Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #363 Guest Host Susan Simpson with Daryl "Lee" Clark

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#363 Guest Host Susan Simpson with Daryl "Lee" Clark · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On the evening of October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six, seventeen
0:06
Speaker 1: year old Cain's story came over to see his friend
0:08
Speaker 1: Brian Bowling, who lived with his family in a trailer
0:11
Speaker 1: near Rome, Georgia. Cain had brought along his father's revolver,
0:15
Speaker 1: and the two boys sat in Brian's bed and passed
0:18
Speaker 1: it back and forth, pretending to play Russian Roulette while
0:21
Speaker 1: Brian talked to his girlfriend Caprice on the phone. Suddenly,
0:25
Speaker 1: Caprice heard screaming, and then a few moments later she
0:28
Speaker 1: heard someone hang up the phone. Brian had been shot
0:31
Speaker 1: in the head and was rushed to the hospital, where
0:34
Speaker 1: he died the next day. Initially, Cain told police that
0:37
Speaker 1: his friend had accidentally shot himself, but during a second
0:41
Speaker 1: interrogation two days later, Cain made a statement that the
0:44
Speaker 1: gun had been in his hand when it went off,
0:46
Speaker 1: though he insisted it had been an accident. Then a
0:49
Speaker 1: witness came forward, claiming that Brian, kan and their friendly
0:52
Speaker 1: Clark had all been members of a vicious gang called
0:55
Speaker 1: the Free Birds, and that Brian's death had been retaliation
0:59
Speaker 1: for him snitching by the theft that they'd committed. So
1:01
Speaker 1: police began investigating the incident as a homicide, ultimately charging
1:05
Speaker 1: Cain and Lee with Brian's murder. At trial, a witness
1:09
Speaker 1: testified that Cain and Lee had bragged to her about
1:12
Speaker 1: exacting their revenge on Brian, and a handwritten note found
1:15
Speaker 1: talking to Brian's coffin corroborated the gang killing narrative. It
1:19
Speaker 1: was right there in black and white. But this is
1:22
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm Susan Simpson,
1:39
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Proof and Undisclosed, filling in for
1:42
Speaker 1: Jason Flohm. Today's case is one that Justinna Davis and
1:45
Speaker 1: I covered in season one of Proof. In nineteen ninety six,
1:49
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Brian Bowling died of a gunshot wound
1:52
Speaker 1: to the head, and eventually his seventeen year old friends
1:54
Speaker 1: Lee Clark and Kane's Story were wrongfully convicted of his death,
1:58
Speaker 1: and a confluence of fabrications, coercion, and misconduct led to
2:01
Speaker 1: their arrest and conviction. And we're about to get to
2:04
Speaker 1: all of that. But first here today to share his
2:06
Speaker 1: incredible story is Lee Clark. Lee. It's great to see
2:10
Speaker 1: you again, and see you too, Susan. Now, Lee, before
2:13
Speaker 1: we get into everything that happened. Can you tell the
2:15
Speaker 1: audience a little bit about you?
2:17
Speaker 2: I was born in Rowing, Georgia, Floyd County. Most of
2:20
Speaker 2: my childhood, my early childhood. I grew up in our
2:22
Speaker 2: Murchy but went to Glenwood Elementary School. I've only got
2:26
Speaker 2: one blood brother, my brother Jamie. And I've got step
2:29
Speaker 2: sister or stepbrother Candy and Mark.
2:32
Speaker 1: And then the lead up to all of this, to
2:33
Speaker 1: what happened in K and A six, you were seventeen
2:35
Speaker 1: years old and living in a small community south of Rome,
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Speaker 1: Georgia called Silver Creek.
2:40
Speaker 3: At that point in my life, I was young.
2:43
Speaker 2: It's all one you at all. I was really dumber
2:46
Speaker 2: on a box of rocks, is what my daddy used
2:47
Speaker 2: to tell me. He's probably right too.
2:49
Speaker 3: I mean, I was.
2:50
Speaker 2: Getting into a lot of trouble back in nineteen ninety
2:52
Speaker 2: six doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing, and
2:55
Speaker 2: breaking into people's homes and stuff like that. I wasn't
2:57
Speaker 2: knowl enough to do it. But we drank a little
2:59
Speaker 2: bit if we'd get alcohol. If not that, we'd be
3:02
Speaker 2: smoking marijuana or something. Just hanging out as kids doing.
3:05
Speaker 3: Doing crazy stupid junk kids do. Teenagers do.
3:07
Speaker 1: And one of your oldest friends was Cain. Tell me
3:10
Speaker 1: about him.
3:11
Speaker 2: I came we were coming up, coming through high school
3:13
Speaker 2: and stuff, and he would be involved in some of
3:14
Speaker 2: the stuff I was doing. But Kane, he was more
3:16
Speaker 2: of a kind of goodie two shoes. He hung out
3:19
Speaker 2: with the preppy crowd a lot that they all time
3:22
Speaker 2: questioned him a lot about why he was hanging out
3:23
Speaker 2: with me. And that's just because of the way I
3:25
Speaker 2: was back then. I was just a young, stupid teenage kid.
3:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't bad as I made out to be.
3:30
Speaker 3: I mean, I just wanted people to think that, so
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Speaker 3: a lot of people would stay away from me.
3:34
Speaker 1: And one of the boys that you guys hung out
3:37
Speaker 1: with with a guy named Brian Bowling. How did you
3:39
Speaker 1: know Brian.
3:40
Speaker 2: I originally met Brian through Kane. When Kane moved out
3:43
Speaker 2: to Silver Creek, he introduced me to Brian, and me
3:46
Speaker 2: and Brian we became friends. Me and Brian were as
3:48
Speaker 2: closest Kine and Brian were. I mean, I lot Brian,
3:51
Speaker 2: I mean I love Brian. He was a good friend
3:53
Speaker 2: of mine, and just as I got a little bit older,
3:55
Speaker 2: me being down there at his house became less frequent.
3:58
Speaker 1: So were of ninety six. There was an incident that
4:03
Speaker 1: happened when you were over at Cane's house. Tell me
4:06
Speaker 1: about that.
4:06
Speaker 2: It was on October third, nineteen ninety six. Day haunts
4:10
Speaker 2: me still to this day. Is something a regret of
4:13
Speaker 2: mine that I lived with. It's today that I went
4:16
Speaker 2: to Cayne's house and all of us teenage boys over me, Caine,
4:20
Speaker 2: his buddy Joseph Wilkins, and a buddy of mine named
4:23
Speaker 2: Pete Jordan. We all decided we was going to steal
4:25
Speaker 2: Cayne's diaddy safe from him.
4:27
Speaker 1: So the four of you stole the safe from Cane's dad,
4:31
Speaker 1: took down the woods, busted it up, got some cash
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Speaker 1: out of it. How long did y'all get away with
4:36
Speaker 1: a crime?
4:36
Speaker 2: I was arrested four days after we stole this safe.
4:40
Speaker 2: Caine and his buddy Joseph Wilkins, they were arrested today
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Speaker 2: we stole it, and then my friend Pete Jordan was
4:46
Speaker 2: arrested three days later on October the tenth.
4:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was not the crime of the century.
4:51
Speaker 1: Y'all did not get away with it first more than a.
4:53
Speaker 3: Few weeks, of course. No, it was straight stupid. It
4:56
Speaker 3: is what it was Yeah.
4:57
Speaker 1: Now, so Brian lived just down the hill for I'm Kane,
5:00
Speaker 1: but he had nothing to do with this safe thas.
5:03
Speaker 3: Right, No, no, he didn't have anything to do with it.
