Speaker 1: On November fourteenth, nineteen ninety five, Jose Ariola was dropping
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, Ophelia and their baby off at their apartment
Speaker 1: in Sunnyside, Washington. As she was getting out of the truck,
Speaker 1: Ophelia saw two figures near the driver's side window. Two
Speaker 1: gunshots rang out, and Jose was dead. Detectives interviewed neighbors
Speaker 1: who had witnessed the shooting, but without any forensic evidence,
Speaker 1: there was little progress made on the investigation. Then five
Speaker 1: months later, a police informant came forward with a name, Everisto.
Speaker 2: Solace knew nothing about the crime. Was nowhere near the area.
Speaker 2: Did it literally just came out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Everisto was a local teenager who had gotten into trouble before.
Speaker 1: He'd been on the cops radar since he was a kid.
Speaker 1: After the police picked him up for questioning, fifteen year
Speaker 1: old Everisto was grown into an adult jail.
Speaker 2: I look like I'm twelve. I weigh about one hundred pounds,
Speaker 2: I'm five foot and I'm just surrounded and I'm just
Speaker 2: like I'm scared. Hell. It says hell, like you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I know what goes on in prison. I've
Speaker 2: watched movies and all those kind of things.
Speaker 1: Six months later, Everisto was on trial for murder.
Speaker 2: My name is Evadristo Salas. I was incarcerated for twenty
Speaker 2: seven years three months for murder and the commit.
Speaker 1: From Lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today, Everisto Salas. Everisto Salas was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty in Sunnyside, Washington.
Speaker 2: It's a small farming town of about ten Another time
Speaker 2: sixteen thousand. Now it was a beautiful town. The people
Speaker 2: were warm. My child was really rough. My mother was
Speaker 2: an alcoholic and addicted your drugs and so so chaotic,
Speaker 2: and her approach to life and so undisciplined and addicted
Speaker 2: to every vice possible that our lives were just a
Speaker 2: roller coaster every day. I didn't know my biological father.
Speaker 2: I knew who he was, but he didn't raise me.
Speaker 2: And so my stepfather is the one that raised me
Speaker 2: and kind of taught me everything about life and took
Speaker 2: me in and to me, he's always been my father
Speaker 2: because I knew nothing else. I never called him my stepfather.
Speaker 2: I only do that for clarity when I'm talking to
Speaker 2: other people. But he's my father. And there's no answer
Speaker 2: but to buy it.
Speaker 3: We always thought he was our father until we got
Speaker 3: a little bit older and our biological family started coming around.
Speaker 3: But he never treated us any different. He always treat
Speaker 3: us the same. My name is Debbie Salas, and I
Speaker 3: am Avaris So Salis's older sister, and we call him Junior.
Speaker 1: Debbie was two years older than Everistow and other than
Speaker 1: his stepfather, she was the only source of stability in
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 3: Me and him share the same biological father and same mother,
Speaker 3: so we always had this bond since we were really little.
Speaker 3: It was like me him, me him. I was always
Speaker 3: protecting him regardless. It was no matter where we were
Speaker 3: at a very young age till right now. I still
Speaker 3: protect him.
Speaker 1: Debbie says times weren't all bad when they were very
Speaker 1: very young. She has happy memories of family outings during
Speaker 1: the summer.
Speaker 3: So they wished to take us to that park. I
Speaker 3: forgot the name of it, but would come for the
Speaker 3: day and just spend it there all day, swimming and barbecue, camping,
Speaker 3: swimming right in the same spot our whole family did.
Speaker 3: Because we have a big old family, and we'd go
Speaker 3: uncles and ants or whatever and we'd go, all the
Speaker 3: kids would go swimming because my brother Junior was a
Speaker 3: fish like that kid love water. This kid could be
Speaker 3: in there for like hours.
Speaker 1: As the oldest, Debbie felt responsible for her younger siblings.
Speaker 3: My mom had a drinking and drug problem, and so
Speaker 3: that's where I had to step in for my siblings
Speaker 3: to raise help raise them all. It was hard, but
Speaker 3: I did the best that I could, you know, for them,
Speaker 3: And that kind of still bothers me sometimes because I
Speaker 3: felt like if I would have took care of him
Speaker 3: a little bit better and helped raised him a little
Speaker 3: bit better, he would have never went to prison. But
Speaker 3: he'd tell tell me all the time, like it wasn't
Speaker 3: my fault and I have to forgive myself.
Speaker 1: And then at sixteen, Debbie became a mother herself.
Speaker 3: So it was even harder for me to focus on
Speaker 3: my child and focus on him. And when I stopped
Speaker 3: focusing on him and focus on my child is when
Speaker 3: I started seeing him slip. And so that's when I
Speaker 3: seen him start hanging around with my boyfriend at the time,
Speaker 3: and that was all the gang stuff started coming around us.
Speaker 2: The town's predominant Hispanic, it was more of a mix
Speaker 2: when I was younger between Caucasian and Hispanic, but now
Speaker 2: it's probably ninety six nine percent of Hispanic now. And
Speaker 2: so the culture has always been it's always it's it's
Speaker 2: a real warm place growing up, and it had always
Speaker 2: been that way until about the late eighties when the
Speaker 2: gangs kind of kind of started coming in California in
Speaker 2: other areas and it kind of changed the dynamic. And
Speaker 2: I remember going to school and we were all friends,
Speaker 2: all of us that went to school, and once the
Speaker 2: gangs kind of arrived, that changed really really rapidly and quickly,
Speaker 2: and the neighborhood started kind of dividing, and the town
Speaker 2: started dividing into little small sections of different gangs, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't safe to walk around anymore. That warm feeling
Speaker 2: that you had kind of went away and it was
Speaker 2: replaced with fear, and it became almost a struggle each
Speaker 2: and every day, even when you were really young, to
Speaker 2: just fill that piece or to go anywhere without you know,
Speaker 2: either getting jumped or chase or you know, attacked.
