[Back to Document View]

                            LexisNexisª Academic

              Copyright 2002 National Broadcasting Co. Inc.
                            NBC News Transcripts

                   SHOW: Dateline NBC (9:00 PM ET) - NBC

                          December 6, 2002 Friday

LENGTH: 7754 words

HEADLINE: And Justice For All?; Four teen-age boys convicted of murder have
convictions reversed 15 years later by DNA evidence

REPORTERS: ROB STAFFORD

BODY:
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL?

Now, And Justice For All, tonight's DATELINE Special. Here is Stone
Phillips.

STONE PHILLIPS: Good evening. It happened on a chilly Friday night, a crime
that shook the windy city: a beautiful medical student raped and murdered.
She was just 23. The coverage of the case was intense, and so was the
pressure on the police to find her killer. Soon they did: four teen-agers
from the projects with a mountain of evidence against them. Convicted by a
jury, sentenced by a judge, they were going to spend the rest of their lives
behind bars, unless one woman could find what no one else had, a way to
punch a hole right through this rock-solid case. Here's Rob Stafford.

ROB STAFFORD reporting: (Voiceover) Saturday morning in Chicago, 4:40 AM, a
railroad cop patrolling a lonely access road finds a car parked where no car
should be. As he gets closer, he notices something on the ground. Inside the
car, a wallet with no cash and ID for a young woman named Lori Roscetti.
(Chicago streets; fence; road; photo of car; railroad tracks; photo of car;
train passing; photo of wallet; photo of Lori Roscetti laying next to car)

Ms. LAURA ROSCETTI: She'd say, 'Mom, how many kids did you want?' I said,
'Well, your dad wanted three, and I wanted five.' She said, 'Well, I'm
si--number six.' And I says, 'Yeah, you're a bonus.'

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Laura Roscetti's daughter, Lori, was the youngest of
six, a smart, quiet kid with dreams that extended far beyond their small
house by the railroad tracks in Springfield, Illinois. She worked all
through high school at local stores, and when she wasn't working, she was
burning the midnight oil, writing papers she sometimes asked her mom to
type.

(Photos of Lori)

Ms. ROSCETTI: (Voiceover) She says, 'Mom, I'm going to work--wake you up at
4:30 so you can type it while I sleep an hour.

(Photo of Lori)

Ms. ROSCETTI: And she'd have to get up within an hour to get ready for
school and--and read the paper and make sure I had typed it right.

Offscreen Voice #1: (From video) To my left, today we have Lori Roscetti, a
senior.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Lori Roscetti represented her high school in academic
competitions and was valedictorian of her class. After college, she got into
Rush Medical School in Chicago. She was a truck driver's daughter on the way
to becoming the first doctor in her family.

(Video of Lori with students at competition, photos of Lori)

Ms. ROSCETTI: (Voiceover) To see your daughter grow up and blossom like
that, it--it's pretty nice.

(Home video of Lori)

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) On Friday night, October 17th, 1986, Lori was working
late as usual, studying for midterm exams. Medical student Allen Radner told
the police he escorted her to her car at about 1 AM, drove with her to his
dorm and saw her drive away. Radner said he locked the passenger door when
he got out of the car. He thought Lori was headed straight home to get some
sleep.

(Moon; photo of Allen Radner; car driving; photo of Radner; apartment
building)

Unidentified Man #1: (Voiceover) (From file footage) Her body was found on
the ground near the railroad tracks outside her blood-spattered car.

(Police searching Lori's car)

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) The Chicago Police called Lori's mom Saturday morning.

(Photo of car)

STAFFORD: How did you get through the day?

Ms. ROSCETTI: I don't know. I don't know. I cried almost daily for nine and
a half years.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) It was what veteran detectives call a "heater" case.

(Excerpt from newspaper article)

Mr. JIM MAURER: A heater case would be one that draws a lot of public
attention right off the bat, something that catches the eye.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Jim Maurer was chief of detective for Area Four in
Chicago where the murder occurred. His detectives found bruises all over
Lori Roscetti's body. Her ribs were broken. Her face had been smashed in
with a block of concrete. Chicago Police canvassed the area around the
railroad tracks but found no witnesses to the crime, but the damage done to
the victim seemed to say a lot about her killer.

(Jim Maurer; police sketches; photo of Lori; photo of police near railroad
tracks; photo of Lori laying next to car)

STAFFORD: The killer probably knew Lori Roscetti?

Mr. MAURER: Right. You would think it's more of a personal crime. Why would
you smash someone's head in? It's a very personal act.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Lori's mom wasn't so sure.

(Laura Roscetti)

STAFFORD: Did Lori have any enemies?

Ms. ROSCETTI: Not that I know of.

STAFFORD: Any jealous boyfriends that might have been upset?

Ms. ROSCETTI: No, not that I know of.

STAFFORD: You felt this had to be a stranger?

Ms. ROSCETTI: Yes, but I couldn't--I couldn't see how it would happen.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Just as Lori's mom said, investigators could find no
enemies or rivals, and so they turned their attention to the tough part of
town near the medical school. The railroad cop remembered seeing a young
black man wearing a shower cap just before finding the body. While
detectives pulled the cases of criminals known to work the area, community
leaders offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to her killing.

