Original subtitles

Let me tell you a story.

Back in April 19th, 1909,

here in Ada, Oklahoma,

there was one of the most famous hangings that ever took place.

Ada I had a pretty rough reputation in those early days.

If you wanted to settle a dispute or an argument,

you just pulled your gun out and said, "Okay, we're gonna settle it here."

[gunshot]

A guy named Gus Bobbitt was a rancher here

that had had several disputes over grazing rights.

And there was a couple of guys named Allen and last name West,

and they had really bad blood with Bobbitt.

So they got a fella by the name of Jim Miller.

He was a hired gun.

They hired Mueller to come up and kill Bobbitt.

[gunshot]

The law people in the Ada Pontotoc County area

managed to get Allen West and Miller and had them in jail.

And that Sunday evening,

this group of men went to the jail, took them down to the livery stable...

and hanged the men.

No one knows, to this day, who did the hanging.

How could 20 to 30 people, with people watching,

do something like this?

This was really a frightening thing for everyone.

It was written up in the papers all over the United States.

The end of vigilante justice.

And what it really meant was that the courts and law and order

we're going to start functioning as they should.

And that when someone�committed an act, such as killing someone,

that they would be brought into the judicial system,

and law and order would take care of the punishment,

not a group of people taking the law into their own hands.

[interviewer] How's that working out?

[tsks and breathes deeply]

Well... [laughs]

[Barret] Central to how I view the world...

is hearing from the pulpit,

the emphasis on love being the core principle.

There are many people who say

that the types of persons I've sometimes represented,

and I've represented guilty people

who've committed murder many times,

shouldn't be represented.

Well, why wouldn't I? They're a person, you know.

Like I said, it's just never computed to me that I was doing,

I might be doing bad instead of good

in representing accused killers.

It was at one point debatable,

whether there even were innocent people in prison, as crazy as that seems.

But at one time,

there was the idea, which a segment of the public bought,

that law enforcement was magic.

That for whatever reason, because God was on their side

innocent people didn't get convicted.

And the theory,

if you would think about it, made no sense

because if God always intervened, there wouldn't be crime at all.

First time I met Ron Williamson was on death row in 1988.

I was...

assistant appellate public defender

and was assigned to his case by my supervisor.

My name is Kim Marks, I'm an investigator...

currently at the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System,

which is a state agency in Oklahoma.

[piano music playing]

I first started working for the Indigent Defense System in September of 1992.

And Ron Williamson's case was

one of the first cases that was assigned to me.

[baseball commentator speaking]

It's a hit!

There it goes! It's out of here!

They are very concerned that you are the one who did it.

I charge you, devil,

take your hands off God's property and loose every man!

[Davis] When I first started working on this case,

I was told that this was one of our clients who might be innocent.

I read that trial transcript, and I'm like "Where's the part where he's innocent?"

[laughs] I mean, 'cause the way the trial was presented,

I mean, there was so much that was unsaid in the trial.

And so much that was just kind of skewed.

Because there was nobody fighting back as hard as they could have,

it was not apparent that he was an innocent man.

When I started reading all the police reports

and looking at all the materials involved in the case,

I mean, it was just clear to me that they had the wrong person.

[Barret] For Ron, since he was on death row,

he had a lawyer for a direct appeal, which was lost.

From there, he goes on to have lawyers file a post-conviction application

on his behalf that was denied.

He came...

within a few days of being executed then

before the case came to...

the opinion of my supervisor.

And she got a stay issued.

I think it was less than a week before that execution date.

And then he gets in the federal court.

[Davis] Now you're asking the federal court to review it

to find out if there are any violations

of the United States Constitution.

Mistakes the judge might have made, mistakes the prosecutor might have made,

all those things that make you believe this was not a fair trial.

[Williamson laughs]

-This feels like a damn game, man. -What's that?

-This is bullshit. -What?

I don't know why they keep on me. They know I didn't do this.

There seemed to be the idea, well, maybe he did it because he lived close by,

and the idea that maybe he did it because he was at the Coachlight.

And, of course, both narratives have real problems.

First of all, it was only Glen Gore...

who said that Rob Williamson was there.

The other thing is,

there's pretty good evidence from a God-fearing woman

that he was home for a long time that night.

One fact that Ron would always tell people about

was that he said his mother was his alibi witness,

and that everybody in town knew her, and knew that her word was good,

and that she wouldn't lie, even for her son.

