Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #262 Maggie Freleng with Brian Parnell

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#262 Maggie Freleng with Brian Parnell · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: I have a question for you, Jason fire Away.
0:03
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes when I talk to people after decades
0:06
Speaker 2: in prison, twenty thirty going on forty something years, how
0:11
Speaker 2: many people have you experienced that do have such a
0:14
Speaker 2: strong support system, like they still have their parents, brothers, sisters,
0:20
Speaker 2: connected with their children that they might have had before prison.
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Speaker 3: Well, I don't know the percentage, but I can tell
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Speaker 3: you this, For the people that do, it's a literal lifeline.
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Speaker 3: Just knowing that there's people out there that love you,
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Speaker 3: that care about you, that are concerned for your well being.
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Speaker 3: It can be literally the thing that saves people, and
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Speaker 3: it could be the thing that helps to free them.
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Speaker 4: It's like a gaping hole. It's as if his family
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Speaker 4: has been constrated along with him. In other words, we're
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Speaker 4: doing the time with him.
0:58
Speaker 1: From love for good is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling
1:02
Speaker 1: today Brian Parnell. On August twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
1:14
Speaker 1: Konstantinos Bulius, also known as Gus, finished closing up his
1:18
Speaker 1: two pizza shops in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He went
1:21
Speaker 1: home to his wife, Daphne and two children. Sometime later
1:25
Speaker 1: that night, Daphne woke up to a loud bang. She
1:28
Speaker 1: found Gus lying on the floor, shot in the back.
1:31
Speaker 1: Daphne and her children tried to help and called nine
1:34
Speaker 1: one one. Gus was taken to the hospital, but by
1:38
Speaker 1: the time he arrived it was too late. Gus Boulius
1:42
Speaker 1: was gone. Responding officers took note of evidence at the scene,
1:49
Speaker 1: collecting hair samples and several partial fingerprints, but after searching
1:53
Speaker 1: the house, detectives decided, even with nothing actually taken from
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Speaker 1: the home, that it was robbery gone wrong. Detective Kenneth
2:03
Speaker 1: Beam ran the prince through databases in Pennsylvania and surrounding states,
2:07
Speaker 1: but no match turned up. Eventually, the case went cold.
2:15
Speaker 1: Four years later, Detective Beam took the prince to the
2:19
Speaker 1: FBI to run them through their national fingerprint system, and
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Speaker 1: suddenly he had a suspect, twenty nine year old Brian Parnell.
2:27
Speaker 1: Despite having multiple alibi witnesses, Brian was arrested for murder
2:31
Speaker 1: on September eighteenth, two thousand and one.
2:35
Speaker 5: That was a shock. I was really in shock, Like,
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Speaker 5: oh my.
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Speaker 6: God, you know, this is like, oh man, I still
2:43
Speaker 6: feel the emotions. I mean, talking about it right now
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Speaker 6: is making me tear of because I don't know if
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Speaker 6: you've ever been accused of something that you know you
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Speaker 6: didn't do, no affiliation with. And I've been living this
2:57
Speaker 6: nightmare for twenty going into my twenty four first year.
3:09
Speaker 1: Brian Parnell was born in Philadelphia on Valentine's Day, nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy two, to Corinne and DeAndre Parnell.
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Speaker 5: Brian Parnell is a very fun, loving kind of guy.
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Speaker 5: He's a family very family orientated above all.
3:23
Speaker 1: That's how Brian describes himself. He grew up in a large,
3:26
Speaker 1: loving family. His father was a mailman and his mother
3:30
Speaker 1: was a federal law enforcement officer. His parents divorced when
3:33
Speaker 1: he was little, but they worked hard to maintain family harmony.
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Speaker 5: And I was blessed with very very beautiful parents, not
3:44
Speaker 5: just you know, my biological parents, but also my stepparents.
