// on this episode of "death row stories --" >> a woman found raped and murdered. >> high on amphetamine and alcohol. >> lies to police and seals his fate. >> he talked himself into a murder charge. >> nicholas was his own worst enemy. >> sentenced to death, only science can save his life. >> i read about dna testing. >> he knew it. >> but a life of crime haunts his appeals. >> i felt guilty for who i was but i wasn't guilty of murder.

>> there's a body in the water. >> he was. buttered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseless. >> the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. >> in today's forecast, all schools are closed in the philly metro area due to weather. >> i was in my office and i got a phone call. they said her son, another boy, were walking through the church parking lot and there is something laying in the church parking lot and they didn't know what it was. i said, okay, i'll be right over. by the time i got over to the

scene, i pulled up there in the parking lot. and i could tell it looked like a body. i cleaned her up and then i knew who she was. it was linda. linda craig. >> linda mae craig, a 32-year-old mother of three, had been reported missing by her husband the night before. she was found raped, beaten and stabbed to death. >> i called cid. criminal investigations division of delaware county. where the church is in the parking lot, there are three apartment complexes. i went around knocking on all the doors. they could see it. but nothing. no eyewitness, nobody knew nothing. >> the case of linda mae craig's murder would go cold for more than four weeks.

>> in the early morning hours of december 20th, 1981, i was driving a stolen car through the city of chester and there is a series of stop signs on the side streets there. i didn't notice one of the signs and went through it. when i did, officer benjamin wright and his patrol car puts on his lights and he zooms up behind me. i pulled the car over. i didn't even know the radio was on. yet the radio was blasting. i was zooming, they called it. you're high on amphetamine while drinking alcohol. officer wright banged on the glass and ripped the door open. grabs me by the throat. pushed me backwards on to the car with his forearm, pinning

me. i started to gasp. and i just swung my left arm and whopped him. he grabs for his weapon. i just panicked. grabbed the weapon with both hands. and pop. the gun goes off. i knew everything was going to go badly then. officer wright puts the gun under my chin. puts me in the car. grabs the radio and begins yelling, help, help, shots fired. i'm under attack. officer assist. the next thing i know, all these cops show up and they drag me out of the car. they rough me up and put me in a paddy wagon. >> a philadelphia native, 20-year-old nick yarris, had 36 prior arrests to his name. nick's family called on defense lawyer sam strutton to whem the case. >> i liked nick yarris when i first met him. he was a handsome young man.

pretty articulate. someone who presented himself very well. and i thought he had a valid defense with the police case. >> they put me in maximum security and i'm sorry for the attempted murder now, kidnapping of a police officer, resisting arrest, armed robbery for taking his firearm off him. the police said they were lovinging me up and letting me go cold turkey so i went through the experience of getting all the drugs out of my system. first comes the nausea. then comes the blinding white headaches. and then comes the shakes and the shits. you just hug yourself and try to make it go away. >> left in his cell with nothing but a mattress and a sheet, nick noticed an old newspaper crumpled up in the corner.

>> i saw this story about the murder of linda mae craig. a woman found. the police were baffled by what happened. >> the kid had the bright idea that i could give information about who killed miss craig. he thought that would help him. >> desperate to get out of solitary, nick concocted a story to try to gain good will with the police. >> i told them that a guy in my neighborhood, jimmy, told me that he committed this crime. now i'm thinking, if could i put jimmy at the scene of the crime, that he later confesses to me, that's good enough for me to then turn them on to jimmy who is dead. he died of a drug overdose. >> it is the first real lead for investigators. i go to the warden's office. he's like, get hand

kufls he put me in the lounge chair. get me a coca-cola. i'm like the kid of the year. >> but nick's story of jimmy's easily disproved and police visited jimmy's workplace. >>er they went to philly and they talked to his boss and all. they said he never missed no time. he had a tight alibi. >> you see, jimmy is not dead at the time. his brother died of a drug overdose. and in my confusion, i get brothers mixed up. if nick had kept his mouth shut and tried to outsmart the police, he wouldn't have been charged. if he had a bright idea and he talked himself into a murder charge. >> nick was interrogated for four and a half hours. >> they kept saying that, so

