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In the wake of the controversy over the police raid on the music hall, Deputy District Attorney Gary Kesselman is removed from the Twilight Zone case. In the summer of 1985, a new prosecutor is appointed to take it to trial. Kesselman's replacement is another deputy DA named Leah Perwin D'. Agostino Though barely five feet tall, D' Agostino is an intimidating operator. At 48 years old, she's prosecuted some of the worst pedophiles and child abusers in California, and she's never lost a case. But she's not dealt with anything as high profile as this before. The Twilight Zone case will be her first time dealing with a celebrity in the courtroom. And she's never had to face opposition from such experienced and expensive attorneys because leading John Landis defense will be 57 year old James Neal. Neal is a veteran Nashville lawyer who was a special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal when he won convictions against some of President Richard Nixon's closest allies. Now he's perhaps the foremost criminal defense lawyer in the country, a formidable opponent for any prosecutor. But Dagasino's task is made even more difficult by the limited time she has to prepare before the trial begins and the huge amount of material she has to study. By now, the evidence goes well beyond the three binders Sergeant Tom Budz originally presented to the DA's office back in 1982. There are now six volumes of grand jury testimony for D' Agostino to review, as well as a thousand pages of witness statements gathered by the National Transportation Safety Board, plus all the transcripts from the preliminary hearings in 1984. So for months, D' Agostino works almost 20 hours a day to get through it all. But she's not just glued to her desk. As part of her research into Hollywood practices, she heads across LA to visit ongoing productions like the acclaimed police drama Hill Street Blues. She wants to see for herself just how things should be done on set and why standards on Twilight, the movie, fell. So while she's doing this field research in late 1985, she moves into a new office at the Criminal Court Building in downtown Los Angeles. Her room on the 18th floor has no windows, but as far as D' Agostino is concerned, that just means there are fewer distractions. So as movers carry in box after box of files and documents, d' Agostino looks around her new workplace. She's searching for the perfect spot for a corkboard she's had with her since her earliest days on the Twilight Zone case. Pinned to it are large photographs of Vic Morrow, Renee Chen and Mika Din Li, both immediately before and after their deaths. After thinking for a while, she props the board up on a narrow table directly opposite her desk, where she can see it while she works. She doesn't ever want to forget about the victims in this case or the fact that they suffered incredibly violent deaths. That's the fuel that keeps her going on all the long nights this case has demanded. But while d' agostino thinks the photographs are a constant reminder of why she's there, to her opponents the display is grotesque. The defense lawyers complain that d' Agostino has turned her office into a chamber of horrors. The photos from indian dunes don't strike them as a personal motivation tool. They look more like a naked attempt to prejudice witnesses and anyone else connected with the case who visits the office. So as the trial finally gets underway in the summer of 1986, the relationship between the two teams of lawyers is already strained, and soon it becomes openly hostile. In her opening remarks, attorney Lea d' agostino highlights the contrast between make believe movie magic and real life tragedy. She says to the jurors, these are very real deaths. They were not an illusion. Ladies and gentlemen, you are not going to see Renee chen coming from the back of the courtroom or Mika Lee or Vic Morrow. They are not going to say, look, we put our heads back on. It was an illusion. The defense teams don't like that. The lawyers on the other side of the courtroom think d' Agostino is being sensationalist and emotionally manipulative. And they don't keep their feelings to themselves. Soon, biting anonymous comments about d' Agostino's approach make their way into the press. But d' Agostino claims not to be bothered. She says she sees it as a transparent attempt to divert attention away from the facts of the the case, facts that she believes will be more than enough to secure a conviction. D' Agostino's plan is to overwhelm all doubts through sheer weight of evidence. She intends to call dozens of witnesses over the coming weeks. But the most important to her case is the very first. Donna Schuman was once a close friend of producer George Folsey Jr. And worked with him as a secretary in John landis production office. But that warm relationship is a thing of the past. Ever since Schuman and Folsey argued in a restaurant shortly after the accident, the pair has barely spoken. Now, face to face with Folsey in court, Schuman is carefully led through her evidence by d'. Agostino. She describes how chaotic the twilight zone production office was, how fast they had to work, and how much they were focused on doing everything as cheaply as possible. Then, when it comes to the children who were hired for the big finale, Shuman says the filmmakers rejected the use of dummies or stunt performers because they believed John Landis wouldn't think it looked real. She then explains how the production team deliberately withheld documents from the studio that might alert executives to Renee and Micah's illegal presence on set. This seems to be damning enough, but as far as d' Agostino is concerned, what Schuman has to say next will be even more incriminating. In fact, it might be the most