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, staid,
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 back to part two of my chat with ever
Speaker 1: Risto Sallas, a man who is wrongly convicted of a
Speaker 1: murder and who has spent twenty six years of his
Speaker 1: life in prison before being exonerated. In part one, we
Speaker 1: discussed his early life and how he felt and himself
Speaker 1: convicted of a murder at the age of sixteen and
Speaker 1: since to thirty two years in prison. Evaristo, welcome back
Speaker 1: to our catch Killers we left you in part one,
Speaker 1: you were talking about the emotion of seeing your father
Speaker 1: after you've been convicted, just bringing people back into the story.
Speaker 1: The courts decided as a sixteen year old. You were going, well,
Speaker 1: you're actually fifteen at the time, but to try you
Speaker 1: as an adult and send you to an adult prison,
Speaker 1: you get since thirty two years and nine months, how
Speaker 1: do you cope with the process? That's you said at
Speaker 1: the start of the podcast. For a young fellow, you
Speaker 1: didn't fully comprehend the reality of what the life in
Speaker 1: front of you played out to be. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us when you went in the prison and you realize
Speaker 1: when you realize this is in fact your life and
Speaker 1: how you survived bad?
Speaker 2: They're right there was It was like a month after
Speaker 2: I was convicted that she's sensimated thirty two years and
Speaker 2: then months, and that in itself kind of kind of
Speaker 2: showed me what was awaiting, you know, was awaiting me
Speaker 2: in prison, at least the mentality that would be awaiting me.
Speaker 2: I remember going in the morning to be sims and
Speaker 2: you know, as I walked in the courtroom, you know,
Speaker 2: I looked to my my father again for that familiar
Speaker 2: ritual that we did, and you know, to give me strength.
Speaker 2: I looked at him and he had this kind of
Speaker 2: his eyes were kind of glossed over. He had like
Speaker 2: a thousand yards staring in his eyes, and it's almost
Speaker 2: like he didn't see me. And I remember at that
Speaker 2: moment that you know, he had this kind of look
Speaker 2: in his faith too. That was you know, he wasn't
Speaker 2: he wasn't crying, but the look in his face, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of showed the pain that was underneath. And I
Speaker 2: remember he kind of caught himsel and like came out
Speaker 2: of it. He went to kind of smile, kind of
Speaker 2: give me that strength again. But at that moment, that
Speaker 2: just seeing that that, you know, that reaction and that
Speaker 2: fear in his eyes that I hadn't seen, you know,
Speaker 2: that was kind of the first time, even after I
Speaker 2: was committed, that I felt fear in the entire process
Speaker 2: because what that looks showed me because he had he
Speaker 2: had a look in his eye like as if he
Speaker 2: was about to see his child be devoured by lions.
Speaker 2: It was that kind of look. And I remember thinking
Speaker 2: to me that at that moment became real to me
Speaker 2: that whenever I faced from this moment on for the
Speaker 2: first time in my life, I would have to face
Speaker 2: it alone that my father, no matter how much he
Speaker 2: loved me, no matter how much he wished to protect me,
Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to protect me from whatever was coming.
Speaker 2: And that was that was one of the worst streemenies
Speaker 2: in the world because that's when I really felt alone. Truly,
Speaker 2: I knew that he couldn't protect them anymore. And when
Speaker 2: I went to be sentenced, you know, they had these
Speaker 2: impact statements where the family comes up and they, you know,
Speaker 2: give their testimony how how this murder had impacted them,
Speaker 2: you know, to something to that affect, and you know,
Speaker 2: the family got up there. You know, his brother got
Speaker 2: up there and and you know said what any brother
Speaker 2: would say to a personally, you know, thought or some
Speaker 2: you know killed their brother, and he laid into me.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just some really horrible things. And it
Speaker 2: was for me I had to accept that. It was
Speaker 2: hard to accept that because I knew they were wrong,
Speaker 2: but they didn't know they were wrong. They were led
Speaker 2: to believe by this, you know, officer and the courts.
Speaker 2: I mean that I was the person and it was
Speaker 2: like somebody coming up to you and just slapping your
Speaker 2: own or Virginia or something, and you can't move. We
Speaker 2: just have to take it. And it's a it's an
Speaker 2: emotional thing, you know, And and it was horrible because
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm a compassionate person. I can you know,
Speaker 2: I'm empathetic towards others, and I can feel, you know,
Speaker 2: some pain. So to feel that kind of anger and
Speaker 2: that her directed at me, you know, really hurt. And
Speaker 2: I felt it. And the worst is when his mother
Speaker 2: got up, Because the mother got up and she didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, land to me that. She just said a
Speaker 2: few words, but her words, you know, would would stay
Speaker 2: with me in my insirecence. And she looked at me
Speaker 2: and she said that, and she said in Spanish and
Speaker 2: kind of like a really low kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of tone, and she just said that that I
Speaker 2: had no heart for myself or for anybody else, that
Speaker 2: I had taken her son from her, and that I was,
Speaker 2: you know, a dark person, and that's all she said.
Speaker 2: But those words right there stuck with me and and
Speaker 2: they cut me deep because you know, growing up, you know,
Speaker 2: my mother told me, you know, you're you're a bad kid.
Speaker 2: You know, the system labeled me a certain thing. So
Speaker 2: all the things in my life are conveying the same
Speaker 2: message that she has just been different way, you know,
Speaker 2: And and I remember it's this is the only time
Speaker 2: I actually spoke my trout. I was able to speak,
Speaker 2: so they asked me if I would, and I went
Speaker 2: so I went up and spoke and I said a
Speaker 2: few words. I just said, look, I don't know why
Speaker 2: this happened. I don't know why they're saying that I
Speaker 2: didn't kill anybody. I feel bad for the family, but
Speaker 2: I didn't do it. And one in the days, You're
Speaker 2: going to see that this is wrong, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to prove it and the truth will come out. And
Speaker 2: it was something to that effect, and he looks at me.
Speaker 2: The judge looks at me, and he says, he said,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna send you as much time as I can
Speaker 2: possibly send you two it's in fact, I'm sending you
Speaker 2: to a life sentence because if you when you get
Speaker 2: out of prison after serving this thirty plus years, and
Speaker 2: if you don't so much as pay your fine, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna send you back to prison. And the way he
Speaker 2: said it, though, like I said, everything had like this
Speaker 2: this emotional charge behind it, a personal thing, and like
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know if they do this as
Speaker 2: as a way to convey the message to the victims.
Speaker 2: I'm know, if this is just the natural way of
Speaker 2: them when they send to people and try I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know this kind of stuff. But it felt
Speaker 2: really personal in the way he looked in the center
Speaker 2: and he sends me a three hundred and nine three
Speaker 2: months and I think it was a month later. Hold
Speaker 2: on that chain bus to Shelling, which is a middle
Speaker 2: dark prison, and I remember going down and they called
Speaker 2: me to go out the chain. They don't tell you,
Speaker 2: they don't tell your family nothing. They just come and
Speaker 2: get you because security thing or something. I remember going
Speaker 2: downstairs and they're lining us all up. You have strip naked,
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, you know, and they're pretty
Speaker 2: chained on us. The shack ones together like you're seeing
Speaker 2: me all removies everything. The guard comes up to me.
Speaker 2: I remember, he looks at me and he says, where
Speaker 2: he's asking everybody your deal? Cneumbers? Are they ever? You know? Ben?
Speaker 2: I didn't know what that meant. You know, I don't
Speaker 2: know anything about prison or anything. And he looks at
Speaker 2: me and he says, he says, I know you don't
Speaker 2: have a DEALC number, but you're gonna have one for
Speaker 2: a really long wrong time. And then he laughs, and
Speaker 2: it was a sadistic laugh. And I didn't understand what
Speaker 2: that meant at that young lady came later, but that
Speaker 2: was kind of a micro cosm of what I was
Speaker 2: going to face in prison. The indifference, the sadisticness, the ugliness,
Speaker 2: you know, almost this kind of entirely a way, don't care,
Speaker 2: nobody cares about anything. And I remember, you know, being
Speaker 2: on that chainbus and looking at Yakama for the last time,
Speaker 2: and you're wishing that I could tell my dad that
Speaker 2: they were taking me or something, or wishing that my
Speaker 2: dad could protect me for whatever was coming. It was
Speaker 2: like like eight hours chain bus ride. I get to Shelton,
Speaker 2: which is a receiving center and adult receiving center. It's
Speaker 2: Washington Correction Center. I get there and the first thing
Speaker 2: they do is they line you up. They put you
Speaker 2: in these dog kettles. They look like dog kettles, and
Speaker 2: you strip naked. But naked, mind you, I'm very turn sixteen.
Speaker 2: I'm not comfortable being I don't know if anybody is,
Speaker 2: but got stripped me and then there's at least twenty
Speaker 2: to thirty guards lined up on one end, and you
Speaker 2: have to get up naked, walk all the way across them,
Speaker 2: and and they hand you your clothes and then you
Speaker 2: put your it's not mean clothes like uh cross, put
Speaker 2: your covers on, but I do this little thing. Who
Speaker 2: my covers on? And then they start to evaluate you.
Speaker 2: They bring in one by one and who are here
Speaker 2: and this and that, and so they look at me.
Speaker 2: Typically everybody goes goes straight from there to go shave.
Speaker 2: But I can't shave. I don't have anything. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't have you know, I don't have no hair, you
Speaker 2: know nothing. They look at me and they will laughing.
Speaker 2: So all we got another one over here that can't shave,
Speaker 2: and they just laugh like you, all of them start
Speaker 2: to laugh. I'm naked, mind you'll nanking and I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm just I don't know where to go over there,
Speaker 2: you know. So they put me to me to go
Speaker 2: to the cage, and then they give me my things
Speaker 2: and they put it on. Nothing fits of course, shoe
Speaker 2: side of nothing. They bring me to this little window
Speaker 2: and they're they're soon as I'll walk up. It's the
Speaker 2: slide she has her head down, but she's gonna ask
Speaker 2: me some medical questions. I guess that's the process. I
Speaker 2: get out there and she puts her headup and she
Speaker 2: looks at me, and her eyes freaking she's stocked. And
Speaker 2: it was, oh my god, how old are you? And
Speaker 2: I said, oh, I've just started sixteen. And she's got
Speaker 2: all that that's so wrong. And then she proceeded to
Speaker 2: ask me all these questions and and then they send
Speaker 2: me on my way along with all the other adults.
Speaker 2: I go into the h R three, which is a
Speaker 2: receiving center, go straight into to a cell. The cell
Speaker 2: they put me in was with two eighteen year olds,
Speaker 2: which was good. I knew one of them actually was
Speaker 2: FROMANCAM accounting. That relieved some of my invitings. But there
Speaker 2: are two man cells and they throw me in there,
Speaker 2: and I meant for even too, so they gave me
Speaker 2: a mattress out there, and that's that's where that's where
Speaker 2: I first get out. Now and I don't know anything
Speaker 2: about that chow. And when I'm in a child, I'm
Speaker 2: walking in every even tail her just a freaking chock.
