All language subtitles for The Phantom (2021) - Soap2day - Movies and Series

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Copy. Got an armed robbery
going down right now.

10-4.

I came in, and there's
an aggravated robbery.

I was taking a break
and eating dinner,

and I got up from my dinner
and went to go help.

I saw him, and, er, well, fuck,
I gotta go towards him.

He said, "Don't fuck with me.
I got a gun".

And he took off to the right.

I saw someone running
to the back of the field.

Our headlights were right
with him as he was running.

And the cops come
from all directions.

We didn't know
what street he was on.

I was jumping fences,
looking for him.

Five-nine, Five-ten...

Got a male, 5'9".

Dark pants and a white unbuttoned shirt
that was kind of flapping.

I could see somebody
underneath the truck.

And I begin yelling to the person
to freeze, don't move, City Police.

We pulled him out right away
and handcuffed him to the back.

Then had him in the back seat
of the car.

And had a couple witnesses
come up, take a look.

So, I looked inside,
he looked back at me,

and I said, "Yeah, that's him".

And that was... that was it.

26-year-old Wanda Lopez was working alone
behind the counter,

and while on the phone to a police
dispatcher, she was stabbed to death.

Wanda was beautiful.

We were young childhood friends
in the neighbourhood.

She was a wonderful girl.
Very happy, bubbly.

That was Wanda.

That night, I told her
as soon as I get off of work,

I was gonna drive over to see
her at Diamond Shamrock.

And as I approached the door,
it was bloody.

And when I saw that door bloody,
I knew...

my childhood friend had passed.

This precious young lady

had so much.

And that was just totally taken
away from her.

I recognised him.

It turned out to be a subject that
I had dealt with in the past.

Carlos DeLuna.

He looked at me and he said...

"You ain't got nothing on me.

I'm gonna beat this one
like I beat the last one".

It wasn't natural
the way he was talking.

He kept repeating, "I know who did it,
so let me go. I'll tell you who did it".

"Let me go, let me go,
let me go".

Again and again.
The same thing over and over.

But none of it made sense.

Corpus Christi.

Texas.

It's a lot more civilised now
than it ever was before.

This strip in between the Nueces
and the Rio Grande was

kind of a legal no-man's land
for a long time.

Little skirmishes back and forth
for years.

Battles with the Mexican army.

Cattle and horse wrestling.

Texans would go into Mexico
and steal cattle.

The Mexicans would come up here
and steal cattle.

This is a really,
really dangerous place to live.

It was a very violent place.

But eventually, the thin veneer
of civilisation...

improved things.

Law and order and, uh,
punishment.

Back then, Corpus was kind of
a strange town.

In the '70s and the '80s.

All kinds of crazy shit.

God no.

It's the Wild West.

My anger was that...

that it was a very dangerous place
to work, and she was by herself.

Then, you still have a lot of
old-school, uh, people, you know,

don't give a shit,
and they were... Or...

Or if it involves somebody of
colour, they don't give a shit.

That's one less Mexican,
you know?

That's the way it was back then.

The customer noticed him outside drinking
a beer earlier

and noticed that he also
had a knife.

He became suspicious and told
Wanda to call the police.

She was on the phone to police when
the suspect pulled out a knife.

We may never know why Wanda
Lopez was stabbed that night...

The first job in television
out of college.

First chance to be a reporter,
a news reporter on air.

I was as green as could be, and so it was
a huge learning experience for me as well

to be part of it
and to sit through this

because, again, it was nothing
I'd ever done before.

This was my second home
away from the newspaper.

This is where I spent all my time unless
I was at the office writing the stories.

The Carlos DeLuna trial was a big deal
because it was a capital murder case.

This was a bad
situation from the word "go".

Carlos DeLuna, he was facing
the death penalty.

I mean, you just can't get
any worse than that.

At the time, it was pretty wild.

The DA was pretty aggressive
and rewarded aggressiveness.

I wanted to try everything
in sight.

So I thought,
"I'm getting in on this".

Wanda Lopez.

Oh...

Brings back...
a lot of mixed feelings.

A lot of mixed feelings.

"Stab wound one penetrates
the 5th intercostal space

in the left chest cavity

and goes almost completely through
the lower lobe of the left lung".

"Stab wound two is just at
the lower level of the breasts".

"As a result of the two
stab wounds,

there is approximately two litres of blood
in the left chest cavity".

We asked him about the situation, and then,
the more we looked into it,

that was not his manner of...

committing crimes.

He just was not the type to go
and pull a knife on somebody and

stab 'em to death.

And, of course,
he came up with a story.

He told the fella that drove him
to the police station

he didn't do it, but he knew who
did. That he would help 'em out.

And, uh, when he got to the police
station and they tried to question him,

he shut up.

So what's your reaction to that?

That he was having a panic
attack and running his mouth.

And how common was that?

Pretty common.

Ever been scared before?

He was apprehensive, he...
was concerned.

I would think, deep down inside,
he was scared.

Carlos was always running
around in the streets.

My brother Carlos DeLuna, he was
out there doing spray paint,

drinking.

Started to hang around
with the wrong crowd.

I know he got arrested
for several things.

Little penny stuff, you know.

