All language subtitles for True.Crime.Story.It.Couldnt.Happen.Here.S01E12.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_Eng_sdh

[dramatic music]

♪

♪

We are in Stanislaus County,

the agricultural center
of the United States.

These are almond orchards.

How cool.

Oh, that's so cool.

And we're only, like,
a mile outside of town.

Turlock in Stanislaus County--

it is
a heavily agriculture area,

and that helps
build the community.

Our town is probably one
of the best all along the 99.

You can kind of get
everything you need here.

It's just a nice, quaint,
peaceful place to live.

♪

This is literally Americana,
with the tree-lined street

that creates the little... canopy.

And everything's orderly.

I have to imagine
this is a really good,

like, trick-or-treating town.

I mean, it's beautiful here.

But there's a problem,

and it is drugs.

And so we see a lot of folks
like this

really struggling,

just walking up and down
the main drag.

That's not fun.

Specifically in Turlock,

there's a lot
of heroin and meth.

You see it in the people

that come and try
to sell stuff to us.

They're trying to sell us
stolen stuff, or they're--

You know, sometimes I think
they're stealing from us, too.

The methamphetamine epidemic

and the crimes
associated with it are--

You name it.
Everything's open.

It's open game.
It's the Wild West out here.

Oh, and the police presence
is huge.

We have seen
so much law enforcement

just even in, like,
a five-block radius.

The very things that make this

a successful
agricultural community,

you know, the way they can send
out food everywhere in America,

it's the same reason
this has become a drug hub.

And in this case,
drugs play a huge part.

In 2012, a young man named
Korey Kauffman went missing,

and a huge investigation
was launched.

And it turned
into one of the longest,

most expensive trials

not only
in this county's history,

but in the State of California.

I'm Kevin Pickett.

I'm Korey's stepfather.

I've had him
since he was a year old,

and I've grown to love him
more than even life itself.

He loved life.

You could hear him
singing in the shower.

He'd come out of the bathroom,
you know, with a towel on.

He'd slide across the floor
like Tom Cruise in that movie.

He's always been a great kid,

but he just got in with
the wrong people in this town.

And I think a lot
of things happened to him

because of this town.

Korey had a problem with meth,

and he started hanging around
this man named Mike Cooley.

Mike was in prison
for a long time,

which I didn't like.

And I could feel it in my bones

that the things that Mike did
with him wasn't always great.

Mike was stealing stuff--

tools, antiques,
and other things--

you know, for meth.

So, that day, my son got up
and did his thing

and didn't come home
that night.

And I said,
"Something's wrong.

He would have called me
at least."

And that's
when I called the cops,

you know,
just trying to find my son.

That's all I care about.

How are you?
- Kevin, I'm Hilarie.

How are you?
- Glad to meet you.

It's so nice to meet you.

I want to hear all
about Korey from you.

That's Korey and his mom.

He's a handsome kid.

Yeah, he was. He was big
blue-eyed, blonde-haired.

His laugh was just
one of a kind.

This is what we call
his Billy Bob look.

[laughing]
His Billy Bob look?

- Yeah, his cowboy--
- Is that what you said?

- Yeah.
- Wait, was he into cowboying?

Oh, he loved cowboy.

Here he is before
he came up missing.

- Hmm.
- We're close.

So what's the last time
that you see Korey?

I seen him going
down the road.

He was gonna take
a wheelbarrow back

that he had borrowed.

He didn't come home
the next day.

So I went to Mike Cooley's
trying to find Korey,

and his bike was there.

So your son's bike

is still sitting
at Mike Cooley's house?

Yeah.

Mike said, "Korey's not here."

I said, "Well, where is he at?"

He said, "Well, I told him not
to go over to that property,

but I think he went
over there anyway."

I said, "What property?"

He said, "Over there,"
behind his house,

because that's
where the lawyer

Frank Carson's property was

that Mike and Korey were
supposedly stealing stuff from.

So what do you do after that?

I went
to Frank Carson's property.

Frank's stepdaughter
was there.

Frank--he was on the phone
with his stepdaughter.

And I talked
about going on the property

and just looking to see
if there's evidence

of my son
being over there somehow.

