Speaker 1: It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Portsmouth, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and Terence Hobbs had just started dating Devana Byers, 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 Devanna 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 twentieth, nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: shortly after her testimony, the bodies of Devana Buyers and
Speaker 1: another lover, Leon Porter, were discovered, having both been shot
Speaker 1: once in the head. Investigators immediately honed it on Terry Hobbs,
Speaker 1: Divana's most recent X, but with no physical evidence to
Speaker 1: corroborate the theory, the case went cold. As the summer
Speaker 1: wound down, a bank robbery occurred in nearby Virginia Beach.
Speaker 1: While facing unrelated charges, an old junior high acquaintance of Terry's,
Speaker 1: Eric Cook, alleged that he had called Terry from jail
Speaker 1: and that Terry had confessed to both the bank robbery
Speaker 1: and the July double homicide. At the bank robbery trial,
Speaker 1: the bank teller and another employee corroborated Eric Cook, which
Speaker 1: must have meant that Terry's fingerprints had just been missed
Speaker 1: by the crime scene technicians. At the double homicide trial,
Speaker 1: five witnesses facing their own criminal charges painted Terry as
Speaker 1: a jealous ex boyfriend. But they couldn't possibly all be lying,
Speaker 1: especially about a convicted arm bank robber. But this is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we have
Speaker 1: a first on this program, a double wrongful conviction. Now
Speaker 1: Terrence Hobbs was convicted of a bank robbery and then
Speaker 1: a completely separate double homicide, both of which he had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with. Terry joined us from not Away
Speaker 1: Correctional Facility in Virginia. Terrence, Welcome to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're very welcome and joining us as a man
Speaker 1: who knew Terry on the inside. He himself was rightfully
Speaker 1: convicted for a string of robberies in the nineties in
Speaker 1: which no one got hurt and the proceeds amounted to
Speaker 1: around five hundred and eleven dollars. But I think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that you were over sentenced having received
Speaker 1: a grand total of get this one thousand, three hundred
Speaker 1: and ten years. Governor mccauliffe granted him a conditional pardon
Speaker 1: back in twenty eighteen, and Lenny has been fighting to
Speaker 1: clear Terry ever since. Lenny Singleton, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Very glad to have you, and also here with us
Speaker 1: as someone who's been fighting for Terry the longest. His mother,
Speaker 1: Catherine Hobbs, thank you from the bottom of my heart
Speaker 1: for joining us and very courageously sharing today.
Speaker 4: 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
Speaker 1: Beach In about a month before that, there was a
Speaker 1: double homicide in which the departed were a woman named
Speaker 1: Devana Byers, who was the mother of a drug kingpin's
Speaker 1: daughter and her new lover, Leon Porter, a man who
Speaker 1: was in possession of a very large amount of cocaine.
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe he was a competing dealer. We
Speaker 1: don't know, but it doesn't seem far fetched. So the
Speaker 1: homicide portion 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.
Speaker 3: Remember, Portsmouth, Virginia was like one of the heroin capitals
Speaker 3: of the world, this country anyway, and they were known
Speaker 3: for corruption. Every time I opened the paper back in
Speaker 3: the nineties, there was always some issue about corruption in Portsmouth.
Speaker 1: Right, and Terry, you grew up there, so could you
Speaker 1: or maybe Ms. Hobbs if you want to jump in
Speaker 1: here too, could you tell us about your life growing up.
Speaker 2: On August nineteen seventy in the city of Portsmouth, Virginia
Speaker 2: to a upper middle class black family. Pretty much had
Speaker 2: a typical childhood, I guess you could say it.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: I was diagnosed with dyslexia and very greed and.
Speaker 4: He was very self conscious about that. They said he
Speaker 4: had above average intelligence, but he had the reading problem.
Speaker 4: And at the time they didn't know how to help
Speaker 4: students with that reading problem. So they put in a
Speaker 4: special education in which you get a certificate.
Speaker 3: You do not get us the thumba.
Speaker 4: We come from a military family, and he wanted to
Speaker 4: go so much with that certificate, he was not able
Speaker 4: 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 owned 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 2: I started working at an early age. I got a
Speaker 2: job at food line at age sixteen and worked all
Speaker 2: through high school at food line. After the food line,
Speaker 2: my cousin got me a job with him working at
Speaker 2: the shipyard. Unfortunately, I got laid off, and at one
Speaker 2: point in time I did get involved in selling drugs
Speaker 2: on a very small level, but I never got arristed
Speaker 2: for it, and then after I was able to get
Speaker 2: my career back on track, I walked away from it.
Speaker 1: And you'll get no judgment from me about being involved
Speaker 1: in drugs. But that, along with the love of motorcycles,
Speaker 1: did bring you into contact with a crowd of people
Speaker 1: who later went on to help frame you in exchange
Speaker 1: for leniency in their own very serious cases. But in
Speaker 1: the lead up to these two incidents, you were gainfully
Speaker 1: employed at the Coast Guard based shipyard. Now, I want
Speaker 1: to go back to your time at food Line during
Speaker 1: high school. You worked there for a short while with
Speaker 1: one of the victims in this case, right, Devana Byers.
Speaker 1: Is that where the two of you first met.
Speaker 2: I met Devana Bias in junior high school and we
Speaker 2: pretty much hung with different crowd. She was always extremely beautiful,
Speaker 2: extremely popular, being laid on. She worked at food Lye
Speaker 2: with me for maybe three months, and I probably didn't
Speaker 2: see her again until I was about twenty five years old.
Speaker 1: And at that time you two became romantically involved, but
Speaker 1: that unfortunately got cut short, most likely by the circumstances
Speaker 1: in her life surrounding the father of her five year
Speaker 1: old daughter, Kia, a man named Nathaniel Skeete Richardson who
Speaker 1: was a major player in the Portsmouth drug game and
Speaker 1: was under federal indictment at the time.
Speaker 2: But before he got his federal drug indictment, he had
Speaker 2: a long list of charges, a lot of them violent.
Speaker 2: Even one of the charges was the shooting death of
Speaker 2: his girlfriend an unborn child, and he went on to
Speaker 2: getting out on a knee and the dollar lond.
Speaker 1: So this is a young guy who's already a suspect
Speaker 1: in the killing of the mother of his unborn child.
Speaker 1: And he's got a lot of money. He probably paid
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand cash on that million dollars to get
Speaker 1: himself out. Maybe he put up the whole million, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but one way another he was loaded. He
Speaker 1: was making more money in a month than most of
Speaker 1: the police officers were making in the year at that
Speaker 1: time back in Portsmouth, so clearly, had he chosen to
Speaker 1: he had more than enough money to corrupt a local
Speaker 1: officer into giving him a pass or even offering him
Speaker 1: protection from the law.
Speaker 3: Possibly, I wouldn't be surprised. Back in those days, not
Speaker 3: with Portsmouth. It wasn't uncommon for police to be on payrolls,
Speaker 3: especially he's drug kingpins back in those days.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, at 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 there which is
Speaker 1: a trade of expensive cars, and one of those trades
Speaker 1: involved Divana and eventually the FEDS approached her, threatening her
Speaker 1: with money laundering chargers if she didn't cooperate in their
Speaker 1: prosecution of Skeete Richardson, who was under federal indictment for
Speaker 1: a laundry list of drug charges, conspiracy, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I told her I felt like considering the people that
Speaker 2: they were asking her to talk about and testify against,
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was in her best interest. And
Speaker 2: I told her, you know, the moneyliner in charges that
Speaker 2: considered white collar crimes, you may do two or three
Speaker 2: years and you can start your life over. She wasn't
Speaker 2: interested in hearing it. She wasn't trying to do a
Speaker 2: single day.
