Speaker 1: In the late nineteen eighties. Randall Paget was a poultry
Speaker 1: farmer and family man in a small town of Arab, Alabama, who,
Speaker 1: by his own admission, made the biggest mistake of his
Speaker 1: life when he stepped out on his wife, Cathy, with
Speaker 1: a coworker named Judy Smith. The affair was on and
Speaker 1: off again over the years, and during one of those
Speaker 1: on again times, Judy and Randall took a road trip
Speaker 1: to Florida, only to be awoken the first night they
Speaker 1: were there with some harrowing news. On August seventeenth nine,
Speaker 1: Cathy's body had been discovered in her bed. She had
Speaker 1: endured a violent struggle and had sustained forty six stab wounds,
Speaker 1: which ultimately killed her, and to make matters worse, seamen
Speaker 1: was found inside of her. Even though there was no
Speaker 1: indication that she had been raped. The night before this
Speaker 1: Florida trip, that Paget children had stayed with Randall in
Speaker 1: his tiny trailer, they knew, and he hadn't left in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night to do anything, much less
Speaker 1: kill their mother. But with no signs of a break
Speaker 1: in at her home, Randall became the suspect, and he
Speaker 1: was arrested when the seamen turned out to be his.
Speaker 1: The state would commit misconduct during the trial, involving blood
Speaker 1: founded the crime scene that didn't match Cathy or Randall.
Speaker 1: This misconduct was one of the factors that led ultimately
Speaker 1: to Randall being sentenced to death. The prosecutor misconduct would
Speaker 1: result in a retrial and if the ben's investigation would
Speaker 1: uncover some of the craziest perversities, proving that Paget had
Speaker 1: been innocent all along, and rescuing Randall from death row.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: and today I'm actually have kind of or flies. I
Speaker 1: gotta be honest because today you're going to hear a
Speaker 1: story that I've been wanting to tell for as long
Speaker 1: as I've known about it. And when you hear it,
Speaker 1: you'll understand why. Because this is one of the craziest
Speaker 1: stories I believe in the history of American jurisprudence. And
Speaker 1: to help tell the story, we have an attorney was
Speaker 1: a personally hero of mine. Richard S. Jaffie is with us.
Speaker 1: So Richard, welcome to hangorful conviction. I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: be here, Jason, and today we're going to be telling
Speaker 1: the incredible saga of Randall. Paget Randall, as I always say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you have to be here, but I'm happy
Speaker 1: you're here. I'm real happy to be here. I've been
Speaker 1: in a lot worse places. Well said, um, Randall, Let's
Speaker 1: start with you, because you grew up in a small
Speaker 1: town in Alabama, a town called Arab. I've never heard
Speaker 1: of Arab, but can you just give us an idea
Speaker 1: of what your life was like before everything went so crazy? Okay,
Speaker 1: the town is pronounced right. Yeah. I grew up in
Speaker 1: the fifties lit a matter of fact, I was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen small town population probably about seven thousand now.
Speaker 1: Grew up on the farm. This simple laugh. I had
Speaker 1: good parents who worked hard. They carried me to the church,
Speaker 1: and uh, well, I went to college. I got a
Speaker 1: degree in business and started to work with this plant.
Speaker 1: And I always loved outside, and so I ended up
Speaker 1: buying a party farm, got married, had two children, and
Speaker 1: had a pretty good life. Thirty two acres of land
Speaker 1: and the house had the land paid for, the house
Speaker 1: almost paid for, and uh I made probably the biggest
Speaker 1: mistake in my life. I had extramarital affair. And you're
Speaker 1: referring to Judy Smith. Now you used to work together
Speaker 1: when all that started. Was it when you already had
Speaker 1: the poultry farm? No, it was was eating corporation another
Speaker 1: plant and uh we live close together. When one idea
Speaker 1: and work. She had a swimming book. Something was said
Speaker 1: about going skinny dipping. So I remember when Nott We've
Speaker 1: been working late and almost at home, and I've seen
Speaker 1: her car in front of mean, she pulled up in
Speaker 1: your driveway, So I kept thinking about that any dipping jokes,
Speaker 1: So I put my head lights in behind her, trying
Speaker 1: to scare. I figured you knew it was me, and
Speaker 1: then I went on home. Didn't think anything else about it. Well,
Speaker 1: the next day it worked, did you said? Well, the
Speaker 1: chicken out last night. So the next night, same thing.
Speaker 1: I got almost to her place, which was just before
Speaker 1: I got to my place. Our car is against pulled in.
Speaker 1: I pulled in, Okay, let's go skinny. Didn't well, she
Speaker 1: starts stripping off clothes. I thought it's all a big joke.
Speaker 1: So we got totally naked, and I wanted to do
Speaker 1: the deed, and I said, no, I'm going home. Well,
Speaker 1: I did a long weekend and all weekend the devil
Speaker 1: got my brain and saying, you should just do it once,
Speaker 1: you should just do it once. And then did it once,
Speaker 1: and then it just more and more and more, and
Speaker 1: I was I was miserable. I guess it was mainly
Speaker 1: six and uh my wife and I Kathy, her name
Speaker 1: was Kathy. Uh. We had separated and she got murdered,
Speaker 1: stay up numerous times and right doctor she was dead.
