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Death Row Stories

Timothy Hennis

Aired September 07, 2014 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SCOTT WHISNANT, AUTHOR, INNOCENT VICTIMS: Of course there are military families, it's within a mile of the, you know, Fort Bragg base itself.

SUSAN SARANDON, NARRATOR: But on Summer Hill Road, something seemed amiss at the home of the Eastburn family.

WHISNANT: The neighbor noticed that the newspapers and case (ph) in the driveway were piling up. I mean, he knew that her husband was out of town. So, that naturally raises curiosity. He went to peek in the window and then heard the baby crying. And then he called the authorities.

ROBERT BITTLE, FORMER HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: I receive a call from the dispatch, "There was homicide on Summer Hill Road." When I got there, there was one deputy who had been in the building. His eyes are teared up, he was kind of holding his hat down and shaking his head. And he said, "I just - I don't understand this."

SARANDON: The baby was taken to safety. Then Detector Bittle and his partner entered the house.

BITTLE: As we went down the hallway on the bedroom (inaudible), the first daughter was in there, and she was in first grade, she was still in bed and she had a Star Wars blanket pulled up around her neck. And she was stabbed 10 times. You can see the stab wounds through the blanket. We went further to the master bedroom. The younger child was laying - she's on her back, her throat had been cut, almost decapitated. And on the right hand side, facing the bed, was the mother. The bra was up around her neck, her panties had been cut off over, and she had 14 stab wounds.

SARANDON: The victims were Katie Eastburn, age 32, Kara, age five, and Erin, age three.

BITTLE: For so long after that homicide, I could close my eyes and I could see the children.

SARANDON: Katie Eastburn's husband Gary was an air force captain. He rushed back from training in Alabama.

EASTBURN: It's hard to explain. It just stopped, the world stops.

BITTLE: When you look in his eyes, there was a void there. It tears your heart out but you have to gather yourself because you have a job to do. We're going to find out who did this.

WHISNANT: There was evidence all over that house. We found a head hair in Ms. Eastburn's bed. They found a head hair on Kara's chest. They found a pubic in the scene of the rape. They found fingerprints all over the house. They have bloody footprints. They had a semen sample. They were certain that physical evidence will lead to who ever killed this family.

SARANDON: After walking thought the house, Gary Eastburn also provided a tantalizing need (ph).

WHISNANT: They were going to move to England when Kathryn Eastburn got down with the training in Alabama. The family had decided to sell their dog, say for the (inaudible) in their local Forth Bragg B. And Katie Eastburn wrote a letter to her husband saying a nice man came out Tuesday night and got the dog.

BITTLE: We'd have no idea who it was. But anybody who went into the house, we're going to talk to.

SARANDON: Outside the crime scene, someone approached investigators with critical information from the night of the murders.

BITTLE: There was a young black male named Patrick Cone. He had been coming (inaudible) house Thursday night about 2:00 in the morning, he saw a big white dude walking down the driveway. He had blond hair, about 6'2, 6'3. And he had Members Only black jacket, a stalking (ph) cap, and a mustache.

WHISNANT: They passed on the road, and this person said, "I'm going to early start this morning." He got to a white Chevette and drive on.

BITTLE: I took Pat down to the SB Alley (ph) and they did a composite. And I said, "Are you sure he looked like this?" And he said, "This guys has got a - he got a black man's nose and he's got this droopy lazy eye." And he said, "That's what I saw."

SARANDON: Six days after the murders, police put out of call for the man who adopted the Eastburn's dog. Army sergeant Timothy Hennis, home for lunch with his wife, daughter, and new dog, heard it on the news.

WHISNANT: Tim Hennis' wife Angela said. "Hey, buddy that's you." So, they immediately packed up and went to the sheriff's department.

BITTLE: As I walk in to the office, Hennis is sitting there, I stopped (inaudible) and I looked at him, and I look at that composite and I said "Oh my goodness, this is our man right here."

WHISNANT: And they go find Patrick Cone and they put together photo line up. He eventually settled on number two, which is then Tim Hennis.

BITTLE: I said, "Are you sure?", he said, "I'm sure." WHISNANT: He also, in the parking lot picked, Tim Hennis' white Chevette out and said, "That's the car I saw." Hennis is still in the sheriff's department. He was being cooperative. They wanted samples of his hair, his blood and saliva which he gave. And about midway through, he realized he was becoming a suspect and he was getting madder, madder, madder.

