Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If
Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two people. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of people's lives destroyed. If the system wants
Speaker 1: to take you out of society, they will do it
Speaker 1: no matter what laws they have to break, saying that
Speaker 1: they are enforcing the lords, but they're breaking the lord.
Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and then
Speaker 1: here my family break down behind me and not be
Speaker 1: able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
Speaker 1: crushing weight that was. I'm not anti police, I'm just
Speaker 1: anti corruption. A lot of times we look and we
Speaker 1: see something happened to somebody, and that's the first thing
Speaker 1: we said, that could never happen to me, But they can.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason flam This is the opening episode of season five,
Speaker 1: and I'm absolutely honored to have today's guest Jason Strong. Jason,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you having me on. I'm honored to be here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm really happy you're here. For a number
Speaker 1: of reasons. I'm sorry, I had to go through this,
Speaker 1: so Jason, before all this happened and your life was
Speaker 1: turned really into a living hell for fifteen and a
Speaker 1: half years, how is your life? You grew up in Illinois, right,
Speaker 1: Uh now? Actually, I spent most of my life in Texas.
Speaker 1: I was born in Arizona, lived in Texas most of
Speaker 1: my life, and uh, I moved to Illinois to try
Speaker 1: to actually moved to Wisconsin first with my grandparents to
Speaker 1: try to get a different start because I was kind
Speaker 1: of on a bad road doing drugs, drinking, acting up.
Speaker 1: So eventually I moved to Illinois and with some friends
Speaker 1: and then I got my own place there. But uh,
Speaker 1: I mean I never really did change. I still kind
Speaker 1: of lived like a rock star, you know. I was
Speaker 1: working in an adult bookstore, did a lot of drinking
Speaker 1: and partying and drugs, and but I mean, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I was still a good person.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't, you know, robbing people. I wasn't
Speaker 1: killing people. I wasn't you know, in any gangs or
Speaker 1: doing anything ridiculous. You weren't hurting anybody than yourself exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: But I mean I was, you know, living in the
Speaker 1: fast life, and I wasn't thinking about it, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's just one of those things that some people
Speaker 1: do that when they're young, you know. And I was
Speaker 1: living like a rock star, but I wasn't a rock star.
Speaker 1: But that being said, so you're you're you're hanging around
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. How old were you at
Speaker 1: this time, twenty four? So yeah, so you're you're you're
Speaker 1: getting you know. I mean it's funny because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people in their mid twenties start to
Speaker 1: figure out what it is that they really do. And
Speaker 1: I know for me it's true. That's when I sobered
Speaker 1: up and started, you know, trying to really build my
Speaker 1: my life up instead of down. But before I got
Speaker 1: locked up. So I got locked up in December of
Speaker 1: before that happened, I mean, I I was trying to
Speaker 1: think about what do I want to do? You know.
Speaker 1: I was considering going back to school and pursuing something
Speaker 1: in the world of art. You know, I don't I
Speaker 1: didn't really know exactly what, but I may I wanted
Speaker 1: to do something with art. I've always been creative, so
Speaker 1: but I never got that opportunity. Uh, it was taken
Speaker 1: from me by the fact that I got arrested for
Speaker 1: this crime. And and that's a crazy story. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was your misfortune. You didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 1: but you were living in a county that turns out
Speaker 1: to have the highest number of wrongful convictions in Illinois,
Speaker 1: which is one of the states that has the highest
Speaker 1: number of rngful convictions. But other than Chicago, this area
Speaker 1: that you lived in was was a bad spot. It
Speaker 1: was a hotbed for police misconduct and wrongful convictions as
Speaker 1: a result. So there you are knocking around trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out, you know, having your party in times,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, and this comes out of the blue, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was December. I was hanging out with my girlfriend
Speaker 1: and her friend, you know, we were smoking a bowl,
Speaker 1: having a few beers, and I get a knock at
Speaker 1: the door, thinking it's my buddy just coming over to
Speaker 1: hang out. Open a door. It's a bunch of cops
Speaker 1: standing there with guns drawn, and they push into my room,
Speaker 1: throw me down on my bed, handcuffed me, and the
Speaker 1: nightmare began. Did they tell you what they were arresting
Speaker 1: you for? No, But I had a I had a
Speaker 1: clue because they had been around earlier. That day asking
Speaker 1: people if they seen anything or knew anything. So, I
Speaker 1: mean I had a little bit of a clue, but
Speaker 1: it still threw me because, I mean, I had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this crime. So I didn't understand why
Speaker 1: this was happening. I was confused. I was scared. But
Speaker 1: when you say they were asking did you see anything
Speaker 1: to you know anything about? What? Was it a specific
Speaker 1: crime that they were asking about. Yeah, they had discovered
Speaker 1: a Jane Doe body and the Lake County four is
Speaker 1: Preserve and so on December ninth, this body was found
Speaker 1: and apparently she had been badly beaten and tortured and
Speaker 1: you know, suffered a really bad death and blunt force
Speaker 1: trauma was the cause of death. And that was on
Speaker 1: December nine. Around December, there was a prostitute sting in
Speaker 1: the area where I lived. I lived next door to
Speaker 1: the bookstore that I worked at, the adult bookstore. So
Speaker 1: I had thought that, you know, this woman was a prostitute,