5:06
Speaker 1: But as we'll see, that incident, along with Brian's close
5:09
Speaker 1: friendship with Cain, became important the prosecution's case. But for now,
5:14
Speaker 1: let's go back to just after the safeist. The night
5:16
Speaker 1: this happened, both Kane and his friend Joseph Fulkins were
5:19
Speaker 1: both arrested, and since shortly after you and your friend
5:22
Speaker 1: Pete Jordan were also arrested, well, logically it made sense
5:26
Speaker 1: that either Kin or Joseph Fulkins had been the ones
5:28
Speaker 1: to give you up. Again, though this was not the
5:31
Speaker 1: crime of the century, the stakes were pretty low, and
5:33
Speaker 1: that brings us to what happened October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
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Speaker 2: On October eighteenth, so I went to make Caine that
5:40
Speaker 2: day because I know I'd been arrested in CHRS. I
5:42
Speaker 2: just wanted to find out for him if it had
5:44
Speaker 2: been his buddy Joseph did it told on us? Or
5:46
Speaker 2: if it was had been Kane did it did it?
5:48
Speaker 2: I knew it had to be one of them, I
5:49
Speaker 2: just was sure which one and I made him. He
5:51
Speaker 2: sat there each tell him me. He swording up down
5:53
Speaker 2: and may it wasn't him. He didn't do it. He
5:55
Speaker 2: don't know who did it. And he played that on
5:57
Speaker 2: and on. So it's made to believe his friend Joseph
5:59
Speaker 2: was one told on us. What come to find out
6:02
Speaker 2: a trial it was both Kane and Joseph they had
6:04
Speaker 2: told on us.
6:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, so but that night you talked to Caine, He's like, no, man,
6:08
Speaker 1: wasn't me. I didn't telling y'all. And your little brother
6:11
Speaker 1: was there too.
6:11
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, he was there. You have my little brother, Jamie.
6:14
Speaker 1: The three of you ended up just kind of hanging out.
6:15
Speaker 3: For a while. Yeah. Yeah, we just rolled around when
6:18
Speaker 3: shoot some pool and stuff like that, what kind of stuff.
6:21
Speaker 1: That's all in the motion, though, was that night before
6:23
Speaker 1: Cain went out to meet with you and Jamie he
6:25
Speaker 1: decided to grab a revolver from his dad's bedside table.
6:28
Speaker 1: He was gonna go target cheoting. It was not the
6:31
Speaker 1: smartest idea since he was already in trouble with his dad.
6:34
Speaker 1: But well, while you're hanging out, he pulls the gun
6:37
Speaker 1: out and he shows it to you and even fires
6:39
Speaker 1: it out of a car window. While you're driving around,
6:41
Speaker 1: just playing around. Eventually you decided to take him home.
6:45
Speaker 3: I wasn't going back to his house, cousin.
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Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna take no chance of his parents being home,
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Speaker 2: his mom or anything, or his dad. I don't want
6:50
Speaker 2: either one tore saving me back to his house. So
6:52
Speaker 2: I dropped him all the same place. I picked him
6:54
Speaker 2: up at Silver Creetman in the market. You know, I
6:56
Speaker 2: think about something now that I told Kane back then
7:00
Speaker 2: that uh me telling him this. I could still hear
7:03
Speaker 2: it so clearly in my head that wakes me up
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Speaker 2: sometimes the middle of the night still to this day.
7:07
Speaker 2: I told him when was pulling up I was getting out,
7:09
Speaker 2: I told him, I said, look, we've done stole yourdaddy
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Speaker 2: safe and now here it is. You've got your daddy's
7:14
Speaker 2: gun on you. I said, if your diddy comes in
7:16
Speaker 2: says that gun gone, he's gonna swer up down that
7:18
Speaker 2: we stole that too. So I don't need this hanging
7:21
Speaker 2: over me, like, just take that gun back home where
7:24
Speaker 2: you got it from. Well, hey, sister and tells me, yeah, man,
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Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. I said, Okay, I'm serious, man,
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Speaker 2: Just get out the car, go straight home.
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Speaker 3: Put that gun back.
7:31
Speaker 2: He swears up and down to me he's gonna do it,
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Speaker 2: And that's the complete opposite of what he just told
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Speaker 2: me he was feeling to do.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, after you dropped him off with the mini, mart
7:40
Speaker 1: Kin did not go directly home. Instead, he stopped at
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Speaker 1: Brian's trailer on the way. They are now Brian's parents,
7:46
Speaker 1: his sister, and her boyfriend. They were all in the
7:48
Speaker 1: living room watching TV with some neighbors, Waining and Charlie Childers.
7:52
Speaker 1: When King got there, came knocking the door, said hi
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Speaker 1: to everyone. They told him that Brian's back in the
7:56
Speaker 1: bedroom talking to his girlfriend Caprice. So he goes back
7:59
Speaker 1: there and finds Brian sos high and you know they
8:02
Speaker 1: they're two teenage boys on the phone with the girlfriends.
8:04
Speaker 1: So they start passing the phone back and forth talking
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Speaker 1: to her. Then at some point Kane puts out his
8:08
Speaker 1: gun and shows it to Brian and he's like, came in,
8:10
Speaker 1: look what I got. So what happened then?
8:13
Speaker 2: Well, the way Kane explains it to me, he's in
8:16
Speaker 2: there and him and Brian put the bullet in the
8:19
Speaker 2: gun and he says they started playing Russian rou lit
8:21
Speaker 2: and he said there was cheating. They was putting it
8:23
Speaker 2: in there, and they was taking the chamber of a revolver.
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Speaker 2: Anybody who knows anything about the revolver knows if you're
8:28
Speaker 2: looking down at it from the back of it, you
8:29
Speaker 2: can see where the bullets were at. And that's what
8:31
Speaker 2: they were doing. They were taking the revolver and they
8:33
Speaker 2: were spinning it to the bottom and making sure the
8:35
Speaker 2: bullets wouldn't know where around down there. And then they
8:37
Speaker 2: were cocking it, sticking it to her head and pulling
8:39
Speaker 2: the trigger. And Kane says they had went back a
8:41
Speaker 2: couple of rounds like he is, back and forth and
8:44
Speaker 2: the whole time, Brian is the phone with his girlfriend,
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Speaker 2: Caprice Hoyt, and he tells Kane to tell her what
8:49
Speaker 2: I'm doing. So Kane tells her He's playing Russian rou lit. Now,
8:53
Speaker 2: first she didn't know what it was. I mean, she
8:54
Speaker 2: was a little alarm by, but she didn't know what
8:56
Speaker 2: Russan roulett was. I mean, she was telling him, tell
8:58
Speaker 2: him to stop, but she she didn't understand fully what
9:01
Speaker 2: he was in there doing, sticking it to his head,
9:02
Speaker 2: pulling the trigger until her mom came in later after
9:05
Speaker 2: the fact, and she asked her mom what rushing Roulette was,
9:08
Speaker 2: and her mom told her what it was. Well, Kane,
9:10
Speaker 2: he plays it and then Brian just he says, let
9:12
Speaker 2: me see that gun. What Kane says, he snatched it
9:14
Speaker 2: from him, opened it up, spun the cylinder, slapped it
9:18
Speaker 2: back in, caught the hammer back. When Brian stuck it
9:21
Speaker 2: to his head, Kane says, he looked at him and
9:23
Speaker 2: told him and said, don't do it, bro He said
9:25
Speaker 2: it's to one.
9:26
Speaker 3: Now.
9:26
Speaker 2: Kane says that Brian looked at him and said you
9:29
Speaker 2: think so and pulled the trigger.
9:32
Speaker 3: Now, that's what Kine has told me.
9:34
Speaker 2: Every time I've talked to him about this stuff, every
9:36
Speaker 2: time I've confronted him body, He's always told me the
9:38
Speaker 2: same thing and the.
9:39
Speaker 3: Truth he told right now.
9:40
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't tell you one hundred percent positive
9:42
Speaker 2: what went downe in there, but that's like I've told
9:45
Speaker 2: you before, Susan. Look, I've struggled with that stuff for
9:48
Speaker 2: many and many years. If he may have accidentally did
9:51
Speaker 2: it and didn't want to tell me, but there's too
9:53
Speaker 2: much stuff too support it, and that's why I choose
9:55
Speaker 2: to believe it.
