Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #073 Jason Flom with Damien Echols (Live from the Church of Rock and Roll)

Transcript

#073 Jason Flom with Damien Echols (Live from the Church of Rock and Roll) · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: do know that everything was stacked against me.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Everything like everything.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: with this. How is this possible?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: I grew up trusting the systems. I grew up believing
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: that every human being should do the right thing. And
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: corp people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Our system.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: Since I've been out ten years, it has come a
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: little ways, but it's still broken.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction.
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm That's me,
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: And today we have an episode that I'm actually kind
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: of intimidated to even do because I'm interviewing a personal
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: hero of Damien Eccles.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Damien, welcome to the show.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: And it's extra special because we're here recording in front
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: of an audience at the Church of Rock and Roll
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: in Las Vegas, of which you have been an incredible
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: part and I'm so grateful to you for your participation.
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: But I want to start this episode by apologizing to
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: you on behalf of.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: The entire human race for.
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: What is just and unbelievable there's not a right word
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: for it, but nightmare, saga, ordeal that never should have
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: happened in the first place. And I just wanted to
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: tell you upfront that I'm I'm, I'm inspired and uh
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: just in incredibly moves by by your presence. And so
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: so with that being said, before I get all gushy here,
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: let's get right into it. So I'm gonna ask you questions,
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: some of them already know the answer to because I'm
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: familiar with your story, but not not all the details.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: But let's go back to growing up your childhood. Okay,
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: did you have brothers and sisters?
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I did. My family history is kind of odd and convoluted,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: just because my mother and father were both married about
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: five times each.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So I have a lot of you know, half siblings,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: step siblings, full siblings. So my family did to vary
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: at any given time. It could be anything from just
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: me and my sister to I think like the most
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: was like seven of us at one time, seven children
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: at one time. So it was kind of all over
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the map.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: And I've heard you talk about the fact that you
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: grew up so poor that when you finally moved to
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: a trailer, it was like you felt like you were
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: like the Jeffersons moving on up right, absolutely, I mean,
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: can you describe how what did that look like? I mean,
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: you were Did you grow up in West Memphis?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Well, when I was really young. One of the things
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: whenever Laurie was working with the investigators looking back over
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the case and they were getting like my school records
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and things like that, one of the investigators was saying,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: this can't be right. The school records show that sometimes
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you moved as often as every two weeks, and I
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: did you know I lived in Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maryland, Oregon,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: just everywhere. We were constantly moving, you know, my parents
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: or my dad at you sort of thought, you know,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: maybe if we go to this place, then you know,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: somehow or another will escape poverty. You know, there'll be
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a better job, a better place to live, a better
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: something down the road. So we were constantly moving from
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: place to place looking for something better than what we had,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: trying to escape poverty basically. But we would always at
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the same time, end up coming back to either Tennessee
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: or Arkansas, because that was where we had, you know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the most family members at least some sense of support
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: or community. So we went all over the place, but
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: would always end up coming back there.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: And for you growing up in this really, I mean
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: I didn't even know. I mean every two weeks you
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: were literally a nomad, right, an American nomad.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And I've heard you talk about I watch your moth.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: Presentation, which is wonderful if anyone wants to go online
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: and see it, just I mean, it comes right up
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: when you google Damien Echols. It's a ten minute video
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: that is very, very powerful. So you talked about how
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: for you, and this is why it's so exciting and
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: interesting to be here right now, the Church of Rock
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: and Roll. You talked about how music and books were
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: really your way of sort of taking yourself out of
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: this really miserable situation in many ways that you were.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: In absolutely, you know, my family, I have a ninth
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: grade education. I dropped out of school when I was
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: in ninth grade, and that's more than anyone else in
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: my family has. You know, if you looked at my
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: whole family tree, you won't find anyone with so much
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: as a high school diploma. So we didn't have, you know,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: like a lot of books or a library or anything
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: in our house. For me, I used to skip school
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and go hang out at the library all day. As
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: odd as that sounds. I would hide in the library,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: read books, bring them home because when you're reading, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you're even if it's only in your head, you're going
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: different places, seeing different things, having different experiences, and you
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: don't have to focus on the fact that you're eating
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: rice again for the you know, seventh time this week.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: And then you had a sort of an outsider.
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: You were an outcast right and as as partially as
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: a result of that, or maybe it was a cause
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: and effect whatever, you ended up being inadvertently putting yourself
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: in a situation where when one of the most terrible
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: crimes not only the history of Arkansas, but in the history.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: Of America.
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  Speaker 5: Or the world happened, there were these very small minded
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: people around who.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Sort of came to this.
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: Instinctual call it conclusion that it must be the weird kid, right,
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: it must be the kid that wears black and listens
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: to heavy metal. Because this was in the we're going
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: back to nineteen ninety three now, right day of nineteen
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: ninety three, and many people.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: Will already know part of the story.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: But on that tragic day, three little eight year old
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: boys went out for a bike ride and disappeared, and they.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Turned up sexually mutilated.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: One boy was castrated, they were tortured, hogtied, it hurts
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: me just to say it.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: And their bodies were dumped in a swampy river bed.
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: So we know, I know from decades of working on
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: wrongful convictions that when you get a crime like this,
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: especially at a small community but anywhere, there's a lot
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: of pressure. Nobody wants to have fat pressure. Everybody wants
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: to calm the community, and so the authorities are more
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: prone to developing theories that in a more calm environment
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: might not make sense and they might not pursue. But
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: in this case, somehow or other, they And this was
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: the in the Satanic Panic as well. Right, yes, back then,
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: for those of you who are old enough to remember,
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: in the early nineties, there was this very strange thing
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: that was going on in America where there was rumors
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: of Satanic cllts and stuff like that. None of them
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: turned out to be true, but that's besides the point.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: So what happened, Well.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: You know, for me my entire life, the thing that
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: has been most important to me, that that I love
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the most, that my life always sort of revolved around,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was Western hermeticism, ceremonial magic all the way back from
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: when I was a child. But I lived in an
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: incredibly right wing fundamentalist town where I mean, there were
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: places in this town where you come to a four
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  Speaker 1: corner stop and on all four corners of the street
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  Speaker 1: will be churches. If you weren't like I was.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Like Starbucks, Now, yeah, that's exactly what it was like.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, churches were like Starbucks is there,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And if you didn't belong to, you know, one of
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: these mainstream for that area, mainstream fundamentalist religions. You were
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: automatically viewed as suspicious. You know, you you were Satanic.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: That's what they thought. And it didn't matter if you
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: were a Buddhist or a Hindu or something like that.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: You're still satanic. You just don't know you're a Satanist.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: You're just being you know, tricked by the devil into
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: thinking there's some other religion. But then whenever you start,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you know, bringing factors in, like the fact that I
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: actually did love ceremonial magic, and that's been one of
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: their things that you know, they harp on forever that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that is Satanism, that those two things there's no difference
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: in those. So that was a huge part of what
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: made them focus on me as well. You know, that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: was what they thought made me a freak. They think, automatically,
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  Speaker 1: you're a Satanist. It would take a Satanist to commit
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a crime like this. Stick all those things together, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: they didn't even look for anybody or anything else.
