Bill Lagattuta
Appearances
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
He tried to defend himself the best he could, you know? Tried to defend himself and his partner.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
Being sent to prison for the rest of his life is not good enough. He needs to hear from the families to see and feel what he has done to us.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
Your cowardly act shattered our lives forever. For all of this, we cannot and will not forgive you.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
He might say he's sorry now, but we didn't even look at that because I don't believe it.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
He's a murderer, he's a thief, and he's a rapist. That's what he is. He just got old.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
To know that they didn't give up. There were people out there in the department that still wanted to solve this case, but then to be able to do it, it was phenomenal.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
Asking mom questions about what happened to our dad. She would cry and say that he was killed.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Oh my gosh, what if? What if they don't convict him? What do you do?
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
We got to parts of it that showed He had searched terms like overdose and death by sleeping pills.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
There was a guy who was holding a Bible on Sunday telling everybody how to live, and he'd murdered his wife. Every minute that went by, Baker was closer to getting away with it. and he knew it.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
We've got a guy on the street that's a killer. And I wasn't going to let a guy like that outsmart me or outplay me.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
We have to try to do such a good job and have the evidence be so clear and so strong that a prosecutor looking at it will say, I can do that too.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
He was foolish enough to allow me to. Did you have a sexual relationship with any woman in the year prior to Carrie's death other than Carrie? No. He could have played the Fifth Amendment. While you have 911 on the phone, you're dressing, or how long did it take to dress her? Again, probably just seconds, not very long at all. He clearly described things that were impossible.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
No. He's used to conning people and having them do what he wants.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Why in the world an innocent person would ever confess to a crime as serious as murder?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But the district attorney's office was convinced they were guilty. So six years ago, it wasn't the drifter Richard Tuitt on trial, but the three boys. Their lives were on the line.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
until it is a sealed bag. A stunning piece of evidence came to light out of nowhere.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The confession of Josh Treadway gave the most details about the murder of Stephanie Crowe.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
No one believed more in Josh's innocence than his public defender, Mary Ellen Attridge.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Mary Ellen Attridge's plan was to dispute the boy's so-called confessions. But she was also planning to revisit the questions about Richard Tuitt and paint him as the likely killer. One thing she had always wondered about was the clothing police took from Tuitt the morning Stephanie's body was discovered. Clothing the police said contained no incriminating evidence.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
She discovered that only Tuitt's white t-shirt had been tested for DNA evidence.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Richard Tuitt, a known paranoid schizophrenic, went to... Attridge demanded that prosecutors send all of Tuitt's clothing for DNA testing. Five months later, on the first day of Josh's trial, there was still no word from the lab.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The DNA lab had found three spots of Stephanie Crow's blood on Richard Tuitt's red sweatshirt.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The prosecution was stunned. How come no one spotted this blood before?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Forgive me for saying this, but this is a prosecutor's nightmare, isn't it?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
You really need to figure out how that blood got onto its shirt before you can go anywhere, right?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
It's been more than six years since Stephanie Crow was murdered, but her parents, Stephen and Cheryl, finally have hope that justice is on the horizon. We're back on the record in the Tewitt case. Today, this man, Richard Tewitt, a drifter, a felon, and a diagnosed schizophrenic, is going on trial for her murder.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The judge put a freeze on the trial. Six weeks later, charges against the three boys who had been incarcerated for six months were dropped with the provision they could be filed again.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The DA was reluctant to charge Tewitt, who was in jail for a burglary. Three years in state prison. There were just too many unanswered questions. mostly about the confessions and how the Escondido police handled the evidence.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
A year went by, still no arrest. Summer Steffen and the Escondido authorities were off the case when the state attorney general's office took it over.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Vic Koloka, a senior investigator with the San Diego Sheriff's Department, was in charge of the new investigation.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
He noted that the boys had no lawyers with them and were isolated from their parents for extended periods of time. They were interrogated for hours on end.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