HENNIS: You need to get that thing out of my face.

BITTLE: He is the most arrogant human being I've ever seen in my life. He just feel like, "You can't touch me," well, yes, we will touch you. We (inaudible) and test him.

SARANDON: At 1 AM, sheriffs arrested Timothy Hennis. They charged him with rape and capital murder. He would face the death penalty.

The arrest of a sergeant from the nation's largest army base sent shockwaves to the tight knit community around Fort Bragg.

PAUL WOOLVERTON, LOCAL REPORTER: Fayetteville (inaudible) as the most patriotic city in the country. If someone is murdered out of the blue, that just -- that's (inaudible) in Fayetteville.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got any idea who would do this?

JULIE (ph): Well, she was getting to strange phone calls...

SARANDON: Julie (ph), don't be giving no ideas who did something...

JULIE (ph): I have no ideas about -- would you just -- look...

WOOLVERTON: They get outraged. Justice must be done.

SARANDON: To defend their son, Tim Hennis' parents hired two young lawyers, Gerry Beaver and Billy Richardson.

BILLY RICHARDSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I thought Tim was guilty (inaudible). It's - I didn't particularly care for Tim. But the law school I went to stressed the importance of taking the unpopular cases.

WHISNANT: And then days immediately afterwards, the news got worse for Tim Hennis. He had no alibi. Angela Hennis was out of town all weekend. On Saturday morning, he dragged a barrel out in the middle of the backyard and started burning stuff. Something his neighbors have never seen do before.

SARANDON: I don't know what it but it was something he burned.

BITTLE: A lady who owns a (inaudible) called us and she said, "That man that you all have arrested brought a (inaudible) jacket into my cleaners, Friday. Does it look suspicious to you?"

WHISNANT: Kathryn Eastburn's stolen bank card that he then he used twice on Friday night and Saturday morning, $150 each time. They found that Tim Hennis was late on his rent for the tenant (ph) of about $300 which he paid on Monday.

RICHARDSON: We' really thought he was guilty. And there was a lot of physical evidence that was being tested. And if some physical evidence came back (ph) to him, he is dead. And so, we wanted to come in ahead of time and get him to him plea before that came out.

SARANDON: But to Richardson's surprise, Hennis refused to consider a plea deal.

RICHARDSON: Tim said something that haunted me. He looked and he said "They can test whatever they want. I was not in that house. I did not do it. And it's just that sample."

SARANDON: And when the lab reports with blood type, footprint and finger prints came back, they corroborated Hennis' account.

WHISNANT: Physical evidence had not matched Tim Hennis, none of it had.

RICHARDSON: Inconclusive or negative, Inconclusive or negative. There wasn't a strand of physical evidence that was linking Tim to the crime.

WHISNANT: Billy's view point then became he must get this man exonerated because I believe him.

RICHARDSON: Someone other than my client committed this crime. From that point on, I was totally convinced he was innocent.

SARANDON: But even without physical evidence linking him to the crime, Tim Hennis was about to go on trial for his life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARANDON: Before he adopted the Eastburn's dog in May of 1985, Sergeant Tim Hennis had a steady job in the military and a growing daughter he was devoted to. Then Hennis was arrested for the brutal murder of Katie Eastburn and her two little girls, aged five and three. Hennis' lawyer had come to believe in his innocence.

RIHARDSON: I was totally convinced watching him interact with Angela, because I do have a beautiful marriage, and watching him with his daughter. Tim is extremely good with children. I remember with my children how good he was.

SARANDON: Of the fingerprints, blood and semen found at the crime scene, none of it linked to Hennis.

BITTLE: Down here, we didn't have the equipment and the facilities that they have up North. We had no DNA down here when this crime occurred. I would like to have had a finger print. He left his shoe or thought (ph) something we could (inaudible) to it. But I thought we had enough to justify the case into trial.

SARANDON: The trial begun on May 27th, 1986.

RICHARDSON: Everybody wanted in that court room, (inaudible) had to break up fist (ph) fights.

WHISNANT: The prosecutors called it the show. They want to emphasize how gruesome the murder was. So, they built (ph) a screen up to the whole wall, and they took slides of Kara and Erin Eastburn, five and three-year old girls on an autopsy table, displayed out with no clothes.

