00:00:00
thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
00:00:43
doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
00:00:47
is a daredevil just like his father here is the captain yes a man who taught me that trying to jump over 10 monster
00:00:57
trucks was just one too many God Rest his soul that's gonna be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening
00:01:03
thanks for telling a friend thank you this week we are very happy to be featuring green slush by our good
00:01:14
friends over at Wiley Roots Brewing Company I am not one who is much for the sours but boy I gotta tell you this is a
00:01:22
must try and look we still have some summer left so if you want something delicious cold and refreshing well this
00:01:29
is it this Baby's got it all and if you like watermelon well you're going to love green slush garage grade 4 bottle
00:01:37
caps out of five and a big cheers goes out to our friends right here first up that cheers to Shaya in Framingham
00:01:46
Massachusetts and a big shout out to Taryn and Spokane Washington next a local cheers to Joe in Marion Ohio ah
00:01:55
quick cheers to My Buddy Joe that treasure right Captain intros and it's awful at it cheers to you mate and a big
00:02:01
we like your dib to Kelly in Philadelphia and here's a cheers to Nigel over in Ireland and last but
00:02:08
certainly not least we have Miz Pamela and Melbourne Australia everyone we just mentioned well they went to True Crime
00:02:15
garage.com and helped us out with this week's beer fund and for that we are grateful yeah and for that we like them
00:02:22
just a little bit more than we like you so thanks for the BW dollar you win a beer run
00:02:30
for more True Crime garage check out our premium show off the record on Stitcher
00:02:35
premium you can go to truecrimegarage.com to sign up and get a month for free and
00:02:43
that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
00:02:50
today's date is July 14 1999 Wednesday it's 1309 hours my name is detective Bud Sampson we're in the Ravenna Police
00:02:59
Department interview room along with me is detective William mucklow and detective John Leach of the Alliance
00:03:04
Police Department also in the room is Joseph Eisenberg [Music] because [Music] listen
00:03:25
[Music] ing if I didn't care about life no more they just knew about it and he took
00:03:34
advantage of me and were you having some hard times I lost my family's friends I lost my little
00:03:42
brother and sister that's everything anymore April 1st 1999 Alliance Ohio alliances in the northeastern part of
00:03:59
the great state of Ohio north of Canton and east of Akron and back in 1999 there were about 23 000
00:04:08
people living in Alliance which is in Stark County one of those people was 26 year old Yvonne Lane
00:04:16
she was found murdered in her home now homicide is not a normal thing in Alliance
00:04:23
back then we typically see about one homicide a year sometimes none Yvonne Lane was a mother she was not
00:04:31
living alone she was found by her mother Yvonne's mother Tanya Lane went to the home of her daughter and found a
00:04:39
shocking scene on that April 1st Tanya found Yvonne Dead with her throat cut and she was lying in a pool of her own
00:04:46
blood her five young children were in the house but were unharmed there was a lack of forensic evidence
00:04:56
but there were two partial bloody footprints found at the scene David Thorne Yvonne's ex-boyfriend
00:05:03
and the father of one of her children was instantly a suspect David was eventually tried convicted and
00:05:12
sentenced to life without parole for the murder of Yvonne the police got their best lead when a
00:05:19
woman named Rose Marr contacted them to say that she and her boyfriend Chris Campbell spoke with a young man named
00:05:26
Joseph Wilkes an incredibly Joseph told them he was in town because he had been hired to kill a
00:05:34
woman eventually Joseph Wilkes admitted to having killed Yvonne and he claimed that
00:05:40
David Thorne Yvonne's ex-boyfriend hired him to do so he also gave the cops a detailed account
00:05:47
of how the pair had planned the murder this confession sent David Thorne to prison for the rest of his life
00:05:57
Joseph Wilkes is in prison as well he is serving 30 Years to Life David Thorne has continuously claimed he
00:06:06
is innocent and he had a strong Alibi for the time of the murder his family and a number of organizations
00:06:13
are currently conducting a campaign to have his conviction overturned because they believe the investigation
00:06:21
may have been botched or even worse covered up those who believe in David Thorne's
00:06:27
innocence suspect that the police botched the case but were determined to get a result
00:06:33
so they concocted a murder For Hire plot and forced a confession this is true crime garage and this is
00:06:41
the case of Yvonne Lane [Music] murder Ed joining us in the garage today we have
00:07:09
Maggie freeling some of you may know her from The Disappearance of Mara Murray documentary series that was on oxygen a
00:07:16
couple years ago and I believe right now the people if they want to watch it it is currently streaming on peacock Maggie
00:07:24
is also the host of the unjust and unsolved podcast and she is conducting an in-depth investigation into the
00:07:31
murder of 26 year old Yvonne Lane a case that some say is unsolved because they have convicted the wrong man in this
00:07:40
case hello Maggie before we get into the meat and potatoes of this case in your investigation all of these years later
00:07:47
how are you doing and how did you find this case awesome it is so great to be back with you guys I'm doing all right
00:07:54
recovering from covid actually so my voice is kind of gone you know I found this case very long time ago I guess at
00:08:01
this point I'm working on it for a year maybe almost like two years ago I found this case I was in touch with David I
00:08:09
don't remember exactly if I came to sue his wife or if she came to me but it was brought to my attention as
00:08:16
you know this case 22 years this guy who a lot of people say has been wrongfully
00:08:21
convicted for all that time and hasn't had anybody when I first talked to David he told me his case was dead in the
00:08:27
water and he was right it was he used up all of his appeals and it's an incredibly complicated case as we'll get
00:08:33
into so it was really difficult to find people who were willing to take it on pro bono and so I decided to look at it
00:08:41
I did an episode for unjust and unsolved and afterwards I was just like I couldn't stop thinking about it because
00:08:48
there's so much here um it kind of drove me a little crazy and I just said you know what I need to
00:08:52
do an entire series on this David Thorne is one of the men that have been convicted in this case and he was an
00:08:58
ex-boyfriend and the father to one of Yvonne's children and he's been locked up for over 20 years in this case now
00:09:07
this is an Ohio case so Alliance Ohio and it was a case that actually received I was a little surprised it received
00:09:14
more media attention than I had speculated on going into it but and there was a book written on the case as
00:09:22
well I couldn't find the the title of the book do you recall the author yeah so the book if we're thinking about the
00:09:29
