Speaker 1: Pushkin previously on Deep Cover.
Speaker 2: Now, in a criminal case, the prosecution side of the story,
Speaker 2: they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. As to
Speaker 2: the defense side of the story, we just have to
Speaker 2: create reasonable doubt. But we did way more than that.
Speaker 3: I felt like I had to go to.
Speaker 4: Trial every day and I feel like I had to
Speaker 4: find truthful, not only for the family, for my mom.
Speaker 5: People don't understand. It's not TV that it's cut and
Speaker 5: everybody's happy. There is a life after a case, and
Speaker 5: people have to live the rest of their lives dealing
Speaker 5: with the murderer, his family, his friends, his associates.
Speaker 3: They're going to have to look.
Speaker 5: Behind their back for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: In May of two thousand and eight, the trial for
Speaker 1: the murder of Iran Wood was in full swing and
Speaker 1: Tyrone would Iran's youngest brother. He had a front row
Speaker 1: seat for it all, including a view of the defendant,
Speaker 1: Tom Guybison.
Speaker 4: I had to see this guy, and then you know,
Speaker 4: I'm thinking, I know you did it, and you wanted
Speaker 4: to meet Jamaica one day and that's Beyrd, I mean man.
Speaker 3: Then after that, because I know you did you killed
Speaker 3: my brother.
Speaker 1: So at least Tyrone didn't have to face this alone.
Speaker 4: I always had someone with me, whether it was my brother,
Speaker 4: my uncle, one of my uncle's friends.
Speaker 3: I was never, like ever, completely by myself.
Speaker 1: For years, the story of Iran Wood and his mysterious
Speaker 1: murder had been a largely private affair for the Wood family.
Speaker 1: The grief, the uncertainty, and the hope for justice had
Speaker 1: been theirs alone. But that had changed. Newspapers printed blow
Speaker 1: by blow coverage of the trial for weeks. It was
Speaker 1: a gripping drama playing out in real time. So many
Speaker 1: people were following the story.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: One of them was Tyrone's boss. Usually he was a
Speaker 1: man of few words, not the expressive type, but apparently
Speaker 1: he felt compelled to say something.
Speaker 3: He said Wow. I said, wow, what did you say?
Speaker 3: Wild for?
Speaker 4: And him and I are not close, and he said,
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe that you went through that because he
Speaker 4: saw it in he was watching the news and he
Speaker 4: was blown away because he never knew.
Speaker 3: And I tell people all the time, everybody got a story.
Speaker 3: I don't want. Nobody had my story.
Speaker 4: Well of a suddenly being killed, but everybody has the story.
Speaker 1: For the Wood family, this ordeal, which had shaped their
Speaker 1: lives for almost two decades, was maybe, just maybe coming
Speaker 1: to a close. Both sides made their closing arguments, then
Speaker 1: at last it was time for the jury to deliberate.
Speaker 1: It would be up to them to pass judgment and
Speaker 1: render a verdict. Turns out things got pretty heated in
Speaker 1: that jury room. The whole process was fraud. But in
Speaker 1: the end they did reach a verdict. It just wasn't
Speaker 1: the verdict that anyone, either the defense or the prosecution,
Speaker 1: ever expected. I'm Jake Halbern and this is Deep Cover,
Speaker 1: Season four, The Nameless Man, Episode six, The Verdict, our
Speaker 1: season finale. There's almost nothing in the public record about
Speaker 1: what the jurors discussed during their deliberations. Some of them
Speaker 1: took notes, but they had to hand them over at
Speaker 1: the end of the trial. One duror talked to a
Speaker 1: newspaper reporter when it was all over, but that was it.
Speaker 1: So their whole decision making process, it's remained a mystery
Speaker 1: to this day. I knew it would be tricky tracking
Speaker 1: down the jurors in this case. For starters, I wasn't
Speaker 1: even sure how many of them were still alive. I mean,
Speaker 1: it had been over fifteen years since the trial Eventually
Speaker 1: I connected with several of the jurors and interviewed two
Speaker 1: of them, starting with this guy.
Speaker 6: Okay, my name is Bob. I'm a Philadelphian and I
Speaker 6: was selected to serve on the jury that heard the
Speaker 6: case of Thomas Guibison.
