No magic was needed; just Merlin

Man imprisoned for crimes he didn't commit thanks software company

Employees of Merlin Information Services in Kalispell got a poignant look Friday at the human results of the technology they provide when John Stoll came to thank them.

Stoll was freed from prison on his 61st birthday on May 4, 2004, after serving 20 years for crimes he didn't commit.

"If it wasn't for access we have through Merlin and other information brokers, he still would be in prison for something he didn't do," said private investigator Sheila Klopper of San Jose, Calif.

It happened like this:

Stoll, of Bakersfield, Calif., was convicted in September 1985 of 17 counts of child molestation. He was said to be part of a ring of 47 adults who abused 37 little boys. There was no physical evidence. Stoll and others were convicted solely on the testimony of the boys.

His case was taken up by the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University law school.

Lawyers and law students thought that the boys simply lied, coerced into making false statements by law-enforcement officials, social workers and prosecutors.

Their investigation involved Klopper, who wanted to track down two brothers who were about 6 years old at the time they said Stoll stole their innocence.

Klopper fired up the database she can access through Merlin's software tools.

"I have been a Merlin subscriber since they started," Klopper said. She found out about Mike and Jordonna Dorres' Kalispell company at a trade show and signed up.

"I have never looked back," she said. "Merlin comes through. They are they only one I go to."

They didn't disappoint her when she started working on Stoll's case.

She put one of the victim's names through Merlin's software and found an address from him in a small Idaho town in less than five minutes.

Klopper went to the town. She talked to some neighbors and found her way to the house of the man, now 27 or 28, married with a child and another on the way.

She told him, "You're either going to love that I'm here or you're going to throw me off your property."

The other "victims" in the case had recanted those stories they told under oath 20 years ago. Klopper needed to know whether the young man in front of her had stuck to his story.

He wasn't going to say immediately - he and his wife were on their way to church and he told Klopper to come back the next day.

She did. She spent eight hours with the man and his wife.

"It was an emotional experience, I can't even tell you," Klopper said.

The man said he was coerced into his testimony.

"They said, 'If you want to see your parents again, you need to tell us the truth,'" he recalled.

His story of abuse was a lie that sent not only Stoll but the boy's mother and stepfather to prison.

The next day, Klopper met with the young man's brother, who also recanted his testimony.

A hearing followed and Stoll was set free.

He and Klopper went to Merlin to thank the people who, through their work, helped make that happen.

Stoll said that when he returns to California, where he lives in one of his lawyer's guest houses, he should have a check from the state of California for $704,000.

"They've got a hell of a pension plan," he joked.

But the money, he said, "can't replace what they did to me."

A contractor before he was arrested at age 40, Stoll said his prison tenure was troubled at first. Angry at his circumstances, he got in trouble at the beginning of his term at San Quentin prison. But he resisted turning into a tattooed, mean con.

"I just started acting like me again," he said.

That's only partly true.

Stoll wound up spending six months longer in the county jail than his co-defendants. When he finally arrived at prison, no one knew he was part of the group of child molesters - the biggest pariahs in a prison population. So he became someone else.

He had heard of someone who had been convicted for possessing automatic weapons and marijuana, "so I became that guy. I told that lie for 20 years."

His fellow inmates eventually learned the truth when news of Stoll's exoneration went through the prison. Still, "I was really pretty much left alone," he said.

Now, he's a free and grateful man, with no bitterness that Klopper can find.

"You should be angry while you're in, not when you're out," he said.

He's starting over with something few people have - an Emmy.

A television station that profiled his case won the coveted award for Stoll's story.

He has a future, if not a past. All of his family died while he was in prison. There are no photographs, no memorabilia, no ties.

But there is gratitude and that encompasses the Dorreses, Merlin, and the service they provide that helped set him free.

The Merlin company makes software tools that allow investigators, collection agencies, insurance companies and government entities to search databases of public records.