#353 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Tommy Ward Pt. 1

Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armason here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia A.O. Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of "Portlandia" together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself, Kyle McGlocklin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A.O. Rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Hamler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamannika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Swini was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better, or do less, so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamannika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamannika on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together in iHeart Women's Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout-out to you now. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Koshan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sport. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, it's Lauren Nyrider. In season two of False Confessions, we brought you the stunning story of Tommy Ward. And unfortunately, I have some sad news to share about his case. In January 2021, a district judge at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals gave us the news we were all hoping for, and vacated Tommy's conviction. But he waited in prison still, while the state appealed that decision. Sadly, Justice hasn't yet been served. This innocent man is still in prison. The state won their appeal, reinstating Tommy's conviction in 2022. And as of this update, Tommy and his legal team are preparing to file again with the federal courts. Tommy, we're all hoping that the courts get it right this time and grant you the freedom you deserve. Keep fighting and stay strong. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction False Confessions. I'm Lauren Nyrider. And I'm Steve Trison. In 1984, a woman from Ada Oklahoma went missing. A few months later, a man named Tommy Ward told police that he'd had a bad dream about her murder. Incredibly, the police took that dream and turned it into a false confession. Tommy Ward's story has fascinated the world. In 2006, the author, John Grisham, wrote a book about Tommy and his co-definite, Carl Fontanau. John's career as a writer was changed by Tommy and Carl's case, but he's not the only one who's been moved by it. A few years ago, their story was made into a Netflix global series called The Innocent Man. Now, the whole world has been moved to. It's our honor to be part of the fight to exonerate Tommy Ward and Carl Fontanau. Here's hoping we can deliver a wake-up call in this nightmare of a case. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm John Grisham, author of the number of legal thrillers in one work of nonfiction. About 15 years ago, I found myself in Ada Oklahoma, doing the research for a nonfiction book that was eventually titled The Innocent Man. It's just a truly fascinating case because there were no clues. There were no witnesses. There was no body. There was no corpse. There was no murder weapon. There was nothing. But Tommy Ward confessed to the crime. And from that moment on, he was a guilty man. The judge allowed this case to go forward without a body. Even though my most creative days, I'm not sure I could create stuff like this. Once I started researching Tommy's case, Carl's case, I realized that there are thousands of innocent people in prison. And I never realized that before. At that point, I moved away for the most part, from suspense, intrigue, thrillers, to something still similar, but much more issue-driven. Capital punishment, wrongful conviction, mass incarceration. The issues I care about in the criminal justice system and the injustices that we tolerate when we could fix this stuff if we had the will to do it. So, the Tommy Ward, Carl Fountain, no case, had a profound impact on the Israeli. You know, Steve, John Grisham's right. In this case, the truth really is stranger than fiction. This is one of the most bizarre kinds of false confessions. You can imagine. This case is fascinating because it is about a dream that is converted by police officers into a confession. Cases like this are extremely rare. Right, I mean, how many dream cases do you know about? I've studied hundreds of false confessions, and maybe there's a dozen of them. To our listeners, if you haven't heard this story, get ready. It's an incredible one. If you have read John Grisham's book or seen the Netflix series, we have some new developments to share with you. Because attorneys at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the organization, you and I co-direct, have uncovered new information that makes it clear that Tommy Ward is innocent. But he's still in prison. He's been there for 35 years. He needs to come home now. Right now. Tommy's story starts in the town of Ada, a rural Oklahoma community of about 17,000 people. It's a Bible-belt town where the churches are full, but the factories are empty. In Ada, poverty can sometimes make justice seem like a faraway dream. In 1984, Denise Heroway was one of Ada's 17,000 people. Denise was 24 years old, a petite blonde woman who'd recently gotten married. She was enrolled in college and helped pay tuition