And he thought that they intentionally waited

until she was dead to charge him.

Because, according to him, she could have vouched for the fact

that he was home all night, the night the Debbie Carter was killed.

[Darren] She kept a daily journal, so she went back and checked her journal

and saw December 7th, 1982,

that she and Uncle Ronnie had went and rented like a Betamax...

or a VCR and a bunch of old movies that she liked.

And they sat and watched movies that entire night.

[Barret] She brought the receipt

for renting them at the movie place to Dennis Smith

and never saw that again.

[Darren] Fact-check me on this,

but I don't think they were able to find a video camera that day,

but instead just kind of took a brief note

that they accepted the journal, probably put it into evidence.

And of course, that journal went missing.

That evidence not being used and then disappearing

is, you know, significant.

[Dawn] This is the sheet rock. You know, I told you that they...

exhumed her body.

This was on the wall and they could tell that it was a print,

but they didn't know who it went to.

So that's why they exhumed her body, was to try to match,

and it did match her, it was her print.

[Darren] So they had originally done a palm print,

you know, during the autopsy.

Right? So they had a very accurate palm print.

And then Peterson gets the idea that he wants to exhume the body

four years after Debbie's death...

when they already had a palm print on file

that did not match or did not prove to be Dennis Fritz or Ron Williamson's.

The investigator that did the original palm print

had found that it was not consistent with Debbie Carter's.

Then they exhumed the body,

approximately five years later,

and the same agent that said it was not her hand print

changed his mind

and said that it was her palm print.

And it's my understanding that that's the only time

he ever changed his mind as to a print.

[Darren] The dude magically, miraculously, 24 years into the guy's career,

he makes his very first reversal.

And how he could take�a palm print from an exhumed body

and somehow find more accuracy in that then the original palm print,

which was taken, I think on December 9th, two days after the murder...

Come on, it's ridiculous

[Kim] In Oklahoma at the time,

the science available was hair comparison,

there was fingerprints,

there were ballistics,

and tire impressions.

So a lot of techniques being used were considered viable tools.

But now, with new inventions in science,

new technology, new research,

we're finding a lot of stuff that we used just isn't good enough.

I worked on a DNA case, he was exonerated.

And that was a Pontotoc County case, prosecuted by Bill Peterson's office.

The evidence wasn't even human hair.

They thought it was dog hair.

How are we comparing dog hair to human hair

and coming up with convictions?

Did you find any pubic hairs that match that of Dennis Fritz?

Yes sir, I did.

I found one pubic hair from the wash cloth.

My opinion that it is consistent,

microscopically, with Dennis Fritz' pubic hair.

Their evidence was probably the most commonly used

type of forensic evidence in the 1980s.

Hair evidence was not a science.

There were no studies that showed

that through blind testing

a person could accurately

determine which hair came from which person, there was none of that.

The phrase that was considered proper to use

was the hairs were microscopically consistent

and therefore could have originated from the same source

Did you find any hairs were consistent, microscopically,

with that of Ron Williamson?

Yes I did.

There were two pubic hairs also from the bedding,

hairs that were consistent, microscopically,

of Ron Williamson's hair?

Hair evidence has been discredited over and over.

People who were convicted on hair evidence...

are getting out right and left.

It seems like they're wrong more than they're right on hair evidence.

I mean, I can't answer any more truthful than I answered them.

It looks like to me...

that if you can't find out the guy who did this,

in this small a town...

you know,

what in the hell?

Why don't you look into the people that can hide that shit?

[Barret] Nineteen eighty-seven,

at that point they had no statement from Ron.

In fact, he'd been asked about the case numerous times

and he'd always denied it.

But suddenly, right after he was jailed,

they thought they had an incriminating statement from him.

Which was that he had a dream about going up to Debra Carter's apartment.

"I ended up at Debbie Carter's door,

knocked on the door, and she said, 'Just a minute, I'm on the phone.'

Burst in the door, raped and killed her."

It was a dream.

[Barret] The recount of it was not an admission of having done anything.

It was his statement of having a dream.

He did not even describe correctly...

the scene of the crime.

[Kim] Ron had a history of mental illness and, of course, he heard voices.

And who's to sort out, was it a dream?

Was it something he heard?

Was it a voice he heard?

So, that was problematic.

[chuckling]

These are letters from prison.

I saved practically all of them.

I think I did. Tried to, anyway.

This was... [sighs]

July 12th, 1989.

