The Girl in the Blue Mustang - Ep. 5: Revelations

Summary

Dateline NBC: The Girl in the Blue Mustang

Episode 5: Revelations

Release Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Keith Morrison (as Oliver)

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Overview

In this pivotal episode, "Revelations," the focus shifts from grieving and aftermath to doubt and investigation, as new eyes reexamine the conviction of Raymond Jennings for the murder of Michelle O’Keefe. The emotional journey of the O’Keefe family is interwoven with the dogged quest of the Ehrlichs—a father-son legal team—who uncover missed evidence and challenge the accepted narrative of the case. The episode explores themes of tunnel vision in investigations, the toll of tragedy on families, and the potential for justice to be both served and denied.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Need for Fresh Eyes on Cold Cases

• Keith Morrison/Oliver introduces the episode, noting that sometimes the most stalled cases require new perspectives, something the father-and-son team Jeff and Clint Ehrlich felt "morally compelled" to provide.
  • Oliver (01:02): “Sometimes what a stalled case needs most is a set of fresh eyes…a service the Ehrlichs, father and son, felt morally compelled to provide.”

2. The O’Keefe Family’s Struggles & The Weight of Tragedy

• Mike and Pat O’Keefe, and their son Jason, grappled with Michelle's murder and its aftermath. They learned to live with unending grief, eventually divorcing as a result.
  • Mike O’Keefe (02:43): "You kind of work through it. You don't really close the book…Michelle will still be gone. Yeah, we'll still miss her, but we learn to get through each day."
• Mike emphasizes an outward-looking mission: to support others who endure similar tragedies.
  • Mike O’Keefe (03:01): "If we can go help others who've gone through...similar tragedies, I think that's probably a big part of our mission."

3. Jason O’Keefe: Hope, Loss, and Another Blow

• Jason had potential as a baseball star and law student, sustaining his parents with hope. A freak elevator accident derailed his prospects. Doctors overprescribed pain medication, leading to addiction and an eventual fatal overdose.
  • Mike O’Keefe (07:40): “This doctor for some reason…described him fentanyl and morphine…just overdid it with him. But the drugs had basically taken over his life…completely changed his character.”
• Jason’s death left Mike without children and with a pain few can fathom.
  • Mike O’Keefe (09:40): “I can’t tell you. It takes you to a low. No one can characterize what low is until you go through something like that.”

4. The Ehrlichs' Investigation: Doubt Cast on the Conviction

• While the O’Keefes suffered, Jeff and Clint Ehrlich began re-examining the old case files. They quickly noticed oddities and oversights—beginning to suspect a miscarriage of justice for Raymond Jennings.
  • Clint Ehrlich (04:19): “I knew that Ray Jennings was sitting in a cell, that he was away from his children. And I couldn't enjoy life because I knew that this injustice had existed.”

5. Circumstantial Evidence and Investigative Oversights

• The original case heavily relied on Jennings’ statements, with no physical evidence (GSR, DNA, fingerprints, or the murder weapon) tying him to the murder.
  • Oliver (12:57): “From the files…the conviction of Jennings was based almost entirely on the things that he said…no physical evidence that could pin the murder on Jennings.”
  • Jeff Ehrlich (15:43): “If they had swabbed Ray's hands for gunshot residue or searched him or his car and found that there was no gun, then there wouldn't have been a case. So...the detective work at the beginning wasn't very good.”

Key Missing Evidence:

• No gunshot residue (GSR) on Jennings or his uniform.
• Jennings did not own a 9mm; no murder weapon recovered.
• No hair, fibers, or prints from Jennings in Michelle’s car.
• Lack of pseudo stippling (physical evidence of a shot at close range).

Investigative Lapses:

• Failure to consider alternative theories, such as attempted robbery or gang involvement.
• Over-reliance on FBI profiler testimony without supporting evidence.
  • Clint Ehrlich (20:33): “Criminal profiling is a great investigative tool and…a horrible form of evidence to try to convict someone and put them in prison.”

