Latest / Two Ts In A Pod with Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge / Legally Brunette: Wrongfully Imprisoned w/ Kevin Harper

Transcript

Legally Brunette: Wrongfully Imprisoned w/ Kevin Harper · Two Ts In A Pod with Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hi guys, welcome to an episode of Legally Brunette. I'll
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: be your host today, Emily Simpson with... Okay, today is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a very special episode because we are going to talk
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: about every month we've been trying to bring you new
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: stories of wrongful convictions. And so we're super excited to be...
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: First of all, we're in person today. We're in the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: iHeart Studio, which normally Shane and I are at home.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: But we are in the studio today with Kevin Harper,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and we're very excited to talk to him. Before we
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: start to interview Kevin, I just want to go through
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit of his bio so that you guys
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: have a background on Kevin.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: So.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: For 13 years, Kevin Harper Jr. sat behind bars for
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a crime he did not commit, the death of his
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: own infant son. In August of 2008, Kevin rushed his
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: six-month-old boy, Jaden, to the emergency room after the baby
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: stopped breathing. Jaden had been born 13 weeks premature and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: battled serious health complications from day one. Despite Kevin's desperate
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: attempt to save his son's life, doctors identified a cluster
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of findings, brain bleeding, swelling, and retinal hemorrhaging, collectively known
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: as the triad, and concluded that the baby had been shaken.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Kevin was convicted of causing his son's death and sentenced
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to 25 years to life in prison. However, he never
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: stopped proclaiming his innocence. What prosecutors didn't account for was
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a growing body of medical science challenging the very diagnosis
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: that put Kevin away. The so-called shaken baby syndrome triad,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: it turns out, can have other explanations, explanations that were
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: never presented at trial. While incarcerated, Kevin earned his associate's degree,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: led life improvement programs for fellow inmates, and held on
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to the hope of reuniting with his daughter, his mother,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and his grandmother. On January 20th of 2022, Thanks to
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the tireless work of the Northern California Innocence Project, Cooley
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: LLP and Latham and Watkins, Kevin Harper walked free. Today,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: we're honored to sit down with Kevin and hear his
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: story in his own words. So Kevin, thank you so
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: much for being here. Thank you for being in person.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I know it took you a while to drive here,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: but we're super excited to sit down with you and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: talk to you. Um, I guess maybe just to start out,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: do you want to just kind of recount what happened
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: that day with your son?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Um, man, I played a day over in my mind
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: quite a bit because it wasn't nothing unusual about that
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: day until that moment. Um, And when you are in
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: like life-changing situations like that, the first thing you always
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: ask yourself afterwards is like, what could I do different?
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: What could I have done different? And I played it
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: over and over and over in my head so many times.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: But it was just another day for us. I was
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: a working guy. My partner at the time is mom.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: She was a working lady. You know, we worked at
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: the same location, Real Officer Cooks. And we worked opposite shifts.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: We did that intentionally so that we could spend more
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: time with the baby. uh and just kind of not
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: be wore out so that day just waking up taking
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: care of my son seeing her off to work.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: That day um.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: He was very he was a very mellow baby um
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: He wasn't a fussy baby, one who cried a lot
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: all he wanted to. He was just real mellow. Nine
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: times out of ten, if you laid him down and
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: had colors or something going, he was locked for hours
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: and wouldn't be just, okay, cool.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Is he your first child?
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: No, he was my second.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: He's number two?
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was number two. I have an older daughter.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: She's 21 now. But he was very easygoing and I'm
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: a big kid, so me and kids just have a thing.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I get along with kids so well. My own kid,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: I spoil them to death. So that day, I laid
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: them down for a nap so that I can kind
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: of proceed with my day because I got to get
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: ready for work when mom comes home and get in
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: motion for the day. And as I'm getting ready, you know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I could over, I forgot how long it was, but
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: some time had went by and I could hear him crying. So, okay,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: let me go see what's up. You know, I pick
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: him up and what's wrong, little man, you okay? You know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: and he's just crying, crying. Oh, again, it's not a
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: big deal. It's a baby.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: You know, this is what they do. It wasn't alarming.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: It wasn't alarming. It wasn't alarming until he froze. And like,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: when I say froze at the time, I didn't know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: but he had a seizure. Um, and his body just locked.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: So I'm just like, what's wrong? Trying to calm him down.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: And I say maybe 30 seconds of that. And I
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: literally heard his last breath and he just went limp.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: And I paused for like a hot second, like what
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: just happened? And I just called 911. My first instinct
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: in that moment Once I realized he wasn't breathing was
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: to CPR. But my son was born premature. He was born,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: I want to say, 55 days early.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And how old is he now at this time?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: He was six months at that time. Okay.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: So he's past. Okay. So he's six months old.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: He was six months old. So prior to him coming home,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: there were courses we were supposed to take to handling
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: of a premature baby something happens you know there's certain
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: ways you have to give cpr and in my mind
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: i knew i didn't i didn't take these courses so
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: already right off the gate i'm like well i don't
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: want to do nothing that's gonna hurt and let me
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: just call 9-1-1 i called 9-1-1 and i got a
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: busy signal and like what the hell hang up the
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: phone call back and it puts me on hold and
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: i'm just like what am i doing you know and
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: at that point i just i'm out you know i
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: get the baby seat i put him in the car
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: and and i because the Hospital was like maybe a
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: couple miles away. I'm out speeding, running lights, you know,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: get them to the hospital. From there, man, from there,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: it was just, it was a blur because I felt,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: looking back at it, I felt that there was a
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: lot of, not straightforwardness when it came to the conversation
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: between me and the hospital and the doctors and all
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: this stuff so I always had a lot of questions
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: like what's going on I'll just give us a minute
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: we're gonna this and it wasn't until police officers started
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: to show up that I started to get a bigger
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: picture of like hey what was actually going on I'm
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: just like okay, well, whatever you think happened, that's not
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: what happened. All you had to do was ask me
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: from the jump and I would have told you, hey,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: this is what happened, this is what happened. I think
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: it felt like at that time, a mind was made up.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Regardless of what I was going to say, regardless of
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: what information or input I had to give, that was that.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: And I started to not get aggressive, but I started
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: to be very assertive defensive yes and his mom she
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: stopped me she was like that's not important right now
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: and she was right you know she was very right
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: in that moment but my mind was just like stop
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: this and let's focus on this because I'm trying to
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: figure out how do we help my son because if
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: I have anything to tell you I'm going to tell
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: you you know all you have to do is ask
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: me at this point and it was just like okay
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: we'll get back to you we'll get back to you.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry his mother's there at the hospital with you yeah.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah okay so you're all there yeah we're all there.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Um And, but she didn't drive with you to the
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: hospital because she was at work and she comes after
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: because it's emergency. Okay.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Um, and I assume, I'm just going to assume that
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: they're being vague with you and probably not giving you
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of information and not giving you straight answers
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: because the conversations going on behind the scene have to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: do with, I think this is shaken baby syndrome. They
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: probably targeted you immediately. They probably called the police and said,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you need to come investigate this. And so that's what's
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes. And you aren't aware of
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that at first. You're just there thinking, what's going on
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: with my child? Can you please give me updates? And meanwhile,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the conversation behind your back and behind closed doors is
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: that they're targeting you for something that you had nothing
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to do with.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: And I think that's where my frustration started to come in.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: And that's, that's, I won't say I became difficult to
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: deal with, but I became tunnel vision in my conversation
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: and what I wanted to hear because now I'm feeling like, hey,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: you're not being upfront with me. I'm not going to
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: be very helpful for you right now. Like, just tell
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: me what's going on.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: You're being a little guarded.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Yes. At this point, the only thing I'm focused on
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: is what do we need to do to help my son? Like,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: he's unconscious right now. What's next? You know, and I'm
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: not hearing what's next.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Are you with your boy at this time? Yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: For the most part, we stayed in the hospital room
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: with him. The only time, oh man, the only time
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: that we weren't with him was the transport because the
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: initial hospital that I took him to wasn't the final
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: hospital that he was at. So when he was transported
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: from there to there, only one parent could ride at
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: the time. So I was like, mom, you ride with
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: him and I'll meet you guys there. But after that,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: We pretty much stayed at the hospital. I just didn't
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: know if they separated you or something. So you're all
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: together in a room for the most part. Yeah, we
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: were all together. Family stayed together.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: What kind of questions are they asking you or what
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: kind of things are they saying that then put you
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: on guard to think, okay, what's going on? on here?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: What was the first few things?
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: What were you guys doing at home? When he was crying,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: how was he acting? What was your response? And, you know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, no response. Like, it's a baby. He's crying.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: He's upset.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: He's probably hungry. I don't know. You know, my mind
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: doesn't trigger that. What's wrong with you? Why are you crying? Like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: you're a baby.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I saw a short transaction, right?
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, he stopped breathing, had a seizure, this and that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: And then you rushed him to the hospital. Like, it
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: was as straightforward as that.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: And to me, nothing about that was odd. The only
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: thing that was odd was the fact that he seized
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: up and stopped breathing. But all the way up until
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: that moment, everything was fine. You could walk into any
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: random person's house with a newborn and probably walk in
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: and hear the newborn crying. And you don't think, oh,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: my God, your child's in distress. Like, no, he's a baby.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: He's crying.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Can I ask also, he vomited too as well. I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: read that. Is that correct?
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: And it's not even really vomit. It was more like,
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: it was very, it was just clear. It was just
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: like water almost, you know? So I didn't know what
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: it was, but it was something I felt like, let
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: me tell you. when I'm explaining to the officers, everything
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: that happened, step by, Hey, this is how it happened.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: This is what happened. This is what he did. This
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: is what happened, you know, because how important was that
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: to them making whatever findings? I don't know. Right. You know,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: I'm not a doctor. All I'm going to do is
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to tell you what I saw, you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: and hope that you can tell me what happened.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: And certainly at that time there was nothing to hide
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: or you didn't feel there was anything to not share.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: So you're willing to say whatever.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And probably more so straightforward, the answers that may be,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing it could be taken as unemotional. Like you're
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: just kind of telling it instead of, yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: And then, uh, another thing that just started to just
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: ring bells for me is they asked like, how do
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: you interact with your son? How do you play with
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: your son? And I mentioned, you know, Oh, I, you know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: have fun with my son.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Right. I do this.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I carry him. I lift him up in the air.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: And it's in that time, in that moment, like I
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: didn't realize where this questioning was going. Uh, During trial,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I realized it was used like, hey, this action.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: They were investigating.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yes. You know, like I play an airplane game with
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: my kid. Like, what's that? What do you mean when
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: you do that? Like, I don't know. Just I'm holding
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: my kid. You know, I'm holding him in the air.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Hey, hey.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: I don't have an explanation for it. It's like when
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: you interact with your child, do you have a specific
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: step by step by step way of how you interact?
