Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #329 Maggie Freleng with Brandon Woodruff

Transcript

#329 Maggie Freleng with Brandon Woodruff · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: In October of two thousand and five, nineteen year old
0:07
Speaker 1: Brandon Woodroff was home from college visiting his parents. They
0:11
Speaker 1: had just moved to a new home in Royce City, Texas.
0:15
Speaker 1: Brandon helped them around the house, and then the family
0:18
Speaker 1: sat down to a pizza dinner. In almost every way,
0:21
Speaker 1: it was a normal Sunday night for the Woodroffs.
0:25
Speaker 2: Everything just seemed to be ordinary. I mean, if I
0:29
Speaker 2: you know, if somebody were to tell me, well it
0:31
Speaker 2: was there one thing that was strange, was there one
0:33
Speaker 2: thing that was odd? And I can't pinpoint anything. It
0:35
Speaker 2: was just a normal weekend. None of this what ended
0:39
Speaker 2: up happening was even I mean, I couldn't even have
0:41
Speaker 2: thought that would have happened.
0:44
Speaker 1: Two days later, Brandon's parents were found brutally murdered. In
0:48
Speaker 1: the days that followed, Brandon was doing his best to
0:50
Speaker 1: try and help investigators find out who had killed them.
0:54
Speaker 2: And then they just flipped the whole table and they
0:56
Speaker 2: were like, well we really think that you murdered your parents.
1:01
Speaker 2: My name is Brendon del Woodriff. I'm thirty six years
1:04
Speaker 2: old from Rockwall, Texas, and I've been wrongly convicted for
1:06
Speaker 2: seventeen years.
1:10
Speaker 1: From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
1:13
Speaker 1: Freeling today. Brandon Woodruff Brendan Woodruff was born September sixth,
1:36
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, in Rockwall, Texas, to Dennis and Norma Woodruff.
1:41
Speaker 1: Brendan and his sister, Charla are eighteen months apart.
1:45
Speaker 3: He was a baby. Other family.
1:47
Speaker 1: This is Brendan's grandma, Bonnie.
1:50
Speaker 3: Brandon was always a happy child. He just he loved everyone.
1:54
Speaker 3: He was always happy singing when he's a little boy smiling.
2:00
Speaker 1: Brandon describes life growing up as idyllic.
2:04
Speaker 2: We had two wonderful parents. They kind of spoiled us
2:07
Speaker 2: a whole lot, he says.
2:09
Speaker 1: The family was always on the go and participating in
2:12
Speaker 1: community events. Charlie was a dancer and had recitals and shows,
2:17
Speaker 1: and Brandon embraced the country life. The Wooddrifts lived on
2:21
Speaker 1: a farm in the town of Heath, just a few
2:24
Speaker 1: miles south of Rockwall.
2:25
Speaker 2: Kind of a small town. It's really like close knit.
2:29
Speaker 1: And Brandon was involved in the youth agricultural organizations Four
2:32
Speaker 1: Age and Future Farmers of America.
2:36
Speaker 2: My mom gave me this passion for horses, and so
2:40
Speaker 2: my mom was really there to you know, kind of
2:42
Speaker 2: inspire me and teach me things with the horses, with
2:44
Speaker 2: the cattle. Like she was a blue Jean kind of woman.
2:48
Speaker 2: Most moms like cook when my dad cooked, and my
2:52
Speaker 2: mom was out there hauling hay like a hard working guy.
2:56
Speaker 2: And you know, she would go out there with a
2:58
Speaker 2: postal digger and you know, go dig to put a
3:01
Speaker 2: post and build a fence. Yeah, she was definitely like
3:05
Speaker 2: one of the strongest women I've known.
3:08
Speaker 1: Brendan says he and his mom raised livestock to show
3:10
Speaker 1: and sell at markets in the surrounding cities.
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Speaker 2: We would basically get a young count and you basically
3:17
Speaker 2: raise them up since so maybe you halter train them,
3:20
Speaker 2: which can be hectic. And then I didn't really want
3:22
Speaker 2: to do the market steers because then you'd have to
3:24
Speaker 2: sell them to butcher and I really didn't want to butcher.
3:25
Speaker 1: My animals, so Brandon would show them instead, traveling to
3:30
Speaker 1: fairs all over Texas.
3:32
Speaker 2: So it's a lot of hours and three o'clock in
3:35
Speaker 2: the morning drive times to Wago, Texas and Abilene and
3:40
Speaker 2: for war stock show and all different types of rodeo
3:42
Speaker 2: and fairs.
3:43
Speaker 1: So that is a life. I know nothing, but it
3:48
Speaker 1: sounds pretty cool. Brandon loved this life, especially being around horses.
3:55
Speaker 2: Really, I kind of wanted to be a horse trainer,
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Speaker 2: Like I really have this huge horse bug. My mom
4:00
Speaker 2: volunteered at a therapeutic writing center called Equests for like
4:04
Speaker 2: disabled kids and kids with like autism and stuff, and
4:07
Speaker 2: so she used to take me out there to volunteer.
4:10
Speaker 2: You know, it kind of opened my eyes to the
4:11
Speaker 2: world is a little bit different than in your perfect
4:14
Speaker 2: little neighborhoods.
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Speaker 1: Brandon was also really close with his father. He says
4:20
Speaker 1: his dad was really funny, Like.
