Murder at the Bike Shop | Ep. 12 – Hush Hush

Summary

PROOF: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST
Season 3, Episode 12: "Hush Hush"
Release Date: April 13, 2026
Hosted by Susan Simpson & Jacinda Davis

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Episode Overview

In "Hush Hush," Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis peel back the layers of corruption, coercion, and cover-up within the Kalamazoo Cold Case team, as exposed by the case of Richard Vendeville and the Polderman murders. Drawing from newly uncovered letters and documents, they reveal how law enforcement and prosecutors suppressed key testimony through secret deals and potentially illegal tactics, raising questions about wrongful convictions not only in the Polderman case but across many others handled by the team. This episode is the season's pivotal conclusion, linking patterns of misconduct to a broader crisis in the justice system.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Vendeville Documents – A Roadmap to Conspiracy

[00:59-02:36]

• Virginia Bice (Vendeville's sister) provides letters and papers documenting events around the Polderman trial.

• Vendeville, once eyed as the state’s key eyewitness, reveals he was deliberately kept from testifying due to what he could expose about police and prosecutorial misconduct.

  "Mallory told me, Kalamazoo cannot have me testifying as I have a lot to show how the cops and prosecutor did a whole bunch of dirty shit that would make them lose the Polderman trials."
  — Richard Vendeville [02:36]

• Assistant Prosecutor Scott Brower confirmed, in a letter, an offer to Vendeville — in line with discussions with Chief Mallory.

2. Unusual Police Deals and Witness Manipulation

[03:04-04:43]

• Virginia describes secretive meetings arranged by Chief Mallory, proposing Vendeville not testify in exchange for sentence reduction.
• Vendeville was promised legal help via attorney Jeffrey Getting (now the county’s chief prosecutor), but this help was contingent on his silence.

3. Cold Case Team Investigation Patterns

[06:20-11:16]

• Pattern: Cold case team identifies a suspect, re-interviews witnesses, gets them to change their testimony, and secures convictions—even when evidence is weak.

  "There's not one case that Cold case has done yet that we've picked up and investigated that we haven't solved or gotten convictions on. Not one."
  — Richard Vendeville [07:02]

• The team’s near-perfect conviction record is depicted as suspicious, with suspects all too often being those the team initially targeted.

4. Vendeville’s Relationship with Law Enforcement & Informant Role

[09:54-12:08]

• Vendeville served as a confidential informant for Detective Werkema, with connections through his sister, Rhonda—who believed him guilty and even threatened other witnesses.

• Rhonda’s relationship with Werkema, described as protective and influential, played a role in shaping the direction of the investigation.

5. Witness Intimidation and Fabricated Confessions

[12:25-14:55]

• Shelly Nichols, a Vendeville associate, describes threats from Rhonda and Detective Werkema aimed at ensuring Vendeville’s conviction, even for unrelated crimes.

  "One way or another, I'm putting this man in prison."
  — Shelly Nichols recounting Detective Werkema [14:03]

6. Sudden Turn in the Investigation

[15:01-16:16]

• Despite efforts to convict Vendeville, detectives abruptly conclude he is innocent, without explanation in the record.
• This forces a narrative flip: witnesses (Brandy Miller, Ben Platt) who implicated Vendeville are now painted as the true murderers in yet another coerced confession scenario.

7. The Immunity Statement & Its Fallout

[17:38-21:10]

• Detectives visit Vendeville in prison, promising leniency for cooperation.

  "With the immunity, they couldn't use any of my lies against me. I mean, shit, they were lying to me. So tit for tat."
  — Richard Vendeville [18:26]

• Vendeville’s immunity statement is used to build a new case against five suspects—yet in his letters he admits to simply playing the detectives, questioning his own credibility.

8. The Secret Deal to Silence Vendeville

[26:34-35:59]

• After realizing promises wouldn’t be fulfilled, Vendeville tries to contact defense attorneys—but his letters are intercepted.

• Mallory offers him a deal: keep quiet, and they will not object to a motion to reduce his sentence; they even provide an attorney (Jeff Getting).

• The process is deeply irregular and secretive, violating norms and legal ethics.

9. Attorneys’ and Detectives' Reactions

[37:34-41:32]

• Trial attorney Michael Roby, who was not aware of the secret deal, reacts with dismay:

  "This is just flat out bribery, obstruction of justice, trying to influence testimony, witness tampering."
  — Michael Roby [37:34]

• The defense was unaware Vendeville was first the initial target, then turned star witness.

10. The Fallout for Cold Case Convictions

[54:14-62:00]

• Detective Rich Madison, previously proud of the team's record, acknowledges the “disheartening and embarrassing” nature of what was revealed.

  "It's disheartening and embarrassing and it pisses me off."
  — Detective Rich Madison [54:34]

• At least half of the team’s “solved” cases are called into question; 250+ years of potentially wrongful imprisonment are at stake.

• Only one cold case conviction has been officially overturned (Jeff Titus); defense attorneys are overwhelmed and under-resourced to challenge the others.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Bribery and Tampering:
  "Are prosecutors allowed to make secret deals with witnesses so they don't testify?"
  — Susan Simpson [38:21]
  "No, that's not good form."
  — Michael Roby [38:29]

• On the Human Cost:
  "The numbers are absolutely staggering. So far, only one of those cold case defendants has been exonerated. Jeff Titus. His conviction was overturned, but without any official recognition of the wrongdoing that led to him being sent to prison for a crime he did not commit."
  — Susan Simpson [56:05]

• On Systemic Failure:
  "They used aggressive tactics aimed more at closing cases than finding the truth and questioned witnesses in ways that seem almost designed to change their statements… detectives and prosecutors willing to...conspire to keep witnesses from coming forward or from telling everything they knew."
  — Susan Simpson [61:30]

• On the Cold Case Team’s Legacy:
  "I know you didn't do it. And you got railroaded."
  — Detective Madison to wrongfully imprisoned Corky Laird [57:01]

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Major Timestamps

• [00:59] — Discovery of Vendeville’s documents and revelations
• [03:55] — Mallory's alleged offer to Vendeville: silence for sentencing relief
• [07:36] — Cold case team’s strategy for convictions
• [15:01] — Sudden reversal: Vendeville dropped as suspect
• [18:26] — Vendeville’s immunity deal and manipulation of investigators
• [26:34] — Vendeville’s letters intercepted, secret deal arranged
• [32:33] — Detective Madison’s disbelief at the secret arrangements
• [37:34] — Michael Roby’s reaction to news of the secret deal
• [54:14] — Madison acknowledges wrongful convictions
• [56:05] — Systemic overview: convictions and potential miscarriages of justice
• [59:02] — Recounting additional wrongful conviction cases
• [64:13] — Close of season: open-ended, calling for public and legal re-examination

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Conclusion & Call to Action

The episode paints a damning portrait of systemic failure within the Kalamazoo cold case unit, underscoring the grave risk of wrongful convictions when official misconduct goes unchecked. With newly uncovered evidence and the testimony of affected individuals, Simpson and Davis call for public awareness and legal review of all cases touched by this cold case team, leaving listeners with a sense of ongoing urgency.

"I believe they're afraid of what they're about to open up. It's going to cause a flood effect. Look how many cases they solved in that shorter period of time. And how many have questions."
— Scott Baldwin [64:43]

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End of Season Note:
While this is the final regular weekly episode of the season, the investigation and reporting continue as more cases are reviewed and the demand for justice grows ever stronger.

