Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be
Speaker 2: able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,
Speaker 2: that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be going to prison because I was a good person.
Speaker 2: I hadn't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
Speaker 1: we go to a hearing or we go to court,
Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected
Speaker 1: from the lower courts all the way up to the
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
Speaker 3: in that moment, unchecked authority.
Speaker 2: Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them
Speaker 2: on TV, because it may just be a dirty da
Speaker 2: that is trying to rise upward.
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 4: Jason Flamm. Today, I have two very special guests, and
Speaker 4: you'll learn more about that surely, but first I'm going
Speaker 4: to introduce them. Vanessa Gathers is our star today.
Speaker 3: Just months after the Crown Heights riots back in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety one, Gathers was called in for questioning for robbery
Speaker 3: and the beating of an elderly man inside of his
Speaker 3: Crown Heights apartment. The victim fell into a coma then died.
Speaker 3: The case was classified a homicide. That's when controversial former
Speaker 3: NYPD detective Louis Scarcella took over the case. Five years later,
Speaker 3: Scarcella reinterviewed Gathers and said she made a full confession.
Speaker 3: Gathers was convicted on that confession alone. The former detective
Speaker 3: is in the middle of several cases where people went
Speaker 3: to prison for crimes they did not commit.
Speaker 2: D A.
Speaker 3: Thompson and his team have already exonerated seventeen men. Gathers
Speaker 3: is the eighteenth, the first woman. Right now, the DA's
Speaker 3: office is looking into at least one hundred other cases.
Speaker 3: Fifty eight year old Vanessa Gatherers, who will no longer
Speaker 3: be labeled a convicted felon after ten years in prison
Speaker 3: for manslaughter, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson is expected to
Speaker 3: vacate her conviction.
Speaker 5: We're going to take a step to not only vacate
Speaker 5: misgathers conviction, but to give her her good name back.
Speaker 4: Vanessa, welcome to the show. Thank you, and her badass
Speaker 4: attorney is here as well. Lisa Cahill, Welcome to Ronful Conviction.
Speaker 6: Happy to be here.
Speaker 4: So, Vanessa, let's go back to when life was simpler, right,
Speaker 4: because before this crazy incident happened, you were living basically
Speaker 4: a normal life like anyone else. Right. Yes, were you
Speaker 4: in a lot of trouble with the laws? Reason that
Speaker 4: they would have ever suspected you of being involved in
Speaker 4: a cold blooded murder, a terrible beating death, not at all?
Speaker 4: What were you doing? What was your life like? Where'd
Speaker 4: you grow up?
Speaker 5: I grew up in Jersey City, in North Carolina, and
Speaker 5: then I moved to New York in seventy nine and
Speaker 5: I started working. I was working in Manhattan doing what
Speaker 5: I worked for, Gristities. I worked for a lawyer when
Speaker 5: I first arrived to New York City, So.
Speaker 4: Just finding your way doing different jobs whatever.
Speaker 7: I stayed with Gristities for quite some time.
Speaker 5: The original job I had was working for a lawyer,
Speaker 5: a criminal lawyer, and I was just doing statements of
Speaker 5: fouling and typing up notes. Things got slow, so later
Speaker 5: on I found a job with Cristiitis. He let me
Speaker 5: stay until I found something better.
Speaker 4: So you came to New York, like most people do.
Speaker 4: I guess, to pursue your dreams and find your way.
Speaker 4: And you were finding your way, things were going okay.
Speaker 4: Do you have a family when this came down?
Speaker 7: Yes, my family was in Jersey. I had a daughter.
Speaker 4: This case stems out of a murder that happened in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety one. And there's a lot of things that
Speaker 4: are unusual about your case. But there are also a
Speaker 4: lot of things that we see that are common in
Speaker 4: wrongful convictions, including a false confession, which I think everyone
Speaker 4: is fascinated by it and terrified of. I know, I am.
Speaker 4: But in your case, this was a murder of a
Speaker 4: guy named Michael Shaw, I think right, Yes, And he
Speaker 4: was a guy who was murdered in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 4: He was beaten to death by three women. Again pretty
Speaker 4: unusual circumstance. And the reason we know he was beaten
Speaker 4: to death by three women is because he lived long
Speaker 4: enough to tell the tale. He died in the hospital. Yes,
Speaker 4: so originally you were living in the area. Did you
Speaker 4: know about the crime?
Speaker 7: No, not at the time. No, I did not. I
Speaker 7: found out all that information later on.
Speaker 4: And how did you first become aware that this. Did
Speaker 4: you know the victim?
Speaker 7: I didn't know him, per se.
Speaker 5: I just knew that he was like a picture cuss
Speaker 5: man that stayed in the window. He set by the
Speaker 5: window all the time because I used to walk my
Speaker 5: dog around the block.
Speaker 7: But I didn't know his name. I didn't know him.
Speaker 5: From time to time he would ask me to come
Speaker 5: over to the window and would I get him a
Speaker 5: pack of cigarettes, which I did because I walked around
Speaker 5: the block and I walked my dog back and I
Speaker 5: just passed it to.
Speaker 7: Him through the window.
Speaker 4: So he lived on the first floor, Yes, And so
Speaker 4: when he was murdered, the word must have gotten around
Speaker 4: the neighborhood. And you first heard about it from a detective,
Speaker 4: is that right?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 4: And how'd that come about? Because it's weird because you
Speaker 4: weren't arrested until many years later when the case was cold.
Speaker 4: And then you actually drew a terrible straw or bad
Speaker 4: break what every gonna call it, because you got in
Speaker 4: the crosshairs of a guy who we know now is
Speaker 4: one of the worst detectives in the history of this
Speaker 4: country in terms of the damage that he did to
Speaker 4: an entire burrow. Really, how he wrecked havoc on so
Speaker 4: many people in so many cases, and a whole system.
Speaker 4: So how did it come about that you first encountered detectives, Garcella.
Speaker 5: I believe I was walking my dog at the time,
Speaker 5: and I mean Detective scuss Celliated his partner Shamil approached
Speaker 5: me and asked me about the incident, and I said,
Speaker 5: I didn't know. Actually I didn't even know the man's name.
