Speaker 1: On Labor Day weekend nineteen ninety four, Rooda Nathan flew
Speaker 1: into Cincinnati for a bar mitzvah. She shared a room
Speaker 1: at the Embassy Suites in the nearby suburb of Blue
Speaker 1: Ash with two friends. On the morning of Saturday, September third,
Speaker 1: her friends went down to the complimentary breakfast, leaving Rhoda
Speaker 1: behind to shower. They returned less than an hour later
Speaker 1: to a bloody scene after life saving measures had failed,
Speaker 1: and autopsy revealed blood force trauma to Roda Nathan's head
Speaker 1: and torso, as well as that two teeth were missing.
Speaker 1: Also missing five hundred dollars had some jewelry, allegedly including
Speaker 1: a pendant that Rhoda always wore. There was no sign
Speaker 1: of forced entry, so the police narrowed their search to
Speaker 1: hotel employees, eventually discovering one staffer named Elwood Jones, who
Speaker 1: had injured his hand that day. Further investigation revealed his
Speaker 1: access to a master key, as well as various objects
Speaker 1: there could have been responsible for Rodin Nathan's injuries, including
Speaker 1: a walkie talkie and a door chain found in his car.
Speaker 1: During the following week, el was injured hand became infected.
Speaker 1: His treating physician noted a bacteria in the wound that
Speaker 1: is commonly found in human mouths. The state argued that
Speaker 1: Elwood Jones infected himself in knocking out Rooda Nathan's teeth,
Speaker 1: which sounded scientific enough to the jury. But this is
Speaker 1: raeful conviction. Welcome back to Rafel conviction, where we're covering
Speaker 1: yet another story of an innocent man who had been
Speaker 1: sentenced to death in Ohio. This time it's out of
Speaker 1: Hamilton County, which encompasses Cincinnati, and when it comes to
Speaker 1: raefel convictions in Ohio, Hamilton is second only to Cuyahoga County.
Speaker 1: And this time it's believed that the prosecutors at trial,
Speaker 1: Mark Pete Meyer and Seth Tiger, names you're going to
Speaker 1: become fromiliar with. Well, it appears that they knew that
Speaker 1: Elwood Jones was innocent but sent him to death. Throw anyway, Elwood,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry about where you've been and what you've
Speaker 1: been through, but I'm happy and honored to have you
Speaker 1: here today. Thank you, You're very welcome. And joining him
Speaker 1: or two of his attorneys, David Hine, first of all, welcome,
Speaker 1: thank you, glad to be here, and of course j Clark.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jason. I'm glad to be here as well.
Speaker 1: So let's start right from the beginning. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: this is a Cincinnati story through and through, and you
Speaker 1: grew up there, right.
Speaker 3: I was born in Susinaoha. I grew up downtown in
Speaker 3: West the end. I went to Catholic school. My parents
Speaker 3: now moved to the suburbs in the later years.
Speaker 1: And what was Cincinnati like back then?
Speaker 3: You tell him about in the sixties, and what none
Speaker 3: spectacular about if you're talking about the criminal justice system
Speaker 3: is just as worse as it is now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe you.
Speaker 2: There was a study that Hamilton County, by zip code,
Speaker 2: has more people on death row than anywhere else in
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I think that in Cuyahoga County they had the same problem,
Speaker 2: as they have one or two or three prosecutors who
Speaker 2: think the rules don't apply and they shouldn't apply. There's
Speaker 2: probably a handful of three or four assistant prosecutors whose
Speaker 2: names keep coming up constantly in cases that have been reversed.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, the rules kind
Speaker 1: of don't apply to any prosecutor. Their immunity from accountability
Speaker 1: leaves them free to chase the tough on crime image,
Speaker 1: and with this anything goes mentality, we too often see
Speaker 1: a trail of wrongful convictions in their way. And clearly
Speaker 1: Cincinnati was, and sad to say, still is no exception.
Speaker 3: It's a very conservative city. And I understand that I
Speaker 3: get that and not believe in law and aught that
Speaker 3: I do, even though I was on the other side
Speaker 3: of the track when I became adult. A couple of
Speaker 3: times I was arrested.
Speaker 1: What was that for?
Speaker 3: It was? And burgery?
Speaker 1: That was it? All right? So your record wasn't exactly clean,
Speaker 1: but no violent crimes. And I understand that by now
Speaker 1: you had paid your debt to society and had a
Speaker 1: job working at a hotel, steady job at the Embassy
Speaker 1: Suites in the Cincinnati suburb called Blue Ash, and you
Speaker 1: were in your early forties by this time, married, so
Speaker 1: things were stabilized. And what was your wife's name?
Speaker 3: Ebon. I had a friend on the side, and I
Speaker 3: think there was another piece of the paws in tree
Speaker 3: that they used that I was having an affair. The
Speaker 3: name was Earlene Metcalff non Meta. In ninety four, Erlein.
Speaker 1: Was one of Elwood's coworkers at the Embassy suites in
Speaker 1: Blue Ash, And obviously, I think most people would agree
Speaker 1: that although theft and infidelity are usually not items on
Speaker 1: the top of anyone's resume, they just don't merit a
Speaker 1: death sentence. These things are also not indicative of someone
Speaker 1: being the type of person to bludgeon another human being
Speaker 1: to death. In this case, a sixty seven year old
Speaker 1: hotel guest named Rhoda Nathan. She had come into Blue
Speaker 1: Ash from New Jersey on Friday, September second, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: the day before she died.
Speaker 4: Nathan came in for her best friend's grandson's bar mitzvah.
Speaker 4: So she was traveling with a friend, Elaine Shubb, and
Speaker 4: her friend's boyfriend, Joe Kaplan, when the three of them
Speaker 4: were staying in the hotel together, and part of the
Speaker 4: state's narrative here is that Roda Nathan's friend and her
Speaker 4: boyfriend were coming from Florida and had checked in earlier
Speaker 4: in the day, just as two people Rode Nathan was
Speaker 4: traveling in from New Jersey. She had a different flight,
Speaker 4: she got there later, and the state's position was, whoever
Speaker 4: was watching the room thought that there were only two
Speaker 4: people in the room and there were actually three people
Speaker 4: staying there, and then the next morning Rhoda's traveling companions
Speaker 4: got up and went down for breakfast, Rota stayed behind
Speaker 4: to shower. So the story goes, whoever was watching this
Speaker 4: room room entered the room, expecting the room to be
Speaker 4: empty so that they could take whatever they wanted, and
Speaker 4: were surprised to find.
