Tony: 0:03

For the last 26 years, Rachael Geiser has worked in the shadows of America's most notorious trials. As a criminal defense investigator, she stood beside defense teams in cases that shook the country Damian Eccles in the West Memphis Three, Jesse Dotson in the Lester Street case and many more that never made the headlines but changed lives forever. Let's pull back the curtain and hear what really happened. Welcome to the Geiser Files, hey Rachael. Episode 3. How's it going?

Rachael: 0:36

It's going fine, Tony. How are you?

Tony: 0:38

We're going to try something new.

Rachael: 0:39

Okay.

Tony: 0:40

We're going to try doing something called case updates.

Rachael: 0:42

Case updates, and now is this on my cases or just generally.

Tony: 0:45

Well, I guess just generally.

Rachael: 0:47

Okay.

Tony: 0:48

Although on occasion we will get updates from your cases too.

Rachael: 0:51

Okay.

Tony: 0:52

But there's been developments in the Tyree Nichols case, a case of local and national significance, but not one that you worked on.

Rachael: 1:01

Not a case I worked on, so I've only been following and have information just like the regular public.

Tony: 1:06

Quick summary Tyree Nichols, driving in Memphis, pulled over, turned into a beating. He dies a few days later in the hospital. Lots of video of cops beating him up. Five in particular were charged in state and federal court. They were acquitted in state court.

Rachael: 1:25

Three of them went to trial.

Tony: 1:26

Three of them went to trial and were found not guilty.

Rachael: 1:29

In state court.

Tony: 1:30

That's crazy to me. In federal court they were found guilty of some of the charges.

Rachael: 1:36

Yeah, I believe one of them was found guilty on four counts of the indictment and the other two were found guilty on at least one count of something lesser, I believe. Okay. They had not been sentenced at the time. They went to state. They went to federal trial first.

Tony: 1:50

Okay.

Rachael: 1:51

And that happened and they were awaiting sentencing in federal court. While they had their state trial, they quit it in state court and then were supposed to be sentenced in federal court. Okay, when something's at.

Tony: 2:04

So they were found guilty of some charges in federal court Okay, when something's at. So they were found guilty of some charges in federal court, were awaiting sentencing when the judge in the case, judge Norris, recused himself from the sentencing portion.

Rachael: 2:14

He did.

Tony: 2:15

A new judge was appointed, Judge Lippman.

Rachael: 2:18

Lippman yes.

Tony: 2:18

Judge Lippman and she, instead of proceeding with sentencing, granted the three found guilty defendants new trials. Correct. What does it mean?

Rachael: 2:29

Well, it means that they'll have a new trial, potentially, or there's some sort of settlement.

Tony: 2:36

Why did she? What reason did she give?

Rachael: 2:39

Oh well, you and I both read the order and we know nothing more than what's in the order, but in the order it looks like there were allegations the defense attorneys made that the judge and before sentencing I think that he felt like I think his clerk had been the victim of a crime in memphis and he felt that maybe the defendant, one of the defendants or more, were involved in that and then made comments allegedly that the one or more the defendants had was in a gang and that he felt like the Memphis Police Department was infiltrated with gang ties.

Tony: 3:30

Seems a little far-fetched to me, but it does sound like a good ruling.

Rachael: 3:34

Yeah, I would be really interested in knowing. You know, how did the defense attorneys find out that the statements were made? Attorneys find out that the statements were made and then, um, from the ruling itself I've the last paragraph of that ruling I find interesting, because the question now becomes what are they going to be tried on, right? So they, three of them, were found, they went to trial. One of them was found guilty on four counts and the other two are found guilty, not on one count of something, but not guilty on some things. So are they going back to trial on the original indictment?

Tony: 4:08

Right or only on what they potentially what that means is they were acquitted of some of the charges against them and so if they go back and retry them on that, it sounds like double jeopardy.

Rachael: 4:19

Yeah, we're not lawyers, so we have no. You know, we can't lawyerly speak to this.

Tony: 4:25

But I do have legal opinions.

Rachael: 4:27

You do.

Tony: 4:28

That was not one of them, though.

