Time and time again, Flaherty's investigation, which he detailed in an article for the weekly San Diego publication The Reader last fall, raised issues about DiGiovanni's credibility and the thoroughness of the investigation into the incident.
Flaherty, for instance, turned up the neighbor who said she saw the white man, not Wiley, visit DiGiovanni that morning. And he spoke to Wiley's apartment manager, who said that he never saw Wiley's truck leave his home that Sunday morning, substantiating Wiley's own claim that he was plopped in front of the TV set.
"I don't know in my own mind if the crime was staged or they have the wrong guy, but I'm convinced the police didn't do a proper investigation, and the defense didn't conduct a proper investigation," Flaherty said.
Defense attorney John Jimenez of the Public Defenders office in Vista said he could not talk about the case--or defend himself against claims of shabby investigative work--because the case is being appealed.
Jimenez is the attorney who, last year, won the freedom of another client, a popular Oceanside athlete who was arrested and convicted of robberies. After his client was jailed, Jimenez's investigators found that their client was the victim of mistaken identity, and the district attorney's office agreed it had gotten the wrong man.
The turning point in Kelvin Wiley's case may well be the decision by the boy, now 11, to recant his story.
The boy lives with his mother, who moved to Las Vegas after the trial and could not be reached for comment.
When the boy was in San Diego a month and a half ago visiting his maternal grandparents, he confided in them that he had lied at Wiley's trial, said attorney Mark Hansen, whom the grandparents contacted for advice.
"With time, his conscience worked away at him, and he realized he hadn't done the right thing," Hansen said.
"The boy confided in his grandparents, and they encouraged him to do the right thing, which was to admit he told a lie and to correct it," Hansen said. That was last Thanksgiving--11 months after Wiley was convicted.
When the boy revisited his grandparents for Christmas, he officially recanted the story under oath.
The recommendation to have the boy offer his new testimony behind his mother's back "was something I struggled with," Hansen said, "and a decision I'll live with. But I feel we handled it the right way, and (the boy) was very relieved afterward."
The youngster said he manufactured his story "to protect his mother. She told him that Kelvin Wiley was the one who harmed her, and he believed his mother, and his mother had led him to believe there may be some danger if Kelvin was not convicted," Hansen said.
There was no indication, Hansen said, that DiGiovanni instructed her son to lie about the truck. The boy was in the neighborhood but not inside his mother's townhouse at the time of the incident.
McLean, who was appointed by the court to handle Wiley's appeal before the new evidence came out, said he is incorporating the recanted testimony and the additional witnesses into a writ of habeas corpus which he hopes to put before Judge Lester this week.
The writ would claim that an innocent man is behind bars and should be released promptly.
Wiley said he had felt confident before his trial, after he met with attorney Jimenez, that his defense was in good hands.
"My parents were willing to mortgage their home so I could hire my own attorney, for $25,000," Wiley said. "But I didn't think the case would get that far. Jimenez seemed positive and confident and ready to jump in, so I told my parents not to worry."
In retrospect, Wiley said, he felt he got short shrift by the lack of a defense investigation--one that failed to turn up the witnesses that writer Flaherty did on his own, a year later.
Flaherty's article, Wiley said, turned things around for him.
"I give credit to Mr. Flaherty for giving me the benefit of the doubt that maybe I was innocent. That opened my (attorney's) eyes, who dug even deeper."
Still, Wiley remains in prison, convicted of assault. He is still guilty of assault, until judged otherwise.
Silver, the deputy district attorney, says he's wary of reacting too quickly to the new information coming his way that suggests Wiley's innocence.
"I don't want to be taken advantage of," he said. "Some of this information might not check out, and it may turn out there are other motives behind the boy coming forward."
He said he will interview the new possible witnesses and the boy himself and, eventually, confront Toni DiGiovanni about the new evidence.
"We'll take it from there," he said.
