Speaker 1: Last time on ear witness.
Speaker 2: We knew the reward was offered because it was all
Speaker 2: over the papers, but we didn't know who got it
Speaker 2: or if IoLET Ellison got it.
Speaker 3: She was a very credible witness. We believed her. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we believed her because we convicted him, and it was
Speaker 3: on her testimony.
Speaker 4: When I showed up at her house, she said I
Speaker 4: didn't get a reward.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, well, that's funny. I was like,
Speaker 5: I have some paperwork here that says you got a reward.
Speaker 2: We got an email that said we found these documents.
Speaker 2: They had been misfiled and here they are.
Speaker 1: Does that sound strange to you or do you have
Speaker 1: any idea how that could.
Speaker 6: Have happened.
Speaker 5: AG's office.
Speaker 7: They said he got misfiled, and I guess it got
Speaker 7: misfiled error.
Speaker 4: I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you think that your impression of her would have
Speaker 1: been different had you known she was being paid five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I definitely believe we would have as a jury talked
Speaker 3: about that, like how credible is this testimony? She's being
Speaker 3: paid for it?
Speaker 8: Like I had never been in trouble a day in
Speaker 8: my life ever before the end. I'm going to jail.
Speaker 8: And I've never been in jail to day in my
Speaker 8: life ever, ever, ever, never had got any trouble anything.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the couch in a tiny one bedroom
Speaker 1: apartment in Birmingham. It's warm outside. The door is open
Speaker 1: to let in a breeze. I'm talking with Marika Wilson,
Speaker 1: who's telling me and my producer Mara about a defining
Speaker 1: experience of her life being charged with attempted murder in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven when she was twenty years old, a
Speaker 1: crime she did not commit. The crime happened late at
Speaker 1: night when one woman and two men tried to rob
Speaker 1: a man in Birmingham. They broke into his house and
Speaker 1: shot him. He almost died. Marika was accused of being
Speaker 1: the woman who participated in the crime, but she says
Speaker 1: she wasn't there. It was someone else.
Speaker 8: Albun tatno plead. They offered me twenty two years of
Speaker 8: my life for something that I didn't even do, and
Speaker 8: I said no. I fought to the bitter end.
Speaker 1: A jury found Marika not guilty, but the ordeal left
Speaker 1: life long scars.
Speaker 8: It has still just bothered me all these years about
Speaker 8: what I went through. You know what I'm saying. Every
Speaker 8: time I applied for a job, even though I was
Speaker 8: a quitty I couldn't get a job, a decent job
Speaker 8: to take care of my kids. I lost my place.
Speaker 8: I didn't have a shirt to put on my back.
Speaker 8: Then I lost custody of my kids behind that. I
Speaker 8: was up against all type of odds in that situation,
Speaker 8: something that I didn't even do. But she, she did,
Speaker 8: not that woman stick it up there and say she's
Speaker 8: seen me.
Speaker 1: The woman Marika is referring to is the witness who
Speaker 1: testified against her, a neighbor of the victim, who said
Speaker 1: she'd seen the crime unfold from her living room window
Speaker 1: at two am. She told the jury she saw Marika
Speaker 1: and two other people break down the victim's door and
Speaker 1: assault him. The woman's name Violet Ellison. So do you
Speaker 1: remember Violet Ellison.
Speaker 8: I remember her getting up there saying she's seen me
Speaker 8: through the window. She was wrong, she was wrong, Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 8: it wasn't me. They discredited her at my trial. They
Speaker 8: made her look horrible. I remember her like she just
Speaker 8: got up there and pointed at me.
Speaker 1: Marika's attorneys showed the jury that Violet Ellison's view from
Speaker 1: her living room window was blocked by a tree. There
Speaker 1: was no possible way she could have seen Marika or
Speaker 1: anyone else on her neighbor's porch.
Speaker 5: So she was a big part of the case against.
Speaker 4: You, and she.
Speaker 8: Led under oath, literally literally lied under oath.
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison testified against Marika less than four months after
Speaker 1: she served as the star witness against to Forrest Johnson.