Speaker 5: I didn't know who he was. I just know him
Speaker 5: by sight, you know, from sitting in the window. That's
Speaker 5: all I knew about this individual. But then later on
Speaker 5: after that incident, I didn't see the man anymore. After
Speaker 5: a while, you know, I was still walk my dog,
Speaker 5: but the man was not there in the window anymore.
Speaker 4: So they approached you on the street, yes, And were
Speaker 4: they friendly? Were they hostel? Did they put you in cops?
Speaker 4: How did this whole?
Speaker 7: They were friendly. They just asked me some questions.
Speaker 5: They also asked me about the same thing that I
Speaker 5: know the man, and I told him I didn't know
Speaker 5: who they were talking about at first. And then when
Speaker 5: they was telling me that he lived there, and I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: I remember seeing the man in the window, but I
Speaker 5: didn't know him per se.
Speaker 4: Did they tell you that he had been murdered.
Speaker 5: No, they didn't state that. They just said something happened.
Speaker 5: It was an incident with this guy. They was trying
Speaker 5: to find out what happened.
Speaker 4: And let's turn to you. So what was going on there?
Speaker 4: First of all, Vanessa was sort of a person that
Speaker 4: you would not really think would be involved in anything
Speaker 4: like this. I mean, and meeting her now, she's such
Speaker 4: a gentle soul. The idea that she would be involved
Speaker 4: in a beating death seems so far fetched.
Speaker 6: I certainly agree with that. But one of the big
Speaker 6: mysteries always in the case was this business about Scarcella
Speaker 6: stopping Vanessa because she was a woman walking a white dog.
Speaker 6: Let me back up, right after mister Shaw was assaulted,
Speaker 6: he didn't die till months later, so it didn't become
Speaker 6: a homicide investigation for about four months time. So immediately
Speaker 6: after the assault, it's basically a robbery investigation. But detectives
Speaker 6: are working the robbery and the beating they're investigating somewhat.
Speaker 6: And those detectives interviewed the super in mister Shaw's building
Speaker 6: twice and memorialized that interview, and the super never said
Speaker 6: anything about Vanessa Gathers. He never described Vanessa Gathers. He
Speaker 6: never said, oh, there's a woman with a white dog
Speaker 6: in the neighborhood who you should talk to. None of
Speaker 6: that is reflected in those interview notes. But Scarcella consistently
Speaker 6: testified that the reason he stopped Vanessa was because after
Speaker 6: mister Shaw died, it did become a homicide investigation, obviously,
Speaker 6: and Scarcella was assigned the case. He testified that one
Speaker 6: of the first things he did was go interview the super.
Speaker 6: He claimed that the super said one of the women
Speaker 6: who used to talk to Shaw and was friendly with
Speaker 6: Shaw was a woman in the neighborhood with a white dog. Now, suspiciously,
Speaker 6: Scarcella never memorialized that interview with the super, as you're
Speaker 6: supposed to do, and as two prior detectives had done
Speaker 6: when they interviewed the super. We always thought it was
Speaker 6: suspicious that there was never any memorialization of that. Why
Speaker 6: he in fact stopped Vanessa, I really don't know. I mean,
Speaker 6: I suppose it's conceivable the super said that, but the
Speaker 6: Super was dead by the time of trial, so no
Speaker 6: one really knows.
Speaker 4: Well, we do know that the victim said that it
Speaker 4: was three women. So the one thing you had in
Speaker 4: common with the perpetrate it was that you were a woman, right,
Speaker 4: But there's a lot of women, so just and we
Speaker 4: know now that Scarcella didn't really care whether you were
Speaker 4: the perpetrator or not. He just cared about getting convictions.
Speaker 4: And he was very good at it actually, I mean
Speaker 4: in a very nefarious and terrible way. He was famous
Speaker 4: actually for solving cases, and that's probably what he was after.
Speaker 4: So he saw you, figured he would stop and talk
Speaker 4: to you, and maybe he was bored, but he had
Speaker 4: nothing else to do. But it came and went right,
Speaker 4: and then you went back to your life, and you know,
Speaker 4: eventually you found out that mister Shaw had died, I'm sure,
Speaker 4: and life went on.
Speaker 7: Well that's basically what happened.
Speaker 5: Well, it was ninety two actually when he came around,
Speaker 5: I think April or May or something of nineteen ninety
Speaker 5: two when he came the initial visit with him, and
Speaker 5: then the next time I saw him was nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5: He's knocking on my door.
Speaker 4: He came to your home. Yes, and what transpired next,
Speaker 4: I mean, you had no reason to think that you
Speaker 4: would ever be a suspect in anything like this. No,
Speaker 4: and probably the memory of the whole thing had faded
Speaker 4: to some extent, right because it was one coming.
Speaker 5: I had already forgotten about him and the questioning at
Speaker 5: that time.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm stayed in the same building. I didn't move.
Speaker 5: If I had anything to hide, I think I would
Speaker 5: have left. I mean, a lot of people in the
Speaker 5: neighborhood moved out, but I was still there.
Speaker 7: So there was no reason for.
Speaker 5: Me to try and run, will do anything negative regard
Speaker 5: in this manner, because I know I had no involvement
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 6: One of our hypotheses was that Vanessa was literally the
Speaker 6: only one who had any connection to Shaw who was
Speaker 6: actually still available to Scarcella, still living in the same building.
Speaker 4: So by now it had turned into a homicide investigation.
Speaker 4: Scarcella had decided that he was going to solve a
Speaker 4: cold case, or maybe not, probably many of them. Right.
Speaker 4: So when he did come see you six years after
Speaker 4: the murder, what happened? What was his approach this time?
Speaker 4: Was he friendly? Was he hostile to put you in Coffs?
Speaker 7: He was very friendly.
Speaker 5: I actually was never in Coffs at that time we spoke.
Speaker 5: He asked me saying questions. He asked me, should I
Speaker 5: come to the precinct. You know, I oblige and I
Speaker 5: went there. He showed me some muck shots, and he
Speaker 5: asked me about some of the women in the neighborhood.
Speaker 7: Did I know in them?
Speaker 5: It was a couple that I did see that had
Speaker 5: against criminal records, and that was basically it. He never
Speaker 5: stated to me that I was a suspect or anything.