Misdemeanours, I guess.

I was young, you know.
I was in my 20s.

I was living in Dallas, and I...
I got a call from my mum,

and she told me what happened.

And I said it's another joke, you know?
He's always getting into something.

And then the next day he's out
walking around, you know?

I really didn't wanna have
anything to do with him.

He did a lot of bad things
to me.

He stole my truck and he wrecked
it, and other things that he did.

Taking my mother's money out of
the pocket...

and so on.

I mean, I would try to talk to
him, get sense to him, but I mean,

you can only say so much.

He would never, never open up.

You know, it's hard for me
to say this, but...

I really didn't care
at that time.

Every morning, Carlos
would come down this tunnel

and they had these little
windows for us to video him.

We would just watch him walk,
this long perp walk.

Same little swagger
down the hall.

It was our ritual
before the trial began.

You go to war with the army you got,
not the one you'd like to have.

As true for them
as it was for me.

From my standpoint,
here we have a case

in which the only evidence
is eyewitness evidence.

That's the worst evidence
in the world.

Would you state your name
for the jury, please.

Kevan Baker. I am a witness.

Mr Baker, I want to take you
back to the night of February 4.

What kind of vehicle
were you driving?

I was driving a '67 Mercury
Cougar.

- Was that your car?
- Yes, sir.

Can you tell the jury
what you did?

I got out, unlocked my gas cap.

Schiwetz wouldn't sit behind
his desk asking the questions.

He was up, he was moving
and he was passionate.

He captivated this whole
courtroom.

What happened then, Mr Baker?

He was just jerking her
as hard as he could.

And then he ran to the east.

Right past the Arsuaga couple.

Which is when
he turned and looked at us,

seeing him and being able
to identify him.

Steve Schiwetz was very
effective. Very effective.

Um, but he had a lot
to work with.

Were you on duty at approximately
8:00, 8:30 that night?

Yes.

Spotted somebody under
a pickup truck.

When they pulled him
out from under the truck,

they found a wad of bills in his
front pants pocket totalling $149,

which was about the amount of money
that was taken from the cash register

in the robbery of
the service station.

And what made it
even worse, they had the audio.

It was just horrible.

- Where is he at now?
- He's right here.

The biggest thing that happened
was the playing of the tape,

which was just chilling
and so sad and so compelling.

There was not a cough,
there was not a rustle of paper.

Everyone was rapt.

The impact was shocking to them.

They're not used to hearing
stuff like that.

The 911 call establishes that there's
absolutely no reason

for him to kill her.

According to the tape, she was complying.
She was handing over the money.

She just says, "You can have it all",
and then he kills her.

But there's a lot of questions,

because, you know, if you keep
looking at the evidence...

The blood. If he stabbed her and
he's right there next to her,

why is there nothing
on his clothing?

DeLuna's pulling her head down
like that and he's backing out.

He's not gonna get any blood on his shoes,
pants or anywhere else.

So, I'd have liked to have had it,
but, I mean, kind have been overkill.

Here was contention

that DeLuna would not testify
in his own defence

because of his previous
criminal record.

Ninety-nine times
out of a hundred,

you never put your client
on the stand. Never.

The problem was, he wanted to tell the jury
he didn't do it.

And my approach was simply
see what he's go to say

and then find the holes in it

which was kind of easy.

[Boudrie reporting Once on the stand,
DeLuna told the court

that on February 4,
the day of the murder,

he was going to meet a girl
named Mary Ann Perales.

So I sent a detective
out, "Go find Perales".

She did.

His alibi witness, she testified
that, well, no, that didn't happen

because at the time,
I was seven months pregnant

and I was attending
a baby shower held in my honour.

So I wasn't there.

His only explanation
for what really happened

was clearly a lie.

You're trying to defend
somebody,

and they're giving you this information
that's, uh... that doesn't pan out.

Where did this come from?

You want to wring
somebody's neck.

That is when he changed tune...

and admitted to being there.

He said that he was
across the street,

he could see inside
the service station...

and he saw a man attacking
the attendant.

And instead of reporting it,
he fled.

"I was there. I lied,

but it was only because I saw who did
do it, and I was afraid to say".

So he finally tells his lawyers

the name of the guy
that he claims did the murder.

He gave us the name
Carlos Hernandez.

DeLuna pointed the finger at a friend,
Carlos Hernandez.

DeLuna said that he had met
this Carlos Hernandez

while they were both incarcerated
at the Nueces County Jail.

We got every Carlos Hernandez

that had been arrested in Corpus
Christi in the last ten years,

we put every one of 'em in a line-up,
and he said, "No, that's not the guy".

And none of those guys
were the guy.

And then the prosecution
bring detectives on

to say that Carlos Hernandez
did not exist.

This guy just does not exist.

"We tried to give you the
benefit of the doubt, Carlos.

We tried to find this guy
you say was there.

We could not find him".

Yeah. He's making up another lie
because he got caught the first time

and he didn't exist.

There's nothing to corroborate
what he's saying.

He's just picking this out,
a fictitious person.

Carlos Hernandez.

Who the hell is Carlos
Hernandez? I'm trying to...

I'm trying to remember.

I'm trying to remember.

Corpus Christi's small.

