09x26 - Fishing for the Truth

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Narrator: when a ship's captain turned up dead after a

Raging storm, some said his death was a tragic accident.

An eyewitness told police it was m*rder.

But something on this videotape raised questions about who was

Telling the truth.

Venice, louisiana, like its namesake in italy, is a place

Where life revolves around the water.

The small town marks the spot where the mississippi river

Empties into the gulf of mexico.

Locals call it "the end of the world."

Everybody knows everybody's business, pretty

Much -- good and bad.

And some people like it and some people don't.

I tend to like it.

Narrator: many people in venice make their money trawling

For shrimp.

It's hard, dangerous work.

The sea can either be friend or foe.

It's rough, and the people there are rough.

It's not a genteel community.

There's friction there.

There's friction there between the pleasure fisherman and the

Workaday fisherman that does it for a living.

Narrator: in july of , a storm battered the louisiana

Coast, while the fishing boats were still at sea.

All the boats somehow made it back safely -- all except one.

Captain raymond leiker, otherwise known as "tinky," and

His deckhand alvin latham were missing along with their

Shrimp boat named "the bandit."

The coast guard was notified.

They searched the area in the gulf where tinky had made his

Last radio transmission, but found nothing.

Hours later, a vietnamese fishing trawler picked up a

Man in the gulf clinging to a piece of wood.

It was alvin latham, the deckhand.

He was exhausted but unharmed.

When interviewed by the coast guard, alvin told a horrifying

Tale.

Alvin said the storm came up so fast that he and tinky were

Unprepared.

The wind just picked up and we was bouncing all over the

Place.

Narrator: with five-foot waves crashing over the bow and

The fishing nets full of shrimp still in the water, the boat

Started to list.

It seemed like it was just sinking, and then he reported

"Mayday! Mayday!" Narrator: when they tried to

Pull the nets into the boat, tinky's foot got stuck.

Alvin said he tried desperately to get tinky's foot out of the

Net, but he was unsuccessful.

He said he wasn't gonna make it.

He had asked god to take care of his son.

Narrator: tinky told alvin to try to save himself.

So, I told him I was gonna go try and get some help.

That's when I started swimming.

Narrator: just moments after alvin jumped into the water, the

Boat slipped below the surface.

Like that, the boat was just going down.

Narrator: alvin said he managed to grab hold of a piece

Of wood and swam for hours until he was rescued.

I was doing everything I could to try to catch my --

Keep my head above the water.

Now, it seemed like I was swimming forever.

He's told his story -- he tried to save his captain.

It was tender.

It was endearing.

It could have happened to anyone.

Narrator: but alvin didn't want accolades.

I don't see myself as -- I failed at what I was doing.

I couldn't get no help to get him.

Narrator: several days later, the coast guard found tinky's

Body floating in the gulf of mexico.

And the body told a story that was very different from alvin's

Story.

Narrator: the coast guard found tinky leiker's body in the

Gulf of mexico five days after the storm.

The only other person on the boat, alvin latham, said he

Tried to save tinky's life but was unable to free his foot from

The fishing nets.

He was going around talking about how he was a hero, he had

Survived the storm, and that type of thing.

Narrator: but when the local coroner performed a routine

Autopsy, the findings contradicted alvin's story.

He had trauma to his head, his left arm was partially

Amputated.

Narrator: the coroner also found five s*ab wounds on the

Arms that would be considered defensive wounds as if the

Victim was fending off a knife attack.

Someone that's trying to defend themselves will raise

Their arms in front of their face, and that way they would

Catch the s*ab wounds about the forearm.

And that's where they was on raymond leiker.

Narrator: and the coroner found evidence of blunt force

Trauma to the head.

Tinky leiker's death was ruled a homicide.

Someone k*lled raymond leiker.

Alvin latham was the only one on the boat that we know of.

His own self said he was the only one.

Narrator: when the coast guard interviewed alvin just

After his rescue, he said nothing about tinky being

Stabbed or struck in the head.

So police asked alvin to come to headquarters and explain the

Discrepancies.

So, we started en route to the jail, and he says, "you all

Found the body?" I said, "yeah, we did."

He says, "well, I guess I'm in trouble."

Narrator: investigators videotaped the interrogation.

Alvin latham's original story when we first picked him up --

He said the captain was caught in a trawl net, the boat was

Sinking, and he swam off of the boat and watched it go down.

Narrator: police informed alvin latham that the story he

Told didn't match the forensic evidence.

If raymond leiker's foot was caught in the net, he would've

Went down with that boat.

Narrator: after five hours of questioning and three more on

The following day, alvin gradually began to change his

Story.

Alvin started saying things like he felt uncomfortable with

Raymond leiker.

He didn't make him feel comfortable.

