Original subtitles

Mother, mother

Open the door

My whole body

Is shivering with cold

Mother, mother

Open the door

On my shoulder

There's a heavy burden

The night passed

The snow arrived

And ripped through my bones

My young, little girl

Sent a love letter

Anyone who thought that after the police announcement

that Tair Rada's murderer was captured,

Katzrin would let out a sigh of relief

was mistaken.

I still have a bad gut feeling.

I want to see the fingerprints, the DNA tests.

Something still smells fishy.

You doubt the police's version?

OHAD, TAIR'S BROTHER

I don't doubt the policemen, but something inside me...

I don't know.

The next step is all about legal proceedings.

You go to court for the arraignment

and publicly announce Roman Zadorov retracts his confession

and declares his innocence.

Roman, how are you?

-No good. -Why?

I didn't kill the girl.

-You didn't? -Of course not.

I'm under constant pressure. I want my family.

I can't take it. I want to go home.

The questions regarding the investigation of Roman Zadorov started to come up

the minute his lawyers, the Spiegels, came into the picture

and started asking questions,

and the police couldn't come up with the answers.

I asked the police representative

if there was evidence linking Roman to the murder scene.

And she answered, "Yes, Roman's DNA was found there."

That came as a real blow.

A month ago, the police testified in court

that traces of DNA from Roman Zadorov were found at the murder scene.

But no such finding appears in the dossier,

and no genetic link to the suspect has been found yet.

False from beginning to end.

Nothing at all links Roman Zadorov to the murder scene.

And that, by the way,

was one of the many things that made me say,

"Now, wait a minute here."

The site is 28 inches by 55 inches, and it's full of evidence.

Blood, shoe prints, DNA, hair, you name it.

It cannot be

that if Roman was there

there isn't a shred of forensic evidence linking him to it.

All of the items from Zadorov's house

arrived at our lab

and we literally dissected them.

The drainage pipe from the washing machine,

we took it all apart and searched for evidence.

We didn't find any.

On Roman Zadorov's clothing, we found nothing connected to Tair Rada.

There was no blood on his shoes at all.

We found no traces of blood on the soles of his shoes.

PHOTOS BOARD

I asked for Roman Zadorov's wedding ring.

It was unique, made up of two rings.

We had a jeweler take the ring apart

and there was no DNA or blood belonging to Tair Rada.

The absence of blood and DNA

belonging to Tair Rada on his shoes,

and especially on his ring,

is a finding that...

very much weakens the link between Roman Zadorov and the incident.

-Roman, why did you kill her? -Killed her?

Why did you kill the girl?

Why did you murder her?

-Why? Why did you kill her? -I didn't.

You did.

-Why? -I didn't.

-Did she ever speak to you? -I didn't kill her.

-Did she insult you? -I didn't kill her.

The police did everything in its power

to find a motive, because it's absurd.

How could a sane person do something so insane...

Police: We don't know the murder's motive

...that even an animal wouldn't do it?

The detectives even accused him of being a pedophile

based on pictures of underage girls on his computer.

A ridiculous claim since not one photo is of an underage girl,

and the detectives knew that.

In other words, he's an ordinary person

with no criminal thought patterns.

He's an alien who landed in the middle of the scene.

There's no connection. No connection.

We came from Ukraine.

He was my first son.

As a boy, he was quiet.

He let me sleep at night.

He was a happy boy, always smiling.

In school, everyone liked him.

Roman came to Israel

and started working as a migrant worker.

It all began like a nice dream.

Roman and I met.

That man impressed me very much.

Intelligent, funny.

After the wedding, we moved to Katzrin.

Roman found a job right away since he's good with his hands.

He started working in repairs. He made good money.

He had just finished his tiling job at school.

He was in the middle of the process of getting his Israeli citizenship,

and that very week

his son was born.

The first time he saw his son

he cried and said,

"Mom, what an amazing baby."

