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." In beloved family patriarch Gary Ferris went missing, his family looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying. The blame game in this family went round and round. This is Bloodesticker, the Ferris Wheel. I would don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Follow and listen to Bloodesticker, the Ferris Wheel on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. The prosecutor in Scott Baldwin's case was Stuart Fenton. He worked closely with the Kalamazoo cold case team and prosecuted many of the defendants they arrested. Fenton didn't respond to our request to speak with him about Scott Baldwin's case, but back in 2020, Kevin and Jacinda interviewed him for a discovery I do show in Jeff Titus' case called Killer in Question. When they talked to him then, Fenton had told him a little about Scott's case too. He'd told him about Stacey in the bike shop and the stolen bank bags and how Scott Baldwin had been convicted and how he'd die in prison. Fenton was proud of the work he'd done in the case. It was one of my greatest closing arguments he told them. It was last year that we began to investigate Scott's case and I finally got to read the trial transcripts for myself. As do our Fenton was right, his closing argument had been strong. His message to the jury was simple. You know Stacey is telling the truth, he said. You have to, it just makes sense. Obviously this was a robbery, that's the whole motive here. There's no question that this was a robbery. That was the whole point. All of your reason and common sense tells you that Urla Burns out there in the middle of the night, getting some fresh air or doing whatever he was doing. The defendant came by, saw an easy opportunity. He was out there that night looking for money anyway. Fenton told the jury they could be certain Stacey was telling the truth because she knew exactly what Scott Baldwin had stolen from the bike shop. The bank bags, the box of coins. She saw items that were taken, he said. That was "perfect cooperation of Stacey's story." Actually this is something Fenton told Jacinda and Kevin too, back in 2020, when he was explaining the case to them. Even though Stacey had failed the polygraph, he said, "The cold case team had known Stacey was telling the truth because she'd known about the stolen bank bag. In fact she'd known the precise color of the stolen bank bag. Green with writing on it," she'd said. An exact match for the bank bag with the word safari safari written on it that had been stolen from the bike shop. There simply no way Stacey could have known that. Unless Scott Baldwin was the killer. Like Fenton told the jury at Scott's trial, "The odds of it all happening randomly and it being false is so remote as to not even be possible." He told the jury that they didn't need to take more than 15 minutes to reach a guilty verdict. The evidence was that obvious. It was a good closing argument. Fenton wasn't wrong about that. Too bad none of that was true. Too bad it was all based on a mistake. Too bad Scott Baldwin went to prison based on a story that never happened in the first place. I'm Susan Simpson. And I'm just in the 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. Two 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 5. Safari Safari. Prosecutor Stuart Fenton told the jury at Scott's trial that Sacy had no motive to lie. She had no financial incentive to lie. Fent specifically said that and had no hostility towards Scott, just a desire to see justice done. But you know she's not lying, he said, because we can corroborate her story with the evidence. She had no one about the stolen box of coins and bank bag. But there was other corroboration too, like with Scott's confession. As Dacey said when Scott confessed to her, he didn't tell her any details about the crime itself. But he did mention something curious he'd done after. He just said, "I killed that one man." But he said he had just went to put flowers on his grave because he felt bad. To the Kalamazoo cold case team, this detail about Scott putting flowers on Erlo Bern's grave had been hugely significant. Big-shop employee Karen Raymond told them she'd visited Johnny and Earl's grave site a year after the murder and saw something unexpected. Did you ever go visit the grave site? Did you ever see flowers on it? I did. What do you recall about that? Oh boy. I do recall seeing flowers there and I wondered who would have put them there and that would be about it. But I do recall flowers. Seeing fresh flowers on the grave had surprised her. Earl and Johnny O'Burn had no real friends and no real family. Karen knew of no one who might put flowers on their grave except for Karen herself and she hadn't done it. Prosecutor Fenton told the jury that it's such a specific, poignant, particular fact that that fact alone of all others in this case should convince you without any other corroboration of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and stacy's veracity. The flowers alone, he said, were enough to sent in Scott to die in prison. The thing is though, Scott Baldwin could not have possibly left the flowers that Karen Raymond saw. Flowers had been fresh when she saw them over a year after Earl and Burns murder. But Stacey's first story was that Scott had confessed in June of 1988, a year before Karen saw the flowers. He said, "I just came from his grave. I put flowers on his grave because I feel bad." This was like a couple of days after. By trial of course, Stacey's story had changed. She no longer knew when Scott had confessed. As Fenton told the jury in his closing argument, Stacey said that the confession occurred sometime after the crime. That's a key point. Now whether it's 30 days, whether it's a year, who knows. Fenton told the jury that it didn't matter when Scott made the confession. But how could that not matter? Of course it matters. Stacey should know when Scott confessed to her if he did confess to her. And besides, even if he takes Stacey's change story, the one where she says Scott actually confessed to her on June 23, 1989, then it's still impossible for Scott to have placed the flowers that Karen saw on Earl's grave. I wasn't chill at the time. Stacey can know this because she thought it was not on the field. Such ever version of Stacey's story you go with, it's still impossible for Scott to have placed those flowers. The timing just doesn't work for any version of what Stacey says. In his closing, prosecutor Fenton acknowledged that not everything in the state's case lined up perfectly. There were perhaps one or two inconsistencies in the evidence, like the blonde man and light colored clothes that Officer Herald West had seen with Earl O'Burn outside of the bike shop shortly before he was killed. Scott Baldwin had black hair and, according to Stacey, had worn all black on the night in question. So, maybe the blonde man Officer West saw wasn't Scott Baldwin at all Fenton conceded. But the jury didn't need to worry about that. The blonde man, quote, "may have been somebody else, but that's not the person who killed Earl O'Burn. The defendant is." In other words, this unknown blonde man shut up to the bike shop in the middle of the night, hang out with Earl O'Burn. It was just a social visit, nothing nefarious, and he must have left. And then Scott Baldwin shut up and killed Earl. How then did Scott Baldwin get inside the bike shop? There was no break-in. Well, prosecutor Fenton had an explanation for that, too. Thanks to the testimony of James Long, who was one of Earl O'Burn's most trusted and longest term employees. James Long testified that Earl O'Burn regularly went outside at night and strolled around. Aaron Raymond had been the manager of the bike shop and essentially Earl's caretaker. We showed her James Long statement to the co-case team. She had never seen it before.
