1
00:00:00,680 --> 00:00:04,519
Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language, along with references

2
00:00:04,559 --> 00:00:07,720
Speaker 1: to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

3
00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:19,439
Speaker 2: He asks his lead detective, a guy he really trusts,

4
00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:21,560
Speaker 2: and says, listen, I want you to pull the James

5
00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:25,200
Speaker 2: Rayos file. Pulls the file, reads it, and then he

6
00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:28,160
Speaker 2: says to the detective, where's the rest of it? And

7
00:00:28,200 --> 00:00:29,360
Speaker 2: he goes, that's it.

8
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,839
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

9
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:42,640
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

10
00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:46,519
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

11
00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:50,520
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

12
00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:53,840
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

13
00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

14
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:03,880
Speaker 1: and podcasters who investigated and reported on notorious true crime cases.

15
00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:07,840
Speaker 1: This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad,

16
00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:11,680
Speaker 1: and it's a deep dive into the unpublished details behind

17
00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:16,240
Speaker 1: their stories. We're taking you back to nineteen eighties West

18
00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:20,280
Speaker 1: Texas oil country, when a Catholic priest was found murdered

19
00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:23,920
Speaker 1: in a CD hotel in Odessa. Investigators focused on a

20
00:01:23,959 --> 00:01:27,880
Speaker 1: gay apache man who had made an accusation against the victim.

21
00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:31,200
Speaker 1: Director deb Esconazzi tells the story at the center of

22
00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:37,880
Speaker 1: her documentary Night in West Texas. Will you set the

23
00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:42,280
Speaker 1: scene for what Odessa, Texas was like in nineteen eighty one?

24
00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:45,039
Speaker 1: But first of all, where is Odessa for people who

25
00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:45,880
Speaker 1: aren't in Texas.

26
00:01:46,160 --> 00:01:50,960
Speaker 2: Yes, so nineteen eighty one, Odessa, Texas is the seat

27
00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 2: of what we call the Permian Basin, which is where

28
00:01:55,880 --> 00:02:02,800
Speaker 2: basically well known in American frontier lore as oil country.

29
00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:05,279
Speaker 2: It is the center of the oil and gas world.

30
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:09,040
Speaker 2: It's where you get the most oil raw crude oil

31
00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:13,919
Speaker 2: in America. And nineteen eighty one, in West Texas, this

32
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:17,760
Speaker 2: is like flat country essentially, it's quite desert. All of

33
00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 2: that oil is like, you know, as my call at

34
00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:25,320
Speaker 2: Texas Monthly would say, is dinosaur guts. It's just old, old,

35
00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:31,720
Speaker 2: you know, rough, sort of like raw black tar underneath

36
00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:36,320
Speaker 2: the rock. Eighty one was a boomtown. Odessa was. It

37
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:40,680
Speaker 2: was a heavy, wildcatter world. It was the seat of

38
00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 2: the most homicides in America at the time, which is

39
00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:48,240
Speaker 2: hard to believe nineteen eighty one, but it was, which

40
00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:52,160
Speaker 2: was a product of boomtown culture. I think fans of

41
00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:55,320
Speaker 2: landman might kind of understand this world a little bit better.

42
00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:59,120
Speaker 2: And what took place at the time. What I was

43
00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:03,680
Speaker 2: interested in was this little microcosmic world, which was basically

44
00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:07,840
Speaker 2: I would describe it as the red light district of Odessa, Texas.

45
00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:10,880
Speaker 2: If there was a place, it would be this and

46
00:03:10,960 --> 00:03:14,480
Speaker 2: the stand and Sage Motel, which was this kind of

47
00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:18,400
Speaker 2: again the seat of this red light district, you know,

48
00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:21,440
Speaker 2: was the seat of this murder that took place of

49
00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:24,200
Speaker 2: a Catholic priest in nineteen eighty one.

50
00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:27,400
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back, because now I'm fascinated with the

51
00:03:27,880 --> 00:03:31,960
Speaker 1: you know, high crime rate in Odessa. So we're talking

52
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,440
Speaker 1: about Reagan, right, this is the Reagan years eighty one,

53
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:38,680
Speaker 1: and I have to assume that oil was sought out

54
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 1: and supported in all of that. Is this a lot

55
00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:43,840
Speaker 1: of money or are we talking because there are a

56
00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:47,480
Speaker 1: lot of wealthy people mixed with oil workers. It's caused

57
00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:49,000
Speaker 1: conflicts or what does it all mean?

58
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's happening are drift workers or man camps

59
00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:56,040
Speaker 2: what are called man camps are getting built because there's

60
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:59,680
Speaker 2: so much work around drilling at this time that a

61
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,560
Speaker 2: lot of these sort of drifter communities would come in.

62
00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:07,200
Speaker 2: We call them wildcatters to sort of help drill the oil.

63
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,840
Speaker 2: This isn't really a place where you're going to see

64
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:12,160
Speaker 2: that sort of you know, wealth that you would see,

65
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:15,160
Speaker 2: say in Houston, that kind of river Oakes money or

66
00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:18,920
Speaker 2: Dallas money. This is really just these blue collar workers

67
00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:23,479
Speaker 2: coming to this area living in man camps, and this

68
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 2: is like a world where yeah, it's this blue collar world. Essentially,

69
00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,760
Speaker 2: the murder rates really had to do with the size

70
00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:33,920
Speaker 2: of the place and the amount of murders that took place.

71
00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:37,640
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a really small stretch of land.

72
00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:40,920
Speaker 2: It's not even I mean we're not talking about the

73
00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:43,680
Speaker 2: size of the entire West Texas. It's a small town.

74
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:47,800
Speaker 2: You know, these murders we're talking about, generally speaking, people

75
00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 2: with making a lot of money. These are transient populations,

76
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,440
Speaker 2: and when they come in, you know, these other things happen.

77
00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:57,640
Speaker 2: They're just like, make a ton of money and small

78
00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:01,080
Speaker 2: amount of time because they're working super hard, and then

79
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:04,599
Speaker 2: they leave after the bust. So you get these kind

80
00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,240
Speaker 2: of cycles, these sort of in and out populations of

81
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:10,240
Speaker 2: people coming to this town.

82
00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:14,440
Speaker 1: When I interview people about Texas stories, particularly in the

83
00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:19,479
Speaker 1: eighties and before, they sometimes talk about towns in relation

84
00:05:19,600 --> 00:05:22,000
Speaker 1: to how many churches they have or how many bars

85
00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:25,240
Speaker 1: they have, or both. And then sometimes I add in

86
00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:29,279
Speaker 1: tattoo parlors because you know, we see when you've got different,

87
00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:33,360
Speaker 1: you know, military bases around, and so I'm always interested

88
00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:35,880
Speaker 1: in that. So what is this a bar or church

89
00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:37,799
Speaker 1: or a combination or.

90
00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 2: The scene of the crime? Literally is this red light district?

91
00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:45,080
Speaker 2: And you won't find a church anywhere near here at

92
00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:48,320
Speaker 2: the time, however, because this is the murder of a

93
00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:51,919
Speaker 2: very beloved priest from a nearby town, the town of

94
00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:55,479
Speaker 2: Denver City that does have quite a few churches, and

95
00:05:55,640 --> 00:05:58,599
Speaker 2: the seat of that town is the church that father

96
00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:02,839
Speaker 2: Patrick Ryan was in. And he was from Ireland came

97
00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 2: to America for reasons we cannot understand or know it,

98
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 2: like he sort of seemed to drift in out of nowhere.

99
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:14,440
Speaker 2: It was really interesting when we were trying to understand

100
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:17,760
Speaker 2: this man and how he ends up being an irishman

101
00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:22,000
Speaker 2: in Texas. There were a lot of theories. This case

102
00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:24,919
Speaker 2: essentially had quite a bit of lore attached to it,

103
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:27,360
Speaker 2: which is one of the reasons I wanted to direct

104
00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:30,160
Speaker 2: this film and why I started getting really interested in

105
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 2: like people were making up and or trying to understand

106
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:38,080
Speaker 2: how this man seems to arrive in the United States

107
00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:40,479
Speaker 2: out of thin air. So there were theories, some of

108
00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:42,599
Speaker 2: which I could share, some of which I was not

109
00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:46,680
Speaker 2: never able to confirm. But you know, what he's doing

110
00:06:46,760 --> 00:06:50,200
Speaker 2: there is he's you know, now, he's running a parish,

111
00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:53,760
Speaker 2: a church in Denver City nearby. And how he gets

112
00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,280
Speaker 2: to Odessa that night that he has murdered is another

113
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:01,559
Speaker 2: mystery that nobody seen to be able to solve.

