Murder at the Bike Shop | Ep. 9 – The Dilemma

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Integrate all the garden products in our region and in the x-n-f. The little price is great, guys. Before he died, Scott Baldwin told us that he knew there were others like him out there in the Michigan prison system. Others who were convicted by the Kalamazoo cold case team,

but who were innocent. How many other cold cases are people going to come forward with him?

“You need to look at my shit because I didn't do it.”

How many others are going to do that? How many more do we have? We already know Jeff Tides was wrongly convicted by the cold case team. And if it's just Jeff, well then, that's tragic. But these things happen, but if it's not just Jeff,

if there are more cases that the cold case team got wronged, then we're no longer talking about a nice-lated event. That's why Scott thinks the system couldn't accept that he was innocent, too. Because if he was, then what the hell happened in Kalamazoo? What had the cold case team done?

Look how many cases they solved in that short of period of time. And how many have questions? I believe they're afraid of what they're about to open up. It's going to cause a flood effect. And that means they have to point one hell of a big figure as somebody and say,

"Yeah, this is wrong." As you've heard this season, we have questions about many of the Kalamazoo cold cases.

“But what happened in the cold case team's final investigation may be the most troubling case of all?”

There's what was in Kalamazoo called the Polderman murder, another cold case. The Polderman case was a horrific triple homicide of three senior citizens slaughtered in their own home, and went on sol for seven years. But then the cold case team took over and broke the case wide open. Not only did they convict someone for the murders, they convicted five someone's.

Based on a story that is contradicted by everything found at the crime scene and by all the physical evidence. What do you know about the Polderman case? Joe Williams was one of the guys that was convicted of it. Didn't Joe was here and we called him Joe dirt actually. It was his name. He looked like Joe dirt.

The guy you knew, Joe dirt, did he admit to it or did he say he was innocent? He said he was innocent. He got set up by people that ripped these out of him off. He's like I had nothing to do with these everybody's saying Ricky did it. The Ricky that Scott's talking about here is Richard Vendival. We know from police files that Vendival was in fact an informant for cold case detective Mike

Workerma. Though in prison, Vendival had told Scott a slightly different version of that story. He told me that he was confronted by Workerma. Told about a couple cases and he told to go get information in all those cases and report it back to him and he said he could do that. That would be stitching her adding. Do you think he did? Do you think he was a seeker? Oh I know he did. Vendival did give information on several different cold cases.

And in February of 2007, he gave info on the Polderman case. A case where he himself had been the lead suspect for five years. Prosecutor Scott Brower gave him use of unity to do so.

That meant what he said could never be used against him, but it could be used against whoever he

accused. That's when Vendival told detectives the five people who had committed the crime. And how you might ask did Vendival know who had killed the Polderman's? Well, cold case detective Rich Madison explained. He was there. He admitted that he had written out there on a dirt bike and watched from a distance and had turned them on to it. Vendival told detectives that on the day of the murders,

he had secretly followed the five defendants to the Polderman's house.

“That's how he knew they'd done it. Since Vendival was an eyewitness, you'd think he would have”

been called to testify at trial, but he didn't appear at a single proceeding in the Polderman case.

their own words, because detectives had interrogated the five people Vendival named again and again,

“until, by the end, for them had confessed. The methods by which detectives got these confessions”

are alarming in themselves. But just as alarming is how the detectives either didn't notice or didn't care that the confessions made no sense. This episode is a story of the Kalamazoo Cold Case Team's final investigation

and how a wild tale told by an unreliable informant led to five convictions that never should have

happened. I'm 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 Glassbox 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 nine, The DeLema. That's Joe Williams. He's currently serving three life sentences plus another 14 years for perjury for denying under oath that he'd committed the Polarman murders. It's the way coping, try a fight and then

notice. Almost every path I take is a bit of dead end.

“Did you have anything to do with the Polarman murders?”

No, they're simply not. I'm a lot of faith, but it's not one of those drug addicts in a speech, but I'm not a killer. Joe had a drug addiction and a history of funding at by shoplifting, stealing out of cars, and committing retail fraud. Nothing like murder, nothing violent, but he'd been in jail before. In fact, he went to jail for check forgery a couple weeks before he became a suspect in this case.

So all of his phone calls were recorded. We can hear his reactions in real time to what was happening to him. Like when he called his mom after finding out he was now a suspect in the Polarman murders.

“The star kind of bullshare. No, the fuck's the truth.”

I'm going to accuse of the most heinous crime in the history of fucking column Missouri ever. They've told me this is the most horrible thing to happen to column Missouri. But you weren't in there. I know this, but they don't. How the fuck am I going to prove it? I have no alibi. The Polarman case was one of the most heinous cases in Kalamazoo history.

Three senior citizens brutally killed in their own home in the middle of the day. And the case had gone cold for seven years. There was a lot of pressure on the police to get it solved. Here's prosecutor Scott Prower in one of his opening statements explaining how the five

defendants had initially got away with the crime, but finally got caught.

A wall of lies and deceit had been built to hide the truth. But the police were able to chip away at the wall. Their secret had been this. That the five of them had planned the home invasion of the Polarman home. That they brought weapons with them and that they were responsible for

on mercifully beating and stabbing to death. 93-year-old Uranus Polarman is 91-year-old wife Sarri and their 62-year-old daughter Antaluus.