Let me read this part. James long advises that while he worked for him, probably four or five times around nine to ten thirty p.m. he would happen to drive by the bike shop and observe Earl O'Burn outside of the building after dark walking near the street and around the building. Karen hadn't said anything at first but as Jacinda read to her James's police report, I could see her eyes widen in the look of surprise, followed by what I can only describe as almost a look of disgust. Well you didn't say anything but your expression kind of set a lot to surprise you. Well for sure because I'm not. I don't believe it. No, he would never go outside. You didn't see Earl just take a little walk about outside. Karen Raymond wasn't the only one who felt this way. All of the employees we spoke to were a surprise that she'd been. To hear James long's account of Earl's supposed habit of wandering about outside at night. I didn't hear about any of that. Yeah. Can you think of any reason why Earl would have gone outside at 12.45? Nothing else. He was already attached and going out looking for help. I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of odd. The only time I ever seen him go outside was checking out the used bikes that we had lined up in a road to make sure we had them in the right spots and whatnot. They'd never go very far past the front door. I had heard that years later the guys grew up from the turning man's but I don't know who the guy was. I'm surprised that he didn't go after her for just harboring him all that time. Stacey was the prosecution's key witness of course but she was far from the only witness they had. You've already heard about Scott's friend Lloyd McGruder and his girlfriend Missy Jarsma. Back in 1988 the couple often hung out with Stacey and Scott. They both testified that they had in fact seen Scott painting his sheep. A Missy testified she'd seen a stick with a red substance that looked like blood on it that Scott had thrown into a neighbor's yard. There was another couple Scott and Stacey sometimes hung out with two. Scott's friend Hollis Vanderloon and his girlfriend Amy Kennedy. Hollis did not testify at Scott's trial but Amy Kennedy did. She testified that Scott Baldwin was violent and abusive and always threatening to kill Stacey. She also said there'd been a day about six months after the murder of Erlo Bern. They'd all been in a car together and drove past the bike shop and Scott Baldwin said something deeply incriminating. Here's Kevin reading trial transcript of prosecutor Fenton describing Amy's testimony to the jury during closing arguments. You heard testimony from Amy Kennedy that as they drove by that murder scene he said I robbed that place once. My God how is that for another smoking gun on top of everything else? I robbed that place once. Now he didn't go into details with her. She wasn't that close to him. Remember her testimony? She's the one who saw him threatening Stacey every day threatening to kill her if she left him. Who was Amy Kennedy? Amy Kennedy was my girlfriend at that time when we were hanging out with Scott. That's Hollis Vanderloon. He was not asked to testify at Scott's trial so the jury never heard from him. Amy Kennedy declined to speak to us for this podcast so we reached out to Hollis her boyfriend at the time to hear what he remembered about the events Amy had described. Do you remember the first time you heard that Scott had been arrested for this? I was shocked. Somebody could kill somebody. If he did do it that somebody could take a life. I'd be like what? He would not be high on my list of somebody that I would think that would do that. No. You recall him engaging in a other criminal conduct or never. And you fights was he violent? No. It wasn't a fighter. It was always making jokes and I thought he was kind of funny. Maybe that's what I liked about him. I don't know. And I, you know, thinking about it now later in life, I wouldn't even have thought he would have been able to do something like that if he did do something like that. Hollis told us he hadn't even known that Amy Kennedy had testified at Scott's trial. We showed him her statements about something Amy said happened while they were all in Hollis' car. So Amy testifies that the four of you are in this car and you drive past the bike shop and Scott confesses that he robbed the bike shop. So he robbed it. Well, that's what Amy says. That Scott said. You have Amy memory at all of Scott confessing to a breaking and in a real. See, I'm sure nobody drove that car but me. Well, Amy did a little bit but she says you're there. So how's there? Yeah. I don't remember hearing that but I don't remember him saying that. Hollis told us that he can't say for certain Scott never made the comment that Amy testified about. But he doesn't remember anything like that. And actually it's possible Scott did say something like that once because Scott did rob something from the bike shop once when he was about 14 or 15 and working for Earl O'Burn. And I worked there for about two months and my dumbass stole a bicycle from there. I asked the guy can I get a bike and pay for it and he goes yeah, grab a bike out of the rack over there and you'll almost $20. You will take it out of your check. This was common practice at the bike shop. We spoke to other employees who'd gotten their bikes from the shop the same way. So taking a bike wasn't stealing. It was the specific bike he took. That was the problem. And I grabbed a new bike out of the rack instead of one of the used bikes and rode a brand new bike home and my stepfather says there's no way how that's only a $20 bike and took it back. And my stepfather made me quit my job. He says he's not going to work for you if he stole from you. Scott told us he did not remember ever saying something about the time he lost his job at the bike shop to Amy Kennedy. But if he did say something about robbing