Raising the Dead

30:49Here's only one thing that I haven't told you. He admitted he was at Tana's farmhouse the night of the murders. But he said he didn't stab anybody. He was just the driver. And you're saying you never went in that house? No. I strictly drove. I was not in the house. I was never in that house. I didn't find anything for being in that house. It was Lane who went into the farmhouse, he said. With that guy Lane had hired. I drove him and this guy out there that night. The night of the homicide? I drove. All right. That's all I did. Who's the other guy? Somebody. He brought him from outside. Lane and the unknown third person, who he said was an Irish guy, committed the homicide.

31:42Tell me what you said when they walk out. I didn't say anything. Bulls**t. Are you kidding me? No. I'll tell you, the guy that Lane brought, this guy, this is a scary guy. The guy scared the s**t out of me. This guy was a predator. What'd you make of his story? Well, obviously the hair stood up on my neck. But could they believe him? The Truth and Glendon Gowker were not well acquainted at all. That was obvious. So, are our chips all in on this poker table? Absolutely not. I mean, he is a con man. But a lot was riding on this. If there was even a chance his Lane Shield story was true, it had to be resolved one way or the other.

32:30Just maybe this admitted murderer, this slippery liar, would help them finally catch their killer.

32:52Murderer, rapist, admitted career criminal, Glendon Galker, was hardly the sort of man any investigator could take at his word. Certainly not Mike Sasse or his partners. It helped, mind you, that Gowker came clean and pleaded guilty to that whole other murder in Oklahoma. But his story claiming that his former boss, Lane Shields, was responsible for the Tim and Tana murders, well, it might be true, but they couldn't know without learning more about Lane Shields. And then they caught a break. We were able to actually draft and go up on a state Title III wiretap on Lane Shields. This has only been done maybe a few times in Wisconsin.

33:34You wouldn't be able to get one unless it was a pretty good case. Correct. How to get Lane talking about the murders? Well, get everyone else talking. We beefed the media out of Green Bay and Madison, and we put billboards up near the crime scene out on our major highways around there. If you know any information who killed Tim and Tana, their pictures were on the billboards. Please call. Now the thinking went. A nervous lane would want to make sure the men with him at the murder would keep their mouths shut. So they set up a phone call, Galker to Shields. And of course, unbeknownst to Shields, they listened to every word.

34:17Full of, what, hope? Expectation? Instead, what they got was the nasty, deflating feeling of having been had. They're not saying what you thought they'd say. Right. What we were led to believe they were going to say. Lane didn't sound worried or threatening or indicate any involvement at all. It was just worthless chit-chat. So what did they say? There were no confessions. There were no admissions. There were no, they're coming after me now. We didn't get what we were looking for. This wasn't the chatter of guilty individuals that you were hearing. Right. As for the rest of the so-called evidence Gauker had provided?

34:57We pulled out every investigative, high-end investigative technique that we could. And we didn't get anything that corroborated what Gauker was telling us. If that didn't put Gauker's account to rest, this did. They searched Lane Shields' property. You come in here trashed my house. They interviewed Lane. He was angry, sure, but more than willing to talk. I gave you everything when you were here. We've talked back. I agree. To the investigators, the hard-as-nails Lane came off as upfront, even honest. I should have an evidentiary hearing on these people that are putting heat on me, because it's not true.

35:38I run a f***ing business here. So when he told them he was innocent, they believed him. Hard as they tried, investigators could find nothing incriminating. Agent Sasse walked away knowing Lane was not their guy. As for Galker, they'd had enough of him. Was there ever any point in the conversations you had with him when you said, Glendon, you're full of it? Yes, and that was it. All that time and money they'd spent on Galker and his story, their deal to allow him to avoid the death penalty for his own crimes in Oklahoma, it was all for naught. They wanted so badly to solve the Tim and Tana murders, and Glendon Galker had simply played them.

36:26For more than two and a half decades, Tim and Tana's families were in the dark about the ups and downs of the investigation. There were no arrests, no resolutions. It never got easier. It's really stressful. It's very stressful. Rick Toddstad didn't blame the investigators. He knew how hard they were working. Still, always seems like right around the anniversary, you know, the newspapers and local TV stations and everybody wanted to know what's going on. And, you know, and then I'd get all nerved up and I'd be hard to live with and I'd be just, you know, wanting this thing solved and it wasn't getting done fast enough.

