Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #070 Jason Flom with Susan King

Transcript

#070 Jason Flom with Susan King · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life.
0:03
Speaker 2: I didn't even have a parking ticket, you know what
0:05
Speaker 2: I mean.
0:05
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
0:09
Speaker 3: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
0:11
Speaker 3: do know that everything was stacked against me.
0:14
Speaker 4: Everything like everything.
0:17
Speaker 1: This isn't supposed to happen this way.
0:21
Speaker 3: I'm innocent.
0:22
Speaker 4: I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to
0:24
Speaker 4: do with this. How is this possible? I grew up
0:28
Speaker 4: trusting the systems. I grew up believing that every human
0:31
Speaker 4: being should do the right thing. And that's why, even
0:34
Speaker 4: though I knew I was dealing with corerough people, I
0:36
Speaker 4: wasn't going to break anyone to get me out of
0:38
Speaker 4: prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I
0:41
Speaker 4: break my way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent,
0:45
Speaker 4: too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I prove my innocence.
0:48
Speaker 4: And that's absolutely what happened to me.
0:51
Speaker 5: Our system.
0:52
Speaker 2: Since I've been out ten years, it has come a
0:53
Speaker 2: little ways, but it's still broken.
0:56
Speaker 4: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
1:02
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with
1:20
Speaker 1: Jason Foum. That's me. I'm your host, and today I
1:23
Speaker 1: have an absolutely unbelievable story and an incredible person to
1:28
Speaker 1: share that story with you. Susan King is here. Susan,
1:31
Speaker 1: Welcome to wrongful conviction.
1:33
Speaker 5: Thank you, good to be here.
1:35
Speaker 1: And like I always say, I'm glad you're here, but
1:37
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you're here. So thank you, Susan. Ever since
1:41
Speaker 1: I read your story, which must be a year and
1:44
Speaker 1: a half ago, I was transfixed because even having been
1:49
Speaker 1: in this movement for twenty five years now and having
1:53
Speaker 1: recorded seventy episodes of the podcast, your story sticks out
1:58
Speaker 1: in many ways. It's so absolutely insane that I find
2:06
Speaker 1: myself telling the story to other people and going that
2:09
Speaker 1: can't be true. But I know it is you and
2:11
Speaker 1: you actually had to live it well. She served six
2:17
Speaker 1: years behind the bars after a Kentucky State Police investigator
2:20
Speaker 1: said she killed a man. Then in twenty twelve, someone
2:22
Speaker 1: else confessed to the crime, and now two years later,
2:25
Speaker 1: the case against Susan Jean King is finally dismissed.
2:29
Speaker 3: King spent years in prison for what they call raisen
2:32
Speaker 3: misconduct by Kentucky State Police. It comes after King served
2:36
Speaker 3: six and a half years in prison for the nineteen
2:38
Speaker 3: ninety eight death of Kyle Demi Breeden of Shelbyville. The
2:42
Speaker 3: Kentucky Innocence Project told the court. When the Kentucky State
2:45
Speaker 3: Police case went cold after a few years, Trooper Todd
2:48
Speaker 3: Harwood picked it up. Eighteen days later, he said he
2:52
Speaker 3: broke the case, naming King as the killer. He said
2:56
Speaker 3: King threw Breden's body into the Kentucky River after a
2:59
Speaker 3: domestics fut The only problem King has one leg and
3:04
Speaker 3: weighed less than one hundred pounds at the time.
3:06
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the beginning. You grew up
3:10
Speaker 1: in Were you born in Kentucky?
3:12
Speaker 5: Yes? Uh huh was back in nineteen sixty. That was
3:17
Speaker 5: a long time ago.
3:18
Speaker 1: We're almost the same age. What what part of Kentucky
3:21
Speaker 1: were you born in?
3:22
Speaker 5: I was born in Shelbyville, that's all half an hour
3:25
Speaker 5: from Louisville.
3:26
Speaker 1: And how was your childhood?
3:28
Speaker 5: Oh, I was raised a little country girl. So I've
3:31
Speaker 5: spent my time fishing and playing with chaos all that.
3:36
Speaker 1: So it sounds like this hearing the Tony your voice,
3:38
Speaker 1: you had you had a happy childhood. Yeah, and then
3:43
Speaker 1: ultimately you where did you grow up. Where did did
3:46
Speaker 1: you go to? Where did you where you go to school?
3:48
Speaker 1: Where'd you end up living? Before all this insanity came
3:52
Speaker 1: to pass, Well.
3:53
Speaker 5: Before all this, I had my own beauty shop. I
3:55
Speaker 5: was a tusantologist. I had my own home and a
4:00
Speaker 5: house and six and high bakers with a barn and
4:03
Speaker 5: all my animals and my dogs and horse and everything.
4:08
Speaker 5: Was enjoying life. And and suddenly one day Todd Harwood
4:12
Speaker 5: appeared and ruined it all.
4:14
Speaker 1: Oh, he certainly did. And the way that he did
4:16
Speaker 1: it is beyond I think people are going to be
4:20
Speaker 1: Anyone who's listing now, fasten your seatbelt, because when you
4:23
Speaker 1: hear the level of evil, of pure evil, that this
4:29
Speaker 1: individual was capable of, it is absolutely shocking, even even
4:36
Speaker 1: to people that are loyal listeners of the podcast. You're
4:37
Speaker 1: going to be here in for a crazy ride. So,
4:42
Speaker 1: but Susan, you had you had a tragedy upon a
4:45
Speaker 1: tragedy because back in nineteen ninety three your life took
4:49
Speaker 1: a terrible turn.
4:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's not accident, and that and that's.
4:54
Speaker 1: And that turns out to be an important part of
4:56
Speaker 1: the story.
4:57
Speaker 5: And how you're wrong when you only have one leg,
5:01
Speaker 5: I mean you can't go around listing people two hundred
5:04
Speaker 5: pounds and stuff like they say, right.
5:06
Speaker 1: And we're going to get to that because that's one
5:08
Speaker 1: of the things about the story that is just I mean,
5:10
Speaker 1: even if you had two legs, the story never would
5:12
Speaker 1: have made any sense. But that particular aspect of it
5:16
Speaker 1: makes it go from the ridiculous to the surrepossible, to
5:21
Speaker 1: the impossible right to the surreal impossible, whatever word you
5:23
Speaker 1: want to whatever or you want to describe. So fast
5:26
Speaker 1: forward to nineteen ninety eight, right, and you had been
5:31
Speaker 1: in a relationship, if I'm not mistaken, right, with a
5:34
Speaker 1: guy named Kyle Breeden. And this was was this an
5:38
Speaker 1: on again, off again type of thing?
5:41
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, sort of, yes, on and off. He lived
5:46
Speaker 5: a little rougher life and I can handle that's putting
5:49
Speaker 5: it nicely.
5:50
Speaker 1: And one day he disappeared, right, yes, and just so
5:56
Speaker 1: it was gone. And then ten days later we know
5:59
Speaker 1: now his body was found by a fisherman in the
6:03
Speaker 1: Kentucky River, right, And he had been shot in the
6:07
Speaker 1: head twice, but twenty two caliber bullets which did not
6:11
Speaker 1: exit the skull, which is important because they were able
6:13
Speaker 1: to be found. That's very important, right, So that there
6:15
Speaker 1: were non exiting bullets, and his legs were bound with
6:19
Speaker 1: guitar amplifier cord, so he was This is obviously a
6:24
Speaker 1: brutal crime. He was shot twice in the head, bound
6:28
Speaker 1: with guitar a fire cord, like I said, and then
6:30
Speaker 1: lifted up. The killer parked on the Gratz bridge and
6:33
Speaker 1: then hoisted him. And he wasn't a small guy, right, No,
6:37
Speaker 1: he wasn't. About two hundred pounds. So the killer hoisted
6:42
Speaker 1: him over the railing and threw him down or dropped
6:47
Speaker 1: him down into the Kentucky River where he was found.
