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akeem marino came forward and confessed to the rape and murder of a restaurant worker i did this awful crime and i was
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alone but this man chris ochoa had already confessed to that crime and was serving a life sentence
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i pleaded guilty and confessed one of them was lying to find out who and why scientists look once more at the
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forensic evidence [Music] so [Music] [Applause] austin texas the state's capital city
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twenty-year-old nancy de priest lived here with her husband todd and 15 month old daughter sylvia
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she was so very friendly and and very open to anyone she just she just loved people she was
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just like a people person nancy was a waitress at a pizza hut restaurant on october 24 1988
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she arrived for work at 7 a.m her job was to get the pizza dough ready for lunch before the rest of the
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employees arrived [Music] the manager of the restaurant called several times that morning to make sure
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everything was all right but there was no answer when he stopped by the restaurant around
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9 30 he found nancy slumped under the bathroom sink nude and barely alive she had been shot in the back of the
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head was rushed to the nearest hospital my son-in-law said mom there's there's
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been a robbery they shot nancy i said todd how how bad is she hurt he broke down and he said
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mom she's on life support nancy died later that day without regaining consciousness
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i began to scream i i was i was totally hysterical the murder occurred before the
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restaurant opened so there were no witnesses to the crime the austin police department found no
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signs of forced entry at the restaurant the motive appeared to be robbery since money was missing from the safe
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on the floor of the bathroom police found a 22 caliber shell casing from the murder weapon and nancy's autopsy
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revealed she had been sexually assaulted two weeks later investigators got their first break in
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the case two employees from another pizza hut restaurant 22 year old chris ochoa and
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19 year old richard danzinger went to the restaurant where nancy had been murdered
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so we ordered a beer and he toasted to the memory of nancy the nancy the priest we won't forget you to me i found it
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kind of strange nancy's co-workers quickly informed authorities ochoa and dan zinger were later
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questioned by police he started grilling me about what i know about this murder and this rape and
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i told him nothing we went round and round for a couple hours i don't recall how many hours
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but he said at one point he said you know what we know you're not capable of this but
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we know you know you you know you know something detective hector polanco at the time a
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12-year veteran of the force took over the interrogation one point he showed me pictures of death row he showed them to
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me said this is well you will live there until you die so i still kept on saying i don't know
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anything richard danzinger and his girlfriend donna angstad were also questioned
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they were absolutely horrible to me uh one time hector polanco pounded his fist on the table and i
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thought he was coming across to grab me i came up out of my chair and hit the wall behind me it scared me so bad
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donna said she and richard were together in donna's apartment at the time of the
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murder i took a lie detector test and they told me i flunked it two days later chris ochoa confessed to the rape and
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murder of nancy de priest i did it i pleaded guilty and there was i can't describe it
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he also revealed that his friend richard danzinger was his accomplice ochoa said he and danzinger entered the
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restaurant with keys the two had obtained they found nancy alone preparing pizza
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dough after ordering her to remove the money from the safe ochoa said he and danzinger bound gagged
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raped and shot her [Music] ochoa said he was the one who pulled the trigger when the dna results came back from the
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lab police had even more proof that ochoa and danzinger were the killers chris ochoa not only confessed to the
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rape and murder of nancy de priest he became the state's star witness against
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his friend and co-worker richard danzinger nancy's family was relieved that the
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case was concluded quickly not so much satisfaction i didn't i didn't feel that
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i guess relief that they weren't going to be able to do it to someone else bolstering ochoa's confession was the
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dna evidence a blood sample from christochoa matched the dna from semen on the victim's vaginal swab i examined
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a vaginal swab specimen from nancy de priest dna was extracted from spermatozoa on that swab and then
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dna typing was done using a single gene that we had available at that point in time
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and a result was obtained from that gene that was actually compatible with chris ochoa and about
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10 to 16 percent of the population statistically there were three million other texans who might have shared the
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same genetic marker but this wasn't the only forensic evidence a brown hair found in the restaurant
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bathroom was microscopically similar to danzinger's richard danzinger pled not guilty and
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insisted he was innocent but the strength of ochoa's confession and the forensic evidence were too great
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the jury deliberated just seven and a half minutes and found richard danzinger guilty of
