Murder at the Bike Shop | Ep. 11 – 8,948 Days

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Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes we, as police officers, grab onto a bun and we won't let go. We just stay focused because we know for sure that that individual did it. When in fact, there are other avenues and other clues leading to the actual killer. I would imagine a fear of a detective is to convict someone or an employee.

Oh, God, my wife can probably tell you that was my biggest fear getting a conviction on an innocent person. That's Detective Harold West. He's retired now, but for many years, he was a detective with the countless new department of public safety. As you know, his role in Scott Baldwin's case wasn't as an investigator. He was actually an eyewitness.

But when we spoke to him by what he saw, I'll tell the bike shop and the night early burn was killed. He also told us a little about his experience as a detective. But we just have to keep an open mind and keep our head on a swivel in terms of looking for the pieces of that puzzle. You know, you may have your focus on your suspect and continue to build the case that you believe that that individual may be involved, but don't eliminate everything.

Just keep looking, keep making that puzzle, getting that big picture.

“For the Kalamazoo cold case team, I think Scott Baldwin was a bone that had grabbed onto and just couldn't let go.”

Because at first glance, yes, I can see why Scott would make for a satisfying suspect.

I can see how talking to Stacey and hearing her story could have made it feel like all the pieces were falling into place. Except if Scott was guilty, then why are there all these other pieces of the puzzle still in the table still in a countertour? Pieces like, for example, the blonde man, that detective West saw, outside the bike shop with Earl. As a detective, I want to make sure that I can fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. You know, if I'm missing a piece, should I be looking somewhere else?

And sometimes you can push that piece in and make it try. I make it fit. Yeah, and that's when you get yourself in trouble. On the night that Earl of Burm was murdered, Officer West saw something that does not fit with a theory that Scott Baldwin was guilty. With Earl had been a blonde man with a brown coat and possibly a cream-colored car, this was not Scott.

So, who was it? The cold case team had no explanation for this piece of the puzzle. It did not fit the case they were building, so they ignored it. But while what Officer West saw didn't fit the case against Scott Baldwin, it turns out there were other puzzle pieces it did fit with.

“Because Officer West was not the only witness who saw something important outside of the bike shop.”

Only no one had ever followed up on what the other witnesses had seen. One thing we have found while working in this case is that there were actually two more people who called in, reports about this. But it's 630 in the morning. They were two people commuting to work. And one of them saw a tan car parking on the side of the building.

This person back the car rear against the building. And it was a blonde man and a brownish coat of some sort. And then a second witness drove by and didn't see the person was all the same tan car parked there. It strikes me as curious that it's fairly close to what you saw a much earlier in the day. You were giving me information to that?

This is a information that no one knew apparently.

Yeah, I never had that information.

And that's what we call a clue.

I am Susan Simpson. And I'm just in the Davis. I'm an attorney and investigator. And I'm a true crime TV producer.

“And this is proof season three, murder at the bike shop.”

Proof is a red marble media production and association with glass box media. New episodes are released on Mondays. And on Thursdays, you can catch our sidebar episodes where we talk about the case, talk to guests, and tell you more about what's going on behind the scenes. This is episode 11, 8,948 days. The two new reports from eyewitnesses who saw something outside the bike shop early the next morning came from silent observer.

We'd send in a records request and get back all of the silent observer tip sheets. There was a lot in there that was interesting. But when Susan saw the two tips about the early morning sightings outside the bike shop, she called me in shock. Okay, get this. There are two different tips. Some of those are for people in the next morning, like 60 a.m. who saw a hamburger and a blonde man outside the bike shop. Holy shit. That matches what we're saying.

Yes, that's a good one, but basically exactly. Oh my god.

From what we could tell, these two tips had never been investigated before.

Because if they had, it's unlikely Scott would have been arrested much less convicted. The first tip was anonymous, but the caller told Silent Observer that at 6.30 a.m. on the day Earl's body was found. She seen a man walking by the bike shop. He got into a tan car and parked it backwards against the bike shop. Quote, subject was wearing dark tan pants and a dark tan coat and baseball cap.

Subject had dark object in left hand. The caller described the man as blonde. The hair was short-ish, but long enough to stick out from under his cap. What the caller reported was strikingly similar to what officer West had seen when he drove by the bike shop. At 12.45 a.m. six hours earlier.

