Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #252 Jason Flom with Allan Woodhouse and Brian Anderson
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: On Tuesday, July seventeenth, nineteen seventy three, a local chef
- 0:06Speaker 1: and father of two, Ting Fong Chan, walked home from
- 0:09Speaker 1: his night shift in Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada at around six am.
- 0:14Speaker 1: His body was found beaten and stabbed death near a
- 0:16Speaker 1: construction site. An eyewitness saw the assailants through the darkness
- 0:20Speaker 1: and described the group as four or five men with
- 0:23Speaker 1: long hair. The police asked if the assailants may have
- 0:26Speaker 1: been indigenous. The eyewitness couldn't say either way without a
- 0:29Speaker 1: definitive answer, investigators began canvassing the local indigenous population, and
- 0:33Speaker 1: a man named Adam Woodhouse told them about a recent
- 0:36Speaker 1: gathering at his home attended by Clarence and Russell Woodhouse
- 0:39Speaker 1: as well as their cousin Brian Anderson. However, this gathering
- 0:43Speaker 1: happened on Thursday night, not on Monday into Tuesday, the
- 0:47Speaker 1: night of the crime. Despite the confusion over the date,
- 0:51Speaker 1: as well as the uncertainty over the assailants ethnicity, Clarence
- 0:54Speaker 1: and Russell Woodhouse, Brian Anderson, as well as their younger
- 0:57Speaker 1: friend Allan Woodhouse underwent a series of coercive and in
- 1:01Speaker 1: some cases, violent interrogations, resulting in four false confessions written
- 1:06Speaker 1: in the language in which none of them were entirely fluent.
- 1:10Speaker 1: The trial consisted of the presentation of these alleged confessions
- 1:14Speaker 1: against four matching recantations, as well as alibi witnesses and
- 1:19Speaker 1: accusations of police misconduct and brutality. Fifty years later, Brian
- 1:24Speaker 1: Anderson and Alan Woodhouse share their harrowing story and the
- 1:28Speaker 1: struggle to clear their names. This is wrongful Conviction. Welcome
- 1:46Speaker 1: back to wrongful Conviction. This is an episode it's going
- 1:50Speaker 1: to take everyone who listens on a journey, not just
- 1:53Speaker 1: far away because this took place in the Great White North,
- 1:55Speaker 1: but also to a place of disbelief for how a system,
- 2:00Speaker 1: in this case, the system in Canada, can do what
- 2:04Speaker 1: it does to innocent civilians. Let me introduce our guests
- 2:08Speaker 1: and then we'll explain more about the case. With us,
- 2:11Speaker 1: we have two wrongfully convicted men. First of all, Brian Anderson,
- 2:16Speaker 1: Welcome to wrongful Conviction. I'm sorry you're here under the circumces,
- 2:19Speaker 1: but I'm happy you're here. Thank you and with us
- 2:22Speaker 1: as well as Alan Woodhouse, so grateful for you being
- 2:25Speaker 1: here as well.
- 2:26Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me here today.
- 2:29Speaker 1: And joining us. Is an incredible woman named bob and Sody.
- 2:33Speaker 1: Bobbin is the attorney of record for these men. She
- 2:37Speaker 1: was the legal director at Innocence Canada at the time
- 2:41Speaker 1: that she got involved with this case, and she's currently
- 2:43Speaker 1: got one of the most amazing and interesting jobs I
- 2:45Speaker 1: think in the entire world of criminal justice. She is
- 2:48Speaker 1: the intake director at the Innocence Project of New York.
- 2:52Speaker 1: So Bobin, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
- 2:55Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having us, Jason, so.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Bobn I almost feel like I want to let you
- 3:02Speaker 1: set the stage here. I mean, this case is so nuts.
- 3:06Speaker 1: It involves lies from people in positions of power, false confessions.
- 3:10Speaker 1: At least one of the men didn't even speak the
- 3:12Speaker 1: language of the confession that he was signing, that he
- 3:15Speaker 1: didn't even know was a confession, Jason.
- 3:17Speaker 3: For me, this was one of the first cases I
- 3:20Speaker 3: worked on in my role as legal director at Innocence Canada,
- 3:23Speaker 3: and it's one of those cases that right off the
- 3:26Speaker 3: batch you know that something isn't right. You know. My
- 3:28Speaker 3: co counsel, Jerome Kennedy has always put it best. We
- 3:32Speaker 3: started off knowing that this was a nineteen seventy three case.
- 3:36Speaker 3: It involved the Winnipeg Police Service, four young Indigenous men
- 3:41Speaker 3: and George Dangerfield. And as far as innocence Canada was concerned,
- 3:45Speaker 3: that is a recipe for wrongful conviction.
- 3:48Speaker 1: And George Dangerfield just what a name for a guy
- 3:51Speaker 1: who has the dubious distinction of being the crown prosecutor
- 3:55Speaker 1: who is responsible for the most wrongful convictions in Canadian history.
- 4:00Speaker 1: And he was unfortunately the top prosecutor in Manitoba, Canada
- 4:03Speaker 1: for thirty years. And just to paint a picture of
- 4:06Speaker 1: the guys who ended up getting caught in this nightmare,
- 4:10Speaker 1: Brian Anderson, who's with us today, had seventh grade education
- 4:14Speaker 1: and no knowledge of the criminal legal system. He grew
- 4:16Speaker 1: up on the Fairford Indian Reserve between Lake Manitoba and
- 4:19Speaker 1: Lake Saint Mark, about two hundred and thirty kilometers or
- 4:22Speaker 1: one hundred and forty three miles north of Winnipeg. The
- 4:24Speaker 1: oldest had ten children. At eighteen, he moved to Winnipeg
- 4:27Speaker 1: to work and live with his grandparents. And his first
- 4:29Speaker 1: language was not English. He barely spoke English at all.
- 4:32Speaker 1: His first language was Ojibwe Salto. And he had no
- 4:35Speaker 1: criminal record whatsoever. This is important, that's important to know,
- 4:39Speaker 1: but it turned out not to matter in this case.
- 4:41Speaker 1: So Brian, tell me about your life growing up. Did
- 4:43Speaker 1: you have a happy childhood?
- 4:45Speaker 3: Yes?
- 4:45Speaker 4: I did, I think I did. You don't know anything
- 4:50Speaker 4: about life at that age.
- 4:52Speaker 1: So right, you're a kid, I mean, let's face it.
- 4:55Speaker 1: As a teenager you just said yeah, exactly, figuring it
- 4:58Speaker 1: out just like anybody else. And Alan, what about for you?
