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#508 Maggie Freleng with Eron Shelman · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Last year, I spoke to Iron Shellman, who served almost
0:04
Speaker 1: thirty one years in prison for a crime he did
0:07
Speaker 1: not commit. When we spoke, prosecutors in Wayne County, Michigan
0:11
Speaker 1: were appealing the court's decision to grant him a new trial,
0:15
Speaker 1: and Eiron didn't know if he would have to go
0:17
Speaker 1: back to prison. Well, I have great news. Earlier this month,
0:22
Speaker 1: Ereon was officially exonerated.
0:24
Speaker 2: It's hard to put in the words how I felt.
0:28
Speaker 2: It actually took a few days to like, let's start sleeping.
0:32
Speaker 2: Then I began to come to the realization, Dad, it's
0:37
Speaker 2: really open. Thirty years later, free.
0:41
Speaker 1: And today we're going to re air my conversation with Eiron.
0:51
Speaker 1: May fourteenth, nineteen ninety two started as a normal Thursday
0:55
Speaker 1: for Iroon Shellman. He called up a few of his
0:57
Speaker 1: buddies to hang, Andre, Floyd and Antonio. Floyd came buying
1:02
Speaker 1: his car, and they all headed out to get haircuts,
1:05
Speaker 1: pick up some liquor, and bounce around Detroit.
1:09
Speaker 3: We had fun, we laughed, we joked. All of those
1:12
Speaker 3: things happened.
1:14
Speaker 1: Eron was driving Floyd's car, with Antonio beside him in
1:17
Speaker 1: the passenger seat and Floyd and Andre in the back.
1:21
Speaker 1: Suddenly he heard a loud.
1:24
Speaker 3: Bang and it startled me to a degree where I
1:27
Speaker 3: almost crashed the car. And as I was trying to
1:30
Speaker 3: stop the car and gain that back, Antonio leaned over
1:36
Speaker 3: and fell into my lap. I had my dearest friend
1:40
Speaker 3: laying in my lap bleeding out the back of his head.
1:44
Speaker 1: Antonio was dead. The man who shot him confessed to
1:47
Speaker 1: police and gave a full statement.
1:50
Speaker 4: And he said, you know, I just I just lost it.
1:53
Speaker 4: I didn't even think about it. I just took the
1:55
Speaker 4: gun and I just shot him.
1:59
Speaker 1: But Ieron was arrested, charged and tried for his murder,
2:03
Speaker 1: and in the end Iran was the one who was convicted.
2:07
Speaker 3: I'm Iron Shelman. I've served thirty years nine months in
2:12
Speaker 3: prison for a first degree murder that I didn't do.
2:18
Speaker 1: From LVA for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
2:20
Speaker 1: Freeling today, Iaron Shellman. Iaron Shellman was born in Detroit
2:36
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two.
2:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I grew up on the inner city Detroit, Michigan.
2:42
Speaker 3: Mother was a Desiree Salman and my father was a
2:46
Speaker 3: Theodore Right. My mother did a bunch of stuff early on.
2:51
Speaker 3: She worked at at and T for a spell, and
2:54
Speaker 3: she worked at Blue Crossing Blue Shield for a spell.
2:57
Speaker 3: My father was in and out of correctional facilities.
3:00
Speaker 5: So your mom pretty much raised you by herself.
3:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, with a handful of cousins and family members
3:07
Speaker 3: and stuff that you know also participated in the rearing
3:10
Speaker 3: of me. I have one sibling, she's ten years younger
3:16
Speaker 3: than I am. I have a host of cousins. They
3:20
Speaker 3: all think that they're my brothers and sisters.
3:26
Speaker 5: How would you describe Aeron overall?
3:29
Speaker 6: I would say, if I had to give it words,
3:31
Speaker 6: gentle giant.
3:32
Speaker 1: Right, this is Eeron's cousin, Sonya Shulman. She's nine years
3:36
Speaker 1: younger than Aaron.
3:38
Speaker 6: Sometimes when you see people who are larger in stature,
3:43
Speaker 6: you have a sense of intimidation, and that has never
3:46
Speaker 6: been that with him because he's always had a very
3:50
Speaker 6: soft voice, and so his words always came out really
3:54
Speaker 6: soft and graceful and kind. But when it was time
3:57
Speaker 6: to be protective, you could hear change, Right, don't do that,
4:01
Speaker 6: put that down. You're gonna get in trouble, you know,
4:03
Speaker 6: those sorts of things. Growing up, it was just like that.
4:07
Speaker 6: So because we have a small yet close knit family,
4:11
Speaker 6: everyone operated in a way that felt in a protective.
4:15
Speaker 3: Measure sort of way.
4:16
Speaker 6: So the older cousins or you know, of that nature
4:20
Speaker 6: hovered over all of the younger ones such as myself,
4:23
Speaker 6: in a way that felt very brotherly and sisterly.
4:29
Speaker 3: Yeah. My grandfather, you know, he would give us a
4:32
Speaker 3: few dollars every weekend and we would all pile into
4:35
Speaker 3: city bus and catch the bus downtown and watch kom
4:39
Speaker 3: Fu movies when we were children.
4:40
Speaker 5: What movies do you remember, Oh.
4:42
Speaker 3: We watched all of all of the Komfu movies at
4:45
Speaker 3: the Fox. You know, we were kids, like late seventies,
4:48
Speaker 3: early eighties. It was fans of the guys with the
4:52
Speaker 3: rings firstly.
4:53
Speaker 5: That's who it was, right, Okay.
