i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. i tell people it's the miracle of facebook. >> oh, my god. >> the murder happened in seconds. >> coming straight for me and with a gun leveled. >> the truth took decades. >> i said you know what? give me a lie detector test. >> i never believed it, never. >> did someone have it all wrong? or are innocent men in prison for a murder they didn't commit? >> did you ever imagine you would cause a debate?

>> not in a million years. >> together they uncovered an almost unbelievable truth. >> it all made sense. none of us knew what happened that night. this all made sense. >> somebody seen it. somebody knew. >> now they just had to get someone to believe them. >> oh, my god, oh, my god, we're winning. oh, my god, we're losing. >> this was it. >> this was it

and the next move was his. >> as a band of friends sets out on a journey to find justice, they first need to find out what happened the night old man bob was murdered. >> people always assume that the people ranning down the driveway shot him. >> i said you know what? give me a lie detector test. >> i said oh, my god.

something sarn dip tus was in the wind in detroit as summer turned to fall in 2009. a woman's facebook post about old friends now in prison for life was read by a lawyer. picked up the pictures and -- >> just thinking about it. >> wondering what you should do? >> wondering what i should do about it. >> what he did was call his old college roommate, john hellsher.

>> tell me why you called john. >> to see if he remembered telling me the story he told me back all those years about the night that old man bob was killed. >> and he did remember. >> he remembered it exactly on the phone as he did when he first told me the story. >> story, that john hellsher had been there when old man bob was killed. had seen things and never talked to police. and now? once kevin looked at the pictures of the brothers, he understood clear as day that john's story could expose a terrible injustice, if it was ever revealed, that is. so kevin stewed about it for a bit, talked to his wife and took her advice. >> we had no hesitation that, you know, we should do something with this. you know, you're a lawyer. you know what to do with it. and just go ahead and do it, you know.

it's the right thing to do. >> so he boarded a plane for detroit on his own dime and john faced down his fears. and both met with the lawyer who represented those imprisoned brothers. >> we met at a restaurant. and we talked to the lawyer, and he didn't seem like he believed me too much. and i said, you know what? give me a lie detector test. i'll take the test. and then we'll go from there. if you don't believe me, let's do this right now. >> okay. >> so a couple weeks later we ended up taking a lie detector test. it was one of the toughest thingsly to do. i was just sweating buckets. >> and the clig rafr detected john hellsher was being truthful. he passed with flying colors. then nothing. neither kevin nor john heard anything more from that lawyer. >> i just thought it got dropped, you know. kind of wishing good, it's not going to come back, that's it. >> that would have been the end of it, most likely, had it not

been for her. over on the other side of detroit, though john and kevin couldn't possibly have known it, was a private investigator who, truth be told, had just about given up on the case of the hires brothers. she agreed to work for a fraction of her normal fee. she tended to agree with them. but in her long search, she had been unable to find anyone or any facts that could challenge the story about old man bob's murder that was told at the trial, which was this. >> bob was home, and it was a friday night. he's getting a lot of phone calls. there's a guy sitting in the kitchen wing. and people are calling saying i'm going to be over. here's what i want. mostly people come to the back door. >> an eyewitness to it all was sitting in his car out on the street. we built this illustration to demonstrate what he later told

the police. >> an omni light in color parked and two guys went to the back door and he hears shots fired. he sees two guys run down the driveway and drive off. everybody assumes that the people running down the driveway shot him. yes. >> the dealer known as old man bob was dead of a single gunshot wound to the chest. detectives looked high and low for that get away car. no luck. so the cops canvassed the usual suspects. and bingo, a jailhouse informant named a possible shooter, tommy hire. what do you know. he used drugs, owed him money, even told friends that he was going to visit bob that night. when they showed the pictures to that eyewitness, he didn't pick out tommy. he pointed to tommy's brother

