Speaker 1: On July twelfth, nineteen ninety four, in downtown Newport News, Virginia,
Speaker 1: a car full of young men opened fire at another
Speaker 1: group outside of a public housing complex. Three young people
Speaker 1: were injured, and nineteen year old Stephen Smith was fatally shot.
Speaker 1: Soon after, fifteen year old Darryl Hunter was implicated, which
Speaker 1: then led to his brother Nathaniel and his best friend Reginald,
Speaker 1: whose compelling alibis were ignored when they were later identified
Speaker 1: by several alleged eyewitnesses. This is Wrongful Conviction. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrong for Conviction. Today, we're covering the
Speaker 1: case that I've been obsesseding about for many years, case
Speaker 1: I was personally very involved with, and three guys who
Speaker 1: have become close to, the Virginia Three. We've covered a
Speaker 1: lot of Virginia cases on the podcast, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them involved similar situations, false witnesses, misconduct. But first
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce the Virginia Three. Let's see should
Speaker 1: we do this in alphabetical order.
Speaker 2: My name is Virginal Fletcher.
Speaker 3: I was nineteen years old in nineteen ninety four, falsely convicted,
Speaker 3: accused of a crime I didn't commit.
Speaker 4: Daryl hunter Well, I was fifteen years old when I
Speaker 4: was arrested for the crime.
Speaker 1: Then the one and only.
Speaker 5: Hello, my name is the thing you Piers. I was
Speaker 5: locked up when I was twenty four for something I
Speaker 5: had no knowledge.
Speaker 1: Of, and you guys were sentenced to hundreds of years
Speaker 1: collectively in prison and served between all three of you
Speaker 1: almost eight years. But tell us about Newport News around
Speaker 1: the time of this crime, which was nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 3: Back in ninety four in Newport News, Yes, to collect
Speaker 3: them was real heavy, especially the I where the crime
Speaker 3: took place at.
Speaker 6: Violence was crazy in the city.
Speaker 4: Anybody was just getting harmed and killed, and it was
Speaker 4: cops and everything. So the life expectancy of somebody where
Speaker 4: I confrom was you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Long.
Speaker 5: They had the highest murder rate, number three in the world.
Speaker 5: There wasn't closing a lot of these cases because the
Speaker 5: Commonwealth Arattorney didn't get They wasn't investigating these cases. There
Speaker 5: wasn't testing evidence in these cases. Nevertheless, we fell victim
Speaker 5: to this situation.
Speaker 4: I had things I wanted to be in life, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, And I didn't even get to
Speaker 4: make it.
Speaker 6: A high school.
Speaker 1: You were the youngest there. Let's start with you. What
Speaker 1: were your lives like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, early nineties. Everybody it was a product of environment.
Speaker 4: So everybody wanted to be small time petty hustlers or whatever.
Speaker 4: And people hustled just to get closed whatever and chase chicks.
Speaker 4: And I'd like to go to school every day because
Speaker 4: I'm going to school with these clothes on that I bought.
Speaker 6: Every day I got.
Speaker 4: Off from school, I watched cartoons, Bugs, Bunny and all that.
Speaker 6: Before I ain't got with him.
Speaker 2: I got this question asked a lot of times back then.
Speaker 3: They were like, why you hanging with little dir He's
Speaker 3: fifteen years old, little dirt heart.
Speaker 2: Some of the older guys I with the heart.
Speaker 1: You guys were next door neighbors, right, You.
Speaker 4: Still got my Nintendo too at home? Man, when I
Speaker 4: got arrested, I never got to get it back.
Speaker 1: It's an antique.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I need that shit. I just I'm glad you
Speaker 6: said something.
Speaker 4: He got money to you, like play games, gamble, Like
Speaker 4: what they do now with the kids do now they
Speaker 4: play the games. And that's what I was into, Like
Speaker 4: skating ring was the thing round our way, and the
Speaker 4: game room and smoke blunts and then I come home
Speaker 4: and late at night and I had to have beavers
Speaker 4: and buttheads when I smoked my bes and but that's
Speaker 4: what was going on.
Speaker 6: And pop punk golf. Used to go to puppunk golf
Speaker 6: a lot. Man. I used to go to pump punk golf.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, right, who would win at pup punk off?
Speaker 1: You would win? Yes, uh, well, you had four years
Speaker 1: on him. What else? What were your other interests? Because
Speaker 1: you were out of high school by this time.
Speaker 3: Being nineteen years old, had a job. I was at
Speaker 3: some females. It's a jewelry shooting, dice gambling, hang out,
Speaker 3: pup hunt, but most poorly, like still out of trouble.
Speaker 4: Like you can't get him to smoke a blunt on
Speaker 4: a corner. He not doing it.
Speaker 1: And what about you, Nathaniel, You were twenty four, right.
Speaker 5: Yes, I was twenty four at the time. I had
Speaker 5: a job. I was taking care of my kids, living
Speaker 5: a good life. I did. I was doing good. And
Speaker 5: we hang out and go to the movies and do things.
