Who Murdered The Newlyweds?

Student Journalists Re-Open A Case That Was Thought Solved

(CBS)  The students graduated years ago, feeling as if they had left one course with an incomplete grade. "We left this unfinished business, but there was nothing that we could do," explains Kirsten Searer.

They thought they had done the impossible, finding new witnesses, new evidence. Enough, they thought, to lead to a new police investigation.

But Whitlock and Steidl stayed right where they had been for more than a decade: in prison.

The student sleuths began their careers in journalism. Then, five years after they began working on the case, came the story the students wished they had been able to write.

In a remarkable reversal of fortune, a federal judge ruled that Randy Steidl’s original attorney had made a big mistake in not challenging the credibility of the two "eyewitnesses," a mistake that could have affected the verdict.

All charges were dropped, and Steidl, once on death row, was now a free man.

"I'm glad the ceiling in my home is high enough to accommodate how high I jumped,” Protess remembers, laughing.

As Steidl left the prison, two of the former students showed up to meet him, Greg Jonsson and Kirsten Searer.

Steidl says he was surprised to see them. "I’m really happy that David Protess and those kids got involved,” he says.

But Kirsten Searer says someone was missing. "You just couldn’t help feeling guilty for being there when Herb (Whitlock) was still in prison."

While Steidl’s case was heard by a federal judge, Whitlock’s case had stayed in the state system, where his appeals had been heard repeatedly, and repeatedly denied.

"I finally got a real judge in federal court who actually read the record for the very first time that, I believe, in 15, 16 years had ever been looked at," says Steidl.

After Steidl’s success, Whitlock tried again, asking a state judge to overturn his conviction based on the same issues of questionable evidence and inadequate legal counsel. But the judge dealt Whitlock a stunning blow, ruling that his lawyer did an adequate job and that the eyewitnesses, on the issues that mattered, could be believed.

"Which means we have one of the most horrible miscarriages of justice in our state's history where, based on the same pathetic evidence, one man could be free while Herb Whitlock languishes in prison for the rest of his life. And that would just be a tragedy beyond words,” says Protess.

Steidl says he knows the situation could just as easily have been reversed. He says he thinks about that a lot, and only hopes that, somehow, Whitlock will eventually also be free.

Meanwhile, Steidl struggles to re-establish his life. He has a new job at a local factory and a determination to fit in, learning about all the changes that have happened in the last 17 years.

"I am still adjusting on a daily basis. It’s a struggle," says Steidl.

While Steidl adjusts to life as a free man, Whitlock filed yet another appeal based both on ineffective counsel and on a new claim: the prosecution withholding evidence. This time an appeals court saw it his way. Finally, on Jan. 8, 2008, Whitlock gets the news he has waited so long to hear: his conviction is overturned. At last, he too is free.

For the first time in two decades, Whitlock turns his back on prison and is able to hold hands with his daughter. "To tell you the truth I didn’t think I’d ever get out of there," he said.

A few days later, he returns to a place he once called home. "I knew it was getting in bad shape but I didn’t realize how bad," he remarked, seeing the family farm.

"I’m angry, but I’m not necessarily bitter not gonna rap myself up with anger with what’s been done," Whitlock said.

But Whitlock’s eager to get to work, and says he going to restore the farm.

Determined to make up for lost time, he said, "I’m going to put it back to at least like it was when I lived here."

"Everybody’s got to make the best out of their circumstances in life no matter what it is. That’s not hokey, that’s the truth," he said.

But for the Rhoads family, who always had doubts about the investigation into the murders of Karen and Dyke, justice will only come when they know what really happened that hot July night so long ago.

"It’s just not something you’re able to be at peace with all," says Dyke’s sister, Andrea.

"It’s like an open sore that just doesn’t heal. The truth is still out there in my view," says his brother, Tony.

"And I think it will be found someday," Andrea adds.

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The Dyke and Karen Rhoads murder investigation has been reopened.

Prosecutors say Randy Steidl and Herb Whitlock remain suspects and could be tried again for the murders.