Some Initial Thoughts
The Innocence Machine: A new approach to true crime cases under scrutiny.
The Innocence Project, and many of its chapters and similar organizations around the country, are dedicated to bringing justice to those people incarcerated who they feel are innocent. While this is a noble purpose, a closer examination of their cases can quickly muddy the waters. Many factors from multiple factions outside the criminal justice system influence and alter the outcomes of these cases, while the quest for actual innocence is lost and corrupted. Many times, this comes with disastrous and deadly results, sometimes costing the lives of those involved along with the people they are trying to exonerate.
Walking a tightrope between the positive and negative aspects of innocence campaigns, The Innocence Machine shows both sides of the fight to exonerate wrongly convicted people and delves into the oversaturation of the innocence craze. It exposes the truth behind these external investigations that derail the criminal justice system and can cause the release of dangerous criminals back into society.
The innocence system is broken. It has gotten way off track. The Innocence Machine is a product of that broken system.
In this book, you will take a deep dive into some of these innocence programs, and, along the way, will be able to examine the murders that prompted the calls for the innocence of these convicted criminals. This book highlights numerous true crime cases, examining the details, why innocence organizations promoted the convicted person’s innocence, and the results of their actions.
Innocence programs typically try to address the flaws in the justice system, but this book addresses the weaknesses in innocence programs. The concept behind The Innocence Machine is that the innocence craze raises many questions and concerns about how innocence advocates select cases and how those cases are investigated.
In a very revealing statement made by a defense attorney on a Dateline program, Bob Dudek said, “In my 22, 23 years of being an appellate defense attorney, [name redacted] is the only one of about two or possibly three people I genuinely believed was innocent.”
If you follow true crime, watch any of the multiple true crime documentaries available on streaming channels, and have any tendency to believe in a convicted person's innocence, this book is for you.
The Innocence Project has evolved into a craze that is becoming an Innocence Machine, and it appears to be based on the assumption that almost everyone who has been convicted could be innocent. Incomplete reinvestigations of cases are often conducted by individuals untrained in detective work and investigation, where bias and the omission of pertinent evidence are common, leading to disastrous consequences.
It is essential that there is accountability and separation from the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project provides valuable and commendable work. However, the Innocence Machine is the craze to seek out and uncover innocent, convicted people, sometimes without thoroughly vetting the case. This can be based on the media and public innocence campaigns. As seen in the example of the Porter case, featured within, it is sometimes based on the machinations of the convicts themselves. Once the Innocence Machine gets started, it rolls away, unstoppable and out of control.
The Porter case demands that all innocence cases be viewed with extreme skepticism. The actions that occurred post-conviction demonstrates that siren calls for attention can lead to inappropriate conduct. They can also lead to ignoring specific facts to reach the point of innocence, as seen in many other cases reviewed throughout this book.
The Porter case, along with several others, is one in which the convict initiated and controlled the narrative; there are others in which the public controlled it, and still others in which the media, at times, controlled it, when it would seem that the actual innocence organizations should be steering the narrative.
In almost all the cases presented in this book, crucial inculpatory evidence is ignored or dismissed by the innocence activists to present the convicted person as innocent. Innocence activists sometimes seem to overlook specific pieces of evidence and instead focus on ambiguous evidence, which can lead to a misrepresentation of the facts. Also, they often lack the investigative skills required for a thorough, unbiased investigation. Oddly enough, it seems they frequently accuse the police of the same thing. A common refrain from defense attorneys is that the police had tunnel vision and ignored other suspects. Are innocence advocates using that same tunnel vision after they see publicity suggesting a convicted person’s innocence, and are they ignoring crucial and incriminating evidence indicating their guilt?
Familiarity with the defendant or convicted person appears to be a factor in how people perceive the case, especially if that defendant is a famous person. It has often been said that everyone in prison claims to be innocent, and many of them are likable and persuasive. Are those lawyers and innocence activists who visit the people in prison or interview the defendant’s family more susceptible to thinking that they are innocent?
One way that defendants and innocence activists draw the attention of innocence organizations is by promoting their concerns through a marketing strategy that utilizes signage and local protests, as well as more widely through websites and media attention.
With every single one of the cases reviewed in this book, there is a vast discrepancy between the evidence presented at trial and the re-creation presented on the call-for-innocence websites. In fact, it is difficult to find the actual evidence in these cases because so many entries are biased in favor of the defendants, even by legitimate media outlets. The language used can be very persuasive, but it always gets in the way. For example, in the Marcellas Williams case, discussed in more detail later, almost none of the media entries list all the inculpatory evidence pointing to Williams.
Proof of innocence is vague and disjointed. It feels very subjective at times. These cases create an enigma. Would you rather a guilty man goes free or an innocent man not? It is easy to fall into the mind game of who is really innocent. Many of these cases feature people who are hardened criminals and hardly innocent in their past crimes. Steven Avery (discussed next) could be an example of that.
Making A Murderer: An Incomplete Documentary Film
Many recent documentaries have exploited the convicted person as the innocent victim of the justice system. This is evident in such cases as the Laci Peterson murder case (discussed later). There is a tendency to conveniently overlook crucial incriminating evidence for the sake of a gripping story. One production that follows the model of the wrongfully convicted innocent person is the 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.
Making a Murderer is a compelling and engaging view of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The film is an excellent true crime documentary, featuring all the required elements of police corruption, tainted evidence, false confessions, tunnel vision, and, of course, a wrongly convicted person.
Making a Murderer won several well-deserved awards, including four Emmy awards in 2016. With the first scene, the film hooks the audience, eager to see what happens next. The “murderer” is Steven Avery, and through many on-screen interviews, his demeanor is so convincing that, as a viewer, one really believes his side of the case. Since Avery was previously wrongly convicted of another crime, the documentary is successful in making the viewer sincerely doubt his guilt in the Halbach murder and think he was railroaded once again.
If perhaps the creator of Making a Murderer thought they were following in the footsteps of the Thin Blue Line (discussed later), a review of the actual evidence shows otherwise. This was Hollywood-type moviemaking. Numerous websites and books, including one by the prosecution, address the incriminating evidence left out of the film. Upon analyzing all the evidence, it becomes clear why the jury reached its guilty verdict. In fact, despite Making A Murderer presenting scenes suggesting that Avery’s cousin was completely innocent, it is easy to see his culpability in the crimes that occurred at the wreckage yard in Wisconsin.
If the purpose is to create controversy, these documentaries can be very effective, as they possess tremendous power to change people's minds or generate specific thoughts. But if it turns out that they didn’t present all the evidence, then what is the value? Do they end up merely like a horror movie, accomplishing their goal of creating emotion and controversy? Or are they essentially empty? Then they become a noble quest worthy of admiration and respect without any payoff.
A Fully Complete Incriminating Case
Due to the documentary series, Making a Murderer, first released in 2015, many people still believe Steven Avery is innocent of the heinous crime he committed. Innocence advocates have called for his exoneration.
One can suppose that Steven Avery, once released from prison on a wrongful conviction for a 1984 sexual assault, must have thought he was invincible. That he could commit a murder in his front yard, of a woman he had called to his house, and get away with it.
A photographer for Autotrader magazine was declared missing after she failed to check in with her employer following an appointment on October 31, 2005. It was discovered that Teresa Halbach had an appointment on the grounds of Avery’s Auto Salvage to photograph a minivan. The police immediately responded to the auto salvage yard and began a search, assisted by volunteers, including law enforcement personnel and local residents.
Halbach’s car was eventually found by searchers, partially covered by brush, at the very back of the salvage yard. This discovery led to a thorough search of the vast salvage yard, including the area where Halbach was supposed to meet the caller who had requested a photograph of the minivan. It was learned that the vehicle belonged to Steven Avery's sister.
It was also discovered that Steven Avery had previously had Halbach respond to his residence on the property for a photograph, and that Halbach had asked not to ever respond to any of Avery’s future requests. She told her boss that she was uncomfortable with Avery as he had opened the door in a towel. Avery may have known this because, during the call to Autotrader, he provided another name and address; however, the caller, who had used Star 67 to conceal his phone number, had specifically requested Teresa Halbach.
After researching Avery’s background, the police reviewed his record. Avery had been convicted of burglary in 1981 and had served 10 months in jail. In 1982, Avery burned his cat in a bonfire and was convicted of animal cruelty. Avery was also accused by the wife of a Manitowoc County officer of exposing himself to her as she was driving in Manitowoc.
In 1985, Avery threatened his cousin with a gun and threatened to kill her for telling people he had been flagellating himself on his front lawn. He was convicted and sentenced to six years for "endangering safety while evincing a depraved mind" and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Steven Avery was arrested in November 2005 and charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach. During the trial, the evidence discovered in Halbach’s vehicle and a search of Avery’s property were presented. Investigators had found incriminating evidence from Halbach’s vehicle, Avery’s bedroom in his house, Avery’s garage, and the front- and back-yards of Avery’s property.
Halbach’s bent license plates were found along one of the long roads between stacks of damaged automobiles on the salvage yard property. Her vehicle was found on a rise along the very rear of the yard, partially hidden by wood and branches.
