Speaker 1: On June fourteenth, nine seventy seven, two year old j
Speaker 1: Emma Crabser was found tied up and suffocated in her Pokeepsie,
Speaker 1: New York apartment. Police thought she had walked in on
Speaker 1: a burglary and rounded up the young guys in nearby
Speaker 1: Mansion Park, including Lamar and Stanley Smith and a new
Speaker 1: guy from Brooklyn who had spent time in Juvie, a
Speaker 1: budding boxer named Dewey Bozella. After being falsely told that
Speaker 1: Dewey had implicated them, the Smith brothers returned false accusations
Speaker 1: against Dewey and fifteen year old Wayne Moseley. When police
Speaker 1: tried to turn the minor on his alleged accomplice, Wayne
Speaker 1: Moseley refused to lie, and the Smith brother's word was
Speaker 1: not enough for a grand jury indictment. Six years and
Speaker 1: two eerily similar crimes later, one of which was properly
Speaker 1: attributed to brothers Donald and Anthony Wise, the d A
Speaker 1: continued his relentless pursuit of Dewey Bosella for emeric Crabser's murder,
Speaker 1: despite compelling evidence to the contrary, including Donald Wise's fingerprint
Speaker 1: at the scene. Finally, with Lamar Smith and Wayne Moseley
Speaker 1: and custody for separate crimes. The d A had the
Speaker 1: leverage he needed to coerce testimony and send Dewey Bosell
Speaker 1: away for over twenty six years. However, the fight this
Speaker 1: boxer proved to be just too big, a fight that
Speaker 1: would one day see the inside of a professional boxing ring.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: and today I am so excited because we have a guest.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of first today. Our guest is
Speaker 1: Dewey Bozella, and Dewey is our only guest who speaks
Speaker 1: besides English, Arabic and japan Ease. He's the only one
Speaker 1: who has won an sp Award. He's the only one
Speaker 1: who won a professional boxing match in his fifties. After
Speaker 1: he was released from prison after twenty six years of
Speaker 1: wrongful incarceration. Without further ado, let me introduce to you
Speaker 1: my friend Dewey Bozzella. Dewey, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Dewey.
Speaker 1: I have to say if and I know you have
Speaker 1: your own book and we'll talk about this, but if
Speaker 1: I was going to write a book about your life,
Speaker 1: I would probably call it unbreakable, because you have been
Speaker 1: through experiences even beyond your wrath incarceration, that would have
Speaker 1: broken almost any mere mortal. From the time you were
Speaker 1: a kid, you experienced extreme hardship. I mean, can you
Speaker 1: talk about your upbringing in Brooklyn? It was me and
Speaker 1: my folder brothers in one system. As we were growing up,
Speaker 1: things were pretty good except for my father. My father
Speaker 1: was just booty at the age of eight years old.
Speaker 1: My father turned my whole life around, as well as
Speaker 1: my brothers and my one sister at that particular time.
Speaker 1: One day, he was in the backyard and we were playing,
Speaker 1: and I came inside the house and I heard a
Speaker 1: lot of holler and screaming, and my father was beating
Speaker 1: up on my mother and my is beating up by
Speaker 1: my mother. Did the best I could do as a kid.
Speaker 1: I ran over and grant him around the leg. He
Speaker 1: took me and threw me across the room like I
Speaker 1: was a piece of trash and continued to beat up
Speaker 1: on my mother. My mother went to the hospital, Me
Speaker 1: and my brothers we went in the foster homes and
Speaker 1: group homes, and things were never the same. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they weren't. And your mother died and you witnessed
Speaker 1: that as an eight year old boy. Your father abandoned
Speaker 1: all six of you and went to live with your
Speaker 1: half siblings. Did you didn't even know you had, one
Speaker 1: of whom Tony became important later on down the line.
Speaker 1: But first you and your five full siblings were shuffled
Speaker 1: between put foster homes and group homes until you were
Speaker 1: all finally placed together again a few years later with
Speaker 1: the Coleman family. Then, after all that, you've moved to Queens.
Speaker 1: You all moved to Queens and spent a good five
Speaker 1: or six years together with just at least a shred
Speaker 1: of normalcy. But in high school I understand you started drinking, smoking,
Speaker 1: hanging out with some not so great people, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon you ended up dropping out and moving up state,
Speaker 1: just after another tragedy struck. Yeah. I was sixteen years
Speaker 1: old and I got into a fight with a guy.
Speaker 1: My name was Sandy Jackson. But I got into a
Speaker 1: fight with Standy Jackson. I got the best of him.
Speaker 1: He didn't like that. Him and a guy by name
Speaker 1: of Barty driving a bicycle and seeing my brother at
Speaker 1: a party, and in the Jacksmon High School, and Stanley
Speaker 1: wouldn't stab my brother to death. He stab him in
Speaker 1: the heart and in the back and then murdered my brother. So,
Speaker 1: uh me, you know the coded streets I've won to
Speaker 1: get him. I wanted to get him from what he
Speaker 1: did in my brother and because of that, my older
Speaker 1: brother Tony, So he said, listen, man, when you come
Speaker 1: up here to upstate New York. You know I can
Speaker 1: see where you're going. Man, if you stayed out in
Speaker 1: New York, you don't mind it, you know, in a
Speaker 1: bad situation. I said, okay, I'll give it a try.
