This case has haunted me since it happened in 1984. I was 10. "Mrs. Haraway" as we called her at Hayes was one of the nicest, and most soft spoken people you could ever meet. All the students loved her. She always graded papers at a table just off the library, and it was hard to see her not there anymore.

We also knew Tommy, Karl, and Odell Titsworth. They used to come over to drink beers with my dad, and Odell even did my dad's bulldog tattoo one of those nights.

I even grew up on the corner of E. 8th and Francis, about 3 doors down where Debbie Carter was murdered. My friend also lived where Dennis Fritz was living at the time. It was just around the corner from us.

Seeing The Innocent Man brought back a lot of memories for us. Ada is one of those smaller towns that everyone knows you. I just never realized how much I was entwined in this tragedy until I saw the docuseries.

I hope these guys get compensated for being set up. They deserve to be treated like kings when they get released. Tommy has always been a really nice guy and that's why it stung so much. I really believed he did it until all the evidence was presented. I was so wrong. The main thing that really stood out was when her remains were found. The news reported that there were definite signs of her being dismembered, because the medical examiner found knife cuts on the bones. That never happened.

I hope Dr. Haraway files a lawsuit against the Ponotoc Co. Sherriff and Ada Police Department for this. This was no accident, it was done in purpose so they wouldnt look bad to the public for screwing up another investigation. They were good at that. He went around for years after that thinking his wife was chopped up and dumped in the woods, and he deserves compensation for it.

I am watching this documentary for a second time. When watching this episode there is something odd of which I think even the people in the documentary are wrong at.

When listening to the interrogation of one of these two man (Tommy I believe his name is) Clearly he says "a white with little blue roses on it" So how come these people in the documentary come to say these men described this clothing as "lavender color with blue roses"? They didn't. He does not say that in the interview parts that are shown in the documentary. It's on tape! How hard can it be to copy every word that is said, unless it is inaudible?

Did anyone else notice that the message written in blood at Debbie Carter's house included the word 'else' misspelled as 'ealse'? At the Sharon Tate/Manson Family murder scene in August 1969, there were two messages written in blood as well. One of them famously said 'HEALTER SKELTER' again with the added 'a,' both a very odd way of misspelling these words. As some believe (such as Mae Brussel) that the Manson Family members were not actually responsible for those murders, but that they were instead committed by highly trained paid killers who were/would become part of a nationwide serial killer network, this seems to be interesting at the very least. *I am going back through the episode to screengrab the shot from TheInnocentMan*

https://preview.redd.it/dof0s0d32yu21.jpg?width=304&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9ab834dbacb3fdd9649a67026cfa5322f850ab6

Are there any public sources to view the interview/interrogation transcripts of Karl, Tommy, Ron, or Dennis? I can't seem to find them via any searches.

I'm briefly in Episode 5 of this series. I'm the Founder of the Free Karl Fontenot Facebook page. If love to have those interested in this case to come join the page.

**Case documents included at end of post

Here is the link to the first post to our series: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheInnocentMan/comments/aa4v73/denice_haraway_case_closed/

​

Also authored by u/MaebyFunke42

The Investigation, Trial, and Discovery

There were several issues with the case right from the get go. The dispatcher first sent the responding officer to the wrong address, causing him to have to turn around and drive back in the other direction. That mistake cost them ten minutes in responding to the scene. Once Sgt. Harvey Phillips arrived, he failed to properly secure the scene- allowing Monroe Atkeson to throw away an open tall boy beer that was on the counter and empty out the ashtray containing a still smoldering cigarette. No fingerprints were ever taken from the scene and no evidence other than the cash register tape was collected. At some point the counter was also wiped down, and we’re told that McAnally’s continued taking customers. Denice Haraway’s belongings were initially taken into evidence, but were later released back to her husband. Police spent little time identifying and interviewing all of her customers that day, to this day there are still customers who made purchases who have not been identified, nor did they thoroughly investigate the harassing phone calls.