- 5:02Speaker 1: You lived on the Fairport Indian Reserve as well, with
- 5:05Speaker 1: English as a second language. You had a ninth grade
- 5:07Speaker 1: education there. You were seventeen years old, but also with
- 5:11Speaker 1: no criminal record and moved to Winnipeg two months before
- 5:14Speaker 1: this awful crime happened. So Alan, what was your life
- 5:17Speaker 1: like growing up in those times?
- 5:19Speaker 2: From what you can remember, Well, my childhood is pretty rugged,
- 5:22Speaker 2: so to speak, of eight brothers and two sisters, as
- 5:25Speaker 2: I was a lot of people. Brian's younger brother I
- 5:27Speaker 2: have and I used to be my hindout buddy. We're
- 5:31Speaker 2: up at the same age. Brian were a bit of wolder,
- 5:33Speaker 2: so he hung out with you a wlder crowd. The
- 5:36Speaker 2: only reason I was in Winnipeg is because to look
- 5:39Speaker 2: for work. There's no work in a reserve, of course,
- 5:41Speaker 2: because I was over sixteen, so I just moved to
- 5:44Speaker 2: Winnipeg about a couple of months when I got arrested.
- 5:49Speaker 1: Right, and before you were arrested, the police picked up
- 5:51Speaker 1: Clarence Woodhouse, followed by Russell Woodhouse, then you allan Woodhouse,
- 5:55Speaker 1: and lastly Brian Anderson. And the whole thing started with
- 5:58Speaker 1: a statement from Woodhouse. First of all, that's a lot
- 6:01Speaker 1: of woodhouses. So just to keep things straight for our audience.
- 6:05Speaker 1: From what I gather, woodhouse must be a common name, Brian,
- 6:09Speaker 1: Are any of you guys related.
- 6:11Speaker 4: Yes, I am. They are my cousins, which is the Woodhouses.
- 6:15Speaker 4: Clarence and Russell. We had the same grandfather. We knew
- 6:18Speaker 4: each other right from the little kids.
- 6:20Speaker 2: I'm not related to any of them, actually not even
- 6:23Speaker 2: Adam Mudos So.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Clarence and Russell were related to you, Brian. But Adam
- 6:27Speaker 1: and Allen aren't related to any of you guys, right, yes,
- 6:31Speaker 1: So the crime itself. July seventeenth, nineteen seventy three, forty
- 6:35Speaker 1: Oho men in ting Pung Chan was beaten and stabbed
- 6:37Speaker 1: to death near a downtown construction site in Manitoba, which
- 6:41Speaker 1: is Winnipeg. Mister Chan was a father of two and
- 6:43Speaker 1: a chef at a restaurant called the Beachcomber. He was
- 6:46Speaker 1: walking home from the night shift, and his body was
- 6:48Speaker 1: found at six am on the seventeenth. So then comes
- 6:54Speaker 1: this ridiculous quote unquote investigation.
- 6:57Speaker 3: For the first couple of days after Chan's body was found,
- 7:02Speaker 3: no investigation occurred. Essentially, they were doing a scan of
- 7:06Speaker 3: the neighborhood and they came across a witness named Daisy
- 7:10Speaker 3: Towel and Daisy, what's interesting about her is she didn't
- 7:14Speaker 3: really see much at all. What she claims to have
- 7:17Speaker 3: seen under the light of a lamp post in the
- 7:20Speaker 3: middle of the night without her glasses, and she indicated
- 7:23Speaker 3: that she had very poor vision was the outline of
- 7:28Speaker 3: four or five individuals that had long hair. And when
- 7:32Speaker 3: the officers put it to her whether she thought they
- 7:34Speaker 3: were indigenous, she said, well, yes, they could be. And
- 7:37Speaker 3: you know, the important point here is this was the seventies,
- 7:40Speaker 3: and so I'm presuming a lot of people had long hair.
- 7:43Speaker 1: I have fond memories of that era. I mean, long hair,
- 7:47Speaker 1: great music, and this witness could have easily and vaguely
- 7:51Speaker 1: stuck me into this group as well. I mean I
- 7:54Speaker 1: fit that much of the description. That's the only description
- 7:57Speaker 1: they had. So it's important to note that the police
- 7:59Speaker 1: offered this blurry cited eyewitness the suggestion that the assailants
- 8:03Speaker 1: were Indigenous, not the other way around. And Alan, I
- 8:06Speaker 1: know you eventually became a jail house lawyer. Does it
- 8:09Speaker 1: strike you as business as usual for the police in
- 8:12Speaker 1: that era with in doubt, just take an indigenous guy, right,
- 8:16Speaker 1: just start targeting Indigenous people.
- 8:18Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I think goes wrong right away.
- 8:20Speaker 2: It's Native people even in the reserve. You know, something
- 8:23Speaker 2: happened outside the reserves. There's better community out there, right
- 8:27Speaker 2: there has just been Native people. There'd be police driving
- 8:30Speaker 2: around looking for so and sorry though probly that's the
- 8:33Speaker 2: reality of it.
- 8:34Speaker 3: Unfortunately, the police ended up canvassing the neighborhood on the
- 8:39Speaker 3: lookout essentially for young Indigenous men. And that's how a
- 8:44Speaker 3: few days later they came upon Adam Woodhouse's house and
- 8:48Speaker 3: spoke to him. They also spoke to his common law
- 8:51Speaker 3: partner and his common law partner's daughter. And what I
- 8:54Speaker 3: will say is English wasn't even the first language of
- 8:57Speaker 3: these witnesses. So Adam was also someone who was struggling
- 9:01Speaker 3: to understand this context, wasn't provided an interpreter and was participating.
- 9:06Speaker 3: And so when they spoke to Adam on July twenty second,
- 9:09Speaker 3: he said, well, yes, on the night of the murderer,
- 9:12Speaker 3: I had a group of young Indigenous men with me,
- 9:15Speaker 3: including Brian Anderson, Clarence Woodhouse, and Russell Woodhouse. And he
- 9:19Speaker 3: distinctly didn't mention Alan. And what's interesting about the fact
- 9:24Speaker 3: that he said that is almost immediately following his common
- 9:28Speaker 3: law partner and his common law partner's daughter said yes,
- 9:33Speaker 3: these young men were at our house, but that actually
- 9:36Speaker 3: occurred Thursday and not on the night in question. And
- 9:40Speaker 3: the reason that's interesting is a lot of the information
- 9:44Speaker 3: that Adam was recalling from the evening actually related to
- 9:47Speaker 3: things that happened on Thursday. So, for example, he referenced
- 9:50Speaker 3: receiving his check he usually receives that on a Thursday night.
- 9:54Speaker 3: He referenced using that check in order to buy beer
- 9:58Speaker 3: again as a result of what happened on Thursday night.
- 10:01Speaker 3: But essentially, the police, ignoring what you know, his common
- 10:05Speaker 3: law partner and her daughter said, decided to venture out.