114
00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:05,280
Speaker 1: Okay, well, that's always an interesting story, is when there

115
00:07:05,279 --> 00:07:06,680
Speaker 1: are some things that you're never going to be able

116
00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:09,760
Speaker 1: to figure out. Let's do a couple of more contextual

117
00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:13,240
Speaker 1: detail things. Number One, tell me a little bit about

118
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:17,440
Speaker 1: the red light district specifically. I know you mentioned a motel.

119
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:20,160
Speaker 1: Are we talking about sex work or is it gambling

120
00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:21,480
Speaker 1: or what is it?

121
00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:25,400
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably both? You know, obviously there's no official red

122
00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:30,200
Speaker 2: light district, right. So the original owner of the hotel,

123
00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:33,560
Speaker 2: of the stand and Stage motel is somebody I had

124
00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:37,280
Speaker 2: the pleasure of interviewing, and he basically recollected the time

125
00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:39,880
Speaker 2: for me because now it's just a bunch of warehouses.

126
00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:44,160
Speaker 2: The motel has been turned into a million other things

127
00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:46,640
Speaker 2: that have nothing to do with sex work. But at

128
00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:49,080
Speaker 2: the time it really was like a place that you

129
00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:52,440
Speaker 2: would rent out an hour here, an hour there, sometimes

130
00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:56,040
Speaker 2: one day, sometimes a week. It's really interesting, you said,

131
00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:59,080
Speaker 2: it was just, you know, it was a rough place.

132
00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:01,160
Speaker 2: They made a ton of money at that motel, and

133
00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:04,320
Speaker 2: they were constantly turning the rooms. And he said, there

134
00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:07,160
Speaker 2: were a few people that would rent those rooms for

135
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,240
Speaker 2: a week here, a week there, and you know, nearby

136
00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:14,360
Speaker 2: were other motels. It was a place where women would.

137
00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:18,360
Speaker 2: You know, there was a quite heavy prostitution population in

138
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:22,480
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one. Drugs were also part of this sort

139
00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:26,600
Speaker 2: of stretch. And at the motel there was a pretty

140
00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:30,800
Speaker 2: popular diner that I guess was open twenty four hours.

141
00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:33,200
Speaker 2: So it was a place where you could, you know,

142
00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:36,880
Speaker 2: get really wasted but also get sobered up. It seemed

143
00:08:36,880 --> 00:08:39,960
Speaker 2: to be really popular. And of course the original owner said,

144
00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:43,000
Speaker 2: you know, he was making money, you know, hand over

145
00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:47,240
Speaker 2: fist at the time. But somewhere in his own journey,

146
00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:50,680
Speaker 2: this motel owner, he said, you know, he sort of

147
00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:52,800
Speaker 2: turned to religion and turned to God and he just

148
00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:56,080
Speaker 2: couldn't he couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't run a

149
00:08:56,080 --> 00:08:59,959
Speaker 2: place like that and so he eventually closed it down

150
00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:01,040
Speaker 2: it into something else.

151
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:07,040
Speaker 1: Okay, And in Odessa and eighty one, what was the demographic.

152
00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:11,560
Speaker 2: It's interesting because you know, Odessa, Texas nineteen eighty seven

153
00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,160
Speaker 2: becomes extremely famous in a tiny little book called Friday

154
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:19,640
Speaker 2: Night Lights. And that book became when I was in

155
00:09:19,679 --> 00:09:22,520
Speaker 2: my early twenties. That was well years ago. Now, that

156
00:09:22,679 --> 00:09:26,000
Speaker 2: was like the great book about the you know, West

157
00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:29,280
Speaker 2: Texas and the Permian Basin. And so Buzz Bissinger, who's

158
00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:31,440
Speaker 2: in my film Night in West Texas, will tell you

159
00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,920
Speaker 2: that the town is there are racial tensions, and the

160
00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:38,880
Speaker 2: town is predominantly white. And you know, in his world,

161
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:41,360
Speaker 2: of course he's talking about the primary high school there

162
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:45,679
Speaker 2: and the Permian Panthers and the football team and all

163
00:09:45,679 --> 00:09:48,800
Speaker 2: the race relations which were quite volatile. But in terms

164
00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 2: of where this motel is, this is mostly again, these

165
00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:54,400
Speaker 2: are going to be mostly oil workers coming in. These

166
00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:58,480
Speaker 2: are transient populations and these primarily would be white men.

167
00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:06,120
Speaker 1: Let's switch to when this happens, and you know why.

168
00:10:06,160 --> 00:10:08,920
Speaker 1: This is a true crime story. So we know that

169
00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,400
Speaker 1: father Patrick Ryan is our victim here. He came from

170
00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:16,760
Speaker 1: Ireland and it's very mysterious, right, but you said he

171
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:19,520
Speaker 1: lived at a parish and Dinvers City, which was how

172
00:10:19,559 --> 00:10:20,920
Speaker 1: far away from Odessa.

173
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:25,000
Speaker 2: It's about eighty miles, you know, not terribly far. And

174
00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:28,360
Speaker 2: of course, as you so many people might imagine West Texas,

175
00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:31,200
Speaker 2: this is like driving country. You know, it's not easy.

176
00:10:31,280 --> 00:10:34,840
Speaker 2: These These aren't like the Northeastern Corridor where you easily

177
00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:38,440
Speaker 2: get through trains and other means. You know, this is

178
00:10:38,520 --> 00:10:44,319
Speaker 2: like raw wide country, big sky. It's agricultural. It has

179
00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:49,960
Speaker 2: a massive cotton farming, agricultural sort of presence aside from oil.

180
00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:52,160
Speaker 2: And so you know, to get from one town to

181
00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:53,920
Speaker 2: the other, you're going to have to get in a car,

182
00:10:54,040 --> 00:10:55,920
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of driving and there's a lot

183
00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:58,760
Speaker 2: of nothing. So yeah, it is really interesting. Now. The

184
00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:00,960
Speaker 2: one thing that we do know about the victim, about

185
00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,600
Speaker 2: father Patrick Ryan, is that he did speak Spanish, and

186
00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:07,520
Speaker 2: so Denver City would be populated with quite a bit

187
00:11:07,559 --> 00:11:10,840
Speaker 2: of agricultural workers. It's a little different from Odessa. So

188
00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:14,360
Speaker 2: Odessa's our sort of wildcatter, the seed of the wildcatters, right,

189
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:18,160
Speaker 2: so we're imagining these are oil workers. And then you've

190
00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:21,479
Speaker 2: got Denver City and that is a much more Latino

191
00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:24,800
Speaker 2: population and that's where he was a priest, He was

192
00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:28,280
Speaker 2: very beloved and in our research, we never found anything

193
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:30,960
Speaker 2: untoward about Father Ryan. You know, you can go into

194
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:35,240
Speaker 2: these something like Bishop Accountability dot org and look, you know,

195
00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:39,439
Speaker 2: was there anything improprietis or nefarious regarding Father Ryan as

196
00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:41,880
Speaker 2: you have with other priests, And we could never find

197
00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:46,200
Speaker 2: any traction. So, you know, when people say they loved

198
00:11:46,280 --> 00:11:48,800
Speaker 2: him and he was a good guy, by all accounts,

199
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:51,640
Speaker 2: people loved him and he was a good guy. You know,

200
00:11:51,760 --> 00:11:54,400
Speaker 2: how he gets to Odessa, How he is murdered that

201
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:58,480
Speaker 2: night was you know, a great mystery after it happened,

202
00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:02,440
Speaker 2: and it happened the night of Christmas, which was a

203
00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:06,080
Speaker 2: pretty remarkable time, I believe, to miss your priest right

204
00:12:06,280 --> 00:12:09,320
Speaker 2: in Denver City, you've got you know, individuals seated in

205
00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:12,920
Speaker 2: pews ready to do the Mass, and then he doesn't

206
00:12:12,920 --> 00:12:16,640
Speaker 2: show up. And what sort of becomes like a little

207
00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:19,839
Speaker 2: bit of a like curiosity turns into panic, and what

208
00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:24,360
Speaker 2: you can read about in the trial transcripts eventually you

209
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,960
Speaker 2: can read about how these individuals made their own mass

210
00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,360
Speaker 2: that night. So the people are sort of panicking, what's

211
00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:33,360
Speaker 2: going on, Where's our priest? And it's like, well, we

212
00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:35,440
Speaker 2: have a mass to do. So the people sort of

213
00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:38,160
Speaker 2: get up and do their own impromptu mass that night

214
00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:42,200
Speaker 2: and next day, people are on the phone. People are

215
00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:44,600
Speaker 2: making calls. They want to know where Father Ryan is.