Speaker 5: Might hang out with them for hours some but I
Speaker 5: have kids. The day that I don't hang out with them, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean like this is what happened the day that
Speaker 5: I don't go because I had a cast on when
Speaker 5: they I ain't want to go with them.
Speaker 1: Unrelated to the cast on his leg, a neighborhood guy
Speaker 1: named Terence Gibbons allegedly had made an attempt on Nathaniel's
Speaker 1: life in May nineteen ninety four. So now there we
Speaker 1: were on the evening of July twelfth, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: and Reginald and Daryl were shooting dice without Nathaniel in
Speaker 1: uptown Newport News, a predominantly white area.
Speaker 3: Mea Darrel was the together all day, so we was
Speaker 3: at a little small hotel called green Oaks. There was
Speaker 3: some Texico gas station connected to green Oaks, so we
Speaker 3: would leave green Oaks to go to testa code. Were
Speaker 3: bust some chips, soda some.
Speaker 1: This was about twelve miles north of the crime scene,
Speaker 1: which occurred in front of a public housing complex at
Speaker 1: the forty seven hundred block of Marshall Avenue. Meanwhile, Nathaniel,
Speaker 1: who went by the nickname Muchie, was hanging out locally
Speaker 1: with his injured leg. About a quarter of a mile
Speaker 1: down Marshall Avenue.
Speaker 5: I was walking from forty first Street. I was with
Speaker 5: a friend, Lynn Woodsmith. We had a drunk of forty ounce.
Speaker 5: I said, man, I'm going back up here because it's
Speaker 5: getting dark. So as I'm walking down the street, I
Speaker 5: heard gunshot. I don't think none of it, but I
Speaker 5: started hearing ammal lambs and polices and everything going. By
Speaker 5: the time I get to the forty fourth Street, people
Speaker 5: running everywhere, a car skirted and everything. I keep on
Speaker 5: walking up the sidewalk. This little boy was up on
Speaker 5: a car. He run from one of the car said moochie,
Speaker 5: please save my life. Don't let him kill me. Take
Speaker 5: me home. I'm not driving, so walking This lady, I said, can,
Speaker 5: I called him a cab. Her name was Orjrey Evans.
Speaker 5: I went into her house and called him a cab.
Speaker 5: Sent them on to his mother. Saved his life.
Speaker 1: According to witnesses, just a few blocks up on Marshall Avenue,
Speaker 1: three to five men got out of a car firing
Speaker 1: around one hundred shots, some into the air, others at
Speaker 1: a group of young people on the front porch. Fourteen
Speaker 1: year old Maurice Johnson, seventeen year old Alan Stowe's and
Speaker 1: twenty one year old Quentin Royal were injured, while nineteen
Speaker 1: year old Stephen Smith was fatally shot through his neck. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Daryl and Reginald were still shooting Dice at the Texicgo station.
Speaker 1: When Darryl, now remember this is nineteen ninety four, he
Speaker 1: got a beep, you know, on his beeper telling him
Speaker 1: to call home.
Speaker 6: It's all was a small time house. So I had
Speaker 6: a pager. So I went to the store.
Speaker 4: I got some quarters and I called my sister back
Speaker 4: and she told me to a crime app. She said,
Speaker 4: he's shooting. She put Daddy on the phone. Man brango
Speaker 4: ass home.
Speaker 1: I'm like shy, right, so therey they could have got
Speaker 1: the phone records as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, I look at like ten thirty five, his mother said,
Speaker 3: us at home before eleven o'clock.
Speaker 4: We wave uptown the white people neighborhoods. The crime happened downtown.
Speaker 3: At the distance from Texico to where we lived at
Speaker 3: I say about twenty minutes. So I said, oh, look,
Speaker 3: I get him home for letting them clock because less
Speaker 3: I'm in real lights. So when I take him home.
Speaker 3: Before we pull up on Washing Avenue, we see sirens.
Speaker 3: The whole street is lit up.
Speaker 4: All you've seen was likes and so many police cars.
Speaker 4: We see everybody outside. So he dropped me off at
Speaker 4: the house and I stand outside too. She I'm nosy too.
Speaker 4: What happened? Somebody got shot?
Speaker 6: The news?
Speaker 4: Come on now, I'm about to go in there. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna watch beefs and butheads. But I'm gonna watch
Speaker 4: the news now because it's breaking news. It's messing up
Speaker 4: beavers and but heads. I see my neighbor on the
Speaker 4: news talking about how he got shot. I say, damn man,
Speaker 4: that's boo on the news. What didn't happened?
Speaker 6: No night go on.
Speaker 4: About four o'clock in the morning, my mom came upstairs.
Speaker 4: She said, third of the police, won't you come downstairs?
Speaker 4: Go downstairs. So they were like, we need to speak
Speaker 4: to you. I'm looking at my mama, So she was like, all,
Speaker 4: let me go get dressed. They take me outside, put
Speaker 4: me in the car and drive off with take me
Speaker 4: over town interrogate. I was willing to talk to him.
