WEBVTT - #486 Maggie Freleng with James Degorski 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:06.920 Hello, This is a free call from Jim, an incarcerated 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:10.879 individual at they No Correctional Center. This call is subject 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:12.320 to recording and monitoring. 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:18.400 James de Gorski hates rudeness, especially when it comes to 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:19.040 the police. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.119 Please Please, literally came up to me and said, what's 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.920 your name? Just very arrogant and very rude. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.400 It sounds like you're pretty big on respect. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.240 You've mentioned that a few times, that they were really 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.600 just disrespectful and inappropriate. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.400 Sounds like you introduce yourself to so many. That's so 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:41.960 we start off on the wrong path. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:44.640 I spoke to James on the phone from prison and 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.120 he explained the saga of his relationship with the police 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.760 officers who would end up arresting him in an Illinois 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.760 town called Palatine. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.400 Palatine Please didn't like me from high school because I 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:01.040 wouldn't stitch on broke into all the lockers. So well, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.120 I was being a janitor there. Somebody broke in the 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.200 lockers and I didn't see who did it, and I 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.160 didn't speculate. I already had a problem with these Peloton 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.880 police from that He's throw tiger parties and they didn't 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.280 like that, so I just I had problem with Peloton. 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:18.679 Police, and the way James responded to the police wouldn't 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.960 exactly help him in the long run. 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:30.280 So James is one of those guys who's very sarcastic 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:35.959 and he had a arrogance to him at that time. 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.880 This is Ashley Cohen. She's a partner at Bonjin Law Group. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.119 He would probably be the type of person to make 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.840 a joke that's not funny and that the police would 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.520 maybe turn into fact of sorts. You know, someone who 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.640 seems cold, but he's been through a lot and he 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.880 deals with his trauma by you know, humorizing it, or 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.040 he just thought they were crazy. 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:07.600 These police are crazy, I'm not exaggerating. Unprofessional from the 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:12.680 get go, and they're consultational bullies and they escalated everything 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:18.240 the police. These police, not police in general. I have 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.720 nothing against the police. I have found with authority that 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.720 abuses to think they're above the law and above our constitution. 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:25.320 That's where I have a problem, and. 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.880 James thinks that's exactly what happened in his case. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.639 My name is James de Gorski. I've been wrong. Sley 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:33.720 inclcerated for the. 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.120 Last twenty two years from Lava for Good. This is 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:48.600 wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. James Degorski James de 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.800 Gorski was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August twentieth, nineteen 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:53.640 seventy two. 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.440 I've raised in off the Estates, Mon Prospect and Arlington Heights. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.800 We had a very, very tight family. At seven, I 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.040 had an older fitter you knew, a younger brother and 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:05.840 a younger fitter. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.240 Jim, as he likes to be called, says his mom 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:15.480 stayed home raising the kids, and his dad worked at motorola. 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:17.160 So what was family life like? 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:17.600 Was it? 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.440 Loving? Fun, messy, lots of yelling. Tell me about it. 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.600 Thanks for asking, because the last twenty some years it's 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:32.280 been about mitigation. But actually I have no complaints and 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.240 no regrets. I had an awesome family. We didn't the 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.640 normal things a family would do, go to church every Sunday. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.320 We'd have family game night with pizza and all my 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:43.240 friends were welcome. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:50.160 Jim remembers family vacations and camping trips and just hanging 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:51.360 with his siblings. 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.080 We grew up at the edge of the urban sprawl, 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.960 where with a cornerfield that started the Meadows Woods, the 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.440 Kanton Pounds and fourth much where we spent most of 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.360 my time. Bill Fifth in Bill Ramport, be on next bike, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.120 hang out with some older friends motorcycles and they board ramp. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.600 Pretty independent. I was basically a free range. 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:21.200 Fit for so. Jim says. His parents let him leave 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.159 at sunrise and return when the street lights were coming on. 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.800 He was independent, and because his dad worked so much, 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.159 Jim says, he also stepped in as a father figure. 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:33.520 I was like, I don't know how I say it. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.000 I was like my brothers and my sister's dad, and 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.400 I took them everywhere. I took my brothers and sisters. 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.480 He just did everything. My older friends that I had 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.640 even enjoyed them around. So we had a blast as 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.800 a kid. I got no complaints about my dysfunctional family. 