Speaker 1: To protect his privacy, I'm not going to use Bob's
Speaker 1: last name, but I can tell you Bob is a
Speaker 1: science nerd and that informs his outlook on life.
Speaker 6: Being trained as a scientist, I would say, yeah, logic
Speaker 6: was a big part at or at least seriously questioning things,
Speaker 6: and you know what's proof and what's not proof. You know,
Speaker 6: where is their doubt, what degree of doubt is there
Speaker 6: in things?
Speaker 1: So in many ways, Bob is kind of an ideal juror.
Speaker 1: He's been selected to sit on six juries for this trial.
Speaker 1: Mike Ferrell, the defense lawyer, questioned potential jurors about their
Speaker 1: sense of fairness. He asked Bob point blank if he
Speaker 1: could set aside whatever biases he might have about someone
Speaker 1: being a skinhead.
Speaker 6: And my response was, I wouldn't make any presumption on that.
Speaker 6: I would listen to the testimony and I would decide
Speaker 6: according to this specific facts of the specific case.
Speaker 1: Bob was selected to be on the jury in this
Speaker 1: case along with eleven others, Four of them were black,
Speaker 1: eight of them were white. Tom Guybison was facing four charges,
Speaker 1: a weapon charge, conspiracy to commit murder, murder in the
Speaker 1: first degree, and finally ethnic intimidation. That last one is
Speaker 1: basically what Pennsylvania calls a hate crime. As I see it,
Speaker 1: there were two fundamental questions that the jury was facing.
Speaker 1: Number one, did it really happen? In other words, do
Speaker 1: you believe that years ago Tom Guybison murdered a black
Speaker 1: man in Philadelphia? Then there was the second question, was
Speaker 1: there enough evidence to convict Tom, specifically for the murder
Speaker 1: of Iran Wood. The first question did it really happen?
Speaker 1: Hinged on the testimony of the prosecution's three star witnesses.
Speaker 1: There were the two ex girlfriends, both of whom claimed
Speaker 1: that Tom had confessed to them, and then there was
Speaker 1: Craig Peterson, who said that he was the accomplice. Bob
Speaker 1: listened to the witnesses testimonies with rapt attention. He found
Speaker 1: the ex girlfriends believable.
Speaker 6: I don't remember anything specifically about their testimony that I
Speaker 6: thought that that doesn't ring true. Or I really have
Speaker 6: doubts about that. I thought they made credible witnesses.
Speaker 1: And he felt the same way about Craig. Thought he
Speaker 1: seemed credible. But here's the thing, says Bob.
Speaker 6: Somebody can be credible about something that happened twenty years
Speaker 6: ago and not remember it completely correct.
Speaker 1: Bob said, case in point was the very conversation that
Speaker 1: he and I were having.
Speaker 6: Now, I'm trying to remember fifteen years ago what I
Speaker 6: experienced on a trial. I can't remember a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Bob told me some things he remembered very well, specific
Speaker 1: moments in the trial, feelings, he had parts of conversations
Speaker 1: that took place, but other details escaped him, or maybe
Speaker 1: he recalled them hazily, not in the way that he
Speaker 1: could trust. And this, right here was the problem for Bob.
Speaker 1: He told me it was entirely possible that Craig was
Speaker 1: telling the truth, but that Craig's memory was imperfect. And
Speaker 1: that's a big thing, because Craig's confession, with all of
Speaker 1: its specific details, is what connected Tom Guybison to the
Speaker 1: murder of iron Wood.
Speaker 6: I definitely did have some doubts, yeah, absolutely, but I
Speaker 6: wanted to discuss them. I wanted to hear what other
Speaker 6: people had to say because they might alleviate my doubts.
Speaker 1: So when the jury gathered behind closed doors, Bob expressed
Speaker 1: his doubts. He just laid them all out.
Speaker 6: They might have even killed someone, but it might not
Speaker 6: have been on that day and at that time, because
Speaker 6: there was you know, there was there were possible recollection issues,
Speaker 6: and that I thought that the location description, the date
Speaker 6: and the dayton time that they came to the city
Speaker 6: were wobbly, and the description of how they got where
Speaker 6: they got.