Speaker 5: I had no knowledge of that up until the time
Speaker 5: that we did. After the polygraph and all of that
Speaker 5: other information that were transpired. He had my history. I
Speaker 5: told him where I was working. You know, he knew
Speaker 5: where I lived. I didn't have anything to hide from
Speaker 5: this spoor for I cooperated the best that I could.
Speaker 5: I was working at the Brooklyn Family Court and he
Speaker 5: picked me up that morning. He came to my job
Speaker 5: and said he wanted me to come take a polygrab chest.
Speaker 5: I went with him and everything. I had nothing to die.
Speaker 5: So after that we stayed at the Priests and all
Speaker 5: of these other things transpired, and he kept stating to
Speaker 5: me that he was going to take me home. It
Speaker 5: got late into the evening before I left the Priests,
Speaker 5: and it was night. It was night when I did
Speaker 5: leave there, and he kept saying that my companion, that
Speaker 5: he would contact him.
Speaker 7: He never did. He just continued, lie, Lie, Lie. He
Speaker 7: was frightening.
Speaker 5: He took his jacket off, he had his gun exposed,
Speaker 5: and he kept on threatening me, saying I was there,
Speaker 5: I was there. I kept telling him no, I wasn't.
Speaker 5: And it just went back and forth like that for
Speaker 5: quite some time.
Speaker 4: So he went sort of progressively from friendly too. You'd
Speaker 4: pick you up, and you probably were like most people.
Speaker 4: I mean, you were law abiding citizen. It wasn't like
Speaker 4: you had a long rap sheet, right.
Speaker 5: I didn't have no knowledge of the law, so he
Speaker 5: and I think he really knew that. So he knew
Speaker 5: because I don't remember him randomizing me or anything.
Speaker 7: I don't remember all of that.
Speaker 5: As far as getting a lawyer, I didn't know I
Speaker 5: needed one because I didn't know I was. I was
Speaker 5: the person that was Choseph had committed this crime.
Speaker 4: Right, and Lisa, That's something that always bothers me is
Speaker 4: that people like Vanessa who are innocent are very likely
Speaker 4: to waive their Miranda rights and speak freely and not
Speaker 4: request a lawyer. And if you're listening to the show.
Speaker 4: Now I'm going to encourage you. If you do get
Speaker 4: picked up, don't assume anything, right, just request a lawyer,
Speaker 4: and other than that, don't say anything other than your name,
Speaker 4: your address, and that's basically it, right, And once you
Speaker 4: ask for a lawyer, they're not allowed to ask you
Speaker 4: more questions.
Speaker 7: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 4: I mean, they may do it anyway, but they'll be
Speaker 4: breaking the law. Yeah, I mean, it is a tragic
Speaker 4: and cruel irony that people like Vanessa who go in
Speaker 4: wanting to help right and wanting to be cooperative and
Speaker 4: good citizens and help the police, end up often really
Speaker 4: on the terribly wrong end of the stick because of
Speaker 4: the fact that they just don't know and they get
Speaker 4: taken advantage of it is exactly what happened here, that's right.
Speaker 6: And one of the issues that we identified with the polygraph,
Speaker 6: which was basically how Scarcela kicked off that morning. With
Speaker 6: the polygraph, a polygrapher is supposed to sit down alone
Speaker 6: with this subject and basically explain to the subject why
Speaker 6: they're there this morning, and for example, to say, do
Speaker 6: you know why you're here?
Speaker 7: You were here because.
Speaker 6: You're suspected of involvement in this incident, and that's what
Speaker 6: I want to talk to you about today. And in fact,
Speaker 6: this particular polygraph never went through that exercise with Vanessa,
Speaker 6: and she didn't know any better. Someone would say, well,
Speaker 6: what do you think when someone's polygraphing you? But Vanessa
Speaker 6: had had no prior experience with us. She was just
Speaker 6: trying to do what they asked her to do.
Speaker 4: And again, if you don't have anything to hide, and
Speaker 4: if you are telling the truth, you'd think, well, why
Speaker 4: shouldn't I take a polygraph? But not such a great idea. Well,
Speaker 4: then we get to the part that gives me a
Speaker 4: stomach ache. Is this whole process that takes place in
Speaker 4: the interrogation room when someone in this case Garcela, but
Speaker 4: it happens all over the country when a detective is
Speaker 4: determined to get a confession, and they're not necessarily determined
Speaker 4: to get the truth. In your case, they had no
Speaker 4: reason to believe that you had any involvement, and yet
Speaker 4: they approached you and interrogated you as if they basically
Speaker 4: had everything in the world, every reason in the world
Speaker 4: to suspect that you were the actual killer. Ultimately, you
Speaker 4: confess to this crime he didn't commit, and That's the
Speaker 4: number one thing, Vanessa. When I talk to people who
Speaker 4: aren't familiar with these issues, everybody says, I would never confess.
Speaker 4: They couldn't get me to do it. That's crazy. I'm
Speaker 4: too strong, I'm tough. I would never con that's you know.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, well, let me tell you something. So
Speaker 4: how did they get you? I mean, you're an intelligent woman,
Speaker 4: you're a law abiding person. You would know enough to
Speaker 4: know that that's a disaster, right, But you did it?
Speaker 7: Yes, I did.
Speaker 5: You're in a tiny room with these two police detectives
Speaker 5: and you don't even know your rights.
Speaker 7: I didn't know. I was terrified.
Speaker 5: And then the badgering started and the jacket came off,
Speaker 5: like I said, expose it.
Speaker 7: And he started.
Speaker 5: Threatening me and leaning over her and you know, making
Speaker 5: all of these accusations and stuff. And I continually told
Speaker 5: him that I did not commit this crime.
Speaker 7: I was not there.
Speaker 5: And when he wrote the statement, I told him we
Speaker 5: were going back for us. He's trying to tell me
Speaker 5: to state this and state that.
Speaker 4: This must have been confusing.
Speaker 5: It was because I'm like, I'm not understanding what is
Speaker 5: going on as far as what he's writing on paper.
Speaker 5: He tried to get me to write that statement, and
Speaker 5: I said, I'm not writing anything because I don't know
Speaker 5: what happened.
Speaker 4: This is part of the process, right, And it's the
Speaker 4: crazy thing in this country that police are allowed to lie.