The car was searched and processed for evidence. Teresa Halbach’s DNA was found in the trunk area of the vehicle. Steven Avery’s blood was found in the interior on the ignition, on a CD case, and on the seats of the vehicle. Avery’s touch DNA, most likely from sweat, was found in numerous places in the car and on the hood latch. The CSI unit processed the hood latch because Avery’s nephew, Brandon Dassey, said in interviews that Avery always disconnected the battery when he brought new cars into the yard.
Brandon Dassey was also charged in the Halbach case after he confessed to helping Avery kill Halbach and dispose of her body. Even though the confession, as shown in Making a Murderer, revealed that police conducted the interrogation improperly, Dassey did provide critical information that led to the police discovering significant evidence. He told them about the battery on her vehicle, he told them about the shooting in the garage and using the rifle from Avery's bedroom, and about the disposal of the body on Avery’s property. Dassey refused to testify at Avery's trial but testified at his own trial and never mentioned any police coercion. Brandon Dassey was convicted of complicity in the murder in a separate trial.
During the trial, Avery's attorneys focused on the blood evidence from Halbach’s vehicle (deflecting away from his touch DNA) and presented a vial of Avery’s blood with a puncture hole visible in the stopper, speculating the blood was extracted and place in the vehicle by law enforcement, as part of the defense’s overall case of Avery being framed by police.
However, the prosecution presented testimony by FBI technicians who tested the blood recovered from Halbach's car for EDTA, a preservative that is used in blood vials for blood collection, and found it was not present. Therefore, it was not blood from that vial.
Based upon the previous handling of Avery’s assault case, and because Avery sued Manitowoc County, the Manitowoc County department ceded control of the murder investigation to the neighboring Calumet County Sheriff’s Department.
Investigators learned from Avery’s cousins that he had had a bonfire that night on his property. Dassy also told police that he had seen Avery burn some girl’s clothes in the fire. They then searched a burn pit near Avery’s home and found bone fragments that were later identified as Halbach's. In a burn barrel near the burn pit, investigators found Halbach’s damaged phone, her camera, and her Personal Digital Assistant.
As a result of the search of Avery’s home, they found a .22 rifle stored above his bed and spots of dried blood in his bathroom. Upon a subsequent search of Avery’s bedroom, they found Halbach’s car keys hidden behind a bookcase. They photographed the keys, not exactly where they found them, which would have been difficult to do, but on the floor below the bookcase. The car keys were tested, and Avery’s DNA was located on them.
Dassey also told investigators that Halbach had been shot with the .22, and police researched the garage and found a bullet that was fired from Avery’s rifle with Halbach’s DNA, from passing through her body.
Interestingly, the defense focused on the blood evidence as being planted by the police. However, even if that was possible, how did the police obtain Avery’s sweat or skin cells for his DNA on the vehicle and the keys found in Avery’s bedroom? The film successfully promoted the evidence-planting allegations by using blood evidence, but skipped informing the audience about finding Avery’s transfer DNA within the victim’s vehicle.
Following the release of the Making a Murderer documentary, over 120,000 petition signatures were gathered and sent to the White House, calling for Avery’s release.
Steven Avery had previously been released from prison on September 11, 2003, after serving 18 years for a 1985 wrongful sexual assault conviction. He was exonerated by DNA evidence.
Avery’s case gained widespread attention from innocence activists and the media. The Republican chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly established a task force to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions. A bill known as the Avery Bill was passed in 2005 to reform the criminal justice system.
However, many people did cry foul over Making a Murderer’s depiction of the case. The prosecutors on the case wrote a book, Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong, published in 2017. Numerous websites address the documentary, including 14 pieces of troubling evidence that Making a Murderer left out, Here's What Was Left Out of Making a Murderer, and Making a Murderer: Key Pieces Of Evidence The Show Leaves Out.
Due to the mountain of evidence, including DNA evidence, Avery was convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach and remains in prison today.
It seems that the public has a never-ending thirst for stories about the broken justice system, police corruption, and the conviction of innocent people. It takes a concerted effort to cut through the noise and find the truth.
The innocence movement coincides with the vast interest in true crime. In this age of the never-ending public appetite for true crime, have we become incapable of objective thought, of reviewing the evidence from an impersonal clinical perspective? Are we too concerned with who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Making situations too black-and-white rather than accepting the nuances that occur in real life?
As you read through the cases in the rest of this book and learn more about innocence campaigns and their tactics in trying to establish innocence, maybe you’ll understand why more scrutiny and skepticism are necessary. You will also learn the formula and strategy that the Innocence Machine uses to facilitate its program. And perhaps the next time you watch a true crime documentary, you’ll be able to be more impartial and cautious in your conclusions.
Kills His Savior
On June 10, 2010, Miami-Dade 911 received a frantic call from a man claiming that his girlfriend had tried to kill herself.
The caller was Yathomas Riley, a professional boxer. When paramedics arrived at the apartment in Homestead, Florida, they found 31-year-old Koketia King unconscious on her bed. She had a bullet wound in her leg and had been shot in the face. Blood was around the room, and Riley also had blood on his clothes. Riley told police that his sometime girlfriend and the mother of his child had shot herself in a jealous rage.
When police responded to the hospital to talk to Koketia King, they observed she had extensive damage to her head, and doctors said that she would have permanent facial impairment. After she regained consciousness, she told police that Riley purposely shot her. Riley said he was innocent and did not shoot his girlfriend.
At the scene, the police found two spent bullets and two casings. Because King had three wounds, she thought she had been shot three times. Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital deduced from her injuries that she had only been shot twice, as one bullet had entered above her left buttock and exited her left thigh, and another bullet had entered her face. Some people would later see this as important in the case.
Yathomas Riley would be arrested based on the charge by King that he had shot her. Riley was adamant that he was innocent. Koketia King was a corrections officer at the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, and the police determined that the weapon was hers.
Riley had been an amateur boxer who had a string of successful fights when he met King at a family reunion. They soon moved in together, and King became pregnant around Christmas 2005. Their son was born in September 2006. They then moved to California so Riley could train for a fight.
Eventually, Riley obtained a professional contract with a promoter in New York, and around that time, King and their son moved back to Florida. Riley and King entered into a long-distance relationship.
Riley met Lisa Amodio, a medical student, at his training gym in New York, and they became friends. Soon, Amodio was working in Riley’s corner as a cut person. As a pro, Riley was also a successful fighter, going 4-0 in his first year. Riley and Lisa Amodio became engaged in 2009, which, of course, upset Koketia King.
When Riley moved back to South Florida to train for a fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, he stayed with King at her apartment in Homestead, Florida.
In June 2009, police responded to King’s apartment and arrested Riley for molesting King’s 12-year-old daughter. After an investigation, police had doubts about the statement from King’s daughter, and the prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges.
Riley returned to New York for more successful fights, but in June 2010, he visited King in Florida. During this visit, Riley stated that he discovered a letter indicating King was assisting inmates in filing tax returns with falsified information, which led to an argument between the two. (Koketia King has never been charged with any crime.) That is when the shooting took place.
While Riley was being held in jail on this attempted murder charge, several people began showing support for his innocence. Lisa Amodio made public statements about his innocence in the case. She was even on the local TV news professing his innocence. The Cryon below her name on the TV news said, “Riley’s Fiancé said King was shot twice, once in the buttocks and once in the face.”
The fact that she was shot twice seemed to support King’s statement, and not Riley’s claim that she shot herself, as who would shoot themselves in the leg before shooting themselves in the face? There were several statements by Riley’s supporters that mentioned King had changed her story multiple times. Of course, it was possible that being shot in the head had disrupted her memory.
As often happens in innocence-craze cases, and as you will see throughout this book, often the benefit of the doubt is not given to the victim but to the defendant. All of King’s statements were dismissed as lies rather than as the result of confusion.
There was an extensive “Free Riley” campaign, and one of Riley’s supporters was Miami New Times, which published articles suggesting that King’s statements were unreliable and that the tax letter showed it. Investigators reviewed the case, and on August 17, 2012, Yathomas Riley was released.
Riley and Amodio eventually settled into a large house in Leesburg, Georgia, in August 2013. They were married in April 2015 and had a son together in the fall of that year. Lisa was an emergency room physician, and Riley ran a car repair business and opened Riley’s Boxing Gym.
On June 14, 2015, Lisa Amodio Riley, now 34, was found unconscious inside her Leesburg home. She filed a complaint against her husband, stating he had assaulted her and threatened her with a gun, and Yathomas was arrested.
He was charged with battery and assault and ordered to stay away from Lisa and to give up his firearms to the police. He maintained his innocence. Riley was released on bond.
On July 9, 2015, while Yathomas was still out on bail for the assault charge, he made a 911 call to report that his wife, Lisa, had shot herself. Lisa was pronounced dead at the scene. Riley was arrested on the prior domestic assault charge, and police began investigating the shooting death. Police later believed Yathomas had shot and murdered his wife.
During the murder trial for Yathomas Riley, the prosecution closed their arguments by stating that Yathomas had killed Lisa on July 9, 2015, while she was on her knees.
On June 24th, 2016, Thomas Riley was found guilty of the murder of Lisa Amodio-Riley, and he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without parole.
It seems that the woman who believed in his innocence, who had campaigned for his release, had eventually been murdered by him. This is a perfect example of the emotional attachment that is a component of the Innocence Machine — fullhearted faith in the innocence of a convicted person.