RICHARDSON: Tim is in there going what do I do? If he acts like he's not bothering, he looks like he's blooded killer. And of he gets emotionally upset. It looks like he is expressing guilt. What can he do?

WHISNANT: This went on for two days. Slide after slide after slide.

RICHARDSON: I felt like I was in the slam dunk competition with Michael Jordan.

SARANDON: Prosecutor William VanStory also told the jury that Hennis' motive had been sex.

WHISNANT: Tim Hennis' wife was out town, had new baby. So, he decided to make a pass at the married mother of three from whom he gotten the dog. And that didn't go well.

BITTLE: Hennis thinks he is a player. So, Ms. Eastburn said, "No, he read this wrong. I'm just a friendly person." And then with that (inaudible) of his, he locks (ph) (inaudible).

SARANDON: Billy Richardson emphasized the lack of physical evidence to the jury. But prosecutors argued the absence of blood on Hennis' Members Only jacket was evidence of his guilt.

RICHARDSON: They kept saying there was no blood because he took his jacket to the dry cleaners.

WHISNANT: The jacket was a damming piece of evidence.

SARANDON: Richardson also undercut eye-witness Pat Cone who ID'd Hennis leaving the Eastburn home. Richardson videotaped Pat Cone during the tour of the crime scene.

RICHARDSON: When you start listening to his story, he's all over the place.

PATRICK CONE, EYE WITNESS: I went to the florist's and bought my girlfriend some roses.

RICHARDSON: You borrowed some roses on (inaudible)

CONE: No. No, that wasn't roses, there were some candy. There were some candy. No, that was roses.

RICHARDSON: We started asking "Are you sure about this?" And he is, "Well, now I'm out here looking at, you're right, I probably couldn't see (inaudible).

CONE: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I can't see that.

SARANDON: But on the witness stand, Cone cast aside any doubts.

WHISNANT: Cone said, "These lawyers have been tricking me. They had been pressuring me. I know I picked out the right guy."

SARANDON: Finally, prosecutors presented a surprise witness. A woman who said that two days after the murder, she'd seen the killer using Katie Eastburn's stolen bank card.

WHISNANT: All the sudden, the state introduced Lucille Cook, a little old lady, who used the card on Saturday morning after the killer did.

RICHARDSON: She had told us she couldn't remember.

BITTLE: She said, "I didn't tell the truth first time. There was a big, tall, white ma, with a mustache, a blond-haired guy. And he had a little old tiny white car.

RICHARDSON: That's the man that used the card right before I did. She's pointing at Tim Hennis and the jury said they're looking at her. After she testified, I went into the bathroom (inaudible).

SARANDON: The jury deliberated for three days.

WHISNANT: There was a quarter file on Friday afternoon on the jury (inaudible). He was guilty on three counts. He will get the death penalty times three. Tim Hennis did hear his father sobbing in the court room, he'd never heard that before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When that jury said "He is guilty", you still had faith that he was telling the truth?

ANGELA HENNIS: Always, never once.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not a doubt in your mind?

HENNIS: No, never.

BITTLE: That time, I feel like it did work for God. We got Tim in and it just felt good. This is the one case that truly screamed out for the death penalty.

SARANDON: Tim Hennis had spent his entire career serving the military. Now, he was serving time on death row. But not long after his arrival, Hennis received a mysterious letter.

WHISNANT: He said "Mr. Hennis, I did the crime. You're doing the time. Mr. X."

SARANDON: The letter provided no concrete lead, only adding to Hennis' torment.

WHISNANT: He got visits from his family. And his daughter is now two and half years old. And she would bang her hands on the flexi glass and say "Open it daddy, open it. Why it wouldn't open?" SARANDON: Billy Richardson felt responsible for his client's predicament.

RICHARDSON: We did not do the good as job as we were capable of doing. I made up my mind right then and there, I was going to become a lawyer I'm supposed to be. And I got off my butt and went to work.

SARANDON: Richardson and his partner quickly filed an appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court. They had to decide what to emphasize from mishandling evidence to possible perjury.

WHISNANT: They put the set (ph) on the photographs.

WOOLVERTON: That presentation was thought to have riled up the jury. It was pointing out to him over and over. See this picture? He did it. See this picture? He did it.

WHISNANT: Our State Supreme Court didn't just read the appeal briefs, they got a slide projector and saw the show for themselves. And within 22 days, they said, let's give him another trial.