Speaker 1: When you start voicing your doubts to your fellow jurors,
Speaker 1: what do they say back?
Speaker 6: Various jurors, you know, are quiet, Some of them just
Speaker 6: take it in. A couple of other people started to
Speaker 6: say the same thing. Is this timeline, you know, something
Speaker 6: we can rely on, and the location something we can
Speaker 6: rely on. Do we really know that that's where they
Speaker 6: wound up and that they killed you know, Aron Wood,
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and six, when the Philly PD
Speaker 1: first started searching for a potential victim, they looked at
Speaker 1: all the unsolved murders. From January through May of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, there were thirty seven of them. Then they
Speaker 1: narrowed down the pool of possibilities by considering several key
Speaker 1: details that Craig remembered. These details included the general location
Speaker 1: of the crime, the type of weapon, and the nature
Speaker 1: of the wound a single shot to the head. They
Speaker 1: found just one match around wood. But this is the
Speaker 1: thing about reasonable doubt. All it takes is a juror
Speaker 1: questioning a single fact, like, for example, what if Tom
Speaker 1: fired his gone twice, not once, because there was in
Speaker 1: fact another cold case victim from the spring of eighty
Speaker 1: nine who died of two gunshot wounds. The defense brought
Speaker 1: this other victim up during the trial. So if you
Speaker 1: find Craig credible, like so many of the jurors did,
Speaker 1: it seems very reasonable to assume that he'd correctly remember
Speaker 1: how many times Tom's gun went off. Craig had been
Speaker 1: consistent about this. But the key is if God to
Speaker 1: have faith in Craig's memory, enough faith that reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: doesn't creep in. Bob says as he continued to think
Speaker 1: it through, he became increasingly convinced that at the very
Speaker 1: least Tom and Craig had conspired to commit murder. He
Speaker 1: was just having his doubts about the particulars of whom
Speaker 1: they might have killed, and so too were some of
Speaker 1: his fellow jurors, says Bob. So they decided to send
Speaker 1: a note to the judge with a question. They actually
Speaker 1: did this a few times. And here's what Bob was
Speaker 1: really struggling with.
Speaker 6: If we convict somebody a murder, so we have to
Speaker 6: convict him of murdering a specific That's now that sounds
Speaker 6: like a weird question to ask, right, But that's where
Speaker 6: we got to in the discussions, Like we even believed
Speaker 6: they came here to kill somebody, and they might have
Speaker 6: killed somebody, we're just not convinced that's who they killed.
Speaker 1: If they did kill somebody, and what did the judge say?
Speaker 6: The judge essentially, you know, stated the law as the law.
Speaker 6: But the bottom line was, if you convict someone of
Speaker 6: a murder, it must be a specific person that they killed.
Speaker 6: It you have to convict them of.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. If the judge had
Speaker 1: come back and told you you can, you can make
Speaker 1: a murder conviction even if you don't think it was would.
Speaker 6: Yes, how would you what I have voted? I believe
Speaker 6: I would have voted guilty on that.
Speaker 1: By the third day of deliberations, the mood in the
Speaker 1: jury room was tense.
Speaker 6: I was tired. I was thinking about this all the time,
Speaker 6: even when I wasn't in there. It's difficult to be
Speaker 6: put in this situation, to know there was a victim,
Speaker 6: even the idea that you know, the family, you know,
Speaker 6: might be looking foreclosure on this and want somebody that's
Speaker 6: you know, guilty of it. But I haven't been given
Speaker 6: the evidence to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: Bob says from the start of the trial, he was
Speaker 1: determined to hear all the evidence, all the testimony, and
Speaker 1: keep an open mind, to focus on the facts, to
Speaker 1: avoid making leaps of logic, and when necessary, to question
Speaker 1: his own thinking. And now his doubts took cold.
Speaker 6: I teared up when I was talking to the other drawers.
Speaker 6: I was, you know, we were kind of wrung out.
Speaker 6: He kept asking himself, Am I seeing it the right way?
