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560: #560 Jason Flom with Vanessa Gathers · Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

• 00:00:02 Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective. 00:00:07 Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be going to prison because I was a good person. I hadn't done anything wrong. 00:00:19 Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when we go to a hearing or we go to court, the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. 00:00:36 Speaker 3: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment, unchecked authority. 00:00:44 Speaker 2: Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them on TV, because it may just be a dirty da that is trying to rise upward. 00:00:57 Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today, I have two very special guests, and you'll learn more about that surely, but first I'm going to introduce them. Vanessa Gathers is our star today. 00:01:23 Speaker 3: Just months after the Crown Heights riots back in nineteen ninety one, Gathers was called in for questioning for robbery and the beating of an elderly man inside of his Crown Heights apartment. The victim fell into a coma then died. The case was classified a homicide. That's when controversial former NYPD detective Lewis Scarcella took over the case. Five years later, Scarcella reinterviewed Gathers and says she made a full confession. Gathers was convicted on that confession alone. The former detective is in the middle of several cases where people went to prison for crimes they did not commit. 00:02:02 Speaker 5: D A. 00:02:02 Speaker 3: Thompson and his team have already exonerated seventeen men. Gathers is the eighteenth, the first woman. Right now, the DA's office is looking into at least one hundred other cases. Fifty eight year old Vanessa Gatherers, who will no longer be labeled a convicted felon after ten years in prison for manslaughter, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson is expected to vacate her conviction. 00:02:26 Speaker 6: We're going to take a step to not only vacate misgatherers conviction, but to give her her good name back. 00:02:33 Speaker 4: Vanessa, Welcome to the show. Thank you and her badass attorney is here as well, Lisa Cahill. Welcome to Ronful Conviction. 00:02:42 Speaker 5: Happy to be here. 00:02:43 Speaker 4: So, Vanessa, let's go back to when life was simpler, right, because before this crazy incident happened, you were living basically a normal life like anyone else. Right. Yes, were you in a lot of trouble with the law as reason that they would have ever suspected you of being involved in a cold blooded murder, a terrible beating death. 00:03:06 Speaker 7: Not at all? 00:03:07 Speaker 4: What were you doing? What was your life like? Where'd you grow up? 00:03:10 Speaker 6: I grew up in Jersey City, in North Carolina, and then I moved to New York in seventy nine and I started working. I was working in Manhattan doing what I worked for, Gristities. I worked for a lawyer when I first arrived to New York City, So. 00:03:29 Speaker 4: Just finding your way doing different jobs whatever. 00:03:32 Speaker 7: I stayed with Gristiitis for quite some time. 00:03:36 Speaker 6: The original job I had was working for a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, and I was just doing statements of fouling and typing up notes. Things got slow, so later on I found a job with Christiiti's. He let me stay until I found something better. 00:03:52 Speaker 4: So you came to New York, like most people do, I guess, to pursue your dreams and find your way. And you were finding your way, things were going okay. Do you have a family when this came down? 00:04:03 Speaker 7: Yes, my family was in Jersey. I had a daughter. 00:04:06 Speaker 4: This case stems out of a murder that happened in nineteen ninety one. And there's a lot of things that are unusual about your case. But there are also a lot of things that we see that are common in wrongful convictions, including a false confession, which I think everyone is fascinated by it and terrified of. I know, I am. But in your case, this was a murder of a guy named Michael Shaw, I think right, Yes, And he was a guy who was murdered in nineteen ninety one. He was beaten to death by three women. Again, pretty unusual circumstance. And the reason we know he was beaten to death by three women is because he lived long enough to tell the tale. He died in the hospital. Yes, so originally you were living in the area. Did you know about the crime? 00:04:50 Speaker 6: No, not at the time. No, I did not. I found out all that information later on. 00:04:55 Speaker 4: And how did you first become aware that this. Did you know the victim? 00:04:59 Speaker 7: I didn't know him, per se. 00:05:02 Speaker 6: I just knew that he was like a picture post man that stayed in the window. He set by the window all the time because I used to walk my dog around the block. 00:05:10 Speaker 7: But I didn't know his name. I didn't know him. 00:05:13 Speaker 6: From time to time he would actually to come over to the window and would I get him a pack of cigarettes, which I did because I walked around the block and I walked my dog back and I just passed it to him. 00:05:23 Speaker 7: Through the window. 00:05:24 Speaker 4: So he lived on the first floor, Yes, And so when he was murdered, the word must have gotten around the neighborhood. And you first heard about it from a detective, is that right? Yes? And how'd that come about? Because it's weird because you weren't arrested until many years later when the case was cold. And then you actually drew a terrible straw or bad break what every gonna call it, because you got in the crosshairs of a guy who we know now is one of the worst detectives in the history of this country in terms of the damage that he did to an entire burrow. Really, he wrecked havoc on so many people, in so many cases, and a whole system. So how did it come about that you first encountered detectives, Garcella. 