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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today's story, the one that I have for you, is really about the ripple effect of tragedy, the way that one tragedy can trigger more in its wake. And in this case, it's about a little girl who went out to play in her small, safe Ohio town and then never made it home. Then it's also the story of what came next. This is the story of Devin Dunnever.
When Lori Dunnever comes downstairs a few minutes before 2 in the afternoon of Saturday, June 27th, 1998, she's like trying to wrangle her kids for a trip to the grocery store. She's not like super surprised, although maybe a little frustrated when her 8-year-old son says that his 5-year-old sister, Devin, is somewhere outside. Even though Lori specifically told them to stay put when she went upstairs to get ready at around 1.30pm.
Now, she knows Devin's got a lot of friends in the neighborhood she likes to play with, so she figures, like, she's got to be out with one of them. So Lori heads out to find her. The first kid she runs into right outside, this kid named Michael, says he hasn't seen her, and she gets the same responses at the house of a little boy named Adrian just about a block away when she goes knocking on his door. So finally, she heads to the home of a little girl named Caitlin. Because if Devin is anywhere, it's got to be here at Caitlin's house. Except...
Nobody answers the door. So she heads back to their apartment building and she and her son start kind of walking around outside. I mean, just calling out Devin's name and calling and calling and calling. And Lori is starting to get worried enough that she even offers another neighborhood kid that she knows five bucks to help them look for her. This kid was Michael, that first kid she ran into. Michael's 12-year-old brother, Anthony.
So he joins them for the next few hours until Lori's friends and family start showing up to help out. But even with extra feet on the ground, they're coming up empty and Lori's getting more concerned as evening approaches. I mean, for one, because she knows that a massive storm is forecast to hit any time now. So massive, in fact, that they end up having multiple tornado warnings that night.
But she's still thinking, like, look, no one answered the door at Caitlin's. Maybe she's there playing and, like, no one heard her knocking or something. So her cousin goes to Caitlin's house one last time.
But what they learn only worries them more because a neighbor ends up telling them that the whole family is actually out of town. They're on vacation. Oh. And that's one of those, like, record scratch moments in a TV show. So at 8-11, after about six hours of not being able to find her daughter, and with this storm barreling in, a desperate Lori calls the New Philadelphia Police Department to report her daughter missing. Now, that lapse in time puts NPPD at an immediate disadvantage.
But what's done is done, and there are no do-overs. So they get to work, first by getting the word out to the community that a little girl is missing and they need help. And despite nightfall and despite the awful weather, volunteer searchers show up in a massive way. I mean, hundreds of them. The team is so big that one searcher named Donna tells 2020 producers that all the flickering in the dark could almost be mistaken for fireflies if you didn't know any better.
And a lot of these people out there searching are out way past midnight. Storms and darkness be damned. Not all heroes wear capes. They sure don't, but capeless ones generally do require sleep. So they finally call the search off at about 2.30 in the morning, but just for a couple of hours.
Then they start up again around dawn, June 28th, over 400 strong. But they have like a whole new challenge to face because that storm that happened the previous night has turned into a blazing hot summer day. But still, in this search, they leave no stones unturned, especially in that wooded area behind Lori's apartment building.
Because everyone knows that the neighborhood kids like to play there. And there are plenty of little nooks and crannies, hiding places. As Josie calls them, every time she finds a bush, she can climb into a fort. So these searchers aren't even just on foot, but literally on hands and knees, sometimes getting down on all fours to see under fallen branches, see under other storm debris. But everywhere they look, there is no Devon.
So they ended up doing this all through the morning of the 28th. And when two volunteers named Marsha and Amy joined the search, they head to the wooded area, even though it's already been searched numerous times. Honestly, they're probably expecting to find nothing.
But as they approach a recently fallen tree, one that had collapsed last night, I mean, in the storm, Marsha notices an unnatural flash of red in this sea of earth tones. It's like peeking out through some nearby briar and brush and fallen limbs. And this immediately gets her heart just like pumping because they've all been told what Devin was last wearing when she went missing, which included a pair of red shorts. ♪
Janet Frankston reports in the Akron Beacon Journal that Marsha is just thinking, oh God, don't let this be what I think it is. And out loud, she's screaming, oh no, oh no. But it is exactly what she doesn't want it to be.
Marsha checks a fully clothed Devin for a pulse, but it is far too late for that. And even for two experienced EMTs, which they both are, by the way, it's a devastating scene, only made more jarring by the awkward position that Devin is in, like she had just
almost been tossed there unceremoniously and left exactly as she'd fallen. And how did she die? Well, from what the Sentinel Tribune reports, there were multiple penetrating wounds to her neck. So stab wounds? Of some kind. But I mean, they can't even say right away how those puncture wounds occurred because apparently investigators haven't ruled out the possibility that Devin somehow died in the storm.