Ronnie wrote this.

"Renee, I'm going through so much suffering.

The pressure here is immense,

never getting to go anywhere.

I've gotten down on the floor and banged my head against concrete.

I've hit myself in the face till I was so sore

the next day from the punches.

Everybody here is stuck here like sardines.

This is the most suffering I've ever had to endure.

Please help me, Ron."

It's hard, it's hard to get a letter like that in the mail.

Heart-wrenching, you know?

Cried lots of tears.

There were two times where his next of kin,

who he enlisted as his sister,

got notified that his execution was impending.

Over time he...

lost significant weight

and he quit bathing.

He had gray matter on him.

His hair grew out...

and his teeth were rotting out of his mouth.

It's still hard for me to even think about how he was because...

it was horrible.

It was horrible for him.

It was horrible for us to...

to see it happening.

It was horrible for his family, who couldn't do anything about it.

The prison just turned a blind eye.

I charge you, devil...

I charge you, devil, take your hands off God's property

and loose every man!

Two balls, one strike.

They don't know you didn't do it.

They are very concerned that you are the one that did it.

[ROn laughs]

Don't you think they've got better things to do than keep coming back on you?

No, like I said.

[Davis] A Brady violation is when there is exculpatory evidence.

If it is in the hands of the state,

which includes the police and the prosecutor...

and it is... can be viewed as exculpatory to the person on trial,

you have to give it to whoever is representing this person on trial.

[Barret] Ron Williamson, he was brought in for a polygraph in 1983,

and continually...

denied having any involvement in the case.

I'm not gonna take this test again.

I appreciate what you're doing.

I know what you're saying about getting clean reads.

But hell, I thought I was, done damn good on it.

[camera clicks]

So there was this tape,

and one of the issues that was raised on Ron's first appeal

was they never turned over the tape to the defense.

I mean, the prosecutor should've known,

I mean everyone should have known that, you know,

we have to look at this evidence to see if it's something

that should have been turned over.

Sometimes it's a guy who just... things came down too heavy

at one time, so he popped.

I understand it.

I'm sad that they was inconclusive

'cause I wanted desperately clear myself in there.

I understand.

[Davis] This long videotape

that they didn't turn over because they said it was a polygraph

that, you know, that's inadmissible in court,

it is actually a two-hour interview.

It certainly should have been given to defense counsel

to see what he really said...

when he was being interviewed by OSBI

and, you know, Ada police.

I mean, you know, very experienced interrogators.

Well, I'm just sad it didn't turn... I was really confident I could come here

and get this thing over with, so...

[Davis] He denies involvement.

He just...

keeps with his, "I'm innocent, you know,

I didn't, I didn't have anything to do with this," and...

for two hours they try to trip him up on that and they can't do it.

Anything else I oughta know about?

Good luck to ya.

[Davis] It's a constitutional violation not to turn over evidence

that would be exculpatory to the defense.

There should have been a break in the trial,

where everybody could view the video tapes

and they could figure out if they were relevant

and should be part of the trial,

but they didn't do that.

And we're still stunned that...

fifty-five years after Brady....

We still have prosecutors, we catch them all the time,

violating Brady.

[Davis] So that was one tape that was never turned over

to defense counsel.

The other tape is the... [chuckles]

...is the confession of Ricky Jo Simmons.

...I will come and healing.

Oh, my friend. This is the Bible portrait of Jesus Christ of Nazareth!

I will come and heal him!

You've come here for God to help you, and he's going to do something for you.

-Okay, Ron. I'm ready when you are. -Okay.

Why don't you start out and introduce yourself.

Okay, Kim. My name is Ronald Keith Williamson.

I'm currently incarcerated at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary,

here in�McAlester, Oklahoma, where Dan Reynolds is our warden.

Okay.

I was sentenced to die on September 27th of this year

for a crime I didn't commit,

a heinous, atrocious, and cruel murder to one Debra Sue Carter.

I'm saying I believe one Ricky Jo Simmons raped and murdered her...

I was with one of the attorneys, and we were coming out of a visit.

And the prison psychologist stopped us...

and wanted to talk about Ron, which was highly unusual.

Nobody ever wanted to talk about our clients.

And he asked, he said that he had been talking to Ron

and that he had kind of figured out

what was wrong.

And we said, "Okay."

And he continued on, he said that Ron has an alter ego...

and his name is Ricky Jo Simmons.

And Ron can't bring himself to confess to the crime.

