The Audit is F’d Up – Part Two Recap Written by Brandi Abbott This week’s episode picks up with a continuation of the audit and the case of a man named Daniel Green. Daniel Green was at a cookout on July 22nd, 1993 when he ran into his friend Larry Demery. Demery asked him if he wanted to come with him to New York to make a delivery, Daniel declined and Demery left the party alone. A few hours later he was back and freaking out. He asked for Daniel’s help and this time Daniel went with him. That same day, a man named James Jordon, the dad of Michael Jordan, attended the funeral of a friend in Wilmington, North Carolina. He headed home at 12:30 AM. It was about a two hour drive and he must have been tired because he pulled off of the highway to take a nap. On August 3rd 1993, a fisherman discovered a body in a remote swamp in South Carolina and it appeared the body had been in the swamp for about a week. On August 5th, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department were notified that an abandoned and stripped Lexus, belonging to James Jordan had been found. His family hadn’t spoken to him since July 22nd but no one had filed a missing person’s report. On August 7th, the coroner in Marlboro County, South Carolina cremated the body, saving the jaw and hands for identification purposes and on August 13th the teeth were matched to James Jordon. Back on June 22nd, Demery didn’t admit to Daniel that what he needed help with was moving a body until they were back at his car. Damery told Daniel that he went to a hotel for a drug delivery, that the man he was delivering to tried to proposition him which led to a fight, and there was a shooting. James Jordan is the man who was shot. On August 15th 1993, Demery and Daniel were arrested for murder. They had ridden around in James Jordan’s car for three days. They made calls from his car phone, including to 1-900 sex numbers, and made home movies using James Jordan’s video camera which included Daniel wearing the championship ring and watch Michael Jordan had given his father. Both Daniel and Demery had pasts involving spending time in jail. The cops tried tactics to get them to turn on each other, including threatening them with the death penalty and it worked for Demery. Between the time Demery took his plea offer and his testimony, he changed the story on what happened that night but the plea offer stood. He testified that he and Daniel tried to rob James Jordan, and that Daniel shot him. Daniel was convicted of first degree felony murder and was sentenced to life in prison plus ten years. Daniel has maintained throughout that he was not involved with the robbery or murder, but his conviction was upheld by the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 1998 and the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1999. He filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief, known as an MAR, in 2000. His appointed council had done basically nothing, and in the 2008 after Daniel filed a supplemental MAR, the judge decreed his case would be reviewed and he would be appointed new council. In 2010 he asked for the NCCAI’s representation but they declined because he had recently been appointed new council. Daniel’s case was on the list of 230 cases impacted by the SBI’s shoddy practices. The same bloodstain reporting issues from Greg’s case were present in Daniel’s, and Chris Mumma agreed to take on his case in 2016. Chris reviewed his case and increasingly felt like he wasn’t involved in the robbery or murder and the NCCAI joined his co-council. The SBI complained that the audit done by Swecker and Wolfe looked at their old science through a modern science lens. This doesn’t really work, though, as the audit focused on their practices and reporting, or misreporting rather, not on their actual "science". Jennifer Elwell testified and dismissed the audit completely, though she admitted she only read parts of the report. She claimed that Swecker and Wolf didn’t understand forensic science, which seemed to be the common consensus across the SBI lab. Elwell refused to acknowledge that either she or the SBI were in error. In 2011, DA’s offices in NC had gone though about 150 cases from the report and claimed that these seemed okay as there was other strong evidence in every one of the cases. If that were true though, would this episode on Daniel Green even be happening? The phone calls made from James Jordan’s car was pointed at as the most important evidence by law enforcement including the sheriff, as it linked Daniel and Demery to the car. They failed to mention, however, that the second call made was to a drug dealer named Hubert Deese, the sheriff’s son. Demery and Deese were former coworkers who use to work about two miles from where the body was found in South Carolina. Deese was never interviewed by the police. He was interviewed by the prosecutors, but the defense was never aware. Daniel’s attorneys knew that the phone calls from the car were important to the ...