the bike shop ones, then that's what he would have been referring to. Scott was adamant though that the rest of what she testified to had been false about him threatening to kill Stacey and being violent with her. If it was true, then Hollis Van der Loon should have known about it. Amy said he was always with her when this was going on. Did you ever see Scott threaten Stacey? No. I don't ever remember seeing him being violent or mean or he seemed like he was always fun and joky. We showed Hollis what Amy had testified to a trial. But how she and Hollis had hung out with Scott and Stacey just about every day in the months after the murder and how Scott had threatened to kill Stacey on a daily basis. You're making a face there. Did you hear Scott threaten to kill Stacey? No, no, no. Were you ever like a way from. That would have made me mad if he had threatened her in front of you. Imagine that might be something you would remember if you saw him. Oh yeah, because that triggers me. Amy testified that at least 20 to 30 times, probably more. You guys witnessed Scott tell Stacey that he would kill her if she ever tried to leave him. You're making a face again. It sounds like you're surprised by that. I would remember that. Stuart Fenton told the jury in his closing argument that this case was like a cake. To convict Scott Baldwin, he said, "You don't need frosting or candles or ice cream. You just need a cake. Even if it's cracked, even if it's not a perfect cake. Still a cake." In this analogy, Stacey's testimony is the cake. It is proof of Scott's guilt by itself, Fenton said, "But in this case, the jury had more than just a cake. Fenton was giving the jury the frosting and the candles in the ice cream in the form of corroborating witnesses like Missy Jarzma and Amy Kennedy. And for a grand finale, he said, in addition to the cake, he was giving them a Ferrari in the form of the final witness for which Scott Baldwin had no explanation. A woman named Laura Walkley, who barely knew Scott. Laura Walkley testified that in late 1988, Scott told her that the day after the murder, he'd driven by the crime scene with his friends. And he confessed to his friends that he was the one who'd done the crime. I like, okay, so here's the, Scott is guilty scenario that the prosecutor's alleging. Scott initially tells no one that he did it, but then six months later when he's working at this nursing home, he randomly makes up a story to a lady he's not hitting on doesn't know. It's never really talked to before. And it was only a passing and he makes up a story about driving past
the bike shop the day after the murder and telling his friends he did it. Like, why, if you, even if you want to brag about a murder, how are you, why are you doing it that way? - Yeah, it makes no sense. Like, it's not a great brag. - It's not a great brag, not a good story. - It's not a really good thing. - It's not a great brag. Like, what's the motivation? Like, there's nothing. - Laura Wachley's testimony was definitely damaging Scott. It looked really bad for him. But it's also just kind of weird. Scott had worked at a nursing home about six months after Earl was killed. The same nursing home where Laura Wachley worked. But he doesn't think he ever spoke to her. - So the Wachley thing, did you remember her at all? - I don't remember her at all. It worked whether an nursing home they got to be worked in the kitchen and they called. I was out on the phone with the agent. And they said, "Well, they said you told her you did it, "they called." Why would I just tell someone they were gonna be doing it too high? I did this. And there is something weird about Laura Wachley's story. She testified that the day after Scott made this confession to her, she'd reported it to a police officer in Kalamazoo. - All your confidence, you've never seen a chip from 1989 that they called in? - No, there are no cheating, you've never called in a chip. They looked as if the club had left a name and had her in the discussion and trial or not. There's no report anywhere. - Laura Wachley could not remember who she'd reported Scott's confession to. 12 years later on, all she could recall was that he was named Tom, maybe, probably. But there was only one officer named Tom with the Kalamazoo police. - I remember that because they had a free and dispecial about Thomas' sight. He was detective. He doesn't remember any chip coming in like that. He said, "Well, Jay, that's a pretty big case "in Kalamazoo. "He was remembered and a chip came in about that." - No record of any tip called in by Laura Wachley in 1988 or '89 was ever found. If she did report that Scott confessed to her, then that tip must have been lost somehow. You may be thinking right now, doesn't this story sound familiar? Haven't we heard this before? And yes, you have. Something very similar happened in the Patrick Michelle case as well. Actually, something very similar has happened a few times in the Kalamazoo cold cases. To borrow an old joke, if I had a nickel for every time a witness told the Kalamazoo cold case team that a defendant had confessed to them shortly after the murder, and the witness said they immediately reported this confession to the police, but then no report of this confession could ever be found. Then I'd have 20 cents, which isn't a lot, but it's weird. It happened four times, right? - So there's no proof she actually did call it. There's no proof whatsoever. (gentle music) (gentle music) In his closing argument, Stuart Fenn told the jury that Scott Baldwin had confessed to his girlfriend, Stacey, and he confessed again to his coworker, Laura Walkley, and he confessed a third time as well through song. That's why he had Virginia Bice testify at Scott's trial. She'd been a waitress at a diner that Scott frequented in 2000, the year before his arrest. - Back in my 30s when I worked at Kalahans, the gentleman that killed the owner