Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode that I Catch killers. Now, can
Speaker 1: you imagine spending over twenty years in prison for a
Speaker 1: crime you didn't commit, going into that prison as a
Speaker 1: teenager and coming out as a middle aged man. It's
Speaker 1: hard to comprehend how he would survive such an injustice. Well,
Speaker 1: today we're going to speak to someone that that happened to.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is ever Risto Salis, a teenage boy of
Speaker 1: Mexican Descent, who was convicted and in prison for the
Speaker 1: murder of Jose Aurelio in California in the United States
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five. Everisto always maintained his innocence regarding
Speaker 1: this violent crime, but when he was just sixteen, he
Speaker 1: was convicted and sentenced thirty two years and nine months
Speaker 1: in an adult prison. After years of legal battles, he
Speaker 1: was officially exonerated of the crime in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to Everisto about his life before
Speaker 1: during the following his release from prison. It's a fascinating story.
Speaker 1: We're also going to examine miscarriages of justice and the
Speaker 1: need for scrutiny in.
Speaker 2: The legal process.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt you're going to find this a
Speaker 1: heavy discussion, but I think when you hear what he's
Speaker 1: got to say, you might also find some inspiration in
Speaker 1: his story. Everista Sallas, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 3: Nice to be with you.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I really.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you you coming on the podcast because we had
Speaker 1: a chat before we started, and I pointed out the
Speaker 1: fact that I was a homicide cop for a long time. Now,
Speaker 1: of all people to have resentment, distrust or whatever in
Speaker 1: regards to talking to a cop. So I appreciate you, appreciate.
Speaker 3: You coming on, thank you for having me. I really
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I got to say up front, you got
Speaker 1: every right to be bitter and resentful. Like going in
Speaker 1: the prison as a young fella aged what sixteen two
Speaker 1: days in the sixteenth year, sentenced to thirty two years
Speaker 1: and nine months imprisonment, I think it was, yeah, and
Speaker 1: sentence as an adult, even though you're a kid at
Speaker 1: at sixteen and an adult prison, that's a pretty heavy
Speaker 1: situation to find yourself in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely was. And the age of peteen, I
Speaker 3: couldn't really comprehend the magnet to that situation. Even the
Speaker 3: time that they had given me was too big of
Speaker 3: a number for me to understand at that moment. And
Speaker 3: what's strange about that is my ignorance as a child.
Speaker 3: It actually prevented me kind of from really dealing with
Speaker 3: it emotionally, and that helped me in a sense, because
Speaker 3: I think if I really understood the magnitude of what
Speaker 3: I was facing, I might have crumbled under that pressure.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's interesting you say that, but you are naive
Speaker 1: at that age. You really have no appreciation what the
Speaker 1: world's about, and so the full ramifications of what faced
Speaker 1: you for the next thirty two years probably didn't really
Speaker 1: sink in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the first two or three years, I kind of
Speaker 3: lived in that ignorance, you know, And I think that
Speaker 3: was a way that I protected myself. I think thinking
Speaker 3: about what took place and what happened to me in
Speaker 3: my life was too big for me, not only to
Speaker 3: understand but to deal with. At that moment. I didn't
Speaker 3: have really the experience or the understanding of how to
Speaker 3: deal with that emotionally and mentally. And even here I
Speaker 3: was sitting in a place I've never been, a hostile
Speaker 3: environment where everything and everyone seemed to be trying to
Speaker 3: take advantage in one form of another. And I think
Speaker 3: that as a child, I dealt with to the best
Speaker 3: way I could, and that was intervention.
Speaker 1: The fact I sit here talking to you now, and
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk on in other interviews and read
Speaker 1: a bit about you, the fact that you've escaped through
Speaker 1: that experience that you've gone through and don't have a
Speaker 1: resentment and an anger, and that maybe I'm wrong, but you,
Speaker 1: to me, you come across as someone that Okay, well,
Speaker 1: that was a big setback in life of the huge dimensions.
Speaker 1: But you don't seem to carry a bitterness and a resentment.
Speaker 1: Is that Where does that mindset come from?
Speaker 3: Well, it was a choice. I mean it became a
Speaker 3: choice in prison because that resentment was there, and that
Speaker 3: was that was a second phase of what I had
Speaker 3: to go through. Once I begin to understand, once I
Speaker 3: got older and matured and mentally, I begin to see
Speaker 3: what happened to me, what took place, and what came
Speaker 3: was anger and bitterness, anger with the system. I didn't
Speaker 3: know at that time that the cop had set me up.
Speaker 3: I just assumed that it was just a part of
Speaker 3: this long struggle that had dealt with in my life
Speaker 3: of just you know, life just throwing in these punches
Speaker 3: at me. And it was another one of those things.
Speaker 3: And I grew angry with everything around me, and it
Speaker 3: took I think it was it was dipping into that
Speaker 3: madness and that anger and that frustration that led me
Speaker 3: down a path in prison to a point in my
Speaker 3: life where where I was I was isolated, I couldn't
Speaker 3: function mentally, and I had to make a choice at
Speaker 3: that moment, a moment of a kind of a self
Speaker 3: preservation of how I wanted to live my life. Because
Speaker 3: I was already in the cage physically and at that moment,
Speaker 3: living in anger. I was in the cage mentally too,
Speaker 3: and I decided at that moment that I had to
Speaker 3: rise above them. I had to make the choice, a
Speaker 3: conscious decision, to say, you know what this happened to me. Okay,
Speaker 3: I can't change it at this moment. I can fight
Speaker 3: to change it, but I don't have to live my
Speaker 3: life mentally as I'm still in a prison. I can
Speaker 3: find a way to free myself and begin to live.
Speaker 3: And it was a choice, you know, and that choice
Speaker 3: was hard, you know, for me to accept. But I
Speaker 3: decided that I wasn't going to hold on to anger, frustration,
Speaker 3: and hatred because that in itself was the prison, and
Speaker 3: that was a prison that I created for myself. And
Speaker 3: I had to let go then. And I had to
Speaker 3: look at the most sporable things in my life, not
Speaker 3: just the wrongful conviction, but everything prior to that, and
Speaker 3: I had to forgive with the genuine forgiveness in order
Speaker 3: for me to live, in order for me to find myself,
Speaker 3: in order for me to become the person I needed
Speaker 3: to be that had to go, and that was a
Speaker 3: choice that I had to make, and I had to
Speaker 3: be willing to say, you know what, I don't know
Speaker 3: why this happened or what was behind it, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter to me because I'm going to find a
Speaker 3: way to live and live in peace in this place.
Speaker 3: And when I made that decision, I had I had
Speaker 3: to kind of make the decision every single day because
Speaker 3: that anger with Flerero. But that was probably the most
Speaker 3: screen moment in my entire life in prison, was letting
Speaker 3: gore that burden, because that had carried me down, that
Speaker 3: had almost destroyed me and didn't allow me to see
Speaker 3: beyond the file of the pain and suffering that I
Speaker 3: was going through. But once I let a go, I
Speaker 3: could see with clarity and I could make decisions that
Speaker 3: they were better my life rather than destroyer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I suppose it's the one thing that you can control,
Speaker 1: isn't it. There was nothing else about your life that
Speaker 1: you could really had control of the environment that you
Speaker 1: were in, But you can control your own own emotions
Speaker 1: and own thought process. So we're going to delve deep
Speaker 1: into that during the podcast how you worked your way
Speaker 1: through that anger. But let's get the audience to find
Speaker 1: out a little bit about yourself, where you grew up,
Speaker 1: what was your upbringing like, and tell us your story.
Speaker 3: Basically, I was born in reised in Sunny Start last time.
