Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #267 Jason Flom with Evin King

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#267 Jason Flom with Evin King · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On June twenty first, nineteen ninety four, Evan King went
0:05
Speaker 1: to the East Cleveland apartment of a new friend, Crystal Hudson,
0:08
Speaker 1: her daughter, welcomed to men to await Crystal's return. Soon
0:13
Speaker 1: they were joined by Cristel's mother and a friend. Before leaving,
0:17
Speaker 1: the elder Hudson told them about a premonition that she
0:19
Speaker 1: had about Evan killing her daughter. Little did they all know,
0:23
Speaker 1: Cristel's body was already decomposing in the bedroom closet. While
0:27
Speaker 1: waiting for Crystal, Evan fell asleep, only to be awoken
0:31
Speaker 1: by her daughter's screams. Upon discovering the body, the autopsy
0:36
Speaker 1: showed signs of a struggle, rape and strangulation, and a
0:39
Speaker 1: rape kit collected a great deal of decomposing sperm. The
0:42
Speaker 1: police held Evan on a previous minor infraction while questioning
0:46
Speaker 1: him about Crystal's murder. His body and clothing were free
0:50
Speaker 1: from any of her blood and any sign that he
0:52
Speaker 1: may have been in a struggle. DNA testing also cleared
0:56
Speaker 1: him as the source of the sperm. However, in the
0:59
Speaker 1: summer heat, the decomposition gave the prosecution an opportunity to
1:03
Speaker 1: create uncertainty about whether the sperm had been deposited at
1:07
Speaker 1: the time of death. The prosecution presented false testimony to
1:11
Speaker 1: circumvent the DNA evidence, claiming that the sperm could have
1:15
Speaker 1: been deposited hours or even days before her death, paying
1:19
Speaker 1: no mind to the sheer number of sperm which indicated
1:21
Speaker 1: a more recent deposit. Nearly two decades later, DNA testing
1:26
Speaker 1: on Crystal's fingernail scrapings confirmed that her killer was also
1:29
Speaker 1: her rapist. But somehow even that wasn't enough for authorities
1:34
Speaker 1: to immediately release Evan King. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
1:53
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. Today we're going to be interviewing
1:56
Speaker 1: a man named Evan King who served almost a quarter
1:59
Speaker 1: century in prison for a crime that I don't want
2:03
Speaker 1: to say a third grader could have solved it, because
2:04
Speaker 1: that's not the case. But a third grader would have
2:07
Speaker 1: known that this was not the man that committed this crime.
2:10
Speaker 1: All the evidence was in plain sight, and his conviction
2:14
Speaker 1: was based on a freaking premonition at somebody. I'm sorry,
2:18
Speaker 1: I have to laugh to keep from crying. So with
2:21
Speaker 1: us today is the man himself. But before I introduce him,
2:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce someone who's voice you'll probably recognize
2:28
Speaker 1: Jennifer bergeron of the Ohio Innocence Project. Jennifer, welcome back
2:32
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction.
2:33
Speaker 2: Thank you Jason for having me back.
2:35
Speaker 1: I feel like we could do just multiple seasons and
2:38
Speaker 1: just interview you because there's so many terrible cases in Ohio,
2:41
Speaker 1: but this case is really something and the man himself
2:45
Speaker 1: a survivor not only of almost a quarter century and
2:48
Speaker 1: some of the worst prisons in the country, but also
2:51
Speaker 1: a cancer survivor. Just a guy that's tough to kill
2:54
Speaker 1: and easy to love, a guy named Evan King. Evan,
2:57
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
2:58
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
3:00
Speaker 1: Before we get into the insanity that Cuyahoga County dished out,
3:05
Speaker 1: and we hear that name again and again on this show.
3:08
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Evan King as a young man before
3:12
Speaker 1: your life was before you were kidnapped by the state.
3:14
Speaker 1: Let's call it what it was, right, So what was
3:17
Speaker 1: your life like growing up? Where did you grow up?
3:19
Speaker 3: I grew up on the East side of Cleveland, starting
3:22
Speaker 3: and the projects on fifty fifth.
3:25
Speaker 1: Did you have a happy childhood? Your brothers and sisters?
3:28
Speaker 3: Yes, nine of us, five boys and four girls.
3:32
Speaker 1: Wow, so you had a big family had a whole
3:35
Speaker 1: baseball team. And by the time all this swept you
3:39
Speaker 1: off your feet, what was your life like?
3:41
Speaker 3: Well at the time, it is I had was a
3:44
Speaker 3: vallet at the Omni Hotel, and I had ventured into drugs.
3:50
Speaker 3: You know, I was messing with drugs and selling a
3:54
Speaker 3: little drugs, you know, just quick money, doing the wrong thing.