00:06:09 Speaker 6: I believe I was walking my dog at the time, and I mean the detective Scuss Selling his partner Shamil approached me and asked me about the incident, and I said, I didn't know. Actually I didn't even know the man's name. I didn't know who he was. I just know him by sight, you know, from sitting in the window. That's all I knew about this individual. But then later on after that incident, I didn't see the man anymore. After a while, you know, I would still walk my dog, but the man was not there in the window anymore. 00:06:44 Speaker 4: So they approached you on the street, yes, And were they friendly? Were they hostel? Did they put you in copsle? How did this whole? 00:06:50 Speaker 7: They were friendly. They just asked me some questions. 00:06:53 Speaker 6: They also asked me about the same thing that I know the man, and I told him I didn't know who they were talking about at first. And then when they was telling me that he lived there, and I said, oh, yeah, I remember seeing the man in the window, but I didn't know him per se. 00:07:09 Speaker 4: Did they tell you that he had been murdered. 00:07:11 Speaker 6: No, they didn't state that. They just said something happened. It was an incident with this guy. They was trying to find out what happened. 00:07:20 Speaker 4: And let's turn to you. So what was going on there? First of all, Vanessa was sort of a person that you would not really think would be involved in anything like this. I mean, and meeting her now, she's such a gentle soul. The idea that she would be involved in a beating death seems so far fetched. 00:07:38 Speaker 5: I certainly agree with that. But one of the big mysteries always in the case was this business about Scarcella stopping Vanessa because she was a woman walking a white dog. Let me back up, right after mister Shaw was assaulted, he didn't die till months later, so it didn't become a homicide investigation for about four months time. So immediately after the assault, it's basically a robbery investigation. But detectives are working the robbery and the beating they're investigating somewhat. And those detectives interviewed the super in mister Shaw's building twice and memorialized that interview, and the super never said anything about Vanessa Gathers. He never described Vanessa Gathers. He never said, oh, there's a woman with a white dog in the neighborhood who you should talk to. None of that is reflected in those interview notes. But Scarcella consistently testified that the reason he stopped Vanessa was because after mister Shaw died, it did become a homicide investigation, obviously, and Scarcella was assigned the case. He testified that one of the first things he did was go interview the super. He claimed that the Super said one of the women who used to talk to Shaw and was friendly with Shaw was a woman in the neighborhood with a white dog. Now, suspiciously, Scarcella never memorialized that interview with the super, as you're supposed to do, and as two prior detectives had done when they interviewed the super. We always thought it was suspicious that there was never any memorialization of that. Why he in fact stopped Vanessa. I really don't know. I mean, I suppose it's conceivable the super said that, but the Super was dead by the time of trial, so no one really knows. 00:09:54 Speaker 4: Well, we do know that the victim said that it was three women. So the one thing you had in common with the perpetrate it was that you were a woman, right, But there's a lot of women, so just and we know now that Scarcella didn't really care whether you were the perpetrator or not. He just cared about getting convictions. And he was very good at it actually, I mean in a very nefarious and terrible way. He was famous actually for solving cases, and that's probably what he was after. So he saw you, figured he would stop and talk to you, and maybe he was bored, had nothing else to do. But it came and went right, and then you went back to your life, and you know, eventually you found out that mister Shaw had died, I'm sure, and life went on. 00:10:42 Speaker 6: Well that's basically what happened. Well, it was ninety two actually when he came around, I think April or May or something of nineteen ninety two when he came the initial visit with him, and then the next time I saw him was nineteen ninety seven. He's knocking on my door. 00:11:00 Speaker 4: He came to your home. Yes, and what transpired next, I mean, you had no reason to think that you would ever be a suspect in anything like this. No, and probably the memory of the whole thing had faded to some extent, right because it was one coming. 00:11:13 Speaker 6: I had already forgotten about him and the questioning at that time. 00:11:18 Speaker 7: I mean, I'm stayed in the same building. I didn't move. 00:11:20 Speaker 6: If I had anything to hide, I think I would have left. I mean, a lot of people in the neighborhood moved out, but I was still there. 00:11:28 Speaker 7: So there was no reason for. 00:11:30 Speaker 6: Me to try and run, will do anything negative regard in this manner, because I know I had no involvement in it. 00:11:37 Speaker 5: One of our hypotheses was that Vanessa was literally the only one who had any connection to Shaw who was actually still available to Scarcella, still living in the same building. 00:11:52 Speaker 4: So by now it had turned into a homicide investigation. Scarcella had decided that he was going to solve a cold case, or maybe not, probably many of them. Right. So when he did come see you six years after the murder, what happened? What was his approach this time? Was he friendly? Was he hostile to put you in coffs? 00:12:13 Speaker 7: He was very friendly. 00:12:14 Speaker 6: I actually was never in Coffs at that time we spoke. He asked me, saying questions. He asked me, should I come to the precinct. You know, I oblige and I went there. He showed me some muck shots and stuff. He asked me about some of the women in the neighborhood. Did I know in them? It's a couple that I did see that had I guess criminal records. 