doing the right things off the football field. >> he's certainly right. there's so many good stories in the nfl. let's hope next week there are fewer bad ones. all right, that's going to be our show for tonight. you can follow me on twitter and facebook. where the end of the game is just the start of the story. good night. on this end , "death row stories." an accused soldier that can't convince his own lawyer. >> i thought he was guilty. >> until the prosecution's case falls apart. >> the state's primary witness says i feel like i'm sending an innocent man to prison. >> a shocking twist makes legal history. >> i got something to tell you. >> there's a body in the water.

>> butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseful. >> the electric chair, flashed in front of my eyes. >> get a conviction at all costs, let the truth fall where it may. mother's day, 1985, it was a beautiful morning in fayetteville, north carolina. >> the dogwood was blooming, rolling hills. neighbors know each other. of course, they're all natural families. it's within a mile of the ft. bragg base itself. >> but on summerhill road something seemed amiss at the home of the eastburn family. >> a neighbor noticed that the newspapers in the driveway were piling up and knew her husband was out of town that so that

naturally raised curiosity. went and peeped in the window and heard the baby crying. and then he called the authorities. >> i received a call from the dispatch it was a homicide on summerhill road. when i got there, there was one deputy who had been in the building. his eyes teared up. he was shaking his head and said i just -- i don't understand this. >> the baby was taken to safety and detective biddle and his partner entered the house. >> as we went down to the hallway, the first daughter was in there and she was in the first grade. she was still in bed and she had a "star wars" blank kel pulled up around her neck and stabbed ten times. you could see the stab wupdzs through the blanket. we went further to the master bedroom. the youngest child was laying

there on her back. her throat had been cut almost decapitated and on the right-hand side facing the bed was the mother. the bra was up around her neck. her panties had been cut off of her. she had 14 stab wounds. >> the victims were katie independent investigation, 32, cara, 5 and erin, age 3. >> so long after that homicide i could close my ice and see those children. >> katie eastburn's husband was an air force captain. he rushed back from training in alabama. >> hard to explain. you just figure to stop. the world stops. >> you look in his eyes. there was void there. tears your heart out. but you have to gather yourself because you have a job to do.

we're going to find out who did this. >> there was evidence all over that house. they found a head hair in mrs. eastburn's bed and found a head hair on cara's chest. they found fingerprints all over the house. they had bloody footprints, they had a semen sample. they were certain that physical evidence would lead to whoever killed this family. >> after walking through the house gary eastburn provided a tantalizing lead. >> they were going to move to england when captain eastburn got done with training in alabama and the family had decided to sell their dog. so they put an ad out and katie eastburn wrote a letter to her husband saying nice man came out tuesday night and got the dog. >> we didn't have no idea who it was but anybody that went to that house we wanted to talk to.

>> outside the crime scene someone approached investigators with critical information from the night of the murders. >> there was a young black male named patrick comb coming from his girlfriend's house about 2:00 in the morning. he saw a big white dude walking down the driveway. he had blond hair about 6'2", 6'3" and had a members only black jacket, a stocking cap and a mustache. >> they passed on the road. this person said i'm getting an early start in morning. he got to a white they vet and drove off. >> i took pat down to the sbi lab and they did a composite and i said, you sure? this guy as a black man's nose and this droopy lazy eye. >> he said, that's what i saw. >> six days after the murders police put out a call for the man who adopted the eastburns' dog.

army sergeant timothy hennis home for lunch with his wife, daughter and new dog heard it on the news. >> tim hennis' wife said that's you and packed up and went to the sheriff's department. >> as i walk into the office, hennis is sitting there. i stopped right in my tracks and i look at him and i look at that composite and i said, oh, my goodness. this is our man right here. >> they go find patrick cone and put together a photo lineup. he eventually settled on number two which was tim hennis. said are you sure? he said, i'm sure. he also in the parking lot pi picked his chevette. he was being cooperative. they wanted samples of his hair, his blood, his saliva which he gave about midway through he realized he was becoming a suspect and became madder and

