Speaker 1: Last time on ear witness.
Speaker 2: We knew the reward was offered because it was all
Speaker 2: over the papers, but we didn't know who got it
Speaker 2: or if I let Ellison got it.
Speaker 3: She was a very credible witness. We believed her. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we believed her because we convicted him, and it was
Speaker 3: on her testimony.
Speaker 1: When I showed up at her house, she said I
Speaker 1: didn't get a reward.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, well, that's funny.
Speaker 5: I was like, well, I have some paperwork here that
Speaker 5: says you got a reward.
Speaker 2: We got an email that said we found these documents,
Speaker 2: they had been misfiled, and here they are.
Speaker 1: Does that sound strange to you or do you have
Speaker 1: any idea how that could have happened?
Speaker 6: AG's office just they said he got misfiled. Then I
Speaker 6: guess it got misfiled error.
Speaker 3: I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you think that your impression of her would have
Speaker 1: been different had you known she was being paid five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I definitely believe we would have as a jury talked
Speaker 3: about that, like, how credible is this testimony?
Speaker 7: She's being paid for it?
Speaker 5: Like I had never been in trouble a day in
Speaker 5: my life ever before the end. I'm going to jail
Speaker 5: and I've never been to jail to day in my
Speaker 5: life ever, ever, ever, never had got any trouble anything.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the couch in a tiny one bedroom
Speaker 1: apartment in Birmingham. It's warm outside. The door is open
Speaker 1: to let in a breeze. I'm talking with Marika Wilson,
Speaker 1: who's telling me and my producer Mara about a defining
Speaker 1: experience of her life being charged with attempted murder in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven when she was twenty years old, a
Speaker 1: crime she did not commit. The crime happened late at
Speaker 1: night when one woman and two men tried to rob
Speaker 1: a man in Birmingham. They broke into his house and
Speaker 1: shot him. He almost died. Marika was accused of being
Speaker 1: the woman who participated in the crime, but she says
Speaker 1: she wasn't there. It was someone else.
Speaker 5: Albu and tatno plead. They offered me twenty two years
Speaker 5: of my life for something that I didn't even do,
Speaker 5: and I said no. I fought to the bitter end.
Speaker 1: A jury found Marika not guilty, but the ordeal left
Speaker 1: life long scars.
Speaker 5: It has still just bothered me all these years about
Speaker 5: what I went through. You know what I'm saying. Every
Speaker 5: time I applied for a job, even though I was
Speaker 5: a quitty, I couldn't get a job, a decent job
Speaker 5: to take care of my kids. I lost my place.
Speaker 5: I didn't have a shirt to put on my back.
Speaker 5: Then I lost custody of my kids behind that. I
Speaker 5: was up against our type of odds in that situation,
Speaker 5: something that I didn't even do. But she, she did.
Speaker 5: Not that woman stick it up there and say she's
Speaker 5: seen me.
Speaker 1: The woman Marika is referring to is the witness who
Speaker 1: testified against her, a neighbor of the victim, who said
Speaker 1: she'd seen the crime unfold from her living room window
Speaker 1: at two am. She told the jury she saw Marika
Speaker 1: and two other people break down the victim's door and
Speaker 1: assault him. The woman's name Violet Ellison. So do you
Speaker 1: remember Violet Ellison.
Speaker 5: I remember her getting up there saying she's seen me
Speaker 5: through the window. She was wrong, she was wrong, Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 5: it wasn't me. They discredited her at my trial. They
Speaker 5: made her in the corribor. I remember her like she
Speaker 5: just got up there and pointing at me.
Speaker 1: Marika's attorneys showed the jury that Violet Ellison's view from
Speaker 1: her living room window was blocked by a tree. There
Speaker 1: was no possible way she could have seen Marika or
Speaker 1: anyone else on her neighbor's porch.
Speaker 3: So she was a big part of the case against.
Speaker 4: You, and she.
Speaker 5: Lied under oath, literally literally lied under oath.
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison testified against Marika less than four months after
Speaker 1: she served as the star witness against to Forrest Johnson.
