never. has not written anything. so i've asked him a couple times. he may be right here in oregon. vance always said if you want to hide from the police, hide in plain sight. they never find you. on this episode of death row stories, a family is found brutally murdered. >> the severity of the crime puts it on another level. >> and an escaped convict is sentenced to death. >> they caught him, they should do away with him. >> but just hours before his execution, a new defense team raises doubts about his guilt. >> you let the evidence lead you to a suspect. what they did in this case was exactly the opposite. evidence destruction, evidence tampering. my client was framed.

>> there's a body in the water. >> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseless. >> he needs to pay for it with his life. >> the electric chair flashed before my eyes. >> get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. ♪ chino hills is very rural. very peaceful. lot of horse ranches. we all knew each other. we didn't lock our doors. just a quaint little community. >> the sleepy hamlet of chino hills silting nestled below the

san bernardino mountains, less than 40 miles from los angeles. there, peggy ryan, a horse trainer and her husband doug lived on a ranch with their children, 10 year old jessica and 8-year-old josh. on the night of june 4th, 1983, josh ryan's friend chris hughes was invited to spend the night. >> on a hill overlooking chino, the scene of a multiple homicide. we have four fatal victims. one victim approximately 8 years of age. the eyes are open, however, there's no response. >> the next morning, chris hughes' father discovered the lifeless bodies of his son chris as well as doug and peggy ryan and their daughter jessica. among the carnage, first responders also found 8-year-old

josh ryan. he was still breathing but barely. he was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital. >> i first arrived with tidwell. each of the victims had a combination of hatchet and knife wounds. this was such a brutal crime. >> the severity of the crime puts it on another level. i think we'd be lying if we didn't say that. >> we were trying to figure out a motive for these killings and couldn't come up with anything. nothing made sense. >> we heard there had been a murder up on the hill. as a community, our hearts grieved for these people. they're horse people. they were our people. >> how could anybody do this? it just doesn't make sense. they were the type of people no

one would ever hate. ever. >> on the same day the bodies were found, a chino hills resident stumbled onto another discovery. one of the murder weapons lying on the side of the road. >> the hatchet had the victims' blood on it, but it didn't have any fingerprints on it. >> nearby, a tan, blood-stained tee shirt was also found. as the search continued, police received a tip from the ryan's next door neighbor, larry lease. >> mr. lease said i think you might be interested in seeing my rental house. >> the rental house supposedly unoccupied at the time of the murders, held a major piece of evidence.

a sheath that fit the ax used in the murders. >> we knew that whoever had been in the lease house committed the murders at the ryan house. and in the closet, we found a smallpox of prison-issued tobacco from chino institution for men. we checked with prison authorities. got names of any individuals that had escaped within the past week. all of a sudden, we had a suspect. kevin cooper. >> just two days before the murders, 25-year-old kevin cooper had escaped from the california institute for men, just five miles from the ryans' home. police believe he hid at the rent house before killing the ryans and chris hughes. san bernardino sheriff floyd tidwell took to the air waves.

>> we have evidence in our possession that places kevin cooper at the crime scene. and we have other evidence that gives us cause to believe that kevin cooper was responsible for the murders. >> police patrolled on both sides of the california/mexico border today, seeking the escaped convict kevin cooper. >> tidwell launched one of the largest man hunts in state history, circulating photoing of cooper and the ryans' stolen station wagon. >> there is growing fear in the california community of chino. >> i want to know what the state officials are going to do. >> as pressure mounted to apprehend cooper, police caught a break. >> we recovered the ryans' station wagon from a church parking lot in long beach. cooper had used that car to

escape. >> the district attorney, for him, the motive behind murders was now clear. >> cooper's motive was to get the hell out of chino hills. if he had to kill people to cover his escape, then he would. >> the killer seemed to be within reach. but then the trail went cold. ♪ on july 30th, 1983, almost two months after the brutal murders, the u.s. coast guard responded to a distress call near santa barbara. they arrived at a sailboat moored in a small marina, the scene of an alleged rape. >> when we got in the sheriff's station, the victim of the rape

was walking by the wanted posters and saw cooper's wanted picture. and said oh, my god, i've been raped by kevin cooper. >> kevin cooper escaped an almost two-month-long murder man huchbts, and police caught him trying to swim away from the scene of an alleged rape. >> the rape allegation was never pursued, because cooper now faced four counts of first degree murder. each carrying the death penalty. >> i hope you die! >> when cooper was returned to san bernardino, racial tensions boiled over. >> local authorities say they've received several calls from outraged residents who demanded cooper be sent to the gas chamber. >> they caught him. they should do away with him. >> we're seeking the death penalty ago we have all along. >> cooper's trial began on object 23rd, 1984.

