Episode Transcript
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0:06
Deep
0:06
in the California desert, perhaps 20
0:09
miles above Mexico, on a great
0:11
empty swath of sun-baked sand
0:14
and scrub, two dozen white buildings
0:16
squat in semi-circles, hemmed
0:19
in by rows and rows of razor
0:21
wire.
0:23
sentinel a prison.
0:25
An inside in a six by ten foot cell
0:27
serving forty to life, Raymond
0:30
Jennings peered through a narrow slit of window
0:32
at the sky
0:34
and waited. For what or
0:36
when? He did not know.
0:39
By now,
0:40
he'd been locked up for eleven years, had
0:43
been able to see his children only once every
0:45
year or two. He was
0:47
about to turn forty-two. You'd
0:50
look in that mirror and I'd be like, why me? I'd be in the cell
0:52
by myself. Why me? What
0:55
am I supposed to be learning? What's going on
0:57
on the outside?
0:59
Something impending out there
1:02
to hope for or dread,
1:05
depending on the view. When
1:07
the only comfort that you've had for
1:11
a decade is
1:13
the belief that the man who killed
1:16
your daughter is in prison And
1:18
that man is Ray. I
1:21
understand why it's hard to let go of that.
1:24
Change was coming. Ready
1:26
or not? Who
1:28
in the heck is banging on my door? Finally,
1:31
after about 20 or 30 knocks, he says, I
1:33
need to talk to you about Raymond Lee
1:35
Jennings.
1:39
In this episode, Justice
1:42
will get a jolt. And accepted
1:44
facts will be tossed in the air like
1:46
so many playing cards. The
1:48
land and place is entirely unexpected
1:51
and for some unwelcome.
1:54
You know, I've always had a lot of respect for
1:56
law enforcement and what they do and
1:58
come the five.
2:00
out you know it's it's not all you
2:02
know sugars and cookies. I'm Keith
2:04
Morrison and this is The Girl
2:06
in the Blue Mustang, a podcast
2:08
from Dateline. This is our
2:10
sixth and final episode, Finding
2:13
John Doe.
2:25
It was a winter's day, six
2:27
years after Raymond Jennings was convicted
2:29
of killing Michelle O'Keefe.
2:32
Jeff Ehrlich was sitting in his law office
2:34
in LA's San Fernando Valley,
2:37
and the phone rang.
2:39
I picked up the phone and the
2:42
voice on the other end said, this is Ken Lynch. as
2:45
in director Ken Lynch of the Los
2:47
Angeles DA's Conviction Review
2:49
Unit, or CRU.
2:52
I'm not particularly good at describing feelings.
2:54
I guess I'm a left brain kind of
2:56
guy. But when I got
2:59
that call and he said, I want to
3:01
meet with you, I was
3:02
like, wow.
3:05
Clearly the airlick's letter about Raymond Jennings
3:07
had hit a nerve. Enough
3:09
to get them a meeting at least. Nothing
3:12
more yet. The date was
3:14
set from March 9, 2016. A
3:17
warm day and sunny
3:20
on West Temple Street in downtown LA. Inside
3:23
members of the Conviction Review Unit had assembled
3:26
in a conference room to hear the airlick's pitch,
3:28
in person. The stakes
3:30
could hardly have been higher. Were
3:33
the questions any more intense?
3:36
After all, in this first seven months since the CRU
3:39
was formed, 700
3:39
other
3:41
cases had appealed for review, too.
3:56
good
4:00
at that. He was really,
4:02
really in my face and
4:06
giving me a hard time. They
4:07
were back home when they got the news
4:09
from CRU head Ken Lynch.
4:12
Out of all those applicants,
4:14
the Conviction Review Unit had chosen
4:16
to reinvestigate
4:18
theirs first. And
4:20
then instead of assigning it to one of the
4:23
other attorneys in the unit, He assigned
4:25
it to all of them to work on collectively, so
4:28
that there are three other
4:30
attorneys who work with him. And they're
4:32
all experienced, very experienced prosecutors.