Speaker 2: And so I'm walking into the child as soon as
Speaker 2: I stepped into the child. There's like clamor was talking
Speaker 2: and everybody just just stops talking and kind of just
Speaker 2: looks at me. And I kind of like, and that's
Speaker 2: the worst feeling in the world for someone who's kind
Speaker 2: of an inch work like me, you know, And that's like,
Speaker 2: oh God, and I don't know where even where to
Speaker 2: see And then I s everybody just kind of just
Speaker 2: like stares a minute. They all have this look in
Speaker 2: their eyes like hell, was this kid doing in here?
Speaker 2: You know, It's like that'll look like I thought it
Speaker 2: was a joke or something. And they kind of just
Speaker 2: slowly and then they kind of figured out and they
Speaker 2: kind of realized what was going on, and then they
Speaker 2: went back to talking. That I remember somebody waving me
Speaker 2: down like this. I didn't know the person that was
Speaker 2: a Mexican dude, and I kind of tried to ignore him,
Speaker 2: and he goes telling me come here. So I went
Speaker 2: over there and sat down, and he goes to Mexican.
Speaker 2: See yeah, he goes, where are you from? So I
Speaker 2: tell him at the Sunnyside and he goes, well, he said,
Speaker 2: go to yard tomorrow and bring your paperwork. And I said,
Speaker 2: he said, but you have to be there, make sure
Speaker 2: that you bring your paperwork. And he's what he's referring
Speaker 2: to your court paperwork, your judgment of sentence. You know
Speaker 2: this stuff, the should what you're in prison for it.
Speaker 2: He goes be there and he sat in this kind
Speaker 2: of tone where like it you know this, you better.
Speaker 2: The argum took your paperwork. So I said, uh, where's
Speaker 2: the yard at He said, I'll let you know what there,
Speaker 2: but said all right, and then it sleeves. And so
Speaker 2: I'm thinking the whole night like you know, you know
Speaker 2: what you know, I don't know what that is about,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, So so I go, I take
Speaker 2: my paperwork and I go out to the yard. He
Speaker 2: takes my paperwork and then you just needs and doesn't
Speaker 2: say anything to me. And so I'm just slept walking
Speaker 2: the yard and not knowing where to go or where
Speaker 2: to walk and what the hell's gonna happen. And the
Speaker 2: yard ends. I go back in. We have yard the
Speaker 2: next day, and uh, he sees me out there. It
Speaker 2: brings me by paperwork and says, he said, all right,
Speaker 2: you're you're good. What he was doing was it's called
Speaker 2: paper checking. He was making sure that I wasn't a
Speaker 2: sense of in there that I didn't tell anybody that
Speaker 2: I didn't kill any women or I didn't kill any children,
Speaker 2: basically making sure that I wasn't I was in there
Speaker 2: for something that didn't have to do with those things,
Speaker 2: because I had I been in there for any of
Speaker 2: those things, I would have been targeted or killed in
Speaker 2: the next yard. And that's that's just the way it is.
Speaker 2: So he gets back by paper, he goes, all right,
Speaker 2: So he starts to explain to me what is expected
Speaker 2: to me as being part of the you know, being
Speaker 2: the Mexican, and what they expected me in there. There's
Speaker 2: no asking if I'm gonna be part of this or nothing.
Speaker 2: You're already a part of this because you're a Mexican,
Speaker 2: so you're gonna be able just whether you want to
Speaker 2: or not, you know. So he explains the rules, and
Speaker 2: the first thing says to me, and he says, he
Speaker 2: says that somebody so much just steps on your shoe
Speaker 2: and doesn't apologize immediately, you bring him out here to
Speaker 2: this yard and you butcher him in front of everybody,
Speaker 2: and he goes. The reason you do that is to
Speaker 2: make sure that everybody knows that they always stepped themselves
Speaker 2: with you that this is what's going to happen to them,
Speaker 2: and if you don't do that, then we'll do that
Speaker 2: to you. And he goes the reason why is because
Speaker 2: if they think that you're weak, they're going to think
Speaker 2: that we're weak, and then they're going to test us
Speaker 2: and we can't have that. And that was the beginning
Speaker 2: of the adopted nation of what prison was going to
Speaker 2: be able to buy. For me. There was no decision
Speaker 2: of where I want to go or what's my it's
Speaker 2: not a democracy, what you're going to do, or this
Speaker 2: is what's going to happen to you if you don't.
Speaker 2: And it was just that non stop indoctrination of how
Speaker 2: you're supposed to carry yourself. And the respect became the line,
Speaker 2: and that line was any little thing, heady bins that
Speaker 2: were deemed disrespect would be meant force and brow for it.
Speaker 2: And that was the beginning of what prison was going
Speaker 2: to be like. And you know the horrors of all
Speaker 2: the stuff, you know, the riots, all that stuff you
Speaker 2: know took place and everything. And because I was in
Speaker 2: for first to be a murder means that I get
Speaker 2: a ticket to go to the level four prison because
Speaker 2: it's a murder case. Level fours is the second highest
Speaker 2: custody you can be in, meaning that everybody has committed
Speaker 2: a murder or anything that they've ever done. That's when
Speaker 2: they go gang member or whatever going there. And those
Speaker 2: are the worst of the worst in the state of Washington,
Speaker 2: and there was two of them back then in Washington
Speaker 2: Penitentiary and Quantumba Correnge Center. Colombay had a nickname as
Speaker 2: Gladiator School, and that was my first mother prison. That's
Speaker 2: what they sent to me too. And because I came
Speaker 2: in at the juvenile the first six months day and
Speaker 2: the receiving something, that housed me with the adults. All
Speaker 2: of us is the adults. And then they passed the
Speaker 2: law saying that they couldn't how juveniles with adults if
Speaker 2: they're in an age of eighteen regardless. So they separated
Speaker 2: us and kind of had our within the prison, our
Speaker 2: own area and all that stuff. And that lasted for
Speaker 2: embe a year, and then I turned eighteen and then
Speaker 2: I was dumb straight into the close custody and Qualum
Speaker 2: Bay Correction Center, and that right there was that prison
Speaker 2: was known for peckstabbings and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and they just you turn eighteen and there you go.
Speaker 2: And I went right into it and didn't kind of know.
Speaker 2: I knew the basics, but I didn't know really what
Speaker 2: a close custody was like. That's a whole other level
Speaker 2: of lining. I was in the receiving center. That's pretty
Speaker 2: small comparison to a level four prison. And that's when
Speaker 2: everything became about race and then gang and even more
Speaker 2: so than it was in the receiving center, and the
Speaker 2: brutality of that place, the wars, the battles, and the
Speaker 2: fact that I was already affiliate gang when I was
Speaker 2: out here, mant that I was affiliated with the gang
Speaker 2: within the prisons too, and that gang was that with
Speaker 2: another gang, and so everywhere I went, I was targeted
Speaker 2: by that gang, regardless of I was still part of
Speaker 2: it or not. I mean, just the level of brutality
Speaker 2: that you see or what society descends into when all
Speaker 2: the political correctness or all the morals seemed to be gone,
Speaker 2: and what they morphed into. And that's what what the
Speaker 2: level of prison was like for me. It was it
Speaker 2: was brutal. There was no there was no pity, there
Speaker 2: was no second chances. There was just the way things
Speaker 2: are and you far online or else, and to live
Speaker 2: under that kind of oppressive environment, to see the horrors
Speaker 2: of what's going on that people can stab and then
Speaker 2: beaten to nasu of their life, you know, and realizing
Speaker 2: that that's where I had to live my life and
Speaker 2: that's where I had to be was hard in itself,
Speaker 2: but in comparison to the mental struggle what was going on,
Speaker 2: it was small, because a mental battle that was going
Speaker 2: on in my head was was far worse. Here. I
Speaker 2: was not only a kid, but in prison for somebody
Speaker 2: and for everybody in trial. The day I was convicted,
Speaker 2: probably that's where it ended. That's where, you know, the
Speaker 2: tragedy ended right there for the family and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But for me, every day it replayed
Speaker 2: itself because it's like for it for example, if something
Speaker 2: happens bad in your life, it happens usually at one
Speaker 2: moment you recover whatever you get pass it, and that
Speaker 2: moment kind of goes far back. But for me, the
Speaker 2: tragedy of my life was arrived with condition. That means
Speaker 2: every second, every minute that I was in prison, it
Speaker 2: was like being convicted over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying there because carrying that thinking,
Speaker 1: how the hell have I found myself here? I didn't
Speaker 1: do the crime, and look look what I've got to
Speaker 1: do the survive? Did you to survive? And I get
Speaker 1: a sense of what you're talking about in the prison,
Speaker 1: but you'd have to adopt that you couldn't have been
Speaker 1: You had to get out there and fight for your
Speaker 1: your respect. Did you like the person that turned you into?
Speaker 1: Because you would have had to become a person that
Speaker 1: survives in that environment.
Speaker 2: The struggle was my flight was was maintaining my ranity
Speaker 2: in an environment that pressed me not to happen, an
Speaker 2: environment and environment that demanded me not to happen. How
Speaker 2: do I survive this place without being killed, without killing somebody,
Speaker 2: and with maintaining my morals as a person, as a
Speaker 2: dignified person, as a person does not google like that?
Speaker 2: That cannot be like that? How do I do that?
Speaker 2: Because if they see this of the weakness and the
Speaker 2: would hurted me. And that was the struggle. That was
Speaker 2: part of the mental struggle, amongst all the other things,
Speaker 2: you know, is not losing myself in that manness. And
Speaker 2: the only way I did that is I had just
Speaker 2: sent into the orgnance of what it was. And then
Speaker 2: I got myself a seat and say, okay, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be that person. That's not me. How do
Speaker 2: I get out of this? And in the moments of
Speaker 2: those ugliness in it and seeing what prison was again,
Speaker 2: it was a decision. It was like, okay, so if
Speaker 2: I'm not this person, then how do I survive in
Speaker 2: this environment that's literally forcing me to be there or
Speaker 2: allow me to surviving this some type of person. And
Speaker 2: some of it was luck, some of it was prayer,
Speaker 2: you know, some of a lot of it was My
Speaker 2: dad reminded me of who I was as a person,
Speaker 2: reminded me that he was missed and I was loved
Speaker 2: and not to forget them. I remember he told me
Speaker 2: one time I had got into this fight and it
Speaker 2: was a brutal fight. There put me in with this
Speaker 2: this mentally ill person and he was like fixed, fixed
Speaker 2: to and I just got out of I was in
Speaker 2: isolation for four and a half years, so five years,
Speaker 2: and then they sent me to a level three, which
Speaker 2: is the lower custod which is better. But they put
Speaker 2: me a house, meaning with this mentally ill person. And
Speaker 2: I remember this guy that lived with him, and I
Speaker 2: was in kind of a molding cell and he tells me.
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, whatever you do, because I'm moving out
Speaker 2: of the cell. That means I'm going to put you
Speaker 2: on that cell that's on the sell open. Whatever you do,
Speaker 2: don't go in that cell. So what do you mean?