Speaker 1: They said, my children, I learned later, who were six
Speaker 1: and eleven at the time, But you were the one
Speaker 1: that found the body of their mother. And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about all that stuff. And I got physically ill when
Speaker 1: I first found out about it. But it was like
Speaker 1: a nightmare, especially when the police were kind of pointing
Speaker 1: their finger at me. I couldn't even mourn the death
Speaker 1: of my wife with all that hanging over me. And
Speaker 1: I felt a lot of guilt. If I would have
Speaker 1: been home with my wife where I should have been,
Speaker 1: she would probably be aligned and well, the the police
Speaker 1: accused me of doing it, which I can understand why.
Speaker 1: I've seen all the TV movies about the affairs and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. But d n A was Brandy
Speaker 1: back then. It was nineteen ninety when she was killed,
Speaker 1: and I was just learning about doing Most people didn't
Speaker 1: know about that stuff then, so I we literally gave
Speaker 1: my blood sample and uh, I thought, Man, I can't
Speaker 1: wait till this the unitis gets back, so they will
Speaker 1: start looking at the right place, because I wanted every
Speaker 1: who killed my wife to be found. I read about
Speaker 1: your case in Richard's amazing book. It's called Quest for
Speaker 1: Justice Defending the Damned by Richard S. Jaffee and now
Speaker 1: there's a second edition out and this case is extraordinary
Speaker 1: in so many ways. But I I can understand why
Speaker 1: the jury voted to convict you because even though there
Speaker 1: was significant evidence that it couldn't have been you, but
Speaker 1: this one thing was really almost impossible for your attorneys
Speaker 1: to overcome. And Richard, you talk about this in your book.
Speaker 1: So this murder happened on August seventeenth of Randall and
Speaker 1: his paramore, Judy Smith, went to Florida on a scuba
Speaker 1: diving trip. It's about six or seven hours from arab
Speaker 1: While in Florida on the evening of August sixte early
Speaker 1: mornings of August, Randall's asleep. They just got there and
Speaker 1: a phone call comes from Randall's brother saying that his wife,
Speaker 1: Cathy was murdered. Randall immediately went and threw up, and
Speaker 1: then Judy and Randall immediately turned around and drove back,
Speaker 1: and they drove right to the Sheriff's department. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing is that you would think that Randall was so
Speaker 1: shook up, so distraught, that Judy would have driven the
Speaker 1: whole way back, But apparently Judy was up all night
Speaker 1: and couldn't keep the car in the road on these
Speaker 1: windy rural roads in Florida, and after about thirty or
Speaker 1: forty minutes, they were about colliding with everything, and Randall
Speaker 1: had to drive the entire way back and Judy went
Speaker 1: to sleep in the passenger side. They go straight to
Speaker 1: the station and both give interviews separately, and then the
Speaker 1: next morning Randall invited them out to his home, the
Speaker 1: home of the murder, and they He was video taped
Speaker 1: for forty five minutes, going through the entire house and
Speaker 1: basically excluding himself from not being a suspect because every
Speaker 1: time he was offered an opportunity to I guess put
Speaker 1: himself out of harm's way. He didn't, for example, or
Speaker 1: the scuff marks in the door, are are they fresh?
Speaker 1: Meaning maybe the house with barger eyes? Randall said no,
Speaker 1: they were oh old. When was the last time you
Speaker 1: had sex with your wife, Kathy? Randall said, oh, it's
Speaker 1: been many months, three or four months, which if he
Speaker 1: were guilty, he would have probably said within the last
Speaker 1: few days, explaining what turned out to be a DNA match,
Speaker 1: and on and on and on, and then Randall gave
Speaker 1: a polygraph test, and he voluntarily gave his blood for
Speaker 1: DNA testing, and then he thought, as soon as it
Speaker 1: comes back, he'll be excluded as a suspect. But it
Speaker 1: didn't happen that way, So the circumstantial evidence starts to mount. Right,
Speaker 1: it looked a little strange that Randall and Duty had
Speaker 1: left town the morning after the murders, and of course,
Speaker 1: with the affair and at being a small town and
Speaker 1: everything else, people are going to think whatever they think.
Speaker 1: But at the same time they put out these crazy theories,
Speaker 1: like the idea that Randal might have been after the
Speaker 1: life insurance when we know that she only had ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in life insurance anyway, which would barely cover
Speaker 1: the cost of the funeral, and it never made any
Speaker 1: sense on the face of it. Why would Randal want
Speaker 1: to make his children, who nobody had anything to say
Speaker 1: other than that he loved and they loved him, And
Speaker 1: why would he want to make them effectively orphans or
Speaker 1: in a minimum take even if you got away with it,
Speaker 1: take their mother from them. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, the circumstances, and then you know where
Speaker 1: ultimately it when when the DNA test came back, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the first suspect, of course is the spouse.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, when authorities focus on one person,
Speaker 1: they get myopic and the tunnel vision and they never
Speaker 1: look at anything else. And the investigation then is all
Speaker 1: about finding information to confirm their suspicion or their bias
Speaker 1: or their focus. In this case, though nothing made sinse
Speaker 1: as you point out initially, clearly, Kathy was in a
Speaker 1: fight for her life. She was in the bed, she
Speaker 1: was accosted by her killer, and there was a life
Speaker 1: and death struggle. Kathy was stabbed forty six times. Almost
Speaker 1: all of those were defensive wounds, and it took a
Speaker 1: long time for finally a couple of stab wounds to
Speaker 1: penetrate her organs and kill her. Randall this six ft
Speaker 1: one pounds Kathy was very demure, very small. In addition
Speaker 1: to that, the alleged rape was clearly staged. The body
Speaker 1: was moved from a normal sleeping position to across the bed.