The Innocence Machine: A new approach to true crime cases under scrutiny.
The Innocence Project, and many of its chapters and similar organizations around the country, are dedicated to bringing justice to those people incarcerated who they feel are innocent. While this is a noble purpose, a closer examination of their cases can quickly muddy the waters. Many factors from multiple factions outside the criminal justice system influence and alter the outcomes of these cases, while the quest for actual innocence is lost and corrupted. Many times, this comes with disastrous and deadly results, sometimes costing the lives of those involved along with the people they are trying to exonerate.
Walking a tightrope between the positive and negative aspects of innocence campaigns, The Innocence Machine shows both sides of the fight to exonerate wrongly convicted people and delves into the oversaturation of the innocence craze. It exposes the truth behind these external investigations that derail the criminal justice system and can cause the release of dangerous criminals back into society.
The innocence system is broken. It has gotten way off track. The Innocence Machine is a product of that broken system.
In this book, you will take a deep dive into some of these innocence programs, and, along the way, will be able to examine the murders that prompted the calls for the innocence of these convicted criminals. This book highlights numerous true crime cases, examining the details, why innocence organizations promoted the convicted person’s innocence, and the results of their actions.
Innocence programs typically try to address the flaws in the justice system, but this book addresses the weaknesses in innocence programs. The concept behind The Innocence Machine is that the innocence craze raises many questions and concerns about how innocence advocates select cases and how those cases are investigated.
In a very revealing statement made by a defense attorney on a Dateline program, Bob Dudek said, “In my 22, 23 years of being an appellate defense attorney, [name redacted] is the only one of about two or possibly three people I genuinely believed was innocent.”
If you follow true crime, watch any of the multiple true crime documentaries available on streaming channels, and have any tendency to believe in a convicted person's innocence, this book is for you.
The Innocence Project has evolved into a craze that is becoming an Innocence Machine, and it appears to be based on the assumption that almost everyone who has been convicted could be innocent. Incomplete reinvestigations of cases are often conducted by individuals untrained in detective work and investigation, where bias and the omission of pertinent evidence are common, leading to disastrous consequences.
It is essential that there is accountability and separation from the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project provides valuable and commendable work. However, the Innocence Machine is the craze to seek out and uncover innocent, convicted people, sometimes without thoroughly vetting the case. This can be based on the media and public innocence campaigns. As seen in the example of the Porter case, featured within, it is sometimes based on the machinations of the convicts themselves. Once the Innocence Machine gets started, it rolls away, unstoppable and out of control.
The Porter case demands that all innocence cases be viewed with extreme skepticism. The actions that occurred post-conviction demonstrates that siren calls for attention can lead to inappropriate conduct. They can also lead to ignoring specific facts to reach the point of innocence, as seen in many other cases reviewed throughout this book.
The Porter case, along with several others, is one in which the convict initiated and controlled the narrative; there are others in which the public controlled it, and still others in which the media, at times, controlled it, when it would seem that the actual innocence organizations should be steering the narrative.
In almost all the cases presented in this book, crucial inculpatory evidence is ignored or dismissed by the innocence activists to present the convicted person as innocent. Innocence activists sometimes seem to overlook specific pieces of evidence and instead focus on ambiguous evidence, which can lead to a misrepresentation of the facts. Also, they often lack the investigative skills required for a thorough, unbiased investigation. Oddly enough, it seems they frequently accuse the police of the same thing. A common refrain from defense attorneys is that the police had tunnel vision and ignored other suspects. Are innocence advocates using that same tunnel vision after they see publicity suggesting a convicted person’s innocence, and are they ignoring crucial and incriminating evidence indicating their guilt?
Familiarity with the defendant or convicted person appears to be a factor in how people perceive the case, especially if that defendant is a famous person. It has often been said that everyone in prison claims to be innocent, and many of them are likable and persuasive. Are those lawyers and innocence activists who visit the people in prison or interview the defendant’s family more susceptible to thinking that they are innocent?
One way that defendants and innocence activists draw the attention of innocence organizations is by promoting their concerns through a marketing strategy that utilizes signage and local protests, as well as more widely through websites and media attention.
With every single one of the cases reviewed in this book, there is a vast discrepancy between the evidence presented at trial and the re-creation presented on the call-for-innocence websites. In fact, it is difficult to find the actual evidence in these cases because so many entries are biased in favor of the defendants, even by legitimate media outlets. The language used can be very persuasive, but it always gets in the way. For example, in the Marcellas Williams case, discussed in more detail later, almost none of the media entries list all the inculpatory evidence pointing to Williams.
Proof of innocence is vague and disjointed. It feels very subjective at times. These cases create an enigma. Would you rather a guilty man goes free or an innocent man not? It is easy to fall into the mind game of who is really innocent. Many of these cases feature people who are hardened criminals and hardly innocent in their past crimes. Steven Avery (discussed next) could be an example of that.
Making A Murderer: An Incomplete Documentary Film
Many recent documentaries have exploited the convicted person as the innocent victim of the justice system. This is evident in such cases as the Laci Peterson murder case (discussed later). There is a tendency to conveniently overlook crucial incriminating evidence for the sake of a gripping story. One production that follows the model of the wrongfully convicted innocent person is the 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.
Making a Murderer is a compelling and engaging view of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The film is an excellent true crime documentary, featuring all the required elements of police corruption, tainted evidence, false confessions, tunnel vision, and, of course, a wrongly convicted person.
Making a Murderer won several well-deserved awards, including four Emmy awards in 2016. With the first scene, the film hooks the audience, eager to see what happens next. The “murderer” is Steven Avery, and through many on-screen interviews, his demeanor is so convincing that, as a viewer, one really believes his side of the case. Since Avery was previously wrongly convicted of another crime, the documentary is successful in making the viewer sincerely doubt his guilt in the Halbach murder and think he was railroaded once again.
If perhaps the creator of Making a Murderer thought they were following in the footsteps of the Thin Blue Line (discussed later), a review of the actual evidence shows otherwise. This was Hollywood-type moviemaking. Numerous websites and books, including one by the prosecution, address the incriminating evidence left out of the film. Upon analyzing all the evidence, it becomes clear why the jury reached its guilty verdict. In fact, despite Making A Murderer presenting scenes suggesting that Avery’s cousin was completely innocent, it is easy to see his culpability in the crimes that occurred at the wreckage yard in Wisconsin.
If the purpose is to create controversy, these documentaries can be very effective, as they possess tremendous power to change people's minds or generate specific thoughts. But if it turns out that they didn’t present all the evidence, then what is the value? Do they end up merely like a horror movie, accomplishing their goal of creating emotion and controversy? Or are they essentially empty? Then they become a noble quest worthy of admiration and respect without any payoff.
A Fully Complete Incriminating Case
Due to the documentary series, Making a Murderer, first released in 2015, many people still believe Steven Avery is innocent of the heinous crime he committed. Innocence advocates have called for his exoneration.
One can suppose that Steven Avery, once released from prison on a wrongful conviction for a 1984 sexual assault, must have thought he was invincible. That he could commit a murder in his front yard, of a woman he had called to his house, and get away with it.
A photographer for Autotrader magazine was declared missing after she failed to check in with her employer following an appointment on October 31, 2005. It was discovered that Teresa Halbach had an appointment on the grounds of Avery’s Auto Salvage to photograph a minivan. The police immediately responded to the auto salvage yard and began a search, assisted by volunteers, including law enforcement personnel and local residents.
Halbach’s car was eventually found by searchers, partially covered by brush, at the very back of the salvage yard. This discovery led to a thorough search of the vast salvage yard, including the area where Halbach was supposed to meet the caller who had requested a photograph of the minivan. It was learned that the vehicle belonged to Steven Avery's sister.
It was also discovered that Steven Avery had previously had Halbach respond to his residence on the property for a photograph, and that Halbach had asked not to ever respond to any of Avery’s future requests. She told her boss that she was uncomfortable with Avery as he had opened the door in a towel. Avery may have known this because, during the call to Autotrader, he provided another name and address; however, the caller, who had used Star 67 to conceal his phone number, had specifically requested Teresa Halbach.
After researching Avery’s background, the police reviewed his record. Avery had been convicted of burglary in 1981 and had served 10 months in jail. In 1982, Avery burned his cat in a bonfire and was convicted of animal cruelty. Avery was also accused by the wife of a Manitowoc County officer of exposing himself to her as she was driving in Manitowoc.
In 1985, Avery threatened his cousin with a gun and threatened to kill her for telling people he had been flagellating himself on his front lawn. He was convicted and sentenced to six years for "endangering safety while evincing a depraved mind" and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Steven Avery was arrested in November 2005 and charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach. During the trial, the evidence discovered in Halbach’s vehicle and a search of Avery’s property were presented. Investigators had found incriminating evidence from Halbach’s vehicle, Avery’s bedroom in his house, Avery’s garage, and the front- and back-yards of Avery’s property.
Halbach’s bent license plates were found along one of the long roads between stacks of damaged automobiles on the salvage yard property. Her vehicle was found on a rise along the very rear of the yard, partially hidden by wood and branches.