(Photo of Lori; police car; people talking; apartment building; man putting
up reward signs)

Mr. OMAR SAUNDERS: I remember the--the poster being right there by Tom's Hot
Dog Stand, and it--it--it attracted my attention.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Omar Saunders grew up in the Abla Housing Project near
the railroad tracks where Lori Roscetti's body was found. At the time of the
murder, he was a street-wise 17-year-old with no real home. His mother was
dead, his father in and out of prison. He moved around a lot, staying with
friends and relatives, including his best friend Marsellius Bradford.

(Apartment building; child walking; man walking; photo of Omar Saunders;
photo of Marsellius Bradford)

Mr. SAUNDERS: Me and Marsellius, we--we basically grew up together. He's
like a brother to me. In fact, we had the name "Salt and Pepper" before the
rap group came out because I'm dark-skinned and Marsellius Bradford is
light-skinned.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) In a fourth-floor apartment, not far from the murder
scene, Omar and Marsellius shared the same clothes and dreamed the same
dreams.

(Apartment building)

Mr. SAUNDERS: Yeah, you know, we had dreams of being rappers. And, you know,
creative fate has a way of sending your destiny another way.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) While detectives worked the neighborhood, the crime
lab had developed an important lead. It appeared Lori Roscetti had been
raped.

(Police car; police sketch)

STAFFORD: Is semen found?

Mr. MAURER: Yes.

STAFFORD: And is your a assumption that this semen belongs to the person who
killed Lori Roscetti?

Mr. MAURER: At that point, we would have to make that assumption, certainly.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) DNA testing was in its infancy at the time, so the
Chicago Police crime lab conducted other, less precise tests on a vaginal
swab taken from the victim. The detectives' notes indicate they talked with
Pam Fish of the Chicago Police crime lab whose tests suggested that the
sperm is from a person who was a type-O secretor. That meant his blood type
was O, and they could tell his blood type by testing his semen.

(Equipment at lab; tests being performed; detectives' notes; Pam Fish; test
tubes)

STAFFORD: Did you test old friends?

Mr. MAURER: Mm-hmm.

STAFFORD: Boyfriends?

Mr. MAURER: Yes.

STAFFORD: Anybody come back as an O secretor?

Mr. MAURER: No.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) The detectives' document months of painstaking work,
but there wasn't much Jim Maurer could tell Lori Roscetti's family.

(Detectives' reports; Roscetti family)

Mr. MAURER: Quite frankly, I didn't know if we'd ever solve it.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) And then a big break. After looking at old reports of
crimes committed in the area, detectives brought some suspects in for
routine questioning. And suddenly the police had a detailed account of the
last hours of Lori Roscetti's life.

(Police officers; photo of Lori)

Offscreen Voice #2: (From file footage) This morning, four suspects were
named.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) And one of them was...

(Excerpt from news program)

Voice #2: Seventeen-year-old Marsellius Bradford.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Marsellius Bradford, Omar's best friend.

(Excerpt from news program)

Mr. SAUNDERS: They showed him on TV. He was on TV being charged with this
crime. So I'm thinking, you know, you know, this is my friend. He couldn't
have done that.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But 17-year-old Marsellius Bradford had indeed given
this signed confession to a Cook County prosecutor and a court reporter. In
it, he implicated 14-year-old Calvin Ollins, Calvin's 16-year-old cousin,
Larry Ollins, another friend of Omar's. The police were still looking for a
fourth suspect. Jim Maurer announced the motive for the crime at a press
conference in 1987.

(Confession; photo of Calvin Ollins; photo of Larry Ollins; Maurer at press
conference)

Mr. MAURER: (From file footage): One of the offenders needed money to get to
his home in Cabrini-Green. And the group had decided to rob the first person
that comes along.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) According to Marsellius Bradford's confession, the
suspects jumped into Lori Roscetti's car when she stopped at a stop sign on
her way home from the medical school. They pulled her into the back seat,
subdued her and drove to a secluded spot by the railroad tracks. Here she
was raped by one of them, and when she tried to run away...

(Street; stop sign; street; car; railroad tracks)

Mr. MAURER: (From file footage) One of the offenders caught up with her,
laid her on the concrete and with the entire group kicking and striking her,
smashed her skull in with a huge piece of concrete.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Then, according to Marsellius, two of the other
suspects tried to rape her while she was dying. That same day at Area Four
headquarters, 14-year-old Calvin also confessed. He too described a
hijacking of Lori's car at the stop sign and the rape and murder that
followed.

(Train passing; Area Four headquarters; photo of Calvin; confession)

Mr. MAURER: I mean this is it. This--these are the killers.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) And two weeks later, the police arrested and charged
the fourth suspected. His name, Omar Saunders. The man who told us he
believed Marsellius couldn't be involved was now being told Marsellius had
implicated him.

(Newspaper headline; Saunders; photo of Bradford)

Mr. SAUNDERS: He couldn't have we really didn't do it.

STAFFORD: The police said the case was solved, but the mystery had just
begun.

Announcer: Were they guilty, or were they framed?

STAFFORD: I mean, you're talking about police officers. Why would they lie?

Announcer: When our Dateline Special And Justice For All continues.

(Announcements)

Announcer: We now return to And Justice For All.