Nothing could be better.

So beautiful and...

He was very, very happy.

Everything looked rosy.

Why would he reshuffle the deck for no reason?

Suddenly, that evening, Olga calls,

"Mom, it's urgent, we're leaving Katzrin."

I asked why.

Nobody would tell me.

We got into a taxi and drove off.

On the way...

I asked the driver

to turn the radio on.

And on the way, I heard...

that the murderer was my son.

Roman, as a person, you regret what happened.

I can see that.

I didn't want it to happen.

I tried not to react.

But I did what I did.

It's hard to comprehend how people confess to things they didn't do.

You sit at home and wonder,

how can someone admit to murdering a little girl?

No one should confess to a crime

that he didn't commit.

However,

the fact is,

there are innocent people who confessed for crimes they didn't commit.

Since the 1990s, the American Innocence Project

has used DNA testing to get innocent prisoners acquitted.

Some were serving life sentences, others were sentenced to death.

So far, over 700 people convicted of murder

have been acquitted in the US.

A significant percentage of them confessed under questioning.

So you see that after all,

innocent people confess to crimes,

and then you ask yourself why.

For a long time, it was accepted that confession is the queen of evidence

and there are still judges who say unconditionally,

a reasonable person won't confess to a murder that he didn't commit.

It makes no sense.

A reasonable person would deny it.

Most defendants in these cases aren't your average reasonable person.

A suspect is at high risk of making a false confession

because he's a foreigner, he doesn't know the language.

His Hebrew was still very weak.

He knew a few words, mainly what he needed for work.

Do you understand that you're suspected of murder?

Do you understand... suspected...

-Yes, of murder. -What does "of murder" mean?

A man on the fringe of society,

not part of the social system he allegedly harmed,

a man who can't deal with authority.

Do you think your lawyer cares about Roman?

He doesn't care about Roman.

Lawyer wants money, newspaper.

That's what your lawyer wants from Roman. Nothing else.

I want the truth.

They started to pressure him,

that his wife wants to divorce him,

that all Katzrin knows.

They found very sensitive points in him

which eventually made him crack.

You don't want your wife to leave you, that's why you won't tell the truth.

But after Olga sees everything I have to tell her and show her,

she'll leave you.

These people underwent grueling, humiliating interrogation

that undermined their free will.

-You're a liar, a manipulator. -Okay.

You belong in jail because you're a psychopath and a pedophile.

You're everything we think you are.

I thought Roman had a good side.

I was good to you. I thought you had a good side.

But that girl's mother is out there crying all day long,

and instead of apologizing, what do you do?

What do you do, Roman?

Instead of apologizing and telling the truth,

because you killed her daughter, we know that,

just as I know my name is Yoram and yours is Roman.

It's a process.

A person who's cut off from everything else,

who's under a ton of psychological pressure that he did it,

and all that is channeled into one opening...

into which they channeled it intentionally, confession.

-Show me how you did it. -I don't know.

I didn't do it, Sasha.

-Do you want to put me in jail? -I don't want to put you in jail.

I didn't kill the girl.

-If I did, I would've said so long ago. -You're stupid.

-How should I know how she was killed? -You're stupid.

-You hear me? -Yes.

Then concentrate.

I didn't kill the girl. Write that down.

Don't worry, we'll write everything down.

I don't know how she was killed.

Let's start with the lies.

They tell Roman, "We sent your clothes to the lab and we'll see."

He says, "Good, you'll see. The lab will save me."

I know I wasn't involved.

I know I didn't kill her.

I'll wait for the lab tests to prove my innocence

that there were no traces of the girl's blood on me

and that I'm not guilty.

A few days later, they tell him, "You're in trouble.

The lab results came in. You're guilty."

I told you the lab was still testing, right?

So?

That was yesterday, right?

Today, just now...

We know you're the murderer.

I know much more than I knew yesterday.

"We found your DNA on the victim.