sick. everybody we talk to hates you. that hurt. because it was true. and so i felt guilt. i felt guilty for who i was. but i wasn't guilty of murder. >> when nick was returned to his cell, he saw only one way out. >> and i felt so low. i took a sheet. i wrapped it around the top part of the radiator. i stood on the toilet and i jumped off. next thing i know, this officer cuts it all down. yanks me down, says that i ain't cheating the state. he said look at you. you weren't even trying hard. >> nick was taken to the prison thol recover. while there, he was visited by a

prison guard named gerald murphy. >> he started to try to get me to come around not hurting myself. i really started to trust him that he was not trying to hurt me. when i came back to the block, i wasn't allowed to have anything in my cell. nothing. it's january. the windows are busted in my cell. and so i sent sergeant murphy a note. and i'm begging him for sheets and towels and he says, why weren't you just honest with the police? it was at that moment, out of desperation, that i would have said anything for that man. i said what if i did like part of crime but i didn't commit the murder? do you think the police would let me go then? he asked me, did i mean the rape? and i nodded. and he was like, wow, that would get you some real help. so i bartered for some prison

clothes and some sheets and towels. by saying that i was part of a crime that i wasn't. i was taken back down to the criminal investigations division. and i was charged with the rape and murder of linda mae craig. a woman i never met in my life. at visionworks we guarantee you will see great and look great. "guaranteed" we say that too! you've gotta use these because we don't mean it. buy any pair at regular price, get one free. really! visionworks. see the difference.

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by april 1982, nick yarris was facing the death penalty for the murder of linda mae craig. he would first face felony charges for assaulting officer benjamin wright. >> it was a two-day trial in which officer benjamin wright would testify i jumped out of my car, ran to his car, drug him from his vehicle, punched him in the face and broke his eyeglasses. then he said that i reached down and took his gun off him and pistol whipped him and i was pulling him back to my car to murder him. >> the officer's testimony was

not very credible. >> sam asked him why he didn't photograph his own face if he had been beaten by me with a metal pistol. he said because he was a good looking man he didn't have to show his face like that. >> the jury returned a verdict of not guilty of the. >> after the jury came back not guilty, the district attorney was so angry, he then slammed the swinging door between the bar and where the public could sit and he stormed out of the room. >> nick would now face death penalty for the murder of linda craig. neuro psychologist dr. carol armstrong was hired to examine nick. >> defense attorneys based on my findings, they're looking for any red flags in a person's history, development, behavior, ability to assist them in their

defense. if something is neurologically caused because parts of the brain were damaged, a person can't control that. >> at the age of 7, i was physically assaulted by a man who hit me in the head with a field stone. >> once you have a head injury, life is never the same. nick had head injuries that were quite significant at 7 years of age in which he had loss of consciousness. having it at 7 years of age changes the trajectory of his life. the brain has not finished forming. >> nick grew up in a large family in south philadelphia. >> six kids, three boys, three girls. nicky was the second from the youngest. >> my father worked as a roofer and at night, he also worked as a baker. and my mother worked at the philadelphia airport as cashier.