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Speaker 2: He was kind of embarrassingly funny, Like he was a
4:25
Speaker 2: class clown like I was, kind of. He would just
4:28
Speaker 2: make everybody laugh, and I would have friends come over,
4:31
Speaker 2: and he had blared Tina Turner's Proud Mary, like at
4:33
Speaker 2: eight o'clock in the morning. He would go get donuts,
4:36
Speaker 2: and I would come out and he'd be in the
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Speaker 2: room dancing to Proud Mary, and I've got my friends over,
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Speaker 2: and I'd be like, Dad, are you crazy.
4:44
Speaker 1: One time, Brandon remembers he broke both his legs falling
4:48
Speaker 1: off a horse. For the first two months of recovery,
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Speaker 1: he was bedridden and his dad was totally there for him.
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Speaker 2: And so I had a toilet next to my bed,
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Speaker 2: and I remember when I had to use the toilet,
5:01
Speaker 2: it was so embarrassing for me. You know, I'm already
5:03
Speaker 2: a teenager and I'm having to scoot onto this plastic
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Speaker 2: toilet to use the bathroom. And my dad literally took
5:09
Speaker 2: off work so he could be there. So anytime that,
5:12
Speaker 2: like I needed him, I could just say hey, Dad,
5:15
Speaker 2: you know, and he would come in there and he
5:16
Speaker 2: would claim the whole toilet, like, no questions asked, no embarrassment,
5:19
Speaker 2: no belittle.
5:20
Speaker 1: Mint Brandon says there was a lot of love in
5:27
Speaker 1: the Woodroff household, but internally he was struggling. It started
5:32
Speaker 1: around his high school years in the early two thousands.
5:36
Speaker 2: I basically started to like maybe exploring my sexuality.
5:40
Speaker 1: He had a girlfriend, Morgan, who he really loved, but
5:43
Speaker 1: he also had thoughts and feelings about boys.
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Speaker 2: Coming from a close knit town, there wasn't too many
5:50
Speaker 2: quote unquote gay kids at school. I think we maybe
5:53
Speaker 2: had like one or two, and you know, I was embarrassed,
5:55
Speaker 2: I am to say it now, you know. I was
5:56
Speaker 2: kind of along with the group that kind of made
5:58
Speaker 2: fun of them.
6:00
Speaker 1: So in his world of Rockwall, Texas. Brandon kept his
6:02
Speaker 1: attraction to boys to himself.
6:06
Speaker 2: You know, to my friends that I showed cattle and
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Speaker 2: horses with. I knew that they'd probably not understand, and
6:11
Speaker 2: especially the re action to gay people in my small town.
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Speaker 2: You know, they were just kind of like ostracized a
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Speaker 2: little bit. Like I said, there was maybe only two
6:20
Speaker 2: in my public high school, and I think both of
6:22
Speaker 2: them went to alternative school by the end of their
6:24
Speaker 2: senior year because it would just got too much. I mean,
6:28
Speaker 2: the people call them names, stuff like that. I really
6:33
Speaker 2: didn't see like of the LGBT community in my neighborhood.
6:37
Speaker 2: You know, we definitely didn't have no Pride month. We
6:40
Speaker 2: definitely didn't have no pride parades. We didn't have none
6:42
Speaker 2: of that. So I would actually have to drive into Dallas,
6:44
Speaker 2: which was about thirty five minutes away to go experience
6:47
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. What I would do is I
6:52
Speaker 2: would kind of go out on the weekends. I'd visit
6:55
Speaker 2: like a gay club. I visited a couple of gay bars.
7:00
Speaker 1: Would also go online in chat rooms and MySpace groups
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Speaker 1: for gay men. He says life went on like that
7:05
Speaker 1: for a while.
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Speaker 2: I thought my private world was going to be my
7:09
Speaker 2: private world. Probably like mid Lake senior year in two
7:13
Speaker 2: thousand and five, I really started getting to where I
7:16
Speaker 2: really kind of just did a care. It wasn't like
7:19
Speaker 2: I was advertising my sexuality. I wasn't jumping up and
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Speaker 2: down with a rainbow flag. But I wasn't hiding it
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Speaker 2: at so much because I was going in public places.
7:27
Speaker 2: I was having you know, boyfriends.
7:29
Speaker 1: Then one night, when Brandon was on his way out,
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Speaker 1: his dad asked him the name of the club he
7:33
Speaker 1: was going to.
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Speaker 2: I really didn't want to tell him that it was
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Speaker 2: a gay club, so I just said a club's name
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Speaker 2: on the radio that we had heard, you know, like
7:40
Speaker 2: repeated over the years. And the next day he said,
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Speaker 2: you know that club you went to last night was
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Speaker 2: a gay club. And inadvertently I had given him a
7:49
Speaker 2: gay club's name anyway, And so I actually had a
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Speaker 2: kind of telling him, well, okay, you know, I just
7:55
Speaker 2: told him I didn't know yet at that time, which.
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Speaker 1: Was the truth. Brandon was still trying to find himself
8:01
Speaker 1: and figure it all out.
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Speaker 2: And he told me, you know, be safe, be careful,
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Speaker 2: and he said, when you find out, let me know.
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Speaker 3: Dennis would be the type of person that would accept that,
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Speaker 3: you know.
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Speaker 1: I mean, here's Brendan's grandma Bonnie. Again.
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Speaker 3: He was accepting the people because he loved people just
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Speaker 3: like Brandon, you know, didn't matter who they was, because
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Speaker 3: he had a friend that was also gay.
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Speaker 2: I've told my dad a lot worse. I could tell
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Speaker 2: my dad anything. I could literally talk to my dad
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Speaker 2: about the bad grades I was making. Now sometimes I
8:41
Speaker 2: would try to hide them to but at the end
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Speaker 2: of the day, my Dad's going to be there for
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Speaker 2: me no matter what.