6:52
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so it was two hundred pounds plus the
6:54
Speaker 1: concrete blocks. Okay, wow, this guy went to some trouble
6:57
Speaker 1: to do it. So we're going to get all of that.
7:00
Speaker 1: But what has absolutely transfixed me about this case is
7:06
Speaker 1: the idea and we know we'll get you know, I'm
7:09
Speaker 1: gonna jump ahead and we'll come back, but the idea
7:12
Speaker 1: that anybody on a grand jury or anywhere else in
7:16
Speaker 1: the system could have been made to believe that a
7:21
Speaker 1: woman who barely weighed one hundred pounds, which is you
7:28
Speaker 1: could have which was this horrible detective's theory, right, that
7:33
Speaker 1: you would have shot him in the head in your kitchen,
7:35
Speaker 1: dragged him out down the driveway. Do you have a
7:38
Speaker 1: gravel driveway to read that somewhere?
7:40
Speaker 5: Yes?
7:41
Speaker 1: Right, So we are to believe that you one hundred
7:44
Speaker 1: pound woman, if you even weighed that much with one leg,
7:49
Speaker 1: somehow or other, were able to shoot this guy twice,
7:53
Speaker 1: drag him through the kitchen, down the gravel driveway, hoist
7:57
Speaker 1: him into the car, drive to the bridge, tie blocks
8:01
Speaker 1: to him, bind him.
8:03
Speaker 5: Not to interrupted. But I didn't even have a car.
8:06
Speaker 1: Oh my god, oh my god. I need a minute.
8:11
Speaker 1: I can't even process.
8:12
Speaker 5: I don't know what to think.
8:14
Speaker 1: Nothing.
8:14
Speaker 5: I didn't have a car or a tractor.
8:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, the tractor, okay, so wow? And then uh yeah,
8:22
Speaker 1: so you drove the invisible car, the imaginary car to
8:27
Speaker 1: the Gratz bridge and then hoisted this uh after winding
8:32
Speaker 1: him with the ample part cord and tying concrete blocks
8:35
Speaker 1: to him, you managed to hoist this entire crazy like,
8:41
Speaker 1: I mean, this, this person, with all these contraptions, there's
8:46
Speaker 1: two hundred and something pound object which is now a
8:49
Speaker 1: dead body up over a railing. How high was the railing,
8:52
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't know.
8:54
Speaker 5: I had stayed away from that area for obvious reasons,
8:58
Speaker 5: and I really don't know how how that regularly, Well.
9:01
Speaker 1: It doesn't much matter because none of it makes any sense.
9:03
Speaker 1: So the whole thing is obviously just beyond ridiculous, is disgusting.
9:10
Speaker 5: It's well, you think that you can trust the cops,
9:14
Speaker 5: and that's that's the wrong. You can't trust one anymore.
9:18
Speaker 5: You know, there are some good coops. I'll go a
9:20
Speaker 5: couple of good tops, but boy, I'll tell you what,
9:23
Speaker 5: that one really makes the whole department look bad.
9:29
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that, Susan, because I say that
9:31
Speaker 1: on the show often that I'm a person who does
9:34
Speaker 1: believe in a system of laws, and I believe that
9:35
Speaker 1: there are a lot of good cops, and there are
9:37
Speaker 1: a lot of good prosecutors, but there's a lot of
9:38
Speaker 1: bad ones too, and the bad ones do a terrible
9:40
Speaker 1: amount of damage. And in your case, it couldn't be
9:44
Speaker 1: more pronounced because of the way in which this was done.
9:49
Speaker 1: You know, in this case, going back to the time
9:54
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, they originally tried to attain a
10:01
Speaker 1: search warrant and to search your premises and stuff like that,
10:06
Speaker 1: but they were unable to because there was no evidence
10:08
Speaker 1: that you. It was what was painfully obviously everyone concerned
10:11
Speaker 1: that you could not have done this. So they everyone
10:15
Speaker 1: actually took a common sensical approach and said, okay, well
10:17
Speaker 1: let's keep looking for who did. And the trail went cold.
10:21
Speaker 5: Right, Well, they definitely didn't. They didn't start any further
10:25
Speaker 5: than just me. I don't think they didn't try very
10:29
Speaker 5: hard anyway. Now, the first good despective when they started
10:34
Speaker 5: with Pile's body was first found. They were pretty decent cops.
10:41
Speaker 5: They did their job. They were very thorough. They scared
10:44
Speaker 5: me death, so they did their job right. They decided
10:48
Speaker 5: that I didn't have anything to do with it. In
10:50
Speaker 5: my interview I did on the uh the IV channel
10:55
Speaker 5: investigation Discovery Town.
10:57
Speaker 1: No, I didn't even know about it. I'm going to
10:58
Speaker 1: watch it for sure.
11:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, they did a show on it, and they did
11:02
Speaker 5: a real good job. And you know, I'm on TV
11:04
Speaker 5: right now. You are that show. You know, it's on
11:07
Speaker 5: channel fifty right now.
11:09
Speaker 1: That's amazing channel.
11:12
Speaker 5: Right now we speak, you're all.
11:14
Speaker 1: Over the place. You're on TV, in the radio. Yeah,
11:18
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see that. So you were saying that
11:22
Speaker 1: the initial investigation, you thought they they were tell me
11:27
Speaker 1: about that they came to see you, they intimidated you
11:30
Speaker 1: a little bit, or how did that work?
11:31
Speaker 5: They greed me real good. That put me through a launch.
11:36
Speaker 5: So that's what I say. They did their job.
11:38
Speaker 1: But they came to the correct conclusion at first, and
11:41
Speaker 1: they you know, who are somebody came to the right
11:44
Speaker 1: answer and said, you know, we're not going to grant
11:47
Speaker 1: a search work. We're not going to indict her. We're
11:49
Speaker 1: going to have to keep looking because she ate the
11:52
Speaker 1: one that's right. And you went on with years.
11:56
Speaker 5: Went by with it being a code case for years.
12:00
Speaker 1: Right, and that's where stuff really gets crazy. Right. So
12:04
Speaker 1: now enters the villain in this story, and villain is
12:08
Speaker 1: too kind of a word actually, because we have to
12:13
Speaker 1: clean it up. Uh yeah, And you're allowed to curse
12:17
Speaker 1: on this show if you want to. There's no problem
12:19
Speaker 1: at all with that, and I wouldn't blame.
12:21
Speaker 5: It's hard to discuss this without it.
12:25
Speaker 1: You can do as you see fit. So along comes
12:29
Speaker 1: this sack of ship named Todd Harwood, and he's a
12:35
Speaker 1: real short guy, A real short guy, was okay. So
12:40
Speaker 1: he comes into town and he's a state he's a
12:44
Speaker 1: state police officer. He's he's new on the job right
12:47
Speaker 1: just rolled into town, decided this this might be good
12:50
Speaker 1: for his seems to me, I don't know this, but
12:52
Speaker 1: it seems to me he might have thought this might
12:54
Speaker 1: be good for his career.
12:56
Speaker 5: If he is after a they had received a grant
13:02
Speaker 5: for a co cases and that's what he's addicted. Was
13:08
Speaker 5: what he wanted to be and that's what he got.
13:10
Speaker 1: And was this sort of a high profile case in
13:13
Speaker 1: the area.
13:14
Speaker 5: Oh very much so. I've been on the page the
13:16
Speaker 5: type of many many times.
13:19
Speaker 1: Right, So his thing was, Okay, I'm going to go
13:21
Speaker 1: make my name. I'm speculating, but I'm gonna say he
13:24
Speaker 1: was thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea for him
13:27
Speaker 1: in his career if he could go and solve this case.
13:30
Speaker 1: So when did you first find out that this guy
13:34
Speaker 1: was around and that he was had had you and
13:37
Speaker 1: the crosshairs? How did that come to be? Because we're
13:39
Speaker 1: talking seven years later, you had probably had moved on
13:42
Speaker 1: and you know, trying to make the best out of
13:44
Speaker 1: your life. It's facing the difficulties that you're already faced
13:47
Speaker 1: and having lost you know this. I mean, obviously this
13:49
Speaker 1: must have been pretty traumatic too to lose somebody that
13:54
Speaker 1: you'd had in a relationship with in such a violent manner.