Speaker 1: Debbie's boyfriend at the time was also in a gang,
Speaker 1: and she says that before long he was recruiting her
Speaker 1: little brother.
Speaker 3: So at first, I didn't really say anything until I
Speaker 3: found out that they actually courted him, and that's when they,
Speaker 3: you know, get him into the gang. They beat him
Speaker 3: up for fourteen seconds or whatever. And I was really
Speaker 3: possy off and I was yelling at my boyfriend and
Speaker 3: I was yelling at my brother, and I was like,
Speaker 3: what are you doing?
Speaker 2: What do you think? You know, what are you thinking?
Speaker 3: And it was already too late, because he was already
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 1: Evaristo says that once he was in the gang, there
Speaker 1: was no turning back. It was a matter of survival.
Speaker 2: There was gang fights. I got shot at a few times,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. There was five of those gangs
Speaker 2: that dominated the Sunnayside and it was us and we
Speaker 2: only numbered maybe about twenty at the most, and we
Speaker 2: had maybe a street or two, and so literally every
Speaker 2: direction we went, we were getting targeted by this gang or
Speaker 2: this gang and that gang, and so it was it
Speaker 2: was really hard on us.
Speaker 1: Can you kind of explain that, you know, to some
Speaker 1: people who would look at your situation and be like,
Speaker 1: but why would you join a gang? They're dangerous, they're bad.
Speaker 1: You knew better? Can you can you kind of explain
Speaker 1: what happened?
Speaker 2: Well, it's hard because I mean, when I look at
Speaker 2: it right now, when I have the knowledge and experience
Speaker 2: that I have at forty two years old or you know,
Speaker 2: but at the age of eleven and twelve, you can't
Speaker 2: understand the dynamics of the life you're choosing, or the
Speaker 2: maturity to understand that this choice you're making right now
Speaker 2: is going to change the entire trajectory of your life.
Speaker 2: There was a void emotionally, there was something missing in
Speaker 2: my life, and I looked for another places. It wasn't
Speaker 2: that I just sat down one day and said I
Speaker 2: want to be a part of that gang, right. It was,
Speaker 2: like I said, it was a slow, gradual process of
Speaker 2: you know, hanging around with this family that was close
Speaker 2: to my family, and then being targeted because of that,
Speaker 2: and then thinking, oh, well I need I need my safety.
Speaker 2: These provide my safety. Second, these are my brothers, you know,
Speaker 2: They're all I have. You know, I don't, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's nobody else.
Speaker 1: Part of being in a gang meant getting into trouble,
Speaker 1: and that made Everistow a target for the local police.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about some of the things you did
Speaker 1: have run ins with the law about.
Speaker 2: I mean, I did a lot of stupid stuff, trashpassing
Speaker 2: and tagging of delinquent stuff. I broke into cars and
Speaker 2: I tagged up those kind of things, and the law enforcement,
Speaker 2: you know, they would harass me a lot on those
Speaker 2: kinds of things. They seen us as a problem for
Speaker 2: and as a growing problem to the town. And when
Speaker 2: they approached us in aegaway, we reciprocated that and we
Speaker 2: disrespected them. I used to talk bad to them all
Speaker 2: the time, you know, and you know, they would harass me.
Speaker 2: They would the would handcuff me, they would rough house me,
Speaker 2: call me names, that kind of things, and I would
Speaker 2: return it.
Speaker 1: From the age of eleven or twelve. Everisto says he
Speaker 1: and his friends were targeted by the local cops, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't just because they were troublemakers. Everisto believes there
Speaker 1: was a racial element to their hostility as well.
Speaker 2: I would say nine percent of the polician was a Caucasian.
Speaker 2: Her wife. There's a part of me that feels that
Speaker 2: there's a few people in that department not only had
Speaker 2: it out to be, but had it out to for
Speaker 2: every single youthful Hispanic in our neighborhood, whether it be
Speaker 2: our gang or the other gang. There was a period
Speaker 2: of probavate with four or five years of a constant harassment,
Speaker 2: and it just got it got worse, worse, worse and worse.
Speaker 2: If we're walking somewhere and they'd pull us over. If
Speaker 2: I was walking somewhere by myself, they'd pull me over,
Speaker 2: search me, pat me down, call me names, yell at me.
Speaker 2: I'd have it back and forth. What are you doing?
Speaker 2: You know, just question those kind of things, just constant harassment.
Speaker 1: One of the officers that was involved in your case,
Speaker 1: Officer Rivard. Had you had run ins with.
Speaker 2: Him before Revard came. One time, I was walking back
Speaker 2: from school and he just pulls over, passe, searches me,
Speaker 2: tells me what I'm doing. And I come back from
Speaker 2: school and it starts interrogating me about all these kind
Speaker 2: of weird things and kind of yells at me, and
Speaker 2: then just you know, handcustom and throws me in the
Speaker 2: back of the cop carn and then he starts just
Speaker 2: driving out to the country, and I'm thinking, what the
Speaker 2: what is he doing? You know, where are we going?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean we're going out, I mean we're going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were you like? What did you think could
Speaker 1: what could happen?
Speaker 2: I thought, I thought he was gonna go out there
Speaker 2: and beat the hell out of me or something, and
Speaker 2: you throw me in one of the canals out there
Speaker 2: because we're headed out way out in the country. And
Speaker 2: he wouldn't say anything. And that even that, even I
Speaker 2: was trying to get scared, you know, like, oh no,
Speaker 2: this guy's what is he doing? You know? And then
Speaker 2: he goes, Hey, where's your dad work at? And I
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, he's gonna take me to my dad's.
