Murder at the Bike Shop | Ep. 1 – Toes First

Welcome to the "I Can't sleep" podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the "I Can't sleep" podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. The "Jepisode" provides enough interesting content to hold your attention and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcast. That's "I Can't Sleep" with Benjamin Boster. Hey you. Yeah. Hi. It's so good to see you out of here Scott. I told her when I get home, the first thing I wanted to do was take a hot-ass shower and watch the prison of me. Yeah, fuck this place, right? Fuck this place. You are out of here. Yes. Finally. I want to chop the lights. It's a cream or a chop. That's been handled. 25 years ago, Scott Baldwin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. But he always maintained his innocence. Recently, he had been resettanced and become eligible for parole. And on October 6, 2025, he was released from Lakeland Prison in Coldwater, Michigan. We were there to pick him up. He didn't all fit in the van, so Kevin and I waited down below by the prison entrance. While Jacinda and Scott's wife and Scott's attorney drove up to the complex to get him. It shouldn't take us long. We'd expected it would only take them a few minutes to get Scott in the van and drive away. But they'd been gone for over half an hour now. Then, Kevin got a text from Jacinda. All it said was, "Scott's not in good shape." Is that all it says, "Not in good shape?" Yeah. That sounds ominous. It's probably not a worse place on the planet than you want to be. No, if you have advanced cancer. No. I mean, we know he's not in good shape. So, if they're texting that, let me in season really bad shape. Can I answer them, I think? Yeah, it's everything. We knew Scott was dying. He had prostate cancer and had spread into his bones. He was not going to recover. But we'd seen Scott just a month before at his recentencing hearing. And although he was in a wheelchair, he'd been smiling and laughing. He looked very different now. Scott, we're going to pull it here. Say hi to Susan and Kevin. Nice to meet you. Look at this guy. How are you? I'm tired. Please, you're out for a long two or three days. I'm going to watch my five years. Yeah. I just felt that tired right now. If it's good, it's gonna be real good. And then onto the house. Scott could no longer walk or even stand. He was also six foot two and nearly 300 pounds. And now, we had to figure out how to get him from the van and into his home. Hang in there. You look tired. He's having a long, long night. I don't know. I need some time to heal. It's been three weeks of non-stop health. Get your wheelchair out. Okay, I'm gonna put this down. Ready? It's wire going to make sure he gets out. Okay, you're going to stand on that side. You got it. I'm going to stand on the side and we're going to help him in. Two, three. There you go. I'm going down. Welcome home, Scott. We had been investigating Scott's case for several months. We had seen enough evidence to believe he was innocent. That he had not committed the murder he was in prison for. And it was our hope that when he was released, Scott would get better treatment for his cancer. And that we would also have the opportunity to sit down with him and talk in more detail about our investigation. But it had taken five of us just to get him inside his house and into a chair in his living room. We did what we could to try and make him comfortable. And when he fell asleep, we left to give him a chance to finally rest. I will say that picking up Scott and taking him home is not what I was hoping for. It is easily one of the saddest experiences that I've had in my life. I feel told, I don't want to say despair, but like, Jesus fucking Christ. It does feel just like despair. I thought there'd be something happy. I knew it's bitter sweet. He's basically coming home to die. But I still expected joy somehow. That he's finally out after all this time. And there wasn't. There was no joy. There was not a shred of joy at any moment. Imagine surviving 25 years in prison just longing to go home. And this is your homecoming. This is what you survive 25 years for. You're sitting there before you left for all in the living room. And I asked him, do you want to go to the hospital? Do you want to stay? He wanted to stay there. He said no. He said no, I want to stay. He knows it's not a great situation. He knows it's a terrible situation. But he also knows that he might never sleep in his own home ever again if he goes to the hospital. He probably is right about that. On October 9th, 2025, shortly after midnight, and just two and a half days after we'd picked Scott up from prison, his wife called and left the message we'd been fearing. He just went to a sketch, gone. He just died in nerves. Oh, I just wanted you guys to know. I