Speaker 1: It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Portsmouth, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and Terence Hobbs had just started dating Devona Buyers, a
Speaker 1: young woman who shared a five year old daughter with
Speaker 1: one of the biggest drug dealers in town. When the
Speaker 1: FBI pressed Devana about aiding her ex with money laundering,
Speaker 1: she agreed to testify against him in his federal drug charges,
Speaker 1: planning to skip town afterward. Devanna and Terry's budding romance
Speaker 1: fizzled as a result. On July six, shortly after her testimony,
Speaker 1: the bodies of Devona Buyers and another lover, Leon Porter,
Speaker 1: were discovered, having both been shot once in the head.
Speaker 1: Investigators immediately honed it on Terry Hobbs, Devanna's most recent X,
Speaker 1: but with no physical evidence to corroborate the theory, the
Speaker 1: case went cold. As the summer wound down, a bank
Speaker 1: robbery occurred in nearby Virginia Beach. While facing unrelated charges,
Speaker 1: an old junior high acquaintance of Terry's, Eric Cook, alleged
Speaker 1: that he had called Terry from jail and that Terry
Speaker 1: had confessed to both the bank robbery and the July
Speaker 1: double homicide. At the bank robbery trial, the bank teller
Speaker 1: and another employee corroborated Eric Cook, which must have meant
Speaker 1: that Terry's fingerprints had just been missed by the crime
Speaker 1: scene technicians. At the double homicide trial, five witnesses facing
Speaker 1: their own criminal charges painted Terry as a jealous ex boyfriend.
Speaker 1: But they couldn't possibly all be lying, especially about a
Speaker 1: convicted armed bank robber. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. Today we have a first on
Speaker 1: this program, a double wrongful conviction. Now Terence Hobbs was
Speaker 1: convicted of a bank robbery and then a completely separate
Speaker 1: double homicide, both of which he had nothing to do with.
Speaker 1: Terry joined us from not Away Correctional facility in Virginia. Terence,
Speaker 1: Welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're very welcome and joining us as a man who
Speaker 1: knew Terry on the inside. He himself was rightfully convicted
Speaker 1: for a string of robberts in the nineties in which
Speaker 1: no one got hurt and the proceeds amounted to around
Speaker 1: five hundred eleven dollars. But I think it's fair to
Speaker 1: say that you were over sentenced, having received a grand
Speaker 1: total of get this one thousand, three hundred and ten years.
Speaker 1: Governor mccauliffe granted him a conditional pardon back in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, and Lenny has been fighting to clear Terry
Speaker 1: ever since. Lenny Singleton, welcome to the show. Thank you,
Speaker 1: glad to be here, very glad to have you, and
Speaker 1: also here with us as someone who's been fighting for
Speaker 1: Terry the longest. His mother, Catherine Hobbs, thank you from
Speaker 1: the bottom of my heart for joining us and very
Speaker 1: courageously sharing today. You're welcome, happy to be here. Now,
Speaker 1: these crimes took place in two cities that are close
Speaker 1: to one another. There was a bank robbery in Virginia Beach,
Speaker 1: and about a month before that, there was a double
Speaker 1: homicide in which the departed were a woman named Devana Buyers,
Speaker 1: who was the mother of a drug kingpin's daughter and
Speaker 1: her new lover, Leon Porter, a man who was in
Speaker 1: possession of a very large amount of cocaine. So you know,
Speaker 1: maybe he was a competing dealer. We we don't know,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem far fetched. So the homicide portion
Speaker 1: of this is certainly touching that world in Portsmouth, Virginia. Now, Lenny,
Speaker 1: when you were in the military before your conviction. You
Speaker 1: were stationed in Virginia. Right. Remember, Portsmouth, Virginia was like
Speaker 1: one of the heroin capitals of the world, this country anyway,
Speaker 1: and they were known for corruption. Every time I opened
Speaker 1: the paper back in the nineties, there was always some
Speaker 1: issue about corruption in Portsmouth, right, and Terry, you grew
Speaker 1: up there, so could you, or maybe miss Hobbs, if
Speaker 1: you want to jump in here too, could you tell
Speaker 1: us about your life growing up on August the third,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy in the city of Portsmouth, Virginia to up
Speaker 1: a middle class black family, pretty much had a typical child,
Speaker 1: and I guess you could say so. I was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with dyslexia in very greed and he was very self
Speaker 1: conscious about that. But they said he had above average intelligence,
Speaker 1: but he had the reading problem. And at the time
Speaker 1: they didn't know how to help students with that reading problem,
Speaker 1: so they put in a special education in which you
Speaker 1: get a certificate. You do not get a ptoma. We
Speaker 1: come from a military family, and he wanted to go
Speaker 1: so much with that certificate, he was not able to go.
Speaker 1: And your military upbringing brought you in touch with guns,
Speaker 1: and you owned several legal firearms, all of which were
Speaker 1: being stored out of your possession at the time of
Speaker 1: the crime. But even the fact that you own firearms
Speaker 1: at all was eventually used against you, even though none
Speaker 1: of your guns could be connected to the crimes were
Speaker 1: about to discuss here, But let's get back to Terry's childhood.
Speaker 1: I started working at an early age and got a
Speaker 1: job at food line at age sixteen and worked all
Speaker 1: through high school at food line. After the food line
Speaker 1: and my cousin got me a job with him working
Speaker 1: at the shipyard. Unfortunately, I got laid off and at
Speaker 1: one point in time i'd be again involved in seven
Speaker 1: robes on a very small level, but I never got
Speaker 1: a risk in food and then after I was able to,
Speaker 1: you know, get my career back on track, I walked
Speaker 1: away from it. And you'll get no judgment from me
Speaker 1: about being involved in drugs. But that, along with the
Speaker 1: love of motorcycles, did bring you into contact with a
Speaker 1: crowd of people who later went on to help frame
Speaker 1: you in exchange for leniency in their own very serious cases.
Speaker 1: But in the lead up to these two incidents, you
Speaker 1: were gainfully employed at the coast Guard based shipyard. Now
Speaker 1: I want to go back to your time at food
Speaker 1: Line during high school. You worked there for a short
Speaker 1: while with one of the victims in this case, right,
Speaker 1: Devona Buyers. Is that where the two of you first met.
Speaker 1: I met Devana Bays in junior high school and we
Speaker 1: pretty much hung with different crowds. She was always extremely
Speaker 1: beautiful and extremely popular, being laiter home. She worked at
Speaker 1: Food Rhyme with me for maybe three months, and now
Speaker 1: I probably didn't see her again until I was about
Speaker 1: twenty five years old. And at that time you two
Speaker 1: became romantically involved, but that unfortunately got cut short, most
Speaker 1: likely by the circumstances in her life surrounding the father
Speaker 1: of her five year old daughter, Kia, a man named
Speaker 1: Dathaniel Skeet Richardson who was a major player in the
Speaker 1: Portsmouth drug game and was under federal indictment at the time.
Speaker 1: But before he got his federal drug indictument, he had
Speaker 1: a long list of charges, a lot of them violent.
Speaker 1: Even one of the charges was shooting gift of his
Speaker 1: girlfriend and unborn child, and he wanted to getting out
Speaker 1: on me in the Hall of Land. So this is
Speaker 1: a young guy who's already a suspect, and the killing
Speaker 1: of the mother of his unborn child, and he's got
Speaker 1: a lot of money. He probably paid a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: cash on that million dollars to get himself out. Maybe
Speaker 1: he put up the whole million, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: one way another he was loaded. He was making more
Speaker 1: money in a month than most of the police officers
Speaker 1: were making in a year at that time back in Portsmouth,
Speaker 1: so clearly, had he chosen to he had more than
Speaker 1: enough money to corrupt a local officer into giving him
Speaker 1: a pass or even offering him protection from the law
Speaker 1: possibly posible. I wouldn't be surprised. Back in those days,
Speaker 1: not with Portsmouth. It wasn't uncommon for police to be
Speaker 1: on pay rolls, especially he's drug kingpins. Back in those days.