And she tried to shut
the door in my face.

And I put my foot
inside the door.

Everybody would not talk to me.

I was just asking questions

and concerned
about certain things.

Why would you do that?

- Do you call law enforcement?
- Yep.

And what did they say to you?

That I'd have to wait
a certain amount of time

before I could place
a missing-person report.

So we waited 72 hours,
I believe.

And that's
when I reported him missing.

What do you do after that?

I started making up flyers.

Was this was one of them?

How many of these do you think
you passed out?

- 1,000...
- Really?

Or more.

But nothing else
was being done.

And then the highway patrolman
next door to my house--

talked to him about,

what can I do to get something
going on about my son's case?

I told him, like, "My son--
he ended up on a property

over at Frank Carson's house."

When I mentioned
Frank Carson's name,

that's when it really
started escalating

into this big investigation.

Korey Kauffman was missing,
and no one heard about it.

It was just another poor,
lost drug-addicted soul,

and the cops didn't care particularly.

No one was involved.
Nothing happened.

And it wasn't until they looked
at Frank Carson

that all of a sudden people
heard about Korey Kauffman.

My name is Doug Maner.

I've been a lawyer
for 40 years, including 22

with the Stanislaus County
District Attorney's Office.

And I watched Frank in action
when I was a prosecutor

and he was a defense attorney
for many, many years.

There's a million
Frank Carson stories

about all the things
he'd done in the courthouse.

He'd be in the grill
of these cops, these DAs,

and saying, you know,
"Your case is bad."

He'll be calling
them insulting names.

He'll accuse them of sexual
deviancy, of dishonesty.

I mean, he made people,
you know,

viscerally, personally angry.

If Frank wasn't the suspect,

no one would have heard
about Korey Kauffman.

We wouldn't be here today.

Birgit Fladager is
the elected district attorney

of Stanislaus County,

and she is completely
in charge

of something like
30, 35 attorneys

and a budget of untold millions
of dollars.

And she felt offended

by the things that Frank did
to her attorneys.

She felt protective of them.

And she said,
"He's a bad man."

So everybody paid attention
when Frank's name came up.

Once you get them to take

the missing-person case seriously,

the one person that put
your son at Frank Carson's

is Mike Cooley.

Exactly.

If my son did go over there,
it was 'cause of Mike Cooley,

'cause they was apparently
thieving antiques

and property from them.

Michael Cooley
is a local thug.

If you're from Turlock
and you're up to shenanigans

or methamphetamine type
of activities,

you're gonna know Mike Cooley.

I'm Alvino.

I work
for the Sheriff's Department

for the last 28 years.

Mike has stayed in this area

since the beginning
of my career,

you know, robbing, stealing
to get high kind of stuff.

He did carry some weight

because he was
a pretty muscular guy.

And because of his connections
on the streets,

he was well regarded
with the inmate population.

Did they look
at Michael Cooley?

Yeah.
They said they talked to him.

And they said,
"Well, he was clean," you know?

And then I saw that interview
with the "Turlock Journal."

Korey was over there
earlier that day,

and we was in my backyard
playing horseshoes.

And...

there was some pipe
on the other side of the fence

on Frank's property.

And... Korey seen it.

He wanted to go
over there and get it.

I told him that there were
some people over there,

that we wasn't gonna go do it.

And he gave me his word
he wasn't gonna go do it.

He said he was gonna go
somewhere else

and try to make the money.

Apparently he lied to me.

He went over that fence, and...

And he never came back.

We had a house in Turlock.

There was a lot of drug
activity in the neighborhood,

and they were stealing from us,
and we lost a lot of stuff.

My name is Georgia DeFilippo.

My husband is Frank Carson.

By the early 2000s,
we had a booming law business.

And we had
kind of this side hustle

of selling antiques.

And we'd go to swap meets

and do things on weekends
that were not law-related.

I had a vegetable garden
over there,

and Frank loved old cars.

And we loved to collect antiques.

It just was a good life.

And then along about 2011,
we were at a swap meet,

and we saw a man.

[scoffs] He was selling
some of our stuff.

Frank recognized it.

And he just flipped.

