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Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know what's concerned about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca or call 1-8-6-5-1-26-100. Terms and conditions apply. Previously on Bearbrook Season 2, a true crime story. To cut you a break would utterly undermine the public's confidence in the criminal justice system.
How do you prove something? How do you prove that I didn't do it? I believe that when you are Catholic, the priest gives you communion that the bread turns into the body of Jesus, like a literal human flesh. This is essentially the same thing as what happens. Once this condition happens, it's like that story is what happens.
I like to think of was remember the TB detective, Coach Jack. The system, the culture that our detectives live in and are made to operate in sets them up for this specific kind of failure of not being able to realize that there's an innocent person in front of them.
It's been seven years since Jason Carroll first wrote a letter to the New England Innocence Project. Neap, as it's called, is a small nonprofit, only about a dozen people on staff. And for the first three years after Jason wrote, they didn't even have an attorney based in New Hampshire who could work on his case full-time. Then Neap hired Cynthia Musso. Jason's case was on the top of the pile on her desk when she arrived in 2019.
And I remember thinking to myself, even when I started this job, like, how am I ever going to figure out these cases where people are innocent? I was a public defender for a long time. I've only had a few clients claim actual innocence. And then Cynthia read the documents in Jason's case. The way we want to think about our criminal legal system is that we don't have to rely necessarily on stories that people tell.
We want to be able to rely on hard evidence and science and observable objective fact. So my hope is that when there is a statement made, that statement can be verified by objective, scientific fact. In Jason's case, that's just not true. The police tried to do that and could not do it. They tried to focus on the financial aspect.
They got 10 spank records. Those do not show what they thought they were going to show. They got the knife. They wanted to prove that that wasn't the knife. It couldn't have been the knife.
It's just they don't line up. But it's one thing for an innocent attorney like Cynthia to be convinced Jason didn't do it. It's another to get the state of New Hampshire to admit they might have gotten this all horribly wrong. Remember back in episode one, that hearing where Jason asked for an early release from prison, that was one of Cynthia's first moves. It would have been the fastest way out of the prison walls for Jason.
And as you heard, it didn't work. In part, because Jason has always refused to take responsibility for the crime. The prosecutors for the state and the court system that oversaw Jason's convictions, both stick firmly to the original narrative. You confessed to your participation in this murder for a higher plot, and you and your accomplice, Mr. Faff, kidnapped and murdered a seven and a half month pregnant woman.
You stood by while your accomplice sexually assaulted her as she lay dead or dying there in that gravel pit. And you were paid $5,000 for those in human acts. And I don't say inhumane, but in human acts by the victim's own husband. Despite the fact that Tony Puff was acquitted and Ken Johnson was never even tried, in the official version of this true crime story, they're still killers. Innocence claims are almost always a long shot.
The criminal legal system is built on a bedrock of finality. The courts want criminal prosecutions to end at some point, not be endlessly retried. And there are legitimate reasons for that, dogmatic ones too. But in New Hampshire, a state that has never exonerated anyone convicted of a murder, it can feel like the hurdles are even higher than usual. What Cynthia and Neep are trying to do has simply never been done before.
And so to help challenge the official narrative, Neep invited someone from the outside to come tell a new one. One time people say, oh, just read the trial transcripts, you know, you'll see why this person is guilty or innocent. What gets brought into a courtroom and what gets left out sometimes tells the story much more fully. This is Barobrook Season 2, a true crime story. I'm Jason Moon.
It's like everything that happens in the courtroom is like, it's like, it's like a life trap in tar from hundreds of years ago.
That same rotten piece of tar keeps getting passed from courtroom to courtroom to courtroom as if the entire world is static and nothing has changed and no technology has changed and no witnesses have come forward, but we're just stuck in time. As you probably know, the true crime genre ranges widely. From exploitation of personal tragedies to high-minded journalistic exposés to direct advocacy. I think Robby's work is probably the best example of what you might call the soft power of true crime. Robby started her podcast undisclosed with two other attorneys, Susan Simpson and Colin Miller.
