Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #535 Ben Bowlin with Reynaldo Munoz

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#535 Ben Bowlin with Reynaldo Munoz · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: On September eighth, nineteen eighty five, in Humble Park, Chicago,
0:08
Speaker 1: sixteen year old Bernaldo Munoz got into a fight outside
0:12
Speaker 1: a party round three am, and two of his friends,
0:17
Speaker 1: Ivan Mina and Bobby Garcia broke it up. About an
0:21
Speaker 1: hour later, Mena and Garcia were being rushed to the
0:24
Speaker 1: hospital with gunshot wounds, but only Garcia survived. Unfortunately, he
0:30
Speaker 1: could not describe the shooter. However, three weeks later, Disgrace
0:34
Speaker 1: Chicago detectives showed Bobby Garcia one photo from which he
0:39
Speaker 1: confidently identified someone whom he should have been able to
0:42
Speaker 1: describe the night of the shooting. This is wrongful Conviction.
0:58
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongfol Conviction, where we have another story
1:02
Speaker 1: about known corrupt detectives. We're talking about Rinaldo Gavara and
1:07
Speaker 1: Ernest Halverson at a time when Halverson had another partner
1:12
Speaker 1: and Gavara was still just an officer with the gang
1:16
Speaker 1: Crimes Unit. However, their corrupt patterns and practices were already
1:22
Speaker 1: present at this time. Today we are with another one
1:26
Speaker 1: of their survivors, Rinaldo Munos Ray. Thanks for joining us today.
1:32
Speaker 1: You're welcome, and to help tell this story, we have
1:35
Speaker 1: a returning champion of these survivors, Jennifer Bonjean, welcome back.
1:41
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me so, Ray.
1:44
Speaker 1: Let's start with your life before all of this happened.
1:48
Speaker 2: Well.
1:48
Speaker 3: I was born in Chicago. I have two older sisters
1:52
Speaker 3: and an older brother. I'm the youngest. My siblings were
1:55
Speaker 3: born in Puerto Rico. I was born in Chicago. I
1:58
Speaker 3: grew up basically middle My mom and dad worked very hard,
2:03
Speaker 3: sometimes two jobs to provide for us. My siblings were
2:07
Speaker 3: straight A students. My brother has his own business. My
2:10
Speaker 3: older sister she's a GC you know. My younger sister
2:14
Speaker 3: has a certified CPA. She runs her tax business. Even myself,
2:18
Speaker 3: I just strayed the wrong direction. I grew up in
2:21
Speaker 3: a humble park environment. Most of the neighborhoods there was
2:24
Speaker 3: gang infestation, and my mom and dad they tried to
2:28
Speaker 3: deter from that, so we had to move from neighborhood
2:31
Speaker 3: to neighborhood to try to find somewhere better to live.
2:34
Speaker 3: But everywhere you go in a humble park there's gangs,
2:37
Speaker 3: so you had to deal with it. And sometimes guys
2:41
Speaker 3: would pick on you and try to tell you what
2:43
Speaker 3: you'd be or this or that, and then if you're
2:45
Speaker 3: not on nothing. They didn't want to believe that. Sometimes
2:48
Speaker 3: you would get jumped. Sometimes your life was in danger
2:51
Speaker 3: because if you lived in one area and you were
2:53
Speaker 3: not hooked up, then somebody else that lived in another
2:55
Speaker 3: area they was hooked up. There was the opposition would say, oh,
2:58
Speaker 3: this guy, he lives in neighborhood, he's a this or that.
3:02
Speaker 2: If you lived on this block and it was a
3:04
Speaker 2: Latin King block, you were a Latin King.
3:06
Speaker 3: Whether you were in it or whether you were not
3:07
Speaker 3: in it, they didn't care. So it's like the innocent
3:11
Speaker 3: always ended up paying the price. So when we moved
3:15
Speaker 3: to where I got hooked up at, I got jumped
3:18
Speaker 3: a couple of times over there, I got chased. So
3:21
Speaker 3: then I started hanging out with the guys in the neighborhood,
3:24
Speaker 3: and then you know, I became hooked up with the
3:26
Speaker 3: gang that I was with, you know.
3:28
Speaker 1: And that gang was called the Insane Unknowns. Unfortunately, as
3:33
Speaker 1: we have seen through our coverage of other cases out
3:36
Speaker 1: of Humboldt Park in particular, the Chicago police saw gang
3:41
Speaker 1: affiliation very much the same way as the gangs did, so,
3:45
Speaker 1: regardless of anyone's actual involvement, if there was any involvement
3:49
Speaker 1: at all, anybody and everyone could be lumped into the
3:54
Speaker 1: gang that was active in their neighborhood. And at the
3:57
Speaker 1: time of the investigation of this crime was penned on Ray,
4:01
Speaker 1: there were already a number of incidents that police thought
4:04
Speaker 1: were also associated with this gang. The Insane Unknowns.
4:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, they threw them in like three lineups. That's part
4:11
Speaker 2: of the big problem is that even people who avoided
4:16
Speaker 2: gang membership, if the police are already going to assume
4:20
Speaker 2: you are in a gang by virtue of what block
4:23
Speaker 2: you live on, These young Hispanic kids from Humble Park
4:26
Speaker 2: and these outlying areas were fungible. They were interchangeable, and
4:31
Speaker 2: that has to be incredibly demoralizing when you're already working
4:35
Speaker 2: so hard to take a path that your parents want
4:38
Speaker 2: you to in some cases, or that you know is
4:40
Speaker 2: good for you, and you're getting it from all ends,
4:43
Speaker 2: from the gang members in the community that are, like,
4:47
Speaker 2: you know, either harassing you or just sometimes it was
4:50
Speaker 2: about wanting to have friends, you know, because there was
4:53
Speaker 2: so much gang activity that having friends sometimes meant associating
4:58
Speaker 2: with gang members, and the police are going to assume
5:00
Speaker 2: you are anyway.
5:02
Speaker 1: So this is the context in which this investigation transpired
5:06
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of a shooting that occurred around four
5:09
Speaker 1: fifteen am on September eighth, nineteen eighty five. But let's
5:14
Speaker 1: rewind to a few hours before, on the evening of
5:18
Speaker 1: September seventh.
