Return to Poplar River

Speaker 1 Struggling to see up close? Make it visible with Viz.

Speaker 4 Viz is a once-daily prescription eye drop to treat blurry near vision for up to 10 hours.

Speaker 1 The most common side effects that may be experienced while using Viz include eye irritation, temporary dim or dark vision, headaches, and eye redness.

Speaker 1 Talk to an eye doctor to learn if Viz is right for you. Learn more at Viz.com.

Speaker 8 From the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 10 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 14 She was the well-liked valedictorian at Poplar High,

Speaker 15 and one summer night down by the river.

Speaker 16 I could hear all these girls saying, get her, chasing her, dragged her.

Speaker 18 A horrible scream.

Speaker 14 Some in town claim this was a murder by a gang of mean girls. So he's the one who was convicted, sent to prison.

Speaker 19 I did not kill Kim Nice. You have my promise.

Speaker 14 Sentenced to 100 years.

Speaker 20 Guilty as charged.

Speaker 21 Not one moment of doubt.

Speaker 14 But did he really commit this crime? That's the question that drew us to this case and drove us to investigate.

Speaker 20 After the Dateline piece with these witnesses, had the courage to come forth. And a dramatic new development, a whole new ending.

Speaker 15 It was the last thing we ever anticipated happening.

Speaker 8 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 14 Here's Keith Morrison with Return to Poplar River.

Speaker 11 There is a common misconception that momentous events occur in great cities. The justices is handed down true and pure from marble palaces.

Speaker 31 But what would Lady Justice say about the story you're going to hear now?

Speaker 1 About a nobody in a nowhere town?

Speaker 12 A story that is,

Speaker 23 well,

Speaker 1 what would they say?

Speaker 15 This is crazy.

Speaker 32 How can you do this?

Speaker 34 I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 35 This is definitely a shock.

Speaker 10 Yes, it's all of those things.

Speaker 22 Shocking, unbelievable, crazy, and tied with an unbreakable chain to a summer night in a poor, forgotten backwater more than 40 years ago.

Speaker 36 The town is Popper, Montana, June 15, 1979.

Speaker 2 Summer was here.

Speaker 10 School was out.

Speaker 31 Kim Nees, 17, school valedictorian, National Honor Society graduate, was finally about to escape this town for college.

Speaker 7 Around about midnight, Kim left her house to join the end of school party.

Speaker 37 It was the next morning when police found the family pickup at a well-known party spot just half a mile outside town.

Speaker 30 They followed a trail of blood from the truck down a rotted dirt track, 250 feet or so, to the Papa River.

Speaker 3 And there they found the battered body of Kim Neese.

Speaker 39 The term I have used is overkill.

Speaker 40 Dean Mallum was an undersheriff and later the county sheriff in charge of the murder investigation.

Speaker 39 There were 20 or 21 blows received to Kim's skull,

Speaker 43 which any of could have caused her death.

Speaker 40 There was rage involved.

Speaker 20 It was a high level of rage.

Speaker 43 Someone was very angry.

Speaker 44 At the crime scene, there was no shortage of evidence.

Speaker 32 Blood everywhere inside the cab of the pickup.

Speaker 44 Fingerprints, more than two dozen. Multiple footprints in and around the trail where Kim's body was dragged to the river.

Speaker 46 And on the truck, near the passenger door, a palm print in blood.

Speaker 12 The FBI looked at the print, said it would have to have been left by the killer.

Speaker 42 We worked very, very, very, very hard at determining whose that was.

Speaker 48 Why Kim Neese? Wasn't a robbery or a sexual assault? Well, people do talk. And around town, the story was that this was, we'll call it a jealousy killing.
Kim was popular. She was attractive.

Speaker 48 She was class valedictorian. The boys loved her.
And she was about to leave Popper behind for good.

Speaker 48 So the story was that this was local kids, mostly girls, who beat her to death.

Speaker 20 So went the rumor.

Speaker 43 That was one of the, again, if you will, the theories that folks around town had is that there may have been three or four

Speaker 43 of Kim's peers that were involved with her death.

Speaker 51 Bobby Clincher heard the talk.

Speaker 52 She lived down the block from the Neese family.

Speaker 49 What did you hear?

Speaker 53 Her grandfather had told me. All indications are that it was girls.

Speaker 52 Though many of Poplar's teens, boys, and girls, wound up on a list of potential suspects, including Bobby's son, Barry, who'd once dated Kim's sister.

Speaker 54 Did you question him harshly about it?

Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 53 He said repeatedly he didn't know anything about it. The only thing he knew was what he had heard, what he'd been told.

Speaker 6 That's what all the kids told the police, too.

Speaker 46 And

Speaker 1 nothing happened.

Speaker 2 Nobody was arrested.

Speaker 44 Three years went by.

Speaker 38 And then in January 1983, Sheriff Mallum picked up the phone and found himself talking to a detective from way down south.

Speaker 43 He asked if I was aware of an individual by the name of Barry Beach, wanted to know if Mr. Beach was or had ever been a suspect in a homicide in Roosevelt County.

Speaker 38 Barry was almost 21 by then. He'd gone to Louisiana to be with his father and stepmother.