Speaker 6: Is there something I'm missing? Is it a moral failing
Speaker 6: of mind that I'm not willing to make the jump
Speaker 6: because I think it's shaky, Or am I on the
Speaker 6: right moral side of the question because I actually have doubts.
Speaker 6: In a series of doubts and I, you know, I
Speaker 6: can't make the leap that does that make me weak?
Speaker 6: I don't know. All I can do is be true
Speaker 6: to myself. I'm getting emotional now.
Speaker 1: Well, all these years later, it's still yeah.
Speaker 6: It was really hard.
Speaker 1: As deliberations wore on, it seemed like the jury was
Speaker 1: starting to unravel. If there is any hope of a resolution,
Speaker 1: it fell upon this person. I'd like to think of
Speaker 1: myself as even keeled, and I think that's that's probably
Speaker 1: why I took a lead role on the jury. This
Speaker 1: is the jury's foreman. I'm not using his real name.
Speaker 1: We decided to call him Nick in our interview as
Speaker 1: foreman Nick. He's the guy who had to read the verdict,
Speaker 1: but the foreman. He's also like a team manager. And
Speaker 1: at this point three days in, seemed like the team
Speaker 1: had hit a brick wall.
Speaker 7: Pressure was growing within the group to come to a conclusion.
Speaker 7: There was a feeling of we don't have more to
Speaker 7: go on.
Speaker 1: At this point, They've been over the testimony again and again,
Speaker 1: they'd asked for guidance from the judge, and now they
Speaker 1: had to start making choices based on my conversations with
Speaker 1: the jurors and news coverage from the time. It seems
Speaker 1: like the jury divided into three camps. First, there was
Speaker 1: the guilty camp. They were convinced by the prosecution's argument
Speaker 1: and we're basically ready to convict Tom Gobison on all counts,
Speaker 1: including the murder of iron Wood. According to Nick, the foreman,
Speaker 1: this camp included the majority of jurors, including himself. Then
Speaker 1: there was what I call the on the fence camp,
Speaker 1: which included Bob. They thought there'd probably been a murder,
Speaker 1: but had doubts that the victim was a Ron Wood.
Speaker 1: And finally there was the holdout. He was a camp
Speaker 1: unto himself, one guy, and apparently he wanted to acquit
Speaker 1: Tom Gybison on all counts. He made this plane from
Speaker 1: the very start, and after making his case, he refused
Speaker 1: to discuss the matter any further, just stop talking. And
Speaker 1: now three days into deliberations, patience was wearing thin.
Speaker 7: There was a sense Tuesday morning that we were out
Speaker 7: of time. Essentially, there was no more persuasion to happen.
Speaker 7: We'd all, you know, made our cases based on notes,
Speaker 7: based on recollection, based on feelings, and the holdout was
Speaker 7: not budgeing.
Speaker 1: How do you navigate out of that situation.
Speaker 7: So we negotiated.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear here, when he says they negotiated,
Speaker 1: he's talking about the charges brought against Tom, like, could
Speaker 1: they reach a compromise. As the foreman of the jury,
Speaker 1: Nick was in a tricky spot because he thought what
Speaker 1: the prosecution argued was in fact true. He found Craig believable,
Speaker 1: he found Craig's detailed memories credible. But as foreman, he
Speaker 1: was also trying to build consensus and avoid a hung jury.
Speaker 1: It's a tough situation, right, because if you come back
Speaker 1: with a hung jury, there's a chance that this guy
Speaker 1: ends up serving no time at all if the case
Speaker 1: is not retried.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's exactly what the conversation was, and I think
Speaker 7: enough people felt strongly that he should go to to
Speaker 7: prison for some of this.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, after three days of deliberations, the jury sent word
Speaker 1: they were done. All that was left to do was
Speaker 1: file back into the courtroom and tell everyone what they decided.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. Mike Ferrell, the defense lawyer, remembers
Speaker 1: getting the call that the jury had reached a verdict.
Speaker 2: In the life of the trial lawyer, there is no
Speaker 2: time that in any way comes close to the apprehension
Speaker 2: when you know the jury has a verdict but you
Speaker 2: haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 1: With growing anticipation, he made his way back to the courtroom.