important moment of. Of the entire trial under d' Agostino's persistent probing. Schuman relays two conversations she overheard in the production office. She claims she witnessed Both George Folsey Jr. And John Landis talk at length about how much trouble they would be in if it was discovered that they had hired the children without a permit. According to Schuman, it wasn't just a small fine they were worried about. She heard the filmmaker say they would go to jail because the youth of explosive special effects around kids was so dangerous. This testimony seems devastating proof that the defendants knew the risks they were taking and that the fatal accident on their set was far more than an unforeseeable act of God. And as d' Agostino finishes her question and takes her seat, she's delighted by her star witness performance. But then comes the defense's turn. James Neal's colleague from Nashville, Jim Sanders. Sanders leads the cross examination. Sanders prowls slowly toward the witness stand and then looks Donna Schuman in the eyes. Mrs. Schuman, you stated earlier that both Mr. Landis and Mr. Folsey joked in your presence about going to jail. These are obviously important comments, and you remember them well, I assume. I do. So I'm curious. Why then, did you not mention them in either case? Your testimony to the grand jury in 83 or at the preliminary hearing the following year? I wasn't asked the question. You didn't think it was worth mentioning? I wasn't asked the question. So you didn't think it was important to disclose that information? It's not my job to determine what's important. My job here is just to shut up and answer your questions. Well, on July 11th of this year, you wrote a memorandum for the prosecution in which you detailed your knowledge of the defendants and what they had done during the movie's production. Isn't that correct? Yes. Did you make any mention of those going to jail comments in that memorandum? I don't believe so. So you didn't mention them before the grand jury, you didn't mention them at the preliminary hearing, and you didn't mention them in your detailed memorandum? No. In fact, is it not true that the very first time you mention these comments anywhere is in a second memo you wrote for the prosecution only a few weeks ago? Schuman hesitates for a moment. No, that's not true. I did mention them before. Sanders pauses and gives her a hard look. When? Four years ago. To whom? There were other investigators before Mrs. D' Agostino got here. I was asked questions by about a million people. Who did you speak to about this, Mrs. Schuman? I believe I spoke to an attorney, Gary Kesselman, Mrs. D' Agostino's predecessor on this case. Schuman nods, but Sanders goes on. So your evidence is that you told Mr. Kesselman about these comments four years ago and you haven't mentioned them on any occasion since? Until today? Schuman looks pale. Yes, that's right, Jim Sanders and the rest of the defense team are convinced that something strange is going on. The rules of discovery mean that the prosecution should have shared all its evidence with them. But the comments that Donna Schuman supposedly made to Gary Kesselman don't appear in any notes or interviews that they've seen. Maybe it was just an honest mistake, an error in paperwork or a lost transcript. But if not, that leaves two possibilities. Either the prosecution attorneys have deliberately withheld important information from the defense, or they started making up evidence. Donna Schuman's testimony was supposed to get the prosecution off to the perfect start. The defendants in the trial had already admitted to employing Renee Chan and Mika Din Lee without a permit. So Deputy District Attorney Layot Erwin d' Agostino had wanted Schuman to suggest that the production knew using the children was not only illegal but but dangerous. Now, though, doubts about what Shuman told prosecutors and when threaten to derail d' Agostino's plans. Once the court adjourns following Shuman's cross examination, reporters reach out to the former prosecutor, Gary Kesselman, for comment, but he tells them he has no memory of Shuman's remarks. If she told someone, it wasn't him. The defense lawyers are delighted by this unanticipated development. They immediately make plans to ask the judge for a mistrial on the basis that the prosecution appears to have deliberately withheld information. But d' Agostino wants to head off that possibility right away. Eager to get her strategy back on track, she reaches out to her predecessor, and the next morning Gary Kesselman comes by her office at the Criminal Court building. Lea d' Agostino looks up from her papers to see Kesselman standing in the open doorway. Oh, hey, Gary. Come on in. Kesselman steps inside. He glances at the corkboard opposite d' Agostino's desk and then looks away from the gruesome photographs. D' Agostino shoots him a smile, though. Can I get you anything? Nah, I'm fine. He sits down. Well, this is all a mess, isn't it? But it's fixable. You know, when Donna Schuman wrote that second memo, you should have asked me about the going to jail comments. I could have told you. Told me what? That she never said it. Oh, come on, Gary. What? Can we just drop this? I don't know why you didn't write it down at the time, but you know that Donna told you about this. Well, that's the problem. I don't know. And it's not something I would forget, even without notes. Frustrated, d' Agostino takes a deep breath and she gets up and closes the door. All right, Gary, look, it's just the two of us in this office. You're not important. I'm not important. All that matters is the case. Kesselman frowns. If you're suggesting I should commit perjury. No, that's not what I'm implying at all. Then what are you implying? I think you've got the wrong guy. I'm asking