of the bicycle shop in Kalamazoo, Scott Baldwin. Scott Baldwin, I don't know why I forget his name. He used to come in the restaurants, and he used to give $100 tips. - At trial, Virginia Bice had remembered it was actually $20 tips Scott was handing out to the waitresses. But otherwise, what she told us was pretty much the same as what she testified to. - I don't know where he got the money, but he acted like he was kind of smooth. I think I know the answer, was he hitting on you? Like was he hitting on the waitress? - I think he was hitting on all the waitress. - But you said you didn't find him particularly attractive, but no. But you said he was charming. - He was charming. - He seemed harmless. I mean, he didn't. I don't know, it just didn't seem to me like he heard anybody. - Virginia Bice was brought in to testify, not because Scott had flirted with all the waitresses, but because he'd once given her a CD with a song on it. It was a homemade CD. Scott had even put a photo of himself on the case. And when the detectives came to speak to Virginia Bice, she'd given the CD to them. - It was a song that he, I think he wrote about the murder or about that guy being killed or something. Do you know how you got it? He gave it to me. I want you to listen to this. What do you think of it? What did you think of it? - I had a heavy thoughts on it. That's why I gave it to the detective. (laughing) I didn't have any thoughts of it at the time, so I just gave it to him. - The song was called Butterfly. It was written and released in 1999 by a Goth metal group called Tapping the Vane, though that's not what Scott Balder until the waitresses. - And he said he wrote it. - He wrote it. - That's what he told you? - Yeah. I don't know if he actually did. - He did not. He were rolling your eyes. - He said he wrote it, but I don't remember I were listening to it because I was like, (laughing) I don't care. Scott absolutely did not write the song, but he did mix his own version of it and burned it to a CD, which he'd given to Virginia Bice and she and turn had given to the cold case detectives. Scott told us everything Virginia Bice said was true. He had done those things. - I'd see a pretty waitress and being singles, I was separated from my wife. Hey, how you doing? But I'd do the old famous matchbook with my phone number on it, so it'd say, "Scott, you can give me a call." It's like, "Yeah, I used to hand out CDs to the girls and go here, "this would be playing bass on these songs." - Did you tell girls that you wrote that song? - I told girls I played bass on that song and I might have told you, but I probably did that and you're in the business movies when it wasn't there, that'd be playing bass on that. And the girls would go, "Oh, you're the bass player, "you're on the bass player." I let them play the game in part of the band. - So why was any of this being brought up at a murder trial? (soft music) - Well, Stuart Fenn thought the song butterfly had a deeper meaning. Scott hadn't actually written it, but he identified with the lyrics and his love of the song was his way of confessing to Earl O'Bernes' murder. - That's a weird shit about it. I'm like, "Why would you even do it this?" - Like, Fenn was like really big on it. Like he was like real intent on this song and like, what? - As part of Stuart Fenn's closing argument, he read to the jury the entire lyrics for the song butterfly. Once you hear them, Fenn told the jury, "Doesn't it just ring true to Scott "having committed the murder?" Here's Kevin reading a portion of Fenn's closing at Scott's trial, where he read out the lyrics to the song and explained how they were about the murder at the bike shop. - It's creeping in again. I know what I really am. What was creeping in again? The guilt over this crime. No more pretty purple, peaceful butterfly. In other words, no more being an innocent child. Not that he wasn't an innocent child, but he hadn't committed murder before. But just a passing thought in your filth is seeping in. What is the filth? The filth is the filth of this crime. Come scrub my hands. They won't come clean and they won't. He can't erase this from his past. It's impossible. That song is a very strong indicator that he was feeling bad about what he did, this deed. He connected with this song, whether or not he wrote it, because it explained how he was feeling about what he did to Mr. O'Burn. Why else would he be so obsessed with this song? Talk about a strong circumstantial piece of evidence of guilt. The butterfly, the word, the lyrics, all this evidence coming together, the odds of it all happening randomly and it being false is so remote as to not even be possible. (soft piano music) Scott Baldwin, for his part, acknowledged that in the year 2000, 12 years after Earl O'Burn's murder, he had in fact gone through a phase where he played the song "Butterfly" all the time. But he denied that there was any deeper meaning behind it. I just really liked the song, he said. - What's he playing bass? What that was, that was nothing about being at the crime, nothing shut about the crime. Prosecutor Stewart Fenton won the case. Scott was convicted. Fenton had done a good job. He had a strong opening, strong closing, and he was successful in pretrial motions. Like with preventing the defense from seeing what was in most of the silent server tips that had been called in about Earl O'Burn's murder. So if there was anything in those tips that might have helped Scott's defense, the jury never heard about it. (upbeat music) The defense attorneys for Scott's case were James Hills and his son Michael Hills. Scott told us James Hills had been the main attorney on the case at first, though as time went on, he said Michael Hills got more involved. Scott said he never felt like the Hills had prepared for his trial like they should have though. - I've seen his opening statement. I was kind of shocked.