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: No, if someone asked me, how do you play the kid?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And I said I was playing airplane. That would probably
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: be the end.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, OK, that's fine.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Not, well, how do you hold them? How do you maneuver?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: How often? And I'm guessing those are the type of questions.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Those were the type of questions. And again, in my mind,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: I thought nothing of it because this was like, what
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: does this have to do with anything? But like I said,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: come to trial, come to find out, it had everything
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: to do with it. They tried to say that this
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: action created this. And because of that, this is why
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: you are in the situation you're in. This is why
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: your son is dead. You're at fault. And I'm just like, What?
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Like I did this with my daughter. Like I did
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: this with my nephews. Like this is, this is nothing
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: out of the ordinary.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Everyone on the street probably did that. Yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: So you're telling me, you know, so it, it was very,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: it pissed me off. It pissed me off. One, because
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: I knew who I was. I knew who I, I
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: know who I am. And two, this doesn't help my son. Right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Sitting here telling me what you think I might've done
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: doesn't help my son right now.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Is he getting treated during this time?
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: No. At this point, he's just in a coma and
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: they're kind of just having side conversations. And eventually I think,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I think we were in there maybe two and a
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: half days and they finally just say, listen, this is
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: kind of, the state he's going to be in unless
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: you decide to just take them off life support. You know,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: I think it took us the rest of that day
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: to kind of really make that decision because that was
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: kind of a hard thing to digest.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: I would think so.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Um, but the entire time, I think I can't recall
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: if they said there was really nothing they can do.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: It was just always, we have to run a test.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: We have to run a test. We got to run
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: a test. Okay, cool. What came of those tests, what
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: type of tests they might have been. I know there
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: were a lot of CAT scans, brain scans. If it
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: was any test that could, well, knowing what I know now,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I don't think there was a test you could have
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: done that could have, like, helped at this point. So
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: I think those tests were mainly to figure out what
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: was the cause.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: You know, what caused these things. And I think once
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: that was completed.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Like they were running diagnostic tests to figure out. why
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: it occurred. They weren't doing things that were helpful.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: To treat.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: To treat.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: It didn't seem like knowing what I know now, what
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: there's nothing you can do to treat it. You know,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: it can't be treated.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Right. So I believe, so he ended up living another
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: around three days. Was that correct? Until you made the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: final decision to end the life support.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: And even then I couldn't, I couldn't make that decision.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: That was, That was mom. She spoke a lot for us.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: At this time, you're on guard and frustrated. And what
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: was the word? Did you say pissed? Or what was it?
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Upset. Yeah, upset.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Insulted. Was she similarly? Because she wasn't there during the
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: whole ordeal. Mm-hmm. Did she feel like, oh, they're interrogating you,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: they're investigating you, or was she in a different stage
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and she's just focused on her boy?
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: She was focused on him.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, so she didn't have the same experience as you did.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she was way more calmer than me, and actually
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: she was the one that kind of calmed me down
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: the most moments when I wanted to kind of just
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: like snap, like go off on somebody. It was her like, hey,
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: and I'm just like, you know, okay, whatever.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I let it go, but she was a lot more
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: calmer than I was throughout the entire process, even when
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: it came to the funeral arrangements and everything. She was
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: a rock star. She was very solid. Something that I
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: couldn't be in that moment because I was just everywhere.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: This is my son. It's my firstborn son at that.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: He's not my first child, but it's my first boy.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: So I'm looking like, what's going on? What do I
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: need to do to help him? So, yeah. And I'm
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: very much a provider, protector, one who's taken care of.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: That's kind of how I've been. I'm the oldest of
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: like three siblings, actually five. So my entire life, I've
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: been kind.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Of looking out for the younger kids to take care.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: You know, that's what I do. Even to this day.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Now we're all grown. You know, I still look out.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: That's just, that's just kind of role that I've taken.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: And even within my family, with my kids, like that's
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: the role I take. So in that moment, I felt
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: that whatever that was, was completely out of my control.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: And that didn't sit well with me because typically I
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: feel like I have control of the situation and I
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: could like, Do something to help. And in this one,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: there was nothing I could do. And this is my son.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: It's just like.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: That's very interesting that you said that. It just made
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: me think of something because I'm the oldest. I have
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a younger sister. So I feel like I always kind
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of took on a parental role with my. And so
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: control is like a big thing. And maybe because we're
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the oldest and we have that. I'm also a Capricorn.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: But maybe that's another part of it.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: But when you were talking about that, when Shane and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I were first married, I had a hard time having kids.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And it was very, very difficult for me because I'd
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: always been able to meet goals. I was always like
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: you said, you were always the one that took care
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: of the younger ones and you were the provider. And
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: then for something to happen to your son that was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: beyond your control, that you couldn't fix, that you couldn't
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: make it okay or be the big brother or be
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the dad and be the provider and fix everything. And
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: that moment of not being able to control the situation
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: is so frustrating. I understand that. Like I connected with
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you when you were saying that because I know what
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that's like. And to be in our position to be
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the one that like we're at the top of the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: food chain, right? We're taking care of everyone below. And
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: then to not be able to fix something is very
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: difficult for us to wrap our brains around. And that's
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: when I get frustrated and that's when I get defensive
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and that's when I get argumentative and all of those things,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you know? So I understand that. When did you get
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: to the point? Because now we've gotten to the point
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: where your partner made the decision to end life support.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And now you have to move forward. But when did
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: they actually, I mean, did they arrest you? How did
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that happen?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I didn't get arrested until like the middle of October.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So how much longer was that?
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: It was about almost a month and a half.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So then when you and his mother make the decision
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: for him to take off life support, then what's the next?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Now where do we go?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: And that's, and so that's where, that's where I really
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: just kind of lose myself, my, I kind of lose
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: a piece of my identity, and in that, yeah, my,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: my movements were completely out of character, completely just sporadic,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: me in the I couldn't even have a conversation with
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: mom no more. Mom tried to have a lot of
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: conversations with me and I'm looking at her like, OK,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: you know, like I'm here, but I'm not here. Because
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't know how to be here. I was still
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: processing that. And well, you lost your son. You're in grief.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And so you have to leave the hospital.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And you have to go home.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: I didn't go home.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: You didn't go home.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I couldn't go home. I went to a hotel. I
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: stayed in a hotel. I couldn't be in the same
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: space no more.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Were you able to go back to work?
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: No.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You had to take time off.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: And they understood what was going on. So they just
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: kind of like let me be. And I attempted to
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: go home. I attempted to go home. I attempted to...
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: have a conversation, and I couldn't.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Kind of like you knew what you should do, but
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you couldn't really get yourself to do it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like I didn't know how do I start it?
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: How do I have this conversation? You know, it's like
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the house is different now. You know, you wake up
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: and my baby's not here. He's not where he's supposed
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: to be. You know, you don't just get up and just–
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: the day goes as usual because there's nothing usual about this. Uh,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: so I, I, I really tried. Um, and I couldn't,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: and my mom, she happened to be down when all
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: this was going on. So that's when I ended up
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: staying at the hotel with her. And by the time
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: I got with her, like it seemed like every hour
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I was just checking out even more and more. I
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: was checking out more and more, more and more, more
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: and more.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Um, Time wasn't healing for you in this case, right?
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: No, there was a moment and there was a very
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: small moment where I didn't want to live. Like that's
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: where my thought had went. How long I stayed in
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: that space? Like, I don't know, but I do remember
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: thinking that to myself. I don't, I never thought to
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: do anything to myself, but in that moment, I was
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: just like, yeah, I didn't care. Um, I ran off.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: I'm in the streets. I'm looking for drugs, just whatever.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Anything to just like.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Escape.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah. To just kind of get out of reality for
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: a minute. And it's funny. I had smoked some crack
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: cocaine and my body instantly rejected it. Like I rejected
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: it and I was like laid out somewhere and I just,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I ended up calling my mom like, hey, come get me.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Like come get me. You know, and she came and
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: got me and she knew I wasn't, she could tell
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I wasn't right.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: She talked to me and she made, did it say,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: you need to just come, come, come stay with me,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: you know, until you kind of get yourself back when
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: you're feeding. It's like, all right, all right, cool.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Just to give a little more background, just for our listeners,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you're in your twenties during this, right? You're 20, 20.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, dude, you're a baby. Yeah. You are young.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: That's a lot to go through.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Maybe 23.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Early twenties. But that's a lot to go through. Cause
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I was thinking when you were telling me this, like, no,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you can never be prepared for something like this. There's
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: no training. There's no book. There's no, experience that you
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: have prior to that that could help you get through
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: it you just have to get through it at the
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: time when it happens if it unfortunately and.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: That was another thing that pissed me off so much
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: was listening to officers and interrogation videos try to essentially
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: tell me how i should have been responding to a
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: situation and i'm looking like what you mean.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: When was the first time that police now approach you
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and they're like, you have to come downtown or whatever?
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Like outside the hospital.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Like when did they start bringing you in and start
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: questioning you and you start to realize, okay, I'm a
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: suspect at this point?
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: The very next day after we made the decision.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: To take a life support.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I tried to go home. And when I just couldn't
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: do that, went with my mom. And that's when they
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: called like, hey. Or can you come down to the
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: office so that we can talk to you? And I said, yeah, cool.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: You know, I've got no problem coming down.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: I don't think, again, my mind was elsewhere. I didn't
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: even compute that this is going to be an interrogation.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: You just thought, they just want to know, they just
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: want information. I'm just going to go and answer some questions.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: So I went down there and we talked for about, man, maybe...
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: four or five hours, maybe.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Now, can I ask you a question? When you went
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: down and then I assume they take you into a
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: room and then they come in and they ask you questions.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Do they read your rights?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Do they read you your rights? So they didn't say.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: You voluntarily went to the police station, right? That's why
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: he voluntarily went.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: So it's not still the interrogation.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And did you ever think at that point when you
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: were sitting there that you needed an attorney or you
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: needed to ask for one? You just thought I'm here
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: just giving information that they need.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: I was just doing it because they asked me to.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: You were just reacting.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was just a reaction. You want me to
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: come down and talk to you? Okay, all right, no problem.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: You mentioned you had done some crack or something to
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: try to obviously take your mind off things. Yeah. Had
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: you done it in the past prior to that?