“Does it seem significant to you, but potentially at the same?”

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, think about it. Here you got a car, you know, backed up to a building on the side. That and itself is going to ring bells. Okay, so why is that car backed up in an area that there is no vehicle traffic next to the train tracks? You know, that's something it's going to draw your attention. That's why you're there attention.

Yeah, so why is that vehicle there? So, as if I was trying to hide the plate, maybe. At the time, we got the Silent Observer tips. We didn't know what James Long had looked like. But later on, we got some photos from the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Back in 1988, they had sent a photographer to Earl's funeral. James Long was a Paul Barre for Earl. The photo showed him carrying Earl's casket. His blonde hair was short-ish, but it hung down a bit on the back and sides, almost like a long bull cut. His hair would have absolutely stuck out from under a cap.

Just like the Silent Observer tip had described. I mean, that that's a lead that I would follow up on. This is just me having the experience that I have now.

“You know, asking a certain questions that I think that need to be answered.”

Remarkably, there was a second tip from someone who had seen something outside the bike shop that morning. The second tipster had driven by at 6.45 a.m. About 15 minutes after the first tipster.

Here's what the Silent Observer tip sheet says.

"Color looks at the bike shop as her bike was there to be repaired. And she was going to pick it up that day. She saw an older model vehicle, Tanner Cream color. Park next to the side of building with trunk against building. Car was gone at 10.30 when she stopped to pick up her bike."

When combined with what officer West saw, these two tips suggest something significant. They suggest that someone was at the bike shop laid on the night or was killed. And either stayed there all night or left only to return again early the next morning. There was no indication that these Silent Observer tips were ever followed up on by investigators. But they could have been.

While the first tipster had been anonymous,

the second tipster wasn't, she left her name and we found her. My name is Sally, Brinkman. What did you think when I first called you? I was surprised that anyone was showing an interest.

I was surprised that you immediately knew what I was talking about.

Well, I'm kind of a detailed person. Sally is very much a detailed person.

“When I'd called and told her I was looking into the bike shop murder,”

she'd instantly known why I wanted to talk to her. And she'd instantly recalled what she'd seen there, nearly 40 years ago now. At the time I was working at Borges Hospital in their laboratory. And my shift started at 7 and got over around 5. And so I drove past it.

That was my route to work every day. It was about quarter to seven in the morning. And it was summertime. And it was unusual to see a car in the parking lot that early. I don't expect to see the owner there at that time or anybody else.

The car that was parked there was parked unusually. It was backed in.

And normally if you pull in, you just park face in.

This was facing out. Sally wasn't a regular customer of the bike shop, but she'd been there a few times. In fact, she'd recently dropped off her own bike at her own shop, so he could make a few repairs.

I knew my bike was ready because I had called the shop the day before. And they said it was ready to pick up. This is why Sally is absolutely certain that the morning she saw the car, parked backwards against the bike shop, was the same morning Earl's body was found.

So when you came back, the police were there. Yeah, it was all yellow taped off. And it was pretty chaotic. I stopped and talked to them because they told me I could not have my bike. It was being held as evidence.

And they would contact me later when I could pick up my bike.

“Do you think you told them then about what you saw though?”

Yeah, I did. I talked to a police when then. I don't think he wrote anything down. He did not? No, he did not.

And it was going on much later. I thought, well, I did see something so I'm going to call it in. Sally reported what she'd seen that morning to a police officer. She spoke to outside of the bike shop. But a few months later,

when she saw on the news the case was still unsolved, she had called silent observer to report it again. Just to make sure, please knew about it. Did anyone ever follow up with you when you called in the tip? You clearly couldn't contact him, but did you ever hear back from anyone?

No. You're the first. Decades later. As we were talking to Sally, I could almost feel my heart sink,

“knowing what she could have meant for Scott's case.”

As a witness, she would have been credible and compelling. And what she saw strongly suggests that someone who was not Scott Baldwin had spent a lot of time at the bike shop on the night in morning that Earl was killed. Sally alone could have made the difference in this case. Only she wasn't alone.

The other tipster had seen the same car that Sally described and had also seen a blonde man parking it. I didn't see a person in the car. They were about 15 minutes before you would have been there, and by then I guess the person was gone,

but it's so rare to have two witnesses like that to see the same thing and corroborate each other.