Speaker 2: He goes, Man, I'm telling you this guy, I'm just
Speaker 2: not a good person, bro, and just do whatever you
Speaker 2: can do. You know, don't go in there. Problem is
Speaker 2: that you can't decide where you go right, and you
Speaker 2: can't go up to a guard and say, look, this
Speaker 2: guy is this. I don't want to go in there
Speaker 2: because then everybody's fell always weak, and then they just
Speaker 2: you know, and then you're in a bad place. So
Speaker 2: you're stuck. So I go up and I talked to
Speaker 2: the start and I say, look, there's a or if
Speaker 2: I wait and uh, one extra week in there, because
Speaker 2: you know that way I can get you to sell.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh no, no, no, no, that can happen. So
Speaker 2: you're going in that cell way you want to or not.
Speaker 2: He said, but if you're good for thirty days, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna to another son. I said, all right, there's nothing
Speaker 2: I can do that's it. I can't argue with them
Speaker 2: and make things up, so they put me in that cell.
Speaker 2: But sure enough, you know this guy was he never
Speaker 2: left the cell. He was like, he was really aggressive.
Speaker 2: He was a movie And when I first got in there,
Speaker 2: he seemed all right back and tell I've been in
Speaker 2: prison by the time for a couple of years now,
Speaker 2: so I could understand. And one night I'm updrawing. I
Speaker 2: got to finish out the car over doing this car
Speaker 2: for this person. And he just in the middle of night.
Speaker 2: I had a little light on. He just jumped up
Speaker 2: out of nowhere in the middle night, turned out the light,
Speaker 2: turned out the big light, and then starts yelling at me,
Speaker 2: starts calling me names, and you keep I'm keeping him
Speaker 2: up this and that, and there's something about the light,
Speaker 2: and I mean just the aggressiveness of this person. And
Speaker 2: I looked at him, I said, hey, all you had
Speaker 2: to do was tell me now to put it why.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what's keeping you money because I wasn't
Speaker 2: making any noise or nothing new. So mind you, the
Speaker 2: years of indoctrination about respect and all that's already you know,
Speaker 2: it's all there. So the next day I feel some
Speaker 2: type of way about it. So I tell him, I said, hey, look,
Speaker 2: if you have an issue, just let me know straight
Speaker 2: up in a respectful way. You don't have to get
Speaker 2: up and that, and he hops up again get to
Speaker 2: my face, but he's kind of a big dude, and
Speaker 2: he because, well, you ain't gon to talk to me
Speaker 2: and something like that, you know, And I end up
Speaker 2: just turning my back and need anything. You gotta deal
Speaker 2: with this, you know. But I knew that it was over.
Speaker 2: I knew that I was gonna be able to housing
Speaker 2: that souf. And so I come back a little bit though,
Speaker 2: I think it was the next day or something. I'm
Speaker 2: looking for my glass. I can't find him from my head.
Speaker 2: This guy's get something because he's already acting weird. So
Speaker 2: I asked him, and I knew by asking him he
Speaker 2: was to react that way, and I was gonna I
Speaker 2: already have made decision that had come to my face again,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna do with it anything. So sure enough
Speaker 2: I asked him, gets on my face? Are fighting? And
Speaker 2: it was almost to dad, you know. He ended up
Speaker 2: having hitting weapon and stabbing our number of times and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, you know, And I fought,
Speaker 2: and we end up going to the hole and I
Speaker 2: didn't get charged with the soft on top of already
Speaker 2: w out in prisone forslam and I end up going
Speaker 2: to Boka encounter jail for him, And I remember my
Speaker 2: dad tells me. He says to me, when I'm in
Speaker 2: the who's the visit me? And he said, look, I
Speaker 2: understand you surviving that place. I understand that. I know
Speaker 2: you do. And he said, but don't forget that you're
Speaker 2: in prison for something you didn't do. He said, everything
Speaker 2: you're doing right now is you're going the opposite way.
Speaker 2: You're living in that place. I said, you forgot and
Speaker 2: everything you're doing right now is going to keep you
Speaker 2: in that place. He said, if you if you keep
Speaker 2: on doing that, what happens when they prove you didn't
Speaker 2: do it? They're not gonna believe it. Or you can
Speaker 2: stuck in here on another charge for doing some off
Speaker 2: the wall stuff and you're never getting out of prison.
Speaker 2: And he's telling me with emotion, and and I remember
Speaker 2: thinking about that, like like what am I doing? Yes,
Speaker 2: I can. I have to survive, but I have to
Speaker 2: remind myself that you know I'm in here for somebody
Speaker 2: didn't do. And then if I want to go home,
Speaker 2: I have to stay focused on that, you know, And
Speaker 2: that kind of was a changing, you know, point in
Speaker 2: my life. It just it made me reflect and think
Speaker 2: about what I had to do and how much I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to suffer as a person in order just
Speaker 2: to get into a place where I can focus on
Speaker 2: myself and and focus on going home. And that was
Speaker 2: the other battle. Because I had already been online with
Speaker 2: this gang. That means that they weren't gonna accept me
Speaker 2: leaving it or saying that I don't want to be
Speaker 2: a part of it. That's just what I'm gonna be.
Speaker 2: And the minute I said then, I was probably gonna
Speaker 2: be killed that night. And so has either this is
Speaker 2: already you know, I've already been in the manness of prison.
Speaker 2: I've been to a number of fights, all the stuff.
Speaker 2: I spent already like nine and a half years in
Speaker 2: isolation over all these things, and that in itself is
Speaker 2: a whole another you know, mental issue. Meanwhile, during this
Speaker 2: entire process, I'm trying to you know, I'm writing letters,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm saying I didn't do it, asking people
Speaker 2: for help. But I decided that think it was in
Speaker 2: two thousand and thirteen. There, you know, I just I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to live a slacknom right, And so then
Speaker 2: became the process of going to a level for a
Speaker 2: prison which I was going to go to, and letting
Speaker 2: them know that I'm not going to be a part
Speaker 2: of this anymore. I'm not going to come in anymore
Speaker 2: by the naxts and all that stuff, and it is
Speaker 2: what it is, and whatever you want to do about that,
Speaker 2: and do it. And I told him that, and not
Speaker 2: in a direct way like that, because you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't trying to be killed that night, but I assume
Speaker 2: either way it was going to one dir't going to
Speaker 2: come aster me one way another. And one of the
Speaker 2: guys said, he's like, oh, yeah, that's right, you know,
Speaker 2: And they always say that, No, you're good, that's just
Speaker 2: what that's You're just going to get you next day.
Speaker 2: I mean. So I go back to my room, I
Speaker 2: have my stuff all packed up, and the next yard
Speaker 2: was the next day, and I could't sleep much that night,
Speaker 2: said a few prayers and assume for sure that I
Speaker 2: would either be killed or beaten with an inch of
Speaker 2: my life because I didn't want to go in all
Speaker 2: on line with their stuff. I went out the yard
Speaker 2: next day, waited for it. It didn't come, nothing happened.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, okay, well that it's going to
Speaker 2: be even worse because they're preparing certain shanks. Because I
Speaker 2: already knew the way person was. I knew they weren't
Speaker 2: going to let that come. So another day goes by,
Speaker 2: nothing happened, a week was buy, nothing happens. So now
Speaker 2: I'm steaking this isn't this is this isn't this. I
Speaker 2: don't know what's going to happen. And I spent on
Speaker 2: the level four person. I was out there with my gang.
Speaker 2: It wasn't really my gang because I told him that
Speaker 2: I want to be a part of it for almost
Speaker 2: fourteen months and they actually never made a move on me,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't really understand why. But I lived in
Speaker 2: under shadow that it would come one day or every
Speaker 2: day felt like it was going to be that day,
Speaker 2: and it just never came. In mind you, it wasn't
Speaker 2: because these individuals were scared and none of that either.
Speaker 2: Are these an individual and killed people in other none
Speaker 2: of them are in there for anything good, you know,
Speaker 2: And someone been in prison for a number of years.
Speaker 2: In another way it is, but they never did anything
Speaker 2: to me. And then a Bible ride took place, a
Speaker 2: massive ride out in the yard. I was out there
Speaker 2: wing it happened, and I was just pretty brutal. They
Speaker 2: were all involved. I didn't get involved, which is a
Speaker 2: real no one. So they end up taking me home anyways,
Speaker 2: because I'm affiliated with them, So I go anyways no
Speaker 2: matter what, I get in there, and they all know
Speaker 2: them now that I wasn't involved into them. That's that's
Speaker 2: something that they really came out. You know. I don't
Speaker 2: know if they assumed that, you know, if he said, well,
Speaker 2: you'll get in any ways. You know, I don't know
Speaker 2: what they assume. But and they told me, they said,
Speaker 2: why didn't you get down and switch? Why didn't you
Speaker 2: fight with us? And I told him straight. I said, look,
Speaker 2: I giving you twenty three years of my life and
Speaker 2: that's how long I was an Act Game member. He said, look,
Speaker 2: I'm not giving you anymore. I made that clear. And
Speaker 2: whatever you guys decided to do about that, I accept.
Speaker 2: And uh, when it was started, kind of you know,
Speaker 2: to say something if you look it isn't I know
Speaker 2: it's coming. You don't need to. I understand. He said,
Speaker 2: all right, your ext dot exile means is basically, when
Speaker 2: they see you're going to kill you. You know that's it.
Speaker 2: And so I accept it, I said, is what it is.
Speaker 2: But I told my dad, said, Dad, look, I left
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and the next couple of years are
Speaker 2: going to be really bad for me. But I told him,
Speaker 2: you know, I'll survive. And my dad started crying. He
Speaker 2: wasn't crying because he was fearful of what would happen
Speaker 2: to me. He was crying because he was happy because
Speaker 2: I finally left the thing that was going to keep
Speaker 2: me imprison if I didn't let it go. Powerful, and
Speaker 2: he says to me, he tells me, He says, look, me,
Speaker 2: know that that's all you know in your entire life.
Speaker 2: And I know that those people fold you believe in
Speaker 2: take care of your friends, but they never were. I've
Speaker 2: told you that since you were a child. It's going
Speaker 2: to be hard for you, he says you. We're gonna
Speaker 2: have to suffer, probably a lot, but understand this, he
Speaker 2: says you. You're free from that now. Now you have
Speaker 2: a chance to move, and I'm proud of you this
Speaker 2: first time. My father's ever told me was prep because
Speaker 2: you know, you've saved your life for it today and
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter if they target them like that. I
Speaker 2: understand it's going to be great, But I know he's shrunk.
Speaker 2: But you made the right decision. And that's what I
Speaker 2: needed to hear at that moment, because when that's all
Speaker 2: you've ever known, when they're you're the facto family to
Speaker 2: a certain extent, and you think that they are friends
Speaker 2: and that they will understand, but when they won't and
Speaker 2: they can't because that's just not there. The way it is,
Speaker 2: there's a part of you that feels wounded, so that
Speaker 2: part of it feels as if you're abandoning something. And
Speaker 2: this was twenty fifteen already, and then the prison system
Speaker 2: had already in the administration, had already know they know everything.
