The DNA never lied. It never pointed to Ian, Shawn, or Frank—but to someone else entirely. As forensic experts unravel the evidence that put three innocent men behind bars, the case against them crumbles. The DNA, the tire tracks, the so-called bite marks—junk science and misplaced certainty stole decades of their lives. But if they didn’t do it…who did?__You can view the materials referenced in this episode at https://threepodcast.com/chapter-6-unknown-male-1Please 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 [email protected]. 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 is the main topic of this episode?
I was in a grocery store in Hilo buying milk for my toddler when I saw the newspaper at the checkout stand. I recognized the expression on Ian's face, the struggle to grasp that he was actually free. And in that moment, the grocery store around me took on the surreal feel it had when I first came home, a feeling I knew Ian would experience soon enough.
the seemingly endless choices after a world of deprivation. Even just the color palette of a place like this, with its bright fruits and vegetables and packaging, was a shock after years of gray concrete and steel. In the blink of an eye, Ian went from a prisoner of the Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona to a free man back in his home of Hilo, Hawaii.
He walked out of the courtroom, not in shackles like he had walked in, but hand in hand with his mom and dad, who for the last 30 years since all this started, had been mourning the life they all lost. After years in prison, stepping into the outside world is like stepping through the looking glass. There's a distorted surreality to the mundane.
A mailbox or a key can take on magical significance. A crowd waiting for a bus can become terrifyingly claustrophobic.
Having been convicted in 2000, Ian was sentenced to life behind bars at the start of the new millennium, just a year before the first iPod was released, and nearly a decade before social media platforms like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter transformed the way we communicate. Even in 2011, when I was acquitted, I was baffled by touchscreens.
I'd missed the rise of Obama and our intro into the iconic Taylor Swift and a million other things. Compared to me, Ian had so much more to catch up on.
Yeah. I lost half my life. Lost half my life.
And the prosecutors were all right with that. The judge was all right with that. They was all right with me dying in prison. You know, I think that's, you got to, like, let it sink, let that sink in, you know. Sit in a cell for something you didn't do for 130 years. Let that float on your brain for about 10 years and then do it again for another 10. And then, you know, another six on top of that.
I'm Amanda Knox, and this is Three. Chapter 6, Unknown Male Number One. Only four days after his release, Randy Roth and Ken Lawson of the Hawaii Innocence Project have dinner with Ian.
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Chapter 2: How did Ian Schweitzer adjust to life after wrongful imprisonment?
It's one of the things that you feel when you have been wrongly convicted, when you've been wrongly accused, is that you don't belong to the rest of humanity anymore. You have been isolated. You have been turned into a monster. And that feeling persists even in freedom.
Both Knox and Schweitzer hope sharing their stories in their own words will help inspire change with these law students and the entire community.
I wouldn't wish it on no one. It's a different road.
And one area that is in desperate need of change is how the wrongly convicted are supported after release. Emerging from prison is destabilizing and disorienting, whether you're guilty or innocent. But ironically, the guilty are provided many more resources when they are paroled, from counseling to help with housing, medical care, and food.
The wrongly convicted, by contrast, often don't even get a bus pass.
Where's their help? And so most people, when they see the news clips, they say, oh, he's free. The judge just freed him and all that. They go, oh my God, he's just going to be, it's over. Don't realize that another journey started now. And you get used to being in that environment to where even if you're innocent, right, you get used to
a routine because you had to find a routine or that would drive you crazy. So you do a routine. So, you know, so whether it's, you know, like Ian and I, you know, work out a lot, right? So, you know, you go to the gym at a certain time, you go to the library at a certain time, you do this at a certain time. And so he's doing all that. Now all of a sudden he's out after 25 years of doing that.
You're sleeping in a certain bed. One thing he said, he's like, you know... So Judge Friesen, we go to the hotel. We have a hotel room for him on the Big Island. He doesn't know how to check in. He doesn't know how to use the key. You know, because back then they just had to, you know. And so we tried to get him an iPhone.
We had to take him to the iPhone store and sit there for a couple of hours while they teach him how to use an iPhone.
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