37:09Tim's older sister, Tina. There's no closure, you know, And I watched my family suffer from so much unforgiveness and hurt. And that hurt would turn into anger and distrust. I mean, many of us didn't know who might be over our shoulder or why because there was no answers. 2018. Detective Captain Nick Traeger of the Wapaka County Sheriff's Office had taken over the case. By then, the world of DNA evidence had opened up like a flower, and Traeger wanted to try something new, familial DNA. That is the now widely accepted method of finding unidentified suspects by searching for their family members in DNA databases and then using family trees to narrow it down.

38:01Basically means, okay, not this person, but maybe somebody related to this person. Correct. In the same genetic, you know, line. Yeah, so that was the thought process. They submitted that semen found on Tana's body to criminal databases and got back nothing. They were out of new methods to find their killer, out of names. They were rudderless. And then, a surprise. It was April 2022. A woman called investigators. She was a child at the time of the murder, she said, But she thought she knew who did it. A credible suspect. A suspect she knew all about. 30 years after the crime, she was still carrying this around and she wanted to do something about it.

38:49Correct. She believed, she told them, that her DNA could finally identify the man who murdered Tim and Tana. And who was that person? So she turned on her profile and it was like the Christmas tree lit up. Really? Yes.

39:21Murder cast its dreadful damage wide, and for a long, long time. Through the years, Tim and Tana's families never stopped looking for answers. What is it about you, your personality, that made you push so hard for all these decades to try to solve this? Well, I don't give up. Maybe it's just as well Rick didn't get to know what he was up against. As he vowed to get justice for his sister. I just don't stop. I won't stop. I will not stop. We prayed a lot that somebody would come forth and somebody wouldn't be able to live with themselves. Three decades after those brutal stabbings in Waiwego, Wisconsin, the family seemed to get their wish.

40:08When a woman called investigators in 2022, her name was Heather. She told the investigators she had heard about those murders when she was just a little girl. And ever since, she'd had this awful feeling that her father had something to do with it. And this got investigators' attention because her father was Jeff Teal. Remember him? Teal, a known violent offender, was one of the original suspects. But why did Heather wait so long? It turned out she didn't. She told investigators the same thing way back in 2010, when Agent Mike Sasse had the case. Do you remember Heather Teal coming forward? Yes.

40:55What did she have to say? She was emotional. She says, I think my dad had something to do with this. And I knew that he was ruled out. That's because three years after the murders, back in 1995, Jeff Teal got into an armed standoff with law enforcement and then escaped and skipped town. It didn't end well. He dies by suicide, I believe, in the state of Washington. It's how investigators were able to get his DNA. The sheriff's department and detectives at that point in time are sent his clothing of when he died. That was blood on the shirt, is that correct? Yes. And that is sent in to a private lab, and he is compared to the semen left at the crime scene, and he's not a match.

41:42In other words, the DNA on his shirt said he didn't do it, and he was cleared. Jeff Teal was buried near his home in Wisconsin, and the suspicion about his involvement in the case was buried with him. But Heather Thiel was so sure her father was behind the murders. 30 years after the crime, she was still carrying this around and she wanted to do something about it. Correct. So Captain Traeger and his partner went to see Heather and her mom Marie. You've always believed he's involved in this. What made you believe that? Because he did it and then said, it's funny how you can get away with murder these days.

42:18Jeff even saying to Marie, I've gotten away with murder. And his ultimate dream was to kill somebody. He used to tell me that all the time. Did you believe him? Oh, yeah. He's had a gun in front of my face that if I ever called the cops on him, he's going to use it. A lot of childhood memories. My biggest memory of my dad is his obsession with knives, too. Sitting in his chair, his rock recliner, sharpening his knives. On top of all that, they said, Jeff made it pretty obvious how he felt about Tana. He was obsessed with Tana. How do you know that? I had heard, and I can't remember who I had heard it from, if it was Tana herself, Jeff wanted to date Tana.