Speaker 1: Their trials happened in the same year, in the same courthouse,
Speaker 1: prosecuted by the same DA's office. In both cases, Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison knew the victim, spoke to detectives, and became a
Speaker 1: lead witness. Marara and I find ourselves in Marika Wilson's
Speaker 1: living room a few weeks after I made a lucky
Speaker 1: discovery in Alabama's database of online court records. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in my office poking around in the database.
Speaker 1: It's a clunky website with all these different drop down menus.
Speaker 1: I'm running searches on Violet Ellison's name, trying her name
Speaker 1: in a bunch of different ways, getting the same results.
Speaker 1: When all of a sudden, I hit enter and boop,
Speaker 1: a new list pops up criminal cases all naming Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison as a state's witness. So, in addition to t
Speaker 1: Forest's case, I discover that Violet Ellison has been a
Speaker 1: witness for the state in four other criminal cases. Marika
Speaker 1: Wilson was the first person that we tracked down who
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison had testified against. When I first called Marika,
Speaker 1: I told her about the four other cases Violet was
Speaker 1: involved in as a witness. Right, we know of five
Speaker 1: different criminal cases.
Speaker 8: Is these folks convicted because of her?
Speaker 1: Several of them?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Oh wow, oh wow, Oh man, y'all need to help
Speaker 8: them people, because she's not credible. I said that to
Speaker 8: my husband about that woman. I said, baby, he said,
Speaker 8: this woman don't been involved in several cases, Like is
Speaker 8: she on a payroll or something? It just sounds like
Speaker 8: something crooked going on with me, because how does she
Speaker 8: keep popping up in all these serious cases and being witnesses?
Speaker 8: Like that's that don't sound right, I'm sorry, it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 8: And the boy on deth rol because of this lady,
Speaker 8: Oh wow, it's something going on with that, y'all.
Speaker 1: In order to believe and to forrest Johnson's conviction, you
Speaker 1: have to believe that Violet Ellison was truthful when she
Speaker 1: said that she overheard to Forrest talk about killing Deputy Hardy,
Speaker 1: that she wasn't after the reward money because she didn't
Speaker 1: know about it. You have to believe that Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: is credible. So we need to know everything we can
Speaker 1: about Violet Ellison because without her, without her credibility, there
Speaker 1: is no case against to Forrest Johnson.
Speaker 6: Do you hear my maness laugh? Hads my susay bly
Speaker 6: is in this day o tears. I want to see revelation.
Speaker 8: I want to know who you are.
Speaker 5: I'm reation.
Speaker 6: In thisspiration to the world. Who's holding star.
Speaker 4: To the.
Speaker 6: Who's holding the stand?
Speaker 1: I'm Beth Shelburn. This is ear witness, Chapter seven MESSI.
Speaker 1: In January of twenty twenty two, Mara and I start
Speaker 1: trying to track down the other people Violet Ellison testified against.
Speaker 1: We spend a lot of time in my car full days.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I pack mom snacks, healthy stuff like hummus and
Speaker 1: baby carrots, raw almonds, maybe a diet doctor pepper on
Speaker 1: a hard day. Marika was the first person we were
Speaker 1: able to find. The second case that listed Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: as a witness was a second degree assault between two
Speaker 1: men who got in a fight. The case ended in
Speaker 1: a plea deal, so she never actually testified. We weren't
Speaker 1: able to figure out exactly why she was listed as
Speaker 1: a witness. We tried very hard to talk to the
Speaker 1: man charged in the case, but never could reach him.
Speaker 1: And then there was the third case. It involved a
Speaker 1: local pastor named Bishop James Johnson, who was accused of
Speaker 1: inappropriately touching and kissing three teenaged girls at his church
Speaker 1: run school in nineteen ninety three. Violet Ellison was a
Speaker 1: school employee who testified about the alleged abuse, but Bishop
Speaker 1: Johnson maintained he was falsely accused and that Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: was lying. The charges against him were eventually dropped by
Speaker 1: the state. We talked to Bishop Johnson, who's now in
Speaker 1: his late eighties, at his house in a suburb of Birmingham,
Speaker 1: and he told us Violet Ellison made up the accusations
Speaker 1: in an effort to get rid of him because she
Speaker 1: wanted to run the school.
Speaker 5: Yes, she was a part of my church. She was
Speaker 5: a liar.
Speaker 1: We talked to one other school employee who corroborated what
Speaker 1: Bishop Johnson told us that Violet Ellison made up the allegations.
