On Christmas Eve in 1991, Dana Ireland is found tucked away in a secluded, hard to get to area of the Hawaiian subdivision, Vacationland barely clinging to life. When she finally arrives at a Hilo hospital, the damage is too severe and they declare Dana dead at 12:25am on Christmas morning. In 2023, the audiochuck team set out to tell you the story of what happened to Dana Ireland and how three men were convicted of her murder. Then in 2024, everything changed. In Chapter 1, Amanda Knox takes you through everything that happened on December 24th, 1991 and why this story is very different from the one we were originally going to tell you. __You can view the materials referenced in this episode at https://threepodcast.com/s2-episode-1/Please consider donating to Ian’s GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ian-schweitzer-after-wrongful-conviction. You can visit www.hawaiiinnocenceproject.org and click the donate button to support them, their work and their clients. Amanda Knox’s new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning is available at www.amandaknox.com. If you have any information about the abduction and murder of Dana Ireland, we encourage you to contact the Hawai’i Innocence Project at contacthip@hawaiiinnocenceproject.org. You can also contact Crime Stoppers at (808) 961-8300 and the Hawai’i Police Department at (808) 961-2380 or visit their website Hawaiipolice.gov to submit a tip.
Chapter 1: What happened in the courtroom on January 24, 2023?
It's 9.21 a.m. on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, and a man named Ian Schweitzer is standing in a courtroom in Hilo, Hawaii. He's not a total stranger to this feeling or to the criminal justice system in general. He's been here before. But this time, it's for very different reasons. Over 23 years ago, Ian was convicted of a crime he firmly asserts he did not commit.
And for almost two decades, the Innocence Project has been trying to help him prove it. Ian's team, including the legendary Barry Sheck, who co-founded the original Innocence Project in 1992, well, they would spend the next seven hours stating their case in front of Judge Kubota.
Your Honor, this is a critical day in Ian Schweitzer's journey towards justice. It started on October 4th, 1997, when he was arrested and jailed for the sexual assault and murder of Dana Ireland. He has insisted on his innocence for all who would listen for 26 years, 9,243 days, marked by fear, confusion, isolation, sorrow, anger, despair, terror, and now hope.
Ian never stopped hoping that this injustice would be corrected. The family has been ridiculed, shunned, treated like pariahs in their community. But none of the Schweitzer's ever gave up hope that there would be a day of justice that would arrive. As Dr. King famously said, after the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, truth crushed to earth will rise again. No lie can live forever.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We want to thank the court in particular for the wisdom, guidance, and patience that you've had with all of us over this entire proceeding. We rest.
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Chapter 2: Who is Ian Schweitzer and why was he convicted?
His family, yeah, filled up the courtroom. And what was odd is, it's a lot of times, you know, when you have someone charged with a serious crime, you know, some departments of public safety overflow the courtroom with deputies, right? Like, this is a scary person, right?
So when we first get there, I mean, they are extremely mean to the attorneys, very mean to one of our volunteer attorneys, very mean to the family members. These are the deputies, right? who believed, at least from my perception, believed that Ian was guilty. And the hearing, as you said, lasted all day, and they had to stay there. They, being the deputies, had to stay there all day.
And you could see the more that they heard that evidence, the nicer they started becoming with the family members. The more they heard that evidence, right, the more human they seemed to become.
That's Ken Lawson, the co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project. They have been looking into Ian's case since around 2006. But when Ken started in 2010, he took it over, and ever since, he's been damn near determined to prove his client's innocence. But no one had predicted that today would be the day. Especially not Ian.
Chapter 3: How did the Hawaii Innocence Project intervene?
I think he knew that he was supposed to be coming back for a hearing. He didn't know that he was coming back so soon because he was in quarantine. The Department of Public Services has to fly out to get him and bring him back. And they were saying because of the COVID rules that he would have to stay in quarantine there.
And then when he came back here, he would have to be quarantined in the jail before he could even come to court. The next question was, are we going to get a judge that's going to listen?
To everyone's surprise, the judge announces his verdict later that same day.
My amazing team broke down everything and just step by step just knocked everything out. My belief was the hand of God was going to indicate me. I had God's team.
Chapter 4: What led to Ian Schweitzer's release?
There's a judgment of this court that the new DNA evidence, the tire tread evidence... The bite mark evidence and Sean Schweitzer's recantation conclusively proves that in a new trial, a jury would likely reach a different verdict of acquittal. So therefore, the conviction of Albertine Schweitzer for murder in the second degree, kidnapping, and sexual assault in the first degree is hereby vacated.
And Mr. Schweitzer shall be released immediately from custody in this trial. So Mr. Schweitzer, I'm going to ask you directly. You've spent roughly half of your life so far as a free man and another half of your life in prison. How old are you now? One. You're one. Okay. The question is, how do you make up for that lost time? And I'll give you a bit of advice.
You live roughly one-third of your life. You've got one-third of your life ahead of you. You can live it being angry and resentful at the process or the people that put you there, or you can live it with a new freedom. I suggest that since you have your whole family here, you hug and love your family and live a fulfilled life and make the best of the next one-third of your life.
So after we conclude this proceeding, the family of Mr. Schweitzer are allowed to come across the bar. No one else is allowed to come forward to greet Mr. Schweitzer. Mr. Schweitzer shall be released from his shackles immediately.
In a matter of hours, Ian Schweitzer is free. Well, sort of. It's a feeling very few people understand. Being charged and convicted of a crime you didn't commit. While his story played out a little differently, Ian's brother Sean is also one of those people.
I took my deal and I got out and I was supporting my family. It's a Shitty that I had to do that, but... You better have taken it. You better have taken it. I would have been sitting in the cell right by him if I didn't do that. That's the way I felt.
