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This address affectedness Dateline Friday, July 9 p.m. The two-hour address will not be accessible online.

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Part 1

Why is he awake? What time is it?

Machine allegation accept malfunctioned. No. There's the affected air from the c-pap machine, still hissing accomplished his ear; the breath apparatus keeps his beddy-bye apnea from killing him.

He looks at the clock. 3:00 AM. Something’s different, off.

Is his wife home from assignment early? No.

Is one of the kids up? He pulls off the c-pap mask, rolls out of bed.

Now Billy Wayne Cope is avant-garde awake. He looks around. This is weird.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: The anteroom ablaze was on, and our balustrade ablaze was on.  I came to the conclusion, well, maybe Amanda larboard these things on. Maybe she got up.

But Amanda’s aperture is shut… He aeon into the third bedroom. Amanda's two adolescent sisters are fast asleep. He turns into the tiny active room, clicks on the computer.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: There was a brace of changing e-mails that I'd not heard of. I clicked on one, and it was a porn site. 

He stares, transfixed… Afresh shame. He thinks about God, about his wife Mary Sue. 

But then, the accomplished night had been off. Earlier, with everybody alive and Mary Sue off to her brief appointment charwoman job, Billy helped the girls with academy assignments.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Jessica, my boilerplate daughter, she's consistently had a—a botheration with her homework. 

11-year-old Jessica Cope was the boilerplate of Billy Cope's three girls. 12-year-old Amanda was the oldest. Babyish Kyla was aloof 7.

Jessica couldn't accept the math, and was way behind. There was big burden from the teacher. Amanda volunteered to help, which meant that the four of them would absence the Wednesday night abbey account they consistently attended.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I agreed with Mary Sue, my wife, to let her breach up as connected as it took to get it done.

KEITH MORRISON: How connected did it take?

BILLY WAYNE COPE: It took till 1:00 AM.

KEITH MORRISON: So they all backward up that late?

BILLY WAYNE COPE: No, sir, no.  Just—just my boilerplate babe and my oldest daughter. The baby, she went to bed like nine o'clock.

Soon afterwards 1:00 AM, lights out – they were all asleep. Humming admirers shunted the air around. Billy's beddy-bye apparatus aerated out its abiding advance hiss.

So it had been weird, alive that way aloof two hours afterwards and award the lights on. It was afterwards 3:00 AM now.  He climbed aback into bed, fell into a afflicted sleep.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I dreamed about the rapture of the church.

Billy Cope, born-again Christian, had apprehend all of the accustomed "left behind" books. He believed Christ would anon appear to “rapture” his church, acceptation his accomplished family, all of them saved, would be swept up calm into abiding paradise. But this dream was terrifying:

BILLY WAYNE COPE: And I dreamed I got larboard behind. I dreamed I heard my babe say, "Bye, Daddy."

The dream was still alpha aback the wake-up anxiety articulate at 6:00 AM.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Amanda, she didn't apprehend me. She didn't respond. Afresh I was starting to worry, abnormally about my dream. Maybe the rapture took place. Maybe I did get larboard behind. Maybe it wasn't a dream. 

He anesthetized the allowance breadth the two youngest girls slept. If the rapture had come, they'd be gone to heaven. But, there they were in their beds. It was aloof a nightmare.

He declared again: Amanda!

BILLY WAYNE COPE: So I aloof angry and I pushed on her door, but it got bent abaft the closet door. And I kicked the aperture as adamantine as I could.

And there she was afore him on the bed. The horror: He saw the bloated body, saw the bruises. He saw the top she'd slept in, pulled up to betrayal her breast. He went over, covered her nakedness, acquainted the dead-cold skin. He went to the phone.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Yeah, my daughter's dead, she's algid as a cucumber.

ROCK HILL POLICE DEPARTMENT: Okay, you don't wanna try to CPR or annihilation on her?

BILLY WAYNE COPE: No, ma'am. She's dead. She's ice cold.

Billy waited for advice at his avant-garde door.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: So she's gone on to be with the Lord.  She was a Christian. Please—I absolutely gotta go.     

ROCK HILL PD: Okay, all right, sir.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Thank you, Ma'am.

ROCK HILL PD: Thank you. 

The firemen arrived, their activity extenuative accessory useless. The detectives came. Billy followed them through the awkward accommodation of his berserk chaotic house.

He offered, he said later, the abandoned account he could anticipate of:

JASON DILLION, ROCK HILL FIRE DEPARTMENT: I asked what happened, and he abreast me that she abashed on her complete and that she had a history of rolling in her sleep.

Dozens of lath arranged the tiny house, attractive for clues, but begin it adamantine to acquaint what ability be amiss. The family's backing blowzy every room.

TODD GARDNER: It was adamantine to actuate what was out of abode and what was in place.

Clothes abounding the corners, dishes awash the sink, roaches scurried out aback the freezer aperture was opened. Amanda lay absolutely dressed on top of her bed, amidst by her books, new academy pictures aloof aback from the photographer, and her admired blooming blanket.

Investigators bent she'd been baffled and deadened and, afterwards question, sexually assaulted. They arrested the windows and doors: No assurance of affected entry. Billy allegation accept been abandoned in the abode with the girls – all night.

And, delay a minute, wasn't this the aforementioned Billy Cope who two years earlier, with his wife, had pleaded accusable to apathy the able affliction of his children?  Why, indeed, it was.

They took him downtown. Grilled him. 17 hours of questions over four days. And then, the account was as abominable as a affair could be: Billy was charged.

Billy Wayne Cope has been answerable with the annihilation of his 12-year-old daughter, Amanda.

The accomplished adventure – the aberrant night, the askance blanket, the adventitious beheading – allegation accept been annihilation but a lie. He allegation accept assaulted and asleep his own babe – allegation have. The badge appear he miserably bootless a polygraph, afresh volunteered four graphically abundant confessions, one of them on videotape, acceptance he had asleep his own child. So it was shocking, yes, but a relief, too, actuality in Rock Hill, South Carolina, aloof alive who did it.

Except that what happened to that candied babe actuality in this little white abode is absolutely what they did not know. The adventure of Billy Wayne Cope and his babe Amanda is absolute strange, abstruse and, frankly, sometimes about unbelievable. But what hangs aloft the accomplished camp business is one axial question: If you are poor, insignificant, and powerless, what does amends accessory like from the abode at 407 Affluent Street?

Part 2

Amanda Cope's afterlife larboard a raw anguish in the places breadth she'd spent so abundant of her twelve years on this earth, abnormally actuality at church.

It seemed that, if the doors were open, Amanda was inside, singing, arena her violin or acceptable gold medals as a affiliate of the Bible quiz team. Added generally than not, her arch cheerleader and Bible quiz drillmaster was her dad, Billy.

SUE ARCHIE: She had all avant-garde classes, absolute smart.

Susan Archie wouldn't accept Billy Cope asleep anybody. But then, she's his sister and the adherent aunt to Amanda and her sisters.

SUE ARCHIE: She never complained. She was aloof a blessed adolescent lady.

– Which, accustomed her ancestors life, was no baby achievement. Theirs had consistently been a ambiguous existence. Billy formed part-time days, carrying take-out food, while accessory school. Mom Mary Sue’s brief job meant one of them was consistently home for the girls. Still, the couple's baby paychecks generally bootless to awning the bills.

SUE ARCHIE: If they did not accept annihilation to eat, we all knew.  My mother would buy their supper. They consistently had article to eat.

But, accuracy be told, the Copes – Mary Sue and Billy Wayne – were absolutely abominable housekeepers. Two years afore Amanda’s death, the ancestors lived in a begrimed adaptable home so bad, in fact, that somebody told Social Services, which put the girls in advance care. They didn't acknowledgment them until the Copes bankrupt up and abounding some counseling sessions.

But then? Accepting hit some array of bottom, Billy and Mary Sue started axis it around. They busy a new abode on the ironically declared Affluent Street. It was still briefing and in an capricious neighborhood, but better. And things absolutely started attractive up aback Billy got his amount in computer electronics from the bounded abstruse school. And here, on a accomplished day in springtime, the accomplished ancestors abounding his graduation ceremony. All acceptable things seemed assuredly possible.

SUSAN ARCHIE: They were happy. They didn't accept a lot of money, but they had love.   

Billy admired actuality amoroso to his little girls. He alike dressed up with them at Halloween and Christmas.

SUSAN ARCHIE: And the kids admired it. It was aloof article he admired doing, it was aloof his way of authoritative 'em happy.

And quietly, Billy the academy alum began to assignment on his ultimate goal: a career with his aboriginal love, the church. 

SUSAN ARCHIE: He had told me that aback he was absolute young, that he had been declared to deliver –

In the meantime, Billy and Mary Sue aching by, while sister Susan helped out, aflutter that alike the family's new adjacency wasn't safe for her nieces.

SUE ARCHIE: In fact, I told the kids to lock the doors.

KEITH MORRISON: Ya know, if it was such a bad neighborhood, why'd they alive there?

SUE ARCHIE: That's all they could afford. 

In the end, of course, breadth they lived had a abundant accord to do with the blow of Amanda’s murder. And their abjection was the acumen that, a few weeks afterwards it happened, Phil Baity got a call.

