Knowing who killed their daughter had been a small comfort for Amy Yates’ parents.  Now even that peace of mind vanished with Chris Gossett’s claim that he was the real killer. Yet Yates says deputies were quick to reassure them Gossett wasn’t the murderer.

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: Do police lend any credibility to the confession they got from Chris Gossett?

Shari Yates: They don’t want to take it seriously.

Tom Yates: The next words out of their mouth immediately were, ‘But wait don’t worry about it.  He didn’t do it. He’s a babbling fool he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” And they from that point they just tried to assure us that Chris didn’t do it.” They just said well part of  his confession was information that everybody knew.

Chris, now 19, says  police urged him not to tell anyone else he killed Amy... but he refused, telling his preacher, his friends and anyone who would listen.

Stafford: How many people have you told you killed Amy Yates?

Chris Gossett: A whole bunch. 

When police didn’t arrest him in the weeks after his confession, Chris grew restless and depressed.  Then, one morning, Chris didn’t wake up.

Stafford: Did you try to hurt yourself?

Chris Gossett: Yeah, I drunk bleach and took sleeping pills.

Stafford: And why’d you do that, Chris?

Chris Gossett: Because it seemed like everybody was mad at me.  So, I figured nobody wanted me no more.  So, that’s why I did it.

Chris survived the suicide attempt  but one thing dramatically changed.  Chris now said it was all a lie — he was not Amy’s killer after all.

Stafford:  Chris, why did you say you killed Amy if you didn’t?

Chris Gossett: I don’t know.   I just had a mental breakdown.  That’s all then I told the hospital I killed her.  And I kept on saying I killed her. 

Stafford: You’re saying now that you didn’t do this?

Chris Gossett: I didn’t do it.

Chief Deputy Brad Robinson never thought Chris killed the 8-year-old. Johnathon’s story about being with Amy the afternoon she died was far more convincing.        

Chief Deputy Brad Robinson: I would say that the information about her body being in the ditch where it was found would be something only the killer would know.

Stafford: I’ve got the written statements he’s made… he doesn’t say anything about the ditch.

Robinson: Right. We had talked to him what we were talking about and he had described was the ditch area that she had fell down into.

Stafford: Was that recorded? Do you have that?

Robinson: No.

Stafford: And did he talk about unbuttoning the pants?

Robinson: No.

Stafford: Did he talk about sex being a possible motive?

Robinson:  No.

Stafford: I mean, you look at the two statements and Jonathon gives you a very vague statement and Chris has incredible details.

Robinson: Right.

Stafford: So why do you believe Johnathon and discount Chris?

Robinson: The information Johnathon was giving us was the day after the crime scene or the day after Amy was killed the information that Chris Gossett was giving us was almost two years later.

The chief deputy hired a psychiatrist for an evaluation. His opinion was that Chris did not have the mental capacity to remember details over a two year period. Robinson speculated that Chris must have heard the Yates family talking about those details long after Amy was killed. 

Stafford: Why would Chris Gossett after all this time, and knowing that a boy is already in jail for this crime suddenly come forward and confess to a killing that could send him to prison?

Robinson: I don’t have an answer to that.

Tom Yates was desperate for answers.  Yates had cursed the 12-year –old Johnathon in court and derided the youngster in his campaign to change Georgia Law. Had he persecuted an innocent boy?

Confused and unsure what to believe, the Yates watched the Chris Gossett’s video tape confession for themselves.

They heard detail after absent from all the statements Johnathon Adams had given.

Stafford: Were the details he gives on that tape was that common knowledge?

Tom Yates: No. There were some things that were told to us that we were told to keep secret. And one of those was one of the most important thing and that was that he said he unbuttoned and unzipped my daughter’s pants. Nobody knew that. Nobody. Shari and the sheriff’s department and the DA knew that.

Stafford: And Chris Gossett knew it.

Tom Yates: Chris Gossett knew and that’s what sealed it for me.

Yates says he never shared that information with Chris or anyone else.  The answer was clear and it was a sickening realization—Johnathon had not killed Amy after all.