4:55
Speaker 3: Yes, there you go.
5:00
Speaker 1: Although his extended family was always there for him, Iron's
5:04
Speaker 1: home life was unstable.
5:07
Speaker 3: You know, again, I'm pretty young, but you know, all
5:10
Speaker 3: signs showed that, you know, it was drug abuse and
5:14
Speaker 3: those types of things that were happening in the home.
5:18
Speaker 1: Aron spent less and less time at home, more and
5:21
Speaker 1: more time out in the streets. Before long he was
5:24
Speaker 1: starting to get in trouble.
5:27
Speaker 3: You know, typical story as as a household deteriorates and
5:31
Speaker 3: you know, it's no real real person that's making you
5:36
Speaker 3: do this or making you do that. You know, so
5:38
Speaker 3: you tend to start running with people that you should.
5:42
Speaker 5: And so what was that in your neighborhood? What was
5:45
Speaker 5: going on? It was?
5:47
Speaker 3: It was a lot. It just was. It was, you know,
5:50
Speaker 3: guys that did this and guys that did that, drug dealing,
5:54
Speaker 3: you know, breaking in houses. I was away a lot,
5:58
Speaker 3: you know, juve our delinquency, youth homes, training schools and such.
6:05
Speaker 5: How much of your childhood do you think you spent
6:08
Speaker 5: in some sort of facility or incarceration.
6:13
Speaker 3: I'm fifty one years old, and last I tried to
6:18
Speaker 3: do the math. I think I may have spent maybe
6:22
Speaker 3: fourteen years free.
6:24
Speaker 1: Do you think growing up with your dad in prison
6:27
Speaker 1: had any effective on how you kind of chose to
6:31
Speaker 1: live your life?
6:32
Speaker 3: Must have, right, Like you know, like my grandfather, he
6:36
Speaker 3: chipped in, he did the best he could. He worked
6:38
Speaker 3: a lot and such, but he come by every day
6:40
Speaker 3: and check on me and spend a few minutes with
6:43
Speaker 3: me a day. But for a child like me, and
6:46
Speaker 3: you know that was going through all that type of
6:48
Speaker 3: family drama, you kind of want a strong individual. You
6:54
Speaker 3: long for a father figure right to teach you, you know,
6:58
Speaker 3: what not to do and what to do.
7:01
Speaker 5: So you have these friends, you're kind of living this
7:04
Speaker 5: little bit of street life getting into some trouble. Can
7:08
Speaker 5: you tell me about your relationship with Andre Rice and
7:10
Speaker 5: Antonio Knight?
7:12
Speaker 3: Both of them was real good friends of mine personally,
7:16
Speaker 3: Like we grew up as like really really good friends
7:19
Speaker 3: at those ages. At the thirteen and fourteen, I lived
7:24
Speaker 3: on a street with Antonio from the age of twelve thirteen.
7:29
Speaker 3: We caught the same bus to school for like many years,
7:33
Speaker 3: I spent I spent nights over their house. I ate
7:36
Speaker 3: at their house, you know, when my mother was kind
7:39
Speaker 3: of going through her things, you know, and we weren't
7:44
Speaker 3: guaranteed to have a home cooked meal there. I would
7:47
Speaker 3: go over Antonio's house and his mother Darlene, and his
7:51
Speaker 3: kind grandmother and them. They would feed me all the time.
7:54
Speaker 5: What was Antonio like?
7:56
Speaker 3: Early on? He was like us pretty much, you know,
8:01
Speaker 3: kid trying to find his way right, trying to figure
8:04
Speaker 3: out which side of the tracks he's going to fall on,
8:07
Speaker 3: you know. And as I would come back to the neighborhood,
8:12
Speaker 3: as I was released from this facility, or I would
8:15
Speaker 3: get a break from that Foster home. I seen the
8:18
Speaker 3: change in it that it shifts. It was never really wholesome,
8:23
Speaker 3: but it stopped being that and more street.
8:28
Speaker 5: And then tell me about Andre. You said you were
8:31
Speaker 5: really close with him.
8:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was kind of like a kid brother. You know.
8:34
Speaker 3: We would go out and dance and like a little
8:37
Speaker 3: like partying and such. You know, nothing really crazy, but
8:42
Speaker 3: you know, he went to school every day and he
8:44
Speaker 3: had a strong mother influence wouldn't allow him. Yeah. Yeah,
8:49
Speaker 3: she was really you know, big with church and you know,
8:52
Speaker 3: and that type of stuff, so she really wouldn't let
8:54
Speaker 3: him veer off too much.
9:00
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen ninety two, Ieron was nineteen years old.
9:05
Speaker 1: He was still hanging out with Andre and Antonio, who
9:08
Speaker 1: also went by the name Tone, as well as some
9:11
Speaker 1: of the other neighborhood guys. One Thursday morning, Aaron decided
9:15
Speaker 1: he needed a haircut and Tone wanted to come along.
9:19
Speaker 1: Eron called up his friend Ken, who ran a barber
9:22
Speaker 1: shop at his house, and Ken said, sure, come on by.
9:26
Speaker 3: So we called Floyd, which was my buddy you know
9:29
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, and he would drive us. So he
9:31
Speaker 3: pulled up and picked me up and we started to
9:36
Speaker 3: accumulate more and more people Ieron.
9:39
Speaker 1: Floyd, Pennington and Andre headed over to Antonio's to pick
9:42
Speaker 1: him up, and Eeron went inside to get him. While
9:45
Speaker 1: he waited, he chatted with Tone's grandmother and little sister.