Speaker 4: I don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: So it appears that either someone had falsely implicated Daryl,
Speaker 1: or perhaps his interrogators Riley and Shepherd, were lying to
Speaker 1: him about being implicated.
Speaker 4: I'm to the point where I'm mad, and I was like, well,
Speaker 4: go get him and tell him me to come in
Speaker 4: here and say it to my face. I don't know
Speaker 4: what the hell you talking about. It who you can
Speaker 4: check me for gunpowder? Man, I ain't shot nobody. So
Speaker 4: when they hear that, I see all types of people
Speaker 4: coming in and check my clothes, check my hair, check
Speaker 4: my face, checked my whole body. I told the techt
Speaker 4: the Spinner, because he came in the room while Riley
Speaker 4: and Shepherd was questioning me. I said, we was up
Speaker 4: there shooting Dice by the store. I know they got
Speaker 4: a surveillance camera in there. He radio police out there
Speaker 4: to go to the store. When he asks them people,
Speaker 4: he say, the lady was like, gave it the tape.
Speaker 1: Her name was Robin Raimie, rightyes.
Speaker 6: Air white woman.
Speaker 4: She told him everything that we was doing outside in
Speaker 4: stool at the time of the shooting, at the time
Speaker 4: of the shoot.
Speaker 5: And the detective when it got the tape.
Speaker 6: When it got the tape, what they do with the tape,
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 6: Detective spent On, tell him go. He ain't take him
Speaker 6: back home.
Speaker 4: My mom came back up there because she was mad
Speaker 4: because they drove off with me.
Speaker 6: You ain't got none to worry about with your son.
Speaker 1: They had to know you had a solid alibi. Gunshot
Speaker 1: residue test. I mean you're on.
Speaker 6: Video all white woman.
Speaker 1: A white woman, yes, a white woman. Over the course
Speaker 1: of the next three weeks, it seems like the police
Speaker 1: arrested or detained several individuals from the neighborhood, including Tory Davis,
Speaker 1: Clyde Dargan, and Terence Gibbons, who we mentioned was facing
Speaker 1: an attempted murder charge on none other than Nathaniel Pierce. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously that charge was known to the defense, but not
Speaker 1: Gibbons's other unrelated charges, nor were those that the other
Speaker 1: two alleged witnesses were facing, which it appears had been
Speaker 1: used to gather statements that were all later recanted, all
Speaker 1: of them. Now, interestingly, Terrence Gibbons had a cousin named
Speaker 1: Damian Claude who looked similar to one of the victims,
Speaker 1: and he and Daryl had had a previous beef.
Speaker 4: We had an incident, but the incident was him being
Speaker 4: the aggressor. We end up shaking hands and pawow, now
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. We had a full blown
Speaker 4: sit down with our parents. Our parents got involved, so
Speaker 4: his mom sent them off the job corp. Next time
Speaker 4: I know, they've been using him as a motive. They
Speaker 4: say that I was trying to kill him.
Speaker 1: And by August fourth, Tory Davis, Clyde Dargan, and Terrence
Speaker 1: Gibbons were willing to identify shooters from lineups, so the
Speaker 1: police picked up Darryl, Reginald and Nathaniel.
Speaker 5: If He came to the house to get me the post.
Speaker 5: They said, well, can we just talk to you for
Speaker 5: a minute. I said, y'all can talk to me right here.
Speaker 5: I said, do you got to want He said no,
Speaker 5: we don't got a wart. He said, well you coming
Speaker 5: right back? I said, coming right back? I ain't going
Speaker 5: nowhere with y'all. He said, yes, she is. They handcuffed me,
Speaker 5: but I wasn't underrest. If they just wanted to question me,
Speaker 5: why did they handcuff me? So I went down there
Speaker 5: and I told them everything that I'd done that day
Speaker 5: and where I was at. I had the little boy
Speaker 5: who life I was saved who was right there, who's
Speaker 5: seen the crime happen, and the detective, Charles Spinner, I'll
Speaker 5: never forget it. They called him Chucky. He told me, said,
Speaker 5: what you're telling me is the truth. I'm going to
Speaker 5: see that guy's mother right now, he said, And what
Speaker 5: you telling me is the truth. I'm gonna be back
Speaker 5: to get you. Man. I ain't never see him no more.
Speaker 5: I seen him in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: And we're going to come back to that encounter later.
Speaker 1: But it appears that if Spinner had spoken to that
Speaker 1: boy and his mother, any record of that is probably
Speaker 1: wherever the surveillance video went. So now, on the strength
Speaker 1: of cost and incentivized statements, the Virginia three were charged
Speaker 1: with one count of first degree murder, three counts of
Speaker 1: malicious maiming, as well as gun charges, and fifteen year
Speaker 1: old Darryl was going to be charged as an adult,
Speaker 1: but his older brother Nathaniel was tried first in January
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, where he was identified by Davis, Dargan,
Speaker 1: and Gibbons, all of whom unbeknownst to the defense Well
Speaker 1: it seems like they had various arrangements with the state.
