← All Cases / Episode #289
The Case of Andrew Royer
📻 Episode #289
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Sep 08, 2022
About This Episode
On November 28, 2002, 94-year-old Helen Sailor spent Thanksgiving with her family before returning to her apartment at a high rise building for the elderly and disabled in Elkhart, Indiana. The next day, a health care provider found her strangled to death in her apartment. One of the detectives assigned to the case had a…
The Case
On November 28, 2002, 94-year-old Helen Sailor spent Thanksgiving with her family before returning to her apartment at a high rise building for the elderly and disabled in Elkhart, Indiana. The next day, a health care provider found her strangled to death in her apartment. One of the detectives assigned to the case had a theory about another high rise resident, Lana Canen, and a string of previous burglaries at the building. Investigators coerced a friend of Lana Canen's to give a false statement, implicating Lana and another high rise resident, Andy Royer. After subjecting Royer to a lengthy and intense interrogation, investigators cobbled together a confession. Then, an untrained deputy fabricated a fingerprint match to corroborate both false statements. Lana and Andy were both sentenced to 55 years in prison.
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/156-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-fingerprint-evidence/
http://www.elkhartcountyprosecutor.com/about-us/prosecuting-attorney
https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/courts/2018/07/03/elkhart-county-prosecutor-asks-judge-to-silence-attorney/46341713/
https://twitter.com/elkhartpros?s=20&t=L4eZhRAZxf3eGOSG-036pg
https://lavaforgood.com/with-jason-flom/
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:07:28“Speaker 4: at the end of the episode, there's this fascinating thing Speaker 4: where they're like, and we've spoken to the city of Speaker 4: Elkhart and they have now changed their policies and they Speaker 4: were no longer video recording interrogations. Speaker 1: Okay, So, faced with the reality that this man had”
00:28:32“Speaker 4: In August of two thousand and three, though before Nina Speaker 4: and Lana were pulled over, the Alkhar Police Department removed Speaker 4: the physical evidence from the Indiana c Police Laboratory and Speaker 4: sent it to a deputy sheriff at the Elkhart County Speaker 4: Sheriff's Department named Denis Chapman for him to compare the”
00:48:37“Speaker 4: the depositions was that Conway was removed from the homicide Speaker 4: unit of the Ulkhar Police Department before Andy's two thousand Speaker 4: and five trial, from his conduct in another interrogation in Speaker 4: a different homicide case was removed. So we got to Speaker 4: the bottom of it and ultimately had his supervisor testify”
Listen to the Episode
🎧 Listen on Omny / the podcast's platforms
🎧 Full episode page — Lava for Good
Resources & links from the episode:
Share this case, follow the organisations working on it, and support the podcast's fight for the innocent at lavaforgood.com.
← #288 Ken Middleton #290 Carl Williams →
Also on the podcast: #33 Andrew Krivak · #591 Andrew Krivak