5:20
Speaker 3: Well, I was invited to this party. It was in
5:23
Speaker 3: the neighborhood. It was the older gentleman. His wife was
5:25
Speaker 3: throwing the party for him, and I was invited to
5:27
Speaker 3: one of my friend's mother. So it was not again
5:30
Speaker 3: related party. It was a family party. And my wife
5:34
Speaker 3: today Wanda, she lived in the neighborhood, so she was
5:37
Speaker 3: going to be at the party, so I was trying
5:39
Speaker 3: to hook up with her. So I get to the party.
5:42
Speaker 3: You know, they have live music, drinks and stuff and food.
5:46
Speaker 3: I had a couple of beers and then one of
5:49
Speaker 3: the guys that was in the band started pass out drinks,
5:52
Speaker 3: so he had like a trade and I went to
5:54
Speaker 3: grab a beer and the guy started talking crazy and
5:57
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I'll buy my own beer. The
6:00
Speaker 3: guy started talking shit, oh, I beat your ass and
6:02
Speaker 3: all this and that. I'm like, listen, you're not gonna
6:04
Speaker 3: do nothing, go about your business and leave me the
6:07
Speaker 3: fuck alone. And I just brusted off. He kept running
6:10
Speaker 3: his mouth, so I told my guy, I said, man,
6:13
Speaker 3: let's go outside. I don't want to be arguing and
6:15
Speaker 3: disrespecting these people's house. So we went to the front.
6:18
Speaker 3: I'm sitting down on the hood of a car. I
6:20
Speaker 3: need my business talking to my guy, and the guy
6:22
Speaker 3: comes around the back of the alley trying to snake me.
6:25
Speaker 3: So my guy's like, hey, watch out, so I jump
6:27
Speaker 3: off the car. He comes at me. So I hit
6:29
Speaker 3: the guy a couple of times and I come on
6:31
Speaker 3: the ground. He gets back up. He's very drunk, so
6:34
Speaker 3: he comes at me again and tries to wrestle me.
6:37
Speaker 3: I hit him a couple of times with an uppercut
6:40
Speaker 3: and he falls again. I put my knee on his
6:42
Speaker 3: chest and I say, listen, man, you're drunk. I said,
6:45
Speaker 3: take it easy, bro.
6:46
Speaker 1: And this fight happened around three am, over an hour
6:49
Speaker 1: before the shooting. The only reason that this altercation is
6:53
Speaker 1: relevant is this the two eventual shooting victims in this case,
6:58
Speaker 1: I haven't made it, I Bobby Guria. They helped break
7:01
Speaker 1: the fight up.
7:02
Speaker 3: So the two victims break me and the guy up,
7:06
Speaker 3: so they're like, are you okay? This and that I'm like, yeah,
7:08
Speaker 3: I'm good man, do this not He's the one that's
7:10
Speaker 3: all drunk and started talking shit. I didn't even want
7:13
Speaker 3: to start no trouble with. They're like, oh whatever. So
7:15
Speaker 3: then the guy somebody else gives him a ride, so
7:18
Speaker 3: as he's leaving, he's like, I'll be back, motherfucker. So
7:21
Speaker 3: then he leaves. So we're there talking and then go
7:24
Speaker 3: around the neighborhood trying to find some weed. Nobody was out,
7:27
Speaker 3: so then my guy's like, hey, I'm tired, I'm gonna
7:30
Speaker 3: go home. I'm like all right. Then I proceeded to
7:32
Speaker 3: walk to my house, which maybe about five minutes give
7:34
Speaker 3: her take. So when I get to my house and
7:37
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, mom, i'm home, she starts telling me, Oh,
7:39
Speaker 3: why you getting home so late? Oh, you smell like liquor.
7:42
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I had some beer and stuff, and
7:45
Speaker 3: I went to my room and I went to sleep.
7:48
Speaker 1: And this is the same account that Rey has maintained
7:51
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty five that he was hold by three
7:54
Speaker 1: thirty a up and then around four twenty am on
7:58
Speaker 1: West Potomac Avenue, around the corner from the party, Bobby
8:01
Speaker 1: Garcia was shot in the leg and Ivan Mana was
8:05
Speaker 1: fatally shot.
8:06
Speaker 2: The way the evidence came in is that they go
8:08
Speaker 2: to the car get some cigarettes and it does seem
8:12
Speaker 2: that they were going to come back to the party
8:15
Speaker 2: and on their way back, somebody is in the gangway
8:18
Speaker 2: and Claire ambush, Ivan Mana is shot, Bobby Garcia is shot.
8:22
Speaker 2: Nine one one is called kind of almost immediately, and
8:26
Speaker 2: within minutes of the shooting, there's a nine to one
8:28
Speaker 2: one call from a woman who talks about seeing these
8:32
Speaker 2: guys running to a silver Cadillac that might have been responsible.
8:36
Speaker 2: She describes them, she gets like a plate number, and
8:40
Speaker 2: the question of whether that is just a coincidence is Unfortunately,
8:43
Speaker 2: when detectives don't do good investigations, it's hard to really
8:47
Speaker 2: know one way or the other. But that car was
8:50
Speaker 2: pulled over, they were detained for a period of time,
8:53
Speaker 2: and the reports suggest that they were brought to the
8:59
Speaker 2: hospital to be viewed by Bobby Garcia and that he
9:04
Speaker 2: didn't identify them. However, we'd opposed one or two of
9:09
Speaker 2: the guys that were in that car and they said
9:11
Speaker 2: that they were never brought to Bobby Garcia or viewed
9:15
Speaker 2: by Bobby Garcia.
9:16
Speaker 1: However, the reports that Jennifer just mentioned were not made
9:20
Speaker 1: by the initial detectives on scene, Johnson and Jaglowski.
9:25
Speaker 2: And one thing I've noticed about these Area five cases
9:27
Speaker 2: is that sometimes the detectives that went out to the scene,
9:30
Speaker 2: the initial field investigations, they seem to be the guys
9:33
Speaker 2: that were not necessarily going to do the dirty work
9:37
Speaker 2: that someone like Gavarro would do. So I have always
9:40
Speaker 2: found that those initial reports, to the extent they are
9:44
Speaker 2: reliable at all, they're the most reliable because those are
9:47
Speaker 2: the guys that aren't going to come in and close
9:50
Speaker 2: the case just on any kid. In any event, Bobby
9:54
Speaker 2: Garcia told the first responding detectives he could not see
9:57
Speaker 2: anything and could not provide a description, couldn't even say ethnicity, nothing.
