The scores of letters, written by Grace Sebold over the years, had come as Sidney climbed to some semblance of fame for her previous documentaries and the exonerations that followed. The first letter had arrived after Sidney’s documentary featuring Neve Blackmore, a middle-aged woman who had spent eighteen years in a Florida jail for the murder of her ten-year-old son. As a young and inexperienced producer, Sidney poked around the case until she became certain of the woman’s innocence. Some great investigational journalism, along with dumb luck, and the discovery of a scathing piece of DNA evidence had been enough for Florida’s newly elected state’s attorney to reopen the case. Nearly two decades after her son was savaged, Neve Blackmore was exonerated. Sidney Ryan documented Ms. Blackmore’s journey, the unearthing of new evidence, and Neve’s eventual release from jail, and put it all together in a two-hour film.
Although that first documentary was hailed as a symbol of justice, Sidney looked at it as just the opposite. In the wake of her son’s death, a mother was accused of his murder and forced to mourn in prison. Neve Blackmore fought for most of her adult life to clear her name. Yes, she was ultimately vindicated, but she had paid a hell of a price for the mistakes of those too eager to convict. And eighteen agonizing years later, still no one had been held accountable for her son’s murder. Neve Blackmore had spent nearly two decades, not tracking down her son’s killer, but simply working to prove her innocence. It seemed to Sidney much less an image of justice than a pitiful waste of two lives.
When that first documentary gained critical praise and a moderate audience, letters trickled in from inmates around the country hoping for Sidney to conjure the same magic that had freed Neve Blackmore. Sidney paged through each letter, researching the convictions and the evidence that produced them. Back then the mail was manageable. She handled every envelope herself and settled on the case of Byron Williams, ayoung African-American man accused of shooting and killing two plainclothes police officers who were on surveillance duty. With alibis from five different sources and forensics that suggested the shooter to be female, Sidney attacked the case with zeal. With her camera crew in tow, she led a yearlong investigation that finally caught the attention of a U.S. senator and the local district attorney. This time, after eight years in prison, Byron Williams was released and cleared of all charges.
Sidney organized her journey into a four-part documentary and shopped it around. Netflix purchased it, created an aggressive marketing plan, and released it to subscribers to be streamed over the Internet. It became the most downloaded true-crime documentary of the year, putting Sidney Ryan’s name on the radar of every convict in the country who believed he or she was innocent. Her in-box flooded with requests from felons requesting her assistance with their appeals. Family members of the accused also penned letters, begging Sidney to help their loved ones who rotted in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. In a given week, she’d receive a stack of envelopes six inches thick. Inside the packages were shoddy investigational work, lists of appeals, and makeshift interviews with “witnesses” that would surely crack each case. The mail became too much to handle, and much of it sadly piled up, unopened and ignored, in the corner of her office.
Suddenly a sought-after producer and filmmaker, she fielded a host of offers before finally taking a producing spot on the prime-time showEvents,which was tied to the popular magazine of the same name. There she began work on her third documentary, entering into the ruthless world of television network hierarchy. Sidney was naive to the backstabbing and conniving that dominated the industry, and had been eaten alive and overshadowed by Luke Barringtonduring her first year as his producer. Still, Sidney’s style and strong filmmaking skills won many accolades and spawned many lookalikes, including podcasts and YouTube documentaries of little-known crimes. It was about that time that she opened the first letter from Grace Sebold.
Sidney knew the case well, and not simply because she and Grace had attended Syracuse University together. The story had made national headlines a decade earlier and the American media were frenzied about the sordid details.GRUESOME GRACE SEBOLDandGRISLY GRACEwere the chosen headlines of the day used to describe the fourth-year medical student who had bludgeoned her boyfriend before pushing him off a cliff in the Caribbean. Although they never ran in the same circles, Sidney remembered Grace well enough at the time the news broke, four or five years after Syracuse, to be shocked by the story. Sidney didn’t, however, have a good enough connection with her to know if the accusations were true or false. A decade later, Sidney was getting an opportunity to find out.
She spent hours reading the more than one hundred letters Grace had sent over a twenty-six-month span. Sidney noted as she carefully paged through each of them that none was repetitive. Other than asking for Sidney’s help at the end, each letter tackled a different subject. Many were powerful attestations about the inconsistencies in the case against her, the rules of good investigational work that were violated, the physical evidence that was engineered, the DNA findings that were misinterpreted, and the complete lack of motivation for Grace to have killed the man she loved. Others were about Grace’s life before the conviction, the family that desperately grieved for her, the brother who was ill and required more care than her parents could offer, and the life she was missing as the years passed by in jail. Some were nothing more than congratulations on Sidney’s success and her rise in the ranksof television journalism, praising her hard work and the difference she made in the lives of those she helped exonerate. Through the letters, Sidney felt a sense of charisma emanating from Grace, a trait she could neither explain nor remember from her time with Grace at Syracuse. There was something alluring about Grace Sebold. And if Sidney could sense it through letters, she was certain viewers would see it in a documentary.
Grace’s attorney had provided Sidney with a thumb drive of all relevant information about the case. From Julian Crist’s autopsy report and photos, to toxicology findings, to evidence collected during the investigation, to high-res crime scene photos, to recorded interviews and court transcripts, Sidney knew everything about Grace Sebold’s case, her trial, and her conviction.
At least, this was her belief before interviewing Claude Pierre.
CHAPTER 7
THE GUARD UNLOCKED THE DOOR TO THE INTERVIEW ROOM ANDSidney walked through the threshold. Grace Sebold sat at the table. With the only references being decade-old photographs, television video from the trial, and dusty images in her mind from their time together in college, Sidney tried hard to suppress her surprise when she laid eyes on Grace.
The beautiful, young college girl was gone, replaced now by a rough-looking woman much closer to middle age. Convicted of Julian Crist’s murder at age twenty-six, Grace Sebold was now closer to forty. A decade in a foreign prison had not aged her well. She carried edematous bags under her eyes, which suggested years without a peaceful night’s sleep. Her hair, once long and sandy blond, was now cropped inmate-style short and had retreated back to its original brunette color besides the few random streaks of gray that snaked through it. Without makeup, her lips were pale and chapped, and her complexion carried the pallor of a decade without the company of sunshine.
Sidney’s cameramen captured the two women meeting for the first time in more than fifteen years. Grace pursed her lips and worked hard to prevent the welling tears from spilling down her cheeks.
“Wow,” Grace said in a shaky voice as she tried to smile. “It’s been a while.”
“Hi, Grace.”
They embraced in a gentle hug. Sidney sensed that it was both a welcome relief, as well as an awkward display of physical emotion, which Grace had been without for the past ten years.
When they parted, Sidney dropped a stack of envelopes onto the table, a thick rubber band holding the heap together.
Grace looked at her years of work. “I wasn’t sure you were reading them.”
“I read every one. They’re why I’m here.”
They sat down across from each other. Grace looked at the cameras, which were pointed at her and filming from each side.
“This will take a little getting used to.”
“We only have an hour,” Sidney said. “So get used to them quickly, okay?”
Grace nodded.
“For this to work, for there to be any chance that I can help you, you have to be honest with me.”
Grace nodded again. “Of course.”
“One hundred percent. No exaggeration. No bending the truth.”
Another nod.
“I’ve spent the last couple of days speaking with the detective who ran your case. I also read the medical examiner’s report who performed the autopsy on Julian and testified against you at your trial.”
“Okay,” Grace said.
“There are several issues that stand against your claims in these letters.”