Speaker 1: It was that decision to testify against him that was
Speaker 1: more than likely what led to her death. So she
Speaker 1: was subpoena to appear in court, and she did.
Speaker 2: And then what happened About a week or two before
Speaker 2: she was killed, she went to either Mississippi or Alabama,
Speaker 2: or to spend some time with family down there. And
Speaker 2: after she came back, she asked me if I would
Speaker 2: be willing to move with her to Mississippi or Alabama
Speaker 2: after she finished cooperating with the FBI. And I'm be
Speaker 2: honest with you, I considered it when I didn't want
Speaker 2: to have to leave my home under those circumstances. I
Speaker 2: don't had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: So at this point even though you two were still
Speaker 1: occasionally sleeping together, you had created some distance between you
Speaker 1: and Devanna, hardly the actions of a jealous boyfriend, as
Speaker 1: the state would later paint you when you were prosecuted
Speaker 1: for what happened in the aftermath of her testimony in
Speaker 1: this federal drug trial. So let's get to that. This
Speaker 1: was the night of July nineteenth into the twentieth of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, just two weeks after she had testified
Speaker 1: against her baby's father, who was, of course the drug kingpin.
Speaker 1: Now 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. That was his nickname. Face.
Speaker 1: Kia had gone to bed. Then around midnight, an ear
Speaker 1: witness her gunshots. Around four am. Kia called her grandfather
Speaker 1: after discuss her mother and mister Porter were dead. Police
Speaker 1: found that the outside door and apartment door had been
Speaker 1: busted open. Divana was found by the foot of the bed,
Speaker 1: shot in the back of the head. Mister Porter was
Speaker 1: found lying on the bed and he had been shot
Speaker 1: in the face, as if he had been sitting on
Speaker 1: the edge of the bed when he was shot.
Speaker 2: I woke up to my page of going off back
Speaker 2: to back to back to back to back. The ruma
Speaker 2: was that Divonna and I had gotten murdered. Once they
Speaker 2: found out that I hadn't gotten killed, because the nature
Speaker 2: of our relationship where we were still sleeping with each
Speaker 2: other from time to time, I became a suspect.
Speaker 4: They tried to say it was a crime of passion
Speaker 4: a jealous boyfriend, but those two people were shot execution
Speaker 4: style only once.
Speaker 3: And they'd know that she'd just testified against the biggest
Speaker 3: drug dealer in Portsmouth.
Speaker 1: Virginia, right even though Divana's baby's father, Nathaniel Skeete Richardson,
Speaker 1: was the logical suspect. They pursued Terry anyway. But you
Speaker 1: had seen a movie with your sister the night before,
Speaker 1: then went to your parents' house to pick up some
Speaker 1: mail before spending the night at your sister's, And when
Speaker 1: you woke up to your page er just blowing up,
Speaker 1: you called some friends, found out what had happened, and
Speaker 1: you and your sister went to Divanda's parents' house.
Speaker 2: Can I agreed to talk to the police, and at
Speaker 2: some point in time, Detective Huntington and Detective beach Look
Speaker 2: showed up at Divanna's house.
Speaker 1: So they asked you to accompany them to the detectives
Speaker 1: Euroa and you were, I would say, as cooperative as
Speaker 1: you possibly could be. At first, you know.
Speaker 2: Asked me a few questions, asked me about my whereabouts
Speaker 2: that they and then they got around to ask me
Speaker 2: if I owned any firearms, which I told him I
Speaker 2: did and gave him a list of the firearms. They
Speaker 2: asked me if I had any problem with them running
Speaker 2: ballistics tests on them. I had the guns they delivered
Speaker 2: to the police department, I can send into the gunshot
Speaker 2: residue tests, right.
Speaker 3: They tested his guns, they tested his fingerprints. Nothing matched.
Speaker 2: They asked me if I had any problem taking a
Speaker 2: lot of detective tests, which I did and at the.
Speaker 1: Time, yeah, agreed to the light detective test. And you
Speaker 1: also told him where he could find your other firearm
Speaker 1: at the Portsmouth Big Tackle and Pawn shop.
Speaker 2: Detective Huntington went there to try to retrieve my block
Speaker 2: from the shop, and I think the lady's name was
Speaker 2: Kathleen half Cock, and he told her personally that he
Speaker 2: was there to get my gun because it was used
Speaker 2: in a murder. Luckily, she had the presence of mind
Speaker 2: to ask when did the murders take place? After he
Speaker 2: told her when the murders took place, she told him
Speaker 2: that it was no way possible that weapon could have
Speaker 2: been used and that crime because they had been hi
Speaker 2: the shop prior to the crime taking place.
Speaker 1: So it seems that Detective Huntington 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. They're alibizing, there was
Speaker 1: nothing that pointed in your direction anyway. You started getting
Speaker 1: wind of this.
Speaker 2: Right Detective Huntington at one point in time, he actually
Speaker 2: told my sister that he had been informed by several
Speaker 2: individuals that I was running around in the street bragging
Speaker 2: that I had committed the murders. And I called the
Speaker 2: Detective Huntington back and asked him what was he talking about,
Speaker 2: because I hadn't been talking to anybody. I told him
Speaker 2: straight up, I said, look, it seems like you are
Speaker 2: more concerned with listening to romas that you're hearing in
Speaker 2: the street versus taking what you have at the crime,
Speaker 2: seeing the actual evidence and using that is your starting
Speaker 2: point to start your investigation. And do your job. So
Speaker 2: then after we had their conversation, he asked me, would
Speaker 2: I still be willing to come in and take the
Speaker 2: Lotti tech the test the next day. I told him
Speaker 2: I was not interested in taking the Lotti tech the test.
Speaker 2: Instead of him doing his job, it seemed like he
Speaker 2: was more interested in trying to hang these crimes on me.
Speaker 1: So now things are heated between you and this detective,
Speaker 1: but he's got nothing on you. Nothing connects you to
Speaker 1: this murder besides your previous relationship with the deceased. And
Speaker 1: there's definitely a much more motivated and likely suspect in
Speaker 1: the mix, But for now the case went cold. The
Speaker 1: summer was coming to a close, and at this time,
Speaker 1: two guys that you knew in junior high, Darryl and
Speaker 1: Eric Cook, had gotten involved in bankrupt They were awaiting
Speaker 1: charges on two separate incidents at bank robbery in Chesapeake
Speaker 1: and then another one in Portsmouth, and the second one
Speaker 1: involved to shootout with the police and Eric Cook. He
Speaker 1: was looking to trade information for leniency.
Speaker 3: Seems to me that mister Eric Cook made his living
Speaker 3: doing that.
Speaker 1: So while that part of the story is simmering in
Speaker 1: the background, the entire Hobbs family was headed to Franklin,
Speaker 1: Virginia for a family reunion on Friday, August thirtieth, when
Speaker 1: Terry received a traffic ticket on his ride out there,
Speaker 1: and that ticket was issued around six forty five pm
Speaker 1: near Franklin, which is only about an hour's drive outside
Speaker 1: of the Portsmouth, Virginia Beach area.