Speaker 5: Those were the only three witnesses that come le've had
Speaker 5: against him?
Speaker 1: What was in your favor?
Speaker 5: I had it in my favor that I had a
Speaker 5: cast on my leg. All the perpetrators ran away from
Speaker 5: the crime scene.
Speaker 1: And that running element was a key piece of Darget's testimony,
Speaker 1: even though the cast made it literally impossible. And in addition,
Speaker 1: his attorney pointed out the unrelated charge that they did
Speaker 1: know about, that the attempted murder charges against Gibbons had
Speaker 1: curiously been dropped by the time of his testimony. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 1: the defense could not find that thirteen year old boy
Speaker 1: whom Nathaniel had saved, and it appears that the detectives
Speaker 1: hadn't even tried. Certainly his testimony would have made a huge.
Speaker 5: Difference when it came back with the verdict. It was
Speaker 5: like nine oh four at night. I had been sitting
Speaker 5: out in a bullpen for hours. I just knew, I
Speaker 5: believe the shots said go, don't keep you closed on.
Speaker 5: You'd be going in a few minutes. Everybody in the
Speaker 5: courtroom knew I won. They had nothing on me. Literally,
Speaker 5: everything that they said was a lot. They'd come back
Speaker 5: with a couple of hot sauce, a piece of chicken,
Speaker 5: a Coca Cola and a life sentence plus seventy eight
Speaker 5: years and sixty days and sent me.
Speaker 1: To prison life plus seventy eight years and sixty days
Speaker 1: and sixty days and sixty days. Apparently he had missed
Speaker 1: the court date related to Gibbons' attempted murder proceedings. Now,
Speaker 1: perhaps they were trying to give the appearance that the
Speaker 1: drop charges were related only to that, even though Nathaniel
Speaker 1: could not have been there because he was in custody
Speaker 1: at the time for a driving charge.
Speaker 5: Was ready in jail, so I could I a miscought
Speaker 5: and if I'm already in your custody, they gave me
Speaker 5: sixty days for that too. I looked back at my mother.
Speaker 5: She's like, May I couldn't cry because I know I
Speaker 5: hadn't killed nobody.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Darryl, who had been granted bond, had chosen to
Speaker 1: stay in pretrial's attention.
Speaker 4: At first, I was like, don't waste no more money
Speaker 4: because I ain't do nothing. We gonna beat it because
Speaker 4: we had three of the best lawyers and known in
Speaker 4: our city.
Speaker 6: So I'm thinking I'm going home.
Speaker 4: When they found him guilty, I read it the paper
Speaker 4: to common well talking in the paper and they were like,
Speaker 4: we coming to get his little brother, Daryl Hunter.
Speaker 6: Next. I'm like, oh my god. When I read that,
Speaker 6: come and get me out on bond expeditiously. I'm scared.
Speaker 6: I'm like, man, y'all gotta come get me.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 4: You know, I turned into a little kid there. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, Like, y'all, I gotta do that.
Speaker 4: My mom and dad came and bailed me out.
Speaker 1: And then he went to trial next. Yeah, I went
Speaker 1: to trial next, and you had a bench trial.
Speaker 6: My lawyer told me to a jury, I can beat
Speaker 6: the jury.
Speaker 4: But I was like, oh uh, Joel, I want to
Speaker 4: I don't want no people to come here because there
Speaker 4: might be some people that know the people. That's what
Speaker 4: my mind thinking. I want to do it. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: take him. I think that was a bad mistake for
Speaker 4: me to.
Speaker 1: Do Again, the state presented Clyde Dargan, who only identified
Speaker 1: Nathaniel as he ran away from the scene, never mind
Speaker 1: the cast on his leg, but the judge credited his
Speaker 1: testimony anyway. Then Terence Gibbons identified all three of them,
Speaker 1: but was discredited with the dropped attempted murder charge. This time,
Speaker 1: one of the victims in this case, Maurice Johnson, testified
Speaker 1: to something that no one else had ever said. He
Speaker 1: testified that Daryl stood over him and fired. However, he
Speaker 1: was contradicted by the physical evidence because no shell casings
Speaker 1: were found where he was recovered by first responders. And finally,
Speaker 1: Tory Davis said that he was standing across the street
Speaker 1: at the gas pump and identified all three.
Speaker 4: The judge wanted to go to the crime saying he
Speaker 4: wanted to see what he witnessed the city was standing
Speaker 4: at would he said, he's seeing me from he went
Speaker 4: out there and say, well, I can see from grossy
Speaker 4: streets if I've seen put the deputy over there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think I can identify somebody if I already knew
Speaker 4: he was fixed for.
Speaker 1: So despite the testimony of Robin Raymie, the Texico cashier
Speaker 1: placing Darryl and Reginalds uptown, the judge credited Davis at Dargan.
Speaker 4: It was just tragedy, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 4: I ain't even get to make it a high school.
