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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: I did make a mistake. It's a mistake to just

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Speaker 2: take someone out their work to think that you can

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Speaker 2: feel it somehow. You have to look at the facts.

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Speaker 2: You have to put the pieces of a puzzle together.

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Speaker 2: Maybe they'll tell you something you don't want to know,

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Speaker 2: but you still want to know it.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. In nineteen ninety, a young

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Speaker 1: journalist witnessed a botch execution and it changed her life.

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Speaker 1: Author Ellen mcgarahan found herself haunted by the question of

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Speaker 1: whether she had witnessed the execution of an innocent man,

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Speaker 1: She tells me the story at the center of her book,

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Speaker 1: Two Truths and a Lie, a murder, a private investigator,

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Speaker 1: and her search for justice. Where does it make sense

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Speaker 1: for you to start this story. Is it with the

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Speaker 1: crime that was sort of the emphasis for all of this,

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Speaker 1: or is it when you became involved, which was where

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Speaker 1: the personal story really starts.

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Speaker 2: I know that the story actually really does have a

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Speaker 2: lot of starting points. It starts in nineteen seventy six

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Speaker 2: with the roadside murders of two police officers on the

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Speaker 2: side of Interstate ninety five, chure of Philip Black and

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Speaker 2: Constable Donalder. For me, it started in nineteen ninety when

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Speaker 2: I was a reporter from the Harold and I went

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Speaker 2: to witness the execution of the man who had been

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Speaker 2: convicted of capital murder in that case. His name was

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Speaker 2: Jesse Tafaro. And then it also started in twenty eleven

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Speaker 2: when I was sitting in my dining room in Chicago

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Speaker 2: Sunday morning, opening the New York Times, and I saw

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Speaker 2: a story in the style section about the marriage of

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Speaker 2: Sunny Jacobs, who was convicted, along with Jesse Tefarao, of

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Speaker 2: murdering chripperback and Constable Irwin. Her conviction was overturned on appeal.

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Speaker 2: She was released from prison, and she was getting remarried,

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Speaker 2: and the New York Times article very strongly implied that

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Speaker 2: she and Jesse were innocent. That's I think that's the

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Speaker 2: starting point for my needing to write a book about it.

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Speaker 1: Why don't we start with the family. What you knew

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Speaker 1: about the family before this happened in nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: about the Tafaro family.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, Jesse to Ferao was born in October nineteen

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Speaker 2: forty six in New Jersey. His dad was a used

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Speaker 2: car salesman and his mother was from Wales. She was

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Speaker 2: a miner's daughter from Wales in the United Kingdom. She

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Speaker 2: came to Pennsylvania with her father as a very young girl,

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Speaker 2: and then Kay and Jesse senior his name was also

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Speaker 2: just Pharaoh married and then little Jesse was sickly, so

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Speaker 2: they moved to Florida and was in the nineteen fifty

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Speaker 2: so it was kind of a boom time in Florida,

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Speaker 2: you know, like very iconic flamingoes and little white houses

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Speaker 2: and everything. Apparently, though his childhood wasn't particularly easy. I

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Speaker 2: write that they were poor and Jesse was ashamed to

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Speaker 2: he just chees at school for his old clothes. His

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Speaker 2: father beat him in lucked him in closets, but his

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Speaker 2: mom said that he had just never been a violent person.

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Speaker 2: He really just wanted peace and quiet. He seems like

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Speaker 2: he did fall in with a fast crowd, though by

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Speaker 2: the time he was in his I think early twenties,

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Speaker 2: he had been arrested and convicted of a number of

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Speaker 2: different things.

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Speaker 1: Wow, I think reading about this, some of the things

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Speaker 1: were difficult, because I know it becomes complicated when you

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Speaker 1: talk about you know, there's murders, and then there's a

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Speaker 1: convicted killer, and then somebody we think is innocent, and

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Speaker 1: then you know, but there are things in his past

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Speaker 1: that don't sound that great. How did you tackle that?

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Speaker 2: My goal with this, when I set out to do this,

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Speaker 2: was to find whatever I could and to talk to

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Speaker 2: whoever it was possible to talk to. So I went

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Speaker 2: to Florida without any any preconceptions except that thing that

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Speaker 2: I really wanted to do was to as closely as

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Speaker 2: possible get back to the moment in the morning twentieth

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Speaker 2: February nineteen seventy six, when Juper Black and Constable Erwin

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Speaker 2: were murdered. The story time they met was interesting. Missus

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Speaker 2: Black was from Canada and they were up visiting her family.

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Speaker 2: They came across a terrible car accident in Canada. Tripper

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Speaker 2: Black got out to just you know, chat with the

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Speaker 2: officers and he kind of made friends with Constable Erwin

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Speaker 2: and he invited them and Constable Erbin and his wife

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Speaker 2: down to Florida, you know, to get out of the

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Speaker 2: tough Canadian winter, and he that next February, he took

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Speaker 2: him up on that It was the last day of

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Speaker 2: his vacation. They were he was doing a ride along

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Speaker 2: and he was about to head home.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, So how long had Jesse and been together

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Speaker 1: before this happens?

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Speaker 2: A couple of years.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what brings them onto this section of the highway?

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Speaker 1: And where is this? In nineteen seventy six, I couldn't

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Speaker 1: figure out where in Florida was it. Was it in

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Speaker 1: Miami proper?

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Speaker 2: No, it's actually it's north of Fort Lauderdale on Interstate

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Speaker 2: ninety five. But at the time, Interstate ninety five wasn't finished,

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Speaker 2: It wasn't a three road yet. This was you know,

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Speaker 2: Florida was still being built. So the story of why

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Speaker 2: they're in the rest area is actually a really important

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Speaker 2: part of the investigation because it has to do with

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Speaker 2: there's just a lot of really conflicting. The two versions

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Speaker 2: that we have or the three versions are just really different. Okay,

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Speaker 2: So in February nineteen seventy six, it's about seven in

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Speaker 2: the morning, twentieth February seventy six, Jesse to Farah and

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Speaker 2: his girlfriend Sonny Jacobs, and their friend Walter Rhodes and

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Speaker 2: two young children were asleep in a Camaro on the

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Speaker 2: side of the highway just in Barward County, just north

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Speaker 2: of Fort Lauder. There's a number of other cars in

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Speaker 2: the rest area, and Trooper Black was doing his normal

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Speaker 2: morning rounds and he had a ride along with his friend,

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Speaker 2: Constable Donald Irwin, and they were just waking people up

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Speaker 2: so cold night. They were checking it on them, waking

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Speaker 2: people up, moving them along, and they knocked on the

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Speaker 2: window of the camaro, and moments later they were both

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Speaker 2: shot dead, and everyone in the camaro jumped into the

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Speaker 2: police car and they attempted to basically to get away,

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Speaker 2: but they ran into a roadblock a couple of miles

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Speaker 2: away from the rest area, and they were arrested.

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Speaker 1: Let's go back to when this happens in February of

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. The way you laid it out seems

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Speaker 1: like the indisputable facts here does everybody agree on? These

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Speaker 1: are two people who have been shot and killed. We

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Speaker 1: don't know who yet, and you know that everybody in

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Speaker 1: the car gets out of the Camaro and gets into

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Speaker 1: the car, and there's the getaway. So do Jesse and

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Speaker 1: Sonny and Walter all agree on those details? You know?

