Speaker 1: On the evening of October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six, seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Cain's story came over to see his friend
Speaker 1: Brian Bowling, who lived with his family in a trailer
Speaker 1: near Rome, Georgia. Cain had brought along his father's revolver,
Speaker 1: and the two boys sat in Brian's bed and passed
Speaker 1: it back and forth, pretending to play Russian Roulette while
Speaker 1: Brian talked to his girlfriend Caprice on the phone. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: Caprice heard screaming, and then a few moments later she
Speaker 1: heard someone hang up the phone. Brian had been shot
Speaker 1: in the head and was rushed to the hospital, where
Speaker 1: he died the next day. Initially, Cain told police that
Speaker 1: his friend had accidentally shot himself, but during a second
Speaker 1: interrogation two days later, Cain made a statement that the
Speaker 1: gun had been in his hand when it went off,
Speaker 1: though he insisted it had been an accident. Then a
Speaker 1: witness came forward, claiming that Brian, kan and their friendly
Speaker 1: Clark had all been members of a vicious gang called
Speaker 1: the Free Birds, and that Brian's death had been retaliation
Speaker 1: for him snitching by the theft that they'd committed. So
Speaker 1: police began investigating the incident as a homicide, ultimately charging
Speaker 1: Cain and Lee with Brian's murder. At trial, a witness
Speaker 1: testified that Cain and Lee had bragged to her about
Speaker 1: exacting their revenge on Brian, and a handwritten note found
Speaker 1: talking to Brian's coffin corroborated the gang killing narrative. It
Speaker 1: was right there in black and white. But this is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Susan Simpson,
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Proof and Undisclosed, filling in for
Speaker 1: Jason Flohm. Today's case is one that Justinta Davis and
Speaker 1: I covered in season one of Proof. In nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Brian Bowling died of a gunshot wound
Speaker 1: to the head, and eventually his seventeen year old friends
Speaker 1: Lee Clark and Kane's Story were wrongfully convicted of his death,
Speaker 1: and a confluence of fabrications, coercion, and misconduct led to
Speaker 1: their arrest and conviction. And we're about to get to
Speaker 1: all of that. But first here today to share his
Speaker 1: incredible story is Lee Clark. Lee. It's great to.
Speaker 2: See you again, and see you too, Susan.
Speaker 1: Now, Lee, before we get into everything that happened. Can
Speaker 1: you tell the audience a little bit about you?
Speaker 3: I was born in Rowing, Georgia, Floyd County. Most of
Speaker 3: my childhood, my early childhood. I grew up in our
Speaker 3: Murchy but went to Glenwood Elementary School. I've only got
Speaker 3: one blood brother, my brother Jamie, and I've got step
Speaker 3: sister or stepbrother Candy and Mark.
Speaker 1: And then the lead up to all of this, to
Speaker 1: what happened in K and A six, you were seventeen
Speaker 1: years old and living in a small community south of Rome,
Speaker 1: Georgia called Silver Creek.
Speaker 2: At that point in my life, I was young.
Speaker 3: It's all on ne you at all. I was really
Speaker 3: dumber on a box of rocks, is what my daddy
Speaker 3: used to tell me. He's probably right too. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was getting into a lot of trouble back in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety six doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing,
Speaker 3: and breaking into people's homes and stuff like that. I
Speaker 3: wasn't old enough to do it. But we drank a
Speaker 3: little bit if we'd get alcohol. If not that, we'd
Speaker 3: be smoking marijuana or something. Just hanging out as kids doing.
Speaker 2: Doing crazy stupid junk kids do. Teenagers do.
Speaker 1: And one of your oldest friends was Kin. Tell me
Speaker 1: about him.
Speaker 3: I came we were coming up, coming through high school
Speaker 3: and stuff. He would be involved in some of the
Speaker 3: stuff I was doing. But Kane, he was more of
Speaker 3: a kind of goodie two shoes. He hung out with
Speaker 3: the preppy crowd a lot that they all time questioned
Speaker 3: him a lot about why he was hanging out with me.
Speaker 3: And that's just because of the way I was back then.
Speaker 3: I was just a young, stupid teenage kid. I mean,
Speaker 3: I wasn't bad as I made out to be.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just wanted people to think that, so
Speaker 2: a lot of people would stay away from me.
Speaker 1: And one of the boys that you guys hung out
Speaker 1: with with a guy named Brian Bowling. How did you
Speaker 1: know Brian.
Speaker 3: I originally met Brian through Kane. When Kane moved out
Speaker 3: to Silver Creek, he introduced me to Brian, and me
Speaker 3: and Brian we became friends. Me and Brian were' as
Speaker 3: closest Kine and Brian were. I mean, I lot Brian,
Speaker 3: I mean I love Brian. He was a good friend
Speaker 3: of mine, and just as I got a little bit older,
Speaker 3: me being down there at his house became less frequent.
Speaker 1: So were of ninety six. There was an incident that
Speaker 1: happened when you were over at Cane's house. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: It was on October third, nineteen ninety six. Day haunts
Speaker 3: me still to this day. Is something a regret of
Speaker 3: mine that I lived with. It's today that I went
Speaker 3: to Cayne's house and all of us teenage boys over me, Caine,
Speaker 3: his buddy Joseph Wilkins, and a buddy of mine named
Speaker 3: Pete Jordan. We all decided we was going to steal
Speaker 3: Cayne's diaddy safe from him.
Speaker 1: So the four of you stole the safe from Cane's dad,
Speaker 1: took down the woods, busted it up, got some cash
Speaker 1: out of it. How long did y'all get away with
Speaker 1: a crime?
Speaker 3: I was arrested four days after we stole this safe.
Speaker 3: Caine and his buddy Joseph Wilkins, they were arrested today
Speaker 3: we stole it, and then my friend Pete Jordan was
Speaker 3: arrested three days later on October tenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was not the crime of the century.
Speaker 1: Y'all did not get away with it first more than
Speaker 1: a few.
Speaker 2: Of course. No, it was straight stupid. It is what
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, So Brian lived just down the hill for
Speaker 1: I'm Kane, but he had nothing to do with this
Speaker 1: safe though.
Speaker 2: Right, No, no, he didn't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: But as we'll see, that incident, along with Brian's close
Speaker 1: friendship with Cain, became important the prosecution's case. But for now,
Speaker 1: let's go back to just after the safeist. The night
Speaker 1: this happened, both Kane and his friend Joseph Fulkins were
Speaker 1: both arrested, and since shortly after you and your friend
Speaker 1: Pete Jordan were also arrested, well, logically it made sense
Speaker 1: that either Kin or Joseph Fulkins had been the ones
Speaker 1: to give you up. Again, though this was not the
Speaker 1: crime of the century, the stakes were pretty low, and
Speaker 1: that brings us to what happened October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: On October eighteenth, so I went to make Caine that
Speaker 3: day because I know I'd been arrested in yours. I
Speaker 3: just wanted to find out for him if it had
Speaker 3: been his buddy Joseph did it told on us? Or
Speaker 3: if it was had been Kane did it did it?
