Okay, so you'll just be sitting here,
and you'll look directly into the lens.
We'll just have a conversation. You can tell your side of the story.
Whatever you want.
If you feel uncomfortable at any point,
- you know, feel free to stop and... - Alright.
- All good? - Yes.
- Kevin, are you all set? - Mm-hm.
Please state your name and why I'm interviewing you.
My name is Kevin McClain.
St. Bernardine High School will tell you that I am the Turd Burglar.
They will tell you how I confessed
and that it is an open-and-shut case.
But what they won't tell you
is that they forced that confession.
And they surely will not tell you
that the excrement came also at my expense,
because I, Kevin McClain,
also...
shit my pants.
Shat? Shit? Shat my pants?
Shit. It's shit.
One more...
...time?
My name is Kevin McClain.
Kevin McClain was expelled from school,
indicted by the Bellevue Police,
and placed on house arrest for crimes that he confessed to.
He now claims that those confessions were coerced.
But why would anyone confess to crimes...
that they didn't commit?
We know as a certainty that false confessions do happen,
even in high-stakes crime, I mean, death penalty crimes.
And you have to start with that reality,
that people who are not crazy, people who are not starved for attention,
you know, reasonably normal people, can be led to a false confession.
And once you start with that, I think, undeniable fact,
it makes it much easier to start thinking through
whether or not a particular confession that you're looking at
might be one of the false ones.
When I was called out of class to speak with the officers,
I figured I was simply a name on a checklist.
Have a seat.
But my time spent with the officers
was not an interrogation.
It was theater.
They were looking to take someone down.
And I was the proverbial...
guy.
Forty innocent kids pooped in their pants.
Okay? You think poop is funny?
There was definitely good cop/bad cop.
Seeing your classmates crap their pants?
That's funny.
I'd laugh at that.
Whether it's good cop or bad cop,
interrogating somebody is pretty much opportunistic.
You try a bunch of different things, looking for the lever
that's going to get you where you want to go.
You went out of your way to knock that lemonade
out of Brother Buckley's hand, didn't you?
The reason I went out of my way
was to talk to Jacob Linder about an AP Bio assignment.
And, I don't know, I suppose my mind must have already drifted
to cell transformations,
because...
I bumped into Brother Buckley.
Why not replace a lemonade
with a lemonade?
Why would you replace a lemonade with a horchata?
But the horchata...
is only suspicious to anyone with an unsophisticated palate.
Now, this is what I'm very excited about.
It's called panda dung tea.
Kevin's really weird with beverages.
Damn it.
So, the horchata thing doesn't surprise me at all.
Shoot.
Our cafeteria splurges on Sri Lankan cinnamon.
It is shockingly smooth and sweet,
and when mixed with organic whole milk, as the Spaniards intended it,
it's divine.
And, yes, it is $1.25 more,
and I think that's a fair markup.
I felt...
terrible about bumping into Brother Buckley,
so I bought him the superior beverage.
Don't mind the bell.
You're on our schedule.
But school's over.
School is over, but not for you.
But my grandmother will be waiting...
We spoke to your grandmother. You're gonna take the later bus.
They made it sound like he was...
helping their investigation.
I asked them if I should leave work and go down to the school,
and they said, "Oh, it's not necessary."
I didn't know that they were considering him a suspect.
And they kept him in that room for hours...
with no tea.
Cops are allowed to do this for two hours, four hours, six hours,
in part 'cause they're trying different things,
but also because they're trying to just wear down the suspect.
It had been hours of relentless interrogation.
I didn't know if it was ever going to end.
Kevin, here's the thing.
We know you did it.
How?
Because your best friend told us.
And who might that be?
Tanner Bassett.
In the moment, it was very hard to believe.
Not so hard to believe now.
Knowing it was Tanner that went to the cops...
I just can't imagine how that made Kevin feel.
I'm just trying to figure out,
like, so when you got over into the parking lot...
- Excuse me, officers. - Hey, Kathy.
Can Kevin take a little break?
We're making so much progress.
30 minutes.
Okay.
Come on, Kevin.
At 5:15 p.m.,
Kathy Wexler, the school's Dean of Students since 2003,
comes to give Kevin a break.
When he returns,
over 50 minutes later,
Kevin's story changes significantly.
Are you ready to cooperate?
Yes.
You ready to...
confess what you've done?
Yes.
What was said between Kevin and Mrs. Wexler in those 50 minutes?
How do you go from maintaining your innocence for six hours...
to confessing?