>> i cross-examined him for a day and a half. he said yeah, i was at the lease house, i never went up to the ryan house. it must have been someone else who did this. >> cot mire showed the jury the hatchet found in the lesion house and the bloody footprint found in the ryans' bedroom. >> in the folds of that sheet was a half-bloody footprint. now those soles were unique. and we were able to determine that the shoe print was made by a prison-issue pro ked tennis shoe. >> blood found at the murder scene also led back to cooper. >> a-41 was a single droch blood in the hallway and cooper matched it. >> finally, cot mire played the

emotional videotape of the lone survivor, josh ryan. >> have you tried to forget what happened that night? >> yeah. >> what have you tried to do to forget it? >> i cut myself. >> police argue that the police mishandled evidence in the investigation. but after seven days of deliberations, the jury found kitchen cooper guilty on all counts. >> there is no question. there is no doubt about the guilt of kevin cooper. the only justice in this case is for kevin cooper to face his maker and then spend the rest of his days in hell. >> we the jury of the above-entitled cause, determine that the penalty shall be death. >> kevin cooper would spend the next two decades on death row.

but in 2003, a new defense team investigated cooper's case and made a string of discoveries they felt proved kevin cooper's innocence. >> i began to learn all of the facts about the evidence destruction, the evidence tampering, the false testimony that was given and the failure of the defense team to put on evidence that showed who the real killers were. the state of california is about to execute an innocent man.

[meow mix jingle slowly andright on cue.ks.] [cat meows] [laughs] ♪meow, meow, meow, meow... ♪meow, meow, meow, meow... it's more than just a meal, it's meow mix mealtime. with 100% complete and balanced nutrition, and the taste, textures and variety cats love, it's the only one cats ask for by name. ♪ ♪ isn't it beautiful when things just come together? build a beautiful website with squarespace.

the uncertainties i don't wantof hep c.with or wonder... ...whether i should seek treatment. i am ready. because today there's harvoni. a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. harvoni is proven to cure up to 99% of patients... ...who've had no prior treatment. it's the one and only cure that's... ...one pill, once a day for 12 weeks. certain patients... ...can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. with harvoni, there's no interferon and there are no complex regimens. tell your doctor if you have other liver or kidney problems, or other medical conditions. and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. harvoni should not be taken with any medicines containing amiodarone, rifampin, or st. john's wort. it also should not be taken with any other medicine that contains sovaldi. side effects may include tiredness and headache. i am ready to put hep c behind me. i am ready to be cured. are you ready? ask your hep c specialist if harvoni is right for you.

hiking brought us togetherdom hikers. but that's not the only thing that keeps us coming back. here's to friends who reach for better. fewer carbs, fewer calories, superior taste. michelob ultra. the superior light beer. there has got to be a way to redeem our hotel points. i just want to take a vacation. this seems crazy. oh really? tell us something we don't know, captain obvious. ok. with hotels.com, when you collect 10 nights you get one free. oh. so you only need to know how to count to 10 to earn a free night at places like that nudist resort. yeah i don't know how that got there. because you stayed there, took a selfie and hung it prominently on the wall. hm? hotels.com. they won't judge your life choices.