9:50
Speaker 3: It was really just me being goofy with the kid's sister,
9:54
Speaker 3: and grandmother said something or another to me. You know,
9:58
Speaker 3: y'all be careful, y'all, you know, stay out of trouble.
10:01
Speaker 3: You know. She was big on that type.
10:03
Speaker 1: Of The four of them went over to Ken's and
10:06
Speaker 1: got haircuts, then drove around in Floyd's dodge for most
10:09
Speaker 1: of the day.
10:10
Speaker 3: I don't recall who was sitting where first, but I
10:14
Speaker 3: drove because I didn't drink as much as them. Throughout
10:18
Speaker 3: the day, there was shifting in the seats. We made
10:23
Speaker 3: a couple of stops, including like liquor stores, the barbershop,
10:27
Speaker 3: something to.
10:28
Speaker 4: Eat, and they did at one point stop at Montese
10:33
Speaker 4: Bell's house, so that's Aaron's cousin. They stopped there and
10:39
Speaker 4: chatted for a couple of minutes.
10:41
Speaker 1: This is Rachel Wolf, Aaron's post conviction attorney.
10:45
Speaker 4: Montes said at this time, like hey, guys, like what
10:47
Speaker 4: are you doing? Like where are you going, And that's
10:50
Speaker 4: when Aaron apparently said, we're you take Tone out or
10:54
Speaker 4: we're going to take Tone out.
10:57
Speaker 1: At some point that day, Andre and Antonio they have
11:00
Speaker 1: gotten into some kind of disagreement. But if there was
11:02
Speaker 1: anything wrong between them, Eron was unaware of it.
11:07
Speaker 3: I was in and out of a car, going in
11:09
Speaker 3: and out of cousins house, talked to him back in,
11:13
Speaker 3: so I don't know the full between those two. When
11:17
Speaker 3: we traveled back up towards Antonio's house, it was kind
11:21
Speaker 3: of quiet from Andre, but everyone else was still in
11:25
Speaker 3: the mold that they were in. We laughed, we joked,
11:29
Speaker 3: you know, all of those things happened.
11:32
Speaker 1: Eron was driving with Antonio in the passenger seat beside him,
11:36
Speaker 1: Floyd was sitting in the back seat behind Tone, and
11:39
Speaker 1: Andre was sitting behind Iron. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ieron
11:44
Speaker 1: heard a loud bang.
11:51
Speaker 3: And it startled me to a degree where I almost
11:54
Speaker 3: crashed the car. And as I was trying to stop
11:57
Speaker 3: the car and gain that back, Antonio leaned over and
12:02
Speaker 3: fell into my lap. I looked back, I seen the
12:06
Speaker 3: faces of Floyd and Andre, and I had my my
12:11
Speaker 3: my dearest friend laying in my lap, bleeding out the
12:14
Speaker 3: back of his head.
12:16
Speaker 5: Do you remember if anyone was like, what the hell
12:18
Speaker 5: just happened? Like what did you do?
12:21
Speaker 3: I don't know if anyone really screamed out. I really don't.
12:24
Speaker 3: I think it was what now, right? I think I
12:29
Speaker 3: think that that's that's the emotion. What now? Like you
12:32
Speaker 3: know what to do? What what happens? Now? Right?
12:37
Speaker 5: So what did you do?
12:38
Speaker 3: I drove? I stopped here. I stopped there, and before
12:44
Speaker 3: long we were in an alley, uh like maybe two
12:50
Speaker 3: three blocks away. They told me to stop. The gun
12:53
Speaker 3: was still in his hand, you know, it was pull
12:55
Speaker 3: over here. Stopped the car.
12:59
Speaker 4: Andre and Floyd pulled Antonio's body out of the car
13:03
Speaker 4: and left it there in the alley, and then Eron drove.
13:09
Speaker 3: I was just so scared, you know. I didn't want
13:13
Speaker 3: to be the one that was labeled to snitch or
13:17
Speaker 3: any of that.
13:19
Speaker 4: So they found the body in the alleyway. I believe
13:23
Speaker 4: somebody who ran a shop nearby in the area found
13:26
Speaker 4: the body in the alley and called the police.
13:31
Speaker 1: An autopsy showed that Tone had died of a single
13:34
Speaker 1: gunshot wound to the back of his head. Almost immediately,
13:37
Speaker 1: the Detroit police were out looking for the killer, and
13:41
Speaker 1: a number of suspects were rounded up for questioning.
13:45
Speaker 4: I do know that they arrested at least three people
13:51
Speaker 4: who were, you know, maybe witnesses. They suspected that these
13:56
Speaker 4: three individuals, as Montes Bell and then this other woman,
14:00
Speaker 4: Barbara Meyer and her boyfriend William Logan were all arrested,
14:04
Speaker 4: charged with the homicide, and then held for many hours
14:07
Speaker 4: before they ultimately gave statements. I don't know exactly how
14:13
Speaker 4: Iron and Andre initially became suspects, but I can wager
14:18
Speaker 4: I guess that they spoke to Antonio Knight's grandmother, who
14:23
Speaker 4: ultimately did come in and testify at trial, because she
14:25
Speaker 4: had seen these four men in the car together hours
14:29
Speaker 4: before Tone died.
14:32
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, Andre Rice was arrested as well.
14:35
Speaker 1: Uron was still laying low.
14:38
Speaker 3: You know, I'm nineteen years old. I'm ducking in the
14:41
Speaker 3: dodge and I only really came out once I found
14:44
Speaker 3: out that they had arrested Andre, so I kind of
14:51
Speaker 3: let my guard down after that. I'm like, oh, okay,
14:55
Speaker 3: police arrested it, like you know, it's over with, right,
14:59
Speaker 3: But it wasn't.