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Speaker 2: They don't. They don't agree on anything. And there were

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Speaker 2: also two eyewitnesses there who had independent eyewitnesses, truck drivers

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Speaker 2: who testified at trial, and they were actually really important

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Speaker 2: figures in the convictions. They saw Walter standing with his

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Speaker 2: hands in the air as the shots rang out. They

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Speaker 2: saw gunfire come from the back of the car, which

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Speaker 2: is where Sonny was sitting with her children. So their

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Speaker 2: testimony conflicts with what Jesse's phairh testified at Sonny's trial

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Speaker 2: and what Sonny has said in the years since, and

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Speaker 2: also what Walter has said. So it's a very complicated case.

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Speaker 2: But no, they disagree about how the getaway happened. They

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Speaker 2: both say everybody says that the other person forced them

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Speaker 2: into it. Walter says that he was forced in a gunpoint,

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Speaker 2: and then Sonny and Jesse said that too, but Walter

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Speaker 2: was driving. Its Essentially, every single aspect of this is

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Speaker 2: a subject of disagreement.

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Speaker 1: Well, how reliable are these truck drivers, you think, because

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Speaker 1: you're saying that when the shots rang out, they're saying

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Speaker 1: that Walter, who is the other main suspect here, it

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Speaker 1: has his hands up. Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they did testify to that. Basically, the evidence of

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Speaker 2: the crime scene it implicates everybody. Jesse Tafaro was arrested

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Speaker 2: with the murder weapons strapped to his hip. The eyewitnesses

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Speaker 2: saw the shots come from the car where Sonny Jacobs

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Speaker 2: was sitting, and Walter Rhodes tested positive for gunshot residue

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Speaker 2: on his hands. And the other thing that's interesting about

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Speaker 2: the case is one thing that everyone does agree on

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Speaker 2: is that at the time that the fatal shots rang out,

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Speaker 2: Jesse Tefarro was pinned against the police car by the

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Speaker 2: doomed officers, so he could not possibly have fired first.

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Speaker 2: It was either ultra roads or it was someone in

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Speaker 2: the car, and the people in the car were Sonny

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Speaker 2: and her two young children. So that's another aspect of

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Speaker 2: the case. And again this is a death penalty case.

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Speaker 2: That Jesse Sefaro did go to the electric chair, and

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Speaker 2: so there's the stakes in terms of figuring out exactly

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Speaker 2: what happened are very high.

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Speaker 1: This is going to sound naive, but what is the

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Speaker 1: motive for shooting these two officers? Were they startled? Were

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Speaker 1: they doing something illegal in the car? Did they think

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Speaker 1: that these were not officers? These were people trying to

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Speaker 1: break in at this truck stop.

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Speaker 2: Both Walter and Jesse. We wouldn't be very complicated for

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Speaker 2: them to be found with a gun. Walter was on

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Speaker 2: parole for an armed robbery case and Jesse was on

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Speaker 2: the lamp. He was actually had jumped parole on his

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Speaker 2: previous conviction for attempted rate and so there was it

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Speaker 2: was very high stakes when Trooper Black and Constable are

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Speaker 2: when approach to the car, because they didn't know that

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Speaker 2: and the car was also absolutely chock full with guns

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Speaker 2: and ammunition. I can read you what was in the car. Sure,

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Speaker 2: there's two Smith and Wesson nine millimeters semi automatic handguns,

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Speaker 2: a Smith and Wesson thirty eight special six stop revolver,

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Speaker 2: North American Arms twenty two deringer, Emmanuel S. Godin iedbar

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Speaker 2: thirty two caliber revolver shoulder rolt has to a bay

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Speaker 2: It and Petamin's cocaine, Kila's marijuana, has she thurzine, cigarettes

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Speaker 2: and beer. There was jewelry, There were passports, forty pieces

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Speaker 2: of ID in other people's names, and there was a

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Speaker 2: oh my god, flush covered over the head rubber mask

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Speaker 2: with a white wig attached, and just tons of ammunition.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you answered my question, Okay, I get it now.

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Speaker 2: Wow, very high stakes. You know. When I was really

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out what happened at the car, that

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Speaker 2: was something that I kept in mind.

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Speaker 1: Remind me of the ages of the kids. I feel

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Speaker 1: like I read one was nine, is that right?

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Speaker 2: There's Sunny's Sun was nine, and then there was a

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Speaker 2: little baby girl who was about ten months old.

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Speaker 1: I know this is a question that you might not

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Speaker 1: have an answer to, but did the nine year old

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Speaker 1: contribute anything to this investigation?

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Speaker 2: That was something that was a subject of what I

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Speaker 2: tried to figure out because there was some documentation that

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Speaker 2: I was found in the State attorney's case files that

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Speaker 2: indicated that he had been a subject of interest, and

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Speaker 2: so I went to Australia to talk to him. Now,

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Speaker 2: he was at the time, I think, forty nine years old,

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Speaker 2: so that was an interesting experience.

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Speaker 1: What did he have to say? Did he remember any

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Speaker 1: of this?

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Speaker 2: He did, He remembered an incredible narrative. But at that

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Speaker 2: point I had talked to his mom, Sunny Jacobs. I

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Speaker 2: talked to her in Ireland. I had previously interviewed Belt

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Speaker 2: to Rhodes, I had talked to the very experienced prosecutors

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Speaker 2: investigator who had investigated the case. I talked to a

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Speaker 2: ton of their friends from nineteen seventy six from the

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Speaker 2: drug world in Miami. At that time, I had read

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Speaker 2: the case file. I read his you know, his mom's

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Speaker 2: trial and Jesse to Ferrell's trial records, and what Eric

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Speaker 2: remembered didn't match any of that.

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Speaker 1: Did experts Were they surprised by that at all? I mean,

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Speaker 1: I would guess that a nine year old could pick

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Speaker 1: up some things, but in the most traumatizing night of

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Speaker 1: his life. I wonder if things just were reframed over

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Speaker 1: the last forty years for him exactly.

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Speaker 2: That was something that I felt incredibly sensitive to. It

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Speaker 2: was a really, really hard interview to do because obviously

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Speaker 2: I didn't want to. You know, as a former death

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Speaker 2: row investigator, I was really informed and trauma informed interviews.

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Speaker 2: We did a lot of training on that. But I

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Speaker 2: still know that you're bringing a very bad time back

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Speaker 2: to somebody, and it was just a really something I

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Speaker 2: tried to be incredibly sensitive about.

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Speaker 1: When we go back to nineteen seventy six, you have

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Speaker 1: these people pile into the police car and take off,

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Speaker 1: and you said they're stopped by what a blockade or something?

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Speaker 1: Is that what happened? How do they got caught?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they stopped by a senior citizens center and kidnapped.

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Speaker 2: They switched cars, They jumped into a Cadillac. There was

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Speaker 2: a kind of a building. Captain came down to find

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Speaker 2: out why the police car was pulling to his parking lot.

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Speaker 2: This is early in the morning, seven thirty something like that.

