The Prison Priest | Chapter 4

Great brands, great prices. Everyone's got a reason to rack.
Because they have framed jeans. Nike? Yes.
Just so many good brands. Vince, Kurt Geiger London, Rag & Bone, and more are at Nordstrom Rack stores now.
You never know what you'll find, but you know it's going to be so good. Great brands, great prices.
That's why you rack. When you buy one dozen, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen roses.
To claim the double roses offer, go to 1-800-Flowers.com slash SXM. That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash SXM.
The official florist of Mother's Day. The year 1995 has come to an end.
And as far as the Ireland's are concerned, they're no closer to getting justice for their daughter. After the new year, John and Louise come back to the island with a petition containing thousands of signatures.
So, police take action. In January 1996, they send the case to prosecutors, despite the fact that test results for Frank and the Schweitzer brothers

and a few other potential suspects have failed to show any connection to Dana's murder.

Oh yeah, we all said DNA on our side, it didn't matter.

And by now, detectives are tired of Frank's countless changing stories, but they think he

knows too many details to have made the whole thing up. But there's a problem for Frank.
Though he expected to be treated as a witness after implicating the Schweitzer brothers, he eventually realizes that he's in potentially just as much trouble as they are. So he changes his tune.
The reason why I said that, like I said, the detectives really wanted me to say what they wanted me to say. And I kind of, you know what I mean? I feel hurt for the family and stuff, but these people, I don't know what is the detectives, what is their problem, but, you know what I mean? They told me what I was saying, so I said, I just said what they wanted me to say.
Throughout 1996, the Schweitzer brothers are trying their best to maintain a normal life. Not only have they been living the past year under a police microscope, but thanks to Frank's confession and his media tour frenzy, the public has their eyes on them too.
And to the islanders, these men were bad news. We had wanted dead posters.
Yeah, put up in Pohotown. The media, anytime we went to any little thing came up, they ran it in the front page.

They ran it in the front page.

I bet you go count how much times it was in the front page.

You get about at least a hundred.

While the brothers want nothing to do with the spotlight,

Frank wants everyone to know his name and his story.

But his story isn't what people are coming to believe. They think he's just as guilty as the Schweitzer brothers.
So Frank decides to call up the one resource that always seems to listen. The media.
It's time for him to clear some things up, but not just about his own involvement. You know what I mean? I was there at the wrong place.
you know what I mean, at the wrong time, and I was involved. That's what I really wanted, everybody for know.
Because right now, everybody's staring, you know what I mean, bad publicity about me. They're making them seem like I was involved when they were wrong.
Were you in the Volkswagen, though, with the Schweitzers at any point? I was in a Ford Cavalier station wagon. And the detectives know that, too.
They got verification on that. So basically, as far as your connection with Dana Ireland, what did you see? You saw her on the road? What did you see? Well, no, see, there was, like I said again, they made me say a lot of things they wanted for here.
It was mostly all fabrication, I would say.

I'm Amanda Knox, and this is Three. Chapter 4.
The Prison Priest.

Frank goes on to tell the reporter that it's true that he was there on Kapoho Kai Drive when Dana Ireland was murdered.