216
00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:49,280
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so they are making phone calls. They don't

217
00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:52,640
Speaker 1: know where he is. Of course, this is way before CCTV,

218
00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:56,319
Speaker 1: before cell phones, before tracking on cars. He has a car, though, right,

219
00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:59,360
Speaker 1: so he can travel somewhere. When do they make the

220
00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: connection between Father Ryan and whatever terrible thing happens? I

221
00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,400
Speaker 1: have to presume in this motel in Odessa that night.

222
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:11,920
Speaker 2: So twenty four hours later, a John Doe shows up

223
00:13:12,320 --> 00:13:17,120
Speaker 2: eleven am. A maid comes in, sees this man brutally,

224
00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:20,800
Speaker 2: brutally murdered. Not just a murder we're talking about, you

225
00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:22,680
Speaker 2: know what we say in the film, this was an

226
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:25,959
Speaker 2: act of overkill, which is a very specific kind of murder.

227
00:13:26,679 --> 00:13:29,640
Speaker 2: A few hours after that, there's a proclamation of a

228
00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:34,600
Speaker 2: John Doe looking for identity. Next thing, you know, the

229
00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,400
Speaker 2: cops are making, you know, putting two and two together.

230
00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:41,679
Speaker 2: There's a missing priest who vanished. We've got a John Doe.

231
00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:45,720
Speaker 2: So one of the heads of the brotherhood of this

232
00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:50,480
Speaker 2: Denver City parish. So this man Angel Perez is his name.

233
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:53,480
Speaker 2: I remember him from the child transcripts that I poured over,

234
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:57,760
Speaker 2: and he says, I drove to Odessa. You know. A

235
00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:01,080
Speaker 2: bundle of nerves walks in to make the identification, and

236
00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:03,520
Speaker 2: he realizes, oh my god, that's father Ryan. And he

237
00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:07,480
Speaker 2: describes a father Ryan that doesn't even look like Father Ryan.

238
00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:10,600
Speaker 2: I mean, this man is just so brutally beaten. So

239
00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:13,400
Speaker 2: it took about twenty four hours to make the identification.

240
00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:17,040
Speaker 1: Now I know that Odessa has the highest crime rate

241
00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:20,120
Speaker 1: in the country, but is this something that stands out?

242
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:23,280
Speaker 1: Is it that you can't identify the person? Is that

243
00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:27,440
Speaker 1: what makes this alarming, even maybe before they identify him

244
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:28,600
Speaker 1: as a Catholic priest.

245
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,040
Speaker 2: Well that's a really good point. What makes it, I

246
00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:35,400
Speaker 2: think alarming is that we have Angel Perez saying this

247
00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:39,360
Speaker 2: is father Patrick Ryan. But in the Odessa stand and

248
00:14:39,480 --> 00:14:42,600
Speaker 2: sage entry. Right, when you go in and you rent

249
00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:44,880
Speaker 2: a room, you give a name. Father Ryan gave a

250
00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:48,320
Speaker 2: false name, and he doesn't have any of his Catholic

251
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:52,880
Speaker 2: you know, garb, you know, anything to identify himself. And

252
00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:56,479
Speaker 2: so the question is, well, why is he lying? What's

253
00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,360
Speaker 2: he doing here? I mean there, you know, so I

254
00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:01,800
Speaker 2: think part of the lore of this case is not

255
00:15:01,880 --> 00:15:05,200
Speaker 2: just this beloved man vanishes, you know, on Christmas, of

256
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:08,240
Speaker 2: all days, he ends up in Odessa, which does have

257
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:10,800
Speaker 2: the highest crime rate. But why is he giving a

258
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,200
Speaker 2: false name and why is he here? And I guess

259
00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:17,440
Speaker 2: the other thing that was really disturbing is when they

260
00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:20,960
Speaker 2: had looked through his the rectory where he was living

261
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:25,600
Speaker 2: in Denver City, he had made this beautifully elaborate meal.

262
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,400
Speaker 2: It was like a meat and potato brisket kind of meal,

263
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,000
Speaker 2: and it was just there had been left and so,

264
00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 2: you know, never touched kitchen was clean except for you know,

265
00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,920
Speaker 2: this meal had been made, and there were questions about

266
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,120
Speaker 2: what's going on here, like father Ryan made this meal

267
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:47,720
Speaker 2: ostensibly for somebody, but never gets back to Denver City

268
00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,320
Speaker 2: to have this meal. So there were just a ton

269
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:54,240
Speaker 2: of questions. And I think also because you know, look,

270
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:58,720
Speaker 2: I get this sense in my research that Odessa, West Texas,

271
00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:00,440
Speaker 2: a lot of the people who were going to be

272
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,200
Speaker 2: seeing murdered at the time were connected to sort of

273
00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:06,680
Speaker 2: these nefarious acts. Right, this man didn't seem to have

274
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:10,200
Speaker 2: a connection to anything. He just sort of appeared out

275
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:13,440
Speaker 2: of thin air. The other thing that was really curious

276
00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:17,400
Speaker 2: to me, especially especially after I visited the motel, and

277
00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 2: the motel still stands there, Like I said, not as

278
00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:23,360
Speaker 2: a motel, but it still stands there, walls in everything,

279
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:26,840
Speaker 2: and what's startling is nothing about it had really changed.

280
00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:30,560
Speaker 2: So the motel room was really similar, even that down

281
00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:34,520
Speaker 2: to the tile where they end up finding bloody fingerprints.

282
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:37,560
Speaker 2: So you know, when I walked in there, my first

283
00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:39,800
Speaker 2: thought and I went with the Innocents Project of Texas,

284
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,040
Speaker 2: who I'm basically embedded with in the film, and the

285
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:47,320
Speaker 2: students are just they're just cannot believe. The walls are

286
00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:51,000
Speaker 2: paper thin, and the kind of violence that we're talking

287
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:55,120
Speaker 2: about that took place, the walls were bashed in Father

288
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:59,000
Speaker 2: Ryan looked horrendous. I mean, I have access to all

289
00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:01,640
Speaker 2: those crime scene photo and I've seen a lot of

290
00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:03,800
Speaker 2: crime scene photos as a journalist. These are some of

291
00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:06,840
Speaker 2: the worst I've seen, you know. In the question the

292
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,919
Speaker 2: students kept saying, I think in a chill really was

293
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:13,440
Speaker 2: why did nobody say anything? I mean, the cops went

294
00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:16,280
Speaker 2: door to door asking if any of the other folks

295
00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:19,639
Speaker 2: heard anything. Nobody had heard anything, and this would have

296
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,960
Speaker 2: been not even that late we're talking about. They suspect

297
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,240
Speaker 2: between eight and ten PM that Father Ryan would have

298
00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:26,800
Speaker 2: been murdered.

299
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 1: Who was the last person, aside from whoever killed him,

300
00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:33,840
Speaker 1: to see Father Ryan alive? I guess back in Denver

301
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,440
Speaker 1: City at the parish, was it Christmas morning on the

302
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:37,720
Speaker 1: twenty fifth or when was it?

303
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,400
Speaker 2: Well, that's a really important question you're asking because that's

304
00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:43,160
Speaker 2: the center of the film. Night in West Texas, which

305
00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:46,879
Speaker 2: is the last person to see Father Ryan was a

306
00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:51,440
Speaker 2: man named James Harry Reyos, who was a young gay

307
00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:57,080
Speaker 2: Apache man, a former oil engineer who became friendly with

308
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:00,720
Speaker 2: Father Ryan. They used to occasionally hu hang out and

309
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:04,680
Speaker 2: have beers. And we imagine that James Reyos, this young

310
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,040
Speaker 2: Apache man from you know, gay Apache man from New Mexico,

311
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:11,280
Speaker 2: is sort of drifting in his own ways. You know,

312
00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:15,120
Speaker 2: he is an alcohol issue, an alcohol problem, and he

313
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:18,960
Speaker 2: basically the morning that Father Ryan is found dead, that

314
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:22,680
Speaker 2: morning before before he's found, asks Father Ryan to give

315
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:26,680
Speaker 2: him a ride to go pick up his car in

316
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 2: New Mexico of all places. So it wasn't even like

317
00:18:30,359 --> 00:18:34,600
Speaker 2: James was in the state. So James was the last

318
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:38,240
Speaker 2: person that we know saw Father Ryan. And that's sort

319
00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:41,720
Speaker 2: of where Night in West Texas really begins. And that's

320
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:44,000
Speaker 2: that was my job in the Innocence Project of Texas's

321
00:18:44,119 --> 00:18:47,760
Speaker 2: job was to unravel what really happened and what else

322
00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:48,320
Speaker 2: we found.

323
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:52,520
Speaker 1: I imagine that police don't come to that realization that quickly.