Mr. SAUNDERS: (Voiceover) You ever have one of those dreams you--it's a bad
dream, and you just can't wake up? That's how I feel all the time. I feel
like it's a nightmare that ain't stopped.

(Saunders in jail; barbed wire)

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Omar Saunders says his nightmare began when detectives
told him his best friend Marsellius implicated him in Lori Roscetti's
murder. But at Omar's trial in May 1988, seemed this might be a nightmare he
very much deserved. Two friends from the projects testified Omar told them
he was involved in the murder. Pam Fish of the Chicago Police crime lab
testified that even though Omar didn't have the right blood type, all three
of his co-defendants could have been the source of the semen recovered from
Lori Roscetti's body. And a Chicago detective testified Omar Saunders had
incriminated himself. It happened, the detective said, in an interrogation
room at Area Four headquarters at 3:30 AM on February 13th, 1987. The
detective said he told Omar hairs had been found on the front seat of Lori
Roscetti's car and that those hairs would probably match either his hair or
that of fellow suspect Calvin Ollins. 'I said, "How long did Calvin assault
her?"' the detective said. And he, Omar, said, "For only a couple of
minutes." 'I then said, "You realize those hairs are either yours or
Calvin's." And he said, "Yes, I realize that."' Omar Saunders, who grew a
beard after our first interview, denied this conversation ever took place.
But he had what you might call a credibility problem.

(Confession; photo of Lori; photo of Saunders; photo of two men; Saunders
apartment building; documents; Area Four headquarters; interrogation room;
photo of car seats; photo of Saunders; photo of Calvin; excerpts from
interrogation; Saunders with Rob Stafford)

STAFFORD: Look at your juvenile record, and--and clearly you were not a
choir boy.

Mr. SAUNDERS: I've got two--two delinquent rulings against me.

STAFFORD: Stealing.

Mr. SAUNDERS: OK, I thought I was Robin Hood.

STAFFORD: And you did that more than twice.

Mr. SAUNDERS: I thought I was Robin Hood.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) His best friend Marsellius had an even longer juvenile
record that including armed robbery. And his friend, Larry, had been found
guilty of battering another youth in a manner that police believe was
similar to the attack on Lori Roscetti. Omar also had no alibi witnesses for
the night of the murder. But despite all this, Omar not only insists he is
innocent; he accuses the police of gross misconduct. That night at Area Four
headquarters, Omar says the police didn't question him; they presented him
with a script of the testimony they wanted him to give against the other
suspects.

(Photo of Bradford; documents; photo of Larry; photo of Saunders; Area Four
headquarters; interrogation room; photo of Saunders)

Mr. SAUNDERS: They wanted me to say that I was breaking into the cars that
night, and that I heard...

STAFFORD: Those are rail cars.

Mr. SAUNDERS: Yeah, and I saw four individuals and a lady. And the
individuals I saw was Larry, Calvin and Bradford, and the other guy I
couldn't identify that well.

STAFFORD: What did you say to police?

Mr. SAUNDERS: I ain't fit to lie for nobody.

STAFFORD: And what do they say?

Mr. SAUNDERS: Told me I'd better help myself, or they can make me the fourth
guy.

STAFFORD: I mean, you're talking about police officers. They're not
convicts. They don't have criminal records. Why would they lie? Why would
they make all this up?

Mr. SAUNDERS: I am talking about--you--you call them police. I'm talking
about a criminal with a badge.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) While the jury was deliberating his fate, Omar
Saunders fell asleep in a courtroom holding pen, and there, he says, he
dreamed of Lori Roscetti.

(Saunders in holding pen; photo of Lori)

Mr. SAUNDERS: And in the dream, she was saying, in the dream, that she was
sorry for what happened to me and my friends. She said that everything was
going to be all right. And I heard a clanking on the bars, clank, clank,
clank, clank, clank. And I got up, and I honestly--in my mind, that was a
premonition from God that, 'You're going to beat this. The jury's going to
come back with a verdict of not guilty. You're going home,' you know. And I
walk out there, and they say, "Guilty."

STAFFORD: Guilty.

Mr. SAUNDERS: Yeah, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Relying on the confessions, the scientific evidence,
the testimony of friends and police detectives, juries convicted Calvin,
Omar and Larry in three separate trials. The press called them a pack of
jackals, and a judge sentenced them all to a life without parole, all except
Marsellius Bradford who cooperated and accepted a plea bargain. He served
just six years because he helped the prosecution.

(Confessions; documents; photos of Calvin, Saunders and Larry; cell door
being opened; Bradford walking)

Mr. SAUNDERS: I was blistering at Marsellius. I was angry, yeah. I was angry
because I wouldn't have done that, you know, what he did. I wouldn't--I
wouldn't have done that to save myself.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) He says he'd always believed his friend was innocent,
that they'd all been framed by detectives who desperately wanted to solve a
high-profile case. But now he started to wonder, 'Did Marsellius murder Lori
Roscetti, and did he implicate his best friends so that he would do less
time himself?' On the local news, Omar saw detectives receiving awards for
solving the case. He spent two years in solitary for assaulting a guard. He
was stabbed 14 times in a fight and had an ice pick lodged in his skull.
Over time, friends and family abandoned him.

(Saunders in cell; photo of Bradford; photo of news broadcast; Saunders in
cell)

Mr. SAUNDERS: All of my friends, all of my--all my--my associations were
destroyed, all of my friends.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) In prison, he read veraciously, law and religion,
philosophy and history.