Speaker 1: Because my true intent, Sir, I wanted to kill him,
Speaker 1: but what he did to my brother, he should have
Speaker 1: came after me. Shouldn't have came right to my brother.
Speaker 1: So when I moved up to Poughkeepsie, New York, my
Speaker 1: older brother he said to me, when't you go back
Speaker 1: to school? I said, Tony, don't waste your time. I'm
Speaker 1: not going back to school. He said, you know, do
Speaker 1: something if you don't want to do something. I side
Speaker 1: went and I got involved into a program to where
Speaker 1: I became a carpenter and I got a job in Pokeepsie,
Speaker 1: New York massa square park and Pokeepsie was to hang
Speaker 1: out for everybody that was supposed to be hit at
Speaker 1: that particular time. So I just turned seventeen, I'm hanging
Speaker 1: out and everything that I did in New York was
Speaker 1: in that park. So one time I got into a
Speaker 1: fight and not beat the dude. I whipped the dudes.
Speaker 1: But they be called to me whipping the dudes, but
Speaker 1: everybody said, yo, they do ain't happening. And so that's
Speaker 1: when I started getting around guys who was supposed to
Speaker 1: be you know, thugs and all that stuff. Coincidentally, you're
Speaker 1: up there in the area where Floyd Patterson, the heavyweight
Speaker 1: champion of the world, had recently converted a barn an
Speaker 1: Old Barn and New Path which is nearby, into a
Speaker 1: center for at risk youth. Floyd Patterson that first met him,
Speaker 1: moves to be called of a dare. God dared me.
Speaker 1: He said, you're always fighting in all this, man, but
Speaker 1: you you you ain't gonna go up no dead mon,
Speaker 1: Floyd Patterson camp. I said, what, So I went up
Speaker 1: to Floyd, passing camp on it there. When I got
Speaker 1: up there, the first thing I did is, you know,
Speaker 1: I lied to Floyda, and I told Florida had three fights,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have three fights. You know. I was
Speaker 1: talking about fights out in the streets. I thought I
Speaker 1: knew everything. And Floyd put me out there. He put
Speaker 1: me up with a guy my name of Danny. Here
Speaker 1: it is, I'm weighing like close on hunter ninety hounds.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a waterway. And I didn't know who
Speaker 1: Danny was. I went out there and I kicked Danny
Speaker 1: with a lucky punch and I rocked him. And right
Speaker 1: behind that, Floyd said, cut loose. He hit me with
Speaker 1: a body shot. The body shot knocked the mopiece out
Speaker 1: of my mouth, and then hit me with another shot
Speaker 1: in my chest and he hit me to the face
Speaker 1: yet and I called, you know, because the wind was
Speaker 1: knocked out of me and the bell rang. When the
Speaker 1: bell rang, I got out out of the ring. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm no, that's what I'm out of here. So floy
Speaker 1: that was wrong, was wrong? Was wrong? Was wrong? I said,
Speaker 1: Now I'm might right, I'm right, I'm right. I take
Speaker 1: the clubs off, take the clubs off, the gloves off.
Speaker 1: So you took the glove where you're going, Where you're going?
Speaker 1: Where you going, I'll be back for where but I'll
Speaker 1: be back. I'll be back. When I got up out
Speaker 1: of there. That changed my whole life. Why because all
Speaker 1: he did was in with the body punch, in the
Speaker 1: chest shot. He didn't even go to the head. Yet.
Speaker 1: I'm a hundred ninety pounds and he under forty seven
Speaker 1: or a little bit more. At that particular. I didn't
Speaker 1: know at that time he was ready number one in
Speaker 1: the world. Floyd came up. I mean, he said, do
Speaker 1: you know you? No, he said, he's been number one
Speaker 1: in the world. Man never app that day forward, at
Speaker 1: that experience, took boxing as a joke. No, that would
Speaker 1: wake anybody up. And what an introduction it was. But
Speaker 1: now just when things you know may have been taking
Speaker 1: a turn for the better, as your first exposure to boxing,
Speaker 1: which became such a huge part of your life, and
Speaker 1: which you excel that and have been recognized. Now finally,
Speaker 1: all these years later, June n seventy seven, this is
Speaker 1: the night when two year old Emma Crapser was brutally
Speaker 1: murdered in her apartment. She was tied up and suffocated.
Speaker 1: She had linen stuffed in her mouth and down her throat,
Speaker 1: and this was a crime that obviously horrified local residents
Speaker 1: and for which there was a lot of pressure on
Speaker 1: the authorities to make arrests. And the police came up
Speaker 1: with a theory, right They said that Mrs Craps had
Speaker 1: had walked in on a burglary in progress and paid
Speaker 1: with her life. So they went around and picked up
Speaker 1: some kids they knew were tough kids or whatever that
Speaker 1: hung out in the park Manasion Square Park and they
Speaker 1: were well aware of you do We, obviously because coming
Speaker 1: up from the city and everything else. They decided they
Speaker 1: would focus their investigation on the new kid in town
Speaker 1: who they knew was a bit of a brawler and
Speaker 1: a tough kid. And they started by questioning two brothers,
Speaker 1: Lamar and Stanley Smith, and originally they denied any knowledge
Speaker 1: the crime. The interrogators told them though, that you do
Speaker 1: we had identified them as the murders. But that wasn't true,
Speaker 1: was it. No, it was far from the truth. I
Speaker 1: had no knowledge of the crime. And what made them
Speaker 1: even say something like that was the beginning of them
Speaker 1: framing me. Right, So Lamar Smith told the cops that
Speaker 1: he saw you and another guy named Wayne mostly was
Speaker 1: just fifteen years old on Mrs Crabser's porch trying to
Speaker 1: break in. So they're just coming up with stories out
Speaker 1: of thin air. Stanley Smith told police that he saw you,
Speaker 1: Wayne Moseley, and a third guy together in the park
Speaker 1: on the day of the murder, and then you and
Speaker 1: Wayne Moseley were arrested for the burglary and murder. But
Speaker 1: Moseley was a minor. He was, like I said, it
Speaker 1: was only fifteen, so he wasn't gonna be They weren't
Speaker 1: gonna be able to charge him as an adult, so
Speaker 1: they wanted to get him to plead guilty right and
Speaker 1: testify to your involvement. But to his great credit a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old kid, he refused to do that. And
Speaker 1: there was no evidence whatsoever linking either of you to
Speaker 1: the crime other than the word of the Smith brothers.