Leads on the case were hard to come by. Detectives Dennis Smith and Mike Baskin had developed composite sketches of two suspects very early on. The composites were drawn from eye witness identification of Karen Wise, a clerk at nearby JP’s Convenience Store. Just to be clear here, we cannot say what brought law enforcement to even talk to Karen Wise, other than to maybe ask if she had seen anything odd since she had also been on shift at the same time. It has never definitively been stated as to why they spoke to Karen that night, or why she became such a large player in the case. Karen had stated there were two males in her store the evening of April 28,1984 that had made her uncomfortable and also drove a truck similar to the one seen at McAnally’s. These composites would eventually be used to narrow down on two suspects: Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot.

Tommy Ward would be interviewed in May 1984, and he swore he went fishing with Karl Fontenot that evening and then the two men attended a party at Janette Roberts house. He was there until the early morning hours. Karl Fontenot was called to come in for an interview in May, said he would come in, and then never showed up. Law enforcement pursued other leads.

In October of 1984 police were given a tip, and they became sure that Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot were their guys. Sure, both men seemed to have an alibi, though it wasn’t a strong one in the eyes of law enforcement. They had been at a party the night of the 28th, and a room full of people would account for it, but the party had been at the home of a woman well known to the police, and that just put a bad taste in their mouth all together.It was no matter though, both men were interrogated for over ten hours, until finally law enforcement got Tommy to make a taped confession. Then Karl.

Their story was that they had been at a party, eventually leaving with another man named Odell Titsworth. After getting high, the three of them set off to McAnally’s to rob it, taking Denice, who was dressed in a white blouse with blue flowers, to keep her from identifying them. They took her out to behind the power plant, raped and stabbed her repeatedly. Leaving her body in an abandoned house before burning her body as well as the house. Law enforcement searched the house and found only animal remains and the home’s owner himself attested to the fact that he was the one who burned the house down the summer before in 1983.

Det. Mike Baskin discovered that Odell Titsworth couldn’t have been involved with Denice’s disappearance. On the very night in question, Detective Baskin had been on his way to the hospital to question staff about an incident that occurred earlier that week involving Odell and police officers when the call about the missing clerk had come over the scanner. Odell had been arrested during a disturbance call, and while placing him in handcuffs one of the officers broke Odell’s arm, badly enough that he would have to sleep sitting up for a while.

Odell simply could not have been involved in Denice Haraway’s kidnapping.

Police weren’t deterred. They arrested Tommy and Karl, charging them with rape, robbery, kidnapping, and the murder of Denice Haraway.

Ward and Fontenot were paraded out for at least six documented lineups. Most of the witnesses had difficulty even picking Ward out of the lineup, but Fontenot wasn’t picked definitively even once.

The preliminary hearing started January 9, 1985. Tommy Ward took to the stand after his own attorney asked him if he was sure of what he was doing. Tommy stated that he was, and while under oath, proceeded with a new retelling of what happened that night. One that involved a new cast of characters, none of which were Karl Fontenot or Odell Titsworth. Most notably, this new tale included Marty Ashley, a party friend of Ward’s.

In this new version, on April 28, 1984, Ward and Ashley went into McAnally’s to get a beer. While Ward walked to the back to get beer, Ashley stayed up front chatting up Denice trying to talk her into running off with him. By the end of Ward’s tale, Denice would end up walking out the store with them all on her own and off into the sunset with Marty Ashley, as it were. What happened after this, and where Denice was, was left open to interpretation. Tommy Ward had no answers for this and insists that after McAnally’s he was dropped off at home, and the last he saw her she was alive with Ashley.

While Karl was screaming to the masses almost immediately after confessing that he didn’t do it, and that his confession was something that law enforcement led him to- Tommy was busy concocting a different tale. One that had Denice possibly still alive, and him not culpable at all. All in all, Tommy Ward gave four different accounts of that day: two have him not there at all, one has him there and participating in killing Denice, and one has him in McAnally’s and no one kills Denice at all.

