Bloody Lies: A CSI Scandal in the Heartland

16. Freedom

124 bloody lies 16 Freedom even though Nick Sampson was released from jail, law enforcement in cass county still hoped to send Matt livers to Nebraska’s death row or prison for the rest of his life despite a plethora of compelling evidence lined up against the two Wisconsin teenagers. luckily, livers’s public defender Julie Bear believed completely in his innocence . Bear knew something wasn’t right with her client’s supposed confession , especially after Fester and reid surfaced. She knew Matt’s confession got most of the crime scene facts totally wrong. For instance, Matt claimed to be present during the Stock murders; neither Fester nor Reid identified Livers as being present. livers claimed that he and Nick Sampson each shot the Stocks; both reid and Fester admitted they were the ones who fired the fatal shots. livers did not identify reid or Fester as being present during the murders or being involved in any way. DNa evidence left at the crime scene proved Fester and reid were present at the time of the murders. livers claimed that Nick Sampson dropped a marijuana pipe in the driveway after the shootings. DNa testing conclusively established the drug pipe contained a mixed sample from reid and Fester, not the DNa of Nick Sampson or Matt livers. livers claimed that a single shotgun was used to kill the Stocks. Spent shell casings at the crime scene showed two weapons were used. livers claimed that Nick provided the .12-gauge shotgun. Ballistics tests eliminated Nick’s shotgun as the one involved. evidence established the pair of shotguns used to kill the Stocks were stolen and brought to Nebraska by Fester and reid. 124 FreedoM 125 livers claimed that Nick disposed of the murder weapon. Fester and reid admitted they threw the murder weapons into a ditch somewhere between Murdock, Nebraska, and Washington, louisiana. livers claimed that he shot Sharmon Stock after shooting Wayne Stock in the leg. livers claimed that Sharmon continued screaming and was then shot in the head. The crime scene and autopsy contradicted this scenario. livers claimed that heand Nick plotted to kill the Stocks during a cell phone call the Thursday or Friday before easter. law enforcement obtained the cell phone records for both livers and his girlfriend and should have known that no such call ever took place. in fact, there were no phone calls between livers and Nick Sampson during any of the months prior to the killings. To determine Livers’s full psychological profile prior to his double murder trial set for early 2007, the cass county court granted permission for Dr. Scott Bresler of Ohio to evaluate the double murder defendant. Bresler, a former University of Nebraska forensic psychologist, was now at the University of cincinnati in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience. as part of his rigorous evaluation, he reviewed the investigative police reports and studied the videotapes of livers’s eleven-hour interrogation and confession . Bresler traveled to Nebraska to interview Matt’s parents and Matt’s fiancée. He devised a number of psychologist tests, including the Weschler abbreviated Scale of intelligence, the Personality assessment interview, the Paulhus Deception Scales, the Validity Indicator Profile, the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales, the Gudjonsson compliance Scale, and the repeatable Battery for the assessment of Neuropsychological Status (commonly known as list-learning and story memory). By the time Bresler finished his work, the distinguished Ohio psychiatrist understood why a terribly flawed and horribly incompetent police interrogation wrecked Matt’s self-confidence and left him stumbling and stammering as two angry investigators spoonfed him a confession that had more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese.· · · On November 30,1977, Matthew David livers was born at a small-community hospital in Syracuse, Nebraska, a town of one thousand with a strong German heritage and a short drive from lincoln. Matt’s early years brought many challenges, including delayed motor and speech skills. “Matt will amount to a zero nothing,” a school psychologist informed his mother.1 Matt attended normal kindergarten in the elmwood-Murdock school system. He also went for additional therapy at an educational Service Unit program called Project 126 bloody lies Me, about twenty miles away in Springfield, Nebraska. The program aimed to mainstream Matt and other children with academic difficulties into a regular first grade classroom. In grade and middle school, Matt had a short attention span.Backthen,peopledidn...