The car was searched and processed for evidence. Teresa Halbach’s DNA was found in the trunk area of the vehicle. Steven Avery’s blood was found in the interior on the ignition, on a CD case, and on the seats of the vehicle. Avery’s touch DNA, most likely from sweat, was found in numerous places in the car and on the hood latch. The CSI unit processed the hood latch because Avery’s nephew, Brandon Dassey, said in interviews that Avery always disconnected the battery when he brought new cars into the yard.
Brandon Dassey was also charged in the Halbach case after he confessed to helping Avery kill Halbach and dispose of her body. Even though the confession, as shown in Making a Murderer, revealed that police conducted the interrogation improperly, Dassey did provide critical information that led to the police discovering significant evidence. He told them about the battery on her vehicle, he told them about the shooting in the garage and using the rifle from Avery's bedroom, and about the disposal of the body on Avery’s property. Dassey refused to testify at Avery's trial but testified at his own trial and never mentioned any police coercion. Brandon Dassey was convicted of complicity in the murder in a separate trial.
During the trial, Avery's attorneys focused on the blood evidence from Halbach’s vehicle (deflecting away from his touch DNA) and presented a vial of Avery’s blood with a puncture hole visible in the stopper, speculating the blood was extracted and place in the vehicle by law enforcement, as part of the defense’s overall case of Avery being framed by police.
However, the prosecution presented testimony by FBI technicians who tested the blood recovered from Halbach's car for EDTA, a preservative that is used in blood vials for blood collection, and found it was not present. Therefore, it was not blood from that vial.
Based upon the previous handling of Avery’s assault case, and because Avery sued Manitowoc County, the Manitowoc County department ceded control of the murder investigation to the neighboring Calumet County Sheriff’s Department.
Investigators learned from Avery’s cousins that he had had a bonfire that night on his property. Dassy also told police that he had seen Avery burn some girl’s clothes in the fire. They then searched a burn pit near Avery’s home and found bone fragments that were later identified as Halbach's. In a burn barrel near the burn pit, investigators found Halbach’s damaged phone, her camera, and her Personal Digital Assistant.
As a result of the search of Avery’s home, they found a .22 rifle stored above his bed and spots of dried blood in his bathroom. Upon a subsequent search of Avery’s bedroom, they found Halbach’s car keys hidden behind a bookcase. They photographed the keys, not exactly where they found them, which would have been difficult to do, but on the floor below the bookcase. The car keys were tested, and Avery’s DNA was located on them.
Dassey also told investigators that Halbach had been shot with the .22, and police researched the garage and found a bullet that was fired from Avery’s rifle with Halbach’s DNA, from passing through her body.
Interestingly, the defense focused on the blood evidence as being planted by the police. However, even if that was possible, how did the police obtain Avery’s sweat or skin cells for his DNA on the vehicle and the keys found in Avery’s bedroom? The film successfully promoted the evidence-planting allegations by using blood evidence, but skipped informing the audience about finding Avery’s transfer DNA within the victim’s vehicle.
Following the release of the Making a Murderer documentary, over 120,000 petition signatures were gathered and sent to the White House, calling for Avery’s release.
Steven Avery had previously been released from prison on September 11, 2003, after serving 18 years for a 1985 wrongful sexual assault conviction. He was exonerated by DNA evidence.
Avery’s case gained widespread attention from innocence activists and the media. The Republican chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly established a task force to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions. A bill known as the Avery Bill was passed in 2005 to reform the criminal justice system.
However, many people did cry foul over Making a Murderer’s depiction of the case. The prosecutors on the case wrote a book, Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong, published in 2017. Numerous websites address the documentary, including 14 pieces of troubling evidence that Making a Murderer left out, Here's What Was Left Out of Making a Murderer, and Making a Murderer: Key Pieces Of Evidence The Show Leaves Out.
Due to the mountain of evidence, including DNA evidence, Avery was convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach and remains in prison today.
It seems that the public has a never-ending thirst for stories about the broken justice system, police corruption, and the conviction of innocent people. It takes a concerted effort to cut through the noise and find the truth.
The innocence movement coincides with the vast interest in true crime. In this age of the never-ending public appetite for true crime, have we become incapable of objective thought, of reviewing the evidence from an impersonal clinical perspective? Are we too concerned with who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Making situations too black-and-white rather than accepting the nuances that occur in real life?
As you read through the cases in the rest of this book and learn more about innocence campaigns and their tactics in trying to establish innocence, maybe you’ll understand why more scrutiny and skepticism are necessary. You will also learn the formula and strategy that the Innocence Machine uses to facilitate its program. And perhaps the next time you watch a true crime documentary, you’ll be able to be more impartial and cautious in your conclusions.
Kills His Savior
On June 10, 2010, Miami-Dade 911 received a frantic call from a man claiming that his girlfriend had tried to kill herself.
The caller was Yathomas Riley, a professional boxer. When paramedics arrived at the apartment in Homestead, Florida, they found 31-year-old Koketia King unconscious on her bed. She had a bullet wound in her leg and had been shot in the face. Blood was around the room, and Riley also had blood on his clothes. Riley told police that his sometime girlfriend and the mother of his child had shot herself in a jealous rage.
When police responded to the hospital to talk to Koketia King, they observed she had extensive damage to her head, and doctors said that she would have permanent facial impairment. After she regained consciousness, she told police that Riley purposely shot her. Riley said he was innocent and did not shoot his girlfriend.
At the scene, the police found two spent bullets and two casings. Because King had three wounds, she thought she had been shot three times. Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital deduced from her injuries that she had only been shot twice, as one bullet had entered above her left buttock and exited her left thigh, and another bullet had entered her face. Some people would later see this as important in the case.
Yathomas Riley would be arrested based on the charge by King that he had shot her. Riley was adamant that he was innocent. Koketia King was a corrections officer at the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, and the police determined that the weapon was hers.
Riley had been an amateur boxer who had a string of successful fights when he met King at a family reunion. They soon moved in together, and King became pregnant around Christmas 2005. Their son was born in September 2006. They then moved to California so Riley could train for a fight.
Eventually, Riley obtained a professional contract with a promoter in New York, and around that time, King and their son moved back to Florida. Riley and King entered into a long-distance relationship.
Riley met Lisa Amodio, a medical student, at his training gym in New York, and they became friends. Soon, Amodio was working in Riley’s corner as a cut person. As a pro, Riley was also a successful fighter, going 4-0 in his first year. Riley and Lisa Amodio became engaged in 2009, which, of course, upset Koketia King.
When Riley moved back to South Florida to train for a fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, he stayed with King at her apartment in Homestead, Florida.
In June 2009, police responded to King’s apartment and arrested Riley for molesting King’s 12-year-old daughter. After an investigation, police had doubts about the statement from King’s daughter, and the prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges.
Riley returned to New York for more successful fights, but in June 2010, he visited King in Florida. During this visit, Riley stated that he discovered a letter indicating King was assisting inmates in filing tax returns with falsified information, which led to an argument between the two. (Koketia King has never been charged with any crime.) That is when the shooting took place.
While Riley was being held in jail on this attempted murder charge, several people began showing support for his innocence. Lisa Amodio made public statements about his innocence in the case. She was even on the local TV news professing his innocence. The Cryon below her name on the TV news said, “Riley’s Fiancé said King was shot twice, once in the buttocks and once in the face.”
The fact that she was shot twice seemed to support King’s statement, and not Riley’s claim that she shot herself, as who would shoot themselves in the leg before shooting themselves in the face? There were several statements by Riley’s supporters that mentioned King had changed her story multiple times. Of course, it was possible that being shot in the head had disrupted her memory.
As often happens in innocence-craze cases, and as you will see throughout this book, often the benefit of the doubt is not given to the victim but to the defendant. All of King’s statements were dismissed as lies rather than as the result of confusion.
There was an extensive “Free Riley” campaign, and one of Riley’s supporters was Miami New Times, which published articles suggesting that King’s statements were unreliable and that the tax letter showed it. Investigators reviewed the case, and on August 17, 2012, Yathomas Riley was released.
Riley and Amodio eventually settled into a large house in Leesburg, Georgia, in August 2013. They were married in April 2015 and had a son together in the fall of that year. Lisa was an emergency room physician, and Riley ran a car repair business and opened Riley’s Boxing Gym.
On June 14, 2015, Lisa Amodio Riley, now 34, was found unconscious inside her Leesburg home. She filed a complaint against her husband, stating he had assaulted her and threatened her with a gun, and Yathomas was arrested.
He was charged with battery and assault and ordered to stay away from Lisa and to give up his firearms to the police. He maintained his innocence. Riley was released on bond.
On July 9, 2015, while Yathomas was still out on bail for the assault charge, he made a 911 call to report that his wife, Lisa, had shot herself. Lisa was pronounced dead at the scene. Riley was arrested on the prior domestic assault charge, and police began investigating the shooting death. Police later believed Yathomas had shot and murdered his wife.
During the murder trial for Yathomas Riley, the prosecution closed their arguments by stating that Yathomas had killed Lisa on July 9, 2015, while she was on her knees.
On June 24th, 2016, Thomas Riley was found guilty of the murder of Lisa Amodio-Riley, and he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without parole.
It seems that the woman who believed in his innocence, who had campaigned for his release, had eventually been murdered by him. This is a perfect example of the emotional attachment that is a component of the Innocence Machine — fullhearted faith in the innocence of a convicted person.