The first tipster, the one who saw the tank car and blonde man at 6.30am,

had not left a name with their sign of observer tip. But they had left a phone number. 38 years later on, I have not been able to figure out who that tipster was. But in 1988, they would have only been a phone call away if only someone had tried.

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Who would be at the shop at 630? Nobody. We told former bike shop employee Lori Scott about the two Silent Observer tips we'd found. She immediately began putting the puzzle pieces together for herself.

Nobody should have been there at 630. I don't want to raise it the same tan card that was there that night. They just say older tan car, so it's-- I don't know what James is, partner, drove. Lori was wondering the same thing we'd wondered.

“Could the tan or cream car have belonged to James Long's boyfriend?”

Another Silent Observer tip held a possible answer. The caller had been anonymous, but whoever they were, they'd clearly had their own suspicions about James Long. James Long lived with James Connell, crown owned a base vehicle,

and following the murder went south to work. [Music] We showed the Silent Observer tips to bike shop employee slash manager, Karen Raymond, as well. And they didn't look in the bus.

We talked to the woman who called in the tip,

and she said, "You're the first people who've ever followed up with me."

We want to ask you, is there a reason someone would be there at 630? No. Like, there's no delivery thing made, there's no. There's no good reason for a car to be there. 630?

No. We don't know who the blonde man had the bike shop at 630, and the morning was. But we do know it wasn't Scott Baldwin. One, he's not blonde and two,

“because Stacey has always said that after Scott,”

crawled through the basement window that morning, he didn't leave again. He just got crawled through the basement window that morning. He didn't leave again. Scott Baldwin's girlfriend at the time.

She says Scott was home at 5 a.m. That morning. So 630 can't be him. You looked disturbed. I just think.

I mean, it would be a shame.

It's the wrong person's in jail for this, right? The two tips about someone at the bike shop early the next morning after Earl was murdered, also provided a possible answer for another mystery in this case. Because when Lori Scott had found Earl's body,

she'd noticed something that should have set off alarm bills for every investigator who has ever worked on this case. His arm was like up in the air, kind of like he was in Regamordish type thing, and he wasn't moving.

So it was the arm was actually sticking up in the air. Yeah. A few hours after someone dies, Regamordish sets in. Their muscles contract and stiffen.

And for several hours after that, the body will be locked into that position, which means there's only one way Earl opens hand could have been sticking up into the air, like Lori remembers.

He was moved after death. So he might have died in a bike shop, and I moved him into the air. With Regamordish, it'd be like if it's set him in your lying on your side, and then you're flipped over,

your handle stays sticking up in the air. Okay. What Lori remembers suggests that Earl O'Burn had died while lying on his side, with his arm stretched out beside him.

And then some hours after death, he was rolled over onto his back, leaving his arm now extended into the air. There's another detail too, that hadn't seemed significant before,

but did now. James Long testified at Scott's trial over the phone since he was in Alabama, and mentioned seeing Earl's body lying in the bedroom. Prosecutor Stewart Fitten had asked,

"What was Earl's condition when you found him?" Oh, Earl was already dead, James Long answered. He was laying sort of on a side. I didn't see no injuries on his body or anything. I felt down for a pulse and didn't find any.

It's a small detail, but James' description of Earl's body lying on its side doesn't quite fit with what Lori remembers and what the crime scene photo show with Earl lying on his back.

Maybe he was just misremembering. But after finding the two silent observer tips, I couldn't help but wonder. Is it possible that what James Long was describing here is not what he'd seen at 9 a.m.

“when he went into Earl's room after Lori found the body?”

But what he'd seen at 6.30 a.m.

to check on Earl? Perhaps to make sure that he was okay after whatever had happened happened the night before. Had James Long found Earl in bed lying on his side and rolled him over to check for a pulse.

Could that be why Earl's arm have been left to king up in the air? It was definitely up in the air, yeah. So there's evidence that Earl's body was moved several hours after he died.

And there's evidence of a blonde man at the bike shop in the early morning hours when no one should have been there. Had these clues been followed up on in 1988 by the original investigators or in 2000 by the Colcaes team, what would they have found?

Would they have found evidence of this crime was committed by someone other than Scott Baldwin? Would they have found that the blonde man was actually James Long? It's something that should have been on the table

it looks like and it never was, which I don't get.