Certainly, one of the maneuvers that gets used a lot
isgetting the person to think about...
possible punishments, possible rewards.
I mean, if you're talking about a police officer,
they are not allowed to say, "If you confess, this will happen.
If you don't confess, this will happen."
I mean, they cannot do that out loud.
But what if somebody from the school
made him a promise behind closed doors?
She allowed me to stretch my limbs...
and stop by my locker.
I was able to withdraw my tea chest.
And then she took me to the teachers' lounge.
I had never before seen a student
permitted in the private faculty quarters.
She knew I'd missed lunch, so...
she heated me some mozzarella sticks.
I know it sounds silly, but...
those were the best mozzarella sticks I've had in my life.
She knew exactly how to get to him,
how to manipulate him.
Give him tea
and give him mozzarella sticks.
I told her I was innocent.
I was...
terrified.
I thought I could potentially...
be arrested for a crime I didn't commit.
Mrs. Wexler...
promised me...
she wouldn't let that happen.
She told me that if I cooperated with the officers
and told them everything they wanted to hear,
that she could personally guarantee...
the school would not press charges.
She said that they would treat it as a prank
and it would be a two-week suspension.
It wouldn't even go on my permanent record.
I mean, a two-week suspension versus expulsion and legal action?
Mrs. Wexler made it seem like a total no-brainer.
Even then,
I told her no.
I told her that I was innocent,
and I was sure that with the aid of a lawyer in a court of law,
I would be exonerated.
That's when she told me that the officers were proceeding
as if they had all of the evidence they needed to convict,
and that even with a great lawyer,
that my grandmother couldn't afford,
I still might be convicted and thrown in jail.
And Iunderstand...
the prison-industrial complex.
I thought that confessing was my only way out
because that's what Mrs. Wexler told me was the case.
She told me that she could help me.
And I believed her.
An email from Mrs. Wexler on December 10th, 2017.
"Dear Mr. Maldonado,
I appreciate you reaching out,
but the issues in question have been resolved
because of Mr. McClain's own words and confession.
I could never promise a student
a reduced punishment for crimes of this nature.
This took place a few weeks ago,
but to the best of my knowledge,
we spoke only of how he was feeling
and how he wanted the guilt off his shoulders."
Kevin McClain confessed to being the Turd Burglar on November 21st,
fifteen days after the Brownout.
Police are turning their attention to...
That's 15 days of news coverage.
Fifteen days of pressure from parents and alumni
threatening to pull their donations.
Fifteen days of angry emails and phone calls
all directed at one person,
the Dean of Students,
Mrs. Wexler.
I was so naive.
How could I be so blind?
She was working with the officers.
It was just another ploy.
All part of the show.
The Turd Burglar was a problem that needed to be solved.
Did Mrs. Wexler find her solution
in Kevin McClain?
You did all three crimes?
Yes.
Okay.
Let's talk about the piñata.
Show us how you got the poop in there, bud.
I was in Ms. Montgomery's class.
It was Vonnegut's Birthday.
Kurt Vonnegut was apparently this famous author.
I like to think of Kurt Vonnegut as
the Kanye West of satirical postmodern literature.
Ms. Montgomery is, like, obsessed with him.
Vonnegut's Birthday is such a special, fun day.
The students love it.
It's everyone's favorite day in English,
'cause we don't do shit.
This is my third year in a row of doing it and it gets better every year.
I decorated the whole classroom
with Breakfast of Champions cake,
Slaughterhouse-Five streamers,
and a VonnegutÂ piñata.
She pays for all this shit herself.
She has a cake and a piñata every period.
I got to hit the piñata first.
Lucky me.
I was dizzy around the second spin,
but I kind of got my balance back.
I swang the first time, they cheered.
Second time, they cheered.
Third time...
they screamed.
At first, I thought it was for the candy.
But then I realized...
no one screams like that for candy.
Yeah!
Oh...
I took off the blindfold and...
there it was.
Eww!
Gross!
Show us how you got the poop in there, bud.
- Okay. - No, no, no.
- Damn it. - I think... Can you...?
Let's try that again.
Let's just... Give it to me, here.
Why don't... I'm gonna just...
Look at it this way.
Here.
If I were putting poop in there,
which is what you did, where would it...?
They were steering him.
If you look at the tape,
you can see,
they gave him all the the ways the crimes were done.
He didn't know how the poop
got into the Vonnegut Piñata,
but they still made him write a confession
of how he put the poop in Vonnegut's shoulder.
The police will often supply the suspect with details
that supposedly only the guilty party would know,
and thenlater on, the police will say,
"Look, how else could he have known this unless he was guilty?"