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For further resources (case files, transcripts, behind-the-scenes extras), follow @proofcrimepod or visit proofcrimepod.com.

Transcript

[Susan Simpson]

I sold my car in Carvana last night.

[Jacinda Davis]

Well, that's cool.

[Susan Simpson]

No, you don't understand. It went perfectly.

[Jacinda Davis]

Real offer down to the penny.

[Susan Simpson]

They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

[Jacinda Davis]

So what's the problem?

[Richard Vendeville]

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch.

[Susan Simpson]

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

[Shelly Nichols]

Wow.

[Jacinda Davis]

You need to relax.

[Susan Simpson]

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood?

[Richard Vendeville]

Is this table wood? I think it's laminate.

[Susan Simpson]

Okay.

[Richard Vendeville]

Yeah.

[Jacinda Davis]

That's good.

[Richard Vendeville]

That's close enough.

[Jacinda Davis]

Car selling without a catch Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.

[Rich Madison]

Is Daredevil.

[Susan Simpson]

I'm right here.

[Richard Vendeville]

Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again.

[Jacinda Davis]

So what's next?

[Susan Simpson]

I feel liberated.

[Richard Vendeville]

We're going to take this city back over medicated in an all new season now streaming only on Disney Plus.

[Jacinda Davis]

They're hunting us. It's time we started hunting them. I can work with them. This should be tons of fun.

[Richard Vendeville]

Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again now streaming

[Susan Simpson]

only on Disney Plus. There's all kinds of letters and stuff that he wrote. It might be in them. Letters? I'll look and see if I got more letters. When Virginia Bice handed us the stack of papers she'd collected over the years from her brother Richard Vindeville, she handed us a roadmap to something far bigger than we expected. Vendeville has claimed before to know about a conspiracy lurking in Kalamazoo. A conspiracy that reached far beyond the Cold Case team and covered up police and prosecutorial misconduct. A conspiracy that, if discovered, could overturn convictions. He told Jacinda and Kevin when they met with him that the conspiracy was real, but also that it would be no good for him to tell them about it. Knowing something happened doesn't change anything. What matters is having the pieces of paper that prove something happened. And now we did.

[Richard Vendeville]

Sis. I never knew that them people killed the Poldermans. The Cold Case team was up to some sneaky shit.

[Susan Simpson]

A strange thing about the Polderman trials is that Richard Vindeville, the state's eyewitness who told detectives he'd seen the five Polderman defendants go to the house to commit the murders, never testified in the case. Vindeville's documents offered a possible explanation as to why it appears there had been a conspiracy by the police and the prosecution to make sure that he did not appear at the trials. In one letter, Vindeville explained what Chief of Police James Mallory had said to him.

[Richard Vendeville]

Mallory told me, Kalamazoo cannot have me testifying as I have a lot to show how the cops and prosecutor did a whole bunch of dirty shit that would make them lose the Polderman trials.

[Susan Simpson]

There was a letter, too, from Kalamazoo Assistant Prosecutor Scott Brower, confirming an offer made by Chief Mallory.

[Richard Vendeville]

I believe the concessions in this letter are consistent with the discussions you've had with Captain James Mallory.

[Susan Simpson]

Virginia Vindeville's sister told us that she had firsthand knowledge of what had gone on when this deal was made. She told us how in the fall of 2007, she'd gotten a call from Chief Mallory asking if they could meet to talk about her brother Richie. He said Virginia said that right away something about the request hadn't seemed right. Something about it had seemed kind of shady. I'm sorry, because he met me in some strange places that I would think you would come to somebody's house and talk to you. So he wants to hide it? Yeah, he did. I mean, he wouldn't even come to my mom's house and she could hardly move and he'd say, oh, no, no, can't you just meet me down at this park right down the road from your mom's place? Vindeville's documents described how Chief Mallory had met with him and his family to propose a deal.

[Richard Vendeville]

Mallory went on to explain that he had a deal to present me with. If I agreed not to testify on behalf of any of the Polderman defendants, then the prosecutor's office would allow me to have a sentencing reduction.

[Susan Simpson]

But you can see in there where Mallory says they're going to help him with the lawyer. And they kept saying, you're going to get a 10 year flop. You're going to be out of there. You're not going to do that time, because we know you didn't do it. Oh, Gedding's right there. Yeah. Oh, this letter. It is in there. Is in there. So Getting was his attorney? Yeah, Getting is Jeffrey Gadding. In 2007, it was somehow arranged for him to be Vin Deville's defense attorney. He was supposed to help Vendeville get his sentence reduced. Today, though, he's the elected chief prosecutor of Kalamazoo. He's in charge of the prosecutor's office.

[Richard Vendeville]

I understand your reluctance to trust me, to act in your best interest. I can only offer you my promise that I will do the best I can on your behalf.

[Susan Simpson]

The Polderman triple homicide had gone unsolved for seven Years. It was a horrific case that shocked the community. People wanted answers. Finally, five people had been arrested. And shortly before the trials began, the key eyewitness in the case was given a secret deal not to testify. And no one was to know. That was supposed to be hush hush. I can see why it would be. Why had the chief of police and the prosecution gone to such extreme lengths to silence Vindeville? What was behind this conspiracy? How did it happen? And what did it all mean?

[Richard Vendeville]

I have a lot to show. How the cops and prosecutor did a whole bunch of dirty shit things that would make them lose the trials against the Polderman defendants and they would walk free.

[Susan Simpson]

I'm Susan Simpson.

[Jacinda Davis]

And I'm Jacinda Davis.

[Susan Simpson]

I'm an attorney and investigator and I'm

[Jacinda Davis]

a true crime TV producer.

[Susan Simpson]

And this is Proof Season three Murder at the Bike Shop. Proof is a Red Marble Media production in association with Glassbox Media. This is episode 12 Hush Hush.

[Jacinda Davis]

In the Kalamazoo cold cases, there's a familiar pattern to how the investigations played out. The cold case team would come in, they'd identify a probable suspect, and then they'd go out and re interview witnesses. Remarkably, time and time again, these witnesses would change their statements. They'd tell the cold case team something different from what they told the original investigators, and their new statement would point directly at the suspect the cold case team was looking into. Based on these changed witness statements, the cold case team would make an arrest and get a conviction. The cold case team always got their man.

[Richard Vendeville]

There's not one case that Cold case has done yet that we've picked up and investigated that we haven't solved or gotten convictions on. Not one.

[Jacinda Davis]

The Polderman case started out like any other cold case. Six years after the Polderman murders, Kalamazoo City cold case detective Mike Werkema came in and took over the investigation. As you can hear in his interviews with witnesses, from the start, he already knew who he was going to charge in the case.

[Richard Vendeville]

I'm a lieutenant now and I run the detective bureau, second command there. So I'm overseeing this. We're not going to give Richie that opportunity to get out of prison. That's our ultimate goal.

[Jacinda Davis]

Richie is Richard Vendeville. Kalamazoo Cold case detective Rich Madison worked on the case as well.

[Susan Simpson]

I seen your files in the Polderman case. You were gunning for him.

[Rich Madison]

Yes, absolutely.

[Susan Simpson]

I mean, you were, you were going hard at him.

[Rich Madison]

He's a puke. Yeah, I. It wouldn't be a surprise to me to, you know, Find out definitively that he was there.

[Susan Simpson]

The investigation into the Polderman case and Richard Bendeville began the same way as the other cold case investigations. The detectives went to re interview witness Brandy Miller, Bendaville's girlfriend at the time of the murders. Back in 2002, she'd actually accused him of committing the murders, but then she recanted. Then in 2007, when the cold case team goes to talk to her again, she changes her story once more. She hesitates at first, but goes on to tell them, you're right, Bendeville did kill them. From there, detectives went to a second witness, Ben Platt. And after a lengthy multi day interrogation, Ben changed his statement as well. He told them he'd gone to the Polderman house with Brandi and Vindeville and that Vindeville had killed the Poldermans. With two witnesses now willing to testify that they had first hand knowledge of Ven's guilt, a conviction should have been easy. But this is where the Polderman case stops being like all the other cold cases. Because Richard Vindeville is no ordinary cold case suspect. He was also a cold case team informant who had a history with Detective Mike Workema.

[Richard Vendeville]

And I know we could have spent a whole lot of time with him. As you know, he's a very dangerous person.

[Susan Simpson]

Vindeville had given Werkema information in a number of cold cases that had resulted in convictions. And when we spoke to Detective Rich Madison, we'd asked him how Vindeville came to be part of any cold case investigations at all. He told us Werkema had known Vendeville's sister, Rhonda.

[Jacinda Davis]

You mentioned that Vendeville became Werkema's informant because of his relationship with Rhonda.

[Rich Madison]

I think that's where it started.

[Jacinda Davis]

So what was that relationship with Rhonda?

[Rich Madison]

Mm, apparently a lot I didn't know about.

[Susan Simpson]

Rhonda is not the sister that we got Vindeville's documents from. That's Virginia. Virginia does not think her brother Richie killed the Poldermans. But Rhonda absolutely does think he killed them. She's even said he confessed to her once. And as detectives Werkema and Madison explained in interviews with witnesses, Rhonda really wanted to see Vendeville go down for the Polderman murders, to the point that she'd threatened people who got in the way of that happening.

[Richard Vendeville]

Langham in a worse way once her brother had spent the rest of his life in prison. She was kind of part of the pun, doing it her own hillbilly way. Being threatening and so forth to you.

[Rich Madison]

She knows Richard did this and he's

[Richard Vendeville]

worked hard to try to help prove it.

[Rich Madison]

She's on our side.

[Susan Simpson]

Rhonda was so certain that Richie had killed the Poldermans and so eager to see him charged for it that she'd even threatened to fight Brandi Miller when she'd recanted her 2002 statement accusing Vin Deville of the murders. Brandi's recantation had prevented him from being charged. Back then,

[Jacinda Davis]

he just said that basically

[Richard Vendeville]

that she wanted to fight me. Ronnie was on the other side trying to get you, though, and she was mad because you weren't.

[Susan Simpson]

She.

[Richard Vendeville]

She knew you knew something.

[Susan Simpson]

That's probably just doing that because she wanted her to.

[Richard Vendeville]

Yeah, she. Well, she wanted Brandy, though. Come forward.

[Susan Simpson]

We asked Detective Workama for comment on the nature of his relationship with Rhonda, but he hasn't responded. I did speak to Rhonda once, back in 2020, and I asked her then about Workama. Mike's been a guardian to me, she said. He's always protected me and looked after my family. It's just too bad, she said, that my brother Richie's bullshit got Mike kicked off the cold case team. At the time, though, I hadn't known what she'd meant by that.

[Jacinda Davis]

Brandi Miller wasn't the only witness in the Pullderman case who claimed that Rhonda threatened her. We also spoke to Shelly Nichols. She knows a lot of people connected to the Polderman case, including Rhonda. Shelley has even met Detective Mike Werkema.

[Susan Simpson]

And you know Mike Werkema through her,

[Shelly Nichols]

or Rhonda was a fellow stripper at Heartbeats. Rhonda introduced us first time was at Heartbeats on the side, because you walk in, there's a stage in the shape of dick and balls on your right, and then all around the dick and balls, there's different tables. And in the back, towards the left, there was like three or four tables in the dark over there. That's where they specifically wanted to sit.

[Susan Simpson]

In the dark.

[Shelly Nichols]

In the dark.

[Jacinda Davis]

Of course, Shelly knew Rhonda because they were both dancers at the same strip club, but she also knew Richard Vendeville. They dated once, and even after they broke up, they'd stayed friendly. Shelly told us that she knew Vendeville had been accused of killing the Poldermans. But there's no way he did it, she said.

[Shelly Nichols]

I mean, Richard didn't have it in him. Richard was a lot of things. He hustled a little bit. He was fucked up. In the soul, like he was broken. That still does not make me convinced that he had it in him.

[Jacinda Davis]

Back in 2002, when Vendeville had been arrested for breaking into a garage and stealing a purse, he'd asked Shelley if she'd testify for his defense. She'd agreed. According to Shelly, Rhonda had not liked that she had threatened Shelley, telling her that Detective Workama would get her into legal trouble. So Shelly says she called Detective Werkema.

[Shelly Nichols]

I got tired of Rhonda using him to threaten me. And I called him and talked to him on the phone and told him, call your dog Rhonda off and tell her to stop threatening people using you.

[Susan Simpson]

What'd he say to that?

[Shelly Nichols]

His remark was, well, you testified for Richard, and I don't care what I've got to do. One way or another, Richard Bendeville is going to go to prison for the rest of his life because I know he had something to do with that Polderman case. Them were his exact words. One way or another, I'm putting this man in prison. He knew he had something to do with it. He just couldn't prove it, basically, is the way he was coming across.

[Jacinda Davis]

As Shelley sees it, that's, in fact, what Detective Workema did. In 2003, Richard Vendeville was convicted of committing home invasion for stealing a purse from a garage and sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

[Shelly Nichols]

You got to think about it. He ended up going to prison for 1B&E in Kalamazoo County. So the threats that Workama was giving him came true.

[Jacinda Davis]

The cold case team always gets their man.

[Susan Simpson]

But actually, though, in this case, the cold case team didn't get their man. Richard Vindeville was never charged for the Polderman murders. Something in the case went sideways. Detective Workman had been in charge of the investigation, but suddenly he no longer was. And just as suddenly, the case went in a whole new direction. And not long after that, Detective Mike Werkema announced his retirement and stepped away from the case. We don't know why detectives concluded that Vindeville had not killed the Poldermans. It is not addressed in a single police report. But this sudden realization that Vindeville was innocent caused a big problem for the remaining detectives, because, remember, they had just gotten two people to confess that they had gone to the Polderman house with Vindeville, where he'd committed the murders.

[Jacinda Davis]

And then I came back. I had seen Rich. He was just covered in dust.

[Rich Madison]

He helped rich Cook, carrying Mr. Boldeman out of that back bedroom. You had the feet, he was face down.

[Richard Vendeville]

Rich had his arms or under the shoulders. Right.

[Susan Simpson]

This put the cold case team in an awkward spot. They had two choices now. They could either acknowledge that the way two witnesses had been questioned had somehow led them to falsely implicate an innocent man, or they could conclude that those two witnesses were actually the murderers and they'd been trying to fool investigators by blaming Vindeville. Instead.

[Richard Vendeville]

Birch was nowhere out there, was he?

[Rich Madison]

Which made him a piece of garbage as he.

[Richard Vendeville]

Is that right?

[Rich Madison]

To get him caught up in this, Thomaski somebody responsible for some part of it.

[Jacinda Davis]

Police concluded that Brandy and Ben were the killers. They had actually done the murders. They were just lying about Vendeville being involved. This created a second problem, though. Because Brandy Miller and Ben Platt don't really know each other, it makes zero sense that they'd commit a triple homicide together. So if Brandi and Ben killed the Poldermans, then there had to be others involved in this conspiracy as well. But who? In February of 2007, Chief Mallory, along with a couple detectives, made their first trip to see Vendeville in prison. They were hoping he could give them their answer. He knew both Ben and Brandy. Maybe he knew more about what they'd done. In a letter home, Vendeville talks about this visit.

[Richard Vendeville]

The cold case team came to see me in prison. They had lied for so many years, calling me a killer, but the first words out of their mouth were, was, Richard, we want to prove that you're innocent.

[Jacinda Davis]

Vendeville says they told him, rich, the only reason you got such a long sentence for breaking into that garage was because of the Polderman murders. But now we know you didn't do it. Tell us what you know, and maybe we can help you with your sentence.

[Susan Simpson]

Mallory said, rich, you're not guilty. You're innocent. And they kept telling him, we're going to get you out. Don't worry, you're going to be out.

[Jacinda Davis]

That's Vendeville's sister, Virginia Bice. In his letter home, Vendeville explained that he'd agreed to give a statement in the Poderman case, but only if he was given immunity. First.

[Richard Vendeville]

I wanted to know all that they knew so I could even shit up. See, with the immunity, they couldn't use any of my lies against me. I mean, shit, they were lying to me. So tit for tat. I found out how it all happened.

[Jacinda Davis]

In this letter. Vendeville says, with the immunity, they couldn't use any of my lies against me. With that, how can anyone be sure What Vendeville says is even true. We don't have the recording of Vendeville's immunity statement, but according to the police report, what Vendeville told them was that he was actually an eyewitness. He'd been there. He'd seen the killers drive to the Polderman house. The police were right. Ben and Brandy were part of it, but so too were Joe Williams, Andrew Miller, and Angela McConnell. When detectives went and interviewed their new suspects, they told them what they'd learned from Vendeville and how they'd caught him and his lies and made him tell the truth.

[Richard Vendeville]

One thing I learned about Rich Maneville over the week that he was down here is that I know when he's lying, for one. And he's like you, when I call him on it. Chuckles a little bit. And he says, yeah, you know, and you're right, you're right. And then he comes off it.

[Jacinda Davis]

That's how detectives claimed they'd finally solved the case, by outsmarting Richard Vendeville, by getting the truth from him. Only in his letters, Vendeville says he was the one who outsmarted the detectives.

[Richard Vendeville]

When the cold case team came there to see me, it was time to play their game. So let the games begin. They were playing dirty, so I had to even the playing field with them.

[Jacinda Davis]

Detectives now had a new theory. The five Polderman defendants had conspired to blame Richard Vendeville for a murder they had committed.

[Richard Vendeville]

You have the concocted story of the Plain Ridge story, all right? The Blame Ridge story. And that has fucking fallen to pieces. And now we've got to all these people and said, hey, time to tell this right story. And each time somebody speaks, it's a

[Rich Madison]

brushstroke on the picture.

[Richard Vendeville]

Well, the brushstrokes are creating some kind

[Rich Madison]

of a fucking picture right now we

[Richard Vendeville]

got that one picture. It's all sort of fucked up and

[Rich Madison]

squiggly lines on it.

[Jacinda Davis]

That's right. Richard Renneville was no longer the killer. He was now the victim. When Detective Workima was in charge of the Polderman investigation, he worked to make a case against Richard Vendeville. Now he was the patsy. And after his statement to police, he was also a key witness.

[Richard Vendeville]

Now we got this new painting that's. Holy fuck. Now we got the new story over here. This story over here is a fucking damn good painting that's gonna be at the Kalamazoo Art Museum. It's gonna be a beautiful painting. Everybody's gonna want to see it.

[Susan Simpson]

You know, I think I'm not typically a picky person when it comes to food or things like that. There's one thing I am incredibly picky about.

[Jacinda Davis]

What's that, Susan?

[Susan Simpson]

That's how my water tastes.

[Jacinda Davis]

You know, I'm the same way. My water tastes a lot like swamp.

[Susan Simpson]

Some places just have really gross water. It's unfortunate, but when I'm somewhere that has swamp water, I'm definitely not drinking out of the tap.

[Jacinda Davis]

Yeah, but you know, we're not alone. Did you know that three out of four US homes have toxic chemicals in their tap water?

[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

P R O O F It is really good water though.

[Jacinda Davis]

I've been trying to do a little spring reset with my closet, packing up some of my winter stuff and bringing out my spring stuff. But I realized I, I need to freshen up my wardrobe a little bit.

[Susan Simpson]

Always a great excuse to go to our favorite place for clothes.

[Jacinda Davis]

Quince.com I 100% agree. Susan, have you got anything new recently?

[Susan Simpson]

You know I have. My latest purchase from them was their waterproof rain trench coat which is super adorable and super useful with this rainy spring we've been having. Jacinda, can I buy you some stuff from Quints because you need some more color in your, in your wardrobe. Would you wear it?

[Jacinda Davis]

Well, I'm going to say yes. So you pick out something for me and I will wear it and I will Love it.

[Susan Simpson]

Luckily, Quince has a ton of great cute options of colorful clothing. So coming your way soon.

[Jacinda Davis]

Did I tell you that I actually went outside the norm of clothes? And I bought some new earrings from Quince that I love. The mini U hoops.

[Susan Simpson]

Cannot wait to see it. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Jacinda Davis]

We're gonna look so styling next time we're out in the field.

[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

All right, so to all the men listening to our show right now, go ahead and, like, press mute for the next 30 seconds or so. Okay. To all the ladies listening, we wanted to tell you about Honey Love.

[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

Well, a big bonus for us is because going into prisons having underwire makes the whole process much more difficult. Put on your Honey Love, walk right through the metal detector.

[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

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[Susan Simpson]

The five people that Vendeville named in his immunity statement were charged with the murders, even though no physical evidence put them there. Vindeville says that when he made this statement, detectives told him they could help him get his sentence reduced. But months went by and he'd heard nothing more from them. That's when he realized he'd made a mistake. He hadn't gotten anything in writing. The promises of a new sentence were just empty air. So in August 2007, he wrote to his sister Virginia. It sounds like them police are fucking Me like I thought they would. Vindeville went to plan B. He wrote to defense attorneys in the Polderman case and told them that they needed to call him to testify at trial on behalf of the defense. He could help them win.

[Richard Vendeville]

He said, that punk workama took me to some murder scenes and fed me some info on some murders I can show. There was a lot of dirty going on with that cold case team.

[Susan Simpson]

Vendeville's plan did not work in the way he'd intended. His letters were intercepted. The prosecution found out his plan. Vendeville was the state's eyewitness. But with him threatening to take down the entire case, they obviously couldn't risk calling him to testify. And they couldn't risk having the defense call him either. After all, getting convictions in what was perhaps the biggest cold case in Kalamazoo history was on the line. That's when Chief Jim Mallory made his second trip to visit Vindeville in prison. When he made his first trip to talk to Vindeville about giving a statement in the Polderman case, he'd come with other investigators, but this time he came alone. In letters home, Vindeville wrote that Mallory had told him that he'd seen the letters where Vendeville had offered to testify for the defense and Mallory told him he wanted to make a deal.

[Richard Vendeville]

Chief Mallory tells me that Kalamazoo cannot have me testifying against them. I have a lot to show how the cops and prosecutor did a whole bunch of dirty shit things that would make them lose the trials against the Polderman defendants and they would walk free. Chief Mallory tells me that if I keep my mouth shut that he will get me time soon served. He gives me a letter from the prosecutor.

[Susan Simpson]

That letter from Assistant Prosecutor Scott Brower was also in the papers we'd gotten from Virginia. It read in part, dear Mr. Vendeville,

[Richard Vendeville]

I'm writing this letter to document that the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor's Office will not file written procedural objections to a delayed motion seeking review of your sentence. I believe the concessions in this letter are consistent with the discussions you've had with Captain James Mallory. Sincerely, Scott W. Brower, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.

[Susan Simpson]

Vindeville was serving 20 to 40 years after being charged with home invasion for stealing a purse out of a garage. And although Prosecutor Brower's letter does not spell out the details of the agreement, it does confirm Mallory's offer that Vindeville's efforts to be re sentenced would not be opposed. But Mallory didn't stop there. As Vindeville explained in his 2011 affidavit, Mallory told him they'd get him a lawyer if he agreed not to testify.

[Richard Vendeville]

Mallory stated that the police and prosecution's office would retain an attorney that would file a post conviction motion on my behalf, which would lead to my being re sentenced. Chief Mallory then went on to explain that the attorney was ready to go and as long as I promised not to testify, he would contact me in a couple of days.

[Susan Simpson]

I feel the need to point out that none of this is normal. None of this is how things are supposed to work. Prosecutors are not supposed to have secret agreements with witnesses at all, let alone a secret agreement for a witness not to testify. All of this is truly extraordinary, even before you consider the fact that Vindeville had been the lead suspect in this murder for five years. And it had been Detective Workema's efforts to convict Vendeville that led to this situation to begin with. Because once Vindeville was deemed innocent, investigators were stuck with the narrative that Workama had begun and had somehow transformed it to build a case against the police Holderman defendants. Instead, if Vindeville were to testify, he could potentially have caused that entire narrative to unravel. Vindeville himself had recognized just how wrong all of this was. Though as he noted in the records he'd kept, that hadn't stopped him from going along with it.

[Richard Vendeville]

Despite my concerns about the obvious misconduct by the prosecutor and Chief of police, I agreed to the terms of the deal.

[Susan Simpson]

Vendeville accepted Mallory's offer. He promised not to testify at the Polderman trials. And just like Mallory had promised, a few days later, he got a letter in the mail from his new attorney, Jeffrey Getting, who at the time was a defense attorney, though now is Kalamazoo's chief prosecutor.

[Jacinda Davis]

When we met with Detective Rich Madison, we wanted to know if he had known about this deal. After all, he'd been heavily involved in the Polderman case. So we told him about what happened when Vendeville had tried to write to the defense attorneys in the Polderman case to tell them they needed him to testify for the defense, that he thought he could help get their clients acquitted.

[Susan Simpson]

Jim Mallory intercepts the letter. He goes to Bendelville and says, nice try. Almost got me there. Almost got it through. You're not going to do that. He then arranges for a deal with Brower and Vendeville, where Brower will agree not to oppose a re sentencing and they will hire him, his own private attorney, to ensure he gets re sentenced.

[Rich Madison]

Gotta be kidding me.

[Susan Simpson]

I'm not. This is the letter from Brower.

[Jacinda Davis]

Detective Madison told us he had not known about the deal. And that makes sense. Actually. The deal appears to have been brokered by the Kalamazoo City Police. Madison was with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office. And he says they never told him about it.

[Susan Simpson]

I mean, it sounds unbelievable. I know. They hire him.

[Rich Madison]

Jeff Gedding hired Jeff Gedding on his behalf.

[Susan Simpson]

They did.

[Rich Madison]

How could they do that?

[Susan Simpson]

You can read this letter.

[Rich Madison]

I believe you. I understand your reluctance to trust me in this act.

[Jacinda Davis]

Vendeville's documents don't describe how exactly Jeffrey Gedding was hired to be his attorney. But Goetting had sent him a letter a few days after Mallory's visit to see him in prison.

[Richard Vendeville]

At the request of your family, I've agreed to represent you in a post conviction motion for you to be re sentenced. You should also presume that any contacts you have with me regarding this issue are monitored by the Department of Corrections.

[Jacinda Davis]

In the documents we got from his sister, Vendeville described how he'd written back to Getting. He told him, you know damn well my family never asked you to represent me. It was the prosecutor and chief of police that set this shit up. Here's what Getding wrote in his next letter to Vendeville.

[Richard Vendeville]

I understand your reluctance to trust me to act in your best interest. I am preparing a motion on your behalf to address the sentencing issues in your case. The timing of the motion is important.

[Susan Simpson]

It says the timing of this is important. That is delay. Then the trials happen. Have you ever heard of something like that happening? Does it seem right to you?

[Rich Madison]

No, absolutely not.

[Susan Simpson]

I've never seen such a someone go to the lengths of getting a murder suspect their own attorney to prevent them from giving.

[Rich Madison]

See, Gideon had been a prose assistant prosecutor along with Stu. And it's when the prosecutor was Jim Gregart and he fired Stu and Getting. That's why Gettyon was in private practice.

[Susan Simpson]

So he has ties to the prosecutor and they go to him. All the five get convicted and poof. Nothing ever happens. They play at Vendeville.

[Jacinda Davis]

Vendeville carried through with his end of the deal. He did not contact the defense attorneys again and did not appear at any of the trials. But once the trials were over and he could no longer interfere in the Polderman case, nothing happened in his case case either. Jeffrey Getting never did file that promised motion for resentencing. We're not sure why, but four years later in 2011, Vendeville attempted to file a motion pro se without an attorney seeking reduction of his sentence, defendant Vendeville

[Richard Vendeville]

decided to file his motion for relief of judgment himself, expecting the prosecution to honor their end of the agreement. As Defendant had honored his attorney, Jeffrey Getting failed to follow through on his obligation. So defendant decided against utilizing him for the filing of this post conviction motion.

[Jacinda Davis]

Vendeville's motion was denied. He never did get his sentence reduced. He served his 20 year sentence for stealing a purse before being released.

[Susan Simpson]

He didn't help him though. He didn't. So he double crossed and they never did anything for him.

[Jacinda Davis]

Richard Vendeville had wanted to testify at the trials for the Polderman defendants, but he'd been persuaded not to by prosecutor Brower's and Chief Mallory's secret promises to have his 20 year sentence reduced if he did not appear at the trials. In doing so, they stopped a witness who could have damaged their case against the Polderman defendants from being heard by the jury. And they stopped the defendants from discovering just how flawed the case against them had been. It makes you wonder, what if Vendeville's letters from prison hadn't been intercepted? Would his testimony have prevented the Polderman defendants from being convicted? What if he had said he had made it all up and never saw them doing anything? And what else might he have said about the cold case team and Detective Werkema, whom he'd been an informant for in several other cold cases? We've reached out to Scott Brower, James Mallory, Mike Werkma and County Prosecutor Jeffrey Getding for comment. To date, we've heard back from none of them. But we wanted to hear from the attorneys for the Polderman defendants as well. Had they known anything about the secret deep deal with Richard Vendeville, about the steps taken to keep Vendeville from testifying?