Speaker 2: They knew I wasn't a part of the gang stuff anymore.
Speaker 2: They knew I left it, and they said, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: we understand that you're lucky. Stuff are you doing with
Speaker 2: thennes City? You know, I said, okay, we're going to
Speaker 2: send you to a level three, which is a lower custody,
Speaker 2: which is almost a difference night and day between the
Speaker 2: close custodies and from that point on they sent me
Speaker 2: to a level three and it sent me to one
Speaker 2: of the best in the state, just a number of programs,
Speaker 2: and that's when I can change mentally. And I had
Speaker 2: to get rid of this this old facade, this mass
Speaker 2: that I had word for nearly my entire life, and
Speaker 2: then I could really focus on my freedom, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to educate myself and starting to try to find
Speaker 2: a way to dig myself out of this hole that
Speaker 2: this wrongful commissioner, because the wrong condition, the mental affrica,
Speaker 2: that is what pushed me back into this lifestyle, because
Speaker 2: again I thought there was nothing. I don't care about anything,
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter to me. And in the beginning you
Speaker 2: mentioned how how come you're not anger? And that stuff.
Speaker 2: Know that that was angry right there and expressing himself
Speaker 2: through the violence of prison to the gang stuff. That's
Speaker 2: what anger was. And it led to a point in
Speaker 2: my life where I had to make a decision what
Speaker 2: to choose, you know, and thankful that I have my
Speaker 2: dad there and a few other people that made that
Speaker 2: choice when I did. And once I did that, I
Speaker 2: began to work on myself and change became a part
Speaker 2: of you know, my everyday life, and the boy of
Speaker 2: the prison wasn't a part of that person I was in.
Speaker 2: It was a different environment and that's where I could
Speaker 2: I could lurish as a person. That's what I could
Speaker 2: reflect and understand the choices I've made and how it
Speaker 2: is I'm going to be able to go home with
Speaker 2: you in what way to do it? And you know
Speaker 2: through my entire sense. You know, I was writing letters,
Speaker 2: I was working on my case, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But there was only so much focus when I'm always
Speaker 2: trying to survive and I'd be killed or try to
Speaker 2: make these these decisions that are going to keep from
Speaker 2: going off into the deepen where wouldn't return. But the
Speaker 2: last I always say the last ten years of my life,
Speaker 2: my tenures in prison, well I'll say about eight years.
Speaker 2: Nine years was really enlightened. Moment is when I came
Speaker 2: to understand by a true purpose and understanding what I
Speaker 2: needed to do in life.
Speaker 1: What type of work did you do on yourself during
Speaker 1: that period where you stepped away from the violence, What
Speaker 1: type of programs and and how did you develop as
Speaker 1: a person during that period.
Speaker 2: Well, the first aspect was it is I uh, I
Speaker 2: became close to God, I became a Christian and that
Speaker 2: was the beginning of the transformation. They gave me the
Speaker 2: strength to actually me this, and but I worked on
Speaker 2: the spiritual aspect of who I was, how I need
Speaker 2: to live, prayer, you know, study, that kind of stuff
Speaker 2: is really what gave me the strength, the inn strength.
Speaker 2: And what came after that was was the physical transformation,
Speaker 2: meaning that I had to rig myself of all that
Speaker 2: prison was put on me. That means the mentality, those
Speaker 2: are the things I had to target individually, and the anxiety,
Speaker 2: you know, the frustration and the hatred with being in
Speaker 2: prison for somebody could do because that the hatred was
Speaker 2: the root of everything of what happened to me, that
Speaker 2: was driving me into this, you know, this lifestyle I
Speaker 2: started focusing on. You know, there's such awareness classes called redemption.
Speaker 2: I started trying to understand the trauma where it came from.
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of years of isolation. That also
Speaker 2: wasn't a lightning moment too, because in those moments I
Speaker 2: could reflect on my childhood from dealing with my mother
Speaker 2: and that kind of stuff, and it's all tied in
Speaker 2: together with THEO. If it all comes intertwined with all that,
Speaker 2: and if I really wanted to free myself of that,
Speaker 2: preve myself of the anger, free myself of the hatred,
Speaker 2: all that stuff, I had to start there. And it
Speaker 2: was a mental batter. It was a literally little mental
Speaker 2: batter where I had to sit there and almost relive
Speaker 2: the moments, the traumatic movements of my life. I did
Speaker 2: that through some of these programs I spoke about it,
Speaker 2: but also I spent a lot of time in the yards,
Speaker 2: walking and rowin and going back to those moments in
Speaker 2: my life, the horrorble moments with my mother and those
Speaker 2: kinds of things and reliving them until they had no
Speaker 2: more strength. And some of it was tears, the pains
Speaker 2: or why my mother did this or why these things
Speaker 2: happened in my life, And the same thing with the
Speaker 2: rodful condition. I had to go back to the moment
Speaker 2: and trial. I had to feel that pain and understand
Speaker 2: it in order to move past it. And that was
Speaker 2: the only way that I could free myself. And the
Speaker 2: only way that I could do this farm was walking
Speaker 2: through it. There was no other way. And then I
Speaker 2: had to listen to it. I had to listen to
Speaker 2: the pain and the tears, that I was shading to
Speaker 2: really under stand, you know, the wizard that would come
Speaker 2: that would come from it, and it was about it
Speaker 2: was I took you know, I took Tostmasters International Speech
Speaker 2: of Class. I took a Supperware, a bunch of different
Speaker 2: suf awareness classes, probably about fifteen twenty. When I took
Speaker 2: everything there was. There was nothing proven to take more,
Speaker 2: but I did that with the genists of trying to change.
Speaker 2: I needed that kind of understanding from other people that
Speaker 2: deal with trauma. I needed to express the pain and
Speaker 2: that right there was is what freed me from from
Speaker 2: that cage of anger, austration, and the security and allowed
Speaker 2: me to see what my te purpose was in life.
Speaker 1: Well, you're enlightenment that you experience through prison, like taking
Speaker 1: on board all the opportunities that you had, you really
Speaker 1: turn turned your your view of life and what you
Speaker 1: could do for yourself by the sounds of it, because
Speaker 1: stepping away from the environment. And I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever been say quiet on the podcast, but the way
Speaker 1: that the way that you're telling your story, I've just
Speaker 1: I forgot I'm doing a podcast. It's fascinating your journey
Speaker 1: and what you've what you've been through in regards to
Speaker 1: getting the matter back before the courts? What was the
Speaker 1: process there? How hard did you have to fight? And
Speaker 1: that you said you were always writing letters?
Speaker 2: Did you get.
Speaker 1: People that supported you to campaign on your behalf?
Speaker 2: Well, that that was a line pricess. I remember I
Speaker 2: had it on when I was sitting in Qualumbay, when
Speaker 2: I think I was twenty years old, and I was
Speaker 2: beginning to stand then that this wasn't going to change,
Speaker 2: that this was going to be you know, this is hereous.
Speaker 2: That's when I began to comprehend in what I was facing,
Speaker 2: and that himself was a horror, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: a horrible mem to deal with. And but I had
Speaker 2: watched The Shasha Redemption at all movies and there was
Speaker 2: a moment in that. There's plenty of the moments that
Speaker 2: movie that were pretty inspiring from him. But you know, Andy,
Speaker 2: he wanted to uh, he was well basically was bugging
Speaker 2: the legislator for money to build his library. And I
Speaker 2: remember when he first he wrote letters and they finally
Speaker 2: responded to him after six years, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: I'll write two letters a day, and that right there,
Speaker 2: for some reason popped in the heads like well, maybe
Speaker 2: I should just bug people, you know, that's that's all
Speaker 2: apps my voice. I mean, so I'm just gonna bug everybody.
Speaker 2: And so I went to the law library. I found
Speaker 2: addresses lawyers of organizations, and every week, two letters a
Speaker 2: week I wrote, and I explained my case as best
Speaker 2: as I could. At that time, I moved to that
Speaker 2: I understood the law that could and I went to
Speaker 2: the law library and that was my routine. Every single
Speaker 2: every two weeks, I had a log of all the things,
Speaker 2: and every single letter I got back said no, we
Speaker 2: can't help you. And I even I wrote, you know,
Speaker 2: international organizations, all that stuff, and I wrote the Innocent
Speaker 2: Project Northwest. They asked to end up taking my kids
Speaker 2: kind of looking into it, but it was so hard
Speaker 2: for them because they were a part of the University
Speaker 2: of Washington, but they didn't have a lot of funds
Speaker 2: and it was hard for them. Eventually, I had two years.
Speaker 2: If I was trying to find something, they couldn't dig
Speaker 2: anything up. They just had a lack of resource and
Speaker 2: they had to drop my case. And those were blows
Speaker 2: that had to deal with it. I probably got a
Speaker 2: thousand notes before I got one. Yes, you know, in fact,
Speaker 2: It was twenty years of those and one yes that
Speaker 2: end up lating to my generation. So it was just
Speaker 2: letter after letter, and I remember how telling my dad,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd be so enthusiastic about it, like, Dad,
Speaker 2: I wrote this letter, you know, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: And then my dad was like, oh, that's good, you
Speaker 2: keep doing it. And I remember, twenty years into that process.
Speaker 2: I used to always tell my dad about these letters and.
Speaker 3: You would get happy and and then or I'll tell
Speaker 3: them about the dream I had that I was home,
Speaker 3: and he would get happier, and then I would speak
Speaker 3: to him like I always spoke to him, like all Dad,
Speaker 3: when I get out, and I would speak as about
Speaker 3: getting out the next day, and that seemed.
Speaker 2: Good, you know, to encourage them and give him strength.
Speaker 2: But after twenty years it had a different shop draft
Speaker 2: for that. It was a fact that I remember he
Speaker 2: would look at me sometimes and he wouldn't say anything,
Speaker 2: but the look at his face would tell me my
Speaker 2: son had to accept the bed. But it's never going
Speaker 2: to change. He didn't say it, but my dad had
Speaker 2: already got to the point where he stopped believing everybody had.
Speaker 2: I didn't like it. It's gonna happen. I know it's
Speaker 2: gonna happen. I just kept writing letters. And in twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen I watched a documentary called Paradise Lost the Westminphiter
Speaker 2: three and it was an act deparate desperation. After I
Speaker 2: seen that, as like, oh maybe Easterrect Prewson can help
Speaker 2: and we write them on the doorstaing because says no.
Speaker 2: So I wrote him, you know, as best I could,
Speaker 2: and said everything about my case. And you know, seven
Speaker 2: eight years passed. Again. I didn't here. I don't care.
Speaker 2: Mostly I don't hear a lot from see anybody, so
Speaker 2: I'm used to it and I want to left all,
Speaker 2: you know, all the stuff in my life, you know.
Speaker 2: And I was at that level three. I was only
Speaker 2: there for ten months. I get a letter in the
Speaker 2: mount and uh. The letter in the mail says, oh,
Speaker 2: we uh we found your letter that you have sitting
Speaker 2: in our mill room for six years unopened. Yeah, unopened,
Speaker 2: and we are doing a documentary Innocent People in Prison,
Speaker 2: and we're really interested in the case. And I was
Speaker 2: at first, I was like, this seems to be true.