by working the evening shift by herself at Macanelli's convenience store. But when customers walked into Macanelli's at 8.50 PM on April 28, they found an open cash register and no attendant in sight. Denise had vanished. There'd be no sign of her for a year and a half. Ada police started investigating Denise's disappearance and right away they suspected foul play. A customer who'd been at Macanelli's earlier that evening told police he'd seen Denise leave the store with a strange man who drove her away in a pickup truck. Police also spoke to a female clerk at a different nearby convenience store. She reported that a few hours before Denise disappeared, two men came into her store. They were a rowdy, she said, and kept buying alcohol. They made her nervous. She gave the cops some rough descriptions and a police artist made two composite sketches. In terms of evidence, that was it. No one knew what happened to Denise. There was nobody, no sightings, no nothing. Police showed the composite sketches on TV and asked for the public's help. Dozens of tips were phoned in. A few callers thought that the sketches looked a little bit like a 24-year-old Ada man named Tommy Ward. Now, the Ward family was poor. They lived on Ada's south side in the part of town that everyone knew was on the wrong side of the tracks. Growing up, there were eight kids in the house. Tommy was number seven. Everyone, children included, was expected to pitch in to keep the lights on and the rent paid. The older kids would work. The younger kids would spend hot Oklahoma summers walking along the highway, searching for empty beer cans that they could turn in for a five cent deposit. The wards were a law abiding family. When Tommy was a teenager, he'd been arrested a few times for petty crimes like public drunkenness, but nothing serious. The idea of him suddenly kidnapping Denise Haraway was pretty crazy. Despite this, police brought Tommy in for questioning just a few days after Denise's disappearance. Tommy told them he had nothing to do with Denise. In fact, he said, on the night she disappeared, he was at a keg party, out of town, 25 miles away. Police released Tommy and tracked down some other party goers. Several of them confirmed Tommy's alibi. But police also caught wind of a rumor that had been spreading around town. Tommy supposedly told others at the party that he'd done something terrible. That one word was apparently enough to make the cops think that Tommy had killed Denise. They bring Tommy back to the station months later on October 18, 1984, for what would become nine hours of interrogation. Who killed that girl? Did you kill her? You thought she was pretty, didn't you? The questions come fast and furious, but Tommy still denies having anything to do with Denise's disappearance. He reminds his interrogators of his alibi, but they administer a polygraph. They falsely tell Tommy that it proved he'd been lying. That's when the internet. Terrigation turns nightmare-ish. Tommy tells the cops that maybe he failed the polygraph because he was nervous. In fact, he says knowing he was a suspect in this case had upset him so much that he had a bad dream. Tell us about your dream, the police say, and Tommy does. In the dream, Tommy was out by Ada's local power plant sitting in a pickup truck with three people he didn't know, two men and a woman. One of the men tried to kiss the woman and Tommy told him to back off. Then Tommy said he wanted to go home. You're already home, the man answered. Suddenly, Tommy was standing at his kitchen sink, trying to scrub a dark liquid off his hands. The cops pounce. Your dream, they say, matches the fact of the case. There's a pickup truck in your dream and we believed Denise was kidnapped in a pickup truck. It doesn't make sense to say this was just a dream, they say. You know what does make sense? You and these other two men killing Denise. So where did the story and Tommy's dream come from? Turns out a few days before this nine hour interrogation, police had briefly talked to Tommy. - And during that questioning, the police officers said to Tommy, "Use your imagination for just a moment. This girl was taken out of a grocery store at night. Two guys come in and got her and they got in a pickup and they grow away. A beautiful girl like that. Maybe they raped her before they killed her." That is a direct quote from these detectives. The police officers had planted the core ideas of this crime in Tommy's mind, including the pickup truck, which remember is a detail that a witness had already told them about. And Tommy began to have nightmares about the story the police told him. - The interrogation continues for hours. Police tell Tommy he'll get the death penalty if he doesn't confess to killing Denise. Eventually Tommy caves. He starts changing his dream to include what the police tell him. In his dream, he says, he did recognize the other guys. They were two Aida men named Carl Fontenot and Odell Titzworth. He dreamed that they'd robbed Mac and Ellys together, that they'd kidnapped Denise and raped her in a pickup truck. They stabbed her in the dream too, he says, and left her body in a culvert by the power plant. After nine hours of this, police bring in a video camera. According to Tommy, they say, time to cut the dream bullshit. This wasn't something you dreamed. It was something you did. - Tommy, how far