We found the victim's blood on your clothes, on your tools."

"What do you say to that?"

He says, "That's impossible."

They tell him, "It's a fact."

I'm telling you they found it.

That's impossible.

That's impossible. Honestly, that's impossible.

I'm telling you it was found. It's not a matter of possible/impossible.

He tells the detectives,

"You can't have falsified the lab results."

Roman, we aren't the KGB, we're the Israel Police.

The Israel Police doesn't do that.

The court knows what the Israel Police is.

The Israel Police is like this. Look, Roman. Like this.

He starts to think, "Hold on, the police don't lie.

They tell the truth.

So maybe it really happened and I don't remember."

Maybe, I don't know.

Because everyone's saying, "You killed her, you killed her."

Maybe I did kill her and I don't remember?

I don't remember that.

Maybe that's what happened.

Maybe you don't remember killing her.

I don't remember.

Maybe.

But damn it, I remember working afterwards.

I finished work as usual.

My pants were fine.

They were just too short so I threw them out.

Maybe they were bloodstained, but I didn't know what I was doing.

Could be. Damn it, I don't know.

I know of nothing more damaging to the investigation

than these ploys,

since they create a false reality.

The person starts to doubt his own memory,

to doubt his own reliability.

The police's ability to create a virtual reality

is one of the dangers that lead to false confessions.

They'll ask "How did you kill her?"

But I don't know.

Sometimes you can kill without realizing what you did.

Did you know that?

There are guys who killed but don't remember a thing.

They don't remember because they had a nervous breakdown.

A temporary loss of memory.

A blackout. You know what I mean?

If I did do it, I don't remember anything.

You see?

Arthur is a criminal who works with the police.

When he got the job,

he was offered a nice sum of money,

300 shekels per day

plus 12,000 if they get a confession.

The thing is, you'll serve a long sentence with their evidence.

Again, if you want a shorter sentence,

you'd better think.

From this, you can understand Arthur's motivation.

For ten days, he didn't let up,

hour after hour.

It doesn't matter if you say you didn't do it.

With all the evidence against you, you could get life, you know that?

The informant tells him, "If they found blood, you're done for.

You'll be convicted.

If you admit, tell them she pissed you off or something.

You'll get manslaughter."

If you get manslaughter, you'll serve six or seven years,

then go home,

but if you don't, it's a life sentence.

The informant told him,

"Listen to me, I'm the expert.

You'll get off easy."

And he sat with him

and helped him work out a confession.

Tell them everyone drove you nuts these six years, it's not just the girl.

Over my six or seven years in Israel, things have built up.

Secondly, everyone gave you dirty looks.

Everyone gave me dirty looks. Nobody spoke to me.

This thing happened with my brother.

Once I attacked my brother like a psycho.

Let's say you got mad, you did what you did.

Let's say you killed her, automatically.

It's automatic, I don't realize...

You did it automatically, that's right.

It could have been anyone.

It had nothing to do with the girl.

If I freaked out...

it wouldn't matter if it was a boy or a girl

or one of the faculty.

It could've been anyone.

Anyone who got in my way.

I wasn't shocked to hear about his confession.

I know who Roman is, and I knew they misunderstood him.

I knew he didn't understand what he was saying or being asked,

and like many immigrants,

he answered every question with a yes,

whether or not he understood.

I asked him what made him confess and re-enact the murder,

and he said he didn't remember.

I believe that he was under so much pressure,

he didn't know what he was doing.

You see this girl...

walking.

What went on between you?

Think. You have to remember.

The detective says you must remember.

What happened between you and the girl at 13:30?

One girl.

Did she speak to you? Did she ask something?

What did she want from you? How did she curse you?

What did she say to you?

Think, Roman. You have to remember.

Roman, you have to remember.

I don't remember what she said.

He doesn't remember.

Okay, we'll get back to that.

Just a second.

Where did you see her that you remember?

