0:03

On January seventeenth, nineteen ninety

0:05

three, a fire ripped through two adjacent

0:07

apartment buildings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

0:11

Many onlookers, including a man named

0:14

Dan Carnivali, witnessed the mayhem

0:16

that took three lives. Soon

0:20

information was released to the media that

0:22

two blank checks and a set of keys

0:25

had been taken from the apartment building. Dan

0:28

Carnivali's roommates once found a

0:30

number of old checks from that apartment

0:33

complex under his bet, so

0:35

they reported him to the police. After

0:38

Dan convinced police that he had come upon the

0:40

blaze after the fact, he was released

0:42

and he moved to California. The case

0:44

went cold for nearly fourteen years

0:47

until an eyewitness came forward with

0:49

a different account of Dan's whereabouts

0:51

that night. Dan was dragged back

0:54

to Pennsylvania, where he allegedly

0:56

confessed to a fellow inmate

0:58

while awaiting trial, saying

1:00

that he was in fact the culprit

1:03

all those many years ago. But

1:06

this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful

1:15

conviction has always given voice to innocent

1:18

people in prison. Now we're expanding

1:20

that voice to you. Call

1:22

us at eight three three two O seven

1:25

four six sixty six and leave us a message,

1:27

tell us how these powerful, often tragic

1:30

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1:32

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1:35

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1:37

in a future episode. Call us A

1:39

three three two O seven four six

1:41

sixty six. Welcome

1:51

back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got an

1:53

alleged arson case out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

1:56

again involving ATF

1:59

agents William Patritis and Jason

2:01

Wick, as well as ATF chemist

2:03

William Kinnard. And you may remember one

2:06

or all of them from the cases of Greg Brown and Christine

2:08

Bunch, and of course we'll have both of those stories

2:10

linked in the episode description. But now

2:12

we're going to hear from another

2:15

one of their victims, Dan

2:17

Carnivale. Dan, I'm

2:19

so sorry for the reason you're here

2:22

and for what you went through, but we're

2:24

so happy and honored to have you here today.

2:26

Thank you and joining him. You

2:29

may recognize her from our coverage of Greg

2:31

Brown's case. She's the managing

2:33

attorney of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project,

2:36

Liz Deloso.

2:37

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

2:38

Glad to have you, and last but not least,

2:41

Dan civil attorney Alec Right, Alec,

2:44

Welcome, to wrongful conviction.

2:45

Thanks for having me.

2:47

Now, Alec. My understanding is that you're

2:49

also from Pittsburgh. But this fire happened

2:51

way back in ninety three when you were still

2:53

just a kid, while Dan at the

2:55

time was already twenty nine. But crazily

2:58

he didn't get prosecuted until weeen

3:00

years after that. But before we unpack

3:03

all of that, Dan, I want to hear more about what

3:05

it was like growing up in Pittsburgh and being

3:07

a teenager in the Steel City

3:09

at that time. You were raised in Polish

3:11

Hill, right.

3:12

Yes, I grew up on Polish Show in

3:14

Pittsburgh. I mean I did everything every

3:16

other teenager did, drank Bear

3:18

in the Woods.

3:19

Well, if I grew up there, I

3:22

pretty much can guarantee I would have been right

3:24

next to you.

3:25

That makes all of us separality.

3:27

My house, Dan, just so you know,

3:29

had the woods behind it where we stashed

3:32

the beer Steel City reserved. Dan, Was

3:34

that a beer that you guys had at Polish Hill?

3:36

Yeah, but I derailed the night

3:38

train a few times too.

3:40

During his twenties, Dan moved across Pittsburgh

3:43

to the tightly knit Italian neighborhood of Bloomfield,

3:45

where he was familiar with the buildings in

3:48

which the nineteen ninety three fire occurred.

3:50

I made some mistakes growing up,

3:52

and I had some hard times

3:55

in my twenties. I was a male thief.

3:58

That was what linked me to the building,

4:00

because I was still in their mail from their mailboxes.

4:03

I would get the checks from the building

4:05

and take them to poll the show and

4:08

have somebody cash them for me. I

4:10

mean, I drank out every night practically.

4:13

I just I like to buy drinks and make

4:15

myself look like I had money, And

4:17

that night was no exception. I just went

4:20

to the Luna that of karaoke to have

4:22

a DJ whatever, and I'd hang out

4:24

there until they closed, and then I'd walk back

4:26

to Bloomfield, where I lived. Most of that

4:29

night I don't remember, but I do remember

4:31

being at the sandwich shop and I was with

4:33

other people watching the fire. There

4:36

was just a load of people there and people

4:39

hanging out the windows, people

4:41

screaming and yelling. Just that's

4:43

I remember that.

4:45

During the early morning hours of January

4:47

seventeenth, nineteen eighty three, while Dan was

4:49

closing down the Lunar Bar and headed to

4:51

a local sandwich shop, a fire began

4:54

at the nearby Columbia Apartment Building

4:56

and spread next door to an apartment building

4:58

called the Regal.

5:00

Emergency calls started to come in

5:02

around four am. By

5:04

five thirty, it's a six alarm

5:07

fire. The fire has moved from

5:09

where it began in the basement all

5:12

the way to the roof,

5:14

and the northwest corner of

5:17

the Columbia Apartment building collapses.

5:19

Three apartment residents are killed. One

5:22

visitor is very severely

5:25

injured.

