Wrong Man - Episode Guide

At just 16 years old, Evaristo Junior Salas was tried as an adult and imprisoned for 33 years for the murder of 24-year-old Jose Arreola, who was gunned down in his truck in front of his girlfriend and newborn baby. Local police couldn't find the killer and the case went cold until a criminal informant identified Salas. For over two decades, Salas has insisted that he is innocent and that the justice system railroaded him. To uncover the truth, a team of leading investigators and legal minds join forces to investigate Salas' claims of wrongful conviction. They travel to the scene of the crime—a small farming town with a history of gang violence—to track down witnesses, examine forensic evidence, and chase leads that the local police never followed up on. Just when the state's case is starting to unravel, a visit to meet Salas in prison throws the whole investigation into question. The Wrong Man team will have to dig deeper to find out if the system really got the wrong man.

After a setback investigating the Evaristo Salas case when the primary eyewitness refused to talk, investigators Ira Todd and Joe Kennedy return to Sunnyside, Washington to meet with the lead detective, retired Sunnyside Detective Sergeant Jim Rivard. Rivard tells them how Salas first came to his attention as a suspect when a criminal informant just happened to see photos of Evaristo on Rivard's desk. Ira and Joe think something is up with Rivard's story so they hone in on the criminal informant for more information, however, Rivard is not keen on them talking to him. The informant finally comes forward with his side of the story - and the team is shocked by what they learn.

On the morning of July 16, 1996, owner Bertha Tardy and three of her employees were murdered execution-style inside her furniture store in the quiet town of Winona, Mississippi. All four died of gunshot wounds to the head. Twenty-six-year-old Curtis Flowers became a suspect almost immediately when investigators learned that he'd been fired from the store days earlier. No murder weapon was ever found, but a gunshot residue test conducted on that day revealed one particle on Curtis' right hand. Flowers was arrested and went on to become one of the most tried defendants in history with the same District Attorney presiding for 21 years over a total of six trials and overturned verdicts. Now he faces a possible 7th trial while he continues to maintain his innocence.

Investigators Charlie Saums, Ira Todd and Joe Kennedy are on the ground in Winona, Mississippi, re-investigating the Curtis Flowers case. Flowers is convicted of a quadruple homicide for which he maintains his innocence. The investigators turn the spotlight on the state's investigation, as they start to realize that the police and prosecution may not have been as thorough as they should have. District Attorney Doug Evans has prosecuted Curtis in all six trials. In spite of repeated attempts to reach Evans, he refuses to be interviewed, pending a state Supreme Court decision, and a possible seventh trial. The investigators take to the streets, trying to learn what they can about how the prosecution was conducted.

Angie Dodge was found brutally murdered in her Idaho Falls apartment, stabbed multiple times, sexually assaulted and ejaculated upon postmortem. After six months without leads, the police thought they got a break when a friend of Angie's was arrested for rape at knifepoint. They questioned his friends, including Christopher Tapp, who they grilled for 28 hours. The grueling interrogation and leading questions led Tapp to confess to the crime. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. Tapp claims he's innocent. Videotapes of Tapp's confession show his story varying wildly from interrogation to interrogation, until finally he confesses. The Wrong Man team engages former LA County homicide detective, Danny Smith, to take a crack at the case. Even the victim's mother no longer believes Tapp murdered her daughter. Her own search produced new leads and persons of interest that Danny examines while conducting his own investigation to try and find the real killer.

Ira Todd and Joe Kennedy land in Idaho Falls to help local investigator Danny Smith look into a case of coerced confession. After viewing videotapes of Chris' confession, even Carol Dodge believes the wrong man, Christopher Tapp, is in prison for her daughter's murder. She's spent two decades investigating the case, looking for the killer whose DNA matches what was found at the crime scene. Ira, Joe and Danny conduct a neighborhood canvass around the house where Angie was killed. Although it yields few leads, our investigators approach several persons of interest who potentially had contact with Angie. They are able to acquire DNA samples and have them tested to see if they have a match to the crime scene DNA. Meanwhile, attorneys and advocates for Tapp are preparing for two hearings that could lead to his release. Then a couple of weeks before the hearings are scheduled to take place, the prosecution offers Tapp a deal.

In 2016, 52-year-old Vonda Smith was charged with the brutal murder of 21-year-old Jessie Morrison in rural Tennessee and sentenced to life in prison. Vonda was the grandmother of one of Jessie's children. According to Vonda, she loved Jessie and helped her pay bills and care for her children. But on the day of the murder, Jessie's blood was all over Vonda's car. Vonda claimed that she had lent Jessie her car that day and that she saw Jessie's boyfriend return it and get into a white van. She also said that when she launched her own investigation into the crime, Jessie's real killer attacked her one night and told her to mind her own business. "The Wrong Man" investigative team sets out to examine Vonda's story and find the white van that Vonda says played a role in Jessie's murder.

At a hearing in Greeneville, Tennessee, Vonda Smith, who vehemently says she did not kill Jessie Morrison, is denied the opportunity for a new trial. In an effort to reopen the investigation, the "Wrong Man" team talks with the men in Jessie's life, including her boyfriend Gary Ealey, who Vonda said returned her bloodied car the night Jessie was killed. But during an intense interrogation with investigator Ira Todd, Vonda makes a shocking statement about what she really saw the night her car was returned, and the investigation takes a new turn.

On December 15, 1994, Andrew Katrinak arrived home to find his wife and son missing. He discovered his basement door had been tampered with and that the phone wires to a cordless phone had been cut. Police thought that perhaps Joann had left and taken the baby with her. But Andy suspected foul play. When asked who might want to hurt his wife, he told police that his ex-girlfriend Patty Rorrer, who lived 500 miles away, might be holding a grudge because Joann had angrily hung up on her when she had called the house a few days before. Four months later, Joann's and Alex's bodies were found 15 miles from their home in an area that Andy said Patty knew well. Police took another look at Patty, who could not provide a strong alibi for where she was the night the victims disappeared.

Patricia Rorrer is found guilty of the abduction and murder of Joann Katrinak and her infant son, Alex. But "Wrong Man" investigators discover that there is no clear timeline between when Joann and Alex disappeared and when their bodies were discovered four months later. They interview a witness who insists she saw Patty with a man five days after her alleged kidnapping. And a forensic entomologist and a medical examiner tell them that considering the state of decomposition of the bodies and the size of the infant, they doubt that the bodies had been lying in the field where they were found for four months.

The "Wrong Man" team explores the case of Kenneth Clair, a homeless black man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal torture and murder of a live-in babysitter, 25-year-old Linda Rodgers, in Santa Ana, California, in 1984. Hours after the murder, a child who lived in the home told police that he had seen a white man kill the babysitter. The "Wrong Man" team examines all aspects of the prosecution's case against Clair, particularly a description of jewelry taken from the murder scene that Kenneth's girlfriend claimed she saw, and the alleged "confession" she elicited from him while being wiretapped by the police. When they discover that she had sustained a severe head injury in an accident shortly before the murder, they consult with a neuropsychologist and learn that her injury would have affected her memory and cognitive abilities and may have made her susceptible to coaching. How reliable was the confession that convicted Kenneth Clair?

The "Wrong Man" team widens its examination of the Kenneth Clair case to consider who may have actually tortured and murdered Linda Rodgers. They explore the possibility that new DNA could be extracted from the evidence to help identify the killer. In discussing the violent sexual nature of the murder, the team points out that certain details in the crime scene indicate the killer could have been someone who was intimate with Linda. Investigators Ira Todd and Joe Kennedy try to track down the victim's boyfriend, who disappeared right after the murder.