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aggravated sexual assault he was sentenced to life in prison in return for his testimony chris ochoa
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avoided the death penalty but he was sentenced to life in prison they were nice that i would sit in my
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bed crying to god why why oh i would ask him i'm tired god tired [Music] i was very tired
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and at some point i wouldn't end it all life in prison was even harder for richard danzinger
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after three years behind bars danzinger was assaulted by another inmate who mistook him for someone else
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danzinger was kicked in the head with steel tipped boots he survived but suffered permanent brain damage
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it's just what's happened to him is horrible he's going to need care for the rest of
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his life but the story doesn't end there eight years later austin police received a letter from
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akeem moreno who was serving three life sentences in another texas prison for a string of robberies and sexual assaults
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mourinho claimed that he was the one who raped and murdered nancy de priest mourinho claimed he had undergone a
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spiritual awakening while incarcerated and wanted to set the record straight i did this awful crime and i was alone
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mourinho said the el paso police department had the gun he used to kill nancy de priest
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they had taken it when he was arrested on an assault charge homicide detective manuel fuentes was
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assigned to investigate mourinho's story i got a call from el paso police department and the detective there said
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you're not going to believe this but that gun is hasn't been destroyed we
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still have it in evidence scientists compared mourinho's 22-caliber handgun to the bullet removed
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from nancy priest the ballistic examination did not reveal a match it appeared there wasn't much more to
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investigate two years later akeem marino tried once again i want to thank speaker laney for your
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this time he sent a letter to then governor george w bush with a copy to the prosecutor's office
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i told him basically the same thing that i had that i committed to murder in 88 at the
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pizza hut and that uh there was two innocent men who i did not know locked up for it
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this time detective fuentes visited chris ochoa in prison once again ochoa repeated what he had
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been saying for 10 years that he and dan zinger had acted alone am i told uh yeah yeah you're right i
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did it so you know what just let me do my time and he said as far as he knew there wasn't a third
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person involved it was just him and richard that killed nancy the priest so there was little more authorities
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could do especially since ochoa's dna matched semen found at the crime scene
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it would take one more year before one of these men finally changed his story [Music]
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for almost 11 years chris ochoa continued to maintain that he and richard danzinger were responsible for
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the rape and murder of nancy de priest but one year after ricky moreno wrote a letter to the governor's office saying
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he murdered nancy de priest chris ochoa changed his story did you kill nancy de priest oh no ma'am
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his confession had been coerced he said he was physically assaulted threatened and denied access to an
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attorney during police questioning a female detective and hispanic detective she came in and i asked her
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you know can i have an attorney and she got real upset i said you can't have one until you're officially charged
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in search for help ochoa contacted the wisconsin innocence project a group that investigates cases in which
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they believe an innocent person has been wrongfully convicted i told him please help me
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i don't know who else to turn to you know i think one of my closing lines was that i told them i've lost faith in
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the system but i haven't lost faith in myself but the founder of the innocence project
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john pray wasn't sure what to think we called up chris's attorney to get his side of things and say
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sometimes the attorneys say i am concerned about this case and he may be innocent unfortunately in this
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case we got the complete opposite the chris's attorney told us we are totally
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wasting our time on this case he is very guilty and if chris ochoa was innocent why did dna tests place him
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at the scene of the crime 12 years earlier test could only analyze one gene from
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nancy dupree's vaginal swab the gene called dq alpha but by the year 2000 the accuracy of dna
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testing had advanced to a level where 10 genes could be analyzed the dna testing that i'm doing today is
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more complicated harder to interpret more discriminating the wisconsin innocence project asked
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local prosecutors to send nancy dupree's forensic samples for more sophisticated
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dna testing which they did twelve years after nancy de priest's murder karen scalise compared chris ochoa's
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blood dna to the vaginal swab taken from the crime scene i sort of went oh my god and just
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immediately double checked it to myself just to make sure additional dna testing
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was also done by ed blake who had performed the original dna test a decade earlier when that work was done
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ultimately chris ochoa richard danzinger and nancy dupree's husband were all
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eliminated as the source of the spermatozoa from nancy de priest but there was still the issue of
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mourinho's gun detective fuentes decided to send it to another lab the southwest institute in
