Episode 2: “Dig Deeper”

Cliff Bungardner: If you’re just starting this podcast, go back and start at episode 1, it’ll make a lot more sense.

DISCLAIMER
Cliff: This podcast contains frank descriptions of physical violence and human remains. Listener discretion is advised.

Amanda Lamb: August 14th, 1993. Eighteen-year-old Daniel Green sits in a room in the Robeson County Sheriff’s department in Lumberton, North Carolina. Around a table with him are no fewer than four investigators: two local detectives, a State Bureau of Investigation agent, and someone from the FBI. It’s dark outside, but their conversation is just beginning. There’s a tape recorder on the table. They turn it on.

Investigator: The time is twenty-one thirty-six hours. Location is room number three of the Robeson County Sheriff’s Department. [Fades off]

Amanda: Daniel thinks he’s here to be interviewed about some stolen car parts the investigators are looking for. They’d come to his house that evening and asked if he’d be willing to take a ride downtown.

Investigator: Myers here. Before we start, I want you, just for the sake of the tape, something that we’ve already talked about: you voluntarily agreed to come down here to the Sheriff’s Department with us, right?
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: And — um — you understand you’re not under arrest, at this time?
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: You understand that?
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: Okay. I just want to get that clear.

Amanda: But right away, the conversation takes a different route, into a story Daniel’s been watching unfold in the headlines.

Investigator: Daniel, we’re gonna be talking today about the, uh, James Jordan case.

News Reporter: Officials say an autopsy revealed Jordan had been shot once in the chest with a .38-caliber handgun. Hope of finding the elder Jordan alive has turned into a burning desire to find his killer.

Amanda: James Jordan, father of super-celebrity Michael Jordan, found dead only a few weeks ago in a swamp just forty-five minutes away. James’ face has been everywhere since the body was identified. And according to the news, the cops are looking for who killed him.

And that’s when Daniel realizes: He’s not here to talk about car parts. He’s here to talk about a murder.
From WRAL Studios, this is Follow the Truth, the story of the James Jordan Murder, and the man who says he didn’t do it. I’m Amanda Lamb.

PART 1

Amanda: After James Jordan’s body is found in that lonely South Carolina swamp, while the family and the public grieve, investigators from multiple agencies all over the place start scrambling to figure out who is responsible for Jordan’s death.

Investigator: We have no reason not to start a homicide investigation here and that’s what we’re going to do.

Amanda: The public wants a name, someone to blame.

Authorities embark on what would become the biggest case of most of their careers. The whole world is watching.

And the only clue they have is the stripped-out candy apple-red Lexus.

News Reporter: Authorities say the car was discovered by a passerby.

Amanda: This car was a present from Michael Jordan to his dad. And it now sat, abandoned in the woods near Fayetteville, North Carolina.

News Reporter: It has been stripped, the speakers taken out, the windows smashed. And all four wheels were gone.

Amanda: While interviewing people who live nearby, investigators learn who sold some of those car parts: four local guys.

News Reporter: …twenty-year-old Kenneth Farrier, 22-year-old…

Amanda: They admit to dumping the car but they say, hey, we don’t know anything about a body.

News Reporter: The foursome is charged with breaking and entering and felonious larceny, charges that could land them in jail for 10 years.

Johnson Britt: In their interviews, they also said, “look, this car was brought to us. This car was brought to us by a guy named Daniel and some Indian kid.”

Amanda: That’s Johnson Britt, the former district attorney who prosecuted this case.

Johnson Britt: “…Daniel wanted us to try to sell the car and we were going to split the proceeds.”

Amanda: The guys who dumped the car describe Daniel as a rapper. He had a camcorder, which was unusual back then, because they weren’t cheap. A couple of them say they made an appearance in a rap video with him and his friend at nearby Fayetteville State University.

They weren’t sure where Daniel and his friend were now, but they knew the two guys had a connection to Fort Bragg and a guy named David.

Fort Bragg is a military base just outside of Fayetteville. And in 1993, one of the soldiers stationed there was David Moore.