I mean, that's honestly even what Lori is initially told, that Devin was killed by fallen limbs and debris or maybe from falling from a tree like where she tried to take cover, which
which I guess might explain why she was found under branches and whatnot, like if she had been there through the storm, but it doesn't explain a whole lot else. Yeah, like where on earth was she for the six hours before the storm hit? And how did no one find her sooner? I mean, you said this space had already been searched pretty thoroughly. Right, and the obvious answer is in front of us, that she didn't die in the storm. And they are able to figure that out pretty quickly. Right.
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So right away, the police department opens up a homicide investigation. And the day after she's found, NPPD Captain Jeff Urban runs into 12-year-old Anthony Harris while he's out canvassing. That same Anthony who helped Lori search the afternoon that Devin went missing. And according to Captain Urban, he is taken aback when he asks Anthony if he knew Devin. And Anthony's response includes something about her being a quote-unquote nasty, rude little girl.
And I want to pause here, little disclaimer, because this exchange comes up a lot and there are no recordings of it as far as I can tell. In fact, in a recorded interview just a few days later, it is Captain Urban who asks Anthony if Devin was a quote-unquote nasty little girl.
Now, is he asking because Anthony had already said something to that effect? Or is this one of those things where he suggested the sentence and got a 12-year-old kid to agree and then brought it up again days later to get it on tape? I don't know. I have so much side eye about this right now. But for the moment, that's really all that is said about the interaction with Anthony that happens on the 29th.
But it was enough to make Urban want to speak to him again a couple of days later on July 2nd for that recorded interview. So that's when Captain Urban asks that Anthony accompany him down to the station. I'm sorry, whom does he ask? He asks Anthony. Anthony, who is 12? 12-year-old Anthony. Does anyone ask Cindy if this is okay? So this is what's really interesting. They kind of ask her. Oh, okay.
I guess Captain Urban apparently tells her that he wants Anthony and Michael both to come in to look at some pictures. And she agrees, saying that she's just got to run inside and grab her car keys. But when she comes back out, Captain Urban and Anthony are just gone. I feel like I know where this is headed. I hate this. And you should, because once Captain Urban has Anthony in his car, one of the first things he does...
is Mirandize him. I know I literally just said this, but he's 12. Mm-hmm. What 12-year-old understands, like,
Like, the weight, the significance, the meaning even of being Mirandized, that wasn't you or me when we were 12. I mean, like, maybe. I watched a lot of Perry Mason, to be fair. But, like, I mean, I think about your son. And I'll take it a step further. More than understanding the meaning of being Mirandized, do they understand the significance of all of it?
waving their Miranda rights. Right. Obviously, that's the goal here or else, like, they wouldn't be able to do an interview and you wouldn't be asking without his mom present. Yeah, and, like, going back to, like, I have a 16-year-old. I've been through 12-year-old boy already. Like...
Mmm, he's not a bad kid. He's not a dumb kid. Even at 16? At 16, like, would Eli know what to do? I just saw him wash his water bottle, fill it with hot water and soap, and take a sip, forgetting he was washing his water bottle. Like, please, please ask me before you Mirandize him. Please. Seriously. And listen, the other thing is, much like Eli, like, Anthony isn't a kid that gets in trouble.
Like, his experience with juvenile court, the criminal justice system, it's zilch.
And it's not just that he's never been in trouble before. Cindy raised her sons to respect authority, especially when it comes to law enforcement. Like she's been telling them that the police are the good guys. They're there to protect you, follow their instructions, cooperate with them. So not only does he have no sort of history or experience to be skeptical, he's been conditioned not to be skeptical, not to ask questions. Because we were all taught that that's like, you know, what you're supposed to do when the system is working the right way.
So I'm guessing that's partly why he is so open with Captain Urban that day about this scuffle that he and Devin had gotten into a few weeks prior. I don't know what led up to it, but Anthony says that one day Devin had thrown a brick at him and it hit him. And like I imagine anyone who's been hit with a brick, like this upset him.
So given this story and given what Captain Urban claims were Anthony's conflicting stories on the 29th about his whereabouts leading up to Devin's disappearance, now he's like on full high alert. What were these conflicting stories? I didn't like, yeah, I didn't break it fully down. As far as I can tell, they're basically whether Anthony had left his friend's house a few minutes before or a few minutes after 2 on the day that Devin went missing.
And then which exact path that he took home. He doesn't get why it's changing, but that's the part he thinks is sus. But either way, it put him in the woods, which we already knew. I mean, that's where Lori ran into him as she was walking out of the woods where Devin's body was later found. Because that's where she offered him five bucks to help her search, which isn't great. I get it. But remember, all the kids played in these woods and they cut through them sometimes.