6. Alternative Theories & Overlooked Leads

• Anonymous tip suggested gang-related carjacking; never fully investigated.
• Victoria Richardson, a key witness, was sitting in a nearby car with three others the night of the murder. Police never interviewed the others or ran background checks, despite their criminal records.
  • Jeff Ehrlich (27:55): “They didn't do any background check into any of those people...the whole tenor of the case would look considerably different.”
  • Jeff Ehrlich (28:59): “It has a name, tunnel vision, and it's a form of confirmation bias…and it happens in virtually every wrongful conviction. They just locked in on him, and they just couldn't bring themselves to consider anyone else. It's a tragedy.”

7. The Decision to Seek Justice: The Conviction Review Unit

• With existing appeals exhausted, the only option was a habeas petition—daunting, costly, and slow. But a new Conviction Review Unit (CRU) offered hope.
  • Oliver (30:29): “But then, out of the blue, came a gift from the unlikeliest of places…a groundbreaking unit called the CRU...to investigate credible claims of innocence.”
• The Ehrlichs meticulously prepared and submitted a comprehensive 34-page letter and compiled evidence to the CRU.
  • Jeff Ehrlich (32:23): “We put together this critique and Clint was clearly the architect...But it took us months to craft and we did it collaboratively.”
  • Clint Ehrlich (32:34): “I wrote the majority of the letter, I wrote the argument, my father wrote the facts…”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On living with tragedy:
  • Mike O'Keefe (03:38): “You’ve gotta kind of characterize a new normal in your life. Cause what normal has been is no longer normal.”
• On the consequences of conviction:
  • Jeff Ehrlich (04:05): “The fact that you can just, at 25, have your life taken away from you for no reason is a very frightening prospect.”
• On the failure of the investigation:
  • Jeff Ehrlich (28:59): “It has a name, tunnel vision...They just locked in on him...and they just couldn't bring themselves to consider anyone else. It's a tragedy.”
• On finding hope and taking action:
  • Clint Ehrlich (31:41): “He came to me and said, we need to contact these people. And I agreed immediately because we had been hoping that there was some way to reach out and to explain, look, we think you've made a really, really bad mistake...the idea that we could go directly to the DA's office and say, please take a look at this, that, that was very appealing.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:02 – Introduction to the concept of “fresh eyes” and the Ehrlichs.
• 03:01 – Mike O’Keefe on coping and “mission” after tragedy.
• 07:40 – Mike O’Keefe recounts Jason’s accident, resulting addiction, and death.
• 12:57 – The conviction’s reliance on Jennings’ own words, not evidence.
• 15:43–17:18 – Jeff Ehrlich on lack of physical evidence and investigative failures.
• 19:02–21:11 – The botched robbery theory and gang-related tip.
• 27:55–28:59 – The overlooked witness Victoria Richardson and the phenomenon of tunnel vision.
• 31:41–32:43 – Submitting the case to the Conviction Review Unit and assembling the letter.

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Tone & Language

The episode balances the emotional devastation of tragedy with the dogged, methodical optimism of the Ehrlichs. Morrison’s narration is reflective, sometimes poetic, permeated by empathy and a sobering sense of injustice. The Ehrlichs speak with measured frustration and clarity; the O’Keefes with grief and hard-won resolve.

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Conclusion

“Revelations” marks a turning point in the series, where possibility emerges amid a history of heartbreak and judicial error. The episode ends with the Ehrlichs' letter sent to the CRU, awaiting a response—and new hope that the truth behind Michelle O’Keefe’s murder, and Raymond Jennings’ conviction, may finally be revealed.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

[Ciara]

Based on a New York Times best thriller comes 56 Days, starring Dove Cameron. A story of love.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

Oh, sorry.

[Oliver]

I'm Oliver.

[Ciara]

I'm Ciara.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Lies.

[Oliver]

So do you like secrets?

[Ciara]

No, I like reveals. Seduction.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

It's like they were obsessed with each other.

[Ciara]

And murder.

[Mike O'Keefe]

What do you got here?

[Raymond Jennings]

Body in the bathtub.

[Ciara]

56 days. Premieres February 18th on Prime Video.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

I'm gonna get you.