Speaker 3: I knew it had to be one of them. I
Speaker 3: just was sure which one, and I made him he
Speaker 3: sat there each tell him me. He swording up down
Speaker 3: and may it wasn't him. He didn't do it. He
Speaker 3: don't know who did it. And he played that on
Speaker 3: and on. So it's made to believe his friend Joseph
Speaker 3: was won told honest. What come to find out a trial?
Speaker 3: It was both Kane and Joseph they had told on us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so but.
Speaker 1: That night you talked to Caine, He's like, no, man,
Speaker 1: wasn't me. I didn't telling y'all. And your little brother
Speaker 1: was there too.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, he was there. You have my little brother, Jamie.
Speaker 1: The three of you ended up just kind of hanging out.
Speaker 2: For a while. Yeah. Yeah, we just rode around when
Speaker 2: shoot some pool and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: What kindness off? That's all in the motion, though, was
Speaker 1: that night before Cain went out to meet with you
Speaker 1: and Jamie he decided to grab a revolver from his
Speaker 1: dad's bedside table. He was gonna go target chooting. It
Speaker 1: was not the smartest idea since he was already in
Speaker 1: trouble with his dad. But well, while you're hanging out,
Speaker 1: he pulls the gun out and he shows it to
Speaker 1: you and even fires it out of a car window
Speaker 1: while you're driving around, just playing around. Eventually you decided
Speaker 1: to take him home.
Speaker 2: I wasn't going back to his house, cousin.
Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna take no chance of his parents being home,
Speaker 3: his mom or anything, or his dad. I don't want
Speaker 3: either one tore saving me back in his house. So
Speaker 3: I dropped him all the same place. I picked him
Speaker 3: up at Silver Creetman in the market. You know, I
Speaker 3: think about something now that I told Kane back then
Speaker 3: that uh me telling him this. I could still hear
Speaker 3: it so clearly in my head that wakes me up
Speaker 3: sometimes the middle of the night still to this day.
Speaker 3: I told him when was pulling up I was getting out,
Speaker 3: I told him, I said, look, we've done stole yourdaddy
Speaker 3: safe and now here it is. You've got your daddy's
Speaker 3: gun on you. I said, if your diddy comes in
Speaker 3: says that gun gone, he's gonna swer up down that
Speaker 3: we stole that too. So I don't need this hanging
Speaker 3: over me, Like, just take that gun back home where
Speaker 3: you got it from. Well, hey, sister and tells me, yeah, man,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do it. I said, Okay, I'm serious, man,
Speaker 3: Just get out the car, go straight home.
Speaker 2: Put that gun back.
Speaker 3: He swears up and down to me he's gonna do it,
Speaker 3: And that's the complete opposite of what he just told
Speaker 3: me he was feeling to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, after you dropped him off with the mini, mart
Speaker 1: Kin did not go directly home. Instead, he stopped at
Speaker 1: Brian's trailer on the way. They are now Brian's parents,
Speaker 1: his sister, and her boyfriend. They were all in the
Speaker 1: living room watching TV with some neighbors, Waining and Charlie Childers.
Speaker 1: When King got there, came knocking the door, said hi
Speaker 1: to everyone. They told him that Brian's back in the
Speaker 1: bedroom talking to his girlfriend Caprice. So he goes back
Speaker 1: there and finds Brian sos high and you know, they
Speaker 1: they're two teenage boys on the phone with the girlfriends.
Speaker 1: So they start passing the phone back and forth talking
Speaker 1: to her. Then at some point Kane puts out his
Speaker 1: gun and shows it to Brian and he's like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: look what I got.
Speaker 3: So what happened then, Well, the way Kane explains it
Speaker 3: to me, he's in there and him and Brian put
Speaker 3: a bullet in the gun and he says they started
Speaker 3: playing Russian rou lit and he said there was cheating.
Speaker 3: They was putting it in there, and they was taking
Speaker 3: the chamber of a revolver. Anybody who knows anything about
Speaker 3: a revolver knows if you're looking down at it from
Speaker 3: the back of it, you can see where the bullets
Speaker 3: were at. And that's what they were doing. They were
Speaker 3: taking the revolver and they were spinning it to the
Speaker 3: bottom and making sure the bullets wouldn't know where around
Speaker 3: down there. And then they were cocking it, sticking it
Speaker 3: to her head and pulling the trigger. And Kane says
Speaker 3: they had went back a couple of rounds like he
Speaker 3: back and forth, and the whole time, Brian is the
Speaker 3: phone with his girlfriend, Caprice Hoyt, and he tells Kane
Speaker 3: to tell her what I'm doing. So Kane tells her
Speaker 3: He's playing Russian rou lit. Now, first she didn't know
Speaker 3: what it was. I mean, she was a little alarm by,
Speaker 3: but she didn't know what rushing roulett was. I mean,
Speaker 3: she was telling him, tell him to stop, but she
Speaker 3: she didn't understand fully what he was in there doing,
Speaker 3: sticking it to his head, pulling the trigger until her
Speaker 3: mom came in later after the fact, and she asked
Speaker 3: her mom what rushing roulette was and her mom told
Speaker 3: her what it was. Well, Kane, he plays it and
Speaker 3: then Brian just he says, let me see that gun.
Speaker 3: What Kane says, he snatched it from him, opened it up,
Speaker 3: spun the cylinder, slapped it back in, caught the hammer back.
Speaker 3: When Brian stuck it to his head, Kane says, he
Speaker 3: looked at him and told him and said, don't do it,
Speaker 3: bro He said it's to one. Now. Kane says that
Speaker 3: Brian looked at him and said you think so and
Speaker 3: pulled the trigger. Now, that's what Kine has told me
Speaker 3: every time I've talked to him about this stuff, every
Speaker 3: time I've confronted him body, He's always told me the
Speaker 3: same thing and the.