Johnson Britt: He is questioned, and he said, you know, he tells them: my brother and his friend Larry, brought this car up to my house.

Amanda: David gives investigators a last name for his half brother, Daniel: Green. And a first name for the second guy: Larry. He was with Daniel when they came to show off the fancy sports car.

Johnson Britt: And then he said they open, he opens the trunk. There’s a set of golf clubs inside, has Michael Jordan’s name written down the bag. There are other items in there, newspaper clippings about the Bulls winning the NBA championship, a picture of Michael on the front page, and he’s like, “who’s car is this? You need to get this stuff away from here.”

Amanda: Daniel Green and his buddy Larry are now the prime suspects in James Jordan’s murder.

Investigators learn that the two teenagers live about 40 minutes away from Fayetteville, closer to South Carolina, where the body was found.

Johnson Britt: He lives outside of Lumberton in a trailer park, um, with his mom.

Amanda: Remember the car phone? The one that was mounted in the Lexus that was considered so modern back in 1993? Well, now, the call logs investigators got for that phone are starting to make sense.

Johnson Britt: Suddenly, when they start looking at these phone calls again, that these calls are bouncing off of cell towers in the Robeson County and in the Lumberton area, they then come to Robeson County. They’re trying to find Daniel Green, and all they know is a kid named Larry.

Amanda: Investigators are starting to connect the dots. There’s a body discovered down in South Carolina, a car found sixty miles away in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And now, smack between the two, investigators have a new location: Lumberton, North Carolina in the heart of Robeson County where these two suspects live.

Johnson Britt: And Robeson County for the first time is involved in this investigation.

Amanda: Investigators start at the trailer in Robeson County where Daniel lives with his mom on Back Swamp Road in the middle of farmland. It’s Saturday, August 14th. Daniel is home, and investigators say they’d like to talk to him about some stolen car parts. Daniel agrees to go with them to the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office for an interview.

He isn’t under arrest, and so far, no one has even mentioned James Jordan’s name. He rides with them in the back of an unmarked Ford Thunderbird. The investigators describe Daniel as calm, cooperative. If he knows what’s really going on, he doesn’t show it.

They take him into room number three at the Sheriff’s Department and start recording…

Investigator: Daniel, we’re gonna be talking today about the, uh, James Jordan case. And what I’d like to know is do I have your permission to record this interview? I need to say…
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: OK. I’d ask that each person identify himself when they ask a question and that everybody speak clearly for the girls who won’t have any problem transcribing the tape.

Amanda: They start out by talking about the car. By this point, Daniel has already admitted he’s ridden in the Lexus and even made some phone calls.

Investigator: We’re talking about the Lexus 400?
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: Okay. And, and you told me that you’re familiar with that car, right?
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: What color is it?
Daniel Green: Burgundy.
Investigator: Burgundy. A reddish burgundy?
Daniel Green: Yes.
Investigator: All right. And you said that you have driven that car?
Daniel Green: No, rode in it.
Investigator: Rode in it. And that you made some phone calls in it while you were in it?
Daniel Green: Yeah…
Investigator: Okay. Now, let me ask you this. How was it that you come up with whoever had this car to ride in it?
Daniel Green: It was weird, uh, I was just walking and, uh, the guy was like, “Where you going?”

Amanda: Daniel tells them this long, complicated story about being approached by a guy he calls Rick at a motel in Rowland, North Carolina. He says Rick had the car, and he offered to give him a ride, even though they’d never met before.

Daniel Green: You know, he just gave me a ride, and you know, we started talking.
Investigator: And he was wanting to get to Highway 74 [trails off]

Amanda: This whole Rick story, the investigators don’t buy it. And they’re right not to. Later, Daniel would admit it was a story he and Larry came up with in case they were questioned about why they had the Lexus.

Daniel Green: You know, I was, I was scared. Um, no matter how they would have treated me, I wouldn’t have been kind of evasive and on guard.