Speaker 1: So and the grand jury. They always say a grand
Speaker 1: jury will die to ham Sandwich. The grand jury refused
Speaker 1: to indict you. That says a lot, right. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: remember when they arrested me. I was both only both
Speaker 1: been home for three days, but they kept me for
Speaker 1: twenty eight days to win. A judge told the protest attorney,
Speaker 1: you got let him go, and so I was releasing
Speaker 1: what they're calling the not bound belt, which means there
Speaker 1: was no evidence, nothing pointing to me at all. And
Speaker 1: for the next five and a half, close to six years,
Speaker 1: nothing happened on the case. And then the case was
Speaker 1: reopened in Wayne Mosley and Lamar Smith were in Downstay
Speaker 1: correctional facility for crimes that they have committed, and the
Speaker 1: project attorney he said, listen, I make a deal with
Speaker 1: both of y'all to testify against duty was over and Wayne,
Speaker 1: this is what I'll do for you. I would get
Speaker 1: all your charges dropped and get you out of jail. Lamar,
Speaker 1: I'll get you early parole. And both of them agreed. However,
Speaker 1: because to them being by law what they considered accompasses
Speaker 1: and saying that they were there at the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime, and in another collaborating witness, which was Stanley.
Speaker 1: But Stanley had no involvement of the crime at all.
Speaker 1: So that's what made his testimony so pure than the
Speaker 1: other two. And because Standy Smith collaborated with his brother,
Speaker 1: the Moss Smith, that was the beginning of I got
Speaker 1: sent his twenty years to life. But something happened at
Speaker 1: your trial that should have certainly placed enough reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: in the States case, if not actually completely obliterated and
Speaker 1: knocked down this ridiculous house of cards. Now, for contexts,
Speaker 1: between nineteen seventy seven and your trial in there had
Speaker 1: been two incidents that were eerily similar to Emma Crabser's murder,
Speaker 1: and I say incidence because a victim and one of
Speaker 1: them survived to identify Donald and Anthony Wise as the perpetrators.
Speaker 1: Anthony Wise's girlfriend, Madeline Dixon South, testified at your trial
Speaker 1: that she witness Donald and Anthony Wise heading into Emma
Speaker 1: Crabser's house and testified to how they said that they
Speaker 1: had gained entry through a window. She said that they
Speaker 1: told me that the jam m christ from murder. And
Speaker 1: because of what she said, the Federal Brewer Investigation went
Speaker 1: back inside the house and found the stringerprint of the
Speaker 1: inside windows. And what's so completely fucking nuts doing, and
Speaker 1: it's just sad, is that despite all of this, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor was still able to cloud the juror's minds enough
Speaker 1: with Wayne Moseley Lamar and Stanley Smith and a bunch
Speaker 1: of other non evidence bullshit that the jury was somehow
Speaker 1: able to just gloss over ignore whatever you wanna call it,
Speaker 1: Madeline Dixon South's testimony and Donald Wise his fingerprint. Before
Speaker 1: I got sentence, the prosecutity attorney did everything that he
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to do. He took evidence and put it
Speaker 1: inside the jury room. When the judge told him not
Speaker 1: to do it, he did it anyway. All the things
Speaker 1: that that showed that I was innocent, you know, he
Speaker 1: made sure never made it inside the jury room. That's
Speaker 1: how bad he wanted me. So six years they spent
Speaker 1: putting together this false narrative just in order to get
Speaker 1: a conviction of the guy who they just sort of
Speaker 1: decided one day I was picked out of a hat.
Speaker 1: I was gonna take the fall for this murder rap
Speaker 1: and that was you. How long did the trial take?
Speaker 1: First of all, No, one of two weeks, So you're
Speaker 1: a two weeks trial. The jury goes out. Did you think, Dewey,
Speaker 1: that they were going to come back and that the
Speaker 1: justice would be served and they would see the truth.
Speaker 1: At first, yes, in my mind, I didn't see anything
Speaker 1: that pointing to me. So when they came back with
Speaker 1: the verdict of guilty, I fell to the flaw slide
Speaker 1: of crime. How can you convict me. It was nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing pointing to me, you know. So it took another
Speaker 1: turn on my life to where I had to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to become like another person because
Speaker 1: now I'm sending twenty years of life and I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how one I'm going to deal with twenty years of
Speaker 1: life or crime I didn't commit. You know, I looked
Speaker 1: at the jury and jury seven five women, they all
Speaker 1: started crime. I said, it's too late. It's too late.