00:12:38 Speaker 7: And that was basically it. 00:12:40 Speaker 6: He never stated to me that I was a suspect or anything. I had no knowledge of that up until the time that we did. After the polygraph and all of that other information that were transpire. He had my history. I told him where I was working. You know, he knew where I lived. 00:12:57 Speaker 7: I didn't have anything to hide from this spoof. I cooperated the best that I could. 00:13:03 Speaker 6: I was working at the Brooklyn Family Court and he picked me up that morning. He came to my job and said he wanted me to come take a polygrab chest. I went with him and everything. I had nothing to die. So after that, we stayed at the Priests and all of these other things transpired, and he kept stating to me that he was going to take me home. It got late into the evening before I left the Priests, and it was night. It was night when I did leave there, and he kept saying that my companion that he would contact him. 00:13:37 Speaker 7: He never did. He just continued to lie, Lie, Lie. He was frightening. 00:13:44 Speaker 6: He took his jacket off, he had his gun exposed, and he kept on threatening me, saying I was dere I was there. I kept telling him no, I wasn't. And it just went back and forth like that for quite some time. 00:13:56 Speaker 4: So he went sort of progressively from friendly to you'd pick you up and you probably were like most people. I mean, you were law abiding citizen. It wasn't like you had a long rap sheet, right. 00:14:07 Speaker 6: I didn't have no knowledge of the law, so he and I think he really knew that. So he knew because I don't remember him randomizing me or anything. 00:14:15 Speaker 7: I don't remember all of that. 00:14:17 Speaker 6: As far as getting a lawyer, I didn't know I needed one because I didn't know I was. I was the person that was chlose Toh had committed this crime. 00:14:26 Speaker 4: Right and Lisa, That's something that always bothers me is that people like Vanessa who are innocent are very likely to waive their Miranda rights and speak freely and not request a lawyer. And if you're listening to the show. Now, I'm going to encourage you. If you do get picked up, don't assume anything, right, just request a lawyer, and other than that, don't say anything other than your name, your address, and that's basically it, right, And once you ask for a lawyer, they're not allowed to ask you more questions. 00:15:00 Speaker 7: That's right, That's right. 00:15:01 Speaker 4: I mean, they may do it anyway, but they'll be breaking the law. Yeah, I mean, it is a tragic and cruel irony that people like Vanessa who go in wanting to help right and wanting to be cooperative and good citizens and help the police, end up often really on the terribly wrong end of the stick because of the fact that they just don't know and they get taken advantage of, which is exactly what happened here. 00:15:25 Speaker 7: That's right. 00:15:26 Speaker 5: And one of the issues that we identified with the polygraph, which was basically how Scarcela kicked off that morning. With the polygraph, a polygrapher is supposed to sit down alone with this subject and basically explain to the subject why they're there this morning, and for example, to say, do you know why you're here? You were here because you're suspected of involvement in this incident, and that's what I want to talk to you about today. And in fact, this particular polygraph never went through that exercise with Vanessa, and she didn't know any better. Someone would say, well, what do you think when someone's polygraphing you? But Vanessa had had no prior experience with us. She was just trying to do what they asked her to do. 00:16:17 Speaker 4: And again, if you don't have anything to hide, and if you are telling the truth, you'd think, well, why shouldn't I take a polygraph? But not such a great idea. Well, then we get to the part that gives me a stomach ache. Is this whole process that takes place in the interrogation room when someone in this case Garcela, but it happens all over the country when a detective is determined to get a confession, and they're not necessarily determined to get the truth. In your case, they had no reason to believe that you had any involvement, and yet they approached you and interrogated you as if they basically had everything in the world, every reason in the world to suspect that you were the actual killer. Ultimately, you confess to this crime. You didn't commit. And that's the number one thing, Vanessa. When I talked to people who aren't familiar with these issues, everybody says, I would never confess. They couldn't get me to do it. That's crazy. I'm too strong, I'm tough. I would never confit, that's you know. And I'm like, well, let me tell you something. So how did they get you? I mean, you're an intelligent woman, you're a law abiding person. You would know enough to know that that's a disaster, right, But you did it? 00:17:28 Speaker 7: Yes, I did. 00:17:29 Speaker 6: You are in a tiny room with these two police detectives and you don't even know your rights. 00:17:35 Speaker 7: I didn't know. I was terrified. 00:17:38 Speaker 6: And then the badgering started and the jagger came off, like I said, expose it, and he started threatening me and leaning over her and you know, making all of these accusations and stuff. And I continually told him that I did not commit this crime. 00:17:54 Speaker 7: I was not there. And when he wrote. 00:17:57 Speaker 6: The statement, I told him we were going back and for as he's trying to tell me to state this. 00:18:02 Speaker 4: And state that this must have been confusing. 00:18:05 Speaker 6: It was because I'm like, I'm not understanding what is going on as far as what he's writing on paper. He tried to get me to write that statement and I said, I'm not writing anything because I don't know what happened. 