Speaker 4: I ain't get to spurns none of that, Like no
Speaker 4: prom no nothing. And I had to grow up over
Speaker 4: the phone listen to my friends. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: grow up and what happened in school today? That was
Speaker 4: like interested in me.
Speaker 1: What was your sentence?
Speaker 6: It gave me one hundred and twelve.
Speaker 1: Years at fifteen years old.
Speaker 6: I was sixteen, just turned sixteen.
Speaker 1: One hundred and twelve years. What even is that? And
Speaker 1: no other country in the world does it this way.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe North Korea, I don't know, but so regularly.
Speaker 1: You were the last of the three to go to trial. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: obviously you were very well aware of what had happened.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I was devastated and then I felt like I
Speaker 3: don't have a chance.
Speaker 2: I had a jelly trial. My trial last three days.
Speaker 3: So the deputy during the time was in listening and
Speaker 3: he said, you might got a great shot. I won't
Speaker 3: say they got found guilty. The evidence that they was presenting.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But again, Dargan only I d Nathaniel with his running story.
Speaker 1: Gibbons id'd all of them, but was again impeached, And
Speaker 1: this time Davis said that the Commonwealth told him what
Speaker 1: to say and that his eyesight was twenty fifty. But
Speaker 1: even with that and the alibi testimony, of Robin Raimi.
Speaker 1: Somehow regimen was still found guilty.
Speaker 3: So after the guilty verdict, I sat there for a second.
Speaker 3: I wasn't in disbelief about it because my other two
Speaker 3: brothers had already been found guilty. But not only did
Speaker 3: they drag us down and found us guilty, but my
Speaker 3: father caught a case behind this as well.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: All he said was that's not fair, my son is innocent.
Speaker 3: But he took his words in and said that my
Speaker 3: father had threatened the witnesses after the jury had found
Speaker 3: me guilty.
Speaker 2: See which was it? Lie?
Speaker 1: Was your father convicted? No, sir, they meant to that.
Speaker 2: He just got community service. But he shouldn't have had nothing.
Speaker 1: What was your sentence?
Speaker 2: I had seventy eight years?
Speaker 1: Seventy eight years.
Speaker 3: Yes, I had a daughter at the time. She was
Speaker 3: only four months so for me to leave her in
Speaker 3: the world alone and deal with the prison system, it
Speaker 3: didn't sept with with me. For like twenty four and
Speaker 3: a half years. I cried almost every night.
Speaker 7: We lost everything for nothing.
Speaker 5: I went to prison with life in seventy eight years
Speaker 5: and sixty days. I got there around three something in
Speaker 5: the morning. It was so cold outside. They told me
Speaker 5: to take off all my clothes. They put some shampoo
Speaker 5: in my head and sprayed me down with a holes
Speaker 5: like they have on the fire truck. They gave me
Speaker 5: a blanket and took me to a seal. I knew
Speaker 5: my life and changed in it really messed with me
Speaker 5: because I hadn't done nothing. I'm around all these dangerous peoples,
Speaker 5: so I had to adapt.
Speaker 6: Prison was hard. I got pressed a lot in it,
Speaker 6: but it ain't no chump.
Speaker 4: It was like I might got to punch you in
Speaker 4: your face with staring at me too long or something,
Speaker 4: just to make a statement because I'm one hundred.
Speaker 2: Pounds, you innocent and you're around. Somebody liked that.
Speaker 3: I actually pretend like I was guilty. Could it asks
Speaker 3: you what you're here for? What did you do? So
Speaker 3: I used that a little bit to get through the time,
Speaker 3: and also present letters, write letters every day for help.
Speaker 3: I took programs a lot of different type of trays
Speaker 3: to put myself in a position to be able to
Speaker 3: get early parole. Well, at least I thought I was
Speaker 3: a gett early parole because I know I believe that
Speaker 3: I could be in prison for twenty four and a half.
Speaker 1: Years, especially since right after Reginald's conviction, Nathaniel was granted
Speaker 1: a new trial and direct appeal. It was discovered that
Speaker 1: Clyde Dargan's history as an informant was hidden from the defense. However,
Speaker 1: Nathaniel was once again found guilty in nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: on Dargan's testimony. Since that time, evidence of Dargan's relationship
Speaker 1: with police was revealed to include offerings of testimony true
Speaker 1: or false, as well as a cut of his drug
Speaker 1: money in exchange for freedom on a leash, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But that's not all that the Virginia Three discovered, considering
Speaker 1: that they ran into other guys in prison whom they'd
Speaker 1: known since they had moved with their parents to Newport News.
Speaker 4: Soon as I moved in the neighborhood, a lot of
Speaker 4: hate and envies. Thought it come in my way, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, juvenile stuff. I was always wondering
Speaker 4: why what did I do? Because my dad was in
Speaker 4: the shipyard in the military my whole life. I asked
Speaker 4: one of the dudes that I grew up with. I say, man,
Speaker 4: why dude, low me? He say, Man, I'm gonna tell.
Speaker 7: You the truth.
Speaker 4: Because you had a daddy I say what, So dudes said, man,
Speaker 4: your daddy brought your shoes or Friday bro.