Speaker 1 Wasn't going well.

Speaker 3 In fact, his stepmother had him arrested for helping his stepsister skip school, and then told arriving police officers that Barry was once questioned about the murder of Kim Neese in Montana.

Speaker 45 Well, it just so happened investigators in Louisiana were scratching their heads over the murders of three women in their own county.

Speaker 20 So could Beach be their killer?

Speaker 24 My feeling from talking to Sheriff Mallon was the fact that, you know, he was a viable suspect.

Speaker 3 So Jay Vi, the detective who called the Montana sheriff, interrogated Beach about the Louisiana murders.

Speaker 54 What made you think that he was the kind of guy who would be your prime suspect?

Speaker 24 The fact that he was a suspect in a murder already.

Speaker 5 So the detective put Barry in a little room here at the Washtaw Parish Sheriff's Office and grilled him for two days.

Speaker 38 Barry denied everything, of course, but After many hours of questioning, Barry's answers about Kim Neese changed, according to Jay Vai, anyway.

Speaker 6 You know, we asked him, you know, were you responsible?

Speaker 24 And during this part of the interview, he kept saying, I don't remember if I was or not.

Speaker 36 Soon the detective was joined in his work by Commander Alfred Calhoun, known as something of a closer.

Speaker 51 Vi stepped out of the room while the commander worked on Barry.

Speaker 24 Alfred stepped out of the interview room and said, he wants to talk to you.

Speaker 6 And so when I walked in the room, Barry was crying, and he admitted to killing Kimberly Neese.

Speaker 44 The mystery was solved.

Speaker 51 All the rumors about other suspects, including that group of girls long whispered of in connection with the crime, were apparently wrong.

Speaker 38 I allowed Barry to call his mother back in Montana.

Speaker 53 And I said, Barry, why did you confess to something you didn't do?

Speaker 53 And he said, well, they're going to come back to Montana and they're going to help me prove that I didn't do this.

Speaker 51 But in Montana, helping Barry Beach was not on the menu.

Speaker 38 First-degree murder was.

Speaker 51 Barry pleaded not guilty, but when his trial began at the courthouse in Glasgow, Montana, the prosecutor came on very strong.

Speaker 21 I had a detailed confession that only the killer could have given.

Speaker 38 Within a decade, Mark Roscoe would be elected Montana's governor.

Speaker 5 In 1984, though, he prosecuted Barry Beach.

Speaker 21 He gave a very detailed confession that matched the things that were discovered at the crime scene.

Speaker 2 Like what?

Speaker 44 Well, Beach described the shirt Kim wore, the tie iron and crescent wrench used to kill her, how she was dragged out the driver's side of the pickup, on and on.

Speaker 38 When testimony was finished, the jury was back in just six hours.

Speaker 1 The verdict guilty.

Speaker 5 And so, in the spring of 1984, the story of the life of Barry Beach was apparently over.

Speaker 11 A dead man walking, sentenced to 100 years, years, no parole.

Speaker 1 But of course, who were we fooling?

Speaker 51 The amazing story had really just begun.

Speaker 14 Why would Barry Beach confess to a crime he says he didn't commit? If he's innocent, as he claims, can he somehow prove it?

Speaker 14 When we come back, a closer look at the evidence, where it points and where it doesn't.

Speaker 25 It's not Barry Beach's palm print.

Speaker 41 Life in prison can do terrible things to a man.

Speaker 38 Suck out whatever spark of goodness that might once have saved him and instead make him mean, bitter, a hopeless case.

Speaker 32 So, we were in for something of a surprise when we first met Barry Beach back in 2007.

Speaker 41 By then, he was 45, had spent more than half his life in the Montana State Prison, was destined to die here.

Speaker 38 But he didn't act like it.

Speaker 50 You're not going to get out of here, are you?

Speaker 42 When they gave me 100 years, that means they gave me 100 years to prove that I didn't commit the crime that put me behind prison bars.

Speaker 58 Didn't commit the crime?

Speaker 38 How could he claim such a thing?

Speaker 3 After all, he confessed.

Speaker 1 What more was there to say?

Speaker 12 Well, actually, quite a bit.

Speaker 46 You weren't exactly a choir boy, were you?

Speaker 61 No, sir.

Speaker 26 I drove fast cars.

Speaker 42 I liked rock and roll.

Speaker 21 Enjoyed the party?

Speaker 30 Every chance I got, to be honest with you.

Speaker 41 And what really happened, he said, on the day of the murder in June 1979, was this.

Speaker 54 He was drinking and smoking dope and swimming in the Poplar River outside town.

Speaker 51 By the time he walked the mile back home, he said.

Speaker 61 I actually just went straight to my bedroom and went to sleep. What time was this? Somewhere between five and six o'clock in the evening.

Speaker 44 So when Kim Neese was murdered, he said he was fast asleep.

Speaker 55 But even though his sister swore that he was telling the truth, there was that confession.

Speaker 20 You said you killed that girl up in Montana.

Speaker 61 Yes, sir. I

Speaker 1 said that

Speaker 40 I killed Kim Neese.

Speaker 48 And that's when the story enters the Twilight Zone.