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Speaker 2: They took his keys, they took him and his cadillac.

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Speaker 2: They kidnapped him, and then they raced north. And at

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Speaker 2: that point, really every police officer in South Florida was

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Speaker 2: looking for them, and they were tracked by and there's

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Speaker 2: a very experienced Vietnam pilot who was working for the

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Speaker 2: Highway Patrol and he tracked them from overhead, and they

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Speaker 2: knew where they were, and they set up a roadblock

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Speaker 2: and they basically they drove right into the roadblock kind

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Speaker 2: of in a hail of gunfire, and they crashed and

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Speaker 2: were arrested.

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Speaker 1: Wow, it's amazing they survived that. I mean, that just

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Speaker 1: sounds horrific. And I'm sure the boy Eric you said

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Speaker 1: his name was, that must have been I wonder if

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Speaker 1: that was a really clear memory for him.

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Speaker 2: He had a very traumatic memory about that.

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Speaker 1: That's awful. Okay, So they are arrested, and how did

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Speaker 1: the police in your view, determine who is going to

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Speaker 1: flip on who? Do they feel like it's better to

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Speaker 1: go with Walter because Sonny and Jesse are a couple

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Speaker 1: and they're unlikely to flip, or did Walter just volunteer

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Speaker 1: immediately information?

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Speaker 2: Walter's was severely injured in the crash. There was one

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Speaker 2: of the gunshots that stopped the car went through the

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Speaker 2: driver's side door and it hit him in the knee,

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Speaker 2: and so he was immediately arrested and taken to the hospital.

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Speaker 2: He was interviewed on a hospital gurney. He basically said,

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Speaker 2: I didn't have anything to do with it, and the

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Speaker 2: police came in and they tape recorded him, so there's

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Speaker 2: transcripts available in the files, and over a number of

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Speaker 2: days while he went through his surgery he lost his

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Speaker 2: leg and recovery for that, and I was able to

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Speaker 2: review his hospital records because he gave them to me,

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Speaker 2: and it was interesting to be able to see that

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Speaker 2: they didn't give him any morphine until I think until

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Speaker 2: after at least one of the interviews Jesse to Pharaoh

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Speaker 2: didn't talk at all. He was also taken to the hospital.

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Speaker 2: They gave him some medical treatment after the crash, and

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Speaker 2: he wouldn't even say his name. He basically just absolutely

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Speaker 2: said nothing, nothing at all, just I want a lawyer,

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Speaker 2: and at that point the question stopped. He also took

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Speaker 2: Sunny and at first they thought she was a hostage,

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Speaker 2: that she was a witness, and then the testimony is

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Speaker 2: that she bent down to say basically that kissed Jesse

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Speaker 2: goodbye at the Gosh scene, and then they said do

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Speaker 2: you know him? According to the transcripts of her interviews,

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Speaker 2: she denied knowing anybody in the car, and she also

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Speaker 2: said she hadn't seen anything.

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Speaker 1: So what ends up happening next. The police are leaning

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Speaker 1: towards believing Walter. Because Jesse has now lawyered up and

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Speaker 1: Sonny is denying everything. Where do they go next? How

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Speaker 1: did the police decide anything in this case?

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Speaker 2: They talked to the eyewitnesses, They looked at the ballistics.

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Speaker 2: There was a lot of evidence at the site of

297
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Speaker 2: the murders. The car was still there, the Camaro was

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Speaker 2: still there, and so they took a look at all

299
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Speaker 2: of that, and then they just kept talking to Walter.

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Speaker 1: Basically, so you said Sonny was according to the witnesses,

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Speaker 1: Sonny was in the position where the gunfire would have

302
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Speaker 1: come out, and Jesse had the weapon, but Walter had

303
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Speaker 1: the gunshot residue on his hand. Is that pretty much

304
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Speaker 1: the main part of the evidence that they were leaning into,

305
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Speaker 1: other than Walter saying I wasn't the one who did this.

306
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Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that came out in the

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Speaker 2: case is what Jesse testified to it Sunny's trial. They

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Speaker 2: were tried separately and Jesse was convicted, and at the

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Speaker 2: time he testified, he was under the sentence of death,

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Speaker 2: and he testified that he had personally seen while he

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Speaker 2: was up against the police car being restrained at the

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Speaker 2: time the shots rang out, that he saw Walter Rhodes

313
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Speaker 2: fire from the position at the front of the car.

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Speaker 2: One pieces of evidence that they had was they made

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Speaker 2: plaster casts of the path of the bullets through the

316
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Speaker 2: officer's bodies, and so they were able to compare the

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Speaker 2: trajectories of the bullets with the testimony. Sunny didn't testify

318
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Speaker 2: in her trial or in Jesse's, and Jesse didn't testify

319
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Speaker 2: his own trial, so they were able to compare Jesse's

320
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Speaker 2: testimony at Sonny's trial and Walter's testimony with that physical club.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard of that before. Had

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Speaker 1: you heard about that technique before for determining the trajectory

323
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Speaker 1: of where a bullet has been fired? What height that is? No?

324
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Speaker 1: I hadn't, Okay, so they think the trajectory. It seems

325
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Speaker 1: to me, even in seventy six, this would have been

326
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Speaker 1: a real big risk for the prosecutor to try this

327
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Speaker 1: as a capital case when there's no literal smoking gun

328
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Speaker 1: putting it in Jesse's hand or Sonny's hand. Were they

329
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Speaker 1: thinking that there was so much publicity that they were

330
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Speaker 1: sure that they needed this to be a capital case

331
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Speaker 1: because it was two police officers and they were under

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Speaker 1: that kind of pressure.

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Speaker 2: I really don't know. I know that at the time

334
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Speaker 2: they had tried, the death penalty had not been reinstated

335
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Speaker 2: in the United States, you know, it was declared unconstitutional,

336
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Speaker 2: and it hadn't been It was reinstated in nineteen seventy six,

337
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Speaker 2: I believe, but it hadn't been yet. I don't know

338
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Speaker 2: why they made it a capital case.

339
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Speaker 1: Okay, so he is convicted and he Jesse, I'm assuming,

340
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Speaker 1: is just saying I'm completely innocent of all of this.

341
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Speaker 1: Do we have any idea is he communicating with Sonny

342
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Speaker 1: at all? Are they allowed to talk or you know,

343
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Speaker 1: do we have any idea how they viewed each other

344
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Speaker 1: once the arrests came.

345
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Speaker 2: What Sonny has said, they remained very passionately in love

346
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Speaker 2: with each other, and apparently they were exchanging letters while

347
00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:25,680
Speaker 2: they were both incarcerated. I also happened to talk with

348
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Speaker 2: one of Jesse's old friends. That was one of the

349
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Speaker 2: first interviews I did in the book, a woman who

350
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:34,560
Speaker 2: was a former playboy bunny, very very lovely and very

351
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Speaker 2: sort of deeply wise woman, and she had a love

352
00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:41,520
Speaker 2: letter from Jesse to So, like everything else in the case,

353
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Speaker 2: it's very hard to know. And as you know, going

354
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:46,639
Speaker 2: back through time, it's just very hard to know where

355
00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:48,879
Speaker 2: the reality is. And that's just something that I had

356
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Speaker 2: to keep an eye on while I was going through everything.