Speaker 1: Their trials happened in the same year, in the same courthouse,
Speaker 1: prosecuted by the same DA's office. In both cases, Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison knew the victim, spoke to detectives, and became a
Speaker 1: lead witness. Mara and I find ourselves in Marika Wilson's
Speaker 1: living room a few weeks after I made a lucky
Speaker 1: discovery in Alabama's database of online court records. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in my office poking around in the database.
Speaker 1: It's a clunky website with all these different drop down menus.
Speaker 1: I'm running searches on Violet Ellison's name, trying her name
Speaker 1: in a bunch of different ways, getting the same results.
Speaker 1: When all of a sudden, I hit enter and boop,
Speaker 1: a new list pops up criminal cases, all naming Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison as a state's witness. So, in addition to t
Speaker 1: Forest's case, I discover that Violet Ellison has been a
Speaker 1: witness for the state in four other criminal cases. Marika
Speaker 1: Wilson was the first person that we tracked down who
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison had testified against. When I first called Marika,
Speaker 1: I told her about the four other cases Violet was
Speaker 1: involved in as a witness. Right, we know of five
Speaker 1: different criminal cases.
Speaker 5: Is these folks convicted because.
Speaker 1: For her several of them?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Oh wow, oh wow, Oh man, y'all need to
Speaker 5: help them people, because she's not credible. I said that
Speaker 5: to my husband about that woman. I said, baby, he said,
Speaker 5: this woman don't been involved in several cases, Like is
Speaker 5: she on a payroll or something? It just sounds like
Speaker 5: something crooked going on with me, because how does she
Speaker 5: keep popping up in all these serious cases and being witnesses?
Speaker 5: Like that's so, that don't sound right. I'm sorry, it doesn't. Wow,
Speaker 5: and new boy on de rol because of this lady.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, it's something going on with that, y'all.
Speaker 1: In order to believe and to forrest Johnson's conviction, you
Speaker 1: have to believe that Violet Ellison was truthful when she
Speaker 1: said that she overheard to Forrest talk about killing Deputy Hardy,
Speaker 1: that she wasn't after the reward money because she didn't
Speaker 1: know about it. You have to believe that Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: is credible. So we need to know everything we can
Speaker 1: about Violet Ellison because without her, without her credibility, there
Speaker 1: is no case against to Forrest Johnson. I'm Beth Shelburne.
Speaker 1: This is ear witness, Chapter seven MESSI. In January of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Mara and I start trying to track
Speaker 1: down the other people Violet Ellison testified against. We spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in my car full days. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I pack mom snacks, healthy stuff like hummus and baby carrots,
Speaker 1: raw almonds, maybe a diet doctor pepper on a hard day.
Speaker 1: Marika was the first person we were able to find.
Speaker 1: The second case that listed Violet Ellison as a witness
Speaker 1: was a second degree assault between two men who got
Speaker 1: in a fight. The case ended in a plea deal,
Speaker 1: so she never actually testified. We weren't able to figure
Speaker 1: out exactly why she was listed as a witness. We
Speaker 1: tried very hard to talk to the man charged in
Speaker 1: the case, but never could reach him. And then there
Speaker 1: was the third case. It involved a local pastor named
Speaker 1: Bishop James Johnson, who was accused of inappropriately touching and
Speaker 1: kissing three teenaged girls at his church run school in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. Violet Ellison was a school employee who
Speaker 1: testified about the alleged abuse, but Bishop Johnson maintained he
Speaker 1: was falsely accused and that Violet Ellison was lying. The
Speaker 1: charges against him were eventually dropped by the state. We
Speaker 1: talked to Bishop Johnson, who's now in his late eighties,
Speaker 1: at his house in a suburb of Birmingham, and he
Speaker 1: told us Violet Ellison made up the accusations in an
Speaker 1: effort to get rid of him because she wanted to
Speaker 1: run the school.
Speaker 2: Yes, she was called my church.
Speaker 8: She was.
Speaker 1: We talked to one other school employee who corroborated what
Speaker 1: Bishop Johnson told us that Violet Ellison made up the allegations.
Speaker 1: I tried to find some of the alleged victims in
Speaker 1: this case, but I wasn't able to track them down.
Speaker 1: Bishop Johnson said he's forgiven Violet Ellison.
