Speaker 1: On the morning of September, Paul Hildwin, low on money
Speaker 1: and out of gas, was hitchhiking along US nineteen when
Speaker 1: a squabbling couple ron ZEDI Cox and William Haverty picked
Speaker 1: him up. As their argument reached a fever pitch, the
Speaker 1: couple pulled over and got out of the car. Paul
Speaker 1: used this opportunity to take a few things from the car,
Speaker 1: including miss Cox's checkbook, before leaving the couple in their
Speaker 1: roadside scuffle. Four days later, on September, miss Cox's nude
Speaker 1: body was found stuffed in the trunk of her car,
Speaker 1: tucked into some woods. Initially, Haverty became the obvious suspect,
Speaker 1: until the investigation led to one of her checks having
Speaker 1: been cashed by Paul Hildwind and a search of his
Speaker 1: house turned up the stolen items from the car. Paul's
Speaker 1: trial council was woefully inadequate, and was further handicapped by
Speaker 1: a team of prosecutors who buried witness statements that claimed
Speaker 1: miss Cox had been alive up to forty eight hours
Speaker 1: after Paul had seen her, among many other pieces of
Speaker 1: misleading testimony, junk science, and outright lies. An FBI sorology
Speaker 1: expert falsely stated that Lewis bound at the scene matched Paul,
Speaker 1: which led to a thirty four year fight to free
Speaker 1: him from death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Blom.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam that's me,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm your host, and today I'm really excited
Speaker 1: because we have a woman who is in our wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction community, considered a legal legend. Her name is Leanne Gaudy,
Speaker 1: a renowned defense attorney who has done phenomenal work on
Speaker 1: this case. So Lean and welcome to wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: with her is her clients. Paul Hilduin Fall served thirty
Speaker 1: five years on death row in Florida for a crime
Speaker 1: everyone should have known from the outset he didn't commit.
Speaker 1: They may have known he didn't commit it, but one
Speaker 1: way or another, he survived thirty five years on death row.
Speaker 1: He survived cancer, he survived, and he's here today to
Speaker 1: share his story with us. So Paul, welcome to rawfle conviction.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jason. I'm I'm glad to be here. And
Speaker 1: Paul just informed us that he's sitting on his porch,
Speaker 1: breathing some fresh air and looking at it some green
Speaker 1: grass and stuff. So com I'm glad to hear that
Speaker 1: you're living your best life to whatever extent is possible.
Speaker 1: So let's go back. Where did you grow up and
Speaker 1: what was your upbringing like? And if you can bring
Speaker 1: us right up to the time that this whole tragedy occurred. Now,
Speaker 1: I was born in a small town called Pokeepsie, New York.
Speaker 1: I never really got to know my mother. She passed
Speaker 1: away when I was two years old. When I turned five,
Speaker 1: my father just decided he didn't want me, so he
Speaker 1: would put me wherever he could. And uh, there was
Speaker 1: some good place is that I was at, and there
Speaker 1: were some bad places into my teen years, you know,
Speaker 1: like all teens, most teenagers, you know, you experiment with drinking,
Speaker 1: and it was all it's all kind of a haze,
Speaker 1: you know. I was drunk so much. But when uh
Speaker 1: I turned uh eighteen, you know, I got in a
Speaker 1: little trouble, ended up doing a little prison time in
Speaker 1: New York. And when I got out, it was nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four and I was twenty four years old, and
Speaker 1: I come down here to Florida to live with my father.
Speaker 1: One of the families that I lived with always taught
Speaker 1: me it doesn't matter what a parent does, you always
Speaker 1: have that respect because they are your parents. And I
Speaker 1: always respected my father. I didn't really love him, but
Speaker 1: I respected him because he was my dad. So September
Speaker 1: twenty one, when I was arrested for the crime that
Speaker 1: put me on death throw for a crime that I
Speaker 1: did not commit, and Leanne, can you walk us through
Speaker 1: this awful crime and how they've managed to go off
Speaker 1: of the who would have seemed to be the obvious
Speaker 1: aspect and target. Paul. Sure. So, the victim allegedly went
Speaker 1: missing on September nine, of which would have been a Monday.