Tried together, Tommy and Karl's trial began in September of 1985. A slew of witnesses came through, including several people who were involved in identifying Tommy and Karl out of the lineups that had been conducted. Jim Moyer, one of the witnesses who was involved in the lineups and had been in McAnally’s the evening of the 28th recanted on the stand about his certainty about his identification of Karl Fontenot. Moyer had been the only witness to place Fontenot at McAnally’s that night. Moyer instead named another man, one he had seen present at the preliminary hearing. The man had been present at almost every day of the preliminary hearing, and was seen talking to Tommy Ward. His name was Jason Lynch (*renamed for privacy, we’ll talk more about Jason later). Incidentally, after the trial, Jim Moyer would write to the District Attorney’s office to attempt to collect on the reward money that had been offered for information leading to an arrest in Denice Haraway’s case. He was the only individual to have done so, and his request was denied. While “no body” trials aren’t exactly rare, they usually require a large amount of circumstantial evidence to prove the state’s case.

While there was very little in the way of circumstantial evidence against Ward and Fontenot, the nail in their coffin was the confession tapes, which were played in their entirety for the jury. Those who have watched the docuseries, can understand how damning they look. Both Ward and Fontenot approach the subject with very little emotion, and Fontenot looks almost cocky about it. In the 80s, and even today, it’s hard for a lot of people to understand that you could be talked into saying you did something you didn’t do. After 11 hours of sitting in a tiny room, that is psychologically set up, down to the very table and chair you’re sitting it to make you feel guilty- you’d admit to being the Easter Bunny if the question was led right.

There are three stages to this:

​

1. Cause the suspect to doubt their innocence – this occurs after a lengthy, accusatorial interrogation of repeated accusation of committing the crime
2. Supply them with a reason that is satisfactory in explaining away their non-memory- suggesting one version or another of a “repressed” memory, or an alcohol/drug blackout
3. Push them to supply the details of how and why they did it- they repeat the details that the police have suggested to them, knowingly make up the details or try to infer the details from interrogator suggestion.

Studies show that false confessions do not sound any different than true confessions. One study had convicts confess to a crime they did, and then a crime they didn’t commit- then showing the confessions to a variety of people. The majority could not tell the difference in which was the actual and which was the false confession. Another small study demonstrates how easy it is to illicit a false confession. When participants were confronted with a witness or “snitch” claiming to have seen the participant do something they were told not to, 80% of participants falsely confessed.

By September 25th, the verdict was in. Both Tommy and Karl, guilty on all counts: robbery with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping, rape in the first degree, and murder in the first degree.

The jurors were polled, and it was unanimous, they were sentenced to die.

Their date of execution was set for January 21, 1986. Denice Haraway’s body was still nowhere to be found.

In an odd turn of events, when January 21, 1986 would come, Tommy and Karl would each have stays of execution awaiting appeals in place. There would be no executions today, but there would be discoveries. 30 miles east of Ada, was a tiny town called Gerty. A town that by all accounts you had to know was there to go to it, as it was in the middle of nothing, not on a direct route to anywhere. It was in the woods, again in the evening, when a man out walking his hunting land would come across a skeleton.

Denice Haraway has been found.

The problems that had plagued the rest of this case, continued on, as police were called out to the scene where the remains were found. No one bothered, at the time, to call out a medical examiner to the scene. In fact, later in the day, the OKC chief medical examiner Larry Balding would end up playing a game of phone chase trying to figure out exactly where the remains had been taken once the law enforcement that had responded to the scene had collected them.

What had been found on the mountain in Gerty were what appeared to be the scattered, skeletonized remains of a female body. Among the remains were tattered bits of denim jeans, a small portion of a red striped shirt, two red earrings, and two white tennis shoes that had mostly rotted away, still containing a partially rotten sock and foot bones. No where to be found was the white, flowery shirt that had been described by both Tommy, and Karl in their confessions, though.

