Speaker 1: A morning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
Speaker 1: that may be disturbing to some listeners. I was charged
Speaker 1: with nine counts of aggravated murder. Almost one year after
Speaker 1: the April nineteen ninety three Lucasville Uprising, Keith Lamar twenty
Speaker 1: five learns he's been indicted by a grand jury for
Speaker 1: the deaths of five men. I was shocked that it came.
Speaker 1: It was about nine to ten of them, and it
Speaker 1: came on ceremony backs to me. The authority and the
Speaker 1: huttered up around my sale and hand me its document
Speaker 1: by you know, four or five inches thick, and you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like Keith Lamar, you know, so the whole
Speaker 1: range could hear and everything, you know, And I read
Speaker 1: just enough to see the nine counts, and I just
Speaker 1: kind of lost my ship. But yeah, this disbelief, shock
Speaker 1: bewildered compus in denial in the Angle Game, in the
Speaker 1: Angler Stay, I'm Leah Rothman. This is the real Killer?
Speaker 1: Episode three? Who is Keith Lamar? It's Friday morning. I'm
Speaker 1: heading out to go see Keith, starting route to Ohio
Speaker 1: State Penitentiary. My stomach hurts, My stomach hurts. I don't
Speaker 1: feel good, but I'm looking forward to meeting Keith in person.
Speaker 1: It's just the whole prisoned aspect of it that's quite daunting.
Speaker 1: At the next top sign, turn night. The destination is
Speaker 1: on your right. Ohio State Penitentiary. Aved Okay, I'm here.
Speaker 1: I turned off the big microphone because I'm afraid of
Speaker 1: getting in trouble. They have cameras everywhere I am about
Speaker 1: to go into the prison. Damn, it's a scary looking place.
Speaker 1: As a producer, I've been inside many prisons, but this
Speaker 1: time it's different, and I'm surprised how nervous I am
Speaker 1: from the outside. The Ohio State Penitentiary, a supermax prison,
Speaker 1: which I've also heard people call a super deprivation prison,
Speaker 1: is like no prison I've ever seen before. It's an
Speaker 1: absolute fortress. I walk from the parking lot to a small,
Speaker 1: outdoor steel cage. I'm buzzed in. The door slams behind me.
Speaker 1: I'm essentially locked in that cage until they let me out.
Speaker 1: I will not be allowed to record my meeting with Keith.
Speaker 1: I'm not even allowed to bring in pen and paper.
Speaker 1: Once I get through security, I take an elevator to
Speaker 1: the visiting room. While I wait I talk with a
Speaker 1: corrections officer. I'm sure his body camera is recording me
Speaker 1: as I answer all of his questions about why I'm
Speaker 1: there and how I know Keith. About twenty minutes later,
Speaker 1: Keith appears, handcuffed and escorted by two officers. He walks
Speaker 1: into his side of our glass and metal enclosed visitors room,
Speaker 1: Room Number sixteen. The officer's uncuff Keith through a hole
Speaker 1: in the door, then leave. Keith reaches through the small
Speaker 1: opening in the glass that separates us to shake my
Speaker 1: hand and we say our first in person hellos. Keith
Speaker 1: is tall, like six three and fit. He's bald, clean shaven,
Speaker 1: and has a salt and pepper short mustache and goatee.
Speaker 1: He's wearing a blue short sleeved shirt over a navy
Speaker 1: long sleeved thermal shirt, navy pants, and brown boots, and
Speaker 1: he has black framed glasses. Also, he has a nice
Speaker 1: smile and an infectious laugh. Even though we've talked more
Speaker 1: than six hours up until this point, meeting in person
Speaker 1: could be weird, but it's not. I'm at ease with
Speaker 1: him right off the bat. We have coffee and Keith
Speaker 1: eats a chicken sandwich and a Caesar salad that I
Speaker 1: buy from the vending machines. I'm way too wound up
Speaker 1: to eat. We talk for about three and a half hours,
Speaker 1: mostly about his case. I share with him a little
Speaker 1: bit about my background. He shares some of his with me.
Speaker 1: I tell him about Melissa and Rodney from our first
Speaker 1: season and why I wanted to tell their story, and
Speaker 1: we laugh about the one guard who tried to trick
Speaker 1: me into leaving him the prepaid debit card I put
Speaker 1: money on for my visit with Keith. There's this one
Speaker 1: really awkward moment when we're leaving. He's facing me being
Speaker 1: cuffed by officers, and I'm not sure if I should
Speaker 1: leave or wait for him to leave first, so I
Speaker 1: start backing up doing this weird sort of stuttard goodbye dance.