Yeah, because if his partner drove that tan car and that tan car was there that night and was there

“the next morning and 630, that's what I never knew of that”

that there was a car there. But it would explain why the doors were locked because James could have locked him. Yeah, he could have locked him on the way back out and he couldn't have put the bar across

because it's on the inside. There were still pieces of the puzzle we didn't have of course. If the blonde man was James Long, like we'd wondered, then why had he been there at the bike shop at 1245am?

And why was he walking to the back of the building? That part had never seemed to make any sense. Well, he was walking from close to the drive and then walking north in front of the building. But to why? There's nothing there.

If I had to guess in my mind, I would have probably believed that maybe he was checking to make sure there was nobody back there or on that side. I really don't know why, but that's what I recall seeing. Officer West was just speculating,

but it makes sense. There's literally nothing back there of note. And former bike shop employee Lori Scott had wondered something similar. Maybe someone had tried to break into the back of the shop,

she said, and Earl had called someone for help. Unless I'm wondering if that night Earl heard something so he called Jameson.

“They drove over and that's why he was walking around.”

We hadn't known it when we spoke to Lori, but there was evidence that could suggest this exact scenario. One of the records requests we'd sent in to the Kalamazoo Police had been for all the prior police reports from the bike shop. It turns out there were a bunch of them.

And in 1986 and 1987, the two years prior to Earl's murder, he had repeatedly called the police in the middle of the night to report suspicious noises or activities. He had made at least seven such reports in all. And in most reports Earl told the police

that the disturbance had been on the north side of the building. At the back of the building, where Officer West had seen the blonde man walking. So Earl would call the police and tell them he'd heard noises, and the police would be dispatched to the scene.

But most times their reports note, Officer is now nothing when they got there, and quickly left again. On the night that he was killed, could Earl have once again heard a disturbance to the back of the bike shop.

Could someone have been trying to find a way in? And instead of calling the police, could Earl have called someone else instead? Earl wouldn't have called Karen Raymond for a problem like that,

but he might have called his second most trusted employee, James Long.

“So had James come over to check things out that night?”

Had he walked to the back of the bike shop to check for a break-in? Well, Earl watched from the door. If so, after checking the back of the store and presumably finding nothing, maybe James had gone inside to talk to Earl. Could they have then gotten into some kind of disagreement?

There had been disagreements between them before. Karen said she thought that James and Earl were in conflict sometimes, or that he was jealous of her, I guess. Before Karen came along, Earl depended on James a lot, and then Karen came along.

So she was kind of replacing him. Yes. The scenario we're proposing here looks something like this. Earl heard a noise in the middle of the night. He called James to come check it out.

James drove over. After making sure the back of the building was still secure, James went inside the bike shop, and somehow an argument began between him and Earl. It ended with James beating Earl over the head.

We know from the autopsy that the killer hadn't used that much force. It didn't seem like the attack was intended to be fatal, and Earl had survived initially. Could James have tried to help him stop the bleeding after? Could James have helped him back into his bed?

Maybe that's why Earl never called 911.

Maybe James had asked him not to.

Then when James came back at 6.30am,

he had rolled Earl over and felt for a pulse. I went to realize that Earl had died in the night, so James had locked the bike shop back up again, and returned at nine to open the shop for business as if he'd had no idea what had happened.

Only he didn't know. Which is why Lori had been so unnerved by James's lack of reaction when it discovered that Earl was dead. He didn't act surprised. I mean, I was a wreck.

He didn't act surprised. I'm not accusing anybody, I'm just saying he did not act surprised. If anything like this is what happened, then I wonder if it might also explain another odd coincidence in the case. Because one of those silent observer tips about nutter's alleged confessions

says something interesting. Nutter had gone to the old man bike shop on Harrison Street to get some money, and that he did not kill the old man, but that he was dead when he got there.

“What if Nutter had tried to break into the bike shop that night?”

What if he hadn't been able to get in? And then discovered the next day that the owner of the bike shop had been killed, the same night that he tried to break inside. That's certainly something that would make an impression on you. And might explain another baffling question in this case,

which is why on earth would Alan Nutter have bragged about killing the old man at the bike shop? Because it doesn't make you seem very tough for intimidating to beat an old man to death. It's not the kind of law you'd make up for street cred. But if you had tried to break into a store, only to find out the next day that the owner had been murdered inside,

you might talk about that and you might mention how weird and strange of a coincidence it was. How you were there the night had happened. This is all speculation. We don't know who killed Earl of Bern, and we may be several decades too late to ever know for sure.