Stafford: Do you owe Johnathon Adams an apology?

Tom Yates: There’s not enough sorry in the world to cover that. You just can’t say ‘I’m sorry enough to this person and to the family.’

An apology was only a beginning. Amy’s dad wanted to do more. Yates went to court with Johnathon to ask the judge to reverse the plea deal and set the boy free. The judge ruled that Chris’ confession was credible enough to throw out Johnathon’s conviction.

For the first time in two years, the now 15-year-old was allowed to go home.

Stafford: What was it like getting out of jail?

Johnathon Adams: I was real happy. I mean I was blessed to be coming home. I was thankful.

But Tom Yates wasn’t done. Chris Gossett was still free and the sheriff thought Amy’s case was closed.

Tom Yates: They wrongfully prosecuted a 12-year-old boy  back two years ago. And Now they look like fools. And they should because they are.  They fumbled this case. And now they don’t want the rest of the world to realize what they’ve done.

Yates launched a new crusade to convince authorities to charge Chris Gossett and clear Johnathon Adam’s name. His first stop was Johnathon’s attorney Gerald Word.

Gerald Word, defense lawyer: He said, “I think your boy’s innocent. I wanna meet with you.”

The defense attorney was already in the midst of his own investigation, once again sifting through the evidence—this time to see if Chris Gossett’s version matched up.

Word: Not only is it consistent, but there are things that we couldn’t explain before in the autopsy report that now make perfect sense.

The biggest revelation was a detail that went virtually unnoticed when Jonathan was charged. Back then the focus was on the strangulation marks on Amy’s neck. But there was never an explanation for the bruising on her upper chest.

Stafford: What do your experts tell you about that?

Word: It can only occur with a very heavy weight being forced on Amy’s chest, you know a person sitting on her chest that weighs enough to mechanically impair her ability to breath.

In his confession, 280-lbs. Chris Gossett demonstrated how he sat on Amy to keep her from screaming. The defense attorney says his weight could have left those bruises. Johnathon couldn’t have left those marks because at the time, he weighed back 100 lbs.  Not enough to cause the marks.

Stafford: What else?

Word: We’ve got a notebook that Amy carried with her that Chris describes in the tape as being tossed aside... we know the notebook’s found on the other side of a little stream as though it’s toss over there just kind of strewn.

Stafford: How did Johnathon explain the notebook?

Word: Johnathon never mentioned the notebook.

In fact Amy’s parents say investigators had never told them where the notebook was found. Yet, it was a detail Chris Gossett knew.

Tom Yates: We know that the sheriff’s department and the DA are trying to cover this up.  They’re trying to sweep it underneath the rug and I am going to do everything in heaven and hell to keep that from happenin.”

Stafford: What should the persecutor do?

Tom Yates: He should prosecute Chris Gossett.

But District Attorney Pete Skandalakis was the same DA who had prosecuted Johnathan Adams for killing Amy and he not convinced a mistake had been made. 

Pete Skandalakis, district attorney: This is not a clear-cut case even though people want to make it a clear-cut case.

There were two boys, two different stories that implicated each one and two retractions. Skandalakis says if Chris had come forward right after the crime, he, not Johnathon would have been the number one suspect.

Stafford: Why does that two year delay make such a difference?”

Skandalakis: Because of Chris Gossett’s mental incapacity because of the witnesses that we have interviewed who have told us they don’t believe Chris Gossett would be able to keep this a secret for two years.

Stafford: So where does that leave the quest for justice for Amy?

Skandalakis: As confusing as the facts are.

The DA decided on an highly unusual solution.  He summoned a grand jury to present them with the evidence against both boys. The grand jury would weigh Johnathon’s vague admissions that he’d been with Amy that afternoon against Chris Gossett’s specific account of luring the 8-year-old to the woods for sex.

The grand jury questioned 35 witnesses, walked the crime scene at Twin Oaks  and compared the autopsy reports against the boys’ stories.

Then it was time for the vote. The grand jury had several choices: indict neither boy or decide the one of them was most likely the killer.

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