9:56
Speaker 1: And a lot of what was observed immediately after the
9:58
Speaker 1: shooting supports what can say. The folks in the living
10:01
Speaker 1: room who had heard the gunshot rushed into Brian's room
10:04
Speaker 1: and found him there on the floor with blood pulled
10:06
Speaker 1: around his head and critically the gun was underneath Brian
10:10
Speaker 1: where he was lying on the floor, and Caprice was
10:12
Speaker 1: still in the phone. She was yelling trying to figure
10:14
Speaker 1: it what was happening she could kill the screaming, heard
10:16
Speaker 1: someone say they got to call her back, and the
10:18
Speaker 1: line going dead as the family then calls nine one
10:21
Speaker 1: one very quickly after that, the police and paramedics arrive
10:24
Speaker 1: and Brian was transported to the hospital as he fought
10:27
Speaker 1: for his life. Meanwhile, though, Lee, you had no idea
10:30
Speaker 1: that any of this was happening. After you dropped can off,
10:33
Speaker 1: what did you do the rest.
10:34
Speaker 2: Of the night, Me and my brother turned around with
10:37
Speaker 2: my apartment in Lyndale where my girlfriend Shelley at a time,
10:40
Speaker 2: and a bunch of my other buddies were showing up
10:41
Speaker 2: over there. I was having a party at my apartment
10:43
Speaker 2: that night and we got over went to party and dranking,
10:46
Speaker 2: smoking while you doing stupid teenager stuff.
10:48
Speaker 1: And at around eight thirty that night, two of your
10:50
Speaker 1: friends Doug and Dawn were dropped out by their mom,
10:53
Speaker 1: and she testified later at trial that while she was
10:56
Speaker 1: there to drop her sons off, you were standing out
10:58
Speaker 1: by her car and you were talking, and she told
11:00
Speaker 1: you that something was happening down at Brian Bowling's place.
11:03
Speaker 2: I asked her what she meant, and she told me
11:05
Speaker 2: that there's a bunch of cop cars down in their driveways.
11:08
Speaker 2: We were making all kinds of sumptions to what we
11:09
Speaker 2: thought it may have been, but we were fall off face.
11:11
Speaker 1: The next morning, the doctors told Brian's family that there
11:15
Speaker 1: was no hope of recovery, and his parents agreed to
11:19
Speaker 1: donate his organs, and around noon the day after he
11:23
Speaker 1: was shot, he was declared dead.
11:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, the next morning I got up and I found
11:28
Speaker 2: out that two different people that Brian had shot herself
11:31
Speaker 2: the night before. My mom had called me and told me,
11:34
Speaker 2: and also Doug and Don's grandmother had told us about
11:37
Speaker 2: it when she come by to pick Doug.
11:39
Speaker 3: And down up.
11:40
Speaker 1: Now, during the initial investigation, the police took photos of
11:43
Speaker 1: the scene and talked to some of the family and
11:45
Speaker 1: other witnesses at the hospital, and of course they talked
11:47
Speaker 1: to Kane, who was taken down to the police station
11:49
Speaker 1: and had his hand swap for gunshot residue. When the
11:52
Speaker 1: police spoke to Caprice, she corroborated Cane's story that Brian
11:55
Speaker 1: and Kan told her on the phone that they had
11:57
Speaker 1: a gun and they were playing Russian Roulette. The last
11:59
Speaker 1: thing she heard was Brian saying I'm playing with the gun,
12:02
Speaker 1: followed by screaming and someone hanging up. After talking to
12:05
Speaker 1: Kane at Caprice, the police initially declared it next andal death.
12:09
Speaker 1: An autopsy, if it was done, would have shown conclusively
12:12
Speaker 1: that Brian had been holding the gun up to his
12:14
Speaker 1: head when it was fired, except one was never done,
12:18
Speaker 1: or at least there's no record of it. Unfortunately, without
12:21
Speaker 1: an autopsy, and after talking to Brian's family as well,
12:24
Speaker 1: investigators were free to get imaginative. So later that weekend,
12:27
Speaker 1: Detective Dallas Battle and Sergeant Mike Wallace brought Caanan for
12:31
Speaker 1: a second interview. This time they recorded it. At first,
12:34
Speaker 1: Cain insist again and again that Brian shot himself and
12:37
Speaker 1: they've been playing Russian Roulette and it was something more
12:39
Speaker 1: than that. But detectives keep telling him, we know you
12:42
Speaker 1: had the gun. Just tell us you had the gun.
12:44
Speaker 1: If you tell us that you had the gun when
12:45
Speaker 1: it went off, nothing will happen to you. You won't
12:47
Speaker 1: be in trouble to tell us that. And after this
12:49
Speaker 1: goes on for half an hour or so, Kane eventually
12:52
Speaker 1: gives in and says that, yeah, the gun was in
12:54
Speaker 1: my hand when it went off. Lee, what has Kane
12:57
Speaker 1: told you about this interview?
12:58
Speaker 2: Well, he said they kept coming at him, but during
13:01
Speaker 2: the interview they were making him singing like that it
13:04
Speaker 2: was no big deal that he just say what they
13:06
Speaker 2: wanted him to say. They won't gonna be in any trouble.
13:08
Speaker 2: Just go ahead and bit to you did this wild?
13:10
Speaker 2: You say what was then accident? That's gonna be it
13:11
Speaker 2: and we can now all go home. And Kane, being
13:14
Speaker 2: young like he was, battles tricked him. He just deceived
13:16
Speaker 2: him into it. I mean, Kane, he's easily misled. I
13:19
Speaker 2: mean he's always been that way. He's a full grown
13:21
Speaker 2: man now and I hate to say it, but he's
13:22
Speaker 2: still easily misled today.
13:24
Speaker 1: So when Cain admitted to this, to having the gun
13:26
Speaker 1: in his hand when it accidentally goes off, he's arrested
13:29
Speaker 1: charges manslaughter and at least a bond and then a few
13:32
Speaker 1: months later, that gunshot residue test comes back and it's negative.
13:36
Speaker 1: There was no jess horn Kan's hands. Now, these tests
13:39
Speaker 1: are often junk science because the false positives and false
13:42
Speaker 1: negatives they can generate. You can hear all about that
13:44
Speaker 1: on Wrong Fiction Junk Science. We'll have that episode linked
13:48
Speaker 1: in this episode's bio. But Dallas Battle believed in these tests,
13:52
Speaker 1: and since Kane tested negative for gunshot residue, this gave
13:55
Speaker 1: Dallas Battle a problem because if this was a murder,
13:58
Speaker 1: that meant Kin couldn't have done it, and he now
14:01
Speaker 1: needed a second shooter, which is what made leads wrongful
14:04
Speaker 1: conviction even possible. So Lee, how do you think you
14:07
Speaker 1: got drawn to this whole investigation?
14:09
Speaker 2: Well, shortly after Brian had shot herself and everything, I
14:13
Speaker 2: was hearing all these rumors, these lies going around that
14:15
Speaker 2: I was there, that I was hit outside, all this
14:18
Speaker 2: and that, and I wasn't sure where all that was
14:21
Speaker 2: coming from at the time, But later down the line,
14:24
Speaker 2: after I was all said and done, I started pacing
14:26
Speaker 2: together had been coming from a guy that I knew
14:28
Speaker 2: when I was younger and had a little bad blove
14:31
Speaker 2: with him, And his name was Tommy Hyde, Me and
14:33
Speaker 2: Tommy were never on good terms and stuff, and no
14:36
Speaker 2: doubt Dallas Battles was using him to spread stuff.
14:38
Speaker 1: Now, you and battle had a bit of history.
14:41
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, we had pretty deep history, man, Dallas Battles.
14:45
Speaker 1: Did do you think your previous run ends with the law,
14:47
Speaker 1: including that recent safe theft, had anything to do with
14:50
Speaker 1: Battles zeroing in on you?
14:52
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you straight up.
14:54
Speaker 2: Dallas Battles was a corrupt cop, crooked as they come.