Speaker 48 Barry Beach says he believed he was about to be released from prison, those minor charges called in by his stepmother about to be dropped, when suddenly he found himself in an interrogation room answering questions about murder.

Speaker 48 Those detectives seemed to think he had committed those three unsolved Louisiana murders, the murders they were trying so very hard to solve.

Speaker 15 The next thing I know, they had started showing me pictures.

Speaker 42 of dead bodies and told me, remember doing this. And I'd say, I was telling him I didn't do it.

Speaker 20 I didn't kill anyone.

Speaker 1 But as the day wore on and his anxiety, fatigue, and confusion grew, the door opened and in walked Commander Alfred Calhoun.

Speaker 64 He promised me that he would personally see me frying the Louisiana electric chair.

Speaker 46 What were you feeling in the middle of all this?

Speaker 15 I was scared to death, Keith, but I knew that he would execute me if given the chance.

Speaker 58 Then, said Barry, the talk turned to that murder in Montana, the murder of Kim Neese.

Speaker 64 Well, it started off that they asked me to speculate how it happened. And then I was asked to give a hypothetical story using myself as the perpetrator.

Speaker 58 And then he said he heard those detectives tell him that if he just went ahead and gave them a confession, they'd help him prove his innocence later when they got back to Montana.

Speaker 42 I don't deny that the confession took place.

Speaker 19 I don't remember all the details.

Speaker 45 But Barry, come on.

Speaker 6 I really don't think I'm going to tell a police officer I killed a girl if I didn't kill her.

Speaker 1 Well, why would you do it?

Speaker 64 I was a 20-year-old kid, 2,300 miles away from my real home. They scared me so bad, I would have said anything to get away from, anything to make it stop.

Speaker 38 And Barry couldn't get anybody in authority to believe his version of things, though.

Speaker 2 For decades, he filed appeals, wrote letters.

Speaker 55 Would anyone ever listen?

Speaker 1 Apparently not.

Speaker 30 Until one of those letters reached him.

Speaker 25 We get 11, 1,200 letters a year from people asking for our help.

Speaker 11 This is the Reverend Jim McCluskey, the founder of a group called Centurion Ministries.

Speaker 31 And Centurion, running back then with a small staff of six people paid only through donations, has compiled quite a record.

Speaker 65 Over 38 years, McCluskey's group was freed from prison or death row.

Speaker 7 63 men and women wrongly convicted.

Speaker 54 Do you have to be convinced beyond any doubt that somebody is actually innocent?

Speaker 25 Yes, we do. We don't take a case on unless we are convinced of the person's innocence.

Speaker 44 So before a centurion would commit to Barry's case, its investigators had to check out that confession.

Speaker 29 There is a signed confession.

Speaker 54 You ask anybody around the country.

Speaker 49 Of course you did it.

Speaker 25 There have been over 200 men exonerated.

Speaker 25 by DNA from sexual assaults or murder, convicted, imprisoned, who have later been freed and exonerated, 25% of those men have falsely confessed to that crime when arrested under interrogation.

Speaker 4 But Centurion found that in the case of Barry Beach, the chance for DNA testing had been lost because all the testable evidence from the case had somehow disappeared from Montana's crime lab.

Speaker 1 The fingerprints were still in the record, though, and this was curious. Not a single one of them matched Barry.

Speaker 51 Neither did any of the multiple sets of footprints left behind as Kim's body was dragged from the pickup to the river.

Speaker 58 And what physical evidence there was did not match Barry's confession.

Speaker 57 What did he get wrong?

Speaker 1 Well, for one thing, Barry told the interrogators that Kim had tried to get away from him by scrambling out the driver's side door of the truck, but evidence showed she'd actually come out the passenger side door, right where that still unidentified bloody palm print was found.

Speaker 25 It's not Barry Beach's palm print. It's not Kim Lee's palm print.
After she was attacked inside the vehicle, her killers pulled her out, deposited her on the ground, and one of them closed the door.

Speaker 1 There was more.

Speaker 54 In the confession, Beach told the police his fingerprints weren't found on the truck because he wiped them off.

Speaker 31 Well, Centurion wondered how in heaven's name could Beach wipe off his prints, but leave more than two dozen others all over the inside of the truck undisturbed.

Speaker 51 Quite a few such oddities didn't match the confession, didn't quite add up.

Speaker 25 But once Barry gave his confession, then it became immaterial and irrelevant to the truth of the matter.

Speaker 67 How could that happen?

Speaker 48 Well, Centurion managed to get hold of a former Sheriff's Department employee who told them that she fielded about a dozen calls between the sheriff and the Louisiana detective during Barry Beach's interrogation.

Speaker 48 Does that mean his confession was coached or even dictated somehow?

Speaker 20 Evidence?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 48 some of those calls, it turned out, were transcribed. And at one point, the sheriff tells the detective that she was wearing a plaid shirt, Kim was, when she was murdered.

Speaker 48 Sure enough, in Barry's confession, he says she was wearing a plaid shirt. Trouble was, she wasn't wearing a plaid shirt.

Speaker 52 That was wrong.