Speaker 2: Truth he told right now.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't tell you one hundred percent positive
Speaker 3: what went done in there, but that's like I've told
Speaker 3: you before, Susan. Look, I've struggled with that stuff for
Speaker 3: many and many years. If he may have accidentally did
Speaker 3: it and didn't want to tell me, but there's too
Speaker 3: much stuff too support it, and that's why I choose
Speaker 3: to believe it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of what was observed immediately after the
Speaker 1: shooting supports what can say. The folks in the living
Speaker 1: room who had heard the gunshot rushed into Brian's room
Speaker 1: and found him there on the floor with blood pulled
Speaker 1: around his head and critically, the gun was underneath Brian
Speaker 1: where he was lying on the floor, and Caprice was
Speaker 1: still in the phone. She was yelling trying to figure
Speaker 1: it what was happening she could kill the screaming, heard
Speaker 1: someone say they got to call her back and the
Speaker 1: line going dead as the family then calls nine one
Speaker 1: one very quickly after that, the police and paramedics arrive
Speaker 1: and Brian was transported to the hospital as he fought
Speaker 1: for his life. Meanwhile, though, Lee, you had no idea
Speaker 1: that any of this was happening. After you dropped Can off,
Speaker 1: what did you do the rest.
Speaker 3: Of the night, Me and my brother turned around with
Speaker 3: my apartment in Lyndale where my girlfriend Shelley at a time,
Speaker 3: and a bunch of my other buddies were showing up
Speaker 3: over there. I was having a party at my apartment
Speaker 3: that night and we got over went to party and dranking,
Speaker 3: smoking with you, doing stupid teenager stuff.
Speaker 1: And at around eight thirty that night, two of your friends,
Speaker 1: Doug and Dawn were dropped out by their mom, and
Speaker 1: she testified later at trial that while she was there
Speaker 1: to drop her sons off, you were standing out by
Speaker 1: her car and you were talking, and she told you
Speaker 1: that something was happening down at Brian Bowling's place.
Speaker 3: I asked her what she meant, and she told me
Speaker 3: that there's a bunch of cop cars down in their driveways.
Speaker 3: We were making all kinds of sumptions to what we thought
Speaker 3: it may have been, but we were fall off face.
Speaker 1: The next morning, the doctors told Brian's family that there
Speaker 1: was no hope of recovery, and his parents agreed to
Speaker 1: donate his organs, and around noon the day after he
Speaker 1: was shot, he was declared dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the next morning I got up and I found
Speaker 3: out that two different people that Brian had shot herself
Speaker 3: the night before. My mom had called me and told me,
Speaker 3: and also Doug and Don's grandmother had told us about
Speaker 3: it when she come by to pick Doug.
Speaker 2: And down up.
Speaker 1: Now, during the initial investigation, the police took photos of
Speaker 1: the scene and talked to some of the family and
Speaker 1: other witnesses at the hospital, and of course they talked
Speaker 1: to Kane, who was taken down to the police station
Speaker 1: and had his hand swap for gunshot residue. When the
Speaker 1: police spoke to Caprice, she corroborated Cane's story that Brian
Speaker 1: and Kan told her on the phone that they had
Speaker 1: a gun and they were playing Russian Roulette. The last
Speaker 1: thing she heard was Brian saying I'm playing with the gun,
Speaker 1: followed by screaming and someone hanging up. After talking to
Speaker 1: Kane at Caprice, the police initially declared it next andal death.
Speaker 1: An autopsy, if it was done, would have shown conclusively
Speaker 1: that Brian had been holding the gun up to his
Speaker 1: head when it was fired, except one was never done,
Speaker 1: or at least there's no record of it. Unfortunately, without
Speaker 1: an autopsy, and after talking to Brian's family as well,
Speaker 1: investigators were free to get imaginative. So later that weekend,
Speaker 1: Detective Dallas Battle and Sergeant Mike Wallace brought Cain in
Speaker 1: for a second interview. This time they recorded it. At first,
Speaker 1: Cain insist again and again that Brian shot himself and
Speaker 1: they've been playing Russian Roulette and it was something more
Speaker 1: than that. But detectives keep telling him, we know you
Speaker 1: had the gun. Just tell us you had the gun.
Speaker 1: If you tell us that you had the gun when
Speaker 1: it went off, Nothing will happen to you. You won't
Speaker 1: be in trouble to tell us that. And after this
Speaker 1: goes on for half an hour or so, Kane eventually
Speaker 1: gives in and says that, yeah, the gun was in
Speaker 1: my hand when it went off. Lee, what has Kane
Speaker 1: told you about this interview?
Speaker 3: Well, he said they kept coming at him, but during
Speaker 3: the interview they were making him saying like that it
Speaker 3: was no big deal. That he just say what they
Speaker 3: wanted him to say. They won't gonna be in any trouble.
Speaker 3: Just go ahead and bit to you did this?
Speaker 2: Would you say? What was then? Act?
Speaker 3: And that's gonna be it and we can now all
Speaker 3: go home. And Kane, being young like he was, battles
Speaker 3: tricked him. He just deceived him into it. I mean, Kane,
Speaker 3: he's easily misled. I mean he's always been that way.
Speaker 3: He's a full grown man now and I hate to
Speaker 3: say it, but he's still easily misled today.
Speaker 1: So when Cain admitted to this, to having the gun
Speaker 1: in his hand when it accidentally goes off, he's arrested
Speaker 1: charges manslaughter and re leased a bond. And then a
Speaker 1: few months later that gunshot residue test comes back and
Speaker 1: it's negative. There was no jess horn Kan's hands. Now,
Speaker 1: these tests are often junk science because the false positives
Speaker 1: and false negatives they can generate. You can hear all
Speaker 1: about that on Wrong Fiction Junk Science. We'll have that
Speaker 1: episode linked in this episode's bio. But Dallas Battle believed
Speaker 1: in these tests, and since Kane tested negative for gunshot residue,
Speaker 1: this gave Dallas Battle a problem because if this was
Speaker 1: a murder, that meant Kin couldn't have done it, and
Speaker 1: he now needed a second shooter, which is what made
Speaker 1: leads wrongful conviction even possible. So Lee, how do you
Speaker 1: think you got drawn to this whole investigation?
Speaker 3: Well, shortly after Brian had shot herself and everything, I
Speaker 3: was hearing all these rumors, these lies going around that
Speaker 3: I was there, that I was hit outside, all this
Speaker 3: and that, and I wasn't sure where all that was
Speaker 3: coming from at the time, But later down the line,
Speaker 3: after I was all said and done, I started pacing
Speaker 3: together had been coming from a guy that I knew
Speaker 3: when I was younger and had a little bad blove
Speaker 3: with him, and his name was Tommy Hyde. Me and
Speaker 3: Tommy were never on good terms and stuff, and no
Speaker 3: doubt Dallas Battles was using him to spread stuff.
Speaker 1: Now, you and Battle had a bit of history.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we had pretty deep history, man, Dallas Battles.
Speaker 1: Did do you think your previous run ends with the law,
Speaker 1: including that recent safe theft, had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Battles zeroing in on you.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you straight up. Dallas Battles was a
Speaker 3: corrupt cop, crooked as they come. This man took an
Speaker 3: oath when he with that badge owned uphold the law.