ray. told police he was positive, 100% sure, ray was one of the young men running down the driveway and hopping in the car. both brothers were arrested and tried and convicted. and sitting in the courtroom, the aunt who had loved them all their lives was devastated. >> i can't even imagine why they got life without parole even, without parole. >> this is aunt jan. >> it was very hopeless. very hopeless. >> did you believe that they would have done it? >> never. i never believed it, for one minute. >> the family stuck by tommy and ray as the men watched their 20s and then their 30s come and go in state prison. and now here they were in their mid-40s, still telling anybody and everybody including us that they did not kill old man bob. >> i just walk with the faith and all, like this is not the end. >> the brothers had turned down

any and all plea deals, determined, instead, to clear their names. they joined every prison program, took every class they could to improve themselves. >> key schowe schooled ourselve any programs they had to offer. >> both of you. >> yes, worked every day. held our heads up. >> by 2009, after 22 year, even their family had about given up. >> had you actually gotten to the stage where you thought, well, they'll be there for the rest of their lives, nothing we can do about it? >> i did. to be honest, i did. >> and so, too, did the private eye. she stopped working the case or tried to, but tommy kept calling. >> i would be like, you can't keep calling me. then one day, i picked up the phone and it was tommy again. i didn't have anything to do. i thought sure, sure. this was to get tommy off my

back. i can get tommy out of my life. >> so she picked up the phone, called tommy's lawyer who sent her a copy of the affidavit, the sworn story told by, guess who? that old college roommate of kevin's, john hellsher, the one who claimed he was there at old man bob's when the murder took place. and when the private eye read that? >> i got halfway through this thing and just went holy [ bleep ]. oh, my god! >> coming up. a close encounter with chillers. >> he's going to shoot me. >> but are they the same men serving life in prison for murder? >> i tell people it's the miracle of facebook. >> when dateline continues.

i tell people, it's the miracle of facebook. you know, without facebook, it wouldn't have happened. >> detroit private eye julian had been baffled by the mystery that put these men in prison for life. them out of the blue, late 2010,

just because a woman had a moment of nostalgia and posted something on facebook, an affidavit landed on her desk from a man she never heard of, john hellsher. >> it had to be real. it had to be true. >> landing in your lap. >> yeah. >> john told julian what happened that awful night the detroit summer of 1987. it was party night he said. john and his classmates had just graduated. that's where the captains of industry lived. several miles across the city line from detroit. and after a few beer, the partiers decided to drive over and buy some marijuana from old man bob. >> call up, go to the back door, there. that's what we were going to do that night. >> so john and four friends hopped in a car which was a

white plymouth horizon and walked up to the back door just as the eyewitness later told the police, except for one detail, and it was a big one. the eyewitness identified the hires brothers as the young men he saw in the drove way, but, said john hellsher, it wasn't them. it was him. he and one of his grosse point buddies went up that driveway. >> as soon as he opened the door i heard commotion behind my. and we saw people jump over the fence coming towards us, one with a gun leveled at us. and we saw all the other people running towards bob. especially a guy with a shotgun. i just remembered, i'm dead. that's the first thing that came to my head. he's going to shoot me. i froze. we froze. and all he said was get the [ bleep ] out of here. and we turned so fast and ran back to the car.

i'd never ran so fast in my life. as we running back, i heard the gunshot. they said get the hell out of here, and we screeched the tires and got out of there as quick as we could. >> and after, the five returned to the graduation party. >> i was still freakin' out. we all were. people were wondering, what's the matter with you. someone told them what happened and people were like, ah, you don't believe you. they didn't believe us. >> but you from freaking out. >> yeah. i could have been killed that day. >> came close. >> came close. had a gun pointed right to my face. >> when he went home, he watched the news, read the paper, looked for news of the shooting but didn't ever hear what happened to old man bob. >> i didn't see him actually die. so i didn't really know. >> so he said i just tried to forget it. he joined the army. served in the persian gulf, moved on with his life.