Rachael: 4:30

So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out and what else comes of it. If anything with respect to you know any of the comments that Judge Norris you know allegedly made in this hearing ex parte hearing so we'll see what happens with that.

Tony: 4:44

OK, there was another case you wanted, you thought was interesting.

Rachael: 4:48

Yeah, you know it was. It happened this past summer. There was a case, a capital murder case, I'd worked on in Tennessee, Clarence Nesbitt. He was on death row for a very long time. I did not work his case when it was pre-trial. I worked on Clarence's case when I was at Inquisitor in post-conviction and it was actually the first time I testified at a post-conviction hearing as a. I was actually classified as an expert fact investigator and could then testify about things that had been done in the original investigation by that investigator and what should have been done. And I did testify during his post-conviction in that capacity.

Rachael: 5:34

Clarence's case was eventually. He was eventually given a new sentencing hearing, which means that his conviction for murder stood first-degree murder, but that the appellate courts or Supreme Court, I'm not sure who handled that ruling down said that they thought he deserved a new sentencing hearing because whatever happened during his original sentencing wasn't sufficient or other reasons that had been ongoing for years. I mean what was happening with whether or not he was going to go have the hearing? And the state was up until this past June they were still seeking the death penalty against him and then this past June they withdrew their death notice. So he is no longer on death row.

Tony: 6:21

So he's safe from execution. Correct Interesting Correct Interesting.

Rachael: 6:25

Yes, so that was a big update on a case that had been ongoing for many, many years.

Tony: 6:31

As most of these cases do, but he's not getting out of jail.

Rachael: 6:32

No, he's still in prison.

Tony: 6:34

yes, Do you call that a win, huge yeah.

Rachael: 6:36

Anytime anyone is removed from death row. Now you know, I do personally think that's a huge win. Yes, I do personally. I think that's a huge win. Yes, I do.

Tony: 6:44

Is that the end of the updates?

Rachael: 6:46

That is the end of the updates for today. I think that's a lot. That's a lot of updated news.

Tony: 6:50

A lot of updates. All right, then Back to what. Where are we going now?

Rachael: 6:54

We ended the West Memphis 3 case.

Tony: 6:56

The introduction.

Rachael: 6:57

The introduction with me creating the task list back in 2006 and then beginning the work on the case right. Mm-hmm.

Rachael: 7:07

Okay, so I'm working the case, doing lots of interviews, all the things on my task list. At some point everyone kind of realized that one of the stepfathers had never been interviewed or we had no police report. Terry Hobbs is the stepfather of Stevie Branch, who was one of the eight-year-old victims on this case. In the discovery that we had, we realized, you know, mark Byers had been interviewed several times by the police. Other family members had been interviewed.

Rachael: 7:37

Todd Moore was out of town. That was Michael Moore's dad, mark Byers was Chris Byers' dad and there was just nothing really from Terry Hobbs. So, you know, we felt like we should at least go talk to him to see if he's willing to talk to us and tell us his whereabouts that day. So in February of 2007, that's what Ron and I did we went to talk to Terry Hobbs about where he was and what he could tell us about the case and his thoughts on it. I mean, he was home and I believe it was a Saturday morning in February of 2007, and he invited us inside into his living room and he spoke to us for as long as we really wanted to talk to him, I think, about the case and gave us a rundown of where he was, and that was the first time that Terry had been interviewed by anyone on the case police or defense about where he was on May the 3rd of 1993. I'm sorry, may the 5th of 1993.

Tony: 8:42

That seems extraordinary to me, that you were the first people to talk to him.

Rachael: 8:45

Yeah, it was extraordinary to us as well how that happened. I mean, if you looked at— Cops didn't talk to him. Cops never talked to him at the time. They had made visits to the home. I believe within the reports something was noted and I don't even remember which officer it was, but that they had stopped by and that he just wasn't home. They talked to Pam. There was really nothing in there about an official interview with him.

Tony: 9:12

Paradise Lost documentarians. They didn't talk to him either.

Rachael: 9:16

Well, they probably talked to him. That's actually a really good question. He's all over the documentaries. He was with Pam the whole time during the trials, If you've seen Paradise Lost, which is an amazing documentary really the catalyst.