And this area was searched repeatedly by numerous volunteers, none of whom saw Devin's body there until Marsha and Amy found her in the afternoon the next day. And by the way, Lori never saw any blood or anything on Anthony, which I think is important to know, like as he's coming out of the woods. But because he was in the woods, because his story is changing, because he supposedly called her a nasty girl, Urban is suspicious. ♪
This obviously isn't enough to hold Anthony on, at least at that time. So he just has to keep digging, keep trying to talk to him. So Captain Urban convinces Anthony's mom, Cindy, to consent to a search of their apartment. And there will be disputes in the future over just how voluntarily Cindy's consent is. I'm not sure that it matters much because what Captain Urban doesn't tell her is that he's already got a search warrant in hand.
During the search, investigators seize Anthony's clothes from the day of Devin's disappearance. But they don't find anything that they were hoping for. Like the thing that could really crack the case wide open, a pocket knife, which is what they're guessing she was stabbed with. So when he asked Cindy to bring both Anthony and his brother Michael back down to the station on July 15th, saying that investigators wanted to give them both voice stress tests, she doesn't hesitate.
Devin's own brother has already been given one, which he passed. So Cindy's confident that her sons have nothing to hide. She has no concerns that the same won't happen here. Now, when they get to the station, Cindy has all the right instincts. She says she wants to be in the room while the tests are conducted. But according to Captain Urban, he says it's important that Chief Vaughn, this guy that they bring in to do it, be alone with the person that he's interviewing.
And besides, he says they can watch and listen from this adjacent room through this two-way mirror. So Anthony is taken into an interrogation room with Chief Vaughn. He's the chief of police of a neighboring town. And they basically bring him in because he's got the right certifications basically to administer this stress test that Captain Urban doesn't have. But they go in one room. Cindy and Captain Urban go on the other side of the mirror. They take their seats where they can indeed see Anthony and Chief Vaughn. But they can't hear anything.
And what they can't hear turns out to be critical. But thankfully, it was at least recorded, so we do know exactly what goes down. And Chiffon starts with Anthony's Miranda rights, which again, he's 12. And you guys, it doesn't take long for this interview to just get gross. I don't know how else to describe it, just like gross. Gross.
And for this to make sense, I do have to fill you in on kind of the broader social context that we're operating in here. Because New Philadelphia is predominantly a white town, like overwhelmingly white. Same with local law enforcement. And Anthony's family, the Harris's, are not. They're Black, one of the few Black families in the area.
Britt, I actually found this excerpt from a 2014 American Psychological Association press release that I thought was really interesting. It's about the adultification of Black male children. Would you just read this one thing for me real quick? Yeah, it says, Black males as young as 10, quote,
So that's, again, broader social context. That's something that's already happening across the board. But to complicate this even more, Anthony is really tall for his age, like really tall. He's almost six feet at 12.
So he's already going to seem older than most 12-year-olds without accounting for any kind of racial bias. Right. So that's the scene. Six-foot-tall Black 12-year-old Anthony seated across the table from an older white chief bond with Captain Urban and Cindy watching on but unable to hear a word. Now, before the voice stress test can be conducted, it's standard and considered important for the investigator to establish a rapport with the person that they're interviewing. Right.
Although, I mean, I guess is it because I think these tests have been proven to be super unreliable under any circumstances. I was going to say, I've been side-eyeing this since you were like, oh yeah, Chief Vaughn has the right certifications. I'm like, for what science? I'm sorry, show me. But even at like,
protocol for this thing out the window because Chief Vaughn kind of just jumps right into interrogation mode. He doesn't seem to have, like, much use for niceties. And he just asks Anthony straight up if he killed Devin. And Anthony says no. And I think they go back and forth for a bit, but Anthony stands firm. So next, Chief Vaughn tries some faux empathy. You know, I can only help you if you're honest. Like, you didn't mean for this to happen. Things just got out of hand.
But Anthony still doesn't budge. He insists that he had nothing to do with Devin's death. And it is here, if you ask me, where this already derailed train goes up in full flames. Because of all the places that he could take this interview, Chief Vaughn goes straight to racial grievance. 2020 has audio of the interview and Chief Vaughn says, quote,
Anthony, a lot of African-Americans have a lot of hate built up over the years, and it's because of what we did to you. He goes on to say, quote, End quote.
