Speaker 1: Last time on ear witness.
Speaker 2: Short and Tony Rich and Jeff got a shriff's office.
Speaker 2: I'm at the Sheriff's office headquarters along with Yorlanda Michelle Chambers.
Speaker 3: Yolanda was reluctant. She didn't want to talk. Okay, now,
Speaker 3: you mentioned to me that you heard what you thought
Speaker 3: was three shots.
Speaker 4: But when we heard that, we were like, we know
Speaker 4: what it was.
Speaker 3: We had to keep at her and we had to pull.
Speaker 5: Like polite Carlo jumping man's gold.
Speaker 4: It's cold.
Speaker 2: It's cold, you know, Yelanda, we need this, and sometimes
Speaker 2: we'd have to be stern, you know, and firm trying
Speaker 2: to shake her.
Speaker 6: You know, did he have anything on his hand that
Speaker 6: you told me?
Speaker 4: Blood? Blood?
Speaker 3: Sometimes we'd have to be soft.
Speaker 4: What you have already told me during the times that
Speaker 4: I have interviewed you, is that the truth?
Speaker 3: Whatever were to get this information out of her, No,
Speaker 3: it's not the truth.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 4: So what she's saying she would live and I would live.
Speaker 3: That's a life.
Speaker 4: That's a that's a shame.
Speaker 2: I believe everything Lena told me, No, Helma, Helna. But
Speaker 2: Yolanda told a lot of truth. Why she was trying
Speaker 2: to hide it by telling lies.
Speaker 1: What did it say again?
Speaker 2: Aia a Foura Ivan Oak Street up a dirt road
Speaker 2: toward the beginning of the Power of Arms.
Speaker 1: My producer Marra and I are in Bessemer, a suburb
Speaker 1: west of Birmingham. This back road is remote, no houses
Speaker 1: or businesses nearby, just undeveloped land stretching under a bright
Speaker 1: blue sky.
Speaker 3: I bet it was this.
Speaker 1: There's a dirt path underneath a stretch of power lines
Speaker 1: that cuts through dense, overgrown shrubbery. I wonder if she
Speaker 1: how far down the dirt road she was.
Speaker 5: Oh, it was kind of pretty back here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing remarkable about this spot. It's a place
Speaker 1: you'd drive past and not even notice. But this is
Speaker 1: where on Valentine's Day of two thousand and nine, some
Speaker 1: people writing four wheelers found the body of Yolanda Chambers.
Speaker 1: I'm still not really sure why I wanted to come
Speaker 1: here or what I was hoping to learn. I just
Speaker 1: felt like I needed to see it. There are no
Speaker 1: clues here about what happened to Yolanda Chambers, why she
Speaker 1: was killed, or who did it. After the investigation into
Speaker 1: Deputy Bill Hardy's murder ended, Yolanda would continue to work
Speaker 1: with police as an informant, and that ongoing contact with
Speaker 1: law enforcement may have contributed to her murder.
Speaker 5: Do you he my man.
Speaker 8: Lab Hads, my Fy Sousa in this.
Speaker 5: O tears? I want to.
Speaker 8: See a reblation.
Speaker 5: I want to know who you am reation in this
Speaker 5: inspiration to the word who's holding stup udo, who's holding stand?
Speaker 1: I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness, Chapter three, Police Girl.
Speaker 3: I'd like to talk about Yolanda.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: I've talked to Detective Tony Richardson for over seven hours
Speaker 1: about this case, and he uses a certain adjective to
Speaker 1: describe Yolanda Chambers over and over again.
Speaker 3: She was street small, you remember, I say Yolanda was
Speaker 3: very street wise, street wise.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, if you ever met her fifteen years old,
Speaker 2: she knew more about the street than I did.
Speaker 1: The Dictionary definition of street smart or street wise is
Speaker 1: a shrewd awareness of how to survive based on living
Speaker 1: a difficult life. But Yolanda was just fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Detective Tony Richardson questioned Yolanda at least twenty five times
Speaker 1: when he led the investigation into Deputy Harty's murder. Most
Speaker 1: key witnesses and murder investigations are questioned a few times,
Speaker 1: but twenty five that many police interviews is almost unheard of.
Speaker 1: And throughout these interviews, Yolanda changed her story about the
Speaker 1: night of the murder hundreds of times. Research shows that
Speaker 1: child witnesses are more easily influenced by police intimidation than adults,
Speaker 1: and children entangled in criminal cases also face more adverse
Speaker 1: psychological consequences. But knowing all this, I still wondered what
Speaker 1: exactly was going on that made Yolanda change her story
Speaker 1: so many times. Do you get nervous, like knocking on
Speaker 1: somebody's door unannounced?