Speaker 1: And the reason why they zeroed in on that particular
Speaker 1: day is because, well, her sister and her would speak
Speaker 1: practically every day. Well, the sister had gone two or
Speaker 1: three days without hearing from the victim. So the sister
Speaker 1: went over to the trailer where her sister had lived
Speaker 1: with this boyfriend, William Hardy. They live in boyfriend said, Hey,
Speaker 1: she left on Monday. She was going to go do
Speaker 1: laundry at the coin laundry. She was going to deposit
Speaker 1: her s s I check that had come in over
Speaker 1: the weekend at the bank. The victim had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a reputation for being somebody that would frequent
Speaker 1: bars and might randomly go home with a guy. So
Speaker 1: at first the sister it to see if maybe something
Speaker 1: like that had happened. When she still hadn't heard from
Speaker 1: the victim the next day, she went back to the
Speaker 1: trailer and insisted that the boyfriend go with her to
Speaker 1: the police department to report her missing um And so
Speaker 1: on Thursday September twelve, in the evening, they go to
Speaker 1: the Hernando County Sheriff's office. They report the victim, whose
Speaker 1: name was Roncetti Cox, missing, and then the very next day,
Speaker 1: which was Friday, September, a group of boys find a
Speaker 1: deserted car with a really bad smell. Police respond and
Speaker 1: they find the victim new stuffed in the trunk of
Speaker 1: the car with a ligature around her neck. The immediate
Speaker 1: suspect is to live in boyfriend, William Hardy, who was
Speaker 1: about twenty years younger than the victim, and he just
Speaker 1: appeared kind of scurly to the police, and so they
Speaker 1: focused in on him. What ended up happening was they
Speaker 1: wanted to see when she had gone to the bank
Speaker 1: to deposit the social Security check and so they discovered
Speaker 1: that the last check that came in on the victim's
Speaker 1: bank account was cashed by an individual named Paul Hilldwin,
Speaker 1: and that he had come through the drive through of
Speaker 1: the bank on September night that approximately twelve thirty in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. At that point in time, now law enforcement
Speaker 1: shifts their suspicion from the boyfriend, William Harty, over to
Speaker 1: Paul and basically become extremely myopic and focused in with
Speaker 1: the tunnel vision only on Paul, right, And there was
Speaker 1: a lot of circumstantial evidence right, that was really just
Speaker 1: the result of an unfortunate coincidence, which goes back to
Speaker 1: the night of September eight, myself and three friends went
Speaker 1: to a drive in movie and I think it was
Speaker 1: a clean Eastwood movie, pale Writer. We left there and
Speaker 1: I dropped the young man that was I dropped him
Speaker 1: off at his house and then I started heading home.
Speaker 1: The two girls that were would mean they lived, you know,
Speaker 1: just down the street from me, so I was taking
Speaker 1: them home as well. And I ran out of gas
Speaker 1: and I got like a dollar something worth of gas,
Speaker 1: put it in the car. I put a little bit
Speaker 1: in the carbet and try to get a start but
Speaker 1: the way the car was setting it was on an angle,
Speaker 1: like almost in a ditch, and the gas wasn't getting
Speaker 1: pulled up into the engine. So I went to my house,
Speaker 1: my father's house, and I had to get a battery
Speaker 1: because I wore the battery down in the car trying
Speaker 1: to start it. So I got the battery and I
Speaker 1: got a ride back from a friend. Anyway, got back
Speaker 1: to the car still wouldn't start, so I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: run that battery down, so we got in the car
Speaker 1: and we ended up just falling asleep. So when he's
Speaker 1: en route to take the girls home, the car runs
Speaker 1: out of gas installs in front of a bar called
Speaker 1: the Loan Star Bar that's right off at US nine.
Speaker 1: Team Paul wakes up up somewhere between eight thirty and
Speaker 1: nine am. Girls are still sleeping. He decides, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: walk home and see if I can either borrow my
Speaker 1: dad's truck or get some money to try to put
Speaker 1: some more gas in this car. So he's walking north
Speaker 1: on US nineteen and the victim and her boyfriend, William Hardy,
Speaker 1: are driving north on US nineteen. They pull over. He
Speaker 1: tells him, hey, I'm trying to get up to my
Speaker 1: dad's house. He gets in the back seat. They're driving
Speaker 1: to the dad's house. She and the boyfriend start arguing
Speaker 1: about he's sick of her going out with other men.