Speaker 1: Keith laughs and tells me it's okay to go, so
Speaker 1: I do. When I get back to the car, I
Speaker 1: immediately turn on the microphone. I'm pretty flustered. Okay, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I just got out of the prison. Super Max,
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying place. The level of secure purity is crazy,
Speaker 1: but the place it's like, I mean, the time with
Speaker 1: Keith was so easy, you almost forget you know, and
Speaker 1: he even said it's like it's really really bad in
Speaker 1: parts of the prison. What else, Let's see. He was
Speaker 1: funny and thoughtful, and it was a real conversation. I
Speaker 1: mean it was hours and hours. It feel like stuff
Speaker 1: is going to come to me when I get back
Speaker 1: to my hotel. I remember something interesting, Keith said, so
Speaker 1: I turned the mic back on. He thinks that he
Speaker 1: may know of a different motive for why the four
Speaker 1: in L six were killed, and he wants me to
Speaker 1: look into it. Remember, Keith's been accused of leading a
Speaker 1: death squad in the early hours of the uprising, supposedly
Speaker 1: going sell to sell in L six, killing four snitches
Speaker 1: who had been locked up for their own protection. But
Speaker 1: he says not so fast. Keith wonders whether those alleged
Speaker 1: snitches were snitches at all. Maybe they were murdered because
Speaker 1: they were actually child molesters or rapists, the most hated
Speaker 1: in the prison population, or maybe the state decided to
Speaker 1: label the victims snitches so they would appear more sympathetic
Speaker 1: to a jury. I don't know if there's anything to this,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to look into it regardless. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I learned from Keith on our next call. My exit
Speaker 1: that day looked as awkward as it felt hopefully for
Speaker 1: one hundred years. Like, you know, that was like a movie,
Speaker 1: you know, like that was going off to the arm
Speaker 1: me going apply the war and yeah, what do most
Speaker 1: people do? Just walk away? They say, you know, I don't. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was nice. It was a really nice Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a nice visit. And it's a confusing feeling I
Speaker 1: still can't shake. I mean, how can this seemingly gracious
Speaker 1: and kind man be capable of the vicious murders he's
Speaker 1: been accused of? And look, I've worked in true crime
Speaker 1: long enough to know that some of the most infamous
Speaker 1: killers are charming as hell. But we as humans want
Speaker 1: to believe the best in people, right, I know I do. Anyway,
Speaker 1: after that visit with Keith, the next day, I head
Speaker 1: out to meet with someone else. Starting route to Athens,
Speaker 1: proceed to Columbus Road and turn left. I drive three
Speaker 1: plus hours to Athens, Ohio to meet Herman Carson, one
Speaker 1: half of Keith's trial attorney team. The destination is on
Speaker 1: your left. Herman and I meet in a conference room
Speaker 1: at one of the local hotels right around checkout time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's the vacuum. Yep. How's it killing your recording? It's
Speaker 1: killing it. Herman Carson, a father of three daughters and
Speaker 1: grandfather of seven, was a defense attorney for almost twenty
Speaker 1: nine years. Why did you want to become an attorney?
Speaker 1: What about the law intrigued you or excited you. I
Speaker 1: don't know that any of it excited me. I see
Speaker 1: it and still see it as a helping profession. Herman
Speaker 1: was also the head of the local Public Defender's office
Speaker 1: under the director of a ten county branch for the
Speaker 1: Office of the Ohio Public Defender before retiring in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Primarily timed my retirement to being able to travel to
Speaker 1: Kentucky to watch my two oldest grandsons play soccer. The
Speaker 1: other half of Keith's trial attorney team is k Robert Toy,
Speaker 1: also from Athens. I speak with him separately over zoom.
Speaker 1: What does the case stand for? Kung Fu? Oh, that's
Speaker 1: a joke. That stands for Carrie k r r Y.
Speaker 1: Now that's a female's name. So when I grew up
Speaker 1: it was a name my parents like. But when I
Speaker 1: went with my family, I'm Carrie. But when I jerked around.
Speaker 1: It's kung fu. In nineteen ninety four, Bob and Herman
Speaker 1: will team up, which is new territory for them. In
Speaker 1: the ten years before that, they faced off in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: Herman as a defense attorney and Bob as a prosecutor.
Speaker 1: I was more a persecutor than I was a prosecutor.
Speaker 1: You were tough, to say the least. Oh. Yeah. After
Speaker 1: spending fourteen years as a prosecuting attorney, Bob was appointed
Speaker 1: as the Athens County prosecutor in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two. Later that year, he ran for public office,
Speaker 1: but narrowly lost, so he opened up his private practice.
Speaker 1: The judge who is assigned to Keith's case, Judge Fred Crowe,
Speaker 1: knows Bob professionally and asks him if he'll represent Keith.
Speaker 1: Bob says yes, then asks Herman to be his co consul.