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: No.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So you really went in a direction for help that
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: you had never been to before.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. My dad was a drug addict.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: So you've been around it, but you hadn't partaken in it.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: So you were experimenting- To try to deal with, get
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: through things.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: So when you're in the police station for the first
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: time and they're interviewing you, I'm not going to say
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: interrogating because at this point you went voluntarily and you
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: think you're just there to answer questions. What direction, you
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: said you were there for several hours. So what direction
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: did the questions start going where you're like, this is
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: not looking great for me?
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: When they stayed on the airplane gang.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, they stuck on that.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: When they got stuck on it, like, and we didn't,
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: we couldn't get past it. Now I'm just like.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: What are we doing? I'm guessing you're probably thinking, there's
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: only so many questions. I just run around the house
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: and hold them and he flies around. I've done that
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: a million times.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know another way to explain it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you what dad hasn't played airplane with
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: their kid at some point. I mean, I've even done
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: it with my own kids. I even put them on
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: my feet and put them up in the air when
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: they were little and zoomed them around.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: And I was trying to even tell them, is it
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: a game that he played? Like, no, but.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: it was just a little motion it's just.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: A motion and you're asking me this question constantly so
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: let's give it a name so that we can move
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: on like this is what I'm doing and this is
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: what it is oh like an airplane yeah like an airplane.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Oh so even so when you did this with your
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: boy it wasn't it wasn't even a game it was
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: just you were just.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: It's just an interaction put a smile on his face
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: yeah yeah and then they want to label it something
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: so they can talk keep talking about the game airplane
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: yeah and.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Again i thought nothing of it i thought nothing of
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: it all at this point i'm like let's get off
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: of it now like let's get on to the next
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: thing but once we stayed there um and then they
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: started talking about stuff that they found in the house
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: because when uh we were in the hospital they came
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: hey can we have the key to your apartment so
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: we can go uh check the apartment yeah here you
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: know Did.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: You think they were looking for just some type of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: evidence that had to do with like why your son
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: went into, you know, shock or seizure? So you're thinking
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: they're just going in to see if there's something like,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it was poisoned or like, did
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: he have a reaction to something or, but really what
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: are the, I mean, really they're.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Investigating.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: And I didn't know that.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: They put a story together that had to do with you.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And the story, one of the stories that I eventually
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: found out later down the road was, oh, he was mad.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: He was frustrated because he wanted to play his game
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: and drink beer. So he did this to his son.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, how did you come to that conclusion? Well,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: you had your video game there and it was on
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: and there was an empty pack of six packs of
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: beer on the counter.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, Well, that could have been from the
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: night before.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I'm thinking like, so that means I wanted
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: to get drunk.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: There's also food in the fridge.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: So at that point, you know, when you start nitpicking,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: now I'm like, I'm talking less and less now.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And then the more you're talking, the more I'm listening,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: the more I see you going from here, here. All right.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: I don't really got much to say no more. I've
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: told you what happened.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: How did that first interview end?
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: It ended with....
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: On their terms or yours?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: It ended on my terms. But they had Tiffany, my
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: son's mom, they had her come in just to talk
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: to me. And why, I don't know.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, let me guess. They brought her in the room
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and they leave.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Because they're thinking you might talk to Tiffany.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: They think that you might admit something. And I assume
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: they were recording it.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: And I found out later that they were. And me
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: and her, we had our own conversation, you know. And
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the one thing, I don't remember much about the conversation,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: but she even said it. She's like, if you did something,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: just let me know. And if you didn't, then that's
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: just what it is. I was just like, yeah, I don't,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: you know, there's nothing to say.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to assume she trusted in you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the entire time. Did she ever falter and think that
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: you had done something inappropriate?
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: So that I'm unsure. So from the beginning, she rocked
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: with me. And I know that she knew he wouldn't
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: do that. I will say throughout the entire process, she
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: had nothing negative to say about me. Nor would she
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: say anything negative about me because she saw my interaction
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: with my daughter prior to us having our kid. She
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: saw my interaction with our son. So she knows. But
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I just feel that over time with no other narrative
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: and the fact that I was just being more closed off,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: she didn't have nothing else to go with. And me
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: and her became distant. And once that happened, by the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: time I snapped out of my little space that I
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: was in, I'm already in police custody. And at that point,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you know, you can't reach out.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Well, what happened was you two as a mother and
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: father didn't have an opportunity to grieve the loss of
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: your son. You're in defense. You're helping them with their case.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And then, like you said, she, now you're not giving more, well,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: there's not much more to say. So you're closing up
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: and you're seeing what they're, where they're going with everything.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: So you're probably a little more tight lip. And then
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: she's probably wondering what's going on and they keep pushing, pushing, pushing,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: and you guys can't grieve and be a couple anymore.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: And then I found out later that at some point,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: because she had her own interview, that at some point
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: they asked her like, hey, if, if he didn't do this,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: then you must've did this. Like it started to pit.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: It's either you or him, which is it?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Which is it, you know? And again, I was unaware
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: of that until like I finally came home and started
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: talking and reading stuff. And I was just like, man,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: we were in a lose-lose situation.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: And just as you didn't kind of, you were being
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: helpful and you thought you were being helpful and you
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: didn't see where they were going immediately, or at least
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: you had some trust in them, or maybe you weren't
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: in the mindset to think any further. she probably was
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: doing the same. She was probably just thinking, I'm answering questions.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know where they're going with this. And she
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: wasn't so, you know, defensive.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: And I can never really get into her mind or
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: where her thought was at because we never had a
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: chance to really talk. That's one of my biggest regrets
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: throughout a lot of this is we never really had
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a chance to process what we experienced because I'll be
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: honest with you to this day, I still don't think
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: I fully processed the grief of my son, you know,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I have moments where I think about it and I
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: get like, and then I just like, I try to
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: shake it. And so I spent literally from the time
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: he passed away until the day the Innocence Project got
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: me out defending myself. And that's almost 14 years.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Of, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: didn't do it. Instead of being with your family and
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: being with your boy and spirit and all that stuff.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: And now I feel like I don't know how to
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: grieve my son. Like, how do I grieve my son?
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: What does that look like? What does that feel like?
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Because then I'll go through this whole traumatic thing being
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: in prison. And it's, you know, you come in here
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: with emotions. You might not make it.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: So. No.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: What you going to think about? Are you going to
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: think with your head or are you going to think
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: with your heart? One of them got to die and
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I had to make a choice. All right, the heart gone.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Survival mode is what you were doing.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: So now it's like learning how to think with my
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: heart again. Like how do I heal that?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: And that's difficult.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: You know, that's really interesting that you said that because
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I've known several, you know, exonerated people and I've interviewed
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: several and no one's quite explained it the way that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you just did. And that really makes a lot of
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: sense to me that in order to survive in prison,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: that you can't think with your heart and you have
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: to cut all that out. You're in survival mode and
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: you just have to be logical and you have to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: be tough and you have to be hard.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: And so you shut that part off. And then you
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: come to the day, which you were very lucky to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: end up being freed from prison. But then you're right,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: because then you leave, you walk out. And then now
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, I can't think like that. Now I
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: have to try to pull my heart back into things
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: because I have to reconnect with people. I'm going to
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: reconnect with my family. I'd like to be in a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: relationship at some point. I want to be able to
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: grieve my son.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Be with your daughter.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: But for 13 years, you had to be tough and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: hard and emotionless in order to survive that environment. And
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: so I don't know. It's just, it's really amazing, honestly,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that you're just sitting across from me and that you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: just are the person that you are and your fiance
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: is sitting next to you. I know our listeners can't see,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: but her name's Shay and she's right next to him.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And I just it's so beautiful to see where you
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: are in life right now, because you managed to do that.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: And I think there's so many people that come out
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of prison and can't do that. And that's why they
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: they end up back in prison. That's why they recommit
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: crimes or whatever happens. But you're sitting here about to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: be married. And I know she has children, too.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: And aren't you just like an amazing father figure to them?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: And so I just want to give you just the
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: props of being able to do that. Cause I don't
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people can do that.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: But despite us seeing all that, he's still having to
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: figure out life.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: So it's not like, Oh, it's all, it's all better now.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: It's on the surface level. You got it. You checked
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: all the boxes, all the wonderful boxes, but deep inside,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: you're still working through it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: I see a therapist every week still, you know, and that's,
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: that's been on and off. Like, Some days I feel
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: like I'm good. Some days I feel like, no, I
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: don't need this no more. No, I need this. So,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm seeing a therapist weekly. And the one
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: thing I've learned from the trauma is that I'm going
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: to uncover something different for the rest of my life
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: because I got trauma to deal with. And I was
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: literally thrown in a lion's den. And not to say
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: that I'm not a strong man, but I came out
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: with bruises.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: I came out with a lot of bruises. I came
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: out with a lot of scars.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean you're not strong because that was
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: a tough situation.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: And I'm still learning how to... Not because at first
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I was trying to be me again, but I can't.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: That Kevin is... He gone. And I was trying to
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: revive something that I literally... killed, dumped acid on. I
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: wiped him of my memory. And I kept bumping my
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: head on finding my footing in life. We went through
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of stuff in our relationship that I didn't
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: realize came from my trauma in prison. I didn't realize
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: came from the trauma of not grieving my son. I
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: didn't realize came from the trauma of my upbringing. And
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: I'm still learning that today.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Can I ask, so you had, I just want to
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: get back to just, so you had the interview with
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the police. It ends, ends on your terms. You're like,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I answered all your questions. We beat the airplane game
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to death. I'm leaving now. Now, when you left that interview,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: did you think it was over? You gave them all
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the information you could give them. Did you think they
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: were done, or were there red flags that you were like,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a suspect?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: What was the next step in this timeline?