14:58
Speaker 2: This man took an oath when he with that badge
15:00
Speaker 2: owned uphold the law. And even though I was a young,
15:03
Speaker 2: stupid teenage boy and stuff, Dallas Battles knew what he
15:06
Speaker 2: was doing. He was a full grown man. And what
15:09
Speaker 2: he did to me he broke every law did he
15:12
Speaker 2: know all of them? And wanted to make stuff seem
15:15
Speaker 2: like it was a certain way, and that's what he did.
15:17
Speaker 2: He spun it that way, made it look like it.
15:19
Speaker 2: That's no doubt my mind. He knew the truth about it.
15:21
Speaker 2: He just didn't want to put it out there as
15:23
Speaker 2: he was dead set on setting me up.
15:25
Speaker 1: Now, around this time, another Fwood County officer, David Stewart,
15:29
Speaker 1: joined the investigation, and he and battle developed this theory
15:33
Speaker 1: that Brian had not been shot accidentally, there had been
15:35
Speaker 1: no Russian roulette, but rather this was all a gang
15:38
Speaker 1: related revenge hit killing. Now, remember this is late nineteen
15:42
Speaker 1: nineties and there's kind of the massesteria going on about
15:45
Speaker 1: quote unquote gang buns in America, which, although was not
15:49
Speaker 1: prominent in Rome, Georgia at the time, was nevertheless sort
15:52
Speaker 1: of in the public ze guist and affecting how people
15:54
Speaker 1: interpreted this evidence, which is why bone Thugs in Harmony
15:57
Speaker 1: and the fact that Brian and his friends listened to
15:59
Speaker 1: that came an important part of the case. Anyway, there
16:02
Speaker 1: was a woman named Debor Kelly, who Kan's mother once
16:04
Speaker 1: hired to clean her house, and she told the police
16:07
Speaker 1: that while she was cleaning the house, she'd found this
16:09
Speaker 1: what she called a devilish notebook because it had skulls
16:13
Speaker 1: and crossbones on it, and when she snooped through the notebook,
16:15
Speaker 1: that's how she says she discovered that you Can and
16:18
Speaker 1: Brian were all members of this gang called the Freebirds. Now,
16:21
Speaker 1: Debora Kelly also said that this notebook had the gang's
16:24
Speaker 1: rules written out inside of it. Now, Lee, what were
16:27
Speaker 1: some of the alleged rules that this gang had, so.
16:31
Speaker 2: I wanted to try to say he was in there
16:32
Speaker 2: and never do drugs. Yeah right, Yeah, that really went
16:35
Speaker 2: well with us. Back in every time you turn around,
16:37
Speaker 2: we spoke in pot.
16:38
Speaker 1: The gang's other rules were always stand by your brother,
16:41
Speaker 1: never talked to the police, and if a brother does
16:44
Speaker 1: talk to police, you have to kill him. If you
16:46
Speaker 1: don't kill them, you get killed yourself.
16:48
Speaker 3: That's what they say it.
16:49
Speaker 1: So the police decided that Brian had narked quote unquote
16:55
Speaker 1: on the other gang members by turning them in for
16:57
Speaker 1: the safe theft, and therefore Lee and Kane had been
17:01
Speaker 1: obligated to kill him because of their gang of rules.
17:05
Speaker 1: Don't forget that. Another influence on this murder was Bone
17:08
Speaker 1: Thugs and Harmony and they're nineteen what ninety six hit single,
17:12
Speaker 1: yeah Lacrossroad, gross Roads. Yeah. Now, Crossroads was a favorite
17:17
Speaker 1: song of Brian's. It was playing at the time he
17:20
Speaker 1: was shot, and the investigators tracked down the lyrics and
17:24
Speaker 1: decided that the song Crossroads is about shooting narcs and
17:29
Speaker 1: that that was why the song was playing when Brian died.
17:35
Speaker 2: And whoever listened to that song knows that's not what
17:37
Speaker 2: that song is about. You know, this whole gang stuff.
17:41
Speaker 2: It's so comical to me. It's simply it's just a joke.
17:44
Speaker 2: And if I don't have a sense of humor about it,
17:45
Speaker 2: I'm gonna cry about it, because in fact this the
17:47
Speaker 2: blase or what destroyed my life for many years.
18:03
Speaker 1: Their theory was hair brained. It defies logic and reason,
18:08
Speaker 1: but Atal and Stewart were committed to it and somehow
18:11
Speaker 1: needed to drum up evidence to support it. That's why
18:13
Speaker 1: they ended up exhooming Brian's body in a search for evidence,
18:17
Speaker 1: and in the coffin when they opened it up, they
18:19
Speaker 1: found two handwritten notes. One of them had the lyrics
18:22
Speaker 1: to Crossroads written out on it, and the other was
18:25
Speaker 1: a note from Joseph Wilkins, the fourth member of the
18:27
Speaker 1: Safe Theft group. It had a drawing of a little
18:30
Speaker 1: eagle carrying a bag of weed and a banner that
18:32
Speaker 1: said freebirds, and the note to Brian below it was
18:35
Speaker 1: something like, fly high, brother, see you at the crossroads.
18:38
Speaker 3: Love you.
18:39
Speaker 1: But on the little flag the eagles carring, the one
18:42
Speaker 1: that says freebird's on it. Here's like a little addition
18:45
Speaker 1: made in the corner of the flag it has the
18:47
Speaker 1: word narks on it and it's crossed out like with
18:50
Speaker 1: the no smoking sign and a trial. It's this note
18:53
Speaker 1: that's uses evidence that Brian was killed as a gang
18:56
Speaker 1: revenge murder, although it's worth noting that the handwriting of
18:59
Speaker 1: the word arks is very different from the neat cursive
19:03
Speaker 1: that the rest of the note is written in.
19:04
Speaker 2: Yes it is, and you know, Susan, I would not
19:07
Speaker 2: put it past Dallas Bidles to have did that, because
19:10
Speaker 2: you've done did some other shady stuff.
19:12
Speaker 3: So you ain't gonna stop her, not I see it.
19:14
Speaker 1: And then in May of nineteen eighty seven, the police
19:17
Speaker 1: got two more key pieces to their theory. The first
19:20
Speaker 1: was a woman named Angela Bruce, who was interviewed and
19:23
Speaker 1: told Battle and Stuart that in about February of that year,
19:26
Speaker 1: she'd had a party and that's when Cain and this
19:29
Speaker 1: other boy he brought along with him had bragged her
19:32
Speaker 1: about killing Brian. They told her the whole story about
19:35
Speaker 1: how they had a gang and the rules. So they
19:37
Speaker 1: had a killing member who narked on them, so they
19:39
Speaker 1: put a pill over his head and shot him. Now,
19:41
Speaker 1: the first time that Angela Bruce is interviewed, her story
19:44
Speaker 1: has nothing about Caprice in it, nothing about the girl
19:46
Speaker 1: from the phone who says she heard Brian say he's
19:49
Speaker 1: playing Russian Roulette and then screaming. So a couple days later,
19:53
Speaker 1: the cops go back and talk to Angela again, and
19:55
Speaker 1: this time she has more to that add the story.
19:57
Speaker 1: She says that Bryan's girlfriend, Caprice, was also a member
20:01
Speaker 1: of the Freeburg gang, and that she had conspired with
20:03
Speaker 1: Kin and Lee to kill him, which effectively discredited Caprice,
20:07
Speaker 1: who had initially corroborated that Brian's death was accidental. Now, Lee,
20:10
Speaker 1: did you even know Caprice?
20:12
Speaker 2: No? No, I'd never met Capri before. I never actually
20:15
Speaker 2: sent her till we got to trial.
20:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:17
Speaker 1: Kin hadn't actually met her either. I mean he talked
20:20
Speaker 1: with her on the phone a few times when it's
20:21
Speaker 1: over at Brian's, but he hadn't seen her in person.