And that's his setup. And then he goes on to just like make up his own theory, suggesting that maybe Devin had called Anthony a racial slur and then he killed her out of anger. But Anthony still doesn't budge, even as Chief Vaughn keeps turning up the heat. Until that is...
he does. Because a scared, isolated, inexperienced kid can only withstand so much pressure, so much gaslighting. I mean, a scared, isolated, inexperienced kid in an unfamiliar environment without their parent being confronted by an authority figure, that authority figure that they've been taught to respect and trust without question always. And this is when he starts to waver, when he starts to agree with Chief Vaughn, just a
A little. Okay, maybe he did stab her in the woods? And then, you know, he'd be asked, well, how many times? More than once? Maybe five or six? Which is an important question because Devin was stabbed repeatedly, seven times in all. But Anthony doesn't know the right answer, and he just kind of stammers in response. So,
So Chiffon volunteers that maybe it was just once or twice. Anthony says, quote, probably just one. Yeah. Probably. He doesn't know because he didn't do it. There are a lot of probabilities in this short interrogation.
He also answers probably a little when Chief Vaughn asks him if the pocket knife he supposedly stabbed Devin with, which you'll recall is nowhere to be found, got any blood on it in a stabbing. And then he says probably. And his responses, again, make perfect sense when you remember that you're talking about a scared, confused kid who's trying to give the quote-unquote right answers, but wants to hedge his bets in case he's wrong. But this obvious uncertainty doesn't bother Chief Vaughn.
Here's actually an audio clip of that interaction. Again, it's from this 2020 episode, which is where we're getting all the audio clips that you'll hear. And fair warning, the audio quality isn't the best. Okay.
Now, I know that was a little tough to make out, but basically Chief Vaughn is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you did stab her, right? Yes or no? And Anthony's response was, quote, yes. Wait, no. I mean, yes. I'm just nervous now. And you can hear that confusion and anxiety in his voice. So Chief Vaughn asks him if he can write out a statement, and Anthony says that he'll try. And when he asks if Anthony has any questions, he's only got one.
If you couldn't quite hear that, Anthony's question was, can I talk to my mom? If you're listening right now, then I know you. You are paranoid just like me. Does leaving your house unprotected make you feel anxious? Yes. Do you want to be prepared for anything by protecting it 24-7? Of course. So you should check out SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe has protected my home and family for years now, and I sleep well home or away knowing they're safe.
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The brave face that he'd been trying to put on just vanishes, and in its place comes a river of tears. Tell me what? I don't know. If I did it, I would have done it, but I don't know. I don't know.
What Anthony says in response to his mom is, quote, I didn't do. He wants me. I don't. I don't know that I'm if I did it, I would have done it. But I didn't do it. But he said I did. And look, Britt, you and I are six and a half years deep by this point. I don't think there's anyone out there who doesn't understand how a false confession happens. I think there are probably some of you who are like, I would never. And it's
It's true. Maybe you wouldn't. Like, go ahead, clutch your pearls. It's easy to say with your headphones on in the comfort of your own space, not under any kind of threat. But to say that there's no way that this kid was particularly susceptible when Chief Vaughn is out here implying to him that if he just hurry up and confess, he could get the heck out of here, go home where it's warm and safe and full of the people he loves most who love him most.
I mean, this kid is scared and he wants to go home. But even though you get it and I get it and the crime junkies get it, the idea of this, of a confession that wasn't at all based in reality, is largely a foreign concept in 1998, especially to the general public.
Like, I know there are some scholars and academics who are catching on to how frequent false confessions are happening, but the broader public, it's not even on their radar. Even Cindy doesn't know about this. So she's, like, demanding Anthony tell her the truth, and she asks him point blank if he killed Devin. And when he says no, which he'll end up reiterating some 20 times, her response is borderline disbelief. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Did you catch that? Like when she asked why he would have confessed to something he didn't do, he just says the questions were too hard. He's a kid. A kid. Now this leaves Captain Urban with a big decision to make.
The voice stress test is off the table at this point. And truthfully, who needs it when you've got a confession? But he's still got to decide what to do with Anthony, whether or not to let him go home with his mom. Because, I mean, the reality is this quote unquote confession is basically all they've got by way of evidence.
So he decides he doesn't want to make this decision in a silo, I guess. He decides to pull in the district attorney, a woman named Amanda Spees. Though at that time she was going by Amanda Spees Bornhorst. But she eventually drops the Bornhorst, as I'm going to, for clarity's sake. But whatever may be giving Captain Urban, like, some sense of pause, apparently doesn't have the same effect on Spees. Because she's like, lock him up. He just confessed to murder. The end.
And I think it's important to hear these players in their own words, especially Anthony. So I'm going to play another clip from the 2020 episode on this case. Talking to 2020 as an adult, Anthony says this. That day was just such a bad day. My mother and I were together one last time and we were crying. And she, you know, I'm all, you know, on her arms over here asking to go home. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. That one hurt. Oh, God, it hurt.
This is heartbreaking. This is awful to listen to. Yeah, and I honestly think that Cindy carries a lot of mom guilt over this whole thing. Undeserved, clearly. But she's the one who drilled that respect for authority into him. That police were the good guys. Period. End of story.
