- Sir.

- So I have a theory about why these wrongful convictions happen.

So you must know about the yogurt shop killing here.

- Oh.

- Yes.

- Two people convicted by a cop's testimony that he was able to get a confession on every single case he investigated.

- Yeah.

- The prosecutors knew that he lied.

The prosecutors knew, like in your case, that this guy was not telling the truth.

Nothing ever happens to the prosecutors when there's an exoneration.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- Why?

- It's a great question, so the Texas Bar has actually done some really great work in recent years in the Anthony Graves case, in the Michael Morton case, two cases I wrote about for Texas Monthly.

There needs to be more of that.

And a lot of it is it's lawyers policing lawyers.

And what's sad is, you know, the price that is paid by these men and by the victim's families who've been sold the wrong story all these years is just so heartbreaking.

And I think also when you hear a clearance rate like that, that he always cracks the case.

Anyone who's not being skeptical of that, it's too good to be true.

And there's such a obvious problem there.

- The yogurt shop murder case is, of course, one that many of us in this community over the last 30 plus years have kind of been, you know, inundated with.

Our friend, the extraordinary filmmaker Margaret Brown did the documentary series that was on HBO.

And actually now that there's been a conviction post the airing of that series has another episode.

- Yes.

- That will kind of wrap the whole thing up.

I mean, I've wondered forever what is, what's going to become of, to the question, the criminal justice authorities failed that case and failed those people and failed those families.

And what is the byproduct of that?

- Well, and I'll just say, just to address sort of the tunnel vision that can come into some of these cases, there are cases like that.

I mean, it was DNA that really helped to figure out.

- Yeah.

- What happened in that case.

But I can think of cases that I've reported on where DNA evidence is tested so many years later, and it reveals the answers and the original investigators, this is true in the yogurt shop case too, at least one of them just can't get there.

They really believe these were the people.

- [Evan] Yeah, the technology doesn't persuade them.

- Right.

- [Evan] Doesn't make a difference, ma'am?

- Would you be willing to research women sexually abused in psych wards in Austin, Texas?

And if I have information, I'm shaking asking you this, I have such strong feelings about this, how would I get that information to you?

- Let's talk afterward, and I absolutely would be interested in or in helping you connect with someone who could.

I just wrote a story for ProPublica and the Times Magazine about women who are survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse who killed their abusers but who are serving life sentences.

And what I saw through that was just the complete lack of understanding about how trauma plays out for so many of these women.

- Thank you.

- Hello, so you left a big question.

What was the first perfect pitch article?

What was it?

(audience laughing) - I think it was about like peyote or-- - No, it was absolutely about peyote.

No, 1000%.

I know, I remember exactly what it was about.

It was about, it was about, there's an area of Texas where peyote, growing peyote or using, it was legal, right?

- And it has spiritual values.

- And Pam didn't know it, but Texas Monthly had published a story on that subject probably two years before.

John Morthland wrote it, the late John Morthland, - The greatest.

- And so what we said, reading that extraordinary pitch was no to this, but yes to you.

- Ah.

- Pitch us something else.

And I believe the thing that we published first by you that you pitched us was a piece on Charles Colson's prison ministry.

- Oh, that's right.

Oh my God.

- Right?

- Yeah.

- And it was extraordinary.

It didn't take but one or two stories that she wrote for us on a freelance basis to say we must have you as a staff writer at Texas Monthly.

- That story involved spending a weekend with 300 prison evangelists who decided they wanted to save me in the process.

(audience laughing) And I should have written it as a first person piece.

I didn't, but anyway.

- I think you came out the other side fine.

Let's celebrate our friend again.

Give her a big hand.

(audience applauding) Thank you very much.