5:26

That was twenty year old Linda McCutcheon

5:28

who was staying with her friend. Twenty two

5:31

year old Christopher Stallman who

5:33

leaped to his death to escape the flames.

5:36

Sixty three year old Lawrence Lychkoe

5:38

and thirty one year old Anita Emery

5:40

died from smoke in elation. Thankfully,

5:42

twenty nine other residents managed to survive,

5:45

and they all reported the same thing.

5:47

In the weeks prior to

5:50

the fire. Witnesses would later

5:52

tell investigators that they had

5:54

like buzzing and clicking and banging

5:56

within their radiators, that some apartments

5:59

were really hot and some apartments were

6:01

not receiving heat at all, and then justin

6:04

the hours prior to like these nine

6:06

to one one calls coming in we have a

6:08

hissing, a buzzing, and banging within

6:10

the radiators. You know, later in

6:12

litigation, as we are investigating Dan's

6:15

case, or expert Douglas

6:17

Carpenter, one of the things that really stood

6:19

out to Doug was the fact that a

6:22

manual boiler, so a

6:24

boiler that really required someone

6:26

to keep up with it and to manually

6:28

feed the water into that boiler to

6:30

make sure that it wasn't overheating.

6:33

That boiler would have had all

6:35

of these signs or symptoms if

6:38

it was malfunctioning in the days and

6:40

weeks prior to the fire. Unfortunately,

6:43

these apartment residents were not interviewed

6:45

until days and weeks after

6:48

the arson determination.

6:50

Before speaking with these folks, the Pittsburgh

6:52

Arson Squad had called in the ATF

6:55

to assist with the investigation.

6:57

These are two ATF agents that investigated

7:00

the Greg Brown case, William Patritis

7:02

and Jason Wick, and they're doing

7:04

the same thing right. They're making

7:07

this arson determination very quickly

7:09

after the fire has been suppressed on visual

7:11

inspection alone, without the use of any

7:14

other experts, without ruling out any

7:16

additional accidental causes, without

7:19

all of the chemical analysis

7:21

having been even sent to the ACF

7:23

laboratory without witness interviews

7:26

being completed, and they're

7:28

not using the NFPA nine

7:31

twenty one, which at that point in nineteen

7:33

ninety three was in its first publication.

7:36

The NFPA nine twenty one is the National

7:39

Fire Protection Association's investigation

7:41

guide that signaled a paradigm

7:43

shift towards the scientific method

7:46

and away from the myths and folklore

7:48

nonsense that have been handed down

7:51

by arson investigation predecessors

7:53

visual cues that were believed to indicate

7:55

that a fire had been intentionally set

7:58

with accelerants. Modern science has

8:00

proved that none of that stuff

8:02

is true, but it was relied on,

8:04

and sadly in some places it still relied on for

8:07

generations and generations and generations.

8:09

We'll have our coverage of arson investigation

8:12

on wrongful conviction junk science linked

8:15

in the episode description as well. But

8:17

anyway, these ATF agents totally

8:20

ignored this paradigm

8:22

shift from myth to science

8:25

and instead search for support for

8:27

that determination that they had already made, and they interviewed

8:29

some of the people who worked at these buildings.

8:32

So the Regal Apartment building and the Columbia

8:34

Apartment Building are connected in the

8:36

basement via several

8:39

locked doors. In the Regal

8:41

apartment building, there was a can

8:43

of laquer thinner near kind of like the

8:45

back end of the basement. One of the

8:47

maintenance men tells investigators, I

8:50

can't find that can. It may

8:52

have been moved. Later, they

8:54

find a can of lacquer thinner

8:57

in the maintenance room

8:59

of the Columbia Apartment building, and

9:01

that starts to turn the wheels for investigators

9:04

that that must have been the can of lacker

9:06

thinner that was originally

9:09

stored in the Regal Apartment building.

9:12

Although there are lots and lots of chemicals

9:15

in this maintenance room, there is a insecticide,

9:18

there's gasoline, there's

9:20

a charcoal grill, there's lacquer

9:22

thinner, there's no reason to believe

9:25

that like this can of lacker thinner

9:27

was intentionally moved

9:30

by a perpetrator. It simply

9:32

could have been moved by one of the maintenance

9:34

men, of which there were several, or

9:37

just a different can of laquer thinner.

9:39

But that piques the investigator's

9:42

interests.

9:43

Then Patritis and Wick sent fifteen

9:45

samples from the building to their boy in

9:47

the ATF Lab William Canard.

9:50

William Canard has a conversation

9:52

with William Patritis prior

9:54

to finalizing his report,

9:56

and he says that in

9:59

samples three, nine, ten,

10:01

and six, there are elements

10:04

that lead into believe that there was a

10:06

presence of Lacquer Center, which was

10:09

used as an accelerant to start

10:11

this fire.

10:12

And now what they needed was the right suspect.

10:15

At this point, they had heard from a guy

10:17

named Chris palm Mary who found two sets

10:19

of keys and blank checks from the Columbia

10:22

in front of one of the building owners's

10:24

homes, and this information was

10:26

leaked to the local media, which piqued

10:29

the interest of Dan's roommates Keith

10:31

Playtech and Tammy Mancini.

10:33

The only thing that attached him to the Columbia

10:36

apartment buildings at the time was

10:38

Tammy Mancini and Keith Playtech saying,

10:41

you know that they found these checks.

10:43

Yeah, they found checks under the mattress

10:46

of the bed I slept in, but they were old.