same one it wasn't on the case it was Brent turvey he's a forensic expert he looked into the case and he actually has
00:09:37
two books one is on what not to do at a crime scene where he features this case and another one very similar so they're
00:09:45
actually in two forensic textbooks now if you could go ahead and tell us a little bit about our victim here Yvonne
00:09:51
Lane she's a mother of five children is that correct five kids 26 years old the oldest kid at the time was 10. she had
00:10:00
her first kid when she was 16. she was a Jehovah's Witness from you know what family has said and and Friends has said
00:10:07
at the time she was trying to get back on track trying to become a devout Jehovah again
00:10:13
but she also had five little kids and had to make ends meet and you know what we know she wasn't really working she
00:10:19
was on welfare and she was kind of struggling to take care of all the kids one of the children's fathers there's
00:10:25
different dads he his parents were taking care of one of the kids who was disabled the oldest kid lived with his
00:10:34
grandparents so she was taking care of three of the kids on her own so three of the children living with
00:10:41
her at the time of the murder yes and actually there was the fourth child with her at the time because she was trying
00:10:47
to get custody back of him uh Vinnie the disabled boy who actually becomes kind of a big part of the story as he was
00:10:55
there when the murder took place he was in the home as well Brandon Preston Vinnie and Trenton Merle home and David
00:11:02
Thorne one of the men that have been convicted in this case of her murder he knew her from high school and then
00:11:10
they reconnected Years After High School is that correct yeah so they met at a vocational school she wanted to go to
00:11:17
school for cosmetology and he was going for decal making David's really big into
00:11:21
cars so they wound up at the same vocational school either junior senior year of high school
00:11:27
and saw each other in the hall they obviously didn't have classes together they were taking different classes but
00:11:32
he saw her in the hall and was really struck by her everything we've heard is that she's absolutely stunning like this
00:11:38
knockout babe I guess a couple years later he they were at a car part shop she needed to fix her car and bumped
00:11:46
into him and he was like oh I'll fix your car for you and that's kind of how it how it started and David is the
00:11:53
father of Brandon so where does Brandon fall in the order of children and from my understanding he finds out about
00:12:01
having a son with Yvonne after Brandon has already brought into this world yeah so it's really complicated as we get
00:12:10
into later in the season the children and and her pregnancies um but Brandon is the second youngest
00:12:16
her and David were together somewhere around about a year they broke up she because the father of
00:12:23
a couple of the other kids none of them are confirmed the only confirmation we have is Brandon from a DNA test with
00:12:30
David but so the alleged father of a couple of the other kids her and him were on and off for about 10 years so
00:12:36
they had a very complicated and from what we understand actually abusive relationship so her and David broke up
00:12:43
because of him you know he's the father of a bunch of the kids there was just he was always
00:12:48
going to be in her life things are tumultuous and her and David kind of went Separate Ways
00:12:53
she calls him you know a couple months later maybe you know nine months later saying I had a baby I think it's yours
00:13:00
that's kind of how that happened David was dating another girl at the time who was kind of like what the hell your
00:13:06
ex-girlfriend's calling you and you now have a kid and things got pretty complicated for the two of them from
00:13:12
what we know they were trying to maybe get back together David says that they were talking about that we have heard
00:13:19
from other family members that you know there were talks of engagement rings so David and Yvonne were carrying on a
00:13:25
behind the scenes relationship while they were both seeing other people after Brandon was born and they found
00:13:32
out you know they had a kid together so it all gets really complicated well and I love the way that you describe it in
00:13:39
your series murder and Alliance because I think it really sums it up very nicely
00:13:44
in a nice in the package where you say Eric the other guy who fathered multiple of the children as far as we know that's
00:13:52
always been the the belief or understanding He's the bad guy he's he's somebody that she just can't seem to
00:14:00
quit for whatever reason maybe it is because they've had such a long relationship or they had so many
00:14:05
children together he's always going to be around and David and her just didn't work out mainly because of this other
00:14:12
guy because of Eric always being there and you said that you know David seemed to be kind of the the more stable
00:14:21
individual that she would kind of turn to when things weren't going right with Eric or when she had had enough of this
00:14:27
Eric guy yeah I mean that's kind of what it seems like to me I mean her and Eric
00:14:31
from what we know I mean they would beat the crap out of each other like really physically abusive I talked to her son
00:14:38
Preston in the interview Eric's allegedly in the podcast Eric is allegedly his father he thinks Eric says
00:14:46
father and then he says yeah they were pretty pretty freaking violent to each other so you know when David every
00:14:52
account we know is this kind man who would take her back he loved her and take care of her during those off times
00:15:00
with Eric and you know we bring up the fact that we don't know who the Dad we don't you know for sure know who the
00:15:08
dads are if the other four children not in any way it's you know shame her or anything but it does get complicated
00:15:14
when you're talking about who could have done this there are many multiple men out there who could have fathered her
00:15:20
children who you know we've heard rumor that she had been pregnant with their children so there was a lot of people
00:15:26
that needed to be looked into not just David and Eric once David finds out that he is in fact the father what is his
00:15:34
behavior like it seems to me like he was willing to to step up to the plate and be as much
00:15:41
of a father or be involved in Brandon's life as much as possible from every account we have heard even at trial from
00:15:48
the social worker who was dealing with the custody and child support payments they had an amicable relationship
00:15:56
amicable there was no um fighting over Brandon there was no custody argument it was basically you
00:16:03
know you're going to pay child support okay you've got to go to court and figure out how much legally get into an
00:16:09
agreement for that and what we've heard from all of those people is fine great David was happy to pay child
00:16:16
support David wasn't trying to get custody of Brandon from what we know everything was fine and very sadly
00:16:22
Yvonne only 26 years old she's killed inside her home at her residence sometime before April 1st 1999 and so
00:16:35
all these years later we're talking over 21 years later what is the relationship
00:16:41