357
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Speaker 1: And it's interesting. You know, often I think about when

358
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Speaker 1: I write about history, it is very old history where

359
00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,719
Speaker 1: I rarely get to speak to, you know, the people

360
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Speaker 1: who are at the center of my books. I mean,

361
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Speaker 1: my most contemporary book was set in fifty two and

362
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:11,040
Speaker 1: the people I interviewed were in their eighties. So, you know,

363
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Speaker 1: I think that with the written material that I have

364
00:19:14,520 --> 00:19:16,119
Speaker 1: for my books, I think, Okay, the truth is in

365
00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:18,479
Speaker 1: here somewhere, because these are people, They're in their thoughts,

366
00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:21,680
Speaker 1: They're right now there. You know, this is their journaling.

367
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Speaker 1: These are their most intimate thoughts. But then you add

368
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:27,600
Speaker 1: in what you've had to do, which is you're speaking

369
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Speaker 1: too Sonny and you've spoken to Walter. Then you really

370
00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:35,639
Speaker 1: do have to decide what you believe and what matches

371
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Speaker 1: up with the trial transcripts and the investigation and how

372
00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:43,040
Speaker 1: skewed was this investigation. And so I don't envy what

373
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Speaker 1: you had to do curating all of this and figuring

374
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 1: out what goes into the book was just this must

375
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Speaker 1: have been just a very difficult experience putting this together

376
00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:53,200
Speaker 1: in a cohesive narrative.

377
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Speaker 2: It really was. I think that you know, as you

378
00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,439
Speaker 2: know from your own investigations, it's always a question of

379
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 2: putting to together the pieces of the puzzle, and it's

380
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:04,639
Speaker 2: something that you know. Again, I came to this as

381
00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:09,520
Speaker 2: a professional investigator, and so I'm used to complex cases

382
00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:13,240
Speaker 2: that are difficult to figure out. When I started working

383
00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 2: as a private eye, I left journalism in after the execution.

384
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 2: I worked for a while as a construction worker, and

385
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:23,040
Speaker 2: then I landed in San Francisco, and that city is

386
00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:26,360
Speaker 2: a tradition of sort of non traditional private investigators, and

387
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:30,119
Speaker 2: I joined that and trained there. And one of the

388
00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 2: first cases we did had to do with environmental pollution

389
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:37,119
Speaker 2: in the Los Angeles Basin, and I was talking to

390
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,239
Speaker 2: people going back to people who had worked there at

391
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:43,639
Speaker 2: the aerospace plants during the Second World War, and so

392
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:46,280
Speaker 2: I knew how to go back in time in that way,

393
00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:48,840
Speaker 2: and I used that skill set on this case. I

394
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:52,160
Speaker 2: got lucky with my records. I happened to come across

395
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 2: on the very first week a stack of Affi davids

396
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:57,119
Speaker 2: that were in the Borough County Court files from people

397
00:20:57,160 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 2: who had known Jesse and Sunny and Walter in nineteen

398
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:02,720
Speaker 2: seventy six, and so I had names to go to

399
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,480
Speaker 2: and I could go to them and talk to them.

400
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,320
Speaker 2: But I did find that anytime I talked to somebody,

401
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,399
Speaker 2: the story added something, It added something different, It added

402
00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:13,960
Speaker 2: something that I hadn't known and made me rethink everything.

403
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 2: And I found if you think of a puzzle that's

404
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:19,359
Speaker 2: sort of infinitely rearrangeable, that's where I landed. And it

405
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:22,119
Speaker 2: was difficult for me too, because I was talking about

406
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:25,679
Speaker 2: something that anytime I even thought about it, which was

407
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:29,760
Speaker 2: the execution itself, I just ended up with like just

408
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:35,160
Speaker 2: a terrible, sort of almost physical flashback experience of there's

409
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:38,640
Speaker 2: something I think that happens in very violent situations where

410
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 2: your brain gets rewired. It's not really emotional, it's just

411
00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:45,760
Speaker 2: literally your animal physical I'm in great danger reaction that

412
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 2: happened to me, which I didn't realize until I spent

413
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:51,160
Speaker 2: a year talking to people about this, because I really

414
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:54,560
Speaker 2: hadn't talked about it, and so that was also kind

415
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 2: of an obstacle, but it was also something that I found.

416
00:21:58,040 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 2: I think this is the interesting thing about this case.

417
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 2: I had thought that I was the lone person who

418
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 2: cared exactly what happened. But I found that when I

419
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 2: went and I talked to the people who I found

420
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 2: in the AffA Davids who had known them back in

421
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 2: the day. And I talked to the police officers, and

422
00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 2: I talked to their lawyers from forty years ago, and

423
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 2: I talked to the prosecutor. I really tried to talk

424
00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 2: ex wives, I tried ex girlfriends, I tried to talk

425
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 2: to everybody, And anytime I showed up on the doorstep,

426
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,359
Speaker 2: people just said come in, because it's like we were

427
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 2: all carrying the story together. So as hard as it

428
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 2: was to talk about, that was actually something that really

429
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 2: really helped me. I like to think it helped them

430
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 2: to be able to say, yeah, what is that? What happened?

431
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:42,440
Speaker 2: You know, because the allegation, the contention, the claim, the

432
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:45,639
Speaker 2: possible fact that an innocent person sat on fire in

433
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,400
Speaker 2: the electric chair, that's a very, very very serious thing

434
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 2: to be discussing with people. I think it haunted a

435
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:52,200
Speaker 2: lot more people than me.

436
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:55,520
Speaker 1: Tell me about Walter. What kind of time does Walter

437
00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 1: ultimately get with this?

438
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:00,919
Speaker 2: He is sentenced to life in prison, and then he

439
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 2: was paroled after Sonny Jacobs was let out on her

440
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,959
Speaker 2: Alfred Pley, and he absconded and he was rearrested, and

441
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:10,959
Speaker 2: he's back from present.

442
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,399
Speaker 1: So this happens in seventy six. We are going to

443
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,440
Speaker 1: fast forward now to nineteen ninety and let's just kind

444
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:20,719
Speaker 1: of go quickly. I don't want to We've talked about this.

445
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,159
Speaker 1: Neither of us want to dwell on this execution. It

446
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: was terrible. It was botched in the electric chair, and

447
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: you were there as a witness.

448
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:28,639
Speaker 2: You know.

449
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:30,720
Speaker 1: I was a journalist for years and years and years.

450
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,040
Speaker 1: I had never been asked to do anything like that.

451
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 1: I'm glad I didn't end up doing anything like that.

452
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:37,880
Speaker 1: How did you end up in that position?

453
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 2: It was May nineteen ninety. I had just recently been

454
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 2: promoted to the Mining Heralds Capitol Bureau. I was the

455
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 2: youngest person who'd been that promoted there in a while.

456
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 2: I was the first woman, or at least the first

457
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 2: woman in a very long time. I was also the

458
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 2: only reporter to have been promoted without spending time in

459
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:56,879
Speaker 2: the city desk. The only other reporter who's done that

460
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 2: was Tom Feebler, who just a previous couple of years

461
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 2: had broken the big Donna Reis Scary heart story. He

462
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:07,639
Speaker 2: was the paper's political editor. I was a very serious journalist,

463
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,120
Speaker 2: you know. I had a big job, big political job,

464
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 2: and one of my beats was the Department of Corrections.