42:59Tana wanted nothing to do with Jeff. I always would think back when I heard that she was murdered or whatever, that, okay, Jeff doesn't live far from her, wanted to date her, she wanted nothing to do with him, and how he always said he wanted to kill somebody. And remember, Tana's dog, Scruffy, was stabbed to death, too, apparently trying to protect him and Tana. Well, Marie told investigators Jeff had a history of killing dogs, two of them right in their neighborhood. They were two huge dogs. I mean, they were really, really big, and Jeff shot them both. I saw him shoot them and kill them. He picked them up and he threw them in the back of his truck, and I remember the plug.

43:37Hold on, you saw Jeff shoot whose dogs? Neighbors' dogs. But DNA doesn't lie, and DNA cleared Jeff Deal. But just to be thorough, they did a cheek swab anyway of Heather. So we collected her DNA, which she gave along with her mom, and I guess there was really no intent other than to, I guess, kind of have it because Jeff was eliminated. Then, just as they were getting ready to leave, Heather offered investigators something else. I'm on Ancestry, too. She had explained that she does the genealogy as well. She told investigators she'd been working on her family tree on Ancestry.com and offered them access to her account.

44:25The FBI had been helping with the investigation and got to work. And the FBI agent had reached out to Heather to turn the feature on where law enforcement can view your profile. So she turned on her profile and it was like the Christmas tree lit up. Really? Yes. Heather was right. There was a connection with her father. But here came the twist. And it was a big one. So the FBI agent said, we are very close in the family, but it's not Jeff Thiel. After 30 years of waiting, investigators finally had a DNA match and a new name. Was this their man?

45:32Summer of 2022, 30 years after the murders of Tim Mumbrew and Tana Togstad, investigators finally had a new suspect. Genetic genealogy pointed to Heather Thiel's first cousin, and Jeff Teal's nephew, a man named Tony Hayes. Nobody had ever heard of Tony Hayes in the case file. So we started looking into, you know, where does Tony Hayes live? Who is he? And realized that he lives less than two miles from the original crime scene. Like a lot of men in town, Tony worked at the Iron Foundry. But unlike his uncle Jeff Teal, he had no criminal record. Just unbelievable. He's been there his entire life, and he's a nobody.

46:24Hiding in plain sight? Correct. So we spent several weeks following Tony, and it was the same thing almost every day. He went to work at the foundry, and he went home, and he worked around the farm. What to do? Get the man's DNA. So they rifled through his garbage, but nothing. So we had to get creative. Yeah, I would think. I mean, because you're chasing him around looking for him to drop. Yeah, throw something out the windows. Yeah. They noticed that Tony's car was missing its front license plate. So they came up with a plan. Let's write him a warning for no front plates and have him touch a brand new pen.

47:06And then we'll send the pen down to see if he's a match. Clever idea, but it would involve you kind of conducting this ruse traffic stop, right? That's what we did. Hi, I'm Trooper Pullman with the State Patrol. I stopped you for no front plate on the vehicle today. I'm just going to ask that you sign to acknowledge that you received a warning. I've got a pen right there for you as well. They sent the pen with Tony's DNA to the lab, and it was a match. Wow. What was that moment like? It was unbelievable. I've never felt so joyous in my life. And yet, nothing about him looked like a killer. He was just a regular guy, a father of four, with no criminal record of any kind.

47:48Not even a hint of any impropriety. He lived quietly on the same farm his family had owned for decades. We spent a lot of time goofing off at the farm and with our grandparents. Tony's sister, Sherry Hayes Gust. But as we got older, he was my defender. I always looked up to him. Jody Lynn Morgan met and rode the school bus with Tony when they were just five years old. He's the gentle giant. As long as I've known him, always, always has been. So they grew up liking each other and then loving each other. They lived together for about two years, had two kids, before deciding to go their separate ways.

48:30And then a couple of years after that, Tony went on to marry Tracy. How'd you meet him? We both like to fish, so we met in a bait shop. That was his thing, right? Yep, both of ours. Tony and Tracy had two kids of their own and, eventually, grandchildren. The couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in June of 2022. And two months later, investigators went to the iron foundry, found Tony, and asked to speak with him. So he came in very nonchalant. It was low-key. Hi, Tony. We introduced ourselves. We asked just kind of some basic background questions of him, who he was, where he lives, some work history.