Speaker 4: They can say they have a satellite image of you
Speaker 4: committing the crime. They can say that they found your fingerprints,
Speaker 4: they can say that they have witnesses. They can say
Speaker 4: almost anything they want. What they can't say is they
Speaker 4: can't threaten you with say you're going to get the
Speaker 4: death penalty if you're not. There's certain things they can't
Speaker 4: do like that. But as far as the facts surrounding
Speaker 4: the case, they can lie all they want, which I
Speaker 4: think is crazy, and it doesn't it's not that way
Speaker 4: in most other Western European countries.
Speaker 6: Are oh, Jason. The reason they do that is to
Speaker 6: put the subject in a helpless feeling situation so then
Speaker 6: they can get them to turn and do what they
Speaker 6: want to do. They make you feel helpless and then
Speaker 6: they extend and olive branch. Just sign this and I'll
Speaker 6: take you home. Just help me out here, I'll get
Speaker 6: you out of here. But the first thing is making
Speaker 6: the subject feel helpless, and they do that with these
Speaker 6: false s, evenence ploys.
Speaker 4: So which lies did they tell you?
Speaker 5: Well, he told me that he had fingerprints, Yeah, eyewitnesses.
Speaker 5: He has proof that I was in the house. And
Speaker 5: I kept telling him, no, that's not true. And to me,
Speaker 5: it's like now getting confused because I'm saying, there's no
Speaker 5: way possible that this could be. But you know, he
Speaker 5: continued to tell me different stories and different things that well,
Speaker 5: at that point, he said, you might be going to jail.
Speaker 5: These are the things that would happen to you once
Speaker 5: you get there. You need to sign this paper that
Speaker 5: he wrote, and he said, I'll take you home. So
Speaker 5: I'm constantly like, I don't know what to do. Now
Speaker 5: I'm here by myself in his little room and I'm crying,
Speaker 5: I'm set, I'm hysterical. And he kept stating to me,
Speaker 5: I'm going to let you call home. I said, I
Speaker 5: want to call home. I felt that if I called
Speaker 5: my friend maybe he would give me some information.
Speaker 7: What should I do? He denied my phone.
Speaker 5: Calls because I constantly told him I would like to
Speaker 5: call home. He said, well, when we finished, you could
Speaker 5: call home. I'll call I'll have his partner call let
Speaker 5: him know where I'm at I'm saying because at this
Speaker 5: point of the day, I should be home, which I wasn't.
Speaker 5: So now my companion had no idea where I was
Speaker 5: or what happened to me at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so all of this just adds to the stress
Speaker 4: and confusion and terror. It's really terror, right that you're
Speaker 4: experiencing at this point, because you don't know what these
Speaker 4: guys are capable of, and you know there's nobody but you,
Speaker 4: and you're overmatched. You are really helpless. I mean, they
Speaker 4: won't let you in many cases, they won't give you
Speaker 4: any food, any water. You're just going to sit there
Speaker 4: and they go in and they go out, and they
Speaker 4: have this all. It's a whole protocol is designed to
Speaker 4: do exactly what it did, which is to get you
Speaker 4: to be willing to do basically anything and confess to anything. Right.
Speaker 4: What's crazy on top of all the rest of this
Speaker 4: is that they were not only committing an act of evil, right,
Speaker 4: which is knowingly extracted a confession from a person that
Speaker 4: they had every indication was innocent of the crime, but
Speaker 4: also they were sloppy. And why I say that is
Speaker 4: because the confession that you signed didn't make any sense
Speaker 4: because the facts that were on that piece of paper
Speaker 4: didn't match the evidence from the case. Right. They got
Speaker 4: you to say that he was in a wheelchair, which
Speaker 4: he wasn't, that it was a robbery of sixty dollars,
Speaker 4: which would find out later that the guy probably didn't
Speaker 4: have sixty dollars. There was a number of other facts
Speaker 4: in there that were just wrong. And that's so weird
Speaker 4: because I don't know. At least it seems to me,
Speaker 4: if you were doing this, you would at least try
Speaker 4: to get someone to sign a confess that's accurate to
Speaker 4: the facts of the case. But they didn't even bother
Speaker 4: to do that. That's right.
Speaker 6: And one of the interesting things here was that there
Speaker 6: were really two confession statements. One was the handwritten statement
Speaker 6: which Scarcella himself wrote out and Vanessa merely signed, and
Speaker 6: this was consistent with protocol at the time. There was
Speaker 6: a video restatement of the confession and that is led
Speaker 6: by an assistant district attorney with Scarcella in the room. Now,
Speaker 6: Scarcella could not control the questioning by the assistant district attorney.
Speaker 6: Vanessa testified that they basically rehearsed, and Scarcella told her
Speaker 6: what to say in the video, but he could not
Speaker 6: control some of the questions and the ADA, for example, asked,
Speaker 6: was the old man standing?
Speaker 7: Was he sitting?
Speaker 6: And Vanessa said he was sitting, and he said, so
Speaker 6: what was he sitting in? And Scarcella had not researched
Speaker 6: was there ever a wheelchair in the apartment, because Vanessa
Speaker 6: then guessed she said he was sitting in a wheelchair.
Speaker 4: Because he was old. So that might have made sense, right,
Speaker 4: but it's.
Speaker 6: Not true, and so there was a gotcha for us
Speaker 6: as the defense team. That was a great mistake in
Speaker 6: the confession which we could use to prove it was coerced.
Speaker 6: And the caine. The ADA asked what kind of cain
Speaker 6: was used to hit mister Shaw, and Vanessa again guessed
Speaker 6: because she had no idea. She guessed that it was
Speaker 6: a wooden cane. In fact, it was a metal cane.
Speaker 6: So that's how some of these mistakes came in, is
Speaker 6: that Scarcella could not control the ADA and his questioning.
Speaker 6: Thank god, because otherwise we might not have caught these mistakes.
Speaker 4: So ultimately you end up going to trial, but before
Speaker 4: you get to trial, they held you in Rykers Island
Speaker 4: for thirteen months. Yes, how terrifying.
Speaker 7: Is that very very terrifying. But prior to me getting there, after.
Speaker 5: All of the confession and everything, they still never told
Speaker 5: me I was being arrested for the crime. They bypassed
Speaker 5: my house. They still stated to me that they were
Speaker 5: taking me home. And we got to the precinct. I said,
Speaker 5: why didn't you pass my house or we have to
Speaker 5: make one more stop. This is still lives And we
Speaker 5: got to the precinct and at that point then he
Speaker 5: said he had to handcuff me.
