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#265 Jason Flom with Keith Bush · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: The Innocent Network is an informal collective of independent organizations
0:04
Speaker 1: that advocate on behalf of the wrongfully convicted, and every
0:07
Speaker 1: year they gather along with the growing number of those
0:09
Speaker 1: whom they've helped free. Our team was honored to join
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Speaker 1: them for their twenty twenty two gathering in Arizona. The
0:16
Speaker 1: stories we heard were both heartbreaking and inspiring, and some
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Speaker 1: of those incredible people were willing to record with us.
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Speaker 1: On January tenth, nineteen seventy five, there was an open
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Speaker 1: house party in Suffolk County, Long Island, attended by seventeen
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Speaker 1: year old Keith Bush and fourteen year old Cherise Watson.
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Speaker 1: Over twenty alibi witnesses confirmed that Keith Bush was with
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Speaker 1: them in the house around one thirty am, when Scherise
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Speaker 1: was believed to have gotten into a red sedan, never
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Speaker 1: to be seen alive again. The following day, Cheres's parents
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Speaker 1: frantic search for their daughter included a visit to Keith Bush,
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Speaker 1: who had told them about how he last saw her
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Speaker 1: inside the house party. Later that evening, her body was
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Speaker 1: discovered in a field near that house, having been strangled
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Speaker 1: to death. Us were partially on zipped and there were
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Speaker 1: multiple groupings of small punctual wounds on her back. Curiously,
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Speaker 1: the wounds had not bled. Biological material and clothing fibers
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Speaker 1: were gathered from her fingernails, and a hair pick was
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Speaker 1: found near her body. Two witness statements emerged alleging that
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Speaker 1: Keith was the last person seen with Cherise. Ignoring a
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Speaker 1: more promising lead, investigators instead tortured Keith in the police
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Speaker 1: station until he relented and signed a statement he hadn't
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Speaker 1: even read. It was a false confession riddled with inconsistencies,
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Speaker 1: including an impossible hair pick stabbing scenario that sent Keith way.
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Speaker 2: For twenty years to life.
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Speaker 1: DNA testing, independent autopsies, and witness recantations proved Keith's confession
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Speaker 1: was false, Yet Suffolk County authorities and the Parole Board
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Speaker 1: were not so easily convinced.
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Speaker 2: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
2:04
Speaker 1: Here we're recording at the Innocence Network conference in Phoenix,
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Speaker 1: and what you're about to hear combines junk science, a
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Speaker 1: false confession, police and prosecutorial misconduct on a scale that
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Speaker 1: is staggering, lying witnesses, incentivized witnesses. It involves so many
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Speaker 1: of the causes of wrongful convictions that we see again
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Speaker 1: and again, all wrapped up into one. Keith Bush, Welcome
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Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction.
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Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for having me.
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Speaker 1: You know, I always say I'm sorry you're here because well,
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Speaker 1: the reason why we're interviewing you today. But I'm very
2:40
Speaker 1: honored to have you here.
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Speaker 3: I appreciate being here.
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Speaker 1: And your story is important for us to tell because
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Speaker 1: a lot of the reasons that I've already laid out.
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Speaker 1: But before we do that, what I really want to
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Speaker 1: do is talk about the young man Keith Bush, the
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Speaker 1: young teenager Keith Bush growing up in Long Island.
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Speaker 3: Well, I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I was kind
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Speaker 3: of raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut. My mother and my father
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Speaker 3: they separated when I was young. My mother has her
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Speaker 3: roots in Long Island. Her grandparents were born on the
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Speaker 3: Indian reservation. So she used to take us back and
3:19
Speaker 3: forth to Long Island from Bridgeport, Connecticut, and then she
3:23
Speaker 3: eventually moved to Bellport, New York.
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Speaker 2: Got it.
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Speaker 1: And from what I understand, you were a fine young man.
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Speaker 1: You weren't in any sort of trouble. Would you say
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Speaker 1: that you were on the right track growing up?
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Speaker 3: I was basically like most kids. I played sports, you know,
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Speaker 3: I went to school, went to parties, and did basically
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Speaker 3: what you know kids normally do growing up.
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Speaker 1: Sounds like a nice childhood ride in the ferry back
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Speaker 1: and forth. Everything was fine more or less right. Everybody
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Speaker 1: has their ups and downs, but everything was fine until
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Speaker 1: this terrible incident that happened at a party Suffolk County,
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Speaker 1: Long Island. And we know that Suffolk County unfortunately has
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Speaker 1: been a hotbed of police corruption and misconduct for generations.
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Speaker 1: Of course, we've covered the Marty Tankliff story on this podcast,
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Speaker 1: but your story is as powerful as any, so let's
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Speaker 1: get right into it. So this crime we're talking about
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Speaker 1: January eleventh, nineteen seventy five, the middle of the winter,
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Speaker 1: and on that fateful day, the parents of a young
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Speaker 1: girl named Sharise Watson called the Suffoc County Police Department
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Speaker 1: and they were worried because their daughter hadn't come home
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Speaker 1: from a party at a friend's house just a few
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Speaker 1: blocks away. This would be a cost for concern. She's fourteen,
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Speaker 1: It's the wee hours of the morning, and they began
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Speaker 1: looking for Sharis. Now, about one hundred people had attended
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Speaker 1: this party, and you were one of them, right, Keith.
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Speaker 3: That's correct. On Saturday, the eleventh of January nineteen seventy five,
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Speaker 3: Scharisse's mother, in her effort of trying to locate her daughter,
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Speaker 3: she was trying to go around finding all the peace
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Speaker 3: people that her daughter had come in contact with. They
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Speaker 3: came to my home and she had quiet about, you know,
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Speaker 3: Serice Watson, did she come home with me? Did she
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Speaker 3: leave with anybody or whatever? And I told her, I
5:12
Speaker 3: don't know, because the last time I talked to her,
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Speaker 3: she walked out the front door and said I'll see
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Speaker 3: you later, but she didn't indicate that she was going
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Speaker 3: home or even coming back. And she said, well, if
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Speaker 3: you hear anything, could you give me a call. Later
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Speaker 3: on in the evening, they came back Cherise's mother and
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Speaker 3: her father to my house. That's when they came with
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Speaker 3: the police officer. And this time they obviously hadn't you know,
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Speaker 3: heard from her. And you're talking about five or six
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Speaker 3: o'clock in the afternoon.
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Speaker 1: I think it's every parent's worst nightmare, right, it is missing.
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Speaker 1: It's a young girl. I think that adds a layer
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Speaker 1: of fear, you know. But her body was found in
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Speaker 1: the field nearby where the party had been helped. Brace
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Speaker 1: yourself for this because it's hard to hear. But she
5:56
Speaker 1: was faced down, her pants were partially unzipped, and there
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Speaker 1: were numerous small punctures on her back. That's an important detail,
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Speaker 1: as we'll see as we go along, And autopsy would
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Speaker 1: later say that she had been strangled with enough force
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Speaker 1: to snap the hyoid bone in her throat near her body,
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Speaker 1: another important detail which becomes the subject of misconduct of
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Speaker 1: a type that would be comical if it wasn't so
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Speaker 1: terrible and so serious. But near her body, police also
6:22
Speaker 1: found a black plastic hairpick and a white hat.