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: No, and they ignored in this case what's really stomach churning.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: Aside from so many other factors, but one of the
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: things that's really so upsetting is the idea that they
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: ignored obvious signs you have that pointed to at least one,
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: arguably up to three other individuals. Yes, including and this
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: is just it's too strange to even believe. But the
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: fact is that there was a local restaurant, was it
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: Bojangles or something. It was a Bojangles where the manager
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: called the cops that night and said there was a
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: guy covered in mud and blood that stumbled into the
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: fast food place and went into the bathroom. And to
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: their credit, the manager called up and a police officer
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: came but didn't investigate, and they ultimately collected evidence from
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: that bathroom that he went into, which there was blood
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: all over the place and mud, and they lost it.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, right, they lost it. So I mean not only that,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: but also even after they did DNA testing, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: years later, they do DNA testing, find out that the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: DNA does not match me or the other two guys
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: they convicted. To this day, they still have not run
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that DNA through codis to see who it matches. They
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: refuse to do that.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which is you know, which is so strange.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: And I talk about on the show a lot because
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: in a case like this, especially in the small community,
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: the people who are doing investigating live in that community.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: By definition, they may bring in outside experts, but a
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: lot of them live in the community. And you know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: as a dad, myself, or as as any as a citizen,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: as anybody, everyone's got relatives, everyone should be concerned for
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: their own safety. When you have somebody out there who's
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: capable of this sort of pure evil, you would think
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: it for no other reason than purely selfish reasons. You
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: would want to get that person off the street, because
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: that's a you know, that's a really scary situation. So
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: but that that's not what happened, and it happens too
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: frequently that these various factors combine to result in a
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: tragic outcome. To tragic outcomes, well, in this case many
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: because there were three of you, all your family members
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: are affected. And then the fact that the actual perpetrators
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: were allowed to remain free and there and there again
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: were obvious signs, I mean the one I just talked about,
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: the various signs pointing to the stepfather of one of
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: the boys, including a bloody knife that had the kids
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: blood on them, that was found that belonged to him.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, this one kind of came with instructions, and
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: I know that it's difficult, and I have known one
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: of these people that I'm not an anarchist. I believe
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: we do need a system of law and order, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of there are a lot of
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: very good police and judges and prosecutors out there.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: But in this case, you ran into the perfect storm.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: It's a small town, high profile crime, complicated crime because
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: the crime scene itself was a muddy riverbed, not the
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: easiest place to collect evidence.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: It seemed to have been scrubbed to some degree. And
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: then all the pressure.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And what people don't realize also, you know, just most
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: people's knowledge of the legal system comes from watching TV,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: which is complete and absolute fiction. They don't, you know
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: they And it fosters this idea that these people, these judges,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: these prosecutors, these attorney generals, that they have these positions
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: because there're somehow moral people. They're good people who are
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: looking out for since that's excuse me, society. In actual fact,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: these are politicians, just like senators, just like congressmen. Their
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: number one priority is winning that next election, So they're
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: going to do for that next case exactly, whatever the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: community is pressuring them to do, that's the way they're
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: going to lean because they want to win the next election.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: So in this case, they focused on you, and then
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: they had to find a way to get to you,
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: right because there was no evidence connecting you to it.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Did you know the boys, No, never even heard of them.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: Even in a small I mean, it's got to be
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: a very small community. I think that everybody would almost
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: know everybody. Course, I'm from New York, so I sound ridiculous,
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: but you know what I mean, it sounds really small
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: to me.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: West Memphis, Arkansas.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, but keep in mind, these are eight year
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: old kids. You know, it's an entire day generation than
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: me or the other two guys even convicted. Were there
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: were you know, no reason that we would know him.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: They were in elementary school. We were already you know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in junior high getting ready to go into high school.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: They also lived in you know, the suburbs and the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: next town over. Technically we didn't even live in the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: same town. They lived in West Memphis. Me and the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: other two guys lived in the next town over, which
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: was called Marion. So you know, it wasn't like there
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: was any reason for us to ever even come in
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: contact with each other.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: And Jason Baldwin.
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: Let's just talk about Jason for a second, because he's
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: one of my favorite people. I called him before, the
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: best Jason I know, and he's been on the show.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: It was an awesome experience interviewing him and just an
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: amazing guy. He just recently got somebody off of death row.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: I saw on Instagram today actually that he helped to
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: free a guy from death row, which is such an
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: incredible accomplishment with his organization. So Jason was your sort
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: of a one and best and a pretty much onlyfriend
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: at the time, right, And he was I mean from
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: just appearance, his physical appearances, he was sort of he
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: didn't have the same stigma that you did, right.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: He was sort of just an average.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: Looking kid, very very young looking, must have weighed a
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: hundred pounds or less, long blonde hair, didn't look like
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: a killer.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: But to them, you did, exactly. And he got caught
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: up in all.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Of this too, yep, just because he knew me.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Right, unbelievable.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: So they found a way and that way was Jesse
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: miscally exactly. So from your view, and I want to
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: know the moment, like I know, when the cops came
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: to your door and your life turned into the living
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: nightmare that I think is everyone's primal fear. So they
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: originally went after Jesse, and they sort of tricked him
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: into confessing, and he immediately recanted after he confessed.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: But he was a I mean, he was slow, right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: He had an.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Arsue of somewhere between seventy and seventy two, and they
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: interrogated him. I think the I can't remember exactly how
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: many hours it was, it was something like between twelve
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and fourteen hours. And they're telling this guy, who you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: has an IQ that's way way below normal. They're telling
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: him things like, you know, just tell us what we
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: want to know and we'll let you go home. So
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: they finally get this guy to confess, and he can't
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: get anything about the crime scene, right because he wasn't
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: actually there, so he didn't know anything. They didn't care.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: The only thing they cared about was the fact that
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: they got him to say yes. And most people, you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: on a jury, even today, they'll say, well, nobody would
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: confess to something they haven't actually done. We know now
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: that that's not true. You know, all the studies show
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: that something like over half of the people who are
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: falsely convicted end up being forced into confessions in one
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: way or another. And this guy was just another person
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that got forced into a confession.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: And we also know, Damien, that the most people who
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: are most susceptible to this our adolescence. We now know
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: that the human brain isn't fully formed until you're twenty five,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: but when you're he was sixteen, right, and he was
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: sixteen or seventeen, yes, seventeen seventeen, and with his low IQ,
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: he was totally outmatched, overwhelmed, and probably after twelve to
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: fourteen hours, he would have confessed to you know, anything,
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: killing Abraham Lincoln exactly, I mean, just to go home,
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: because that tiny room and the you know, and everybody
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: being on top of you. You know, it's not a
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: situation anyone ever wants to find themselves in it. And
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: we know now from study after study that people will
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: say and do almost anything to get themselves out of there.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: So and he kept changing his story.