465
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 2: And when the Governor Bob Martinez signed the death warrant

466
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 2: for Jesse to Farrow, everybody said, I mean, they never

467
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 2: get executed. You know, he's not going to But I

468
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 2: put my hand up. I thought, I'm a journalist, this

469
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 2: is my job. They're using state money to do it.

470
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 2: I cover the Department of Corrections. I need to show

471
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 2: up if this is what I'm going to do, you know,

472
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 2: for work, to be a witness. And so I did,

473
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 2: and it was very surprised. Everyone was very surprised when

474
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 2: the warrant went through. So I had been in the

475
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 2: Capitol Bureau for just about four months.

476
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: So you go, and like I said, at this point,

477
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: I would like you to kind of take over and

478
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: tell me what you want to remember or read or

479
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 1: whatever about this event. That was really it sounds like

480
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: a real touchstone in your life.

481
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really was. And that's just not what I suffected.

482
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 2: I'm just going to read you two paragraphs since my buddy,

483
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 2: Text had witnessed two executions. First job with a wire's service.

484
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 2: He told me it was going to be no big deal.

485
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:11,640
Speaker 2: We've been out drinking at an oyster bar near Saint

486
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 2: Mark's National Wildlife Refuge, the marshy stretch of mudflats and

487
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 2: alligators on the Gulf of Mexico. They sit up straight

488
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 2: when the jews hits them, and then they slumped forward

489
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:22,640
Speaker 2: and their dead. Text told me in his molasses straw,

490
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 2: the worst part about it, babe, And I mean, this

491
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 2: is the long, boring drive back home. That is not

492
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 2: what happened to Jesse to Farrow. When the electricity hit

493
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 2: Jesse to Pharaoh, the headset bolted onto his bare scalp

494
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 2: caught fire. Flames blazed from his head, arcing bright orange

495
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 2: with tails of dark smoke. A gigantic buzzing sound filled

496
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 2: the chamber so deep I filted inside the bones of

497
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 2: my spine. In the chair, Jesse to Pharaoh clenched his

498
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,679
Speaker 2: fists as he slammed upward and back. He's breathing, I

499
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: wrote on my yellow notepad. The executioner, Anonymous in the booth,

500
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 2: turned the power off. Jesse in the chair, nodding, breathing,

501
00:25:56,040 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 2: his chest heathing, then the buzzing again, flames smoke, His

502
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 2: head nods. His head is nodding. He's breathing. My presents

503
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 2: for your pencil dug into the page so hard the

504
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 2: paper ripped. I can see him sigh.

505
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: Awful experiencing something like that. And you were a professional journalist.

506
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: I mean you had covered Department of Corrections. You have

507
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: written about terrible things. You know, you have had to

508
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: describe those terrible things, which is different than witnessing something

509
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 1: like that. Is this something between nineteen ninety and when

510
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: you started your book. Is this something that you shoved

511
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 1: into a corner and tried to forget about or is

512
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: this something that you actively pursued in therapy or talking

513
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,160
Speaker 1: to a spouse or to friends. What route did you take?

514
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 2: Okay, So I put it away for a long time,

515
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 2: but it kept finding me. When Sunny Jacobs was released

516
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 2: from prison, that was a big news story, and of

517
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 2: course referenced Jesse to Pharaoh, and the stories quoted Jesse's

518
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 2: mom saying, you know, my son was innocent too, And

519
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 2: twenty twenty did a newscast that basically said, were the

520
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,239
Speaker 2: wrong people convicted for this crime? Then? There was the

521
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six movie made for TV movie which was

522
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: made by a childhood friend of Sonny Jacobs, which essentially

523
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 2: told the case from her point of view, and then

524
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 2: there was The Exonerated, and so I just I tried

525
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 2: to put it out of my head, but it was

526
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 2: like having a ghost because anytime I read his name,

527
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:28,719
Speaker 2: I was back in the death chamber. There was this

528
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 2: buzzing sound I used to hear. It was the buzzing

529
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 2: sound of all that electricity, and it just came at me.

530
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: I really really really wanted it to just go away,

531
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 2: and it just didn't. So two thousand and three I

532
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 2: saw The Exonerated and I realized, I really need to

533
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 2: talk to walteron Rhads because that play basically says Walton

534
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 2: Rhoades murdered Tripper Black and Constable Irwin, and he was

535
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 2: on the lamb at the time. He was somebody who

536
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 2: was a fugitive from justice, but I was a private

537
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 2: detective and I tracked him down and then went and

538
00:27:57,640 --> 00:27:59,479
Speaker 2: I talked to him. But that visit did not go

539
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 2: very well, and it deeply, deeply frightened me, and so

540
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 2: then I really did put it away. And then one

541
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 2: Sunday morning, I was reading The New York Times at

542
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,640
Speaker 2: my own kitchen table in my bathroom and I saw

543
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 2: this story again and I just my husband said to me,

544
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 2: you know, I think you're gonna have to face this.

545
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 2: I tried and tried and tried to put it away,

546
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 2: and it just it really felt like I wasn't going

547
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 2: to be able to do that until I turned around

548
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 2: and faced it. I had a murder mystery inside my

549
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 2: own life that I just had this song.

550
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: When we go back to Sonny being released, he is

551
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: executed in ninety and you have this experience. First of all,

552
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: did anything come, any sort of reform come from what happened,

553
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: you know with the electric chair? Old Sparky they called it, And.

554
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 2: Now I hate that nickname. It's so no dismissive. No,

555
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 2: not immediately. There were other incidents. I testified in a

556
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 2: couple of trials about subsequent chair malfunctions. And then there

557
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 2: was an inmate who was very over He was very heavy,

558
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 2: he was very large man. They executed him and during

559
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 2: his execution in the electric chair, he bled and there

560
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 2: had been because of the there was just blood all

561
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 2: the way down his shirt. Because of the litigation that

562
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 2: they've been having about chair malfunctions. His attorneys were able

563
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 2: to take photographs and they did so, they took photographs

564
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: of him in the chair having been electrocuted, covered in blood.

565
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 2: And then there was another there's more litigation about is

566
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 2: this a constitutional thing to do in violation of the

567
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 2: Amendment or not, and the Supreme Court ruled that yeah,

568
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 2: it's constitutional. But in the dissent, Justice lander Shaw attached

569
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 2: to the photographs and I was like, once you get

570
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 2: a look at what it looks like, then no, no way.

571
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: And so the warrants in Florida were you were sentenced

572
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 2: to die with electricity, and they just kind of said,

573
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 2: or if you want, we'll do atal injection. And so

574
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if anybody's chosen the electric chair since then.

575
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: When Sonny is released in ninety three, did she give

576
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: interviews or did you talk to her at that point

577
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: or were you already in construction and out of this

578
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: world completely? Yes?

579
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 2: I was. I was out of the world completely, and

580
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 2: I was really determined to stay out of the world completely.