Speaker 8: That's over, Thank God for over. I have nothing Mahall
Speaker 8: against her. I forgave her. Ever Ladhams told I'm free, but.
Speaker 1: He said she is not a trustworthy person.
Speaker 4: I don't trust her.
Speaker 2: She's not a personal trust.
Speaker 1: George Holloway is the next person on our list of
Speaker 1: people that Violet Ellison testified against. What we know from
Speaker 1: court records is this. Between two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, George Holloway was charged in several domestic violence
Speaker 1: incidents involving his girlfriend. But unlike Marika Wilson and Bishop
Speaker 1: James Johnson, George Holloway pleaded guilty to his charges, which
Speaker 1: included violating a protective order twice. He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: three years in prison. The documents don't show why Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison was a witness against George Holloway. So Mara and
Speaker 1: I get in the car and drive around for hours,
Speaker 1: knocking on doors with a list of possible home addresses,
Speaker 1: with no luck. I need to turn around. Finally, we
Speaker 1: pull up to the last address on our list around Sunset,
Speaker 1: a small brick house in Bessemer.
Speaker 5: We're here.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always a gamble, but we'll just give
Speaker 1: it a whirl. At the same time, a truck stops
Speaker 1: at the top of the house's driveway. Can you are
Speaker 1: we blocking you? And out hops a man wearing grass
Speaker 1: stained work clothes and a neon green shirt. Are you
Speaker 1: going to this house we're looking for mister George Holloway.
Speaker 5: Is that you?
Speaker 1: That's okay, George, I'm sorry to show up here like this.
Speaker 1: We are journalists and we are working on a story
Speaker 1: about a case. And I launch into a spiel about
Speaker 1: what we're up to, and George Holloway listens quietly as
Speaker 1: we stand next to his mailbox. And so we're trying
Speaker 1: to get information on her. Her name, Violet Ellison. Do
Speaker 1: you know her? Do you have an opinion about her?
Speaker 1: Or have any any information that you could give us
Speaker 1: about her.
Speaker 4: I know she's very corendicted.
Speaker 9: She's I like to be involved in a lot of
Speaker 9: stuff that doesn't involve her. She's very She's a very
Speaker 9: messy lady, very messy.
Speaker 1: George Holloway invites us into his living room to talk
Speaker 1: more about his relationship with Violet Ellison.
Speaker 10: She's not a reliable person that you would trust, that
Speaker 10: you will put your faith in. And I would tell
Speaker 10: anybody whatever you have to say, do not say it
Speaker 10: in front of her. Because it is going to get
Speaker 10: turned totally backwards. Is not gonna be said the way
Speaker 10: that you said. My opinion, stay away from that woman
Speaker 10: because she's troubled.
Speaker 1: He tells us that he met Violet Ellison through his
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend. It gets a little complicated, but it's like this.
Speaker 1: George Holloway used to date a woman we'll call Sharon.
Speaker 1: Before she was with George. Sharon dated Violet Ellison's son,
Speaker 1: Reginald Smith, who's known as Red. George tells us that
Speaker 1: when Sharon broke up with Red, she remained friends with
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison, but he tells us Violet Ellison wanted Sharon
Speaker 1: and her son Red to get back together, and she
Speaker 1: thought George was in the way. George admits that he
Speaker 1: and Sharon had a volatile relationship and because of that,
Speaker 1: Sharon had a protective order against him. He says that
Speaker 1: one night, he and Sharon had an argument in person,
Speaker 1: violating the protective order. George says he left after the
Speaker 1: argument and Sharon called police, but Violet Ellison later testified
Speaker 1: that she heard and saw the whole thing firsthand.
Speaker 10: She has said that you know she was there, she
Speaker 10: witnessed it, but she was not there. She showed up
Speaker 10: after everything had happened, and the pulviase was there on
Speaker 10: the scene.
Speaker 1: George tells us he decided to plead guilty to breaking
Speaker 1: Sharon's protective order to wash his hands of the whole situation.
Speaker 1: He says he hasn't seen Sharon, Violet Ellison, or her
Speaker 1: son Read in years. George admits to physical fights with Sharon,
Speaker 1: but it seems like his descriptions of these fights minimize
Speaker 1: the vibe violence. We know there is another side to
Speaker 1: the story, but Sharon doesn't respond to our interview requests.