3:47
Speaker 5: Even though my dad and my mom went through whatever
3:50
Speaker 5: they went through, they never reflected that on us. They
3:53
Speaker 5: made sure we were in, you know, a part of
3:55
Speaker 5: each other's lives. Because my two younger sisters they have
3:58
Speaker 5: a different mother than I do. They made sure we
4:01
Speaker 5: all knew who we are. You know each other and
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Speaker 5: interact with each other. So when I say that we
4:08
Speaker 5: were rooted in love. I'm very rooted in love.
4:11
Speaker 1: Brian's sister Tamra remembers this time fondly.
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Speaker 4: Bryan was always doing something. He had like dogs growing up, reptiles, frogs, fish.
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Speaker 4: He was your normal child. But in being your normal child,
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Speaker 4: he was very caring and concerned. He was compassionate. He
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Speaker 4: had like a imagination that was just out of this world.
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Speaker 4: My mother brought him this red outfit and he would
4:38
Speaker 4: put that outfit on and he would do the Michael
4:41
Speaker 4: Jackson's Billy Jean and then he would do the moon walk,
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Speaker 4: or he had that dance and that song down tag.
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Speaker 4: You would think he was Michael Jackson. I mean he
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Speaker 4: just was or is a loving, funny, precocious, curious kid
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Speaker 4: and an adult that to this wonderful man.
5:06
Speaker 1: Brian's first child, Brian Junior, was born when Brian was
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Speaker 1: twenty five years old.
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Speaker 5: I used to take him out to the park when
5:13
Speaker 5: we's River Drive and we would go to this old
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Speaker 5: big shop and buy the steel bread and I would
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Speaker 5: take him out there and we would see yeese and
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Speaker 5: that was like one of the most beautifulest things, just
5:25
Speaker 5: to see his mind expand at an early age. You know,
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Speaker 5: being around him, it changed me as a man.
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Speaker 1: Brian's daughter, Brianna, also brought some surprising changes to his life.
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Speaker 4: He would do his daughter's hair and I never knew
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Speaker 4: a man to do a little girl's hair, And he
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Speaker 4: would fix her hair and.
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Speaker 1: It was neat tamrasas. Brian was a great dad, gannaling
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Speaker 1: the love and support his family gave to him onto
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Speaker 1: his children.
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Speaker 4: My brother was in their life every day until this happened.
6:07
Speaker 1: By the time Brian Junior, Brianna and his son Cameron
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Speaker 1: were born, Brian was ready to have a career to
6:12
Speaker 1: support his family. He had a dream of opening an
6:15
Speaker 1: automotive shop because he'd always loved cars. He even had
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Speaker 1: his own hot rod, so he enrolled at Lincoln Technical
6:22
Speaker 1: Institute to pursue a career in automotive mechanics. Things for
6:27
Speaker 1: the young dad and future mechanics were going great, that
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Speaker 1: is until September eighteenth, two thousand and one. Brian was
6:34
Speaker 1: at school that morning.
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Speaker 5: That morning was one of the most hands down craziest
6:40
Speaker 5: mornings of my life. We was setting up in the lab,
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Speaker 5: we was inside the shop, and we was getting ourselves
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Speaker 5: together for that day and principal comes to the door.
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Speaker 5: He's like, far now, I want to see you in
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Speaker 5: my office real quick. And when I went in his office,
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Speaker 5: there was two guys in here, and once I came in,
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Speaker 5: they shut the door, and this like four or five
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Speaker 5: cops started walking up on the door outside the door
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Speaker 5: and they started telling me, hey, mister Parnell, we got
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Speaker 5: a matter with you involving a homicide. And I said, what,
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Speaker 5: because I've never been in that type of life, you know,
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Speaker 5: killing anybody, carrying guns or anything like that. I don't
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Speaker 5: get down like that. But when they turned around and
7:21
Speaker 5: said to me, yeah, we have your DNA and we
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Speaker 5: got your fingerprints at a prime. See you choked this
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Speaker 5: guy from Westchester, I said, wait a minute, you got
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Speaker 5: the wrong guy.