Speaker 1: Their first order of business is to meet with their client. Well,
Speaker 1: I told Bob, I said, you know, I said, this
Speaker 1: may not go very well. I said, because we're going
Speaker 1: to be telling mister lamar Hi. I were two white
Speaker 1: guys that the government has sent to help you, I said,
Speaker 1: And I don't think it'll go over very well. We'll
Speaker 1: see Herman isn't wrong. Keith is leery of them both,
Speaker 1: I mean Herman's carlson. My initial impression was that he
Speaker 1: was just because you look like a typical redneck at
Speaker 1: the handlebar. Must ask the cowboy, must ask Robertian know
Speaker 1: struck me as one of those slippery types. That's hardly
Speaker 1: a vote of confidence. But they're all he's got. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: neither Herman nor Bob feel optimistic about the case. Here's Herman.
Speaker 1: When they dealt the cards, we didn't get any good ones.
Speaker 1: It's a highly publicized situation. The only positive thing you
Speaker 1: could say is at least they didn't charging with participating
Speaker 1: in the killing of the correctional officer. That was the
Speaker 1: only plus I could think of. At least we're not
Speaker 1: charged with that. But that's yeah, it was pretty much
Speaker 1: stacked against you. The prosecutors offered him what we thought
Speaker 1: was a fantastic deal, which would be two murders to
Speaker 1: be concurrent with the murder he was already doing. And
Speaker 1: I know my conversation with Keith was, Keith, hey, if
Speaker 1: we got a parking ticket out here when we come
Speaker 1: to visit you, our penalty would be worse than yours.
Speaker 1: And you know, he stood up and he's a stand
Speaker 1: up guy, and he says, no, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: because I did not do it. Herman Carson and Bob
Speaker 1: Toy will be representing Keith when he goes on trial.
Speaker 1: What physical evidence did they have against Keith? Lamar zero.
Speaker 1: They had zero physical evidence. Five brutal killings, just nothing.
Speaker 1: So if there's no physical evidence tying Keith to the
Speaker 1: crimes he's been charged with, how did he end up here?
Speaker 1: Here's Herman. My belief is that Keith in a small
Speaker 1: core group pardon my language, but when they were approached
Speaker 1: in the investigation, they said, fuck you, we're not talking.
Speaker 1: It don't matter what we know, we're not doing it.
Speaker 1: And from there it was like, Okay, I'll put this
Speaker 1: on somebody. You're going to be the target, targeted or not.
Speaker 1: What the state has in their arsenal are those interviews
Speaker 1: conducted by the Ohio State Highway Patrol with prisoners who,
Speaker 1: unlike Keith, did cooperate, and in those interviews, several of
Speaker 1: them eventually point the finger at Keith and name him
Speaker 1: as the quote leader of the death squad. On the surface,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look great for Bob and Herman's defense, but
Speaker 1: their preparation for trial isn't just about sifting through whatever
Speaker 1: evidence there may or may not be. The also need
Speaker 1: to learn more about Keith. Here's Hermann. I want a
Speaker 1: lot of times to see Keith by myself, to get
Speaker 1: to know him, and to get to know his background.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he was out on his own
Speaker 1: when he's fifteen or sixteen, yet an apartment in the
Speaker 1: projects was dealing drugs and more like the serious crime
Speaker 1: that sends Keith at age nineteen to prison in the
Speaker 1: first place. But to understand how Keith got there, you
Speaker 1: first have to understand where he comes from. By the way,
Speaker 1: Keith's audio coming up isn't great. Keith believes that from
Speaker 1: time to time people at the prison will listen in
Speaker 1: and purposely mess with the phone lines or interrupt the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi. There's no way of knowing if that's true
Speaker 1: or not. Let's talk about like early stuff. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about your childhood? Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen sixty nine May thirty, Flush, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine to a single mother, a third of four kids.
Speaker 1: My older brother Nelson, the second oldest brother, Blair, who
Speaker 1: died when I was when he was eight years old
Speaker 1: leukemia being missing myself. And then I have a younger sister, Princess,
Speaker 1: who grew up in this place called Village, my enclave
Speaker 1: on the east side of Cleveland, made up of working
Speaker 1: class people who were working for the most part, and
Speaker 1: the steel meals in factory that was adjacent to our community.
Speaker 1: My grandfather worked at this place called Republic Steal bought
Speaker 1: his own house for twelve thousand dollars in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: from what I understand, And so yeah, that was our
Speaker 1: home here in this little neighborhood. And it was a
Speaker 1: community where, you know, everybody knew each other, just a small,
Speaker 1: tight knit neighborhood. And I stayed there too. I was
Speaker 1: around I would say, nine years old. You know. By then,
Speaker 1: my mother had been every four a few years to
Speaker 1: this man named Larry Morris, my stepdad. Describe your mom
Speaker 1: for me in those early years. My mom, whose name
Speaker 1: is Katherine Lamar, she was just, you know, a sweet
Speaker 1: woman and the woman you know, but you know that
Speaker 1: tenderness was something that she doled out and and um
Speaker 1: in pieces, you know. So you know, one time in particular,
Speaker 1: I was around nine or ten years old. I was
Speaker 1: sick and stayed home from school. Her and I watched
Speaker 1: this movie called Sparkle was Dinah Ross, and we watched
Speaker 1: it over and over. We had a few, you know,
Speaker 1: experiences along those lines. She wasn't like a terrible person,
Speaker 1: she just was terribly trouble. I remember my earliest memories
Speaker 1: of my mother. She was always in some form or
Speaker 1: another intoxicated. She was always on you know, various peals,
Speaker 1: sleeping peals, diet pills, pay a little. He says he
Speaker 1: didn't learn a lot of this until after his mother
Speaker 1: passed away in twenty fourteen, but he does remember one
Speaker 1: early and awful memory quite clearly. In fact, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was around five, four or five years old,
Speaker 1: we live in this real stuffy, King Kennedy housing projects.