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Speaker 1: So were the bad grades worse than being gay? Is
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Speaker 1: that one of the worst things he told him.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I really think that the back grades would
8:54
Speaker 2: have been a little bit worse than being gay. Like,
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Speaker 2: my parents were like so hands on loving that that's
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Speaker 2: the last thing that they would have really even cared about.
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Speaker 1: Brandon graduated from Rockwall High School in two thousand and
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Speaker 1: five and went on to Abilene Christian University, about three
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Speaker 1: and a half hours away. He found himself struggling in
9:18
Speaker 1: his first semester. He was put on academic probation and
9:22
Speaker 1: was on the verge of failing out of college. His
9:25
Speaker 1: parents told him they could no longer support him financially
9:27
Speaker 1: if that happened and that he'd have to come back home.
9:31
Speaker 1: But Brandon wasn't worried about money. He would wear designer clothes,
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Speaker 1: go on shopping sprees, and eat out often, which led
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Speaker 1: his college friends to believe he came from a wealthy family,
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Speaker 1: but the reality was Brandon was acting in pornographic movies
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Speaker 1: to make money. Though he told his friends he had
9:46
Speaker 1: taken up modeling, most of his money was coming from
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Speaker 1: making porn, but with his spending habits, he was racking
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Speaker 1: up credit card debt. In October of that first semester
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Speaker 1: in college, Brandon came home for a few days to
10:01
Speaker 1: see his parents and help them out. His parents had
10:04
Speaker 1: just bought a trailer home in Royce City, about fourteen
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Speaker 1: miles north. They still had some things at their place
10:09
Speaker 1: in Heath and needed help moving.
10:13
Speaker 2: I guess it was like a foreclosed property. So there
10:16
Speaker 2: was a lot of stuff that my mom wanted to
10:18
Speaker 2: do to get the horses out there eventually, and so
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Speaker 2: I was just home, you know, to help her and
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Speaker 2: help my dad a little bit.
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Speaker 1: On the evening of October sixteenth, the Woodroff family sat
10:29
Speaker 1: down for a pizza dinner in their new place.
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Speaker 2: Everything just seemed to be ordinary. I mean, if I
10:37
Speaker 2: you know, if somebody were to tell me, well it
10:39
Speaker 2: was there one thing that was stranged? Was there one
10:41
Speaker 2: thing that was odd? And I can't pinpoint anything. It
10:43
Speaker 2: was just a normal weekend.
10:45
Speaker 1: After the dinner, Brandon headed out for the evening. He
10:48
Speaker 1: plans on coming back to Roy City in a few
10:50
Speaker 1: days to take Father's Day pictures with his sister Charla,
10:54
Speaker 1: who would also be home from school.
10:57
Speaker 2: And so really I was expecting to see them, you know,
10:59
Speaker 2: in four days. So what ended up happening was even
11:03
Speaker 2: I mean, I couldn't even have thought that would have happened.
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Speaker 1: Shortly after seven pm on October sixteenth, Brandon left his parents'
11:18
Speaker 1: home to go out with friends, first stopping by their
11:21
Speaker 1: old home in Heath, about twenty four minutes away. A
11:28
Speaker 1: bit after ten that night, a neighbor saw Brandon in
11:31
Speaker 1: the driveway of the Heath house. Then Brandon picked up
11:34
Speaker 1: some friends around ten forty pm and went to Dallas
11:37
Speaker 1: to party with them and his boyfriend, Alex. Brandon drove
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Speaker 1: back to school in Abilene in the early hours the
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Speaker 1: following morning. Later that day, on the seventeenth, people started
11:50
Speaker 1: becoming concerned about Dennis and Norma Woodruff. They didn't show
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Speaker 1: up to work, which was unusual for them, and no
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Speaker 1: one had seen or spoken to them since nine pm
11:58
Speaker 1: the night before, when Norma talked with her mother on
12:01
Speaker 1: the phone. Charla had called her parents from school at
12:05
Speaker 1: eleven pm on Sunday night and had not heard back,
12:08
Speaker 1: so she contacted her aunt Linda on the eighteenth, two
12:11
Speaker 1: days after they were last heard from. Linda reached out
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Speaker 1: to a family friend to go over to the Woodruff's
12:16
Speaker 1: new home to check on them. A couple of friends
12:18
Speaker 1: showed up, knocked and got no response, so they opened
12:22
Speaker 1: a window with a pride bar to see what was
12:24
Speaker 1: going on. Once inside, they found a horrific scene. Dennis
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Speaker 1: and Norma's dead bodies were seated on their couch. They'd
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Speaker 1: each been shot and stabbed several times. This episode is
12:49
Speaker 1: underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is
12:53
Speaker 1: committed to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive
12:57
Speaker 1: difference in the lives of its employees and in the
13:00
Speaker 1: communities where they work and live. In light of the
13:02
Speaker 1: compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition
13:06
Speaker 1: of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform. The
13:10
Speaker 1: AIG pro bono program provides free legal services and other
13:14
Speaker 1: support to underrepresented communities and individuals. When investigators from the
13:31
Speaker 1: Hunt County Sheriff's Office arrived at the Woodriffs trailer home,
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Speaker 1: they found a crime scene covered in blood, yet they
13:38
Speaker 1: failed to wear protective foot coverings. And what's even more bizarre,
13:42
Speaker 1: they began investigating in the dark.