15:00
Speaker 1: The statements from Montez, William and Barbara along with Tone's
15:04
Speaker 1: grandmother had placed Iran in the car when Tone was shot,
15:09
Speaker 1: and the investigation was now focused on him and Andre.
15:14
Speaker 1: Before long, the police found him at his cousin's house
15:17
Speaker 1: and took him down to the station.
15:19
Speaker 3: I didn't speak to him. They took me back to
15:22
Speaker 3: the sale for hours. When I come back down, they
15:25
Speaker 3: had a confession from Andre Sweat. He told me he
15:30
Speaker 3: showed me a paper with a signature on it, said
15:33
Speaker 3: he had everything he needed. And I said, well, if
15:36
Speaker 3: you got everything you needed, you got a confession, surely
15:39
Speaker 3: I can go, right. Was it the case? They said
15:43
Speaker 3: they needed me to put some nails in the coffin
15:47
Speaker 3: of him and to pull Floyd into it. I said,
15:53
Speaker 3: I don't know nothing.
15:55
Speaker 1: On June thirteenth, nineteen ninety two, Andre Rice confessed to
15:59
Speaker 1: shooting in to He told the police that Aeron and
16:02
Speaker 1: Floyd had no idea it was going to happen, and
16:05
Speaker 1: they had nothing to do with it.
16:08
Speaker 4: What Andrea says is that Tone had been threatening him
16:14
Speaker 4: and threatening his family, and so Andre says he had
16:18
Speaker 4: been drinking and he said he was sitting there and thinking,
16:22
Speaker 4: this guy's going to hurt my family. It's totally unprovoked.
16:25
Speaker 4: You know, I just lost it. I didn't even think
16:28
Speaker 4: about it. I just took the gun and I just
16:30
Speaker 4: shot him.
16:32
Speaker 5: So you stay quiet, he confesses, How do you think
16:37
Speaker 5: you got involved in this?
16:40
Speaker 3: I was tied to it either way, right, So I
16:44
Speaker 3: just assumed that since I didn't help anybody, and I
16:47
Speaker 3: didn't help the investigation, I would be thrown in somehow, right,
16:52
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking. I don't know, you know,
17:02
Speaker 3: at the time, I didn't. I surely didn't think that
17:04
Speaker 3: it would garner me a first degree murder conviction and
17:08
Speaker 3: send me away for thirty plus years.
17:24
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
17:27
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
17:30
Speaker 1: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
17:34
Speaker 1: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. On June seventeenth, nineteen
17:48
Speaker 1: ninety two, Ivon Shellman and Andre Rice were both charged
17:52
Speaker 1: with first degree premeditated murder. Their trial started six months later.
18:02
Speaker 4: The trial was actually pretty short. It ran over the
18:06
Speaker 4: course of five days December seventeenth through the twenty third
18:10
Speaker 4: of nineteen ninety two. They were tried together, Andre and Ieron,
18:15
Speaker 4: but they had separate juries.
18:18
Speaker 1: The judge was Vera Massey Jones and the prosecutor was
18:22
Speaker 1: Lisa Lindsay. Ireon's defense attorney was Paul Curtis and Andre's
18:27
Speaker 1: attorney was Jeffrey Edison.
18:30
Speaker 4: He was partners with Paul Curtis. They were law partners.
18:34
Speaker 4: They were operating out of the same office. There is
18:37
Speaker 4: a potential conflict of interest there.
18:39
Speaker 1: But the trial moved forward with very little to go on.
18:43
Speaker 1: There was no physical evidence for the state to present.
18:46
Speaker 4: They never found a murder weapon in the case. According
18:50
Speaker 4: to the police, they never found the car. Floyd went
18:54
Speaker 4: away with the car. The car was never seen again,
18:57
Speaker 4: so they couldn't fingerprint it or do anything like that.
19:00
Speaker 3: That.
19:01
Speaker 1: The prosecution's few witnesses included a medical examiner and one
19:05
Speaker 1: of the police officers.
19:07
Speaker 4: And then there was Antonio. Knight's grandmother came in and
19:11
Speaker 4: testified about what had happened when they came to pick Antonio.
19:16
Speaker 6: Up that day.
19:16
Speaker 4: In what she saw, there were three people in the vehicle,
19:21
Speaker 4: well for if you count Antonio himself. One of them
19:24
Speaker 4: was never charged, never arrested, never interviewed.
19:28
Speaker 1: That was Floyd Pennington, the owner of the car.
19:31
Speaker 4: He was the one white man in the car, which
19:33
Speaker 4: I also find interesting. You know, so their only evidence
19:39
Speaker 4: that Iran was guilty was this testimony of his cousin.
19:50
Speaker 1: Montes Bell was the state star witness. He was the
19:53
Speaker 1: one who said Iran had told him they were going
19:55
Speaker 1: to take tone out.
19:58
Speaker 4: He was the one that was going to make it difference,
20:00
Speaker 4: and his testimony was incredible. There were lots of ways
20:04
Speaker 4: to impeach him and discredit him, just using conflicts in
20:09
Speaker 4: his own testimony, conflicts between what he said at trial
20:12
Speaker 4: and at the exam, the fact that he had charges pending,
20:15
Speaker 4: the fact that he was facing the homicide charge initially,
20:18
Speaker 4: so he just the trial attorney really just focused on
20:22
Speaker 4: cross examination.