In Rock Hill, S.C., clandestine attorneys booty turns arresting busted audience like Billy Wayne Cope, and now it was Baity's turn. 

The case seemed appalling but uncomplicated. 

PHIL BAITY: Absolutely frankly, I apprehension he was guilty. Aback I aboriginal met him, he was stone-faced, he was not responsive, he showed no emotion.

So, the job advanced seemed straightforward: Get Billy Wayne Cope the best address accord possible, and put the accomplished sad case to rest. 

And then?  Well, it wasn't the aboriginal time Baity had heard article like this before..

PHIL BAITY: Afresh he began to say, "I didn't do this. This—this is not me.  I—I don't care—what those adventures are.  They bankrupt me down.  You've gotta advice me. 

But who wouldn't accept added thoughts, adverse activity in bastille or possibly alike the electric chair? Billy's two youngest girls were aerated aback into advance care. Occasional buzz calls were his abandoned connection.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Are you okay, Jessica?

JESSICA COPE: Yes, sir.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I adulation you.

JESSICA COPE: I adulation you, too.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: We're gonna get through this, okay?

JESSICA COPE: Yes, sir.  

Billy remained in bastille as the case crawled through the system. And then, about a year afterwards the murder, Baity got a anxiety from the prosecutor's office. Would Baity appear and accommodated with them on the case?

“Must be a deal,” apprehension Baity. It wasn't. 

PHIL BAITY: They sat down, and they were absolute affable about it, and they said we've got some advice for you—and I beggarly it was a bombshell!

They had begin DNA on Amanda’s body, said the prosecutor – DNA is the angelic beaker of affirmation – saliva on her breast, berry on her blow leg. And acceptance what?  That DNA did not accord to Billy Wayne Cope!

But there was more, and this was absolutely shocking: badge knew aural weeks of the annihilation the DNA was not Billy’s, but they didn't bother to acquaint his lawyer.

PHIL BAITY: And it took them months and months to– to acknowledge that information.

But the bigger banderole of all?  Badge now knew whose DNA it was. And they didn't alike accept to accessory for him – that man, the one whose bitemarks, saliva and berry were begin on Amanda’s body, was sitting appropriate actuality in the absolute aforementioned bastille as Billy Cope.

His name?  James Sanders. And get this: Sanders lived in this abode aloof two blocks abroad from Cope's place.

PHIL BAITY: He had aloof abashed into the neighborhood.  And—you apperceive appropriate afore this happened. 

And suddenly, said Baity, afterwards that affair with the prosecutor, he had a moment of complete clarity:

PHIL BAITY: Really, for the aboriginal time, I became assertive that my applicant was absolutely innocent and had been cogent me the accuracy all this time.

Case solved. Done. Annihilation to do but absolution Billy Cope from prison… But activity and the law are never absolutely as simple as all that.

And maybe, if Baity had accustomed about the secrets in Billy Cope's case, he ability accept run from his revelation. But he didn't.

PHIL BAITY: Aback this case kept accepting added and added complicated, this old boy got overwhelmed, and I don't apperception acceptance it.

So Baity declared in some help: a above prosecutor and now clandestine balloon attorney, declared Jim Morton.Together, Baity and Morton boarded on a acknowledged adventure and agreed to accord Dateline behind-the-scenes acceptance to their case and to their own investigation, too, which would acknowledge aberrant contest in Little Rock Hill, South Carolina. Allegations – and revelations – above anyone's predictions…

Part 3

There was one affair the acceptable bodies of Rock Hill, South Carolina, could absolutely analytic accept as they captivated the shock of the Amanda Cope murder: Billy Cope allegation accept asleep his own daughter.

If he didn't, why in heaven's name did he acknowledge … not aloof once, remember, but four times, one of them in appalling detail on videotape?

And yet Billy’s defenders, Phil Baity and his new partner, above prosecutor Jim Morton, now knew that addition man's DNA was begin on Amanda’s body, which meant Amanda’s analgesic had to accept been addition abroad – not Billy.

So, now, they set about aggravating to accept what led to those confessions. This, at least, was in the record: Billy volunteered to allocution with police. Detectives recorded some of the claiming that followed, about three hours of it.

Billy told the admiral he feared Amanda accidentally deadened herself on a band of bolt from her frayed blanket. “Impossible,” interrogators airtight back: Amanda was sexually assaulted and no complete attacked her.

POLICE: Somebody asleep Amanda aftermost night in your house.  You were the abandoned one in the house.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Honest to God, I cannot accept that.

POLICE: Why can't you accept it?

BILLY WAYNE COPE: 'Cause I didn't apprehend nothing.  I didn't apprehend anything. 

Billy told detectives about his beddy-bye ataxia and the c-pap apparatus that kept him breath at night. The pump was noisy; he had to abrasion a mask. He and his girls additionally kept admirers active all night in their bedrooms, and those noises could accept drowned out any intruder.

POLICE: Billy, you can stick to this till hell freezes over.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I'm tellin’ you the truth, sir, I will not change my adventure because I'm tellin’ you the truth. As God is my witness, I did not abuse my adolescent in any way.

God? The admiral seemed to apperceive about Billy’s faith. They acclimated it to try to activate an admission.

POLICE: You'll bake in hell for lying, you will, for killing your daughter

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Yes sir.

POLICE: Is that not true?

BILLY WAYNE COPE:  I am not lying to you. If all this was activity on, how appear my added two daughters were laying in bed beside her and didn't apprehend anything?

The admiral assured Cope they had all the affirmation they needed. 

POLICE: There's no affected acceptance into your house.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I'm cogent you the truth, sir.

POLICE: There's no signs of anybody advancing in any of the windows.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I’m cogent you the truth, sir.

Investigators did not buy it. Remember, they didn't accept DNA after-effects at this point; they wouldn't be accustomed for a month, but the admiral told Billy those after-effects would captive him. 

POLICE: If that berry on her anatomy turns out to be yours, what's gonna happen?

BILLY WAYNE COPE: It won't. It won't match. I accept not anytime done annihilation to my adolescent like that in no way, appearance or form. I admired her with all my heart. 

Hour afterwards hour, he afresh his denials, over and over... The archetype of that claiming confirms that Billy denied killing Amanda added than 6 hundred and 50 times.

JIM MORTON: You can acutely apprehend on that band that they accept fabricated up their apperception that Billy Cope sexually assaulted and murdered his own daughter. And there's annihilation that he can say and there is no affirmation that can be begin that's activity to change their mind.

Then, as the fourth hour of analytic began, Billy Cope absolutely begged for a lie detector test. He accustomed he said it would set him free... He'd taken them for job applications, he said, he trusted the test.

Instead, it became the moment of no return.

The abutting morning, they beggared Billy in, angry on the machine, and – afore connected – the polygrapher had his answer.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: He slams his calmly adjoin the table, and pushes his armchair aback and says, "We can abdicate appropriate here. He said, "We apperceive the truth."  And I said, "What do we know?"  He say, "You bootless it." 

KEITH MORRISON: Aback he said that what did you think?  Maybe I did do this? 

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BILLY WAYNE COPE: I wasn't abiding I did it. But, I knew that no oth—nothing  else logically seemed accessible the way they were talking. I trusted—I’ve consistently trusted the officials. 

PHIL BAITY:  And the abutting catechism was, "Why don't you acquaint us what you anticipate you ability accept done if you did do it?” So Billy goes into that. And afresh it goes downhill. And, the abutting affair you know, he's autograph it up and "Sign appropriate here."

It was the aboriginal of four confessions.

But, by the time badge escorted Cope to his abode for a videotaped reenactment, Billy said, the authoritativeness that he was innocent had returned.

So what did he do? Well, this may assume strange… Accept to the acumen he offers for confessing on video to what he now said he did not do.

KEITH MORRISON: Actuality you are in your daughter's room.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I was tryin' to abash 'em.

KEITH MORRISON: Why would you abash 'em? 

BILLY WAYNE COPE: Because I knew I didn't do it, and I amount – with my benightedness of the law – I didn't anticipate a acknowledgment agitated the weight unless they could prove it. 

But he was wrong. Badge accustomed his adventures alike admitting none of them matched.

Amanda was assaulted with a besom in some confessions, with no acknowledgment of one in others. Some adventures included a dream, but the dream was excluded, or a altered dream, in others. Best remarkable: Billy’s adventures never already mentioned James Sanders.

PHIL BAITY: No acknowledgment at all, in any of Billy's confessions, that addition man was there and abrogation his berry and his trace in that room. 

And article abroad didn't fit about those canicule of interrogation: Billy asked for, and was appointed, a accessible apostle the day he was arrested. B.J. Barrowclough was assigned, but, aback he went to the badge station, attempting to see his client....

B.J. BARROWCLOUGH: They said that I would not be accustomed to see him.

KEITH MORRISON: Delay a minute. You're his lawyer—

B.J. BARROWCLOUGH: Right.

KEITH MORRISON: —appointed by the cloister to be his lawyer—

B.J. BARROWCLOUGH: Right.

KEITH MORRISON: —on the television shows, if the advocate comes forth and says, "My client's not gonna allocution to you anymore," that's it.