between David and Brandon today I mean this is a this kid very sadly his mother is killed when he's young I'm I'm
00:16:49
uncertain of his age at the time of the murder but then to double down on that tragedy his father is put away for life
00:16:57
in prison yeah Brandon was two at the time so he doesn't really remember much at all about the murder or his his
00:17:04
mother but you know their relationship is it's strange you know Brandon visited David all the time when he was a kid you
00:17:11
know people would bring him but as the years go on he becomes a teenager I mean he lives his own life I mean they talk
00:17:20
he believes in his dad's innocence he of course wants his dad out but other than
00:17:23
that I mean he's just a 20-something kid living his life and he's you know that's kind of it it's
00:17:31
it's definitely sad I mean prison these things really break up families investigators came up with a rough time
00:17:38
frame of when they believed the murder went down and when it took place in Yvonne Lane's residence that night
00:17:44
sometime on March 31st 1999 and we have David Thorne who has been in prison All These Years yet he
00:17:54
was Three Counties away with a solid iron-clad Alibi for his time that night take us through the timeline of the how
00:18:06
we get from this guy not being able to be a suspect because he has an iron-clad alibi to now he's in
00:18:15
prison yeah I mean and that's uh that's it's complicated I mean we've put together a timeline but we're still you
00:18:22
know it's it's confusing so the time of death for Yvonne is sometime this is the coroner's report sometime
00:18:33
after 7 PM March 31st so there is an actual 14-hour window that she could have died her body was discovered around
00:18:44
12 12 30 April Fool's Day she died sometime around 7pm the night before they couldn't really say other
00:18:52
than that so you know from there David was looked at right away he is the father of one of
00:18:57
the kids they're recently in court for custody and he's smart his grandfather's smart and instantly got him a lawyer the
00:19:05
lawyer came and that was that was it David never talked to the police again so the police were always very
00:19:10
suspicious because David got a lawyer and didn't want to talk to the police which you know if you listen to my
00:19:17
podcast or any of the cases that you guys have covered about potential wrongful convictions I mean that's a
00:19:23
pretty smart thing to do to get a lawyer and not talk to the police because who knows what will happen so they took that
00:19:29
as he's guilty he won't cooperate with us so they were always on him since then trying to figure out you know how he did
00:19:36
this there were a couple friends in their friend group that the police had brought in you know asking them if if
00:19:43
they they were always on to this kind of murder For Hire because David had an alibi that's very certain so they
00:19:52
thought okay well he he obviously wanted to get rid of her so he must have paid somebody to do it instead of you know
00:19:58
looking at the severely abusive partner who yes was in prison at the time however was incredibly abusive and if
00:20:05
was going to hire somebody he could have too there's other you know baby daddies and
00:20:11
stuff so for whatever reason they're hell-bent on David and sometime around in July
00:20:18
they hear the name Joe Wilkes and they kind of hone in on Joe as being the person that David hired to murder Yvonne
00:20:29
and they bring in Joe who is a really sad character and he confesses and said yes David paid me to do this so it was
00:20:38
about three months later that they actually found the alleged accomplice he immediately confesses and David is
00:20:46
arrested that day July 14th or 15th but it's a little more complicated than that because oh yeah for for law
00:20:57
enforcement to get to David's motive there's some twists and turns that have to happen which are you talking about
00:21:04
well just the idea that law enforcement's motive is this is about money and so he doesn't want to pay
00:21:11
child support and he's this broke guy and he's so broke that he would rather hire somebody to get rid of her and then
00:21:20
he won't never have to pay child support but then at that point he would be so custody
00:21:27
which would cost him a lot of money and then totally and the fact that we now know that he had money David had money
00:21:35
yeah and I've seen the account the statements from the account David had a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in
00:21:40
an investment account he was working he uh he was going to swap meet so on top of that that was money that he just got
00:21:47
when his father died his dad was a a veteran and died by Suicide so David got a lot of money from his life insurance
00:21:54
you know military life insurance so he had all that and he didn't need to touch it because he was working and making
00:22:01
money working and he was doing really well he had cars he was going to swap meets selling parts for 300 a pop I mean
00:22:08
child support was only 350 a month which I guess in 1999 was a lot more than now
00:22:14
but he could make that money selling a car part it's definitely an interesting motive that they came up with especially
00:22:22
when nobody said there was any issue with the payments or custody or or anything like that yeah and if I'm law
00:22:30
enforcement I'm coming up with the motive of well we've been together on and off again and she's always on it on
00:22:39
again off again with Eric to me that makes makes more sense of a motive that yeah well I want to get rid
00:22:46
of her because you know she keeps leaving me for this this scumbag and I'm the the good guy that's always trying to
00:22:52
help her out and she just can't see that that that makes more sense to me of a motive I mean there is definitely as we
00:23:01
get you know further in there's many more motives and you realize that almost everyone around her had a motive
00:23:08
to kill her pretty much except for David because again what we know is that he loved her they were trying to get back
00:23:15
together and he was planning on buying her a ring so it's definitely interesting I think to you know if I
00:23:23
were someone sitting on the jury or looking at this case even all these years later I look at the
00:23:32
as the the child support is kind of a blanketed statement that encompasses a lot of
00:23:39
different possible motives for David Thorne where it could be not only does he not want to pay the child support but
00:23:46
if he is going to be paying for his son brand and he would prefer to have customers knowing have custody of his
00:23:54
son he may also blame look Brandon was not being raised in the most wonderful of of Worlds and he may have
00:24:03
blamed her for some of that and I mean there's a lot of stuff going on here as well and there seems to be some
00:24:12
some back and forth between David's current girlfriend and when he had to see Yvonne because of Brandon
00:24:22
um there's really just a lot they could have been bubbling up to the surface at the time that that could fall under that
00:24:29
sort of child support blanket of of motive here but as you pointed out there are other
00:24:35
people that would have motives of their own and in fact we see that there are a lot of other people now
00:24:43