49:23He knew Tim and Tana personally? He said he had never met Tim. He knew of Tana only because they lived in the same town. Interesting. Did he wonder why you were talking to him about this all these years later? He questioned why we were talking to him. We explained that his name had come up in the investigation. Now, investigators asked him directly. Did you have any involvement whatsoever in this incident? In what incident? The incident with Tim and Tana. No. No. We asked if he'd be willing to give his cheek swabs and fingerprints to us, and he agreed to. Tony also agreed to take a polygraph, so investigators took him down to the sheriff's station, performed a cheek swab, and had him take that polygraph, and then they placed him in an interview room.

50:17I'm sure you want to know how you did. Yep. Okay. You did not pass, okay? It was very clear when it came to the questions regarding Tim and Tana's death. that you are you're lying you continue to deny and lie and we will show you the evidence that we have it's not going to look good for you that make sense oh it makes sense i i don't believe that i could have done something like that so okay and did he actually fail it Yes. So they confronted Tony and explained that he was the match to the semen of the DNA that was left at the crime scene. Your semen was found on her body at the murder scene. I still won't buy it.

51:06It doesn't matter if you buy it, Tony. I get it. I get it. You need to explain it. And what I found interesting was he never said, hang on, guys, you're talking to the wrong person. That's not me. He just kind of sat there and was like, I don't understand. Did he ever say anything that would suggest that maybe he did remember doing something? So Tony took a long time to kind of get going. But once he did get going? It's going to sound stupid, but I never knew I did it. Okay.

51:56August 11, 2022. At the sheriff's office, investigators led Tony Hayes to an interview room and asked him questions about the murders of Tim Mumbrou and Tana Togstad. That is where he first mentioned what he called clicks or blurbs from the night of the murders. Memories of some sort. Over the years, little by little, you know, I'd see a little click here and there, but that I was wondering if I had something to do with it. But I'll tell you straight up, and I'm not lying, that I don't believe that I would do that. But then he recalled going on a binger that night and ending up at Tana's house.

52:41I remember the house. I remember them. You remember that house? Yeah. Yeah. I remember the steps. I remembered a, like a barbell or something like that. Which, when you look at the crime scene photos, there's a dumbbell in the bedroom. What's another blurb? I remember walking down the road. I got into my truck and drove home. Could that be the truck Tana's sister saw driving away late that night? But even as his memories seemed to incriminate him, Tony remained adamant he could not have done this. I don't remember nothing about hurting any people. Investigators pressed him for a possible motive.

53:29You were never attracted to Tana when you saw her? No. Never wanted to date her, never jealous of some guys that were dating her? No. Tony was dating Jody at the time and denied any attraction to Tana, but then he started describing what sounded like a motive of sorts. It happened when Tony was just seven years old. His dad had been racing snowmobiles with Tana's dad and another friend, and suddenly the belt on Tony's dad's snowmobile blew, and he was hit by the snowmobile coming up behind him. Killed my dad instantly. The third guy coming up ran that guy over. It was a horrible accident. Only Tana's dad survived, though he died a few years later.

54:19His father's death, said Tony, resurfaced 14 years after the fact on the night of the murders. I was drunk, and all I could think about was that accident. I didn't go there to hurt anybody. I didn't. But I honestly can tell you that I don't know what started, what happened, what started it all. I don't. What took you so long in this room to tell us the story about your dad and the snowmobile and Tana's dad being involved? Because I didn't want it to sound like I had this planned, because I didn't. Planned or not, investigators felt they had enough. It's 1.39, Tony. I have to place you under arrest for the homicide of Canada Togstead.

55:14And Tim Mulgrew. Yes. Okay. Investigators were convinced they finally had their man. Tony's family was blindsided. Our youngest son messaged me in the afternoon and said that the cops were at our house. And I couldn't even drive down my road that I live on because I had it all blocked off. Did you, Tracy, have to somehow deal with that question that you might be married to and living with, a man who had done a very, very, very terrible thing all those years ago? No. Not even when they got the DNA comparison with the semen that they found in their body? In my heart, I know he did not do this. There is no possible way he could have ever done something like that.