Speaker 1: The left leg was propped down, the right leg was
Speaker 1: propped up on a table where an alarm clock was
Speaker 1: No one could be raped in that position. All the
Speaker 1: blood was consistent to the body being moved. The underwear
Speaker 1: was neatly cut off with scissors of Kathy. There was
Speaker 1: zero trauma to her vaginal area, zero none, zero. And
Speaker 1: what the pathologists testified to in both trials was that
Speaker 1: Cathy was dead before the seman ever entered her vagina,
Speaker 1: meaning that if someone had raped her, that person would
Speaker 1: have raped a corpse. So you had an extraordinary amount
Speaker 1: of information that clearly, oh that someone else committed this
Speaker 1: crime other than Randall Paget, And there's a lot more
Speaker 1: to that. You know, the idea that she was allegedly
Speaker 1: raped in that position with one leg up on the nightstand,
Speaker 1: but that the alarm clock was undisturbed didn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Very little of this made any sense. But the detectives
Speaker 1: ignored the statements of Randall's children who had been in
Speaker 1: the trailer with him all night, including one the little
Speaker 1: one that slept in the bed with him, and they
Speaker 1: had told the detective that he had never left the
Speaker 1: trailer that night and that they would have heard it
Speaker 1: if he had, that he hadn't showered. He had no
Speaker 1: blood on him, of course, which we know it was
Speaker 1: a bloody struggle. They didn't search his residence or his car,
Speaker 1: nor did they search Judy's residence or car, and an
Speaker 1: investigator clumsily, supposedly accidentally, let's let's call it, that destroyed
Speaker 1: a bloody fingerprint on Cathy's body. So six weeks go
Speaker 1: by October five, Randall, they come in and rescue it,
Speaker 1: and then you were charged with capital murder. I was
Speaker 1: at my in laws home, Ketty's parents, when over there me,
Speaker 1: me and the kids. I guess the police were following
Speaker 1: me or what. I don't know how they knew I
Speaker 1: was there. It was in a town about thirty miles
Speaker 1: away from where I live. Anyways, there was a knock
Speaker 1: on the door, and uh mother and law said there
Speaker 1: was someone to see me, and I went outside and
Speaker 1: the protectives as you're under rest for the murder of Kenthy.
Speaker 1: I said, uh, you rest in the Rome person. They
Speaker 1: put the handcuffs on me and said, let me go
Speaker 1: back in tell my children by no, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: And man, my mind was spinning. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was happening. And I was gravely concerned about my kids.
Speaker 1: They don't have a mother now there don't have a father,
Speaker 1: and what's going to happen to them? But I was
Speaker 1: in Uh. I was only in jail, I think about
Speaker 1: three days. I didn't need a thing I could need
Speaker 1: but any house. I got bonded out after about three days.
Speaker 1: So that part of my incarceration was kind of quick.
Speaker 1: But the other part when I got the prison was
Speaker 1: it was kind of long. That's a whole different story
Speaker 1: death row. We'll get to that. But Richard, in your
Speaker 1: book you talk about the first trial, and unlike most
Speaker 1: of the people that we've interviewed on the show, Randall
Speaker 1: had not just competent but highly skilled attorneys on the
Speaker 1: first trial. But they were up against it because the state, um,
Speaker 1: well they broke the rules. To put it mildly, they
Speaker 1: withheld evidence that I think would be deemed to be
Speaker 1: exculpatory until the very last minute, and there was other
Speaker 1: stuff going on. So can you walk us through the
Speaker 1: first trial and explain to us how it ended up
Speaker 1: the way it did. Randall did have good lawyers, and
Speaker 1: they retained a expert in d NA, and when the
Speaker 1: expert was cross examined, the expert had to concede that
Speaker 1: the DNA testing of the salmon was consistent with the
Speaker 1: DNA of Randall, meaning that the expert basically confirmed the
Speaker 1: state's case. So once Randall testified, the jury was pretty
Speaker 1: uninterested because they made up their mind. And there's more
Speaker 1: to this than that as well, because what I was
Speaker 1: making reference to before is the fact that there was
Speaker 1: blood at the scene, which is typical in a case
Speaker 1: where someone has stabbed numerous times because the stabber in
Speaker 1: this case, the murderer would normally cut themselves because the
Speaker 1: knife gets slippery and done the demonstration so many times,
Speaker 1: we just take a pen and you stab a book
Speaker 1: or a table or whatever, and by the third time
Speaker 1: down your hands already down on what would be the blade.
