consider the
Speaker 2: fact that something could be wrong with this interrogation and confession.
Speaker 1: And that's what's so frustrating about this particular case is
Speaker 1: that in a lot of other cases I've seen with
Speaker 1: false confessions and wrongfuel convictions, they're usually ones for cold
Speaker 1: cases that have gone unsolved for months and years, where
Speaker 1: the police are feeling an intense amount of pressure to
Speaker 1: solve the case and eventually get to the point where
Speaker 1: it's like, well, we found a compelling suspect, let's pint
Speaker 1: it on them, even if they're the right person or not.
Speaker 1: But here, like they're doing this immediately after they found
Speaker 1: Crystal's body without doing any investigating whatsoever. So you'd think
Speaker 1: you might want to check if the physical evidence matches
Speaker 1: Damon and like try to figure out if he physically
Speaker 1: could have done this, if he had an alibi or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But it's not like, well, we have
Speaker 1: a guy in an interrogation room, let's pin the crime
Speaker 1: on them and worry about the rest of the evidence later.
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much what happened here.
Speaker 2: Well, do you guys remember the Norfolk. Four, the same
Speaker 2: thing happened. There were four sailors who all falsely confessed.
Speaker 2: After the first one came in, they convinced him that
Speaker 2: he had sexually assaulted and killed his neighbor. Then they
Speaker 2: got DNA back that said it wasn't him, and they said,
Speaker 2: who was with you? So he just named one of
Speaker 2: his fellow sailors, and they got that guy to falsely confess,
Speaker 2: and then they realized his DNA doesn't match. So they
Speaker 2: go down the line where these guys are just naming
Speaker 2: another person in their unit, and by the fourth one
Speaker 2: who confesses and is sentenced to prison, four of them
Speaker 2: go to prison. Finally a man comes forward says, I'm
Speaker 2: the one who raped and killed her. Right he's already
Speaker 2: serving time. They said, well, these guys must have killed
Speaker 2: her with you, and he's like, no, I did it
Speaker 2: by myself. Man, I don't even know these guys. They
Speaker 2: were so hung up on the fact that people wouldn't
Speaker 2: falsely confess and they could not have gotten it wrong,
Speaker 2: that they kept the story going by adding elements even
Speaker 2: when the real killer was telling them the truth. And
Speaker 2: so it blows my face off. If y'all really want
Speaker 2: to be mad. Look that one up, nor Folk four.
Speaker 3: I feel like jury's in those cases would have really benefited,
Speaker 3: like Damon's lawyer, if they would have been able to
Speaker 3: bring an expert like Ashley on the stand to talk
Speaker 3: about false confessions. But the year was nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 3: and our knowledge of false confessions isn't what it is today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ashley, why don't you make that your full time
Speaker 1: job now? Just to go away and get these speeches
Speaker 1: for fut wrongfuel convictions. It'll prevent a lot of convictions.
Speaker 2: If there's any attorneys listening, call me. I'm your girl.
Speaker 2: I might not be smart about everything, but this one
Speaker 2: is something I'm passionate about and I know it.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, and time has changed, time has gotten better.
Speaker 2: We oftentimes have departments who are recording entire interrogations, which
Speaker 2: helps with this. But people have to understand the psychology
Speaker 2: and that as much as you want to think you're
Speaker 2: exempt from being manipulated and being coerced psychologically, you're not.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait till you hear this next part about how
Speaker 3: there's no semen present at the scene.
Speaker 2: Oh help me.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: However, Damon would still go on trial for the crime
Speaker 3: in September of nineteen ninety seven, and the case was
Speaker 3: prosecuted by Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Kronig Junior. In
Speaker 3: spite of the lack of physical evidence against Gamon, a
Speaker 3: detective would attempt to account for this by testifying that
Speaker 3: there was significant megant activity on Crystal's body at the
Speaker 3: time that she was found, so he felt the maggots
Speaker 3: could have consumed all the seminole fluids Damon left behind.
