Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If
Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society,
Speaker 2: they will do it no matter what laws they have
Speaker 2: to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
Speaker 2: 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: hear 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.
Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something
Speaker 2: happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said,
Speaker 2: that could never happen to me, But.
Speaker 1: They can.
Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 3: Jason Flaum. This is the opening episode of season five,
Speaker 3: and I'm absolutely honored to have today's guest Jason Strong. Jason,
Speaker 3: welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really happy you're here. For a number of reasons.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I had to go through this, So Jason,
Speaker 3: before all this happened and your life was turned really
Speaker 3: into a living hell for fifteen and a half years,
Speaker 3: how is your life? You grew up in Illinois right now.
Speaker 1: Actually, I spent most of my life in Texas. I
Speaker 1: was born in Arizona. I lived in Texas most of
Speaker 1: my life, and I moved to Illinois to try to well,
Speaker 1: actually moved to Wisconsin first with my grandparents to try
Speaker 1: to get a different start because I was kind of
Speaker 1: on a bad road doing drugs, drinking, acting up. So
Speaker 1: eventually I moved to Illinois and with some friends and
Speaker 1: then I got my own place there. But I mean
Speaker 1: I never really did change. I still kind of lived
Speaker 1: like a rock star, you know. I was working in
Speaker 1: an adult bookstore, did a lot of drinking and partying
Speaker 1: and drugs. But I mean, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I was still a good person. I mean, I wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, robbing people. I wasn't killing people. I wasn't
Speaker 1: you knowing any gangs or doing anything ridiculous.
Speaker 3: You weren't hurting anybod other 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 3: But that being said, so you're you're you're hanging around
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. How old were you at
Speaker 3: this time, twenty four twenty four, so yeah, so you're
Speaker 3: getting you know. I mean, it's funny because I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people in their mid twenties start to
Speaker 3: figure out what it is that they're really doing. I know,
Speaker 3: for me, it's true. That's when I sobered up and started,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to really build my life up instead
Speaker 3: of down.
Speaker 1: Well, before I got locked up. So I got locked
Speaker 1: up in December of ninety nine. Before that happened, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was trying to think about what do I want
Speaker 1: to do? You know. I was considering going back to
Speaker 1: school and pursuing something in the world of art. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really know exactly what, but I mean, I
Speaker 1: wanted to do something with art. I've always been creative,
Speaker 1: so but I never got that opportunity. It was taken
Speaker 1: from me by the fact that I got arrested for
Speaker 1: this crime.
Speaker 3: And that's a crazy story. I mean, it was your misfortune.
Speaker 3: You didn't know it at the time, but you were
Speaker 3: living in a county that turns out to have the
Speaker 3: highest number of wrongful convictions in Illinois, which is one
Speaker 3: of the states that has the highest number of wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3: But other than Chicago, this area that you lived in
Speaker 3: was a bad spot. It was a hotbed for police
Speaker 3: misconduct and wrongful convictions as a result. So there you
Speaker 3: are knocking around trying to figure it out, you know,
Speaker 3: having your party in times, whatever you're doing, and this
Speaker 3: comes out of the blue.
Speaker 1: All right. Yeah, it was December twentieth. I was hanging
Speaker 1: out with my girlfriend and her friend, you know, we
Speaker 1: were smoking a ball, having a few beers, and I
Speaker 1: get a knock at the door, thinking it's my buddy
Speaker 1: just coming over to hang out. Open a door. It's
Speaker 1: a bunch of cops standing there with guns drawn. They
Speaker 1: pushed into my room, throw me down on my bed,
Speaker 1: handcuffed me, and the nightmare began.
Speaker 3: Did they tell you what they were arresting you for?
Speaker 1: No, But I had a clue because they had been
Speaker 1: around earlier that day asking people if they seen anything.
Speaker 1: Or knew anything. So, I mean I had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a clue, but it still threw me because
Speaker 1: I mean, I had nothing to do with this crime.
Speaker 1: So I didn't understand why this was happening. I was confused.
Speaker 1: I was scared.
Speaker 3: But when you say they were asking did you see
Speaker 3: anything to do anything about? What? Was it a specific
Speaker 3: crime that they were asking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had discovered a Jane Doe's body in the
Speaker 1: Lake County four Preserve and so on December ninth, this
Speaker 1: body was found and apparently she had been badly beaten
Speaker 1: and tortured and you know, suffered a really bad death
Speaker 1: and blunt forced trauma was the cause of death. And
Speaker 1: that was on December ninth. Around December fourteenth, there was
Speaker 1: a prostitute sting in the area where I lived. I
Speaker 1: lived next door to the bookstore that I worked at
Speaker 1: the at the bookstore, so I had thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: this woman was a prostitute, and I told her, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't be doing this around here. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to call the cops on you know,
Speaker 1: just go back to your room and keep it cool.