Speaker 3: And even though I was a young, stupid teenage boy
Speaker 3: and stuff, Dallas Battles knew what he was doing. He
Speaker 3: was a full grown man. And what he did to
Speaker 3: me he broke every law did he know all of them?
Speaker 3: And wanted to make stuff seem like it was a
Speaker 3: certain way, and that's what he did. He spun it
Speaker 3: that way, made it look like it. That's no doubt
Speaker 3: my mind. He knew the truth about it.
Speaker 2: He just didn't want to put it out there as
Speaker 2: he was dead set on setting me up.
Speaker 1: Now, around this time, another Flood County officer, David Stewart,
Speaker 1: joined the investigation, and he and Battle developed this theory
Speaker 1: that Brian had not been shot accidentally, there had been
Speaker 1: no Russian roulette, but rather this was all a gang
Speaker 1: related revenge hit killing. Now, remember this is late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and there's kind of the massesteria going on about quote
Speaker 1: unquote gang buns in America, which, although was not prominent
Speaker 1: in Rome, Georgia at the time, was nevertheless sort of
Speaker 1: in the public ze guist and affecting how people interpreted
Speaker 1: this evidence, which is why Bone Thugs in Harmony and
Speaker 1: the fact that Brian and his friends listened to that
Speaker 1: came an important part of the case. Anyway, there was
Speaker 1: a woman named Debor Kelly, who Kan's mother once hired
Speaker 1: to clean her house, and she told the police that
Speaker 1: while she was cleaning the house, she'd found this what
Speaker 1: she called a devilish notebook because it had skulls and
Speaker 1: crossbones on it, and when she snooped through the notebook,
Speaker 1: that's how she says she discovered that you Can and
Speaker 1: Brian were all members of this gang called the Freebirds. Now,
Speaker 1: Debora Kelly also said that this notebook had the gang's
Speaker 1: rules written out inside of it. Now, Lee, what were
Speaker 1: some of the alleged rules that this gang had.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to try to say he was in
Speaker 3: there and never do drugs. Yeah right, Yeah, that really
Speaker 3: went well with us. Back in every time you turn around,
Speaker 3: we spoke in pot.
Speaker 1: The gang's other rules were always stand by your brother,
Speaker 1: never talked to the police, and if a brother does
Speaker 1: talk to police, you have to kill him. If you
Speaker 1: don't kill them, you get killed yourself.
Speaker 2: That's what they say it.
Speaker 1: So the police decided that Brian had narked quote unquote
Speaker 1: on the other gang members by turning them in for
Speaker 1: the safe theft, and therefore Lee and Kane had been
Speaker 1: obligated to kill him because of their gang of rules.
Speaker 1: Don't forget that. Another influence on this murder was Bone
Speaker 1: Thugs and Harmony and they're nineteen ninety six hit single,
Speaker 1: Yeah Lacrossroad cross Roads.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, Crossroads was a favorite song of Brian's. It was
Speaker 1: playing at the time he was shot, and the investigators
Speaker 1: tracked down the lyrics and decided that the song Crossroads
Speaker 1: is about shooting narcs, and that that was why the
Speaker 1: song was playing when Brian died.
Speaker 3: And whoever listened to that song knows that's not what
Speaker 3: that song is about. You know this whole gang stuff.
Speaker 3: It's so comical to me, it's simply it's just a joke.
Speaker 2: And if I don't have a.
Speaker 3: Sense of humor about it, I'm gonna cry about it,
Speaker 3: because in fact this the blase or what destroyed my
Speaker 3: life for many years.
Speaker 1: Their theory was hair brained. It defies logic and reason,
Speaker 1: but Atal and Stewart were committed to it and somehow
Speaker 1: needed to drum up evidence to support it. That's why
Speaker 1: they ended up exhooming Brian's body in a search for evidence,
Speaker 1: and in the coffin when they opened it up, they
Speaker 1: found two handwritten notes. One of them had the lyrics
Speaker 1: to Crossroads written out on it, and the other was
Speaker 1: a note from Joseph Wilkins, the fourth member of the
Speaker 1: Safe Theft group. It had a drawing of a little
Speaker 1: eagle carrying a bag of weed and a banner that
Speaker 1: said freebirds, and the note to Brian below it was
Speaker 1: something like, fly high, brother, see you at the crossroads.
Speaker 2: Love you.
Speaker 1: But on the little flag though eagles carring the one
Speaker 1: that says freebird's on it. Here's like a little addition
Speaker 1: made in the corner of the flag. It has the
Speaker 1: word narks on it. And it's crossed out like with
Speaker 1: the no smoking sign and a trial. It's this note
Speaker 1: that's uses evidence that Brian was killed as a gang
Speaker 1: revenge murder, although it's worth noting that the handwriting of
Speaker 1: the word arks is very different from the neat cursive
Speaker 1: that the rest of the note is written in.
Speaker 3: Yes it is, and you know, Susan, I would not
Speaker 3: put it past Dallas Bidles to have did that, because
Speaker 3: you've done did some other shady stuff, so you ain't
Speaker 3: gonna stop her, not I see it.
Speaker 1: And then in May of nineteen eighty seven, the police
Speaker 1: got two more key pieces to their theory. The first
Speaker 1: was a woman named Angela Bruce, who was interviewed and
Speaker 1: told Battle and Stuart that in about February of that year,
Speaker 1: she'd had a party and that's when Cain and this
Speaker 1: other boy he'd brought along with him had bragged her
Speaker 1: about killing Brian. They told her the whole story about
Speaker 1: how they had a gang and the rules. So they
Speaker 1: had a killing member who narked on them, so they
Speaker 1: put a pill over his head and shot him. Now,
Speaker 1: the first time that Angela Bruce is interviewed, her story
Speaker 1: has nothing about Caprice in it nothing about the girl
Speaker 1: from the phone who says she heard Brian say he's
Speaker 1: playing Russian Roulette and then screaming. So a couple days later,
Speaker 1: the cops go back and talk to Angela again, and
Speaker 1: this time she has more to that add the story.
Speaker 1: She says that Bryan's girlfriend, Caprice, was also a member
Speaker 1: of the Freeburg gang and that she had conspired with
Speaker 1: Kin and Lee to kill him, which effectively discredited Caprice,
Speaker 1: who had initially corroborated that Brian's death was accidental. Now, Lee,
Speaker 1: did you even know Caprice?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, I'd never met Capri before. I never actually sent
Speaker 3: her till we got to trial.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Kin hadn't actually met her either. I mean he talked
Speaker 1: with her on the phone a few times when it's
Speaker 1: over at Brian's, but he hadn't seen her in person.