Speaker 3: In addition to Damon's confession, corroborating evidence was presented by
Speaker 3: two eyewitnesses who testified that on the night of the crime,
Speaker 3: they had seen a man matching Damon's description nervously pacing
Speaker 3: on the levee near the spot where Kristel's body was found.
Speaker 3: Police later showed them a photo lineup, and they both
Speaker 3: identified Damon as the man they saw. There was some
Speaker 3: question about whether Damon even had the opportunity to kill
Speaker 3: Crystal that night, as it would have taken between ten
Speaker 3: and fifteen minutes to drive from Krystel's apartment in Westwego
Speaker 3: to the murder scene in Bridge City. Throughout the course
Speaker 3: of the evening, Damon was almost always in the company
Speaker 3: of other people who could vouch for his whereabouts, aside
Speaker 3: from a period of around thirty to forty five minutes
Speaker 3: when Damon claimed he was sitting alone in his parked
Speaker 3: car while smoking a joint. In her original statement to police,
Speaker 3: don Champagne said that Daemon was with her inside the
Speaker 3: apartment at seat thirty pm when she made the call
Speaker 3: to report Crystal missing. Since Cristel's time of death was
Speaker 3: estimated to have been some time between seven and eight
Speaker 3: that night, this could have cleared Damon of any involvement,
Speaker 3: but when Dawn took the stand to testify at the trial,
Speaker 3: she now claimed that Damon was not with her when
Speaker 3: she phoned the police. The case went to the jury
Speaker 3: on October third, and after deliberating for only one hour,
Speaker 3: they found Damon guilty of aggravated rape and first degree murder.
Speaker 3: Since the aggravating circumstances made Damon eligible for the death penalty,
Speaker 3: he was sentenced to be executed by a lethal injection.
Speaker 2: Whoa whoa, whoa whoa wah Okay, okay, Let's start at
Speaker 2: the beginning. When you look at Jefferson Parish District Attorney
Speaker 2: Paul Connack, Junior fun fact, that's Harry Connock Junior's cousin.
Speaker 2: So the actor, the famous actor.
Speaker 1: Yes, and also Harry Connick Senior, Harry Connic Junior's father
Speaker 1: is a very prominent district attorney from Louisiana as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, he passed away last year. But yes, fun fact.
Speaker 2: As soon as you said Connic Junior, I was like,
Speaker 2: wait a second, Okay, so that is his cousin. They
Speaker 2: prosecuted this case. Okay. When we look at Dawn and
Speaker 2: you have the fact that she originally says he was
Speaker 2: with me, he was with me, right this idea that
Speaker 2: she says this and then gets on the stand and
Speaker 2: says something different. I in my head, the first thing
Speaker 2: I thought was what was threatened against her? What type
Speaker 2: of psychological coersion was used against her? Because you have
Speaker 2: cases where, let's say, if she has a record at all,
Speaker 2: they'll start talking to her in terms of like if
Speaker 2: you don't want your kids to be in danger, you
Speaker 2: want to separate yourself as far as you can from
Speaker 2: this murder. We know he did it, there's evidence he
Speaker 2: did it. You look like a fool right now. He
Speaker 2: clearly was not with you at that time. You must
Speaker 2: have gotten your times wrong. But you're going to be
Speaker 2: the one who's going to be serving time in prison.
Speaker 2: If you want to sit there and say that he
Speaker 2: was with you, your children are going to need to
Speaker 2: find someone else to take care of them because you
Speaker 2: feel a need to lie to us about his whereabouts.
