00:00:06
when a ship's captain turned up dead
00:00:08
after a raging storm
00:00:10
some said his death was a tragic
00:00:13
accident
00:00:14
an eyewitness told police
00:00:16
it was murder
00:00:18
but something on this videotape raised
00:00:21
questions about who was telling the
00:00:24
truth
00:00:28
[Music]
00:00:38
[Applause]
00:00:40
[Music]
00:00:53
venice louisiana like its namesake in
00:00:56
italy is a place where life revolves
00:00:58
around the water
00:01:01
the small town marks the spot where the
00:01:03
mississippi river empties into the gulf
00:01:05
of mexico
00:01:08
locals call it the end of the world
00:01:11
everybody knows everybody's business
00:01:14
pretty much good and bad
00:01:16
and
00:01:17
some people like it some people don't i
00:01:19
tend to like it
00:01:22
many people in venice make their money
00:01:24
trawling for shrimp
00:01:26
it's hard dangerous work
00:01:28
the sea can either be friend or foe
00:01:33
it's rough and the people there are
00:01:35
rough it's not a genteel community
00:01:38
there's friction there there's friction
00:01:40
there between the
00:01:41
pleasure
00:01:43
fishermen and the
00:01:45
work a day fisherman that does it for a
00:01:47
living
00:01:52
in july of 2000
00:01:54
a storm battered the louisiana coast
00:01:57
while the fishing boats were still at
00:01:59
sea
00:02:02
all the boats somehow made it back
00:02:04
safely all except
00:02:06
one
00:02:08
captain raymond liker otherwise known as
00:02:10
tinky and his deckhand alvin latham were
00:02:14
missing along with their shrimp boat
00:02:16
named the bandit
00:02:19
the coast guard was notified they
00:02:22
searched the area in the gulf where
00:02:23
tinky had made his last radio
00:02:25
transmission but found nothing
00:02:30
14 hours later a vietnamese fishing
00:02:33
trawler picked up a man in the gulf
00:02:35
clinging to a piece of wood
00:02:38
it was alvin latham the deckhand
00:02:41
he was exhausted but unharmed
00:02:46
when interviewed by the coast guard
00:02:48
alvin told
00:02:50
a horrifying tale
00:02:52
[Music]
00:02:55
alvin said the storm came up so fast
00:02:57
that he and tinky were unprepared
00:03:00
the wind just picked up and wheels
00:03:03
bouncing all over the place
00:03:06
with five foot waves crashing over the
00:03:08
bow and the fishing nets full of shrimp
00:03:11
still in the water the boat started to
00:03:13
lift
00:03:14
it seemed like it was just sinking
00:03:17
and then he reported may day mayday
00:03:20
when they tried to pull the nets into
00:03:22
the boat
00:03:23
tinky's foot got stuck
00:03:26
alvin said he tried desperately to get
00:03:28
tinky's foot out of the net but he was
00:03:30
unsuccessful
00:03:36
he said he wasn't going to make it
00:03:38
he has
00:03:40
got to
00:03:41
take care of his son
00:03:44
tinky told alvin to try to save himself
00:03:47
so i told him i was going to go try and
00:03:49
get some help
00:03:52
that's why i started swimming
00:03:56
just moments after alvin jumped into the
00:03:58
water
00:03:59
the boat slipped below the surface like
00:04:02
that the door was just going down
00:04:05
alvin said he managed to grab hold of a
00:04:06
piece of wood and swam for 14 hours
00:04:10
until he was rescued
00:04:13
i was doing everything i could to try to
00:04:15
catch my keep my head above the water
00:04:17
now it seemed like i was swimming
00:04:19
forever
00:04:21
he's told his story he tried to save his
00:04:24
captain it was it was tender it was
00:04:26
endearing it could have happened to
00:04:28
anyone
00:04:29
but alvin didn't want accolades
00:04:32
i don't see myself as
00:04:34
i feel that what i was doing i couldn't
00:04:37
get no help to get him
00:04:40
several days later the coast guard found
00:04:43
tinky's body floating in the gulf of
00:04:46
mexico
00:04:47
and the body told a story
00:04:50
that was very different from alvin's
00:04:53
story
00:04:58
the coast guard found tinky lyker's body
00:05:01
in the gulf of mexico five days after
00:05:03
the storm
00:05:04
[Music]
00:05:06
the only other person on the boat alvin
00:05:08
latham said he tried to save tinky's
00:05:10
life but was unable to free his foot
00:05:12
