Speaker 1: Bobby Jean Johnson was given up for adoption at birth
Speaker 1: and later molested while she was in foster care. She
Speaker 1: ran away from that horrible situation and tried to survive
Speaker 1: as a sex worker on the streets of New Orleans.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy seven, an antiquities dealer named Arthur Sampson
Speaker 1: was found dead at his Saint Charles Avenue shop. He
Speaker 1: had been shot once in the stomach with a thirty
Speaker 1: two caliber bullet and stabbed over one hundred times. The
Speaker 1: store was ransacked and safe was missing about two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: A month after the murder, Bobby Jean was writing in
Speaker 1: what she did not know at the time was a
Speaker 1: stolen car with two men. When they were pulled over
Speaker 1: by the police for a traffic violation. One of the
Speaker 1: men stashed a knife and a thirty two caliber revolver
Speaker 1: in Bobby Jean's purse. At eighteen years old, Bobby Jean
Speaker 1: Johnson was brought in for a violent interrogation that would
Speaker 1: change the course of her already tragic and vulnerable life.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction today.
Speaker 1: I have a guest who is one of the most
Speaker 1: extraordinary people with one of the most insane stories that
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. And she's also just a beautiful, beautiful person. So,
Speaker 1: Bobby Jean Johnson, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. As I always say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here and
Speaker 1: everyone will find out why. And with her is Kat Forrester,
Speaker 1: who is the communications director for the Unists Project of
Speaker 1: New Orleans, also known as IPNO. And Kat, welcome to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, happy to be here.
Speaker 1: So Bobby Jean was freed from prison twenty eighteen after
Speaker 1: serving forty one years in prison for a crime she
Speaker 1: didn't commit. And this case has so many of the
Speaker 1: hallmarks of the causes of wrongfulctions that you know, it's
Speaker 1: almost a clean sweep, so to speak. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was misconduct, there was a false confession that you were
Speaker 1: tortured into making, incompetent defense, it's not even that's not
Speaker 1: even strong enough of a word. And we're going to
Speaker 1: get into that all of that. But we're talking about
Speaker 1: the murder of Arthur Sampson, right, and this is an
Speaker 1: extremely violent crime. This was a white man who was
Speaker 1: an antiquities dealer in New Orleans who was shot and
Speaker 1: stabbed a hundred times. I mean, that's a vicious, vicious crime.
Speaker 1: And just to paint a picture for people who are listening,
Speaker 1: how tall are you?
Speaker 3: I'm five feet tall.
Speaker 1: You're five feet tall, and you're not a big one.
Speaker 3: I wasn't that big at the time. I was like
Speaker 3: ninety eight pounds, like and I will size zero pains.
Speaker 3: I could google my clothes out the children's section.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing makes no sense just on a
Speaker 1: purely physical level. And mister Sampson, I mean, nobody deserves
Speaker 1: to die like he did. But he was a sort
Speaker 1: of a dicey character anyway. Right, he was known for
Speaker 1: bringing sex workers to his home, which is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why the logical suspect would have been this
Speaker 1: woman who was a sex worker, who was the last
Speaker 1: person to see him alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was the last person he was seen with
Speaker 2: by anyone.
Speaker 1: Right, So usually, you know, we all watch those crime
Speaker 1: shows on TV, you know, you go down that path
Speaker 1: at least take a look, you know, but that's not
Speaker 1: what happened. What year was this by me?
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy seven?
Speaker 1: You were an eighteen year old girl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the time.
Speaker 1: So what was going on? You were living in New
Speaker 1: Orleans at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was like on drugs and stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So one night we was riding in a call. It
Speaker 3: was me and two other dudes were riding a call
Speaker 3: in the cops. The police stoptors for a traffic violation.
Speaker 1: Were you were you driving?
Speaker 3: No? I wasn't driving right. And at the time when
Speaker 3: the police stopped us, one of the dudes that was
Speaker 3: in the call with me thro the knife in a
Speaker 3: gun in my person. So wouldn't book because I know
Speaker 3: I didn't have no knife and gun in my purse.
Speaker 3: So when the police pulled all my stuff out my person,
Speaker 3: he said, oh, we got a knife and a gun.