Even more directly, she's the one who agreed for him to take this voice stress test. Which he was never given. Right. And let's be clear, the whole deal was sold to Cindy as a way to clear her son. Her son's plural of suspicion. But it backfired.
So Anthony is led off, devastated, to a detention facility. And the very next day, he appears before a probate judge, this woman named Linda A. Kate, where he is officially charged with juvenile delinquency by reason of murder. And as you've undoubtedly picked up on by now, there aren't many things to feel good about in this story.
But if there is one teensy tiny barely there sliver of a silver lining, it's that in Ohio in 1998, kids under the age of 14 can't be tried as adults. And if they're convicted, they can only be confined in a juvenile facility until they turn 21. The slimmest of silver linings. I mean, to a 12-year-old, that's still a lifetime. A hundred percent.
Now, Judge Kate rules that Anthony has to remain in custody until his trial, which is scheduled to start in late September. And before all you legal experts start sliding into our DMs, quick note. Since this is a juvenile proceeding, it's technically called a hearing instead of a trial.
But most of the reporting calls it a trial. Like, that's effectively what it is. So I will do the same. And it is here where another one of those capeless heroes that you mentioned earlier enters the frame. A fearless young assistant public defender named Taryn Hale. Taryn jumps into this case with both feet and starts, naturally, with the most obvious move, requesting that Anthony's supposed confession be thrown out. And he's honestly optimistic that his request is going to be granted. But he's also optimistic that Anthony's
So as Anthony's trial approaches, the NAACP asks this guy named George Forbes, who is the president of the Cleveland chapter, to review Anthony's file and see if they should maybe get involved. So in mid-September, George, who's a practicing attorney and a colleague named Dennis LaConti, do step in as co-counsel for the defense.
And I want to be clear here, this is not out of concern for Taryn's competence or commitment to Anthony's case. George even tells a reporter named Frankston that Taryn's doing a great job, but Taryn is white. And in a case with such insidious racial undertones. And overtones. And overtones. They decide it can only benefit Anthony to have someone with George's life and legal experience on his team.
But here's what's wild. Like, in the days leading up to this trial, Judge Kate abruptly cancels it, citing incomplete information sharing between the prosecution and the defense.
But again, tiny silver lining, she grants a request for Anthony to be released to home confinement until his trial, which gets rescheduled for January 25th, 1999, with the suppression request being the first item of business. That's the request they did to suppress his confession. And the significance of that request can't be overstated. Like a decision in either direction as far as Anthony's supposed confessions go is basically game over.
So his team brings in an all-star lineup of experts to testify to all the reasons that that confession should be considered coerced. At worst, and just plain inadmissible at best.
But at the conclusion of the suppression hearing, Judge Kay goes rogue a little. She says that the trial is going to start the next day before she even rules on the admissibility of Anthony's statements. Wait, wait. Yeah, you know, you should be confused. Like, she can hear the whole trial and then decide later if evidence she heard counts? Or she can, like, decide in the middle. It's weird, right? Like, this kind of thing straight up wouldn't fly in a jury trial. But this is a juvenile court proceeding and there is no jury.
So Judge Kate is just the arbiter of everything. And as Janet Frankston reports in the Akron Beacon Journal, Judge Kate says that she is more than capable of sorting all of it out herself. And what she decides is that the recorded July 2nd statement from Anthony to Captain Urban, like that's out. But the recorded July 15th statements to Chief Vaughn are in.
as is the July 2nd search of the Harris apartment. Okay, that just kind of feels like she's throwing the defense a bone by dismissing one of those three very big things. Yeah, and it's not even like... The thing she dismisses isn't even a confession. The July 2nd one was him...
When Urban asked him, like, oh, you thought she was a nasty girl? And he's like, yeah. And, like, his stories weren't quite lining up all the way because he's 12 and doesn't remember what he did a couple days ago. But to your point, like, all the important stuff, the stuff that matters to the prosecution, the confession is from the July 15th interview anyway. So whatever, throw him a bone. Take the July 2nd one out.
But I digress. So at Anthony's trial, one of the prosecution's star witnesses is a DNA analyst with Cellmark Diagnostics named Glenn A. Hall. And I know what everyone's thinking. Well, you didn't tell us there was DNA evidence. Yeah. And well, that's because we don't have DNA evidence or at least not any that helps clarify anything.
You see, what Glenn testifies to is that his lab had tested these teensy tiny little red spots, presumably blood, from Anthony's shirt and shorts the day that Devin was killed. And I'm talking like two or three little spots. And the one on the T-shirt was nearly as small as the size of a pen mark. Itty bitty.