Speaker 1: And later on I came out and she was still
Speaker 1: doing that, and that's when I first met Jeremy Tweety,
Speaker 1: who would later become my co defendant. So that night
Speaker 1: I walked up to him, I said, Hey, how long
Speaker 1: has this woman been out here? Do you know? He said,
Speaker 1: She's 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 her, asking if there
Speaker 1: was anything I could do to help whatever, because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to have this going on and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to see her hurt either. And we talked for
Speaker 1: a little while, 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, etc. And I
Speaker 1: eventually went in to my dinner and her and Jeremy
Speaker 1: tweet He had this conversation that later turns out he
Speaker 1: apparently allegedly said something to her about, you know, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be around here because there was a woman that
Speaker 1: was killed here recently, and a bunch of people had
Speaker 1: beat on her and threw her in a van and
Speaker 1: got rid of her, and they use that as an
Speaker 1: reason to come and arrest him, and then he said
Speaker 1: that it was me. Now why did he say it
Speaker 1: was me? So the cop that arrested him, somehow or
Speaker 1: another claims that this was an accident, but that his
Speaker 1: hand got crushed in the car door on the way
Speaker 1: to the police station, and next thing you know, he's
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 3: Wait, what's the thing with the hand in the car door?
Speaker 3: How does that fit into this?
Speaker 1: I think it's I think they intimidated him by injuring him.
Speaker 1: I can't prove that, but I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of odd that his hand was slammed in the
Speaker 1: police car door on a way to the police station,
Speaker 1: and then next thing you know, he's singing these lives
Speaker 1: for them. Well, there's a second part to this that
Speaker 1: I can't prove this, but this is my opinion on
Speaker 1: the matter. Is the officer that brought him in actually
Speaker 1: had it in for me. So prior to all this happening,
Speaker 1: this cop had been coming around the bookstore in harassing
Speaker 1: me for a couple 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. I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know nothing. I don't know nothing about no
Speaker 1: drug dealers. And he told me if I did not
Speaker 1: cooperate with him, he wouldn't make my life a living hell.
Speaker 1: A few short weeks later, I'm locked up for a
Speaker 1: murder I didn't commit. And he was the initiating officer
Speaker 1: that arrested the guy who had become my co defendant,
Speaker 1: who I didn't even know on the night in question.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of coincidences, exactly, I mean.
Speaker 1: But I can't prove that he did anything.
Speaker 3: You were a victim of some really terrible misdeeds by
Speaker 3: the people that were supposed to protect you and everybody
Speaker 3: else in the community, and that's quite the opposite of
Speaker 3: what they did. So it's pretty clear why Tweety would
Speaker 3: have implicated you, because he would have implicated his as
Speaker 3: his grandmother if he had to to make them stop
Speaker 3: doing whatever it was they were doing to him, right, right,
Speaker 3: And he implicated himself as well. Right, But he wasn't
Speaker 3: involved the crime either.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: In fact, he turned out to be actually quite a character.
Speaker 1: He's a bit of a pathological liar. Before my trial,
Speaker 1: I think he had like six or seven different versions
Speaker 1: of what happened that night, constantly changing, and to the
Speaker 1: point where at my trial he came up with a
Speaker 1: new version of events that were different from all the
Speaker 1: earlier ones. So he would always make changes, and he
Speaker 1: just did this for years. He stuck to his lie
Speaker 1: for years. But I think it's it all started because
Speaker 1: of that one cop. I can't prove it. That's just
Speaker 1: my theory, but part of it is going off of
Speaker 1: also what he told me years later when he recanted
Speaker 1: Jeremy Tweety about how that's all they wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about was me, And I'm like, well, Why would they
Speaker 1: be so focused on me? Why me of all the
Speaker 1: people that they could have thought about.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it sounds like this one officer, you know,
Speaker 3: had just sort of figured you were going to be
Speaker 3: a good source of information because you were in sort
Speaker 3: of a CD area and a CD business, right, and
Speaker 3: he had it at his head you must have known stuff,
Speaker 3: and he felt like you were holding out on him,
Speaker 3: so he decided to exact his revenge. This insane story
Speaker 3: of yours ultimately ends up with you being held in
Speaker 3: jail for quite a long time, pending trial, and ultimately
Speaker 3: going to trial. What was that process like? Did you
Speaker 3: have decent representation?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I did not have good representation. I had public defenders.
