Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #486 Maggie Freleng with James Degorski

Transcript

#486 Maggie Freleng with James Degorski · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, This is a free call from Jim, an incarcerated
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Speaker 1: individual at they No Correctional Center. This call is subject
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Speaker 1: to recording and monitoring.
0:13
Speaker 2: James de Gorski hates rudeness, especially when it comes to
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Speaker 2: the police.
0:19
Speaker 1: Please Please, literally came up to me and said, what's
0:23
Speaker 1: your name? Just very arrogant and very rude.
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Speaker 2: It sounds like you're pretty big on respect.
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Speaker 3: You've mentioned that a few times, that they were really
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Speaker 3: just disrespectful and inappropriate.
0:38
Speaker 1: Sounds like you introduce yourself to so many. That's so
0:40
Speaker 1: we start off on the wrong path.
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Speaker 2: I spoke to James on the phone from prison and
0:44
Speaker 2: he explained the saga of his relationship with the police
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Speaker 2: officers who would end up arresting him in an Illinois
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Speaker 2: town called Palatine.
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Speaker 1: Palatine Please didn't like me from high school because I
0:56
Speaker 1: wouldn't stitch on broke into all the lockers. So well,
1:01
Speaker 1: I was being a janitor there. Somebody broke in the
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Speaker 1: lockers and I didn't see who did it, and I
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Speaker 1: didn't speculate. I already had a problem with these Peloton
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Speaker 1: police from that He's throw tiger parties and they didn't
1:12
Speaker 1: like that, so I just I had problem with Peloton.
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Speaker 2: Police, and the way James responded to the police wouldn't
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Speaker 2: exactly help him in the long run.
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Speaker 4: So James is one of those guys who's very sarcastic
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Speaker 4: and he had a arrogance to him at that time.
1:36
Speaker 2: This is Ashley Cohen. She's a partner at Bonjin Law Group.
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Speaker 4: He would probably be the type of person to make
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Speaker 4: a joke that's not funny and that the police would
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Speaker 4: maybe turn into fact of sorts. You know, someone who
1:51
Speaker 4: seems cold, but he's been through a lot and he
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Speaker 4: deals with his trauma by you know, humorizing it, or
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Speaker 4: he just thought they were crazy.
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Speaker 1: These police are crazy, I'm not exaggerating. Unprofessional from the
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Speaker 1: get go, and they're consultational bullies and they escalated everything
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Speaker 1: the police. These police, not police in general. I have
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Speaker 1: nothing against the police. I have found with authority that
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Speaker 1: abuses to think they're above the law and above our constitution.
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Speaker 1: That's where I have a problem, and.
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Speaker 2: James thinks that's exactly what happened in his case.
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Speaker 1: My name is James de Gorski. I've been wrong. Sley
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Speaker 1: inclcerated for the.
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Speaker 2: Last twenty two years from Lava for Good. This is
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Speaker 2: wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. James Degorski James de
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Speaker 2: Gorski was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August twentieth, nineteen
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Speaker 2: seventy two.
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Speaker 1: I've raised in off the Estates, Mon Prospect and Arlington Heights.
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Speaker 1: We had a very, very tight family. At seven, I
3:01
Speaker 1: had an older fitter you knew, a younger brother and
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Speaker 1: a younger fitter.
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Speaker 2: Jim, as he likes to be called, says his mom
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Speaker 2: stayed home raising the kids, and his dad worked at motorola.
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Speaker 2: So what was family life like?
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Speaker 3: Was it?
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Speaker 2: Loving? Fun, messy, lots of yelling. Tell me about it.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for asking, because the last twenty some years it's
3:27
Speaker 1: been about mitigation. But actually I have no complaints and
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Speaker 1: no regrets. I had an awesome family. We didn't the
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Speaker 1: normal things a family would do, go to church every Sunday.
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Speaker 1: We'd have family game night with pizza and all my
3:42
Speaker 1: friends were welcome.
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Speaker 2: Jim remembers family vacations and camping trips and just hanging
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Speaker 2: with his siblings.
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Speaker 1: We grew up at the edge of the urban sprawl,
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Speaker 1: where with a cornerfield that started the Meadows Woods, the
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Speaker 1: Kanton Pounds and fourth much where we spent most of
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Speaker 1: my time. Bill Fifth in Bill Ramport, be on next bike,
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Speaker 1: hang out with some older friends motorcycles and they board ramp.
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Speaker 1: Pretty independent. I was basically a free range.
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Speaker 2: Fit for so. Jim says. His parents let him leave
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Speaker 2: at sunrise and return when the street lights were coming on.
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Speaker 2: He was independent, and because his dad worked so much,
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Speaker 2: Jim says, he also stepped in as a father figure.
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Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know how I say it.
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Speaker 1: I was like my brothers and my sister's dad, and
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Speaker 1: I took them everywhere. I took my brothers and sisters.
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Speaker 1: He just did everything. My older friends that I had
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Speaker 1: even enjoyed them around. So we had a blast as
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Speaker 1: a kid. I got no complaints about my dysfunctional family.
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Speaker 2: Jim says being free range, as he calls it, allowed
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Speaker 2: him to explore his curiosity. You know those annoying little
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Speaker 2: kids always asking why.
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Speaker 1: They just he's saying why, and then you answer, and
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Speaker 1: they say why, and then they answer it, they say why.
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Speaker 2: That was him, He calls them why kids.
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Speaker 1: I was one of those irritating kids. But hindsight, I
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Speaker 1: guess I wasn't irritating because my neighbor's always answered my
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Speaker 1: why why questions.
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Speaker 2: And Jim learned things roaming around talking to the adults.