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: It didn't make any sense, but it was good enough
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: for them, and then he got them to do exactly
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: what they brought.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Him in there for. And he was just collateral damage.
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: They didn't really care about convicting him, but they had
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: to because he had now confessed, and in order to
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: get you and to make his confession make even a
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: modicum of sense, they had to bring him along for
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: this terrible ride as well. And so he implicated you
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: and Jason, and then they said, okay, now now we
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: can we can proceed. And then one day, one night
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: it was I guess right, you were home with Jason, Yeah,
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: watching movies.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: You had me, Jason, my younger sister, and my girlfriend
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: at the time were just at home watching TVs. You know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: by this time, we had been harassed by the cops
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: for probably a month straight. They were at our house,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: either my house or Jason's house, or stopping us on
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the street, you know, just messing with us non stop,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: every single day. So when they showed up this night,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: we figured it was just more of the same, you know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: we thought they're just here to harass us again. We
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: didn't realize they were coming to arrest us this time.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: So take us through that, because it's it's so terrifying.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: But you know, like I said, we were sitting there
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: watching TV and they start banging on the door. You know,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: they're they're just beating the hell out of it, like
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: they're gonna knock it in. And at first, you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I'd said, don't even answer the door, so let them
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: stand out there and beat on it. But they wouldn't.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: They didn't go away this time, so we go open
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the door immediately. You know, whenever I open the door,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it looked like pretty much every cop in West Memphis
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is standing there with their guns pointed at me. They
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: rush into the house, start destroying everything. They put me
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: in Jason, both in handcuffs, throw us in the backs
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of cock cars, drive us to jail. They put me,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: they immediately separated us. I wouldn't see Jason again for years. Well,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I saw him for a short period of time at
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the trial, but we weren't allowed to communicate in any
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: way whatsoever. You know, even though we're sitting at the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: same table, they've got me at one side and him
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: at the other, and they will not even let us
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: talk to each other. So we wouldn't, you know, talk
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to each other again for almost twenty years, I think.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But okay, here's another thing. My brain goes dead a lot.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I will forget what I'm talking about, because, like you
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: were just saying, people's minds are still forming all the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: way up until they're twenty five years old. I was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: arrested when I was nineteen, and I I spent almost
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a decade in solitary confinement, so I lost a lot
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of things that people take for granted, like face recognition,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: voice recognition. I have almost no short term memory whatsoever.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I will a lot of times forget what the hell
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm saying right in the middle of a sentence. Whenever
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I'm doing talks, I'll tell the audience that beforehand, I'll say,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: if I forget what I'm saying, I'll have to ask
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and you'll have to remind me what the hell I
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was even just talking about. The reason I'm telling you
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: this now is because I just forgot what we're talking about.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: No problem, I can bring you back. And I know
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: you mentioned to me weeks ago when we were talking
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: about doing this event, that that was the case, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: that actually there's a study being conducted at Columbia University
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: about the effects of solitary long term solitary confinement on
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: the brain.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: Because for you, yeah, you didn't really need.
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: Those functions exactly when you were in solitary staring at
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: four walls all day long with no contact.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Well, it takes huge tolls on you in many ways.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it almost cost me mind eyesight because you're
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: in this small space and now here. Your eyes are
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: constantly changing focus. You know, you're looking at stuff far away,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: stuff close up, You're looking at all different colors. I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: didn't do that for twenty years, so I started losing
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: my eyesight over time. I was in the hospital for
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a day two weeks ago because my lungs are so
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: screwed up from breathing in years of tear gas that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I have lots of attacks of bronchitis. It has screwed
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: me up so bad that, like two weeks ago, I
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: walked into a diner, ordered some food, passed out on
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the floor. I come to the waiters are around me.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: They're saying, are you okay? Do we need to call
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: nine one wine. I'm like, no, just give me a minute,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: let me sit here. Next thing, I know, you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: they've called the ambulance because I passed out again. I
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: didn't even realize it. So it takes a toll on
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you in huge ways that lasts for the rest of
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: your life. You know, there's no way for me to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: physically rectify the things that they did to me.
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: No, and we want to get into that too, because
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: the you know, the way you were treated, even had
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: you been guilty of this horrendous crime that you were
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: in fact innocent of, there's no excuse or justification for
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: the torture that was inflicted upon you. It's you know,
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: it just shocks my conscience and I think it should
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: shock everyone's.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: So you were thrown in the back of the cop car,
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: brought to the police station.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're at the police station.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they did with Jason. They carried
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: him off somewhere and like I said, I wouldn't see
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: him again for almost a year. They put me in
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a cell that was about the size of a phone booth.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: It's not what you see on TV when you think
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of a prison cell. You know, there's no bed, there's
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: no toilet, there's no sink, there was no anything. It
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: was literally a cell that there had. There was just
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: enough room to stand in and.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: They even could you even sit down.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: No, I mean maybe you could, you know, sit like
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Indian style on the floor if you wanted to.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: But it was literally I've seen those.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah. They left me standing there all night long.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: The only thing. Every so often one of the cops
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: would come in and say, are you ready to make
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: your confession yet? I would just stand there and look
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at him. They would leave. I stood there all night
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: long until the next day they got me and took
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: me into a courtroom and told me I was being
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: charged with Well, first they whenever they take me into
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the courtroom, they tell me, you know, somebody's already confessed
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: to this crime. They've implicated you. They're saying you were
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the ring leader of this. So now what you need
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to do is confess to this and say no, you
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: weren't the ring leader they were. Try to put the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: blame back on them, or you're going to die because
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of this. I can't even figure out who the hell
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: they're talking about, because, like I said, I've only got
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: one friend in the entire world, and that was Jason Baldwin.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't him because he was with me,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and I knew he didn't do it. I knew he
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to confess to something he hadn't done. So
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize who it even was that had confessed
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: until the next day. Whenever they take me into the courtroom,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: they say who it is, and they ask, you know,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: how do you plead all this sort of thing. They
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: refuse to even read the confession in the courtroom. They
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: asked me did I want it read? I said yes,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and they wouldn't read it even after they asked me
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and I said yes. Instead, they take me out of
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the courtroom into a janitor's closet with mops and brooms.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: They give me a transcript, a type transcript of this confession.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: When I started reading it, it's immediately obvious why they
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: didn't want this thing read in court. It made no
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: sense whatsoever. You know, you're talking about this story that's
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: like a Frankenstein patchwork thing that they've sewed together out
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of many statements made by somebody with an IQ of
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: between seventy and seventy two. And they would What they
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: would do is when he would confess to something and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: wouldn't get anything right, they would come back into the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: room and say, well, do you think maybe this could
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: have happened? Or I mean, even more blatantly obvious. The
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: first time they asked him, when did the murders happen?
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And he says something like eight o'clock in the morning. Well,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: they knew that wasn't true because all three of the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: kids were in school. So they come back later and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: they're like, well, do you think it could have been
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a little later in the day, like when was it?