4:35
By the time those prosecutors went to work,
4:38
Michelle O'Keefe had been dead for 16 years. The
4:41
CRU mined the Ehrlich's
4:43
34-page letter in granular
4:45
detail and investigated
4:48
new leads about others in
4:50
the park and ride lot that night. For
4:53
three months, Ken Lynch and the CRU
4:56
dug into the case, until they
4:58
reached a tipping point. And
5:01
then, one day in June, in a coordinated
5:03
operation, they fanned out to key parties
5:06
in the case. Up
5:08
in the Antelope Valley, Pat O'Keefe was at home,
5:11
the home she once shared with a husband
5:13
and two children. There
5:15
was a knock at the door.
5:17
She ignored it.
5:19
But it didn't stop. Who in
5:21
the heck is banging on my door? Finally,
5:24
after about 20 or 30 knocks, he says, I
5:26
need to talk to you about Raymond Lee
5:28
Jennings. I said, can you tell me
5:31
what it's about? He said, no, we're gonna tell you in person.
5:33
I said, is he dead? And he said,
5:35
no, tomorrow we'll have a meeting and discuss
5:37
it.
5:38
Michael Keefe, now divorced from
5:41
Pat, was at his place a few miles away.
5:44
How did you get the word? She
5:46
actually called me and said they were heading over to
5:48
my place. The
5:51
O'Keeffe's didn't know it yet, but a chief
5:54
deputy DA by the name of John Spillane
5:56
had taken the CRU's findings and
5:58
summarized them in a letter to the American National
6:00
to the Superior Court, where a
6:02
judge put it under seal. A hearing
6:04
was scheduled. It was June 23,
6:08
2016, one of those beautiful first
6:10
days of
6:15
summer when the O'Keeffe's made that
6:17
all too familiar two-hour drive to
6:19
L.A.'s criminal justice center, just
6:22
as they had done day after day after
6:24
day during the trials of Ray Jennings.
6:27
Clinton and Jeff Erlich had
6:30
already gone through security. And one by one,
6:32
Clint
6:33
and Jeff, Pat and Mike, entered the
6:36
courtroom. Jeff Erlich
6:39
sat down at the defense table. The
6:41
air bristled with tension. The hearing
6:45
about to begin would reveal what the judge had
6:47
decided to do about the CRU's
6:49
first case. first case.
6:58
That is Los Angeles County Superior
7:00
Court Judge William Ryan. Raymond
7:13
Jennings was seated next to Jeff Erlich
7:16
wearing a dark blue throwaway paper
7:18
jumpsuit But the white zipper
7:21
is shaved head shining in a soft
7:23
fluorescent light of the courtroom. Everybody
7:26
was telling me that I would be sent back to state
7:28
prison.
7:29
I literally just started praying as hard
7:31
as I could. And just asking,
7:34
you know, asking the father, don't send me back there.
7:37
Don't send me back. Release me from here. I
7:41
also now have a letter
7:44
signed by Yeti yesterday, attorney
7:47
student chief, John
7:50
Spillane.
7:51
As the judge began speaking,
7:53
Jennings looked down as if
7:55
studying the floor beneath him. What
7:58
happened here could send him back to prison.
8:00
for 30 years or more,
8:02
or could set him free. His
8:05
eyes were unreadable. He
8:08
stroked the stubble on his chin. People
8:11
now believe that Mr. Jennings
8:13
may not be able to get the prime of which
8:15
is that other people are
8:18
implicated by new habits.
8:20
I think I could wait for that. And
8:23
there it was. The judge had
8:26
raised doubt about Jennings' conviction.
8:29
Now Deputy DA Robert Grace spoke
8:32
and he went a step further.
8:35
We're prepared to say that the people
8:37
no longer
8:37
have confidence in the conviction
8:40
based upon what we feel is
8:44
third party culpability evidence.
8:47
Third party culpability? There
8:50
could be no question what that meant. There
8:52
must be other potential suspects, someone
8:54
else in the parking ride when Michelle was killed.
8:58
As he announced his decision, the judge
9:00
was careful not to say very much. He'd
9:02
been told the investigation was continuing,
9:05
and he didn't want to jeopardize it. But
9:07
what he did say
9:08
was as momentous as
9:11
it was terse. The
9:13
Department of Corrections has ordered
9:15
to replace the defendant. I'm
9:18
in homework diagnosis, and I will
9:20
send an email to an appropriate deputy
9:22
here advising them of
9:25
my order today.
9:27
It was surreal. Did he say it? I'm getting released.