Amanda: Daniel admits to lying to the police many times throughout this interrogation. He says he didn’t trust the cops. Only a few months earlier Daniel had been released from prison after questions were raised about the assault charges that landed him there.

And now here he is, dealing with law enforcement again. He doesn’t have any faith in the system. Daniel is also trying to protect his best friend Larry.

Investigator: How long you known Larry?
Daniel Green: About — ‘bout eleven years. …we went to school together and he’s just my best friend.
Investigator: He’s just your best friend.

Amanda: When Daniel was in prison on the assault charge, Larry was one of the few friends who stayed in touch.

Daniel Green: He was the only guy, I mean, and I got like two letters from him. You know, when I was in prison, I didn’t get any letters from anybody else that were guys.

Amanda: What Daniel doesn’t know is that investigators have already tracked Larry down. Within a few hours, he’s arrested — not for the Jordan case, but for several other outstanding warrants for robbery. But they stick him in an office just down the hall from Daniel, and a similar conversation begins.

Investigator: The time is 1:55 a.m. on the 15th day of August 1993. The location is the narcotics room of the Robeson County Sheriff’s Department. Present with me in the room is Larry Martin Demery. Spelling his name D-E-M-E-R-Y. Larry is an Indian male, 18-years of age. Larry, you know why we’re here. It’s about a red Lexus. Okay, you understand that? Red car. You know anything about that car?
Larry Demery: Yes.
Investigator: Alright, why don’t you tell me, why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me everything that you know about that car. Alright go ahead.
Larry Demery: The first time I ever saw the car, I was at, um, Daniel’s house. And uh, some guy named Rick he said he knew him, the one that was driving the car… [trails off]

Amanda: At first, Larry sticks to the story he and Daniel had prepared: this guy named Rick shows up in the car, they didn’t know where it was from.

Johnson Britt: That the car was brought to them by unknown people at Daniel’s mother’s mobile home. Um, “yeah, we are joyriding in it.”

Amanda: But then the investigators, who’ve played their cards very close to the vest so far, start to show their hand. Only a little, but it’s enough.

Investigator: Let me explain something to you, okay, Larry?
Larry Demery: Okay.
Investigator: I’m going to be straightforward and honest with you. Every time you tell us a lie, you’re sort of backing yourself into a corner or you’re digging a hole for yourself. If there’s anything at all that’s going to help you it’s the truth, not a lie. And right now you started out telling me a lie.

Amanda: The officers begin pitting Larry and Daniel against one another, telling each of them the other one has sold him out.

Investigator: Don’t let Larry tell on you and you not tell on Larry.
Daniel Green: Like I said he ain’t do nothing like I didn’t do nothing.

Investigator: I tried to tell you before that we’ve got Daniel down the hall. We’ve already got a statement from Daniel. And I tried to tell you that Daniel is putting it on you. You showed up with the car, the body was already in the trunk. He didn’t have nothing to do with killing Mr. Jordan.

Amanda: It’s worth noting, at this point, neither Daniel nor Larry has admitted to anything. This is a strategy commonly used by investigators to get someone to talk, to make them flip and point the finger at the other guy.

Investigator: You need to tell me now. Tell me now while I can still help you. You going to keep right on lying and I’m not going to be able to help you. Tell me the truth. Tell me why Mr. Jordan got hurt. Tell me how you got that car.
Daniel: I don’t know. I mean, I never seen him.
Investigator: Tell me about Larry.

Investigator: This type of situation right here, it’s the most serious situation we’re talking about. You know you’re talking about Michael Jordan’s car. We know that. We’ve been knowing that the whole time. You’ve been knowing it the whole time and you’re sitting over there about to shake out of that chair.
Daniel: I’m scared.
Investigator: Let me explain why you’re scared since you won’t explain it right. You’re scared because you’re not telling us the truth.
Daniel: I ain’t lied to y’all yet.
Investigator: Now the truth is going to get you [trails off]

Amanda: This goes on all night, into the early morning hours of Sunday, August 15th. The conversation shifts back and forth. Neither Larry nor Daniel will change his story.