00:18:16 Speaker 4: This is part of the process, right, And it's the crazy thing in this country that police are allowed to lie. They can say they have a satellite image of you committing the crime. They can say that they found your fingerprints, they can say that they have witnesses. They can say almost anything they want. What they can't say is they can't threaten you with say you're going to get the death penalty if you're not. There's certain things they can't do like that. But as far as the facts surrounding the case, they can lie all they want, which I think is crazy and't It's not that way in most other Western European countries are well, Jason. 00:18:45 Speaker 5: The reason they do that is to put the subject in a helpless feeling situation so then they can get them to turn and do what they want to do. They make you feel helpless and then they extend and olive branch. Just sign this and I'll take you home. Just help me out here, I'll get you out of here. But the first thing is making the subject feel helpless, and they do that with these false sevenence ploys. 00:19:13 Speaker 4: So which lies did they tell you? 00:19:16 Speaker 6: Well, he told me that he had fingerprints, Yeah, eyewitnesses. He has proof that I was in the house. And I kept telling him, no, that's not true. And to me, it's like now getting confused because I'm saying, there's no way possible that this could be. But you know, he continued to tell me different stories and different things that well, at that point he said, you might be going to jail. 00:19:41 Speaker 7: These are the things that would happen to you once you get there. 00:19:44 Speaker 6: You need to sign this paper that he wrote, and he said, I'll take you home. So I'm constantly like, I don't know what to do. Now I'm here by myself in his little room and I'm crying, I'm set, I'm hysterical. And he kept stated to me, I'm going to let you call home. I said, I want to call home. I felt that if I called my friend maybe he would give me some information. 00:20:07 Speaker 7: What should I do? 00:20:09 Speaker 6: He denied my phone calls because I constantly told him I would like to call home. He said, well, when we finished, you could call home. I'll call I'll have his partner call and let him know where I'm at, I'm saying, because at this point of the day, I should be home. 00:20:24 Speaker 7: Which I wasn't. 00:20:25 Speaker 6: So now my companion had no idea where I was or what happened to me at all. 00:20:32 Speaker 4: Yeah, so all of this just adds to the stress and confusion and terror. It's really terror, right that you're experiencing at this point because you don't know what these guys are capable of, and you know there's nobody but you, and you're overmatched. You are really helpless. I mean, they won't let you in many cases, they won't give you any food, any water. You're just going to sit there and they go in and they go out, and they have this all. It's a whole protocol is designed to do exactly what it did, which is to get you to be willing to do basically anything and confess to anything. Right. What's crazy on top of all the rest of this is that they were not only committing an act of evil, right, which is knowingly extracted a confession from a person that they had every indication was innocent of the crime, but also they were sloppy. And why I say that is because the confession that you signed didn't make any sense because the facts that were on that piece of paper didn't match the evidence from the case. Right. They got you to say that he was in a wheelchair, which he wasn't, that it was a robbery of sixty dollars, which would find out later that the guy probably didn't have sixty dollars. There was a number of other facts in there that were just wrong. And that's so weird because I don't know. At least it seems to me, if you were doing this, you would at least try to get someone to sign a confess that's accurate to the facts of the case. But they didn't even bother to do that. 00:22:04 Speaker 5: That's right, And one of the interesting things here was that there were really two confession statements. One was the handwritten statement which Scarcella himself wrote out and Vanessa merely signed, and this was consistent with protocol at the time. There was a video restatement of the confession and that is led by an assistant district attorney with Scarcella in the room. Now Scarcella could not control the questioning by the assistant district attorney. Vanessa testified that they basically rehearsed and Scarcella told her what to say in the video, but he could not control some of the questions and the ADA, for example, asked, was the old man standing? 00:22:54 Speaker 7: Was he sitting? 00:22:56 Speaker 5: And Vanessa said he was sitting, and he said, so what was he sitting in? And Scarcella had not researched was there ever a wheelchair in the apartment, because Vanessa then guessed she said he was sitting in a wheelchair. 00:23:14 Speaker 4: Because he was old. So that might have made sense, right, but it's. 00:23:17 Speaker 5: Not true, and so there was a gotcha for us as the defense team. That was a great mistake in the confession, which we could use to prove it was coerced. And the caine. The ADA asked what kind of cain was used to hit mister Shaw, and Vanessa again guessed because she had no idea. She guessed that it was a wooden cane. In fact, it was a metal cane. So that's how some of these mistakes came in, is that Scarcella could not control the ADA and his questioning. Thank god, because otherwise we might not have caught these mistakes. 00:24:10 Speaker 4: So ultimately you end up going to trial, but before you get to trial, they held you in Rykers Island for thirteen months. Yes, how terrifying. 00:24:19 Speaker 7: Is that very very terrifying. 