The Innocence Machine (Paperback)
$19.95USD
Some Initial Thoughts
The Innocence Machine: A new approach to true crime cases under scrutiny.
The Innocence Project, and many of its chapters and similar organizations around the country, are dedicated to bringing justice to those people incarcerated who they feel are innocent. While this is a noble purpose, a closer examination of their cases can quickly muddy the waters. Many factors from multiple factions outside the criminal justice system influence and alter the outcomes of these cases, while the quest for actual innocence is lost and corrupted. Many times, this comes with disastrous and deadly results, sometimes costing the lives of those involved along with the people they are trying to exonerate.
Walking a tightrope between the positive and negative aspects of innocence campaigns, The Innocence Machine shows both sides of the fight to exonerate wrongly convicted people and delves into the oversaturation of the innocence craze. It exposes the truth behind these external investigations that derail the criminal justice system and can cause the release of dangerous criminals back into society.
The innocence system is broken. It has gotten way off track. The Innocence Machine is a product of that broken system.
In this book, you will take a deep dive into some of these innocence programs, and, along the way, will be able to examine the murders that prompted the calls for the innocence of these convicted criminals. This book highlights numerous true crime cases, examining the details, why innocence organizations promoted the convicted person’s innocence, and the results of their actions.
Innocence programs typically try to address the flaws in the justice system, but this book addresses the weaknesses in innocence programs. The concept behind The Innocence Machine is that the innocence craze raises many questions and concerns about how innocence advocates select cases and how those cases are investigated.
In a very revealing statement made by a defense attorney on a Dateline program, Bob Dudek said, “In my 22, 23 years of being an appellate defense attorney, [name redacted] is the only one of about two or possibly three people I genuinely believed was innocent.”
If you follow true crime, watch any of the multiple true crime documentaries available on streaming channels, and have any tendency to believe in a convicted person's innocence, this book is for you.
The Innocence Project has evolved into a craze that is becoming an Innocence Machine, and it appears to be based on the assumption that almost everyone who has been convicted could be innocent. Incomplete reinvestigations of cases are often conducted by individuals untrained in detective work and investigation, where bias and the omission of pertinent evidence are common, leading to disastrous consequences.
It is essential that there is accountability and separation from the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project provides valuable and commendable work. However, the Innocence Machine is the craze to seek out and uncover innocent, convicted people, sometimes without thoroughly vetting the case. This can be based on the media and public innocence campaigns. As seen in the example of the Porter case, featured within, it is sometimes based on the machinations of the convicts themselves. Once the Innocence Machine gets started, it rolls away, unstoppable and out of control.
The Porter case demands that all innocence cases be viewed with extreme skepticism. The actions that occurred post-conviction demonstrates that siren calls for attention can lead to inappropriate conduct. They can also lead to ignoring specific facts to reach the point of innocence, as seen in many other cases reviewed throughout this book.
The Porter case, along with several others, is one in which the convict initiated and controlled the narrative; there are others in which the public controlled it, and still others in which the media, at times, controlled it, when it would seem that the actual innocence organizations should be steering the narrative.
In almost all the cases presented in this book, crucial inculpatory evidence is ignored or dismissed by the innocence activists to present the convicted person as innocent. Innocence activists sometimes seem to overlook specific pieces of evidence and instead focus on ambiguous evidence, which can lead to a misrepresentation of the facts. Also, they often lack the investigative skills required for a thorough, unbiased investigation. Oddly enough, it seems they frequently accuse the police of the same thing. A common refrain from defense attorneys is that the police had tunnel vision and ignored other suspects. Are innocence advocates using that same tunnel vision after they see publicity suggesting a convicted person’s innocence, and are they ignoring crucial and incriminating evidence indicating their guilt?
Familiarity with the defendant or convicted person appears to be a factor in how people perceive the case, especially if that defendant is a famous person. It has often been said that everyone in prison claims to be innocent, and many of them are likable and persuasive. Are those lawyers and innocence activists who visit the people in prison or interview the defendant’s family more susceptible to thinking that they are innocent?
One way that defendants and innocence activists draw the attention of innocence organizations is by promoting their concerns through a marketing strategy that utilizes signage and local protests, as well as more widely through websites and media attention.
With every single one of the cases reviewed in this book, there is a vast discrepancy between the evidence presented at trial and the re-creation presented on the call-for-innocence websites. In fact, it is difficult to find the actual evidence in these cases because so many entries are biased in favor of the defendants, even by legitimate media outlets. The language used can be very persuasive, but it always gets in the way. For example, in the Marcellas Williams case, discussed in more detail later, almost none of the media entries list all the inculpatory evidence pointing to Williams.
Proof of innocence is vague and disjointed. It feels very subjective at times. These cases create an enigma. Would you rather a guilty man goes free or an innocent man not? It is easy to fall into the mind game of who is really innocent. Many of these cases feature people who are hardened criminals and hardly innocent in their past crimes. Steven Avery (discussed next) could be an example of that.
Making A Murderer: An Incomplete Documentary Film
Many recent documentaries have exploited the convicted person as the innocent victim of the justice system. This is evident in such cases as the Laci Peterson murder case (discussed later). There is a tendency to conveniently overlook crucial incriminating evidence for the sake of a gripping story. One production that follows the model of the wrongfully convicted innocent person is the 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.
Making a Murderer is a compelling and engaging view of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The film is an excellent true crime documentary, featuring all the required elements of police corruption, tainted evidence, false confessions, tunnel vision, and, of course, a wrongly convicted person.
Making a Murderer won several well-deserved awards, including four Emmy awards in 2016. With the first scene, the film hooks the audience, eager to see what happens next. The “murderer” is Steven Avery, and through many on-screen interviews, his demeanor is so convincing that, as a viewer, one really believes his side of the case. Since Avery was previously wrongly convicted of another crime, the documentary is successful in making the viewer sincerely doubt his guilt in the Halbach murder and think he was railroaded once again.
If perhaps the creator of Making a Murderer thought they were following in the footsteps of the Thin Blue Line (discussed later), a review of the actual evidence shows otherwise. This was Hollywood-type moviemaking. Numerous websites and books, including one by the prosecution, address the incriminating evidence left out of the film. Upon analyzing all the evidence, it becomes clear why the jury reached its guilty verdict. In fact, despite Making A Murderer presenting scenes suggesting that Avery’s cousin was completely innocent, it is easy to see his culpability in the crimes that occurred at the wreckage yard in Wisconsin.
If the purpose is to create controversy, these documentaries can be very effective, as they possess tremendous power to change people's minds or generate specific thoughts. But if it turns out that they didn’t present all the evidence, then what is the value? Do they end up merely like a horror movie, accomplishing their goal of creating emotion and controversy? Or are they essentially empty? Then they become a noble quest worthy of admiration and respect without any payoff.
A Fully Complete Incriminating Case
Due to the documentary series, Making a Murderer, first released in 2015, many people still believe Steven Avery is innocent of the heinous crime he committed. Innocence advocates have called for his exoneration.
One can suppose that Steven Avery, once released from prison on a wrongful conviction for a 1984 sexual assault, must have thought he was invincible. That he could commit a murder in his front yard, of a woman he had called to his house, and get away with it.
A photographer for Autotrader magazine was declared missing after she failed to check in with her employer following an appointment on October 31, 2005. It was discovered that Teresa Halbach had an appointment on the grounds of Avery’s Auto Salvage to photograph a minivan. The police immediately responded to the auto salvage yard and began a search, assisted by volunteers, including law enforcement personnel and local residents.
Halbach’s car was eventually found by searchers, partially covered by brush, at the very back of the salvage yard. This discovery led to a thorough search of the vast salvage yard, including the area where Halbach was supposed to meet the caller who had requested a photograph of the minivan. It was learned that the vehicle belonged to Steven Avery's sister.
It was also discovered that Steven Avery had previously had Halbach respond to his residence on the property for a photograph, and that Halbach had asked not to ever respond to any of Avery’s future requests. She told her boss that she was uncomfortable with Avery as he had opened the door in a towel. Avery may have known this because, during the call to Autotrader, he provided another name and address; however, the caller, who had used Star 67 to conceal his phone number, had specifically requested Teresa Halbach.
After researching Avery’s background, the police reviewed his record. Avery had been convicted of burglary in 1981 and had served 10 months in jail. In 1982, Avery burned his cat in a bonfire and was convicted of animal cruelty. Avery was also accused by the wife of a Manitowoc County officer of exposing himself to her as she was driving in Manitowoc.
In 1985, Avery threatened his cousin with a gun and threatened to kill her for telling people he had been flagellating himself on his front lawn. He was convicted and sentenced to six years for "endangering safety while evincing a depraved mind" and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Steven Avery was arrested in November 2005 and charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach. During the trial, the evidence discovered in Halbach’s vehicle and a search of Avery’s property were presented. Investigators had found incriminating evidence from Halbach’s vehicle, Avery’s bedroom in his house, Avery’s garage, and the front- and back-yards of Avery’s property.
Halbach’s bent license plates were found along one of the long roads between stacks of damaged automobiles on the salvage yard property. Her vehicle was found on a rise along the very rear of the yard, partially hidden by wood and branches.