Speaker 2: Well, you have to remember this is on a holiday weekend.
Speaker 2: We get beast traffic and people coming in from out
Speaker 2: of state. There would be about a two and a
Speaker 2: half to three hours draft fighting at traffic.
Speaker 1: So this traffic ticket out in Franklin at six forty
Speaker 1: five pm makes it extremely unlikely that you could even
Speaker 1: be physically available to commit a bank robbery in Virginia
Speaker 1: Beach a little after four pm that same afternoon. Now,
Speaker 1: this isn't the same bank robbery that Eric and Daryl
Speaker 1: Cook were arrested for. This is a totally separate incident.
Speaker 1: This was August thirtieth, nineteen ninety six, after four pm
Speaker 1: in Virginia Beach. A black man in his mid twenties
Speaker 1: with a baseball hat, sunglasses, a thick go tee, and
Speaker 1: a dark blue backpack entered the first Virginia Bank on
Speaker 1: the corner of Virginia Beach Boulevard and Kings Grant Round.
Speaker 1: He revealed a gun in his waistband, but he never
Speaker 1: drew it. The bank teller mis Barrard complied with his
Speaker 1: demands and handed over about eight hundred dollars in small bills,
Speaker 1: and the robber fled the scene. Now, this is a bank,
Speaker 1: so they've got all kinds of surveillance footage, of course,
Speaker 1: and screenshots of this robber.
Speaker 3: And I've seen the pictures. There's no way you can
Speaker 3: look at those photos and say Terry Hobbs did it.
Speaker 2: At that time, I couldn't even grow a full beat it.
Speaker 2: I had a peach flods mustache and that was pretty
Speaker 2: much it. With a guy who ractually robbed the bank
Speaker 2: had a full mustache and go tee that was so
Speaker 2: fake that you couldn't see that a drop of skin
Speaker 2: through his mustache or go tee.
Speaker 3: On top of that, the guy wasn't wearing any gloves.
Speaker 3: To the transcripts, his hands were over the glass the case.
Speaker 3: There in the bank, they ran the fingerprints. Guess what,
Speaker 3: Terry's fingerprints didn't match anything there.
Speaker 1: Very soon after the robbery, when shown a photo array
Speaker 1: with Terrence's picture. The bank teller Ms Berrard and a
Speaker 1: bank employee named Genie Chaplin both said that they couldn't
Speaker 1: make a positive ID due to the assailant having worn
Speaker 1: a hat, sunglasses, and a thick cotee, but somehow that
Speaker 1: later changed, so no ID, no fingerprint match where there
Speaker 1: definitely were fingerprints left to the scene. But now here
Speaker 1: comes Eric Cook, a guy Terry hasn't spoken to since
Speaker 1: junior high school who's facing his own bank robbery charges
Speaker 1: as well as the attempted murder of a police officer
Speaker 1: from Virginia Beach City Jail. And he was clearly looking
Speaker 1: to trade information for leniency. But I thought that he
Speaker 1: had robbed a bank in Portsmouth.
Speaker 2: He was on a courtesy hole, in particular crestody in
Speaker 2: Virginia Beach because when he was an imforceable city jail
Speaker 2: of the city which he attempted to committed bank robbery,
Speaker 2: and when he was in the jail block, any person
Speaker 2: that was in the sale with him or in the
Speaker 2: par with him, he would get on the phone and
Speaker 2: call crime solversts and say that these people were confessing
Speaker 2: the committing crimes. So it eventually got around and the
Speaker 2: whole car had turned on him and beat him within
Speaker 2: the ench of his life, and he had to be hospitalized.
Speaker 2: And after he was released from medical treatment, he was
Speaker 2: put in Virginia Beach City Jail in protective custody, and
Speaker 2: that's where he called Crime Solvi was once again from me.
Speaker 2: Even at the expense of almost losing his life for
Speaker 2: baron 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 named Chris Moleen was working the August thirtieth bank
Speaker 1: robbery and Eric Cook called Crime Solvers with information that
Speaker 1: just so happened to benefit both detectives.
Speaker 2: He claims he called me. He said that I had
Speaker 2: told him that I had robbed the bank whiching a Beach,
Speaker 2: and that I had also murdered Devana Bias and Leon Porte.
Speaker 1: But this alleged call between you and Eric Cook would
Speaker 1: have been made from a jail phone. Not only would
Speaker 1: it have been recorded and made for some really compelling
Speaker 1: evidence a trial, but it also would have shown up
Speaker 1: on your phone records if in fact it ever took place.
Speaker 4: So I got my phone records during that time and
Speaker 4: it showed no calls from no institution on there.
Speaker 2: Man didn't even have my phone number, couldn't even tell
Speaker 2: you what my phone number was.
Speaker 1: So this phone call just simply never took place. And
Speaker 1: you know, calls to crime stoppers are anonymous. But yet
Speaker 1: instead of the authorities paying a visit to Terry to
Speaker 1: see what he had to say about these allegations, somehow
Speaker 1: Detective Huntington's buddy in Virginia Beach, Detective Chris Malin knew
Speaker 1: exactly who to go visit in the Virginia Beach City jail.
Speaker 1: So one can only surmise that this was a plan
Speaker 1: that was between Mouleen Huntington and their highly incentivized witness,
Speaker 1: Eric Cook to make a quasi anonymous call to crime solvers.
Speaker 1: But there's something else that's interesting about the interviews with
Speaker 1: Eric Cook.
Speaker 2: Every single interview that I have, there were copies of
Speaker 2: statements made to the police would detect the robber tuning
Speaker 2: General David Beachlaw and which is I think is extremely odd.
Speaker 2: Why are you sitting an interviewing this man about a
Speaker 2: Virginia Beach bank robbery. You have absolutely no risk powers
Speaker 2: in the city of Virginia Beach.
Speaker 1: All right, this shit stinks already. But as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: the bank teller, Missus Berrard, and the bank employee Jennie
Speaker 1: Chaplin did not make an id from the photo lineup right.
Speaker 2: The bank teller herself, she says, this guy right here
Speaker 2: kind of looks like the robber, but because of the
Speaker 2: robber wane of disguise, which was the hat and sunglasses,
Speaker 2: I'm not one hundred percent sure that this is the robber.
Speaker 2: That is not a positive identification. But yet if you
Speaker 2: look at my risk warrant, it say is the reason
Speaker 2: I was being charge with that crime was due to
Speaker 2: the sworn statements of Christopher C. Moleen, not the actual victim,
Speaker 2: Tracy Barad or Genie Chaplin.
Speaker 1: So Detective Malene fabricated evidence and both he and Eric
Speaker 1: Cook purjured themselves in order to obtain your arrest warrant.
Speaker 2: The morning of September twenty third, nineteen ninety six, they
Speaker 2: took me over to the Detectives Bureau. They kept me
Speaker 2: in that room I don't know how many hours, and
Speaker 2: detective hunting and came in there and tried to give
Speaker 2: me the impression that I was being charge with the
Speaker 2: murders and that he was going to make sure that
Speaker 2: I got the death penalty. I didn't take it too kindly,
Speaker 2: and I told him if he got off his ass
Speaker 2: and did his fucking job and went by the evidence
Speaker 2: of the crime scene, he could find out who committed
Speaker 2: the murders and stopped harassing me. So he looks at
Speaker 2: me and walked out the rum, and within five minutes
Speaker 2: Detective Moleen came in and asked me to set aside
Speaker 2: my conversation that I had just had with Detective Hunting,
Speaker 2: and so then he starts talking to me about a
Speaker 2: bank robbert in Virginia Beach, and he said I had
Speaker 2: already been identified as a suspect. I volunteered fingerprints to
Speaker 2: run them if they had finger prints recovered from the
Speaker 2: crime scene. Not only had they collective fingerprints from the
Speaker 2: bank robbery, they had already run my fingerprints against the
Speaker 2: fingerprints from the bank robbery before I was arrested, and
Speaker 2: they came out negative.