You don't remember what she said, but where did you see her?

On the first floor, by the stairs.

On the stairs? Going up the stairs?

Was she on the stairs?

The confession and the re-enactment simply don't match the facts.

In his confession, Roman says that after she swore at him,

he followed her up the stairs,

but two witnesses state unequivocally

that they saw Tair go up the stairs

and there was no Roman following her angrily.

At seventh period, the last period,

I came out of this classroom, I started walking out,

and just then she came...

-Who's she? -Tair.

She came from there, pinched my belly,

said hi, and went up the stairs.

I was sitting here,

then we saw a girl pass by and walk toward the stairs.

When you were sitting here,

did you see anyone or anything suspicious,

someone who doesn't belong in the school?

No.

The police are still telling us today, "We have the murderer."

SOLVING MURDER CASE

Roman Zadorov linked himself to the incident by stating details

that only the murderer of Tair Rada would know,

what the police call concealed details.

Concealed details are such that only the murderer could know.

When a suspect gives details

that only the murderer could know,

that's prime evidence.

And then we clearly see that as the police ask questions,

sometimes or even usually inadvertently,

they convey these details to the suspect

and he hears them and adopts them.

Okay, think. You're standing like this.

Is it likely she was standing like that and you did this from behind?

Look, stand behind me.

Every single concealed detail

the police conveyed, hinted at,

they told him.

I didn't know what I was doing.

Maybe I did it, but I don't know what or how.

That I don't know.

I'm on your side.

-Help me. -I'm helping you.

Roman didn't even know on which floor the murder took place.

He didn't even know where's the crime scene.

The fact that the murder took place on the second floor

was told to him over and over again by the detectives.

On Wednesday, the day of the murder,

were you on the second floor?

She goes up the stairs to the second floor.

-Someone saw you going up there too. -No.

But the detectives made a terrible mistake.

The body was actually found on the mezzanine.

How do things become clear?

Re-enactment.

In the re-enactment, he's supposed to lead the detectives

to the place where he allegedly murdered Tair.

It turns out he was actually going to lead them to the top floor

which wasn't the scene of the murder.

-Which way does she turn? -She turns right.

You turn right.

Roman tells them about the bathroom on the right.

That doesn't make sense because the bathroom is on the left.

And when they see him going up to the third floor, they don't like it.

They stop him.

Suddenly, there's a problem with the handcuffs.

Someone runs up from behind and starts fiddling with the handcuffs.

Who asked for that?

Did he complain that the handcuffs hurt? No reason.

And then Roman stops.

And what does he see?

WOMEN WC

He sees the door stained with fingerprint powder.

OUT OF ORDER

He sees the sign in Hebrew and Russian saying not to clean there,

and suddenly we hear him catch his breath.

They led him there. He didn't know.

He's pointing at the bathroom door where he saw her.

They tell him, "You want to cooperate. Good.

Tell us how you left the girl."

When you left the stall after you killed her,

where was the girl?

Tell the truth.

Where did you put her?

He doesn't know, but he wants to cooperate.

Demonstrate.

Like this.

No, get up.

They tell him, "No, don't forget

that we saw what position the girl was in."

He gets the hint that his answer is incorrect.

He tries something else.

-I am closed in, the girl was here. -Yes.

She can't be straight, the toilet is there.

Was here, did like this.

"No, Roman. Stop it."

I'll ask you again. Tell the truth.

Roman, just tell the truth.

Enough of this.

We're telling the truth here.

Men to men.

Tair was sitting on the toilet

with her upper body leaning against the wall.

To the casual observer,

it's like watching a play.

It's obvious that the man doesn't know.

He doesn't know.

The next contradiction,

where was Tair wounded?

There was a knife wound on Tair Rada's inner left forearm

which was made after her death.

After death, the blood pressure drops.

You can see there's no bleeding at the bottom of such wounds.

Is it possible that you wounded another part of her body?