Tony: 9:28

But they weren't interviewing him in that way.

Rachael: 9:30

No, paradise Lost was the catalyst, but they weren't interviewing him in that way. No right, but it was the. You know paradise last was a catalyst for everything that's happened since or that ever came up, or if they were just filming. I really don't know if they were just filming in a more. I'm here filming you kind of capacity rather than a directed question capacity. I mean, we know a lot of the documentary documentaries that have been done since are more of tell us you know, tell us things and I think you know Joe and Bruce did that maybe to some extent, but not necessarily about you know. Where were you, what were you doing?

Tony: 10:01

Right.

Rachael: 10:01

I don't know though.

Tony: 10:02

Yeah, they had other focus, didn't they?

Rachael: 10:04

Yeah, I actually just that's so interesting that you brought that up, because just recently I listened to an interview that Joe did Joe Berlinger did with the man who does the Wrongful Conviction podcast a really good podcast. Joe was talking about his introduction to why you know how he and Bruce got sent down to Arkansas and did this, and this is so interesting that you're talking about that. But yeah, I mean he was. I think he said he originally went down there to film you know this case, this salacious case of these teen guys that were accused of killing kids, and his producers said go down there and film this, and then it just obviously turned into something much Ron and I talking to Terry, okay, so also what's going on on the case as well. At the time of the investigation, is DNA reports coming back right? Mm-hmm.

Rachael: 11:06

So a lot of evidence had been sent off and DNA profiles had been attained from some of the evidence to try to figure out who did it, or did the defendants do it Somebody else? And of note that is hugely important is that you know none of the defendants' DNA was anywhere in that crime scene or any of the evidence that the police had.

Rachael: 11:29

So that had happened, but there were some potentially other, you know, unknown people or any of the evidence that the police had, so that had happened, but there were some potentially other, you know, unknown people, so we're trying to figure that out. Who is this right? So while we're at Terry's house, I take you know he gets up and he uses the restroom and while he was away I grabbed a couple of cigarette butts out of his ashtray and then Ron and I had also grabbed some cigarette butts out of his front yard finished the interview, sent those where they needed to be sent and then moved on. You know we continued on our investigations, looking at all kinds of things and whatever else was in my task list or things to do or whatever else the attorneys or Fran or you know wherever we were going Right and, to be honest with you, I moved on from that interview, just working on the case.

Rachael: 12:21

May of 2007 rolls around. The defense attorneys are in Little Rock for a meeting with Peretti, who's the medical examiner on the case and did the original the autopsies. Also, at the time, as everyone knows, we had the defense had retained the experts of several pathologists and all of them came back disagreeing with the original autopsy and the medical examiner, peretti about the cause of the injuries to the boys. Right.

Tony: 12:49

Yeah, let's talk about those, the nature of those injuries. For a little bit, give people a picture.

Rachael: 12:54

I'll do the best I can, yes.

Tony: 12:55

Their bodies were found in a lake, number one. Is that correct or no?

Rachael: 12:59

No, not a lake, it's like a drainage ditch in Robin Hood Hills. Okay.

Tony: 13:02

And their bodies were defaced a little bit apparently.

Rachael: 13:07

Yes, there were all kinds of markings on the bodies that the state of Arkansas alleged happened with some sort of cutting instrument okay, so Peretti and these are my words, saying that the boys were maybe tortured or mutilated with like a knife or something right this when all of this played into the state's theory that it was a satanic ritualistic killing right?

Tony: 13:32

okay, and that was not true 100, not true.

Rachael: 13:35

And that is so when your science gets it wrong, right when your science and this is actually something I've noticed on my many cases over the years, not just this case- but, when on my murder cases, in particular when, obviously because the medical examiner comes in on my murder cases, they come in, they determine cause of death, right, they are supposed to tell you, looking at the science of things, how this person was injured. If they get that wrong, it changes the whole landscape of the case. So he said that the injuries were inflicted.

Tony: 14:13

Dr, Peretti.

Rachael: 14:14

Dr Peretti, yes, said that the injuries were inflicted with a knife. It looked like there were some cutting, possibly some mutilation.

Tony: 14:21

Yeah, he was wrong. And what did your experts say?