my grandmother was primarily in charge of caring for the household while my parents both worked. she had motivation sticks, she used to call it, her broom. you got up for school with that motivation stick. but that was so funny that a 4'6" woman would beat on you with a broom. >> nicky was all right until he started getting in his teenage years. running with different people and all. he started to get wild, you know? i mean, he wasn't an angel. he was smoking pot and stuff like that. >> i was at a party when i was 10 years old and i drank a bottle of beer and then pot and then everything opened up when i was 16 and 17, i knew where to go get methamphetamine every day. >> he just did what he wanted to. but i knew he had got locked up a couple times. >> between the ages of 14 andcr

stuff like that. >> just a normal healthy adolescent makes a lot of poor decisions. when you have brain injury involved, those injuries can become severely, and could impede the consequences of what one is doing. >> i was finally diagnosed with a brain disorder. i never knew i was walking around with a ticking time bomb in my head. >> now held in solitary, just days away from his death penalty trial, nick was given a new neighbor. >> charles cat lieno was placed in a cell next will to me. he was pseudo checking in on my welfare. nick, are you okay? trying to lure me into conversation. >> charles catalano provided testimony in other cases. we didn't know the extent of it at the time.

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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! two months after being acquitted of assaulting a police officer, in june 1982, nick yarris faced the same judge in the same courthouse for his death penalty trial. >> the prosecution had a very weak case. no physical evidence. no finger prints. no clothing. nothing that belonged to nick. witnesses from the mall

allegedly saw him stalking the victim the week before. no one saw the killing or stabbing or even the kidnapping. >> the prosecution's case hinged on a theory that nick killed linda craig because she resembled his former girlfriend who had broken one nick just weeks before the murder. >> the prosecutor encouraged my girlfriend terry to change her hair and to come into court with the mature woman's clothing, and they brought a 20-year-old girl into court and tried to make her look like mrs. craig. >> i thought it was absolutely totally irrelevant. so what? you're going to kill someone, you go out and kill your own girlfriend. you don't find a look-alike. it didn't make sense to me. >> prison guard gerald murphy who counseled nick after a suicide attempt was called to the stand. >> gerald murphy testified that i confessed to the rape of mrs.

craig. i said what if i did part of the crime but i didn't do the murder? i asked him a hypothetical question. not that i did it. >> murphy's testimony hurt him with the jury. if believed, it would be a confession of participating in criminal activity against this poor woman. it all came down to nick and his big mouth and what he said in jail. >> to offset the prosecution's claims, sam strutton could not send straight on nick's alibi. >> he had a strong alibi defense. i thought we had family and friends and other people who testified he wasn't there and didn't do it. >> at 3:05 p.m., one hour before mrs. craig's attack, i was 25 miles away paying my mom's phone bill at the pnc bank. a receipt was produced and presented at trial showing that.

my parents and my sister testified that between 4:30 and 5:30, i was home having dinner. the prosecution said that it was possible for me to have dumped mrs. craig at 4:05 p.m. torsion drive her around, rape her, dump her, and somehow make it back to be home bat 4:30. >> on the stand, the jail house snitch charles catalano said nick's alibi was untrue. that nick had openly confessed to committing the murder. >> charles catalano who was recruited by the delaware county's district attorney's office said i confess that had my family who were an unbeatable alibi were lying for me. >> no witnesses, no weapon, no finger prints, there was no evidence at all. i never thought they could

convict a person with no evidence. >> i stood up with the rest of the courtroom when the jury entered. once they were seated, they read out their verdict. they found me guilty. >> i was very shocked when the verdict of guilty came back. i thought he should have won the case. i still believe that based on the evidence that was presented. >> the verdict was handed down late in the day. as for nick's punishment, instead of giving the defense time to prepare, the judge demanded sam strutton immediately start arguing for nick's life. >> he put my mom on the stand. she was breaking down. she was pleading for my life. and every time she tried, they humiliatingly told her that's not relevant.