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you to prison on a drug
Speaker 2: charge that we're pretty sure you're involved in these kinds
Speaker 2: of things. They'll start threatening them and manipulating them and
Speaker 2: get to the point, just like Damon was at, where
Speaker 2: they'll either lie to remove themselves from the situation and
Speaker 2: protect their own self and family, or they'll actually start
Speaker 2: to believe what the police are telling me. So wait
Speaker 2: a minute, he was with me, but you're telling me
Speaker 2: he failed the polygraph. You're telling me that there's witnesses
Speaker 2: that say they saw him do it, or that he
Speaker 2: wasn't with them. You are telling me that he has
Speaker 2: DNA evidence, that there is a forensic evidence, there's evidence
Speaker 2: against him. I guess he wasn't with me, right, So
Speaker 2: she could believe it, or she could have changed her
Speaker 2: story to remove herself or to protect herself in this situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what happened. I don't think they
Speaker 1: threatened down with anything, but they probably convinced her. Hey,
Speaker 1: you're misremembering that night. Damon probably wasn't with you. We
Speaker 1: have evidence he killed her. And this was back in
Speaker 1: the nineties when I think people were a lot more
Speaker 1: trusting of police officers, and Don is probably thinking well
Speaker 1: off they saying that Damon did it, then they obviously
Speaker 1: must be right, because why would they intentionally lie and
Speaker 1: put the wrong guy in prison for my daughter's murder?
Speaker 1: And Ashley I am dying to hear. Do you believe
Speaker 1: the explanation that the maggots consumed the semen? Yeah? Doesn't
Speaker 1: that make logical sense?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, Now, when you look at severe decomposition, does
Speaker 2: then DNA evidence also decompose in those same elements? Yes?
Speaker 2: But are you telling me that this man tells you
Speaker 2: that he ejaculated right, that he finished the sexual assault,
Speaker 2: which we know there's no evidence that actually happened. You
Speaker 2: even said there wasn't signs of penetration. Even so, when
Speaker 2: you look at the facts here that did not happen.
Speaker 2: She wasn't sitting out in the elements that crazy.
Speaker 1: Long was she h twenty four hours?
Speaker 2: Twenty four hours? No way?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No way.
Speaker 2: It's got to be pretty dang extreme for all forensic
Speaker 2: science to be degraded to a point where you couldn't
Speaker 2: analyze it. There's so many sperm cells and so much
Speaker 2: DNA that would occur in that situation. Those magots aren't
Speaker 2: that hungry. That didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is kind of scary that a jury
Speaker 1: would believe that it would only have to deliberate for
Speaker 1: an hour to find Damon guilty. It's like, if I
Speaker 1: was on the jury, I would have broke out laughing
Speaker 1: out loud in the court if I heard the explanation
Speaker 1: about the maggots.
Speaker 2: Did he have a public defender?
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, Like he really did not have
Speaker 1: adequate counsel. And it wasn't until people started looking at
Speaker 1: his wrongful conviction that he finally got a high class
Speaker 1: law firm who were able to help get his conviction overturned.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's another thing that's happening here is you have
Speaker 2: the idea that this poor kid wakes up and goes,
Speaker 2: holy crap, I just screwed myself over really bad. I
Speaker 2: falsely confessed because I thought I could prove it differently,
Speaker 2: And then they get somebody who might meet them what
Speaker 2: once before their case, or they meet them and they say, hey, listen, man,
Speaker 2: I got your file. We're good, I got your back,
Speaker 2: and they see him again in the courtroom. Damon doesn't
Speaker 2: have somebody who's sitting there getting paid to go research, investigate,
Speaker 2: you know, advocate for him. He is a number on
Speaker 2: a caseload. He already confessed to the crime. So this
Speaker 2: poor defense attorney, who probably has seventy five other cases, goes, well,
Speaker 2: this means a slam shut.
Speaker 1: It is what it is.