20:24
Speaker 1: Did the police convince anyone to testify against him that
20:27
Speaker 1: maybe made something up?
20:28
Speaker 6: I don't know.
20:30
Speaker 4: I will say that one of the investigators on the case,
20:33
Speaker 4: her name was Barbara Simon, has been alleged in several
20:37
Speaker 4: other cases of pressuring witnesses eliciting fabricated testimony. So it's possible,
20:46
Speaker 4: and especially knowing what we do about the Detroit Police
20:50
Speaker 4: department at that time, it's possible. Barbara Meyer said straight
20:55
Speaker 4: up that she gave them seven different statements and they
20:58
Speaker 4: would not release her until she gave the one that
21:01
Speaker 4: they wanted her to and she said, at that point,
21:04
Speaker 4: I would have done anything to get out of there.
21:06
Speaker 4: It's one of the worst places I've ever been, and
21:08
Speaker 4: I hear that a lot.
21:12
Speaker 6: Now.
21:12
Speaker 1: To understand what happened next, it's important to know how
21:15
Speaker 1: the trial was conducted. Ivon and Andre were co defendants
21:20
Speaker 1: and they were tried together before the same judge and prosecutor.
21:24
Speaker 1: But they had two separate defense attorneys and two separate juries.
21:29
Speaker 4: So the way they do that is, you know, they'll
21:31
Speaker 4: do partial testimony from one witness. They'll present the things
21:35
Speaker 4: in front of each jury while the other jury is
21:39
Speaker 4: out of the courtroom, and anything that pertains to both cases,
21:42
Speaker 4: they'll have both juries in the courtroom. It's something they
21:44
Speaker 4: do a lot to save time.
21:48
Speaker 1: This means that potentially each jury could get a very
21:51
Speaker 1: different picture of this same set of events.
21:56
Speaker 4: Andre didn't testify at the trial, but they had a
21:59
Speaker 4: police office or take the stand and read his initial
22:02
Speaker 4: statement into the record. This is the very first version
22:06
Speaker 4: of events he told police. You know, he went in there,
22:09
Speaker 4: they interviewed him. He said, we were all in the car.
22:12
Speaker 4: I shot him. The other two people in the car
22:15
Speaker 4: with me didn't know anything about it. I didn't even
22:18
Speaker 4: think about it. I just acted right. That same evidence
22:23
Speaker 4: was not presented to mister Shelman's jury, ever.
22:27
Speaker 3: He was convicted. First, he was charged with first degree
22:31
Speaker 3: murder and felony firearm. They reduced his to second degree
22:35
Speaker 3: murder with felony firearm, and they just left me at
22:38
Speaker 3: first degree murder.
22:40
Speaker 4: And in this case, Andre I believe got twenty five
22:43
Speaker 4: to sixty years was his sentence.
22:50
Speaker 1: I just I'm just still wondering how that happened, because
22:53
Speaker 1: it isn't it true that Andre also said like you
22:56
Speaker 1: were not involved, you didn't know anything.
23:00
Speaker 3: That information was never read in my trial. Jury never
23:05
Speaker 3: heard that. The jury only heard that I was a
23:08
Speaker 3: bad kid and I went picked my buddy up and
23:12
Speaker 3: something terrible happened to him. If you only hear a
23:16
Speaker 3: certain side, it's all you can make your opinion. And
23:19
Speaker 3: so I don't blame him at all.
23:23
Speaker 4: So, because the jury had not heard the evidence that
23:28
Speaker 4: allowed Andre Rice's jury to say, oh, there was no
23:31
Speaker 4: premeditation and deliberation, Ieron Shulman's jury did not have any idea.
23:36
Speaker 4: They didn't hear Andre's statement. So if they believed that
23:41
Speaker 4: he was involved, even in the slightest they believed they
23:45
Speaker 4: were looking at something that was the first degree homicide.
23:48
Speaker 4: That's the charge that was put to them, right, and
23:51
Speaker 4: they found him guilty of it. In Michigan, if you're
23:57
Speaker 4: convicted of homicide, either as the principle or as an
24:02
Speaker 4: aider and a better there is a mandatory life without
24:05
Speaker 4: parole sentence, and you're going to die. You're going to
24:09
Speaker 4: die in prison. It means life in Michigan.
24:12
Speaker 5: So Rice got a lesser sentence.
24:14
Speaker 1: I know that you explained a little bit of that
24:15
Speaker 1: because of the testimony that was not allowed into Eeron's trial.
24:20
Speaker 1: But that was not a Brady violation, correct, It was
24:23
Speaker 1: not hidden. The defense attorney just did not.
24:25
Speaker 4: The defense attorney knew about it, you know, and it's
24:29
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know. We interviewed Paul Curtis, We
24:32
Speaker 4: called him at the evidentiary hearing to explain his reasoning,
24:36
Speaker 4: and the only reason he gave was that he assumed
24:39
Speaker 4: Andre Rice would plead the fifth and just refuse to testify,
24:45
Speaker 4: and so what was the point of talking to him?
24:47
Speaker 4: And when I asked him, well, why wouldn't you use
24:50
Speaker 4: this statement. He didn't need Andre, he really didn't have
24:54
Speaker 4: an answer.
24:58
Speaker 5: When you're sitting at try.
25:01
Speaker 1: And they present this for Andre and then not for you,
25:06
Speaker 1: did you say to your defense attorney, like, what is
25:08
Speaker 1: going on?
25:09
Speaker 5: Why isn't this coming into my trial?