from the fishing nets
00:05:14
he was uh going around talking about it
00:05:16
like he was a hero he had survived the
00:05:17
storm and you know all that type of
00:05:19
thing
00:05:20
but when the local coroner performed a
00:05:22
routine autopsy
00:05:24
the findings contradicted alvin's story
00:05:28
he had trauma to his head
00:05:31
his left arm was partially amputated
00:05:34
the coroner also found
00:05:36
five stab wounds on the arms that would
00:05:39
be considered defensive rooms as if the
00:05:42
victim was fending off a knife attack
00:05:45
someone that's trying to defend himself
00:05:46
would raise their arms in front of their
00:05:48
face and then and that way they would
00:05:49
catch the stab wounds about the forearm
00:05:52
and that's where they was on raymond
00:05:53
like
00:05:54
and the coroner found evidence of blunt
00:05:57
force trauma to the head
00:05:59
tinky lyker's death was ruled
00:06:02
a homicide
00:06:04
someone killed raymond like alvin latham
00:06:06
was the only one on the boat that we
00:06:07
know of his own self said he was the
00:06:09
only one
00:06:10
when the coast guard interviewed alvin
00:06:12
just after his rescue
00:06:14
he said nothing about tinky being
00:06:16
stabbed or struck in the head
00:06:20
so police asked alvin to come to
00:06:22
headquarters and explain the
00:06:24
discrepancies
00:06:26
so we started route to the jail and he
00:06:27
says well uh y'all found a body
00:06:30
and i said yeah we did you know he says
00:06:31
well i guess i'm in trouble
00:06:34
investigators video taped the
00:06:36
interrogation
00:06:37
our laces original store when we first
00:06:39
picked him up he said the captain was
00:06:40
caught in the trial net the boat was
00:06:42
sinking and he swam off of the boat and
00:06:45
watched it go down
00:06:47
he was underwater
00:06:49
and
00:06:51
i started swimming off for the first
00:06:53
platform i could get to
00:06:56
police informed alvin latham that the
00:06:59
story he told didn't match the forensic
00:07:02
evidence
00:07:04
he had several stab marks on his body
00:07:05
and just didn't know why why
00:07:08
i didn't stop if raymond like her foot
00:07:10
was caught in the net he would have went
00:07:12
down with that boat okay
00:07:14
did you burn it too did you murder it
00:07:16
well i don't have to lock you up
00:07:19
but i wonder what happened but i'm
00:07:20
trying to tell you that's the best that
00:07:22
i can well who murdered him if you did
00:07:26
after five hours of questioning and
00:07:28
three more on the following day
00:07:31
alvin gradually began to change his
00:07:34
story
00:07:36
alvin started saying things like he felt
00:07:38
uncomfortable with raymond lyker he
00:07:39
didn't make him feel comfortable he he
00:07:41
was coming up with things that happened
00:07:43
to him on that boat as saying that
00:07:46
raymond touched his leg made him feel
00:07:47
uncomfortable that type of thing i'm
00:07:48
thinking finally we're getting somewhere
00:07:50
with him you know finally uh we're
00:07:51
starting to get the truth and that's
00:07:53
when he come around and started telling
00:07:54
us what
00:07:55
what he told us you know about the
00:07:56
stabbing
00:08:00
alvin now said that when the boat took
00:08:03
on water he feared for his life and
00:08:06
there was only one life jacket on board
00:08:09
to get the life jacket alvin waited
00:08:12
until tinky's back was turned grabbed a
00:08:15
pipe and struck him
00:08:18
how many times
00:08:21
alvin said when he tried to grab the
00:08:23
life jacket tinky came after him alvin
00:08:26
used a knife to defend himself
00:08:30
i guess i stabbed him in the arms
00:08:34
and
00:08:36
he fell overboard are you telling me the
00:08:39
truth yeah
00:08:41
and with his confession
00:08:43
alvin latham was charged with murder
00:08:47
and the right to remain
00:08:49
anything you say ken and what would you
00:08:51
do
00:08:52
not many cases you begin with someone
00:08:54
being
00:08:56
a hero and then in a matter of
00:08:59
two or three days he was a villain he
00:09:01
was a killer
00:09:04
[Music]
00:09:06
as alvin latham sat in jail on a murder
00:09:08
charge
00:09:09