(Saunders reading)

Mr. SAUNDERS: I started with the--the metaphysical books, and then I started
reading history books, reading about how just a few people, sometimes one
person, altered the course of--of history.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) For 10 years, he would read and study and try to
overturn his conviction. His friend and co-defendant Larry Ollins urged him
to look at the scientific testimony.

(Saunders in cell; photo of Larry)

Mr. SAUNDERS: Larry had been writing me in letters for years telling me,
'It's the semen.'

STAFFORD: The semen evidence that was found at the Roscetti murder scene.

Mr. SAUNDERS: Exactly, yeah.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) As Omar worked his way through the complicated and
nuanced scientific testimony of Pam Fish, it was what he didn't find that
got his attention. Pam Fish never testified that any of those who were
convicted were O secretors, yet this was supposed to be the killer's blood
type.

(Saunders in cell; document; Fish; document; test being done)

Mr. SAUNDERS: I knew, this is--this is what we'd been waiting on right
there. This is the proof that's going to unravel the whole scheme to frame
us.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) He wrote his own petition to a judge explaining what
he had found.

(Saunders in cell)

Mr. SAUNDERS: The judge ruled that our petition was frivolous and patently
without merit.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Omar Saunders needed help. Katherine Zellner is an
attorney from Naperville, Illinois. She does mainly medical malpractice
work, but each year she takes on few cases of prisoners she believes might
be exonerated through DNA testing. Omar Saunders read about her in a
magazine and sent her a letter.

(Saunders in cell; Katherine Zellner shooting gun)

Ms. KATHERINE ZELLNER: What he was saying to me was, 'Take a chance with us.
Do the scientific testing.' And he kept saying to me, 'You will see. You
will see that we are innocent. We have nothing to fear doing these tests.'

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Zellner asked a forensic scientist to review Pam
Fish's testimony in the Roscetti case, and the scientist concluded Omar was
right about the testimony of Pam Fish.

(Microscope; documents; test tubes)

Ms. ZELLNER: She had told the police in October the killer was an O
secretor. It's all over the police reports. Everyone who was brought in and
examined was discharged if they were shown to be a a non-secretor. And all
four of these men are non-secretors. You wouldn't think that would happen,
would you?

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But these conclusions were based on old technology,
and Zellner knew her clients would have to advantage of newer and more
precise DNA testing, if they wanted to prove their innocence.

(Test tubes; DNA computer program)

STAFFORD: Without that DNA?

Ms. ZELLNER: There's no way. There's no way.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) In March 2001, she obtained a court order to conduct
DNA testing. And so a vaginal swab taken from Lori Roscetti 14 years earlier
was sent to an independent lab for analysis. Shortly after the swab arrived,
Zellner got a call from one of the scientists.

(Zellner at desk; test being done; test tubes)

Ms. ZELLNER: She tells me that just on examination of it, a superficial
examination, it doesn't look like there's going to be anything there to
test. I felt like it was a drowning man, and I had a piece of rope, and I
was throwing it, but it might hit the water and be six inches short, you
know. I just--I wasn't sure I could get the rope to them.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But the independent lab managed to extract enough DNA
from the swab after all and compared it to DNA samples taken from the Omar,
Calvin, Larry and Marsellius.

(Test being done; test tube)

STAFFORD: You get a phone call?

Mr. SAUNDERS: I got a FedEx.

STAFFORD: And what--what do you see?

Mr. SAUNDERS: I see the results come back, and it ain't us, you know. We
ain't the guy. And so I'm like (sighs) you know.

Ms. ZELLNER: It's someone that has an extraordinary DNA that would only
match one out of 8 trillion people. It's an amazing profile, but it's not
them.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But that wasn't enough for Jim Maurer, former chief of
Area Four detectives. Just because it's not their semen, he says, that
doesn't mean they're not the killers.

(Maurer with Stafford; crime scene photo; document)

STAFFORD: Now you know that semen came from someone else.

Mr. MAURER: That's right.

STAFFORD: How do you account for that?

Mr. MAURER: There are a number of things that could have happened. There
could have been additional sexual encounters.

STAFFORD: Maybe Lori Roscetti had consensual sex with someone the police
simply didn't know about, Maurer says. Or maybe Calvin and Marsellius didn't
mention all of the conspirators because they were afraid of some of them.
Besides, if Omar Saunders is really innocent, how do you explain the two
confessions, the two friends who say Omar admitted guilt to them, and the
testimony of the detective who interrogated Omar? Could all of those people
have been lying?

(Voiceover) In June of last year, Zellner and Cook County prosecutors agreed
to test 22 more pieces of physical evidence, Lori Roscetti's clothes and
shoes, even the material found under her fingernails. All would be examined
for the slightest sign that Omar and the others had been at the crime scene.
Zellner was convinced that if her clients passed this test, they would walk
free. But by this time, there had also been another twist in the case. After
all these years, Marsellius had something he wanted to say.

(Zellner in office; police sketches; barbed wire; newspaper headline;
Bradford)

Announcer: Another confession from Marsellius Bradford.

Mr. MARSELLIUS BRADFORD: I think God has punished me for what I did.