Speaker 3: My entire life there to the age of fifteen until
Speaker 3: I was charging and wrongly convicted. The environment that I
Speaker 3: grew up in was pretty hostile. I grew up with
Speaker 3: a mother who was an alcoholic. My biological father was
Speaker 3: never in my life. I knew who he was, but
Speaker 3: he was a stranger to me. He lived in the
Speaker 3: same small town that I lived in. The town that
Speaker 3: I live in was only about ten thousand people at
Speaker 3: the time. It's only about sixteen thousand now, so it's
Speaker 3: a small, conservative, farming town. It was kind of probably
Speaker 3: about fifty or sixty percent of Hispanic back when I
Speaker 3: was in the nineties. Now it's up to about eighty
Speaker 3: or ninety percent of his Spanic. So the environment was
Speaker 3: starting with my parents. Being with my mother who was
Speaker 3: so chaotic and in the drugs and alcohol. That was
Speaker 3: the beginning of the struggle of my life because everything
Speaker 3: that she brought into her life she brought into our
Speaker 3: life and I had to accept it. She split with
Speaker 3: my stepfather who raised me and who I believe is
Speaker 3: my real father. And I don't call him my stepfather,
Speaker 3: but I do that just for clarity. And he was
Speaker 3: probably the only thing stable in my entire life. But
Speaker 3: he split with my mother when I was about five
Speaker 3: or six. But their relationship was pretty chaotic because my
Speaker 3: mother would leave and then come back drunk around some
Speaker 3: kind of drugs, and so it was. It was a
Speaker 3: constant feeling with insecurity. When they split, my mom decided
Speaker 3: that she didn't want me no more for whatever reason.
Speaker 3: I came back from school one day and I couldn't
Speaker 3: find anybody there. My sisters weren't there. I have one
Speaker 3: older sister, one younger sister, and one younger brother. At
Speaker 3: the time, you know, I was seven or eight, my
Speaker 3: younger brother. I think i'd just been been born. And
Speaker 3: nobody was there when I returned from home. And at
Speaker 3: first I thought, maybe they're in the back room, so
Speaker 3: I went to the ground. I couldn't find anybody, and
Speaker 3: I began to panic, and I began to yell from
Speaker 3: my mom. I couldn't I couldn't yell her name, and
Speaker 3: she didn't append then she just I couldn't find it.
Speaker 3: Where and then once I kind of just gave up
Speaker 3: and started kind of sobbing in one of the rooms,
Speaker 3: stinking that maybe she had just left me. I mean,
Speaker 3: everything was still there, but I just couldn't make sense
Speaker 3: of the situation. And then my mom peered out of
Speaker 3: nowhere and kind of just walked past me and kind
Speaker 3: of had this like she didn't see me. So I
Speaker 3: felt this kind of this this moment of happiness, like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's my mom. So I jump up and I kind
Speaker 3: of chase her down, and she turns around and looks
Speaker 3: at me, and she had this kind of weird look
Speaker 3: in her eyes and it was kind of glossed over.
Speaker 3: And I had seen my mother, you know, high and
Speaker 3: on drugs, and she didn't seem like she was on that,
Speaker 3: but there was something different about what she had in
Speaker 3: her eyes. And she looked at me kind of in
Speaker 3: a stoic voice and with no emotion at all. She
Speaker 3: looks at me and she says, you're a bad kid,
Speaker 3: and I want you anymore. And it was that direct
Speaker 3: and that cold, and I couldn't really process what she
Speaker 3: was saying. It didn't really make sense to me, and
Speaker 3: she kind of just turned and walked away, and I
Speaker 3: kind of sat there, kind of lost in my thoughts,
Speaker 3: sticking understanding what this really meant. And it felt like
Speaker 3: it just happened, you know, five or ten minutes later,
Speaker 3: but it must have been twenty or thirty minutes later.
Speaker 3: The cops showed up at my house, and he said
Speaker 3: it was two cops and they came into the house
Speaker 3: and and I didn't really understand what they were doing there,
Speaker 3: but as they approached me, my mom kind of spoke
Speaker 3: to him and then she kind of like looked back
Speaker 3: at me, and they kind of started walking towards me.
Speaker 3: I got this kind of gun wrenched feeling like, oh,
Speaker 3: they were going to take me for some reason. And
Speaker 3: they were there. They were there to take me to
Speaker 3: the foster gear. My mom had given me up and
Speaker 3: didn't me anymore, and they literally took me out of
Speaker 3: the house, kicking and screaming. I was begging my mother
Speaker 3: at that point, you know, please gonna let them take me.
Speaker 3: I was crying, but like I said, she had that
Speaker 3: kind of indifference look in her eyes, and they pulled
Speaker 3: me out. I was screaming and crying. They were trying
Speaker 3: to control me. They handcuffed me but the cuffs were
Speaker 3: too big and they were just slipping off my hands,
Speaker 3: and so they threw me in the back of the
Speaker 3: cop car, kind of rough handled me a little bit,
Speaker 3: tried to tie me in with the with the seat
Speaker 3: belt and ended up getting the cuffs on me in
Speaker 3: some kind of weird way, and then just took me,
Speaker 3: took me to the police station. I still couldn't really
Speaker 3: figure out where I was going, what was happening, And
Speaker 3: then they said to me, all I wouldn't tell him
Speaker 3: my name, my mother. My mother had told most things,
Speaker 3: but I just kind of was crying and kind of inconsolable.
Speaker 3: And then they took me in the back of cop
Speaker 3: corn or transported me to Yakima County, which is the
Speaker 3: city of Yakoma, which is about forty five miles away.
Speaker 3: Still didn't know where I was going. We got halfway there,
Speaker 3: they turned around, and at that moment, I felt like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: maybe my mom had to change my mind, and I
Speaker 3: felt kind of a sense of hope. And when they
Speaker 3: brought me back, they took me my dad. My stepdad
Speaker 3: looked in sunny. He must have got word. I don't
Speaker 3: know how he found out, but they had heard that
Speaker 3: my mother had had CPS or you know, the chop
Speaker 3: tech servant and taking me somehow he got ahold of
Speaker 3: the police station. They took me to my dad's house,
Speaker 3: and I remember pulling up at my dad's house and
Speaker 3: my dad comes to the back of the cop corn
Speaker 3: as soon as he's seen me. I remember the looking
Speaker 3: his eyes he had, like his face kind of it
Speaker 3: was just like a beat sadness when he see me,
Speaker 3: and he kind of put his head down and kind
Speaker 3: of just started crying. And he says to me, and
Speaker 3: I'm crying. I'm screaming that camp you know I mean.
Speaker 3: And he says to me, tried to call me down.
Speaker 3: He says, he said, your mother loves you. She's just
Speaker 3: in a bad place right now. And I didn't really
Speaker 3: understand iver. I didn't understand that until I got a
Speaker 3: little bit older what that meant. But I remember him
Speaker 3: picking me up, kind of crying at the same time,
Speaker 3: and then taking me into the house. And that began
Speaker 3: the process of me living with my dad and my
Speaker 3: mother kind of not want having to do with me.
Speaker 3: She lived in the same town and not too far away.
Speaker 3: But I think it was two days later I ran
Speaker 3: away and went back to her house. She called the
Speaker 3: cops on me again, and it was the same traumatic
Speaker 3: event almost for about two or three weeks, and then
Speaker 3: the last time, I just decided that, yeah, I get
Speaker 3: it now. And my father, I mean, he had to work.
Speaker 3: He worked, you know, twelve to thirteen hour days, but
Speaker 3: he had a house, and there was stability there. When
Speaker 3: I was living with my mother, we were always they
Speaker 3: would always shut the water off, We're always hungry. She
Speaker 3: would leave us sometimes for two or three days at
Speaker 3: a time. We'd be just me and my older sister,
Speaker 3: my younger sister by ourselves, and then she would bring
Speaker 3: these men in sometimes and or get to get into
Speaker 3: these relationships where she had really abusive ment, and I
Speaker 3: seemed to be a target of all them. I don't
Speaker 3: understand what the reason was behind that. And so living
Speaker 3: with my dad, even though it was away from my mom,
Speaker 3: who I loved, there was stability there. There was a
Speaker 3: commonists there, there was a structure. And although my call
Speaker 3: had to work all these hours, he had this strength
Speaker 3: towards him, the way he carried himself, and he carried
Speaker 3: himself in an honorable way. He wasn't really a religious man.
Speaker 3: He was a moralistic man and pragmatic and everything he did.
Speaker 3: And you know, so he wasn't a big speaker either.