Speaker 7: I was never cuffed.
Speaker 5: I was never told I was arrested and they had
Speaker 5: to cuff me to take me into that building, which
Speaker 5: was Central Booking. I didn't even know that. And then
Speaker 5: I was put in the cage and I just stayed
Speaker 5: there until they said I was supposed to see a
Speaker 5: judge or whatever I had to. It was all a
Speaker 5: blur because I don't recall all of that that happened.
Speaker 7: At that time.
Speaker 5: And the next day I guess that I was on
Speaker 5: the bus going to Riker's Island and up on my rival.
Speaker 5: You know, they do the strips, serge your nackad You're
Speaker 5: walking around in the sheet in the cage with a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of people, other women, and you know, and
Speaker 5: then you put into a cell. And at that time
Speaker 5: when they put me to a housing unit, I was
Speaker 5: able to call home finally and tell him where.
Speaker 4: I was at and what was that phone called?
Speaker 6: Like it was?
Speaker 7: He was very upset. I was upset.
Speaker 5: I was hysterical, and I still couldn't think of how
Speaker 5: I landed here, you know, in Riker's Island. It was
Speaker 5: just it was so and you have no clothes, You
Speaker 5: have the rents out what you have on.
Speaker 7: You took a shower, your rents out what you have.
Speaker 5: On and hang it in your cell, hopefully it be
Speaker 5: dry by morning, cause that's all you have. And that
Speaker 5: was it til the next morning. Then you're taking out
Speaker 5: and you go to the mess hall as they call it,
Speaker 5: and and you're just there in that space until they
Speaker 5: put you for two weeks. I guess it's two weeks
Speaker 5: before they put you in population and then you they
Speaker 5: assign you another s where I was living in the dormitory.
Speaker 5: In the dorm where it's a whole bunch of beds
Speaker 5: and women half toilets, there was no privacy at all.
Speaker 5: You take showers where the whole bunch of other women
Speaker 5: in one big circle thing, and you just got spickers
Speaker 5: coming out the wall, and it was a lot of
Speaker 5: different things that happen. It's it's terrible just being in
Speaker 5: that place. A lot of different things go on, women
Speaker 5: and women. I started working the night shift. I did
Speaker 5: whatever I had to do so I wouldn't be on
Speaker 5: the dorm at night. I just didn't. It was just
Speaker 5: disgusting for me. I couldn't deal with that part of it.
Speaker 4: So ultimately, thirteen months later, you end up finally getting
Speaker 4: your day in court, and you had a lawyer who
Speaker 4: didn't seems like he did the minimum amount of work
Speaker 4: that he could do. Now you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: He may have been working on four hundred other cases.
Speaker 4: There are certainly lawyers of public defenders in New York
Speaker 4: who are so overburdened. But that doesn't matter when it's
Speaker 4: your life on the line, right And we don't know
Speaker 4: the personal circumstances that this individual was in, but one
Speaker 4: way or another, he was not prepared and did not
Speaker 4: represent you adequately, and you really didn't have a chance.
Speaker 7: That's true. Well, I like the attorney I made.
Speaker 5: My companion kept asking him and court when we went
Speaker 5: to court, could he speak with him?
Speaker 7: He always said yes, but he always left the courtroom.
Speaker 5: He adjourned my case on numerous occasions, so there was
Speaker 5: nothing that he did. There was no investigation because as
Speaker 5: far as I'm concerned, when this incident happened, I don't
Speaker 5: see where there's a police investigation done in anything. By
Speaker 5: the time that they decided the man had passed away,
Speaker 5: there was dust that family had came in and cleaned
Speaker 5: the house, did a lot of things, so therefore there
Speaker 5: was no fingerprints. There was nothing. The house was cleaned
Speaker 5: because the family members. This is all the information I
Speaker 5: found out later on after I was incarcerated.
Speaker 4: Another terrible aspect of pre trial detention is that I'm
Speaker 4: guessing your lawyer didn't visit you. No, he did not, right,
Speaker 4: And there's a reason behind that too, which is that
Speaker 4: for a lawyer to go to Rikers Island and visit you,
Speaker 4: basically that's going to take their whole day. They don't
Speaker 4: make it easy. It's a whole process you have to
Speaker 4: go through. They have to travel to the jail. So
Speaker 4: people who are not in the system right, people who
Speaker 4: are out on bail or on their own recognizance, have
Speaker 4: a much better chance because they can meet more freely
Speaker 4: with their lawyers and get better representation, which is another
Speaker 4: thing that I think it's important for people to understand.
Speaker 4: It's one of the reasons why our bail system is
Speaker 4: so unfair and ill conceived. So you were in that
Speaker 4: exact situation where you're facing a murder wrap. Your lawyer's
Speaker 4: not visiting you, he's not really doing any work every
Speaker 4: time he comes in, and a journeys the case, you
Speaker 4: go right back to Rikers Island, and so there's just
Speaker 4: nothing that's fair or equitable about that. And ultimately, though
Speaker 4: thirteen months later, you did get your day in court.
Speaker 4: By this point, I mean, you'd been through so much,
Speaker 4: and you'd been lied to by the people who are
Speaker 4: supposed to protect you, and you'd been let down by
Speaker 4: the other person was supposed to protect you as your lawyer.
Speaker 4: The whole system is failing you. But when you went
Speaker 4: to court, did you believe that justice would finally be
Speaker 4: done and people would see that you were a innocent person.
Speaker 7: Yes, I did.
Speaker 5: That's the reason why I test on my own behalf,
Speaker 5: because I didn't have anyone to testify for me.
Speaker 7: And I mean Scott Selly.
Speaker 5: He went out of his way to make sure that
Speaker 5: family members were there, and a lot of them had
Speaker 5: moved away because of the time lapse. They were in
Speaker 5: another state, but he brought a lot of them there
Speaker 5: so that the jury could see that there was a
Speaker 5: large family, and it just made things move a little
Speaker 5: smoother for him to get the conviction.
Speaker 7: But I did speak to the family. I spoke to
Speaker 7: the judge.
Speaker 5: I even wrote a letter to the judge stating that
Speaker 5: I did not commit this crime.