324
00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:56,000
Speaker 1: They're busy canvassing and seeing if anybody in the CD

325
00:18:56,440 --> 00:19:00,119
Speaker 1: motel heard anything, and of course they didn't. So so

326
00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:05,000
Speaker 1: when they start looking into Father Ryan, are they just

327
00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:08,159
Speaker 1: as confused as you as the filmmakers were. They just

328
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:11,080
Speaker 1: cannot find anything about him except that he was a

329
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:12,600
Speaker 1: wonderful priest.

330
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:16,000
Speaker 2: Well, yes, and then they have something else which draws

331
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,880
Speaker 2: them closer to James Harry Raos. So when they return

332
00:19:20,080 --> 00:19:22,359
Speaker 2: to the rectory in Denver City to see if they

333
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,120
Speaker 2: can find anything about his where he was, his location, anything,

334
00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:29,959
Speaker 2: they discover a photo album. And the photo album is

335
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,760
Speaker 2: of a young Native American boy and it's all these

336
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:37,119
Speaker 2: wonderful pictures and you can tell that somebody had brought

337
00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:41,239
Speaker 2: those pictures as to share with Father Ryan. And what

338
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:43,800
Speaker 2: we end up learning from James Harry Rayos was that

339
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:48,680
Speaker 2: Father Ryan had taken a massive interest in indigenous populations,

340
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:53,520
Speaker 2: was really interested in James's upbringing in the hickorya Apache

341
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:57,280
Speaker 2: homeland which is in northern New Mexico. And so in

342
00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:01,040
Speaker 2: this part of this friendship was having some drinks talking

343
00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:05,080
Speaker 2: about life, and that the night before the murder, James

344
00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:08,399
Speaker 2: shows them baby pictures, pictures of life on the on

345
00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 2: the reservation, and so I think, what ends up happening?

346
00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 2: I wasn't there, of course, but detectives are like, you know,

347
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:18,120
Speaker 2: who do these belong to? And that's how they get

348
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:21,439
Speaker 2: to James Harry Rayos, that's how James becomes a person

349
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 2: of interest.

350
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 1: Is there not a high Native American population in Dinversity

351
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:30,440
Speaker 1: or Odessa? And it was kind of easy to track

352
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,600
Speaker 1: James down? Well, that's a really good question. I don't

353
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:34,840
Speaker 1: know how easy I think.

354
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,640
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm sure that James wasn't hiding. He had

355
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,080
Speaker 2: an apartment that was not very far from where the

356
00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:44,240
Speaker 2: parish was, so you know, he wouldn't have been difficult

357
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:47,320
Speaker 2: to find. He also was a former engineer in the

358
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:50,240
Speaker 2: oil fields, and so you know, he was a graduate.

359
00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:53,640
Speaker 2: And in terms of like, you know, are there populations

360
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:56,399
Speaker 2: of Indigenous folks not as many as you would think.

361
00:20:56,560 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 2: As for those of us that are, you know, we

362
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:01,159
Speaker 2: imagine sort of Texas and New Mexico. As you know,

363
00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:04,960
Speaker 2: cousin states. You know, we don't really have except for

364
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:08,000
Speaker 2: around El Paso that I can think of in West

365
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 2: Texas for living reservations. This was you know, James came

366
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 2: to West Texas for a job. He wanted to be

367
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:18,040
Speaker 2: an oil engineer, and he was able to get a

368
00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:21,680
Speaker 2: decent actually pretty good job until he lost it due

369
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:22,280
Speaker 2: to drinking.

370
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:26,120
Speaker 1: So this was not James was not an agricultural worker.

371
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 1: He was not one of the drifters you're talking about

372
00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 1: that was an odessa. This is someone who obviously, you know,

373
00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 1: either was educated or had just a tremendous amount of experience.

374
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 1: And also remind me of how old James is at

375
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:38,240
Speaker 1: the time.

376
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,439
Speaker 2: So James is twenty three at the time, and not

377
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 2: just as James, you know, really well educated. He came

378
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:51,119
Speaker 2: from a prominent family from his reservation, his mother, you know,

379
00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 2: I just I love his story. In fact, so James's

380
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:59,680
Speaker 2: mother was a prominent ranch owner on the Hickoria Reservation

381
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:03,879
Speaker 2: and he grew up with his family on the reservation.

382
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:08,760
Speaker 2: Now she ended up dying early, and that shattered the

383
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:13,160
Speaker 2: young James, it really did, and it shattered James's father

384
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:16,760
Speaker 2: with whom James was very close. But you know, James

385
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:20,200
Speaker 2: has his own sort of hero's journey, right, I mean,

386
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 2: he he's this broken hearted kid. He is obviously not

387
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,400
Speaker 2: out that comes way later in our story, and struggling

388
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:33,240
Speaker 2: with his own internalized homophobia. And when he meets father Ryan,

389
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 2: my real honest opinion is that he found, you know,

390
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:42,000
Speaker 2: a father figure. Father Ryan was fifty, James was twenty three.

391
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 2: So you know, this friendship I guess you could say

392
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,879
Speaker 2: sort of started. It didn't have time to bloom. It

393
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:52,479
Speaker 2: was just kind of beginning. And so you know, James

394
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 2: being a person of interest was I would say as

395
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 2: somebody who was an investigator, it made a lot of

396
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,159
Speaker 2: sense because of you know, what is.

397
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: Discovered at the rectory. James doesn't have a record. I

398
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:04,159
Speaker 1: have to assume he.

399
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:08,239
Speaker 2: Does, but it's mostly for drunken driving. But there's you know,

400
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 2: when you meet James, which you do in the film,

401
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 2: you couldn't imagine a softer, kinder, quieter, small man. I

402
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 2: think he's about five to four. Father Ryan was six

403
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:26,199
Speaker 2: feet tall. He speaks very softly. He's very formal. He

404
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 2: says gentlemen and lady like when he's talking about people.

405
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 2: He's the least angry, violent person you would ever meet

406
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 2: in your entire life. So for me, when I look

407
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 2: at those crime scene photos and I know, James, I

408
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,360
Speaker 2: know what I saw could not have been achieved from

409
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 2: this tiny man.

410
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 1: So when they start to talk to James REOs, he

411
00:23:56,840 --> 00:24:00,360
Speaker 1: explains that they're friends, that Father Ryan is a sort

412
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: of a father figure mentor that you know, they hung

413
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 1: out and spent time together. But you know they were

414
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: they were friends and nothing else. I mean, did the

415
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: investigators even think to say, were you two involved in

416
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: a relationship in any way?

417
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so at all. That's not what

418
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 2: I gathered. That comes later. Now, what he does say eventually,

419
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 2: he does admit to something that is you know, trigger

420
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 2: warning here. But he does say that Father Ryan that

421
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 2: night does try to rape him and that's one of

422
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 2: the reasons he runs in the middle of the night.

423
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 2: And that was a that was a big point, that

424
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 2: was quite controversial, and for obvious reasons, right, I mean,

425
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 2: the cops would have wanted to play that very carefully,

426
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 2: considering that they wouldn't have wanted to offend the church

427
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 2: in any way. But here you have a young twenty

428
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 2: three year old who's admitted now in this story that

429
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 2: he was almost raped by father Ryan. He was able

430
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 2: to pull away. That That's what he says on the stand.

431
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 2: The sort of unraveling of this conversation is, well, like,

432
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 2: who really was the victim here? Right? I mean? And

433
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 2: I think that adds to the dimensionality of the mystery.

434
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 2: You know, who was this father Ryan? And you know

435
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 2: they really they can't find anything untoured about him. And

436
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,880
Speaker 2: so James, of course, when you meet him, you would

437
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 2: understand like he just he's really he's at this point

438
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 2: in time, he's doing the best he can to work

439
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 2: with the cops. And the other big question that they

440
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 2: had is so the night before you asked him for

441
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 2: a ride he had tried to assault you. Why did

442
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 2: you come back and ask him for a ride to

443
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: get your truck in another place if you were afraid

444
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 2: of him? And I think what James was trying to say,

445
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 2: and something we can all I think now understand about

446
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 2: the way friendships and assaults work is that it was

447
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,120
Speaker 2: messier than that they had been drinking. They were friends.

448
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 2: James was extremely upset. But the way that you know,

449
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 2: especially in same sex assaults, these things happen. It's you know,

450
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 2: the lines were crossed. But James is still just a kid,

451
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 2: and this is the only guy he trusts in West Texas,

452
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 2: and so you have two ways of looking at this, like,

453
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 2: you know, how are you going to get your truck?