Speaker 3: He didn't speak a lot. I didn't talk a lot,
Speaker 3: but his actions spoke valuance to me. And the way
Speaker 3: he carried himself is how he affected me the most,
Speaker 3: which I didn't see at that time, but that came
Speaker 3: later when I was in prison, and so that was
Speaker 3: kind of the environment that I grew up in. That
Speaker 3: The other side of that was that the gangs have
Speaker 3: already kind of began to form, you know, began to
Speaker 3: grow in the town. You know, they originated in California
Speaker 3: and brought down your individual to removing down here. So
Speaker 3: that was the other act. My father, being the good
Speaker 3: man he was, he still had to work, so he
Speaker 3: was gone the majority of the day when I get
Speaker 3: back from school, which left the void in my arm,
Speaker 3: and I was alone. It was just me and him
Speaker 3: for the first years, and then my older sister came
Speaker 3: to live with us. Then my younger sister came to
Speaker 3: live with us. So my dad end up raising all
Speaker 3: three of us by himself. But again it was he
Speaker 3: was gone at work. He had to work to support
Speaker 3: us and and and you know, get us things we need.
Speaker 3: What ended up happening was that it was the gang
Speaker 3: that filled that void. You know, there was a part
Speaker 3: of me that that I felt missing because my mother
Speaker 3: was gone and I was looking for that love and
Speaker 3: other things and looking for that acceptance and other things.
Speaker 3: They were going through similar things in their own household,
Speaker 3: and it was the tragedy and the trauma of that
Speaker 3: moment that caused us to band together. And when I looked,
Speaker 3: when I look back at that moment, it wasn't so
Speaker 3: much that we decided, oh, we're going to be this
Speaker 3: gang or that kind of stuff. It was it was
Speaker 3: the trauma of our lives and the understanding that we
Speaker 3: had with each other that formed the bond that in
Speaker 3: the you know, morphing into the gang and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: The YU described that it's understainable that I age, and Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to say to you, what a tough,
Speaker 1: tough start in life.
Speaker 2: But you're lucky that you had your your father. There
Speaker 2: was stepfather there.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how you talk about getting drawn into gangs,
Speaker 1: because I hear on this podcast and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: I saw that happen so many times. It's that sense
Speaker 1: of wanting to belong, to be part of something, to
Speaker 1: feel you know, you've got your tribe basically, some people
Speaker 1: that care for you and look out for you. So
Speaker 1: what sort of stuff did you get into when you
Speaker 1: found your way in the gangs? And what age were
Speaker 1: you at this time?
Speaker 3: I was about eleven when I started going to hang
Speaker 3: around with them. I didn't really get it onto two.
Speaker 3: I was like twelve. But the stuff that we did
Speaker 3: was very juvenile in the beginning. It was basically just
Speaker 3: walking around protecting each other, fighting with the arrivals here
Speaker 3: and there. Which was strange about it because the town
Speaker 3: was so small that we went to school with all
Speaker 3: these kids and they were friends prior, and so it
Speaker 3: wasn't really serious. In the beginning. We were fighting, there
Speaker 3: were plates were really that bad, and oh you got
Speaker 3: med this and that kind of stuff. And as you know,
Speaker 3: as I got to about the age of thirteen, then
Speaker 3: it became started getting serious. You know, then people started
Speaker 3: shooting at us. And the gang I was part of
Speaker 3: was very small and it was an opposition of all
Speaker 3: the other gangs in the entire time, and so there
Speaker 3: was about two streets that we didn't control, but that's
Speaker 3: where we kind of lived at. That was our neighborhood.
Speaker 3: And so in any direction I went, I would get
Speaker 3: chased or drump or shot at. And that's just the
Speaker 3: way it was. And it was people that I knew
Speaker 3: that I grow, our parents knew each other. That's how
Speaker 3: small it was, you know. But now we hated each
Speaker 3: other because of these gangs that brought this in. And
Speaker 3: then it was just a weird kind of mixture of
Speaker 3: us dealing with each other and finding each other for
Speaker 3: no apparent reason. We were too young to kind of
Speaker 3: challenge the challenge. That kind of mindset or it came from.
Speaker 3: All we knew was once it started that we hated
Speaker 3: this guy boy he jumped you this time, or I
Speaker 3: don't like him because you know, he hit me this time,
Speaker 3: or he shot at me this time. And that's what
Speaker 3: it became. The kind of daily things that we did
Speaker 3: was just kind of walk around. Sometimes we would steal things,
Speaker 3: you know, or break in the cars or tag up
Speaker 3: and just kind of juvenile kind of de linklents. And
Speaker 3: then since we were so outnumbered, we were always on
Speaker 3: the defense. There was no offensive on any kind of way.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, there was everywhere we went, and
Speaker 3: I was very I was really small, and I got
Speaker 3: pretty much beat up every single fight that I got into.
Speaker 3: There was and there was no I couldn't challenge these
Speaker 3: guys that were just too big, and it would always
Speaker 3: seem that they I don't know if it was because
Speaker 3: I would I would accept I fight them even though
Speaker 3: I didn't want to, and I would just take the beating.
Speaker 3: But it always seemed like they wanted to fight with me.
Speaker 3: And maybe because I was the smaller all of them,
Speaker 3: the me with my you know and Spanish called my
Speaker 3: cheese more you think you're you know, well, I'm looking
Speaker 3: to back down, and then I.
Speaker 2: Would just kidding to stripid Yeah exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 3: As if there was something I was gaining from that,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I mean those first uh you know,
Speaker 3: twelve to thirteen to fourteen, I got beat up a
Speaker 3: lot a lot of times, you know, and I found
Speaker 3: myself how to fight, which I think I won my
Speaker 3: first one, I think right before I went to prison,
Speaker 3: and that was pretty I didn't win. It wasn't like
Speaker 3: a big win, but I didn't get beat up.
Speaker 2: You take any take any victory you can't get, yeah.
Speaker 3: He didn't give me on the ground this time. I
Speaker 3: don't have a black guy. This time, I might do
Speaker 3: up on my head of beard. But you know, so
Speaker 3: it was it was a small victory, but it just
Speaker 3: too a young kid like that, it seemed I think
Speaker 3: when when I was twelve thirteen, it didn't seem that serious.
Speaker 3: But when they started shooting at us and we're trying
Speaker 3: to kill us, that's when I begin to understand that,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm part of something that that's not very good.
Speaker 1: You know, by then it was too late that confronted
Speaker 1: you in the big Why I believe you had a
Speaker 1: friend that for the nine year old that was shot
Speaker 1: and killed in your presence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was seventeen.
Speaker 2: Are you you were full of honey at the time.
Speaker 3: I was working, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was working.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Talk us through that, because that's the reality of saying
Speaker 1: something like that sort of brings at time the world
Speaker 1: that you were sublving in.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, I mean we were. It was my friend Robert,
Speaker 3: and he was like, almost to a certain states, like
Speaker 3: an older brother, and we kind of just connected and
Speaker 3: we just formed this kind of inseparable bond. We were
Speaker 3: always with each other and I was younger and he
Speaker 3: was older, so he always had a tendency to try
Speaker 3: to protect me. And he got into a lot of
Speaker 3: fights because of me, you know, Like I said, people
Speaker 3: wud challenged me because I was really small, but you
Speaker 3: would get in for me, and he saved me, I
Speaker 3: mean two or three different times of One time, this
Speaker 3: guy ran up on me with a knife and almost
Speaker 3: stabbed me. He jumped in and almost got stabbed himself.