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Speaker 1: I just go to my neighbor's house and he does upholstery,
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Speaker 1: so I could help him do a polstery. And the
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Speaker 1: guy would throw me twenty dollars. His friend, his little kid,
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Speaker 1: throw me twenty dollars just to hear his stories.
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Speaker 2: Jim says. Another neighbor built toy cars.
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Speaker 1: I didn't want to play with the RC cars, which
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Speaker 1: he thought. I wanted to learn how to do electronics,
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Speaker 1: so the guy was teaching me electronics. This is all
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Speaker 1: in grammar school.
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Speaker 2: Growing up, His brothers delivered newspapers to help his parents
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Speaker 2: out with money. But Jim, I.
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Speaker 1: Would go garbage picking while they delivered their newspapers. And
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Speaker 1: then I'd get stuff by the trash and fix your
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Speaker 1: name in VCRs, radios, turlie and irens, blow dryers I'd
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Speaker 1: get I'd get a pretty good money by selling stuff
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Speaker 1: that I can garbage hick when you find one hundred
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Speaker 1: dollars VCR thrown in the trash, and all you need
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Speaker 1: is a fourteenth cent hues and a pretty profitable I
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Speaker 1: had a free apprenticeship as a kid, being one of
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Speaker 1: those whyy why kids with all my neighbor Jim says
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Speaker 1: he didn't mind helping his parents because this was all
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Speaker 1: fun to him anyway. Just doing that as just like
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Speaker 1: a hobby in a way. But I had money, so
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Speaker 1: I helped my parents paid the bills or the watter,
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Speaker 1: do our little vacations, campouts and whatever. I was often
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Speaker 1: letting my parents brain my favorite account down to zero,
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Speaker 1: trying to keep the electric and the hour on. Whatever
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Speaker 1: problems we're having. Even with our van, our car would
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Speaker 1: break down, So.
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Speaker 2: Jim says he learned how to fix car breaks in
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Speaker 2: grammar school. He was a hustler for sure. In his
6:53
Speaker 2: freshman year, Jim worked as a janitor at his high school,
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Speaker 2: cleaning the cafeteria and vacuuming hallways after class, and with
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Speaker 2: the money he was able to keep for himself, he
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Speaker 2: would buy tools.
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Speaker 1: So in high school I started doing things like fixing cars,
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Speaker 1: their bikes, mini bikes.
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Speaker 2: He eventually rented out his mom's garage and had his
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Speaker 2: own mechanics shop there.
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Speaker 1: I had a friend Reggie in high school that him
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Speaker 1: and I were going to open a mechanic shop together.
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Speaker 1: We're going to build race cars, And we started in
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Speaker 1: my garage. We're popping motors in all the time we're
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Speaker 1: taking out We're taking out three o sevens, popping in
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Speaker 1: three fifties. So I was doing a lot of that stuff.
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Speaker 1: And when I started making good money makes I had
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Speaker 1: extra money to give away or charity for do whatever.
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Speaker 2: If it sounds like Jim de Gorski didn't have time
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Speaker 2: for any more activities, he was still going to high
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Speaker 2: school and church and volunteering. Jim de Gorski thought he
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Speaker 2: had the perfect life until police came knocking on the
8:06
Speaker 2: morning of Friday, January eighth, nineteen ninety three. Jim remembers
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Speaker 2: waking up to his mom asking him to move a
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Speaker 2: car that was blocking the driveway.
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Speaker 1: So I had to get up and move his car.
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Speaker 2: The car belonged to Jim's high school friend, Juan Luna.
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Speaker 2: He'd been in some sort of accident and Jan left
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Speaker 2: the car at Jim's place to get fixed.
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Speaker 1: I don't really know what he'd needs done, he got
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Speaker 1: tee boned or the side damage. So I fixed his car.
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Speaker 2: Jim says he waited for one to pick up the
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Speaker 2: car and pay him for the repairs, and when he didn't, I.
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Speaker 1: Took his car. I took it on a joy ride.
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Speaker 1: I was so mad. I'm like, I just loaded up
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Speaker 1: his car and went out and did what I did
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Speaker 1: my rounds.
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Speaker 2: He drove the car about ten miles west to Carpentersville
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Speaker 2: just to screw with Wan.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of like an impovertish area with like a
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Speaker 1: high crime area out of Chicago Land and it's far out,
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Speaker 1: it's almost rural. Left his I left his car there
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Speaker 1: being rude. It's a long distance away for him to
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Speaker 1: go pick up his car. And if you want your
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Speaker 1: car so bad, come pick it up. He paged me
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Speaker 1: twenty times and literally cussing me out.
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Speaker 2: Jim says he left the car parked at jewel Osco,
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Speaker 2: the grocery store, and then his girlfriend at the time,
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Speaker 2: Eileen Baccala, picked him.
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Speaker 1: Up so so she got off work early. She came
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Speaker 1: to meet me a.
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Speaker 2: Jewel and they hung out the rest of the night
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Speaker 2: smoking weed and cat sitting.
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Speaker 1: It's a boring knife or whatever.
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Speaker 2: The next day, Jim and everyone in the Chicago suburbs
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Speaker 2: woke up to big news a massacre at a Brown's
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Speaker 2: Chicken and Pasta in Palatine, Illinois. Palatine is about thirty
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Speaker 2: miles north of downtown Chicago. At the time, it was
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Speaker 2: a sleepy suburb where even one murder a year was rare,
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Speaker 2: so the whole community was shaken when news spread that
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Speaker 2: seven people were gunned down inside the fast food restaurant
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Speaker 2: shortly after closing around eight pm. Two of the victims
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Speaker 2: were the owners, Lynn and Richard Allenfeldt, a married couple
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Speaker 2: who had just bought the franchise months prior, looking for
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Speaker 2: a fresh start after Richard had lost his job. The
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Speaker 2: other victims were employees Guadalupe Maldonado, Thomas Menez, Marcus Nelson,
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Speaker 2: Rico Solis, and Michael Castro. Rico and Michael were both
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Speaker 2: teenagers from the local high school working part time. It
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Speaker 2: was a bloody murder. Five of the victims were found
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Speaker 2: in the walk and cooler of the restaurant. Some had
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Speaker 2: been stabbed, one had their throat slit, and all had
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Speaker 2: been shot. Less than two thousand dollars was stolen from
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Speaker 2: the restaurant.
