Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Hey, listeners, I want to tell you about a podcast
0:03
we hope you'll enjoy. It's called Suspect,
0:05
Five Shots in the Dark. I'm one of the
0:07
hosts, Matt Scher. In the latest
0:09
season, alongside co-host Laura Bazelon,
0:12
we look at a case with two victims, one
0:15
murdered in cold blood and one in prison
0:17
for a crime he did not commit.
0:19
The podcast follows Leon Benson's story,
0:22
a man who spent more than half of his
0:24
life, a total of 24 years,
0:26
in an Indiana State prison for the murder
0:28
of Casey Shane, a man he never
0:30
met.
0:31
Casey was murdered in the middle of an August night,
0:34
shot point blank while idling in his Dodge
0:36
pickup truck in North Indianapolis.
0:39
There was no physical evidence, no
0:41
known motive, and no one coming forward
0:43
with information, except one woman
0:45
who swears to this day she saw Leon
0:48
Detroit Benson pull the trigger. Leon
0:50
was sentenced to 60 years in prison, all
0:53
because one person swore they saw something.
0:56
But
0:56
what if that person was wrong?
0:58
From Wondery and Campside Media comes Season 3
1:01
of the hit podcast Suspect.
1:03
This is a story of a botched police investigation,
1:06
the dangers of shaky eyewitness testimony,
1:09
and a community who feared law enforcement,
1:11
with good reason.
1:13
I'm about to play you a clip from Suspect, Five
1:15
Shots in the Dark. While you're listening, follow
1:18
Suspect wherever you get your podcasts.
1:20
You can binge Suspect ad-free on Wondery+.
1:24
Find Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or
1:26
on Apple Podcasts.
1:35
A long time ago, I remember watching an
1:37
episode of Oprah about eyewitness
1:39
testimony. I actually haven't been able to find
1:42
the episode in question online. This
1:44
would have been like three decades ago, when
1:46
I was a kid, home from school, watching
1:48
TV.
1:50
It's entirely possible I imagined parts
1:52
of it. But in my memory, Oprah,
1:54
without telling anyone, has this guy run
1:56
on stage and snatch up a purse belonging
1:59
to one of the panelists.
1:59
And then afterwards, Oprah
2:02
asks everyone to identify the thief.
2:05
But no one can. Each person
2:07
Oprah asks, they've got a different answer
2:09
as to what the guy looked like.
2:12
I don't remember how the show ended. I probably went
2:14
off and played some duck hunt. But it
2:16
lodged in my head. As I got older,
2:19
started working in journalism, and
2:21
writing about the criminal justice system, it
2:23
would periodically pop back into my head.
2:26
A reminder of just how fallible the
2:28
human eye
2:30
and memory can be. So
2:32
wait, let me just back up. Okay, tell
2:34
me when you first noticed the truck. Uh,
2:38
probably like it was maybe a block and a half
2:40
north of there.
2:43
But it was just driving down Pennsylvania
2:45
past where I was out of my vehicle. Do
2:48
you think it stopped and then
2:50
went around again? Or do you think it just
2:52
went by you, went around and came back around?
2:55
The Oprah segment came to mind the first time
2:57
I heard this tape, which was recorded near
2:59
Indianapolis in 2022. The
3:02
details aren't really important, not yet.
3:05
For now, all you need to know is that the first
3:07
voice belongs to Lara Basilon. She's
3:09
a law professor.
3:11
The second voice belongs to a woman named
3:13
Kristy Schmidt. And yeah, those
3:15
are wind chimes
3:16
in the background. Nice, right?
3:19
Okay. So car stops,
3:22
you don't think about it. You
3:24
hear something that sounds like firecrackers that
3:26
turns out to be gunshots. You look up and what's
3:28
the first thing you remember
3:29
seeing when you looked up? Just
3:33
the gentleman outside the truck. On the
3:35
sidewalk. Yeah, on the sidewalk, on the passenger
3:37
side.
3:38
Can you describe whatever you remember
3:40
him looking like? You know, I really couldn't,
3:43
you know, like anything
3:45
that I remember. I would say all
3:48
I can really remember are probably blackmail
3:50
and I remember, I believe it was black
3:52
pants with white stripes on them. This
3:54
blackmail was about 150 feet from Kristy. It
3:58
was early morning, dark and misty.
3:59
Still, later,
4:02
Kristi goes to a police station and picks
4:04
a face out of a photo array. There's
4:07
the shooter, she says. Do you
4:09
remember how you felt when you were looking at the pictures
4:11
and what kind
4:13
of a situation that was? How are you feeling?
4:16
Well, you know, I guess, for lack
4:18
of better, I don't know, nervous, uneasy,
4:21
but, you know, I
4:25
don't and have
4:27
never in 24 years have
4:30
I even thought that I could have identified him
4:32
wrong. And what makes you confident?
4:34
You know, I have to say that was one time
4:36
that face literally jumped off that paper at
4:39
me. I
4:41
mean, it was basically
4:44
went right back to that night.
4:46
And I don't I don't
4:48
doubt one bit that I
4:51
that I made a false
4:53
accusation about it or anything else.
4:55
Well Kristi's saying here it sounds so
4:58
unambiguous, so certain, certain
5:01
enough that it would lead to an arrest, an indictment,
5:04
a guilty verdict and a sentence of 60 years.
5:08
But here's the thing. It was almost
5:10
certainly wrong.
5:13
What interests me most about that wrongness is not
5:15
its rarity, but its commonness.
5:18
Dig deep enough into any questionable conviction
5:21
and you'll inevitably find small errors
5:24
that over time have accrued their
5:26
own terrible power,
5:27
like a pellet of ice
5:29
that becomes a snowball that becomes
5:32
an avalanche. This
5:35
is a story about one of those cases,
5:38
but it's also a story about how difficult,
5:40
how nearly impossible it can be to dig
5:42
a person out again, even when
5:45
nearly everyone involved
5:46
believes it's the right thing to do.
5:59
or on Apple
6:01
Podcasts.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More