00:24:23 Speaker 6: But prior to me getting there, after all of the confession and everything, they still never told me I was being arrested for the crime. They bypassed my house. They still stated to me that they were taking me home. And we got to the precint I said, why didn't you pass my house or we have to make one more stop. This is still lives And we got to the precinct and at that point then he said he had to handcuff me. I was never cuffed. I was never told I was arrested and they had to cuff me to take me into that building, which was Central Booking. I didn't even know that. And then I was put in the cage and I just stayed there until they said I was supposed to see a judge or whatever I had to It was all a blur because I don't recall all of that that happened at that time. And the next day I guessed that I was on the bus going to Rikers Island and up on my rival. You know, they do the strips serge your neckad you're walking around in the sheet in the cage with a whole bunch of people, other women, and you know, and then you put into a cell. And at that time when they put me to a housing unit, I was able to call home finally and tell him where I was. 00:25:42 Speaker 4: At and what was that phone called? 00:25:44 Speaker 8: Like it was. 00:25:47 Speaker 7: He was very upset. I was upset. 00:25:49 Speaker 6: I was hysterical, and I still couldn't think of how I landed here, you know, in Riker's Island. It was just it was ter and you have no clothes. You have the rents out what you have on. You took a shower, your rents out what you have on and hang it in your cell, hopefully it be dry by morning, cause that's all you have. 00:26:13 Speaker 7: And that was it til the next morning. 00:26:15 Speaker 6: Then you're taking out and you go to the mess hall as they call it, and and you're just there in that space until they put you for two weeks. I guess it's two weeks before they put you in population and then you they assign you another where I. 00:26:33 Speaker 7: Was living in the dormitory. 00:26:35 Speaker 6: In the dorm where it's a whole bunch of beds and women half toilets. There was no privacy at all. You take showers where the whole bunch of other women in one big circle thing, and you just got spickers coming out the wall, and it was a lot of different things that happen. It's it's terrible just being in that place. A lot of different things go on, women and women. I started working the night shift. I did whatever I had to do so I wouldn't be on the dorm at night. I just didn't. It was just disgusting for me. I couldn't deal with that part of it. 00:27:11 Speaker 4: So ultimately, thirteen months later, you end up finally getting your day in court, and you had a lawyer who didn't seems like he did the minimum amount of work that he could do. Now you know, I don't know. He may have been working on four hundred other cases. There are certainly lawyers of public defenders in New York who are so overburdened. But that doesn't matter when it's your life on the line, right And we don't know the personal circumstances that this individual was in, but one way or another, he was not prepared and did not represent you adequately, and you really didn't have a chance. 00:27:48 Speaker 7: That's true. 00:27:49 Speaker 6: Well, I like the attorney I made. My companion kept asking him and court. When we went to court, could he speak with him? He always said yes, but he left the courtroom. He adjourned my case on numerous occasions, so there was nothing that he did. 00:28:08 Speaker 7: There was no. 00:28:08 Speaker 6: Investigation because as far as I'm concerned, when this incident happened, I don't see where there's a police investigation done in anything. By the time that they decided the man had passed away, there was dust that family had came in and cleaned the house, did a lot of things, so therefore there was no fingerprints. There was nothing. The house was cleaned because the family members. This is all the information I found out later on after I was incarcerated. 00:28:37 Speaker 4: Another terrible aspect of pre trial detention is that I'm guessing your lawyer didn't visit you. 00:28:44 Speaker 7: No, he did not, right, And. 00:28:46 Speaker 4: There's the reason behind that too, which is that for a lawyer to go to Rikers Island and visit you, basically that's going to take their whole day. They don't make it easy. It's a whole process you have to go through. They have to travel to the jail. So people who are not in the system right, people who are out on bail or on their own recognisance, have a much better chance because they can meet more freely with their lawyers and get better representation, which is another thing that I think it's important for people to understand. It's one of the reasons why our bail system is so unfair and ill conceived. So you were in that exact situation where you're facing a murder wrap. Your lawyer's not visiting you, he's not really doing any work every time he comes in, and a journeys the case, you go right back to Rikers Island, and so there's just nothing that's fair or equitable about that. And ultimately, though thirteen months later, you did get your day in court. By this point, I mean, you've been through so much, and you'd been lied to by the people who are supposed to protect you, and you'd been let down by the other person was supposed to protect you as your lawyer. The whole system is failing you. But when you went to court, did you believe that justice would finally be done and people would see that you were an innocent person. 00:29:57 Speaker 7: Yes? 00:29:58 Speaker 4: I did. 00:29:58 Speaker 6: That's the reason why I test on my own behalf, because I didn't have anyone. 00:30:03 Speaker 7: To testify for me. And I mean Scott Selly. 00:30:07 Speaker 6: He went out of his way to make sure that family members were there, and a lot of them had moved away because of the time lapse. They were in another state, but he brought a lot of them there so that the jury could see that there was a large family, and it just made things move a little smoother for him to get the conviction. 00:30:30 Speaker 7: But I did speak to the family. I spoke to the judge. 00:30:33 Speaker 6: I even wrote a letter to the judge stating that I did not commit this crime. 