Stephanie Slifer

It was largely due to Ben's death there, but there was a lot of issues that were identified at that daycare throughout the investigation. Wow.

And before Melissa filed for clemency, she had what's called a habeas corpus petition pending in federal court. Now, that was filed in 2019. It sat there with no ruling for five years. due to a backlog, we think, partly due to COVID possibly. So Melissa's defense attorney decided to withdraw that petition and go after clemency instead.

Now, if the clemency does not work out, they'll have to go back and refile in federal court.

Yeah, so Melissa's father has really been consumed by this case. You know, he's really dedicated his entire life to trying to free his daughter. And, you know, Crystal, Melissa's sister, tells us in the episode how her parents had to sell a lot of their belongings. We know that her father had a bait and tackle shop. He sold that years ago in an effort to help Melissa.

So it's just a sad case all around.

Yeah, thank you so much.

But then the problem with that is now we know all these years later that Ben Kingan may not have sustained a skull fracture because these clear x-rays were found years after the trial and the defense hired a pediatric neuroradiologist who looked at those clear x-rays and said, there's no skull fracture here. And if a skull fracture existed, I would see it in these clear x-rays.

Aaron interviewed... a false confession expert, Dr. Saul Kasson, and he pointed out to us that if in fact Ben didn't sustain a skull fracture, that's what he refers to as a false fact that could have tainted this entire confession.

We don't know. Right, because recently the defense hired a psychologist and psychiatrist from Yale who evaluated Melissa, and she scored at a 4.8 grade level in sentence comprehension. So that really raises questions as to whether she even knew what was going on or that she had the right to leave or to ask for an attorney.

The assistant coroner, his name's Paul Foreman. He's the one that actually took the x-rays. And he says that they were clear when he took them. So there's some speculation that maybe he's the one that made the anonymous call. We don't know for sure.

I just want to say it's interesting the fact that this information came to light through an anonymous call to begin with, because that means somebody knew that these x-rays had been withheld. Now, the prosecutors have questioned whether Paul Kaluzinski, Melissa's father, really did receive an anonymous call. They tried to look into his phone records. They said they couldn't find proof of it.

Yes. Thank you so much for having us.

But Paul Kaluzinski maintains today that he got that anonymous call. And that's how all of this came to light.

And frankly, whether there can still be confidence in the verdict from trial is a question for the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, to think about, as well as the Lake County State's attorney, Eric Reinhart. You'll remember from our broadcast that Reinhart recommended to Melissa's defense attorney to hire these forensic computer experts to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the x-rays.

And these experts found that the x-rays were manipulated using a software tool used to view x-rays. And their analysis showed that this manipulation was done on the coroner's office computer. Therefore, they put in a report that they believe the state was responsible for manipulating the x-rays. The state meaning either somebody from the prosecutor's office or somebody from the coroner's office.

Thank you. Yeah, it's an important case. So we definitely wanted to be here to talk about it.

You had to be in the coroner's office to get access to this, according to those experts. So we know that those experts presented these findings to Eric Reinhart in a meeting And what has happened since then? We don't know everything that's gone on behind the scenes, but we do know that after that, Eric Reinhart wrote a letter to the governor's prisoner review board opposing Melissa's clemency.

Well, it's a crazy story, Anne-Marie. I think it started with me just going down a rabbit hole one day trying to find this Brenda. And I found a couple of different Brendas with that same last name. I started calling. I think I called the wrong Brenda multiple times. This woman was like, please stop. It's not me. But finally, I thought I found the right one. But she was not calling me back.

And I decided to run her name through like the criminal court case lookup in the county where I knew she lived. And it came up that she was supposed to appear for a traffic ticket hearing. And the traffic ticket hearing happens to be during the week that we were scheduled to go there already. We were going to conduct other interviews on the case.

So it was kind of like the stars were aligning and we decided we're going to just try to go to the traffic ticket hearing. I mean, we were obviously catching her totally off guard there.

Yes, you're absolutely right that she's never been charged with harming Ben accidentally or intentionally. But we felt it was important to talk to her because it was a lingering question in the case. You know, we knew that her name had been brought up in connection to this prior injury that Ben sustained. The defense has long argued that that prior injury caused his death.

So we just wanted to see what we could find out about it. See if Brenda remembered anything about Ben bumping his head in her car.

So there was several daycare workers that were interviewed by police in the wake of Ben's death. And as part of our new report during the research phase, we were going through a lot of those police reports. And there was something that stuck out. There was a daycare worker who told police that at one point she witnessed another child, not Ben, fall off a changing table at the daycare.

And that the child's parents were lied to about the incident and told he fell over while seated on the floor. And the reason that stuck out is because, you know, in interviews with Aaron, Melissa's defense attorney has suggested that the daycare was not honest with Ben's parents about that old injury months before his death.

It was largely due to Ben's death there, but there was a lot of issues that were identified at that daycare throughout the investigation. Wow.