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.440 Jim says being free range, as he calls it, allowed 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.920 him to explore his curiosity. You know those annoying little 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:56.479 kids always asking why. 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.360 They just he's saying why, and then you answer, and 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.320 they say why, and then they answer it, they say why. 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.800 That was him, He calls them why kids. 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.159 I was one of those irritating kids. But hindsight, I 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.039 guess I wasn't irritating because my neighbor's always answered my 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:14.560 why why questions. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.960 And Jim learned things roaming around talking to the adults. 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.560 I just go to my neighbor's house and he does upholstery, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:23.960 so I could help him do a polstery. And the 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.160 guy would throw me twenty dollars. His friend, his little kid, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.919 throw me twenty dollars just to hear his stories. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.719 Jim says. Another neighbor built toy cars. 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:33.800 I didn't want to play with the RC cars, which 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:35.800 he thought. I wanted to learn how to do electronics, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:37.640 so the guy was teaching me electronics. This is all 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:38.440 in grammar school. 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.839 Growing up, His brothers delivered newspapers to help his parents 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.520 out with money. But Jim, I. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.880 Would go garbage picking while they delivered their newspapers. And 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.680 then I'd get stuff by the trash and fix your 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.840 name in VCRs, radios, turlie and irens, blow dryers I'd 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.960 get I'd get a pretty good money by selling stuff 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.039 that I can garbage hick when you find one hundred 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.839 dollars VCR thrown in the trash, and all you need 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.800 is a fourteenth cent hues and a pretty profitable I 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.120 had a free apprenticeship as a kid, being one of 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.479 those whyy why kids with all my neighbor Jim says 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.320 he didn't mind helping his parents because this was all 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.279 fun to him anyway. Just doing that as just like 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.240 a hobby in a way. But I had money, so 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.520 I helped my parents paid the bills or the watter, 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:34.000 do our little vacations, campouts and whatever. I was often 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.880 letting my parents brain my favorite account down to zero, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.799 trying to keep the electric and the hour on. Whatever 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.479 problems we're having. Even with our van, our car would 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:45.200 break down, So. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.200 Jim says he learned how to fix car breaks in 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.919 grammar school. He was a hustler for sure. In his 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.120 freshman year, Jim worked as a janitor at his high school, 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:00.440 cleaning the cafeteria and vacuuming hallways after class, and with 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.839 the money he was able to keep for himself, he 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:04.000 would buy tools. 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:09.200 So in high school I started doing things like fixing cars, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:10.840 their bikes, mini bikes. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.680 He eventually rented out his mom's garage and had his 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:14.960 own mechanics shop there. 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.360 I had a friend Reggie in high school that him 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.239 and I were going to open a mechanic shop together. 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.080 We're going to build race cars, And we started in 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.440 my garage. We're popping motors in all the time we're 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.480 taking out We're taking out three o sevens, popping in 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.000 three fifties. So I was doing a lot of that stuff. 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.720 And when I started making good money makes I had 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.720 extra money to give away or charity for do whatever. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.840 If it sounds like Jim de Gorski didn't have time 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.800 for any more activities, he was still going to high 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:52.200 school and church and volunteering. Jim de Gorski thought he 0:07:52.360 --> 0:08:06.680 had the perfect life until police came knocking on the 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:11.240 morning of Friday, January eighth, nineteen ninety three. Jim remembers 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.400 waking up to his mom asking him to move a 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.280 car that was blocking the driveway. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.320 So I had to get up and move his car. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.480 The car belonged to Jim's high school friend, Juan Luna. 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.280 He'd been in some sort of accident and Jan left 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.480 the car at Jim's place to get fixed. 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.120 I don't really know what he'd needs done, he got 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.720 tee boned or the side damage. So I fixed his car. 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.280 Jim says he waited for one to pick up the 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.880 car and pay him for the repairs, and when he didn't, I. 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:43.080 Took his car. I took it on a joy ride. 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.160 I was so mad. I'm like, I just loaded up 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.839 his car and went out and did what I did 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:48.640 my rounds. 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.720 He drove the car about ten miles west to Carpentersville 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:54.280 just to screw with Wan. 