So we went home,

and that's when we discovered
the fence had been cut

and that the containers
were open.

Everything had been gone through.

We made a couple reports to the
police, but the cops told me,

you know, that we have to catch
them in the act.

Then we decided
to put barbed wire

on top of the fences,

and we bought
a motion detector.

But thieves kept coming back.

That's when Mike Cooley
lived in the house

on the other side
of the fence,

and he just started
stealing everything.

When I first met Frank
and he was over our house

to see if we had any
of his stolen property,

he threatened--
I mean, he kicked my door in.

He kicked the gate in.

He didn't have no respect
for nothing.

And he said, "If I ever catch
you or any of your friends

in my backyard"--

and he goes,
"Especially you, Mr. Cooley"--

he goes, "I will kill you."

District attorney
and investigators

interview Mr. Cooley
and came up with a theory

that Korey Kauffman
was one of the thieves,

and Frank caught him
and killed him.

Now, no one knows he's dead.

They just know he's not
around Turlock anymore.

It's very hard to prosecute
a no-body homicide.

So the cops
were very aggressive

in developing evidence.

[line trilling]

Traditionally,
law enforcement

does not use wiretaps
to investigate their cases,

except in very rare
and limited circumstances.

But in this case,
wiretaps were used a lot.

The District Attorney's
Office,

headed by Birgit Fladager,
created a task force.

I've never seen it
in 30 years in this county,

where
the District Attorney's Office

would be the lead
investigative agency in a case.

We were working
at the office,

and an officer came in from
the Turlock Police Department.

And he said,
"I have some questions

regarding the disappearance
of Korey Kauffman."

And Frank said, "Well,
if you have any questions,

I want you
to put them in writing."

And, you know, the officer
tried to ask a few.

And he said,
"Well, I just need to know"--

Frank would just say,
"Put them in writing.

Put them in writing."

So he left.

It's 7:00.

We're getting ready
to leave for the night.

And I look up,
and these three guys

had just walked
into our office--

Investigator Bunch from the
District Attorney's Office,

and he was accompanied
by a couple of detectives.

And they said, "Well, Frank,

we'd like
to ask you some questions."

Get out!

Get out!

It was upsetting.
They wouldn't go.

They just stood there
by the door.

Frank said "leave"
a lot of times.

Bunch was the one
that did the talking.

"We just have a few questions.

Why won't you answer
our questions?"

Button pushing, you know?

So Frank starts saying,
"He's threatened my wife."

Get out!

And it went on.

Finally, they left.

Kirk Bunch,
who was an investigator

for the Stanislaus County
District Attorney's Office,

and Frank--
they knew each other.

Kirk just hated Frank.

Frank had a long
and pretty controversial career

here in Stanislaus County

because he was the guy
defending the underdogs.

But that also made him

the nemesis
of law enforcement,

who he'd battle
in the courtroom.

Hello?

- Hi, Martha. How are you?
- Oh, hi.

It's so nice to meet you.

I'd love to ask you about
what your relationship was

with Frank Carson
predating this case.

Frank and I work together in
the public defender's office.

Did you and Frank
have similar reputations?

No, I don't think so.

I wasn't as direct as Frank is.
[chuckles]

- Was he a good yeller?
- Oh, he yelled.

- [chuckles]
- He was a great yeller.

But, mostly,
the problem was he won.

And is that
what pissed people off?

And that's
what really irritated

the District Attorney's Office,

that he would call them names,

insult them at every turn,

and then beat them.

Korey Kauffman goes missing.

Your friend and colleague
Frank Carson

is very quickly pointed at.

What was your understanding
of who was directing

people in Frank's direction?

My understanding
from the get-go

was that Kirk Bunch,

a district attorney investigator,

was the person
driving the train.

On the witness stand,
when the cops got away

from the cold, hard facts
and started shading things,

Frank was very effective
in pointing that out.

Frank had some very intense,

very hard-core
personal attacks on Kirk Bunch

and, in effect, accused him
of being unhinged, unstable,

and lying
and fabricating evidence.

So you've got
the biggest haters in town

in charge
of Frank's investigation.

A lot of criminal defendants,
you know, they got the message,

and they knew that, "If I had
some bad information on Carson,

I could use it
to get out from a case."