Speaker 1: You convicted. You know, it's too late. It's too late.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
Speaker 1: of Ronval Conviction with Jason Flam and of the Last
Speaker 1: Mile organization, which provides business and tech training to help
Speaker 1: incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers
Speaker 1: across Indiana, supporting organizations that are dedicated primarily to helping
Speaker 1: young people and students. For more information on the work
Speaker 1: of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile program, please
Speaker 1: visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the Last Mile dot org.
Speaker 1: I was inedian needing there a week and I watched
Speaker 1: the guy get stabbed in the eye and his eyeball
Speaker 1: came out in front of my face, and I was like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, I thought riot and b black. Not only
Speaker 1: that the guy but I knew by the name of Slim.
Speaker 1: I wasn't leaving there, like I said. A week he
Speaker 1: got murdered, and I was like, what the fuck did
Speaker 1: I get myself into it? How the funk am I
Speaker 1: going to deal with this? And so my whole attitude changed.
Speaker 1: You know who attitude was don't touch me, don't put
Speaker 1: your hands on me, don't be around me. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to get cut. I'm not trying to get stabbed.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let nobody hurt me. And from this
Speaker 1: day forward, I don't give a damn who you are.
Speaker 1: If you try to hurt me, I'm gonna dude, I
Speaker 1: gotta do the spot. And that is my attitude. And
Speaker 1: I lived like that for over twenty six and a
Speaker 1: half years. Whoa I mean, it's I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: hell of a first week in a place that could
Speaker 1: just easily be called hell. And you were at New
Speaker 1: York's infamous Sing Sing correctional facility where you needed to
Speaker 1: be hard to survive, but you also underwent a really
Speaker 1: incredible transformation while inside. What happened with me when I
Speaker 1: was inside sing Sing State Penitentry One day I come
Speaker 1: from the yard and I finished working out, and a
Speaker 1: guy my name is you Re, walked up to me
Speaker 1: and he said that I was fronting and fronting inside
Speaker 1: the state penitentry. Almost it's like a call out, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, you're pumped, all these other things that
Speaker 1: go along with it. But he didn't mean it like that.
Speaker 1: You know. I took it the wrong way. And I said, yo,
Speaker 1: you you're what was going on? You know? Um, it's
Speaker 1: not man, I just need to talk. I need to build.
Speaker 1: I said, okay. So the correctional officer said, all knocking,
Speaker 1: knock in, lock in another man, you know. He said,
Speaker 1: you keep locked, keep locking me And I'm inside myself
Speaker 1: for twenty three hours were one hour wrecked. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean the twenty four hours a day. And it
Speaker 1: was just this one keeplight that turned my whole life around.
Speaker 1: Because I asked the guy who was supposed to have
Speaker 1: been my friend for a cigarette, he said he didn't
Speaker 1: have it. Listen, man, there it is right there, and
Speaker 1: you're cocket man. Why are you acting like that with me? Man?
Speaker 1: You know how I am? Man? You know what kind
Speaker 1: of person I am. Man. So he reached inside his
Speaker 1: pocketing the way he gave it to me, the way
Speaker 1: he gave it to me. I didn't I didn't like
Speaker 1: it at all, but I took it because I needed it.
Speaker 1: And when I took the cigarette, my whole life changed.
Speaker 1: That was my minimorphis. That was the beginning. I wasn't
Speaker 1: even in Sincing, no more than a year and a
Speaker 1: half at the most. And and I looked at the cigarette,
Speaker 1: and I looked at my life, and I should look
Speaker 1: at you. Man, Let's fucking looked at you. You became
Speaker 1: with savage that they were talking about. You became exactly
Speaker 1: the person they were fucking talking about it. You got
Speaker 1: mine under it. If your bed there reef on top
Speaker 1: of your fucking goddamn bump. What what is wrong with you? Man?
Speaker 1: As at least out in the streets you were trying
Speaker 1: to go to school, you ain't doing ship in here.
Speaker 1: You're doing absolutely nothing with your life. Man, Let's look
Speaker 1: at you. And then I asked myself one question, lisaid,
Speaker 1: if they able to let you go right now, what
Speaker 1: would your life be like and I ain't like to answer.
Speaker 1: The answered was I would be a bum. And so
Speaker 1: I just turned my life around. I just okay, said, damn, man,
Speaker 1: you know you lost your mother, your father, don't in
Speaker 1: this family, don't give a shit about you. You don't
Speaker 1: know what none of your brothers and sisters is that.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? Man? I took the reef
Speaker 1: I had and I gave it away. The people thought
Speaker 1: I fucking flipped. They thought I bugged out. I took
Speaker 1: the wine hunderneath my bed. I started getting it away.
Speaker 1: I mean you are right, you are right. I mean
Speaker 1: you want it if you don't want it. I was
Speaker 1: dumped into the fucking Torley bo that day forward. I
Speaker 1: just never looked back. That was back in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: five September twenty seven. So I hang it out with
Speaker 1: your reef, and that day four ward, I got involved
Speaker 1: in every different program you could think about. I got
Speaker 1: fitted two certificates, I got my back has done my
Speaker 1: masters degree at the twenty six and a half years
Speaker 1: behind the prison alls. It's pretty incredible transformation. And do
Speaker 1: we I'm gonna talk about you in the third person.