Speaker 2: I think so, yeah, just because I don't want to
Speaker 2: like freak people out.
Speaker 6: I know that I wouldn't feel weird.
Speaker 1: Marra and I went on a drive searching for the
Speaker 1: one person we knew of who could give us a
Speaker 1: fuller picture of Yolanda Chambers life, someone who has never
Speaker 1: spoken publicly about this case, the person who got Yolanda
Speaker 1: involved with police in the first place.
Speaker 9: Hey, we're looking for miss Rosa Hardy her mom.
Speaker 1: Can we talk to you for just a second.
Speaker 10: My name is Beth, I'm a journalist and this is Mara,
Speaker 10: and we're working on a project about Deputy Bill Hardy,
Speaker 10: and we're hoping to talk to you.
Speaker 1: We pull up to a low rise apartment complex in Huntsville,
Speaker 1: two hours north of Birmingham. Outside the first floor apartment,
Speaker 1: we see big pots of alo vera plants and leafy
Speaker 1: elephant ears. The front door is open, and through the
Speaker 1: screen door we see a woman wearing a blue dress
Speaker 1: sitting on an overstuffed leather couch, almost like she's waiting
Speaker 1: for us to arrive.
Speaker 4: Hey, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to just show up unannounced, but we didn't have.
Speaker 4: A known er. I understand because when that happened, I
Speaker 4: was living in Birmingham, and since then I lived in Cincinnati.
Speaker 11: Forgive me.
Speaker 12: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Rosa lets us into her tidy apartment. There's a painted
Speaker 1: wooden sign on the wall that says there is always, always,
Speaker 1: always something to be thankful for, and a paper program
Speaker 1: from Yolanda's funeral sits on the coffee table next to
Speaker 1: framed family photos. Well, I appreciate you letting us in,
Speaker 1: just a showing up unannounced, but we're, like I said,
Speaker 1: working on a project about Deputy Bill Hardy's murder, and
Speaker 1: so we were just reaching out to people that knew
Speaker 1: him and wondered, you know, if you could share anything
Speaker 1: about him that you knew. Y'all's relationship, well, I met
Speaker 1: him through his wife, Diane. Even though Rosa and Deputy
Speaker 1: Bill Hardy share a last name, they aren't related. Patricia
Speaker 1: Diane Hardy is Bill Hardy's widow. Rosa sometimes refers to
Speaker 1: her as pat but mostly calls her Diane.
Speaker 4: Anne and all of us we grew up together in
Speaker 4: Selma because her mom used to do our hair. My
Speaker 4: mother had three girls and three boys, and her mother,
Speaker 4: Miss Belly, she did our hair every two weeks, so
Speaker 4: we were friends.
Speaker 1: Rosa and Patricia both eventually moved to Birmingham, where Patricia
Speaker 1: marries Bill Hardy and they all remain close friends.
Speaker 4: I and I talked all the time on the phone,
Speaker 4: but after that happened and Yolando was involved, she kind
Speaker 4: of shout away from me, I don't know why you know?
Speaker 1: And then how did your daughter get wrapped up?
Speaker 3: Okay the case, let me tell you what happened.
Speaker 4: I gotta tell you everything because I'm not a liar,
Speaker 4: so I gotta tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: Rosa begins by going way back to the first time
Speaker 1: she and Yolanda were separated, when Rosa was arrested and
Speaker 1: charged with drug possession.
Speaker 4: And I ended up catching a case going It took.
Speaker 1: While Julia Touttweiler Prison for Women is the only maximum
Speaker 1: security women's prison in Alabama. Rosa pleaded guilty and was
Speaker 1: sent there for three years. During this time, eight year
Speaker 1: old Yolanda went to live with Rosa's mother and Selma.
Speaker 1: When Rosa was released in nineteen ninety one, Yolanda told
Speaker 1: her that she'd been sexually abused by a neighbor.
Speaker 4: She said, this guy there used to molest her. My
Speaker 4: mom would have him to come over and help her
Speaker 4: with her homework, and he molested her. So when I
Speaker 4: got back mentally, she was all messed up.
Speaker 1: Yolanda was twelve years old, and.