Speaker 2: I remember distinctly having to get on an elevator, hide
Speaker 2: up an elevator multiple floors.
Speaker 1: In the courtroom, everyone was there, the prosecutor, Roger King,
Speaker 1: members of iron Woods family, the jury, the press, and
Speaker 1: of course Tom Guybison. The judge called the room to attention.
Speaker 1: Nick the foreman of the jury, rose to his feet
Speaker 1: and prepared to read the verdict.
Speaker 7: It's incredibly surreal standing in a room with someone who's
Speaker 7: being accused of, you know, cold blooded murder, you know,
Speaker 7: believing that he did it, being convinced I should say
Speaker 7: that that he was the one who did these things,
Speaker 7: and knowing that he's going to look me directly in
Speaker 7: the eye. It was just incredibly surreal, and I just
Speaker 7: took a breath and reminded myself this was real life,
Speaker 7: and then read the read the results.
Speaker 1: The charges were read aloud one final time before the
Speaker 1: jury delivered their verdict.
Speaker 2: The court officer then reads the charge to the first charge,
Speaker 2: the murder of our Wood. How do you find the
Speaker 2: defendant and the jury says not guilty, and that not
Speaker 2: is a you know, a glorious moment in the life of.
Speaker 3: A trial, or.
Speaker 1: What goes through your mind at that moment when you
Speaker 1: hear that.
Speaker 2: Justice has been done.
Speaker 1: The jury acquitted him a first degree murder and of
Speaker 1: ethnic intimidation too. But there was more to the verdict.
Speaker 1: The jury did find Tom Guybison guilty on the two
Speaker 1: lesser charges, conspiracy to commit murder and carrying a firearm
Speaker 1: without a license, crimes that could land time in prison
Speaker 1: for years. That was the compromise, the deal the jury
Speaker 1: had struck uck. When this hit the papers, the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Daily News called it a bizarre split verdict. The reporter
Speaker 1: described the scene in the courtroom after the verdict was announced, quote,
Speaker 1: A tense Guybison appeared angry, his hands tightly clenched on
Speaker 1: the desk. His attorney, Mike Ferrell, acknowledged the partial win
Speaker 1: by playfully poking Guybison in the bicep above the hitler
Speaker 1: and swastika tattoo hidden by his white, long sleeved shirt.
Speaker 1: For the members of the Wood family, several of whom
Speaker 1: were present, the verdict made no sense.
Speaker 3: We were in quote the first work.
Speaker 4: I guess come to minds what my uncle said, because
Speaker 4: I was basically speechless.
Speaker 3: Uh, he said, travesty.
Speaker 1: That's Tyrone Wood, Iran's youngest brother. Much like Nick, the
Speaker 1: foreman of the jury, Tyrone believed Greig's testimony, believed in
Speaker 1: the integrity of his memory, and felt that there should
Speaker 1: have been a murder conviction.
Speaker 4: Murder is murder. The guy that drove him testified that
Speaker 4: he done it. He did it, We drove I drove him.
Speaker 4: There he shot the black man.
Speaker 1: At some point, according to a press account, Roger King,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, gathered members of the Wood family into his
Speaker 1: side room and told them, don't try to make any
Speaker 1: sense out of it now. There is an impossible task.
Speaker 1: It had been almost twenty years since Iran Wood had died,
Speaker 1: and during this time, this is what the Wood family
Speaker 1: had tried to do. Makes sense out of it, understand
Speaker 1: how and why Iran had died, and hope for closure.
Speaker 1: Roger King told the family that the verdict was likely
Speaker 1: a compromise within the jury, which of course was true.
Speaker 1: Nick the foreman, had tried to build consensus.
Speaker 7: I thought it was the best we could do, and
Speaker 7: that did not feel great. There was no way to
Speaker 7: feel one hundred percent about it. When you're you're negotiating
Speaker 7: on something you believed to be.
Speaker 8: True, Does that mean that you feel that basically like
Speaker 8: he got off. He got away with murder in the
Speaker 8: sense that he got off on a murder charge that
Speaker 8: you felt he deserved.
Speaker 3: To be convicted of. That's correct.