9:31
Yes, released. But
9:33
Ray Jennings' case was not officially closed. Though
9:37
that day, it didn't seem to matter to
9:39
Ray Jennings and the Ehrlich's. Here's
9:42
Clint Ehrlich. It was overwhelming. It didn't
9:45
feel real. It's going to be one of the defining
9:47
moments of your life, one of the important defining
9:49
moments. I
9:52
will never forget it. In fewer
9:54
than seven swift minutes, Jennings'
9:57
sentence of 40 years to life suddenly
10:00
ended. Anything further
10:03
we need to do, Mr. Grace? Oh, nothing
10:05
further on. Nothing further
10:07
on. Thank you very much.
10:10
The DA's letter had slashed the prosecution's
10:12
own circumstantial case against Ray Jennings
10:15
to shreds, and it all
10:17
fluttered down like weightless white
10:19
ribbons to the ground. This
10:22
is Jeff Erlich. Getting
10:24
someone who was innocent, who
10:26
should not have been convicted, convicted and getting
10:28
the system to acknowledge that and let him out is an
10:31
amazing thing. One person. You've
10:33
got to start with one person, Keef. But
10:36
Joy, on one side of the courtroom, was
10:39
matched by its opposite on the other.
10:42
To the O'Keeffe's, it was as if the world around
10:44
them had gone mad. Released
10:46
Jennings?
10:48
But surely he was guilty. As
10:50
guilty now as ever, nothing in their
10:52
long and terrible experience could prepare
10:54
them for this abomination.
10:58
Michael Keefe held an impromptu press conference
11:01
just outside the courtroom. Do
11:03
you have no doubt that he's been killed in the car? I
11:05
have nothing that
11:07
can show me, prove to me otherwise at this
11:09
time. Nobody showed me anything otherwise
11:12
that he wasn't at least involved.
11:14
This thing's went through three trials. Over 30
11:17
jurors found this guy guilty. And
11:19
then this little unit can kind of go in and kind of
11:21
add a hawk without anything really
11:23
solid to say, hey, we want to release him, goes
11:26
completely against our whole
11:28
judicial system in the United States, in my opinion. Pretty
11:33
harsh words. And
11:35
I'm a pretty pissed off dad. We're the parents.
11:37
We're Michelle's mom and dad. I said, well,
11:39
if you're going to release them, why? And
11:45
why can't you tell us what the evidence is? And
11:47
they said, no, we can't tell you. I go, it doesn't make
11:49
sense. As the O'Keefe's talked,
11:52
a bailiff escorted an overwhelmed
11:54
Ray Jennings into a hallway behind the
11:56
courtroom,
11:57
waiting for something.
12:00
was this real was
12:02
he'd dreaming and
12:05
so i
12:07
just remember leaning against the wall and
12:10
as i was i was in prayer it
12:13
it is an overwhelming still small voice
12:15
came it's a call me again as a you'll be released
12:17
from here and it was just as
12:19
clear as day and then
12:22
the moment the bail of came
12:24
back she had the
12:26
close at i love prison where she
12:29
had i'm in her hair
12:31
and at that time at a
12:34
time ago time
12:37
ago raymond jennings took
12:39
his first unshackled steps outside
12:42
escorted by three deputy sheriffs they
12:45
were jennings protectors now which
12:47
the can actually like walk by quick he
12:50
climbed
12:50
the steps to the sidewalk wearing the farthest
12:52
thing from prison close you could imagine
12:55
untucked t shirt over baggy
12:57
sparkling white basketball shorts
13:00
and white sneakers
13:03
reporters
13:08
surrounded him he hurried past
13:10
to follow current airlock to they're waiting car
13:13
clint who carried a cardboard file
13:16
box everything re jennings
13:18
owned inside it he
13:21
moved away then moved as
13:23
soon as he could back home
13:25
to north carolina far
13:27
far away from the antelope valley
13:30
and that terrible events that it's stolen
13:32
so many years of his life well
13:40
well well china
13:46
and that is where after all those
13:48
years of reporting i
13:50
finally sat down was re jennings
13:52
free man would have
13:55
liked to be in the situation you're in now
13:57
what does it feel like it's it's surreal
14:01
Shocking, adjusting.
14:04
I mean, you carry yourself in a completely different way inside
14:07
versus outside. Absolutely. Are you
14:09
angry? Not angry. I
14:13
hold no anger, no bitterness. There's
14:16
no place for it. Is that real or is that kind
14:19
of just something you plan? No, that's absolutely
14:21
real. And if you spend enough time around
14:23
me, you'll see for yourself that there
14:26
is none of that.