The car was searched and processed for evidence. Teresa Halbach’s DNA was found in the trunk area of the vehicle. Steven Avery’s blood was found in the interior on the ignition, on a CD case, and on the seats of the vehicle. Avery’s touch DNA, most likely from sweat, was found in numerous places in the car and on the hood latch. The CSI unit processed the hood latch because Avery’s nephew, Brandon Dassey, said in interviews that Avery always disconnected the battery when he brought new cars into the yard.
Brandon Dassey was also charged in the Halbach case after he confessed to helping Avery kill Halbach and dispose of her body. Even though the confession, as shown in Making a Murderer, revealed that police conducted the interrogation improperly, Dassey did provide critical information that led to the police discovering significant evidence. He told them about the battery on her vehicle, he told them about the shooting in the garage and using the rifle from Avery's bedroom, and about the disposal of the body on Avery’s property. Dassey refused to testify at Avery's trial but testified at his own trial and never mentioned any police coercion. Brandon Dassey was convicted of complicity in the murder in a separate trial.
During the trial, Avery's attorneys focused on the blood evidence from Halbach’s vehicle (deflecting away from his touch DNA) and presented a vial of Avery’s blood with a puncture hole visible in the stopper, speculating the blood was extracted and place in the vehicle by law enforcement, as part of the defense’s overall case of Avery being framed by police.
However, the prosecution presented testimony by FBI technicians who tested the blood recovered from Halbach's car for EDTA, a preservative that is used in blood vials for blood collection, and found it was not present. Therefore, it was not blood from that vial.
Based upon the previous handling of Avery’s assault case, and because Avery sued Manitowoc County, the Manitowoc County department ceded control of the murder investigation to the neighboring Calumet County Sheriff’s Department.
Investigators learned from Avery’s cousins that he had had a bonfire that night on his property. Dassy also told police that he had seen Avery burn some girl’s clothes in the fire. They then searched a burn pit near Avery’s home and found bone fragments that were later identified as Halbach's. In a burn barrel near the burn pit, investigators found Halbach’s damaged phone, her camera, and her Personal Digital Assistant.
As a result of the search of Avery’s home, they found a .22 rifle stored above his bed and spots of dried blood in his bathroom. Upon a subsequent search of Avery’s bedroom, they found Halbach’s car keys hidden behind a bookcase. They photographed the keys, not exactly where they found them, which would have been difficult to do, but on the floor below the bookcase. The car keys were tested, and Avery’s DNA was located on them.
Dassey also told investigators that Halbach had been shot with the .22, and police researched the garage and found a bullet that was fired from Avery’s rifle with Halbach’s DNA, from passing through her body.
Interestingly, the defense focused on the blood evidence as being planted by the police. However, even if that was possible, how did the police obtain Avery’s sweat or skin cells for his DNA on the vehicle and the keys found in Avery’s bedroom? The film successfully promoted the evidence-planting allegations by using blood evidence, but skipped informing the audience about finding Avery’s transfer DNA within the victim’s vehicle.
Following the release of the Making a Murderer documentary, over 120,000 petition signatures were gathered and sent to the White House, calling for Avery’s release.
Steven Avery had previously been released from prison on September 11, 2003, after serving 18 years for a 1985 wrongful sexual assault conviction. He was exonerated by DNA evidence.
Avery’s case gained widespread attention from innocence activists and the media. The Republican chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly established a task force to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions. A bill known as the Avery Bill was passed in 2005 to reform the criminal justice system.
However, many people did cry foul over Making a Murderer’s depiction of the case. The prosecutors on the case wrote a book, Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong, published in 2017. Numerous websites address the documentary, including 14 pieces of troubling evidence that Making a Murderer left out, Here's What Was Left Out of Making a Murderer, and Making a Murderer: Key Pieces Of Evidence The Show Leaves Out.
Due to the mountain of evidence, including DNA evidence, Avery was convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach and remains in prison today.
It seems that the public has a never-ending thirst for stories about the broken justice system, police corruption, and the conviction of innocent people. It takes a concerted effort to cut through the noise and find the truth.
The innocence movement coincides with the vast interest in true crime. In this age of the never-ending public appetite for true crime, have we become incapable of objective thought, of reviewing the evidence from an impersonal clinical perspective? Are we too concerned with who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Making situations too black-and-white rather than accepting the nuances that occur in real life?
As you read through the cases in the rest of this book and learn more about innocence campaigns and their tactics in trying to establish innocence, maybe you’ll understand why more scrutiny and skepticism are necessary. You will also learn the formula and strategy that the Innocence Machine uses to facilitate its program. And perhaps the next time you watch a true crime documentary, you’ll be able to be more impartial and cautious in your conclusions.
Kills His Savior
On June 10, 2010, Miami-Dade 911 received a frantic call from a man claiming that his girlfriend had tried to kill herself.
The caller was Yathomas Riley, a professional boxer. When paramedics arrived at the apartment in Homestead, Florida, they found 31-year-old Koketia King unconscious on her bed. She had a bullet wound in her leg and had been shot in the face. Blood was around the room, and Riley also had blood on his clothes. Riley told police that his sometime girlfriend and the mother of his child had shot herself in a jealous rage.
When police responded to the hospital to talk to Koketia King, they observed she had extensive damage to her head, and doctors said that she would have permanent facial impairment. After she regained consciousness, she told police that Riley purposely shot her. Riley said he was innocent and did not shoot his girlfriend.
At the scene, the police found two spent bullets and two casings. Because King had three wounds, she thought she had been shot three times. Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital deduced from her injuries that she had only been shot twice, as one bullet had entered above her left buttock and exited her left thigh, and another bullet had entered her face. Some people would later see this as important in the case.
Yathomas Riley would be arrested based on the charge by King that he had shot her. Riley was adamant that he was innocent. Koketia King was a corrections officer at the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, and the police determined that the weapon was hers.
Riley had been an amateur boxer who had a string of successful fights when he met King at a family reunion. They soon moved in together, and King became pregnant around Christmas 2005. Their son was born in September 2006. They then moved to California so Riley could train for a fight.
Eventually, Riley obtained a professional contract with a promoter in New York, and around that time, King and their son moved back to Florida. Riley and King entered into a long-distance relationship.
Riley met Lisa Amodio, a medical student, at his training gym in New York, and they became friends. Soon, Amodio was working in Riley’s corner as a cut person. As a pro, Riley was also a successful fighter, going 4-0 in his first year. Riley and Lisa Amodio became engaged in 2009, which, of course, upset Koketia King.
When Riley moved back to South Florida to train for a fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, he stayed with King at her apartment in Homestead, Florida.
In June 2009, police responded to King’s apartment and arrested Riley for molesting King’s 12-year-old daughter. After an investigation, police had doubts about the statement from King’s daughter, and the prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges.
Riley returned to New York for more successful fights, but in June 2010, he visited King in Florida. During this visit, Riley stated that he discovered a letter indicating King was assisting inmates in filing tax returns with falsified information, which led to an argument between the two. (Koketia King has never been charged with any crime.) That is when the shooting took place.
While Riley was being held in jail on this attempted murder charge, several people began showing support for his innocence. Lisa Amodio made public statements about his innocence in the case. She was even on the local TV news professing his innocence. The Cryon below her name on the TV news said, “Riley’s Fiancé said King was shot twice, once in the buttocks and once in the face.”
The fact that she was shot twice seemed to support King’s statement, and not Riley’s claim that she shot herself, as who would shoot themselves in the leg before shooting themselves in the face? There were several statements by Riley’s supporters that mentioned King had changed her story multiple times. Of course, it was possible that being shot in the head had disrupted her memory.
As often happens in innocence-craze cases, and as you will see throughout this book, often the benefit of the doubt is not given to the victim but to the defendant. All of King’s statements were dismissed as lies rather than as the result of confusion.
There was an extensive “Free Riley” campaign, and one of Riley’s supporters was Miami New Times, which published articles suggesting that King’s statements were unreliable and that the tax letter showed it. Investigators reviewed the case, and on August 17, 2012, Yathomas Riley was released.
Riley and Amodio eventually settled into a large house in Leesburg, Georgia, in August 2013. They were married in April 2015 and had a son together in the fall of that year. Lisa was an emergency room physician, and Riley ran a car repair business and opened Riley’s Boxing Gym.
On June 14, 2015, Lisa Amodio Riley, now 34, was found unconscious inside her Leesburg home. She filed a complaint against her husband, stating he had assaulted her and threatened her with a gun, and Yathomas was arrested.
He was charged with battery and assault and ordered to stay away from Lisa and to give up his firearms to the police. He maintained his innocence. Riley was released on bond.
On July 9, 2015, while Yathomas was still out on bail for the assault charge, he made a 911 call to report that his wife, Lisa, had shot herself. Lisa was pronounced dead at the scene. Riley was arrested on the prior domestic assault charge, and police began investigating the shooting death. Police later believed Yathomas had shot and murdered his wife.
During the murder trial for Yathomas Riley, the prosecution closed their arguments by stating that Yathomas had killed Lisa on July 9, 2015, while she was on her knees.
On June 24th, 2016, Thomas Riley was found guilty of the murder of Lisa Amodio-Riley, and he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without parole.
It seems that the woman who believed in his innocence, who had campaigned for his release, had eventually been murdered by him. This is a perfect example of the emotional attachment that is a component of the Innocence Machine — fullhearted faith in the innocence of a convicted person.