20:24
Speaker 1: But Angela's story making Caprice part of the gang and
20:27
Speaker 1: part of the murder conspiracy was still not enough by
20:29
Speaker 1: itself to hold this theory together. Lee, you had about
20:32
Speaker 1: ten witnesses who could have placed you at your home
20:35
Speaker 1: that night, and no one in the living room at
20:37
Speaker 1: Brian's trailer mentioned you being there, said anything about you
20:40
Speaker 1: at all. But then Battle says he gets a tip
20:43
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Brian's family who'd been in the living
20:46
Speaker 1: room that night. Two neighbors, Wayne and Charlie Childers, were
20:49
Speaker 1: also there and apparently were never interviewed. Seven months later,
20:52
Speaker 1: he talks to them and Wayne says, my brother, Charlie, yeah,
20:56
Speaker 1: he saw something important that he needs to tell you.
20:58
Speaker 3: Now.
20:59
Speaker 1: Charlie Childers is stuff and didn't speak standard American sign language,
21:03
Speaker 1: but he allegedly somehow told Dallas Battle that after everyone
21:08
Speaker 1: had run in to Brian's room that night after hearing
21:10
Speaker 1: a gunshot, he'd stayed behind in the living room, and
21:13
Speaker 1: that's how he'd looked out a window and seeing a
21:16
Speaker 1: boy running across the bowling's front yard. Battle would later
21:19
Speaker 1: testify a trial that Charlie had add this boy in
21:22
Speaker 1: a lineup as Lee Clark. So with Angela Bruce, and
21:25
Speaker 1: Charlie Childers, Dallas Battle and David Stewart now had with
21:27
Speaker 1: a needed to charge you and Kine with conspiracy and
21:30
Speaker 1: first degree murder.
21:31
Speaker 2: Well, never forget that day as long as I live.
21:34
Speaker 2: Maybe the twenty third of nineteen ninety seven, Memorial Day weekend,
21:39
Speaker 2: I was on my way to go to the lake,
21:41
Speaker 2: my mom, my stepdad, my brother, my girlfriend, Shelley, her
21:45
Speaker 2: boy to code. We going down there to teach the
21:46
Speaker 2: code to hide the ski and everything.
21:48
Speaker 3: Well, I got over.
21:49
Speaker 2: To my mom's house and stuff, and she come out,
21:52
Speaker 2: she's crying and stuff. I didn't know what was going on.
21:54
Speaker 2: She told me they'd been by there would have warrant
21:56
Speaker 2: from my risk. She said, what they've been by your
21:58
Speaker 2: daddy's place too?
22:00
Speaker 3: All my dad.
22:00
Speaker 2: First thing you asked when I got on there, he said, well,
22:02
Speaker 2: have you done got yourself a boald? Then I said,
22:03
Speaker 2: I ain't did nothing. I said, this has got to
22:05
Speaker 2: be a mistake. We did going down here to the
22:07
Speaker 2: jail and find out what's going on. And we rode
22:09
Speaker 2: down there to county jail. I went inside the county
22:12
Speaker 2: jail thinking I was going in there to get something
22:13
Speaker 2: straightened out. I go in there to tell the lady
22:15
Speaker 2: behind the register that my name and stuff and what
22:18
Speaker 2: was going on. And they come out there, snatch me ut,
22:20
Speaker 2: throw me up on the wall, talking about we got you.
22:22
Speaker 2: Don't try to run, And I was sitting there thanking
22:23
Speaker 2: to myself, I'm really you think I come in here
22:25
Speaker 2: just to walk in here in the middle of the
22:27
Speaker 2: police station and.
22:27
Speaker 3: Say hey, here I am, and then turn around running.
22:30
Speaker 3: That don't make no sense.
22:32
Speaker 2: But they drove me in the back and any hold
22:34
Speaker 2: and selling there and here come walking in Dallas battles.
22:37
Speaker 2: I looked at him, and they sit down from me.
22:39
Speaker 2: He said, Well, he said, I got you. I said,
22:41
Speaker 2: you played all these games. I don't even know what
22:43
Speaker 2: you talk about. Well, he said, we know you and Kane,
22:45
Speaker 2: we know y'all conspired to kill you, buddy, Brian I said,
22:48
Speaker 2: everybody in this county knows that Brian Boldi's shot itself.
22:51
Speaker 1: Now, Lee, it was January of twenty eight when you
22:54
Speaker 1: and Kane went on trial together, and you each had
22:57
Speaker 1: your own attorney. Your father had hired Zabernathy, and Cain
23:01
Speaker 1: had a court appointed attorney named Larry J. Barkley. And
23:04
Speaker 1: the prosecutor and his opening statement started out by telling
23:07
Speaker 1: the jury that they were going to hear all about
23:09
Speaker 1: this vicious gang called the Freebirds.
23:12
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he built it all up on all that
23:14
Speaker 2: stuffal about a vic gang called the free Birds and
23:17
Speaker 2: how they how many basically were just notorious gangster killers.
23:20
Speaker 3: And it was a joke. It was a joke, and
23:22
Speaker 3: it wasn't a funny joke either.
23:24
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, you could laugh at it because it's laughable,
23:27
Speaker 2: but it wasn't nothing funny body.
23:28
Speaker 1: And then probably one of the more damaging things that
23:30
Speaker 1: happened a trial is that they played the tape of
23:34
Speaker 1: Ken's confession. They've pled the entire tape where he starts
23:37
Speaker 1: off saying that he did not shoot Brian, and eventually,
23:40
Speaker 1: after being told by the police that he wouldn't be
23:43
Speaker 1: any trouble if he admitted to it, he admits to it.
23:46
Speaker 1: So the jury hears Caine his own words, say that
23:48
Speaker 1: gums in my hand when it went off. Now this
23:52
Speaker 1: is all given to the jury. They listen to it,
23:55
Speaker 1: they hear about it, and then a few days later
23:57
Speaker 1: the judge says, you know what, I changed my That
24:00
Speaker 1: confession probably not legal, It was improper. It shouldn't have
24:04
Speaker 1: been admitted. So the judge then tells the jury, pretend
24:07
Speaker 1: you never heard that, ignore that confession. Let's proceed. Do
24:11
Speaker 1: you think the jury was able to forget the fact
24:13
Speaker 1: that it heard that confession.
24:14
Speaker 3: No, no, I don't believe that one minute. I mean, look, way,
24:18
Speaker 3: as human beings, just human nature. When something, just put
24:21
Speaker 3: it in your head.
24:22
Speaker 2: You got it in there, and I don't for one
24:25
Speaker 2: minute believe that You'll sit there and let the jury
24:27
Speaker 2: hear that, and you disrespect them to disregard that, throwed
24:30
Speaker 2: out their head.
24:31
Speaker 3: You never should have did it to begin with. It
24:32
Speaker 3: never should have been admitted to begin with.
24:35
Speaker 1: So the jury has just heard Caine confess to at
24:37
Speaker 1: least accidentally shooting Brian. But the theory a trial, the
24:41
Speaker 1: one they're trying to convince you of, is that you
24:44
Speaker 1: Lee are the shooter and this whole thing was a
24:47
Speaker 1: gang related revenge killing. So to support that, they bring
24:50
Speaker 1: in Dobor Kelly, the house cleaner, who testifies that she
24:52
Speaker 1: found the skull and crossbands notebook, which, by the way,
24:56
Speaker 1: never located, never found, never seen again, just gone, no
25:00
Speaker 1: physical evidence that ever existed beyond what Debora Kelly and
25:03
Speaker 1: another woman a friend of her, say about them seeing it.
25:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, how do you come under use in that? How
25:08
Speaker 3: does that work? Right?
25:10
Speaker 1: They never found any sort of evidence to actually back
25:12
Speaker 1: up the story that she gives. But the state's case
25:15
Speaker 1: relies more heavily on Angela Bruce and this alleged confession
25:19
Speaker 1: that you and Kane supposedly made to her at a party.