And before Melissa filed for clemency, she had what's called a habeas corpus petition pending in federal court. Now, that was filed in 2019. It sat there with no ruling for five years. due to a backlog, we think, partly due to COVID possibly. So Melissa's defense attorney decided to withdraw that petition and go after clemency instead.

Now, if the clemency does not work out, they'll have to go back and refile in federal court.

Yeah, so Melissa's father has really been consumed by this case. He's really dedicated his entire life to trying to free his daughter. And Crystal, Melissa's sister, tells us in the episode how her parents had to sell a lot of their belongings. We know that her father had a bait and tackle shop. He sold that years ago in an effort to help Melissa. So it's just a sad case all around.

Yeah, thank you so much.

But then the problem with that is now we know all these years later that Ben Kingan may not have sustained a skull fracture because these clear x-rays were found years after the trial and the defense hired a pediatric neuroradiologist who looked at those clear x-rays and said, there's no skull fracture here. And if a skull fracture existed, I would see it in these clear x-rays.

Aaron interviewed... false confession expert, Dr. Saul Kasson, and he points it out to us that if in fact Ben didn't sustain a skull fracture, that's what he refers to as a false fact that could have tainted this entire confession.

We don't know. Right, because recently the defense hired a psychologist and psychiatrist from Yale who evaluated Melissa, and she scored at a 4.8 grade level in sentence comprehension. So that really raises questions as to whether she even knew what was going on or that she had the right to leave or to ask for an attorney.

The assistant coroner, his name's Paul Foreman. He's the one that actually took the x-rays. And he says that they were clear when he took them. So there's some speculation that maybe he's the one that made the anonymous call. We don't know for sure.

I just want to say it's interesting the fact that this information came to light through an anonymous call to begin with. Because That means somebody knew that these x-rays had been withheld. Now, the prosecutors have questioned whether Paul Kaluzinski, Melissa's father, really did receive an anonymous call. They tried to look into his phone records. They said they couldn't find proof of it.

Yes. Thank you so much for having us.

But Paul Kaluzinski maintains today that he got that anonymous call. And that's how all of this came to light.

And frankly, whether there can still be confidence in the verdict from trial is a question for the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, to think about, as well as the Lake County state's attorney, Eric Reinhart. You'll remember from our broadcast that Reinhart recommended to Melissa's defense attorney to hire these forensic computer experts to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the X-rays.

And these experts found that the x-rays were manipulated using a software tool used to view x-rays. And their analysis showed that this manipulation was done on the coroner's office computer. Therefore, they put in a report that they believe the state was responsible for manipulating the x-rays.

Thank you. Yeah, it's an important case. So we definitely wanted to be here to talk about it.

The state meaning either, you know, somebody from the prosecutor's office or somebody from the coroner's office. You had to be in the coroner's office to get access to this, according to those experts. So we know that those experts presented these findings to Eric Reinhart in a meeting and And what has happened since then?

We don't know everything that's gone on behind the scenes, but we do know that after that, Eric Reinhart wrote a letter to the governor's prisoner review board opposing Melissa's clemency.

Well, it's a crazy story, Anne-Marie. I think it started with me just going down a rabbit hole one day trying to find this Brenda. And I found a couple of different Brendas with that same last name. I started calling. I think I called the wrong Brenda multiple times. This woman was like, please stop. It's not me. But finally, I thought I found the right one. But she was not calling me back.

And I decided to run her name through the criminal court case lookup in the county where I knew she lived. And it came up that she was supposed to appear for a traffic ticket hearing. And the traffic ticket hearing happens to be during the week that we were scheduled to go there already. We were going to conduct other interviews on the case. So it was kind of like the stars were aligning.

And we decided we're going to just try to go to the traffic ticket hearing. I mean, we were obviously catching her totally off guard there.

Yes, you're absolutely right that she's never been charged with harming Ben accidentally or intentionally. But we felt it was important to talk to her because it was a lingering question in the case. You know, we knew that her name had been brought up in connection to this prior injury that Ben sustained. The defense has long argued that that prior injury caused his death.

So we just wanted to see what we could find out about it, see if Brenda remembered anything. about Ben bumping his head in her car.

Yes. Right.

So there was several daycare workers that were interviewed by police in the wake of Ben's death. And as part of our new report during the research phase, we were going through a lot of those police reports. And there was something that stuck out. There was a daycare worker who told police that at one point she witnessed another child, not Ben, fall off a changing table at the daycare.

And that the child's parents were lied to about the incident and told he fell over while seated on the floor. And the reason that stuck out is because, you know, in interviews with Aaron, Melissa's defense attorney has suggested that the daycare was not honest with Ben's parents about that old injury months before his death.

something was going on over there, and I wanted to get some more sleep, and I was going to have words with Mark.

And I'm on the phone leaving a message with him and he's in the driveway. The car is in the driveway, parked up by the house. And I'm thinking, wow, that's weird, because he really, he's probably going to be, you know, a little antsy because he would have rather been gone by now.

I saw who I thought was Mark. going into the house, coming out of the house, putting stuff in the back of the hatch.

