MTV’s ‘Unlocking The Truth’ Recap: Episode 1 "Gates of Hell"

MTV’s Unlocking The Truth aired episode 1 “Gates of Hell” Wednesday night. The serialized documentary series follows the journey of alleged wrongfully convicted prisoners fighting for their freedom. Lead by the team of Ryan Ferguson, a man who at 19 years old was convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, and Eva Nagao, former director of The Exoneration Project (a free legal clinic at the University of Chicago Law School dedicated to representation of the wrongfully convicted), as they take an in-depth look into three criminal cases to uncover the truth.

The series is executive produced by Andrew Jenks who brought Ryan’s case to light in his hit documentary Dream/Killer. The documentary featured footage from Ryan’s interrogation, trial, daily life in prison and his father’s (Bill Ferguson) 10 year campaign to prove his son’s innocence. Now a free man, Ryan has made it his life’s passion to help exonerate those who have been wrongfully convicted.

Unlocking the truth of these cases comes with extremely high stakes; the lives and freedom of innocent people locked up for life, and the duty to honor the lives of those lost. However, Ryan and Eva are more than fit to do the job. They will expose the guilty and unveil those who are innocent, passing that information along to necessary parties.

The episode opens up with some eye-opening statistics on incarceration in the United States. 2.4 million people are currently incarcerated in the country and of those 2.4 million, 3-5% are innocent. That’s approximately 60,000 people rotting in a jail cell even though they have committed no crime. How insane is that? Guilty until proven innocent seems to be the way our justice system works.

The first case we look at in this series is Michael Politte. Michael was arrested on December 6^th, 1998 at 14 years old for the murder and arson of his mother. Michael is currently serving a life sentence in the Missouri Department of Corrections, in the same prison where Ferguson spent his decade behind bars.

There are a lot of red flags in Michael’s case, which is why Ryan was so interested in investigating further. First, Michael was given a voice-stress test, an unreliable and inadmissible test, which he failed. Although, what 14 year old wouldn’t be stressed out when they are being accused by police officers of killing their own mother. Michael also had a history of setting fires and investigators found traces of gasoline on his sneakers at the scene of the crime. It is known that Michael and a friend set a fire on the railroad tracks near his house the day of his mother’s murder. Another interesting point brought up in this case was the fact that Michael attempted suicide while in the juvenile detention center. Two detention workers claimed he said the following “I haven’t cared since Dec. 5, that’s when I killed my mom”, however he claims to have said “I haven’t cared since Dec. 5 and then they killed my mom”. Easy enough to miss-hear, right?

Michael’s sisters and many other family members believe he is innocent and stand by him. There are also rumors of another person walking through the fields near the Pilotte home that night. Family members have said that people know who it is. The question is, if the rumors are true, why won’t they come forward? What are they afraid of?

We also learn that Michael’s mother and father were going through an ugly divorce at the time of her murder. Michael’s sisters think he should be a suspect yet he was only questioned by police once. Could he have beaten Michael’s mother to death and set her ablaze or did Michael actually murder his mother? We will just have to wait and see.

Unlocking The Truth airs Wednesday’s at 10pm on MTV.

Next week:

We delve more into Michael’s case and begin to explore the case of Kalvin Michael Smith.

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