Opinion ID: 2639434
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Darlene's Recantation

Text: After she was granted immunity for any perjury committed at petitioner's preliminary hearing and capital trial, Darlene testified at the reference hearing that key aspects of her trial testimony were false. Specifically, she denied that petitioner ever told her he had killed any of the three girls; thus, her trial testimony attributing these admissions to petitioner was false. Also, contrary to her trial testimony, she did not see Denise get into petitioner's car on the night of June 12, 1984, when Denise disappeared. Petitioner never told her [t]hree [will] be eliminated from the foster home and three more. (See 135 Cal. Rptr.2d p. 351, 70 P.3d p. 343, ante. ) And contrary to her trial testimony, Darlene found Debbie's unicorn key chain in petitioner's car after petitioner and Darlene had given Debbie a ride, well before Debbie's disappearance. Darlene immediately returned the item to Debbie. Darlene explained at the reference hearing that although petitioner did refer to sisters Denise and Debbie Galston as sluts, he did so because they kept hanging around with Joanna, who reputedly was going to bed with every guy at The Oz video game arcade. Darlene said that during her interrogations by Detective Harnage and Sergeant Wilson throughout November 1984, she repeatedly told them she knew nothing about the killings, but they wouldn't accept it. The two sheriffs deputies accused Darlene of involvement in the murders, saying she was part of a conspiracy and could be sent to prison. Although her mother and stepfather were present at these sessions, Darlene testified that she was afraid of her stepfather, who hated petitioner and had sexually abused Darlene since she was 10. Between an interview session with the prosecutor on November 15, 1984, when Darlene denied knowing anything about the murders, and her taped interview with Detective Harnage and Sergeant Wilson on December 4, when she said petitioner had told her he killed the three girls, the two questioned her off the record for five to six hours each day. Because Harnage and Wilson kept harassing [her] and bothering [her], Darlene said she finally changed her story to the one she gave at trial: That petitioner told her he had killed Denise, Debbie, and Lynda. The transcript of the December 4, 1984, taped interview of Darlene by Detective Harnage and Sergeant Wilson, which was also introduced by petitioner at the reference hearing, shows that the two sheriffs deputies went to Darlene's house and threatened her with arrest for withholding information. In that interview, Darlene for the first time mentioned statements to her by petitioner admitting that he had killed the three girls.