Because it was his hat and his jacket. He opened the door to the car, looked at the front windshield, grabbed something off the front, and then just tore, like literally tore down the driveway.

I explained it away that Ding must have ripped her stitches out, out here.

I could smell the bleach before I even opened the door.

It was blood. It was red, dark, dark red.

She was on all fours and she was growling. Something had happened to her. Maybe she had had a stroke. It was obvious one eye was in a horrible mess. We couldn't find Mark. I was calling him. I left a message, Mark, we're really concerned. Where are you? You know, why is Ding here?

I can only describe it as evil. Something horrible, something terrible. I knew something bad had taken place.

I remember being woken up early in the morning by a hellacious barking.

Family friends came out after dark.

I, of course, internet stalked him immediately and came to find out that he's like the man that never retires.

I was at home. My dad came home and told my mom, and I could hear him telling her that Dani was gone. And she said, I know. They're going to look again in the morning. As soon as it's light, they'll be back out there looking for her. They're going to find her. They're going to find her. And he said, no, honey. They found her. She's gone.

Tom got to work. Tom worked on Danny's case every day. He went through and reexamined all of the evidence.

He, most importantly, made sure that DNA got tested.

Not a day since I was 12 years old have I not thought about my sister, Dani. That day in September of 1996, Dani disappeared. My name is Stephanie. Dani was my older sister. Dani was 15 years old, the kind of older sister that every little sister looks up to. Nice stuff.

We've found Danny's killer, and he is alive, and we are going to make a case against him.

It was the moment at which I knew that everything I had put into my fight for my sister had been worth it.

No. Paul Hutchinson was a stranger to Danny. There's no way that she would have known him.

Law enforcement didn't tell my family a lot in 1996.

It took almost 30 years, but I had to know.

I was preparing myself for the next three to five years of a court battle to staring him down to being present every day in that courtroom.

Shock. I didn't expect that to happen.

There is zero doubt in my mind that they lied to my family.

When I finally saw the exact spot where her body was found, and I sat there and imagined that about her last moments and how it went from peaceful rustling of leaves and the sounds of squirrels running through the forest and the birds chirping to suddenly turning to this awful and violating and terrifying experience.

And then that realization that she must have had when he was holding her face down in the mud that she was gonna die right there. And I am so sorry for her that she had to experience that moment.

I promised myself. I promised my sister. I'm coming for you, Danny. I never would have guessed how this ended.

I think that anyone who is able to Rape and murder a young girl and then get away with it for almost 28 years had plenty of chances to do it again.

On the table, I have what was in Dani's pocket when she died, and then her driver's license, which she was really proud of having.

We spread half of Dani's ashes on top of the tallest mountain on the Bridger Range, Sacagawea Peak.

Love you, Danny. I think the biggest thing has been, after so many years of begging and pleading for people to pay attention to my sister, for people to believe that she mattered. I'm feeling so often like I was screaming into an echo chamber. Now suddenly she matters to everyone all over again.

That morning, we had kind of a family spat. Stephanie Mollett was Danny's little sister. And so she got 15-year-old mad about it and needed some space and some time, and she had her driver's license.

In the state of Montana in 1996, you actually got your driver's license at 15. She was a very proud driver.

It's like everything you knew doesn't exist anymore.

This is like a nature playground out here and our family, we just played.

She was upset with my parents and needed some space to herself. Danielle had gone out to Cameron Bridge.

She loved science. She was so interested in the way that the world worked. And she had a sense of humor, right? Uh, yeah. Dani, that is really nice. Isn't she lovely? Look at your lovely daughter here. She was witty, and she was funny, and everyone loved her.

She'd make humor at her own expense. See my nose? Here's my eye.

I think the rumor mill around Belgrade High School was ruthless.

Absolutely. Danny didn't return home. The mother grew deeply concerned. And so she and one of her friends drove out to Cameron Bridge to see what was going on. My mom and her friend walked around calling Danny's name and called the Sheriff's Department and reported her missing. And a search party was being pulled together.

I tried to be strong. Danny died on a Saturday, and I tried to go back to school on Monday.

We just couldn't believe what they told us. It didn't make any sense.

They told us that she drowned and they told us that it really could have been an accident.

She could have just tripped and fell. We don't really know.

Uh-huh.

Traumatizing. It was having a big wound in your life and this big gap that was unexplainable. And you somehow had to find a way to heal without answers, to live without resolution, to hope with no reason to hope.

I had been calling the sheriff's department, trying to get someone to talk to me about Danny's case.

I was so angry at the people who lied to my family and let my sister's murder go unsolved but uninvestigated for all of these years. I learned that rather than drowning on just water, Danny's head had been held down in the mud. She had mud all the way down into her lungs and into her stomach. There was subcutaneous bruising on the back of her neck. Someone had held her head down forcefully.

There was vaginal injuries. There was semen in her underwear. She had fought and scratched.

I remember asking them, so you mean to tell me that in fact my sister was raped? And they said, yes, we believe she was raped. I remember not being able to breathe. I remember feeling like I needed to puke.