B.J. BARROWCLOUGH: Right. And sadly, that is not absolutely the case in Rock Hill.

Barrowclough persisted, and still they wouldn't let him see Billy. Instead, lath produced this agenda active by Cope.

B.J. BARROWCLOUGH: He doesn't wanna see you. And I said, "I'm not annoyed by that." If I'm actuality to assure you from coercing him into confessing, afresh absolutely you could beset him to assurance that allotment of paper. I said, "You let me aback there.” And his acknowledgment was, "Well, I'm aloof not gonna let you do that." 

Only afterwards Billy Cope accomplished the reenactment and final accounting acknowledgment was the accessible apostle accustomed to see him...

B.J. BARROWCLOUGH: And I said, "Why did you assurance this?" And he said, "They told me I would get the afterlife amends if I didn't assurance it." And truly—that acknowledgment didn't abruptness me at all.

Now, added than a year afterwards the murder, Barrowclough’s breed Phil Baity and Jim Morton were about to ascertain a alternation of awfully agnate crimes appropriate actuality in Billy’s adjacency and the DNA now declared the suspect. Would that advice the lath accept what they already knew? Billy didn't annihilate his daughter. Addition abroad did.

Part 4

The adventures of Billy Wayne Cope, at atomic to the attorneys apery him, seemed not abandoned untrue, but additionally unfairly obtained, abnormally in ablaze of advice that afflicted everything: 11 months afterwards Amanda’s murder, James Sanders was arrested and answerable with advance and robbery in four homes in or abreast Cope's neighborhood. And aback they activated Sanders’ DNA, badge credible it akin the berry and saliva begin on Amanda’s body.

Now, surely, apprehension advocate Phil Baity, badge would see Billy Cope had been cogent the accuracy in those 600 and some denials. He faced the bounded media with article that articulate like confidence.

PHIL BAITY: We are absolute blessed to see that an alternating defendant, an alternating perpetrator, has been articular by the police, and this is absolutely constant with the defense's appearance of the case.

But there was, anon enough, addition sobering actuality to drove any arising bravado:

PHIL BAITY: [laughter] I went from bliss to the base of anguish in—in about abnormal flat.

Phil Baity could hardly accept it. Sanders’ DNA, badge said, didn't change their apperception at all about Cope's answerability – but it did change their theory. The new one?  That it was a conspiracy, that Billy Cope absolutely arrive James Sanders into his abode that night for the purpose of allowance Sanders annihilate his own child. So, badge now added annihilation accuse to Sanders’ account of arrests and added cabal accuse for both Sanders and Cope.

JIM MORTON: My catechism to the prosecutor was, "What do you accept to prove a conspiracy?" And he said, "Oh—we've got Sanders' DNA on Amanda's leg, and we accept no affected acceptance into the house, so your guy allegation accept let him in." And that's what they have. 

“Ridiculous,” responded Baity’s partner, Jim Morton. For one thing, there was no affirmation those two men had anytime met.

JIM MORTON: The two austere problems that they accept are actuality able to affix Billy Cope with James Sanders, who they accept – accept answerable with conspiring together, and Sanders' record, the actuality that he's aloof not some 17 year old kid who happened by this house.

Well, that's true.  Sanders absolutely wasn't some kid who aloof happened by. He was 42. His bent career – breaking and entering, break-in and the like – went aback added than 20 years. 11 convictions.  As abundant time in bastille as out. In fact, he alike absolute briefly got affiliated while in prison.

Then, six weeks afore Amanda was murdered, Sanders was paroled, and a now-divorced Sanders abashed into a girlfriend's house, beneath than a bristles minute airing from the cope's house.

Back at the office, a little digging told the attorneys that the 200 lb. Sanders was arrested afterwards allegedly targeting women on a abomination spree, appropriate about the time Amanda was murdered and in abutting ambit of the Cope house. Two weeks afterwards Amanda’s death, Sanders’ saliva placed him a little added than a mile from the Cope house, breadth an 60-year-old woman was agape bottomward and slapped about and raped.

Four afar away, beneath than a anniversary later, a adolescent mother articular Sanders as the man who slipped into her second-floor accommodation and assaulted her while her three accouchement slept and heard nothing. Three canicule later, beneath than a milefrom the Cope house, yet addition changeable articular Sanders as the man who had attempted a animal assault.

And finally, six weeks afterwards Amanda’s murder, one mile from the Cope house, a woman told badge Sanders abashed her in the bathroom, tackled and abashed her. 

This is a animal pervert, that we can appearance is a—is a abandoned abode breaker who does this, breach in—

KEITH MORRISON: Aural that area.

JIM MORTON: Aural that area. Aural that time. 

In every case, badge belletrist showed sanders attacked at night, adumbrated no accomplice, and larboard no assurance of affected entry.

But if Cope conspired with Sanders, as the DA insisted, why didn't Sanders’ name appear up in any of those four confessions?

Cope adamantly insisted it was because he'd never met James Sanders, abandoned saw him for the aboriginal time aback they were both housed in the aforementioned jail, and alike afresh didn't apperceive who he was admitting Sanders seemed to apperceive him.

BILLY COPE: And he said, "Yeah, I lived in your neighborhood."  I said, "Do you apperceive who did it?" And he said, "Let's aloof say I apperceive you didn't do it."  That's all he would say.

First, their applicant confesses, afresh DNA reveals an absolutely altered attacker, and afresh Billy Cope is answerable with conspiring in the murder—helping a man annihilate his own daughter. But, in a case abounding of surprises, there was addition one from the prosecutor, which was, well, how would Baity put it?

PHIL BAITY: It's illegal. It's horrible. It's unethical. It's terrible. It should never happened. 

Part 5

For aegis advocate Phil Baity, the assay of James Sanders DNA on the murdered anatomy of Amanda Cope now afford new ablaze on a troublingevent aback at the absolute alpha of the case. It was addition belated acceptance from the prosecutor that assuredly brought it to Baity's attention, article that happened afore Sanders’ DNA was identified. This was the prosecutor's admission:

PHIL BAITY: It seems that a brace of the admiral may accept active your client's wife for complete and beatific her into the corpuscle to allocution to your applicant afterwards you were appointed his counsel, afterwards any apprehension to you.

KEITH MORRISON: And that is—

PHIL BAITY: That's a abuse of [laughter] two or three Constitutional rights. 

It was a ages afterwards Amanda’s annihilation and about an hour afterwards Baity's aboriginal bastille chat with Billy. In fact, said Baity, badge allegation accept been cat-and-mouse for him to get out of there afore they did it, that New Year’s Eve.

What did badge do?  They got Billy’s wife to catechism her bedmate on their behalf. 

KEITH MORRISON: The acceptation of that day, New Year's Eve?

Here at the Rock Hill Badge Department, detectives had aloof accustomed DNA after-effects which accepted that addition else's DNA – berry and saliva – was begin on Amanda’s body. It wasn't Billy Wayne Cope's, and they had no abstraction who it was.

But Phil Baity abstruse that's not what they told Mary Sue. In fact, they abreast her that the DNA on Amanda’s anatomy akin both her husband, and addition abroad who had helped to annihilate their daughter.

Only her ancillary of the chat was on the band ... at least, the allocation accustomed to the lawyers. But it was bright from her questions that Billy denied killing Amanda.

Mary Sue: If you're adage you didn't do it, afresh somebody abroad did. We allegation to acquisition who did.

By now, Cope's aegis aggregation had developed to accommodate his sister Susan, and ancestors acquaintance and adolescent abbey affiliate Amy Simmons.

Both women told the attorneys Mary Sue didn't appetite to go clandestine for police, but detectives showed her the abominable dissection pictures and Billy's confessions, and afresh they threatened her, said these women, that if she didn't advice them get addition acknowledgment from her husband, she would be sorry.

AMY SIMMONS: That's aback she said, “You don't understand, I can't win. They told me, if I do not abrasion a wire, and do not get Billy to acknowledge to me what he did to Amanda, they're gonna booty my kids consistently and they're gonna put me in jail.”

The aegis aggregation was shocked. This was the aboriginal they'd heard that badge may accept apprenticed Billy’s wife into cutting a wire.

PHIL BAITY: Did they acquaint her annihilation about what they were activity to do in the future, if they capital to  allocution to her again?

AMY SIMMONS: Not at that point.

But aback it was over, Mary Sue was convinced: she had abstruse to apprehend him able-bodied enough, she said, that she knew he was innocent.

AMY SIMMONS: She said, "Amy, I looked him beeline in the eyes, he denied aggregate to me." She said, "I don't accept that he did it."

Billy never saw his wife again. Six weeks afterwards that bastille visit, Mary Sue died. She had been blockage at Amy Simmons' house, breadth she'd gone to balance from a hysterectomy. Her afterlife while in Amy Simmons' affliction was as abstract as it was unexpected. And Billy begin alleviation in Amy’s friendship, in her abounding letters, and, as the months passed, their accord grew warm…close.

PHIL BAITY: I candidly accept that he was accepting absolute absorbed to her and he trusted her completely.

The accomplished adventure with detectives base up Mary Sue for a fifth acknowledgment fabricated aegis attorneys admiration – what was amiss with the four adventures Billy had already made?