10:02
Speaker 2: All the objective evidence that we have about the circumstances
10:06
Speaker 2: of the shooting would not lead anyone to think that
10:09
Speaker 2: Bobby Garcia, who is going to be focused of course
10:11
Speaker 2: on his friend he's getting injured, that being able to
10:15
Speaker 2: see the offender would have been very difficult. The offender
10:19
Speaker 2: is like in some gangway shooting in the dark.
10:22
Speaker 1: The term gangway refers to the narrow walkways between houses
10:26
Speaker 1: and the shooter's obscured vantage point is supported by the
10:30
Speaker 1: bullets having traveled from right to left, and it appears
10:34
Speaker 1: that after questioning folks who had been at the party,
10:36
Speaker 1: the police had heard about this fight between the guy
10:39
Speaker 1: from the band and Ray, whose nickname was Scoopy. They
10:43
Speaker 1: had also heard that Ivan and Bobby had broken this
10:46
Speaker 1: fight up.
10:47
Speaker 2: Listen, that's a reasonable lead to explore. You know, you
10:49
Speaker 2: hear about a fight at the party, maybe that could
10:52
Speaker 2: potentially be a motive. Let's go check it out.
10:55
Speaker 3: The following day, some police come and pick me up
10:58
Speaker 3: and start questioning about the party. So I'm like, yeah,
11:01
Speaker 3: I went to the party. I told him I had
11:02
Speaker 3: to fight. Yeah, I don't have I didn't have anything
11:04
Speaker 3: to hide.
11:05
Speaker 2: And Ray's like, yeah, Bobby and Ivan split us up.
11:08
Speaker 2: I don't have any beef with Bobby or Ivan. Like
11:11
Speaker 2: the fight was with someone totally different. So they bring
11:14
Speaker 2: him back home.
11:14
Speaker 1: So it seems that Ray's story checked out for Johnson
11:18
Speaker 1: and Jawlowski, But then Ernest Halverson and his partner at
11:22
Speaker 1: the time, Edwin Dickinson, took over along with at that
11:26
Speaker 1: time Gain Crimes Unit officer Rinaldo Gulvara, and what.
11:31
Speaker 2: I suspect, in keeping with their pattern is that they
11:33
Speaker 2: look at the reports and instead of just sort of
11:36
Speaker 2: starting from scratch, they're just like, ah, who seems like
11:40
Speaker 2: you know someone we can put this on that's already
11:43
Speaker 2: in the reports. And they figure out that there's this
11:47
Speaker 2: fight between one of the guys in the band and
11:50
Speaker 2: Scooby and Ray. Shortly before he is arrested, he's walking
11:56
Speaker 2: down the street and Govera picks him up and doesn't
12:00
Speaker 2: realize he is Scooby. He throws him in the back
12:05
Speaker 2: seat of his car and says, listen, I'm looking for
12:08
Speaker 2: a guy named Snake Scooby. Uh g man. He doesn't
12:12
Speaker 2: realize he has Scooby. Gavera knows all the gang members
12:16
Speaker 2: right in these neighborhoods. The fact that he doesn't know
12:20
Speaker 2: Ray tells you that Ray is not someone who is
12:23
Speaker 2: very active. And Ray obviously does not say, oh, hey,
12:29
Speaker 2: I'm Scooby.
12:30
Speaker 3: So Gavera proceeded to ask me about myself and two
12:34
Speaker 3: other guys, and I told him I didn't know those guys.
12:37
Speaker 3: I didn't know who you were talking about.
12:39
Speaker 2: And Gavara is like, oh really like socks him in
12:41
Speaker 2: the face in the back seat of his car.
12:43
Speaker 3: He gave me. You know, he slagged me and my mom.
12:45
Speaker 3: I see, He's like, you're gonna tell me what I
12:47
Speaker 3: want to know or what else?
12:48
Speaker 2: They take him to Rival gang Territory.
12:51
Speaker 3: He took me out. There was a bunch of Imperial
12:53
Speaker 3: gangsters out there. Then he uncuffed one of my hands.
12:56
Speaker 3: He had the other cuff and he's like, tell me
12:59
Speaker 3: what I want to know. I'm going to feed you
13:00
Speaker 3: to the dogs. I said, man, I don't know anything.
13:02
Speaker 3: A couple of the guys that were there, they started
13:04
Speaker 3: spitting on me and some of them got sucker punches
13:07
Speaker 3: behind my head. All I was worried about if he
13:09
Speaker 3: did let me go, which way was I going to
13:11
Speaker 3: run to try to get away? And they're like, you know,
13:14
Speaker 3: you think I'm playing with you. I'm like, man, I
13:16
Speaker 3: told you I don't know any of those guys. So
13:18
Speaker 3: then I called his bluff. He put the cuff back
13:21
Speaker 3: on me, put me back in the car, took me
13:23
Speaker 3: back to where he picked me up, and told me
13:25
Speaker 3: tell Scooby Snake and gee Man, I'm looking for them.
13:41
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Speaker 4: on Apple Podcasts.
13:58
Speaker 1: Somewhere between hanging Ray out of the car on September
14:01
Speaker 1: tenth and raise later arrest on September twenty sixth, Gavarro
14:06
Speaker 1: found out that he had had Scooby in his car
14:09
Speaker 1: and unwittingly let him go. Meanwhile, viable leads were still
14:14
Speaker 1: coming in.
14:15
Speaker 2: About three weeks after the shooting, There's a nine to
14:19
Speaker 2: one to one call that comes in another one and
14:21
Speaker 2: someone says, there are these guys hanging out in the neighborhood.
14:26
Speaker 2: The guy that did the shooting is hanging out on
14:28
Speaker 2: this block. Gives a description, nicknames, and the police show up,
14:32
Speaker 2: find the guys, bring them to the twenty fifth district,
14:36
Speaker 2: which is that area five. So they called Barby Garcia
14:39
Speaker 2: and they say, we want you to come down to
14:40
Speaker 2: Area five and look at a lineup. According to Helverson,
14:44
Speaker 2: Bobby Garcia says, no, I don't need to come look
14:47
Speaker 2: at a lineup. Actually, it's Ray Munos that did this.
14:52
Speaker 2: I know I didn't tell you that before, but I
14:54
Speaker 2: was scared for some reason which we don't know why.
14:57
Speaker 2: Never explains it What's crazy about that is what was
15:00
Speaker 2: he just waiting for the police to randomly call him
15:02
Speaker 2: one day to tell what he knew that who killed
15:05
Speaker 2: his friend? It made it made no sense. But Halverson
15:08
Speaker 2: chose a polaroid of Ray Munos and Bobby Garcia says, yeah,
15:15
Speaker 2: I know who Scooby is.