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Speaker 4: The investigation went down as you would imagine a ninety
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Speaker 4: three mass killing investigation went down where it was a mess.
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Speaker 2: This is Ashley Cohen again. Ashley says, although the scene
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Speaker 2: at the restaurant was chaotic.
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Speaker 4: There was a ton of forensic evidence pulled from the scene.
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Speaker 4: There were like two hundred fingerprints, there was food still
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Speaker 4: in the trash containers, there were bloody shoe prints. I mean,
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Speaker 4: anything and everything you imagine in forensic science and analysis
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Speaker 4: was present at this crime scene.
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Speaker 2: One key piece of evidence was a receipt.
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Speaker 4: So there was a cash register that appeared to have
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Speaker 4: been closed and reopened to sell a meal at nine
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Speaker 4: to eight pm. The receipt was consistent with the meal
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Speaker 4: that was discovered in the trash can. That led investigators
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Speaker 4: to believe that one of the offenders may have purchased
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Speaker 4: the meal prior to the shooting.
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Speaker 2: Since it was closing time, the trash cans were empty
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Speaker 2: except for one four piece chicken meal.
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Speaker 4: One of the female investigators had the foresight to freeze
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Speaker 4: a eaten chicken bone that was in the trash and
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Speaker 4: I just recall she was a female, because females are
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Speaker 4: smart and have the future insight that there she saw
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Speaker 4: significance and was like, maybe we could use this eventually,
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Speaker 4: and so she froze it.
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Speaker 2: Jim was shook when he heard about the murders, not
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Speaker 2: only because things like this didn't happen in Palatine, Illinois,
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Speaker 2: but because Wan used to work.
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Speaker 1: There, a few of his friends actually worked there too,
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Speaker 1: So we were just shocked that it happened so close
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Speaker 1: to home.
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Speaker 2: Do you remember talking to him about it at all?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm more because it was a lot of time ago.
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Speaker 1: I was at a party and it was one of
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Speaker 1: his friends. So we were over at his friend's house
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Speaker 1: and I saw an article they had on the wall,
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Speaker 1: and that was pretty much the longest conversation I ever
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Speaker 1: really had about it. How shocking that looking at my friends,
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Speaker 1: like justin you could have this could have been you.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, I think the longest conversation I ever had.
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Speaker 2: Jim didn't think much more about it until the police
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Speaker 2: showed up at his door two years later asking about.
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Speaker 1: Juan Luna nineteen ninety five. The police came to my
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Speaker 1: house and asked me about his alibi. They said they're
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Speaker 1: just doing they're doing follow up with a former employees alibi,
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Speaker 1: and then Jan Luna used me as an alibi. I'm like,
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Speaker 1: wasn't that like three years ago?
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Speaker 2: Jim says he felt put on the spot. He'd forgotten
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Speaker 2: all about that day he took one's car for a
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Speaker 2: joy ride.
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Speaker 1: Of course, I didn't remember what I was doing today,
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Speaker 1: so they did kind of a rude question to sit
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Speaker 1: there and asked me what I was doing three years earlier.
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Speaker 1: So I didn't like that whole thing.
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Speaker 2: Apparently Wan Luna had told police that he'd been working
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Speaker 2: with Jim that day at his career fixing cars.
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Speaker 1: I never employed Lula never. Wan never worked at my house,
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Speaker 1: never worked in my shop never, So that was the
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Speaker 1: first thing that I just laughed about. The guy doesn't
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Speaker 1: even help me in my shop, so they'll have this
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Speaker 1: whole story that he's working for me in my shop.
14:15
Speaker 1: I started what happened.
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Speaker 2: Jim says the interaction with police did not go well.
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Speaker 2: He was sarcastic and arrogant because he says the police
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Speaker 2: embarrassed him by coming to his house, and he was
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Speaker 2: bothered by the fact that they expected him to remember
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Speaker 2: on the spot something that happened almost three years prior.
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Speaker 2: So he brushed them off.
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Speaker 1: When he left me in nineteen ninety five, said they
14:38
Speaker 1: were going to go reinvestigate him. And then I went
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Speaker 1: to a party as a remodeling party were remodeling a
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Speaker 1: friend's house and it was kind of funny because their
14:47
Speaker 1: sister knew who Juan was, so it was funny for
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Speaker 1: everybody at the remodeling party to hear that these police
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Speaker 1: are going to go harass him again. We thought it
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Speaker 1: was funny and we had a conversation then and then
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Speaker 1: I talked to Line after that, but he just never
15:01
Speaker 1: really said anything and never acted guilty or concerned or anything.
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Speaker 1: I didn't think the cues involved whatsoever.
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Speaker 2: The police had been investigating the Browns Chicken murders for
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Speaker 2: more than two years. Ashley says they went through a
15:19
Speaker 2: lot of potential suspects. According to one report, the police
15:23
Speaker 2: would end up chasing down over four thousand leads.
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Speaker 4: There were a lot of investigations, There were a lot
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Speaker 4: of different players. There was a whole task force assigned
15:34
Speaker 4: to investigating this mass murder, and it was It was
15:40
Speaker 4: one of those situations where people were just desperate to
15:43
Speaker 4: find answers.
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Speaker 2: And then the case went cold for seven more years.