[Oliver]

Not if I get you first.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Oliver]

It's generally accepted wisdom among those who toil for justice, who give up nights and weekends and children's birthday parties in service of the dead, that sometimes what a stall case needs most is a set of fresh eyes. Eyes that may see what others missed, a service the Ehrlichs, father and son, felt morally compelled to provide.

[Clint Ehrlich]

As Clint put was painful to see a man whom I knew was innocent, whom I knew had served our country locked in a cage like an animal.

[Oliver]

But it is equally true that people don't generally like to be told when they're wrong. So when a tough case is finally all done and dusted and the guilty party has been tried and convicted and sent away, fresh eyes are not always so welcome, no matter how bright or perceptive. Especially to those like the o', Keefes, for whom that long sought conviction was as important as breathing, given the horrors that had descended upon them, beginning with that awful moment in Michelle's blue Mustang all those years ago. But the desert winds blew as ever, year after year, and the seasons came and went and new families grew up around them. And Mike and Pat o' Keefe did what they had to do to put some kind of life back together. Not easy, as Pat told me, not easy at all. But you make accommodations to this, this sort of continuing pain that you feel, huh? That you just have to find a place for it and live with it.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

I think you kind of work through it. You don't really close the book like people say. Oh, you'd be so happy when everything's all done. Michelle will still Be gone. Yeah, we'll still miss her, but we learn to get through each day.

[Oliver]

Best to look outward now, said Mike.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Based on what we've learned, if we can go help others who've gone through, heaven forbid, similar tragedies, I think that's probably a big part of our mission.

[Oliver]

In life from here on anyway. There was Jason, a son anyone would be proud of. Jason, the budding baseball prospect, the future lawyer. And a young man who told us he was determined to rise above the ugliness.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Somehow there's gonna become a time in my life when I'm gonna have to find it deep down in my heart to forgive him.

[Oliver]

It was the way things were post verdict, said Mike.

[Mike O'Keefe]

You've gotta kind of characterize a new normal in your life. Cause what normal has been is no longer normal.

[Oliver]

In this episode, it's all beyond normal as a family clings to its one certainty that the guilty man was convicted, while Jeff Ehrlich puts his considerable reputation on the line in an attempt to tear those very certainties asunder for the sake of a man he'd only just met.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

The fact that you can just, at 25, have your life taken away from you for no reason is a very frightening prospect.

[Oliver]

And he is not yet attorney son. Minds from nuggets of truth buried in an old episode of Dateline.

[Clint Ehrlich]

I knew that Ray Jennings was sitting in a cell, that he was away from his children. And I couldn't enjoy life because I knew that this injustice had existed.

[Oliver]

As the Ehrlichs buried themselves in the old evidence files and read and re read police reports and interviews and conclusions that might have been right but maybe were wrong, a whole different story began to emerge. A story you have not yet heard. There would be consequences.

[Raymond Jennings]

This one incident, as vicious as it is, it's had a huge ripple effect. People's lives have been changed forever.

[Oliver]

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is the girl in the Blue Mustang. A podcast from Dateline. Episode five, Revelation. Revelations. I could not stop thinking about Job. Old Testament Job. As I sat with Mike and Pat o' Keefe and talked about, well, everything really. The memories, the whole thing, you know.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Took its toll on both of us, I think. Certainly caused depression throughout her family, you know, Pat, myself and Jason, of course. So it's just a terrible thing to go through.

[Oliver]

Well, and each of you would remind the other of all that. Yes. And finally, there was only one solution, at least for them. Early one spring, four years after that third and final trial, Pat and Mike o' Keefe filed for Divorce. They weren't angry. They didn't dislike each other. They just found it easier to live apart. Mike moved up to the mountains about an hour away, moved into a rental with Jason, the son who'd been giving him and Pat reasons to feel good again. Jason had turned out to be a fine baseball player of pitcher with prospects. His pitching coach was the same man who taught baseball great Randy Johnson. And one day, as Mike watched Jason work out alongside a pro pitcher, that coach turned to Mike and spoke.