Speaker 1: So they were jealous, jealous. The first of the recantations
Speaker 1: came in two thousand and seven from Terrence Gibbons, saying
Speaker 1: that he was coerced by others to lie, and it
Speaker 1: was discovered that in addition to his attempted murder, chargers
Speaker 1: being dropped, nine ounces of cocaine possession went away as well.
Speaker 1: And maybe it was this recantation, but something prompted Detective
Speaker 1: Spinner to visit Nathaniel Pierce in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 5: Two thousand and eight, he came to South having correction
Speaker 5: on Centay to see me. I ain't know who's visiting,
Speaker 5: so I go over there and he's standing there. They
Speaker 5: had me handcuffed. The lieutenant took the handcuffs home. He said,
Speaker 5: they don't want you handcoff because they never let you
Speaker 5: go in there with the police without handcuffs on. He said,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, Spinner. He told me he was sorry. He said,
Speaker 5: I'll be about to get you with the Fridays. We're
Speaker 5: gonna get all this straight.
Speaker 1: Did he have like a religious awakening or why the
Speaker 1: hell did he come in and come clean to you.
Speaker 5: Why he went home and died that weekend. Did he
Speaker 5: look sick, Yeah, he was a little skinnier.
Speaker 1: So maybe he knew he was dying and want to
Speaker 1: get ready with good and fest is up to you.
Speaker 1: But there's no recording of that meeting. Obviously right now
Speaker 1: they recorded.
Speaker 5: But I can prove that he can't even see me.
Speaker 5: And I got a couple letters from him and Howard Gwinn.
Speaker 5: Howard Gwinn had sent me a letter like three weeks
Speaker 5: ahead and say, yeah, he now works for me. This
Speaker 5: is what they do. They reopened the case up. They
Speaker 5: put a detective, her name is Misty Mercer on the case.
Speaker 5: I'd never seen her. I never heard from her. I
Speaker 5: never talked to her. Neither one of them never talked
Speaker 5: to her. Nevertheless, the common with attorney, I kept writing
Speaker 5: them and writing them. He kept asking me for my evidence.
Speaker 5: He concocted the story. They have people to say we've
Speaker 5: done things that he knew we didn't do.
Speaker 1: According to Tory, Davis, who had already admitted at Reginald's
Speaker 1: trial that his vision was very poor. This is part
Speaker 1: of his twenty sixteen recantation, said that after he was
Speaker 1: arrested on unrelated drug charges in nineteen ninety four. Spinner
Speaker 1: brought him to Gwynn's office, where he was fed the
Speaker 1: narrative and in exchange for his testimony, that his charges
Speaker 1: would be dropped. Damien Claude also recanted, saying that the
Speaker 1: whole motive about his prior beef with Daryl was actually nonsense.
Speaker 1: It was bogus. And lastly, Clyde Dargan made a dying
Speaker 1: declaration recanting and admitting his cozy relationship with Newport News police. Additionally,
Speaker 1: his wife and mother in law added that Clyde had
Speaker 1: not witnessed the shooting at all. And Nathaniel was also
Speaker 1: able to reach the thirteen year old boy who he'd
Speaker 1: help save all those years ago.
Speaker 5: After twenty three years one of my friends got out.
Speaker 5: I said, man, could you go around there and get
Speaker 5: the address. I'm gonna try to write to his mother
Speaker 5: and tell her I say this his life. He wouldn't
Speaker 5: there and got the address, but it wasn't the right address,
Speaker 5: so I put a picture in there with the letter.
Speaker 5: It went to the wrong house. Just so happened. Somehow
Speaker 5: somebody opened the mail, read the letter and take it
Speaker 5: to this lady the boy and mother called the news
Speaker 5: after she read my letter and asked her son, did
Speaker 5: somebody ever save your life? He said, yeah Muchie.
Speaker 1: Local News three, specifically WTKRS. Breonna Berry interviewed the boy,
Speaker 1: who is now a man, who asked that his identity
Speaker 1: be hidden as the shooters were still at large, and
Speaker 1: he described being chased by one of them before Nathaniel
Speaker 1: had heroically brought him to safety.
Speaker 5: Before the story aired, I had an opportunity on February
Speaker 5: twenty seventh, twenty eighteen, to speak with Adrian Bennett. She
Speaker 5: came to see me.
Speaker 1: The head of the parole board. Adrian Bennett had already
Speaker 1: received the parole package from Nathaniel and she was now
Speaker 1: aware of the News three coverage and she paid Nathaniel
Speaker 1: to visit.
Speaker 5: And she told me. She said, I've seen Reginald a
Speaker 5: couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: He's doing good.
Speaker 5: I say yeah, I say, miss Bennett, I say, you
Speaker 5: know from the package that I sent you. I said,
Speaker 5: you had an opportunity to view it, to read did
Speaker 5: and everything. She said, Well, what I'm gonna do for you,
Speaker 5: I'm going to to murder victim's mother. That lady told
Speaker 5: her everything She wanted to hear that we didn't do
Speaker 5: the crime, and she didn't know what to do after
Speaker 5: we were sent to prison.