do you get from the power plant? Where do they share their lives? - I don't know about that. I always make that too bad. - Why did you go to the power plant? Titzworth, Adam, and Paul over. - Tommy finds himself repeating the whole story on camera, not as a dream, but as cold, hard reality. - It was the first person in the story. Titzworth, did he have any kind of weapon? - Yes, he had no. He told me that he was going to kill her. That's where he got up to the power plant. - Understand how serious this investigation is. - Yes, I do. - Incredibly, the police have transformed Tommy's dream into a murder confession. - Let's talk a little bit about dream statements. You know, there comes a point in every interrogation where the police officers have tried to get the suspect to confess. And the suspect just says, well, I have no memory of committing this crime or I can't help you. I wasn't there. And then either the police officers suggest to the suspect, have you had any dreams about this case? Or the suspect will suggest on his own accord. You know, I have had some dreams about this. And what that does is it gives police officers something to exploit. It allows the conversation to continue. And the police officers end up converting what was a dream into a confession. - During Tommy's videotaped statement, the only lingering reference to any of this being a dream comes at the very end. Is there anything else you want to add? Police ask him. I thought it was just a dream. Tommy quietly says. - He always thought that the police officers would recognize. This is not reality. Go out, investigate the case. And you're going to find out that this is all a bunch of horseshit. - Based on his so-called confession, Tommy Ward found himself in jail, charged with capital murder. And the investigation that's to come? Well, horseshit is exactly the right word. - What's up, fam? - Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. - And we're the host of everyone watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women Sports. - Because let's be real. Women's Sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo roer to go from California to Hawaii. - My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? - The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. - And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week, every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. - Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat Savalinka. - Shout out to you Naomi. - You get the palm, Naomi. - You get the palm for that. - Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. - On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. - Hey, Portlandia fans. - Carrie Brown's seen in Fred Armason here. - You know us or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken. - We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO ReWatch, our brand new podcast. - Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning. Breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. - How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. - And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. - Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words, but a song about it. - I thought he was gonna write, I thought you were all gonna write a song. - I remember you thinking that. - Listen to Podlandia, AO ReWatch on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - This is Chelsea Hamler from Dear Chelsea. The world gets crazier and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you. Okay, if you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you. - Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast, you're the problem with Yamanika. - Do you know I just found out who Sydney Swini was? - New episodes weekly, every Wednesday is part of my new network, The Dear Chelsea Network. - If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. - So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. (soft music) - I was stationed on an earthquake here when my sister called and she started telling me that they got Tommy for this. It was not a good day. - That's Melvin Ward, one of Tommy's older brothers. He was in the service when he found out that Tommy had been arrested and he flew back to Ada right away. - I did not believe it. I thought well, you know, he's gonna get awfulness 'cause I know he didn't do it. It's not Tommy's character to do something like this. He was not a bad kid. He'd never hurt anybody. He'd stay out trouble. Other than a few public grunks, Tommy would have been the kind of person that if somebody was attacking this lady, he would have been there to protect her. That's Tommy. Tommy did nothing for them to go after him like they did. Other than we live in on the other side of the track, we was not in the proper society at the time. They believed that Tommy was guilty and they was gonna pull no stops to get into confess. And that's not proper police work at all. - Tommy wasn't the only person from the wrong side of the tracks who got ensnared in this case. Within hours, police arrest Tommy's dream accomplices, Carl Fontanau and O'Dell Titzworth, and questioned them both. Carl was 20 years old, a friend of Tommy's who was seriously intellectually disabled and pretty much alone in the world. - Carl was an ice guy. I know my mom liked him and my mom bless her heart. She was a good