Speaker 3: And then another time, these two guys ran after me
Speaker 3: with machetes, which and he stood his ground and he
Speaker 3: was telling me to run and I didn't want to
Speaker 3: even there, and they were swinging the machetes at us,
Speaker 3: but they didn't. Uh we were kind of were more
Speaker 3: new over and so they couldn't. And then they ended
Speaker 3: up bringing away. And it was moments like that that
Speaker 3: really kind of solidified our bond together, you know, and
Speaker 3: I felt really close to him, and like I said,
Speaker 3: it was another one of those things where where you know,
Speaker 3: there was something missing in my life and his life,
Speaker 3: and that caused us both to kind of you know,
Speaker 3: bond towards each other, you know. And and one day
Speaker 3: we just went out and I went to his house
Speaker 3: and there was you know, a few other friends with us,
Speaker 3: and we went to go walk around. I think, I
Speaker 3: don't I think we're looking for for some weed or
Speaker 3: something like that. I wanted to smoke some weed or
Speaker 3: something like that. And he was at home and he
Speaker 3: didn't actually want to come with us, and I was like, well, hey,
Speaker 3: if we can't find all this, we'll just to go
Speaker 3: buy some burritles or something, you know. And that's the
Speaker 3: soldiers like, oh, I'll take some brieoles in. So we
Speaker 3: didn't find us, so we went to the store right
Speaker 3: by It was right by his house, and uh. I
Speaker 3: had went inside the store and a car of rivals
Speaker 3: had put up as a full corn end section and
Speaker 3: they ended up kind of rushing the car or fighting
Speaker 3: right there or something. And then I heard a shot
Speaker 3: and I walk out and I see, you know, the
Speaker 3: car peel out, and I run up to the corner
Speaker 3: and my friend's laying on the ground making a weird noise,
Speaker 3: rolling on his back, and you can't see anything. It's
Speaker 3: not like in the movies or there was a bullow.
Speaker 3: We couldn't see anything. There was no blood or nothing.
Speaker 3: And we lit up his shirt and there was like
Speaker 3: a little weird like bolte right here. But we didn't
Speaker 3: know it at the time, but apparently he had got
Speaker 3: shot in the back and then it had came in
Speaker 3: and pierced the part and was literally peeking out of
Speaker 3: his chest right here, and he was making a weird noise,
Speaker 3: and then he just stopped making the noise, and we're
Speaker 3: trying to shake him to wake up, and he died
Speaker 3: right there, right there in that corner. One of the
Speaker 3: worst part about that is that as we were trying
Speaker 3: to kind of get him to wake up, his dad
Speaker 3: had pulled up on the intersection, was coming around because
Speaker 3: he lived right there and he had to. His two
Speaker 3: little sisters were in the car, and he seemed the
Speaker 3: commotion or something kind of pulled into the driveway and
Speaker 3: somebody yelled at it was his son and everything. He
Speaker 3: jumps up and runs out and it's two little stifters
Speaker 3: seen that. We're screaming in the background. And eight nineteen
Speaker 3: years old, I can't remember. And and that was that
Speaker 3: added tode, you know, to the horrors the horrors of
Speaker 3: that woman, you know. And to me when I lost him,
Speaker 3: it was I mean that was to me, it was
Speaker 3: it was like I couldn't. I couldn't deal with it anymore.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't fun for me at all anymore. And
Speaker 3: that right there kind of solidified my thought process of
Speaker 3: thinking that I have to find a way to get
Speaker 3: out of this. I just I cannot live like this anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you that something is confronting
Speaker 1: the saying the friend killed lot that your mind said
Speaker 1: that that time, was that this wasn't the life that
Speaker 1: you wanted to live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it hit me pretty hard that day.
Speaker 3: And then when we buried him, had already been kind
Speaker 3: of thinking about not being a part of this anymore,
Speaker 3: because you know, it was just it was just watch
Speaker 3: I mean literally we're getting shot at all the time,
Speaker 3: you know, and it wasn't like it was it was
Speaker 3: like a weekly thing. And some of these guys that
Speaker 3: didn't even know just because of the color our word
Speaker 3: and where I lived at, and if it became too real,
Speaker 3: it wasn't fun anymore. It wasn't a joke, it wasn't
Speaker 3: where we're just there for each other. Now we've got
Speaker 3: to survive. And and so that kind of solidified that
Speaker 3: moment in my mind and then became well, how do
Speaker 3: I do that, you know, I mean, I my dad's
Speaker 3: were poor, even though my dad works in a way
Speaker 3: where he doesn't. We don't feel that we're poor, but
Speaker 3: we are. We can't just get up and leave. My
Speaker 3: dad at the same time is trying to do everything
Speaker 3: best to say it me from that. You know, he
Speaker 3: feels bad for the other kids, but lucky here I'm
Speaker 3: his son. But he has no way. I mean, he
Speaker 3: can't just pick up and go somewhere else. And and
Speaker 3: it was just like I felt stuck. And then we
Speaker 3: end up burying them. And then the next days when
Speaker 3: they came to my house and charged me murder murder
Speaker 3: or not didn't committee So I didn't even have a
Speaker 3: time to really cross it at that moment. And then
Speaker 3: I was thrust it into another life changing, you know experience.
Speaker 1: You know, you just on that on that pathway, tell
Speaker 1: us about the murder that you were convicted of, that
Speaker 1: you you didn't commit, but tell us about the circumstances
Speaker 1: surrounding the murder.
Speaker 3: Why can't tell that begin for me? And then I
Speaker 3: kind of explained what I learned from the cours and stuff.
Speaker 3: So it just you know, we buried my friend. You
Speaker 3: know that day the next day that they wake up
Speaker 3: about nine o'clock. These cops I had known my entire life.
Speaker 3: You know, they harassed me. I set things to them,
Speaker 3: you know, and so they know who I am. I
Speaker 3: know who they are. You know. I've picked me up
Speaker 3: plenty of times. So they come to the house and
Speaker 3: they want to talk to me about my friend that
Speaker 3: was killed. I hadn't really slept that whole week. I
Speaker 3: definitely sleep that night, and I was really mad because
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't know anything. I was in the
Speaker 3: store when it happens. I couldn't give them anything. But they, uh,
Speaker 3: we said, all we're just going to take you down there, nass.
Speaker 3: So I just cussed at them, like, I don't know
Speaker 3: why you got always messing with something to that effect.
Speaker 3: And I finally agreed him. I throw, all right, whatever
Speaker 3: you and he'll be back in a few minutes, I said, okay.
Speaker 3: So I remember walking out of my house and I
Speaker 3: see two cop cars, and like I said, it became
Speaker 3: so routine for them to pick me up that I
Speaker 3: was used to the process. Sometimes they would cook me up,
Speaker 3: sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes they would you take me to
Speaker 3: the police station. Sometimes they wouldn't. But I seen two
Speaker 3: cop cars and I looked at it and it seemed
Speaker 3: weird to me, and know, we're like two cop card
Speaker 3: two cop cars. But then I just brushed it off.
Speaker 3: And when the cop crad went to the police station,
Speaker 3: as soon as I got there, they sat me down,
Speaker 3: which was regard in Travino regard being at the leed
Speaker 3: detective Travino being a second second hand. They look. He
Speaker 3: looked at me and says, you know why you are here,
Speaker 3: and I said, yeah, because my friend Robert, and he
Speaker 3: was like, no, no, so many said he killed somebody.
Speaker 3: And I almost laughed when he said that, because I
Speaker 3: was it was like, who, you know, you're trying to
Speaker 3: say I killed my friend, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Because there was nobody that you know that I could
Speaker 3: have really kind of understand what they're talking about. And
Speaker 3: then they they they always begin this way. This is
Speaker 3: their their interrogation technique, every single time when somebody said
Speaker 3: somebody said that, and so it was almost a routine
Speaker 3: that went through all the time. And then he looks
Speaker 3: at me and he said, no, I'm serious. And with
Speaker 3: the way he said that, I'm serious, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I said no, no, what you talked himbout? And he said, oh,
Speaker 3: well somebody they killed somebody when you were fourteen years
Speaker 3: old and and six months ago, and I was like,
Speaker 3: And then I was even more lost. I was like,
Speaker 3: I was like, I couldn't even like, what are you
Speaker 3: talking about?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 3: I mean they said his name, which is a RL.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that name, was like and then they
Speaker 3: said his uh, his tag name or his gang name
Speaker 3: or what they called him on the street, which was bugs.
Speaker 3: I had heard somebody by that name, but I didn't
Speaker 3: know him personally. And he begins to go on with
Speaker 3: someone said that someone so that, and I'm telling him, Look,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you right now, I don't know anything about this.
Speaker 3: I heard about that murdered, you know, months back, but
Speaker 3: it had nothing to do with me. I don't even
Speaker 3: you know this, It wasn't even thought of my head.