Speaker 1: Long after I talked with Nick, his words lingered in
Speaker 1: my mind. You're negotiating on something that you believed to
Speaker 1: be true. But how do you barter with the truth,
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, the truth is
Speaker 1: supposed to be singular, non negotiable. But it seemed like
Speaker 1: in this case, perhaps the truth and justice, or at
Speaker 1: least the justice that was possible, were two separate things,
Speaker 1: and so a deal was struck, a compromise. But the
Speaker 1: cost for Nick and the other members of the jury
Speaker 1: too was a claim to the truth as they saw it.
Speaker 1: This moment had been years in the making. The whole
Speaker 1: investigation began back in two thousand and four when two
Speaker 1: federal agents, Scott Duffy and Terry Mortimer, set out to
Speaker 1: solve this case. For them, this was a divine quest
Speaker 1: to find a nameless man the victim, and they believed
Speaker 1: they'd found him. For the Wood family, this was a
Speaker 1: quest for another nameless man, the murderer, and they believed
Speaker 1: they'd found him. But in the end, some on the
Speaker 1: jury didn't see it that way, and this left everyone
Speaker 1: wondering what did it all mean? For those involved, the agents,
Speaker 1: the jurors, and especially the Wood family, the question lingered,
Speaker 1: and they each, in their own way, searched for an answer.
Speaker 1: Scott Duffy, the FBI agent, remained unshaken in his belief
Speaker 1: that they had solved this crime.
Speaker 9: I felt so strongly that we had the right person
Speaker 9: and the right victim connected. But that's what happens in
Speaker 9: a case where I have to accept whatever the jury delivers.
Speaker 9: It doesn't tell me if I did enough or didn't
Speaker 9: do enough. I don't go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 7: I can what if everything to death.
Speaker 1: Scott says that he felt a sense of relief when
Speaker 1: it was all over, a sense of vindication that justice
Speaker 1: was in fact served because Tom had found guilty on
Speaker 1: some counts and he'd been sent to prison. I asked
Speaker 1: Scott how he felt now about Craig Peterson and whether
Speaker 1: he thinks Craig got the justice he deserved. I mean,
Speaker 1: he may not have pulled the trigger, but if he
Speaker 1: is to be believed, he conspired to murder an innocent man,
Speaker 1: and he walked away Scott free. How do you.
Speaker 2: Process that?
Speaker 9: I process it in a way that what's the alternative?
Speaker 9: If we did not give Craig what I think was
Speaker 9: required of us, There'd be nothing. There would be no
Speaker 9: justice to the family, there would be no investigation. It
Speaker 9: would have stopped, it would have closed, and I'd be
Speaker 9: left just wondering did we do enough.
Speaker 1: I hear you saying that this was a kind of
Speaker 1: a necessary compromise to make this thing work. But it
Speaker 1: is a necessary compromise that sits well with you.
Speaker 9: When it is your only option. Yes, when it's your
Speaker 9: only option. It is something that has to sit not comfortable,
Speaker 9: but it is something you must accept as part of
Speaker 9: our justice system.
Speaker 1: Scott's partner, Terry Mortimer, told me that he felt proud
Speaker 1: of the work that he and Scott had done, but
Speaker 1: he also noted that when the verdict came out, this
Speaker 1: bizarre split verdict as the papers called it, he got
Speaker 1: grief for it, even from his own colleagues.
Speaker 10: I remember talking to a superior who seemed a little
Speaker 10: upset that he didn't get the full homicide conviction and
Speaker 10: kind of like, yeah, but you only got a conspiracy. Man,
Speaker 10: what happened? Like, what happened to you guys? I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 10: we did the best we could. I mean, it's we're
Speaker 10: not we weren't on the jury.
Speaker 1: Terry says that before the verdict came down, his boss
Speaker 1: wanted to issue a press release, make a big deal
Speaker 1: out of the whole thing, but that never happened.
Speaker 10: It seemed disappointed. It was like the case was never
Speaker 10: mentioned again. It was like it was like almost like
Speaker 10: it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And then there's the Wood family. When I spoke with them,
Speaker 1: I could see how Iran's death had shaped their lives
Speaker 1: in so many ways. It almost pulled them under not
Speaker 1: once but twice, first back in nineteen eighty nine when
Speaker 1: Iran was murdered, and then again in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight at the trial. Michael, the middle brother, told me
Speaker 1: that the trial forced him to come to terms with
Speaker 1: what he'd been grappling with for years.