Speaker 3: I said, that is not for me. But they took
Speaker 3: us to Homoicide Division and they put us in different
Speaker 3: rooms and kept questions and I wasn't questions and I
Speaker 3: kept telling him I don't know nothing about it. I
Speaker 3: don't even know what his place is at. And I
Speaker 3: heard his man and so one of the dudes, the
Speaker 3: dude they put the gun in it, and I didn't
Speaker 3: make a statement. Is said, when y'all stopped this, I
Speaker 3: put that knife in that gun and Bibi. Jeez, that's
Speaker 3: not whos I did that, and he made a statement.
Speaker 3: They just ignored a statement.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kat, do you think they knew at the
Speaker 1: time that they had the wrong person, but they just
Speaker 1: wanted to clean up the case and that was what
Speaker 1: was really going on. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think they had a pretty viable suspect
Speaker 4: and they didn't follow any of the leads in that
Speaker 4: other suspects case. And I think that so often, particularly
Speaker 4: you know, back in the seventies, eighties, nineties in New Orleans,
Speaker 4: particularly with black folks. I think that they, you know,
Speaker 4: the cops got tunnel vision and you know, when they
Speaker 4: found somebody and it seemed easy enough to pin it
Speaker 4: on that person, you know, even if all the evidence
Speaker 4: in the world pointed to someone else. So often they
Speaker 4: just got tunnel vision and focused on one person and
Speaker 4: you know, force their theory of the case to fit
Speaker 4: to that person.
Speaker 1: So they knew, they knew that this guy had come
Speaker 1: forward who admitted that he had a classy guy. By
Speaker 1: the way the cops coming, he's putting his knife and
Speaker 1: he's gun in your purse. I mean, that's a hell
Speaker 1: of a thing. And when you were arrested, and if
Speaker 1: you're okay even talking about it, I mean, what I've
Speaker 1: read about the interrogation that you went through this is
Speaker 1: like something out of a you know, a bad movie,
Speaker 1: or out of the torture that you read about in
Speaker 1: a foreign country or abu grabe, you know, or something
Speaker 1: like that. But I mean, you went to the police
Speaker 1: station and what happened.
Speaker 3: And then they put us in separate rooms. And they
Speaker 3: kept throwing pictures in front me and they say, this
Speaker 3: is him him. I said, well, I've never.
Speaker 1: Seen that man before, the dead guy.
Speaker 3: Ye had a dead man all the samson and then
Speaker 3: one in my face. He said, no, let's take her
Speaker 3: to the other room. So when they took me to
Speaker 3: the other room, they still was asking me. So when
Speaker 3: I kept saying I don't know. I can't tell you nothing.
Speaker 3: I don't know, he said, oh, you're gonna know, and
Speaker 3: he called me a black bee and he put my hand,
Speaker 3: got me to the back behind his like wooden chair,
Speaker 3: and put a plastic bag over my head. The chair
Speaker 3: fell backwards and they started kicking me in my ribs
Speaker 3: and all over and hit me, and he kept saying,
Speaker 3: black b Yeah, you're gonna tell us because we know
Speaker 3: you know, we know you know, he said, because let
Speaker 3: me tell you, he said, ain't number of police officers
Speaker 3: in this in the station right here, and we could
Speaker 3: kill you and your family would never know nothing about you.
Speaker 3: So I'm scattered at that, and so he said, come on,
Speaker 3: we're going back in there by the time, he said,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna put it on and if you don't,
Speaker 3: you'll get some more. And I was scattered that I
Speaker 3: was crying and everything. I had five police officers standing
Speaker 3: up behind me and one sitting down who had the
Speaker 3: tape recorder and he said, now you ready, I said,
Speaker 3: I I don't know now he said. He turned the
Speaker 3: tape off and he said, you're gonna repeat what I say.
Speaker 1: He turned the tape of corder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and sold mad. So I was so scared. I
Speaker 3: did everything they was telling me to put on. But
Speaker 3: it was a lie. I did it because I was scared.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you had a very good reason to be scared.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was hurting everywhere, and even after the
Speaker 3: JF fell back with they was kicking me in my
Speaker 3: ribs and everything.
Speaker 4: It was horrible, and Jason, I just wanted to say that,
Speaker 4: like the world had not been kind to Bobby Jean
Speaker 4: before this all happened. You know, she had had a
Speaker 4: really tough up upbringing, and it makes so much sense
Speaker 4: that she would do anything to kind of survive, right this,
Speaker 4: this brutal police interrogation and beating.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bobby Geen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just feel like the world had not been
Speaker 4: kind to her, had not offered her a lot of hope.
