Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

A fire erupted in the basement of an apartment building in Pittsburgh, PA, on January 17, 1993, killing three people. Arson officials believed the fire was set purposefully, but the case went cold for 13 years. Dan Carnevale was arrested for the fire in 2006 based on the questionable testimony of a man claiming to be an eyewitness. All of the physical evidence in this case had been destroyed so th...

In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers (who all say they are innocent!) turned jailhouse-lawyers. In prison they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away. They set out to...

On March 8, 2016, Officer Nicholas Blake became suspicious of two vehicles traveling together on Interstate 70 toward Manhattan, KS due to their appearance and registration inconsistencies. He suspected they were involved in drug trafficking, with one acting as a decoy. Following a series of stops and surveillances by multiple law enforcement officers, a considerable amount of marijuana and metham...

Leo Schofield’s parole hearing in Tallahassee, FL, April 17th, 2024 with reporting from Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker. Bone Valley  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Authorities believe Rafael Martinez, his brothers Lorenzo Martinez, Daniel Martinez and Isidoro Medina-DeLeon killed Jose ‘Chino’ Jiminez because Mr. Jiminez shot Mr. Martinez in 1987 in Washington Heights, NY. However, Mr. Jiminez was never killed and is in fact alive and well to this day. Nevertheless, Rafael was convicted of murder and is presently serving consecutive sentences totaling 213 yea...

The second season of PROOF: Murder at the Warehouse takes Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis to Manteca, CA where they reinvestigate the murder of 18-year-old Renee Ramos. On June 5, 2000, Ramos’ body was found buried under a pile of debris inside the shell of a new Home Depot building. Despite tips hinting at alternate suspects - tips that were ignored until now - Renee’s boyfriend, 18-year-old skat...

On December 21, 2002, 17-year-old Brian Carrick, a stock boy at Val’s Foods, a grocery store in Johnsburg, IL, was reported missing by his mother. Police determined that one of the last sightings of Carrick was a day earlier, on December 20, when he went to the store to pick up his paycheck. On December 22, police found blood spatter near a cooler used to store produce and a bloody fingerprint on...

In the early morning hours of June 15, 1979, 17-year-old Amer Zada’s truck stalled out near the waterfront in Nyack, NY. While he waited for a ride, Amer discovered the body of Shirley Smith behind a dumpster in a restaurant parking lot. Minutes later, police arrived on the scene. Amer was thrown into the cruiser, arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. Evidence proving his innocence...

On March 14, 1998, Anthony Galati was found murdered along the side of a road in Rancho Cordova, CA. The case went cold until October 1999, when Israel Septs, an inmate in a California prison, told police that he witnessed the crime. Septs claimed that 23-year-old Jeremy Puckett and 18-year-old Angela Dvorsky killed Galati after they robbed him. Despite having an alibi and no physical evidence lin...

On the morning of February 19th, 2022, Cassandra Black Elk awoke to find her three-week-old daughter StarLight lifeless beside her. Police insisted the baby had died due to Shaken Baby Syndrome - and that Cassandra was responsible. “They were telling me their story,” Cassandra remembers, “that somebody did something to StarLight…somebody killed her.” Cassandra knew she hadn’t hurt her baby. She as...

Two gunmen robbed a liquor store in Edmond, OK, on December 30, 1974. The gunmen fatally shot an employee and left an eyewitness injured. At this time, police were also investigating a series of unrelated crimes and brought 22-year-old Glynn Simmons and his co-defendant in for questioning due to a tangential connection to the suspects in the other crimes. Glynn was put into various lineups and cha...

On March 30th, 2005, police were called to a home in New Orleans, LA. There, they found Renaldo Curley dead of a single gunshot wound. His estranged wife, 32-year-old Catina Curley, told police that she was in fear for her life when she shot Renaldo in self-defense. Police evidence - and the testimony of their children - showed that Renaldo had been physically abusing Catina for years. Yet, she wa...

In the early morning hours of March 24,1984, a fire erupted on the first floor of an apartment building in Chicago, IL. The fire destroyed the building and killed six people, including young children. Four years later, James Kluppelberg was taken into police custody after he had reported an unrelated arson case. Police began intensely interrogating James about the apartment building fire until he...