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Speaker 3: You know, it's important to note that that night they
6:29
Speaker 3: found Serise Watson, my cousin, and another friend that came
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Speaker 3: to my house with this elder gentleman Vietnam. That this
6:37
Speaker 3: guy named Robert Stewart, and I didn't know him, but
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Speaker 3: my cousin, George Golson, knew him, and he seemed to
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Speaker 3: be a concerned person in the community, and we were
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Speaker 3: talking about what happened, and he wanted to try to help,
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Speaker 3: like a lot of people in the community, to find
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Speaker 3: out what happened to Scherise. So he had asked us,
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Speaker 3: if you know, we were willing to help find out
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Speaker 3: some of the people who was at the party, really
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Speaker 3: find out who did this, and so I agreed that,
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Speaker 3: you know, I would help in any way that I could,
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Speaker 3: and we had met over to this guy's house two nights.
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Speaker 3: He had said that, you know, there was having some
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Speaker 3: problems with the names of people who was at the party.
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Speaker 3: They didn't know how to connect the names to the faces,
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Speaker 3: and that maybe that we can kind of help connect
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Speaker 3: them because these people can probably provide some information about
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Speaker 3: what really happened. Only thing we knew at that time
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Speaker 3: was that Scherise Watson had came out the house and
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Speaker 3: got into a car, a stolen red car with three individuals,
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Speaker 3: and drove off. We heard that these individuals were from
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Speaker 3: Riverhead in Suffolk County, which is another town over, but
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Speaker 3: I never knew who these persons were, and no one
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Speaker 3: really revealed it at that time.
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Speaker 1: So there's this whole red Sedan scenario right and compelling
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Speaker 1: alternate suspects. In fact, in May nineteen seventy five, which
7:55
Speaker 1: was a few months after the murder, but critically before
7:58
Speaker 1: you wereun for conviction, a guy named John Jones had
8:01
Speaker 1: given a statement to the police which placed him at
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Speaker 1: the crime scene, and he admitted that the hair pick
8:07
Speaker 1: at the scene was his. Now we can only speculate
8:11
Speaker 1: that Jones wasn't pursued any further and a statement was
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Speaker 1: hidden from over four decades simply because police had already
8:18
Speaker 1: decided that you were the guy.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: Of course, that had dire consequences and not just only
8:24
Speaker 1: for you, But we'll get to that in a minute.
8:26
Speaker 1: But back to the immedia aftermath. So you knew Charise
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Speaker 1: and you had joined Robert Stewart's effort with your cousin
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Speaker 1: George Golson and your friend Chuckie Corbyn. My understanding is
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Speaker 1: you told police what you told Cherise's mother, right the
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Speaker 1: same thing, that you had seen her walk out of
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Speaker 1: the party sometime around one am. Now, over twenty alibi
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Speaker 1: witnesses placed you at the party before you left around
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Speaker 1: three in the morning. Now, police claimed to have learned
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Speaker 1: that Cherise had left the party around when one thirty am,
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Speaker 1: and that a little while later people heard screaming and
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Speaker 1: shouts of rape coming from the field near the party
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Speaker 1: where her body was eventually bound. So on its face,
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Speaker 1: it seems very weird that no one from the party
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Speaker 1: looked into these alleged shouts of rape. And then I
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Speaker 1: also say that police claimed to have learned this because
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Speaker 1: wasn't Charisse said to have left in a red sedan.
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Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 1: Police also interviewed a girl named Brenda Carlos, who said
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Speaker 1: that she had last seen Charise talking to you around
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Speaker 1: one fifteen am, but left the party before Charise, so
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Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like her statement is very relevant.
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Speaker 3: Brenda Carlos was introduced to me by Charisse Watson that night.
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Speaker 3: From my understanding, Brenda Carlos was a little older than
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Speaker 3: Sarise and she was supposed to walk her home and
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Speaker 3: make sure she had got home. And Brenda Carlos had
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Speaker 3: said that she was going home, and Sharise Watson told
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Speaker 3: her that she wasn't going to go home, so she said, okay,
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Speaker 3: I'll see you later and she left. That was her
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Speaker 3: statement to police, which was kind of insignificant in terms
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Speaker 3: of the crime itself. But at trial when she testified,
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Speaker 3: she kind of altered that statement, and the bivocal part
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Speaker 3: of her testimony then became when she asked her where
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Speaker 3: you're going home? She said no, Kipy was going to
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Speaker 3: walk her home, and Kipy was supposed to be me
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Speaker 3: Keith Bush.
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Speaker 1: Even still, this would be circumstantial evidence even if her
10:21
Speaker 1: second story was true.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: What they were doing is kind of painting a picture.
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Speaker 3: Her statement might not have been relevant within itself, but
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Speaker 3: her statement becomes relevant when she's mentioning my name, and
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Speaker 3: then there's other evidence of suggestion that kind of points
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Speaker 3: to me now.
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Speaker 1: Police interviewed a teenage girl. Fifteen year old girl in
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Speaker 1: Vaccine Bell. She had recently run away from her foster
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Speaker 1: home and was living in an abandoned building. She knew
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Speaker 1: Sharise as well as you, Keith right, and many other
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Speaker 1: people at the party from when I guess she had
10:53
Speaker 1: attended the same school as you did at one time.
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Speaker 3: Oh, yes, she did so.
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Speaker 1: The statement she gave police, she said that she was
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Speaker 1: standing outside the party for several hours and had seen
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Speaker 1: you and Scharise leaving together quote unquote hugged up. That's
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Speaker 1: what she later testified, with your arms cradling Charise around
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Speaker 1: the neck. I wonder if somebody told her to say that,
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Speaker 1: I'm just saying, what can you tell us about this
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Speaker 1: young girl?
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Speaker 3: They had got two statements from him, but in that
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Speaker 3: first statement that Monday, which was the thirteenth of January
11:26
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy five, she alleges that Cherise Watson comes out
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Speaker 3: the house with me, and when the Carlos later she backtracks.
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Speaker 3: She testifies that Charis Watson came out the house with me,
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Speaker 3: hugged up, and she asked her that you know, you
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Speaker 3: want me to walk you home, and then Cherise allegedly
11:46
Speaker 3: told to know that you know, I was going to
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Speaker 3: walk her home, and she alleges that she left us
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Speaker 3: standing there and that was the last time, you know,
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Speaker 3: she had seen Charise, and she had hollered to her
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Speaker 3: that I'll call you tomorrow and she said okay. That
12:02
Speaker 3: was her testimony, and that made me, according to the police,
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Speaker 3: a suspect in the case because that testimony was inconsistent
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Speaker 3: with the original statement I gave to police about my
12:17
Speaker 3: activities on the night of the party.