3:59
Speaker 1: You know, Listen, I believe is that all drugs should
4:01
Speaker 1: be legal, and no one should ever go to jail
4:03
Speaker 1: for what they put in their own bodies, unless they're
4:06
Speaker 1: putting somebody else in harms away. Were you ever involved
4:08
Speaker 1: in any violent crime? Nope, I mean so there was
4:11
Speaker 1: no reason to suspect that all of a sudden one day,
4:13
Speaker 1: you just snapped and committed this. What was really a
4:17
Speaker 1: brutal murder which happened in June of nineteen ninety four,
4:20
Speaker 1: involved a victim named Crystal Hudson, and Cristel was someone
4:25
Speaker 1: who was known to you, right.
4:27
Speaker 3: Yes, she was known to me. I had been friends
4:29
Speaker 3: with her for about two.
4:30
Speaker 1: Weeks, which brings us to the evening, the faithful evening
4:34
Speaker 1: of June twenty first, nineteen ninety four. She was already
4:37
Speaker 1: gone at this point, but no one knew that yet,
4:39
Speaker 1: except for the actual rapist and murderer. But that very
4:43
Speaker 1: night you went to visit Crystal at her high rise
4:45
Speaker 1: apartment building, and her daughter met you at the apartment door.
4:48
Speaker 1: She invited you in to wait for her mom, so,
4:50
Speaker 1: as far as you knew, she was expected home at
4:53
Speaker 1: some point. Soon you were joined by Cristel's mother and
4:56
Speaker 1: her best friend Jean, and none of you, none of you,
4:58
Speaker 1: none of you had any idea that chris So's body
5:00
Speaker 1: had already begun decomposing in the bedroom closet down the hall.
5:05
Speaker 1: I mean, this is nuts. Can you walk us through
5:10
Speaker 1: how this evening unfolded.
5:12
Speaker 3: I got to the apartment and her youngest daughter was there,
5:15
Speaker 3: and I asked her, was a mama here? She said no,
5:19
Speaker 3: I said, well, I wait on her. You know, so
5:22
Speaker 3: the youngest daughter when the backing played, I watched TV
5:26
Speaker 3: on the couch.
5:28
Speaker 1: Okay, so the body is in the apartment. It must
5:31
Speaker 1: have been an awful stench.
5:33
Speaker 3: I didn't notice on smell.
5:35
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in the apartment. And then what happens.
5:38
Speaker 3: Chrystal's mother lived a couple of floors up, and so
5:42
Speaker 3: they were best friend. They came down later on that evening,
5:46
Speaker 3: best friend had a couple of forty ounces and we
5:49
Speaker 3: sitting at the kitchen table. That's where the mother mentioned
5:53
Speaker 3: she had a premonition that I killed her daughter. That's
5:57
Speaker 3: exactly what she said. I had a primenive. I was
6:00
Speaker 3: like what. And after a while, the mother decides to
6:05
Speaker 3: go upstairs and she takes the youngest daughter and left
6:09
Speaker 3: me and Jean in the apartment. Now, why would she
6:13
Speaker 3: say she had a premonition yet, and still you would
6:16
Speaker 3: leave me and Jean in the apartment, you know, I mean,
6:20
Speaker 3: if you think I killed your daughter, why wouldn't you
6:23
Speaker 3: put us out when you left? And even when they
6:26
Speaker 3: was there, you know, the mother says something about was
6:30
Speaker 3: I cooking or something, because she was talking about she
6:33
Speaker 3: smelled something and I say, well, I don't smell nothing,
6:37
Speaker 3: and just left it at that, and the mother went
6:39
Speaker 3: upstairs with the youngest daughter. Me and Jean sat there
6:43
Speaker 3: drinking the forty ouncers. So when Jean left, I sat
6:48
Speaker 3: on back on the couch and I nodded off on
6:52
Speaker 3: the couch and next thing I know, it's the next morning.
6:56
Speaker 3: Both of the young daughters come in and that's when
6:59
Speaker 3: I will up and they said they wanted to get
7:01
Speaker 3: some closed school. They go to the closet and the
7:05
Speaker 3: oldest daughter stars screaming, and I jumped off the couch
7:09
Speaker 3: and run back down. Say what is She pointed to
7:11
Speaker 3: the close and said, my mother's in the closet. I look,
7:16
Speaker 3: I ain't even touched nothing. And I took both girls
7:19
Speaker 3: out in the hallway, knocked on the neighbor's door. See it,
7:23
Speaker 3: called the police.
7:24
Speaker 1: And for our audience, this is a brutal crime. So
7:26
Speaker 1: just be aware what you're going to hear is going
7:28
Speaker 1: to be, you know, upsetting. And this is where I
7:31
Speaker 1: want to bring Jennifer, and Jennifer, can you tell us
7:33
Speaker 1: about the crime itself?
