Ray William Johnson

Until... Eight years pass, and it's now 1985, and Randall is still on death row waiting to be executed.

Now, that same year, this guy travels to Dallas.

His name's Errol.

And Errol is a documentary filmmaker, and he's actually in Dallas because he's shooting a documentary about a well-known psychiatrist who is notorious for being shady.

Now, this shady psychiatrist is often an expert witness, paid by the prosecution.

So he will often testify in trials on behalf of the prosecution.

And so Errol goes and he interviews Randall about this psychiatrist for his documentary.

And Randall ends up telling Errol his whole story.

about how he ran out of gas one day and then was given a ride home by David Ray and how he hung out with David Ray for the rest of the day.

And so Errol hears all this and he immediately becomes fascinated with Randall's case.

In fact, he becomes so fascinated that he ditches his documentary about the psychiatrist and decides to make one about Randall.

So Errol gets to work on this, and he starts doing a ton of research, and he uncovers a bunch of police and prosecutorial misconduct, and he also finds previously hidden evidence.

And so now what he really wants to do is interview David Ray, the man who accused Randall of murder.

Anyway, so then Errol tracks down David Ray and he interviews him several times.

And David Ray finally basically confesses and says that Randall didn't actually kill anyone.

So then, Errol puts all of this into his documentary, and he lays out all this evidence.

And in 1988, the documentary finally comes out.

It's called The Thin Blue Line.

And a lot of people see it, and this documentary gets a ton of publicity.

Because people are watching it going, what the f***, this Randall guy didn't kill anyone?