Robert Woody is
from that drug-using community

in Turlock,

and he worked as a janitor
for the Atwal brothers,

the owners
of Pop-N-Cork Liquor Store,

known to us as Bobby and Dee.

They knew Frank because Frank
had represented Bobby

in a bar-licensing issue
a few years earlier.

Okay.

And now the theory was

that the Atwals were there
to provide security

for Frank Carson
on his property,

and Korey Kauffman came on
to the property

and that the Atwals
captured him,

struggled with him,
and shot him.

So they're saying
that Woody helped the Atwals

kill Korey Kauffman?

Yes, but he denied
any involvement.

But they kept looking
for evidence

and now focused
on the two Atwal brothers

who ran
the Pop-N-Cork Liquor Store.

The more people you have,
the more chances there are

that someone's
gonna start talking.

So they started
to wiretap everybody

who are friends of the Atwals.

The Pop-N-Cork--
it had a back room,

and it was a place where
law enforcement would hang out.

They could go into the back
room, have a couple of beers.

And when the Atwals,
who were being harassed,

in their minds, by Kirk Bunch--

they called
their law enforcement friends

to find out what they
could do about it.

They developed
a lot of incidental evidence

on Officers Walter Wells,

Scott MacFarlan,
and Quintanar.

So how does Frank
fall into that?

Basically,
the idea was that Frank

had ordered the Atwals

to kill whoever came on
to his property.

From the very beginning,
they were looking at Frank.

- For murder.
- For murder, right.

- Without a body.
- Without a body.

[dramatic music]

♪

26-year-old Korey Kauffman--

his body was found by hunters
in Stanislaus National Forest.

Investigators came knocking
on the door.

They told me they had found
Korey's body...

remains.

It hit me hard.

Thought about suicide, about
a lot of things at that time,

and it hurt me bad.

Robert Woody
told his girlfriend

that he was part
of killing Korey Kauffman.

- Really?
- Yeah. He was arrested.

He was interrogated for hours
and hours and hours.

- Come on, man.
- Listen to this.

Now, with the body
and Woody's testimony,

Birgit Fladager felt
that she had

all the ammunition she needed
to get a conviction.

No, no.

This has been
a long three-year investigation

into the death and homicide
of Korey Kauffman.

The task force has worked
together since 2012

in order to see
that justice is served,

culminating in today's arrests

and execution
of search warrants.

Police department!
Search warrant!

Carson is described
as the ringleader,

enlisting henchmen
and bringing associates

and three current and former
CHP officers into the scheme.

They attacked my house
from all angles,

even going
over the backyard fences.

This vehicle came around the
corner with screeching tires...

[dog barking]

Pointing their gun at me.

They arrested three cops,

the two Atwals
who ran the liquor store.

Come here!

They arrested Frank's wife,
his daughter.

I got the full treatment
and the red-striped suit

and a little cavity search,
and off I go to B-max,

maximum security.

It took a lot of work,
it took a lot of time,

and it has finally
come together.

I couldn't believe it
when it happened.

In fact, this is
the arrest warrant.

- This entire thing?
- Yes.

It's 324 pages.

How did you get involved
in this case?

The Atwals were arrested
on Friday.

And on Saturday,
I became Bobby's attorney.

[dramatic music]

♪

Day one
of the preliminary hearing,

the state presented
text messages and a wiretap

on Georgia and her daughter.

They had subpoenaed
the text messages,

discussions between Chrissy and Georgia,

about security
at the property.

Uh-huh.

Forensic analyst
told the court

he combed through more
than 10,000 text messages

from a backup file

on a laptop belonging
to Carson's stepdaughter,

Christina DeFilippo,

that prosecutors insist

show the family was upset
about the thefts

and took measures
into their own hands.

Prosecutor is
Marlisa Ferreira.

She starts out the prelim
with the text messages,

where I asked Chrissy
to go out into the field

and see if anybody's there,
you know?

In one of the messages,

Carson's wife,
Georgia DeFilippo,

writes her daughter...

In another, she writes...

Christina said,
"I'm getting freaked out."