Speaker 5: Wrote to Nathan in the room.
Speaker 1: You know what I was reading about this? I thought,
Speaker 1: if the goal was to steal, then why not just
Speaker 1: pretend to be housekeeping and leave, you know, without murdering someone.
Speaker 1: I mean, at first glance, there's already a hole in
Speaker 1: the store you could drive a truck through. But okay,
Speaker 1: so I would hear from Elwood. I would tell me
Speaker 1: about that morning.
Speaker 3: So when I came in that morning at four point
Speaker 3: thirty and brought Earleen to work, we clocked in I
Speaker 3: think it was about quarter to five. I usually come
Speaker 3: in early in the morning to help in the comp breakfast,
Speaker 3: and then I would go to the banquet department and
Speaker 3: finish my day out.
Speaker 1: On that particular day, one of Elwood's coworkers had called
Speaker 1: out sex, so he had to pull double duty, floating
Speaker 1: between complimentary breakfast and the banquet departments. So after setting
Speaker 1: up camp breakfast, he went up to the banquet halls,
Speaker 1: which were not in the best.
Speaker 3: They was trashed, so I had to clean them out
Speaker 3: and come downstairs. I think it was around six, and
Speaker 3: going to the dumpster, I tripped going up the steps
Speaker 3: to the dumpsters the metal stairs. Going up there, I
Speaker 3: smashed my hand. Come on back into the kitchen, clean
Speaker 3: my hand, put a band aid on it, and went
Speaker 3: on back to work. I think it was around eight
Speaker 3: or something. After that the scream was upstairs. I was
Speaker 3: in compbrepast. Everybody started going upstairs to see what.
Speaker 1: Happened, and the scream, you know, presumably came from Elaine Shubb,
Speaker 1: who first came upon this literal here scene rode to.
Speaker 1: Nathan was naked, covered in blood, and the area around
Speaker 1: her was, you know, a bloody mess. So whoever attacked
Speaker 1: her would logically and certainly have been covered in blood.
Speaker 4: Within the minute of this vicious attack, Elwood was standing
Speaker 4: in the restaurant, completely composed in the clothes that he
Speaker 4: was in, not disheveled in any way, not covered in blood.
Speaker 2: Whoever did this had to have been covered in blood themselves.
Speaker 1: Right, Jay and At this point, no one knew what happened.
Speaker 1: They were just trying to save Rhoda, who had blood
Speaker 1: pouring from her mouth.
Speaker 2: I think the initial thought was that she had had
Speaker 2: a medical emergency, probably a heart attack or something along
Speaker 2: that line. The guest a Hotel who was also a nurse,
Speaker 2: they were trying to render her first aid.
Speaker 4: She was still breathing and she still had a pulse,
Speaker 4: but she was struggling like she was I think, effectively
Speaker 4: choking on the blood. So one of the issues here
Speaker 4: is that they kept taking towels and trying to mop
Speaker 4: the blood out of her throat and out of her
Speaker 4: mouth to kind of clear the airway. All of those
Speaker 4: towels used to help clean up the room that would
Speaker 4: have had DNA on it were thrown out when.
Speaker 2: Blue Ash Fire department arrived. I think they tried to
Speaker 2: intubate her, and that gets to another issue about teeth
Speaker 2: maybe being dislodged or broken out.
Speaker 1: Later on, the States speculated that Rooda Nathan's broken teeth
Speaker 1: were responsible for the injury and the infection on ELA's hand.
Speaker 1: But back to the immediate aftermath. At this point, the
Speaker 1: room was not yet being treated as a crime scene.
Speaker 1: Evidence was being contaminated or destroyed, and new injuries were
Speaker 1: potentially being created by first responders and medical personnel that
Speaker 1: added to the overall picture. At the autopsy, she was
Speaker 1: pronounced dead Epitheesda North Hospital and then was taken to
Speaker 1: the Hamilton County Coroner's office.
Speaker 4: What they reported in the autopsy was that there was
Speaker 4: Bluntfort's trauma and I think they said that there were
Speaker 4: blows to the torso, the face, and the jaw.
Speaker 1: She also tested positive for hepatitis B right.
Speaker 5: She was actively infected with it.
Speaker 1: Although we cannot be one hundred percent sure. This suggests
Speaker 1: that she was infected with hepatitis B prior to the attack,
Speaker 1: and that became pretty important later on. However, as soon
Speaker 1: as her death was rolled a homicide, two thirty seven
Speaker 1: was then considered a crime scene, where they discovered that
Speaker 1: about five hundred dollars was missing, along with some jewelry,
Speaker 1: allegedly including a pendant necklace that Rhoda's traveling companion, Elaine Shubb,
Speaker 1: said that Roda had always worn. I know, you guys
Speaker 1: had said that the bloody towels had been tossed, right,
Speaker 1: So was there any other probative physical evidence at all.
Speaker 4: So there were fingernails, scrapeigs, some hairs, things of that nature.
Speaker 4: There was blood all over the room, so they scraped
Speaker 4: it from all over the place, the television, the bed,
Speaker 4: the table, the carpets, the walls, the doors, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And there should have been direct evidence of whoever was
Speaker 4: involved in this crime, because you were going in there
Speaker 4: immediately after the killers.
Speaker 1: DNA should have at least been under her fingernails. None
Speaker 1: of it was a match for Elwood. But before any
Speaker 1: of that was even tested, they started talking to staff
Speaker 1: and hotel guests, and they were leaning towards the staffer
Speaker 1: since there was no sign of forced entry. Oh you
Speaker 1: know how sometimes they focused on the guy just because
Speaker 1: they have a prior record. You think that's why they
Speaker 1: focused on you.
Speaker 3: I really can't say, because it was at least thirty
Speaker 3: seven of the employees with criminal records, and some of
Speaker 3: them worse than mine. From the general managerone down.
Speaker 1: Wow, So there was thirty seven all right, Well, listen,
Speaker 1: you know, more power to the hotel for giving guys
Speaker 1: a second chance and women too. Right, So when did
Speaker 1: you go in for your interview?
Speaker 3: I think around eleven. I went up to be interviewed.