BITTLE: It just broke all of our hearts because we had to call Gary and then say he had to go through this one more time.

SARANDON: Billy Richardson reinvestigated every aspect of the case.

RICHARDSON: We were so much better prepared for the second trial. When I started digging we found how many things we didn't know at the first trial.

SARANDON: Richardson began with Hennis' alibi for the night after the murder when someone use Katie Eastburn's bank card.

WHISNANT: Tim Hennis had 24-hour duty at Fort Bragg with his units. He can leave, the people in his division remembered him glowing shingles on a doll house (inaudible) daughter.

SARANDON: That army paperwork that would have confirmed Hennis' where about had gone missing before the first trial.

RICHARDSON: The army paperworks everything, they have paperwork for paper work. We looked for that plea, we look for it and there was a checkout sheet for everyday but that day. So the prosecutor a field (ph) day.

SARANDON: But before the second trial, Richardson discovered why the paperwork had gone missing.

WHISNANT: The reason they couldn't find it is because the prosecutors have it. They didn't make a copy of it and leave it. They just took it. And so, this piece of evidence that probably would've exonerated in 1986 was kept in the prosecutor's custody all the time.

SARANDON: Richardson also uncovered information that would undermine eyewitness, Pat Cone. WHISNANT: Pat Cone has helped them out in between trials. He was arrested using a stolen bank card. On another occasion, Patrick Cone was drinking and disruptive, and the state dropped the case. He was known to tell people that the state couldn't touch him because he was a prime witness.

BITTLE: Pat is not a strong real person. A nice guy, don't misunderstand me, but he got a little bit of trouble and -- but they were just mild things.

SARANDON: Still, Richardson wasn't sure he could convince a jury that Cone had lied about Tim Hennis until a new piece of evidence was found, literally lying on the sidewalk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

As defense attorney Billy Richardson prepared for the retrial at Tim Hennis. New evidence turned up on a Fayetteville sidewalk.

RICHARDSON: The deputy picked up a wallet, noted that it had a letter in it. And we kept hearing that the letter said, "Tim didn't do it." We keep hearing rumors like that.

WHISNANT: Billy goes to the sheriff's department and has to pretend he's investigating another case. Because if he let (inaudible) he's investigating this case, that will set off all kinds of bells and whistles.

RICHARDSON: And sure enough, the lost wallet belonged to a fellow named, Shawn Buckner.

SARANDON: Shawn Buckner was a close friend of Pat Cone, the prosecutor's star witness. The letter in Buckner's lost wallet called Cone's testimony into question.

WHISNANT: That letter talks about Pat's doubts.

BITTLE: Pat (inaudible) Shawn Buckner and his fiance about his doubts, to the point where they wrote each other a letter about it.

SARANDON: Richardson flew to Louisiana where Buckner was in training with the Air Force. But when he got there, Buckner closed the door in his face.

RICHARDSON: He didn't want to get involved.

WHISNANT: Shawn Buckner had a dilemma whether to betray his friend and help free someone who may be wrongly accused of tripple murder. And that was a tough one. Shawn Buckner had no reason to help Tim Hennis.

SARANDON: Richardson came home empty handed, hoping Buckner would eventually change his mind. The retrial of Timothy Hennis began on February 27th, 1989, almost four years after the brutal murders of Gary Eastburn's wife and daughters.

WHISNANT: The state went into a thinking it would be a replay of trial one. Meanwhile, the defense had an entirely different case.

SARANDON: This time Hennis would testify.

RICHARDSON: We're just really drilled him and filmed him and let him watched it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill this three people?

HENNIS: No, I did not kill these people. I have a daughter of my own and I could not hurt any children at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you do this crime?

HENNIS: No, I did not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARDSON: We felt that Tim showed rage or emotion. The jury would say, "Look, there, you see it? It can get to that point."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How does all these make you feel?

HENNIS: Extremely upset and angry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SARANDON: On cross examination, the prosecutor confronted Hennis with the alleged motive for the murder.

RICHARDSON: The prosecutor says, "You lost your cool and went in there and tried to have sex with her. And when she refused, you stabbed and killed her."

WHISNANT: They were trying to provoke Tim Hennis on the stand and he had calmly said, "No, I did not. No, I did not."

BITTLE: He said, "I never had sex with that woman. That never happened."