Speaker 1: They always knew you hadn't committed this crime. And sometimes
Speaker 1: we just see a nihilistic approach from a detective where
Speaker 1: they just don't care at all who they got as
Speaker 1: long as they close the case, you know, if they
Speaker 1: say a body for a body. But here it seems
Speaker 1: as if all of this tension between you and Huntington
Speaker 1: was just adding fuel to his fire. So were you
Speaker 1: able to bond out?
Speaker 2: And they took me to the Virginia Beach City jail.
Speaker 2: I think I was allowed to probably close in ninety
Speaker 2: days before I was able to get a bond right,
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 4: Had to get an attorney to get his bond. Ken Melvin,
Speaker 4: he's a judge now, but the attornety got the bond
Speaker 4: for me, and it was a fifty thousand dollars bond,
Speaker 4: 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 two. But even for someone
Speaker 1: who was presumably overworked and underpaid, as almost all of
Speaker 1: the public devendors in the country are, this still should
Speaker 1: have been an easy win. You had this false statement
Speaker 1: from Eric Cook about an alleged phone call that you
Speaker 1: could prove never took place, and then Ms Berrard and
Speaker 1: mss Chaplin, who never identified you. But as we so
Speaker 1: often see, sometimes witnesses become more confident in their ideas
Speaker 1: as the trial approaches.
Speaker 2: Yes, nat goes from them not being showed them the
Speaker 2: person did percent showed them the person.
Speaker 3: Nine months later. How can she positively say it was
Speaker 3: Terry and she couldn't do it hours after the robbery.
Speaker 3: It just it just smells bad to me that she
Speaker 3: was coached.
Speaker 1: But Okay, your attorney could have impeached these ideas as unreliable,
Speaker 1: considering the fact that the witnesses had not been able
Speaker 1: to make an id in the immediate aftermath of the robbery,
Speaker 1: just hours after it took place, as well as the
Speaker 1: fact that the bank robber face and had or 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 en route to your family reunion in Franklin, Virginia.
Speaker 1: You had, I mean, for christ sakes, 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.
Speaker 2: Right when I walked in the courtroom, that day, Blow
Speaker 2: and behold Detective Huntington and Golan having a discussion with
Speaker 2: this police officer that issued me the traffic ticket before
Speaker 2: he ever takes the stand. He takes the stand and
Speaker 2: states that he can't remember if I'm the person that
Speaker 2: he actually gives you the ticket too. So my next
Speaker 2: request was is that he give us the original copy
Speaker 2: of the ticket. Well, the original copy of the ticket
Speaker 2: supposedly was destroyed, and he supposedly had a gallon of
Speaker 2: paint in the trunk of his car and had an
Speaker 2: accident and the paint spilled on his paperwork, and therefore
Speaker 2: the ticket was no longer available. But I find that
Speaker 2: hard to believe.
Speaker 1: Sounds totally made up to me. But still there's more
Speaker 1: that could have been done to combat the state. Besides
Speaker 1: what should have been an easy job impeaching the credibility
Speaker 1: of the IDs, you had this patently bogus statement from
Speaker 1: Eric Cook about an alleged phone call confession that you
Speaker 1: could conclusively prove never took place. So what happened with that?
Speaker 2: Apparently, after my attorney showed the Como frattorney to copy
Speaker 2: of my phone records, the phone records reflected heiit and
Speaker 2: never even called me. They allowed Earriit to change his testimony,
Speaker 2: and they also sealed his statement that he made to
Speaker 2: the Virginia Beach police because of the discovery when my
Speaker 2: mom had a fool from the archives. They did not
Speaker 2: allow us to see any statement he ever made to
Speaker 2: the police.
Speaker 1: So all you knew was that he alleged that you
Speaker 1: confessed on a phone call. This wasn't some opportunity to
Speaker 1: cross examine and create doubt when you submitted the phone
Speaker 1: records to evidence as proof of the lies, that would
Speaker 1: and should have shut down their lying star witness completely.
Speaker 1: So the state just sidestepped your defense with mora lies.
Speaker 1: But you had no idea that they were going to
Speaker 1: do this. How could you have predicted that your defense
Speaker 1: was prepared to disprove the lie about the phone call,
Speaker 1: but was not prepared to combat this new lie. The
Speaker 1: evidence was not shared with the defense. It's just perfect
Speaker 1: example of a Brady violation right out in the open,
Speaker 1: plain sight. So what did he change his story.
Speaker 2: To He changed his story and see it that he
Speaker 2: walked up on a conversation that me and his brother
Speaker 2: was plotting to rob his bank in Virginia Beach, and
Speaker 2: we said and planned it out and detailed myself and
Speaker 2: his brother and the commonwealths attorney basically vouch for his credibility,
Speaker 2: and how he was coming full at great risk to
Speaker 2: hisself because of me being an extremely dangerous individual, and
Speaker 2: that he was putting hisself at great risk to protect
Speaker 2: the citizens of Virginia Beach from people like myself.
Speaker 1: So not a bank or arber trading false testimony for leniency,
Speaker 1: but actually a concerned citizen was nothing to gain.
Speaker 2: Jess a concerned citizen. They were aughted by the judge
Speaker 2: not to bring up his criminal history, none of his
Speaker 2: prior crimes because in Chesapeake his citizen had been postponed
Speaker 2: and imports of his citizen had been postponed, and under
Speaker 2: the guide lines of the law until he's officially sentenced
Speaker 2: by a judge, he is not a convicted felain. He
Speaker 2: was actually one before he started his line of question,
Speaker 2: and not to ask him any questions about where he's
Speaker 2: housed at or anything that would lead him into the
Speaker 2: devultion to the jewelry. That he was arrested and convicted
Speaker 2: of any type of crime for his testimony. He was
Speaker 2: given three years and thirty days for the attempted bank robber,
Speaker 2: re imporcement, the juse of farms and the commission of
Speaker 2: a felony, and the attempted capital murder of a police officer.
Speaker 1: Jesus, I mean even the attempted murder of a police
Speaker 1: officer usually carries you know, a little bit.
Speaker 2: More than that, of course, but his statue on a
Speaker 2: murder is either life or death. He did three years
Speaker 2: and thirty days and then only was sentenced for the
Speaker 2: Chesapeake bank robbery after he was released from prison. By
Speaker 2: the time they suspended all this time, he only is
Speaker 2: sixtys and eight months. So between the two robbery, the
Speaker 2: three use of farms and the commissioner of felony and
Speaker 2: the attempt capital murder of police office, he got less
Speaker 2: than ten years.
Speaker 1: So your lawyer wasn't even allowed to bring up the
Speaker 1: fact 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 Eric Cook's statement appeared to be
Speaker 1: corroborated by the now all of a sudden one hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure of witnesses, and that was enough to overcome
Speaker 1: the fingerprint evidence of the contrary, which by that I
Speaker 1: mean the fact that you certainly were not there.