Speaker 1: But Angela's story making Caprice part of the gang and
Speaker 1: part of the murder conspiracy was still not enough by
Speaker 1: itself to hold this theory together. Lee, you had about
Speaker 1: ten witnesses who could have placed you at your home
Speaker 1: that night, and no one in the living room at
Speaker 1: Brian's trailer mentioned you being there, said anything about you
Speaker 1: at all. But then battle says, he gets a tip
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Brian's family who'd been in the living
Speaker 1: room that night. Two neighbors, Wayne and Charlie Childers were
Speaker 1: also there and apparently were never interviewed. Seven months later,
Speaker 1: he talks to them and Wayne says, my brother, Charlie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he saw something important that he needs to tell you.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Charlie Childers is stuff and didn't speak standard American sign language,
Speaker 1: but he allegedly somehow told Dallas Battle that after everyone
Speaker 1: had run to Brian's room that night after hearing a gunshot,
Speaker 1: he'd stayed behind in the living room, and that's how
Speaker 1: he'd looked out a window and seeing a boy running
Speaker 1: across the Bowling's front yard. Battle would later testify a
Speaker 1: trial that Charlie had add this boy in a lineup
Speaker 1: as Lee Clark. So with Angela Bruce, and Charlie Childs,
Speaker 1: Dallas Battle and David Stewart, now had they needed to
Speaker 1: charge you in Kine with conspiracy and first degree murder?
Speaker 3: Well, never forget that day as long as I live.
Speaker 3: Made the twenty third of nineteen ninety seven Memorial Day weekend,
Speaker 3: I was on my way to go to the lake.
Speaker 3: My mom my stepdad, my brother, my girlfriend, Shelley, her
Speaker 3: boy to code, going down there to teach the code
Speaker 3: to hide the ski and everything.
Speaker 2: Well, I got over.
Speaker 3: To my mom's house and stuff, and she come out,
Speaker 3: she's crying and stuff. I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 3: She told me they'd been by there would have warrant
Speaker 3: from my wrist. She said, what they've been by your
Speaker 3: daddy's place too, all my dad. First thing you asked
Speaker 3: when I got on there, He said, well, have you
Speaker 3: done got yourself a baald? Then I said, I ain't
Speaker 3: did nothing. I said, this has got to be a mistake.
Speaker 3: We did going down here to the jail and find
Speaker 3: out what's going on. And we rode down there to
Speaker 3: county jail. I went inside the county jail thinking I
Speaker 3: was going in there to get something straightened out. I
Speaker 3: go in there to tell the lady behind the register
Speaker 3: that my name and stuff and what was going on.
Speaker 3: And they come out there snatch me ut, throw me
Speaker 3: up on the wall, talking about we got you. Don't
Speaker 3: try to run. And I was sitting there thanking to myself,
Speaker 3: I'm really you think I come in here just to
Speaker 3: walk in here in the middle of the police station and.
Speaker 2: Say hey, here I am, and then turn around running.
Speaker 2: That don't make no sense.
Speaker 3: But they drove me in the back and any hold
Speaker 3: and selling there and here come walking in Dallas battles.
Speaker 3: I looked at him, and they sit down from me.
Speaker 3: He said, Well, he said, I got you. I said,
Speaker 3: you played all these games. I don't even know what
Speaker 3: you talk about. Well, he said, we know you and Kane,
Speaker 3: we know y'all conspired to kill you, buddy, Brian, I said,
Speaker 3: everybody in this county knows that Brian Boldi's shot itself.
Speaker 1: Now, Lee, it was January of twenty eight when you
Speaker 1: and Kane went on trial together, and you each had
Speaker 1: your own attorney. Your father had hired Zabernathy, and Cain
Speaker 1: had a court appointed attorney named Larry J. Barkley. And
Speaker 1: the prosecutor and his opening statement started out by telling
Speaker 1: the jury that they were going to hear all about
Speaker 1: this vicious gang called the free Birds.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he built it all up on all that stuff,
Speaker 3: told about a vic gang called the Free Birds and
Speaker 3: how they how many basically were just notorious gangster killers.
Speaker 2: And it was a joke. It was a joke, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't a funny joke either.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, you could laugh at it because it's laughable,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't nothing funny body.
Speaker 1: And then probably one of the more damaging things that
Speaker 1: happened a trial is that they played the tape of
Speaker 1: Ken's confession. They've pled the entire tape where he starts
Speaker 1: off saying that he did not shoot Brian, and eventually,
Speaker 1: after being told by the police that he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: any trouble if he admitted to it, he admits to it.
Speaker 1: So the jury hears Caine his own words, say that
Speaker 1: gums in my hand when it went off. Now this
Speaker 1: is all given to the jury. They listen to it,
Speaker 1: they hear about it, and then a few days later
Speaker 1: the judge says, you know what, I changed my That
Speaker 1: confession probably not legal. It was improper. It shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been admitted. So the judge then tells the jury, pretend
Speaker 1: you never heard that, ignore that confession, let's proceed. Do
Speaker 1: you think the jury was able to forget the fact
Speaker 1: that it heard that confession.
Speaker 2: No, no, I don't believe that one minute.
Speaker 3: I mean, look way, as human beings, just human nature,
Speaker 3: when something just put it in your head, you got
Speaker 3: it in there, And I don't for one minute believe
Speaker 3: that you'll sit there and let the jury hear that
Speaker 3: and you disrespect them to disregard that, throwed out their head.
Speaker 2: You never should have did it to begin with, It
Speaker 2: never should have been admitted to begin with.
Speaker 1: So the jury has just heard Caine confess to at
Speaker 1: least accidentally shooting Brian. But the theory a trial, the
Speaker 1: one they're trying to convince you of, is that you
Speaker 1: Lee are the shooter and this whole thing was a
Speaker 1: gang related revenge killing. So to support that, they bring
Speaker 1: in Dobor Kelly, the house cleaner, who testifies that she
Speaker 1: found the skull and Crossband's notebook, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: never located, never found, never seen again, just gone, no
Speaker 1: physical evidence that ever existed beyond what Debora Kelly and
Speaker 1: another woman a friend of her, say about them seeing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you come under use in that? How
Speaker 2: does that work?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: They never found any sort of evidence to actually back
Speaker 1: up the story that she gives. But the state's case
Speaker 1: relies more heavily on Angela Bruce and this alleged confession
Speaker 1: that you and Kane supposedly made to her at a
Speaker 1: party according to Angela Bruce, you and Kin explained to
Speaker 1: her in explicit detail how this killing happened, and according
Speaker 1: to her, this is what you say. That night, You, Caine,
Speaker 1: and Caprice all conspired to kill Brian, and you did
Speaker 1: it by having Caprice call Brian on the phone to
Speaker 1: distract him. Then Kane shows up. He goes into Brian's
Speaker 1: bedroom and distracts Brian even further. Meanwhile, Lee is sneaking
Speaker 1: up outside of Brian's bedroom window. And by the way,
Speaker 1: at the time, this window was actually boarded up with
Speaker 1: a piece of plywood that you could kind of move
Speaker 1: back and forth to open. But according to Angela Bruce,
Speaker 1: what your role was to do was to shoot Brian
Speaker 1: through the window and then run away while Kin stayed
Speaker 1: behind to tell everyone that live be playing Russian Roulette
Speaker 1: and Brian had lost.