got what they wanted. This is too bad for us. I'm Susan Simpson. And I'm just Cindy Davis. I'm an attorney and investigator. And I'm a true crime TV producer. And this is Proof Season 3, Murder at the Bike Shop. Proof is a Red Marble Media production and association with Glassbox Media. New episodes are released on Mondays. And on Thursdays, you can catch our sidebar episodes, where we talk about the case, talk to guests, and tell you more about what's going on behind the scenes. This is Episode 1, Toes First. This season of Proof is not the story we thought we'd be telling. The story we thought we'd be telling is the story of Scott Baldwin. Scott, how long have you been inside? Scott had been convicted of a murder that happened in Kalamazoo Michigan back in 1988. But the case had gone unsolved for 13 years, until Kalamazoo formed a new cold case team. They reopened the case, and decided that Scott Baldwin was the killer. Four months after his arrest, Scott went on trial for murder. When I went to court just then I sat here, and I took myself in the ass and was told to take a more serious decision for it to do this, thinking I don't know what I'm worried about. It's such a good show. I think I don't know what it's all about. I didn't do this, what do I worry about? Scott had believed that once the trial was over, he'd go back to his wife and young children. He believed life would go on like normal, as if this had all been nothing more than a bad dream. I know I didn't freaking do this, so I could say what you want, make up what lies you want. The truth is gonna come out. There's no way in hell. It wasn't me. There was a way in hell though. He was convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. And that's where I'm at. I'm sitting here. It's been 23 years of life. It wasn't me. It's not me. I didn't do it. Last year, we agreed to investigate Scott's case. I am potentially covered on this podcast. But we'd barely even had a chance to get started when Scott got some news that changed everything. Hey, Scott, can you hear me? I can hear you. How's it going? It's been one of those days. Years earlier, Scott had been diagnosed with cancer, but he'd been treated and gone into remission. Everything seemed fine until it wasn't. The cancer was back. How are you holding up? I mean, it's gotta be scary. I'm a fucking mess. I don't like touching, but that's where I'm at. There's no getting better. They're not gonna cure this. This is my extension of life. The cancer had spread through his body. Scott's diagnosis was now terminal. But with treatment, there was a good chance his life expectancy could still be measured in years. There was reason to hope that the case for his innocence could move faster than the cancer. You've been in there so long, and now you're risking that you could die in there before they get around to testing the DNA. Well, that's the problem. We've tested the DNA. We know it's not me, but it's waiting for them to test and say, "Okay, you're right. Stop him. Now, what do we do?" That's where I'm frustrated. They know the DNA from the victim does not match me. Does not match me whatsoever. The DNA from the left and right hand on the victim matches each other. It's not through victims, it's not mine. They don't want to be attacked. There was a law in Scott's case that needed to be investigated, and a lot of questions that we needed to answer. Questions like, "Why was Scott still in prison if the DNA hadn't matched him?" And if Scott hadn't done this crime, then why did his ex-girlfriend tell police he had confessed to it? This woman went to the police in 1989 and told to my confess to her I did a murder. They saw so little of it. They never bothered even knocking on my door. And said, "Hey, we need to talk to you. We have a girl that says you did a murder. Where were you that night?" They didn't even bother coming and talking to me because they knew it was made up and it was contrived and it was bullshit. After who would do this, why would somebody make up a story like this? Somebody who probably is mad at their boyfriend or wants a reward money? That's her own words. But, 13 years later, the prosecution had believed her and was certain Scott was guilty. But even they couldn't explain some of the evidence in this case. Like, who was the man seen with the victim shortly before he was killed? Get trial. They said that they saw the victim standing in the doorway with a white male with blonde hair. And I've always had black hair. I've got a million questions. I'm going through all the files so we can hit the ground running once we're up and how I'll do. All right. So, thank you. From the beginning, we knew that time was of the essence in this case. We hoped Scott would be exonerated while he still had the chance to live freely. But then, five months ago, Scott got some more news. The