Speaker 2: I'll just make sure his rights are protected in the courtroom,
Speaker 2: and that's what he got. Anybody who presented any of
Speaker 2: that eighty six pieces of evidence that didn't match him
Speaker 2: could have helped get him off. But this was someone
Speaker 2: who entered thinking the same kind of thing. No one
Speaker 2: falsely confesses this kid already screwed himself over. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to stand there and make sure he gets his
Speaker 2: constitutional rights met in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: Actually I just remembered this, But there was a big
Speaker 1: conflict of interest with Damon's public defender, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about that in our next episode. So, after Damon
Speaker 1: was sent to death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary
Speaker 1: in Angola. The controversial nature of his case eventually led
Speaker 1: to him being represented by a number of advocacy organizations,
Speaker 1: including The Innocence Project, the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and a Minneapolis based law firm called Frederickson and Byron.
Speaker 1: A number of unsuccessful appeals were filed to overturn Damon's conviction,
Speaker 1: but it kept getting affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and the United States Supreme Court. In May of two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, Damon's legal team decided to approach Jefferson
Speaker 1: County District Attorney Paul Connick Junior with the idea of
Speaker 1: launching a joint reinvestigation into the case, in which both
Speaker 1: sides would split the costs. Surprisingly, Kodick agreed to work
Speaker 1: with them, so a lot of the evidence was re examined.
Speaker 1: New DNA testing was performed on the clothing that Crystal
Speaker 1: and Damon had worn on the night of the crime.
Speaker 1: The results showed no traces of Damon's DNA on Crystal's
Speaker 1: clothing and vice versa. A tiny sample of blood had
Speaker 1: been found on the red wire used to strangle Crystal
Speaker 1: and While testing revealed that the blood had a male
Speaker 1: DNA profile, it did not match Damon. The two eye
Speaker 1: witnesses who had reported seeing Damon pacing along the levee
Speaker 1: on the night of the crime were reinterviewed and made
Speaker 1: some surprising admissions. Even though they both identified Damon from
Speaker 1: a photo lineup, they now said that they had previously
Speaker 1: seen Damon's photo in the newspaper after he was charged
Speaker 1: with the murder, which likely caused some cognitive bias when
Speaker 1: they made their identification. However, what was particularly surprising is
Speaker 1: that the witnesses specifically mentioned seeing police tape at the
Speaker 1: scene when they saw this man, which would have meant
Speaker 1: that their sighting took place on the evening of July
Speaker 1: the twentieth, when Crystal's body was found, not on the nineteenth,
Speaker 1: when she was murdered, And since Damon was already in
Speaker 1: police custody on the evening of the twentieth, then the
Speaker 1: man that they saw at the levee could not have
Speaker 1: been him. In addition, Dawn Champagne was also reinterviewed about
Speaker 1: her conflicting statements about whether Damon was still president at
Speaker 1: the apartment when she made the call to report Crystal missing,
Speaker 1: and she now said that her original statement to police
Speaker 1: about Damon being there was her best recollection.
Speaker 2: Okay, I won't get on my soapbox because I've been
Speaker 2: on a roll about wrongful convictions. But eyewitness identification is
Speaker 2: flawed from the start. We know that. But this is
Speaker 2: where his attorney should have said, Nope, not possible. If
Speaker 2: she saw it with the crime scene tape. He was
Speaker 2: already in police custody when they found the body. So
Speaker 2: that's where his attorney had. They been sitting there with
Speaker 2: Damon and he's like, look, man, this is what happened.
Speaker 2: This is when I was interrogated. This is where I was.
Speaker 2: If anyone had sat down and listened to him and
Speaker 2: was really advocating for the details and for true justice
Speaker 2: in this case, they would have known that this was
Speaker 2: not possible. But again, he's a number. He's already going
Speaker 2: to go to prison. That's what the attorney knows. I
Speaker 2: just got to make sure that his rights are intact. Here.
Speaker 2: He's not being represented at all. There's no investigation or
Speaker 2: digging into it, because these are facts that were present
Speaker 2: then and we're sitting here talking about them now in hindsight.
Speaker 2: But they were present then, and none of these things
Speaker 2: are convincing a jury otherwise, so clearly his attorney failed him.
Speaker 3: At the trial, testimony had been provided by the state pathologist,
Speaker 3: doctor Fraser Mackenzie, who outlined the details of Crystal's murder.