15:51
Speaker 2: Shortly after the murders, a Palatine council member started a
15:55
Speaker 2: reward fund. It started with one thousand dollars, then the
15:59
Speaker 2: community chipped in, raising almost one hundred thousand dollars for
16:03
Speaker 2: any information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
16:09
Speaker 2: There was a lot of public pressure to solve this case.
16:12
Speaker 2: The media hounded law enforcement looking for answers. Civil advocates
16:17
Speaker 2: blasted police for public dishonesty and deception, but nothing happened. Then,
16:23
Speaker 2: nine years after the murder, in the spring of two
16:26
Speaker 2: thousand and two, Jim Degorski was called to the police
16:29
Speaker 2: station for questioning. Jim says he didn't think he had
16:34
Speaker 2: anything to run from, so he went.
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Speaker 1: And it was the same sergeant that talked to me
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Speaker 1: all the way back in nineteen ninety five, which was
16:42
Speaker 1: not good. I remember him from his lashes and the
16:45
Speaker 1: way he talked, so I was kind of sarcastic to
16:50
Speaker 1: him from the get go.
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Speaker 2: Jim sat down with law enforcement, including police Commander William King,
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Speaker 2: and then.
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Speaker 1: Was talking to me. He just asked me basic general
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Speaker 1: questions about the same alibi. But before before I left,
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Speaker 1: like he started asking me about he basically said, we
17:10
Speaker 1: have two suspects DNA, we have two suspects fingerprints, and
17:14
Speaker 1: we and we have an eyewitness. We have eyewitnesses of
17:18
Speaker 1: the murderers. So the guy who says everybody's a suspect,
17:22
Speaker 1: So would you give us your DNA or your or
17:25
Speaker 1: your fingerprints to clear your name, and you did so. I, oh, yeah,
17:29
Speaker 1: I guess. I gave my DNA, like ten slabs of DNA.
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Speaker 1: I gave him my whole entire handprint, including the top
17:35
Speaker 1: where I don't even have fingerprints. I gave them all
17:37
Speaker 1: that stuff. But they asked me a bunch of questions
17:39
Speaker 1: before I left, like if I had any problem with
17:41
Speaker 1: one of my ex girlfriends and trying to have something
17:44
Speaker 1: like that, and then that's right as I was leaving.
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Speaker 2: Did you have any problems with ex girlfriends at the time.
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Speaker 1: No, not at all. I didn't even I didn't even
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Speaker 1: understand the line of questioning next time I'm being arrested
17:58
Speaker 1: at my work parking lot.
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Speaker 2: That ex girlfriend police were asking about was Anne Lockett.
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Speaker 2: Jim and Anne had dated around the time of the murders,
18:06
Speaker 2: when he was twenty. They'd met through one in high school.
18:11
Speaker 2: Jim says Anne had demons, she'd been in rehab and
18:14
Speaker 2: spent some time in a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt,
18:19
Speaker 2: but she was also fun. She wanted to learn how
18:21
Speaker 2: to work on cars, and they both liked the outdoors.
18:25
Speaker 1: We were great tree hugger. So we went hiking inside
18:29
Speaker 1: and all the trees hadible foods. Every day that we're
18:32
Speaker 1: going through eating herbs. It's fun to go camping, hiking
18:35
Speaker 1: with knocking out her life. Bucket left the whole entire
18:38
Speaker 1: time we dated. But a lot of my friends did
18:41
Speaker 1: not care for her.
18:42
Speaker 2: Why didn't they.
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Speaker 1: Like her, didn't trust her, didn't like her.
18:50
Speaker 2: Ann was different than Jim's friends.
18:52
Speaker 1: Some of my friends are yuppies. Some of my friends
18:54
Speaker 1: are gearheads. I have different groups of friends, and they
19:00
Speaker 1: liked me day nurse. A lot of people they voiced it,
19:04
Speaker 1: Jim says.
19:04
Speaker 2: Back in high school, she was the type to hang
19:06
Speaker 2: out with the heavy partying crowd, the burnouts at the
19:09
Speaker 2: back of the school cafeteria, as Jim calls them.
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Speaker 1: She's like me. She goes a lot of concerts, so
19:14
Speaker 1: she goes like she likes that death metal stuff, like
19:18
Speaker 1: the Cannibal corpse stuff. Oh, and she wore the leather
19:23
Speaker 1: jacket heavy metal parties and tiger parties, and she got
19:28
Speaker 1: some wild stories of all her party lifestyle. So a
19:33
Speaker 1: lot of my friends didn't really care for that.
19:35
Speaker 2: His relationship with Anne worked for about a year, he says,
19:39
Speaker 2: until they broke up seven years later. In two thousand
19:43
Speaker 2: and two, Anne Lockett came forward with a story. Anne
19:47
Speaker 2: said that Jim had called her while she was at
19:49
Speaker 2: the psychiatric hospital on January ninth, nineteen ninety three, the
19:54
Speaker 2: day after the murders. She said that she.
19:57
Speaker 4: Received a call from James de Gorski at a payphone
20:01
Speaker 4: at the hospital and that he told her to watch
20:04
Speaker 4: the news because he had done something big. So she
20:10
Speaker 4: turns on the television and saw that the lead story
20:13
Speaker 4: on the news was the Browns Chicken murder.
20:16
Speaker 2: Police said Anne had information only the killers would have known.
20:20
Speaker 2: She said she waited so long to come forward because
20:22
Speaker 2: she'd been afraid Jim would kill her. On May sixteenth,
20:27
Speaker 2: two thousand and two, Jim Degorski and Wan Luna were
20:30
Speaker 2: arrested for the Browns Chicken murders. Jim lived in Indianapolis
20:34
Speaker 2: at the time and was about to start work when
20:37
Speaker 2: two officers showed up, including Police Commander William King. Again
20:42
Speaker 2: literally told me to.