madder and madder. >> he is the most arrogant human being i've ever seen in my life. he just felt like you can't touch me. well, yes, we will touch you. we reached out and touched him. >> at 1:00 a.m. sheriffs arrested timothy hennis and charged him with rape and capital murder. he would face the death penalty. the arrest of a sergeant from the nation's largest army base sent shock waves through the tight-knit community around ft. bragg. >> it's the most patriotic city. if someone is murdered out of the blue, that just -- that stirs the blood in fayetteville. >> any idea who would do this? >> well, she was getting some strange phone calls. >> don't be giving no ideas. >> i ain't giving no ideas about -- would you just -- >> they get outraged. justice must be done. >> to defend their son tim hennis' parents hired two young lawyers, jerry beaver and billy

richardson. >> i thought tim was guilty as all get-out so i didn't particularly care for tim but the law school i went to suppressed the importance of taking unpopular cases. >> in the days immediately afterwards the news got worse for timothy hennis. he had no alibi. angela was out of town all weekend. on saturday morning he dragged a barrel out in the middle of the yard and started burning his stuff. something his neighbors had never seen him do before. >> i don't know what it was but it was something he burned. >> the lady who owns it says that man that you have arrested brought a jacket to my cleaners friday. >> katie eastburn's stolen bank card used twice, $150 each time and found that tim hennis was late on his rent to the tune of

about $300 which he paid on monday. >> we thought he was guilty and there was a lot of physical evidence that was being tested and if some physical evidence came back to tim, he was dead so we wanted to come in ahead of time anticipate get him to plead before that came out. >> but to richardson's surprise hennis refused to consider a plea deal. >> tim said something that haunted me. he looked at us and said they can test whatever they want. i was not in that house and i didn't do it and it's just that simple. >> when the lab reports with blood type footprints and fingerprints came back they corroborate hennis' account. >> physical evidence had not matched tim hennis, none of it had. >> inconclusive or evidence. inconclusive or negative. this wasn't a shred of physical evidence that was linking tim to the crime. >> billy's viewpoint was he must get him exonerated. >> someone other than my client committed this crime. >> from that point on i was

totally convinced he was innocent. >> but even without physical evidence linking him to the crime, tim hennis was about to go on trial for his life. for my retirement. transamerica made it easy. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow. transamerica. an unprecedented program arting busithat partners businesses with universities across the state. for better access to talent, cutting edge research, and state of the art facilities. and you pay no taxes for ten years. from biotech in brooklyn, to next gen energy in binghamton, to manufacturing in buffalo... startup-ny has new businesses popping up across the state. see how startup-ny can help your business grow at startup.ny.gov

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to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. makes my job a lot easier. [ female announcer ] over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter.com/offer5. . before he adopted the eastburns' dog, sergeant tim hennis had a steady job in the military and a growing daughter he was devoted to. then hennis was arrested for the brutal murder of katie eastburn and her two little girls aged 5 and 3. hennis' lawyer had come to believe in his innocence. >> i was totally convinced watching him inter aact with an

la, they do have a beautiful marriage, tim is extremely good with children. i remember with my children how good he was. >> of the fingerprints, blood and semen found at the crime scene, none of it linked to hennis. >> we didn't have the equipment and the facilities that they have up north. we had no dna down here when this crime occurred. i would have liked to have a fingerprint. he left his shoe or dropped something we could tie him to it but i thought we had enough to justify the case and the trial. >> the trial began on may 27th, 1986. >> everybody wanted in that courtroom. the bailiffs a couple of times had to break up fistfights. >> the prosecutors called it the show. they wanted to emphasize how gruesome the murder was so they built a screen that took up the

whole wall and they took slides of kara and e rchlerin. >> tim is going what do i do if he acts like it's not bothering him he acts like a cold-blooded killer and if he gets upset he looks like he's expressing guilt. what can he do? >> this went on for two days. slide after slide after slide. >> felt like i was in a slam dunk competition with michael jordan. >> the prosecutor told the jury that hennis' motive had been sex. >> tim's wife was out of town, new baby so he decided to make a pass at the married mother of three from whom he had gotten the dog and that didn't go well. >> hennis thinks he is a player so mrs. eastburn said, no, i'm just a friendly person and then with that temper of his he lost