But he wasn't there with the Schweitzer brothers. He was there by himself, smoking crack cocaine.
I just seen these guys, you know what I mean, what they was doing and stuff. I never really do nothing.
I never know who to tell or what to say. I was more afraid for myself and for my kids, so I never did say anything about it.
But the thing is, where I was when they came in, you know what I mean, this moment. But they were the one that did it anyway.
But you're saying it was somebody else, not the people that are targeting the grand jury. No.
When investigators meet with Frank at Oahu Prison on July 6th, 1996, after his public recantation, he gives investigators this new story and a new name. But here's the thing.
I can walk you through each specific detail of each of Frank's stories, but that's all they are. Stories.
Stories that, according to Ken Lawson of the Hawaii Innocence Project, Frank hoped he'd benefit from. Remember, you got Mr.
Allen writing U.S. senators.
U.S. senators are writing over here to the governor.
You got letters from the governor. And so you got all these letters from high-ranking people asking the Big Island police, like, what are you guys doing when you're going to solve this crime? So it's that type of pressure, along with the victim's family, obviously, but it's that type of pressure.
It's like, look to do something and so they eventually each time frank wants a benefit or some type of money on his books or some type of you know package being delivered or visiting with his girlfriend and stuff like that he has to give them more information hey frank you want something you got to tell us a little bit more about this case he He eventually walks himself into the murder charge, right? Now, right? So he goes out, I'm just a witness. I don't know, hey, man, I don't know what you're talking about.
I saw this. I'm being a good inmate.
One night, Frank Pauline even calls Dana's father, John Ireland, from prison to tell him, quote, I know who really killed your daughter. And John tells investigators that this conversation ended with John telling Frank, quote, you son of a bitch, I hope you rot in jail, as he slammed down the phone.
Around the same time, while Frank is serving a prison sentence for another crime, he is indicted for first-degree sexual assault against a minor under 14 years old back in 1993. And police are still receiving compelling tips that contradict the forensic results.
A woman even tells them that Frank had once bitten her in the same location where the supposed bite mark was found on Dana. All in all, police are feeling pretty good about their chances with Frank, but the Ireland's not so much.
My only purpose here is to find the people that did this to my daughter and have them indicted. It would be very difficult to convince the jury

that this guy is a good witness with his background.

I would like to put enough pressure on him over here

to get indictments in short order.

It hasn't gone on too long.

We should get some kind of answer this time

because that's what we're over here for. I think the people in the state of Hawaii are upset, and we're upset, and I'd like to see it come to a conclusion.
A little more than five and a half years after the murder of Dana Ireland, on July 29, 1997, Frank Pauline is indicted and charged with second-degree murder, first-degree sexual assault, and kidnapping. But he's not the only one.
A couple months later, on October 9, 1997, Albert Ian Schweitzer and Sean Schweitzer are indicted on the same charges as Frank. All three of the men plead not guilty.
While Frank has to wait it out in prison, Ian and Sean's parents do all they can to make bail, and part of the bail agreement is everyone is placed under a very strict gag order. That was part of our term to get bail the first time,

is they put a gag order so we couldn't talk to any political...

We couldn't say we were innocent.

Yeah.

My mom said that one time on the news,

and they threatened to put her in jail.

I never heard of a fucking gag order.

I was like, what?

Isn't that your First Amendment right?

It's freedom of speech. You're supposed to be able to say what you defend yourself.
You know, you got to watch all these newspapers come out and you can't even say anything to defend yourself. It's like having on tape on your mouth.
So they keep their mouths shut for the next six months as they prepare for their day in court. Ian and Sean's date is set for April 6th, 1998, while Frank is supposed to go on trial in January.
But that gets delayed until July 1998. You may be wondering, why the separate trials? This happens more often than you might think, especially when the evidence implicating the suspects is thin.
In my case, my boyfriend Raffaele and I were arrested early on after the police coerced me into signing statements which implicated myself, Raffaele, and my boss. I recanted those statements hours later, once the brutal police pressure was off.
And when the forensic evidence came back two weeks later, it all pointed to a local burglar named Rudy Gide. Not a trace of me, Raffaele, or my boss.
Gide even said at first that we weren't present at the crime scene. But instead of going after Gide alone, as they should have, the police doubled down on their initial mistake and charged all three of us with the crime.
Gide then changed his story and pointed the blame at me and Raffaele. If they'd tried us all together, it would have been easy for my defense to show how all the evidence pointed to Gide as the sole killer.
So instead, Gide was tried separately and was convicted in a fast-track trial with no opportunity for my defense to cross-examine him. Raffaele and I were then tried together, where prosecutors could take Gide's role as a judicial fact and build their case against us from there.
Something similar happened with the Schweitzer brothers. By trying them separately from Frank, it would be harder for the Schweitzer's defense to cast doubt on Frank, the sole witness against them.
And a potential failure to convict Frank wouldn't necessarily tank the prosecution's chances of convicting them. So the trial dates were set, and the prosecution began preparing its cases.
Ian and Sean would have to prepare as well. So what happened is, when they first brought the indictment, the court appointed a set of lawyers to represent Ian, Sean, and Frank Pauline.
That's Keith Shigatomi, who took over as Sean's counsel in March of 1998. The court went through great lengths to make sure that the attorneys that were appointed were quality attorneys and that the courts could trust that they were going to provide good, well, not good, I mean, superior representation to the three of them.
Then what happened was once the attorneys were selected and were representing frank ian and sean the prosecutor started saying well you know we want to disqualify some of these attorneys so i think they moved to disqualify frank's lawyer, who was well regarded. And then they disqualify Sean's lawyer, who was highly regarded.
And, you know, I was a lawyer in private practice in Honolulu. I've been practicing criminal defense for a number of years.
I had a lot of high profile cases and the court called me and asked me if I would consider. But, you know, typically when the court appoints someone, they simply will call the attorney, ask the attorney, hey, are you available? Will you accept the case? But in Sean's case, before that even happened, the court called and, well, the staff called and said, you know, the judge would like to interview you and talk to you before she makes a decision on who she's actually going to appoint.
It's always better to have good lawyers involved because there's less mistakes made and it saves time and money in the future. So, I mean, that's kind of how that went.
And the court called me in Honolulu and asked me to represent Sean. And so, you know, that's the kind of steps that were taken in this case, which typically doesn't happen because, you know, the court saw the significance and magnitude of the case.
Then in March, Sean and Ian's individual legal teams receive some shocking new information from the Hawaii District Attorney. Welcome to the land of Slocal, where there's no limit to the things you can do.