Speaker 3: It was Sogeant Lily John Latt, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: it was Stokes in there there at that time, and
Speaker 3: they asked me what happened.
Speaker 1: I wrote my statement, so you were free to go.
Speaker 1: But eventually they came back to you, seized and search
Speaker 1: your car, found or allegedly found items in your toolbox
Speaker 1: that they thought were incriminating. But that didn't happen that
Speaker 1: Saturday or even the next day.
Speaker 3: Well, on the Sunday, I went to Lublin and was
Speaker 3: at Earlene's house, and I had a guy named Jimmy
Speaker 3: plus my radiate out seem the last person used my tub.
Speaker 1: Bouts right, and what Jimmy saw or didn't see became
Speaker 1: very important later on in your case. And we'll get
Speaker 1: to that in a minute. So, Dave, what made them
Speaker 1: focus on Elwood.
Speaker 4: What ultimately got the police and the state to start
Speaker 4: looking at Elwood, was that he had, as he mentioned earlier,
Speaker 4: cut his hand that day on the dumpster and then
Speaker 4: later when he kind of jammed it in the door,
Speaker 4: and a couple days later went to the hospital because
Speaker 4: it had gotten quite infected.
Speaker 1: Since the victim had been beaten to death, one could
Speaker 1: expect that the assailant's hand might have been injured, and
Speaker 1: Elwood's infection and hospitalization drew unwanted attention to his coincidental
Speaker 1: hand injury, so police spoke to his treating physician, a
Speaker 1: doctor McDonough, and although this was a Strep A infection,
Speaker 1: there was another bacteria present in the wound called icinella,
Speaker 1: which is commonly found in human mouths. This spawned of
Speaker 1: theory that the infection came from wrote in Nathan's teeth. However,
Speaker 1: according to Elwood, he had licked his own wound soon
Speaker 1: after his work related injury had occurred. Elwood saw testing
Speaker 1: for akinella to prove his claim, but was told that
Speaker 1: his heavy course of antibiotics would have already cleared up
Speaker 1: any icinella in his own mouth. Further police interviews with
Speaker 1: hotel staff only served to corroborate Elwood's alibi. However, only
Speaker 1: Arlene Metcalf could give a solid time and place for Elwood.
Speaker 1: At around seven point thirty, the belief time of the murder,
Speaker 1: the pair had gone on break together. It appears the
Speaker 1: police found this alibi too convenient and brought him in
Speaker 1: again for questioning on September twelfth.
Speaker 3: When They questioned me on the twelve. They didn't like
Speaker 3: my attitude when God told him that you asked me
Speaker 3: what idea that day? And I told you, And they say, what,
Speaker 3: you had a master key? And I explained to them,
Speaker 3: I say, every key in the hotel is a master key.
Speaker 3: I say, guests don't know they mastered the keys.
Speaker 1: Wait, so every key was the same for every room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they just didn't tell no what nuts. I
Speaker 3: thought it was crazy when I first found out about it.
Speaker 4: It's kind of funny to think about now thirty years later.
Speaker 4: But they were all still metal plates for them to
Speaker 4: cut new keys when a guest would leave with the
Speaker 4: key or something like that.
Speaker 5: They just didn't bother. Everything matched.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm certainly glad it's not the nineties anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't get over that. So they already thought that
Speaker 1: you were their guy, so this probably looked to them
Speaker 1: like you were trying to deflect attention from yourself. Now.
Speaker 1: They also brought in your wife, Yvonne, on the twelfth
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on the way to the police station, they told
Speaker 3: her say, well, by the way, you know your husband
Speaker 3: was having an affair. She said, well, I knew he
Speaker 3: wasn't coming home on time, she say, but all men
Speaker 3: are dogs in a sense, and that just shut that up.
Speaker 3: She one told me exactly what she told police, and
Speaker 3: the end of that.
Speaker 1: Comes, that's a pretty understanding person that you were married to.
Speaker 3: But did weird talk about that later? We just get
Speaker 3: through this. She stuck with me.
Speaker 1: So they were probably telling her that to get her
Speaker 1: to turn on you. Right, it's not you don't need
Speaker 1: to be Columbo to figure this out. But Yvonne didn't bite.
Speaker 1: So they seized your car and initially just found a
Speaker 1: door chain that they later tried to say was some
Speaker 1: sort of a weapon. Right, And we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a bit. But then, if I'm understanding this correctly,
Speaker 1: A day or so later, a Blue ash police officer
Speaker 1: named Michael Bray claimed to have found miss Nathan's pendant
Speaker 1: in your car. Am I getting this correct?
Speaker 4: Can I take this because this is a part that
Speaker 4: this is something I am really like.
Speaker 5: This bugs me.
Speaker 2: I wanted, Dave, I want to talk about Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, so the story with the pendant. So the police
Speaker 4: went to pawnshops and ostensibly couldn't find this piece of
Speaker 4: jewelry anywhere. Then they took his car. They impounded it
Speaker 4: on the twelve. They then had it in their possess
Speaker 4: for forty eight hours before they took it to the
Speaker 4: coroner's office, and multiple people searched the car for hours
Speaker 4: and didn't find anything. And then after that one officer decides, well,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go back and search again, I guess,
Speaker 4: or search the one spot that you would think they
Speaker 4: would want to look for evidence, which would be the trunk,
Speaker 4: the space where someone might store something. And if Officer
Speaker 4: Bray is to be believed, they never looked in the
Speaker 4: trunk before. I don't know. But when this guy is
Speaker 4: all by himself with no one to corroborate it, he
Speaker 4: says that he went into the trunk of the car,
Speaker 4: opened the toolbox, and there it was, just sitting there. Now,
Speaker 4: did he take a picture of it in the car?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: Did he take a picture of the trunk open with
Speaker 4: the toolbox in it.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: He took a picture of the pendant in his hand
Speaker 4: with the car in the background, and then told people,
Speaker 4: look what I found in the car.
Speaker 1: This podcast is brought to you by Ohio Justice and
Speaker 1: Policy Center, a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for
Speaker 1: people torectly impact it by Ohio's criminal legal system. OJPC
Speaker 1: provides free legal services to currently and formally incarcerated people.