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Was it around like lunch or was it around dinner?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And he'll say, yeah, it was around dinner. Well, they
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: still knew that wasn't true because the kids hadn't even
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: disappeared yet. So then they would come back and say, well,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: you know when it happened when you did this, was
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: it getting dark outside? And he'll say, yeah, it was
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: getting dark outside. Well, at that time of year, you know,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it's not getting dark till like eight or nine o'clock
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: at night in that part of the country. So gradually,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: what they did was shape this thing to make it
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: what they wanted it to be. That's why they didn't
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: want it read in court. I read this thing. They
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: put me in another sale where I would stay for
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: almost the next year while I waited to go to trial.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: When we do go to trial, the evidence that they
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: present us against us is things like Stephen King books,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the fact that we owned Metallica T shirts, and albums,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: posters that were hanging on our walls. You know, things
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that were from like skateboarding magazines, ceremonial magic books. This
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: is the evidence they had that the prosecutors tell the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: jury that these things are not only evidence that we're guilty,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: but they're evidence that I don't even have a soul,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that this is how evil I am. They came back in.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I think our trial lasted slightly under a month something
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: like that. They came back in. They sentenced me to
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: death three times. They sentenced me to die by lethal
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: injection three times. They sentenced Jason to life in prison
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: without parole. The other guy they sentenced to life plus
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: forty years. They immediately take me to the court from
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the courtroom to death row, where I would not see
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Jason again. I saw him maybe twelve fifteen years later,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: for maybe twenty to thirty seconds. They used to bring
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: other prisoners in to clean the barracks, and he was
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: one of the prisoners they brought in day to clean
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: death row. So he comes by my cell mopping and sweeping.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: That was the first contact I'd had with him in
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: like fifteen years by that point.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: David Jason talked about when he was on the podcast
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: how the first day in prison he was released into
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: the general population, and basically the entire weekend, he said,
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: pretty much everybody in the prison took turns beating him up.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: He was certainly in no position to defend himself, but
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: he did the best he could, but obviously he had
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: no chance. He's also just a very small, slight guy.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: He's not playing linebacker anywhere, you know what I mean.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: As I said, he was almost one hundred pounds when
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: it started and probably barely over by the time we
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: were convicted a year later. But for you, you were
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: taken to the worst, literally the worst part of one
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: of the worst prisons.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: You were taken to the whole of holes.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: Really right, as I heard you describe it, it was the darkest, deepest,
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: as filthiest place in the prison.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: My situation was different from Jason's, and that, like he
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: describes how they put him in general population, he spends
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't even know how long fighting, sustaining
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: all sorts of physical damage, skull fractures, broken collar bones.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: At one point he was hitting the face with a
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: padlock and it messed his nose up so bad that
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: it bled for like a year afterwards, on and off. Finally,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: when he did see a doctor, they realized what it
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: was is that his nose had been shattered and one
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of the bone shards was sticking out, and they had
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to go in and pull the bone shard out of
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: his nose and cauterize it shut. For me, it was
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the guards. Death Row is different from the rest of
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the prison just because everybody on death Row has a
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: common enemy. You know, everyone knows that these people are
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: trying to murder you on a daily basis. You don't
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: have time to squabble with each other because you're too
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: busy fighting to survive against the system. So for me,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the guards exactly every time my life was in danger,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: it was all always prison guards. So whenever I first
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: get there, they decided they're just going to welcome me
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to the neighborhood. You know, it's nothing personal. They take
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: me to the whole and spent the next eighteen days
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: beating the hell out of me, starving me, pretty much
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: doing everything they could possibly think of to torture a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: human being. To me, the only reason they didn't kill me,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and I do believe they planned on murdering me back there.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: The only reason they didn't kill me was because there
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: was a deacon from the Catholic church that used to
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: come into the prison and bring communion to inmates on
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: death row. So sometimes the sewage would overflow and you
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: would end up, you know, spending a couple of days
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: standing like ankle deep raw sewage. Well, the guards aren't
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: going to clean that up. When that happens, they bring
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: other prisoners in to clean it up. So they bring
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: these other guys in from population. They see what the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: guards are doing to me and go to this deacon
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: from the Catholic church that's coming in, and they told
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: him they're killing this guy back there. They're beating him
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to death every day. This guy goes to the war
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and says, I know what you're doing, and if it
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't stop, I'm going to start telling people. I'm going
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to go public with it. That's the only thing they
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: care about, you know. The only concern they have whatsoever,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: is that people in the outside world will find out
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: what they're doing inside those walls. So they took me
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: out of the hole after about eighteen days and put
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: me back in a regular cell on death row. If
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: not for that guy and those inmates coming in to
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: clean up the sewage. I probably would not have even
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: lived the first year that I was in prison.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: It doesn't sound like you would have lived the first
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: month under those circumstances, but you did. There's so many
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: twists and turns, and it's really remarkable the fact that
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: you know, so many incredible people got involved, the filmmakers,
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: various celebrities including Eddie Vedder, Natalie Mays, Johnny Depp a
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: little like Johnny by the way.
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: Anyway, So so yeah, so many people got involved because
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: it was so obvious that this was such a.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: Terrible miscarriage of justice, and because it was such a
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: such a a the crime itself was so unimaginable, right,
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: and I think that drew attention to it, and then
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: the result was so obviously wrong that it made for
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: let's face it, I mean, media is important in these things,
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: and in this case, the movies.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Was it the movies that started it? How did the
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: I mean?
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: And I want to talk about how you survived, And
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: I know you're going to lead us in a meditation afterwards,
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: which I'm really looking forward to because if I can
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: find one percent of what you've got through that meditation,
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: it'll make my life better.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: So so.
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: What was the tipping point that started to get people interested?
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: Because here you are, like just a guy from the
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: middle of nowhere, convicted of the most notorious crime in
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: the history of Arkansas. The odds of you ever seeing
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: daylight again were extremely slim. The odds of you dying
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: in a prison cellary an electric chair were extremely high.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: What happened.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: The only thing that saved me was, you know, really,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: quite frankly, the vanity of the politicians that were involved.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: They allowed cameras in the courtroom. They thought, you know,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: this was going to be a slam dunk thing. Nobody's
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: going to question this. They're going to send Jason off
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to prison, murder me, sweep this under the rug. They're
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: all going to go out like heroes and everything's going
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to be fine. So they let these cameras in the
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: courtroom HBO. Two guys named Joe Berlinger and Bruce Snovski,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: they come in, set cameras up and film the entire
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: trial from beginning to end. Those that footage would eventually
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: become a documentary, a series of documentaries. But the first
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: one came out, and I think it was nineteen ninety six,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: it was called Paradise Lost and it aired on HBO.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: If not for that, we would still be in prison
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: right now, or I'd probably be dead right now. Yeah,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: people started to see the documentaries, you know, all over
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the country and then eventually all over the world. You know,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: these things went all over the world. People would see them,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and people started getting involved in the case. You know,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: everything from really people would do bake cakes and have
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: like cake sales to raise moneys, to raise money to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: pay for like, you know, lawyers, private investigators, whatever it was.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Because most people also don't comprehend the amount of money
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: it takes to fight a legal case. Over the I
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: was in for eighteen years and seventy six days. Over
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: that time, it cost us about five million dollars to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: fight this case. Because you know, even things like DNA testing,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: when you think of DNA testing and you watch it
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: on TV, it's always the state doing it. You know,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: they didn't do anything in our case. We had to
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: raise the money to pay for DNA testing ourselves, which
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: in and of itself ended up being close to half
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a million dollars.