Speaker 3: I couldn't wrap my mind around while she was up
Speaker 3: for saying what she was saying. I mean, I'm sitting
Speaker 3: there thinking to myself, I mean, this woman has never
Speaker 3: laid eyes on me, and they in her life doesn't
Speaker 3: even know me.
Speaker 2: But it's up her telling these lies on me.
Speaker 3: And I wasn't really for sure what the deal was
Speaker 3: there and my attorney at the time, Rex Sabergathi.
Speaker 2: He said, I'm to tell you what it is.
Speaker 3: He said, they got something on her kids, and they're
Speaker 3: using that against her. Right here, that's where Rex's mind
Speaker 3: was at. So I want to thinking that stuff too.
Speaker 3: I mean, I understand, Okay, they're holding your kids over
Speaker 3: your head, and I get that part right there. Apparently
Speaker 3: do just about anything for their kids. But what would
Speaker 3: have been the right thing to do on her part
Speaker 3: would have been to go up to the police station
Speaker 3: and let it be known that they're over her, rassing her,
Speaker 3: trying to get her to tell lies and using her kids,
Speaker 3: holding them over her is what she should have did.
Speaker 1: But the jury heard Angela's testimony, and they heard the
Speaker 1: prosecutor tell them that there was no reason to find
Speaker 1: her not credible. And this was all shored up by
Speaker 1: Charlie Childers, the deaf witness who'd been at the bowlings
Speaker 1: watching TV that night. Now, Charlie's story doesn't actually come
Speaker 1: in through Charlie. The prosecution put Dallas Battle in the
Speaker 1: stand and he testified what Charlie had told him in
Speaker 1: his interview. Min Jew protective. Battle did not speak sign
Speaker 1: language and Charlie did not speak American Sign language, so
Speaker 1: how Charlie and Battle communicated is a mystery. Wayne Charlie's
Speaker 1: brother didn't speak sim language either, so there's no one
Speaker 1: there who actual communicate with Charlie. So it's never explained
Speaker 1: how exactly Charlie was able to tell Dallas Battle any
Speaker 1: of this. And all of this happens without a single
Speaker 1: hearsaym chection from Canaan Lee's attorneys, which is insane all
Speaker 1: by itself, but it gets worse. Dallas Battle testifies that
Speaker 1: Charlie told him that he had seen someone run across
Speaker 1: the front yard after the gunshot. And then, according to
Speaker 1: Dallas Battle, in the stand, Charlie has given a line
Speaker 1: up with like six photos and he circles Lee Clark.
Speaker 1: So they then put Charlie on the stand with an
Speaker 1: ASL interpreter.
Speaker 3: And I'm not trying to speak bad about anybody. He
Speaker 3: was on the stand. He could not use regular sign language.
Speaker 3: The interpreter could clearly not communicate with him. The interpreter
Speaker 3: told the judge a couple different points that she was
Speaker 3: having difficult to communicate with him.
Speaker 1: She tells the Court, your honor, he's not speaking American
Speaker 1: sign language. He's using home signs.
Speaker 2: The judge should have shut that down right then, but
Speaker 2: he unless it play on, to play on.
Speaker 1: I can say that Charlie's testimony at your trial is
Speaker 1: hands down the most chaotic witness testimony I've ever encountered
Speaker 1: in any criminal trial and any trial ever. The poor
Speaker 1: interpreter came in and very quickly realizes that she cannot
Speaker 1: effectively talk to Charlie. But it's also very clear that
Speaker 1: this story that Dallas Battle testified to about Charlie seeing anyone,
Speaker 1: the lonely clerk right across the front yard, that's not
Speaker 1: something Charlie can say. In the stand, he talks about
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, talks about dogs and puppies, and
Speaker 1: about how the boy he saw was a black boy
Speaker 1: who had a wife.
Speaker 3: Yeah, black boy. I couldn't get I couldn't get over
Speaker 3: that black boy, black hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, has a wife.
Speaker 1: You know this is not going great. You can see
Speaker 1: frustration from everyone, Like the prosecutor is frustrated, the fence
Speaker 1: is frustrated, like everyone in this courtroom is about to
Speaker 1: lose it because they've been here for hours trying to
Speaker 1: talk to Charlie and is not working. He does say
Speaker 1: he only saw Caine's story at the house that night,
Speaker 1: just story. It's only after all that that they have
Speaker 1: the prosecutor stand behind Lee Clark put his hands on
Speaker 1: his shoulders that Charlie Childers allegedly says, yep, that's the
Speaker 1: boy I saw. So that was the prosecution's case, and
Speaker 1: the defense, for its part, carls Caprice's point, and she
Speaker 1: says exactly the same thing she said the knight that
Speaker 1: Brian was shot, which should have been compelling testimony for
Speaker 1: the defense. However, the prosecution made her an unindicted co conspirator.
Speaker 1: They decided they did not have enough evidence to actually
Speaker 1: put her on trial, but they say she was also
Speaker 1: gang member, was part of the murder conspiracy, and therefore
Speaker 1: that's why she's lying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Bason, we don't have enough, We don't have
Speaker 3: enough ividgen as you as a co conspirator, but we'll
Speaker 3: go ahead and mudy your name. What was some lies
Speaker 3: just so nobody believed the truth to tell him. That's
Speaker 3: basically what it boiled down to.
Speaker 1: And then for his defense, Kine testifies on his own behalf,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately did nothing to help you. Actually it hurt
Speaker 1: you quite a lot, because Cain got up there and
Speaker 1: told the truth, and the truth was that the two
Speaker 1: of you had hung out together that night and that
Speaker 1: you'd parted ways at the mini mart. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: until Kane testified that anyone can actually place the two
Speaker 1: of you together that day. There was no other evidence
Speaker 1: that shows that you and Kane had ever even talked
Speaker 1: or met up or had anything to do with one
Speaker 1: another on that day. But then Kane's on the stand
Speaker 1: and explains what happened earlier. He was also extremely emotional
Speaker 1: the whole time. Apparently he cried through his entire testimony.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a disaster when he was on the stand.