At first, it was all about Adnan's case, but then they started looking at others. In each season of their show, they reinvestigate what they believe is a wrongful conviction. They re-interview witnesses who may have changed their story. They track down witnesses police never spoke to. They look for evidence of legal foul play, whatever they can find.
By now, they've looked at over 20 different cases. And by Robby's count, they've played a role in overturning convictions in about half of them. About a month before Jason Carroll was back in court in the fall of 2022, Adnan Syed walked out of prison. He was a free man for the first time in 22 years, though his legal battles still aren't over yet. In another example, in Georgia, undisclosed worked alongside the Georgia Innocence Project and found evidence of juror misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct that recently helped vacate the conviction of Joey Watkins.
He'd also been in prison for 22 years. I mean, I look, true crime has always been big, but when I was growing up, it was a different angle, right? It was like getting the bad guy and investigators getting it right and the police getting it right and everything being resolved. But I think after serial, suddenly it's shifted a lot between serial, between movements like Black Lives Matter, suddenly folks are like, well, maybe it's not all wrapped up in nice little bow like that all the time. Undoing nice little bows.
That's exactly what the New England Innocence Project had in mind when they invited undisclosed to look at Jason Carroll's case. In the summer of 2021, Robby arrived in New Hampshire to start investigating. And I went with her. Robby, do you want to just explain what we're doing today? What you're up to?
Yeah. So today we're going to be trying to find some of the original investigators in the case. Robby brought with her Sarah Cailene, a former police officer turned private investigator, cold case consultant, and true crime personality. The two of them followed Google Maps down winding back roads across New Hampshire to reach some of the witnesses in Jason's case. I sat in the back seat of their rental car with my microphone, getting a little car sick.
What did you say I was turning down? I'm sorry. Oh, right there where we just passed off, right? I recorded Robby and Sarah as they recorded interviews. So I kind of want to start at the top and ask you what your relationship was with Dontons.
Well, like I said, I was a poll worker with Sharon. And of course, we talked about true crime podcasts as we happened to drive past the entrance to Bearbrook State Park. The idea becomes to produce something that has value to society, not just retelling story stories. Although like the strain reporting also can have value. It's all very meta, I know.
But that's exactly why I was there. Podcasts like cereal, undisclosed, and lots of others don't just reflect reality. They help change it. I had my own experience with this when someone who listened to season one of this podcast discovered the names of three of the people found murdered near Bearbrook State Park. And I kept stopping and going back.
I was like, you know what? Listen to this podcast makes me think it is this person, these girls. This is actually how I first became interested in Jason Carroll's case. Before I'd read thousands of pages of police reports and trial transcripts, before I'd heard the interrogation tapes, before I fell down the scientific rabbit hole on false confessions. All I knew was a famous true crime podcast with millions of listeners was about to land in my backyard.
The official narrative was about to be challenged by a new story. More than a year later, it is still changing things in ways I never expected. Rabia and Sarah ended up speaking to more than a dozen people connected to Jason's case, some of whom you've heard from in this podcast and some who wouldn't talk to me, like one of the detectives who investigated the case before rolling Lammy took it over. And they talked to Lammy too, who told them he was a surprise Jason was still in prison and b had no problem with the idea of DNA testing in Jason's case.
But in the end, undisclosed did not find new evidence to test or new legal grounds for Jason to appeal on, no smoking gun, alternate suspect, and no airtight alibi for Jason on the night of the murder. After all, more than 30 years had passed in between Sharon's murder and undisclosed investigation. People's memories had gotten hazier every year, and it was unclear whether the physical evidence in the case still even existed. But with the facts they did have, undisclosed put forward a new theory. Or actually, it was an old theory, the one the original investigators had before Lammy took over the case.
Rabia and Sarah think that Ken Johnson was responsible for Sharon's murder. And only Ken. I think he did it and he acted alone. It was just him. He killed her by himself and brought her to that site and dumped her there and then couldn't get a story straight.