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: There were red flags. The biggest red flags was stay
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: in touch. Stay in touch for what?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Your son's already gone.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, so the moment I hear that, I'm
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: just like, all right, stay in touch. I'm leaving. I'm
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: moving because at that point, I'm not staying in Sacramento.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: I'm finna move back to Southern California, Oceanside with my mom.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: All right, just make sure we know where to find you. Like, okay,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: no problem. Like, I'm not hiding. I don't have no
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: reason to hide. So this is where I'm going. This
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: is where I live.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: This is my number.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: This is where I work at. And I left. And
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: when I left, I want to say, A few weeks
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: after being gone, I got a phone call and said, hey,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: you mind coming in and talking to us again? I
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: was like, yeah, that's not no problem. I said, but remember,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I live in Oceanside now.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: That's a long way to go to Sacramento.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Send me a plane.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I can't just be there tomorrow. Like, hey, let me
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: go call. I got to take some time off from
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: work and then I'll let you know when I'm coming
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: back up.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, sure.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: No problem. And I want to say I got that
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: phone call. Maybe three weeks.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: After your interview?
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: After I had left Sacramento and everything and went down there.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: So literally a week later, because I worked a graveyard
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: shift at Walmart. A week later, I'm in the house,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: get off work that morning, go home, go to sleep.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: My mom worked for the post office, so she was gone.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: For whatever reason, I forgot what she said, but she
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: had to come back home for something. I'm in the
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: house knocked out. She comes in the house and said, hey,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: it's a bunch of police outside, and they have the
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: house surrounded, and they're looking for you. They said they've
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: been knocking. I was like, oh, I didn't know.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: For real?
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: She's like, yeah. They said it had something to do
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: with a robbery.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: A robbery?
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I said, oh, okay. All right. I grab my stuff,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: and I come outside. I'm like, hey, you looking for me?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Then they arrest you right then and there?
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: First, they asked for my ID, because it was a U.S. Marshal.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: They was like, can we see your identification? I said, yeah,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: here you go. Captain Harper, da, da, da. all right,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: turn around. They put me, as soon as they put
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: me in handcuffs, it triggered right there. And my mom
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: was looking like, he ain't robbed nobody. And I said,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: it wasn't a robbery.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: They wanted you out of the house.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: So because it's different to arrest you outside the house
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: yeah well and then.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: I found out later that uh they were in the
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: because i didn't answer the door i guess they assumed
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: that i was hiding i don't.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Know you were destroying evidence they.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Were in the process of getting a warrant to kick
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: the door in You know, that's why she said they
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: had the house surrounded. I'm just like.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Well, then the good thing is she came home when
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: she did because she told you they were out there
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and you walked out.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Otherwise, once they got that warrant, they would have come in.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: They were ready to just.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: And I was just like, man. And at that point
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: when that happened, I had never really been in no.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: legal trouble before traffic tickets that's the that doesn't count.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I had a whole bunch of those that.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Doesn't count so I didn't know what to do now
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: you know but my dad my dad was like I
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: said even though he had his issues one thing my
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: dad well he's a very smart man and my mom
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: knew that and she called him.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: And well he had some experience he had some experience
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: right so he knew how to go through this.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: System and he told me word for word what did
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: he say word for word he said son they have
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: 72 hours to extradite you from there back to Sacramento
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: they said if they don't do that in 72 hours
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: they're gonna have to release you they're gonna wait until
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: the very last minute they're gonna come get you and
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: then they're gonna take you to Sacramento and as soon
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: as you get to Sacramento within a couple hours they're
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: gonna come down and they're gonna want to interview you
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: and have a talk with you at that point you
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: immediately ask for a lawyer they should be reading you
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: your rights and you ask for a lawyer and I
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: was just like what what what what what you know
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: and I'm sitting in that jail and I'm like.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: That was good advice though.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: 72 hours is coming and they got to let me go.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: They got to let me go. And sure enough.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: At last minute.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Last minute. I'm thinking I'm about to go home.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: They try to make you crack by holding you and
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: just keeping you.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: I guess.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Kind of confused and wondering maybe.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: I guess so.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I guess they're not in a hurry, huh?
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: And they took me. And I'm just riding. And the
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: whole time I'm riding because that was a long drive.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: That is a long drive.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Uh, and I'm just sitting back here thinking like, my
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: dad told me this is going to happen and we
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: get there and they process me. I'm sitting in this
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: room and then lo and behold, who will I see?
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: The guy who initially interviewed me at my first interview.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And I'm just looking at him and there was somebody
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: else with them. And that guy, I didn't know him,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: but he was doing all the talking, but the guy
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: I did know, he was just sitting across the table,
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: kind of like this, just looking. And I'm looking at
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: him like, I told you I was coming up here. Like,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: what's all this for?
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, why'd they have to go through the charade
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: if you were- If I'm coming, you know? And they
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: read me my rights and, you want to talk to us?
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: And I said, nah, I need a lawyer. That was it,
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: you know?
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Did they- Push you a little bit more. Immediately, did
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: they respect that?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: They respected that.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. As soon as I said, I don't have nothing
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: to say, I want a lawyer, that was it. And
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: they just both got up, walked out.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: They walked out and they go, dang it.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He knew what he had to do. Because I
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: think they expected me to be.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Well, you were talking so much up until then. And
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: you said you'd come up.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Yes. And I think he was expecting that.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Same response from me. Yeah, they were expecting a long conversation.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: And I just, it wasn't that no more. Because now
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: I feel like, now I have, more information, like this
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: is what's happening. And for it to play out exactly
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: how dad said it, I was just.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Like, wow. Had your dad not been able to speak
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: to you?
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: I probably would have been talking to him.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: Had he not said anything, I would have been talking
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: to him, trying to like, what's wrong? What are we doing?
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Did you even question it or you knew right away, no,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I need a lawyer? Like, did you start to doubt,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: like maybe I should talk?
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: No, because I was in a very unfamiliar situation and
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: because I knew my dad and I knew how much
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: He knew about the law because he's helped multiple people
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: with legal situations. So there was one thing I had
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: confidence in my dad in was he knew the law.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: So when he told me that and it played out
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: exactly how it played out, I'm just like.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: He was right. You know, normally I would think, like,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: thank goodness your father said that because it paid off.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: But then you ended up in prison anyway. But maybe
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: it did pay off. Maybe we'll learn a little bit
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: more because you didn't speak. Had you spoken? Had they
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: gotten you to confess to something you didn't do? Or
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: had you said something? It's hard to take that back.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I could have incriminated myself.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: And then what do you do?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: So it paid off.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Because even during my trial, I wanted to talk
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: during my trial so much.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Don't say nothing. I'm just like, how can I not?
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: You got it. Don't look angry.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Even though you're angry.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't look defensive, don't look guilty.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Don't be too sad.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: So it was very hard to like, that was the
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: most uncontrollable situation I've probably ever been in my entire life.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Like I had control over nothing. And then after a while,
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: there was a point where I just knew, okay, I'm
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: going to prison. Like long before I went to trial,
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: like it hit me, I'm going to prison. And that
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: reality set in kind of quick. Kind of quick.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: So they extradite you to Sacramento, and you're indicted, and
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: then you have a trial set. You have a public
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: defender defending you. And so I did read that when
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you went to trial, part of what happened, I guess,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: later in the appeals process was that you didn't put
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: on a defense that there could be an alternate theory
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: to the shaken baby syndrome. Is that true? kind of accurate?
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: So there was information that the district attorney didn't release
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: to us until I wanted, they, it was like our
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: expert witness was literally getting on a plane to fly
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: out to come ready to come testify. And then there
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: was more information released and it was just like, well,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: I just got this. So what am I going to
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: do with it? You know, how can I process it?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: And they, they still allowed it. I don't know the
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: legal terms and how everything played out, but all I
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: know is that whatever they said, We released it. You
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: have it. Do what you do. That was that.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: But so basically the crux of the trial was that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: they say that it was shaken baby syndrome, that you
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: had playing that while you were playing this game, you
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: had shaken him too hard. And that was the reason.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: that he ultimately died. And so that was what the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: prosecution presented. And then you were convicted.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: I was convicted.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: You were found guilty.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: I was found guilty of, uh, I was charged with second,
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: second degree murder. And I was charged with, uh, assault
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: causing great bodily injury resulting in death. I was acquitted
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: of murder, uh, but I was found guilty of the assault.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: And what was your trial? God.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Week?
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Two weeks? No.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: Month? About a month. Month?
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Really? It was about a month. And every day you're
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: being transported from cell to the courthouse. Were you, did
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: they allow you to change clothes? So you didn't look
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: like you were, you had a jury trial? If I
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: missed that, I'm sorry. Do you have a jury trial?
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: I had a jury trial. I say the jury trial
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: lasted about Maybe two weeks. And then the deliberation was
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: like another two weeks. Like they deliberated for a very
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: long time. An extremely long time.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: That means they really struggled.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: And it was a struggle for me because I'm sitting
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: there thinking like, what am I doing? Like, why am
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: I still?
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Like, what are you talking about?
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: You know, they came back with a few questions.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: They had your fate in their hands.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: And, you know, the stuff that was presented in my
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: trial to me, Everything contradicted each other. I'm going to
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: be the first to say, I understand child abuse. Does
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: it happen in the world? 100%. But to focus on
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: a triad, which I feel like is a hypothesis at
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: It is, yeah.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: A triad of injuries or diagnoses and say that this happened.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Because you did that.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: Because you did this. And then in the same breath,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: Tell me, well, the reason your son didn't have any
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: physical bruisings on his body is because you didn't handle
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: him with enough force to cause it. But yet you're
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: telling me I handled him with enough force to do this.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: It contradicted each other. And I'm just like, which one
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: is it? Did I use enough force to do this
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: or did I not use enough force to do this?