Speaker 2: And I, you know, I think.
Speaker 3: Because I was I was given away when my mama
Speaker 3: had me and I had to go home like that.
Speaker 5: It was like I was scaring the whole world of
Speaker 5: my shoulders. So I just got out there and I
Speaker 5: just wanted somebody to love me, and I just wanted
Speaker 5: to be accepting itself. So whatever it took for me
Speaker 5: to do that, I did it.
Speaker 4: And she was she was a young a young girl,
Speaker 4: as you keep kind of pointing out, you know, who
Speaker 4: was doing the best she could with what she had.
Speaker 2: And then and then this thing happened to her, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then this thing happened. This is you know, there's
Speaker 1: been too many of these cases where we've learned that
Speaker 1: the officers have threatened to kill the person unless they confess.
Speaker 1: Johnny and caapier is one thing of viyegas in Texas.
Speaker 1: There's too many of these. And you know, Johnny says
Speaker 1: to me, he was on the podcast and he said,
Speaker 1: ask me, why would I confess? And he was eighteen,
Speaker 1: like you were, and he says, why wouldn't I confess?
Speaker 1: He goes, I wanted to live? You know what I want?
Speaker 3: I just want I want to be if I was.
Speaker 1: A young girl eighteen. You're really more of a child
Speaker 1: than a woman. I mean at that point, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we know that the adolescent brain doesn't fully
Speaker 1: develop until you're twenty five. And here you are not
Speaker 1: just a young girl, but a little girl, right, ninety
Speaker 1: eight pounds, like you said, in a room full of big,
Speaker 1: tough guys who you would want to think are going
Speaker 1: to protect you, right, And in fact they're threatening in
Speaker 1: a very real way. Right. It's not like it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like an empty threat when they're putting a plastic
Speaker 1: bag over her and beating you and kicking you. I mean,
Speaker 1: so I don't think there's any question. And I think
Speaker 1: it's so important that you're here, and I really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: I know it's difficult for you. I can see how
Speaker 1: difficult it is. But it's so important for the public
Speaker 1: to understand that these false confessions happen for a variety
Speaker 1: of reasons. Not everybody's tortured, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: are psychologically coerced, or they're or they're you know, confused.
Speaker 1: So yeah, in your situation, I don't think anyone would
Speaker 1: probably behave any differently than you did. But then what
Speaker 1: a difficult thing to live with too, because knowing as
Speaker 1: you're going to prison for the rest of your life
Speaker 1: that you are in a certain way responsible because you know,
Speaker 1: you admitted something that you didn't do. But her confession
Speaker 1: didn't match the facts of the case anyway.
Speaker 2: No, she I mean she got a lot of it wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean she didn't get much of it right actually,
Speaker 1: and that's also a typical thing in these false confession cases.
Speaker 1: After torturing her for hours, the police were able to
Speaker 1: extract the taped confession that was riddled with inconsistencies. According
Speaker 1: to that false confession, Bobby Gene and a woman named
Speaker 1: Kimberly Leagun had met Samson in the French Quarter. Legun
Speaker 1: solicited him for sex. Then when he brought them back
Speaker 1: to his store and again back to the false narrative
Speaker 1: that she created just to make the torture stop. She
Speaker 1: said Bobby herself got him once in the chest and
Speaker 1: once in the head, and then her friend Legan stabbed
Speaker 1: him over one hundred times. Then they robbed his store
Speaker 1: and sped off in a stolen Pontiac Graham Prix. Now
Speaker 1: for the actual facts, Arthur Sampson was shot only once
Speaker 1: in the stomach, Bobby Jean described Sampson as being twenty
Speaker 1: years younger and a half foot taller than he was.