13:45
Speaker 4: They think, well, this is how the murderers would have
13:47
Speaker 4: seen the house. So we're going to turn off the
13:49
Speaker 4: lights in the house and that's how we're going to
13:51
Speaker 4: walk around and make our crime scene video. And during
13:54
Speaker 4: course of doing that, you know, they're knocking stuff off,
13:56
Speaker 4: They're destroying all kinds of potential evidence of the sea.
14:01
Speaker 4: They literally investigated the crime in the dark.
14:04
Speaker 1: This is Alison Clayton. She's the deputy director of the
14:07
Speaker 1: Innocence Project of Texas and the adjunct professor of the
14:10
Speaker 1: Innocence Clinic at Texas Tech University School of Law. Allison
14:16
Speaker 1: says that inside the trailer it's unclear what had been
14:19
Speaker 1: disturbed by the crime or by the investigators stumbling around
14:23
Speaker 1: in the dark, But what seems clear is that there
14:26
Speaker 1: were strange items found laying around the house. Flavored condom
14:30
Speaker 1: packets were strewn about, along with an extensive pornography collection
14:34
Speaker 1: and an air mattress completely inflated. On top of the
14:38
Speaker 1: mattress were two pairs of women's capri pants that were
14:42
Speaker 1: way too big to fit Norma. Brandon says none of
14:46
Speaker 1: this was there when he left on that Sunday night.
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Speaker 1: Joel Gibson was the lead investigator on the case along
14:54
Speaker 1: with Texas Ranger Jeff Collins, and Brandon was their lead suspect.
14:59
Speaker 1: He was the last person known to have seen his parents.
15:02
Speaker 2: And they were like, well, we really think that you
15:04
Speaker 2: murdered your parents. And I just I didn't know what
15:06
Speaker 2: to think. You know, I wasn't raised a cuss out
15:08
Speaker 2: of law enforcement officer or anything, and I just I
15:11
Speaker 2: just kind of lost it because I thought, you do
15:13
Speaker 2: not know what you're talking about, Like you don't know
15:14
Speaker 2: who these people are. These are my parents, these like
15:17
Speaker 2: are the people who raised me.
15:19
Speaker 1: Brendan was devastated his parents had been violently murdered and
15:24
Speaker 1: here he was being accused of killing them. And what
15:27
Speaker 1: stung even more his sister, Charla turned on him. She
15:31
Speaker 1: told police she thought that Brandon could have done it.
15:34
Speaker 2: I think my sister's sentence that has been repeated over
15:38
Speaker 2: and over, well, if you could lie about being gay,
15:40
Speaker 2: then he could lie by killing my parents.
15:43
Speaker 1: On November tenth, two thousand and five, Brendan was indicted
15:46
Speaker 1: for capital murder. His grandma Bonnie was horrified.
15:51
Speaker 3: I knew Brandon couldn't have couldn't have done anything to
15:54
Speaker 3: his parents. She loved both his parents. He said he's dead,
15:57
Speaker 3: was his best friend. So I know, you know, I'm
16:02
Speaker 3: even more convinced today. I know what type of person
16:06
Speaker 3: he is and what love he has for people and
16:09
Speaker 3: for God. So I know Brandon Wood. As for the investigators,
16:14
Speaker 3: I just think they were a small town and they
16:18
Speaker 3: were a little bit lazy. They just wanted to wrap
16:21
Speaker 3: the case up because it makes the neighborhood feel better
16:24
Speaker 3: and say.
16:27
Speaker 4: They knew that Brandon was the last person to see
16:29
Speaker 4: them alive, because you know, they knew that he had
16:32
Speaker 4: gone and gotten the pizza.
16:33
Speaker 1: This is Alison Clayton again, and is.
16:36
Speaker 4: The fact that there was no forced entry into the house,
16:39
Speaker 4: so they thought that that indicated that it was somebody
16:42
Speaker 4: that the would have's knew.
16:43
Speaker 1: Allison says that investigators quickly homed in on Brandon not
16:47
Speaker 1: only for those reasons, but also because the police had
16:50
Speaker 1: discovered his secret life.
16:53
Speaker 4: So then that was a large part of their motive.
16:57
Speaker 4: That Brandon was leading this double life, that he was
17:01
Speaker 4: coming home and helping his parents move on the weekend
17:03
Speaker 4: and then going out and partying at gay night clubs,
17:07
Speaker 4: and you know, participating in all these activities, and that
17:10
Speaker 4: they were about to find out and his grades were bad,
17:12
Speaker 4: and he had credit card debt, and so you know,
17:14
Speaker 4: they were about to cut him off, and so he
17:16
Speaker 4: was just terrified that he was going to get cut off,
17:18
Speaker 4: and so in an act of indescribable violence, the way
17:22
Speaker 4: these people were murdered was very, very violent. You know,
17:24
Speaker 4: he just decides to murder his parents.
17:32
Speaker 1: Brandon's trial started on March sixth, two thousand and nine,
17:35
Speaker 1: in front of the Honorable Judge Richard Beakham Junior, the
17:39
Speaker 1: current governor of Texas. Greg Abbott was the state's attorney
17:42
Speaker 1: general at the time, and he was appointed as a
17:45
Speaker 1: special prosecutor on the case. The state presented the theory
17:49
Speaker 1: that Brandon was living a double life, having money troubles
17:52
Speaker 1: and failing out of school, all of which he wanted
17:54
Speaker 1: to keep secret from his parents.
17:57
Speaker 4: But mainly, really the state's only motive that Brandon would
18:02
Speaker 4: have had to do this is that he was gay.
18:05
Speaker 4: That's it.