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Speaker 1: Brian denied any knowledge of the crime or any connection
7:40
Speaker 1: to Gus. Brian explained how he had only been to
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Speaker 1: the town Gus lived in twice in his life. He
7:45
Speaker 1: was cooperative with police.
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Speaker 5: You know, whatever you want to do. I want to
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Speaker 5: give my hair and my samples up for DNA testing.
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Speaker 5: I offered all of that from the gate that approved
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Speaker 5: my innocence. I'm gonna give it to you.
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Speaker 1: Despite his efforts to prove his innocence. Brian was arrested
8:02
Speaker 1: and charged with the murder of Gus Boulius and to
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Speaker 1: understand why we have to go back four years to
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Speaker 1: the night of the murder. Almost exactly four years earlier.
8:16
Speaker 1: Gus Bullius arrived home after closing his pizza shop at
8:20
Speaker 1: around two forty am. Gus's wife woke up to the
8:23
Speaker 1: sound of voices in the hallway, a loud bang, the
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Speaker 1: thought of someone falling, footsteps running out the house, and
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Speaker 1: the screen door slamming shut. She ran out of her room,
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Speaker 1: where she found Gus lying on the floor. She and
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Speaker 1: their two children tried to help him, but it was futile.
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Speaker 1: Gus died on the way to the hospital. Detectives Gregory
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Speaker 1: Stone and Kenneth Beam were assigned to the case. After
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Speaker 1: inspecting the crime scene, they quickly concluded that this was
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Speaker 1: not a random attack but quote a robbery gone wrong,
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Speaker 1: although no money or property was taken from home. At
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Speaker 1: the same time, twenty miles away from the Bullius home,
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Speaker 1: about forty five minutes away by car, Brian was in
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Speaker 1: West Philadelphia at his girlfriend Lakeisha's house. With Lakeisha, her sister, Jovita,
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Speaker 1: and Brian's cousin Maurice. According to Maurice, they were all
9:18
Speaker 1: spending the night.
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Speaker 5: If nobody else on this planet knows, I know that
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Speaker 5: he was with me that entire night until the next morning.
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Speaker 7: Brian had an alibi witness. Brian was with his girlfriend
9:32
Speaker 7: at the time, the mother of his child.
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Speaker 1: This is Mark Howard.
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Speaker 8: I'm a professor of Government in Law at Georgetown. I'm
9:40
Speaker 8: also the director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative, and
9:44
Speaker 8: I co teach a class informally called Making an x
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Speaker 8: Honery with my childhood friend Marty Tankliffe, who was himself
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Speaker 8: an x honore of course, and we have our students
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Speaker 8: reinvestigate possible wrongful conviction cases and if they feel strongly
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Speaker 8: about it, to advocate for the person's inno sense and exoneration.
10:02
Speaker 1: The Making an Exonery program created a partnership with Discovery,
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Speaker 1: who carefully reviewed Brian's case and concluded that Brian Parnell
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Speaker 1: did not kill Gus Bullius.
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Speaker 7: Brian did not know the victim. Brian did not know
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Speaker 7: that part of town. He'd only been there a couple
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Speaker 7: times in his entire life. It was not an area
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Speaker 7: that he frequented. He had zero connection to the victim.
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Speaker 7: He'd never been to the pizza shops. Brian had zero
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Speaker 7: connection to any of that, so then.
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Speaker 1: Why did the police home in on Brian. At the
10:32
Speaker 1: crime scene, Detective Stone and Beam collected DNA, a sliced
10:36
Speaker 1: window screen in the dining room, hair samples, and several
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Speaker 1: partial fingerprints from the window sill, ledge, and screen, and
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Speaker 1: those fingerprints are what would later lead the police to
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Speaker 1: Brian Parnell. This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading
10:59
Speaker 1: global insurance company. AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility
11:04
Speaker 1: and to making a positive difference in the lives of
11:07
Speaker 1: its employees and in the communities where we work and live.