00:30:37 Speaker 4: So these are what happened. 00:30:38 Speaker 5: Well, Finessa testified that the confession was coerced and that she was not there. 00:30:46 Speaker 4: Now. 00:30:46 Speaker 5: The jury deliberated for I think over thirteen hours. It was a lengthy deliberation, relatively speaking, and they acquitted her on the top count, which was murder. But there must have been some kind of compromise because they did convict her on the manslaughter and the only evidence against her was the confession. But you have to remember this was back in ninety seven and juries were not sensitized to the issues we all know today about how innocent people can confess. The science was not there then, and it would take a lot for a jury to reject a confession that someone seemed to have voluntarily made, and there was no false confession expert who testified on her behalf a trial, just Vanessa's word against Scarcella's word. And obviously Scarcela at that time was a senior detective who nobody had reason to question. There had been no allegations yet that he had engaged in any corrupt eye activity, So it was reasonable for a jury to buy Scarcello's account instead of Finesses. And I think that's what happened. If the same case we're tried today, I think a jury would be much more attuned to coercion issues and that false confessions can happen. I think it would be a different outcome today. 00:32:23 Speaker 4: Frankly, Yeah, And I want to make sure that people who are listening really take that in because now we know there's so much research on false confessions. It is a wonderful show on Netflix called The Confession Tapes. So many people have seen the Confessions and other programs like Making a Murderer that are so obviously false. We know that in DNA exonerations over twenty percent of the cases involve false confessions. It's a scary phenomenon, but it's very real. And so Vanessa, at that moment when you were convicted, because the jury did come back in and declare you guilty of second degree manslaughter, what was that like? 00:33:05 Speaker 7: I think I just went numb on it and believe it. 00:33:08 Speaker 6: I didn't think I would get that kind of time anyway for this he even if they didn't believe me. I really didn't even realize how much time I had to do. I just didn't believe it, so that nobody believed me, you know what I was stating to them. I mean, I know he had some issues in the past, and he just came back forward trying to just get a conviction, because he did have some problems in the department. 00:33:34 Speaker 7: But he just came gun home at me. 00:33:37 Speaker 6: And I'm not realizing that he was set me up the whole time just to take the four for this crime. 00:33:43 Speaker 4: But he did. And he probably got some pats on the back and some you know, sort of accolades for solving another cold case. And you were, you know, just a little detailed to him. That's all. I probably never Probably I'm guessing he went home that night, had a nice dinner, you know, watch some TV, and went to sleep. So you end up serving ten years in prison where you had a perfect disciplinary record, and the whole time you maintained your innocence, even though there were times when you came before a parole board and it would have been better for you in some ways to say that you were guilty, because they would have probably sent you home. 00:34:17 Speaker 6: Yes, that's true. But the first couple of times I went, I did not. I kept I stated that I did not do the crime. 00:34:24 Speaker 4: But they don't want to hear that. They want to hear that you're remorseful, that you feel bad that the victim. 00:34:28 Speaker 6: I can't feel remorse when I didn't do something you don't understand. 00:34:32 Speaker 7: How do you feel? 00:34:33 Speaker 6: You don't know the person, you didn't do the crime, so how can you feel remorse. I mean, I feel remorse when someone is getting beaten or something like that, actually seen it happen. But as far as me doing something like that, never. 00:34:48 Speaker 5: Never Finessa's right. In the first two parole hearings, she said I did not do what they said I did. But eight years in with a perfect disciplinary record and seeing how little asserting her evidence got her with the parole board previously, in her third parole hearing, she appeared to admit guilt, and we retained a fabulous expert who was able to explain the conundrum that someone like Vanessa is facing. And Vanessa testified in her deposition that everyone on the inside was telling her you're an idiot. You've got to tell them what they want to hear. Just tell them you did it. And so Vanessa in the third parole hearing appeared to admit guilt when in fact obviously she was not guilty, but it was the only way she could see to get out early. 00:35:48 Speaker 6: At that point, it didn't matter they it didn't matter. Even in the third hearing, date hit me again with another two years, which is pissed my cr date, my condition to release. If it was up to them, I would have still been in there until two thousand and eight. 00:36:16 Speaker 4: Now we're going to get to the good part of the story, right, because there is a happy ending, or you wouldn't be sitting here now and you wouldn't be enjoying the nice, big, extended family that you now have. And so the good guys come to the rescue. Right. You have Lisa and her team at Hughes, Hubbard and Red, and you have the legal aid Society, and then at just about the right time in Brooklyn, the Conviction Review Unit was established, and that unit has done phenomenal work in reversing many wrongful convictions, including last time I looked at was seven or eight that Scarcela was directly responsible for, including yours. So let's talk about that, because the happy ending part of this story is really really important because it requires people like Lisa and other dedicated professionals to go and reverse one of these things. It's hard. I mean, they don't make it easy at all. So how did