And so what Glenn is testifying to is that the mark on the shorts was conclusively determined to contain human DNA that did not belong to Devin. I'm guessing Anthony couldn't be included or excluded because there's like no reporting on that or they didn't test that. But the spot on the T-shirt was trickier. That one was a mix of human DNA and then something or something else like might not even be blood.
And so when one of Anthony's lawyers asks if it could be, for example, a mixture of sweat and tomato juice, Glenn's like, yeah, totally possible. And Glenn couldn't exclude either Anthony or Devin as being contributors of that. In fact, he says about 51.1 percent of the world's white population could have contributed to that spot.
Though, as for the percentage of Black people who could have contributed, he wasn't asked that question. Which feels like an oversight. Yeah, to say the least, right? And if it gets brought up on cross, it doesn't make it into any of the reporting. Now, the rest of the prosecution's case is about as clarifying as the DNA evidence, with Anthony's attorneys objecting to nearly everything introduced by the prosecution.
And believe me when I say that they're in a tricky spot with this. They can see exactly where this thing is likely headed to, to the conviction of a child for a murder he didn't commit. And they want to preserve everything they can to be raised on appeal, including what they see as bias by Judge Cates.
I mean, they even make not one but two requests to the Ohio Supreme Court to have her removed from this case, which, to be clear, is like a massive F.U., like a message that lawyers generally hesitate to send to a judge in the first place.
in the middle of a trial. But when it's the defense's turn to present its case, they call a whole bunch of volunteer searchers, some from Saturday night, some from Sunday, all of whom say that there is absolutely no way Devin's body had been where it was found the whole time. Which the prosecution, like their version of events, they swear it was. Like that's their story.
And this is an important point because Anthony is all but alibied for just about every single minute past 2 p.m. on Saturday the 27th. Do they have an alternative theory? Like, I know they don't have to prove anything, but... Oh, they don't have to prove or present an alternate theory. Like, you just have to raise reasonable doubt. But they have one, and they do present it.
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You see, one of the searchers out that day looking for Devin, this woman named Nancy, she is called to the stand and she testifies to a bizarre encounter she had just before Devin's body was found. She said she was searching that wooded area when she crossed paths with a super creepy man. What made him creepy, you ask?
Well, he sure didn't look like a volunteer searcher in his long-sleeved flannel shirt buttoned up tight around his neck and wrists like it's not the end of June in Ohio. And missing from that long-sleeved flannel shirt was the distinctive sticker that everyone else was wearing to identify themselves as part of the search team.
Which, by the way, I've never been part of a big search like this. I didn't know that was a thing. I probably would have never thought of it. Like, of course, everyone out here in the woods is looking for the same missing girl. Like, no fool who maybe just abducted a little girl is going to show up here in the woods and, like, we need to distinguish ourselves from him. Yet, here we are. So apparently this guy deliberately avoided making eye contact with Nancy. And look, that could be chalked up to shyness or neurodivergence or a bazillion other things.
But like, put it all together. You know what I mean? Like when you got the, you're dressed kind of weird. When it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck. It's a duck. Yeah. Oh, and she did mention a random beige car that she noticed around the same time. One that had its trunk open and a blanket visible inside. Which she said that was weird too. And there were other searchers who saw this man, by the way. It's not just Nancy. And they were all equally put off by him.
which, again, they all testify about openly. And then the defense also calls a famed forensic pathologist. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? You can't just move on like that. Who is this guy? Well, so this is the thing. Again, the alternate theory is that someone else did it. They don't have to prove exactly who. And it's because Nancy, the other searchers, they don't know who this guy was. I mean, and she didn't stop to, like,
you know, get his info. Like she was on a mission more or less. And don't worry, I'm not like moving on completely. I'm sticking with this car, like maybe this guy's car TBD. But anyway, so they end up calling this pathologist named Charles Petty who comes to the stand and he says, look, this little girl's body was clearly moved.
And the liver mortis proves it. And liver mortis, again, is blood pooling in the lowest parts of a lifeless body. That had set in and was clearly present on Devin's right side. You could even see impressions of the things that she had been laying on top of on her right side.
The reason this is important is because when she was found, she was found laying on her left side. Ergo, if she had been there the whole time, her liver mortis should have been on the left side. So she had to have been moved, which means there's also a good chance that a vehicle was involved.
And again, we already know that the searchers had been scouring those woods both the night she went missing and the next day. So what the defense is trying to show is that she was dumped there close to the time she was found. You've got this car, which she might have been moved in. And then you have this guy who seemed right in the area where she ends up being found, who nobody can identify, who's like creepy AF.