454
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 2: How are you gonna you know? And this man was

455
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 2: for all in tons and purposes. When he was not drinking,

456
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 2: was very loving. So it's complicated, and in the film,

457
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 2: you know, it's we have to really complicate that. We

458
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 2: have to let James tell it the way James needs

459
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 2: to tell it, which is it was all very confusing

460
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:38,159
Speaker 2: and very difficult. But he returns the next morning. I

461
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 2: need my car, he says to Father Ryan. Father Ryan says,

462
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 2: oh my god, I am so sorry. I am so

463
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 2: sorry about what I did. And James says, it's fine.

464
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 2: Sounds like he was a little chilly. It's fine. I

465
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 2: need my truck. Please help, And of course Father Ryan

466
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: is obliged to do it. Okay, So Father Ryan says,

467
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 2: I will give you a ride. But what happens after that?

468
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,959
Speaker 2: He doesn't, right, no, he does. He takes them all

469
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 2: the way to New Mexico, drops him off. There's record

470
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 2: of everything here James was an extraordinary record keeper. Every

471
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 2: receipt was kept. He had a gas cap that he

472
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 2: needed that to buy, He's got the receipt for it.

473
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 2: He has gas he needs to buy, he has the

474
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 2: receipt for it. So here's what we know. James is

475
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 2: in New Mexico getting his truck, there's a receipt for it.

476
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 2: And hours later, probably about six hours later, Father Ryan

477
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 2: is found murdered in Odessa. Now James didn't even have

478
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 2: any sense at all that Father Ryan was going to

479
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 2: go to Odessa. So even James is like, I don't

480
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,199
Speaker 2: know what he was doing there. I thought he was

481
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 2: going to go back to Denver City. We're talking about Christmas, right,

482
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 2: So James was as confused and as upset and as traumatized.

483
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's a really big important word.

484
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: He's as traumatized. That's sort of where we end the

485
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 2: little bit we end the James story, because then it's like,

486
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 2: well then it probably wasn't James.

487
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: So this timeline works the way James explains it, right,

488
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,120
Speaker 1: the amount of time it takes to get to where

489
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: his truck is in New Mexico when they arrive, all

490
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 1: of these timestamps with the receipts and stuff. Then James

491
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: and Father Ryan both leave. At some point, Father Ryan

492
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: is supposed to go back to Denver City, as is James,

493
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: but Father Ryan goes to Odessa instead, and then James

494
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: is left clueless and now probably with no alibi at

495
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: that point.

496
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 2: Is that right?

497
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 1: Because what he just goes home to Denver City.

498
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 2: So what happens is James gets drunk and is thrown

499
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 2: in a drunk tank in New Mexico. Oh, great alibi,

500
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 2: great alibi. However, it didn't work. It doesn't work. So

501
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 2: even though there is evidence, police evidence that James is

502
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: in a drunk tank in New Mexico, he is still

503
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: indicted for the murder of Father Ryan.

504
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: Wow, exactly do you think or did anybody you spoke

505
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: to think that if he had not said what he

506
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: said about the attempted rape, that he would not be

507
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: the focus of this that they just thought that that

508
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 1: was so contrary, off the wall provocative that it must

509
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: be somebody making this story up to cover up a

510
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: real murder.

511
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 2: Well, you're half right about that, So I think there

512
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: is that. As an amazing investigative reporter who is in

513
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 2: night in West Texas, says they needed to find a monster, right.

514
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 2: I mean they needed to find because you don't want

515
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: to make Father Ryan the monster, right, you don't want

516
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 2: to offend the church. I mean, this is a big

517
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 2: theme for sure. But here's the other thing that happens.

518
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 2: So James is in the clear, right, the cops are like,

519
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: it's definitely not that guy. Besides the fact that he's tiny.

520
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 2: He was in a drunk tank. And then something happens.

521
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 2: He's watching an episode of Perry Mason and he's drinking

522
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 2: and he's taking QUAILI and in one of his I

523
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 2: guess like drunken fugue like states, he calls the cops and,

524
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 2: in slurring his words, says, I killed the priest. What

525
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 2: was really interesting, though, is when he called to make

526
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 2: a confession, the answer from the nine one one operator

527
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 2: was which one oh, because there was more than one,

528
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 2: and he said, I killed Father Ryan. That sort of

529
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: snowballs because now a confession has been made, despite the

530
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 2: cops in Odessa knowing what they know about James. Now

531
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 2: we're getting into this weird psychological territory about false confessions

532
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 2: that the cops don't know what to do with.

533
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: So before we get to the other priest. I'm assuming

534
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: are they done investigating for that year or had they

535
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: been looking at some other folks in the meantime, Yeah.

536
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 2: They didn't have anybody, and it was weighing on them because,

537
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 2: you know, they needed to find somebody. And finally they're like, well,

538
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 2: let's relook at James. And so the things that were

539
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 2: clearly like the evidence, you know, that was the reason

540
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 2: why he was in the clear are things they're going

541
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 2: to ignore so that they can make you know, they

542
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 2: can put him away. They can sort of indict him

543
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 2: for this case.

544
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the deal with? Is there one more priest

545
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: who's murdered? Or is what is it?

546
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 2: There's quite a few, and that's part two of the

547
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 2: film we're making, so okay, but that was the response,

548
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 2: is which one? And then James says father Patrick Ryan

549
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 2: And the second he sobers up. The minute he sobers up,

550
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 2: he regrets saying and he recants and he was like,

551
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 2: oh my god, I don't know what I've done. I

552
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 2: was so drunk, I you know. And then he tells

553
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: the story about how he had been watching Perry Mason

554
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: somebody had confessed to something. He was feeling this insane

555
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 2: amount of guilt and it been weighing on him, and

556
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 2: you know that's why he confessed.

557
00:31:55,760 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: Now, what do experts tell you about that called a

558
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: phenomenon but that instinct because I mean, we know from

559
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project statistically that you know, a large portion

560
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: of people who end up being wrongfully convicted are there

561
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: because of false confessions. And just because you confess doesn't

562
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 1: mean you did it. There's a myriad of reasons why

563
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: you would do that. But tell me what the experts.

564
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: I guess when when I assume we go to trial here,

565
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: what they say about what James did.

566
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, it's a really interesting thing because

567
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 2: James's case specifically becomes sort of famous. Now this isn't

568
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 2: a Night in West Texas because Night in West Texas

569
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: is unraveling the mystery. But in my research and in

570
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 2: the conversations, and again in the Innocence Project doing their

571
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 2: own work, you know, this phenomenon of like internalized homophobia

572
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 2: or internalized self loathing, coupled with an issue with alcohol

573
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 2: and drug abuse sort of creates these states, these internal

574
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 2: states of you know, self discussed. I mean, I don't

575
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 2: know how else to say it. That makes you feel

576
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 2: so guilty that you confess to something. Perhaps you're not

577
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 2: confessing to what you think you're confessing, but you're confessing

578
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 2: to something. And that's sort of important here. James in

579
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 2: the film says, you know, when I interview him and

580
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: we restart to the innocence when you meet him in

581
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 2: Night in West Texas, the Innocence Project of Texas has

582
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 2: taken up this case forty years later. So he's been

583
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 2: sitting on this case. This is the only thing he's

584
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 2: ever fought for. And he says, in a moment of

585
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 2: like you know, clarity, says, I just felt this horrendous

586
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 2: self loathing. I felt this guilt, and I was the

587
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 2: last person to see Father Ryan. And I think there

588
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 2: was also a part of James who loved Father Ryan.

589
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to place it into like

590
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 2: just romantic love, but a blooming friendship between individuals. And

591
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 2: then there was the complication of the rape. So there

592
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 2: were just so many feelings, and you know, I think

593
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 2: he also James all So talks about his feelings of masculinity.

594
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 2: You know, he's he's just this very sweet, soft individual,

595
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 2: and he talks about his own kind of guilt being,

596
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 2: you know, being raised in this apache world where men

597
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 2: were presumed to be like he describes it as like

598
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 2: the warrior, and he was like, you know, I never

599
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 2: was that man. And there's just a lot of kind

600
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 2: of identity searching as the twenties are, like, just to

601
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 2: sort of place it in context, my twenties, I was

602
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 2: like that I was, you know, I didn't come out

603
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 2: until I was in my early thirties, and you know,

604
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 2: I would say my twenties were all about that guilt,

605
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 2: all about those feelings of complication, and you know, so

606
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 2: he's kind of exactly where I think most people in

607
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 2: their twenties are just looking for who, they just looking

608
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,399
Speaker 2: for their identity in the world. They're they're a little

609
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 2: place in the world, and James was really no different

610
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 2: in that sense.

611
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: We're talking about why he would go back after this

612
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: you know, attack, attempted rape, and then he goes back

613
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: and says, I need a ride, and then he's in

614
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: the car with this man for you know, however many miles.

615
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 2: To get back to New Mexico.