10:48

They just happened to have that address on them.

10:50

So when Dan was interviewed about

10:52

that, you know, he readily admitted, yes,

10:55

this was my cash cow. I stole checks from

10:57

this place. So the police say,

11:00

he needs your jacket for testing. He says, take my

11:02

jacket for testing. They says, sit down for a

11:04

polygraph test.

11:05

He sits down for a polygraph test.

11:07

Oh, add they lost the coat and

11:09

they losched a polygraph test.

11:11

Both items cleared Dan, but if they hadn't,

11:13

surely they would have been saved. Additionally,

11:16

Dan had his alibi and no way

11:18

of having been able to get into these buildings.

11:20

Every exterior door to this building was locked.

11:23

The maintenance room where they say the fire started

11:25

was locked. The office where two

11:28

blank checks and keys that are later found

11:30

on the owner of the building's doorstep after

11:32

this fire was locked. The

11:35

room in the regal building where Liz

11:37

was describing, you name your accelerant, that's

11:39

in this.

11:39

Room, okay. Locked.

11:41

The access to the regal building is an l

11:43

two by four over the door.

11:46

Can't get into it. Everywhere down of

11:48

this basement locked, and everybody

11:51

tells them this. August Paluso, the owner

11:53

of the building, Orlando Syrium Belly,

11:55

who is the person who actually goes in and locks

11:57

the doors that night, and Ronald t who

12:00

is one of the maintenance people at the time, all

12:02

say everything's locked. Dan

12:05

has only ever taken checks from an outdoor

12:07

courtyard.

12:08

So if this had been arson, the

12:11

assailant either had to have had keys

12:13

or have broken in somehow. So

12:16

the when this interviews continued and

12:18

one building resident, Paul Parter, said

12:21

that he had heard a party going on that night,

12:23

which corroborated a statement from a guy

12:26

named Sean Maxwell.

12:28

On January eighteenth of nineteen ninety

12:30

three, the day after this fire, Sean Maxwell

12:32

comes forward and says, the guy named

12:34

Larry Steele shows up to my house a

12:36

few hours after this fire. He's covered

12:39

in soot, talking about how he broke into

12:41

this Columbia apartment building with some friends. They

12:43

were drinking, and he says, we

12:45

burned down the building by accident. If

12:47

you tell anybody about it, I will kill

12:50

you and I will kill your grandmother. Sean

12:52

Maxwell tells police investigators,

12:54

I know who did it, and I know the name

12:56

of the guy that he was with. His name was Rob Zacharias.

13:00

While this is going on, a couple other witnesses

13:02

in the neighborhood, and you have to understand Pittsburgh

13:04

to really grasp this. Bloomfield

13:07

is an old Italian town in Pittsburgh,

13:09

and everybody knows everybody

13:12

in the neighborhood, and one of the things that these

13:14

individual residents are talking about is

13:16

that there is an individual with long

13:19

sandy blondehair's shoulder length in an army

13:21

field jacket that we don't know who's

13:23

watching this fire. They actually create

13:25

a composite sketch, and this individual matches

13:28

one of two people, First Rob Zacharias,

13:31

who was the same individual that Larry Steele

13:33

said earlier he was with that night.

13:36

Second, a former maintenance man by the

13:38

name of Glenn Spoon, who is

13:40

fired from the property a year ago,

13:43

but Paul Potter says, is spotted a day

13:45

or two before this fire, and one

13:47

of the only individuals other than the

13:49

owner of the building who have keys

13:51

to those locked rooms. He matches

13:54

the description of the composite sketch.

13:56

Two more individuals were identified who

13:58

also matched this description. However,

14:00

who even knows if this stranger

14:03

had anything to do with the fire or

14:05

if Larry Steele had ever even made this confession

14:07

about him or about Rob Zacharias.

14:10

Considering that this fire in all

14:13

likelihood was a tragic accident,

14:15

the presence of this alleged suspect

14:17

with sandy blonde hair and an army field jacket

14:20

had both dubious value and

14:22

was also definitely not Dan.

14:25

The description set five to ten and Dan

14:27

is six ' four, so that's not even close.

14:30

And it appears that yet another witness named

14:32

Shane Evans, confirmed that.

14:35

Shane Evans grew up with Dan CARNIVALI would

14:37

know him from one hundred yards away, would know him

14:39

from one hundred inches away. Shane Evans

14:41

is watching the fire happen on January

14:44

seventeenth, nineteen ninety three, four am,

14:46

four fifteen, around five am,

14:48

he leaves the fire. He finds a

14:50

fire personnel and he says to

14:52

them, I was walking by the Columbia

14:55

about five minutes before the fire broke

14:57

out. I heard a door close of the Columbia

15:00

apartment building. I turned around in

15:02

a very well lit area, could

15:04

not see his face. The person was unknown

15:06

to me, but had sandy long blonde

15:08

hair shoulder length.

15:10

And an army field jacket.

15:12

And fire personnel say go tell

15:14

police investigators.

15:16

So Shane Evans did exactly that. He

15:18

told three investigators what he had seen.

15:21

Wait do you hear what he said? Thirteen years later?

15:37

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15:54

After Dan cooperated to the fullest with law

15:57

enforcement, his jacket tested negative

15:59

for accelerant. He passed a polygraph,

16:01

which has limited value, but still

16:04

he was released and he

16:06

grew a bit cold on Pittsburgh.