581
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 2: I was a detective. I just was working as a

582
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 2: construction worker in California. I was paying penance in the way,

583
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: you know, carrying heavy things upstairs.

584
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: When did you make the switch to being a private detective,

585
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: which I will say is secretly my dream job, I

586
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: think is being a private You're going and I know

587
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: you're going to ruin it and say it's not as

588
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: great as you think it is, aren't you.

589
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 2: I'm sure I could disabuse you of that notion.

590
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: I'm not going to listen. So you made the switch.

591
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: You said, I'm tired of pennants and I'm tired of

592
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: carrying heavy things up the stairs, and you wanted to

593
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: kind of take a little bit of a step back

594
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: into that world. Yeah.

595
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 2: I had actually went back to journalism briefly because I

596
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 2: entered my back and then I ended up with a

597
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 2: friend in San Francisco who he was a journalist, and

598
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 2: then he was working as a stringer for one of

599
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 2: the agencies out there, and they wanted to hire a

600
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 2: woman because it's a good job for a woman, because

601
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 2: of the exact same things that can make being a

602
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,719
Speaker 2: woman in the working world very difficult. Being you know,

603
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 2: underestimated or talked over, considered not very bright, or not

604
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 2: capable of really understanding all those things are flying under

605
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 2: the radar is a huge advantage as a detective, and

606
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 2: so it's actually a really good job for women. I

607
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 2: signed on and just immediately I was like yes, because

608
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,719
Speaker 2: it's very much like journalism. I already had the skill set,

609
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 2: and then suddenly I was traveling everywhere and working on

610
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 2: on cases in a way that were I found very interesting.

611
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: This puts you back into the line of danger in

612
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:52,479
Speaker 1: a way that you've never had before. That didn't frighten you,

613
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: considering the world you had seen already in person, and.

614
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 2: Probably should have. I just didn't, you know. I just

615
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 2: really liked getting out there. They walked a lot in

616
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, which is a really easy place to be

617
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 2: a private detective because it's the desert's the sunshine. It's

618
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 2: like general, I'll talk to you. And also I think

619
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 2: one of the things about being a private detective is

620
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 2: that generally we come to people and it's important, you know.

621
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, if somebody shows up at your door

622
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: and they've flown in and they need to talk to you,

623
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 2: and they say who they are, why they're there, what's

624
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 2: at stake, what you know, how you might be involved.

625
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 2: Things happen that you have information about that you can't control.

626
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 2: What you know, and so a lot a lot of

627
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 2: people say, Okay, yeah, that's important, I'll talk about.

628
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: It well, And you don't have the baggage of being

629
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: a police officer or a police investigator, you know that

630
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: comes with, you know, the reputation and the controversy and

631
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: everything else. A private detective is kind of of a

632
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: cool thing. And yeah, I can I could absolutely see that.

633
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: I don't feel like private detectives have some sort of

634
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: toward reputation.

635
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 2: I think with private detectives without a law enforcement background

636
00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 2: work like journalists from a journalist. There's a lot of

637
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 2: us now, in part because of what's happened to the

638
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 2: field of journalism, but just the way that the industry

639
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 2: has really changed, which is a whole other conversation like why,

640
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 2: you know, why did did private business have a benefit

641
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 2: of all of our incredible skills. You know, we should

642
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: be able to use them for the public good. But

643
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 2: I think there's a different interviewing style. I think a

644
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 2: lot of people who are trained to law enforcement just

645
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 2: do it the job differently, and so there's the I

646
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 2: think there's some ways in which, you know, sort of

647
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 2: a civilian trained person has a different approach that can

648
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 2: be really helpful. But we obviously worked to the same standards.

649
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 2: In my company. We work for attorneys, and so we

650
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 2: are covered by privilege and we you know, we have

651
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 2: to meet the courts candors for a misability. It's definitely

652
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 2: and we're licensed, so it's a regulated profession. But it

653
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 2: also I think if you don't come from it from

654
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 2: the law enforcement background you have, it's just a slightly

655
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 2: softer touch. Possibly.

656
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: How many years were you a private detective not considering

657
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: taking on Jesse's case until you finally until your husband

658
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: said I think you need to take your skills and

659
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: put them on this case that's been haunting you for

660
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: more than a decade.

661
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 2: Yes, almost twenty years.

662
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so the is it the twenty twenty that

663
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: comes out. No, it was you said one of the

664
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: fictionalized accounts that comes out that finally says I need

665
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: to look into Walter.

666
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 2: Oh, so I actually talked with Walter before I witnessed

667
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 2: Jesse to Pharaoh's execution.

668
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: I want to get back to that. You said it

669
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: was a bad interview. Can you give me more details

670
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: about that.

671
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I when I first was assigned, you know,

672
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: I got the assignment to witness Jesse to Pharaoh's execution.

673
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 2: I tried to find out everything I could about the case.

674
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 2: I was a pretty much of a cub reporter, though,

675
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 2: so I didn't have the skill set that I do now.

676
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 2: What I did is I read through old clips. I

677
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 2: noted that there was some serious questions about the conviction,

678
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 2: and specifically that Walter Roads had testified against him and

679
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: then he had confessed, and then he had recanted his confession.

680
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 2: To talk to Sonny, she said no. I asked to

681
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 2: talk to Jesse. He said no, but Walter said yes.

682
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 2: And so a couple of days or weeks before the execution,

683
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 2: shortly before and I think it was about a week

684
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 2: and a half, I went to where Walter was incarcerated

685
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 2: and I talked to him. Wow, and I as a

686
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 2: cub reporter, I just completely believed him. He told me

687
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,439
Speaker 2: that he, yes, he had confessed, but that was under

688
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: duress and he just you know, he went back to

689
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,240
Speaker 2: his trial testimony, which is that he had been standing

690
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 2: with his hands in the air while Jesse and Sunny

691
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 2: murdered Trooper Black and Constable Irwin. And I just know

692
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 2: it was my first time in a prison. It wasn't

693
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:42,320
Speaker 2: like a you know, a telephone through a plate glass

694
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 2: or anything. I was walked down a corridor and I

695
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 2: was locked in a room with him. We sat down,

696
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 2: we talked for like, I don't know, a couple of hours,

697
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 2: and I just I just kind of thought, you know

698
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 2: what I can tell. I can tell this guy is

699
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 2: telling me the truth. And so I went and I

700
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 2: wrote a story that didn't mention that he had confessed

701
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 2: at all. And so then when the news twenty twenty,

702
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety six movie two thousand and three, The Exonerated,

703
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 2: I just thought, my god, I'm just I made such

704
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 2: a huge mistake. I did make a mistake. It's a

705
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,919
Speaker 2: mistake to just take someone at their word, to think

706
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 2: that you can feel it somehow, to think that you've

707
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 2: got some kind of truth divining instrument inside you that

708
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: can tell you whether someone's lying to you or not.

709
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 2: You have to look at the facts. You have to

710
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 2: put the pieces of the puzzle together. Maybe they'll tell

711
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 2: you something you don't want to know, but you still

712
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 2: want to know it. So when I came back to

713
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 2: investigate the case a long time later, with nineteen ninety

714
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 2: to twenty eleven, but to twenty fifteen, which is when

715
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 2: I finally started working on it. I was older, I

716
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 2: was wiser, and I was really determined to not make

717
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 2: that same mistake again, to really really really listen to

718
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 2: what I was being told, what the evidence was saying,

719
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 2: to find everything, to talk to everybody, to just keep going.