And so am I.
A 22-year-old American student, Amanda Knox, was found guilty in Italy of murdering her British roommate. She was immediately sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison.
As the verdict was read, a crowd outside the courtroom burst into cheers. Inside the courtroom, Amanda Knox and her family began to sob. I'm Amanda Knox, and while studying abroad in 2007, what was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime college experience turned into a life-altering nightmare.
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Chapter 5: How does Amanda Knox relate to this story?
One I would spend the following eight years trapped inside of and will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Amanda Knox walks free. This was an extraordinary day in Italy and all over the United States.
Immediate liberation. She didn't commit the crime. The words of the judge. Tonight she's free.
In February 2023, after Ian was released from prison, I traveled to Hawaii and met him in person. Little did I know that almost two years later, I would be sitting down now with you all to tell you what has happened since that very conversation. Behind every wrongful conviction is a devastating and complicated web that is almost impossible to untangle.
But during this series, we're going to try to do just that. Because justice doesn't have to be complicated. And the victims in this case deserve clarity. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
Over the past 18 months, we've had a team of people who've been out on the Hawaiian islands investigating this story, talking to the people that were there firsthand, some who have never spoken out before, recording in-depth interviews that you will hear nowhere else. We've poured through nearly 40,000 pages of documents about this case.
We've listened to countless hours of audio, from witness stories and confessions to secret grand jury testimony and never-before-heard interviews with jailhouse informants. All so we could discover the truth behind the murder of Dana Ireland and the three families who will never be the same because of it.
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Chapter 6: What is the new evidence in Dana Ireland's case?
But what we didn't expect was that the story would change drastically over the last year and a half as we investigated. Actually, no one did. In July 2024, the world found out who really killed Dana Ireland. A name that never popped up on investigators' radar matched the DNA left at the scene and on the body of Dana Ireland.
If you had told me a month ago that this is where this path would have turned, I would have called you a liar and said there's no possible way.
But to understand how we got here, you have to understand what has transpired in the 33 years since Dana Ireland was murdered. I'm Amanda Knox, and this is 3, Season 2. Murder in Vacationland.
We're asking you to come with us to the Big Island to hear the untold story of what really happened to Dana Ireland and how her death impacted the lives of three families, the Irlands, the Schweitzers, and the Paulines.
We also had DNA on our side. It didn't matter.
We didn't even have the car. We didn't even have a car. Guilty to proven innocent, huh?
No, it ain't Schweitzer's. Like I said, I just said that because that's what the detectives wanted.
Chapter 1, Christmas in Hawaii. It's December 1991 in a small town, Kapoho, located on the eastern end of what's known as the Big Island of Hawaii. It's not the place most mainlanders think of when they imagine the Hawaii islands. It's quieter, slower, serene, the ultimate tropical paradise, and often called one of Hawaii's best-kept secrets.
And within Kapoho, there is this little subdivision called, almost too perfectly, Vacationland. At around 5.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, a local woman named Ida Smith had just gotten home from running some afternoon errands and is settling back when she hears something strange. The call of a hawk? No. She realizes what she's hearing is not bird calls.
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Chapter 7: What is the setting and significance of Kapoho?
It's sounding more like a girl who is calling for help. Ida quickly follows the direction of the faint screams, which take her towards a vacant house near her property. And then she sees her. About 80 to 90 feet down the narrow gravel roadway towards the waterfront, surrounded by bushes, is a young woman in desperate need of medical attention.
She is barely clothed, and it's clear she is suffering from numerous injuries by the And based on her appearance, Ida also believes the woman has been sexually assaulted.
She had nothing on. Her jeans were, she had cut off jeans and they were down on her ankle. And her shirt looked like someone had grabbed it and tore it off her like that. So I got hold of her arm, you know, and I said, let me help you up. And she started to scream. The pain. And so I stopped because I didn't want to hurt her.
Ida books it to the main road on the other side of her home to flag down the first car she sees. Thankfully, it doesn't take long, and in a matter of minutes, a group of individuals, including a nurse who lives nearby, are down there comforting the victim as they anxiously wait for an ambulance to arrive. And they're praying it won't be long, because the woman's condition is only getting worse.
It's obvious she is in severe pain, and through it, she's trying to make words. Some are coherent, some not. But they can make out her name. Dana. Dana. By 6.20 p.m., an officer makes his way to the scene, but unfortunately, the ambulance doesn't arrive for another hour. Once arrived, Ida and the group watch as Dana is whisked away towards Hilo Hospital, two hours after Ida found her.
It might have been sooner if she wasn't in such a remote area, but it was the type of path you wouldn't even know was there unless you knew. By 8 p.m., a flurry of people, including paramedics, rush Dana into the hospital on a gurney. And there, in the waiting room, is her family. They've been there for about two hours.
Ever since they figured out something was wrong, and now they are watching their Dana, 23-year-old Dana Ireland, fighting for her life. When detectives speak with Dana's older sister, Sandy, in the waiting room, they discover Sandy moved to the Big Island a few years earlier, and Dana came to visit often. Then, only two months prior, Dana decided to stay in Hawaii for good.
So for the holidays, Dana and Sandy's parents, John and Louise Ireland, decided to fly in from Virginia and join them on the Big Island for a few weeks. The family says earlier that day, before they were planning on celebrating Christmas Eve, Dana decided to go on a bike ride. So she borrowed her sister Sandy's bike and headed out to her friend Mark's house, which is about a seven-mile ride.
But when Sandy and her boyfriend Jim were driving over to their parents' rental house around 5 p.m., they saw something on the side of the road that caught their attention. A crowd of people all gathered around what looked like the scene of an accident. Sandy went from curious to terrified when she recognized the crushed bike lying in the road.
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