Speaker 4: It was a rock between a hard place because my
Speaker 4: mother said it didn't happen. But I told my mother
Speaker 4: these exact words. I said, I wasn't there to protect
Speaker 4: my daughter, and if she told me something happened to her,
Speaker 4: I believe it. But then after that, you know, she
Speaker 4: would run away from me A lot after I came
Speaker 4: home from prison. She would run away and I ended
Speaker 4: up letting mistake at her because I was nervous about
Speaker 4: it when she ended up in Falster tear and when
Speaker 4: she would go to Falster caere she will run away.
Speaker 1: When she's fourteen years old, Yolanda is hospitalized after attempting
Speaker 1: suicide and receives a few months of counseling, and then
Speaker 1: the next year, when she's fifteen years old, Yolanda officially
Speaker 1: becomes a ward of the state, living full time and
Speaker 1: foster care and group homes. The state is supposed to
Speaker 1: be in charge of her care, but according to an
Speaker 1: assessment ordered by a county social worker, they don't know
Speaker 1: where she is for several months that summer. On the
Speaker 1: night of Hardy's murder, Yolanda is staying with a friend
Speaker 1: at the apartment where to Forrest Johnson and ardregas Ford
Speaker 1: pick her up around two in the morning. A few
Speaker 1: hours later, police stop them at the Super eight motel
Speaker 1: and tell them they're looking into the murder of a
Speaker 1: police officer.
Speaker 4: So when I talked to her the next day, I
Speaker 4: was employed at Adamson Ford.
Speaker 3: I was the receptionist there.
Speaker 1: When Rosa gets to work that day, she reads in
Speaker 1: the newspaper that their family friend, Deputy Bill Hardy, has
Speaker 1: been shot and killed. A little while later, she gets
Speaker 1: a call from Yolanda, so you know, last.
Speaker 4: Night someone killed Bill over at the hotel because he
Speaker 4: was moonlight and over there, and leads for her exact words,
Speaker 4: she's a mommy, I know who did? I say?
Speaker 3: You do?
Speaker 1: Rosa says. Yolanda didn't give her names. But after the call,
Speaker 1: Rosa tells a police officer that her daughter has information
Speaker 1: about the murder.
Speaker 4: Because I just felt like I owed that to you know,
Speaker 4: like I say, we were good friends. We weren't strangers,
Speaker 4: and we grew up together in Sell and I just
Speaker 4: felt like, you know, I should have. I was supposed
Speaker 4: to let somebody know.
Speaker 1: Sometime after talking with police, Rosa hires an attorney to
Speaker 1: pursue the twenty thousand dollars in reward money.
Speaker 3: Was she ever.
Speaker 4: Compensated for them? No, And I thought that after I
Speaker 4: had told them, because they did say, you know, there
Speaker 4: was some compensation.
Speaker 3: They never did give me nothing.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement rewards are set up to entice people in
Speaker 1: tough financial situations, people like Rosa and Yolanda. Police say
Speaker 1: rewards are necessary to penetrate the culture of silence and
Speaker 1: communities impacted by crime, but they can also be a
Speaker 1: means to manipulate because it's up to police to decide
Speaker 1: whether the information is valuable enough to merit the reward.
Speaker 1: That means detectives can dangle the money while they work
Speaker 1: with witnesses, but then choose to never pay it. To
Speaker 1: state the obvious, Yolanda is extremely vulnerable when detectives first
Speaker 1: bring her in for questioning. In a clinical analysis she
Speaker 1: underwent that year, a psychologist wrote that Yolanda was friendly
Speaker 1: and outgoing, but could also be verbally aggressive and manipulative.
Speaker 1: She also observed that Yolanda was attention seeking, especially with men.
Speaker 1: For over a year, detectives question Yolanda at different foster
Speaker 1: homes and shelters, sometimes pulling her out of class, a
Speaker 1: pattern that frustrated Yolanda because she was trying to get
Speaker 1: her ged. It seems like police were really relentless with her.
Speaker 4: They were, they were, and she would call me each
Speaker 4: day when she would be away. She said, Mama, they
Speaker 4: coming again today. I said for what she said, I
Speaker 4: don't know, Mama. Do you think that they pressured her?
Speaker 4: Sure they did, Sure they did. What you got for
Speaker 4: is You've got to tell us something. I remember saying that.
Speaker 4: She just told me, Mama, you shouldn't even say in anything.
Speaker 4: Those were her words all the time.