Go down to the beach, take an outdoor adventure tour, or unwind at one of our many gorgeous wineries. No matter your vibe, we're all connected by one harmonious local spirit.
Because in Slocal, life's too beautiful to rush. Start planning your trip today at Slocal.com.
Whether you're a true crime junkie or just getting into it, I've got the perfect show for you. Crime House True Crime Stories, a Crime House Studios original.
Every Monday, you'll go on an in-depth journey through two of the most notorious true crime cases from that week in history, all linked by a common theme. From infamous serial killers and mysterious disappearances to unsolved murders.
We're... We'll see you next time.
Cases from past and present, including the murder of Gabby Petito, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the Heaven's Gate cult tragedy, and so much more.

Follow Crime House True Crime Stories now, wherever you get your podcasts.

And for ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. The defense team learns that DNA tests were done on the semen found on the vaginal swabs and on the hospital gurney that brought Dana Ireland into the ER.
And neither Frank, Ian, nor Sean were a match. all this my days going on it's like nothing I said what do you mean nothing and so I told prosecutor well I guess then you won't mind that uh I sent in a motion to dismiss and we have the DNA result attached to it and all of a sudden prosecutor starts swearing you know what the fuck did you do that for you You know, what the fuck? You know, it's like, well, you told me you don't care.
So what's the problem? I mean, that's what I'm doing. I'm filing a motion to dismiss.
And it's like, but just calm down. You know, I said, I'm willing to call the court and say hey don't file this motion because they're obviously at that point nobody there's no public knowledge of it and so now all of a sudden everybody's going to find out that the dna doesn't match and so i said but you know if you're willing to give me something for it i'll call the court and and say don't file, just hold on to it.
What do you want? I want the case dismissed. It's October of 1998, and Ian and Sean's trials are about to start, when a dramatic ruling upends the entire case against the Schweitzer brothers.
And a couple of days later, they came back and they said, okay, we'll dismiss. And so that added another tremendous twist to the case because we go to court, nobody's expecting it.
And all of a sudden the state files this notice of dismissal. And now the public's even more like, what the heck is going on in this case? It's to everyone's surprise that the judge grants the request, and the charges against Ian and Sean are dropped.
The brothers are free now. But in the court of public opinion, they are anything but.
I mean, the public was in outrage at that point, because without notice, here are dismissing the case and everyone's saying, hey, you know, these inept prosecutors or police are screwing up again. And so, you know, that was a sacrifice that, or concession that we were willing to make because, you know, we were under the impression that they're not going to try this case again.
The DNA doesn't match. Now, in Frank's situation, a little different story because Frank says, I did this, I did that.
And so you want to try Frank? Go ahead. But Ian and Sean? No way.
But the door is still open for retrial if new evidence emerges. And emerge it does.
For example, the bite mark analyst decides to change his initial findings, saying he can't exclude Frank, Ian, or Sean as the source of the bite mark. It's amazing.
Even the bite mark, I mean, bite mark, there's an even bite mark.