Speaker 1: She's basically telling him off. The fight is getting pretty
Speaker 1: loud and hostile Paul sitting in the back seat. In
Speaker 1: the back seat is the victims purse within her purses
Speaker 1: like a separate checkbook holder, and the victim says, I've
Speaker 1: had enough of you. She stops the car. She says,
Speaker 1: get out. Boyfriend says I'm not getting out. Victim says
Speaker 1: she's getting out. The two of them end up getting out.
Speaker 1: They slap each other around the little bit. All of
Speaker 1: this is going on at this Paul's not that far
Speaker 1: from his house, so he grabs the checkbook thing and leaves,
Speaker 1: and the last thing he sees is that the boyfriend
Speaker 1: is on top of the victim and his hands around
Speaker 1: her neck. He's like, I'm not getting in the middle
Speaker 1: of this because the boyfriend has threatened him, and he
Speaker 1: walks home. Once he gets home, his dad's not there,
Speaker 1: gets some leftover money, hitches a ride back to where
Speaker 1: the girls are. He buys another two dollars worth of gas,
Speaker 1: they level out the car, he puts the gas in
Speaker 1: the car, drops the girls off at home in his car.
Speaker 1: He then forges one of the victims checks, goes to
Speaker 1: the bank cash is the check giving his I D
Speaker 1: the checks for seventy right. So, ultimately, because Paul, you know, foolishly,
Speaker 1: let's call it what it is, took a few items
Speaker 1: from the car, a radio, a ring, and of course
Speaker 1: the act that we talked about. When the attention of
Speaker 1: the authorities shifts to him, they probably had some sort
Speaker 1: of eureka moment like, oh, look at this, we got
Speaker 1: sort of, for lack of a better word, of smoking gun.
Speaker 1: And at that point, like you said, the tunnel vision
Speaker 1: sets in. He really needs a great lawyer. And that's
Speaker 1: not at all how this played out, right, So on
Speaker 1: November twenty one, they get a grand jury to indict
Speaker 1: him with first agree murder and they announced that they're
Speaker 1: seeking death. So this particular attorney, Dan Lewin, had just
Speaker 1: graduated from Florida State Law School. He had never done
Speaker 1: a murder case. He had never done even a serious
Speaker 1: robbery case. So on April twenty six he gets appointed
Speaker 1: to this death penalty case and they pick a jury
Speaker 1: four months later on August. In between that time period,
Speaker 1: he conducted absolutely no investigation. This defense lawyer took depositions,
Speaker 1: and the significance of that is the lack of thoroughness.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, it is also clear when you
Speaker 1: review those depositions that the prosecution was not giving him
Speaker 1: all the police reports. In addition to that, the Hillsborough
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office decide, you know what, We're not going
Speaker 1: to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which was
Speaker 1: the state agency that would do the lab work for
Speaker 1: the police agencies in Florida. We're going to send this
Speaker 1: stuff to the FBI. And it's at the FBI where
Speaker 1: they're doing the so called sourology, hair examination, and school
Speaker 1: mark examinations on some chrome strips that they believe came
Speaker 1: off of the alleged victim's car. You've just identified several
Speaker 1: of the key elements of junk science that we talked
Speaker 1: about in our podcast row Eviction junk science, But there's
Speaker 1: so much more to this. You have circumstantial evidence, you
Speaker 1: have tunnel vision tons of junk science, and then you
Speaker 1: have incumbent defense attorney and you also have experts that
Speaker 1: are willing to lie on behalf of the prosecution, and
Speaker 1: we know that. The prosecutor at the i'le presented the
Speaker 1: horology report from an FBIS forensics expert who falsely claimed
Speaker 1: that bodily fluids found on two pieces of crime scene evidence,
Speaker 1: the underwear the woman's underwear and a washcloth both matched
Speaker 1: Paul Heldwin. The expert also claimed that Paul was among
Speaker 1: only eleven percent of the world's white male population who
Speaker 1: could have deposited the fluids, and that the fluence could
Speaker 1: not have come from the victim's estrange boyfriend. So this
Speaker 1: is a mountain of ship. I mean paul is the
Speaker 1: appropriate word. Thank you. I chose that carefully. In defensive
Speaker 1: Mr Lewin on this part, they sprung on the sourology