"What did he tell you he wasn't going to give an opening statement?" "No, I didn't know what he was going on." Opening statements are a crucial part of the trial process. It's a chance for each side to address the jury directly, to explain what their evidence is going to prove and what the problems are with the other side's evidence they should be looking for. Prosecutor Fenton's opening statement went on for 11 pages. We will prove to you that it was Scott Baldwin and no one else who bloodied Darla Burned to death back in 1988. He did it for the greedy and selfish purpose of money. You will also see that Mr. O'Burn unfortunately made himself somewhat of an easy target, as he had a habit of going outside in the middle of the night. Fenton explained to the jury how, after killing Earl O'Burn, Scott Baldwin had returned home to his girlfriend Stacey, with the cash and the cardboard box of change he'd stolen from the bike shop. The defense's opening statement was much shorter. Here's Kevin reading for you the entire opening statement by James Hells. I'd like to make an opening statement. Ladies and gentlemen, it's now the prosecution has rested. It's up to the defense to make an opening statement. I'll be very brief. I'm not going to go through the facts of what the witnesses will say. The case will rest on all the witnesses so far testified and we will call several witnesses. We'll call a couple of detectives. We will call a couple of other people and we'll also call the defendant. Without going into what they'll say, I'll call the first witness if I could. This opening statement is the attorney equivalent of writing a book report about a book you didn't actually read. In effect, Scott's defense declined to give an opening statement at all. I can't think of any strategic justification for this. It's not a strategy. It's just a failure to perform the basic duties of trial counsel. We reached out to the Hills for comment, however we have not yet received our response. Scott Baldwin was not the only cold case defendant that Michael and James Hells represented. Between them, there were three others they represented as well. Two of those pled guilty, but one, Highland Stephen Sterling also went to trial. And actually, we have a videotape of part of that trial that Highland Sterling's family shared with us. I said, "Pupil versus Pada, I'm sterling." He's a court-generator assistant prosecuting attorney Scott Wauer. Michael Hells and Dayafran Mr. Sterling is present in court. Of all of the Kalamazoo cold cases, Highland Sterlings is probably the most convoluted. There's a lot going on in it. The prosecutor Scott Wauer, who tried Highland's case, did his best to summarize it in his opening statement. Between 10.30 a.m. and noon on Tuesday, July 25, 1995, Robert Jan O'Keefe, or Rob, was murdered in his bed, shot once in the head with a large caliber weapon. Police interviewed dozens of people over months and months, but eventually the case went cold. It remained that way until March of 2004, when a team of detectives from area departments picked up the case. The Kalamazoo County cold case homicide team took a fresh look at this old case. They searched for new witnesses and old witnesses who might have new information. And they found them. The witnesses who will provide compelling evidence that the person who killed Rob was none other than a supposed friend, coworker, and prospective business partner, Island, Stephen Sterling, the defendant in this case. The motive prosecutor Brower said was money. Rob O'Keefe and Highland Sterling wanted to buy a nightclub in Kalamazoo. They just needed to find a way to make the down payment. Still six weeks shy of his 20-year-old spurt pay, he had wanted to buy the warehouse nightclub or the coal worker friend of his. He'd even been able to get an investor to give them a substantial amount of money towards a down payment. Rob O'Keefe had kept that investment money in a briefcase in the trunk of his car. There had been about $20,000 in total there. Whoever had killed Rob had stolen the briefcase out of the trunk of his car and kept the money for themselves. According to the cold case team, it was Highland Sterling, Rob's business partner, who killed Rob and stole the money. He had been concerned, they said, that Rob was trying to back out of investing in the nightclub. "What's the search of you, John? Rob and I were in a fight on the southern state, or anything like that." That's Highland Sterling. He's now served 19 years on a life sentence. "I just had killed Rob. Or do I go okay? I'll have to send him a little rough. Did you have any reason to kill him? I just don't really know Rob. We've never heard." In fact, Rob's death placed Highland in serious jeopardy, as we'll explain later. But let's start with the money. About 20,000 in cash that Rob kept in the trunk of his car, they had come from a 78-year-old woman named Mildred Rydell, who had decided to become an investor in Rob and Highland's dream of owning a nightclub. So how did this little old lady know 20-year-old Rob O'Keefe in the first place? Well, she had met him through his part-time job. "Am I reading the right thing Rob was a male stripper?" "Effa." "Is there really not much money on male strippings?" "I am tiny, I'm tiny, I'm getting a lot of money, but I need paid a few dollars for this job." Mildred Rydell wasn't the only potential investor that Rob and Highland had met through Rob's job as an exotic dancer. There were others too. "The chocolate-y bent bread on here, the chocolate-y bent bread, Rob's flambuant, and the home-eating and interested in black bread, as well, is it any form of motivatedness?" "So, older lady, she has money. You're both sleeping with her to get her to invest in whatever." "Effa." Highland Sterling says that at the time of Rob's death, they'd still been working to raise all the money they needed for the down payment on the nightclub. As far as he knew, he and Rob both fully intended to go ahead with it. And then Rob was killed. So without Rob, there's no way for the nightclub to go. "No, there was. It's all through. It's a lost or fucking dream." Rob lived with his girlfriend, Christina Lang, and a few other roommates in house on Oakland Street. On July 25, 1995, Christina had gone to her job as a waitress around 10.30 a.m. When she'd left, Rob was still in bed. And he was still there when she returned about four hours later. "Initially upon entering the room, what did you do?" My first came into the room. I thought he was just playing a joke on me, because that was just in his nature. And so I just kind of hopped on the bed and I kind of shook him a little and said, "You know, this is a funny wake-up, you know." But he was really cold. And so I knew that something might be wrong. And I moved the pillow away from his face and there was a full flood underneath his head. He'd been shot at twice. The first shot had missed, but the second hit him in the face and killed him. Early that evening, Highland showed up at the house and found police everywhere. He says he'd been trying to reach Rob all day by phone and pager. And we never heard back. He went to his house to find out what was going on. "He was unheard of for him to now return recall and that's what brought us to the ground by later on that day. That's a technical stop, but at the distance I could see some of the girl, her homemade cry and do something tragic. He could have been." One of the reasons Highland had become a suspect in this case is that Witnesses reported he'd been acting weird when he came to the house and learned Rob was dead. Here's Rob's girlfriend, Christina Ling, testifying about what happened. He at that point pulled me aside and he asked if the police knew about the money and where the money was and where Rob's blue book was. "What's this about a blue book?" It was just a day planner that Rob kept with him. He wrote numbers in it, little notes throughout the day, things like that. Later on, after the police had left, but Christina and her family were all there, Highland Sterling had actually come into the house. He came in the house uninvited when my father stopped to me and asked him what he wanted. He was asking where Rob's book was, he said that he wanted it. From looking at the trial transcripts and case file, I hadn't understood what this blue book was. So when I spoke to Highland Sterling, I asked him why he'd been so insistent on trying to get it. "Because what concern is?"