Speaker 4: So these are what happened.
Speaker 6: Well, Finessa testified that the confession was coerced and that
Speaker 6: she was not there.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 6: The jury deliberated for I think over thirteen hours. It
Speaker 6: was a lengthy deliberation, relatively speaking, and they acquitted her
Speaker 6: on the top count, which was murder. But there must
Speaker 6: have been some kind of compromise because they did convict
Speaker 6: her on the manslaughter and the only evidence against her
Speaker 6: was the confession. But you have to remember this was
Speaker 6: back in ninety seven and juries were not sensitized to
Speaker 6: the issues we all know today about how innocent people
Speaker 6: can confess. The science was not there then, and it
Speaker 6: would take a lot for a jury to reject a
Speaker 6: confession that someone seemed to have voluntarily made, and there
Speaker 6: was no false confession expert who testified on her behalf
Speaker 6: a trial, just Vanessa's word against Scarcella's word. And obviously
Speaker 6: Scarcela at that time was a senior detective who nobody
Speaker 6: had reason to question. There had been no allegations yet
Speaker 6: that he had engaged in any corrupt life activity, so
Speaker 6: it was reasonable for a jury to buy Scarcello's account
Speaker 6: instead of Finesses. And I think that's what happened. If
Speaker 6: the same case we're tried today, I think a jury
Speaker 6: would be much more attuned to coercion issues and that
Speaker 6: false confessions can happen. I think it would be a
Speaker 6: different outcome today.
Speaker 4: Frankly, Yeah, And I want to make sure that people
Speaker 4: who are listening really take that in because now we
Speaker 4: know there's so much research on false confessions. It is
Speaker 4: a wonderful show on Netflix called The Confession Tapes. So
Speaker 4: many people have seen the Confessions and other programs like
Speaker 4: Making a Murderer that are so obviously false. We know
Speaker 4: that in DNA exonerations over twenty percent of the cases
Speaker 4: involve false confessions. It's a scary phenomenon, but it's very real.
Speaker 4: And so Vanessa, at that moment when you were convicted,
Speaker 4: because the jury did come back in and declare you
Speaker 4: guilty of second degree manslaughter, what was that like?
Speaker 5: I think I just went numb on it and believe it.
Speaker 5: I didn't think I would get that kind of time
Speaker 5: anyway for this he even if they didn't believe me.
Speaker 5: I really didn't even realize how much time I had
Speaker 5: to do. I just didn't believe it, so that nobody
Speaker 5: believed me, you know what I was stating to them.
Speaker 5: I mean, I know he had some issues in the past,
Speaker 5: and he just came back forward trying to just get
Speaker 5: a conviction, because he did have some problems in the department.
Speaker 7: But he just came gunn ho at me.
Speaker 5: And I'm not realizing that he was set me up
Speaker 5: the whole time just to take the four for this crime.
Speaker 4: But he did. And he probably got some pats on
Speaker 4: the back and some you know, sort of accolades for
Speaker 4: solving another cold case. And you were, you know, just
Speaker 4: a little detailed to him. That's all. He probably never
Speaker 4: Probably I'm guessing he went home that night, had a
Speaker 4: nice dinner, you know, watch some TV, and went to sleep.
Speaker 4: So you end up serving ten years in prison where
Speaker 4: you had a perfect disciplinary record, and the whole time
Speaker 4: you maintained your innocence, even though there were times when
Speaker 4: you came before a parole board and it would have
Speaker 4: been better for you in some ways to say that
Speaker 4: you were guilty, because they would have probably sent you home.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's true. But the first couple of times I went,
Speaker 5: I did not. I kept I stated that I did
Speaker 5: not do the crime.
Speaker 4: But they don't want to hear that. They want to
Speaker 4: hear that you're remorseful, that you feel bad that the victim.
Speaker 5: I can't feel remorse when I didn't do something. They
Speaker 5: don't understand. How do you feel You don't know the person,
Speaker 5: you didn't do the crime, so how can you feel remorse.
Speaker 5: I mean, I feel remorse when someone is getting beaten
Speaker 5: or something like that, actually seen it happen. But as
Speaker 5: far as me doing something like that, never never.
Speaker 6: Finessa's right. In the first two parole hearings, she said
Speaker 6: I did not do what they said I did. But
Speaker 6: eight years in with a perfect disciplinary record and seeing
Speaker 6: how little asserting her evidence got her with the parole
Speaker 6: board previously, in her third parole hearing, she appeared to
Speaker 6: admit guilt, and we retained a fabulous expert who was
Speaker 6: able to explain the conundrum that someone like Vanessa is facing.
Speaker 6: And Vanessa testified in her deposition that everyone on the
Speaker 6: inside was telling her you're an idiot. You've got to
Speaker 6: tell them what they want to hear. Just tell them
Speaker 6: you did it. And so Vanessa in the third parole
Speaker 6: hearing appeared to admit guilt when in fact, obviously she
Speaker 6: was not guilty, but it was the only way she
Speaker 6: could see to get out early.
Speaker 5: At that point, it didn't matter they it didn't matter.
Speaker 5: Even in the third hearing, date hit me again with
Speaker 5: another two years, which is pissed my cr date, my
Speaker 5: condition to release. It was up to them, I would
Speaker 5: have still been in there until two thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: Now we're going to get to the good part of
Speaker 4: the story, right, because there is a happy ending, or
Speaker 4: you wouldn't be sitting here now and you wouldn't be
Speaker 4: enjoying the nice, big, extended family that you now have.
Speaker 4: And so the good guys come to the rescue. Right.
Speaker 4: You have Lisa and her team at Hughes, Hubbard and Reed,
Speaker 4: and you have the legal aid Society, and then at
Speaker 4: just about the right time in Brooklyn, the Conviction Review
Speaker 4: Unit was established, and that unit has done phenomenal work
Speaker 4: in reversing many wrongful convictions, including last time I looked
Speaker 4: at was seven or eight that Scarcela was directly responsible for,
Speaker 4: including yours. So let's talk about that, because the happy
Speaker 4: ending part of this story is really really important because
Speaker 4: it requires people like Lisa and other dedicated professionals to
Speaker 4: go and reverse one of these things. It's hard. I mean,
Speaker 4: they don't make it easy at all. So how did
Speaker 4: it come about Lisa? How did she end up getting justice?