I-I don't know the guy.

It was hard to believe.

Carlos Hernandez was a phantom.

I was just waiting to hear it.

And sure enough,
the verdict is "guilty".

He's guilty of murder.

So, in a capital murder case, you're
sentenced either to life in prison

or death.

There's a very limited number of
crimes for which you can be executed.

Basically, in Texas, it's murdering
somebody during a robbery,

or during a rape,
during a kidnapping,

and he committed a murder while he was
involved in robbing a gas station.

If we feel... or if I feel... that
they're gonna find you guilty of this

and sentence you to death,

it's better to go ahead, if they're
offering you life, take it.

I offered him life in prison, and
with the possibility of parole.

So, our client, steadfast no.

"Why should I go to prison
for something I didn't do?

I don't want to plead guilty
because I am not guilty."

The same jury must decide...

whether to kill Carlos DeLuna

or whether to let him
stay in prison for life.

And once again, the prosecution
did a phenomenal job

when they were abe to bring up
the past instances

with him having run-ins
with women.

Would he be a continuing threat
to society?

Would he commit further acts
of violence?

"Predator" is all I remember
Steve Schiwetz saying.

"He is a predator.
He will do this again.

He will harm again.
He will kill again."

It's this train
that's headed in that direction,

and it's not going anywhere but
straight forward towards conviction.

And the jury convicted DeLuna and gave him
the death penalty.

It hurts.
I hate the death penalty.

It has no place in our society.

He was guilty.

Yeah. You guys did
a good job. You convinced me.

You know, we were all kind of
caught up in this.

Being very new and naive,

you're not jaded enough
to really know

that there's not always
two sides to a story.

Sometimes there's three,
four or five,

so I didn't know what I was
in store for.

And, you know,

there's actually, this story
never rests.

I mean, this is too big,
you know what I mean?

Every town's got dirty...
dirty laundry, you know?

I never did come to the trial.

I just read paper clippings
and stuff like that.

I thought it was gonna be...
He was gonna get out.

But it didn't work out like that.
It really was the real thing.

People came up to me and says, "I
can't believe your brother did that."

And I said, "Well, I don't think
my brother did that."

You know?

I knew something was not right.

But at the end of the day,
you know, he was my brother.

It's not something
you just walk away from.

At that point,
it was still a story.

He wasn't so much a person to me
as he was a story.

And I got the idea that I'd like
to talk to Carlos on death row.

I, of course, had never been to, really,
a jail, let alone a prison, before

or death row, so, to me,
you know, that was like,

"This is a great follow-up to go talk
to him and see what he has to say."

In the back of my mind,
you know,

part of me was saying, "Maybe I can be
the one that he tells the truth to.

He finally admits it."

And I have to speak
through security glass,

thinking that this is just bizarre
having this conversation with a killer.

And I asked him, you know,
how things were going.

Are they trying to find
Carlos Hernandez?

I'm thinking he's doing
a snow job on me here.

You know, that he's trying to get me,
um, to believe him and be sympathetic.

He was just the
cold-blooded killer.

He was not a human being to me.

So, I'm kind of guarded, but he
started writing to me after that.

And I thought that was weird,
and I was kind of creeped out.

"Dear Karen...

I was thinking I could tell you
a little bit about me."

I didn't want to get in this
letter-writing thing with this killer,

and I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna
have a death row pen pal",

and I was very nervous
about that.

"We are appealing to the Fifth
Circuit in New Orleans,

and of course to
the United States Supreme Court.

All day, all I've been doing is calling
my lawyers.

Take care, and you be careful, and
God bless you and your family.

I hope that all your dreams
come true."

An execution date had been set.

The chances of...

delaying the execution
were probably pretty good.

I thought I had
a reasonable shot.

The paperwork that I would file

would be sufficient
to at least halt that process.

In terms of an overall possibility
that Mr DeLuna never gets executed,

there is a chance of success.

I have some tools
in the tool kit.

They can look
at the attorneys' activities.

Did they meet the standards

in a case where the ultimate
verdict was being rendered?

You normally have to go
outside the record.

You have to take a look
at other things.

Something in your back pocket that
would really make a judge's head spin

about the uncertainty of it.

I was in the courthouse
every day. Every day.

And if you wanted to know anything,
you had to talk to the little guy.

I befriended the secretaries,
the janitors.

I mean, you... you name it, I was
on a first-name basis with them.

And they're the ones
that told me,

"I think there's some more
photographs that they didn't show."

I issued subpoenas, I got 'em,
and I looked at 'em,

and then I saw these other ones.

There was her blood, and the cops
were walking all over the evidence.

I mean, they were contaminating
the scene.

I was horrified. I mean...

What happened was, when they found
Mr Luna under, I think, a car,

they figured they had the guy.
It made sense.

You know, we don't have to do
shit. This is an easy one.

But there was blood all over
the place, so I did ask,

well, why wasn't there
any blood on him?

And nobody could answer
that question.

I said, "Well, you know, there
had to have been something."

I mean, all you have to do
is look at these pictures.

There had to have been
blood everywhere.

Either on him or on his shoes
or something.

Now... she was stabbed twice...

and there was a lot of bleeding
with both wounds

'cause they were done
consecutively, one, two.