- 10:09Speaker 3: And this is when this web began to weave, and
- 10:12Speaker 3: within twenty four hours they managed to get you alleged
- 10:17Speaker 3: confessions from Clarence Woodhouse, Russell Woodhouse, Allan Woodhouse and Brian Anderson.
- 10:25Speaker 1: Wow. So no, I mean they didn't even pretend to
- 10:29Speaker 1: do a real investigation, just the assumption by the police
- 10:34Speaker 1: that the assailants were indigenous. And Adam Woodhouse told them
- 10:37Speaker 1: about gathering at his home with Clarence, Russell and Brian,
- 10:40Speaker 1: nothing about a murder or any conspiracy to commit murder
- 10:44Speaker 1: or any criminal activity at all. And it even turned
- 10:46Speaker 1: out to be the wrong night entirely Monday into Tuesday
- 10:49Speaker 1: was when it happened. This was Thursday, but that didn't matter.
- 10:53Speaker 1: And now the interrogations and false confessions began in a
- 10:58Speaker 1: language you guys didn't even.
- 11:00Speaker 3: I think a really important part of this is understanding
- 11:03Speaker 3: the sequence of the confessions, just to understand how they
- 11:07Speaker 3: utilized classic read technique despite the fact that everything pointed
- 11:12Speaker 3: against them. So yes, all four confessions, and this is important,
- 11:16Speaker 3: all four of the confessions that these boys are alleged
- 11:19Speaker 3: to have made start off with the exact same sentence.
- 11:23Speaker 3: All four of them say on Monday night, I was
- 11:27Speaker 3: and when I read that, I knew that something was amiss.
- 11:31Speaker 3: We have four men who are alleged to have written
- 11:34Speaker 3: these confessions in separate rooms, separate circumstances, varying understanding of English,
- 11:41Speaker 3: and yet all of their statements start the exact same way.
- 11:44Speaker 3: And so that's when I delved into the actual sequence,
- 11:48Speaker 3: like how did they obtain them? And what I saw
- 11:51Speaker 3: was classic retechnique. You know. They started off with Clarence.
- 11:54Speaker 3: They took him to the scene, brought him back to
- 11:57Speaker 3: the station, They asked him to mark up the body
- 12:00Speaker 3: and where it was that he had attacked, you know,
- 12:03Speaker 3: tingfong Chen, immediately assuming that he was the person responsible. Ultimately,
- 12:08Speaker 3: this allegedly led to his confession. And what's interesting about
- 12:12Speaker 3: the confession is it's a partial confession and the only
- 12:16Speaker 3: person that's mentioned in it is Russell. Then they go
- 12:19Speaker 3: to Russell and they go look at this confession that
- 12:22Speaker 3: Clarence gave you. And what's interesting about that is that
- 12:26Speaker 3: Russell didn't even have enough of an understanding of the
- 12:30Speaker 3: English language to be able to read the confession that
- 12:34Speaker 3: Clarence apparently made. So they brought Clarence into the room
- 12:38Speaker 3: with Russell to read to his brother this confession he's
- 12:42Speaker 3: alleged to have made. And so Russell apparently makes a
- 12:47Speaker 3: confession same thing on Monday night I was. And so
- 12:50Speaker 3: not only does he now mention Clarence himself, but he
- 12:53Speaker 3: also references Alan, and so that is how Alan is
- 12:57Speaker 3: brought into the story, and so then Alan is arrested.
- 13:01Speaker 3: He is also shown the confession that now Clarence has
- 13:05Speaker 3: made and subsequently Russell have made. And what's interesting about
- 13:09Speaker 3: Alan is he was subjected to physical abuse because he
- 13:13Speaker 3: refused to make this confession.
- 13:16Speaker 2: That night, in that particular, when I got picked up,
- 13:18Speaker 2: you know, there was a knock on the door, and
- 13:20Speaker 2: there's two people standing there in suits. I guess you
- 13:22Speaker 2: call them plaines calls.
- 13:23Speaker 4: Now.
- 13:24Speaker 2: He asked me what my name was, So I told
- 13:26Speaker 2: him who I was. So I said, sorry, grand them
- 13:28Speaker 2: my wrist. You're the one we're looking for it. So
- 13:31Speaker 2: I said, way wait, I said, what's going on? I
- 13:33Speaker 2: want to talk to you. I went downstairs with and
- 13:36Speaker 2: Mark carra On downstairs and they took me to the
- 13:38Speaker 2: police stas we're not were the police. I asked him
- 13:40Speaker 2: what news this about it? He said murder? I said murder.
- 13:43Speaker 2: I said, maybe they had found a dead body and
- 13:45Speaker 2: they wanted me to go and recognize some of the
- 13:48Speaker 2: body or see you know, what I mean when we got
- 13:50Speaker 2: to the police station and they said, Okay, where were
- 13:52Speaker 2: you on Tuesday night? So I tell at home? Who
- 13:55Speaker 2: else was there? There's nobody there. It's just me, my
- 13:58Speaker 2: mother and I lived there. She just had that little apartment,
- 14:01Speaker 2: and my mother, well, she went out a lot, she
- 14:03Speaker 2: drank a lot. But anyway, so I told him I
- 14:06Speaker 2: was at home and they said, oh, there's nobody there, said,
- 14:09Speaker 2: I know, you weren't there. You were at Adam's Wood Streets.
- 14:11Speaker 2: I said, no, I wasn't there. I was there on Thursday.
- 14:14Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 14:14Speaker 2: They went back and forth for a while and they
- 14:16Speaker 2: got angrier and angrier, and they started getting physical. I
- 14:21Speaker 2: mean they were really rough. I mean they were they're
- 14:23Speaker 2: hitting me. I mean, I was all bloody. So after
- 14:26Speaker 2: four hours they rode up the statement, told me to
- 14:29Speaker 2: sign it and then you can go, I said, So
- 14:31Speaker 2: I signed it, I said, after they signed, their hand
- 14:35Speaker 2: covered me ultimately.
- 14:37Speaker 3: Again. Interesting, his confession starts off with on Monday night,
- 14:41Speaker 3: I was and the variation there was. Now this confession
- 14:45Speaker 3: includes Clarence, it includes Russell, it includes Alan, and there
- 14:50Speaker 3: is the first reference to Brian Anderson. And so then
- 14:54Speaker 3: they go to Brian and they speak to him, and
- 14:57Speaker 3: they take Brian to the scene. They show him alleged
- 15:00Speaker 3: weapons that were utilized, you know, and they show him
- 15:03Speaker 3: the confessions of the other three boys. Like on Monday night,
- 15:07Speaker 3: I was.
- 15:08Speaker 4: On the twenty third, I got picked up for murder.
- 15:12Speaker 4: Like I wasn't even a suspect. I was charged already.