treatments hadn't worked at all. The letter from the doctor said in his best prognosis is a medical opinion that I have searched once or less to live. We knew from the gap that I'm telling you this, and I'm sure he's at most right now. God, it's so frustrating, Scott, because what we found could potentially be pretty important. And it's frustrating that it had never been looked into before. Pretty, pretty big stuff. It could be significant in terms of exoneration, in terms of overturning your conviction. Honestly, just end of it. I wonder if I'm going to walk out or go on toes first. You have one minute remaining. Scott did make it out of prison, but he died less than three days later. And in the eyes of the state, he died a guilty man. Scott's dying wish was for us to carry on, to prove his innocence with or without him. So, that's what we're doing. But even before he died, we knew that this season of proof was not just about Scott Baldwin. Because, as we investigated his case, we realized this story was also about something bigger. It's also about the Kalamazoo Kohl case team that convicted him. Because if Scott was innocent, then this was not the first time they'd sent an innocent man to prison. And maybe it wasn't the last time either. Oh hell yeah. We excelled on the cold cases. That's Detective Mike Brown. He was one of the original members of the Kalamazoo Kohl case team. Back in 2020, I spoke to him for season five of my podcast on Disclosed. We were the first cold case unit in this state of Michigan. I always felt good about working investigations, especially homicides. I always had to feel I had an accomplishment. Detective Rich Madison was another member of the Kohl case team. Jacinda and I spoke to him back then as well. The Kohl case homicide team was started in 1998. The whole county, all of the departments agreed to put that money together to start the Kohl case homicide team. And nobody had anything fake in us. None of the bosses are anything. That's because they thought there's no way in hell they can solve the homicide. Well, we surprised the hell we went. The Kalamazoo Kohl case team was only in operation for about seven years. But in that time, they were able to make arrests in 15 of Kalamazoo's most notorious unsolved homicides. I cleared everyone up. I had everyone up. Now that's the hell of a record. All 15 cases resulted in homicide convictions. And some of the cases had multiple defendants, so the Kohl case team got 21 convictions and all. A hell of a record indeed. These were all cases that had been investigated before, but had gone nowhere. Prior detectives hadn't been able to solve them, but the Kohl case team did. I did a lot of things in my 40 years, but this Kohl case shit was, I loved it. I really did. I enjoyed it. Our hands weren't tight. The Kalamazoo Kohl case team was in some ways an experiment. They were given a lot of freedom to figure out how the interagency task force should operate. Here's detectives Brown and Madison again from our interviews with them back in 2020. We took all the ones unsolved, cases that were shelved to pull bar out in the woods, which was a beautiful setup. Even the bosses, even the chiefs, the police, the sheriff had no idea where that was. And that really made it good. We read all those cases, and when we were finished reading, we all decided which case we thought was going to be a case that we could solve right away. Right off the bat, we were off run and looked our first Kohl case. It was a former police officer who killed his wife in the city of Portage, who was just out there. Russ Smith was his name. He killed her and hit her body and it's never been found. The very first unsolved homicide that the Kohl case team reopened was the disappearance and presumed murder of 27-year-old Christine Smith. She'd been reported missing by her neighbors in 1994 after they hadn't seen her in a few days. Her husband Russ told police that she'd left him and their young daughter for another man. He had no idea where she might be. The police were, understandably, skeptical of the story. But without a body, there was no proof that a crime had been committed in the first place. The case went cold. And then, four years later, the new Kohl case team decided to reopen it. We had $48 dollars, $48 dollars to solve this crime. The program, you know. Meanwhile, back in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a new police unit was keeping a close eye on Russ Smith. We were looking for a case that looked like it had leads that needed to be pursued. From the start, Russ Smith was their first and only suspect. Detective Brown told me that the Kohl case team used 48 hours interest in the case to their advantage. They even had the producers along for some of their interviews with Russ. He was trying to get next to the female producer we had. And she