The, uh, knife in the wound,

that's going to allow the blood to
flow along the smooth knife edge.

She's moving around, she's slipping
around in the blood she's losing.

Well, I would think there
would be some blood on him.

He certainly should have had
some blood on his shoes.

So I went
to the defence attorneys.

I showed it to them,
it was kind of like, um...

There was no reaction.

Uh, obviously,
there's, uh, more blood.

And nobody wanted
to rock the boat.

The case was closed.

It's done, and it's over.

You know, basically.

Hindsight is just great.

We love to just go back and blame everybody
that we possibly can.

And in doing so,
we are doing the same thing

that every person that goes to...
To prison... says the same thing.

"My lawyer was lousy,
otherwise I wouldn't be here."

We never look at ourselves, so if
they want to say I did a lousy job,

they can say whatever they want.

Well, I mean, if you see something
wrong being done to somebody,

you'd better say something,
do something,

even if it's not going
to help you politically.

But they didn't want to hear it.

I'm gonna have to tell you
I have no recollection

these were ever shared with me.

Would've been almost impossible for a
perpetrator to walk away from that

without having some residual blood, either
on their clothing or on their body.

I don't see how it could be
possible otherwise.

I've never seen these before...
that I recall.

"Karen, hey, I wish we could have honestly
met another way.

Maybe if I had friends like you,

maybe my life would have been
a whole lot different.

Who knows?

And when I ended up
on death roll"...

- in...
- -Death what?

Roll. R-O-L-L.

He didn't even know he was
on death row.

You know?

And I think that was the first time,
when I got this card from him

and as kind of freaked out as I was about
it, I started looking at this guy, going,

"Man, he doesn't even know
he's on death row."

He has virtually no education.

He had no real shot at life
the way many of us have.

I just, for the first time, began to
kind of look at him as a human being.

Not so much doubting
the verdict, but wondering...

thinking...

you know, if you weren't born
in the barrios...

would this still have happened
to you?

Mom had to raise seven.

By herself.

I guess everybody judged us
because how we lived, you know?

Didn't have any money
and we lived in the projects.

All this wasn't here.
It was all fields.

Then they built the new part.

Turn back over here.
Used to be a lot of bars and...

nightclubs all around
this whole area.

You know? They did a lot
of killings here in this...

this area right here.

Lot of killings.

Me and Carlos used to play
around this whole area.

It was a bad neighbourhood.

This was a... Back then, this was a good
place for the kids to come and fistfight.

I used to stand up here,
just watch it.

And there were no places
you can run.

Mama and daddy ain't gonna
help you.

In my experience as a criminal
lawyer and seeing all these guys

who were charged
with capital murder offences,

they got court-appointed
lawyers, nobody gave a shit.

All these... these poor people,
they were all getting found guilty,

they were all going to death row,
and nobody represented them.

It's all about money.

Yeah.

This was our football field.
Me and Carlos...

I was always the gunslinger.

Quarterback.

You know, I mean,
back then you could actually...

Back then you can actually...
It was full of kids.

And you could hear
all the mothers around 6:00,

"Manuel! Carlos!" Everybody's
names, all the kids' names.

I can't believe that
I'm back here.

Still looks the same.
That was our room right there.

Right there was our room.

And where that air conditioner
where's my mom lived at.

Those were our
baby brothers and sisters.

And, uh, this one?

We took it at a carnival.

It was Manuel and Carlos
when they were small.

We were always taking care
of them.

We were like their babysitters all the time
because my mom worked,

and we babysat for them
and kept them.

'Cause we were older siblings.

And doing things, you know,
that normal kids do.

We played and had our
twin bicycles and...

Carlos was always a sweet kid.

He was my little brother...

you know?

Carlos fell in this trap...

and I blame...

that we didn't have the education
to be able to help him out.

We didn't have the power or...

We didn't understand
how to handle it.

It was a stacked deck.

If you're poor and
you have no money

and-and can't get yourself a lawyer who
really gives a shit about your case,

you know, you're gonna die.

The Supreme Court is saying

that if justice is going to be
served, it must be sue and swift.

The justice system
always defaults to certainty.

Mr DeLuna had a trial.

Mr DeLuna had lawyers.

Mr DeLuna had a jury of his
peers that decided against him.

So when you get that far along,

and a court of criminal
appeals has said,

"Hey, this trial is fair",

the default position is
they have certainty on this.

The court is ordering
lower courts to grant a stay

only if the appeal
has "substantial merit".

"Karen, I haven't been
a bad person all my life.

How I regret my past lifestyle.
I really do.

If only you would have gotten to know me,
you would have wondered after a while,

"Is this the same Carlos DeLuna
people are talking about?"

I leave you for now.
Thinking of you. Carlos DeLuna."

Now I was able to see not just
the cold-blooded killer,

but a very lost person...

lonely, and, you know, just a lost soul
who still said "I did not do this".

And their desire for just
human kindness.

I went back with a successive federal writ
of habeas corpus.

It was denied.

I think the certificate of appealability of
the Fifth Circuit was denied,

and then the petition
for certiorari

of the United States
Supreme Court was denied,

and that was the end
of the game.