by 2003, kevin cooper had lost all of his appeals for the 1983 murders of the ryan family and chris hughes. with his time running out and cooper still professing his innocence, the case came to the attention of the high-powered law firm, orrick, harrington and sutcliffe. norm hiel was part of the team that fought death penalty case on a pro bono basis. >> one thing i've learned in 25 years of representing people on death row, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle, and to have a client whose life is in the balance is a very heavy burden. >> what hiel could not dispute was cooper's criminal history,

his escape from prison and his proximity to the murders. >> i was on the mean streets of pittsburgh when i was growing up. i became a car thief. i landed in the california institution for men in 1983 because of a burglary conviction in los angeles. i was there a couple months. i was out walking around, and there was a hole in the fence, and i just ran. >> mr. cooper started wandering through farms and pastures, areas that were off of the roadways. and ultimately found his way to the lease house. >> when i got to the lease house, i called a couple ex-girlfriends, asked them to send me money. tried to figure out what's next. but i did not murder those people. >> cooper said he'd already set

out hitchhiking to mexico by the time the murders took place. he went into hiding when he became the most wanted man in california. norm hiel hired former fbi agent tom parker to look into cooper's case. >> when you're conducting an investigation, especially one as complex as this one, you essentially collect the evidence and let the evidence lead you to a suspect. what they did in this case was exactly the opposite. as word of the murders got out, the sheriff's department learned that kevin cooper had escaped, and that started what we refer to in law enforcement as tunnel vision. sheriff tidwell held a big press conference. they started with a suspect. and they didn't start collecting evidence to prove their theory. >> but if kevin cooper wasn't the killer, why did the hatchet sheath and the prison-issued

tobacco found at larry lease's home link him to the murders? >> a couple of deputies went over to the lease house, walked through it, and really didn't see anything suspicious. a day or two later, other deputies were asked to go search the lease house again. by then. they knew the hatchet had been used in the murders. and they found a sheath to a hand ax laying right out in the middle of the floor in a position that the first deputies walking through the house could not have missed it. they would have had to been blind to miss that sheath. >> cooper also said that during his two days in the house, he smoked multiple cigarettes. >> but when police collected the evidence, they only collected one cigarette butt. and the rest of the cigarette butts somehow disappeared. later on, when they found the ryan station wagon in look

beach, the first time it was inspected there were no cigarette butts. the second time, they suddenly found two cigarette butts. clearly, they had been taken from the hideout house. >> and there was the blood evidence connecting cooper to the murders. this small speck labeled a-41. a-41 was examined by sheriff's department criminalist daniel gregonis. >> he was a rookie at the time. proper procedure is to do blind testing. you test something and you don't know what the other person's blood is, and you're trying to see whether it's that person or not. but he waited until he had kevin cooper's blood type. >> gregonis originally found a-41 did not match kevin cooper, but then he changed notes to show that it did. >> so, in fact, the testing actually showed that the blood drop was not from somebody with

kevin's blood type. >> other evidence prosecutors claim linked cooper to the murders was a bloody footprint on the ryans' bed sheet, supposedly from a prison issued sneaker. >> colt mire claimed these were only manufactured and sold to prisons. in fact, it was a style of shoe readily available, very common tennis shoes with a very common shoe print. >> the question now was whether these were innocent mistakes by investigators or something more. norm hiel was about to learn that before they turned their attention to cooper, police had been given other solid leads, including from the sole survivor. >> 8-year-old josh ryan was able to communicate to staff at the hospital that the people who had attacked him and his family were three white men. in fact, a picture of kevin keeper was on television. and he looked up, and he said

that's not the one who did it ja, t ,. gear feeling. you left this on the bus... get it at the place with the experts to get you the right gear. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. but i've managed.e crohn's disease is tough, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. and when i finally told my doctor, he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections,

including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz you've been burning for at the summer event, going on now at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. hurry, before this opportunity cools off.

share your summer moments in your mercedes-benz with us.

♪ kevin cooper had been on death row for nearly 20 years when attorney norm hiel began looking into his case. hiel felt the evidence against cooper, the cigarette butts in

the ryan car, the bloody shoe print on the ryan's bed, even the blood testing all had flaws. but hiel's biggest question involved motive. and the prosecution's claim that cooper had killed the ryans in order to steal their station wagon. >> problem with this theory is that if somebody such as kevin cooper had wanted to make an escape, they missed the fact that there was cash, credit cards and other valuables left at the scene of the crimes. none of that was taken. if mr. cooper has walked away from the prison, obviously with no money, all of it was right there for him to take, and it was not touched. >> hiel also disputed the prosecution's theory that the killer worked alone. the sheer number of wounds suffered by the victims, 140 in all, and the fact that doug ryan