But when investigators begin threatening them with the death penalty, you could say the temperature in the room changes.

Investigator: There’s no doubt, there is no doubt about your involvement in the killing of Mr. Jordan. You’re involved. There’s no doubt about that. But what we’re trying to find out right now is to what extent are you involved? What part did you play in it versus what part he played in it?

Johnson Britt: The reality of it was they were both looking at the death penalty for what happened.

Amanda: Former District Attorney Johnson Britt.

Johnson Britt: So to tell them that, that’s a technique to try to get them to talk, to loosen them up, to break them. And I mean, that was an issue more so with Demery than it was with Green, because in the Demery interview, Detective Smith from Cumberland County’s, the one who says on the audio tape, you know, son this is the death penalty, this is where they stick a needle up your ass and you don’t wake up.

Amanda: Unfortunately, we don’t have that part of the audio. Only a few hours of each interview was taped, and we don’t have all of it. But, you get the idea. In the span of a few hours, the conversation has turned from stolen car parts to a high-profile murder investigation and the death penalty.

There’s an old saying, first one to talk, first one to walk. And in this case, pitting the two against each other eventually works. But neither of these guys is walking.

Johnson Britt: And then as they confront him with certain information, Larry Demery changes what he is telling them and says, this is what happened. When Daniel Green is confronted with similar information, Daniel Green just continues to lie.

Amanda: Daniel never breaks. He continues spinning story after story. At one point Daniel says they bring him a statement to sign, throwing Larry under the bus.

Daniel Green: It was a document, um, that basically said that I saw Larry you know, kill, um, James Jordan. I think during a robbery,
Amanda Lamb: But you see I didn’t see that?
Daniel Green: I didn’t see that and I said, I’m not signing it. I’m not signing the document. I’m not signing it.
Amanda Lamb: But what you didn’t know is they were talking to Larry, and they were trying to get Larry to make a deal too.
Daniel Green: Well, I mean they did, at some point they did get him to, to do that.

Amanda: Only a few feet down the hall, Larry does sign such a document selling out his best friend.

Larry’s statement went like this: He and Daniel were out looking for someone to rob when they spotted the Lexus. They saw it had a UNC license plate and figured it must belong to a student who had pulled over to sleep.

They stalked the car, getting their nerves up, until finally, Daniel told Larry to leave. Larry went back to Daniel’s place, and when Daniel showed up a little later in the Lexus, the driver was slumped over the console, already dead…

This story would change later on, and to this day, Daniel says none of this is true. He admits to playing a part, which we’ll get to down the road. But for now, it’s important to know Daniel says he was not even there when James Jordan was killed.

After Larry signs his statement, investigators tell Daniel he’s no longer free to go. He’s under arrest for the murder of James Jordan. He’s read his rights and Daniel Green refuses to say anything else without a lawyer present.

The interview is over.

[Interrogation tape cuts out]

More after the break.

PART 2

Amanda: State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Tony Underwood had kept a close eye on the Jordan case since it broke in the news. The SBI comes in on cases where there’s a lot of jurisdictions involved. At the time, Tony was the resident Special Agent in the Robeson County office of the SBI and he was sure sooner or later it would wind up on his desk. That phone call from his boss came at an unexpected time.

Tony Underwood: August 14th was a Saturday, uh, 1993. I remember vividly, I was on my way to Raleigh going to a Jimmy Buffett concert. And he said “you wanted the Jordan investigation if it came our way. Well, you got it.”

Amanda: His supervisor tells Tony to go on and enjoy the Jimmy Buffet concert, but to report back to Robeson County first thing Sunday morning.

By then, Larry and Daniel are in custody, and the goal of the investigation has changed: they have their suspects, but they need more evidence. Specifically, they want to find items Larry and Daniel took from James Jordan’s car and dumped all over the county, physical evidence to back Larry’s story.

Tony says he spends most of Sunday getting up to speed, and it wasn’t until that evening, when he’d already gone home, that the investigation got one of its first big breaks from an unlikely source: Daniel Green himself.