The only true science is DNA. The rest of this stuff, bite mark evidence, it's just crazy.
Crazy. But people believe it.
Bite mark evidence is now thoroughly debunked as junk science. But back in 1998, it held sway with experts, with judges, and with juries.
This twist with the bite mark evidence is a bad sign for Ian and Sean. But even so, their defense is not convinced that the prosecution can make a case out of it alone, given the clear lack of DNA and physical evidence tying the three to the murder.
But one thing I've learned, in a high-profile homicide investigation, it's not just the freedom of the accused on the line, but also the reputations and egos of prosecutors and law enforcement. Nobody likes to be wrong, and especially not with so many people watching.
And so, it's no surprise that with egg on their face after dropping the charges against the Schweitzer brothers, the prosecution was willing to find whatever scrap of evidence they could to prove they had been right all along. By May of 1999, Ian and Sean Schweitzer face a renewed indictment for kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder.
But the legal language this time includes the phrase with others, hinting at the involvement of Frank and a potential fourth person who Frank alluded to in the past. The inclusion of this detail in the indictment gives prosecutors flexibility when addressing the DNA discrepancy before the jury.
Even though it doesn't match any of the three men on trial, they can claim it belongs to this fourth mystery accomplice, and that the lack of a match doesn't prove the innocence of Frank, Ian, or Sean. Again, this is similar to what happened with my case.
Though all the DNA evidence pointed to Rudy Gaudet, he was convicted in his own trial of committing the crime with others. And that was used to implicate me and Raffaele, and excuse the obvious absurdity that we'd somehow participated in a violent murder without leaving any traces of ourselves at the scene.
But the bite mark isn't enough. The prosecution needs more.
And they find what they're looking for in a man named Mike Ortiz. Like many people at the center of this story, jailhouse informant Mike Ortiz is only several degrees of separation away from Sean and Ian Schweitzer, even though they've never met him.
And Mike has plenty to gain from implicating the Schweitzer brothers, just like John Gonsalves and his family. Now keep in mind, too,

Gonsalves wants that $25,000 reward money.

And so you can only get it if it leads to a conviction.

So remember, he gets Frank to call in

to say, hey, man, talk about the slicers

and get mom and the family off the cocaine.

So Frank threw it, they get indicted.

Then the indictment gets dismissed

and there goes John's 25 Gs. So now do it, they get indicted.
Then the indictment gets dismissed and there goes

John's 25 G's. So now John's calling Ortiz.
They say, hey man, right? So now they get indicted again. And you'll see the letters in there from Gonzales talking about, you know, if you can pay the money to my aunt or something.
Gonzales even writes a letter to the Irelands about the reward money, reward money sharing the financial physical and mental struggles he and his family have been through to avoid being accused of acting in self-interest he asks that the check be made out to his aunt the irelands don't reply but forward the letter to the prosecutor's office but beyond the money which he which he doesn't get, by the way, rumor inside the prison is that deals are being handed out left and right and that this particular deal is the best deal out there. They already came to the conclusion in their mind that we're going to railroad the Schweitzer brothers and that's it.
And we're going to give John Gonzalez his immunity and his mother the immunity, and that's it. And we're going to let Mike Ortiz out of jail again.
So the prosecutors and the detectives, they're all right sleeping at night with an innocent man dying in prison. They're all right with that.
I don't know why it was so important to forgive this guy this deal. Especially when he came after me and Sean a second time.
This scenario isn't just speculative. Incentivized informants, a.k.a.
jailhouse snitches, are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions.

Advocates have repeatedly warned against offering incentives to informants,

since it creates enormous motivation for inmates like Mike Ortiz to give false testimony and evidence.

Yet such incentivized testimony is relied upon in court to this day.