16:09

Pittsburgh was bad for me. All my friends

16:11

were dying of overdoses. Everybody was

16:13

dying of China White and Iroin and

16:16

in this and that. I just I had to get away.

16:18

I couldn't take it any where. The police were at my

16:20

parents' house every other day about something

16:23

stupid. Most of it I knew nothing

16:25

about. About a month or or

16:27

so after that, I moved to California. I

16:29

have a friend who lives out there in Humble County.

16:32

I called the police from California and told

16:34

him I was there. That you know, if

16:36

you need me for any further questioning, this

16:39

is where I'm at. It wasn't like I

16:41

was living in the mountain siding from anybody.

16:44

I just wanted to start over, so I left.

16:46

The case went cold for nearly fourteen

16:49

years, and during that time Dan

16:51

had built himself a happy, comfortable

16:54

life.

16:55

I had a family. I had a wife, I had

16:57

step kids, I had a house. I

16:59

had a good job. I was

17:01

working in a lumber mill eighty eighty

17:03

five thousand a year. I finally was

17:05

doing good in my life, finally, and

17:08

then everything went down hill.

17:10

In early two thousand and six, Pittsburgh

17:12

Police cold case detective Scott Evans

17:15

and Jr. Smith inexplicably

17:17

reopened. In nineteen ninety three Columbia

17:19

fire investigation.

17:21

They do a huge press release where

17:23

Scott Evans and Jr. Smith release

17:26

all of the information that we've talked about so far

17:29

out to the news. Then they put a ten

17:31

thousand dollars reward in the paper for anybody for

17:33

information, and thirteen years later

17:35

on a ten thousand dollars reward. In this press release,

17:38

they talked to Shane Evans, who says, now,

17:40

in this well lit area, I

17:43

saw six foot four Dan CARNIVALI

17:46

face to face leaving that Columbia

17:48

apartment building. They asked Shane Evans

17:50

in nineteen ninety three, did you know who Dan CARNIVALI

17:52

was? And Shane Evans, of course

17:54

says, I grew up with him my whole life.

17:57

One hundred percent it was him, and I

17:59

was watching the fire later and

18:02

he came up to me unsolicited, unprovoked

18:04

and screamed out loud. I was at

18:06

the sandwich shop. And when he testifies

18:09

at trial, he says those same

18:11

things, except he also says,

18:14

and by the way, Dan Carnivali was covered

18:16

with soot. Now, let's remember some of

18:18

the things that we've talked about so far. Dan Carnivali

18:21

had told everybody his alibi that he was at the sandwich

18:23

shop after being at the lunar bar. We

18:26

also know from the criminal investigation file

18:28

that Larry Steele, in his confession was

18:30

covered in soot. Shane Evans is

18:32

receiving information somewhere from

18:34

someone to add those two pieces

18:36

of information into this situation.

18:39

When he told everybody in nineteen ninety three,

18:42

when the fire was still going, that

18:44

he did not recognize the person.

18:46

All of a sudden, in two thousand and six, it was me.

18:49

He saw me.

18:50

Ten grand can be pretty persuasive.

18:53

And meanwhile, the state disposed

18:55

of those original statements from nineteen ninety

18:57

three in which Evans had said he could

19:00

and identify the suspect, only

19:02

sharing this two thousand and six David

19:04

which goner the arrest wererant.

19:06

I was coming home from Warp one day, riding

19:09

up to my house, and I knew

19:11

there was a helicopter following me, and it

19:13

was driving all the way up through fifty until

19:15

I got close to my house, and

19:18

then the car pulled out beside me

19:21

and the lights went on, and then I seen

19:23

the Pennsylvania badges, and then I was like,

19:25

oh, what the hell. So then

19:27

they started questioning me about the fire. I

19:29

told them a million times I did not

19:32

do this, You're making a mistake. But all

19:34

they kept doing was yelling at me, well, think about

19:36

the people that are dead, Well, think about what

19:38

you're doing. You're a resting or wrong person, so you

19:40

know what I mean. That's all they kept telling me. I didn't

19:42

know what to tell them. Finally I said, let me have an

19:44

attorney. I don't want to talk to you'all anymore. Next

19:47

thing you know, I'm sitting in the county jail.

19:49

And now emerge as a jail house informant

19:51

by the name of Sean Burns. Here's

19:53

what Sean Burns tells everybody

19:55

in all of this time, Dan CARNIVALI

19:58

explains to Sean burns. This individual

20:01

in protective custody the Alleghany County

20:03

Jails that I didn't mean to burn down

20:05

the building, but what happened was I

20:08

was at the bar and somebody told me that it's

20:10

possible that in the future

20:12

they might put video surveillance on the

20:14

Columbia Apartment building, and

20:16

so in order to get ahead of them

20:19

setting up video surveillance, I'm

20:22

gonna break into the Columbia and I'm

20:24

gonna go into the office, but

20:26

I don't find any video surveillance.

20:28

It's not there.

20:29

But just out of an abundance of caution, I'm

20:31

gonna take this can of lacquer thinner and

20:33

I'm gonna douse the office, not

20:35

the maintenance, from the office with this whole

20:38

can, and then i'm gonna light a match.