13:56
Speaker 1: But how did you come to find out that this
13:59
Speaker 1: guy was coming after you?
14:02
Speaker 5: Well, at first I didn't know he was really coming
14:04
Speaker 5: and asked you means like he did. I just thought
14:07
Speaker 5: he needed some information, you know, because I had understood
14:12
Speaker 5: that he was investigating the cold case. And you know,
14:16
Speaker 5: I'm glad that they were, and I was willing to
14:19
Speaker 5: help him anyway I could. But he turned on me
14:22
Speaker 5: like a snake and started riding and oh he scared
14:26
Speaker 5: me so bad and so many times, yelling and screaming
14:29
Speaker 5: and riding me around in his car like a crazy person,
14:32
Speaker 5: going real fast and slamming on the brakes, and he
14:36
Speaker 5: scared me death that day. I thought he was going
14:38
Speaker 5: to kill me.
14:39
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't even know that part of the story.
14:41
Speaker 1: This gets crazier and crazieri.
14:43
Speaker 5: He is. It's not right at all. And he was
14:45
Speaker 5: wet and profusely and pacing back and forth and talking
14:49
Speaker 5: real fast, and he wasn't normal at all. I don't
14:54
Speaker 5: know what was making him act that way, but nothing.
14:57
Speaker 1: Was well we can't know that and I never will,
15:00
Speaker 1: but the fact is that he was. He's obviously off
15:03
Speaker 1: his rocker. But whatever the reasons were for that, again,
15:05
Speaker 1: we don't know. One of the million crazy aspects of
15:18
Speaker 1: this thing is how he was able to convince the
15:20
Speaker 1: grand jury to indict you in the first place, and
15:23
Speaker 1: how he was even able to get a search warrant.
15:25
Speaker 1: And then the sheer volume of lies that he told
15:30
Speaker 1: is staggering lies that were demonstrably provably false. Right, I mean,
15:37
Speaker 1: he lied about literally everything, but.
15:42
Speaker 5: He didn't even tell the grand jury. I head on
15:44
Speaker 5: one leg he left that poor day out.
15:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think when I died.
15:51
Speaker 5: They would ever does a search warrant if he had
15:53
Speaker 5: top Well, of.
15:54
Speaker 1: Course not, because nobody's that dumb, right, nobody could believe.
15:58
Speaker 1: And this is why I've told you your story many
16:00
Speaker 1: many times. It actually took me a while to find you,
16:03
Speaker 1: but I've told your story so many times ever since
16:05
Speaker 1: I first read about it in the Marshall Project actually,
16:07
Speaker 1: which is a wonderful newsletter that I read that focuses
16:10
Speaker 1: on all the most important stories in criminal justice, and
16:12
Speaker 1: you get it emailed to you for free every day
16:15
Speaker 1: if you want it. It's called the Marshall Projects. Ever
16:19
Speaker 1: since I read that, I was I have to I
16:21
Speaker 1: have to interview Susan. I have to get inside of
16:24
Speaker 1: this and try to understand it, because it just doesn't
16:27
Speaker 1: make any damn sense. So somehow or other, he manages
16:31
Speaker 1: to convince the you know, the powers that be to
16:36
Speaker 1: grant a search. Warrant comes and searches your house, finds
16:40
Speaker 1: out there's a couple of old bullet holes in the
16:45
Speaker 1: in the floor something like that, right, But none of
16:47
Speaker 1: that shouldn't have mattered because it didn't match the bullets
16:51
Speaker 1: that they recovered from the dead body. But that didn't
16:56
Speaker 1: throw them off. And you know, and then it and
17:01
Speaker 1: then he and what happens from your perspective, what happened?
17:06
Speaker 1: When did you get the call? How did you find
17:08
Speaker 1: out that you were actually being indicted? And then how
17:10
Speaker 1: did you find this horrible lawyer that you ended up with?
17:13
Speaker 1: And I need to know everything.
17:17
Speaker 5: Well, I didn't know he was coming to arrist me.
17:20
Speaker 5: He threatened to several times. At that point, I didn't
17:25
Speaker 5: not to believe anything he said. He said. He I'm like, sure,
17:28
Speaker 5: I got the electric chair? Now, what's that's what say it?
17:32
Speaker 5: I knew did this guy just lying? He's crazy?
17:38
Speaker 1: So he's threatening you with the electric chair? He told the.
17:41
Speaker 5: Great electric chair years.
17:45
Speaker 1: I mean, among the other lies that he told, he
17:49
Speaker 1: said there were four bullet holes in the kitchen floor
17:51
Speaker 1: and drag marks on the linoleum. None of that was true.
17:54
Speaker 1: He told the grand jury that ballistics analysis showed the
17:56
Speaker 1: two bullets recovered from the floor Saint came from the
17:58
Speaker 1: same weapon that fired the bullets that killed breeding. That
18:02
Speaker 1: wasn't true, it right. And he said that blood found
18:05
Speaker 1: on the floor was from Breeden, where the DNA analysis
18:07
Speaker 1: proved that in fact it could. They had no idea
18:10
Speaker 1: who it was from. But he lied about all.
18:12
Speaker 5: That animal vegetablear mare and mineral. It's what they told me.
18:16
Speaker 5: Animal vegetablear mineral. That wasn't sure which.
18:18
Speaker 1: And not only that, but the ballistics analysis actually showed
18:21
Speaker 1: the opposite of what he claimed, right, that the bullets
18:23
Speaker 1: did not match, and that the police knew that the
18:27
Speaker 1: water damage to the floor in your kitchen caused the
18:29
Speaker 1: markings that Hardwood said were drag marks. So Hardwood I.
18:34
Speaker 5: Had thrief of all that. People that did all that
18:37
Speaker 5: retire to my house after a flood, and I mean,
18:41
Speaker 5: you cothing now this happened in Misking Flower.
18:46
Speaker 1: That though, and we're not done with the lies because
18:49
Speaker 1: you also claimed that you had used cleaning fluid to
18:52
Speaker 1: clean up the UH to clean up the evidence, when
18:56
Speaker 1: the investigation showed that there was there was no cleaning
19:00
Speaker 1: fluid or cleaning chemicals of any kind. And in fact,
19:05
Speaker 1: at some point, what I do know is that the
19:06
Speaker 1: grand jury investigations, any investigation, two different jurors asked him
19:11
Speaker 1: how you had been able to shoot breeding and move
19:14
Speaker 1: his body despite only having one leg and weighing, as
19:17
Speaker 1: we said, ninety seven pounds, and he just didn't answer
19:19
Speaker 1: those questions. So had he of course that would be
19:22
Speaker 1: the end of that. So okay, So now you end
19:26
Speaker 1: up having your home taken over various times for these
19:30
Speaker 1: searches to take place. When did you get a lawyer out?
19:35
Speaker 5: I always them, you know, I always let them in
19:38
Speaker 5: and try to answer all their questions and help them
19:41
Speaker 5: in and to.
19:44
Speaker 1: Like a citizen would, because you wanted to have this
19:46
Speaker 1: crime sol Nobody wants to have a killer around their neighborhood.
19:48
Speaker 1: And also any any person who's got any sort of
19:52
Speaker 1: conscience would want to help. Anybody would want to help
19:55
Speaker 1: the police. But I think it's important for people to
19:58
Speaker 1: know and listen to you. Hopefully they'll they'll they'll understand
20:02
Speaker 1: what I try to drive home all the time, which
20:04
Speaker 1: is that if you're if they're telling you you're a suspect,
20:07
Speaker 1: you need to get a lawyer and then stop talking
20:09
Speaker 1: and don't talk. Don't speak outside the presence of your
20:11
Speaker 1: lawyer because they'll trick you into all sorts of stuff.
20:14
Speaker 1: But in your case, your lawyer didn't help at all.
20:17
Speaker 1: And let's talk about that. How did you find this lawyer?
20:22
Speaker 1: Who was it in the phone?