- 15:16Speaker 4: They got me to sign a piece of paper, which
- 15:19Speaker 4: I did, and I didn't know that was the confession
- 15:22Speaker 4: that supposedly I had made.
- 15:25Speaker 1: The idea that you were signing a piece of paper
- 15:27Speaker 1: in a language you didn't speak with nobody there to
- 15:29Speaker 1: guide you or help you or advise you. I read
- 15:32Speaker 1: somewhere that you had thought that it might have been
- 15:34Speaker 1: just something related to your possessions that they were keeping
- 15:38Speaker 1: in storage for you while they arrested you. Is that accurate.
- 15:42Speaker 4: Yes. What they do is they make you empty your
- 15:45Speaker 4: pockets and that they put stuff aside and you have
- 15:48Speaker 4: to sign for them. And that's what I thought it was.
- 15:51Speaker 4: That's how crooked they were, you know, they didn't care
- 15:54Speaker 4: just because they had these witnesses. They were calling them.
- 15:59Speaker 4: That's where they based all their stuff from.
- 16:01Speaker 3: And so at the end of the day, as a
- 16:04Speaker 3: result of this sort of linear sequential experience. Now all
- 16:08Speaker 3: four boys are alleged to have participated. The statements that
- 16:13Speaker 3: start very much the same build on each other. So
- 16:16Speaker 3: first you have just Clarence, then you have Clarence and Russell,
- 16:20Speaker 3: then you have Clarence Russell and Alan, and finally the
- 16:23Speaker 3: final statement Clarence, Russell, Alan and Brian have participated. And
- 16:29Speaker 3: so essentially you have each of the young men pointing
- 16:31Speaker 3: the finger at each other and weaving this web for
- 16:34Speaker 3: the police.
- 16:36Speaker 1: Actually feels a little bit like a Canadian version of
- 16:44Speaker 1: New York City's own horror show known as The Central
- 16:47Speaker 1: Park five, currently known as Exonerated five because they use
- 16:51Speaker 1: some of the same techniques differently, but you know, using
- 16:55Speaker 1: everybody against each other and the physical abuse. And it's
- 16:59Speaker 1: very important for our audience to know that in twenty
- 17:01Speaker 1: nine percent of the DNA exonerations, the person who was
- 17:05Speaker 1: proven with absolute certainty scientific certainty to be innocent confessed
- 17:10Speaker 1: to the crime they didn't commit. Just like in this case, Bobin.
- 17:14Speaker 1: What about physical or forensic evidence? Did they collect any,
- 17:17Speaker 1: did they examine it? Was there any? Did they even
- 17:20Speaker 1: make a show out of trying to solve this case?
- 17:23Speaker 3: So that is where this case gets interesting, Jason, They
- 17:28Speaker 3: actually did collect a lot of forensic evidence. The Winnipeg
- 17:31Speaker 3: Police Service collected fiber analysis here microscopy, So there was
- 17:37Speaker 3: three hairs that were grasped in Ting Fong Chan's hands.
- 17:41Speaker 3: They had fingerprints, they collected clothing, they undertook presumptive blood tests,
- 17:46Speaker 3: there was a series of knives that were collected, and
- 17:49Speaker 3: essentially they used a number of different you know, and
- 17:53Speaker 3: I used air coute sciences, sciences that have since been
- 17:57Speaker 3: dubbed junk science to these things. But what's amazing about
- 18:02Speaker 3: this case is Brian Anderson, Alan Woodhouse and the other
- 18:06Speaker 3: two co accused were excluded from all of them. So
- 18:09Speaker 3: they engaged in this efforts to try and get something
- 18:13Speaker 3: beyond the confession undertaking these sciences again air quotes that
- 18:19Speaker 3: have contributed to a number of wrongful convictions, but in
- 18:23Speaker 3: this instance, remarkably, these four men were excluded.
- 18:27Speaker 1: So even when they were using these super subjective, absolute
- 18:33Speaker 1: junk sciences that are very useful for when you want
- 18:37Speaker 1: to conjure up corroborating evidence for a false confession or
- 18:39Speaker 1: misidentification or a jail house snitch testimony, even when they
- 18:43Speaker 1: tried to cheat they failed, where so many other unscrupulous
- 18:48Speaker 1: prosecutors and law enforcement officials have succeeded time and time again.
- 18:51Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm sure that there are a number
- 18:54Speaker 1: of people in the audience scratching their heads as I'm
- 18:57Speaker 1: doing right now and saying, wait, I thought she said
- 19:01Speaker 1: they were excluded.
- 19:03Speaker 3: That's the weirdest thing about this case. So in every
- 19:07Speaker 3: other case I've ever worked on, there's something more. You know,
- 19:11Speaker 3: there might be hair mark cross that was performed, there
- 19:14Speaker 3: may be fiber analysis that matches. There might be you know,
- 19:17Speaker 3: a smudge, fingerprint, or some kind of presumpted blood. But this,
- 19:23Speaker 3: this is that case that the only thing that ties
- 19:27Speaker 3: these individuals to the case are these confessions they're alleged
- 19:31Speaker 3: to have made. All of the air quotes. Science that
- 19:35Speaker 3: they tried to utilize excluded them.
- 19:38Speaker 1: But they marched right ahead as if it included them, right, exactly,
- 19:44Speaker 1: It just keeps piling up, right, So we have the
- 19:46Speaker 1: blind witness, right, we have the false confessions that might
- 19:50Speaker 1: as well have been written in Chinese or Greek Portuguese
- 19:54Speaker 1: because you didn't know what the hell you were signing,
- 19:56Speaker 1: And the physical and forensic evidence collected does match. So
- 20:01Speaker 1: it's already the pile of sculpatory evidence and factors is
- 20:05Speaker 1: growing and growing. But also you had an alibi. It
- 20:08Speaker 1: wasn't like you were by yourself that night, right.
- 20:11Speaker 4: That's right now, staying at my grandfather at the time,
- 20:14Speaker 4: That's where I was, and Clarence and Russell that was
- 20:18Speaker 4: their residence too.
- 20:19Speaker 2: Yes, I was at home and my mother can confirm
- 20:22Speaker 2: that the aster where I was on the guy got killed.
- 20:27Speaker 2: She said I was at home when she got home,
- 20:30Speaker 2: but then she said she was drunk. There's the bars
- 20:32Speaker 2: closed about twelve o'clock. Then she walked from the main
- 20:36Speaker 2: street to Isabel Street, the a'ster about fifteen minute to
- 20:39Speaker 2: twenty minute walk, So that would be about two o'clock
- 20:41Speaker 2: when I was at home, because she said I was
- 20:44Speaker 2: complaining to her about her becoming home late, because you know,
- 20:47Speaker 2: I had to get up in the morning. Hear this,
- 20:49Speaker 2: So I don't I be walking at two o'clock in
- 20:51Speaker 2: the morning and waking me up, And that's how she remembered.