Speaker 54 The detectives denied any wrongdoing.

Speaker 7 They said all Barry's statements were voluntary, and they didn't put any words in his mouth.

Speaker 54 You never got information from Dean Mallon that you were able to pass on to Barry in the course of the conversation you had with him where he confessed?

Speaker 38 No.

Speaker 52 Not one bit of that conversation.

Speaker 23 Absolutely not.

Speaker 24 That is a totally false statement and allegation.

Speaker 36 But with a little digging, Centurion uncovered what it believed to be some pretty disturbing information about the Louisiana detectives.

Speaker 3 Remember those three Louisiana murders the detectives questioned Beach about? Well, months later, the same detectives filed charges against two men from whom they extracted, yes, confessions.

Speaker 5 Their charges were later dropped, those confessions revealed to be false.

Speaker 44 Centurion Attorney Peter Camille.

Speaker 68 So you've got detectives with a track record of claiming that they've got detailed confessions with people with information that only the killer could know, and those are false confessions.

Speaker 68 And it speaks volumes about what they claim to be the validity of Barry's confession.

Speaker 2 But if Barry Beach did not kill Kim Neese, then who did?

Speaker 36 Well, that's what makes this case a little different.

Speaker 54 Because Centurion's team not only believes Barry Beach is innocent, but that it knows who is guilty.

Speaker 10 Coming up,

Speaker 14 troubling recollections.

Speaker 69 She was talking about how the wrong person got put in jail.

Speaker 51 What a strange thing to hear.

Speaker 31 They made the creeps.

Speaker 32 She said we got away with the perfect crime.

Speaker 14 When dateline continues.

Speaker 7 Looking to crack the code on your career?

Speaker 9 Well, maybe it's time to get your degree.

Speaker 8 Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 programs you can complete online.

Speaker 31 No set class times means you can do it all on your schedule. And with some of the lowest online tuition rates in the U.S., they make getting your degree affordable, too.

Speaker 31 Get started at SNHU.edu slash dateline.

Speaker 3 That's snhu dot edu slash dateline.

Speaker 66 Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one.
Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 66 That's their best deal of the year, aka a holiday gift you'll actually use every single day. Don't get them them socks.
Get them premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 66 Shop Mint Unlimited plans at mintmobile.com slash dateline. That's mintmobile.com slash dateline.
Limited time offer. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for 6 months, or $180 for 12 months.

Speaker 66 Plan required. $15 per month equivalent.

Speaker 13 Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 66 Initial plan term only.

Speaker 66 Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy. Capable device required.
Availability, speed, and coverage vary.

Speaker 1 See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 70 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 70 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 70 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 44 By 2007, Barry Beach had been behind bars in Montana for 24 years.

Speaker 41 For 10 of those years, Centurion Ministry investigators dug around for anything, anything at all, that would indicate Barry did or did not kill Kim Neese back in the summer of 79.

Speaker 2 And they were more convinced than ever he was an innocent man.

Speaker 25 We have not developed any information that would tell us, hey, maybe Barry's guilty.

Speaker 25 Because if we did, I can assure you that Centurion Ministries would have dropped this case years ago and moved on to more fertile fields.

Speaker 48 But it was the secrets in this old town that persuaded Centurion it had a different kind of case, that it was able to say not only Barry Beach was innocent, but that it knew or thought it knew who might be the real killers.

Speaker 10 For 25 years, the rumors had persisted that a group of girls killed Kim Neese.

Speaker 48 And now Centurion's investigators encountered more than just rumors.

Speaker 51 Centurion investigators turned up witnesses who claimed one of those girls, now a middle-aged woman, had implicated herself in the murder. This is that woman, her name, Sissy Atkinson.

Speaker 32 She was talking about

Speaker 69 the Kim Neese murder and how the wrong person got put in jail.

Speaker 2 This man said he heard Sissy making incriminating statements in a factory where they both worked.

Speaker 31 She looked at me and she said, we got away with

Speaker 69 the perfect crime.

Speaker 38 Nor was he the only one who heard Sissy putting herself at the murder.

Speaker 2 One of the others was about the last person you'd think would ever come forward.

Speaker 71 I think Kim Neese is looking over Sissy's shoulder all the time.

Speaker 58 This man's name is J.D.

Speaker 2 His last name? Atkinson.

Speaker 49 Yes, Sissy Atkinson's brother.

Speaker 41 He was in prison on drug-related charges when we talked to him.

Speaker 40 He'd heard the rumors, of course, and one night he said he was talking to Sissy when she was a little high.

Speaker 50 Did your sister, Sissy, tell you that she was there the night that Kim Neese was killed?

Speaker 71 Well, Louise, she said that they were partying down there.

Speaker 6 And there were other girls there, too. Yeah.

Speaker 59 How much did she get out before she dropped off?

Speaker 71 Well, just that.

Speaker 71 One of them girls come running around to pick up with a crescent wrench.

Speaker 60 JD said his sister passed out before she could say any more.

Speaker 68 One of the things we keep hearing from the state is these girls, if they were involved, wouldn't have kept quiet. Somebody would have heard something over the years.

Speaker 50 And these people who have come forward did hear something.

