- There are countless people doing hard time
in American prisons for crimes they didn't commit.
I've interviewed dozens of them for my podcast.
Now, we're bringing these powerful stories
to your screens each week.
I'm Jason Flom and this is Wrongful Conviction.
Pedro or Papatico Reynoso was convicted of a double murder
that happened in Philadelphia on July 23, 1991.
He had over 10 alibi witnesses and photographic evidence
proving that he was in the Dominican Republic on that day,
but he was still convicted and sentenced to life
without parole for the crime.
And he remains in prison today.
This is his story.
This is a terrible crime that happened July 23, 1991.
In broad daylight, a clean-shaven man with no mustache
shot and killed two men, Carlos Torres and Charles Rivera.
And, what's crazy about this case,
forget the fact that you didn't match the description.
But what's really crazy about this case
is you were not in the United States at this time.
Is that correct?
- Pedro, we know that you were in the Dominican Republic.
How did this happen?
How did they decide to implicate you in this case?
- There were two key eyewitnesses at Pedro's trial,
one was Sarah Robinson.
Sarah Robinson claimed she saw Papatico
on the morning of July 26, 1991 in Philadelphia.
And that's significant.
Because we have photographic documentation
that shows him entering the Dominican on July 13.
So we know that's definitive.
So the question is how does Pedro if he's in Philadelphia
in the morning get back in time to his son's baptism.
- Did you speak English at the time?
- Most people nowadays would be if you have a priest
testifying that I saw him on these days in the Dominican
and one of those days was on the day of the murder,
I think most people would give the priest
more so than the government.
- How could they do this?
Do you, I mean it's a long time ago but what,
can you tell us what you remember from the trial please?
- It just was a cascade of horribles
in terms of effectiveness.
Honestly, again, nobody to this day,
has looked at all this evidence and said,
"My God, we have an innocent man sitting in prison."
- Four days later, there's a picture of Pedro
at his son's baptism in the Dominican.
He has a full blown mustache.
And when I read the trial transcripts,
that was like the one thing that stood out.
Here's a description
and here's Pedro's picture four days later.
- [Jason] Marisol Colon Torres was the sister
of one of the victims.
- Yes.
She's adamant that she told the detectives like,
it's Chuito and he came,
ran into him at the drug house shortly after the murders,
and he told me in no uncertain terms
that I did you a favor by killing your brother.
The point of the story was you have this sister
of the victim who is advocating for the person
that was ultimately convicted of killing her brother.
- We had a commutation hearing in December,
which was optimistic but frustrating at the same time
because the Attorney General of Pennsylvania
and a couple other board members punted it,
they didn't deny Pedro's request for a commutation.
They just said,
"Look, we're gonna hold it under advisement."
And there's another set of hearings in June coming up,
where we believe they're gonna call Pedro's case again.
And we're gonna make the same argument again
that he has no, his prison record is stellar.
He, there's, I mean an insane amount of evidence
that he did not commit these murders,
and his health is deteriorating.
I mean, those three things, we're hoping will convince
the Pardons Board to commute a sentence
and if they commute a sentence,
at that point he's gonna be deported unfortunately,
because if you commute a sentence, he's still gonna have
those two first-degree murder convictions on his record,
and that's gonna get you deported, which is fine.
He's fine with that.
So, there's two avenues.
One is a commutation, hopefully in June
from the Pardons Board.
And then, if that happens, we can get him out,
get him to his family. The Pennsylvania Innocence
Project can continue to work with Larry Krasner
and Patricia Cummings and her unit to investigate
and hopefully right this terrible wrong.
- Pedro, if you don't mind, can you talk about this now,
your health is obviously in jeopardy.
I mean, what's the status of your health right now?
- After everything you've been through, are you bitter?
- When you do get released, what are your plans?
What are your dreams?
What would you like to you know,
how would you like to live out your life?