Speaker 1: I tried to find some of the alleged victims in
Speaker 1: this case, but I wasn't able to track them down.
Speaker 1: Bishop Johnson said he's forgiven Violet Ellison.
Speaker 5: That's over.
Speaker 3: Thank God for over.
Speaker 5: I have nothing to holler against her. I forgave her
Speaker 5: every that I was told.
Speaker 8: I'm free.
Speaker 1: But he said she is not a trustworthy person.
Speaker 2: I'll trust her, she's a personal trusts.
Speaker 1: George Holloway is the next person on our list of
Speaker 1: people that bulet Ellison testified against. What we know from
Speaker 1: court records is this. Between two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, George Holloway was charged in several domestic violence
Speaker 1: incidents involving his girlfriend. But unlike Marika Wilson and Bishop
Speaker 1: James Johnson, George Holloway pleaded guilty to his charges, which
Speaker 1: included violating a protective order twice. He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: three years in prison. The documents don't show why Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison was a witness against George Holloway. So Mara and
Speaker 1: I get in the car and drive around for hours
Speaker 1: knocking on doors with a list of possible home addresses
Speaker 1: with no luck. I need to turn around. Finally, we
Speaker 1: pull up to the last address on our list around Sunset,
Speaker 1: a small brick house, and bessemer.
Speaker 8: We're here.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always a gamble, but we'll just give
Speaker 1: it a whirl. At the same time, a truck stops
Speaker 1: at the top of the house's driveway. Can you are
Speaker 1: we blocking you? And out hops a man wearing grass
Speaker 1: stained work clothes and a neon green shirt. Are you
Speaker 1: going to this house we're looking for mister George Holloway.
Speaker 1: Is that you? That's okay, George, I'm sorry to show
Speaker 1: up here like this. We are journalists and we are
Speaker 1: working on a story about a case. And I launch
Speaker 1: into a spiel about what we're up to, and George
Speaker 1: Holloway listens quietly as we stand next to his mailbox.
Speaker 1: You and so we're trying to get information on her.
Speaker 1: Her name's Violet Ellison. Do you know her? Do you
Speaker 1: have an opinion about her? Or have any any information
Speaker 1: that you could give us about her?
Speaker 9: I know she's very corendicted.
Speaker 4: She's I like to be involved in a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff that doesn't involve her. She's very She's a very
Speaker 4: messy lady, very messy.
Speaker 1: George Holloway invites us into his living room to talk
Speaker 1: more about his relationship with Violet Ellison.
Speaker 9: She's not a reliable person that you would trust, that
Speaker 9: you will put your faith in. And I would tell anybody,
Speaker 9: whatever you have to say, do not say it in
Speaker 9: front of her, because it's going to get turned totally backwards.
Speaker 9: It's not gonna be said the way that you said.
Speaker 9: My opinion, stay away from that woman because she's troubled.
Speaker 1: He tells us that he met Violet Ellison through his
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend. It gets a little complicated, but it's like this,
Speaker 1: George Holloway used to date a woman we'll call Sharon.
Speaker 1: Before she was with George, Sharon dated Violet Ellison's son,
Speaker 1: Reginald Smith, who's known as Red. George tells us that
Speaker 1: when Sharon broke up with Red, she remained friends with
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison, but he tells us Violet Ellison wanted Sharon
Speaker 1: and her son Red to get back together, and she
Speaker 1: thought George was in the way. George admits that he
Speaker 1: and Sharon had a volatile relationship and because of that,
Speaker 1: Sharon had a protective order against him. He says that
Speaker 1: one night he and Sharon had an argument in person,
Speaker 1: violating the protective order. George says he left after the
Speaker 1: argument and Sharon called police, but Violet Ellison later testified
Speaker 1: that she heard and saw the whole thing firsthand.
Speaker 9: She has said that you know she was there, she
Speaker 9: witnessed it, but she was not there. She showed up
Speaker 9: after everything had happened, and the pulviase was there on
Speaker 9: the scene.
Speaker 1: George tells us he decided to plead guilty to breaking
Speaker 1: Sharon's protective order to wash his hands of the whole situation.