Rachael: 14:26

It was all animal predation.

Tony: 14:28

Animal predation. What does that mean?

Rachael: 14:30

So when they were placed in the water or laying on the bank of the ditch, wherever they were, that animals had caused those wounds.

Tony: 14:40

After death, most likely post-mortem in this case it was, we think, maybe turtles yes, so um robin hood hills.

Rachael: 14:48

within it, one, one of the hills in particular was called Turtle Hill and that had become because there had been sightings of snapping turtles I mean, this is Arkansas in May and also, you know, who knows what was in the water if they were on the water.

Tony: 15:02

There's all kinds of activity in water, so yes, Snapping turtles are a lot different than a knife.

Rachael: 15:10

Yes, animals are much different than knives. Yes, so that turtles are a lot different than a knife. Yes, animals are much different than knives. Yes, so that's going on right. So not only is the whole like the DNA coming back, not pointing to the defendants, I think once you—I remember when Ron came down and told me that the experts were all agreeing that it was animal predation Like that really changed the whole thinking on— everything so and they were all in agreement about it. This was not just one. You know disagreeing like four others, right?

Tony: 15:38

Did they consult each other?

Rachael: 15:40

I don't know.

Tony: 15:41

Right. They independently reached the same conclusion.

Rachael: 15:43

Right, as far as I know like I was not involved in those conversations with the pathologists that we had retained Um, but I knew that Peter Jackson has talked about this in West of Memphis that they, they, you know, he, they felt like getting one expert was fine, but how about we get five, you know, and see what they all say? Right, and they were all in agreement and that really just changed so many things about how you considered what could have happened on this case. And, like I said, I've seen that so many times on some of my other cases.

Rachael: 16:14

In my opinion, there are times that medical examiners do not consider, mostly this. They don't look at the science enough, rather than there are I don't know if you know this or not on cases police officers will give the medical examiner like a summary of what a witness might have said, or especially on cases that involve children, they will defer many times and when I say they generally I've seen this happen. So I can't say this is all medical examiners, but there are some that I have seen in my cases that defer to police officers to hear what they have to say about what happened before they even determine what they think happened. I just think that's crazy. Yeah, I don't think they should be doing that at all.

Tony: 17:03

Should be double blind somehow.

Rachael: 17:05

Yes, I agree. I mean, maybe that happened on this case. I don't know if Peretti's ever been asked.

Tony: 17:10

I would give them not the out, maybe, but I would give them the leeway to, after they draw some initial conclusion, to modify that conclusion after they hear the summary. Does that make sense?

Rachael: 17:20

No, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, they can't just be blind to everything, and they, I mean that might be asking too much. I don't know, I would like it to be completely though.

Tony: 17:30

And there are limits, like even the best medical examiner can't tell you everything, no, right. But and but a very, very good medical examiner can't tell you everything no Right.

Rachael: 17:36

But a very, very good medical examiner will admit that, and that's maybe how you know the really good ones.

Tony: 17:43

Yeah, you say I don't know, and a lot of the science that they rely on, especially in this case, turned out to be bunk science, right?

Rachael: 17:50

Let me pause for a second and think back to the trials. Like I said, I wasn't there for the trials, I trials. I've only, you know, read and seen what was in the documentaries well, for example, what I'm thinking about.

Tony: 18:01

Some guy shows up and looks at graffiti at a you know and decides that there is significant satanic activity in the area yeah, because he's an expert.

Rachael: 18:12

Oh, you mean just on experts and you're I'm using air quotes right with that.

Tony: 18:17

And I'm thinking of other cases too, where it's turned out that you know like a lot of the ballistic science is bullshit, like you cannot tell in many cases what gun a bullet came out of.

Rachael: 18:29

Okay, you know what I mean. All right, I'm going to defer to you on that.

Tony: 18:32

Yeah, I'll provide some documentation later.

Rachael: 18:34

Oh okay, all right. Or on that, yeah, I'll provide some documentation later. Oh, okay, alright. Or you can talk about it later if you want what you run across. I find that interesting Now. I have been to seminars before where they talk about junk science, potentially with respect to ballistics.

Tony: 18:46

Handwriting analysis, stuff like that yeah we used to.