she kept saying why isn't it? i cleaned his clothes. i cooked for him. if that boy did this murder, i would put him to death myself. she wasn't making sense. i told sam, that's enough. get her down, man. >> the jury came back maybe an hour or two later with the verdict of death. >> all these people were outside the courthouse celebrating. making the sizzling noises of my flesh being fried and they were taunting my parents, man. that's low. >> we used to get phone calls. your son is a killer. he's a murderer and all that. >> there is nobody, like i say,

should have to suffer like that. you know? me and my wife didn't do nothing but we took the brunt of everything. yeah. yeah. >> on january 25th, 1983, nick was placed on death row at pennsylvania's huntingdon correctional institution. >> i was locked down 23 hours a day and it became thousands of days in a row of solitary confinement. >> nick's appeals were taken over by attorney joseph bullen who soon noticed that nick had been sentenced to death just hours after his conviction. >> there was an issue in the death penalty phase of this trial. with nick's immediate appeal to the supreme court, the penalty

phase was so defective, that's what got him another look at the case. >> this is a rarity. i had so much hope. i couldn't believe my luck. >> nick had a strong case. and had that remand gone forward, he had a shot to be acquitted of guilt. but that never happened. >> nick would never appear at that hearing. instead, he escaped. ♪

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on february 15th, 1985, nick was being transported to an appeals hearing that could result in a new trial. >> it was bitterly, bitterly cold outside and i had on just a prison shirt and trousers. but as we drove along the highways toward court area, i was actually filled with hope for once. >> along the i-76 corridor, nick's police escort pulled over at a rest stop. >> i finished using the toilet. the officer behind me went in himself. the officer at the car was smoking a cigarette. as i'm coming toward him, that's

when he pulls the gun out. he thought i overpowered his partner and fired right on the spot. boom! and i just like, oh, i have to go. >> the police told a different story. their report stated on february 15th, at 5:00 p.m., the delaware county sheriffs stopped at the station in pennsylvania. when nick came out of the restroom, he eluded the deputies and ran toward route 30. >> shortly after 5:00 p.m., a sheriff's car pulled into this oil station in chesterton county. the station attendant described what happened next. >> he was standing over there holding the bathroom door halfway open and i didn't know why. then i turned around and i heard a gunshot. i saw the back ground and i saw the sheriff running after this man. >> i laid down in the grass about 50 yards from the two sheriffs. i was watching them yelling at

each other while the officers were arriving. >> the escaped prisoner has been sentenced to die in an electric chair. he raped and murdered a woman in 1981. >> immediately after the escape, state and local authorities set up this command post and dispatched search teams. >> do you know where he was hiding at? behind the police station. >> there had been several reported sightings of yars tonight but none have been confirmed. >> eventually i stole 1965 mustang and i drove to philadelphia. i drove to my sister's house. she gave me some money. and i told her that i was going to try to get out of this. >> the intense manhunt for convicted death row inmate nicholas yarris involved dozens of local and state police departments. they spent much of the night and today trying the track down the escaped can i here is considered extremely dangerous.

>> i knew i was in trouble. being on the fbi's most wanted list. in my mind, i was going to miami, find a drug dealer, rob him for all his wealth, get on a boat, go out and disappear. that seemed like the most sensible thing. i stole a man's wallet. i got on the first available flight to orlando, florida. >> in orlando, nick stole a car and bought a gun. but his luck ran out when a passing patrolman spotted him sleeping in his car. >> when the officer looks down in the car and he sees the gun, he pulls out his weapon and he orders me out of the car. he takes me into custody. i walked over and i picked up the telephone and i called my father. >> he said i'm in florida.

i'm in jail. i said what? what happened? em, i have sleeping in the car and the cops got me. he said do me a favor. what? call the fbi agent. tell him to come get me. because if delaware county comes in, they're going to shoot me. that's what he was afraid of. >> the fbi calls out that i'm taken into custody. no twlun had any idea i was an escaped prisoner. they were shocked. >> when nick was in florida, he was prosecuted and stepsed to a 30-year tail on top of his death penalty. i realize that had it was essentially time to close the file at that point. >> after six months in a florida prison, nick was extradited back to pennsylvania's death row. >> when i came back to death row, i was pretty much done. with over 100 years of combined

sentences and everything, i decide that had i had to prepare for life on death road. i was going to just try to overcome the ugly persona that i had. i began to really work at educating myself and i started off reading books. first it was the dictionary. and every word that i fell in love with. and then it was books and books and books and books. >> nick also began studying the law and came across an article about a new development in forensic science. >> i read about this new science called dna. and i was so blown away. that i decided i was going to become very first man in america on death row to seek dna testing. we're redefining what nutrition can do. because the possibility of a longer life