And, of course, they brush past the fact
that the suspect knew those details because the cops supplied them.
And you left your Turd Burglar card where?
On Ms. Montgomery's desk.
You left your Turd Burglar card...?
In theÂ piñata.
Thank you.
The officers told me all about how I did it,
but worse than that,
they told me why.
Because you hated everyone in the school.
They invented an alternate reality
where I did all this to get back at my classmates,
as some sort of revenge.
Kids have been calling you that since sixth grade?
Right? "Shit Stain McClain!"
"Hey! Shit Stain McClain!"
Other than the Throwback Thursday days before the Brownout,
I had not heard "Shit Stain McClain" in years.
No, it makes no sense to me
that he would take revenge upon his classmates.
I have never heard him complain about his classmates.
He'll complain about the food I make,
or the fact that I make him go to church,
or he doesn't care for me
or my life choices,
but he never once complained about his classmates.
You stick to yourself. It's safer that way, isn't it?
Less people making fun of you, less people taking videos of you.
They pointed to the Fruit Ninja videos as evidence that I was bullied.
But look at the first Fruit Ninja video.
Fruit Ninja!
I started it freshman year with my friend Grayson.
It was my idea.
Don't you find that annoying?
That the kids throw fruit at you?
Absolutely not.
- No? - No.
- No? - No, I enjoy it.
The idea that I should care what a bunch of kids at my school
think about me...
It's preposterous.
Bullying requires an unwilling participant.
Two-fruit combo.
Do I seem unwilling?
Maybe one or two of the videos, out of context,
might appear to be bullying.
I can't... You can't throw a watermelon at me.
But in general, I love being the Fruit Ninja,
I love making the videos. It's fun. It's a creative outlet.
I'm friends with the people who I make them with.
He doesn't think he's being bullied,
he thinks he's pretty cool.
Kevin's weird,
but he's not, like, on the spectrum or anything.
He's just weird on purpose.
Kevin likes the attention.
That's why he acts the way he does.
Hey, Fruit Ninja!
Kevin and I are on different schedules,
but we still pass by each other every day in the hall.
And, yeah, kids toss fruit at him,
but he doesn't see it as being bullied.
Boy, that was quick!
That's Fruit Ninja right there. He real wit' it.
I wouldn't say that Kevin's bullied,
I'd say that he's...
found a creative way to make a name for himself.
Like fuckin' Fruit Ninja.
It's fuckin' awesome.
They also pointed to Alex Wright dressing as me for Halloween.
Look at the photo.
That's my flat cap,
that's my jacket,
that's my vest.
I lent them to him.
He wasn't making fun of me.
Or at least no more than a friend makes fun of another friend.
It was funny.
It's not like I'm Diapey Drew Pankratz.
The cops needed to hear a motivation,
so they invented it.
Kevin, you are on a roll right now.
What...
What'd you do next, bud?
The Shit Launcher.
You mean this?
So there was a pep rally before the big game against Grayling
on November 14th and the days leading up to it.
The Turd Burglar was warning about a third crime on that day.
The Turd Burglar mentions committing another crime,
and now we're having a pep rally for a basketball team that's undefeated.
Why are we even here? It makes no sense.
Your starting point guard,
Lou Carter!
We all saw the Turd Burglar's warning,
but the gym felt safe.
There's no food or drink allowed.
I mean, you could even get a detention for chewing gum.
Security was tight. They checked everyone's bag.
Last but not least,
DeMarcus Tillman.
The gym is like the school's chapel,
and this school has an actual chapel.
It didn't seem like anything bad could happen in there.
So, look, this is what we gon' do.
We gon' take it down and we gon' turn it up.
Y'all ready?
What is this?
It smells like shit!
God, it's fucking disgusting!
This is awful!
When the T-shirt cannon launched,
it was just dust all over the crowd.
It wasn't clear that it was poop...
until someone shouted, "It's poop!"
And then everyone knew.
We didn't know what it was at the time,
but later we found out that it was cat shit.
This poop was not wet and gooey.
This was more of a poop... dusting.
You know, it was dried up
and just,
you know, broke into particles.
Yeah, I caught it.
I mean, talk about limited edition.
There's only, what, three ever made?
Show us how you loaded the shit.
I mean, you like to...
put a lot of poop in a lot of kids' faces.
- God dammit. No, Kevin. - No.
Don't play games right now, okay?
No, it's not human shit,
and you know that it's not human shit.
So I just want to know...
what shit?
Dog.