20:25
Speaker 5: Her name is red Becca Morrell?
20:29
Speaker 1: And where did where did she come from? She is?
20:32
Speaker 5: Uh, he was a court appointed attorney from Shepherdsville, Kentucky.
20:40
Speaker 5: I've never heard of her besolo, but that's who they
20:43
Speaker 5: appointed from my lawyers, and they may as well and
20:47
Speaker 5: have appointed my dog to be the lawyer. Wow, it
20:50
Speaker 5: would have been better.
20:52
Speaker 1: Wow.
20:53
Speaker 5: She she told she came to jail a couple of
20:56
Speaker 5: times to talk to me, and she said, frankly, I
20:58
Speaker 5: don't believe he either. So I was danged.
21:04
Speaker 1: I mean, it's unimaginable. She that's got to be a
21:07
Speaker 1: violation of of all sorts of I think, yeah, I
21:14
Speaker 1: mean it's I mean, it's I was gonna say I've
21:17
Speaker 1: never heard of anything like this.
21:19
Speaker 5: She stood down to the judge and told the judge, Hey,
21:22
Speaker 5: you need to get her somebody else. She didn't do that.
21:26
Speaker 1: No, she she worked.
21:27
Speaker 5: With She worked with the prosecutor, and she worked with
21:30
Speaker 5: the officers. Uh.
21:32
Speaker 1: And that, yeah, she literally sold you down the river.
21:38
Speaker 1: And and and it's similar to if anyone saw making a murderer,
21:42
Speaker 1: which a lot of people did that are listeners. They've
21:45
Speaker 1: seen a similar situation in the case of Brendan Dacy,
21:50
Speaker 1: where his one of his team was literally just a
21:53
Speaker 1: just an extension of the the prosecutors and the police.
21:57
Speaker 1: Is so disgusting and sad to watch. And your situation
22:02
Speaker 1: is really not much different. So now here you are,
22:05
Speaker 1: you're in jail, everything's closing in on you. You're facing
22:09
Speaker 1: all this different hardship in every way. I mean, I
22:15
Speaker 1: read what you said about your dog as well, and
22:18
Speaker 1: it broke my heart on top of everything else. I mean,
22:22
Speaker 1: I don't know if you even want to go back there,
22:24
Speaker 1: but if you want to tell the story you can.
22:27
Speaker 5: Well it's really sad. I had a dog named Cecyk,
22:32
Speaker 5: big Australian Shepherd lad and aix and he's just a
22:36
Speaker 5: big speckled pup. And then I had a little copper
22:39
Speaker 5: spaniel puppy to His name was Charlie. And anybody knows
22:43
Speaker 5: me knows where the animal lover I am. And I
22:47
Speaker 5: had ducks and chickens and beese and a horse and
22:49
Speaker 5: all that. And when I went to jail, I didn't
22:53
Speaker 5: have anybody to come take care of them for me.
22:58
Speaker 5: It's kind of a lot to ask anybody care of
23:00
Speaker 5: all that. And the home was found for my horse,
23:05
Speaker 5: and the home was found for my copper spaniel, but
23:08
Speaker 5: nobody come and get my dog. Sees the cue. And
23:12
Speaker 5: she stayed there on that porch for like three months
23:16
Speaker 5: while I was in jail. She didn't know whether Mama
23:19
Speaker 5: was and why Mama left or anything. She ate at
23:24
Speaker 5: the next door neighbor's house, but she'd been doing that
23:26
Speaker 5: for years anyway, so she was getting fed. The rest
23:30
Speaker 5: of the time. She was like on a porch for
23:32
Speaker 5: me to come home. And ended up a friend of
23:35
Speaker 5: mine went and daught her and kept her fruit as
23:38
Speaker 5: long as she could and then had to have her
23:40
Speaker 5: put down. And she's a very sad situation. Todd Harwood,
23:45
Speaker 5: he didn't just hurt me. He hurt so many other
23:48
Speaker 5: people too. He hurt not only my animals, but he
23:51
Speaker 5: hurt cops. He hurt good cops. I mean he's really
23:58
Speaker 5: anything he has anything to do with the spirit career.
24:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he's just it's just a shame because,
24:05
Speaker 1: like I said, I grew up like you and like
24:08
Speaker 1: I think anyone else pretty much, you know, thinking. I mean,
24:12
Speaker 1: I thought about wanting to become a cop. You know,
24:14
Speaker 1: like it's you. You look up when you're a child
24:16
Speaker 1: to people in uniform, and you want to be able
24:18
Speaker 1: to believe that they're there to do good and too
24:21
Speaker 1: and to help you. And that's that's where you thought
24:23
Speaker 1: you were supposed to help a cop.
24:25
Speaker 5: And a cop ask you a questions, you sposed to
24:27
Speaker 5: answered dracefully and and help them. I know that's how
24:30
Speaker 5: I give information. I'm sure that I was telling the
24:34
Speaker 5: trees and he just didn't care. He was determined he
24:37
Speaker 5: was going to put me away whether I did it
24:40
Speaker 5: or not. And he did, and he got his promotion
24:43
Speaker 5: and he got his pay raise.
24:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's another it's another horrible aspect of
24:52
Speaker 1: the story. He ends up getting promoted to lieutenant or
24:54
Speaker 1: something like that, and you know, it's it's just I
24:58
Speaker 1: don't understand how people sleep at night. I really don't.
25:01
Speaker 1: But yeah, great, that's really great. Like I said, I
25:06
Speaker 1: don't know how. And there's and there's a special no idea,
25:11
Speaker 1: there's a special place in hell for people like that.
25:13
Speaker 1: But that's so so back to the story. So there
25:18
Speaker 1: you are in jail, going through this literal nightmare that
25:23
Speaker 1: is unimaginable to anybody, including me, even you know, even
25:27
Speaker 1: being so steeped in the knowledge of these things, I
25:30
Speaker 1: don't think anybody could imagine what you went through that
25:32
Speaker 1: they've been there. And uh, and now you have this
25:36
Speaker 1: lawyer who's working against you. You had no chance, I mean,
25:44
Speaker 1: so you had no help. And so at some point
25:50
Speaker 1: your only option you had these uh, these people telling
25:53
Speaker 1: you were facing a death penalty or life in prison
25:56
Speaker 1: or whatever it was going to be. And at some
26:02
Speaker 1: point you made a decision that's like, it's almost like
26:05
Speaker 1: Sophie's choice, right, you had to You decided to take
26:08
Speaker 1: an Alphred plead And can you explain how that came down?
26:10
Speaker 1: And what does that mean?
26:13
Speaker 5: Well, an Alford play means that you are the main
26:18
Speaker 5: you know, remain confident that I didn't do it, and
26:22
Speaker 5: I'm gonna admit to that because I didn't do it.
26:25
Speaker 5: That the alpha plea means that there's evidence that you
26:30
Speaker 5: think might lead a jury to think and you're guilty.
26:34
Speaker 5: And my lawyer told me nothing. She told me nothing
26:37
Speaker 5: about the Alpha play. I learned about the alf polea
26:41
Speaker 5: from the girls in the sale with me, So you
26:46
Speaker 5: had and thank Dennis, I took the Alfred play.
26:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank goodness for that, because otherwise you would have
26:53
Speaker 1: ended up going to trial and get been most likely
26:56
Speaker 1: getting convicted in spite of the fact that there was
26:58
Speaker 1: an overwhelming evidence. If you're in this is if no
27:00
Speaker 1: one was going to present it, you would have had
27:03
Speaker 1: a really tough road to go because you know, you
27:08
Speaker 1: would hope that a jury even still would take one
27:10
Speaker 1: look at you and go, wait a minute, this is impossible.
27:12
Speaker 1: But if I don't think anyone would want to take
27:14
Speaker 1: their chances in the situation that you were in. And
27:16
Speaker 1: now the story gets go ahead, Go no, I was
27:21
Speaker 1: gonna say, and then the story is about to get
27:23
Speaker 1: even weirder. But tell us what you were about to
27:25
Speaker 1: tell us.