milked it, you know, of course she did. We encouraged that, because we wanted him to go plead guilty. We sat him down and ultimately he confessed to it. And actually, as it turned off, she was taking a bath. And he just walked in and shattering inside of the head. He was sent for second degree murder. He's still in prison. Russ Smith does not deny that he killed his wife. But without his confession, it's not clear he'd have been convicted. The Kohl case team never did find any tangible proof that Christine had been murdered. Nor did they ever find her body. Russ Smith was asked about that, of course. Here's what he told 48 hours. You've got this body in the back of your truck. What'd you do? Made arrangements to borrow a boat from a friend. And I took the boat and the truck and the barrel to Lake Erie. And then I put the barrel on the boat and it went out about nine miles. So I threw the barrel over the side of the boat. Despite extensive search efforts, Christine's body was not found in Lake Erie. Nor in any of the other lakes, he claimed to have thrown her in. He told us for his wife and the barrel in Lake Superior. Well, we had the coast guard out there and he was out there with us. Too bad y'all didn't find her. Why? I don't think you put her there. The Russ Smith case would set something of a precedent for the Cole case team. Of their 21 convictions, at least 17 involved evidence that the defendant had confessed to the crime in one way or another. The confession evidence had been particularly effective in the Russ Smith case. Although he has kept his secret about what he did with Christine's body, thanks to his confession, the Cole case team got their conviction in record time. They were off to a great start and they didn't stop there. Another member of the Cole case team was detective Mike Workermo. He declined to speak to us for this podcast, but back in 2020, he spoke to Jacinda and Kevin for a show they produced for Discovery ID called Killer in Question, which covered the case of Jeff Titus. I was young, aggressive, and we were bad in a thousand. Every case to this point that we were open, we were able to bring successful convictions and closure. We were getting a lot of momentum, a lot of attention from the media, and so forth. And everyone likes hearing good news. And now the Cole case was bringing good news. The Cole case team had a perfect record. They had gotten at least one conviction, if not more, in every Cole case where they made an arrest. When we interviewed Mike Workermo and Fenton and Mike Brown, they bragged that they had 100% success rate, conviction rate. Yes, well they all bragged about 100% success rate, but we know that the math on that is, no, they released Jeff Titus. Jeff Titus was conviction number nine for the Calamizoo Cole case team. In 1991, two hunters were killed in the Fulton State game area. Jeff Titus was a neighboring landowner who was cleared of suspicion by original investigators. But when the Cole case team reopened the case, they were able to arrest and convict him for the murders. We had such a large volume of incriminating statements from Mr. Titus. Cole case prosecutor Stuart Fenn was also interviewed back in 2020 for Killer and Question, and he explained how they'd been able to make a case against Jeff Titus. He's exhausted as appeals. He got life in prison. It's first degree murder, and he killed two people by shooting him in the back. He's exactly where he deserves to be, and he will die there. All right, we are in Coldwater, Michigan, and we are on our way to go pick up Jeff Titus from the prison there. Jeff Titus did not die in prison. He was released in 2023, after our investigation found evidence pointing at someone else. Someone who Jeff Titus' defense hadn't been told about. I was there to pick him up, and I drove him out of the prison gates, where he met Susan and Kevin for the first time. The same exact prison gates, where two years later, they met Scott Baldwin when he was released. Jeff's homecoming, though, was much more joyous. Susan! Welcome home. How are you so much? It's so good to see you. I thank you so much, you interesting. Kevin, this. well, hi, Kevin. So, what do you say to these, I mean, you're surrounded by some heroes? Yes, I am. What they did busted everything wide open, and it got me out. I'm just about speechless. Detective Rich Madison had initially been part of the team investigating Jeff Titus back in 2000. But I got thrown off the case because I thought there was too much other information. It didn't make sense to me, and I wasn't quiet about it. You know, I don't want to send an innocent man to prison, and I thought I was just a bunch of my marquee. You know, how do you pick one and run with it? After Detective Madison was taken off the Jeff Titus case, Cole's team captain, Dan Weston, suggested that he start