Dog? Is that your final answer?
Want to poll the audience on this one?
Cat.
Well, that was quick.
You could see that he didn't even know
what kind of poop was in the launcher.
He didn't know how to get a T-shirt into the cannon.
He was folding it like a crepe.
Really, he should have rolled it like a burrito.
He confessed to each crime,
but he didn't know any of the details.
Like, the cops definitely fed all the lines to him.
How is that a legal confession of guilt?
It's just how it's done.
It's a pig pile.
You know, you stack on the facts until the truth climbs out.
So, you're confident that Kevin McClain is the Turd Burglar?
Yes, we had a confession.
But, I mean, no hard evidence.
His best friend Tanner Bassett
was with him when he bought the laxatives.
Kevin, the night before the Brownout,
you went to Dawsey's Health Mart with your best buddy Tanner Bassett.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And you bought stuff.
What was in the bag?
Was it laxatives?
Yes.
I lied to the officers.
I did go to Dawsey's with Tanner, but I did not buy laxatives.
Well, what did you buy?
I do not remember.
It was two weeks after the fact when they asked me.
Do you remember what you got at a convenience store two weeks ago?
I don't know.
I wish I could remember, I really do,
but all I know is that it wasn't laxatives.
We know from the police report that the key ingredient
that caused the Brownout was maltitol.
So we decided to go to Dawsey's ourselves
to see which laxatives contained it.
Iron oxide yellow, isopropyl alcohol.
Do any of these have maltitol?
This one doesn't.
Maybe we're just not looking in the right place.
Let's go ask a pharmacist.
You're not going to find any laxatives with maltitol in 'em.
Why not?
It's primarily a sugar substitute.
Do you have anything here that has maltitol in it?
- Yep. - No laxatives have maltitol.
We've got some candy.
Like, what kind of candy?
This one has the maltitol in it.
We discovered that the only product in Dawsey's
that contained maltitol
was a sugar-free Gummy Bear.
It was a product with a reputation
consistent with that of the Brownout.
Says one Amazon customer,
"These Gummy Bears made me shit like crazy.
My anus felt like it was funneling Niagara Falls
through a coffee straw."
But the idea that Kevin boiled down Gummy Bears
and poured them into the lemonade dispenser
seemed unlikely.
Not to mention,
that it would have completely changed the color
and consistency of the beverage.
- So where did the maltitol come from? - I don't know.
I mean, obviously not from Dawsey's, I guess.
Did the police even try and verify what Tanner said?
I mean, if we were able to come here
and see that none of the laxatives have maltitol,
and they weren't able to do that,
which means they just wentÂ off of everything that Tanner said
- and took it as facts. - Yeah.
If he can get the maltitol from Dawsey's then that changes everything.
You're right.
I'm almost positive that he had laxatives
in that Dawsey's bag.
Okay.
Maltitol caused the Brownout.
But maltitol can't be purchased at Dawsey's.
So why would Tanner tell the officers
that Kevin's bag contained laxatives?
Why would Tanner lie?
I don't know the details,
but I do know that Kevin and Tanner
haven't been best friends for, like, a minute.
He thinks I ruined Skip Day.
Skip Day is a St. Bernardine institution.
It's an annual planned event where students pitch in for an Airbnb
and skip class to party,
many of whom participate in a social activity
called the Great American Challenge.
It was kind of a shitshow,
because half the party was doing the Great American Challenge,
which is four teams of six.
It's a race to finish a case of beer...
a full pizza,
a handle of vodka,
a full JUULpod.
The big finisher:
five hundred-piece custom puzzle
of Andrew Lundgarden's mom.
Lundgarden's mom!
The puzzle has to be last.
And the pizza has to be sausage jalapeño.
It's fucking impossible.
Kevin and Tanner always made fun of Skip Day.
They called it "Skip Chromosome Day."
So when Skip Day rolled around this year...
Kevin was really surprised to see that Tanner was not in school.
- This is the best Skip Day yet! - Yeah, bro!
Guys, shh!
The cops are here!
Tanner was convinced that I...
called the authorities.
You resent your classmates.
Don't you, Kevin?
Yeah, you even went as far as to call the police
to get a Skip Day party canceled, didn't you?
I did not call the police.
But Tanner...
refused to believe me.
He drove to my house,
so angry, yelling at me.
He accused me of being jealous.
I wasn't there,
but Tanner told me that things got really heated.
He said that they'd never really fought like that before.
And then, I guess Kevin just lost it.
Finally, I had no choice but...
I had to kick him out of the band.