Speaker 2: The fingerprints that were recovered. We couldn't even really go
Speaker 2: into that too much because of the cong walth attorney. She
Speaker 2: didn't want the fingerprints entered in the evidence.
Speaker 1: What about your attorney?
Speaker 2: He didn't make the motion.
Speaker 1: So the jury came to a sadly predictable conclusion.
Speaker 2: Nobody in the jury would look at me, which I
Speaker 2: knew that was a bad time. They came with the
Speaker 2: guilty verity. I looked over to mo Leen and Huntington.
Speaker 2: Huntingen winked at me and Jomio and you've made on
Speaker 2: Tojo's gonna get you.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. This episode is underwritten
Speaker 1: by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed
Speaker 1: to corporate social responsibility and is making a positive difference
Speaker 1: in the lives of its employees and in the communities
Speaker 1: where we work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
Speaker 1: AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the AIG
Speaker 1: pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support
Speaker 1: to underrepresented communities and individuals. So now you're convicted, but
Speaker 1: you still had to go to sentencing. When your lawyer
Speaker 1: still had one move left, he located Eric Bok's brother, Darryl,
Speaker 1: who took the stand.
Speaker 2: Darryl Cook came forward and took the stand, and my
Speaker 2: attorney asked them some questions and basically just said his
Speaker 2: brother was lying because he didn't want to do the time.
Speaker 2: In the end, my lawyer made a motion that the
Speaker 2: judge set aside the verdict and order a new trial
Speaker 2: or overturned the conviction altogether. But the judge wasn't having
Speaker 2: he upheld the conviction.
Speaker 3: The fact that his brother got on the stand and
Speaker 3: then they found phone rerecords were bogus that there was
Speaker 3: never a call. I don't know how that did not
Speaker 3: get overturned.
Speaker 2: He appealed my centizen, which my guidelines was five years
Speaker 2: and one month, immediate range point was six years and
Speaker 2: two months. Nine years was the max, and they gave
Speaker 2: me forty eight years and a thirty thousand dollar five.
Speaker 1: So, in light of Eric Cook's own brother coming into
Speaker 1: testify against him, the state star witness, which should have
Speaker 1: really shaken their confidence in this conviction, instead of the
Speaker 1: max of nine years, they doubled down on this tragedy
Speaker 1: by over sentencing you. So your lawyer must have had
Speaker 1: an appeal ready to go. I know in Virginia you've
Speaker 1: got to get it filed within thirty days of the conviction,
Speaker 1: though right.
Speaker 4: He had a state appointed attorney that really did nothing
Speaker 4: for him. Even times I would go to his office
Speaker 4: to try and meet with him. I think I was
Speaker 4: avoided twice. The third time I laid in wait in
Speaker 4: the parking lot, they said he wasn't there, So I
Speaker 4: stayed in the parking lot until he got there so
Speaker 4: I could have a talk with him.
Speaker 1: How did that conversation go?
Speaker 4: I went up to his office with him because I
Speaker 4: wanted to know what was going on. Where are we
Speaker 4: now with the appeal? Well, and that's when he let
Speaker 4: me know he didn't get it filed in time.
Speaker 2: Author Ehnrich, who has been disbarred more than three times
Speaker 2: for one of the very things that he did to me.
Speaker 2: You know how you have a constitutional rights to an appeal,
Speaker 2: has never had an appeal for my case in Virginia
Speaker 2: Beach because he made the motion that he would be
Speaker 2: filing appeal and never filed it. And I was time barred.
Speaker 2: So my constitutional right to appeal was lost. It was
Speaker 2: revealed later that he had a cocaine habit and he
Speaker 2: was barely been his duties. So I know when I
Speaker 2: when I claimed ineffect of assistance a council, that's exactly
Speaker 2: what I had, whether the common was attorney. When they
Speaker 2: get to filed their briefs, they claim I was only
Speaker 2: claiming interffective assistance or council is because I was unsatisfied
Speaker 2: with the outcome of my trial.
Speaker 1: So you were time barred on the direct appeal and
Speaker 1: denied on a clear case of ineffective assistance a council,
Speaker 1: and therefore you were stuck to serve out a forty
Speaker 1: eight year sentence, effectively a life sentence. Now, at this time,
Speaker 1: Virginia made another horrendous move, which is that they did
Speaker 1: away with parole entirely. But if your jury had not
Speaker 1: been advised that you would never be eligible, as was
Speaker 1: in fact the case here, you would have been what
Speaker 1: is known as a fishback candidate. So that becomes an
Speaker 1: issue later on and we'll explain that. So you've potentially
Speaker 1: got parole to look forward to. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to you,
Speaker 1: Detective Huntington was out there for several years building up
Speaker 1: a case against you for the double homicide, and he
Speaker 1: was talking to people you knew through your hobby of
Speaker 1: riding motorcycles, as well as some guys that you knew
Speaker 1: from your short time that you spent dealing drugs, and
Speaker 1: Detective Huntington was working on coercing and incentivizing them to cooperate,
Speaker 1: and eventually he was successful at finding five people who
Speaker 1: were willing to do it by nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Every single one of them have cases against them, and
Speaker 3: most of them are big time drug dealers or in
Speaker 3: the drug trade and they have something to gain by
Speaker 3: lying on Terrence Hobbs. Detective Huntington, Yeah, he was on
Speaker 3: a mission to convict the wrong man of these double.
Speaker 1: Murders, Terry, Since the only thing you knew about Eric
Speaker 1: Cook's initial statement at this point was that he had
Speaker 1: implicated you and the robbery, and the rest of the
Speaker 1: details were sealed, including the fact that he'd implicated you
Speaker 1: in the double murder as well. Were you even aware
Speaker 1: of Detective Huntington's investigation? When did you find out?
Speaker 2: I was actually sitting in prison at Southampton Coressional Facility.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in the sale looking at television, and they
Speaker 2: had movies on the weekend and they rented for us
Speaker 2: to see. And one of my friends come past the
Speaker 2: sale and he say, tee. He said, ma'am. He said,
Speaker 2: I just saw you on the news. They just indicted
Speaker 2: you for two council capital murder. I said, man, go
Speaker 2: ahead with that bullshit. Stop playing, He said, Man, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't play about nothing like that. He said, turn from
Speaker 2: a movie channel. He said. He turned the NBCCBSORABC. Every
Speaker 2: time they show a commercial, they're showing your face on
Speaker 2: the news, and you're being charged in a cold case.
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe it. And then we thought back to
Speaker 4: what had happened that night. He and his sister had
Speaker 4: gone to the movie.
Speaker 1: Right. He was with his sister at the movies and
Speaker 1: came by your house for some mail, then went back
Speaker 1: to his sisters. She accounted for his arrival around midnight,
Speaker 1: the same time that an ear witness heard gunshots from
Speaker 1: Havanna Buyer's apartment. She and Leon Porter were each shot once,
Speaker 1: execution style.
Speaker 4: She had already been threatened that if she testified against
Speaker 4: the drug kingpin, which was her daughter's father, then for
Speaker 4: it would happened to her he had already shot and
Speaker 4: killed someone else that was karing his baby before he
Speaker 4: was locked up.