Speaker 1: From what I understand it, twenty two or twenty three
Speaker 1: years olds, Keith Richardson had so much money that he
Speaker 1: had developed a money laundering scheme involving the prayer just
Speaker 1: a trade of expensive cars, and one of those trades
Speaker 1: involved Devanna, and eventually the FEDS approached her, threatening her
Speaker 1: with money laundering charges if she didn't cooperate in their
Speaker 1: prosecution of Skeith Richardson, who was under federal indictment for
Speaker 1: a laundry list of drug charges, conspiracy, etcetera. I told
Speaker 1: her I felt like, considering the people today were asking
Speaker 1: her to talk about and testify against, I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was in her best interests. And I told her,
Speaker 1: you know the money liner in charges an consider white
Speaker 1: collar crimes. You may do two or three years and
Speaker 1: you can start the lifeful. She wasn't interested in hearing it.
Speaker 1: She wasn't trying to do a single day. It was
Speaker 1: that decision to testify against him that was more than
Speaker 1: likely what led to her death. So she was subpoena
Speaker 1: tip here in court and she did. And then what
Speaker 1: happened About a week or two before she was killed,
Speaker 1: she went to even Mississippi or Alabama to spend some
Speaker 1: time with family down there. And after she came back,
Speaker 1: she asked me if I would be willing to move
Speaker 1: with her to Mississippi or Alabama after she finished cooperating
Speaker 1: with the FBI, and you know, I'll be honest, which
Speaker 1: I considered it, but I didn't want to have to
Speaker 1: leave my home on the old circumstances had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it. So at this point, even though you
Speaker 1: two were still occasionally sleeping together. You had created some
Speaker 1: distance between you and Devanna, hardly the actions of a
Speaker 1: jealous boyfriend, as the state would later paint you when
Speaker 1: you were prosecuted for what happened in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: her testimony in this federal drug trial. So let's get
Speaker 1: to that. This was the night of July into the
Speaker 1: tent of n just two weeks after she had testified
Speaker 1: against her baby's father, who was, of course the drug kingpin. Now,
Speaker 1: apparently she had been with her parents earlier that evening,
Speaker 1: went home with her five year old daughter, Kia, and
Speaker 1: a man named Leon Face Porter was his nickname. Face.
Speaker 1: Kia had gone to bed then around midnight and ear
Speaker 1: witness her gunshots around four am. Kia called her grandfather
Speaker 1: after discus bring her mother and Mr Porter were dead.
Speaker 1: Police found that the outside door an apartment door, had
Speaker 1: been busted open. Devana was found by the foot of
Speaker 1: the bed, shot in the back of the head. Mr
Speaker 1: Porter was found lying on the bed and he had
Speaker 1: been shot in the face, as if he had been
Speaker 1: sitting on the edge of the bed when he was shot.
Speaker 1: But I woke up to my page of going off
Speaker 1: back to back to back to back to back. The
Speaker 1: roma was that Devanna and I had gotten murdered. Once
Speaker 1: they found out that I hadn't gotten killed because the
Speaker 1: nature of our relationship when we were still sleeping with
Speaker 1: each other from time to time, I became a suspect.
Speaker 1: They tried to say it was a crime of passion
Speaker 1: a jealous boyfriend, but those two people were shot execution
Speaker 1: style only once, and they know that she just testified
Speaker 1: against the biggest drug dealer in Portsmouth, Virginia. Right even
Speaker 1: though the Vanna's baby's father, Nathaniel Skeet Richardson, was the
Speaker 1: logical suspect. They pursued Terry anyway. But you had seen
Speaker 1: a movie with your sister the night before, then went
Speaker 1: to your parents house to pick up some mail before
Speaker 1: spending the night at your sister's And when you woke
Speaker 1: up to your page or just blowing up, you called
Speaker 1: some friends, found out what had happened, and you and
Speaker 1: your sister went to Devon's parents house and I agree
Speaker 1: to talk to the police, And at some point in time,
Speaker 1: Detective Huntington and Detective beach a Lotok showed up at
Speaker 1: Devna's house, so they asked you to accompany them to
Speaker 1: the detectors euro and you were, I would say, as
Speaker 1: cooperative as you possibly could be. At first, they asked
Speaker 1: me a few questions, asked me about my whereabouts that day,
Speaker 1: and then he got around to ask me if I
Speaker 1: owned any firearms, which I told him I did and
Speaker 1: gave him a list of the firearms. They asked me
Speaker 1: if I had any problem with them running ballistics tests home.
Speaker 1: I had the guns delivered to the police department I
Speaker 1: can send into the gunshot residute tests. They tested his guns,
Speaker 1: they tested his fingerprints. Nothing matched. They asked me if
Speaker 1: I had any problems taking a lot of detective tests,
Speaker 1: which I didn't at the time. Yeah, you're agreed to
Speaker 1: the light detective test. And you also told him where
Speaker 1: he could find your other firearm at the Portsmouth Big
Speaker 1: Tackle and Pawn Shop detect the Huntington went there to
Speaker 1: try to retrieve my blog from the shop, and I
Speaker 1: think the lady's name was Kathleen half Cock, and he
Speaker 1: told her personally that he was there to get my
Speaker 1: gun because it was used in a murder. Luckily, she
Speaker 1: had the presence of mind to ask when the murders
Speaker 1: take place after he told her when the murders took place.
Speaker 1: She told him that there was no way possible to
Speaker 1: that weapon could have been used and that crime because
Speaker 1: they had been Irish shop prior to the crime taken place.
Speaker 1: So it seems that Detective Huntington's had already pretty much
Speaker 1: decided that you were the focus of his investigation, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that you had been cooperative. There was nothing
Speaker 1: that was a match for you. There are alibis, and
Speaker 1: there was nothing that pointed in your direction anyway. You
Speaker 1: started getting wind of this right Detective Huntington's at one
Speaker 1: point in time, he actually told my sister that he
Speaker 1: had been informed by several individuals that I was running
Speaker 1: around in the street ragging that I had committed the murders.
Speaker 1: And I called Detective Huntington's back and asked him what
Speaker 1: was he talking about, because I hadn't been talking to anybody.
Speaker 1: I told him straight up, I said, look, it seems
Speaker 1: like you're more concerned was listening to rooms that you're
Speaker 1: hearing in the street versus taking what you have at
Speaker 1: the crime seemed the actual evidence and using that as
Speaker 1: your starting point to start your investigation and do your job.
Speaker 1: So then after we had that conversation, he asked me
Speaker 1: what I still be willing to come in and and take
Speaker 1: a lot to take the test The next day, I
Speaker 1: told him I was not interested in taking a lot
Speaker 1: of detect the tests. Instead of him doing his job,
Speaker 1: it seemed like he was more interested in trying to
Speaker 1: hang these crimes on me. So now things are heated
Speaker 1: between you and this detective. But he's got nothing on you.