That wall of lies and silence had finally broken when four of the five defendants confessed

to the murders. That's how the arrests were made. But were those confessions actually true?

But it's happened before. It's happened before.

That's Olivia Vigiletti from the Michigan Innocence Clinic. She's Scott Baldwin's attorney and also the attorney for Joe Williams. There's all these different reasons people falsely confess. And it's happened many times in really brutal cases like this where you wouldn't think they would confess to something so heinous. Olivia believes the Polarman defendants are victims of false confessions.

That the many stories of how they had committed the murders were just made up.

“How hard of her hurdles I think it passed for her defense?”

Yeah, false confession is really really difficult because the public does not agree

that people would confess to something that they didn't actually do. I think even for me, it was one of sort of my hardest mental hurdles to overcome in doing this work. And it's only because I've seen it so many times that I now do believe it. As we've heard in other cold case investigations this season, just because someone says something happened doesn't make it true.

Just because Stacey said Scott Baldwin had a bank bag stolen from the bike shop, doesn't mean he actually did. Just because a woman claimed she'd had an affair with Patrick Michelle and he'd confessed to her that he'd killed his girlfriend.

“Doesn't mean that woman actually knew him. Just because three jail house informants told the”

cold case team that Roberto Devanzo had confessed to them, doesn't mean he actually had. And just because an eyewitness said he saw Highland Sterling at the crime scene with long as here, doesn't change the fact that Highland was completely bald. This same principle applies to confessions too. Someone saying they did a crime doesn't mean they did, if there isn't any other evidence to prove it.

Because if the polterman defendants actually did this murder, then how come none of them knew what rooms in the house the victims were killed in? How come none of them knew how the victims were killed? Or the weapons that were used? How come none of them even knew where the polterman house was located? And how is it? There's absolutely no physical evidence linking any of the five to the crime scene. The four of the polterman defendants did confess during interrogations. And some of them

allegedly also confessed to jailhouse informants and to acquaintances. But those confessions contradicted each other wildly. They didn't even name the same people. So why were detectives so sure it was the five they arrested who were responsible? We asked Detective Rich Madison what he thought. There's others who confessed, there's others who were said to be there, but don't end up in the

“mix. Why this grouping? And not a different grouping. How'd you settle on those five?”

They were always together. They lived together. I don't remember how their names came up. I really

don't at this point. The five people convicted of killing the poltermans were Joe Williams, Andrew Miller, Brandy Miller, Ben Platt, and Angela McConnell. It various points they'd all lived together, often on, at a house on St. Street. Four of the five were closely connected by marriage, family, and kids. Joe Williams's sister was married to Andrew Miller, who was the brother of Brandy Miller, and Joe used to date Angela McConnell. He considered her daughter to be his own, and Angela

referred to Joe's mother as mom. She often lived with his family. The fifth defendant, Ben Platt, was close friends with Joe Williams, though he didn't spend much time with the others. Did you ever have any doubts that those five... No, I did not. No. But that rich is, but that vendival may have been worn out. Vendival was Brandy Miller's boyfriend at the time, and had previously been considered the lead suspect in the case. The official story told a trial,

though, is that Richard Vendival was an innocent victim in all of this, that he had only ever become a suspect because the polterman defendants had conspired together to frame him. Unofficially, however, a lot of detective suspect that Vendival might have been more involved in this case than he's saying. I don't understand how the polterman five could have been there, but not Vendival. It doesn't seem... The polterman five, I like that. Those kids were controllable too.

I mean, you can see Vendival just having his claws in him. After watching some of those kids interrogation videos, I have to agree with Madison. They were controllable. They weren't that hard to manipulate. 10, 2018, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, all the. Good is for all.

an ABC audio, listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts. This is Blood is Sticker, the Ferris Wheel. I would don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Follow and listen to Blood is Sticker, the Ferris Wheel, on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

The only polterman defendant who never confessed to participating in the murders was Joe Williams.

I never said anybody did it because nobody ever told me that they were involved. Joe's codependence all did confess though. They all accused other people as well.

“But why would they have confessed if they weren't actually guilty?”

Joe has had a lot of time to wonder about that. It can often be hard to understand why someone would falsely confess to a crime they didn't commit.

But in the polterman case, I actually don't think it's hard to understand at all.

The prisoner's dilemma is a thought experiment. It asks given certain conditions what a rational actor confessed to a crime. In the polterman case, the detectives created a prisoner's dilemma where if the defendant's believed what the detectives told them was true, then the only rational choice was for them to confess. Because here were the terms of the dilemma that they set out.

“If none of the defendants confessed, they would all walk free. There's no other evidence to charge”

them with. But if any one of them did confess, then all the others who didn't would likely be

convicted and sentenced to life in prison. While the confesser would only serve a short sentence, or maybe even no sentence at all. And then the detectives took this one step further. They lied to each of the defendants and told them, "Your codependence have already confessed. The game is already lost. Your only choice now is to confess to and get a deal or to be the sucker who dies in prison." In the interrogation of Joe's codependent,

Andrew Miller, you can hear the detectives lay out the stark terms that were being offered. Ben's telling on Joe and Joe's telling on Ben. I can just let's tell him on Brandy, but he's telling on Angela. Rich is telling on everybody. But you have a problem because you won't even pass up to that. Because I didn't do it. And I know that's a lie. Andrew, I'm convinced that you were out there. You got to take care of yourself right now.