18:06
Speaker 1: He's gay.
18:07
Speaker 4: His parents are going to find out about it, and
18:10
Speaker 4: so he just has to kill them right now. And
18:12
Speaker 4: remember again, this is small town Texas, early two thousands,
18:16
Speaker 4: uber uber conservative, so the mention of oh, well he
18:20
Speaker 4: was gay would have been plenty to start raising eyebrows like,
18:24
Speaker 4: oh my goodness, he was gay.
18:26
Speaker 1: What is shame like?
18:27
Speaker 4: That's what would have been the sentimentality someone coming from
18:30
Speaker 4: small town Texas in the early two thousands.
18:34
Speaker 1: The state offered no real hard evidence against Brandon. It
18:38
Speaker 1: was mostly speculation.
18:40
Speaker 2: I think they got caught up in this whole story
18:43
Speaker 2: of well, he had a double life. He was wearing
18:45
Speaker 2: boots and jeans, and then he was wearing city clothes,
18:48
Speaker 2: and he was, you know, like they felt like he
18:50
Speaker 2: was a lot more sinister, when really it was just
18:52
Speaker 2: me being myself. I mean I would wear boots and
18:54
Speaker 2: jeans when I was around the horses and stuff, and
18:56
Speaker 2: then I would wear you know what they'd call like
18:58
Speaker 2: city clothes, I guess to you know, the bars and
19:01
Speaker 2: clubs and stuff. But your clothing doesn't make you who
19:07
Speaker 2: you are. And your clothing doesn't make you a killer.
19:09
Speaker 2: And you lagging guys and girls or just guys or
19:12
Speaker 2: just girls, they doesn't make you a killer either.
19:25
Speaker 1: But there was one thing. Brandon's girlfriend, Morgan's parents noticed
19:30
Speaker 1: that a Western style revolver was missing from their home.
19:33
Speaker 1: They didn't know how long it had been missing, but
19:36
Speaker 1: they remembered that the night before the murder, Brandon had
19:39
Speaker 1: showered at their house and so would have been able
19:41
Speaker 1: to take the revolver.
19:43
Speaker 4: And so police were thinking that that you know, had
19:46
Speaker 4: corroborated their suspicions of Brandon because he would have had
19:48
Speaker 4: the opportunity to still the gun. They viewed that as
19:52
Speaker 4: inculpatory evidence that he had the opportunity to get what
19:55
Speaker 4: they thought would be the murder weapon.
19:58
Speaker 1: The gun used in the murders was never recovered, but
20:01
Speaker 1: the state offered expert testimony that the gun missing from
20:05
Speaker 1: Morgan's home could have theoretically been the one used to
20:08
Speaker 1: commit the murders. One of the main things the state
20:15
Speaker 1: focused on during trial was Brandon's cell phone records to
20:18
Speaker 1: try and disprove Brandon's alibi that he was driving around
20:22
Speaker 1: picking up friends and heading to a club. However, because
20:26
Speaker 1: of a merger between cell phone companies, many of Brandon's
20:29
Speaker 1: calls during the crucial Sunday night time period were missing,
20:32
Speaker 1: and that didn't bode well for the defense. After both
20:37
Speaker 1: sides presented, the jury deliberated for five hours, and.
20:43
Speaker 2: You know, it was just the whole time, I kept
20:45
Speaker 2: telling myself, well, Okay, everything's gonna be. Okay, everything is
20:47
Speaker 2: gonna be. I never would have thought they were going
20:49
Speaker 2: to return a guilty verdict ever, Like I really felt
20:51
Speaker 2: like I was going home that day, but he didn't.
20:55
Speaker 1: Brandon was convicted by a jury of murdering his parents
20:58
Speaker 1: on March twentieth, two nine.
21:02
Speaker 2: So they said guilty, and I was like, like I
21:05
Speaker 2: really just wanted to sit down, Like I wanted to
21:07
Speaker 2: sit down. I wanted to like just breathe. I was
21:10
Speaker 2: really kind of freaking out.
21:13
Speaker 1: But Brandon was told to remain standing while his sister,
21:16
Speaker 1: Charlotte gave a victim impact.
21:18
Speaker 2: Statement where my sister got up there and basically just
21:24
Speaker 2: told me how I ruined her whole life and told
21:26
Speaker 2: me how, you know, because of my actions. And that
21:29
Speaker 2: was the hardest thing to hear because I'm sitting here
21:31
Speaker 2: thinking to myself, I did not do this, and I
21:34
Speaker 2: just had to stand there and be quiet and accept it.
21:36
Speaker 2: And I think that was the hardest thing in my
21:38
Speaker 2: entire life. And I will never forget.
21:40
Speaker 1: That you had to sit there and listen to your
21:43
Speaker 1: sister not believe you, Like what is that?
21:45
Speaker 5: Like?
21:45
Speaker 1: Like this is a person you grew up with. She's
21:47
Speaker 1: supposed to know you better than anybody.
21:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I you know, it makes so many questions
21:52
Speaker 2: come up, like why, like why are you doing this?
21:55
Speaker 2: Like I don't know. It's really hard to just grabb
22:00
Speaker 2: I mean, even to this day, it's hard to grasp.
22:06
Speaker 1: At twenty two years old, Brendan was sentenced to life
22:09
Speaker 1: in prison without parole. Even though his relationship with Charlie
22:29
Speaker 1: was strained, Brendan's grandma Bonnie never let him down.