15:16
Speaker 1: So Ray was arrested for murder and attempted murder at
15:21
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen.
15:22
Speaker 2: H I think about these parents a lot. They were
15:25
Speaker 2: not English speakers. Can you imagine trying to navigate a system.
15:30
Speaker 2: They would go down to the police station, They're told
15:32
Speaker 2: their son isn't there. They're sent to another police station.
15:35
Speaker 2: They're given the run around.
15:37
Speaker 1: He is a child, and their child was being moved around.
15:42
Speaker 1: After all, he was from the insane Unknown's territory, so
15:46
Speaker 1: he was sent over to the gang crimes unit.
15:48
Speaker 3: When I was tranferred to Beaumont and Western, Gavera was there.
15:53
Speaker 3: He said schoolviyeh. So they're already put this murder. I
15:57
Speaker 3: mean when they try for me to Baumont and Western,
15:59
Speaker 3: they put me in another lineup for another murder and
16:01
Speaker 3: three up tent murders. It was an unknowns that did
16:04
Speaker 3: that murders and those three attent murders, so they were
16:06
Speaker 3: trying to say, he's all known, let's put this other
16:09
Speaker 3: murder on him too, fuck him.
16:11
Speaker 1: But he was only identified for the one incident by
16:14
Speaker 1: Bobby Garcia. All of which begs the question, how does
16:17
Speaker 1: Bobby flip from not being able to describe a shooter
16:21
Speaker 1: to yes, it's definitely this sixteen year old Ray Munos,
16:25
Speaker 1: who we knew from the neighborhood.
16:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
16:27
Speaker 2: I mean Bobby Garcia is deceased, so you know, we're
16:31
Speaker 2: piecing this together a little bit. But Garcia knew who
16:35
Speaker 2: Ray Munos was, a sixteen year old kid. It was
16:37
Speaker 2: never credible that Bobby Garcia was afraid to tell anybody.
16:41
Speaker 2: It made no sense. It's our belief that, consistent with
16:45
Speaker 2: the long pattern and practice of these detectives, that they
16:50
Speaker 2: probably told Garcia. Listen, we know who did it. The
16:54
Speaker 2: streets are talking. We know it was Scooby. I've been
16:58
Speaker 2: doing these cases a really long time, and what I
17:00
Speaker 2: have found over and over again that people, when they
17:03
Speaker 2: see their friends shot down dead in front of them,
17:06
Speaker 2: they want to believe the police. They want to know
17:10
Speaker 2: that the perpetrator has been caught. And sometimes they're willing
17:13
Speaker 2: to go along with what the police are telling them,
17:16
Speaker 2: even though they never saw anything. I would also point
17:18
Speaker 2: out that there is some suggestion that Bobby Garcia was
17:22
Speaker 2: in a gang, and there's a certain level of coercion
17:24
Speaker 2: and fear that you don't go along and help me
17:27
Speaker 2: out with closing this case. Your next buddy. He ultimately
17:33
Speaker 2: identifies Ray Munos. But Ray made bond. I mean, his
17:36
Speaker 2: family pulled together every bit of money they could from
17:40
Speaker 2: other family members. Again, this was a family that was
17:42
Speaker 2: truly committed, believed in his innocence, and knew he was innocent.
17:47
Speaker 1: So Ray was out on bond from late September nineteen
17:50
Speaker 1: eighty five until his trial that following November.
17:54
Speaker 3: I had two States attorney on my case, and they
17:57
Speaker 3: were so keen to get rid of me that they
17:59
Speaker 3: did my t on Thanksgiving Day, November twenty fifth of
18:03
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six and found me guilty within two hours.
18:06
Speaker 3: Bobby had tried testified against me and said that they
18:08
Speaker 3: had went to Ivan's car and as they were coming
18:11
Speaker 3: back from retrieving the cigarettes, and as they were going
18:14
Speaker 3: back towards the party towards se Keiler on Potomac, he
18:18
Speaker 3: said I was crunched down and he pointed me out.
18:20
Speaker 3: He says that I came out in front of him
18:22
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen feet and I raised my hand and
18:24
Speaker 3: I began to shoot. But mind you, the evidence show
18:27
Speaker 3: that whoever shot him shot him from the gangway, you know,
18:30
Speaker 3: So things don't make sense.
18:32
Speaker 1: Bobby and Ivan were shot from right to left, not
18:35
Speaker 1: from the front, which was pointed out on cross as
18:38
Speaker 1: was his initial statement where he said he could not
18:42
Speaker 1: initially describe the shooter. He responded that he feared retaliation
18:46
Speaker 1: from the insane unknowns. Then Ivan's mother testified about hearing
18:50
Speaker 1: the gunshots around four fifteen am, calling nine to one
18:54
Speaker 1: one and finding Ivan fatally shot in the street. But
18:59
Speaker 1: then Ray and his parents took the stand to testify
19:02
Speaker 1: to his alibi.
19:04
Speaker 2: Obviously, when you have your parents backing you up, it's
19:06
Speaker 2: not always the strongest alibi because jury's will assume that
19:10
Speaker 2: your parents will lie for you. But he's been very
19:14
Speaker 2: consistent about what time he got home that night.
19:16
Speaker 3: I left the party at three twenty, give her a take,
19:21
Speaker 3: and they got shot at four something, so mind you,
19:25
Speaker 3: I was already at home sleeping.
19:27
Speaker 2: There was a rebuttal witness who testified under very suspicious circumstances.
19:32
Speaker 2: She had never said anything about having seen anything, never
19:35
Speaker 2: implicated Scooby or Ray.
19:37
Speaker 3: Five was that she said she seen me and two
19:40
Speaker 3: of my guys coming out of the alley towards where
19:42
Speaker 3: the party was.
19:43
Speaker 1: But no one else at the party saw Ray after
19:45
Speaker 1: three twenty am let alone after the shooting, or with
19:49
Speaker 1: two other guys.
19:50
Speaker 2: And again not really anything else, really no real corroboration
19:55
Speaker 2: to this. But we are talking about the mid eighties.
19:58
Speaker 2: Gangs have a strangle on the communities. There's a lot
20:01
Speaker 2: of gang fear. You have prosecutors tapping into that gang fear.
