Gretchen Swinn

Gretchen Swinn has spent thousands of hours ploring over Robert Robertson's case.

All right, I'm gonna send this to somebody now.

Now, it was 2018, and Gretchen was gearing up for a critical court hearing.

Robert's one shot to convince a judge that he deserved a new trial.

She wasn't just reviewing files anymore.

She was knocking on doors, finding the people who helped convict Robert to see what they knew.

To Gretchen, one of them mattered more than the rest.

Brian Wharton, former chief of detectives in Palestine.

Brian was no longer with the Palestine Police Department.

He traded in his badge for a Bible.

You retired from policing?

Yes.

And decided to become a Methodist minister?

I am, yes.

Questions about justice had been nagging at Brian for years.

Then one day, the one case he couldn't shake showed up again, unannounced, on his doorstep.

I'm Lester Holt, and this is The Last Appeal, a podcast from Dateline.

Episode 3, A Date to Die.

It had been more than a decade since Brian Wharton helped put Robert in prison.

His law enforcement career was a distant memory.