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Speaker 1: Right, what you've always maintained about your activities on the
12:22
Speaker 1: night of the party was that you stayed inside the
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Speaker 1: party when Charise left. And again, over twenty alibi witnesses
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Speaker 1: did confirm that, and some of them later even testified
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Speaker 1: despite pressure from the police, but police used this statement
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Speaker 1: from Maxim Bell, alleging that you were the last person
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Speaker 1: seeing with Scherise in order to establish probable cause. Now,
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Speaker 1: she tried to recant this statement as early as nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty and eventually admitted in the twenty sixteen Affi David
12:47
Speaker 1: that the statement was made out of fear of the
12:49
Speaker 1: police and that she chose to just confirm what they
12:53
Speaker 1: already believed. And when our audience, here's what happens next
12:57
Speaker 1: to you, we can only imagine what kind of pressure
13:01
Speaker 1: and terror was brought down on Maxine Bell, this young
13:05
Speaker 1: female at risk runaway in order to evoke that false statement.
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Speaker 1: So on January fourteen, things started to spiral even further downhill.
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Speaker 1: You were at school and detectives were with your investigative,
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Speaker 1: CHUCKI Corbin, George Golson, and the Vietnam VETT Robert Stewart,
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Speaker 1: and the cops didn't just come and grab you first.
13:26
Speaker 1: The two younger guys were sent to get you from school,
13:29
Speaker 1: but when the school said that they needed an adult
13:31
Speaker 1: to come and get you, Robert Stewart came instead. You
13:34
Speaker 1: were released to him and he brought you to his
13:35
Speaker 1: house where you thought that you were still just helping
13:38
Speaker 1: with this lead on the stolen red sedan. Now, apparently
13:40
Speaker 1: there was a guy named Michael Christian who might have
13:43
Speaker 1: known something about the guys in the red car, and
13:45
Speaker 1: you thought you were just going to look at some
13:47
Speaker 1: pictures and help the police in any way that you could.
13:49
Speaker 1: So you got back to mister Stewart's what happened next.
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Speaker 3: That's when the police officers came in and they started
13:56
Speaker 3: interviewing us about, you know, what we knew in Ivis.
14:00
Speaker 3: I was the one that was at the party, George
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Speaker 3: Golsen was, and Chucky Corbin had left earlier, so they
14:06
Speaker 3: were mainly asking the questions towards me. And then they
14:10
Speaker 3: asked if I can show them where Michael Christian lives.
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Speaker 3: And this was a guy that supposed to had heard
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Speaker 3: something from these guys the next day that was in
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Speaker 3: that red car. That was something that's supposed to have been incriminating.
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Speaker 3: I know Michael Christian, and I knew where he lived.
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Speaker 3: But now, actually what they did is when I showed
14:29
Speaker 3: him where he lived, they rolled past the house. So
14:31
Speaker 3: I asked him where they were going, so they said, oh,
14:34
Speaker 3: we have to go. We're going to the precinct to
14:35
Speaker 3: get the list of names. We thought we had them,
14:37
Speaker 3: but we don't have them, so that you can look
14:39
Speaker 3: at him and go over them. But before they got there,
14:41
Speaker 3: and they had spoke to two detectives that was in
14:44
Speaker 3: another car behind them, got back in the car. They
14:47
Speaker 3: took me to the fifth Precinct in Patchog, which is
14:52
Speaker 3: the town over, and then they brought me down into
14:55
Speaker 3: a basement. When they brought me down to the basement,
14:59
Speaker 3: they they walked out, and two detectives walked in, Detective
15:03
Speaker 3: Dennis Rafferty and Detective August Stall. They walked in and
15:08
Speaker 3: took over the investigation. And that was the last time
15:11
Speaker 3: I seen the outside world.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this interrogation, it probably won't surprise.
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Speaker 1: People who are regular listeners to the podcast, but this
15:22
Speaker 1: interrogation resulted in your false confession after they punched and
15:27
Speaker 1: kicked and abused you in ways that had to be
15:31
Speaker 1: beyond terrifying. I mean, on top of the fact that
15:34
Speaker 1: it was sort of a surprise attack because you weren't
15:37
Speaker 1: even brought there as a suspect. Now all of a sudden,
15:41
Speaker 1: you're in the basement. That's scary enough, right, like kind
15:43
Speaker 1: of almost like a dungeon scenario. Right as we find
15:46
Speaker 1: out later, at least one of these detectives was so
15:49
Speaker 1: racist that he was throwing the N word around. So
15:53
Speaker 1: tell us about the interrogation itself.
15:55
Speaker 3: Let me just say, you know, the forty four years
16:01
Speaker 3: I've been battling with this effort to exonerate myself, the
16:06
Speaker 3: encounter in the precinct, particularly with the physical abuse, the psychological.
16:15
Speaker 3: Of all the efforts that I made to exonerate myself,
16:21
Speaker 3: the most painful part of that whole experience really sits did.
16:26
Speaker 3: What they did to me was something I would have
16:31
Speaker 3: never imagined from a person of that status, because obviously,
16:37
Speaker 3: when you're young, you're taught to believe that law enforcement
16:41
Speaker 3: represents an authority that's equivalent to your parents. So when
16:46
Speaker 3: they begin to question me, in spite of the fact
16:49
Speaker 3: that I maintained my innocence, they didn't really want to
16:52
Speaker 3: hear that. They were only concerned with trying to get
16:56
Speaker 3: me to confess to the crime and to sign a confession,
17:00
Speaker 3: you know, with promises that they can help me. You know,
17:02
Speaker 3: I was a young kid, you know, things happened. I
17:06
Speaker 3: just wanted to get laid. And then they started to
17:08
Speaker 3: tell me about this statement they had from this witness,
17:12
Speaker 3: which is why they said they know that I committed
17:14
Speaker 3: the crime because I was the last person to be
17:17
Speaker 3: seen with her alive. And they went on and on
17:20
Speaker 3: with this for maybe about an hour and a half,
17:23
Speaker 3: and then they decided to move me to Hogpok, which
17:27
Speaker 3: is the headquarters for homicide squad. Now, I constantly asked
17:31
Speaker 3: them could I call my mother. I felt the pressure
17:37
Speaker 3: of confinement, of being trapped. Today I can articulate it
17:41
Speaker 3: as in communicato. There was no way, you know, they
17:45
Speaker 3: was letting me out of here, and I had to
17:46
Speaker 3: figure out how to get out of there. You know,
17:49
Speaker 3: I found out that my cousin and mister Stewart and
17:53
Speaker 3: Chucky Corbin had came to the precinct two to four
17:56
Speaker 3: times looking for me, and they told them that I
17:59
Speaker 3: wasn't there. So obviously they had no intentions of it ever.
18:04
Speaker 3: Let me get past that phase.
18:07
Speaker 2: No, they wouldn't have let Jesus in if he showed
18:09
Speaker 2: up to try to help you.
18:10
Speaker 3: Right, And their intentions was clear. They wanted me to
18:13
Speaker 3: confess to this crime. And once they took me to
18:16
Speaker 3: hog Park, they kept drilling me, one officer coming in
18:20
Speaker 3: after another, and you know, they kept going through that
18:23
Speaker 3: whole process, the good guy, bad guy tactic, and I
18:26
Speaker 3: kept telling him over and over I didn't commit the crime.
18:29
Speaker 3: I wanted to call my my mother, called somebody, but
18:33
Speaker 3: you know, they just continue the process until all of
18:35
Speaker 3: a sudden, six or seven of these guys came running
18:38
Speaker 3: in and grabbed me from all over and just started
18:40
Speaker 3: pounding me, hit me upside their head with a phone
18:43
Speaker 3: book and stopping, trying to make me sign a confession.