Speaker 1: He says he hasn't seen Sharon, Violet Ellison, or her
Speaker 1: son read in years. George admits to physical fights with Sharon,
Speaker 1: but it seems like his descriptions of these fights minimize
Speaker 1: the violence. We know there is another side to the story,
Speaker 1: but Sharon doesn't respond to our interview requests. I tell
Speaker 1: George about Violet Ellison's involvement into Forrest Johnson's conviction and
Speaker 1: the five thousand dollars reward she was paid in secret.
Speaker 9: She would do anything possible that she can if money
Speaker 9: is involved, even go to this extent.
Speaker 1: To lie, But he says Violet Ellison has an even
Speaker 1: stronger motivation than money. Her son read.
Speaker 9: She would do anything possible, anything and go to any
Speaker 9: extent to keep us son out of trouble.
Speaker 1: Multiple sources tell me that Red is a longtime drug user,
Speaker 1: and court records show that he's been in and out
Speaker 1: of jail. George says that Violet Ellison enabled her son.
Speaker 9: She would come up for him, whether he was right
Speaker 9: of whether he was wrong. You know, she knew he
Speaker 9: was doing things out there in the street. But you
Speaker 9: know if the police come, she would lie and say
Speaker 9: he's not there. You know, she would give police's informations
Speaker 9: leading to drug buses, people that don't dead, robberies, and
Speaker 9: favor for them to drop charges against Reginald, get the
Speaker 9: charges downgraded, you know, to keep him from going to jail.
Speaker 1: I leave the interview with George Holloway wondering could Red's
Speaker 1: legal issues have motivated Violet Ellison to get involved with police?
Speaker 1: Was she after leniency for her son. A search of
Speaker 1: public court records shows that Red has a lengthy list
Speaker 1: of misdemeanor and felony convictions on his record going back
Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty But I checked with the Alabama Department
Speaker 1: of Corrections and they have no record of him ever
Speaker 1: serving time in prison. This tracks with what one of
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison's neighbors told me that Red is often in trouble,
Speaker 1: but he's like Teflon, nothing sticks. For example, in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Red was charged with robbery and theft when
Speaker 1: he stole five watches from a department store. He pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but
Speaker 1: then the judge amended read sentence and granted him probation
Speaker 1: instead of prison time. But there's no information about why
Speaker 1: his sentence was downgraded. And this happened less than a
Speaker 1: month before the start of to Forrest's second trial. That
Speaker 1: timing gets my attention. I wonder if it's possible that
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison testified into Forrest's case in exchange for preferential
Speaker 1: treatment for her son, But on further examination, that seems
Speaker 1: like a long shot. The charges against Red in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven were in Bessemer, not Jefferson County, where to
Speaker 1: Forest was tried, with different prosecutors and judges. But I
Speaker 1: do know that Violet Ellison was involved in her son's
Speaker 1: criminal defense in a two thousand and seven burglary case.
Speaker 1: Records show that Red's attorney met with the defendant and
Speaker 1: his mother for three hours in two separate meetings. Red
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty in that case and got probation. Is read
Speaker 1: getting preferential treatment because his mother has been a witness
Speaker 1: for the state in multiple cases. I find no documentation
Speaker 1: to support this, But then again, are deals like that
Speaker 1: ever spelled out in court records? While looking through Red's files,
Speaker 1: I notice an especially violent assault and battery from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four he was sentenced to supervised probation. I was
Speaker 1: able to dig up at court of the incident, in
Speaker 1: which police say Red spits on a woman, grabs her
Speaker 1: by the neck and hair, and pulls her around a room.
Speaker 1: A child is listed as a witness. The victim's name
Speaker 1: is Anita Davis, and her most likely addresses are all
Speaker 1: in central Georgia. So Mara and I get back in
Speaker 1: the car and make the four hour drive to try
Speaker 1: to find her. Hi, we're looking for Anita Davis.
Speaker 5: She passed away. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 8: Are you her daughter?
Speaker 5: My name is Beth.
Speaker 1: This is Marra. We are writers and we're working on
Speaker 1: a story about the wrongful conviction, and we're reaching out
Speaker 1: to people that may know that the witness. Her name
Speaker 1: is Violet Ellison.
Speaker 5: Oh, I know who you are. This's my grandma.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so Violets is your grandmother?
Speaker 8: Okay do you?