Speaker 1: and I told her, you know, you can't be doing
Speaker 1: this around here. You know, I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to call the cops on you, you know, just go
Speaker 1: back to your room and and keep it cool. And uh,
Speaker 1: later on I came out and she was still doing that,
Speaker 1: and that's when I first met Jeremy Tweety, who would
Speaker 1: later become my co defendant. So that night I walked
Speaker 1: up to him and I said, Hey, how long has
Speaker 1: this woman been out here? Do you know? He said
Speaker 1: she'd been out there a while. She looks like she
Speaker 1: was crying, So I thought maybe she had a pimp
Speaker 1: or something that was forcing her to do this. So
Speaker 1: I struck up a conversation with asking if there was
Speaker 1: anything I could do to help whatever, because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to have this going on, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to see her hurt either, And we talked for a
Speaker 1: little while, uh, I mean, even to the extent that
Speaker 1: we asked about her kids and you know, why didn't
Speaker 1: she find a better line of work, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: I eventually went in to my dinner and her and
Speaker 1: Jeremy tweet He had this conversation that later turns out
Speaker 1: he apparently allegedly said something to her about, you know,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be around here because there was a woman
Speaker 1: that was killed here recently, and a bunch of people
Speaker 1: had beat on her and threw her in a van
Speaker 1: and got rid of her and they used that as
Speaker 1: an reason to come and arrest him. And then he
Speaker 1: said that it was me. Now why did he say
Speaker 1: it was me? So the cop that arrested him, somehow
Speaker 1: or another claims that this was an accident, but that
Speaker 1: his hand got crushed in the car door on the
Speaker 1: way to the police station, and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: he's fingering me for the crime. Years later, when he recants,
Speaker 1: he says that it was because the cops only wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about me since the moment he stepped into
Speaker 1: the room. They kept saying, what did Jason Strong do
Speaker 1: with this crime? What do you know about Jason Strong's
Speaker 1: involvement in this crime? And they just kept mentioning me
Speaker 1: over and over and over to the point where he
Speaker 1: got the gist of it. They wanted me, So he
Speaker 1: said that I did it, he saw it happen, and
Speaker 1: then they came and arrested me. They came and arrested
Speaker 1: my friend Jason Johnson. What is the what's the thing
Speaker 1: with the hand in the card door? How does that
Speaker 1: fit into this? I think I think it's I think
Speaker 1: they intimidated him by injuring him. I can't prove that,
Speaker 1: but I mean I think It's kind of odd that
Speaker 1: his hand was slammed in the police card door on
Speaker 1: a way to the police station, and then the next
Speaker 1: thing you know, he's singing these lives for them. Well,
Speaker 1: there's there's a second part to this that I can't
Speaker 1: prove this, but this is my opinion on the matter,
Speaker 1: as the officer that brought him in actually had it
Speaker 1: in for me. So prior to all this happening, this
Speaker 1: cop had been coming around the bookstore and harassing me
Speaker 1: for a couple of months and I don't even know
Speaker 1: why he ever started doing that, but he did. And
Speaker 1: he wanted me to be a snitch. He wanted me
Speaker 1: to tell him about drug dealers and different things. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I don't know nothing. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know nothing. I no drug dealers. And uh. He
Speaker 1: told me if I did not cooperate with him, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't make my life a living hell. A few short
Speaker 1: weeks later, I'm locked up for a murder I didn't commit,
Speaker 1: and he was the initiating officer that arrested the guy
Speaker 1: who would become my co defendant, who I didn't even
Speaker 1: know on the night in question. That's a lot of coincidences.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I can't prove that he didn't anything.
Speaker 1: You were a victim of some really terrible misdeeds by
Speaker 1: the people that were supposed to protect you and everybody
Speaker 1: else in the community, and that's quite the opposite of
Speaker 1: what they did. So it's pretty clear why Tweetye would
Speaker 1: have implicated you, because he would have implicated it as
Speaker 1: his grandmother if he had to to make them stop
Speaker 1: doing whatever it was they were doing to him. Right,
Speaker 1: and he implicated himself as well. Right. But but he
Speaker 1: wasn't involved to climb either. No. In fact, he turned
Speaker 1: out to be actually quite a character. He's a bit
Speaker 1: of a pathological liar. Before my trial, I think he
Speaker 1: had like six or seven different versions of what happened
Speaker 1: that night, constantly changing, and to the point where at
Speaker 1: my trial he came up with a new version of
Speaker 1: events that were different from all the earlier ones. So
Speaker 1: he would always make changes, And I mean, he just
Speaker 1: did this for years. He stuck to his life for years.
Speaker 1: But I think it's it all started because of that
Speaker 1: one cop. I can't prove it. That's just my theory,
Speaker 1: but part of it is going off of also what
Speaker 1: he told me years later when he recanted, Jeremy tweety
Speaker 1: about how that's all they wanted to talk about was me,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, why would they be so focused
Speaker 1: on me? Why me of all the people that they
Speaker 1: could have thought about. Well, I mean it sounds like
Speaker 1: this one officer, you know, had just sort of figured
Speaker 1: you were going to be a good source of information
Speaker 1: because you were in sort of a seed area and
Speaker 1: a seed business, right and you he had it in
Speaker 1: his head you must have known stuff, and he felt
Speaker 1: like you were holding out on him, so he decided
Speaker 1: to exact his revenge. This ins sane story of yours
Speaker 1: ultimately ends up with you being held in jail for
Speaker 1: quite a long time, pending trial and ultimately going to trial.