The theory is partly based on the same things that made police suspicious of Ken back in 1988. Ken changed his story about where he was the night of the murder, his gambling debts were a plausible motive, his ex-wife said he'd been violent with her. But undisclosed also points out major oversights in the police's investigation of Ken. Like how in the days following the murder, police got a search warrant for Ken's car, but there's no record they ever made any attempt to search the house Ken and Sharon shared. Rabia and her team also offer an alternate explanation for how Sharon ended up at a construction site.
It's an idea based on what Ken and others told police about Sharon and Ken's sex life. Ken told police he and Sharon had a very active sex life. He said they'd often meet during the middle of the day and drive to a gravel pit to have sex. Ken called it a new knee. The undisclosed theory is that Ken took Sharon to the construction site where her body was found, under the pretense that they were going there to have sex.
When the undisclosed season on Jason Carroll came out in the fall of 2021, I waited in the wings, ready to document the fallout. I was a little naive. The podcast came out, millions of people did listen. But if you weren't one of those listeners, it would have been hard to tell that anything had happened. There was no local outcry, no op-eds in the local papers, or local politicians making Jason's innocence their cause, and no pushback from the state.
All seemed quiet, at least on the outside. But not for the people closest to the story. For Jason, undisclosed was exciting. It was validating. For the first time in decades, a new version of the story had been told, and people believed in his innocence.
People around the world now would respond to, to have the people out there, you know, and then be like, holy shit, they're not feeling like, you know, they're shit, but I'm out. Ironically, Jason hasn't actually heard the podcast himself. He doesn't have access to podcasts in prison. But he also told me he doesn't want to hear it, or this podcast for that matter. He doesn't want to relive any of this again.
I expected Jason's lawyer, Cynthia Muso, would feel excited about the podcast too. After all, her office pitched Jason's case to undisclosed. But for Cynthia, it wasn't that simple. Of course, she likes that this new narrative says Jason is innocent. But as a former defense attorney, it also raised questions for her about when it's okay for true crime storytellers to say someone else is guilty.
We're very appreciative of the attention that Jason's case has gotten from undisclosed, and I would never underestimate the impact of the support to Jason. I think the podcast is on the whole beneficial for Jason. But I'm always very skeptical of, you know, Jason, you and I have been talking for a long time, you know that I always say it's just like I'm an anti-hunch. It's true. Cynthia had told me many times how dangerous she feels hunches can be in the criminal justice system.
As far as she sees it, everything that went wrong for Jason was the result of a hunch. Detective Roland Lammy's hunch. And even though undisclosed theory includes the idea that Jason had nothing to do with the murder, the way it points the finger at Ken, I think for Cynthia, it feels too close to the way the finger got pointed at Jason. And in that way, I don't personally agree with that theory. It's just not based on concrete, observable facts.
It's based on assumptions about human behavior and theories about human behavior. You felt that their theory was a little too hunchy, if that's a word. Yeah, a little too hunchy. Yeah, I think it's based on Ken is not a good guy, so it must be Ken because there was really nobody else. And I don't know Ken, and I don't know who did it.
But for Robby, it seemed only natural that their story provide an answer to what happened to Sharon. For me, every innocence case is also a murder mystery. It is justice that still needs to be served for the victim. And so I think it would be really weird and irresponsible and just bad storytelling to just tell part of it, the reasons Jason's is likely innocent. But also we're just not going to try to add all figure out what happened to the victim.
I think you're not telling the whole story then. What is the whole story? Even for two people who believe in Jason's innocence? It's not an easy question to answer. Meanwhile, for those who don't believe in Jason's innocence, it can feel like the whole story is being missed.
So can you just start by telling me your name and who you are? Melanie Eaton, daughter of Sharon, to me, Eaton, but Johnson. Melanie Eaton was 14 years old when her mom, Sharon Johnson, was murdered. Melanie cherishes the stories she has of growing up with her mom. Like the time she says her mom bought her a few pet mice.
Well, the people lied to her and didn't know that it was a boy and a girl, not two girls. So we came home one day and they had babies. And the babies got out. And then we saw some on the floor and my mom's like, oh my God, so we're hiring up to her to catch them. And we're walking, I found some in my bedroom and my closet all over the place.