22:33
Speaker 3: About every three months, we'd traveled down to see him,
22:36
Speaker 3: and we'd spend the night and go early the next
22:39
Speaker 3: morning and we'd get to stay four hours with him
22:42
Speaker 3: and set across the table from him. He never gave up,
22:48
Speaker 3: and he always claimed his innocens And I knew he
22:55
Speaker 3: lifts me up. He's the type of person that lifts
22:58
Speaker 3: you up and makes you feel better about if he's
23:01
Speaker 3: not a person this day on all the time.
23:08
Speaker 2: She's like my angel, She's like my rock. I tell
23:10
Speaker 2: people that all the time. I'm like, that's my angel
23:12
Speaker 2: right there. I mean she's never once even like faltered
23:16
Speaker 2: from the truth. She's been like there's no way, absolutely,
23:19
Speaker 2: I believe in you. She doesn't care who she has
23:22
Speaker 2: to stand up and tell that to, including the investigators.
23:25
Speaker 2: She's like, you know, show me proof, Like quit telling me,
23:28
Speaker 2: y'all have proof, show me something.
23:42
Speaker 1: With Bonnie by his side, Brandon spent years in prison
23:45
Speaker 1: appealing his decision to no avail. But while he stayed
23:48
Speaker 1: up beat in front of his grandmother, inside his emotions
23:51
Speaker 1: were a different story. Prison is a hard place for anyone,
23:56
Speaker 1: especially a young man finding himself.
23:59
Speaker 2: You gotta have walls put up anyway. You got to
24:01
Speaker 2: be like a different person in here. You can't be,
24:04
Speaker 2: you know, to cry you're weak, or to be gay
24:08
Speaker 2: you're a little bit weaker, or so you always have
24:10
Speaker 2: to kind of like prove yourself. So I just stay
24:12
Speaker 2: out of really everybody's a way. I don't really even
24:14
Speaker 2: talk to too many people here.
24:16
Speaker 1: Brendan spends much of his time in prison, taking classes
24:19
Speaker 1: or working in the craft shop.
24:22
Speaker 2: Are you wearing a wedding ring? Actually? I made this
24:25
Speaker 2: in the crash, did so? Yeah? I started working with
24:29
Speaker 2: like metal and stuff like that. Okay, we're allowed like
24:32
Speaker 2: a few what they call in prison free world items.
24:36
Speaker 2: So you can have a wedding band, a watch, and
24:39
Speaker 2: then you can have like a cross.
24:40
Speaker 1: Necklace and it can only be a wedding ring.
24:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you cannot have any other rings or jewelry or
24:46
Speaker 2: that's considered a contrabmand.
24:55
Speaker 4: There are certain red flags that we look for in
24:57
Speaker 4: every single case. Brandon exhibits a lot of them.
25:01
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, Alison Clayton from the Innocence Project
25:04
Speaker 1: of Texas took on Brandon's case.
25:07
Speaker 4: First red flag, you don't know anything about the victims.
25:10
Speaker 4: That is a good investigation. Will away start out with
25:12
Speaker 4: who are these victims? Why did they meet this horrific end?
25:16
Speaker 3: Right?
25:17
Speaker 4: A good investigation that's bent on figuring out what happened
25:20
Speaker 4: to these people and not bent on painting a bullseye
25:23
Speaker 4: around someone like you've already chosen who did it? A
25:26
Speaker 4: good investigation starts with the victims.
25:28
Speaker 1: So who were Norma and Dennis?
25:30
Speaker 2: They weren't judgmental. They weren't you know, my mom volunteered
25:34
Speaker 2: for adults and children that really allot of the world
25:37
Speaker 2: wouldn't have nothing to do with them because they can't
25:39
Speaker 2: come sit at a dinner table, you know, normally and functionally.
25:43
Speaker 2: And I mean, my dad used to go to these
25:45
Speaker 2: drag shows for guys that would dress up like Dolly
25:48
Speaker 2: Parton and Tina Turner, like the five five, you know,
25:51
Speaker 2: and so like, I feel really really bad that the
25:54
Speaker 2: jury didn't get to learn about who my parents were like.
25:58
Speaker 2: They did not humanize my parents because they would know
26:01
Speaker 2: that my dad's best friend from high school and college
26:04
Speaker 2: is openly gay. They're basically not only accusing me of
26:08
Speaker 2: killing my parents because I was gay and had a lifestyle,
26:11
Speaker 2: but they're also accusing my parents of being so judgmental
26:14
Speaker 2: that they wouldn't have loved their son if he was gay.
26:18
Speaker 2: You're telling me that my parents are basically like hateful people.
26:22
Speaker 1: In fact, at trial, Brandon's lawyers presented that Brandon's dad
26:26
Speaker 1: did know about Brandon's sexuality. It wasn't a secret from him.
26:30
Speaker 1: On the evening of the sixteenth, the night the Woodruffs
26:33
Speaker 1: were presumably murdered. Dennis spoke on the phone with his
26:35
Speaker 1: sister Kathy.
26:37
Speaker 4: During that phone call, is whenever Dennis told his sister,
26:41
Speaker 4: you know, Brandon told me that he likes boys, and
26:45
Speaker 4: he told his sister, you know, he was okay with it,
26:47
Speaker 4: that he loved Brandon, and he's fine with it. It's
26:50
Speaker 4: just he was worried about Brandon because that can be
26:53
Speaker 4: a dangerous lifestyle. So this entire idea that his parents
26:57
Speaker 4: would have rejected him because of his sexuality, there is
27:01
Speaker 4: no basis in fact for that.