720
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: Was Walter's confession in seventy seven? Did that line up

721
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: with the physical evidence or did that line up with

722
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: anything that Sonny said or Jesse said.

723
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 2: That first confession was it was alleged. It was turned

724
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 2: reported by two inmates at the prison amputee clinic where

725
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 2: he was alleged to have confessed to them.

726
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: So informants was problematic, I'm assuming, and then he recanted.

727
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: So you now start to work on the book. Where

728
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 1: do you start? Do you start with getting the memory

729
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: of this execution out of your head and onto the

730
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: page and then moving on or do you leave that

731
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: for the last or is it chronological.

732
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 2: In terms of investigating a case or even.

733
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: Just write even writing it anything.

734
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, writing was really hard. But what I started with

735
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 2: investigation that felt good because that was about facts. That

736
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 2: was good with the facts. It was the feelings that

737
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 2: came up that were really hard for me. But I

738
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 2: started in the Baro County Courthouse and I went down

739
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 2: there and I asked for the boxes for the case file.

740
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 2: They were all the same case number, A, B and C,

741
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 2: you know, the same case number. And they brought me

742
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 2: in these boxes that had been so clearly just completely

743
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 2: like rifled through over the years. Everything was out of order.

744
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 2: Everything was because there's been a lot of interest in

745
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 2: the case. A lot of people have come through there.

746
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 2: And I sat there for oh gosh a while and

747
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 2: just read every single piece of paper and copied a

748
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 2: lot of the papers, and I came up with that

749
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 2: stack of the Davids that I mentioned that were one

750
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 2: of Jesse's appeals. I think it was in the late

751
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties. His lawyer brought those halfidavits from people to say, essentially,

752
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 2: you know, was he was trying to get out from

753
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 2: under his under his death sentence. He was I don't

754
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 2: think he was under a warrant at the time. He

755
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: just was trying to get his death sentence overturned. And

756
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 2: I started with them because again in my experience as

757
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 2: an investigator, you know, if you can just get back

758
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 2: to the people at the time, that's what I really

759
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 2: wanted to do, so I started going around and talking

760
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,760
Speaker 2: to people. Interestingly, he did. Jessie did have an investigator

761
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 2: at the trial nineteen seventy six, and it was Tom Pearce,

762
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 2: who's the person who wrote Cool Hand Bluke. This is

763
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 2: a very famous book, famous prison book. It's a great,

764
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 2: beautifully written book. And I went and I talked to him.

765
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 2: That's where I started. And then I went and I

766
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 2: spoke with Jesse's playboy bunny friend. And from there I

767
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 2: talked to who had a bunch of letters that he'd

768
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 2: written to her. She gave them to me, and then

769
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,879
Speaker 2: I kind of went out into I had expected that

770
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:15,839
Speaker 2: it was going to be, you know, me, a couple

771
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 2: of files, a couple of interviews, But what I very

772
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 2: quickly stumbled into was the nineteen seventy six sort of

773
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 2: cocaine underworld of South Florida at a time when it

774
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 2: was pre professional. It was a bunch of basically high

775
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,720
Speaker 2: school friends who had stumbled into this very high stakes,

776
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 2: high profit, very dangerous gig, and they were very dangerous people.

777
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 2: And so that was the world that I sort of

778
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 2: quickly found myself, and the people who had survived that environment,

779
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 2: who were now older High went to them and asked

780
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 2: them about Jesse and Sonny and Walter. I talked to

781
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 2: Jesse's lawyer. I talked to the prosecutor's investigator. I talked

782
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 2: to the police officer who stopped everybody at the roadblock.

783
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:00,839
Speaker 2: I talked with the police officer who was in charge

784
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 2: of little Eric after they were at the roadblock. I

785
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 2: just really I took every name from all the police

786
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 2: reports and all the affidavits, and I really went through

787
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 2: everybody that I possibly could. That's the other thing I

788
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 2: did is I went and I was given access to

789
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 2: the records at the Roward County Prosecutor's office, which was amazing.

790
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 2: So they gave me all of their boxes to look through,

791
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 2: and so I was able to have all the police reports,

792
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 2: all of the interviews, they were all tapes, they were transcribed.

793
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 2: I got records copies of all of those, and I

794
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 2: just sat and they went through all of them and again,

795
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,400
Speaker 2: you know, put all the different pieces together. Everything that

796
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 2: I looked at sort of turned over another piece, and

797
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 2: then I went on from there.

798
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: Tell me about your interview with Sonny. How did that go?

799
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 1: Did you find her believable?

800
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 2: I fell in love with Sonny.

801
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so yes I did.

802
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 2: I just absolutely fell in love with her. But then

803
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 2: I came away from it. So I found her in Ireland.

804
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:55,800
Speaker 2: Throughout country. It doesn't have databases, so I wasn't possible

805
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 2: to like in the United States, where you sort of

806
00:40:57,600 --> 00:40:59,399
Speaker 2: can know a little bit about somebody and track them

807
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: down on the Internet whatever, that's not true. There's privacy

808
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 2: laws in Ireland, so I wasn't able to do that. Peter,

809
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,840
Speaker 2: my husband and I, we worked together. He found this

810
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 2: very remote part of Ireland listed for her as a

811
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 2: on who is you know what, the Internet registration. So

812
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 2: we went out there and we went door to door

813
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 2: and asked people, and we found her over another mountaintop

814
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 2: and another even or ruraler part of Ireland and showed

815
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 2: up there and talked to her and Peter Pringle, who

816
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 2: he passed away. I think it was the year before last,

817
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 2: but he was a live then and so he had

818
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 2: also been convicted of murdering a police officer and he

819
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 2: was also he served on Ireland's death row and he

820
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 2: was released. His sentence was overturned because the prosecution had

821
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 2: not disclosed evidence. So the two of them had very

822
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 2: similar legal cases. I thought she was a warm and

823
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 2: lovely person. I really did. But then I came away

824
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 2: from it and I was looking at my notes, and

825
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 2: I realized that she told me that right before he

826
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 2: was murdered, Chipper Black Jew has gone. And so that

827
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 2: was a piece of testimony recollection on her part that

828
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 2: made me understand the case in a different way. And

829
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 2: that's when I went back and realized that I had

830
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 2: more work to do.

831
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: When you get to the end of this book and

832
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,760
Speaker 1: you've written it, and you've sent off your first draft

833
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,919
Speaker 1: to your editor, and you're waiting for those notes back,

834
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you know you were on edge trying

835
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: to figure out what that was going to be. Like,

836
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: are you thinking in your head at some point like

837
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:36,439
Speaker 1: I do, God, I wish I had this What did

838
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: I miss? You know? Does that haunt you with this

839
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 1: case like it does me, because it haunts me with

840
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: every book I do. What did I miss? What more

841
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: could I have done?

842
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 2: It's the hardest thing in the world, I think, to

843
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 2: push send on a book manuscript, you know, because there's

844
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 2: a point at which it's done and you just want

845
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 2: to keep going, and it's a hard thing to let go.