But all of this, again, it's a very good alternative when you're looking for reasonable doubt. But this is where I do have to leave you hanging because they aren't able to identify this guy. They present him as a potential alternative. And they also present the fact that police never even tried to find out who this guy was. Did they do anything to try and prove Anthony didn't do it? I mean, I guess yes, but like what could they do? Right.
to do that because there was nothing that proved he did. It's not even like you can go up against like expert for expert or witness to witness. Like they're going off the confession. Right. Or like argue against physical, like hard physical evidence. Yeah, you can't do that. Because there isn't any. And there's no witnesses saying they saw him do something. I mean, it is just his confession.
Now, in a move that blindsides Anthony and his legal team, Judge Kate, prior to rendering her verdict, orders that Anthony be taken back into custody while she deliberates.
Like, he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't violate the terms of his home confinement or behave disrespectfully in court. She just suddenly decides it's in his best interest. So yet again, Cindy has to watch her devastated child being led away by strangers with just tears streaming down his face. And that might explain why Anthony is largely unemotional when Judge Kate delivers her verdict five days later.
Guilty. And she sentences Anthony to the maximum sentence, confinement in a youth facility until the age of 21. In response, he summons the courage to boldly declare in court six simple words. I did not commit this crime. November of 1999, a team of respected appellate attorneys file a 60-page appeal on Anthony's behalf. And they raise so many reasons that the conviction should be set aside.
But a big one has to do with the lack of physical evidence to corroborate the crime that the prosecution said was committed.
According to his appeal, quote, when Anthony emerged from the wooded area, which, if he were the killer, would have been mere minutes after the stabbing, he immediately encountered Devin's mother, with whom he spent the next several hours helping look for Devin. End quote. Right. So where was all the blood? Bingo. Because all they found were those few pinpricks worth of something on Anthony's clothes. TBD, maybe not even blood.
The appellate judges are clearly a bit confounded by the whole thing during oral arguments in March of 2000. Some even bring up their own children at Anthony's age, hinting just how inappropriate it would have been for them to be interrogated without a parent present. And so on June 7th of 2000, the clouds finally break. The sun starts peeking through and Anthony's lawyers get noticed that his conviction has been set aside.
His July 15th statements, clearly obtained under coercive conditions by a child lacking the ability to understand or waive his Miranda rights, never should have been admitted into evidence.
Leading up to that, Anthony had been confined at a facility called the Indian River School. I feel like school is a bit of a misnomer here. Your feelings would be correct. I mean, it's a prison for children. But you know, the one thing he's had to look forward to each month of that confinement, probably one of the only things he had to look forward to, monthly visits from Taryn Hale, who had stuck by his side through every last torturous step.
And understand, the true victims of this ordeal are the children, Devin and Anthony. But the devastation of this rocked more lives than just theirs, more than just their family's lives, too. Now, Anthony is released on June 8th. And despite later battling substance use disorder and even surviving a suicide attempt, he eventually goes on to join the Marines.
Although not on the first try. Because mother in Spee's badmouths him to the recruiters and convinces them to reject his application. Bitch, back down. I know. So he actually had to file suit in federal court in 2003, which if you thought we were done, hang on. This is when his lawyers finally uncover a ton of Brady violations. Of course. Basically all this info that pointed to alternate suspects that was never given to them
Like, apparently there was this friendly neighbor who was a registered sex offender, one whose front door a couple of scent-tracking dogs practically led directly to,
This guy was apparently interviewed and passed a polygraph, and it's worth noting because I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but authorities do not believe Devin was sexually assaulted. So maybe because of that or maybe because of Anthony, it doesn't seem like they even paid much attention to this guy. But, okay, put him aside. There's also Devin's father, who allegedly had a history of domestic violence and was not thrilled about his child support obligations. And you might have noticed I haven't mentioned him being involved in the volunteer search efforts. It's publicized.
It's possible he joined on Sunday, but I know on Saturday evening he told Lori that he just couldn't make it. He was too drunk. And I've seen kind of contradictory things about whether or not he had a solid alibi, although it had to have been good enough for investigators to cross him off their list. However much stock you want to put in that. And then there was Lori's ex-boyfriend, a guy named Jamie, and he is a real charmer.
A convicted felon who was legally prohibited from being anywhere near Devin specifically because he had kidnapped her and held her hostage for three days the previous summer. Are you kidding me? Right, he was never even charged for that.
And it doesn't seem like they cared much about him once they got focused on Anthony, even though this Jamie dude was known to have been violent toward Devin, including beating her with a belt. And he might have also reached out to Lori in the weeks before Devin was killed, asking if maybe they could think about getting back together. What they ended up finding out is that Captain Urban basically outsourced the work on this guy who was living in Columbus.
So when the Columbus PD indicated that he had an alibi, Urban's like, OK, say no more. Never even speaks to him. Just crosses him off the list. Even freaking though Devin was known to be afraid of this guy. And InvestEaters at some point found a pack of kids playing cards in his possession for no discernible reason.