Speaker 1: I tell George about Violet Ellison's involvement into Forrest Johnson's
Speaker 1: conviction and the five thousand dollars reward she was paid
Speaker 1: in secret.
Speaker 4: She would do anything possible that she can if money
Speaker 4: is involved, even go to this extent to lie.
Speaker 1: But he says Violet Ellison has an even stronger motivation
Speaker 1: than money. Her son read.
Speaker 4: She would do anything possible, anything and go to any
Speaker 4: extent to keep us so out of trouble.
Speaker 1: Multiple sources tell me that Red is a longtime drug user,
Speaker 1: and court records show that he's been in and out
Speaker 1: of jail. George says that Violet Ellison enabled her son.
Speaker 4: She would cover up for.
Speaker 10: Him, whether he was right of whether he was wrong.
Speaker 10: You know, she knew he was doing things out there
Speaker 10: in the street. But you know, if the police come,
Speaker 10: she would lie and say he's not there. You know,
Speaker 10: she would give police's informations leading to drug buses, people
Speaker 10: that did robberies, and favor for them to drop charges
Speaker 10: against Reginal, get the charges downgraded, you know, to keep
Speaker 10: him from going to jail.
Speaker 1: I leave the interview with George Holloway wondering could Red's
Speaker 1: legal issues have motivated Violet Ellison to get involved with police.
Speaker 1: Was she after leniency for her son. A search of
Speaker 1: public court records shows that Red has a lengthy list
Speaker 1: of misdemeanor and felony convictions on his record going back
Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty But I checked with the Alabama Department
Speaker 1: of Corrections and they have no record of him ever
Speaker 1: serving time in prison. This tracks with what one of
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison's neighbors told me that Red is often in trouble,
Speaker 1: but he's like teflon, nothing sticks. For example, in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Red was charged with robbery and theft when
Speaker 1: he stole five watches from a department store. He pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but
Speaker 1: then the judge amended read sentence and granted him probation
Speaker 1: instead of prison time. But there's no information about why
Speaker 1: his sentence was downgraded, and this happened less than a
Speaker 1: month before the start of to Forrest's second trial. That
Speaker 1: timing gets my attention. I wonder if it's possible that
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison testified into Forrest's case in exchange for preferential
Speaker 1: treatment for her son, But on further examination, that seems
Speaker 1: like a long shot. The charges against Red in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven were in Bessemer, not Jefferson County, where to
Speaker 1: Forest was tried, with different prosecutors and judges. But I
Speaker 1: do know that Violet Ellison was involved in her son's
Speaker 1: criminal defense. In a two thousand and seven burglary case.
Speaker 1: Records show that Red's attorney met with the defendant and
Speaker 1: his mother for three hours in two separate meetings. Red
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty in that case and got probation. Is read
Speaker 1: getting preferential treatment because his mother has been a witness
Speaker 1: for the state in multiple cases. I find no documentation
Speaker 1: to support this, But then again, are deals like that
Speaker 1: ever spelled out in court records? While looking through Red's files,
Speaker 1: I notice an especially violent assault and battery from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. He was sentenced to supervised probation. I was
Speaker 1: able to dig up a report of the incident, in
Speaker 1: which police say Read spits on a woman, grabs her
Speaker 1: by the neck and hair, and pulls her around a room.
Speaker 1: A child is listed as a witness. The victim's name
Speaker 1: is Anita Davis, and her most likely addresses are all
Speaker 1: in central Georgia. So Mara and I get back in
Speaker 1: the car and make the four hour drive to try
Speaker 1: to find her. Hi, we're looking for Anita Davis.
Speaker 4: She passed away.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 5: Are you her daughter? My name is Beth.
Speaker 1: This is Maa. We are writers and we're working on
Speaker 1: a story about the wrongful conviction, and we're reaching out
Speaker 1: to people that may know the great witness. Her name
Speaker 1: is Violet Ellison.
Speaker 6: Oh, I know who's my grandma?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so Violet Ellison is your grandmother?
Speaker 5: Okay do you?