And I said, "Don't worry,
Frank's coming down later."

And then I just kind of added,
"And he's got his gun."

I just thought it would make
Chrissy feel better,

but it turned out
to be a pretty big deal.

[line trilling]

Christina and I had
a phone conversation one day.

She was being woken up
about 7:00, 7:30 in the morning

by two dueling lawnmowers
next door.

And she pounded on the window,
and it broke,

and she just was in tears.

They tried to use that
as proof

that Georgia
was willing to kill.

- That's insane.
- It was insane.

They can take such innocent
things out of context,

and suddenly they make it
into something

that is not what you intended.

The state's theory
was that the Atwal brothers

killed Korey Kauffman.

Had the Atwal brothers
ever been accused

of a violent crime
or murder before?

No. The Atwals didn't have
any kind of a record.

So then what did
the prosecution present?

Their theory
was that Dee Atwal

shot Korey Kauffman
on Frank's property.

Then Dee Atwal and Bobby Atwal
and Robert Woody

loaded Korey Kauffman's body
into a truck

and took it to the field
next to the Pop-N-Cork

in the middle of Turlock,

where they buried it
for a month

and then unburied it

and moved it
to up in the mountains.

So that theory
that the state presented

is a minefield
of forensic evidence.

The state's claim
that he was beat and shot,

there would have been blood
on Frank's property.

Right, there would have been
blood on their property.

There would have been some
evidence of Korey's presence.

There was nothing there.

There would have been something
at the Pop-N-Cork.

Like, a cadaver dog would
have picked up on something.

That a cadaver dog--
and they used dogs.

They brought dogs
in everywhere.

They took soil samples.
They dug it up.

And, in fact, you could see

where they claim
the body was...

- Mm-hmm.
- There's a pipe

running through it
that's only six inches

below the ground surface,

so there's no way for a body
to be in that space.

So is there
any forensic evidence

in Frank's backyard?

There's no forensic evidence
in Frank's yard.

There's no forensic evidence
in the Pop-N-Cork yard.

There was no DNA.
There was no ballistics.

There was nothing.

How in the world
did this prelim

that did not include
any forensic evidence

or physical evidence--

how was this drawn out
over 18 months?

[scoffs]
You really had to be there.

Walter Wells faces
a murder charge.

Scott MacFarlan and
Eduardo Quintanar Jr.

face conspiracy
and accessory charges.

I did wonder how they landed
on Walter Wells,

out of all the officers
that hung out

at the Pop-N-Cork, for murder.

They never connected Walter
with Frank in any way,

but Walter Wells
was alleged to have had

Korey Kauffman's phone,

and therefore
must have had something to do

with burying him.

♪

"Korey Kauffman's
cell phone" piece of it

is very confusing.

Can you tell me
about this cell-phone expert?

The cell-phone expert--

he spent hours
and hours and hours

going over these phone records
of all the defendants...

Okay.

Looking for where
everybody's cell phones were

at various times
on the timeline.

- Mm-hmm.
- So Walter Wells' phone

was pinging off a cell tower

in the same vicinity
as Korey Kauffman's phone

in the two weeks
after Korey's disappearance

where his phone
was still alive.

They relied
on cell-phone evidence

to link me to the murder
of Korey Kauffman,

but I found out that the
cell-phone expert's testimony

was inherently misleading.

They said
that he was carrying around

the dead guy's phone
in his pocket

to throw the cops off,

and the evidence
of that is it pinged

different towers in Turlock.

Well, Turlock is a small town,

and there are not
that many cell towers there.

And anybody who lives
in Turlock, who moves around,

is going to have
their cell phone ping off

the same towers
that Wells's phone pinged off.

Walter was also patrolling
that area on duty,

so there's no surprise

that Korey's phone
was in the same sector

as Walter's phone.

But a big deal
was made of this?

Exactly.

If you're really gonna
kill this guy,

you're gonna walk around
with his phone in your pocket,

you know?

Who does that?

But that was an example

of the depths
that the prosecution task force

would go
to convict Frank Carson.

The preliminary hearing
against Frank Carson

was one for the books.

It was, I think, the longest
in the history of California--

a year and a half or so.