7:35
Speaker 2: So the crime was quite brutal. Poor Crystal was found
7:39
Speaker 2: strangled to death in her own closet, basically naked. And
7:43
Speaker 2: this was Cleveland in June, and it was hot and
7:45
Speaker 2: it wasn't air conditioned, and she'd been deceased for they
7:48
Speaker 2: decided over twenty four hours before she was even discovered.
7:52
Speaker 2: And she had been in this high apartment in Cleveland
7:56
Speaker 2: this whole time. You know, there's lots of degradation that happens.
7:59
Speaker 2: There was evidence from the very beginning that she had
8:02
Speaker 2: also been raped at the time of her death. Evan
8:06
Speaker 2: happened to be in the apartment unfortunately when she was found,
8:10
Speaker 2: and so I think that's why he sort of became
8:12
Speaker 2: suspect number one, because he was.
8:14
Speaker 3: There and I waited in the hallway with the two daughters.
8:18
Speaker 3: Why the police came.
8:19
Speaker 1: If you were the actual killer, would you stand there
8:23
Speaker 1: and wait for the police to arrive. I mean, you're
8:26
Speaker 1: neither dumb nor crazy, and you'd have to be both
8:28
Speaker 1: to do that.
8:29
Speaker 3: And not only that. When the detectives did come, they
8:32
Speaker 3: brought me in, set me at the table and said,
8:37
Speaker 3: would I mind asking some questions? I said, no, I
8:39
Speaker 3: don't mind.
8:40
Speaker 2: The police, so far as I could tell, never did
8:42
Speaker 2: any actual investigation. They just decided it was him, in
8:46
Speaker 2: part because Crystal's mother told them she had a premonition
8:51
Speaker 2: that Evan was going to harm her daughter. Now, somehow
8:55
Speaker 2: that premonition even came into court, which still boggles my
8:58
Speaker 2: mind as to how that was introduced evidence, But it was.
9:01
Speaker 1: I wish this was the only time I had ever
9:03
Speaker 1: heard of something like a premonition being committed into court,
9:06
Speaker 1: but it's not. Maybe instead of courts, we should all
9:09
Speaker 1: just go to psychics, you know what I mean, see
9:11
Speaker 1: if they can figure these things out for us. I
9:13
Speaker 1: mean it was a combination of laziness. Right, here's a
9:15
Speaker 1: guy who was in the apartment, okay, must be him,
9:18
Speaker 1: and then oh there's a premonition bingo, right.
9:20
Speaker 3: And then they ran a check on me. I had
9:23
Speaker 3: a couple of tickets on me of Bench Warren. And
9:26
Speaker 3: after they did their little investigation up there, they took
9:30
Speaker 3: me home downtown.
9:31
Speaker 1: So okay, so you get arrested on these bench warrants
9:34
Speaker 1: and then did they hold you from that time right
9:37
Speaker 1: up until the trial? When did you find out you
9:38
Speaker 1: were being charged with the murder?
9:41
Speaker 3: I think it was seventy two hours later.
9:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly they did a lot of investigation if they
9:45
Speaker 2: arrested in for murder and that short amount of time.
9:48
Speaker 3: Once I went to jail, I never got out, and
9:51
Speaker 3: the detectives interviewed me a couple of times over them
9:55
Speaker 3: seventy two hours. And I'll never forget. The detective asked me,
10:00
Speaker 3: but I take a lot of tech tests. I said, sure,
10:02
Speaker 3: I take a lot of the text tests. He never
10:05
Speaker 3: brought it up again. One other thing that really tripped
10:09
Speaker 3: me out was when the guy came and took photographs
10:13
Speaker 3: up my body. I'm standing in that neked He had
10:16
Speaker 3: me get undressed, right, my man, Luke, he was like,
10:20
Speaker 3: turn around, he had his camera in his hand. He
10:22
Speaker 3: was put your hands up and you know, looking around.
10:26
Speaker 3: He said, you the first guy I never took a
10:29
Speaker 3: picture of. If he didn't take one picture, I didn't
10:33
Speaker 3: have a scratch on me, no bruises, not I'm a
10:37
Speaker 3: life scinned guy. Believe me, I bruised easy. He didn't
10:40
Speaker 3: take one picture.
10:42
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you brought that up, because it's important
10:44
Speaker 1: to recognize that miss Hudson didn't leave this world willingly, right.
10:49
Speaker 1: She fought there was fingernel scrapings, right, we find out
10:52
Speaker 1: later if they knew that, and of course that you know.
10:54
Speaker 3: She had scratched her attacker.
10:56
Speaker 1: But somehow or other, you didn't have any scratches enough
10:59
Speaker 1: to gut even take one freaking picture. So, okay, this
11:03
Speaker 1: is how ridiculous this really is. And it's made even
11:06
Speaker 1: more so by virtue of the fact that the biological evidence,
11:11
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of it, right, and none
11:13
Speaker 1: of it matched Evan. So how did they square that circle?
11:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, not only was there no evidence that Evan actually
11:19
Speaker 2: committed the crime unless you count the fact that he
11:22
Speaker 2: was in the apartment and the premonition. But there was
11:24
Speaker 2: actually evidence at the time of trial that he didn't
11:27
Speaker 2: commit the crime. They had completed a rape kit on
11:31
Speaker 2: crystal and did some DNA testing on it even back then,
11:36
Speaker 2: and there was male DNA present, but it wasn't Ethan,
11:40
Speaker 2: So you know, they kind of had to come up
11:42
Speaker 2: with a way to explain that away because there was also,
11:45
Speaker 2: as I said before, there was physical evidence that she
11:48
Speaker 2: had been raped, meaning physical evidence of trauma to her,
11:53
Speaker 2: you know, intimate areas that suggested and confirmed that she
11:56
Speaker 2: was raped at the time, but they just kind of
11:58
Speaker 2: ignored the physical trauma areas. They basically got around this
12:03
Speaker 2: evidence by some testimony from some folks from the coroner's
12:08
Speaker 2: office from Cuyahoga County that we now know well they
12:12
Speaker 2: would have known it at the time, but no one
12:14
Speaker 2: paid that close of attention to it. But we know
12:16
Speaker 2: for sure now was just completely bogus. The big question
12:21
Speaker 2: was when this semen was deposited. Was it deposited at
12:24
Speaker 2: the time of death or was it deposited up to
12:26
Speaker 2: a week earlier, And of course the state came in
12:29
Speaker 2: and said, well, that could have been there for up
12:30
Speaker 2: to a week, and so she wasn't raped and murdered.
12:34
Speaker 2: The problem was that the folks from the Corner's office,
12:38
Speaker 2: especially one, you know, they were focusing on the wrong
12:41
Speaker 2: information that was scientifically invalid at the time to even
12:45
Speaker 2: look at. They were looking at different fluid levels, but
12:48
Speaker 2: they should have been looking at sort of the number
12:50
Speaker 2: of sperm and the amount of semen that there was,
12:52
Speaker 2: and that's not what they were doing. So they weren't
12:54
Speaker 2: even following the appropriate practices at that time, and so
12:59
Speaker 2: that allowed them to go forward with the theory that
13:01
Speaker 2: she wasn't actually raped and murdered, that she was just murdered,
13:05
Speaker 2: even though the evidence clearly showed that she was raped
13:07
Speaker 2: and murdered.
13:08
Speaker 1: So the notorious Cuyahoga County Carner's office was either unconsciously
13:14
Speaker 1: or consciously presenting false testimony, as they've done before, they
13:18
Speaker 1: created some wiggle room for the jury to still believe
13:21
Speaker 1: in you as the assailant. If that sperm had been
13:25
Speaker 1: deposited earlier than the time of death, perhaps she had
13:27
Speaker 1: had consensual sex or even been raped, you know, hours
13:30
Speaker 1: or even days before she was killed. Making it plausible
13:33
Speaker 1: for the jury to believe that the DNA evidence from
13:36
Speaker 1: the sperm didn't determine who actually killed her, which would
13:40
Speaker 1: have left you as still some sort of potential suspect.
13:44
Speaker 1: Then you can see how the jury got fooled.
13:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, Unfortunately for Evan, his defense
13:51
Speaker 2: counsel didn't effectively cross examine them on this and didn't
13:54
Speaker 2: bring in any expert to sort of debunk it. It
13:57
Speaker 2: wasn't that, you know, it should have been a battle
13:59
Speaker 2: of the experts where one was saying one thing and
14:01
Speaker 2: the other was saying the opposite. They were just flat
14:04
Speaker 2: out wrong, and nobody called them on it.
14:06
Speaker 1: Evan, who was your attorney? Well, were they court appointed?
14:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll never forget that name, roc O Russo.
14:15
Speaker 1: Wow, what a name.
14:16
Speaker 3: He didn't present no defense from me, because even my
14:21
Speaker 3: family when they came to court, they was like, your
14:24
Speaker 3: lawyer ain't objecting to nothing. He wouldn't object and he
14:29
Speaker 3: was falling asleep cup time. You know, if you fear
14:32
Speaker 3: that lawyer is selling you out, you gotta let it
14:36
Speaker 3: be known instead of the lawyer telling you, Because uh,
14:39
Speaker 3: roc Russa just kept telling me I got it. Just
14:43
Speaker 3: sit there I got this and I believed him. I
14:47
Speaker 3: sat there and that was the mistake on my behalf.
14:52
Speaker 3: But you don't know at the time.
14:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if it seemed like you could see it,
14:56
Speaker 1: then you just didn't know it, unfortunately until it was
15:01
Speaker 1: too late. But back then, in that moment, did you
15:03
Speaker 1: still hold out any hope that the jury was going
15:05
Speaker 1: to see through this false testimony and believe their own
15:08
Speaker 1: eyes and ears when it came to the actual evidence in.
