Thanks to an old episode of the show MythBusters, a man was able to prove his innocence and was released from a life sentence after being incarcerated for 35 years.
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John Galvan was only 21 years old when he was arrested after brothers Guadalupe and Julio Martinez died in a fire in their apartment in 1986.
Two other brothers, Blanca and Jorge, escaped the fire, telling police that their neighbor had threatened to set the building on fire in retaliation for their brother’s death. Jorge was believed to be a member of a local street gang, and the neighbor accused him of killing her brother.
However, when the neighbor was charged by the police, she named John Galvan. Two other neighbors, José Ramirez and Rene Rodriguez, claimed that John Galvan was involved in the fire along with his brother, Arthur Almendarez.
Although Galvan was sleeping at his grandmother’s house at the time of the crime, he was arrested and taken in for questioning, where he claimed to have made a false confession. Despite the false confession, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Many years later, in 2007, Galvan was watching an old episode of MythBusters in prison and realized that there was a way to prove his innocence.
The television show MythBusters on the Discovery Channel, hosted by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, tested the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, and news. Galvan was watching an episode called Hollywood on Trial, which would prove that his confession statement was false.
The prisoner admitted to lighting a Molotov cocktail with a cigarette, but the episode in question of MythBusters proved that such a move was virtually impossible. Galvan contacted his lawyer, who coincidentally had also seen the episode.
“It was honestly shocking to me. I feel like we’ve all seen movies – like Payback is a famous movie – where they light gasoline on the street with a cigarette, and a car explodes, and I really never thought much about whether that could be real or not,” said Tara Thompson, Galvan’s lawyer.
“When I watched this episode of MythBusters, as a lawyer, I realized that there are things that you need to examine more deeply – you can’t assume you understand science until you’ve investigated it.”
“It’s been difficult, I feel out of place, there’s a lot to learn, and I don’t know where I should be. I don’t know what to do,” said Galvan, who was released in 2022 by the Innocence Project.
This content was created with the help of AI.