A married couple listening to a true-crime podcast led to a man's exoneration in the murder of a priest

The stars aligned when a young married couple hooked on a true-crime podcast stumbled upon the curious case of a murdered Catholic priest and the seemingly innocent Apache hitchhiker who had been imprisoned for the crime. The couple happened to be uniquely positioned to kick-start his exoneration.

Harlee and Michael Gerke are high school sweethearts from Odessa, Texas, who moved to the Bryan-College Station metro area, about seven hours from their hometown. They made frequent trips back home to visit family and filled their lengthy drives with episodes of "Crime Junkie," a popular true-crime podcast that averages roughly 50 million downloads a month.

It was 2021 and the Gerkes were well into one of their drives back to their hometown when they heard "Crime Junkie" hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat break down the perplexing case of Father Patrick Ryan.

"We were about an hour away from Odessa and we started listening to this case and it really caught our attention, us being from Odessa, and it being such a crazy case," Harlee Gerke, 25, told The Times by phone. "We heard it and we were like,