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dallas for more tests the shell casing without a doubt matched the gun that we got from aqui
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marino and this was the shell casing that was found inside the pizza hut so now we had dna
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and we had a bullet or a shell casing that was ejected at the crime scene that matched the the gun that we got from
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akeem moreno as a last step prosecutors compared akeem marino's dna to the semen from nancy de priest's
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vaginal swab it matched just as mourinho said it would everybody says they're innocent in
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prison but yeah some of us are actually are akeem marino's confession includes
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a chilling account of what happened the day nancy the priest was murdered but it
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also answered many questions i was wearing a workman's uniform with a false name on it
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and i knocked on the side door and miss dupris came up and unlocked the door just before the restaurant opened
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once inside mourinho held nancy at gunpoint and demanded the restaurant's money
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[Music] then we went to the restroom where i disrobed her then assaulted her one time
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after that i told her that i was going to handcuff her to the plumbing underneath the sink and leave
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her there she got underneath the sink i shot her in the back of the head one time with a
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22 firearm but he made the mistake of leaving the shell casing behind i was looking for that shell and i
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couldn't find it anywhere after that i went back got my bag packed my stuff up and i left
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mourinho says nancy reminded him of a female guard he knew from prison a woman he detested
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when i came out not only did i intend to kill a whole bunch of blacks and mexicans but i told myself the first
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white woman i ran across that looked like i was gonna blow her brains out and that's exactly what i did
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[Music] but the bigger question is why chris ochoa would repeatedly confess to a
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crime he didn't commit you have to be a psychologist i'm not it's hard for me to conceive
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in fact when i first met mr ochoa's attorney uh mr dan's attorneys when they first brought me
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back the first thing i asked him was what in the world made ochoa confess most people will come and tell me i
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would have never confessed that you know what don't tell me that because you weren't sitting in that
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chair ochoa said he was threatened with the death penalty unless he confessed a technique most law enforcement
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interrogation experts say is improper the law fortunately or unfortunately allows
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police officers to lie to individuals being interrogated what they can't say
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is if you don't confess to me you're going to get the death penalty if they
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knew that to be a lie or if you do confess to me i'll make sure you don't you don't go to
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prison or you don't get charged on this crime so they can lie about the evidence
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and they can lie about other circumstances having to do with the interrogation but they can't tell lies
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that could be regarded as promises or threats ochoa said his confession included details of the crime because
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police showed him pictures of the crime scene before his confession off the top of my head i can't think of
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a circumstance in which it would be appropriate because it contaminates the suspect and it means that if they are
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innocent made the false confession you'll never know ochoa also says he was threatened physically
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look me up and down and say you're young you're you've never been in jail you're
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going to be fresh meat and they're going to have you i'll put you in the cell well they'll
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have you and to me in my mind that triggered off well they're going to rape me
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[Music] experts say the way to prevent police-induced false confessions is to videotape the entire interrogation
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if a suspect later alleges police misconduct in the interrogation room the videotape can be evaluated if
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chris's confession had been videotaped from start to end there is no way that this would have
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happened first of all the police officers undoubtedly would not have acted as they did it would have been a
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deterrent to their misconduct currently only two states require all suspect interrogations to be videotaped
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alaska and minnesota the austin police department changed its policy and now videotapes the interrogations in
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all homicide cases after 12 years in prison on january 16 2001 chris ochoa was a free man
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two months later richard danzinger was released to the care of his family because of the brain damage he sustained
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as a result of the prison fight richard danzinger will require specialized care for the rest of his life
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sometimes i think about richard and he you know i i feel very bad i mean because i was i didn't have the courage
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to face up whatever might come to me so that they wouldn't go to prison the officers involved in christochowa's
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interrogation have all refused to comment i was a little kid they told me that police officers would rather take care
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of you to protect you i thought that they couldn't do no wrong i thought they were honest
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but i see that they not all of them are i lost my child i loved her so much i miss her every day still
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13 years i miss her every day and chris lost 12 years his youth his whole youth richard dan singer is
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brain damaged from a beating he received in prison he's still serving that life sentence
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he'll serve it out [Music] [Music] [Applause] you