18:46
Speaker 3: And I kept telling them I didn't do it. Then
18:49
Speaker 3: they would start back up, stop, start. You know, they're threatening,
18:53
Speaker 3: and you know we're gonna make you stare you'll never
18:55
Speaker 3: have kids, and you know you're not going nowhere til
18:58
Speaker 3: you sign this. We'll beat you to and you know
19:00
Speaker 3: they're going on and on, and at some point, you know,
19:03
Speaker 3: I just you know, I got scared. I lost my focus,
19:07
Speaker 3: and when I signed that confession, I signed my life away.
19:32
Speaker 3: I know I signed something. I didn't know what the
19:35
Speaker 3: confession said or what I signed said. I never set
19:40
Speaker 3: it out my mouth. I just signed the paper. When
19:44
Speaker 3: I first came to the County jail, I was in
19:46
Speaker 3: sick Bay for maybe the week to two weeks, and
19:49
Speaker 3: that's when I first you know read and found out
19:52
Speaker 3: what I had allegedly said to them through the signing
19:56
Speaker 3: of the confession.
19:57
Speaker 1: You quickly recanted your confession, saying that the detectives wouldn't
20:02
Speaker 1: accept your denials or even let you call your mother.
20:04
Speaker 1: And importantly, this confession said that when she pulled your
20:09
Speaker 1: hand away from her pants, that she had refused your
20:11
Speaker 1: sexual advance, and then when she pulled her hand away,
20:13
Speaker 1: you started stabbing her with her hair pick, and that
20:16
Speaker 1: when she screamed or strangled her to keep her quiet.
20:18
Speaker 1: So they provided the narrative, but even what they said
20:21
Speaker 1: was obviously provably not true and not possible scientifically, because
20:27
Speaker 1: the victim didn't bleed, which means of course that she
20:31
Speaker 1: was dead before whatever it was that punctured her skin
20:34
Speaker 1: punctured her skin.
20:35
Speaker 3: That was a fabricated confession constructed by them before the
20:40
Speaker 3: facts were cleared to them. Whatever they had at that
20:43
Speaker 3: particular time, they used to try to paint a picture
20:47
Speaker 3: of me committing this crime, and they got it wrong.
20:51
Speaker 1: Now, the hairpic is so important in this scenario. First
20:53
Speaker 1: of all, it's a ridiculous concept the hairpick. Unless it's
20:56
Speaker 1: made out of steel, it's going to break if you
20:58
Speaker 1: start stabbing somebody with it. And you don't have to
20:59
Speaker 1: be scientists to figure this out or an expert in
21:02
Speaker 1: plastic Did you even carry a hair pick at the time?
21:05
Speaker 1: Keith is balled these days, so I don't know what
21:06
Speaker 1: your hairstyle was back then.
21:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wore an afro. Back then. We all carried picks.
21:11
Speaker 3: They were popular.
21:12
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
21:12
Speaker 3: During the interrogation, they had showed me a black plastic
21:16
Speaker 3: pick that wasn't a plastic bag. And I didn't know
21:19
Speaker 3: that the pick that they found was from the crime scene.
21:23
Speaker 3: And they asked me, was that my pick? I said, no,
21:25
Speaker 3: that wasn't. But I don't know what's going on. I
21:28
Speaker 3: ain't know what she had punctured wounds in a lower back.
21:31
Speaker 2: How would you know? You weren't there?
21:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know none of this now.
21:34
Speaker 1: They executed a search warrant on your house on January fourteenth,
21:37
Speaker 1: and they recovered or claimed to recover several items, including
21:41
Speaker 1: a metal hair pic that would be introduced to trial
21:43
Speaker 1: as the weapon that left the punctures on Scharissa's back,
21:45
Speaker 1: but it would later be revealed again surprise surprise, that
21:49
Speaker 1: the pick the police seized didn't belong to.
21:52
Speaker 3: You, they wasn't going to leave my home until they
21:54
Speaker 3: found a metal pick, it didn't matter what kind, with
21:57
Speaker 3: style or whatever. And when they didn't have my pick,
22:01
Speaker 3: they called my cousin, George. He came over and he
22:04
Speaker 3: gave them his pick because my brother told them they
22:07
Speaker 3: ain't gonna leave until they get a pick. But the
22:09
Speaker 3: detective tried to testify that they got the pick from
22:13
Speaker 3: my brother, and my brother said it was my pick,
22:16
Speaker 3: which was a lie.
22:18
Speaker 1: There's no real way to describe this other than that
22:21
Speaker 1: they planted the evidence. They didn't even bother the plant
22:24
Speaker 1: it themselves. They had to have somebody else come and
22:26
Speaker 1: bring me. It's so incredibly twisted.
22:29
Speaker 3: So that pick that they alleged was used to create
22:34
Speaker 3: those puncture wounds on a lower back, they went clusters
22:37
Speaker 3: of threes, four and five. They had one that went
22:41
Speaker 3: so deep that it almost hit the liver. And you know,
22:45
Speaker 3: obviously today we have these medical experts saying that it's
22:49
Speaker 3: impossible for that pick to have caused those punctured wounds.
22:53
Speaker 1: You don't have to be an experts and know that
22:54
Speaker 1: that's not possible. It's not possible because it's not possible.
22:58
Speaker 1: It's plastic and it's.
22:59
Speaker 3: Dull these experts are saying today. Is like, you know,
23:02
Speaker 3: even an expert back then should have drawned that same conclusion.
23:05
Speaker 3: They said, I confessed it to a crime that was
23:08
Speaker 3: impossible to have happened. But the medical examiner testified in
23:13
Speaker 3: his opinion that these pick calls those puncture wounds.
23:17
Speaker 1: Well, you had not only the medical examiner who was
23:19
Speaker 1: either completely wrong or lying, you have a suffercount of
23:23
Speaker 1: detective who's there saying that the victim who fought for
23:26
Speaker 1: her life scratching her assailant had your jacket under her fingernails.
23:32
Speaker 3: As if they test every jack that was ever made
23:35
Speaker 3: and determine, you know, the particularities of those fibers or whatever.
23:40
Speaker 3: But there was no science to back it up.
23:42
Speaker 1: Right, when we talk about junk science again, I have
23:44
Speaker 1: to laugh to keep from crying. I mean, it's so
23:46
Speaker 1: ridiculous that a fourth grader should be able to figure
23:49
Speaker 1: out that this was not possible. But of course a
23:51
Speaker 1: jury is going to be susceptible to testimony from people
23:55
Speaker 1: like this who are supposedly quote unquote experts. So on
24:00
Speaker 1: April eighteenth, this is important. There's not a logical suspect
24:03
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this guy, John Jones. A few months
24:06
Speaker 1: after the crime, they arrested a guy named John Jones
24:08
Speaker 1: on a charge of unauthorized use of a vehicle. Now,
24:11
Speaker 1: no one really knows how he came to the attention
24:13
Speaker 1: of the homicide detectives, but he was questioned about Cheresa's
24:15
Speaker 1: death and given a polygraph that was said to be inconclusive.