616
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: One thing that you know, I would add is certainly

617
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: that feeling of I did something wrong, I'm the one

618
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: that caused what happened, and so you know, I think

619
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: that also internally must mitigate things for him to just say, well,

620
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: I mean we were drunk. That was a mistake. I

621
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: did something wrong to cause that. So you know, that

622
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: might be another part of it, not necessarily the coercion

623
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: part of it, but just in general the guilt that

624
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: he felt too. And now it's extending to this confession,

625
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: right exactly. Okay, So the cops are I would have

626
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: to assume, pleased that this is happening. Finally they're catching someone.

627
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: There must be under tremendous pressure to catch the killer

628
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 1: of a priest. How quickly does this arrest come? I

629
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: know you said he recants, but do they just show

630
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: up at his door or does he go in or

631
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: how does this proceed?

632
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 2: So if we can imagine that the murder happens nineteen

633
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 2: eighty one, Chris Smiths nineteen eighty one, in his original

634
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,919
Speaker 2: trial is happening nineteen eighty three, so two years past,

635
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 2: which seems slow, but in the world of policing and

636
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 2: police law enforcement and trials, that's actually kind of fast.

637
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 2: Is he in jail? He does go to prison? He does,

638
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 2: He's indicted for thirty eight years and he goes to prison.

639
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 1: Did we have police in New Mexico saying this guy

640
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 1: was drunk, we arrested him. He's in the drunk tank.

641
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:26,839
Speaker 1: Here's the records of that.

642
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 2: Yes, And even more remarkable along James's journey of innocence

643
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:36,720
Speaker 2: in this case, every I would say every ten years

644
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 2: would get traction, advocates innocence lawyers. The original prosecutor, James's

645
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 2: original prosecutor ten years later comes out and says he

646
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 2: made a massive mistake. But what is remarkable in what

647
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 2: you see in Night in West Texas is that the

648
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 2: New Mexico Assembly, the entire house, you know, basically New

649
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: Mexico's House of Representatives, comes forward to plead with Governor

650
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 2: Ann Richards to let him go because they believe, they

651
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: know that he was in New Mexico at the time

652
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:11,800
Speaker 2: of the murder and that didn't even make a difference.

653
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: So Anne Richards says, what to all of this?

654
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 2: And Richards ignores it. Wow, I know, I know, I

655
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 2: hate hearing that. Yeah, I mean, I hated hearing that.

656
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,760
Speaker 2: I hated looking at you know, I mean, she doesn't respond,

657
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 2: she doesn't even respond to the request. That's surprising.

658
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: So okay, so he's indicted thirty eight years, so there's

659
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: hope for parole obviously.

660
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 2: And he does. He does get parole. He gets paroled

661
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 2: early twenty years later. Again, when we talk about people's

662
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 2: lives and I say, oh, he was paroled early. It

663
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 2: took twenty years. I just want people to let that

664
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 2: sink for a minute. How much twenty years of your

665
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 2: life is spent fighting one thing? And so twenty years

666
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 2: later he is paroled and he's released to the city

667
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 2: of Austin into basically transitional housing unit, and that's where

668
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 2: I find him forty years later, still in this transitional

669
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 2: housing unit.

670
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: So he's twenty three when this happens with Paul Ryan,

671
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 1: you said, right, and then so he's indicted, he goes

672
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: to prison at twenty five, Is that right?

673
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, just roughly. Yeah.

674
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: So he's out on parole at forty five ish right

675
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 1: in Austin, and he's in this transitional housing which clearly

676
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: is not meant to be permanent housing. What is happening

677
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 1: over that twenty years. I was going to ask how

678
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 1: prison was, but I'm sure it was awful for him.

679
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: What happens in that twenty years between forty five when

680
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: he's forty five and released, and when you get to

681
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: meet him.

682
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 2: Well, it's remarkable because what you see in the archival

683
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 2: footage that we get to draw on is a lot

684
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 2: of people wanting to help James. James is one of

685
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 2: those people who I would describe, you know, I don't

686
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 2: know if anybody knows they're Buddhist mythology, but as somebody

687
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 2: I describe as a Bodhisatfa, who's this like being in

688
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 2: the world, who's so soft, but who's also a little

689
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 2: bit I don't know, too soft for a world like this.

690
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 2: You know, like he's just this really sweet person and

691
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 2: you feel this connection. His story is so big, is

692
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: so bit bigger than he is, and he's sort of

693
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 2: at the center of this like mysterious vanishing, you know,

694
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: then discovery of Father Ryan, but there are too many questions.

695
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 2: And then over the years, over the course of not

696
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 2: just twenty but forty years, a lot of people come

697
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:40,439
Speaker 2: to help him, and it seems like nobody can. Most

698
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 2: famously is a Dallas news reporter who became obsessed with

699
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 2: James's case and even on his deathbed, said on his

700
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,760
Speaker 2: deathbed that his biggest regret was not helping James find

701
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 2: an ending to his journey.

702
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: Tell me about James's identity over the past, you know,

703
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: forty years. Is he able to come out and have

704
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: some semblance of sort of feeling as a whole person,

705
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: even though he has this terrible crime hanging over him,

706
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: even when he's been parolled. When you mean coming out,

707
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: like coming out is gay and as a gay man,

708
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 1: I don't think so.

709
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 2: I mean he's out. But has he had meaningful relationships? No.

710
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 2: The one relationship he had was in prison, and I

711
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 2: would hardly call that a meaningful relationship. I can't imagine

712
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 2: that you can have a deep, you know, abiding, equal

713
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:38,240
Speaker 2: relationship with somebody in a place like that. It was something, though,

714
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 2: and it meant a lot to him. But when I

715
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,800
Speaker 2: meet him, he's just turning sixty six or he's sixty

716
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 2: six years old, and he's had a stroke, so he's

717
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 2: aging very quickly. And the Innocence Project of Texas has

718
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 2: declared that they're going to take this case thanks to

719
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 2: the city of Odessa, where the police chief becomes partly

720
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 2: interested in James's case. And that's sort of where you know,

721
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 2: when you're in the middle of act two in Night

722
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:09,840
Speaker 2: in West Texas. That's where we begin as sort of

723
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 2: the town of Odessa and how they're pulling the pieces

724
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:13,320
Speaker 2: back together.

725
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: Tell me about what happens with the police chief and

726
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: how this all proceeds, you know, and you're involved in

727
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: it and they're looking at evidence.

728
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 2: Tell me about some of the discoveries that happened. So

729
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 2: the police chief in Odessa, a man named Chief Mike Gurky,

730
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 2: tells the story about how he's sitting around a kitchen

731
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 2: table with his daughter in law and his son and

732
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 2: she says, hey, Pops, have you ever heard of this

733
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 2: story about this guy named James Harry Rayos. And he

734
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I've heard about it. It's come up

735
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 2: here and there over the years. And Gurky's been a

736
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 2: cop in this system for a long time before becoming

737
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 2: a chief, and he's like, let me take a look

738
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 2: at it. I mean, it certainly wouldn't hurt anything, you know.

739
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 2: So he tells the story in the film that he

740
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 2: asks his lead detective, a guy he really trusts, and says, listen,

741
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 2: I want you to pull the James Reyos file. Tell

742
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 2: me what you find. Pulls the file, reads it, and

743
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 2: then he says to the detective where's the rest of it?

744
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 2: And he goes, that's it. He's like, that's it. This

745
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 2: is how we indicted that kid. Yeah, that's it. Chief,

746
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 2: And it sort of really begins there because thanks to

747
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 2: the Chief, to the DA's office in Odessa, Texas, to

748
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:35,479
Speaker 2: kind prosecutors, this is where James gets really the sort

749
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 2: of you know, last chance for a possible exoneration. And

750
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 2: it is remarkable because remember, Odessa in nineteen eighty one

751
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 2: is not quite Odessa of twenty twenty three. But it's

752
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 2: still an oil town. It's still you know, in part

753
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:53,760
Speaker 2: of a boom and bus cycle. It's still very much

754
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 2: you know, it's much more filled out of neighborhoods and

755
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 2: houses and lives the store. Midland is known for its

756
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 2: more upper middle class sort of you know living in

757
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 2: West Texas, but Odessa is a different place. But it's

758
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 2: still deeply conservative. It's still a place where wildcatters and

759
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 2: you know other people, transient populations come to do their

760
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 2: work and then they leave after the season is over,

761
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 2: after the cycle is over. So you know, it was

762
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 2: an amazing thing for me. I started my career at

763
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 2: the Village Voice, you know, so many years ago, and

764
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 2: I just remember for a little while, I was just

765
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 2: doing a bunch of police brutality research and I just

766
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 2: remember thinking, Gosh, if the day overcomes when a cop

767
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,439
Speaker 2: actually does the right thing, I can't wait to tell

768
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 2: that story. And I get to do it a night

769
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 2: in West Texas. I get to do what I've always

770
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 2: thought was the unthinkable, which is a story about this

771
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 2: amazing chief of police and a pretty politicized time actually

772
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 2: wanting to sort of take up arms and use his

773
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 2: resources to help a gay man who was indicted with

774
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 2: a jury. And you know, could have completely brushed it off,

775
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 2: but he didn't. He and his lead detective make this

776
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 2: their most important case at the time. I mean, this

777
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 2: was it. This was the thing they were going to do.