Speaker 1: And lastly, the Pontiac Grand Prix would not have made
Speaker 1: a good getaway car, as it was not stolen until
Speaker 1: hours after the murder. The man who had stashed a
Speaker 1: thirty two caliber Revolver a Knight for her person had
Speaker 1: made a statement admitting to just that, but that fact
Speaker 1: was inconvenient to the prosecution's narrative and was therefore hidden
Speaker 1: from the defense. All of this could have been brought
Speaker 1: up during trial if Bobby Jean had adequate counsel. However,
Speaker 1: with no family and no backup whatsoever, Bobby Jean didn't
Speaker 1: have a chance in help. Now you're taking to jail, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how long did you have to wait? For your trial
Speaker 1: eighteen months, eighteen months in jail. Yeah, and I know
Speaker 1: how bad that must have been, because jail's, I mean,
Speaker 1: anywhere were terrible, but in New Orleans it's infamous. It is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your trial was. It was like a combination of a
Speaker 1: bad dream and a bad joke. It was because the
Speaker 1: people who are supposed to be defending you did nothing
Speaker 1: of the sort. Yeap, And can you talk about that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I can. Doing my trial, my lawyer wouldn't let me
Speaker 3: get onder standing and talking my own defense. He fell
Speaker 3: asleep drough the trial.
Speaker 1: Your lawyer was asleep, Yeah.
Speaker 3: He fell asleep during the I had to wake him up.
Speaker 3: And he didn't do no opening statements.
Speaker 1: No opening statement, and no clue in statements.
Speaker 3: And one of the jurors stood up in state totally
Speaker 3: d I cannot give miss Johnson a fair trial because
Speaker 3: I had a relationship with this man. The judge said,
Speaker 3: be seated with the victim. Yeah, and he And now
Speaker 3: I know because when I was in prison, I took
Speaker 3: fair leave and I graduated from it. But my lawyer
Speaker 3: should have called a mistrial when that jurors stood up
Speaker 3: and he didn't say not a word, and.
Speaker 2: The judge said, just let's let's please proceed.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've been doing this work for over
Speaker 1: twenty five years, and I've heard a lot of stories.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that before. I mean, I've heard stories
Speaker 1: of yourors that had but I never heard a duror
Speaker 1: actually stand up in.
Speaker 3: A mid She she raised a hand and she said,
Speaker 3: I can I get this lady at petrial because I
Speaker 3: had a relationship with mister.
Speaker 1: Samson, and so your lawyer was asleep, You're waking him up.
Speaker 1: He made no opening statement, he made no closing statement,
Speaker 1: and he didn't object to the last didn't call him
Speaker 1: miss trial.
Speaker 4: He made one objection throughout the trial to the admission
Speaker 4: of a photograph. He asked a total of eight cross
Speaker 4: examination questions, the majority of which dealt with the ballistics
Speaker 4: of the gun. No opening and no closing, and he
Speaker 4: presented no case theory.
Speaker 2: He essentially did nothing except.
Speaker 3: Jake a nap and sid do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, he didn't defend you so much as
Speaker 1: process you.
Speaker 3: Right when I was in jail, when they occurring him
Speaker 3: to me, he never came seeing me. The only time
Speaker 3: I seen him was at court and sometimes when they
Speaker 3: would have court dates. For me, but he wouldn't be there,
Speaker 3: so they would postpone it to another day.
Speaker 1: Oh so that's why I took eighteen months to get
Speaker 1: to trial. Yeah, because he wouldn't show up.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't show up.
Speaker 1: Did at any point did you request a different lawyer?
Speaker 1: Did you even know that you?
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I was young and I didn't know,
Speaker 3: and you probably.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would think in that situation, you know
Speaker 1: nothing about the law, right, And I would think again
Speaker 1: in that situation, that you would be worried if you
Speaker 1: did request, Well, then you're going to upset the only
Speaker 1: guy who's on your side right now. Did you have
Speaker 1: any family in the courtroom with you or anything like that? No, nobody,
Speaker 1: just you all alone. Yeah, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Took them less than an hour to come back with
Speaker 2: a guilty verdict.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when I got there, so at first I wasn't
Speaker 3: because I was angry. I was angry and I was hurt.
Speaker 3: That's when I was starting I started fighting, and all
Speaker 3: this it didn't matter no more because I had at
Speaker 3: It was like, well, Baptigi, you got a life sentence.
Speaker 1: Now, it's nothing you could do.
Speaker 3: You're going to die in this prison.
Speaker 6: But then I started praying and praying and praying. And
Speaker 6: one of the last fight I had, I remember, I
Speaker 6: was in that cell. I just fell to my knees
Speaker 6: and I said, God, just take my life. I'm I'm
Speaker 6: tired of living like this. Take my life and do
Speaker 6: what you want to do with it. And from that
Speaker 6: day to this one, I ain't been the same. I
Speaker 6: grew up, I got more mature, and I did everything.