never told a soul apart from his girlfriend. then one night in 1993, six years after the incident, he told kevin. and it was one telling detail that he never forgot. those people who jumped over the fence, they weren't white kids. they were black. >> you had no idea two men went to prison? >> no. i had no clue who they were. total strangers. i said this isn't right. it involved, you know, a different race. it was not two white people. >> that piece of information, more than 20 years after the murder was what tommy and ray and their family had about lost hope they would ever find. >> when i finally got the whole story, it was like, damn, somebody seen it. somebody knew. >> this all made sense. >> it was just a matter of

mistaken identity. >> absolutely. it proves everything we said and believed and for the last 25 years. >> john's story, which would have disappeared forever had it not been for mary's facebook post and kevin's steel trap memory now gave aunt jan and all those who loved and believed tommy and ray, new inspiration. they brought in a new legal team, nail down the evidence to get the brothers out of prison. >> i thought this case should have never been charged. >> a mistake happened. a mistake happened, and it ended up with two men spending potentially the rest of their lives in prison. >> now if only the team could find the other people who were in the car with john that night. and if they all told the same story, well, maybe then they'd have something. >> coming up, after more than two decades, the moment of truth. >> were you scared?

>> i'm still scared. >> but will it make a difference? >> pins and needles. i mean, it was our life. >> this was it? >> this was it, for sure. lorida you know? just to unwind. but we can only afford one trip this year, and his high school reunion is coming up in seattle. everyone's going. then we heard about hotwire... and realized we could actually afford to take both trips. [woman] see, when really nice hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. so we got our 4-star hotels for half price. i should have been voted "most likely to travel." ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com save big on car rentals too, from $11.95 a day.

returning to our story. an apparent case of mistaken

identity has put brothers tommy and ray hires in prison for more than two decades. now a random facebook post has triggered a memory and mobilized a team to fight for the brothers' freedom. here again is keith morrison. >> private eye julian and the others who joined her efforts for the hires brothers believed the newly discovered witness john hellsher was telling the truth. now if they would only find those four high school friends hellsher claimed were with him, the night they took a trip to buy marijuana from the neighborhood drug dealer known as old man bob, a trip that ended in gun fire. first, sadness. julianne discovered the driver of the car died, but his family confirmed he drove a white plymouth horizon, the same type of car an eyewitness had seen

leaving the scene. >> that was important to be able to make that connection. >> right. because the linchpin was that these guys were in a white omni or horizon, the same car basically. >> and one by one, they did find them. the kids now 40 something who had been in the car heard the very same thing john hellsher told them. this man was riding in the passenger seat and he confirmed the story. >> you can see it dawn on his face that two guys have been sitting in jail for nearly 25 years. >> the woman who was dating one of the men saw it too. though getting her to talk was no easy task. but none was more reluctant than the man who walked up to the door and fled in terror. why wouldn't he talk about it? >> pretty much all of our witnesses grew up in fairly wealthy, well-to-do families, and it seemed to be an

embarrassment that they had gone into east detroit to buy marijuana. >> for months, he'd only communicate through his sister, an attorney. he refused to tell the investigator what he knew. seemed to go to great lengths to avoid their calls. >> he wanted no part of it, which i still really can't understand because it's not often that you get to be a hero. >> timely, what could the lawyers do? they subpoenaed him. >> it had to be done. we had two innocent men in prison. >> and finally they all wound up here, the hall of justice. the lawyers appointed to represent the long-imprisoned brothers had hoped to avoid this. they had allowed themselves to think the wayne county d.a.'s office might see the evidence the night old man bob was killed, that a mistake was made and rectify it. >> we had a prosecutor's office

that was very uncooperative in the face of very overwhelming eviden evidence. >> all rise. >> of course that was a defense attorney's point of view. and so here they were in court to fight it out. just getting this hearing took a year of their efforts and persuading all those witnesses to testify about a moment in time so long ago was no less difficult. knowing that, tommy and ray's family became a sort of cheering section in court. >> we filled up the room. and we wanted to show everybody that we were there to back them up. and we just wanted to be there for them. >> all in the courtroom of the judge who would decide if the new evidence merited a new trial. finally, tommy and ray hires filed into court. the brothers who, from day one,

