survivors and survivors keep on living life. and we're survivors. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." i tell people it's the miracle of facebook. all i did was put one sentence, just one sentence. >> it's not often that you get to be a hero. >> i got halfway through this and just went, "oh, my god!" >> the murder happened in seconds. >> one was coming straight at me in gym with a gun leveled at us. i never ran so fast in my life. >> the truth took decades. >> i said, you know what, give me a lie detector test. >> i never believed it for one minute, never. >> did someone have it all

wrong? were innocent men in prison for a murder they did not commit? a 22-year mystery until facebook helped old friends find each other and justice. >> did you ever imagine you would actually cause such a thing? >> 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. >> all rise. >> now, they just had to get someone to believe them. >> oh, my god, we're losing. oh, my god, we're winning. oh, my god, we're losing. >> we'll face whatever has to come. >> this was it. >> this was it, for sure. hello and welcome to "dateline." it started with a party, high school seniors celebrating the end of the school year and new beginnings.

but before the night was through, one man would be dead and two others could not know it then but they would be facing a decades-long battle to prove their innocence. here's keith morrison with "graduation night." >> in the suburbs outside detroit, michigan, in the summer of 2009, a divorced mother of three named mary evans was poking around in one of her favorite places, facebook. >> you can look up what everyone is up to, where are they at today, are they successful, did they take the wrong path? >> dear mary, no idea that innocent poking into her past would dredge up a shocking truth, long buried. >> i was stunned. it was unbelievable. >> and a nightmare's worth of terror. >> i could have been killed that day. >> and would bring together an unlikely band of friends, old and new, in a fight to right a

terrible wrong. >> and then a miracle happened. >> but no. in 2009, it was just an ordinary summer day, no sign of providence anywhere. just mary reminiscing about the old days and friends long since gone away and, well, you know how it is. a person wonders. not such an uncommon thing among people who grew up as mary did in northeast detroit. >> when i moved in it was actually a nice neighborhood. you could walk around the streets singing at 1:00 in the morning in the summer and never had to worry about anything. >> yeah. >> and then -- >> it changed. >> oh, it definitely changed. started really going downhill. >> but on that particular summer day, mary was in a mood to remember the good times, good friends. and on facebook, there was something called the northeast detroit alumni group. so what did you do in this group on facebook?

>> what that was all about is being in touch with long lost friends, people from the neighborhood. >> including a couple of brothers, old friends from the neighborhood, who she remembered, with a twinge, did not turn out so well. tommy and ray highers, went to prison, in fact, for murder. mary followed the case way back then in 1987, remembers just how she felt when they were found guilty. >> i was shocked. you know, i was shocked to hear that. i thought, no way. >> didn't sound like them to you? >> no. >> anyway, there she was, thinking about them again, fondly. so she wrote a line about missing them whenever she hears a certain song on the radio and then she sighed and pushed the send button and look out. >> people might have trouble believing that such a simple thing as a posting on facebook could make whole worlds change. >> a lot of people ask, well, what was it? what did you do? what happened? >> i said all i did was put one sentence. just one sentence.

>> so, she did. and 500 miles away, in the suburbs of washington, d.c. -- what were you doing on facebook? >> just wasting time, like a lot of people do. >> kevin zell zieleniewski grew up in detroit, too, but was now an international trade attorney in d.c. he and mary didn't know each other, weren't even facebook friends for that matter. but both belonged to that northeast detroit group, which is why that very same summer day in 2009, he happened to see mary's post about those boys in prison for murder. >> said something to the effect that tommy and raymond highers are in prison for life. every time i hear "miss you" by the stones, i think of those guys. >> did you know those two guys? >> no, i didn't know them. >> which, by all rights, should have been the end of it. but something in that post tripped a wire deep in the crater of kevin's memory. that name, highers. he had heard it before. he was sure of it.