56:08So, no. The investigators talked to Jody, too, of course. Well, the first thing I said was, no, you have the wrong guy. You have the wrong guy. Back in 1992, Jody and Tony had only just moved in together. And yes, the murder happened nearby, but... Did you notice any changes in Tony's behavior after that? No. No, nothing. Nothing at all. But then, landing with a sickening thud, that DNA. And Tony placing himself at Tana's house? Remembering that barbell? The snowmobile accident? Why do you think those things came out of his mouth? And what do you think it all meant? He didn't say any of those things until he had proclaimed his innocence a hundred times and was shown pictures and videos.

57:06They repeatedly told him he must have done it. He did it. He did it. They kept coming down harder on him. Tony's family knew they needed help, and they turned to defense attorneys John Birdsall and Nicole Muller. Usually when we get contacted, we get contacted by maybe one family member. Yeah. And the interesting thing was is that everybody believed in Tony Hayes' innocence so much, all his family, all his friends, that we had a conference call for people that wanted to help him financially to hire us. On that conference call, there were 55 people. And right there, before I even met Tony, I was like, there's something going on here.

57:48There's something wrong with this picture. Bert Zoll and Mueller got to work that summer of 2022, trying to get their heads around 30 years of records they received from the prosecution. It took months. It was almost as if they just brought a truck with a bunch of boxes and dumped it out on the front lawn and said, there you go, work it out. And in the middle of all that working out, they read about the sheer depravity of the crimes. This is not somebody who just got drunk and had a bad night, like the interrogators tried to suggest to Tony. Something else was going on here. Which, it seemed to them, fit those other suspects.

58:29Remember? The suspects we've told you about. Basically, there was three there. Three? Three, yeah. Glendon Goker, Lane Shields, and Jeffrey Teal. But remember, all three had been pretty thoroughly investigated, and all of them were cleared. in Teal's case by his own DNA, which excluded him back in 1996. But 26 years later, thanks to familial DNA technology, it identified his nephew Tony Hayes as the likely killer. So now, pre-trial, a legal skirmish began. Defense versus prosecution. The defense wanted to claim Jeff Teal was not excluded from all the blood evidence of the crime scene. and because of that remained a potential suspect.

59:15Wapaka County DA Kat Turner objected. Jeff Teal seems like an obvious suspect to go after. He's dead. He was a bad guy. So he had already been excluded in 1996. The judge sided with the defense. So investigators decided. Let's show for a third time that he's been eliminated and that way the defense can't use Jeff Thiel as the person who committed these crimes. But testing Jeff Thiel's DNA wasn't easy. He was six feet under, which brings us back to that gloomy day in the cemetery. So we asked the court to allow us to exhume Jeff Thiel. We did.

1:00:14The man in this casket had kept his secrets to himself for almost 30 years. But Jeff Teal was about to give one up. We rushed the testing. The DNA analyst worked on nothing but that until he had the analysis complete and, again, excluded Jeff Teal from all of the blood evidence that was available. All of the other evidence, prosecutors said, pointed straight at Tony Hayes, who was due to stand trial for murder in just two weeks. But when the prosecution revealed the new evidence, Tony's attorneys argued they didn't have time to prepare a response. And the judge agreed with the defense. He ruled that if the trial went ahead, The prosecution could not tell the jury about any DNA evidence involving Jeff Teal.

1:01:08Did you think that was a good decision? No, I did not. And we very, very, very, very strongly argued to the court that it was inappropriate because everyone in the room, with the exception of the jury, knew that Jeff Teal had been excluded as a potential contributor to any of the biological evidence. Tough luck. said the defense. They had years to do this, and they were trying to act like they were the victims. And even the judges, like, that's really, he used the word twice, disingenuous. For the prosecutors and Tana and Tim's families, it meant an agonizing choice. Go to trial with a weaker case, as they saw it?

