0:00 On September second, 2026, after nineteen years in prison, all charges against Iris Seabolt were dismissed.0:09 Last week, we talked about false confessions—the stories people tell under pressure that should never have been believed.0:19 Iris Seabolt’s story begins with a different kind of false story… a guilty plea she was coerced into making, a plea that cost her two decades of her life.0:32 The case against her was always a house of cards.0:36 In 2003, A.J.0:37 Williams was killed in Elkhart, Indiana.0:41 From the very beginning, there was no forensic evidence.0:45 Not a single fingerprint, not a drop of blood, nothing to physically place Iris at the scene.0:53 The state’s entire case was built on words.0:57 The words of jailhouse informants, who later admitted they lied.1:03 And the words of the lead investigator, Elkhart Police Detective Stephen Rezutko.1:09 I remember sitting in those early hearings.1:13 Something was always wrong.1:15 The story didn't fit.1:17 Iris pleaded guilty in 2004, and was sentenced to forty-five years.1:23 But even then, at the sentencing, she tried to take it back.1:28 She told the judge it was coerced.1:31 She said she was innocent.1:33 No one listened.1:34 For nineteen years, she sat in a prison cell for a crime she didn't commit, based on a story that was never true.1:44 Then, in 2021, the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic took her case.1:50 And they started pulling on the threads.1:54 It turns out, Detective Rezutko had a history.1:57 A long one.1:58 Internal affairs investigations from 1996 and 2001 showed he had a pattern of exchanging sex for information with informants.2:09 Those files were never disclosed to Iris’s defense.2:13 That is a constitutional violation.2:16 As Elliott Solsar from the clinic said, “Detective Rezutko was not fired...2:23 He should have been.2:24 He should have been criminally prosecuted.” And then came the tape.2:30 For years, Rezutko had testified under oath that no recording existed of a key interrogation.2:38 But in 2018, a tape surfaced.2:41 A tape showing him threatening a witness, delaying Miranda warnings… proving he had lied.2:48 The house of cards was starting to wobble.2:52 One by one, the jailhouse informants came forward.2:56 Kevin Murphy of the clinic put it plainly: “They admitted that what they said was not true.3:04 They had only testified against Iris because they had been made promises by Elkhart police and prosecutors.” In April 2026, a judge finally agreed.3:16 The conviction was vacated.3:19 A special prosecutor was assigned.3:21 And then, on September second, it was over.3:25 Dismissed.3:26 The word she had waited twenty-five years to hear.3:30 Iris Seabolt walked out of the courthouse a free woman, fully exonerated.3:36 She said she wants to use her story to help others, so they can make wiser, smarter decisions.3:44 But the real story here is about the decisions that were made FOR her.3:50 The decisions made by a system that chose to believe liars over the truth.3:57 A system that failed her for nineteen years.4:00 Elliott Solsar said every case Rezutko ever touched should be reinvestigated.4:07 He’s right.4:08 This isn’t just Iris’s story.4:10 It’s the story of all the others who might still be waiting.
