on this podcast is hardly going to help though, is it.” He didn’t phrase it as a question, as if he already knew the damage he was going to be doing to himself, and was willing to accept it.
“How have you always been so sure?” I asked, my fingers worrying at the packet of a Clif Bar that was part of a display to tempt hungry shoppers paying for their chosen purchases.
“Because I know he didn’t do it. There’s no way Ethan could kill someone. Why? Haven’t you always been sure he was innocent?”
“Well, yeah, but I shared a womb with the guy. You didn’t have to believe he was innocent. I did.”
“You might have shared a womb with him, Olivia, but I’m the one who actually knew him. He was always so surprised you believed him.”
“He was?” I asked.
“Yeah, he thought maybe it was guilt.”
“Guilt?” I said, unable to stop the stretch and strain of my voice.
“Because you were such good friends with Tyler and that crowd. I think Ethan just assumed you’d stick with them, when it came down to it.”
“Well, not when it came to murder,” I said, and Kevin raised both his eyebrows.
“I guess not. Blood really is thicker than water, huh?”
I thought suddenly of that pig’s blood on our porch, the bucket of blood thrown over the windshield of my father’s car; thick, viscous and vicious dripping to the ground in malevolent accusation. Shaking off the lightheadedness that shivered through me, I nodded at Kevin before making arrangements with him to record an interview once his shift was over that afternoon.
* * *
Extract from transcript of Season 3 Episode 1 of Shadow of a Doubt [continued]:
Kat Thomas [voiceover]: It’s not hard finding people willing to talk about Ethan Hall in Twin Rivers. What is hard is finding someone willing to talk about him, not only on the record, but in positive terms. Kevin Lawrence was, and probably still is, Ethan’s best friend. They grew up together and even now, Kevin is one of the few people who visits Ethan in prison who isn’t related to him. He was also a defense witness during the trial for Tyler’s murder, but his conflicting testimony ended up hindering, rather than helping his friend’s case.
So, have the intervening ten years changed Kevin’s mind about the case, or does he still believe the wrong person was locked up for Tyler Washington’s murder?
Kevin Lawrence: Absolutely. I absolutely believe Ethan is innocent.
KT: What is it that convinced you?
KL: I didn’t really ever need to be convinced. Anyone who knows Ethan, knows he’s incapable of killing someone. Of murder. The problem was that no one here really knew him.
KT: So, you think the police and the prosecution were able to take advantage of the fact that Ethan didn’t have many friends or allies in town?
KL: Definitely. And not just that. He was up against a town institution, you know? It wasn’t just that Tyler was this super popular guy, his mom was the mayor. She still is. Talk about power and influence.
KT: The longer we’ve spent in Twin Rivers, the more it’s become apparent just how influential his family was and is. We’ve filed request after request for the investigation files, but so far they’ve all been blocked, and I’m beginning to think that’s all coming from the mayor’s office.
KL: I wouldn’t be surprised by that at all. And that’s how it all felt at the time too, you know? There was so much pressure on the police to wrap up the murder investigation that they just pinned it on the first guy they found. I always felt like Ethan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
KT: Can we talk about that for a second, because during the trial you were brought as a witness for the defense because you could place him at your parents’ house until around 2:30am. This timing was really important because Tyler’s time of death was given as between 1:45 and 2:45am, so if he was still with you at 2:30, then he wouldn’t have been able to kill him.
KL: Yeah, that’s right.
KT: But that all fell apart when the prosecution revealed evidence that contradicted your timeline of events.
KL: Yeah.
KT: Your initial statement to the police also stated that you thought Ethan had left your house by 2am, which would have meant he didn’t have an alibi right in the middle of the time of death window.
KL: Yea-ah.
KT: So, did you lie at any point during the investigation and trial, Kevin?
KL: No. My statement to the police was actually that I thought Ethan had left between 2 and 2:30 in the morning. I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t been paying really close attention, but that’s the time I gave, and apparently they just put it down as 2am.
KT: What was it that made you change it from ‘between 2 and 2:30’ to 2:30am?
KL: Well, it wasn’t precisely 2:30am. I think it was probably a bit before that, but not much. Basically, I remembered going to bed at like, 3, but I knew that was only about a half hour after Ethan left.
KT: So, what about the record of the messages between you and Caleb Donovan the prosecution produced at the trial?
KL [sighs]: Man, all that stuff was just … you know they only had the end of the message thread?
[pause]
But they didn’t have the beginning of the message thread from that night, which if they had would have been at about 2:20am, around when Ethan left. That whole conversation on AIM lasted about ten or fifteen minutes.
KT: In court, you said you the AIM conversation lasted thirty minutes.
KL: I did? Well, maybe I’m remembering wrong, or maybe I was wrong back then. Honestly, you try remembering a conversation you had online with someone ten years ago, and see how easy it is to remember how long it lasted. Maybe at the trial I was referring to how long I’d been online, rather than how long Caleb and I had been chatting? I don’t know. I can’t remember exactly.
KT: So, you didn’t lie and change your statement about when he left your house, in order to provide him with a better alibi?
KL: No. I know that’s what people said and what a lot of people still believe, but genuinely I didn’t. People don’t understand what it’s like when you’re being questioned by police. Especially in a murder investigation when someone’s dead, and another person’s whole life hangs in the balance. Plus they brought me in for questioning a few days after Tyler was actually killed, so it was all a little bit hazy by then anyway. You’re always working with an approximation of what happened, because you’re only human, and you’re under pressure and your memory is fallible, but then the police term it as ‘evidence’ or whatever, and suddenly you may as well have carved that statement into a tablet of stone. So, then when you re-think something, or come to a realization, or just have a little more time to think about something, you’re branded at best as unreliable and at worst a liar, and suddenly your witness testimony is worthless.
* * *
“Thanks Kevin, that was great,” Kat said, removing her headphones and indicating Kevin could do the same.
“When will all this be released?” Kevin asked, and I thought I could hear a slight strain of concern in his voice. As if his conversation with Kat had finally made what he was doing sink in.
Kat exchanged a look with Ray, another of their