in connection with a murder case, way back in the late '80s, and that memory lit up another one, clear as day, the indelible memory of a bizarre story a college roommate told him one night in '93 or so. he could hardly believe it then. but now when he saw mary's post, no, couldn't be. were those old stories somehow connected? maybe mary could tell him. >> i sent back to her, they wouldn't happen to be in prison for killing old man bob and she got back and said, yes, they are in prison for killing old man bob. >> old man bob was robert karey, well-known fence, loan shark, drug dealer, murdered at the back door of his east detroit home in the summer of 1987. kevin was already on the computer that day in 2009, so he pulled up the michigan department of corrections website, saw pictures of tommy and ray highers, confirmed they

were in prison, doing life without parole for the murder of old man bob. it was then it hit him like a brick in the face -- something about those pictures was very, very wrong. only one thing to do. kevin picked up the phone and called that old college roommate, a man he hadn't seen for at least a decade, this man, john hielscher. >> he said it was about old man bob. i started freaking out. i'm not doing it. i'm not doing any of this. >> how come? >> scared. felt scared. >> but if he was scared now, oh, just wait. mary's little post and the connections it pulled up in kevin's brain had just made john hielscher part of a team he wasn't sure he wanted to belong to 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 really happened the night old man bob was murdered.

coming up -- >> i got halfway through and just went, "oh, my god!" >> when "dateline" continues. n ♪ ♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever. stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some... rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system

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theraflu hot beats cold. something serendipitous was in the wind in detroit. as summer turned to fall in 2009, a woman's simple facebook post about old friends now in

prison for life was written by a detroit native turned d.c. lawyer who got curious, looked up their pictures, and -- >> couldn't sleep really at the beginning, just thinking about it. >> and wondering what you should do. >> yeah, wondering what to do about it. >> what he did was call his old college roommate, john hielscher, the man who way back in 1993 told him a story about the murder of old man bob. tell me why you called jon hill scherr. >> 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 did. he remembered it exactly on the phone as he did when he first told me the story. >> the story, that john hielscher 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 highers 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 in gross point 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 things i've had to do, when you're strapped up -- >> that's weird, isn't it. >> oh, i was just sweating

buckets. >> reporter: and, the polygrapher detected john was being truthful. he passed with flying colors. but then, nothing. neither kevin nor john heard anything more from that lawyer. >> i just thought it got dropped, you know? kind of, you know, wishing, good, it's not going to come back, that's it. >> and 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 highers brothers. >> we weren't getting anywhere. >> private eye julian kunio agreed to work the case for a fraction of her fee when the highers family begged her to find evidence of the boys' innocence. 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 weighing out bags of weed. people are calling and saying, hey, 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 on the street. we built this animation to illustrate what he later told the police. >> about 8:30, an omni or horizon, light in color, pulled up in front of his house and two guys got out and walked up the driveway to the back door. and he hears shots fired and shortly thereafter, he sees some guys hoofing down the driveway. they get back in the omni horizon and drive off. >> so, this guy, the witness says must have been them. >> right. 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 getaway car. no luck. so, the cops canvassed the usual suspects, and, bingo.

a jailhouse informant named a possible shooter, neighborhood kid named tommy highers. what do you know, tommy knew old man bob, owed him money, used drugs, even told friends he was going to visit bob that night. they prepared a lineup, but when they showed the pictures to that eyewitness, he didn't pick out tommy. he pointed on 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 after the murder. so, both brothers were arrested and tried and convicted. and sitting in the courtroom, the aunt who would love them all their lives, was devastated. >> i can't even imagine why they got life without parole even, without parole? >> this is aunt jan herth. >> it was very hopeless. very hopeless. >> did you believe that they would have done -- >> 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 walked with the faith and i was just 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. >> we schooled ourselves. we always took any kind of programs they had to offer. >> both of you? >> yeah, absolutely. worked every day and just held our heads up. >> but, to prove their innocence, they needed some solid, new evidence. and by 2009, after 22 years, even their family had about given up on that. had you actually gotten to the stage where you thought, well, thez just, 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, julianne kunio, stopped working the case, or tried to. but tommy kept on calling. >> i'd be like, you can't keep calling me. then one day, i picked up the phone and it was tommy again. and i just didn't have anything to do. i said, fine, fine. this was purely to get tommy off my back. i thought i was going to do a couple things and i'd be done, again. >> yeah. >> yeah. i could 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 hielscher, 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 ]! like, oh, my god! >> coming up, a close encounter with killers. >> i'm dead. that's the first thing that came to my head, he's going to shoot

me. >> but are they the same men spending life in prison for murder? >> i tell people, it's the miracle of facebook. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues we built the wall to keep us all safe.