“Evidence is gone, memories are faded, and key witnesses are dead.”

But something like this could be what happened here. The puzzle piece is aligned and form a bigger picture of what might have been going on that night.

And it all fits together in a way that the case again Scott Baldwin never did.

What's going on here? Jacqueline Furlin Smith, a 40-year-old former Canadian military trainer, moves to Costa Rica to follow her dreams, but in the summer of 2021, vanishes without a trace. How can a woman just go missing?

And us put out all that effort to find her, and she's still missing. I'm David Bridgen, and this is someone who knows something. She's in ten, the Jacqueline Furlin Smith case. Available now on CBC Listen and wherever you get your podcasts. It was finally the day of Scott's resented scene.

We were excited and hopeful, and looking forward to seeing Scott in the courtroom.

It would be the first time we'd ever seen him in person.

Although he had sent an email earlier that morning to let everyone know he wasn't going to be as handsome as usual. His eye had some kind of reaction, and it was so large and puffy, it was sealed shut. Did you see his email this morning? About his eye, yeah. He's been sick for weeks with one thing after another,

“so I think it just kind of goes to how his body is falling apart.”

That Scott's attorney, Claire Ward, who handled the resentencing. We spoke to her just hours before the hearing. We were all hopeful that the resentencing would go well for Scott. What's your expectation, slash hope for what happens today? I'm hopeful that we end today with Scott being resentenced to a term of years

that he will be immediately parole eligible off of. So we're hoping today is quick and boring. I think it's crossed. The minimum possible sentence Scott could receive was 25 years. If he got that, he could be paroleed home almost immediately.

But if the judge resentenced him to anything more than 25 years, he'd likely die before he ever made it out. We didn't know yet what sentence the prosecutor was going to ask the court to impose. And we didn't know if the judge would even be willing to give Scott the lowest possible sentence. Because usually such a leniency is reserved for defendants who can show remorse,

an accept accountability for their crimes. We'd had conversations with Scott about this before.

I didn't want the truth back, I did it.

“How do you want me to tell you? What do you want me to tell you?”

Let me go home. Usually resentencing hearings are fairly quiet proceedings. Usually there aren't too many people in attendance. This courtroom was packed. Scott's family was there and many of his former attorneys,

as well as his current attorney with Michigan innocence, plus three exonaries who'd previously been wrongfully convicted of Michigan. They didn't know Scott, but they'd come all the way to Kalamazoo to show their support for him anyway. So we need to see it. We're talking about the case with me.

Well, this day I'm going to first stop ball, but on the way to see your appearance, it's going to wrap it.

On the way, it's going to go on. We'll turn it on. A sister, attorney, general, on behalf of the vehicle. Clear board, state of fellow defender office. Pretty happy Mr. Baldwin.

Okay, and you are stat Allen Baldwin. Yes, sir. Okay, and I'm going to ask you to stay at the surgery where you've got health concerns. You're a wheelchair student, it's fine too.

And I think you have a state that will miss your funding him to make with regards to the sentence. I'll turn it over to you, sir. Well, this was the eight of horrible crime. And the orderly man watching down to the drug body.

The leader is gone first, and we are absolutely certain

you won't tell the president, but the jury just got him right.

The prosecutor was certain of Scott's guilt, he said. But he himself clearly didn't know the facts of the case. I don't know where he got the idea that Scott had committed this crime for drug money. Literally all the witnesses who knew Scott had agreed

that Scott didn't use hard drugs. Even Stacey had said this had nothing to do with drugs. But I guess as a narrative, the idea of Scott as an addict committing a drug field crime of desperation might have made more sense.

“Maybe that's why the prosecution went with it,”

even though it was factually untrue. Whatever the case, it wasn't a promising start. We waited to see what sentence the prosecutor would recommend for Scott. We really got the word from the nation.

We were limited to the discretion of court as to what would be appropriate here from the state. So, our decision to simply re-won't move forward but will not be asking for legal approval that, in other words, at this point.

I think it's a good word, but there's a description of the call. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. Go ahead, Council.