11:11
Speaker 1: In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance,
11:15
Speaker 1: and in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social
11:19
Speaker 1: justice reform, the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal
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Speaker 1: services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. After
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Speaker 1: police cleared the murder scene, Detective Beam took the partial
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Speaker 1: fingerprints they had recovered to the Pennsylvania State Police Lab
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Speaker 1: to run them through the Pennsylvania State Wide APIs, the
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Speaker 1: Automated fingerprint identification system. He also compared them to prints
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Speaker 1: from surrounding states New Jersey, Delaware, and DC. Each state
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Speaker 1: has to be queried individually. The night of the murder,
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Speaker 1: Beam got a hit on one person, but he determined,
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Speaker 1: after visually reviewing the prince that they did not match,
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Speaker 1: and so he immediately eliminated this person as a suspect,
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Speaker 1: and that person was never questioned, investigated, or arrested. The
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Speaker 1: lead was completely ignored. Now it's time to take a
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Speaker 1: step aside and talk about fingerprints because they're not a
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Speaker 1: perfect science.
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Speaker 7: It's an approximation. It's humans making judgments based on similarities
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Speaker 7: to their naked eye. So keep that in mind. This
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Speaker 7: is not science, This is really more art.
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Speaker 1: Fingerprints have to be compared manually by experts. Detective Beam
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Speaker 1: was actually considered the best fingerprint guy in Chester County
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Speaker 1: after just a few FBI training courses in latent print testing.
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Speaker 1: He didn't have an academic or doctorate degree in forensics,
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Speaker 1: and Beam was the sole person left to determine who
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Speaker 1: these prints belonged to.
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Speaker 7: And again, if prints were partial fingerprints, okay, so they
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Speaker 7: weren't even full fingerprints, they're not good material to make
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Speaker 7: a strong match.
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Speaker 1: Even if you do have a full print fingerprinting has
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Speaker 1: been more or less debunked as junk science in the
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Speaker 1: world of justice, similar to teeth impressions and fiber comparisons.
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Speaker 9: And fingerprints have been accepted as evidence in courts for
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Speaker 9: over one hundred years, and people assume that it's reliable.
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Speaker 1: This is Mary Moriarty, chief public defender in Hennepin County, Minnesota.
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Speaker 1: She's talking to Wrongful Conviction junk Science host Josh Dubin.
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Speaker 9: You are first looking at a fragment of the print,
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Speaker 9: and it is totally within the subjectivity, the subjective discretion
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Speaker 9: of a fingerprint analysis or examiner to decide whether there
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Speaker 9: is enough information on that print to even go ahead
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Speaker 9: and compare it. So just think about that. It is
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Speaker 9: completely subjective.
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Speaker 1: The Pennsylvania State Police search for the person who matched
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Speaker 1: the partial prints for over a year. They then concluded
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Speaker 1: the person whose prince they matched was not in their system,
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Speaker 1: and they registered the prince to the Unsolved Latent print database.
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Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. Brian's Prince had been in their
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Speaker 1: system at the time of the murder. He was actually
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Speaker 1: arrested in the past on an unrelated minor charge. Yet
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Speaker 1: when they searched for matching prints. Brian's did not come
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Speaker 1: up as a candidate or match, But despite that, Brian
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Speaker 1: was arrested for the murder.
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Speaker 7: It came completely out of nowhere because it was four
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Speaker 7: years after the crime had taken place.
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Speaker 1: Detective Beam was determined to close the case. It seems
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Speaker 1: Detective Beam still had the Gus Boulias murder on his mind.