WHISNANT: And when it's over, he'd not gotten the reaction he wanted to, and see him in a different light than the first jury had seen him, made a huge difference.

SARANDON: At the first trial, the absence of blood on Hennis' jacket had helped convict him as the states expert insisted dry cleaning had removed any blood stains. But Richardson saw it differently.

RICHARDSON: Let's talk to the dry cleaner. And he said, "You have to use a special chemical to remove blood." And I said, "What did you use?" In this case, he has noted, "I just used ordinary dry cleaning."

SARANDON: And when the prosecution challenged the drycleaner's knowledge, Richardson was ready with his own expert.

WHISNANT: This chemist got a members-only jacket with some blood on it and took the jacket to a dry cleaner and ran a luminal test on the jacket and it just glowed as bright as it can be, "All right, there's blood and it's still there."

SARANDON: Hennis' members-only jacket on the other hand had no signs of blood. Richardson had turned the prosecution's evidence against them. Richardson was also prepared for Lucille Cook who swore she saw Hennis at an ATM two days after the murder.

WHISNANT: Lucille Cook had made dozens and dozens and dozens of ATM transactions around the time at this point. So they asked her could she remember any of those, and of course she could not.

SARANDON: Bank logs also showed a three and a half minute gap between the victim's card being used and Lucille Cook's transaction.

RICHARDSON: Well, that doesn't seem like a lot of time until you sit there and timed it. We had the jury sit there to see how long it was.

WHISNANT: It was a longest three and a half minutes. Why would the killer wait three and a half minutes to let someone seize in? One of the juror said they got in the jury room and laughed at her.

SARANDON: Now, it was time for Richardson to go after the state's star witness, Pat Cone. After some soul searching, Shawn Buckner agreed to testify against his old friend.

RICHARDSON: He testified that Pat Cone is extremely drunk that night, that in addition to that he had doubts about what he saw.

WHISNANT: Patrick had told Shawn Buckner, "I feel like I'm sending an innocent man to prison."

SARANDON: But Richardson knew he had to answer one last question.

RICHARDSON: In the back of their mind, the jury is still saying, "Well, the kid saw something. If it wasn't your client, who was it?"

SARANDON: So Richardson called his next witness.

WHISNANT: The back doors burst open and everyone in the court room turned and looked around. The prosecutor says, "Who is that?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was as close to appearing (inaudible) as I've ever had.

WHISNANT: The lead detective says, "We're in trouble."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARANDON: Defense attorney, Billy Richardson, had always wondered, if it wasn't Tim Hennis, who did eyewitness Pat Cone seen near the Eastburn home on the night of the murders? WHISNANT: Billy was going door to door, interviewing every neighborhood, and he found one couple who said, "Why don't you talk to that kid who walks the street?"

RICHARDSON: She says, "I see that fellow all the time. He walks the neighborhood all the time."

WHISNANT: They didn't know who he was. And so, Billy did a visual, it became quest for this mythical figure of the walker.

RICHARDSON: You know, when you case it in your office, so I sat there for six weeks.

SARANDON: Richardson even hoped he might find the real perpetrator but he came up empty handed. Then, before the second trial, Richardson hired an investigator to renew the search. And finally, they found their mystery man. No murderer, but a high school senior who worked at the local supermarket.

WHISNANT: A kid by the name of John Raupaugh lived down the street from the Eastburns. He was an uneasy sleeper and he had a habit of walking the neighborhood on Summer Hill Road at 3:00 in the morning. He was a big blond kid with a blond mustache.

RICHARDSON: It just felt it. It just felt like (inaudible).

SARANDON: During the retrial, Richardson kept his discovery from the prosecution, timing the mystery walker's entrance for maximum impact.

WHISNANT: The back doors burst open, "The defense calls John Raupaugh." And at 3:30 in the morning, you couldn't help but think, "Now, could that have been impacted (inaudible) on the road."

BITTLE: Here's another tall, white guy, blond, walking down the street. Now, that's effective.

RICHARDSON: It was just one of those magical moments in the courtroom. The walker gave that jury a reason to have reasonable doubt. They gave him a reason to say, "It wasn't Tim."

SARANDON: When the walker took the stand, Richardson asked what he wore on his nightly walks down Summer Hill Road.

WHISNANT: He often wore a beanie hat and he had a member's own jacket. In fact, members-only jacket.

SARANDON: After the walker's testimony, the defense moved to have the case thrown out.