Speaker 1: Through its Beyond Guilt Project, OJPC works to free over
Speaker 1: punish people who have rehabilitated themselves. Ojpc's Second Chance clinics
Speaker 1: help individuals with criminal records remove barriers to employment and
Speaker 1: house it. Ojpc's Human Rights and Prison Project represents people
Speaker 1: who face denial of medical care. In its twenty five
Speaker 1: year history, OJPC has worked at the policy level and
Speaker 1: won numerous victories in Ohio, including ending juvenile life without
Speaker 1: parole and exempting seriously mentally ill people from the death penalty.
Speaker 1: To learn more about Ohio Justice and Policy Center and
Speaker 1: how you can support its mission, visit OHIOJPC dot org. That'shi,
Speaker 1: IOJPC dot org. Ohio Justice and Policy Center. We don't
Speaker 1: write people off.
Speaker 4: Another officer flies up to New Jersey or New York
Speaker 4: with the pendant to meet with Rooda Nathan's family, and
Speaker 4: all of this is withheld from Melwood at the original trial.
Speaker 4: But the family looks at it and goes, that's not it.
Speaker 4: And then they tell the police officers look this pendant
Speaker 4: though it's a really unique piece of jewelry was made
Speaker 4: from some family rings, some heirlooms. And then they talk
Speaker 4: to another family member who we'd just refer to as
Speaker 4: Uncle Ira, who was Rhoda's brother in law, and he goes, no,
Speaker 4: that's not correct. I have those family rings. This was
Speaker 4: just bought in a jewelry store of Brooklyn. So there's
Speaker 4: evidence that potentially this isn't even the right pendant. There's
Speaker 4: evidence that it definitely wasn't the unique piece of jewelry
Speaker 4: that the state says that it was. And there are
Speaker 4: very very serious ques questions about whether this thing was
Speaker 4: ever actually found in the car at all. None of
Speaker 4: that was shared, none of that was provided.
Speaker 1: So their big smoking gun turned out to be total
Speaker 1: horseshit and they knew it. I mean, this has to
Speaker 1: be why they didn't arrest you for over a year. Now.
Speaker 1: There was one other item that we mentioned in your car,
Speaker 1: the door chain. What's the story with that?
Speaker 3: It was a door chain inside of my tub box,
Speaker 3: and it's not no type of doorchain used in the hotel.
Speaker 3: The hotail used a boar chain. And the first thing
Speaker 3: I askeaid, What'd I do? Go out to my car
Speaker 3: get a tool chain. I need something to whooped this
Speaker 3: woman with. I say, doesn't it have some type of
Speaker 3: blood or provensis or something on it? I said, come
Speaker 3: on with the stop it.
Speaker 1: So this freaking door chain wasn't even the type that
Speaker 1: would have been available in the room if somebody even
Speaker 1: wanted to use that as a weapon, which in itself
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. This was just some random ass door chain
Speaker 1: in your car. The whole theory is fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 5: And that's not even the worst one.
Speaker 4: One of their theories is they say that whoever it
Speaker 4: was beat this woman to death, not just with their
Speaker 4: hands and the chain, but then a walkie talkie and
Speaker 4: then hit them with multiple objects. In fact, the police
Speaker 4: officers for months were trying to send images to the
Speaker 4: FBI to get them to confirm, like, hey, this looks
Speaker 4: like it could be Elwood shoe, right, and they would
Speaker 4: come back and be like, no, no, this is not consistent.
Speaker 5: With Elwood shoe at all.
Speaker 4: In fact, it looks like it could be X and
Speaker 4: something that might implicate somebody else, And they'd be like,
Speaker 4: let's try again, how about the walkie talkie, And they
Speaker 4: finally got them to say something to the effect of
Speaker 4: the bruising is potentially consistent with something of that shape,
Speaker 4: so like a square or a rectangle, but that's as
Speaker 4: close as they would get. And with that, the state
Speaker 4: then completely distorted it into aha, a bruise and an
Speaker 4: item that's so significantly tied together that it's essentially a fingerprint,
Speaker 4: which is just a lie.
Speaker 1: I mean, a walkie talkie. How many other hotel staffers
Speaker 1: is probably haven't.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you mentioned that we have several departments. Everybody
Speaker 3: have at walkie talkie. But that morning the police was
Speaker 3: given information of two people leaving this Nathan's room, one
Speaker 3: going left, one going right with a walkee Chlkie in
Speaker 3: his hand, and to the day, I feel that's where
Speaker 3: they got that theory of a walkie talkie. They never
Speaker 3: went back to try to find out who these two
Speaker 3: people was or where that walkie talkie is.
Speaker 1: To the day, this is just one of many more
Speaker 1: compelling leads that were flatly ignored by Blue Ash PD
Speaker 1: in the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office. And we'll reveal more
Speaker 1: of those leads later when we talk about the discovery
Speaker 1: that happened in post conviction. It's mind boggling so instead
Speaker 1: they focused on Elwood Jones, who had access to a
Speaker 1: walkie talkie and a master key. But as we find out,
Speaker 1: so did everyone else. He had a criminal record, so
Speaker 1: did almost everyone else. And this theory was supported by
Speaker 1: the presence of a bacteria in his injured hand commonly
Speaker 1: founded you in mouse like canela, and then the pendant
Speaker 1: which appears to have been planted, as well as not
Speaker 1: even being the right freaking pendent. This is what they
Speaker 1: went to a capitol trial with. And it appears that
Speaker 1: even they believed so little in this theory that they
Speaker 1: waited for over a year to arrest mister Elwood Jones.
Speaker 3: That day when I was arrested at the two Blue
Speaker 3: ass offices, Stokes and Lily, they put me in the
Speaker 3: car to take me the District one police station to
Speaker 3: take me in the back, and at that time they
Speaker 3: show me this picture and say this is what we
Speaker 3: found in your car. And I'm looking and I told me,
Speaker 3: I don't know where did penman come from? And you
Speaker 3: found it in there? You put it in there. At
Speaker 3: that time, Stokes get up and go out, said to
Speaker 3: do and talk on the phone, and he said he
Speaker 3: didn't bite. I don't know what he meant by at
Speaker 3: who he was talking to on the phone, he said
Speaker 3: he didn't bite, And next I know they was taking
Speaker 3: me on to the Justice and that they booked me in.