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nick yarris had been on death row for six years when he read about a science that might hold the key to proving his innocence. >> in 1988, i read the article in the newspaper about dna testing. day after day, i was reading volumes about gene splicing. it led to all we then know about the science. i became truly proficient at understanding dna. >> he knew it cold. he probably knew it better than most prosecutors or defense attorneys. >> but nick discovered the samples taken from linda craig's autopsy had been lost. >> i can't believe that i'm facing no dna evidence to test. so i end up going through the trial transcripts and i reynold national medical services was shipped evidence. so i wrote them a letter. and the head of the laboratory writes me back and says, i do

have evidence. i have well preserved sperm on fixed slides. hallelujah! so i tell joe bullen, please, sir, don't tell the district attorney. just get the evidence picked up and transported. because we already lost all the autopsy material. >> when nick asked me to get some evidence and not tell d.a.'s office, that's where we had our disagreement. i saw no way that the d.a.'s office was not going to be informed. >> joe bullen told the prosecutor's office that i had found new evidence that could be used for daniels and they went without court order, took evidence and it was gone. so i asked the court to remove joe bullen so that could i pursue dna testing on my own. >> nick was pretty much the captain of his ownership at that point as far as the scientific

evidence. my relationship with nick as attorney-client ended. >> i filed my own motions, begging the court that the evidence be turned over to the coroner's office for safekeeping. the state refused my request so i went to the federal courts on appeal. >> without the ability to argue for himself in federal court, nick was assigned a team of federal defenders including junior attorney christina sworns. >> it somehow fell to me to somehow sort out the dna and the forensic evidence. the only way we were going to get our hands on any of the things we wanted to see was we were going to need the cooperation of the delaware county district attorney's office. >> while the district attorneys claimed the physical evidence was missing, under pressure from the court they tracked down their evidence custodian. >> the court brings this man out

of retirement and he says, oh, yes, i do remember. and then he goes back to find that evidence. they find the box. >> i can remember vividly this assortment of stuff on a table and cataloguing with the state police there. >> the finger nails that belonged to the victim. the dress she swore. her underwore. the killer's gloves were in that box. all of it. >> no one was comfortable with trusting all the evidence in this case to the mail service. so it was decide that had i was going to be tasked with the job of bringing this box which was now covered in crime scene tape on an airplane to the crime lab in california. none of us thought through complexities of taking a box full of crime scene evidence through scanners, and wasn't until we got there that i was like, what are we going to say?

what's in the box? oh, you know, murder evidence. >> i was so hopeful believing the dna would be the thing that set me free. >> after six months, the first of the daniena testing was comp. >> unfortunately, the result came back inconclusive. it was heart breaking. no one was more devastated than nick. >> i was pretty much done. with over 100 years of combined sentences and everything, i decide that had the only thing that made sense at that point was, i had to prepare to be executed. i wrote to the judge at the federal courts in philadelphia asking that my appeals be dismissed, and that he transmit my records to the state governor so that could i move forward with my execution. >> judge giles never received nick's letter but reviewed the

remaining evidence and ordered the gloves from the crime scene to be tested for dna. >> we had used 50% of what was already an incredibly small amount of evidence. if we used up everything else that was left, then nick would have no future chances for further testing, right? after much deliberation, we ultimately decide that had we were going to sort of go for broke. and we were going to test the last remaining evidence in the sample. >> this was the last shot. this was my last chance. at visionworks we guarantee