Announcer: When our DATELINE Special, And Justice For All continues.

(Announcements)

Announcer: And Justice For All, tonight's DATELINE Special, continues.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) In February 2001, before there were any DNA results,
Kathleen Zellner went to see Marsellius Bradford, Omar's old friend and
accuser. The teen-ager who confessed was now a 30-year-old racked with
guilt.

(Bradford walking; Bradford looking out window)

Mr. BRADFORD: I think about it every day. I think God has punished me for
what I did.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But the commandment he says he broke is "Thou shalt
not lie," not "Thou shalt not kill."

(Bradford walking)

Mr. BRADFORD: I confessed to a murder I didn't commit.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) He told Kathleen Zellner that he'd been trying to tell
someone about this for years, but no one would listen. And then he described
his interrogation at Area Four headquarters 14 years earlier.

(Bradford; Area Four headquarters)

Mr. BRADFORD: They got me down in that police station and told me a strip,
'Take all of your clothes off.'

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) 'Who was with you when you killed Lori Roscetti?' he
says he was asked. And when he told them he knew nothing about the crime, he
says the beating began.

(Area Four headquarters)

Mr. BRADFORD: I was 17, 150 pounds. I was constantly beat. I mean, my nose
was smashed in, blood everywhere.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Detectives wearing black gloves punched him and kicked
him, he says, And they cleaned the blood off by throwing dirty mop water on
him.

(Window; Bradford)

Mr. BRADFORD: They kept telling me they--they're going to get a statement
out of me one way or the other.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) He said detectives humiliated him and threatened to
kill him.

(Ceiling fan)

Mr. BRADFORD: I just couldn't take it no more, you know. I told them,
'I'll--I'll whatever you all want me to do. If you all want me to confess to
this, OK, I'll do it.'

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Because he helped the prosecutors, Marsellius was
sentenced to 12 years and got out in six. While he friends did their time,
he wallowed in guilt and booze and got arrested for burglary, which is why
he was in prison in southern Illinois when Kathleen Zellner met with him.
Marsellius signed affidavit recanting his confession, and he sent a personal
letter to Omar Saunders.

(Bradford in prison; barbed wire; affidavit)

Mr. BRADFORD: (Reading) 'I know you had 13 years of anger in you. From the
bottom of what's left of my heart, I'm sorry.'

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Calvin's confession also didn't hold up, Kathleen
Zellner concluded. Documents show Calvin had a low IQ and a learning
disability. He was just 14 years old and had no criminal record when
detectives interrogated him without an attorney or parent present. Now, he
was a lifer at Joliet.

(Confession; Zellner at computer; photo of Calvin; Calvin walking)

Mr. CALVIN OLLINS: (Voiceover) They told me that, you know, 'You just go
ahead and cooperate, and we'll let you go home.' I thought I was going home,
but it turns out I was--I've been here ever since then.

(Calvin walking)

STAFFORD: This was a medical student who was brutally rape and murdered.

Mr. C. OLLINS: Mm-hmm.

STAFFORD: And you think if you confess to the crime you can--you don't go to
prison for that?

Mr. C. OLLINS: At the same, I didn't underst--I didn't understand the--the
seriousness of what was going on. I didn't understand exactly what I was
getting myself into once I signed that statement.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) And what about the two friends from the projects who
testified Omar Saunders told them he was involved in the murder? Both had
given Kathleen Zellner affidavits recanting their testimony. They said they
lied because police threatened to arrest them if they didn't testify against
Omar.

(Saunders in cell; affidavits; photos of men)

Mr. BRADFORD: (From video) I was beaten so bad, I just--I couldn't take it
no more.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) We showed portions of our interview with Marsellius to
Jim Maurer, chief of Area Four detectives at the time.

(Maurer watching interview with Stafford)

Mr. MAURER: It didn't happen.

STAFFORD: Were you watching it, though?

Mr. MAURER: No, I wasn't. I was confident that...

STAFFORD: Was it videotaped?

Mr. MAURER: No.

STAFFORD: How do you know he's not telling the truth?

Mr. MAURER: I don't believe him. I believe the state's attorney. I believe
my officers, and I believe the fact that a court reporter was sitting in
there who was completely independent from both organizations, would not have
tolerated this.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) The court reporter who was called in after the
interrogation told us he didn't recall any signs Marsellius had been beaten.
And the Chicago Police later provided us with this photo that they say was
taken shortly after Marsellius Bradford confessed. 'Does this look like a
man who was beaten into confessing?' Maurer asks.

(Document; photo of Bradford; confession; photo of Bradford)

Mr. C. OLLINS: (From video) I thought I was going home, but...

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Maurer didn't think much of Calvin's recantation
either.

(Maurer watching Calvin's interview)

Mr. MAURER: He's sharp enough to give us the story or to remember a story
that we planted on him in such detail that he's able to give this, but he
thinks that he's going to--if he confesses to a murder, we're going to
let--going to let him go home? That's ridiculous.

STAFFORD: Fourteen years old.

Mr. MAURER: I don't care if he was 14 years old or if he was 10 years old.
These aren't people that grew up under some mushroom plant someplace. They
live in some of the toughest neighborhoods in this city. When you're 14
years old in--in Cabrini, you're an adult.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Maurer wants to know how Calvin, with his low IQ,
could have provided a detailed account of the crime if hadn't actually been
there. Who would make this kind of a story up?