Tony gets a call from Hubert Stone, the Robeson County Sheriff at the time.

Tony Underwood: I remember him saying he had received word from the jail staff that Green wanted to quote, “fess up.” And he wanted me to be there with him ‘cause he said, “it’s been years and years since I, [the Sheriff], had done investigations. So, I want you here with me if I try to speak with him.”

Amanda: Now, Tony doesn’t know what to expect. He immediately heads back to downtown Lumberton to the sheriff’s office, and within a few minutes he is in a room with Stone and then, without any explanation, Daniel is brought in.

Tony Underwood: “Hey, how are you?” And I think the sheriff said, “have you met Tony?” And he said, “well are you ready to go?” Of course I didn’t know where we were going. And so we ended up getting in the Sheriff’s vehicle. I got in the back seat, the Sheriff got in, was driving, we put Green in the front passenger seat and we leave.

Amanda: They drive across town. Tony still has no idea what’s going on or even where he’s going. Daniel is shackled and handcuffed. On the way to wherever they’re going, they pass the spot near Highway 74 where Larry had told investigators James Jordan’s car was parked when they robbed and shot him.

Tony Underwood: There was a news truck. At the location where the murder the actually occurred.

News Reporter: Police believe James Jordan stopped here at the intersection of I-95 and NC-74 to rest during his trip from Wilmington to Charlotte.

Tony Underwood: And I remember Green saying to me, “Hey,” something like, “can they get footprints?” Which, I mean, why is he asking that? But I’m like I said, “Well, Daniel, I don’t think they’re looking for footprints,” But he just, he asked some questions like that.

Amanda: Questions that he thought pointed to Daniel’s guilt.

The three of them eventually pull up to a house and get out of the car. Daniel leads Stone behind the house while Tony follows. Daniel takes them to a spot in the backyard, at the corner of the porch.

Tony Underwood: So he sorta takes his, his flip-flop and he’s like, “it’s right here,” at or near the back corner of that building. And he’s looking at me. Of course, Sheriff’s an older fellow, he’s looking at me like… I said, “what’s here? What are we doing?” He, and Green says, “just start digging.” Okay. So, I leaned down and I start with my hand, start sort of moving some of the soil, not really knowing what I’m looking for.

Amanda: While Tony’s digging, Daniel’s uncle comes out of the house and begins speaking with the Sheriff. It’s then that Tony learns the house belongs to Daniel’s great-grandmother.

Tony Underwood: At some point after this effort to recover something, I found a plastic bag in the soil.
Amanda Lamb: What was in it?
Tony Underwood: A ring

Amanda: An NBA ring. It’s exactly the kind of evidence they need: physical evidence tying Daniel to James Jordan.

Tony Underwood: I wasn’t prepared to retrieve evidence ‘cause I didn’t know where we were going. So I didn’t have gloves. I didn’t have anything. I just kind of picked it up like that on the very tip of it to hold it up, looked at it. The uncle saw it and says to Daniel, “Daniel, what is that?” And he said, “it’s Michael Jordan’s ring.” And he said, “why is that in my backyard?” And at that point is when the Sheriff said to me, will you take him back to the car?
We started walking back to the car. Green, initiates contact with me and says something along the lines, “are they going to give me the death penalty?”
Amanda Lamb: And what did you say?
Tony Underwood: I said, “probably”. I said, “but I don’t know, Daniel.” He said, “but I didn’t kill him.” I said, “well, Daniel, I wasn’t there, but I know you were.” I said, “well who was there?” And he said, “well, there weren’t but two of us there.”

Amanda: Tony says that even though Daniel was in custody, he wasn’t sure if he’d been read his rights. So while Daniel is essentially offering to talk openly about the case with him, Tony doesn’t probe too much.