On January 22, 1986, the remains were positively identified as Denice Haraway through the identification of dental records. The fatal wound was a gunshot to the lower left part of the back of the skull, with an exit wound just above the right temple. No bullet was found, nor was there any evidence on the skeleton that she had been stabbed.

In 1987, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Cruz v New York that the admission of a non-testifying co-defendant's confession that incriminates the defendant shall be barred, even if the defendant's own confession was admitted against him. Karl and Tommy would receive new trials, and this time they would be tried separately. Though no longer a “no-body” case, the second trials closely mirrored the first. Once again, the confession tapes were played for the jury, but this time they were not allowed to play or reference each other’s confession, leaving jurors unaware of the inconsistencies within the confessions.

Karl was sentenced to death. Tommy was later sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in 20 years. In 1990, Karl's conviction was commuted. During the penalty phase of his trial, the jurors were only given two options, life with possibility for parole or death; however, they should have been given the third option of life without possibility of parole. Instead of a third trial, Karl took a plea deal of life without the possibility of parole. The Oklahoma Innocence Project would later take up on Karl Fontenot’s behalf, while Tommy’s lawyers have just recently filed a post-conviction relief application on his behalf.

If you have any questions PLEASE ask us! We've summed up our research in these write ups, but this is the tip of the iceberg in what we've read, the documents we have, and the people we've interviewed in this case.

Below is a dropbox link containing multiple case files including: crime scene photos, the ME report, and more.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qyza66sg9rcdyzt/AABuzv46dkBwZpI5owbr5DkLa?dl=0

I remember watching the program and heard mention of "Simmons" and then not long after watching his 'confession tape' for few seconds. But I don't remember why his "confession" was discounted.

Was his confession coerced, or another weird dream scenario? What did I miss?

do they ever say if they were anyway connected to a grey pick up truck? This seems like a big piece of evidence that is never touched on.

I looked to see if this has been asked before but I didn’t see it anywhere. Are there any links?

Added info-I’m no mobile and not reddit savvy on my phone.

I've attached a copy of part of the court transcript from the January 1985 preliminary hearing with Thomas Jesse Ward. He has representation (who from what I understand did not want him to do this), and is declaring his new story to the court.

Ward goes on to state that he went to McAnally's that night with a friend (Marty Ashley) where they flirted with Denise and she willingly left with them before he was dropped off and never saw them again. He also mentions that the other witnesses in the store saw this. A snippet:

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Tommy -"He started flirting with her and she told him that he was married --I mean, she was married. And then after she told him that she was married, he goes, you must not be happily married, because if you was happily married, you wouldn't have to be working. And then he started hinting around to her about saying, well, if you marry me and everything, you wouldn't have to do nothing like this or anything."

Mr. Wyatt (Tommy's Attorney) - "Now where were you when this conversation took place?"

Tommy - "I was getting ready to walk on back toward the back and then I was kind of listening to them, you know, after her saying that she was already married and everything, and then -- So, then I went on back to the back, and then when I come up to the front, he bent over the counter and he kissed her and then he walked out the door. And then I walked on up and I paid for my beer. Then after I paid for the beer, she come around the counter and went out the door and I walked out behind her. And then I walked out to the pickup and then she -- when I opened the door, she goes -- uh, she's talking to Marty, and she goes 'Are you serious about what you're talking about?' and he goes 'Yeah.' and so she jumped in the pickup with him, and then we drove from there to my house and that's when he let me out. It was about 9:00 o'clock when I got back to the house."

Mr. Wyatt - "All right. Did you see these other folks that testified at the preliminary that they saw you all --"

Tommy -" Yes"

Mr. Wyatt - "--Leaving the store? Did you see those folks?"

Tommy - "Yeah, that's what made me remember everything."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Here's the thing. Grisham was sent this transcript. The producer of 'The Innocent Man' Ross Dinerstein was sent this transcript. Wouldn't you want to include this?