24:20
Speaker 1: He was interviewed again on May ninth, short time after,
24:22
Speaker 1: and this time he gave a more expansive statement. I
24:27
Speaker 1: got another red flag. He said he was at the party,
24:30
Speaker 1: got drunk and started to walk to his sister's house,
24:33
Speaker 1: even though she lived east of the party, and the
24:35
Speaker 1: body was found to the west.
24:37
Speaker 2: Red Flag number two Jones.
24:39
Speaker 1: This character said that he stumbled over Sharesa's body in
24:42
Speaker 1: the field and the process dropped his hair pick. He
24:44
Speaker 1: said he didn't know that the girl was dead until
24:46
Speaker 1: he heard about the death on the news.
24:48
Speaker 3: Keep in mind, we never knew nothing about this guy
24:50
Speaker 3: till like forty years later. You know, at the time
24:53
Speaker 3: they interviewed him, they kept this hidden. We do know
24:57
Speaker 3: that the district attorney was intimately involved than it be
25:00
Speaker 3: because when they did the polygraph test, it was sent
25:02
Speaker 3: to him, and the person who took the statement from
25:05
Speaker 3: him was Detective Rafferty. John Jones also admits to the
25:10
Speaker 3: guy that when that showed him the black pick, he said, yeah,
25:13
Speaker 3: that looks like my pick, and he places himself at
25:17
Speaker 3: the crime scene around the time frame that the experts
25:22
Speaker 3: estimate the cause of death. But they had already threw
25:25
Speaker 3: the crime on me. They had already claimed that I
25:29
Speaker 3: voluntarily confessed to the crime, and they didn't have the
25:33
Speaker 3: integrity or dignity to step back and say we made
25:37
Speaker 3: a mistake and open up that avenue of investigation.
25:41
Speaker 1: So they protected this guy, who they had every reason
25:44
Speaker 1: to believe was a vicious killer of a young child.
25:48
Speaker 1: They allowed him to ring three. On February sixteenth of
25:50
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, he was arrested in charge with third
25:53
Speaker 1: degree rape after he impregnated a fifteen year old girl.
25:57
Speaker 1: But two weeks after Jones's arrest, ironically, two weeks later,
26:01
Speaker 1: on March first, nineteen seventy six, your trial began in
26:03
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the State of New York for
26:05
Speaker 1: Suffolk County. You had a paid attorney named Harold Sulligman.
26:08
Speaker 1: The prosecutor was Gerald Sullivan, and the judge was Mervin Tannebound.
26:11
Speaker 1: The state's case, of course, was built around Bell's testimony,
26:14
Speaker 1: your false confession immediately recanted and the quote unquote forensic
26:19
Speaker 1: and physical evidence which we now know was just a
26:21
Speaker 1: pack of lies. So doctor Adelman of the Suffolk County
26:25
Speaker 1: Medical Examiner's Office, as you mentioned, he said that the
26:28
Speaker 1: punker wounds on Charesa's back were consistent with the arrangement
26:31
Speaker 1: of the times on the hair pick found at your house,
26:33
Speaker 1: but the plastic pick was not interered into evidence a trial. Wow,
26:36
Speaker 1: there's a lot of lies just in that sentence alone.
26:38
Speaker 1: There's like three or four lives. It's incredible. A suffer
26:41
Speaker 1: County detective predictably testified that the three fibers recovered from
26:44
Speaker 1: beneath Sharesa's fingernails quote did contain unquote fibers taken from
26:48
Speaker 1: a denim jacket that you wore. That would be laughable
26:52
Speaker 1: if it wasn't so serious. And when this sick fuck
26:57
Speaker 1: Rafferty testified, he denied any wrongdoing during your interrogation. Also predictable,
27:03
Speaker 1: he claimed that you freely, involuntarily gave your statement. Seligman
27:08
Speaker 1: had no knowledge your lawyer, right had no knowledge of
27:11
Speaker 1: John Jones, as you mentioned Keith or his statement to
27:14
Speaker 1: the police. When he cross examined Rafferty, he said to
27:17
Speaker 1: the detective quote, officer, was there other suspects on the
27:21
Speaker 1: day you interviewed my client? Sullivan Deda objected, and the
27:24
Speaker 1: jury was excused while the two sides had a conference
27:26
Speaker 1: in the judges chambers. According to an investigation by Newsday,
27:30
Speaker 1: Sullivan said there were.
27:31
Speaker 2: No other suspects.
27:32
Speaker 1: He told the judge that quote, there was nobody else
27:34
Speaker 1: who was connected with the crime with any evidence end quote.
27:37
Speaker 1: That is an incredibly bold lie. Sullivan said that if
27:42
Speaker 1: Seligman took Rafferty down that path, it would open the
27:44
Speaker 1: door to him asking the detective about all sorts of
27:46
Speaker 1: raw evidence that might be damaging to you Keith, and
27:49
Speaker 1: Seligman backed off.
27:51
Speaker 3: He was preventing my lawyer from opening up lines of
27:54
Speaker 3: questioning as to other suspects in this case. Detective Rafferty
27:59
Speaker 3: was the one who took the statement from John J. Jones,
28:02
Speaker 3: and this was three weeks after he's sitting at a
28:06
Speaker 3: Huntly hearing determining the voluntary or involuntariliness of the confession.
28:12
Speaker 3: This guy is given testimony and he's pretending like I'm
28:16
Speaker 3: the only person of interest. So now when he testifies
28:20
Speaker 3: that trial, when we did not question him in that area,
28:24
Speaker 3: we did not get an opportunity for him to go
28:27
Speaker 3: on the record. And I mean, obviously the lying all throughout,
28:31
Speaker 3: but to continuously lie by concealing exculpatory evidence.
28:35
Speaker 1: And the existence of Jones as an ultimate suspect was
28:38
Speaker 1: hidden from you, as you said, Keith, for four decades,
28:40
Speaker 1: forty long years. And you also had multiple alibi witnesses.
28:45
Speaker 1: Some of them testified again under oath, that you would
28:48
Speaker 1: stay at the party till three am, an hour and
28:50
Speaker 1: a half after the murder took place. Others testified that
28:52
Speaker 1: they never saw Bell outside the party. But several alibi
28:56
Speaker 1: witnesses didn't testify, and of course it comes out later
28:59
Speaker 1: and they said this in an affid Davis, that the
29:01
Speaker 1: police threatened them with the rest if they helped you
29:05
Speaker 1: with your defense. So that's what the police were doing.
29:08
Speaker 1: While they were letting this Jones guy walk the street.
29:12
Speaker 1: They were out there paying visits to the people who
29:15
Speaker 1: wanted to do their duty, who wanted to be honest
29:19
Speaker 1: and forthright and come to your defense. As they knew
29:22
Speaker 1: you weren't the guy that did it. You did testify
29:24
Speaker 1: in your own defense denying killing her, of course, but
29:28
Speaker 1: when you testified about the brutal beating that you endured
29:32
Speaker 1: in the interrogation room, the prosecution attacked you. Tell me
29:35
Speaker 1: if this is wrong, Keith. They asked how many times
29:37
Speaker 1: you had been hit, and when you responded, I don't know.