27:25
Speaker 5: Anyway, Sometimes I forget what I'm talking about.
27:30
Speaker 1: The middle thing, Okay, So so we'll come back to it.
27:33
Speaker 1: But okay, so now, okay, yeah, we'll cut that out. Okay,
27:40
Speaker 1: So now something really crazy happens, which is where well yeah,
27:53
Speaker 1: but let me let me start here. Let me just
27:54
Speaker 1: introduce this by saying, so, now we're going to fast
27:57
Speaker 1: forward about four years to May twenty twelve, and what
28:03
Speaker 1: happened in May twenty twelve, You're not even ready for them,
28:06
Speaker 1: whoever is listening. So in May twenty twelve, a Louisville
28:10
Speaker 1: Metro Police narcotics detective named Baron Morgan was interrogating a
28:15
Speaker 1: serial killer named Richard Durrell Junior about an attempted murder charge.
28:20
Speaker 1: He had fired a shotgun into the home of a
28:22
Speaker 1: confidential police informant, which is really something that's right out
28:26
Speaker 1: of a movie. And Darrell offered to provide information on
28:30
Speaker 1: unsolved crimes in return for leniency for his brother, who
28:33
Speaker 1: was facing federal drug charges drug charges in Arkansas. And
28:39
Speaker 1: I'll just continue for a minute. And in later in interrogation,
28:43
Speaker 1: Jarrell confessed to murdering Breeden as well as committing two
28:48
Speaker 1: other murders. Jarrell said he killed Breeden on the day
28:52
Speaker 1: Jarrell turned twenty one October twenty six, nineteen ninety eight,
28:54
Speaker 1: the same day that Breden disappeared. He also told the
28:58
Speaker 1: police that Breden had solen twenty dollars from him the
29:00
Speaker 1: day before and used it to buy crack cocaine. Darrell said,
29:03
Speaker 1: and I'm reading this part, that he went to Breden's
29:05
Speaker 1: trailer and found him smoking cocaine, which was consistent with
29:08
Speaker 1: autopsy findings that Breeden had cocaine in his blood. So
29:12
Speaker 1: on the day Breeden disappeared, Darrell said, he picked up
29:16
Speaker 1: Breeden under the guys are driving to his father's Jaderell's
29:19
Speaker 1: father's home to celebrate Jarell's birthday. And it goes on
29:23
Speaker 1: and on. But he knew everything there was to know
29:28
Speaker 1: about where the body was, how it got there, what
29:31
Speaker 1: he had done during the day. He knew the amount
29:33
Speaker 1: of money he had taken out of the bank. He
29:35
Speaker 1: knew every possible detail. He couldn't have if he had
29:39
Speaker 1: produced a videotape of himself doing this, it wouldn't have
29:42
Speaker 1: been any more solid than what he provided to this detective.
29:47
Speaker 1: And this detective, you know.
29:49
Speaker 5: He even told the detectives where he had thrown some
29:52
Speaker 5: of the murder weapons, some of the guns and they
29:54
Speaker 5: went to the price that he tells him about, and
29:57
Speaker 5: they got divers and went in and they found him.
30:01
Speaker 1: Ok, donkey, there you go. What do you know? So
30:04
Speaker 1: this guy, he gave them an actual map and a
30:08
Speaker 1: thing and all the information that they needed was right there.
30:14
Speaker 1: So this detective Baron Morgan and you talk about how
30:17
Speaker 1: they're good cops out there, and I talk about how
30:18
Speaker 1: they're good cops. And this guy's I mean, from everything
30:21
Speaker 1: we know about him, is a damn good cop. And
30:23
Speaker 1: he did what he should have done, which is that
30:26
Speaker 1: he called Harwood and he said something. We don't know
30:29
Speaker 1: exactly what that conversation sounded like, but we know he
30:31
Speaker 1: called him and said, hey, buddy, I think he got
30:34
Speaker 1: the wrong answer, the wrong outcome, because Susan King had
30:38
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this, because I got your guy
30:39
Speaker 1: right here, right.
30:41
Speaker 5: That's right.
30:42
Speaker 1: And at that point one would think that this Harwood
30:45
Speaker 1: guy would go, ah, shit, the jagg is up. Well,
30:49
Speaker 1: all right, I gotta admit it, but I already got
30:51
Speaker 1: my promotion and I'll probably be all right. But that's
30:53
Speaker 1: not what he did. In fact, he decided that he
30:57
Speaker 1: would interview Jirell himself, and he recorded Darrell saying, oh,
31:05
Speaker 1: this is this is where it gets really weird. Right,
31:07
Speaker 1: So he interviewed Darrell, after which Darrell changed his story
31:10
Speaker 1: and recanted his confession, which it was too late to
31:13
Speaker 1: recant because he knew all the details. It would have
31:14
Speaker 1: been impossible for him to know. And mysteriously, Harwood said,
31:18
Speaker 1: the tape of this, because he did tape record this interview, disappeared.
31:23
Speaker 1: He said, the tape disappeared mysteriously amazing. Yeah, I mean
31:29
Speaker 1: I just got to take a second to process that.
31:32
Speaker 5: You know, it's kind of like it just disappears.
31:38
Speaker 1: It's kind of like magic. Yeah. So but meanwhile, there
31:42
Speaker 1: were tape recordings of the detailed description of a confession
31:45
Speaker 1: and everything else, right, so that that must have helped.
31:51
Speaker 1: And so what happens now you're not even aware of
31:56
Speaker 1: this at the time you're in prison.
32:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, that one day they called my name over the
32:02
Speaker 5: intercom and I thought, well, now what was I that,
32:05
Speaker 5: you know? And they called me down there and it
32:09
Speaker 5: was the Instance Project projects that the Answer Project, and
32:13
Speaker 5: they told me about the confession. And I told you,
32:18
Speaker 5: how about making somebody's day?
32:20
Speaker 1: You want to hear about that? Well, what was your reaction
32:23
Speaker 1: when they told you that.
32:25
Speaker 5: Oh, I just dropped the head down and cried. I said,
32:29
Speaker 5: I remember I raised my head at that's a couple
32:32
Speaker 5: of minutes. That's the Maybe now they're believe in me.
32:44
Speaker 1: And who who from the Innocence Project, the Kentucky this
32:47
Speaker 1: Is Project came And I know people had a lot
32:49
Speaker 1: of different innocence projects, but I want to meet and
32:51
Speaker 1: shake the hands of people that did this for you
32:54
Speaker 1: and send them a check.
32:55
Speaker 5: And the Smith is one of them, Linda Smith one
33:00
Speaker 5: her and then she had a couple of law students
33:03
Speaker 5: with her that day. Well, they were with her through
33:06
Speaker 5: the whole my whole thing. They were right there with me.
33:11
Speaker 5: So you got wonderful thing.
33:14
Speaker 1: So I'm picturing you now in that little room in
33:16
Speaker 1: the prison with your head down crying, and then you
33:19
Speaker 1: lift your head back up. And now now what happens.
33:22
Speaker 5: Well, I figured I'd be going home three things, but
33:26
Speaker 5: they they the confessionant nothing, They wouldn't. They didn't let
33:30
Speaker 5: me out early at all. They made me do my
33:33
Speaker 5: whole sentence and then asked that I had to go
33:38
Speaker 5: back through the court system to prove that I was innocent,
33:42
Speaker 5: which I did, but they knew that I was in
33:46
Speaker 5: I did almost a year prison after the confession, and
33:52
Speaker 5: after that confession, they should have let me out.
33:54
Speaker 1: They obviously should have let you out, but they didn't.