Rachael: 18:48

That's interesting. I mean handwriting. That used to come up quite a bit and you never hear that anymore.

Tony: 18:54

We're a little bit off topic, but I think this is interesting. What do you think about polygraph exams?

Rachael: 18:58

Bonk.

Tony: 19:00

Really yeah, our federal government still relies on that for security clearances and stuff.

Rachael: 19:06

Oh, that's true. Yeah, so no, I mean, look at what polygraph. I mean every person on this case, in this case, damien's case they were polygraphed at the time.

Tony: 19:17

Is that right?

Rachael: 19:18

Oh, yeah, no, oh, maybe if you didn't know that, Well, I've forgotten. Yeah, so yeah, the police, they would talk to someone and then they polygraph them and then they would determine whether or not they were being truthful or not.

Rachael: 19:28

Do I? I mean honestly, and I've done no real research into polygraphs but or they're reliable. I mean they're so unreliable you can't use them in court, right? You can't use, you can't introduce that they failed. A polygraph I I think I'm just giving a very layperson viewpoint on this any tool you use, I think, is going to be good or bad based on who is using the tool, right? So whoever the examiner is, how good are they? Mm-hmm. Do they know what they're doing? What's the tell me about your equipment? You know? So I think it might be subjective.

Tony: 20:05

Yeah, even you know stuff like narcotics canines. Yes. If they think that their handler wants them to hit on a car.

Rachael: 20:16

Okay, they hit All right.

Tony: 20:18

So that they get rewarded with love and affection and treats and stuff like that.

Rachael: 20:22

Yes, I think there's.

Tony: 20:23

And now, the police officer can use that hit to search a vehicle or make an arrest or something like that.

Rachael: 20:29

All things that should always be considered when you decide to charge someone Like look at how everything played out.

Tony: 20:36

I read an article recently about a roadside drug test, right. So if you find a suspicious substance, you start mixing things up on the side of the highway and if it turns blue you know you've got heroin or whatever it is.

Rachael: 20:48

Okay.

Tony: 20:50

And they got a lot of convictions out of that. But it turns out it would turn blue like 80% of the time.

Rachael: 20:56

Oh really.

Tony: 20:56

No, you know, with like baking powder you put in there and it'll test positive for heroin.

Rachael: 21:01

Interesting.

Tony: 21:02

So a lot of cases got thrown out. For that I'll have to find you some details, but I thought that was really cool.

Rachael: 21:06

How many people went to jail for that? A lot. Now are they still in jail.

Tony: 21:10

I think a lot of them. I don't know honestly, I don't, I have to go look it up, but I think a lot of these folks got out well, I hope so yeah, me too so back to the original.

Rachael: 21:18

We were talking about peretti and you know, getting the science wrong from the beginning and how that could just change everything and that, and how innocent people can go to prison, right, which is one of the reasons that this case happened the way it played out, in my opinion. Get the science wrong, you get everything wrong, which is so interesting because obviously now we're, we're hoping to rely on science we'll get to that later to find out who really did it, right, right.

Tony: 21:47

So do you want to talk about that now?

Rachael: 21:50

or no. No, we can do that in a later episode. Okay, just getting off the timeline a little bit, I think so, um, but with terry, with doing the interview with Terry, so we have the DNA with cigarette butts. We do know that there was a hair in the literature of Michael Moore that they were able to get mitochondrial DNA off of May of 2007,. They're at this meeting. I'm not there, I don't, you know.

Tony: 22:14

What kind of meeting?

Rachael: 22:15

Oh the attorney. So I don't know if all of the attorneys were there. I don't you know what kind of meeting. Oh the attorney. So I don't know if all of the attorneys were there. I know Lori was there, dennis was there, dawn was there, gerald Skane was there, who's a local attorney that we were using at the time. He's a good friend of mine. That night I get a call from Lori and I'm at home with you guys. I take the call out on the front porch and she tells me that the DNA report had come back and that so whatever DNA they pulled off of the you know the expert pulled off of one of the cigarette butts, or one or more of the cigarette butts, I can't remember was consistent with the profile of the from the hair from the literature. So Terry Hobbs, the cigarette butts that we took from Terry Hobbs, that DNA was consistent with one of the hairs from the literature of Michael Moore.