I don't, but I don't have nothing to take care of. Okay, Andrew. I'm really serious. I like that. The jury's going to take that and wipe their ass with it. Why?

“Because that's what jury's do for lying motherfuckers. And Wales has cut deals.”

That's going to cause problems for you in particular. A lot of people get prosecuted and go to jail for the rest of their life on bullshit. All right, okay. So what's your guess of trying to get in touch on that? Your defense attorney is going to say, on the fucker, you got a problem. You got a problem because these low fuckers are telling on you. These people are all going to get deals. They're going to get a lower sense to the people that are not telling on people. The

accessory after the fact, okay, limitations are really relevant on it. Nobody can be help culpable for cleaning cars, burning certain items out of the car, and all that type of stuff. Okay. The offer made to Andrew Miller was simple. All he had to do was confess to helping the others cover up the murders, confess to being an accessory after the fact. And because the statute of limitations had run out on that offense, he couldn't be charged with it. He could accuse the others

Cessaly after the fact, I'm going to sit there and when I didn't do something, I'm going to sit there

and say, oh, you're, oh, you're, you've got some clothes and there's whatever sensory act, even I don't get in trouble for him, but I didn't do what I'm not going to say. I'm not going to do what I'm not going to do. I have nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with it. Okay. Now, you're going to stick with that. No, I have no involvement in it. Okay. If you stick with that, you're fucked. Why? If you stick with that, you're fucked. Because what we know is not that true.

“Here's the thing about the prisoners dilemma that the polarmen defendants were offered.”

If the defendants believed the detectives and they did, then whether they personally were innocent or guilty was irrelevant, the stakes were the same either way, whether they'd done the crime or not didn't change anything. The choice became, do you save yourself by claiming to know something about the murders? Or do you deny knowing anything at all and do yourself to die in prison?

You might be thinking to yourself right now. I'd never confessed to a crime I didn't commit.

But when the difference between you walking out of that interrogation room to go home and you never going home ever again is whether or not you're willing to say a few simple words. Are you so sure you wouldn't say them? When you're on the way, you do a fucking life from person. And then you'll believe that you were involved in portion of this. Tell us.

“I haven't been involved in any of it. It's important. I know it's important and I won't do anything”

I can to clear anything out. About six hours later, Andrew Miller did confess.

To understand how the polarmen defendants were arrested in 2007, we have to go back five years

to 2002. When Richard Vendival was arrested for breaking into a garage and stealing a purse. Because Vendival got caught, he had the victims credit cards and driver's license in his pockets. But when they tried to question him, Vendival just kept saying over and over again. I need to talk to Detective Workaima from the Cold Case Squad. Hey, I need to talk to Detective Workaima from the Cold Case Squad. I've got info on a murder. Vendival had traded information for

favors before. And he was hoping to do it again. So Cold Case Detective Mike Workaima came out to speak to him. Here's Kevin reading a portion of his report on what Vendival said. Richard Vendival stated that he had information that could break the Poldomen case wide open. Richard stated that he picked Joe Williams up close to the homicide on the day of the homicide, and believes Joe Williams has involvement in the homicide, as well as another person who has

confessed to him. Richard stated he didn't want to talk any further on the case until the prosecutor was involved in giving him some type of immunity.

“So, why would Vendival tell Detective Workaima this story?”

Well, two reasons. We know from interviews with other inmates at the jail that while the air Vendival had been telling them about the recently announced $20,000 reward in the Poldomen case and how he believed he could exchange information about a homicide to get a deal on his burglary charges and reward money. And as for why he was accusing Joe Williams? Well, Vendival was really unhappy with him at the time.

That's Joe Williams, speaking to his mother Barb on a recorded jail call in 2007 Joe's mother had been very close to Vendival and she knew Vendival, so she'd heard the talk before about Vendival's jealousy of Joe. Richard Vendival has often been described as paranoid, but it turns out he was right about this one. In fact, Joe Williams didn't know it until he was charged in the Poldomen case, but Vendival

had accused Joe of all kinds of crimes after his arrest in May 2002, not just the Poldomen murders.

Vendival had merely been the lookout he said. Joe told us there's no truth to any of that.

“So you weren't breaking into houses like Vendival claims?”

No. Why do you think he said you two were doing that together? I have no idea what he would say we'd go together. Richard Vendival didn't get along, he didn't ever let each other be just associated because both by ties, I guess, family ties. I was just about because Vendival and Joe were brother and sister and he's over there.

Richard Vendival's plan to implicate Joe Williams ended up back firing. After hearing from Vendival, work a moment to speak to Vendival's girlfriend, Brandi Miller,

to try and verify Vendival's story. And at first, she actually backs him up.