Speaker 1: The murder victim's mother she told Adrian Bennett, who is
Speaker 1: the head of the parole board, she knew we.
Speaker 5: Didn't kill her son, and Adrian she knowed the story
Speaker 5: is going to air on the news the next day.
Speaker 5: Before the story ed, Reginald got paroleed.
Speaker 1: All three men received support for their parole from the
Speaker 1: Radical Hope Project, and Reginald was the first to be
Speaker 1: released on February twenty eighth of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: So the first thing I done is kissed the ground,
Speaker 2: looked up in the sky. Thank you.
Speaker 3: It was a blessing, a dream come true. It took
Speaker 3: twenty four a half years, but that was a feeling
Speaker 3: that I can't never ever forget. I ended up getting
Speaker 3: car sick because I haven't rolled in the car for
Speaker 3: so long. I wasn't used to the air. The air
Speaker 3: and society is diffrom the air. This in prison, I've
Speaker 3: been going so long. I had to get readapted all
Speaker 3: over again to society.
Speaker 1: And while Reginald began that journey, there were still two
Speaker 1: more men to go as far as I can recall,
Speaker 1: I was in Virginia to walk Lenny Singleton out of prison,
Speaker 1: and then I met that reporter there, Brionna Barry, and
Speaker 1: she told me about you guys, and that's the first
Speaker 1: time I had heard about it, and I had cultivated
Speaker 1: a relationship with the powers that be in Virginia.
Speaker 4: Oh so that's how you and up sending the email back.
Speaker 5: God sent me to you, Jason Flom. I told you
Speaker 5: my story. You listen to me. I wrote you here
Speaker 5: I am on today. I thank you for doing everything
Speaker 5: you're done for me. The Virginia three he went to
Speaker 5: the parole board. He spoke to them for me. I
Speaker 5: had opportunity to speak with them. We're all grateful for him.
Speaker 1: Nathaniel was finally granted parol in December of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5: I lost so much in prison. I lost out on
Speaker 5: my kids life because everybody had told them Eliza about me,
Speaker 5: and they had looked at me as I was a murderer.
Speaker 5: And it's hard to date for me to stand there
Speaker 5: with my kids and they don't look at me that way.
Speaker 5: I don't know now, man that goes to prison, that
Speaker 5: comes out here that can tell you that he's mentally stable.
Speaker 5: They sending us right back out here to society without
Speaker 5: giving us the problem.
Speaker 6: Help.
Speaker 5: You're not coming back out there the same way you
Speaker 5: went in. And then they seen you right back out
Speaker 5: here for resitivist. I had an officer tell me that.
Speaker 5: He said, I see you back. I seen him not
Speaker 5: too long ago. He bowed down to me. He bowed
Speaker 5: down to me. He said, I never believed you. He said,
Speaker 5: you're right here. He said, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Darryl's release soon followed. In July of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: They try to plan a knife on me. A couple
Speaker 4: of days before that. Wow, they kicked in the sell.
Speaker 4: I'm in the park where everybody got a least dating
Speaker 4: the pod. They come in and they go in the
Speaker 4: ventilation system. They pull out something about this long and
Speaker 4: I said, well, I ain't man. I'm gonna go home.
Speaker 4: You know that, right, I'm gonna go home. Like a
Speaker 4: couple of days, I'm on the damn TV. What the
Speaker 4: hell I need a knife? They was like, you don't
Speaker 4: do another news and interview. I think you had some
Speaker 4: people calling me and hit me up or something. It
Speaker 4: was something that I saw. They was emailing me and
Speaker 4: everything Dateline, Night Line one of them, and they was
Speaker 4: asking for interviews and they was like, I was like.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna hear him out. I'm gonna hear him out.
Speaker 4: And they came, this is yours right, like, nah, so
Speaker 4: you're gonna do an interview. I was like, what you mean? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do an interview every chance I get. Well,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be your knife. So you want to go home.
Speaker 1: What was the first thing you did when you got
Speaker 1: out barrow?
Speaker 6: Everything?
Speaker 4: Life has been beautiful, you know, it's except just losing
Speaker 4: my father and my brother.
Speaker 6: Because when I got out, I don't even know.
Speaker 4: My dad had to mention I ain't no because he
Speaker 4: was talking like he knew what was going on. So
Speaker 4: to have somebody to take care of you like that
Speaker 4: all your life. I'm talking about all the way util
Speaker 4: we walked out of the door, my dad held us down
Speaker 4: like it was mind bogging for me. Like I think
Speaker 4: about it all the time, like, damn, man got a
Speaker 4: good ass dad.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 4: We you know what I'm saying. The man send his
Speaker 4: money every week, you know, while we was in there.
Speaker 4: So that breaks me down sometime when I think about it,
Speaker 4: like cause I ain't got them no.