Speaker 1: Unexpectedly we find ourselves talking to Violet Ellison's granddaughter, Tyse Davis,
Speaker 1: is in her fifties, but doesn't look a day over forty.
Speaker 1: When I mentioned her grandmother, Violet Ellison, Tyise comes out
Speaker 1: from behind the screen door. She keeps her earbuds in
Speaker 1: while we stand on the porch and talk.
Speaker 5: What kind of grandmother was she? Was she involved in
Speaker 5: your life?
Speaker 6: No? No, she told my day, Yo, kids ain't an
Speaker 6: never mountain there. But then we're the kids that's been successful.
Speaker 6: And now she's trying to come back around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's not like warm feelings.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So far, most of the people I've contacted about Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison had good reason to say negative things about her.
Speaker 1: Those were people who she testified against. But this feels different.
Speaker 1: We're hearing from a blood relative, a person connected to
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison through family. Tyist tells us she's retired from
Speaker 1: the Air Force. She moved to Georgia with her mom,
Speaker 1: Anita Davis, and her two brothers when they were kids.
Speaker 1: Tyis says it was to get away from the chaos
Speaker 1: surrounding her father's side of the family. We asked her
Speaker 1: about Red, what's the deal with Red? Her son?
Speaker 6: Uh So that's my dad. Okay, I really know how
Speaker 6: to do him because he's been on drugs since I
Speaker 6: was nine eight or nine, Okay, he stayed with her,
Speaker 6: So you know you had a parents where you know,
Speaker 6: you know your child doing stuff, but you uphold it first.
Speaker 6: Is letting them know you wrong. Yeah, she upholds everything
Speaker 6: you did.
Speaker 1: That's exactly. Tys corroborates the picture already painted by George
Speaker 1: Holloway and a neighbor of Violet Ellison, telling us that
Speaker 1: she readily involves herself and other people's criminal issues, but
Speaker 1: does whatever she can to protect her sl read when
Speaker 1: he gets into trouble.
Speaker 6: You don't need neighborhood to watch with her. But she
Speaker 6: only if she only noticed what she wanted notice, Because
Speaker 6: if her son was breaking into somebody house but steriously,
Speaker 6: she didn't see that, but anything else she would see.
Speaker 6: So yeah, that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: We explained why we're interested in Violet Ellison and her son,
Speaker 1: and Tys tells us she had recently heard about her
Speaker 1: grandmother's involvement into Forrest Johnson's case.
Speaker 6: So I wasn't surprised when I heard it because if
Speaker 6: it involved money, I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1: Well, and it did. I mean she was paid five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I wouldn't be surprised. Like when I heard
Speaker 6: the story, I was like, Yeah, I'm not surprised at all.
Speaker 6: She's money homer. So that's the issue that would, like
Speaker 6: I said, will say anything to get money.
Speaker 1: Why is she like that any idea?
Speaker 6: No, even like I said, growing up, I had nothing
Speaker 6: to do with them. For instance, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 6: an example.
Speaker 1: Ty East tells us that Violet Ellison was distant when
Speaker 1: she was a child, but then right after Tyst joined
Speaker 1: the Air Force, she got a call from her grandmother.
Speaker 6: Haven't done nothing for me, her gray child, haven't done
Speaker 6: nothing for me. When I joined the military, she said, hey,
Speaker 6: I need your Social Security number so I can get insurance.
Speaker 6: Po this on you just in case you know, something
Speaker 6: happened to.
Speaker 5: You and we can bury you.
Speaker 6: I'm fine with the military got me covered and that
Speaker 6: stuff and go to my mom. So why you need
Speaker 6: my social But you ain't never decide to do that before.
Speaker 7: So stuff like that.
Speaker 6: But I'm not surprised with the money thing. And I
Speaker 6: hate that this man could be innocent and for five
Speaker 6: thousand dollars he's on did he for five thousand dollars?
Speaker 1: But she testified under oath that she did not know
Speaker 1: about the reward. She didn't know that any money was involved.
Speaker 6: So exactly, my brother said, she ain't testified against nentheless
Speaker 6: is money involved.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, we realize that Tyss has earbuds
Speaker 1: in because she's on the phone with someone. It's her brother, Tony.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, is he here?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you think he would talk to us? Would it
Speaker 1: be possible for us to come see him too?