WHISNANT: That's a huge prosecution of just outright cheating because it turned out the prosecutors knew exactly who John Raupaugh was.

RICHARDSON: He's stated family guy and it basically hitting from us.

SARANDON: As the jury began deliberating, Richardson told the judge what he discovered about the prosecution's conduct. WHISNANT: The deputy sheriff went to John Raupaugh and they brought him in and they had to bring his jacket and his hat. And they took it from him and put it into the trunk of one of the detective's cars and they returned it to John Raupaugh after Tim Hennis' own death row. That's exactly the kind of evidence in a close case. They could've tilted this the other way in the first trial.

RICHARDSON: We just got pointing mad at that point. We're getting slapping up where we say, "All right, I've had enough this."

WHISNANT: It just gotten more incredible sitting in that courtroom and watch this thing unfold. And I went from thinking, "He's guilty," to, "I'm not sure our jury is going to be able to find him guilty," to, "He didn't do it and they have to let him go," and then the jury knocked.

SARANDON: After deliberating less than three hours, the jury announced its verdict, "Not guilty on all counts."

RICHARDSON: All just broken down and started crying because I knew what they've been through. Next to marrying my wife, next to the birth of my children, that was probably the happiest day of my life.

We've lived with the family, and felt what they've been through, and it's just a tremendous, tremendous load taken off our shoulders.

WHISNANT: The jurors came out, they hugged Tim Hennis. They were adamant that they need to reinvestigate this case and quit picking on this guy.

BITTLE: Somebody said, "Why are they bothering this poor man, hadn't he suffered enough? (Inaudible) why are they bothering this poor man, has he not suffered enough?" Men killed two children (inaudible) risked his life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether you like it or not, Tim is our client. And if he dies, we lived with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SARANDON: In the years that followed, the Hennis case became a textbook example of wrongful prosecution. Scott Whisnant spoke about the case, was even adopted into a TV movie.

RICHARDSON: In this case, what people will notice is that not everybody sitting in prison is guilty. North Carolina now has a commission that actually has released a number of innocent people.

SARANDON: Despite all the attention to Hennis' acquittal, the Eastburn murders would go unsolved for another sixteen years. Until 2005, when Scott Whisnant spoke about the case at a criminology seminar, Fayetteville detective, Larry Trotter, was in the audience.

LARRY TROTTER, FAYETTEVILLE DETECTIVE: In the premise was that there are all these other unknowns that were out there, people that potentially maybe not have been interviewed other forms of evidence.

WHISNANT: If he's innocent, then who's guilty? The state of North Carolina didn't pursue this for seventeen years. Why isn't somebody trying to find who's guilty?

RICHARDSON: Somebody was stalking that woman for weeks. Ms. Eastburn was writing her husband, saying, "There is a fool out there following me and I don't like it. What do I do about it?" Why doesn't anybody look at it? Who does it lead to?

SARANDON: After Whisnant discussed the evidence, Detective Trotter approached him privately.

WHISNANT: He said, "I just want you to know that the way they investigated this case 20 years ago were not like that anymore." And I said, "Somebody should reinvestigate this case. I think it can be solved now, technology has improved." And that's how we left it.

SARANDON: In fact, Trotter had been assigned by the sheriff's office to review cold cases.

TROTTER: We had well over 100 unsolved cases at that time. I went through the dockaet, I realized that they had a vaginal swab that was taken from Ms. Eastburn during the autopsy. They had never been sent out for testing. When the murder happened, DNA was in its infancy so the obvious thing to do was to send it off for testing.

SARANDON: For over two decades, Gary Eastburn had lived without closure for the devastating murder of his wife and two daughters.

BITTLE: We've done a great injustice to this man, how he stood up or withstood, I just don't know. He just wanted (inaudible), he wanted to make sure that you get this solved.

SARANDON: In May 2006, the state crime lab contacted the sheriff's department. They'd found a positive match with DNA. Detective Bittle called Gary Eastburn to tell him the news.

BITTLE: I said to him, "You sitting down?", he said, "Yeah." He asked why, I said, "Take a deep sit, I got something to tell you."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARANDON: After Tim Hennis was freed from death row in 1989, he didn't know where to turn.

TIM HENNIS: You feel very diminished, very worn out, dragged down. You don't have this self-confidence and reliability you once have.