So his alter-ego named Ricky Jo Simmons confesses for him.

And I was like, are you kidding me? [chuckles]

And so I said, "Dr. Smith,

do you understand that Ricky Jo Simmons is a real person.

That's not what's wrong with Ron, Ron is innocent."

[Kim] Ricky Jo Simmons was a man who lived in Ada.

He went to the police and confessed to the crime,

and he did so on a video tape.

I intentionally went there to kill somebody...

and not to rape somebody.

I guess I was, you know, trying to get in bed with her.

She started pushing and shoving.

Swinging, pushing me away, you know, just freaked out

I believe I did something out of anger.

Ricky Jo Simmons came into the police department

and said, "You have the wrong guy.

I believe I killed her, you know?

I am the real killer,"

And every time he said that they would say,

"Oh, you know, Ricky, we think you just are making this up.

Can we set up an appointment with a counselor

for you to help you through this?"

And he came back every time, he said,

"No, I think I killed her."

Because she knew who I was...

I believe I killed her.

Strangled her.

Finally, somebody, the real murderer had come forward, Ricky Jo Simmons.

They showed the tape to Ron in prison and he lost his mind.

On the witness stand, Mr. Carter said that he picked his daughter up

and he could tell that she was dead!

All I'm saying, I want Ricky Jo Simmons arrested

for the rape and murder of Debbie Carter!

Okay. Now, is that all you want to say?

-That's all I wanna say. -Okay.

I checked once

just to see�if�Ricky Jo Simmons was still living in Ada,

but I don't think he ever was brought up again on the case.

And truthfully, I don't think anybody, except Ron Williamson,

believed that he was guilty.

I think,�Ricky Jo Simmons probably had his own mental health problems.

Well, he did it! He said he did it!

Remember who you're talking to.

-Okay. -I'm on your side, okay.

-So that's all you wanna do on the video? -That's all.

You wanna do it one more time, to make sure we've got it?

It's up to you, we don't have to.

-I don't wanna do it. -Okay.

Well, I'll turn it off then. That was pretty easy.

Ron Williamson was clearly very mentally ill.

And it was known to the whole town.

His sisters had worked for years trying to get help for him.

He was bipolar.

He had some paranoid tendencies.

And this was known to everyone.

And that it never made its way into his trialwas just shocking to me.

That boy won't cooperate with me at all. If he was paying me I wouldn't be here.

I can't represent him, Judge, I just can't do it.

I don't know who's going to, but I can't.

For a case like Ron's that required

a lot of investigative resources,

Barney wasn't ready for that.

He had a disability in that he was blind.

He hired an assistant to help read for him and help prepare.

He was court-appointed.

He didn't work hard enough on the case.

He also got paid almost nothing.

I'm not gonna put up with this. I'm too damned old for it, Judge.

I don't want anything to do with it, not under any circumstances.

I have no idea about his guilt or that has nothing to do with it,

but I'm not gonna put up with this.

At this time, I'm gonna ask that you clear the courtroom.

[Barret] I'm by no means...

saying that Barney Ward did a good job, he didn't.

He did a bad job.

The courts found that he was found to be ineffective,

and that's because he was ineffective.

Ineffective means that you didn't effectively represent your client

because maybe you made a mistake.

You know, any lawyer would have raised the competence issue.

Any lawyer would've done that, I mean it was so glaring.

[Davis] My mental health argument was all the things they knew before trial.

I mean, he got Social Security Disability,

based on his mental health before his trial.

He had been found incompetent to stand trial

in a check cashing case.

You know?

But somehow when he was on trial for his life for murder,

nobody thought to raise these things.

But that was my argument to the 10th Circuit,

is that everybody should have known that these were important things

for a jury to know about.

I was sentenced to die on September 27th of this year for a crime I didn't commit,

a heinous, atrocious and cruel murder to one...

Judge, say, he granted relief at the state appeal

that they agreed that there was ineffective assistance of counsel.

[Davis] We won the new trial...

based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

And now they're back at the trial level.

Once you've gotten that new trial, then you can retest all the evidence.

[Kim] I talked to Dennis Fritz, the co-defendant.

He was very helpful. He wanted to help Ron.

He believed Ron was innocent and...

he told me he was innocent.

And by the end of the interview,�I was convinced both of them were innocent.

A large part of the evidence in Dennis' trial

was his connection to Ron Williamson.

On May 8th, 1987,

Dennis Fritz experienced a strange sense of foreboding.