33:56
Speaker 1: They kept you in there. Anyway, I'm not really sure
33:58
Speaker 1: I even understand how that happen happened. But but and
34:04
Speaker 1: then the day you walked out, you still walked out
34:10
Speaker 1: under this cloud of having a conviction for it was
34:15
Speaker 1: a manslaughter murder, Yeah, murder. Still come out as a
34:18
Speaker 1: convicted murderer. But you have the Kentucky Inness's Project on
34:22
Speaker 1: your side. And then things started to change, but they
34:25
Speaker 1: took its still a couple of twists and turns that
34:28
Speaker 1: are really worth looking at because after the Inns Project,
34:33
Speaker 1: lawyers presented the evidence that during the grand jury investigation,
34:36
Speaker 1: which we know now, two different grand jurors had asked
34:39
Speaker 1: Hardwood how you know how he could have how this
34:41
Speaker 1: could have happened with a one legged woman, And we
34:45
Speaker 1: know that he evaded all the questions and all this
34:47
Speaker 1: other stuff. Right, But in twenty twelve, in October, the
34:51
Speaker 1: motion to vacate the guilty plea was denied by Circuit
34:54
Speaker 1: Court Judge Charles Hickman, and he said, and this is
34:59
Speaker 1: worth quoting He said that while Jarrell had presented knowledge
35:03
Speaker 1: of quote a startling level of details about Breeden's murder,
35:09
Speaker 1: the law barred him from granting emotion for a new
35:12
Speaker 1: trial because King you Susan had pled guilty, which is
35:17
Speaker 1: really like some double Jeopardy wackiness there too, right, So
35:20
Speaker 1: it's almost like he's saying, Okay, it doesn't matter that
35:23
Speaker 1: you're innocent, because we tricked you into pleading guilty. Yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: which is a wacky I don't think. I'm sure I'm
35:33
Speaker 1: scratching my head. I'm sure a lot of other people
35:35
Speaker 1: are too.
35:36
Speaker 5: But you know, I always had faith even though the
35:39
Speaker 5: cops was doing me wrong and I was getting fined.
35:44
Speaker 5: Always damn deeps in my heart, I thought, well, the
35:48
Speaker 5: judge is not going to do this to me. The
35:51
Speaker 5: judge is going to see fear. All is well, he
35:55
Speaker 5: didn't even look at me much less see through you anything.
36:00
Speaker 5: And wow, court appointed lawyer with Becca Morell and the
36:06
Speaker 5: prosecutor and officer a Hardwood, We're all standing there with
36:14
Speaker 5: their arms around each other, pat and each other's back
36:17
Speaker 5: and laughing. And you know that wasn't funny.
36:22
Speaker 1: No, I mean, you're you're an incredibly strong woman, I mean,
36:26
Speaker 1: how you can even get out of bed in the
36:29
Speaker 1: morning and you know, put a smile on your face
36:32
Speaker 1: like time to time is good to hear you laughing.
36:34
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just you got all my respect. That's
36:37
Speaker 1: all I can say about that. And it's awesome that
36:40
Speaker 1: you're here, and then I really appreciate it. So now
36:43
Speaker 1: things take finally a better turn in twenty fourteen because
36:50
Speaker 1: in July twenty fourteen, the Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of
36:54
Speaker 1: Appeals reverse the decision of the judge who wouldn't look
36:57
Speaker 1: at you, Judge Hickman, and they vacated your guilty plea
37:02
Speaker 1: in order to do trial because they said that based
37:06
Speaker 1: on the evidence of actual innocence, you were entitled to
37:09
Speaker 1: a new trial. Now that would seem like a third
37:11
Speaker 1: grader would be able to figure that out, But okay,
37:14
Speaker 1: they figured it out, and then on October seventh, only
37:19
Speaker 1: a few months later, they dismissed all the charges. And
37:25
Speaker 1: now we come to another phase of this, right, because
37:28
Speaker 1: there's two more things that really need everyone's attention. Right,
37:34
Speaker 1: because in twenty fifteen. A year later, October twenty fifteen,
37:39
Speaker 1: you filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Harwood and
37:42
Speaker 1: other police officers, which would seem like a no brainer.
37:45
Speaker 1: But it was dismissed in twenty sixteen, and I can't
37:53
Speaker 1: even imagine, I mean, because there's never been to my knowledge,
38:00
Speaker 1: they may have been, but I don't know about it
38:01
Speaker 1: a clearer cut case of official misconduct. And that's really
38:07
Speaker 1: a nice way of saying it. I mean, it's just
38:10
Speaker 1: the most like you said, it's the most magically terrible
38:15
Speaker 1: uh frame job that that anyone like literally sus if
38:21
Speaker 1: somebody put your story. You realize this, if someone put
38:23
Speaker 1: your story in a Hollywood script, nobody would believe it.
38:25
Speaker 1: Like people would be like, no, go back and rewrite that.
38:29
Speaker 1: I could picture somebody said, re write that. No one's
38:31
Speaker 1: gonna lie it. Don't believe this is ridiculous, but it's true.
38:34
Speaker 5: So I've got an excellent attorney right now. It's like
38:37
Speaker 5: I have an excellent team of attorneys. I've got the
38:41
Speaker 5: bitch from Kentucky.
38:42
Speaker 1: Who do you? Who do you have let's give him
38:44
Speaker 1: a shout out.
38:46
Speaker 5: Oh well, I have Thomas Clay and David Ward uh huh.
38:50
Speaker 5: And then there's some of their associates and I don't
38:55
Speaker 5: know what their names.
38:57
Speaker 1: They're not excellent, excellent, excellent.
39:02
Speaker 5: My life's going to be I'll be treated fairly.
39:06
Speaker 1: Well. And and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. We
39:09
Speaker 1: ought to this point because in March twenty seventeen, the
39:12
Speaker 1: Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit, which is
39:17
Speaker 1: interesting too because that's a very conservative court. But even
39:20
Speaker 1: they were able to say, hey, you know what, this
39:23
Speaker 1: is just not okay. And meanwhile, there's another aspect to
39:29
Speaker 1: this too. And I'm going to be following your case
39:31
Speaker 1: and rooting you right across the finish line, and I'll
39:35
Speaker 1: be here to help you any way that I can.
39:37
Speaker 1: And I hope that we'll get a chance to meet
39:39
Speaker 1: and develop a friendship as I have with so many
39:43
Speaker 1: other extraordinary people Axannais over the years. But there's also
39:51
Speaker 1: another aspect to this, which is another really sinister thing
39:55
Speaker 1: that I want to share with the audience, which goes
39:58
Speaker 1: back to the police officer was at Morgan, right, who
40:05
Speaker 1: actually tried to do the right thing, and and what
40:09
Speaker 1: happened with him was that he was demoted. Right, So
40:14
Speaker 1: this story is actually the one. Oh really, I didn't
40:18
Speaker 1: know that, so tell me rich Rich Pearson.
40:21
Speaker 5: He was demoted as well, and he was an excellent cop.
40:28
Speaker 5: He was a good person. He's a Christian, Nanti and Shank.
40:37
Speaker 1: So detective Baron Morgan who came forward. Uh he didn't
40:43
Speaker 1: didn't have to, I guess right. He could have just
40:46
Speaker 1: gone on with his life. But he came forward and
40:49
Speaker 1: you know, did did what any good officer of law
40:53
Speaker 1: would do and shared the information that he had discovered
40:57
Speaker 1: of who actually killed reading and uh and he was
41:04
Speaker 1: assigned to I think it was the night that the
41:07
Speaker 1: graveyard shift desk duty, right And and why why did
41:11
Speaker 1: they do that, Susan?
41:15
Speaker 5: Well, because he told the trees and it was gonna
41:18
Speaker 5: make them all look like they were wrong, because they
41:21
Speaker 5: were wrong.
41:24
Speaker 1: And what about the other guy that you were just
41:26
Speaker 1: talking about who also was demoted. What was his involvement
41:29
Speaker 1: because he hasn't come up in the store yet.
41:31
Speaker 5: He was I believe, if I'm correct, he was Baron
41:37
Speaker 5: Morgan's balls. I think.
41:42
Speaker 1: So he stood by him, right, uh huh.
41:45
Speaker 5: And he talked with the Innocence Project too himself.
41:50
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so they actually that's to the top.
41:54
Speaker 5: I was telling you that there is in this.
41:55
Speaker 1: World, right, So they weren't willing to to tow the
42:00
Speaker 1: line and just you know, hide and obscure the truth
42:04
Speaker 1: and do everything else that they would.