[Mike O'Keefe]

He had a big poster of Randy Johnson over in the corner of his facility. He says, I want you to think about this. Randy Johnson makes $350,000 a week. In five years, you could be there. And what was really touching is Jason got back up on the mound, started throwing. The other pitcher looked over at him, and he goes, kid, he's never said that to me. So it was just sort of as a dad, you know, proud moment kind of things.

[Oliver]

More proud moments to come maybe. Jason was scouted by the Dodgers and the Padres, and who knew? Some kind of pro career seemed to beckon. And then one day, it was a freak thing, really, one in a million accident. An elevator gave way beneath him. His injuries were not life threatening, but baseball was not so likely after that. And there was pain, a lot of it. Pain and medication.

[Mike O'Keefe]

This doctor for some reason described him fentanyl and morphine at the same time and. And fairly strong doses of each. And anyway, I was just basically taking the drugs as prescribed, just over did it with him. But the drugs had basically taken over his life. It been a situation where this kid also had the world on a string. And through the injuries and the drugs just kind of, you saw this could go from an all American kid to kind of a recluse who just kind of hung out in his room most of the time. You know, once in a while, would go do something with me, occasionally go out with one of his friends, but not like, you know, completely changed, completely changed his character.

[Oliver]

And one cold day in November 2014, Michael Keefe returned from work and found Jason's lifeless body on the floor. An overdose. Must look up at the sky and say, why me, God? A lot.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Oh, my gosh. You know, people say, do you pray? And I go, well, I don't only pray, but I end up having some loud discussions with Jesus, you know, when I do pray. And so it kind of changed my whole perspective on things, you know, I'm sure a lot of people disagree with it, but it is what it is, you know. And however those People are disagreeing with me. I went through what I've been through.

[Oliver]

This was stalwart Jason, who'd kept them going through all those trials.

[Mike O'Keefe]

I know for a fact Raymond Lee Jennings killed my sister.

[Oliver]

Jason, who had studied law so he could be a sword for justice. Just like Michael Blake, the prosecutor protector who had gone to trial three times for the sake of his sister Michelle. Jason was dead. No children now. Unimaginable, really.

[Mike O'Keefe]

I can't tell you. It takes you to a low. No one can characterize what low is until you go through something like that.

[Oliver]

So perhaps it was a blessing of sorts that the o' Keeffes had no idea that a few months after Jason's death, a civil attorney and his son turned their fresh eyes toward the murder of Michelle. But then, neither did the Erlichs know what the o' Keefes had been going through. No, they were focused on facts and evidence. And to borrow another biblical title on Revelations.

[Ciara]

Based on a New York Times best thriller comes 56 Days, starring Dove Cameron. A story of love.

[Oliver]

Sorry, I'm Oliver.

[Ciara]

I'm Ciara.

[Unknown Male Speaker]

Lies.

[Oliver]

So do you like secrets?

[Ciara]

No, I like reveals. Seduction.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

It's like they were obsessed with each other.

[Ciara]

And murder.

[Mike O'Keefe]

What do you got here?

[Raymond Jennings]

Body in the bathtub.

[Ciara]

56 Days premieres February 18th on Prime Video.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

I'm gonna get you.

[Oliver]

Not if I get you first.

[Unknown Male Speaker]

Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Andy live and uncensored.

[Oliver]

Catch me talking with my friends about.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

My latest obsessions, relationship issues and bodily ailments.

[Unknown Male Speaker]

With that kind of drama seems to follow me.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

You never know what's going to happen.

[Oliver]

You can listen to Jeff Lewis live at home or anywhere you are.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 channels of AD.

[Oliver]

Free music, sports, entertainment and more.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

Subscribe now and get 3 months free offer details apply. Not sure if you have the experience to start your dream job. Good news. These days it's the skills that count. Udemy can help you get those in demand. Skills? Want to be an AI master? Mind learn with us. Game developer. We've got you covered. AWS certified Cloud practitioner. We can help you prep. You'll learn from real world experts who love what they do so that you can love what you do. Go to udemy.com for the skills to get you started and get set for your dream job.