Speaker 1: What was that process like? Did you have decent representation? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I did not have good representation. I had public defenders.
Speaker 1: I I actually I asked my family over and over
Speaker 1: to get me a lawyer. I knew I needed a
Speaker 1: real lawyer because these guys just they weren't gonna cut it.
Speaker 1: They didn't listen to me. They had their own view
Speaker 1: on things. But I didn't know what a lot of
Speaker 1: my rights were at that time either, And how I
Speaker 1: could make changes in anything. But we went to trial
Speaker 1: with them basically handed me over to the jury. They
Speaker 1: went in and said that my course false confession was
Speaker 1: actually true, and that I didn't do the crime, but
Speaker 1: I was there when it happened. That was their defense
Speaker 1: for me, And I was like, well, that's ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: didn't do any of this, but that was their strategy,
Speaker 1: if you will. They basically handed me over. They screwed
Speaker 1: me for the execution, so you had no chance. You're
Speaker 1: literally sitting there watching yourself drowned. So when the time
Speaker 1: came for me to take the stand, I couldn't take
Speaker 1: the stand. I would have gone against every single thing
Speaker 1: they already said. That's unreal. They were looking for the
Speaker 1: easiest route. Rather than to try to fight my case
Speaker 1: I prove my innuscence, they took the easiest option for themselves.
Speaker 1: It's a very bizarre set of circumstances when you have
Speaker 1: your advocate actually working against you and you're I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine you're in this crazy vortex. You've already
Speaker 1: been through hell, You've been sitting in jail for you
Speaker 1: know how long are in jail for? Uh? So the
Speaker 1: trial I believe was in October of two thousands, so
Speaker 1: almost a year at that point, right, So you're already
Speaker 1: dizzy from this experience. I mean anybody would be. And
Speaker 1: now you're in this crazy cortex and you've got these
Speaker 1: these adults not even under representing you, but actually working
Speaker 1: against your best interests for whatever their twisted motives were.
Speaker 1: Did you know, like, when the jury went out, did
Speaker 1: you know you were fucked? I had a good feeling it, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was going to be the case. I mean I
Speaker 1: still had a tiny bit of hope, you know, that
Speaker 1: maybe they would figure something out. But now I kind
Speaker 1: of had a feeling I was screwed. I mean from
Speaker 1: the sound of it. I mean even the jury in
Speaker 1: my case at all, unless they had just some weird intuition.
Speaker 1: If I was on my jury, I would have convicted me.
Speaker 1: That's a strong statement. Yeah, I mean, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, there was nothing put forth to defend
Speaker 1: me and to prove my innocence. No, so there you go.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so so you It's interesting because a lot
Speaker 1: of the agonies that have been on the show had
Speaker 1: held out hope until the very end, but your circumstances
Speaker 1: relatively unique. I mean, even with some of the stories
Speaker 1: we've port of incompetent defense, how long did they deliberate? Oh,
Speaker 1: it wasn't very long at all, Maybe a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: but I who know that they were probably having lunch.
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows what they were doing? It for
Speaker 1: two whole hours and I don't even know if it
Speaker 1: was that long. That's how it felt in my head
Speaker 1: as I was sitting in a cell. Then the moment came,
Speaker 1: right which can you describe that horrible, horrible moment when
Speaker 1: you're basically you must have thought your life was over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I uh, that was probably the loneliest day of my life. Um,
Speaker 1: having to hear those people say that I was guilty
Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and not
Speaker 1: just once, but the judge made each individual one say
Speaker 1: their verdict, so I had to hear it over and
Speaker 1: over again, and then hear my family break down behind me,
Speaker 1: and not be able to do anything about it. Um.
Speaker 1: I can't describe the crushing weight that was. How did you?
Speaker 1: How did you deal with it? How did you come
Speaker 1: out of it? How did you get here? I am
Speaker 1: actually in awe of the fortitude that you have. How
Speaker 1: did you do it if you can even put it
Speaker 1: into work. Um, yeah, I think I can't. I mean,
Speaker 1: so after that, after that moment, I mean, I wanted
Speaker 1: to die like I've never wanted to die before. It
Speaker 1: was it was terrible. And after we left the courtroom,
Speaker 1: I asked officer if he could take me to a
Speaker 1: private solitary cell just so I could, you know, just
Speaker 1: break down and decompress. And once I put myself back
Speaker 1: together and I went back to the general population, I
Speaker 1: just started doing a lot of thinking and I was angry,
Speaker 1: I was confused. I didn't know what my next move
Speaker 1: was going to be. But I I decided to adopt
Speaker 1: this kind of militaristic mentality, and I turned everything into
Speaker 1: a war against the state of Illinois. And uh I
Speaker 1: studied Sun Sue and Julius Caesar and tried to, you know,
Speaker 1: incorporate these this thinking of how to fight a war.