Speaker 3: And man, I don't say that as as being in
Speaker 3: a reflection on somebody being murdered on that, but it's
Speaker 3: just that if someone gets killed and you don't know him,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really impact you kind of an emotional Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just someone died. All that's messed up, you know.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't even thought of my head. And so
Speaker 3: he began to go on and say, well, he doesn't
Speaker 3: tell me really much. He just says someone said this,
Speaker 3: someone said that. And I'm arguing with him back and forth,
Speaker 3: and I tell him, I said, look, you guys know
Speaker 3: me my entire life. Yeah, I do stupid stuff, and
Speaker 3: I kind of talked trash you guys and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. But I'm no killer. I didn't kill anybody.
Speaker 3: And then he looks at me and he says, you
Speaker 3: didn't think we're ever going to catch you on And
Speaker 3: with that statement right there, I knew that he'd already
Speaker 3: made up his mind. And he looks at me, so
Speaker 3: I'm much charge you with a murder, and I don't know.
Speaker 3: By this time, I'm crying. I'm telling him, look to you, anybody,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you that right now. But there was nothing
Speaker 3: I could. It didn't matter to him. He was charging me.
Speaker 3: I called my dad out to that, and I tell
Speaker 3: my dad, my dad is always going on. He's like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I said, Dad, I looked her, saying this,
Speaker 3: because you have anything to do with it. I said, no, douab,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you right now, I don't even know what
Speaker 3: you're talking among. He says, okay, just look, just calm down,
Speaker 3: you'll be all right, figure it out, It'll be all right.
Speaker 3: And they carried me out the juvenile that tried me
Speaker 3: a fresh grat murder threw me in the juvenile, and
Speaker 3: so that's where it began for me. That was the
Speaker 3: beginning bro this whole episode.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you what was going through your mind
Speaker 1: at that stage? It's hard to even comprehend being told
Speaker 1: you're going to be charged with murder? Did you know
Speaker 1: evenly think this will saw itself out, like I haven't
Speaker 1: done it, so the justice system will kick in. What
Speaker 1: was going through your mind at that point in time
Speaker 1: when you were told you're going to be charged with murder?
Speaker 3: At that moment, was shot and I already suffered the blow.
Speaker 3: Wasn't a friend just a couple of days before. I
Speaker 3: was already in this mindset where I was just feel
Speaker 3: tired of living the life that I had been living,
Speaker 3: and this was just another hit and it was like
Speaker 3: I just couldn't at that moment deal with it. It
Speaker 3: was such a shock that I was. It was weird.
Speaker 3: I was almost like I just you know, I had
Speaker 3: been crying and and and then I just kind of
Speaker 3: just put my head down and it was just like
Speaker 3: I couldn't mentally deal with it. And when I remember
Speaker 3: them taking me to the juvenile hand cuts and everything,
Speaker 3: I remember looking at Sunnyside and getting this dreadful feeling
Speaker 3: as if that was going to be the last time
Speaker 3: I seen it, and I just I was just stunned.
Speaker 3: I remember, I was just I couldn't even speak, and
Speaker 3: I remember getting to the juvenile and trying to trying
Speaker 3: to process this, you know, and like I don't understand,
Speaker 3: you know. And and then came a little bit after
Speaker 3: that that gave me a little bit comfort. I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: wouldn't even figuring it out. I really didn't do it,
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't have much to worry about.
Speaker 3: But then that only gives a certain monoic for maybe
Speaker 3: a comfort that feeling for a moment. But then you're
Speaker 3: stuck in that place and you realize that, look, it's
Speaker 3: every day is another day that they don't figure it out.
Speaker 3: And so it helped to a certain extent in small moments,
Speaker 3: but it didn't really relieve any kind of It was
Speaker 3: just a really shock and I just I couldn't understand.
Speaker 1: I take it after the charge you were locked up
Speaker 1: in you weren't biled, you were locked up in juvenile
Speaker 1: detention center at that side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I went to the Actamaal Juvenile and I remember
Speaker 3: telling all the guards over there that I didn't do it.
Speaker 3: You know, you come in for a murder charge. They
Speaker 3: look at you a certain way, especially when you're you're
Speaker 3: as young as I am, and I remember a few
Speaker 3: of them saying, I hope, I hope not. But I
Speaker 3: had this feeling that I had to tell every single
Speaker 3: person I can because I didn't do it. I had
Speaker 3: to defend myself some kind of way. It didn't matter
Speaker 3: if there were people that kids that were there with
Speaker 3: me or if it was guards. I had to say
Speaker 3: to every single person. But it was a look that
Speaker 3: I got from a single person was the same thing, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that that was heard that before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was a look I got for twenty
Speaker 3: plus years until that documentary came out.
Speaker 2: And we'll break it down and go through the whole process.
Speaker 2: But I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't honestly comprehend carrying that frustration of what you've
Speaker 1: gone through, Like you think this can't be right. This
Speaker 1: is a nightmare. When's it going to stop? Just going
Speaker 1: through what you went through the process once you once
Speaker 1: you've been charged, Just talk us through that, the cored appearances,
Speaker 1: the trial, and what happened there, your experience throughout that process.
Speaker 3: Well, I was when I was in a juvenile it
Speaker 3: was the juveniles sealed with a bunch of young gang members,
Speaker 3: and so it was battles all over the police fighting,
Speaker 3: NonStop lockdowns and NonStop people hitting you up where you're from.
Speaker 2: So it was just a.
Speaker 3: An enclosed version of where I came from on the streets,
Speaker 3: you know, and now they had to fight. They're trying
Speaker 3: to house anybody together. So it was just like it was.
Speaker 3: It was hard in that environment. And then I had
Speaker 3: this heavy burden of knowing I'm in prison for something
Speaker 3: I didn't do, and nobody cares, nobody believes me. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter to anybody else because it doesn't acceect them personally,
Speaker 3: So I'm stuck. I'm alone in my own thoughts and
Speaker 3: my own feelings. And then going to these hearings where
Speaker 3: they're reading out these charges and the consequence of those charges,
Speaker 3: just what I had, you know, to the anxiety I
Speaker 3: have already had, you know, like you know, and and
Speaker 3: there's a part of me that felt like screaming out.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it, but the consequences of doing that
Speaker 3: would only send me to a strip cell and they
Speaker 3: put me locked down for you know, four forty eight hours.
Speaker 3: And then I remember the prosecute attorney. It was was
Speaker 3: a female prosecut turner names I think her last names,
Speaker 3: oh well or something like that. She had a fire
Speaker 3: about her, like as if I personally did something to her.
Speaker 3: And the way she spoke about the murder, the way
Speaker 3: she and maybe this is just you know, the way
Speaker 3: prosecutunings are supposed to be towards the fact. I get that,
Speaker 3: but this seemed real personal things that she would say,
Speaker 3: so of the things are really mean spirited, you know,
Speaker 3: towards me, and I felt that for her. And I
Speaker 3: remember going back to the cell, I'm thinking, you know
Speaker 3: that that was you know, that's that's a certain amount
Speaker 3: of abuse that I'm I'm going to be facing face
Speaker 3: from everybody. It's a jacket that you get. And I
Speaker 3: didn't know how to deal with it at that moment.
Speaker 3: I just kept thinking, why is she being so mean?
Speaker 3: I get is she's a prospect attorney, but she's saying
Speaker 3: some of the things she's staying are person take a
Speaker 3: shock of my family, take a jot to me, saying
Speaker 3: things that are not true. But I couldn't defend myself.
Speaker 3: I couldn't get up and say anything. That's where it was.
Speaker 3: And then it got progressively worse. My Lord tells me
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about being declined or sent to
Speaker 3: an adult jail. I didn't know nothing about that. Nothing wrong.
Speaker 3: And so he tells me the process. And so I remember,
Speaker 3: I said, what do you I said, you mean they
Speaker 3: can send me to prison. I mean they can send
Speaker 3: me to the county jail. And he's like yeah. He goes,
Speaker 3: and that's what they're trying do, and and he goes,
Speaker 3: most likely that's where you're gonna go. And I said,
Speaker 3: what do you mean most likely less one? He goes, well,
Speaker 3: murder chargers, if you were sixteen, you would have already
Speaker 3: been automatically sent to the county jail. I said, but
Speaker 3: I'm fifteen. I'm a kid. He goes, Uh, it doesn't
Speaker 3: move round. So we're gonna go to these hearings and
Speaker 3: they're going to determine whether or not. And I was like,
Speaker 3: and he goes, and he was blunt with me. There
Speaker 3: was no he wasn't going to be around the bush.