(Photo of Calvin; documents; crime scene photo)

Mr. MAURER: I've never read anything like this from juveniles, from kids.
It--it--this was beyond anything that could have been made up. You had to
have had some knowledge at that point of this crime.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) It was a point prosecutors hammered home at trial. The
confessions contained details only the killers could have known. But
Kathleen Zellner says she and her associates found telltale signs that the
confessions were police fabrications. For example, in their court-reported
confessions, both Calvin and Marsellius say the fourth man was someone named
Daniel or Daniels, which investigators would later conclude were fictitious
names designed to throw them off Omar's trail. But if that was the case, how
did both Calvin and Marsellius, in separate rooms, invent the same
fictitious person? Both confessions also say the teen-agers jumped into Lori
Roscetti's car when she stopped at a stop sign. But Zellner says there was
no stop sign in the direction Lori Roscetti would have been traveling, if
she was coming home from the med school that night. How could both Calvin
and Marsellius have gotten that wrong? And then there's Lori's wallet. A
detective testified when Marsellius confessed, he said the wallet was left
in the back seat of the car. That fit nicely with this crime scene photo.
What the detectives who interrogated Marsellius may not have known was that
the first officers on the scene found the wallet near the front seat and
later put it on the back seat where it was photographed.

(Documents; boxes; documents; photo of Calvin; photo of Bradford; street;
photo of Calvin; photo of Lori; photo of wallet on back seat; documents;
crime scene photo; photo of wallet on back seat)

Ms. ZELLNER: So the people who wrote the confessions were the police, and
they didn't realize that the wallet had been moved.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But if detectives made up this whole scenario,
Kathleen Zellner wondered, where did it come from? How did they think it up?
She says the answer was sitting right on her bookshelf all along.

(Ceiling fan; Zellner at desk; bookshelf)

Announcer: New evidence that will change everything, when And Justice For
All continues.

Announcer: Coming up on DATELINE Sunday, a young wife and mother murdered,
an unsolved mystery until 20 years later.

Unidentified Woman: I told them that I knew of a murder that happened 20
years ago.

Announcer: Two new witnesses finally come forward.

Unidentified Man #2: He put the gun to her head, and she says, 'Please don't
kill me. Please don't kill me.' And next thing I saw was a flash.

Announcer: Now, two suspects face justice. One murder, two defendants, two
juries, and, in a stunning twist, two different verdicts.

Unidentified Reporter: Are you comfortable with your verdict?

Unidentified Juror: In my heart, no, I am not.

Announcer: Was justice done? You decide, in a special interactive
Dateline/Court TV Exclusive.

And next, four young men, 15 years in prison, were they innocent all along?
A stunning reversal when And Justice For All continues.

(Announcements)

Announcer: Tonight's DATELINE Special, And Justice For All, continues.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) After raising doubts about the confessions in the
Roscetti case, Kathleen Zellner started to focus on another question: How
would someone make up a story like this? Where would they get the idea? In
the summer of 2000, she was reading through a stack of police reports when
she noticed that Robert Ressler, an FBI profiler, had been consulted about
the Roscetti case back in 1986. Zellner had Ressler's memoir, "Whoever
Fights Monsters," on her shelf. And on page 166, she found the profile
Ressler says he gave the Chicago Police before Omar and the others were
arrested. Ressler says he told the police to look for a group of black
youths, somewhere between three and six males, ranging in age from 15 to 20,
who had previously been in jail and who lived close by. Lori Roscetti "had
probably stopped at a light," Ressler writes, "and some people had come up
to her, blocked the car, and one had pulled a door which happened to be
open. These people then forced her to drive to the somewhat isolated
location where they had raped, killed and robbed her." Ressler says he told
the Chicago Police all of this before Marsellius and Calvin confessed.

(Zellner at desk; documents; Zellner at desk; "Whoever Fights Monsters";
excerpts from book; photo of Bradford)

Ms. ZELLNER: So where did the confession come from? The confession came from
the FBI profile.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Former chief of Area Four detectives Jim Maurer says
no way.

(Maurer with Stafford)

Mr. MAURER: Bob Ressler arrived in my office the morning we had these people
charged and in custody.

STAFFORD: He says there was a phone conversation where he revealed this
profile.

Mr. MAURER: Absolutely not.

STAFFORD: You're saying Ressler's a liar.

Mr. MAURER: Ressler's a liar. He never had anything to do with the solving
of the case. This case was done by good, old-fashioned police work.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But it still wasn't clear whether the case had been
solved. For Omar and company, everything now hinged on the second round of
DNA tests. And as the results came in, there were plenty of surprises.

(Crime scene photo; Saunders in cell; DNA results)

Ms. ZELLNER: Her clothing was covered with small semen stains. There were 22
stains on her coat and her jogging pants and her shoes.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) According to these lab notes, Pam Fish of the Chicago
Police crime lab had tested all of those items for semen in 1987 before
Omar's trial.

(Lab notes)

Ms. ZELLNER: All of those items were tested by Pam Fish, and she found them
all to be negative.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) No semen on the clothes, according to Pam Fish; 22
stains, according to Cellmark Labs.