another investigation instead. Susan, why don't you look at another case? So I did, and it was a bicycle shop, or no man was beat to death. And I started working that and basically resolved it. In June of 1988, Aurolo Burn was found murdered inside the bike shop that he had owned and operated since the 1920s. He was 83 years old. Hey, Scott, were you aware of the bike shop murder when it happened? It was all over the news. It was over every television channel. That's all I can honestly remember to send it was just everyone seeing it on TV or something. I was like, man, I used to work for that guy. First got Baldwin, this story began in 1983, when Aurolo Burn gave him his very first job. He worked part time at the bike shop. We were in junior high, like the sixth grade they let us get a work permit. You got paid $1.25 an hour, and you worked four or five hours a day. I worked for him for like three months, if that. It hadn't seen particularly significant at the time. But for Scott, that brief period of working at the bike shop would come to be one of the defining events of his life. Though he had no way of knowing it at the time. You have to realize that I was 14 or 15 years old when I worked for him. When he was murdered I was 19. In 2000, when Scott was 31 years old, cold case detectives would conclude that Scott had decided to rob the bike shop and something had gone horribly wrong. The burglary attempt had ended with Aurolo Burn's murder. Detectives Rich Madison and Mike Workima led the new investigation into the bicycle shop case. Last year we spoke to Rich Madison again, this time about Scott Baldwin. And he, to his dying breath, does he's innocent? Don't believe that for a minute. No. I know, I really don't. Everything when we did it, I mean his girlfriend. You guys probably read well. Stacy, yeah. Was a stripper back then and she tried to go up and talk to the detectives and say, "It's him and this is how it happened." And they blew her off. Stacy was Scott's ex-girlfriend. In 1989, a full year after Aurolo Burn's murder, she'd gone to the police and told him that Scott was the killer. The detectives hadn't believed her. But they did better report by what she said. And in 2000, when the cold case team reopened the case, they found Stacy's statement. It caught their attention right away. So I read that and called her down in Alabama. And I said, "Hi, Rich Madison, cold case, work in this case." And we'd like to talk to you about that. And this went work my night and say, "Hey, let's go down there." She's a key to this right now. Scott never knew that back in 1989, he'd been named as a possible suspect. No one ever told him until 2001. When is the first time you realized that you were a suspect? The detectives work him unmasked, showed up at my office at the computer company I worked for. And they're like, "This is Scott Baldwin here." And it's like, "Yeah." And they said, "Hey, we'd like to ask you some questions." And I was like, "Okay, I went to the police station and they said we brought you in here to investigate you for the murder of Aurolo Burn." That's the first time I knew. Just two months later, Scott's life, as he had known it, was over forever. Me and my first wife, Tracy, we had just reconciled. Thanks for going very good. And we just went to the realtor and signed papers on our new house. And it was the first house we had as a couple at 30 years old with three children. This was a Thursday, I believe, when we went to sign the papers. And I bought a couple big stakes. A bottle of checked annuals and went to the house. And I poured myself a drink, fired up the grill, put a stake on the grill. And that's an all-help request. And about a dozen cop cars and officers with sheriff. This is a lot. The whole work's pulled in my free backyard. And I went, "What the hell? The neighbors really screwed up, man." And me and my wife were looking out the window. And they came barrels drawn, pointed at our house. And rest of you that day. Do you remember the resting officer? Oh, yeah. Mike Workham. Mike Workham and Richard Madison. After they did the surgery, that's when Madison came out and said, "You're under arrest for the murder for a lower board." And it caught me completely off guard. I'm like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" It put me in the back of a police car. High-five to each other, got in the car. We had made it. Three houses down from my house. And I wish they still had the squad car recording of the day to buy a rest. Because the first words out of Mike Workham as well. Do you know who we are? And I go, "Yeah, cough." He goes, "No." This is going to get us back on 48 hours. This is going to get us back on TV. You didn't see that. And I go, "What?" He goes, "We've been on TV before. This is what we do." And this is going to get us back on. I came home and