If so, which?

The detectives went out of their way

to get him to talk about that wound.

Where was it?

Here, I think, around her appendix.

I think I stabbed her beneath the waist too.

Look at my body.

This is my head, my legs, my stomach,

my chest, my back, my arms.

I want you to remember something.

Where else...

did you stab her?

Think.

Roman eventually guessed that Tair's arm was slashed,

but here too, it didn't match the facts.

Since Roman had no idea

that the girl was cut after death...

he said he might have stabbed her when she raised her hand in self-defense.

Meaning, it's a defense wound.

I think I wounded her arm.

Where?

It is extremely unlikely that after her blood pressure dropped,

whether or not she was dead already

that she'd raise her arm in self-defense.

The wound was apparently caused after death.

Throughout the investigation,

Roman was certain that Tair was raped.

He was positive.

After the murder, the rumors spread very quickly,

I heard lots of stories. I heard she was raped.

Roman was afraid of being accused of rape as well.

He said, "But I didn't rape her."

I'm willing to give a sperm sample. I didn't rape her.

Then officer Azulai tells him...

Roman, if you didn't rape her, she wasn't raped.

We know that there was no rape,

and the real killer knows there was no rape.

So if this person is sure there was a rape,

he can't be the murderer.

Roman confessed that he committed the murder with a utility knife.

I slit her throat and walked away.

-With what knife? -My utility knife.

This was a weapon

that couldn't actually leave the marks

that were left on Tair's body.

The fact that the blade was serrated, as can be seen on at least one wound,

was clear from the start.

With most cut wounds, it's hard to tell if the blade was serrated,

but sometimes you can see the mark of the teeth

at the edges of the wound.

The wound on Tair Rada's chin showed the signs

of a serrated blade.

I was at a big legal medicine conference in Korea,

the biggest there is.

We took the top ten experts in the world,

the ones who write the books,

showed them the photos and asked their opinion.

Everyone, without exception, said it was definitely a serrated blade,

and two of the most prominent experts said

they can't even understand how someone can claim

that a regular blade could leave these marks?

Following the victim, wrong.

Location of the murder scene, wrong.

Position of the body, wrong.

Where she was wounded, wrong.

Whether she was raped, wrong.

Murder weapon, wrong.

What else do we need to understand that he only confessed

in order to appease his interrogators?

You want to know what I kill girl?

I can't hear you.

-You want to know what I kill girl? -Yes.

Okay. I'll do it.

They simply took an innocent man...

And framed him.

-And in the most simple jargon... -They framed him.

that anyone can understand...

they framed him.

Black raven

Black raven

Why are you hovering around my head?

You won't catch any prey today

Black raven, I'm not your prey

Zadorov's trial began today,

the pre-meditated murder of Tair Rada in a Katzrin school.

One hundred twenty-four witnesses will try to convince the judges

that Zadorov murdered her.

Perhaps then Tair's family will get the answers

to the many questions still unanswered.

I, with a stone upon my heart,

a knife in my belly,

am determined to find out who murdered Tair.

I come to every hearing

and listen to every interrogation

and I gradually realize it's one-sided.

You can feel it, the hostility of the court,

from the very beginning,

the bias against the defense's witnesses

and for the prosecution's,

you can't miss it.

Roman Zadorov's trial, like many others like it,

begins with the assumption of guilt.

It begins with the assumption that he must disprove the accusation.

And a defense attorney in that situation,

his ability to challenge the prosecution's narrative,

is very problematic.

My lab was given

all the photographs from the crime scene

and we went over each one on the computer.

Then I saw shoe prints that simply cried out.

I called in the police force's shoe print expert, Yaron Shor,

to figure out whose shoes they were.

We got the shoes that Roman Zadorov wore on the day of the crime,

Salamander brand.

There was a match between the size and model of the shoe

seized from Zadorov

as the shoe print found on her pants.