It was over.

And, uh,

Mr DeLuna, uh,
had his execution date.

"Karen...

I am scared to die.

I haven't been up to even trying
to prepare myself for this.

And if I have to die this way,

I'll never forget you.

I do believe in life after death,
and maybe we'll meet up there.

Take care."

Back then, the state of Texas held
their executions at midnight.

They usually would transfer the defendant
from death row over to the walls unit,

which is where the death chamber
is located.

It's just a pale,
baby blue room.

Laying on a gurney, the lethal
injection part will begin.

I have been in my office at...

11:30 at night with a bottle of
scotch waiting for a phone call...

from the Clerk of
the Supreme Court,

It is...

the most helpless feeling, 'cause
about that time, all of the optimism

is completely sucked out of you.

At about 10:50 p.m.,
the phone rings,

and it was the Texas Department
of Corrections.

And I just kind of froze.

Like, what are they calling me
for at 10:50 at night?

And, um, they asked if I would
accept a call from Carlos DeLuna,

and I said, "Yes, yes."

His voice came on, and he said,
"Karen...

they're gonna execute me,
Karen."

I said, "Carlos, is there anything that you
really want to tell me?

Is there anything
you need to get off your chest?"

He knew what I was getting at,
and he said,

"Karen, I didn't do
what they said I did.

They're gonna execute
an innocent man.

I'm scared, but I know
I'm gonna go to heaven."

And...

What do you say to a man that's gonna die
in less than two hours?

I got a telephone call
from Carlos...

and we talked.

I asked him, "Can I ask you
a question?"

And he goes, "Yes."
I said, "Did you do it?"

He goes, "No, Manuel,
Carlos Hernandez."

And I asked him,
"Who is Carlos Hernandez?"

He said, "You know
who Carlos Hernandez is."

I said, "I don't know who Carlos
Hernandez is."

Somebody came on the phone
and said, "Wrap it up."

You know, afterwards, I told
Carlos that I loved him...

and that, you know...

I knew he was gonna die
at midnight,

and I said, "Man, I'm gonna lose
my brother."

But you know...

Him being strapped, injected...

it's... something that I don't
think anybody wants to see.

But I just wanted to do it
so he could see me and...

knew that I was there for him.

You know, and the helplessness
of that...

Knowing that, you know,
he really truly may be innocent

and there's absolutely not a damn
thing anybody can do to stop this.

You know, Texas was just
bound and determined

they were gonna kill this guy.

He needed somebody to believe in him and
someone to be kind of a friend to him.

And I think I wasn't
a very good friend

because I didn't believe him for the
longest time. I didn't believe him.

Even though I saw him change.

There was a caring human being
in Carlos DeLuna.

And so it made me question
everything.

My whole value system and belief
system about the death penalty, but...

A lot of lessons that, um, I've
learned through all of this.

About how we treat fellow human
beings and how we categorise them

and so easily throw them away.

It forever changed my life
having met Carlos DeLuna.

This... the phantom...

it is the truth.

Things that were hidden...

or didn't get discovered before.

So that's what we really mean
by "phantom".

In the late '90s,
I did a series of studies

of capital cases.

More people are executed in Texas
than anywhere else.

A new study
by Columbia University

finds rampant problems
within the court system.

It is very difficult to overturn a
capital judgment on that basis.

You not only have to show that the lawyer
behaved incredibly incompetently...

Sleeping, on drugs, drinking,
whatever else it is...

You also have to show five,
ten years after the fact

that if you'd had
a better lawyer,

the outcome would probably
have been different.

[reporter
Governor Bush maintains

no innocent people have been
put to death under his watch.

And I believe every case
has been...

we've adequately answered
innocence and guilt,

and everybody's had full access
to the courts.

That led us to say, "Well, let's go look
and see if there's a case

where it looks like there was
a miscarriage of justice."

I had a student, and he wrote up
a little memo for me

and said, "Hey, I think this is a
good case for you to go look at."

And the first thing
my colleague said

was that, "This
some-other-dude-named-Carlos case?

That's the worst possible case. I
wouldn't spend any time on it."

Because he thought that what the
defendant was saying was so unlikely

that it had to be made up.

But we found another case
in Corpus Christi.

So I did hire an investigator to go to
Corpus Christi and look at that case.

But I said, "Look, if you have
an hour to yourself

where you don't have something
you need to do,

just go look and see if you
can find a Carlos Hernandez."

I get a phone call from him,
and he says to me,

"Look, I found a record
on Carlos Hernandez."

"He looks just like
the man they executed here."

My god. This is the real thing.

Carlos DeLuna...

Carlos Hernandez.

We wanted to learn everything we
could about this Carlos Hernandez.

Wanda Lopez, Carlos DeLuna...

All of these people lived in
close proximity to each other

and an entire story unfolded.

My name is Margie Tapia.

His name was Carlos Hernandez.

I used to sit outside and watch
this cute guy go by every day.

And I was like,
'Okay, who is this guy?'

I was a teenager.

I liked good-looking boys.

But come to find out, he wasn't a
good-looking boy. He was a man.

He would go,
"Why you not in school?"

I'm like, "'Cause I'm pregnant.
I can't go to school."