Oh, and that alibi, it was given by someone who gave a false name and false social security number. Cool, cool, cool. And they also find out that Lori mentioned seeing his gold Acura, or at least one just like it, in the area the day that Devin disappeared. Which, as a side note, I would venture to say that a gold Acura and a beige car...
Probably pretty interchangeable in witness statements. Right? And listen, even beyond that, I mean, there were some things that should have raised some red flags even in Devin's own home. I mean, her older brother, who remember was ruled out by a voice stress test, he had some serious violence and aggression issues, which caused him to frequently run into trouble at school. Without saying too much, there was at least one act of extreme cruelty toward an animal that we know of.
And then there was Lori herself. I mean, it seems that she was really struggling with her mental health in the weeks leading up to Devin's death. She had even recently called a suicide crisis line saying that she was afraid that she might hurt herself and her kids. But she was crossed off the list early on, too. So the point is, I don't know if any one of these people had anything to do with Devin's death.
But there were a lot of people that should have been explored and a lot of information there that would have been extremely helpful in Anthony's first trial had they had that information. So it is no surprise that the law enforcement agencies settle fairly quickly and three unnamed officers even send Anthony an apology letter.
Do you want to read an excerpt of this? I mean, my eyes are already rolling, but OK. I got this from the Akron Beacon Journal, Peter Krause, in his article. OK, so they wrote, quote, We acknowledge that there is no probable cause to demonstrate that you were responsible for the 1998 death of Devin Donover.
So sincere, right? Yawn. Okay, sure, thanks. Something that was, like, clearly crafted by attorneys, but at least they acknowledged that Anthony never should have been charged.
Amanda Spies, of course, put up more of a fight. But when the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finds that, quote, any reasonable prosecutor in Spies' position would have known after listening to the tape of the confession that it was involuntary as a matter of law and thus untrustworthy, then she too decides to settle. So Anthony's total recovery is about $3.7 million.
Today, Anthony is officially listed in the National Registry of Exonerations, which is an incredible joint project between the Newkirk Center for Science and Society at UC Irvine and the Michigan State University College of Law and the University of Michigan Law School, which just so happens to be sponsored by a certain little Midwestern podcast company you might have heard of. Huh. How weird. I know. What can I say? Chuck approves. Yeah.
AudioChuck just made another donation in Anthony's honor. And you know we're going to drop the link where you can donate in the show notes as well. So do that thing you do, crime junkies, because this is incredible work that they're doing. And actually, Anthony's story is now taught in at least one law school as a case study in juvenile false confessions.
And listen, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Devin and her family, who put all of their faith into law enforcement and have been left without justice for a beautiful little girl who was brutally killed before she even got to the first grade.
Lori hasn't said much publicly since Anthony's conviction, but we do know that she was devastated when it was thrown out. Her sister Katrina told reporters for the Akron Beacon Journal that the family still firmly believed in his guilt and that Lori felt like he had gotten away with murder. Now, I don't know if their opinions have evolved since then, but you can mark that down as just another tragedy within this tragedy. Lori had every right to believe the NPPD.
And even just her feeling as though her daughter's murderer got off scot-free is heartbreaking, even if the reality is that it was never that guy. Well, and the reality is, it's not solved. Whoever did this is getting away with it. Yeah, in this case, it's just riddled with unanswered questions. Who was that man in the woods? Is there any chance that the beige car seen by a searcher with its trunk open was actually Jamie's gold Acura, like you suggested? Is there any DNA to test?
Maybe some that wasn't detectable back in 1998. Is anyone even trying? And the honest-to-God truth is, I don't know. A special prosecutor I know looked into this case from 2005 to 2007 and eventually determined that there wasn't enough to pursue a prosecution. But I know he never got in touch with any of the searchers, who, to me, sure as heck feel like they've got some relevant insight.
And I know that Devin isn't listed in the Ohio Attorney General's unsolved homicide database. But that doesn't mean that there isn't any hope of her case actually being solved someday. So if you have any information on the murder of Devin Dunnever in June of 1998 in New Philadelphia, Ohio, please reach out to the NPPD. You can call them at 330-343-4488.
And if you or anyone you know struggles with suicidal ideation, please know that help is available. You can reach out to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat with them at 988lifeline.org. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an Audiochuck production.
So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
We control what medicines you get and what you pay at the pharmacy. That's why today, more than half of every dollar spent on medicines goes to middlemen like us. Middlemen are driving medicine costs, and you don't know the half of it. Get the whole story at prma.org slash middlemen. Paid for by Pharma. It's okay if you aren't ready for kids right now. It's okay if you don't want to be a mom now or even ever.
It's nobody's decision but yours. But do you know what's not okay? Not knowing how effective your birth control is. Talk to your doctor about effective birth control options so you can make an informed decision. Tap to learn more.