was an ex-marine with loaded guns in the bedroom suggested to hiel that there had been more than one killer. for a time, san bernardino police apparently agreed with that conclusion. >> the sheriff's department was told by two different bystanders that the night of the murders, around the time that the murders had occurred, they had seen a car that matched the description of the ryans' station wagon speeding down the road from the ryans' house and that in that car were white men. >> as it turned out, josh ryan, the sole survivor of the attacks, also reported seeing multiple intruders. deputy dale sharp interviewed josh ryan just hours after he was rushed to the hospital. >> it wasn't good. he had at least one hatchet wound to his head.

and he had had his throat slit. >> josh was unable to speak, so deputy sharp devised another method of communication. >> he would squeeze my hand for a yes and no squeeze for a no. >> i took his hand, and let him know that i was his friend the best i could. we talked about baseball. and got him comfortable with me. i would ask, do you remember anything? and i would get a hand squeeze. yes. can you remember anyone coming to your house? yes. we ended up with three mexican guys or maybe three white guys. i asked, were these three men there when things went crazy? and the answer was yes. >> based on this information, police released this bulletin two days after the murders.

but by the time of the trial, josh ryan had changed his story. >> when josh was pressed to what he had seen, he is very specific. he only saw one person that had very bushy, fuzzy hair. >> did you see what that shadow by the bathroom was doing? >> no. >> how many shadows did you see? >> just one. >> just one? >> the deputy saw nothing strange about josh changing his story. >> especially with an 8-year-old boy. you don't know what he's seen. you don't know what he remembers. >> have you seen those before? >> based on my 30-plus years in law enforcement, the initial comments of eyewitnesses are usually the most accurate. there's a very strong possibility that josh was coached.

>> norman hiel now felt he had enough evidence to successfully fight for kevin's life. but as he prepared his appeals, yet another witness came forward, fully 20 years after the crime. >> i hear on the tv set that they're going to put kevin cooper to death, and i went, are you kidding me? >> on the night of the murders, christine was eating at the canyon corral, a local country western bar just 2 miles from the ryans' home. >> as we were eating, in through the back swinging doors of the kitchen come these three guys. i noticed that one of them was covered in blood. not just little spots. this was like someone had taken

a paint brush and went ffffwew. it was splattered. their feet were sticking to the floor, they were so inundated with blood. at the time we didn't know about the murder, and we just thought, i don't know what they've been doing, slaughtering pigs or whatever, but we're out of here. >> she never reported the incident, because she claimed a uniformed sheriff's deputy was at the bar that night, and she assumed he would follow up. in 2004, norm hiel fought for a new trial for kevin cooper in front of u.s. district judge marilyn huff in san diego. in his appeal, hiel presented christine's testimony, and to his surprise, the state responded by inadvertently revealing a previously unknown

piece of evidence, provided by a woman named laurel epler, who lived near the canyon corral bar. >> here was a log that shows that laurel epler called in to the sheriff's department the day after the murders, saying she had found a short-sleeved blue shirt that she thought had blood on it, on the road near the canyon corral bar. one of the bar employees testified that one of the men in the bar that night might have had on a blue shirt. the criminal bulletin showed that they were looking for three white men and one of them was wearing a blue shirt. >> hiel would argue that the neighbor's eyewitness testimony along with the testimony of christine and josh ryan's original account all pointed to three suspects. and in the new documents released by the prosecution, hiel was about to discover the name of one of the three suspects. and that man also happened to be

a convicted murderer. up to 50% on ink ...so you can print all you want and never run out. plans start at $2.99 a month. ♪ leave early go roam sleep in sleep out star gaze dream big wander more care less beat sunrise chase sunset do it all. on us. get your first month's payment plus five years wear and tear coverage. make the most of summer... with volvo. creeping up on you... fight back with relief so smooth... ...it's fast. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue ...and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum, tum tum tum...

smoothies! only from tums. rheumatoid arthritis like me... and you're talking to a rheumatologist about a biologic, this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira helping me reach for more. doctors have been prescribing humira for more than 10 years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contrubutes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com

this is humira at work.

♪ while he fought for a new trial for kevin cooper in front of judge marilyn huff, attorney norm hiel discovered evidence that put a name to an alternate suspect. >> the night of the crimes, a

woman named diana roper had seen her boyfriend, man named lee furrow drive up to their house in the wee hours of the morning. lee furrow comes rushing into the house wearing cover alls with what looks to be spots of blood. he changes clothes and turns around and leaves. there were other people in the house, and someone looked out the window and saw a white station wagon, matching the ryans' parked in the driveway with other individuals in that car. >> diana roper called the sheriff's department and she gave them the cover alls. the bloody cover alls that they recovered were booked into evidence. >> when diana roper later learned that a hatchet was used in the murders, she again called police and said that lee furrow's hatchet was missing from his tool belt.

>> it would make sense that somebody like lee furrow would have killed the ryans. he was a convicted murderer. he had strangled to death a young woman and throwed her body into a canal. >> but san bernardino police waited 11 months before questioning lee furrow. and when they did, they never asked him about his missing ax. they also seemed to accept furrow's word that he didn't own any overalls. tom parker thinks he knows why. >> the cover alls in fact had been destroyed. a deputy had taken them and thrown them in a dumpster behind the sheriff's department because it was unfounded that they were connected to the case. of course there had never been any blood testing or whatever to come to that conclusion. >> hiel now raised this destruction of evidence with judge huff. >> in a criminal prosecution, the prosecution is required to turn over to the defense any evidence that might be

considered exonerating. it's a rule. if the prosecution doesn't do it, then they have committed what is called a brady violation, and the trial must be reversed, and a new trial given. the tennis shoe situation, the blue shirt and the bloody cover alls were all brady violations. and we put on evidence as to all of those. judge huff rejected it. >> kevin cooper was running out of time. so his defense team reached out to a new potential advocate. san francisco chronicle columnist deborah saunders. >> as a supporter of the death penalty, i wouldn't want to see an inch since man executed, would i? so if there's a hint that somebody might not be guilty, i want to write about it. my editorial board at the san francisco chronicle wrote an

editorial saying, gee, maybe kechb cooper is an innocent man. the defense attorneys laid out this case about how this innocent man had been unjustly convict convicted. >> for years they'd been unsuccessful in dna testing which could exonerate cooper. >> he kept saying, i'm not guilty, do the testing. if it shows i'm guilty, you can execute me. i walked out of there thinking, whoa, they've really made a case i've got to think about. >> san bernardino's current district attorney michael ramos was handling cooper's appeals. >> we felt that the ongoing request by defense counsel in this case was just another delay tactic. there was no evidence at all that anybody but kevin cooper committed these horrendous murders, none. >> but in the early 2000s, new

legislation in california would grant kevin cooper the right to dna testing. >> all these years that my case was in the appeals courts, i never got a fair hearing, i would always get denied for one reason or the next. so i felt very bad. very discouraged until dna testing came along, and i had a shot. >> the state would perform dna tests on blood sample a-41, taken from the ryan's hallway and blood on the tan shirt thought to have been thrown from their stolen station wagon. the results would determine whether kevin cooper lived or died. i am rich. on the grounds of my estate, i hob nob with the glitterati and play equestrian sports. out on the veranda, we enjoy finger sandwiches and other assorted dainties. i wear nothing less than the finest designer footwear.

wherever i go, the paparazzi capture my every move. yes, i am rich. that's why i drink the champagne of beers. tthey bought the place fourg to mark andmonths agoderson. on what was arguably the scariest day of their lives. neither has any idea what the future holds for them. but they bought into a 30-year mortgage anyway. that was bold. they must really believe in themselves. buy in. quickenloans/home buy. refi. power. the uncertainties i don't wantof hep c.with or wonder... ...whether i should seek treatment. i am ready. because today there's harvoni. a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c.

harvoni is proven to cure up to 99% of patients... ...who've had no prior treatment. it's the one and only cure that's... ...one pill, once a day for 12 weeks. certain patients... ...can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. with harvoni, there's no interferon and there are no complex regimens. tell your doctor if you have other liver or kidney problems, or other medical conditions. and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. harvoni should not be taken with any medicines containing amiodarone, rifampin, or st. john's wort. it also should not be taken with any other medicine that contains sovaldi. side effects may include tiredness and headache. i am ready to put hep c behind me. i am ready to be cured. are you ready? ask your hep c specialist if harvoni is right for you.

esurwhich means fewer costs, which saves money. their customer experience is virtually paperless, which saves paper, which saves money. they have smart online tools, so you only pay for what's right for you, which saves money. they settle claims quickly, which saves time, which saves money. they drive an all-hybrid claims fleet, which saves gas, which saves money. they were born online, and built to save money, which means when they save, you save. because that's how it should work in the modern world. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call.