He's like, "Huh." He goes,
"What's your mom's name?"

And I said, "Her name is Janie."

He used to do a lot of things

and people wouldn't say nothing
because, er, they were afraid to.

You just looked at him wrong,
and that's it.

That's it.

We dated for a while, and...

I started living with him.

Like, yeah, but I just look
at the house and I get scared.

That house is a nightmare
for me.

Everything that went inside
that room...

He used to lock me in there.

It was a regular thing.

He would get home...

and then he would start
beating me and start raping me.

It didn't take much for him
to snap.

It would be him, me, the baby...

and the pillows, of course,
then the knife under the pillow.

And he would be talking to it
just like if it was a person.

So I finally had a conversation
with my, er, sister,

and I told her, you know, he's beating me.
I don't... I can't leave.

I need to get out.

She goes,
"He was sweet sometimes.

I know that.
You've told me that many times."

I said, "But he was
a monster too."

My sister helped me grab
the baby's things, and I left.

I was like, "I'm never gonna
come back again."

And I left the neighbourhood.

So, from there,

the next step was to track Carlos
Hernandez's criminal record.

It was a mile long,

a lot of it having to do with both robbery
of convenience stores

and violence against women
with a knife.

Right here is the knife,

um, that is the murder weapon

and that the perpetrator
dropped.

Um, it's a lock-blade
Buck knife.

This is exactly the kind of knife that
Carlos Hernandez was arrested with

on multiple occasions

down to the colour of the gold
trim and the brown handle.

He was arrested 20, 30 times,

and on a majority of those
occasions, he had a knife,

and this is what the knife looked like.
We've got pictures of it.

He had this total belief
that he would not be caught.

He was street smart,
and he was feared.

He was able to have this power over people
in his neighbourhood.

And I have heard that
phrase "snitches get stitches."

Curly hair, scary.

Bloodshot eyes all the time.

Scary angry.

Scary.

I lost my mama when I was 12, and the
girlfriend my daddy brought home,

I was jealous, and I thought
I'd go and do my own thing.

And it just didn't
turn out right.

And so that's what winded me
homeless and without a job.

That's when I winded up
at Carlos's apartment,

and I stayed with him.

He was having trouble sleeping, and
he just had to tell me something,

get it off his chest.

Um...

he said he had done something
bad, something wrong.

And, um...

it's just not right.

He said he, uh,
picked up this girl in a van...

and once he had sex with her,
he...

he strangled her.

That's what he told me.
Until her eyes rolled back.

Then he also said that, um...

he flipped her over
on her stomach...

and carved an "X" on her back.

From shoulder blade to buttock.

Who? Who can do that?
Just a demon would do that.

So it was sort of still
an age if you caught a guy

killing children or something
like that, they'd,

you know, put a rope around
his neck and tie him to a tree

and get the double-barrelled shotgun,
and that would end that case.

This is where the van
was parked,

and so I just got my camera out
and started taking pictures.

The subject was found
dead in her van

in a vacant lot
in Corpus Christi.

She has a large "X" scratched...
More scratched than cut...

On her back.

When you were involved
in a case like that,

you can't help but look
for a motive.

What kind of a murder was this?

She was named Dahlia Sauceda.

Carlos Hernandez's underwear
are found next to the victim.

He was known to have been jealous of
this woman and to be angry at her.

He was immediately a suspect
in that crime,

but they're also checking out these
other young men that she's been with.

And the police charge
Jesse Garza.

Wind up in the police station.

I have no idea what's going on.

Until I hear that somebody
did lose their life

and I'm being charged for it.

My father inherited this case.

My dad was looking at it

and saw that the physical evidence didn't
match what the State's theory was,

and when that happens
there's a problem.

So, he's thinking, "I don't
think my client did this."

The big piece of physical
evidence

that was so important
in this case was a beer can,

and once they finally ran
fingerprints on it,

the fingerprint came back to
Carlos Hernandez, not Jesse Garza.

The police had the wrong guy, and they knew
who the right guy is.

It was Carlos Hernandez.

And he is never convicted
for this crime.

For some reason,
they release him.

In this case, I found that
there was no justification.

I found that Carlos
did not do this.

In my opinion at the time,
he did not do this.

Law enforcement knew that he was
already a murderer.

They knew that he had killed
Dahlia Sauceda,

and this was four years
before Wanda Lopez was killed.

Months later, the very people who were
part of the arrest and knew all about him

denied that he even existed.

Accused of the same crime
in the same court

in front of the same attorneys
using the same weapon.

So, I mean,
he had to be on the radar.

There's a fellow named Carlos Hernandez
who existed...

and he was a bad guy too.

But...

how am I going to hear about it
if nobody tells me?

I didn't even hear about your Carlos
Hernandez until ten, 20 years later.

Liebman came up with this stuff
about, "Well,

Botary, your other lawyer
in the case, he knew about it."

And I'm like, "Really? He never
told me anything about it."

And I... That's when I got in touch
with Ken Botary a few year...

That was just a few years ago.
And...

What did he say?

He didn't remember much
of anything about it.

And so when his name comes up
in the Wanda Lopez trial,

what do you think?

I... I think it's something that
needs to be looked at and, uh,

and questioned.