Speaker 41 Sissy was 51 when we met her in 2007 and an admitted drug addict.

Speaker 51 She was perhaps understandably not entirely happy to still be facing questions about a murder more than three decades old.

Speaker 72 I told those ministry guys,

Speaker 72 I said, when we all die and go to heaven,

Speaker 72 and you guys find out that I had no knowledge of it, I hope you guys will be gentleman enough to come and find me in heaven and tell me you're sorry.

Speaker 38 In fact, Sissy's story about what she did that night has changed over the years.

Speaker 44 But here's what she told us in 2007.

Speaker 38 She was at a local bar, and in fact, the bartender confirmed Sissy and some other girls were there, closed the place way past midnight, said the bartender.

Speaker 52 But Sissy said it was much earlier when she asked a friend for a ride home.

Speaker 73 She drove me to my home, and I went in and I went to bed.

Speaker 54 So you were in bed by when that night?

Speaker 46 Do you remember? Oh, 11.

Speaker 15 Why would we have witnesses who say that you said a few years after the murder that you got away with the perfect promise?

Speaker 72 No, that never ever came out of my mouth.

Speaker 23 Never.

Speaker 66 Is it possible that it's blocked somehow?

Speaker 6 I've got a very, very good memory.

Speaker 20 You know, I don't want to be cruel when I say this, but if you do have a really good memory, you're probably the only addict on the face of the earth that does.

Speaker 65 What is it going to take to stop the whispers?

Speaker 6 I don't know. I don't care because I'm not involved.

Speaker 56 And in fact, that bloody palm print at the crime scene, not hers, no fingerprints either.

Speaker 73 If I was down there, I'm sure they would have found some kind of DNA on me. You know, something.

Speaker 2 After our interview with Sissy, we went looking for more of those girls, now women, whom witnesses placed at the scene.

Speaker 5 One of them is Joanne Jackson, also at the bar that night, but like Sissy, she said she was tucked into bed hours before the murder.

Speaker 74 I don't have any reason to be implicated in this whatsoever. You know, I had, I went home, I talked to my mother.

Speaker 56 Do you know what time of night that was?

Speaker 29 Around 11 o'clock.

Speaker 54 And after that, you have no idea what happened. No.

Speaker 44 But the things that that can happen when such old stories, long buried in secrecy, go public again.

Speaker 2 Hard to believe.

Speaker 10 Coming up,

Speaker 14 Dateline helps uncover something new.

Speaker 25 When the whole story was told in the Dateline piece, these witnesses finally decided I know something that might be able to help out.

Speaker 44 By 2009, every effort to free Barry Beach from the state prison in Deer Lodge, Montana, and there were many, had failed.

Speaker 75 You really think you're going to get out of here?

Speaker 61 Yes, sir.

Speaker 1 But the fight, the years, the stress, had all taken a toll on Barry's mom.

Speaker 7 After Bobby testified at a failed clemency hearing, her health gave out.

Speaker 53 It was simply a stress-related heart attack.

Speaker 50 It's like your body forcing you to fall apart.

Speaker 53 Right. But I thought, well, God's promised this, so.

Speaker 58 There was something rather sad about her unshakable certainty in the face of the long parade of unkept promises.

Speaker 51 And the defense team at Centurion seemed hardly more realistic than Bobby.

Speaker 67 Didn't this seem just like almost tilting at windmills at that point?

Speaker 25 Hope springs eternal.

Speaker 40 What they did was throw a legal Hail Mary, a motion that somehow found its way to Montana's Supreme Court.

Speaker 1 It asked for a new judge to hear a whole new appeal of Beach's conviction.

Speaker 20 Just give us a fair judge.

Speaker 25 That's all we're asking for.

Speaker 1 And so they asked, and then they waited.

Speaker 5 And the request was approved.

Speaker 36 The Montana Supreme Court asked a judge with a reputation for toughness to consider the new evidence.

Speaker 3 And in August 2011, Barry walked into the courtroom to a chorus of applause.

Speaker 52 By then, Dateline's report on the murder of Kim Neese had long since aired, and hordes of supporters were waiting for him in the courtroom, along with Judge E.

Speaker 40 Wayne Phillips.

Speaker 60 All right, good morning, everyone.

Speaker 3 And another thing our Dateline report had done, turn up new witnesses.

Speaker 25 When the whole story was told in the Dateline piece, these witnesses finally decided, you know, I know something that might be able to help out.

Speaker 11 That long-running rumor that the real killers of Kim Nese were actually girls from her own high school class?

Speaker 48 The judge would hear much more about this.

Speaker 9 About, for example, the alleged admissions of guilt by Sissy Atkinson.

Speaker 72 And I had no knowledge of it. I was not there.

Speaker 60 This man testified that Sissy herself told him the story several times.

Speaker 6 told him about the group of jealous girls, how they hit Kim with a tire iron, rolled her body into a river.

Speaker 75 I know for a fact girls murdered Kim Neese, and I know know he's not a girl.

Speaker 5 And then there were two witnesses who came forward to say they heard the same story from Joanne Jackson.

Speaker 17 She told us that she and a group of girls took another girl by water. She said they dragged her, beat her, and things got out of hand and she died.