Speaker 1: But rather than tracking down those leaves, Detective Huntington just
Speaker 1: went ahead and pursued Terry, whose fingerprints again were not
Speaker 1: found in a scene where they almost certainly should have
Speaker 1: been considering his relationship with Divanna and Terry was more
Speaker 1: than helpful. He came to Devana's house with his sister,
Speaker 1: who was ready to vouch for his whereabouts, and all
Speaker 1: of his guns were tested for holistics evidence. He willingly
Speaker 1: gave his fingerprints submitted to a GSR testing. No matches
Speaker 1: were found, and at least initially he was willing to
Speaker 1: take a lot of detective tests, but none of that
Speaker 1: was good enough for this Detective Huntington. It almost makes
Speaker 1: you think that he it was doing everything he could
Speaker 1: to avoid investigating the guy who he should have been investigating,
Speaker 1: which was sket Richardson. So, with this lack of evidence
Speaker 1: and clear standout suspect, Detective hunting had to get creative
Speaker 1: and he conjured up five witnesses, but the stories weren't
Speaker 1: quite adding up. But even with this weak ass bullshit case,
Speaker 1: publicly they were claiming that they had five corroborating witnesses.
Speaker 2: If you look at the newspaper article that was dated
Speaker 2: for what were the first nineteen ninety nine in the
Speaker 2: Virginian Pilot newspaper. They were requesting the death penalty, and
Speaker 2: they even came to me with a twenty year plead
Speaker 2: to try to get me the plead guilty for two
Speaker 2: council capital murder, and I refused to take a guilty
Speaker 2: plead of twenty years for two murders that I had
Speaker 2: not committed. They came back and brought a teen year
Speaker 2: plea to me and I refused to take that as well.
Speaker 2: They had my attorney asked me, would be any amount
Speaker 2: of time that I would be willing to accept so
Speaker 2: that they wouldn't have to take me to trial, and
Speaker 2: I would not take it. I actually still have a
Speaker 2: copy of the twenty year plead. They did ten year
Speaker 2: plea verbally twenty year plea for two council of capital
Speaker 2: murder to run k and Karen with the forty eight
Speaker 2: years in Virginia Beach. Now the state of Virginia, there's
Speaker 2: only two penalties for capitol murden, his life or death.
Speaker 2: So how do you offer a man a twenty year
Speaker 2: plea in the in turnaround, I offer him a teen
Speaker 2: year plea for a capitol murder unless you know he
Speaker 2: didn't do it.
Speaker 3: Yes, they know he's not the guy. No prosecutor would
Speaker 3: come with a ten year plea deal on a double
Speaker 3: murder if they knew he committed to crime. No way, no, Hew,
Speaker 3: that's just bullshit. They want to close the case.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, they took him to trial knowing that the evidence
Speaker 1: was all just incentivized testilize that started with Eric Cook.
Speaker 1: He was so unreliable that they did not even include
Speaker 1: him in this proceeding at all. Now, the five quote
Speaker 1: unquote new witnesses here were Sean Saunders, Curtis Freeman, William Godwin,
Speaker 1: Derek Blackwell, and Tyron Wallace. And we're about to destroy
Speaker 1: all of their credibility right now.
Speaker 3: Well Sewn Saunders, who happens to be a three time
Speaker 3: felon and who admitted to Terry's mom after the trial
Speaker 3: that he had lied to avoid going back to prison.
Speaker 3: He worked with Terry on the construction job at the
Speaker 3: Coastguard Base. He testified that he and Terry were good
Speaker 3: friends throughout high school, but Saunders had actually dropped out
Speaker 3: of school in eighth grade. According to Terry didn't see
Speaker 3: him again until he worked with him on the coastguard job,
Speaker 3: and Saunders claimed that while they were working together that
Speaker 3: Terry told him that he and Devanna were breaking up
Speaker 3: and that if he ever found Devona with another man,
Speaker 3: he would kick in the door of an apartment if
Speaker 3: he had to with.
Speaker 2: Killer Seawn Sanders claimed that he told my supervisor. My
Speaker 2: supervisor actually came to court and testis out on my behalf.
Speaker 2: He said we were never alone together, that he worked
Speaker 2: in one place and I worked in another.
Speaker 3: A year before the trial. Interestingly, Saunders had been subpoenat,
Speaker 3: but he didn't tell you authorities about Terry's alleged emissions.
Speaker 3: Then you know, it was only the day before Terry's
Speaker 3: trial after Saunders again was arrested for selling drugs, the
Speaker 3: Saunders come up with the story that Terry threatened to
Speaker 3: kick in Divana's door and kill her if he saw
Speaker 3: her with another man.
Speaker 1: Saunders testify that Terry had said he would park his
Speaker 1: motorcycle around back and kick in the back door and
Speaker 1: use a silencer on a gun. But there's a problem
Speaker 1: with this that earwitness would have definitely heard a motorcycle.
Speaker 3: And importantly, there is no back door, So he would
Speaker 3: have made that mistake to say I'm going to kick
Speaker 3: in the back door knowing there is no back door.
Speaker 1: Right, Terry knew that apartment well and never would have
Speaker 1: mentioned a non existent back door. Now, Curtis Freeman, he
Speaker 1: was facing home invasion and robbery charges. What did he
Speaker 1: say to save his own skin?
Speaker 3: Freeman's testifying that he was familiar with Terry's motorcycle, which
Speaker 3: he described as being a neon greenish color and purple
Speaker 3: and allegedly unique because of his bright colors, despite Terry
Speaker 3: riding with many others who also had these colorful sport motorcycles.
Speaker 3: He also testified that he noticed Terry's motorcycle parked around
Speaker 3: the block from Devona's apartment on the night of the murders,
Speaker 3: and that he said Terry had a notoriously loud motorcycle
Speaker 3: because of the modifications.
Speaker 1: So now the bike is parked around the block, and again,
Speaker 1: where was the ear witness on this extremely loud motorcycle.
Speaker 1: They heard the gunshots, but no notoriously loud motorcycles speeding away.
Speaker 1: They somehow missed that.
Speaker 3: One Freeman was given probation for a home invasion and
Speaker 3: robbery because of his cooperation.
Speaker 1: And Lenny can back me up here. But these are
Speaker 1: not the types of sentences that Virginia is known for
Speaker 1: doling out for home invasions or anything for that matter.
Speaker 1: I mean, Lenny got over a thousand years for stealing
Speaker 1: just a little bit over five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: So now we're at William Godwin or Bill Godwin. Right,
Speaker 1: he was in federal custody drug possession conspiracy charges with
Speaker 1: the seventeen and a half year sentence. Initially he had
Speaker 1: said that he didn't know anything about the murders, but
Speaker 1: knew that Terry was innocent. What did he say to
Speaker 1: get released after just two and a half years?
Speaker 2: Like, he claimed that he was with me and he
Speaker 2: saw me threaten Greg Elliott with a far arm because
Speaker 2: Greg was at her house visit in her and Greg
Speaker 2: Elliott came the courte and subpoena as a Commonwealt attorney witness,
Speaker 2: and once he took his sting and basically said that
Speaker 2: everything that Beal testified to was a lie.
Speaker 1: So there goes lie number one. Then Godwin testified that
Speaker 1: he had been told by a man named Daryl Evans
Speaker 1: about a conversation that Evans had overheard in which Terry
Speaker 1: had confessed to the murders.
Speaker 2: Daryl Evan has come to court and testify it and
Speaker 2: refused Bial's testimony.