He's like the prison priest, but he just happens to wear stripes instead of the white collar. Hannity presents, in the red corner, the undisputed, undefeated Weed Whacker Guy! Champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere! And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength, Hannity! Eye drops that work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy, allergy eyes! And the winner, by knockout, is Hannity! Hannity, bring it on! Oh, Canada, a vast, idyllic land filled with beavers, loons, lumberjacks, and polite, friendly folks.
We have those things for sure, but there's a darker side to the Great White North, full of mystery, crime, the paranormal, and dark history. Join me, Mike Brown, and co-host Matthew Stockton every Monday for the Dark Poutine Podcast as we tell dark stories from north of the 49th parallel with the Odd Away game covering more international cases.
You can listen to Dark Poutine for free wherever you find your favourite podcasts. With no physical evidence tying any of the men to Dana's murder and the DNA excluding them, Mike Ortiz could be the trigger the prosecution needs to push their case to trial.
So investigators go speak with him. Today is Monday, May 17, and it's 10.38 Hawaii time.
And we're in Minnesota, which is five hours ahead. This is a video interview of, what is your full and correct name? Michael Wayne Ortiz.
They speak with Mike in Minnesota, where he is being held for theft charges. This isn't the first time they have spoken with him, though.
They got his initial statement over a phone call a few days earlier. Today's visit is to verify all that information one last time in person.
Michael, on May 5th, 1999, we had a video conferencing with you from Honolulu to Minnesota. Do you remember that video conference? Yes.
We asked you questions about the Dana Ireland case, and you provided us with information which we recorded on audio tape. Do you remember us doing that? Yes.
Is the information that you gave us on the audio tape true and correct to the best of your knowledge? Yes. Do you remember who you got that information from? Yes.
Who gave you that information? Ian Schweitzer. At what area or when did he give you that information?

Somewhere on August of last year, 98, in Hilo Jail.

That's Hilo Jail?

Yes.

Okay.

Have I promised you or anybody from my office promised you anything in exchange for the information that you gave us on May 5th

over the video conferencing?

No.

Okay.

Michael, are you willing to testify in the Ireland case should the case go to trial?

Yes.

It is now 10.41 and end of this tape-recorded session.

Three other inmates also come forward.

All jailhouse informants and all anxious to cut their own deals in exchange for information they claim to have.

Information that can be easily conveyed to them, because Dana's case is widely known inside and outside the prison walls by this point. After investigators talk with Mike and these other informants, it's official.
The case against Sean Schweitzer, Ian Schweitzer, and Frank Pauline Jr. will move forward.
For the second time. And oh, that line from the investigator, have I promised you anything in exchange for this information? Well, actions speak louder than words.
In exchange for his testimony, Ortiz is expected to be placed in protective custody and have his 15-year sentence reduced. Prosecutors allegedly played his tape testimony for defense attorneys when they offered the brothers a plea agreement last month.
It's frightening that that's all they have against my son. There's no physical evidence.
So now they're going into the jail and offering deals or making deals with convicted felons. And my sons are paying for it.
After their renewed indictment, the Schweitzer brothers are sent back to jail. Technically, together.
I was never a cellmate with them. Yeah.
Hilo, you lock down 23, 24 hours. If it's raining, there's no wrecks for 24 hours.
You lock that cell. And that's majority of all the time.
I think I did like six months on the ground, 23 hours lockdown in Hilo Jail. Sit on the ground.
Because of the overpopulation, populated, yeah. You get two guys on a bunk and one guy on the ground.
And you're in there 23 hours a day.

They are both held with no bail, under strict order to avoid contact with the roughly 300 witnesses involved in the case.

By July 1999, several politicians' offices in both Hawaii and Washington, D.C.

have become accustomed to the flood of letters from John and Louise Ireland, who remain committed to getting justice for their daughter. The pressure is everywhere, and things are now at a boiling point as Frank Pauline Jr.'s trial begins on July 21st.
Prosecutor Charlene Iboshi lays out the gruesome details of what they believed happened that day.

Dana Ireland riding on a bicycle that day was struck by a defendant and his friends off her bicycle taken from the sad scene.

She was beaten, struck, disabled, and just thrown away into the bushes. But his conscience would not undo what Frank Pauline and what his friends did to her.
Sitting at the defense table, observers note a marked change in Frank Pauline's appearance. Gone is the tough guy facade.
In its place, Frank exudes warmth and looks just like another guy in glasses and a button-up shirt, his tattoos barely visible above his collar. The defense, led by Cliff Hunt, leans on two key points as their arguments.
That Frank's confessions to police were false. And that the physical evidence, mainly the DNA, does not support any of the three men being part of this.
So Frank Pauline was obviously lying. But Frank Pauline will testify, Detective Guillermo pressed him.
Oh, come on, you must have done something. You went to whack the girl? And finally, Frank Pauline says, well, what do you want me to say? Is that what you want me to say? Okay, I hit her.
But the sperm DNA did not match Frank Pauline Jr.'s known DNA because he provided a sample, did not match Sean Schweitzer's known DNA profile, and did not match Ian Schweitzer's known DNA profile.