pretty much our house was torn up. Because the cops searched our house head to toe. That's Cody, Scott's oldest son. My room, my toys were all over the floor. They were going through my toy box. I mean, they wrecked our place. Everybody was just panicking because they took your dad. How old were you when he was arrested? I was nine. How do you, you know, looking back, how do you even process them? I didn't really think about it because he wasn't going to prison. He was going to jail. I lived maybe two minutes away from the Kalamazoo County jail. So, like, I could walk by and see him. And like, we could wave. And he would be out on the yard. And if I was standing in the right spot, I'd wave. He'd be able to wave back. He'd be in trouble. And he'd pull inside and I was told not to do that anymore. It was just like he's just down the road. I think I was more optimistic than anything. Thinking it's got to be a mistake. Like, it'll be solved. It'll be okay. Scott had been optimistic too. He told us that being arrested and preparing for the trial had been stressful. But he also just hadn't been worried about what the outcome of it would be. Well, I want to clarify something for you. I hate the way it sounds when I say it. I wasn't worried because I know they didn't have anything on me. In my mind, it sounded like somebody who thinks they did a perfect crime and they got away. No. I was like, I didn't do this. I know you don't have anything to think I did. It wasn't that they didn't have anything on me. It was that I know I didn't freaking do it. The jury thought otherwise. It didn't take long to find him guilty. 48 minutes from instructions to verdict. Well, that's quick. It's very quick. That's Detective Rich Madison again. Well, Scott Baldwin, I felt really good about that case. And the jury, coming back with a 48-minute verdict, that's kind of unheard of. And I remember two, you know, I always notice the suspects, demeanor. We actually concluded a search warrant over at his house. He and I were in the driveway. And I said to Scott, turn around, put your hands behind your back. You're under arrest for murder. No reaction. It's the same thing when he was found guilty in the courtroom. No reaction. But then not react. No, I didn't do this. You got the wrong guy. Nothing. Turn around, put your hands behind your back, and I cuffed him up. Scott told me about that day. I don't know if he'd remember this, but he talks about how he needs arrested. He's put in the cop car. And he says, is you and work him our driving away? He remembers work him a saying, this is great. It's going to get us back on 48 hours. Does that sound like work him up? It sounds like workman, I can't say that happened. The police car was recording all audio during that drive. But unfortunately, the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety can't locate any audio recordings from this case, including the audio recorded in the cruiser that day. So we'll never know for sure exactly how Scott Baldwin reacted, or what detective work him has said that day. It's not easy to maintain a relationship with someone's behind bars. No, no, not at all. And I'd write him, but the replies just all kind of ended up being the same after a while. Scott's son Cody shared with us what life was like after his father was sent away to prison. And so I stopped writing him a lot of the times because a lot of the letters turned into him trying to parent me through mail. And I had to grow up very fast. I had to grow up extremely fast. After his conviction, Scott was represented by an innocent clinic that aimed to prove he'd been wrongfully convicted. They felt good about his case. Scott's trial, they said, had a number of irregularities that they thought might lead to his conviction being overturned. Like the DNA evidence and new witnesses coming forward. And an alternate suspect who the defense hadn't been told about before trial. So for a time, Scott and his family remained optimistic. Freshman year, I just remember that was probably the third year I heard I'm coming home by Christmas. And the third time was just kind of like, okay, this has happened three times in a row now. I didn't think it was ever going to happen. I gave up, I fully gave up because at that point I felt like it was already beaten into the ground of it's not happening. It was probably as a kid, like the disappointment year after year was harder than just coming to terms with he's never coming back. Yeah, it's just an empty promise, you know. Yeah, I lost all hope for his case. Five years after his conviction, Scott and his wife divorced. The waiting and never getting anywhere had finally become too much. But Scott never lost hope for his case. For years and then decades, Freedom always felt like it was just one DNA test away. We had the DNA trial, but we got it in closer results and