- 20:55Speaker 1: So you guys both underwent preliminary hearings. Alan you were
- 20:59Speaker 1: discharged November nineteen seventy three after the preliminary hearing based
- 21:03Speaker 1: on the finding that the statement to police was involuntary
- 21:06Speaker 1: and thereby inadmissible, and you were discharged, but you were
- 21:11Speaker 1: mentioned in the other statements, and then they were still
- 21:14Speaker 1: able to put you on trial, and they had you
- 21:17Speaker 1: bumped up from juvenile court into adult court. It just
- 21:20Speaker 1: keeps getting worse to stand trial along with Brian and
- 21:23Speaker 1: your other two co defendants.
- 21:24Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
- 21:26Speaker 1: So now we get to the trial, and you got
- 21:29Speaker 1: George Dangerfield. We talked about the notorious prosecutor. This trial
- 21:33Speaker 1: took place February eighteenth through March fifth. Now, obviously you've
- 21:37Speaker 1: studied it in detail, Bob, and tell us about this trial.
- 21:41Speaker 3: The only thing here is the confessions the trial. Jidge
- 21:44Speaker 3: actually says that, and I'm going to read you a
- 21:46Speaker 3: quote from his instructions to the jury. The whole case
- 21:50Speaker 3: basically against these accused, each of them rests on his
- 21:54Speaker 3: own statement, and that sort of summarizes the trial. The
- 21:58Speaker 3: entire length of the trial focused on these statements, and
- 22:02Speaker 3: it was essentially a competition on who was telling the truth.
- 22:07Speaker 3: You know, you had these supposedly upstanding officers that were
- 22:11Speaker 3: presenting this case vouching for the fact that these individuals
- 22:15Speaker 3: had confessed to them. And on the opposite side you
- 22:18Speaker 3: had four young indigenous men who were sort of villified.
- 22:22Speaker 3: They didn't speak English, they weren't provided with interpreters, and
- 22:26Speaker 3: essentially it was their word against the police, the.
- 22:29Speaker 1: Word of the same police officers who had beaten Allen,
- 22:33Speaker 1: who was a child. They literally beat him to extract
- 22:36Speaker 1: the statement that was then, of course, later presented against
- 22:40Speaker 1: him at trial.
- 22:41Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well that's the only thing. That's the only
- 22:43Speaker 2: thing they had. I just said, oh yeah, you came
- 22:46Speaker 2: out and you confessed it. Of course that's what the
- 22:49Speaker 2: police said. They didn't say time with the beating, they
- 22:52Speaker 2: unied it. Of course, even the statement wasn't true. For instance,
- 22:57Speaker 2: the statement said that I had started this person in
- 22:59Speaker 2: the stomach a couple of times, but there was no
- 23:01Speaker 2: stab wounds in the stomach at all.
- 23:03Speaker 1: It's a classic hallmark of a false confession when the
- 23:07Speaker 1: details of the statement don't match the physical evidence. And
- 23:11Speaker 1: there were also the alibi witnesses. But in reading about
- 23:14Speaker 1: the trial, it really made me sort of throw want
- 23:17Speaker 1: to throw up in my mouth to read that Brian's
- 23:19Speaker 1: grandfather was never even called to testify to his alibi.
- 23:24Speaker 1: It's insane. But then this part I don't know struck
- 23:27Speaker 1: me in a different sort of sickening type of way,
- 23:29Speaker 1: which is that Alan, your mother was called the trial,
- 23:32Speaker 1: which was appropriate, but from what I understand, the jury
- 23:37Speaker 1: didn't hear her full explanation because the judge freaking interrupted
- 23:42Speaker 1: her during a pivotal moment of questioning and then sent
- 23:45Speaker 1: her home without allowing her to answer the question like
- 23:48Speaker 1: what planet are we on? This is madness?
- 23:53Speaker 2: Yeah, well today, I don't know why the judge was
- 23:55Speaker 2: sort of hostile toward her. Yeah, because you don't understand
- 23:59Speaker 2: what's going on here, go sit down. Yeah, let's say
- 24:03Speaker 2: it and sat down. It seems to me he just
- 24:06Speaker 2: didn't want to hear her say anything. I don't know why.
- 24:11Speaker 2: Maybe he didn't want to hear the truth. He didn't
- 24:13Speaker 2: want to hear any evidence contrary to what they believed.
- 24:17Speaker 1: I mean, as a parent, I think anyone who's listening,
- 24:19Speaker 1: who is a parent, father, mother, whatever, would feel a
- 24:24Speaker 1: sense of outrage that this is the mother with her
- 24:28Speaker 1: son's life at stake, and the judge is basically treating
- 24:32Speaker 1: her as if her life her son's life. No, none
- 24:35Speaker 1: of it.
- 24:35Speaker 3: Matters, honestly, Jason. It was the moment that I read
- 24:40Speaker 3: the sentencing decision. I want to read this passage to you.
- 24:44Speaker 3: So these are the comments of the trial judge. He says,
- 24:47Speaker 3: this is not a jungle where we live. It is
- 24:50Speaker 3: not a wild's land. We are not subduing this land
- 24:53Speaker 3: from anybody. We are not still taking it from wild
- 24:57Speaker 3: people in this community. We want to be able to
- 25:00Speaker 3: come and go freely, whether the lights are on in
- 25:04Speaker 3: the streets or whether they are out, whether the police
- 25:07Speaker 3: are patrolling the roads or whether they aren't. And you know, Jason,
- 25:11Speaker 3: extemporaneous comments about jungles and wildness not only add nothing
- 25:16Speaker 3: useful to the trial process, but they conjure up stereotypes
- 25:20Speaker 3: that can only do unfair damage to indigenous person Standing trial.
- 25:24Speaker 1: March fifth, nineteen seventy four, Brian, Allen and Clarence were
- 25:28Speaker 1: found guilty of murder and sentence to life in prison,
- 25:32Speaker 1: and Russell was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to
- 25:35Speaker 1: ten years. So, Brian and Alan, what was that like
- 25:41Speaker 1: when that fury came in and sends you to prison
- 25:43Speaker 1: for the rest of your life.
- 25:45Speaker 2: Oh, I was shock coming. I was just speitchless. It's
- 25:48Speaker 2: sort of I don't get it. I never thought of
- 25:51Speaker 2: killing anyone in my life. Ever, I have to just.
- 25:54Speaker 4: Take what was coming to me because like a I
- 25:58Speaker 4: guess you like a sheep and of slaughter house or whatever,
- 26:01Speaker 4: like you know, do whatever they want.