it. >> billy richardson emphasized the lack of physical evidence to the jury. but prosecutors argued the absence of blood on hennis' members only jacket was evidence of his guilt. >> they kept saying there was no blood because he took his jacket to the dry cleaner's. >> the jacket was a damning piece of evidence. >> richardson also undercut eyewitness pat cone who id'd him leaving the home. richard serryson videotaped pat cone during a tour of the crime scene. >> when you start listening to his story he's all over the place. >> bought my girlfriend some rose. >> that wasn't roses. that was candy. no, that was roses. >> we started asking are you sure about this? he's now that i'm looking at it, you're right i probably couldn't see what i saw. >> no, no, no, i can't say. >> but on the witness stand cone cast aside any doubts.

>> he said these lawyers have been tricky me and pressuring me. i know i picked out the right guy. >> finally prosecutors presented a surprise witness, a woman who said that two days after the murder, she'd seen the killer using katie eastburn's stolen bank card. >> all of a sudden the state introduced lucille cook, a little old lady who used the car saturday morning after the killer did. >> she told us she couldn't remember. >> she said i didn't tell you the truth first time. there was a big tall white man, mustache, blond headed guy and got in that tiny white car. >> that's the man that used the card right before i did. the jury is sitting there looking at her. after she testified, i went into the bathroom just threw up. >> the jury deliberated for three days. >> it was a quarter to 5:00 on friday afternoon when the jury knocked.

he was guilty on three counts. he would get the death penalty times three. tim hennis could hear his father sobbing in the courtroom. he'd never heard that before. >> when that jury said he's guilty, you still have faith that he was telling the truth. >> always. >> not a doubt in your mind. >> no, never. >> that time i felt like i d we got our man and it just felt good. this was the one case that truly screamed out for the death penalty. >> tim hennis had spent his entire career serving the military. now he was serving time on death row but not long after his arrival hennis received a miss tearous letter. >> said, mr. hennis, i did the

crime. you're doing the time. mr. x. >> the letter provided no concrete leads, only adding to hennis' torment. >> he got visits from his family and his daughter is now 2 1/2 years old and she would bang her hands on the plexiglas and say open it, daddy. daddy, why won't it open? >> billy richardson felt responsible for his client's predicament. >> we did not do the good as job as we were capable of doing. i made up my mind right then and there i was going to become the lawyer i'm supposed to be and i got off my butt and went to work. >> richardson and his partner quickly filed an appeal to the north carolina supreme court. they had to decide what to emphasize from mishandling evidence to possible percentage. >> they quickly settled on the photographs. >> that presentation was thought to have riled up the jury and

was pointed out to him over and over, see this picture, he did it. see this picture, he did it. >> our state supreme court didn't just read the appeal briefs they got a slide projector and saw the show for themselves and within 22 days they said let's give him another trial. >> just broke all our hearts. we had to call gary and say he had to go through this one more time. >> billy richardson reinvestigated every aspect of the case. >> we were so much better prepared for the second trial when i started digging, we found how many things we didn't know at the first trial. >> richardson began with hennis' alibi for the night after the murder when someone used katie eastburn's bank card. >> tim had 24-hour duty with his unit. he couldn't leave. the people in his division remember him gluing shingles on a dollhouse for his infant daughter. >> but army paperwork that would have confirmed hennis'

whereabouts had gone missing before the first trial. >> with army paperwork is everything. they have paperwork for paperwork. we looked for that thing and there was a checkout sheet for every day but that day so the prosecutor had a field day. >> but before the second trial, richardson discovered why the paperwork had gone missing. >> the reason they couldn't find it is because the prosecutors had it. they didn't make a copy of it and leave it. they just took it and so this piece of evidence that probably would have exonerated him back in 1986 was kept in the prosecutor's custody all that time. >> richardson also uncovered information that would undermine eyewitness pat cone. >> pat cone had helped him out in between the trials. he was arrested using a stolen bank card. on another occasion he was drinking and disruptive and the state dropped the case. he was known to tell people that the state couldn't touch him because he was a prime witness.