Transcript

Retired captain of Ada PD committed suicide in July of this year, after finding out that the documentary was coming out. He had struggled with all the bad things he'd been involved with in his career, the timing seems extremly coincidental , Glen Gore mentions Crosby as one of the cops he had drug dealings with. Pretty incredible stuff if you ask me.

I was just wondering if Glen Gore himself ever confessed to the murder or did the evidence do all the talking for him? I’m just interested in knowing if the words ever came out of his mouth or not.

Finished watching the series last night, and while they did a good job wrapping up the Debbie Carter case, I still have lots of questions about Tommy & Karl and the Denice case. I know everyone says that after 8 hours of interrogation it is normal to snap and confess to a crime, but I don't really understand why everyone assumes they are innocent. The dreams are weird, the descriptions are vivid, and yes the burial spot was wrong but this must have all come from somewhere. And the logic of giving the wrong burial spot/some wrong information so that the police can later realize the confessions were false and let them go seems flawed. Also, we meet up with Tommy in prison 33~ years later. I am curious to know if people know what happened right after he (and Karl) were convicted and whether they claimed innocence then, or is this happening now that there is a tv show/book. Thanks!

I really enjoyed this series because it left me with more questions than answers. I keep thinking about it and want to know more. Spoilers...

1. Why does the documentary just drop the fact that Williamson was actually a rapist?
2. I saw on a police report that Williamson was described as Indian. From doing a tiny bit of research, it seems that there is a white/Indian racial divide. Was racism a factor?
3. In Dreams of Ada, the book about Denice Haraway's case, it mentions that another woman was abducted from a convenience store in Ada one year before Denice. That seems like a big deal. Why was that left out?
4. Why is there so much violence against women in Ada? (Edit: during the period covered by the documentary)

I am reading Dreams of Ada now, and I really recommend it. I can see what AC Shilton wanted to solve th Haraway's case.

I know that most of the time books are better than movies, but this isn't always the case in documentaries. Just wondering if I would be bored reading it, or if there is more info that wasn't in the documentary?

Half question half comment, but I felt like the way this series was headed was that there would be a connection between the two murders. Yet ostensibly there is none. At the same time how often does something like this happen (kidnapping/ false imprisonment, killed in both cases). And Ada was a relatively small city.

Statistically it's hard for me to not think there is a connection. Was crime just that much worse back then, or is Ada just that fucked up? Or are kidnappings that lead to killings just that common? Idk...

Over the better part of a year, my research partner and I have been researching the Denice Haraway case. We took on the research of this case well before we knew such a docuseries was being filmed, due to the accusations of that the two men convected for Denice’s murder had been wrongfully convicted.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will bring you our research on this research project of ours- including police documents that we have found. This is, of course, our opinion. We aren’t detectives, We are simply a graduate student and her research partner.

Denice Haraway – Case Closed?

April 28, 1984 started off as an ordinary day in the small college town of Ada, Oklahoma, population 17,000. It was a nice spring day in the soft rolling hills of the Northern Cross Timbers where the vast, open prairie gives way to dense eastern woodland. The day saw sunshine and temperatures in the 70s, which was a reprieve from the heavy rains of tornado season that had battered the area in the days before. Everyone in town was going about their business, running about doing chores they couldn’t quite get to during the work week.  Donna Denice Haraway was one of them. To her friends and family, she was just Denice –  quiet, pretty, newlywed, a student and aspiring teacher, building a life and career in Ada.Born August 19th, 1959 in Holdenville, OK., Denice was the middle child to parents Patricia Virgin and Jimmie Lyon. Her family moved all around central Oklahoma; consequently, she attended several different grade schools, until attending high school in Purcell, OK. She participated in clubs, and, at the young age of 13-years-old, started working her first job at the local Dairy Queen, where she worked for 5 years until her graduation in 1977. She took her ACT and was accepted to Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, where she moved to and attended one semester while continuing to work full-time. Finding it too expensive to be a full-time student and full-time worker in Stillwater, she dropped out of school and moved back home. She began working and saving money to return to school. Denice had decided what she wanted to be: a teacher.