During the prelim, I was just
waiting for that smoking gun.

What is it exactly
that we did wrong?

And at no time
during the whole prelim

did they establish that.

They had, what,
100, 150 witnesses

to develop as much evidence
as they could.

Witnesses, jailhouse
informants, wiretaps,

and they kept throwing
that crap up against the wall

until something sticks.

And that's why the prelim--
it took so long.

Meanwhile, Frank
and the other defendants,

they're locked up in jail,

and their lives
are falling apart.

It took a toll on Frank, and
his health started to suffer.

The way they had him
housed in the jail,

they kept it extra cold,
and the lights don't go off.

Well, how do you sleep at night

when you're freezing
and the lights don't go off

and you're facing
the death penalty?

Being in jail was horrible.

It was extremely
difficult for me

to get up many days,

just find a willingness
to want to push through.

There was a lot
of screaming at night.

It was cold.
It was damp.

Sewage would leak
through there.

The longevity of this trial

feels very much
like that saying,

like, "the cruelty
is the point."

Exactly.

You know, the longer
you can make it last,

the longer Frank
is locked up in county jail.

Did it feel that way
to you guys?

They weren't in any hurry to
finish the preliminary hearing.

They were pushing to get
every defendant

to turn on Frank.

They were waiting for us
to turn on each other,

that one person was gonna rat
the other person out.

They were trying to make
my life

as miserable as possible
while I was in jail

so that I would come forth
with information

about the Atwal brothers
and Frank Carson.

Do any of the defendants
ever turn on Frank?

No. And, in fact,
Frank at one point

said he'd plead guilty
to get them off.

There was a moment
where Frank Carson

was extremely upset,

and he told us

that he would be willing
to just take the blame,

fall on the sword
for everyone.

We all agreed--we were not
going to allow him

to confess to something
that he didn't do.

♪

The preliminary hearing
goes and goes and goes,

and we're getting
new information all the time.

It's dribbling in.

So we felt
the district attorney

was withholding discovery.

At what point is
the District Attorney's Office

supposed to turn over

everything they have
to you guys?

We should have had all
of that the day we started.

We didn't.

About 14 months into it,
all of a sudden,

Marlisa Ferreira
announced to the court

that there were 164 tapes
that we didn't know existed.

Okay.

Marlisa told that judge

the day before that she
didn't have anything else.

And then the next day,

she comes in
with these big stacks

of all these interviews
and stuff.

And the judge looked at her
and said, "What's that?"

Ms. Ferreira rolls
into court one day,

and she says, "Oh, yeah,
I've got 70 disks of evidence

that I just never got around
to giving to you."

And that's when the judge
said, "No."

And she was angry
because this is a violation.

And, finally, this judge
decided that the evidence

of the district attorney's
malfeasance

was so strong
that she had to let Frank

and the other defendants
out of custody.

[cheers and applause]

We love you, Frank!

It was wonderful.

It was such a--it was
like a Christmas present.

First thing you want to do?
First thing you want to do?

- Oh...
- Have dinner.

- Have dinner with my wife.
- Yeah.

You know, after all
the delays in discovery,

after all
the fabricated evidence,

even after all that,

the judge found that the case
should go forward to trial.

I was shocked.

Something that never
should have started,

and we can't seem to get
to the end.

Bobby and Dee and Frank
are going to trial

on murder charges,

the penalty for conviction of
which is life without parole.

[dramatic music]

♪

The state has all of this
weird circumstantial stuff,

but they have a witness...
- Right.

That they're excited
to present.

- Right.
- Tell me about that.

Robert Woody
is the star witness,

because he is claiming
that he was with the Atwals

when they had the confrontation
with Korey Kauffman.

But there's a problem
with Robert Woody as a witness.

The first time
that he was interrogated,

he denied any involvement.

They intimidated him.

They subjected him
to a really long interview.

Then there's
a 20-minute bathroom break,

and he comes back,
and he changes his story.

They told Woody that,
"You have two choices.

"You can be facing
the death penalty,

"or you can be a witness

and get out
from under all of this."

We're here for you, seriously.

I'm not gonna let you down.

Robert, I'm not going
to let you down.