I got goosebumps.

You could see the mark on her jeans

and his shoe was a perfect fit.

It goes against everything you see.

You start to put a picture together

and suddenly it goes down the drain.

We have a confession as well as forensic evidence

that the defendant stepped on the victim.

And the whole being greater than the sum of its parts,

you can't fight this combination.

The first time I started to think that Zadorov might be the murderer

was when the police expert Yaron Shor stepped in.

We hear his testimony,

and I'm impressed by his thoroughness and reliability,

and I walk out absolutely sure that Zadorov murdered Tair.

We saw we had a tough job before us.

Even if we bring up the best arguments against the confession

and show the unacceptable methods

and how the concealed details aren't really concealed details,

as long as the evidence of the shoe prints remains intact,

we're in trouble.

So we searched,

and found that William Bodziak

is the international oracle in the field of shoe print comparison.

He had a long career with the FBI

and he wrote the "Bible" on the subject.

We found Bodziak and sent him all the material.

In the end, he wrote back,

"It's a shocker."

The moment I got that e-mail from Bodziak,

I realized that Roman Zadorov really isn't the murderer.

Last month, the world's leading expert in shoe print comparison

came to the police forensics lab.

I don't see any curve.

-The lines are here. -They're on the other side.

Bodziak's opinion comes as a shock.

The world's leading expert stated that not only can it not be determined

that it is indeed Zadorov's shoe print,

it can't even be determined that it's a shoe print at all.

The District Court simply dismissed the evidence.

They said, "He claims it's possible

that these marks of blood aren't even shoe prints."

But Judge Cohen says,

"I'm a layman, and I can see with my own eyes

that it's a shoe print.

So even if an expert tells me it isn't, I won't listen to him.

I'll say that he's biased, he's amateurish."

Judges believe policemen.

Judges come from the same system,

either they're former prosecutors or they were always judges.

When I was in police forensics,

I submitted over 10,000 professional opinions to court.

Approximately two were dismissed.

I now work in the private sector.

I do the same work I did with the police,

and if I've submitted, let's say, 10,000 professional opinions,

then maybe two were accepted.

Dozens of witnesses for the defense,

girls who have no vested interest,

professionals, former policemen,

they're all, without exception,

charlatans, con artists, scoundrels, liars.

And all the witnesses for the prosecution are perfect saints.

In addition, let me tell you something else that you may not know.

All in all,

in the toilet stall locked from the inside,

there are three bloody shoe prints.

One on the toilet seat,

one on the toilet tank,

and a third print on the wall between the stalls.

These three prints illustrate an escape route from the stall.

Shoe prints drenched with blood

which everyone agrees do not belong to Roman Zadorov.

How did they get there?

They checked the rescue crew,

all the paramedics,

it isn't any of them,

neither by their testimony nor by their shoe prints.

Logic dictates that they must be the shoe prints

of the murderer fleeing the scene,

and if Roman Zadorov didn't leave the prints,

as everyone agrees,

then Roman Zadorov isn't the murderer.

Three judges ruled unanimously today,

Roman Zadorov murdered Tair Rada.

HE MURDERED HER

"The verdict is based on a convincing, thorough body of evidence

that left no doubt that the defendant Roman Zadorov is the murderer,"

state the judges.

We were surprised at the verdict.

We were sure he'd be coming home with us.

I thought that by now, in 2010,

our courts would be more just.

I'm disappointed by the whole justice system.

I feel nothing.

I stopped feeling in the first month

when I knew for sure he's the murderer.

We're glad to say today

that the solid evidence that we brought to court,

not flimsy theories,

were the deciding factor.

The court couldn't explain one thing,

the three shoe prints of a different person.

How can they say that Roman Zadorov is the murderer?

Nobody investigated the world that Tair lived in.

Where are all her wonderful friends?

Her poor, sad friends?

And to the end of my days, I will live

to find out who murdered Tair.