Content advisory: this episode makes mention of the sexual assault and murder of a child. Please take care if listening.
In this special update episode of Admissible, Tessa Kramer returns to the mic to explore the aftermath of our 12-part series. Our investigation exposed the Virginia state crime lab’s mishandling of a whistleblower's allegations against Mary Jane Burton, the lab’s long-time Chief Serologist. Since our initial reporting, the Virginia Department of Forensic Science and its Scientific Advisory Committee have taken steps to confront the fallout.
This episode highlights the case of Marvin Grimm, who spent 45 years in prison. The egregious nature of Burton’s flawed evidence in this case not only clears Grimm's name, but also underscores the urgent need for the lab to take more drastic action in responding to our concerns about Mary Jane Burton.
Audio of Mary Jane Burton testimony is from the Jens Soering trial. For more about that trial, we recommend the 2023 documentary "Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom or the podcast, Small Town Big Crime Podcast - https://www.smalltownbigcrimepodcast.com/
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Produced and edited by: Tessa Kramer and Ellen Horne
Mixed and scored by: Charles Michelet
Special thanks to: Megan Pauly, Ben Paviour, Meg Lindholm, Gavin Wright, Chloe Wynne, Dana Bialek, Danielle Elliot, Kim Nederveen Pieterse, and Steve Humble.
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Listen now on (https://admissible.vpm.org) or your favorite podcast platform.
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36:30
Ch. 12 - Something of this Magnitude?
As we come to the end of season one, reporter Tessa Kramer is left with some lingering questions. How are the injustices we've seen in this story woven into the DNA of our criminal legal system? Is there hope for genuine reform? And what role can forensics play?
More information on Maneka Sinha of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law: https://www.law.umaryland.edu/faculty--research/directory/profile/index.php?id=1212
Radically Reimagining Forensic Evidence by Maneka Sinha: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3891788
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25:42
A Note from Tessa on Evan Gershkovich
The final episode of our first season is coming soon, but first: a message from Tessa on the arrest of her friend, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who is wrongfully detained in Russia. For more information, visit www.freegershkovich.com.
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4:38
Ch. 11 - Repress It, Suppress It
The case of Earl Washington left a permanent stain on Virginia’s state crime lab. What does this case, and its aftermath, reveal about the lab's record of reviewing misconduct within its own four walls?
More information on the case of Earl Washington Jr.: https://innocenceproject.org/cases/earl-washington/
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34:04
Ch. 10 - The Ultimate Form of Gaslighting
As we approach the end of our reporting, Tessa revisits Gina Demas, the whistleblower, to see where the events of our story have left her, and to give her an update on our investigation. Will she get any vindication?
More information on Dana Gold and the Government Accountability Project: https://whistleblower.org/
https://whistleblower.org/our-team/dana-gold/
13 wrongful convictions all tied to one forensic analyst. The analyst – Mary Jane Burton – was hailed as a hero for saving the DNA evidence that led to the exonerations. But when reporter Tessa Kramer starts investigating, she meets a former lab trainee with a very different – and much darker – story to tell. Over the course of 12 episodes, Kramer unravels this mystery, searching for proof of explosive allegations against Burton and a possible cover-up at one of the nation’s leading crime labs. An original podcast from VPM and Story Mechanics, future seasons of Admissible will investigate the role of evidence in our legal system.
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