July 10th, 2020 was a big day for Sean Henning and Ricky Birch, a day they'd likely looked forward to for decades.

The two men emerged from the Superior Court. for decades.

The two men emerged from the Superior Court in Torrington, Connecticut, wearing coordinated

t-shirts.

Each had a starkly powerful statement written across the chest.

Birch's shirt was white with black lettering that said,

I am innocent.

Henings was black with white text which said, I didn't do it. It was a long and winding road that led them to that courtroom.

35 years before, they had been caught up in a bloody murder and became the prime suspects.

They were convicted and received long prison sentences 50 and 55 years.

Then, earlier that day, a judge finally dismissed all charges against them. In a way their t-shirts told the whole story.

They were exonerated of the crimes they'd been accused of. They were innocent. They didn't do it.

Yet they did each spend nearly three decades in prison for crimes they didn't commit. And why was that? Who was to blame? From a certain perspective, one man bore a large part of the fault

for sending them to prison. He was a forensic expert whose testimony helped convince a jury they were guilty.

That man was part of the reason Henningen Birch ended up losing nearly 30 years of their lives behind bars.

His name was Dr. Henry Lee,

evidence of foul play.

I'm Sarah James McLaughlin.

In this episode, we dive into the story of Dr. Henry Lee, a forensic scientist and expert

witness whose decades-long career was later overshadowed after shoddy testimony compromised several major cases. You're going to be here. Henry Lee, the man who would one day be called the Godfather of forensic science, worked

his way up from humble beginnings.

Born in China, the 11th of 13 children, he had to fend for himself from an early age.

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