>> pat is not a strong-willed person. nice guy, don't misunderstand me but he got in trouble, just minor thing sdmrgs still richardson wasn't sure he could convince a jury that cone had lied about seeing hennis until a new piece of evidence was found, literally lying on the sidewalk. design safer cars. faster computers. smarter grids and smarter phones. think up new ways to produce energy. be an engineer. solve problems the world needs solved. what are you waiting for? changing the world is part of the job description. join the scientists and engineers of exxonmobil in inspiring america's future engineers. energy lives here.

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your lives are in our hands. as defense attorney billy richardson prepared for the retrial of tim hennis, new evidence turned on a fayetteville sidewalk. >> the deputy who picked up the wallet noted that it had a letter in it and we kept hearing

that the letter said tim didn't do it. you keep hearing rumors like it. >> billy goes to the sheriff's department and has to pretend he's investigating another case. if he let on he was investigating this case it would have set off bells and whistles. >> sure enough, the lost wallet belonged to a fellow named shawn buckner. >> he was a close friend of pat cone, the prosecutor's star witness. the letter and the lost wallet called cone's testimony into question. >> that letter talks about pat's doubts. pat cone told shawn buckner and his fiancee about his doubts to the point where they wrote each other a letter about it. >> richardson flew to louisiana where buckner was in training with the air force. but when he got there, buckner closed the door in his face. >> he didn't want to get involved. >> shawn buckner had to decide whether to betray his friends and free someone who may be

wrongly accused and that was tough. shawn buckner had no reason to help tim hennis. >> richardson came home empty-handed hoping buckner would eventually change his mind. the retrial began february 27th, 1989, almost four years after the murders of gary eastburn's wife and daughters. >> the state thought it would be a replay of trial one. the defense had an entirely different case. >> this time hennis would testify. >> we just really drilled him and filmed him and let it watch it. >> did you kill these three people? >> no, i did not kill these people. i have a daughter of my own and i could not hurt any children at all. >> did you do this crime? >> no, i did not. >> we felt if he showed rage or emotion, the jury with say, look, you can get to this point. >> how did this make you feel. >> extremely upset and angry.

>> on cross-examination prosecutor confronted hennis with the alleged motive for the murder the. >> prosecutor says you lost your cool and went in there and tried to have sex with her and when she refused you snapped and killed her. >> they were trying to provoke tim on the stand and he had to calmly say, no, i did not. no, i did not. >> he said i never had sex with that woman. that never happened. >> when it was over they had not gotten a reaction they wanted to. to see him in a different light than the first jury had seen him made a huge difference. >> at the first trial the absence of blood on hennis' jacket had helped vick him as the state's expert insisted dry clean had gone removed any bloodstains. but richardson saw it differently. >> i talked to the dry cleaner. he said you have to use a special chemical to remove blood and i said did you use it. he said, no, i just used ordinary dry cleaning? >> when the prosecution

challenged the dry cleaner's knowledge, richardson was ready with his own chemist. >> he got some blood on a jacket and took it to a dry cleaner and ran a luminol and it glowed just as right as could be. >> his members only jacket had no signs of blood. richardson had turned the prosecution's evidence against them. richard dr. sanjay gupta was prepared for lucille cook who swore she saw him at an atm two days after the murder. >> lucille cook had made dozens and dozens of atm transactions around the time of this one so they asked her could she remember any of those. of course, she could not. >> bank logs also showed a 3 1/2-minute gap between the victim's card being used and lee se -- lucille's transaction. >> we had the jury sit there to see how long it was.

>> it was the longest 3 1/2 minutes. why would the killer wait 3 1/2 minutes to let someone see him? one of the jurors said they got in the jury room and laughed at her. >> now it was time for richardson to go after the state's star witness, pat cone. after some soul searching shawn buckner agreed to testify against his old friend. >> he testified that pat cone was extremely drunk that night. that in addition to that he had doubts about what he saw. >> patrick had told shawn buckner i feel like i'm sending an innocent man to prison. >> but richardson knew he to answer one last question. >> in the back of their mind the jury is still saying the kid saw something. if it wasn't your client, would was it? >> so richardson called his next witness. >> the back doors burst open and everyone in the courtroom turned and looked around. the prosecutor says who is that? >> that was his close to a perry