They were all excluded.

In a case fraught with complexity and emotion,

and with local and international pressure for a conviction,

conflicting expert testimonies further muddy the waters,

leaving the jury tasked with unraveling the tangled web of evidence.

The defense opened its case with testimony from forensic experts

from the FBI, who examined hairs on a bloody t-shirt that prosecutors say belonged to Pauline. The FBI also examined hairs found on some underwear and Ireland socks, comparing them with DNA from Ireland, Pauline, and the Schweitzers.
Therefore, Albert Schweitzer, Sean Schweitzer, Louise Ireland, including maternal relatives of Louise Ireland, Dane Ireland, and Frank Pauline Jr. can be eliminated as the source of the hairs from the Q2 underwear, the hair from the Q12 t-shirt, and the hair from the Q19-20 victim sock.

Now the jury has yet another week's worth of evidence to help make a decision.

Was Frank Pauline Jr. on that secluded trail with Dana Ireland?

Dana's family are called to testify early in the trial, offering emotional testimony about Dana and the events that happened back on Christmas Eve 1991. As Sandy's voice chokes up, one of the jurors wipes away tears from her eyes.
I saw the hair, a lock of her hair on the road and her shoe and a watch, broken watch.

And I knew something really bad had happened.

I never saw her again, alive or dead. I never saw her again.

Dana's mom, Louise, also takes the stand.

And I called him and I said, John, you better come.

Dana, this is life-threatening.

Come down here.

So he came down, and she died right after that.

Ida Smith, who says she found Dana at the fishing trail, is also emotional in her testimony.

And it wouldn't stop.

Help me, help me.

And I said, well, my voice was very faint.

That's why I thought it was a little girl. I heard the cop crying.
So I said, I'm coming. You know, just where are you? I stopped looking.
She had nothing on. Her jeans were, she had cut off jeans and they were down on her ankle.
And her shirt looked like someone had grabbed it and tore it off her like that. So I got a hold of her arm, you know.
and I just look like The lineup of witnesses includes three different prison inmates, all with a story to tell about how Frank had run his mouth in prison,

telling them about his involvement in Dana's murder.

Shannon Thumper Rodriguez was serving two life sentences for a double murder, and Jeffrey Alfonso was in on a drug conviction,

and Shane Kobayashi on sexual assault.

Kobayashi's sentence of up to 15 years was reduced to three. The same day, members of the Pauline family testify.
Frank's girlfriend, the mother of two of his children, Sharla Figueroa, takes the stand and shares that she and her grandmother heard Frank confess over a 1994 prison phone call. And you had seen him wearing that shirt before the Dana Arlen case? Yes.
Did Frank Colleen tell you he didn't want to tell you about the Dana Arlen case? Yes. And why did he tell you that? His daddy's protecting me and my kids.

His daddy's protecting me and my kids.

She goes on to recount the moment she saw damning evidence on television.

A large shirt she had washed that she knew Frank wore and was bloody was now on the news linked to Ireland's death. Multiple witnesses would echo her realization.
To some, like Cliff Hunt, the large shirt was obviously too small for Frank's stocky torso. Ken Lawson agrees.
Remember, the prosecutor in both trials hung his hat on that Jimmy Z t-shirt. This is Frank Pauline's t-shirt.
You have witnesses say that this is his Jimmy Z t-shirt. And it's at the scene.
It has Dana's blood on it. You get to see pictures on the autopsy, the broken pelvic, and then the man rapes it, right? And everybody's in the courtroom, and the guy's sitting over there, somebody got to pay for this.
And so that passion, that anger, right? Can cloud a factual analysis. That was like, I think, either a medium.
I mean, Frank was a huge dude, man. It should have been like when it was so much blood on him.
But he should have just tried to put it on.

He probably couldn't get it around his head, you know what I mean?

If it don't fit, right?