Speaker 1: So there goes Godwin, making the Commonwealth look stupid again.
Speaker 1: He also alleged that Terry had basically confessed to him
Speaker 1: about the murders. But I think Godwin had already told
Speaker 1: too many lies that had been refuted in court for
Speaker 1: anyone to take him seriously about anything. So on to
Speaker 1: Derek Blackwell, he was in federal custody on charges of
Speaker 1: being a drug kingpen and running a criminal enterprise, facing
Speaker 1: thirty years to life. Initially, he had told police that
Speaker 1: knew nothing about the crimes, but then.
Speaker 3: He lies and says about two to three weeks after
Speaker 3: the killings, he and Terry were at a gas station
Speaker 3: in Portsmouth and Terry unsolicited now admits to shooting Devana
Speaker 3: and Porter. He first offered a story about Terry's alleged
Speaker 3: confession about two months after he had been arrested in
Speaker 3: November of nineteen ninety seven for federal drug conspiracy charges.
Speaker 3: Blackwell only served three and a half years as a
Speaker 3: result of his cooperation. Interesting with Blackwell's testimony. You know,
Speaker 3: he said Terry was with him at his house all
Speaker 3: day until seven pm on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: That's directly contradicted by Terry's work time card at the
Speaker 3: Coastguard base that day.
Speaker 1: Just another fucking liar that to his description of Terry's
Speaker 1: bike as primarily black. I thought it was Neon, green
Speaker 1: and purple. So enough of this guy. Last, but not least,
Speaker 1: Tyrone Wallace, who was in federal custody facing drug conspiracy charges.
Speaker 3: Evidence is clear that the door was kicked in. Wallace
Speaker 3: testified that Terry admitted he killed Divanna in Porter after
Speaker 3: he parked his bike. Now it's a couple of blocks away,
Speaker 3: not behind, a couple of blocks away all the night
Speaker 3: of the murders, and entered the apartment with a duplicate key.
Speaker 1: Yet we know the door had been kicked in. He
Speaker 1: also said that Terry had said that he shot Porter
Speaker 1: while he was lying in bed, and that he shot
Speaker 1: Divana from under the chin.
Speaker 3: But the medical examiner established at Porter was shot in
Speaker 3: the face while sitting at the end of the bed
Speaker 3: and Devona had been shot in the back of the head.
Speaker 3: So contradiction after contradiction after contradiction. You know, he faced
Speaker 3: twenty two years and served less than four.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, it's just exponential injustice on top of
Speaker 1: an already insane double wrongful conviction. But I mean, couldn't
Speaker 1: the jury see how these guys their stories just weren't
Speaker 1: matching up, That their stories didn't match the back to
Speaker 1: the crime, and in some cases their lives were called
Speaker 1: out by both defense and prosecution witnesses that this was
Speaker 1: not some jealous boyfriend case, but rather a homicide that
Speaker 1: was in retribution for Divana's testimony against her acts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the common of the turning kept down playing it
Speaker 2: is that would not be enough motive compared to the
Speaker 2: evidence that they had. And the only evidence that they
Speaker 2: had against me was the false testimony of these witnesses.
Speaker 2: And I guess the only thing and I could think
Speaker 2: that would have caused me to get a guilty verdict
Speaker 2: is that the jury would feel like, well, all of
Speaker 2: these guys can't be lyned, even though they were. They
Speaker 2: had tried to killed me without killing my body. They
Speaker 2: killed me by killing my reputation, which in turn caused
Speaker 2: me to be found guilty of these crimes, and they
Speaker 2: thought that this is gonna be the end for me,
Speaker 2: that they were gonna lock me up for basically thirteen
Speaker 2: hundred years, and that was gonna be the end of
Speaker 2: my story.
Speaker 1: And that's a number that Lendy is all too familiar with.
Speaker 1: These insane numbers really started after they abolished parole in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Right when was that?
Speaker 3: Well, guys had opportunities at parole well before ninety five
Speaker 3: January ninety five. So even in a case like this,
Speaker 3: if you had a life sentence, you start going up
Speaker 3: for parole in twelve years, two life sentences, you still
Speaker 3: get an opportunity to go up you just it would
Speaker 3: take around twenty years. Guys still had a shot if
Speaker 3: you weren't given life without the possibility of par The
Speaker 3: life sentences didn't nail you until after they abolished parole.
Speaker 3: And so now if you get life, it means exactly
Speaker 3: that life.
Speaker 1: Wow, and you have how long to follow your appeal
Speaker 1: In Virginia.
Speaker 3: You got thirty day 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?
Speaker 2: We actually went through there and Jordan time field process
Speaker 2: and that one single jealous would overturn the convictions.
Speaker 1: I mean, post conviction litigation is largely based on whether
Speaker 1: or not you receive due process and if any constitutional
Speaker 1: rights were violated. I'm sure in effective assistance could be
Speaker 1: argued here, but accompanying actual innocence claims can be helpful
Speaker 1: with any other claims. And the only evidence against you
Speaker 1: at the second trial were these inconsistent and patently and
Speaker 1: obviously false statements from these incentivized witnesses. Was all of
Speaker 1: that pointed out to them?
Speaker 2: Yes, all of this stuff was pointed out, But to
Speaker 2: say the fact that the matter is a lot of
Speaker 2: these people don't want to point to saying that another
Speaker 2: prosecutor or police officer certain say that they were. And
Speaker 2: that's just the sad fact of the matter. Without the
Speaker 2: support of my family, I believe I would have lost
Speaker 2: myself in here because I'm gonna tell you something. I'm
Speaker 2: surrounded in this small amount of acreage of this penitentiary.
Speaker 2: I'm around from everything that you could possibly think of, murderers, rapists,
Speaker 2: child molester's necro vctiality. I'm around the worst of the worst.
Speaker 2: Had I not had the love and support of my
Speaker 2: family sticking by me and just they received that unconditional love,
Speaker 2: it kept me from losing myself in here. To be
Speaker 2: completely honest with you, I don't know what kind of
Speaker 2: person I would be now had I been left to
Speaker 2: living in this environment of violence and blood and sweat
Speaker 2: and tears. People on the team people commit suicide, hanging
Speaker 2: themselves because they could not do this time. I do
Speaker 2: this time every single day, alcohol free, disease free, drug
Speaker 2: free of any of those things. So the things that
Speaker 2: most people do in here to deal with the reality,
Speaker 2: I deal with sober. That's the only way I can
Speaker 2: have a clear head to do what I need to
Speaker 2: do to try to mount the best defense that I
Speaker 2: can for myself. And when people like yourself are interested
Speaker 2: in hearing my story, I can tell the team, and of.
Speaker 1: Course people like Lennie who heard your story. If not
Speaker 1: for him, we wouldn't be having this recording session right now.
Speaker 1: And if I hadn't read about his story, of course
Speaker 1: in the New York Times, I'm not sure any of
Speaker 1: us would be talking right now. Lenny. How did you
Speaker 1: and Terry end up meeting?