Speaker 3: I could do. Was they was offering the GED. So
Speaker 3: I know I had been out of school a few
Speaker 3: months and stuff, and I got in this trouble because
Speaker 3: I know I was a small girl. I had just
Speaker 3: I hadn't graduated. I dropped out at the eleventh grade.
Speaker 3: And so I took the GED and I passed the GED.
Speaker 3: It was giving grants off of introduction to business, payroll
Speaker 3: accountant and pay league. First, I took the pay of
Speaker 3: legal on and I passed with a full PARANORL yeah wow.
Speaker 3: And I studied hard or I studied hard because I
Speaker 3: wanted it and I wanted I did everything I could
Speaker 3: to rehabilitate myself in every kind of way. It was
Speaker 3: nothing I didn't do positive in jail. I had fights
Speaker 3: in jail because I was small, and they thought I
Speaker 3: was scared of him, but I wasn't. And I had
Speaker 3: fights with quite a few people. But I grew and
Speaker 3: I matured. I did everything I know to do right.
Speaker 3: I was a law curder and all this in the prison.
Speaker 6: When I got into the old the law library, I
Speaker 6: started writing to.
Speaker 3: Everybody to try to help me. One day, my sister,
Speaker 3: theyd just sent me all your pavots I'm gonna bring
Speaker 3: into Innocent project. And when I sent them all to it,
Speaker 3: they got them and they started working on my case immediately.
Speaker 3: Every two weeks they would be up there to see
Speaker 3: week and they tell me how the case was going
Speaker 3: on whatever. And then the day, oh, I went to
Speaker 3: court on the seven. I didn't even know I had
Speaker 3: a court or the deal. Oh, they said, Jen Johnson,
Speaker 3: get ready, you got a court trip.
Speaker 7: I said, a court trip? Downt y'all have never taken
Speaker 7: me back to court, so I didn't know what was
Speaker 7: going on. So I said okay, And when I got dressed,
Speaker 7: they brought me to courthouse and all them was in the.
Speaker 3: Court room for me, all lawyers, yes, but all my
Speaker 3: lawyers walked up with me to the podium when I
Speaker 3: had to do the plea and everything.
Speaker 1: For many long years, both the Promise of Justice Initiative
Speaker 1: and the Innocence Project of New Orleans worked tirelessly on
Speaker 1: Bobby Jane's case, investigating leads, studying the evidence, and identifying
Speaker 1: the inconsistencies in her violently coursed false confession to eventually
Speaker 1: force the District Attorney's office to offer a plea deal.
Speaker 1: The deal was this, her first degree murder conviction and
Speaker 1: life sentence would be vacated, but Bobby Jean had to
Speaker 1: plead guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery in order to
Speaker 1: be recent sentence to time served. Her attorneys also had
Speaker 1: to drop any claims that the DA's office did not
Speaker 1: turn over exculpatory evidence. This was not the outcome the
Speaker 1: Day or anyone who cared about Bobby jan had hoped for,
Speaker 1: but it was the only one that would set her free.
Speaker 1: It's really sort of the last miserable aspect of this
Speaker 1: case is the fact that even after all these years,
Speaker 1: and even after it's been proven that you had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this, they still wouldn't admit their mistake,
Speaker 1: right because they wanted to maintain the conviction. They want
Speaker 1: to make sure you didn't get anything for it. So
Speaker 1: the DA's office in New Orleans forced you to take
Speaker 1: a plea just to sort.
Speaker 3: Of could be free, as that was the only way
Speaker 3: say you take this, flee or you stay in prison.
Speaker 1: Right, I think anybody would do what you did. And
Speaker 1: kat I want you to jump in here anytime, because
Speaker 1: I know you're intimately familiar with this case, and I
Speaker 1: know how proud you are of the work that as
Speaker 1: I am as a supporter of Innis's Project New Orleans,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of the work that they did, and
Speaker 1: I'm so happy. I mean, I saw those pictures and
Speaker 1: I posted on my Instagram, which is at It's Jason
Speaker 1: Flamm as people know, but I posted the pictures of
Speaker 1: Bobby Jean walking out of prison that day, and I
Speaker 1: just my heart was breaking or floating. I was breaking.