42:11
Speaker 5: Two officers for doing the right thing. They really treated
42:15
Speaker 5: him badly.
42:17
Speaker 1: Right, and so yeah, what happened is that, you know,
42:24
Speaker 1: I'm actually going back to my research and it says
42:27
Speaker 1: here that in connection with your case, Harwood Superior Commissioner
42:32
Speaker 1: Rodney Brewer complained to the Louisville PD chief and longtime
42:39
Speaker 1: friend Steve Conrad, that Detective Morgan was meddling in a
42:42
Speaker 1: state police case. Police case, he was meddling in a
42:45
Speaker 1: case by identifying the actual killer. That's an interesting definition
42:48
Speaker 1: of meddling. And so Conrad then transferred Morgan to the
42:53
Speaker 1: graveyard shift as a patrol officer. Now the happy ending
42:57
Speaker 1: to that part of the story, if there could be
42:58
Speaker 1: such a thing, is that more ensued under the you know,
43:04
Speaker 1: saying that the assignment change was punishment for bringing Gerald's
43:08
Speaker 1: confession to light. And he actually did finally receive a
43:13
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty thousand dollars settlement. So good for him,
43:18
Speaker 1: you know what, I hope he uh, I hope he
43:22
Speaker 1: is enjoying the money and that he's living a happy life.
43:25
Speaker 1: Whatever he's doing. I don't know if he's still on
43:27
Speaker 1: the force or not, but I wish him well. I
43:29
Speaker 1: wish there were more people like him out there, and
43:31
Speaker 1: I know there are.
43:32
Speaker 5: Well, that's chief the police. What's his name again? The
43:37
Speaker 5: chief was Steve Conrad, Conrad, Steve Conrad. That's why I
43:41
Speaker 5: could out thank you his name or nothing. And I
43:44
Speaker 5: should have known, what's my own? Because he went out
43:47
Speaker 5: of his way and make sure nothing's covered up and
43:50
Speaker 5: the trucks didn't get out. It's just as guilty as
43:52
Speaker 5: the rest of them.
43:54
Speaker 1: It's it's it's an unbelievable conspiracy. And it's made to
43:58
Speaker 1: me even another layer of evil, the idea that they
44:03
Speaker 1: would do this to you, you know, a woman of
44:09
Speaker 1: humble means, who already is facing an uphill battle due
44:13
Speaker 1: to your injury or your disability, and and that like
44:18
Speaker 1: the fact that they are totally fine with, you know,
44:23
Speaker 1: perpetrating this horrendous injustice on you. Meanwhile, not, of course,
44:29
Speaker 1: we all know that when you convict the wrong person,
44:32
Speaker 1: which they knew they were doing, you ignore the right person,
44:35
Speaker 1: and this guy, you know, went out and killed other people.
44:40
Speaker 1: Had they done their job, I don't know if they
44:41
Speaker 1: would have caught him or not, but at least they
44:43
Speaker 1: would have had a chance, and maybe they could have
44:44
Speaker 1: saved some other people's lives who didn't need to die
44:46
Speaker 1: in the first place. So yeah, as you said, there's
44:49
Speaker 1: a lot of victims in this story.
44:51
Speaker 5: There are a lot of victims in this story. And
44:55
Speaker 5: there's a lot of villains in this story. Because what
44:58
Speaker 5: happened to make can happen to anybody.
45:01
Speaker 1: And that's I want and I want everyone to know that.
45:02
Speaker 1: And I also want to give another shout out to
45:04
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Innis's Project, and I hope that people will
45:07
Speaker 1: will donate, uh and get involved and go to the
45:10
Speaker 1: Kentucky Innis's Project website and and help because the great
45:14
Speaker 1: work that they did in Susan's case, I'm sure there
45:16
Speaker 1: are many many other examples, and I want to get
45:18
Speaker 1: to know more about their work. So, so, Susan, for you,
45:21
Speaker 1: now you have your lawsuit pending. The courts have said
45:26
Speaker 1: that you can only sue Hardwood, right, They're not even
45:30
Speaker 1: letting you sue anybody else. Is that's still the state
45:33
Speaker 1: of affairs that we're in.
45:35
Speaker 5: It still is. I don't understand that, but that's where
45:39
Speaker 5: it is.
45:40
Speaker 1: But at least you're suing him, and that'll feel good
45:42
Speaker 1: to uh to win that, and I know you will
45:44
Speaker 1: because now you have the dream team on your side,
45:46
Speaker 1: like you said, and you have overwhelming you have overwhelming evidence.
45:50
Speaker 1: So I'm very hazy.
45:52
Speaker 5: You know what would make me happy?
45:55
Speaker 1: Tell me.
45:57
Speaker 5: I'd watch for as I would to be arrested and
46:03
Speaker 5: take him to the hospital and handcuffed to the bed
46:07
Speaker 5: with his feet in his arms and tortured all night
46:12
Speaker 5: while and thrown in county jail for nineteen months and
46:16
Speaker 5: then thrown in but stay prison for four more years,
46:22
Speaker 5: which would be a total of six and a half years.
46:24
Speaker 5: That's what I'd like to see happened to him. He
46:27
Speaker 5: needs to be done just the way he had me done,
46:31
Speaker 5: and nothing less.
46:32
Speaker 1: It's going to make me happy, Yeah, I can't. I
46:38
Speaker 1: don't think anyone can fault you for feeling that way,
46:41
Speaker 1: and I'm certainly not going to.
46:44
Speaker 5: So Christopher murder and you say you didn't do it,
46:47
Speaker 5: they're really hard on you. I mean, I had I
46:50
Speaker 5: wasn't a bad looking girl when I got locked up.
46:53
Speaker 5: I had pretty smile, all my pretty white teeth, and
46:56
Speaker 5: I was attably proud of him, and that Dennis and
46:59
Speaker 5: all that massa prison. They've ruined my teeth. I've got
47:02
Speaker 5: five teeth left, and that's it. And that's just, you know,
47:05
Speaker 5: the teeth is just one thing, you know, stuff that
47:08
Speaker 5: happens to your body while you're in there, Stuff that
47:11
Speaker 5: happens to your mind, and your emotional steak while you're
47:14
Speaker 5: in there, and your mental steak. It's overwhelming to wake
47:21
Speaker 5: up every day and you're still there and you didn't
47:24
Speaker 5: do it, and nobody believes you. And that's a long
47:28
Speaker 5: Six and a half years is a long time.
47:31
Speaker 1: It is a long time. And I have seen pictures
47:33
Speaker 1: of you and you were and you still are a
47:35
Speaker 1: beautiful woman. So they can't take that away from you.
47:39
Speaker 1: So the two last points I want to cover. One
47:46
Speaker 1: is what is your life like now? I know this
47:49
Speaker 1: thing is pending. How are you living? How are you
47:52
Speaker 1: getting by? What can people do to help? That's what
47:55
Speaker 1: I'd like to know, including me.
48:00
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I don't like to complain much. I'm
48:04
Speaker 5: thankful that I'm alive, and then I'm thankful I have
48:06
Speaker 5: over in my head mind job living at one bed
48:10
Speaker 5: dream apartment in the housing projects. It's not in my
48:16
Speaker 5: house and barn and beauty shop and bake reagion, my
48:20
Speaker 5: yard and my animals and everything. It's nothing like that anymore.
48:25
Speaker 5: It's just me and my dog and two cats in
48:27
Speaker 5: a one daydream apartment and we're trying to live on
48:30
Speaker 5: forty five dollars worth a food stands a month.
48:34
Speaker 1: Have you and we're going to help you, for sure,
48:38
Speaker 1: But have you set up any kind of a GoFundMe
48:41
Speaker 1: or any kind of as anybody help you with that,
48:43
Speaker 1: because we can do that as well and try to
48:45
Speaker 1: raise raise money.
