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