Speaker 1: Nothing connects you to this murder besides your previous relationship
Speaker 1: with the deceased. And there's definitely a much more motivated
Speaker 1: and likely suspect in the mix. But for now the
Speaker 1: case went cold. The summer was coming to a close,
Speaker 1: and at this time, two guys that you knew in
Speaker 1: Junior High, Darryl and Eric Cook, had gotten involved in
Speaker 1: bankrupt race. They were awaiting charges on two separate incidents
Speaker 1: at bank robbery and Chesapeake and then another one in Portsmouth,
Speaker 1: and the second one involved to shoot out with the
Speaker 1: police and Eric Cook. He was looking to trade information
Speaker 1: for leniency. Seems to me that Mr. Eric Cook made
Speaker 1: his living doing that. So while that part of the
Speaker 1: story is simmering in the background, the entire Hobbs family
Speaker 1: was headed to Franklin Virginia for a family reunion on Friday,
Speaker 1: August thirty, when Terry received a traffic ticket on his
Speaker 1: ride out there, and that ticket was issued around six
Speaker 1: forty pm near Franklin, which is only about an hour's
Speaker 1: drive outside of the Portsmouth, Virginia Beach area, where you
Speaker 1: have to remember this was on a holiday weekend within
Speaker 1: DEAs traffic and people coming in from out of state,
Speaker 1: there would be about a two and a half to
Speaker 1: three hours draft fighting at traffic. So this traffic ticket
Speaker 1: out in Franklin at six pm makes it extremely unlikely
Speaker 1: that you could even be physically available to commit a
Speaker 1: bank robbery in Virginia Beach a little after four pm
Speaker 1: that same afternoon. Now, this isn't the same bank robbery
Speaker 1: that Eric and Darryl Cook were arrested for. This is
Speaker 1: a totally separate incident. This was August after four pm
Speaker 1: in Virginia Beach. A black man in his mid twenties
Speaker 1: with a baseball hat, sunglasses, a thick coatee, and a
Speaker 1: dark blue backpack entered the first Virginia Bank on the
Speaker 1: corner of Virginia Beach Boulevard and King's Grant Round. He
Speaker 1: revealed a gun in his waistband, but he never drew it.
Speaker 1: The bank teller ms Berrard complied with his demands and
Speaker 1: handed over about eight in small bills, and the robber
Speaker 1: fled the scene. Now, this is a bank, so they've
Speaker 1: got all kinds of surveillance footage, of course, and screenshots
Speaker 1: of this robber. And I've seen the pictures. There's no
Speaker 1: way you can look at those photos and say Terry
Speaker 1: Hobbs did it. At that time, I couldn't even grow
Speaker 1: a full beat. I had a peach full it's mustache,
Speaker 1: and that was pretty much it. With a guy who
Speaker 1: restually robbed the bank had a full mustache and gottee
Speaker 1: that was so thick that you couldn't see that a
Speaker 1: drop of skin through his mustache or goateee. On top
Speaker 1: of that, the guy wasn't wearing any gloves. Into the transcripts,
Speaker 1: his hands were over the glass the case. There in
Speaker 1: the bank, they grand new fingerprints. Guess what, Terry's fingerprints
Speaker 1: didn't match anything there. Very soon after the robbery, when
Speaker 1: shown a photo array with Terence's picture, the bank teller
Speaker 1: ms Berrard, end up bank employee named Jeanie Chaplin both
Speaker 1: said that they couldn't make a positive idea due to
Speaker 1: the assailant having worn a hat, sunglasses, and a thick coate,
Speaker 1: but somehow that later changed, So no idea, no fingerprint
Speaker 1: match where there definitely were fingerprints left to the scene.
Speaker 1: But now here comes Eric Cook, a guy Terry hasn't
Speaker 1: spoken to since junior high school who's facing his own
Speaker 1: bank robbery charges as well as the attempted murder of
Speaker 1: a police officer from Virginia Beach City Jail. And he
Speaker 1: was clearly looking to trade information for the leniency. But
Speaker 1: I thought that he had robbed a bank in Portsmouth.
Speaker 1: He was on a courtesy hole and protective custody and
Speaker 1: Reginia Beach because when he was an enforcement cd J
Speaker 1: of the city which he attempted a committed bank robbery,
Speaker 1: and when he was in the jail block, any person
Speaker 1: that was in a sale with him or in the
Speaker 1: pot with him, he would get on the phone and
Speaker 1: call crime solvers and say that these people were confessing
Speaker 1: the committing crimes. So it eventually got around and the
Speaker 1: whole pot turned on him and beat him within an
Speaker 1: inch of his life, and he had to be hospitalized.
Speaker 1: And after he was released from medical treatment. He was
Speaker 1: put in Virginia Beach City Jail in protective custody, and
Speaker 1: that's what he called crimes halves once again from me,
Speaker 1: even at the expense of almost losing his life for
Speaker 1: bearing false witness against people, he still hadn't learned his lesson.
Speaker 1: So he goes from Portsmouth Jail under Detective Huntington's jurisdiction
Speaker 1: to Virginia Beach who are a friend of Huntington's. A
Speaker 1: detective name Chris Mullen was working in the August thirtie
Speaker 1: bank robbery and Eric Cook called crime solvers with information
Speaker 1: that just so happened to benefit both detectives. He claims.
Speaker 1: He called me. He said that I had told him
Speaker 1: that I had robbed the bank Beach and I had
Speaker 1: also murdered Devana by his in leon Porta. But this
Speaker 1: alleged call between you and Eric Cook would have been
Speaker 1: made from a jail phone. Not only would it have
Speaker 1: been recorded and made for some really compelling evidence of trial,
Speaker 1: but it also would have shown up on your phone records,
Speaker 1: if in fact it ever took place. So I got
Speaker 1: my phone record during that time and it showed no
Speaker 1: calls from no institution on that man didn't even have
Speaker 1: my phone number. I couldn't even tell you what my
Speaker 1: phone number would So this phone call just simply never
Speaker 1: took place. And you know, calls to crime stoppers are anonymous.
Speaker 1: But yet instead of the authorities paying a visit to
Speaker 1: Terry to see what he had to say about these allegations,
Speaker 1: somehow detective hunting things buddy in Virginia Beach, Detective Chris
Speaker 1: Maulen knew exactly who to go visit in the Virginia
Speaker 1: Beach City jail. So one can only surmise that this
Speaker 1: was a plan that was matched between Maullen Huntington's and
Speaker 1: they're highly incentivized witness Eric Cook to make a quasi
Speaker 1: anonymous call to crime solvers. But there's something else that's
Speaker 1: interesting about the interviews with Eric Cook. Every single interview
Speaker 1: that I have that will copies of statements made to
Speaker 1: the police will detect the robber hunting General David Beachlaw
Speaker 1: and which I think is extremely odd. Why are you
Speaker 1: sitting an interviewing this man about a Virginia Beach bank robbery.
Speaker 1: You have absolutely newer risk powers in the city of Virginia.
Speaker 1: Leech all right, this ship stinks already. But but as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, the bank teller Ms. Berrard and the bank
Speaker 1: employee Jini Chaplin did not make an ID from the
Speaker 1: photo lineup right bank teller herself. She says, this guy
Speaker 1: right here kind of looks like the robber, but because
Speaker 1: of the robber wanted disguise, which was the head and sunglasses,
Speaker 1: I'm not one. It wasn't sure that this is the robber.
Speaker 1: That is not a positive identification. But yet if you
Speaker 1: look at my risk, want is say is the reason
Speaker 1: I was being charged with that crime was due to
Speaker 1: the sworn statements of Christopher C. Moleen, not the actual victims,
Speaker 1: Tracy Barad or Jeanie Chaplin. So detect them. Moeen fabricated evidence,
Speaker 1: and both he and Eric Cook perjured themselves in order
Speaker 1: to obtain your arrestaurant. The morning of September twenty third,
Speaker 1: ninety six, they took me over to the Detectives Bureau.