It was clear to Koloka that police lied to their suspects, which is legal. The question he had was, did they promise leniency, which is illegal?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Kaloka was becoming convinced the boys were innocent because their stories did not fit the facts of the crime.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Though he wasn't there for the most grueling part of the interrogations, Chris McDonough sees things differently. Do you think those detectives crossed the line in those moments?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Koloka spent two and a half years investigating the case, and he interrogated Richard Tewitt.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Tewitt admitted he went into the Crow house, but denied killing Stephanie.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But in the end, for Detective Koloka, it was the DNA blood evidence that was irrefutable.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Four and a half years after police first questioned Richard Tuitt, he was finally arrested for the murder of Stephanie Crow.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
He enters a plea of not guilty and denies all allegations. But just when Tuitt's trial was about to begin, there was another bizarre twist.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Just three hours after slipping away from the San Diego courthouse, Richard Tuitt was finally captured.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
For prosecutors, his escape on the first day of trial is just more proof that he killed 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe. This guy's gotta be brought to justice. We gotta fix things that were broken. Prosecutors are in an unusual position. They must also play defense attorneys because to convict Tewitt of murder, they must exonerate the boys.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The Crows have never had a doubt that Richard Tuitt did it. Stabbed Stephanie nine times in her bed after sneaking into their house while the rest of the family slept. Do you think about that night?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
It's hard to believe the man in the mugshot is the same man the jury would see, a subdued, clean-shaven, handsome man who has the support of his family. Did Richard murder Stephanie Crone?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Richard Tuitt's mother, Linda, and sister, Carrie, say he is harmless, a sad case of a young man once full of promise.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
In his 20s, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The family says they took Richard to the hospital at least 30 times.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
He was no stranger to police. His criminal record includes arrests for drug use, attempted burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon. That it was an organized crime. And yet, says his other attorney, William Fletcher.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
There may have been no evidence left by Tewitt in the Crow home. But there was evidence on Tewitt. In fact, after Stephanie's blood was found on his red sweatshirt, a crime lab eventually found her blood on Tewitt's white T-shirt, too. How significant to your case are those blood stains on those two shirts? Part of the case. Right at the center of the case.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Because, according to prosecutors, there's only one way blood could have gotten on his clothes. He killed Stephanie.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
but the defense was about to present its theory. Showing you the red shirt. That Stephanie's blood was transferred to its clothes by the police.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The defense claims that Stephanie's blood got on Tewitt's white T-shirt after investigators tracked it into a holding cell where Tewitt was being questioned. When Tewitt sat on the floor of the cell, blood tracked in on the shoes of the policeman and got smeared onto its shirt, which was soaking wet from the rain. Showing you a sleeve with...
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But that's exactly what the defense claimed happened, that a police investigator photographing the crime scene using a tripod like this set it down in Stephanie's blood. Later, back at the lab, the police used that same contaminated tripod to photograph Tuitt's red shirt. According to this theory, some of Stephanie's blood, now dried, somehow flaked off the tripod and onto the shirt.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Stephanie's big brother, Michael, was 14 years old when it happened. He has grown up in the shadow of the murder and despises Richard Tewitt.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
And when that shirt was later tested using wet chemicals, the dried blood turned into a blood stain. Do you think the jury will buy that? Honestly, no. I don't. I really don't. And then the defense presents its strongest argument to exonerate Richard Tuitt, the boys' own words. All I know is I'm positive I killed him.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Most of the confession tapes had been ruled coerced and inadmissible back when the boys were facing trial. But now, those tapes can be used as evidence to defend Richard Tuitt.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
I do. Michael Crowe, Stephanie's older brother, would now take the stand to defend himself.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
You were quite emotional on the stand. What was it that sort of pushed you past the brink?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Even though it's Richard Tewitt on trial for murder, in the two weeks of the boy's testimony, the defendant's name is hardly mentioned. No further questions?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Finally, after listening to three months of testimony, the jury must decide. Is Richard Tuitt the killer?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Michael Crowe may be convinced that Richard to it killed his sister, but the authorities haven't always been so certain. In fact, even today, after all these years, there are still those who believe others did it. Others who remarkably confessed to the crime. Yet to it is the one on trial now because there is also dramatic evidence against him. There is one thing no one disputes.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
After six years of living under suspicion for the murder of his little sister, the moment of truth is about to come for Michael Crow.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
a jury is finally deliberating the fate of the man who is on trial now for her murder.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
In the end, would the jury believe a mentally ill transient could kill a young girl in her own home without making a sound or leaving a trace?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Would they believe a brother and his friends could confess to a murder they didn't commit?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
And what about the blood? Could police mistakes have contaminated key evidence?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