846
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 2: So yes, all the time. I think I wish i'd

847
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:00,919
Speaker 2: done that, you know, written it differently. You know, there's

848
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 2: things that I wish I had done. I think if

849
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 2: I had had another I spent a year on this investigation.

850
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 2: If I had had two more years, I probably would

851
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 2: have maybe kept going. But I tried to really be

852
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 2: as thorough as I could.

853
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you have offered readers a deeper

854
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: understanding of the case and whether this really was a

855
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 1: wrongful execution and has the wrong person been put to death?

856
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 1: But then you've got the real killer, who I know

857
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 1: we think is behind bars, but still you know who

858
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: has kind of gotten away with it. Do you feel

859
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,399
Speaker 1: like you'll give readers a pretty good sense of what

860
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: might have happened.

861
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I don't want to. I don't want to

862
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,720
Speaker 2: give anyone the impression that I think Well two Roads

863
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 2: was guilty because I don't. Okay, I think he's he

864
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 2: made a lot of judgment calls that were wrong. I'm

865
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 2: not sure that I don't think he testified. He definitely,

866
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,399
Speaker 2: I think said he saw things that he later said

867
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 2: he didn't see. But I don't think he murdered the

868
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 2: police officers. Okay, thing that I hope people take away

869
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 2: from the book is the sort of the way that

870
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 2: we have merged in our discussion of the death penalty.

871
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,959
Speaker 2: We have merged actual in a sense with wrongful convictions.

872
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 2: And I think that's an incredibly important thing that we

873
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 2: should untangle and start talking about the death penalty specifically

874
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 2: and criminal justice in general in a way that is

875
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 2: a little bit braver and much more accurate. You know,

876
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 2: I think that somebody's conviction is overturned because of a

877
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 2: procedural violation.

878
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: That's just different technicality.

879
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 2: They're important. Wrongful convictions like violating Miranda, violating Brady, those

880
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 2: are really important. Those are the laws that do protect

881
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 2: us all.

882
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: You know.

883
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 2: I think people think the death penalty cases as something that,

884
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 2: you know, sort of in this completely separate realm. But

885
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 2: the thing about the way that they're litigated and the

886
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 2: complications they have sort of legal implications for all of us.

887
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 2: And certainly, you know, the idea that the prosecution should

888
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 2: not withhold evidence from the defense that affects every case

889
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 2: at every level. Yeah, but I do think that the

890
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:07,360
Speaker 2: way that we started to talk about innocence is just misleading,

891
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 2: and I really really hope that we can start to address,

892
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 2: you know, the very complicated issue of the death penalty,

893
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:16,959
Speaker 2: whether people are forward or against it in a way

894
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 2: that actually it takes innocence. You know, this kind of

895
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 2: innocence issue doesn't just cloud everything all the time.

896
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 1: I think my listeners know this by now. My father

897
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 1: started the actual Innocence Clinic at the University of Texas

898
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: before he died in two thousand and five. I ended

899
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 1: up teaching a class with journalism students and law school students,

900
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: and I took I took both sets of students to

901
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 1: prisons to interview potential clients, and I read through all

902
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 1: of the screening surveys and everything. And you know, my

903
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: dad and I used to talk about junk science and

904
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:52,240
Speaker 1: we would just talk about how the penal system works.

905
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: And he would say that he would rather one hundred

906
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: murderers go free than one innocent person, you know, be

907
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 1: behind bars, which is you know. I told my students that,

908
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: and they kind of like, it's hard for them to

909
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: wrap their head around. And I said, you know, maybe

910
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: you can dismiss that one person until it's your brother

911
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: or you, or your mother or somebody in your life.

912
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: Did you get something out of this? I don't know

913
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: if closure is the right word. But what did writing

914
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: this book, sending it off, seeing it published, and then

915
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 1: finishing your tour, and then taking a breath, What did

916
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 1: that conclusion do for you in the scheme of how

917
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: much of an impact Jesse has had on your life?

918
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 2: Wow, that is an amazing question. I set out to

919
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:41,399
Speaker 2: find out the facts of the case, as I've said,

920
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 2: what I ended up with is something that's so much,

921
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 2: so much more than that, you know. I ended up

922
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 2: with an understanding of the ways in which the justice

923
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 2: system I feel needs to change the complexities of the argument.

924
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 2: I ended up with a It's going to sound a

925
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 2: little carney, but it comes from having shown up on

926
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,720
Speaker 2: so many doorsteps and said I'm here to talk about

927
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 2: and having people say, yes, I will talk to you.

928
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:07,759
Speaker 2: Is that truth really does matter? Actually, you know, we

929
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 2: kind of we're not post truth in our hearts, I

930
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 2: don't think. And for me, I also realized that I

931
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 2: think the effect on it's on investigators and also on

932
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,399
Speaker 2: journalists and a lot of other people, many, many, many

933
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 2: people in our country have seen very violent things. I

934
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 2: spent many years I'm understanding how that affected me, until

935
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 2: I just turned and I walked directly towards it, and

936
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 2: I realized how much weight I'd been carrying with it,

937
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 2: how difficult it was, how much it had constricted my

938
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 2: life and my ability to feel joy. And I think

939
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 2: that one of the things that happened to me is

940
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 2: when I was writing my book is I had a

941
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 2: full on panic attack. I'd never had one before, but

942
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 2: I had an absolutely full on panic attack about two

943
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,319
Speaker 2: years into writing it, and I finally sought help in

944
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 2: the form of EMDR, which is for post traumatic stress,

945
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 2: and that was really really freeing for me. One of

946
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 2: the things I realized is that it's not a question

947
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,879
Speaker 2: of processing the emotions. It's a question of helping sort

948
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:09,239
Speaker 2: of my wiring in my brain, literally the circuits in

949
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,839
Speaker 2: my brain, to stop reacting to the memory as if

950
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,360
Speaker 2: it's happening now. Timestamp put it in a file. I

951
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 2: can take it out and look at it, but it's not.

952
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 2: It's not an unexploded landmine. But every so often I

953
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 2: step on and it blows up my life. That was

954
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,959
Speaker 2: really important. And if I hadn't if I hadn't had

955
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 2: to go through, you know, a year of talking about

956
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 2: Jesse to Pharaoh and the electric chair and the flames

957
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:35,840
Speaker 2: and the smoke. I would have probably gone through my

958
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 2: whole life not understanding the effect that it had on me.

959
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 2: And now when I read about people who've witnessed violent things,

960
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 2: which happens all the time, I just really really want

961
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 2: people to know that the treatment is there. It doesn't hurt,

962
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 2: you don't even have to process it. You're just kind

963
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 2: of re wiring your brain through the methods of rim

964
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 2: sleep and it just really really helps. And so that's

965
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 2: the other thing that I learned is, Wow, don't be

966
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 2: walking wounded in this regard, because you don't have to.

967
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

968
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,719
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

969
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget. There are

970
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast Tenfold More

971
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

972
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has

973
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.

974
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed

975
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by

976
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: Nick Toga, Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff, and

977
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More Wicked,

978
00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:59,959
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Wicked Words pap