- 26:03Speaker 1: You have, No, you have nothing.
- 26:20Speaker 4: Once the door loss behind you, you're in that little
- 26:24Speaker 4: cell by yourself, and then that's all you do, you think.
- 26:30Speaker 4: I didn't know how to take it to begin with
- 26:32Speaker 4: a thing, and I thought, wows just do away with myself,
- 26:36Speaker 4: kill myself.
- 26:38Speaker 1: And then.
- 26:40Speaker 4: After thinking about that, I thought, hey, I can't be
- 26:44Speaker 4: doing this. I'll be helping those buggers. That's what they
- 26:47Speaker 4: trying to do to me, you try to kill me.
- 26:51Speaker 4: Then I promised myself that I would keep going. Ye,
- 26:57Speaker 4: and I'm still here.
- 26:59Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 26:59Speaker 2: I think it helped me a lot of owned out
- 27:01Speaker 2: totally alone because there was Brian, there's Clarence and Russell,
- 27:05Speaker 2: so yeah, I had some some kind of support. Yeah.
- 27:10Speaker 2: When I got to prison, I never realized how many
- 27:12Speaker 2: Native people they were there. There's just full of Native
- 27:15Speaker 2: people there. There was hardly any white people there at all.
- 27:18Speaker 2: It seems I seemed like a big giant reserve. And
- 27:22Speaker 2: I joined the organization. Now in the Native Brotherhood, I
- 27:25Speaker 2: was quite active in prison politics. I was present for
- 27:28Speaker 2: the Brotherhood a few times. And not only that, I
- 27:31Speaker 2: became a jelouse lawyers of all things. Yes, so that
- 27:35Speaker 2: kept me occupied. I got pretty good in learning the system.
- 27:40Speaker 2: There was a time there I thought, well, now, I
- 27:42Speaker 2: don't know where this idea came from. I thought, you
- 27:45Speaker 2: can serve your time, or you can let the Times review.
- 27:48Speaker 2: I think, yeah. I started adopted that philosophy.
- 27:52Speaker 4: Pick up books or what I would try and distract
- 27:54Speaker 4: your mind. That kind of kept me sane, Like you know,
- 27:59Speaker 4: I didn't. I didn't go insane at all. I went
- 28:02Speaker 4: to school as well, try and learn something, like you know,
- 28:05Speaker 4: try and educate myself, to try and learn English. At
- 28:08Speaker 4: least I could try and speak for myself because my
- 28:10Speaker 4: lawyer wouldn't speak for me.
- 28:12Speaker 2: I finished my high school in prison. I took some
- 28:16Speaker 2: courses here, like auto mechanics I took. I taught electrician
- 28:20Speaker 2: and I work as electrician every time I'm out. I
- 28:23Speaker 2: thought schooling would be the best way to get out
- 28:27Speaker 2: as soon as possible as when Firstunately, they didn't turn
- 28:32Speaker 2: that away. Because I spent seventeen years in prison before
- 28:35Speaker 2: I got a full parole.
- 28:38Speaker 1: That's right, Alan, Despite both of you spending your time
- 28:41Speaker 1: so well behind the walls, as you both just described,
- 28:45Speaker 1: you were not granted parole until nineteen ninety, while Brian
- 28:50Speaker 1: was initially denied parl nineteen eighty because the par board
- 28:52Speaker 1: concluded that Brian had a quote unquote obsession to prove
- 28:56Speaker 1: his innocence. I mean, of course, but they said that
- 29:01Speaker 1: that could potentially result in his violating release conditions. Like what, okay,
- 29:08Speaker 1: what are we through the looking glass here? I mean,
- 29:10Speaker 1: you can't win in that situation. An innocent man not
- 29:12Speaker 1: deserving a parole. It's just totally asked backwards. But there
- 29:17Speaker 1: was a man that I read about who was a
- 29:19Speaker 1: fierce advocate for you, Brian. And that guy's name was
- 29:22Speaker 1: Dick Skelding.
- 29:23Speaker 4: He was a school teacher. And then I asked him
- 29:26Speaker 4: to help me write a letter to my lawyer. He
- 29:29Speaker 4: helped me out and then he says, oh, I'll send
- 29:33Speaker 4: him a letter to He said after that the lawyer,
- 29:37Speaker 4: I had tried to get him fired because he's trying
- 29:39Speaker 4: to help me. And then he was pissed off at that.
- 29:42Speaker 4: He said there's something going on here. He said, something wrong.
- 29:46Speaker 4: You're like a lawyer like that, like he's supposed to
- 29:49Speaker 4: be helping and he's against you. And then he says,
- 29:54Speaker 4: would you take a light at that? So I said okay,
- 29:58Speaker 4: and then I passed it, of course, and then after
- 30:01Speaker 4: that he contact the CTV News and then they came
- 30:04Speaker 4: and interviewed me over there.
- 30:06Speaker 1: Unfortunately, he died in nineteen eighty two, but you carried on,
- 30:10Speaker 1: and as you mentioned, the CTV did its story on
- 30:13Speaker 1: your case, Brian called the Anderson Confession, and you know,
- 30:16Speaker 1: sometimes pressure breaks pipes. So you were ultimately released on
- 30:21Speaker 1: full parole in nineteen eighty three, ten years after your arrest.
- 30:24Speaker 1: But then Alan, you spent seventeen years in prison before
- 30:28Speaker 1: being granted parole in May twenty third, nineteen ninety.
- 30:31Speaker 2: Well, they wanted me to admit that kill somebody, and
- 30:34Speaker 2: I just couldn't bring miss out to tell you I
- 30:36Speaker 2: got I didn't kill anybody. Finally, I think this sort
- 30:40Speaker 2: of said they weren't going to get me to say
- 30:44Speaker 2: that I kill somebody. I think one of the members said,
- 30:47Speaker 2: you know, he said, we can't base our decision based
- 30:51Speaker 2: on what you say. We have to base this isn't
- 30:54Speaker 2: based on the fact that you were convicted. Even if
- 30:57Speaker 2: you are innocent. They granted me a parole I think
- 31:00Speaker 2: if I was in March, and then I said, okay,
- 31:02Speaker 2: you can get it on mid twenty three, nineteen ninety.
- 31:05Speaker 2: So I went to the halfway house, you know, which
- 31:07Speaker 2: is just another prison. So I stayed there another six months.