Speaker 1: Yolanda's statements about the night Deputy Hardy was murdered lead
Speaker 1: to four people charged with capital murder, including to Forrest
Speaker 1: Johnson and ardregas Ford. But because Yolanda keeps changing her story,
Speaker 1: in the fall of nineteen ninety six, ardregas Ford's attorney,
Speaker 1: Richard Jaffey asks for a hearing. He wants to examine
Speaker 1: Yolanda's testimony and competency as a witness. The transcript from
Speaker 1: this hearing is extraordinary, so we asked actors to read
Speaker 1: for Judge Alfred Bayhackle and Yolanda Chambers. Richard Jaffey agreed
Speaker 1: to read his own words. The hearing begins, Yolanda takes
Speaker 1: the stand and is sworn in. Richard Jaffey starts by
Speaker 1: asking her why she keeps changing her story.
Speaker 13: Were you there at the Crown Starling, No, sir, you
Speaker 13: were not there. No, sir, what made you change your
Speaker 13: mind and say and lie and say you were there?
Speaker 7: Because the pressure they was telling me, you know, don't
Speaker 7: you know you can go to jail for this, and
Speaker 7: that's all I was thinking. That's all I had on
Speaker 7: my mind. Jail. I don't want to go, and you know,
Speaker 7: they was just telling me, you know you was there.
Speaker 7: You know we can find out evidence that she was there,
Speaker 7: and just all the pressure that was put on me.
Speaker 7: So after they was putting all the pressure on me,
Speaker 7: I went on and said I was there. I said,
Speaker 7: maybe if I go on and say I was there,
Speaker 7: maybe all the threats and everything will end about me
Speaker 7: going to jail as a juvenile.
Speaker 1: At this point in time, Yolanda has testified in front
Speaker 1: of the grand jury and at multiple pre trial hearings.
Speaker 1: She has also missed one important court date. Judge Bae
Speaker 1: Hackle questions her directly.
Speaker 11: And which hearing?
Speaker 7: Did you not show up at the one that they
Speaker 7: had last Monday? I don't know which.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you show up cause because.
Speaker 7: I didn't want to get up there and lie. Do
Speaker 7: you feel threatened by anyone?
Speaker 8: Has anyone threatened you so that you'd gone into having.
Speaker 7: I felt threatened by the police because they seemed like
Speaker 7: they was the ones that was against me.
Speaker 1: Later, Jaffy questions her about what happened when detectives stopped
Speaker 1: the tape recorder during interviews.
Speaker 7: After he you know, somebody put so much pressure on me.
Speaker 7: And then they get to saying, well, Yolanda, you know
Speaker 7: you was there because such and such said this, and
Speaker 7: this person was here, and I know you was with
Speaker 7: this person. I'm gonna, quite naturally go on and say
Speaker 7: whatever the person wants me to say, whether it's a
Speaker 7: truth or whether it's a lie. I'm whatever the person
Speaker 7: wants me to say, I'm gonna go on and say it.
Speaker 7: And there was so much stress and pressure on me,
Speaker 7: and I couldn't have my mama around when they was
Speaker 7: questioning me or my attorney, so I just went with
Speaker 7: the flow. Whatever they wanted me to say, I would
Speaker 7: say it.
Speaker 3: How do you feel.
Speaker 2: About what you've done to our Dregis Ford and too
Speaker 2: far As Johnson.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry for doing it, but I didn't know any better,
Speaker 7: and I feel like I was even though I was lying.
Speaker 7: I feel like I was taking advantage of of two
Speaker 7: because my own mother wasn't even there to be a
Speaker 7: comforter for me. Because every time they came and got me,
Speaker 7: they wouldn't let my mom come in with me. I
Speaker 7: always had to go with them, but I was property
Speaker 7: of them.
Speaker 1: At the hearing, Jeffy argues that Yolanda's testimony should have
Speaker 1: put an end to the state's case.
Speaker 3: They should have dropped the case. They should have dropped the.
Speaker 12: Case at the point where she had already perjured herself
Speaker 12: at the preliminary hearing and at the grand jury, and
Speaker 12: now she's saying, I perjured myself. So how do you ethically,
Speaker 12: if you're a prosecutor, take a death penalty case, even
Speaker 12: a shoplifting case to trial, if all you've got is
Speaker 12: pured testimony.
Speaker 3: How do you do that?
Speaker 1: But after the hearing is over, Judge Alfred ba Haackle
Speaker 1: makes his decision. He chooses not to accept Yolanda's recantation
Speaker 1: and denies the motion to dismiss the charges. The case
Speaker 1: moves forward as if this hearing never happened. More than
Speaker 1: twenty five years after this hearing, Detective Tony Richardson and
Speaker 1: I discussed this moment when Yolanda said under oath that
Speaker 1: police pressured her to change her story.