Thank you, Judge. And as we outlined in our sentencing panel, there is extensive evidence from Scott

has never been lit again in court regarding Mr.

Baldwin's innocence. However, we are not here today to litigate his innocence. But for his cancer, he might really think that himself. But as I discussed with his innocent counsel,

“I think that the cancer is going to move fast.”

He is dying. And he has shown admirable rehabilitation in person, whether or not he is guilty. When did he go home? He will be essentially a hospice care.

For whatever time, some press left. We asked you on our two polls, we used that to it, so 20 by 16. Judge, would you like to hear from Mr. Baldwin, to ask to his outpages?

I can hear from him at this time. Normally, a defendant would stand before addressing the court. But Scott couldn't do that. So he read from his wheelchair, the statement that he and his attorneys had prepared.

Good last 25 years. I've asked people time to look right down in the direction that you can take my life. You know, from my life, what's happening? The young man you want to carry on himself,

that is a strategy of life to himself. And it was a genius thing. I had a change. That was to be a person. Not only in my presence in the fair,

but to assist with my children, to proud enough. Not to speak of anymore. That greater people can see him up there in person now. He had a great influence. So that's the end of the year.

I think everyone understands that Mr. Baldwin has children, and can save life expectancy of six months or more. Really, honestly, that's the video factor that I'm looking at too. I'm a father of recommendation department for actions in seven, to 25 years to 60 years. He has prepared for eight thousand,

nine hundred and forty eight days served. Okay, thank you. Perfectly recessed. After the hearing, I sat down with Scott's wife.

I can see your big smile. I'm so happy. Just over the moon, happy.

I finally get to have my husband home.

“Going into the hearing, how are you feeling?”

Not trusting because we've had so many promises broken. So what was the new sentencing? 25 to 60, but he should be coming home, like probably in the next 30 days or so. While I was talking to Jane Ellen, Susan talked with Olivia vigiletti,

Scott's innocence attorney, about how the hearing had gone, and the statements Scott had ended up deciding to make. At these hearings, it is commonplace to advise clients, take responsibility for everything you possibly can take responsibility for, even if you're maintaining innocence.

And so somebody might read Scott's statement as taking responsibility, which is absolutely is not if you look at it, but I could see that being jarring. Scott hadn't been able to take responsibility for Earl Smurder. So instead, he had taken responsibility for the life he'd been leading

when he was 19 when he was committing thefts

and stealing out of cars.

Can I tell you my favorite moment in the hearing that people may not have clocked? So I brought three exonaries with me today because they understand that this might be Scott's only day in court. And they thought they were showing support for someone they didn't know

they'd only heard of, but when he was pushed into court immediately, Levon Hill said, "I know him. I walked the yard of him for years. Oh my gosh." And they made eye contact, and they did a little hello, and Scott had kind of a emotional moment on his face.

And so Levon was like, "Oh man, why remember, you know, we would pass case love back in force, but I never knew why." And so both of them were supporting each other

“without realizing that's what was happening.”

We were all still gathered in the hotel lobby when Scott's wife Jane Ellen got a phone call. It was Scott. Hey, baby.

So we're having a little party.

So just so you know who all this here is. We got Olivia and all of her guests. And Susan and Jacinda and Kevin. Hey, Scott, congratulations. This is Jacinda.

Congratulations. How you feel? I'm tired. I'm completely emotionally and physically drained right now. Yeah. I'm emotionally. I was quite overwhelmed

when somebody said, "Derek, what's here for you?" Well, I'm seeing dinner here with me. How you doing? Good. I'm like, "I'm going." Man, I know that too.

Hey, man, listen. It was so good to see you. I honestly didn't know that it was you. I was coming to support. What I'm so happy that it was you.

I'm like, "You deserve it." So congratulations. Thank you, bro. Yeah.

“You guys really do not know what it means, but you do.”

For sure. Okay, guys. Thank you all again. We're going to see you soon. Hopefully we'll see you soon on the outside. All right. All right. All right.

Scott. 24 days later, we were back in Michigan again for Scott's release. We picked him up at the prison and got him back to his wife's home. And for two days,

we did what we could to make him comfortable. Do you want a pillow for behind your head? It's a little blanket floor. Okay. Good. No.

Do you want a pillow? Do you want a pillow? Do you want a pillow? Do you want a pillow? Do you want a pillow?