Speaker 3: And now what took place. He goes, if you go there,
Speaker 3: he goes, you have to be very careful. I was like,
Speaker 3: what do you mean be careful? He said, because well,
Speaker 3: he said, you're real small and they're going to try
Speaker 3: to do things to you. And like, what do you
Speaker 3: mean do things? He says, well, they'll try to rape
Speaker 3: you or beat you up or do all these kind
Speaker 3: of things. So he filled my mind with all the
Speaker 3: chorals of what jail would be like for kid like me.
Speaker 3: That didn't help, you know, that made it worse. But
Speaker 3: I get, you know, he wanted me to, you know,
Speaker 3: see it the reality, and yeah, the reality of it,
Speaker 3: and you know that the juvenile wasn't even better. They
Speaker 3: had the scare, this scare straight uh thought process where
Speaker 3: they wanted to show us how terrible the prisons were
Speaker 3: and the way to kind of get us to stop
Speaker 3: doing what we're doing on the streets. So what we
Speaker 3: got every Friday was documentaries of all the horrors in prison,
Speaker 3: of what happened to people juveniles, all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and they filled our mind with that on loop every Friday,
Speaker 3: every Saturday or something Camember. They would give us that
Speaker 3: And so this was my thought process, you know, whether
Speaker 3: reality or not, That's what was in my head, Like,
Speaker 3: oh God, I had to deal with that Helmemeking survivor
Speaker 3: and I go to my heares and my declared harriets,
Speaker 3: like COMMITI trial and everything I ever did bad in
Speaker 3: my life, every fight I got into the fact that
Speaker 3: I was a gang member, every incident I had with
Speaker 3: the cops, every issue I had in school, every single
Speaker 3: thing I ever did was brought up in there. And
Speaker 3: they're not when you look at them, you know, they're
Speaker 3: not big things, but when you combine them all together,
Speaker 3: they can They can really paint a picture of the
Speaker 3: pat that a person is going.
Speaker 1: Sounds to me like they're painting the narrative that will
Speaker 1: excuse the facts.
Speaker 2: But look at this kid, he was destined to go
Speaker 2: down that path. It sounds like that.
Speaker 1: And you talk about the prosecutor and the passion that
Speaker 1: she had the vitriol like it's almost like they've assumed
Speaker 1: you're guilty. This is just a process. It feels like
Speaker 1: to me, the way that you're telling your story is
Speaker 1: that people have already convicted you and just accepted you've
Speaker 1: convicted the crime. And here you are, as a kid
Speaker 1: sitting in there thinking I haven't done this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's and like I said, I never I've
Speaker 3: always been to a certain extent, I'm an introvert to
Speaker 3: a certain extent. I've always I lived alone with my dad.
Speaker 3: I don't like the center of attention. I like being
Speaker 3: whenever I was in a group, I was always in
Speaker 3: a corner of trying, like that's just the way that
Speaker 3: was my personality. And here I am the center of attention.
Speaker 3: And and the anxiety that had at that moment, not
Speaker 3: knowing what was gonna happen, the prospect of going to
Speaker 3: this jail, which bad things are probably gonna happen to
Speaker 3: me that I probably couldn't control, And here I had
Speaker 3: to sit in at court and this, this prosecuttorney just
Speaker 3: would lay into me. And at the moment, when I
Speaker 3: was a kid, I didn't think about, oh okay, I'm
Speaker 3: arguing in school, but I get in a fight with
Speaker 3: this kid, maybe they'll bring it up later on in
Speaker 3: my life. I never thought about those moments. And here
Speaker 3: are here I am. There's a trail of things that
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of. Wow, that makes me look horrible. And
Speaker 3: and they're, like you said, they're painting this narrative, you know,
Speaker 3: of who I was to convince the judge and you
Speaker 3: need to sentence guy to prison whether he's guilty or answer,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't matter because he's a threat society. And
Speaker 3: that's what they were saying. Left un check all this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. You'll big birth society. And I mean
Speaker 3: the the detective was up there saying all kinds of
Speaker 3: things and all this stuff, you know, and you know,
Speaker 3: I just had to sit like this and just and
Speaker 3: just take it. And my lawyer would get up and
Speaker 3: argue this and rg that. But there's you know, whenever
Speaker 3: whenever somebody is accusing you of something personally, or whenever
Speaker 3: somebody attacking me, your first instinct is to get up
Speaker 3: into finish. So, oh no, that ain't true. Well you
Speaker 3: know that's not the person I am. But I couldn't
Speaker 3: do that because the consequence of speaking out in court
Speaker 3: would just be worse for me. I had to have
Speaker 3: to kind of be there, send a submissive kind of
Speaker 3: for me, because that's the way the American justice admitted,
Speaker 3: you know, and you learn that right away, because if
Speaker 3: you don't, then you know, you go directly to a
Speaker 3: holding cell or you know that kind of stuff. You
Speaker 3: don't want to be stuck in neglige when you know.
Speaker 3: And so we're going through this process, and I remember
Speaker 3: the judge, you know, when she made her decision to decline, man,
Speaker 3: send me to the even though their expert, which was
Speaker 3: a psychiatrist, said that he was against sending me to
Speaker 3: the dog court. Too young, immature and my mind was informed,
Speaker 3: right and all that kind of stuff, and I would benefit.
Speaker 3: They were already talking as if I would go in
Speaker 3: person anyways, Oh, he would benefit for you know, being
Speaker 3: in jubail system because you know, he will learn this
Speaker 3: and learn that. So they're speaking in terms as if
Speaker 3: I'm guilty and I'm going to jail. It's not like, well,
Speaker 3: if he's convicted, then this is none of that is well,
Speaker 3: when he goes here, he goes there. They were already
Speaker 3: you know, but he voted against send me to the
Speaker 3: doll court. To mistay that a probation officer did the
Speaker 3: same thing. The judge ruled against that and said and
Speaker 3: in the way she said it too she told my
Speaker 3: dad directly, your great father, you've been here for your
Speaker 3: son and done all these things for you, and it's
Speaker 3: obvious that you love your son. And she says to
Speaker 3: him and front of me to she goes, but your
Speaker 3: love can't save him. And and those words right there
Speaker 3: cut me.
Speaker 2: It's cruel.
Speaker 3: He cut me. And I remember the words. We played
Speaker 3: in my head, you know, for for over twenty years.
Speaker 3: And she declined me. She decided to send me to
Speaker 3: a dark cord. And then she said, she wrote in
Speaker 3: the paper, said that I was a threat. I was
Speaker 3: a threat to the public, and left unchecked, that I
Speaker 3: would become worse. And I've already proven that the way
Speaker 3: I was living already. And and I read that, I mean,
Speaker 3: I got the PaperWorks. I got the paperwork, and I
Speaker 3: was just it was It was so strange because in
Speaker 3: that moment, you're already you know, in an emotional warnable position,
Speaker 3: or you know, mentally the world seems to be caving in,
Speaker 3: and these people like they kick you even more. It's
Speaker 3: almost that they don't they don't see you as a child,
Speaker 3: They see you as something else. They don't even talk
Speaker 3: to you as if you're a child. Mhm. They speak
Speaker 3: to you as if you know they're here's something other
Speaker 3: than that, and and and and so I had to
Speaker 3: deal with those words and I got sentilated to the
Speaker 3: Akamaal County jail. I remember when I came back from
Speaker 3: the hearing, they could be straight into the volieef and
Speaker 3: then want me around the other juvenile because I was
Speaker 3: considered an adult now and I couldn't be how the dreils.
Speaker 3: And I remember coming back and I remember this this guard.