Speaker 1: Unexpectedly we find ourselves talking to Violet Ellison's granddaughter, Tyse Davis,
Speaker 1: is in her fifties but doesn't look a day over forty.
Speaker 1: When I mentioned her grandmother Violet Ellison, Tyse comes out
Speaker 1: from behind the screen door. She keeps her earbuds in
Speaker 1: while we stand on the porch and talk. What kind
Speaker 1: of grandmother was she?
Speaker 8: Was she involved in your life? No?
Speaker 7: No, she told my day, yo, kids ain't gonna never
Speaker 7: mountain there. But then we're the kids that's been successful
Speaker 7: and now she's she's trying to come back around.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's not like warm feelings.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So far, most of the people I've contacted about Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison had good reason to say negative things about her.
Speaker 1: Those were people who she testified against. But this feels different.
Speaker 1: We're hearing from a blood relative, person connected to Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison through family. Tyist tells us she's retired from the
Speaker 1: Air Force. She moved to Georgia with her mom, Anita Davis,
Speaker 1: and her two brothers. When they were kids. Tye says
Speaker 1: it was to get away from the chaos surrounding her
Speaker 1: father's side of the family. We asked her about Red,
Speaker 1: what's the deal with Red? Her son?
Speaker 8: Uh So that's my dad.
Speaker 7: Okay, I really don't how nothing do him because he's
Speaker 7: been on drug since.
Speaker 5: I was nine, eight or nine.
Speaker 7: Okay, he stayed with her, So you know you had
Speaker 7: a parents where you know, you know your child doing stuff,
Speaker 7: but you uphold it firstus letting them know you wrong.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she upholds everything you do.
Speaker 8: That's exactly.
Speaker 1: Tyis corroborates the picture already painted by George Holloway and
Speaker 1: a neighbor of Violet Ellison, telling us that she readily
Speaker 1: involves herself and other people's criminal issues, but does whatever
Speaker 1: she can to protect her son. Read when he gets
Speaker 1: into trouble.
Speaker 7: You don't need neighborhood watch with her. But she only
Speaker 7: if she only noticed what she wanted notice, because if
Speaker 7: her son was bringing in somebody house but steriously she
Speaker 7: didn't see that, but anything else she would see.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: We explained why we're interested in Violet Ellison and her son,
Speaker 1: and Tays tells us she had recently heard about her
Speaker 1: grandmother's involvement into Forrest Johnson's case.
Speaker 7: So I w I wasn't surprised when I heard it
Speaker 7: because if it involved money, I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1: Well, and it did. I mean she was paid five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I wouldn't be surprised. Like when I heard
Speaker 7: the story, I was like, Yeah, I'm not surprised at all.
Speaker 5: She's money homer. So that that's the.
Speaker 7: Issue that would like I said, will say anything to
Speaker 7: get money.
Speaker 1: Why is she like that any idea?
Speaker 7: No, even like I said, growing up, I I had
Speaker 7: nothing to do with them. Like for instance, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: give you an example.
Speaker 1: Ty East tells us that Violet Ellison was distant when
Speaker 1: she was a child, but then right after Tyst joined
Speaker 1: the Air Force, she got a call from her grandmother.
Speaker 7: Haven't done nothing for me, her gray child, haven't done
Speaker 7: nothing for me. When I joined the military, she said, hey,
Speaker 7: I need your social Security number so I can give
Speaker 7: insurance poll this on you just.
Speaker 5: In case you know, something happened to you and we
Speaker 5: can bury you.
Speaker 7: I'm fine with the military, got me covered and that stuff,
Speaker 7: and go to my mom. So why you need my
Speaker 7: social but you ain't never decided to do that before,
Speaker 7: so stuff like that. But I'm not surprised with the
Speaker 7: money thing, and I hate that this man could be
Speaker 7: innocent and for five thousand dollars he's on did her
Speaker 7: five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: But she testified under oath that she did not know
Speaker 1: about the reward. She didn't know that any money was involved.
Speaker 7: So's exactly my brother said. She ain't testified against nentheless
Speaker 7: his money involved.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, we realize that Tyss has earbuds
Speaker 1: in because she's on the phone with someone. It's her
Speaker 1: brother Tony. Oh, okay, is he here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you think he would talk to us?