safe from what? ah! it's just a little monkey. that's not good. oh! we have to save them. what's the plan? new tribe name. thunder sisters. thunder sisters. [ tribal yell ] [ yelling ] i tell people, it's the miracle of facebook. you know, without facebook, it wouldn't have happened. >> detroit private eye julianne cuneo had been baffled for years about the mystery surrounding the murder of old man bob, the

murder that put tommy and ray highers in prison for life. then out of the blue, late 2010, just because some woman had a moment of nostalgia and posted a casual note on facebook, an affidavit landed on julianne's desk from a man she had never heard of. john hielscher. >> it had to be real. it had to be true. >> it's like a piece of heaven falling down and landing in your lap. >> right, yeah. >> john told julianne what happened that awful night in the detroit summer of 1987. it was party night, he said. john and his classmates had just graduated from gross point north high school. that's in the suburb where the captains of industry lived, several miles and tax brackets across the city line from detroit. and after a few beers, the partiers decided to drive over and buy some marijuana from old man bob. >> just call up, say you're coming by, go to the back door, there. and that's what we were going to do that night. >> so, john and four friends

hopped in a car, which was, by the way, a white plymouth horizon, and drove over to make the buy. and when they got there, they walked up the driveway to bob's back door, just as that eyewitness later told the police, except for one detail, and it was a big one. the eyewitness identified the highers brothers as the young men he saw in the driveway, but, said john hielscher, it wasn't them. it was him. he and one of his grosse pointe buddies went up that driveway. >> we made it to the back door. and as soon as we knocked on the door and he opened it, i heard commotion behind me, and we saw people jump over the fence coming towards us. and one with a gun leveled at us. and we saw all of 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've never ran so fast in my life. as we were running back, they heard the gunshot. i said get the hell out of here. and 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 freaking out. we all were. and people were wondering, what's the matter with you? what happened? and then someone told them what happened and people, oh, we don't believe you. they didn't believe us. >> but you were fraeking out. >> oh, yeah. i could have been killed that day. >> came close. >> came close. i had a gun pointed right, right to my face. >> then when he went home, said john, he watched the news, read the papers and looked for news of the shooting but didn't see anything. never did find out what happened to old man bob. >> you know, i didn't hear nothing of it. i didn't know -- i never saw him actually die. >> yeah. >> so, i didn't really know. >> so, he said, he just tried to forget it. he joined the army, served in

the persian gulf, moved on with his life and never told a sole, apart from his girlfriend. and then one night in 1993, six years after the incident, he told kevin zieleniewski, and it was one telling detail in john's story that kevin never forgot -- those people who jumped over the fence? they weren't white kids. they were black. you had no idea that two men went to prison for this? >> no, not until kevin called me in 2009. >> did you even know the highers brothers? >> i had no clue who they were, never seen them in my life. >> total strangers? >> total strangers. and i said, this isn't right, because it was -- 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 just proves everything we've said and believed 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 steeltrab memory, now gave aunt jan and all those who loved and believed in tommy and ray new determination. the family brought in a whole new legal team with one goal -- nail down the evidence, get the brothers out of prison. attorneys jan knapp and valerie newman. >> 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. >> it was pins and needles. i mean, it was our life. >> this was it. >> this was it, for sure. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues another bundle in the books. got to hand it to you, jamie. your knowledge of victorian architecture really paid off this time. nah, just got lucky. so did the thompsons. that faulty wiring could've cost them a lot more than the mudroom. thankfully they bundled their motorcycle with their home and auto. they're protected 24/7. mm. what do you say? one more game of backgammon? [ chuckles ] not on your life. [ laughs ] ♪ when the lights go down