insisted they were innocent, whose family never stopped believing in them. looking like just what they were, survivors of a quarter century in prison. >> it was pins and needles. i mean, it was our life. because if he didn't believe what he was hearing, we were going right back to the state penitentiary. >> and there was never no more relief. >> this was it. >> this was it for sure. >> good morning, your honor. >> when i got to the hearing, it was all out warfare. >> the defense began laying out the strange tale with the facebook post. >> why have you come forward in this case? >> you know, on the streets i always heard that hires didn't do it. >> next, the d.c. lawyer who just happened to answer that post of mary's. >> would you please state your name for the record. >> kevin. >> kevin was feeling the pressure. that morning he'd awakened screaming obscenities. >> just a crazy, bad dream where

there were demons trying to prevent me and john hellsher from testifying in these hearings. i don't normally wake up in the middle of the night screaming obscenities. >> on the stand, he retold the story that john, the old roommate told him back in 1993. >> he made a comment to the effect that you wouldn't believe what happened that night. >> so he felt it was his duty to step in. >> two innocent people are in prison for life. i learned information that could help set them free. and i felt compelled to bring that information forward. >> then, one by one, the witnesses, the now 40-somethings who told the court about that night outside old man bob's house where they'd gone to buy marijuana for their graduation party, and that it was their friends, not the hires' brothers who came running down the driveway. >> and how did they look when they got in the car?

>> terrified. >> why are you coming forward? >> two minutes is too long in prison, let alone 20-some years. >> even the reluctant witness, the one they had to subpoena to get to court confirmed all of it, as did the man who threw the graduation party that night. >> he was very forthcoming and said sure, i remember that day. they'd pulled up. they were a wreck. and they told me what happened. and you just don't forget something like that. >> and finally, the man whose comments to his roommate, nearly two decades earlier kept the old story alive. >> what was it like to process and testify at this hearing? >> i've been to combat. i've jumped out of planes. and that was the toughest thing i had to do. >> john hellsher who was horrified that he never found out for certain that old man bob was murdered told complete with

what he heard and saw after walking up to the back door. >> i heard commotion coming from the alley behind bob's house. i saw four african-american males hopping over the chain link fence from the alley, and they were running towards the house. >> okay. then what happened then? >> i saw a larger african-american male with a, what appeared to be a shotgun, and then i saw another african-american male with a handgun. he told us to get the [ bleep ] out of there. >> and then what did you do? >> i proceeded to turn around and run as fast as i could. >> did you hear anything? >> as i was turning to run,dy hear a gunshot. >> were you scared? >> i'm still scared. >> have you ever been afraid like that after that? >> when i was in combat. >> are you telling the truth? >> yes, ma'am. >> and why are you here? >> because there's two innocent men who -- >> objection. >> and then it was the

prosecution's turn. and the prosecutor made it perfectly clear she didn't believe all these new witnesses coming forward to tell the story or what they said in their sworn statements, which she picked apart word by word. >> no, ma'am. that's not correct. >> it's not correct. so your affidavit is wrong? >> the assistant d.a. went methodically through the affidavit of each witness and suggested sometimes gently, sometimes not, that they are all lying, concocted the whole story to help free tommy and ray hires. >> my understanding is that -- >> no. aren't they friends with you on facebook? yes or no. >> well, i would say no. >> judge, okay. >> plus, said tommy and ray's attorneys, it was the assistant d.a. who concocted a story. >> the prosecution had nothing to contradict our story. so when you have nothing you can concoct something. what they concocted was a grand

conspiracy theory. >> did that surprise you? >> it did. to have people unconnected to the defendants to come together in this huge conspiracy to cook something else doesn't make sense. >> but in the end, it was up to the judge to decide if the new evidence was cooked up as the prosecutor claimed or compelling enough to give the hires brothers their first shot at freedom in 25 years. coming up. >> i'm thinking up, oh, high god, we're losing. oh, my god, we're winning. >> the judge rules. will the hires brothers get a second chance? >> we'll fight, and we'll face whatever has to come. >> when dateline continues.