Tony: 23:09

So the hair that we're talking about was tied up with the victim.

Rachael: 23:14

It was in the literature and honestly, I honestly can't give you a more descriptive. I don't know because I didn't.

Tony: 23:20

Well, I'm just saying it was there it was at the time of death and and I wish I could.

Rachael: 23:26

You know, I didn't do the analysis. I don't know how, how it was if the literature was cut and then they found this here. I really don't know.

Rachael: 23:31

But I know it was a hair from the literature, that's what I know, gotcha. So really the focus of the investigation. So obviously that's interesting, right. I mean, we've turned a lot of our attention investigative-wise and for the investigation, I should say, looking at, you know, what do we know about Terry Hopps? The police ended up bringing Terry in for an interview, you know, finally, I believe that was June of 2007. Interview, you know, finally, I believe that was june of 2007. The clients were eventually released, you know, after dennis, brilliantly argued before the supreme court.

Rachael: 24:04

And well they. They were granted an evidentiary hearing because of that and they're out now. But we still don't know who did it right when dennis was going to argue before the Arkansas Supreme Court about all this new stuff. You know the juror, misconduct claims, no DNA matching. You know our clients and asking you know for a new evidentiary hearing. I wanted to be there, Really, really wanted to see that firsthand Planned on being there, except Jesse Dotson's case. The proof was starting on Jesse's case that day. I remember I'll never forget it that the morning that proof started on Jesse was the same day that Dennis was arguing.

Rachael: 24:47

You know, all this new stuff before the Arkansas Supreme Court on the front page of the Commercial Appeal, which was the main paper in our town at that time. This would have been August, I'm sorry, september of 2010. Above the fold that's what you used to call, like important things on the front page of newspapers, right, and I don't even think our kids would know what that means. But uh, above the fold was either damien's case or jesse's, and below the fold was either Damien. So one of them was above the fold, the other one was below the fold and I just found that so striking to me personally.

Rachael: 25:24

Yeah, you took up the entire first page of the paper of record, the two biggest cases of my career that ever probably that I'll ever be involved in in some way.

Tony: 25:35

Did you keep that newspaper?

Rachael: 25:36

No, I wish someone had it still. Yeah, but I mean I had so much going on that day. It was the first day of proof on Jesse.

Tony: 25:42

Which I thought While.

Rachael: 25:43

I was also thinking of what was happening, you know, in Little Rock. I just thought that was so crazy, you know. Then you know it was the beginning of you know the end, really, for Damien, because he was granted the evidentiary hearing and then released.

Tony: 26:02

Things started to happen pretty quick around then.

Rachael: 26:04

And then for Jesse, you know going to trial, you know hopeful that things would turn out differently. Yeah, so that was crazy to me, where we go from here. I think, with respect to the West Memphis Three case, I think we should next most likely talk about the day of release. You were there for that, so you can speak to that as well that night. I think that's a good story. What do you think?

Tony: 26:29

Yeah, I like that. It's a good idea.

Rachael: 26:32

Thanks for letting me relive that part of you know my journey on the West Memphis Three case and I do want to say too that you know I've done interviews about lots of things with respect to Damien's case, the West of Memphis documentary. Honestly, I was asked to do an interview to be on the investigation discovery special. They did you turned it down.

Rachael: 27:00

I turned it down, yeah, and I remember the lady said to me I think I she asked me why, and I said well, you know this case has been talked about, you know, many times. There's other people talking about it. I don't really think it's necessary that I continue to talk about it. She said well, you know, rachel, if you stop talking about it especially the role that you played in it and like how things played out with the new investigation and those sort of things people will forget, and if people forget about it, then it could happen again. Right, that has stuck with me too. She was right about that. But you know I didn't do the interview. I didn't so and like I said when we started this podcast, you know I think I'm ready to start talking about these sort of things again and these stories.

Tony: 27:47

So here, we are and you're doing it.

Rachael: 27:50

Yeah, okay.

Tony: 27:51

Well, I love you.

Rachael: 27:53

Love you too, Thanks for.