Speaker 2: The rule of an interrogation is you interrogate, And part
Speaker 2: of an interrogation is you lean on people, you put
Speaker 2: pressure on them.
Speaker 3: You want them to feel that pressure. You know, you
Speaker 3: don't threadn no more or.
Speaker 2: Anything like that, but you want them to feel that
Speaker 2: pressure that you leaning on them. And you want that pressure,
Speaker 2: as O saying goes burst of pipe, so that they
Speaker 2: will start to overflowing.
Speaker 1: And telling you, well, where does that leave the truth?
Speaker 1: I mean, she's clearly perjured herself somewhere, because she's testified
Speaker 1: that she was there and will witness the murder on
Speaker 1: multiple occasions, and then she testifies on the stand in
Speaker 1: court that she's made the whole thing up and she
Speaker 1: did it because of pressure. And y'all have been coercing her.
Speaker 2: If we had been coercing her and pressuring her. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure that that happens or has happened in the PA.
Speaker 2: Let's say that happened in the early eighteen hundreds. Okay,
Speaker 2: nobody in the modern age does that anyway. Let's say
Speaker 2: that she was pressuring the course, did she tell things
Speaker 2: that she couldn't have known that unless.
Speaker 3: She was there? Yes?
Speaker 4: Like what?
Speaker 3: Well, like for.
Speaker 2: Instance, the scenario about how it happened, the scenario about
Speaker 2: how the deputy came out of the back of the hotel.
Speaker 3: We know the deputy came out of the back of
Speaker 3: the hotel. We're not telling her this. She came in
Speaker 3: and told us.
Speaker 4: But that was in the newspaper.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: It was in the newspaper. Hardy was killed at the
Speaker 1: back entrance of the hotel, and this was reported and
Speaker 1: the first article published the day of the murder. It
Speaker 1: was also on the news the morning of his death.
Speaker 1: A reporter gestures to the hotel's back door.
Speaker 4: The work as hard as they can on this.
Speaker 6: We are at the back door of the Crown Sterling Suites.
Speaker 2: Where forty nine year old William Hardy was found shot
Speaker 2: twice in the head. Not so, what I'm saying is
Speaker 2: here you have Yolanda Chambers, who, after all these years,
Speaker 2: from day one, has been called a liar. And I'll
Speaker 2: be the first to tell she is or she was.
Speaker 2: But as an investigator, you have to sort through this.
Speaker 2: You have to figure out what's the truth in this
Speaker 2: to help build a case.
Speaker 1: Throughout my conversation with Rosa Hardy, she expresses regret about
Speaker 1: involving Yolanda and Deputy Hardy's murder investigation.
Speaker 4: She resented the fact that I even mentioned it. So
Speaker 4: we didn't really communicate about it. But in the end,
Speaker 4: you know, I felt so many times, even after she died,
Speaker 4: that you know, I just had a lot to do
Speaker 4: with how she ended up. I don't know if I
Speaker 4: did the right thing by speaking up. Looked like it
Speaker 4: just missed the boy life.
Speaker 1: At seventeen, Yolanda got pregnant and gave birth to a
Speaker 1: baby girl. Rosa says the child's father was never part
Speaker 1: of their lives. Yolanda would go on to have a
Speaker 1: second child, a son, with another partner.
Speaker 4: Such a beautiful picture of hers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was a really pretty girl.
Speaker 4: She was, and she got I mixed up in all
Speaker 4: kind of stuff, I tell you.
Speaker 1: Rosa shows us pictures of Yolanda where she appears happy,
Speaker 1: smiling holding her babies. In one photo, a large tattoo
Speaker 1: of a jaguar is visible on Yolanda's chest. Rosa tells
Speaker 1: us after she got Yolanda involved in this case, their
Speaker 1: relationship was never the same, estranged.
Speaker 4: And she was fear me to me, call me a
Speaker 4: bitch in front of anybody. But we were not close
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 1: According to Rosa, the baby boy's father wanted to marry Yolanda,
Speaker 1: but he wanted her to get sober first. By then,
Speaker 1: Yolanda had developed a debilitating dependence on heroin to get by.
Speaker 1: Yolanda sometimes worked at a strip club in Birmingham's West End.
Speaker 1: She was also arrested several times for theft and writing
Speaker 1: bad checks, but she wasn't sent to rehab or sentenced
Speaker 1: to prison for these charges. Instead, Yolanda leveraged the one
Speaker 1: relationship where she felt she had some value the police.