by the summer of 2012, tommy and ray hires had been fighting to clear their names for 25 years. and now, the judge had heard all the new evidence. this was the moment. >> this is the court's decision under the defendant's motion for relief from judgment. >> but with all the history, the legalese, the new witnesses, the

evidence. >> meticulous in pointing out inconsistencies in differences between testimony. >> it took the judge two full hours to explain the basis for his decision. the reason, he said, he had no choice but to rule a particular way. >> oh, my nerves were shaking. >> as tommy and ray, their courtroom full of friends and family agonized. some felt almost ill. >> just sitting through the ruling almost killed me. i am thinking oh, my god, we're losing, oh, my god we're losing. oh, my god we're winning. >> until the judge finally said the words. >> this evidence meet the all the requirements for this court to grant the requested relief by the defense. >> a weight just fell off my shoulders. it was just oh, finally, thank you. thank you. >> everybody was hugging.

and it was just a joyous scene. >> you would think, looking at this that tommy and ray hires had just been declared innocent of old man bob. but that is not what happened. not even two weeks later, when the judge decided to release the brothers on bond to await trial. and tommy and raymond hires walked out of jail for the first time in more than 25 years. >> welcome home! >> it certainly felt like victory, looked like victory. >> it was like someone had hit a grand slam at the ballpark. >> oh, man! hell, yeah! >> may wonderful attorney. i'm telling you now. i'm telling you now! hey, hey, she is the man! >> but tommy and ray hires were

merely men on bail, awaiting trial for murder, a trial the prosecution gave every indication it was especially determined to win. and thus send these two men right back where they came from, state prison. >> what's it like to be sitting here talking about what's happened to you? >> you can't even put it into words, the feeling that goes through. >> which gave us a chance to talk to them, as they prepared to fight their biggest fight yes. >> we'll fight and face whatever we have to come. >> and then they tell their version. >> got involved in things we shouldn't have been. drugs. that was the main thing. >> and that night, june 26, 1987, the brothers did indeed go over to bob's house, they said. saw the police were there. and soon. >> we figured he was being raided. >> that's exactly what we

thought, that he was being raid. never even stopped. there was so much police out there that he was going. >> a week later they were arrested. >> walked in there and never walked out. >> they were 21 and 22 when they went in. but now they say they are not the same mena as when they went in, and they're not ashamed. >> prison made this man. my morals, my integrity. >> in a way, a positive experience and in a way one you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. >> right. exactly. you still hold onto the light and push forward every day. >> after their release, they moved in with their aupts jan and wore electronic tethers to monitor where they're at. they are like rip vanwinkle, learning to use cell phones,

getting driver's licenses. >> been waiting to get that all my life. first one i ever had. >> and getting up in the morning and going to work. ray at an industrial heating and cooling company and tommy as maintenance at an apartment complex. and at the very same time, the prosecution is preparing their case to put them back in frpris for life. the d.a. has made a plea offer. >> for us to plead guilty and we'd get time severed. >> would you? >> no. we stood on our innocence and screamed it to the top of our lungs for 25 years. and then for the people who got behind us and believed in us. for us to do that would be just like a slap in their face, and then it would just tear my integrity right out of my body. so we're innocent, and nothing's

going to change that. >> there will be people in the audience who will still believe you did it. >> sure, people, i mean, you know, you can't convince everybody. >> hmm. you're kind of used to that now. >> sure. but all we want to do is convince 12. >> those 12 would be the jurors, sitting in judgment at their upcoming retrial for murder. tommy and ray hires were going back to court to see if free men they would remain. >> coming up, a courtroom game of chicken. who blinked first. >> it was really disingenuous. they were saving face. geico could save them money on car insurance, right? you see the thing is geico, well, could help them save on boat insurance too. hey! okay...i'm ready to come in now.

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the hall of justice was waiting again for tommy and ray hires. the very place they were sent away in the first >> i hate going to the courtroom. i hate going to the courthouse. i hate parking in the parking lot to get to the courthouse of

the know what i mean? it's something that i just, but it's something that i got to deal with, and it's going to be head on. >> as we talked, two weeks before the scheduled start of their trial, the wayne county prosecutor's office was forging ahead, once again charging the brothers with the murder of old man bob. >> how nervous are you about this? >> of course you're going to be nervous. your lives are in other people's hands still. >> for the past several months, their attorneys had been attending pre-trial hearings, sending motions back and forth as lawyers do, all the while hoping the d.a. would come to see it their way and simply drop the charges. >> i was confident that it was a game of chicken, because they had no evidence. >> and with each legal step, they were disappointed. the d.a., it seemed perfectly clear, was very serious. >> all rise. >> then, just a few days after our interview with the brothers, september, 2013, everyone assembled in the courtroom.

assistant d.a. reynolds had something to say. >> uyour honor, based on communications with the deseed ebtss' family, based on a recognition of what 26 years can do to the trybility of a case, we would move to dismiss the case against the defendants at this point in time. >> and that was it. case dismissed. no new trial. >> it's not often that you give somebody their life back. and that's what we did. we gave them their life back. it was incredible. it was incredible. >> but, before they all left the courtroom, the prosecutor pointedly reserved the right to re-file murder charges if new evidence ever surfaces. >> are you going to allow this to hang over your head the rest of your life? >> absolutely not. in the last year we haven't allowed it to hang over our hides. we've moved on. and we're going to continue to do that. >> the wayne county prosecutor

declined dateline's request for an interview took a parting shot at the brothers, issued a statement saying just as we did 26 years ago, we firmly believe in the evidence in this case. we have worked diligently to bring this case to trial. with the passage of time, it is an unfortunate reality that this case cannot be put back together, and we must dismiss it. sadly, in this case, justice was not done. end quote. really? said the people who freed tommy and ray? >> it was really disingenuous. it was not right. >> disingenuous is a polite word. what does it mean? >> it means they were saving face. >> they already have the stain of 25 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit. and then you have the prosecutor's office saying, yeah, right, kind of like, we

still think they're guilty. >> so what do tommy and ray hires get for their 25 years in prison? for all the agony they've been through, damage to their reputations, the loss of a chance to have a normal life for all those years, what do they get out of that? what do they get in return? >> they get nothing. michigan didn't have a wrongful conviction statute. they walk out of prison with absolutely nothing. >> nothing except, of course, everything. including the chance to celebrate with the people who helped free them. mary, whose facebook post started it all. >> did you ever imagine you would cause such a thing? >> no. not in a million years. it's hard to get my head around it, you know. >> kevin who still shies away from taking credit. >> i happen to be a lawyer. it doesn't seem that extraordinary to me. >> and john hellsher who can

finally put the past where it belongs -- behind him. >> like i told them, i said i just wish i could have done something earlier. you wouldn't have had to sit there for so many years. and tommy looked at me, gave me a hug and says, it's the way it was supposed to happen. it had to happen like this. >> they don't seem bitter at all. >> not when i met them. just glad that they're out and they're free. >> free men, who know none of it would have happened without family and friends, that dream team of lawyers and an investigator and of course facebook. >> what would you like to say to those people who helped you along the way? >> thank you from the bottom of our hearts. for believing, understanding and taking the time that most people don't do. it's like, you know, a dream come true for us. because it's what we've always been hoping for. somebody to help us. that's why we just want to live and move forward. we know it's gone. it's the past.

move on. better days. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joi good monday morning. coming up on "early today," violent storms with over a foot of snow and tornadoes and massive damage across several states. more severe weather is in store for today. mea culpa. donald sterling begs for forgiveness as his estranged wife begs to keep the l.a. clippers. ukraine vote. sovereignty is erwhelmingly favored, but how will russia's putin respond. plus, barbara walters on "saturday night live." incredible images of twins born holding hands. and the washington monument finally opens today after earthquake repair. it is monday, may 12th. "early today" starts right now. well, ll