Speaker 1: evidence that did not come out until opening statements, and
Speaker 1: he immediately objected, and when they approached the bench, he said,
Speaker 1: this can't come in. I was told that the sourology
Speaker 1: evidence was of no value. Everything was too degraded. They
Speaker 1: couldn't get anything of it. And now they're telling the
Speaker 1: jury that it links my client and they can't use that,
Speaker 1: and the prosecution and goes, you want to bet that's
Speaker 1: on the record, and the judge says, yeah, no, this
Speaker 1: is opening. They can do it, and we'll address it
Speaker 1: during the trial. And then when they come to the
Speaker 1: point where he objects again during the trial, it's the
Speaker 1: friday before Labor Day weekend, and the judge says, well,
Speaker 1: you've got till Tuesday to be ready. Three days. And
Speaker 1: remember what we had to work with in There wasn't
Speaker 1: internet research when we researched case law. We went the
Speaker 1: old fashioned way into the law library, which took a
Speaker 1: lot of time. So he basically gives this inexperience, unqualified
Speaker 1: lawyer three days to familiarize himself with sorology, evidence and
Speaker 1: secretor and non secretor. You have got to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: So September four you were found guilty. In September seventeenth,
Speaker 1: the jury, by a unanimous vote of twelve to nothing,
Speaker 1: sentence you to death, even though the defense was what
Speaker 1: it was. I didn't expect that. When they sentenced me
Speaker 1: to death, I just I don't know. I think my
Speaker 1: mind just shut down. After that, what I called the
Speaker 1: real living hell started. You're basically in that cell twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day. You get three showers a week,
Speaker 1: you get to go to the yard twice a week,
Speaker 1: and it's a little tiny yard. And if you don't
Speaker 1: go to the yard, you're just in that cell twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day, and you become desensitized. Really. After
Speaker 1: like the first four years, I just disconnected myself. I
Speaker 1: didn't care about time. I didn't care about holidays. I
Speaker 1: didn't you know, none of that stuff mattered. What was
Speaker 1: important to me was just surviving. After my dad passed
Speaker 1: the I didn't have a visit until two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: My life was in that cell. I did everything I
Speaker 1: ate in there. I washed all my clothes, and my
Speaker 1: whole life was in that little box. Eight nine and
Speaker 1: very good friend of mine, Kenny Hardwick, he gave up
Speaker 1: and he was in the cell next to week and
Speaker 1: I could see him. The windows were not in the cell,
Speaker 1: they were like eight to ten ft away from the
Speaker 1: front of the cell to cell. Fronts were all open.
Speaker 1: No we could talk, we could pass things back and forth.
Speaker 1: And I watched him hang himself. I couldn't stop him.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help him, you know. I went to screaming
Speaker 1: for the bullies. They coming tell me to shut my
Speaker 1: f of mouth. This episode is underwritten by the a
Speaker 1: i G pro Bono Program. A i G is a
Speaker 1: leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the
Speaker 1: a i G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of
Speaker 1: hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit
Speaker 1: organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program
Speaker 1: added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar
Speaker 1: of its mission. This episode is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to
Speaker 1: helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years,
Speaker 1: Stand Together and its partners have been on the front
Speaker 1: lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action,
Speaker 1: supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses. Stand Together tackles the
Speaker 1: root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those
Speaker 1: closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing
Speaker 1: unjust prison sentences through the First Step a Act, empowering
Speaker 1: community based programs and help people re enter society, and
Speaker 1: now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn
Speaker 1: how you may get involved, visit stand Together dot org
Speaker 1: slash conviction. I believe it was either nine or nine.