Speaker 3: I had grown kind of close to her kind of
Speaker 3: in the juvenile and she was like just a real
Speaker 3: nice lady. And I would fold the clothes and all
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff you know about and clean and
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff, and we just she was
Speaker 3: just really nice to me. And I remember seeing her
Speaker 3: just crying, you know. And I remember looking at her
Speaker 3: when I was in the Holy Skuy. I could see
Speaker 3: the booth and she was just crying right and looking
Speaker 3: at me, just crying, and I could I really, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't coudn't understand, you know, why she was crying. Well,
Speaker 3: when I look back years on that, the reason she
Speaker 3: was crying is because she understood the horrors that I
Speaker 3: was going to face that place. She understood what awaited me,
Speaker 3: and I was too young and ignorant to really understand,
Speaker 3: even though I was scared and I couldn't read, and
Speaker 3: and her tears were in its Russian, you know, restore me,
Speaker 3: you know, and and like I said, she was such
Speaker 3: a nice person to me. And I ended up getting
Speaker 3: transferred to the doc to to the Akmo County Gern
Speaker 3: I mean nothing, even nothing to me. I was sort
Speaker 3: of smile.
Speaker 1: Is this before you've been convicted? Is this when the
Speaker 1: decisions made that you're going to get tried? So they're
Speaker 1: virtually throwing you, throwing you to the wolves before you're
Speaker 1: even even convicted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they just throw you in there. There's no if
Speaker 3: you're convicted. They say it's it's weird in American. In
Speaker 3: America just they always tell that as being you united
Speaker 3: to guilty. But the system is not based like that.
Speaker 3: If that was the case, they.
Speaker 2: Would be treating you like this, you know, they wouldn't
Speaker 2: be putting.
Speaker 3: No exactly, you know. And they tossed me straight in
Speaker 3: and I went straight to solitary confinement.
Speaker 2: How old were you? I was fifteen fifteen in a
Speaker 2: mile adult prison in the Yeah, which is adult journ Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: talkers through that experience, like, hey, hey, you saved from
Speaker 2: the time you go there.
Speaker 3: Well, they took me straight to solve their employment. I
Speaker 3: had never really experienced being in the seller or small
Speaker 3: team for twenty twenty four hours a day. I never
Speaker 3: experienced that. But they had to do that to protect
Speaker 3: me and other juveniles because the adults will prey upon
Speaker 3: us and the only way to do that is is
Speaker 3: put us in solda, throwing straight into a cell string
Speaker 3: too attain with other There was maybe two other three
Speaker 3: other juveniles that were they're also charged as adults. And
Speaker 3: there I sat and we had nothing to do. It
Speaker 3: was just us, and you know, we just sat there
Speaker 3: and play games and dealt with their emotions, you know,
Speaker 3: and there was they were always fighting because you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what kids do it, I guess. But it's a
Speaker 3: really dirty, grimy place because it's it's the whole basically
Speaker 3: what it is. The food is horrible. You never leave
Speaker 3: that area, and and everybody, the juveniles over there all
Speaker 3: facing you know, thirty forty years in prison because they
Speaker 3: got declined to so that the level of hope is
Speaker 3: pretty low, you know, and my dad, though, would come
Speaker 3: and see me everyday. Is anything. He was there, called
Speaker 3: him every day and he wanted me to call them
Speaker 3: every day. And that was my strength in that place,
Speaker 3: was him. He always reminded me, you know, to be
Speaker 3: strong and all that that stuff. But you know, I
Speaker 3: adjusted try again and again. I was a little hope wild,
Speaker 3: but they can't convict myself and I really didn't do
Speaker 3: There's no way it's not gonna happen. Because growing up
Speaker 3: in America, the day they they they get you into
Speaker 3: believing that the American system of justice is this they
Speaker 3: have all these praises when that's what school knows. It
Speaker 3: tells you how greater our country is. And it doesn't
Speaker 3: talk about the wrongful convictions, the racism or whatever. They
Speaker 3: just this is America. It's great and these are the
Speaker 3: reasons why they said, well I should love it, and
Speaker 3: our justices was the best in the world. So you
Speaker 3: grew up with that. Even though I was kind of
Speaker 3: outside of that, you know, I still believed in it
Speaker 3: because that's all I'm so. I was like, it's I'll
Speaker 3: be all right, you know. And as we started tryal
Speaker 3: I was they ad a bad my trial and basement
Speaker 3: of the Acual County Jail, and it was really cold
Speaker 3: down there, and they would take me in the morning
Speaker 3: and put me in a holding sell by myself, and
Speaker 3: I would sit there for an hour before I would
Speaker 3: go home into court, and it's just an anxiety filled
Speaker 3: hour where you just couldn't I didn't know what the thing,
Speaker 3: couldn't I really understand what was going on. I couldn't
Speaker 3: really comprehend the words they were saying. These are all
Speaker 3: big words that I've never used in my life, not
Speaker 3: to mention the legal you know, jargon, all that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff, and understood now of that stuff. I probably
Speaker 3: understood maybe twenty percent of what they were saying. So
Speaker 3: I go in there and I remember what happened was
Speaker 3: me and my dad kind of developed this, uh, this
Speaker 3: little routine, so he put me out of the hold
Speaker 3: in soul and it would go straight into the court
Speaker 3: room and my dad would be sitting in there already wait.
Speaker 3: I would sit down once they put me down in
Speaker 3: the ballotfore lead, and then I would look back like
Speaker 3: this over my shoulder and he'd be sitting right back
Speaker 3: down in the public area and he would whisper to me,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't really hear him, but I could kind
Speaker 3: of read his lips and he would say he would
Speaker 3: tell me to stand it. And that had a habit
Speaker 3: because you always tell me shoulders up, you know, your
Speaker 3: chin up, and just that little those words right there
Speaker 3: would give me the strength to push through that moment.
Speaker 3: I think if he had not been there at least
Speaker 3: one day, probably would have because he was my my
Speaker 3: strength in that moment.
Speaker 1: It sands to me the way you describe him and
Speaker 1: the support that he was. You said strength, that it's
Speaker 1: a rock that held you together by the sands of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: I mean he.
Speaker 3: Was there with me. You know, he didn't he let
Speaker 3: him and that never he never let me feel like
Speaker 3: I was alone, and he always kind of gave me strength,
Speaker 3: words of strength, and and just that that moment right
Speaker 3: there was was I know he could see it. He
Speaker 3: can see you know, my dad, he could see what
Speaker 3: it was doing to me. And I think that heat
Speaker 3: As as a father, you know, I mean, you have
Speaker 3: to and the best way you can. I mean, how
Speaker 3: do you when I think you know what he went through,
Speaker 3: how to take about you as a father protect your
Speaker 3: son in that kind of moment or uplist him and
Speaker 3: I let him, you know, start taking you know, things
Speaker 3: you know, or you know, kind of lose himself. And
Speaker 3: I remember going through that process and just always every
Speaker 3: morning him being there, right there, and I felt like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I can I can deal what's going to go on today.
Speaker 2: How long did the trial runfull?
Speaker 3: I think it went from I think the sixth of
Speaker 3: the nineteenth. I was convicted on the nineteenth. I think
Speaker 3: could begun on December sixth and December sixth, and then
Speaker 3: ended on the ninet December nineteenth.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're looking at the almost two weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but don't count the weekends because we didn't put
Speaker 3: a court on the weekends. And try was was brutal
Speaker 3: for me because it was it was it was just
Speaker 3: witnesses getting up there and then and saying things that
Speaker 3: were true that I knew were true, and I couldn't
Speaker 3: understand why they were saying them. And I remember thinking
Speaker 3: when Dificans Grocery up there, I'll feel I remember thinking, Okay,
Speaker 3: now she got good views, she's gonna see it wasn't me.
Speaker 3: And when she said no, that's same. I'll never forget
Speaker 3: his face and I was just shocked. I've never seen
Speaker 3: this girl before in my life, you know, how could
Speaker 3: she not see this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And I remember I looked right at her, you know,
Speaker 3: and and and she would give me this really ugly
Speaker 3: dirty looks, and I was like, well, she's gonna she's
Speaker 3: gonna realize that. And she did, you know, she said
Speaker 3: that's him. I'll never forget his facing. And then for
Speaker 3: the informer to get up there, and and you know,
Speaker 3: said that I said this, and which I knew never happened.
Speaker 3: It never happened, and I just I just I remember
Speaker 3: going back to the to the cell. I just thinking
Speaker 3: that I was living in some kind of bizarre world
Speaker 3: that you know. It was like some kind of nightmare
Speaker 3: that I just didn't wake up from because nothing seemed
Speaker 3: to be going right. It all seemed to be going
Speaker 3: to point in one direction. I didn't want to think
Speaker 3: about what that direction was. And I remember I was
Speaker 3: having bad dreams and my dad had come to see me,
Speaker 3: and this was right before they had been convicted, and
Speaker 3: where I think we were waiting for the jury too.