Woody knew that the more
information he gave on Carson,

the better
the deal he would get.

He was arrested.

And for the next year-plus,

there are
various other interviews

where Robert's trying to figure
out what he's supposed to say.

The only problem is, Woody
didn't know what to say.

And they fed him information

by giving him suggestive
or leading questions.

They say,
"What happened to the body?"

And, "Didn't you bury the body
at the Pop-N-Cork?"

I mean, Tommy just suggests
a whole--everything.

Anybody driving
up to the mountains that night.

Robert's trying to figure out
what he's supposed to say,

and it is very clear.

- Right.
- In fact, the whole--

- "You walked up the hill."
- Right.

- "I walked up the hill."
- The whole scenario...

Then comes the worst part.

He has another interview
on November 26th.

What happened
when Carson came up?

Dee handed who?
- Carson.

- Carson the gun?
- Yeah.

He says that Frank
was present with a gun.

Then Walter Wells pulled up
in a police car,

all of which not only
is not true,

but it can't be true

because everybody knows
where Walter Wells was.

He was at his father's funeral.

Even his attorney--
they pulled it back.

They said, "Well, Woody
was telling the truth

"about these things,

"but when he said that Carson
had a gun in his hand,

yeah, okay, he made that up."

And the DA still stuck
with him.

Woody tells a lot
of differing stories

about what happened
with the case,

what happened
with Korey Kauffman's body.

Right.

Can a judge step in and be
like, "This is ridiculous"?

Yes, but she didn't.

The DA went
with Robert Woody,

with a parade
of jailhouse informants

that they dangled deals
in front of.

They had, what,
100, 150 witnesses.

None of them had Frank
say the magic words--

"Go kill him for me."

None of them had Frank
with a gun in his hand.

None of them had Frank cutting
the body up or destroying it.

None of them had Frank doing
anything except being Frank.

We were sitting there,
and the jury came in.

They handed their decision
to the judge,

and she looked at it.

And it was Frank Carson
was not guilty.

Bobby was not guilty.

Dee was not guilty.

It was wonderful.

Champagne and a taste of vindication

for this Modesto attorney.

Congratulations.

The congratulations
for Frank Carson

in the form of one hug
after another.

What are the emotions that
you're feeling right now?

Relief and happy.

♪

Here it is.

I haven't been in here
since we were arrested.

It's been seven years.

I'm sure
while you were living here,

this was
kind of a grown-up playland.

It was fun.

It's like
an American picker's dream.

Mm-hmm.
We had lost so much.

It's just sad.

I do believe
in the justice system still,

and the jury
did the right thing,

and they listened to us.

But we shouldn't have been
in that position

in the first place.

Carson says prosecutors
need to search

for Kauffman's true killers
for justice to prevail.

The sooner that they replace

the investigators in this case,

the sooner they're gonna find,

hopefully, who perpetrated it.

Tell me who's responsible
for my son's murder.

If it's not these people--

and you all said,
dead sure, they were--

tell me who is,

'cause one day I will find out.

This case was not about
justice for Korey Kauffman.

It was to get Frank Carson.

And in the process,
I was just collateral damage.

I lost so much time away
from my daughter and my family.

I lost my career.

I lost my retirement.

I lost my home.

[exhales sharply]

We felt like
we were the victims

of a vindictive prosecution

by a district attorney's office
that didn't want to deal

with a defense attorney
who was a fighter for justice.

Frank, financially,
was gutted.

His law practice
is in shambles,

and his body suffered.

He was injured from being
in the jail for so long.

After a while,
his kidneys started to fail.

Yeah, you can say, "Well, he
was acquitted, and he walked."

Yeah, bull.
He lost.

Frank was really never
the same.

His health continued
to decline,

and he died in August of 2020.

[sighs]
I'm so sorry.

What do you want people to know
about this case?

What I really want is
for this to never happen again.

One person
like Birgit Fladager

has all the power
to take your life away

with no evidence to do so.

In a small town like this,
the power

of the
District Attorney's Office

to upend lives is frightening.

Frank Carson spent his career

calling out abuse of power

from the
District Attorney's Office.

And in the end,
they proved him right.

♪