before we get into them we should say that during the course of the arrest and then the conviction first police are led
00:24:52
to this Joe Wilkes by individual that contacts the police department saying that she spoke with Mr
00:25:01
Wilkes on the night of the murder so exactly so so the timeline the night of the murder
00:25:08
allegedly has according to Joe's confession is he was at the Carnation Mall which is about four miles from
00:25:16
Yvonne's house down State Street if you're familiar with Alliance and it's just a straight
00:25:22
shot down this main main road not really a highway but you know three lanes each
00:25:26
side big Road he is at the mall around closing time and he bumps into these two people Rose
00:25:33
Moore and Chris Campbell and he sees them then he leaves walks to her house and kills her according to
00:25:42
them he tells them that he flashes a knife and tells them I'm here to do a job and according to Rose that job is to
00:25:51
kill a girl some guy hired him to kill her and according to Chris some guy's girlfriend hired me to kill her you know
00:25:59
their stories are so interesting because in their original statements to the police Rose specifically says the knife
00:26:07
was not a pocket knife he flashed me you know an eight inch knife in a sheath by
00:26:12
trial it is now a pocket knife the exact weapon she said that it was not but this
00:26:18
is how Joe's name comes up three months later a woman calls the police saying a woman in the building's daughter knows
00:26:25
something about this and that's kind of how it all started spiraling at the beginning of July so they get in contact
00:26:30
with Joe Wilkes and as we know it's a it's a pretty quick it seems pretty quick from the time they pick up Joe
00:26:37
Wilkes to getting the confession we're not talking about days later or weeks later that they get the confession it's
00:26:44
relatively pretty quick once he becomes on their Radar Now who is Joe Wilkes what is his tie-in to our victim what is
00:26:53
he his tie into our other suspect so Joe Wilkes at the time he was a teenager who was 18 I knew he was 18 or
00:27:02
19. Joe was a Drifter he was kind of known around town as this kid that you know would just sleep on people's
00:27:08
couches he had a really really sad traumatic life growing up he was abused by his parents him and his
00:27:17
siblings got put in a foster home where he was also abused were talking mental physical sexual abuse so he had a really
00:27:24
tough life growing up he is actually a pretty smart kid he does not have a low IQ but he definitely you know had so
00:27:31
much trauma that learning was not easy for him he grew up with a shake like a palsy so when people talk to him they
00:27:38
always think he's nervous but it's just this physical disability that he has from all
00:27:43
the abuse so you know people like David were just really nice to him I mean he looked up to David David was much older
00:27:50
than him again Joe was around 18 David was 26 at the time of the arrest so there was an age Gap David kind of saw
00:27:57
this kid and you know if he saw him walking on the street he'd give him a ride home or
00:28:02
you know he helped him buy his first car and a lot of the the friend group that I've talked to they all say that about
00:28:09
Joe yeah he was a really sweet kid he was just kind of always around and he didn't have a home he was homeless or
00:28:15
people like David took care of him he was you know at the time of the murder he was staying at a girl girlfriend's
00:28:21
house or the time of the arrest at the time of the murder he was also staying at a girlfriend's house
00:28:26
so that's kind of who Joe Wilkes is he he was a scared kid he was an emotionally disturbed kid and you put
00:28:33
him in an interrogation room with three detectives who knows what could happen [Music]
00:28:50
foreign [Music] well and he's it's a very emotional confession from what we hear anyway
00:29:06
because you play some of the confession tape on your show murder and Alliance and
00:29:13
I've got to tell you Maggie it's it sounds awfully convincing to me uh when we hear that confession from Joe
00:29:22
Wilks yeah well you know it's it's one of those things where um 1999 they were not
00:29:29
required to videotape the whole thing so we don't have that so we just have what
00:29:35
what is on tape and these are short tapes I mean this is a half hour each of them there's two tapes they talked to
00:29:42
him the first day half hour they go back the next day and pick up saying hey there's some things we we left out and
00:29:49
they talked to him again for a half hour I mean the entire taped confession is an
00:29:53
hour long and if you've ever seen an interrogation or you know anything like that it's it's pretty common knowledge
00:30:01
that the when the tape turned on is not when they first started talking so the question has always been what happened
00:30:06
before the tape was turned on uh yeah and law enforcement caused it a tape confession but it seems like Joe has a
00:30:14
different story about that he he says it's not even questioning from the beginning it's it's simply an
00:30:22
interrogation yeah and he he made some other claims as well yeah Joe says that you know they
00:30:28
had him handcuffed to a wall and they spit on him and and they were being aggressive to him and you know that is
00:30:34
Joe's word um but you know in in one of the episodes I go into all these officers
00:30:39
backgrounds and um if that did happen it would not surprise me I have come across
00:30:44
you know some false confessions coerced by them I mean their their personnel files one of the lead detectives Samson
00:30:52
his personnel file is pretty pretty damning with um he's hit with lying forging documents so
00:31:02
you know he was on the officers who who took Joe's quote confession you know something we we always forget and I even
00:31:08
forget is that they went to him according to Joe saying um David is in the next room and he's
00:31:17
he's you know putting this on you if you tell us what happened you will get a deal so they did dangle a deal in front
00:31:25
of him and as We Know Joe got 30 to life for taking the deal and saying you know
00:31:32
quote allegedly what happened and as we know David was not in the Next Room David never talked to police David had
00:31:38
not talked to the police since that one time he went in with them with a lawyer and said I'm not talking to you and that
00:31:44
was it so they did lie to him saying David's in the Next Room giving you up that's something to keep in mind you
00:31:50
know that's part of the what happened before the tape was turned on that's really interesting to me too because you
00:31:55
have a scenario where according to our Witnesses Chris Campbell and forgive me I more I can't
00:32:02
think of her Rose more according to the two witnesses the lead detectives to Joe
00:32:09
Wilkes he he's saying some guy hired me to kill a woman he doesn't say that David Thorne hired me to kill his
00:32:22
ex-girlfriend some guy hired me to kill a woman so that leads them to Joe Wilkes
00:32:27
but it doesn't necessarily lead them to David Thorne yet they're very quick to be saying David Thorne's sitting in the
00:32:33
next room and he's turning on you kid and it's going to be your ass that we put in the electric chair and Fry
00:32:40