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i'm milissa rehberger. president trump turned his briefing into a press conference with reporters, but despite repeated claims of fraud, trump admitted that he will certainly leave the white house in january when biden is sworn in. and the newly conservative supreme court is already having an impact, striking down new york's covid restrictions on religious gatherings in a 5-4 decision. amy coney barrett was the deciding vote. back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. after spending more than 20 years behind bars for a murder they said they did not commit, tommy and ray highers were given

two valuable things -- hope and a potential eyewitness, a stranger named john hielscher had come forward to insist he saw the real killers. but could one man's claim be enough to overturn a conviction? for tommy and ray's team, it was time to go about the task of proving it. once again, here's keith morrison with "graduation night." >> private eye julianne cuneo and the others who joined her efforts for the highers brothers, believed the newly discovered witness, john hielscher, was telling the truth. now, if they could only find those four high school friends hielscher claimed were with him, the night he and then went to buy marijuana from a neighborhood drug dealer known as old man bob, back in 1987, a trip that ended in gunfire. first, bad news. 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 fleeing the scene. and that was important, to be able to make that connection. >> right, because the linchpin of all this is that these guys were in a white omni, omni horizon. they're the same car, basically. >> and then, one by one, they did find them, the kids, now 40-somethings, who had been in the car and heard the very same things john hielscher told them. this man, john korver, was riding in the passenger's seat and he confirmed the story. >> you could see it dawn on his face, that two guys had been sitting in jail for nearly 25 years. >> the woman, who was a high school senior, was dating one of the men in the car, confirmed she saw it, too, though getting her to talk was no easy task. but none was more reluctant than that young man who had walked up the drive to the back door with john hielscher and then fled down again in terror when a shot was fired.

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 and attorney. he refused to tell the investigators 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 -- you know, it's not often that you get to be a hero. >> finally, what could the lawyers do? they subpoenaed him. >> it had to be done. we had two innocent men in prison. there was no choice. >> and finally, they all wound up right here, detroit's frank murphy hall of justice, spring, 2012. the lawyers appointed to represent the long-imprisoned brothers, tommy and ray highers, had hoped to avoid this. they'd allowed themselves to think the wayne county d.a.'s office might see the new evidence about the night old man bob was killed, see the mistake

was made, and rectify it. but -- >> we had a prosecutor's office that was very uncooperative, in the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence. >> did that surprise you? >> no. it's an amazing ability to blind yourself to everything except what you want to look at. >> 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 crowded the courtroom of judge lawrence talon, who would decide if the new evidence merited a new trial.

>> all right, want to bring them out? >> finally, tommy and ray highers 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, honor, valerie newman, state appellate office -- >> when i got to the hearing, it was all out warfare. >> all right, call your first witness? >> the defense laid out the strange tale from the start with mary evans and her 2009 facebook post. >> ms. evans, why have you come forward in this case? >> you know, on the streets, i always heard that highers 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 zieleniewski. >> on the stand, kevin retold the story that john, the old roommate told him, way back in 1993. >> he made a comment to the effect that, wow, you wouldn't believe what happened that night. >> and so, said kevin, he felt a duty to step in. >> and why are you here today? >> 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 had gone to buy marijuana for their graduation party, and that it was their friends, not the highers 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 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. >> defense calls john hielscher. >> what was it like, the process of testifying 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 hielscher, who was horrified he never found out for certain that old man bob was murdered, told the story he'd never before publicly discussed, complete with what he heard and saw after walking up to old man bob's 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 next? >> i saw a larger african-american male with what appeared to be a shotgun. and then i saw another african-american male with a handgun, told us to get [ bleep ] out of there. >> and what did you do then? >> i proceeded to turn around and run as fast as i could. >> did you hear anything? >> as i was turning to run, i did 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 people that -- >> objection! >> but then it was the wayne county assistant prosecutor's turn, who made it perfectly clear, she didn't believe all those new witnesses coming forward to tell the story or what they said in their sworn

statements, which she'd picked apart, word by word. >> no, ma'am, that's not correct. >> oh, it's not correct? so, your affidavit is wrong? >> the assistant prosecutor went methodically through the testimony of each witness and suggested, sometimes gently, sometimes not, that they were all lying, had concocted the whole story to help free tommy and ray highers. >> aren't they friends with you on facebook? >> my understanding is that -- >> no, no, listen to my question -- aren't they friends with you on facebook? yes or no? >> well, i would say no, because -- >> but, said tommy and ray's attorneys, it was the assistant prosecutor who concocted a story. >> the prosecution had nothing to contradict our theory, just absolutely nothing. and so, when you have nothing, you concoct something. and so, what they concocted was a grand conspiracy theory. >> did that surprise you? >> it did. to have people who were unconnected to the defendants to come together in this huge conspiracy to cook something up