20:06
Speaker 3: They made me look like a real monster. They told
20:08
Speaker 3: the jury that I was a gang member and this
20:11
Speaker 3: vicious killer. That I didn't want anybody taking my phone,
20:15
Speaker 3: and that the two victims took my fun when they
20:17
Speaker 3: separated me from this fight, and that that made me
20:20
Speaker 3: angry and stuff like that, so that that was the
20:23
Speaker 3: motive for me to shoot these guys, and the jury
20:26
Speaker 3: just ate it up and believed it.
20:28
Speaker 2: He is convicted. He sentenced to a total of sixty
20:31
Speaker 2: years for the murder and the attamp murder.
20:34
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable. You know, my parents were screaming my siblings.
20:39
Speaker 3: When I got found guilty and I went to the penecentary,
20:42
Speaker 3: my wife was three months pregnant. It was it's real
20:48
Speaker 3: hectic getting found guilty for something you didn't do. It
20:53
Speaker 3: was like the world came down the judge. I had
21:13
Speaker 3: a real jack off judge. He gave me a consecutive sentence,
21:17
Speaker 3: meaning that he wanted me to do forty years for
21:20
Speaker 3: the murder and twenty years for the attempted murder, so
21:23
Speaker 3: i'd had to do half of both sentences. So I
21:26
Speaker 3: did a total of thirty years. I ended up going
21:29
Speaker 3: to Joliet. I stayed there for ten years because you
21:33
Speaker 3: had to do ten years behind the wall until you
21:36
Speaker 3: got transferred to a medium, which was Danville. And then
21:41
Speaker 3: I got tranferred to Ileinois River. It was closer for
21:44
Speaker 3: my parents to go visit me and stuff and my
21:46
Speaker 3: wife and I did a couple of years there, and
21:49
Speaker 3: then I got tranferred to Dixon Correctional and I did
21:55
Speaker 3: most of my time in Dixon. The anything that I
21:57
Speaker 3: did while I was there, I educated myself, you know,
22:00
Speaker 3: and I kept busy. Educate yourself, learn about yourself, stay
22:05
Speaker 3: focused and try to get out and survive out of
22:08
Speaker 3: that unknown world, because that's a whole different world in there,
22:11
Speaker 3: and some of us don't make it out of life.
22:14
Speaker 3: It's unfortunate for some of the guys that are innocent
22:17
Speaker 3: had to die in there and not proving their innocence.
22:21
Speaker 1: Raised direct appeals in the late eighties and throughout the nineties,
22:25
Speaker 1: as well as his first post conviction petition in two
22:28
Speaker 1: thousand and one. These were all denied, so we focused
22:31
Speaker 1: on obtaining some kind of new evidence.
22:34
Speaker 3: Throughout my incarceration, I was always trying to find information
22:39
Speaker 3: about my case and documents because I knew that there
22:42
Speaker 3: was more out there about my case that I didn't
22:45
Speaker 3: see other than when my lawyer showed me. I knew
22:48
Speaker 3: that I wasn't guilty of this crime, so I said,
22:51
Speaker 3: there has to be something else.
22:52
Speaker 2: It starts doing for your requests, and eventually, in two
22:56
Speaker 2: thousand and five, he starts getting some hadweight with that.
22:59
Speaker 2: He's getting four responses. He's getting some police reports, but
23:02
Speaker 2: they're heavily redacted. Good chunks of it are blacked out.
23:06
Speaker 2: He's trying to make sense of it, and he gets
23:09
Speaker 2: a report that he's never seen before, and it's a
23:12
Speaker 2: report that is prepared by Halverson after he's been charged,
23:15
Speaker 2: and the names are all blacked out, but you can
23:18
Speaker 2: piece together that it appears as if a witness has
23:21
Speaker 2: come in to say, wait a second, I saw the shooting.
23:25
Speaker 2: I know who Scooby is because I work in the neighborhood,
23:28
Speaker 2: and it's not him. I know that kid, and I
23:30
Speaker 2: know the kid that I did see do the shooting.
23:33
Speaker 2: So this report gets made. There's an inventory list when
23:35
Speaker 2: police reports go into the investigative file. It never made
23:38
Speaker 2: its way into that file. It never made its way
23:41
Speaker 2: to the criminal justice system, and it is a report
23:44
Speaker 2: prepared by Haliverson. Essentially, he and his partner Dickinson were
23:49
Speaker 2: responsible for ensuring that that report made its way to
23:52
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system. It is classic Brady material, meaning
23:56
Speaker 2: it is exculpatory. It is material, and it should have
23:59
Speaker 2: been made available to him to use in his defense,
24:02
Speaker 2: and instead it was concealed.
24:04
Speaker 1: So now Ray was trying to get a hold of
24:06
Speaker 1: the unredacted report.
24:08
Speaker 3: But again I had a jag off judge, my trial
24:10
Speaker 3: judge to him, and I would submit paperwork requesting these
24:14
Speaker 3: documents and he would deny them. So I would try
24:17
Speaker 3: to go through the Freedom from Information Act. I would
24:20
Speaker 3: write to the police station anywhere that I could try
24:23
Speaker 3: to get these documents, and every time I would get denied.
24:26
Speaker 3: So then I started thinking about trying to hire an investigator,
24:30
Speaker 3: and I spoke to my sister Oilier to see if
24:33
Speaker 3: you can get an investigator to try to help me
24:35
Speaker 3: get these documents.
24:36
Speaker 2: And I think in two thousand and seven, this investigator
24:39
Speaker 2: ultimately gets unredacted copies.
24:42
Speaker 1: So, in addition to the drop leads from the Silver
24:45
Speaker 1: Cadillact that were allegedly ruled out by Bobby Garcia, this
24:49
Speaker 1: unredacted police report from Halverson tells the story about a
24:54
Speaker 1: potential suspect nicknamed Shorty.
24:57
Speaker 2: There was this butcher in the neighborhood walking home on
25:01
Speaker 2: the night of the shooting and sees Shorty with a
25:04
Speaker 2: weapon right before the shots. And he knows this kid, Shorty,
25:08
Speaker 2: because he hangs out in front of this store where
25:10
Speaker 2: he's a butcher. And we know that he ultimately told
25:13
Speaker 2: Halverson about what he saw, and Halverson shit cans it.