PHIL BAITY: And we began acquainted appropriate abroad that the facts of the case did not bout the facts that were in the confessions.

KEITH MORRISON: What are some of the absolute problems?

JIM MORTON: One of the capital absolute problems is, in the video reenactment, Billy says that he jumped on his daughter's aback from abaft and abashed her with two calmly from behind.

CONFESSION TAPE: Our pathologist will affirm that she was abashed from the avant-garde with a appropriate duke on her neck.

And article else: in some of his confessions, Cope said he sexually assaulted his babe with a besom handle. The state's DNA lab activated the handle of every mop and besom they begin in the accomplished house, and not one activated absolute for anybody's DNA.

PHIL BAITY: Billy Cope could not accept done what he said he did on all of those adventures and not larboard one trace of himself in that room. He would accept had to accept been a apparition and that's acutely that's not what happened.

Then, cloudburst over dozens of abomination arena photos, the attorneys noticed affirmation that should accept been collected...and wasn't. Appropriate on Amanda’s bed they could see a purse. It belonged to Amanda’s mother. James Sanders was accustomed to advance women and abduct from them. Had the purse been rifled? Did Sanders handle it? Don't apperceive – It was never activated or taken into evidence.

But then, there was some added absorbing material.

JIM MORTON: Billy, if you'll notice, in his video reenactment, says, "Oh yes, I was accusation Amanda bottomward on the bed and, yeah, that's how her lip allegation accept been—busted was from that videogame.”   

JIM MORTON: Now, for them not to accept taken that affirmation in, to me, is absolutely astonishing.

In the badge affirmation room, the attorneys begin accoutrements of affirmation , credible "not examined." Best surprising? Not one fingerprint was calm in the absolute house.

PHIL BAITY: I mean, the badge didn't do their job because they acquainted they had their man. And then, all of a sudden, a ages afterwards they accomplished that –oops– the DNA doesn't match. And –oops—maybe somebody abroad was in the house. Well, it's too backward to go aback and accessory at the abomination arena at that point. It's—it's contaminated.

And there was one added badge affirmation that now, to the lawyers, aloof didn't assume to add up. The badge said James Sanders did not breach into Billy's house, no assurance of affected entry. But accept to this: aback admiral took Cope aback for that re-enactment, Billy said one of them jimmied the age-old aback aperture bound and easily, afterwards any key.

BILLY COPE: They said, “We don't accept a key.” And he said, “I'll be aback in a few minutes,” and he aloof absolved about the back. And the abutting affair I apperceive he's aperture the door.

More than ever, the aegis aggregation was assertive that Billy had been answerable with murdering Amanda based on a apocryphal confession, with no affirmation to aback it up.

But how could they possibly actuate a lath that a admiring ancestor would voluntarily acknowledge four times to killing his own babe if he didn't do it? Impossible.

Unless... There was one abode to go to acquisition out. 

Part 6

An air of coercion abashed in the amplitude amid aegis attorneys Phil Baity and Jim Morton. Dateline cameras were forth as they fabricated the connected cruise from South Carolina to Williamstown, Massachusetts, on their way to see the one actuality who ability be able to break this puzzle. Why would a man in his appropriate apperception acknowledge four times to killing his own babe if he didn't absolutely do it? Billy Cope's balloon was fast approaching. They bald to acknowledgment that question.

PHIL BAITY: It's gotta be acceptable and it's gotta be authentic and—and it's gotta altercate a lath that the state's capital affirmation is not reliable. 

The man they'd appear to accommodated is one of the arch experts on apocryphal confessions. His name is Saul Kassin. He agreed to accept to their angle – but that's all. Dr. Kassin had already fabricated it bright that, while hundreds of attorneys ask for his help, he selects absolute few... Abandoned the best accessible and absolute examples of apocryphal confession. So, as they met, he articulate a bleak warning: if their case wasn't almighty persuasive, he would not booty it.

SAUL KASSIN: You're gonna accept to affected a abundant accord of accepted faculty and intuition because best bodies don't accept that bodies acknowledge to crimes they didn't commit.

And yet, Kassin told them, he has authentic hundreds of cases in which defendants did aloof that –gave abundant confessions, aloof as Billy Cope had, that were afterwards authentic false.

The best famous, perhaps?  Bethink the Axial Park jogger case? It fabricated account aback in 1989, aback 5 men accepted – on band and in detail – that they attacked a changeable jogger. And then, as avant-garde pages shoutedthree years later, all bristles were absolved aback DNA articular the absolute assailant.

Kassin told the attorneys that array of agnate cases are on book all about the country.

But what about Billy Wayne Cope? His confession, his awfully abundant video bout of the  murder... Would an innocent man accept done this?

Kassin seemed best absorbed in the hours of analytic that preceded Billy’s confessions, during which he denied killing his babe – added than 650 bent denials.

SAUL KASSIN: It provides all the cues that a accomplished interrogator looks for as a analytic of innocence.

PHIL BAITY: Okay.

SAUL KASSIN: His—his denials are adamant, they're complete, they're—they're vigorous, they're insistent, they abide through four hours of claiming and accusation. 

A big clue for him, said Kassin, was the interrogator's affirmation that they – the badge – could acquaint whether or not Billy was lying:  A alarming attitude for a policeman to adopt, he said. Alarming and – according to the science – wrong.

SAUL KASSIN: Confessing to their abomination or authoritative article up from scratch... Cops cannot acquaint the difference. They're added assured in what they do, but they're not any added accurate. In fact, they're somewhat beneath authentic than the boilerplate academy student.  Because—

SAUL KASSIN: They appearance a bias.

As for the polygraph assay that preceded the confessions, Billy’s accessible acceptance in such tests, accumulated with his own gullibility, fabricated the result, said Kassin, unreliable.

SAUL KASSIN: Well, I can acquaint you that from the four hours of archetype I read. I could see he was gonna be accessible to apocryphal acknowledgment on the polygraph—

PHIL BAITY: Why would he—

SAUL KASSIN: He—five times he capital a polygraph. At one point, there's an barter breadth they asked him, "So, you accept acceptance in the polygraph?” and he said “Absolutely.” 

And, in those hours of Cope's audio-taped denials, said Dr. Kassin, he heard interrogators do article else.

SAUL KASSIN: They'd started aboriginal on, tinkering with the angle that it's accessible to do article like this and not apprehend it.  The berry was actuality buried for the achievability that we ability accept accurate affirmation that implicates you, admitting your abridgement of memory. 

With that berry in his exhausted and abashed mind, said Kassin, the four adventures that followed weren't so absolute surprising. Then, the attorneys told Kassin the adventure of Mary Sue's bastille appointment with Billy.

PHIL BAITY: They wire his wife, beatific her into the jail.    

Remember, Billy’s wife told a acquaintance badge accepted she get a fifth confession.

SAUL KASSIN: Every added effort, to get an added statement—is a acknowledgment about what we already don't have.

In added words, said Kassin, base up Mary Sue and sending her into bastille to catechism Billy was an acceptance that the badge didn't accept any of Billy’s beforehand confessions. Nor could they, said Kassin, because it was a archetypal apocryphal confession. The clincher: Not aloof claiming errors, but these huge red flags:

SAUL KASSIN: What he re-enacts, we apperceive didn't happen. So, by definition, this new co-defendant renders the accomplished acknowledgment false. The acknowledgment doesn't bout the crime.

Saul Kassin was hooked.  Aback Billy's attorneys absolved in the door, he had his doubts, but not anymore.

SAUL KASSIN: Aback a case comes forth of this nature, I ability this alpha point of abuse over the facts of the case and this is one of them.

With Kassin on board, conceivably Billy Cope had a adventitious afterwards all.

PHIL BAITY: Couldn't ask for a bigger reaction. Had a abundant meeting. Abundant meeting.

Probably a acceptable affair to flavor the day because, aback in South Carolina, a abruptness was in store.

Part 7

No advocate would anytime get affluent apery a man as poor and allegedly bedevilled as Billy Wayne Cope. But he'd absolutely appointment a roller coaster of emotions,  and, as they would anon see, some absolute big surprises.

Jim Morton had aloof alternating to South Carolina with the acceptable account that a arch apocryphal acknowledgment able would booty Billy Wayne Cope's case. It had been three years aback Amanda’s murder. His wife Mary Sue was asleep afterwards surgery, and Billy Cope was about to get an absurd choice: Involving his two absolute daughters, now 14 and 10.

JIM MORTON: We've got to adjudge afore Monday what we're activity to do here.

The decision? The accompaniment had abashed to end Billy’s rights as a ancestor to his absolute daughters. Should he action it in court?  He would about absolutely lose... But, conceivably worse, he'd accept to reveal, in that accessible courtroom, whatever action he ability afterwards use in his annihilation trial.

PHIL BAITY: We're gonna accept to appearance them our hand. You know? We're gonna go in there and basically try the bent case in ancestors court.

Unless Billy absitively to accord in and accord up consistently his affirmation to be Kyla and Jessica’s acknowledged father.

PHIL BAITY: And I apperceive that's a—that's a abhorrent best for you to make. Billy, you're not accomplishing yourself any acceptable by aggravating this case in ancestors court. You're aloof affliction yourself.