I got this kid Myles to replace Tanner.
He's a better fit for our audience.
I was at Kyle's bar mitzvah.
I met Kevin at the ice cream buffet.
And Kevin asked me,
"Hey,
you want to be in a band?"
And I was like, "Yeah."
So...
Now I'm in a band.
We're trying to get back into the bar mitzvah scene,
and Myles is a middle schooler,
so he's very connected,
knows lots of 13-year-olds.
I think people thought it was weird for high schoolers
to go and play middle school parties.
So, when I'm with him, it's, like, less weird
because I am a middle schooler.
Is that enough bass for you, Myles?
That's what I'm talkin' about!
Oh, Myles.
Tanner was pissed.
Wouldn't you be?
He and Tanner started that band.
And to kick him out?
And to replace him with a 10-year-old?
He can't even play an instrument.
I think Tanner is bitter.
Apparently bitter enough
to accuse me falsely of a felony.
There definitely are some holes in his story.
I mean, why would he go to the cops and tell 'em that
he saw Kevin with laxatives?
And not just laxatives, everything that he brought to the police -
the horchata, the trip to Dawsey's,
the fact that he'd been acting weird.
I mean, he had all this information right after the Brownout.
The Brownout takes place on November 6th,
but Tanner doesn't go to the police.
November 10th, the Poop Piñata.
November 14th, the Shit Launcher.
But Tanner still doesn't go to the police.
Then three days later, they fight about Skip Day.
And on the 19th,
Kevin kicks Tanner out of the band.
The very next day,
Tanner finally goes to the police.
Why?
Because he got kicked out of the band on November 19th.
Think he was butthurt?
Yes, he was butthurt.
Is that our best theory?
I mean, yeah, that makes sense to me.
I think it's clear that Tanner had an ax to grind.
Everything that he brought to the police comes with a huge grain of salt.
I think that the police ran with Tanner's statements,
looped in Mrs. Wexler,
and forced Kevin's confession.
That theory adds up to me.
So you think Kevin's innocent?
Yeah. You don't?
No, I just...
I keep coming back to the horchata.
I don't buy his Sri Lankan cinnamon excuse.
And this is just weird.
Look at the Turd Burglar's Instagram, right?
Uh-huh?
Now, for every crime he'd post a warning days before.
- Right. - And an aftermath post right after.
Just to let the school know that he was right under their noses
the whole time before each shit attack occurs.
Right.
Now, November 30th and December 4th,
we've got two warnings.
Nothing after that.
That was the last thing the Turd Burglar ever posted.
Now, why?
Think about that.
I think it's because Kevin was already expelled,
under house arrest with an ankle monitor.
That makes sense to me.
It is odd that the Turd Burglar warned of a fourth crime
that never occurred,
and did so after Kevin was placed on house arrest.
Could Sam be right?
Was this Kevin's desperate attempt
to make it seem like the Turd Burglar was still at large?
So you think that Kevin McClain is the Turd Burglar?
If we were placing bets...
With no hard evidence?
I actually think the most damning piece of evidence against Kevin
is the footage of the Brownout.
Kevin was a victim of the Brownout.
Was he?
- When I see this footage, right? - Yeah?
I see a lot of kids...
fighting to keep their shit in.
- Clenching. - Right.
But when I see Kevin,
I see a lot of sweating,
laboring.
What are you saying?
I'm saying I think Kevin squeezed one out.
You think he shit his own pants to look innocent?
Yeah.
Look,
clenching...
Right.
Straining...
Clenching...
It's like a scared look.
- Straining. - That's kind of a hard face.
- I don't know. - I just did it for you.
Look at his face and tell me that's the face of an innocent man.
I couldn't dismiss anything Sam was saying.
I couldn't tell you that Kevin wasn't straining.
Forced confessions...
Forced turds.
It was a lot to digest.
But fortunately, I did know one thing.
It wasn't straining that got me interested in this case.
Hi, Peter.
My name is Chloe Lyman
and I'm a junior at St. Bernardine Catholic...
Chloe Lyman came to me with a story of injustice.
Her version painted Kevin as an innocent man.
But her version fell on deaf ears.
The school and police refused to investigate her full statement.
But why?
I know that Kevin isn't the Turd Burglar,
because I know who is.
Why would anyone attempt to silence Chloe?
Why was she ignored?
I was standing in line to get a soda from the vending machine,
and there was someone in front of me.
And when he got out his wallet to pay,
I saw the Turd Burglar card in there,
right in front of me.
It was DeMarcus Tillman.