They were everywhere. Melanie remembers the time she woke up to an asthma attack and her mom soothed and guided her through it. She remembers the funny little dances she says her mom would do to make her laugh. The time her mom let her drive the car. I think of my mom every time I see a yellow rose.
My mom planted, she made a garden box on the side of the house and she planted roses. And when she found out she was pregnant with my sister, who I also never got to meet, there was one single yellow rose growing. And so every time I see yellow roses, I think of my mom because to her that meant something special. Melanie feels like her whole life has been shaped by her mother's murder. She imagines the different paths it might have taken if she'd only had her mom.
And she's logged all the moments her mom wasn't there for. My son was born, he was born July 24th, 1992, almost exactly four years to the day. And I was petrified. I was going to have him on that day and I can't have a happy day on a bad day. Begging the doctors, please, I can't have a happy day on a bad day.
My son was born, he was only born with a 2% chance of life. It would have been really nice to have my mom there. It would be okay. For decades, Melanie tried to live with this pain. But now new stories are reopening the wounds.
In 2021, Melanie got a call from Rabia Choudry. They talked and Melanie's voice was included in the undisclosed season about Jason Carroll. But when the podcast came out, Melanie says she felt duped. She didn't clarify. She just said, I'm working on the case.
I'm going through it. I have your transcripts from when you talk to the police. So you mind looking at it and then talking to me about it? She wasn't forthright at all saying, hey, I'm actually an attorney trying to get Jason Carroll out of jail. And I want you to answer some questions.
I would have been like, no, screw you. Kiss off right away. But she wasn't forthright. And then when I found out later on, it infuriated me. Rabia disputes this.
She says she made it very clear who she was and what her aims were. And Melanie says she didn't actually listen to undisclosed. Just like Jason, she said it would be too difficult. For me, Jason Carroll is where he belongs, where he deserves to be. And he needs to stay there.
He has no, no, why should he be out? And have his life to live when he was part of taking away my mother's. He took away my mother's life, my life. He took away the chance from all my children to meet their grandmother. Took it all away.
Why should he have a life? My colleague Lauren Schulgen was in the room with me and Melanie for this conversation. And as we talked about Melanie's experience with another true crime podcast, Lauren asked a question. What's different about what Jason's doing from what they're doing? I'm not entirely sure because Jason is from my understanding, trying to get the entire story and its whole out to everybody, which includes how we all feel the victims.
I'm not playing you the state of Melanie as a way to suggest my story is somehow morally superior to Robius. And I'm not even sure Melanie would agree that it is. I did tell Melanie that I thought what she and others who loved Sharon are going through was an important part of the story. And I hope I've honored that. But no matter how carefully we craft our stories, we can't fully control how people hear them.
Or what they'll lead to. By the fall of 2022, about a year after the undisclosed season on Jason's case came out, I began to think that the impacts of the newest version of this true crime story had all played out. Undisclosed had brought new attention to the case. It had reopened wounds and stirred hopes. And maybe that would be it.
And then I got an unexpected call from Jason's lawyer, Cynthia. So can you just tell me what happened again? Yeah. So I went to court today with Jason's sister, Jackie, because this was in October, 2022, about a month before Jason had his hearing where he requested early release. Cynthia explained that this day she took Jackie Carroll, Jason's sister, to the courthouse for a kind of dry run, just to show Jackie the courtroom, the judge.
So it wouldn't be all new to her the day of Jason's hearing. So we were sitting in the courtroom and I hadn't been there in years because I was a public defender years ago. So the clerk who I know came over to chat with me and she said that she had been listening to undisclosed. She's like, you know what? Like there's a big box in our basement with Jason Carroll's name on it.
And I was like an evidence box in the basement and she said, yes. And so Jackie and I looked at each other and my mouth went wide open. I was shocked. You know, it is standard practice in criminal cases for the court to issue a letter to the state and the defense after a trial's over saying come get these evidence exhibit or we're going to destroy them. So for them to be there after 30 years is small miracle.