25:22
Speaker 1: According to Angela Bruce, you and Kin explained to her
25:26
Speaker 1: in explicit detail how this killing happened, and according to her,
25:30
Speaker 1: this is what you say. That night, You, Caine, and
25:32
Speaker 1: Caprice all conspired to kill Brian, and you did it
25:35
Speaker 1: by having Caprice call Brian on the phone to distract him.
25:39
Speaker 1: Then Kane shows up. He goes into Brian's bedroom and
25:41
Speaker 1: distracts Brian even further. Meanwhile, Lee is sneaking up outside
25:45
Speaker 1: of Brian's bedroom window. And by the way, at the time,
25:48
Speaker 1: this window was actually boarded up with a piece of
25:50
Speaker 1: plywood that you could kind of move back and forth
25:53
Speaker 1: to open. But according to Angela Bruce, what your role
25:57
Speaker 1: was to do was to shoot Brian through the window
26:00
Speaker 1: and then run away, while Kin stayed behind to tell
26:02
Speaker 1: everyone that live be playing Russian Roulette and Brian had lost.
26:06
Speaker 2: I couldn't wrap my mind around while she was up
26:08
Speaker 2: for saying what she was saying. I mean, I was
26:10
Speaker 2: sitting there thinking to myself, I mean, this woman has
26:12
Speaker 2: never laid eyes on me, and they in her life
26:15
Speaker 2: doesn't even know me. But it's up he telling these
26:17
Speaker 2: lies on me, and I wasn't really for sure what
26:19
Speaker 2: the deal was there, and my attorney at the time,
26:22
Speaker 2: Rex Sabergathi, he said, I'm to tell you what it is.
26:25
Speaker 2: He said, they got something on her kids, and they're
26:27
Speaker 2: using that against her. Right here, that's where Rex's mind
26:31
Speaker 2: was at. So I want to thinking that stuff too.
26:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand, Okay, they're holding your kids over
26:36
Speaker 2: your head, and I get that part right there. Apparently
26:39
Speaker 2: do just about anything for their kids. But what would
26:42
Speaker 2: have been the right thing to do on her part
26:44
Speaker 2: would have been to go up to the police station
26:47
Speaker 2: and let it be known that they're over her, rassing her,
26:50
Speaker 2: trying to get her to tell lies and using her kids,
26:53
Speaker 2: holding them over her is what she should have did.
26:56
Speaker 1: But the jury heard Angela's testimony, and they heard the
26:59
Speaker 1: prosecutor tell them that there was no reason to find
27:01
Speaker 1: her not credible. And this was all shored up by
27:04
Speaker 1: Charlie Childers, the deaf witness who'd been at the bowlings
27:06
Speaker 1: watching TV that night. Now, Charlie's story doesn't actually come
27:09
Speaker 1: in through Charlie. The prosecution put Dallas Battle in the
27:12
Speaker 1: stand and he testified what Charlie had told him in
27:15
Speaker 1: his interview. Min jew protective. Battle did not speak sign
27:18
Speaker 1: language and Charlie did not speak American Sign language, so
27:22
Speaker 1: how Charlie and Battle communicated is a mystery. Wayne Charlie's
27:27
Speaker 1: brother didn't speak sim language either, so there's no one
27:30
Speaker 1: there who actual communicate with Charlie. So it's never explained
27:32
Speaker 1: how exactly Charlie was able to tell Dallas Battle any
27:35
Speaker 1: of this. And all of this happens without a single
27:38
Speaker 1: hearsaym chection from Canaan Lee's attorneys, which is insane all
27:42
Speaker 1: by itself, but it gets worse. Dallas Battle testifies that
27:45
Speaker 1: Charlie told him that he had seen someone run across
27:48
Speaker 1: the front yard after the gunshot. And then, according to
27:51
Speaker 1: Dallas Battle, in the stand, Charlie has given a line
27:54
Speaker 1: up with like six photos and he circles Lee Clark.
27:57
Speaker 1: So they then put Charlie on the stand with an
28:00
Speaker 1: ASL interpreter.
28:01
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to speak bad about anybody. He
28:04
Speaker 2: was on the stand. He could not use regular sign language.
28:07
Speaker 2: The interpreter could clearly not communicate with him. The interpreter
28:12
Speaker 2: told the judge a couple different points that she was
28:15
Speaker 2: having difficult to communicate with him.
28:17
Speaker 1: She tells the court, your honor. He's not speaking American
28:20
Speaker 1: sign language. He's using home signs.
28:23
Speaker 2: The judge should have shut that down right then, but
28:26
Speaker 2: he unless it play on, to play on.
28:28
Speaker 1: I can say that Charlie's testimony at your trial is
28:31
Speaker 1: hands down the most chaotic witness testimony I've ever encountered
28:34
Speaker 1: in any criminal trial and any trial ever. The poor
28:37
Speaker 1: interpreter came in and very quickly realizes that she cannot
28:40
Speaker 1: effectively talk to Charlie. But it's also very clear that
28:43
Speaker 1: this story that Dallas Battle testified to about Charlie seeing
28:47
Speaker 1: anyone the lonely clerk right across the front yard, that's
28:50
Speaker 1: not something Charlie can say. In the stand, he talks
28:53
Speaker 1: about all kinds of things, talks about dogs and puppies,
28:55
Speaker 1: and about how the boy he saw was a black
28:59
Speaker 1: boy who had a wife.
29:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, black boy. I couldn't get I couldn't get over
29:03
Speaker 3: that black boy, black hair.
29:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, has a wife. You know this is not
29:06
Speaker 1: going great. You can see frustration from everyone, Like the
29:08
Speaker 1: prosecutor is frustrated, the fence is frustrated, Like everyone in
29:11
Speaker 1: this courtroom is about to lose it because they've been
29:13
Speaker 1: here for hours trying to talk to Charlie and is
29:16
Speaker 1: not working. He does say he only saw Caine's story
29:19
Speaker 1: at the house that night, just story. It's only after
29:22
Speaker 1: all that that they have the prosecutor stand behind Lee
29:25
Speaker 1: Clark put his hands on his shoulders that Charlie Childers
29:28
Speaker 1: allegedly says, yep, that's the boy I saw. So that
29:31
Speaker 1: was the prosecution's case, and the defense, for its part,
29:34
Speaker 1: carls Caprice's point, and she says exactly the same thing
29:39
Speaker 1: she said the knight that Brian was shot, which should
29:42
Speaker 1: have been compelling testimony for the defense. However, the prosecution
29:45
Speaker 1: made her an unindicted co conspirator. They decided they did
29:49
Speaker 1: not have enough evidence to actually put her on trial,
29:51
Speaker 1: but they say she was also gang member, was part
29:53
Speaker 1: of the murder conspiracy, and therefore that's why she's lying.
29:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Bason, we don't have enough, We don't have
29:59
Speaker 2: enough ividence far as you as a co conspirator, but
30:01
Speaker 2: we'll go ahead and mudy your name.
30:02
Speaker 3: What was some lies just so nobody believed the truth
30:05
Speaker 3: to tell him. That's basically what it boiled down to.
30:07
Speaker 1: And then for his defense, Kine testifies on his own behalf,
30:11
Speaker 1: which unfortunately, did nothing to help you. Actually, it hurt
30:15
Speaker 1: you quite a lot because Cain got up there and
30:17
Speaker 1: told the truth, and the truth was that the two
30:20
Speaker 1: of you had hung out together that night and that
30:22
Speaker 1: you'd parted ways at the mini mart. But it wasn't
30:25
Speaker 1: until Kane testified that anyone can actually place the two
30:27
Speaker 1: of you together that day. There was no other evidence
30:29
Speaker 1: that shows that you and Kane had ever even talked
30:32
Speaker 1: or met up or had anything to do with one
30:34
Speaker 1: another on that day. But then Kane's on the stand
30:37
Speaker 1: and explains what happened earlier. He was also extremely emotional
30:42
Speaker 1: the whole time. Apparently he cried through his entire testimony.
30:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a disaster when he was on the stand.