15:11
Speaker 3: This case, Yeah, of course. You know. I was thinking, well,
15:16
Speaker 3: I didn't do it, so they ain't getting refine me guilty.
15:21
Speaker 3: I mean, that's where my mind was. But you know,
15:26
Speaker 3: when you stand up and they come back with a
15:29
Speaker 3: verdict of guilty, you know you gotta take it and
15:34
Speaker 3: keep your head held up and walk out. That guy
15:37
Speaker 3: said what I wanted to say to the judge. I
15:40
Speaker 3: definitely told him I'll be back in this courtroom. I'll
15:43
Speaker 3: never forget what I told. Judge Corgan.
15:46
Speaker 1: What'd you say after.
15:48
Speaker 3: He said, mister King, I'm sending you to fifteen years
15:51
Speaker 3: of life And he said, do you have anything to say?
15:55
Speaker 3: I say, you're sentence and an innocent man to prison.
16:00
Speaker 3: While the guilty man walked the streets of Cleveland. Free
16:04
Speaker 3: pointed to him and I said, one day I'll be
16:06
Speaker 3: back in this courtroom for you to set me free.
16:09
Speaker 3: I have to, I said that. I turned and I
16:11
Speaker 3: walked out. My head held him. Any prison is bad
16:29
Speaker 3: because basically you're on guard twenty four hours a day.
16:34
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't know when somebody flip out, They
16:38
Speaker 3: flip off for the minus things. Somebody might not be
16:41
Speaker 3: able to get on the phone and bush in your
16:43
Speaker 3: head or cut your head. I mean, it's it's it's
16:48
Speaker 3: crazy on guard twenty four hours a day, basically, you know.
16:54
Speaker 3: But either you can stay in prison and keep back
16:59
Speaker 3: in a food in prison and be de the rest
17:02
Speaker 3: of your life, or you got to learn some things
17:05
Speaker 3: or get some help. I couldn't adapt good to the
17:08
Speaker 3: books as far as Gates lawing, so I had to
17:13
Speaker 3: start writing letters, seeing who can give me some help.
17:17
Speaker 3: I was lucky enough to get in touch with MS Burst,
17:21
Speaker 3: Run Out Ohio, Innocent Project, God Bliss.
17:26
Speaker 1: So you ended up finally in the hands of people
17:29
Speaker 1: who cared a lot and were talented lawyers, and they
17:33
Speaker 1: weren't going to let go. But one after another of
17:36
Speaker 1: these courts denied you and it was not that long
17:40
Speaker 1: ago that justice was finally delayed but not denied. So
17:44
Speaker 1: Jennifer take us through these denials.
17:47
Speaker 2: So Evan was represented by different attorneys for a while,
17:51
Speaker 2: and back in two thousand and four I think actually
17:54
Speaker 2: he filed a first motion for DNA testing and it
17:57
Speaker 2: took a long time, but in two eight he asked
18:01
Speaker 2: for DNA testing on the fingernail scrapings because, as you mentioned,
18:05
Speaker 2: we know that Crystal Hudson fought back at the time
18:08
Speaker 2: of her death, and so his theory was, well, if
18:12
Speaker 2: we test these fingernail scrapings and you find male DNA
18:15
Speaker 2: and it's the same as the DNA from the semen,
18:19
Speaker 2: then that's going to confirm what Evan's been saying since
18:23
Speaker 2: day one, which is that he was not the murderer,
18:26
Speaker 2: and that the person who loved the Semen was actually
18:30
Speaker 2: Racher and was the murderer. So Evan had filed for
18:33
Speaker 2: DNA testing and the trial judge had ordered it, saying,
18:37
Speaker 2: I think I can quote him here, DNA belonging to
18:39
Speaker 2: an unknown party found under the fingernails of the victim,
18:43
Speaker 2: and then went on to say would prove the identity
18:45
Speaker 2: of the real killer if it matches the DNA from
18:48
Speaker 2: the scene. Okay, So basically, the trial judge was agreed
18:52
Speaker 2: that if the fingernail scrapings came back and matched the
18:55
Speaker 2: rape kit, that that would prove Evans claim. Well, it
18:58
Speaker 2: did exactly that.
18:59
Speaker 3: When I first read what the judge said about if
19:03
Speaker 3: the fingernails scripting math, that's said, I'm out of here.
19:07
Speaker 3: And then when it come back for him to deny me,
19:10
Speaker 3: that just took me away. I'm like, isn't writing you
19:15
Speaker 3: say if this come domess that it eliminates me as
19:21
Speaker 3: the killer, and then it come back to do just that,
19:23
Speaker 3: then't you say, denied, even.
