Some people can spend decades unjustly imprisoned until the most random chance gives them the key to prove their innocence. It is, for example, the case of John Galvana man who, after 35 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit, was able to go free thanks to a repeated episode of the Myth Busters which he casually saw on prison television.
Basically at the time he was accused of starting a fire in which two people died. It was considered to have been a gang fight and, since there were several neighbors who testified against him, there was hardly any room for the doubts about its authorship. In addition, as if that were not enough, both he and the other defendants signed a statement in which they recognized themselves as perpetrators of the crime. They later claimed that they did so under duress, but their words were not given credibility.
But later the Myth Busters showed that, in fact, Galvan could not have been part of the murder. Basically, because the way he claimed to have caused the fire is practically impossible. A movie classic, yes, but not real life.
This is how the murder happened
it all happened in 1986. A fire In Chicago It caused the death of two brothers and left two others injured. The survivors accused a neighbor of hers, since her brother had been killed by a street gang with which they were related. In addition, she herself had assured that she would retaliate for the crime.
However, when she was questioned, she pointed to three other neighbors. Among them was John Galvan, who at the time I was only 18 years old. That day he had slept at his grandmother’s house and had no more alibi, so he was not given enough credibility.
After the interrogations, both he and his companions they ended up admitting that they had committed the murder by throwing a Molotov cocktail through the inside of the window. Everything seemed clear and the three were taken to prison, but later they went back on their words. Two of them, including Galvan, assured that they were coerced through physical abuse and false promises to let them go home if they confessed. The third, on the other hand, claimed that he was too drunk for his statement to be taken into account. He did not take any of them seriously, and for decades his lawyers failed to prove his innocence.
‘Mythbusters’ to the rescue
In 2007, John Galvan was watching television one of many days in prison when something caught his eye. It was a chapter of Myth Busters that had originally aired in 2005. It could have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the fact that, in it, his presenters showed that lighting a puddle of gasoline with a cigarette, as is often seen in the cinema, is practically impossible.
They tried various options, such as spraying it directly with gasoline or increase the temperature of the cigarette imitating the natural draw of a smoker. It was not achieved in any way.
If he was so shocked, it was because, during his false statement, he explained that he had lit the fuel spilled by the Molotov cocktail with a cigarette. It was the first thing that crossed his mind; but indeed it seemed it did not make sense.
As soon as he could, the man contacted his lawyer, who coincidentally had also seen the program. He began to investigate and discovered that an independent team of scientists had investigated that very topic. They had concluded that lighting gasoline with a cigarette is virtually impossible because the gasoline has limited contact with the hottest and brightest part of the ash. According to X-ray thermography datathis is in a very localized part, so it is not so simple.
Perhaps this MythBusters experiment would not have been enough on its own to prove Galvan’s innocence. However, his lawyer had been collecting other evidence for some time, such as the testimony of other prisoners who claimed to have been physically coerced and with lies by the same agents who interrogated him.
With all this, it was possible rewrite defense strategy and finally Galvan was exonerated for the murder in july 2022. It has been many years of deprivation of liberty for a crime that he did not commit. Now you will have to decide whether to take action on it. What is clear is that, thanks to science, she had one more chance to get out of that hell that began when she was only 18 years old. And thanks to the Myth Bustersof course.