30:48
Speaker 2: I mean he could tell his emotions were getting the
30:49
Speaker 2: better of him, and I don't know, looking back on
30:52
Speaker 2: it now, I could see it for what it was
30:54
Speaker 2: at the time. I mean, he's dealing with a lot
30:57
Speaker 2: of stuff in his heyd he's got a friend he
31:00
Speaker 2: he watched kill hisself, and he's got all that bouncing
31:02
Speaker 2: in his head and he was trying to trying.
31:05
Speaker 3: To make things right by telling the truth.
31:07
Speaker 2: But just didn't know that a lot of people a
31:09
Speaker 2: lot of people perceived all his crying and all that stuff.
31:11
Speaker 2: They perceived that is some kind of guilt. That's not
31:13
Speaker 2: what it was, but that's why a lot of people
31:15
Speaker 2: perceived it at.
31:16
Speaker 1: That pointly, how did you think the trial was going
31:18
Speaker 1: for you?
31:19
Speaker 3: I thought it was going great for me.
31:20
Speaker 2: I mean I thought Rex shabern Atthew was doing a
31:22
Speaker 2: really good job at the time. I mean I was
31:24
Speaker 2: sitting there thinking, yeah, man, he's showing the people I
31:26
Speaker 2: ain't had nothing to do with this junk here.
31:28
Speaker 3: I'm finil to go home. That's what I'm thinking the
31:30
Speaker 3: whole time, and.
31:31
Speaker 2: Me not knowing that little stuff that Rex was missing,
31:35
Speaker 2: that he wasn't hitting on, was going to wind up
31:37
Speaker 2: hitting us really bad in the end.
31:39
Speaker 1: So after closing arguments, the jury goes back to deliberate,
31:42
Speaker 1: and in Georgia, the charges that you and canterfacing murder
31:45
Speaker 1: and conspiracy commit murder. Even in the case of juveniles
31:47
Speaker 1: like you and Kane, they carry an automatic life sentence.
31:51
Speaker 1: The jury went into deliberate on Saturday, and the judge
31:54
Speaker 1: will have the next day off, but on Monday when
31:56
Speaker 1: they come back on January nineteenth, thineteen eighty eight, it
31:59
Speaker 1: didn't not take them long before they returned with the verdict.
32:02
Speaker 2: When they read off that guilty verdict on them both
32:05
Speaker 2: charges and found me guilty, I mean I felt something
32:09
Speaker 2: a feeling to come over me that It's difficult to
32:12
Speaker 2: explain it, but my heart was sitting in my chest.
32:15
Speaker 2: I was about to choke to death sitting there watching
32:18
Speaker 2: at eighteen years old and watching my life flashing before
32:20
Speaker 2: my eyes. I'm seeing everything that I ain't never gonna have.
32:23
Speaker 2: It's all just like it's passing in front of me
32:26
Speaker 2: so much I've been to miss out on and wanting
32:29
Speaker 2: to myself, I'm not even gonna make it through what they're.
32:31
Speaker 3: Finishing me to.
32:50
Speaker 2: After we're convicted, were sent down to the prison, Jackson
32:53
Speaker 2: State Prison. Men came.
32:55
Speaker 3: We were on the same bus together.
32:57
Speaker 2: We pull up in there looking at that prison engaged
33:00
Speaker 2: out there, and just I looked at him, I said, well,
33:02
Speaker 2: ain't gonna make at me. I said, I don't know
33:03
Speaker 2: what to tell you, man, but in this aintle in
33:05
Speaker 2: well force. And we get to going going through Jackson
33:09
Speaker 2: died Nasi walking in there, and they take you around
33:11
Speaker 2: there and put you in that sale and we used
33:14
Speaker 2: to hear them bars slamming a home lot.
33:16
Speaker 3: They did, and I'm just sitting there knowing that here
33:19
Speaker 3: I am.
33:20
Speaker 2: The whole lies go went destroyed for some lives, and
33:23
Speaker 2: I sit there for twenty five years.
33:25
Speaker 1: So your shared fight for freedom could not have been
33:27
Speaker 1: more dire. And you appealed your case to the Supreme
33:29
Speaker 1: Court of Georgia in nineteen ninety nine. And even though
33:32
Speaker 1: the court agreed that the non existent Gang Roe book
33:35
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been entered into evidence, they weighed against Angela
33:38
Speaker 1: Bruce's testimony about the alleged confession and ultimately upheld the convictions.
33:42
Speaker 1: Over the years, you and King spent a lot of
33:45
Speaker 1: time in the same presence together, and eventually, when you
33:47
Speaker 1: were up in Walker, you met another teenager who'd been
33:50
Speaker 1: convicted of murder in Floyd County. That was Joey Watkins.
33:53
Speaker 1: In fact, the two of you had had the same attorney,
33:55
Speaker 1: Rex Abernathy.
33:56
Speaker 2: Yes, and if it were not for Joey, Hello, but
34:00
Speaker 2: I met you, Susan, And what with Joey, I'd still be.
34:02
Speaker 3: In prison right now doing our life sentence.
34:05
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, I covered Joey's case for my podcast Undisclosed,
34:10
Speaker 1: and while I was working on Joey's case. Joey told
34:12
Speaker 1: me about someone else he knew in prison who had
34:15
Speaker 1: also been falsely convicted of a murder in Floyd County
34:19
Speaker 1: as a teenager. And then one day when he was
34:22
Speaker 1: on the phone with me, he mentioned your case again,
34:24
Speaker 1: and I was like, can I talk to him? And
34:26
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, hold on, I got him right here,
34:29
Speaker 1: And that's how we talked for the very first time.
34:31
Speaker 2: When I got talking to you and you got telling
34:33
Speaker 2: me what you were wanting to do and all that stuff,
34:35
Speaker 2: I was thinking myself, well, he.
34:37
Speaker 3: Be hot, you get this done.
34:38
Speaker 2: But I'll be honest, I fully expected when you went
34:41
Speaker 2: out started talking to people, did you go and get
34:44
Speaker 2: all the same lives that these people had been telling
34:46
Speaker 2: years ago?
34:47
Speaker 1: When just Sinda and I started investigating your case in
34:49
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, we went down to Floyd County several
34:52
Speaker 1: times looking for documents, talking witnesses, and unfortunately Dallas Battle
34:57
Speaker 1: died about a week before our very first trip, but
35:00
Speaker 1: we were able to talk to Angela Bruce, which was
35:02
Speaker 1: really eye opening. She told us, just like you and
35:06
Speaker 1: your attorney head guest, that Battle and Stewart had threatened
35:09
Speaker 1: to charge her with a crime and have family Services
35:12
Speaker 1: take her children away if she didn't tell them what
35:14
Speaker 1: they wanted to hear. Also, she said the Dallas Battle
35:16
Speaker 1: had frequently coerced her her sex, though she told us
35:19
Speaker 1: she'd always turned him down despite that, And when Jasinda
35:22
Speaker 1: and I went to her house, I mean, she was emotional,
35:25
Speaker 1: but she told us, I feel terrible for what happened
35:28
Speaker 1: to Lea and Kane, and I'm sorry, but I would
35:30
Speaker 1: have lost my kids if I hadn't done it, And
35:32
Speaker 1: what mother wouldn't do that if they had to. We
35:34
Speaker 1: also tracked down Charlie Childers, and equally importantly, we tracked
35:39
Speaker 1: down his high school teacher, who had known Charlie for decades,
35:42
Speaker 1: like forty years, and he was familiar with though Charlie
35:45
Speaker 1: and his unique style of sign language and could just
35:49
Speaker 1: talk to Charlie in a way that the trial translator couldn't.
35:51
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaking Susan, he's able to communicate with
35:54
Speaker 2: him better than anybody one faced his planet.
35:56
Speaker 1: And we first began talking to Charlie with the translator,
35:58
Speaker 1: which struck me was just how eager and relieved he
36:01
Speaker 1: was to finally be able to tell his story because
36:04
Speaker 1: he remembered this ordeal. He remember Brian dying and testifying
36:06
Speaker 1: a trial, and clearly it had seriously affected him. But
36:10
Speaker 1: what we found out through the translator is that a trial.