Speaker 3: I was transferred to not Away Correctional Center in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight, and I think I were. Yeah, we met
Speaker 3: around early two thousands. And Terry, because of what he's
Speaker 3: been through, he is totally aloof walking around with his
Speaker 3: grid on his face every day, and most people really
Speaker 3: didn't like Terry inside because of that, and so he
Speaker 3: just kind of gravitated towards me. I was a leader
Speaker 3: in the church and doing a lot of teaching and mentoring,
Speaker 3: and a little bit at a time he started sharing
Speaker 3: with me his story and I would tell him, I says, well, Terry,
Speaker 3: what are you doing about this? Well, at that time
Speaker 3: that's I was working on a conditional pardon. I said, man,
Speaker 3: your case is so bad that I could not possibly
Speaker 3: see anybody reading all of this and not doing something
Speaker 3: about it. And so eventually I would be granted my pardon.
Speaker 3: On January twelfth, twenty eighteen, my wife had already gotten
Speaker 3: hired by attorney John A. Cockshull. He added me to
Speaker 3: the team the very next day after my release. Once
Speaker 3: Attorney Cockshull created what he called the Pardon Petition Team,
Speaker 3: Terry Hobbs was our first client, so we've been working
Speaker 3: with him since the end of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So what happened with the conditional pardon petition.
Speaker 3: We filed his original pardon petition in twenty twenty, just
Speaker 3: based on the bogus bank robbery. They turned it down
Speaker 3: because they believed that he was a fishback candidate. Fishback
Speaker 3: is for guys who were sentenced between ninety five and
Speaker 3: two thousand, and the jury wasn't instructed that parole had
Speaker 3: been abolished, So these guys are getting these long sentences
Speaker 3: and the jurors don't know that there's no parole in Virginia,
Speaker 3: so they were under the assumption that Terry was a
Speaker 3: fishback candidate. In hindsight, now I think we probably should
Speaker 3: have done the double murders first, because it was those
Speaker 3: double murders that removed Terry from being a fish back
Speaker 3: eligible for parole. If we could have gotten the double
Speaker 3: murders removed with the pardon, that would have just left
Speaker 3: the bank robbery which would have allowed him to go
Speaker 3: up for parole, turned down his original pardon petition, and
Speaker 3: we had to wind up calling Missus Trudy Harris, who's
Speaker 3: the chief investigator over the parole board, informing her about
Speaker 3: all of this, and they would eventually reinstate his petition.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, because he's an innocent man of both
Speaker 3: of those things. We went ahead and added an addendum
Speaker 3: to that original pardon petition showing both the bank robbery
Speaker 3: and the double murders as being bogus. And that was
Speaker 3: November twenty twenty one. So in essence, his petition, from
Speaker 3: what I understand, hasn't reached the stage of a full
Speaker 3: 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
Speaker 1: Cattishaw Well.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Attorney John Cockshall. He passed away June nineteenth, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. It was totally unexpected. We were just visiting
Speaker 3: him in April of twenty twenty two. We all went
Speaker 3: to an awards event where he was awarded Attorney of
Speaker 3: the Year. Vandy and I were awarded Authors of the Year,
Speaker 3: and we just saw him. His wife had just passed away,
Speaker 3: probably three to four months before he did, and we
Speaker 3: could kind of tell that, you know, he that took
Speaker 3: the wind out of his sales.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm sure he would have loved to get Terry
Speaker 1: over the line before he passed, But you and your wife,
Speaker 1: Andy are going to get him there, as you have
Speaker 1: done for so many others already. And I understand John
Speaker 1: trusted you both implicitly actually making you too fearless warriors.
Speaker 1: A branch of his firm.
Speaker 3: We were the western branch of the John A Coxual
Speaker 3: law firm. Yes, and so yeah, we obtained eleven pardons
Speaker 3: since twenty eighteen, 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 mccalloff that pardoned you,
Speaker 1: and Governor Northen was also very active in this arena.
Speaker 1: Now we have Governor Glenn youenkin.
Speaker 3: The thing about the pardon process when you're running a
Speaker 3: state as big as Virginia, co'm and wealth as big
Speaker 3: as Virginia, they just don't have time to investigate, so
Speaker 3: he appoints people to do that. Jrudy Harris being the
Speaker 3: chief investigator for the Parole Board over pardons, and then
Speaker 3: you have five parole board members, so he delegates that
Speaker 3: task onto them, and they make a recommendation to the governor.
Speaker 3: Nine out of ten times, unless it's something high profile
Speaker 3: and the governor just doesn't want it to taint his
Speaker 3: political career, he goes with the recommendation of that parole
Speaker 3: board and those investigators.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope miss Harris is listening. We implore her,
Speaker 1: don't listen to us. Follow the evidence. Look at the
Speaker 1: flimsy false testimony in this case that was refuted by
Speaker 1: other witnesses, and the physical evidence plus the more likely suspects.
Speaker 1: I think you'll find that this should be an easy decision.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to have action steps linked in the bio,
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 called closing arguments, where I turned
Speaker 1: my microphone off and let you guys have the final
Speaker 1: say so I'm gonna kick back in my chair with
Speaker 1: my headphones on. Lenny Singleton once you go first, then
Speaker 1: Ms Catherine Hobbs, and of course Terry, I'm gonna save
Speaker 1: you for last. Thank you all for being here, and
Speaker 1: now I'm just gonna sit back and listen.
Speaker 3: This could happen to anyone. He wasn't a choir boy,
Speaker 3: but he wasn't a bank robber, and he wasn't a killer.
Speaker 3: This just goes to show that our criminal justice system
Speaker 3: still has a very long ways to go, especially as
Speaker 3: it relates to African American men. Sadly, we make up
Speaker 3: about sixty percent of the prison system in Virginia and
Speaker 3: something needs to change. We need to get involved. We
Speaker 3: need to talk to our elected officials, get them involved
Speaker 3: with fixing the things that we know are wrong. Using
Speaker 3: convicted feelings as your only evidence in any case, just
Speaker 3: can't take someone's word for it, especially if they're getting
Speaker 3: a deal. You got to have more evidence than.
Speaker 4: That he got involved with the wrong people and they
Speaker 4: just used him to gain their own freedom. I think
Speaker 4: Karl was not eve on a lot of things and
Speaker 4: they could see that, so they just used him he's
Speaker 4: a mom. I never would have did anything like this
Speaker 4: to anybody, so I didn't think nobody would do this
Speaker 4: to me, and neither did I. He needs to come home,
Speaker 4: he's grown up. He needs to spend time with his daughter,
Speaker 4: he needs to spend time with this whole family and
Speaker 4: I I'm so grateful and appreciative for what you all
Speaker 4: are doing.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Jason to take this time out
Speaker 2: to interview me, to shine a light on the injustice
Speaker 2: that was done to me. I wouldn't wish this on
Speaker 2: any person. Detective speech fool when he came to see
Speaker 2: me to serve the indictments on me in Southampton. They
Speaker 2: even implied that I may could help him with other
Speaker 2: cases and make my charges less or disappear altogether. I
Speaker 2: told him, after what I've gone through and what my
Speaker 2: family has gone through, I would never put anyone or
Speaker 2: their family through what my family Hasn't do it just
Speaker 2: to regain my freedom. I'm not that individual. I have
Speaker 2: to be able to look myself in the miror and
Speaker 2: like what I see on a daily basis. Even if
Speaker 2: it was to spend the rest of my life in prison,
Speaker 2: I had to live my life and be able to
Speaker 2: hold my head up with pride and know that I
Speaker 2: did not low on somebody else to ruin somebody else's
Speaker 2: life just to ease my suffering, because that's what they
Speaker 2: wanted me to do.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wartis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is
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