exactly and it could have been it could have been this Eric guy it could have been several other individuals that
00:32:47
would have hired someone like a Joe Wilkes to commit this murder now the general statements inside of that taped
00:32:55
portion of the confession or interview or interrogation or however we want to label it
00:33:01
is basically that Joe Wilkes is saying I'm I'm remorseful for what I did I kind of knew the victim I had met her on
00:33:11
several occasions I think that it's general knowledge that he had even been to her residence at least one time
00:33:18
before the murder and he he says you know I was remorseful for this the night that I did it and and
00:33:26
you can hear I mean he's he's sobbing throughout a lot of the the confession and he's basically says look I know this
00:33:35
guy I've been friends with David Thorne for for years and he's complained about Yvonne and he's complained about you
00:33:43
know not wanting to pay child support that he wanted custody of his son and I had nothing to lose I had hit rock
00:33:50
bottom I had no friends I had lost all my family you know the only friend I had was David Thorne and I had no money no
00:33:58
prospects um he Joe Wilkes his life his childhood is incredibly tragic and sad it's just I mean it's heartbreaking
00:34:09
to hear what he says took place during the course of his childhood but then even after he gets away from that it
00:34:17
seems to me like his life is always this roller coaster ride of he needs help he
00:34:22
gets some help and whether he follows through or not is is up for the debate but in this case he says I had lost
00:34:31
pretty much everything I had hit rock bottom my friend who I thought was my friend David Thorne took advantage of
00:34:37
that took advantage of me and he offered to pay me and help me out and he convinced me to go and kill this woman
00:34:45
and not only kill her but kill her at a time when he when David Thorne could it couldn't lead back to him it would be
00:34:53
impossible because he would have that Ironclad Alibi and let's go through the the timeline of events as it as it were
00:35:03
according to Joe and his confession and let's let's keep in mind as we go through this everybody out there in
00:35:10
listener land that we're talking about a confession that was it's also it's it's a confession from Joe Wilkes
00:35:18
but it's also a story that is backed by by the state or at least by the prosecution in this
00:35:27
case and you have to wonder a lot of things fit nice neat and perfectly I gotta say that right up front here
00:35:34
Maggie there there's there's a lot of things like when we go into these cases and you're talking about an unsolved
00:35:41
murder and you're looking at different suspects we're always looking for a Smoking Gun right here it's kind of the
00:35:46
reverse of that when you're looking at a possible wrongful conviction you're looking for The Smoking Gun of why this
00:35:52
guy is innocent and it's really tough to find that here because you have a very unique situation where Joe Wilkes could
00:36:01
be guilty of this murder and David Thorne had nothing to do with it now on the flip side of that coin is
00:36:08
that if Joe Wilkes did not kill Yvonne Lane then David Thorne didn't have anything
00:36:14
to do with it I mean it just it wouldn't work out that way so the timeline as it
00:36:19
were according to Joe Wilkes and the prosecution is what when when does this because we start seeing things
00:36:28
actions being made according to Joe the day of the murder that he says involved David Thorne so the day before
00:36:37
so we're talking the 31st which is the day of the murder yes he they allegedly go to the mall and they after in the
00:36:44
afternoon rent the room and they get I forget if it's the glow I think it's the gloves
00:36:51
they get the gloves that afternoon and then David brings Joe back to the Enochs where he was staying he was staying with
00:36:58
a friend and then David Goes about his day he goes to his his martial arts class he brings his lion cub you know
00:37:06
that's how they knew for sure he was there that night he had a lion cub with him which isn't unusual for David I mean
00:37:12
he had lion cubs and he brought them around with him um so the police you know did try to say
00:37:18
he made this obvious Alibi blah blah blah I mean I I don't know that's up for debate I guess but so that was The Alibi
00:37:25
Joe allegedly gets a ride to the mall that evening Brent Enoch the father of of Joe's friend said yes I brought him
00:37:34
to the mall he wanted to stay there he said he was staying there and then they say that Joe walked to her
00:37:40
house sometime after seven we know he was seen at the mall allegedly by Rose and Chris around eight so he wouldn't
00:37:47
have gotten to Yvonne's house until at least 9 9 30 and then you know she's found at 12 30 the next day that that's
00:37:56
really what we know Joe says the next morning David picks him up this is where things get a little dicey he says David
00:38:02
picks him up the next morning sometime around 8 30 9 looks like he made a phone call from a pay phone to David I mean
00:38:10
I'll get to the phone calls in a minute around 8 30. David was at work and he had to take a lunch break and he
00:38:21
according to David went to McDonald's came back within the half hour it was only a half hour break
00:38:26
well his boss spoke to police and said no it was like an hour an hour and a half actually which would give David
00:38:34
time to go to the mall pick up Joe drop off Joe and get back to work so that's you know the story from the
00:38:41
prosecution is that David dropped it they got the room the night before the day before David picked him up in the
00:38:47
morning got back to work no no questions asked it was a normal day everyone seemed normal so that's that I mean I
00:38:54
could get into the phone calls and stuff how do you want to go from there just to
00:38:57
kind of back up some of that statement as far as the prosecution's concerned first we have
00:39:03
David Thorne leaving work on the day of the murder on the 31st what about 12 12 30 that day and then we have Joe Wilkes
00:39:13
checking into this hotel that's attached to or near the mall and he's checking in
00:39:20
at like 147 I think 148 that day so that I mean that kind of lines up with what Joe's statement is that David picked me
00:39:31
up and we kind of talked about how this was going to go down he gave me some money for give me a hundred dollar bill
00:39:36
to check into the hotel room because that's the other thing you have to lay out for the the court proceedings is how
00:39:43
did this broke guy get money to stay in a hotel and buy some items to commit the
00:39:49
crime and so he says David gave me the money to check into this hotel room that kind of fits the timeline is working in
00:39:57
the favor of Joe and against David here where it's lining up that David could have possibly have left work that day
00:40:04
picked up Joe Wilkes taken him to the hotel they get the gloves takes them back to the the Enochs is that their
00:40:11
last name the the family that he was staying with a friend apparently he he needed to go back for a
00:40:18
couple of reasons it sounded like he had scheduled something with Brent Enoch's that for that afternoon or evening
00:40:26