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.680 It's kind of like an impovertish area with like a 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.800 high crime area out of Chicago Land and it's far out, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.520 it's almost rural. Left his I left his car there 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.080 being rude. It's a long distance away for him to 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:09.600 go pick up his car. And if you want your 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:11.440 car so bad, come pick it up. He paged me 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.840 twenty times and literally cussing me out. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.840 Jim says he left the car parked at jewel Osco, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.679 the grocery store, and then his girlfriend at the time, 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:21.880 Eileen Baccala, picked him. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.680 Up so so she got off work early. She came 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:25.280 to meet me a. 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.840 Jewel and they hung out the rest of the night 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:29.960 smoking weed and cat sitting. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:31.679 It's a boring knife or whatever. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.280 The next day, Jim and everyone in the Chicago suburbs 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:43.520 woke up to big news a massacre at a Brown's 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:49.720 Chicken and Pasta in Palatine, Illinois. Palatine is about thirty 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.360 miles north of downtown Chicago. At the time, it was 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.720 a sleepy suburb where even one murder a year was rare, 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.439 so the whole community was shaken when news spread that 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.600 seven people were gunned down inside the fast food restaurant 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:10.040 shortly after closing around eight pm. Two of the victims 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.920 were the owners, Lynn and Richard Allenfeldt, a married couple 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.840 who had just bought the franchise months prior, looking for 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:21.000 a fresh start after Richard had lost his job. The 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:26.760 other victims were employees Guadalupe Maldonado, Thomas Menez, Marcus Nelson, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.640 Rico Solis, and Michael Castro. Rico and Michael were both 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:36.120 teenagers from the local high school working part time. It 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.319 was a bloody murder. Five of the victims were found 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.079 in the walk and cooler of the restaurant. Some had 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.960 been stabbed, one had their throat slit, and all had 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.360 been shot. Less than two thousand dollars was stolen from 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:50.000 the restaurant. 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.880 The investigation went down as you would imagine a ninety 0:10:53.920 --> 0:11:02.160 three mass killing investigation went down where it was a mess. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.720 This is Ashley Cohen again. Ashley says, although the scene 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.160 at the restaurant was chaotic. 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.240 There was a ton of forensic evidence pulled from the scene. 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.560 There were like two hundred fingerprints, there was food still 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:23.520 in the trash containers, there were bloody shoe prints. I mean, 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.520 anything and everything you imagine in forensic science and analysis 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:29.760 was present at this crime scene. 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.120 One key piece of evidence was a receipt. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.880 So there was a cash register that appeared to have 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.920 been closed and reopened to sell a meal at nine 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.840 to eight pm. The receipt was consistent with the meal 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.599 that was discovered in the trash can. That led investigators 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.600 to believe that one of the offenders may have purchased 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:52.400 the meal prior to the shooting. 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.040 Since it was closing time, the trash cans were empty 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.200 except for one four piece chicken meal. 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:06.559 One of the female investigators had the foresight to freeze 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.800 a eaten chicken bone that was in the trash and 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.040 I just recall she was a female, because females are 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.400 smart and have the future insight that there she saw 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.280 significance and was like, maybe we could use this eventually, 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.320 and so she froze it. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.839 Jim was shook when he heard about the murders, not 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.479 only because things like this didn't happen in Palatine, Illinois, 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:31.600 but because Wan used to work. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.160 There, a few of his friends actually worked there too, 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.360 So we were just shocked that it happened so close 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:39.880 to home. 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.520 Do you remember talking to him about it at all? 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.240 Yeah, I'm more because it was a lot of time ago. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.360 I was at a party and it was one of 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.160 his friends. So we were over at his friend's house 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.480 and I saw an article they had on the wall, 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.280 and that was pretty much the longest conversation I ever 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:07.000 really had about it. How shocking that looking at my friends, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.280 like justin you could have this could have been you. 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:16.319 So yeah, I think the longest conversation I ever had. 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:21.120 Jim didn't think much more about it until the police 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.000 showed up at his door two years later asking about. 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.839 Juan Luna nineteen ninety five. The police came to my 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.480 house and asked me about his alibi. They said they're 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.720 just doing they're doing follow up with a former employees alibi, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.440 and then Jan Luna used me as an alibi. I'm like, 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:38.880 wasn't that like three years ago? 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.040 Jim says he felt put on the spot. He'd forgotten 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.520 all about that day he took one's car for a 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:45.280 joy ride. 