Speaker 2: I've been here before. I don't want to believe, so
Speaker 2: call us, you know, here's our number anytime. So I
Speaker 2: got that letter, I went down to the prison phone
Speaker 2: and called, and sure enough it was one of the
Speaker 2: one of the producers, her names now, and she just
Speaker 2: an amazing woman and angel and herself, you know me.
Speaker 2: And so I spoke to her and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we she I really apologize, but your letter literally was
Speaker 2: sitting there for six years unsaled, and we bowed it.
Speaker 2: We're just moved by it, we're touched by We really
Speaker 2: want to look into your case. We're not saying we're
Speaker 2: gonna take it, but this is what we have, what
Speaker 2: we're working on. But she told me, she goes, look,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you right now, if we find
Speaker 2: out that you did this, we're going to rego that too.
Speaker 2: By all means, look at it. You'll see. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: that was the beginning process of change. But it took
Speaker 2: twenty years to get to that point. And it had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the course. See, my case had
Speaker 2: already been been decided. So three years after my case,
Speaker 2: I filed them kill all that My lawyer father week
Speaker 2: ad kill. They threw that out right away. I didn't
Speaker 2: not understand the course. He didn't file the right paper
Speaker 2: works when my director kill was dead by nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: I didn't learn all this until I went to the
Speaker 2: law library and figured it out, and then realized, I'm
Speaker 2: sitting on something on nothing. I have nothing unless I'm
Speaker 2: digging something up, and how am I going to do
Speaker 2: that from misplace? So every time I read in the
Speaker 2: law books and understood the law, I just realized another
Speaker 2: thing that they wouldn't help me, And so I turned
Speaker 2: to writing because I knew to try to fight it
Speaker 2: myself or even learn the process. When there's probably like
Speaker 2: a ten percent chance if that I can get my
Speaker 2: stuff back into courts without help. It's just I just
Speaker 2: had my time somewhere else. And so once they decided
Speaker 2: that my case was when they owned that they were
Speaker 2: going to take, they didn't actually tell me. They just
Speaker 2: ended up in Sunnyside with the film crew and then
Speaker 2: told me all taking the case, which was, you know,
Speaker 2: nerve racking. But at the same time I was like okay,
Speaker 2: and they the discovered those stood their investigation with. They
Speaker 2: discovered the truth right away within about a month.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some flatant things and if we just
Speaker 1: break break down some of the k witnesses just say
Speaker 1: his girlfriend picked out your fighter after on the go
Speaker 1: and hip nicest. As I understand it, that's yeah, I
Speaker 1: hear in this country and as I understand it in
Speaker 1: the US that that evidence is not to be relied
Speaker 1: upon them can't be presented as evidence. You take the statement,
Speaker 1: then if you hypnotize someone, that's information, but it can't
Speaker 1: be used as evidence. So I look at that. And
Speaker 1: then the vehicle was removed by the deceased girlfriend before
Speaker 1: it have been processed by police. The police informant claimed
Speaker 1: in the documentary this is a documentary you're talking about,
Speaker 1: that he had lied when he identified you from photographs
Speaker 1: that Detective Rivard had told him to like. In relation
Speaker 1: to the comments about Detective Revard, he strongly denied all
Speaker 1: those allegations in the documentary. This is pretty heavy stuff.
Speaker 1: So when this, when this was discovered, and when you
Speaker 1: realize the significance of this, how did it make you feel?
Speaker 1: Did it give you hope? Did you think, Okay, now
Speaker 1: we're getting somewhere.
Speaker 2: Wells it had two films. You know, you had to remember,
Speaker 2: up until that point, I didn't know that Reyboard had
Speaker 2: except you. I didn't know that he had created this
Speaker 2: whole thing. I assumed wrongly that it just happened. No
Speaker 2: one was to blame, and for some reason, that was
Speaker 2: easier for me to accept. But when they told me
Speaker 2: what his informant came forward and this is what he
Speaker 2: said happened, that he was paid the saviors am I.
Speaker 2: It was a blow to me because just think of it.
Speaker 2: When something happens to us and it's an accident, it's
Speaker 2: thatt all, what just happens. But when you realize that
Speaker 2: it was intentional and as somebody deliberately did this for you,
Speaker 2: then the question comes, you know, why why would you
Speaker 2: do that to me? Or why? And then the anger
Speaker 2: and the frustration, you know, came boiling back and I
Speaker 2: had to fight that back down. I had to release
Speaker 2: that tune. So now there's someone to blame. For twenty
Speaker 2: some years, there wasn't. It was just circumstance. It happens,
Speaker 2: you know, an act of God, whatever you want to
Speaker 2: call it, I don't know. You now had a face
Speaker 2: to a cause it all. And that was another journey
Speaker 2: of forgiveness right there in its own And so when
Speaker 2: I heard that, there was that, and then there was
Speaker 2: a relief. The relief came back. I already knew he
Speaker 2: was lying, but I'm so glad that he's coming forward
Speaker 2: and saying what I know is already true. And I
Speaker 2: didn't have anger towards him. I just wanted him to
Speaker 2: say the truth. That's it, you know. And the fact
Speaker 2: that he did gave me hope, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now we got it. Now it's going to end. But
Speaker 2: I didn't realize at the moment that that was just
Speaker 2: in the beginning, and the courts don't worked that way,
Speaker 2: you know. And at the same time that they were
Speaker 2: doing documentary, my lawyer, my lawyer lawyer or my lawyer,
Speaker 2: Laura my Shaver, you know, heard about my case and
Speaker 2: decided to take my case and jumping to that point
Speaker 2: that had nobody it was just me, And so that
Speaker 2: was another goal that happened. He told me sure, like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm just starting a firm. I don't have a lot
Speaker 2: of money, but I will not abandon you. I will
Speaker 2: do everything I can in my power to prove your innocence.
Speaker 2: I believe, and even if I run out of money,
Speaker 2: then we can fundraise together whatever I gotta do. We're
Speaker 2: gonna do what I want to band it do and
Speaker 2: to hear that, to hear that finally somebody believes me,
Speaker 2: you know, you know that that that was a comforting
Speaker 2: to me. And now she had to put all this
Speaker 2: stuff that was in the documentary into a legal, you
Speaker 2: know format, meaning that she had to go interviews. You
Speaker 2: can't rely on them. You can't just say, okay, here
Speaker 2: it is. This was. She has to go and talk
Speaker 2: to him, she has to verify it, she go do
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. Then once she gathers all
Speaker 2: that stuff, puts it all together, she has to put
Speaker 2: it in the paper filed, and then that process starts.
Speaker 2: In that process of the year years processing in the courts.
Speaker 2: So and then and I kind of remember joking about this,
Speaker 2: do we file it? We get it all done? Two years?
Speaker 2: I was ready to go, and then COVID hits and
Speaker 2: shuts down the entire world, you know, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: and I tell her, and I kind of laughing, and
Speaker 2: I said, I said, what are the odds that you know,
Speaker 2: I finally get all this stuff and a hundred year
Speaker 2: pandemic hits and that shuts down the very quarts and
Speaker 2: and I was like, and you don't know at the
Speaker 2: time how it's going to end or what this is
Speaker 2: the beginning of something that you know, I've seen movies
Speaker 2: on and stuff. I was like, oh no, this is
Speaker 2: not good, and and it was. It was it was
Speaker 2: like it was comical to a certain extent, but it was
Speaker 2: so serious. But then it was like and we had
Speaker 2: to wait for two years, two years.
Speaker 1: I like your attitude at that point in toirement, so
Speaker 1: you've a lawful crawl and your might as will laugh and.
Speaker 2: Just and we laughed with I told her and said,
Speaker 2: what are the hots? How does that? And you know,
Speaker 2: we kind of just la because we couldn't do anything
Speaker 2: about it. We couldn't change it, we couldn't force them.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I cannot believe. And I was just like,
Speaker 2: what is going on? It's second. I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: so we have to wait and and then we get
Speaker 2: into the court. We got all this stuff compiled, you know,
Speaker 2: we got the informant gave us a statement said everything
Speaker 2: was true, got it all the format, We built all
Speaker 2: this stuff. And my lawyer was like, you know, she's
Speaker 2: a lawyer. So she's like, I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: strong enough. You know, I don't know IF's strong And
Speaker 2: it's hard because the court it's based on guilt. There's
Speaker 2: no the way the course system works, it's not you're
Speaker 2: innocent on that stuff once you're convicted. It's even worse
Speaker 2: so in the court of appeals, once you're found guilty,
Speaker 2: you can't even argue innocence. In the court of pills,
Speaker 2: you argue, my my mice, my rights were violate my
Speaker 2: process right, Violet, because this happened in trial, and it's
Speaker 2: not get it for a trial. That's how you have
Speaker 2: to argue. Forget the fact that they don't even care.
Speaker 1: That's a very good way of breaking it down because
Speaker 1: it's so complex the appeals courts. But the way that
Speaker 1: you just described it, that's right. They're not they're not
Speaker 1: even interested where your guilty here is. And that that
Speaker 1: in itself is frustrating too, isn't the court system. You
Speaker 1: think they're there to find the truth, But it's not
Speaker 1: really about that. It's about this technicality.