So his physical evidence is like, this guy doesn't wear that size T-shirt.

I mean, huge guy.

But that wasn't enough.

Under cross-examination, Charla Figueroa says Pauline told her he did it to help his stepbrother, John Gonsalves.

Finally, Frank Pauline decides to take the stand, still't remember because I wasn't there. So when they came that first time, you weren't really ready for them? No, because I only knew certain bits and pieces from the news, from what I see on TV and from what people tell me.
Frank admits, I am a liar on the stand. He says, I figured I could at least do that for my brother after all the stuff he done for me.
Love is powerful, Cliff. That's all I can say.
Love is p***ing. In a passing shot furthering the family drama of it all,

Frank Pauline also says that he was planning to implicate his half-brother,

Wayne Gonsalves, as the fourth participant in the killing,

which of course lined up perfectly with what the police and prosecutors had been floating to. Having done so many not-so-great things already in his young life, the possibility of Frank convincing the jury that this time he was a liar was a tall mountain to climb.
He says on the stand, I may be dumb, but I didn't kill anybody. And yet, jurors deliberate for roughly 14 hours, and despite DNA and bite mark evidence failing to tie Frank to the murder, they find Frank Pauline guilty of murder in the second degree, kidnapping and sexual assault in the first degree.
Jurors say his confession played a crucial role in his conviction. Now, despite the fact Ian and Sean did not confess ahead of their trial, with Frank now convicted, things aren't looking too good for them.
Ian's trial is next, but he and their family struggle to find the right defense attorneys. So his parents mortgaged their house and stuff like that and got him a very good paid attorney.
And so what the prosecutor did was they gave him a witness list and used a lot of the attorney's former clients and said they're going to be witnesses. They never called them, right? So now that attorney has to recuse.
Well, by the time he recuses, he's done enough work to where he can't return it. He's not returning the fee.
So then they just got to give up more money, hire a second attorney. Prosecutor does it again.
I can tell you from experience that a high-quality defense is expensive. Members of my family had to take out second mortgages and cash out retirement accounts to pay for my defense.
I was fortunate that the lawyers my parents found were able to stand by me for eight years of trials. Ian, by contrast, was eventually left with no choice but to rely on a public defender.
This was just 100% malicious, intentional, intentional. They intentionally made sure I ended up with the worst attorney in the state of Hawaii.
And how did they do that? They put 480 witnesses on the witness list to conflict every decent attorney out of the state of oi so i ended up with an attorney who was sleeping under the table during my trial you know in recess we go to the back room this guy goes under the table when they call in i kick them hey let's go it was bad. Yeah.
He did nothing. Yeah.
When this first started going down, they gave me one awesome lawyer, Ira Lytel. And then...
There was nobody left. Child court fucking attorney.
Thanks to the prosecution's meddling, the Schweitzer's case was hampered by one of the other leading causes of wrongful convictions, inadequate defense counsel. The Innocence Project cites a 2022 study from the American Bar Association showing that funding for public defenders, quote, would have to increase threefold in order to meet the standard of effective counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.
Saddled with a poor defense, any defendant is more likely to take a plea deal, and the prosecution knows that. So just before the trial, Ian is offered a deal, one that is tempting compared to a potential sentence of life in prison, especially after witnessing Frank's fate.
But Ian resists. 20 years probation.
And then I rejected him. And then there came 10 years probation.
And I told him I didn't do it. I think most lawyers would have said, you know, take it.
Even in the end. The 10 or 20 years, it's like, well, I think I can beat this.
The problem is, when we talk about the system, it's just not the prosecutors and the police that are at fault, right? It's the lawyer that's supposed to be, you know, making sure that the police and prosecutors are doing their job. And if they haven't, then you've got to bring that to light.
Ian has no reason to agree. He's innocent.
I would have done the same. Of course, we were both naive in trusting that the justice system would deliver a just outcome.
In his opening statement, prosecutors Lincoln Ishida and Charlene Iboshi paint a gruesome picture of the attack and describe Dana's attempt to fight back. While informant Mike Ortiz corroborates this, stating that Ian witnessed the struggle and said that there was blood everywhere, Ian's attorney, James Biven, argues it's improbable.
Here's a voiceover actor reading some of James Biven's arguments from the trial transcripts. John Gonsalves sees Frank Pauline, Ian Schweitzer, and Sean, and this fourth person at his mom's house that Christmas Eve.
He's talking to them. He's standing five to six feet away from them.
He sees no blood on Frank Pauline's hands, face, arms, body, clothes. He sees no blood on Ian.
No blood on Sean. If you believe Michael Ortiz's story that Miss Ireland bit Frank's hand or arm and the blood from Frank was going all over the place, one would expect to find some kind of blood or injury on Frank's hand.
The testimony of the medical people, all of the medical people in this case, and a view of the blood-stained blue t-shirt shows that Miss Ireland was bleeding a lot. With that much blood, one would expect to see blood on Frank Pauline's body, hands, especially his pants.
You would also expect to see blood in the Volkswagen. The prosecution argues that it's obvious that the VW bug was the vehicle that matched the tread marks found at the scene, and that Ian, Sean, and Frank were together and using substances that day before they decided to kidnap, sexually assault, and murder Dana Ireland.
Ian's attorney mentions that the date of when Ian purchased the Volkswagen is fuzzy. And again, even today, Ian swears he didn't get that vehicle until after the incident.
Ian's defense begs the jury to look closely at the evidence as DNA still excludes the three men, to think of John's motive in his accusations. And he calls out inconsistencies in the state's claims about how the VW supposedly hit the bike.
The intentional with the Volkswagen, the malicious, like so dirty,, they knew it wasn't the car. The detectives, they knew it.
Like, based on the length, width, tire tread, you know, of the vehicle. But they were willing to go along with Charlie Nugzi and Lincoln Ashida's fake big lie story to get John Lenzol to deal the immunity.
I don't know why it was so important to forgive this guy immunity. You know what I mean? Instead of just not coming after us after the DNA didn't match and go find whose DNA it is before you come after anybody.