WHISNANT: His lawyers told him, "Get out of the army. It's just a bad place to be, but he'd been on death row. There weren't a lot of employers who would take that on. The army had to take him by, so he stayed in.

SARANDON: After readjusting to army life, Tim Hennis built a successful 25-year career in the military. RICHARDSON: Tim has served in Somalia, he served in Desert Storm.

Tim's supervisor, a colonel, told me he was without a doubt the best NCO he ever worked with.

WHISNANT: He retired at 2004. He's going to be a husband and father. He and Angela had a son that they never would have had he not gotten his life back together.

SARANDON: But Tim Hennis had no idea the Eastburn murder case was about to break wide open. In 2006, a 21-year old rape kit yielded new DNA results. Detective Robert Bittle called the victims' husband and father, Gary Eastburn, to give him the news.

BITTLE: I said, "We got a hit on that DNA." He said, "So, who is it?" And I said, "Hennis."

EASTBURN: He -- it could've knock me over the (inaudible) when I got that call. Just hit with this wave of emotion, I just like, "I don't believe it."

BITTLE: I was so happy, I mean, I was on (inaudible).

SARANDON: Defense lawyer Billy Richardson was driving through Mississippi when he heard the news.

RICHARDSON: I said stop the car. And it was just like somebody had taken a two by four and hit me outside in the head with it.

WHISNANT: I was convinced that if anybody could ever run an actual DNA on that sample, they would fine someone other than Tim Hennis. I believe it in every fiber of my being.

SARANDON: But the shocking DNA results led to a pragmatic question.

BITTLE: What the heck do you do now?

TROTTER: Timothy Hennis has been adjudicated not guilty. And therefore, the state (inaudible) is not going to try him again.

RICHARDSON: We followed a revolutionary war because the King of England could try somebody over and over for the same offense. And our founders put in the Constitution that there will be no double jeopardy in this country.

BITTLE: I understand that but I think there might be certain cases like this, that there's DNA now that says he says he was the man who raped this woman and children, I think he should be able to -- I think somehow the judicial system is going to have to work around that.

TROTTER: It was the DA's office who decided to see if the army is interested in bringing him back off retirement and trying him for the murders.

SARANDON: The team of lawyers from the rank helped evaluate the case for the army. NATE HUFF, CAPTAIN, ARMY JAG CORPS: My personal opinion about why

this is important to the military is that the military sent Gary Eastburn for duty in Alabama and his family was left behind and they were murdered.

WOOLVERTON: I'm sure there was debate within the military. It's high profile, it's controversial but you had an enlisted person killing an officer's wife, how do you let that go?

SARANDON: Two years after he retired, Timothy Hennis was recalled to act of duty. As soon he returned Fort Bragg, Hennis was charged with three counts of murder.

WHISNANT: Tim Hennis is the only person in United States' history who's been tried for his life three times after guilty and not guilty verdicts.

MATT SCOTT, MAJOR, ARMY JAG CORPS: I can't comment as to why it has not happened before, however the legal analysis of it actually was pretty simple.

ROB STELLE, LT. COL., ARMY JAG CORPS: It is honestly a well set of law. Nothing the state does affects what the federal government can do.

RICHARDSON: Making claim as under a different jurisdiction all they want, this was the state of North Carolina, using the army to get to what they wanted to do. Plain and simple.

SARANDON: But Billy Richardson now on the sidelines, the court martial of Timothy Hennis commenced on March 17th, 2010. The prosecutors case hinged on the DNA results.

SCOTT: The sperm found in the vagina of Ms. Kathryn Eastburn -- the person who raped and slaughtered her and her children, and that's Timothy Hennis'.

SARANDON: But when a scandal erupted at the state lab, the DNA evidence against Timothy Hennis would be thrown into question.

WOOLVERTON: They were mixing up DNA samples and almost put an innocent guy in prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARANDON: In 2010, Timothy Hennis went on trial for a third time in the murders of Katie Eastburn and her daughters. But a scandal rocked to state lab that identified Hennis' DNA. The lab had been skewing results to help prosecutors.

WOOLVERTON: The woman who handled the sample back in the '80s got in trouble for mixing up some DNA samples in another case and almost put an innocent guy in prison.

RICHARDSON: They didn't do a good job of preserving the evidence. Three people had been arrested for evidence tampering. SARANDON: Hennis' lawyers asked for a postponement to investigate the lab. The judge refused. Meanwhile, military prosecutors found a second smear from the rape kit. They send it to a new lab and the results also pointed to Hennis.