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 highers brothers their first shot at freedom in 25 years. >> coming up, the judge rules. will the highest brothers get a second chance? >> we'll fight and we'll face whatever has to come. >> when "dateline" continues. te >> when "dateline" continues airlines, hotels, food delivery, and especially car dealers all charge excessive, last-minute fees. when you want something badly enough, it feels like your only choice is to pay up. but what if you had a choice to take a stand instead? at carvana, we believe in treating you better. with zero hidden fees, you can drive off without feeling ripped off. that's what it means to live feelessly. [ sneeze ] skip to cold relief fast with

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by the summer of 2012, tommy and ray highers had been fighting to clear their names for 25 years. and now, judge lawrence talon had heard all the new evidence. this was the moment. >> this is the court's decision on the defendants' motion for relief from judgment. >> but with all the history, the legalese, the new evidence, the witnesses -- >> the prosecution was meticulous in playing out inconsistencies and differences between testimony and -- >> it took the judge two full hours to explain the basis for his decision. the reasons, he said, he had no choice but to rule a particular way. >> oh, my nerves were, like, shaking. >> as tommy and ray, their courtroom full of family and friends and attorneys agonized, some felt almost ill. >> just sitting through the ruling almost killed me. i'm thinking, oh, my god, we're

losing. oh, my god, we're losing. oh, my god, we're winning. oh, my god, we're losing. >> until the judge finally said the words -- >> this evidence meets all the requirements for this court to grant the requested relief by the defendants. all right, i've -- >> a weight just fell off my shoulders. it was just, oh, finally. thank you. thank you. >> and everybody was hugging. and it was just a joyous scene. >> you would think, looking at this, that tommy and ray highers had just been declared innocent of the murder 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. [ cheers and applause ] and tommy and raymond highers 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. >> sweetie! oh, my god! >> oh, man! hell, yeah! >> here's my wonderful attorney. i'll tell you now. i'll tell you now! >> yeah! >> hey, hey, she is the bomb. >> phenomenal! >> but tommy and ray highers 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 feelings that go through your. >> which gave us a chance to talk to them, as they prepared for their biggest fight yet for exoneration, and, they hoped,

permanent freedom. >> we'll fight and we'll face whatever has to come. >> and here they told us their version of what happened the night old man bob was killed. >> we got involved in things we shouldn't have been involved in. >> right. >> drugs. that was the main thing. >> and that night, june 26th, 1987, the brothers did, indeed, go over to bob's house, they said, saw the police were there, and assumed -- >> you know, we figured he was being raided. >> that's exactly what we thought, that he was being raided. never even stopped. there was so much police out there that we just kept going. >> it never occurred to us that he was murdered. >> right. >> a week later, they were under arrest. >> walked in there and never walked out. >> they were 21 and 22 when they went in, but now, they said, they are not the same men as they were then and that that is a good thing. >> i'm not ashamed of being in prison, because prison made them -- that's who i am today. prison made this man. my morals, my integrity --