it said it was too degraded or damaged. So they couldn't get any results from it. 23 years later, DNA is advanced. Where now we get results from DNA. The new testing found that the same person's DNA was under the fingernails of both of Erlo Bern's hands. So that was newly discovered because it was not mine, it wasn't available at the time of trial. The DNA wasn't Scott, but no one knew whose DNA it actually was. By itself, that wasn't enough to convince the prosecution to overturn his conviction. So in the end, the DNA changed nothing. Then, in 2023, Jeff Titus was exonerated. That gave Scott Baldwin a new burst of hope because Scott's case and Jeff's case had a lot of things in common. It's the same cold testing. What happened in the Titus case? I'm the same detective, the same prosecutor, the same judge. All of that? Oh, whoa. And now they also can bring up the credibility of certain place officers that did stuff in other cases. At the same time, though, Scott also wondered if Jeff Titus' exoneration might actually undermine his own chances of going home. Because of Scott were to also be exonerated, well, that would suggest that Jeff's case might not be an anomaly. It could suggest there's a pattern. There is a problem with a second cold case out of Kalamazoo dealing with a cold case team. What kind of floodgates will that open up to Senda? There are two cold cases. So how much you think is that on the face of the state? Right. And if it's two, then likely there could be more. Yes. And I think that's why the H.E.s dragged under feet because once they know that this happens, there's bigger problems for them. And for others, I believe they're afraid of what they're about to open up. That's going to cause a flood effect. But how many cases they solved in that short a period of time? And how many have questions? Scott Baldwin isn't the only one who thinks that the cold case team might not have gotten all their cases right. Because cold case team detective Rich Madison thinks so too. You've got a pretty good track record. Like, you didn't sign on to the Jeff Titus thing. You believe Jeff was innocent, right? Totally new. Yeah. And one other guy. Rich, who's that? I don't want to. Okay. You can't say that. You cannot say that. And not tell us. I'm going to guess. Try. Korky Lard. That's the one. Korky Lard was the cold case team's 10th conviction. He'd been charged with the murder of his former brother-in-law, Wally Gould. But Detective Madison believes he was innocent. I tell you what happened, Korky Lard. I hope I don't bring a ton of shit down on me. Yeah, I really do. Everything I tell you is the truth. I'm not, oh shit, one, one, one, where are the other. I talked to Korky and he's very bitter. He should be. I heard he had gotten out. So, you know, this one was bugging me, bugging me. I knew he didn't do it. So I go over into that trailer part. And I pull in. And he comes walking out of the trailer. And I see him. And he doesn't see me. He doesn't look my way. And I yell, "Korky." Hey, Korky. And he doesn't turn around. He doesn't hear me. So I say it again. As I start to walk that way. Hey, Korky. He turned around and looks at me in. And I said, "Need to talk to you about it." And he's, where is that me? Points to me. You were those mother fuckers, you know? And I got nothing to say to you. And I said something like, "I know you didn't do it." And he's, "Where's that me again?" Gets in his car and leaves. He didn't want anything to do with me. He wanted to let it know. Yeah, I believed you didn't do it. And you got a railroad. I haven't seen him since. But I had to get it off my chest to sit there and say, "Hey, he did what seven and a half years." He was given a deal that he couldn't refuse. Korky Lard had done something that no other cold case defendant had done. Rather than go to trial and risk facing life in prison, he pled guilty to manslaughter. He served seven years and was released. If Korky hadn't taken that plea, there's a good chance he'd still be in prison today, just like almost all of the other cold case defendants, who are either still in prison or who died there. Scott spent a quarter of a century in prison. Over the years, he met other men who'd been convicted by the cold case team. You are probably going to want to look at some of those cases too, he told us. How many other cold cases are people are going to come forward to claim? You need to look at my shit because I didn't do it and this happened or that happened. How many others are going to do that? How many more do we have? The cold case team had 21 homicide convictions and all, and of those, ones already been exonerated and Jeff Titus, and two others, Korky Lard and Scott Baldwin, I had serious doubts about. But many of the cold case teams remaining 18 convictions had seen ironclad. I didn't really wonder about them, not