Speaker 1: He didn't bite. Wow, I mean, it seems like they
Speaker 1: thought their lie would make you cave and confess, And
Speaker 1: it might have worked on a man who was actually guilty,
Speaker 1: but it still wasn't you. And even with Jimmy or
Speaker 1: a mechanic corroborated that this pandem was not in the
Speaker 1: damn toolbox. Along with so much Brady material that we're
Speaker 1: going to get to in a bit. The prosecutors Mark
Speaker 1: Pete Meyer and Seth Tieger still went ahead to trial,
Speaker 1: seeking the death penalty, by the way, on this bullshit
Speaker 1: evidence in November of ninety six, in front of Judge
Speaker 1: Ralph Winkler. And the case was purely circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 4: So they say, but that's okay, because circumstantial evidence is
Speaker 4: even better than direct.
Speaker 1: Evidence, which no, well it is obviously not a third
Speaker 1: grader can tell you that. But anyway, they presented their
Speaker 1: theory that Elwood allegedly waited for a lane shove and
Speaker 1: Joe Coplan to leave room to thirty seven before entering
Speaker 1: being discovered by Rhoda Nathan, punching her teeth out and
Speaker 1: fatally beating her to death, and finally stealing five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars as well as jewelry, including this alleged signature pendant.
Speaker 1: So what did they present to support this theory?
Speaker 4: They told the jerry that Ellwood was in the hotel
Speaker 4: that day, that he was on the second floor, that
Speaker 4: he had a master key, and that they purportedly found
Speaker 4: this pendant in his car, and that he had an
Speaker 4: infection in his hand. And the narrative that the state
Speaker 4: presented was that it was an Icinella Corridon's infection, and
Speaker 4: in fact that's not what it was.
Speaker 5: There happened to be Kinella in.
Speaker 1: The cut right, It was a strip a infection.
Speaker 4: And this doctor, doctor McDonough, who was a hand surgeon
Speaker 4: with no expertise at all in microbiology or in infectious diseases,
Speaker 4: opined that the only way that Ellwood could have gotten
Speaker 4: this was by punching somebody in the mouth, which is
Speaker 4: just objectively.
Speaker 1: False, but that's where the broken teeth come into it.
Speaker 1: They also tried to draw connections between miss Nathan's injuries
Speaker 1: and objects that might have been available to Elwood, but
Speaker 1: really they were available to any hotel employee, and there
Speaker 1: were dozens and dozens of them.
Speaker 4: Their absolute junk forensics suggests that they were able to
Speaker 4: match up one of the bruises with the bottom of
Speaker 4: a walkie talkie and the scratches. The particular scratches on
Speaker 4: the bottom of the walkie talkie can be found in
Speaker 4: the bruises. It's completely fabricated. They took pictures of Miss
Speaker 4: Nathan's body during the autopsy and effectively skewed the pictures
Speaker 4: and admitted that they manipulated the pictures. They said in
Speaker 4: order to match a scale, and they used items such
Speaker 4: as the walkie talkie and made that the scale so
Speaker 4: that when they were distorting the picture, they distorted it
Speaker 4: to fit the size of the walkie talkie and what
Speaker 4: they were actually told. After repeated attempts of submitting this
Speaker 4: evidence to the FBI and the FBI coming back and saying, nose,
Speaker 4: this is not consistent with this bruising pattern at all. Finally,
Speaker 4: after manipulating the pictures, the FBI came back and said,
Speaker 4: this is theoretically consistent with something sort of of that shape,
Speaker 4: but they did not say, yes, we can match up
Speaker 4: the scratches on the bottom of this wakie talkie so
Speaker 4: that it's like a fingerprint.
Speaker 1: They inexplicably then put four experts on the stand who
Speaker 1: would not corroborate their nonsensical weapons theory. But the state
Speaker 1: still had this random pendent that the jury was led
Speaker 1: to believe was the real McCoy, as well as doctor
Speaker 1: McDonald's erroneous testimony about Ikinella Ell. Would please tell me
Speaker 1: that your attorneys presented something anything to combat McDonough.
Speaker 3: I mean, did they The expert day had he couldn't
Speaker 3: testify in person because he had some other arrangements, so
Speaker 3: they did it by video.
Speaker 2: The way it played out is you don't have any
Speaker 2: way then once the state's expert testifies to call your
Speaker 2: doctor and say, hey, this is what he just said.
Speaker 2: What's your answer to that?
Speaker 1: So this whole video testimony was never going to work,
Speaker 1: let's face it. And this expert was paid for, by
Speaker 1: the way, which makes it even a little more insane.
Speaker 1: So did they do anything else?
Speaker 3: Julias Sanks was the leading attorney then, and he actually
Speaker 3: said some about my criminal record when I've still was
Speaker 3: lost to say I didn't even take the stand. Why
Speaker 3: would you put that in there?
Speaker 1: Ineffective assistance of counsel doesn't even begin to cover this.
Speaker 1: So the I Cainela evidence and dependent both total horseship
Speaker 1: were never successfully impeached. And then your own attorney brought
Speaker 1: up your criminal record, leaving it wide open for the prosecutors.
Speaker 3: The prosecutor say that I was the only employed with
Speaker 3: a criminal record, And at that time I knew it
Speaker 3: was some criminals in there. I didn't know as many
Speaker 3: as I found out mater when I got the documents,
Speaker 3: thirty seven people in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not a misrepresentation that they the jury.
Speaker 1: That's just a straight out lie, right, I mean, how
Speaker 1: could they? How could the jury have ever gotten it
Speaker 1: right when they're being led down this crazy.
Speaker 3: Path doing post conviction a few affter Davids was taken
Speaker 3: to the jury. They said they noticed that I had
Speaker 3: a criminal record, so what make them think that I
Speaker 3: didn't commit this crime? And they came back in there
Speaker 3: and they said guilty and recommended death. Judge Winkler's got
Speaker 3: ready to send this to me, asked me, did I
Speaker 3: have anything to say? And I say I do? I say,
Speaker 3: yesterday Johanna, I say, even you in this courtroom offered
Speaker 3: me a man's laughter. I say, today, you want to
Speaker 3: kill me, I said, you're telling me this is a
Speaker 3: court My daily routine was get up in the morning
Speaker 3: at four, take my shower where I took a bath
Speaker 3: in myself until they changed over and put showers on
Speaker 3: the range.
Speaker 1: And when you say take a bath in yourself, what
Speaker 1: do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: I wash up in my saint.
Speaker 1: Right, that's a bird bath, right, this bird bath.