you to let go of your pride. My pride? Yeah. Admit that you made a mistake. Maybe you don't remember. Maybe you didn't write down everything she said. Maybe you lost some notes. God knows it happens. Look at all the boxes around here. You go into court and you say that we move forward with the case and we nail these guys for what they did. But I didn't make a mistake, Leah. This isn't about you. It's about them. Agostino points a finger at the corkboard, but Kesselman refuses to look. You're really saying that Donna is lying? I think someone here is, but it's not me. All right, I've heard enough. Good luck with the case. Leia Kesselman stands and moves toward the door. D' Agostino points a finger. But just make sure you don't commit perjury the other way. When the trial reconvenes the following week, the defense subpoenas Gary Kesselman to appear in court. It's a question of court rules and admissibility of evidence so the jury isn't present when he takes the witness stand to repeat his claim that Donna Schuman never told him about the going to Jail comments. Cross examining him, Lea d' Agostino repeats her claim that he's just forgotten. Later on, she herself takes to the stand in support of her witnesses. She swears under oath that she did not coach Schuman or ever encourage her to embellish her evidence. Watching from across the court, the defense teams can hardly believe their luck. Before the trial, many people suggested that it would be difficult for the lawyers to mount an effective, unified response. With five defendants involved, it was assumed that at least one of them would eventually turn on the others. But now it's not the defense that's splintering, it's the prosecution. But when the jury returns, Lea d' Agostino tries her best to undo the damage. Over the weeks that follow, she shows the jurors hundreds of photographs and diagrams. She takes them to a movie theater where they watch the unedited footage of the helicopter crash. And she calls more than 70 witnesses, including crew members, studio executives and the victims families. She's often left frustrated by what she hears, though compared to earlier statements in front of the grand jury, some witnesses seem to be softening their testimony. Agostino believes that the fear of losing, losing out on jobs or being shunned in the tight knit Hollywood community is leading some witnesses to hold back. She has to push hard to get what she wants from them. But even the more candid testimony isn't always helpful. The evidence from the fire safety officers was supposed to be simple. They would confirm that what the production did was dangerous and violated the permit that they had been issued. But under cross examination by the defense, it emerges that there was an argument between two fire officers on the night of the accident. One of them thought there was a risk the helicopter might crash, but his supervisor on set refused to pass those warnings on to the filmmakers. This evidence allows the defense to shift the focus away from their clients. As one of the lawyers said to the press, the fire safety officers who thought the scene was dangerous and did nothing are not being prosecuted, while the defendants who thought it was safe are being prosecuted. Behind the scenes at the DA's office, more and more questions are asked about Lea D' Agostino's trial strategy. Some, like the original police investigator, Tom Budz, believe she's called too many witnesses, has gotten bogged down in side issues. But d' Agostino refuses to change course. And it's only after a total of almost six months of testimony that she rests her case. Throughout it all, she has tried to paint the defendants as recklessly endangering lives in the Pursuit of a good shot. Her argument is that even if they didn't think it was risky, they should have known it was. But when the turn of the defense comes, of course, their lawyers insist that nothing could be farther from the truth. John Landis himself is the first to give evidence in his defense. Becoming emotional on the stand, he admits to illegally employing Renee Chen and Micha Din Li. But he categorically denies being told the shots were dangerous or ever thinking that they were. He says he believed it was safe to have the explosions and helicopter in close proximity to the children. He wouldn't have filmed the sequence otherwise. His lawyer argues that the stunts were fully planned and thoroughly practiced, and Landis could not be held criminally responsible just because of the tragic outcome. Landis is then followed on the witness stand by helicopter pilot Dorsey Wingo. But the three other defendants decline to give evidence. And on the whole, their lawyers call far fewer witnesses than Lea d'. Agostino. Still, they successfully introduced doubt around some of the prosecution's key claims. Technical experts present complex evidence that suggests it was not stray debris that brought the helicopter down. Instead, it might have been heat from the special effects on set that caused delamination of the tail rotor blade. As its thin metal outer skin peeled away. An aerodynamic imbalance was introduced that eventually ripped the blade in two. There are no records of delamination ever causing a crash before. And the operators of the helicopter were never warned that it was a possibility. So the defense argues it was impossible for the defendants to foresee it would happen. Such technical evidence is difficult for the prosecution to argue against. But d' Agostino has other openings. If any of the five defendants can be persuaded to turn on the others, it might change the course of the trial. But d' Agostino proves unable to to take advantage of any potential differences between the defense teams. Instead, it's once again the prosecution's own divisions that make the biggest impact. In