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: And then there's no history of violence. There's no history
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: of anything. If there is a history of anything, there's
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: a history of us constantly bringing him to the hospital. Hey,
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: he just threw up blood. What are we doing? Like
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: he needs help. Hey, he was, he had a poop
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: in his bed and there was streaks of blood in it.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Like we brought him to his primary on multiple occasions.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Demonstrates the care that you were giving him for his health.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: And the concern that we had, because these were concerns
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: that they had when he was born, you know, like, Hey,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: we're going to treat him because we think he might
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: have seps. And cause he was born, like I said,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: 50 something days early. So he's, He was born in February.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: We didn't take him home until late April or early May.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: He fit in my hand. When I went through the
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: first time, literally head here, feet here, like this.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: In the palm of your hand.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: In the palm of my hand. By the time he
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: came home, he was still in the palm of my hand. Eventually,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: he grew. We took care of him. We took good
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: care of him.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: That was interesting what you said, though. You're correct about
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the contradictions because I did read that there was no physical.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: He didn't have physical.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: There's no visual marks. Right.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: But when you talk about the triad that they talk
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: about that has to do with shaken baby syndrome, it's
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: the brain swelling and then the eye, right? The blood
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: in the eye, the retinol. But then you're right. It
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: is a contradiction where they're saying they're claiming that because
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: he was injured is because you were so rough and
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: violent with your child. Yet there's no physical marks to
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: indicate that you were rough or violent with your child.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And you're right because I did read that the doctor
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: who was the original person back in the 70s. who
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: came up with the shaken baby syndrome, said that at
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the time it was just a hypothesis. It wasn't a
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: medical conclusion or whatever you would call it, a medical
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: diagnostic or something. He was basically saying it's a hypothesis.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: And now I believe he says it shouldn't be taken.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Now it's what we call junk science.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: Now I look up a lot of different cases that
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: go through this and they don't even make it past
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: the front door most times. Now, like there's a lot
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: of hesitation.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: These types of cases now in the absence of certain things,
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: you know, when it's just the presence of this hypothesis, like,
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: hold on, there has to be more, but obviously it
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: needs to be more in order to, to, to prosecute
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: and say somebody took a life.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: To me.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: And I always think about if I was a juror
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: and for me to sit there and be on a jury,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: but to know that your son had a history of,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of medical complications and was born so premature
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: that to me, that would have been enough reasonable.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And you have, you have another daughter at this time. That's,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: that's doing well. And you're, you're married at the time. No,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: you're with her.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're living as a family. You're taking them out.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: You're going, I assume a lot of the times to
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: the physician.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If not every time. Yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Like there, there was, that was the one thing. And
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: that's when they tried to put mom on the stand. Like,
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: She couldn't. There was nothing negative that she could say.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, did she testify?
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she did.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: She did, but she didn't.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: And there was nothing negative to say because we did
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: the best we could do at the best of our
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: ability to take care of our kid, which to us
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: was fine. We were fine. We had no complaints. Aside
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: from the fact that he had complications, you know, we
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: were cool. We were okay because we weren't looking for
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: the high glorious life and the best treatment. No, no, just...
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: make sure we okay. And we gonna, we will get by,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: you know, it just, I feel like he just did
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: not get the adequate attention that he needed. I told
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: you that he had, he threw up blood. He rushed
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: him to the hospital that night. I was, I was
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: at work as a matter of fact. And she called
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: me in a panic. I was just, Purping him and
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: he threw up blood in his thing. What do I do?
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: What do I do?
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: I said, hey, calm down. Take him to the hospital.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: I'm leaving work now. I'll meet you there. You know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: we get there. We take him to the hospital. We
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: sat in there for maybe two hours.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: And when it was all said and done, they said,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: you know, he should be okay. Take him to go
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: see his primary and just go get him some Pedialyte.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: I just came here and told you our son threw
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: up blood.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: He had streaks of blood.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: He's saying he's electrolytes, yeah. And you're telling me to.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Get him some Pedialyte.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: Like, what do we do? And, you know, what do
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: I say at that point? Do I sit in there
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: and just keep arguing? I probably should have, you know
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: what I mean? But I didn't.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Well, you trust in whatever the medical expert's telling you
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: at the time. You go home and you do what
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: they said. But you're thinking now because of the medical
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: conditions that he has, there could have been things previously
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: that were undiagnosed that weren't looked into. And here you
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: are now.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: The jury comes back.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Now I'm the scapegoat. And the jury finds you guilty.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Wait, every day for those couple weeks that they're deliberating,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: you're in prison, right?
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I'm in the county jail, yeah.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Do you get in jail? Do you get a phone
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: call every day?
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, so your attorney probably calls you and says nothing today.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Well, no, she would come down and visit me. Yeah,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: she would come down and see me just about every day.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: And give you a little update, even though there was
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: no update.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was no update.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: And then you get the one notice now that there
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: is a verdict.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: There's a verdict, yeah. And at that point.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: And same day you go down?
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: That you get to notice?
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: And I've, honestly, because of how long this deliberation went,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: I thought, I'm like, oh.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: There's hope?
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: There's hope.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: I had hope. I had hope. Yeah. And.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: I would have had hope, too, because a long deliberation
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: means that there's someone holding out.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: That they're deliberating.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: That's saying. I'm not quick to convict this man. So
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: there is hope when there's a long deliberation. That means
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of conversation going on.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if they called you in two hours, you would
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: have been like, oh, they already knew.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: It was very easy.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: They already knew.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So when I heard it, you know, obviously they
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: read the first count, which was murder. Not guilty. I
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: was just like, you know. So in my mind, I'm
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: just like, yes, finally, like you're listening.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that must have felt good when you heard that.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: All I heard was second count guilty. And I just,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: I froze. And my mom was there. And I could
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: hear in the background, she just made a little chirp.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: And I froze.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: And I was just like. When, did you know what
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: sensing was. Eligible. You were eligible for as a result
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: of that guilty. So you knew. Because I would know
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: bodily harm. I don't know, is it two years, 20 years.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: So you knew what you were up against. I knew exactly.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: As soon as they said guilty, I knew what that character.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: It was 25.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: And the jury knew too, right?
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: No, the jury don't.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's my question is, I wonder if the
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: jury deliberated so much and they were struggling so much
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: that they thought maybe it's a compromise.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: They give them the lesser one.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: Not this charge. We'll give them the lesser charge, which
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: is just assault.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Yep, that's what I think happened.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: And then now it's a huge grave sentence.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: That's what I think happened. And I think that happened
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: because for one, there's a loss of life and there's
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: a child. you know, whether, whether people believe it or not,
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: they want.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Someone to be accountable.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: And we all have a, a, an unconscious biasness within
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: how we think. It's just the way of the world.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: It's just how people think at times. Uh, and there's
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: nothing wrong with that is that's how we are different. Um,
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: and it was unfortunate that I feel like the justice
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: system just kind of railroaded me, you know, uh, blindsided me. One,
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: I had no help.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: From the beginning. We're talking from the beginning, not just court.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: We're talking about from the beginning.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: I had, I had no help. Um, and then I
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: felt like no matter what I said, I wasn't being
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: heard at, in that moment. Once I heard the guilty.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: Now I'm like, I'm looking back. Like I was never
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: heard to begin with, you know, I was already sentenced
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: before I was sentenced. Um, And like you said, I
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: think they found the middle because they couldn't, they, the
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: evidence couldn't just say, yeah, this happened. Like we can't
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: see that, but there's a loss of life here. How
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: did it happen?
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: I know we'll never know, but I wonder if the
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: jury knew what kind of sentencing that carried.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: And there's a law, I think, in California that says
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: that they can't know.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Because that shouldn't matter. Either if the defendant committed the crime,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: that's what matters, not should we send him to jail
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: or not, right? So they didn't know.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: They didn't know.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: And then how long until you're sentenced, until you're sentencing hearing? Approximately.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: No.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: November was it november so you had a lot of
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: time you had a month or something or.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: A couple months yeah i had a couple months after
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: after i got after i got travels over with i
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: want to say maybe a month and a half two
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: months later is when i actually had the sentence in
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: here maybe and then a month after that.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Off and the sensing was exactly what exactly 20 25 to.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: Life 25 to life means you're eligible for parole at 25.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Or you could be eligible.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: For parole at 25. I could be eligible for parole
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: after 25 years.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: And you could be in there up until life. Yeah.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: And to me, all I heard was life. I didn't
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: hear the number. The number meant nothing to me. I
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: just heard life. And I'm just like, okay, that's what
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: I'm worth now, you know?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: How did the Innocence Project come into play?
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: My grandmother.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: Okay. My grandmother, you know, rest her soul, she passed away.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: But my grandma.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: And how long into your sentencing did your grandmother?
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: She advocated for me right out the gate. The moment
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: they said guilty, she wasn't having it.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: She wasn't having it. And she was looking into everything possible.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: Just like, this ain't right.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: So it was your grandmother that reached out to the
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Innocence Project?
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Initially she was, they had to, you have to exhaust
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: your appeals first. Right.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: You do.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: So I had to exhaust my appeal to the appellate court.
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: And once that was done, she reached out to, uh,
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: the Southern district first. Okay. When I was in prison,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: that's where I was at in the Southern prison. So we,
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: she just reached out to whoever. That's when they told her, no.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Go to the Northern California.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: That's where I was convicted at. And I, I had
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: no idea she was doing any of this. She's doing
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: all this without my knowledge.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I love that she was on a mission.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: She was on a mission.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: She put on her little detective hat.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she put her lawyer hat on.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: She was... Well, my communication was very limited because... my
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: first couple months in prison my communication was strictly male
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: i did not have access to a phone why because
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: when you're in reception and before they can actually send
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: you to where you're supposed to be at you do
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: not have access to a phone you spend Every day
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: and every hour in the cell, you only come out
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: to go get breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then after that,
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: you're back in the cell. So we figure out where
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: you're going to go. That's when you have access to.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Can you mail as many letters as you want?
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: As long as you have the stamps to do so, yes.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: You can send out as many letters as you want.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: And that's what I did. I was just writing just
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: a letter. Just a letter, but I'm okay.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: So then how long until either your Grandmother Innocence Project
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: reaches out to you? and says, hey, we're looking at
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: your case. Years? Months?
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: No, it was a couple years. I want to say
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: it was about my, maybe my third year, maybe, in prison.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: So does that mean for three years, aside from the appeals,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: as far as you know, you're in for life?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: You don't know that your grandmother's.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: Doing the work behind the scenes?
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know that she's doing this.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: And honestly, I was at a point where I didn't care.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: I didn't care. Like, You just gave me life. I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: don't care.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: You accepted it.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: I accepted it. I don't care. And that's how I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: was moving. Like, all right, you put me in here
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: for life, then all right, this is how I'm going
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: to act. I don't care.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: But you were a model prisoner though, right?