at first. Then, I started looking. I began with one that Scott had told me about. A triple homicide of an elderly couple and their daughter in Kalamazoo County. It was the cold case team's final case. He told me that you always told him you were innocent. I was innocent and I think DNA to prove my innocence was not too polygreal. From there, I kept looking. There was the man who'd been convicted of killing a college student, even though he'd had the perfect alibi. Let me just ask you bluntly, did you hire someone to kill her? Don't, don't, don't. Then there was the man convicted of killing his girlfriend while robbing a convenience store in 1991. Can I ask, did you do this crime? No man, no, I did not. And then there was the murder of a man found naked in his own bed, who would apparently have been shot with a gun that he kept under his pillow. Did you kill him? No man, I did not. He was my best friend. And then another convenience store robbery turned murder, this one from 1982. The cold case team concluded that three brothers had done the crime, but two were released without serving a day in prison, while the third got life without parole. Were you there when it happened? No, I was not. There was also the case of two men convicted of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl, but witnesses had only seen one man running from the scene of the crime. I know I didn't kill nobody. It turned out there were a lot of defendants who claimed that the cold case team had gotten their cases wrong too. I had no idea if I could believe any of them. But after seeing what was in the files, I wasn't willing to dismiss their claims out of hand either. I could at least give the other cold cases a second look. I could see if there was any reason to think that any of the other cases might have problems too. And the more I looked, the more questions I had. Again and again, things did not add up the way they were supposed to. It felt crazy to think that so much could have gone wrong. But after seeing what was in some of those case files, I couldn't just walk away. We were left wondering the same thing Scott had wondered. How many more cases did the cold case team get wrong? Scott probably will not get this moment of showing the cold case team what they did to him and how they got this wrong, but we can still have it for him. It does make me more resolved than ever to keep working on this case and uncover every little thing we can. Not only this case, but all the other cases. When Scott died, it was hard at first to imagine carrying on with the season of proof. We were devastated. He fought for 25 years to prove his innocence and died before that could happen. So yeah, this season of proof isn't not the story we thought we'd be telling when we set out to cover Scott's case. We still want to clear Scott's name and find out what really happened to Erlo Bern, the man he was convicted of killing. But we know now this story is bigger than that. Because of Scott's innocent, then something went horribly wrong in Kalamazoo. Jeff Titus was wrongfully convicted and if we could show that Scott was also innocent, then maybe other cold case defendants were too. Others like Korky Lard, as Detective Madison believed, and maybe others still. By investigating Scott's case, we might be able to help others who were wrongfully convicted and still behind bars. And if that happens, Scott Baldwin's legacy won't be just about what was taken from him. But about who might be spared the same injustice? Next week on Proof. I didn't touch him, I just ran out, screamed for James, and called 911. I heard about it the next day, and that's when I called the city and said, hey, you know, I saw the owner last night on my way home. When they picked me up, I was shaking all the way inside. I was looking around for Scott trying to see if, like, is he watching this, because I'm going to be the next. You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red Marble Media, in association with Glassbox Media. We'll be back next Monday with episode two. Send us your questions and comments at [email protected]. We'll respond during our bonus episodes, Proof Sidebar, on Thursdays. Kevin Fitzpatrick is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Romero Marquez. Audio production for this episode is by Michael Yulotowski. And thank you to our sponsors who make this podcast possible. Follow us everywhere with the handle at proofcrimepod and on our website, proofcrimepod.com. And lastly, a note to our listeners. If you have any information related to this case or any of the cases we've covered, we'd love to speak to you, no matter how small of a detail it may seem. It just might be more important than you realize. You can reach us by email or leave us a voicemail at 347-985-0794. That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening.