5 - Revelations

Summary

The Girl in the Blue Mustang – Episode 5: Revelations

Podcast: The Girl in the Blue Mustang
Host: Keith Morrison (NBC News)
Episode Date: April 4, 2023
Main Theme:
This episode, titled "Revelations," brings to light the painstaking efforts of the Ehrlichs—a father-son team—and their pursuit of justice for Raymond Jennings, who they believe was wrongly convicted of the murder of 18-year-old Michelle O’Keefe. The episode reveals the devastating personal cost to the O'Keefe family, the gaps and flaws in the original investigation, and the pivotal discoveries that challenge the established narrative of the case.

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Episode Overview

Keith Morrison guides listeners through evolving grief, dogged legal work, and new evidence. He explores how fresh eyes can disrupt comfortable certainties in cold cases, and how the process of challenging a conviction unfolds when old evidence is reviewed from a new, unbiased perspective.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Enduring Pain of the O’Keefe Family

• Personal Toll: Pat and Mike O’Keefe discuss how Michelle’s murder shattered their family, eventually leading to their divorce years after the third trial.
  • “So it’s just a terrible thing to go through.” — Pat O’Keefe [05:34]
  • “You kind of work through it ... But you learn to get through each day.” — Pat O’Keefe [02:43, 02:54]
• Loss upon Loss: Jason O’Keefe, their son and a beacon of hope, dies from a fentanyl and morphine overdose after an accident ends his promising baseball career.
  • “You saw this kid go from an all-American kid to kind of a recluse ... completely changed his character.” — Pat O’Keefe [07:39]
  • “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.” — Pat O’Keefe [09:39]

The Emergence of the Ehrlichs

• Fresh Eyes: Civil attorney Jeff Ehrlich and his son Clint become morally compelled to review Jennings’ conviction after watching a Dateline episode.
  • “As Clint put, it was painful to see a man whom I knew was innocent ... locked in a cage like an animal.” — Keith Morrison paraphrasing Clint Ehrlich [01:27]
• Moral Calling:
  • “I knew that Ray Jennings was sitting in a cell ... and I couldn't enjoy life because I knew that this injustice had existed.” — Clint Ehrlich [04:19]

Re-Examining the Case Against Jennings

• Talkative Suspect: Jennings’ own words, not physical evidence, were used against him.

  • “These are things that I—I should have never spoke on because I didn't know. I'm not an expert on things.” — Raymond Jennings [12:35]
  • “This is the guy who talked too much.” — Keith Morrison [12:46]
  • “Absolutely.” — Raymond Jennings [12:48]

• Absence of Physical Evidence: There is no proof that Jennings owned or fired the murder weapon, nor any physical evidence (gunshot residue, DNA, fibers, prints) linking him to the crime.

  • “If they had swabbed Ray’s hands for gunshot residue ... and found that there was no gun, then there wouldn’t have been a case.” — Jeff Ehrlich [15:40]
  • “There would be this phenomenon known as pseudostippling ... And so the absence ... is more evidence ... he didn't fire a gun that night.” — Jeff Ehrlich [16:38]

Alternative Theories & Overlooked Evidence

• Questioning Motives: The prosecution claimed a sexual assault motive, but the evidence doesn’t fit.
  • “It wasn’t well thought out. And it escalated.” — Pat O'Keefe quoting trial testimony [18:06]
• Policing Errors: The Ehrlichs uncover that Michelle’s wallet—supposed ‘proof’ against a robbery—was hidden, not obviously left behind, challenging the ‘sex assault’ theory.
  • “Her 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 [18:59]
• Gang Activity Ignored: An anonymous tip soon after the murder pointed to a botched gang carjacking, but it was never followed up.
  • “There was an anonymous tip ... that said this was a gang-related attempted carjacking that went bad.” — Jeff Ehrlich [21:09]

Prosecution’s Tunnel Vision

• Missed Witnesses: Investigators focused only on Jennings, ignoring other possible suspects—including a group in Victoria Richardson’s car near the crime scene, two of whom were in prison later.
  • “They didn’t ask, didn’t talk to any of them.” — Keith Morrison & Jeff Ehrlich [27:38-27:40]
  • “Even their profiling expert ... said that it was incumbent on the police to talk to all the people in the car, and they didn’t do that.” — Jeff Ehrlich [27:54]
• Confirmation Bias:
  • “They just locked in on him, and they just couldn't bring themselves to consider anyone else. It’s a tragedy.” — Jeff Ehrlich [28:35]

Legal Efforts for Exoneration

• Habeas vs. CRU: The only hope seemed to be a habeas petition—a notoriously long and difficult process—until a lifeline emerges: LA County’s brand-new Conviction Review Unit (CRU).
  • “The only possible remedy ... was a habeas petition ... In a word, badly.” — Keith Morrison [29:09]
  • “But then, out of the blue, came a gift from the unlikeliest of places.” (CRU is announced) — Keith Morrison [30:05]
• Crafting the Appeal: The Ehrlichs work meticulously, drafting a 34-page letter and compiling evidence to persuade CRU to review the case.
  • “It took us months to craft and we did it collaboratively.” — Jeff Ehrlich [31:59]
  • “I wrote the majority of the letter, I wrote the argument, my father wrote the facts, I wrote the introduction, he wrote the conclusion.” — Clint Ehrlich [32:10]
• Pendulum of Fate:
  • “Ray Jennings' fate hung on every word.” — Keith Morrison [31:44]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I think you kind of work through it." – Pat O’Keefe on coping with tragedy [02:43]
• "Somehow there’s going to come a time in my life when I’m going to have to find it deep down in my heart to forgive him." – Jason O’Keefe spoke about forgiveness, before his own untimely death [03:27]
• "It is funny how people react to different situations. When there’s trauma involved ... you can see something totally different than what I see." – Raymond Jennings, on the complexity of trauma and perception [13:18]
• "If he didn’t fire a gun, he didn’t kill her." – Keith Morrison, summarizing the evidence gap [17:12]
• "Tunnel vision ... it happens in virtually every wrongful conviction." – Jeff Ehrlich on the dangers of investigative bias [28:35]
• "Simple as that?" "Simple as that." – Morrison and Clint Ehrlich agree on how obvious the alternative theory now appears [29:06-29:07]
• "I didn’t see a choice." – Jeff Ehrlich, on the drive to appeal to the CRU [30:02]
• "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." – Clint Ehrlich on sending the CRU application [31:18]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:02–04:00 — Introduction to the need for "fresh eyes" and the Ehrlichs' mission
• 05:00–09:50 — O’Keefe family struggles, trauma, and tragic events after the conviction
• 12:35–18:02 — Jennings' statements and the lack of physical evidence
• 18:59–21:41 — Discovery of hidden wallet and ignored robbery/carjacking theory
• 27:29–28:20 — Investigation missed Victoria Richardson's group as potential witnesses/suspects
• 28:35–29:07 — Reflection on confirmation bias and the straightforward "carjacking gone wrong" theory
• 29:09–32:19 — CRU unit forms, Ehrlichs start the appeal process
• 32:33–33:17 — The evidence package is sent; fate hinges on the review

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Episode Tone & Style

Keith Morrison’s narration maintains a reflective and compassionate tone, blending tragedy with sharp investigative observation. The Ehrlichs speak with a sense of moral urgency and clarity. The O’Keefe family voices are heavy with grief, soul-searching, and the search for meaning after unspeakable loss.

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Conclusion

Episode 5, "Revelations," marks a turning point: dogged outsiders challenge a wrongful conviction through evidence and perseverance, exposing how institutional blind spots can upend lives, and reaffirming the vital importance of unbiased review in the justice system.

Transcript

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[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

6th my name is Frankenstein, Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley what did you want

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

with a dead girl?

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

And Academy Award winner Christian Bale. I'm the same born from the dead. I want the same thing everyone else wants.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

A bride.

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

The Bride Rated R only in theaters March 6th under 1790 minute without Ferrand.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Pat O'Keefe]

I think you kind of work through it.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

You don't really close the book like people say.

[Pat O'Keefe]

Oh, you'd be so happy when everything's all done.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Michelle will still be gone. Yeah, we'll still miss her.

[Pat O'Keefe]

But we learn to get through each day.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Best to look outward now, said Mike,

[Pat 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

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

of our mission 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.