A small miracle. For months Cynthia and separately I had been asking the state what evidence remained from the investigation into Sharon's murder. The fingerprints taken from the car, photos and video of the crime scene Sharon's belongings, the alleged murder weapon. And especially important Sharon's fingernail clippings. The nails with blood under them.
That could belong to Sharon's attacker blood that was never DNA tested. I asked the state in June of 2022 if those fingernail clippings still existed. They still haven't responded. But what public records requests did not reveal a true crime podcast had a mystery box of evidence in a courthouse basement. What was inside?
My my pie in the sky hope is that the fingernail they're there. My my realistic beliefs is that they are not but my hope is that they are. But there is anything that evidence in this case is useful to me. I never said I've never heard you just excited Cynthia. After the break, the box.
A quick reminder, Bearbrook Season 2 took more than a year to report and lots of resources. And as you're about to hear, this story is not over. If you're in a position to do so, please consider making a donation to New Hampshire Public Radio. To give now, click the link in the show notes. And thank you for supporting local, long-form investigative reporting.
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That's why intact insurance answers 2 million clean calls per year within 20 seconds. So instead of hearing this lovely track, you'll hear this in seconds. Hello, intact insurance. In my mind, I pictured Cynthia brushing aside cobwebs and blowing off years of dust in a dank basement to see what was inside the box. Instead, when we arrive, we're shown to a quiet, mostly empty courtroom.
And the mystery box had already been unpacked. Its contents spread across the two tables attorneys would sit at during a trial. There's a clerk and a bailiff in the room keeping an eye on us. This evidence is in their custody. So it's not like Cynthia can take anything with her.
What's the subscriber look? Yeah, so we got here. The box was open and exhibits are out, so we're taking a look at all the stuff that's on the table. There were stacks of documents. A pile of plastic ziplock bags with things inside.
Large brown paper bags. Photographs of VHS tape. More than I ever expected. Are you getting Irish in there? Yes.
I'm going to throw out gloves after glove after glove here. Cynthia knows DNA is Jason's best shot. She doesn't want to contaminate anything, so she wears gloves and changes them between each piece of evidence that she touches. The clerk brings over a trash can. I decide I'm not touching anything.
Cynthia reaches for one of the large brown paper bags. I want to know what's in here. So we're going to look at DJE4. That's the jeans. That's the sheens.
That's the sheens. That's the sheens. Sheens. Wow. Sheens.
With an elastic waistband and an 80s acid wash. Still covered in the dried mud her body was found in. I wasn't expecting this. To be this intimately close to Sheens death. The room feels heavier.
Cynthia becomes methodical. She's brought with her a large roll of white paper. And she rips off big sheets of it to put underneath pieces of evidence to catch any dirt or dust that falls off. The jeans are just the beginning. Inside another bag is the bra Sheens wearing when she died.
Cut open in the front. Still stained with blood. There were Sheeran's shoes. Tan, Moccasin style slip-ons. There was the watch she was wearing.
Bits of paper found in Sheeran's car. Like a shopping list for coffee and cheeses. A ziplunk bag full of cigarette butts from Sheeran's car. Then there was Jason's pocket knife. Small with a brown handle.
Like any old pocket knife. You might take camping or have a junk drawer. Cynthia carefully placed it on a new sheet of white paper, unfolded the blade, and then photographed it next to a ruler. There was a yellow spiral notebook that belonged to Ken Johnson. Full of handwritten swarched to sports games from the 80s.
Evidence of Ken's gambling habit. There were the fingerprint cards taken from Jason and Tony at age 19. On one side, every finger was printed individually. On the other side, their full hand print was taken. For about 30 minutes, Cynthia has been making her way through each piece of evidence.
Examining them, taking pictures of them. Carefully placing them back how they came. Then she opens a large ziplock bag with a bunch of other ziplock bags inside of it. Inside each of the smaller bags are tubes and slides and other things that look like they belong in a lab. Sand from abdomen.
Sand from back. What are you? Medical specimen. That is the nail clippings. This is the nail clippings.
This is the nail clippings. Cynthia walks away from the table. Her eyes are filling with tears. She takes out her phone and calls her boss at the New England Innocence Project. Hey, the fucking nail clippings are here.