Speaker 3: I mean, he could tell his emotions were getting the
Speaker 3: better of him, and I don't know, looking back on
Speaker 3: it now, I could see it for what it was
Speaker 3: at the time. I mean, he's dealing with a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff in his head. He's got a friend he
Speaker 3: he watched kill hisself, and he's got all that bouncing
Speaker 3: in his head, and he was trying to trying to
Speaker 3: make things right by telling the truth. But just didn't
Speaker 3: know that a lot of people, a lot of people
Speaker 3: perceived all his crying and all that stuff they perceived
Speaker 3: that is some kind of guilt. That's not what it was,
Speaker 3: but that's why a lot of people perceived it at.
Speaker 1: That Pointly, how did you think the trial was going
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 2: I thought it was going great for me.
Speaker 3: I mean I thought Rex Shabern Atthew was doing a
Speaker 3: really good job at the time. I mean I was
Speaker 3: sitting there thinking, yeah, man, he's showing the people I
Speaker 3: ain't had nothing to do with this junk here.
Speaker 2: I'm finil to go home. That's what I'm thinking the
Speaker 2: whole time, and.
Speaker 3: May not knowing that little stuff that Rex was missing,
Speaker 3: that he wasn't hitting on, was going to wind up
Speaker 3: hitting us really bad in the end.
Speaker 1: So after closing arguments, the jury goes back to deliberate,
Speaker 1: and in Georgia, the charges that you and canterfacing murder
Speaker 1: and conspiracy to commit murder. Even in the case of
Speaker 1: juveniles like you and Kane, they carry an automatic life sentence.
Speaker 1: The jury went into deliberate on Saturday, and the judge
Speaker 1: widn't have the next day off, but on Monday. When
Speaker 1: they come back on January nineteenth, thineteen eighty eight, it
Speaker 1: didn't not take them long before they returned with a verdict.
Speaker 3: When they read off that guilty verdict on them both
Speaker 3: charges and found me guilty.
Speaker 2: I mean I felt something, a feeling to come over me.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to explain it, but my heart was sitting
Speaker 2: in my chest.
Speaker 3: I was about to choke to death sitting there watching
Speaker 3: at eighteen years old and watching my life flashing before
Speaker 3: my eyes. I'm seeing everything that I ain't never gonna have.
Speaker 3: It's all just like it's passing in front of me
Speaker 3: so much I've been to miss out on and wanting
Speaker 3: to myself, im I even gonna make it through what they're.
Speaker 2: Finishing me to After we're convicted. Were sent down to
Speaker 2: the prison, Jackson State Prison. Me and came.
Speaker 3: We were on the same bus together. We pull up
Speaker 3: in there looking at that prison engaged out there, and
Speaker 3: just I looked at him. I said, well, ain't gonna
Speaker 3: make at me. I said, I don't know what to
Speaker 3: tell you, man, but in this aintle in well force.
Speaker 3: And we get to going going through Jackson died Nasi
Speaker 3: walking in there, and they take you around there and
Speaker 3: put you in that sale. And we used to hear
Speaker 3: them bars slamming a home lot they did, and I'm
Speaker 3: just sitting there knowing that here I am, the whole
Speaker 3: lies go went destroyed for some lives, and I sit
Speaker 3: there for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: So your shared fight for freedom could not have been
Speaker 1: more dire. And you appealed your case to the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court of Georgia in nineteen ninety nine. And even though
Speaker 1: the court agreed that the non existent gang ree book
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been entered into evidence, they weighed against Angela
Speaker 1: Bruce's testimony about the alleged confession and ultimately upheld the convictions.
Speaker 1: Over the years, you and Kane spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the same presence together, and eventually, when you
Speaker 1: were up in Walker, you met another teenager who'd been
Speaker 1: convicted of murder in Floyd County. That was Joey Watkins.
Speaker 1: In fact, the two of you had had the same attorney,
Speaker 1: Rex Abernathy.
Speaker 3: Yes, and if it were not for Joey, Hello, but
Speaker 3: I met you, Susan, And what with Joey, I'd still
Speaker 3: be in prison right now doing our life sentence.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, I covered Joey's case for my podcast Undisclosed,
Speaker 1: And while I was working on Joey's case, Joey told
Speaker 1: me about someone else he knew in prison who had
Speaker 1: also been falsely convicted of a murder in Floyd County
Speaker 1: as a teenager. And then one day when he was
Speaker 1: on the phone with me, he mentioned your case again,
Speaker 1: and I was like, can I talk to him? And
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, hold on, I got him right here,
Speaker 1: And that's how we talked for the very first time.
Speaker 3: When I got talking to you and you got telling
Speaker 3: me what you were wanting to do and all that stuff,
Speaker 3: I was thinking myself, well, he.
Speaker 2: Be hot, you get this done.
Speaker 3: But I'll be honest, I fully expected when you went
Speaker 3: out started talking to people, did you go and get
Speaker 3: all the same lives that these people had been telling
Speaker 3: years ago?
Speaker 1: When just Sinda and I started investigating your case in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, we went down to Floyd County several
Speaker 1: times looking for documents, talking witnesses, and unfortunately Dallas Battle
Speaker 1: died about a week before our very first trip, but
Speaker 1: we were able to talk to Angela Bruce, which was
Speaker 1: really eye opening. She told us, just like you and
Speaker 1: your attorney head guest, that Battle and Stewart had threatened
Speaker 1: to charge her with a crime and have Family Services
Speaker 1: take her children away if she didn't tell them what
Speaker 1: they wanted to hear. Also, she said the Dallas battle
Speaker 1: had frequently coerced her her sex, though she told us
Speaker 1: she'd always turned him down despite that, And when Jasinda
Speaker 1: and I went to her house, I mean, she was emotional,
Speaker 1: but she told us, I feel terrible for what happened
Speaker 1: to Lea and Kane, and I'm sorry, but I would
Speaker 1: have lost my kids if I hadn't done it, And
Speaker 1: what mother wouldn't do that if.
Speaker 2: They had to.
Speaker 1: We also tracked down Charlie Childers, and equally importantly, we
Speaker 1: tracked down his high school teacher, who had known Charlie
Speaker 1: for decades, like forty years, and he was familiar with
Speaker 1: though Charlie and his unique style of sign language, and
Speaker 1: could just talk to Charlie in a way that the
Speaker 1: trial translator couldn't.
Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaking Susan, he's able to communicate with
Speaker 3: him better than anybody one faced his planning.