Speaker 1: Do we also became the boxing champion at Sing Sing
Speaker 1: and he became such a legendary fighter, and that that
Speaker 1: they brought in a guy who went on to become
Speaker 1: the w B A champion of the world to fight him.
Speaker 1: If he didn't come, I was gonna win, man. I
Speaker 1: had cracked the rivers in the second round. The tough
Speaker 1: son of a gun. Lula Valley was a guy man
Speaker 1: that I had almost respect for. I'm glad that he
Speaker 1: went on him and went they had him won the
Speaker 1: championship fight. What it was like was an experience to
Speaker 1: make me really truly understand that the potential was there,
Speaker 1: the understanding of what I could have done with my
Speaker 1: life if I chose to take a deal later on
Speaker 1: down the line, I could have done that. Finally, in
Speaker 1: you were granted a new trial on the grounds that
Speaker 1: the prosecutor had used his remptory challenges, which is, for
Speaker 1: those people who maybe new to the show, the prosecutor
Speaker 1: is allowed to exclude certain jurors off for no reason,
Speaker 1: just because he wants to exclude them from serving on
Speaker 1: the jury, and he had used these challenges to systematically
Speaker 1: remove all black jurors, ending up for the all white jury,
Speaker 1: hardly a jury of your peers. So you were granted
Speaker 1: a new trial, and they came to you and offered
Speaker 1: you a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter for seven
Speaker 1: or fourteen. You've already done six and a half. But
Speaker 1: that was not even a consideration for you, was it. Hey? No. First,
Speaker 1: and for almost during my first tile, Stanley Smith got
Speaker 1: understand testified against me. I think that was what really
Speaker 1: got me convicted. You gotta remember he was helping his
Speaker 1: brother and he told the judge, I want you to
Speaker 1: not committed perjury. I testified against this man. I want
Speaker 1: to get my brother out of jail. Now I got
Speaker 1: my brother out of jail. I want you to know
Speaker 1: that that committed perjury. And he said the same thing
Speaker 1: in my second trial in n You know, I still
Speaker 1: got prosecuted. It. This trial is so bad that nothing, absolutely,
Speaker 1: not one single shred of evidence pointing to me. The
Speaker 1: way the judge told the prosecute the attorney, he said, listen,
Speaker 1: the jury should be back on one album with a
Speaker 1: not guilty verdict. That's when a project of the attorney said, listen,
Speaker 1: Mr Mosel, will give you seven and fourteen for manslaughter,
Speaker 1: or you gotta do is mentor in the nature of
Speaker 1: the crime. You see the board in six months with
Speaker 1: the possible to going home. I said, no, okay, Mr Mosland.
Speaker 1: They came back on the second day. We give you
Speaker 1: what we called time served. All you gotta do is
Speaker 1: mention the nature to crime. You go back the same
Speaker 1: single and you re released to go home. I said no.
Speaker 1: So then at the jury was about to come back
Speaker 1: with the verdict the project with the attorney, he said, listen,
Speaker 1: well give what we call scenario awful plea or you
Speaker 1: gotta do is to sign a piece of paper. We
Speaker 1: look out the courtroom right now, I said, no jury
Speaker 1: walks in. I get resent this for he years to life.
Speaker 1: I mean wromptly convicted twice, yes, with no evidence, and
Speaker 1: I didn't we didn't mention this before. But the fact
Speaker 1: is in a crime like this, a violent crime that
Speaker 1: involves up close contact, right, it's not a shooting from
Speaker 1: across the street or across the room. Even this is
Speaker 1: a woman who was brutally suffocated. There was so many
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene. I heard
Speaker 1: even close to a hundred pieces of evidence, and none
Speaker 1: of them matched you. There was no nobody even ever
Speaker 1: claimed had your fingerprints or your blood, or your hair
Speaker 1: or your suraliva or anything was at the crime scene,
Speaker 1: and they managed to convict you twice based on the
Speaker 1: evidence of incentivized witnesses. This ship goes on in courtrooms
Speaker 1: across the country all the damn time, and it happened
Speaker 1: to Dewey Bozella. And that's what we're here talking about now.
Speaker 1: So back to prison you go. And I got back
Speaker 1: to see since d pen A gentry. The bottom of day,
Speaker 1: I went down to what they're going to chap area.
Speaker 1: I was trying to find some peace when I walked in.
Speaker 1: Guess who I see? I see the guy with murder,
Speaker 1: my brother, Stanley Jackson. I said, oh him, No, you
Speaker 1: got to be kidding me. Man, I want inside myself
Speaker 1: for three days and I thought everything Now, I said,
Speaker 1: you took a turn into the violence. You took behavior awareness,
Speaker 1: you took all these classes then and with violence now
Speaker 1: at a time of adversity, can you really live this out?