and then Brent is the one that takes him back to the hotel now he can't if somehow he does murder this woman and
00:40:34
the trail leads back to Joe Wilkes David Thorne if and Joe Wilkes can't have that happen right we can't have a
00:40:42
night where all of a sudden this kid's staying in a hotel room and the trail leads back to him no so he tells Brent
00:40:49
that I'm going to I'm just dropping off at the mall because David Thorne's going
00:40:54
to pick me up there and we're going to go back to his place I'm actually going to be staying at his place that night
00:41:00
and then the troubling thing as you said we we have according to Joe Wells he goes and walks to the victim's home she
00:41:09
knows him so she lets him in they have a very brief conversation and then he says
00:41:14
he takes the knife that he purchased that night and he uses it to slash her throat and this was I mean this is just
00:41:21
horrific the the wound itself I think you described it as what eight inches for it's eight inches deep and four
00:41:29
inches wide I mean she was decapitated there was the smallest bit holding her head-on and according to the medical
00:41:36
expert that they present at court that Yvonne would have been alive and able to react for a very brief period of time
00:41:46
we're talking seconds probably before she would have collapsed according to Joe's confession
00:41:52
that does take place that she jumps up off of the couch goes toward the sliding glass door I believe it's a
00:42:00
sliding glass door says something ask him like why you know why did you do this to me he says that
00:42:07
he told her that David Thorne asked him to or paid him to do that he trips over something and he according
00:42:15
to Joe he left there very quickly this is one of those things where I could go on either side of the fence very easily
00:42:22
you could sway me either way the difficult thing here is one would expect there to be a lot of blood on the
00:42:29
suspect on the murderer and there was a lot of blood at the crime scene itself we do have the prosecution and their
00:42:36
what they're saying is that that he managed to not get hardly any blood on him at all because the difficult thing
00:42:43
now for our murderer if it was Joe Wilkes he has to walk what about four miles back to where he came from and not
00:42:51
have anybody which no one did you know yeah there's no you don't it's not every day that you're driving and you see a
00:42:57
blood-covered man on the side of the road walking uh in the opposite direction One a couple things in the
00:43:04
favor of that story is we're now talking it's probably 10 o'clock at night at this point yeah
00:43:12
if we are to believe his story it's definitely dark by this time so it doesn't line up completely with that
00:43:19
seven o'clock uh time of death which that's probably more of a window rather than right they gave a window they the
00:43:26
window was up until she was found I mean they really had no idea it's like a 12-hour window yeah I had no idea but
00:43:33
also Joe is a very tall individual right he's like six four I mean so you're going to notice him if he's
00:43:42
walking on the side of the road that doesn't mean he's not going behind houses going behind buildings to get
00:43:47
wherever that's the thing we've mapped it out you can't really go behind houses and buildings so
00:43:52
you know yes you're right it could it's a it could be a ghost town and I wasn't there in 99 but Sue was Sue Thorne is
00:43:59
now David's wife but has been his Advocate since the beginning um and she did this with her son same
00:44:06
time of night back then I think she did it in like 05 or something to put her son in what Joe was allegedly wearing
00:44:12
and had him walk down the street um and it's you know this is a street that is strip malls I mean like I said it's a
00:44:20
very busy highway um there's lights everywhere so he he definitely would have been seen
00:44:29
um there's no you know straight shot behind houses he would have to be zigzagging and that would take three
00:44:34
hours as opposed to the hour and a half so if he did it he probably walked on the street
00:44:40
and again there you know I find it really incredible to believe he wouldn't have blood on him
00:44:48
um you know the clothes that were found did not have any evidence on them so it's it is interesting I mean he
00:44:56
could have walked without blood on him the clothes don't have blood on them but like if you see the crime scene that
00:45:01
makes no sense to me but job LED them to a knife and bloody jeans a allegedly um Joe so so I guess a big part that
00:45:12
we're missing here is Joe recanted almost immediately after at trial in his testimony he says the police told me
00:45:19
what to say so pretty much immediately after he recance and said you know the police forced me to say this and they
00:45:25
told me where they were going to find this knife that's not my knife I didn't have that knife they told me we're gonna
00:45:33
find your knife here and then dig out this knife from a storm drain so that's been Joe's new story Jose changed the
00:45:41
story a few times over the years from my understanding well he has indeed the the
00:45:47
thing is ever since he recanted the story has changed but the fundamentals of it really haven't but David had
00:45:55
nothing to do with this he has stuck to that for 22 years that David had nothing
00:46:00
to do with it you know one story he went over there killed her one story he went
00:46:05
over the air she was already dead do you know I think there's another one floating around but they all do put Joe
00:46:11
there um he has not said otherwise but he says he didn't do this you know he went and
00:46:17
saw her already dead which is really interesting because nobody else puts Joe right there right in fact we have talked
00:46:26
to people who put Joe at the mall and say no he was doing X Y and Z at the mall he wasn't he wasn't killing
00:46:34
somebody at that time but we always talk about this in here in the garage when you have someone confess especially when
00:46:40
you need to find something you know Murder weapon murder victim or anything else that was involved in the commission
00:46:48
of the crime you as an investigator you're looking to have that individual lead you to that item and you do that so
00:46:56
that when they do recant that you can say well tough cookies you obviously let us do the murder victim or the murder
00:47:05
weapon or something that was used in the commission of the crime it's kind of hard to deny now and say that you
00:47:11
weren't there when when you you gave us this item now here in this case he leads
00:47:16
them to some pants that he threw behind a friend's home in like the woods or Tall Grass area and one that's just
00:47:27
Bizarro to me like if if you didn't commit this crime who's just throwing pants Into the Woods at a you know at
00:47:35
somebody's house whether they knew them or not now I understand there's no it doesn't sound like anything of
00:47:41
evidentiary value were found on these pants they were found months after as you said July and she was killed March
00:47:49
31st maybe April 1st at the latest but they're found months later and they have nothing of evidentiary value on them
00:47:58
again what are those pants even doing there and why does he know that they're there is is Bizarro if he didn't commit
00:48:05