Rob having information in their box and parking deals make more of a deal. So did you know that Rob had a tendency to like write down notes about his crimes? Yes. Yeah, so one of the ways Rob and Highland had tried to raise money to buy the nightclub was by robbing a bank. It hadn't worked. It was a very amateurist job. And after the die pack went off, they'd abandoned the effort. They hadn't gotten any money from it, but they hadn't gotten caught at least. Except Highland knew that Rob had written down notes and plans for the bank robbery in his little blue notebook. And that's why Highland says he had barged into Rob's house ever the murder trying to find it. I felt like I was more shocked from processing it in my line. Okay, let me call up for this boss saying that Rob's trying not to get my name, product business work, and he is being called a business. The investigation into Rob's murder went cold, but detectives did end up discovering the bank robbery that Highland and Rob had done together. As a result, Highland's sterling was sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for bank robbery. He did his time, got out, started her building his life, and he met someone. My name is Iris Sterling. How did you meet Highland? I met him at a nightclub. I went out with my friends sometime in January of 2004. By April 2004, Iris and Highland were engaged in starting to plan their wedding. They didn't know it, but around that same time something else happened that would change their lives forever. It was one of the cases that was picked up by the Kold case unit, the murder of Robert John Keefe. That's correct. That's Kold case detective Logan Henlockton, testifying at Highland's trial. After the case was reopened, Highland Sterling quickly became the Kold case team's prime suspect. And before the end of the year, they arrested him for Rob's murder. We got married August 2004. He was arrested to December 2004. I found that I was pregnant in January. And it was just a rare, it was shocking because I wasn't, we were not planning on having children. I told them I was pregnant and he was very excited and he was hopeful and said, hopefully I will be there. I want you to give birth. He was very, very happy. Highland did get to be with Iris when she gave birth to their son. His trial began a few weeks before her due date and ended with a hung jury. Highland was released on bond just days before their son was born. Highland obviously couldn't work, but he was home, so he was helping a lot. He was a stay-at-home dad on House arrest. And House arrest exactly. The prosecution decided it was going to retry Highland for Rob's murder. So for six months, while home on bond, he split his time between caring for his newborn son and preparing for a second trial. He often went to the office of his attorney, Michael Hills, to review his case files. Given how close Highland had come though to being acquitted at his first trial, he assumed things would go much the same way at a second. Hills told you that the jury has split 10, 2 in favor of acquittal? Yes. I don't like it. There's no way I'm supposed to go from that. Like James Hills opening statement in Scott Baldwin's case, Michael Hills opening in Highland's Sterling's case was underwhelming and did almost nothing to alert the jury to all the reasons they should have concerns about the prosecution's case. Here's a portion of that two-minute, eight-second-long opening statement. It's my opportunity to tell you, given opening, stating, "If you already heard just about all of the evidence in this case, this is a sign where I'll tell you right aspect of the lawyer's case." In our case, we're basically going to be speaking out through this in a very short, esystic, gut, or testify for just a couple of minutes about a certain issue than the opiate. By electing not to give much of an opening statement, Michael Hills lost an opportunity to give the jury a roadmap for why the case against his client didn't make sense. Like how it was important for them to remember that Highland Sterling had an iron-clad alibi from 1 to 2 p.m. on the day Rob was killed. He was at a job interview. You recall the gunshots being between 1.30 and 2 o'clock? Correct. Highland Sterling also lost the opportunity to highlight for the jury just how many other people had a potential motive because a lot of people knew about the money in Rob's trunk. Rob was bragging about having a large amount of money and nobody believed him and he said that he could kill it. That he took about to the trunk of the car and opened the trunk and so it was late case for money. And Highland Sterling also lost an opportunity to address what the prosecution claimed was the strongest evidence of his guilt that an eyewitness had seen Highland Sterling at the scene of the crime. One of Rob's neighbors, Justin Roddiger, had driven by Rob's house around 11 a.m. that morning. As you were leaving, did you notice anything unusual at 8.29? There was a gentleman standing in the front yard by staring into the car. There was a park there. So African American gentleman. Justin Roddiger hadn't thought much of the sighting at the time but that afternoon when he returned home and saw police everywhere and found out there had been a murder. He walked over to Rob's house to speak to investigators. This morning he told them, "I drove by and saw a black man looking to Rob's car. He was tall and skinny and wearing a violet-colored geometric polo shirt. The shirt was loud and ugly. Atrocious is the word Roddiger used. Roddiger hadn't recognized the man but thought he might be able to identify him if he saw him again. The original detectives had tried their best to identify who the man the ugly violet shirt had been but they never did figure out who he was. They ran out of viable leads and the case went cold." Nine years later when the Kalamazoo cold case team re-opened Robo Keef's murder, they came up with a theory. The man in the ugly violet shirt was in fact Highland Sterling. They believed that Highland had gone to Rob's house. Snuck up to Rob's room while he was still asleep like naked in his bed. Then Highland had stolen Rob's 44 caliber gun that Rob kept under his pillow or under his mattress