judge character. At the time, she was working at one of the convenience stores down here in Ada and the kid would come in and he didn't have much of the family. She would give him a sandwich from the store every now and then and I think Tommy met Carl He was sleeping on my sister's front porch. Tommy kind of took Carl under the wing, and they'd become friends. To understand how Carl's interrogation went down, you need to know that a few months earlier, Carl had witnessed his own mother's death. The two of them had been driving on the highway when their car broke down. Carl's mom got out and headed for a nearby restaurant to call for help. But as she was crossing the highway, she was hit and killed by another car. Carl felt terrible guilt. He blamed himself for not being the one who'd gone for help. It was that sense of guilt, along with his disability, that police used to manipulate Carl during his interrogation. The police suggested that Carl should make amends for his mom's death by saying he was involved in Denise's death. Can you imagine the trauma he must have been experiencing? That he saw his mother die. The police officers used that prior traumatic event to help break down Carl into accepting responsibility for Denise's death. And he caved much sooner than Tommy did. Just like with Tommy, police took a videotaped statement from Carl. In it, he agreed that he helped Odell Titzworth and Tommy Ward rape and stabbed Denise. I love him. Ask you this. Any important time, did you stab her? No, I did not. Nor did Tommy. Odell done all the stabbing right there. Did you all try to stop him from stabbing her? No. Carl even said they burned her body afterwards. Who sprayed the gas? Odell. He poured all the gas on her inner thing and went through the matthorn and walked out. And then the house just burned up on the inside. Based on this confession, Carl Fontanot was charged with Denise's death right alongside Tommy. Knowing that Tommy was innocent, that made me know that Carl was innocent. Tommy, it took almost nine hours to break him down and Carl, he was a little bit more acceptable to their interrogation. I think it had higher than 45 minutes. But the supposed third guy, Odell Titzworth? Well, he's another story. Odell was a four-time convicted felon with experience in the interrogation room. When police questioned him about Denise, he doesn't budge an inch. I don't care what Ward and Fontanot say, he insists. I had nothing to do with Denise's disappearance. Now, Odell is thrown in jail anyway, but pretty soon it becomes clear that he's got a great alibi. Two days before Denise's disappearance, Odell had an altercation with the police and they'd broken his arm badly. On the night Denise disappeared, Odell Titzworth was laid up with a spiral fracture, struggled with a grown woman, hold her down and rape her, stab her? It was physically impossible. Odell was cleared. This is one point I've always trying to wrap around people's head. If they were not being fed information, how did both the emboys come up with a totally innocent man's name? He can't happen. See what I'm saying? While Odell Titzworth got to go home, Tommy and Carl weren't so lucky. Prosecutors pressed forward with cases against Tommy and Carl, even though their confessions turned out to be wildly different. The confessions didn't agree on who raped Denise, where she was stabbed or when she died. And when it came to the big question, where was Denise? The confessions disagreed there too. Remember, Tommy said they'd left her body in a culvert near the power plant, but Carl said they'd burned Denise's body in an abandoned house, and then they burned the house down too. The authorities checked out both stories, but they found no sign of Denise in either the culvert or the abandoned house. In fact, Carl's abandoned house actually burned down 10 months before Denise disappeared. Their confessions just didn't match reality. In a last-ditch effort to get Carl to clean up his story, police try something pretty outrageous. So Carl is sitting in jail. He's just confessed to this crime, and the police officers go to a local university and gather a bunch of bones. From the science lab, human bones. They bring this bag of bones into the jail, and they say, "We found Denise's highway skull, where you said it was. But we can't find the rest of her body." And Carl can't answer the question. He says, "I wish I could help, but I don't know where her body is." Carl's terrified. He can't tell him a thing. I mean, what the fuck is this? I've never seen this before. This is just beyond the pale. What's up, fam? And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together in I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week, every week. We're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sublinca. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. From the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Carrie Brown, scene in Fred Armason here. You know us or rather you know them. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years. But today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of "Portlandia" from the very beginning. How did any of this get made? Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. I thought you were going to write a song. Listen to Podlandia. AO Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The world gets crazier and Yamannika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. Okay? If you do something in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you. Join Yamannika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yamannika. Do you know I just found out who Sydney Swini was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, The Dear Chelsea Network. So join Yamannika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamannika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamannika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Carl and Tommy were tried together on September 24th, 1985. At trial, prosecutors called a Macanelli's customer, named James Moyer. Moyer testified that he'd seen someone who looked like Tommy Ward in the store an hour before Denise disappeared. That's pretty thin evidence, but the prosecutors had more. As the centerpiece of the trial, they played Tommy and Carl's confession tapes for the jury. Prosecutors conceded that, sure, Tommy and Carl got a lot of things wrong. Sure, their confessions were false when it came to O'Dell's involvement, and sure, the facts that they seemed to get right, like the pickup truck, had been fed to them by their interrogators. But set all that aside, prosecutors said, "We've got proof," they said, that Tommy and Carl's confessions are reliable, a real ace in the hole. So, what was that proof? Prosecutors argued that Tommy and Carl's confessions could be trusted, because they both accurately described what Denise was wearing the night she disappeared. During Tommy's confession, he said Denise was wearing a button-up blouse with little blue roses on it, and lace on the collar and sleeves. Similarly, Carl had said she was wearing a button-up blouse with ruffles on the collar, and elastic on the sleeves. Now, prosecutors said, at the time of the confessions, the police had no idea what Denise had been wearing, so the interrogators couldn't have fed details about the blouse to Tommy and Carl. The only explanation for Tommy and Carl's matching stories was that they had both actually been with Denise that night, to really clinch the case. In case, Denise's sister took the stand and revealed that Denise did own a blouse with blue flowers and a lacy ruffled collar. Also, after Denise disappeared, the sister reported that that blouse was missing from Denise's closet. Denise's sister said she hadn't told police about the missing blouse until after Tommy and Carl confessed. Going into trial, the police and prosecutors have two confessions that are at odds with the objectively noble facts of the crime. There's no corroboration of this confession, and it's filled with errors. But the police have one fact that is the anchor of their case. The defense council had no explanation for why both Tommy and Carl independently had described Denise's missing blouse the same way. That anchor ended up taking both Tommy and Carl down. On day 13 of the trial, the jury returned a verdict. Both men were guilty of murdering Denise Harroway. Shortly afterwards, the judge sentenced Tommy Ward and Carl Fontano to death. The district attorney got a conviction on his boys because of the description of the shirt that supposedly no one knew at the time of their confessions. But I knew that Tommy and Carl was innocent, but having Tommy and Carl both to say something about that shirt, that was a pretty hard thing to get passed. These men were sentenced to death on the basis of a single fact, a description of a blouse. Tommy and Carl were able to lead police to evidence that they didn't already have. These are the kinds of facts that you and I look at when we assess the reliability of a confession Lara. And if police don't know information and the suspect leads them to it, that's a red flag for a reliable confession. How could Tommy and Carl have been wrong about so many facts, yet right about this fact? Despite it all, could they possibly be guilty? It sure looked that way, at least at first. Decades would pass before we found out the truth. There's so much more to this case, more than we can tell you today. So join us next week as we close our second season. We'll bring you part two of the story of Tommy Ward and Carl Fontanau. Wrongful conviction false confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company number one. Special thanks to our executive producers Jason Flom and Kevin Wartus. Our production team is headed by senior producer Ann Pope, along with producers Jajie Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed by Jeannie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our music was composed by J Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter @lorannyrider. And you can follow me on Twitter @sdrison. For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram @rongfulconviction on Facebook @rongfulconvictionpodcast and on Twitter @rongconviction. Carrie Brown seen in Fred Armason here. We're launching Podlandia AO rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McGlocklin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up fam? Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl Sam Jay. Shout out to you now. I have been obsessed with Kassand Rock's boxing journey. She looks good, her combos are swift. The stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. On the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.