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Speaker 7: At some point, four years after the crime, at a
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Speaker 7: conference in Miami with the FBI, the detective brings these
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Speaker 7: prints and then asks the FBI to look at them
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Speaker 7: in a database and it comes up potentially being similar
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Speaker 7: to twenty four people. One of those people is Brian Parnell.
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Speaker 1: Brian's Prince eventually popped up four years later as a
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Speaker 1: potential match among dozens of others when the FBI ran
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Speaker 1: them through their National Integrated Automated Identification System i APHIS database.
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Speaker 7: But we're talking about a very weak, partial fingerprint that
15:35
Speaker 7: one person who was hell bent on solving this crime,
15:38
Speaker 7: who had a tremendous amount of pressure on him to
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Speaker 7: find somebody, decided this is the guy, and Detective Being
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Speaker 7: just fixates on Brian Parnell from that point forward, doesn't
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Speaker 7: even look at the other twenty three.
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Speaker 1: Despite testing the hair and DNA found at the scene
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Speaker 1: of the crime, neither of which showed up as a
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Speaker 1: match for Brian, he was arrested.
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Speaker 7: And I think when he found Brian, it seemed convenient,
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Speaker 7: even though obviously Brian had no motive, didn't know the victim,
16:04
Speaker 7: didn't really go in that area, but he was close enough.
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Speaker 7: I think the fact that Brian's African American likely played
16:11
Speaker 7: a role. The fact that Brian had a previous criminal record,
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Speaker 7: although very minor one. I want to emphasize, no violent crimes,
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Speaker 7: nothing whatsoever. Just a couple minor offenses, and most of
16:24
Speaker 7: them have been dismissed. But I think that was convenient
16:27
Speaker 7: for the detective to say, you know what, let's just
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Speaker 7: close the case. Let's get this guy. I'm going to
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Speaker 7: declare it a match. He's going to get convicted and
16:36
Speaker 7: be done with it.
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Speaker 1: The prosecutor at trial was first Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody.
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Speaker 1: At trial, the fact that the DNA and hair samples
16:49
Speaker 1: did not match Brian was a hurdle for him.
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Speaker 7: So they suddenly developed with this very common as you
16:55
Speaker 7: know in wrongful conviction cases. Oh well, then there must
16:57
Speaker 7: have been a second perpetrator me.
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Speaker 1: Although there was no effort to ever find the second perpetrator.
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Speaker 1: The prosecution had no murder weapon, no witnesses, no motive,
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Speaker 1: and no connection between Brian and Gus Boulius. Brian was
17:12
Speaker 1: also forty minutes away. The partial fingerprint was the only
17:16
Speaker 1: evidence used against Brian. In fact, during police interviews with
17:20
Speaker 1: Gus's friends, family, and colleagues, they gave the names of
17:23
Speaker 1: multiple people who actually could have committed the crime.
17:28
Speaker 7: The victim's wife thought that the person knew him and
17:31
Speaker 7: came through the front door. There were a lot of
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Speaker 7: people with motive, with opportunity, people who had talked about
17:35
Speaker 7: killing the victim, people who had grudges against the victim,
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Speaker 7: people who thought the victims stolen money from them.
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Speaker 1: In fact, according to police reports and interviews, on the
17:45
Speaker 1: day before his murder, Gus told his business partner that
17:48
Speaker 1: he had become aware that a couple of his employees
17:51
Speaker 1: were discussing breaking into his home to rob him. At
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Speaker 1: the time of the murder, there was nearly fifty thousand
17:58
Speaker 1: dollars in cash hidden in the rafters of Gus's home
18:01
Speaker 1: office in his basement, and his colleagues knew about that money.
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Speaker 7: And the lead detective, Kenneth Beam, for some reason, was
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Speaker 7: fixated on two partial fingerprints on the screen of a
18:15
Speaker 7: window coming into the house and decided that only the
18:20
Speaker 7: person who matched those fingerprints would have committed the crime,
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Speaker 7: and therefore he rejected all these people who were obvious
18:27
Speaker 7: suspects and didn't investigate them because he decided their fingerprints
18:31
Speaker 7: didn't match.