Speaker 2: Yeah and so. And then on top of that, when
Speaker 2: you appeal that to the to the state Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: now you're arguing that the court is appealed violating your
Speaker 2: due process because of this. It's the whole totally definition
Speaker 2: and it's like, so that's the process, right. So once
Speaker 2: we get everything together, we decide, okay, we can file
Speaker 2: it as a petition directly in Quarter of Appeals that's
Speaker 2: going to drag it out for a long time. We
Speaker 2: can file it to the court, the trial court, but
Speaker 2: we're found at the Yakama County, which is a county
Speaker 2: I came from. And those judges don't give a damn
Speaker 2: line nothing. They're biased, not all of them are. Sure,
Speaker 2: there's some good judges, but there's a higher percentages that
Speaker 2: probably think in a certain way. And so I was like,
Speaker 2: she's like, well, how you want to do this? And
Speaker 2: I understood now because I been reading them on it.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I said, you know, I'm twenty
Speaker 2: some years end of this. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's I don't want to wait anywhere. Let's just file
Speaker 2: it directed to the trial court and he can roll
Speaker 2: on it. And then he kicks it up as a
Speaker 2: PRP and so beat we took this shot. So she
Speaker 2: files it and we must have got the worst judge
Speaker 2: ever and he's been there for a long time, and
Speaker 2: so we but the one thing that gave us hopes
Speaker 2: when we fouled it typically the trials, and this is
Speaker 2: typical strategy of the trial, just they won't touch it
Speaker 2: because if they touch it, then they have to follow
Speaker 2: the rules of a pellet, which gives us string. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a whole it's a whole weird thing. It's hard
Speaker 2: to explain, but so we file it and then usually
Speaker 2: they'll just kick it up as a PRP and then
Speaker 2: to go to the guard fields and then we're fighting
Speaker 2: the quarter pills. But he decides, for whatever reason to
Speaker 2: hear it, which gave us hope. Well, he's hearing it
Speaker 2: because he sees something. Then that means, you know, he's
Speaker 2: gonna return it, but he's gonna do something. He wouldn't
Speaker 2: have accepted it because he's smarter than that, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, he wouldn't just give me. Because after this,
Speaker 2: this became a direct appeal, now became something stronger than
Speaker 2: just the pr and P or personal restraining petition. So
Speaker 2: we gave us hope. So we have our first fearing
Speaker 2: on it. This is after COVID, after two years of
Speaker 2: COVID started dying down and opening up. Everything is still
Speaker 2: kind of you know, zoom and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But and so we getting there. And as soon as
Speaker 2: we get that first, you know, he start to talk
Speaker 2: and it's we can tell anyway, it's not good. He
Speaker 2: got the prosecuttorney. He's kind of just chill. He's got
Speaker 2: his legs off, kicked up on the thing. And the
Speaker 2: way he's talking and arguing, like it almost seems like
Speaker 2: he's already knows Sin said. And he's not even worried,
Speaker 2: you know. Meanwhile, he's attacking everything we're doing. All well,
Speaker 2: I don't know about that. He kept saying, over and over, Oh,
Speaker 2: he's been in for twenty five years. You think you
Speaker 2: think it matters now? And I was like, God, those
Speaker 2: are the worst things you want to hear, because you
Speaker 2: already know. It's like it don't matter, you know. I
Speaker 2: you know, I'm in fifty thousand cases I brought through
Speaker 2: here in twenty five years, and you want me to
Speaker 2: just to overturn it. And he's like, and he's attacking
Speaker 2: my mind, my lords, well, you know, and he goes,
Speaker 2: first of all, the media is fake news, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh god, he did not just say that,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And and and we don't
Speaker 2: know it just because he had a documentary and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh god, he's not even arguing the fat
Speaker 2: he's not even looking at him, and it's just all bad.
Speaker 2: And my lawyer knows it, and uh, well, we want
Speaker 2: subpoenify deny, we want to call the we want to
Speaker 2: call the the cop up or the police officer. We
Speaker 2: want to subpoena and Branda, Deny, deny, Din and I
Speaker 2: and uh and then my lord's actually know why, she
Speaker 2: goes second time, I'm just gonna file on the quart
Speaker 2: of the pails. And he looks at her and he says,
Speaker 2: my first my lawyer goes, well, you realize you have
Speaker 2: to follow why did you accept this case? That means
Speaker 2: you have to follow the rules of Kelly, you know.
Speaker 2: And he's like, well, I only accept this case because
Speaker 2: it looked like he worked really hard on it in
Speaker 2: that condescendi voice. And my lord's, oh, my lords.
Speaker 1: I'm getting I'm getting angry listening your behalf. Yeah, frustrated.
Speaker 2: My lawyers are all females too. There there, So you
Speaker 2: got the instant product that jumped on a few years later.
Speaker 2: And they're both from Kate and and Alwa, they're both males.
Speaker 2: And then you have shared as a female right and
Speaker 2: he's just like being condescending to them. You know, well
Speaker 2: it looks like you look, you worked really hard on
Speaker 2: it and in this and that, and my lawd's like
Speaker 2: she getting mad and she's pissed if can see it.
Speaker 2: And he don't even acknowledge me. He won't even look
Speaker 2: at me. I'm not on zooming. He won't even under
Speaker 2: stare at me. And he goes, yeah, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: that's not gonna he's not gonna deny, and then he
Speaker 2: goes the only way I allow that that that police
Speaker 2: officer to be a question is if he says he
Speaker 2: wants to and then depression like, oh he doesn't want to,
Speaker 2: and like okay, well then it's denied them and said what,
Speaker 2: oh you know what, well, I'm just gonna forget all this.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna go we know you're cana roll against us,
Speaker 2: and and so we're gonna just appeal your decision. And
Speaker 2: he goes, I don't really think that the Court of
Speaker 2: Appeals are gonna care as much as you think they will.
Speaker 2: It says that directly to my lorry, and so right
Speaker 2: there it's oh, my lawyers like she was so mad.
Speaker 2: She's like she didn't. I couldn't call it over for
Speaker 2: like two weeks should have come sorrow and so pissed off.
Speaker 2: So that means now it's going to take another year, right,
Speaker 2: So we filed an appealed his decision to the Court
Speaker 2: of Appills. So our finger crossing the port of the pills.
Speaker 2: We're having oral ordinance and and we're we're more hopeful
Speaker 2: on the Court of Appills because they're out of Gakima
Speaker 2: County and they're pulls from different parts of the state,
Speaker 2: and so they're more liable, they're more reliable to look
Speaker 2: at something and have a political you know, agenda and
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, you know. So and mine is like, well,
Speaker 2: we know, we're going to see how it goes. And
Speaker 2: so we did. We have our old arguments, and I
Speaker 2: think what was was one of the good signs of
Speaker 2: the oral argument with is that they were having it
Speaker 2: at actually, uh, they're having the actual court at a
Speaker 2: at a at a school auditorium and their students that
Speaker 2: are watching how they process skulls and everything. For whatever reason,
Speaker 2: that gave me hope. I was like, Okay, now they're
Speaker 2: gona have to be you know, exact, you know, because
Speaker 2: they're trying to show the top of the kids. So
Speaker 2: we get in there, it starts going and here comes
Speaker 2: to prosecurity with the blame arguments that don't even make
Speaker 2: any sense, and so he starts out as like, whoa,
Speaker 2: I would tell the course not to believe this informant.
Speaker 2: He's a liar, he's this, and just goes on this
Speaker 2: ran about this informant, you know, just tear one alse
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, right, he's lying, he's making So the
Speaker 2: judge goes, so you hold hold on, let me, let me,
Speaker 2: let me, let me stop you right there. So are
Speaker 2: you telling me or he goes, don't you think it's
Speaker 2: a little ironic that one of your starr informants that
Speaker 2: you argue so much in the course that we accept
Speaker 2: this testimon Now you're telling us that he's a liar?
Speaker 2: And he goes, well, no, I don't think it's ironic.
Speaker 2: He's no, it's it's kind of right. Or he goes,
Speaker 2: are you telling me that? Hey goes, I find it
Speaker 2: ironic and that right there. I was like, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: that's a good sign. And he goes. He goes, he goes, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well let me stop you again. He stops him again
Speaker 2: in its middle of this rand, he goes, so you're
Speaker 2: telling me that he started being a liar or committing
Speaker 2: all these felonies after he testified in the house case.
Speaker 2: And he goes, yeah, that's all I'm saying. He goes,
Speaker 2: he goes, no, No, that's that's about what happened, because
Speaker 2: I got it right here. This is ninety two, this
Speaker 2: is ninety three, and my Lord had anticipated all this.
Speaker 2: So she named every single thing you've ever did wrong.
Speaker 2: So he goes, yeah, he just throws He goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's no. This guy was already this person prior to
Speaker 2: you getting them. So how are you gonna tell me
Speaker 2: now not to believe him? And I was supposed to
Speaker 2: believe him then, and he's like, and he couldn't. It
Speaker 2: was so he was basically arguing, so he just switched on.
Speaker 2: He was like, well, it's been twenty five you get't
Speaker 2: even answer. It's been twenty five years, and this and
Speaker 2: that and that and that, and then another judge jumps
Speaker 2: in and goes, hold on, hold, So because it's been
Speaker 2: twenty five years, we shouldn't accept that this guy might
Speaker 2: be innocent. We should just forget about that? Is that
Speaker 2: what you're saying to me right now, Well, no, that's
Speaker 2: not you know, that's exactly what you're telling me. You're
Speaker 2: saying because there's twenty five years and it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what he produces. And he goes, that's not the way
Speaker 2: the courts work. And then I was like, Okay, we're
Speaker 2: getting somewhere. Now. This is getting kind of good, you know.
Speaker 2: So they challenge him all this stuff, you know, and
Speaker 2: then they go so the truck right was was you know, impounded,
Speaker 2: and then they didn't even get to look at it
Speaker 2: because she went forty and after that or and then
Speaker 2: she was charged with you know, random and criminal assistance
Speaker 2: and he couldn't explain it. Oh, you know, so they
Speaker 2: were tripping him up on all these things. And then
Speaker 2: so it was real hopeful, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're getting somewhere now. Now they're kind of seeing the
Speaker 2: obviousist of it, you know, and so he goes, there
Speaker 2: was one of the thing. He so the lady at
Speaker 2: the end of it, one of the judges goes, she goes, right,
Speaker 2: she was telling my lawyer, does saw us know about
Speaker 2: the juvenile bill?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And the juvenile Bill basically states that have you been
Speaker 2: in prison. If you're convicted on the age of eighteen
Speaker 2: of any crime and we're sentenced to more than twenty years,
Speaker 2: that you're eligible for grow after twenty years. And basically
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter to have to release you, and you
Speaker 2: can also file on it because the laws are changed
Speaker 2: on that stuff. And she was, does sell us know
Speaker 2: about this? And my lawyer was yeah, and they kept
Speaker 2: bringing that up. And the reason why my lawyer says, well,
Speaker 2: I didn't file on that is because it's all about
Speaker 2: culpability and when you when you, when you even if
Speaker 2: you go to if you go if I go to
Speaker 2: grow here, they expect you to sit in there and
Speaker 2: say I'm sorry for this, I'm sorry for that. I
Speaker 2: couldn't do that because I didn't come into crime, and
Speaker 2: I wouldn't file. My Lord's like, look, we can file that,
Speaker 2: we can argue you know you were young, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Why No, no, not so that that muddy's the water.
Speaker 2: I don't want to file on that. There was probably
Speaker 2: a big chance that I would have been released if
Speaker 2: I had just filed him. I could, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2: I don't care. It's either the exonerator or I'll stay
Speaker 2: in here. I'm not going to sit there. And I said,
Speaker 2: how am I going to go to a judge and
Speaker 2: ask for leaning scene on a murder I didn't commit.
Speaker 2: I mean, on principle alone, I can't do that. If
Speaker 2: I guy spend the next next oh it's thirty years,
Speaker 2: and then so be it. I'm not going to that's
Speaker 2: not going to happen.
Speaker 1: Full full credit, full credit to you there, Like the
Speaker 1: I can understand the temptation, but the integrity that you
Speaker 1: show and the belief in your innocence of not doing
Speaker 1: that because the hypocrisy of going there showing contrition to
Speaker 1: a parole board so you can get out when you've
Speaker 1: been saying for your whole whole life that I haven't
Speaker 1: done this. So that's gatsy. I'm just saying gutsy. But
Speaker 1: I understand where you're coming from and the type of
Speaker 1: person you are to go down that path.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was. It was hard and easy
Speaker 2: to just divide at the same time.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: Hardness sounds because you know, I don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: I could lose my father, I could lose you know this, man,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's gonna happen. But the second part
Speaker 2: is like, I can't do that because in the sense
Speaker 2: I'd be justifying everything they did, even if it even
Speaker 2: if it was a little I can't can't do it.