Speaker 76 Joanne,

Speaker 76 why would they do this?

Speaker 76 And she says,

Speaker 76 she was smart and she was going away to college.

Speaker 44 But if there there was a star witness among the many who appeared, it was Steffi Eagle Boy, just 10 years old that summer night in June 1979, when she sat on a bluff overlooking the Poplar River and heard the sound that has ever since been her recurring nightmare.

Speaker 16 I could hear all these girls hollering and saying, get her, and this other girl was saying, don't, please.

Speaker 6 Judge Phillips questioned the witness himself.

Speaker 6 And did you hear screaming?

Speaker 77 Yes.

Speaker 47 What kind of screaming?

Speaker 18 Like a...

Speaker 18 A horrible scream.

Speaker 18 A high-pitched, angry scream.

Speaker 18 Hollering.

Speaker 16 It's something that you won't forget.

Speaker 5 Steffi Eagle Boy said she never came forward because of the other things she saw from her perch on the bluff that night.

Speaker 65 Soon after the girl stopped screaming, she said, a police car cruised up to the place where it happened and lingered briefly and left.

Speaker 52 The police must have known and done nothing, she decided.

Speaker 51 And so she said not a word until she heard Barry's story.

Speaker 44 After all the witnesses testified, it was the state's turn and the state contended that all of them had waited too long to come forward and none was very credible.

Speaker 13 That Barry's confession was much more compelling.

Speaker 34 It has been litigated

Speaker 34 every court, and the confession has always been upheld.

Speaker 38 So the state taught one way, centurion another.

Speaker 25 We were cautiously optimistic.

Speaker 25 Now, Barry was even more confident than we were.

Speaker 25 He said, guys,

Speaker 25 this judge is going to reverse this conviction. He says, I just got a good feeling about this judge.

Speaker 51 Oh, but good feelings and desired results.

Speaker 1 Do not always agree.

Speaker 58 After all, the Montana Attorney General believed, as did Sheriff Dean Mallum, that none of the evidence exonerated Barry or pointed to multiple attackers.

Speaker 26 Due to the lack of other injuries,

Speaker 15 we were dealing with one perpetrator as opposed to a large group of people.

Speaker 65 Besides, he said, Barry's confession and conviction settled the matter.

Speaker 43 You know, if the conviction is expunged, that's a travesty because Barry Beach killed Kim Neese.

Speaker 68 If they vacate the judgment, it says that your belief in the veracity of that confession was false.

Speaker 43 No, what it says is that

Speaker 43 someone else killed Kimberly Neese, and no one else killed Kimberly Neese.

Speaker 46 Your confidence is overwhelming.

Speaker 23 Good.

Speaker 31 This was the moment for that old cliché.

Speaker 45 The jury was out.

Speaker 12 Except in this case, it was a jury of one.

Speaker 45 The judge, E.

Speaker 38 Wayne Phillips.

Speaker 1 All up to him now.

Speaker 12 Coming up, the judge speaks.

Speaker 47 It was that lynch pin that convinced me.

Speaker 8 A rare interview about this remarkable case when Dateline continues.

Speaker 77 Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest to the other two.

Speaker 77 We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hayter, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more.

Speaker 77 So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless Now on the Sirius XM app.

Speaker 77 Download it today.

Speaker 63 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 63 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 63 Check out Zinn.com/slash find to find Zin at a store near you.

Speaker 63 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 34 Just got a new puppy or kitten.

Speaker 1 Congrats!

Speaker 34 But also, yikes! Between crates, beds, toys, treats, and those first few vet visits, you've probably already dropped a small fortune, which is where limit aid pet insurance comes in.

Speaker 34 It helps cover vet costs so you can focus on what's best for your new pet. The coverage is customizable, sign-up is quick and easy, and your claims are handled in as little as three seconds.

Speaker 34 Pro tip: LemonAid offers a package specifically for puppies and kittens. Get a quote at lemonade.com/slash pet.
Your future self will thank you. Your pet won't.

Speaker 70 They don't know what insurance is.

Speaker 28 When Barry Beach left the Montana courtroom in in the summer of 2011, the judge promised a ruling soon, which meant that Barry Beach went back to his prison cell and ticked off the days and weeks and months into the fall.

Speaker 50 You can't get your hopes up too much, can you?

Speaker 1 I mean, you've been whacked so often.

Speaker 53 It is hard to

Speaker 53 keep your belief up sometimes, but

Speaker 53 he had been faithful.

Speaker 9 And then, November 2011, the decision, a 30-page ruling.

Speaker 8 It was just hours before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Speaker 65 Judge E. Wayne Phillips ruled that there was clear and convincing evidence a jury could find Barry Beach an innocent man.

Speaker 65 For almost 30 years, Beach had been hearing the word no.

Speaker 52 And now, finally, this time,

Speaker 9 it was yes.

Speaker 3 Not freedom, not yet.

Speaker 51 But at least this, a chance to clear his name for good.

Speaker 1 Judge Phillips granted a new trial.

Speaker 53 I had just sat down to watch the news and I just started praising God.

Speaker 59 It was just,

Speaker 53 it was so emotional for me.