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Speaker 1: And Prosecutor Carmody ran with this. He was determined to
18:37
Speaker 1: get a conviction after all this time, which allegedly included
18:41
Speaker 1: bribing Brian's alibi witnesses. Here's Brian's ex girl friend, Lakeisha,
18:46
Speaker 1: one of the people he was with that night, talking
18:48
Speaker 1: to someone from Brian's team.
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Speaker 10: The DA or whoever he was was, asked me all
18:53
Speaker 10: the questions and the police officers were bullying me. Basically,
18:57
Speaker 10: they told me that they would offer me their eight
19:00
Speaker 10: thousand dollars to say that Brian did it a house
19:03
Speaker 10: and witness protection and then I declined, and then they
19:07
Speaker 10: basically told me if I didn't cooperate and do what
19:09
Speaker 10: they wanted to do, they would take away my children.
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Speaker 1: Now you might be wondering what about Brian's defense and
19:18
Speaker 1: alibi Brian's parents were lucky enough to be able to
19:21
Speaker 1: hire private attorneys. His defense team were lawyers Ronald Joseph Tarik,
19:25
Speaker 1: kareem Elscha Boz and Gerald Aston, and they came highly
19:30
Speaker 1: recommended to Brian by another incarcerated person. But quickly Brian
19:35
Speaker 1: realized they were not going to help him to the
19:37
Speaker 1: extent that he needed.
19:39
Speaker 5: And I said, I want you to talk to my family,
19:41
Speaker 5: my entire family. And they didn't do none of that.
19:44
Speaker 5: He said, I called him, nobody answered the phone. Said
19:46
Speaker 5: that's not true, because they call you and they tried
19:50
Speaker 5: to sell Oh, I didn't get no calls from your family.
19:53
Speaker 5: I said, that's not true.
19:55
Speaker 1: They told Brian they were dropping his alibi defense and
19:58
Speaker 1: that meant both alibis, because Brian also had a physical
20:03
Speaker 1: inability to commit this murder the way the police and
20:07
Speaker 1: prosecution said it went down. Police insisted the killer came
20:12
Speaker 1: through the window, but Brian he was on crutches at
20:15
Speaker 1: the time of the murder.
20:17
Speaker 7: At least a week before the incident and after the incident.
20:20
Speaker 1: Here's Mark again, and.
20:21
Speaker 7: There's no way he would have been able to climb
20:23
Speaker 7: through the window when he was on crutches and couldn't
20:27
Speaker 7: walk I mean, it just defies credulity.
20:30
Speaker 1: But his defense did not bring up his injury or
20:33
Speaker 1: call his alibi witnesses. They did not question the validity
20:36
Speaker 1: of the fingerprints or call their own experts. And alternate
20:40
Speaker 1: suspects were also not presented. So I had to ask Brian,
20:45
Speaker 1: how did that feel?
20:47
Speaker 5: It hurts, And to be real with you, I said
20:51
Speaker 5: to myself, they're railroad. This is a railroad job, and
20:55
Speaker 5: it's a sloppy rail road job. It's blatant. I'm sorry,
21:00
Speaker 5: it's emotional. I'm sorry if my voice is breaking up,
21:03
Speaker 5: but it hurts.
21:05
Speaker 1: In First District Attorney Carmody's closing statement, he said, quote,
21:09
Speaker 1: I want to thank mister Parnell for not wearing gloves
21:12
Speaker 1: that day. He gave us the evidence. The defense can't
21:15
Speaker 1: explain away the fingerprints, bottom line, and that's going to
21:18
Speaker 1: convict them, and it did.