The nail clippings are here. Yeah. Cynthia abruptly hangs up and then walks back to the table. The nail clippings are in two normal sized paper envelopes. One envelope for the nail clippings from each hand.
Each envelope has a strip of red tape with the word evidence printed three times in all the tabs. Cynthia holds one of the envelopes up to the light. I can see the silhouettes of the nail clippings inside, like tiny crescent moves. I don't know if I'm shaking, Jason. A little bit.
A lot. It's the answer to who killed Sharon Johnson is very likely in that envelope right there. It is possible that the answer to who killed Sharon Johnson is in this envelope in front of us. These two envelopes. And we have been looking for these.
And now we know where they are. We only know where they are by a chance encounter in court. You look at my cry. He's been sitting there for just about 33 years. He's been sitting here for a long time.
Tissures. Yeah, I'm going to take the tissues. The bailiff, who's been looking over with an interested expression ever since Cynthia found the envelope, comes over to offer a box of tissues. The clerk is on her feet too. She's riding down the exhibit number of the nail clippings to make sure they're preserved.
The courtroom is now filled with excitement. A feeling that's reaching across the professional boundaries in the room. The bailiff says out loud, this is incredible. This is incredible. Yeah, and you guys were here for this.
This was history in the making. That's like a scene of moving. Yeah. You know, you know, maybe your job is boring sometimes. Not today.
No, not today. A few weeks after that day at the courthouse, Cynthia filed a motion with the court for DNA testing. She asked the court to order testing for the nail clippings and six other pieces of evidence found in the box that have also never been DNA tested. Those include fingerprint lifts from inside Sharon's car, the cigarette butts from Sharon's car, and Jason's pocket knife.
Cynthia had hopes prosecutors for the state might agree to the testing. After all, it could prove Jason's guilt or his innocence. Many way to days to hear whether they'd agree, then weeks. Finally, the state filed a document with the court. They were objecting to DNA testing.
The state's objection to DNA testing in Jason Carroll's case begins with yet another retelling of the official narrative. The state then argues there is no scenario under which DNA testing would exonerate Jason. I had to reread that sentence a few times when I first saw this document. No possible scenario where DNA testing proves Jason's innocence. This means that even if DNA tests on the evidence came back and there was no DNA of Jason's and there was, say, DNA from a known serial killer, the state's position is that that would not exonerate Jason.
I tried to talk with Charles Buccha, the prosecutor who wrote the objection. I wanted to ask him what makes him so absolutely certain of Jason's guilt, but he declined. It seems for Charles and the state of New Hampshire, they already know what happened. Jason is guilty. He confessed.
And it seems nothing, not even a DNA test, can undo that story. Like bread becomes flesh, that story is now their truth. Because of this moment, the decision on whether or not DNA testing will happen is in the hands of Judge William Delker, the same judge who denied Jason's request for early release. Even if DNA testing is granted, it will likely still take a long time to play out. There could be fights over which items get tested, which kinds of tests get run, and which labs should do the testing.
Then of course, the results could be argued over. If the DNA tests come back as not Jason, but don't point to anyone else, a judge might decide that's not enough. If the DNA tests come back as Ken Johnson, the state could argue that confirms Jason's conviction. It could all take months if not longer. In the meantime, Jason Carroll is inside the New Hampshire state prison for men, about five minutes from me.
I talked to Jason again in January of 2023. His lawyer, Cynthia, was in the room with me. I am tired of being looked at like I'm a fucking kind of animal. I'm just tired of being looked at like, you know, oh yeah, well you were convicted, you know, and I get how the course of some work that people, you know, people understand the shadiness and shadiness that happened with this. Jason has been writing an emotional rollercoaster the past several months, appearing in court for the first time in decades, adding his request for early parole denied, learning about the discovery of the evidence box, and now finding out the state is objecting to DNA testing.
It's been a busy time. Still, Jason seems clear eyed about the road ahead. He says they've lost some battles, but the war can still be won. He tells Cynthia he's ready to keep fighting, ready to be the first man in New Hampshire to ever be exonerated after being convicted of murder. I'm kind of like a power now for people that are behind the wall, in a sense.