Billy advised the altercation for a moment, and abandoned it out of hand.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: I fabricated a affiance to my girls.  And I—I feel like if—if I done that I'd be breaking that promise. That's the way it's activity to accessory to me. And it's the way it's activity to accessory to them.   

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In added words, said Billy, to appearance his daughters that he admired them, he would embrace a absolute chancy acknowledged strategy, jeopardizing his affairs of actuality acquitted of murder...just as his attorneys feared.

Sure enough, as the ancestors cloister audition began, one of the bent prosecutors slid into a aback row to watch and accept to Billy’s appeal. Billy got artlessly this: a glimpse of Jessica and Kyla. Not in person, apperception you – the girls remained in addition room, their affidavit projected on a accurate bank of the courtroom. But, he heard the recording made  the aftermost time he was able to allege to them, on the buzz three years earlier.

BILLY COPE: Hey.

KYLA COPE: Hey, Daddy.

BILLY COPE: I adulation you.

KYLA COPE: I adulation you too. [crying]

BILLY COPE: I adulation you so much.

KYLA COPE: I adulation you too.

BILLY COPE: Are you okay?

KYLA COPE: Yes, sir.

For Billy, it was artlessly too abundant – and afresh he abstruse that his adulation for them was no best returned. Aback that aftermost buzz call, the girls had been credible the video of Billy’s confession, had been told about the case adjoin him.

JIM MORTON: We accept able him for the worse. We accept able for Kyla and Jessica cogent the adjudicator that they did not appetite to be about him, that they were abashed of him.

And cipher was abashed aback Billy’s daughters told the cloister they did not ambition to accept annihilation to do with their father, and they were taken abroad from him forever.

Billy's attorneys were depressed. The chancy acknowledged move had put them at a disadvantage in barter for, it angry out, annihilation good. And then? Well, bad account generally comes in batches. But this? With this, the basal fell out.

It was a simple buzz call. But, if the addition was cogent the truth, afresh the aegis attorneys had been played for fools all along.

AMY SIMMONS: I had to do the appropriate affair about and ethically, and so, I let both the aegis and the detective in the case in the case apperceive that I had accustomed the letter.

The addition was Amy Simmons, that ancestors acquaintance who'd nursed Billy’s wife Mary Sue the night she died. The one who'd kept Billy activity with her letters. Amy had additionally been accessory affairs of Billy’s acknowledged aegis aggregation and was a key supporter. She knew the accomplished case, and now, as Billy’s annihilation balloon was approaching, he'd allegedly accepted afresh to Amy Simmons.

AMY SIMMONS: I was aloof absolute shocked. Because, normally, I get belletrist that allocution about his week, what he's done, who's been there to visit. And, this time, the letter basically said that he had been instructed by God to acquaint me what he had done to Amanda.

Here's allotment of the letter addressed to Amy Simmons.

Dear Amy, God told me to acquaint you that I asleep Amanda. Please absolve me. God is activity to abolish his servant. I aloof acquainted you should know. Please don't stop writing. I accept to get on with my life.       

AMY SIMMONS: It's absolute disturbing. It brings up—makes you accept added thoughts about what you've believed in. Things that bodies accept told you.  And—it—it's aloof absolute concerning. It's absolute confusing.

Confusing is the atomic of it. They'd been assertive of his innocence; now it seemed bright he was guilty. And so they rushed to see Billy in jail, breadth he insisted he didn't address any such letter, not ever, and absolutely did not acknowledge to Amy Simmons. It was, to say the least, an abominable mess.  Who could accept annihilation anymore?

PHIL BAITY: It is a achievability – our applicant could accept a breach personality. And that could—he could be, you know, flipping out on us. I don't know.

JIM MORTON: Why did he not acquaint us? I mean, we aloof met with him the day afore that day. Afresh he goes and writes a letter to a—his friend?  I aloof don't accept it.

JIM MORTON: I'm not a psychologist.  But if he's a breach personality, he's got a acceptable one.

PHIL BAITY: Oh, he does.  He got us fooled.

Well, addition was bluffing them.  But was it Billy? Or was it addition else?

Part 8

The letter was bad – added than bad, it was a nightmare. Because this time, Billy’s acknowledgment appeared to be absolutely what he intended. Billy Cope's aegis adjoin the allegation that he murdered his babe Amanda hinged on the affirmation that his adventures to badge were false. But now Amy Simmons was adage she'd accustomed this letter from him saying, "God told me to acquaint you I asleep Amanda."

JIM MORTON: This address came aback from the accompaniment law administration division, which adumbrated that their able believes that Billy was the author.

So the letter would about absolutely annihilate their apocryphal acknowledgment defense.

JIM MORTON: It aloof sucks all the wind out of you. Our case, I think, went from accepting a absolute acceptable attempt at acceptable to apparently now a absolute acceptable attempt at losing.

They caked over that letter, chat for awkward word. In fact, was it too awkward to be real? Those words "I asleep Amanda," for example, were followed by the blah pleasantry, "How is Brian and Jamie" – Amy Simmons’ sons. The best the attorneys looked, the added abiding they acquainted – the letter was fake. It was an adept forgery. Had to be.

KEITH MORRISON: Could it be that you appetite to accept in his chastity so abundant that you accustomed yourself to be fooled, and he – a religious man who doesn't appetite to go to hell – bald to acknowledge to somebody and, therefore, chose his friend, Amy?

PHIL BAITY: I apprehension Billy Cope was guilty. And the affirmation in Billy Cope's assertive me otherwise.  And those belletrist are a bleep on the awning to me.  They—I'm abiding they're forgeries.

Letters?  Plural? Oh yes. Amy said she got addition analytical letter from Billy six months earlier...in that one, Billy didn't absolutely confess, but, well, here's a quote:  "I allegation to acquaint you what I absolutely did to Amanda." That time, the attorneys doubtable some bastille antic was at assignment – the letter seemed an accessible and ailing complete forgery. But this new one was different.

So important that Billy’s aegis aggregation rushed to Mickey Dawson, a 25-year adept autography analyst, the aforementioned man who created the state's own autography lab. They gave him Xerox copies of the belletrist and asked him – are those absolute or fake?

No question, Dawson said, the aboriginal letter Amy got was an accessible fake...but this new confession?            

MICKEY DAWSON: As a certificate examiner, I’ve got to verify my affirmation afore I footfall out and accord you an opinion.

The analyst was blunt. The Xerox archetype showed hallmarks of authenticity, maybe he'd acquisition article abroad aback he advised the aboriginal letter... But he couldn't anxiety it a forgery.  Not yet. Time was the adversary now, with the balloon was weeks away. If that letter was real, they were done.

Remember, Amy Simmons was a ancestors friend. Billy's wife backward with her, died in her house. She was a affiliate of Billy’s aegis team; she abounding acknowledged action sessions.

But aegis investigator Pete Skidmore was alpha to accept his doubts about Amy’s loyalty, so he paid her a appointment and came aback with account that beatific the blow of them reeling.

PETE SKIDMORE: Our babe is the leak.

PHIL BAITY: Now, why do you say that?

PETE SKIDMORE: She told me.

Amy Simmons accepted that at the absolute aforementioned time she'd been accessory the accustomed affairs of the aegis team, she'd additionally been giving advice to the prosecutor.

PHIL BAITY: We're talking to her, she's gonna be on our side. If she's talking to them, gonna be on their side. 

Was Amy Simmons a spy for the prosecution, who'd befriended Billy abandoned to abandon him?

PHIL BAITY: Afore we hog tie and bandy our applicant to the wolves, why in the hell is she autograph him all the time?

Had Amy somehow invented this new confession? No one had acceptance to as abundant accounting absolute from Billy Cope as she did, and there was no agnosticism Billy addressed the envelopes she angry in.

PHIL BAITY: So how do Billy’s envelopes accommodate these forgeries, except that Amy puts 'em in there. I beggarly it's the abandoned account that—that is simple abundant to be true.

Besides, the blazon of cardboard the belletrist were accounting on wasn't alike accessible to inmates at that prison.

Jim Morton: We started accomplishing some assay about Amy Simmons. We begin out that she had been abeyant from her job as a abettor for forgeries that she had committed while in her application at a nursing home.

Plus, cloister annal showed Amy had pleaded accusable in addition canton to obstruction of amends andobtaining drugs by apocryphal pretense. 

She'd been beneath assay aback a nursing home accommodating beneath her affliction died of credible insulin overdoses. Amy Simmons was in agitation with the law, and now she was allowance the prosecution. Was there some connection?  So went the aegis team's speculation... 

But then, with the balloon aloof canicule away, autography able Mickey Dawson told the aegis aggregation that he could not affirm the "I asleep Amanda "letter was a forgery. He aloof didn't know.

RIXIE DUNN, PARALEGAL: We were panicked.

MICHAEL SMITH AND RIXIE DUNN WERE MEMBERS OF THE DEFENSE TEAM.

KEITH MORRISON: You see that letter.  Your guy thinks it's real.  Did you anticipate it was real?

MICHAEL SMITH: No, I—I don't anticipate any of us anytime apprehension it was real.  The—the catechism was – how did addition abroad do this?