21:21
Speaker 7: The fingerprints are what led to Brian being convicted. A
21:25
Speaker 7: very weak partial fingerprint. So imagine a jury of well
21:30
Speaker 7: intentioned people who are believing law enforcement, believing the evidence
21:33
Speaker 7: coming forward in trial hearing. It's a one hundred percent
21:36
Speaker 7: match that is completely fictitious. It's just outrageous. And the
21:39
Speaker 7: trial was an absolute farce. We're talking a murder trial
21:44
Speaker 7: with a person getting a life sentence, and it took
21:48
Speaker 7: place in under two days, and that includes the full
21:52
Speaker 7: trial and the jury deliberations.
21:56
Speaker 1: After only two hours of deliberation, Brian was convicted of
21:59
Speaker 1: second degree murder and burglary on July fifteenth, two thousand
22:03
Speaker 1: and two. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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Speaker 4: First of all, it was devastation to the entire family.
22:18
Speaker 1: Here's Brian's sister Tamera again.
22:22
Speaker 4: It says if his family has been incarcerated along with him,
22:25
Speaker 4: in other words, we didn't do to crime, but we're
22:29
Speaker 4: doing their time with him. It's like a gaping hole.
22:33
Speaker 4: You know, the person still exists, but you can't have
22:36
Speaker 4: regular contact or interaction with them that you normally would
22:40
Speaker 4: have on a day to day basis. It's horrible because
22:44
Speaker 4: you have to try to function as a family unit
22:46
Speaker 4: as if they're there, but they're not there. And especially
22:50
Speaker 4: when you know they've not done something, or they've been
22:53
Speaker 4: incarcerated for something they did not do, that even hurts
22:56
Speaker 4: even more.
23:00
Speaker 1: And she says Brian's incarceration deeply affected his children, who
23:04
Speaker 1: were so young at the time.
23:06
Speaker 4: They had a hard time grasping in the beginning that
23:12
Speaker 4: he was away in jail with bars and guards, in
23:17
Speaker 4: a place an institution where we don't have any control
23:21
Speaker 4: over him coming out. Because they didn't understand. They wanted
23:25
Speaker 4: him to come with them when we would go visit
23:27
Speaker 4: at the prison. They wanted him to play with him.
23:32
Speaker 4: Parents can't play with their children in the prison system,
23:36
Speaker 4: or they have designated area for the playroom for children,
23:39
Speaker 4: but the incarcerated people can't go in that room, and
23:44
Speaker 4: it's hard for a five year old or an eight
23:48
Speaker 4: year old to understand that.
23:52
Speaker 1: It was also hard for their mother to understand that.
23:56
Speaker 4: My mom in the beginning, she engulfed herself with this case,
24:00
Speaker 4: Like her dining room table used to stay full of
24:02
Speaker 4: his files and Affidavid's, the whole everything. She had crime
24:08
Speaker 4: scene pictures, everything, and she really studied the case a
24:12
Speaker 4: lot more than any family member. Yeah, it's like, how
24:18
Speaker 4: do you help parents wrap their mind or adjust to
24:23
Speaker 4: the fact that their child has been incarcerated wrongfully, let alone,
24:28
Speaker 4: but for twenty one years you can't.
24:31
Speaker 1: But it also personally hurt Brian's mom because she was
24:35
Speaker 1: law enforcement and she taught her kids to cooperate and
24:39
Speaker 1: respect the law.
24:41
Speaker 4: So that's where it becomes a double betrayal for my
24:44
Speaker 4: mom because she's like my children. I raised him. I
24:48
Speaker 4: raised them, and I raised him to be truthful and
24:51
Speaker 4: honest and to cooperate with law enforcement. How do you
24:56
Speaker 4: take incarcerator or make someone guilty of some and fix
25:01
Speaker 4: things to make it like it was they did the crime. So, yeah,
25:06
Speaker 4: that hurts. It's a dagger.
25:08
Speaker 5: I actually looked at law enforcement officers through the eye
25:13
Speaker 5: of my mother, and when I say I used to
25:16
Speaker 5: have that belief that certain gods would do above and beyond.