Speaker 2: I accepted it, and my lawyer was like, she's doing
Speaker 2: the same thing. She's like, she's like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I respect it, you know, but it's she goes, She's
Speaker 2: just like, okay, nohing no. That means I said I can't.
Speaker 2: I won't do it. So we left that around. He
Speaker 2: wouldn't argue that. So what is like six seven months
Speaker 2: go by? My lord, uh commed you and I just
Speaker 2: felt im good about that. I called her. She's like,
Speaker 2: they overturned it. They didn't return this thing they gave
Speaker 2: us everything has Not only did they overturn it, but
Speaker 2: they scolded dis judge. You know. I mean, finally we
Speaker 2: got this is a victory for nothing, but twenty plus
Speaker 2: years of Massa's this is a victory. So we go
Speaker 2: back with this new power and everything, and we're stoked
Speaker 2: and we set the hearing. Now they got a deadline
Speaker 2: to do it by September. They can't go past them,
Speaker 2: and they can't drag it out. They have to do it.
Speaker 2: So we have our first year in the grant us
Speaker 2: everything they had and now the cop had to come
Speaker 2: no matter what. And then freely gives up there and
Speaker 2: every lineup that I remember, I remember. So the informer
Speaker 2: gets up there and just lays it out. I lied
Speaker 2: about because he told me to lie. He paid me
Speaker 2: to do it. He gave me money to go look
Speaker 2: for him. I found him. He didn't say anything. I
Speaker 2: told him that, and he didn't care. He said, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get this this this guy, and and he didn't
Speaker 2: pay me direct. He paid me to hide it under
Speaker 2: on the different payments. I'm after it. I told him
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it, and he ended up put me
Speaker 2: in jail for it and making up some other stuff.
Speaker 2: He paid me the drugs. And this is beyond my
Speaker 2: my conscious. I sent a kid to PRISM something to
Speaker 2: do and the judge, she goes, I'm gonna bly her resents.
Speaker 2: So my lawyer she goes, uh, they're gonna talk to
Speaker 2: me tomorrow, so call me. Ten minutes before quarter. I said,
Speaker 2: all right. I didn't have no sleep at all. My dad.
Speaker 2: I talked to my dad, but I was crying on
Speaker 2: the phone. He's like, I want to believe, but I
Speaker 2: don't know, you know, and it's like I don't worry
Speaker 2: about those, you know. Whatever happens happened. So I called
Speaker 2: my layd at ten minutes. I could hear it in
Speaker 2: her voice. She said, it's over. I said, wait, you
Speaker 2: meaning it's over. She said, they're gonna vacated condition, dismiss
Speaker 2: the charges against you with prejudice, and order your immediate release.
Speaker 2: I said, whoa what? So he says it again, right,
Speaker 2: and she goes, it's over. I'll see you ten minutes.
Speaker 2: And so I get up and I had to I'm
Speaker 2: going to court, I mean my cell at that time
Speaker 2: when I called, and I had the court and so
Speaker 2: along the way. Mind you, almost all the guards had
Speaker 2: seen the documentary and most of them are really sympathetic.
Speaker 2: Almost all of them are. They're always asking when you
Speaker 2: get now, I can believe this has been five years since,
Speaker 2: you know, it came out whatever, And I'm telling them,
Speaker 2: I said, look, I think i's gonna grown here we're
Speaker 2: talking about and I'm serious. And they were just high
Speaker 2: fiving me, like oh okay. So I'm going up there
Speaker 2: telling everybody. I head over to the court. It's it's
Speaker 2: in the main person. So I go out there and
Speaker 2: go into the zoom mean and uh, the one of
Speaker 2: the one of the staff that worked there, she's the
Speaker 2: legal secretary, and she comes in. She goes, hey, I
Speaker 2: just watched doc commentary last night. Oh my god, that's horrible.
Speaker 2: And I said, I just got to evaluated. What do
Speaker 2: you mean? I said, well, I'm gonna go to court really,
Speaker 2: And so I go in there. I get in there
Speaker 2: and for all they said, he goes, so you gotta
Speaker 2: She goes, so you want to answer order, right, because yeah,
Speaker 2: I just want to vacate order to vacate the conviction,
Speaker 2: dispised charging and SIS orders mejor police. And then the
Speaker 2: judge looks at my lawyer. He goes, you got anything
Speaker 2: to guess that, and she's like no, And then she
Speaker 2: looks at me and she goes, well, Mirsallas, it's a
Speaker 2: lots of change out there, but I think you'll do
Speaker 2: real good. And so she entered the order and ordered
Speaker 2: my immediate release. So she looks at she but I
Speaker 2: want them to release now. And so I get up
Speaker 2: and my family cheering in the background. I don't have
Speaker 2: time to my talking lord. We think it's going to
Speaker 2: take a couple of weeks. We don't know how the
Speaker 2: paper's gonna work. So so I get up my head
Speaker 2: out and I'm just the happiest person every you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm telling everybody, hey, I've got exaggerary I'm going.
Speaker 2: I don't know where I'm going on. And so I
Speaker 2: know all the staff. They're really good because I work
Speaker 2: with them with a bunch of programs I did in prison,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, and so they were all
Speaker 2: super happy and excited. And there's these two that I
Speaker 2: work with a bunch of programs. I emailed them in
Speaker 2: this little thing that they have and yes, of Dad,
Speaker 2: when I just started tonnerate, you can come, you know,
Speaker 2: come talk to before I lead. You know, I think
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a shoe days. So I'm in my
Speaker 2: room and they come up with the inner call and
Speaker 2: they say, well, no, no, those two people that have
Speaker 2: to work with come into my room and to myselves.
Speaker 2: I'm in a level two now. Also because I'm so
Speaker 2: close with my release, I don't four years. And so
Speaker 2: they come in they're like they hear about it, and
Speaker 2: they're just so happy and everything. And they have watched
Speaker 2: the urinies that I got there and everything and that,
Speaker 2: and then not even I think it was like an
Speaker 2: hour later, they come up with the intercom and they say, so,
Speaker 2: pack your stuff up and go laundry. And then they
Speaker 2: come in with this thing. They're like, you're to go
Speaker 2: pack yourself and me and my me and my roommate.
Speaker 2: It was my roo for with two years, and we
Speaker 2: started grabbing or just sprawing it in there and just
Speaker 2: not even cleaning. I like, here, you can keep them
Speaker 2: throwing all this stuff like the cod balk down here
Speaker 2: and carry it off. All my stuff out there, you know.
Speaker 2: I switched on to the release clothes that they gave me,
Speaker 2: and I come up with my sign of my release
Speaker 2: papers and this little building and they're like, well, here's
Speaker 2: six hundred dollars for the release offs. I hadn't seen
Speaker 2: money in me certain years, you know, and so and
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, you got nothing to do with You'll
Speaker 2: see everything's gone since then. So we're going to do
Speaker 2: the pat and we'll call you to the main. So
Speaker 2: I raced back call my dad and said Dad, He's like,
Speaker 2: what I still releasing right now? He said, we meet
Speaker 2: the rease you right now. Because they told them any
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, they're gonna release right now, come pick
Speaker 2: me up. They're all the way in Yakima, which is
Speaker 2: two hours away, two three hours away from his house.
Speaker 2: Dad he goes, we're gone, and then he hangs up
Speaker 2: on me. And so they take me to the main thing.
Speaker 2: I go on the main and this this we tendant
Speaker 2: to come down you when it does it, And they
Speaker 2: already know the news. They you know, they're all they
Speaker 2: have smiles on their faces and everything. And so he's
Speaker 2: signed the paperwork and all that stuff. And it's funny
Speaker 2: because I had this. They had all I got. I'll
Speaker 2: show it to you. I got it. I got this.
Speaker 2: This thing I got shut. So I got the stage
Speaker 2: hanging in the wall room. And so what he told me,
Speaker 2: He's like, he's signed my paperwork. I'm signing my paperwork.
Speaker 2: I go, uh, so here, I want to use this
Speaker 2: right now, right and so this.
Speaker 4: And I slid it to Lita and he goes, oh,
Speaker 4: you might want to keep that, maybe you may have
Speaker 4: needed later, and I was like, n he just starts
Speaker 4: to laugh, right classic, Yeah, he starts to laugh, and
Speaker 4: I laughed, and he signs all the people and I
Speaker 4: sign it and then he looks at me.
Speaker 2: He goes, well, he said, you're officially a free man.
Speaker 2: He goes, we have no jurisdictional right now. And I said, hey,
Speaker 2: can I use that phone? But you don't have to
Speaker 2: ask me. He's like, oh yeah, I don't know. Wow.
Speaker 2: I call my dad. I said, Dad, where are you
Speaker 2: at here? We're two hours away. I'm like, get there
Speaker 2: as fast as you can, right because I'm trying. I
Speaker 2: can't go faster. And I said all right. He goes,
Speaker 2: all right, it's good, don't worry about it. So I
Speaker 2: sat there in this little this little area in front
Speaker 2: right there and still in the prison, but it's kind
Speaker 2: of outside of the prison, but it's in like a
Speaker 2: like a it's like a like a waiting room, like
Speaker 2: a you know, visit. And so as I did that
Speaker 2: once to the guards are streaming out and there should
Speaker 2: changes come in. So I know a lot of these
Speaker 2: guards and they're seeing and they're shaking my hand. We
Speaker 2: heard the news and everything, and then the superintendent comes down.
Speaker 2: The winter he's pretty much the warden comes down and
Speaker 2: he looks at me and he said, look, I want
Speaker 2: to tell you sorry, And I said sorry. I said,
Speaker 2: we were sorry. Goes, I said, you didn't have them
Speaker 2: to do that. He goes, yeah, but I just want
Speaker 2: you to know that that was wrong, and I apologize
Speaker 2: for happen to keep it in the air. I said, well,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. He said, yeah, just so you know that,
Speaker 2: I just want you to hear that. A couple of
Speaker 2: the guards came and said sorry too, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: you guys think they said you can have them to
Speaker 2: do it, you know, And and a couple of people
Speaker 2: that I knew for a while they were just super happy.
Speaker 2: And then, uh, the guards. I can for like three
Speaker 2: hours in the guard like, well, I think they're here.
Speaker 2: I think that's your family right there. So I come on,
Speaker 2: there's my family and my dad on the racing number,
Speaker 2: and I just I cut my dad and my dad
Speaker 2: looks at me and he says, he says, uh, he said,
Speaker 2: I'm still alive, right, And I look at my dad
Speaker 2: and I said, I survived, I said. And my my
Speaker 2: family came up and they had their phones on there
Speaker 2: taking selfies, and I'm like, I'm like, man, let's get
Speaker 2: out of here. What are you doing. I don't want
Speaker 2: to be in frontal So we jumped in the car
Speaker 2: and we into the McDonald's that's right down the street,
Speaker 2: right outside the prison. Ate there, and then you're assumed
Speaker 2: all the way back home and I I came back
Speaker 2: to the same house. This is the same room I
Speaker 2: was in when I went to prison. Wow, sing them
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. And then then this is home. This has
Speaker 2: been my home since I was a kid. And I
Speaker 2: come back to this house and I started seeing everything
Speaker 2: that had seen so long. And I come out and
Speaker 2: there's a crowd in front of my house and it's
Speaker 2: all my family. So they're all my nephew niches that
Speaker 2: I've never met before, and just a long stream of
Speaker 2: people in and they're all shaking my hand. I'm so
Speaker 2: and so son, I'm so and So's daughter and this,
Speaker 2: and then it was just a long and I was
Speaker 2: sitting there like okay, okay, who are you? Are you?