everyone in venice louisiana was talking
00:09:11
about what happened or didn't happen the
00:09:14
night tinky lyker died
00:09:17
everyone debated it two people one life
00:09:20
jacket
00:09:21
what would you would i share you'd like
00:09:22
to think you'd share it but would you
00:09:26
since alvin was a man of limited means
00:09:29
the court appointed attorney peter
00:09:30
barbie to defend him
00:09:33
barbie couldn't understand
00:09:36
why alvin would have killed the captain
00:09:38
over a life jacket yet wasn't wearing it
00:09:41
when he was found floating in the water
00:09:43
the next day
00:09:45
i told alvin i said whatever you do tell
00:09:47
me the truth i said if you did it that's
00:09:49
all right we'll figure out how to handle
00:09:51
it but i said whatever you do tell me
00:09:53
the truth
00:09:54
alvin now told his lawyer
00:09:57
that he didn't kill tinky
00:10:00
he reverted to his original story the
00:10:03
one he told the coast guard the day
00:10:05
after the storm that tinky's death was
00:10:07
an accident
00:10:09
i had to prove to a jury that he was
00:10:12
vulnerable and very capable of
00:10:14
confessing to something he didn't do man
00:10:16
you would not believe how strong
00:10:19
there is amongst people in the public
00:10:21
that you wouldn't confess to something
00:10:22
you did wouldn't do why would you
00:10:24
confess to something you didn't do
00:10:27
to find out
00:10:28
barbie showed the entire eight hours of
00:10:31
alvin's police interviews to dr jill
00:10:33
hayes hammer a forensic psychologist
00:10:36
from the lsu school of medicine
00:10:39
come on al what happened you don't know
00:10:41
everything you say you know do you know
00:10:43
anything you couldn't swim 14 hours an
00:10:45
hour
00:10:47
i was very annoyed actually because it
00:10:49
was obvious to me as a professional that
00:10:52
alvin was incredibly slow and that he
00:10:54
was being taken advantage of
00:10:57
dr richard leo a professor of
00:10:59
criminology and psychology at the
00:11:01
university of california at irvine
00:11:04
agrees
00:11:06
this is an awful awful interrogation i
00:11:09
think this is shoddy poor police work
00:11:12
and i think these the the detectives who
00:11:15
conducted this interrogation should be
00:11:17
retrained and until they're retrained
00:11:19
should not be permitted to do another
00:11:20
interrogation
00:11:22
during the first day of police
00:11:23
interrogation
00:11:25
alvin denied he killed tinky never come
00:11:28
on what you gonna do say something
00:11:30
explain it
00:11:32
what you saw was an incredible amount of
00:11:34
intimidation over a hundred times alvin
00:11:36
said that he did not do it he was
00:11:38
emphatic in saying that he did not do
00:11:40
it instead
00:11:43
why did you stab him
00:11:45
on top of the show you did you hit him
00:11:47
in the throat with something
00:11:49
him in the head with something
00:11:50
you didn't do nothing
00:11:52
i don't believe that
00:11:53
the police continued saying alvin until
00:11:55
you tell us what we want to hear you
00:11:57
will not be able to go home
00:11:59
but during the second day of
00:12:01
interrogation
00:12:02
alvin started repeating what the
00:12:05
investigators were telling him
00:12:07
that's one of the most hostile
00:12:08
interrogations i've seen there's only
00:12:10
one life jacket you wanted you didn't
00:12:12
give a [ __ ] if he lived or died he
00:12:14
didn't say no damn prayer you'll liar
00:12:16
about that
00:12:17
interrogators are trained across the
00:12:18
country not to be hostile they're going
00:12:20
against the standard training that
00:12:22
interrogators receive
00:12:25
experts say
00:12:26
another sign of a false confession is
00:12:28
when the suspect's story doesn't match
00:12:31
the physical evidence
00:12:34
so the point about the ham don't sound
00:12:35
right you sure you're here
00:12:48
um
00:12:51
[Music]
00:12:52
he was in the water
00:12:54
she was on the back of the boat
00:12:56
what happened
00:12:57
you went this for alan tell the rest of
00:12:59
the story
00:13:02
and use it i don't know
00:13:04
i'm
00:13:06
at one point alvin literally says i hit
00:13:08
him with a two by four and he says there