20:43
Speaker 1: Leave my inhaler, put your FN hands on the fing car.
20:48
Speaker 1: They started off all wrong, embarrassed front of my co workers,
20:54
Speaker 1: in front of my friends, the gas station, the subway,
20:57
Speaker 1: in front of my it was bad.
21:00
Speaker 2: They got in the car and drove four hours to Palatine.
21:03
Speaker 1: And it just went downhill from then because I literally
21:06
Speaker 1: had to go to the bathroom the whole time, and
21:08
Speaker 1: they made me hold it all the way to the
21:10
Speaker 1: Illinois border. I was in pain.
21:13
Speaker 2: Jim says he also had a job interview.
21:15
Speaker 1: After work, which is why my sister didn't put out
21:18
Speaker 1: an app for me. They wouldn't let me change my
21:22
Speaker 1: clothes from my work all day. I'm a blue collar
21:24
Speaker 1: I do a property management, property maintenance. I'm dirty. They
21:29
Speaker 1: wouldn't let me change my clothes. They wouldn't let me
21:31
Speaker 1: grab my inhaler, they wouldn't let me grab my I
21:34
Speaker 1: have a Nextel Slash cell phone. They wouldn't let me
21:36
Speaker 1: even chirp on that.
21:38
Speaker 2: Jim was pissed, just like the other times he encountered
21:41
Speaker 2: Palatime police.
21:42
Speaker 1: So by the time we got in the interrogation room,
21:44
Speaker 1: we started off the wrong way with them being confrontational bullies,
21:48
Speaker 1: escalating everything, and.
21:50
Speaker 2: It only got worse from there. What were you thinking?
21:56
Speaker 1: Honestly, these counts are so unprofessional. I didn't know what
21:59
Speaker 1: they were going to do next.
22:00
Speaker 2: Were you scared?
22:02
Speaker 1: Terrified?
22:03
Speaker 2: Police said Jim waved his Miranda rights, but he remembers
22:07
Speaker 2: it differently.
22:08
Speaker 1: They wouldn't let me use their phone since they wouldn't
22:11
Speaker 1: let me take my phone to call my lawyer. So
22:13
Speaker 1: I have two attorney friends based family friends. I had
22:19
Speaker 1: no rights, what's one? I was terrified the whole time.
22:22
Speaker 2: Eventually police told Jim why they were holding him. They
22:26
Speaker 2: said he and Wan Luna had robbed the Brown's Chicken
22:29
Speaker 2: restaurant and killed everyone inside, and they had the DNA
22:33
Speaker 2: to prove it from that chicken bone the investigator saved
22:37
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety three.
22:38
Speaker 4: The case went cold. Then DNA starts vamping up. They
22:42
Speaker 4: test the chicken bone and Juan Luna's a match. I
22:46
Speaker 4: think once the DNA hit against Juan Luna, they built
22:51
Speaker 4: their case around that.
22:52
Speaker 2: The police told Jim that after murdering the Browns Chicken
22:55
Speaker 2: employees in cold blood, he and Juan met Eileen Bacala,
22:59
Speaker 2: his girl friend, at the jewel oscar parking lot in
23:02
Speaker 2: Carpentersville with a duffel bag full of cash. Then they
23:06
Speaker 2: all drove together to another town to meet a friend,
23:09
Speaker 2: and in that ride, one and Jim bragged about what
23:12
Speaker 2: they'd done.
23:14
Speaker 1: Once they accused me and started putting me into the narrative.
23:19
Speaker 1: That's when I started saying out no, and I'm going
23:20
Speaker 1: to remain asilent.
23:21
Speaker 2: Jim says police were using his alibi to actually implicate
23:25
Speaker 2: him in the murder.
23:26
Speaker 1: They have put words in my mouth and they mixed
23:29
Speaker 1: my truth with lies, and they're telling me what other
23:32
Speaker 1: people are saying, which I know are lies. And they
23:35
Speaker 1: wouldn't tell me after a while who was saying what,
23:37
Speaker 1: so that would get really confusing. And this kept this
23:43
Speaker 1: is this NonStop. This is going on like a tag team.
23:47
Speaker 2: It was relentless until finally Jim allegedly confessed.
23:53
Speaker 4: He allegedly made oral statements.
23:57
Speaker 2: King brought in assistant state's attorney Michael McAll to take
24:00
Speaker 2: his statement on camera. So, was there a statement that
24:03
Speaker 2: you made?
24:06
Speaker 1: So what they were trying to do is tell me
24:08
Speaker 1: we will let you use the telephone right now. All
24:11
Speaker 1: you have to do is say that you did this.
24:13
Speaker 1: They will let you use the phone. Just say that
24:15
Speaker 1: you just did this, Say that Luna did this, say this,
24:18
Speaker 1: Say they're telling me what to say. And then if
24:20
Speaker 1: I say that on a video, and it was incriminating.
24:22
Speaker 2: Police said Jim admitted that he and Wan were involved
24:25
Speaker 2: in the crime, but then refused to further elaborate on camera.
24:30
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the video said. I think
24:32
Speaker 1: I said yeah, right to their narrative m and then
24:34
Speaker 1: immediately said that now I get to talk to my
24:36
Speaker 1: Now I can talk to a judge.
24:38
Speaker 2: So did you get to use the phone?
24:41
Speaker 1: Never?
24:42
Speaker 2: Jan Luna allegedly confessed as well, saying that he'd been
24:45
Speaker 2: with Jim all day working on cars, then they'd robbed
24:49
Speaker 2: the Browns Chicken and then met Eileen at the jewel Osco.
24:53
Speaker 2: Did you have a lot of support when this happened?
24:55
Speaker 2: Do people believe you did this?