Speaker 1: Governor Martinez signed Paul's death warrant and Paul has the
Speaker 1: fortuitous opportunity to have a terrific lawyer named Marty McClain,
Speaker 1: and so Marty begins to investigate. And at that point,
Speaker 1: the state attorney is different. And so when Marty McClain
Speaker 1: issues the requests for Paul's file and all the police
Speaker 1: reports or whatever, they actually turn it over, and that's
Speaker 1: when he discovers all these things that either were not
Speaker 1: disclosed to Mr Lewin or that Mr Lewin just didn't
Speaker 1: bother to use, like the victim's nephew that says that
Speaker 1: he was having drinks with the victim on Monday night,
Speaker 1: September nine until eleven fifteen pm. Meanwhile, according to the
Speaker 1: state's theory of trial, Paul had allegedly killed her somewhere
Speaker 1: between nine fifteen and ten in the morning. But yet
Speaker 1: the nephew is having drinks with her as the boyfriend
Speaker 1: was mad and sulking in a corner. Well that never
Speaker 1: came out in trial. That nephew was never deposed by
Speaker 1: Mr Lewin. The boyfriend was allowed to represent this really
Speaker 1: fabulous relationship withdrawal. So Marty McClain discovered stat when law
Speaker 1: enforcement searched the victim and her boyfriend's house. There was
Speaker 1: a note in the garbage can that said, if you
Speaker 1: don't like living here, you can sunk off and die.
Speaker 1: That never came out during trial. I mean, it just
Speaker 1: went on and on and on. So he discovered all
Speaker 1: this stuff. He found what's called the thirty fifty motion,
Speaker 1: which is a motion to find the defense lawyer ineffective
Speaker 1: of counsel and that if Paul had had effective assistance
Speaker 1: of counsel or had received this Brady information and it
Speaker 1: had been used, it would have changed the outcome of
Speaker 1: the trial. And the judge denies both and says that
Speaker 1: Paul had effective assistance of counsel. It goes up on
Speaker 1: appeal to the Florida Supreme Court or the Florida Supreme
Speaker 1: Court hanser Hat on the sourology evidence to say, no,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the trial in
Speaker 1: first phase. But we do find that the penalty phase
Speaker 1: was ineffective, and they grant Paul the opportunity to have
Speaker 1: a second penalty phase. And so that happens in seven
Speaker 1: and the jury comes back eight to four for death. Remember,
Speaker 1: at the time in Florida and only required a majority
Speaker 1: of jurors to vote for death, so Paul gets death
Speaker 1: again and so CCRC, the group that Marty McClain worked for,
Speaker 1: contacts the Innocence Project they get involved in. During all
Speaker 1: that investigation, they also discover another witness that said she
Speaker 1: had had a conversation with the victim at three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the afternoon on the Wednesday, after she supposedly died.
Speaker 1: They also started attacking the horology and they see for
Speaker 1: it to get into and that ly tested. When they do,
Speaker 1: at this point, DNA is in existence. They discovered that
Speaker 1: the DNA on the panties and on the wash rag,
Speaker 1: which is what was sold to the jury in and
Speaker 1: what the Supreme Court relied upon in sustaining his guilty
Speaker 1: verdict both the first time and during the thirty fifty hearing,
Speaker 1: do not match Paul. It was February of two thousand
Speaker 1: and three we went to the Circuit Court with the
Speaker 1: test results. So that ends up happening that they discover, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not Paul's biological material on this, we want you
Speaker 1: to run it through the CODA system. And they start
Speaker 1: getting pushed back from the State and the Attorney General's office,
Speaker 1: and this continues and continues to get litigated until two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, where finally the Supreme Court says, put it
Speaker 1: in the CODAS system. When they run the DNA into
Speaker 1: the CODA system, it matches William Harty, the victims live
Speaker 1: in boyfriend, and at the time he was incarcerated for
Speaker 1: sixteen counts of sexual battery for sexually molesting his stepdaughter.
Speaker 1: And here we go again. I'm so sick of these
Speaker 1: stories where the wrong person gets locked up, the actual
Speaker 1: perpetrator remains free and goes on to commit these unspeakable
Speaker 1: acts against people who never should have been victimized in
Speaker 1: the first place if the system had worked the way
Speaker 1: it should so. Then at that point, Nina Morrison and
Speaker 1: Morty McClain are pushing the Supreme Court to give Paul,
Speaker 1: based on this newly discovered evidence, a new trial, with
Speaker 1: the state giving pushback under the grounds, hey, this was
Speaker 1: the sex crimes case. And finally, in June of two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen, the Florida Supreme Court grants Paul a
Speaker 1: new trial. Okay, but now, how did this case, of
Speaker 1: all the cases end up on your desk? Nina Morrison
Speaker 1: called me and asked, could I fly down to Tampa
Speaker 1: and meet with you and talk to you about this case.