Amanda Lamb: What was your impression of him at that point?
Tony Underwood: He was, I mean, he was, he was nervous. But at the same time, he was accused of murder. But he made some, some, some additional comments about. “I didn’t pull the trigger, I was there.” But if you didn’t, Daniel you, who did? He goes, “it wasn’t me,” insinuating that Larry was the person who shot him. And so, but I didn’t push that issue further.

Amanda: But then, Tony says Daniel said something that, honestly, I can’t get my head around.

Tony Underwood: That they saw him asleep. They saw the man in the car, of course, didn’t know who he was. They said his head was leaned over. Green said something like, “I thought he was already dead, but I guess he was just sleeping.” He did make that statement to me. Um, and then he later heard a gunshot, he said, Green said that.

Amanda: Daniel tells me most of what you just heard Tony Underwood say isn’t true. Daniel never told Sheriff Stone he wanted to fess up. He never had a conversation with Underwood saying he saw James Jordan in the car or that only he and Larry were present when James Jordan was killed. He says, as he said for 28 years, that he wasn’t there.

While Underwood testified under oath at a pre-trial suppression hearing in 1995 about these alleged conversations with Daniel, he didn’t testify about them at trial.

Daniel’s Attorneys argued at the time that not only did Underwood not have a legal right to interrogate their client during the brief interaction, but that Underwood never recorded these statements in the official investigative report, and therefore they lacked credibility.

Only Tony’s testimony about recovering the jewelry and looking for other items as evidence was heard by the jury.

Amanda Lamb: When Daniel took you to get this ring. What do you think his motivation was at that time?
Tony Underwood: I think he was just trying to cooperate. I mean, and so, I think he felt at that point he knew Demery had already provided some level of cooperation and he was just trying to do some on his own, trying to better his position, I guess.

But, he volunteered that, that they had taken some CDs, additional CDs, and had thrown them like Frisbees outside of his house Green’s house. And I think I did ask him, are there any other things in your house? He said, there may be some golf spikes in there that came from Mr. Jordan’s golf shoes.

Amanda: They take Daniel back to the jail and get a search warrant for his house, where he lived with his mother. They go there the next day, on Monday. They turn the house inside out looking for clues. And, investigators find a lot more in the house than just some golf spikes.

They find a gun.

A .38-caliber revolver, the same type of weapon used to kill James Jordan.

Tony Underwood: The gun was inside of a shop vac. If you take the top of the motor off the back, it was down inside the container portion of the vac. And, um, and that’s where it was.
Amanda Lamb: And of course, you’re investigating a murder and you find a gun.
Tony Underwood: Sure.
Amanda Lamb: That’s the first thing you think is, could this be the murder weapon?
Tony Underwood: It, it certainly appeared to, to have some nefarious involvement. Why else would you have a gun hidden in a shop vac?

News Reporter: Authorities say they searched Green’s home Monday and found a .38-caliber weapon that may have fired the fatal shot.
Investigator: We can not say for sure until it’s checked out through the laboratory. It’s in the state laboratory at this time being checked out. But at this time we’re not looking for any other weapon.

Amanda: During the search, Tony notices a VHS tape on a shelf. Something about it catches his eye.

Tony Underwood: The other ones were, you know, sorta store-bought tapes or like movies, things like that, that were, you know, manufactured tapes. This was more like a homemade-type video or VHS tape. And so that’s why I didn’t take all the tapes. But I took that one because it just sorta stood out, didn’t know what was on it at the time. I didn’t have any way to play it out there, but it just looks suspicious.

Amanda: Later, when investigators watch the tape, they can’t believe what they’re seeing. Remember some of the people who stripped Jordan’s car? They said Daniel had a camcorder and was filming rap videos when they were together. It turns out, this is one of those videos, filmed after Jordan went missing.

Daniel Green: [Music, rapping] I am the greetest MC to ever sing. First name, Dan-I-El, last name, Green. Of the Green… [trails off]

Amanda: In one part of the video, you see Daniel at home, rapping into the camera. He’s wearing a blue, short-sleeved, button-down shirt open over his bare chest . You can see a gold chain dangling from his neck. There’s a White Sox hat cocked to the side on his head. The camera zooms in on his face and he belts out the words.