Speaker 2: I felt a little relief, but then I was like,
Speaker 2: oh no, my dad's gonna be pissed off. You know,
Speaker 2: he's gonna, you know, want the help.
Speaker 1: Officer Jim Rivard drove Everisto straight to the dairy where
Speaker 1: his dad was working.
Speaker 2: And then he gets out and in front of my
Speaker 2: dad's boss, he said, I found your son out there
Speaker 2: doing all kinds of stuff. I literally was walking home
Speaker 2: from school and I could see his boss looking and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, and my dad gives me that look
Speaker 2: like and I'm like, oh no, and I'm I'm in
Speaker 2: tears already. Others, I mean, because I got the utmost
Speaker 2: respect for my dad and knowing that his boss is
Speaker 2: right there, that he works hard, and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: oh no.
Speaker 1: At first, everisto stepfather believed Rivard, but as the months
Speaker 1: went by and the harassment continued, he realized that his
Speaker 1: son was being targeted.
Speaker 2: And my dad has this old, old, you know, Mexican
Speaker 2: mindset where he they'll accept a lot and they'll accept
Speaker 2: the treatment of injustice. And my dad said, oh, we
Speaker 2: just got to push on, you know, we gotta do
Speaker 2: what we gotta do. You know, we can't do nothing
Speaker 2: about this. To keep pushing.
Speaker 1: And then in November of nineteen ninety five, when Everisto
Speaker 1: was fourteen years old, there was a fatal shooting in Sunnyside.
Speaker 1: It happened about a mile from his house, and.
Speaker 4: The person who was shot and killed. His name was
Speaker 4: Jose Ariola.
Speaker 1: This is Laura Shaver. She's Everisto's post conviction attorney.
Speaker 4: He and his girlfriend had just gotten back from the
Speaker 4: store and they parked in their apartment parking lot. She
Speaker 4: got out with their baby kind of walking towards their
Speaker 4: apartment and he stayed in the car. She saw two
Speaker 4: boys kind of approaching the truck. She described them as
Speaker 4: a fifteen year old and a seven or an eight
Speaker 4: year old, and then she turned around and kept going
Speaker 4: and next thing she heard was two gunshots.
Speaker 1: Officer Rivard had been moved to the detective squad at
Speaker 1: this point and he was put in charge of investigating
Speaker 1: the shooting. This was his first homicide.
Speaker 4: They impound the truck, They put like an evidence hold
Speaker 4: on it, which is very normal, so that no one
Speaker 4: can get it out, and they start, you know, following
Speaker 4: as many leads as they can and interviewing witnesses. Probably
Speaker 4: about four days after the homicide, the girlfriend, who name's Ophelia,
Speaker 4: she went down to the impound lot and she told
Speaker 4: them that the police gave her permission to retrieve the truck,
Speaker 4: and so they gave it to her. Oh wow, and
Speaker 4: they just like didn't see or disregarded the hold, the
Speaker 4: evidence hold that was on it. So now we don't
Speaker 4: have the truck, which is the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Detective Vard spoke to several people who had witnessed the shooting,
Speaker 1: including Ophelia Gonzalez.
Speaker 4: Her description of the suspects didn't match really anyone else's.
Speaker 4: There weren't any other eyewitnesses that were up close as
Speaker 4: she was, because she was right there. But there was
Speaker 4: a man in a neighboring apartment complex. He was on
Speaker 4: the second floor, so he heard an argument and then
Speaker 4: he heard gunshots, and he went out to his balcony
Speaker 4: and looked down and he saw two people in their
Speaker 4: late twenties thirties running to a car. And then there
Speaker 4: were three kids that were playing across the street, but
Speaker 4: they had a fence so they couldn't see, but they
Speaker 4: all said that they heard a woman scream Ricardo, leave
Speaker 4: him alone, and then they heard an argument and then
Speaker 4: they heard gunshots.
Speaker 1: With conflicting witness statements and no hard evidence to go on,
Speaker 1: Rivard made little progress on the case. Five months went by.
Speaker 4: And according to him, sometime in March of ninety six,
Speaker 4: he gets in touch with one of his informants that
Speaker 4: he's worked with a bunch and says, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: go get go hit the pavement and see if you
Speaker 4: can find out anything about this homicide.
Speaker 1: The informant's name was Bill brun.
Speaker 4: So he reports back and he says, yeah, I heard
Speaker 4: some kids talking at a park about this homicide and
Speaker 4: essentially confessing.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Everisto was also being questioned at
Speaker 1: the police station.
Speaker 4: Because he was a witness and another homicide. So he's
Speaker 4: in with another detective and Rivard decides to go in
Speaker 4: and take pictures of him, and so he took three
Speaker 4: polaroid pictures and then he went back to his office
Speaker 4: where Bill was, and Rivard says he then threw the
Speaker 4: pictures on his desk and Bill said, Hey, that's the guy.
Speaker 4: That's the kid who was confessing at the park in
Speaker 4: these polaroids. And that's how Junior gets involved in the case.
Speaker 1: Ophelia Gonzalez had told police that she saw two young
Speaker 1: boys near the truck just before Jose was shot. When
Speaker 1: she was shown a photo lineup that included the polaroids
Speaker 1: detective Revard had taken of Everisto, Ophelia identified him as
Speaker 1: one of the boys she'd seen. On May twenty second,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, Everisto was picked up by police for
Speaker 1: questioning about Jose's murder.
Speaker 2: I was arrested a day after we buried my friend
Speaker 2: who was killed a week before. He was my best friend.