Speaker 1: Anybody that knows Nina Morrison, she's like, Sam, I am,
Speaker 1: don't let her in your house because she's going to
Speaker 1: convince you to do whatever she wants you to do.
Speaker 1: And so she came into the office and persuaded me
Speaker 1: to agree to do this case pro bono beginning in
Speaker 1: August of two thousand and fourteen until it concluded on
Speaker 1: March nine of two thousand and twenty, two thousand three,
Speaker 1: the DNA proves DNA we're talking about, right, was produced
Speaker 1: that proved that Paul didn't do it, or at a minimum,
Speaker 1: that the state's case was completely wrong, and that the
Speaker 1: main piece of evidence that they based and I was
Speaker 1: proven false. And yet it took seventeen more years to
Speaker 1: bring Paul home. And then even that comes with an asterisk, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I get appointed to the case in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, and so the state they still stood on
Speaker 1: the position that they felt that Paul was guilty. And
Speaker 1: so to them, the quote fair end quote option was
Speaker 1: to let him plead to second degree murder, get credit
Speaker 1: for time served, and put him on lifetime probation. So
Speaker 1: Paul's big mandate to me from the beginning was I
Speaker 1: would like to feel grass underneath my feet before I die.
Speaker 1: And so I would talk to him about these offers
Speaker 1: the state was making and you know, explain to him
Speaker 1: why it was basically a no brainer for us to
Speaker 1: say no to that and continue forward. But we did
Speaker 1: talk about would you take anything to guarantee that you
Speaker 1: would get out? And we had kind of talked about
Speaker 1: why I would plead reluctantly, but I would plead no
Speaker 1: contest to a second degree murder and time served, and
Speaker 1: I'll even take some probation afterwards because I know I'm
Speaker 1: not going to commit any crimes and so I'll do that.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to Friday morning before trial, March six,
Speaker 1: and the prosecution says to me, would he still plead
Speaker 1: to a second and time served, but we're gonna want probation.
Speaker 1: And Paul was like yes, he goes, you know, I
Speaker 1: want the bird in the hand. I want to know
Speaker 1: I'm going to get out. I don't want to take
Speaker 1: any risks. So he pled. You know, it was totally
Speaker 1: Paul's decision. We were a percent ready to proceed forward
Speaker 1: with the trial. Paul, March nine, I've watched the video
Speaker 1: of you walking out more times than I want to
Speaker 1: admit because it's so incredible. Um what was that like?
Speaker 1: And when I walked out the door of the jail
Speaker 1: and was met by Leanne Gouty and Kate O'shay, I
Speaker 1: actually couldn't believe that it was really happening. And that
Speaker 1: day when we left the jail and there was the
Speaker 1: first thing I wanted to do was feel grass under
Speaker 1: my feet, my bare feet, just to walk on grass.
Speaker 1: He goes inside to jail, then the prisons. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's all concrete and steel. That's it. You don't get
Speaker 1: the walk on the grass. It's just the simplest thing.
Speaker 1: That was a big thing for me. I wanted to
Speaker 1: walk on the grass, and as the video shows, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they did. They took me to a
Speaker 1: nearby park and uh that was the most special part
Speaker 1: about it, really walking on grass. People don't understand what
Speaker 1: we take for granted every single day of our life.
Speaker 1: Closing the door by yourself, stepping on grass, smelling fresh
Speaker 1: cut grass. It made me realize just what myself included
Speaker 1: everybody takes for granted. Then uh Ms Goudy and her
Speaker 1: partner Kim Khan kat O'sha and Anthony Scott. They took
Speaker 1: me to Cracker Barrel on the way down to Tampa,
Speaker 1: and I had never been to Cracker Barrel and that
Speaker 1: was my very first that was my very first freedom. You.
Speaker 1: I just want to interrupt so nobody thinks I'm at
Speaker 1: cheap skate. It was the best restaurant in Hernando County.
Speaker 1: Thank you for clarifying that. Now, Paul, this was touched
Speaker 1: on a bit, but I mean, it wasn't bad enough
Speaker 1: that the state was trying to kill you. But cancer.
Speaker 1: At first, it was just recognized that I had a
Speaker 1: lump in front of my left ear and the gland
Speaker 1: in my throat on the left side was swallowing up.