1:01:51Or set a new trial date, who knew when, with a stronger case? In the end, they decided to go for it. Tana's friend, Jill. They said the case is strong enough, we will go forward. And so on July 17, 2025, it began. Please be seated. One of the biggest trials in Wapaka County history. Finally, a jury could deliver justice, said Tana's friends and family. What was the most important thing in your mind that they had against him? Well, the confession was huge to me. I mean, it was just like, wow, it's on tape. There was things that he said that unless you did it, you don't make that kind of stuff up.

1:02:37No, he wouldn't know. Did you feel a kind of weight on you as you're trying to bring this case to a successful conclusion? Absolutely. This is a small, small town, and you want, as the prosecutor, to get justice for those people who you care about. For three decades, this crime went unsolved. Assistant Attorney General Amy Otani opened for the state. For three decades, the person that committed these crimes believed he would never get caught. Otani told the jury that Tony Hayes stabbed Tana and Tim in the early morning hours of March 21, 1992. And she said the prosecution had the receipts. So what ties Tony Hayes to this crime?

1:03:29His semen on Tana's body, his handprint in blood on Tana's door, his own memories of killing Tim and Tana. The handprint evidence first, found on the door, for years a bloody emblem of this case. A forensic analyst for the state crime lab testified she was able to make a match to Tony Hayes. Item ABFRD2 was identified to the left palm of Tony Garrett Hayes. ABFRD3 was identified to the left palm of Tony Garrett Hayes. How confident can you be in a handprint? I believe they're reliable. However, I would not feel confident if that was the only evidence. It wasn't. Remember that male DNA on Tana's body?

1:04:25Over 30 years, it had been seriously depleted by repeated testing. But new testing methods require very few cells. So when the analysts retested the DNA for investigation, they used the minuscule amounts that remained. Were you confident there was enough, even at that level, to think you'd get an accurate result? From speaking with our genetics DNA analyst, I was confident. It's a principle of DNA testing that there cannot be 100 % certainty. So the prosecutors called a DNA analyst with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab who had worked out an exact probability to show it most certainly was Tony Hayes' DNA.

1:05:12The random ash probability, the profile would not be less common than 1 in 234 quintillion. Okay. And that's 234 followed by 18 zeros, right? Correct. In other words, the likelihood of the DNA on Tana's body being from anyone other than Tony Hayes was astronomically small. But perhaps the most compelling evidence came from Tony Hayes himself during that marathon interrogation. I remember getting into the scuffle. You're in a scuffle with who? With Tim. Would you call it a confession? I would call it an admission. Uh-huh. I don't know that he confessed to everything, but he did acknowledge remembering committing the crime.

1:06:05Prosecutors played that interview for jurors, all five-plus hours of it. They heard Tony recall fragments from that night. Whatever happened that him and I started tussling, I'm pretty sure she was the one that said, what the f***? And that's when I hit her. And then I was fighting with Tim. And then you go back to her. I must have. He said that he recalled some details of the order that Tim and Tana were killed in. And he said he remembered a knife. There was a knife. I remember having a hold of his arm and we tussled. And then I had the knife. He said he remembered trying to have sex with her.

1:07:03Had sex with her. What made you? Okay. I'm sorry. Keep going. She started to stir and I had to have stabbed her. And this, as the interview was ending. I remember thinking, holy f***, what did I do? In the end, the prosecutors told the jurors it was the weight of all the evidence that pointed to Tony Hayes. Despite living a seemingly law-abiding life for 30 years, he remembered and he knew what he was hiding. He knew what he had done. I'm confident you'll find him guilty. Not so fast, said the defense. The prosecution had it all wrong. When they lie and manipulate to get someone to make a statement, that is not discovering the truth.

1:07:57That's planting it.

1:08:13Tracy Hayes dealt with the trial just as she had dealt with the years of heartache since her husband's arrest in 2022. She took it day by day, going to court, sitting right behind her husband, stoic and silent. We were told we couldn't talk to him. I couldn't give him a hug. Couldn't tell him I love him. anything. What'd you do? I knew he was there. He knew I was right behind him. And she listened intently to defense attorney John Birdsell. What kind of a sick, twisted, psychopathic person would commit a crime like this? Not gentle Tony Hayes. The state had the wrong man, he declared, thanks to a deeply flawed investigation.