Speaker 2: I grew up with him and I was there when
Speaker 2: he's killed. He was killed right in front of me.
Speaker 2: He was seventeen years old, killed at the jackpot here
Speaker 2: in sunnyside right in front of it, a rival gang.
Speaker 2: I carried his casket and then we buried him the
Speaker 2: next day. They can't picked me up at nine in
Speaker 2: the morning and didn't tell me what they were taking.
Speaker 2: Mind you, they do this all the time. So I'm
Speaker 2: pissed off, saying, look, I've been up for a week,
Speaker 2: I haven't slept. My best friend was killed the other
Speaker 2: you guys know this, what do.
Speaker 1: You want Everisto was questioned by Detective did jim Levard
Speaker 1: and Jose Trevino. He assumed he had been picked up
Speaker 1: to talk about his friend's shooting, and.
Speaker 2: They're like, yeahs, where were you? Where were you at
Speaker 2: in November? I was like November? What? November ninety five?
Speaker 2: I was like what day? And they were like, we
Speaker 2: all just November ninety five and I was like, home,
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't know what do you mean? Where
Speaker 2: was I at?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean the day? There's nothing about the day that's special.
Speaker 2: It's just another day of a fifteen year old kid's life.
Speaker 2: I don't have a car, I don't have parties. I
Speaker 2: go to I literally sit home or go to school
Speaker 2: and that's it. There's nothing special about it. And they're
Speaker 2: asking me these things, and I literally like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I had to be home. And so when they said, well,
Speaker 2: someone said you killed Jose Ariola, and I was like,
Speaker 2: who the hell's Jose Ariola? And I knew him in
Speaker 2: the sense that I had heard about him, but not personally,
Speaker 2: but I heard his name was they called them bugs
Speaker 2: and then they're like bugs and I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, are you serious, and they and then I said,
Speaker 2: I said, look, none of us had a part to
Speaker 2: play and none of that.
Speaker 1: But Detective Orvard kept pushing him.
Speaker 2: If I kept telling him I didn't do it. Look,
Speaker 2: even I looked at him, I said, look, you know,
Speaker 2: you've known me my entire life. I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: and he was just like he looks at me, and
Speaker 2: he goes, you didn't think we're ever going to catch it?
Speaker 2: And so this was there was a different tone this time,
Speaker 2: you know, And I knew just by his tone in
Speaker 2: the way that his decision was already made long before
Speaker 2: I even went into that room. He had decided I
Speaker 2: don't know when, but that it was going to be me.
Speaker 2: It was the worst feeling in the world because by
Speaker 2: that I was already crying you know. I was in tears.
Speaker 2: And they allowed me to call my dad and try
Speaker 2: to explain to him, and he tried to calm down,
Speaker 2: calm down, I can't understand, understand, And I said, they
Speaker 2: were saying I killed somebody that I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know what the hell they're talking about. That they're
Speaker 2: not playing. They're not playing, no man, And he's like,
Speaker 2: calm down, Look, what are you talking about? I said, Dad,
Speaker 2: And I couldn't even speak, you know, I just my head.
Speaker 2: It was it was just spinning, and it was hysterical.
Speaker 2: And because I could tell they were not playing.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: They stripped me naked and then they throw me in
Speaker 2: an adult jumpsuit. It doesn't even fit me. It's like
Speaker 2: a five X or something. And the jumpsuits tore from
Speaker 2: the leg all the way down, so my whole leg
Speaker 2: on this side is exposed. I was barefooted, I was
Speaker 2: naked under and then they throw me in the back
Speaker 2: of the cop car and just carked me off and
Speaker 2: they take me into it and they put me in
Speaker 2: the booking and then the lady looks at me and
Speaker 2: she goes tells the cop why are you bringing him here?
Speaker 2: He's a juno clearly, and he's like, oh, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: he's gonna come over here anyways. They're going to charge
Speaker 2: him as though anyway, so he's gonna come here, and
Speaker 2: almost forced her to do the booking. It was almost
Speaker 2: sadistic in a way, and he didn't say it, but
Speaker 2: his actions showed that, for whatever reason, he enjoyed that
Speaker 2: part of it, that that was him exercising the power
Speaker 2: over me and saying, now, look, how we got you.
Speaker 2: He's enjoying the fact that I'm clearly just in a
Speaker 2: massive amount of distress. You know, I'm an adult jail
Speaker 2: like you know, I mean, i know what goes on
Speaker 2: in prison. I've watched movies and all those kind of things.
Speaker 1: Everisto's sister, Debbie, got the news of his arrest from
Speaker 1: their stepfather.
Speaker 3: When they didn't bring them home. My dad's the one
Speaker 3: that called and told me, you know, hey, they that
Speaker 3: they're charging him a murder And I'm like, what. I
Speaker 3: started crying like, I just bald. I'm like, what did
Speaker 3: I talk y'all? Now, it's not for reals, you know.
Speaker 3: We were just in shock. And then I was the
Speaker 3: one that got the lawyer. A sixteen year old looking
Speaker 3: for a lawyer, come on, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I did the best that I could, and I thought
Speaker 3: that his lawyer was going to get him off, but
Speaker 3: he did it.
Speaker 1: Everisto's family retained George Trehoe as his defense attorney. The
Speaker 1: trial began on December ninth, nineteen ninety six, in Yakima
Speaker 1: Superior Court before Judge Stephen Brown. The prosecutors were Ken
Speaker 1: Ram and Kelly Allwell. With no DNA or forensic evidence
Speaker 1: to present. The primary witnesses for the state were Ophelia
Speaker 1: Gonzalez and the informant Bill Brune. Both witnesses repeated what
Speaker 1: they had told police. For the defense, George Trehoe presented
Speaker 1: several witnesses that contradicted Ophelia's description of the shooter.