Speaker 1: Can you really you know, deal with this? Because cold
Speaker 1: in the streets said, Kim, you gotta kill him. You
Speaker 1: gotta bust him in the head, you gotta stabber, you
Speaker 1: gotta whip his ask you gotta do something otherwise you're
Speaker 1: a coward, you're a pump, You'll assisted and everything that's
Speaker 1: that go along with it. So I had to deal
Speaker 1: with all these things in my mind. So after three days,
Speaker 1: I come up out of my cell and there's Stanley
Speaker 1: on the flats and a block and people are looking
Speaker 1: So you got three cheers, people looking down and the
Speaker 1: people are looking at like, oh shit, oh hell about
Speaker 1: the break loose. Now. You gotta remember I was in
Speaker 1: the New York Day New centerfold for boxing, and people
Speaker 1: know I'm the champ in sing sing, they know I'm
Speaker 1: not a Trump. And then a none of them know
Speaker 1: that there's the guy who murdered my brother. So I
Speaker 1: walked to him and I said, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk to you for a minute. He said yeah, So
Speaker 1: we go around the corner. Man, why do you murder
Speaker 1: my brother? He said, when I was young with something
Speaker 1: just happened, and loved him down in the face, and
Speaker 1: I looked him up and down. The first thing that
Speaker 1: came to my mind was then let this ship go,
Speaker 1: then move on with your life. And I've reached him
Speaker 1: and I shook his head at the young man. You know, man,
Speaker 1: I forgive you. My man went off, Yo man, what
Speaker 1: he murdered your brother, you ain't gonna do ship me
Speaker 1: wanted to chat with your man back up, yo member.
Speaker 1: But I said, yo man, you ain't got nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this mess between me, him and dog. But
Speaker 1: he murdered. I said, you know, like I said, you
Speaker 1: didn't do with this, let it go. So when I
Speaker 1: did that, the world got out in the penitentiary. Man,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I gotta did what you did.
Speaker 1: I said, it doesn't matter what the funk you think,
Speaker 1: what madness is, what between me, him and God. Man,
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted to do. How the funk am
Speaker 1: I asking able to forgive me? If I can't know
Speaker 1: how to forgive him, how I'm going to ask anybody
Speaker 1: to let my life move forward. If I can't let
Speaker 1: his life move forward, it begins with me. So I
Speaker 1: made the final decision. This is my decision, not your decision.
Speaker 1: And I don't give a damn about the coldest streets.
Speaker 1: And I damned you don't give a damn about the
Speaker 1: cold dealing with the penitentiary because this is the ship
Speaker 1: that got me in there. Anyway, this cold ship. I'm
Speaker 1: done with it, and that was my attitude. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a code of a penitentiary that you didn't belonging
Speaker 1: in the first place, and somehow or other you transcended
Speaker 1: the environment and and and really lifted yourself up out
Speaker 1: of those walls, even while you were still behind those walls.
Speaker 1: And that's incredible. And then it's almost as if you
Speaker 1: were rewarded, right because well in so many ways, because
Speaker 1: now we come to the point where you're in the
Speaker 1: visiting room one day and there's a beautiful young woman
Speaker 1: named trein a boone who's there? And how did this
Speaker 1: interaction take place? Because I've been there. I don't know
Speaker 1: how the hell you could even, you know. I was
Speaker 1: like a robottom of the I was involved with they
Speaker 1: called the jay cs and me being about in the
Speaker 1: j c's um. I was there for about a couple
Speaker 1: of years to where they allowed me to go down
Speaker 1: to their visiting room and take pictures. And her brother
Speaker 1: came up and he introduced me. Say this is so
Speaker 1: so so. He's a boxer, you know, and he's a
Speaker 1: good guy. So after that we started talking and she
Speaker 1: liked boxing. One thing led to another. I was prayed
Speaker 1: up with her. I didn't lott punches. Actually, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for a wife, you know, I'm not looking for somebody
Speaker 1: who just want to be a friend. Um, if they
Speaker 1: had the chance, you know, if you want to talk
Speaker 1: to me, you know, that would be cool. If you don't,
Speaker 1: it's so good, you know. And I asked her brother,
Speaker 1: can I get her phone number? And he gave it
Speaker 1: to me, and I made the phone calls. He was
Speaker 1: a little mad at him, but I made the phone
Speaker 1: call and then you know, that's how it all got started.
Speaker 1: And sure enough you ended up well finding exactly what
Speaker 1: you're looking for with was a wife. And she became
Speaker 1: a huge part of your life and a big supporter
Speaker 1: of yours, so much, a part of the beautiful documentary
Speaker 1: that I watched, the ESPN films the twenty six years,
Speaker 1: the Dewey Bozzella story. She is, uh, obviously it almost
Speaker 1: like the I mean, she has a big roll there.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that. So now things are gonna take
Speaker 1: another few twists and turns. How did you first learn
Speaker 1: about the Innocence Project? I know you started writing and
Speaker 1: it took used to write the same letter every day
Speaker 1: from what I read? Is that true? Yes? While I
Speaker 1: was at old library, still fighting my case. I wrote
Speaker 1: to them. I said I got blood samples in the
Speaker 1: hand samples and I didn't hear no answer. And then
Speaker 1: I wrote them every freaking week until I received the answer.
Speaker 1: A guy by named A leave and listen, don't write
Speaker 1: us no more. We're gonna put you on the list.
Speaker 1: Right behind that, in the year two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: I went to my Bruce Pal roll board and I
Speaker 1: got hit with two years. And from what I understand,
Speaker 1: the pro board came back at you over and over
Speaker 1: again with two year extensions despite your impressive transformation. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project took your case in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: but when they found out that the Pokeepsie Police Department
Speaker 1: had destroyed all the biological evidence, they passed your case
Speaker 1: onto Wilmer Cutler Hale, who took the case pro bono,
Speaker 1: and upon your request, they looked into the arresting officer,
Speaker 1: a lieutenant named Arthur Regular. Something beside me told me
Speaker 1: to tell them go see the lieutenant, and when invested
Speaker 1: me in nineteen seven, no one wants to believe me.