1:09:07You're going to see the utterly botched crime scene collection of both fingerprints and DNA, and blood for that matter. And it's like once you have a compromised crime scene... How do you trust anything from that scene? It's just not possible. That door, for instance, with handprint evidence on it? Other prints were on it as well. Prints that should never have been there, said Birdsall. One of the detectives, the main detectives, fingerprints on it. Fingerprints on the palm print or just on the door? On the door. What's more, the defense insisted, no one could be certain any of the prints on the door actually belonged to Tony.

1:09:47The problem is that it's subjective. And I'm not even going to call it a subjective science because it's not a science. But the whole point of trial, the analyst, she had to admit she couldn't be 100 % sure. And the DNA from the crime scene? Utterly unreliable, the defense attorneys argued. It's quality undone by repeated testing and decades of storage. And so they said the state was driven to extreme measures, examining DNA residue in tubes and spin baskets. So they're just retesting their old equipment, basically. As well, the defense alleged the state's analysts had added data to the DNA profile developed from the crime scene.

1:10:27Those were used to compare to Tony, correct? Correct. We saw the DNA profile was an engineered profile. And when you are engineering facts, you're not finding the truth. The analyst denied engineering facts. On redirect, he testified that he updated the DNA profile to reflect new standards. So you didn't add anything, right? Injection rule. Correct. But the defense attorneys reserved their greatest outrage for that hours-long interrogation. They argued that any admissions from Tony Hayes were false, pried out of a frightened man by investigators using a controversial interrogation procedure called the read technique, which critics say uses manipulation and pressure tactics.

1:11:23You can't just keep saying, I don't want to remember this. I don't want this to be true. That stuff's got to go. Now it's got to be, I did it, and now I've got to come up with the answers. There's a lot of people who are waiting for your explanation. I don't have one. I don't. And when Hayes insisted he did not commit the murders, the investigators kept at him, told him they knew what happened that night. We are telling you, and this is true, your semen was on her body, okay? So, regardless of whether you're the kind of guy that could ever do that, regardless of the guy who doesn't want to believe he did that, when I say, Jay says, you did that, no dispute, how do you feel with that?

1:12:13Well, I sure wish that I remembered it. As for those fragments of memory he'd told them about, those were flashbacks, investigators said, to a nightmare he'd been trying to suppress for decades. You know you stabbed her through the chest when you were having sex with her, or right after. You see it, but you don't want to say it.

1:12:38Those are the facts. Yeah. And we can't see that from the scene. The defense called an expert in false confessions to the stand. He believed what they said, that there was no question that he was there, that it was his semen, so now he had to figure out how that could have happened. Dr. David Thompson testified that when he evaluated Tony Hayes, he found them to be suggestible, vulnerable to the investigator's tactics. When you look at those personality characteristics, and then you look at the investigator's tendency to provide suggestive questions to him, that combination, I think, is very significant.

1:13:20When they lie and manipulate to get someone to make a statement, that is not discovering the truth. That's planting it. Well, but, you know, he's a grown man. He's not some kid. No, there's no buts about it, okay? But the defense attorneys weren't done. Instead, they put a different man on trial, Jeff Thiel. Remember, the judge had ruled the jury could not hear the prosecution's DNA evidence, which they said excluded Thiel as a suspect. And now the defense went after Thiel hard. They called his ex-wife, Marie Stanchik, to testify to his bad character. I do. Did he ever physically hit you? Yes.

1:14:05I was pregnant with Heather then, and we were on our way to Hamas classes. And he hit me in the mouth, and I got a fat lip. And then, just months after Tana and Tim were murdered, this. He had held a gun in my face and said he was going to use it on me. And she told law enforcement, Jeff Teal told me that he was going to kill me and get away with it, just like the Togstead-Mumbrew homicide. They told jurors Jeff Teal had reasoned to murder Tim and Tana. Tim had reported Teal for a theft at the foundry, and Tana had rejected his advances. So we have direct connection and direct motive to both the victims.