“Oh yeah, she tells work him up. Vendival told me too that he had information about the”

Poldomen case. He's interested in the reward. But then things between Vendival and Brandi start getting messy, like really messy. It's not clear if it's because of Brandi's new relationship with Joe, but either way Brandi and Vendival both start accusing each other of all kinds of things. Vendival says Brandi is abusing their son and gets child protective services involved. Brandi says it was actually Vendival who killed the Poldomen's. In fact, she's the one who drove

him out there that day. And oh yeah, he confessed to her that he killed those old people. We don't have a recording of Brandi's 2002 interviews, but here's her testifying at one of the Poldomen trials about how she'd accused Vendival of the murders. I said that I went out there and I

dropped him off and he was going to go look for marijuana. And that basically I drove around for a while.

I came back in I see him come out behind a tree and he was covered in blood. The end result of all these back and forth accusations was Richard Vendival became the prime suspect in the Poldomen murders. But he wasn't charged. The case against him fell apart when Brandi recanted. Here's Brandi testifying at one of the Poldomen trials. When asked to explain why in 2002, she'd accused Richard Vendival of killing the Poldomen's.

You made a statement. In fact, implicating Richard Vendival is that right? Yes.

“Why in May of 2002, make the statement that you had dropped Richard off in the area?”

I wanted to get back after I had our child. They got beat me, stalked me. It was very violent. Drag me down as a person just he put me through a lot of things. I made a story that myself and Richard Vendival at the time went out to the Poldomen's house and that he did it. So because he was a bad boy friend, you put a triple homicide on him? Yes I did.

Richard Vendival recanted too. Here's what was written in the police report.

Vendival says he told the police about picking up Joe out near the Poldomen's house. But said that was a lie. He said that he made it up for a chance on getting probation on his charges and for the reward money. With Brandy recanting, Vendival couldn't be charged in the Poldomen case, but he was still in jail for the burglary and he was charged with home invasion first degree. He was convicted

and sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison. But that wasn't the end of the Poldomen case. This is Lieutenant Workmar. He took the Saudi wish medicine. We're about to make contact with Brandy Miller regarding the Poldomen house. The Poldomen case went unsolved. But for five years, Richard Vendival had remained the lead suspect. And in January 2007, after taking over the case, the cold case team went to speak to Brandy Miller once again. Prior to Vendival's arrest in 2002,

he'd been Detective Workmar's cold case informant. But now, Vendival is the cold case suspect that Workmar's hoping to arrest. The case against Vendival had stalled out five years earlier when

They need her to unrecant and go back to the statement she made in 2002 about Vendival going

“to the Poldomen house and coming back covered in blood. But Brandy tells them none of that actually”

happened. This is when the prisoners dilemma begins for Brandy. The detectives tell her that they know what she said in 2002 was a truth. Because Joe Williams told them she'd confessed to him. She had told him everything. "I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to tell you about it." "It's one of the tests that I take this in and say you've had that. I'm going to have a whole story. You put you right there." The detectives are lying to Brandy here. They did talk to Joe

that part's true. But Joe didn't tell them anything about Brandy confessing to him. But Brandy doesn't

know that. "I'm telling you, in front of a jury, you're going to be on a lot of trouble. It puts you

“in an instant situation. Well, a question. But you are important to us." "But I don't know anything."”

In this interview, work in a told Brandy that if the detectives wanted to, they could consider her 2002 statement to be a murder confession. Brandy said she'd been an accomplice to a murder of Indivill committed, which makes her guilty of murder too, potentially. But they don't want her as a suspect they tell her. They'd rather have her as a witness. And by the end of the interview, Brandy relents, she tells the detectives what they want to hear.

Vendivill killed the policemen. Only the detectives tell her that's not enough now. They now believe two people committed the murders, so they need Brandy to accuse someone else too.

“"You took two people off to that day. We only know that." Ben is Ben Platt.”

He was 20 years old the time of the murders, and he's close friends with Joe Williams. After the cold case team tells Brandy that they believe Ben Platt was out there with them, when she drove Indivill to the Polterman House. Brandy confirms for them, "Yes. Ben was there with us too." "It's such a gang. It helps. It's a big." With her three boys in the room playing around her, Brandy tells the detectives,

"I just don't want to get in trouble." "You got your kids. This was a big help. I want to get you over." With Brandy's story changing yet again, the detectives moved on to their new suspect, Ben Platt. When we spoke to Ben, we asked him about Brandy Miller, and why she might have accused him of murder.

"We never talked to her. She was with a guy named Richard Brandy Bell. And, right,

she was a bright, jealous guy that didn't want anybody around her. So, she was never around when he wasn't there. And, like, she wasn't a real girl. He even spoke to other guys, but I didn't really like Richard. I've never heard like, "Hey, uh, oh I just kind of start me off, so." Ben says he didn't really get along with Richard. I'm didn't even really know Brandy. But when the detectives came to interrogate him, he too confessed. He said the three of them

had gone out to the Polarman's house that day. "Did you do it?" "No, absolutely not. The thing of people usually, you know, believe if you've been charged your guilty and that's just how it is, so." "And your case is complicated by the fact there are numerous confessions." "If you watch the, uh, like the interrogation, uh, to answer anything." "No, I wish. I've not gotten those tapes." "Well, if you get a chance to watch that, you'll, you'll see."