♪ newly available dna testing was being conducted on the evidence from the ryan murders. preliminary resulting showed that the blood from the ryans' holloway and on the tan tee shirt both came from the same person. that dna profile was then compared to kevin cooper's. >> the analysis regarding this was 100%. beyond a shadow of a doubt. kevin cooper was in that house and bled at that crime scene.

it really verified what you knew all along, that kevin cooper committed these horrendous murders. >> only one out of 300 billion people could have matched a-41. you could go to galaxies far beyond the stars and still not find a match for a-41 that cooper supplies. >> once the dna test put kevin cooper in the home he said he never went into and on a tee shirt with doug ryan as blo's b it, that was it for him. >> deborah saunders once convinced of cooper's innocence now published scathing reports about kevin cooper's guilt, the new dna results and this attention had backfired on cooper's defense. >> to kevin cooper's shock and

the defense's shock, the testing came back saying that there was kevin's dna on a-41. >> but for hiel, the dna results raised a red flag. >> back in 1983, the lab technician, daniel gregonis he testified that he had consumed a-41 in his testing. we have a photograph of the envelope that shows the date that he took it out and when he resealed it. so we know that he had a-41 on his person for 24 hours before he returned it. he'd also had nearby, in the lab, the vile of kevin cooper's blood that was taken from him when he was arrested. >> contrary to gregonis's original testimony, the state now reported there was enough of a-41 for additional dna testing.

results from the tan tee shirt also changed drastically. at the original trial, the tee shirt was only shown to have doug ryan's blood on it. >> when the tee shirt was tested at this time, there was additional blood located on the upper part of the tee shirt, across the chest that had not been noticed or photographed or even reported previous to this time. >> cooper's defense argued that the new blood on the tee shirt and the newly discovered blood found on a-41 could only have come from one place, the vile of cooper's blood that lab technician daniel gregonis had access to. the defense would strengthen that assertion by taking the vivie alf cooper's blood to an independent lab for analysis. >> it was discovered that the vial contained two different blood types and two different dna types indicating that additional blood from another

person had been poured into cooper's vile. the likelihood is that they poured somebody else's blood into it after they poured blood onto a-41 and the tee shirt. >> much like when teenagers drink their parents' alcohol, in order to conceal that, they have to fill that bottle back up with something else. >> cooper and his team eventually brought their claims of blood tampering to judge marilyn huff, requesting that daniel gregonis be called to testify. but, as in previous petitions, judge huff denied all of their requests. after more than 20 years on death row and numerous failed appeals, the courts now set kevin cooper's execution date for february 10, 2004. by this time, news of the controversy surrounding kevin's case had become widespread.

>> people care to start seeing the evidence and learning about the evidence, but they decided they were not going to let these people murder me without exposing the truth. >> no fact will change kevin cooper's groupies. they're being spoon-fed this story that doesn't hold up in the kevin cooper legal team knew how to play that. >> you have those opposed to the death penalty saying this execution should be stayed. he's an innocent man. >> ramos said he wants to bring closure to the victims' families. he doesn't want to bring them truth. he wants to bring them closure, which is two different things. >> but while the court of public opinion may have turned in kevin's favor, his defense team was running out of options. >> we were working against the clock. we had to file up to the california supreme court saying that kevin had been denied his