[Rich Madison]

This is just flat out bribery, obstruction of justice, trying to influence testimony, witness tampering.

[Susan Simpson]

That's Michael Roby. He was one of the trial attorneys for Polderman defendant Joe Williams. And it turns out, no, he had not known about the deal with Vindeville and prosecutor Scott Brower's agreement to allow his resentencing get out of prison sooner.

[Rich Madison]

Oh, that's really troubling. I wouldn't have thought that of Scott, but I wouldn't have thought he had tried this case with such shit evidence, let alone that he won.

[Susan Simpson]

Are prosecutors allowed to make secret deals with witnesses so they don't testify?

[Rich Madison]

No, that's not good form.

[Susan Simpson]

Roby was a prosecutor for many years before he was a defense attorney. In fact, for eight Years, he was a prosecutor in Kalamazoo. Many of the police and prosecutors in the Polderman case were his former colleagues. Roby told me the Polderman case case had always bothered him, and he's never forgotten. Joe. They're still in contact today.

[Rich Madison]

I couldn't believe they convicted him. I'm a pretty cynical guy, and I still can't believe they convicted him. The cold case team, I had some reservations about in that if they don't solve cold cases, there's no reason to have a cold case team. They were going to find somebody to hang this on.

[Susan Simpson]

Well, what's interesting is they did find someone to hang it on. Richard Vendeville.

[Rich Madison]

They did? Who?

[Susan Simpson]

Richard Bendeville. The beginning. Well, they started off trying to convict him, and then, for reasons they never disclosed, they decided he was innocent. And then he'd switch over to the. The five Polderman defendants.

[Rich Madison]

Wow. I don't know what to say about that.

[Susan Simpson]

Because Vendeville never appeared at trial, his actual role in the Polderman case was never revealed. Roby didn't know, and the juries never heard that the cold case team had begun their investigation by trying hard to charge Vindeville for the murders. But for reasons never disclosed, investigators changed their minds. They decided he was innocent. And then Vendeville had claimed he was an eyewitness who saw the five Polderman defendants go commit the crime, and they were charged. Instead, Brower gives him immunity to accuse the five Polderman defendants. He tells them that he followed the five Polderman defendants on a dirt bike out to the Polderman house and saw them go inside.

[Rich Madison]

Hmm.

[Susan Simpson]

Did you know that?

[Rich Madison]

No, I was not aware of that.

[Susan Simpson]

So here's part of why. Looking at Vendeville, we know that he tried to smuggle letters out of prison to the defense attorneys.

[Rich Madison]

I don't think we got anything from.

[Susan Simpson]

Well, the letters were intercepted by Captain Mallory. I explained to Robey what had happened after Mallory intercepted those letters, the ones that told the defense attorneys that they needed to call Ventiville as a witness. And how Prosecutor Brower had promised not to oppose his resentencing and help him get out of prison. And how Mallory had arranged for attorney Jeffrey Gedding to file the motion for him if only he promised not to appear at the Polderman trials.

[Rich Madison]

Man, is that dirty pool. Obstruction of justice. I mean, bribery. Take your pick.

[Susan Simpson]

We don't know exactly why Prosecutor Brower and Chief Mallory went to such extraordinary lengths to stop Ville from testifying. We don't know what they were afraid would happen if Indville did testify. We don't even know why. Investigators thought the statement Vinville had given them was the truth, that these five people had, in fact, committed the murders. They did not respond to our request for comment, but from Vindeville's letters and affidavits, he seems to have thought they were concerned with what he knew about Detective Workama's investigation into the Polderman case. Vindeville believes that Workama's supervisors had discovered some kind of misconduct, something possibly involving his sister Rhonda, the dirty cop.

[Richard Vendeville]

Detective Workama also tried to plant evidence against me using my own family, and he got caught. In 2007, his supervisors found this evidence that showed Werkema had planted, tampered with evidence. His supervisors approached me and committed some misconduct to keep me from coming forward and to keep this information from coming out.

[Susan Simpson]

Actually, this is something that Ventoville mentioned to Jacinda and Kevin when he talked to them. He told them about how, when he'd been brought in for his immunity statement In February of 2007, Captain Mallory had brought up Detective Workema. And Vindeville said Mallory told him it was his sister Rhonda's fault for leading Detective Werkema astray. In his letters home, though, Vindeville noted that he disagreed with Mallory on this.

[Richard Vendeville]

Captain Mallory tried to tell me that it was my sister Rhonda that made Detective Workma go bad. The truth to that is the cop was always dirty. He also destroyed a lot of lives with his corruption.

[Susan Simpson]

So Vindeville believed that he knew a lot of things that the prosecution would probably prefer he stay quiet about. The thing is, though, I don't think that Vindeville himself necessarily understood all the ways in which he was a problem for the. The prosecutor's office, because Vendeville could have damaged the prosecution's case against the Polderman defendants in so many ways. All he had to do was mention his supposed role as an eyewitness or even admit, like he had in his letters, that he didn't know anything about who'd done the crime at all. Sis, I never knew that them people killed the Poldermans he'd written. Or Vindeville could even just mention how all of this began with a statement he'd made to Detective Werkema in 2002, when he'd lied about picking Joe Williams up near the Polderman house and then admitted he'd only said that because he wanted reward money and a break on his burglary charges. And what if Vindeville were to get up on the stand and say that none of it was true at all, that he'd made it all up after all, he'd changed his story before, and there was no physical evidence tying any of the defendants to the crime scene. We're still not even sure why the police believe him. And it was not just the Polderman case that was on the line here. The Polderman case was high profile. There were reporters in those courtrooms. If Vindeville had testified, and if he'd gotten on the witness stand and talked about his role in all the other cold cases he'd been an informant in and been paid for through Silent observer, the prosecution would have had problems way bigger than just the Polderman case. Many of the other cold cases could have been jeopardized, though they'd have had big problems in the Polderman case, too. If you had known about Vindeville being a secret informant for Werkama.

[Rich Madison]

I know. I agree about that.

[Susan Simpson]

And if Windeville was saying that workema falsified evidence, here's how I can prove it. Would you have used that?

[Rich Madison]

Yeah, I would have used that.

[Susan Simpson]

For the police and prosecution, Richard Mendeville must have seemed like some kind of ticking time bomb. If he talked publicly, who knows how much he could have blown up? So they found a way to make sure he stayed quiet.

[Richard Vendeville]

They.

[Rich Madison]

They must have really not wanted him to testify. I find all of this sort of shocking. It's just so disappointing, especially when

[Jacinda Davis]

the

[Rich Madison]

shit work, the shitty police and prosecutorial work were done by people I know.