We'd realize quickly that it was a miracle Scott had survived long enough to be released from prison at all. He had held on just long enough to be free again. And now that he was, he couldn't hold on any longer. It was devastating to watch.

If there's no happy endings here. No, this is like a death watch. And this is like keeping them as comfortable and feeling safe as long as possible. You know, some people they live their life

and when the time comes, they're ready to go. Scott's not ready. He's had literally almost mathematically half of his life taken from him.

I mean, more than that, because he should've lived a lot longer than this. So, not an ideal. Not an ideal situation. The next day, Scott Baldwin was taken to the hospital.

He had survived 8,948 days of incarceration to be a free man again for about 63 hours in total.

to see his mom again

and for his kids to be there with him

as he lay at the hospital dying. After Scott's death, we spoke to his oldest son, Cody. Home Scott had been estranged from for the last 12 years of his life.

“How did you feel when you found out that he was actually getting out this time?”

I didn't believe it. I didn't believe a word of it. I've been told that every year for so long. Cody had been shocked when he learned that his father had actually been released this time.

Given their complicated history, he hadn't yet seen Scott in person. When he got the call that told him, your father is dying. If you want to see him come now.

So, you got to see him at the hospital. Yeah. Do you mind if I ask you what you said to him? I told him, Dad, it's Cody,

and he set up in the open desires. And he looked at me and I just remembered his eyes were yellow. And his skin was yellow.

I was lucky to get a moment of a long time with him. He was not talking. And I told him, "You know, I'm really sorry, Dad.

“I told him, I'm sorry, I haven't talked to you.”

I'm sorry, I haven't dealt with anything, but it doesn't matter, I'm right here. And I just want you to know I'm right here. I know that I've been estranged with him, and I know that I haven't talked to him.

And that was my choice. And I don't want to be the son who comes forward and goes my daddy, Dad, I don't my God. And in cry like I wrote him every week, because I didn't,

but it was still very shocking to see him in his condition and to realize, this is definitely the end from what I saw. So, I just told him that I love him,

and I'm just sorry that everything went the way it did. And this is going to sound really stupid, but I told him that am I a good dad? And he said, "Oh, huh?" And so I said, "Thank you."

I told him I'm trying really hard. I told him about our daughter. I told him what her favorite color was. And I said, "I'm really sorry.

You'll never be able to meet her,

but I'll tell her about you."

“I stared at him for a while through the doorway.”

I couldn't leave. I just kept staring at him. And I had to be pulled away for him because I just lost track of everything. Because it was 25 years of,

all of this stuff kind of compounding on me and then 12 years of not seeing him in the first time seeing him in 12 years in person. It was this. So I just told him in his ear

before I left somebody else could hear me dad. I love you. I'll see you again soon. And then I just told him, "I'm sorry." And then I got up and I turned around

and I stared at him for a minute. And I turned around then I left. Scott Baldwin died just after midnight on October 9th, 2025. After investigating Scott's case,

we are certain he was wrongly convicted of a murder he did not commit. The case against him was built on constantly changing witness statements and was contradicted both by eyewitnesses

and physical evidence. When he was 31 years old, he was plucked out of the life he'd built with his wife and kids and spent 25 years in prison

proclaiming his innocence before dying at age 57. Of a cancer that is rarely fatal with proper medical treatment. When Scott died,

so too did any realistic chance of having his innocence be acknowledged by the legal system.

There has never been a posthumous exoneration

in Michigan. So we thought that when he died the criminal justice system in Kalamazoo and the state of Michigan would likely never have to grapple

with the consequences of what was done to him. But before he died, he asked us to keep going to keep investigating. How many more are there, he said?

And now, because of Scott. Kalamazoo's justice system will have to grapple with a pattern of his conduct that goes far beyond what happened to just him.

If Scott had lived long enough to see what we found, he'd probably make some wise ass crack and then say, "See, I told you it was bigger than me."

Because it was. And I don't think he'd be surprised to learn that a lot of it goes back to Richard Binderville. The cold case team informant who knew too much

For many years, I've been to fill dropped cryptic hints to Scott Baldwin, to Jeff Titus, to anyone who had listened, claiming to know a dark secret

about the Kalamazoo legal system.