20:40

I'm gonna throw it behind me, and I'm gonna walk

20:42

out with the can of lacquer thinner, get rid of it,

20:45

and hopefully that fire

20:47

will contain itself in that office and burn the video

20:49

surveillance equipment that I couldn't find in that I don't

20:51

know exists. And in the process, I'm gonna

20:53

take two blank checks in instead of on the

20:56

owner, and then go set them down

20:58

on the doorstep of the owner building.

21:01

The allegend motive was as far fetched

21:03

as it was inconsistent with the ATFS

21:05

theory, which if their theory

21:07

is to be believed, then why

21:10

was Burn's alleging that Dan

21:12

burned the office, not the maintenance

21:14

room and then left with the lacquer

21:16

thinner when the can was in

21:18

fact found in the building. Either

21:21

way, Sean Burns did

21:23

not make this statement for free.

21:25

Sean Burns had gun charges.

21:28

He also had some kid charges, some

21:31

child rape things, and if he would have

21:33

went to state prison he wouldn't have made it through. So

21:36

he was doing anything he could do to come

21:38

up with getting himself out of jail, and

21:41

he got out of jail four days after my

21:43

trial.

21:44

What we later find out, Sean

21:46

Burns has not only testified in Daniel

21:49

Carnivali's case during two thousand

21:51

and seven, He's testified on

21:53

behalf of the commonwealth as an informant

21:56

in two other cases just.

21:58

That year for the same prosecutor,

22:01

for the very.

22:01

Same prosecutor, they got the

22:03

deal of a century for cerial

22:06

cooperation.

22:07

So it seems like this prosecutor,

22:09

Jennifer di Giovanni was willing

22:12

to overlook the inconsistencies

22:14

in Burns's statement to try to close

22:17

the Columbia fire case, and with Shane

22:19

Evans and Sean Burns in her back pocket, she

22:22

offered Dan three and a half to seven

22:24

years. Pretty incredible

22:26

deal if you think about it. If she really thought

22:28

he was guilty of a triple murderer, I.

22:31

Wasn't taking a plea. I wouldn't care what

22:33

they were giving me. I didn't do it, and

22:35

I'm not taking a plea. I really

22:37

thought that there was no way they could find

22:39

someone guilty that wasn't guilty. I just

22:43

I found out the hard way. I was roam.

22:45

Dan went to trial in August two thousand and seven

22:47

with his attorney Frank Walker, and in addition

22:49

to Evans and Burns, ATF agent

22:52

William Patritis testified from memory.

22:54

Right fourteen years removed from the investigation

22:57

and testified from memory the physical

22:59

evidence had all been destroyed, making it impossible

23:01

to do a full reinvestigation. Meanwhile,

23:04

Patritis was sure that an alleged

23:06

assailant started the blaze with lacquer

23:08

dinner in the maintenance room, backing his claims

23:11

up with ancient arson gobbledegook.

23:14

He says that the thing that really stood

23:16

out to him was the low

23:18

burn patterns that were present

23:21

on like the doorway of

23:24

the mechanical room, which

23:26

today we know low

23:28

burn patterns are not indicative of

23:31

an unnaturally or an accelerant

23:33

set fire. We know that if

23:35

the structure reaches full

23:37

room involvement, meaning flashover,

23:40

that low burn patterns are absolutely

23:43

naturally occurring. But Patritis's

23:46

testimony, you know, led the jury to

23:48

believe that these low burn patterns were

23:51

unnaturally occurring, were indicative of

23:53

only a fire that could have been set through

23:55

the use of an accelerant.

23:57

And this non scientific observation

24:01

was then backed up by allegedly scientific

24:03

analysis from ATF chemist

24:05

William Cannard, whose credibility

24:08

was falling apart in the lead up to Dan's

24:10

trial. In two thousand and six, three

24:13

fire scientists were hired to examine his

24:15

analysis of an alleged arson in Indiana,

24:17

the notorious Christine Blench case,

24:20

in which he said there was presence

24:22

of an accelerant in her son's bedroom

24:25

when in fact there was none.

24:26

And William Canard is really exposed

24:28

as having falsified report. We

24:31

know that in August two thousand

24:33

and seven, the ATF is asked

24:35

to reevaluate William Cannard's

24:38

original chemical analysis

24:40

in Dan's nineteen ninety three

24:43

case. Chief Julia Dolan

24:45

real evaluates all of

24:48

the gascarmatographs and she says

24:50

that the levels of lackarthinner

24:53

are so low as to be meaningless.

24:55

She disagrees with every single

24:57

finding. Canard has reported

25:00

that report that Julia Dolan

25:02

does is not shared

25:05

with defense counsel.

25:06

But the Julia Dolan memo is

25:08

dated August of two thousand

25:10

and seven, and Dan was tried

25:12

August twenty sixth. In August twenty

25:15

seventh of two thousand and seven,

25:17

so somebody knew. Somebody

25:20

had the information. But Jennifer Digivanni

25:23

gets Frank Walker croml defense attorney

25:25

to just stipulate, Hey, you don't

25:27

want.

25:28

To go get an expert.

25:29

Let's just accept the ATF just stipulate,

25:32

don't get an expert.

25:33

This is legit.

25:34

And then Petritis just reads

25:37

in William Connard's original

25:40

chemical analysis telling the jury

25:42

that lacquer thinner has been found in

25:46

all of these samples.

25:47

And so that evidence was always just assumed to be

25:49

one hundred percent true.

25:50

And then with all of the information that was

25:52

withheld from defense counsel, any

25:55

of the alternative perpetrators, the

25:57

steel alleged confession, and

26:00

Julia Dolan ATF report saying

26:02

that the lack of Thurner conclusion was

26:05

meaningless.