Speaker 5: You're fine with that, Tony, Okay, he would just have
Speaker 5: to Ki.
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison's grandson, Tony lives about ten minutes away from
Speaker 1: his sister Tye. We get to his house and the
Speaker 1: front yard is filled with cars in various states of repair.
Speaker 1: He's waiting for us on the porch.
Speaker 8: Hello, Hi, how are you are you?
Speaker 11: Tony?
Speaker 1: After he finishes extracting an old bird's nest from the rafters,
Speaker 1: Tony talks to us us for forty minutes.
Speaker 11: I can tell you one thing about my grandma. She
Speaker 11: is a that's a true scam artist.
Speaker 5: That's the truth.
Speaker 4: I hate to see it.
Speaker 11: I know that's my grandmother, but that's a true scam
Speaker 11: audi deal any way she can get a dollar telling
Speaker 11: you she ain't that type that's just gonna help him out,
Speaker 11: just to help them.
Speaker 4: It gotta have money, it got it.
Speaker 11: Gotta have money involved. Wow, it just had it. It
Speaker 11: gotta have You ain't got money involved.
Speaker 1: Tony says his grandmother tried to scam him out of
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars by claiming that he owed her for
Speaker 1: a loan. Mara tells Tony about how the state presented
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison to forrest Johnson's trial, and that she says
Speaker 1: she didn't know about the reward when she testified. He
Speaker 1: doesn't believe that getting you.
Speaker 11: Being like she's concerned about stuff, but really she ain't
Speaker 11: concern She's just trying to get your business, trying to
Speaker 11: see a way she can get some money. Oh reward
Speaker 11: for this I'll find, hopefully, but I'll she lied too
Speaker 11: much like my dad lied too much like she She
Speaker 11: alive by anything to get away with anything.
Speaker 1: So he goes on to describe the relationship Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: has with her son, Read who is also Tony's father.
Speaker 11: They like Bonnie and Clyde, I should arrive on him
Speaker 11: the whole time. She could see with her own eyes
Speaker 11: with this man, indeed, and she and she'd be like no,
Speaker 11: ain't see, ain't see ye.
Speaker 4: She always doing like this.
Speaker 11: She'd be like this and it was new like.
Speaker 1: Tony then tells us the story about the assault and
Speaker 1: battery case that led us here, filling in details that
Speaker 1: are missing from the court files. He says, when he
Speaker 1: was little, Red was on drugs and would hit Tony's mom.
Speaker 1: One night, Tony, wanting to protect her, stabbed Redka.
Speaker 11: That was when I was young, a child. I stabbed him. Wow,
Speaker 11: I really did I stab him. I stabed him in
Speaker 11: his cab. Most of them stuff, ohala, and you know
Speaker 11: who the first person that pulled up Vie.
Speaker 8: She the third first pull it up, and he didn't.
Speaker 3: They didn't.
Speaker 4: They told the police a lie.
Speaker 11: They tried to put it like somebody he got in
Speaker 11: a fight with somebody and all his stuff for they wait.
Speaker 1: So Violet lied to the police.
Speaker 11: She always lied for the police to try to give
Speaker 11: him out of trouble. But she tried to put it
Speaker 11: like I was gonna get in trouble to stab him.
Speaker 5: I didn't care.
Speaker 3: I was little.
Speaker 11: I didn't care what y'all would do to a child.
Speaker 11: I'm just proteking my mama, yeh.
Speaker 1: According to Tony, even when he was little, he saw
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison lie to police to protect her son, Red,
Speaker 1: but Red was arrested for this incident and sentenced to
Speaker 1: sixty days probation. And it was after this Tyis and
Speaker 1: Tony's mother, Anita, decided to move the family to Georgia.
Speaker 1: Like his sister Tays, Tony was also troubled to recently
Speaker 1: hear about his grandmother's involvement into Forrest Johnson's conviction and
Speaker 1: death sence.
Speaker 5: I go through that.
Speaker 11: I really hate that being and ice to the point
Speaker 11: it's a chance he can lose his life or fire outluncable.