778
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 2: They were going to help James, and I get to

779
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 2: be there to document that along with the Innocents Project

780
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,240
Speaker 2: of Texas, and I won't lie that it was probably

781
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 2: one of the great highlights of my career.

782
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,399
Speaker 1: Well, can you give me kind of a summary of

783
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 1: what they ended up finding forty years later that really

784
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: gives James back his reputation its name?

785
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 2: Yes, and I do want people to go see it.

786
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 2: It'll be on PBS in April, so you know, millions

787
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 2: of people will get to see it. But you know,

788
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 2: so what they find is the first dash of hope

789
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 2: is when they discover that all the evidence was destroyed.

790
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 2: And that was like, oh no, So this, you know,

791
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 2: like plan to be victorious just takes a turn like

792
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 2: crestfallen is I think the word I can see that

793
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 2: they were feeling. But then because of a really savvy

794
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 2: fingerprints expert, she says, well, let me call somebody I know,

795
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 2: because sometimes, if we're lucky, they would have digitized these fingerprints.

796
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 2: They would have digitized them and stuck them in like,

797
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 2: you know, like an archive essentially. And I have to remember,

798
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 2: as you said early in the podcast, that there was

799
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 2: no such thing at the time as fingerprints, and that

800
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 2: was correct unless you had a fingerprint that you could compare, right,

801
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,640
Speaker 2: they didn't have anything like a database which we do

802
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 2: now called aphis. So that's a database that we have now.

803
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 2: So this wilely fingerprints expert goes to, you know, one

804
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 2: of her colleagues and says, can you take a look

805
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 2: in this database for these fingerprints? And lo and behold,

806
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 2: they find the fingerprints that they found from father Ryan's

807
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 2: murder forty years later the very fingerprints that you know,

808
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 2: if aphis becomes a thing in the late eighties early nineties,

809
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 2: think about how much time nobody was looking at those

810
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,959
Speaker 2: fingerprints to help James. So but here, finally we've got them.

811
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 2: So the fingerprint experts starts to spend as much time

812
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 2: as she can studying the prince.

813
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: So what did they find these prints on where they

814
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 1: could say this is connected to father Ryan's murder And

815
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 1: wasn't some previous you know, person who stayed in the room.

816
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And here's here's on in the hearing, the

817
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 2: actual exoneration hearing, that question comes up and it's like,

818
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 2: well they were bloody fingerprints. Yeah, there you go. So

819
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,439
Speaker 2: that's pretty yuh forensically, I mean, I know you can't

820
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 2: say one hundred percent, but I think she gives a

821
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 2: ninety nine point nine percent assurance that it's the killers

822
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,240
Speaker 2: and none of them are James by the way, of course,

823
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 2: So there's a bloody fingerprint on a credit card in

824
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:52,359
Speaker 2: the car that is found later to be found, you know,

825
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 2: dumped somewhere. There's a bloody fingerprint in the bathroom, there's

826
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 2: a bloody fingerprint at the shower head. So somebody had

827
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 2: tried to wipe off all of you know, of the blood,

828
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 2: and they found that bloody fingerprint. So there were quite

829
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 2: a few fingerprints that they were able to find and thankfully, thankfully,

830
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 2: now with APHIS's help, they get three hits.

831
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: All of these are guys in the system, right right, Okay,

832
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: so system is in prison or system as in driver's

833
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: license stuff.

834
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 2: Driver's license stuff and military records.

835
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've got three hits. Is that three suspects?

836
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 2: That's right? Wow?

837
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: Three suspects. Four people talking in one room, paper thin walls,

838
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 1: and are they packed to the gills in this hotel

839
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or what? Yes, God,

840
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,879
Speaker 1: it drives me crazy. I mean that's just awful, like that.

841
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: Nobody did anything. That's awful.

842
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 2: Nobody, nobody. And you know when I tell you that

843
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 2: this place looks exactly the same, those those walls, you

844
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 2: know there was when I walked into the crime scene

845
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 2: where father Ryan was murdered by the door they had

846
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 2: put particle board where Father Ryan's head had been bashed

847
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 2: in to the side. I mean, it was like this

848
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 2: place just it was like locked in time. It was

849
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 2: so eerie, and it was so eerie, and it was

850
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 2: raining that day and it was freezing, and it was

851
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 2: me and some of the Innocence Project students and the

852
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 2: lead lawyer who sort of my my starlet along with

853
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 2: James in this case, and they, you know, we all

854
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 2: have a moment of just like extraordinary pain, Like I couldn't,

855
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 2: I can't describe it as anything else. Just this chill,

856
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 2: this bone chilling grief for father Ryan, for all men,

857
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 2: for the people who never had the goodwill to say anything,

858
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 2: for James and his years. I mean, it was just

859
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 2: this grief just taking over us. You know, those were

860
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 2: some that was some dark days. But those fingerprints were

861
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 2: the reasons that they could return to file the writ

862
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 2: of Habeas Corpus, which is the vehicle that helps innocent

863
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 2: imprisoned individuals seek exoneration. So what is ultimately the motive?

864
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:16,399
Speaker 2: That is an amazing question that we still don't know,

865
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 2: because all the men are deceased.

866
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: Oh I hate it when that happens. It's awful, awful.

867
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 2: And this is where I'm going to push everyone to

868
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 2: go see the movie, because the things that James so

869
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 2: so much of Night in West Texas is not just

870
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 2: about this mysterious case It's about James's internal, internal world

871
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 2: that he has to face alone while he is learning

872
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 2: all of these things. And the man I see really

873
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 2: trying to come to terms with the facts is heart wrenching.

874
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 2: Like I can't I sometimes can't even believe I was

875
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 2: in the room for those things, you know. And my

876
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 2: job is to make myself very small when I'm documenting

877
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 2: stuff and I'm filming, I don't bring a true I

878
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 2: film all by myself. And you know, the things I

879
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:08,399
Speaker 2: could see, the things I saw James move through, not

880
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:11,280
Speaker 2: just in his body, but the pain and his own grief,

881
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 2: it's extraordinary and it made me want to like rage

882
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 2: that there couldn't be justice for him.

883
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: Does the identity of these men help us understand anything

884
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 1: about how you know, father Ryan ended up at this

885
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 1: hotel in Odessa? Or I mean, is this robbery? Can

886
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: we get Do we have any information on that?

887
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 2: There's no robbery. There was change in the room. They

888
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 2: did steal the car, and they did take that was

889
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 2: in the trunk. They did take a chalice, you know,

890
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 2: some of the sort of Catholic accouterments. They did take

891
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 2: a chalice. I think they stole his accordion. He was

892
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 2: like a father. Ryan was a beloved you know, accordion player.

893
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 2: So those things were stolen. But no, there was a

894
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 2: watch that was broken. I mean that could have cost

895
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 2: you know, they could have sold for some so it

896
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 2: didn't seem like robbery, was it. You know, here's the thing.

897
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 2: We have more questions than answers at this point, and

898
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 2: that's it's really hard. I tee up the theory of

899
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 2: overkill in the film and we talk. We sort of

900
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 2: go into overkill as a kind of socially structured forensic

901
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:23,720
Speaker 2: conversation and the issues that happen when men are gay,

902
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 2: and overkill becomes kind of the you can sort of

903
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 2: see that this was a hate crime because so many

904
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 2: of crimes committed against gay individuals do look like overkill.

905
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 2: It's like, you can't just kill someone, you have to

906
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:41,200
Speaker 2: overkill them because of the rage and disgust or perhaps

907
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 2: somebody's own internalized homophobia sort of coming out. So no,

908
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 2: there's there's so many more questions that I am still

909
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 2: trying to find.

910
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 1: To be honest, you know, one of the things I

911
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:54,840
Speaker 1: was thinking about is my other show with you know,

912
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:58,760
Speaker 1: forensic investigator Paul Holes. We've talked about overkill in certain cases.

913
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 1: And he says, there's there's a misconception in some cases,

914
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,280
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's this one where people say

915
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: twenty seven stab wounds, this must be personal, this is overkill.

916
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:11,720
Speaker 1: And he goes, no, it's not easy to kill someone.