They stared at the behind letter. If Amy Simmons bogus the acknowledgment letter, as they suspected, how did she do it? What was it that looked amiss about this thing?

MICHAEL SMITH: We all noticed that some of the accent in this letter was—was strange. The sentences didn't assume to breeze together.

RIXIE DUNN: We had absitively that we apparently bald to apprehend the blow of Billy's letters. So, we started readin' through.  And—certain phrases we apprehension articulate familiar. And afresh we started comparin' em. 

They were abashed to ascertain exact phrases from the acknowledgment letter were broadcast throughout the dozens of belletrist Billy had accounting Amy, chat for word...and every time they begin a match, they accent it.     

MICHAEL SMITH: By the time we finished, the absolute acknowledgment letter was highlighted.

RIXIE DUNN: She had alloyed assertive phrases calm that shouldn't accept been together. So, that's why it articulate aberrant –

It was a awe-inspiring discovery... A bogus so acceptable it bamboozled one of the best autography analysts. Absolutely possibly, this was the advance Billy Cope's aegis abominably needed.

MICHAEL SMITH: I declared Rixie.  It was—

RIXIE DUNN: Yeah.

MICHAEL SMITH: —probably midnight. I declared Jim, Phil. We declared everyone. It—it  was unbelievable. 

Armed with that new analysis, Phil Baity went afresh to the autography expert...and this time?

PHIL BAITY: He said, “I anticipate we may be authoritative history here.” He acutely said that both belletrist were forgeries.

But, as the cloister got accessible to try the case of the annihilation of Amanda Cope, addition letter was authoritative its way through the system. There was a added defendant, bethink – the man whose DNA was begin on Amanda’s anatomy – James Sanders.

And now Mr. Sanders had accounting a letter. too.

Part 9

It was an omen, a acceptable one. Or it absolutely seemed like it. It accustomed fourweeks afore the annihilation balloon of Billy Wayne Cope. Addition letter, this one from Billy’s declared abettor and abettor in Amanda’s murder, the man who would go on balloon with him. James Sanders had accounting to the prosecutor. The letter was a complaint.

JIM MORTON: James Sanders, to this prosecutor, said, "Why are you aggravating me with this man Cope? I don't alike apperceive a Cope.”

This letter was a gift. Sanders had never met Billy Cope...had never already alike apparent him? Remember, prosecutors were activity to affirmation that Billy Cope arrive Sanders into his abode for the purpose of assaulting Amanda, and the two of them completed that abhorrent accomplishment together. But if Sanders had never met Billy Cope, afresh how could Billy accept conspired with Sanders? The aegis attorneys rejoiced; this letter could help. A lot.

And aloof in time – because three years afterwards 12-year-old Amanda Cope was atrociously asleep in her own bed, her ancestor and James Sanders went on balloon together, accused of conspiring to sexually advance and annihilation her.

Finally it was time for a prosecution, and, from day one of the trial, it was bright that James Sanders, the DNA-indentified attacker, was a bit amateur in a adventure that was mostly about his declared co-conspirator, Billy Cope.

WILLIE THOMPSON: Billy Cope served up his babe for his and James Sanders' own abnormal pleasures and took her life.

Circumstantial evidence, assured the prosecutor, would announce Cope opened his home to James Sanders and accustomed his babe to be assaulted. 

WILLIE THOMPSON: There's absolute affirmation as to anniversary of them, confession, DNA—obviously no one bankrupt in. Addition had to be let in.

Billy Cope himself, said the prosecution, provided the clues that acicular to guilt, starting with that weirdly calm 911 call.

ROCK HILL POLICE DEPARTMENT: "You allegation medical?"

BILLY COPE: "Yeah, my daughter's dead, she's algid as a cucumber."

WILLIE THOMPSON: And it's from Billy Cope. He's about absolutely bald of emotion. 

It was strange, according to the aboriginal responders. Cope, they testified, was allurement the array of questions a accusable man would ask.

KEVIN JONES, FIRST RESPONDER: At one point, Mr. Cope flagged me down. And he—he asked me if annihilation bad was gonna appear to him with his babe bein' asleep in the house. 

KEVIN BRACKETT, D.A.: How was he acting?  How was he behaving? 

WILLIAM BURRISS, DETECTIVE: He wasn't emotionally agitated or annihilation like that.

To accentuate the badge approach that Cope opened his home to Sanders, added than one investigator took the angle to address there was no assurance anywhere of affected entry.

JERRY WALDROP, INVESTIGATOR: There was no signs of anybody entering any of the windows of this abode at all.

Each of the lath said Cope offered a accessible account for what ability accept acquired his daughter's death. He told them he begin the glassy trim of her admired complete askance annular her neck, as if she'd deadened by accident. But one look, said the investigators, fabricated it accessible – didn't happen.

JERRY WALDROP: She was not abashed by that – selvedge. She was—she died as a aftereffect of beheading and beating. 

The state's pathologist agreed. He said Amanda was acceptable deadened from the back, with someone's bald hands. Aloof the way Billy showed in his reenactment. And he said the animal advance injuries could calmly accept been acquired by the besom mentioned in some of cope's confessions.

And the doctor saw article else.

DR. MAYNARD: The accouterment was—was sorta placed on the anatomy added than absolutely dressed by her. The bra was not hooked, but aloof laid – over the body.

Taken together, said the investigators, the bruised adventure about the blanket, the abridgement of affirmation for a break-in, the pathologist's observations, looked like cope did it and afresh staged the accomplished affair in an accomplishment to assure himself.

The adventures – four of them—came one afterwards the other, as anon as Detective Mike Baker abreast Cope he bootless the absolute polygraph he'd begged for.

KEVIN BRACKETT: His acknowledgment was—he wasn't abashed and showed no emotion?

DR. BAKER: That's correct. No—no affect whatsoever. And he was—he was not surprised.      

Did Mr. Cope anytime ask for an advocate during this absolute aboriginal action throughout the day?

CAPT. CHARLES T. CABANISS: No, sir.  He did not.

KEVIN BRACKETT: Did he anytime advance that he admired to abide silent?

CAPT. CHARLES T. CABANISS: No, sir.  Absolutely the contrary.

The lath listened to capacity of Cope's four confessions, prosecutor Brackett apprehend aloud.

KEVIN BRACKETT: I started beheading her with my hands. Amanda was affairs at my calmly and I let go and started hitting her in the head. Afresh I went aback to beheading her. Afresh she went limp.

That one video band acknowledgment played for a arranged attorneys silenced by the  abominable details.

And then, as if in apprehension of a affirmation that Billy’s adventures were false, the prosecutor produced that amazing letter addressed to Amy Simmons, the one she said she'd accustomed added than two years afterwards those antecedent confessions.

KEVIN BRACKETT: “Dear Amy, God told me to acquaint you that I asleep Amanda...”

Amy Simmons, no best Billy’s acquaintance and pen pal, testified for the prosecution. 

AMY SIMMONS: How did he assurance this letter? Accumulate the acceptance always, Billy Tinker Cope.

The state's certificate examiner testified that the letter absolutely looked absolute to him.

SCOTT WORSHAM: This is my assessment that—Billy Wayne Cope authored this handwriting.

Six canicule of testimony, 21 assemblage to affirm that Billy Wayne Cope allegation absolutely accept asleep his babe Amanda. The absolute antagonist – as articular by DNA – co-defendant James Sanders? He was all but ignored...

PHIL BAITY: They had done annihilation to try to captive him. The acknowledgment of the DNA is about in passing, parenthetically,: "Oh, yeah, James Sanders' DNA is on there." 

But had the state's case abiding the jury? It abiding looked like it.

PHIL BAITY: We're bad off, I mean, the lath thinks our applicant did it.

They started arrant during Billy's confessions. That hurt. 

But adhere on – remember, the aegis was activity to breach that case case apart. But trials, of course, comedy according to austere rules. And the catechism was…what would the lath hear?

Part 10

An backbreaking September sun thickened the complete of calefaction about the courthouse in York County, South Carolina. Inside, in the bogus cool, Billy Wayne Cope's aegis aggregation struggled to explain a difficult idea: that a ancestor who accepted four times to killing his babe didn't absolutely do it.

PHIL BAITY: Well, I submit, ladies and gentlemen, we're activity to be sitting actuality for the abutting two weeks artlessly because the Rock Hill badge administration fabricated a mistake.

He wouldn't be actuality on trial, said advocate Phil Baity, if Cope's abode had been apple-pie and tidy. if he'd reacted to his daughter's afterlife the way badge apprehension he should have, Billy Cope would be accessory the annihilation balloon artlessly as afflicted dad, not a co-defendant. And in their rush, said Baity, they skipped acute badge work.

PHIL BAITY: They didn't bother fingerprinting the house.

On the stand, the aegis took on the accompaniment investigator.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY SMITH: Did you accessory to see if he had any claret on his clothing?

WILLIAM BURRISS: I didn't.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY SMITH: Did you accessory for any scratches or bruises or any added marks that may accept been on him?

WILLIAM BURRISS: Like I said, I didn't appraise him.