Speaker 1: I'm not typically comfortable reporting negative opinions about a private citizen,
Speaker 1: but Violet Ellison's word is the case against to Forrest Johnson.
Speaker 1: In order to figure out how an innocent person ended
Speaker 1: up on death row, there was no way around investigating
Speaker 1: the star witness and whether or not she's credible. I
Speaker 1: had that conversation with Violet Ellison on her front porch
Speaker 1: a year before I talked with Tys and Tony, But
Speaker 1: after hearing from her grandchildren, I went back and knocked
Speaker 1: on Violet Ellison's door again multiple times. HI, we're looking
Speaker 1: for miss Violet Ellison. I wanted to learn more about
Speaker 1: her relationship with her son Read and her involvement in
Speaker 1: other cases. Each time I knocked, the woman inside claimed
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison wasn't at home. I even left a note
Speaker 1: in her mailbox along with my business card, but Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison never responded.
Speaker 5: Miss Ellison, is that you.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find documented proof of all of
Speaker 1: the allegations that sources made against Violet Ellison. For example,
Speaker 1: there's no paper trail that shows she lied to protect
Speaker 1: her son Read. But there's also no ironclad proof that
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison heard to Forrest Johnson talk about killing Deputy
Speaker 1: Hardy in nineteen ninety five. The state presented her testimony
Speaker 1: with no verification of what she claimed, no recording of
Speaker 1: the calls she evesdropped on, nothing outside her word and
Speaker 1: the notes she turned over to police that connected to
Speaker 1: Forrest Johnson to a murder. He maintains to this day
Speaker 1: that he did not commit. Prosecutors presented Violet Ellison as
Speaker 1: a concerned mother troubled by her conscience, and she was
Speaker 1: adamant that she didn't know about the reward when she testified.
Speaker 1: But through my reporting consistent negative descriptions kept coming up
Speaker 1: about her, even from her own grandchildren. One former co
Speaker 1: worker called her sneaky. A relative referred to her as
Speaker 1: a peace breaker. Almost every person we talked to said
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison should not be trusted. We spoke to over
Speaker 1: a dozen different people about Violet Ellison. The consistent portrait
Speaker 1: that emerged from these conversations is diametrically opposed to the
Speaker 1: characterization presented by prosecutors at trial and what judges still
Speaker 1: believe as to Forrest tries to undo his conviction. I
Speaker 1: also learned that Violet Ellison was in a precarious financial position,
Speaker 1: burdened by medical debt. She lives in a community plagued
Speaker 1: by violence and poverty. Her son suffers from addiction. She's
Speaker 1: estranged from some of her immediate family. She seems to
Speaker 1: seize a p opportunities where she can. One of those
Speaker 1: was created by the state when they offered money for
Speaker 1: information about a police officer's murder. Fifteen years before I
Speaker 1: began looking into Violet Ellison, there was someone else who
Speaker 1: had questions about her credibility. Jeff Wallace, the prosecutor who
Speaker 1: stood in front of a jury and threw Deputy Hardy's
Speaker 1: hat onto the courtroom floor.
Speaker 2: Jeff Waugh spent four years of his life prosecuting this case,
Speaker 2: trying to put Rodregis Ford into Forest Johnson on death row.
Speaker 2: He successfully put to force Johnson on death row. I
Speaker 2: mean four years of his professional life he devoted to this.
Speaker 1: Jeff Wallace reached out to Ty Alper and the rest
Speaker 1: of the Forest's legal team to share what was on
Speaker 1: his mind, and today he says that to Forrest Johnson
Speaker 1: deserves a new trial.
Speaker 2: Twenty years later, he's saying, I think it should be undone.
Speaker 2: I mean that to me takes courage that most lawyers
Speaker 2: don't have.
Speaker 1: That's next time. Ear Witness is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis, and
Speaker 1: me Beth Shelburn. The investigative reporting for this series was
Speaker 1: done by Me and MARAA McNamara. Producers are MARAA McNamara,
Speaker 1: Hannah Bial and Jackie Polly. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer.
Speaker 1: Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from
Speaker 1: Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan, and special
Speaker 1: thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can
Speaker 1: follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from
Speaker 1: our investigation, visit lava for goood dot com slash ear
Speaker 1: Witness