14:27
And then he showed me photographs of his family.
14:30
His eldest daughter had never been able to make
14:32
the trip from North Carolina to visit
14:34
her dad behind bars way out in California.
14:38
So this was the first time they had all been together
14:40
since the day he was arrested, 11 years earlier. You
14:44
can hear a lot in a
14:46
few words. So these are
14:48
my two oldest right here. This is Brianna, she's
14:50
here. And this is Reuben,
14:53
Gabriel, Colonia, and Xavier.
14:56
So of course she's the baby. The fine
14:58
looking bunch. Yeah.
15:01
And so, it's
15:03
all good with them, huh? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
15:07
This was the first time they've been together in over 11
15:09
years. They're joyful that their daddy
15:11
is home.
15:13
And I'm, you
15:16
know, I can't, I can't, you know, hey,
15:23
I missed my kids. Hmm.
15:28
Yeah. And
15:31
now they know. Yeah,
15:34
they let me know.
15:38
A few months after Ray Jennings release, there
15:41
was another hearing in Judge Ryan's courtroom.
15:44
Ray Jennings wasn't there, didn't have to
15:46
be. And yet the result
15:48
of that hearing was to make him whole
15:50
again. With a simple declaration,
15:53
Judge Ryan wiped the record clean.
15:56
He declared Ray Jennings a factually
15:59
innocent man. man
16:00
that wasn't all that happened
16:02
that month. Judge Ryan asked
16:04
to deputy days and to
16:06
homicide detectives
16:08
to join him in his chambers. What
16:11
was said there remained
16:13
a secret Until
16:15
now.
16:33
before
16:44
you get your
16:44
podcast or not subscribe and follow
16:47
today to start listening.
17:25
When a man
17:25
convicted of murder is declared
17:27
factually innocent, it leads quite
17:30
naturally to an important question.
17:33
If not him, then who?
17:37
That
17:37
question was at the very heart of the letter
17:39
from Chief Deputy D.A. Spillane.
17:43
As you're about to hear, it revealed
17:45
potential new suspects in great
17:47
detail without naming
17:51
them. The untold story goes all the way back in
17:53
time to that cold, windy night in
17:55
the park can ride.
18:00
it
18:02
starts with another young woman we
18:04
met her before her name is victoria
18:06
richardson she was seventeen years old
18:09
back then and she was parked just
18:11
a few spaces away from michelle's blue
18:13
mustang smoking marijuana
18:16
and listen to music with two of her
18:18
friends victoria
18:19
you may remember testified
18:22
for the prosecution enrage innings
18:24
first trial as a witness
18:26
now
18:27
years later the see
18:29
are you had uncovered more information
18:31
about richardson and the others in her car
18:33
that nine is what they found
18:38
victoria was a hard core member
18:41
of the flushing fifties blood gay
18:43
with an extensive rap sheet that included
18:46
assault with a deadly weapon for
18:48
years the bloods and their rivals the crips
18:50
had been the scourge of l a drive by
18:52
shootings murders by the score
18:56
the see are you looked hard the interview
18:58
she'd had with the police it took place
19:00
a few weeks after a show was murdered or
19:02
vittoria richardson was arrested on a
19:04
quite separate charge
19:07
to see
19:07
are you discovered she had actually given investigators
19:10
the name of a particular male
19:12
passenger in her car referred
19:15
to in the da's letter as john
19:17
doe
19:18
according to the see are
19:20
you he was young eighteen
19:23
years old same as michelle o'keeffe
19:26
but he i victoria was
19:28
a member of the flushing fifties blood gang
19:31
and he'd already established a reputation
19:33
for committing carjackings
19:36
with a nine millimeter pistols just by
19:38
the gun that killed michelle when
19:41
he read the da's better good heroic
19:43
was struck by several things well
19:47
there's there's a there's a lot of evidence
19:49
first you'd look at his list of priors
19:52
at the fact that a ban violent
19:54
towards women before i have to select
19:56
one the fact that he had committed
19:59
point of a
20:00
and robberies and carjackings. And
20:02
there was more. The
20:04
fact that he was found with an earring
20:07
that matched the description of an earring taken from
20:09
Michelle O'Keefe. And then I think most
20:11
importantly, that there's ballistics evidence
20:13
showing a very particular defect
20:16
in the shell casings that were ejected from
20:18
the weapon used to kill Michelle O'Keefe
20:20
that happened to match the shell casings
20:23
found at a crime scene that
20:25
appeared to be connected to John Doe.