29:40
Speaker 1: I wasn't counting, but I know it was a lot
29:42
Speaker 1: of times end quote, that was enough for them to say, well,
29:46
Speaker 1: see that he doesn't even know how many times he
29:48
Speaker 1: was hit.
29:48
Speaker 2: What the hell are they talking about?
29:51
Speaker 3: Ask the position they try to take.
29:53
Speaker 1: But everybody should have seen through that. You were acquitted
29:56
Speaker 1: of intentional premeditated murder, but convicted of second degree murder
30:00
Speaker 1: and attempted sexual abuse and sentenced to twenty years to
30:02
Speaker 1: life in prison.
30:04
Speaker 3: I was withdrawn. I was in a state of confusion,
30:09
Speaker 3: and it threw me into a deep state of shame
30:14
Speaker 3: of hurt because I was ashamed at myself for allowing
30:20
Speaker 3: them to do that to me, like I trapped myself
30:25
Speaker 3: in hell. Obviously, I've seen the world looking down upon me,
30:44
Speaker 3: and the hatred that people had for me was the
30:47
Speaker 3: direct result of me allowing those detectives to do that
30:53
Speaker 3: to me, and that bothered me to the extent that
30:57
Speaker 3: I hated them, I hated the system. I just felt
31:02
Speaker 3: a sense of anger, almost like it was born out
31:05
Speaker 3: of me, like an entity on my back. I had
31:09
Speaker 3: a sense of anger that may have served as a
31:12
Speaker 3: few and all I wanted to do was fight back.
31:17
Speaker 3: And for forty four years, I just kept fighting back
31:20
Speaker 3: in every way I could.
31:22
Speaker 2: And fight back you did.
31:23
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the impellate process and how you
31:26
Speaker 1: got here. So initially, you didn't go after all of
31:30
Speaker 1: the issues of innocence that we've already laid out so far. Rather,
31:33
Speaker 1: the first appeal was focused on whether or not it
31:36
Speaker 1: was legal for them even to have detained you in
31:38
Speaker 1: the first place, and a Supreme Court decision had come
31:41
Speaker 1: down in nineteen seventy nine, I believe, called Dunaway versus
31:44
Speaker 1: New York, which addressed issues relating to the Fourth and
31:47
Speaker 1: fourteenth Amendments. Now, the fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searchers or
31:51
Speaker 1: seizures and sets the guidelines for the issuing of warrants,
31:54
Speaker 1: and importantly here that warrants must be justified by probable cause.
31:59
Speaker 2: Now after hearing your arguments, the.
32:01
Speaker 1: Appell Division found the police used deception and trickery to.
32:05
Speaker 2: Illegally de team you.
32:06
Speaker 1: But if there was significant evidence to show probable cause,
32:09
Speaker 1: it would cure, so to speak, the illegal detention. Your
32:13
Speaker 1: defense was ready to argue that police did not have
32:17
Speaker 1: probable cause, even with the statement that Maxine Bell was
32:21
Speaker 1: just about to recant.
32:23
Speaker 3: Maxine Bell had left Bell put after my conviction because
32:27
Speaker 3: she was having problems with kids in the community and
32:29
Speaker 3: there was well, how did you lie on them? And
32:32
Speaker 3: so anyway, to our surprise, the prosecutor had sent Maxime
32:37
Speaker 3: Bell a plane ticket from Alabama to come back to testify.
32:41
Speaker 3: But when she came back, she had told the district
32:43
Speaker 3: attorney that she's going to tell the truth that she
32:46
Speaker 3: lied and none of this really happened. That kind of
32:50
Speaker 3: like knocked out the key argument of probable cause. But
32:53
Speaker 3: instead of the judge ruling in favor of the defense
32:57
Speaker 3: based on the recantation of Maxime in the fact that
33:01
Speaker 3: there wasn't sufficient evidence to support the illegal detention, he
33:05
Speaker 3: concluded that Maxine Bell's trial testimony is chewing, that her
33:09
Speaker 3: recantation is false, and he rendered in his determination that
33:14
Speaker 3: from the trial, she was a sympathetic and appealing figure.
33:17
Speaker 3: Now she has gone into an immature adult, but the
33:21
Speaker 3: extent of her disturbance is not fully described, so he
33:24
Speaker 3: denied the probable cause hearing. So I had went back
33:28
Speaker 3: on a clatteral attack to argue against the judge's fact findings,
33:34
Speaker 3: and I argued at pro say. So I argued that
33:38
Speaker 3: obviously she had matured into a disturbed adult. But this girl,
33:41
Speaker 3: after she testified against me I was convicted, she was
33:45
Speaker 3: home crying thinking about what she did during trials. She
33:48
Speaker 3: was pregnant and she had a baby boy, and three
33:51
Speaker 3: months after her baby was born, the baby just died.
33:55
Speaker 3: So she thought God was punishing her for what she
33:58
Speaker 3: did to me. She tried to commit suicide. She had
34:01
Speaker 3: to seek psychiatric care. So I said, obviously there is
34:06
Speaker 3: some disturbance in this girl, but all that disturbance relates
34:10
Speaker 3: to her given false testimony against me. And I asked
34:13
Speaker 3: the judge if he would order that a professional in
34:17
Speaker 3: that psychiatric field can examine her and assist the judge
34:21
Speaker 3: in this fact finding determination, because this judge concluded that
34:25
Speaker 3: her disturbance is not fully described.
34:27
Speaker 2: He denied that too, and you received denial after denial,
34:32
Speaker 2: first as a pro Salytican filing a federal Habeast and
34:35
Speaker 2: then even with the help of Censurion ministries, and the
34:38
Speaker 2: denials continued through nineteen ninety six, which is when you
34:41
Speaker 2: became eligible for parole.
34:43
Speaker 1: Of course, the Parole Board denied you I think it
34:45
Speaker 1: was five times because you refuse to admit guilt and
34:48
Speaker 1: register as a sex offender. And later the Department of
34:51
Speaker 1: Corrections went so far as to impose policies that further
34:55
Speaker 1: punished you for your refusal to admit guilt, and in
34:57
Speaker 1: response to that, you took them to court with a
35:00
Speaker 1: compelling argument, which was that since you swore on the
35:02
Speaker 1: Bible and proclaimed your innocence at trial, for them to
35:06
Speaker 1: penalize you and discriminate against you if you didn't break
35:09
Speaker 1: that oath, that sounds like a violation of your right
35:11
Speaker 1: to religion, and a judge determined that you had a
35:15
Speaker 1: constitutional question of law that was entitled to review. It's
35:18
Speaker 1: actually brilliant. Meanwhile, you had also been pursuing DNA testing,
35:23
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and six the Sevin County DA
35:25
Speaker 1: started a DNA review project to look at old cases
35:28
Speaker 1: that had biological evidence that previously couldn't be tested, and
35:31
Speaker 1: so it finally looked like this could get you around
35:35
Speaker 1: the barrel board entirely.
35:37
Speaker 3: They tested my DNA against the fingernail scrapings that they found.