Speaker 1: And one night, you know, I came to I heard
Speaker 1: somebody knocking on the door, and I went to open it.
Speaker 1: You know, the guy bribed me, slid some money under
Speaker 1: the bottom of the door, and I opened the door,
Speaker 1: released the latch, and this man ended up raping my
Speaker 1: mom that night. M Yeah, and you know, um, and
Speaker 1: several days after that, this man was killed by one
Speaker 1: of my mother's boyfriends. And you know, his body was
Speaker 1: blind beneath my beardroom window. And I'm, you know, four
Speaker 1: or five years old, and I you know, we call
Speaker 1: somebody standing behind me and asked, look at what he did.
Speaker 1: Keith is told he is the reason that man was dead.
Speaker 1: How does a child that young even process something like that?
Speaker 1: How can it not leave a lasting effect? Around age nine, Keith,
Speaker 1: his mom, stepdad Larry, and siblings move away from his
Speaker 1: grandparents in the village. Keith says, that's when the real
Speaker 1: struggles begin. I'm growing up with the lights being cut off,
Speaker 1: the heat being cut off. We grew up, you know,
Speaker 1: going through parsal. We didn't have food. And it's around
Speaker 1: this time Keith meets a new friend, Sherman Whaley. Even
Speaker 1: though their homes aren't far in proximity, their lives are
Speaker 1: worlds apart. Focus parentsly are together lived and like this
Speaker 1: wife ticket sense type situation going on. And somehow we
Speaker 1: became friends in the sixth grades, best friends because he
Speaker 1: was kind of exercised too, because he was short. I
Speaker 1: was out sad because I was dirty, and so you know,
Speaker 1: he and I became Queans, short and dirty, you know,
Speaker 1: and we hung at the other every day. His mother
Speaker 1: became like my said logant mother, and I spent the
Speaker 1: night over the house quite a bit. We did everything together,
Speaker 1: you know. He would ride his bike to our house
Speaker 1: pretty much every day. That's Sherman Whaley today. He's a
Speaker 1: park police officer for Cleveland Metroparks and a married father
Speaker 1: of four daughters. We played on the same baseball team,
Speaker 1: so my mom would go pick him up and he
Speaker 1: would spend the night. She would, you know, make us breakfast,
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes she would wash his clothes. I
Speaker 1: remember he had such lovely manners. He never walked in
Speaker 1: my home that he didn't speak. High, mister Whaley, High
Speaker 1: missus Whaley, how were you? That's Carmen Whaley, Sherman's mother,
Speaker 1: also a doting grandmother, writer of poetry and short stories,
Speaker 1: and honestly one of the sweetest women I've ever met.
Speaker 1: And I just remember them always laughing. They were always
Speaker 1: happy together, and they played well together. He didn't have
Speaker 1: a mean bone in his body. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: just the type of kid that was just radiated happiness,
Speaker 1: and I just enjoyed having him in my home. We
Speaker 1: used to put hot dogs and hamburgers on the girl
Speaker 1: when he'd be here, and I had fruit, bananas and
Speaker 1: strawberries and cherries and whatnot and bags of chips. He
Speaker 1: ate good. Yeah. I always took Keith home, and I
Speaker 1: always there was always a feeling of sadness when I
Speaker 1: felt sad when I dropped him off. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was just there that I felt. You just know
Speaker 1: that things aren't the way they really should be. You
Speaker 1: just have that inner feeling, that innate feeling, because because
Speaker 1: when you're a mother, you just know certain things. And
Speaker 1: if I could have nurtured him for a long time,
Speaker 1: I would have done it. But he had a mother,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And he had a family
Speaker 1: and home and whatnot, so you know, I had to
Speaker 1: stay within my parameters and whatnot. One of the most
Speaker 1: dominating and traumatizing figures in Keith's family is his stepfather,
Speaker 1: Larry Morris. He passed away in the late nineties. So
Speaker 1: tell me some of your earliest memories of Lariot. He
Speaker 1: was a musician, he was a drummer, He was from
Speaker 1: New Orleans. He was working, you know, blue collar type person.