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: It took... What clicked? Before the Innocence Project got involved,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: I called to speak to my daughter. And talking to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: her just... It sparked whatever little hope I had.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: She ignited it.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Don't tap out.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: She needs you.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: You still got somebody that needs you. All right. All right.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: What do I got to do? And at that point,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: that's when I figured out, all right, what do I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: got to do to get the board? How do I
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: got to get out of here? If I got to
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: serve life, what do I need to do? College, okay,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: let me do college courses. Let me do these programs.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, right now you're thinking of just parole.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because to me, that's my only out.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Let me at least try to get out on the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: terms of 25 to life.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: That's my only out. Like, I'm not even looking at
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: the fact that I know I didn't do this. And
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: how do I prove? Like, I'm just thinking, like, what
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: are my options?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Let me do my time. Let me be a model prisoner.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: So then when I am eligible for parole, I can
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: get out on parole.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: I can get out and go home.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: Which we know wouldn't be sooner than 25 years. So
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: you were really.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I was planning way ahead. Yeah. Way ahead.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: A lot of people could have just said, forget it.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: And that's where I was starting to go. But I didn't.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: And in the process of that happening, you know, that's
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: when my grandma was like, hey, I'm reaching out to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: some people. And I'm just like, okay, grandma, you know,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: you do what you're doing. And I'm going to focus
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: on what's in here because I got to focus what's
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: in front of me. And I did it. And then
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: I got a letter. You know, I got a letter saying, hey.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: You know, we got your case. We're going to look
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: into it. We can't make any guarantees.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: That's got to be bittersweet, huh? It kind of was.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: You see that and it's like great, but then it's.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: It means nothing.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: You don't want to get your hopes up.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: Yep. And I got it. Put it away. Continued my
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: life as it was. And then I forgot how long
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: down the road.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: Years though?
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: No, it wasn't years.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: But I got another letter that says, hey, we went
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: over your case. we believe you. We believe that, you know,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: excuse me.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: We believe that.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: And I was just like, someone believes me.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Someone besides my mom and my grandma.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: Someone out there.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Someone that has to believe you. Yeah. Someone that doesn't
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: have to believe you.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: Just that letter. I still have it.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: I was going to ask that.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: I still got it. I got a little folder, certain
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: stuff that I kept from prison. Like I still got it.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: It's under my bed. That letter is, spark the drive.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Are you back?
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: And I was just like, okay, like the, the exit
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: seemed very closer than 25 years.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Now you have hope. I'm guessing.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: I have hope. I have a lot of hope. And
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: for me, because of the type of individual that I am,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: if you give me a little bit, That's all I need.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: Did that letter say like what the next steps were?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Like now we're going to do this and this.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: It just said these things take time. A student will
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: be reaching out to you soon to talk to you
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: to get more information. And then at some point somebody
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: will come see you and talk to you.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a lot of hope then.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: It's a lot of hope.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: And you have a plan now.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: I have a plan. So if I get another letter saying, hey,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: we're going to come see you. Now this is real
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: to me. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: And I've seen people that believe you.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: I'm seeing faces sitting in front of me talking to
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: me saying, we read everything and it don't look like
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: you did this. This ain't right.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: Tell me what I don't know.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Tell me how to prove this. What do I need
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: to do to prove this? And they were very upfront
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: with me about the process. And they say, listen, you know,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: we don't make promises because they knew the system we
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: know how this works you just have to be patient
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: and we will do our best and let's see what
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: happens and for 12 years we were like this oh
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: 12 years we were on a roller coaster with hey
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: we got this expert and uh we're gonna reach out
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: to them and they're gonna go over the findings and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: you know it's like everything is looking good okay okay Man,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: they found something and then they just said they don't
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: know how to go. And I'm just like, but don't worry,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: we got another option that we're going to go this way.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: And it's just like, oh, OK.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: So, you know, this is all legal jargon stuff. Yeah.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: So they went through quite a few experts and then
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: eventually just. I don't know. Eventually, everything just pieced together
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: along with me. Taking care of me the right way,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: which was.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: School.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: Schooling, programming, being some type of a leader in that
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: type of a situation. All of those played a factor.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: and me being released from prison.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. So they did look at all that to
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: demonstrate your character.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Can I just clarify? Because I believe this is you
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: were resentenced. That's the route that they ended up going
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: because there was a new legislative law called AB. This
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: is California, AB 1540, which allowed resentencing. And I believe
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: they went that route. Which worked in your case.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: That's why they looked at your stuff, your history in prison,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: because it was a resentencing.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: And thank goodness you were a model prisoner.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Your daughter's phone call paid off.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness you were going to school. Thank goodness you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: were taking those jobs that were by trusted prisoners, because
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: then it.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Worked for you.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: It set the groundwork for who I am. Right. And
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: I was able to get. recommendations from staff. Like, yeah,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: he does this. Yeah. He's been doing this.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: He works here and this is what he does.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: He's trustworthy.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: There was a track record for me. And then I,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: obviously I, you know, I had no write-ups, no nothing, no, no,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: no disciplinary issues. And, um, the evidence was put together
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: and they told me we're ready. If you're ready. And
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: I'm like, let's go.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: And they say.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: All right, we're going to present this to the district attorney.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: And all of this, I'm about to tell you right now,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: happened in the span of maybe two months.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: So it was long and slow, and then all of
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: a sudden it just flew.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: It happened.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: A lot of activity in that two months.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: And a lot of activity. So the evidence, they presented it.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: They had a meeting, the Innocence Project. the two law
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: firms that work pro bono on my case.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: They are all great people.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: I still talk to them to this day. Um, they
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: had a meeting with the district attorney, presented their case,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: whatever they said to them, they said, and then I
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: got a phone call from the lady who was representing me,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: Missy from NCIP.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: And she told me like, Hey, we presented everything to them.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: We showed them our facts and findings. Right. Uh, they said, well,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: Give us, what did they say? 72 hours to go
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: over everything. And, you know, we'll get back to you.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: I said, okay. And she was like, so just, you know.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Hang in there.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: Hang in there. Be cool. And me and her kind
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: of got a little personal. Like, yes, she was representing me,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: but she became a friend.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: She cared for you. Yes. And I could genuinely tell.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: And she was on her way to Disneyland with her kids.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: She was like, so I'm going to be with my kids.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Probably when I get back, I'll hear something from you.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: I said, okay, enjoy your time with your kids, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: And I go about my time. And the next morning
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: I get up, I think I might've got a phone call.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: I either got a phone call from the office, the
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: program office from the staff, or I called my parents,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: my mom, and they said, hey, you need to call
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: Missy now. Mm-hmm. okay, you know, and I call her and, Hey, listen,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: they just reached back out to it. I said, I
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: thought it was 72 hours. She said, yeah, well, they
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: just reached back out to us. They want to make
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: a deal. And I was like, what? You know? And
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: that's when they laid everything out to me. Uh, it
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: was like, Hey, listen, they're willing to dismiss this charge
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: that carries your life sentence. If you agree to stay
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: the involuntary manslaughter, and you'll walk home a free man
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: with no parole no conditions no nothing you will go
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: home free today no questions asked kind of got to
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: make a decision like now I was what's my other option?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: She was like, we could go.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: And I was like, so that is basically saying you're
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: still guilty of that, right?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: You're not fully exonerated, but basically you served your time.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: And so you're free to walk away, but you have
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: to walk, you're walking away without a clean slate. You're
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: walking away.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: They were up against, right. And they got rid of
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: the first one that we talked about. And then the
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: other two stuck. Right. So they were ready to get
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: rid of the serious bodily harm charge and, And then
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: it would be the involuntary manslaughter charge, which then you
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: would have served enough time to satisfy that guilty. Correct.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: And they they wanted an answer like immediately because it
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: was either.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: Do this or go back to.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: Roll the dice and we'll go back to trial. You know,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: we'll go back through the court proceedings and do this.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: And they were honest with me like, hey, we're ready
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: to go if this is what you want to do, Mike.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: This is what we work for. This is what we
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: prepare for.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: Because his option would be if he goes back to trial,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: he could be fully exonerated.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Or not. Or not. And go right back to yourself.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: And go right back to where I was at.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know what your thoughts were. And I don't
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: know what I would do, really.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: But right now, if you're going to tell me that,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: I would have taken that deal.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: Well, when she told me that, I was being honest
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: with him. I said, hey, I can't make this decision
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: by myself. I need to call my family because they're
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: the ones that's been riding with me through this whole process.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: They have to be a part of this process.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Especially your grandma.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Especially my grandma. And I called them, you know, and
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: we all talked for a couple hours, you know, and
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: it just, they asked me what I wanted. I said,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: I want to be free, but I don't want this
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: over my head.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: I want to be free, but I don't want to
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: be And innocent. Yeah.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: And I want to be with my daughter because my
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: daughter needs me.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: How old is she at this time now?
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: My daughter was 16.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's about 16.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: So I wanted to be with her. And my grandma
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: was like, I don't want to die with you still
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: being in prison. That's my wish. You know, that hurt.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: Not hurt, but that hit me a little hard. Like, oh,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: I feel you, granny. Like, you don't got to say
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: nothing else. And my mom was just like, I just
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: want you out of that place. By whatever means, I
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: just want you out.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: Because they knew you were not guilty. So even if
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: you agreed to, did you have to agree that, did
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: you have to accept the involuntary, did you have to
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: sign something saying, yes, you did commit involuntary manslaughter? Or
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: you just had to leave it alone?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: You just had to leave it alone.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: I had to leave it alone. So see, I'm guessing,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: I don't want to speak for your family, but your
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: family's like, we know you didn't do it. So who
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: cares if, there's some piece of paper somewhere that says it.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: We want to be with our boy.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think at the end of the day,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: because when I first went to prison, my grandma and
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: my mom, they was always watching that locked up stuff.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: Like from like 1995 and stuff. And I'm just like, grandma,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: it's not really like that. But I understand. She's like,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: I just want you out of there. And I was
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: just like, I understand that too. And then too, for me,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: I just spent 13 years in this place. Like in
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: my mind, I'm like, I want to get out of here.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: Like I don't need to be here. Um, and you're
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: giving me a way out, but there's this, and it's
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: just like, I don't want that. I don't accept in
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: my mind. I don't accept that. I'm just be, I
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: don't accept that, but I'm gonna take this because it
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: was bigger than myself. Like I'm not making this decision
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: just for me. Like I have to make this decision
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: for everybody involved and you're giving me an out. let
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: me take this out. Cause the first thing in my
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: mind is like, man, if this is going to be
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: over my head, like what is this going to do
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: for my way of living? Will it limit me on
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: the things I'm able to do when I come home?
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: Can I get a decent job to take care of myself?
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: Will I struggle? Like will society look at me differently?
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: Like a lot of things were weighing on my mind,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: but you know, my family, cause of who I am, provider, protector, like,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do this because it's bigger than me.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: So then after that phone call, you go back, I assume?