Speaker 3: Well that's the best you could do. I got them
Speaker 3: washed up, and I saved my little prayer and I
Speaker 3: prepair my day. Six o'clock I would come out. Can
Speaker 3: you describe the cell small self? About eight by ten.
Speaker 3: You've got a bed in there, sank a tilet you
Speaker 3: can afford. You can have a TV typewriter in a radio,
Speaker 3: and that's about it.
Speaker 1: So you're pretty much living in a closet.
Speaker 3: In the cave is a filthy cave.
Speaker 1: And of the men that you serve time with in
Speaker 1: there was there one who made a you know, an
Speaker 1: impression on you that that helped you get through this
Speaker 1: incredible ordeal.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, he's off death row now too. De Ambrosil
Speaker 3: was best good friends.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Joe on the show. Josie Ambrosio. What
Speaker 1: an incredibly inspiring guy and what a horrible, horrible story.
Speaker 1: But he's come through it and he seems to be
Speaker 1: doing as well as he possibly could be doing under
Speaker 1: the circumstances. So, Joe, if you're listening, we're thinking about
Speaker 1: you and talking about you too. So how did you
Speaker 1: find the strength, because I'm sure there are other guys
Speaker 1: who just go crazy in that situation and lose their
Speaker 1: mind and end up killing themselves or doing you know.
Speaker 3: I've seen several guys on death ro commit suicide right
Speaker 3: there in the same part with the three guys I
Speaker 3: kept theirself and others. But I think what the main
Speaker 3: thing W gave me scrapt I knew in my heart
Speaker 3: I did nothing wrong. I lost the sister, I lost
Speaker 3: my wife, I lost several friends, my mother passed, and
Speaker 3: my father and all their uncles. And only thing that
Speaker 3: gives me hope and has gave me is to clear
Speaker 3: my name. And I could look up and tell my
Speaker 3: mother she can rest in peace. I understand Miss Nathan
Speaker 3: is dead and I'm sorry. I feel sorry for her family,
Speaker 3: but I'm also a victim in this case, and I
Speaker 3: was determined that I spent day in and day out
Speaker 3: trying to prove my anderson. I wrote letters every day.
Speaker 3: I had one thing on my plate is to get
Speaker 3: my life back.
Speaker 1: And now here you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm still having got it fully back. That's
Speaker 3: all I want is my life back, and give me
Speaker 3: what little I had, and I'm happy and prosecuting them
Speaker 3: don't want to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: So tell us a bit about how you got here
Speaker 1: and what's still left. Starting with your direct appeal they raised.
Speaker 3: I think it was about I want to say about
Speaker 3: thirty two heirs. Some was in effected system new council.
Speaker 3: We were denied that all through state court. It wasn't
Speaker 3: withholding evidence until we got in the federal courts Brady validation.
Speaker 1: And I think that was about two thousand and five
Speaker 1: when your case was moved to the federal Public Defenders.
Speaker 3: They fell for a discovery in the federal courts and
Speaker 3: granted me saying that the prosecutor's police department and any
Speaker 3: agency who involved in this case had to turn over
Speaker 3: their records. As I was going through it, I begin
Speaker 3: to see things that I've never seen herd.
Speaker 2: In the original discovery. I don't remember the exact number
Speaker 2: of pages, like two hundred and eighty six pages, something
Speaker 2: like that. I think there's over forty two hundred pages
Speaker 2: that they got in federal habeas and discovery. The questionnaires
Speaker 2: that were sent to all the hotel guests, and I
Speaker 2: think there were sixteen or seventeen of them that had
Speaker 2: i'll say good investigative leads.
Speaker 3: The first thing I came across was the statement of
Speaker 3: two hotel employees, Dmitz Williams and Norman Ryan told the
Speaker 3: police they wouldness two guys coming out of that room,
Speaker 3: a black guy and the white guy, one going left,
Speaker 3: one going right. The black guy when he came out,
Speaker 3: he had a radio in his head. He was going left.
Speaker 3: They gave him a full description of what they had
Speaker 3: on both of them, and they toldly ignored. And there's
Speaker 3: nothing else in the files where the police did any
Speaker 3: follow up. Even the prosecuted.
Speaker 4: There were a ton of tidbits will say that they learned,
Speaker 4: whether it was from interviewing staff about keys or things
Speaker 4: like that, that they just never ever followed up on. Obviously,
Speaker 4: the Anthony Lackey information Anthony Lackett was off on the
Speaker 4: day that this happened, but a shuttle driver who drove
Speaker 4: employees to and from an employee parking lot remember taking
Speaker 4: him back to his car that morning, and when he
Speaker 4: was interviewed by police, he denied being there. It was
Speaker 4: also reported that later that day he and his girlfriend
Speaker 4: went out shopping and he was suddenly flushed with cash,
Speaker 4: which is significant because reportedly stolen from the hotel rooms
Speaker 4: five hundred dollars in cash that was never recovered.
Speaker 2: Oh and mister Lackey also had an extensive criminal record,
Speaker 2: a violent records from assault of behavior in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is what I meant earlier about more
Speaker 1: compelling leads. This discovery also revealed that the Blue Ash
Speaker 1: Police Department had gone to New York and New Jersey
Speaker 1: and spoken with the family about the pendant, which unraveled
Speaker 1: that lie as well. There was so much Brady material
Speaker 1: with health here that it's hard to even keep track,
Speaker 1: But there are two more that are huge.
Speaker 2: The fact that wrote A. Nathan had hepatitis was not
Speaker 2: disclosed pre trial.
Speaker 4: Elwood knew that they had taken blood for test, but
Speaker 4: they didn't tell him what they were testing it for.
Speaker 4: And they didn't ever report back that he had a
Speaker 4: negative hepatitis B result, where Rodeon Nathan had a positive result.
Speaker 4: And that's really important because, I mean, the reason EMTs
Speaker 4: wear rubber gloves is because the risk of infection from
Speaker 4: hepatitis B because it is so infectious.
Speaker 1: So while he could have given himself like canella from
Speaker 1: licking his own injured hand, It's almost certain that Elwood
Speaker 1: would have tested positive for hepatitis B had he been
Speaker 1: the assailant. So the Blue Ash Police Department, Mark Pete Meyer,
Speaker 1: Seth Tiger, they all had scientific evidence clearing Elwood all
Speaker 1: the way back on September fifteenth, nineteen ninety four, when
Speaker 1: it really counted. And here we are, almost thirty years later,
Speaker 1: still trying to unravel this injustice. Oh wait, there's more.