Just two hours later he was arrested for rape and murder.

After a swift trial he was convicted.

And the vote of a single juror saved him from the death penalty.

[Grisham] I think his appeals had run, and since he was not facing death

there was nothing else really to appeal.

If you're not convicted of a capital offense

you have only one appeal,

which you get a lawyer appointed by the state,

and Dennis didn't have enough money to hire his own.

[Davis] Dennis Fritz filed his own federal appeal

because he did not have a lawyer appointed for him to do that.

Dennis is a smart guy.

Ron was mentally unbalanced in prison.

And he's on death row.

Dennis was in a different prison.

And he saw a early episode

of one of the daytime talk shows in the early '90sabout DNA.

An Oklahoma law school wants to make sure innocent people who are put behind bars

still have a chance�at freedom.

That's why the school is teaming up with a non-profit group,

the Innocence Project,

which has helped overturn nearly 300 convictions in the last two decades.

[Scheck] We knew very early

that DNA testing would be transformative for the criminal justice system.

Not only would it help law enforcement find the people

who really committed the crimes,

but it would also exonerate...

many individuals.

DNA testing is fairly new in Oklahoma. It was first introduced in 1994.

Now it's playing a major role in courtrooms.

Experts say it's almost foolproof.

It's certainly better than hair comparison,

certainly better than ABO blood typing.

[Grisham] Dennis became obsessed with it, did his research, all he could do,

and contacted the Innocence Project.

They screened him,

which is something that we struggle to do every day at the Innocence Project.

There's so much mail, that we struggle to open it all.

Dennis got screened pretty fast because his letter was smart.

He had his file, you know, perfectly organized.

He knew it inside and out.

It takes a long time...

for for us to take a case,

you know, because we have to be careful.

And the cases we do take,

out of the thousands of letters that come in,

half the time the guy is lying.

Barry Scheck was involved in representing both Ron and Dennis.

Ron, especially, because Ron was a death penalty case.

Dennis was not.

And Mark Barrett was Ron's lawyer.

He had been working for years on Ron's case.

And he and Barry teamed up.

[Scheck]Sometime after Mark Barrett was appointed to represent Ron

in the retrial

we wound up representing Dennis Fritz,

and were willing to pay for all the DNA testing

that had to be done for both Ron and Dennis.

We regarded, essentially, that we were a team

and we were gonna work together to do everything we could

to vacate these convictions and find the person who actually did it.

[Barret] You can't always identify which people are innocent,

and we were talking about doing DNA evidence.

Ron had zero hesitation.

And I tried to tell myself,

you know, I gotta temper my expectations a little bit

because even though he has zero hesitation,

he's also crazy.

New information tonight in a rape and murder case

that a victim's family thought was over.

Over the past five years, DNA has become a popular tool for attorneys.

I wanted it, Mark Barrett and Bill Peterson wanted it.

[Barret] While he filed the first motion for it,

believing that it would help him prove his case.

I think he thought that Ron was guilty

and that DNA would help him prove that.

I contacted the lab and they said, "Do we still have that evidence?"

"Yes, we do." And I said, "I want an analysis done."

[Long] Back in 1982 when this happened,

DNA forensic application, that wasn't even on the horizon.

It wasn't until quite a while later

that they were able to do any DNA work in this case.

What we decided to do was to check the DNA on the panty section

and the sheets.

We would do that first and if it came back,

whatever comes back, then to make sure then, we would do the hairs.

It was something new that helped us know the truth

that we couldn't know before.

New DNA testing could mean that the two men convicted in the 1982 rape and murder

of Debbie Carter of ADA could go free.

It's our big story tonight at six.

Eyewitness News 5 reporter Steve Voelker joins us live from Ada tonight,

and Steve some shocking news in this case that many thought was solved.

It was in this Pontotoc County courthouse

where Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz were sentenced 12 years ago,

and it will be in this courthouse�where we will learn if they will be set free.

[Judge] And then I got a letter, three or four weeks later,

and it said this is not Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson.

I set that hearing just as quick as I can set it.

I don't even remember who called me,

but they told me that nothing matched Ron and Dennis

and they was gonna have to release them.

[Judge] I did not know what to expect,

except when I went by the courthouse the trucks had started gathering.

I remember being very confused by the whole situation

because there were 20/20, Dateline,

every state news station, all these new trucks and satellites,

and we really didn't have a clue as to what we walked in, on that day.