Speaker 1: They kept me in that room I don't know how
Speaker 1: many hours, and Detective Hunting and came in there and
Speaker 1: tried to give me the impression that I was being
Speaker 1: charged with the murders and he was gonna make sure
Speaker 1: that I got the death penalty. I didn't take it
Speaker 1: too kindly, and I told him if he got off
Speaker 1: his ass and did his fucking job and went by
Speaker 1: the evidence at the crime scene, he could find out
Speaker 1: who committed the murders and stopped harassing me. So he
Speaker 1: looks at me and walked out the rum and within
Speaker 1: five minutes to take the Moleen came in and asked
Speaker 1: me to set aside my conversation that I had just
Speaker 1: had with Detective Huntington. So then he starts talking to
Speaker 1: me about the bank robber in Marginia Beach and he
Speaker 1: said I had already been identified as a suspect. I
Speaker 1: volunteered my finger prince to run them if they had
Speaker 1: finger prince will recover from the crime scene. Not only
Speaker 1: had he collective finger prints from the bank robbery, they
Speaker 1: had already run my finger prints against the finger prints
Speaker 1: from the bank robbery before I was arrested, and they
Speaker 1: came out negative. They always knew you hadn't committed this crime.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we just see a nihilistic approach from a
Speaker 1: detective where they just don't care at all who they
Speaker 1: got as long as they closed the case. You know
Speaker 1: what they say, A body for a body. But here
Speaker 1: it seems as if all of this tension between you
Speaker 1: and Huntington's was just adding fuel to his fire. So
Speaker 1: were you able to bond out? And they took me
Speaker 1: to the Virginia Beach City jail. I think I was
Speaker 1: allowed probably close to ninety days before I was able
Speaker 1: to get a bond right, And I had to get
Speaker 1: an attorney to get his bond. Kin Meldon, he's a
Speaker 1: judge now, but the alternety that got the bond for me,
Speaker 1: and it was a fifty dollar bond, so he was
Speaker 1: out on bond for a little while. But you couldn't
Speaker 1: afford Ken Melvin for the full trial, and eventually you
Speaker 1: had a quarter pointed a her knee. But even for
Speaker 1: someone who was presumably overworked and underpaid, as almost all
Speaker 1: of the public defendors in the country are, this still
Speaker 1: should have been an easy win. You had this false
Speaker 1: statement from Eric Cooke about an alleged phone call that
Speaker 1: you could prove never took place, and then Ms Berard
Speaker 1: and Miss Chaplin who never identified you. But as we
Speaker 1: so often see, sometimes witness has become more confident in
Speaker 1: their ideas as the trial approaches. Yes, that goes from
Speaker 1: him not being showed on the person to Nambia Hunter
Speaker 1: person showed on the person nine months later. How can
Speaker 1: she positively say it was Terry and she couldn't do
Speaker 1: it hours after the robbery. It just it just smells
Speaker 1: bad to me that she was coached. But okay, your
Speaker 1: attorney could have impeached these ideas as unreliable considering the
Speaker 1: fact that the witnesses had not been able to make
Speaker 1: an idea then the immediate aftermath of the robbery just
Speaker 1: hours after it took place, as well as the fact
Speaker 1: that the bank robber his face and had were covered
Speaker 1: by a hat, sunglasses, and the thick goatee that Terry
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly have grown. Plus, we know that you were
Speaker 1: out of town and route to your family reunion in Franklin, Virginia.
Speaker 1: You had, I mean, for christ Takes, You had a
Speaker 1: traffic ticket to prove it, as well as the officer
Speaker 1: who issued the ticket. Now I understand that he was
Speaker 1: called as a witness to corroborate your whereabouts. Right when
Speaker 1: I walked in the courtroom that day, blow on the
Speaker 1: whole Detective Huntington's and Golan having a discussion with this
Speaker 1: police officer that issued me the traffic ticket before he
Speaker 1: ever takes the stand. He takes the stand and states
Speaker 1: that he can't remember I'm the person that he actually
Speaker 1: gives you the kicky too. So my next request was
Speaker 1: is that he give us the original copy of the kicket. Well,
Speaker 1: the original copy of the ticket supposingly was destroyed and
Speaker 1: the key supposing they had a guy in the paint
Speaker 1: and the trunk of his car and had an accident
Speaker 1: and the paint stilled on his paperwork, and therefore the
Speaker 1: ticket was no longer available. But I find that hard
Speaker 1: to believe. Sounds totally made up to me. But still
Speaker 1: there's more that could have been done to combat the state.
Speaker 1: Besides what should have been an easy job impeaching the
Speaker 1: credibility of the ideas. You had this patently bogus statement
Speaker 1: from Eric Cooke about an alleged phone call confession that
Speaker 1: you could conclusively prove never took place. So what happened
Speaker 1: with that? Apparently after my AlterNet, they showed the Commo
Speaker 1: fraternity the copy of my phone records. The phone records
Speaker 1: reflected Erie never even called me. They allowed Eri to
Speaker 1: change his testimony, and they also sealed his statement that
Speaker 1: he made to the Reginia Beach police because in the discovery,
Speaker 1: when my mom had full from the archives, they did
Speaker 1: not allow us to see any statement he ever made
Speaker 1: to the police. So all you knew was that he
Speaker 1: alleged that you confessed on a phone call. This wasn't
Speaker 1: some opportunity to cross examined and create doubt when you
Speaker 1: submitted the phone records to evidence as proof of the lies.
Speaker 1: That would it should have shut down their lying star
Speaker 1: witness completely. So the state just sidestepped your defense with
Speaker 1: more lies. But you had no idea that they were
Speaker 1: going to do this. How could you have predicted that
Speaker 1: your defense was prepared to disprove the lie about the
Speaker 1: phone call, but was not prepared to combat this new lie.
Speaker 1: The evidence was not shared with the defense. It's just
Speaker 1: perfect example of a Brady violation right out in the
Speaker 1: opening plain sight. So what did he change his story too?
Speaker 1: He changed his story and see it that he walked
Speaker 1: up on a conversation that me and his brother was
Speaker 1: plotting robbed his bank in Virginia Beach, and we said
Speaker 1: and planned it out in detailed myself and his brother
Speaker 1: in the commonweal'st attorney basically vouched for his credibility and
Speaker 1: how he was coming forward at great risk to hisself
Speaker 1: because of me being an extremely danger individual, and that
Speaker 1: he was putting itself at great risk to protect the
Speaker 1: citizens of Virginia Beach from people like myself. So not
Speaker 1: a bank Robert trating false testimony for len and See,
Speaker 1: actually a concerned citizen with nothing to gain, Just a
Speaker 1: concerned citizen. They were aught about a judge. Not to
Speaker 1: bring up his criminal history, none of his prior crimes
Speaker 1: because and Chesapeake, his citizen had been postponed and inform
Speaker 1: of his citizen had been postponed, and under the guidelines
Speaker 1: of the law until he's officially sentenced by a judge,
Speaker 1: he is not a convicted felon. He was actually one
Speaker 1: before he started his line of question, and not to
Speaker 1: ask him any questions about where he's housed at or
Speaker 1: anything that would lead him into the divulsion to the
Speaker 1: jury that he was arrested and convicted of any type
Speaker 1: of crime for his testimony. He was given three years
Speaker 1: and thirty days for the attempted bank robbery, enforcements to
Speaker 1: use the farms and the commission of a felony and
Speaker 1: the attempt to capital the murder of a police officer. Jesus.
