let me ask you a question, do you think i did this? on this episode of "death row stories" -- >> she'd been strangled and stabbed. >> a babysitter is found brutally murdered. >> this murder was about as violent as you can get. >> and a secret recording -- >> you murdered a girl. >> you won't tell them. >> leads to a swift death sentence. >> he had blood on his hands. there is no innocent explanation. >> but allegations of corruption -- >> it was someone else's dna left there, and they're hiding who it is. >> -- raise serious questions. >> i didn't do this murder. i'm not guilty. >> there's a body on 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 in front of my eyes. >> get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. in the fall of 1984 kai hendrickson and peggy heston moved to santa ana, california with peggy's four young children and their live-in babysitter, linda rogers. >> it was basically a nice quiet neighborhood. i didn't hear any gunshots or, you know, violence going on. so to me that's a quiet neighborhood. >> kai worked at a local towing company and on the evening of november 15th he took peggy out on a call. linda stayed home to watch the children. >> i told her okay, make sure

that the kids are in bed by 8:00. she said okay. and we left. i called her at 8:30, and i could hear the kids. i said why are the kids up? she says i'm letting them watch snoopy. and i said okay, but they've got to go to bed right after this. she goes, i'll make sure they go to bed. and that was the last time i talked to her. >> kai and peggy returned home three hours later. >> the sliding glass door was wide open. the coffee table was pushed out. the tv was on full blast. and i'm calling her as i'm walking down the hall. >> linda didn't respond. peggy went to the master bedroom and found a gruesome scene. >> i put my hand down, and i

felt her and her body was warm but she was all covered up. then i thought my god, the kids. i went to the room, opened the door. my daughter kim was sitting up. christie was laying down. and i grabbed a hold of charleena and i pulled them and i said let's go, girls. i got the boys and called the sheriff. >> santa ana police arrived to find babysitter linda rogers bound, stabbed, and strangled to death. linda's brother john was soon notified. >> you're never prepared to hear that your sibling's been killed. you know, i was totally shocked. i couldn't believe it. it's like a part of you's gone. that bond that you have with that sibling. >> linda's daughter christie, just 6 years old, had been sleeping in the bedroom next door. >> i remember peggy and kai coming in waking me up.

and i remember her telling me that my mom is dead. i don't think i realized what was actually going on. >> the coroner's office brought linda's body out in a bag right in front of her daughter. she said, "is that my mom?" i didn't know what to say. i said yeah, baby, it's your mama. >> detectives soon learned that peggy's son, 5-year-old jared, had been a witness to the murder. >> i didn't know what was going on, but i knew that it wasn't right at the time. i heard somebody come in the house. i heard him strike linda with a chain, or something hard. he carried her back to my mom's

room, which was diagonal from my room, stripped her down and tied her up. and then he walked out of the room. and when he walked out of the room he looked into my room and i seen him eye to eye. he seen me. we caught eyes. and he kept going. he walked into the kitchen and he got a knife. >> kai hendrickson pointed police to a possible suspect, a local transient who'd been squatting in the home next door and had burglarized kai and peggy's home a week earlier. the man's name was kenneth clair. >> i think clair's looking for more. he went back there because he'd already robbed them once. when he didn't get what he wanted, he became angry. all right? and he took that out on my sister. he had motive. he had opportunity. >> police immediately zeroed in on the 25-year-old clair. but without any evidence tying him to the murder, they couldn't make an arrest. however, a month later kenneth

clair's girlfriend, a woman named pauline flores, gave police the break they needed. >> pauline indicated that on the night of the murder she met with kenneth clair. he had blood on one of his hands. he had a bag with property in it. not only does she give that statement but she agreed to wear a wire to do a covert recording of a conversation that she might have with him. >> two weeks later pauline flores confronted kenneth clair about linda rodgers' murder. >> i want to know what the [ muted ] happened. you murder some girl, come out with mother m[ muted ] speakers with jewelry. that's mother [ muted ] robbery. you murdered a girl. >> you don't have to rub that in my -- come on, pauline, don't

make me mad. >> they told me that if i'm lying about it they're going to throw my ass in jail for accessory to murder. >> what you fail to realize, how the mother [ muted ] police proved i was there. ain't no [ muted ] body seen me go in there and leave out of there. that's what i'm saying. >> kenneth clair was charged with murder. shortly after his arrest the case against clair got even stronger. >> we were reading a newspaper and clair's picture was in there. >> my mom goes do you see anybody that looks familiar there? i pointed out kenneth clair and i said yeah, that's the guy that was at our house. >> she'd been strangled and stabbed. and that's what jarrod saw.

5-year-old kid watching this. >> at trial prosecutors tied clair to the crime scene with items like peggy's jewelry, stolen during the murder, and pauline flores, who described seeing clair with these same items later that night. but nothing was more damning for kenneth clair than his own words. >> ain't no mother [ muted ] body seen me go in there and leave out of there. that's what the [ muted ] i'm saying. >> an innocent man would not say the things that kenneth clair says on that tape. the way he says them on tape. >> ain't no more questioning me about it. i'm finished with that. >> he admits he had the jewelry after the murder. he admits he had blood on his hands after the murder. these are things that there is no innocent explanation for. >> i hope you don't tell them nothing. >> there's no way you can listen to that statement and feel there's any consistent

explanation consistent with innocence. it's very clear he's the killer. >> clair's defense argued that no physical evidence tied him to the murder. but clair's own words were impossible to discount. on july 28th, 1987 the jury found kenneth clair guilty. he was sentenced to death and sent to san quentin to spend his remaining days. despite a seemingly clear-cut case, kenneth clair has always maintained his innocence. >> anybody and everybody who has looked at this race one of the things they ask me is why are you locked up? why are you still locked up? since 1985 i've been stating that i'm innocent, i didn't commit this crime, i didn't do this murder. and you know, i mean, who was going to speak up for me? nobody.

i've been trying. i'm going to continue to try to liberate myself and free myself from this wrongful injustice. it's a battle. ♪ i've slain your dreaded dragon. for saving the kingdom what doth thou desire? my lord? hey good knight. where are you going? ♪ ♪ climbing up on solsbury hill ♪ grab your things, salutations. coffee that is a cup above is always worth the quest. nespresso. tis all i desire. did thou bring enough for the whole kingdom? george: nespresso, what else?

(r(woman) inso over this phone.ed. (robot) greetings human, for a limited time at sprint you can get the lgv40 for just $20 per month. and they'll throw in a free 49 inch 4k lg tv. (paul) on to the next. (vo) get the lgv40 for just $20 per month for people with hearing loss, and get a free tv from sprint. visit sprintrelay.com. starts with looking buiat something old,nk and saying, "really?" so capital one is building something completely new. capital one cafes. inviting places with people here to help you, not sell you. and savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. because that's how it should be. you can open one from right here or anywhere in 5 minutes. seriously, 5 minutes... this is banking reimagined.

what's in your wallet? y the masculine fragrance. yves saint laurent.

after being convicted of the murder of linda rodgers in the summer of 1987, kenneth clair was sent to death row at san quint prison to quentin prison to await his execution. >> first 17 years was wasted. my life was going to the yard,

going to visits, just that daily routine there. then i was believing in the system, thinking that you know, eventually the case is going to be overturned because i know i didn't do this. >> in 2004, after nearly two decades of failed appeals, a friend of clair's hired private investigator c.j. ford. c.j. went to death row to meet kenneth clair face to face. >> when i first met kenneth clair, he was angry. he thought that he had been betrayed and nobody was helping him with his case. i do wrongful conviction cases. i do cold cases. i'm trying to look for the couple people that we keep on talking about fall through the cracks. and they really are innocent. >> for c.j. clair's case fell into a familiar pattern he'd seen among santa ana police. >> it seemed like it was a typical case that was going on in the '80s.

minorities and homeless people were doing time for crimes and the santa ana police department was just closing out their cases. you know, to make the public happy. so they would find what i call disposable people and they would convict them. kenneth clair was homeless. he stayed at different places with different people. >> i was on the streets. i can remember just sleeping, you know, on the sidewalk, finding a doorway to try to get an hour or two of sleep. sometimes, you know, i ate. sometimes i didn't. >> clair does not dispute that he broke into kai and peggy's home a week before the murder. >> i was hungry, went up in there, and got something to eat and left. i didn't go no further than the kitchen and took something from the kitchen and left up out of

there. >> most burglars, their objective is to go in and retrieve property without encountering anyone. >> roberta harding joined clair's defense in 1990. >> why would you go back to the place you were just released from prison for being arrested for burglarizing it earlier? he might as well have just left his i.d. card or something. >> clair was released from jail for the burglary just hours before the murder. c.j. believes police targeted clair from the start. >> they had their radar on him all the time. they were going to use a disposable human being that no one would miss that was a menace to the area and put him in the crime. >> as c.j. looked further into the case he was surprised to learn that clair had told his defense attorney about an alibi for the night of the murder. clair had been out drinking and

he had a witness. >> that night i went to the pub. that's where i met curtis sleed. every thursday that's where i would meet him at. we'd shoot pool, drank beer, watch a game that was on television. then i had to find me somewhere to sleep. that was that night. >> the public defender's office was saying they couldn't find curtis lee because there were asian people with the last name of lee and there were too many of them and they couldn't single it out. but they weren't really looking. i took the case and found curtis lee in about three or four days. >> we've been trying to get a hold of you because you are one of his alibis. mr. clair said that he was with you that night when they accused him. >> okay. that could be some truth in this. i did live in santa ana and i did go out. i was going to clubs at that time. that could have been possible,

sir. >> i think it was 20 years had passed and curtis lee had issues with drugs and alcohol and he was in a rehab center when i found him. and he wasn't, you know, too coherent about dates. >> but the person himself i don't remember because i was doing a little partying back then. i may have run across this gentleman and kicked it with him a few times. >> while curtis lee no longer proved reliable, c.j. wondered what else clair's attorney, public defender julian bailey, may have missed in the case. >> julian bailey served me up on a platter. you know, to the d.a. because he was one of them. he comes straight up by the d.a.'s office. >> bailey admitted in 2004 testimony that he'd done a poor job investigating clair's case and that he may have provided

"deficient lawyering." >> it was just too neat, the way the case was put together. it was something wrong. >> and what was wrong involved jarrod hessling, the sole eyewitness to the murder, who immediately after the crime told police that linda rodgers' murderer was a white man. hey uh, quick question. do you like paying for things you don't need? no. and do you want to get things you love for free? who wouldn't? exactly! right. dad, apple music. he gets it. this guy gets it. (vo) get six months free apple music,

on the network you deserve. opportunity is everywhere. like here. where you can explore the world knowing you can always find your way home. ♪

♪ there's no place likargh!e ♪ i'm trying... ♪ yippiekiyay. ♪ mom. ♪

while investigating kenneth clair's case, c.j. ford found a breakthrough when he learned what the sole witness to the murder, young jarrod hessling, had initially told police. >> when i read the brief, it said something like the boy said it was a white man that did it. and then all of a sudden i see a black man was convicted for the crime. so i couldn't figure out what happened between this being a white man and a black man being put in custody. >> just hours after the murder jarrod gave a statement to police claiming he woke up to see a white male stabbing his babysitter. >> they took me to the station. you know, and they offered me donuts and stuff. i was scared because i didn't know what was going on, why i was the one being asked everything. they just asked me who was there that night. i told them a white man was there.

they go, was a black guy there? do you know the difference between a black guy and a white guy? yeah, i knew the difference between a black guy and a white guy. >> at first he identified the assailant as a white male. and kenneth is not of a complexion where a child might get confused. and the police, they believed jarrod. what he tells them. >> they took the little boy into the police station, separated him from the parents, and gave the boy this racial test. they showed two black people, two asian people, two hispanic people, and two white people. and the boy knew it. the boy knew what all the races were. >> reporter: at a pretrial hearing several months later prosecutors wanted jarrod to identify clair in person. >> before they brought jarrod into the courtroom they wanted to have me out of sight. so they laid me down in the jury box and put him on the witness stand and asked him a bunch of

questions to make sure he knew the difference between the truth and a lie. and then it got to a point that they had me to stand up. and they put a chair right by the distance between you and i and stood him up in the chair, and he's right eye to eye with me. and they asked him was i the man. he said no. >> when they sat jarrod up in that box, he turned around and looked at me and his eyes were this big. and he said, no, no. he kept saying no, no, no. >> he had no reason to lie. they assured him that that person wouldn't be able to do anything to him, wouldn't be able to harm him any kind of way. there's no need for him to be fearful. and he wasn't fearful when he stood there in the chair. like i say, he looked me right in my eyes.

>> at the trial two years later jarrod was not called to the witness stand by the prosecution or the defense attorney, julian bailey. so jarrod's identification of a white man as the murderer was never told to the jury. >> the 5-year-old boy said a number things that were inconsistent. he said it was a black man. he said it was a white man. julian bailey chose not to call him. but nonetheless, there was so much evidence in the case that it wouldn't have changed the result. >> i don't think it was at all unreasonable for the defense to say we're not taking this risk. nobody really knew what he would say the day of trial from the witness stand. it's just something that is so hard to say what did he really see. >> he's 5 years old. he sees this horrible act. nobody knows what was going through his mind at that time. >> but even if jarrod was

unreliable, c.j. soon discovered statements from other children in the hessling house that pointed to an alternate theory for the murder. >> if you notice the police reports, the little kids that gave statements, the first thing that they kept on saying is we didn't tell them where the drugs were. because the kids even knew it was a drug house. >> two of the children talked about drugs. jarrod even calls it dope. >> in a 2001 declaration the babysitter who took over after linda's murder said that the couple sold meth from the house and had drugs and money hidden in the bedroom. >> we didn't have drugs. my kids were home. why did my kids tell me people were coming to the house? they didn't find any dope in my house when the murder happened. if i was doing so much drug dealing, why didn't i have any dope in the house? >> but a neighbor also reported seeing people come and go from the hessling home all day, often

only staying for 10 to 15 minutes. >> linda rodgers called her mother up about a week before she was murdered and she said, i don't think i'm going to live to see my next birthday. why would she call her mom and tell her mom that? if she didn't know what was going on. she was in fear of her life. >> if the hessling home had been a drug house, then there would have been countless other suspects with a motive for linda's murder. scott moxley, an investigative reporter for the o.c. weekly, has written about clair's case. >> i mean, the house should be a narcotics trading house. it's in the middle of a huge gang area. the police focusing solely on kenneth clair never wanted to move off him even though you had many potential suspects in the area. so it seemed to me they focused on him quickly and never wanted to move off him despite the problems they had in the case. there's no physical evidence tying him to the scene of the

crime. >> scott moxley, along with c.j. ford, believed the case against kenneth clair was full of holes, and they soon came to believe that the most damning evidence against clair had been bought and paid for by the orange county d.a.'s office. to give than to receive.ter some may disagree. others won't believe it. and some just won't have the words. join t-mobile and get the samsung galaxy s9 free. right? but hurry offer ends soon. ♪ our because of smoking.ital. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. but then, we were like. what are we doing? the nicodermcq patch helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. nicodermcq. you know why, we know how.

our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition... for strength and energy! whoo-hoo! great-tasting ensure. with nine grams of protein and twenty-six vitamins and minerals. ensure. now up to 30 grams of protein for strength and energy! discover card. i justis this for real?match, yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover. y the masculine fragrance. yves saint laurent.

you murdered a girl. >> you don't have to rub that in my mother [ muted ] soul. come on. don't make me mad. >> pauline flores had secretly recorded a damning conversation with kenneth clair. but just before the murder pauline suffered a traumatic accident that left her in a hospital for a week. >> me and pauline had left my mom's house on bicycles. i was maybe five or ten feet from her and the back tire flipped over. and when she hit that ground it sounded like somebody had taken a watermelon and just slamming it down to the ground. she went from 20 to 2 years old in 30 seconds. >> it wasn't like something small. i mean, her skull was actually cracked. after surgery was over she

couldn't remember her parents, people that had visited her. >> she didn't remember me. we had been friends for years. she didn't remember her mom, her dad, anybody. >> she didn't have her faculties. she wouldn't have even known who kenneth clair was. there's no possible way that this lady could have gotten in an accident and recalled so much detail. so when i interviewed pauline flores, she realized that she was taken advantage of to some degree. >> i think either the police or the district attorney or somebody had literally threatened her and told her if you don't do this we're going to lock you up. because i don't think she had ever been in jail. and she was only 20 years old. >> in a 2001 declaration pauline stated that at the time she agreed to year a ware a little less than two months after the murder she had a bench warrant out for her arrest which was then forgiven by the d.a.'s office. >> i've always said that they

caught pauline at a very vulnerable point in her life and they used her. they gave her a story to tell, and she did her best to follow that script. >> scott sanders has investigated corruption in the o.c. d.a.'s office for years and believes both peggy and pauline were manipulated in clair's case. >> what i saw that was important was how particularly they were treating a couple of the critical witnesses in the case. you look at pauline flores's case, the warrant got taken care of. and somehow mike jacobs was able to essentially keep that from a jury. >> mike jacobs, who prosecuted clair's trial, also made an undisclosed deal with peggy hessling. >> shortly after mr. clair gets charged miss hessling gets charged with a felony case involving welfare fraud. you see these notations about special info, and it shows up at least three times in the docket. that pretty clearly leads back to the clair case.

>> at the time of clair's trial peggy was facing felony charges for welfare fraud and perjury. but peggy testified about stolen items that tied clair to the crime scene with her credibility unchallenged. >> these two people, flores and hessling, both with huge credibility issues, are kind of playing on the exact same issue. right? it's the property issue. you take a little less in terms of credibility of one or both and it changes the equation, jurors may say i'm not sure clair had that property. >> two weeks after clair was sentenced to death peggy was offered a deal that reduced her felony charges to a misdemeanor. and a $500 fine. her perjury charge was also dismissed. these weren't the only instances where the work of the o. o.c. d.a.'s office and prosecutor michael jacobs were called into question. >> michael jacobs in the '80s and '90s was the hot shot homicide prosecutor. maybe the hot shot in

california. he was just an aggressive pursuer of justice and punishing the evildoers. and we've now come to learn he's behind the scenes hiding evidence, presenting witnesses that aren't telling the truth to jurors. >> michael jacobs was fired from the o.c. d.a.'s office in 2001. but the o.c. d.a. has continued to face scrutiny. >> they were using snitches illegally. they were hiding evidence. and they were allowing deputies and police officers to commit perjury. >> information isn't getting to defendants. it's not getting to their counsel. it's not getting to jurors. and it can't happen that way if you want a system where death verdicts are reliable and jury verdicts are reliable. >> i don't think that the prosecutors in a lot of these situations believe that they've got the wrong individual. they think i've got the right guy. so when nobody's looking i can

cut corners. and i put the right person in prison. and so what if things were a little messy. and meanwhile, we're finding out 10, 15, 25, 30 years later, the corners that were cut are so vital to the interest of a fair trial that the jury didn't have all the accurate information, key information to convict somebody. >> despite questionable behavior by the o.c. d.a.'s office, kenneth clair remained on death row. but in 2007 dna was finally run in the case and the result would point to someone other than kenneth clair.

up here at the dewar's distillery, all our whiskies are aged, blended and aged again. it's the reason our whisky is so extraordinarily smooth. dewar's. double aged for extra smoothness.

ignition sequence starts. 10... 9... guidance is internal. 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... ♪ -morning. -morning. -what do we got? -keep an eye on that branch. might get windy. have a good shift. fire pit. last use -- 0600. i'd stay close. morning. ♪ get ready to switch. protected by flo. should say, "protected by alan and jamie." -right? -should it? when you bundle home and auto... run, alan! ...you get more than just savings. you get 'round-the-clock protection. ...you get more than just savings. they seem to be the very foundation of your typical bank. capital one is anything but typical.

that's why we designed capital one cafes. you can get savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. and one of america's best savings rates. to top it off, you can open one from anywhere in 5 minutes. this isn't a typical bank. this is banking reimagined. what's in your wallet?

whetor surprise pizza,aco night, zantac works when you need it. it relieves or prevents heartburn in as little as 30 minutes, and lasts up to 12 hours. zantac. eat your way. treat your way.™ the night before linda rodgers' murder back in 1984 police investigated a similar homicide in a nearby neighborhood. suspecting that the same person committed both murders, the district attorney's office sought dna testing on the vaginal swab and glove found on linda's body. the results did not match

kenneth clair. >> we never even knew. didn't find out until maybe like 2008, that they had been running dna testing. and from what i know, i've been totally excluded. >> the orange county d.a.'s office admitted that the dna did not match kenneth clair. but they refused to say who the dna belonged to. >> now they find out that it was someone else's dna left there, and they're hiding who it is. that's just crazy. >> excuse me? uh, that is material. you've already ruled out your prime suspect, who's been convicted and was sentenced to death. the state, the prosecution must disclose, turn oever that information to the defense. >> if i told you i had dna results of a crime, why don't you run them?

why should kenneth clair be in jail for 30 years because they don't want to run? dna? >> kenneth clair told me in a jailhouse interview, he goes, i know the reason they don't want to say whose dna it is. because it's going to come back to a white person. and that's what the kid said. the dna comes back to a white person that was left on the victim's body, that's quite embarrassing. >> when we find out who the dna matches, that's going to be the person that committed the crime. >> without releasing the name of the individual, citing a right to privacy, the d.a.'s office did make public some details of what the testing found. >> this individual was 11 years old when linda rodgers was murdered, and he was proved to be living out of the country. and so this is a factually innocent man that the quote match was given to. we've actually gone beyond just that one individual and looked

to his known relatives, and there's no known ties to orange county amongst all of those male relatives. put another way, what we got was not a kind of a hit that's so r robust you can say one in a trillion it was this person. it was anything but that. there are about 36,000 men in the state of california right now walking around with that same genetic marker. >> they know that's not fully accurate. they know that other suspects could be located from that dna. but again, the district attorney's office saying that it's fine, we've done the job is not sufficient by any fair measure in light of the history of their work here. >> in 2011 the superior court of california rejected clair's request to reveal the full dna results in order to protect the privacy of the individual identified. >> their argument was based upon the california privacy act, and

the judge ruled in their favor. the privacy act trumps my constitutional rights. >> now running out of options, c.j. turned to the court of public opinion, creating an online petition to demand the release of the dna results. >> the petition is just asking the d.a.'s office to either release the results of the dna evidence to the defense or to exonerate kenneth clair. that's why we have 161,000 people, because it's a logical question. i had plans on talking -- writing letters to obama and jerry brown because they're the next avenues. >> over the years i have been trying to create some type of exposure like that. my way of dealing with people when it come to my case, i let them read. you know, i don't try to explain the case to them. i'm going to let you read. i'm going to let the evidence speak for itself. then when you read about it,

then we can talk about it. >> i don't know that many people that signed that petition have seen the evidence that i've seen, have listened to the evidence that i've listened to. i'd like for them to look at the evidence and then i think i'd be convinced that this is indeed a guilty man. >> but while ford continues to fight for the release of dna evidence, in 2015 the 9th circuit court of appeals made a controversial decision that could doom clair's chances of ever going free. hey uh, quick question. do you like paying for things you don't need? no. and do you want to get things you love for free? who wouldn't? exactly! right. dad, apple music. he gets it. this guy gets it. (vo) get six months free apple music, on the network you deserve. y the masculine fragrance. yves saint laurent.

. . . opportunity is everywhere. like here. where nothing stands between you and your best friends. ♪ i recently discovered that a good source of protein. that's why they're my go-to snack while i get back in shape. that one's broken.

in march of 2015, the ninth circuit court of appeals issued its judgment on kenneth clair's request for a new trial and re-sentencing. and while the court upheld clair's conviction, they did strike down his death sentence. >> we had a reversal of the death penalty by federal court. and so it came back now for sentencing. it's still pending resentencing. there's going to be some litigation in court about whether or not he should be sentenced to life without parole at this point. >> the appellate court overturned the sentence saying it did not believe that clair's lawyer julian bailey, did an adequate job during the sentencing phase. now off death row, kenneth clair

is still in prison, awaiting resentencing. >> from my understanding, orange county decided not to seek the death penalty again. so more than likely my sentence is going to be life in prison without the possibility of parole. >> for the last 29 years. i lived my life. i carried myself on death row like there was no tomorrow. after 29 years of living a certain way, now i have to readjust, and going to a different rant of this battle. >> clair's past was never taken into account during his death sentencing, including trauma, such as sexual abuse he suffered at angola prison as a teenager. >> kenneth had a history of being raped in prison. he was serving five years in louisiana for armed robbery. a purse snatching, but he used a weapon.