27:06
Speaker 1: Alison goes on to outline a key part of Brandon's
27:09
Speaker 1: defense at trial, his alibi. We know Brandon was out
27:15
Speaker 1: of his parents' house a bit after seven pm, because
27:19
Speaker 1: cell phone records show he called them at seven thirty
27:21
Speaker 1: six pm, indicating he had already left the house.
27:25
Speaker 4: But after that, Brandon wasn't really with anybody after the
27:29
Speaker 4: time he left his parents' house until much later that
27:32
Speaker 4: night when he met up with his friend back in Dallas.
27:35
Speaker 4: So it's not we have somebody who can say, yes,
27:37
Speaker 4: he was with me, this is what we were doing.
27:39
Speaker 4: So in those instances, normally we would go back to
27:41
Speaker 4: the cell phone records.
27:42
Speaker 1: But remember there were missing records during the crucial time
27:46
Speaker 1: because of the cell phone company merger, so Brandon's team
27:50
Speaker 1: relied on piecing together other people's records, people who he
27:53
Speaker 1: said he was on the phone with. Allison says this
27:56
Speaker 1: timeline is the most important part of the case.
28:01
Speaker 4: The first time in Brandon's phone records that we have
28:04
Speaker 4: really anything is whenever we have that pang at ten
28:08
Speaker 4: forty six, where he's around I thirty and six thirty five.
28:13
Speaker 1: This intersection is about twenty minutes away from both of
28:16
Speaker 1: Brandon's parents' homes. A neighbor had seen Brandon down at
28:19
Speaker 1: the heath House just after ten pm.
28:22
Speaker 4: He would have been about twenty minutes away from them
28:25
Speaker 4: at ten forty six, which means he would have left
28:28
Speaker 4: from either Royce City or Heath at around ten twenty
28:32
Speaker 4: six that night.
28:33
Speaker 1: And Norma spoke to her mother on the phone that
28:36
Speaker 1: night as well.
28:37
Speaker 4: If the last time that anyone spoke to the Woodruffs
28:41
Speaker 4: was that call between Norma and her mom from nine
28:44
Speaker 4: to nine twenty, then you look at everything else. In
28:48
Speaker 4: my analysis, I look at everything from nine to twenty
28:50
Speaker 4: that evening until ten twenty.
28:53
Speaker 1: Six, leaving Brandon with just an hour where he could
28:57
Speaker 1: have killed his parents. But the timeline shrinks even.
29:01
Speaker 4: More during that time. You've got the call at nine
29:06
Speaker 4: twenty seven from Brandon to Alex, nine thirty two to
29:09
Speaker 4: Morgan nine forty one with Morgan nine forty nine, with
29:13
Speaker 4: the room that he was taking back, ten ten to Morgan,
29:17
Speaker 4: and then that's that. So you've got five phone calls
29:19
Speaker 4: during that hour, and between those phone calls, I'm terrible
29:23
Speaker 4: with math, but it's looking to me like, I mean,
29:25
Speaker 4: there's about maybe ten minutes, ten eleven minutes tops that
29:30
Speaker 4: you have in between any of these phone calls.
29:34
Speaker 1: Allison says that in such a short amount of time,
29:38
Speaker 1: it's unrealistic, if not impossible, that Brandon would have been
29:41
Speaker 1: able to pull all of this off, shoot and stab
29:45
Speaker 1: both of his parents, shower, change his clothes and shoes,
29:48
Speaker 1: hide his clothes and shoes, clean the bathroom, clean the
29:51
Speaker 1: knife and gun, ditch the gun and hide the knife.
29:55
Speaker 4: A man who has zero history of violence, so either
30:02
Speaker 4: he is, i mean, just committing a vicious crime against
30:05
Speaker 4: his parents in really really efficient style, which I've never
30:10
Speaker 4: seen anyone inflict the number of wounds that these people
30:14
Speaker 4: had on them in ten minutes time. Or you're assuming
30:18
Speaker 4: that he's in the course of murdering his parents, he
30:21
Speaker 4: gets a phone call from Morgan and you know, hey, Morgan,
30:25
Speaker 4: how's it going. Everything's fine over here? What are you doing?
30:28
Speaker 4: Or you know, you hang up and you go back
30:29
Speaker 4: to murdering your parents, and then your boyfriend college you're like, oh,
30:32
Speaker 4: hey Alex, yep, I'm going to be there later on
30:34
Speaker 4: this evening. Yeah, I've just got to finish up here
30:36
Speaker 4: and we're going to go and we're going to party
30:37
Speaker 4: in Dallas all night long. And then you hang up
30:39
Speaker 4: and you keep on murdering your parents. Neither one of
30:41
Speaker 4: those scenarios makes sense to me.
30:44
Speaker 1: So Allison has a different theory. It wasn't Brandon, and
30:48
Speaker 1: she says the crime scene points to that. Remember the
30:50
Speaker 1: air mattress, the women's parts, the porn, and the condoms.
30:56
Speaker 2: I know for a fact that my dad has a mysectomy,
30:58
Speaker 2: because he's actually told me that on multiple occasions. In fact,
31:02
Speaker 2: you know, he had told me so much it became
31:04
Speaker 2: a joke. And so I tell myself, like, why would
31:07
Speaker 2: you need a condom if you had a mysegnamin?
31:11
Speaker 4: And then the pornography collection, why would you have a
31:14
Speaker 4: pornography collection out there's it's just there feels there are
31:18
Speaker 4: some very overtly sexual elements that are a part of
31:23
Speaker 4: the crime scenes. I think there's definitely something going on there.