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: After the phone call, I called my attorney and said,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: take it. Take it.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: And she called them.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: And they said, good. We're going to immediately get the
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: ball rolling. Once they knew I was okay with it,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: that ball rolled really fast.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: So they lived up to it then. When they said
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: you can go out now, they meant you can go
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: out now.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: Which, you know, and I replayed it. I replayed it
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: over and over. a few times with a couple different
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: people and myself a lot that, man, what if I
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have? Like, did you guys see something there that
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: you said, oh, crap.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: We need to make this go away.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. You know? Like Innocence Project kind of presented
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: the case and they thought, oh, this doesn't look good,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: so let's get him out.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: Let's get this going away, you know? I play that
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: over a lot. But I don't sit with it too
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: much because....
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: That's a gamble, man. If you had to go back
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: to trial.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: And not only that, those barriers that I thought would
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: hinder me, they don't hinder me. When I say I've
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: come home and flourished, it's an understatement.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: So all the benefit and pluses and all the beautiful
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: things that come with the freedom, that just overshadowed the
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: little stigma you had and the concern you had for
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: getting a job or being a provider and all that. Wow,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: that's interesting to know.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: But you know what I was going to say? And
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: you talk about stigma because then you have to come
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: out of prison and you're trying to look for a job, right?
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: And you have to disclose that you're a convicted felon, right?
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Even though you didn't do anything. But even when you
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: talk about people that have been exonerated, they still have
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: to explain that they spent time in prison and that
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: they were wrongfully convicted. And I don't even know if
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: that registers with people either.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: I feel, I still, if you have a company and
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: you have two people coming in and one says, I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: didn't do it. I was, I'm explaining myself. I was
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: there for 20 years, but I didn't do it. That's,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: that's why my resume has a gap of 20 years.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: And this guy's like, I didn't do it either, but
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't go to prison. They're going to go with
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: that guy.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: No, but I'm talking about even when someone has spent
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: time in prison, cause they were wrongfully convicted and then
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: they're exonerated because Kevin wasn't exonerated. He, he was released
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: under AB 1540. I'm just saying when you put those
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: side by side, I think they both have a stigma
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: when someone's wrongfully convicted, but they still have to explain
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to an employer that they spent 20 years in prison,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: but they go, Oh, but I didn't really do it.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: I still think that stigma still exists. It does.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: And I have a, I have a brother, uh, Within
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: the NCIP who was convicted of the exact same thing
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: I was convicted of.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: Yes. But he was exonerated.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: And he's, he faces way more challenges than I do.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: You know, what makes us different? I have no idea.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: He was exonerated. I was free. We had the same,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: I think we spent literally about the same amount of
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: time in prison. He might've spent a few more years
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: than me, but the same amount of time in prison
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: in the same exact County.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Everything.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: Was grandma working on him too?
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: No, it was just a guy that she came across
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: his case and knew that the NCIP was working on it.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: And he ended up getting out, I want to say
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: a little bit before me. And then like not too
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: soon after he was released, I went and I came home. So,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: but yeah, it definitely happens to, there's no discrimination between
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: a freed person and an exonerated.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: That's what I was saying.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: You're a prisoner. You're an ex-prisoner.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: And some people just see that. I'm going to tell
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: you a quick story. Story, when I went to trial,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: and this is one of the reasons why I knew
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: that this was not going to go right. During jury selection,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: my lawyer was talking to me. She was like, oh, yeah,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: I think this jury is going to be good. This
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: one is good. You know, giving me her opinion. Okay.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: One of the jurors that she said that, you know,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try to keep on this case. She
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: kind of had, I don't want to say an outburst,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: but she had a moment during the process and she
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: was weeping. You know, and the judge stopped. Hey, are
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: you OK? And she stood up. She was like, no.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: He was like, what's wrong? He's like, I don't know
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: if I could be here. And he was like, why?
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: Because he's guilty. And the judge is like, we haven't
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: presented anything. We haven't presented anything. All we're doing is
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: just doing jury selection. And you're just aware of the
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: nature of what he's being charged with. And she's like, yeah,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: but if he's here standing trial, he must be guilty.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: And I said, oh, damn.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: This is a jury member that your attorney wants to
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: keep on?
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: This is who she wanted to keep.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: The panel?
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm thinking in my head, at least she
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: spoke up. How many of these other people think like
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: that right now?
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: And that just really affirmed that I'm in trouble.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: Wait, so she didn't stay on the jury then, obviously, right? No, no, no.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: But that let you know what some people think.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: It lets you know how people just, it doesn't even
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: matter if.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: There are some people that convicted you.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: The fact that you were even a person of interest,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: the fact that you were even associated, you must have
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: done something. And that is, I believe what you were
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: referring to, like you can't get away from that. Uh,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: the only thing that you can do, which I've been
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: trying to do and I still am doing is just
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: recreating myself, you know, uh, Rothwell for me, it's a
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: part of my past, but I'm refusing to let it
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: define who I am going forward. Like, I get my
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: foot into a door and I don't mention that. You know,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: I keep that in this respective place and I get
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: my foot in the door and I make sure you
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: see me. You see me. We're having a conversation and
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: you know who I am. And then I might. Oh, yeah.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: You know, I do. I do the extra things like
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: hobbies on the side. Yeah.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: What do you do?
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: I help, you know, advocate for people for wrongful conviction.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. OK.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: I heard about that. Yeah.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. OK. And then maybe a week or so later, like, yeah, yeah,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: I do. You know, I experienced something like, and I
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: slowly introduced you to, you know who I am now.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: Now let me tell you who I am.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't let them have that bias. You say
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: we all have an unconscious bias.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: You don't want them to have that. You want them
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: to get to know you first. Right.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: Because if you know me.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: As a father, as a son.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: Now I can explain to you. Maybe now you'll listen.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: Maybe now you have a different thought.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: If you get to know someone and you know them
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: and then you hear about their past, you think, wow,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: and now you're here today. That's awesome. Like, that's what
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: you think, right? You overcame that. Yeah. And now here
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: you are.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: And I'm very proud of myself with what I've accomplished
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: and where I'm at from what happened. You know, I
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: call it irony. I called Missy, the lady who she
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: helped free me, helped me get free. And- The job
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: I have now, like I said, I work for the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: state of California. She's like, what? Like, yeah, I work
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: for the utilities department.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: You work for the place that put you away.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: I work for the exact same place that put me away.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: So what do you do? What's your job?
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: I'm a water reclamation operator. So basically I work at
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: a wastewater facility. You know, we take all the water
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: that come in, we process it, and we make it
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: reusable again for the community.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: So that's a state, you're a state employee?
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: I'm a state employee, yeah.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: So, okay, so as a convicted felon, I mean, on paper-
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: you were able to get a state job. That goes
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: back to what you said, which is that one thing
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: that you thought was going to prevent you from, you know,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: living a life and being a provider and protector. Yeah,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: you overcame that. Yeah.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: And everything that I've done in prison, you know, kind
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: of helped me secure that, you know, I wouldn't be
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: where I'm at in my career now had it not
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: been for that associate's degree. You know, that associate's degree
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: kind of Or just started a lot.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: And just your mind being your head being straight.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: Well, and not only that, the job that I'm in,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of people have to go to
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: school for X amount of time to do this stuff.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: And while I was in prison, like I said, I
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: was a peer leader and I met a lot of
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: I made some friends to this day that I still
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: talk to now. As a matter of fact, she met
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: one of them and he lives around the corner from us.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: He was in and he was, you know, he was.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: Serving time for a crime he committed and we worked
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: together with rehabilitation. He's my friend. He's like my brother.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: And he knew I was home looking for a job.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: He said, hey, my cousin is trying to find somebody
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: who wants to work. It's a career if you're interested.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: And he got me in the door. So I don't
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: go to prison. I don't move how I move. I
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: don't do these peer groups. I don't meet him. I
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: don't help him in his rehabilitation path. We don't help
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: each other. And then I come home just to find
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: out that you live in the same area as me
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: and you, oh, you happen to know somebody over here.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: He introduced me to this. And now because of that
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: and his degree that I earned while I was in
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 3: there that he also helped motivate me to go get,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: you know, has now skyrocketed me in this position that
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: I am. And now I can be a provider. Now
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: I can do a lot of things.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: That's the better way of looking at it. Yeah.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: That's awesome. Yeah. I definitely have a much more positive,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: Outlook on life. But again, not everybody's path is like mine.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: How long have you been out? When was your release date?
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: It was January 21st of 2022. 2022.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: And you said how long until the day you made
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: the decision like, okay, I'll accept the deal till you
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: were released? It was.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: Like that week kind of thing?
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: No, I accepted that deal. I want to say it
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: was in like November, but the only reason it took
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: to January is because I had accepted around like Thanksgiving
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: and the holidays. So the court documents- Nobody was working. Yeah.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: It was like, hey, as soon as we could do this,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: and I was just like, all right.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: So what did you do for that two months? Knowing
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: you're going to get out. Did you have a date
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: of release?
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: You just knew you were going to get out. Not
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: until that court hearing happened that day. As far as
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: it was concerned, even though I agreed to all of
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: these things- I still was serving 25 to life with
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: no release date.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you weren't going to, not until your eggs hatched,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: you weren't going to count them. No.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: So at that point, I was out of the way.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: You know, if I went outside, it was to go
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: wherever I had to go to work at. And once
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: I'm done, I'm going back to the building. You know,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: I just stayed out there. And everybody.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: Well, you mean you stay, make sure you stay out
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: of trouble?
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just stayed out of just... the environment like
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: i didn't even want to be checking out yes i
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: didn't even want to walk the yard and be around
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: anything that could have potentially put me in harm's way
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: because i knew part of the reason why this is
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: happening is because of my conduct because of how i
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: carry myself.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: That's interesting because i was gonna ask that because we
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: had a gentleman who was released he was exonerated and
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: the second if you remember correctly the the moment that
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: he was told hey we're they're gonna release you like
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: you're getting exonerated right they held him for I think
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: a few days in solitary confinement. But the reason for
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: that was to protect him. Maybe him personally he might
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: lash out. Maybe other people might be jealous and try
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: to keep him or hurt him. So you did that
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: on your own.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because what you just said happens more often than
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: you would think. Once people within that element know, oh,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: you're going home? all right, we'll see about that. Like,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: they meant some people's mental changes.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: So did people know about you?