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: Right and now, the good news is it's become much
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: more affordable DNA test can now be done for thousands
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: of dollars, not one hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands,
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: just thousands of dollars. And I do want to I'm
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: glad you pointed that out because it's important to recognize
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: the role that the general public played in this.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: Right, It wasn't just celebrities exactly, It wasn't just filmmakers.
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: There were people, I think it's fair to say, all
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: over the world who saw this movie and it's so
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: painful to watch. And now we have the modern day
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: equivalent with making a murder and Brendan Dassi, I guess
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: you could say, right, except he wasn't sentenced to death.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: But when you watch Brendon Daci, you know his interrogation,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: you can get a sense of what the Jessemskally interrogation
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: must have been like. And a couple of things that
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: I want to mention about his his false confession. One
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: is that he recanted it immediately after he gave it,
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: but nobody cared. The other the thing is that they
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: interrogated him for, as you said, twelve to fourteen hours,
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: but they only recorded a half an hour of exactly right,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: So what does that tell you? I mean, it's really
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: they Apparently they didn't want a recording of them telling
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: him all the information that he didn't know since he
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: wasn't there. That would have been inconvenient, so to say
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: the least. So there you are, and I guess you're
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: kind of getting these little rays of hope while you're
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: in the most hopeless situation that anyone can be in. Right,
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: are you aware at this time of everything that's going
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: on this? And how important was it to you when
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: people would write letters, Because it's one of the things
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: I tell people when they asked me, what can I do.
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: I'm just a regular person. I don't have any access
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: on have any influence whatever. I'll tell people, go to
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: the website, go to Innocence project dot org, go to
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: your local innocence project. There's innocence projects all over the country.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: Write letters, talk to people, write letters to journalists. But also,
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, you must have been getting a lot of
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: mail at this time, and how important was that Because
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: I talked about writing letters to people who are on
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: the inside as being you know, one thing that almost
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: anybody can.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Do exactly, you know, and it really does help because
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: it gives people inside something to focus on. Other than prison,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: other than you know, the walls you're trapped in twenty
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: four hours a day, other than the brutality, other than
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the deprivation and degradation and everything else. It gives you
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: something to think about other than all of that stuff
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: going on, which really does preserve your sanity. So even
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: just doing something as simple as writing a letter to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: someone in prison really does change their life in a
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: very marked, profound way. For me, you know, this was
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: I still haven't seen the documentaries. I don't watch stuff
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: like that. So the only way that I would really
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: know that it was that things were changing, that things
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: were happening. One is the mail gradually started to change.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: It went from in the very beginning getting you know,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: there was a trickle of letters started right after the
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: documentaries come out, like you would get three five letters
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: a week. It built up to by the time I
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: got out. The people in the mailroom at the prison
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: hated me because they would come to my cell with
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: like big plastic you know, mail crates full of mail
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and they would have to stand there and get people
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: to come help them open it all up and make
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: sure there's no contraband or anything in it. And they
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: hated me for that, so I knew about it from
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: that angle, just because the mail was increasing, and I
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: would call Lauri every day and she would tell me,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you know, Eddie Vedder's doing this, or these people in
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Seattle are putting together this benefit concert, or
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever it was. She would tell me about it,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, in one way, yet kind of helps.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: You're thinking about it when you're on the phone, But
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: in all honesty, the second you hang up that phone,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: that stuff is happening in a different world. You know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: it's so far away that it has almost no impact
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: on the fact that you are fighting every fucking day
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: of your life just to survive. You know, the fact
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: that you know people are having like a bake sale
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: in Nebraska or something. Theoretically, you know, somewhere in the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: back of your mind, somehow it gives you a little hope,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: but you don't think about that in the course of
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: your daily life. And the course of your daily life,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: all your doing is trying to survive another day in prison.
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: And you know, I want to talk about the death
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: penalty too, because everyone knows I'm a very vocal opponent
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: of the death penalty. I don't think it has any
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: place in a civilized society, and most of the world agrees, certainly,
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: almost all of the western world degrees. America is in
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: the very in the top five of all countries in
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: the world in terms of the number of people we execute,
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: and it's not a good list to be on. And
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: we know now that we execute a lot of innocent people.
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: We can't prove the exact numbers, but it's been proven
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: that something like five percent of people on death row
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: will have been exonerated, But that doesn't that doesn't tell
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: us how many are in there still that we haven't.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Been able to get to because, as you said, it's.
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: A time consuming, difficult, and expensive process.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: And there's also estimates now people who do work in
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: this field, like the Southern Poverty Law Center organizations like that,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: they're now estimating that as many as one out of
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: every ten to twenty five people on death row are innocent.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: So think about the fact, say, if it's one out
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: of every ten, if they told you that one out
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: of every ten planes were going to crash, you wouldn't
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: fly anymore. Everybody would demand that the system be fixed.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: But since it doesn't affect everybody, you know, it's executions.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Most people don't have a loved one, a family member,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: anybody else they know on death row. It sort of
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: slips under the radar.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really scary number. And we know some
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: of the ones.
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: I mean, Cameron Todd Willingham as a movie being made
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: by a professor of Columbia now about that case in
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: Texas and an instant guy who was executed for the
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: arson fire that wasn't arson.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: It was an electrical fire that killed his kids, three
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: of his kids. What a fate that was.
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: And so we know that there are we have a
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: number of names of people who have been executed who
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: we know now were factually innocent, where people have confessed
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: to the crimes that they were convicted of. It. It's
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: all just very very troubling and disgusting and it needs
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: to be abolished. It doesn't accomplish anything, it doesn't help,
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: it doesn't reduce crime, it doesn't scare anybody off a murder.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: No thinking that anyone who's crazy enough to go and
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: do something like that is not thinking, well, life in prison, okay,
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: but death penalty.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm a whole off.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean exactly.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: I'll just go have a v eight you know what
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, Like it's not happening.
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: So but for you, how I mean the execution date itself,
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: how did how did you? I mean, I want to
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: know how you dealt with any of this right and
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: then ultimately talk about your exoneration and what you're doing now.
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: So were you aware? When did you have a date set?
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: How many times was it moved? And how did you?