He was coming up with things that happened to him on that

Boat, saying that raymond touched his leg and made him

Feel uncomfortable, that type of thing.

I'm thinking, "finally we're getting somewhere with him.

Finally, we're starting to get the truth."

And that's when he come around and started telling us what he

Told us about the stabbing.

Narrator: alvin now said that, when the boat took on

Water, he feared for his life, and there was only one

Life jacket on board.

To get the life jacket, alvin waited until tinky's back was

Turned, grabbed a pipe, and struck him.

How many times did you hit him with that pipe?

Narrator: alvin said when he tried to grab the life jacket,

Tinky came after him.

Alvin used a knife to defend himself.

I guess I stabbed him in the arms five times, and he fell

Overboard.

Are you telling me the truth?

Yeah.

Narrator: and with his confession, alvin latham was

Charged with m*rder.

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say can and will be used against you...

Not many cases, you begin with someone being a hero, and

Then, in a matter of two or three days, he was a villain.

He was a k*ller.

Narrator: as alvin latham sat in jail on a m*rder charge,

Everyone in venice, louisiana was talking about what happened

Or didn't happen the night tinky leiker died.

Everyone debated it -- two people, one life jacket.

What would I do?

Would I share it?

You'd like to think you'd share it, but would you?

Since alvin was a man of limited means, the court

Appointed attorney peter barbee to defend him.

Barbee couldn't understand why alvin would have k*lled the

Captain over a life jacket, yet wasn't wearing it when he was

Found floating in the water the next day.

I told alvin, I said, "whatever you do, tell me the

Truth.

If you did it, that's all right.

We'll figure out how to handle it."

But I said, "whatever you do, tell me the truth."

Narrator: alvin now told his lawyer that he <span tts:fontstyle="italic">didn't</span>k*ll

Tinky.

He reverted to his original story, the one he told the coast

Guard the day after the storm, that tinky's death was an

Accident.

I had to prove to a jury that he was vulnerable and very

Capable of confessing to something he didn't do.

Man, you would not believe how strong there is amongst people

In the public that "you wouldn't confess to something you

Wouldn't do.

Why would you confess to something you didn't do?"

Narrator: to find out, barbee showed the entire eight hours of

Alvin's police interviews to dr. Jill hayes hammer, a

Forensic psychologist from the l.s.u. School of medicine.

Come on, alvin!

What happened?

Do you know anything?

You couldn't swim for hours, alvin.

I was very annoyed, actually.

Because it was obvious to me, as a professional, that alvin was

Incredibly slow and that he was being taken advantage of.

Narrator: dr. Richard leo, a professor of criminology and

Psychology at the university of california at irvine, agrees.

This is an awful, awful interrogation.

I think this is shoddy, poor police work, and I think the

Detectives who conducted this interrogation should be

Retrained and, until they're retrained, should not be

Permitted to do another interrogation.

Narrator: during the first day of police interrogation,

Alvin denied he k*lled tinky.

Come on, alvin.

What you gonna do?

Say something.

Explain it.

What you saw was an incredible amount of

Intimidation.

Over times, alvin said that he did not do it.

He was emphatic in saying that he did not do it.

The police continued saying, "alvin, until you tell us what

We want to hear, you will not be able to go home."

Narrator: but during the second day of interrogation,

Alvin started repeating what the investigators were telling him.

That's one of the most hostile interrogations I've

Seen.

Interrogators are trained across the country not to be hostile.

They're going against the standard training that

Interrogators receive.

Narrator: experts say another sign of a false confession is

When the suspect's story doesn't match the physical evidence.

When the suspect's story doesn't match the physical evidence.

At one point, alvin literally says, "I hit him with a

Two-by-four."

And he says, "there wasn't any damn two-by-four.

It's a sinking boat."

And he says, "uh, a hammer?" "There wasn't a hammer on that

Boat."

He says, "a pipe?" And he goes, "okay.

Yeah, that could've worked.

So, you hit him in the head with a pipe?"

I mean, that literally is how they get the story out of him.

It's just so obviously stupid.

What they failed to see is, he doesn't have any memories of

Doing the things that they're accusing him of doing, that he

Then caves in ultimately and passively accepts.

And that's why he's using that language.

Narrator: dr. Hayes hammer discovered that alvin's iq was

, And he had dropped out of school in the ninth grade.

You have many people with low iqs who have had rap sheets as

Long as my arm.

Alvin did not, so he was very naive to what was going on in

The criminal justice system, and he also did not have the

Intelligence to be able to cope with the questioning by the

Police officers.

Narrator: false confessions do occur.

One of the most famous cases happened in england when a

Teenager, richard buckland, confessed to the r*pe and m*rder

Of a young girl, but dna testing proved he didn't do it.