and shot him. After that Highland had gone out to Rob's car to steal the briefcase full of cash from the trunk. But while doing so, he'd been spotted by Justin Roddiger. There was one big problem with this whole theory though. Rob's girlfriend, Christina Lang told the cold case team that when Roddiger was making his report to the police about the man he'd seen in the ugly violet shirt, Highland Sterling had been standing right there just a few feet away from him. "You mentioned that Sterling showed up that afternoon as well. Were there any other black males there?" "No, they weren't." According to Rob's girlfriend, Justin Roddiger and Highland Sterling were "both at that location at the exact same time and had come into contact with each other." So if Highland Sterling was the man Justin Roddiger had seen at Rob's house that morning, you'd think he might have recognized him when he saw him again that afternoon. But there is no indication in the files that Roddiger recognized Highland Sterling or that he thought Highland Sterling looked anything like the man in the ugly violet shirt. After reopening the case in 2004, the Calamazoo cold case team went to speak to Justin Roddiger. They suggested to him that maybe the reason he hadn't realized Highland Sterling was in fact the man in the ugly violet shirt was because Highland had gotten a haircut after killing Rob but before returning to the house. So he looked a little different and Roddiger hadn't been sure they were the same person. Justin Roddiger told the cold case team this absolutely did not happen. When he'd gone to Rob's house to report his sighting, he said, "The only person there who looked familiar was his neighbor, Rob's girlfriend." Highland Sterling hadn't looked familiar to him at all. And they actually, the cold case team, when they first talked to him, you know, nine years later, they asked him, "When you came back to the scene that afternoon, did you see someone there and pointed them and say the guy I saw looks like this, but he, this guy has shorter hair. He just got a haircut." And he tells them no. The cold case team gives him their theory and this guy rejects it. He's watching the scene.
Justin Roddiger didn't just change his statement. He actually testified to the exact opposite of what he'd initially said to the cold case team. Here's what Roddiger said, when Scott Brower asked him about whether he'd recognize Highland Sterling. - He looked like the gentleman that I saw there earlier, but his hair was shorter. He looked like the guy that was there before, but his hair was shorter. He looked similar to the gentleman that was there in the morning earlier. But his hair looked like it was shorter. Like he just got a haircut. - For nearly 10 years, the prosecution's star eyewitness had told investigators the man in the ugly violet shirt did not look like Highland. But after just a few conversations with the cold case team, Roddiger changed his story entirely. He now said, "Oh yeah, Highland did look like the man in the ugly violet shirt. Only the man in the ugly violet shirt had longer hair. And Highland had a fresh haircut when he showed up that afternoon. And he was wearing a suit from his job interview from earlier in the day. But with Roddiger, this is the exact opposite of his prior statements. - Terrific. - And your attorney didn't even point it out. - I wrote a note to him and then I don't know if the camera could show me flying him a couple of times. Can you object? - On cross-examination, attorney Mike Hills did not bring up the fact that Justin Roddiger had changed his story. He did not alert the jury that Roddiger had once denied that Highland Sterling had looked like the man in the violet shirt. Instead, what the jury heard was that Justin Roddiger had told the police back in 1995 that Highland Sterling looked like the man in the ugly violet shirt. - And did you. Uh, did you learn the police? - And I did, I stayed in the gentleman looking similar to the person I saw in the morning. - Nothing in the report's that day from the original investigators suggests that Justin Roddiger told them anything like this. - Yeah, well, what's crazy is that Roddiger actually says that he told police at the crime scene, like hours after Rob's body is found, like he says he told them right then and there that you, the only black guy, looks like the guy he saw at the house. And they would have written that down, right? - Right, that's correct. Like you would think they would have written that down. You would think I did nothing to you, you know, that day. - Even with Justin Roddiger's changing statements, though, there's still a really, really good reason to think that the man he saw at Rob's house that morning, the one in the ugly violet shirt could not have been Highland Sterling. Because Roddiger said the man in the ugly violet shirt had longer hair, hair long enough to need a haircut. And as the witnesses who knew Highland testified at his trial, Highland Sterling didn't have hair. He was always bald, like shiny bald. - Did you recall how Mr. Sterling kept his hair during that time frame? - Always cleanly shave him. I was always cleanly shaved. - It was always bald or closely shaving. - So how did the prosecution convince the jury that Highland Sterling, who had a shiny bald head, could have had hair on the day RoboKeef was killed? Well, they showed the jury a blown up photo of Highland Sterling, one where he doesn't fact have hair. Very short hair, but still hair. But what the jury never heard was that this photo of Highland Sterling have been taken at a time in his life when he had no access to razors and couldn't keep his head shaved completely bald, like he preferred. The prosecutor needed so like playing decided to get a picture of being a federal custody. - That's where the photo is from. - Yes, I'm in federal custody and if anything, I'm upset with Michael Hill's about I'm saying man, where are you arguing? The photo is nothing to do with what I look like, man. - It is hard to effectively defend a case when so many witnesses have changed their statements so dramatically, really hard. But that's why in these cold cases, the details matter so much. The details show why there's reason