All we knew is that they were being released

and these tests, this DNA stuff didn't match.

Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz walked into the courtroom in handcuffs.

They got convicted in that little courtroom.

By golly, I thought they would walk out the door right there.

[Darren] I drove to Ada, so I sat in the courtroom.

He was in civilian clothes. First time I'd seen him that way in a long time.

One of the things I remember is they brought my dad and Ron in, in handcuffs.

And so that was kind of hard to see.

That was the first time I'd seen him in 12 years.

It was his decision for me not to visit him in prison.

He didn't want me to be around

the people that were there with him,

and he just, you know,

he just didn't want me to be exposed to that.

I was excited but, you know,

still just on pins and needles, not really knowing exactly what was gonna happen,

if he was going to be freed or what that really meant for him.

[Judge] What happened is Bill put on a witness from the OSBI

that put on testimony that it wasn't them.

There were no DNA profiles found

on any of the evidence that we submitted to any of the labs

that were consistent with either Mr. Fritz or Mr. Williamson.

Oh God, I was a nervous wreck.

On the other hand, is like the truth is the truth.

Let's get it out.

The truth is that the evidence,

some of the evidence that was used

to convict Dennis Fritz and Ronald Keith Williamson

has been proven by DNA

that they are not the source of the donation of this forensic evidence.

And I believe it's incumbent, based on the evidence,

that this case should be dismissed against them.

Well, I just sat there and I looked at Judge Landrith.

And he looked at me several times.

The boys got to stand up.

What you've seen today�and what's occurred over the last several months,

was what I truly believe is a...

a non-adversarial

search for what the truth really is in this case.

We used today's science and today's technology

to right a wrong.

have been incarcerated, nor can we ever forget Debbie Carter?

All we can do is go forward�from today.

But what this day really is, it's a day of freedom.

The motions to dismiss will be granted...

for both of you.

And Mr. Fritz, sir, you'll be discharged

from the custody of the Department of Corrections

and the Pontotoc�County Sheriff's Office.

And Mr. Williamson, sir, you'll be discharged also

from the Department of Corrections and the Pontotoc County Sheriff's Office.

-Thank you, Judge. -And...

Mr. Williamson and Mr. Fritz, you're free to go.

-Ron? -Yeah.

-We'll catch you later. -Okay.

[murmur]

During his years as an inmate,

Dennis Fritz had not allowed his daughter to come and see him.

The last time they were together she was 12 years old.

Dennis, you know, sees Elizabeth and...

[whimpers and sniffles]

That was something.

Elizabeth, yes,

exact spitting image of her mother, except her mother had blonde hair.

And I just almost fainted, you know, when I seen her.

It was just, you know, I mean...

It took me several minutes to actually catch my breath.

[Elizabeth] They tear you down.

For my family, I mean, they took my family away. [chuckles]

I only had my dad and... [sobs]

...that family unit is...

was just ripped away for no reason.

How do you feel about what happened here today?

There was a little bit of animosity in my heart toward everybody on this Earth

for sending me to death row,

but eventually I did find a reason in my heart

to forgive and forget it.

It's hard to get anybody to listen to you.

I mean, it is terribly difficult to be on death row, an innocent man

and charged with a potentially heinous crime.

[cameras clicking]

How close did you come to being executed?

Five days.

We knew that he was innocent.

But it's hard, like he said, to convince people

for people to listen to you.

But we're just looking forward to our family coming together again.

[Renee]That was joyful tears.

I cried then but they were�joyful tears.

We went outside.

You know, everybody followed him out.

And the first thing he did was light a cigarette up.

And we all were just gathered around him, hugging him and congratulating him.

And he was smiling from ear-to-ear.

And getting to touch him for the first time in...

almost 12 years.

I feel pretty good, I tell ya.

[Darren] It was an awesome day, in general.

It was probably the best day that we had out of the entire story.

But the trauma inflicted on the Carter family,

I mean, is just absolutely heartbreaking.

What Peggy has had to go through.

There she is at square one, to have to go back through all this, after 16 years.

But for the family of the murder victim, Debbie Carter,

the men's releases is no cause for celebration.

[Peggy] And they got released and I know they had these big smiles on their face.

And I thought, "Boy, I'm proud somebody's happy today.

Cause I'm not one of 'em."

And I was just, I was afraid, I was scared.

And all I could do was think, you know,

"Somebody's got to take blame for this."