25:11
Speaker 3: I didn't have a clue. I didn't have a clue. No, No,
25:16
Speaker 3: nineteen year old No. I really believed that like someone
25:21
Speaker 3: would see the truth. Right, that's what you hope, right,
25:26
Speaker 3: You hoped it like like you know, you got me
25:29
Speaker 3: down for a murder. I don't have a gun possession
25:34
Speaker 3: to nothing, it's just a murder, right, and you have
25:37
Speaker 3: the other guy down for the murder and the gun,
25:39
Speaker 3: and you're assuming that like someone will say, like, because
25:43
Speaker 3: what was his involvement then?
25:44
Speaker 5: Right?
25:45
Speaker 3: You know, so it just didn't happen for me. Prison
26:07
Speaker 3: is like a microcosm of like the worst of the worst.
26:10
Speaker 3: That's what I think prison is. It's, you know, you
26:15
Speaker 3: got your elements that's really bad and terrible, and then
26:20
Speaker 3: you got maybe a little bit of a sentil of goodness, right,
26:26
Speaker 3: and it's up to you which side you want to
26:30
Speaker 3: you know, attach yourself to when you go to prison.
26:36
Speaker 3: The older guys that tell you it's sheeping, its wolves
26:39
Speaker 3: in here? Which one you want to be? Right? So,
26:44
Speaker 3: you know, nineteen twenty year olds, I was twenty after
26:48
Speaker 3: by the time I was sentenced, I was twenty years old.
26:51
Speaker 3: I'm in prison. I have a life sentence. So I
26:54
Speaker 3: didn't make the best decisions early on. Right, I fought
26:58
Speaker 3: a lot. I wanted to prove myself a lot. I
27:02
Speaker 3: found myself in those head spaces. Right.
27:13
Speaker 1: Sonya was just ten years old when her beloved cousin Aeron,
27:17
Speaker 1: the gentle giant who watched over her, went to prison.
27:21
Speaker 6: It was a milestone, and not in a good way
27:24
Speaker 6: for our family. The impact was felt through the entire
27:28
Speaker 6: family unit and it was visceral. You could see it.
27:33
Speaker 6: People changed, things changed. It was a loss. It was
27:37
Speaker 6: a grief and loss experience for the family.
27:42
Speaker 1: And you know, he mentioned we talked about how he
27:45
Speaker 1: was in and out of some foster homes, juvenile detention.
27:48
Speaker 5: He got in a lot of trouble. When he gets
27:51
Speaker 5: charged with murder. Was that surprising to everyone?
27:56
Speaker 3: It was?
27:57
Speaker 6: It was he was nineteen we went to prison, right,
27:59
Speaker 6: there were teenage things, you know, joy riding or you know,
28:04
Speaker 6: running away from home or we can't find you for
28:06
Speaker 6: a week because you're hiding with a lady or a
28:08
Speaker 6: girl or whatever. You know, you never heard of violence,
28:12
Speaker 6: not from the gentle giant, right, So that was that
28:16
Speaker 6: was a major shock to our family.
28:18
Speaker 5: Did everyone believe in his innocence at first? Or was
28:20
Speaker 5: there everyone did?
28:22
Speaker 6: Yes? That was it was clear because we know him,
28:26
Speaker 6: we know him. So part of that grief and loss
28:28
Speaker 6: also included that charge and persons were not able to
28:32
Speaker 6: articulate what that meant and how we disagreed or how
28:37
Speaker 6: we couldn't even imagine something like that could happen. We
28:40
Speaker 6: didn't have a skill set. The adults lost their ability
28:44
Speaker 6: to rationally behave emotionally. You saw lots of crying and
28:52
Speaker 6: anger and who missed court and who went to court?
28:55
Speaker 6: And who should be finding money? And what should we
28:57
Speaker 6: be doing? It became a different family dynamic altogether. How
29:02
Speaker 6: do you pay for this?
29:03
Speaker 3: What do you do? Where do we go?
29:06
Speaker 6: That shift was painful to watch.
29:09
Speaker 3: Wow.
29:10
Speaker 1: After the initial shock, the family rallied together to support Eron,
29:15
Speaker 1: and as Sonia grew older, she took on more of
29:18
Speaker 1: a role in his fight for innocence.
29:20
Speaker 6: Our relationship began to get very strong. In my teen years,
29:25
Speaker 6: and so I would ask him questions and he would
29:28
Speaker 6: say things like, you're smart enough to handle this. And
29:31
Speaker 6: so he would like tell me what he was doing
29:33
Speaker 6: in appeals and send me what he had and I
29:35
Speaker 6: would read and so I knew early on about the confession.
29:39
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, at what point did things start to change
29:50
Speaker 7: for you in prison?
29:51
Speaker 5: Do you remember when that.
29:52
Speaker 3: Was my last like seventeen eighteen years were without incident?
29:55
Speaker 5: Right?
29:56
Speaker 3: In fact, my last eleven years and three months. I
29:59
Speaker 3: was a member of the TGIA Dog program where I
30:03
Speaker 3: helped train rescue greyhounds.
30:06
Speaker 5: Wow.
30:07
Speaker 3: So I did that, but it allowed me time to
30:11
Speaker 3: really get back into my case and research some other
30:14
Speaker 3: avenues of my case. And that's what we did, me
30:17
Speaker 3: and a fellow inmate, you know, we started going back
30:21
Speaker 3: through it and kind of looking at it from a
30:24
Speaker 3: different vantage point, and we kind of stumble up on
30:27
Speaker 3: a couple of things.