What do you mean by that? Say more about that. Well, for what you and I have gone on with, you know, with your organization, which has never been done before, there are people in here who need it. There are people here who like me that don't belong here. There's not many, but there are some here.
And the thing that the state's never had it before. So, I mean, you and I are like, you know, we're trying to make history. But I know like I said, we're just not following all the power for everybody else. For a few moments, I stopped interviewing and just listened as Jason and Cynthia talked to each other. They've known each other a few years now.
Jason, can you talk about like how, like, what's it been like, you know, you put your faith in the system originally, right? And then the system fails you. Of course. How have you felt about like trying to put your faith in the system again? Like, you know, it's not like faith in the system.
It's put my faith into you. Cynthia fights back a smile, a look of embarrassment, pride, heartache, and heavy responsibility blooms across her face. That's what my faith is. A word about that system that Jason just mentioned, the public institutions that are supposed to act on our behalf, the ones we pay for it with our taxes. That system is not always built on science.
The number one recommendation of false confession experts is that interrogations should be recorded in their entirety. More than half of all states in the US now require police to do this. New Hampshire is not one of them. In response to our question about this, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Department of Safety said they do consider it, quote, best practice. We talked to more than a dozen defense attorneys and local police officials who told us interrogations with suspects in New Hampshire are often recorded, though not universally.
A bill to require recording police interrogations in most circumstances is pending in the state legislature. Since 2002, close to 100 so-called conviction integrity units have opened across 27 states. These are units within prosecutors' offices tasked with revisiting their own convictions to make sure they still hold up. Less than half of those units have actually recorded exonerations, but across those who have, 668 people have been cleared of crimes they did not commit. A conviction integrity unit played a role in the exoneration of Hugh Burton, who you heard from in the last episode.
There are no conviction integrity units in New Hampshire. Some law enforcement agencies are abandoning the read technique because of the risk of false confessions. In 2015, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, sort of the Canadian FBI, said they were switching to a less accusatory technique. And believe it or not, a sergeant with the RCMP described the new technique to a reporter this way, quote, less co-jack and more Dr. Phil.
For now, this is as far as I can take you. The road to answering who killed Sharon Johnson, and whether Jason Carroll will be exonerated, ends here for the moment. In my true crime story, I can't tell you whether Jason is truly innocent. The truth is, I don't know, at least not yet. I do know this.
In the late 1980s, all we had to go on were a few clues and words on tape. Today, in 2023, with a box full of evidence that can now be DNA tested and more than 30 years of science on confessions, we finally have a real shot at getting to the truth. The only question left is whether our system of justice is willing to keep looking for it. A true crime story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.
It's edited by Katie Culinary, additional reporting and research by Paul Koonobu. Editing helped from Lauren Chulgen, Daniella Ali, Sarah Plord, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hopplemasian, and Todd Bookman. Our news director is Dan Berrick. Our director of podcasts is Rebecca Lavoy. Fact-checking by Daniel Suleman.
Sarah Plord created our original artwork as well as our website, Berbrokepodcast.com. Additional photography and videos by Gabby Lazada. Special thanks to Maria Savaris, Mary McIntyre, Gabby Healy, Sarah Nathan, Dan Tui, Zoe Knox, Jung Yun Han, and Ruby Ber. Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon. Berbroke is a production of the document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.
Looking for a horror podcast that is in murder to get through? Then check out another Fing horror podcast. Our show where paranormal and true crime stories collide with unfiltered commentary. I'm Monique Sanchez, and I'm Amy Treton. Each week Monique and I share one paranormal story and one true crime case, from unexplained phenomena to true tales of murder and mayhem.
We find the stories you haven't heard before and research them obsessively to bring them to life. Follow or watch another epic horror podcast, wherever you get your podcast. My teammate says he plays pick up basketball quote for the cardio. Well, there's more to it than that, Sean. Like with Beth 365, I could pay the second my team goes at big with early payout and be cash out at any time before the game ends.
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