[Oliver]

The thing of it was, and this the Ehrlichs encountered again and again and again in the old files. Raymond Jennings just could not seem to keep his mouth shut during the investigation. Talk Talk, talk. That's what he did. Willingly and repeatedly. His own mouth was what made him a suspect soon after the murder of Michelle o'. Keefe. Because what he described, what he said he saw with his own two eyes, could only have been seen by the killer. Here is how he explained it to me long after his conviction.

[Raymond Jennings]

These are things that I should have never spoke on because I didn't know. I'm not a. I'm not an expert. Oh, absolutely. Just based upon what I observed.

[Oliver]

This is the guy who talked too much.

[Raymond Jennings]

Absolutely.

[Oliver]

Because you were saying things you thought you knew, but you didn't have a clue.

[Raymond Jennings]

Didn't have a clue.

[Oliver]

From the files, the Ehrlichs deduced that the conviction of Jennings was based almost entirely on the things that he said. Prosecutor Michael Blake always acknowledged there was no physical evidence that could pin the murder on Jennings. It was all circumstantial. By the time the airlifts got involved, Jennings had evolved a philosophical way of looking at it.

[Raymond Jennings]

It is funny how people react to different situations. When there's trauma involved, you and I can look at the same thing, and you can see something totally different than what I see.

[Oliver]

When I talked to Raymond Jennings, I was struck by how remarkably patient he was. And polite, affable. If there was bitterness, it did not show. Rather, he seemed endlessly, if naively, optimistic.

[Raymond Jennings]

I just tell everybody I'm a short timer. At no point in my 11 years did I tell anybody that I got life in prison. And that's it? That's it. I'm done.

[Oliver]

But you were done.

[Raymond Jennings]

No, I wasn't.

[Oliver]

You never felt that way.

[Raymond Jennings]

I never felt that way.

[Oliver]

Well, perhaps. But the Ehrlichs wanted to see the facts. All the facts. So they gathered together every bit of evidence they could lay their hands on. Most of it in police reports and recorded interviews, legal filings, public information available to anybody if they'd ask. Stacks of paper rode the elevator to their sixth floor lookout over LA's San Fernando Valley. And page by page, they dug through it all, looking for anything that would either prove Clint's suspicions had been wrong all along and it really was a proper conviction or something. They didn't know quite what that was. But pretty soon, they began to find things. Things that didn't seem right. There was no doubt, none whatsoever, that the weapon used to kill Michelle was a 9 millimeter handgun. And yet no amount of searching produced a scintilla of evidence that Jennings ever owned a 9 millimeter. Oh, he did own a gun. It was a 308. But again, it was all on the file. He did not have it with him the night Michelle was killed. It was against the security company's rules. Besides, the detectives never did recover the 9 millimeter murder weapon. Not on Jennings, nor anywhere around the crime scene. And this was weird, thought the airlifts. They didn't even check to see if Jennings actually fired a gun that night. They could easily have done that, but they didn't. This is Jeff Ehrlich.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

If they had swabbed Ray's hands for gunshot residue or searched him or his car and found that there was no gun, then there wouldn't have been a case. So? So the detective work at the beginning wasn't very good.

[Oliver]

Mind you, that first night, police considered Jennings to be a witness, not a person of interest. Still, some things were tested, some things were not. Later they did collect Jennings uniform. Standard issue security guard outfit. The one Jennings was wearing that night. Now that the police did test for gunshot residue and there wasn't any. Not a grain on the uniform. Also no pseudo stippling. Curious phenomenon, stippling. It should have happened to Jennings had he been the shooter. But it didn't. As Jeff explained, if Ray Jennings had.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Been the shooter, and since the shooter had, according to the prosecution, fired the first shot into the ground at his feet, there would be this phenomenon known as pseudostippling, which is shrapnel from the bullet in the asphalt that would tear holes through his pants and possibly his legs. And so the absence of pseudo stippling is more evidence that shows. In the same way that the absence of gunshot residue on the cuffs of his jacket shows that he didn't fire a gun that night. He didn't shoot a bullet into the ground at his feet that night, which.

[Oliver]

Is pretty powerful evidence. If he didn't fire a gun, he didn't kill her.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Exactly.