Speaker 11: Now you're facing you're really facing your enemy, that this
Speaker 11: person that killed you both. Do you really forgive this person.
Speaker 11: I've learned to forgive this person. They'd killed my brother,
Speaker 11: I say, and now that I'm facing to see who
Speaker 11: this person is, I forgave him already.
Speaker 3: There's nothing really I can do about it, you know.
Speaker 1: In the end, both Michael and Tyrone say they found
Speaker 1: the closure they were looking for, But there were moments still,
Speaker 1: our moments when the past resurfaces. Tom Guybison was released
Speaker 1: from prison in twenty fifteen, which was earlier than expected.
Speaker 1: Tom was originally given twelve and a half to twenty
Speaker 1: five years on the conspiracy and gun charges, but it
Speaker 1: turns out the judge in the case had used the
Speaker 1: sentencing guidelines given him too much time. Tom was later
Speaker 1: re sentenced and ultimately served roughly eight years. By the way,
Speaker 1: we did reach out to Tom for this story, but
Speaker 1: we never heard back. When Tom was released, nobody informed
Speaker 1: the Wood family. They didn't get so much as a
Speaker 1: heads up from the authorities, not a call, not a letter, nothing.
Speaker 4: I had to find out on the Internet looking for
Speaker 4: his name, and I did it on the humbug. I
Speaker 4: was just want I just punching his name and said, oh,
Speaker 4: he's released. I thought that they lit us down and
Speaker 4: that's why I guess in the sense I have some
Speaker 4: faith in the justice system, but don't let him out
Speaker 4: without letting us know.
Speaker 1: There are other moments when memories of the trial re emerge.
Speaker 1: Tyrone told me about a trip he took to rural
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania with his then wife and how he felt really
Speaker 1: out of place, realizing that they were the only black
Speaker 1: couple around, and kind of having a moment of anxiety.
Speaker 4: And then I said, no, stop, stop, stop, you're letting
Speaker 4: letting this world change you. That's not who you are.
Speaker 4: And if I go and give them to those fears,
Speaker 4: Thomas won, and you're not gonna win. I don't give
Speaker 4: you out. I don't know if you alive, I don't
Speaker 4: know what's going on with you, but I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: let you win. I'm sixty, so I try not to
Speaker 4: let anyone change me, because I think that's given anybody
Speaker 4: too much power.
Speaker 3: So I don't want to change the person I am.
Speaker 1: As he said this, Tyrone gestured at his brother Michael,
Speaker 1: at his niece Michelle.
Speaker 4: So they'll tell you them. I'm just as silly as
Speaker 4: they come. I play around. I'm a hugger. I hugged
Speaker 4: them every time I see them, and what I say, Oh,
Speaker 4: I love y'all because that's what my mother. Well, I
Speaker 4: will say love you, God, bless you, and then we
Speaker 4: will leave.
Speaker 12: That was like the thing that I remember y'all said,
Speaker 12: since you know, I don't go around pain, and she
Speaker 12: always say, make sure you say you know I love you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, before you you know you leave. So we do
Speaker 3: it now.
Speaker 4: Like I'll see my brother and I don't looking. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna hug my brother and tell me I love you man,
Speaker 4: because we're family.
Speaker 1: Always make sure to say it. That was Dorothy Wood's wisdom.
Speaker 1: It's a sweet sentiment, but to me, it also speaks
Speaker 1: to the way that loss and grief stay with us,
Speaker 1: whispering in our ears. When I think back to the
Speaker 1: way that everything played out with the trial, there's something
Speaker 1: fundamentally unsatisfying.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, we know that prosecutors bargain passes are given or
Speaker 1: strike deals, and in many ways the whole justice system
Speaker 1: is a series of compromises. Most defendants don't even go
Speaker 1: to trial, they just make please. And yet many of us,
Speaker 1: myself included, hold on to the perhaps naive hope of
Speaker 1: pure justice and clean endings, where the good guys win
Speaker 1: and righteousness prevails, and anything short of that leaves us
Speaker 1: a bit unsettled and secretly deflated. Before saying goodbye to
Speaker 1: the Wood family, I did what I always do at
Speaker 1: the end of an interview. I threw out my hail
Speaker 1: Mary question, anything that we didn't cover that you think
Speaker 1: is important for us to know?