to doubt that the witnesses' changed statements are more accurate than their original statements. The case against Highland Sterling have been weak enough that his first trial ended in a hung jury. If his second jury had been better alerted to all the details that didn't add up in his case, maybe they would have deadlocked too, maybe even acquitted. But there was so much they didn't hear about. And unfortunately for Scott Baldwin, his attorneys missed a detail in his case too, a detail that likely would have changed everything for him. And actually the cold case team apparently missed this detail as well. It was something we asked Detective Rich Madison about when we spoke to him. There's two bank bags we're missing and two boxes of coins that we're missing. The two bank bags that they had at the shop was a black one and a greenish tan one was safari written on it. - Okay. - So what Finton, what he tells the jury is you know Stacey's telling the truth 'cause she knows what the box of coins, the two boxes of coins and the bank bags of cash. And that was used to corroborate, like he did it 'cause those were the things we're stolen. And I don't know if you remember the photos. I pulled up the crime scene photos on my laptop and showed Detective Madison the images of the office area inside Earl LeBern's house. Because the photos show that there were two bank bags on top of Earl's desk. One black and one tan is green with the word safari, safari written across it. And exact match for the two bank bags that were believed to have been stolen from the bike shop. But they weren't stolen. When the crime scene photographer had gone through the building, they were still there, out in the open for anyone to see. So the implication is that they were there way after that they were still there. - I mean, they're described pretty detailed in the statements that's the safari bag and the black bag. So they did recover it. - Yeah, so Stacey's memory of him coming through the window with bank bags could be true, but it's not those bank bags. - It's not just the bank bags either that were accounted for. Remember the two suit boxes with coins that were reported missing as well? They weren't stolen either. We showed Detective Madison one of their reports from the original detectives. There's one polygraph they did of this employee named James Long. And he mentions the two suit boxes with coins were there when I got there that morning. So it looks like the stuff that was like stolen, wasn't stolen, like it's still there. Detective Madison did not have a lot to say as he looked over the photos we showed him. - I see what you're saying. - So it doesn't seem to me like any bank bags were stolen, which leaves the question of what Stacey saw. I mean, maybe is it possible Scott Rob somewhere else that night? - Yeah. - I mean, as far as I concerned, everything then looked like Scott. I mean, it was kind of a slam dunk. - When we spoke to Stacey, Kevin and I showed her the crime scene photos as well. We were curious to see what she would think. After all, she's the one who said Scott had brought that green bank bag home with him. - So there was a lot of talk about the bank bag and the newspapers were reporting that bank bag was stolen. But it turns out the bank bags weren't taken that night. They were able to find them. I'm gonna show you if you wanna see a picture. And you can see there's two bank bags there. - I see that. - Yep. - Yeah. - So the bank bags were there. - It's hard to find anything in that place because he was a hoarder. But these things are just laying out in the open. - 'Cause they were there. - They were right there. - That's why I say, I did none of this was told to me then. There was a lot that don't make sense to me now. And that's why I told you, I appreciate you. Because I spent most, I'd say half my life now, believe in that man, did what he said he did. - Prosecutor Stuart Fennon said there was only one possible explanation for how Stacey could have known the color of that bank bag. And that's if Scott brought it home with him and showed her. Except Scott didn't bring the bank bags home with him. They never left the bike shop. Which means there's only one way Stacey could have known the color of that bag. And that's if someone on the cold case team told her. - How could such a colossal error have been made in this case? - We may never know for sure. But we do know that someone with the Kalamazoo police department knew about the bank bags and that they were there all along. Because the very first news article in the Kalamazoo Gazette about Earl O'Burn's murder included this line. - O'Burn kept $100 in cash in a pouch that he used each business day. But that was found intact by police. - That means at least one police officer knew that the bank bags had been found and told a reporter about it. But somehow that little detail never made its way in TwiPlease report. We don't know for sure how this mistake happened, but it did happen. There's no telling what if anything was taken from the bike shop because of how messy it was. But we do know the bank bags and boxes of coins.
weren't. Scott could not have brought home those items from the bike shop because those items were not stolen at all. So if Scott didn't kill Erlo Bern, who did? Next week on Proof. The whole reason this has been reopened is because everything is pointing towards your father as being the guy that possibly did actually do this. So right now we're focusing looking at your father as being the person who did this. I really do. I think that my dad committed the murder. I really do. You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red Marble Media, in association with Glassbox Media. We'll be back next week with episode six. 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 Ramero Marquez. Audio production for this episode is by Michael Yulitowski. Michael Alfono and Hesu's Urbias. Our social media manager is Leanne Cook. And thank you to our sponsors who make this podcast possible. Follow us everywhere with the handle at ProofCrimpod and on our website ProofCrimpod.com. That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening.
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