24:58
Speaker 1: Oh? My god, My friends thought I had absolutely no
25:03
Speaker 1: involvement in this whatsoever. Every time they tried to voice it,
25:07
Speaker 1: they were literally told to shut up and as far
25:09
Speaker 1: as shut the fuck up, and then as far as
25:12
Speaker 1: the police literally threatening them telling them that they better lie,
25:16
Speaker 1: tell me you better say this, or basically threaten them
25:19
Speaker 1: with going to Cook County jail. They couldn't even have voice.
25:23
Speaker 1: My their beliefs were not even accepted. They were told
25:27
Speaker 1: this and threatened by this, and they basically feared for
25:30
Speaker 1: their lives from the police and from this crazy vigilante
25:34
Speaker 1: psychos in society.
25:36
Speaker 2: Jim says his family got the worst of it and
25:38
Speaker 2: were tormented for being related to a Brown's Chicken murderer.
25:42
Speaker 1: They didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong
25:44
Speaker 1: at all. But my family did absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever,
25:48
Speaker 1: and the least bit to be persecuting them and targeting
25:53
Speaker 1: with comments even it's wrong.
26:01
Speaker 2: Jim sat in jail for years and finally went to
26:05
Speaker 2: trial in August two thousand and nine, sixteen years after
26:09
Speaker 2: the murders. The prosecution had painted one and Jim as
26:13
Speaker 2: quote people without a soul who went on a killing
26:17
Speaker 2: spree just for the thrill of it. It was all
26:20
Speaker 2: over the news and now Jim was facing the death penalty.
26:24
Speaker 4: By the time trial came along, he just knew I'm toast.
26:28
Speaker 4: Nobody gives a shit about me. And I mean, if
26:32
Speaker 4: you read the trial, I would say like ten percent
26:36
Speaker 4: of it is actually is a defense and ninety percent
26:42
Speaker 4: of it is offense on the part of his public
26:46
Speaker 4: defender to try to not get him to get the
26:48
Speaker 4: death penalty. It was all mitigation, like everything was you are,
26:55
Speaker 4: You're going to be convicted, so let's just mitigate and
26:58
Speaker 4: let's not get you the death penalty.
27:00
Speaker 2: The prosecution did not use the alleged tape confession by Jim.
27:04
Speaker 4: They just use the testimony of the prosecutor and the
27:12
Speaker 4: officer who were present for the alleged oral statements, rather
27:17
Speaker 4: than the videotaped confession exactly.
27:22
Speaker 2: Instead of using the video, the prosecution had King and
27:25
Speaker 2: McHale testify about the confession.
27:28
Speaker 4: The videotape confession would be the best evidence. If it's
27:32
Speaker 4: a solid videotape confession, that would be the best evidence,
27:36
Speaker 4: But obviously they didn't think it would play well with
27:39
Speaker 4: the jury, so they didn't show it. It just was
27:43
Speaker 4: not even believable on its face.
27:46
Speaker 2: Since the prosecution had no forensic evidence tying Jim to
27:49
Speaker 2: the murders, they relied heavily on their star witnesses. Jim's
27:54
Speaker 2: ex girlfriends An Lockett and Eileen Bacalla, repeated the stories
27:59
Speaker 2: they told police. Jim says, the whole experience was grueling.
28:03
Speaker 1: I thought it was bad that I had to be forced,
28:06
Speaker 1: actually everybody, to be honest with you, was forced to
28:08
Speaker 1: watch that those videos and those photos, like just the
28:12
Speaker 1: crime scene. That was one of the worst things for me.
28:15
Speaker 1: But it was bad to listen to hand Locket's testimony,
28:18
Speaker 1: but listening to those cops law enforcement officers under oath
28:21
Speaker 1: lion and the calla lion, which is supposed to be
28:24
Speaker 1: like a real good friend of mine, since for a
28:27
Speaker 1: long time that was gut wrenching for me. Just those
28:30
Speaker 1: two were the worst.
28:32
Speaker 2: On September nineteenth, two thousand and nine, thirty seven year
28:36
Speaker 2: old James de Gorski was convicted of all seven counts
28:40
Speaker 2: of murder. His defense attorney Mark Levitt addressed to the press, obviously.
28:45
Speaker 5: Very disappointed in the verdict that we respect to that
28:50
Speaker 5: the jury is not a guilty My focus now obviously
28:54
Speaker 5: turns to the setsunury and trying to convince this jury
28:57
Speaker 5: to the appropriate sense for mister Devarsky life in prison.
29:01
Speaker 2: The jurors agreed to life in prison, though many told
29:04
Speaker 2: the press they wanted the death penalty and that Anne
29:07
Speaker 2: and Eileen's testimony had convinced them Jim was guilty.
29:12
Speaker 1: I think that their testimony was very key decisions that
29:17
Speaker 1: we reached.
29:18
Speaker 2: Wan Luna had gone to trial in two thousand and
29:20
Speaker 2: seven and was also convicted of the murders. Jim has
29:33
Speaker 2: been incarcerated over two decades, and he spent most of
29:36
Speaker 2: his time alone.
29:42
Speaker 1: I just don't fit in. So I really just preferred
29:44
Speaker 1: just to walk around the yard by myself, do things
29:47
Speaker 1: by myself. If I can help out where it comes
29:50
Speaker 1: to a school work or I went to a college
29:54
Speaker 1: program and stuff like that, I don't mind helping people
29:56
Speaker 1: do stuff like that.
29:57
Speaker 2: But Jim says he's a different person on the inside.
30:01
Speaker 1: Kindness is considered a weakness and to me, to avoid
30:04
Speaker 1: fighting and whatever. I don't put myself out as charitable
30:09
Speaker 1: because you can't be charitable. I'm not in I only
30:15
Speaker 1: want to describe this environment.