35:42
Speaker 3: There was a male profile and two females, but the
35:46
Speaker 3: male profile did not match me. But at that time
35:50
Speaker 3: they didn't tell me that. And when my attorney, Harold Seligman,
35:54
Speaker 3: looked into it for me, they wrote me a letter
35:58
Speaker 3: telling me that they haven't got a decision yet. They
36:01
Speaker 3: haven't heard nothing yet, but when they do, they will
36:03
Speaker 3: notify me and that I go to the parole board
36:05
Speaker 3: and I will be released in two thousand and six.
36:10
Speaker 3: Now I go to the parole board and I maintain
36:14
Speaker 3: my innocence. I refuse to take a sex offense. My
36:17
Speaker 3: stance don't change. They released me from prison, but they
36:23
Speaker 3: labelize me as a sexual predator, and they sent me
36:27
Speaker 3: back to the community with that stigma. Then they might
36:32
Speaker 3: my life twice as hard to transition because of that
36:37
Speaker 3: stigma for the next twelve years. All that time, my
36:44
Speaker 3: release from prison wasn't nothing but a transfer to another institution.
36:49
Speaker 2: Like a bigger prison.
36:51
Speaker 3: They're the bigger picture of my life was institutionalized.
36:54
Speaker 2: I read an incredible quote from you, Keith.
36:57
Speaker 1: Somebody must have asked you about why you refuse to
36:59
Speaker 1: me guilt, and it probably would have opened the prison
37:01
Speaker 1: doors and set you home, right, I would have you
37:03
Speaker 1: would have been paroled earlier. And you said, I refuse
37:07
Speaker 1: to let them do to me as a man what
37:08
Speaker 1: they did to me as a boy. I mean that
37:11
Speaker 1: hits hard. So there you are out in the quote
37:14
Speaker 1: unquote free world, but unable to use the internet, to
37:17
Speaker 1: live within a thousand or fifteen hundred feet of a school,
37:20
Speaker 1: even try to rebuild your life, try to get meaningful employment.
37:24
Speaker 1: All those doors are totally closed to you. So the
37:27
Speaker 1: punishment continues, and then it gets worse again because, on
37:31
Speaker 1: top of all the other indignities, that you were supposed
37:33
Speaker 1: to pay a monthly fee to allow officials to monitor
37:36
Speaker 1: your online activities. Okay, so with the money that you
37:39
Speaker 1: can't make because they won't let you really get a
37:41
Speaker 1: job because you're a registered sex offender, you're supposed to
37:43
Speaker 1: pay them to do the job that they're supposedly monitoring
37:47
Speaker 1: your online activities. Okay, there's a whole lot wrong with that,
37:51
Speaker 1: but we're going to jump to the next. So during
37:53
Speaker 1: an inspection of your home, officials found that you had
37:57
Speaker 1: been working on your niece's computer writing your memoirs. Right,
38:01
Speaker 1: not doing anything wrong, the farthest thing from it, but
38:04
Speaker 1: the computer had Internet access. Sure enough, they use this
38:07
Speaker 1: as an excuse to send you back to prison for
38:09
Speaker 1: a freaking year because you were trying to write your
38:12
Speaker 1: memoirs on a computer that had Internet access.
38:14
Speaker 3: When you're living under these types of stringent regulations, you're
38:20
Speaker 3: basically living the life of a slave. Irregardless to whether
38:25
Speaker 3: they would have violated me or not. You know, it
38:29
Speaker 3: wouldn't have made no different because I wasn't going to
38:31
Speaker 3: stop fighting for my innocence.
38:33
Speaker 1: No, you would not, And you were able to get
38:35
Speaker 1: one of the one of the real greats in this
38:38
Speaker 1: field to take your case. I'm talking about Adele Bernhard
38:40
Speaker 1: from the Innocence Clinic that Pace Law School and later
38:43
Speaker 1: New York Law Schools Post Conviction Innocence Clinic as well.
38:46
Speaker 1: So she was able to get the courts to allow
38:48
Speaker 1: DNA testing and to confirm with Suffolk County already knew
38:51
Speaker 1: that your DNA was excluded from the fingernail scrapings and
38:54
Speaker 1: the plastic pick found of the scene that, along with
38:58
Speaker 1: the nineteen eight nine state report criticized and the tactics
39:00
Speaker 1: of Detective Rafferty and others, should have been more than
39:04
Speaker 1: enough to overturn the conviction. But Suffolk County still had
39:06
Speaker 1: the confession, the false confession that was signed under torture,
39:11
Speaker 1: police torture, and they argued that the nineteen eighty nine
39:14
Speaker 1: report was little more than a quote unquote fishing expedition
39:18
Speaker 1: and that the fingernail scrapings could have been contaminated, and
39:21
Speaker 1: somehow that that was enough to get your motion denied.
39:25
Speaker 1: And then next you went after the false confession, and
39:27
Speaker 1: in order to prove that it was false, A Dell
39:29
Speaker 1: got the renowned forensic pathologist, doctor Michael Bodden to assess
39:32
Speaker 1: the autopsy and other physical evidence to show that the
39:35
Speaker 1: statement they wrote for you to sign did not match reality,
39:39
Speaker 1: That the pattern and spacing of the pick did not
39:42
Speaker 1: match up to the puncture wounds. The punctures were in
39:44
Speaker 1: groups of three rather than ten like the pick. And
39:48
Speaker 1: in addition, some of the wounds were too deep to
39:50
Speaker 1: have been made by the pick without the neighboring wounds
39:52
Speaker 1: being equally deep. Now, how the wounds were made. We
39:55
Speaker 1: have no idea and according to this alleged statement, needed
39:58
Speaker 1: did you. But anyway, and also pointed out that without
40:01
Speaker 1: bleeding around the wounds, they must have been made posthumously,
40:04
Speaker 1: which contradicted the statement in which the stabbing happened before
40:08
Speaker 1: she was strangled to death. Now you already had the
40:11
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen affidavit from Maxine Bell recanting, saying that quote,
40:15
Speaker 1: I was scared of the police. This is a direct quote.
40:17
Speaker 1: I was scared of the police. I believed I was
40:20
Speaker 1: doing the right thing by confirming what they already believed.
40:24
Speaker 2: End quote.
40:25
Speaker 1: Then in twenty seventeen, that's when you found out about
40:28
Speaker 1: this insane Brady violation, with John Jones having admitted in
40:31
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, before your trial and before a rape
40:34
Speaker 1: the Jones committed in nineteen seventy six that he admitted
40:37
Speaker 1: to being at the scene and.
40:38
Speaker 2: That the pick was his.
40:40
Speaker 1: Adele also obtained affidavits from witnesses at the party stating
40:43
Speaker 1: that they had been discouraged from helping you. And discouraged
40:47
Speaker 1: that's not a strong enough word, because we know what
40:49
Speaker 1: these motherfuckers were doing. I mean, I forget my language,
40:53
Speaker 1: but this is it's just sick. Then, in twenty eighteen,
40:57
Speaker 1: Adele presented all of this to the new DA in
41:00
Speaker 1: Suffolk County, Timothy Sinny, who had just opened a Conviction
41:04
Speaker 1: Integrity Bureau, And when the Suffix CIV did their own investigation,
41:09
Speaker 1: they agreed with doctor Biden's findings, as well as that
41:11
Speaker 1: the detective testimony about the fibers was also unsubstantiated. They
41:15
Speaker 1: furthermore suggested that John Jones, who died in two thousand
41:18
Speaker 1: and six, appeared to be quote and again I'm quoting
41:20
Speaker 1: directly the most viable suspect in Sherise Watson's murder end quote.