Speaker 1: But I was doing it in the courtroom. The courtrooms
Speaker 1: were in my battlefields. So I mean I kind of
Speaker 1: took on that that mentality. Did you have any help,
Speaker 1: Did you have an appellate lawyer assigned to you or
Speaker 1: anything like that? Yeah? We, uh So, after I lost,
Speaker 1: we hired an attorney Jetstone, and uh, he did a
Speaker 1: post trial motion and then he helped me through my
Speaker 1: first appeals, but those didn't pan out. So when we
Speaker 1: lost him and we couldn't afford him anymore, I became
Speaker 1: my own attorney and I did it my way, and
Speaker 1: I threw every single thing I could think about him.
Speaker 1: I filed my my post conviction petition on my own,
Speaker 1: which was like seventies something pages long, and I threw
Speaker 1: every single thing I could think of that was wrong
Speaker 1: with my case at that courtroom. Ye know, I battled
Speaker 1: it on my own for a while. I got an
Speaker 1: a Pellet attorney appointed to me at one point, and
Speaker 1: all he did was basically dragged things out. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, I fought myself and uh until I
Speaker 1: got Northwestern to get involved and that but that was
Speaker 1: years and years later. And then talk about that Northwestern Northwestern, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, first of all, one of the best
Speaker 1: schools in the country, and they do amazing work. Absolutely
Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, I would not be free if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for them. So I was in the federal court.
Speaker 1: I was following a federal habeas corpus all on my own,
Speaker 1: and there was a procedural issue that came up. Well,
Speaker 1: let me back up. Before that, I had already been
Speaker 1: trying to reach out to innocence projects for years. I've
Speaker 1: been writing them letters and you know, having my family
Speaker 1: make phone calls. And I had been in touch with
Speaker 1: Jane Raley at Northwestern and we've you know, been kind
Speaker 1: of back and forth and everything, but she couldn't take
Speaker 1: on the case at the time, but we still communicated.
Speaker 1: So when I got to federal court, I don't know
Speaker 1: if Judge Kennelly saw something in my case or what,
Speaker 1: but he called Tomas Garrity, the director of the clinic
Speaker 1: at Northwestern, personally, and asked him to look at my case.
Speaker 1: And it was just for a procedural issue, but once
Speaker 1: Tom looked at everything, he realized there was more to it,
Speaker 1: and Northwestern decided to take my case on full. All
Speaker 1: the way that team grew over the years, you know,
Speaker 1: because they have students, and three of the students graduated
Speaker 1: went on to big law firms and brought their law
Speaker 1: firms in. So I had Northwestern, Winston and Strown and
Speaker 1: Captain Mute and Rosenman all supporting my fight. So, you
Speaker 1: I mean, at least in terms of your legal representation.
Speaker 1: You really went from the bottom to the top. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean you went from guys who sold you down
Speaker 1: the river to like an army, a legal army. And
Speaker 1: and by the way, that happened for a very specific reason,
Speaker 1: which is that you found something that very few people
Speaker 1: could find in your situation. I don't know where you
Speaker 1: got it from, but where I think a normal person
Speaker 1: would have curled up in a corner and collapsed or
Speaker 1: you know, done, calmed themselves like you talked about doing
Speaker 1: or whatever. You didn't stop, and you maintained faith in
Speaker 1: the system even though the system had totally let you
Speaker 1: down and turned on you, you know, which is remarkable.
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to that. And then as a result,
Speaker 1: you end up with this powerhouse, a sort of a
Speaker 1: power trio of of advocates, right, the two law firms,
Speaker 1: plus the Innocence Project at Northwestern, which you know, as
Speaker 1: I said, their reputation is amazing. So so then things
Speaker 1: are turning in your direction. But you've been in now
Speaker 1: for quite some time. So around the time they took over,
Speaker 1: I had been in about seven and a half eight years.
Speaker 1: It was shortly after we learned about the identity of
Speaker 1: the victim. So, yeah, it was. I've been in there
Speaker 1: for quite a while, and it still was another eight
Speaker 1: years after that before I was free. Did you have
Speaker 1: any clue who might have done something like this? No,
Speaker 1: we do now, we do now, but here So for
Speaker 1: many many years, I actually thought Jeremy Tweety was the
Speaker 1: guy because he was so quick to make up all
Speaker 1: these lies about me and to you know, help himself out,
Speaker 1: that I thought, well, I didn't even know this guy.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's the one that did it. And that's why he's,
Speaker 1: you know, so adamant about lying against me, is he's
Speaker 1: trying to protect himself somehow. He was my main suspect
Speaker 1: for many many years. It wasn't until we identified the victim,
Speaker 1: which was seven years after I was arrested, that we
Speaker 1: finally figured out who the victim was. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: then that we started to develop an understanding of what
Speaker 1: might have really happened or and who the real perpetrators were.
Speaker 1: There was actually three people that we suspect being involved,
Speaker 1: which is ironic considering that three people were originally arrested,
Speaker 1: You Tweety and Jason Johnson, right, But I was the
Speaker 1: only one that was ever charged with murder. They were
Speaker 1: charged with the consuming of a homicide and Tweeties was
Speaker 1: dropped to obstruction for testifying against me. But we discovered
Speaker 1: that there was three individuals, a mother daughter team that
Speaker 1: had been their grifters. They basically took advantage of elderly people,
Speaker 1: handicapped people, mentally disabled people and extorted them for their money,
Speaker 1: and they somehow came into a power thing with the
Speaker 1: vict them in this case, who we later discovered was
Speaker 1: Mary Kate Sunderland, a mentally disabled woman, and they took
Speaker 1: over her life. They kept her from her family. They apparently,
Speaker 1: from what we understand, sold her to this mentally deranged
Speaker 1: individual who they also extorted. They convinced this guy to
Speaker 1: have his own arm chopped off by a railroad track train,
Speaker 1: you know, a train going across the road tracks, and
Speaker 1: sued the state of Illinois. Wow, I mean, let's just
Speaker 1: go I meane, it's just one of many twists to
Speaker 1: this case. I mean, it's it really is a crazy case,
Speaker 1: a crazy story. But uh so, yeah, they they Gonzalo
Speaker 1: Chomizo is this guy's name. He's really mentally insane. He's
Speaker 1: in an institution today. They convinced him to lay on
Speaker 1: some tracks. From what I understand what my attorneys told
Speaker 1: me to lay on some tracks, and a train ran
Speaker 1: over his arm and cut his arm off. And the
Speaker 1: money he got from that he gave to them because
Speaker 1: they sold the victim to him, and then over a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time, they starved or beater, tortured her
Speaker 1: and extorted money out of her. So they did this
Speaker 1: for this long period of time. The last thing that
Speaker 1: the victims family ever heard from their loved one was
Speaker 1: that they don't want me to talk to you. It
Speaker 1: was these people they were keeping her for this long
Speaker 1: period of time. And knowing this, learning this helped us
Speaker 1: unravel the case because the whole theory of the state
Speaker 1: when they convicted us was that me, Jason Johnson and
Speaker 1: Jeremy Tweety picked this random girl up off the streets,
Speaker 1: took her to my room, and we tortured her and
Speaker 1: killed her in one night, dumped the body. And you know,
Speaker 1: they had all these, you know, different theories on what
Speaker 1: evidence was there, Like they said the body was burned
Speaker 1: by molten wax and all this. And years later after
Speaker 1: we started to put all the pieces together and found
Speaker 1: these alternative suspects and we were in the federal courts,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General's office, and the new Lake County Atorney
Speaker 1: who came in with the idea that he wants to
Speaker 1: find the truth in all these cases. They decided to
Speaker 1: reach out to my attorneys and say, let's reinvestigate this case.
Speaker 1: So we did that and what we discovered we had
Speaker 1: some independent forensic pathologists come in, three independent pathologists, and
Speaker 1: they all came to the same conclusion that this person
Speaker 1: was actually dead probably four to five days prior to
Speaker 1: when they found the body, not the date before. And
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up because that's a really
Speaker 1: interesting part of this case and it explains why it
Speaker 1: was so hard to identify her as well, right absolutely,
Speaker 1: because she had obviously decomposed to a significant degree by
Speaker 1: that time. Well it was more than I mean, part
Speaker 1: of the reason she was unidentified was just a lack
Speaker 1: of police work, I believe because they had dental records
Speaker 1: that they just didn't follow through with things, and once
Speaker 1: they had what they wanted, they didn't follow through with
Speaker 1: investigating these things. I mean, how can you not identify
Speaker 1: the person from a few counties over when there's a
Speaker 1: missing person report on that person. How do you not
Speaker 1: make that connection. Yeah, it's not like she was from
Speaker 1: you know, uh, yeah, she wasn't from California, you know,
Speaker 1: Nebraska or something, just going to Caracas. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things that helped lead to your exoneration was
Speaker 1: the fact that new experts were brought in her actual experts.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad we're touching on this, Jason, because we
Speaker 1: know that junk science, bad forensics um are a major
Speaker 1: cause of wrong food conviction. And in your case, it
Speaker 1: was a different kind of junk science, which is that
Speaker 1: you had an examiner, a Meerlican exam or something like that,
Speaker 1: who testified saying that the body had been found within
Speaker 1: a short period of time. Right right, she was found
Speaker 1: on the ninth, December nine. They theorized that on the
Speaker 1: eight is the night that we partied with her and
Speaker 1: tortured her and killed her. And he goes on to
Speaker 1: say that we poured more wax on her and she
Speaker 1: was burned and and all this different stuff. But years later,
Speaker 1: when we got these new independent forensic pathologists look at it,
Speaker 1: all of that was wrong, all of it. One. She
Speaker 1: was dead at least four days prior to the night
Speaker 1: they found her. But uh, it went even beyond that,
Speaker 1: and to the fact that her injuries were in different
Speaker 1: stages of healing for a long period of time, weeks,
Speaker 1: if not months, So this wasn't something that happened in
Speaker 1: one night. And further, the information about molten you know,
Speaker 1: liquid and wax being poured on her and she was
Speaker 1: burned was wrong. They said that all that discoloration and
Speaker 1: all the sloughing of the skin and everything that this
Speaker 1: medical examiner said was evidence of that was actually decomposition.
Speaker 1: There was no burns, there was none of that. He
Speaker 1: was wrong, And I learned during my civil suit from
Speaker 1: my my attorn. He's telling me that he actually doesn't
Speaker 1: even have a medical license from any American medical schools.
Speaker 1: He got it from some Dominican Republic uh school that
Speaker 1: was shut down for different reasons of being fraudulent or
Speaker 1: not up to par or whatever. So he didn't even
Speaker 1: have he didn't even go to medical school here in
Speaker 1: his country, while he went to a non medical school
Speaker 1: in a foreign country. Yeah, so he basically was just
Speaker 1: a yachts like a totally I mean, that's that's the
Speaker 1: way my attorney has explained it to me. So, you know,
Speaker 1: it gets deeper and deeper. I mean, these things are
Speaker 1: always so troubling to me because especially in a case
Speaker 1: like this, where you have a young innocent woman who
Speaker 1: had her life in front of her, who was taken
Speaker 1: out and brutally beaten, maybe beaten to death, dumped in
Speaker 1: the forest like trash, and you know, one would think
Speaker 1: and one would hope that the people in positions of
Speaker 1: power would really want to find the right guy to
Speaker 1: make sure this didn't happen, even if it's for selfish reasons, Jason, Right,
Speaker 1: even if it's just like there's a small community you
Speaker 1: lived in, right, Yeah, it wasn't a big town, right.
Speaker 1: I always try to rationalize this, but I can't because
Speaker 1: you have all the people that are involved in this,
Speaker 1: and it was usually more than one, right, It takes
Speaker 1: more than one to to sort of, you know, create
Speaker 1: this narrative and then convictedness in person like yourself or
Speaker 1: in this case three, The actual killer, who was a sick,
Speaker 1: depraved individual, by any stretch of the imagination, is free,
Speaker 1: stayed free, right once they convicted you, once they even
Speaker 1: arrested you, they stopped looking for him, and whoever he was,
Speaker 1: he was free to prey on anyone in the community
Speaker 1: that he wanted to and that could have been you know,
Speaker 1: one of these people, well, somebody that was loved by
Speaker 1: one of these officers, or or people in the prosecutor's
Speaker 1: office or anything else. So even in the situation where
Speaker 1: we all find it hard to understand how someone could
Speaker 1: have the lack of of soul or the or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, or just that the the total breakdown that
Speaker 1: allows them to feel comfortable locking up someone who they
Speaker 1: knew was innocent, or more than one person in this case.
Speaker 1: They would want to keep their family in their community safe,
Speaker 1: but they didn't that that goes out the window in
Speaker 1: these cases. They get this tunnel vision like they did
Speaker 1: in your case, and they just go for it. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that, there's a lot there by
Speaker 1: the way that you just said, but I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that is systemic. There's a systemic problem, especially
Speaker 1: in places like you know, Illinois, you know, Cook Counties
Speaker 1: probably the worst, where this has been going on for
Speaker 1: so many generations that these cops just following the same
Speaker 1: footsteps of all their predecessors. I mean you probably follow
Speaker 1: this back to the days of al Capone. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got governors in Illinois that are in jail, most
Speaker 1: of them, right, I mean, it's it's a systemic problem
Speaker 1: that's been going on for a long time. And if
Speaker 1: new police officers coming into the to the force don't
Speaker 1: see good examples to follow, then they're going to follow
Speaker 1: the bad examples that they see. And that's what has
Speaker 1: gone on for so long that that's all they know
Speaker 1: how to do. I'm not gonna say all of them
Speaker 1: are bad, because they're not, of course, but there are
Speaker 1: a few bad apples can corrupt all of them because
Speaker 1: nobody wants to be the guy that says, hey, that
Speaker 1: cops not doing his job right, because then their serpento right,
Speaker 1: and nobody wants to be that. So it becomes that
Speaker 1: this big problem that you can't get away from. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what the answer is to fix it
Speaker 1: if there's anything that stands out. And obviously it was
Speaker 1: a miserable fifteen and a half years. But one thing
Speaker 1: I'm curious about is was there a worst moment in
Speaker 1: all that time in prison? And was there one moment
Speaker 1: that actually you remember and brings you a smile. Um Well,
Speaker 1: as far as prison goes, the worst moment would probably
Speaker 1: be the ride to prison. It was the most terrifying
Speaker 1: I could ever imagine. I mean, You're an innocent man
Speaker 1: on a bus going to a place where you know
Speaker 1: that everybody there is hardened criminals. Well most people there
Speaker 1: is hardened criminals. It's a maximum security prison. And all
Speaker 1: I could think about is am I going to be raped?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna be murdered? Am I gonna be forced
Speaker 1: to kill somebody to survive? What is my life going
Speaker 1: to become? I didn't know what to expect. I was terrified,
Speaker 1: but I didn't show it. I I, you know, stood tall,
Speaker 1: stood my ground and did what I had to do,
Speaker 1: and I met a lot of good people and showed
Speaker 1: myself to be a stand up guy. And I got by.
Speaker 1: I survived. It. Was there a moment that you can
Speaker 1: remember besides obviously the moment when the guard came to
Speaker 1: tell you that you were free, or even when your
Speaker 1: lawyer told you that you were going to be getting
Speaker 1: out in a few days, Was there any other moment
Speaker 1: that stands out that you had a moment of humanity
Speaker 1: or grace or you know, something that kind that somebody did,
Speaker 1: or you know, anything like you know, I mean, probably
Speaker 1: a lot of small things, but I can't think of
Speaker 1: nothing like really really major other than you know, every
Speaker 1: time my family would come to see me. That was
Speaker 1: my my big moments, you know. I mean for the
Speaker 1: most part, it was just day to day stuff was
Speaker 1: all the same. You know, there's the monotony of it
Speaker 1: kind of gets to you. So it's it's all the
Speaker 1: same stuff over and over. I found joy in the
Speaker 1: fact that I had some really good friends. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: met some really great people. I mean, one of which
Speaker 1: is like a brother to me. I gotta also say, man,
Speaker 1: did a lot of I owe a lot of credit
Speaker 1: to my mom and my grandmother and my family. You know,
Speaker 1: they they were a source of strength for me as well.
Speaker 1: All these years, go vibes. You spent seven and a
Speaker 1: half years fighting a lonely battle by yourself, and then
Speaker 1: you've got another seven a half eight years with the cavalry. Cavalry, right,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately we know what happened because you're sitting here, um,
Speaker 1: and and how did that come down? What was the
Speaker 1: moment when you first knew, like you knew you were
Speaker 1: fucked when you were in the courtroom. What was the
Speaker 1: moment when you knew that you were unfucked. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's uh. I mean, there's a couple of different areas
Speaker 1: where I started to feel hope. But I'd say the
Speaker 1: moment when I two things were probably gonna work out
Speaker 1: was about a few days before I was released. My
Speaker 1: attorney called me and said that they were expecting to
Speaker 1: have a meeting with uh, you know, the State's attorney
Speaker 1: and the Attorney General and Connelli's office that was the judge,
Speaker 1: and that they expected a release to be signed, that
Speaker 1: they were going to vacate my conviction. And it actually
Speaker 1: came sooner than they expected. I was surprised. I was
Speaker 1: kind of already packing and planning, hoping that this was
Speaker 1: going to play out the way they thought, and I
Speaker 1: was taking it easy, you know, taking a break and
Speaker 1: watching a movie. An officer comes by the cells says, Strong,
Speaker 1: what are you doing, pack of ship? Man, you're getting
Speaker 1: out of here. I'm like, what what you're talking about?
Speaker 1: And I wasn't expecting it for you know, another day
Speaker 1: or two, and it just threw me. Man. I jumped down.
Speaker 1: I'm like packing all my ship as fast as I can.
Speaker 1: You know, all my guys are happy for me. People
Speaker 1: are you know, clapping, wishing me well, people that wanting
Speaker 1: their cells were coming up giving me hugs. It was
Speaker 1: just it was a very just crazy, but you know,
Speaker 1: wonderful feeling and day. You know. Of course I had
Speaker 1: to wait for my mom to drive up and pick
Speaker 1: me up, and my attorneys were there, and but when
Speaker 1: I walked out, I was so overwhelmed that I just
Speaker 1: broke down into tears. I just all that, uh, all
Speaker 1: those years of of you know, staying stoic and fighting,
Speaker 1: and it just I was able to let it go.
Speaker 1: That's an amazing picture that you're painting right there, and
Speaker 1: it's it's actually really heartwarming to think about all the
Speaker 1: other guys, you know, who are still facing their own
Speaker 1: demons in their own sentences. But the fact that they
Speaker 1: were able to take joy in your release. Well, I
Speaker 1: made a lot of you know, good friends in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, guilt or innocence didn't matter as far as
Speaker 1: other people in there. You judge people by who they were,
Speaker 1: and there's there's a lot of stand up guys in there.
Speaker 1: They're not all scum like some people would have people believe.
Speaker 1: And I mean I met a lot of good people
Speaker 1: in there. You know, there are some bad people. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, it I mean I made some good friends.
Speaker 1: I still go back to the prison out to visit
Speaker 1: a couple of guys. That's amazing. So you're watching the movie,
Speaker 1: you get this, you're sort of touched by an angel, right,
Speaker 1: although it's in the form of a prison guard. In
Speaker 1: this case, he was actually a cool prison guard though.
Speaker 1: Good That adds a little something to it too. And
Speaker 1: then a few hours later, whatever it is, your mom arrives.
Speaker 1: She must have been breaking down too, and what what
Speaker 1: time of year was it when you got out, and
Speaker 1: what time of day was it? Was it hot? Was
Speaker 1: it cold? And where'd you go? And what you do?
Speaker 1: It was the first thing you did. So it was
Speaker 1: May two fift and uh, it was a nice, nice
Speaker 1: day out. So there was three of my attorneys there
Speaker 1: at my mom, and we went to this nearby diner
Speaker 1: and I had a bacon mushroom cheeseburger, which was the
Speaker 1: best bacon mushroom cheeseburger I've ever had. And uh, we
Speaker 1: sat around and talked and just enjoyed the moment and
Speaker 1: you know, kind of let everything else just melt away.
Speaker 1: Where their tears and you know, at that point it
Speaker 1: was just jubilation, man, just telling stories and talking and
Speaker 1: and being happy that the tears uh, most of those
Speaker 1: were shed, you know, in the parking lot before we
Speaker 1: went to the diner. So yeah, it was just an
Speaker 1: all happy moment, you know, with all of us sitting
Speaker 1: there and eating a meal together and talking about future
Speaker 1: dreams and hopes and you know, So I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: this first meal so to speak. Right, people think about
Speaker 1: the last supper. I'm thinking about the first meal and
Speaker 1: how good does food taste after fifteen and a half
Speaker 1: years of institutional you know, slop so to speak. I
Speaker 1: think there's another element to this particular story of the
Speaker 1: first meal. Yeah. So, uh, I have this story, uh,
Speaker 1: which it's kind of it's a growing story, if you will.
Speaker 1: When I went to uh court, in the federal court,
Speaker 1: I had a writ to Stateville. I originally spent all
Speaker 1: my time in Minard and we didn't have oranges. I
Speaker 1: used to love oranges growing up as a kid. And
Speaker 1: when I got to stay Ville, they had oranges, and
Speaker 1: I got an orange and I hadn't seen or had
Speaker 1: an orange in like eight years, eight and a half
Speaker 1: years at this point, and so I just looked at
Speaker 1: that orange and smelled it and rolled it around in
Speaker 1: my hand. I savored every moment of that orange. And
Speaker 1: most people are like, oh, you must really love oranges.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not so much that it's it's the
Speaker 1: little things that everyday people take for granted that you
Speaker 1: missed so much when it's deprived of you. And so
Speaker 1: I ate that orange. And that was the best orange
Speaker 1: I ever ate. And when I got out the day
Speaker 1: I got out and we went to that little diner
Speaker 1: and had this bacon mushroom cheeseburger. I was telling my
Speaker 1: attorneys about this story, and the waitress overheard and she
Speaker 1: came over to me after I was done and gave
Speaker 1: me an orange, and and so, you know, it kind
Speaker 1: of grew so and then later last year in San
Speaker 1: Diego at the Innocence Network conference, I was telling this
Speaker 1: same story and after I was done, one of the
Speaker 1: girls that was there in this little group walked over
Speaker 1: and gave me an orange. So this is like this
Speaker 1: evolving story about an orange and it's meaning in my life.
Speaker 1: And how you know, when I was sitting in a
Speaker 1: prison cell, it had all this weight of you know,
Speaker 1: something so small but so powerful and meaningful. So you
Speaker 1: drove back to Tennessee. What date was that? Mayo? So
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's pretty recent. And since then, how's life? Uh?
Speaker 1: It's good, you know, I mean it. It took me
Speaker 1: a little while to adapt to things and want to
Speaker 1: get back out around people. I was very uh, uncomfortable
Speaker 1: in public, Like I if I went to a Walmart,
Speaker 1: just having people, you know, aimlessly wandering around me kind
Speaker 1: of put me on an ease, you know. So I
Speaker 1: still had that kind of you know, what are you
Speaker 1: doing behind me? Kind of feel, you know, like you
Speaker 1: have in prison. And uh so, yeah, I was very
Speaker 1: weird about being out in public for a while, and
Speaker 1: I almost came dangerously close to creating my own prison
Speaker 1: at home. That's where I didn't want to leave. But
Speaker 1: I forced myself out of my comfort zone and I
Speaker 1: got out there and just started facing things and doing things.
Speaker 1: And I still like to sit back and see everybody,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, I get around in public with
Speaker 1: no problem. I go to concerts now, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to become an aspiring filmmaker and I do
Speaker 1: a TV show, so I'm getting around and bumping elbows
Speaker 1: with people and going to conferences and doing different things. Jason,
Speaker 1: we have a tradition here on Lawful Conviction, which is
Speaker 1: that at the end of the show, I like to
Speaker 1: turn the mic over to you, the star of the show,
Speaker 1: and just share with us anything at all that you
Speaker 1: want to share. Okay, Um, well, I did want to
Speaker 1: add that I'm also working on a documentary that I'm
Speaker 1: filming about wrangful convictions, and the purpose of this film
Speaker 1: is that I don't want to preach to the choir anymore.
Speaker 1: I want to reach out to more and more people
Speaker 1: and show people that this is a bigger problem than
Speaker 1: one or two people you might see in a documentary.
Speaker 1: I think too many people are unaware of how big
Speaker 1: of a problem this is. They see a story on
Speaker 1: Kurt Bloodsworth or someone else, and they'll say, oh, poor
Speaker 1: that person, poor this person, And I want them to
Speaker 1: understand it. There are thousands of people that this is
Speaker 1: probably happening to right now that we don't even know about.
Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If
Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two people. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of people's lives destroyed potentially, you know, and
Speaker 1: we need to be aware of this. Martin Luther King said,
Speaker 1: in justice anywhere is a threat of justice everywhere. We
Speaker 1: need to be aware of our problems and hold people
Speaker 1: accountable when they break the laws that they're supposed to uphold.
Speaker 1: Cops and prosecutors should not be immune. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Ardis. The music
Speaker 1: on the show is by three time Oscar nomine composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one