Speaker 1: And I went and I saw an ear, nose and
Speaker 1: throat doctor and so he did a biopsy on both
Speaker 1: the lump in the swallen gland and it came back
Speaker 1: to be uh non Hodgkins lymphoma. So I went through
Speaker 1: surgery through radiation. Then I started chimo, you know, and
Speaker 1: thankfully you made it, but cancer wasn't done. You still
Speaker 1: had to go through it two more times in eleven
Speaker 1: or twelve when it showed up again. The next time
Speaker 1: I believe it was in by that time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was used to the weight loss, the sickness, and no hair.
Speaker 1: I lost every single piece of hair on my body.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I looked like Uncle Fester on there. Jesus Paul,
Speaker 1: You're just really fucking hard to kill. I don't know
Speaker 1: how else I think. I mean, the state can't, cancer can't.
Speaker 1: He survived cancer on death row, So clearly you know
Speaker 1: God didn't want to kill him. If he was supposed
Speaker 1: to be dead, he would be dead. Speaking of the
Speaker 1: magic of the universe, I must take this opportunity to
Speaker 1: congratulate lean on her election to the thirteen Circuit Court.
Speaker 1: Judge Leanne Gaudi, thank you, Thank you. Typically when you're
Speaker 1: a new judge, you do rotations through family law or
Speaker 1: one of the other areas prior to going over to criminal.
Speaker 1: But I'm being placed right in criminal, so i will
Speaker 1: be taking over a circuit criminal division. So I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and it makes me so happy, both for
Speaker 1: you and also knowing that someone from the defense side
Speaker 1: of the bar will be sitting on the bench. So
Speaker 1: all the best. And on that note, we're now going
Speaker 1: to go to the segment of our show called Closing Arguments.
Speaker 1: It's the part where I first of all thank both
Speaker 1: of you from the bottom of my heart for being
Speaker 1: here and sharing your story and of course your spirit
Speaker 1: with us. And then now I'm going to shut off
Speaker 1: my microphone, kick back in my chair, close my eyes,
Speaker 1: and just listen to whatever you want to say. Um,
Speaker 1: We'll start with you, Leanne, and then finish with Paul.
Speaker 1: You know, it was my privilege to represent Paul, and
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that Nina Morrison entrusted his case to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful that Paul trusted me to represent him.
Speaker 1: I think that it's always an honor when somebody that's
Speaker 1: accused of a crime puts their trust in you as
Speaker 1: a lawyer to do the best you can for them.
Speaker 1: And I'm just very, very grateful to God, frankly, that
Speaker 1: I was able to deliver on Paul's request to be
Speaker 1: able to let him feel grass underneath his feet before
Speaker 1: he died. And hopefully he'll have many, many more years
Speaker 1: to live and continue smelling grass and cut grass and
Speaker 1: feeling it and living peacefully and happily out in society
Speaker 1: like he should be. Paul, over to you, Leanne, and
Speaker 1: I have talked several times, you know, about my belief
Speaker 1: in God, and I believe that that's what got me
Speaker 1: through thirty five years. I also believe it be the
Speaker 1: reason why Nina Morrison was put on my case, why
Speaker 1: Leanne Gaudy was put on my case. It was by
Speaker 1: the grace of God. I've been blessed so much since
Speaker 1: I've been out because of the Innocent Project in New
Speaker 1: York and the Innocent Project in Florida. They are a
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization and because of the donations is one reason,
Speaker 1: a big reason why I'm sitting here where I live now.
Speaker 1: There's an organization that helped me find this place, and
Speaker 1: it's called the Sunny Center. They are a nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: and they are the ones that have helped me since
Speaker 1: I've been out. They have been there every day, every
Speaker 1: step of the way. They also need donations in order
Speaker 1: to help people in my position and ex honorees, and
Speaker 1: you know, they've gotten me health insurance. You know, they've
Speaker 1: helped me get my driver's license. They're there, I mean,
Speaker 1: but they won't be there if people don't make donations.
Speaker 1: And I believe they they were put there by God
Speaker 1: as well. You know, in my life and I'm want
Speaker 1: to say thank you, Lea. LeAnn. The freedom is so sweet.
Speaker 1: You know you gave me back my life and I
Speaker 1: thank you with all my heart. Always, Paul always, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please
Speaker 1: support your local innocence projects and go to the link
Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne
Speaker 1: and Kevin Warnas. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one h