And, already they got those confessions, said the defense, the badge didn't bother to see whether affirmation at the arena akin the belief Billy told. The video bold story, for example: in one of his confessions, Billy said he acclimated the handheld bold to exhausted Amanda, which would accept fabricated it a annihilation weapon. And yet?

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MR.SMITH: You did not aggregate the video bold that Mr. Cope purports to use on Amanda's face?

MR. GARDNER: No, sir. I assuredly apparent the video bold a brace canicule ago in one of these photographs and afresh in a video. And that's the aboriginal time I apparent it.

Then there was the awkward business of Amanda’s abrasion pattern. In all his confessions, Billy said he attacked Amanda from the back, beheading her with both hands. But aegis pathologist Clay Nichols said the state's own dissection acutely showed Amanda was attacked from the front, not the back. And with one hand, not two, as the state's pathologist had testified.

DR. CLAY NICHOLS: So it appears, to me, to be a one-handed strangulation.

PHIL BAITY: Doctor, was there any affirmation of an advance from the rear of this-- on this-- this poor adolescent lady?

DR. CLAY NICHOLS: No, in fact.

Nor was she sexually attacked with any besom handle, Dr. Nichols said.

DR. CLAY NICHOLS: There's no affirmation that a besom was used. 

And afresh there was affair of how James Sanders got into the abode to annihilate Amanda. Detectives testified there was no assurance of affected entry. And yet, a lock able for the aegis told jurors that, alike aback the Cope abode was bound up tight, it could calmly be entered by artlessly application a acclaim agenda in the door.

Still, there was thatdamning"I asleep Amanda" letter that ancestors acquaintance Amy Simmons claimed she accustomed connected afterwards the murder. Now in court, the aegis set out to appearance that the letter was a forgery...and that Amy, Billy’s above friend, was the forger. Advocate Baity got Amy to accept she had biased accommodating annal in her job as a nurse.

PHIL BAITY: You're additionally adverse bent charges, isn't that correct?

AMY SIMMONS: They're there. I accept all the aplomb that I won't accept a problem.

She insisted, though, that didn't beggarly she bogus a acknowledgment letter.

PHIL BAITY: I appetite to accord you an befalling to acquaint the lath that you bogus that letter.

AMY SIMMONS: That is absolutely ludicrous.

As lights dimmed, advocate Baity gave Amy a highlighter, and, aback her affidavit was done, about every chat in the declared new acknowledgment letter was yellowed, as Billy’s above acquaintance agreed that those absolute phrases existed already in a dozen added belletrist Billy had accounting her. Which is why, said the aegis bogus expert...

MARVIN H. DAWSON JR.: It is best apparently a simulation. Both abstracts are simulations.

…which were written, said the cardboard vendors who advocate Baity declared to the stand, on cardboard not alike accessible to prisoners like Billy Cope.

Still, questions remained. If Billy Cope's adventures were false, if he was innocent, why did he abort the polygraph? Well, in fact, said the defense, he didn't. The aegis polygraph able who advised the raw assay abstracts from blemish said the assay brand was not aloof a little amiss – it was 180 degrees wrong.

PHIL BAITY: Did Mr. Cope's achievement on this assay announce bamboozlement or truthfulness?

DR. CHARLES HONTS: It adumbrated artlessness to me. He should accept been told he anesthetized it.

So it wasn't Billy Cope who lied, said the defense, but  the badge – and added than once.

Proof of that? Here's the detective who secretly active Billy Cope's wife Mary Sue a ages afterwards the abomination and beatific her into the bastille to catechism him, gluttonous yet addition confession.

DETECTIVE BLACKWELDER: Did I acquaint Mary Sue that their dad's DNA had been begin on her babe Amanda?

Yes, the detective admitted: admitting she knew altogether able-bodied it was not Billy’s DNA they had begin on Amanda’s body, she told Billy’s wife it was.

DETECTIVE BLACKWELDER: And I said yes....so I angle corrected.

But the big question, by far the best important, was this: Why would any admiring ancestor accept to killing his adolescent if he didn't absolutely do it?

Remember Saul Kassin, that apocryphal acknowledgment researcher? Now he took the stand, bent to altercate the lath that Billy Cope's case is a archetypal archetype of a apocryphal confession.

SAUL KASSIN: Aloof like that in the contempo Axial Park jogger case –

DA: Objection!

Judge: Move on.

With that, Dr. Kassin was cut short.The adjudicator disqualified best of his affidavit inadmissible. He wouldn't acquiesce him to accord specific examples of absolute apocryphal confessions...confessions which already beatific innocent bodies to prison. Why? 

Here's the judge's reasoning; it's a quote:

I don't appetite this lath put in abhorrence that they are activity to accept to alive the blow of their lives if they put an innocent man in bastille because the joggers and all this added actuality happened.

KEITH MORRISON: So, what was left?  Well, the aegis still had this letter, the one from Sanders in which he says he never already in his activity saw Billy Cope and couldn't accept actuality accustomed with him.

So, if Cope had never met Sanders, how was it accessible for Cope to accept conspired with Sanders to annihilate Amanda? Sander's letter was a absolute advance on what badge detective Cabiniss agreed was an acceptance on his allotment that Cope had to be involved.

ATTORNEY MORTON: But, you accept no affirmation to articulation them together, accurate or ability of anniversary added or accord or annihilation like that?

CAPT. CABINISS: No, sir.

Now would be the time to appearance the lath Sander's letter, adage he'd never met Billy Cope. But the adjudicator disqualified Sander's letter inadmissible. Nor would the lath apprehend a chat about James Sander's arrest in those four added home invasions – none with any assurance of affected acceptance – appropriate about the time aback Amanda was murdered.

PHIL BAITY:  Now, you know, if the lath knew that then, they wouldn't allegation to apprehend anymore, added than the DNA. His DNA is on the body. They would apperceive absolutely why. But they don't apperceive that. And as far as they apperceive he's a, you know, an abettor pastor somewhere. 

The rulings affected a chancy decision. Billy Cope would booty the stand. He could win the case....or lose it.

BILLY COPE: I best her up and I captivated her. And I said, "Oh, Amanda." 

He explained his abridgement of agitation in that 911 call.

BILLY COPE: But I knew from accomplished acquaintance that you had to be absolute calm aback you allocution to 911.  I acclimated to assignment for the Red Cross. 

He explained how the babble from hisbreathing apparatus and the addled allowance admirers kept him from audition any complete from Amanda’s room.

BILLY COPE: I didn't apperceive that somebody had been in my home. 

He told the lath he begged for a polygraph because he was so assured it would prove his 600 and some denials were true. But aback they told him he'd failed...

BILLY COPE: He said I was a liar. I couldn't anticipate straight. I cracked. I said, "I can't handle no more.” 

The capacity for all his confessions? Cope claimed he got them from the men analytic him about the murder.

BILLY COPE: That's what I wrote. I wrote the way they told me that it had happened.    

JIM MORTON: Why did you do that?

BILLY COPE: Because I was scared. I was—I didn't apperceive what abroad to do.    

And then, cope addressed the man whose DNA was begin on his daughter's body.

BILLY WAYNE COPE: The Bible says, "Love thy neighbor.” And adulation your enemies and do acceptable to 'em. And, so advice me God, I've tried. But I abhorrence him. I abhorrence him so bad I can't angle it. 

Would the lath accept him? The apocryphal acknowledgment aegis was a adamantine sell. They'd apperceive anon enough.

Part 11

Here in a South Carolina courtroom, aloof a few anxiety bottomward the aegis table from Billy Wayne Cope, sat a phantom: a man who seemed, at times, about arresting in the case at all. James Sanders had been answerable as Cope's co-conspirator.

But, afterwards weeks of testimony, James Sanders was stilla mystery, at atomic to the jury. Not a distinct attestant testified on his behalf. He accurate not a chat in cloister and did not try to casting the accusation for Amanda’s afterlife on anyone – let abandoned Billy Cope. And, aback they took the stand, detectives accepted they had no affirmation to appearance that Cope and Sanders alike knew anniversary other. But, by the time closing arguments formed around, the prosecutor said he didn't accept to prove that the two had met anniversary other.

KEVIN BRACKETT: All I accept to do is amuse anniversary of you that anniversary one of them is guilty. And if they were both guilty, afresh they had to do it together.

And how could the lath apperceive Cope was guilty? For a start, his calm address on that 911 call, said prosecutor Brackett.

KEVIN BRACKETT: You don't apprehend him goin', "Oh my God! Please! Please! Hurry! Bring somebody to advice her!” That's what a ancestor would say, if he could alike get that abundant out.

So, what should the lath anticipate of Cope's 600 and some denials, all recorded by police? Aloof drivel, said the prosecutor. 

KEVIN BRACKETT: This was a man who knew she'd been asleep for some aeon of time and had been workin' on his story, cleanin' up the situation, stagin' the abomination scene, acclimation it up so that at 6:00 aback the anxiety went off, he could bawl out and deathwatch his kids up and alpha his show.

But the adventures that came later? Those, he said, had to be true.

KEVIN BRACKETT: No man could say this stuff, ladies and gentlemen, no man could say this. If you didn't do this, you would never accept to it. 

All the lath bald to know, said the prosecutor, could be begin in James Sander's DNA and Billy Cope's confessions.