Speaker 4: I might be talking too much, but I'm going to
Speaker 4: tell you this. I found out that she was snitching
Speaker 4: on drug dealers and they were paying her. The FBI,
Speaker 4: they gave her money. They would come by the apartment
Speaker 4: and give her money. So eventually I ran across from
Speaker 4: one that had come to the apartment one time, and
Speaker 4: I had told them that they needed to take care
Speaker 4: of my daughter, and they said that they would.
Speaker 1: Rosa says that police were knowingly supporting Yolanda's addiction with
Speaker 1: no regard for her health or the incredible risks she
Speaker 1: was taking informing on drug dealers. My producer spoke with
Speaker 1: Rosa over the phone about this.
Speaker 14: Do you think they were trying to protect her in
Speaker 14: any kind of way?
Speaker 4: The police, No, they wouldn't. No, they were not no
Speaker 4: mm m. They didn't care. All they wanted was what
Speaker 4: they wanted.
Speaker 5: So they just paid her and that was that was it.
Speaker 4: They just paid her and that was there. And they
Speaker 4: told me that it wasn't anything going to happen to
Speaker 4: her and she when she went missing. I called them
Speaker 4: and told them that she was missing, and they were
Speaker 4: very short with me and told me just like this,
Speaker 4: Oh she'll show up. She just don't want her be
Speaker 4: and just that was the reply.
Speaker 1: Rosa connects us with an old friend of Yolanda's named Alicia,
Speaker 1: who confirms that Yolanda worked as an informant. Yolanda would
Speaker 1: sometimes crash at Alicia's house before walking to the corner
Speaker 1: where officers would pick her up.
Speaker 4: And she got out and walked out and down.
Speaker 6: To her home.
Speaker 4: She was like, I'll be big.
Speaker 1: Alicia tells us it wasn't a secret that Yolanda was informing.
Speaker 11: Knew a lot of people know.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that was god.
Speaker 11: Police nerve and don't.
Speaker 3: Talk too oh really.
Speaker 1: Some people even called her police girl. But law enforcement
Speaker 1: gave Yolanda no protection and she took no precautions.
Speaker 3: Because see, she was so into her bad habit.
Speaker 4: She didn't care who knew she was snitching on people,
Speaker 4: so the hit could have came from anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yolanda's murder was part of a string of tragedies in
Speaker 1: Rosa's life. All three of her children died young. When
Speaker 1: Yolanda was six years old, her older sister, Sabrina, died
Speaker 1: from asthma complications, and a few years after Yolanda's death,
Speaker 1: her brother Darius was killed. Darius was openly gay and
Speaker 1: active in Chicago. He was waiting at a bus stop
Speaker 1: when a group of men approached him and beat him
Speaker 1: to death. Media report stated the men wanted his cell phone,
Speaker 1: but Rosa still wonders if it was a hate crime.
Speaker 4: It's devastating when you lose your kids, you know, But
Speaker 4: I have to push through it. Will you mean we
Speaker 4: all are gonna die? What hurt is the way they live?
Speaker 4: I think that did some so much.
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 1: I miss my kids, The people who loved Yolanda hoped
Speaker 1: she could get help overcoming her addiction. Sometimes it seemed
Speaker 1: like Yolanda wanted that too.
Speaker 4: She told me that she was sorry about the way
Speaker 4: she had talked to me, and did you mistreated me?
Speaker 4: And then she got killed.
Speaker 1: The autopsy report shows that when Yolanda was killed, she
Speaker 1: was wearing black corduroy pants, a black T shirt under
Speaker 1: a black zip up jacket, and gold slip on flats.
Speaker 1: Her T shirt had a heart and a peace sign
Speaker 1: on it. She had been shot three times in the
Speaker 1: head and once in the chest. A bullet had gone
Speaker 1: through her right hand, as if she'd held it up
Speaker 1: to defend herself. She was twenty nine years old.
Speaker 4: That she was a very troubled person and demons had
Speaker 4: took over her. And don't think I'm crazy when I
Speaker 4: say this, because there are certain such things. Even when
Speaker 4: she died, you could see the demons in her in
Speaker 4: her casket. She wasted so bad. The girl in Selma
Speaker 4: that had her body. She said that she had been
Speaker 4: shot up with dope. She had hit straight through here
Speaker 4: with a bullet, and she begged me not to look
Speaker 4: at her. She said, please, don't look at it. She said,
Speaker 4: remember her the wear you were. I just had to
Speaker 4: see her, and she opened up and she let me
Speaker 4: look there.