00:13:10
wasn't any damn two by four is a sinking
00:13:12
boat he says uh a hammer there wasn't a
00:13:15
hammer on that boat he says a pipe and
00:13:18
he goes okay you have that that could
00:13:20
have worked so you hit them in the head
00:13:21
with a pipe i mean that literally is how
00:13:23
they get the story out of them it's just
00:13:25
it's just so obviously stupid
00:13:27
what they fail to see is he doesn't have
00:13:29
any memories of doing the things that
00:13:30
they're accusing him of doing that he
00:13:32
then caves in ultimately and passively
00:13:35
accepts and that's why he's using that
00:13:36
language
00:13:38
dr hayes hammer discovered that alvin's
00:13:41
iq was 74 and he had dropped out of
00:13:43
school in the ninth grade
00:13:46
you have many people with low iqs who
00:13:48
have had rap sheets as long as my arm
00:13:50
alvin did not so he was very naive to
00:13:53
what was going on in the criminal
00:13:54
justice system and he also did not have
00:13:56
the intelligence to be able to cope with
00:13:58
the questioning by the police officers
00:14:00
false confessions do occur
00:14:03
one of the most famous cases happened in
00:14:05
england when a teenager richard buckland
00:14:08
confessed to the rape and murder of a
00:14:10
young girl but dna testing proved he
00:14:13
didn't do it
00:14:15
most people don't understand how someone
00:14:17
can be made to falsely confess but as an
00:14:19
empirical matter the fact is that they
00:14:21
occur and they've been documented so
00:14:23
many have been documented the question
00:14:25
should not be do they occur but rather
00:14:28
why do they occur and what can we do to
00:14:31
minimize them
00:14:33
most people who are questioned by police
00:14:36
don't realize that they can leave the
00:14:38
interrogation anytime meaning they don't
00:14:41
have to put up with relentless
00:14:42
questioning
00:14:45
but trying to explain to a jury why
00:14:48
someone would confess to a crime they
00:14:50
didn't commit
00:14:52
is always difficult
00:14:54
confessions
00:14:55
override lack of evidence improper
00:14:58
searches and everything else so if you
00:15:01
want to prosecute somebody what's the
00:15:03
best thing in the world you have a
00:15:04
confession they just got to where i just
00:15:07
agreed with what they said just to get
00:15:09
them off my back
00:15:11
because i know they would stop the
00:15:12
questions after i agreed with them
00:15:15
life has been very hard alvin
00:15:17
and i will be damned if i was going to
00:15:19
sit back and watch the system steamroll
00:15:21
him
00:15:22
out of convenience the cover for crook
00:15:25
corrupt stupid cops and that's the only
00:15:27
way to describe it
00:15:29
but there was still the matter of the
00:15:31
coroner's report which had ruled tinky's
00:15:34
death a homicide
00:15:39
[Music]
00:15:41
peter barbie was now convinced that
00:15:43
alvin latham's taped confession had been
00:15:46
coerced
00:15:48
but why did the coroner rule tinky's
00:15:50
death
00:15:51
a homicide
00:15:53
in looking at the autopsy findings
00:15:55
barbie discovered that the coroner did
00:15:57
not know the depth of the so-called
00:15:59
knife wounds
00:16:01
the coroner never measured them never
00:16:04
dissected them never checked them for
00:16:06
the angle
00:16:08
from the photographs dr cyril wecht an
00:16:11
independent forensic pathologist didn't
00:16:13
believe these were stab wounds at all
00:16:17
expect all or at least some of the bones
00:16:20
to have had some significant
00:16:22
depth of penetration we do not have that
00:16:24
in this case hence i do not believe that
00:16:27
these were stab wounds
00:16:30
but if they weren't stab wounds
00:16:32
what were they
00:16:34
when you think of a propeller any
00:16:36
portion of it is striking
00:16:39
some part of the body then it is easy to
00:16:42
understand how you can get these kinds
00:16:44
of injuries
00:16:46
dr wecht thinks this is also what caused
00:16:48
tanki's fractured skull
00:16:50
that his body was accidentally run over
00:16:52
by a passing ship while floating in the
00:16:55
gulf
00:16:56
i believe that it is most plausible to
00:16:59