36:14
Speaker 1: Charlie hadn't been testifying about Brian's death at all. He
36:17
Speaker 1: thought he was there to talk about another shooting he'd witnessed,
36:20
Speaker 1: because years before Brian's death, back in the late seventies,
36:24
Speaker 1: Charlie's brother Wayne had been in his bedroom with a
36:26
Speaker 1: friend named Ronnie Quarrels, and the two boys had also
36:29
Speaker 1: been playing with a gun when Ronnie ended up betting,
36:32
Speaker 1: shot in the head and later died. It was this
36:35
Speaker 1: event that Charlie thought the police were there to ask
36:37
Speaker 1: him about, and it was Ronnie's death he was trying
36:40
Speaker 1: to describe to them with his own limited home signing abilities.
36:45
Speaker 1: And when we explained to Charlie that the trial he
36:47
Speaker 1: had been at had been about Brian's death, not Ronnie's,
36:50
Speaker 1: Charlie told us, but I didn't see anything for Brian's death.
36:53
Speaker 1: I wasn't the house, but I didn't know anything about
36:55
Speaker 1: how he died. And he definitely never saw a boy
36:58
Speaker 1: run through the yard, and he'd never seen Lee Clark
37:00
Speaker 1: before ever, it was.
37:01
Speaker 2: A trip made to find out all these years later
37:04
Speaker 2: that that's what Charlie was testifying about.
37:07
Speaker 1: By then, the Georgia Edison's Project had also taken on
37:10
Speaker 1: your case, and you ended up being the first non
37:13
Speaker 1: DNA related case that they had an exoneration in based
37:15
Speaker 1: in the evidence that we found in proof. They were
37:17
Speaker 1: able to file an extraordinary motion for a new trial
37:19
Speaker 1: in Floyd County as well as a habeas petition in
37:22
Speaker 1: the county where you were in prison. But since the
37:25
Speaker 1: Georgia Edison's Project couldn't also represent your co defendant, that
37:28
Speaker 1: meant that Cain didn't have an attorney. After our show aired, though,
37:31
Speaker 1: Luc Martin, an attorney from Floyd County, and Ross Hamrick,
37:34
Speaker 1: who was in the PD's office there, contacted us. We
37:37
Speaker 1: put them touch with Kine and they became his attorneys
37:40
Speaker 1: as well. So all of the attorneys were preparing for
37:43
Speaker 1: a hearing. But then, in a case that was already
37:46
Speaker 1: beyond shocking, perhaps the most shocking thing yet occurred. The
37:50
Speaker 1: Floyd County District Attorney ended up talking to your council
37:53
Speaker 1: and agreeing that this case should be dismissed.
37:56
Speaker 2: Yes, they did, I mean it was evident did much
37:59
Speaker 2: conduct with the cops in there.
38:00
Speaker 3: I mean there was no voiding it.
38:01
Speaker 2: I mean, Dallas battles and David Stewart broke so many
38:04
Speaker 2: laws doing this. I mean it was so obvious that
38:07
Speaker 2: there was no sense of fighting.
38:08
Speaker 1: Do you remember getting the news that you and came
38:11
Speaker 1: to be released.
38:12
Speaker 3: I do remember getting the news.
38:14
Speaker 2: I had called my dad and I was telling him
38:16
Speaker 2: that I thought I was going to a hearing on
38:18
Speaker 2: December to sixth. He said, well, you ain't gonna be
38:21
Speaker 2: going no hearing on December to sixth. You got to
38:23
Speaker 2: hear it coming up on December to eighth, and when
38:26
Speaker 2: December to eighth gets here, you're gonna be coming home.
38:29
Speaker 2: When he told me that, right there, Susan, I was
38:31
Speaker 2: still riding at the cloud right now. I never felt
38:35
Speaker 2: to feeling so great in my life. I'll stay in
38:37
Speaker 2: that cloud now for the rest of my life, because
38:39
Speaker 2: I know what it's like to sit behind prison walls
38:42
Speaker 2: and not have a life, to sit there and have
38:43
Speaker 2: it all snatched from you for something you didn't even do.
38:46
Speaker 2: To finally have my life back, to have my freedom back,
38:49
Speaker 2: and I'll tell you I plan on living all of
38:52
Speaker 2: it up to the fullest every day no matter what
38:54
Speaker 2: comes my way. Anything I'm on face a life cannot
38:57
Speaker 2: be nowhere. It's difficult face while I was in prison.
39:01
Speaker 2: What's hard for a lot of people out here, It's
39:03
Speaker 2: a cakewalk to me because I walk worse past, far worse.
39:07
Speaker 1: So we first of all, thank you so much for
39:10
Speaker 1: being here today and sharing your story with us. I
39:12
Speaker 1: know you've been trying to rebuild your life since you
39:14
Speaker 1: were released, and if listeners want to help support you
39:17
Speaker 1: on that, they can go to Mightycause dot com and
39:19
Speaker 1: search for Lee Clark. Now, this is the part of
39:22
Speaker 1: the show called Closing Arguments. It is your chance to
39:24
Speaker 1: share any final thoughts that you might have with our
39:26
Speaker 1: listeners about anything at all.
39:28
Speaker 3: The flora is yours, I would like.
39:32
Speaker 2: I mean, if there's any young young listeners out there,
39:36
Speaker 2: are any god to be young listeners, there's anybody out
39:39
Speaker 2: there just listening in general, if you're doing some.
39:41
Speaker 3: Wild stuff out there that you shouldn't.
39:43
Speaker 2: Be doing anything like that. I mean, there's all kinds
39:46
Speaker 2: of stuff that can happen to your life. Just be
39:49
Speaker 2: smart about things, approach life from a positive angle. I mean, look,
39:53
Speaker 2: I sit behind prison walls for twenty five years for
39:56
Speaker 2: a crime I didn't commit, but I didn't bring the
39:59
Speaker 2: negativity of it with me. I didn't let the negativity
40:02
Speaker 2: of it destroyed me. Stay in headstrong and believe it
40:05
Speaker 2: in yourself a lot of times if you'll just stay
40:07
Speaker 2: that way. I mean, yeah, it's not guaranteed to pay
40:10
Speaker 2: off every time, but it's a better attitude to have
40:13
Speaker 2: than to sit there and approach everything in life from
40:16
Speaker 2: a negative standpoint, because negativity it's only going to weigh
40:19
Speaker 2: you down and destroy you and n so anything in life,
40:23
Speaker 2: approach it from a positive angle and take the good
40:26
Speaker 2: from it. Even when there ain't much good to be found, Well,
40:29
Speaker 2: pick what is good up and take it with you.
40:31
Speaker 3: It may not be much sturd to grab or grab
40:33
Speaker 3: what you can.
40:34
Speaker 2: And I'm so thankful to everybody, from Joey Watkins to you,
40:40
Speaker 2: to the Innocent Project to just send to Kevin, everybody.
40:44
Speaker 2: I'm just so thankful everybody to just put all the horror,
40:47
Speaker 2: work and time and different into all this stuff to
40:49
Speaker 2: get this truth to come out like it did.
40:52
Speaker 3: I tell you it's something I'm not going to live now.
40:54
Speaker 3: I'll be living on this cloud nine for a long time.
41:03
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest
41:06
Speaker 1: host Susan Simpson. Thanks to executive producers Jason Flahm and
41:09
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis for inviting me to be here, and thanks
41:12
Speaker 1: also to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Llyla
41:15
Speaker 1: Robinson and Jeff Kleiberg. The music in this production comes
41:18
Speaker 1: from three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
41:21
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook
41:24
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
41:28
Speaker 1: as well as Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
41:31
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter at the View from
41:32
Speaker 1: LL two and Instagram at soosimp, and you can listen
41:36
Speaker 1: to my podcast Proof and Undisclosed wherever you listen to
41:38
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
41:41
Speaker 1: Good podcast, an association with Signal Company Number one