Ben's interrogation lasted for over 16 hours. We don't have a recording of it, but the Colkese team laid out the prisoners dilemma once again. Brandy's already confessed everything to us. They told him, "You're screwed." "If you deny you did this, then we'll charge you with murder, too." But Ben had a possible way out. Because one thing the Colkese team did when interrogating the Polarman defendants was to tell them about a recent high-profile case. A guy named Randy

Randy only got one year in jail. If Ben didn't want to die in prison, he just needed to be Randy Bryn. "To be the only way I can go from him, is if I admit it to this and I gave him a bridge, so I let you give me a little bit of stuff. And I hate him. I just said everything that way I would get it down based on that."

That's from Ben's third interrogation, one week after his first. In this interrogation, Ben

repeats his prior confession about how him and Rich Vendaville and Brandy all went out to the Polarman's. And how after Vendaville had killed them all, Ben had gone inside and helped move the bodies. But the detectives try to get more details from him about exactly what happened. Maybe you've already seen a rich assault Mr. Polarman, so stuff started to hit the fan. And if he's inside and you see this band coming up the driveway, I mean that, we had to

“really increase the fucker factor for you. That's why I think that that band arrived”

but really sticking your body. Most of Ben's interview was full of incredibly long pauses. Just due to time, we're going to

clean up those pauses, but they never go away. As you hear Ben in this interrogation,

remember that he's actually pausing for long stretches before almost all of his answers. Sometimes taking as long as 60 seconds before he comes up with an answer. Ben told us that's because he was trying to figure out what story he was supposed to be saying because he had no idea what had actually happened. Most of the interrogation isn't even Ben speaking. It's just the detectives talking about

the crime scene and him responding sporadically. Just tell us in a very short version what you've seen when you were first walked in.

“What did you see as far as where the bodies were at?”

And I had this whole point I can't believe.

Can't remember what I seen in the first one and then the lady at the umber at the two.

She was. By the time I stayed, I remember I was stepping over the room and so. Okay, so as he told us that you know, it's very Mr. Bolden and out of that back bedroom. And eventually after Boogie and Mr. Bolden and down, he went back upstairs and helped him carry the younger of the two women down.

I want to pause for a moment here. This detail about how Ben and Ben develop carried Mr. Bolden's body into the basement while

“analysts' body was at the top of the stairs might seem insignificant, but it's not.”

It's so wildly wrong, so impossible that I can't understand how the detectives heard it and didn't know instantly Ben's story was a lie, but he has no idea what he's talking about here. First of all, Mr. Bolden was not killed upstairs. He was killed in the basement. His throat was cut and he bled out there on the floor. Second of all, there's no way Anna's body was at the top of the stairs.

There's hardly any blood in the floor there. There's a lot in the walls, but not the floor. And none of that blood belongs to Anna. She was stabbed twice with a large knife and her throat was cut. If her body had been there, her blood would have been there too, but it's not. And thirdly, Ben's story about them carrying Mr. Bolden into the basement while Anna's body is still

there at the top of the stairs makes no sense at all if you look at the Bolden's home. The top of the basement stairs was a cramp nook about four feet wide maybe, between a kitchen, a bathroom, and a back door. And a vanity stool takes up some of that space. Anna was not a small woman, and as she had been there, she would have blocked the way through. The idea of two people carrying another body into the basement while she's lying there makes no

sense at all. And if it did happen, Ben would have definitely remembered how difficult it was. Again and again, throughout its confession, what Ben describes is at odds with the layout of the Holderman property in the known timeline of events. Almost nothing he says is consistent with out of the crime scene or the prosecution's eventual theory of what actually happened. Ben didn't even know how the Holderman's were killed.

Will you ever aware that that has happened? I say not until I spoke with you guys.

“The few details Ben does know about the Holderman murders seem to have come from detectives.”

And there's so much more that he does not know at all, so much more that he just gets wrong. But if Ben was lying about being involved, then why? Why make up a story about moving bodies if he didn't know anything about it? Well that's not too hard to understand actually, based on what detectives were telling him. If Ben believed what they were saying was true, then he only had two options here. He could make up a story about helping Richard Ben

to fill moose some bodies. And maybe get only a year in prison, just like Randy Britain had. Or he could continue to deny knowing anything about the crime. But since Brandy had already agreed to testify against him, he'd likely then be convicted and given a life sentence. So if Ben's goal was to not die in prison, then it's not a hard choice. And it's the same choice, regardless of whether he's guilty or innocent.

“Though if he's innocent, it does make it a lot harder to come up with a good story.”

And that's all we're doing is trying to match Steve. It's up so I mean if he can't, it's okay. That's not going to come. It's okay. Don't want to kill your brain on it.

This third interrogation, the one you're hearing now, began with Ben being asked to repeat the

confession. He'd made one week earlier about going to the Polarman House with Vendaville and helping him move the bodies after Vendaville had killed them. But then the interrogation took a bizarre turn. I wonder how you'd felt if how Brandy might have said that Joe was all through that day. What? I wanted to know how you would feel if I told you that Brandy said that Joe was all through that day. With you guys.

The detectives hit Ben with their new theory. We know Richard Vendaville's innocent. They told him. In fact, we know that you, Joe, and Brandy all conspired to frame him for the murders you committed.

