Shadow of Truth (צל של אמת)

Anyone who thought that after the police announcement

that Tair Rada's murderer was captured,

Katzrin would let out a sigh of relief

was mistaken.

I still have a bad gut feeling.

I want to see the fingerprints, the DNA tests.

Something still smells fishy.

You doubt the police's version?

OHAD, TAIR'S BROTHER

I don't doubt the policemen, but something inside me...

I don't know.

The next step is all about legal proceedings.

You go to court for the arraignment

and publicly announce Roman Zadorov retracts his confession

and declares his innocence.

Roman, how are you?

- No good. - Why?

I didn't kill the girl.

- You didn't? - Of course not.

I'm under constant pressure. I want my family.

I can't take it. I want to go home.

The questions regarding the investigation of Roman Zadorov started to come up

the minute his lawyers, the Spiegels, came into the picture

and started asking questions,

and the police couldn't come up with the answers.

I asked the police representative

if there was evidence linking Roman to the murder scene.

And she answered, "Yes, Roman's DNA was found there."

That came as a real blow.

A month ago, the police testified in court

that traces of DNA from Roman Zadorov were found at the murder scene.

But no such finding appears in the dossier,

and no genetic link to the suspect has been found yet.

False from beginning to end.

Nothing at all links Roman Zadorov to the murder scene.

And that, by the way,

was one of the many things that made me say,

"Now, wait a minute here."

The site is 28 inches by 55 inches, and it's full of evidence.

Blood, shoe prints, DNA, hair, you name it.

It cannot be

that if Roman was there

there isn't a shred of forensic evidence linking him to it.

All of the items from Zadorov's house

arrived at our lab

and we literally dissected them.

The drainage pipe from the washing machine,

we took it all apart and searched for evidence.

We didn't find any.

On Roman Zadorov's clothing, we found nothing connected to Tair Rada.

There was no blood on his shoes at all.

We found no traces of blood on the soles of his shoes.

PHOTOS BOARD

I asked for Roman Zadorov's wedding ring.

It was unique, made up of two rings.

We had a jeweler take the ring apart

and there was no DNA or blood belonging to Tair Rada.

The absence of blood and DNA

belonging to Tair Rada on his shoes,

and especially on his ring,

is a finding that...

very much weakens the link between Roman Zadorov and the incident.

- Roman, why did you kill her? - Killed her?

Why did you kill the girl?

Why did you murder her?

- Why? Why did you kill her? - I didn't.

You did.

- Why? - I didn't.

- Did she ever speak to you? - I didn't kill her.

- Did she insult you? - I didn't kill her.

The police did everything in its power

to find a motive, because it's absurd.

How could a sane person do something so insane...

WE DON'T KNOW THE MOTIVE

...that even an animal wouldn't do it?

The detectives even accused him of being a pedophile

based on pictures of underage girls on his computer.

A ridiculous claim since not one photo is of an underage girl,

and the detectives knew that.

In other words, he's an ordinary person

with no criminal thought patterns.

He's an alien who landed in the middle of the scene.

There's no connection. No connection.

We came from Ukraine.

He was my first son.

As a boy, he was quiet.

He let me sleep at night.

He was a happy boy, always smiling.

In school, everyone liked him.

Roman came to Israel

and started working as a migrant worker.

It all began like a nice dream.

Roman and I met.

That man impressed me very much.

Intelligent, funny.

After the wedding, we moved to Katzrin.

Roman found a job right away since he's good with his hands.

He started working in repairs. He made good money.

He had just finished his tiling job at school.

He was in the middle of the process of getting his Israeli citizenship,

and that very week

his son was born.

The first time he saw his son

he cried and said,

"Mom, what an amazing baby."

Nothing could be better.

So beautiful and...

He was very, very happy.

Everything looked rosy.

Why would he reshuffle the deck for no reason?

Suddenly, that evening, Olga calls,

"Mom, it's urgent, we're leaving Katzrin."

I asked why.

Nobody would tell me.

We got into a taxi and drove off.

On the way...

I asked the driver

to turn the radio on.

And on the way, I heard...

that the murderer was my son.

Roman, as a person, you regret what happened.

I can see that.

I didn't want it to happen.

I tried not to react.

But I did what I did.

It's hard to comprehend how people confess to things they didn't do.

You sit at home and wonder,

how can someone admit to murdering a little girl?

No one should confess to a crime

that he didn't commit.

However,

the fact is,

there are innocent people who confessed for crimes they didn't commit.

Since the 1990s, the American Innocence Project

has used DNA testing to get innocent prisoners acquitted.

Some were serving life sentences, others were sentenced to death.

So far, over 700 people convicted of murder

have been acquitted in the US.

A significant percentage of them confessed under questioning.

So you see that after all,

innocent people confess to crimes,

and then you ask yourself why.

For a long time, it was accepted that confession is the queen of evidence

and there are still judges who say unconditionally,

a reasonable person won't confess to a murder that he didn't commit.

It makes no sense.

A reasonable person would deny it.

Most defendants in these cases aren't your average reasonable person.

A suspect is at high risk of making a false confession

because he's a foreigner, he doesn't know the language.

His Hebrew was still very weak.

He knew a few words, mainly what he needed for work.

Do you understand that you're suspected of murder?

Do you understand... suspected...

- Yes, of murder. - What does "of murder" mean?

A man on the fringe of society,

not part of the social system he allegedly harmed,

a man who can't deal with authority.

Do you think your lawyer cares about Roman?

He doesn't care about Roman.

Lawyer wants money, newspaper.

That's what your lawyer wants from Roman. Nothing else.

I want the truth.

They started to pressure him,

that his wife wants to divorce him,

that all Katzrin knows.

They found very sensitive points in him

which eventually made him crack.

You don't want your wife to leave you, that's why you won't tell the truth.

But after Olga sees everything I have to tell her and show her,

she'll leave you.

These people underwent grueling, humiliating interrogation

that undermined their free will.

- You're a liar, a manipulator. - Okay.

You belong in jail because you're a psychopath and a pedophile.

You're everything we think you are.

I thought Roman had a good side.

I was good to you. I thought you had a good side.

But that girl's mother is out there crying all day long,

and instead of apologizing, what do you do?

What do you do, Roman?

Instead of apologizing and telling the truth,

because you killed her daughter, we know that,

just as I know my name is Yoram and yours is Roman.

It's a process.

A person who's cut off from everything else,

who's under a ton of psychological pressure that he did it,

and all that is channeled into one opening...

into which they channeled it intentionally, confession.

- Show me how you did it. - I don't know.

I didn't do it, Sasha.

- Do you want to put me in jail? - I don't want to put you in jail.

I didn't kill the girl.

- If I did, I would've said so long ago. - You're stupid.

- How should I know how she was killed? - You're stupid.

- You hear me? - Yes.

Then concentrate.

I didn't kill the girl. Write that down.

Don't worry, we'll write everything down.

I don't know how she was killed.