48:46
Speaker 5: I don't have the internet or a computer or one
48:50
Speaker 5: of those fancy telephones or anything like that, so I
48:54
Speaker 5: don't know anything about anything like that. And that's everything
48:58
Speaker 5: turned into while I was in prison and I got out,
49:03
Speaker 5: everything gowing to computers and the expensive phones and nobody
49:07
Speaker 5: I'll pump your gas anymore. Things really changed in that
49:11
Speaker 5: six and a half years.
49:13
Speaker 1: So so Susan, what uh? I guess the only thing
49:20
Speaker 1: I want to know now really is what else? Whatever
49:24
Speaker 1: else you want to say? I mean, i'd like to
49:27
Speaker 1: say at this point in the show, First of all,
49:30
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. I mean, your your strength
49:35
Speaker 1: and your courage or just beyond the beyond and Uh,
49:45
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna We're going to do everything we
49:48
Speaker 1: can to help you get back on your feet or
49:52
Speaker 1: get back to just say better, with whatever we can
49:55
Speaker 1: to help you get back some of what you've lost.
50:00
Speaker 5: I get back to normal.
50:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't get you. We can't get you back
50:03
Speaker 1: your time, but.
50:04
Speaker 5: I don't remember what normal was like.
50:07
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see what we can figure out. And then
50:10
Speaker 1: on top of that, this is a part of the
50:12
Speaker 1: show where as we wrap up. I always say it's
50:16
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the show because it's part where
50:17
Speaker 1: I stopped talking and I just listen and and I
50:22
Speaker 1: ask you what what what? What are your final thoughts?
50:26
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you want to share? And
50:29
Speaker 1: you can talk about it anything you want. Take the
50:33
Speaker 1: last few minutes and tell the audience there's probably one
50:37
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people going to hear your voice. What what
50:39
Speaker 1: would you like them to know?
50:43
Speaker 5: Well, there, don't make me nervous about It's okay to
50:50
Speaker 5: you said thousands of people. Ye. Now, you know, I'll
50:57
Speaker 5: laugh because I have to. I got to get through
51:01
Speaker 5: every day. And you know, I feel like with all
51:04
Speaker 5: that prison time I did and all how badly I
51:07
Speaker 5: was treated in there, and everything. It's it's it's hard
51:11
Speaker 5: to talk about. I try to forget it often, kaid.
51:15
Speaker 5: I wish there was a pill I could take that
51:17
Speaker 5: it would just make me forget about all that. But uh,
51:22
Speaker 5: I haven't forgot about it yet, but I'm working on it.
51:25
Speaker 5: I finally quit having nightmares about it. My church helped
51:29
Speaker 5: me a lot to sad. When my Sunday school ladies
51:32
Speaker 5: pray for something, we get it done. And my church
51:37
Speaker 5: has stuck with me through it all, and I'm just
51:41
Speaker 5: so thankful to have that and this little community I'm
51:45
Speaker 5: living in, even though it's my favorite poorhouse, but there's
51:50
Speaker 5: some few decent people here and I've made a couple
51:53
Speaker 5: of friends or so, and life's starting to get better.
52:00
Speaker 5: I don't think I'll never be the same. There's things
52:04
Speaker 5: that that good to me that I'll never get over.
52:06
Speaker 5: Us tutter, I forget what I'm doing, what I'm saying,
52:10
Speaker 5: because they had me on a lot of psycho drugs,
52:15
Speaker 5: I call them. There's a lot of coarsene and real,
52:19
Speaker 5: real strong steps to help me get through that. And
52:22
Speaker 5: they had me in the influence of that stuff so
52:25
Speaker 5: bad I didn't even know who I was half the time,
52:27
Speaker 5: and it took its toll on my brain to this day.
52:32
Speaker 5: You know, I still I eat real fast while somebody's
52:35
Speaker 5: gonna take it away from me and watch over my shoulder.
52:42
Speaker 5: I'm scared to death hard it's gonna murder me. But
52:46
Speaker 5: I don't trust him at all. And he's just that
52:48
Speaker 5: evil that he would sit out here in my apartment
52:53
Speaker 5: complex and wait for me to pass in front of
52:55
Speaker 5: my window, that little red dot on the wall, that
52:59
Speaker 5: light that I'm going to sut out. Sometimes it just
53:02
Speaker 5: scares me to death. And in the evenings wester it
53:08
Speaker 5: gets dark, I turned everything off in my living room
53:11
Speaker 5: the rest of my house, and I go back to
53:13
Speaker 5: my bedroom. I just feel like I feel like I'm
53:17
Speaker 5: an open target for some reason when I'm in my
53:20
Speaker 5: living room and I don't feel safe until I get
53:23
Speaker 5: back there in my bedroom. And that's not normal either.
53:28
Speaker 5: I shouldn't feel that way. And the things that it
53:33
Speaker 5: did to my looks was horrible. Prisons really hard on
53:37
Speaker 5: on your face and able A don't even take care
53:39
Speaker 5: of that anymore. But all the time I miss with
53:43
Speaker 5: my family and my son and my father and my mom.
53:49
Speaker 5: I just missed so many years with them, and that
53:51
Speaker 5: can't be given back, that can't be replace There's just
53:55
Speaker 5: there ain't no getting that back. And I thought learned
54:00
Speaker 5: how to forgive hard Woods for doing this, but it
54:03
Speaker 5: ain't happened yet. But I'm not even asking God very
54:07
Speaker 5: hard to make me forgive him. It's it's not in
54:12
Speaker 5: my heart yet. It's going to have to happen or
54:15
Speaker 5: I ain't getting into heaven. I can still go fishing,
54:18
Speaker 5: but he didn't mess that up.
54:21
Speaker 1: Are you good at it?
54:23
Speaker 5: Yes? I am, Yes, So I am.
54:27
Speaker 1: There you go, there you go, and you still have
54:30
Speaker 1: a great laugh, and you have a great attitude.
54:33
Speaker 5: And uh, you saw me fishing, you laugh too.
54:37
Speaker 1: I guarantee you. I'm from Manhattan. We don't know about
54:39
Speaker 1: fishing here, so I don't know. I'm sure I wouldn't
54:42
Speaker 1: even know what the hell was going on. But that's
54:43
Speaker 1: besides the point. So, Susan, all I can say is,
54:50
Speaker 1: I'm almost never at a loss for words, but I'm
54:54
Speaker 1: basically at a loss for words right now. I don't
54:58
Speaker 1: know what to say except to I just thank yourself.
55:00
Speaker 5: To say about business, well, I.
55:02
Speaker 1: Can tell you what I'll say. All I can say
55:04
Speaker 1: is I'm gonna apologize to you for on behalf of
55:09
Speaker 1: America and the human race for what was done to you,
55:13
Speaker 1: because there's just no excuse for it. And UH, and
55:16
Speaker 1: we're going to do what we can to make it right.
55:19
Speaker 5: And I want to thank one day that Apple really
55:23
Speaker 5: knows that's the hope.
55:25
Speaker 1: As well. I want to thank you again for taking
55:29
Speaker 1: your time and sharing your thoughts with us. And you know,
55:33
Speaker 1: I want to wish you well and I want you
55:36
Speaker 1: to know that we'll be here to help you and
55:38
Speaker 1: support you and UH in any way we can and UH,
55:42
Speaker 1: and I just I wish you well and again thank you,
55:45
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. Well.
55:48
Speaker 5: I hope with me having a stub with you today
55:52
Speaker 5: for people that are here and it maybe it will
55:55
Speaker 5: stop that somebody you it will.
55:58
Speaker 1: You can be confident of that. And now I want
56:01
Speaker 1: to thank the audience as well. You've been listening to
56:04
Speaker 1: an extra special, extraordinary edition of Wrongful Conviction with today's
56:12
Speaker 1: guest Susan King. Don't forget to.
56:19
Speaker 2: Give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
56:22
Speaker 2: It really helps.
56:23
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
56:26
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
56:29
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
56:33
Speaker 1: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
56:36
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
56:39
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
56:42
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
56:45
Speaker 2: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
56:48
Speaker 2: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
56:52
Speaker 2: Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
56:55
Speaker 2: and association with Signal Company Number One.
57:00
Speaker 1: The Wydent, The Wind that the Boy Repeed To,