Speaker 1: So that's why we almost always find blood from the
Speaker 1: person doing the stabbing at the crime scene, and in
Speaker 1: this case that was also the case. Plus it was
Speaker 1: a violent struggle, and we know that Kathy fought for
Speaker 1: her life and she scratched the assailants numerous times. So
Speaker 1: there was blood found at the crime scene that was
Speaker 1: not Kathy's and it was not Randall's. You're in the
Speaker 1: first trial. There was one point in time when the
Speaker 1: zoologist was on the stand just find that my blood
Speaker 1: pop had changed from one day to the next, and
Speaker 1: he had never seen that happened. And here was twenty
Speaker 1: five years of work. I thought, well, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get found you. I'm going to go home today.
Speaker 1: So the prologist is up on the stand saying Randall's
Speaker 1: blood type changed, which we know isn't a thing. It can't,
Speaker 1: I mean. So, so the conclusion is that it was
Speaker 1: blood from the scene that they were testing that did
Speaker 1: not belong to Randall and was also not Kathy's, so
Speaker 1: mixed in with Cathy's blood, someone else's blood was at
Speaker 1: the crime scene. But the prosecution did not hand over
Speaker 1: that evidence until after the DNA experts who had come
Speaker 1: to town to test if I had already left. And
Speaker 1: then Randall's lawyer appropriately asked for a mistrial, and the
Speaker 1: judge seemingly inappropriately denied the motion. So this is where
Speaker 1: things start to really stack up and where you know,
Speaker 1: you can start to understand or I can how the
Speaker 1: jury would have found Randall guilty because it was hard
Speaker 1: for them to get past the idea of how could
Speaker 1: his sperm have ended up inside of her when he
Speaker 1: said he hadn't seen her in such a such amount
Speaker 1: of time and that is a you know, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty big albatross. But this other evidence was either ignored
Speaker 1: with hell, there were searches that were not done. There
Speaker 1: was all sorts of leads left unexplored. The huge pink
Speaker 1: elephant in the room was Randall's ex paramour, Judy Smith.
Speaker 1: Neither side was willing to call her to testify in
Speaker 1: the first trial. The state would have given her immunity
Speaker 1: if she would have implicated Randall, but she wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: So Judy never testified in the first trial, and the
Speaker 1: video that we talked about earlier of Randall going through
Speaker 1: the crime scene with the detectives was not played either.
Speaker 1: The interesting twist in this case is that the jury
Speaker 1: found them guilty and recommended a life without parole sentence.
Speaker 1: In that time Alabama had an override statute and the
Speaker 1: trial judge over wrote it and sentenced Randall to death.
Speaker 1: So Randall, that's may can you tell it gets through
Speaker 1: that awful, awful moment? Well, that would my twenty second
Speaker 1: that was my birthday a matter of fact, the sentence
Speaker 1: and that weathered me a lot. But I could anybody
Speaker 1: I think that I would do such a thing, and
Speaker 1: then they're gonna kill the wrong person. Somebody's out there
Speaker 1: and have really done this and it's not me, And uh,
Speaker 1: the whole world is going to believe what the court says.
Speaker 1: The court says I'm guilty and and that I must
Speaker 1: be put to death. As a father myself, the idea
Speaker 1: of you being torn away from your kids, who you
Speaker 1: now have even a more intense responsibility to care for
Speaker 1: and protect after everything they've been through and now they're
Speaker 1: effectively being orphaned, and you're thrust into the most horrible
Speaker 1: situation imaginable and being torn away from the people you
Speaker 1: love the most at the same time. You know, then
Speaker 1: what's horrible and helpless slug Okay, help myself. Nothing that
Speaker 1: I can do. It is going on help my children.
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by A I. G. A leading
Speaker 1: global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Morton and Garrison,
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. The A I G pro
Speaker 1: Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
Speaker 1: many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
Speaker 1: they announced that working to reform the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Speaker 1: Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
Speaker 1: our society and in support of the public interest, including
Speaker 1: extensive work in the criminal justice area. When I got
Speaker 1: the prison, it was it was I don't know, about
Speaker 1: ten o'clock at night and never been in a prison.
Speaker 1: Go in and it's all loud. People locked up there.
Speaker 1: They're screaming, and you hear the metal doors slamming shut
Speaker 1: and open, and that drap how you close off and
Speaker 1: they spread you down with some kind of chemical handcuffs
Speaker 1: and shackles on your legs and a chain going from
Speaker 1: your hands to your feet and then chain around your
Speaker 1: waist and all that lot. Say, little middy, stay ups
Speaker 1: back to where the death row was, and UH guard
Speaker 1: would hollered somebody would slide a metal door open and
Speaker 1: it slide behind me and the other inmates yelling at
Speaker 1: you and all this stuff and screaming, and get back
Speaker 1: to my little sail, which is uh I think was
Speaker 1: five feet by eight or nine ft and there's no
Speaker 1: lot in there are a lot more shot and it
Speaker 1: was completely dark. And get in there. They take the
Speaker 1: cuffs off, I mean slammed the door behind me, and
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm all alone, like on a different planet.
Speaker 1: And I can remember keept thinking I'm gonna get out
Speaker 1: of here. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get out of here. But after that, years went by.
Speaker 1: I remember carried up one night in the feet of
Speaker 1: position and just won't give up. And I'm gonna die
Speaker 1: die in this place, and nobody don't the whole world
Speaker 1: don't care about world will be glad when I do.