The Innocence Machine: A new approach to true crime cases under scrutiny.
The Innocence Project, and many of its chapters and similar organizations around the country, are dedicated to bringing justice to those people incarcerated who they feel are innocent. While this is a noble purpose, a closer examination of their cases can quickly muddy the waters. Many factors from multiple factions outside the criminal justice system influence and alter the outcomes of these cases, while the quest for actual innocence is lost and corrupted. Many times, this comes with disastrous and deadly results, sometimes costing the lives of those involved along with the people they are trying to exonerate.
Walking a tightrope between the positive and negative aspects of innocence campaigns, The Innocence Machine shows both sides of the fight to exonerate wrongly convicted people and delves into the oversaturation of the innocence craze. It exposes the truth behind these external investigations that derail the criminal justice system and can cause the release of dangerous criminals back into society.
The innocence system is broken. It has gotten way off track. The Innocence Machine is a product of that broken system.
In this book, you will take a deep dive into some of these innocence programs, and, along the way, will be able to examine the murders that prompted the calls for the innocence of these convicted criminals. This book highlights numerous true crime cases, examining the details, why innocence organizations promoted the convicted person’s innocence, and the results of their actions.
Innocence programs typically try to address the flaws in the justice system, but this book addresses the weaknesses in innocence programs. The concept behind The Innocence Machine is that the innocence craze raises many questions and concerns about how innocence advocates select cases and how those cases are investigated.
In a very revealing statement made by a defense attorney on a Dateline program, Bob Dudek said, “In my 22, 23 years of being an appellate defense attorney, [name redacted] is the only one of about two or possibly three people I genuinely believed was innocent.”
If you follow true crime, watch any of the multiple true crime documentaries available on streaming channels, and have any tendency to believe in a convicted person's innocence, this book is for you.
The Innocence Project has evolved into a craze that is becoming an Innocence Machine, and it appears to be based on the assumption that almost everyone who has been convicted could be innocent. Incomplete reinvestigations of cases are often conducted by individuals untrained in detective work and investigation, where bias and the omission of pertinent evidence are common, leading to disastrous consequences.
It is essential that there is accountability and separation from the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project provides valuable and commendable work. However, the Innocence Machine is the craze to seek out and uncover innocent, convicted people, sometimes without thoroughly vetting the case. This can be based on the media and public innocence campaigns. As seen in the example of the Porter case, featured within, it is sometimes based on the machinations of the convicts themselves. Once the Innocence Machine gets started, it rolls away, unstoppable and out of control.
The Porter case demands that all innocence cases be viewed with extreme skepticism. The actions that occurred post-conviction demonstrates that siren calls for attention can lead to inappropriate conduct. They can also lead to ignoring specific facts to reach the point of innocence, as seen in many other cases reviewed throughout this book.
The Porter case, along with several others, is one in which the convict initiated and controlled the narrative; there are others in which the public controlled it, and still others in which the media, at times, controlled it, when it would seem that the actual innocence organizations should be steering the narrative.
In almost all the cases presented in this book, crucial inculpatory evidence is ignored or dismissed by the innocence activists to present the convicted person as innocent. Innocence activists sometimes seem to overlook specific pieces of evidence and instead focus on ambiguous evidence, which can lead to a misrepresentation of the facts. Also, they often lack the investigative skills required for a thorough, unbiased investigation. Oddly enough, it seems they frequently accuse the police of the same thing. A common refrain from defense attorneys is that the police had tunnel vision and ignored other suspects. Are innocence advocates using that same tunnel vision after they see publicity suggesting a convicted person’s innocence, and are they ignoring crucial and incriminating evidence indicating their guilt?
Familiarity with the defendant or convicted person appears to be a factor in how people perceive the case, especially if that defendant is a famous person. It has often been said that everyone in prison claims to be innocent, and many of them are likable and persuasive. Are those lawyers and innocence activists who visit the people in prison or interview the defendant’s family more susceptible to thinking that they are innocent?
One way that defendants and innocence activists draw the attention of innocence organizations is by promoting their concerns through a marketing strategy that utilizes signage and local protests, as well as more widely through websites and media attention.
With every single one of the cases reviewed in this book, there is a vast discrepancy between the evidence presented at trial and the re-creation presented on the call-for-innocence websites. In fact, it is difficult to find the actual evidence in these cases because so many entries are biased in favor of the defendants, even by legitimate media outlets. The language used can be very persuasive, but it always gets in the way. For example, in the Marcellas Williams case, discussed in more detail later, almost none of the media entries list all the inculpatory evidence pointing to Williams.
Proof of innocence is vague and disjointed. It feels very subjective at times. These cases create an enigma. Would you rather a guilty man goes free or an innocent man not? It is easy to fall into the mind game of who is really innocent. Many of these cases feature people who are hardened criminals and hardly innocent in their past crimes. Steven Avery (discussed next) could be an example of that.
Making A Murderer: An Incomplete Documentary Film
Many recent documentaries have exploited the convicted person as the innocent victim of the justice system. This is evident in such cases as the Laci Peterson murder case (discussed later). There is a tendency to conveniently overlook crucial incriminating evidence for the sake of a gripping story. One production that follows the model of the wrongfully convicted innocent person is the 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.
Making a Murderer is a compelling and engaging view of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The film is an excellent true crime documentary, featuring all the required elements of police corruption, tainted evidence, false confessions, tunnel vision, and, of course, a wrongly convicted person.
Making a Murderer won several well-deserved awards, including four Emmy awards in 2016. With the first scene, the film hooks the audience, eager to see what happens next. The “murderer” is Steven Avery, and through many on-screen interviews, his demeanor is so convincing that, as a viewer, one really believes his side of the case. Since Avery was previously wrongly convicted of another crime, the documentary is successful in making the viewer sincerely doubt his guilt in the Halbach murder and think he was railroaded once again.
If perhaps the creator of Making a Murderer thought they were following in the footsteps of the Thin Blue Line (discussed later), a review of the actual evidence shows otherwise. This was Hollywood-type moviemaking. Numerous websites and books, including one by the prosecution, address the incriminating evidence left out of the film. Upon analyzing all the evidence, it becomes clear why the jury reached its guilty verdict. In fact, despite Making A Murderer presenting scenes suggesting that Avery’s cousin was completely innocent, it is easy to see his culpability in the crimes that occurred at the wreckage yard in Wisconsin.
If the purpose is to create controversy, these documentaries can be very effective, as they possess tremendous power to change people's minds or generate specific thoughts. But if it turns out that they didn’t present all the evidence, then what is the value? Do they end up merely like a horror movie, accomplishing their goal of creating emotion and controversy? Or are they essentially empty? Then they become a noble quest worthy of admiration and respect without any payoff.
A Fully Complete Incriminating Case
Due to the documentary series, Making a Murderer, first released in 2015, many people still believe Steven Avery is innocent of the heinous crime he committed. Innocence advocates have called for his exoneration.
One can suppose that Steven Avery, once released from prison on a wrongful conviction for a 1984 sexual assault, must have thought he was invincible. That he could commit a murder in his front yard, of a woman he had called to his house, and get away with it.
A photographer for Autotrader magazine was declared missing after she failed to check in with her employer following an appointment on October 31, 2005. It was discovered that Teresa Halbach had an appointment on the grounds of Avery’s Auto Salvage to photograph a minivan. The police immediately responded to the auto salvage yard and began a search, assisted by volunteers, including law enforcement personnel and local residents.
Halbach’s car was eventually found by searchers, partially covered by brush, at the very back of the salvage yard. This discovery led to a thorough search of the vast salvage yard, including the area where Halbach was supposed to meet the caller who had requested a photograph of the minivan. It was learned that the vehicle belonged to Steven Avery's sister.
It was also discovered that Steven Avery had previously had Halbach respond to his residence on the property for a photograph, and that Halbach had asked not to ever respond to any of Avery’s future requests. She told her boss that she was uncomfortable with Avery as he had opened the door in a towel. Avery may have known this because, during the call to Autotrader, he provided another name and address; however, the caller, who had used Star 67 to conceal his phone number, had specifically requested Teresa Halbach.
After researching Avery’s background, the police reviewed his record. Avery had been convicted of burglary in 1981 and had served 10 months in jail. In 1982, Avery burned his cat in a bonfire and was convicted of animal cruelty. Avery was also accused by the wife of a Manitowoc County officer of exposing himself to her as she was driving in Manitowoc.
In 1985, Avery threatened his cousin with a gun and threatened to kill her for telling people he had been flagellating himself on his front lawn. He was convicted and sentenced to six years for "endangering safety while evincing a depraved mind" and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Steven Avery was arrested in November 2005 and charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach. During the trial, the evidence discovered in Halbach’s vehicle and a search of Avery’s property were presented. Investigators had found incriminating evidence from Halbach’s vehicle, Avery’s bedroom in his house, Avery’s garage, and the front- and back-yards of Avery’s property.
Halbach’s bent license plates were found along one of the long roads between stacks of damaged automobiles on the salvage yard property. Her vehicle was found on a rise along the very rear of the yard, partially hidden by wood and branches.