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, how are you even here and not just
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: bouncing off the wor not sitting in the corner of
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: some bar down to you with a bottle of gosh.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I think my original execution date was May fifth of
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: either ninety four or ninety five. Well ninety five, I
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: think something like that.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: But they weren't going to waste any time.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: No, no, they weren't. And I got even closer to
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: it than I should have gotten because the attorneys that
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I had were so incompetent that they thought I was
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: automatically going to be given a state. I got within
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: weeks of my execution date before they realized, oh, we
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: actually have to file a state to keep them from
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: killing this guy. So I could have been killed just
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: by accident, just sure incompetence yes. After that, Usually what
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: happens is you get an execution date. Whenever you go
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: from state court to federal court, like after your state
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: court your state supreme court denies your appeal, they set
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: you an execution date. The federal courts then decide whether
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: they're going to hear your case or not. If they
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: do decide, and they don't have to, if they do
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: decide to hear your case, they'll give you a stay
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: of execution, and then they'll hear your case and it'll
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: go on for a while longer. If they decide we're
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: not even going to hear it, then they're just going
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: to kill you. I bring with that again.
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: So if they if they decide not to hear your case,
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: they're going to kill you, right And here you are,
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: back in ninety five, ready to be executed within weeks.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: That was it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: So what happened is by this time, you know, the
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: documentaries had started coming out. People all over the world
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: had started to hear about the case. You know, they
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: were I don't even you know, can't even count how
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: many TV shows and magazine articles and newspaper articles, and
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: you know, people had started putting together websites. So I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: mean what was happening to us was spreading like crazy.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: They knew that if our case went from state court
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: to federal court, there was a good chance the federal
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: courts were going to hear it, that they were going
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to realize what was screwed up, and they were going
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: to throw the whole case out. They didn't want that
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: to happen, so instead of setting me an execution and
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: allowing me to appeal it to federal court, they just
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: sat on it and held it. In the eighteen years
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and seventy six days that I was on death row,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I never got to go to federal court. It was
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: still I mean, the swelling of support grew so much
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: that finally the state court decided, we're going to have
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: to do something about this because it's making us look really,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: really bad. It's bringing too much attention. And just like whenever,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you know, when I was in the hole and I
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: told you, the only thing they cared about in the
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: prison is that people on the outside world are going
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: to realize what they're doing. Same way with judges, prosecutors,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: all that the only thing they're concerned with is that
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: people in the outside are going to realize that this
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: case isn't what they're telling people it is. So after
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: that amount of time, they finally decided there's going They said,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: we're going to have a new evidenciary hearing, and all
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the evidence is finally going to be hurt, all the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: new DNA evidence. By that point, not only did we
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: have the DNA evidence, but we had all sorts of
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: witnesses that had come forward and said, you know, one
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: woman admitted that the only reason that she tried to
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: implicate us was because the police told her she had
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: she had committed credit card fraud and they were going
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to charge her unless she helped them out with this case.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: So she came forward and admitted to that. There were
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: eyewitnesses who said they saw one of the victim's family
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: members with all three victims within an hour of the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: time they were murdered. And this was not known at
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the time that we went to trial. So the prosecutors
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: know all this stuff is about to come out in court,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: so they start talking with our attorneys and they come
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: up with this deal called an Alfred plea. I'd never
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: even heard of. This thing made no sense whatsoever. What
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: an Alfred plea means is that you are accepting a
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: guilty plea while being allowed to legally maintain your innocence.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: The only reason this thing exists is so that the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: state can't be held responsible for what they've done to you,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: you know. And like I said, I was dying physically,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you know, health wise. I knew that if I didn't
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: take this deal one way or another to live to
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: see the outside of those walls. You know. The prosecutor
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: came to us and pretty much said, yeah, you'll win
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: this case if you go to federal court, but we
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: can draw this out for another five years, another ten years.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Every time the judge sets a date, we can ask
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: for an extension, we can appeal any decisions made, or
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you can accept this deal and go home tomorrow, literally tomorrow.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: But you can sign these papers and walk out of
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: this prison.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: But there was another catch, which is that they insisted.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: That all three guys do it exactly.
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: And they had an amazing amount of leverage there too,
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: because now it goes back to your friend Jason Baldwin, right,
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: And Jason was ready to fight the case, but he
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: wanted to be declared Ennison after everything he had been through.
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: But they held a little bit of a I mean,
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: not a little bit.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: They held a huge.
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: A huge hammer, which was that they made it known
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: to him that if he decided he wanted to fight
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: the case, they were going to execute you. And that
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: friendship that you guys had had from when you were
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: teenagers now here it is eighteen years later. And it's
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: really interesting, right that one woman that you spoke about,
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: who also changed her story over time, she got to
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: keep her credit cards while sentencing you to death. That's really,
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: let's face it, right, that was the deal she made.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: She somewhere in her head she decided that was a
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: good deal. Now, maybe she thought you really were guilty,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: and they probably convinced her of that. Let's hope that
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: was really the case. But one or another, for the
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: sake of a couple of credit cards and the difficulties
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: it would have caused her if that you know, went
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: to court, whatever, she was more than willing to roll
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: over on you and have an innocent guy go to
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: his death. But so Jason now had really a sophie's choice,
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: right he had to accept this Alfred plea allow the
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: state to force him to live his life as a
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: convicted felon and never be able to sue for compensation.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: There's the added element of the fact that when Alfred
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: pleas are given and accepted, typically it means that they
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: won't go reopen the case because as.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Far as they're concerned, it's still closed.
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: So there's no justice for the kids, there's no justice
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: for their families. But it was a convenient thing that
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: allowed a certain number of people to say face and
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: allowed you to go home. So you took the Alfred play,
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: I think anybody in your situation would have. And when
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: the alternative was death, it's a pretty easy decision to make.
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: And how long after you took that did you get
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: to go home?
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: About a week later?
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: What the hell was that? Like?
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was honestly, it was kind of horrendous
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: because I didn't know that I was going to get
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: out until the night before I got out. The night
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: before I got out, they came and got me and
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: took me to the county jail, and I knew then
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't be I went through this amount of trouble
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: because the county jail was like several hours away from
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the prison, So I knew they wouldn't be going through
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: this amount of trouble, you know, taking me several hours
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: away from the prison unless I am getting out. So
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I knew there was a chance I might get out,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know I was going to. So in
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: that week, I did not sleep, I did not eat.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I began, at that point edging towards a nervous breakdown.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The day we walked out of prison, I did not
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: have one single penny of money in my pocket. I
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: didn't have so much as a suit of clothes to
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: change in too. I had nowhere to go. I had nothing.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: We didn't think of stuff like that whenever I was
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: in prison. We're just thinking, keep these people from killing me.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Go home. That's the finish line, that's it. So that's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: what we had always been working towards. We didn't realize
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: what was going to happen whenever I walked out of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: those gates. Keep in mind that not only had I
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: been in prison for almost twenty years by that point,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I had spent almost the last decade of that in
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: solitary confinement. So I went from a decade of solitary
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: confinement to being out on the streets of Manhattan literally overnight,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and it shattered me psychologically. I can't remember the first
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: two years that I was out of prison. If you
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: put together everything I can remember within the first two
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: years that I walked out, it may equal a couple hours.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: It destroyed me in every way that it possibly could.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: We weren't counting on any of that. I've I had
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: two nervous breakdowns due to not only that, but also
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: once we're out, you know, you're constantly You've got the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: media coming at you, asking you every day, all these
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: questions about being in prison, about the case, all this,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: so you get to the point where you're thinking, why
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the fuck did I even get out. I'm not even
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: out of prison, you know, I'm out here, but it's
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the only thing people are asking me about. It's the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: only thing people are talking to me about. You know,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: random people walk up to you on the street and
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: start talking about the case. So it's not even like
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: you're out of prison anymore. It's just like the prison
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: is in your hit all the time. You know, you
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: may be It was like when I was in prison,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: at least I could have a mental and emotional life
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: separate from the prison. Entire days, weeks, months would go
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: by when I wouldn't even think about the fact that
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: I was in prison because I was so busy trying
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: to build a life for myself. When I got out,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: it almost felt like I was having to think more
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: about prison than when I was in, and it destroyed
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: me in every way that it possibly could.