Speaker 1: But in terms of his personality and his sensibility, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of mental physical abuse. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time Larry you Now, it seemed like it
Speaker 1: just you know, Um always was present, and you know,
Speaker 1: the beatings were so rampant and arbitrary in my household
Speaker 1: that you know, I really kind of developed was the
Speaker 1: kind of hyper visionlanth Um young person, because I didn't
Speaker 1: know what would result in me being beaten. You know,
Speaker 1: I was playing football with one of my neighbors who
Speaker 1: had asthma, and I was running drills because I was
Speaker 1: a quarter back and he had an asthma attack, and
Speaker 1: somehow I was blamed for that and it was beaten
Speaker 1: to the point, you know where it was it crossed
Speaker 1: over to like a major assault. The bell buckle struck
Speaker 1: me on the right side of my face and I
Speaker 1: can't with the mark even to this day. It wasn't
Speaker 1: even outraged, It was just shock. You know that you
Speaker 1: can be just walking along and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: a trapdoor offense and you just, you know, in a
Speaker 1: different place. What did your mom do or say when
Speaker 1: Larry would hit you? I mean, sadly, she was the
Speaker 1: one who kind of set it up, you know, going
Speaker 1: in the room away on your father to come home,
Speaker 1: and so I can hear the car when they pull
Speaker 1: up in the driveway, to hear the keys turning in
Speaker 1: the door, and I can hear him, you know, mumbling
Speaker 1: with my mother, and I can hear him taking his
Speaker 1: belt off. I can hear all that, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Even right now, the only way he feels
Speaker 1: he can fight back against his stepdad is through the
Speaker 1: one thing that matters to him, my stepfather. He loved football.
Speaker 1: He was a fanatic and playing you know, football, being
Speaker 1: a star athlete, you know, seemed to you know, give
Speaker 1: him something to be proud of, at least doing that
Speaker 1: particular football season, and that, you know, of course made
Speaker 1: me happy. You know, when I was twelve thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: when the beatings, you know, kind of increase in intensity team,
Speaker 1: I quit football to kind of punish him. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, was probably one of the biggest
Speaker 1: mistakes that I made in my life in terms of
Speaker 1: being able to go to college, being able you know,
Speaker 1: you know, to stay out of trouble. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: did that. I stopped playing as a way to punish
Speaker 1: myself father. So with football no longer his focus, Keith
Speaker 1: takes on another hobby of sorts, shoplifting, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: start the way you might think. I started working two
Speaker 1: years old. I had two paper rounds, and this in
Speaker 1: addition to cutting grass in the summertime or shoving the
Speaker 1: snow in the winter, because I had to buy my
Speaker 1: own clothes, you know, school clothes for us. For at least,
Speaker 1: my brother and I wore a pack of six packer
Speaker 1: two stocks and some underwear. That's what we got full school.
Speaker 1: You know, you go to school to learn how to
Speaker 1: do math, read books, and learn about history, but you
Speaker 1: also are learning from your peers. Was socially acceptable how
Speaker 1: to be popular. And one of the lessons that you
Speaker 1: learned coming out of schools that what you have is
Speaker 1: more important than who you are. That was a lesson
Speaker 1: that was driven home to me when I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old. My classmates, all of them, you know, took
Speaker 1: the time to point out to me that, you know,
Speaker 1: my clothes was less than shabby, that I was a
Speaker 1: whole bowl. A bump, called me a bump, you're a bomb.
Speaker 1: You know. The summer of my fifth grade, you're going
Speaker 1: into the sixth grade, I saved up all my money
Speaker 1: and I bought me five hour fits and I was
Speaker 1: saving up, you know, for some shoes, these shoes called creepers,
Speaker 1: black net shoes with a big gum bottom, real cheap shoes,
Speaker 1: but they were in style at this at this particular time,
Speaker 1: and I was saving up. That was the last piece
Speaker 1: to my whole you know, remake, And I'm saving up,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, putting my money in a
Speaker 1: pickle jar above the third shelf in the kitchen counter,
Speaker 1: and turn that my brother had found it, took all
Speaker 1: the money out of it and took my sister to
Speaker 1: the mall for pizza in video game. Now. I was
Speaker 1: devastated because school was starting a week after that, and
Speaker 1: because now the only way I think at these shoes
Speaker 1: is to steal them because I don't have the money.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course, you know I had that
Speaker 1: called stealing the shoes. You know, I wasn't a thief yet.