26:06

Dan was convicted of arson, burglary,

26:08

aggravated assault, and three counts

26:11

of second degree murder. So instead

26:13

of three and a half years, he got

26:15

three consecutive life sentences.

26:18

My trial lasted one day, by the way, I

26:20

mean, I had a triple homicide. I

26:23

picked the jury one day, which found guilty the

26:25

next I was just shocked. I

26:28

was in shocked for probably the first

26:30

year. My

26:49

personality got me through prison. I

26:51

could be a comedian because I

26:53

had to make it to where I wasn't going to

26:55

get in trouble in jail, or have

26:58

enemies or or whatever. I just

27:01

did the best I could. I

27:03

was in a supermax prison. You

27:05

know, I had three life sentences. It's

27:08

bugging me right now. I can't get it out of my fucking

27:10

hay, just hearing all the stuff that

27:13

they did to me over and over. It's

27:15

you know why, they

27:19

had enough stuff to prove me innocent, but

27:21

they lost it. All a little strange,

27:23

ain't it?

27:25

Like, Let's just recap. They alleged

27:27

to have lost the jacket that Dan

27:29

turned over for testing as to whether

27:32

he had any kind of like trace of accelerants

27:34

on his jacket. They do not have

27:37

the polygraph that Dan took,

27:39

which you know, indicated that he

27:42

was not being deceptive. At

27:44

trial, they testified

27:47

that they lost any indication

27:49

that Shane Evans had come forward

27:52

on the night of the fire and made original

27:54

police statements.

27:56

Yet the original statements turned up years

27:58

later, and with Shane Evans, who knew Dan

28:00

CARNIVALI could not identify

28:02

the man he saw. Rather, Evans

28:05

had described someone who did not match

28:08

Dan's profile. But before those

28:10

statements were discovered, Dan's

28:12

earlier appeals focused on the information

28:14

Dan had received about Sean Burns.

28:17

This guy sent me a message to my self

28:19

saying that he wanted to talk to me out in the yard about

28:22

something really important. I'm starting to stress

28:24

out what the hell is wrong now? So I go out

28:26

in the yard and he tells me, hey, did you ever hear

28:28

of David Dixon? I said no. Then

28:30

he goes, well, do you know Jennifer di Giovanni.

28:32

I said yes, why And then he

28:35

started explaining that she put him in jail,

28:37

and they had Sean Burns

28:39

as also as the jail how's

28:41

informant, blah blah blah, and he ended

28:44

up getting twenty years and he

28:46

just wanted to let me know that it happened.

28:48

To him to David Dixon, who had spent

28:50

time with Sean Burns, swore an affidavit

28:52

that Burns had admitted fabricating Dan's alleged

28:54

confession, which became part of a post

28:56

conviction relief motion. Along with

28:59

the sweetheart deal. Burns had received

29:01

fourteen months and immediate parole eligibility.

29:04

He was released four days after

29:06

Dan's trout. However, both Dan's

29:08

post conviction motion and his habeas

29:11

were denied by twenty sixteen, by

29:13

which point the Pennsylvania Innocence Project

29:15

had reviewed Dan's case and Liz

29:18

paid him a visit.

29:19

Once Liz came to see me for the first time,

29:21

everything changed. I knew that something

29:24

was going to happen because I was innocent. I

29:26

don't even know what the Saydal is anymore, because

29:28

she's just like the best thing that ever happened

29:30

to me.

29:31

I'm sorry, I love

29:33

you too, and

29:35

our first step was to retain

29:37

our expert, Douglas Carpenter,

29:40

and he did that review pro

29:42

bono, even though we were missing quite

29:44

a bit of documentation. He really

29:46

laid out for the court the

29:49

evolution of the NFPA

29:51

nine twenty one of how fire sigence

29:53

and fire investigation what would have been

29:56

done in twenty seventeen that

29:58

just was not done in Night eighteen ninety

30:00

three, was not even conceptualized in nineteen

30:02

ninety three, and alleged that

30:05

this fire should not have been

30:08

determined an arson or

30:10

intentionally set, that at

30:12

the very least, it should have been undetermined.

30:15

And his theory was that

30:17

it was an accidental fire and that the boiler

30:19

overheated, causing superheating

30:22

within the joists, and he, you know, talked

30:25

very much about like the steam pipes and how

30:27

they ran throughout the building, how they

30:29

ran straight up into that northwest

30:31

corner that collapsed, the ways

30:33

in which witness statements afterwards really

30:36

supported the fact that this could have been an

30:38

accidental boiler overheating.

30:40

But the state argued that this was just

30:42

a battle of experts and their petition was

30:45

denied. However, Liz's

30:47

work on Greg Brown's case another

30:49

Canard victim, by the way, appears to have been

30:51

the catalyst that brought the Julia Dolan

30:53

report in Dan's case to light in

30:55

twenty nineteen.