Speaker 1: I know you're probably going no.
Speaker 4: No more.
Speaker 1: I can't take it. I can't take it. But hang
Speaker 1: in there. They had another lead before a trial from
Speaker 1: a woman named Dolores Suggs, which didn't come to light,
Speaker 1: probably because they kept it in the dark until decades later.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was in two thousand and sixteen. I had
Speaker 3: an email from Deloris Sugg's daughter Terror and she told
Speaker 3: me that her mother told her about. She was in
Speaker 3: jail and a woman named Linda Reed told her that
Speaker 3: her husband had killed this woman and framed a black man.
Speaker 4: Delores Sugs is somebody who spent a very short period
Speaker 4: of time in the Hamilton County Justice Center in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety five, and she was in there with Linda Reid,
Speaker 4: who confided to Dolores Suggs that Linda's husband, Earl, a white,
Speaker 4: red haired man from Blue Ash, had confessed to killing
Speaker 4: somebody in the Embassy Suites in Blue Ash and framing
Speaker 4: a black man. And she asked Dolores to do something
Speaker 4: about it when she got out, and Dolores was told
Speaker 4: by the Blue Ash police this is a close case,
Speaker 4: and even though she was reporting on a pair confession,
Speaker 4: they just did nothing with it.
Speaker 1: Now, correct me if I'm wrong, But I read that
Speaker 1: Earle Read was quite cozy with the Blue Ash Police department.
Speaker 4: He reportedly would get up in the morning and have
Speaker 4: coffee with the Blue Ash Police department. And there were
Speaker 4: a number of instances where I believe it's well documented
Speaker 4: he abused Linda Read. And there is a narrative that's
Speaker 4: part of the record here where severely beat her even
Speaker 4: after they were divorced or separated, to the point that
Speaker 4: she was in a medical facility and he was not
Speaker 4: allowed to come and visit her anymore. Now, I want
Speaker 4: to be very clear, we don't know whether Earle did it,
Speaker 4: and I think that there are, as I said, a
Speaker 4: number of other people in the records that are equally
Speaker 4: or potentially more plausible than Earle. But there are other
Speaker 4: facts that do kind of make the suggestion that Earle
Speaker 4: was there. For example, Robin Budd was a witness who
Speaker 4: said that the morning of the murder, at basically the
Speaker 4: exact same time that the murder apparently took place, she
Speaker 4: saw a man who sort of meets the Earl's description
Speaker 4: bolt from the hotel, run across the parking lot and
Speaker 4: into the woods in the same direction to where Earl
Speaker 4: Reed's house was like half a mile away. But the
Speaker 4: real significance of Earl Reid and the Dolores Suggs tip
Speaker 4: isn't so much that, aha, we've now found the killer.
Speaker 4: It's the blue Ash police apartment in the Hamilton County
Speaker 4: Prosecutor's Office was so polluted by cognitive bias and confirmation
Speaker 4: bias and tunnel vision that They didn't even bother to
Speaker 4: look into this. Before Elwood had been convicted, they had
Speaker 4: him in custody and they just went someone confessed to this, whatever,
Speaker 4: we've got our man, and that's true. Throughout there are
Speaker 4: hundreds of pages of records where people are identifying other
Speaker 4: potential suspects. Many of those records are from independent sources
Speaker 4: that fit together with each other and really kind of
Speaker 4: tell a narrative that it's like, gosh, I think that
Speaker 4: is a person that really could have been and it's
Speaker 4: definitely not Elwood, and they conceded they never looked at it.
Speaker 4: The Bluish Police par never looked into any of it.
Speaker 1: All of this information, the bevy of alternative and more
Speaker 1: likely suspects, including Earl Reid, Anthony Lackey, these two mystery men,
Speaker 1: as well as Dependent not being dependent, never mind it
Speaker 1: likely being a totally fabricated piece of evidence in the
Speaker 1: first place, and the irreconcilable hepatitis B test results. This
Speaker 1: was all information that they had at the time of trial.
Speaker 1: It was not shared with the defense. However, from a
Speaker 1: post conviction litigation standpoint, the problem with these discoveries is
Speaker 1: that they happened over time and were never litigated as
Speaker 1: a whole, so the twenty nineteen motion for a new
Speaker 1: trial was based solely on the alleged Earl Reid confession.
Speaker 1: But eventually Judge Winkler's successor, Judge Etna Cooper, granted a hearing.
Speaker 1: Jay was already involved, and then came Dave Hein from Vori's,
Speaker 1: one of the most widely respected law firms in the country.
Speaker 4: So Jay was that at that point, working with the
Speaker 4: Federal Public Defenders, they filed the motion for a new trial.
Speaker 4: Judge Cooper said, yep, we're going to give you a
Speaker 4: hearing on it.
Speaker 1: And finally all this Brady material would be heard altogether. Now,
Speaker 1: an election in twenty twenty brought in Judge Wendy Cross,
Speaker 1: and oddly enough, almost thirty years later, Elwood was facing
Speaker 1: Seth Tiger again. What stuck out the most about this.
Speaker 2: Hearing standing up in a courtroom and calling a prosecutor
Speaker 2: by name Mark Pete Meyer a liar, outright line to
Speaker 2: put somebody on death row. That doesn't happen every day,
Speaker 2: no way. It really got under Seth Tiger's skin. It
Speaker 2: really bothered him, and I'm kind of glad it did.
Speaker 2: But it was for the wrong reason. He didn't have
Speaker 2: the ability to defend his his friend. And I think
Speaker 2: to me, what was overall remarkable about it the lack
Speaker 2: of any meaningful response from the prosecutor from a litigation standpoint.
Speaker 2: We put on doctor Burdett to talk about the hepatitis.
Speaker 2: We were specifically told by the judge before the hearing started,
Speaker 2: we are not going to relitigate ikinella. Fine. The first
Speaker 2: question out of the prosecutor's mouth cross examining doctor Burdett
Speaker 2: was about ikinella. We were doing literally almost doing somersaults
Speaker 2: at the table when he opened the door, because David
Speaker 2: prepared the witness and drove a truck through that door
Speaker 2: after that, and they put on no meaningful rebuttal to
Speaker 2: anything that we put on. They didn't have anybody come
Speaker 2: in and say, hey, the blue ash investigation was fine.