Speaker 1: We wanted to know if Yolanda's murder was connected to
Speaker 1: her relationship with police, so we filed a freedom of
Speaker 1: information request with the FBI was she in fact working
Speaker 1: with them as a paid informant. As of this recording,
Speaker 1: the FBI has emailed us to say they have identified
Speaker 1: at least fifty pages of relevant documents, but our request
Speaker 1: to read them is in a long line of other requests.
Speaker 1: We won't be able to see the documents until twoenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. So you don't know who killed your daughter.
Speaker 4: No, I don't know who killed but she did call
Speaker 4: me and told me that if anything had ever happened
Speaker 4: to her, this guy had threatened her.
Speaker 1: This guy was Yolanda's boyfriend. Both Rosa and Yolanda's friend Alicia,
Speaker 1: believe he killed Yolanda and told me their relationship was volatile.
Speaker 1: I haven't found any other evidence connecting this person to
Speaker 1: Yolanda's murder, so I'm not going to name him here,
Speaker 1: but I look up his record and find that he
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and served time in federal prison.
Speaker 1: Alicia says when she found out that Yolanda had been murdered,
Speaker 1: she figured he'd finally learned Yolanda was informing on drug dealers.
Speaker 1: I also learn this person was killed in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if police ever connected him to
Speaker 1: Yolanda's murder. Rosa says after Yolanda's funeral, she had some
Speaker 1: contact with a detective in Bessemer about her daughter's murder,
Speaker 1: but she hasn't heard anything in years.
Speaker 4: So a call.
Speaker 10: It's been forwarded to an automatic voice message system at
Speaker 10: the tone, please record your message.
Speaker 1: Hey, this message is for Lieutenant Clemens. My name is
Speaker 1: Beth shelburn I spend weeks trying to connect with Bessemer
Speaker 1: Police to find out if there's anything going on with
Speaker 1: Yolanda's murder investigation. I leave messages and finally I get
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Christian Clemens on the phone. I tell him the
Speaker 1: same thing that I said in the messages, that I'm
Speaker 1: looking into Yolanda's murders. He says he'll call me back,
Speaker 1: but after two months, Mara and I decide to just
Speaker 1: go there in person. Lieutenant Clemens.
Speaker 2: Here we come.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm here to see Lieutenant Clemens.
Speaker 4: Shelburne.
Speaker 1: We wait in the busy lobby of the Bessemer Police
Speaker 1: Department until Lieutenant Clemens emerges from behind a heavy steel door.
Speaker 1: So we have both called you about this case that
Speaker 1: we're just trying to get an update on this project
Speaker 1: that we're working on Yolanda.
Speaker 3: Michelle Chambers, tell me.
Speaker 14: A little bit more about it, because I remember it
Speaker 14: being an overcase.
Speaker 3: I haven't been able to do anything at all.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm stuck in a loop. I keep
Speaker 1: giving this guy the same information what we're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just trying to figure out why you.
Speaker 3: Haven't gotten back to us.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just he tells us that Yolanda's case is
Speaker 1: low on the Totem poll of priorities.
Speaker 14: Importance, prioritization.
Speaker 3: It was kind of load.
Speaker 11: Why was that low?
Speaker 14: Today's victims are the ones we do with most. You know,
Speaker 14: it's really just prioritization of cases. We have found detectives.
Speaker 14: We had twenty nine homicides last year. We knew the math.
Speaker 1: Even though Lieutenant Clemens is perfectly polite, it seems like
Speaker 1: he's not going to spend time on this case. But
Speaker 1: we give him the information we've learned about Yolanda's murder,
Speaker 1: including the name of the possible suspect. Maybe if any
Speaker 1: evidence from Yolanda's body was preserved, police could test it
Speaker 1: and match it against this possible suspect. He served time
Speaker 1: in federal prison, so his DNA would be on record.
Speaker 1: I ask if we can look at the investigative file,
Speaker 1: and he promises to get back to me.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, well, thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: A few hours later, Lieutenant Clements calls and tells me
Speaker 1: that Yolanda's case is still open. He says he'll look
Speaker 1: into the evidence that's being held in a storage unit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just so you know, my next chapter is to
Speaker 6: go out to our storage build world of our old
Speaker 6: records are old cases and look for the case file
Speaker 6: on this kind of go through it again to see
Speaker 6: what was done, what needs to be done, and go
Speaker 6: from there.