Speaker 1: I mean even the attempted murder of a police officer
Speaker 1: usually carries you know, a little bit more than that,
Speaker 1: of course, but his statue on a murder is either
Speaker 1: life or death. He did three years and thirty days
Speaker 1: and then only was sentenced for the Chesapeake bank robbery
Speaker 1: after he was released from prisoner. By time they suspended
Speaker 1: all this time, he only he is six years than
Speaker 1: eight months. So between the two robbery, the three years
Speaker 1: of arms and commissional a felony, and the attempt capital
Speaker 1: of murderful police officer, he got less than ten years.
Speaker 1: So your lawyer wasn't even allowed to bring up the
Speaker 1: back that this guy is receiving a huge break on
Speaker 1: his own charges in exchange for testifying against you. This
Speaker 1: is really dirty. So so Eric Cook's statement appeared to
Speaker 1: be corroborated by the now all of a sudden sure witnesses,
Speaker 1: and that was enough to overcome the fingerprint evidence of
Speaker 1: the contrary, which by that I mean the fact that
Speaker 1: you certainly were not there the finder prints that were recovered.
Speaker 1: We couldn't even really go into that too much because
Speaker 1: the Calm war frattorney she didn't want to find the
Speaker 1: prince inted in the evidence. What about your attorney? He
Speaker 1: didn't make the motion, So the jury came to a
Speaker 1: sadly predictable conclusion. Nobody in the jury would look at me,
Speaker 1: which I knew that was the bad. They came with
Speaker 1: the guilty Verdy. I looked over to Moline and Huntingden
Speaker 1: Hynden poinked in me, and you'd get you. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after this. This episode is underwritten by a
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Speaker 1: is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making a
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Speaker 1: the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and in
Speaker 1: recognition of a i g s commitment to criminal and
Speaker 1: social justice reform, the A i G pro Bono Program
Speaker 1: provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities
Speaker 1: and individuals. So now you're convicted, but you still had
Speaker 1: to go to sentence. And when your lawyer still had
Speaker 1: one move left, he located Eric Hook's brother Darryl, who
Speaker 1: took the stand. Darrel Cook came forward and took the
Speaker 1: stand and my a journey asked him some questions and
Speaker 1: basically just did his brother was lying because he didn't
Speaker 1: want to do time. And and then my lawyer made
Speaker 1: a motion that the judge set aside the verdict and
Speaker 1: all a new trial or overturned the conviction altogether. But
Speaker 1: the judge wasn't happening. He upheld the conviction. The fact
Speaker 1: that his brother got understand and then they found phone
Speaker 1: records for bogus that there was never a call. I
Speaker 1: don't know how that did not get overturned. He appealed
Speaker 1: my centison, which my guylines for five years and one month.
Speaker 1: In me arranged point was six years and two months.
Speaker 1: Nine years was the max, and they gave me forty
Speaker 1: eight years and a thirty thousand, all of five So,
Speaker 1: in light of Eric Cook's own brother coming into testify
Speaker 1: against him, the States star witness, which should have really
Speaker 1: shaken their confidence in this conviction, instead of the max
Speaker 1: of nine years, they doubled down on this tragedy by
Speaker 1: over sentencing you. So your lawyer must have had an
Speaker 1: appeal ready to go. I know in Virginia you've got
Speaker 1: to get it filed within thirty days of the conviction,
Speaker 1: though right he had to stay upponted attorney that really
Speaker 1: did nothing for him. Even times I would go to
Speaker 1: his office to try and meet with him, I think
Speaker 1: I was avoided twice. The third time I laid in
Speaker 1: wait in the parking lot, they said he wasn't there,
Speaker 1: so I stayed in the parking lot until he got
Speaker 1: there so I could have a talk with him. How
Speaker 1: did that conversation go? I went up to his office
Speaker 1: with him because I wanted to know what was going on.
Speaker 1: Where are we now with the appeal? Well, and that's
Speaker 1: when he let me know he didn't get it piled
Speaker 1: in time. Author rich who has been disbarred more than
Speaker 1: three times for one of the very things that he
Speaker 1: did to me, You know how you have a constitutional
Speaker 1: right to an appeal. I've never had an appeal for
Speaker 1: my case in Virginia Beach because he made the motion
Speaker 1: that he would be filing until and never filed it
Speaker 1: and I was time, but so my constitutional right to
Speaker 1: appeal was lost. It was revealed later that he had
Speaker 1: a cocaine habit and he was dearely been his duties.
Speaker 1: So I know when I when I claimed ineffective assistance
Speaker 1: of council. That's exactly what I had, whether Calm was
Speaker 1: attorney when he get defiled their briefs, they claim I
Speaker 1: was only claiming ineffective assistance of council is because I
Speaker 1: was unsatisfied with the outcome of my trial. So you
Speaker 1: were time bart on the direct appeal and denied on
Speaker 1: a clear case of ineffective assistance of council, and therefore
Speaker 1: you were stuck to serve out a forty eight years sentinence,
Speaker 1: effectively a life sentence. At this time, Virginia made another
Speaker 1: horrendous move, which is that they did away with parole entirely.
Speaker 1: But if your jury had not been advised that you
Speaker 1: would never be eligible, as was in fact the case here,
Speaker 1: you would have been what is known as a fishback candidate.
Speaker 1: So that becomes an issue later on and will explain that.
Speaker 1: So you've potentially got parole to look forward to. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to you, Detective Huntington's was out there for several
Speaker 1: years building up a case against you for the double homicide,
Speaker 1: and he was talking to people you knew through your
Speaker 1: hobby of riding motorcycles, as well as some guys that
Speaker 1: you knew from your short time that you spent dealing drugs,
Speaker 1: and Detective Huntington's was working on coercing and incentivizing them
Speaker 1: to cooperate, and eventually he was successful at finding five
Speaker 1: people who were willing to do it. Every single one
Speaker 1: of them have cases against them and most of them
Speaker 1: are big time drug dealers or in the drug trade
Speaker 1: and they have something to gain by lying on Terence Hobbs.
Speaker 1: Detective Huntington's yeah, he he was on a mission to
Speaker 1: convict the wrong man of these double murders, Terry, since
Speaker 1: the only thing you knew about Eric Cook's initial statement
Speaker 1: at this point was that he had implicated you in
Speaker 1: the robbery, and the rest of the details were sealed,
Speaker 1: including the fact that he had implicated you in the
Speaker 1: double murder as well. Were you even aware of Detective
Speaker 1: Huntington's investigation. When did you find out? I was actually
Speaker 1: sitting in prison at Southampton Commersional Facility. I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: the sale looking at television and they had movies on
Speaker 1: the weekend and he were forced to see and one
Speaker 1: of my friends come past the sale and he said
Speaker 1: t he said, man, he said, I just saw you
Speaker 1: on the news. They just indicted you. For to Council
Speaker 1: Capital murder. I said, my go here with that bullshit.
Speaker 1: Stop playing, he said, I wouldn't play about nothing like did.