>> i mean, in a way, a positive experience, and yet one you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. >> right, right, exactly. >> you still hold onto the light, and you know, you just push forward every day. >> what's on the agenda today, guys? >> after their release, they moved in with their aunt jan and wore electronic tethers to monitor their whereabouts, mandated by the court. they were like rip van winkel, awakened to the real world, learning to use cell phones, getting their driver's licenses. >> waiting to get that all my life. first one i've ever had. >> and getting up in the morning and going to work. ray, at an industrial heating and cooling company, tommy head of maintenance at an apartment complex. and at the very same time, the wayne county prosecutor's office was preparing its case against them, to put them back into prison for life, preparing it as we sat here talking. though, as the brothers told us here, the d.a. has put an offer on the table. they can keep their freedom, if

they agree to one condition -- what plea are they offering? >> for us to plead guilty and we would get time served. >> would you? >> no. >> we stood on our innocence and we screamed it to the top of our lungs for 25 years. and then for the people that got behind us and believed in us, for us to do that would just be, 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. >> 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 highers 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. >> disingenuous is such a polite word. what does it really mean? >> it means they were saving face. >> when "dateline" continues. ang face. >> when "dateline" continues ree. there is a bit of an issue with our neighbors fencing. neighbor 1: allez! (sound from wind chimes) neighbor 2: (laughing) at least geico makes bundling our home and car insurance easy. which helps us save even more. neighbor 2: hey, sarah, hey, peter! neighbor 1: touché. neighbor 2: ahhh! neighbor 1: pret! neighbor 2: en garde! for bundling made easy, go to geico.com shingles doesn't care. i logged 10,000 steps today. shingles doesn't care. i get as much fresh air as possible. good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but no matter how healthy you feel,

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the hall of justice was waiting again for tommy and ray highers, the very place they were sent away in the first place.

>> i hate going into the courtroom. i hate going to the courthouse. i hate parking in the parking lot to get to the courthouse, you know what i mean? it's like, i just -- but it's something that we've 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 robert karey, old man bob. how nervous are you about this? >> you know, of course, you're going to be nervous. i mean, your lives are in other people's hands, still. >> for the past several months, tommy and ray's defense attorneys had been attending pretrial hearings, sending motion 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. >> but with each legal step in the march toward trial, they were disappointed. the d.a., had 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 prosecutor reynolds had something to say. >> your honor, at this time, based on consultation with prosecutor worthy, based on communications with the decedent's family, based on a recognition of what 26 years can do to the trialability 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 you get to give somebody their lives back, and that's what we do. we gave them their lives back. it was incredible. it was incredible. >> but before they all left the courtroom, the prosecutor pointedly reserved the right to refile murder charges, if new evidence ever surfaces. >> are you going to allow this to hang over your head for the rest of your life? >> absolutely not. i mean, in the last year, we haven't allowed it to hang over

our heads, you know. we moved on, you know? we've moved on in life, and we're going to continue to do that. >> the wayne county prosecutor, kim worthy, who 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." >> freedom! >> really? >> how are you doing? >> said the people who freed tommy and ray. >> it was really disingenuous. it was not right. >> disingenuous is such a plight word. what does it really mean? >> it means they were saving face. >> it puts a stain on them that they don't deserve. 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. >> in 2016, michigan lawmakers passed the wrongful imprisonment compensation act, calling for the state to pay exonerated prisoners $50,000 for every year spent behind bars. the higher brothers sued the state for just over $1.2 million each. and in october 2019, the michigan attorney general's office settled the suit, agreeing to pay the full amount. of course, in the days immediately following their release, nothing could compare to the chance to celebrate with the people who helped make it happen, like mary, whose facebook post started everything. did you ever imagine you would actually cause such a thing? >> no, no, not in a million years. it's hard to get my head around it, you know? it's just an awesome feeling. >> sure. >> kevin, who still shies away

from taking credit -- >> i happen to be a lawyer. it doesn't really seem that extraordinary to me. >> and john hielscher, who can finally put the past where it belongs, behind him. >> it's like i told him, 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 he says, "it's the way it was supposed to happen. it had to happen like this." >> yeah. they didn't seem bitter at all? >> not when i met them. just glad they're home and 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 investigators, 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 heart. >> yeah. >> 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 this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> one of the investigators brought somebody over to me, saying "this is our violent crime advocate." i was stealing myself for it already because of the massive police presence. they said that they believed that he had been murdered. >> craig rideout, dad of seven, cared deeply about his kids. >> he was a loving man, provider, warm. >> so it was puzzling and alarming when he vanished. >> she said, craig is not here. i said, that's weird. >>