19:26
Speaker 2: Though he'd explicitly said before that that's what he was
19:29
Speaker 2: looking for. But he denied it based on the expert
19:33
Speaker 2: testimony from the trial. That same expert testimony that we've
19:36
Speaker 2: been talking about that we know was just complete bogus nonsense.
19:41
Speaker 2: And so the trial judge said, well, the jury already
19:44
Speaker 2: knew that the DNA on the rape kit came from
19:46
Speaker 2: someone else, and you know, the expert said that could
19:50
Speaker 2: have come up to a week beforehand, so it really
19:53
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything. So then he appealed. This was in
19:58
Speaker 2: twenty twelve and the appeal was split three ways. One judge,
20:04
Speaker 2: who as now an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, said he'd
20:07
Speaker 2: already showed he was actually innocent and should be released,
20:10
Speaker 2: and then there was two other opinions basically saying, well,
20:15
Speaker 2: we see the DNA results, but there was no expert
20:18
Speaker 2: testimony contradicting the trial expert testimony. So at this point
20:25
Speaker 2: is when the Ohio Innocence Project got involved, and with
20:29
Speaker 2: the help of actually one of our former lawyers, Carrie Wood,
20:31
Speaker 2: who worked at the Public Defender's Office, she got an
20:34
Speaker 2: expert involved and then she got in touch with me.
20:37
Speaker 2: Long story short, we refiled several things in STA court
20:42
Speaker 2: and we also filed in federal court. The Coroner's office
20:44
Speaker 2: in the Prosecutor's office refused to give us all of
20:46
Speaker 2: the information we were asking for, like the additional data
20:50
Speaker 2: on the DNA testing, and they just flat out refused
20:52
Speaker 2: to give it to us. So our expert was working
20:55
Speaker 2: with what he had available, and he produced an appidavit
20:58
Speaker 2: that's said several things, one that the Corner's office experts
21:03
Speaker 2: who testified at the trial essentially presented false testimony, and
21:07
Speaker 2: also the additional information about the fact that they found
21:11
Speaker 2: male DNA under her fingernails indicated it had to have
21:14
Speaker 2: been a struggle because most people don't walk around with
21:16
Speaker 2: DNA under their fingernails belonging to someone else. And the
21:20
Speaker 2: fact that they were able to get a full profile
21:22
Speaker 2: off the rape kit all those years later also indicated
21:25
Speaker 2: that semen must have been put there at the time
21:27
Speaker 2: of death, because it wouldn't be that strong that much later.
21:31
Speaker 2: So we had three different motions pending in the trial
21:35
Speaker 2: court level, but eventually, like a year and a half later,
21:38
Speaker 2: the trial judge finally just denied all of those, so
21:41
Speaker 2: we had to peel it again.
21:42
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just insane that you were denied by
21:45
Speaker 1: the trial court at this point, considering that you were
21:47
Speaker 1: remedying what they claimed was the reasoning behind the earlier denial,
21:51
Speaker 1: involving the DNA match from the scrapings and the rape kit.
21:54
Speaker 1: Now you had done it. You had refuted the trial experts,
21:57
Speaker 1: but the trial court went ahead and moved the gold
22:00
Speaker 1: hosts again, calling your refuting of the state's false expert
22:04
Speaker 1: testimony a quote battle of the experts. Of course, you
22:09
Speaker 1: appeal this denial, and in January of twenty seventeen, the
22:12
Speaker 1: appellate court agreed with you, reversing the trial court's denial,
22:16
Speaker 1: granting you access to the DNA test results, which they
22:18
Speaker 1: had previously been blocking. They granted an upload to codis
22:22
Speaker 1: to see if you could get a match to another
22:24
Speaker 1: known perp, and so far there's no dice with that.
22:26
Speaker 1: But significantly, you've got an evidentiary hearing out of this,
22:29
Speaker 1: so you all start prepping for what you thought was
22:32
Speaker 1: going to be.
22:32
Speaker 3: An epic battle.
22:33
Speaker 1: Your expert now had access to those DNA results, so
22:36
Speaker 1: he could go beyond what he'd already done in the
22:38
Speaker 1: APPI David, and in twenty seventeen, something truly unexpected happened.
22:44
Speaker 2: Just completely out of the blue. One day in April,
22:47
Speaker 2: I was in a meeting and that got done, and
22:50
Speaker 2: I had like multiple voicemails and emails and things from
22:54
Speaker 2: one of the people from the prosecutor's office. I called
22:57
Speaker 2: her back and she told me that they had reviewed
23:02
Speaker 2: the case and talked to the corner's office again and
23:06
Speaker 2: had concluded essentially that we were right and that our
23:10
Speaker 2: expert was right, and that they were agreeing that they
23:13
Speaker 2: would release Evan. And I think I fell out of
23:17
Speaker 2: my chair about when that phone, when I had that
23:21
Speaker 2: conversation because it was so unexpected given how they had
23:24
Speaker 2: been fighting everything up until that point. But of course
23:29
Speaker 2: the first thing I needed to do was to get
23:31
Speaker 2: a hold of Evan to tell him the news.