Speaker 1: My heart was breaking, and I was floating in the air,
Speaker 1: and it was a whole crazy thing. Can you shine
Speaker 1: some light on this cat because this case is bizarre
Speaker 1: even by our standards.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely so. It was a case that we worked
Speaker 4: on for several years. One of the attorneys in our office,
Speaker 4: Schrell Arnold, worked on it for a long time, and
Speaker 4: it ended up being the Promise of Justice Initiative, an
Speaker 4: incredible organization in New Orleans who ended up freeing Bobby
Speaker 4: Jean and walking her out of prison. But we were
Speaker 4: there because she was, you know, the first.
Speaker 2: Female client who we'd really worked on her.
Speaker 4: Case for for a long time and had a really
Speaker 4: good lead. And part of that is because, as you know, Jason,
Speaker 4: I'm sure sure you know, women aren't often sentenced to
Speaker 4: life in prison or long prison sentences, which is what
Speaker 4: HYPNO does is free innocent life sentence prisoners, and women
Speaker 4: so often are caught up in things that men do
Speaker 4: right there, or they harm or kill their domestic abusers.
Speaker 4: And so this was you know, really exciting for us,
Speaker 4: I think because it was the first time that we'd
Speaker 4: worked with a woman for a number of years, and
Speaker 4: of course Bobby Cheen is just incredible, and you know,
Speaker 4: I think having her come home.
Speaker 2: I actually came and hung out with her in Atlanta when.
Speaker 4: She got home, and we went to the aquarium and
Speaker 4: started learning how to use a cell phone. That's as
Speaker 4: I think we showed you some pictures and it was
Speaker 4: a really incredible moment. I you know, can't imagine being
Speaker 4: incarcerated for forty one years.
Speaker 1: No, I mean when you put that in context, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, you were only eighteen at the time, so
Speaker 1: that's twice as long as you had been alive, plus
Speaker 1: another five years. I mean, it's it's impossible, I think
Speaker 1: for anybody to comprehend who hasn't been through it. Jesus,
Speaker 1: who was president when you went to prison?
Speaker 3: I don't remember. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We have to look. Jimmy Carter was president. That's got Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a long time. Most of the people
Speaker 1: who are listening to the show weren't born yet, and
Speaker 1: everything was different, and then you come out into a
Speaker 1: world where everybody's walking around typing on their phones, going everywhere,
Speaker 1: like there's just everything is different.
Speaker 3: When I am my first phone in my hand, I
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god. Cat. She had to assume
Speaker 3: me everything, how to turn it on and everything.
Speaker 2: First thing she wanted was an Instagram account.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what is your Instagram account?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: She doesn't know Bobby Jean twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So you walk out, I mean, what a difference you
Speaker 1: You go as a scared, brutalized, young nineteen twenty year
Speaker 1: old woman by the time eighteen when you went to
Speaker 1: jail and you come out as an accomplished, mature, fifty
Speaker 1: nine year old woman. You walk out into a world
Speaker 1: that looks almost nothing like it did when you went.
Speaker 3: In, because New Orleans don't look nothing like it did
Speaker 3: when I went in. I mean I almost forgot the
Speaker 3: names of the streets that I definitely looked at.
Speaker 8: To me, Yeah, I had five, five of my lords
Speaker 8: with me, and it was just, I don't know, it
Speaker 8: was a feeling I never had before.
Speaker 3: I used to pray every night, God, you my only witness,
Speaker 3: and you know I didn't kill nobody, just open these
Speaker 3: doors and help me. Every night I prayed that in
Speaker 3: my robe. It was so hard for me.
Speaker 1: Here we are at the Innocence Network conference. By the way,
Speaker 1: how about this conference, Bobby, It's amazing. Yeah. So we're
Speaker 1: here at the Innocence Never Conference with about two hundred
Speaker 1: exgonnarees and six hundred people activists, social workers, civilians who
Speaker 1: want to get involved. Two of them are in the
Speaker 1: room with us right now. We have lawyers here, we
Speaker 1: have experts on everything from you know, false confessions to uh,
Speaker 1: you name it, and uh. It's an awesome awesome thing.
Speaker 1: I mean people are connecting and strategizing and coming up
Speaker 1: with best practices and helping each other. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we have we have thirty five new exouneries here
Speaker 1: that were on stage last night singing and dancing and
Speaker 1: it was some crazy scene. Man, it's amazing, including you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're up there.
Speaker 2: How to feel to be up there?
Speaker 3: It was a feel good you feel.
Speaker 1: Good for you to connect with the other exigneries. What
Speaker 1: is that experience?