917
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,760
Speaker 1: They move around, they fight you, and sometimes the killer,

918
00:52:15,040 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: who could be a total yeah stranger, is so frantic

919
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:21,720
Speaker 1: to make sure the victim is dead that it looks

920
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: like overkilled. But it's really not personal. It's just sort

921
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: of like this person has to be dead. But with

922
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: three men as the offenders, it doesn't seem like overkill

923
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: that that type of scenario. This seems like very personal,

924
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: especially if they're ramming his head into a wall and

925
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:38,960
Speaker 1: things like that.

926
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 2: No, that's a really really good point, you know, And

927
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:46,399
Speaker 2: that's true, right, like the idea of stabbings and you know,

928
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 2: like you have to have a certain the knife has

929
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: to be a certain length or you know, I mean,

930
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 2: I totally get that three huge men because they were

931
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 2: big in this room. Now, Father Rain was also tied

932
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:03,839
Speaker 2: and he was partially nude, so you know, it is

933
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 2: my theory as there was an element of hate crime here.

934
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 2: But could I say for certainty, no, I couldn't. But

935
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 2: whatever it is, it's heartbreaking. And Father Ryan is in

936
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 2: my dreams a lot, and Father Ryan is in the

937
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 2: dreams of Alice and Clayton, the head lawyer of the

938
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 2: Innocent Projects of Texas. She says, I had another dream

939
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 2: about Father Ryan me too. It just it's hard to shake,

940
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:30,800
Speaker 2: and this case is hard to shake.

941
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 1: How do you come to terms with feeling sorrow and

942
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: pain for Father Ryan when the person we know who

943
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 1: has been truthful in this case, you know, James has

944
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 1: said this man attacked me.

945
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 2: I know, you know.

946
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: Is it hard, you know, to sort of like unwind

947
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 1: those two images of this man who you really couldn't

948
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:58,240
Speaker 1: sort out just because he had such an ambiguous history.

949
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 2: You know, that is hard. Do I believe that Father

950
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 2: Ryan deserved that? No? Did he deserve something for what

951
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 2: he did to James? Yes, But I don't know how

952
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,919
Speaker 2: to talk about it without it all being messy and complicated,

953
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 2: right Like, I don't I was not there that night

954
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 2: with James and Father Ryan. I know that. I obviously

955
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:24,320
Speaker 2: believe James and James was vulnerable whatever happened. James was

956
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 2: twenty three and Father Ryan was fifty, so the power

957
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 2: structure is tilted, but I'm still able to feel grief

958
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:36,399
Speaker 2: because I just, you know, a human, and I think

959
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 2: that Father Ryan was probably hurting very much. I think

960
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 2: if you live your life having to hide in a

961
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 2: constant state of hiding who you are. And we do

962
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 2: know that Father Ryan was having sex with men, there

963
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 2: was enough evidence of that not to go into that

964
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 2: because it doesn't matter. But you know, I feel like

965
00:54:57,160 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 2: Father Ryan was a victim of his time as well.

966
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because, yeah, the question is why so

967
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 2: much grief for Father Ryan. Well, I felt so much

968
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 2: grief for James. I guess I just naturally, in order

969
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 2: to make father Ryan human, had to mourn him as well.

970
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:15,440
Speaker 2: And I, you know, like I was saying, I was

971
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 2: sitting with those crime scene photos and they were so horrendous,

972
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 2: and there was a moment for myself when I noticed

973
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:25,440
Speaker 2: that I had become very obsessed with Father Ryan's feet.

974
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 2: I know that sounds weird, but I'm just trying to explain,

975
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:30,720
Speaker 2: like maybe the way grief works. But you know, Father Ryan,

976
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 2: there was all this amazing, really interesting study, kind of

977
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 2: forensic study about men's feet when they're in dress shoes.

978
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 2: They become very squeezed like bound almost like bound feet,

979
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 2: and I could tell that Father Ryan was probably always

980
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:49,040
Speaker 2: wearing really tight dress shoes because of the way his

981
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 2: poor toes had been bound. And I remember thinking, this

982
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 2: is so weird that I'm obsessed with this. And I

983
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 2: just remember thinking, oh, I think I'm grieving, like I

984
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 2: think I I'm feeling sad. And I felt like, you know,

985
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 2: I had to tell myself and remind myself, well, who

986
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 2: is this man, right, father Ryan, who came to this

987
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:14,280
Speaker 2: country in a small, like a really small West Texas

988
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 2: town with not knowing a single person living a gay

989
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 2: life in nineteen eighty one, in a time when no

990
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 2: doubt there would have it would have been very difficult

991
00:56:23,680 --> 00:56:27,480
Speaker 2: to be gay. And I did mourn him the way

992
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:30,120
Speaker 2: that I've mourned James losing the years.

993
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 1: So has James been officially exonerated.

994
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,840
Speaker 2: He was was one of those extremely victorious, amazing moments

995
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 2: in the film. It certainly came as a surprise. We

996
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 2: really you'll see if you watch Night in West Texas.

997
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 2: We really thought there was no chance. So when it happens,

998
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:50,839
Speaker 2: it's pretty extraordinary.

999
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, And did this change him in a way where

1000
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:59,120
Speaker 1: he's able to finally have peace, you know, moving forward.

1001
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:03,280
Speaker 2: So I wanted to tell you that he has found peace,

1002
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 2: and I want to tell you that he moved back

1003
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:09,240
Speaker 2: to New Mexico, which was his lifelong dream when this happened.

1004
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:15,000
Speaker 2: But the man I met James when he started the

1005
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 2: journey of exoneration and the man who is now exonerated

1006
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:23,760
Speaker 2: is not the same man. Exoneration did something that is

1007
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 2: very real. My first film also follows an exoneration and

1008
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 2: helped exonerate these four women out of San Antonio. And

1009
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 2: what I discovered after was this idea that if your

1010
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 2: identity is bound to one thing, one fight, and that

1011
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 2: identity is stolen from you and you look back, you

1012
00:57:45,160 --> 00:57:47,800
Speaker 2: take the victory, but you look behind you and all

1013
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 2: those years are gone. Who are you without that? And

1014
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 2: you know, James is still in transitional housing, which is

1015
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 2: extraordinary considering he has millions of dollars now which he

1016
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 2: never touches and very rarely leaves his room and has

1017
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 2: become a just a really I don't want to stay

1018
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:15,280
Speaker 2: broken because that's crazy, Like that's a crazy thing to say,

1019
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 2: but has become a really hurt individual. Yeah, I mean,

1020
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:23,960
Speaker 2: you know, Night in West Texas has some very beautiful moments.

1021
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 2: And I want people to see James because I think

1022
00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:29,840
Speaker 2: we can learn so much about grace, kindness and healing

1023
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:34,200
Speaker 2: from this man. And despite what he's experiencing now, the

1024
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 2: way he is the classy like he is just an angel,

1025
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 2: just too big for this world. His heart is too

1026
00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 2: big for this world. And I just think people need

1027
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:46,480
Speaker 2: to see what an extraordinary being he is and what

1028
00:58:46,600 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 2: he endured, which of course is the metaphor for the

1029
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 2: things that we can endure.

1030
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, when you're looking back, I'm

1031
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: sure you do this too. He when he looks back,

1032
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: he looks at you know, the loss of years, but

1033
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: the loss of potential, you know. I mean when he

1034
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: made that phone call, he was in a bad state,

1035
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: taking drugs and drinking alcohol and and everything, and then

1036
00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: you know, he lost somebody. But then to think, well,

1037
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: what could I have become or would have gotten worse?

1038
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: I mean, all of that unknown, a path that could

1039
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 1: have been taken, but it was blocked off, taken from

1040
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:22,040
Speaker 1: him exactly, I'm sure must just be maddening for him,

1041
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 1: you know, for someone who's who's older now, so exactly,

1042
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: and you know, to tell the story of an elderly

1043
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: man looking back on the years, like I just feel

1044
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: like I saw so much grace even in the moments

1045
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:37,439
Speaker 1: that really hurt.

1046
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of moments that hurt, I

1047
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 2: assure you, but there are a lot of moments of victory.

1048
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:46,480
Speaker 2: And so yeah, no, it's tough. It's tough.

1049
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 3: If you love historical true crime story check out the

1050
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 3: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All Bow, The

1051
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 3: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and

1052
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 3: Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true

1053
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:15,120
Speaker 3: crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

1054
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 3: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.

1055
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

1056
01:00:22,120 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 1: is Alexis Mrosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This

1057
01:00:27,120 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer,

1058
01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen

1059
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and

1060
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: Facebook at tenfold More Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold

1061
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:46,080
Speaker 1: More and if you know of a historical crime that

1062
01:00:46,120 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 1: could use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked.

1063
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 1: Email us at info at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also

1064
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 1: take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words.

1065
01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 2: Woman