March of 1987, Gary Kesselman returns to court to give evidence, this time in front of the jury. And he goes even further than he did before, while insisting once again that Donna Schuman never made the going to jail comments. He also criticizes her as extremely emotional. And he shares details of the argument he had with Leo d' Agostino in her office, saying she was very agitated and appeared to be asking him to lie on the prosecution's behalf. This controversy is still fresh in the jurors minds when they retire to consider their verdicts. On May 18, 1987. Eleven days later, Leah D', Agostino, John Landis, George Folsey Jr. And all the other defendants and lawyers are summoned back to court. The jury has come to a verdict. As Landis walks in, his face is gray. He's been accused of arrogance several times during the trial and has been warned by the judge and even his own lawyers about his outbursts. But he doesn't feel confident now. He knows if he's found guilty, he's likely to go to prison. So everything comes down to the piece of paper in the judge's hand. Landis blood thuds in his ears as he watches the judge unseal the verdicts. The judge's face flushes, and he seems to grip the verdicts a little tighter as he scans the pages. He then hands them to the court clerk. She reads each count and verdict one by one. When Landis hears his name and the words not guilty, he closes his eyes in relief. For every count and every defendant, the verdict is the same. Not guilty. The judge discharges them all, and the gallery behind Landis breaks into cheers. Across the room, Prosecuting Attorney Lea d' Agostino quietly gathers her papers, her stare fixed ahead. As the celebrations continue around her, Landis barely gives her a second look. Within moments, he's embracing his wife, and together they make for the exit. Outside, reporters and crew jostle for position in the hallway as they catch sight of Landis. Cameras flash and microphones are thrust forward. Grinning from ear to ear, Landis talks about what a terrible time the last five years have been for him and how grateful he is to the jury for their decision. He doesn't once mention Vic Morrow, Renee Chen, or Mika Din Le. Following the trial, some members of the jury gave interviews to reporters explaining their verdicts. It was clear that many of them had not believed Donna Schuman, and some found the sheer weight and complexity of the evidence presented to them difficult to process. In the end, the jurors simply were not convinced that John Landis had, and the other filmmakers knowingly endangered the actors on set. So they voted to acquit. To some legal observers, though, this was a mistake. Even if the accused men genuinely did not think the scene was hazardous, the jurors could still have decided that they should have been aware of the dangers and were criminally negligent not to have acted differently. As it was having paid fines for illegally hiring the children, the defendants were free to continue their careers in Hollywood. Landis was never blacklisted after the accident that killed three people on his set, but he was never fully able to escape what happened either. Ultimately, Twilight the Movie would mark a turning point in his career. The 1990s saw him direct a string of flops, including Beverly Hills Cop 3 and a widely panned sequel to the Blues Brothers. Landis hasn't been entrusted with a blockbuster since, and his dreams of becoming the biggest director in Hollywood never came true. Perhaps his greatest legacy is an unwanted one. The Twilight Zone accident is still taught in film schools, union safety courses and legal seminars as a case study in what not to do. In the wake of the incident, the movie industry brought in safety changes, including stricter stunt coordination protocols. Simple verbal discussions like those used at Indian Dunes would no longer be enough. Major stunts would now require written plans with clear lines of communication and authority. No shot is worth a life became an unofficial motto. But some doubt how much has really changed. Although rare, fatal on set, accidents do still happen, especially when schedules and budgets are tight and there's pressure to get the perfect shot. It seems that even more than four decades on Hollywood is yet to truly escape the Twilight Zone. From Wondery this is Episode four of the Twilight Zone accident for American Scandal. In our next episode, I talked to Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassette Bowman from the what Went Wrong Podcast about the wider Hollywood culture at the time of the accident, whether the verdicts in the trial were fair ones, and how the movie industry has changed since the 1980s. If you'd like to learn more about the accident on set of Twilight the Movie, we recommend the book Special Effects by Ron Lebrecht and Outrageous Conduct by Stephen Farber and Mark Green. This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details. And while in most cases we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research. American Scandal is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airshoot Audio editing by Jake Sampson sound design by Gabriel Gould Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by William Simpson, Fact Checking by Alyssa Jung Perry Managing Producer Emily Burke development by Stephanie Jens senior Producer Andy Beckerman. Executive producers are William Simpson for Airship and Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie for Wondering. To listen to the rest of this season of American Scandal, start your free trial of Wondery in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. With Wondery plus, you can listen to other incredible history podcasts like American Historytellers, History, Daily, Tides of History and more. Download the Wondery app today.