25:17
Speaker 1: So he files a post conviction motion with this bombshell
25:21
Speaker 1: Brady material and it's denied in two thousand and eight,
25:25
Speaker 1: but in twenty ten it was remanded for a hearing
25:28
Speaker 1: on appeal, and he received some pro bono help around
25:31
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. Unfortunately that ended up not being so helpful.
25:37
Speaker 2: I've had a couple of clients, Ray is amongst them
25:40
Speaker 2: that was represented by someone who was understood to be
25:44
Speaker 2: a competent lawyer who cared about wrongful convictions. And what
25:48
Speaker 2: I found to be the case, certainly for Ray and
25:51
Speaker 2: another client of mine, is that her style of trying
25:55
Speaker 2: to get relief was to basically go to the prosecutor
25:58
Speaker 2: and say, Hey, I think this guy I might be innocent,
26:01
Speaker 2: Go investigate it. And I got about eight other cases
26:05
Speaker 2: that I want you to look at and let me
26:07
Speaker 2: know which one you want to reverse on. And then,
26:10
Speaker 2: because sometimes deals are made like that, the prosecutor's office
26:15
Speaker 2: will be like, Okay, we like this one, we'll reverse
26:17
Speaker 2: this one, and then everyone else is fucked. So there
26:20
Speaker 2: was no real litigation in Race case by his prior lawyer.
26:24
Speaker 2: His prior lawyer withdraws. It's never clear on the record why,
26:28
Speaker 2: but my guess is it has to do with the
26:30
Speaker 2: fact that the conviction integrity units, such as it was,
26:33
Speaker 2: was not willing to affirmatively vacate and she wasn't willing
26:37
Speaker 2: to litigate.
26:38
Speaker 1: And by twenty sixteen, Cook County was touting its conviction
26:42
Speaker 1: Integrity Unit as a beacon of hope to those who
26:45
Speaker 1: knew all too well how unjust the system there a bit,
26:49
Speaker 1: I have.
26:49
Speaker 2: No reservations about saying what my experiences and what I saw,
26:54
Speaker 2: and the Conviction Integrity Unit at this time was horseshit.
26:58
Speaker 2: And when they did decide to reverse convictions, it seemed
27:02
Speaker 2: like it had nothing really to do with whether justice
27:05
Speaker 2: was served by that decision. Seemed to have a little
27:08
Speaker 2: bit more to do with favors and wheeling and dealing.
27:12
Speaker 2: And I've confronted the conviction Integrity Unit about this and
27:15
Speaker 2: Ray and another client's case. I was like, how are
27:18
Speaker 2: you making these decisions? It sure seems like it depends
27:22
Speaker 2: on who the lawyer is that these decisions are getting made,
27:25
Speaker 2: not based on whether your investigation showed that someone is
27:29
Speaker 2: actually innocent. So I was very clear on that, and frankly,
27:33
Speaker 2: I still don't want the Conviction Integrity Unit of the
27:35
Speaker 2: Cook County States Attorney's Office touching my cases. My experiences,
27:39
Speaker 2: they go out there and they try to fuck up
27:42
Speaker 2: your case.
27:42
Speaker 1: And we've seen that tread in municipalities all around the
27:46
Speaker 1: country where a case will be admitted for reinvestigation. Everyone
27:50
Speaker 1: shares their files, and despite case upending evidence, nothing is done.
27:56
Speaker 1: The case goes back to court where new witnesses can
27:59
Speaker 1: be core first interviewees, words can be misconstrued, or years
28:04
Speaker 1: can simply be wasted away while the wheels of justice
28:08
Speaker 1: or operating at a snail's pace, And we have to
28:11
Speaker 1: ask who was this for? What agenda does this serve?
28:15
Speaker 2: We going to do a whole podcast on this. They
28:17
Speaker 2: take grant money from places to have these conviction integrity units,
28:21
Speaker 2: and they really use them as an investigative arm to
28:24
Speaker 2: keep the conviction in place. Of all my exonerations, not
28:29
Speaker 2: a single one came from the conviction integrity unit doing
28:33
Speaker 2: an investigation and saying, yeah, we agree with you, you don't
28:37
Speaker 2: need to litigate. I always had to litigate. I've wrecked
28:40
Speaker 2: up quite a few exonerations. And the fact that not
28:43
Speaker 2: once has the Cook County State's Attorney's office initially agreed
28:47
Speaker 2: that one of my cases required that result. I always
28:50
Speaker 2: was forced to fight them, says everything.
28:53
Speaker 1: So Ray's conviction remained in place through his parole hearing
28:57
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, where it was finally represent by Jennifer
29:01
Speaker 1: Bonjean and Ashley Cohen, and Ray refused to bend the
29:04
Speaker 1: knee for this parole board.
29:06
Speaker 3: I did admit to anything and told him that I
29:08
Speaker 3: didn't commit this murder, and I got paroled. We stood
29:11
Speaker 3: in Chicago for a few days, so we celebrated my
29:15
Speaker 3: release at my niece's house. They did a party for me,
29:18
Speaker 3: and then we had a gathering at my sister's house, Noelia,
29:22
Speaker 3: who lives downstairs from my mom and dad's house, and
29:25
Speaker 3: Jenny and Ashley came over. We had family there, my
29:29
Speaker 3: parents and my siblings, my cousins, and my nieces and nephews,
29:33
Speaker 3: some of my wife's family.
29:35
Speaker 2: He's married to the woman who was his high school
29:37
Speaker 2: sweetheart at the time, Wanda, and they had a child together.
29:41
Speaker 2: They divorced, they were with other people, she had two
29:44
Speaker 2: other kids, and then they reconciled. So they have a
29:46
Speaker 2: really nice story. And she's a wonderful person.
29:50
Speaker 3: She's my childhood sweetheart. She's the mother of our oldest daughter.
29:54
Speaker 3: I couldn't have her just doing time with me and
29:57
Speaker 3: not living her life. But she came back and my life.
30:01
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, while Ray was still in prison,
30:04
Speaker 1: they remarried, and then when he was paroled, they were
30:07
Speaker 1: finally united along with their daughter, who was in utero
30:11
Speaker 1: when Ray was convicted.
30:13
Speaker 2: It's your whole life, you know. You have an infant
30:15
Speaker 2: going in when you're seventeen and you come out to
30:18
Speaker 2: a thirty year old woman.
30:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's here with us. I have two step kids,
30:24
Speaker 3: which I considered on my kids as well. I have
30:27
Speaker 3: a twenty five year old girl who lives with us,
30:30
Speaker 3: and our twenty year old boy who lives with us.