Speaker 1: He told me when I as a kid, maybe he
Speaker 1: was gonna get me. Go by and see him he
Speaker 1: might have a change of heart. That's the only that
Speaker 1: came to my head. So they asked him a question,
Speaker 1: do you have any regulation about Mr three his a location? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. Would you mind telling us? He said, I
Speaker 1: want you to know, like kept Mr bolls Ollas personal
Speaker 1: files at my house for the last nineteen years. Are
Speaker 1: you supposed to keep any case at your house? He
Speaker 1: said no. When I retired, I took his files hold
Speaker 1: with me and I had him for the last nineteen
Speaker 1: years because I always knew that one day someone would
Speaker 1: come talk to me about this man case. I believe
Speaker 1: that he was innocent. Here are his files inside of
Speaker 1: the powers of what they called his arian material, braining material,
Speaker 1: newly discovered evidence, four pieces of evidence that said that
Speaker 1: I did not commit the murder. One of the witnesses
Speaker 1: that said that they heard the garage from her house,
Speaker 1: the back of the house where they heard the garbage
Speaker 1: kids being moved by the women, seeal where the wise
Speaker 1: brothers had boasts that went in. Where bring the principal
Speaker 1: file and the two ladies who said to listen, we
Speaker 1: were sitting outside, and we know Wayne Moseley and the
Speaker 1: other guys who said they were in front of the house.
Speaker 1: They were not there because we were sitting out there
Speaker 1: from seven o'clock eleven o'clock that night. There was a
Speaker 1: taste statement that was made that said I did not
Speaker 1: commit the murder. So a lot of things started pointing
Speaker 1: to a different direction, and so all this was born
Speaker 1: before the judge. Judge said, this is overwhelming accidents. And
Speaker 1: if we had had this in nineteen eighty three or
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety, I believe that Mr Mozelle would not
Speaker 1: have been convicted. There's an attorney had to Mr Case
Speaker 1: right there on the spot. October twenty nine, two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: So do we tell us what you were doing when
Speaker 1: you first got out of how you got the Arthur
Speaker 1: Ashe Courage Award at the SPS in two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: and eventually got your shot. I'm getting the chills as
Speaker 1: I say this. As a professional boxer. I came out.
Speaker 1: I was fifty years old, and I was going doing
Speaker 1: volunteer and work at the River River's Gym. I was
Speaker 1: working with kids. I was also working at two ninety
Speaker 1: Broadway on Main Street in Newburgh, New York. I was
Speaker 1: transforming people who came from the penitentiary all we in
Speaker 1: peace skills to see their role offices and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, still communicating with the people,
Speaker 1: was in the inside. And then one day I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about the All Dance Courage Award. Hot happened.
Speaker 1: People said that they had recommended me and that I
Speaker 1: was gonna receive the award. I wasn't excited and excited
Speaker 1: because I didn't know anything really about the Dance Courage Award.
Speaker 1: I get all the way out to l A and
Speaker 1: I started to see as old as ship, this is
Speaker 1: way bigger than what I thought it was. So I
Speaker 1: get out here. You know, I was going to be
Speaker 1: in front of like five to seven million people. I
Speaker 1: thought it would be seven thousands or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I gave a speech. I gave a speech listening.
Speaker 1: I know Oscar DIDOOI heard about it right. So then
Speaker 1: Bernard Hopkins and Oscar de Lahoya took an interest in
Speaker 1: you and supported you in training. But in order to
Speaker 1: fight professionally, you had to take a number of grueling
Speaker 1: physical tests to be clear for fighting. And those wouldn't
Speaker 1: be easy for anyone at any age, but at fifty
Speaker 1: or fifty one, that's a big challenge. But as I saw,
Speaker 1: as everyone saw the movie knows, you worked your ass
Speaker 1: off to get into fighting shape. Burnoud Hopkins. He said,
Speaker 1: bring him over the mine camp, bring him up to Philly.
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna work with Danny and also get him
Speaker 1: a conditioning coach. Rick was the guy who actually would
Speaker 1: get up and train with me and work with me
Speaker 1: and run with me, you know. And Danny he did
Speaker 1: pad work and everything to get me in good shape
Speaker 1: and now comes to fight. Right. This was, yeah, the
Speaker 1: it is funny, man, what the hounds funny about it?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just that I know my qualifications.
Speaker 1: And he had four pro fights and then he had
Speaker 1: twelve MC Martial arge fights as a pro. So that's
Speaker 1: five team proved fights to my none. And I said, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm taking this fight. I don't give a
Speaker 1: damn what he got. He wanted to win so bad
Speaker 1: he didn't care old I was. He wanted with my butt.
Speaker 1: And and so the first round he won. After he
Speaker 1: won the first round, the first thing I said to
Speaker 1: myself was doing what the hell are you're doing? You
Speaker 1: know you're a sticking move fighter. Do what you do best, man.
Speaker 1: So I won by none of this decision. That's when
Speaker 1: I said, okay, doing this is it called the quiz.
Speaker 1: I was off with two other fights and I said,
Speaker 1: now I'm done. I said, I'm not trying to get hurt.