[Oliver]

The Ehrlichs also looked in vain for evidence that Jennings had been in Michelle's car. Things like hair and fibers and fingerprints, DNA, that sort of thing. But there was nothing like that. Nothing at all. Except there should have been. If the prosecutor's theory of the crime, how it happened and why it happened was true. The Ehrlichs read in the transcript that prosecutor Blake told the jury the crime was most likely a sex assault. And in fact, he called to the stand a well known FBI behavioral specialist named Mark Safarik to back him up.

[Unknown Male Speaker]

I believe that the motive for this crime was sexual assault, that, that the offender intended a sexual assault. It wasn't well thought out and it escalated it Went. It went bad quickly, and it escalated until a homicide.

[Oliver]

One thing it was not, said Blake to the jury, was a robbery gone wrong. How did he know? Because valuable items were left in Michelle's car. Her purse, for one thing, and separately, a wallet with $110 in it, along with credit cards. Surely a robber would have taken those things. So the prosecutor's perfectly reasonable deduction, it wasn't a robbery. It was an attempted sexual assault. But then the airless came across a police report, and, well. Well, that changed everything. There were photos which revealed that Michelle's wallet was not in her purse. It had fallen into a gap under her seat where a thief in a hurry wouldn't have seen it.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Very hard to see at night in a dark parking lot in a dark car. And her glove box was open. It looked like the car had been ransacked. Someone was probably looking for that money in her purse, and they couldn't find it. So to say, oh, it wasn't taken didn't make sense.

[Oliver]

Here's what did make sense to the Erlichs. Based on the police reports, something called a situational felony murder.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

The situational felony murder happens when sort of a youthful offender, someone at the beginning of their criminal career, is committing a crime, and then it's interrupted, like by a car alarm. And Ray Jennings heard the car alarm, and then they panic, shoot the victim and leave.

[Oliver]

But Jeff Ehrlich wasn't a criminal attorney. He wasn't used to poking around crime scenes for evidence of situational felony murders.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

So I hired a retired profiler and said, what do you think? And he said, well, it does fit those criteria. So we verified things by hiring experts, and mostly we just looked at the record and found the inconsistencies.

[Oliver]

Of course, the ex FBI man Mark Safarik was an expert, too. So maybe, thought the Ehrlichs, maybe Safarik didn't have all the facts before him when he offered the jury his opinions. This is Jeff Ehrlich's son, Clint.

[Clint Ehrlich]

One of the issues was whether it had been appropriate to allow Mr. Safrak to testify about his theory of the crime. Okay, because there was, in essence, no evidence to support. It was just his imagination.

[Oliver]

About, like an FBI profiler.

[Clint Ehrlich]

And here's what he would exactly. I think that criminal profiling is a great investigative tool and that it is a horrible form of evidence to try to convict someone and put them in prison.

[Oliver]

But the other possibility, the botched robbery motive, rejected by the prosecutor. The Ehrlichs figured that robbery motive made sense for a Particular reason, right around the time Michelle was murdered, the park and Ride was struggling with a festering gang problem. And what do you know? Right there in the files. Jeff Ehrlich said they found this just.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Weeks after the murder. There was an anonymous tip that was called into the Antelope Valley Press that then was reported to the sheriffs and investigated that said that this was a gang related attempted carjacking that went bad, that there were people in the parking lot who were in the parking lot to steal hubcaps or rims or whatever else they could do, that they tried to steal Michelle o' Keefe's mustang, that she resisted and they shot her and left. And it was a very specific tip.

[Oliver]

But it never went anywhere. Besides, by then, Ray Jennings was suspect number one and only. No matter how deeply the Ehrlichs dug into the investigation, they came up with the same answer. None of the actual evidence implicated Ray Jennings. The case was built on interpretations like Jennings behavior. Night of the murder, Jennings told investigators he saw signs Michelle may still have been alive but didn't rush to her aid. And that, prosecutor Blake told the jury, made Jennings look like a guilty man. But not so, said Jeff Ehrlich. As an unarmed security guard, Jennings had been trained to stay back and call police in the event of a shooting.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Ray acted utterly appropriately. And that's another thing that I think is wrong with the case, that the prosecution used the fact that he acted consistently with his training as evidence that he was guilty.