[Susan Simpson]

The police and prosecution went to extraordinary lengths to keep Richard Vendeville from testifying in the Polderman trials. What they did was also extremely unethical and potentially illegal. They consist of conspired to induce Vendeville not to testify by promising that he would be able to have his sentence reduced and get released from prison sooner. And by providing him with an attorney that he was told could take care of it all for him. Vendeville himself had known just how wrong this all was. As he explained in one of his

[Richard Vendeville]

letters home, when the prosecutor sent Captain Mallory to quiet me, he committed prosecutorial misconduct, which is an issue for them killers, to get a new trial and even to be set free over this dumb shit that they did.

[Susan Simpson]

All five Polderman defendants were convicted. We'll never know if Richard Bendeville's testimony would have changed that outcome.

[Jacinda Davis]

In an earlier episode this season, Susan made a comment that she wondered if Richard Vendeville was the Forrest Gump or the Rasputin of the cold case team? Was he a bumbling figure who somehow just randomly appeared in so many cold cases just by chance? Or was he the evil mastermind behind the Polderman murders who used his connections to the cold case team to deflect blame away from himself and to the Polderman defendants instead? Richard Vendeville's documents suggest the answer is neither. Vendeville's connections to the cold cases wasn't random. It had to do with Detective Workma. And he wasn't a mastermind. It seemed like he may have been a useful tool, a tool that served as an informant, but somehow went from informant to becoming a suspect. Maybe because he really was a suspect, or maybe because he simply knew too much and had threatened to come forward with what he knew. And once that happened, it seems the work of the cold case team and their perfect record was at risk. But the deeper we dug into Scott Baldwin's case and the other cold cases we had questions about, the more Vendeville's name came up. Vendeville has long claimed that Detective Mike Werkema took him to crime scenes, gave him information about what had happened, and then had him call in tips and a silent observer using the same info Wergma had given to him to give the police leads on cases he knew nothing about. And Veniveville told Kevin and me when we met with him that one of the cases where this happened was with Corky Lard. Mike contaminated that whole case. He told us, listen, he took me to the fucking graveyard and told me this is where the body was at. Vendeville's documents had given us what he called the piece of paper that proves it. But we were also aware that Vendeville knew more, knew more about other cold cases, more about what he had done as an informant for Mike Werkema, more about the Polderman case. And what else did he know about then, Chief of Police James Mallory or about Jeffrey getting the current chief prosecutor in Kalamazoo? But back then, the man who had been hired to represent Vic Bendaville Gedding, it turns out, was also the defense attorney for Corky Lard, the man Rich Madison believes the cold case team wrongfully sent to prison. We were on our last trip to Kalamazoo to investigate Scott Baldwin's case. We had one last shot to talk to Vendeville. We were hoping he'd agree to meet and asked him to give us a call. We didn't hear anything for a little bit, but Vendeville has an Uncanny ability to only ever appear when you least expect it. Like when you're seconds away from walking into a witness interview.

[Susan Simpson]

Because that would show. Why does Richard Bendeville always call at the worst time?

[Jacinda Davis]

Hello? Bendeville was reluctant to meet, but I told him we found the proof he told us to look for.

[Susan Simpson]

It would be good for you to

[Jacinda Davis]

get some eyes on this stuff. Are you around if I come get you? Because I know you are interested and I. I want to get your comment on it. Vendeville agreed to meet with us later that night. All right, talk to you later. Bye.

[Richard Vendeville]

Okay, so he's basically on for tonight?

[Jacinda Davis]

Sounds like it. Richard Vendeville did not show up that night. We don't know exactly why. Maybe keeping these secrets buried was the only leverage he had left in all of this. But we were hopeful that perhaps we'd get a chance to talk to him when we came back to Kalamazoo again. Because by then it was clear there would be an again.

[Richard Vendeville]

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[Susan Simpson]

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[Rich Madison]

at a comedy show.

[Susan Simpson]

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[Rich Madison]

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[Susan Simpson]

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[Jacinda Davis]

Hey, everyone. Before we continue with this episode, I want to tell you about another podcast. Have you ever wondered what it feels like to watch your house burn down? Or be attacked by an alligator? Or learn that your spouse hired someone to kill you? If you're dying to know, then what Was that Like? Is the podcast for you? What Was that Like? Is filled with real stories about the most surreal experiences of people's lives on the show. Host Scott Johnson dives deep with his guests into the unbelievable situations they found themselves in, like animal attacks, plane crashes, winning, the Price is Right, and more. The show brings you tons of completely surreal, completely true stories, all told through the lens of the person who actually experienced it.

[Susan Simpson]

Check out some of these episodes about wild and gripping stories to gain some insight on what it was like to say be a professional bridesmaid or lose a leg in a shark attack.

[Jacinda Davis]

Susan, I think you'd be a really

[Susan Simpson]

good professional bridesmaid and you'd be really good at losing a leg in a shark attack.

[Jacinda Davis]

Oh gee, thanks.

[Susan Simpson]

So if you want to hear some disturbing and inspiring first hand stories, you need to check out what Was that Like. Every story is thoroughly researched and fact checked. So you know, even the most bizarre tales are someone's reality. Listen to what Was that like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jacinda Davis]

Detective Rich Madison spent more time on the cold Case team than any other detective. The work meant a lot to him and the information we shared with him from our investigation couldn't have been easy for him to hear.

[Richard Vendeville]

You're proud of the stuff you guys did?

[Rich Madison]

Absolutely.

[Richard Vendeville]

You did really good stuff.

[Susan Simpson]

Right.

[Richard Vendeville]

You feel good about the work you were doing?

[Rich Madison]

Yeah.

[Jacinda Davis]

But Detective Madison has always known that the cold case team was far from perfect.

[Rich Madison]

I've been openly critical about Werkema and the cases. I haven't kept quiet about it.

[Richard Vendeville]

You weren't on the wrong side of the tightest thing.

[Rich Madison]

Yeah. And I've been very vocal, you know, about, about Corky Large. You know, I haven't shut up about that.

[Jacinda Davis]

Madison has always believed that the cold case team sent two innocent men to prison, Jeff Titus and Corky Laird. And that's before he found out the extraordinary lengths his colleagues had gone to with Richard Vendeville and the deal they made to keep him quiet. None of that should have ever happened, he said.

[Rich Madison]

It's disheartening and embarrassing and it pisses me off.

[Richard Vendeville]

Yeah, it's got to be. It's frustrating.

[Rich Madison]

It is kind of scary that we've gone this far into it. My concern is that where it's going to go from here.

[Susan Simpson]

Where is this going from here? Because it doesn't end here. It can't. The Kalamazoo Cold case team closed 15 cases and got 21 convictions over the roughly eight years they operated as cold case team. Detective Mike Brown said, that's a hell of a record. But of those 15 cases, there are at least nine where we believe the evidence, or lack thereof, should be serious cause for alarm where we believe there is a significant chance of a wrongful conviction. That's right. We believe that more than half of the cases solved by the cold case team could be wrong. To date, the 14 defendants in those cases have served a combined 250 years in prison and counting. 250 years of time served by people potentially wrongfully convicted by one cold case team. The numbers are absolutely staggering. So far, only one of those cold case defendants has been exonerated. Jeff Titus. His conviction was overturned, but without any official recognition of the wrongdoing. That led to him being sent to prison for a crime he did not commit. And Scott Baldwin died before his innocence could be recognized by the courts. You've heard about many of the other cold case defendants in this season already, whose cases we think should be looked at again. There's Corky Laird, the man convicted of killing his ex brother in law, even though his ex brother in law was last seen with a suspected serial killer. Corky pled guilty, and we firmly believe that was the right call for him. He served only seven years, the shortest term by far of any of the cold case defendants. But after he got out cold, cold case detective Rich Madison even tracked Corky down to apologize.