Speaker 3: Doctor mackenzie claimed he was aware that Damon had confessed
Speaker 3: to the crime, who was never shown the actual contents
Speaker 3: of the confession. When McKenzie finally saw years later and
Speaker 3: learned that Damon had said that he raped Crystal, he
Speaker 3: was left aghast because none of the physical evidence that
Speaker 3: he saw matched the confession, so he provided a signed
Speaker 3: affidavit to Damon's legal team outlining all these discrepancies. Damon's
Speaker 3: defense team also brought in a psychologist to examine him
Speaker 3: and analyze his confession. It turned out that Damon had
Speaker 3: a very trouble childhood in which he was physically and
Speaker 3: sexually abused by multiple individuals. The psychologists concluded that Damon's
Speaker 3: abuse of upbringing had caused him to grow up with
Speaker 3: a natural fear of authority figures, which made him a
Speaker 3: lot more susceptible to confessing to something that he did
Speaker 3: not do. Paul Connick Junior, countered by bringing in his
Speaker 3: own forensic psychiatrist, doctor Michael Welner, to analyze Damon's confession.
Speaker 3: Doctor Welner had a history of fighting with law enforcement,
Speaker 3: and while he did not believe that Damon's confession was
Speaker 3: coerced by police, he did conclude that it was false.
Speaker 3: Like many others, Welner was troubled by the fact that
Speaker 3: no physical evidence linked Damon to the crime, and feorized
Speaker 3: that he may have confessed because he felt massive guilt
Speaker 3: over the fact that he'd turned down Crystal's request to
Speaker 3: give her a ride to the supermarket on the day
Speaker 3: that she was killed. Even though it was common practice
Speaker 3: for offenders to minimize their involvement whenever they admitted to
Speaker 3: a crime, Damon did the exact opposite by admitting to
Speaker 3: a rape which never actually happened. So Welner found this
Speaker 3: to be a strong indicator that his confession was false.
Speaker 2: Okay, wait a second, Is this when the case is
Speaker 2: being re examined after Damon's already in prison, or is
Speaker 2: this when they're first trying the case that these two
Speaker 2: experts are being asked to testify.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is years after the fact, after he's been confessions,
Speaker 1: When they've got the Innocence Project to bring in a
Speaker 1: lot of these experts to take a fresh look at
Speaker 1: the crime.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, because I thought at first you were
Speaker 2: telling me that a prosecutor hears that his own witness
Speaker 2: says that the confession's false, and he's like, that's cool,
Speaker 2: and he took it to trial.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Who sorry? Okay. So both the defense and the prosecutor
Speaker 2: seek out to hire different psychiatrists to look at this case,
Speaker 2: and both sides, maybe for different reasons, come to the
Speaker 2: same conclusion this is a false confession. What's really interesting
Speaker 2: here is you have to give credit to Paul Knnick Junior.
Speaker 2: Because a lot of times when you ask a prosecutor
Speaker 2: to look at a case where someone's been convicted, it's
Speaker 2: a pride and ego game. It's also a way to
Speaker 2: cover my own butt by not being willing to relook
Speaker 2: at that case because I refuse to let someone say
Speaker 2: I got it wrong right, and then I sent it someone.
Speaker 2: I got someone convicted on false terms. I let somebody
Speaker 2: sit in prison when they didn't deserve to be there.
Speaker 2: But also we might owe them money or we might
Speaker 2: be sued because of that behavior. So you never really
Speaker 2: see people in power say I think we messed up.