30:17
Speaker 2: Has your family supported you while you're in there?
30:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a great family. I got a great
30:26
Speaker 1: support network through them. They just I'm an embarrassment to
30:31
Speaker 1: them now. I was like that brother that was actually
30:34
Speaker 1: like a father. When I first got arrested, it was
30:37
Speaker 1: nice to get happy Father's Day cards for my sibling. Yeah,
30:41
Speaker 1: so they've been supportive. It just they don't know what
30:44
Speaker 1: to do, and I really don't know what to do either.
30:46
Speaker 2: Jim met the Bojin Law group where Ashley is partner,
30:50
Speaker 2: when he was first arrested for the murders in the
30:52
Speaker 2: early two thousands.
30:54
Speaker 4: One James was arrested. He went Cook County Jail, and
31:02
Speaker 4: when a correction officer found out that he was the
31:06
Speaker 4: Brown's Chicken murderer, he punched him so hard in the
31:09
Speaker 4: face that it broke one of the plates in his face.
31:13
Speaker 2: So Jim hired Jennifer Bonjin to file a civil case.
31:18
Speaker 4: James felt very strongly about Jenny because she was the
31:23
Speaker 4: only one who would even consider his case. I mean,
31:25
Speaker 4: you have a guy who was accused of one of
31:28
Speaker 4: the biggest mass murders in Illinois at that time, and
31:32
Speaker 4: nobody wants to represent the Brown's Chicken murder. So she
31:38
Speaker 4: she did. She represented him, and she got a pretty
31:42
Speaker 4: favorable verdict for him.
31:44
Speaker 2: She got him over five hundred thousand dollars in damages.
31:48
Speaker 4: So once they got to know each other, he said,
31:52
Speaker 4: will you represent.
31:53
Speaker 2: Me in his post conviction proceedings.
31:56
Speaker 4: I think we started investigating his criminal case around two thousand,
32:00
Speaker 4: fifteen twenty fourteen. We just hit the ground running doing
32:04
Speaker 4: investigation for him.
32:09
Speaker 2: What specifically were you interested in?
32:12
Speaker 3: Because there's a thousand cases you could take, you know,
32:14
Speaker 3: why look at this one?
32:16
Speaker 4: What was it? I think that the fact that he
32:20
Speaker 4: was claiming actual innocence was appealing to Jenny. Also, the
32:25
Speaker 4: evidence is just really scarce. It's just not as It's
32:30
Speaker 4: not what they paint in the media.
32:34
Speaker 2: Remember, police found no evidence tying Jim to the murder scene.
32:39
Speaker 4: The fact that this was like a massacre of the
32:42
Speaker 4: scene with blood everywhere and fingerprints everywhere and hair and
32:47
Speaker 4: all of this analysis, all of his DNA and not
32:49
Speaker 4: a single stitch of evidence was found to implicate James
32:55
Speaker 4: was seem very problematic. When we started investigating James's case,
33:00
Speaker 4: a lot of there were a lot of holes in
33:03
Speaker 4: the story, in the investigation, everything seemed very confusing and
33:08
Speaker 4: not clear. And why ten years later, and also why
33:13
Speaker 4: were these two guys, Wan Luna and James de Gorski
33:17
Speaker 4: the suspects, Like, usually you don't just go murder seven
33:23
Speaker 4: people and then go about their merry business just living.
33:26
Speaker 2: Their lives, Ashley says. Another thing that didn't make sense
33:31
Speaker 2: was how the prosecution painted Wan Luna as a disgruntled employee.
33:36
Speaker 4: There wasn't really any testimony or anything that he was
33:38
Speaker 4: a disgruntled employee. I mean, the woman who owned the restaurant,
33:44
Speaker 4: her throat was slashed. And these are young kids who
33:49
Speaker 4: are all killed. Just because you don't like one person
33:54
Speaker 4: your prior employment doesn't mean you're murdering everybody who works there.
34:00
Speaker 2: There were other leads the police pursued that seem much
34:03
Speaker 2: more plausible, like one about gangs committing similar crimes in
34:07
Speaker 2: the area.
34:09
Speaker 4: That makes more sense to me, not just a senseless
34:12
Speaker 4: killing for no apparent reason from a disgruntled employee.
34:17
Speaker 2: And Ashley says she thinks Swan's confession, similar to Jim's,
34:21
Speaker 2: was coerced.
34:22
Speaker 4: The police really, you know, threatened to deport his wife,
34:27
Speaker 4: They refused to let him use his phone or see
34:30
Speaker 4: his son, and that they were screaming at him. He
34:34
Speaker 4: was an immigrant, so they were threatening to deport him,
34:37
Speaker 4: deport his family, take his kid away from him, typical
34:40
Speaker 4: tactics that we see with police interrogations, and he probably
34:46
Speaker 4: feared for his life and the safety of his family.
34:50
Speaker 2: Ashley and the Bonjin team also looked at Ann Lockett,
34:53
Speaker 2: the star witness and Jim's ex girlfriend. They wound up
34:57
Speaker 2: tracking down her roommate at the psychiatric facil she was
35:00
Speaker 2: in at the time of the murder in nineteen ninety three, and.
35:04
Speaker 4: We started talking to her about the protocols because just
35:09
Speaker 4: when you're suicidal, You're not gonna be at a psychiatric
35:15
Speaker 4: facility that is going to give you access to anything
35:18
Speaker 4: and everything on the outside world that is probably causing
35:21
Speaker 4: you distress in the first place, right, so you are
35:24
Speaker 4: likely not able to get phone calls on a payphone.
35:30
Speaker 4: It just the face value of her testimony seemed very implausible.
35:34
Speaker 2: Not only did they find it would be highly unlikely
35:36
Speaker 2: Jim was able to call a payphone at the psychiatric
35:39
Speaker 2: center to tell Anne about the murder, but on top
35:43
Speaker 2: of that.