Speaker 2: And then my brother, who I met for the first time,
Speaker 2: is from one of my younger brothers. My dad's my
Speaker 2: dad's wife, and he was here, your first iPhone, right,
Speaker 2: and he gives me my iPhone fourteen and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: what did I do with it? He's like, And then
Speaker 2: my my little nephew was younger. He was grazzling starts
Speaker 2: setting up for me and everything. And I didn't know what.
Speaker 2: I had never seen it before. I never even held
Speaker 2: my iPhone, you know. And and so that that was
Speaker 2: the first first being out. And then an hour or
Speaker 2: two went by, and then uh stream of people from
Speaker 2: the town you know started coming with the bags of clothes.
Speaker 2: Fool some kind of just came and just gave me
Speaker 2: a hugged and they were just like telling me sorry,
Speaker 2: they were happy, they were and it was just a
Speaker 2: community came out. And the next week or two after that,
Speaker 2: every single place I went right here in the Sunnyside,
Speaker 2: there are people stopping me, giving me hugs and giving money.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to accept their money, but they kept
Speaker 2: giving them to me, and they close and and and
Speaker 2: food and and and it was like and they were
Speaker 2: just all so grateful and happy that you know that
Speaker 2: that whatever place, that it's over for me, you know.
Speaker 2: So it was I think I could never when I
Speaker 2: was in prison. I never imagined, you know, that that
Speaker 2: my release would be like that. But I always hope
Speaker 2: that something along that line would happen. So it was.
Speaker 2: It was just a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: Well, the way you've described that story. I'm just absolutely
Speaker 1: blown away by the humanity. You retain the sense of humor,
Speaker 1: you retain the way that you speak coming from the
Speaker 1: environment that you were living in. You've I've got I've
Speaker 1: got to say, you come across with this real zen
Speaker 1: like peacefulness about you, which is quite amazing. And I,
Speaker 1: as the judge said, no doubts that you'll you'll survive
Speaker 1: on the outside. I'm forming the same view here. You've
Speaker 1: got so much to offer off of the world.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've got to touch on the aspect of the police
Speaker 1: evidence that got you in the in the prison too.
Speaker 1: I just think power corrupts and how some person can
Speaker 1: do that to another person. You've seen violent acts in
Speaker 1: prison and the ship that's gone down there. But to
Speaker 1: do that and have someone that you know is innocent
Speaker 1: and put away for that length of time that they
Speaker 1: have to be soulless, I can't understand the mentality of
Speaker 1: that can go down that path. But I think you
Speaker 1: telling your story and telling your story the way that
Speaker 1: you have, I don't need a job here doing a podcast.
Speaker 1: If you actually just pressed record and sat down and
Speaker 1: listened to your story. You narrated it beautifully, But there
Speaker 1: is something you can do by letting your story get
Speaker 1: out there because the courts aren't perfect. You know, the
Speaker 1: system's not perfect, and people that get caught up like you,
Speaker 1: I think we need the warning sign there. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: I think the message that you get across is that
Speaker 1: you know, setbacks can be turned into a positive. And
Speaker 1: you know you've embraced what happened to you. You owned it,
Speaker 1: you dealt with it, you process it, and you came
Speaker 1: out as a good person. So full credit to you.
Speaker 1: I think it's an amazing journey that you've been on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and people ask me that a lot
Speaker 2: to the you know, they asked me, have you seen
Speaker 2: you know youffer? Someone said you something when I have,
Speaker 2: I am kind of a ged you blafe and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Plain to him, I said that
Speaker 2: we all suffer tragedies in our life and the only
Speaker 2: decisions we have is whether that remains a tragedy in
Speaker 2: our life we turn into a triumph. And I look
Speaker 2: at that twenty seven years not as a loss, but
Speaker 2: as a benefit in certain ways. And I made the
Speaker 2: decision must say, Okay, you know I got twenty four
Speaker 2: twenty seven years of my life. It was all on
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. But look what came from that,
Speaker 2: and look what I did from that. And fifteen twenty
Speaker 2: years from now, I want to look back and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was rough, you know, but look at look at
Speaker 2: the people I've helped, Look at look at what I've
Speaker 2: done for my community, you know. And that's going to
Speaker 2: erase whatever I bliness, that whatever was, so it will
Speaker 2: be a memory of joy rather than one of suffering.
Speaker 2: And like I said, in the process of that, of
Speaker 2: dealing with that, I found who I was as a person.
Speaker 2: I found my purpose and I found my voice. And
Speaker 2: it took sometimes it takes a great deal of suffering,
Speaker 2: you know, to shake us and to reveal our true characters.
Speaker 2: And that's what it did, you know, that that that cop.
Speaker 2: I don't know what reason he had to do that
Speaker 2: for me, you know, I don't know if he was
Speaker 2: seeking to destroy me as a person or what it was,
Speaker 2: but it had the opposite effect. It made me to
Speaker 2: a better person and and it showed my true character
Speaker 2: and I lived with that authentic personality. I do a
Speaker 2: lot of the community. I speak to the youth, I
Speaker 2: just the juvenile that I was housed in where all
Speaker 2: this began. I was just there on Frivy speaking to
Speaker 2: the kids walking the hall that I walked it shackles
Speaker 2: and I actually sat in the seat of the judge
Speaker 2: who declined me to set me to the county jail.
Speaker 2: And I spoke to those kids, you know, and and
Speaker 2: and that's the part of of taking this tragedy and
Speaker 2: making into some positive only for myself, but for the
Speaker 2: people around me. And that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: It's not I haven't stopped since I've been really NonStop.
Speaker 2: I work with some some youth that I understand because
Speaker 2: I understand what's missing their last because that was missent
Speaker 2: in mind. And I do it with the with the
Speaker 2: with the sincerity that comes from knowing where they come
Speaker 2: from me. And so I I was spoken to the
Speaker 2: cheap of police, if not say that she police is
Speaker 2: not the same moment back then. But I've talked to them,
Speaker 2: you know, I have no problems. I've taken pictures for
Speaker 2: tell me. No, I've been to Advance where I was
Speaker 2: volunteer and handing out turkeys over there too, you know.
Speaker 2: So there's no there's no issue with that because I
Speaker 2: see it's beyond that. You know, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: let you know certain individuals you know attained what you
Speaker 2: know the department can be because you know it. We're
Speaker 2: when I look at the struggles that I face back
Speaker 2: then and the struggles that we face now in our town,
Speaker 2: we're on the same page. You know.
Speaker 1: It's a good message for law enforcement. But yeah, if
Speaker 1: if that uh that the morals are let slip, this
Speaker 1: is the consequences of someone that loses direction. So you
Speaker 1: got messages across the board, and you you look like yourself,
Speaker 1: kept yourself fit.
Speaker 2: You've got a lot of life.
Speaker 1: Ahead of you. You've done done the time, and it
Speaker 1: looks like you looked after yourself. So yeah, so much
Speaker 1: ahead of you. I want to do a shout out
Speaker 1: to your old man too, your father, because I think
Speaker 1: the fact that you have one good person like that
Speaker 1: that stood by you the whole way, and I know
Speaker 1: that your sisters have and you know, you've had other
Speaker 1: other people stand by you, and the lawyers the work
Speaker 1: that they did, the passion that they had to get
Speaker 1: justice for you, but the little things, and you articulated
Speaker 1: it very clearly, the little messages that your father gave
Speaker 1: you gave you strength at times when you needed it.
Speaker 1: You helped him out at times when he needed it.
Speaker 1: But how much of a difference If you didn't have
Speaker 1: that guidance from that man, perhaps you would have lost
Speaker 1: your way in the prison system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it would have probably wouldn't be senior,
Speaker 2: because that was We all get to points in our
Speaker 2: life where we feel like we can't push it past,
Speaker 2: and where we just you know, we've we've reached our limit.
Speaker 2: And it was this moment that I thought, when I
Speaker 2: reached my limit, that my dad's words would ring true,
Speaker 2: you know, or he would come through and say, look,
Speaker 2: you know, don't forget, or he would remind me of that,
Speaker 2: you know. And the only sad thing is it took
Speaker 2: me a long time to realize that. It took me,
Speaker 2: you know, going through what I went through to realize.
Speaker 2: I wish I would have realized that younger on, because
Speaker 2: he always had that love for me. But yeah, that
Speaker 2: I remember, I'm only we had when I got out.
Speaker 2: So I used to always tell my dad when I
Speaker 2: got out, I was gonna go right because he's the
Speaker 2: truck driver and I was going to go work with
Speaker 2: the truck and all that kind of stuff. This is
Speaker 2: like a week or two after I write out. So
Speaker 2: I go to work with him and I was sitting
Speaker 2: on the passion seat and we stopped by the stop
Speaker 2: right in the middle of the country. He's done a load,
Speaker 2: and I look at him. I said, Dad, I said, uh,
Speaker 2: you remember when I told you I was gonna ride
Speaker 2: I was gonna ride next hip and in the passion
Speaker 2: seat and your truck. And he looks at me. He says, yeah,
Speaker 2: I told you. Because he starts to cry and he
Speaker 2: says yeah with a big smile to It wasn't a tear.
Speaker 2: It was you did something did and that my right there,
Speaker 2: it was like it was it all just came together
Speaker 2: at that moment. It was like it's almost like it's
Speaker 2: almost like two you know, two people survived something together
Speaker 2: and at that moment it's gone, it's past, and you
Speaker 2: look at each other. We made it to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well look, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: and share sharing your story. I've I'm walking out feeling uplifted.
Speaker 1: You put out a positive vibe like I really this,
Speaker 1: Like I thought this is going to be a heavy story,
Speaker 1: as I said, but I thought we'd find inspiration. But
Speaker 1: you've surprised me with your attitude and it inspired me.
Speaker 1: I think it's you're a great example of how you
Speaker 1: can accept your fate on what happens and still still
Speaker 1: find purpose.
Speaker 2: Amazing push your turning, I mean, that's that's part of
Speaker 2: the messive. There's so much struggle and trading in Oliver.
Speaker 1: Customer beful way to finish a great chat. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on Jesus, when you think your
Speaker 1: life's gone the ship, just have a little bit of
Speaker 1: whatever is saying. Convictor is a sixteen year old for
Speaker 1: a murder he didn't committ and spending twenty six years
Speaker 1: some reason, but in many he's not only to survive
Speaker 1: but also retain his humanity. And I just found it
Speaker 1: and actually pleasure sitting in the cabin. Chapter Man and
Speaker 1: one that's not bitter about the world. But I think
Speaker 1: it's an inspiration to all of us.