Speaker 1: I actually I asked my family over and over to
Speaker 1: give me a lawyer. I knew I needed a real
Speaker 1: lawyer because these guys just they weren't going to 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 coerced 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 prosecution. So you had no chance.
Speaker 3: You're literally sitting there watching yourself drown.
Speaker 1: Right So when a time came for me to take
Speaker 1: the stand, I couldn't take the stand. I would have
Speaker 1: gone against every single thing they already said.
Speaker 3: That's unreal.
Speaker 1: They were looking for the easiest route. Rather than to
Speaker 1: try to fight my case and prove my innisence, they
Speaker 1: took the easiest option for themselves.
Speaker 3: It's a very bizarre set of circumstances when you have
Speaker 3: your advocate actually working against you and you're I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't imagine. You're in this crazy vortex. You've already
Speaker 3: been through hell, You've been sitting in jail for you
Speaker 3: know how long are you in jail for? Uh?
Speaker 1: So? I The trial I believe was in October of
Speaker 1: two thousand and so almost a year by that point.
Speaker 3: Right, So you're already dizzy from this experience. I mean
Speaker 3: anybody would be. And now you're in this crazy cortex.
Speaker 3: You've got these these adults not even underrepresenting you, but
Speaker 3: actually working against your best interest for whatever their twisted
Speaker 3: motives were. Did you know, like, when the jury went out,
Speaker 3: did you know you were fucked?
Speaker 1: I had a good feeling that, yeah, that was going
Speaker 1: to be the case. I mean I still had a
Speaker 1: tiny bit of hope, you know, that maybe they would
Speaker 1: figure something out. But no, I kind of had a
Speaker 1: feeling I was screwed.
Speaker 3: I mean from the sound of it. I mean even
Speaker 3: I thought I was on the jury in my case
Speaker 3: at all. I really mean, unless they had just some
Speaker 3: weird intuition.
Speaker 1: If I was on my jury, I would have convicted me.
Speaker 3: That's a strong statement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, there
Speaker 1: was nothing put forth to defend me and to prove
Speaker 1: my innocence.
Speaker 3: No, so there you go. So yeah, so you It's
Speaker 3: interesting because a lot of the exgnaries that have been
Speaker 3: on the show had held out hope until the very end,
Speaker 3: But your circumstance is relatively unique. I mean, even with
Speaker 3: some of the stories we've heard of incompetent defense, how
Speaker 3: long did they deliberate.
Speaker 1: Oh, it wasn't very long at all, maybe a couple hours.
Speaker 3: Right, Who know that they were probably having lunch. I mean,
Speaker 3: who knows what they were doing for two whole hours.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even know if it was that long.
Speaker 1: That's how it felt in my head as I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a cell.
Speaker 3: Then the moment came, right, which can you describe that horrible,
Speaker 3: horrible moment when you're basically you must have thought your
Speaker 3: life was over.
Speaker 1: Yeah? I uh, that was probably the loneliest day of
Speaker 1: my life. Having to hear those people say that I
Speaker 1: was guilty of a crime that I did not commit,
Speaker 1: and not just once, but the judge made each individual
Speaker 1: one say they're verdict. So I had to hear it
Speaker 1: over and over again, and then hear my family break
Speaker 1: down behind me and not be able to do anything
Speaker 1: about it. I can't describe the crushing weight that was.
Speaker 3: How did you? How did you deal with it? How'd
Speaker 3: you come out of it? How'd you get here? I
Speaker 3: am actually in awe of the fortitude that you have.
Speaker 3: How did you do it? If you can even put it.
Speaker 1: Into work, yeah I think I can't. I mean, so
Speaker 1: after that, after that, moment. I mean, I wanted to
Speaker 1: die like I've never wanted to die before. It was
Speaker 1: it was terrible. And after we left the courtroom, I
Speaker 1: asked the 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 decided to adopt this
Speaker 1: kind of militaristic mentality, and I turned everything into a
Speaker 1: war against the state of Illinois. And I studied Sun
Speaker 1: Sue and Julius Caesar and tried to, you know, incorporate
Speaker 1: these this thinking of how to fight a war. But
Speaker 1: I was doing it in the courtroom. The courtrooms were
Speaker 1: my battlefields. So I mean I kind of took on
Speaker 1: that mentality.
Speaker 3: Did you have any help, Did you have an appellate
Speaker 3: lawyer assigned to you or anything like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? We, uh so, after I lost, we hired an attorney, Jededstone,
Speaker 1: and he did a post trial motion and then he
Speaker 1: helped me through my first appeals. But those didn't pan out.