Speaker 1: But finally I got closer to God than I've ever
Speaker 1: been in my life. I was confident that God wouldn't
Speaker 1: wanna let me die for something I didn't do. And uh,
Speaker 1: you didn't. You get me out of there through Richard
Speaker 1: jeffish Um. Wow, Richard, the tables turned when you got
Speaker 1: involved but how did you come to be involved? And
Speaker 1: I'm so fascinated by the process and the way you
Speaker 1: describe it in the book, the decisions that you had
Speaker 1: to make, which are actually literally life and death decisions
Speaker 1: because you are the backstop right had you failed, Randall
Speaker 1: would have been put to death. So can you pick
Speaker 1: us through that whole process. The way that I met
Speaker 1: Brenda mass and Gil who later and currently became Randall's wife,
Speaker 1: they hardly knew each other, but I was speaking at
Speaker 1: the sixteenth Street Baptist Church in That's where the four
Speaker 1: young girls were murdered in the bombing of the church,
Speaker 1: and we were speaking on the death penalty. It was
Speaker 1: a kind of a small rally. Brenda approached me after
Speaker 1: I spoke and asked me if I had heard of
Speaker 1: Randall's case. I hadn't, and I refused to intervene at
Speaker 1: that point because he was well represented and I didn't
Speaker 1: expect ever to hear from anyone again about that. And
Speaker 1: then a few years later in Randall's family called the
Speaker 1: office through Brenda and wanted to meet with me. That
Speaker 1: Randall's case had been reversed because the prosecution had failed
Speaker 1: to disclose the blood typing evidence that was, as you say, exculpatory,
Speaker 1: and because of that, Randall was given a new trial.
Speaker 1: So when I got involved, I began to learn immediately
Speaker 1: all kinds of things about Judy, about her history, about
Speaker 1: how she was totally obsessed with Randall, to the point
Speaker 1: where she actually constructed in her home a duplication of
Speaker 1: Randall's children's bedroom. And Judy had actually confronted Kathy prior
Speaker 1: to the murder in a church parking lot. Judy had
Speaker 1: a raincoat on and sunglasses on a Wednesday night Kathy
Speaker 1: with the church. Every Wednesday night, Judy was hiding in
Speaker 1: Kathy's back seat. There was a confrontation. A church deacon
Speaker 1: broke it up. When Kathy told me about that Judy
Speaker 1: came up with you know, I just wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to her, and and I wasn't dressed Jeffie thing more
Speaker 1: than my normal dress. And so I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess I'll let the devil taught me in the kind
Speaker 1: of believing that Judy wasn't uh anything that was no
Speaker 1: good and instead of believing can't be like I should have.
Speaker 1: And I can't explain. It was just a crazy time
Speaker 1: in my life. The problem that Judy was having with
Speaker 1: patience because Randall separated from Kathy several times, but each
Speaker 1: time came back to her. On this occasion, when the
Speaker 1: brutal murder happened, it became clear to me that Judy
Speaker 1: wasn't going to take the chance of the divorce not
Speaker 1: going through. So apparently she took matters in her own hands.
Speaker 1: And then now we have a glory, horrific, unimaginable crime
Speaker 1: scene that ultimately led to Randall's arrest, conviction, and death
Speaker 1: symbols Randall, were there any other moments besides the church
Speaker 1: parking lot incident that kind of made you think to yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, Judy might just be a little bit off.
Speaker 1: Thinking back through all this stuff, I remember one time
Speaker 1: when this was before getting killed, when I was at
Speaker 1: Judy's place and I was always him blocked bag that
Speaker 1: had some I'm a smoker, had some cigarette butts in it,
Speaker 1: and some fingernail clippings like what is this? And it's oh,
Speaker 1: I love you so much. I only to say these,
Speaker 1: you know, and I said, well, what a thing to say,
Speaker 1: is what I'm thinking. But thinking back, you know, she
Speaker 1: might have been up some mischief with that, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, and then you know, then things get weirder. Right,
Speaker 1: you're investigator forgetting his name. Now, who was the investigator
Speaker 1: in this case. Our investigator was Rick Blake, and he
Speaker 1: was our in house investigator, and he was amazing. What
Speaker 1: was really fascinating is is that after the murder, Judy
Speaker 1: took two weeks off from work, two weeks off, and
Speaker 1: we developed evidence that Judy had scratch marks all up
Speaker 1: and down her arms, meaning that she was apparently in
Speaker 1: some type of vicious life for death struggle, and so
Speaker 1: she stayed at home until those scratches healed. Another thing
Speaker 1: is is that Judy's blood was never tested, her DNA
Speaker 1: was never tested, her home was never searched, her car
Speaker 1: was never searched. The police, for whatever reason, completely ignored
Speaker 1: her as I suspect. Listen, if somebody had done this
Speaker 1: work that you did all those years later, initially, it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the trial, the first trial,
Speaker 1: would have ended up in an acquittal. Because there's more. Right,
Speaker 1: there's also a truck driver who came forward who said
Speaker 1: that he had seen a car matching the description of
Speaker 1: Judy's car, which was a very distinct car writing a
Speaker 1: hubcap with a certain color leaving Cathy's home in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. That's pretty powerful. It's hard to
Speaker 1: come up with a good excuse for that. But then
Speaker 1: comes the craziest part of all of this, right, and again,
Speaker 1: your investigator had you know, and I reread the chapter
Speaker 1: in your book this morning talking about how he had
Speaker 1: gone to beauty parlors trying to find people who knew Judy,
Speaker 1: thinking that in the town, a small town with only
Speaker 1: a few beauty parlors, she might have frequented one of them.