Speaker 2: They didn't have anybody come in and say, oh, doctor
Speaker 2: Burdet's wrong. Hepatitis bees not that infectious. They did nothing,
Speaker 2: And I think it's because of the mindset in Hamilton
Speaker 2: County has been for so long. We don't need to
Speaker 2: the judge's going to give it to us. Judge Winkler
Speaker 2: was a former prosecutor. Judge Winkler's sons were both prosecutors.
Speaker 2: Now they're judges. Prosecutors in robes is the daily norm
Speaker 2: down here for us. They didn't put on anything to
Speaker 2: justify why he should not get a new trial.
Speaker 1: And so on December twentieth, twenty twenty two, Elwood who
Speaker 1: were finally granted a new trial, and amazingly he got
Speaker 1: a bond set and were released on January fourteenth of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: I had been turned down so many times in the
Speaker 3: court that I was totally lost for words that day.
Speaker 3: It's the thing about death penalty cases. People just don't
Speaker 3: want to touch them or do the right thing. I
Speaker 3: was totally shocked, but I was so thankful I got out.
Speaker 3: I did the two things I said I was going
Speaker 3: to do. I was going to kiss the ground, and
Speaker 3: I went to the cemetery to see my mother and
Speaker 3: tell us that you rest of peace. So and from
Speaker 3: that day, I'm still frightened.
Speaker 4: The state is kind of doing everything that they can
Speaker 4: at this point too. It seems like to ignore reality.
Speaker 4: They've filed a petition for rid of prohibition, multiple appeals
Speaker 4: they've all been denied. It seems like they're doing everything
Speaker 4: they can to avoid having any kind of honest evaluation
Speaker 4: of the actual evidence, and they still want to litigate
Speaker 4: this and hold on to the conviction that they obtained
Speaker 4: in the nineties with only a tiny sliver of the evidence.
Speaker 1: And I understand that if this does go to TRILI,
Speaker 1: you'll be facing Mark Pete Myer and Seth Tiger again,
Speaker 1: potentially in February twenty twenty four. So despite the obvious
Speaker 1: and sane choice in front of them, this is not
Speaker 1: one hundred percent over. Is there anything our audience can
Speaker 1: do to help.
Speaker 2: Mark Pete Prior refers to people who support Elwood as his.
Speaker 1: Groupies, Well, sign me up for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll wear that badge. I think awareness let Hamley
Speaker 2: County Prosecutor's office know that it's being watched, and Melissa
Speaker 2: Powers is now the Hamley County Prosecutor. Maybe they can
Speaker 2: reach out to her by email, letter, call and leave
Speaker 2: a message and follow up and ask her what she's
Speaker 2: going to do to write this wrong. Maybe if she
Speaker 2: knows people are watching and people have an interest, that
Speaker 2: she can do the right thing and dismiss it.
Speaker 1: So we'll have action steps of the bio. And now
Speaker 1: that brings us to my favorite part of the show,
Speaker 1: closing arguments. It works like this, I'm going to thank
Speaker 1: each of you again for sharing this incredible, incredible story,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to kick back in my chair,
Speaker 1: turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, and just
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you have to say. So, Dave,
Speaker 1: why don't you go first? Then Jay and then ell
Speaker 1: would take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4: It's important that people understand that although Ellwood has very
Speaker 4: graciously given Jay and I a lot of credit for this,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of.
Speaker 5: People who have been involved over the years.
Speaker 4: There's an entire unit of people at the Federal Public
Speaker 4: Defender's Office, the Capitol Habeas unit from Aaron Barnhart, Bridget Kennedy,
Speaker 4: tc Chansky. I have two colleagues at VORICE, Emily Saint
Speaker 4: Cyr and Zach Hollinger. You've got Dolores Suggs and Tierra Suggs,
Speaker 4: two experts, Doctor Burdett and Beth Moore. And you've got
Speaker 4: Judge Cross, who, frankly, I think a different judge in
Speaker 4: this situation would have caved to the political pressure. You
Speaker 4: had the prosecutor going on local radio stations before a
Speaker 4: decision had been made, calling her a crazy liberal judge, etc.
Speaker 5: Etc.
Speaker 4: And trying to make this a political issue. And I
Speaker 4: think she sat there and just looked at the evidence
Speaker 4: and said, politics be damned. I need to make the
Speaker 4: decision that is just. And finally, to the prosecutors, I'm
Speaker 4: a little bit more cautiously optimistic that the new prosecutor
Speaker 4: will take a look at this.
Speaker 5: Please take a look at this.
Speaker 4: Let's have a conversation, let's talk about the evidence, because
Speaker 4: there's absolutely no reason to be having a second trial.
Speaker 2: I won't repeat a lot of what Dave said because
Speaker 2: I agree with it, but I think the takeaway from this,
Speaker 2: I think you're going to find this as a common
Speaker 2: thread through the work that you do. You can guarantee
Speaker 2: that you will never commit a crime. You can in
Speaker 2: no way guarantee you won't be accused of committing a crime.
Speaker 2: And when you're accused and it's your day in the box,
Speaker 2: you want the system to work the way the system
Speaker 2: is supposed to work. You want people to follow the rules.
Speaker 2: You want police to do the investigation and prosecutors to
Speaker 2: do their job and disclose all the evidence. And right
Speaker 2: now in Hamilton County, honestly, in general terms, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: And so a lot of people can look at this
Speaker 2: particular case or any of the other cases that I
Speaker 2: know you've you've profiled, and go, well, that would never
Speaker 2: happen to me. Don't count on it because you cannot
Speaker 2: guarantee you won't be accused someday. Urge people to get involved,
Speaker 2: don't stay silent, and speak up.
Speaker 3: I'm very thankful for everyone who took their time, including you,
Speaker 3: to help add this and I'm hoping that I could
Speaker 3: have my little life back. And I would like to
Speaker 3: see the prosecutors be held accountable and two the whole
Speaker 3: prosecutors accountable for what they do to take in the
Speaker 3: man's life a woman's life. They gonna continue that need
Speaker 3: to change if you're going to bring change this system.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I want to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor hall Any, Chelsea, Maia Robinson,
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Warns. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at it's Jason Vlahm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one