Denice soon moved to Ada to share an apartment with her younger sister and to work at Loves, a convenience store where her mother was a manager. In addition to her job at Loves, she also worked at Wall’s Bargain Center. She was determined to save and pay her way through school. She started attending East Central University in Ada to begin her studies to become a teacher. A professor described her as a good student, well-liked by peers and instructors, as well as dependable.

After moving into a new apartment with her roommate Linda Sweet in Ada, Denice met Steve Haraway, their across the hall neighbor and landlord and local dentist’s son. He was studying pre-pharmacy, also at East Central University. After a year of dating, they got married and continued living above Dr. Haraway’s dental office. She quit her job at Wall’s Bargain Center and began working at McAnally’s on nights and weekends to accommodate her school schedule and upcoming student teaching at the local elementary school, one of the final steps needed for her teaching certificate.

Denice was thriving. At 24 years old she was successfully balancing school, work, and married life. Both Denice and Steve were on track for graduation that August. She was making plans for after graduation, for the few months she had before starting her career as a teacher, which included family trips and a high school reunion. Her family said that she enjoyed teaching and working with kids more than any other work she had done in her life. Denice loved children and hoped to start a family with Steve. She doted on her niece and nephews from her older brother, and would regularly visit, each time bringing homemade gifts. The last gift she made was for her niece, a sweater she had painted with puffy paint lettering. Denice was happy, she finally had permanent roots.That Saturday in late April found Denice going into Anthony’s, a local department store, to make a payment on a layaway item she had. Months later, the item returned to the shelves for non-payment. We’ve often wondered about what the item was. A gift for someone else? A rare splurge on herself? Or a practical item, like housewares? She also went jogging with her husband before they both had to be at work that afternoon. She set off to work in her car with her textbooks in tow. She hadn’t wanted to work that day, but couldn’t find coverage for her shift, forcing her to work anyway. Over the course of the last few months Denice had become increasingly uncomfortable working alone at night at McAnally’s, and had been on the receiving end of several harassing phone calls while at work. If she knew who the caller was, she never told anyone, however she had told her sister Janet the caller would tell her that he was going to come up to McAnally’s and wait outside for her.

No one could know how April 28,1984 would end up turning a once quiet small town on its end, making its citizens question everything. By the end of this day Denice Haraway would be gone- never to be seen alive again; and Ada, Oklahoma has never been the same.

The Timeline

Denice reported to work at McAnally’s at 2:00 pm, as normal. She was dependable. Her manager described her as a great employee. James Watts was the clerk on shift before her, and would later say that there was nothing unusual about Denice’s demeanor that day. She was the same bubbly, nice person she always was as she went about her business of taking over his shift. The timeline of this case is what makes it all the more puzzling, McAnally’s was incredibly busy according to the register tape, making the timeline points of Denice’s day and disappearance minutes apart.

• 7:10 pm- Steve Haraway talks to Denice on the phone, he says she sounds fine and called for a word definition

• 7:30 pm- Janet Lyon, Denice’s sister, spoke with Denice on the phone for about 20 to 30 minutes, Janet says that Denice didn’t say anything was wrong, but had to hang up due to the store getting busy. Denice had told Janet she would call her back, but she never did.

• 7:30 pm- Larry and Karen Scroggins stopped into McAnally’s

• 7:30-7:45 pm- Ada police officer Richard Holkum stopped into McAnally’s on his way home. He reported that no other customers were in the store, and Denice seemed fine.

• 7:50-8:00 pm John McKinnis stopped into McAnally’s on his way home. He stated that he was familiar with Denice from being a frequent customer, and that evening she seemed to be her “normal, happy self”. John also reports that he saw a man with Denice, standing behind the counter who looked unhappy or possibly concerned about something. John also notes that outside there was a pickup truck that was light colored with primer spots parked outside of the store when he pulled up.