30:30
Speaker 4: So he filed his post conviction motion for a leaf
30:34
Speaker 4: from judgment in twenty seventeen. He had written it himself
30:38
Speaker 4: and maybe he had the help of a legal writer
30:40
Speaker 4: or something. He had written it. They held his cases
30:43
Speaker 4: called in abeyance. The judge didn't decide it. They referred
30:46
Speaker 4: it to the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit, that's the
30:50
Speaker 4: Prosecutor's office's own division to review these cases.
30:55
Speaker 1: Around that time, Aaron heard about Rachel from a fellow
30:58
Speaker 1: prisoner reached out to her. She had just started her
31:02
Speaker 1: own practice.
31:04
Speaker 4: So Ereon's case was one of my very first cases.
31:08
Speaker 4: It was the first case that I filed in the
31:12
Speaker 4: Wayne County Circuit Court under the name Wolf Law. So
31:15
Speaker 4: it's been a long road together for both of us.
31:19
Speaker 1: The first thing that Rachel did was to sit down
31:21
Speaker 1: and go through Eiron's trial transcripts to see if she
31:24
Speaker 1: could uncover a basis for a new trial.
31:27
Speaker 4: So when I read a trial transcript, I'm looking for
31:31
Speaker 4: all of the things the jury would have been looking at,
31:33
Speaker 4: all the things the prosecutor argued to prove guilt. And
31:37
Speaker 4: in some cases there is a ton of evidence. You know,
31:40
Speaker 4: there's video evidence, there's DNA evidence, there's multiple eyewitnesses. In
31:45
Speaker 4: this case, we have none of those. There's zero physical
31:49
Speaker 4: evidence in this case. So their only evidence that Iran
31:55
Speaker 4: was guilty was this testimony of his cousin, Montes Bell,
32:00
Speaker 4: and his testimony itself was about hearsay statements. He said, oh,
32:07
Speaker 4: Iran told me.
32:08
Speaker 6: That he was there.
32:09
Speaker 4: Earon said we're going to take Tone out. So yes,
32:14
Speaker 4: he testified on the stand. I took that to mean
32:16
Speaker 4: they were going to kill him. So the prosecutor's case
32:22
Speaker 4: was an aiding and a betting theory. So they argued
32:25
Speaker 4: throughout that Andre was the shooter. There was never really
32:28
Speaker 4: any question about that. Their argument was that Iran took
32:34
Speaker 4: part in the planning of the operation.
32:37
Speaker 1: Is that because he said we're going to take Tone out? Yes, yes,
32:41
Speaker 1: oh my god.
32:42
Speaker 4: Okay, which Iran later explained at the He testified at
32:45
Speaker 4: the evidentiary hearing we had later and explained He's like, no,
32:49
Speaker 4: I you know, we're going to take Tone out, like
32:52
Speaker 4: we're going to go do something. We're going to go
32:54
Speaker 4: to the club, you know, something like that. So the
32:57
Speaker 4: two statements they had that Iran apparently made that montes
33:02
Speaker 4: Bell said he made were both also ambiguous.
33:06
Speaker 1: Rachel filed a motion for a new trial based on
33:08
Speaker 1: actual innocence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and newly discovered evidence.
33:14
Speaker 1: Their investigation had uncovered several new witnesses who testified on
33:18
Speaker 1: Eiron's behalf. One was a woman named Jennifer Palmer.
33:23
Speaker 4: She had had several conversations with Montesbell in which he
33:27
Speaker 4: admitted that he knew Iran had not been involved, and
33:32
Speaker 4: he knew that Iron wasn't going to be convicted because
33:35
Speaker 4: Eron never had anything to do with it. So direct
33:39
Speaker 4: impeachment evidence against Montesbell their main witness.
33:44
Speaker 1: And there's someone else who testified on Eiron's behalf, someone
33:47
Speaker 1: who knows the truth about what happened that day, Andre Rice. Andre,
33:53
Speaker 1: you remember, had gotten a lesser sentence twenty five to
33:56
Speaker 1: sixty years, and thanks to good behavior, he was relieved
34:00
Speaker 1: after serving less than twenty five years of that and
34:03
Speaker 1: he had already tried to help Eron.
34:06
Speaker 4: Andre Rice has been out for over a decade. After
34:09
Speaker 4: he was released, he wrote up an affidavit. So when
34:12
Speaker 4: Eiron filed his own motion and wrote it himself, it
34:15
Speaker 4: was based on Andrea's affidavit. And Andrea is also the
34:20
Speaker 4: one that went to the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit
34:23
Speaker 4: and said, hey, you know, I know this man is
34:26
Speaker 4: in prison. I'm the one that committed this crime. Please
34:29
Speaker 4: look into this case. The challenge for Andre is that
34:34
Speaker 4: in order to get a new trial, you have to
34:37
Speaker 4: have new evidence.
34:41
Speaker 1: Since Andre's confession had been presented at the time of trial.
34:44
Speaker 1: It was not considered new evidence when Eiron filed his appeal.
34:49
Speaker 4: If there is a new trial, Andre's testimony can and
34:54
Speaker 4: will be presented at that new trial. And so when
34:58
Speaker 4: the judge is looking at, Okay, what's the evidence we're
35:01
Speaker 4: going to have on retrial? Is there a chance that
35:03
Speaker 4: the outcome will be different? She does get to consider
35:07
Speaker 4: what Andre has to say, but his testimony alone was
35:11
Speaker 4: not going to be enough legally for us to argue
35:15
Speaker 4: that Aaron was innocent deserved a new trial. He'd been
35:19
Speaker 4: wrongfully convicted.