Speaker 25 It doesn't get any sweeter than this, especially because of all the bitterness that Barry had experienced with this case.

Speaker 25 But finally, here was a man, a judicial authority, who heard the evidence and agreed that if a future jury hears this evidence, they would find Mr. Beach innocent.

Speaker 38 Here was something very unusual.

Speaker 20 After granting Barry Beach a new trial, Judge E. Wayne Phillips agreed to sit down with Dateline and explain his decision.

Speaker 47 I mean, how could you rule as I did on the evidence I had and not also have to think about whether the guy should be just set free?

Speaker 20 The judge stopped short of declaring Barry Beach innocent.

Speaker 51 After all, there was that old confession on file.

Speaker 52 But once he heard Steffi Eagle Boy tell about hearing the murder happen,

Speaker 47 it was that lynchpin that convinced me that a jury properly instructed would have said, I've got doubt.

Speaker 44 I have reasonable doubt about this man's guilt.

Speaker 29 All right.

Speaker 6 And then the judge not only granted Beach a new trial, but at least until that trial, much, much more.

Speaker 50 It's this court's determination that it can release Mr.

Speaker 15 Beach on his own recognizance.

Speaker 38 As the state's attorneys vowed to appeal, Barry Beach was hustled out of the courthouse to a jail just down the street.

Speaker 3 The paperwork was done.

Speaker 58 And minutes later, for the first time in nearly three decades, he was free.

Speaker 44 And safely in the arms of the woman who, through it all, has always been with him.

Speaker 24 What was that like?

Speaker 28 Unreal.

Speaker 31 Absolutely unreal.

Speaker 50 Citizens didn't even know me.

Speaker 6 Stopped honking their horns,

Speaker 19 waving, congratulating, and it's been like that ever since.

Speaker 27 After his release, Barry lived in Billings, Montana with restaurant owners Stella and Zig Ziegler.

Speaker 9 Zig is a former county commissioner who met Barry through prison ministries back in the 1980s.

Speaker 76 As soon as he got out, he had a cell phone, he got a computer, he just zip, zip, zip, you know. He had really worked at someday I'm going to get out and I'll be ready.

Speaker 38 He started his own maintenance company and parlayed that into a job as head of maintenance at a Billings Hotel.

Speaker 37 Barry's boss, Steve Warlick.

Speaker 32 He was overseeing $300,000, $400,000 remodeling projects. He had a staff of five people.
Plus, he was part of our senior management team.

Speaker 65 After eight months with the Zigglers, Barry received permission from the judge to live on his own.

Speaker 11 He fixed up a house and was working to buy it so his mom could eventually move in.

Speaker 40 He traveled all over Montana, responding to requests to tell his story.

Speaker 79 I bet you he did at least 50 speeches.

Speaker 54 Did he have a message for people that resonated with them?

Speaker 23 Hope.

Speaker 79 There's always hope.

Speaker 76 He has a connection with people, no matter whether it was a politician.

Speaker 76 or a banker or a native on the res.

Speaker 76 He connected with all of them very well.

Speaker 11 One of those politicians, then Billings Mayor and ex-police officer Tom Hanel, became a friend.

Speaker 35 He was trying to do his best to fit into the community, to be one of a respectful citizen.

Speaker 54 And after three decades behind bars, Barry Beach lived life.

Speaker 44 He learned to ski, went horseback riding and fishing, enjoyed rodeos, made new friends.

Speaker 19 Life is like ice cream, Keith. There's 64 flavors of ice cream and you got to try them all.

Speaker 13 All the while knowing that the state of Montana was appealing the judge's ruling

Speaker 8 and intended, if necessary, to put him on trial again for the murder.

Speaker 10 After all, he confessed to it more than 30 years earlier.

Speaker 39 Justice for Kim Neese is not going to be served until the whole truth is discovered.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 19 the preparation for a new trial gives me more of an opportunity to discover that truth.

Speaker 23 You a little worried about it?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 19 My God didn't put me where I'm sitting at right now to let me down.

Speaker 38 But of course, no one can predict the future, no matter how we all may try.

Speaker 50 We always knew that this kind of sword was hanging over his head could happen anytime.

Speaker 79 He talked about how on many occasions he said, I know it's out there, but I down deep in our heart, we never thought the probability would finally come.

Speaker 51 But it comes. The future comes.

Speaker 51 Like it or not.

Speaker 8 Coming up, a ruling from the court, and some will be stunned.

Speaker 15 It was the last thing we ever anticipated happening.

Speaker 9 For Barry Beach, Billings, Montana was far more than just home after his release from prison.

Speaker 11 It was some kind of heaven.

Speaker 31 By May 2013, it called the town and his house home for more than a year and a half, waiting to find out if the state would drop the case or retry him or possibly even send him back to prison.

Speaker 1 And then, May 14th, the decision came down.

Speaker 48 The Montana Supreme Court ruled against him. By a vote of four justices to three, they ruled that Judge E.

Speaker 48 Wayne Phillips gave too much credibility to all those new witnesses who came forward to tell their stories and not enough credibility to Barry's original confession all those years ago, which meant not that they were putting him on trial again.

