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Hey, listeners, I want to tell you about a podcast

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we hope you'll enjoy. It's called Suspect,

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Five Shots in the Dark. I'm one of the

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hosts, Matt Scher. In the latest

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season, alongside co-host Laura Bazelon,

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we look at a case with two victims, one

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murdered in cold blood and one in prison

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for a crime he did not commit.

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The podcast follows Leon Benson's story,

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a man who spent more than half of his

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life, a total of 24 years,

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in an Indiana State prison for the murder

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of Casey Shane, a man he never

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met.

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Casey was murdered in the middle of an August night,

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shot point blank while idling in his Dodge

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pickup truck in North Indianapolis.

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There was no physical evidence, no

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known motive, and no one coming forward

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with information, except one woman

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who swears to this day she saw Leon

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Detroit Benson pull the trigger. Leon

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was sentenced to 60 years in prison, all

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because one person swore they saw something.

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But

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what if that person was wrong?

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From Wondery and Campside Media comes Season 3

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of the hit podcast Suspect.

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This is a story of a botched police investigation,

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the dangers of shaky eyewitness testimony,

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and a community who feared law enforcement,

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with good reason.

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I'm about to play you a clip from Suspect, Five

1:15

Shots in the Dark. While you're listening, follow

1:18

Suspect wherever you get your podcasts.

1:20

You can binge Suspect ad-free on Wondery+.

1:24

Find Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or

1:26

on Apple Podcasts.

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A long time ago, I remember watching an

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episode of Oprah about eyewitness

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testimony. I actually haven't been able to find

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the episode in question online. This

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would have been like three decades ago, when

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I was a kid, home from school, watching

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TV.

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It's entirely possible I imagined parts

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of it. But in my memory, Oprah,

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without telling anyone, has this guy run

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on stage and snatch up a purse belonging

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to one of the panelists.

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And then afterwards, Oprah

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asks everyone to identify the thief.

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But no one can. Each person

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Oprah asks, they've got a different answer

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as to what the guy looked like.

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I don't remember how the show ended. I probably went

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off and played some duck hunt. But it

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lodged in my head. As I got older,

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started working in journalism, and

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writing about the criminal justice system, it

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would periodically pop back into my head.

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A reminder of just how fallible the

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human eye

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and memory can be. So

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wait, let me just back up. Okay, tell

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me when you first noticed the truck. Uh,

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probably like it was maybe a block and a half

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north of there.

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But it was just driving down Pennsylvania

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past where I was out of my vehicle. Do

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you think it stopped and then

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went around again? Or do you think it just

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went by you, went around and came back around?

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The Oprah segment came to mind the first time

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I heard this tape, which was recorded near

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Indianapolis in 2022. The

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details aren't really important, not yet.

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For now, all you need to know is that the first

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voice belongs to Lara Basilon. She's

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a law professor.

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The second voice belongs to a woman named

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Kristy Schmidt. And yeah, those

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are wind chimes

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in the background. Nice, right?

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Okay. So car stops,

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you don't think about it. You

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hear something that sounds like firecrackers that

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turns out to be gunshots. You look up and what's

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the first thing you remember

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seeing when you looked up? Just

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the gentleman outside the truck. On the

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sidewalk. Yeah, on the sidewalk, on the passenger

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side.

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Can you describe whatever you remember

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him looking like? You know, I really couldn't,

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you know, like anything

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that I remember. I would say all

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I can really remember are probably blackmail

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and I remember, I believe it was black

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pants with white stripes on them. This

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blackmail was about 150 feet from Kristy. It

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was early morning, dark and misty.

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Still, later,

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Kristi goes to a police station and picks

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a face out of a photo array. There's

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the shooter, she says. Do you

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remember how you felt when you were looking at the pictures

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and what kind

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of a situation that was? How are you feeling?

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Well, you know, I guess, for lack

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of better, I don't know, nervous, uneasy,

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but, you know, I

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don't and have

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never in 24 years have

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I even thought that I could have identified him

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wrong. And what makes you confident?

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You know, I have to say that was one time

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that face literally jumped off that paper at

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me. I

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mean, it was basically

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went right back to that night.

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And I don't I don't

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doubt one bit that I

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that I made a false

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accusation about it or anything else.

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Well Kristi's saying here it sounds so

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unambiguous, so certain, certain

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enough that it would lead to an arrest, an indictment,

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a guilty verdict and a sentence of 60 years.

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But here's the thing. It was almost

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certainly wrong.

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What interests me most about that wrongness is not

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its rarity, but its commonness.

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Dig deep enough into any questionable conviction

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and you'll inevitably find small errors

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that over time have accrued their

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own terrible power,

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like a pellet of ice

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that becomes a snowball that becomes

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an avalanche. This

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is a story about one of those cases,

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but it's also a story about how difficult,

5:40

how nearly impossible it can be to dig

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a person out again, even when

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nearly everyone involved

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believes it's the right thing to do.

5:59

or on Apple

6:01

Podcasts.