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defense attorney billy richard ser

richardson who did. >> billy was going door to door. he found one couple who said why don't you talk to that kid who walks the street. >> he walks the neighborhood all the time. >> they didn't know who he was so billy did a vigil. it became this quest for this mythical figure. >> you cannot win sitting in your office. >> he even hoped he might find the real perpetrator but he came up empty-handed. then before the second trial richardson hired an investigate story renew the search and finally they found their mystery man. no murderer but a high school senior who worked at the local supermarket. >> kid by the name of john raupaugh. he was an easy sleeper and walked the neighborhood on summerhill road at 3:00 in the morning. he was a big blond kid with a

blond mustache. >> it fit like a glove. >> during the retrial richardson kept his discovery from the prosecution. timing the mystery walker's entrance for maximum impact. >> the back doors burst open, defense calls john raupaugh and 3:30 in the morning, could that be who patrick cone saw on the road. >> here's another tall white guy blond walking down the street. >> it was just one of those magical moments in the courtroom. it gave the jury a doubt to have reasonable doubt. >> when he took the stand he asked what he wore on his nightly walks down summerhill road. >> he often wore a beanie hat and he had a members only jacket. black members only jacket. >> after this testimony the defense moved to throw it out.

>> the defense accused the prosecution of outright cheating. it turned out the prosecutors knew who john raupaugh was. >> it basically hid him from us. >> as the jury began deliberating richardson told the judge what he discovered about the prosecution's conduct. >> the deputy sheriff went to john raupaugh and brought him in and had him bring his jacket and hat and took it from him and put it in the trunk of one of the detective's cars and they returned it to john raupaugh after tim hennis was on death row. that's exactly the kind of evidence in a close case that could have tilted this the other way in the first trial. >> we just got plain mad at that point. get slapped enough where you say, all right, i've had enough of this. >> it just got more incredible to skit in that courtroom and watch this thing unfold. and i went from thinking he's guilty to i'm not sure a jury is going to be able to find him guilty to he didn't do it and they have to let him go and then the jury knocked.

>> after deliberating less than three hours the jury announced its verdict. not guilty on all counts. >> i just broke down and started crying because i knew what they had been through. next to marrying my wife and the birth of my children that was the happiest day of my life. >> we lived with the family and felt what they had been through and it's just a tremendous, tremendous load taken off our shoulders. >> the jurors came out and hugged tim hennis. they were adamant they need to reinvestigate the case and quick picking on this guy. >> somebody said why are they bothering this poor man? hasn't he suffered enough. why are they bothering this man? has he not suffered enough the man that killed two children and a woman. how much did gary suffer the rest of his life?

>> whether you like it or not -- >> in the years that follow, the hennis case became textbook about wrongful prosecution. it was adapted into a tv movie. >> this case put people on notice not everybody sitting in prison is guilty. north carolina now has a commission that actually has released a number of innocent people. >> despite all the attention to hennis' acquittal the eastburn murders would go unsolved for another 16 years. until 2005 when scott whisnant spoke about the case at a criminology seminar. fayetteville detective larry trotter was in the office. >> the premise all these other unknowns pima may not have been

interviewed. other forms of evidence. >> if he's innocent then who is guilty the state of north carolina didn't pursue this for 17 years. why isn't somebody trying to find who's guilty. >> somebody was stalking that woman for weeks and mrs. eastburn was writing her husband saying there is a fool out there following me. i don't like it. what do i do about it? why isn't that being looked at? who does it lead to? >> after whisnant discussed the evidence, detective trotter approached him privately. >> he said i want you to know the way they investigated this case 20 years ago we're not like that anymore. i said, somebody should reinvestigate this case. i think it can be involved now. technology has improved. and that's how we left it. >> in fact, trotter had been assigned by the sheriff's office to review cold cases. >> we had well over 100 unsolved cases at that time. i went through the docket i realized that they had a vaginal swab that was taken from

mrs. eastburn during the autopsy. it had never been sent out for testing. when the murder happened dna was in its infancy so the obvious thing to do send it off for testing. >> for over two decades gary eastburn had lived without closure for the devastating murder of his wife and two daughters. >> we had done a great injustice to this man. how he stood up or withstood i just don't know. you just want to do something for him. you want to make sure you get this solved. >> in may 200 of the state crime lab contacted the sheriff's department. they'd found a positive match for the dna. detective bittle called gary eastburn to tell him the news. >> i said you sitting down? he said, yeah. why? i said take a deep seat. i got something to tell you. discover a new energy source. turn ocean waves into power. design cars that capture their emissions. build bridges that fix themselves. get more clean water to everyone.