Speaker 4: His theory was essentially that Junior was it was a misidentification.
Speaker 4: Junior was not there.
Speaker 1: To support that argument. Treyjo also presented an alibi witness.
Speaker 4: Her name was Sylvia and she worked at like a
Speaker 4: little convenience store by Junior's house, and Junior went there
Speaker 4: all the time towards the end of the day because
Speaker 4: she would always throw out burritos at the end of
Speaker 4: the day. So in this particular day on the de
Speaker 4: Jose was shot, he went to the convenience store and
Speaker 4: wanted he had some burritos. And so she testified essentially
Speaker 4: that he was there at the same time, like around
Speaker 4: the same time as the shooting, and he wasn't sweating,
Speaker 4: he wasn't he didn't like he was on a breath.
Speaker 4: He didn't like run there right, and that would have
Speaker 4: been like a mile from where the shooting happened.
Speaker 1: Right before Sylvia took the stand, Officer Rivard tried to
Speaker 1: stop her from testifying.
Speaker 4: Rivard pulled her to the side and said to her
Speaker 4: that he had a video of her stealing like a
Speaker 4: hot dog at this convenience store, and so he was like,
Speaker 4: just just don't don't forget I have that video of you.
Speaker 4: And Sylvia told Trey Hoe, Junior's attorney, and he made
Speaker 4: a record about it about Revard intimidating witnesses, and the
Speaker 4: judge actually admonished everyone about witness intimidation, but Revard didn't
Speaker 4: respond the prosecutor in Vard. Neither one of them responded.
Speaker 4: It was just trey Hoe making the record and the
Speaker 4: judge saying, you know, that's not allowed.
Speaker 1: Ten days after the trial began, it was over. Everisto
Speaker 1: was left to await the jury's decision.
Speaker 2: It was strange because I had a bad dream or
Speaker 2: a couple dreams the night before that that were kind
Speaker 2: of we're dreams that were telling me somehow that I
Speaker 2: was going to be convicted, and I was scared. I
Speaker 2: remember a day before and I was crying to my
Speaker 2: dad and I said, Dad, I'm having bad dreams. And
Speaker 2: he said, don't say that. I don't say. We don't
Speaker 2: know what's going to happen. It's just, you know, just
Speaker 2: calmed down, okay.
Speaker 1: On December nineteenth, nineteen ninety six, Everisto was convicted of
Speaker 1: first degree murder and unlawful possession of a weapon. He
Speaker 1: was sentenced to thirty two years and nine months in prison.
Speaker 1: It was two days after his sixteenth birthday.
Speaker 2: The verdict. There was a collective scream behind me, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't it wasn't like a normal just oh, it
Speaker 2: was it was a scream like something happened really really bad,
Speaker 2: and that was my sister's.
Speaker 3: Every time they played a certain footage of there, when
Speaker 3: you know they find them guilty, I'm the one crying
Speaker 3: in the background really super long, because it's like it's
Speaker 3: like seeing your child be taken from you.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I took care of him and raised him, and I
Speaker 3: still struggle with that.
Speaker 2: And then once they read it, it was a weird feeling.
Speaker 2: It was a feeling like of course, you know, of
Speaker 2: course because at that point in my life, I have
Speaker 2: taken so many punches and that was so many, you know,
Speaker 2: horrific moments of my life, and it was just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, that's that's exactly what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: I had this this attitude of just like like like
Speaker 2: there was nothing good gonna happen to me in my life,
Speaker 2: that of course, this is going to be the outcome
Speaker 2: of something I didn't do.
Speaker 3: I was just so confused. I just looked at him
Speaker 3: and I cried and broke my heart, like it's too
Speaker 3: bulls just sitting here looking at him. You know, he
Speaker 3: was so little, and I was just like how couldn't
Speaker 3: I like what how what? None of this stuff makes sense,
Speaker 3: Like there's nothing that says he did anything, Like how
Speaker 3: could they convict him?
Speaker 2: I've never seen my dad before, never that moment that
Speaker 2: was beyond crime. He couldn't even talk. And I look
Speaker 2: at him and and and here, like I said, here
Speaker 2: was a man that has been my foundation, my superman.
Speaker 2: He he he was everything that I hoped to be.
Speaker 2: He was my protector. At that moment, right there, he
Speaker 2: became mortal. He taught me how to be strong in
Speaker 2: those moments of despair and hearted. And I could see
Speaker 2: at that moment that that that I had to be
Speaker 2: that for him. And at that moment, the roles switched.
Speaker 2: I looked at him. I said, no, it's it's gonna
Speaker 2: be all right. Now, it's gonna be all right, It's
Speaker 2: gonna be alright. I just kept saying that to him.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm gonna survive. That I'll survive. So I
Speaker 2: was charged May twenty second of nineteen ninety six. I
Speaker 2: was convicted December nineteenth of nineteen ninety six. I was
Speaker 2: sent to thirty plus years and I was sent to
Speaker 2: prison February twelfth of nineteen ninety seven. That's less than
Speaker 2: that's about a ten month period that all that took place.
Speaker 2: So I didn't have I was barely starting to try
Speaker 2: to reflect on what has actually happened. By that time,
Speaker 2: I was sitting in an adult prison at the age
Speaker 2: of sixteen on the general population yard. I didn't have time.
Speaker 2: I had to think about how the hell am I
Speaker 2: going to survive in this place?
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, Washington State Penitentiary is what we
Speaker 4: call like the closed custody. It is where a lot
Speaker 4: of the really, really bad guys go. So Junior went
Speaker 4: there as a sixteen year old, weighing one hundred pounds
Speaker 4: and standing five feet tall. So I mean, I can't
Speaker 4: imagine the things that he went through.