And I think that... I best recall
I told Steve it's not a phantom.

This is a real person. This person
came up during a trial of mine,

and I think Steve and I
talked about it.

But Steve wasn't too concerned
about it

because he was convinced that he
had the right person in his trial.

And he said "Hernandez"
at the time.

It didn't occur to me that we
were talking about the same guy.

Ken Botary allowed the other
prosecutor to tell the jury

that Carlos Hernandez
was a phantom.

We continued the investigation,

and we found a woman
named Dina Ybañez.

He was telling everybody
that he did it.

That some other guy
was taking the rap for him.

They were friends. Him and that other
guy, Carlos DeLuna, they were friends.

So... he said he's taking
the fall.

Rumours, family, friends...
He killed Wanda Lopez.

When we were investigating this crime,
everybody knew.

Carlos Hernandez talked
about it...

people in the neighbourhood
had seen things.

All I heard was him talking
to Javier, and he was bragging,

telling Javier that
he had hurt somebody,

and at the same time,
he was playing with his knife.

Well, he was bragging to Javier,
my uncle, that

that he had hurt somebody.

And, well, Javier didn't
believe it, you know.

Somebody that he had hurt?

Yes. A girl by the name
of Wanda.

They lie about things
they have done,

and they lie about things
they haven't done.

He never confessed. He bragged.

Carlos Hernandez created
this thing in his mind about

"Oh, I'm such a badass",
bragging about this to people.

If you look at that Carlos
Hernandez's criminal history,

he has a history of
violence too,

but it's against people that he has
some kind of vendetta against.

He has a personal animosity
or grudge against them.

He didn't know this woman
at all.

There was this one time that
I can recall and I remember

that me and Priscilla and my sister
Cindy were sitting on the porch.

We overheard Carlos Hernandez
telling Javier...

that...

that he was gonna go see Wanda
at the store.

At Diamond Shamrock.

Carlos Hernandez would always say,
"I'm gonna go see my friend Wanda."

We knew that there
were police tapes

of everything that happened.

There's a 40, 45-minute manhunt,

all of this with police traffic
back and forth on the radio.

And all they presented at trial
is Wanda Lopez's call.

All right,
we'll get someone over there.

We keep asking,
"Where are the other tapes?"

"Oh, we taped over because
we didn't want to waste tape,

so we just tape over things."

So, we knew who the dispatcher
that night was.

When we tracked him down
in Los Angeles,

it turned out that he had
pirated a copy of the tape,

and we were able to play
the entire 45-minute manhunt...

starting with
Wanda Lopez's call.

We can track minute by minute

when the phone calls
from the Arsuagas come in,

when men were seen running.

Carlos Hernandez
was walking with my brother.

They got to the gas station.

My brother went in there for one
reason, and that was to buy something.

Afterwards, go to Stella's.

There was a call that came in about
8:00 in the evening from Wanda.

You've got somebody outside who
doesn't look right with a knife.

If I would see something like that,
I would get shocked.

I would get scared, I would run.
I would say, "What the hell?"

Things look
super different right now,

but we were going
past the store...

He was running.

Dark pants and a white unbuttoned
shirt that was kind of flapping.

And I looked up, and I saw him trying
to pull her into the back room,

and I walked towards him.

I heard it on the radio, and I got up
from my dinner and went to look.

And he took off to the right.

You've got police
officers all around the area.

They're giving descriptions of what
they think could be potential suspects.

Hispanic male...

One is talking about
a flannel shirt,

the other's talking about
a long-sleeve T-shirt untucked.

Maybe wavy or
a little bit curly.

I then start to make
the judgment

that we may be talking about
more than one person here.

I'm watching Jaws,
you know, in my living room.

Hear a lot of ruckus outside, trying
to figure out what's going on,

and I ran over to the window, and
I see one person actually running

and ducking underneath the van.

And then about 30 seconds later,

I seen another person
running down the street.

I could tell you maybe they were
Hispanic, and that was about it.

We hear one of
the officers on foot describe

someone jumping over a fence
at a nursing home.

Next thing you know,
I see police officers,

so it's kind of freaking me out
a little bit.

And the police, who had all been
chasing Carlos Hernandez,

all give up on him
and come and find Carlos DeLuna.

Yeah, I'm clear.

Okay, we got the guy.
This manhunt is now over.

It was night-time, it was dark,

and you've got someone sitting
in the back of a police car.

You're only seeing
the top half of their body.

I basically said that was him.

And even though when I stood
there looking at him,

I tried to visualise his clothes
and what he had on,

well, when he was in the cop
car, he didn't have a shirt on.

And so... I never said...

I probably should've asked, "Where's
his shirt?" or, "What colour was it?"

But I didn't.

I picked the person
that I thought that it was.

It was, like,
I am not a hundred per cent.

The call is from
the police department,

and they're wanting me
to come down to the store.

There's been an incident.

I remember seeing Wanda
on the stretcher,

and they had a gentleman
in the back of the car,

so when I came in the store, the area
behind the counter was still in...

still in disarray.

And I'm looking around, and they
say it's a robbery, and... and...

And the money's there.
There was money on the floor

there was money on the merchandise that was
behind the counter.