infer
00:17:00
that those
00:17:01
areas of apparent trauma to mr leicher's
00:17:04
body were sustained post-mortem when his
00:17:07
body was floating for about five days in
00:17:09
the gulf
00:17:11
interestingly
00:17:13
the tugboat captain who picked up
00:17:14
tinky's body
00:17:16
agreed
00:17:17
he says i've been a boat captain a long
00:17:19
time and this is not the first body i've
00:17:21
seen and he says that man was run over
00:17:23
by a boat
00:17:25
and the tugboat captain told peter
00:17:27
barbie something else something which
00:17:29
hadn't been made public
00:17:31
he said
00:17:32
he had one boot on and one boot off
00:17:35
well the lights went off on that one
00:17:37
because that was alvin's basic story was
00:17:39
that on the boat
00:17:41
at the end of it tinky gone down with
00:17:43
the ship because he had a foot stuck
00:17:45
under a cable
00:17:49
that's more sherlock holmes
00:17:52
the man with one boot
00:17:54
he correlated with
00:17:56
the story that the foot was caught in
00:17:58
the trolling net that is as good a
00:18:00
reason as any and better than most to
00:18:03
explain why one boat was on and one boot
00:18:05
was not on
00:18:07
with these new findings
00:18:09
peter barbie believed the coroner's
00:18:11
ruling was
00:18:12
inaccurate you have an incompetent
00:18:15
corner
00:18:16
and that's being polite so these wounds
00:18:18
tell me
00:18:19
that
00:18:20
the story that mr latham originally gave
00:18:22
was the correct one and that there were
00:18:24
no injuries inflicted on mr lyker's body
00:18:27
by alvin latham
00:18:31
when alvin latham went on trial for the
00:18:33
murder of tinky liker
00:18:35
prosecutors played alvin's confession
00:18:37
for the jury
00:18:39
but later
00:18:41
the jury watched the entire eight-hour
00:18:44
interrogation
00:18:46
you did how you did it
00:18:50
you hit the man and covered his mouth
00:18:51
with duct tape what did you do i didn't
00:18:53
hit him what happened i don't know
00:18:57
anyone that watched the tape that saw
00:19:00
what happened
00:19:01
any intelligent person couldn't help be
00:19:04
convinced that this was a
00:19:07
a blatant case of police brutality
00:19:10
the jury also heard from the defense
00:19:12
pathologist who concluded tinky's death
00:19:15
was an accident
00:19:18
and alvin latham took the stand in his
00:19:21
own defense and told the same story he
00:19:24
told to the coast guard after the storm
00:19:27
[Music]
00:19:29
that tinky's foot got stuck in the
00:19:31
fishing nets
00:19:32
and that his death was an accident
00:19:36
[Music]
00:19:37
after six hours of deliberation
00:19:40
the jury came back with their verdict
00:19:43
not guilty
00:19:44
[Music]
00:19:46
with modern technology today with all
00:19:48
the learning people
00:19:50
got i knew i had a chance
00:19:55
when you look at the evidence and you
00:19:57
look at the forensics and what it shows
00:19:59
us
00:20:00
alvin was telling the truth
00:20:02
unfortunately just nobody wanted to
00:20:03
accept it or believe it
00:20:05
so they just kept pushing them until
00:20:06
they came up with something
00:20:08
that they wanted to believe
00:20:10
and they wanted to believe it because
00:20:11
they fed it to them
00:20:13
today alvin works at the local
00:20:15
supermarket stacking shelves
00:20:19
the man who conducted alvin's
00:20:21
interrogation
00:20:22
thinks the jury made a mistake
00:20:26
everybody can't be the good guy or or no
00:20:28
one confessed a serious crime
00:20:31
in all my years of experience i've never
00:20:32
known anyone to come say you know i
00:20:34
committed this crime without it without
00:20:36
interrogation
00:20:38
and uh that's just tactics you use to
00:20:40
get confessions
00:20:42
but peter barbie thinks
00:20:44
interrogation should be about getting
00:20:47
the truth not getting a confession
00:20:50
he wanted to pick on alvin i'd like to
00:20:52
see him come pick on me
00:20:54
and you can print that one
00:20:57
that's how badly i feel about what he
00:20:59
did to that man he's a bully and a punk
00:21:04
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:26
[Applause]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