41:24
Speaker 1: And while they couldn't confirm the physical abuse during the interrogation,
41:29
Speaker 1: they agreed that even in absence of that, the tactics
41:32
Speaker 1: were psychologically coercive enough to produce a false statement from
41:35
Speaker 1: a scared teenager. And while Rafferty would only communicate through
41:39
Speaker 1: his lawyer, his partner August Stahl, sat down for an
41:42
Speaker 1: interview in which he stated quote that fucking blank did it.
41:48
Speaker 1: So I don't think we need to say anymore about what,
41:50
Speaker 1: unfortiately is not a surprising statement for Detective Stall. So finally,
41:54
Speaker 1: it took forty four years of fighting forty four years,
41:59
Speaker 1: but the Suffa County issued in order to vacate your
42:01
Speaker 1: conviction on May twenty second, twenty nineteen, rightfully, so you
42:06
Speaker 1: then filed suit against them and the State of New York,
42:09
Speaker 1: settling in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. Now, no
42:12
Speaker 1: amount of money could ever be enough for what they
42:14
Speaker 1: put you through, But I'm glad that at least you
42:16
Speaker 1: can live out the rest of your days and some
42:19
Speaker 1: you know, reasonable physical comfort and the comfort of having
42:22
Speaker 1: your name cleared. Now, I'm sure members of our audience
42:27
Speaker 1: would like to keep up with you, like I already do.
42:29
Speaker 1: So what's a good way for them to do that?
42:31
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not really on the social media. I
42:34
Speaker 3: got on TikTok as a little you know, so I
42:37
Speaker 3: did a couple of little skids on it. I plan
42:39
Speaker 3: on taking some of my poems and then turn them
42:42
Speaker 3: into skits and throw them out there.
42:45
Speaker 2: Amazing.
42:45
Speaker 1: Well, I'm already following him at kt Bush five. That's
42:49
Speaker 1: kt Bush like the plant five number five. We'll have
42:53
Speaker 1: that linked in the bio. And by the way, you
42:56
Speaker 1: mentioned your poetry, and I understand that you have a
42:58
Speaker 1: few books out, So what can you tell us about
43:02
Speaker 1: all that stuff.
43:03
Speaker 3: I just I had did a book, a poetic book,
43:07
Speaker 3: Poetic Raised, Visioneering, Magnetic, and that was some of the
43:10
Speaker 3: poems that I kind of wrote when I was in prison,
43:12
Speaker 3: and it represents, you know, different stages of my development,
43:16
Speaker 3: the transitions I went through. There were anger parts, they
43:20
Speaker 3: were amicable parts, you know, just the different phases that
43:23
Speaker 3: I went through. But I'm in the process so completed
43:26
Speaker 3: the memoir. I just got to get it published. And
43:29
Speaker 3: then there's another book that I had wrote on the
43:32
Speaker 3: African American self reparation concept that I had kind of developed.
43:36
Speaker 3: But I want to try to get these two books
43:39
Speaker 3: out this year and you know, probably within months.
43:42
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we'll put a link to it in the bio.
43:44
Speaker 2: And now, Keith, we have a tradition here.
43:47
Speaker 1: At Ron for Conviction. We closed the show the same
43:50
Speaker 1: way every time, and it's my favorite part of the show.
43:54
Speaker 1: And here's why, because it works like this. It's called
43:56
Speaker 1: closing arguments, and it works like this. Again, I thank
44:02
Speaker 1: you for being here, taking your time and sharing your story.
44:06
Speaker 1: And then I'm gonna turn my microphone off, leave yours on.
44:10
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna kick back in my chair. And listen
44:13
Speaker 1: for any final thoughts you want to share with me
44:16
Speaker 1: and our amazing audience.
44:18
Speaker 3: Okay, first of all, you know, I got to give
44:23
Speaker 3: the highest praise to my mother. You know she is
44:27
Speaker 3: you know, she's my Earth goddess. And no one has
44:31
Speaker 3: fought on my side with me all the way, persistently,
44:36
Speaker 3: even when I got tired, that she had motivated me
44:43
Speaker 3: and she was there to see me exonerate myself. And
44:49
Speaker 3: I also know that my brothers and sisters never they
44:55
Speaker 3: never doubted my innocence and was always there for me.
45:00
Speaker 3: And there are family members who also supported me, friends
45:05
Speaker 3: and a lot of people in the community. But doing
45:10
Speaker 3: prison time also changed the way I see the world,
45:16
Speaker 3: and there were some of them prisoners who were my
45:18
Speaker 3: teachers inspired me to grow, and I engaged myself in
45:25
Speaker 3: movements that led to educate a whole lot of other
45:29
Speaker 3: prisoners by teaching them what they need to learn in
45:34
Speaker 3: order to improve themselves. Because it's not only the innocence
45:39
Speaker 3: that's a victim to the criminal justice system, but it's
45:43
Speaker 3: the perpetrators who victimize that create the feeding of the
45:47
Speaker 3: criminal justice system, and it eats all victimization. And I
45:52
Speaker 3: spent my time in prison wisely by investing in my
45:56
Speaker 3: personal development and giving back and helping some of these
46:00
Speaker 3: guys to change their lives around so that they can
46:04
Speaker 3: return home as an asset as opposed to a liability.
46:09
Speaker 3: But my journey was a difficult journey and it is
46:13
Speaker 3: not one worth living again. But one thing I can
46:18
Speaker 3: say that once I place my faith in God, which
46:25
Speaker 3: is very important to my spirituality, then I was able
46:33
Speaker 3: to draw those things that represents God like righteousness right
46:38
Speaker 3: people to me, and they helped me to open this door.
46:43
Speaker 3: So I'm eternally grateful not only to the innocent projects
46:48
Speaker 3: with Adele and all the other people who fight for
46:51
Speaker 3: the innocent, but for the integrity units who have the
46:55
Speaker 3: dignity to stand up when something is wrong and say
46:58
Speaker 3: that it's wrong. In that fight for your generation. That
47:03
Speaker 3: makes it easier. So you know, there is a debt
47:07
Speaker 3: that I pay. My debt to the righteous, all those
47:09
Speaker 3: who do right things and help us create a better
47:14
Speaker 3: world for ourselves in spite of the things that we
47:17
Speaker 3: go through. Because our world is balanced on polarity good
47:21
Speaker 3: and evil, and there's always going to be a battle.
47:25
Speaker 3: So I'm glad to be on that right side.
47:33
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
47:37
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clivern and Kevin
47:40
Speaker 1: Wardis with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this
47:43
Speaker 1: production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
47:47
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
47:51
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
47:55
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good on
47:58
Speaker 1: all three platforms, and also follow me on both TikTok
48:02
Speaker 1: and Instagram at It's Jason flam Ravel. Conviction is the
48:05
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
48:08
Speaker 1: Company Number one