[Oliver]

But they also went and looked from every possible position in that lot where he was, and he should have seen, said the police, what happened. So if he was telling the truth, he would have been able to tell them something more than he did. And if he was lying, well, obviously that was cover, right?

[Jeff Ehrlich]

If he wanted to lie, all he would have had to do is say, I saw some guy wearing a sweatshirt and a hoodie firing a gun. And then I ducked down. And then when I looked up again, he was gone. He could have just made up a story. He didn't make up a story in that way.

[Oliver]

Many more bits and pieces piled up on the Ehrlich's desk. The pile grew into a thick binder, each discovery carefully explained, each one pointing to Jennings innocence. But something was missing, too. Seemed like there were blanks in the investigation's paper trail. Things that should have been there but weren't. Kind of like they were reading a book with missing pages. Except maybe those pages were never there in the first place because somebody overlooked evidence. Maybe evidence that might reveal who murdered Michelle o' Keefe in her blue Mustang on that cold, windswept night in the desert.

[Ciara]

Based on a New York Times best thriller comes 56 Days, starring Dove Cameron. A story of love.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

Oh, sorry.

[Oliver]

I'm Oliver.

[Ciara]

I'm Ciara.

[Unknown Male Speaker]

Lies.

[Oliver]

So do you like secrets?

[Ciara]

No, I like reveals seduction.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

It's like they were obsessed with each other.

[Ciara]

And murder.

[Mike O'Keefe]

What do you got here?

[Raymond Jennings]

Body in the bathtub.

[Ciara]

56 Days premieres February 18th on Prime Video.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

I'm going to get you.

[Oliver]

Not if I get you first.

[Unknown Male Speaker]

Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest to the other two. We dive deep with guests that you love like Bill Hader, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless now on the SiriusXM app. Download it today.

[Unknown Female Speaker]

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[Oliver]

In the summer of 2015, record rains coursed down the parched embankment at Palmdale's park and Ride, made rivulets through the place Michelle o' Keefe was murdered and passed the empty spot where once a memorial cross marked her. Passing 70 miles to the south in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, the rain beat at the windows of Jeff Ehrlich's law office. While inside, Jeff and son Clint stared long and hard. Had a name, Victoria Richardson. And who was she? A key witness in the trial of Raymond Jennings, for one thing. She, you may recall, said she was sitting in a car in the park and ride night of the murder. Where Was that exactly? 11 spaces from Michelle's blue Mustang, she told detectives. And from that vantage, she said she saw a security guard walk past and then, moments later, heard some strange tapping noises. At the time, the detectives made what seemed an obvious deduction. Those tapping noises must have been Jennings shooting Michelle. The Ehrlichs weren't so sure about that. For one thing, they discovered Victoria had quite the record. Drug dealing, violence, etc, etc. So maybe not entirely reliable. Still, they were quite sure this Victoria Richardson had to be an important clue. In fact, she had admitted to the original detective something quite remarkable, that she and three other people were sitting in her parked car smoking marijuana and listening to music at the time of the shooting. But who were those three people? Did they see something? Do they do something? Jeff Ehrlich.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

To me, what is the most remarkable thing about the case is that they didn't do any background check into any of those people.

[Oliver]

They didn't ask, didn't talk to any of them.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

No, nothing. And, you know, had they done that, the whole tenor of the case would look considerably different.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Yeah.

[Oliver]

Isn't one of the rules, when in doubt, talk to all about.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Even their profiling expert, Mr. Safrak said that it was incumbent on the police to talk to all the people in the car. And they didn't do that. They never ran a background check on those people. Two of those people were in prison when the charges were filed against Ray Jennings. And the essence of the prosecution case is that Ray must have been guilty because there was no one else there who could have committed the crime.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Well.

[Oliver]

Yes. I don't even know what to say to that, Clinton. Jeff Ehrlich concluded that police and prosecutors had been blinded by their own theory of the crime, that Raymond Jennings was the killer.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

It has a name, tunnel vision, and it's a form of confirmation bias. And in prosecutors, it happens in virtually every wrongful conviction. They just locked in on him, and they just couldn't bring themselves to consider anyone else. It's a tragedy.