[Pat O'Keefe]

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

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

It was the way things were put post verdict said Mike, you've got to

[Pat O'Keefe]

kind of characterize a new normal in your life, because what normal has been is no longer normal.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And he's not yet attorney's son. Minds for 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. I knew that this injustice had existed.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

As the Ehrlichs buried themselves in the old evidence files and read and reread 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is the Girl in the Blue Mustang, a podcast from Dateline. Episode five, 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,

[Pat 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Well, and each of you would remind the other of all. 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 Michael 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, a 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.

[Pat O'Keefe]

And 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Pat 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 it had, you know, the drugs had basically taken over his life. It'd been a situation where this kid also had the world on a string, you know, and through the injuries and the drugs, just kind of. You saw this kid 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And one cold day in November 2014, Michael Keefe returned from work and found Jason's lifeless body on the floor. An overdose.

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

Let's sort of look up the sky

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

and say, why me, God? A lot.

[Pat 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 when I'm. 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 have went through what

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

I've been through this was stalwart Jason, who'd kept them going through all those trials.

[Pat O'Keefe]

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

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Pat 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So perhaps it was a blushing 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,

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[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

My name is Frankenstein. Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley.

[Pat O'Keefe]

What do you want with a dead girl?

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

And Academy Award winner Christian Bale. I'm the same. Born from the dead. I want the same thing everyone else wants.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

A bride.

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

The Bride Rated R only in theaters March 6th. Under 1790 without ferret.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

This is the guy who talked too much.

[Raymond Jennings]

Absolutely.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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

[Raymond Jennings]

Didn't have a clue.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 Ehrlichs 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

I'm done. But you were done.

[Raymond Jennings]

No, I wasn't.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

You never felt that way?

[Raymond Jennings]

I never felt that way.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 Ehrlichs. 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 it, if Ray Jennings

[Jeff Ehrlich]

had 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 and the asphalt that would tear holes through his pants and possibly his legs. And so the absence of pseudostippling 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

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Exactly.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 had how it happened and why it happened was true. The Erlichs 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. I believe that the motive for this

[Pat O'Keefe]

crime was sexual assault, that, that the

[Jeff Ehrlich]

offender intended a sexual assault.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

It wasn't well thought out. And it escalated.

[Pat O'Keefe]

It went. It went bad quickly and it escalated into a homicide.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 airlifts 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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

[Jeff Ehrlich]

The situational felony murder happens when it's sort of a youthful offender. Someone at the beginning of the 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Of course, the ex FBI man, Mark Safarik was an expert, too. So maybe, thought the Ehrlichs, maybe Safrak 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Okay.

[Clint Ehrlich]

Because there was, in essence, no evidence to support it was just his imagination about FBI profiler. 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 weeks after

[Jeff Ehrlich]

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,

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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, 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

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JustWorks helps small businesses support their teams with everything from HR to better benefits. Whether you're hiring, automating payroll, expanding globally or tackling compliance, JustWorks offers transparent pricing and 24.7human support. Hire and manage talent without juggling multiple platforms or hidden fees and get your team access to premium benefits like health insurance, 401k and commuter perks. Learn [e-mail] they do your human resources right so you can do right by your people. Justworks for your people on March 6th

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

my name is Frankenstein Academy Award nominee Jesse Buckley what did you want with a dead girl? And Academy Award winner Christian Bale I'm the same born from the dead. I want the same thing everyone else wants.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

A bride.

[Jessie Buckley (as Frankenstein)]

The Bride Bridar only in theaters March 6 under 1798 without parent.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 past 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 at 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 parking 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 by 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, important clue. In fact, she had admitted to the original detectives 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Pat O'Keefe]

Yeah.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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. 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Wow. Yes. I don't even know what to say to that. Clint and 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Simple as that?

[Clint Ehrlich]

Simple as that.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So that was what you were facing.

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Yes.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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

[Jeff Ehrlich]

Yes. I didn't see a choice.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 Dewan. 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 cruise 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 Clinton. 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. But that was very appealing, mind you,

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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 conclusion.

[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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

10-02-2015 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 as I could.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

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

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

goodness, there is a document containing that word again. Revelations. The murder, more than two decades old, was not finished with L A. 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 Gorfayne is co executive producer, Liz Cole is executive producer and David Qorvo is senior executive producer. Producer from NBC News Audio Bryson Barnes is technical director. Sound mixing by Bob Mallery Nina Bisbano is associate producer.

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