Speaker 2: I had such a level of immaturity that I couldn't
Speaker 2: comprehend the magnitude of what was taking place. It came
Speaker 2: probably about when I turned nineteen, is when I think
Speaker 2: mentally I got mature enough to realize like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is not going to change. You know this, this
Speaker 2: really happened. And then it became years of just just misery, depression,
Speaker 2: struggles to even accept that I wanted to wake up
Speaker 2: every day, not to mention the mountain of prison chaos
Speaker 2: and violence and cruelty and brutality that was taking place
Speaker 2: every single day in that place.
Speaker 1: What did you see in an adult prison as a child.
Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't the only juvenile that went to you know,
Speaker 2: there was a few that came in after that too.
Speaker 2: They raped them, they sent them a missions, they gave
Speaker 2: the knives to go stab people. They mashed them out,
Speaker 2: they took the cop they took their store, they extorted them.
Speaker 2: They just didn't have the physically resist. And I've seen it,
Speaker 2: believe me. It was it was, it was. It was
Speaker 2: horrible to hear it at night sometimes and and in
Speaker 2: the cells, and and that's the reality of prison.
Speaker 1: Did being in a gang help or hurt?
Speaker 2: That was?
Speaker 1: That was that part of your prison life.
Speaker 2: The strange thing is that when I came to prison,
Speaker 2: being a part of that gang actually protected me from
Speaker 2: being preyed upon by the other groups. I was. I
Speaker 2: was small, and basically I had, I know, had no protection.
Speaker 2: A lot of bad things, even worse things would happen
Speaker 2: to me. The system would have chewed me up. They
Speaker 2: treated me almost like their younger brother, and some of
Speaker 2: them even treated me like a son. Yes, I was
Speaker 2: able to maintain a certain amount of protection, but at
Speaker 2: what costs? You know. Once I got past all the
Speaker 2: misery and poor me, you know, I started getting to
Speaker 2: the this is what I needed to do to go home.
Speaker 2: I started working on everything and and got the mind
Speaker 2: frame that I'm gonna I'm going to prove my innocence
Speaker 2: one way or one way or another in this place.
Speaker 2: And I would tell my dad every day, Dad, when
Speaker 2: I get out, there's what I'm gonna do. Dad, when
Speaker 2: I get out, I'm going to do that, and you
Speaker 2: get happy. But twenty six, twenty seven years into that,
Speaker 2: his level of happiness after I would say that was gone.
Speaker 2: It was almost like he felt bad. He was like,
Speaker 2: my poor son still believes. He hasn't accepted it. But
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to be defeated. I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: accept that reality. I wasn't a murderer. I wasn't a killer.
Speaker 2: Was I a game member, Yeah, I was a game
Speaker 2: merunt the time. Did I do stupid things as a kid, yes?
Speaker 2: Was I disrespectful to the cops all those kinds of things, yes,
Speaker 2: But that doesn't make me a killer. And I will
Speaker 2: not accept that label. And that was my way of protesting.
Speaker 2: It was my way of saying, I don't have a
Speaker 2: law degree, I don't have an understanding of the courts.
Speaker 2: I don't have money, I don't have anybody even believes me.
Speaker 2: Some way, somehow, my voice is going to reach somebody's
Speaker 2: heart and they're going to have the skills that I
Speaker 2: don't possess, and they're going to fight for me. Fifteen
Speaker 2: years ago I started making sure mentally that I was
Speaker 2: already going to be released. And so what I did
Speaker 2: the past ten years is I did everything possible to
Speaker 2: stay in line with the life out here. I read books,
Speaker 2: I educated myself. I studied everything a possibly study. I
Speaker 2: prepared to release plan went through it thoroughly, updated every year.
Speaker 2: I did countless different programs in prison that would teach
Speaker 2: you how to live out here and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, what resources do. And then I had a plan, Well,
Speaker 2: day one is what I'm doing. Day two, so I'm
Speaker 2: do day three.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Everisto was transferred to a work crew that allowed
Speaker 1: him to work outside of the prison.
Speaker 2: I started working for dnr SO Department of Natural Resources,
Speaker 2: and I was a firefighter. I was fighting fires in
Speaker 2: the mountains or a Spokane. They trained me as a firefighter,
Speaker 2: and then they paid minimum wage it's the only job.
Speaker 2: Instead of watching as an inmate. They paid him intum wage.
Speaker 2: And I fought twenty three fires before I got I
Speaker 2: actually fought almost a fire every day allow up unto
Speaker 2: the point that I was released. My first day out there,
Speaker 2: I went to this It was actually a tourist site.
Speaker 2: It's called Dry Falls and it's one of the most
Speaker 2: beautiful places you can go in Washington. One guy, me
Speaker 2: and him, I've known him for years, We've been in
Speaker 2: prison for about the same time. And he looks at me, goes, hey, Jr.
Speaker 2: Say how you feel right now? And he could see
Speaker 2: the glow on my face and he was just like,
Speaker 2: it's beautiful. And I was like, Yeah, that exposure helped me.
Speaker 2: Dad Harod just aligned with all the plans I had.
Speaker 2: I started writing letters to anybody that would listen, probably
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, two thousand so twenty. For
Speaker 2: twenty three years, I wrote letters nearly every week and
Speaker 2: told people I was in prison for murder. I didn't
Speaker 2: commit that this is wrong, now, please help me. I
Speaker 2: would go to the lawle ibrary and pull out addresses
Speaker 2: from all the attorneys stay to Washington, just pick him out,
Speaker 2: write them. And then in twenty eleven, I watched the
Speaker 2: documentary on CNN called The West Memphis three Paradise Lost,
Speaker 2: and I was so moved by that, and they told
Speaker 2: the story and I was like, this guy probably could
Speaker 2: help me. You know, he can probably help me.