Speaker 3: Oh, I think that it's about cover. It covered every
Speaker 3: pretty everything is about.
Speaker 12: I want to say that I'm grateful that my grandma's
Speaker 12: praise was answered. I feel like that her praying put
Speaker 12: that conviction in the FBI agents to chase this cold
Speaker 12: case and drew Laman and you know is will help,
Speaker 12: you know, bring closure to this for her.
Speaker 1: As Michelle sees it, her grandmother sent out a prayer
Speaker 1: and someone heard it, two guys actually Scott and Terry,
Speaker 1: and ultimately their investigation brought her peace. Michelle never met
Speaker 1: Scott or Terry, never talked to them, never even knew
Speaker 1: their names, and yet her take dovetails almost perfectly with theirs.
Speaker 1: The way they talked about being drawn in, almost mystically,
Speaker 1: as if summoned. I have to say, I'm not exactly
Speaker 1: sure it's the ending I had write. But then again,
Speaker 1: This Isn't My Story, Not Really. Deep Cover is produced
Speaker 1: by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith. It's edited by
Speaker 1: Karen Schakerji mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our show art was
Speaker 1: designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring in our theme was
Speaker 1: composed by Luis Gara, fact checking by Arthur Gomberts. Our
Speaker 1: story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special thanks to Daphne Chen,
Speaker 1: Izzy Carter, Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Enna Scrobots,
Speaker 1: Alexandra Garton, Lydia, Jane Kott, Greta Cone, Sarah Nix, Jake Flanagan,
Speaker 1: and Kerrie Brody. Additional thanks to Jerry Williams, Jill Gillette,
Speaker 1: Travis Dunlap, Elizabeth walked Out, Greta Weber, Isaac Gaines, Natasha Sebastian,
Speaker 1: and Lucian. I'm Jake Calbern. If you enjoyed this season
Speaker 1: and are in search of more investigations like ours, well,
Speaker 1: I've got a few recommendations for you. Don't forget your
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus membership grants you access to exclusive, ad free
Speaker 1: binges of shows like Lost Hill's Dark Canyon, which investigates
Speaker 1: the dark side of Malibu, California. In season four, host
Speaker 1: Dana Goodyear investigates the death of a twenty four year
Speaker 1: old black woman who went missing in two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine after being detained and released from the Malibu Lost
Speaker 1: Hills Sheriff Station. New episodes launch June twelfth. Another recommendation
Speaker 1: I have for you is Where's Dia? Coming July ninth.
Speaker 1: In the beautiful mountain town of Idlewild, a millionaire widow
Speaker 1: who was in the middle of a messy legal battle
Speaker 1: with her estranged children suddenly vanishes, leaving behind her beloved
Speaker 1: horse and idyllic ranch. A man who claims to be
Speaker 1: her fiance launches a very public campaign to find her,
Speaker 1: but when another woman dies at the same ranch, it
Speaker 1: appears that there's more to the story than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: Where's Dia begins on July ninth, and if you want
Speaker 1: to listen to something right now, I recommend you check
Speaker 1: out Death of an Artist Krasner and Pollock. You probably
Speaker 1: heard of Jackson Pollock, but you may never heard of
Speaker 1: Lee Krasner, an artist, Pollock's wife and the woman who
Speaker 1: made him famous and in so doing, changed everything about
Speaker 1: the landscape of modern art. This is a story of love, power, alcoholism, brutality,
Speaker 1: and ill timed death. You can listen to Death of
Speaker 1: an Artist, Krasner and Pollock wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and to binge the entirety of these shows on launch
Speaker 1: day early in ad free. You can subscribe to Pushkin
Speaker 1: Plus on their Apple Podcast show page or at pushkin
Speaker 1: dot fm slash plus