Most people don't understand how someone can be made to

Falsely confess, but as an empirical matter, the fact is

That they occur and they've been documented.

So many have been documented that the question should not be

"Do they occur?" But rather "why do they occur and what can

We do to minimize them?" Narrator: most people who are

Questioned by police don't realize that they can leave the

Interrogation any time, meaning they don't have to put up with

Relentless questioning.

But trying to explain to a jury why someone would confess to a

Crime they didn't commit is always difficult.

Confessions override lack of evidence, improper searches, and

Everything else.

So, if you want to prosecute somebody, what's the best thing

In the world?

You have a confession.

It just got to where I just agreed with what they said just

To get them off my back, because I knew they would stop the

Questions after I agreed with them.

Life has been very hard to alvin, and I will be damned if I

Was gonna sit back and watch the system steamroll him out of

Convenience to cover for corrupt, stupid cops.

And that's the only way to describe it.

Narrator: but there was still the matter of the coroner's

Report, which had ruled tinky's death a homicide.

Narrator: peter barbee was now convinced that

Alvin latham's taped confession had been coerced.

But why did the coroner rule tinky's death a homicide?

In looking at the autopsy findings, barbee discovered

That the coroner did not know the depth of the so-called knife

Wounds.

The coroner never measured them, never dissected them,

Never checked them for the angle.

Narrator: from the photographs, dr. Cyril wecht, an

Independent forensic pathologist, didn't believe

These were s*ab wounds at all.

I expect all or at least some of the wounds to have had some

Significant depth of penetration.

We do not have that in this case.

Hence, I do not believe that these were s*ab wounds.

Narrator: but if they weren't s*ab wounds, what were they?

When you think of a propeller, any portion of it,

Striking some part of the body, then it is easy to understand

How you can get these kinds of injuries.

Dr. Wecht thinks this is also what caused tinky's fractured

Skull -- that his body was accidentally run over by a

Passing ship while floating in the gulf.

I believe that it is most plausible to infer that those

Areas of apparent trauma to mr. Leiker's body were sustained

Postmortem when his body was floating for about five days in

The gulf.

Narrator: interestingly, the tugboat captain who picked up

Tinky's body agreed.

He says, "I've been a boat captain a long time, and this is

Not the first body I've seen."

And he says, "that man was run over by a boat."

Narrator: and the tugboat captain told peter barbee

Something else, something which hadn't been made public.

He said, "he had one boot on and one boot off."

Well, the lights went off on that one because that was

Alvin's basic story, was that, on the boat at the end of it,

Tinky had gone down with the ship because he had a foot stuck

Under a cable.

That's more sherlock-holmesian [chuckles] --

The man with one boot.

It correlated with the story that the foot was caught in the

Trawling net.

That is as good a reason as any, and better than most, to explain

Why one boot was on and one boot was not on.

Narrator: with these new findings, peter barbee believed

The coroner's ruling was inaccurate.

You have an incompetent coroner, and that's being

Polite.

So these wounds tell me that the story that mr. Latham

Originally gave was the correct one, and that there were no

Injuries inflicted on mr. Leiker's body by

Alvin latham.

Narrator: when alvin latham went on trial for the m*rder of

Tinky leiker, prosecutors played alvin's confession for the jury.

But later, the jury watched the entire eight-hour interrogation.

But later, the jury watched the entire eight-hour interrogation.

Anyone that watched the tape, that saw what happened -- any

Intelligent person couldn't help be convinced that this was

A blatant case of police brutality.

Narrator: the jury also heard from the defense

Pathologist who concluded tinky's death was an accident.

And alvin latham took the stand in his own defense and told the

Same story he told to the coast guard after the storm --

That tinky's foot got stuck in the fishing nets and that his

Death was an accident.

After six hours of deliberation, the jury came back with their

Verdict -- not guilty.

With modern technology today, with all the learning people

Got, I knew I had a chance.

When you look at the evidence and you look at the

Forensics and what it shows us, alvin was telling the truth.

Unfortunately, just nobody wanted to accept it or believe

It.

So they just kept pushing him till he came up with something

That they wanted to believe.

And they wanted to believe it because they fed it to him.

Narrator: today alvin works at the local supermarket

Stacking shelves.

The man who conducted alvin's interrogation thinks the jury

Made a mistake.

Everybody can't be the good guy or no one would confess to

A serious crime.

In all my years of experience, I've never known anyone to come

And say "I committed this crime" without interrogation.

And that's just tactics you use to get confessions.

Narrator: but peter barbee thinks interrogation should be

About getting the truth, not getting a confession.

He wanted to pick on alvin.

I'd like to see him come pick on me, and you can print that one.

That's how badly I feel about what he did to that man.

He's a bully and a punk.