We tried to connect with Lincoln Ishida, but after going back and forth via email with him, he decided he didn't want to go on the record. Charlene Iboshi also did not answer any of our contact requests.
So despite attempts to discredit the prosecution's narrative, Ian's attorney, James Bivens, appears to be disengaged throughout the trial, to say the least. Bivens also does not present key evidence or cross-examine prosecution witnesses, not uncommon with overworked and underprepared public defenders, leaving Ian vulnerable and undermined in his defense strategy.
It was our lawyers that found the DNA, too. Absolutely.
It was our lawyers that found the DNA. He wasn't trying to solve it.
He never did a murder trial. No.
But there was nobody else because they conflicted them all out. And so when you look at the ineffective assistance to counsel, like I said, that lawyer didn't present the evidence, right? The evidence of the tire trip.
I mean, the police department took the measurements. So, right.
And they have to admit, these are the measurements we took. And if you match these measurements up with a Volkswagen, there's no match.
There's no way it could be a match, right? That was never presented to the jury. Coming up on 3.
They reindicted us on a jailhouse informant. Yeah.
So back then, rape, the sex crime had a statute of limitations. And so at the time that the DNA came back and they had it dismissed, I think it was six months left on the statute of limitations for them to recharge with the rape.
And so if you go back through those documents, you'll see that the prosecutor's getting desperate. So now the indictments are dismissed.
Prosecutors calling Sean's lawyer, trying to come to the grand jury and tell him in. I mean, Sean's lawyer, like, there's nothing to tell, right? And so finally, Gonzalez, John, contacts Ortiz.

One jailhouse informant is stronger than DNA.

Mike Ortiz had a child who had John Gonzalez's wife in high school. These guys are known jailhouse informant.

And that's the prosecutor's number one man.

That's next in Chapter 5, which you can listen to next week.

Paradei presents The Red Corner the challenger, extra strength, Hannity! Eye drops that work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy, allergy eyes. And the winner by knockout is Hannity! Hannity, bring it on! Hi listeners, Amanda Knox here.
Even after I was released from prison for a crime I didn't commit, I still felt trapped in the story that had taken over my life. My new book,

Free, My Search for Meaning, is about my journey to reclaim my identity and the mistakes and misadventures I had in trying to create my own freedom. It's also a guide to resilience,

post-traumatic growth, and making peace with the past. Go to amandanox.com or wherever you

buy your books to order a copy of Free today.