it come about Lisa? How did she end up getting justice? After all? 00:37:17 Speaker 5: Credit initially unquestionably goes to the Legal Aid Society. This is what happened. Charles Hines was in the political fight of his career and there had been an initial Scarcella related exoneration in the David Ranta case, and the New York Times and Ken Thompson are breathing down Charles Hines's back, and he says, it's okay, everybody, I'm telling you right now, I am going to reinvestigate every trial conviction that detective Scarcella touched, and Hines prepared a list which has never been publicly available. I don't know anyone that's ever seen it. Initially it had at least fifty names of defendants on it. And what the DA's office did was they contacted the last lawyer of record in each of those fifty cases. Well, the Legal Aid Society was the last lawyer of record in a good half of those, about twenty five. And so Legal Aid went to firms around town looking for partners which is how Hughes Hubbard got involved with the case, and we proceeded on a three year partnership with Legal Aid. We reinvestigated the crime and marshaled our arguments, retained experts, and were able to make a persuasive pitch to the then District Attorney, Ken Thompson, who had beaten Charles Hines in that election. And that is the short story of how we were able to get to the exoneration day. 00:39:02 Speaker 4: And Ken Thompson sadly died last year at the young age of fifty. He was a good man and a decent man. He was a friend of mine, but he was so proud. You know, he used to walk around with a picture of you. I don't know, do you know that? 00:39:16 Speaker 6: No, I know it's in his office but I didn't know he had the picture with it. 00:39:20 Speaker 4: He at his birthday party. He has this cardboard thing. I'm holding my arms out wide to show how big it was, and then it was about a couple of feet three feet high, and on it it had a picture of you and the other exoneries that he his office had helped to exonerate. And so he was very proud of you and of the work that he and his team had done to help in your case. I remember him mentioning you specifically, So you should feel good about that. So when finally the light shone on you and on your case and justice was done, and it was proven by all these good people that this had happened, and that you were telling the truth all along, except when you were lying, because it was them telling you what to say, right, I mean, but in fact, as you had been saying you were innocent for so many years, what did that feel like when finally you got your life back? 00:40:17 Speaker 6: It felt great, and I was like, I'm saying, I'm able to finally put this behind me. You don't know what you're feeling at that time, because it's like it's clear now that I didn't do it. I mean, you don't know what people think of you, whether you did this crime or not, because it's on record stating that you did. But I felt great, I mean I felt reallyd Now live my life without having that on my record, it's very difficult to try and find a job, to move on in life because you have this hanging over your head. Now my record is clean, I could state that I have no record, which makes life a lot easier for me because people look to a background check. 00:41:00 Speaker 7: Is nothing there. 00:41:01 Speaker 4: It's nothing there because you never had anything there, because you were always there, always were a law abiding citizen. 00:41:06 Speaker 6: Yes, but as far as the law and the criminal justice system said, yes you have a record, it's on there. 00:41:12 Speaker 4: Not anymore. 00:41:13 Speaker 7: Not anymore, it's been taken away. 00:41:15 Speaker 4: And now you know, there's another aspect of this, which is something that's so troubling. You know, when we live in a country where we have approximately four point four percent of the world's population, but we have thirty three percent of the world's female prison population, which is just so outrageous. I mean, it's a national disgrace the way we treat women in this country. And when somebody like you is locked up, you're missing out on your children's lives, right and your children, grandchildren and that dynamic. I mean, that must have been an extra punishment. 00:41:49 Speaker 7: It was. 00:41:50 Speaker 6: My granddaughter was like only a year or when I went in, and it caused a lot of chaos between me and my daughter because I wasn't there for her. You understand, when she needed her mother to help her, when she had questions about raising her daughter. 00:42:07 Speaker 7: I wasn't there. 00:42:08 Speaker 4: She couldn't even call you. 00:42:09 Speaker 2: No. 00:42:10 Speaker 4: And not only were there, but you were far away, right That That's another thing. 00:42:13 Speaker 6: I was in bedfoot for a while, and then I finally moved to They moved me to Bayview, which is in Manhattan, which was made closer because I didn't get a lot of visits. I didn't get visits because my family couldn't come to the facility because we were poor. We didn't have money like that. I mean, even like my father was living at the time. He wanted to put up his farm. I wouldn't allow him to do that because they gave me a quarter million dollar bill. I'm saying, where do you think I'm gonna get that kind of money from. It was difficult for everyone. I lost a lot of family members. I lost a brother, or sister, my uncle, my aunt, I lost my mother, my father's brother. It was it was a lot of family member once that passed away. During my first year incarcerated, I couldn't attend anything because if you're in New York or if your family's out of state, you can't go to the services. 00:43:11 Speaker 7: So that was hard for me to deal with too. 00:43:14 Speaker 6: It was a lot of things that that I missed out on because of my incarceration. 