30:32
Speaker 3: Borrowedest daughter she lives with my son Ala and our grandbaby.
30:36
Speaker 3: So we have a beautiful granddaughter that's just a spinning
30:38
Speaker 3: image of her when she was a baby.
30:40
Speaker 1: We gotta imagine Ray, You're pouring all your love into
30:44
Speaker 1: this child. Yeah, yeah, I hope it helps with it.
30:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does.
30:50
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Jenny and Ashley began the legal battle to clear
30:54
Speaker 1: Rai's name. This culminated in an evidentiary hearing in the
30:58
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty one, starting with the Brady violation
31:02
Speaker 1: involving the identification of Shorting, which they supported with an
31:06
Speaker 1: affidavit from the witness the butcher who still supports the
31:10
Speaker 1: statement that he gave Halverson all those years ago. But
31:14
Speaker 1: that's not all.
31:16
Speaker 2: There was another piece of Brady material that I will
31:18
Speaker 2: just quickly point out that there was a shooting of
31:21
Speaker 2: a guy named roy Croft. It was the same weapon involved.
31:26
Speaker 2: They were able to connect the ballistics, and it was
31:29
Speaker 2: in the same area. The shootings occurred a couple weeks apart,
31:32
Speaker 2: and when Halverson was investigating that murder, he put Ray
31:36
Speaker 2: in a photo array again, just throwing him in there,
31:39
Speaker 2: and the witness was like, no, I know, Scooby, he
31:42
Speaker 2: wasn't the shooter. So ultimately Ray is not charged for that.
31:45
Speaker 2: But they never disclosed to Ray Munos's defense attorney that
31:51
Speaker 2: the weapon that was used to kill Ivan Mayna was
31:54
Speaker 2: used in another murder. Like that's exculpatory, you can go
31:58
Speaker 2: find out, you can investigate. That's a lead that the
32:01
Speaker 2: police didn't follow, but you should have at least given
32:04
Speaker 2: him the opportunity to have his attorney and investigators follow that.
32:08
Speaker 1: In addition to the Brady material, they presented pattern and
32:12
Speaker 1: practice evidence of misconduct that had been collected over time
32:16
Speaker 1: by Bonjin Law Group and others, where the focus had
32:19
Speaker 1: previously been on Govara.
32:21
Speaker 2: And Ray's case has become exceedingly important because it's the
32:25
Speaker 2: first case where we had a judge saying that this
32:28
Speaker 2: pattern in practice wasn't just a Ragavra problem. His partner
32:33
Speaker 2: was unquestionably engaging in the same type of misconduct that
32:36
Speaker 2: resulted in the wrongful convictions of other people.
32:40
Speaker 1: So they put Ray on the stand as well as
32:42
Speaker 1: a man who had been beaten by Halverson into a
32:45
Speaker 1: false confession, and then a retired detective named Bill Dorsh
32:49
Speaker 1: whose signature was forged by Halverson in an entirely different case.
32:54
Speaker 1: Our audience might recall dors from our coverage of Fabian Santiago.
32:59
Speaker 3: That's my cousin.
33:00
Speaker 2: What I know. Isn't that crazy?
33:02
Speaker 1: Or maybe not so crazy? Considering that they both fell
33:05
Speaker 1: into the crosshairs of Ernest Halverson, who by the time
33:09
Speaker 1: of this hearing was deceased and unavailable for testimony. But
33:14
Speaker 1: thankfully Jenny had already had Halverson under oath in twenty
33:17
Speaker 1: sixty We.
33:18
Speaker 2: Were able to present Halverson's testimony at Ray's hearing via
33:24
Speaker 2: a prior deposition that I had taken of him in
33:28
Speaker 2: Armando Serrano's case, and he was another Gavera frame up case.
33:32
Speaker 2: That was my first Goavera case. I put Gavera on
33:35
Speaker 2: the stand in his case, me and Russell Ainsworth, who
33:38
Speaker 2: represented the co defendant. Together we were the first lawyers
33:43
Speaker 2: that were there when Gavara invoked the fitth Amendment and
33:46
Speaker 2: he's never come off. So during our Motto Serrano's Civil
33:49
Speaker 2: Rights action, we deposed Ernie Halverson, who was still alive
33:53
Speaker 2: at the time, and I confronted him with the allegations
33:57
Speaker 2: of Ray Munos, including whether or not he fabricated the
34:01
Speaker 2: identification testimony of Bobby Garcia, whether he suppressed exculpatory material,
34:06
Speaker 2: all of that, and Halverson not just Gavara. Halverson invoked
34:12
Speaker 2: his fit the Amendment right to remain silent to every
34:14
Speaker 2: single question that was asked of him, and that was
34:16
Speaker 2: presented during the post conviction hearing.
34:19
Speaker 1: And so on February twenty second, twenty twenty two, Judge
34:22
Speaker 1: Sophia Atcherson issued her ruling vacating the conviction and ordering a.
34:27
Speaker 2: New trial, and the Circuit Court judge issued a fifty
34:32
Speaker 2: four page decision finding that he was actually innocent, that
34:37
Speaker 2: Halverson and Gavera engaged in a pattern and practice of
34:40
Speaker 2: misconduct that resulted in this wrongful conviction that there had
34:44
Speaker 2: been two separate Brady violations and that his constitutional rights
34:48
Speaker 2: were violated at every turn. And what was really compelling
34:52
Speaker 2: about this decision is that usually judges don't want to
34:55
Speaker 2: go out on a limb and make decisions that they
34:57
Speaker 2: don't need to make. She could have found that he
34:59
Speaker 2: was entire to a new trial on a single claim
35:03
Speaker 2: and left everything alone. But she went out of her
35:05
Speaker 2: way to find that his constitutional rights were violated on
35:10
Speaker 2: every claim we raised.
35:12
Speaker 3: It was amazing. It was like the world was lifted
35:15
Speaker 3: off my shoulders. Finally, I said, you know, it's like
35:24
Speaker 3: I believe, you know, it's in God's time. It's not
35:28
Speaker 3: our timing. No matter what happens in life, nobody knows
35:33
Speaker 3: what's gonna happen, when, or why or how. But God,
35:37
Speaker 3: that's the only one that has purpose. And anything that
35:40
Speaker 3: happens in our life, no matter where you come from
35:44
Speaker 3: or how you raise, anything could happen to anybody at
35:48
Speaker 3: any given moment.