The car was searched and processed for evidence. Teresa Halbach’s DNA was found in the trunk area of the vehicle. Steven Avery’s blood was found in the interior on the ignition, on a CD case, and on the seats of the vehicle. Avery’s touch DNA, most likely from sweat, was found in numerous places in the car and on the hood latch. The CSI unit processed the hood latch because Avery’s nephew, Brandon Dassey, said in interviews that Avery always disconnected the battery when he brought new cars into the yard.
Brandon Dassey was also charged in the Halbach case after he confessed to helping Avery kill Halbach and dispose of her body. Even though the confession, as shown in Making a Murderer, revealed that police conducted the interrogation improperly, Dassey did provide critical information that led to the police discovering significant evidence. He told them about the battery on her vehicle, he told them about the shooting in the garage and using the rifle from Avery's bedroom, and about the disposal of the body on Avery’s property. Dassey refused to testify at Avery's trial but testified at his own trial and never mentioned any police coercion. Brandon Dassey was convicted of complicity in the murder in a separate trial.
During the trial, Avery's attorneys focused on the blood evidence from Halbach’s vehicle (deflecting away from his touch DNA) and presented a vial of Avery’s blood with a puncture hole visible in the stopper, speculating the blood was extracted and place in the vehicle by law enforcement, as part of the defense’s overall case of Avery being framed by police.
However, the prosecution presented testimony by FBI technicians who tested the blood recovered from Halbach's car for EDTA, a preservative that is used in blood vials for blood collection, and found it was not present. Therefore, it was not blood from that vial.
Based upon the previous handling of Avery’s assault case, and because Avery sued Manitowoc County, the Manitowoc County department ceded control of the murder investigation to the neighboring Calumet County Sheriff’s Department.
Investigators learned from Avery’s cousins that he had had a bonfire that night on his property. Dassy also told police that he had seen Avery burn some girl’s clothes in the fire. They then searched a burn pit near Avery’s home and found bone fragments that were later identified as Halbach's. In a burn barrel near the burn pit, investigators found Halbach’s damaged phone, her camera, and her Personal Digital Assistant.
As a result of the search of Avery’s home, they found a .22 rifle stored above his bed and spots of dried blood in his bathroom. Upon a subsequent search of Avery’s bedroom, they found Halbach’s car keys hidden behind a bookcase. They photographed the keys, not exactly where they found them, which would have been difficult to do, but on the floor below the bookcase. The car keys were tested, and Avery’s DNA was located on them.
Dassey also told investigators that Halbach had been shot with the .22, and police researched the garage and found a bullet that was fired from Avery’s rifle with Halbach’s DNA, from passing through her body.
Interestingly, the defense focused on the blood evidence as being planted by the police. However, even if that was possible, how did the police obtain Avery’s sweat or skin cells for his DNA on the vehicle and the keys found in Avery’s bedroom? The film successfully promoted the evidence-planting allegations by using blood evidence, but skipped informing the audience about finding Avery’s transfer DNA within the victim’s vehicle.
Following the release of the Making a Murderer documentary, over 120,000 petition signatures were gathered and sent to the White House, calling for Avery’s release.
Steven Avery had previously been released from prison on September 11, 2003, after serving 18 years for a 1985 wrongful sexual assault conviction. He was exonerated by DNA evidence.
Avery’s case gained widespread attention from innocence activists and the media. The Republican chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly established a task force to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions. A bill known as the Avery Bill was passed in 2005 to reform the criminal justice system.
However, many people did cry foul over Making a Murderer’s depiction of the case. The prosecutors on the case wrote a book, Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong, published in 2017. Numerous websites address the documentary, including 14 pieces of troubling evidence that Making a Murderer left out, Here's What Was Left Out of Making a Murderer, and Making a Murderer: Key Pieces Of Evidence The Show Leaves Out.
Due to the mountain of evidence, including DNA evidence, Avery was convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach and remains in prison today.
It seems that the public has a never-ending thirst for stories about the broken justice system, police corruption, and the conviction of innocent people. It takes a concerted effort to cut through the noise and find the truth.
The innocence movement coincides with the vast interest in true crime. In this age of the never-ending public appetite for true crime, have we become incapable of objective thought, of reviewing the evidence from an impersonal clinical perspective? Are we too concerned with who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Making situations too black-and-white rather than accepting the nuances that occur in real life?
As you read through the cases in the rest of this book and learn more about innocence campaigns and their tactics in trying to establish innocence, maybe you’ll understand why more scrutiny and skepticism are necessary. You will also learn the formula and strategy that the Innocence Machine uses to facilitate its program. And perhaps the next time you watch a true crime documentary, you’ll be able to be more impartial and cautious in your conclusions.
Kills His Savior
On June 10, 2010, Miami-Dade 911 received a frantic call from a man claiming that his girlfriend had tried to kill herself.
The caller was Yathomas Riley, a professional boxer. When paramedics arrived at the apartment in Homestead, Florida, they found 31-year-old Koketia King unconscious on her bed. She had a bullet wound in her leg and had been shot in the face. Blood was around the room, and Riley also had blood on his clothes. Riley told police that his sometime girlfriend and the mother of his child had shot herself in a jealous rage.
When police responded to the hospital to talk to Koketia King, they observed she had extensive damage to her head, and doctors said that she would have permanent facial impairment. After she regained consciousness, she told police that Riley purposely shot her. Riley said he was innocent and did not shoot his girlfriend.
At the scene, the police found two spent bullets and two casings. Because King had three wounds, she thought she had been shot three times. Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital deduced from her injuries that she had only been shot twice, as one bullet had entered above her left buttock and exited her left thigh, and another bullet had entered her face. Some people would later see this as important in the case.
Yathomas Riley would be arrested based on the charge by King that he had shot her. Riley was adamant that he was innocent. Koketia King was a corrections officer at the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, and the police determined that the weapon was hers.
Riley had been an amateur boxer who had a string of successful fights when he met King at a family reunion. They soon moved in together, and King became pregnant around Christmas 2005. Their son was born in September 2006. They then moved to California so Riley could train for a fight.
Eventually, Riley obtained a professional contract with a promoter in New York, and around that time, King and their son moved back to Florida. Riley and King entered into a long-distance relationship.
Riley met Lisa Amodio, a medical student, at his training gym in New York, and they became friends. Soon, Amodio was working in Riley’s corner as a cut person. As a pro, Riley was also a successful fighter, going 4-0 in his first year. Riley and Lisa Amodio became engaged in 2009, which, of course, upset Koketia King.
When Riley moved back to South Florida to train for a fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, he stayed with King at her apartment in Homestead, Florida.
In June 2009, police responded to King’s apartment and arrested Riley for molesting King’s 12-year-old daughter. After an investigation, police had doubts about the statement from King’s daughter, and the prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges.
Riley returned to New York for more successful fights, but in June 2010, he visited King in Florida. During this visit, Riley stated that he discovered a letter indicating King was assisting inmates in filing tax returns with falsified information, which led to an argument between the two. (Koketia King has never been charged with any crime.) That is when the shooting took place.
While Riley was being held in jail on this attempted murder charge, several people began showing support for his innocence. Lisa Amodio made public statements about his innocence in the case. She was even on the local TV news professing his innocence. The Cryon below her name on the TV news said, “Riley’s Fiancé said King was shot twice, once in the buttocks and once in the face.”
The fact that she was shot twice seemed to support King’s statement, and not Riley’s claim that she shot herself, as who would shoot themselves in the leg before shooting themselves in the face? There were several statements by Riley’s supporters that mentioned King had changed her story multiple times. Of course, it was possible that being shot in the head had disrupted her memory.
As often happens in innocence-craze cases, and as you will see throughout this book, often the benefit of the doubt is not given to the victim but to the defendant. All of King’s statements were dismissed as lies rather than as the result of confusion.
There was an extensive “Free Riley” campaign, and one of Riley’s supporters was Miami New Times, which published articles suggesting that King’s statements were unreliable and that the tax letter showed it. Investigators reviewed the case, and on August 17, 2012, Yathomas Riley was released.
Riley and Amodio eventually settled into a large house in Leesburg, Georgia, in August 2013. They were married in April 2015 and had a son together in the fall of that year. Lisa was an emergency room physician, and Riley ran a car repair business and opened Riley’s Boxing Gym.
On June 14, 2015, Lisa Amodio Riley, now 34, was found unconscious inside her Leesburg home. She filed a complaint against her husband, stating he had assaulted her and threatened her with a gun, and Yathomas was arrested.
He was charged with battery and assault and ordered to stay away from Lisa and to give up his firearms to the police. He maintained his innocence. Riley was released on bond.
On July 9, 2015, while Yathomas was still out on bail for the assault charge, he made a 911 call to report that his wife, Lisa, had shot herself. Lisa was pronounced dead at the scene. Riley was arrested on the prior domestic assault charge, and police began investigating the shooting death. Police later believed Yathomas had shot and murdered his wife.
During the murder trial for Yathomas Riley, the prosecution closed their arguments by stating that Yathomas had killed Lisa on July 9, 2015, while she was on her knees.
On June 24th, 2016, Thomas Riley was found guilty of the murder of Lisa Amodio-Riley, and he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without parole.
It seems that the woman who believed in his innocence, who had campaigned for his release, had eventually been murdered by him. This is a perfect example of the emotional attachment that is a component of the Innocence Machine — fullhearted faith in the innocence of a convicted person.