31:27
Speaker 1: Not only that, but Norma was found with long blonde
31:30
Speaker 1: hairs in her hands and those hairs were never tested
31:34
Speaker 1: for the original trial.
31:37
Speaker 4: They did not test the hair in the dead woman's hand,
31:40
Speaker 4: which is just befuddling to me. You know, if you're
31:44
Speaker 4: truly investigating, truly trying to find out who did this that,
31:49
Speaker 4: what would you do? Like, you don't have to be
31:51
Speaker 4: an investigator, don't have to have FBI training or anything advanced.
31:54
Speaker 4: What do you do? You test the hair in the
31:57
Speaker 4: dead woman's hands? But they didn't do that, so to
32:01
Speaker 4: this day, we don't know who that hair belongs to.
32:11
Speaker 1: Since Alison and the Innocence Project of Texas have taken
32:14
Speaker 1: Brandon's case, they have actively fought for DNA testing of
32:18
Speaker 1: the hair and any other items that exist from the
32:21
Speaker 1: crime scene.
32:22
Speaker 4: Is that evidence still available for us to go look at?
32:25
Speaker 4: I don't know. We filed requests with you know, law enforcement,
32:28
Speaker 4: with the DA's office. We're trying to figure out, you know,
32:31
Speaker 4: where's the hair what about everything else. I don't know
32:34
Speaker 4: where those things are at. I don't know if they
32:35
Speaker 4: have been maintained. They should have been, but i mean,
32:38
Speaker 4: come on, at Texas. Just because it should it doesn't
32:40
Speaker 4: mean it happened.
32:44
Speaker 1: While Brandon waits, he concentrates on the future he'll have
32:47
Speaker 1: when he's out.
32:49
Speaker 2: You know, growing up, I've always wanted to adopt a kid,
32:51
Speaker 2: like I've even told you know, my girlfriend at the time.
32:54
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, you know, if we ever have kids,
32:56
Speaker 2: like I would rather have like one on my own
32:57
Speaker 2: and adopt one. In college, I was a part of
33:00
Speaker 2: the Big Brother Little Brother program, and so that really
33:03
Speaker 2: opened my eyes to you know, there's a lot of
33:05
Speaker 2: kids and you know, a lot less fortunate places and situations.
33:10
Speaker 2: Now I look, you know, looking at myself now, I'm like, okay,
33:13
Speaker 2: you're thirty six. You might be thirty seven or thirty
33:15
Speaker 2: eight before something, you know, goes on with your case.
33:19
Speaker 2: And then at least for a couple of years, I
33:21
Speaker 2: want to just hang out and spend time with the
33:23
Speaker 2: people who took care.
33:24
Speaker 1: Of me, especially his grandma Bonnie.
33:28
Speaker 2: My grandmother's like a very avid traveler, and I'm just
33:31
Speaker 2: like me and me look one day when I come home,
33:33
Speaker 2: we're not going to sit down like I don't want
33:35
Speaker 2: to be idle. I've been idle for too long now.
33:39
Speaker 1: But in thinking about all the people who were there
33:42
Speaker 1: for him, Brendan can't help but think about the people
33:45
Speaker 1: who weren't, like his sister Charla.
33:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's been over ten years and I can
33:49
Speaker 2: still remember some of the things she said, and yet
33:54
Speaker 2: I still love my sister. So it's it's really, you know,
33:57
Speaker 2: a torn, torn feeling right there.
34:01
Speaker 1: Brendan says that although his parents are gone, they're always
34:04
Speaker 1: with him, and that inspires him to keep going.
34:12
Speaker 2: It's a lot more personal than what a lot of
34:14
Speaker 2: people think. People are thinking, oh, well, you know, the
34:16
Speaker 2: truth is going to come out one day, but there's
34:19
Speaker 2: you know, there's not justice for me right now, but
34:21
Speaker 2: there's also not justice for my parents either, And so
34:26
Speaker 2: I told myself, you know, I'm gonna make this count.
34:28
Speaker 2: Like my parents need, you know, justice, but they also need,
34:32
Speaker 2: you know, some change in Texas. Something good can come
34:38
Speaker 2: from this, and maybe that can be like my parents'
34:40
Speaker 2: legacy is to help what needs to be fixed in
34:44
Speaker 2: the justice system. I don't want this to just be
34:47
Speaker 2: like Okay, Well, he's innocent, he's free, and we're going
34:50
Speaker 2: to let this go. I mean, I think there needs
34:52
Speaker 2: to be at least some change, because this should never, ever,
34:55
Speaker 2: ever have happened to me, and it definitely shouldn't happen
34:57
Speaker 2: in the future.
35:03
Speaker 1: To learn more about Brandon's case and show your support,
35:06
Speaker 1: visit Freebrandon dot org and you can sign a petition
35:09
Speaker 1: for his exoneration at change dot org. Next time, on
35:18
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, Deb Nichols.
35:22
Speaker 5: You could see the emergency lights since we were coming
35:24
Speaker 5: up the street, and I got out of the car
35:29
Speaker 5: and started rounding around the corner and it was my
35:33
Speaker 5: house and it was on fire. I was literally terrified,
35:38
Speaker 5: and my brain was like, I just I need to
35:40
Speaker 5: get to the back and make sure the kids are okay.
35:49
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please
35:52
Speaker 1: support your local innocence organizations and go to the links
35:55
Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
35:57
Speaker 1: like to thank our executive producers Jason and Kevin Wordis,
36:01
Speaker 1: as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson,
36:05
Speaker 1: and story editor Sonia Paul The show is edited and
36:08
Speaker 1: mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn
36:12
Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by
36:15
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
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