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: But there's a there's a real silver lining here right
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: and that silver lining I'm sitting only a few feet
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: away from us right now. And how did you meet Laurie?
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: And what's the I mean, I can see when you
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: tour together, it's like there's like an orb, like a
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: glowing orb.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: I think you can probably see it from the space station.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: So how did you meet her? And what's and what
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: does that meant to you?
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Laurie was one of the very first people who saw
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: the first documentary back in nineteen ninety whenever it came out.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: She was living in New York at the time. She
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: was a landscape architect, and she used to get before
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: it came out on HBO, they had like several small
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: screenings and like you know, art house type theaters, and
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: she got tickets to one of those, went and saw
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: the movie and said she couldn't stop thinking about it.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And you know, just like I was saying while ago
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: about how much letters mean to people inside the prison.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: She sat down and wrote me a letter. And this
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: was back, you know, before the Internet was everywhere and
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: you could find anything in the world just by googling
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: it in three seconds. You know, she had to go
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: through a lot of effort in trouble just to get
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the address of the prison, just to find out where
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I even was. Whenever I got the very first letter
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: from her, the minute I opened it, I knew that
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: this was someone unlike anyone else that I'd ever known.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: And it kind of goes back to what you were
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: just saying about the ORB. Honest to God, felt like
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: as long as we were together, as long as she
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: was looking after me, as long as she was in
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: my life and working on this case. From that moment on,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I honestly felt like these people cannot hurt me anymore.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: I'm safe. And it was true as long as she
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: was in my life. I mean, yeah, there was a
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: lot of bad stuff in prison, but it was like
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: it never got to worst case scenario. Somehow or another.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Things would always turn around, Things would always work out.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: It was like we had divine intervention on our side.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, Laurie ended up doing more
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: work on my case than the attorneys, private investigators and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: everybody else put together after they did the DNA testing.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: She's the one out there digging through people's garbage to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: find cigarette butts to try to match the DNA to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: She was the one out there, you know, doing the fundraising. Really,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: she was doing everything she could to keep people from
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: forgetting about this case.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, for a landscape arbit tap, for a landscape architect,
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: she's a damn good investigator. Just you know, publicists advocate
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: and you know, it's just just a ton of respect
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: and admiration for you, Laurie, and I can say that
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: because you're sitting here and everything that you've done and
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: everything that you are so so you you're together now
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: you're here at the Church of Rock and Roll at
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: opening weekend, which I'm so like, I said, so grateful
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: to both of you for coming.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: And what's this experience been like for you?
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: It's been actually pretty amazing, you know. I think I've
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: only started to come out of shock and trauma and
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: become happy and everything else, probably within the last two years.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: We've been out for about seven years now, so probably
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: within the past two years is whenever the real actual
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: healing started and I started being able to focus on
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: things that I wanted to focus on building a life.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, one of those things was doing what
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: we did here today or last night, like with the
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: commitment ceremonies, and being able to talk to people about,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you know, things that mean something to me personally, and
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: develop real relationships with people based on things other than
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: just the case last night. I would have people like
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: twenty one year old kids who have no idea who
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the hell I even am, don't care. They were coming
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to the commitment ceremonies, wanted to do the commitments not
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: because it was me, but because they love each other.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: They want to be part of it, whatever it is.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Stuff like that, that is what's rewarding. That's what I
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: love doing, you know, things that are real.
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I've I had the opportunity to see parts
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: of some of the ceremonies and also to talk to
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: some of the people who participated in them, and the
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: stories are beautiful. I mean, people who were on the
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: verge of breaking up after twelve years of marriage and came.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: I think they came because you were you and they
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: wanted to have that They wanted to get some of
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: your special brand of magic.
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: And now they're you know, now they're recommitted to each
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: other and other people who found some new level to
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: go to in whatever relationship they're in, and you're giving
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: them their certificates and the embossing on the Church of
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: Rock and Roll logo, and I mean, for me, it's
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: just an unbelievable feeling to know that we're having that
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: kind of a positive impact on them, on you because
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: of them, and then on everyone who's around sitting in
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: the pews, because we have pews outside and we have
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: the what do you call that when people do the
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: fingers the two fingers up in the air the rock
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: and roll sort of the horns. We have those a
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: neon out by the So I'm trying to give people
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: a visual.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: And we're going to be taking this on the road
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: and hopefully bringing it to other cities near you, whoever
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: you are, wherever you're listening. And I'm really excited about that,
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: and I think we're just going to do a lot
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: of really really great stuff together. And so.
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: My favorite part of the podcast everyone, and we're now
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: in our seventh season, is when I get to stop
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: talking entirely and just turn the mic over to you
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: and get your final thoughts on anything you want to
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: talk about, whether it's how people can get involved or
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: what people anything at all. I mean, you can talk
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: about the weather if you want. So before I do that,
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: I want to say again that I appreciate you being
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: here and sharing your your thoughts and your wisdom and
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: your your courage and your story, because I know it's
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: not easy with our audience and with everyone in the
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: room here at the Church of Rock and Roll. So
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: and then I'm going to turn it over you for
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: final thoughts, and then we're all gonna we're all going
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: to meditate under your guidance, which I'm super excited about.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: So actually, what I usually do instead of, you know,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: always tell people the reason I do stuff like this
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: is not to force everyone to hear me ramble on
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: like a jackass. I'm here to talk about whatever people
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: want to talk about, you know. That's That's the reason
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I'm here is because and that's the reason everybody else
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: is here. I'm sure you know, when people hear these stories,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: they probably have things that come to mind that they
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: wonder about that maybe we didn't touch on or whatever
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: it is. So I usually just like to give people
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: the opportunity if there was anybody that had a question
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: or anything out of everything we just talked about that
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: you'd like to know the answer to, or hear more about,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: or anything else, I'm willing to you know, whether it's
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: prison life, whether it's the case, whether it's life after,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: whatever the hell it is you want to know about.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: If there's any question you have, I'm open to it.