35:50
Speaker 1: It's pretty wild to see how all of these moving
35:53
Speaker 1: parts finally come together to deliver long overdue justice, Like
35:58
Speaker 1: how Jennifer Bongjin had the forethought to ask Halverson about
36:02
Speaker 1: Ray's case in an unrelated case before he died, or
36:06
Speaker 1: that she had worked for years to be in a
36:08
Speaker 1: position to do that, or how the breedy materials were
36:11
Speaker 1: finally uncovered despite the state's best efforts, or that this
36:15
Speaker 1: was all revealed in front of a circuit judge that
36:18
Speaker 1: wasn't going to let the state wiggle free. So now
36:22
Speaker 1: they had to decide whether or not they'd go forward
36:25
Speaker 1: with another trial or drop the charges.
36:28
Speaker 2: They had them coming back and forth from court for
36:31
Speaker 2: like nine months, and I was very disappointed with the
36:34
Speaker 2: Cook County State's Attorney's office at the time, because despite
36:38
Speaker 2: it all, they're like, Okay, well, maybe we'll just try
36:41
Speaker 2: to put Bobby Garcia's testimony into evidence through a transcript.
36:45
Speaker 2: And I was like, how could you possibly rely on this?
36:49
Speaker 2: It was such bad faith. And the circuit court judge
36:52
Speaker 2: I think, I'm just reading, you know, into her expressions
36:54
Speaker 2: and her statements on the record, But she seemed befuddled
36:58
Speaker 2: that after all this, you were just going to try
37:00
Speaker 2: to stand on the same bad evidence. I don't know
37:03
Speaker 2: what happened there. Eventually they saw the air of their
37:06
Speaker 2: ways and dismiss the case. And then he received a
37:10
Speaker 2: certificate of innocence without much pushback at that point.
37:14
Speaker 1: That was April twenty twenty three. He received state compensation,
37:19
Speaker 1: but they're still waiting on the civil suit that they
37:21
Speaker 1: have filed that made that's over two years ago. In
37:25
Speaker 1: whatever amount of billible hours are footed by Illinois taxpayers.
37:30
Speaker 3: All the money they're spending on these attorneys to protect
37:33
Speaker 3: the scum, to say the least, they should invest that
37:37
Speaker 3: money into finding the real killers behind all these cases
37:41
Speaker 3: that were wrongfully convicted so they could bring closure to
37:44
Speaker 3: victims families. The state's attorneys and the city don't give
37:48
Speaker 3: a reds ask about them, us or anybody, and they
37:51
Speaker 3: continue to protect these people and spending, like you said,
37:54
Speaker 3: taxpayers money, and it's going to get worse. It's going
37:57
Speaker 3: to be in the billions of dollars when it's all
37:59
Speaker 3: over that and done.
38:01
Speaker 1: And with that, Ray, thank you so much for sharing
38:04
Speaker 1: your story and getting it out to the world with us. Today,
38:08
Speaker 1: we're going to go to our closing statements here and
38:13
Speaker 1: we want to give the last words to you. So
38:17
Speaker 1: this is Rinaldo Munos and Jennifer Boonjee.
38:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ray's case is a very special case to me, obviously,
38:25
Speaker 2: we fought really hard. We had a full hearing that
38:30
Speaker 2: again resulted in a really nice ruling from a circuit
38:33
Speaker 2: court judge who acknowledged the miscarriage of justice. We don't
38:36
Speaker 2: always get that, and I think it was important for
38:39
Speaker 2: him to hear that. I wish it had happened earlier.
38:43
Speaker 2: I think his case exemplifies how the system doesn't work
38:47
Speaker 2: in terms of not just the wrongful conviction occurring in
38:50
Speaker 2: the first place, but how long it takes to correct it.
38:54
Speaker 2: He did his entire sentence, but he learned of the
38:57
Speaker 2: exculpatory evidence over ten years before he's ultimately released. It
39:03
Speaker 2: shouldn't take that long. It shouldn't take a decade once
39:05
Speaker 2: you find out about something so stunningly exculpatory that unquestionably
39:11
Speaker 2: would have made a difference at your trial. That it
39:13
Speaker 2: still took ten years to get him out. That to
39:16
Speaker 2: me is a lesson about his case, one of the
39:18
Speaker 2: troubling lessons. But I guess one of the upsides is
39:21
Speaker 2: that he's a wonderful human being. He didn't let prison
39:25
Speaker 2: ruin him. He has worked, He's been a consistent presence
39:29
Speaker 2: in his daughter's life. He's a grandfather, you know, he's
39:33
Speaker 2: a really good family man. He's a good husband. They're
39:36
Speaker 2: wonderful people, and I'm really proud of him because I
39:39
Speaker 2: don't know if I could have come out and survived
39:42
Speaker 2: in this world having gone in at sixteen and not
39:46
Speaker 2: have been so bitter as to let it eat me up.
39:49
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I could have done it,
39:51
Speaker 2: but he's really been impressive.
39:53
Speaker 3: People need to wake up and stop voting for all
39:55
Speaker 3: these crooked politicians and learn about what's going on. Because
40:00
Speaker 3: I said this could happen to whoever. It doesn't matter
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Speaker 3: where you come from. When there's corruption in the government,
40:05
Speaker 3: there's nothing that can be done unless we as a
40:09
Speaker 3: people put a stop to it. I'm just wandering for
40:12
Speaker 3: people and if they have a family member or an
40:16
Speaker 3: individual that's incarcerated. False league, don't give up. You need
40:20
Speaker 3: to find the truth. Everything that's done in darkness will
40:22
Speaker 3: come to the light no matter what, no matter how
40:25
Speaker 3: long it takes, the truth show Prevailed to fight, never
40:28
Speaker 3: give up.
40:35
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
40:38
Speaker 4: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
40:40
Speaker 4: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
40:43
Speaker 4: Good Plus on Apple podcasts. I want to thank our
40:46
Speaker 4: production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
40:49
Speaker 4: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Watis, and Jeff Cliber.
40:53
Speaker 4: The music in this production was supplied by three time
40:56
Speaker 4: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
40:59
Speaker 4: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
41:02
Speaker 4: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
41:05
Speaker 4: at It's Jason flamm Wrawful Conviction is a production of
41:08
Speaker 4: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
41:11
Speaker 4: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
41:14
Speaker 4: in this show are accurate.
41:15
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
41:18
Speaker 2: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
41:21
Speaker 2: those of Lava for Good.