KEVIN BRACKETT: These men brutalized and aching that child. They did abominable things to her. Today's the day they pay. Thank you.

It was able stuff. Brackett caked out his contemptuousness on Billy Cope's claims and on aegis advocate Jim Morton’s closing. Morton had claimed that the badge drew a dupe man into a apocryphal acknowledgment by cogent him...

JIM MORTON: We accept evidence. We accept pictures. We accept machines that don't lie. And he began to agnosticism his own core, his own self. 

The badge jumped to abstracts far too soon, said Morton, and took advantage of a believing man who aloof capital to help.

JIM MORTON: You abet with 'em. Every footfall of the way, you assert on demography a polygraph. Is that somebody who's tryin' to hide? Is that addition who is aggravating to date the scene?

So why did he confess? 

JIM MORTON: He gave up. There was annihilation that Billy Cope could do. He was helpless. He was destroyed.  

And now the accommodation belonged to the jury.

JUDGE HAYNES: You may captive one and absolve the other, or you may absolve both, or you may captive both.

Billy Cope's attorneys and supporters didn't accept connected to wait. It took a admirable absolute of bristles hours for the lath to acquisition both Cope and Sanders accusable of all charges. The book followed afterwards added ado: activity afterwards acquittal for both.

For police, of course, the aftereffect was a absolution of aggregate they had done. But aback we asked for interviews to get their ancillary of the story, we were afresh and afresh angry down. Alike the prosecutor, Kevin Brackett, afterwards abounding requests, he assuredly agreed to an account – and afresh cancelled.

We organized an account with the lath to apprentice how they evaluated the case. And aback they were assembled, Prosecutor Brackett angry up with his own video camera and advisedthe lath not to allege unless he was present to accept what they said. We annulled the interview.

But, months afterwards the trial, our connected efforts netted two jurors who agreed to allege with Dateline out of the attendance of the prosecutor.

SAMANTHA THOMAS: I alike dreamed about this case.  It was terrible.

Samantha Thomas was an alternating on the jury, but heard all the testimony.

BILL LEFLER:  I didn't appetite to sit on that jury. I had no admiration to, but I acquainted like it was my duty.  

Bill Lefler, however, took allotment in the vote, and acerb accustomed of the adjudication adjoin Billy Cope. But,  he told us he was acutely apprehensive of us, so he brought to our account prosecutor Brackett's video camera to almanac what was said.

BILL LEFLER: Maybe I'm paranoid. You guys accept the final cut, and you could – that camera could accomplish me say annihilation it wants to say. 

It was bright the lath had no trouble, though, dupe Billy Cope's confessions.

KEITH MORRISON: Not one confession, not alike two, not alike three, four confessions. How important was that to you?

BILL LEFLER: Extremely important.

KEITH MORRISON: How could a man acknowledge to killing his own babe if he didn't absolutely do it? 

BILL LEFLER: That was my thought, yes sir. I mean, as a parent, had I not done it, you couldn'ta exhausted that acknowledgment outta me.

KEITH MORRISON: What would you apprehend him to do in cloister if you were falsely accused?

BILL LEFLER: I don't affliction to acknowledgment that question. 

SAMANTHA THOMAS: I can accept maybe one time in, you know, a moment of grief, thinkin' that it ability accept been his accountability because he didn't stop it. But confessing four times, anniversary time sayin' that he did it, there's—there's no way to get abroad from that.

KEITH MORRISON: The case appropriate that Billy Wayne Cope let James Sanders in. Did they appearance you any affirmation of that affiliation amid the two?

BILL LEFLER: No.

KEITH MORRISON: Would you accept admired to accept apparent affirmation of that?

BILL LEFLER: No.

We told these jurors what they didn't apprehend at the trial: James Sanders’ bent past.

KEITH MORRISON: So if you knew that he had added robbery and animal assaults in the neighborhood, which he was answerable with appropriate about the aforementioned time, would that—

BILL LEFLER: No.

Bill Lefler says the absolute lath was assertive they knew abundant to authority both Cope and Sanders amenable for Amanda’s murder. Cope helped Sanders annihilate her, they decided. Their bigger worry? That somehow the two ability still go free.

KEITH MORRISON: Was there any affair about an appeal?  And what aftereffect it may accept for you association to allocution to the media?

BILL LEFLER: Yes.

KEITH MORRISON: Why?

BILL LEFLER: I don't appetite to do annihilation that would acquiesce Billy Wayne or Sanders aback on the street. I would never appetite to say annihilation that—that would accord him account for an address that—that would get him out.  Either one of them.  

But, in a case already riddled with twists and surprises, this one isn't' over.

Part 12

The months accept developed into years now aback the lath beatific Billy Wayne Cope off to bastille for life. Addition ancestors is aggravating to accomplish do in that little abandoned abode on Affluent Street. Best weeks, Billy talks to one of his attorneys on the telephone, attorneys apparitional by the difficult canicule of that trial.

JIM MORTON: I've never acquainted in avant-garde of a lath like we never had their absorption at all. They would not accessory at us aback we argued. They would not accessory at us aback we interviewed or cantankerous advised assemblage in avant-garde of them. 

And Morton is, it turns out, not alone. Apocryphal acknowledgment able Saul Kassin has accounting about, and now teaches his acceptance about, the Cope case as a bright archetype of what he believesan innocent actuality beneath accent can sometimes be induced to say.

KEITH MORRISON: Members of that lath told us, "We artlessly cannot believe…if I am a father, I'm not gonna acknowledge to killing my daughter.”

DR. KASSIN: I'm apologetic to agitate your apple but it happens. And those apocryphal adventures that accept happened aloof like that are on the books. It's not a theory. It's a fact. 

Dr. Kassin has his own abjure – that, on the stand, he was cut off afore he had a adventitious to explain all that to the jury.

DR. KASSIN: Innocent bodies are cooperative. They abandon their appropriate to silence. They abandon their appropriate to counsel. They accede to booty lie detector tests, so innocent bodies put themselves agreeably and voluntarily at accident because they don't accept they accept annihilation to abhorrence or annihilation to hide.

As for James Sanders, Billy’s co-defendant?

After the trial, he pleaded accusable to two of the four break-ins and assaults for which he'd been arrested abreast the Cope home, aloof afterwards Amanda’s murder. In one of those, Cope's attorneys believed Sanders acclimated aloof the aforementioned MO as the advance on Amanda.

KEITH MORRISON: How abominably did it aching you that they were able to accumulate that out?

JIM MORTON: It destroyed us.

And Amy Simmons, Billy’s acquaintance angry case witness? She pleaded accusable to obstruction of amends and biologic accuse that arose from her assignment at a nursing home. She was bedevilled to probation, no bastille time. And the assay into the afterlife of a accommodating in her affliction was agilely alone afterwards charges...

But is Billy Cope's case assuredly all over?

No, it isn't. On the contrary, it has admiring some of the nation’s best awful admired teams of aegis attorneys, all bent to prove Cope's innocence.

Steve Drizin is administrator of the acclaimed Center for Blameworthy Aesthetics at Northwestern University. The Cope case? Drizin believes it's a archetypal blameworthy conviction.

STEVE DRIZIN: I apperceive of abandoned one added case in the country breadth DNA affirmation surfaces. It identifies a specific perpetrator—and there's no articulation amid the man they answerable and the man whose DNA they found—where prosecutors haven't absolved the charges. 

Noted appellate advocate David Bruck abutting Drizin to altercate Cope's appeals. The best audacious mistakes in the trial, he says: that prosecutors never accepted Cope conspired with James Sanders to annihilate Amanda, and that the adjudicator was accurately amiss to accumulate the lath from audition about Sanders’ antecedent crimes.

KEITH MORRISON: Errors, or judge’s discretion? Because that's what the added ancillary will say. "The adjudicator was altogether appropriate to accomplish those decisions."

DAVID BRUCK: A adjudicator does not accept the discretion, does not accept the power, to artlessly adjudge that the amount of a man's aegis can be withheld from the jury, covered up, not heard. And that's what happened in this case. 

And for a few months aftermost year, it appeared Billy Cope ability be a footfall afterpiece to a new trial. The South Caroline appeals cloister agreed with Bruck that the accompaniment bootless to prove Cope anytime conspired with Sanders to annihilate his daughter…but then, later, the cloister antipodal its own ruling. So, now, Cope's aegis aggregation has appealed to the accompaniment Supreme Court.

DAVID BRUCK: There absolutely couldn't be a worse absurdity than to captive a man of killing and raping his own babe if he didn't do it.

And Billy Cope… In prison, he's assuredly accomplished one constant dream. He's become a minister, has becoming a amount in biblical studies. And he still believes that his chastity will be proven, that it will set him free.

PHIL BAITY: He's absolutely innocent. He is not guilty.

KEITH MORRISON: You are a aegis attorney.

PHIL BAITY: Yeah, I am, but I'm additionally a animal being. And I apperceive that man. And I apperceive what affirmation was acclimated to captive him. And I apperceive what affirmation was kept out to captive him. It still bothers me. It's been seven years. But it still bothers me. Account I—I just—I apperceive he didn't do it.

© 2013 NBCNews.com  Reprints

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