The warm summer night in August 1989 when young father Larry DeLisle drove his four kids to their deaths in the Detroit River remains shrouded in conjecture and opinion -- with few facts.
One of the few undisputable facts is that his wife, Suzanne, who escaped their children's watery grave alongside her then-husband, supported his claim that a leg cramp on a faulty accelerator caused the tragedy. Until now.
The former Suzanne DeLisle finally changed her story last week when Larry had a hearing, seeking a sentence commutation. He had the support of a chapter of the Innocence Project, and more.
But Suzanne's letter, where she said Larry DeLisle was, in fact, guilty of killing her children and not only that, had tried to kill them before, and then tried to convince her to kill herself after he was incarcerated, may have changed the outcome of his commutation effort.
Hear what reporter George Hunter had to say after covering the hearing for the Detroit News, and more, in today's Daily J podcast. In this episode, Daily J is on the Case with Zach Clark and Christy Strawser, exploring what happened on the night that ended with rescue divers pulling up the lifeless bodies of Brian, 8, Melissa, 4, Kadie, 2, and eight-month-old Emily in Wyandotte.
See what DeLisle himself said about it in an exclusive letter to WWJ in 2014 where he answered a series of detailed questions. DeLisle says he wrote it after anguishing for weeks about whether he wanted to recall the "painful memories."
DeLisle said in the letter that he's innocent.
He added that he's getting through his time in jail "with the love and support of family and friends," saying he's made hundreds of friends in his time behind bars.
On Suzanne, he wrote, "I could see Sue's pain in her eyes during every visit and for each appeals process. Because I love her, I insisted she leave -- she reluctantly did years later."
They've been divorced nearly two decades, he added, because "our children looked too much like their father, which would be a constant daily reminder of the love we once shared."
She never contradicted him after that night in 1989, but now says he gaslit her and controlled her all the years they were together. And now, she says, he's guilty.
"On August 3, 1989, Larry murdered them (her kids) and he tried to murder me. It was not the first time he tried to kill his family. These words may be surprising because they stand in stark contrast to what I said I believed decades ago. I have been too scared to speak and believed my ex-husband was safely locked away. Now I am too scared not to speak," she wrote to the people deciding if her ex gets to leave jail.
Police say DeLisle, who worked at a local tire shop, confessed to killing the kids, allegedly to overcome financial pressures and the mundanity of his life as a husband and father. He disputes the confession, and many noted, even at the time, that it happened after a lengthy, exhausting grilling by police. The alleged confession was suppressed from his trial, but five of his jurors said they had learned about it from media reports.
DeLisle continues to claim his innocence, and in the letter to WWJ, he issued a statement to the people of metro Detroit, many of whom were riveted to trial coverage 35 years ago.
"I can't swim and have a fear of deep water so the so-called lie detector test was a ruse perpetrated by police in order to instill 'guilt by accusation'," he wrote. "At trial, the state's expert mechanic was primarily a bus inspector who couldn't even start our vehicle for testing."
Now, DeLisle says, people should know that he's a "good, kind and innocent man."