#213 Jason Flom with Joe Bryan

Wrongful Conviction

Lava for Good Podcasts

True Crime

4.6 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

Joe Bryan was a high school principal, and his wife Mickey Bryan was a 4th-grade teacher in the small town of Clifton, TX. On Tuesday, October 15th, 1985, Mickey did not show up for work. Her body was discovered later that day in her bedroom. Joe was 120 miles away in Austin at a conference at that time. Prosecutors came up with a theory that Joe drove back to Clifton, killed his wife, and returned to Austin, using the conference as an alibi. He was convicted with "bloodstain analysis" which was later exposed to be wholly unreliable. For more on the junk science of bloodstain analysis check out Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Bloodstain Pattern Evidence with host Josh Dubin, released on August 10, 2020. https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/podcast/s11e14-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-bloodstain-pattern-evidence Learn more and get involved at: https://innocencetexas.org/ https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-forensic-science-commission-blood-spatter-evidence-testimony-murder-case-joe-bryan https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Beloved couple Joe and Mickey Brian who had no children of their own, instead dedicated
0:07.6	their lives to educating the children of Clifton, Texas.
0:11.1	But while Joe attended an annual high school principal conference 120 miles away in Austin,
0:16.6	tragedy struck.
0:17.6	On October 15, 1985, after Mickey did not arrive at her fourth grade classroom and could not
0:23.8	be reached, her principal went to the Brian home with Mickey's parents and found a gruesome
0:29.4	crime scene.
0:30.4	Gunshots had spattered the walls, ceiling and bedding with Mickey's blood and friends drove
0:36.0	a distraught Joe Brian home from Austin.
0:39.0	There were no witnesses.
0:40.3	A missing gun and jewelry, a cigarette butt in a non-smoking home.
0:45.6	It looked like a burglary gone bat.
0:47.9	Until Mickey's brother Charlie borrowed Joe's car while home for the funeral and allegedly
0:53.4	found a flashlight in the trunk that tested positive or a few specs of the most common
0:59.4	blood type typo, same as Mickey's.
1:02.6	The sheer absurdity of Joe racing from Austin to Clifton at back unseen, free of physical
1:09.4	evidence and without a motive was overcome by this one object that was found outside of
1:15.5	the crime scene in a car that was not in Joe's possession.
1:20.4	Despite DNA testing, it cast doubt on the flashlight's connection to the crime scene and evidence
1:26.8	that pointed squarely at a murderous police officer who later took his own life.
1:32.0	Joe Brian had to wait 35 long years for parole to finally set him free.
1:37.8	This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm.
	...

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