Speaker 1: So when we lost him and we couldn't afford him anymore,
Speaker 1: I became my own attorney and I did it my way,
Speaker 1: and I threw every single thing I could think about him.
Speaker 1: I filed my post conviction petition on my own, which
Speaker 1: was like seventy something pages long, and I threw every
Speaker 1: single thing I could think of that was wrong with
Speaker 1: my case at that courtroom. You know, I battled it
Speaker 1: on my own for a while. I got an appellat
Speaker 1: attorney appointed to me at one point, and all he
Speaker 1: did was basically drag things out. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: I fought myself until I got Northwestern to get involved
Speaker 1: and that but that was years and years later.
Speaker 3: And then talk about that Northwestern Northwestern, Yeah, because I mean,
Speaker 3: first of all, one of the best schools in the country, right,
Speaker 3: and they do amazing work.
Speaker 1: Absolutely they do. Yeah, I would not be free if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for them. So I was in the federal court.
Speaker 1: I was following a a federal habeas corpus all on
Speaker 1: my own, 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 Railey at Northwestern and wed 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 a federal court, I don't
Speaker 1: know if Judge Kennelly saw something in my case or what,
Speaker 1: but he called Thomas 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 Strawn and
Speaker 1: Kat and Much and rosamund all supporting my fight. Well.
Speaker 3: So you, I mean, at least in terms of your
Speaker 3: legal representation, you really went from the bottom to the top.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean, you went from guys who sold you down
Speaker 3: the river to like an army, a legal army. And
Speaker 3: by the way, that happened for a very specific reason,
Speaker 3: which is that you found something that very few people
Speaker 3: could find in your situation. I don't know where you
Speaker 3: got it from, but either but where I think a
Speaker 3: normal person would have curled up in a corner and
Speaker 3: collapsed or you know, done, calmed themselves like you talked
Speaker 3: about doing or whatever. You didn't stop, and you maintained
Speaker 3: faith in the system even though the system had totally
Speaker 3: let you down and turned on you, you know, which
Speaker 3: is remarkable. I keep coming back to that. And then
Speaker 3: as a result, you end up with this powerhouse or
Speaker 3: sort of a power trio of advocates, right, the two
Speaker 3: law firms plus the innisers project at Northwestern, which you know,
Speaker 3: as I said, the reputation's amazing. So then things are
Speaker 3: turning in your direction. But you've been in now for
Speaker 3: quite some time.
Speaker 1: So around the time they took over, I had been
Speaker 1: in about seven and a half eight years. It was
Speaker 1: shortly after we learned about the identity of the victim,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was I've been in there for quite
Speaker 1: a while. And it still was another eight years after
Speaker 1: that before I was free.
Speaker 3: Did you have any clue who might have done something
Speaker 3: like this?
Speaker 1: No, we do now, we do now, but here So
Speaker 1: for many many years, I actually thought Jeremy Tweety was
Speaker 1: the guy because he was so quick to make up
Speaker 1: all these lies about me and to you know, help
Speaker 1: himself out, that I thought, well, I didn't even know
Speaker 1: this guy. Maybe he's the one that did it, and
Speaker 1: that's why he's so adamant about lying against me. Is
Speaker 1: he's trying to protect himself somehow. He was my main
Speaker 1: suspect for many many years. It wasn't until we identified
Speaker 1: the victim, which was seven years after I was arrested,
Speaker 1: that we finally figured out who the victim was. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until then that we started to develop an understanding
Speaker 1: of what might have really happened to her and who
Speaker 1: the real perpetrators were. There was actually three people that
Speaker 1: we suspect being involved, which is ironic considering that three
Speaker 1: people were originally arrested.
Speaker 3: Right you, Tweety and Jason Johnson, Right.
Speaker 1: But I was the only one that was ever charged
Speaker 1: with murder. They were charged with a consument of a
Speaker 1: homicide and Tweety's was dropped to obstruction for testifying against me.
Speaker 1: But we discovered that there was three individuals, a mother
Speaker 1: daughter team that had been their grifters. They basically took
Speaker 1: advantage of elderly people, handicapped people, mentally disabled people and
Speaker 1: extorted them for their money, and they somehow came into
Speaker 1: a power thing with the victory them in this case,
Speaker 1: who we later discovered was Mary Kate Sunderland, a mentally
Speaker 1: disabled woman, and they took over her life. They kept
Speaker 1: her from her family. They apparently, from what we understand,
Speaker 1: sold her to this mentally deranged individual who they also extorted.
Speaker 1: They convinced this guy to have his own arm chopped
Speaker 1: off by a railroad track train, you know, a train
Speaker 1: going across the road tracks. Ensued the state of Illinois.
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean, let's just go. I mean, that's a
Speaker 3: lot to it. I got a lot, right, right, that's insane.
Speaker 1: It's just one of many twists to this case. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it really is a crazy case, a crazy story.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, they Gonzalo Chimizo is this guy's name.
Speaker 1: He's really mentally insane. He's in an institution today. They
Speaker 1: convinced him to lay on some tracks. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: what my attorneys told me to lay on some tracks
Speaker 1: and a train ran over his arm and cut his
Speaker 1: arm off. And in money he got from that, he
Speaker 1: gave to them because they sold the victim to him,
Speaker 1: and then over a certain amount of time, they you know,
Speaker 1: starved her, beat her, tortured her, and extorted money out
Speaker 1: of her. So they did this for this long period
Speaker 1: of time. The last thing that the victim's family ever
Speaker 1: heard from their loved one was that they don't want
Speaker 1: me to talk to you. It was these people they
Speaker 1: were keeping her for this long period of time. And
Speaker 1: knowing this, learning this helped us unravel the case because
Speaker 1: the whole theory of the state when they convicted us
Speaker 1: was that me, Jason Johnson and Jeremy Tweety picked this
Speaker 1: random girl up off the streets, took her to my room,
Speaker 1: and we tortured her and killed her in one night,
Speaker 1: dumped the body. And you know, they had all these,
Speaker 1: you know, different theories on what evidence was there, Like
Speaker 1: they said the body was burned by molten wax and
Speaker 1: all this. And years later after we started to put
Speaker 1: all the pieces together and found these alternative suspects and
Speaker 1: we were in the federal courts the Attorney General's office
Speaker 1: and the new Lake County attorney who came in with
Speaker 1: the idea that he wants to find the truth in
Speaker 1: all these cases. They decided to reach out to my
Speaker 1: attorneys and say, let's reinvestigate this case. So we did
Speaker 1: that and what we discovered. We had some independent forensic
Speaker 1: pathologists come in, three independent pathologists, and they all came
Speaker 1: to the same conclusion that this person was actually dead
Speaker 1: probably four to five days prior to when they found
Speaker 1: the body, not the date before.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad you brought that up because that's a
Speaker 3: really interesting part of this case and it explains why
Speaker 3: it was so hard to identify her as well, right right, absolutely,
Speaker 3: because she had obviously decomposed to a significant degree by
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 1: Well it was more than I mean, part of the
Speaker 1: reason she was unidentified was just a lack of police work,
Speaker 1: I believe because they had dental records that they just
Speaker 1: didn't follow through with things, and once they had what
Speaker 1: they wanted, they didn't follow through with investigating these things.
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you not identify the person from
Speaker 1: a few counties over when there's a missing person report
Speaker 1: on that person? How do you not make that connection?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like she was from you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she wasn't from California or you know, Nebraska or
Speaker 1: something to Caracas.
Speaker 3: You know. One of the things that helped lead to
Speaker 3: your exoneration was the fact that new experts were brought in,
Speaker 3: were actual experts. And I'm glad we're touching on this, Jason,
Speaker 3: because we know that junk science, bad forensics are a
Speaker 3: major cause of wrong conviction, and in your case, it
Speaker 3: was a different kind of junk science, which is that
Speaker 3: you had an examiner America examiner or something like that,
Speaker 3: who testified saying that the body had been found within
Speaker 3: a short period of time.
Speaker 1: Right, right, She was found on the ninth December ninth
Speaker 1: and ninety nine. They theorized that on the eighth is
Speaker 1: the night that we partied with her and tortured her
Speaker 1: and killed her. And he goes on to say that
Speaker 1: we poured molt wax on her and she was burned
Speaker 1: and all this different stuff. But years later, when we
Speaker 1: got these new independent forensic pathologists to 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 it went even beyond that and
Speaker 1: to the fact that her injuries were in different stages
Speaker 1: of healing, that she has tortured for a long period
Speaker 1: of time, weeks, if not months, So this wasn't something
Speaker 1: that happened in one night. And further, the information about
Speaker 1: molten liquid and wax being poured on her and she
Speaker 1: was burned was wrong. They said that all that discoloration
Speaker 1: and all the sloughing of the skin and everything that
Speaker 1: this 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 at turn. 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 school that was
Speaker 1: shut down for different reasons of being fraudulent or not
Speaker 1: up to par or whatever. So he didn't even have
Speaker 1: he didn't even go to medical school in here in
Speaker 1: his country.
Speaker 3: Well, he went to a non medical school in a
Speaker 3: foreign country. Yeah, so he basically was just the yats,
Speaker 3: like a totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the way my attorney's explained it to me.
Speaker 3: So, oh, it gets deeper and deeper. I mean, these
Speaker 3: things are always so troubling to me because especially in
Speaker 3: a case like this, where you have a young innocent
Speaker 3: woman who had her life in front of her, who
Speaker 3: is taken out and brutally beaten, maybe beaten to death,
Speaker 3: dumped in the forest like trash, and you know, one
Speaker 3: would think and one would hope that the people in
Speaker 3: positions of power would really want to find the right
Speaker 3: guy to make sure this didn't happen, even if it's
Speaker 3: for selfish reasons, Jason, Right, even if it's just like
Speaker 3: there's a small community you lived in, right.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it wasn't a big town, right.
Speaker 3: I always try to rationalize this, but I can't because
Speaker 3: you have all the people that are involved in this,
Speaker 3: and it was usually more than one, right, It takes
Speaker 3: more than one to sort of, you know, create this
Speaker 3: narrative and then convicted this in person like yourself or
Speaker 3: in this case three. The actual killer, who was a sick,
Speaker 3: depraved individual, by any stretch of the imagination, is free,
Speaker 3: stayed free, right once they convicted you, once they even
Speaker 3: arrested you, they stopped looking for him, and whoever he was,
Speaker 3: he was free to prey on anyone in the community
Speaker 3: that he wanted to and that could have been you know,
Speaker 3: one of these people, somebody that was loved by one
Speaker 3: of these officers, or people in the prosecutor's office or
Speaker 3: anything else. So even in the situation where we all
Speaker 3: find it hard to understand how someone could have the
Speaker 3: lack of soul or or whatever it is, or just
Speaker 3: the total breakdown that allows them to feel comfortable locking
Speaker 3: up someone who they knew was innocent, or more than
Speaker 3: one person in this case. They would want to keep
Speaker 3: their family in their community safe, but they didn't. That
Speaker 3: goes out the window in these cases. They get this
Speaker 3: tunnel vision like they did in your case, and they
Speaker 3: just go for it.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that, there's a lot there
Speaker 1: by the way that you just said, but I think
Speaker 1: a lot of that is systemic. There's a systemic problem,
Speaker 1: especially in places like you know, Illinois, you know, Cook
Speaker 1: County is probably the worst where this has been going
Speaker 1: on for so many generations that these cops just follow
Speaker 1: in the same footsteps of all their predecessors. I mean,
Speaker 1: you probably follow this back to the days of al Capone.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got governors in Illinois that are in jail,
Speaker 1: most of them, right, I mean 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 going to say all of
Speaker 1: them are bad, because they're not, of course, but there
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: CoP's not doing his job right, because then they're curpuco 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.
Speaker 3: It, if there's anything that stands out. And obviously it
Speaker 3: was a miserable fifteen and a half years. But one
Speaker 3: thing I'm curious about is was there a worst moment
Speaker 3: in all that time in prison? And was there one
Speaker 3: moment that actually you remember and brings you a smile.
Speaker 1: Well, as far as prison goes, the worst moment would
Speaker 1: probably be the ride to prison. It was the most
Speaker 1: terrifying I could ever imagine. I mean, You're an innocent
Speaker 1: man on a bus going to a place where you
Speaker 1: know that everybody there is hardened criminals. Well most people
Speaker 1: there is hardened criminals. It's a maximum security prison. And
Speaker 1: all I could think about is am I going to
Speaker 1: be raped? Am I going to be murdered? Am I
Speaker 1: going to be forced to kill somebody to survive? What
Speaker 1: is my life going to become? I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to expect. I was terrified, but I didn't show it. I,
Speaker 1: you know, stood tall, stood my ground and did what
Speaker 1: I had to do. And I met a lot of
Speaker 1: good people and showed myself to be a stand up guy.
Speaker 1: And I got by. I survived.
Speaker 3: It. Was there a moment that you can remember besides
Speaker 3: obviously the moment when the guard came to tell you
Speaker 3: that you were free, or even when your lawyer told
Speaker 3: you that you were going to be getting out in
Speaker 3: a few days. Was there any other moment that stands
Speaker 3: out that you had a moment of humanity or grace
Speaker 3: or you know, something kind that somebody did, or you know,
Speaker 3: anything like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean probably a lot of small things,
Speaker 1: but I can't think of nothing like really really major
Speaker 1: other than you know, every time my family would come
Speaker 1: to see me. That was my my big moments, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, for the most part, it was just day
Speaker 1: to day stuff was all the same, you know. It's
Speaker 1: the monotony of it kind of gets to you. So
Speaker 1: it's all the same stuff over and over. I found
Speaker 1: joy in the fact that I had some really good friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I met some really great people. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: which 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 3: All these years ago. Vibes, you spent seven and a
Speaker 3: half years fighting a lonely battle by yourself, and then
Speaker 3: you've got another seven and a half eight years with
Speaker 3: the cavalry, right, right, and then ultimately we know what
Speaker 3: happened because you're sitting here, and how did that come down?
Speaker 3: What was the moment when you first knew, like you
Speaker 3: knew you were fucked when you were in the courtroom, right,
Speaker 3: What was the moment when you knew that you were unfucked?
Speaker 1: Oh? Wow, that's I mean, there's a couple different areas
Speaker 1: where I started to feel hope. But I'd say the
Speaker 1: moment when I knew 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 you know, the state's attorney and
Speaker 1: the Attorney General in Connelly'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 cell and says, Strong,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Pack of shit? Man, You're getting
Speaker 1: out of here. I'm like, what, what the fuck are
Speaker 1: you talking about? And I wasn't expecting it for you know,
Speaker 1: another day or two, and it just threw me.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: I jumped down. I'm like packing all my shit as
Speaker 1: fast as I can. You know, all my guys are
Speaker 1: happy for me. People are, you know, clapping wishing me well.
Speaker 1: The people that want in the cells were coming up
Speaker 1: giving me hugs. It was just it was a very
Speaker 1: just crazy, but you know, wonderful feeling. You know. Of
Speaker 1: course I had to wait for my mom to drive
Speaker 1: up and pick me up, and my attorneys were there.
Speaker 1: But when I walked out, I was so overwhelmed that
Speaker 1: I just broke down into tears. I just all that, uh,
Speaker 1: all those years of you know, staying stoic and fighting,
Speaker 1: and it just I was able to let it go.
Speaker 3: That's an amazing picture that you're painting right there, and
Speaker 3: it's it's actually really heartwarming to think about all the
Speaker 3: other guys, you know, who are still facing their own
Speaker 3: demons and their own sentences, but the fact that they
Speaker 3: were able to take joy in your release.
Speaker 1: Uh. Well, I made a lot of you know, good
Speaker 1: friends in there. I mean, guilt or innocence didn't matter
Speaker 1: as far as other people in there. You judge people
Speaker 1: by who they were, and there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stand up guys in there. They're not all scum like
Speaker 1: some people would have people believe. And I mean I
Speaker 1: met a lot of good people in there. You know,
Speaker 1: there are some bad people, don't get me wrong. I
Speaker 1: mean I made some good friends. I still go back
Speaker 1: to the prison now to visit a couple guys.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. So you're watching the movie, you get this,
Speaker 3: you're sort of touched by an angel, right, although it's
Speaker 3: in the form of a prison guard.
Speaker 1: In this case, he was actually a cool prison guard.
Speaker 3: Oh good, Well that adds a little something to it too.
Speaker 3: And then a few hours later, whatever it is, your
Speaker 3: mom arrives. She must have been breaking down too. And
Speaker 3: what time of year was it when you got out,
Speaker 3: and what time of day was it? Was it hot?
Speaker 3: Was it cold? And where'd you go? And what'd you do?
Speaker 3: What was the first thing you did?
Speaker 1: So it was May twenty eighth, twenty fifteen, and it
Speaker 1: was a nice, nice day out. So there was three
Speaker 1: of my attorneys there at my mom, and we went
Speaker 1: to this nearby diner and I had a bacon mushroom cheeseburger,
Speaker 1: which was the best bacon mushroom cheeseburger I've ever had.
Speaker 1: And we sat around and talked and just enjoyed the
Speaker 1: moment and you know, kind of let everything else just
Speaker 1: melt away.
Speaker 3: Where the tears and you know, at that point.
Speaker 1: It was just jubilation, man, just telling stories and talking
Speaker 1: and being happy that the tears most of those were shed.
Speaker 1: You know, in the parking lot before we went to
Speaker 1: the diner. So yeah, it was just an all happy moment,
Speaker 1: you know, with all of us sitting there and eating
Speaker 1: a meal together and talking about future dreams and hopes and.
Speaker 3: You know, so I'm thinking about this first meal, so
Speaker 3: to speak. Right, people think about the last supper. I'm
Speaker 3: thinking about the first meal and how good this food
Speaker 3: taste after fifteen and a half years of institutional you know, slop,
Speaker 3: so to speak. I think there's another element to this
Speaker 3: particular story of the first meal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I have this story which is kind of
Speaker 1: it's a growing story, if you will. When I went
Speaker 1: to court, in federal court, I had a writ to Stateville.
Speaker 1: I originally spent all my time in Menard and we
Speaker 1: didn't have oranges. I used to love oranges growing up
Speaker 1: as a kid. And when I got to Stateville, they
Speaker 1: had oranges. And I got an orange and I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen or had an orange in like eight years, eight
Speaker 1: and a half years at this point, and so I
Speaker 1: just looked at that orange and smelled it and rolled
Speaker 1: it around in my hand. I savored every moment of
Speaker 1: that orange. And most people were like, oh, you must
Speaker 1: really love oranges. But it's not so much that it's
Speaker 1: it's the little things that everyday people take for granted
Speaker 1: that you miss so much when it's deprived of you.
Speaker 1: And so I ate that orange, and that was the
Speaker 1: best orange I ever ate. And when I got out.
Speaker 1: The day I got out, we went to that little
Speaker 1: diner and had this bacon mushroom cheeseburger. I was telling
Speaker 1: my attorneys about this story, and the waitress overheard and
Speaker 1: she came over to me after I was done and
Speaker 1: gave me an orange.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it kind of grew so and
Speaker 1: then later last year in San Diego at the Innocence
Speaker 1: Network conference, I was telling this same story and after
Speaker 1: I was done, one of the girls that was there
Speaker 1: in this little group walked over and gave me an orange.
Speaker 1: So this is like this evolving story about an orange
Speaker 1: and it's meaning in my life. And how you know,
Speaker 1: when I was sitting in that prison cell, it had
Speaker 1: all this weight of you know, something so small but
Speaker 1: so powerful and meaningful.
Speaker 3: So you drove back to tennessee what date.
Speaker 1: Was that May twenty eight, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: So that's that's pretty recent. And since then, how's life?
Speaker 1: It's good, you know. I mean, it took me a
Speaker 1: little while to adapt to things and want to get
Speaker 1: back out around people. I was very uncomfortable in public,
Speaker 1: Like if I went to a Walmart, just having people,
Speaker 1: you know, aimlessly wandering around me kind of put me
Speaker 1: on the ease, you know. So I still had that
Speaker 1: kind of you know, what are you doing behind me?
Speaker 1: Kind of feel, you know, like you have in prison.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I was very weird about being out
Speaker 1: in public for a while, and I almost came dangerously
Speaker 1: close to creating my own prison at home. It's where
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave. But I forced myself out
Speaker 1: of my comfort zone and I got out there and
Speaker 1: just started facing things and doing things. And I still
Speaker 1: like to sit whack and see everybody. But you know,
Speaker 1: I get around in public with no problem. I go
Speaker 1: to concerts now and you know, I'm trying to become
Speaker 1: an aspiring filmmaker and I do a TV show, so
Speaker 1: I'm getting around and bumping elbows with people and going
Speaker 1: to conferences and doing different things.
Speaker 3: Jason, we have a tradition here on Wrongful Conviction, which
Speaker 3: is that at the end of the show, I like
Speaker 3: to turn the mic over to you the star of
Speaker 3: the show, and just share with us anything at all
Speaker 3: that you want to share.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I did want to add that I'm also
Speaker 1: working on a documentary that I'm filming about wrongful convictions,
Speaker 1: and the purpose of this film is that I don't
Speaker 1: want to preach to the choir anymore. I want to
Speaker 1: reach out to more and more people and show people
Speaker 1: that this is a bigger problem than one or two
Speaker 1: people you might see in a documentary. I think too
Speaker 1: many people are unaware of how big of a problem
Speaker 1: this is. They see a story on Kurt Bloodsworth or
Speaker 1: someone else, and they'll say, oh, poor that person, poor
Speaker 1: this person. And I want them to understand that there
Speaker 1: are thousands of people that this is probably happening to
Speaker 1: right now that we don't even know about. America has
Speaker 1: two point two million people in prison. If just one
Speaker 1: percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of people's lives destroyed potentially, you know, and we
Speaker 1: need to be aware of this. Martin Luther King said
Speaker 1: in Justice Anywhere as 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
Speaker 1: uphold cops and prosecutors should not be immune.
Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 3: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 3: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
Speaker 3: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 3: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Ortis.
Speaker 3: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 3: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
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Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
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