- 31:10Speaker 2: So sir, it's a gradual release. You know, you don't
- 31:13Speaker 2: just walk over there. Yeah, there's some parole officers RAVI
- 31:15Speaker 2: attitude and just trying to find excuses to send you
- 31:18Speaker 2: back to prison. The current one is actually pretty good
- 31:21Speaker 2: right now, So it's actually very good compared to the elevance. Oh,
- 31:25Speaker 2: I've had really bad parole officers. I've been suspended a
- 31:28Speaker 2: few times. I has been got out on habeas corpus
- 31:32Speaker 2: three times. My parole officers revoked my parole. I had
- 31:36Speaker 2: to take him to court to reinstad my parole took
- 31:38Speaker 2: him three times and they finally I told him that
- 31:43Speaker 2: the next time I caught him on hebeis corpus, I
- 31:46Speaker 2: will be filing civil suit. So so far there left
- 31:50Speaker 2: me alone. But like today, I could be suspended right now.
- 31:54Speaker 2: You know, I can't be in chill tomorrow. That's just
- 31:57Speaker 2: the way it is.
- 31:58Speaker 1: Brian. For you for was revolt to suspend it and
- 32:01Speaker 1: regranted numerous time. We've talked about this before, you and
- 32:03Speaker 1: I about sort of the prison outside of the prison, right.
- 32:07Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I had such a racist parole officer. Because
- 32:12Speaker 4: of him, I went back and forth. He told me
- 32:14Speaker 4: he was an ex cop. He was really after me
- 32:17Speaker 4: like any little thing. Even when he used to come
- 32:20Speaker 4: visit me. He put his phone or whatever tape recorder aside.
- 32:25Speaker 4: He said, well, I'm going to turn this off first
- 32:27Speaker 4: so it won't get interrupted, and he's recording me all
- 32:29Speaker 4: this time. You know I could see that. And then
- 32:34Speaker 4: he had said, well, like you know, what we say
- 32:38Speaker 4: and what the courts say are two different things. Don't
- 32:42Speaker 4: bet on it. He told me, like, you know, like
- 32:45Speaker 4: you're going to go back, like he made a decision
- 32:48Speaker 4: already that was going to get revoked, revoked my parole.
- 32:52Speaker 4: I was glad to get rid of him. Finally they
- 32:54Speaker 4: gave me another one, which is a woman after that,
- 32:57Speaker 4: and then she was nice to me and I never
- 33:00Speaker 4: then went back after that. I'm still with it today.
- 33:04Speaker 4: Like you know, I have I have like a chain,
- 33:07Speaker 4: like a lease. I can only go so far, like
- 33:09Speaker 4: as radius, I can't go past eighty kilometers from where
- 33:13Speaker 4: I'm at, I can get thrown back in jail for that,
- 33:16Speaker 4: for being out of the boundary.
- 33:18Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all these years later. It's so crazy that
- 33:21Speaker 1: in Canada they do it much the same way we
- 33:24Speaker 1: do here, which is try to make their lives as
- 33:26Speaker 1: difficult as possible after their freed, whether they're innocent or guilty.
- 33:29Speaker 1: Of course, if you're declared actually innocent, then they don't
- 33:32Speaker 1: put you on parole here. But I always say we
- 33:33Speaker 1: should build ramps for people coming out of prison so
- 33:36Speaker 1: they can get back on their feet, join their community,
- 33:39Speaker 1: get back with their family, go to school, become contributing
- 33:43Speaker 1: members of society. Instead, we put up roadblocks every place
- 33:47Speaker 1: we can and put ice in the road and nail
- 33:51Speaker 1: so you get tripped up and you go right back
- 33:52Speaker 1: to prison. There's forty four hundred different restrictions in America
- 33:56Speaker 1: on parole and probation, over forty four hundred, some of
- 33:59Speaker 1: them make it virtually impossible for somebody to remain free.
- 34:02Speaker 1: And sad to hear that it's the same way in Canada.
- 34:05Speaker 4: Exactly, like you know, like what I didn't like about
- 34:08Speaker 4: this too, is that like somebody come from another part
- 34:13Speaker 4: of the world, like you're on the other side of
- 34:15Speaker 4: the world, for example, and come and tell me how
- 34:18Speaker 4: to live my life in my own country. You know
- 34:21Speaker 4: that pisces me off try to control my life, still
- 34:25Speaker 4: do I don't like that.
- 34:28Speaker 2: I should be free.
- 34:46Speaker 1: So they have yet to declare you both actually in
- 34:49Speaker 1: list in all these decades later, while they continue to
- 34:53Speaker 1: keep their hooks into you, and as time has passed,
- 34:56Speaker 1: the fight to clear your names has remained constant, but
- 34:59Speaker 1: the process is maddeningly slow. In fact, the presence of
- 35:03Speaker 1: Bovin with us today starts a while back with a
- 35:07Speaker 1: legend in the innocence community who has since then passed.
- 35:11Speaker 4: Hurricane Carter's name came up. I was told to contact
- 35:15Speaker 4: Hurricane Carter. They were called Haidwick. Now they're called Innocence Canada.
- 35:19Speaker 4: I didn't know anything about Innocence Canada. There was four
- 35:23Speaker 4: cases that came up, people that were convicted from George Landerfield.
- 35:28Speaker 4: Their cases were looked after they've been dealt with already,
- 35:33Speaker 4: and I believe my case was ahead of them, but
- 35:38Speaker 4: I have been looked at it all.
- 35:40Speaker 1: So Bobin, when did you and Jerome Kennedy get involved
- 35:43Speaker 1: and take us right up to the present to where
- 35:45Speaker 1: the case is at right now.
- 35:47Speaker 3: Jerome and I became involved in twenty seventeen, and that
- 35:52Speaker 3: was when Innocence Canada was going under a bit of
- 35:55Speaker 3: a shift. So what Jerome Kennedy did was review every
- 35:59Speaker 3: single file that was on our roster and evaluate it.
- 36:04Speaker 3: I think it was days into me starting my role
- 36:06Speaker 3: as legal director, we started working on this case and
- 36:09Speaker 3: so almost instantly, over the course of the next maybe year,
- 36:15Speaker 3: year and a half, we were pouring over every document,
- 36:19Speaker 3: calling every institution, trying to put together this file and
- 36:24Speaker 3: figure out a way in because I think the struggle
- 36:26Speaker 3: in this case was they were so obviously innocent. The
- 36:31Speaker 3: only thing here was the confession, and we just couldn't
- 36:37Speaker 3: figure out why it was they were convicted. And so
- 36:40Speaker 3: we submitted Brian's case at the beginning of twenty nineteen
- 36:44Speaker 3: to an organization known as the CCRG, So that's the
- 36:48Speaker 3: Criminal Convictions Review Group and essentially that is the sub
- 36:51Speaker 3: department of our Ministry of Justice. And in Canada, what
- 36:55Speaker 3: this processes involves is us filing what is known as
- 36:59Speaker 3: a Section ninety six point one application, and the Ministry
- 37:04Speaker 3: on their website provides you about three pages in order
- 37:07Speaker 3: to be able to make a person's claim of innocence.