00:43:20 Speaker 4: So you had to endure the death of numerous family members while you were behind bars for something you didn't do, and you weren't even allowed to go to the funeral. No. Right, So, I mean, it's so amazing to me that you're here now, standing up straight, proud, like, able to put a sentence together, right, able to just have a life when you've been through such an incredibly terrible ordeal that you never deserved. I mean, it's crazy. So now the good news is you have gotten your life back, right. I mean, this thing actually happened almost twenty years ago. Must be crazy to think about that. And now you've been out for some time, and what's the situation now? You settled your lawsuits, right, which is great? Yes, And It's worth noting that Scarcela not only ruined so many people's lives and left so many crimes unsolved, leading to many more crimes happening, because obviously, when he arrested and was able to get convictions on the wrong people, the right people were out there committing more crimes. Right, So he's got that. And then also there's been tens of millions of dollars paid out to so many victims of his by the city, which is taxpayer money. So there's nothing cute or funny about what this guy was doing. When these guys behave in this way, who are supposed to be protecting us and keeping us safe, it has so many terrible consequences across the board. So now where are you living, how's your life? What's your family situation? I want to hear, well, I'm living. 00:44:49 Speaker 6: In Jersey's City now, although I was living in Manhattan until twenty fourteen and working. I was working from the day that I got out of prison because I met a couple. They gave me a job and I work with them for almost eight years until they retired. And then now living in Jersey City. My mother has Alzheimer's. That's one of the reasons I moved back to Jersey City. 00:45:11 Speaker 7: Which she is. 00:45:12 Speaker 6: I recently purchased a home or it's eleventh graduations. I have the first one, and my daughter has a second. It's a two family house and she's upstairs with a daughter and her granddaughter, my granddaughter, my great granddaughter and my daughter, so we all live in together. 00:45:29 Speaker 4: Right, have any boys in your family? 00:45:31 Speaker 7: We do have boys. 00:45:33 Speaker 6: I have brothers, But as far as me, it's four generations of females. Well five, you put my mother in there, but it's just females. 00:45:42 Speaker 4: You got four generations living under one roof in Jersey City. It sounds incredible and isn't that nice though, that now you're able to make up for the time that you lost with your family. Now you have your whole like so many of you all there together. I mean, it must be just a joy for you. 00:45:58 Speaker 7: It is. It is wonderful. 00:46:01 Speaker 6: I can see my granddaughter, my great granddaughter at any time if I need to go somewhere in My granddaughter does have a car. She's working, so she could take me and then I get this babysit my granddaughter. 00:46:14 Speaker 4: So that's amazing. Well, listen, I'm happy that things finally worked out. I want to apologize to you for what the city and the state did to you. There's no excuse for it, but I'm glad you're here now. One of my favorite parts of the show often is to turn the microphone over to our featured guest and see, is there anything else you want to share with the audience. 00:46:39 Speaker 6: Well, no, I'm just saying that. Well, during the time that I was in there, I mean, I wasn't going to let the time do me. 00:46:46 Speaker 7: I was going to do the time. 00:46:47 Speaker 6: So I got myself involved with a lot of different activities throughout the prison. I worked hard to stay in touch with my family. I would read my granddaughter books on you know, on video and send the books. There's a lot of programs in there. There's a lot of things you could do even though you're fighting your case. But do something positive, you know, don't let the negativity rule you. 00:47:12 Speaker 4: And Lisa any final thoughts, I would. 00:47:15 Speaker 5: Just say, having known Vanessa now for five or six years, she is an exceptional person and the only way I think she was able to get through this ordeal was her strength of character. She got into prison, and I think this woman just put her head down and said, I'm going to get through this. And she just was forward thinking. She never obsessed about how did this happen? How did I get here? It was just one day at a time. I've got to get out of here. And she mentioned the couple that hired her right after prison. I just want to speak to that because I think it's so telling about Vanessa. Literally, a wealthy couple was volunteering at Bayview, husband and wife. Vanessa was running the GED program. She was running this thing, that thing, and they elbowed each other and said, why is she here? 00:48:16 Speaker 7: We don't get it. 00:48:17 Speaker 5: She's not like anyone else in here. And they befriended Vanessa, and literally one week after she was released, she was in a full time job working for them, and she was the chief administrator of their very successful company and worked for these people for seven years. They trusted her, they loved her. They could see what she was capable of. And you know, my client is just an extraordinary woman, and it's a testament to her character that she was able to get through this. 00:48:52 Speaker 4: Well, both of you are extraordinary women. So Vanessa, Lisa, thank you so much for coming in and appearing on the show. You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction with our guests Vanessa Others and Lisa Kaya. 00:49:08 Speaker 8: Thank you for having me, don't forget to give us a fantastic review. 00:49:19 Speaker 4: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Ennisnce Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innisonceproject dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to. 00:49:44 Speaker 8: Follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at. 00:49:48 Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company. 00:49:56 Speaker 8: Number One 00:50:00 Speaker 4: In the Morning, The Boy