this crime yet whether or not the police told him where they were going to find this murder weapon or the folding knife
00:48:13
is let's set that aside because what we are being told per the case File is it they actually
00:48:21
located two different knives is that correct so yes there was actually at least four knives found oh now we're at
00:48:30
the four yes so so that's like a complicated part but when they went into the storm drain there were two other
00:48:36
knives in there with the alleged murder weapon and they actually found the day that they were searching the murder not
00:48:44
three months later um about a block away they found a knife matching the knives in her kitchen set
00:48:51
on the street so to me that seems like a more likely murder weapon this knife that was from her home that actually
00:49:00
looks very similar to a blood stain on the couch where the killer seems to have wiped off the blade it is almost an
00:49:08
exact fitting for this kitchen knife yeah so yeah there was many knives found there's also the incident at the mall
00:49:17
where this witness says oh I saw Joe buying actually a pocket knife but that was a month later in May and I have the
00:49:26
receipt from when I was there so this witness actually presented a receipt saying this is the day I was at the mall
00:49:33
and actually saw Joe there buying a pocket knife so if Joe did buy a knife allegedly it wasn't even until a month
00:49:40
after the murder and correct me if I'm wrong here Maggie there's a lot of moving parts and pieces I'm trying my
00:49:45
best to follow along here but if we are to believe Joe's story he's telling us that he purchased a pocket knife or
00:49:53
folding knife and the blade was what three and a half inches 3.1 yeah 3.1 inches on that blade and you said again
00:50:01
that the the the throat the wound was how many inches deep four four okay so we're awfully close there
00:50:10
seems maybe possible but then think about the all right without getting too descriptive well there's no way of
00:50:19
getting around it if you're eating lunch stop turn it off uh if if someone because according to Joe Wilkes
00:50:28
statement as far as I understand it it sounds to me like this wound was a one and done right he's not there's not he's
00:50:36
not cutting multiple times Well Nate you you're hitting it exactly so that's every expert who's looked at this case
00:50:43
since then has pretty much said if not have said that that pocket knife would not have made this cut and for let's get
00:50:51
incredibly gross here and say if he or anybody were able to successfully make that cut using that weapon as it's been
00:51:01
described by it all parties involved we all agree on the dimensions and what type of weapon it is that's not in
00:51:07
dispute here but if he were to do that then the hilt or the part that the knife folds into would have to be forgive me
00:51:16
for saying so buried in the neck of our victim yeah and how I get that you didn't find it for months later but how
00:51:24
do you not find blood on that weapon I don't care who wiped it clean yeah that's exactly it's really difficult
00:51:33
there and then this Bizarro thing of these all these knives being found around the neighborhood Who
00:51:41
who lives in this neighborhood it's like Dwight Schrute that's concealing weapons
00:51:45
all over the place I mean it's it would be weird to find John Rambo yeah I I mean it's it's just difficult now the
00:51:53
next morning though what gets difficult for David as far as Joe Wilkes statement
00:51:57
goes we do have phone records that say that a pay phone is calling David Thorne that morning and we have
00:52:05
the boss his boss saying David Thorne left and we have Joe Wilkes saying David Thorne picked me up so the um
00:52:14
a lot of interesting things happened at trial so the the trial was was uh in terms of the defense
00:52:21
horrible and or non-existent um you know David's lawyer died of alcohol poisoning very shortly after he
00:52:29
froze to death outside of his home um because he was so intoxicated and he passed out in the winter so he was drunk
00:52:37
the whole trial so you know the the prosecution brings you know this expert who testifies about the knife and says
00:52:43
she could still you know live for a few seconds to ask why after he cut her neck
00:52:48
and David didn't have any rebuttal any rebuttal witnesses there was three Witnesses called two of them were
00:52:55
character Witnesses and one was this guy who said no I saw him buy the knife in May so David's team was never called an
00:53:04
expert to say no a knife wouldn't do this or never called an expert to wonder to say you know why the hell is there no
00:53:10
evidence on this never called an expert or somebody to um talk about the phone records
00:53:16
fortunately the phone person was not lying on the stand and actually actually said during the prosecution's cross
00:53:25
these calls don't seem to have been answered actually yes he's calling him but it's they were likely not answered
00:53:33
um so sure Joe called David but it would appear that he never answered the calls
00:53:39
um which is really interesting and then of course the other thing that happened at trial was the prosecution called the
00:53:45
social worker for the child support and the social worker actually recalled herself for the defense because
00:53:52
she didn't like the way the prosecution portrayed her testimony she was like I want to be recalled and came on and said
00:53:58
actually they had a really good relationship I don't want to be you know have the prosecution twist my words on
00:54:04
record um so you know those were two things at trial that that were good despite the
00:54:09
horrible defense well also didn't prosecution keep some evidence out of the trial yeah do you want to go
00:54:17
there please yes we had a incredible amount of Brady violations one of which is a
00:54:26
witness uh there was two witnesses but one of them is really key a witness who says he saw a man leaving the home
00:54:32
around 10 30 in the morning of April 1st Yvonne was likely dead around 10 30 in the morning
00:54:41
um considering she was found at 12 30 in the time frame of death was sometime after 7 PM the night before so this
00:54:47
witness tells police that morning at the scene oh my God I was walking by here a
00:54:53
few hours ago and actually saw a guy you know leaving this house and he gives the
00:54:57
description of this man and they bring him in to do a lineup he doesn't pick anybody out they have him for bring him
00:55:05
back for another lineup he doesn't pick anybody out David we know was in one of these lineups he doesn't pick David out
00:55:11
you know why would he again David had an alibi it would likely not be David seen
00:55:15
leaving the house or anything like that according to him this man's name is George Hale he's been interviewed many
00:55:21
many many times according to him um he did pick somebody out in the lineup and this is really interesting
00:55:28
because this lineup one of the many Brady violations it should have been given as
00:55:35
Discovery and it never was this lineup is gone so we have no way of telling if George Hale is telling the truth but
00:55:42
he says he pointed to a man and said that's the man that looks like the man I saw leaving the house this man that he
00:55:49