Speaker 1: He said, turned from the movie channel. He said, if
Speaker 1: he turned the NBC, cbsl A, ABC, every time they
Speaker 1: show a commercial, they had showing you face on the
Speaker 1: news and you being charged in a cold case. I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. And then we thought that too. What
Speaker 1: had happened at night? He and as going to the
Speaker 1: movie right, He was with his sister at the movies
Speaker 1: and came by your house for some mail, then went
Speaker 1: back to his sisters. She accounted for his arrival around
Speaker 1: midnight at the same time that your witness heard gunshots
Speaker 1: from Ivanna Buyer's apartment. She and Leon Porter were each
Speaker 1: shot once, execution style. She had already been threatened that
Speaker 1: if she testified against the jug kingpin, which was her
Speaker 1: daughter's father, then what would happen to her. He had
Speaker 1: already shot and killed someone else that was Karen, his
Speaker 1: baby before he was locked up. But rather than tracking
Speaker 1: down those leaves, Detective Huntington's just went ahead and pursued Terry,
Speaker 1: whose fingerprints again were not found. In a scene where
Speaker 1: they almost certainly should have been considering his relationship with Tavanna,
Speaker 1: and Terry was more than helpful. He came to Devana's
Speaker 1: house with his sister who was ready to vouch for
Speaker 1: his whereabouts, and all of his guns were tested for
Speaker 1: holistics evidence. He willingly gave his fingerprints submitted to a
Speaker 1: GSR testing. No matches were found, and at least initially
Speaker 1: he was willing to take a lot of detective tests,
Speaker 1: but none of that was good enough for this Detective
Speaker 1: Huntington's It almost makes you think that he was doing
Speaker 1: everything he could to avoid investigating the guy who he
Speaker 1: should have been investigating, which was Keith Richardson. So, with
Speaker 1: this lack of evidence and clear standout suspect, Detective hunting
Speaker 1: And had to get creative and he conjured up five witnesses,
Speaker 1: but the stories weren't quite adding up. But even with
Speaker 1: this weak, ask bullshit case, publicly they were claiming that
Speaker 1: they had five corroborating witnesses. If you look at the
Speaker 1: newspaper article that was dated over the first nineteen and
Speaker 1: the Virginian Pilot newspaper. They were requesting the def penalty
Speaker 1: and they even came to me with a twenty year
Speaker 1: plead to try to get me a plead guilty for
Speaker 1: con council capital murder, and I refused to take a
Speaker 1: guilty plead of twenty years for two murders that I
Speaker 1: had not committed. They came back in a teen year
Speaker 1: plead to me, and I refused to take that as well.
Speaker 1: They had My attorney asked me, would be any amount
Speaker 1: of time that I would be willing to accept so
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't have to take me a trial, and
Speaker 1: I would not take it. I actually still have a
Speaker 1: copy of the twenty year plead they did penia plea
Speaker 1: verbally twenty year plea for two council capital murder to
Speaker 1: ranking current with the forty years in Virginia Beach. Now
Speaker 1: the state of Virginia, there's only two penalties for capital
Speaker 1: murder his life or death. So how do you offer
Speaker 1: a man or twenty year pleading the in turnaround and
Speaker 1: awful him a teen year plead for a capital murder
Speaker 1: unless you know he didn't do it. Yes, they know
Speaker 1: he's not the guy. No prosecutor would come with a
Speaker 1: ten year plea deal on a double murder if they
Speaker 1: knew he committed to crime. No way, No, hel that's
Speaker 1: just bullshit. They want to close the case. Nevertheless, they
Speaker 1: took him to trial knowing that the evidence was all
Speaker 1: just incentivized testaalize that started with Eric Cooke. He was
Speaker 1: so unreliable that they did not even include him in
Speaker 1: this proceeding at all. Now, the five quote unquote new
Speaker 1: witnesses here were Shawn Saunders, Curtis Freeman, William Godwin, Derek
Speaker 1: Blackwall and Tyrone Wallace. And we're about to destroy all
Speaker 1: of their credibility right now. Well. Shawn Saunders, who happens
Speaker 1: to be a three time felon and who admitted to
Speaker 1: Terry's mom after the trial that he had lied to
Speaker 1: avoid going back to prison. He worked with Terry on
Speaker 1: the construction job at the Coast Guard base. He testified
Speaker 1: that he and Terry we're good friends through on high school.
Speaker 1: But Saunders, that you know, actually dropped out of school
Speaker 1: in eighth grade. According to Terry, didn't see him again
Speaker 1: until he worked with him on the Coast Guard job,
Speaker 1: and Saunders claimed that while they were working together that
Speaker 1: Terry told him that he and Devana were breaking up
Speaker 1: and that if he ever found Devana with another man,
Speaker 1: he would kick in the door of her apartment if
Speaker 1: he had to with killer Sean Saunders claimed that he
Speaker 1: told my supervisor. My supervisor actually came to court and
Speaker 1: testifill on my behalf. He said we were never alone together,
Speaker 1: that he worked in one place and I worked in another.
Speaker 1: A year before the trial, Interestingly, Saunders had been subpoena
Speaker 1: but he didn't tell you authorities about Terry's alleged emissions.
Speaker 1: Then you know, it was only the day before Terry's
Speaker 1: trial after Saunders again was a rest of for selling drugs.
Speaker 1: The Saunders come up with a story that Terry threatened
Speaker 1: to kick in Devana's door and kill her if he
Speaker 1: saw her with another man. Saunders testify that Terry had
Speaker 1: said he would park his motorcycle around back and kick
Speaker 1: in the back door and use a silencer on a gun.
Speaker 1: But there's a problem with this that ear witness would
Speaker 1: have definitely heard a motorcycle and importantly, there is no
Speaker 1: back door, So he would have made that mistake to
Speaker 1: say I'm going to kick in the back door knowing
Speaker 1: there is no back door. Right, Terry knew that apartment
Speaker 1: well and never would have mentioned a non existent backdoor. Now,
Speaker 1: Curtis Freeman, he was facing home invasion and robbery charges.
Speaker 1: What did he say to save his own skin? Freeman's
Speaker 1: testifying that he was familiar with Terry's motorcycle, which he
Speaker 1: described as being a neon greenish color in purple and
Speaker 1: allegedly unique because of his bright colors, despite Terry riding
Speaker 1: with many others who also had these colorful sport motorcycles.
Speaker 1: He also testified that he noticed Terry's motorcycle parked around
Speaker 1: the block from Devana's apartment on the night of the murders,
Speaker 1: and that he said Terry had a notoriously loud motorcycle
Speaker 1: because of the modifications. So now the bike is parked
Speaker 1: around the block, and again, where was the ear witness
Speaker 1: on this extremely loud motorcycle. They heard the gunshots, but
Speaker 1: no notoriously loud motorcycle speeding away. They somehow missed that
Speaker 1: one Freeman was given probation for a home invasion and
Speaker 1: robbery because of his cooperation. And Lenny can back me
Speaker 1: up here, but these are not the types of sentences
Speaker 1: that Virginia is known for dolling out for home invasions
Speaker 1: or anything for that matter. I mean, Lenny got over
Speaker 1: a thousand years for stealing just a little bit over.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. So now we're at William Godwin or
Speaker 1: Bill Godwin. Right, he was in federal custody a drug
Speaker 1: possession conspiracy charges with the seventeen and a half year sentence.
Speaker 1: Initially he had said that he didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: the murders, but knew that Terry was innocent. What did
Speaker 1: he say to get released after just two and a
Speaker 1: half years? Just like he claimed that he was with
Speaker 1: me and he saw me threatened Greg Elliott with a
Speaker 1: far because Gregg was at her house visiting her, and
Speaker 1: Greg Elliott came the court subpoena ever calm most attorney witness,
Speaker 1: and once he took the stand, basically said that everything
Speaker 1: that deal testified too was a lie. So there goes
Speaker 1: line number one. Then Godwin testified that he had been
Speaker 1: told by a man named Darryl Evans about a conversation
Speaker 1: that Evans had overheard which Terry had confessed to the murders.
Speaker 1: Errol Evan has come to court and testify it and
Speaker 1: refused Beal's testimony. So there goes Godwin making the Commonwealth
Speaker 1: look stupid again. He also alleged that Terry had basically
Speaker 1: confessed to him about the murders. But I think Godwin
Speaker 1: had already told too many lies that have been refuted
Speaker 1: in court for anyone to take him seriously about anything.