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>> in 2003, the final remaining evidence in nick yarris' case was tested for dna. without conclusive results, nick faced certain execution. >> we went for broke, full exhaustion of all of the evidence. we all had to be in agreement that it was worth the risk. and we did. >> dna found on linda craig's

fingernails and underwear showed the presence of two male attackers. neither sample matched nick. >> when i got the phone call with the results and i was told that nick had been completely excluded from the sample, i was floored. i've never won the lottery, but i imagine it's like winning the lottery. i mean, it was astonishing. >> he's been on death row half his life, but now a philadelphia man named nicholas james yarris may walk free. his lawyers have filed dna test results they say exonerate the 42-year-old inmate. >> these results established that he was wrongly convicted of murder and that he has wrongly spent 21 years -- half of his life -- on pennsylvania's death row. >> when they got the results back, i fell apart. i broke down, because i had been carrying this burden for so long. >> yarris' lawyer says dna testing clears him of the rape and murder of linda craig, but

that doesn't mean yarris wasn't in on the crime. >> it is too early for our office to conclude that those results alone are determinative of mr. yarris' innocence. >> nick would now appear in the same courthouse where he was sentenced to death for a hearing on the dna results. >> even on that day, you know, nick was, you know, ready to jump in his own way by popping up and demanding things that we knew we couldn't get -- immediate release and things of that nature. i can remember out of the corner of my eye seeing nick, you know, sort of lean in as to stand up and start to make an announcement. >> and i tried to stand up, 'cause i was gonna have my say. >> and i grabbed him, you know, harshly with, you know, fingernails. and i'm short, so i can get up, you know, close to him. i was like, "i swear to god, if you say one word right now, i will kill you." >> christina swarns, esquire,

just manhandled me right in front of everyone, body-slammed me back down to the table, and put her foot right on top of mine, like a mom does, to make sure that foot and that person does not stand up and told me in my ear, "no, you do not have nothing to say." >> the judge vacated nick's conviction and gave the prosecution 90 days to decide whether to retry the case. the state concluded there was no longer enough evidence to prove nick's guilt and dropped the charges. but because of his prior escape from prison, nick was still facing decades behind bars. >> the state of florida wanted me to finish serving out 35 years of sentences they had for me. >> it took another six weeks, but the florida district attorney reluctantly agreed to release nick for time served.

>> who has a question? >> congratulations. >> congratulations. >> how does it feel, stepping out here, nick? >> cold. >> when he got out of jail, me and my wife pulled up, and there was every television station shouting -- i said, "oh, my god almighty, what's going on here?" >> my cellphone rang, and he was like, "hey, christina! it's nick!" and i was like, "oh, my god. you're out!" you know, it was just surreal, right? and it was just surreal, right? and he was like, "i'm on my way home!" so it was a great moment. >> my parents and i ended up taking a six-hour drive from greene county prison back to philadelphia. along the way, i realized that my parents in this very sweet, innocent way couldn't stop holding hands in the back seat. no matter what they went through, they never stopped

being close. and i thought i damaged them. i thought the judicial system broke them. but they didn't. they still were in love, right up to the end. >> mr. and mrs. yarris, can we have a quick word with you? >> come on, nina. >> terry. >> come on. >> today, nick lives with his wife and two daughters in rural oregon. in 2008, he was awarded $4 million for the time he spent on death row. >> yeah. hey, laura, wrestle time. >> no one's ever gonna know what it's like to be the monster, not in the eyes of society, but of your own self. and to somehow come back and

find a way to love yourself is a real treat, because you truly can appreciate what you were then and who you truly try to be now. i knew i deserved some of the things done to me, and as such, i blame no one. i'm actually one of the few death row stories wherein the person who went to the experience is actually grateful for being on death row. it was the greatest blessing of my life, because without going to death row, i would have never stopped being destroyed. crazy.

not that way. not at all. >> she fought by she gave us what we needed. planned, calculated, cold-blooded murder. >> the dna can't direct an investigation. it's very difficult to carry out a crime like this without