Speaker 1: So I wait to hear back from Lieutenant Clemens, but
Speaker 1: he never calls again. This feels like the system letting
Speaker 1: Yolanda Chambers down one final time.
Speaker 3: So my name is Cali Greer.
Speaker 1: For many years, Callie Greer faced the same struggles as
Speaker 1: Yolanda Chambers, like drug addiction and charged interactions with police.
Speaker 1: Callie is now an organizer and educator focused on advocating
Speaker 1: for poor people in Alabama. I asked her from some
Speaker 1: perspective on Yolanda's life, death, and her involvement with law enforcement.
Speaker 11: They find these vulnerable people that are on drugs for
Speaker 11: black some of them white street people. People that on
Speaker 11: the street, unsheltered, unprotected, underserved, disposable, invisible people. When you're
Speaker 11: out there like that, you're used by the drug deals.
Speaker 11: You're used by the men on the street, the giants.
Speaker 11: You're used by the police officers. You're used by men
Speaker 11: that madelests. You're in your family, you're used by your moms,
Speaker 11: your aunt's boyfriends.
Speaker 4: And so you just use.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you're just used and you have no sympathy, You
Speaker 11: have no worth, no morals, you have none of this
Speaker 11: stuff that makes you feel human.
Speaker 1: Kelly says that when officers give informants attention, call them
Speaker 1: either given name. That's powerful for people who are otherwise ignored.
Speaker 11: How somebody saw you, recognize you.
Speaker 3: They actually call my name, you know, because you have
Speaker 3: not been called that name, your name.
Speaker 11: You've been called everything else but that crackhead, pitch or prostitute,
Speaker 11: greg addet, cod criminal mama.
Speaker 3: So I see that with.
Speaker 1: Her CALLI holds compassion for Yolanda, a grace that didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be extended to her by law enforcement or
Speaker 1: the court system. Yolanda Chambers was most valuable to law
Speaker 1: enforcement when she was traumatized. I think this is something
Speaker 1: Detective Tony Richardson realizes too.
Speaker 2: Yolanda Chambers was a fifteen year old child that I
Speaker 2: wish we would have handled at the time a little
Speaker 2: bit differently.
Speaker 1: What do you wish you would have done differently with her?
Speaker 2: Well, I wish we would have taken more time in
Speaker 2: this whole thing, the whole case.
Speaker 3: I wish we would have taken more time. I wish
Speaker 3: that I would have taken more time with Yolanda. I
Speaker 3: wish that.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have looked at her as a street wise girl.
Speaker 2: And I think in looking at her at her as
Speaker 2: a and she was street wise, I treated her like she.
Speaker 3: Was older and street wise.
Speaker 2: Instead of treating her like she's fifteen, scared to death,
Speaker 2: don't know what to do, which way to go. And
Speaker 2: I did that because I've got a police officer that's
Speaker 2: been shot.
Speaker 1: In the years following Hardy's murder and for the rest
Speaker 1: of Yolanda's life, she didn't talk with her mom much
Speaker 1: about the case. But there was one thing, Roses says
Speaker 1: Yolanda told her consistently over the years, and this is what.
Speaker 4: She always said too. The one that did at the time,
Speaker 4: he wasn't even the one that did it. Now she
Speaker 4: did tell me that, she said he didn't even do
Speaker 4: so to Forrest Johnson is the one. He's still in prison,
Speaker 4: but she said he wasn't the one that did it.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: Next time the Overlooked Clues and lost Leads, We investigate
Speaker 1: the investigation into Deputy Hardy's murder and what detectives miss
Speaker 1: while they fixate on Yolanda. Ear Witness is a production
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number One. Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis,
Speaker 1: and me Beth Shelburne. The investigative reporting for this series
Speaker 1: was done by Me and MARAA McNamara. Producers are MARAA McNamara,
Speaker 1: Hannah bial and Jackie Polly. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer.
Speaker 1: Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from
Speaker 1: Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Gracelyn Prestwood for playing the part of Yolanda Chambers,
Speaker 1: Brett Knight for playing Judge Alfred bay Hackle, and Attorney
Speaker 1: Richard Jaffey for playing him so helf in the courtroom
Speaker 1: scene of this episode, and special thanks to to Forest
Speaker 1: Johnson's legal defense team. You can follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Twitter at Lava for Good. To see behind the
Speaker 1: scenes content from our investigation, visit Lava for Good dot
Speaker 1: com slash ear witness