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after tim hennis was freed from death row in 1989, he didn't know where to turn. >> feel very diminished, very worn out, dragged out. don't have the self-confidence and reliability you once had. >> his lawyers told him get out of the army. it's just a bad place to be but he had been on death row. there weren't a lot of employers who would take that on. the army had to take him back so

he stayed in. >> after re-adjusting to army life, tim hennis built a successful 25-year career in the military. >> tim hennis served in somalia, he served in "dearth certificate storm." honorably. tim's supervising colonel told me he was without a doubt the best nco he ever worked with. >> retired in 2004. he's good at being a husband and father and angela had a son they never would have had had he not gotten his life back agriculture. >> but tim hennis had no idea the eastburn murder case was about to break open, a 21-year-old rape kit yielded new dna results. detective robert bittle call's the vkd's husband and father gave him the news. >> they got a hit on that dna. he said, who is it? i said, hennis. >> you could have knocked me over with a feather when i heard that.

just hit with this wave of emotion like i don't believe it. >> i was so happy. i mean, i was walking on cloud nine. >> defense lawyer billy richardson was driving through mississippi when he heard the news. >> i said stop the car. and it was like somebody had taken a 2x4 and hit me upside the head with it. >> i was convinced that if anybody could ever run an actual dna on that sample they would find someone other than tim hennis. i believe that every finer in my being. >> but the shocking dna results led to a pragmatic question. >> what the heck do you do now? >> timothy hennis had been adjudicated not guilty and therefore the state of north carolina was not going to try him again. >> we fought a revolutionary war because the king of england could try somebody over and over for the same offense.

our founders put it in the constitution that there will be no double jeopardy in this country. >> i understand that but i think there might be certain cases like this got this dna now that says he was the man who raped this woman and killed her, i think you should be able to. i think somehow the judicial system is going to have to work around that. >> it was the d.a.'s office to see if the army is interested in bringing him back off retirement and trying him for the murders. >> a team of lawyers from the ranks helped evaluate the case for the army. >> my personal opinion about why this is important to the military is that the military sent gary eastburn for duty in alabama and his family was left behind and they were murdered, i'm sure there was debate within the military. it's high profile. it's controversial. but you had an enlisted person killing an officer's wife. how do you let that go? >> two years after he retired

timothy hennis was re-called to active duty. as soon as he returned to ft. bragg he was charged with three counts of murder. >> tim hennis is the only person in united states history tried for his life three times after guilty and not guilty verdicts. >> i can't comment as to why it has not happened before. however, the legal analysis of it actually was pretty simple. >> it is honestly well settled law. nothing the state does affects what the federal government can do. >> they can claim its under a jurisdiction as long as they want. it was the state using the army to get them to do what they wanted to do, plain and simple. >> with billy now on the sidelines the court-martial of timothy hennis commenced. the prosecutor's case hinged on the dna results. >> the sperm found in the vagina of miss kathryn eastburn is the

person who raped her and slaughtered her children. that's timothy hennis'. >> but when a scandal erupted at the state lab, the dna evidence against timothy hennis would be thrown into question. >> they were mixing up dna samples and almost putting an innocent guy in prison. that partners businesses with universities across the state. for better access to talent, cutting edge research, and state of the art facilities. and you pay no taxes for ten years. from biotech in brooklyn, to next gen energy in binghamton, to manufacturing in buffalo... startup-ny has new businesses popping up across the state. see how startup-ny can help your business grow at startup.ny.gov