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of people knew about me and I
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: didn't really have that issue because.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: Everybody knew my story. Like, And you were a peer leader.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: And I was a peer leader. So everybody, for the
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: most part, they knew my story. They knew who I was.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: They knew, hey, the Innocence Project working on him.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: Hey, leave him alone. Like, this guy's legit. He really is. Yeah.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: So once they knew that, everybody was just kind of
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: like elated from that. Hey, man, just go chill. And
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, yeah, that's all I'm going to do.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to just go sit in.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: Here and I'm going to stay out the way. Yeah,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: but for months, man, months.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 3: But you know what? That was the quickest two months
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: for me. That had, out of 14, almost 14 years,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: that was the quickest time that had flew by. Because
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: I tell you, the longest time was from the time
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: that hearing was over to the time the gate actually
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: opened up for me to leave. And I want to
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: say I was released after my court hearing. I might
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: have been released maybe later. Four days?
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: And that was a long four days.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: That was a long four days.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: And same routine. You're in your same cell, and you're
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: doing your same thing, right?
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: Nothing changed for those four days?
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: Nothing changed, and I just waited.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: But you didn't know it'd be four days?
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: No, I did, yes. Oh, you did, okay. You had
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: a date. Once you started signing papers, you know, okay,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: on such and such.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: A date, you're out. Oh, yeah, that is a long time,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: because now you're just looking at the clock.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm just like, and then they wasn't calling
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: my name, and I'm just like, oh, man, I got
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: to get out of here. This is, what's happening? What's
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: going on? Like, now my mind's playing tricks on me,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: and it's time to go home, and it's not happening yet,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 3: and what are we doing? And eventually, they called my name,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: and when they called my name, and I walked out
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: that door, man. That was, I couldn't stop just smiling.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: Family there to meet you?
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: My mom. My mom was the only person that came
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: to come get me. And I didn't want no big,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: because when she got me, they drove me to the front.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: We hopped out of the car. I saw her. I
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: hugged her. And I said, hey, where's the car? Get
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: me out of here right now.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: And we got in the car.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 3: And as soon as we got out, Flip the mirror, like,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: I don't even want to look back at this place.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: And I refused to turn around. I refused to look
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: at that place. I said, just get me far away.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: And she just pedaled to it, and we were gone.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: And then you go home? Well, with mom, anyway.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went home with mom, and I started over.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: You know, I literally started over.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: How long have you been in your career now?
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: Three and a half years.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, most of your release time. Most of my time.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so when I first came home.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: It was a year after, right?
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: I got a job working for Amazon maybe two months
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: after I got out. I was a driver.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: And then I got another part-time job working for Jiffy Lube.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, props to Amazon for hiring you.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: I was going to say that.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I was going to say shout out to Amazon.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it was a third-party contractor too, so they
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: were very flexible with it.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you went through several layers that were willing to
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: hire you.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: You're right.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: It really didn't affect your career abilities.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: Probably because you're a model citizen or a prisoner. You,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: you know, you did your education. You kept your head
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: on straight. So when you're out of jail, you're probably
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: being kind, courteous, professional.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: And before, you know, before going to prison, I was
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: a worker. Like I got my first job at 15
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: years old and I literally worked my entire life up
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: until then. If I had a gap in employment, it's
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: because I chose not to work in anything. The gap
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: I might have had was no more than 30 days.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: The idea of not working just didn't register to me.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: If I didn't work, I just wanted to just relax
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: for a minute and like, oh, I got to go
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: find a job and I will get a job. So
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: I worked my whole life. So being professional, being courteous,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: that comes natural to me. So I knew that once
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: I got my foot into the door, that's all I need.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: Just get my foot in the door.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, then you go up the ladder then from there.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: And get out of my way. I just need to know.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: And that's what happened. I got into the... amazon jiffy
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: lube and eventually the wastewater business and once i figured
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: out water was a career that you know changed my
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: thought process and like okay now i have to actually
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: be certified by the state of california like i have
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: to it's almost like the bar you have to take an.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: Exam continuing education yes yeah.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: And that's what you're doing now that's what i'm doing
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: now uh i recently just passed my uh my grade
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: three certification like that's my plateau.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, congrats.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm... So this is legit.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: That's your career.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: It's my career. And it's more than enough to provide
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: for me, my family, myself.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: And you're getting married?
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: And I'm getting married.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: Do you have a date?
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: We don't have a specific date, but we said by
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: this time, 2028, we should be married. It'll probably be
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: sooner than that, but no later than that. Because I...
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: wanted to make sure that I was in a position
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: that I can provide for my family I didn't want
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: to be in a position where I was struggling and
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: where I was at in my career like I was
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: making decent money and everything but it wasn't enough to
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: be a provider I needed more for my family so
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: I knew what I needed to attain within my career
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: to say yes I'm good now and I needed this
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: certification and I took a lot of time.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: And your daughter now, or is she, is she close?
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: She's in Sacramento. Yeah. She lives with her mom. I
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: go up there and I go visit her every so often.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: So, um, does she know you were an inspiration? She
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: was an inspiration to you.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. She knows. Yeah. She, if there's anything my daughter knows,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: she knows that her dad loves the crap out of her.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: You know, you, if you, you could, you could tell
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: her and probably show her a bunch of pieces of
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: paper that said, Hey, look, your dad said this. And
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: she was like, nah, not my dad. Like she knows that.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: And then you said your grandma passed away. How long, when,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: when did she pass?
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: She got to see you free though.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: How long were you with her outside of prison?
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: Uh, for two years.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: Two years. Um, that was a tough one because like
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: I said.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: Well, she was your number one cheerleader. It sounded like the.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: Biggest, you know, the biggest, um, Even the lawyers at
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: the law firms who were pro bono, they'd be like, hey,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: your grandma, that's a hell of a woman, man.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: Well, that's great that you had two years with her
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: outside of prison.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And that's why I don't sit with that
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: thought that I told you. I don't sit with it
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: too long because everything happens the way it happens for
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: a reason. Maybe in those moments we want it to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: happen a certain way because we feel entitled to something
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: or we feel like we're owed something so it should
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: go like this. But I try not to dwell on
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: that because... Had I done that, maybe I wouldn't have
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: been able, my grandma would have died seeing me incarcerated still.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: Same with my brother. My brother passed away after I
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: came home. I've been in prison. I'd have lost that time.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: That time, right. So I don't regret any decision that
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: I made that got me to this point. I'm very content.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: I'm very content with where I'm at in life and
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: grateful because that Innocence Network support, People like you who
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: actually give this attention. Those things are inspiration for me
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: to just keep going hard. Be a voice for people
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: who don't know how to be a voice for themselves.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: Because there's a lot of people in there who don't
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: know how to speak for themselves when it comes to this.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: I'm dealing with brothers within our community now who struggle
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: to just talk about what they went through. And they
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: were like, man, Kev, how you do it? Like, I
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: don't know. I just started talking, man. Like, I have
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: no idea. Because it's trauma, a lot of trauma associated
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: with it. And you have to find a way to
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: be vulnerable again and be vulnerable with people you don't
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: know in hopes that they're not judging you while you're talking.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: You know, because if they're judging you while you're talking
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: and you get the hint that they're judging you, you're
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: going to feel how you felt when you first was arrested.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: you know, for something that you know you didn't do,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: you know, and that makes you feel like a shell
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: of yourself, you know, less than a man. Like you said,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: we're men, we got egos at times.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: We clam up, we clam up.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: But, you know, I want to tell you, Kevin, first
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: of all, thank you for being here today and thank
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: you for being so vulnerable and sharing your story. I
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: could sit here and talk to you all day long
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: because you're so inspiring. But you inspire us. And that's
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: why I love to have these conversations, because sometimes I
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: feel as if just the way I mean, we have
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: children and, you know, we. We have a son that
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: has special needs and sometimes the weight of that is
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: like very dark and difficult. And then I will come
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: and sit with someone like you. And my takeaway is
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: that I need to be more grateful about my life
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: instead of looking at all the things that I think
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: are so bad or difficult. I'm not in prison and
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: I have not, you know, I haven't been convicted.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: My takeaway is two things can be true. You didn't
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: want to be in prison. It was probably a really
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: rough time. That's putting it lightly. But you're also like
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: grateful for everything and where you are today and you've
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: built something for yourself. So two things can be true.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: Something horrific and tragic can happen with your family and
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: your own personal life in prison. But then, you know,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: the sun can still shine and you can still see
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of good things and you can still have hope.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: And then you can still build a life for yourself
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: and still be happy today, despite what happened over 15 years,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: almost 15 years, right? Yeah.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: And everything that both of you all said is so true.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: Everything you said reminds me of what she says on
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: the daily. Be grateful. Be grateful for where you at.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: Be grateful for what you have because it could be
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: worse or you could not have this or you could
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: be living like this or you could still be in prison.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: Learning how to be appreciative even in those times Not
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: so appreciative moment.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: I would say it's hard to be happy if you
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: don't have gratitude.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: They go hand in hand. So if you have gratitude,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: you're happy, right? If you're happy, you're grateful.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: She's been my yin and that's what she's taught me.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: She's taught me how to do that. That's why I'm
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: still on a healing journey. And I very much believe
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: that she was put in it to help me heal
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: and figure my way. And she's done an amazing job.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 3: she took a day off of work just to be
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: here to be my support system right now, you know?
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: So I'm very grateful.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope I get a wedding invite. I'm just
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: going to throw that out there. I just wanted to
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: let everyone know that I hope I see that in
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: the mail. Cause I would love to celebrate.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: Or a picture. He might have an intimate. No, I
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: want to be there. What are you talking about? He
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: just said on the beach, he wants to have an
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: intimate wedding.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: It is going to be on the beach.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: It is going to be on the beach. Well, wherever
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: it is, we, we hope it's lovely.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: And we wish you the best. Um, Thank you guys
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: so much for listening to Legally Brunette. We appreciate you.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: You please follow our feed anywhere you listen to podcasts. Also,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: I know how affected you guys are by these stories
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: because you always reach out to me afterwards. So do
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: you have an Instagram or anything that people could follow you?
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: I think my Instagram is a big saint. Big Saint.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: Big Saint.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: I love that. Big Saint because I'm from St.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: Louis, Missouri. I thought you meant like Saint, like I'm innocent.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: Big Saint.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: Big Saint. That's where you can find Kevin. Also, if
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: you would like to learn more about the Innocence Center,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: you can go to innocencecenter.org. You can also donate. Also,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: just listening to these stories and sharing with friends and
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: family because what we always say is everyone listening is
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: a potential juror at some point. So thank you so
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: much for listening to Legally Brunette. We appreciate you guys.