Speaker 1: So on to Derek Blackwell. Now, he was in federal
Speaker 1: custody on charges of being a drug kingpinner running a
Speaker 1: criminal enterprise, facing thirty years to life. Initially he had
Speaker 1: told police to hear nothing about the crimes, but then
Speaker 1: he lies and says about two to three weeks after
Speaker 1: the killings, he and Terry were at a gas station
Speaker 1: in Portsmouth and Terry unsolicited now admits to shooting Divana
Speaker 1: and Porter. He first offered his story about Terry's alleged
Speaker 1: confession about two months after he had been arrested in
Speaker 1: November of n for federal drug conspiracy charges. Black Will
Speaker 1: only served three and a half years as a result
Speaker 1: of his cooperation. Interesting with Blackwell's testimony, You know, he
Speaker 1: said Terry was with him at his house all day
Speaker 1: until seven pm on July. That's directly contradicted by Terry's
Speaker 1: work time card at the Coast Guard base that day.
Speaker 1: Just another fucking lion. Just add that to his description
Speaker 1: of Terry's bike as primarily black. I thought it was Neon,
Speaker 1: Green and purple. So enough of this guy. Last, but
Speaker 1: not least, Tyrone Wallace, who was in federal custody facing
Speaker 1: drug conspiracy charges, evidence is clear that the door was
Speaker 1: kicked in. Wallace testified that Terry admitted he killed Divanna
Speaker 1: and Porter after he had parked his bike. Now it's
Speaker 1: a couple of blocks away, not behind, a couple of
Speaker 1: blocks away on the night of the murders and entered
Speaker 1: the apartment with a duplicate key. Yet we know the
Speaker 1: door had been kicked in. He also said that Terry
Speaker 1: had said that he shot Porter while he was lying
Speaker 1: in bed, and that he shot Divanna from under the chin,
Speaker 1: but the medical examiner established it Porter was shot in
Speaker 1: the face while sitting at the end of the bed
Speaker 1: and Divanna had been shot in the back of the head.
Speaker 1: So contradiction after contradiction after contradiction. You know, he faced
Speaker 1: twenty two years and served less than four. Come on, man,
Speaker 1: it's just exponential injustice on top of an already insane
Speaker 1: duple wrongful conviction. But I mean, couldn't the jury see
Speaker 1: how these guys their stories just weren't matching up, that
Speaker 1: their stories didn't match the back to the crime, and
Speaker 1: in some cases their lives were called out by both
Speaker 1: defense and prosecution witnesses that this was not some jealous
Speaker 1: boyfriend case, but rather a homicide that was in retribution
Speaker 1: for divnest testimony against her acts. Yeah, the comma the
Speaker 1: turning kept down playing it is that would not be
Speaker 1: enough motive compared to the evidence that they had. And
Speaker 1: the only evidence that they had against me was the
Speaker 1: false testimony of these witnesses. And I guess the only thing,
Speaker 1: and I think could think that would have caused me
Speaker 1: to get a guilty verdict is that the jury would
Speaker 1: feel like, well, all of these guys can't be lying,
Speaker 1: even though they were. They had tried to kill me
Speaker 1: without killing my body. They killed me by killing my reputation,
Speaker 1: which in turn caused me to be found guilty of
Speaker 1: these crimes. And they thought that this is gonna be
Speaker 1: the e for me, that they were gonna lock me
Speaker 1: up for basically thirty and that was gonna be the
Speaker 1: end of my story. And that's a number that Lenny
Speaker 1: is all too familiar with. These insane numbers really started
Speaker 1: after they abolished parole in Virginia, right when was that. Well,
Speaker 1: guys had opportunities at parole well before ninety five January.
Speaker 1: So even in a case like this, if you had
Speaker 1: a life sentence you start going up for parole in
Speaker 1: twelve years to life sentences, you still get an opportunity
Speaker 1: to go up you just it would take around twenty years.
Speaker 1: Guys still had a shot if you weren't given a
Speaker 1: life without the possibility of the life sentences didn't nail
Speaker 1: you until after they abolished parole. And so now if
Speaker 1: you get life, it means exactly that life. Wow, and
Speaker 1: you have how long to follow your appeal in Virginia?
Speaker 1: You got thirty days to get that appeal in immediately.
Speaker 1: So Terry, I'm going to imagine that you didn't just
Speaker 1: want to take this insane sentence lying down. But with
Speaker 1: two wrongful convictions and this seriously short amount of time
Speaker 1: for a meaningful appeal to be filed, no potential DNA testing,
Speaker 1: no possibility of parole, what happened? Did your lawyer screw
Speaker 1: it up and get time barred again? We actually went
Speaker 1: through the actual and tip fuel process and that one
Speaker 1: single Julius would overturn the convictions, I mean post conviction
Speaker 1: litigation is largely based on whether or not you received
Speaker 1: due process and if any constitutional rights were violated. I'm
Speaker 1: sure ineffective assistance could be argued here, but accompanying actual
Speaker 1: innocence claims can be helpful with any other claims. And
Speaker 1: the only evidence against you at the second trial were
Speaker 1: these inconsistent and patently and obviously false statements from these
Speaker 1: incentivized witnesses. It was all of that pointed out to them. Yes,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff was pointed out, but to say
Speaker 1: in fact that the matter is a lot of these
Speaker 1: people don't want to point to saying that another prosecute
Speaker 1: or police officer and say that they were on And
Speaker 1: that's just a sad fact of the matter. Without the
Speaker 1: support of my family, I believe I would have lost
Speaker 1: myself in here because I'm gonna tell you something. I'm
Speaker 1: surrounded in this small amount of acreage of this penitentiary.
Speaker 1: I'm around from everything that you could possibly think of, murderers, rapist,
Speaker 1: child molesters, necrophilia, best reality, I'm around the worst of
Speaker 1: the worst. Had I not had the love and support
Speaker 1: of my family sticking by me and it just received
Speaker 1: that unconditional love, it kept me from losing myself in here.
Speaker 1: To be completely honest with you, I don't know what
Speaker 1: kind of person I would be now had I been
Speaker 1: left to living in this environment of violence and blood
Speaker 1: and sweat and tears people and seeing people commit suicide
Speaker 1: hanging themselves because they could not do this time. I
Speaker 1: do this time every single day, alcohol free, disease free,
Speaker 1: drug free and heal things, so the things that most
Speaker 1: people doing here to deal with this reality, I deal
Speaker 1: with sober. That's the only way I can have a
Speaker 1: clear head to do what I need to do, to
Speaker 1: try to mount the best defense that I can for myself. Phone,
Speaker 1: when people like yourself are interesting to hearing my story,
Speaker 1: I can tell the key. And of course people like
Speaker 1: Lenny who heard your story. If not for him, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be having this recording session right now. And if
Speaker 1: I hadn't read about his story of course in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, I'm not sure any of us would
Speaker 1: be talking right now. Lenny. How did you and Terry
Speaker 1: end up meeting? I was transferred to not Away Correctional
Speaker 1: Center in and I think were. Yeah, we we met
Speaker 1: around early two thousand's and Terry, because of what he's
Speaker 1: been through, he is totally aloof walking around with his
Speaker 1: grid on his face every day, and most people really
Speaker 1: didn't like Terry inside because of that, and so he
Speaker 1: just kind of gravitated towards me. I was a leader
Speaker 1: in the church and doing a lot of teaching and mentoring,
Speaker 1: and a little bit at a time, he started sharing
Speaker 1: with me his story and I would tell him, I said, well, Terry,
Speaker 1: what are you doing about this? Well, at that time
Speaker 1: that's I was working on a conditional pardon. I said, man,
Speaker 1: your case is so bad that I could not possibly
Speaker 1: see anybody reading all of this and not doing something
Speaker 1: about it. And so eventually I would be granted my pardon.