Speaker 1: And sure enough he found people that knew her. And
Speaker 1: what he discovered from that point turns out to be
Speaker 1: really important evidence and really bizarre. He found three different
Speaker 1: people that told him clearly that Judy had this fetish
Speaker 1: with saving her then ex husband, Tommy Smith salmon and
Speaker 1: putting it in milkshakes. I can remember before Kathy was killed,
Speaker 1: usually after six we would both I'm talking about two
Speaker 1: D would go up to sleep. I don't know weeks
Speaker 1: before Kathy was killed, after six two D she would
Speaker 1: immediately get up, go to bathroom. So then well, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting then there in president I'm thinking what was she
Speaker 1: doing in the bathroom. Was she saving some stuff? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I don't know. Rick Blake, our investigator,
Speaker 1: he found three different people. We tried to get all
Speaker 1: free to court, but we could only get one, the
Speaker 1: milkshake lady. She was one of the three that Judy
Speaker 1: had discuss this with on many occasions, and we hauled
Speaker 1: her to testify and it was dynamic and powerful, and
Speaker 1: the prosecution did everything they could to keep it out.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've told this story to unfair number of
Speaker 1: people and it doesn't get crazier than that. And that
Speaker 1: wasn't all though, Richard the trial itself, the biggest decision
Speaker 1: that I've ever had to make in any trial was
Speaker 1: whether to call Judy to testify. That was crucial because
Speaker 1: again the prosecution kept holding out immunity if she testified
Speaker 1: against Randall. We were back in the judge's chamber as
Speaker 1: time would run out. The judge looked up and said,
Speaker 1: all right, call your next witness, and I said, we're
Speaker 1: going to call Judy Smith. And at that point the
Speaker 1: prosecutors jaws rock to the floor. It was stunned silence,
Speaker 1: because no one believed we had the I guess they
Speaker 1: guts to call her and we did. And her testimony
Speaker 1: was the most both powerful and bizarre testimony anyone could envision.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, she testified that she prayed every night.
Speaker 1: She loved Randall so much that every night she prayed
Speaker 1: that something would happen to Kathy and that she would
Speaker 1: get killed in a car wreck so she could be
Speaker 1: with Randall, and she still loved him. When I asked
Speaker 1: her about her ability to enter the home, it slipped
Speaker 1: from her mouth almost that there was a and I
Speaker 1: knew she meant key that was hidden in a particular
Speaker 1: place for Randall's children to get when they returned home
Speaker 1: from school. Well, she knew about it where it was hidden,
Speaker 1: and that slipped out of her mouth almost. She tried
Speaker 1: to take it back, but she couldn't, And jurors remembered
Speaker 1: that during deliberations. But the most powerful thing was and
Speaker 1: again you point out something very very, so so crucial.
Speaker 1: And as every question ask of a witness in a
Speaker 1: death penalty case, especially a witness like her, judy could
Speaker 1: be the bomb that destroy you. It could be the
Speaker 1: landline that blows the case up. So every question had
Speaker 1: to be so measured. But I asked her, if that
Speaker 1: is Randall's d n A in Cathy's vaginal canal. How
Speaker 1: do you think it got there? It's it's an objectionable question,
Speaker 1: but the prosecution didn't object because clearly they thought that
Speaker 1: she would either say I have no idea, but her
Speaker 1: answer was if that was Randall's d n A, that
Speaker 1: they had to have come from me, and that standing
Speaker 1: room only courtroom and you could hear a pin drop.
Speaker 1: So the jury now has heard her try to walk
Speaker 1: back her explanation of how she could have gotten into
Speaker 1: the house, because, of course, one of the things that
Speaker 1: the prosecution theory hinged on it was the idea that
Speaker 1: there was no break in. There was no signs of
Speaker 1: breaking and entering, so it must have been somebody logically
Speaker 1: who knew Kathy and was admitted into the house. But
Speaker 1: now that the key in the location the key was
Speaker 1: known to Judy and that was out in the open,
Speaker 1: that was one thing. And now of course her making
Speaker 1: this unbelievable admission in open court is a huge moment.
Speaker 1: But even still, the jury uh goes to deliberate, Randall,
Speaker 1: what did you think they were gone for close to
Speaker 1: three full days? Did you allow yourself to hope that
Speaker 1: they would come back with a not girlthy verdict? Or
Speaker 1: were you what what? What were you thinking? Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think as a clip any here in those three
Speaker 1: days going back and forth to the jail which was
Speaker 1: just across street in the courthouse, but you know, I
Speaker 1: had a hope and Richard. So the jury is out
Speaker 1: two and a half days and the judge is basically
Speaker 1: at his wits end, I would say, and is on
Speaker 1: the verge of declaring a mistrial, which would have been devastating.
