How an LAPD Detective and Two Journalists Helped Overturn a Teen’s Wrongful Murder Conviction

At just 17 years old, Bruce Lisker was convicted of murdering his mother, a brutal crime he always maintained he didn’t commit. He spent 26 years behind bars before a Los Angeles Police Department detective and two Los Angeles Times journalists uncovered a trail of ignored evidence, false assumptions, and investigative errors that exposed the truth.

In this episode of For the Innocent, Michael Semanchik speaks with Scott Glover and Matt Lait, investigative reporters whose pursuit of the facts challenged the LAPD’s original findings, and Jim Gavin, the LAPD officer whose own investigation turned him from skeptic to believer.

Together, they retrace how this unlikely trio helped unravel one of Los Angeles’s most infamous wrongful convictions. They discuss how evidence was mishandled, how justice failed, and what it takes to admit the system got it wrong.

Matt Lait is Vice President of CNN’s investigative team. Previously, he worked at the Los Angeles Times where he was an investigative reporter, city editor and ran the local investigations team.

Scott Glover is a reporter on the CNN Investigates team. Glover came to CNN with 20 years of experience at the Los Angeles Times where he covered the LAPD, federal courts and law enforcement agencies.

Jim Gavin retired from the Los Angeles Police Department in August 2020, as the head of Operations Valley Bureau Homicide. He served 32 years with the LAPD in a wide variety of assignments.

🎙️ Hear Bruce Lisker’s firsthand account of how corruption, tunnel vision, and lies led to one of California’s most shocking wrongful convictions: https://play.megaphone.fm/etntj6r6qfw...

Learn more about The Innocence Center: https://theinnocencecenter.org/about-us/
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Chapters:
00:00 – The Wrongful Conviction of Bruce Lisker
02:00 – How LA Times Journalists Uncovered the Truth
06:30 – Inside LAPD: Jim Gavin’s Investigation
10:45 – The Bloody Footprint That Changed Everything
15:30 – Exposing Police Misconduct and Cover-Ups
22:00 – The Alternate Suspect: Mike Ryan
30:00 – Media Pressure and the Fight for Justice
38:00 – Recreating the Murder Scene and New Evidence
39:30 – Leaked LAPD Emails Reveal the Truth
49:00 – Bruce Lisker’s Freedom After 26 Years
56:00 – Reflections on Truth, Integrity, and Reform

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