Jose Arreola was shot to death inside a pickup truck on November 14, 1995, in Sunnyside, WA. Five months later, a police informant identified a local teenager, Evaristo Salas, as the shooter. He was arrested and taken to the adult jail. “I'm 15 years old, I look like I'm 12. I weigh about a hundred pounds,” Evaristo remembers. “I'm five foot and I'm just surrounded. And I'm scared as hell.” Despit...

In 2007, a man wearing a wig and sunglasses entered a Bell Wireless store on the west side of Cincinnati, OH brandishing a gun. He ordered the patrons to the floor, demanded money from the store manager, and fled with the store's till. A witness across the street allegedly saw the man put on the wig and sunglasses, enter the store and flee a few minutes later in a Ford Expedition. The witness late...

On October 25, 1979, Rabbi David Okunov was robbed and fatally shot while on his way to temple in Brooklyn, New York. Two eyewitnesses described the perpetrator to authorities, and the police's first primary suspect fingered 19-year-old Carl Miller as the gunman. Despite not matching either eyewitness's descriptions, not being picked out of the line-up, and no physical evidence tying him to the cr...

One day in May of 1992, 19-year-old Eron Shelman was driving around Detroit, MI with three of his buddies. Eron was at the wheel with his friend Antonio Knight beside him when suddenly, a shot rang out, and Antonio fell over, dead. “I almost crashed the car,” Eron recalls. “I had my dearest friend laying in my lap, bleeding out the back of his head.” Despite someone else confessing to the shooting...

On November 29, 2002, 7-month-old Samaisha Benson began to struggle to breathe while under the care of childcare provider Kim Hoover. After being taken to the hospital, the baby was found to have a skull fracture and bleeding on her brain and tragically passed away two days later. Doctors and authorities suspected Samaisha was a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome. A month later, Kim was arrested and c...

On Saturday, June 23, 1973, a man attacked Anne Kane outside of her apartment in Boston, MA.  The man forced her inside, beat her, robbed her, raped her, and then kidnapped her dragging her all over the city for the next 6 and a half hours. She escaped into a local firehouse and ran away before the police arrived. A few days later, she identified Tyrone Clark as the assailant by picking his photo...

“When I tell people that I was sentenced 25 to 50 years, they automatically assume that I was accused of murder,” says Lorinda Swain. “And I always tell them, no, I was accused of worse than that.” In August of 2001, Lorinda was arrested in Calhoun County, Michigan for allegedly sexually molesting her adopted son, who was seven years old at the time. Although the boy recanted the allegation prior...

A house in Pittsburgh, PA, went up in flames on February 14, 1995, killing three firefighters while they were trying to put out the fire. A week later, a neighbor of 17-year-old Greg Brown came forward and said that he suspected Greg of lighting the fire. Greg and his mother lived at the house that had caught fire, and authorities suspected that the two of them set the fire to claim insurance mone...

In February of 1999, 86-year-old Rosemary “Mama Rose” Williams arrived at a hospital in Queens NY, claiming that she’d been raped at knifepoint. She named her 36-year-old grandson, Gary, as the assailant. Despite there being no physical evidence that Ms. Williams was assaulted, and the fact that Gary was in another state he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Years later, Mama Rose admitt...

January 18, 2006, 3-year-old Trustin Blue tumbled down his basement stairs in Cincinnati, OH, became unresponsive, and later brain dead. Trustin had been under the supervision of his mother’s boyfriend, Lamont Hunter, at the time of the incident. When Trustin was declared dead, the police began suspecting that Trustin had been raped and abused by Lamont, and had not actually fallen down the stairs...

On a November Sunday in 2005, two 14-year-olds were shot outside of a street carnival in South Central Los Angeles, CA. One of the teenagers died, but the surviving victim and other individuals identified 21-year-old Jason Walton as the gunman. Despite having been seen on video surveillance footage miles from the scene at the time, and with no physical evidence linking him to the crime, Jason was...

In the early morning of March 24, 1994, 20-year-old Kenneth Hayes was getting out of his car when someone emerged from the bushes, chased him down, and fatally shot him in front of his home in Detroit, MI. 18-year-old Larry Smith Jr. became a suspect when a car belonging to a friend of his was spotted near the scene of the crime. Since there was no physical evidence tying Larry to the crime, autho...