Speaker 1: That took time, That took repeated try you know a
Speaker 1: few years before I became a thief. But you know,
Speaker 1: that was my first attempt. Keith gets busted shoplifting by
Speaker 1: store managers from time to time. Going to mall jail
Speaker 1: is one thing. Being arrested by Cleveland police and facing
Speaker 1: an actual judge is something very different. I was called
Speaker 1: Joey Ryan and the stolen vehicle with six other individuals
Speaker 1: who had multiple conviction. That I then became an official
Speaker 1: criminal in terms of being in the system, lags into
Speaker 1: you know, the system as a cartie. You know. At thirteen,
Speaker 1: Keith is sent to juvenile detention for six months. I
Speaker 1: was being told what to do in a way that
Speaker 1: I understood. I didn't really have a choice in the matter,
Speaker 1: but everything was ultimately being done to provide structure and
Speaker 1: provide some sense of agency and whatnot. So when I
Speaker 1: came home from the juvenile place and from this situation
Speaker 1: of structure, I was a straight A student. But I
Speaker 1: came home to the same economic situation. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was worse. When I came home, my family had moved
Speaker 1: into a two bedroom department, you know, one board room
Speaker 1: from my parents, one room from my sister, and you know,
Speaker 1: my brother and I would had to live in an
Speaker 1: uninsulated attic you know, electricity or whatever. Needing money, Keith
Speaker 1: turns to a family member for help. I went to
Speaker 1: a favorite undermined and it told her that I wanted
Speaker 1: to start selling marijuana. She of course tried to convince
Speaker 1: me against you know, going down that path. But I
Speaker 1: was determined and I think she saw that, and I
Speaker 1: kind of made the plea that listen, if you don't
Speaker 1: do this for me, I'm a guard here and somebody
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's going to cheat me out of
Speaker 1: my money, you know what I mean. So if you
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to help me now at
Speaker 1: the time, if she altomately relined taught me, you know,
Speaker 1: how to you know, bag it up and everything, and
Speaker 1: you know I didn't look back after that. Kevin Lowry
Speaker 1: knows Keith Lamar better than almost anyone. So tell me
Speaker 1: you and Keith are cousins, right, okay? Um? In reality, uh,
Speaker 1: Keith's brother Nelson Lamar is my my cousin and because
Speaker 1: of that affiliation, we grew up as cousins. On this
Speaker 1: hot and humid night, Kevin, a businessman with a law degree,
Speaker 1: and his wife, Ramona, a civil engineer for the city
Speaker 1: of Cleveland, invite me into their beautiful home in an
Speaker 1: affluent suburb of Cleveland to talk about Keith. Kevin and
Speaker 1: Ramona have been together thirty six years and our parents
Speaker 1: to a daughter and son. Tragically, less than one month
Speaker 1: after this interview is recorded. Kevin dies unexpectedly. Multiple people
Speaker 1: would tell you that they were Keith's best friend, but
Speaker 1: we considered ourselves to be best friends during that time.
Speaker 1: Keith family, you know, they were known throughout the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Our homes were kind of volatile. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to disparage, but we came from an area that
Speaker 1: how can I put it, during the time when we
Speaker 1: came up that some criminal activity wasn't looked down on.
Speaker 1: And obviously Keith had issues at his home that he
Speaker 1: didn't talk about, you know, And so when you would
Speaker 1: see him or I on the street, you know, he
Speaker 1: was always cracking jokes. You know they say people wear
Speaker 1: many masks. He wore a mask at that time, as
Speaker 1: if life was grand. You know, that he was living well,
Speaker 1: that he was doing good. Sometimes people laugh and smile
Speaker 1: to keep from crying. Kevin's wife, Ramona, meets Keith the
Speaker 1: same night. She meets Kevin at a neighborhoods skate and
Speaker 1: dance club called the Plush. She's fifteen at the time.
Speaker 1: People's goofy. During that time, there were quite a few
Speaker 1: nightclubs for kids to go to. So I would see
Speaker 1: him at all thought. So when he said dancing, was
Speaker 1: he a good dancer? He was a good dancer. It
Speaker 1: was just before the break dance era, and he was
Speaker 1: really good at dancing. But Kevin's close relationship with Keith
Speaker 1: causes some problems in Kevin and Ramona's budding romance. Keith
Speaker 1: and I never had any type of like negative words,
Speaker 1: so whenever we were around each other, it's always cords
Speaker 1: a good conversation. So it was more Kevin and I
Speaker 1: bumping heads because I'm saying, hey, let's go do this
Speaker 1: and said, oh, but Ma, Keith are going to go
Speaker 1: do this, And so it was more about him saying,
Speaker 1: I'll see you another day. I'm about to go and
Speaker 1: hang with Keith. I remember one of the areas that
Speaker 1: Keith lived in, which was off one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: third and Angelus here in Cleveland, and they lived in
Speaker 1: a corner house had a third floor. It was a
Speaker 1: store underneath. Keith lived there with his mom and Larry
Speaker 1: and his sister and brother, and Keith and his brother
Speaker 1: slept in that third floor, you know, fighting against the
Speaker 1: elements hot in the summer, freezer cole in the winter,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's when he ended up leaving home.
Speaker 1: But it's not just the elements. Keith is fighting. After
Speaker 1: another horrible altercation with his stepfather Larry, Keith, who is
Speaker 1: fifteen at the time, has had enough. He moves out
Speaker 1: of his parents attic and in with a friend. He
Speaker 1: already had a place, and we were more or less
Speaker 1: used in that place to sell drugs. So I moved
Speaker 1: into the apartment. Around this time, Keith also drops out
Speaker 1: of school. Can you describe a little for me what
Speaker 1: it was like though, being a teenager living in that
Speaker 1: environment in the projects. The attitude was, you know, okay, nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, life isn't fair, so why should we be fair?