[Oliver]

Clint Ehrlich told me what happened that night should have become obvious to investigators. How would you categorize this crime?

[Clint Ehrlich]

An attempted carjacking gone wrong.

[Oliver]

Simple as that?

[Clint Ehrlich]

Simple as that.

[Oliver]

The Ehrlichs had seen enough. They were outraged by the investigation and the trial and the conviction of a man they believed was innocent. But the legal options available to them were almost nil. The only possible remedy, given that Jennings had lost his appeals, was a habeas petition. And that was something Jeff Ehrlich, with all his civil law experience, had never filed before. It's Greek for bring me the body. A way to get a convict before a higher court for a review of their case. The Ehrlichs knew all too well the way these petitions almost always went, in a word, badly. And we watched these things go through the courts time and again with people who were actually innocent in prison. And it takes sometimes decades yes, yes, yes. So that was what you were facing.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Yes.

[Oliver]

And you knew it and you were prepared to go for it anyway. I.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Yes. I didn't see a choice.

[Oliver]

But that process could not only take years, it would cost big money. Now the odds of getting Jennings out of prison were daunting. A million to one. But then, out of the blue, came a gift from the unlikeliest of places. June 29, 2015. Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey proudly stepped up to the podium. Wearing a cool pink suit and a string of pearls, she'd called in the press to announce the formation of a groundbreaking unit called the cru. Shorthand for Conviction Review Unit. Its mission, to investigate credible claims of innocence. The man standing at Lacy's side of the Podium was the CRU's new director, Ken Lynch. Broad smile, broad shoulders, he was the former supervisor of LA's gang unit. Jeff could barely wait to share the news with his son Clint. No need for a habeas petition, no need for a long tilted federal court windmills. They were going to write a letter.

[Clint Ehrlich]

He came to me and said, we need to contact these people. And I agreed immediately because we had been hoping that there was some way to reach out and to explain, look, we think you've made a really, really bad mistake. And so the idea that we could go directly to the DA's office and say, please take a look at this, that, that was very appealing.

[Oliver]

Mind you, they knew theirs would likely be one of hundreds, maybe thousands of appeals to this new Conviction Review Unit. One letter was the only shot they had. And Raymond Jennings fate hung on every word.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

And so we put together this critique and Clint was clearly the architect of sort of the point by point. But it took us months to craft and we did it collaboratively.

[Clint Ehrlich]

I wrote the majority of the letter, I wrote the argument, my father wrote the facts, I wrote the introduction, he wrote the concept.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

One of the beauties of working with him is that he and I tend to write in the same voice. It's very difficult to look at something and say, oh, Jeff wrote that, Clint wrote that, and so we collaborate very well together.

[Oliver]

October 2, 2015. At their office on Ventura Boulevard, they assembled their meticulously prepared 34 page letter. They included a 6 inch stack of photocopies called a compendium of evidence. And off it went. Ray Jennings fate with it. The packages trip by messenger to the District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit was a short one. Just a 20 minute drive down the 101 to West Temple street in downtown LA. Time to wait. Anything could happen. Anything at all. Next on the Girl in the Blue Mustang.

[Raymond Jennings]

I literally just started praying as hard.

[Oliver]

As I could, someone important buried deep in the evidence.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

And all they had to do was take his name and run a background check. And they would have said, oh, my.

[Oliver]

Goodness, there is a document containing that word again. Revelations. A murder more than two decades old was not finished with la. Not yet. The Girl in the Blue Mustang is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Scott Frazier is a producer. Brian Drew, David Varga, and John Coster are audio editors. Thomas Kemen is assistant audio editor. Keani Reed is associate producer. Adam Gorfane is co executive producer. Liz Cole is executive producer, and David Corvo is senior executive producer from NBC News Audio. Bryson Barnes is technical director. Sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Nina Bisbano is associate producer.

[Rob Lowe]

Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

[Oliver]

Fox.

[Rob Lowe]

There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.