20:28
Again, John Doe, meaning that 18-year-old
20:31
felon in the car was Victoria Richardson.
20:34
Investigators working with the CRU talked
20:36
to him. He denied ever
20:39
getting out of Victoria's car at the park
20:41
and ride. He also was given a polygraph
20:43
test and he passed. But
20:47
the CRU discovered he'd been convicted
20:49
of one carjacking a few months after Michelle's
20:51
murder and was linked to a second.
20:54
What kind of car was that? a
20:57
Mustang, and he
20:59
asked the victim if it was a manual
21:02
or an automatic.
21:04
Clint Ehrlich has a theory about why
21:07
he asked that question.
21:09
It appeared that he didn't know how to drive
21:11
a stick, and so he was
21:13
very interested in whether they were automatics
21:16
or not. And so the detectives always acted
21:19
as if it was mysterious why Michelle's
21:22
manual Mustang hadn't been taken, but that
21:24
would be one clue.
21:26
because he didn't know how to drive it. Because
21:28
he didn't know how to drive it. And then also
21:31
because he had put bullet holes in it and
21:33
blood in it. That's another fact that I think was
21:35
sort of overlooked in the initial investigation. They
21:37
acted as if it was mysterious. Why didn't he just
21:40
drive it away? Well, because it was evidence
21:42
of a murder.
21:44
Then there was the weird business of the color,
21:47
the blue Mustang. Those
21:49
were the waning days of the LA gang
21:51
wars, when just being
21:54
in blue the color of the crypts could
21:56
get you shot by the bloods.
21:59
anyway. In spite of all that, sheriff's
22:01
detectives, including Longshore, appeared
22:03
to ignore the violent young carjacker,
22:06
and they followed instead something else
22:09
said by Victoria Richardson about
22:11
somebody else altogether. Ray
22:14
Jennings told us about that.
22:16
What'd she tell Detective Harris? That she had
22:18
witnessed out of her rearview mirror a
22:22
Toyota Tercel drive-by
22:24
with a white male occupant, with
22:27
a tank top and
22:29
a red hat turned to the side. Well,
22:32
well, well. Another witness. Another witness.
22:35
A witness
22:37
or a participant, I wonder? You and me both.
22:40
It was a strange story,
22:42
the alleged sighting
22:44
by Victoria of the guy in the red cap.
22:46
Ray was there, remember, and he said he never
22:49
saw such a thing. But
22:52
Victoria's story, true or not, true or not, caught
22:54
the attention of sheriff's detectives because
22:57
they'd heard about a red hat guy
23:00
who drove a similar car and
23:02
happened to be wingman to a local
23:04
drug dealer. Did that
23:06
mean the drug dealer was also in the
23:09
park and ride?
23:10
They couldn't nail that down, but
23:14
the detectives did hear rumors that Michelle
23:16
O'Keefe may have encountered that drug
23:18
dealer.
23:19
Even though they occupied different
23:21
worlds, they may
23:23
have crossed paths of the same parties.
23:26
And they heard that the drug dealer boasted of
23:29
committing the murder. But
23:31
when they found him and brought him in, he denied
23:33
he ever said that. And neither
23:35
his DNA nor Victoria's story
23:38
could put him at the crime scene.
23:41
And the trail fizzled out.
23:43
Here's Michael Keefe. Well,
23:45
this is something that Detective
23:47
Longshore, the evening after he finished interviewing
23:50
him, it was a Saturday evening and he came
23:52
to the house. And he says you're going
23:54
to hear some grumblings about this guy and
23:58
that he was involved in But
24:00
he says, we interviewed him, and
24:04
I'm here to tell you he's not the guy.
24:08
Besides, by then, Longshore
24:11
and others were focused almost entirely
24:13
on their theory that Raymond Jennings, who
24:16
seemed to know too much, had to
24:18
be the guilty party.