Speaker 5: Would it be possible for us to come see him too?
Speaker 5: You're fine with that tone? Okay, you would just have.
Speaker 8: To kick.
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison's grandson, Tony lives about ten minutes away from
Speaker 1: his sister Tye. We get to his house and the
Speaker 1: front yard is filled with cars in various states of repair.
Speaker 1: He's waiting for us on the porch.
Speaker 8: Hello, Hi, how are you are you?
Speaker 5: Tony?
Speaker 1: After he finishes extracting an old bird's nest from the rafters,
Speaker 1: Tony talks to us for forty minutes.
Speaker 10: Ru, I can tell you one thing about my grandma.
Speaker 10: She is a that's a true scam artist.
Speaker 5: That's a truth. I hate to see it.
Speaker 10: I know that's my grandmother, but that's a true scam
Speaker 10: Audi though any way she can get a dollar telling
Speaker 10: she ain't that type. It just gonna help him out,
Speaker 10: just to help them. Sh it gotta have money.
Speaker 5: It how it got it. Gotta have money involved. Wow,
Speaker 5: it just had it. It gotta have you ain't got
Speaker 5: money involved. She.
Speaker 1: Tony says his grandmother tried to scam him out of
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars by claiming that he owed her for
Speaker 1: a loan. Mara tells Tony about how the state presented
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison it to Forrest Johnson's trial, and that she
Speaker 1: says she didn't know about the reward when she testified.
Speaker 1: He doesn't believe that getting.
Speaker 10: Your being shut like she concerned about stuff. But really
Speaker 10: she ain't concern She just tryna get your visit. U
Speaker 10: tryna see a way she can get some money.
Speaker 5: Oh reward for these.
Speaker 10: I'm fine, hopefully, But she lied too much, like my
Speaker 10: dad lied too much, like she she allied by anything
Speaker 10: to get away with anything.
Speaker 1: So he goes on to describe the relationship Violet Ellison
Speaker 1: has with her son Red, who is also Tony's father.
Speaker 5: They like Bunnie and Clyde, I should arride for him.
Speaker 5: The whole time.
Speaker 10: She could see with her own eyes with this man, indeed,
Speaker 10: and she and she'd be like.
Speaker 5: Oh, ain't see ain't she yet? She always doing like that.
Speaker 5: She be like this And he was lit like.
Speaker 1: Tony then tells us the story about the assault and
Speaker 1: battery case that led us here, filling in details that
Speaker 1: are missing from the court files. He says, when he
Speaker 1: was little, Red was on drugs and would hit Tony's mom.
Speaker 1: One night, Tony, wanting to protect her, stabbed Red.
Speaker 10: Okay, that was when I was young a child. I
Speaker 10: stabbed him. Wow, I really did I stab him? I
Speaker 10: stabed him in his cab. Most of them stuff, he ohala,
Speaker 10: And then know who was the first person that pulled up?
Speaker 6: Vie?
Speaker 5: She the first verse pulled up, and he didn't. They didn't.
Speaker 5: They told the police a lie.
Speaker 10: They tried to put it like somebody he got in
Speaker 10: a fight with somebody and all this stuff.
Speaker 5: But they wait.
Speaker 1: So Violet lied to the police she always lied for.
Speaker 5: The police to try to give him out of trouble.
Speaker 5: But she tried to put it like I was gonna
Speaker 5: get in trouble to stab him. I didn't care. I
Speaker 5: was little. I didn't care like what y'all would do
Speaker 5: to a child. I'm just protecting my mama, you know.
Speaker 1: According to Tony, even when he was little, he saw
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison lie to police to protect her son Red.
Speaker 1: But Red was arrested for this incident and sentenced to
Speaker 1: sixty days probation. And it was after this Tys and
Speaker 1: Tony's mother, Anita, decided to move the family to Georgia.
Speaker 1: Like his sister Tayse, Tony was also troubled to recently
Speaker 1: hear about his grandmother's involvement and to forrest Johnson's conviction
Speaker 1: and death sentence.
Speaker 5: I hate that man going through that.
Speaker 10: I really hate that being and ice to the point
Speaker 10: it's a chance he can lose his life or fire
Speaker 10: out luncome.