Speaker 2: When you see prosecutors like that, when you see integrity
Speaker 2: units where you have a prosecution team willing to say, hey,
Speaker 2: let's relok at this case. Even though he went forward
Speaker 2: with it when there wasn't good evidence, the fact that
Speaker 2: he was willing to sit down and re look at
Speaker 2: it does speak volumes. And here I don't think he
Speaker 2: could look the other way when you say, even my
Speaker 2: own experts are telling me this case is flawed, something's wrong,
Speaker 2: and he probably didn't do it.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yes, I give Paul Knock Junior a lot of
Speaker 1: credit for his actions in this case, because even though
Speaker 1: he was the one who tried the case to begin with,
Speaker 1: this is sort of thing is very very rare and
Speaker 1: outside the norm for a prosecutor to admit, maybe I
Speaker 1: made a mistake, maybe I got the wrong guy. Because
Speaker 1: most of the time they will try to like twist
Speaker 1: things up so badly to try to justify their conviction
Speaker 1: and go so far as to make up evidence and
Speaker 1: lie because they cannot admit they were wrong. But Connick
Speaker 1: was one of the rare ones who realized that, ooh,
Speaker 1: I may have screwed up here and sent an innocent
Speaker 1: man to prison. But I do want to make things right,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it was pretty overwhelming for him when
Speaker 1: his own experts said that, yeah, this confession was probably
Speaker 1: false and you probably got the wrong guy.
Speaker 3: And who knows what happened to him in those ten years.
Speaker 3: People evolve and they change, and what might have been
Speaker 3: his objective initially may have just been to win at
Speaker 3: any cost. And then as time goes by and you
Speaker 3: become more seasoned in that profession and in that role,
Speaker 3: and he might have just had a whole different viewpoint
Speaker 3: on the way that he viewed the cases that he
Speaker 3: prosecuted going forward. But also when somebody brings a case
Speaker 3: to him from the past, he might truly care whether
Speaker 3: or not there's an innocent man sitting in jail. And
Speaker 3: we see so many cases where law enforcement or prosecutors
Speaker 3: commit would seem to be egregious acts. But in this case,
Speaker 3: we have somebody who really is worthy of being celebrated.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and in Contic's defense, he was really new
Speaker 1: when he tried the case. He wasn't actually in office
Speaker 1: when they originally charged Damon with the murder. He only
Speaker 1: kind of took over and had the case given to him.
Speaker 1: So I think he thought he did what he thought
Speaker 1: was right at the time, But as he became more
Speaker 1: experienced try more of these cases, I think he finally
Speaker 1: saw the warning signs and realized that this was an
Speaker 1: innocent man. So when Paul Konnick Junior examined doctor Welner's analysis,
Speaker 1: along with the results of the DNA testing and the
Speaker 1: other discredited evidence, he was finally convinced that the wrong
Speaker 1: person had been sent to prison. Connick and Damon's defense
Speaker 1: team subsequently filed a joint motion to drop the indictment
Speaker 1: against him, and this prompted a judge to vacate Damon's conviction.
Speaker 1: On September twenty eighth, twenty twelve, after sixteen years of incarceration,
Speaker 1: Damon was finally released from death row and became a
Speaker 1: free man. This turned out to be a significant milestone,
Speaker 1: as Damon officially became the three hundredth wrongly convicted individual
Speaker 1: in the United States to be exonerated by DNA testing.
Speaker 1: Following his release, Damon moved to Minnesota and began working
Speaker 1: at Frederickson and Byron, the law froom who represented him
Speaker 1: and since he had never graduated high school, Damon finally
Speaker 1: decided to obtain his ged At the time he was arrested,
Speaker 1: Damon had a five year old son named Josh, though
Speaker 1: they had not been in contact since Damon broke up
Speaker 1: with Josh's mother years earlier. While he was incarcerated, Damon
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to Josh, who was living in Alabama
Speaker 1: at the time, and while they continued to correspond and
Speaker 1: started building up a relationship, Damon would not allow his
Speaker 1: son to visit him on death row, and they would
Speaker 1: have their first in person meeting on the day Damon
Speaker 1: walked out of prison. While making his living as a
Speaker 1: long haul trucker, Damon became an active speaker for wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction reform and once stated during an interview, quote the
Speaker 1: best part of my day, no matter how good the
Speaker 1: rest of my day is, is when I wake up
Speaker 1: every morning and I don't see those bars end quote.
