Liliana Segura: At first glance, this is a pretty damning confession. Charles even seems to confirm that he was the guy who was seen jumping the fence the night of the murder. But, it’s also weird, especially when it comes to what he says next. Charles Raby’s confession (read by actor): I think I was wearing a black concert shirt, the blue jeans I’m wearing and my Puma tennis shoes. I also had on a black jacket.

1. EPISODE ONE: KILLING CAPITAL
Liliana Segura: At first glance, this is a pretty damning confession. Charles even
seems to confirm that he was the guy who was seen jumping the fence the night of
the murder. But, it’s also weird, especially when it comes to what he says next.
Charles Raby’s confession (read by actor): I think I was wearing a black concert
shirt, the blue jeans I’m wearing and my Puma tennis shoes. I also had on a black
jacket.
Liliana Segura: So, according to the confession, Charles was still wearing the same
pair of jeans he had on when he stabbed Franklin to death. Police collected these
clothes as evidence. But there’s no mention in their report of any blood on them or
scratches or anything else on Charles’s body.
Jordan Smith: From the jump, his confession doesn’t match the physical evidence.
This should have raised big red flags for the investigators.
At the time the cops secured this confession, there was no physical evidence tying
Charles to the bloody crime. Still, they plowed ahead — remaining confident that, in

2. the end, physical evidence would prove that Charles committed the murder. And
not any old physical evidence but DNA evidence.
Liliana Segura: All of this is laid out in a three-page document within the police
report. It’s the sworn affidavit in which the cops persuade a judge that they have
probable cause to arrest a suspect.
The affidavit was written by Sgt. William Stephens, who said that if they could just
get Charles into custody and get a blood sample, then they’d have what they needed
to charge him with murder. Stephens had attended the autopsy. He wrote that he
noticed Edna Franklin had human hair clutched in her fist, which he believed had
been “pulled from the head of the person who stabbed Franklin as she was fighting
for her life.” The hair was brown, like Charles’s. Most importantly, Stephens wrote
that he was “personally aware that DNA can be found within human hair and that
the DNA within each person is unique.”
“If a blood sample is taken from Raby,” he wrote, “the DNA can be extracted from
this sample and compared with the DNA found in the aforementioned hair for
purposes of determined [sic] whether or not Raby committed the murder of
Franklin.”
So the police are promising that DNA evidence is going to prove that Charles Raby
committed this murder — DNA evidence from blood, specifically.
Jordan Smith: The cops asked the Houston Police Department crime lab to test
multiple items of evidence for DNA, which was fairly new technology at the time.

3. The HPD lab had just begun in-house DNA testing earlier that year. It was a big
deal that was supposed to revolutionize the city’s crime-fighting efforts.
Liliana Segura: But, ultimately, the cops didn’t wait for any of this testing to be
done. Instead, once Charles confessed, pretty much everything else faded away.
Liliana Segura: This was a really brutal stabbing, but the weapon, the knife, was
never found. What do you remember about that, in particular? Do you remember
searching for that knife?
Wayne Wendel: Yeah, we searched all over the yard for it, the house, turned every
piece of furniture around, upside down, had crime scene go over the yard with a
metal detector. We just never found it.
Liliana Segura: Did that bother you?
Wayne Wendel: It didn’t matter anyway.
Liliana Segura: It didn’t matter, you said?
Wayne Wendel: All these questions you’re asking are moot because Raby confessed.
He confessed to killing her.
Jordan Smith: In the eyes of Sgt. Wayne Wendel and the Houston Police
Department, Charles’s confession made everything else moot. It neatly obscured
the lack of physical evidence tying Charles to Edna Franklin’s murder.
Liliana Segura: The thing is, there was plenty of physical evidence in this case —
evidence that was withheld, misrepresented, or never tested. And that evidence tells
a different story. One in which the state went after the wrong man.
Jordan Smith: This season on Murderville, Texas:

4. Anonymous Juror: I would never, ever be able to do that again. It’s haunted me for
a long time that I decided that that guy was supposed to die.
Wayne Wendel: Some things are left out of there on purpose because I really don’t
want the defense to know everything.
Sarah Frazier: There is no way for them to know that the most important forensic
evidence in the case points to a different person having been the killer.
James Jordan: It’s not about “You’re guilty, you’re innocent” in Texas. It’s hell to be
fucking poor and broke in Texas.
Dwane Shirley: I would lie to a suspect in a minute. It wouldn’t bother me. I’m not
going to threaten him, I’m not going to beat him. But if I had to lie to get him to tell
me a confession or the truth, I’d lie.
Linda McClain: If it wasn’t for his confession, he might not have gotten convicted.
If it wasn’t for him telling that what he did that day and what he did that night and
what he did the next day, he might not have been convicted. He should’ve never
said anything. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut.
Charles Raby: All I know is I didn’t have no blood. I didn’t kill the woman. I didn’t.
Liliana Segura: Murderville, Texas is a production of The Intercept and First Look
Media.
Andrea Jones is our story editor. Julia Scott is senior producer. Truc Nguyen is our
podcast fellow. Laura Flynn is supervising producer. Fact-checking by Meerie
Jesuthasan. Special thanks to Jack D’Isidoro and Holly DeMuth for additional
production assistance. Voice acting in this episode by Dan Triandiflou and Jake
McCready.
Our show was mixed by Rick Kwan, with original music by Zach Young. Legal
review by David Bralow.
Executive producers are Roger Hodge and Christy Gressman. For The Intercept,
Betsy Reed is the editor-in-chief.