We don't know why the detectives were no longer interested in prosecuting Richard Vendaville,

the man who had been the prime suspect for five years. That detail isn't recorded anywhere that we can find. But for some reason, the detectives no longer want it Vendaville to be part of Ben's confession. Listen, if I don't give a fuck, I'm just gonna tell Richard. Brandy said, "If she was fucking go for a joke, this entire fucking time." "And guys, damn it. Yeah, they were fucked buddies."

And Richard was suspicious then. As far as we can tell, the detectives were lying to Ben. There's no recorded interview with Brandy at this point where she said anything about lying about Vendaville to protect Joe. She was still telling detectives she drove Vendaville out to the Poltermans, and he came back, covered in blood. But Ben didn't know that.

Don't try to deceive us. I can't risk my reputation on putting her on guy in prison. Look at me in my fucking eye. Brandy does not want to lose the chance of losing her kids. She's crying and nodding, nodding, it's fucking rich and all that. That, right, she was fucking lying to me, and I fucking just asked her if she's flat up, and she told me that I was fucking Joe. If Brandy lies to us, the detectives told Ben, she'll go to prison and lose her children.

She won't risk that. She will tell us what she needs to tell us to keep her kids. So you're screwed, Ben. When you put a bra in a fucking lick like this, the bra has a fucking weak link every time, brother. It's in every gas dam where I have so long, everybody knows, don't put a fucking bra in bras a week, because they love their kids more than their men.

So has everything true? Other than that rich is early Joe. Or this whole thing kind of fabricated. I know you hate me, I'm fucking good, but I'm throwing your life for you, man. I hate myself, right?

“Honestly, it wasn't good, that's it, true.”

I made this stuff, I'm letting you get me into it, and you give me a little piece of information. I thought maybe you guys would figure it out and just put it like what you're sure of. What are you saying, Ben? I want to say, and I let you leave me into the whole story, but I will stop there, I'm saying my statement.

I couldn't draw a picture of the inside of the house.

“I couldn't tell you where the bodies were, until you told me where the bodies were,”

but you reasoned for that, I wasn't that good. I was trying to save my ass, because I didn't have no appetite. And I figured my best bet was to go for something with anything to keep me doing the rest of my life with the person. That's the truth. I can't go through it, and do that all over again. Okay, now I'm going to put this guy in here, and you guys want me to start over and you know change it up.

I can't do it. I can't do it again.

Just one week earlier, the detectives had convinced Ben, his only chance of ever going home,

“was to accuse Richard Van Deville, but for reasons that we still don't understand,”

the detectives focused change suddenly. And now Ben was told, his only hope of going home was to save Van Deville was innocent, and someone else was guilty instead. Ben recounted his confession, but that didn't matter. The fact he'd confessed to anything was enough to convict him, even though he confessed committing the crime with Richard Van Deville, and was charged instead with committing the crime with four other people, so that detectives moved on to the next defendant,

Joe Williams. He too was presented with a prisoner's dilemma. Afterwards, he'd called home from jail to tell his family what had happened.

“The detectives were lying to Joe. Ben had named Van Deville, not Joe, and then he'd recanted,”

but Joe didn't know that. Joe was not actually charged with the Holderman murders that time, but detectives didn't have enough evidence yet, but Joe now knew they were after him. A couple of days later, he called home again, and found out that Angela McConnell,

his ex-girlfriend, was over at his mom's house. Joe's mom was like a second mother to Angela,

and she often stayed there. And when he came out of the house, he was covered in blood. Well, when I was saying it was been an item, she drove out there. So recently, she said she drove rich, and somebody else out there. I will fuck and go to court, and I can't tell what your mom's.

If you get fucking hungry for this shit, I swear to God, I will kill Brandy. I will find a way to fuck and kill rich. Well, that's what they're saying. And she said, "I want to talk to you too. I don't kill them people, Angela." I know you didn't, so I didn't need her, and they seem to think that I've something to do.

At the time of this phone call with Joe, the detectives thought Angela had maybe known something about the murders, maybe helped after with the cleanup, but she hadn't been a suspect. But then the detectives talked to Richard Vindivell, and he told them, "Actually, Angela committed the murders too. I saw her drive to the Holderman house with the others. So the detectives went back to Angela. It was her turn to be presented with the prisoner's

dilemma. After the interrogation, she called home from jail and told her husband what had happened." "It means nothing. It's kind of not gonna touch them. Don't, don't, don't. It's all it's here." Angela's husband was right. This was all bullshit. In reality, neither Joe nor Ben had ever mentioned Angela, and Brandy had neither, not yet anyway, but Angela didn't know that.

all drove out to the Holderman house, and how when they got there, all the lights were off,

“and everything was dark. So they had thought no one was home, which didn't make any sense. The murders”

had been committed in the middle of the day, and brought daylight, but Angela didn't know that either. So Angela confessed to going inside the Holderman house, but soon she recanted. She told her husband she'd made the whole thing up. And she was pretty sure the others had made up their stories, too. "None of us were there, baby. None of us. They could go to fucking. That's why I tried telling you. It's where to go to my kids' life. We weren't there. None of us were."

"Well, somebody's telling the whole different fucking story." "I don't care what they're telling them."

For months, Angela went back and forth, telling the detectives, one version of a confession,

then disavowing it. Only to go back and tell the detectives a whole new confession. When she found out, though, that Brandy had taken a plea deal. They would give her 15 years, maybe even less, and exchange for testifying against the others. Angela decided to take a plea deal, too. So we're just wanted to share the understanding that we couldn't get through the book.