24:20
Two stories, two potential
24:22
suspects, one overlooked
24:25
altogether. Those
24:27
were the stories that detectives and prosecutors
24:29
told Judge Ryan in his chambers
24:32
around the time Ray Jennings was finally declared
24:34
innocent. That was the secret
24:37
we promised to reveal. Dateline
24:40
has obtained an unsealed court transcript
24:42
of that meeting, and for the first
24:44
time we're revealing the names of
24:46
the two potential suspects they discussed.
24:50
They are gang member Andrew
24:53
Stewart, then 18 years old.
24:56
Victoria Richardson told investigators
24:58
he was in her car that night.
25:00
They referred to him as John Doe.
25:04
And the second one?
25:05
Brian Kellogg, the drug
25:08
dealer detectives believed may
25:10
have been at the park and ride that night.
25:13
Curiously, as the transcript reveals,
25:16
the detectives seemed most interested
25:18
in the drug dealer Kellogg,
25:21
Quinterlick. If you listen
25:23
to the detectives in that unsealed
25:26
document, they want very badly to believe
25:28
that somehow that was Brian Kellogg. Is
25:30
there any established evidence
25:32
to show a connection between Brian
25:35
Kellogg and Michelle O'Keefe?
25:37
I only know what is in
25:39
that unsealed transcript,
25:42
where they talk about the investigation,
25:45
placing them in the same circles, that
25:47
there were, it sounded like to me,
25:50
very weak rumors trying to
25:53
connect them together. And again, Keith,
25:56
everything that I've seen has indicated
25:58
that Michelle Keith was... a really
26:00
good person and a good girl. And
26:03
it really bothers me that they're straining to make it seem
26:05
like somehow she was involved in the drug trade.
26:08
Still,
26:10
CRU investigators did find
26:12
evidence Kellogg was abusive towards women.
26:15
And they heard those local rumors, though
26:17
never confirmed, that
26:19
Michelle may have crossed paths
26:21
with him.
26:22
Also, curiously, in that sealed
26:24
meeting,
26:25
Andrew Stewart, the card-jacking
26:27
gangbanger, was mentioned relatively
26:30
little. By the way, we reached out
26:32
to Andrew Stewart, haven't heard back. But
26:35
then the hearing ended and Michelle's murder
26:38
remained unsolved. And
26:40
then the courtroom door closed and the trail
26:42
ended and that was six years ago. To
26:45
date, there's been no update from the DA. The
26:48
O'Kees did not hear a word from anyone
26:50
about any of it. And then,
26:53
just in recent weeks as we prepared our story,
26:56
a new prosecutor was assigned to the
26:58
case. But he
27:00
or she will encounter a surprise,
27:04
just like we
27:05
did.
27:12
Hey guys, it's
27:14
Hoda Kotb from The Today Show. My podcast
27:16
making spaces full of conversations
27:19
with spiritual leaders and teachers
27:21
people like Viola Davis Wynonna Judd
27:24
Oprah Winfrey Mel Robbins and
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so many more here how they found
27:28
the strength to make changes in their lives and
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how you can do it
27:32
to all of them inspire
27:34
me today. Listen to all 3 seasons
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of making space because of copy available
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27:39
just search making space where you're listening
27:41
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28:00
to life. And now, Top Story
28:02
is available as a podcast, so you can
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listen anytime and anywhere. Subscribe
28:06
now for new episodes every weeknight.
28:17
It was a twist we didn't see coming.
28:20
As we prepared this story, this final
28:22
episode,
28:24
we called the California Department of
28:26
Corrections and Rehabilitation.
28:28
We asked about a drug dealer named
28:30
Brian Kellogg, who was in prison
28:32
at the time. We were curious. Would
28:35
he be getting out of prison anytime soon?
28:39
Oh, you don't have to worry about him, they told
28:41
us.
28:42
Brian Kellogg had just died
28:44
the
28:45
night before we called.
28:48
He was 45 years old. Natural
28:51
causes, they said, he'd been in the hospital.
28:55
Now, whatever he may have known about the
28:57
murder of Michel O'Keefe is lost forever
29:00
in his grave.
29:04
Andrew Stewart, however, is very
29:06
much alive. He is currently
29:08
serving a 31-year sentence for a
29:10
carjacking committed six months after
29:13
Michel's murder. He
29:15
might have come up for parole soon. Except...
29:19
Violent offenses committed while in prison
29:21
extended his sentence by years.