Speaker 1: Did you talk about this in the book as well?
Speaker 1: How the judge called you and the prosecution team into
Speaker 1: his chambers I guess right for a conference. He did,
Speaker 1: and he was very clear. He said, gentlemen, I'm going
Speaker 1: to declare a mis trial. I don't believe in forcing
Speaker 1: drawars to give up their their feelings and beliefs. And
Speaker 1: I tried to talk him out of it, and he went, no,
Speaker 1: I've made up my mind. And this is a judge
Speaker 1: that when he makes up his mind, he does. As
Speaker 1: we filed out into the courtroom, I was the last
Speaker 1: one other than he was behind me. As we began
Speaker 1: to enter the courtroom, I turned around. I looked at
Speaker 1: him right in the eyes, and I went judge just
Speaker 1: asked the jurors if they think they can come to
Speaker 1: a verdict. He didn't say anything. We sat down, he
Speaker 1: faced the jury. He said, ladies and gentlemen, I have
Speaker 1: no choice but two. And then he paused just for
Speaker 1: a second, and he turned to his left and looked
Speaker 1: me right in the eye, and we locked. And then
Speaker 1: he turned back around to the jury and he did
Speaker 1: a one eight. He said, is there anyone on the
Speaker 1: jury that leaves that you could come to a unanimous verdict?
Speaker 1: And two or three people nodded their heads and said yes.
Speaker 1: I was stunned or a reversal. The jury went back
Speaker 1: to deliberate. Their courthouse continued to be totally packed, standing romotely,
Speaker 1: and people were basically in prayer. And for five minutes
Speaker 1: later they came out and it was not guilty. Now
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I cried this morning when I
Speaker 1: read the book and I knew the story, I'd read
Speaker 1: it before. Um, Randy, what was that moment like when
Speaker 1: you were vindicated and you were on the verge of
Speaker 1: being returned to your family, to your community, your good
Speaker 1: name was given back to you. I can't imagine. Can
Speaker 1: please explain. Well, I don't know if I can, but
Speaker 1: like I had been held under water to the point
Speaker 1: of grounding, I had to come up brier and I'm
Speaker 1: at the point where I'm either going to drowned or not.
Speaker 1: And then the not guilty burd that just pulls me
Speaker 1: up into air. I can breathe again, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to live. It was just total jubilation. And you hadn't
Speaker 1: really slept her eating in a few days, as you said,
Speaker 1: so it must have the judge, remember judge saying, and
Speaker 1: you're free to go. Mr Pagett and jailor came over
Speaker 1: to take me back to the jail with cuts only
Speaker 1: get my stuff and I going back to the jail.
Speaker 1: You could keep my stuff, you know. And then my son,
Speaker 1: who had grown and got his driver's license, got to
Speaker 1: drive his daddy home. It was just wonderful, wonderful, Richard,
Speaker 1: What about you? It was? It was a feeling of
Speaker 1: elation that it's really hard to imagine unless you have
Speaker 1: heard not guilty. He's on death penalty cases before. This
Speaker 1: being a retrial made it all that much more unimaginable.
Speaker 1: You have the best job in the world, at least
Speaker 1: on days like that you do. Now before we go
Speaker 1: to the closing of the show, talk about the juror
Speaker 1: who approached you on your way out of the courtroom, Richard.
Speaker 1: Probably the credit for the jury's correct not guilty verdict,
Speaker 1: a lot of it goes to her at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. That's exactly right what happens in these trials.
Speaker 1: Having tried hundreds myself, you often misread drawers. We thought
Speaker 1: that the older lady and a younger lady the one
Speaker 1: you're talking of, probably in her forties, we thought that
Speaker 1: they hated us, But it was the opposite. The initial
Speaker 1: vote was eight to four for guilty, we later learned.
Speaker 1: And when we walked out of the courtroom towards our car,
Speaker 1: the one you allude to, the female, the forty year
Speaker 1: old forty something ere locked up to me and said, Mr. Jaffee,
Speaker 1: can have a word with you? And I said, sure,
Speaker 1: she said, and she just looked at me right in me.
Speaker 1: I was like a foot from her, and she said,
Speaker 1: you know, only a woman would know you can't have
Speaker 1: sex in that position. So I climbed on the table
Speaker 1: and put my right leg up and my left leg down,
Speaker 1: and I made it clear to the mostly male jury
Speaker 1: that Randall Paget could not have had sex with cat
Speaker 1: thing in that position, and that flipped other girawars and
Speaker 1: ultimately all twelve found Randall not guilty. The last thing
Speaker 1: she said to me was you tell Randall Pageant to
Speaker 1: stay away from Judy Smith and go spend time with
Speaker 1: his kids. And then we walked away. And the truth
Speaker 1: is that Randall hadn't seen Judy since the night at
Speaker 1: the police station when they arrived back from Florida, and he,
Speaker 1: of course has it since. Do you know what became
Speaker 1: of Judy Smith after all these years? Uh? I don't, Richard.
Speaker 1: Is it strange to you that they never prosecuted her.