And the words, well, they’re not very palatable, especially given the situation. They’re about killing someone, shooting someone in the head.

Daniel Green: [Music, rapping] Pop, pop two shots to the head bro…

Amanda: He’s free-styling, making up his own lyrics as he raps over a Cypress Hill song.

But what makes this video so damning for Daniel isn’t just what he’s saying, but what he’s wearing.

Johnson Britt describes when analysts at the SBI crime lab see the tape for the first time.

Johnson Britt: They watch it in their entirety in astonishment. As they’re watching it in closeups, they see what appears to be Mr. Jordan’s watch, and ring.

Amanda: The ring. The NBA ring investigators found buried like treasure in Daniel’s great-grandmother’s backyard.

This VHS tape, it completes the image investigators have of Daniel: a murderer, so callous and uncaring that he makes a rap video about shooting someone while wearing his victim’s jewelry.

Finally, the public gets the news it’s been waiting for: The authorities announce that they have found James Jordan’s killers.

Sheriff: The name of the two people that are charged are Larry Martin Demery, the other one is Daniel Andre Green.

Amanda: Soon after the arrests go public, the media and the world get their first look at the accused as they’re walked to the courthouse in shackles, surrounded by a sea of deputies and cameras.

News Reporter: It seemed like most of Robeson County showed up for the first appearance. Many people just wanted to look, others were concerned that justice be done.

Amanda: In the footage, Daniel’s in front wearing a multi-color collared shirt. His head is held high, his face is stoic, serious, his eyes cast downward. Larry has a leather Harley Davidson ball cap on. His brown hair peeks out from beneath it. He also stares at the ground. There are no less than ten officers surrounding Daniel and Larry in a tight circle as if they might make a break for it. This kind of walkdown, with two suspects next to one another, it’s not the way things are usually done. And right up front, there’s Sheriff Hubert Stone leading the charge.

Mark Roberts: The Sheriff, Sheriff Stone, did that for effect. Uh, and he walked them too, it was a slow walk around the entire Robeson County courthouse.

Amanda: Mark Roberts was a reporter back then, and he was there covering the case for WRAL-TV.

Mark Roberts: First impression, it looked to me like Daniel Green was kind of in charge. Larry Demery looked like a scared little kid, and Daniel Green almost looked like to me like he was, uh, here’s my 10 minutes of fame or something.

Amanda: Cameras flash and reporters lean in with questions.

News Reporter: Daniel anything you want to say to the Jordan family? Anything you have to say to the Jordan family at all?
Daniel Green: I didn’t kill him. That’s all I have to say.
News Reporters: What do you have to say [trails off]

Amanda: On the next episode of Follow the Truth…

News Reporter: When Michael and the Bulls won their first World Championship in 1991, there was dad. They were as close as any father and son could hope to be.

Amanda: We dig into James Jordan’s life and past.

Dan Wiederer: This is the father of the most famous athlete on the planet. And on his 57th birthday he was an unidentified dead man in a swamp in the middle of nowhere.

Johnson Britt: Michael’s security team started their own investigation. They did not report him missing

Dan Weiderer: That’s one of those unanswered questions. How’s a man so beloved by his family a man with so many children would let him be missing for more than three weeks without reporting to authorities that he was missing.

Amanda: Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Follow the Truth is written by me, Amanda Lamb, and Cliff Bumgardner.
Cliff also produces the show.
Shelly Leslie is our executive producer.
The show is edited and mixed by Wilson Sayre.
Our production manager is Anita Normanly.
Original music is by George Hage and Lee Rosevere.
Audio repair help by Isaac Rodrigues.
Additional reporting by Clay Johnson, Jay Jennings and the many other WRAL-TV journalists whose coverage you hear throughout the story. The show is represented by Melinda Morris Zanoni and Legacy Talent Entertainment with branding and digital marketing by Capitol B Creative. Special thanks to Dave Beasing.

Thanks for listening, we’ll be back next week with a new episode.