(Lab notes; document)

STAFFORD: Some of the semen stains belonged to Unknown Male #1, the same
person whose semen was on the vaginal swab. But some of the semen belonged
to Unknown Male #2, a different person. Both men's semen appeared on Lori
Roscetti's clothes and underwear. None of the semen, none of the hair, none
of the DNA evidence matched any of Zellner's clients.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Cook County prosecutor Richard Devine decided there
was now too much reasonable doubt for the state to ignore. He said he would
join Kathleen Zellner in asking a judge to vacate the murder convictions.

(Richard Devine)

Mr. RICHARD DEVINE: We'll be going to court on Wednesday to drop the
charges.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Marsellius would still have to serve out his time for
other crimes, but his murder conviction would be erased. And for Omar, Larry
and Calvin, it was time to go home. Corrections officers cheered as Calvin
got ready to leave. He was 14 when he was hauled in. Now, he was 29. On
December 5th, 2001, three men got their lives back. They had entered as
teen-age pariahs. They exited as wronged men.

(Bradford looking out window; Saunders putting on shirt; Larry; Calvin
walking through door; Saunders and Larry walking out of prison; Calvin
hugging Saunders)

Mr. LARRY OLLINS: What's up, man?

Mr. C. OLLINS: I'm telling you man.

Mr. L. OLLINS: Long time.

Mr. SAUNDERS: I told you we were going to do it, didn't I?

Mr. C. OLLINS: Yeah, man, let me tell you.

Ms. ZELLNER: (Voiceover) I got the rope to them.

(Zellner)

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) The rope to a drowning man?

(Zellner)

Ms. ZELLNER: Yeah.

(Zellner)

Mr. SAUNDERS: It is obvious today that a great miscarriage of justice was
committed against us and a greater injustice committed against the family
and friends of Lori Roscetti and the people of Cook County.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Meanwhile in Springfield, Illinois, Roscetti's mother
had trouble believing the news.

(Laura looking out window)

Ms. ROSCETTI: I thought well, somebody had to kill her. You know, I mean, if
they didn't, who did? And at this point, how would they ever find out?

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) It looked like Lori Roscetti's killer had gotten away
with murder. But soon there would be another break in the case.

(Home video of Lori; Lori's grave)

Announcer: A mysterious phone call to police. Would it lead them to the real
killer?

STAFFORD: Did this person sound credible?

Mr. PHIL CLINE: Yes, he did.

Announcer: Plus, how you weighed in on the case on our Web site, when And
Justice For All continues.

(Announcements)

Announcer: And now the conclusion to And Justice For All.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Fifteen years after Lori Roscetti's murder, the
Chicago Police appeared to be back where they started on the morning of the
crime. But the new investigators had one thing the original detectives did
not, precise DNA profiles of two men who had left their semen behind. Who
were Unknown Male #1 and Unknown Male #2?

(Crime scene photo; police near Lori's car; DNA profiles; documents)

Mr. CLINE: We left no stone unturned trying to determine who is the donor of
those two DNA profiles.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Phil Cline is chief of all Chicago detectives, and we
were told that he, rather than Jim Maurer, would now be speaking for the
department. Cline says detectives collected DNA samples from Lori's old
friends at the medical school and from old suspects in the neighborhood.
They also ran the DNA profiles through databases of convicted sex offenders.

(Phil Cline walking outside Chicago Police Department; yearbook;
neighborhood; database)

STAFFORD: Any matches?

Mr. CLINE: No.

STAFFORD: Not one?

Mr. CLINE: No.

STAFFORD: Dead end?

Mr. CLINE: Dead end.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But then on January 11th of this year, a man called
Area Four headquarters. He wanted to know whether there was still reward
money for helping to solve the Roscetti case.

(Area Four headquarters; man putting up reward signs)

STAFFORD: Did this person sound credible?

Mr. CLINE: Yes, he did.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) Investigators checked out the new information, and on
February 7th, there was another press conference about the Roscetti murder,
15 years after the first. This time Phil Cline announced the case had been
solved, and he told a story that was completely different from what Jim
Maurer had said a decade and a half earlier. This time there were two
suspects, not four: Eddie Harris and Duane Roach, late-night delivery men
for the Chicago Tribune. They were adults, not juveniles, and Cline says
they were looking for money for drugs not bus fare. The police say Lori
Roscetti was abducted in the alley behind her home, not at the intersection
mentioned in the confessions of Calvin Ollins and Marsellius Bradford. This
time, the police alleged the suspects held Lori Roscetti at knife point and
made stops to buy food and drugs before committing the rape and murder. Both
suspects have pleaded not guilty, but Cline says his detectives videotaped
their confessions and also a detailed re-enactment of the crime.

(Police officers; police car; press conference; Phil Cline at press
conference; car; photos of Lori; photo of Eddie Harris; photo of Duane
Roach; street; photo of Lori; alley; confession; stop sign; street; lab
notes; photo of Harris; photo of Roach; interrogation room)

STAFFORD: These men knew facts that only the killers could have known.

Mr. CLINE: That's correct.

STAFFORD: But that's what was said about the other four men 15 years ago.

Mr. CLINE: I wasn't part of that investigation, but if--I understand that
that did occur.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But this time police say they also have a perfect DNA
match. If it had indeed solved the crime, had the Chicago Police vindicated
itself and indicted itself at the same time? Phil Cline doesn't think so.