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.760 Of course, I didn't remember what I was doing today, 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.440 so they did kind of a rude question to sit 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.280 there and asked me what I was doing three years earlier. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:55.160 So I didn't like that whole thing. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.720 Apparently Wan Luna had told police that he'd been working 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.320 with Jim that day at his career fixing cars. 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.280 I never employed Lula never. Wan never worked at my house, 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.320 never worked in my shop never, So that was the 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:11.400 first thing that I just laughed about. The guy doesn't 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.000 even help me in my shop, so they'll have this 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.240 whole story that he's working for me in my shop. 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.240 I started what happened. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.200 Jim says the interaction with police did not go well. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.880 He was sarcastic and arrogant because he says the police 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.600 embarrassed him by coming to his house, and he was 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.440 bothered by the fact that they expected him to remember 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.680 on the spot something that happened almost three years prior. 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:35.200 So he brushed them off. 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.760 When he left me in nineteen ninety five, said they 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.480 were going to go reinvestigate him. And then I went 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.120 to a party as a remodeling party were remodeling a 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.680 friend's house and it was kind of funny because their 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.240 sister knew who Juan was, so it was funny for 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.200 everybody at the remodeling party to hear that these police 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.440 are going to go harass him again. We thought it 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:58.680 was funny and we had a conversation then and then 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.680 I talked to Line after that, but he just never 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:07.080 really said anything and never acted guilty or concerned or anything. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:10.960 I didn't think the cues involved whatsoever. 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.800 The police had been investigating the Browns Chicken murders for 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.360 more than two years. Ashley says they went through a 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.880 lot of potential suspects. According to one report, the police 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.000 would end up chasing down over four thousand leads. 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.960 There were a lot of investigations, There were a lot 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.240 of different players. There was a whole task force assigned 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:39.960 to investigating this mass murder, and it was It was 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.280 one of those situations where people were just desperate to 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.000 find answers. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:50.320 And then the case went cold for seven more years. 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.280 Shortly after the murders, a Palatine council member started a 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.000 reward fund. It started with one thousand dollars, then the 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:03.360 community chipped in, raising almost one hundred thousand dollars for 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.400 any information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.000 There was a lot of public pressure to solve this case. 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:17.000 The media hounded law enforcement looking for answers. Civil advocates 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:22.760 blasted police for public dishonesty and deception, but nothing happened. Then, 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.360 nine years after the murder, in the spring of two 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.440 thousand and two, Jim Degorski was called to the police 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:34.320 station for questioning. Jim says he didn't think he had 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.640 anything to run from, so he went. 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.600 And it was the same sergeant that talked to me 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.240 all the way back in nineteen ninety five, which was 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.800 not good. I remember him from his lashes and the 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:50.120 way he talked, so I was kind of sarcastic to 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:51.720 him from the get go. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:56.160 Jim sat down with law enforcement, including police Commander William King, 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:56.920 and then. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.160 Was talking to me. He just asked me basic general 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.240 questions about the same alibi. But before before I left, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.000 like he started asking me about he basically said, we 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:14.520 have two suspects DNA, we have two suspects fingerprints, and 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.439 we and we have an eyewitness. We have eyewitnesses of 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.920 the murderers. So the guy who says everybody's a suspect, 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.440 So would you give us your DNA or your or 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.560 your fingerprints to clear your name, and you did so. I, oh, yeah, 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.199 I guess. I gave my DNA, like ten slabs of DNA. 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.120 I gave him my whole entire handprint, including the top 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.400 where I don't even have fingerprints. I gave them all 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.679 that stuff. But they asked me a bunch of questions 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.560 before I left, like if I had any problem with 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.080 one of my ex girlfriends and trying to have something 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:46.240 like that, and then that's right as I was leaving. 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.200 Did you have any problems with ex girlfriends at the time. 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.240 No, not at all. I didn't even I didn't even 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.080 understand the line of questioning next time I'm being arrested 0:17:58.080 --> 0:17:59.120 at my work parking lot. 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.639 That ex girlfriend police were asking about was Anne Lockett. 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.879 Jim and Anne had dated around the time of the murders, 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.000 when he was twenty. They'd met through one in high school. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.320 Jim says Anne had demons, she'd been in rehab and 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.840 spent some time in a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.719 but she was also fun. She wanted to learn how 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.920 to work on cars, and they both liked the outdoors. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.240 We were great tree hugger. So we went hiking inside 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.680 and all the trees hadible foods. Every day that we're 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.760 going through eating herbs. It's fun to go camping, hiking 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.880 with knocking out her life. Bucket left the whole entire 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.520 time we dated. But a lot of my friends did 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:42.320 not care for her. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:43.600 Why didn't they. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:49.560 Like her, didn't trust her, didn't like her. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.199 Ann was different than Jim's friends. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:54.840 Some of my friends are yuppies. Some of my friends 0:18:54.840 --> 0:19:00.679 are gearheads. I have different groups of friends, and they 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.520 liked me day nurse. A lot of people they voiced it, 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:04.600 Jim says. 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.800 Back in high school, she was the type to hang 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.760 out with the heavy partying crowd, the burnouts at the 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.640 back of the school cafeteria, as Jim calls them. 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:14.919 She's like me. She goes a lot of concerts, so 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.919 she goes like she likes that death metal stuff, like 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:23.360 the Cannibal corpse stuff. Oh, and she wore the leather 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:28.200 jacket heavy metal parties and tiger parties, and she got 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:33.320 some wild stories of all her party lifestyle. So a 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:34.879 lot of my friends didn't really care for that. 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.800 His relationship with Anne worked for about a year, he says, 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:43.119 until they broke up seven years later. In two thousand 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.680 and two, Anne Lockett came forward with a story. Anne 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:49.719 said that Jim had called her while she was at 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:54.080 the psychiatric hospital on January ninth, nineteen ninety three, the 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.040 day after the murders. She said that she. 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.360 Received a call from James de Gorski at a payphone 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.720 at the hospital and that he told her to watch 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:10.639 the news because he had done something big. So she 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.439 turns on the television and saw that the lead story 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:15.440 on the news was the Browns Chicken murder. 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.760 Police said Anne had information only the killers would have known. 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.800 She said she waited so long to come forward because 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:27.119 she'd been afraid Jim would kill her. On May sixteenth, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.480 two thousand and two, Jim Degorski and Wan Luna were 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.760 arrested for the Browns Chicken murders. Jim lived in Indianapolis 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.000 at the time and was about to start work when 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.919 two officers showed up, including Police Commander William King. Again 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:43.320 literally told me to. 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.160 Leave my inhaler, put your FN hands on the fing car. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:53.840 They started off all wrong, embarrassed front of my co workers, 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:56.840 in front of my friends, the gas station, the subway, 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:58.720 in front of my it was bad. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.960 They got in the car and drove four hours to Palatine. 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.480 And it just went downhill from then because I literally 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.439 had to go to the bathroom the whole time, and 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:10.240 they made me hold it all the way to the 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.600 Illinois border. I was in pain. 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.280 Jim says he also had a job interview. 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.520 After work, which is why my sister didn't put out 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.000 an app for me. They wouldn't let me change my 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.160 clothes from my work all day. I'm a blue collar 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:29.520 I do a property management, property maintenance. I'm dirty. They 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.840 wouldn't let me change my clothes. They wouldn't let me 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.159 grab my inhaler, they wouldn't let me grab my I 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.679 have a Nextel Slash cell phone. They wouldn't let me 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:37.560 even chirp on that. 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.040 Jim was pissed, just like the other times he encountered 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:42.000 Palatime police. 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:43.920 So by the time we got in the interrogation room, 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.800 we started off the wrong way with them being confrontational bullies, 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:50.560 escalating everything, and. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.880 It only got worse from there. What were you thinking? 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.960 Honestly, these counts are so unprofessional. I didn't know what 0:21:59.000 --> 0:21:59.960 they were going to do next. 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:01.320 Were you scared? 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:03.200 Terrified? 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.120 Police said Jim waved his Miranda rights, but he remembers 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:07.919 it differently. 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:10.960 They wouldn't let me use their phone since they wouldn't 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.080 let me take my phone to call my lawyer. So 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:19.840 I have two attorney friends based family friends. I had 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.119 no rights, what's one? I was terrified the whole time. 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:26.320 Eventually police told Jim why they were holding him. They 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.439