29:24
He is stuck on stupid, said a
29:26
prison official familiar with his case. His
29:28
current release date is November 2032.
29:33
Clint Ehrlich has his own theory about
29:35
why the DA has been so tight-lit
29:38
about Andrew Stewart and the status
29:40
of the investigation. They would have to acknowledge
29:42
that
29:43
they knew that this individual
29:46
was present at the crime scene and
29:48
they didn't even interview him. And
29:51
the degree of embarrassment from that is such
29:54
that I think they just don't want to touch it.
29:56
This is Raymond Jennings.
29:58
You think the people who actually The person who actually
30:00
did it will be caught. Absolutely.
30:03
Makes you say that. It's
30:07
gonna happen.
30:09
You have information.
30:12
I just know that there was other people in that parking
30:14
lot that night. That's all I know.
30:18
Clint
30:18
Herrlich, who happened to cross our Dateline
30:20
story about Michelle all those years ago,
30:23
is officially a lawyer now. He
30:25
was sworn in by Conviction Review
30:28
Unit Director, Ken Lynch in
30:30
the same LA courtroom where Ray Jennings
30:32
was set free. Will you please
30:36
raise your right hand and
30:38
repeat after me?
30:40
Aye.
30:41
Aye. Clinton Edward Ehrlich
30:44
Quinn. Clinton Edward Ehrlich Quinn.
30:47
The biggest tragedy in all of this
30:49
is the death of Michelle
30:52
O'Keefe. Ray Jennings lost 11 years
30:54
of his life. Michelle O'Keefe lost
30:57
her entire life And I've
30:59
met her father. He's a
31:01
gracious man, and he deserves
31:04
the solace of knowing who killed
31:06
his daughter. He's still not sure that
31:10
your thinking has been correct, is
31:13
he? He has been told
31:15
many things that are false by the
31:18
sheriff's department, by the prosecution.
31:21
And so I don't expect him to uncritically
31:24
accept this new outcome,
31:26
this new twist. It's
31:29
a twist, all right. It's my
31:31
hope that we'll be able to build
31:33
a strong enough case. Well,
31:36
I should say. It's my hope that
31:39
there will be strong enough evidence
31:41
against the real killer
31:43
that Mr. O'Keefe and Mrs.
31:45
O'Keefe will
31:47
come to accept that Ray Jennings is
31:49
innocent.
31:50
The experience also changed
31:52
Jeff Ehrlich.
31:54
You know, on any given day, there
31:56
are probably, I don't know, well over 2 million
31:59
people behind the U.S. bars in America, you've
32:02
spent a long time and a terrific
32:04
amount of effort on your own money to
32:08
right what you perceive as a wrong with
32:10
one of them. Right. And
32:12
yet it seems to me like have
32:14
given you more pleasure than anything I can imagine.
32:18
It has given me more pleasure as
32:20
a lawyer than anything I've ever done. And
32:23
it rates for
32:26
me with the kind
32:28
of personal milestones that of getting
32:31
married, having your children born,
32:33
things like that. I get to see
32:35
little ripples.
32:37
I'm at the center along with Clint
32:39
and Ken Lynch and the CRU. We
32:41
did something good for Ray Jennings. And
32:44
now
32:45
the ripples of good. Go
32:47
out.
32:49
Ray Jennings, his family, to the Ehrlich's
32:52
now. When Ray got married exactly
32:54
a year after his release, the Ehrlich's
32:57
were there to witness it. Ray himself
32:59
officiated at the wedding of Jeff Ehrlich's
33:01
youngest son.
33:04
And
33:04
Ray is forever grateful to Clint, who
33:07
noticed, but no one else did, that
33:09
something didn't look right
33:12
and did something about it.
33:14
This is a friend for life. He is part of my
33:16
extended family now. All of them,
33:18
his family included everybody. They
33:22
have changed my life.