picked out he says they told him no that can't be the guy that's a cop they put like a cop's picture in as part
00:55:57
of the lineup just as like a blank photo um but he says he picked out a guy who was one of the lead cops in the case as
00:56:05
a guy who was leaving the house so you know they kept George Hale from the defense this witness that could have
00:56:12
been key saying look I saw somebody leaving the house it was not Joe or David um and actually pointed to a completely
00:56:18
different person who whole other can of worms we have found out that Yvonne was having
00:56:27
relationships with people in the police department so the fact that George didn't know this and picked out a photo
00:56:34
of an officer allegedly is very interesting now I want to stay on this here for a minute because I don't I
00:56:42
don't want anybody to get confused and go oh he picked out a guy that happens to be a cop
00:56:48
oh that must be the guy that right that murdered right and his words were it looked like the guy I saw so you know
00:56:56
whatever that means he didn't say this is the guy and sometimes when you know it you can't
00:57:04
just give a photo lineup of five different pictures of the guy that you think did it right you have to throw
00:57:10
several pictures of people you know that did not do it in there and so often they
00:57:15
will use a photo of an officer as a kind of stand-in for someone one thing that I
00:57:21
would be curious there's there's a lot of things here that I think needs sorted out with this portion of of the case
00:57:28
File and one I would want to know is because immediately what the police say is well this witness is unreliable you
00:57:35
know because he picked out the wrong guy one I want to know was there a picture of Joe Wilkes in this lineup because we
00:57:43
know that David according to the prosecution's case and according to everybody he agrees David was not there so even to
00:57:51
have his photo in the lineup seems Bizarro to me but then take it a step further do they know for a fact that
00:57:58
this guy is an unreliable witness because the officer that that's picture was present was somebody that just like
00:58:06
David could not have been there that night we don't know we don't have an answer and that's the frustrating part
00:58:12
is you know all of this was disappeared you know I have two depositions from two
00:58:19
of the main detectives mucklo and Samson and the attorney who's deposing them says what happened to this lineup where
00:58:27
should it have been and they admit yeah it should have been in Discovery and I don't know I don't know why it's gone I
00:58:32
mean there's so many highly suspicious things like that in this case where it's like
00:58:38
why are you not doing things by the book why are lineups disappearing why are witnesses being suppressed you know
00:58:45
there's just so much that that muddies it and if they did get it right if they did get it right and Joe and David did
00:58:53
this the way they said it I mean they got really lucky because there's a lot of errors and there's a
00:59:02
reason why people don't trust these convictions Yvonne Lane she's found around 12 12 30 April 1st she's her dead
00:59:11
body is found by her mother Tanya who is there to pick up one of the children I believe to take them to school or take
00:59:20
them somewhere for the day and that was pretty a pretty routine thing it sounds like let's go back to the murder scene
00:59:27
because we have four children as you say that were there no matter how you shake this thing
00:59:35
they were there during the murder before during and after the murder what is the
00:59:41
and you can ballpark the ages for me if if you need to but what is the oldest child's age and what is the youngest
00:59:48
child's age yep so the kids that were there the youngest was Trenton he was just born he was a baby I mean I don't
00:59:54
think he was even a year yet so Trenton was in the crib and the way to understand this house it's you know I
00:59:59
didn't really understand it until I saw it but there is to three floors and you kind of enter in what looks like the
01:00:06
basement floor because the rest of the house you go upstairs and that's where the kitchen is and the dining room in
01:00:12
the living room and where she was murdered and then one more floor up is her bedroom so the baby was sleeping in
01:00:18
the bedroom up on the third floor and then there was Brandon and Preston Preston was six Brendan was two they
01:00:27
were locked in their bedroom there was a lock on the outside they were locked in
01:00:31
their bedroom and then there was Vinnie Vinny's four and he's the disabled child
01:00:36
he has fragile ex it's like a form of kind of severe um um yeah gosh I don't even know how to
01:00:46
explain it kind of kind of like down syndrome a little bit um you know kind of on that Spectrum
01:00:51
um he's the oldest no he was four so he's so Preston six Brandon okay yeah Trenton's
01:01:00
the baby and Vinnie is four and he was in his crib on the first floor the basement room that you walk into so he
01:01:08
was actually not locked in a room or a baby that couldn't move so he was actually free to roam the house and when
01:01:17
he was found the next day he allegedly said that he saw Jimmy Jeremy Jimmy or Jeremy push mommy down
01:01:29
so the thinking has always been that Vinnie saw this person he saw what happened the way that this breaks down
01:01:36
is other than the statement from from that child it doesn't sound like any of the other
01:01:43
kids heard or saw anything that was of use to the investigation no I mean depending on
01:01:50
what time she was killed we know that April 1st is supposed to be a normal day they're going to go about
01:01:58
the normal routine of their day so much so that Yvonne's mom is coming to pick up one of the children and it's not till
01:02:04
noon 12 30 that her lifeless bodies discovered and again we none of the kids saw anything
01:02:13
during the fact during the course of the murder or even after afterwards as far as we know as far as we know and that's
01:02:21
that's what makes it even more sad is that you know it's very likely Vinnie saw this and it's also really sad
01:02:27
because Vinnie can't communicate we don't know what Vinnie saw he can't communicate it and in any interview he
01:02:34
has done since which was really back then only with police and I think you know like a child psychiatrist
01:02:40
there it's nothing nothing of value has come from it um and you know he's not really able to be
01:02:48
interviewed you know by me or anybody he you know I asked his brother Preston the
01:02:52
six-year-old he was six at the time I spoke to Preston he's in the podcast and you know he says there's no there's no
01:02:58
point in asking Vinnie because he doesn't his brain doesn't really function like
01:03:03
that he's not he's not able to communicate um so that's the tragedy too is that not
01:03:09
only did this child probably see his mother murdered but the one child who did can't communicate what he saw
01:03:15
[Music] murder again [Music] [Music] thank you so much for listening to the show we want to hear from you go to our
01:03:38
blog at True Crime garage.com and please follow us on Facebook Twitter Instagram at True Crime garage Colonel
01:03:47
join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter
01:03:55
foreign [Music]