- 37:10Speaker 3: But ultimately Brian and Allen's combined applications ended up being
- 37:15Speaker 3: three hundred pages of us noting everything we had found
- 37:20Speaker 3: and was accompanied by I think almost five or six
- 37:23Speaker 3: banker's boxes of evidence we had collected over the years
- 37:27Speaker 3: what had initially only started off with the four confessions.
- 37:31Speaker 3: So presently Brian's was filed in twenty nineteen. The CCRG
- 37:35Speaker 3: actually approached us and asked us to file Allen's in
- 37:38Speaker 3: twenty twenty, and so we filed his application in February,
- 37:43Speaker 3: sort of as a supplement to the two. And now
- 37:46Speaker 3: it's still before the CCRG being considered and it's a
- 37:50Speaker 3: long process. We've been waiting for a while and we're
- 37:53Speaker 3: really hoping that the Minister makes a decision soon.
- 37:57Speaker 1: Yeah. It really just pisses me off how easy it
- 38:01Speaker 1: is to throw a few good men's lives away, but
- 38:05Speaker 1: then to of course to undo that dirty work is it?
- 38:11Speaker 1: You know? Well, now we know it's a fifty year
- 38:14Speaker 1: uphill struggle with banker's boxes of material that takes years
- 38:18Speaker 1: to a mass, and of course many more years to
- 38:21Speaker 1: get in front of anybody who's in a position to
- 38:23Speaker 1: do anything about it.
- 38:25Speaker 3: That's the thing about wrongful convictions. It is so easy
- 38:30Speaker 3: to convict someone. And here we are, fifty years later,
- 38:36Speaker 3: still trying to undo it. You know, I started on
- 38:38Speaker 3: it twenty seventeen. It is now twenty twenty two, just
- 38:41Speaker 3: to get an idea of how long this process takes.
- 38:44Speaker 3: And I am just on the tail end of Alan
- 38:47Speaker 3: and Brian's efforts to sort of undo what happened to them.
- 38:52Speaker 1: And if any of our listeners want to support your efforts,
- 38:54Speaker 1: is there a website they can go to.
- 38:56Speaker 3: So the ask for us is supporting organizations like an
- 39:00Speaker 3: since Canada, we have so little resources, and to Brian's point,
- 39:05Speaker 3: it takes us years to even get to the point
- 39:08Speaker 3: that we have enough resources to be able to review
- 39:12Speaker 3: and evaluate a case. And in the absence of us
- 39:14Speaker 3: doing so, there is no one else. There is no
- 39:17Speaker 3: one else that is doing this work. And so people
- 39:20Speaker 3: like Brian are forced to wait in the queue until
- 39:23Speaker 3: we have enough resources ability to reach that file. And
- 39:27Speaker 3: this is a human being that is waiting for us,
- 39:30Speaker 3: that is waiting for us to review their case. And
- 39:32Speaker 3: so all i'd ask, you know, the pitch to the
- 39:34Speaker 3: audience would be to support your local wrongful conviction organization.
- 39:39Speaker 3: Make sure that you're able to contribute to them in
- 39:42Speaker 3: that way. And when there are policy matters that are
- 39:44Speaker 3: coming up or opportunities to support, please do, please.
- 39:49Speaker 1: Do, amen, So keep your ear to the ground. People
- 39:53Speaker 1: support your local innocence organizations as well as larger ones
- 39:56Speaker 1: like Innocence Canada. I mean the money a long way
- 40:00Speaker 1: with Innocence Canada, believe me, and we'll have their site
- 40:04Speaker 1: linked in the bio. So now we come, of course
- 40:07Speaker 1: to my favorite part of the show, Closing Arguments is
- 40:10Speaker 1: the section of the show where first of all, I
- 40:12Speaker 1: thank you all of you for being here and sharing
- 40:15Speaker 1: this unreal story. I'm gonna turn my microphone off, kick
- 40:19Speaker 1: back in my chair with my headphones on, if I
- 40:21Speaker 1: close my eyes and just zone in on whatever else
- 40:25Speaker 1: you want to share, Bob, and please start us off,
- 40:28Speaker 1: and then I'll leave it up to you to hand
- 40:30Speaker 1: the mic off to whoever you want to have go next,
- 40:33Speaker 1: and then the other guy will take us off into
- 40:36Speaker 1: the sunset.
- 40:37Speaker 3: The only thing I will say is, for almost fifty years,
- 40:41Speaker 3: Brian and Allen have maintained their innocence. They have spent
- 40:44Speaker 3: the majority of their life marked as murderers, and yet
- 40:49Speaker 3: every day both of them wake up continue to fight
- 40:52Speaker 3: to clear their name. And you know, as Jason mentioned
- 40:56Speaker 3: in one of the parole reports that I read, they
- 40:58Speaker 3: talk about Brian's session with his innocence, and in both
- 41:02Speaker 3: Brian and Allen's case, their obsession with proving their innocence
- 41:06Speaker 3: has never wavered. Their story is one of enduring strength, determination,
- 41:12Speaker 3: and perseverance.
- 41:14Speaker 4: Yes, well, I got to keep crying. I can't give up.
- 41:17Speaker 4: I need but I need help. I there's nothing I
- 41:21Speaker 4: can do by myself. Whoever's out there we can help. Well,
- 41:26Speaker 4: even better, that's what I need.
- 41:30Speaker 2: Oh, thank you very much for having me here. There
- 41:33Speaker 2: was a great privilege to be here. I would like
- 41:35Speaker 2: the audience and all that. You know, we we always
- 41:38Speaker 2: think about justice, but justice has to come soon. Can't
- 41:46Speaker 2: just say it happened and nothing nothing happens. So he
- 41:50Speaker 2: has to make a decision. This review has to come
- 41:53Speaker 2: to an end at some point. I just wish they'd
- 41:56Speaker 2: make a decision quickly because just think also stressful the
- 41:59Speaker 2: fact that this is hanging over you. Well, when am
- 42:02Speaker 2: I getting out? You know why am I getting out? Day?
- 42:05Speaker 2: In and day out. You know it, just where's the
- 42:07Speaker 2: oat psychologically dreaming? Please be aware of that there's a
- 42:14Speaker 2: lot of injustice in this world, and it's people, and
- 42:17Speaker 2: we always think it will never happen to me, but
- 42:19Speaker 2: it does happen. I certainly never told you what happened
- 42:23Speaker 2: to me.
- 42:30Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
- 42:33Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wartis,
- 42:37Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
- 42:41Speaker 1: was supplied by three time Oscar nominated composer Jay Ralph.
- 42:44Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
- 42:48Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
- 42:52Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
- 42:55Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
- 42:58Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Ravel. Conviction is
- 43:02Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with
- 43:05Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one