Speaker 3: Like, it's just like because I just thought, I said,
Speaker 3: I know that many people there's both convictions, and it
Speaker 3: made me feel good to know that I was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 9: I wasn't only one. Oh no, hell no, but I
Speaker 9: didn't know at the time. But it really feel good
Speaker 9: and to know that much loved it. We showed to
Speaker 9: each other.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, we ain't done yet. We're going to
Speaker 1: be loving on you for the well for the rest
Speaker 1: of the time, but especially the LASS next twenty four
Speaker 1: hours and we're all going to be here together. It's
Speaker 1: going to be amazing. And I know that people are
Speaker 1: are so glad that you're here.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, right, Yes, yeah, I mean I'm so honored
Speaker 1: to be here and be a part of this movement.
Speaker 1: I will tell anybody who's listening that, you know, I
Speaker 1: call it selfish altruism because I can consider it a
Speaker 1: privilege and an honor to get to be around people
Speaker 1: like yourself and to be able to make some small
Speaker 1: difference is you know, it's the most rewarding thing in
Speaker 1: my life. I mean, you know, obviously you know I'm
Speaker 1: a father and that's a tremendously important thing to me.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, it's the most important work that I
Speaker 1: can imagine being involved with. And you're a living proof
Speaker 1: of it. And here we are celebrating you and celebrating
Speaker 1: freedom and working on getting the next people out and
Speaker 1: and so now you're living in Georgia. In Georgia, yes,
Speaker 1: and what gives you joy? Now? Do you have any
Speaker 1: joy in your life? Now?
Speaker 3: I have to enjoy my life now because it's like
Speaker 3: living where I live. I can come and go with
Speaker 3: exact please. Anybody could come get me and like take
Speaker 3: me wherever they want to save me, Like if they
Speaker 3: want to take me out there or whatever, I could
Speaker 3: do it. And they have a lot of activities because
Speaker 3: I'm because I'm because of my age. They have a
Speaker 3: lot of activities for old and I always attended. They
Speaker 3: have church service. I always attended and they treat me good.
Speaker 2: And what is it that you do once a month,
Speaker 2: Bobby Jean.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'll go to George's Innocent Project. I'm a men
Speaker 3: of the George's Innocent Project and I never missed a meeting.
Speaker 3: I'm always there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: They've really lovingly taken her into the exonery meetings that
Speaker 4: happen once a month there so she gets to hang
Speaker 4: out with other wrongfully incarcerated to people who live in Georgia.
Speaker 1: I see you got the shirt on Georgia, said Mabby.
Speaker 3: Do you go w a Jeorjia Innocent Project shirt? I say, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't have one for all ipn wear the judge one.
Speaker 2: I need to get you a just a shirt.
Speaker 3: I know, don't have a justice sir.
Speaker 1: I think we can arrange that. So, okay, you got
Speaker 1: that one. I got it. Okay. Perfect teamwork makes the
Speaker 1: dream work. So this is the part of the show
Speaker 1: that is my favorite part because this is the part
Speaker 1: of the show where I get to first of all,
Speaker 1: I thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Bobby Jean Johnson and Kat Forrester, thank you for coming
Speaker 1: and share especially you Bobby obviously Bobby Jeene for I
Speaker 1: know how difficult it is to talk about these things,
Speaker 1: and it's so important that you're here, so, you know,
Speaker 1: thank you on behalf of me and all my listeners
Speaker 1: and everybody in the Innocence Network. And then this is
Speaker 1: the part where I get to stop talking, and I
Speaker 1: turned it over to YouTube fabulous ladies for final closing thoughts,
Speaker 1: and I think we should we should finish with you, Bobby,
Speaker 1: because I want to hear anything you have to say,
Speaker 1: any anything at all about any subject. But first, Kat,
Speaker 1: what what are your closing thoughts.
Speaker 2: I'm just so glad that we helped get her home.
Speaker 4: And I was thinking about it because were at the
Speaker 4: aquarium last night for the Innocence Network dinner, and we
Speaker 4: went to the aquarium right after she got out, and
Speaker 4: to see the joy on her face, you know, at
Speaker 4: like you know, seeing very cool.
Speaker 2: Fash was just unparalleled.