33:27
In a small town in North Carolina,
33:30
a world away from L.A. and the Atalope
33:32
Valley, Ray Jennings
33:34
is a manager of an auto parts
33:36
store, and he enjoys
33:38
life,
33:39
lessons learned. It
33:42
never dawned on me to ask for an attorney. That never dawned
33:44
on me that these people were going to use
33:49
things that you have said or helped with
33:51
against you later on in life. I've
33:55
always had a lot of respect for law enforcement and what
33:57
they do. Come
34:00
to find out you know it's it's not all no
34:03
sugars and cookies. I guess that's how you want to say Yeah,
34:05
why did you tell him so much? You
34:11
know there's a preconceived notion about
34:13
security guards and I
34:16
didn't want to fit that model. What
34:18
do you mean preconceived? No, you know you see them
34:20
in the movies and You
34:22
know they're just portrayed in a very dumb
34:25
ignorant fashion and
34:28
I didn't want to be perceived as a Man,
34:31
all you can get is this basic security job
34:33
and things like that So I
34:35
took on the role of playing dr.
34:37
Dr. Doogie Howser and inspector
34:40
gadget per se You want
34:42
to be extra help? I did want to be extra helpful
34:44
and it was and
34:46
that's pretty much what it was It
34:48
was nothing,
34:49
you know mischievous about it. It was just simple
34:52
a young man very immature
34:54
in his
34:55
time wanting to impress
34:58
the detectives or whoever else was
35:00
out there.
35:03
And by the way, Raymond Jennings told us
35:05
he never laid his hands on
35:07
civil attorney Rex Parris' neck,
35:10
as Parris told us he had in
35:12
that deposition, never
35:14
harmed a hero in his head.
35:16
And you're not bitter for the loss of those 16 years. No,
35:20
I'm not bitter. You know, like I said, I
35:23
have moved forward in my life. I moved
35:25
forward in prison, and I now move forward
35:28
outside of prison. Again,
35:31
the choice is yours.
35:37
And back where it all happened,
35:38
back in the Antelope Valley,
35:40
Mike and Pat O'Keefe still can't
35:43
quite believe that Ray Jennings did not
35:45
kill their daughter and thus start
35:47
the chain of terrible events that
35:49
destroy their family.
35:52
Michael Keefe is a kind man and
35:55
talkative himself, like Ray
35:57
Jennings.
35:58
Of all the things my Michael Keefe
36:00
told me over the years. I
36:02
love the story he told me the first time we met 14
36:04
years ago. This
36:07
was before the divorce with Pat,
36:10
before Michelle's little brother Jason died.
36:13
It was about a kind word from a coworker.
36:16
She came to me just the other day and said, you
36:19
know, I was at the
36:21
Emerald Valley graduation ceremony when
36:23
you and your wife and son received
36:27
her diploma. She said,
36:30
I knew from then on as a role model. She said
36:32
it was not only a role model for me, I use Michelle
36:34
as a role model for my kids now as
36:36
well.
36:37
So
36:40
in that sense, it helps.
36:43
And she's still fulfilling some kind of role,
36:45
even 10 years after she died. I think so.
36:48
Yeah, she's touched many people's
36:50
lives.
36:53
How much does that live with you now? How
36:55
much does she live with you now? We
36:58
used to live with us, she's in our hearts every day. Yeah,
37:00
every day.
37:03
Once there was a smart and pretty girl with
37:06
a shiny blue Mustang and
37:08
a whole new life ahead of her. You
37:10
can't ever, ever forget me, okay?
37:13
Because I know I'll never, ever forget you.
37:16
And a younger brother named Jason, who
37:19
made a promise at her funeral. I
37:24
will love you forever and I'll see you in heaven
37:26
when it's my time to go. Love your brother
37:28
Jason. And
37:30
if there is a heaven, perhaps they're there.
37:35
Spirits catching up drafts in
37:37
the high desert. MUSIC
37:40
SOUND SOUND
37:44
SOUND SOUND
37:48
SOUND MUSIC
37:53
The Girl
37:53
in the Blue Mustang is a production
37:55
of Dateline and NBC News. Scott
37:58
Frazier is a producer.
38:00
Brian Drew, David Varga,
38:02
and John Koster are audio editors.
38:04
Thomas Kemmon is assistant audio editor.
38:07
Ke'Ani Reed is associate producer.
38:10
Adam Gorefein is co-executive producer.
38:13
Liz Cole is executive producer. And
38:15
David Corvo is senior executive
38:17
producer. From NBC News
38:20
Audio, Bryson Barnes is technical
38:22
director, sound mixing by Bob
38:24
Mallory. Nina Bizbano
38:26
is associate
38:27
producer. the
38:45
Hey everybody, it's hoda kopi and Jenna Bush Hager
38:48
and we got big news. Our
38:50
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