For decades, producer Dan Slepion has spearheaded documentaries, podcasts, and investigative reports for the news magazine show Dateline NBC.

In 2002, a chance conversation propelled him to start probing wrongful convictions.

Work he's continued for more than 20 years.

His new book, The Sing Sing Files, is out now.

And we sat down recently to talk about why this one issue continues to

fuel his work. You know everybody thinks they know how the justice system works.

I grew up believing that the justice system works. I grew up believing that the justice system worked just the way it

should as a kid in Westchester County, middle-class kid. And I had a unique

perspective from a as a Dateline producer.

And with that perspective, I was able to see a justice system

that I never knew existed, a very dark and ugly underbilly that is really

How the system often works. Let me ask you about your entry into that world because there's one case in particular

sort of infamous New York case called the Palladium murder back in 1990

there was a nightclub bouncer who was shot and killed on Thanksgiving day.

Two men are convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life for that murder.

You call that whole case your window into this world, into the dark side of the justice system.

Why? It was my baptism. I was out to dinner one night with a

detective who I was shadowing a couple of weeks into our project and I said, you must bring this job

home with you everything you see and he says I really don't

except this one case has been bothering me I'm like what's that about and he said

that he knew that these two men David Leymis and Almeadow Hill-Dago were

innocent of the murder at the Palladium nightclub on Thanksgiving

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