>> i was 17 when they sent me to angola. first time i was ever arrested. then i took $12. and they sent me there to angola. that's a nightmare in itself, there. but when i got out of angola, i wasn't the same. >> after prison, clair went to california, but his troubles with the law continued. >> i wasn't the same. but man, you go back and look at my arrest record, my arrest record is a joke. the crimes that i may have, the crimes that i have, it wasn't, it wasn't violent. it's petty stuff. i'm not a violent person. >> he has done time in louisiana for committing a robbery. we also have pretty strong evidence that he committed a rape in louisiana. the victim of that rape was so

traumatized that she did not want to come to california and testify. she didn't want to be put through the ordeal of being on the witness stand looking at her rapist. for him to say that he's not a violent person is ridiculous. >> two months before linda rogers' murder, a man tried to intervene in an argument between clair and his then girlfriend, pauline flores. clair allegedly slashed the man in the chest with a bayonet. >> pauline said straight out, i'm scared of him. i'm scared he's going to hurt me. i said, pauline, he's been hurting you. >> pauline discovered that she was pregnant. she informed kenneth. he said i'm homeless, unemployed. transient, you need to have an abortion. but pauline was insistent on having this child.

so kenneth assaulted her, punched her in her abdomen. and she ended up losing the child. >> i was pregnant by him. and then he hit me in the gut and i miscarried that evening after he had hit me. and personally, after a certain amount of beatings, face swollen, busted lip and everything else, i just wanted to have a citizen's arrest on him. >> clair was convicted of murder without a jury ever knowing about his beatings of pauline, which may have impacted her testimony against him. finally, looming over every appeal filed by kenneth clair's team and every court ruling was his supposed confession on wire tap to pauline. >> you mind if i ask you to play a confession for you? >> i don't, you can play it. >> i would like to know what

happened. you murder some girl, come out with speakers, with jewelry. that's not mother -- funny. you murdered a girl. what you fail to realize, i was there and nobody seen me go in there and leave out of there. this is what the -- i'm saying. >> that's the first time i heard that in decades. i had no common sense there, none. i just kept denying. i kept telling her, i didn't -- i don't know what you're talking about. she was just persistent, just kept the same question over and over and over. >> kenneth, tell me what happened. did you kill that girl? >> tell me. >> no. >> what do you mean, no? >> no, i didn't. >> i know you better. >> don't question me more about it. i'm finished with that.

i hope you don't tell anybody. >> why? see my -- go to jail. >> what are you going to go to jail for? what trying to do is -- you, mother -- >> i'm trying to explain to her that if you don't say anything, you don't go down there and talk to them, there's nothing that they can do to you. i'm not worried about me because i know i didn't do anything. i never admit to killing anybody or anything. >> you murdered a girl. >> would you leave that alone, please? you don't have to rub that in my mother -- come on, pauline. don't make me mad, huh. >> i'm from new orleans, louisiana. that's kind of how we talk, you know. why you vexing my soul, why you rubbing that into my soul. >> it doesn't mean that i did

something and you're -- i'm guilty of it. that just meant, why you keep on trying to put this on me? i didn't -- you know, i had nothing -- it doesn't even involve me. >> yeah, i haven't been to new orleans to conduct a survey, a linguistic study, but i would like to hear that from an expert in order to put any stock in that. otherwise it sounds like a very convenient, shifty explanation. >> there's no way that you can listen to that and think that it is consistent with innocence, just can't. ♪ >> after spending more than 30 years in prison, kenneth clair now awaits the outcome of his resentencing, with the hope that he may be eligible for life with the possibility of parole. >> i don't hate kenneth clair. i don't want him to die, either. i don't believe in that.

thanks to him, i don't believe that anybody has the right to take another life. >> the whole idea angers me so much that i see this stuff happen with people. that's why i got to keep on working on kenneth clair's case. this case has to be an example for all the other kenneth clairs. >> it was an air-tight case. you're just chasing rainbows if you're thinking that you're going to find innocence here. >> whether he's guilty or innocence, i lean toward he's probably innocent, but honestly i don't know. it's not an issue for me. the issue for me and my coverage is did he get a fair trial, and i agree with him. he didn't. >> i'm not guilty. i didn't commit this crime. that's what has kept me going. that's what keeps me pushing forward, even to this very day. only thing i can do is just keep fighting. you know, and there's always going to be hope.

>> trouble is so easy to get into, so hard to get out of. on this episode of death row stories. >> these two are dead. shoot the rest. >> quadruple homicide. >> this big man comes out naked with a 45 pointed at me. >> and car bomb tied to the leader of the a motorcycle gang. >> these were powerful people that would make bad things happen. >> but when the government's case falls apart -- >> there was no motive, no forensic evidence. >> they don't give a damn what these juries say, they're going to convict him. >> and i a parent vendetta begins. >> you're going to get the death penalty. we're going to execute you. >> there's a body in the water. >> he was butchered and