30:57

I can't say exactly

31:01

what happened here, but if I had to assume,

31:03

that assistant US attorney in Greg

31:05

Brown's case requested all

31:08

of the ATF files arson

31:10

files that were conducted in

31:13

Alleghany County through a specific

31:15

time period, so nineteen ninety

31:18

to nineteen ninety five. Right one

31:20

of those case files was Dan

31:23

Carnivali's and within that

31:25

ATF case file was

31:27

that Julia Dolan report saying

31:30

that the Lacquer thinner

31:32

results that were originally

31:35

reported in Canards nineteen ninety

31:37

three report were meaningless. That

31:39

was then turned over to the PCRA attorney

31:41

that was working on Dan Carnivali's

31:44

case. And thank goodness for

31:46

the ethics of that PCRA prosecutor,

31:49

because they turned it over to US

31:51

as they have a constitutional duty

31:54

to do. And because of

31:56

that report, the Alleghany County District

31:58

Attorney's office agreed that

32:01

Dan deserved a new trial.

32:03

While the DA was deciding whether to even

32:05

bother with a new trial, Liz reached

32:07

out to Julia Dolan.

32:09

I was able to interview Julia Dolan

32:12

and ask why, in

32:14

two thousand and seven, very coincidentally,

32:16

in the same month as Dan's

32:19

trial, did you reevaluate

32:22

Cannard's report? And

32:24

the only response I was able

32:26

to achieve was I cannot recall.

32:29

And I was like, was it a specific

32:31

request from Alleghany County to

32:33

reevaluate this analysis or

32:36

were you doing a more systemic review

32:39

of like analysis from this time

32:41

from this particular chemist because

32:44

he had been discredited in the Bunch case,

32:46

and she says, I have never done

32:49

a systemic review of one of my

32:51

colleagues.

32:53

In addition to this Brady violation that should

32:56

have prevented Dan's two thousand and

32:58

seven trial from ever happening at all, Liz

33:01

was now able to locate even

33:03

more evidence.

33:04

In the District Attorney's response

33:07

to our PCRA petition. One

33:09

of the attachments was a

33:11

document from the insurance agency

33:14

that represented the owner of

33:16

the Columbia building, and it

33:18

gave me the actual name,

33:21

which was Northwestern

33:23

National Insurance. Many times,

33:25

especially in these Arson cases, the

33:27

insurance company will do a much more

33:29

in depth investigation in

33:32

order to determine whether they should pay

33:34

the claim than sometimes the Arson

33:36

squad will. When I tried

33:39

to locate how many Northwestern National

33:41

insurance companies there were, there

33:43

was like over two hundred. So I just made

33:45

a list and started down

33:47

this list. I think I got to probably

33:50

seventy five, maybe one hundred calls

33:53

when finally I spoke with this woman

33:55

and I gave her the insurance

33:57

claim number, and she said, yes, that reflects

34:00

a claim number. That would have

34:02

been a claim number that we used at the time. But

34:04

they were in the process of destroying all

34:07

of these old documents, and I was

34:09

like, stop where you are. If

34:11

you have these old documents, I

34:13

need them, And so immediately sent her a

34:15

subpoena and she located six

34:18

thousand pages of insurance

34:21

documents and within that

34:23

box were those original

34:26

police reports from Shane

34:28

Evans that the cold case detectives

34:31

said were lost, and there were three

34:33

police reports. He did in fact speak

34:35

with three police officers on that

34:38

night, but despite

34:40

his trial testimony saying

34:42

it was light, I immediately recognized

34:45

it as Daniel CARNIVALI his

34:48

police report said unknown

34:50

white male did not see

34:52

face all three.

34:55

And so when I presented this a district attorney's

34:57

office finally said we're going to nol prost.

35:00

We're going to pititition the court to

35:02

withdraw all charges, and Dan

35:04

was finally released

35:06

and exonerated.

35:08

I got released March eighteenth, the

35:10

first day of COVID that nobody was.

35:12

Allowed out of the house the very first day of

35:15

like everybody was being kind of like

35:17

sent home from your work.

35:19

I went out anyway I used to. I was walking

35:22

all over Pittsburgh. I was taking

35:25

money and giving fight older bills the homeless

35:27

people down town Pittsburgh. So I haven't

35:29

been in Pittsburgh for twenty six, twenty

35:31

seven years. So I'm back in Pittsburgh.

35:33

I'm living with my brother, and he's taking good

35:35

care of me. Like he bought me a motorcycle.

35:38

He let me use his car, He helped me get

35:40

my driver's license. KK

35:42

Radio station, helped me get the job. I

35:45

mean, there was a lot involved. I just

35:47

oh, and I had a house something in Pittsburgh

35:49

that my parents had and they

35:52

had squatters and stuff living in it. So I

35:54

just went there and cleaned it and we sold that. And

35:56

it was pretty crazy when I got out, But life

35:58

got so good. Then I met my wife, Donna, who's

36:01

sitting next to me right everything changed.

36:04

We're on our second home since I got out.

36:06

You know, just I work ten hours

36:08

a day, six days a week sometimes and

36:12

just I'm loving life.

36:14

I will say that when I

36:16

first met Dan, just the

36:19

sweetest, most sincere man. And

36:22

you know, Dan's case, Greg's case, every case

36:24

that I work on is the best thing that

36:26

I could possibly do with my jurse doctorate.

36:28

But like knowing that I

36:30

never have to have a conversation with Dan

36:33

in those orange uniforms

36:35

in that mind green room.

36:38

That's enough.

36:38

That's enough that I have done with my career.

36:40

I could stop today.

36:42

Dan is the most

36:44

incredible person that I've ever met. He

36:47

I have a four year old boy, my oldest

36:49

boy. Dan is a very successful

36:51

baker. He loves the bacon he bakes

36:53

for one of the probably the most famous bakery

36:55

in all of the Pittsburgh.