Speaker 1: Why should we live while cold where we see that
Speaker 1: you know, it has been already been violated. I started
Speaker 1: carrying a gun when I was about sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: and it was really deep off into the drug trade.
Speaker 1: I was selling cocaine and started snorting cocaine. So I
Speaker 1: got hooked. What I was a drug added without even
Speaker 1: really fully appreciating that I was hooked on drugs, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was, you know, robbing jewelry stores, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of money passed through my hands. You know,
Speaker 1: I had marchdes Bins, Calillaca. I was living really on
Speaker 1: the edge, twenty four seven around the clock. Then a
Speaker 1: devastating event changes everything. It's December second, nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Keith is nineteen years old. Can you tell me about
Speaker 1: what happened? Oh? Yeah, talking, yeah, yeah, So well, I
Speaker 1: had been robbed several times and so in that particular day,
Speaker 1: I was dropped off some drugs and I was in
Speaker 1: the back bedroom counting the money and somebody knocked on
Speaker 1: the door and I heard that and the guy who
Speaker 1: was in the h It was several people in the
Speaker 1: house with me, but one of the guys opened up
Speaker 1: the door and I heard a lot of commotion and
Speaker 1: so I came out. I had my gun in my hand.
Speaker 1: I came out as soon as the guy who was
Speaker 1: in the front ken yat. As soon as he saw me,
Speaker 1: he was raised his gun up and I shot him
Speaker 1: and they would ran out of the department because the
Speaker 1: bullets was lying. Then I got shot in my right
Speaker 1: and I made it to the bottom of the project building,
Speaker 1: so on third floor, but the totter. I made it
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the hallway and I sat down
Speaker 1: on the stairs and my brother called an ambulance and
Speaker 1: then I woke up in the hospital room the next morning,
Speaker 1: handcuffed to the bed. But that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: those out the kind of things that can happen to
Speaker 1: you in that world. You know, you could be ride
Speaker 1: in the hide one moment and literally the next moment,
Speaker 1: you could be dead. And of course you know I
Speaker 1: was stilling illegal drugs. There was no argument that I
Speaker 1: can make when I'm at the court that I was
Speaker 1: standing in my ground or that I was self defense.
Speaker 1: But I was selling drugs. And you can't if your
Speaker 1: hands are dirty. And his name YadA, Kenyada Collins, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why. And was he he was a childhood friend
Speaker 1: or you had known him from when you got he
Speaker 1: was he was a friend. I would call him that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we walked to school together, played basketball together. But he
Speaker 1: was a friend of proximity, if you understand what I mean.
Speaker 1: Twenty year old Kenyada Collins dies as a result of
Speaker 1: two gunshots. When you realized that Kenyada Collins died, yeah,
Speaker 1: what did you feel? No for For certainly on that
Speaker 1: day and for a long time after that, I was
Speaker 1: blocked by the ideal that he was my enemy somebody
Speaker 1: who had came to do me harm, and so I
Speaker 1: was entitled to feel a certain way about what has
Speaker 1: happened between us. I was reaching for some kind of
Speaker 1: justification so that I won't have to feel so bad
Speaker 1: about this thing I've done. Keith pleads guilty and its
Speaker 1: sentenced eighteen years to life. In nineteen eighty nine, Keith
Speaker 1: begins serving his time at Lebanon Correctional Institution in southern Ohio.
Speaker 1: When I first got to Lebanon, I met this guy
Speaker 1: and he took me on his wing, taught me how
Speaker 1: to play chest, taught me how to box, you know,
Speaker 1: and then that, you know, really gave me a foundation
Speaker 1: to start, you know, building up how I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of live my life. So I got my ged
Speaker 1: I wrote to the college pokeground, and at Lebanon, Keith
Speaker 1: finds a small piece of home. It was only a
Speaker 1: handful of people from Cleveland who was down at if
Speaker 1: you were to Cleveland was hung out together. One of
Speaker 1: those guys is George Fazon. You met him in the
Speaker 1: last episode. We both were basically, I don't like the
Speaker 1: same products of our environment. It's just environment we grew
Speaker 1: up in, you know, within a lot of Brigan homes,
Speaker 1: a lot of illegal things going on around us, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately we did succumb to some of those situations that
Speaker 1: were going on in our environment. Tokyo Morgan is there too,
Speaker 1: Irking says elementary school. I ain't ain't gonna lie. Only
Speaker 1: thing change is weight and the height. The guy's a
Speaker 1: very humorous guy. In the end, he got a beautiful
Speaker 1: this position. If a situation go down bad Obat, that's
Speaker 1: what he all said. Man, it ain't even work. So
Speaker 1: he's an ark away and I do the same thing.