1:14:49How did it go down on that long-ago night? The defense leaned on the tale told by convicted criminal Glendon Gauker that he, Galker, drove two men to Tanna's house that night, and one of them, an Irish-looking guy, the guy the defense decided was Jeff Teal. Surely there was more than enough reasonable doubt the defense told jurors to find Tony Hayes not guilty of the murders. If you pause or hesitate when considering all of the manipulation, mistakes, cover-ups, lying, that you heard in this trial that I didn't make up, if that makes you pause or hesitate, you know your duty. Now, it was the jury's turn.

1:15:45There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Keith and Andrea, available Wednesday.

1:16:02In August 2025, a jury of 12 at the Wapaka County Courthouse went out to decide if Tony Hayes murdered Tana and Tim. Tim's sister, Tina, leaned on her faith. We walked around that courthouse seven times praying. I was praying for God's justice. Tana's brother Rick, on his 33-year journey for justice, was trying to stay calm. When they went out, were you feeling relatively confident at least? I felt as though we were going to get a good verdict. Even though the defense had persuaded the judge to throw out all the DNA evidence clearing alternate suspect Jeff Teal, so the jury never got to hear about it, Tim's family remained upbeat.

1:16:50I was feeling real confident because I thought the prosecution did an amazing job. We thought for sure we had a slam dunk. Jurors would later reveal that when their deliberations began, six jurors believed Tony Hayes was guilty and six not guilty. It was extremely hard to know that his life was in somebody else's hands. Tony's family and friends were all too aware that a guilty verdict had to be unanimous. Was I confident when they went in? You can't be confident. I'm confident that he's not the guy, but it's not me, it's them. Of course you're worried and you're scared, but I feel like it had been proven.

1:17:39But then the days went by, right, one after the other. It meant that they were really looking this over. Among Tana and Tim's family members and friends, anxiety was setting in. I was more and more nervous the longer the jury stayed out. You could hear those guys arguing in the room, the jury. And you could tell they were arguing about something, but we didn't know what. On Monday, August 11th, 2025, day four of deliberations, the moment of truth was at hand. The jury came back, and the judge read its verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Tony Garrett Hayes, not guilty.

1:18:27When they came back and they said not guilty,

1:18:32that was beautiful. Tony's friends, Joe, Jason, and Liz. I cried. Tears of joy. They got it right. Thank God the jury, yeah. I was just thinking of Tony, right? I can't imagine what he'd been through, you know, during that three years of being put in that position, right? Tony's wife, Tracy, would get her husband back. What was it like to give him a big hug when he finally came out of there? It was awesome to take him home to our children. And he got to see his grandpa. His grandpa said that was the best day of his life. Of course, it was a different reaction on the other side of the courtroom.

1:19:22What was that like when the judge read the verdict? I couldn't believe he even said it. What? It's just like, wow. My heart just dropped. My stomach turned. A complete shock that 12 people could be that deceived. Took you outside of your body almost. Pure rage. I couldn't breathe. Today, Tony is back home with his family, breathing the clean air of Wayoigurh's farmland, feeding his cows. He's a free man. His wife, Tracy, feels free too. So what now? Just live day by day. We'll see what happens. See where God takes us. How are you and Tony adjusting to this? Good. He finally gets the sunshine and the fresh air.

1:20:21Have you gone fishing lately? No, not yet. We will, though. He owes me that. On the advice of his attorney, Tony himself did not speak with us. His criminal case is over. Hard to accept for Tim and Tana's family members and friends. Those people on that jury let out a man that butchered two people. And he is now walking around, going to have family time, play with his grandkids. Tana never got to have a kid. Tana never had a life. It's a hard pill to swallow. Yeah. Was he found innocent? He was found not guilty. Tanner's brother Rick, who lives just three miles from Tony Filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against him Said it isn't about financial gain I don't want his house and I don't want his retirement Acknowledgement is what I want It's going to be expensive, that acknowledgement Rick set up a GoFundMe page And meantime, the crime against Tanner and Tim remains officially unsolved.

1:21:37Even though investigators and prosecutors believe they know the answer, nothing to do about it now. You going to be able to get used to it, live with it? I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing. That was a piece of wisdom right there. As Tana and Tim's families and friends try to make peace with the outcome, that take some comfort from their memories of the vibrant young couple taken far too soon who lived long enough to find each other and fall in love.

1:22:15That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.