Speaker 1: I'm not typically comfortable reporting negative opinions about a private citizen,
Speaker 1: but Violet Ellison's word is the case against to Forest Johnson.
Speaker 1: In order to figure out how an innocent person ended
Speaker 1: up on death row, there was no way around investigating
Speaker 1: the star witness and whether or not she's credible. I
Speaker 1: had that conversation with Violet Ellison on her front porch
Speaker 1: a year before I talked with Tys and Tony, but
Speaker 1: after hearing from her grandchildren, I went back and knocked
Speaker 1: on Violet Ellison's door again multiple times. HI, we're looking
Speaker 1: for miss Violet Ellison. I wanted to learn more about
Speaker 1: her relationship with her son Read and her involvement in
Speaker 1: other cases. Each time I knocked, the woman inside claimed
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison wasn't at home. I even left a note
Speaker 1: in her mailbox along with my business card, but Violet
Speaker 1: Ellison never responded. Miss Ellison, is that you? I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to find documented proof of all of the allegations
Speaker 1: that Sawes made against Violet Ellison. For example, there's no
Speaker 1: paper trail that shows she lied to protect her son Read.
Speaker 1: But there's also no ironclad proof that Violet Ellison heard
Speaker 1: to Forrest Johnson talk about killing Deputy Hardy. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, the state presented her testimony with no verification
Speaker 1: of what she claimed, no recording of the calls she
Speaker 1: evesdropped on, nothing outside her word and the notes she
Speaker 1: turned over to police that connected to Forrest Johnson to
Speaker 1: a murder. He maintains to this day that he did
Speaker 1: not commit. Prosecutors presented Violet Ellison as a concerned mother
Speaker 1: troubled by her conscience, and she was adamant that she
Speaker 1: didn't know about the reward when she testified. But through
Speaker 1: my reporting, consistent negative desc descriptions kept coming up about her,
Speaker 1: even from her own grandchildren. One former co worker called
Speaker 1: her sneaky, a relative referred to her as a peacebreaker.
Speaker 1: Almost every person we talked to said Violet Ellison should
Speaker 1: not be trusted. We spoke to over a dozen different
Speaker 1: people about Violet Ellison. The consistent portrait that emerged from
Speaker 1: these conversations is diametrically opposed to the characterization presented by
Speaker 1: prosecutors at trial and what judges still believe as to
Speaker 1: Forrest tries to undo his conviction. I also learned that
Speaker 1: Violet Ellison was in a precarious financial position, burdened by
Speaker 1: medical debt. She lives in a community plagued by violence
Speaker 1: and poverty. Her son suffers from addiction. She's estranged from
Speaker 1: some of her immediate family. She seems to seize opportunities
Speaker 1: where she can. One of those was created by the
Speaker 1: state when they offered money for information about a police
Speaker 1: officer's murder. Fifteen years before I began looking into Violet Ellison,
Speaker 1: there was someone else who had questions about her credibility.
Speaker 1: Jeff Wallace, the prosecutor who stood in front of a
Speaker 1: jury and threw Deputy Hardy's hat onto the courtroom floor.
Speaker 2: Jeff Waller spent four years of his life prosecuting this case,
Speaker 2: trying to put rodregas Ford into Forest Johnson on death row.
Speaker 2: He successfully put to force Johnson on death row. I
Speaker 2: mean four years of his professional life he devoted to this.
Speaker 1: Jeff Wallace reached out to Ti Alper and the rest
Speaker 1: of Ta Forest's legal team to share what was on
Speaker 1: his mind, and today he says that to Forrest Johnson
Speaker 1: deserves a new trial.
Speaker 2: Twenty years later, he's saying, I think it should be undone.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 2: That to me takes courage that most lawyers don't have.
Speaker 1: That's next time. Ear Witness is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company. Number One.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis and
Speaker 1: me Beth Shelburn. The investigative reporting for this series was
Speaker 1: done by Me and MARAA. McNamara. Producers are Mara McNamara,
Speaker 1: Hannah bal and Jackie Polly. Kara Cornhaber is our senior producer.
Speaker 1: Brit Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from
Speaker 1: Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan, and special
Speaker 1: thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can
Speaker 1: follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from
Speaker 1: our investigation, visit lava for goood dot com slash ear
Speaker 1: Witness