Though he never explained

what exactly that secret was, he kept that to himself. He wasn't going to share it for free. But like Vinderville told Justin and Kevin, when he met with them,

just knowing his secret wouldn't change anything. It doesn't matter if you know that something happened.

“What matters is if you have the piece of paper”

that proves it happened. Without that, you have nothing. Because no court is ever going to take Vinderville for a squirt on anything. Sometimes, though, answers can be found

in unexpected places. There's all kinds of letters instead of a hero. Where he did say, "I told work them all about this

and I told work them all about that."

He didn't listen to me. It might be in them letters. That's Virginia Bias. She is the waitress who gave that CD with a song butterfly on it to detectives.

That's why we've gone to speak with her. She agreed to tell us what she remembered about Scott's case, which wasn't much really. But we were all sitting out in her back porch talking when she'd mentioned her brother.

Richard Vinderville. And his involvement with the cold case team. We'd asked what all she knew about it. Not much, she said. But during the 20 years that Richard wasn't prison,

he'd sometimes written to her about the things that had gone on with the Kalamazoo cold case team. He mentioned cold case detective Mike work him a lot in those letters, Virginia said. You might find some of the answers you're looking for there.

I'll look and see if I got more. Because I had a stick. When my burned some of them. Virginia stepped inside for a moment and brought back a stack of paperwork.

She dropped it on the patio table where we were sitting. I don't have any need for these, she said. You can keep them if you like.

“I remember sitting there that patio table”

and quickly flipping through the stack of documents. And I remember the rush of adrenaline I felt like ice water in my veins. As I realized, what I was looking at. In that pile of papers,

there were letters Ben Deville had written home from prison. Those were interesting. And one, he'd written.

"Sis, I never knew that then people killed the Polaroid.

The cold case team was up to some sneaky shit." Richard Ben Deville had told detectives he was an eyewitness who saw the five Polarman defendants go to the house together to commit the murders. But here, in black and white, he was saying he didn't actually know anything.

There were more than just Ben Deville's letters in there too. A lot more. There was a sign letter from Colkese Prosecutor Scott Brower that described a secret agreement with Richard Ben Deville. Don in 2007, just before the Polarman defendants went on trial.

Brower had written.

“"I believe the concessions in this letter are consistent”

with the discussions he had with Captain James Mallory." Could this explain why Ben Deville never appeared at any of the Polarman trials? Why bizarrely, the state's eyewitness wasn't called to testify? And there were some letters in there too, signed by Jeffrey Gettin.

I knew that name. Today, he's the prosecuting attorney for Kalamazoo County. But in 2007, he was a defense attorney. And the chief of police had somehow retained him to represent Richard Ben Deville as part of a secret deal they'd made.

Gettin had written to his new client. "I understand your reluctance to trust me to act in your best interest. I can only offer you my promise that I will do the best I can on your behalf."

The documents that Richard Ben Deville had left with his sister and that she'd given to us suggested a conspiracy. They went to the very top of Kalamazoo's legal system. A conspiracy to hide evidence. To cover up police and prosecutorial misconduct

to ensure the conviction of the five-polderman defendants. Ben Deville had been at the heart of it. And he'd kept the receipts. Ben Deville was right. We didn't need him to tell us what happened. We'd needed to find the papers that showed it.

And we just had. Next week on truth. "Hired, Jeff Gettin and his we have." "They did." "How could he do that?"

"He can read this letter."

"I understand your reluctance to trust me in this act."

“"So, have you ever heard something like that happening?”

Does it seem right to you?" "Well, absolutely not."

So I just finished sending all the requests

for comments to everyone involved in this thing. "Oh, now we'll see you, James Bond." Wait and see.

“We'll be back next week with the final main episode”

of this season of proof. Murder at the bike shop. Episode 12.

"You've been listening to proof.

“A podcast by Red Marwill Media in association with Glassbox Media."”

Send us your questions and comments at [email protected]. We'll respond during our bonus episodes. Proof, sidebar, on Thursdays. Kevin Fitzpatrick is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Ramiro Marquez.

Audio production for this episode is by Michael Utalski, Michael Athano, Karen and Carnation, and Hacus or Bias. Our social media manager is Leanne Cook. And thank you to our sponsors to make this podcast possible. Follow us everywhere with the handle at proofcrimepod

and on our website proofcrimepod.com. That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening.