Speaker 1: On June fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven, ninety two year old
Speaker 1: Jay Emma Crapser was found tied up and suffocated in
Speaker 1: her Poughkeepsie, New York apartment. Police thought she had walked
Speaker 1: in on a burglary and rounded up the young guys
Speaker 1: in nearby Mansion Park, including Lamar and Stanley Smith, and
Speaker 1: a new guy from Brooklyn who had spent time in Juvie,
Speaker 1: a budding boxer named Dewey Bosella. After being falsely told
Speaker 1: that Dewey had implicated them, the Smith brothers returned false
Speaker 1: accusations against Dewey and fifteen year old Wayne Moseley. When
Speaker 1: police tried to turn the miner on his alleged accomplice,
Speaker 1: Wayne Moseley refused to lie, and the Smith brother's word
Speaker 1: was not enough for a grand jury indictment. Six years
Speaker 1: and two eerily similar crimes later, one of which was
Speaker 1: properly attributed to brothers Donald and Anthony Wise, the DA
Speaker 1: continued his relentless pursuit of Dewey Bosella for Emma Crapser's murder,
Speaker 1: despite compelling evidence to the contrary, in including Donald Wise's
Speaker 1: fingerprint at the scene. Finally, with Lamar Smith and Wayne
Speaker 1: Moseley in custody for separate crimes, the DA had the
Speaker 1: leverage he needed to coerce testimony and send Dewey Bosella
Speaker 1: away for over twenty six years. However, the fight in
Speaker 1: this boxer proved to be just too big, a fight
Speaker 1: that would one day see the inside of a professional
Speaker 1: boxing ring. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, and today I am so excited because we
Speaker 1: have a guest. We have a lot of first today.
Speaker 1: Our guest is Dewey Bosella. And Dewey is our only
Speaker 1: guest who speaks besides English, Arabic and japan Ease. He's
Speaker 1: the only one who has won an eSPI Award. He's
Speaker 1: the only one who won a professional boxing match in
Speaker 1: his fifties. After he was released from prison after twenty
Speaker 1: six years of wrongful incarceration. Without further ado, let me
Speaker 1: introduce to you my friend Dewey Bosella. Dewey, welcome to
Speaker 1: Ronfuel Conviction.
Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Dewey, I have to say if and I know you
Speaker 1: have your own book, and we'll talk about this. But
Speaker 1: if 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 Roffl 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?
Speaker 2: It was me and my forder brothers and one system.
Speaker 2: As we were growing up, things were pretty good except
Speaker 2: for my father. My father was just boot at eight
Speaker 2: years old. My father turned my whole life around, as
Speaker 2: well as my brothers and my one sister at that
Speaker 2: particular time. One day, we was in the backyard and
Speaker 2: we were playing, and I came inside of the house
Speaker 2: and heard a lot of hollering and screaming, and my
Speaker 2: father was beating up on my mother and my He
Speaker 2: was being up on my mother. I did the best
Speaker 2: I could do as a kid. I ran over and
Speaker 2: granted round the laid. He took me and threw me
Speaker 2: across the room like I was a piece of trash
Speaker 2: and continued to beat up on my mother. My mother
Speaker 2: went to the hospital. Me and my brothers we went
Speaker 2: in the foster homes and group homes, and things were
Speaker 2: never the same.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure they weren't. And your mother died, and
Speaker 1: you witnessed that as an eight year old boy. Your
Speaker 1: father abandoned all six of you and went to live
Speaker 1: with your half siblings. You didn't even know you had,
Speaker 1: one 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 I put foster homes and group homes until you
Speaker 1: were all finally placed together again a few years later
Speaker 1: with the Coleman family. Then after all that, you moved
Speaker 1: to Queens. You all moved to Queen's and spent a
Speaker 1: good five or six years together with just at least
Speaker 1: a shred of normalcy. But in high school I understand
Speaker 1: you started drinking, smoking, hanging out with some not so
Speaker 1: great people, and pretty soon you ended up dropping out
Speaker 1: and moving upstate just after another tragedy struck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was sixteen years old and I got into
Speaker 2: a fight with a guy by name is Standy Jackson.
Speaker 2: When I got into a fight with Stanley Jackson, I
Speaker 2: got the best of him. He didn't like that. Him
Speaker 2: and a guy by name of Barty driving the bicycle
Speaker 2: and they see my brother at a party and Andrew
Speaker 2: Jackson High School, and Stanley wouldn't stabbed my brother to death.
Speaker 2: He stabed him in the heart and in the back
Speaker 2: and then murdered my brother. So me, you know the
Speaker 2: Kota streets, I won to get him. I wanted to
Speaker 2: get him for what he did to my brother. And
Speaker 2: because of that, my older brother Tony, so he said, listen, man,
Speaker 2: once you come up here to upstate New York, you know,
Speaker 2: to see where you're going. Man, if you stay down
Speaker 2: in New York, you don't mind it, you know, in
Speaker 2: a bad situation. I said, okay, I'll give it a try.
Speaker 2: Because my true intensor, I wanted to kill him for
Speaker 2: what he did to my brother. He should have came
Speaker 2: after me. He should have came after my brother. So
Speaker 2: when I moved up to Poughkeepsie, New York, my older
Speaker 2: brother he said to me, once you go back to school.
Speaker 2: I said, Tony, don't make your time. I'm not going
Speaker 2: back to school. He said, well, you know, do something
Speaker 2: if you don't want to do something. So I said,
Speaker 2: I went and I got involved into a program to
Speaker 2: where I became a carpenter, and I got a job
Speaker 2: in Poughkeepsie, New York. Massive Square Park in Poughkeepsie was
Speaker 2: to hang out for everybody that was supposed to be
Speaker 2: hit at that particular time. So I just turned seventeen.
Speaker 2: I'm hanging out in Everything that I did in New
Speaker 2: York was in that park. So one time I got
Speaker 2: into a fight and I beat the dude. I whipped
Speaker 2: the dudes, but the we called me whipping the dudes.
Speaker 2: But everybody said, yo, they dude, ain't happening. And so
Speaker 2: that's when I started getting around guys who was supposed
Speaker 2: to be you know, thugs and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, you're up there in the area where Floyd Patterson,
Speaker 1: the heavyweight champion of the world, had recently converted a barn,
Speaker 1: an old barn in Newpaulse, which is nearby, into a
Speaker 1: center for at risk youth.
Speaker 2: Floyd Patterson I first met him. It was because of
Speaker 2: a there God dared me. He said, you're always fighting
Speaker 2: it and all this, man, but you ain't gonna go
Speaker 2: up no dead, no Floyd Partison camp. I said, what?
Speaker 2: So I went up to Floyd passon camp on the there.
Speaker 2: When I got up there, The first thing I did is,
Speaker 2: you know, I lied to Floyda. I told Floyda to
Speaker 2: have three fights, and I didn't have three fights. You know.
Speaker 2: I was talking about fights out in the streets. I
Speaker 2: thought I knew everything, and Floyd put me out there.
Speaker 2: He put me up with a guy by the name
Speaker 2: of Danny. Here it is, I'm weighing like close to
Speaker 2: one hundred and ninety, you know, he's a Walter Way.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know who Danny was. I went out
Speaker 2: there and I hit Danny with a lucky punch and
Speaker 2: I rocked him, and right behind that, Floyd said, cut loose.
Speaker 2: He hit me with a body shot. The body shot
Speaker 2: knocked the mouth piece out my mouth, and then hit
Speaker 2: me with another shot in my chest. And he ain't
Speaker 2: hit me to the face yet. And I caught you,
Speaker 2: you know, because the wind was knocked out of me
Speaker 2: and the bell rang. When the bell rang, I got
Speaker 2: out out of the ring. I said, oh hey, no,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm out of here. So Floyd said, what
Speaker 2: was wrong, was wrong?
Speaker 1: Was wrong?
Speaker 2: Was wrong? I said, no, I'm all right, right right,
Speaker 2: I'm not take the gloves off. Take the gloves off,
Speaker 2: Take the gloves off. So he took the gloves. Where
Speaker 2: you're going, when you're gone, when you're going with I said,
Speaker 2: I'll be back from whereverybody, I'll be back. I'll be back.
Speaker 2: When I got up out of there, that changed my
Speaker 2: whole life. Why because all he did was in with
Speaker 2: a body punch in the chest shot. He didn't even
Speaker 2: go to the head. Yet. I'm one hundred ninety pounds
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty seven or a little bit more
Speaker 2: at that particular, I didn't know at that time he
Speaker 2: was ready number one in the world. Floyd came up.
Speaker 2: I mean, he said, uh, do you know you just sport? No,
Speaker 2: he said, he's been number one in the world. Man, listen,
Speaker 2: who shit? And never after that day forward, after that experience,
Speaker 2: took boxing as a joke.
Speaker 1: No, that would wake anybody up. And what an introduction
Speaker 1: it was. But now, just when things you know may
Speaker 1: have been taking a turn for the better, as your
Speaker 1: first exposure to boxing, which became such a huge part
Speaker 1: of your life and which you excel at and have
Speaker 1: been recognized. Now finally, all these years later, June fourteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, this is the night when ninety two
Speaker 1: year old Emma Crapser was brutally murdered in her apartment.
Speaker 1: She was tied up and suffocated. She had linen stuffed
Speaker 1: in her mouth and down her throat. And this was
Speaker 1: a crime that obviously horrified local residents and for which
Speaker 1: there was a lot of pressure on the authorities to
Speaker 1: make arrests. And the police came up with a theory,
Speaker 1: right They said that missus Scrapser had walked in on
Speaker 1: a burglary in progress and paid with her life. So
Speaker 1: they went around and picked up some kids they knew
Speaker 1: were tough kids or whatever that hung out in the
Speaker 1: park Manchester Square Park, and they were well aware of
Speaker 1: you Dewey, obviously because coming up from the city and
Speaker 1: everything else. They decided they would focus their investigation on
Speaker 1: the new kid in town who they knew was a
Speaker 1: bit of a brawler and a tough kid. And they
Speaker 1: started by questioning two brothers, Lamar and Stanley Smith, And
Speaker 1: originally they denied any knowledge the crime. The interrogators told
Speaker 1: them though, that you Dewey had identified them as the murders.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't true, was it.
Speaker 2: No, it was far from the truth. I had no
Speaker 2: knowledge of the crime. And what made them even say
Speaker 2: something like that was the beginning of them framing me.
Speaker 1: Right. So, Lamar Smith told the cops that he saw
Speaker 1: you and another guy named Wayne Moseley, he was just
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, on Missus Scrapser's porch trying to break in.
Speaker 1: So they're just coming up with stories out of thin air.
Speaker 1: Stanley Smith told police that he saw you, Wayne Moseley,
Speaker 1: and a third guy together in the park on the
Speaker 1: day of the murder. And then you and Wayne Moseley
Speaker 1: were arrested for the burglary and murder. But Moseley was
Speaker 1: a miner. He was, like I said, he's only fifteen,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't gonna be They weren't gonna be able
Speaker 1: to charge him as an adult, so they they wanted
Speaker 1: to get him to plead guilty right and testify to
Speaker 1: your involvement. But to his great credit a fifteen year
Speaker 1: old kid, he refused to do that. And there was
Speaker 1: no evidence whatsoever linking either of you to the crime
Speaker 1: other than the word of the Smith brothers. So and
Speaker 1: a grand jury, they always say grand jury will indet
Speaker 1: a ham sandwich. The grand jury refused to indict you.
Speaker 1: That says a lot, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You got to remember when they arrested me, I was
Speaker 2: both bost been hold for three days, but they kept
Speaker 2: me for twenty eight days to win. A judge told
Speaker 2: the prog attorney let him go, and so I was
Speaker 2: released on what they call the not bound bell, which
Speaker 2: means there was no evidence, nothing pointed to me at all.
Speaker 2: And for the next five and a half close to
Speaker 2: six years, nothing happened on the case, and then the
Speaker 2: case was reopened. In nineteen eighty three, Wayne Mosley and
Speaker 2: Lamar Smith were in Downstate correctional facility for crimes that
Speaker 2: they have committed, and the prosecut attorney he said, listen,
Speaker 2: I'll make a deal with both of y'all to testify
Speaker 2: against Dewey base Out and Wayne. This is what I'll
Speaker 2: do for you. I'll get all your charges drop and
Speaker 2: get you out of jail. Lamar, I'll get you early parole.
Speaker 2: And both of them agreed. However, because to them being
Speaker 2: by law what they considered accompasses and saying that they
Speaker 2: were there at the scene of the crime and another
Speaker 2: collaborate witness, which was Stanley. But Stanley had no involvement
Speaker 2: of the crime at all, so that's what made his
Speaker 2: testimony so pure than the other su and because Stanley
Speaker 2: Smith collaborating with his brother, the mass Smith, that was
Speaker 2: the beginning of I got sent in twenty years to life.
Speaker 1: But something happened at your trial that should have certainly
Speaker 1: placed enough reasonable doubt in the state's case, if not
Speaker 1: actually completely obliterated and knocked down this ridiculous house of cards.
Speaker 1: Now for contexts, between nineteen seventy seven and your trial
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three, there had been two incidents that
Speaker 1: were eerily similar to Emma Crapster's murder. And I say
Speaker 1: incidents because a victim in one of them survived to
Speaker 1: identify Donald and Anthony Wise as the perpetrators. Anthony Wise's girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Madeline Dixon South, testified at your trial that she witnessed
Speaker 1: Donald and Anthony Wise heading into Emma Crapser's house and
Speaker 1: testified to how they said that they had gained entry
Speaker 1: through a window.
Speaker 2: She said that they told me that jam a christ
Speaker 2: from murder. And because of what she said, the Federal
Speaker 2: Brewer investigation went back inside the house and found the
Speaker 2: Stringer print the inside window.
Speaker 1: See. And what's so completely fucking nuts doing and just
Speaker 1: sad is that despite all of this, the prosecutor was
Speaker 1: still able to cloud the jurors minds enough with Wayne
Speaker 1: Moseley Lamar and Stanley Smith and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: non evidence bullshit that the jury was somehow able to
Speaker 1: just gloss over ignore whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: Madeline Dixon South's testimony and Donald Wise's fingerprint.
Speaker 2: Before I got sentenced, the prosecuted attorney did everything that
Speaker 2: he wasn't supposed to do. He took evidence and put
Speaker 2: it inside the jury room. When the judge told him
Speaker 2: not to do it, he did it anyway. All the
Speaker 2: things that showed it I was innocent, you know, he
Speaker 2: made sure never made it inside the jury room. That's
Speaker 2: how bad he wanted me.
Speaker 1: So six years they spent putting together this false narrative
Speaker 1: just in order to get a conviction of the guy
Speaker 1: who they just sort of decided one day was picked
Speaker 1: out of a hat. I was going to take the
Speaker 1: fall for this murder rap and that was you. How
Speaker 1: long did the trial take? First of all, no more
Speaker 1: than two weeks, So you're a two week trial, the
Speaker 1: jury goes out. Did you think doing that they were
Speaker 1: going to come back and that the justice would be served?
Speaker 1: And they would see the truth.
Speaker 2: At first, yes, in my mind, I didn't see anything
Speaker 2: that pointed to me. So when they came back with
Speaker 2: the verdict of guilty, I fell to the floor slot
Speaker 2: of crime. How could you convict me? There was nothing,
Speaker 2: nothing pointage of me, you know. So it took another
Speaker 2: turn on my life to where I had to like,
Speaker 2: you know, I had to become like another person because
Speaker 2: now I'm setting twenty years of life and I'm wondering
Speaker 2: how what I'm going to deal with twenty years of
Speaker 2: life or crime I didn't commit. You know. I looked
Speaker 2: at the jury, and the jury, even men, five women,
Speaker 2: they all started crying. I said, it's too late. It's
Speaker 2: too late. You convicted. You know, it's too late. It's
Speaker 2: too late.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
Speaker 1: of Rafel Convision 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 Pacersfoundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org.
Speaker 2: I wasn't need the need a week and I watched
Speaker 2: a guy get stabbed in the eye and his eyeball
Speaker 2: came out in front of my face, and I was like,
Speaker 2: holy shit, after a riot and b blocker. Not only
Speaker 2: that a guy but I knew by the name of Slim.
Speaker 2: I wasn't even there, like I said, the week he
Speaker 2: got murdered, and I was like, what the fuck did
Speaker 2: I get myself into? How the the fuck am I
Speaker 2: gonna deal with this? And so my whole attitude changed.
Speaker 2: The little attitude was don't touch me, don't put your
Speaker 2: hands on me, don't be around me. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to get cut, I'm not trying to get stabbed. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna let nobody hurt me. And from this day forward,
Speaker 2: I don't give a damn who you are if you
Speaker 2: try to hurt me, I'm a dude. I gotta do
Speaker 2: the spot. And that was my attitude and I lived
Speaker 2: like that for over twenty six and a half years.
Speaker 1: Whoa I mean, it's I mean, that's a hell of
Speaker 1: a first week in a place that could just as
Speaker 1: easily be called hell. And you were at New York's
Speaker 1: infamous Sing Sing Correctional facility, where you needed to be
Speaker 1: hard to survive, but you also underwent a really incredible
Speaker 1: transformation while inside.
Speaker 2: What happened with me when I was inside Sing Sing
Speaker 2: State Penitentiary. One day I come from the yard and
Speaker 2: I was finished working out, and guy by name of
Speaker 2: Sharie walked up to me and he said that I
Speaker 2: was fronting and fronting inside the state penitentiary. Almost it's
Speaker 2: like a call out, you know, like you know, you're punk,
Speaker 2: all these other things that go along with it. But
Speaker 2: he didn't mean it like that. You know. I took
Speaker 2: it the wrong way. And I said, yo, yo, yo,
Speaker 2: what's going on? You know? He said, no, man, I
Speaker 2: just need to talk. I need to build. I said, okay.
Speaker 2: So the correction officer said, lock in, lock in, lock
Speaker 2: in another man, Bucky, you know. He said, you keep
Speaker 2: lock keep lock me and I'm inside myself for twenty
Speaker 2: three hours, well one hour wreck so I'm I'm in
Speaker 2: there twenty four hours a day. And it was just
Speaker 2: this one keep like that turned my whole life around,
Speaker 2: because I asked the guy who's supposed to have been
Speaker 2: my friend for a cigarette. He said he didn't have it,
Speaker 2: and I said, man, name, it is right there in
Speaker 2: your pocket. Man, why are you acting like that with me? Man?
Speaker 2: You know how I am man. You know what kind
Speaker 2: of person I am. Man. So he reached the side
Speaker 2: of his pocket. And the way he gave it to me,
Speaker 2: the way he gave it to me, I didn't. I
Speaker 2: didn't like it at all, but I took it because
Speaker 2: I needed it. And when I took the cigarette, my
Speaker 2: whole life changed. That was my minimum office. That was
Speaker 2: the beginning. I wasn't even in sing sing no more
Speaker 2: than the year and a half at the most. And
Speaker 2: I looked at the cigarette, and I looked at my life,
Speaker 2: and then I said, look at you, man, let's fucking
Speaker 2: look at you. You became fuck with savage that they
Speaker 2: were talking about. You became exactly the person they were
Speaker 2: fucking talking about. You got mind underneath your bed, that
Speaker 2: reaf on top of your fucking goddamn bunk. What's wrong
Speaker 2: with you? Man? At least out in the streets you
Speaker 2: were trying to go to school. You ain't doing shit
Speaker 2: in here. You're doing absolutely nothing with your life. Man,
Speaker 2: let's look at you. And then I asked myself one question,
Speaker 2: and I said, if they were to let you go
Speaker 2: right now, what would your life be like? And I
Speaker 2: ain't like the answer. The answer was I would be
Speaker 2: a bum. And so I just turned my life around.
Speaker 2: I just u said, damn, man, you know you lost
Speaker 2: your mother, your father don't and this family don't give
Speaker 2: a shit about you. You don't know where none of
Speaker 2: your brothers and your sisters. Is that what are you
Speaker 2: gonna do? Man? I took the reef I had and
Speaker 2: I gave it away. The people thought I fucking flipped.
Speaker 2: They thought I bunked out. I took the wine underneath
Speaker 2: my bed, I started giving it away. I mean, you
Speaker 2: are right, you are right. I mean you want it
Speaker 2: if you don't want it. I was dumping in the
Speaker 2: fucking toilet bow that day forward. I just never looked back.
Speaker 2: That was back in nineteen eighty five September twenty seven.
Speaker 2: That's why I hang out with Shereef. From that day forward,
Speaker 2: I got involved in every different program you could think about.
Speaker 2: I got fifty two certificates, I got my back, had
Speaker 2: done my master degree. After twenty six and a half
Speaker 2: years run the prison walls.
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible transformation. And do we I'm gonna talk
Speaker 1: about you in the third person.
Speaker 2: Do we.
Speaker 1: Also became the boxing champion at Singh Sing and he
Speaker 1: became such a legendary fighter in there that they brought
Speaker 1: in a guy who went on to become the WBA
Speaker 1: Champion of the world to fight him.
Speaker 2: If he didn't come out, I was gonna win. Man.
Speaker 2: I had cracked his ribs in the second round. He's
Speaker 2: the tough son of a gun. Lula Valley was a
Speaker 2: guy man that I had the utmost respect for. I'm
Speaker 2: glad that he went on had and won. They had
Speaker 2: him win the championship fight. What it was like was
Speaker 2: an experience to make me really truly understand that the
Speaker 2: potential was there, the understanding of what I could have
Speaker 2: done with my life if I chose to take a
Speaker 2: deal laid on down the line, I could have done that.
Speaker 1: Finally, in nineteen ninety you were granted a new trial
Speaker 1: on the grounds that the prosecutor had used his remptory challenges,
Speaker 1: which is, for those people who may be new to
Speaker 1: the show, that prosecutor is allowed to exclude certain jurors
Speaker 1: off for no reason, just because he wants to exclude
Speaker 1: them from serving on the jury. And he had used
Speaker 1: these challenges to systematically remove all black jurors, ending up
Speaker 1: for the all white jury, hardly a jury of your peers.
Speaker 1: So if you were granted a new trial and they
Speaker 1: came to you and offered you a deal to plead
Speaker 1: guilty the manslaughter for seven or fourteen, you've already done
Speaker 1: six and a half. But that was not even a
Speaker 1: consideration for you, was it.
Speaker 2: Hell? No, First and foremost, during my first child, Stanley
Speaker 2: Smith got under testified against me. I think that was
Speaker 2: what really got me convicted. You gotta remember he was
Speaker 2: helping his brother and he told the judge, I want
Speaker 2: you to know I committed perjury. I testified against this
Speaker 2: man because I wanted to get my brother out of jail.
Speaker 2: Now that I got my brother out of jail, I
Speaker 2: want you to know that I committed perjury. And he
Speaker 2: said the same thing. In my second trial in nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: you know I still got prosecuted. This trial is so
Speaker 2: bad that nothing, absolutely, not one single shred of evidence
Speaker 2: pointed to me. The where the judge told the prosecute
Speaker 2: the attorney. He said, listen, the jury should be back
Speaker 2: on one album with a not guilty verdict. That's when
Speaker 2: a project in. The attorney said, listen, mister Mozalla will
Speaker 2: give you seventy to fourteen for manslaughter. All you got
Speaker 2: to do is mint of the nature of the crime.
Speaker 2: You see the boy in the six months with the
Speaker 2: possible to go on home. I said no, okay, mister Bozalla,
Speaker 2: And they came back on the second day. We give
Speaker 2: it what we called time served. All you got to
Speaker 2: do is mint to the nature of the crime. You
Speaker 2: go back to sing singing, you be released to go home.
Speaker 2: I said no. So then at the jury was about
Speaker 2: to come back with the verdict. The projecting the attorney
Speaker 2: he said, listen, well give what we call scenario Apha. Please.
Speaker 2: All you gotta do is to sign the piece of paper.
Speaker 2: We walk out the court room right now, I said, no,
Speaker 2: jury walks in. I get reset this twenty years to life.
Speaker 1: I mean wrongfully convicted twice, yes, with no evidence. And
Speaker 1: we didn't mention this before. But the fact is in
Speaker 1: a crime like this, a violent crime that involves up
Speaker 1: close contact, whether it's not a shooting from across the
Speaker 1: street or across the room. Even this is a woman
Speaker 1: who was brutally suffocated. There were so many pieces of
Speaker 1: evidence collected at the crime scene. I heard even close
Speaker 1: to one hundred pieces of evidence, and none of them
Speaker 1: matched you. There was no nobody even ever claimed had
Speaker 1: your fingerprints or your blood, or your hair, or your
Speaker 1: saliva or anything was at the crime scene. And they
Speaker 1: managed to convict you twice based on the evidence of
Speaker 1: incentivized witnesses. This shit goes on in courtrooms across the
Speaker 1: country all the damn time, and it happened to Dewey Bozella.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're here talking about now. So back
Speaker 1: to prison you go.
Speaker 2: When I got back to seeing statement a centry the
Speaker 2: bottom of day, I went down to what to go
Speaker 2: to the chapl area. I was trying to find some
Speaker 2: peace when I walked in. Guess who I see? I
Speaker 2: see the guy with murdered my brother, Stanley Jackson. I said, oh,
Speaker 2: hell no, you got to be kidding me. Man. I
Speaker 2: went inside myself for three days and I thought everything Now,
Speaker 2: I said, you took a turn of the violence, you
Speaker 2: took behavior wearingess, you took all these classes dealing with violence.
Speaker 2: Now in the time of adversity. Can you really live
Speaker 2: this out? Can you really, you know, deal with this?
Speaker 2: Because Cody the Street said, kill him. You gotta kill him.
Speaker 2: You gotta bust him in the head, you gotta stab him,
Speaker 2: you gotta whip his ass. You gotta do something otherwise
Speaker 2: you're a coward, You're a pump, your a sissy, and
Speaker 2: everything that's that go along with him. So I had
Speaker 2: to deal with all these things in my mind. So
Speaker 2: after three days, I come up out of my cell
Speaker 2: and they're Stanley on the flats and a block and
Speaker 2: people looking So you got three tears. People are looking down,
Speaker 2: and the people are looking down like, oh shit, all
Speaker 2: hell about the breakthroughs now. You canna remember I was
Speaker 2: in the New York Day News centerfold for boxing and
Speaker 2: people know I'm the champ and sing saying they know
Speaker 2: I'm not plump. And then a lot of them know
Speaker 2: that there's the guy who murdered my brother. So I
Speaker 2: walked to him and I said, You'm I gonna talk
Speaker 2: to you for a minute. He said yeah, So we
Speaker 2: go around the corner. Man, why you murder him my brother?
Speaker 2: He said, Man, I was young with something just happened
Speaker 2: it looked him down the face, and I looked them
Speaker 2: up and down. The first thing that came to my
Speaker 2: mind was then let this shit go. Man, move on
Speaker 2: with your life. And I reached him and I shook
Speaker 2: his hand. I said, young man, young man, I forgive you.
Speaker 2: My man went off, Yo man, but he murdered your brother.
Speaker 2: You ain't gonna do shit. He wanted to chap him
Speaker 2: to Yo man, back up, Yo man, But I said,
Speaker 2: Yo man, you ain't got nothing to do with this man,
Speaker 2: between me and him and God. But he murdered. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: like I said, you ain't got nothing to do with this.
Speaker 2: Let it go. So when I did that, the world
Speaker 2: got out in the penitentiary. You know, I don't know
Speaker 2: if I could have did what you did. I said,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what the fuck you think. Well matter, this
Speaker 2: is what was between me and and God. Man. That's
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do. How the fuck am I
Speaker 2: gonna ask them able to forgive me? If I can't
Speaker 2: learn how to forgive him, I'm gonna ask anybody to
Speaker 2: let my life move forward. If I can't let his
Speaker 2: life move forward, it begins with me. So I make
Speaker 2: the final decision. This is my decision, not your decision.
Speaker 2: And I don't give a damn about the coldest streets,
Speaker 2: and I damn you don't give a damn about the
Speaker 2: fucking cold dealing with the penitentiary because this is shit
Speaker 2: that got me in there anyway, this cold shit. I'm
Speaker 2: done with it. And that was my attitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a code of a penitentiary that you
Speaker 1: didn't belonging in the first place, and somehow or other
Speaker 1: you transcended the environment 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 Trina Boone who's there, and how did this interaction
Speaker 1: take place? Because I've been there, I don't know how
Speaker 1: the hell you could even you know, I.
Speaker 2: Was like a rollbottom of the city. I was involved
Speaker 2: with they call the jcs and me being involved in
Speaker 2: the jay ceds. I was there for about a couple
Speaker 2: of years to where they allowed me to go down
Speaker 2: their visiting room and take pictures and her brother came
Speaker 2: up and he introduced me. Say, this is so and
Speaker 2: so and so and so. He's a boxer, you know,
Speaker 2: da da da da da da, and he's a good guy.
Speaker 2: So after that we started talking and she liked boxing.
Speaker 2: One thing led to another. I was strayed up with her.
Speaker 2: I didn't pull more punchers. I said, I'm looking for
Speaker 2: a wife. You know, I'm not looking for somebody who
Speaker 2: just want to be a friend if they had the chance,
Speaker 2: you know, if you want to talk to me, you know,
Speaker 2: that'd be cool. If you don't, it's okay, you know.
Speaker 2: And I asked a brother, can I get her phone number?
Speaker 2: And he gave it to me, and I made the
Speaker 2: phone calls. He was a little mad at him, but
Speaker 2: I made the phone call. And then you know, that's
Speaker 2: how it all got started.
Speaker 1: And sure enough you ended up well finding exactly what
Speaker 1: you're looking for was a wife. And she became a
Speaker 1: huge part of your life and a big supporter of yours,
Speaker 1: so much, a part of the beautiful documentary that I
Speaker 1: watched ESPN Films twenty six years, the Dewey Bosella story.
Speaker 1: She is obviously almost like the I mean, she has
Speaker 1: a big role in it. Let's just say that, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: So now things are going to take another few twists
Speaker 1: and turns. How did you first learn about the Innocent Project?
Speaker 1: I know you started writing, and it took I used
Speaker 1: to write the same letter every day from what I read,
Speaker 1: is that true?
Speaker 2: Yes? While I was up library still fight my case,
Speaker 2: I wrote to them. I said I got blood samples
Speaker 2: and the hand samples, and I didn't hear no answer.
Speaker 2: And then I wrote them every freaking week until I
Speaker 2: received the answer, A guy by name A Lee. Listen,
Speaker 2: don't write us no more. We're gonna put you on
Speaker 2: the list right behind that. In the year two thousand
Speaker 2: and three, I went to my first parole board and
Speaker 2: I got hit with two years.
Speaker 1: And from what I understand, the prole board came back
Speaker 1: at you over and over again with two year extensions
Speaker 1: despite your impressive transformation. Meanwhile, the Innocist Project took your
Speaker 1: case in two thousand and five, but when they found
Speaker 1: out that the Poughkeepsie Police Department had destroyed all the
Speaker 1: biological evidence, they passed your case onto Wilmer Cutler Hale,
Speaker 1: who took the case pro bono, and upon your request,
Speaker 1: they looked into the arresting officer of Lieutenant named Arthur Regula.
Speaker 2: Something decide told me to tell them go see the
Speaker 2: lieutenant author regular And when I invested me in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, no one wants to believe me. He told
Speaker 2: me when I was a kid, man, he was going
Speaker 2: to get me go by and see him. Man, he
Speaker 2: might have a change of heart. That's only that came
Speaker 2: in my head. So they asked him a question, do
Speaker 2: you have any regulation about mister Deui Bazilo case? Yes?
Speaker 2: I do. Would you mind telling us? He said, I
Speaker 2: want you to know that I kept mister Bozilla's personal
Speaker 2: files at my house for the last nineteen years. Are
Speaker 2: you supposed to keep any case at your house? He
Speaker 2: said no. When I retired, I took his files home
Speaker 2: with me and I had him for the nice nineteen
Speaker 2: years because I always knew that one day someone will
Speaker 2: come talk to me about this man case. I believe
Speaker 2: that he was innocent. Here are his files. Inside the
Speaker 2: files of what they call his ario material breaking material,
Speaker 2: newly discovered evidence, four pieces of evidence that said that
Speaker 2: I did not commit the murder. One of the witnesses
Speaker 2: that said that they heard the garage from our house,
Speaker 2: the back of the house where they heard the garbage
Speaker 2: cans being moved by the window seal where the wise
Speaker 2: brothers had post that went in where Spring Princeville Final
Speaker 2: and the two ladies who said to listen, we were
Speaker 2: sitting outside, and we know Wayne Mosley and the other
Speaker 2: guys who said they were in front of the house,
Speaker 2: they were not there because we were sitting out there
Speaker 2: from seven o'clock to eleven o'clock that night. There was
Speaker 2: a tase statement that was made that said I did
Speaker 2: not commit the murder. So a lot of things started
Speaker 2: pointing to a different direction, and so all us was
Speaker 2: brought before the judge. Judge said, this is overwhelming evidence,
Speaker 2: and if we'd had this in nineteen eighty three or
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety, I believe that miss Mozilla would not
Speaker 2: have been convicted. And this a attorney had domestic case
Speaker 2: right there on the spot in October twenty ninety, two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: So do we tell us what you were doing when
Speaker 1: you first got out of it, how you got the
Speaker 1: Arthur Ashe Courage award at the SP's in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: and eventually got your shot. I'm getting the chills as
Speaker 1: I say this. As a professional boxer.
Speaker 2: I came out. I was fifty years old, and I
Speaker 2: was going doing volunteer work at River Rivers Gym. I
Speaker 2: was working with the kids. I was also working at
Speaker 2: two ninety Broadway on Main Street in Newburgh, New York.
Speaker 2: I was transforming people who came from the penitentiary all
Speaker 2: the way in peace skilled to see their role offices
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So I was still communicating with
Speaker 2: the people who was in the inside. And then one
Speaker 2: day I ain't know anything about the All Dance Courage Award.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it happened. People said that they
Speaker 2: had recommended me and that I was going to receive
Speaker 2: bill Ward. I wasn't excitedly excited because I didn't know
Speaker 2: anything really about the All Dance Courage Award. I get
Speaker 2: all the way out to LA and I started to
Speaker 2: see it as holy shit, this is way bigger than
Speaker 2: one I thought it was out here. You know, I
Speaker 2: was gonna be in front of like five to seven
Speaker 2: million people. I thought it would be seven thousand or
Speaker 2: something like that. So I gave a speech. After I
Speaker 2: gave a speech, listening, I know Oscar be.
Speaker 1: A hooy heard about it, right, So then Bernard Hopkins
Speaker 1: and Oscar de la Hoya took an interest in you
Speaker 1: and supported you in training. But in order to fight professionally,
Speaker 1: you had to take a number of grueling physical tests
Speaker 1: to be clear for fighting. And those wouldn't be easy
Speaker 1: for anyone at any age, but at fifty or fifty one,
Speaker 1: that's a big challenge. But as I saw, as everyone
Speaker 1: saw the movie knows, you worked your asshof to get
Speaker 1: it to fighting shape.
Speaker 2: Bernard Hopkins, he said, bring them over to mind camp,
Speaker 2: bring them up to Philly. Then I'm gonna work with
Speaker 2: Danny and also get him a conditioning coach. Rick was
Speaker 2: the guy who actually would get up and train with
Speaker 2: me and work with me and run with me, you know.
Speaker 2: And Danny he did pad work and everything to get
Speaker 2: me in good shape and.
Speaker 1: Now comes to fight. Right. This was yeah, funny, man,
Speaker 1: what the hell's funny about it?
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just that I know my qualifications
Speaker 2: and he had full pro fight and then he had
Speaker 2: twelve martial art fights as a pro, so that's fifteen
Speaker 2: prof fights to my none. And I said, man, I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm taking this fight. I don't give a damn
Speaker 2: what he got. He wanted to win so bad he
Speaker 2: didn't care old I was. He wanted to with my butt,
Speaker 2: and so the first round he won. After he won
Speaker 2: the first round, the first thing I said to myself
Speaker 2: was doing what the hell are you doing? You're a
Speaker 2: sticking move fighter. Do what you do best, man. So
Speaker 2: I won by Nanima's decision. That's when I said, okay,
Speaker 2: do it. This is it. Called it quits. I was
Speaker 2: off for two other fights and I said, nah, I'm done.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm not trying to get hurt. You know,
Speaker 2: I proved to myself, you know, the quality was there.
Speaker 2: Everything I needed to know was right there. I'm satisfied.
Speaker 2: I'm good. 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
Speaker 1: years in one of the toughest prisons in the country
Speaker 1: or maybe even the world, and still you remain unbroken
Speaker 1: and undefeated. And for our audience, if you want to
Speaker 1: learn more, you can with Dewey's book as well as
Speaker 1: the ESPN film. Both of them will be linked in
Speaker 1: the bio. But Dewey, your story isn't over yet. I
Speaker 1: heard you're living down in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Now what I'm doing right now, I'm down in Atlanta
Speaker 2: at Georgia. I juvenile to chant the centers. I'm going
Speaker 2: around and I'm doing volunteer work. Get around and let
Speaker 2: people know. You know that, you know you can't turn
Speaker 2: your life for brown if you just make the right decision.
Speaker 2: Don't let nobody tell you what you can't do. You
Speaker 2: hold the key to your own life. You know, you
Speaker 2: make the final decision. You know. People may say what
Speaker 2: they want to say. You know, but at the end
Speaker 2: of the day long you can go to your bed
Speaker 2: and you can wake or wake up in the morning
Speaker 2: and say, man, this is what I'm going to do
Speaker 2: and mean it from the heart. You good.
Speaker 1: So you've been listening to the story and the voice
Speaker 1: of the man himself, Douey Bosella and Dewey, this is
Speaker 1: the part of the show where I turned my microphone off,
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair and close my eyes and
Speaker 1: just listen as you share your final thoughts for closing arguments.
Speaker 2: The night before the fight for President, Barack Obama gave
Speaker 2: me a call and he said, hello, how you doing,
Speaker 2: miss Bozil. I said, yeah, good. President. I said wow,
Speaker 2: and he said how you doing. I said, I'm doing
Speaker 2: pretty good, man, I'm feeling pretty good. He said, I
Speaker 2: heard a lot about you or heard that you know,
Speaker 2: you're doing a lot of things, you know, getting back
Speaker 2: to the community and everything. He said, I just want
Speaker 2: to wish you well on your fight. I said, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: I appreciate that a whole lot. Then he said, you
Speaker 2: sure this is going to be your first in the
Speaker 2: last fight. I said yes. Then after that hung up.
Speaker 2: I had tears in my eyes and I said, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is bigger than me, because here, this is the
Speaker 2: man that wanted to be a basketball player. He woind
Speaker 2: up being the president of the United States. And I said,
Speaker 2: everybody who gave up, you know who actually just like
Speaker 2: life don't mean nothing to him no more, just lost
Speaker 2: hope or just like I don't care. You know, this
Speaker 2: fight is for them. It's not only for me. This
Speaker 2: this fight, this fighter is to let them know, don't
Speaker 2: give up, don't let nobody tell you what you can't do,
Speaker 2: don't give up on yourself, don't make yourself feel like
Speaker 2: you know you're not worthy this is the fight that
Speaker 2: I'm fighting. I'm not fighting just a normal fight no more.
Speaker 2: I'm fighting for the people man who actually just like said,
Speaker 2: I don't care ef it, you know, I don't want
Speaker 2: them to feel that way. I hope that I can
Speaker 2: be that sponsor to let them see that you can
Speaker 2: make it. If I can do it, you can do
Speaker 2: it two years old. This guy's thirty years old. You know,
Speaker 2: if I can do it at this age, what excuse
Speaker 2: to you have? You know, especially if you're young. Don't
Speaker 2: let nobody tell you what you can't do. And that
Speaker 2: was my mission after that, so I didn't. That's the
Speaker 2: reason why I was laughing here. I didn't care, you
Speaker 2: know about the fight. I don't. You can't do nothing
Speaker 2: with me. You can't break me, you can't hurt me.
Speaker 2: I already went through all the difficulties. I already been hurt.
Speaker 2: I already been let down. I already noticed like that
Speaker 2: everything taken from me. I really know what it's like
Speaker 2: that people turn it back on you. I already know
Speaker 2: it's like that people just like to give up and
Speaker 2: there's nobody there, and you feel all alone and you
Speaker 2: by yourself. I know what it's like man to just like,
Speaker 2: you know, just go through all the difficulties, you know,
Speaker 2: and then not once, not twice, but three times, you know,
Speaker 2: and then have all the hurt and the pinion and
Speaker 2: the deaths you know, put right in front your face,
Speaker 2: you know, and then to go out there and do
Speaker 2: what I did. You can't break me, man, And that's
Speaker 2: what I wanted. That's the message that morning to get.
Speaker 2: Don't give up on yourself. Don't feel like man, there's
Speaker 2: nothing leaping life because moments you're alive. He said that
Speaker 2: you're alive. God has something special for you. And if
Speaker 2: you don't believe in God, whatever it is that you
Speaker 2: believe in, you know, there's something special for you because
Speaker 2: you're not done yet. It's just your choice, your decision.
Speaker 2: You have a decision. I made all the right choices
Speaker 2: after I made all the bad choices. And that's what
Speaker 2: this was about.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer.
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 Clyburn,
Speaker 1: and Kevin wardis 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: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one