• 8:00-8:10 pm- Gary Haney stopped into McAnally’s with his son. He reports being in thestore for about ten minutes while his son looked around and that Denice seemed to be happy just like she always was. Gary notes that no one besides himself, his son, and Denice were in the store during this time.

• 8:25 pm- Guy Keys was at McAnally’s with his wife and two children. He notes nothing abnormal about the stop.

• 8:30 pm- Gene Whelchel, Lenny Timmons, and David Timmons stopped at McAnally’s. As Lenny entered the store he passed a man and a woman walking out. Gene and David then witness the man and the woman both get into a light-colored pickup truck on the passenger side and then drive out of the parking lot. They all three noted that nothing seemed off about the couple, and they looked like a couple. When Lenny Timmons enters the store, he finds it completely empty, Denice is gone but her purse and school books remain.

• 8:50 pm- Gene Whelchel calls Monroe Atkeson, the manager of McAnally’s, and the police to report that the clerk is missing. Gene is now certain that the woman he watched walk out with the man earlier was in fact Denice Haraway.

Our next post will get deeper into the players of this case, as well as the confessions.

​

For anyone interested, here is the link to Karl Fontenot's 2013 Post Conviction Relief brief. It contains witness affidavits.

https://works.bepress.com/tiffany_murphy/5/

I understand why it is thought that Ward and Fontenot gave false confessions, with the incorrect details and whatnot.

I just feel like they missed a very clear and obvious opportunity to have Tommy explain himself and explain why he falsely confessed.

It almost makes me feel like they did ask him and he didnt have a good answer so they didnt include it.

The whole case is built upon the false confession so why not have Tommy directly address that???

Just finished binge watching this series on Netflix. I think the series does a good job casting doubt on the confessions of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot. There is just so much about it that one can be skeptical of: why confess, but give incorrect info? Why did the police not investigate the other suspects? Why implicate a third person who had a good alibi? Etc.

However, I have some lingering questions. First, in the series they show footage of Ward saying that if he wasn’t drunk he “wouldn’t have done it” because he “thought it was a dream”.

This does not seem to me like he’s explaining the contents of a dream. It seems like he’s saying he did it, but thought it was a dream while he did it, because he was drunk. Why do you think he phrased it this way?

Secondly, I did some searching and found some appeal documents from 1994 relating to Fontenot’s case. In the explaination as to why an appeal was not granted it states that there was indeed some corroborating evidence pinning it on Fontenot and Ward:

He [Fontenot] told a friend that he knew facts about the Harraway abduction specifically the perpetrator's identity. And, while he was awaiting trial in the county jail, a fellow inmate overheard him saying "I knew we'd get caught."

The summary also mentioned that Fontenot accurately describes the truck to police, and that an insurance agent testified that he had insured a truck meeting this description to Ward’s brother.

Fontenot also quite accurately described the shoes Haraway was wearing, and the fact that they had stolen about $150 from the store (it was actually $167).

The summary also mentions that Haraway’s blouse does sort of match Fontenot’s description.

A link to the summary is here: https://law.justia.com/cases/oklahoma/court-of-appeals-criminal/1994/11525.html

The more I think about it, the more it seems like they might actually be guilty. I didn’t really see clear evidence that the police forced a bogus confession out of them. It seems plausible that they both got drunk and tried to rob a store and things went sour. Because they were drunk they might not have recalled everything that happened. And the police may have coerced them into a more graphic confession to make the case open and shut.

I'm on episode 4 now FYI just finished 3 a few minutes ago......

Like how fucking stupid are you? It's a dream. He knows it's a dream. Leave it at that. Why ever mention that especially to the cops.....

Also... Tommy Ward is not very believable. He's complaining about all this shit in present day interviews in the documentary but like buddy they got this information from your ridiculous confession....