Speaker 1: On January twelve, two thousand eighteen, my wife had already
Speaker 1: gotten hired by Attorney John A. Cock Show. He added
Speaker 1: me to the team the very next day after my release.
Speaker 1: Once Attorney Cock sual created what he called the Pardon
Speaker 1: Petition Team. Terry Hobbs was our first client, so we've
Speaker 1: been working with him since the end of So what
Speaker 1: happened with the conditional pardon petition. We filed his original
Speaker 1: pardon petition in just based on the bogus bank robbery.
Speaker 1: They turned it down because they believed that he was
Speaker 1: a fishback candidate. Fishback is for guys who were sittance
Speaker 1: between nine and two thousand, and the jury wasn't instructed
Speaker 1: that parole had been abolished, So these guys are getting
Speaker 1: these long sentences and the jurors don't know that there's
Speaker 1: no parole in Virginia, so they were under the assumption
Speaker 1: that Terry was a fishback candidate. In hindsight, now I
Speaker 1: think we probably should have done the double murders first,
Speaker 1: because it was it was those double murders that removed
Speaker 1: Terry from being fish back eligible for parole. If we
Speaker 1: could have gotten the double murders removed with the pardon,
Speaker 1: that would have just left the bank robbery, which would
Speaker 1: have allowed him to go up for parole, turned down
Speaker 1: his original pardon petition, and we had to wind up
Speaker 1: calling Ms. Trudy Harris, who's the chief investigator over the
Speaker 1: Parole Board, in forming her about all of this, and
Speaker 1: they would eventually reinstate his petition. I mean, honestly, because
Speaker 1: he's an innocent man of both of those things. We
Speaker 1: went ahead and added an addendum to that original part
Speaker 1: and petition showing both the bank robbery and the double
Speaker 1: murders as being bogus, and that was November. So in essence,
Speaker 1: his petition, from what I understand, hasn't reached the stage
Speaker 1: of a full investigation yet and we're waiting on that.
Speaker 1: And Lenny, normally we speak with our guest attorney. I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to speak with you. But there's another sad
Speaker 1: note to this story about why we're not speaking with him.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking, of course, about the late great John Cotteshaw. Well. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: attorney John Cocksual he passed away June nine. It was
Speaker 1: totally unexpected. We were just visiting him in April of two.
Speaker 1: We all went to an awards event where he was
Speaker 1: awarded Attorney of the Year, or Vandy and I were
Speaker 1: awarded Authors of the Year, and we just saw him.
Speaker 1: His wife had just passed away, probably three to four
Speaker 1: months before he did, and we could kind of tell that,
Speaker 1: you know, he that took the wind out of his sales.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure he would have loved to get
Speaker 1: Terry over the line before he passed. But you and
Speaker 1: your wife, Andy are going to get him there, as
Speaker 1: you have done for so many others already. And I
Speaker 1: understand John trusted you both implicitly actually making you too,
Speaker 1: fearless warriors A branch of his firm. We were the
Speaker 1: western branch of the John A Coctual law firm. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, we obtained eleven pardons since, including my own.
Speaker 1: You're an inspirational guy, and I know you can do it.
Speaker 1: So I know it was Terry mccalloughf that pardoned you.
Speaker 1: And Governor Northern was also very active in this arena.
Speaker 1: Now we have Governor clean Yunken. The thing about the
Speaker 1: pardon process. When you're running a state as big as Virginia,
Speaker 1: i'men wealth as big as Virginia, they just don't have
Speaker 1: time to investigate. So he appoints people to do that,
Speaker 1: Trudy Harris being the chief investigator for the Parole Board
Speaker 1: over pardons. And then you have five Parole board members,
Speaker 1: so he delegates that task onto them, and they make
Speaker 1: a recommendation to the governor nine out of ten times,
Speaker 1: unless it's something high profile and the governor just doesn't
Speaker 1: want it to taint his political career, he goes with
Speaker 1: the recommendation of that parole board and those investigators. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope miss Harris is listening. We implore her don't
Speaker 1: listen to us, follow the evidence. Look at the flimsy
Speaker 1: false testimony in this case that was refuted by other witnesses,
Speaker 1: and the physical evidence plus the more likely suspects. I
Speaker 1: think you'll find that this should be an easy decision.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna have action steps linked in the biout,
Speaker 1: and I also asked that our audience scroll down and
Speaker 1: get involved. I always say pressure breaks pipes, people, and
Speaker 1: we need you now. And with that, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to my favorite part of the show. Of course, this
Speaker 1: is the part we call closing arguments where I turned
Speaker 1: my microphone off and let you guys have the final say. So,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kick back in my chair with my headphones on.
Speaker 1: Lenny Singleton once you go first, then Miss Catherine Hobbs,
Speaker 1: and of course Terry. I'm going to save you for last.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for being here, and now I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna sit back and listen. This could happen to anyone.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a choir boy, but he wasn't a bank robber,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't a killer. This just goes to show
Speaker 1: that our criminal justice system still has a very long
Speaker 1: ways to go, especially as it relates to African American men,
Speaker 1: Sadly we make up about the prison system in Virginia
Speaker 1: and something needs to change. We need to get involved.
Speaker 1: We need to talk to our elected officials, get them
Speaker 1: involved with fixing the things that we know are wrong.
Speaker 1: Using convicted felons as your only evidence in any case,
Speaker 1: just can't take someone's word for it, especially if they're
Speaker 1: getting a deal. You gotta have more evidence than that.
Speaker 1: He got involved with the wrong people and they just
Speaker 1: used him to gain their own freedom. I think Terry
Speaker 1: was not even a lot of things and they could
Speaker 1: see that, so they just used him. He's a mom.
Speaker 1: I never would have did anything like this too anybody,
Speaker 1: So I didn't think nobody would do this to me,
Speaker 1: and neither did I. He needs to come on, he's
Speaker 1: grown up. He needs to spend time with his daughter,
Speaker 1: he needs to spend time with his whole family. And
Speaker 1: I I'm so grateful and appreciative for what you all
Speaker 1: are doing. Thank you very much, Jason to take this
Speaker 1: time out to interview me, to shine a light on
Speaker 1: the injustice that was done to me. I wouldn't wish
Speaker 1: this on any person. He detect the speech, but when
Speaker 1: he came to see me to serve the indictments on
Speaker 1: me itself happened. They even applied that I make it,
Speaker 1: help him with other cases and make my charges less
Speaker 1: or disappear altogether. I told him, after what I've gone
Speaker 1: through and what my family has gone through, I would
Speaker 1: never put anyone or their family through what my family
Speaker 1: hasn't doing just to regain my freedom. I'm not that individual.
Speaker 1: I have to be able to look myself in the
Speaker 1: rear and like what I see on the daily basis,
Speaker 1: even if it was to spend the rest of my
Speaker 1: life in prison, I had to live my life and
Speaker 1: be able to hold my head up with pride and
Speaker 1: not that I did not allowing somebody else or ruin
Speaker 1: somebody else's life just to ease my suffering, because that's
Speaker 1: what they wanted me to do. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team
Speaker 1: Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Wardis. With research by
Speaker 1: Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. And on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
Speaker 1: well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
Speaker 1: you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
Speaker 1: at it's Jason flop Rnful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good podcasts and association with signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one