25:20
Speaker 5: Don't get me wrong, but there were a lot of
25:23
Speaker 5: good ones out there because of my mother, and that
25:26
Speaker 5: right there is where I try to keep it. I
25:30
Speaker 5: try to keep it still in that realm, because I
25:32
Speaker 5: believe it or not, there are a lot of police
25:35
Speaker 5: officers that really mean and do good. You have a
25:40
Speaker 5: lot of them.
25:45
Speaker 1: While in prison, Brian has enjoyed studying law and assisting
25:48
Speaker 1: others who are incarcerated with legal work. He's even helped
25:51
Speaker 1: some corrections officers with the law when they were helping
25:53
Speaker 1: their family members. Brian says when he gets out, he
25:57
Speaker 1: wants to advocate for the wrongfully accused, help change the
26:00
Speaker 1: laws that results in mass incarceration. He plans to call
26:04
Speaker 1: his organization home Front.
26:06
Speaker 5: Me and my son came up with My oldest son
26:08
Speaker 5: came up with the concept of calling it the home
26:12
Speaker 5: front to help family members in my situation. Geared towards parents, siblings,
26:19
Speaker 5: and children, more so, to teach them how to advocate
26:23
Speaker 5: for their family members that's incarcerated.
26:26
Speaker 1: But at fifty years old. Above all, Brian works every
26:30
Speaker 1: day to prove his innocence so he can get out
26:33
Speaker 1: and be with his growing family.
26:35
Speaker 5: I have a whole bunch of beautiful nieces and nephews,
26:39
Speaker 5: and I even have now two granddaughters and I have
26:43
Speaker 5: one on the way.
26:45
Speaker 1: Wow, how old your granddaughters?
26:47
Speaker 5: The oldest is five and the youngest is two.
26:52
Speaker 1: After being incarcerated for so long, Brian says, what he's
26:55
Speaker 1: gone through is a nightmare.
26:58
Speaker 5: I wouldn't wish this on nobody. It's a nightmare to
27:05
Speaker 5: be accused of killing a man. I walk through these
27:10
Speaker 5: walls at this institution day in and day out with
27:13
Speaker 5: the conscience clear because I know I never killed nobody
27:17
Speaker 5: a day in my life.
27:23
Speaker 1: Brian has filed multiple appeals and they've all been denied.
27:27
Speaker 1: As of two thousand and five, one of Brian's attorneys,
27:30
Speaker 1: Ronald Joseph, was placed on administrative suspension and has not
27:34
Speaker 1: practiced law in Pennsylvania since. Brian is also represented by
27:40
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which is seeking additional testing of evidence.
27:45
Speaker 1: This could result in a DNA profile that could then
27:47
Speaker 1: be uploaded to the national database, and that could be
27:51
Speaker 1: the very thing that finds who actually kills Gus Bulius.
28:01
Speaker 1: For more information on the case, go to Justice for
28:03
Speaker 1: Brian Parnell dot com and follow at Justice for Brian
28:06
Speaker 1: Parnell on Twitter. Next week on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling,
28:14
Speaker 1: Davonna Enman, and Life after Exoneration, It's a.
28:20
Speaker 11: Lot more to it than just being free, because the
28:26
Speaker 11: prison part it was hard, but it's not harder than
28:31
Speaker 11: being thrown back into a big old ocean and you
28:37
Speaker 11: don't know what's in it or what's there no more.
28:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
28:46
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
28:49
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
28:52
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and
28:55
Speaker 1: Kevin Wurtis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher
28:59
Speaker 1: Lila Robinson, story editor Sonia Paul, with additional production by
29:04
Speaker 1: Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. Special thanks go to Mark
29:07
Speaker 1: Howard and the Making an Axonerary program. The music in
29:11
Speaker 1: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
29:17
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
29:23
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
29:26
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
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Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
29:35
Speaker 1: Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
29:38
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one