Speaker 4: After all?
Speaker 6: Credit initially unquestionably goes to the Legal Aid Society. This
Speaker 6: is what happened. Charles Hines was in the political fight
Speaker 6: of his career and there had been an initial Scarcella
Speaker 6: related exoneration in the David Ranta case, and the New
Speaker 6: York Times and Ken Thompson are breathing down Charles Hines's back,
Speaker 6: and he says, it's okay, everybody, I'm telling you right now,
Speaker 6: I am going to reinvestigate every trial conviction that detective
Speaker 6: Scarcella touched, and Hines prepared a list which has never
Speaker 6: been publicly available. I don't know anyone that's ever seen it.
Speaker 6: Initially it had at least fifty names of defendants on it.
Speaker 6: And what the DA's office did was they contacted the
Speaker 6: last lawyer of record in each of those fifty cases. Well,
Speaker 6: the Legal Aid Society was the last lawyer of record
Speaker 6: in a good half of those, about twenty five. And
Speaker 6: so Legal Aid went to firms around town looking for
Speaker 6: partners which is how Hughes Hubbard got involved with the
Speaker 6: case and we proceeded on a three year partnership with
Speaker 6: Legal Aid. We reinvestigated the crime and marshalled our arguments,
Speaker 6: retained experts and were able to make a persuasive pitch
Speaker 6: to the then District Attorney, Ken Thompson, who had beaten
Speaker 6: Charles Hines in that election. And that is the short
Speaker 6: story of how we were able to get to the
Speaker 6: exoneration day.
Speaker 4: And Ken Thompson sadly died last year at the young
Speaker 4: age of fifty. He was a good man and a
Speaker 4: decent man. He was a friend of mine, but he
Speaker 4: was so proud. You know. He used to walk around
Speaker 4: with a picture of you. I don't know, do you
Speaker 4: know that?
Speaker 5: No, I know it's in his office, but I didn't
Speaker 5: know he had the picture with it.
Speaker 4: He at his birthday party. He has this cardboard thing.
Speaker 4: I'm holding my arms out wide to show how big
Speaker 4: it was, and then it was about a couple of
Speaker 4: feet three feet high, and on it it had a
Speaker 4: picture of you and the other exoneries that he his
Speaker 4: office had helped to exonerate. And so he was very
Speaker 4: proud of you and of the work that he and
Speaker 4: his team had done to help in your case. I
Speaker 4: remember him mentioning you specifically, So you should feel good
Speaker 4: about that. So when finally the light shone on you
Speaker 4: and on your case and justice was done, and it
Speaker 4: was proven by all these good people that this had happened,
Speaker 4: and that you were telling the truth all along, except
Speaker 4: when you were lying, because it was them telling you
Speaker 4: what to say, right, I mean, but in fact, as
Speaker 4: you had been saying you were innocent for so many years,
Speaker 4: what did that feel like when finally you got your
Speaker 4: life back?
Speaker 5: It felt great, and I was like, I'm saying, I'm
Speaker 5: able to finally put this behind me. You don't know
Speaker 5: what you're feeling at that time, because it's like, it's
Speaker 5: clear now that I didn't do it.
Speaker 7: I mean, you don't know what people think of you,
Speaker 7: whether you.
Speaker 5: Did this crime or not, because it's on records stating
Speaker 5: that you did. But I felt great, I mean I
Speaker 5: felt relieved. Now live my life without having that on
Speaker 5: my record. It's very difficult to try and find a job,
Speaker 5: to move on in life because you have this hanging
Speaker 5: over your head. Now my record is clean, I could
Speaker 5: state that I have no record, which makes life a
Speaker 5: lot easier for me because people look to a background check.
Speaker 7: Is nothing there.
Speaker 4: It's nothing there because you never had anything there, because
Speaker 4: you were always there, always were a law abiding citizen.
Speaker 5: Yes, but as far as the law and the criminal
Speaker 5: justice system said, yes you have a record, it's on there.
Speaker 4: Not anymore.
Speaker 7: Not anymore, it's been taken away.
Speaker 4: And now you know, there's another aspect of this, which
Speaker 4: is something that's so troubling. You know, when we live
Speaker 4: in a country where we have approximately four point four
Speaker 4: percent of the world's population, but we have thirty three
Speaker 4: percent of the world's female prison population, which is just
Speaker 4: so outrageous. I mean, it's a national disgrace the way
Speaker 4: we treat women in this country. And when somebody like
Speaker 4: you is locked up, you're missing out on your children's lives, right,
Speaker 4: and your children grandchildren, and that dynamic. I mean, that
Speaker 4: must have been an extra punishment. It was.
Speaker 5: My granddaughter was like only a year or when I
Speaker 5: went in, and it caused a lot of chaos be
Speaker 5: twet me and my daughter because I wasn't there for her.
Speaker 5: You understand, when she needed her mother to help her,
Speaker 5: when she had questions about raising her daughter.
Speaker 7: I wasn't there.
Speaker 4: She couldn't even call you no and not but you
Speaker 4: were far away, right that That's another thing.
Speaker 5: I was in bedfoot for a while, and then I
Speaker 5: finally moved to They moved me to Bayview, which is
Speaker 5: in Manhattan, which was made closer because I didn't get
Speaker 5: a lot of visits. I didn't get visits because my
Speaker 5: family couldn't come to the facility because we were poor.
Speaker 5: We didn't have money like that. I mean, even like
Speaker 5: my father was living at the time. He wanted to
Speaker 5: put up his farm. I wouldn't allow him to do
Speaker 5: that because they gave me a quarter million dollar bill,
Speaker 5: saying where do you think I'm gonna get that kind
Speaker 5: of money from. It was difficult for everyone. I lost
Speaker 5: a lot of family members. I lost a brother or sister,
Speaker 5: my uncle, my aunt, I lost my mother, my father's brother.
Speaker 5: It was it was a lot of family member that
Speaker 5: passed away. During my first year incarcerated. I couldn't attend
Speaker 5: anything because if you're in New York or if your
Speaker 5: family's out of state, you can't go to the services.
Speaker 7: So that was hard for me to deal with too.
Speaker 5: It was a lot of things that that I missed
Speaker 5: out on because of my incarceration.