Speaker 29 Oh, no.

Speaker 48 It meant they were sending Barry straight back to prison to resume his life sentence.

Speaker 46 Now.

Speaker 5 Montana's Attorney General declined Aitline's request for an interview, but issued a press release, which read in part, Mr.

Speaker 44 Beach's allegations lack substance when closely scrutinized.

Speaker 20 Beach's conviction is valid.

Speaker 5 Therefore, like every other person convicted of murder, Beach is required to serve his prison sentence.

Speaker 25 I was stunned.

Speaker 1 Centurions McCloskey had been so confident that the court would rule in Barry's favor. But this?

Speaker 25 I mean, all of us who are convinced of Barry's innocence, we were just, it was a kick in the stomach.

Speaker 37 The warrant was issued within hours.

Speaker 7 Barry insisted on walking to the sheriff's office to turn himself in.

Speaker 51 The Zieglers went with him.

Speaker 79 He stopped and put his hands on both shoulders, Stella and mine, and he said, I hope you know this means that I'm going to have to go back and serve the rest of my time.

Speaker 23 And I said, Barry, don't talk like that.

Speaker 79 I don't want to hear that.

Speaker 24 Very, very, very emotional day for us. It's just like losing one of your family.

Speaker 23 Reaction was swift and shocked and sad from the waitresses at Stella's.

Speaker 53 Very heartbreaking because I've seen him work here and he's

Speaker 53 an active member of society.

Speaker 12 From Barry's boss.

Speaker 62 Does Barry belong in prison?

Speaker 32 Nope, absolutely not.

Speaker 62 I would trust him with my hotel. I would trust him with my family.
I would trust him with anything.

Speaker 30 And of course, there's Barry's mother, Bobby, who waited decades to get her son back.

Speaker 31 And now he was gone.

Speaker 53 I was stunned for days afterwards.

Speaker 53 Just couldn't wrap my mind around it.

Speaker 49 That could be said, too, for Barry.

Speaker 4 Back in state prison blue.

Speaker 40 Perhaps for the rest of his life.

Speaker 12 What's it like to be you these days?

Speaker 61 Sickening.

Speaker 19 It was the last thing we ever anticipated happening because I went out there and I did everything right.

Speaker 49 You know, I talked to some people.

Speaker 47 They said, I would have run.

Speaker 1 I would have just taken off.

Speaker 19 That wasn't my mindset. My word means everything to me.

Speaker 19 And I've looked you in the eyes before and I told you,

Speaker 19 I did not kill Kim Neese.

Speaker 19 That's my word. You have my promise, and that same promise I gave the Attorney General's office, my legal team, and everybody else around me that I would turn myself in.

Speaker 1 And as hard as it was to keep my word, My word is my bond.

Speaker 40 But the prayers of Barry Beach, his family, and supporters were soon to be answered.

Speaker 11 Montana's legislature passed a bill giving the governor the power to grant clemency to prisoners without approval from the parole board.

Speaker 28 The governor, who had previously expressed his support for releasing Barry, signed the bill into law and commuted Barry's life sentence.

Speaker 9 And in November 2015, two and a half years after Beach was sent back to prison, Barry Beach walked out of the Montana State Prison for the last time, with Attorney Peter Camille and centurions Jim Buckloski by his side.

Speaker 33 We came in this morning, Peter and I did, to talk to Barry, and we were the ones who told him that today was the day he was going home, he was going to be free, and his nightmare of 33 years ends today, right now.

Speaker 25 Barry

Speaker 33 is happy to talk to you and answer whatever questions you have. How you feeling Barry?

Speaker 6 How are you feeling, Barry?

Speaker 33 Right now,

Speaker 26 my chest is a little pounding,

Speaker 26 and it's all actually very surreal.

Speaker 26 It's one of those things that you don't fight 30-plus years to reach a moment like this, and then when it gets here, the 31 years disappears. Thanks to the governor, you know, for keeping his word.

Speaker 26 I appreciate all those in the legislature and other political figures and citizens of the state of Montana who stood beside me and helped support this cause, you know, with their dedication and and commitment to justice did you ever think this day would come where you are free and don't have to come back absolutely i knew it was going to be here someday you know the good lord in heaven has always assured me that i'd reach this point uh

Speaker 26 i never dreamed it was going to take this long and let me say this you can't keep fighting unless you believe You have to believe in that and you have to hope.

Speaker 26 You have to pray and know that those prayers are being heard and that someday if you could just hang on, it'll come to this.

Speaker 9 Since that happy day back in 2015, Barry has lived once again in that little house he owns.

Speaker 2 He's still running his own handyman business and doing well, he says.

Speaker 1 Barry's mom Bobby is still with us, as are Ziggy and Stella.

Speaker 28 And every day, Barry Beach goes to work with a smile on his face and makes up for lost time.

Speaker 14 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 66 This time of year, many are checking off their holiday gift lists, but identity thieves have lists too, and your personal information might be on them. Protect your identity with LifeLock.

Speaker 66 LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back.

Speaker 66 Save up to forty per cent your first year at Lifelock dot com slash dateline. Terms apply.