(DNA profiles; crime scene photo; Chicago Police Headquarters)

Mr. CLINE: I think what we have to look at here is--is people mislead the
police. People lied.

STAFFORD: The defendants themselves lied to the police?

Mr. CLINE: Apparently.

STAFFORD: Why would they confess to something they had nothing to do with?

Mr. CLINE: I don't know.

STAFFORD: You seem convinced that the investigators back then were telling
the truth.

Mr. CLINE: I don't know, I mean...

STAFFORD: But you seem to say that. I mean, you se--seem to say other people
didn't tell the truth, but you seem to be saying that your guys did.

Mr. CLINE: I believe all of my detectives tell the truth until there is
evidence to the contrary.

STAFFORD: And this is not evidence?

Mr. CLINE: Not yet.

STAFFORD: See, why are so sure that they just didn't feel pressure to solve
this case and found these four guys and just pinned it on them?

Mr. CLINE: Because in 31 years on the police department, I've never came
across a detective who would have been satisfied of pinning the case on
anyone and letting the offender to go free.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) But this is not the first case to raise the questions
of official misconduct in Cook County. There have been others. The Ford
Heights Four, 16 years in prison, sued Cook County officials and received a
$36 million civil settlement. James Newsome, 15 years in prison, won a $15
million verdict. John Willis, eight years in prison, is now suing former
Chicago Police crime lab analyst Pam Fish, the same analyst who testified in
Omar and Larry's case. Fish declined to talk to DATELINE, but her attorney
says fish testified truthfully and did absolutely nothing wrong. The Chicago
Tribune has reported that more than 200 confessions and incriminating
statements obtained by investigators were rejected by Cook County judges and
juries over the past 10 years.

(Cook County Courthouse; photos of Ford Heights Four; Ford Heights four;
James Newsome; John Willis; Fish; document; photo of Fish; newspaper
articles; gavel)

STAFFORD: Isn't it troubling to you that--that more than 200 confessions
have--have been thrown out or not led to convictions?

Mr. CLINE: We've had over 4,000 murder defendants in that time. It's really
a--a minor percentage of these cases where the confessions were thrown out.
And a lot of it has to do with legal technicalities.

STAFFORD: Two hundred and forty-seven confessions that did not lead to
conviction does not sound minor. That sounds like a lot.

Mr. CLINE: Well, when you take 4,000 cases, it's less than 5 percent.

STAFFORD: It still seems like a lot.

Mr. CLINE: Well, but that's--that's how the system is built. The system is
built so that there is review at all these different levels.

Ms. ZELLNER: None of those people have the guts--and I would say this to the
state's attorney now in Cook County--the courage to appoint a special
prosecutor and examine their own house and say, 'What in the world is going
on here?'

STAFFORD: There is no independent investigation?

Ms. ZELLNER: There is none.

STAFFORD: No special prosecutor.

Ms. ZELLNER: None, none, none, and no one's calling for one. Why isn't
someone saying, 'You know what? The first case was entirely fabricated. The
whole thing was a big lie. Now, how did that happen? We're going to get to
the bottom of it, and we're going to hold somebody accountable.'

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) The lead detectives on this case are retired, the
prosecutors now in private practice. All the former officials we spoke to
denied any wrongdoing. Some insist to this day that Zellner's clients were
involved in the murder, even though they didn't leave their DNA behind. Jim
Maurer was recently promoted to chief of patrol. Pam Fish is an
administrator in charge of research and development at the state police
crime lab. And the pack of jackals from the projects are now celebrities in
the affluent suburbs, where they speak to high school students about their
experiences.

(Document; prosecutors; courthouse; crime scene photo; Maurer with Stafford;
Fish; Saunders, Calvin and Larry walking; Saunders, Calvin and Larry at high
school)

Mr. SAUNDERS: In fact, when I look out in the audience and I look at you
all, I remember that I was you all's age, and we was young, and they wiped
all that from us, you know. They took all that from us.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) In July, Marsellius Bradford was released from prison.
He and Omar, Salt and Pepper, were reunited once again.

(Bradford leaving prison)

Mr. SAUNDERS: (Voiceover) I know that what he did ate him up. I understand
what he did what he did. I do, I really do.

(Bradford and Saunders reuniting)

(To Bradford) Man, look, you've a receding hairline like me now.

STAFFORD: (Voiceover) They're probably too old to be rappers now, but
sometimes just being believed is victory enough.

(Bradford and Saunders talking)

Mr. SAUNDERS: You know, I am reminded of a story. It's about this little boy
who was crying wolf. He cried wolf, you know, and the wolf really showed up,
and nobody believed him. That would be my parallel to me and my
co-defendants, you know. Yeah, we got in to a little trouble, but the wolf
showed up.

JANE PAULEY: Illinois Governor George Ryan has pardoned Omar Saunders and
his friends. All are now suing the city of Chicago and Chicago Police, who
deny any wrongdoing.

This week, thousands of you have taken part in an interactive experiment on
our Web site, reading the kinds of letters lawyers like Kathleen Zellner
receive from inmates looking for a lawyer who would take their case. Our
question online: Would you? If you'd like to take part or find out what
other people did, logon to our Web site at dateline.msnbc.com.

LOAD-DATE: December 7, 2002