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: Oh, well, this is a new thing. Since we usually
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: record in the studio without an audience. Now we have
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: that opportunity, so we will open it up for just
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: a few questions, because then we do want to get
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: to the to the meditation. Does anybody have a question
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: for Damien?
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: Damien, thank you for sharing your story with us. It's
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: fabergasting here that all that actually happened to you and
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: you had to live through it, through all of your
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: darkest hours. How did you find the strength to fight
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: through that?
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I think for those at home who might not be
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: able to hear the question he asked, even before Laurie
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: found me, before she started taking on the case, Like
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: during my darkest hours, what it was that allowed me
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: to keep surviving? On a daily basis in prison. And
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: really what it comes down to, and this is incredibly important.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: You know, keep in mind they say that your average
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: person in prison, even when you take you know, we're
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: talking about the guy in our case that gave the
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: confession that only had an IQ of seventy to seventy two.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Even when you take that out of the equation, the
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: average IQ of the person in prison is only about
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: eighty five. So that's still well below you know, average
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: IQ level. So a lot of people aren't capable of
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: even doing this, which is why it's so important that
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: helped come from the outside world. But what it comes
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: down to is finding something to focus on other than
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the prison. You know, I would see guys in there
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis that didn't have people in the
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: outside world, that weren't capable of constructing a routine or
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: anything else to give them something to focus on. So
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: their full attention was taken up by the fact that
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: they were on death road. They're waiting to be executed,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and you see him snap all the time.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I would see things like one day, this guy he
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: just starts screaming and beating on the walls of his
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: cell with both fists until both of his fists are
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: just busted and bloody. They take him. He's screaming that
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the devil is in his cell. All they do they
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: take him out, wrap his hands up, and throw him
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: back in his cell. People go insane because they are
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: focused on the prison all the time. So really, what
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: I did was I had to find ways to give
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: myself a life outside of that environment. And for me,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of it was, you know, like we were
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: talking about earlier reading at one point, you know, like
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I said, also, I only had a ninth grade education.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: So after Lori especially came into my life, I started
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: hearing about all these things that I didn't have within
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: my frame of reference, you know, like Camu and Dickens
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and Tolstoy and Dousteroyevsky and all these sorts of things.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: So I decided, I want to know what the hell
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: people are even talking about whenever they're talking about these things.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: So I started devouring books that I honestly didn't even
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: really have a great deal of interest in, you know,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: even things like the works of Freud and Young and
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: things like that, just because I wanted to know what
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: it was about. And it I did eventually reach a
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: point where I thought, none of this stuff is really
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: feeding me in any substantial way. You know, I'm taking
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: in a lot of abstract knowledge and concepts and stories
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: and writing styles and things like this, but it doesn't
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: make me happy in any way. So one day, after
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: we had filled up an entire storage facility with books,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: I stopped and went back to the things that meant
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: something to me. So a lot of it for me
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: was reading a lot, working out a lot, meditation a lot.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: You know, the heart and soul of my life when
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I was in prison, and even now that I'm out
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: of prison, was ceremonial magic. By the time I got
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: out of prison, I was doing meditation and energy work
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: for up to eight hours a day. And part of
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: what destroyed me whenever I got out, you know, the
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: psychological devastation. For some reason, when I walked out of prison,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: I could not read anymore. Like I would try to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: read a page, and I would read the same page
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: over and over and over, and I couldn't retain what
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I had just read when I got to the bottom
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: of the page. I couldn't watch TV shows like I said.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't even have facial recognition so I would go
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: to dinner with people, meet them two days later and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: not be able to even remember who they were. So
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: that screwed me up a lot. But really what it
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: came down to in prison, what allowed me to survive
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: was not thinking about prison, coming up with something else
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: to focus on other than the horror that was going
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: on around me.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: Damian, I love your optimism and your lust for life.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: I would love to know what your idea of a
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: perfect day is, now, what does that look like?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: A perfect day is one when I live in New
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: York up in Harlem. A perfect day to me is
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: a day when I don't have to get on the subway,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: when I don't have to walk out my front door
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: at all. I get up in the morning, I start
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: going through my daily meditations, daily energy work, take a break,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and this may sound crazy, but I actually take pleasure
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: and clean in the house. That's really one of the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: things that also helped me whenever I first got out
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: was doing laundry. I had never done laundry in my life,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: but I would go into the laundry room where the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: washer and dryer was, and something about that was like
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: being in a rocking chair to me. It calmed and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: soothed my nerves. So really a perfect day to me.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: I don't leave my apartment, I don't get on the subway.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: I'm back up now. Like I said, you know, it
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: shattered me, like I couldn't even read, so couldn't do magic,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: I couldn't meditate, I couldn't do anything. I went from
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: eight hours a day to not even being able to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: do eight minutes a day. So I've gradually built up
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: over time until now I'm back up. Some days I
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: can do on a really good day between five and
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: seven hours, So that's a perfect day to me doing that,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: ordering pizza and playing with my cats.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: I think we got to tell you for one more question.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 7: I was just wondering if you were aware of any
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 7: groups that are fighting for justice for the three boys.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: Do you think the real killer will ever come to light?
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: I think, honestly, I do. I think that it will
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: come to light. But you know, like I was saying
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: earlier about the politics of everything involved, I honestly think
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: before that happens, a lot of the people who have
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a vested interest in keeping this covered up, who you know,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: to preserve their jobs, can't let the truth come out.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of those people will either have
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: to retire or move on or whatever it is, and
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: new people who don't have a vested interest in this
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: will have to come on board. Who will actually look
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: at the evidence, who will actually hear the case. So yeah,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: I do think one day, eventually something will happen. I honestly,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I don't keep up with the case, so I don't
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: know of any organization. The only organization I know of
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: two legal organizations. One is the Innocence Project, which Jason
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: is on, and the other one is Proclaimed Justice, which
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Jason Baldwin is on. And the only reason I know
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: about those two is because of, you know, personal relationships
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I don't keep up with. To me, you know, like
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I was just describing a perfect day, to me, a
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: hellish day would be a day when I had to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: read like a court brief or a legal brief, or
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: you know, watch a true crime show or any of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So those are honestly the only
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: two organizations that I know anything about at all.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: I'm really glad you asked that question. That was a
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: great question.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 5: So anyway, now I just want to say again, this
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: has been an awesome experience for me. Thank you everyone
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: for being here at the Church of Rock and Roll,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: and thank you Damian for everything you're doing and for
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: being a guest on Wrongful Conviction.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: Well, let's fucking meditate. Don't forget to give us a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: It really helps.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: to Innocence Project dot orgorg to learn how to donate
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: is by three time OSCAR nominated.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: Composer Jay Ralph.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: and on faceboo.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: Book at Wrongful Conviction podcast.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flaum is a production of Lava
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one