This doesn't make sense.

They said, "Okay, we got the
guy, and that's it. We're done."

They didn't care about
anything else.

They just wanted to close the report,
wash their hands of it and be done.

They left and said they had
the guy, and that was it.

Just like that.

And then the location
was turned over to us.

Just doesn't make any sense.
I didn't understand it.

They had the guy.
It made sense.

The investigation just stopped
almost that night, it seemed like.

They didn't do anything else. Why
didn't they interview more people?

I wish I could've came forward
to do something.

You know, to tell 'em something,
but I was too young.

Really, to tell you the truth,

the police officers never
even came over to the house.

They figured the case was solved
because he was a bad guy

and what was he doing
hiding under the car?

Carlos Hernandez,

he got away with it,
and they let him go.

And, uh, Carlos Hernandez got away not
with one murder but several murders.

I can't understand it.

In between the 1970s
and the late 1990s,

he's constantly in trouble, and
he's constantly getting let off.

Every murder that this man committed,
he got away with it.

Why did he get away with it?

Why was other people getting
blamed for stuff that he did

and they knew he did it?

The thought that arose in our head was
a thought that was confirmed to us

by criminal defence attorneys in town
and police officers whom we talked to

which was that Carlos Hernandez was
a small-time police informant.

Absolutely false.

I don't think anybody could rely
on Carlos Hernandez's background

or information.

To my knowledge, he never
provided one bit of information,

and I don't think he liked
the police.

Yeah, he was obviously
an outlaw.

He liked to have something
on everybody.

He had something on his lawyer. He
had something on lots of people.

He was somebody who was known to the
police, did favours for the police,

and clearly they did some
favours for him.

She was young,
and she had, you know,

she had a lot of hope, she had a
future, she had a little girl, a baby.

The little girl,
I saw her in years later and...

she still had the pain
in her face.

That little baby became a woman,
so, you know, time came and went.

Carlos is right here.

This is my brother Carlos,
right there.

I'm doing my best, brother.

I love you.
I know you can hear me.

I love you, and I'm sorry for
everything that I did or.

Like I said, I regret not being
there for him.

And I'm sorry, you know,

if I ever did anything to hurt
him or anything like that.

I pray every day for forgiveness
and everything.

Maybe I wasn't, you know, the
person that I was supposed to be.

You know, it didn't work out
like that.

The proper function of the law
is to establish the truth.

And whatever the truth is, that's
what we really mean by justice.

In this case, the truth
didn't come out.

You know, Mexicans.

Just terrible how they treated them. And
they didn't care. They didn't care.

You know, if it was someone with money,
they would have done a really good job.

I mean, that's the way
it seemed like.

You know, the Hispanics...

they treated them like shit.

It was bad.

Justice has not done as well as it
needs to be done in a lot of cases

involving poor criminal
defendants,

and also when the victim
is somebody who is poor

and of no account to the police
and the prosecutors.

That's why I'm against the death
penalty now because it's not fair.

If it was fair, then maybe it
would be okay, but it's not fair.

It's not a fair system.
I wish it were, but it's not.

Nah.

The justice system's about keeping people
from killing each other.

Does it work perfectly?
Of course not. Nothing does.

We're humans.

The crooked timbre of humanity

out of which nothing straight
can be made. Right?

We'll let the world
be the judge.

At the end, God's gonna see
and judge everyone.

My name is Carroll Pickett.

I was chaplain for the person
who was being executed,

and I stayed with him
as long as they were there

and walked him
into the death house.

Carlos came in at 9:00
in the morning,

and he... I stayed with him
all day.

He said, "Well, I'd like
to write some letters",

and he said,
"How am I gonna mail 'em?"

If he mailed 'em at the prison,
they would be censored,

so I told him
what we were gonna do

is if he finished with 'em
before 11:30 at night,

I'd put 'em in my pocket,
and I'll hold 'em in my pocket

until this is over
one way or another.

All of a sudden, he said,
he said,

"I never had a... a father,
you know? My father died."

He said, "I had a step-father who was a
drunk and he was horrible to all of us."

And he said, "We're getting along so well.
Can I call you Daddy"?'

You know? I said,
"Yeah, that's all right."

"Daddy" is so much different
from "father".

10:00, the warden will say to me
from the death house door,

"It's time", and I will say,
"Are you ready to go?"

The executioner was
inside this wall,

uh, behind a pane.

And that was the sign to start
the first of three injections.

And that first injection was
supposed to put him to sleep.

Well, it didn't work.

He raised his head up and looked up at me
with those big brown eyes.

I don't know what he tried
to say.

He tried to say something,
but I don't know what it was.

I wish I knew.

And then he lay down,
put his head down,

and then the second injection
was started.

And it was supposed to...

paralyse his lungs.

And he raised up again.

I didn't know what was going on.
It... It's not working.

And then they gave him the...

The last injection
was to paralyse the heart.

It... It finally worked.

And I thought, you know,

here is one of the biggest
mistakes Texas has ever made.

He'd done some things
before that, he admitted to.

But he didn't do this one,
and they killed him anyway.

It's like, you know,
Texas likes to kill people

to show people
that killing people is wrong.

Well, sometimes they killed
innocent people.