Detective Madison told us about how both Brandy and Angela have been given an out on the murder one charges. "And those girls, both Brandy and Opposite other girls," she had an out.

“I mean, Brandy was given the deal. And Angela, I think it was, man. She gave it up.”

She got the deal and she gave it up. She wouldn't testify.

Angie. "Yeah, she had the deal and she said I was lying. I can't do this." "Yeah, oh." "Yeah, so she went to prison and died. I remember reading that. She killed herself." Unlike Angela, Brandy did not withdraw her plea agreement. She did change her story about 20 different times, though, to adapt to the detectives changing theories about the crime. And at trial, Brandy testified she'd been lying.

Anytime she claimed she didn't know anything about the murders. But in letters, she wrote from jail. She said something very different. Somehow, she seemed convinced that this problem they

“were all in was only temporary. Here's a letter she wrote to Joe's mom.”

"Sorry, sorry, sorry. I don't want anyone to be mad or hate me after all this is over. I just got so tired of all the BS. How is Joe doing? Hope he is okay. You know I miss him and love him too. A trap was set for me and I fell right into it. We are all going to be coming home soon, because it is all a bunch of BS. I love you. Everyone just needs to keep hanging on and the storm will pass. PS. We will be all home soon."

We tried multiple ways to reach Brandy for comment, but so far she has not responded. [ Music ] Day by day, statement by statement, the Colkese team built its case. Brandy confessed, then Ben, Angela. They weren't done yet, though, because Richard Van Deville had told them he'd seen five people go to the Polterman's house that day, and there were still two to go. Joe and Andrew.

Joe, Sister Nikki, told him what she'd heard about the case, the detectives were building against him. The drop rate rises up there somewhere. In Ritzpan, he followed behind you guys because he was told that you were brandy afraid from Brandy, we're going to get together. It's a mess, though, the Sith hit the fan base. I wish the police would know that they're digging in the wrong direction, Andrew and I didn't have nothing to do with this fucking murderous.

I know you guys did. I mean, here we're both seasoned drug addicts and liars, and, you know, that's all. Again and again, the detectives kept going back to Joe Williams, telling him all his friends and family had already turned on him. That if he didn't turn on them in return, then they'd know it's because he's the real killer. Maybe you're the one that forced the knife into Anna's heart, one detective told him, Joe responded, "I thought they were beaten.

We don't have the recordings, but you can feel the detectives frustration bleeding through the

fucking 14 hours one day. We talked for another fucking seven hours last night. We talked for four

“and a half hours today, but you can't get it through your fucking skull, nothing?"”

No matter how many times though, Joe told the detectives that he wasn't involved in any murder, the detectives wouldn't believe him. And Joe told us, he'd spent the last 18 years since then,

hoping someone finally would. I would die for people that believe me, it's in the

honest man to take innocent person, anybody in the whole entire world, I would give my life a to them to live in my shoes for 10 minutes inside here knowing what I know about my innocence. Just so they could see the seal, the agony, I'd give my life to prove my innocence." Shortly after Angela McConnell was arrested, Andrew Miller was arrested too. When Joe next called home, his sister, who was Andrew's wife, gave him the news.

Andrew said arrested. "What's Andrew in jail for?"

“"The Voldemort? Brandy told us, he was guilty, and he was here."”

"Are you serious?" "Yeah." "I would Brandy say Andrew was there." "I don't know. He don't know. He says it looks like hell." Andrew is Brandy Miller's brother.

Brandy had not initially implicated her brother in any way. Not in any of her first five or six

confessions anyway. But later, after Vendaville had accused Andrew, made him a suspect, the detectives go back to Brandy again. Richard Vendaville's already told us everything they tell her, tell us the real story. So Brandy changed her story again, and told them she'd driven with Ben, Joe, Angela, and Andrew out to the Polarman House. They'd all gone inside while she waited out in the car. And when they came back, they were bloody. In letters, she wrote home from jail

to their mom and dad, Brandy explained her decision to accuse her brother.

“"Hey, Mom. You really know what it comes down to. Him or me. If I do what I am doing,”

he goes away and I come home some day. I surely didn't have three kids just so someone else can raise them. I'm not proud of what I'm doing, but my boys need me, Mom. Nobody will ever understand how it feels to be in the spot I'm in. So I'm sorry, but I pick myself and my boys over my brother. Is that wrong?" "PS." "Sorry, the ink is smeared. I was crying. But I'm okay, smiley face." Based on the statement that Vendival had given while under immunity,

the detectives interrogated Andrew. He was told it was in his best interest to go along with Vendival's story, because Vendival had given him a way out, they say. Vendival said he was less responsible than the others. "No, birds waiting out for me. I don't know what your role is. Other than what Rich told me it was. Because Richard says that you were his soon-to-be baby's uncle, and he was looking out for you on that. "Oh, sure." "Oh, my god, I don't have her at all."