And I got to crying so hard they had to take me downstairs.

And this day is obviously a great day of joy

for some,

and it's a...

great day of sorrow revisited, rekindled for others.

I thought well, I'll never know now who done it to her.

I'll never ever find out.

I'll never know.

[Christy] I was standing in the DA's office and...

the whole family was there and I was...

we were all asking questions and he assured us

that if they found out that they had anything to do with it

that they would try them again.

And I can remember asking "Like that doesn't make any sense.

You can't do that, you know..."

He didn't really have any answers.

He kind of stumbled around and didn't have any answers.

[Darren ]Even on the day, and the day after,

Bill Peterson was putting out statements, you know,

here in the local media, you know, saying, you know, "I'll do what I can,

that Ron and Dennis are still, you know,

that we're still looking into them."

That gave them a lot of panic even after they were exonerated and free.

Daddy thought that this guy was gonna go after 'em again.

They believed that they had something to do with it,

that they had to be there, and people still hold on to that to this day.

They'll tell you, "I know that they were there.

They had to be there."

[Renee] I don't think you will ever change their minds.

and that's okay for them if they want to believe that way.

But I want the world to know that he was innocent.

They can't get it right, just like getting Williamson.

They wanted to blame him because he was a neighbor...

and he had mental problems. So he's the one that done it.

His only friend was Dennis Fritz. So he helped him.

You can't do that.

That's not fair to them guys.

You just don't do that.

[Long] We did the best we could

with the technology that we had at the time.

And do I regret that those things happened to those guys?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. I just think that, that's terrible.

Do I think anybody did anything on purpose

to see to it that that happened to them?

Absolutely not.

[Scheck] I don't think it's accurate to say

they did the best they could with the evidence that they had.

No, it was not a well done investigation,

and the failure to disclose a lot of this exculpatory evidence

the judge recognized.

And that's not the way prosecutors...

should behave, you're supposed to disclose exculpatory evidence.

That's the fundamental.

Well, this is one of those... remarkable kind of iconic cases

that demonstrates...

not just one thing,

but a multitude of things that are wrong with the criminal justice system.

There's no need necessarily...

to get too conspiratorial about it.

But something's really rotten...

at the core of this case.

This is going to happen again, don't think otherwise.

One of the biggest lessons to learn from Ron's case

is that if there had been no DNA...

if Debbie Carter have been merely murdered and not raped and murdered,

Ron Williamson would have been executed

and Dennis Fritz would have spent the rest of his life in jail.

You can have that same evidence, minus the semen,

and get people convicted today.

And examples are Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot.

There's no DNA that we know of so far, anyway,

to be tested in their case, their case stinks like crazy.

And I've seen the other people too that's being released

for wrongful convictions and stuff.

And I cry.

A blessing. [whimpers and sniffles]

It's an overwhelming blessing.

I pray and ask God, I wish it was me, you know.

[Barret] Barry Scheck, and I were working on

Ron and Dennis' civil suit.

We were saying among ourselves...

Hey, Tommy and Karl have got to be innocent.

And somebody ought to do something about that sometime.

Good to see you, Tommy.

It's sure good to see you too.

[Barret] I have no doubt about Tommy's sentence.

There's just no way he did it.

Both cases involve alleged dreams by suspects.

Ron claim he dreamed about going up to Debbie Carter's apartment.

And Tommy...

dreamed about...

what happened to Denice Haraway.

Both of the dreams described inaccurate facts.

The dreams were put into evidence in both cases.

They were both cases that...

were not immediately solved.

Lead investigators were the same.

The primary prosecutor was Bill Peterson in both cases.

It raises questions.

[Tommy] Each day I just take it one day at a time, you know,

and you can�either come in here and be just as salty and bitter about it,

or you can do everything you can

to try your best to get out.

That's fantastic, it's good of you to call me.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, good.

-[people chattering] -[clanking]

I pray all the time,

that something would fall through, you know, that would prove it.

I don't know what, you know, but...

I hope something will fall through.

[Tommy] I was dreaming that I looked and my cell door was open

and I hear this voice say,

"I can take you and show you where Denice is at."

I say, "Where?" He said, "Follow me."

And I started to walk out the door,

and all of a sudden, I feel this weird feeling.

I said...

Who are you?

And...

he said, "Does it matter?"

I said, "Yeah."

And then for some reason, I said, "Are you a God or are you the devil?"

And as soon as I said that, I woke up.

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