MAJOR JODY YOUNG, ARMY JAG CORPS: The medical examiner's slide came back on every marker to the defendant tested by army uses all the crime lab. You had two chains of custody. The defense could not attack the slide.

SARANDON: For prosecutors, the DNA results swept away all previous doubts.

WHISNANT: They went back and replay the first two trials and some of the old (inaudible).

SCOTT: Patrick Cone has seen Timothy Hennis coming down that driveway. That fact that (inaudible) took members-only jacket at the dry cleaners using the ATM card, you had numerous pieces of evidence that tie him to this crime.

SARANDON: For Hennis' defenders, the prosecution's case had serious flaws and their top priority was getting their own evidence in front of the jury.

WHISNANT: There's a ton of physical evidence in that house that they still can't explain. They found a head hair in Ms. Easburn's bed. It's not Tim Hennis. There's a pubic hair right where the rape took place.

RICHARDSON: What does male DNA doing under Mrs. Easburn's fingernails? It's not Tim's. There is male DNA under the daughter's fingernail and it's not Tim's.

SCOTT: The prosecution defense agreed on that. Nothing else came back to Timothy Hennis. Underneath the fingernails, that's not Timothy Hennis' but what is in that vaginal swab?

RICHARDSON: To me, male DNA evidence under a fingernail (inaudible) woman is right is pretty damaging evidence. Who is it?

SARANDON: The fingernail scrapings weren't enough for a full DNA profile, so the defense asked to test all the crime scene evidence that might point to a different perpetrator including a blood-soaked towel.

WHISNANT: Now, whoever had sex with her (inaudible) killer, but you can't argue that whoever cleaned up the blood didn't have something to do with it. Let's find out what happened.

WOOLVERTON: In the military, if you need a test done, you'd ask a judge to make the army do it for you.

SARANDON: The judge though denied that defense's request to test other items.

RICHARDSON: I can't imagine a judge in a civilian court not allowing that. You have the evidence, why not test it?

SARANDON: Without DNA results pointing to a different suspect, Hennis' lawyers decided to offer an alternate explanation for the incriminating sperm.

WOOLVERTON: At the very end, they've threw out there the theory that Tim Hennis had consensual sex with Mrs. Eastburn within a day or so of the homicides.

BITTLE: Well, when he said that, you could feel the love living that room. I mean everybody went, "I don't think he said that."

RICHARDSON: I mean there are certain things you can do from a jury, there are certain things you can't. It would not have been I would've done it.

SARANDON: The 14-person court martial jury declared unanimously that Timothy Hennis was guilty of murdering Katie Eastburn and her children. Their next task would be to decide whether Hennis deserve a death penalty.

RICHARDSON: When you got a mandate for 25 years after this occurred, did nothing but raise his family, serving two wars, honorably discharged, and still married to the same woman, why are you just going to look and say, "That's the monster."

BITTLE: He leads prayers at church, he gets cookies to kids, didn't make any difference.

YOUNG: We're not there to say, "How could he do it?" We're not there to say, "Why did he do it?" We're there to say, "He did it."

SARANDON: The prosecution ended their presentation with another slide show.

YOUNG: Gary Eastburn counted out that birthdays he's missed with his daughters, anniversaries, baptism.

STELLE: One of my (inaudible) partners asked Gary, "What did you miss the most?" And he just (inaudible) his heart with tears in his eyes. He just said, "I just miss them."

SARANDON: On April 15th, 2010, the jury sentenced Timothy Hennis to death.

BITTLE: Do I feel vindicated for some things you heard when they got a not guilty, when the smiles (inaudible) you see from certain people? You damn right, I do. Yes sir, I do. I feel vindicated.

SARANDON: Tim Hennis now sits in solitary confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His appeals both in the military and federal courts could take decades.

RICHARDSON: I still think Tim's innocent. But I'm not his lawyer now and it would be totally improper for me to sit down and say, "All right, Tim, did you or didn't you?" I'm dying to have that conversation with him. But how can you put a man to death if they settle only to one piece of evidence? Our country was formed on the premise that one person awfully convicted is a (inaudible) justice.

BITTLE: I don't know what the outcome of this is going to be, but this is a good case. I knew we were right. I think it's a good system.