Deborah Roberts

Yeah, well, you were held up as somebody who was going to take a fresh look at the case.

But it's just really astounding to me.

There were false confessions, which implicated four young men.

And let's talk about them.

Robert Springsteen, Forrest Welburn, Michael Scott, and Maurice Pierce.

And various ones had been arrested and either convicted, but then the cases had been dismissed.

Tell us a little bit about how police had to deal with all of that over the years.

Yeah.

And then, of course, years later— Years later, they would come back and look at them, and we talk about that in the piece, how police would circle back around to this crowd.

They were making no progress, no arrest.

What's a little frightening about this, though, is that two people were convicted, and one of them could have been put to death because of this.

Let's talk about that, because Robert Springsteen was actually eventually tried and sentenced to death.

Michael Scott was sentenced to life in prison.

And everybody seemed to think the case was solved.

I mean, they were convicted and the family even sort of, I guess, finally breathed a sigh of relief, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So that that goes on and everybody thinks that this case has been solved.

And sadly, you know, maybe that's the end of it.

So the Texas appeals court then overturns both Scott and Springsteen's convictions because of some technicalities about cross-examining witnesses.