the jury has found Richard Tuitt guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, concluding that he killed Stephanie Crowe, but without malice or premeditation.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Michael Crow chose not to be there for the news. Three months after the conviction, the judge is ready to sentence Tuitt at issue whether his mental illness will affect his punishment.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Richard Tuitt was here in the hills of Escondido on that terrible night in 1998. The night Stephanie Crow was murdered.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
The night of the murder, police received numerous reports about a stranger in the Crow neighborhood.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
They say he appeared disoriented, knocking on doors, looking for a girl named Tracy.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Is this the man who knocked on your door? Yeah, that's him. The Crow's next-door neighbor at the time, Reverend Gary West, told us he saw Richard Tuitt that night. You go to the door, and he says what?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
At the time, Richard Tuitt was obsessed with this girl, Tracy Nelson, who resembled Stephanie.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Would you point out the various sort of landmarks in this area here? That's Reverend West's house, and our house is over here to the right.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But if Tewitt was the killer, he was either very careful or very lucky. The crime scene was bloody. There were no fingerprints or DNA. And the murder weapon was never found. The morning after the murder, Tewitt was picked up and his clothes were confiscated.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But he was let go because authorities said they had no incriminating evidence and didn't think he was capable of sneaking into the house undetected.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But today, authorities have done a 180. Prosecutors Dave Drewliner and Jim Dutton are confident he is the right man.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
And yet, he leaves not a single fingerprint. Well, no hair, no fibers, no footprints.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
With the trial of Richard Toot finally underway, it is Michael Crow who is perhaps the most anxious about the outcome. Back in 1998, authorities were convinced that this 14-year-old planned and carried out the brutal crime.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
back then michael crowe stephanie's big brother confessed to police back then in this courtroom it was michael crowe and his two friends who were preparing to go on trial for stephanie's murder
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Stephanie Crow's funeral was on a Tuesday. Her parents and friends were all there.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But someone was missing. Her big brother, Michael. Hey, Michael, you have the right to remain silent. Not only had the Crows lost a daughter. Anything you do say can and will be used against you in court. They were now being told their son was her killer.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
When we first talked to Cheryl and Stephen Crow back then, they said Michael was a bit shy, but otherwise a typical 14-year-old.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But authorities saw Michael differently. A bright kid with a dark side. The morning Stephanie's body was discovered, they say, Michael seemed distant, quiet, even preoccupied.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But according to the police, even in the dark, Michael should have seen something. His room is directly across from Stephanie's.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Police began interrogating Michael. At first, he denied killing his sister.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
But after two days of questioning... Or it's your mom or it's your dad or it's you. Michael finally told the police what they had suspected all along.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Sibling rivalry was Michael Crow's motive for murdering his sister, according to police. They say Michael deeply resented Stephanie because she was more popular and got better grades. And they say he didn't act alone. Instead, he recruited two of his friends, both of them also in the ninth grade.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
This was Josh Treadway back then, a shy, artsy kid. Tell me a little bit about yourself. What kind of guy are you?
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
I would hope would be a good description. And this was Aaron Houser, more bookish, analytical.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
For most kids, it's harmless fun. But investigators believe these boys decided to bring their dark fantasies into the real world and find a real victim, Michael's little sister.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
When authorities went to see Josh, the suspicions grew. What'd they find? They found two knives under my bed. Under this bed? Mm-hmm. Police thought one of those knives looked like the one used to kill Stephanie. So they brought Josh in for questioning.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Police questioned Josh for 12 hours. He didn't say much more, but when he came back for another interview two weeks later, he told the police how the murder was planned. Josh told police Michael had the motive, but Aaron was the mastermind.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
Police brought Aaron Houser in for questioning. He never confessed. Instead, he gave a chilling hypothetical scenario of how someone would inflict knife wounds on someone like Stephanie.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
This is the hearing where Josh... Chris McDonough was one of the detectives who interviewed Josh and Aaron.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
When Josh told you he was afraid of Aaron, did you believe him? Yes. Definitely. Once they had their confessions, detectives believe they had made their case. But shortly after the boys had given those detailed statements, they recanted, took it all back. Now Michael and his friends were saying they had made it all up under intense pressure from the police.
48 Hours
Coerced Confessions
You didn't conspire with your friends to kill your sister? No. You didn't take part in it in any way? In any way. Why wouldn't you just stick to your guns and say, I didn't do this. I didn't do this. There's no way in the world I'm going to confess to something I didn't do. Just eventually they wear you down to where you don't even trust yourself. You can't trust your memory anymore.