35:44
Speaker 4: She was dating somebody else. His name was Richard Billock.
35:48
Speaker 4: We found Richard Billock and he provided an affidavit and
35:52
Speaker 4: basically said that he was the one dating her at
35:55
Speaker 4: the time and that he had not been dating She
35:57
Speaker 4: had not been dating James at that time.
35:59
Speaker 2: And dated months after the murders. So why would Anne lie.
36:04
Speaker 4: An Lockett was going to receive the one hundred thousand
36:07
Speaker 4: dollars in reward money, and that was our biggest issue.
36:13
Speaker 4: The jury did not know that she would have received
36:15
Speaker 4: money for her testimony.
36:17
Speaker 2: Ashley says this is a Brady violation the prosecution hiding
36:20
Speaker 2: exculpatory evidence. She says the jury could have been swayed
36:24
Speaker 2: differently had they known as far as Eileen Bacala Ashley says,
36:29
Speaker 2: she had a partner who was in some trouble with
36:31
Speaker 2: the law at the time she came forward.
36:34
Speaker 4: I think if you're anybody you know about the brown
36:37
Speaker 4: chicken at the time you get arrested, You're like, what
36:39
Speaker 4: if I give you information about the brown chicken murder?
36:42
Speaker 4: Would that? Would that get you to not look at
36:44
Speaker 4: me and look at somebody else? So, I mean, these
36:47
Speaker 4: are all theories. We had no idea, but that was
36:49
Speaker 4: our theory.
36:51
Speaker 3: Are you resentful towards and Eileen for lying against you?
36:58
Speaker 1: That's a good question to be resentful and that I
37:02
Speaker 1: won't talk to him. I'll go my own way, and
37:04
Speaker 1: I never want to see these people ever again. And
37:07
Speaker 1: I can totally be happy content. I don't need to
37:09
Speaker 1: answer the why questions. I was a white kid growing
37:12
Speaker 1: up a free range why kids independent? Now, I don't
37:16
Speaker 1: need to know the whise. I don't want to know
37:17
Speaker 1: the whys. But I blame Pelotime Police because they were
37:25
Speaker 1: the filter that was supposed to stop this, but instead
37:27
Speaker 1: they did it.
37:33
Speaker 2: Right now, Jim has a habeas petition pending in front
37:36
Speaker 2: of the court. But Ashley worries about the charged politics
37:40
Speaker 2: of the Browns Chicken murder.
37:42
Speaker 4: There's a lot of people involved in this particular situation
37:46
Speaker 4: that are now judges, you know Chicago, Illinois politics that
37:52
Speaker 4: they run real deep.
37:54
Speaker 2: Michael McHale, who took the alleged confession from Jim and
37:57
Speaker 2: testified to it at trial, is now a circuit court
38:01
Speaker 2: judge in Cook County.
38:03
Speaker 4: So there's probably a lot of people who want to
38:06
Speaker 4: keep this dead and buried and do not want to
38:09
Speaker 4: think that they got it wrong. I mean, it's hard
38:12
Speaker 4: to know, but I think it would take it a
38:14
Speaker 4: lot for the world to come to terms with the
38:18
Speaker 4: fact that they got the Browns Chicken murderer wrong.
38:25
Speaker 2: Do you think about life like, what life will be
38:28
Speaker 2: like when you do get out.
38:30
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not going to be free range. I'm definitely
38:31
Speaker 1: gonna be a hermit. I'll definitely live off the grid,
38:35
Speaker 1: and I'm maybe in this country hopefully, but if not,
38:39
Speaker 1: I'll be a hermit somewhere else. It's the stuff that
38:43
Speaker 1: the stuff I see here, the stuff I hear never
38:47
Speaker 1: really saw that part of this. I knew stuff was
38:49
Speaker 1: happening in society. I just never really talked to somebody
38:53
Speaker 1: at rates and killed people and the stuff. I listened
38:56
Speaker 1: to them for the years and just somebody talk about
38:59
Speaker 1: robbery and murder and no, I'm gonna be hurm it.
39:04
Speaker 4: Wow.
39:04
Speaker 3: So you feel now that you've been in prison, your
39:08
Speaker 3: apprehensive about the outside world because of how terrible it is.
39:12
Speaker 2: Is kind of what you're saying.
39:14
Speaker 1: So before I was just like social of all my neighbors.
39:17
Speaker 1: They enjoyed me helping them with chores and taught me
39:20
Speaker 1: these trades and how to do all this stuff. I've
39:23
Speaker 1: learned all that from my neighbors and my community growing up.
39:29
Speaker 1: Now I just I just want to go away from everything.
39:32
Speaker 1: I just want to hopefully you can find something to
39:35
Speaker 1: fix and remodel and build, and just hope you just
39:41
Speaker 1: fix up from the friends I still have.
39:59
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
40:01
Speaker 2: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
40:04
Speaker 2: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
40:08
Speaker 2: Thank you to Maurice Poseley. We relied on his reporting
40:10
Speaker 2: about the Browns Chicken murders. We have a link to
40:13
Speaker 2: his book The Browns Chicken Massacre in the episode description.
40:17
Speaker 2: This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
40:20
Speaker 2: editing and sound designed by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our
40:24
Speaker 2: producer is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher is Shelby Sorels, with
40:28
Speaker 2: mixing by Josh Allen. Our executive producers are Jason Flam,
40:32
Speaker 2: Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis, with additional production help by
40:35
Speaker 2: Jeff Cliburn. The music is by three time OSCAR nominated
40:39
Speaker 2: composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow us on all
40:42
Speaker 2: social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
40:46
Speaker 2: You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling.
40:49
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava
40:52
Speaker 2: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one