Speaker 1: You know, I prove. I proved to myself. You know,
Speaker 1: the quality was there. Everything I needed to know was
Speaker 1: right there. I'm satisfied. I'm good and I never went by.
Speaker 1: So your life hit you with some of the hardest
Speaker 1: punches that anyone has ever been hit with, losing your mother,
Speaker 1: abandoned by your father, losing three brothers, spending twenty six years,
Speaker 1: and one of the toughest prisons in the country or
Speaker 1: maybe even the world. And still you remain unbroken and undefeated.
Speaker 1: And for our audience, if you want to learn more,
Speaker 1: you can with Dewey's book as well as the ESPN film.
Speaker 1: Both of them will be lengked in the bio. But Dewey,
Speaker 1: your story isn't over yet. I heard you're living down
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia. Now what I'm doing right now, I'm
Speaker 1: down in Atlanta, Georgia, juvenile toad the centers. I'm going
Speaker 1: around and I'm doing volunteer work and get around and
Speaker 1: let people know, you know that, you know you can't
Speaker 1: turn your life a brown if you just make the
Speaker 1: right decision. Don't let nobody tell you what you can do.
Speaker 1: You you hold the key to your own life. You know,
Speaker 1: you make the final decision. You know. People may say
Speaker 1: what they want to say. You know, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day long you can go to your
Speaker 1: bed and you can wait or wake up in the
Speaker 1: morning and say, man, this is what I'm going to
Speaker 1: do and mean it on the heart. You're good. So
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the story and the voice of
Speaker 1: the man himself. Do we Bosella and Dewey, this is
Speaker 1: the part of the show where I turned my microphone off,
Speaker 1: kicked back in my chair and close my eyes and
Speaker 1: just listen as you share your final thoughts for closing arguments.
Speaker 1: The night before the fight for Resident, Barack Obama gave
Speaker 1: me a call and he said, hello, how you muppose all?
Speaker 1: I said, the good President? I said wow, And he
Speaker 1: said how you doing. I said, I'm doing pretty good, man,
Speaker 1: that I'm feeling pretty good. He said, I heard a
Speaker 1: lot about you or that you know, you do a
Speaker 1: lot of things, you know, getting back to the community
Speaker 1: and everything he said, I just want to wish you
Speaker 1: well on your fight. I said, yeah, man, I appreciate
Speaker 1: that a whole lot. And he said, you should just
Speaker 1: gonna be your person to last fight. I said yes.
Speaker 1: Then after that evening hung up. I had tears in
Speaker 1: my eyes and I said, Wow, this is bigger than me.
Speaker 1: Let's because here, this is the man that wanted to
Speaker 1: be a basketball player. He woind up being a president
Speaker 1: of the United States. And I said, everybody who gave up,
Speaker 1: you know who actually just like life don't mean nothing
Speaker 1: to him no more, or just lost hope, or just
Speaker 1: like I don't care. You know, this fight is for them.
Speaker 1: It's not only for me. This this fight, this fight
Speaker 1: is to let them know, don't give up, don't let
Speaker 1: nobody tell you what you can do, don't give up
Speaker 1: on yourself, don't make yourself feel like you know you're
Speaker 1: You're not worthy. This is the fight that I'm fighting.
Speaker 1: I'm not fighting this a normal fight. More more, I'm
Speaker 1: fighting for the people men who actually just like said
Speaker 1: I don't care effort, you know, I don't want them
Speaker 1: to feel that way. I I hope that I can
Speaker 1: be that sponsor to let them see that you can
Speaker 1: make it. If I can do it, you can do it.
Speaker 1: And Pipot two years old, this guy is thirty years old.
Speaker 1: You know, if I can do it at this age,
Speaker 1: what excuse to you have? You know, especially if you're young.
Speaker 1: Don't let nobody tell you what you can't through. And
Speaker 1: that was my mission after that, So I didn't. That's
Speaker 1: the reason why I was laughing. You know, I didn't care.
Speaker 1: You know about the fight. I don't. You can't do
Speaker 1: nothing with me. You can't break me, you can't hurt me.
Speaker 1: Already went through all the difficulties, already been hurt. I
Speaker 1: already been let down. Already know what it's like that
Speaker 1: everything you're taken from. I really know what it's like
Speaker 1: that people turn it back on you. I already know
Speaker 1: it's like that people just like to give up and
Speaker 1: there's nobody there, and you feel all alone and you
Speaker 1: buy yourself. I know. It's like man, you're just like,
Speaker 1: you know, just go through all the difficulties, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and and then not once, not twice, but
Speaker 1: three times, you know, and then have all the hurt
Speaker 1: in opinion and and and the deaths you know, put
Speaker 1: right in fro your face. You know and then to
Speaker 1: go out there and do what I did. You can't
Speaker 1: break me, man, and that's what I wanted. That's the
Speaker 1: message that meant again, don't give up on yourself. Don't
Speaker 1: feel like man, there's nothing that in life, because the
Speaker 1: moment you are alive, you said that you're alive. God
Speaker 1: has something special for you. And if you don't believe
Speaker 1: in God, whatever it is that you believe in, you
Speaker 1: know there's something special for you because you're not done yet.
Speaker 1: It's that's your choice, your decision. You have a decision.
Speaker 1: I made all the rights choices that a that made
Speaker 1: all the bad choices, and that's what this was about.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction with Jason Flamer.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Clyburne and Kevin wardas. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with signal Company Number one