Almost 25 years to the day after Christine was murdered, Morrison and Raley called Michael to tell him that the man whose DNA was found on the bandana had been identified. “I remember Michael was quiet for a while after we told him,” Raley said. “There was just silence on the other end of the line. And I said, ‘Michael, are you there?’ I thought he might have fainted or something. And he said, ‘Yes, I’m here. I’m just letting this all wash over me.’ ”
As dramatic as the DNA results were, the Williamson County district attorney’s office was not ready to admit that Michael had been wrongly convicted. No sooner did the news break that another man’s DNA had been identified than Bradley began to discount the significance of the bandana, pointing …show more content…
Michael learned from a 1986 sheriff’s deputy’s report that several of his neighbors had seen a green van parked by the vacant, wooded lot behind his home around the time of the murder and had observed its driver walking into the overgrown area that extended up to his privacy fence. He read an internal memo to Wood about a call received from one of Christine’s relatives in Phoenix who reported that a check his father-in-law had made out to her had been cashed after her death with what appeared to be a forged signature. (On later inspection, Michael would realize the signature was actually his own.) The internal memo, which was unsigned, included a telling note to Wood: “They seem to think that Chris’ purse was stolen, course, we know better than that.” Though Christine’s purse was missing from the crime scene, Anderson had brushed aside this detail by telling the jury that Michael had staged a burglary to deflect attention away from himself.
It was this sense of certainty that appeared to have blinded investigators to what was surely the most incredible missed clue in the entire case: a handwritten phone message for Wood reporting that Christine’s credit card had apparently been used at a store in San Antonio two days after her murder. “Larry Miller can ID the woman,” stated the message, which included a number to call. Wood did not appear to
As dramatic as the DNA results were, the Williamson County district attorney’s office was not ready to admit that Michael had been wrongly convicted. No sooner did the news break that another man’s DNA had been identified than Bradley began to discount the significance of the bandana, pointing …show more content…
Michael learned from a 1986 sheriff’s deputy’s report that several of his neighbors had seen a green van parked by the vacant, wooded lot behind his home around the time of the murder and had observed its driver walking into the overgrown area that extended up to his privacy fence. He read an internal memo to Wood about a call received from one of Christine’s relatives in Phoenix who reported that a check his father-in-law had made out to her had been cashed after her death with what appeared to be a forged signature. (On later inspection, Michael would realize the signature was actually his own.) The internal memo, which was unsigned, included a telling note to Wood: “They seem to think that Chris’ purse was stolen, course, we know better than that.” Though Christine’s purse was missing from the crime scene, Anderson had brushed aside this detail by telling the jury that Michael had staged a burglary to deflect attention away from himself.
It was this sense of certainty that appeared to have blinded investigators to what was surely the most incredible missed clue in the entire case: a handwritten phone message for Wood reporting that Christine’s credit card had apparently been used at a store in San Antonio two days after her murder. “Larry Miller can ID the woman,” stated the message, which included a number to call. Wood did not appear to