[Rich Madison]

And I said something like, I know you didn't do it. And he swears at me again, gets in his car and leaves. He didn't want anything to do with me.

[Jacinda Davis]

You wanted to let him know.

[Rich Madison]

Yeah, I believed you didn't do it. And you got railroad it.

[Susan Simpson]

There's also the case of Hyland Sterling, convicted of murdering his best friend, Robert o', Keefe, and what prosecutors said was a business deal gone wrong. A conviction that only became possible after the key eyewitness more than a decade later changed the story. The eyewitness initially said the man he saw at the victim's house that day had not looked like Hyland Sterling. But after repeated interviews with the cold case team, he said the man looked like Sterling, only with longer hair.

[Rich Madison]

He looked similar to the gentleman that was there in the morning earlier, but his hair looked like it was shorter,

[Jacinda Davis]

like he just got a haircut.

[Susan Simpson]

The fact is, Hyland Sterling always kept his head shaved bald. He couldn't have been the man the eyewitness saw who had longer hair. And there's Roberto Davanzo, the man convicted of hiring a hitman to murder his girlfriend while he was in prison. Except nobody could ever prove there was ever even a hitman, much less that Roberto had Hired them. So Roberto gets convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his girlfriend. What happened to the hitman?

[Rich Madison]

Yeah, there's no.

[Susan Simpson]

I mean, it ends there. Who is the hitman? Correct. Nobody ever looks into that. There's also the case of Patrick Mitchell. He was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and making it look like a convenience store robbery.

[Jacinda Davis]

What makes you think that you can stand and accused me of murder?

[Richard Vendeville]

Because we're the cold case team, and that's what we do, and we're good at it.

[Susan Simpson]

Witness Debbie Brown alleged that Patrick had confessed to her. And even though she claimed they were having an affair, Debbie couldn't even identify Patrick in court. I've done 23 years now, and I haven't killed anyone.

[Richard Vendeville]

I never even thought about doing.

[Susan Simpson]

I'm such a terrible thing that happened to her.

[Richard Vendeville]

I broke down and cried. I had to go out of the courtroom when they were showing the pictures

[Shelly Nichols]

I. I couldn't take.

[Susan Simpson]

Was horrible. And finally, there's the Polderman case. This would end up being the final investigation handled by members of the Kalamazoo cold case team. It's hard to explain everything that went wrong here, but ultimately, five people went to prison. There's no physical evidence, but there is evidence of serious misconduct by the police and prosecutors involved.

[Jacinda Davis]

So where does this leave the cold case defendants, the ones who may also be innocent? Only a few of them currently have attorneys, though. Scott's attorney, Olivia Vigiletti, with the Michigan Innocence Clinic, is becoming very familiar with the Kalamazoo cold case convictions. In such a small community, I would not have expected to hear about so many shady convictions as I have. I don't think it's a coincidence that 10% of my caseload right now is investigating the Kalamazoo cold case team. I do statewide work. You know, I don't think they were just magically so much better at solving murder. One of Olivia's current Kalamazoo clients is Polderman defendant Joe Biden Williams. She, along with attorneys for Andrew Miller at the Exoneration Project in Chicago, are hoping new DNA testing may finally bring answers to what happened to the Poldermans. And our investigation into the Polderman case has uncovered significant issues, even beyond what happened with Richard Vendeville, that we believe may help those still serving time in the Polderman case. Though, sadly, it all comes too late for Angela McConnell, who took her own life in 2023. But frankly, there are not enough innocence attorneys out there to address a problem like Kalamazoo. Take the Polderman case, for example. Ben Platt, the third Polderman defendant, who is still in prison today, has no attorney, not because his case is any less worthy, but because there just isn't anyone available to take it on. So for the other Kalamazoo cold case defendants, their best hope is for there to be public recognition that something went horribly wrong here. Yes, I mean, I think attention on this cold case team would be enormous. I'll say. Say, I think public perception tends to catch on quicker than the courts. So if the public can kind of start to see these issues and start to demand transparency around these issues, I have to hope the courts will follow. It's hard to get people to believe wrongful convictions happen. We all want to believe the system works, that by the time a case reaches a jury, the checks and balances have worked, that a guilty verdict is the just verdict, and nobody wants to risk releasing a person a jury has found guilty of a heinous crime. But consider this. Mistakes get made in all areas of our lives. On the news, we constantly hear stories of corrupt politicians or incompetent teachers. The fact is, all areas of our lives have certain individuals occupying a job that for various reasons, they probably shouldn't have. What if a group of doctors had killed or harmed the people convicted by the Kalamazoo cold case team? Would people have such a hard time then believing they should see justice? Because the fact is, ending up being charged with a crime is no different than ending up in a hospital. The expectation is that you should have faith in the system. How is that different than what happened to these cold case defendants? Society's expectation is the same, that you can trust the people in charge, the people who have been sworn under oath to protect and serve, to behave ethically and make extraordinary efforts to render justice. Something went terribly wrong with the Kalamazoo cold case team. They used aggressive tactics aimed more at closing cases than finding the truth and questioned witnesses in ways that seem almost designed to change their statements, to lead them in a way that investigators wanted to go. All of that is already cause for concern, but it's made so much worse when combined with detectives and prosecutors who are willing to take things further, to hide evidence, to conspire to keep witnesses from coming forward or from telling everything they knew. In this season, you've heard about some of the other cases we have serious concerns about, but they are far from the only Kalamazoo cold cases that we believe warrant reconsideration. And we hope to be back in future episodes to tell you more about those cases.

[Susan Simpson]

So this is the last regular weekly episode of season three. But it is not the end of season three. In fact, I suspect that it will be a very long time before we can say that season three is truly at an end. Because what we're saying here is that all the cold cases should be re examined. But this is an ending of sorts for now. And since Scott Baldwin is the one who brought us all here, we'll give him the final word. I believe they're afraid of what they're

[Richard Vendeville]

about to open up.

[Susan Simpson]

It's going to cause a flood effect.

[Richard Vendeville]

Look how many cases they solved in that shorter period of time. And how many have questions. How many more do we have?

[Jacinda Davis]

That's it for now of this season of Murder at the Bike Shop. We'll be back though, with updates as they unfold. And we'll be back on Thursday with a sidebar episode. A special thank you to all our listeners and to all the people we've met along the way in Kalamazoo and to our families who sacrificed so much so we can do what we do. And to Scott Baldwin's family, we hope, like you, that his name will be officially cleared. Thank you for opening your hearts to us. Proof is a podcast by Red Marble Media made in association with Glassbox Media. Send us your questions and [e-mail] and if you have any information about Scott's case or any of the cases we've covered this season, please reach out. Kevin Fitzpatrick is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Ramiro Marquez. Audio production for this episode is by Michael Ulatowski, Michael Alfano, Karen Incarnation, and Jesus Urbaez. Our social media manager is Leanne Cook. And thank you to all of our sponsors who make this podcast possible. Follow us everywhere with the handle at Proof crimepod and on our website, proofcrimepod. Com. That's all for now. Thanks so much for listening.