Speaker 1: It's not strange because the prosecution had already publicly made
Speaker 1: it clear that they didn't think she was involved at
Speaker 1: all and knew nothing. So the chances of them getting
Speaker 1: a conviction while it existed weren't really high. And I
Speaker 1: think the prosecution was just done with that case. They
Speaker 1: had pretty much been embarrassed enough, I guess. And Randall
Speaker 1: before I keep saying this, but one last question before
Speaker 1: we get to the wrap up, how are your kids doing?
Speaker 1: These poor children had to live through a nightmare that
Speaker 1: is unimaginable, you know, losing their mom and then almost
Speaker 1: losing their dad or losing their dad for six years.
Speaker 1: How are they doing now, Well, they're they're doing good.
Speaker 1: And uh I've got three oh granddaughters now from them.
Speaker 1: My son has two red headed girls. He lives in
Speaker 1: Nashville and he's an architect. My daughter lives in Alabama
Speaker 1: and one time was president of the company she worked for.
Speaker 1: She since moved to a different place of than woman,
Speaker 1: but and she has one little girl. I'm so proud
Speaker 1: of them and I love them. The thesis, well, that's great,
Speaker 1: and I wish them all the blessings in the world
Speaker 1: because they deserve. As to you, everything good. Um So,
Speaker 1: now we come to the wrap up of our show,
Speaker 1: which is a segment that is my favorite part called
Speaker 1: Closing Arguments, where I first of all, thank both of
Speaker 1: you Richard Jeffie, criminal defense lawyer, author and amazing advocate,
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. And of course Randall, thank
Speaker 1: you Randall Paget for sharing your story so eloquently and beautifully.
Speaker 1: And this part of the show is where I get
Speaker 1: to kick back in my chair, switch off my microphone
Speaker 1: and let you just share any other thoughts that you
Speaker 1: may want to share with our audience. Randall, We're gonna
Speaker 1: save you for last, if that's okay, Richard, your first
Speaker 1: has been a true privilege, honor, and joy to get
Speaker 1: to know and represent Randall Paget and become close with
Speaker 1: he and his now wife, Brenda Massengale of fifteen years.
Speaker 1: This is a kind of case where reality really trump's
Speaker 1: fiction because had it not been for the failure to
Speaker 1: disclose the exculpatory conflicting information of blood typing, Randall would
Speaker 1: never have got a chance for a new trial. And
Speaker 1: it amazes me that the prosecution hid that until it
Speaker 1: was too late. The only other thing I would say
Speaker 1: would be that law enforcement often excludes a wider investigation
Speaker 1: once they focus on one suspect, and when that happens,
Speaker 1: the wrong person can easily been convicted. And a really
Speaker 1: thorough investigation would have revealed the truth that Randall was innocent.
Speaker 1: And I thank God that Randall is here with us
Speaker 1: to share his story. He is a true thought of
Speaker 1: the earth human being Randall. I would just like to say,
Speaker 1: I think Mr Richard jeff is the greatest attorney in
Speaker 1: the world. He believed in me, He believed the truth.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Richard. I will love you Richard
Speaker 1: very much. One thing about me, I guess I was
Speaker 1: naive about the justice system in America. I had heard
Speaker 1: of people getting wrongfully convicted, and I didn't pay much
Speaker 1: attention to it. But but I thought, you know, when
Speaker 1: if you go to trial in the United States, the
Speaker 1: foremost thing in the court's mind is supposed to be
Speaker 1: the truth. But I don't think it works that way.
Speaker 1: I think if the piece of truth comes up, that's
Speaker 1: bad part which ever side, I think it gets twisted
Speaker 1: around or tried to cover it or something. And I
Speaker 1: guess for people listening to this, if you're ever sitting
Speaker 1: on a jury, I would ask that you don't just
Speaker 1: believe because a defendant has been accused of something, that
Speaker 1: that he probably did something or he wouldn't be there.
Speaker 1: And I would ask that you would make the prosecution
Speaker 1: show you some concrete proof to back up what they're saying.
Speaker 1: And if I got just one other minute, I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk about my friend and now life Brenda. When
Speaker 1: I was in Brison, she was so nice to me.
Speaker 1: She was trying to raise money for me and written
Speaker 1: legal eight places. I think she wrote the governor, and
Speaker 1: I don't know who I would. I thought, why is
Speaker 1: this woman being so nice to me? And I thought
Speaker 1: she's a spy for the prosecution, because I was pretty
Speaker 1: sure I was going to get a retrial because prosecution
Speaker 1: had with failed that exculpatory evidence. And I thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: they know it's going to be a retrial. And she's
Speaker 1: a spy. And she kept wanting to come and visit me,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't let her. I thought, if I don't
Speaker 1: let her come down here, she can't say said something.
Speaker 1: But if I do let her come, she can go
Speaker 1: back and say Randall said this. Randall said that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't let her come. And a couple of years all
Speaker 1: my letters dwindled away except hers, and so finally, through
Speaker 1: her letters, got to trust and she did not be
Speaker 1: a spot but a great hey. And after I got out,
Speaker 1: we've married about a bad years later. But he's the
Speaker 1: most wonderful person. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause.
Speaker 1: And helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nomine composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at rang Full Conviction and on Facebook
Speaker 1: at rang Full Conviction podcast. Rang Full Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
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