in 2010, timothy hennis went on trial for a third time for the murders of katie eastburn and her daughters. but a scandal rocked the state lab that identified hennis' dna. the lab had been skewing results to help prosecutors. >> the woman who handled the sample back in the '80s got in trouble for mixing up some dna samples in another case and almost put an innocent guy in prison. >> they didn't do a good job of preserved evidence. three people had been arrested for evidence tampering. >> hennis' lawyers asked for a postponement to investigate the lab. the judge refused. meanwhile, military prosecutors found a second smear from the rape kit. they sent it to a new lab and the results also pointed to hennis. >> the medical examiner's slide

came back on the every marker to the defendant tested by the army, you had two chains of custody the defense could not attack the slide. >> for prosecutors the dna results swept away all previous doubts. >> they went back and replayed the first two twiels and some of the old discredited inferences. >> patrick cone saying timothy hennis coming down that driveway. the fact that hennis took a members only jacket to the dry cleaner's using the atm card. had you numerous pieces of evidence that tied him to this crime. >> for hennis' defenders, the prosecution's case had serious flaws. and their top priority was getting their own evidence in front of the jury. >> there's a ton of physical evidence in that house that they still can't explain. they found a head hair in mrs. eastburn's bed. it's not tim hennis. there's a pubic hair where the

rape took place. >> what is male dna doing under mrs. eastburn's fingernails that's not tim's. there is male dna under the daughter's fingernail and it's not tim's. >> the prosecution and defense agreed on that. nothing else came back to timothy hennis. underneath the fingernails that's not timothy hennis' but what is is that vaginal swab. >> to me male dna evidence under a fingernail of a woman who's raped is pretty damaging evidence. who is it? >> the fingernail scrapings weren't enough for a full dna profile. so the defense asked to test all the crime scene evidence that might point to a different perpetrator including a blood soaked towel. >> now whoever had sex with her, you can't argue whoever cleaned up the blood didn't have something to do with it. let's find out what happened. >> in the military if you need a test done you have to ask the judge to make the army do it for you. >> the judge though denied the

defense's request to test other items. >> i can't imagine a judge in a civilian court not allowing that. you had the evidence. why not test it? >> without dna results pointing to a different suspect, hennis' lawyers decided to offer an alternate explanation for the incriminating sperm. >> at the very end they threw out their -- the theory that tim hennis had consensual sex with mrs. eastburn within a day or so of the homicides. >> well, when he said that you could feel the lull leaving that room. everybody went i don't believe he said that. >> i mean there's certain things you can do in front of a jury and there's certain you can't. it would not have been how i would have done it. >> the 14-person court-martial jury declared unanimously that timothy hennis was guilty of murdering katie eastburn and her children. their next task would be to

decide whether he deserved the death penalty. >> when you got a man that for 25 years after this occurred did nothing but raise his family, serve in two wars, honorably discharged and still married to the same woman, why are you just going to look and say that's the monster? >> he gives cookies to kids, doesn't make any difference. >> we're not there to say how could he do it? we're not there to say why did he do it? we're there to say he did it. >> the prosecution ended their presentation with another slide show. >> gary eastburn counted out that birthdays he's missed with his daughters. anniversaries, baptism. >> one of my trial partners asked gary what do you miss the most and he just from his heart

with tears in his eyes just said i just miss them. >> on april 15th, 2010 the jury sentenced timothy hennis to death. >> i feel vindicated for some things you heard when they got a not guilty. the smiles and smirks, you're right, i do. yes, sir, i feel vindicated. >> tim hennis now sits in solitary confinement at ft. leavenworth, kansas. his appeals both in the military and federal courts could take decades. >> i still think tim's innocent. but i'm not his lawyer now and it would be totally improper for me to sit down and say, all right, tim, did you or didn't you? i'm dying to have that conversation with him but how can you put a man to death based solely on one piece of evidence? our country was formed on the premise that one person lawf

unlawfully convicted is a grave injustice. >> i knew we were right. >> i think it's a good system. france takes direct aim at isis launching its first air strikes in iraq. >> i got it wrong in the handling of the ray rice matter. and i'm sorry for that. >> under fire. the nfl commissioner apologizes and promises to do better to stop domestic violence and later, portrait of ordinary people around the world. one man's quest to tell the unique and compelling story of strangers. welcome to our viewers in the united states. and around the world, i'm

natalie allen.