Speaker 4: And I'm just so glad to have been able to
Speaker 4: experience that with her and to see, you know, how
Speaker 4: many new things she gets to explore in this life
Speaker 4: now that she's a free, a free woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was amazing to me because the a Quirum
Speaker 3: I would always see that they showed on TV. I
Speaker 3: used to say, I want to go there. I want
Speaker 3: to go there. So when Kat had me, she said,
Speaker 3: you want to go to the Querrum. And when she
Speaker 3: did it, it was like a a lot of joy just
Speaker 3: jumped on my face.
Speaker 10: I said, yeah, I want to go. I want to
Speaker 10: go Cat, I want to go see him. And when
Speaker 10: I came in, it was so beautiful. I just it
Speaker 10: was so amazing out here. But Kat led me all
Speaker 10: the way through and she was there. Yp Noel's been
Speaker 10: there for me.
Speaker 3: I could call him at any given time or whenever,
Speaker 3: and if it's a problem I have, they would do
Speaker 3: their best to fix it. Or if I like sometimes
Speaker 3: I used to get depressed and stuff and I used
Speaker 3: to call them and talk. And Angelique has been marvelous.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, she has been.
Speaker 2: Great client services specialists.
Speaker 3: Yes, she has been great. No matter what, if she
Speaker 3: can't call me back at the time, she'll text me
Speaker 3: back and say I'll call you in a few minutes,
Speaker 3: just hold on and but then it has been great
Speaker 3: and it's and I'm happy to be home.
Speaker 1: I'm happy.
Speaker 3: I'm happy more happy.
Speaker 1: Now than I've ever been in my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: I never.
Speaker 11: Knew so much love and stuff, but no, I do.
Speaker 11: And it's it's great. It's this that they took a
Speaker 11: lot of away from me. They took everything away from
Speaker 11: me for nothing but something I didn't even do.
Speaker 3: I lost everything, all my youth was gone, and I
Speaker 3: just want to thank you Jason for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to be here for you too. You
Speaker 1: have a whole new family now. You've got eight hundred
Speaker 1: family members here now, and you've got a lot more
Speaker 1: that are listening to the show. And so you're a
Speaker 1: brave and strong and amazing woman and we're gonna support
Speaker 1: you in every way we can. So so again, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Thanks again for listening. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go try to recover. That's what I'm gonna do,
Speaker 1: and and we'll see you next week. I'm wrong for conviction.
Speaker 1: I have some devastating news to share. Bobby Jean Johnson,
Speaker 1: who I recorded this amazing, haunting episode with, passed away.
Speaker 1: It was unexpected. I'm no doctor, but I can say
Speaker 1: that she died of the abuse and neglect that she
Speaker 1: suffered at the hands of the State of Louisiana during
Speaker 1: her forty one years of wrongful incarceration. Bobby was an
Speaker 1: angel on earth. She was just a beautiful, damaged soul
Speaker 1: who wanted nothing but to be loved and to help others.
Speaker 1: And she was out less than eighteen months when she died.
Speaker 1: And I bring that up because it's a sort of
Speaker 1: a hidden and horrible truth. I don't know the statistics nationally,
Speaker 1: but in the state of Louisiana, approximately twenty percent of
Speaker 1: xanneries die within eighteen months of their release from prison.
Speaker 1: It's really hard for me to process this one. We
Speaker 1: were planning Bobby's birthday party when we got the news.
Speaker 1: She had called me and said that she called me
Speaker 1: mister Jay. She called me, she called me mister Jay.
Speaker 1: He goes, you know, my birthday's coming up, and she said,
Speaker 1: I've in her little voice because you know, she's only
Speaker 1: about ninety something pounds, and she said, you know, I've
Speaker 1: never had a happy birthday. And you know, that really
Speaker 1: just messed my head up, as you can imagine. So
Speaker 1: we began planning myself. Stacy Ryan, who mentored her hero
Speaker 1: of the band, a wonderful rock and roll band that
Speaker 1: I work with from Atlanta. We all were putting our
Speaker 1: resources together and planning a big, beautiful birthday celebration for
Speaker 1: her in Atlanta, and you know, just a week before
Speaker 1: it was supposed to happen, and got the news that
Speaker 1: she was gone. So Bobby Jean, You're gone, but never forgotten.
Speaker 1: Rest in power, don't forget to give us a fantastic
Speaker 1: review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And
Speaker 1: I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence Project and I
Speaker 1: really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important
Speaker 1: cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to
Speaker 1: Innocence Project dot orgorg to learn how to donate and
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one