36:56

Areia, third best in the country, third best.

36:58

In the country.

36:59

On his own dime, Dan surprised

37:02

my four year old's junior pre

37:04

kindergarten class with Halloween cookies

37:06

that he made for them. And then on

37:09

Thanksgiving and we you know talk,

37:11

if not every day every other day, said

37:14

Alec, you gotta try my homemade

37:16

pumpkin pie.

37:17

I do it.

37:18

I'm gonna get there, Dan, I'm gonna

37:20

get there. And I said, I love pumpkin

37:22

pie and he said it's cheesecake, but

37:25

I do a special sauce on top. And

37:27

so my family, my two boys, my

37:29

wife, we all met Dan and he gave us

37:31

this homemade pumpkin pie. And then we called

37:33

Dan and I said, Dan, let's go to Eaton

37:35

Park, sort of this well Owneditzburg

37:38

dive. And we get there and Dan's

37:41

talking about the super Burgers rave it about a super

37:43

Burger.

37:43

You're so obsessed with Bidnax and Superburger.

37:46

Obsessed with it.

37:47

And I'm like, Dan, fuck

37:49

the super Burger. I'm getting turkey

37:51

dinner. And Dan looks at the waitress and

37:53

he goes give me the exact

37:55

same thing. And then this woman

37:57

walked over unsolicited. Dan

37:59

had a Steelers tattoo on the side of his head and

38:01

said, sir, I love your tattoo.

38:04

And Dan made a joke to her.

38:07

She lit up. He he is a guy

38:09

that just makes everything better. You

38:11

make everything better.

38:13

Okay, So just in case I find myself

38:15

in Pittsburgh anytime soon, what's the name of this bakery.

38:17

Oakmont Bakery number one in Pittsburgh

38:20

for sure.

38:21

Well shout out to Oakmont Bakery. We're gonna

38:23

have them linked in the episode description as well.

38:25

But meanwhile, we wish you all the best

38:28

in the civil suit as we go now to

38:30

closing arguments, where first of

38:32

all, I thank you guys so

38:34

much for sharing this story. And then I'm

38:36

just gonna take these next few

38:38

minutes to sit back in my chair and listen

38:41

to anything else you feel is left

38:43

to be said. So let's start with

38:45

Alec, then Liz, and

38:47

of course finally Dan.

38:51

There's nothing really for me to add except

38:53

to reiterate.

38:54

You know, Dan, you know we all love

38:56

you. This is about you.

38:58

Others are hurt, but you know we're in your

39:00

fight and you really do make life

39:02

better. You made my life better, You made my family's

39:04

life better.

39:05

Thank you. I'll bring you some work cook.

39:07

Well, those compliments will only continue

39:09

as long as you feed.

39:10

Me, right, Okay, Liz, what do you

39:12

guys to say?

39:13

By takeaway? And I expressed this

39:15

to Alec quite a bit, is I just

39:18

don't understand why

39:21

Dan was targeted,

39:23

and not even in nineteen ninety three, right,

39:25

it was years later in two

39:27

thousand and six, it feels

39:30

like more of an effort to

39:33

target Dan as opposed to actually

39:35

following the tangible leads that they

39:37

had. And I feel like, you know, when you

39:40

lie, when you cover up, you not only have

39:42

to remember the lies and the cover

39:44

up that you did, but the lies and the cover

39:46

up that you asked others to

39:48

do, which seems much much

39:50

more difficult than just conducting

39:53

a really straightforward and logical

39:55

investigation. And so I just will

39:58

I will never understand this

40:00

case. I will never understand why Dan

40:02

was targeted, especially because

40:05

he was out of state. You know,

40:07

he wasn't in our state, he wasn't in our community,

40:09

he wasn't causing a problem, he wasn't making

40:11

enemies. And so I

40:13

hope someday, Dan, you have an answer to that.

40:16

I would like to have some answers, and

40:18

to have those particular people

40:21

who cost you thirteen fourteen

40:24

years of your life and

40:26

all of the trauma that you experienced

40:28

while you were in prison answer for

40:31

that.

40:32

Yeah. I don't even know what to say. I just

40:34

thank god things had happened

40:36

the way they did. At the end, you

40:39

know, I'm just happy to be living

40:42

my life not inside that hole

40:44

anymore. I can't understand it.

40:46

I will never understand it. So

40:51

that's about all I got to say. Thank you for

40:53

having me on this show, Liz,

40:55

thank you for being here analog.

40:58

You know, I don't know what else is. I thought i'd

41:00

ever eat a big bac again. I think that's why I

41:02

like big macs much.

41:03

You know, I'll lead a big back with you.

41:05

Dan. All right, well, yeah, we could just do

41:07

super burgers.

41:08

No, let's we'll get distracted by a turkey

41:10

dinner.

41:10

Let's go get a big Mac.

41:12

They got double ones.

41:13

Oh, Chris.

41:22

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You

41:24

can listen to this and all the Lava for Good

41:26

podcasts one week early by subscribing

41:29

to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

41:32

I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall

41:34

and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow

41:36

executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin

41:38

Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music

41:40

in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR

41:42

nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be

41:45

sure to follow us across all social media platforms

41:47

at Lava for Good and at Wrongful

41:49

Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram

41:52

at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction

41:54

is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and

41:56

association with Signal Company.

41:58

Number one

42:00

Was the wind that work and many dream