Speaker 1: So Everisto wrote to Joe Berlinger, one of the producers
Speaker 1: of that documentary. After reading his letter, Berlinger took an
Speaker 1: interest in Everistow's case, and in twenty seventeen, his team
Speaker 1: came to Sunnyside to begin investigating it for a documentary
Speaker 1: on the Star's network.
Speaker 2: Within about a month, they they pretty much cracked the
Speaker 2: case wide open. That informant spoke to them, came forward
Speaker 2: and said that he had made it all up.
Speaker 1: Bill Brune told Berlinger's investigators that Officer Rivard had paid
Speaker 1: him in drugs and money to point the finger at Everisto,
Speaker 1: and that when he resisted testifying at trial, Vard then
Speaker 1: threw him in jail. At the time, Everisto and his
Speaker 1: family were still looking for an attorney to take his case.
Speaker 4: So he just randomly, you know, gets my number and
Speaker 4: he calls me. I was interested, but I I was
Speaker 4: also I had just started my firm. I'd never done
Speaker 4: a post conviction case, so I was like, totally, this
Speaker 4: was totally out of my league. And then the more
Speaker 4: I talked to him, the more I just believed him.
Speaker 4: When I felt like nobody was going to help him
Speaker 4: because it was a circumstantial case, I said to him,
Speaker 4: you know, we can't go into this with our hopes
Speaker 4: very high. We have to convince a judge that this
Speaker 4: officer is lying so that the prosecutor didn't disclose all
Speaker 4: this information. And that's like really hard to do and
Speaker 4: it's an uphill battle. And so after Junior and I
Speaker 4: agreed that I was going to work with him, and
Speaker 4: I did it pro bonos, so we didn't have like
Speaker 4: a contract or anything. We just kind of like spit
Speaker 4: shook on it. So we did all this investigation and
Speaker 4: it was just the mass it was. It was a
Speaker 4: monster case. It was the biggest case I had ever done.
Speaker 1: At that point, Laura started by looking for proof that
Speaker 1: Bill Brune had been paid for his testimony.
Speaker 4: At that time, they, the state, and the informant and
Speaker 4: Rovard were all to nine that he had been paid.
Speaker 4: And when I requested the file, I was able to
Speaker 4: get a bunch of receipts, like actual receipts that say,
Speaker 4: you know, to bill from the Sundayside Police Department for
Speaker 4: X amount of money. That was the receipt and he
Speaker 4: wrote a different case number on it. He did not
Speaker 4: write Junior's case number on it because he didn't want
Speaker 4: it tracing back to Junior's case.
Speaker 1: In addition to Brune's recantation, Laura had to unravel Ophelia
Speaker 1: Gonzalez's witness testimony.
Speaker 4: What we learned later is when Ophelia was called down
Speaker 4: to the police station to do her final identification, and
Speaker 4: this would be the one that Junior's in her mother
Speaker 4: in law went with her, so the decedent's mother, and
Speaker 4: at that point in time, according to the mom, they
Speaker 4: hypnotized her and then she gets out of the hypnosis
Speaker 4: and she picks Junior out of the lineup. However, that
Speaker 4: didn't come to light until like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: and it really only came to light by accident. I
Speaker 4: had done some requests to get Revard's police file. Revard
Speaker 4: and Ophelia, they both deny hypnosis and would.
Speaker 1: This be something relevant to the case.
Speaker 4: The hypnosis yeah, I mean it would have. It would
Speaker 4: totally have changed the case. The Washington law at that
Speaker 4: time was that if you were hypnotized, anything from the
Speaker 4: hypnosis on was not admissible, and so her identification of
Speaker 4: Junior would have been tossed and then their only evidence
Speaker 4: would have been the informant basically because they had two
Speaker 4: main pieces of evidence at trial, there would have been
Speaker 4: a pre trial hearing on suppressing the identification. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, it would have totally changed it.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, Laura and the Washington Innocence Project filed
Speaker 1: a motion for a new trial based on new evidence
Speaker 1: and on non disclosure of evidence from the first trial.
Speaker 1: Their request for a hearing was denied by Judge David Elofson.
Speaker 4: So we ended up filing an appeal and winning. So
Speaker 4: then we get ordered to go back to the trial
Speaker 4: court and we actually do get to have a hearing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The evidentiary hearing was held on August fourteenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: before Judge Ruth Rukoff.
Speaker 4: The judge ordered Ophelia and Rivard to talk to us
Speaker 4: sit down for an interview, and Rivard was the last
Speaker 4: to testify, and he denied that he had ever paid Bill.
Speaker 4: He denied the hypnosis. I asked him all different kinds
Speaker 4: of ways about the payments to Bill, and he denies
Speaker 4: the eyes and eyes. And then at the end of
Speaker 4: cross I asked him the same thing that I've already
Speaker 4: asked him, probably seven times, and for whatever reason, he
Speaker 4: is like, fine, yeah, I did pay him.
Speaker 1: Vard admitted that not only had he paid Bill Brune
Speaker 1: to name Ever, he had doctored the receipts to cover
Speaker 1: his tracks.
Speaker 4: And he, you know, basically didn't tell anyone about this,
Speaker 4: And I mean, it was just like it was wild.
Speaker 1: From the beginning. Laura suspected that Officer Rivard had it
Speaker 1: in for Everisto.