Speaker 3: They were deliberating to think or something. And I remember
Speaker 3: telling my dad, I have bad dreams, you know that
Speaker 3: I was convicted, and he told me, no, I don't don't,
Speaker 3: don't talk like that. It's all right. Believe me, they're
Speaker 3: going to see it. It's all right. He didn't do it.
Speaker 3: Just focus on that. Okay. I'm scared that he was crying.
Speaker 3: It was tone. It was no I he said no,
Speaker 3: he wouldn't hear it. So I remember going in there,
Speaker 3: and I remember the jury coming in and that made
Speaker 3: a decision and my little looks at me and says,
Speaker 3: it's really bad. It's pretty bad. And I said, what
Speaker 3: do you mean it's back. He goes that, Jerry's not
Speaker 3: looking at you. I said, what do you mean? They're
Speaker 3: not looking at me? And I loaked up and they
Speaker 3: all wouldn't stare me, and they I look like they're
Speaker 3: doing like this, and I really didn't understand what that man.
Speaker 3: But I remember looking at him. He said it doesn't
Speaker 3: look good. And then I had to stand up and
Speaker 3: they read it, you know, get it to the first murdering.
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking at that moment there was a
Speaker 3: feeling that just it's almost like when you almost like
Speaker 3: we almost said a fall something, or like when you're
Speaker 3: driving and almost sits and me like, oh, it's that
Speaker 3: kind of just rush of feeling and everything kind of
Speaker 3: just falls out of you. And I just sat there
Speaker 3: and I remember thinking, of course, because my mind had
Speaker 3: already put in my head, looked, you've already suffered all
Speaker 3: this in their life, what's another blow. Of course, it
Speaker 3: went to that. It went to like, yeah, yeah, of
Speaker 3: course is it's like every single freaking thing. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: it was. It was a shock. And I remember hearing
Speaker 3: my sister screaming in the background, and I even looked
Speaker 3: back and I kind of just was a little bit shocked.
Speaker 3: And this other strange thing about I don't know if
Speaker 3: they do it in every court room, but seven or
Speaker 3: eight of the biggest guards I ever seen in my life,
Speaker 3: but at least over six feet at least that's what
Speaker 3: they seem like, come up and just rush throom, turn
Speaker 3: around the handcuff me. I'm already in the channel, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't understand. But it was a show, that's what
Speaker 3: they were doing. It was part of this little terrible
Speaker 3: theory that was going on, and they wanted to show
Speaker 3: I guess I was tiny. It was five foot in
Speaker 3: like one hundred and ten.
Speaker 2: Powers making a statement your as now and this is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and they towered over me. It was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I was you know, I looked like it
Speaker 3: was just horrible. So they kind of roughed me out
Speaker 3: and take me on. I'm taking in my head, does
Speaker 3: it make sense? They take me all the way to
Speaker 3: there are there's they're called rubber rooms, or they're like
Speaker 3: panic rooms or something like that. They don't have nothing
Speaker 3: but a hole in there in the ground. Why are
Speaker 3: you guys taking me here? They said, you're gonna be
Speaker 3: into you. Calm down. I said, calm down, I'm not
Speaker 3: even doing nothing, and they just let me there. They
Speaker 3: left me there for eight hours in that room, and
Speaker 3: I just walked and all I kept saying is it
Speaker 3: didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen, over and
Speaker 3: over and over and over.
Speaker 1: So I thought myself, line didn't happen, as in that
Speaker 1: you it didn't happen. I wasn't just convicted of a murder.
Speaker 1: I didn't do Is that okay? I look the way
Speaker 1: you describe it, I can understand all these emotions going
Speaker 1: through through your head, and up until that word guilty
Speaker 1: comes out, you'd be thinking, okay, this has been chaos.
Speaker 2: But just it'll be right. It'll be right.
Speaker 1: Justice will kick through and people see it for what
Speaker 1: it is. The reaction from your father and all the
Speaker 1: way through and your sister, I would imagine the type
Speaker 1: of person that you are that would have weighed heavily
Speaker 1: on you as well, seeing your your family, the people
Speaker 1: love you and support you, how it impacted on you
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Well, That that wasn't even the worse of it, because
Speaker 3: that was that kind of corporate really fast, So a
Speaker 3: little tiny bit of it. And there wasn't visity for
Speaker 3: two days, and I remember having to go back to
Speaker 3: sell and that was just running through my mind and
Speaker 3: I was, you know, I was angry. I was anger
Speaker 3: with God, I was angry with everything. And I couldn't
Speaker 3: really but I just kept saying it over and over.
Speaker 3: It didn't happen, didn't happen. So my dad is able
Speaker 3: to come see me two days later. He couldn't see you,
Speaker 3: and I can get him on some kind of blackout
Speaker 3: where I couldn't talk on the phone or something because
Speaker 3: of the car. I can't remember, but that was the
Speaker 3: first time we were able to talk. So they called
Speaker 3: me to visit us and I walked into the it's
Speaker 3: just a cel and like there's a big window and
Speaker 3: anything just typical with the point and I see my
Speaker 3: dad and my dad did it's just crying. I mean
Speaker 3: I had never seen him like that before. I mean,
Speaker 3: he can't even speak. My dad has always been my rock,
Speaker 3: he's been my hero, my superman, He's always been kind
Speaker 3: of This man is still in my life. I think
Speaker 3: I've only seen him maybe cry me one other time,
Speaker 3: and that was when my when he's seen me in
Speaker 3: my in the back of a con car when my
Speaker 3: mother had given me up. I've never seen him cry
Speaker 3: out of him. And here he was. He couldn't speak,
Speaker 3: and yeah, he was kept saying know me, know me,
Speaker 3: and me means son in Spanish, so he's saying no, son, no, son, no,
Speaker 3: and he can't can't even look at me. He came
Speaker 3: and he just went on and ten to fifteen minutes
Speaker 3: of me, and I remember at that moment thinking all
Speaker 3: the strength that he had given me in my entire life,
Speaker 3: all those moments that he had looked at me up
Speaker 3: and saved me. He needed me to be there for him,
Speaker 3: and at that moment, the you know that it had
Speaker 3: switched and I had to be strong for him. And
Speaker 3: I remember telling him. I looked at him and I
Speaker 3: said it, it's all right, I'll survive. It's all right there,
Speaker 3: I will survive. And I kind of calm tone and
Speaker 3: that I had to say that for maybe almost ten minutes,
Speaker 3: and you finally slowly came down, slowly, slowly, and then
Speaker 3: he couldn't really talk. He was just, you know, just
Speaker 3: got his blank stare in his eye. I just kept
Speaker 3: saying it over, I'll survive, and then he calmed down,
Speaker 3: and then the visit was over. It was only an
Speaker 3: hour ago. And that's when I went back to the
Speaker 3: room and I broke down, because that was the moment
Speaker 3: work not only became real to me, but seeing him
Speaker 3: that way my rock. And you know, the man is
Speaker 3: still in my life. You know, he he was mortal
Speaker 3: at that moment, you know, he was no longer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine. But it says a lot about
Speaker 1: your character that you could see that you had to
Speaker 1: be the strength for your father in that situation. We
Speaker 1: might take a break now, and when we get back
Speaker 1: for part two, we're going to talk about your time
Speaker 1: in prison, how you survive prison, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to dissect the case against you and the failings of
Speaker 1: the case that I said to you upfront form a
Speaker 1: homicide detective, I'm mortified by some of the things that
Speaker 1: went down in your trial and that slipped through the
Speaker 1: system and you had your life stolen away from you.
Speaker 2: It seems so unfair, But.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you carry. You carry the trauma, Robert,
Speaker 1: better than I could say again, credit to you. Let's
Speaker 1: have a break and when we come back, we'll delve
Speaker 1: into that part your time in jail, the case against
Speaker 1: you will break that down and then you fight for freedom.
Speaker 2: And what you're doing with yourself now.
Speaker 3: Yours is good. Good cheers in Na