23:34
Speaker 3: Right so that.
23:35
Speaker 2: Means that means I think it's not going to get
23:40
Speaker 2: filed till Monday. But I think that means you should
23:44
Speaker 2: hopefully be able to be going home soon.
23:50
Speaker 3: That's it.
23:55
Speaker 4: Hit me.
23:56
Speaker 2: The moment to process this, I wanted. I wanted you
24:00
Speaker 2: to know it right away.
24:03
Speaker 3: I knew.
24:05
Speaker 1: I knew that the day have come one day because.
24:08
Speaker 2: I knew.
24:09
Speaker 3: I cried too, because the child.
24:18
Speaker 1: My mother told me to no one.
24:21
Speaker 5: But you know, you.
24:24
Speaker 3: Know my thankful show. I know she's looking down at me.
24:32
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure she is.
24:36
Speaker 3: And like all we told you, I.
24:37
Speaker 5: Had complete faith in you.
24:39
Speaker 2: You know, thank you.
24:53
Speaker 3: M After she he told me I had, I just
25:02
Speaker 3: laid the phone down and my mind just tears came out.
25:06
Speaker 3: That's why I'm turning up now, tears just.
25:14
Speaker 4: Because that the only thing that I really think about
25:24
Speaker 4: it is mom.
25:28
Speaker 3: My Mama and my aunt. Because my Mama always told
25:32
Speaker 3: me the Lord gonna let you out one day. He
25:38
Speaker 3: just wants you to get your life together. And I
25:42
Speaker 3: held on to that.
25:44
Speaker 5: H yeah, when she told me that, there was a
25:52
Speaker 5: lot of tears that day, but uh, it's the day
25:56
Speaker 5: age that I'll never forget.
26:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had the call on Friday, and then it
26:02
Speaker 2: was getting ready to be Easter weekend. So yeah, as
26:06
Speaker 2: your listeners probably know by now, when someone is released
26:10
Speaker 2: from prison after they've been wrongfully convicted, it's obviously amazing,
26:13
Speaker 2: but it's not like they're sin home with anything to
26:18
Speaker 2: help them readjust to life. So you know, we had
26:22
Speaker 2: to go into sort of high gear in our office
26:24
Speaker 2: trying to make sure Evan had somewhere to go, and
26:27
Speaker 2: he did with his cousin, who was fantastic. But I
26:30
Speaker 2: was on the phone most of the weekend trying to
26:32
Speaker 2: make sure all of that was said, and then wait
26:35
Speaker 2: for them to transfer back to the county jail, and
26:37
Speaker 2: then I was able to visit him there the night
26:38
Speaker 2: before we went back to court, which was amazing. And
26:42
Speaker 2: then finally we went back to court, but then it
26:43
Speaker 2: took hours and hours for them to process him back out,
26:48
Speaker 2: and then in the meantime, even after we knew he
26:51
Speaker 2: was coming home, it still wasn't a relaxing experience, because
26:54
Speaker 2: even just simple things like he needed access to medication
26:57
Speaker 2: that he took daily, and they weren't letting him come
27:00
Speaker 2: home with any And I spent the day trying to
27:03
Speaker 2: track down the doctor who ran the jail to make
27:06
Speaker 2: sure they would at least release him with a prescription
27:08
Speaker 2: so that we could make sure he didn't miss any
27:10
Speaker 2: of the doses of the medication that he needed.
27:12
Speaker 3: They wouldn't even give me the medication I had.
27:15
Speaker 2: That they gave you and let you take it out.
27:17
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
27:18
Speaker 1: It's crazy, which makes absolutely zero sense on any level. Right,
27:24
Speaker 1: It's just some bureaucratic insanity on top of all the
27:27
Speaker 1: other insanity. But luckily you had this great team behind
27:32
Speaker 1: you and good family, and so you walk out into
27:35
Speaker 1: the fresh air. What was that moment like? And where
27:38
Speaker 1: did you go? Did you did you go straight to
27:39
Speaker 1: a restaurant or a bar, or did you hug a tree?
27:42
Speaker 3: Or what did you do when once we got outside?
27:45
Speaker 3: You know, just the air is different on this side
27:48
Speaker 3: of the fence. It's like you can breathe again, you know.
27:55
Speaker 3: To Media's God's gift.