Speaker 4: There was nothing, no way I could actually prove it. However,
Speaker 4: in twenty nineteen, for whatever reason, I decided to put
Speaker 4: Rivard's name into the federal database to see if he'd
Speaker 4: ever been sued, and it turned out that Washington State
Speaker 4: had sued him for violating the Anti Discrimination Act. Rivard
Speaker 4: was going like writing these people up and evicting them,
Speaker 4: and he wasn't getting a court order to do it.
Speaker 4: According to the lawsuit, it was mainly in the Latino
Speaker 4: community and Latino families, so that also, I mean furthered
Speaker 4: my belief that this was definitely like very targeted. And
Speaker 4: I don't know why, like why Junior of all people,
Speaker 4: you know, I think rivarded to close the case. It
Speaker 4: was his first case. To him, he said, this was
Speaker 4: a high profile case. So it's like Junior just was
Speaker 4: the unlucky one. I don't know, but I do think
Speaker 4: Race was involved for sure.
Speaker 1: Three days into the evidentiary hearing, as Laura's team was
Speaker 1: preparing to give their closing argument, the state moved to
Speaker 1: dismiss the charge. The county prosecutor admitted publicly that the
Speaker 1: case could no longer be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,
Speaker 1: and on August seventeenth, twenty twenty three, Judge Rukov granted
Speaker 1: the motion and vacated Everisto's conviction. His stepdad and siblings
Speaker 1: were sitting in the courtroom. They couldn't believe what they
Speaker 1: were hearing.
Speaker 3: We were there to ask for a new trial. That
Speaker 3: was the right league. So when they said that, we're like,
Speaker 3: what did she just And we're like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: My dad just like literally fell to the ground on
Speaker 3: his knee and he was just we were all crying.
Speaker 3: We're all happy. You know, we're yelling, and you know
Speaker 3: we never expected that.
Speaker 1: Never, never, never, And after nearly three decades in prison,
Speaker 1: Everystow was free. The entire family was waiting the day
Speaker 1: he got out, including his stepfather.
Speaker 2: The first thing I said to him was his dad,
Speaker 2: I survived. And the first thing he said to me was, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm still alive.
Speaker 3: My dad was still So we picked him up and
Speaker 3: he started joking as soon he's got a car, and
Speaker 3: I'm just like, when you get out, what's what do
Speaker 3: you want to eat? So he took me to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: He was just smiling, happy. We'll stop on every McDonald's
Speaker 3: on the way home. We started taking them to places
Speaker 3: that we got out since we were young, you know,
Speaker 3: our parents would take us to this park here in
Speaker 3: the Tri Cities area, and we took him there. He
Speaker 3: was just like, oh my gosh, I remember this place.
Speaker 3: And he went in the water and he forgot how
Speaker 3: to swim. We're like, come on, brother, just go a
Speaker 3: little before. He's like, no, I can't. I'm not going nowhere,
Speaker 3: you know, and he was like scared because he hadn't
Speaker 3: been in the water for like, man twenty seven years.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad lives in the same house. Wow,
Speaker 3: my brother comes back to the same room that he
Speaker 3: left and so he just says, the room is a
Speaker 3: little smaller than it was. He was a smaller I
Speaker 3: remember big and but yeah, he's in the same room
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: Everistow is back at home in his old bedroom. But
Speaker 1: there has been one other major change in his life.
Speaker 2: Me and my fiance, we've been together for almost five
Speaker 2: years now. She's from the Netherlands. We met by the documentary.
Speaker 2: So the documentary came out, she was moved by it,
Speaker 2: she wrote me, and since then we started. We had
Speaker 2: a really She came to visit me from the Netherlands
Speaker 2: and it's been wonderful. She's been with me the entire time.
Speaker 2: We have a little boy that's seven. He was three
Speaker 2: years old when we met, but I've been raising him
Speaker 2: ever since. And he speaks Dutch, but he's learned in
Speaker 2: English right now and it's the cutest thing ever. And
Speaker 2: he tells me he's like, well, in the heavy you
Speaker 2: know Dutch accident, I love you, I love you, I
Speaker 2: love your dad. It's just wonderful song. So my hope
Speaker 2: is that within the next few months I'll get my
Speaker 2: passport and I'll be able to head to the Netlands
Speaker 2: and visit with yourselng.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Everisto is using his experience to give
Speaker 1: back to the youth of his community.
Speaker 2: Here in the city of Sunnyside. I've been speaking at
Speaker 2: all the schools, even the school that I attended before
Speaker 2: I went to prison, and it's been amazing. I've been
Speaker 2: trying to give these kids strength and everything. And I'm
Speaker 2: actually the process of putting together a youth center here
Speaker 2: on Sunnyside, and so I'm working with the part of
Speaker 2: the city council, the school district, and I'm actually schedule
Speaker 2: to talk next week over here in the town next
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 3: So he loves speaking to the youth. He wants to
Speaker 3: help any kid he can help, anybody he can help,
Speaker 3: he wants to help. He's so intelligent, he's very, very smart,
Speaker 3: and he speaks from the heart, and I mean, I
Speaker 3: just want people to know that he is out here,
Speaker 3: and he's out for a reason, and he has a
Speaker 3: purpose and he's going to fulfill his purpose, and speaking
Speaker 3: is his purpose.
Speaker 1: When we spoke, Everisto and Debbie had just had birthdays.
Speaker 1: He had turned forty three, and Debbie was forty five.
Speaker 1: She said they celebrated together just like when they were kids,
Speaker 1: with one big difference.
Speaker 3: When we had birthdays, we always had one big cake
Speaker 3: and always had his name and my name, so we
Speaker 3: always shared a cake. This was the first year he
Speaker 3: didn't share a cake with nobody. He had a cake
Speaker 3: to himself.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah bial and researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
Speaker 1: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one