"I know, you've got to help us through this up. I don't know. I don't want to talk about the clean enough of the car, the clean up of the truck." "I'm in my phone, sir. Why ain't there yet?" "No, we won't Andrew." The detectives told Andrew that they already knew all about how, after the murders, he'd gone to Vendival and asked for advice. "How do we get away with this?" Andrew asked him, "What do we do?" So Andrew's choice was simple. If he admitted to cleaning up the

crime scene, to being an accessory after the fact, then the detectives couldn't charge him with anything. The statue of limitations had run out, they assured him. "Or, Andrew could emit nothing. And die in prison." Because everybody is around you with their fucking pants down in Pistonon, you're still. And you love it. I love it. Do you love it? No, I don't love it.

And then fucking make the Pistophia and start fucking talking. "I don't know, no, no, no, no. Say hello!" "Oh, you got fucking profit." "You got profit. If you decide to complain with me here today, you will be back at your house this afternoon." "We're liars in cleaning the water." What he's trying to say is, this is the column before the storm.

I've never been thinking that's going to any hit and so on. So it's like,

Andrew needs to take care of Andrew." We only have a recording of the first two hours of this interrogation,

It detailed how, after the murders, Andrew had gone to Vendival for advice on what they should do.

On Vendival's instructions, Andrew went to the store and bought Kaboom bathroom cleaner and a gallon of bleach. He grabbed a bucket and a scrub brush and then he, Joe and Ben all returned to the Polderman house, where they spent an hour cleaning away every fingerprint and every trace of DNA they left behind.

Just like Richard Vendival had said to the detectives, he had told them he'd explained Andrew how to clean the crime scene perfectly, how to ensure no trace of the five would ever be found there.

“And that's why no DNA or fingerprints from the five Polderman defendants had been found at the scene.”

Vendival also told detectives that he'd explained to the five defendants how to leave decoy DNA behind to fool investigators, making a turn he'd called it. And Andrew, in his confession, confirmed that they'd followed Vendival's instructions, and, quote, "planted evidence with other people's fingerprints close to the victims." So that's why an unknown person's fingerprints were found at the crime scene.

And why, in the garage, where Marin as Polderman had fought with his attacker, an unknown man's DNA was found on a broken piece of rubber glove, mixed in with Mr. Polderman's blood. Because criminal mastermind Richard Vendival had told them to leave fake evidence behind, to send detectives looking in the wrong direction.

Like Ben Platt and Angela McConnell, Andrew Miller recanted his confession.

“Here's him on the phone with his wife after he was arrested.”

"We have been talking in scary sand, and all these people are pointing fingers at you. You know what else I'm talking to?" "I said the lamp pointed." "Well, I didn't, you know, it's something to make it up to you, Ned."

"You know, if I can tell when you all give a million, you know, all the answers and shit,

any stupid fucking idiot that I fucking made up a fucking story." "That's the way they work, honey." "They'll lie to you, they'll make you come through, they'll do whatever they can do." "Well, this is made fucking a lie, you stupid." "I know that."

"With Andrew's confession, the detectives finally had enough to file murder charges against all five of the defendants." "One time for someone to fucking do." "We're going to take you out."

“"He didn't do anything, and I'm going to prove it."”

"I promised that with all my life, I will prove it." "You didn't do nothing and you're not going to get railroading stuff and you're stupid." "Oh, anyway, I don't want you to get it." "And before I escape, though, I'm a goddamn fucking psychosocial man." The cold case team started out trying to solve Kalamazoo's most notorious cold case by charging

Richard Vindevill. But instead, they ended up believing Vindevill's claim that he knew who really had committed the murders. And they charged with five people he accused.

Jo Williams, who never confessed, was convicted.

So were Ben Platt, Andrew Miller, and Angela McConnell, who all did confess, but then recanted. By either not confessing or recanting, they all lost the prisoner's dilemma. All are serving life in prison, except for Angela, who committed suicide in 2023. Brandy Miller took a plea. She only served 12 and a half years, and was released in 2020. But she didn't win the prisoner's dilemma either.

She just lost less than the others. Because when she initially confessed, she did so thinking and meant she wouldn't have to go to prison. But that wasn't the case at all. We still don't know what happened to the three members of the Holderman family who were killed. But I am confident it is not what any of the Holderman defendants described in their many confessions.

Because none of their stories match what was found at the crime scene. But even though the details in the case do not add up, when judges and juries here that four people confessed to a murder, the details stopped mattering, and so do all the unanswered questions. Unanswered questions like, "What really happened at the Holderman House that day?" And, "How did Richard Vendival go from informant to suspect and back to informant again?"

So, add another five cold case convictions to the list of cases we need to investigate further. Before we close though, a note to our listeners, we're taking a week off to do more investigating.

It will put us in Talamazoo, where we'll keep looking for answers to what really happened at the bike shop.

And how it all went so wrong for Scott. Next time, Unproof.

“You may have your focus on your suspect and continue to build the case that you believe that”

that individual may be involved, but just don't eliminate everything.

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.”

There are aggressive tactics. In this case that I was intimately involved in,

it seemed like once they knew who he was, what he was in prison for, it was just a matter of fine the trail that leads us there.

“You've been listening to proof, a podcast by Red Marwill Media, an 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 Yulitowski, Michael Alfonno, and Hesus 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 @proofcrimepod and on our website proofcrimepod.com. That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening. You're a bit more relaxed and then you're confident that it's a bit.