Speaker 4: So you had to endure the death of numerous family
Speaker 4: members while you were behind bars for something you didn't do,
Speaker 4: and you weren't even allowed to go to the funeral, right. So,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's so amazing to me that you're here now,
Speaker 4: standing up straight, proud, like, able to put a sentence together, right,
Speaker 4: able to just have a life when you've been through
Speaker 4: such an incredibly terrible ordeal that you never deserved. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's crazy. So now the good news is you have
Speaker 4: gotten your life back, right. I mean, this thing actually
Speaker 4: happened almost twenty years ago. Must be crazy to think
Speaker 4: about that. And now you've been out for some time,
Speaker 4: and what's the situation Now? You settled your lawsuits, right,
Speaker 4: which is great, Yes, and it's worth noting that Scarcela
Speaker 4: not only ruined so many people's lives and left so
Speaker 4: many crimes unsolved, leading to many more crimes happening, because obviously,
Speaker 4: when he arrested and was able to get convictions on
Speaker 4: the wrong people, the right people were out there committing
Speaker 4: more crimes. Right, So he's got that. And then also
Speaker 4: there's been tens of millions of dollars paid out to
Speaker 4: so many victims of his by the city, which is
Speaker 4: taxpayer money. So there's nothing cute or funny about what
Speaker 4: this guy was doing. When these guys behave in this way,
Speaker 4: who are supposed to be protecting us and keeping us safe,
Speaker 4: it has so many terrible consequences across the board. So
Speaker 4: now where are you living, how's your life, what's your
Speaker 4: family situation? I want to hear, well, I'm living.
Speaker 5: In Jersey's City now, although I was living in Manhattan
Speaker 5: until twenty fourteen and working. I was working from the
Speaker 5: day that I got out of prison because I met
Speaker 5: a couple day gave me a job and I work
Speaker 5: with them for almost eight years until they retired. And
Speaker 5: then now living in Jersey City. My mother has Alzheimer's.
Speaker 5: That's one of the reasons. I moved back to Jersey
Speaker 5: City where she is. I recently purchased a home or
Speaker 5: it's eleventh for graduations. I have the first one, and
Speaker 5: my daughter has a second. It's a two family house
Speaker 5: and she's upstairs with a daughter and her granddaughter, my granddaughter,
Speaker 5: my great granddaughter and my daughter, so we all live
Speaker 5: in together.
Speaker 4: Right, have any boys in your family?
Speaker 7: We do have boys.
Speaker 5: I have brothers, But as far as me, it's four
Speaker 5: generations of females. Well five, you put my mother in there,
Speaker 5: but it's just females.
Speaker 4: You got four generations living under one roof in Jersey City.
Speaker 4: It sounds incredible and isn't that nice though, that now
Speaker 4: you're able to make up for the time that you
Speaker 4: lost with your family. Now you have your whole like
Speaker 4: so many of you all there together. I mean, it
Speaker 4: must be just a joy for you.
Speaker 7: It is. It is wonderful.
Speaker 5: I can see my granddaughter, my great granddaughter at any
Speaker 5: time if I need to go somewhere in My.
Speaker 7: Granddaughter does have a car.
Speaker 5: She's working, so she could take me and then I
Speaker 5: get this babysit my granddaughter.
Speaker 4: So that's amazing. Well, listen, I'm happy that things finally
Speaker 4: worked out. I want to apologize to you for what
Speaker 4: the city and the state did to you. There's no
Speaker 4: excuse for it, but I'm glad you're here now. One
Speaker 4: of my favorite parts of the show often is to
Speaker 4: turn the microphone over to our featured guest and see,
Speaker 4: is there anything else you want to share with the audience.
Speaker 5: Well, no, I'm just saying that. Well, during the time
Speaker 5: that I was in there, I mean, I wasn't going
Speaker 5: to let the time do me. I was going to
Speaker 5: do the time. So I got myself involved with a
Speaker 5: lot of different activities throughout the prison. I worked hard
Speaker 5: to stay in touch with my family. I would read
Speaker 5: my granddaughter books on you know, on video and send
Speaker 5: the books. There's a lot of programs in there. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of things you could do even though you're
Speaker 5: fighting your case. But do something positive, you know, don't
Speaker 5: let the negativity rule you.
Speaker 4: And Lisa any final thoughts, I would.
Speaker 6: Just say, having known Vanessa now for five or six years,
Speaker 6: she is an exceptional person and the only way I
Speaker 6: think she was able to get through this ordeal was
Speaker 6: her strength of character. She got into prison, and I
Speaker 6: think this woman just put her head down and said,
Speaker 6: I'm going to get through this, and she just was
Speaker 6: forward thinking. She never obsessed about how did this happen?
Speaker 6: How did I get here? It was just one day
Speaker 6: at a time. I've got to get out of here.
Speaker 6: And she mentioned the couple that hired her right after prison.
Speaker 6: I just want to speak to that because I think
Speaker 6: it's so telling about Vanessa. Literally, a wealthy couple was
Speaker 6: volunteering at Bayview, husband and wife. Vanessa was running the
Speaker 6: ged program. She was running this thing, that thing, and
Speaker 6: they elbowed each other and said, why is she here?
Speaker 6: We don't get it. She's not like anyone else in here.
Speaker 6: And they befriended Vanessa, and literally one week after she
Speaker 6: was released, she was in a full time job working
Speaker 6: for them, and she was the chief administrator of their
Speaker 6: very successful company and worked for these people for seven years.
Speaker 6: They trusted her, they loved her. They could see what she.
Speaker 7: Was capable of.
Speaker 6: And you know, my client is just an extraordinary woman,
Speaker 6: and it's a testament to her character that she was
Speaker 6: able to get through this.
Speaker 4: Well, both of you are extraordinary women. So Vanessa, Lisa,
Speaker 4: thank you so much for coming in and appearing on
Speaker 4: the show. You've been listening to a very special episode
Speaker 4: of Wrongful Conviction with our guests Fanessa Others and Lisa Kaye.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me, don't forget to give us
Speaker 4: a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps.
Speaker 4: And I'm a proud donor to the Ennisis Project and
Speaker 4: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 4: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 4: to annessisproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 4: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 4: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 4: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 4: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 4: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 4: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 4: with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 2: When the Morning the Boy Hated Them