Speaker 1: But something happens at Lebanon that challenges that very notion.
Speaker 1: We were starting to have problem with this other group
Speaker 1: of guys from Daton, Ohio. A friend of Keith tells
Speaker 1: him one of the Dayton guys has threatened to kill
Speaker 1: him in prison. That can't go unanswered. A huge fight
Speaker 1: breaks out between the Cleveland guys and the Dayton guys,
Speaker 1: and when it's all over, Keith, George, Tokyo, and some
Speaker 1: of the others are transferred to Lucasville. It's a horrible
Speaker 1: twist of fate. Really turns out Keith's friend's life never
Speaker 1: had been threatened, that fight never needed to happen it
Speaker 1: but based on a lie. Ultimately he said things in
Speaker 1: motions that resulted in us being at you know, arriving
Speaker 1: down Lucasville. Lucasfield was like alcatrash. You went there to die.
Speaker 1: When I got there, a friend of my brothers gave
Speaker 1: me a two hour to play about tour. I mean
Speaker 1: he showed me where all the knives or barry. You know,
Speaker 1: they had knives planted in the ground on the recreation
Speaker 1: yard and they had these little ribbons on the end
Speaker 1: of them, so you can see them before the edge
Speaker 1: of grass or you know, against the defense post or
Speaker 1: wherever they were hid. And knives in the hallways, knives
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. So that let me know, you know,
Speaker 1: like why I need all these knives. That's telling you
Speaker 1: the world that you have entered it into. Prior to
Speaker 1: the uprising, did you have any disciplinary write ups or
Speaker 1: a Lucasville Yeah, but I think I had several somebody
Speaker 1: stole phase on properties. It's clothes and sweatsuits and tennis shoes,
Speaker 1: and we jumped this guy in the kitchen. I got
Speaker 1: it to several fights down in Lucasville. Whenever something did
Speaker 1: happen like when you know, George and I confronted this
Speaker 1: guy about still in his property. That was something that
Speaker 1: obviously we had to respond to because in prison, if
Speaker 1: you don't respond to things like that, now you become
Speaker 1: known for that. People if they want to take something
Speaker 1: from somebody, go take it from Piece and George, they
Speaker 1: won't do anything. If you do something, you could get
Speaker 1: in trouble. But if you don't do something, you're also
Speaker 1: a target. And did you damned if you do, you
Speaker 1: damned if you don't. Exactly, I'm not an angel, and
Speaker 1: so you know I won't shy away from saying about
Speaker 1: telling you about all them sort of shit I've done
Speaker 1: in my life, things that I regret. A lot of regret, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of ship. I wish I can go back
Speaker 1: and we can do. But does matter. He's been accused
Speaker 1: of doing something that you know he hadn't done. But
Speaker 1: you have the answer to work for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. Keith says, when he's guilty, he admits he's guilty.
Speaker 1: But ever since the Lucasville uprising almost three decades ago,
Speaker 1: he's been adamant that he was not the leader of
Speaker 1: the death squad, and he did not kill those five men.
Speaker 1: Defending his life begins in June of nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: There was nothing that I can really say, because I've
Speaker 1: made the same They didn't have any evidence to Pools
Speaker 1: that I killed these five people. You know, that's the cremer,
Speaker 1: that's the system is a nutshell. Next time on the
Speaker 1: real killer. How did you feel about your case? Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought he's going to get convicted. Keith Lamar goes
Speaker 1: on trial and some say the state's witnesses are singing
Speaker 1: for their supper. I felt that they were lying and
Speaker 1: they had plunting incentive to lie. Reliving it almost thirty
Speaker 1: years later is anything but easy. He's still there basically.
Speaker 1: You know, I've already back in nineteen ninety five in
Speaker 1: this courtoro Roundatis envisioning the ship. This se is observed. Man,
Speaker 1: it's just like these fucking people. Man, you know, my god.
Speaker 1: We would like to extend our deepest condolences to Kevin
Speaker 1: Lowry's wife, Ramona. They're chill, dren friends and family. In
Speaker 1: the short time I knew Kevin, he was so funny,
Speaker 1: welcoming and warm, and he let me know how important
Speaker 1: it was for us to get together so he could
Speaker 1: share his memories of and love for his cousin Keith. Again,
Speaker 1: to all who knew and loved Kevin, we are very
Speaker 1: sorry for your loss. The Real Killer is a production
Speaker 1: of AYR Media and iHeartRadio, hosted by me Leah Rothman.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza Rosen for AYR Media.
Speaker 1: Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams, Senior associate producer,
Speaker 1: Jill Pesheznik, Coordinator George Faum. Editing and sound design by
Speaker 1: Cameron Taggy. Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggy. Audio engineering
Speaker 1: by Matt Jacobsen. Studio engineering by Anna Moolish. Legal counsel
Speaker 1: for AYR Media, Gianni Douglas. Executive producer for iHeartRadio, Maya
Speaker 1: Howard