rights and that the prosecution had been improper. >> cooper's arguments hinged on allegations of tampered evidence and alternate suspects who were never pursued. cooper also appealed to governor schwarzenegger for clemency. >> for the clemency petition, a number of the jurors came forward and said they were very uncomfortable, now that they had learned about all the things that had surfaced since the trial. peggy ryan's sister even wrote a letter to the governor saying she believed kevin was not the killer and that they should not execute him. >> ten days before the execution, governor schwarzenegger made his decision. >> arnold schwarzenegger has made his first live or die decision as california governor. he rejected plea the to spare the life of a convicted killer. >> he said that kevin was clearly guilty and should be executed. a few days before the execution

date, the california supreme court denied our request for a stay of the execution and for the chance to file further appeals in kevin's case. >> san quentin guards now escorted kevin cooper to a new cell adjacent to the death chamber. cooper was about to become a dead man walking. so you're a small business expert from at&t? yeah, give me a problem and i've got the solution. well, we have 30 years of customer records. our cloud can keep them safe and accessible anywhere. my drivers don't have time to fill out forms. tablets. keep them all digital. we're looking to double our deliveries. our fleet apps will find the fastest route. oh, and your boysenberyy apple scones smell about done. ahh, you're good. i like to bake. with at&t get up to $400 dollars in total savings on tools to manage your business. no student's ever been the king of the campus on day one. but you're armed with a roomy new jansport backpack,

a powerful new dell 2-in-1 laptop, and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger. that's what we call that new gear feeling. you left this on the bus... get it at the place with the experts to get you the right gear. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. ♪ ♪ isn't it beautiful when things just come together? build a beautiful website with squarespace.

♪ just hours before his midnight execution on february 10, 2004, kevin cooper was strip searched and dressed for the death chamber. but cooper steadfastly refused to assist in his own execution. defiantly, he had begun a hunger strike the day before. as midnight approached, a crowd of several hundred demonstrators appeared outside the prinson walls. >> family was going to attend the execution. finally the family was going to have justice. >> with just hours to go, a frenzied back and forth was erupting in the courts. >> a three-judge panel of the ninth court of appeals issued an

opinion denying a stay of the execution. a few hours later, a judge of the ninth circuit disagreed with the three-judge panel, and the ninth circuit onbank issued a ruling staying his execution. >> know enba-- the decision did sit well with the attorney general. >> the attorney general immediately filed a request of the supreme court of the united states to reverse that stay. >> at 8:15, as kevin cooper waited for news about his impending execution, a phone rang in the death chamber. >> my lawyers told me that the united states supreme court in a unanimous decision said that i would not be murdered that

night. i began to feel life come back into my body, because i honestly thought i was a dead man. >> finding out four hours before your client is going to be executed that he's not going to be executed is a tremendous sense of ex-ill racial, but it's not over. kevin was not off death row. >> two years after kevin cooper's brush with death, a judge imposed a moratorium on the use of lethal injection in california. no one has been executed in the state since 2006. meanwhile, kevin cooper continues to declare his ince e innocence, in 2009, a judge wrote a scathing indictment of the prosecution's case. judge william fletcher wrote cooper is probably innocent of

the crimes for which the state of california is about to execute him. if he is innocent, the real killers may have escaped. they may kill again. they may have already done so. despite conflicting opinions about cooper's guilt, if and when california resumes executions, kevin cooper will be returned to the death chamber. >> if he were to be executed, i would still want to prove his innocence, because our system often convicts innocent people, and when you have the ultimate punishment, you've got to get another system. >> we save the death penalty for the worst of the worse. these people on death row, some of them are calling monsters. everybody talks about the death row inmates and their rights, but people forget about the victims and their families and

their rights. >> this is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. >> the defense attorneys like to say, what was his motive? he could have just taken their car and gone. that's true, but he didn't. he killed this family. he deserves the death penalty. >> i hope you die! >> 1985 i was escorted to death row in san quentin prison. and it's like i went to hell. but i am an innocent man. i did not murder anyone. i hope people learn from this story that you have to stand up and fight this system, because it is rotten. it is rotten to the core. >> all of the potential inaccuracies, the potential miscarriages of justice, i can't correct. i can only tell you that

personally, i was involved in this case from the very beginning. and personally, believe that kevin cooper should die. as u.s. president barack obama arrives in ethiopia, the region receives a sobering reminder about the security problems it faces. plus the daughter of singing star wi!hitney houston has died. and donald trump shows no signs of falling in the polling. welcome to all of