Speaker 1: More right Apparently, their father Nathaniel, uncle Clarence, and their
Speaker 1: brother Raymond, among so many other family members who are
Speaker 1: still with us, like their sister Belinda, their mothers well,
Speaker 1: they all had really stepped up for them throughout the
Speaker 1: entire ordeal, helping with attorney's fees, with Nathaniel's kids, whatever
Speaker 1: they needed. So the passing of these three family members
Speaker 1: is all the more painful as a result. We're gonna
Speaker 1: dedicate this episode to them. May they rest in peace
Speaker 1: and power. But the story isn't over yet because even
Speaker 1: though they've been paroled, the This Is Project took up
Speaker 1: the cause of clearing all of their names.
Speaker 4: All the evidence that the Innocent Project got right now,
Speaker 4: they hit all this stuff, this show that we completely
Speaker 4: innocent and all the stuff that were all deceived the
Speaker 4: court with lies and they knew that we didn't have
Speaker 4: nothing to do with it because they told them what
Speaker 4: to say against us, Like you had the truth, you
Speaker 4: had all the shell cases. It's four different guns, you
Speaker 4: only locked up three.
Speaker 1: There are shellcasings and weapons that could and should be
Speaker 1: tested for DNA, as well as more witnesses who have
Speaker 1: come forward who could shed light on what was known
Speaker 1: about the actual shooters, and maybe even more importantly, what
Speaker 1: was hidden.
Speaker 5: And it's been happening and continually happened. This is a
Speaker 5: pattern of Keith Haywood, David Boyse. All of these people
Speaker 5: have the same crime, the same detectives, everything, the same
Speaker 5: commonwealth and it's going to continue to be in the
Speaker 5: same cycle if somebody don't break the chain.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, Howard Gwynn was recently defeated in the Democratic primary
Speaker 1: by Shannon Jones, and we here at Wrongful Conviction are
Speaker 1: all hoping that this is a positive development as we
Speaker 1: move forward in this case, justice cannot be delayed any longer.
Speaker 1: These guys are innocent and they deserve to have their
Speaker 1: names cleared. And now we're going to go to my
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show, closing arguments, where I'm going
Speaker 1: to turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair
Speaker 1: and let you guys share any other thoughts that you
Speaker 1: may have. And again, thank you for being here. It's
Speaker 1: sorry for everything you guys went through. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: we're finally going to get your story out there to
Speaker 1: the world the way it should have been told in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 3: Reginald, I want to give a special thanks to Jason
Speaker 3: Flumm his whole team having no Gian three out to
Speaker 3: aari story, and also to all the running conviction that
Speaker 3: goes on all over the world. It's said that it
Speaker 3: happens well thanks to social media. It is dead time
Speaker 3: to shed a light on that type of justice, not
Speaker 3: just in Virginia but all over.
Speaker 2: It needs to stop.
Speaker 3: Thank y'all once again for believing in the Virginia Three
Speaker 3: in other cases as well.
Speaker 5: Nathan Yel, I just want to thank Jason Flom, Kevin Connor,
Speaker 5: you guys for everything that y'all have done for us.
Speaker 5: And I'm grateful and I'm humbled that the guys have
Speaker 5: done what they've done. The witnesses that came forward to
Speaker 5: do what they're supposed to do, then get these convictions
Speaker 5: up off of us. You know, you always heard that
Speaker 5: trouble is easy to get it, but hard to get out.
Speaker 5: It's true. It's been thirty years we've been dealing with
Speaker 5: this situation, and I just pray that it's over real soon.
Speaker 5: I just want to thank my wife. I thank you
Speaker 5: for doing everything you've done for me. I really think
Speaker 5: everybody that has been there for the Virginia Three that
Speaker 5: has followed the Virginia Three that know the Virginia three story, Jason,
Speaker 5: all the guys here wrong for Conviction, our lawyer, John
Speaker 5: love It, Joe Maroon take those two. Thank you everybody
Speaker 5: and Daryl.
Speaker 4: Now, I just want to thank everybody that would you know,
Speaker 4: helped to lease the speed as an advocate down there
Speaker 4: in Virginia.
Speaker 6: That helps a lot of people.
Speaker 4: Brianna Barry, the National Action Network, brotheren Tooms, Mister Archie,
Speaker 4: Jason Flume, Benjamin Crump, everybody that came along and spoke
Speaker 4: up on it and spoke for us. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, Like it takes a whole lot of people,
Speaker 4: you know, to come together to make something like this happen.
Speaker 4: You know, me being locked up at fifteen years old
Speaker 4: like that was a I hope this can register to
Speaker 4: some people out there so we can stop this type
Speaker 4: of stuff, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: That's that's that's basically it. And I just want to thank.
Speaker 4: Everybody that was involved, Joe, Ron John, my lawyer, John
Speaker 4: love It, everybody that's coming together for the one cause.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Conviction. You can listen to
Speaker 1: this and all the lava for good podcasts one week
Speaker 1: early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good
Speaker 1: plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Plomm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 5: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 5: in this show are accurate.
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
Speaker 2: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
Speaker 2: those of Lava for Good.