35:21
Speaker 1: Fortunately, when she reviewed the new evidence, Judge Shannon Walker
35:25
Speaker 1: found it credible, and in January of twenty twenty three,
35:29
Speaker 1: she vacated Eiron's conviction and ordered a new trial. Two
35:33
Speaker 1: months later, Aaron was officially released from prison after nearly
35:37
Speaker 1: three decades. Eiron soon found work at a chemical plant
35:44
Speaker 1: and got his own apartment. He still has to wear
35:47
Speaker 1: a GPS monitor and stick to a curfew, but he's
35:50
Speaker 1: been enjoying getting to know his three adult children and
35:54
Speaker 1: their families.
35:56
Speaker 3: They're all Gobris Dan. When I went to prison, one
35:59
Speaker 3: was barely what six months, and that was my youngest
36:04
Speaker 3: son Aaron, and his sister Alex and my oldest son Xavier.
36:12
Speaker 3: They were like almost three four when I went to president.
36:17
Speaker 3: I went in when I was nineteen years old. I
36:18
Speaker 3: was a kid, like I'm fifty one years old now, right.
36:23
Speaker 3: It's crazy sometimes when I look at myself in the
36:26
Speaker 3: mirror and I see my grandfather right, Like, I'm gray
36:31
Speaker 3: now and I'm more laid back. It's just a different experience,
36:37
Speaker 3: you know, I'm looking at life through different lenses.
36:42
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Eeron's journey isn't over yet. In August of twenty
36:47
Speaker 1: twenty three, Wayne County prosecutors appealed to the court's decision
36:51
Speaker 1: to grant him a new trial.
36:54
Speaker 4: What happens in these cases that are thirty years old
36:57
Speaker 4: is that when a new trial is granted, you know,
37:01
Speaker 4: they lose witnesses. Monteese Bell is deceased, Antonio Knight's grandmother
37:06
Speaker 4: is no longer available, And what happens is the prosecutor's
37:10
Speaker 4: office is facing the possibility that they won't be able
37:14
Speaker 4: to retry him at all.
37:17
Speaker 1: But if the court order is reversed and the conviction
37:20
Speaker 1: is reinstated, there's still the possibility that Ireon could be
37:24
Speaker 1: sent back.
37:26
Speaker 4: And it's terrifying. We're terrified. It is extremely likely that
37:32
Speaker 4: they will order mister Shellman to report to the Michigan
37:36
Speaker 4: Department of Corrections and go back to incarceration, while we
37:41
Speaker 4: then would need to file another motion for a leaf
37:45
Speaker 4: from judgment or ask the court to reconsider the issues
37:48
Speaker 4: that she didn't address in her first ruling.
37:52
Speaker 5: Are you worried about potentially going back.
37:58
Speaker 3: I'm of the mindset now that if this all turns
38:01
Speaker 3: out to be like a great vacation from what I
38:05
Speaker 3: had been living for almost thirty one years, I'm okay
38:09
Speaker 3: with that too. It sent God's chans to me, so
38:13
Speaker 3: I don't stress anymore about it as much as I
38:16
Speaker 3: did early on. And again, I'm thankful for the opportunity
38:21
Speaker 3: to come out and rejoin society at this later stage
38:24
Speaker 3: and get to know my kids and my grandkids in
38:27
Speaker 3: a way that I couldn't from behind those bars. Right.
38:33
Speaker 6: The blessing of having him out alone is just his
38:38
Speaker 6: presence is absolutely breathtaking. It's almost like a butterfly, you know,
38:46
Speaker 6: coming from a caterpillar. Yeah. I enjoy watching him pay bills.
38:52
Speaker 6: I enjoy watching him ask about budgets. He enjoys it.
38:57
Speaker 6: He was like, this is a grown up bill. Look
38:59
Speaker 6: how I got my budget. I just want him to
39:01
Speaker 6: enjoy these things. I don't know anybody. I don't know
39:04
Speaker 6: any other humans who enjoy paying paying bills.
39:07
Speaker 3: I'm a big proponent of you know, I look for
39:09
Speaker 3: the little blessings as much as I look for the
39:13
Speaker 3: big ones. Right, You're more likely to stumble across the
39:16
Speaker 3: little ones than the big ones. You sit around and
39:19
Speaker 3: wait for that big one you know may not never come.
39:23
Speaker 5: But I'm okay, you are very graceful. I'm always so
39:29
Speaker 5: shocked that, after spending thirty years in a horrible place,
39:34
Speaker 5: that you guys are all just so so graceful and
39:38
Speaker 5: have such humility. And you're kind of breaking my heart
39:41
Speaker 5: right now.
39:42
Speaker 3: No, listen, once you meet me, you kind of can
39:45
Speaker 3: see that. You know, I'm much more than just my case, right,
39:52
Speaker 3: It's just the truth of the matter. My case happened
39:56
Speaker 3: a very long time ago. I'm sure for that family
40:00
Speaker 3: that you know, every year is a reminder of that, right,
40:04
Speaker 3: you know, it was traumatic. I'm a victim of something, right,
40:12
Speaker 3: But I'm not the victim. I'm just not the victim.
40:16
Speaker 3: Isn't here anymore, Maggie and so I tell people all
40:21
Speaker 3: the time, like pray for them, pray for that family.
40:50
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
40:53
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
40:57
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
41:00
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
41:03
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
41:07
Speaker 1: producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
41:13
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
41:16
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
41:20
Speaker 1: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
41:24
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
41:28
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
41:31
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
41:35
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
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