27:57
Speaker 1: I hear you, I mean we hear it in different
27:58
Speaker 1: ways from every different person who's been through what you've
28:01
Speaker 1: been through, different variations of it. It's it's beautiful. I
28:07
Speaker 1: even sad, but it's beautiful. So we're just happy you're
28:11
Speaker 1: home and you're free, and we wish you, you know,
28:14
Speaker 1: every blessing that life has to offer going forward. You
28:17
Speaker 1: certainly deserve it, and I want to before we go
28:21
Speaker 1: to the closing of the show. First of all, I
28:22
Speaker 1: want to encourage people to support the Ohio Innocence Project,
28:25
Speaker 1: and we will put a link in the bio for
28:27
Speaker 1: people who want to donate or get involved in any
28:29
Speaker 1: way they can. You were the twenty fifth person exonerated
28:33
Speaker 1: by the Ohio Innocence Project. It's a remarkable number, but
28:36
Speaker 1: still it's a tiny number in terms of the overall
28:39
Speaker 1: innocent people that remain behind bars. But we're happy you're here.
28:43
Speaker 1: And now we're going to turn to the closing of
28:45
Speaker 1: our show, which we call Closing Arguments.
28:47
Speaker 3: It works like this.
28:48
Speaker 1: I thank you both again, Jennifer. You know you inspire
28:52
Speaker 1: me and so many other people by your remarkable advocacy,
28:57
Speaker 1: and it's always great to have you on the show.
28:59
Speaker 1: And obviously I'm working closely with the Highly Innisance Project
29:02
Speaker 1: on other cases John Jones and others, and I know
29:04
Speaker 1: we're going to win those two. It just takes longer
29:06
Speaker 1: than we want it to, like it always does, but
29:08
Speaker 1: closing arguments works like this. I'm going to finally stop talking.
29:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn my microphone off. Thank you again,
29:16
Speaker 1: Evan King, Jennifer Bergron for being here with us closing arguments.
29:20
Speaker 1: I'm going to just turn my microphone off and let
29:22
Speaker 1: you say anything else that's left unsaid that you want
29:25
Speaker 1: to share with our audience. Evan, we're going to save you.
29:28
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the man of the hour, so you're
29:29
Speaker 1: going to be the last one to speak, if that's okay,
29:33
Speaker 1: and we'll let Jennifer share her thoughts and then hand
29:35
Speaker 1: the mic off to you and then take us out
29:37
Speaker 1: into the sunset.
29:38
Speaker 2: Albright, Well, first of all, I wanted to say thank
29:41
Speaker 2: you for having me back on. I'm kind of sad
29:43
Speaker 2: that I'm here because it means that there's more clients
29:45
Speaker 2: whose cases we can discuss. But I'm so grateful for
29:51
Speaker 2: the light that you're bringing to cases all over the country.
29:55
Speaker 2: There are stories that deserve to be told. Also, if
29:58
Speaker 2: I may, would like to put in a plug for
30:00
Speaker 2: two of my current clients, Carl Willis and Wayne Brady,
30:03
Speaker 2: are their's website setup freewayneancarl dot com or that you
30:07
Speaker 2: can go read more information and find all kinds of information.
30:11
Speaker 2: And then of course I wanted to say thank you
30:13
Speaker 2: to Evin for being here with me and you've always
30:16
Speaker 2: inspired me to keep going. And anytime I'm down and
30:20
Speaker 2: need a pick me up, I like to watch the
30:22
Speaker 2: video of you woo who who ing after you're coming
30:24
Speaker 2: out of the court when you were released, because it's
30:27
Speaker 2: just a feeling of pure joy that gives me a
30:30
Speaker 2: smile every time.
30:31
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. Uh. First of all, the Ohio
30:35
Speaker 3: Innocent Project was the Gods and to me, they're family
30:40
Speaker 3: to me. For those of you out there listening, look
30:45
Speaker 3: up to Ohio Innocent Project. Some of you have people
30:48
Speaker 3: in love, ones that you know are innocent, need to
30:53
Speaker 3: be free. You don't know where to start, Just give
30:56
Speaker 3: them a call and as always, stay in your try
31:00
Speaker 3: to stay trouble free. But the Lord has your back.
31:06
Speaker 3: Just keep your faith and continue to do the right thing.
31:11
Speaker 3: But one thing I would like to say came out
31:13
Speaker 3: good out of this. I haven't messed with the drug
31:18
Speaker 3: cocaine in almost thirty years now. I've been clean for
31:22
Speaker 3: almost thirty years now. People who always talk about you
31:26
Speaker 3: can't stop drugs overnight, Oh yes you can when the
31:30
Speaker 3: right thing happened to you. You can stop anything, but
31:35
Speaker 3: that all happens in God's blessings. So with that, thank
31:39
Speaker 3: you for having me here on your podcast, as I
31:43
Speaker 3: bid you farewell, Thank.
31:46
Speaker 1: You, Thank you for listening to Rafel Conviction. I'd like
31:56
Speaker 1: to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and
31:59
Speaker 1: Kevin War with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in
32:02
Speaker 1: this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer
32:06
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
32:09
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on
32:13
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
32:17
Speaker 1: On all three platforms. You can also follow me on
32:20
Speaker 1: both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction
32:24
Speaker 1: is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
32:27
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one