Speaker 1: And we first began talking to Charlie with the translator,
Speaker 1: which struck me was just how eager and relieved he
Speaker 1: was to finally be able to tell his story because
Speaker 1: he remembered this ordeal. He remember Brian dying and testifying
Speaker 1: a trial, and clearly it had seriously affected him. But
Speaker 1: what we found out through the translator is that a trial.
Speaker 1: Charlie hadn't been testifying about Brian's death at all. He
Speaker 1: thought he was there to talk about another shooting he'd
Speaker 1: witnessed because years before Brian's death, back in the late seventies,
Speaker 1: Charlie's brother Wayne had been in his bedroom with a
Speaker 1: friend named Ronnie Quarrels, and the two boys had also
Speaker 1: been playing with a gun when Ronnie ended up betting,
Speaker 1: shot in the head and later died. It was this
Speaker 1: event that Charlie thought the police were there to ask
Speaker 1: him about, and it was Ronnie's death he was trying
Speaker 1: to describe to them with his own limited home signing abilities.
Speaker 1: And when we explained to Charlie that the trial he
Speaker 1: had been at had been about Brian's death, not Ronnie's,
Speaker 1: Charlie told us, but I didn't see anything for Brian's death.
Speaker 1: I wasn't the house, but I didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: how he died. And he definitely never saw a boy
Speaker 1: run through the yard and he'd never seen Lee Clark before.
Speaker 2: Ever. It was a trip made to find out all
Speaker 2: these years later that that's what Charlie was testifying about.
Speaker 1: By then, the Georgia Edison's Project had also taken on
Speaker 1: your case, and you ended up being the first non
Speaker 1: DNA related case that they had an exoneration in based
Speaker 1: in the evidence that we found in proof. They were
Speaker 1: able to file an extraordinary motion for a new trial
Speaker 1: in Floyd County as well as a habeas petition in
Speaker 1: the county where you were in prison. But since the
Speaker 1: Georgia Edison's Project couldn't also represent your co defendant, that
Speaker 1: meant that Cain didn't have an attorney. After our show aired, though,
Speaker 1: Luke Martin, an attorney from Floyd County, and Ross Hamrick,
Speaker 1: who was in the PD's office there, contacted us. We
Speaker 1: put them touch with Kine and they became his attorneys
Speaker 1: as well. So all of the attorneys were preparing for
Speaker 1: a hearing. But then, in a case that was already
Speaker 1: beyond shocking, perhaps the most shocking thing yet occurred. The
Speaker 1: Floyd County District Attorney ended up talking to your council
Speaker 1: and agreeing that this case should be dismissed.
Speaker 3: Yes they did, I mean it was evident did much
Speaker 3: conduct with the cops in there.
Speaker 2: I mean there was no voiding it.
Speaker 3: I mean, Dallas battles and David Stewart broke so many
Speaker 3: laws doing this. I mean, it was so obvious that
Speaker 3: there was no sense of fighting.
Speaker 1: Do you remember getting the news that you and came
Speaker 1: to be released.
Speaker 2: I do remember getting the news.
Speaker 3: I had called my dad and I was telling him
Speaker 3: that I thought I was going to a hearing on
Speaker 3: December to sixth. He said, well, you ain't gonna be
Speaker 3: going no hearing on December to sixth. You got to
Speaker 3: hear it coming up on December to eighth, and when
Speaker 3: December to eighth gets here, you're gonna be coming home.
Speaker 3: When he told me that, right there, Susan, I was
Speaker 3: still riding at the cloud.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 3: I never felt to feeling so great in my life.
Speaker 3: I'll stay in that cloud now for the rest of
Speaker 3: my life, because I know what it's like to sit
Speaker 3: behind prison walls and not have a life, to sit
Speaker 3: there and have it all snatched from you for something
Speaker 3: you didn't even do. To finally have my life back,
Speaker 3: to have my freedom back, and I'll tell you, I
Speaker 3: plan on living all of it up to the fullest
Speaker 3: every day, no matter what comes my way. Anything I'm
Speaker 3: on face a life cannot be nowhere. It's difficult face
Speaker 3: while I was in prison. What's hard for a lot
Speaker 3: of people out here, it's a cakewalk to me because
Speaker 3: I walk worse past, far worse.
Speaker 1: So we first of all, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here today and sharing your story with us. I
Speaker 1: know you've been trying to rebuild your life since you
Speaker 1: were released, and if listeners want to help support you
Speaker 1: on that, they can go to Mightycause dot com and
Speaker 1: search for Lee Clark. Now, this is the part of
Speaker 1: the show called Closing Arguments. It is your chance to
Speaker 1: share any final thoughts that you might have with our
Speaker 1: listeners about anything at all.
Speaker 2: The flora is yours, I would like.
Speaker 3: I mean, if there's any young young listeners out there,
Speaker 3: are any god to be young listeners, there's anybody out
Speaker 3: there just listening in general, if you're doing some wild
Speaker 3: stuff out there that you shouldn't be doing anything like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that can happen
Speaker 3: to your life. Just be smart about things, approach life
Speaker 3: from a positive angle. I mean, look, I sit behind
Speaker 3: prison walls for twenty five years for a crime I
Speaker 3: didn't commit, but I didn't bring the negativity of it
Speaker 3: with me. I didn't let the negativity of it destroyed me.
Speaker 3: Stay in headstrong and believe it in yourself a lot
Speaker 3: of times if you'll just stay that way. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not guaranteed to pay off every time, but it's
Speaker 3: a better attitude to have than to sit there and
Speaker 3: approach everything in life from a negative standpoint, because negativity
Speaker 3: it's only going to weigh you down and destroy you
Speaker 3: and n so anything in life, approach it from a
Speaker 3: positive angle and take the good from it. Even when
Speaker 3: there ain't much good to be found, Well, pick what
Speaker 3: is good up and take it with you.
Speaker 2: It may not be much sturd to grab or grab
Speaker 2: what you can.
Speaker 3: And I'm so thankful to everybody, from Joey Watkins to you,
Speaker 3: to the Innocent Project to just send to Kevin everybody.
Speaker 3: I'm just so thankful everybody to just put all the
Speaker 3: horror work and time and different into all this stuff
Speaker 3: to get this truth to.
Speaker 2: Come out like it did. I tell you it's something
Speaker 2: I'm not going to live down. I'll be living on
Speaker 2: this cloud nine for a long time.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction I'm your guest
Speaker 1: host Susan Simpson. Thanks to executive producers Jason Flahm and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis for inviting me to be here, and thanks
Speaker 1: also to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Llyla
Speaker 1: Robinson and Jeff Kliberg. The music in this production comes
Speaker 1: from three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
Speaker 1: as well as Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter at the View from
Speaker 1: LL two and Instagram at soosimp and you can listen
Speaker 1: to my podcast Proof and Undisclosed wherever you listen to
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