Speaker 1: He eventually moved to Jacksonville, Florida, but unfortunately, on August
Speaker 1: the thirty first, twenty twenty one, Damon would succumb to
Speaker 1: complications from COVID nineteen and died at the age of
Speaker 1: forty seven. Even though the investigation into the murder of
Speaker 1: Crystal Champagne was reopened following Damon's release. There does not
Speaker 1: seem to have been much progress with finding a resolution,
Speaker 1: and the identity of Crystal's real killer remains unknown. So
Speaker 1: I guess you could say the path when Chile.
Speaker 2: Do you guys see the fact that he spent one
Speaker 2: third of his life behind bars. He was forty seven
Speaker 2: years old when he died, and he spent sixteen years
Speaker 2: right in prison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is just so sad. It always breaks my
Speaker 1: heart when these wrongly convicted people are released and then
Speaker 1: die like only a few years later, a short time later.
Speaker 2: It's so sad. He lost his chance to be a dad,
Speaker 2: because yes, he got to meet his adult son and
Speaker 2: be with him, but that's so different, right, like being
Speaker 2: a parent to your children, mother in the home, while
Speaker 2: they're growing up, while they're in school, while they're doing
Speaker 2: you know, t ball and all kinds of things, versus
Speaker 2: you know, having an adult friendship with an adult child.
Speaker 2: Those are two very different phases of life. So he
Speaker 2: lost the ability if he wanted to to be a
Speaker 2: very active member of his son's life. That didn't happen.
Speaker 2: And not only was he in prison, y'all. He was
Speaker 2: on death row, like waiting thinking every day it takes
Speaker 2: one pen to sign a date of when I'm going
Speaker 2: to be executed, right, And that's horrified to think about.
Speaker 2: This is not just someone who was in prison. This
Speaker 2: guy was could have been killed for something he didn't do. Remember,
Speaker 2: that's one of the things that actually the police lied
Speaker 2: to him in the interrogation room, threatening him with the
Speaker 2: death penalty and then saying, hey, if you can tell
Speaker 2: us what happened, like we can make sure that doesn't
Speaker 2: happen to you. What they signed a you know, they
Speaker 2: signed a death sentence for him, is what they did
Speaker 2: when they convicted him. And one third of this poor
Speaker 2: man's life was sentence was spent behind bars. Think about it.
Speaker 2: The only thing he had on his record before that
Speaker 2: was a marijuana charge, two minor marijuana charges. That it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. No one deserves to be wrongfully convicted. But
Speaker 2: this is some kid who just stumbles into an interrogation
Speaker 2: room tries to say, listen, I can get this all
Speaker 2: to be shut down if I just tell them what
Speaker 2: they want to hear and I'll figure it out later.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, he figures it out. What almost two decades
Speaker 2: later when he's being released after a wrongful conviction, but
Speaker 2: the fact he was on death row, the fact that
Speaker 2: a third of his life was spent there and he
Speaker 2: lost so many aspects of the life he should have
Speaker 2: been granted. It's horrific and we still have no justice.
Speaker 1: Yes, on our next episode, we're finally going to talk
Speaker 1: about a potential alternate suspect and the murder of Crystal Champagne.
Speaker 1: And once you hear about who this is, you'll be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how did they not focus on this
Speaker 1: guy right away rather than Damon? So that's what makes
Speaker 1: the whole case all the more frustrating and heartbreaking. So
Speaker 1: this would be a good time to bring an in
Speaker 1: to part one, So join us next week as we
Speaker 1: present part two of our series about the murder of
Speaker 1: Crystal Champagne.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus at episodes
Speaker 1: in which I talk about cases which are not featured
Speaker 1: on The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive
Speaker 1: to Patreon and if you join our highest tier, tier three,
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsaved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 1: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and ashy Patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons will link
Speaker 4: them in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 1: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy