Speaker 1: A warning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
Speaker 1: that may be disturbing to some listeners. I didn't kill
Speaker 1: anybody doing the ride. Should they have convicted them based
Speaker 1: upon what they had in the manner in which they
Speaker 1: did it? No, that's old the judge right before I
Speaker 1: was sensors dead, I said, this is not over, man,
Speaker 1: this is not over. I've meant that. I have seen
Speaker 1: with my own eyes. I've read the documents. It's just
Speaker 1: reeks of wrongdoing. I had this recurrent dream. Then I'm
Speaker 1: in this little complicated place as a crawl up to
Speaker 1: least little real tight spaces. Sometimes I'm upside. I didn't
Speaker 1: explain it to you, but I know my way out
Speaker 1: of that. But did they help me. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: out of this. They never thought they thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna kip what they thought was my back on myself.
Speaker 1: Bro good back. Because we're all about me, every five
Speaker 1: might be en. I believe that I get my life back.
Speaker 1: When I set out to find a story for our
Speaker 1: second season, I have to be honest. I struggled. Finding
Speaker 1: a worthy follow up to Melissa and Rodney proved to
Speaker 1: be really hard. Then I spoke with the senior producer
Speaker 1: at Jason Flam's podcast Wrongful Conviction, and he told me
Speaker 1: about Keith Lamar. Keith Lamar is currently sitting on death
Speaker 1: row in Ohio for crimes that happened during the n
Speaker 1: Lucasville Uprising, one of the longest and deadliest prison riots
Speaker 1: in US history. Keith's execution date is set for November.
Speaker 1: He says he's innocent. I was interested in Keith's case,
Speaker 1: and maybe because, as it turns out, I have a
Speaker 1: small personal connection to this story too. In April, when
Speaker 1: the riot broke out, I was a senior at Ohio
Speaker 1: State majoring in broadcast journalism and doing an internship at
Speaker 1: w BNS, the CBS affiliate in Columbus. As a budding journalist,
Speaker 1: I needed to somehow get to that prison in Lucasville,
Speaker 1: just so that I could witness it, any of it firsthand.
Speaker 1: So I begged those in charge to let me go,
Speaker 1: to help, to do whatever anything they needed. Eventually they
Speaker 1: gave in. I do remember it was late that night
Speaker 1: we arrived. The air was cool, it was strangely silent.
Speaker 1: I was a little scared. I remember wondering what in
Speaker 1: the world was going on behind those prison walls. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know more so now, almost thirty years late,
Speaker 1: or that's what I'm setting out to do in an
Speaker 1: effort to find out why Keith Lamar was convicted and
Speaker 1: sent to death row. I need to know what happened
Speaker 1: during those eleven days in which ten people were brutally murdered.
Speaker 1: And while the Uprising is only going to be a
Speaker 1: small part of the podcast, it's crucial. It's crucial in
Speaker 1: order to understand why the State of Ohio is about
Speaker 1: to execute him. But what I learned is it's not
Speaker 1: that simple, because somewhere along the way, my reinvestigation of
Speaker 1: Keith's case evolves into something far more personal. I have
Speaker 1: never been more frightened, angered, inspired, challenged, conflicted and consumed
Speaker 1: than I am by Keith and his story. Maybe because
Speaker 1: of what I uncover, or maybe because the stakes couldn't
Speaker 1: be higher. I'm Leah Rothman. This is the Real Killer,
Speaker 1: Episode one, The Uprising fright top story of full scale
Speaker 1: riot at Ohio's maximum security prison name Lucasville Alliance of
Speaker 1: Eight Guard It's April eleventh, Easter Sunday. Inmates at the
Speaker 1: Southern Ohio Correctional Facility celebrate the Holy Day with an
Speaker 1: ambush at three fifteen. Convicts returning from an exercise yard
Speaker 1: stage of fight then jump corrections officers and sees control
Speaker 1: of Cell Block L. Cincinnati news station WCPO reports cell
Speaker 1: Block L is under siege. It's one of two main
Speaker 1: housing wings at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, most called
Speaker 1: the Maximum Security Prison Lucasville after the small rural town
Speaker 1: where it's located. Columbus news station w s y X
Speaker 1: is covering the breaking news from the sky. Here are
Speaker 1: two of their reporters. We are applying above it right
Speaker 1: now and think having way down to the scene, there
Speaker 1: was some kind of uprising portly every three o'clock there,
Speaker 1: and we will be throughout the easing development. Just a
Speaker 1: few hours before, twenty three year old corrections officer Darryl Clark,
Speaker 1: a married father of two young girls, clocks in and
Speaker 1: starts his shift. Today something is very different. It was quiet,
Speaker 1: very eerie quiet, and it's never that quiet. Then in
Speaker 1: a flash, that quiet turns to chaos when trun down,
Speaker 1: always another ulster being beaten down. About four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty prisoners have taken over L Block and the adjoining
Speaker 1: gymnasium um. Daryld and his partner, armed only with nightsticks,
Speaker 1: are in serious retreat mode. We both rand to make
Speaker 1: it to the back stair. I will from that stairwell.
Speaker 1: Daryld and his partner radio for help, but no help
Speaker 1: ever comes. Instead, inmates armed with weapons like white bars, dumbbells, bats,
Speaker 1: and shovels closed in on them. It looked like a
Speaker 1: hundred um all with their face masked up. They started
Speaker 1: banging on door. The we're gonna show you what we did.
Speaker 1: They went around with the white bars and they busted
Speaker 1: all to the wall right where we sat, and they
Speaker 1: hit four or five hits from the door. The dead
Speaker 1: boat was folded that metal like a piece of bread.
Speaker 1: And the door opened up and they all came in
Speaker 1: and the certain and mate looked at us said, you're
Speaker 1: our hostages. While all hell is breaking loose at the prison,
Speaker 1: Lucasville's Warden, Arthur Tate, is about to sit down for
Speaker 1: Easter dinner at a friend's home a couple of hours away.
Speaker 1: I remember that the Master's golf tournament was on and
Speaker 1: I was watching a little bit of that, and a
Speaker 1: call came in from a former employee of mine at Chillicothe.
Speaker 1: I got We didn't know cell phones back in those days.
Speaker 1: This was in you know, before Lucasville. Arthur Tait was
Speaker 1: first a social worker, than an FBI agent, and finally
Speaker 1: the warden at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. And she said to me,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on, but they have activated
Speaker 1: the special response team at Chillicothe and sent them to Lucasville.
Speaker 1: And I thought, what So I got on the phone
Speaker 1: and called the facility. The line was busy, Line was busy,
Speaker 1: line was busy, line was busy. So on the fifth
Speaker 1: currents I got ahold of one of my deputies and
Speaker 1: he was almost incoherent. I managed to get from him
Speaker 1: that they were experiencing a major riot insurrection. He said
Speaker 1: that the hostages had been taken, keys had been taken.
Speaker 1: He told me that prisoners were on the roof, they
Speaker 1: were attacking defense that I'm thinking, oh my god. So
Speaker 1: he said, you need to get to the prison right away.
Speaker 1: As Arthur races to Lucasville, Daryld Clark and his partner
Speaker 1: are now under the complete control of their captors. They
Speaker 1: tied us up and took my jacket off of me
Speaker 1: and put it over my head and used telephone cord
Speaker 1: and tied them off blindfold on. And some guy was
Speaker 1: trying to take my wedding ring. He was wanting to
Speaker 1: cut my finger off because he couldn't get off. I
Speaker 1: convinced him gonna let me take it off. Blindfolded and terrified.
Speaker 1: Daryld and his partner are led to the L Block
Speaker 1: showers where the rest of the officers are being held.
Speaker 1: Prisoners are now holding twelve hostages. When I arrived, it
Speaker 1: was a serious situation. That's Colonel Tom Rice, the superintendent
Speaker 1: and thirty three year veteran of the Ohio State Highway Patrol,
Speaker 1: which has jurisdiction and authority over all the prisons in Ohio.
Speaker 1: There were guards that had been taken hostage. We had
Speaker 1: inmates on the inside of L Block and inmates out
Speaker 1: in the yard. My major concern was to secure the
Speaker 1: L Block area, unlocking all the other facility doors, and
Speaker 1: then assigning people outside to the fence to make sure
Speaker 1: there wasn't a mass escape. Everything in Lucasville was changing.
Speaker 1: The number of officers would be changing almost by the
Speaker 1: minute because they were coming in from the north, the east,
Speaker 1: and the West. Eventually we had over three hundred officers
Speaker 1: there and after a short time we got assistance from
Speaker 1: the FBI. The FBI actually brought in they're negotiating teams.
Speaker 1: What Tom and the FBI negotiators don't know is that
Speaker 1: the prisoners broke into the offices and found the official
Speaker 1: prison negotiating manual, the how to in dealing with these
Speaker 1: exact kinds of situations. So actually we were negotiating against
Speaker 1: our own manual. They knew what we were doing or
Speaker 1: what we would be doing. Here's a reporter from w
Speaker 1: c PO. It is unknown what triggered this riot, although
Speaker 1: there have been unconfirmed reports that race may have been
Speaker 1: a big issue in this. Although there are serious issues
Speaker 1: of race at Lucasville, the uprising on Easter Sunday is
Speaker 1: not about that. It's in protest, a protest started by
Speaker 1: the Sunni Muslim population against what was secretly scheduled to
Speaker 1: happen the next day, a forced tuberculosis testing Warden Arthur
Speaker 1: Tate had planned a lockdown the prison on Monday for
Speaker 1: three days to force test any prisoner who had previously
Speaker 1: objected to it. The Sunni Muslim prisoners had refused the
Speaker 1: test because the injection contains phenol, which they believe to
Speaker 1: be a form of alcohol, and they say being made
Speaker 1: to ingest alcohol is a violation of their religious freedoms.
Speaker 1: Here's Arthur Tate, We're going to have a team of
Speaker 1: people essentially put you on a gurney. If he gets
Speaker 1: to that, and you'll you'll, we'll tell you, We'll get
Speaker 1: this test. Will effect this test one way or another.
Speaker 1: And although this uprising may have started with the Muslim
Speaker 1: prisoners protesting the TB testing, surprisingly to other groups, the
Speaker 1: Black Gangster Disciples and the Arian Brotherhood joined them. They
Speaker 1: agree to put their issues with each other aside and
Speaker 1: come together in solidarity against one common enemy, the prison
Speaker 1: administration and what they claim to be the poor treatment
Speaker 1: of everyone at Lucasfilm. So the Sunni Muslims, the Arian Brotherhood,
Speaker 1: and the Black Gangster Disciples call a truce with each other,
Speaker 1: but for many others inside L Block, it's still a
Speaker 1: war zone. Here's dear old blood of inmates, of the
Speaker 1: ones that they was having beef with. They was used
Speaker 1: hearing people screaming, yelling helped Holland for help, and that
Speaker 1: was going through my mind thinking how how am I
Speaker 1: gonna die, and we're gonna be beaten or cut stub
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be rape. What's gonna happen? Guards remain
Speaker 1: hostage inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution at Lucasville after
Speaker 1: a full scale riot broke out in one of the
Speaker 1: inmate wings today, while Darrold Clark and eleven other officers
Speaker 1: are fighting to stay alive inside L Block, Tokyo Morgan,
Speaker 1: a prisoner housed in K Block, the other main housing
Speaker 1: wing of the prison, is shocked to learn about all
Speaker 1: the madness happening around him. We was all asleep and
Speaker 1: when everything took his course and everybody was waking up,
Speaker 1: like man, what's going on? Running over? There's something out.
Speaker 1: We look up with a whole bunch of people in
Speaker 1: the yard and that's all you've seen. Basically, it was
Speaker 1: people running around on the yard. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's a few like smoke. You know, I got a
Speaker 1: set of stuff on fire over the side. It's all
Speaker 1: smoke coming out. Then as you know, people talk about
Speaker 1: man as day and such as day they kill white
Speaker 1: do I mean? People was just just dying right there,
Speaker 1: you know, through the late afternoon and into the evening,
Speaker 1: two corrections officers and one prisoner, all with severe injuries,
Speaker 1: are released. Then later that night, law enforcement spots movement
Speaker 1: out on the yard hard The audio is a bit
Speaker 1: difficult to make out, but what you're about to hear
Speaker 1: are officials in real time counting as prisoners bring several
Speaker 1: bodies outside, counts another one they're dead. Right in front
Speaker 1: of their eyes are the bodies of five dead inmates
Speaker 1: and two critically injured ones. Around eleven PM, prisoners let
Speaker 1: two more officers with severe injuries go free. Eight hostages
Speaker 1: still remain inside. Law enforcement ways whether or not to
Speaker 1: storm the prison, but ultimately decides against it. Here's Colonel
Speaker 1: Tom Rice again. Start out with the fact that you
Speaker 1: really don't know where your hostages are, so if you're
Speaker 1: storming in the wrong in place, by the time you
Speaker 1: get to the hostage, a hostages are already dead and
Speaker 1: you have no idea who killed them. Around two in
Speaker 1: the morning, eleven hours into the uprising, three hundred prisoners
Speaker 1: who have been out on the yard away from the chaos,
Speaker 1: are rounded up by officers and brought inside K Block.
Speaker 1: They are stripped, naked, searched, handcuffed, and locked up again,
Speaker 1: ten prisoners per cell, cells meant to hold just one.
Speaker 1: About six hours later, prison officials make a strategic move.
Speaker 1: They turn off the water and electricity inside l Block.
Speaker 1: So prisoners then make a move of their own. It
Speaker 1: seems that the inmates are trying to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us, the media. They're hanging sheets outside the windows.
Speaker 1: Some of them read the state is not negotiating and
Speaker 1: this administration is blocking the press from speaking to us.
Speaker 1: But the press is there and they're more than ready
Speaker 1: to talk. My name is Michael san Jacomo. I was
Speaker 1: a reporter at the Plain Dealer for about thirty years
Speaker 1: up until my recent retirement. Michael's about to become the
Speaker 1: luckiest reporter at Lucasville, or so he thinks. Prison administrators
Speaker 1: decide to allow one member of the media to speak
Speaker 1: with an inmate by phone. After Michael's business card is
Speaker 1: pulled out of a hat, he gets to go inside.
Speaker 1: So I was walked into the prison and I was
Speaker 1: taken into this very stark room, and I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1: There was a guy in there who looked exactly like
Speaker 1: Spencer Tracy. I mean, he was very intense looking. I said,
Speaker 1: who are you? Because this guy. He just had authority
Speaker 1: coming out of every pore. I mean, this guy wasn't
Speaker 1: charge And he said, you don't need to know that.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, really, I do you know. I'm
Speaker 1: a reporter. I really need to know who you are.
Speaker 1: And he said, I'm not telling you who I am.
Speaker 1: He said, but just trust me. I'm the guy you
Speaker 1: need to listen to. He said, if you fuck this up,
Speaker 1: you will be responsible for killing people. He said, I
Speaker 1: want you to know that if you fuck this up,
Speaker 1: people are gonna die. And I just sat there going,
Speaker 1: oh good. He said, just so be very careful when
Speaker 1: you answer the questions. And he said, and when I
Speaker 1: hang up the phone, and that means you're done. So
Speaker 1: I said, okay, So I sat down. I picked up
Speaker 1: the phone and there was an inmate on the other
Speaker 1: end and all he got to say was who is
Speaker 1: this and identified myself and he started to talk and
Speaker 1: they hung up the phone. They being Spencer Tracy, and
Speaker 1: I said, whoa you know, I didn't even get to
Speaker 1: ask him a question, and he said, okay, that's it
Speaker 1: for now. That's it. Uh, Spencer Tracy explained, he said,
Speaker 1: this is just a tactic. We want to keep them
Speaker 1: like off guard. We want to get something act from
Speaker 1: them now that we let let them know that you
Speaker 1: were available. So that was their bargaining tactic. But the
Speaker 1: prisoners find a way around that. George Skates, a member
Speaker 1: of the Arian Brotherhood, goes out on the yard with
Speaker 1: a bullhorn. He'll become one of the prisoners spokespeople. I
Speaker 1: want you people to understand that, say, don't got eight
Speaker 1: lives the desert about let's get something here? What do
Speaker 1: you want to be went at four o'clock for one
Speaker 1: of our negotiators. How can we do for you, George? Well,
Speaker 1: we can start out with the lights, we can start
Speaker 1: out with MS, start out with news media and delivered.
Speaker 1: I can't guarantee you that the new media will even
Speaker 1: talk to you out say how you give me down?
Speaker 1: Can Bob the latest? Jerry? I wish we had more
Speaker 1: facts really to give you, but the facts basically they
Speaker 1: are they have been through the day. That's Bob or
Speaker 1: back in. He was the primary anchor at w b
Speaker 1: n S Channel ten, that same station where I was
Speaker 1: an intern. No electricity, no water, that cut off all utility.
Speaker 1: They're not serving food. They're hoping and maybe that will
Speaker 1: bring about some kind of peaceful length. A forty three
Speaker 1: year veteran of radio and TV, Bob retired in the
Speaker 1: last twenty three years of his career, he spent in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. As the lead Justice and National Security correspondent
Speaker 1: for CBS News. So when I arrive on Monday, there
Speaker 1: was a substantial media presence, but it was going to
Speaker 1: get much larger. It would rival some of the largest
Speaker 1: continues I ever saw later in my year's covering national
Speaker 1: news in Washington. But the prison administration isn't making it
Speaker 1: easy for the press, which is relegated to the other
Speaker 1: side of the prison, to an area that will be
Speaker 1: nicknamed media Hill. Nothing is more frustrating for a reporter
Speaker 1: than to have no access to any kind of sources
Speaker 1: that could give you any kind of objective read as
Speaker 1: to what's going on. I felt like, this is a
Speaker 1: huge story, it's right in front of us, and we
Speaker 1: can't get to it. I don't see why you won't
Speaker 1: let us meet with these from those people. You can't
Speaker 1: trust the media, whine because they're going to broadcast this
Speaker 1: exactly the way it is. But trusting the media does
Speaker 1: become an issue now, very dangerous thing. Happened, and that
Speaker 1: as rumors started to propagate. No listen. So I'm there
Speaker 1: as a reporter, and I'm in a competitive environment where
Speaker 1: I have my other stations in town are also there.
Speaker 1: The national media is there. They think they have a
Speaker 1: story that there might be fifty bodies stacked up in
Speaker 1: the gymnasium. One report said maybe as many as a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty bodies. What do you do with that?
Speaker 1: When your competitors are saying this over and over and over,
Speaker 1: you run the risk of looking like you really are
Speaker 1: way behind or don't know what's going on, and you
Speaker 1: don't have a story. So the only thing I can
Speaker 1: think to do that was responsible was to say, these
Speaker 1: things are being widely reported, we cannot verify it, we
Speaker 1: don't even have any real reason to believe it's true,
Speaker 1: and we're only raising this because it's out there. Even
Speaker 1: that's not perfect. I think a purist would say, uh,
Speaker 1: if you really held to your guns, you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: touched it. Either way, prisoners are frustrated. They want access
Speaker 1: to the press because they want transparency. Here's officer and
Speaker 1: hostage Daryld Clark. I don't know what you call it,
Speaker 1: Stockholm and center or whatever. I could feel their frustration
Speaker 1: because I was part of the negotiations. I was talked
Speaker 1: to negotiators. These guys are doing. Listen to me. I'm
Speaker 1: listening every word. I'm telling you, got to listen. I'm
Speaker 1: listening to Okay, these guys has really sumized. Do you
Speaker 1: understand you to being a food to be given a cloth?
Speaker 1: They been making damp short, no one comes near. We
Speaker 1: had not been touched in no way that you're thinking that.
Speaker 1: That's good. We appreciate that. We wanted to say news
Speaker 1: and at that broadcast and it told Okay, I said, Park,
Speaker 1: we're going to try to get that if you care
Speaker 1: for any of these times the name as created. That
Speaker 1: is our main goal and objective to get every single personality.
Speaker 1: Here's Colonel tom Rice. Our goal was to bide for time,
Speaker 1: and that's what we were doing. We've got the time
Speaker 1: and we're just gonna let this thing run. Here's dear
Speaker 1: Old Clark. During that timeframe, it made me hate administration,
Speaker 1: you know, but I was under a lot of trust
Speaker 1: and pressure to I mean, I'm thinking, I know, I'm
Speaker 1: want to die because even though Darrold is telling negotiators
Speaker 1: his captors have been treating the hostages humanely at times.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be further from the truth. There was one
Speaker 1: time they was trying to write and I was being
Speaker 1: penned another mt CAM and told him said, guys, if
Speaker 1: you do that, they're gonna cut your head off. So
Speaker 1: they got mac as they could write me. So they
Speaker 1: started beating me, and uh, I had my jaw knocked
Speaker 1: out several times. I kept popping at me and they
Speaker 1: would pop it out. That was beating pretty good. Day
Speaker 1: four is Wednesday, and it brings new threats. Around nine am,
Speaker 1: prisoners drape another bedsheet outside the window. This time it
Speaker 1: says that if their demands aren't met, like more educational
Speaker 1: opportunities in three and a half hours, one hostage will
Speaker 1: be killed. A prison spokesperson is asked about this. It's
Speaker 1: a standard thread. It's nothing new. We're going to kill
Speaker 1: a hostage. Here's anchor Bob or I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1: Spokesperson kind of downplayed the threat, kind of said, well,
Speaker 1: the prisoners are threatened to kill one of the guards,
Speaker 1: but they always do that kind of thing. This is
Speaker 1: just a ploy. They're they're not going to really do that.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking at the time, Wow, she either
Speaker 1: knows a lot more about the security inside that prison,
Speaker 1: or she's taken a real chance here, because even though
Speaker 1: power had been cut, the prisoners are monitoring broadcasts, they're
Speaker 1: monitoring radio, so I'm pretty sure that they heard that
Speaker 1: back inside the prison. The next morning, law enforcement radios
Speaker 1: each other when they see prisoners back out on the yard.
Speaker 1: Whatnot wrong my own? Please give us some respect to
Speaker 1: coming in and getting our body. We need to come
Speaker 1: in and get it and get it down there. Uh,
Speaker 1: we need scaite passage. Do we have an agreement that
Speaker 1: we can come in and get our body? Here's Warden
Speaker 1: Arthur Tet. I was in the hostage negotiation room and
Speaker 1: I got a call from my nurse. She said, Warden,
Speaker 1: you'd better get down here. We think we have an
Speaker 1: employee that's been murdered. The body of correctional Officer Robert
Speaker 1: our Blandingham was recovered from the yard of the Southern
Speaker 1: Ohio Correctional Facility at Wealth twenty this afternoon. His family
Speaker 1: has been notified. The murder of four year old officer
Speaker 1: Robert the Landingham sends ripples through law enforcement. It also
Speaker 1: changes the entire course of the riot. Here's Colonel Tom
Speaker 1: Rice from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The inmates decided
Speaker 1: that they would take a life of a corrections officer,
Speaker 1: Bobby the Landingham, one of the nicest, calmest, gentlest guys
Speaker 1: you'd ever want to meet. And they did, and then
Speaker 1: they threw his body out onto the yard. Unbelievable. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it was just unbelievable. One of the saddest days and
Speaker 1: my whole career, the saddest day in my career, I
Speaker 1: was dealing with that death. It was oh necessary. Here's
Speaker 1: Arthur Tate, Lucasville's warden at the time. So not too
Speaker 1: many people know this, but just a couple of hours
Speaker 1: after we found out he was killed, the afternoon shift
Speaker 1: was coming on, and they obviously had heard over the
Speaker 1: radio through the news that one of their own had
Speaker 1: been murdered, and I mean they were mad as hell,
Speaker 1: and uh, they surrounded me. There probably were forty employees
Speaker 1: maybe or more, and screaming, yelling, you know, we want
Speaker 1: to go, we want to go into a block and
Speaker 1: take care of business. And I'm actually thinking that this
Speaker 1: might get physical, this could really get physical. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I did that I somehow got them to
Speaker 1: agree to go back and take their posts. But right
Speaker 1: after that I end up going into a men's room
Speaker 1: and I just came apart. I just I did. I
Speaker 1: lost it. I mean, I just lost it. Bob Blandingham
Speaker 1: was a terrific correction loser. I mean that from the
Speaker 1: bottom of my heart. And I knew him personally, played
Speaker 1: golf with him. I don't know if it's right to
Speaker 1: say this, but he would have been the last person
Speaker 1: of the group that was taken hostage that I would
Speaker 1: have thought they would have killed. Here's Officer Gerald Clark
Speaker 1: at you, Bobby. All the inmates and all the hostages
Speaker 1: all thought, well, they're gonna come in now. So I
Speaker 1: was pretty much to the point where I'm hatting my mind.
Speaker 1: We're dead. You know, since prisoners have now killed a hostage,
Speaker 1: everyone inside expects law enforcement to storm the prison and
Speaker 1: kill them all, but instead, something very different is about
Speaker 1: to happen. In exchange for prisoner spokesperson George Skates being
Speaker 1: allowed to give a live radio address, one hostage will
Speaker 1: be released. Daryld learns it will be him, but he
Speaker 1: thinks it's a setup. I said, they're wonna take me
Speaker 1: out there and kill me. A front camera. George Skates
Speaker 1: was escort me out and I was still blindfolded, and
Speaker 1: that's when they couldn't find the keys to open the door.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, oh my god, they're gonna change your mind.
Speaker 1: They're gonna change your mind. They're gonna change your mind.
Speaker 1: And then they opened the door. I walked out there
Speaker 1: towards you where the track was. They stopped me. They
Speaker 1: took my blindfold off, turn and look and damn, I
Speaker 1: am being released. It was hard at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was difficult to to leave my Oh it was
Speaker 1: hard to leave my fellow shots like that. Talked can
Speaker 1: I'll take a break for a second. Worse, of course,
Speaker 1: I felt guilty. Brothers were still in there, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was hard. We have there is no more
Speaker 1: violence we are there are no more unnecessary murders. We
Speaker 1: are not going to bow down. We are not going
Speaker 1: to give up. We are going to remain no matter
Speaker 1: what they put on. If we die, we died. When
Speaker 1: George Skates concludes his live radio address on w p A,
Speaker 1: y Darrold is finally turned over to prison officials. I
Speaker 1: remember walking off that yard. They had a guarney laid
Speaker 1: out and all our rumors walking up to this collapse
Speaker 1: on it thanking finally you know, and around him escort
Speaker 1: me down all the corridors. They had the cortors completely
Speaker 1: lined up, with every single staff member in the world clapping.
Speaker 1: Here's TV anchor Bob or So. After inmate George had
Speaker 1: air disagreemances on the radio, the inmates still wanted a
Speaker 1: bigger presence. They wanted a live television broadcast. The state
Speaker 1: asked me if my station w BNS could provide that.
Speaker 1: W b n S agrees to share this live footage
Speaker 1: with other stations and in exchange, one more hostage will
Speaker 1: be released, Officer James Demons. To everyone's surprise, when Officer
Speaker 1: Demons and the prisoner escorting him walk out onto the yard,
Speaker 1: both are dressed in traditional Muslim clothing. After the Muslim
Speaker 1: prisoner speaks, it's Officer James Steamons turn Now I knew Berlanniham.
Speaker 1: He was a good friend of mine. The only reason
Speaker 1: that man is dead because he's standing there so long
Speaker 1: because they want to cut off water and turn off electricity,
Speaker 1: which had me scared for my life in it. So
Speaker 1: I adjusted to the nation of Islam. It's not exactly
Speaker 1: clear why Officer Demons converted to Islam. Did he truly
Speaker 1: end up sighting with the prisoners, or did he do
Speaker 1: it so they let him go. Whatever the reason, he
Speaker 1: is free. On Sunday, prison officials are ecstatic to announce
Speaker 1: that they have new evidence the five hostage guards are
Speaker 1: alive and well. I am pleased to announce that through negotiations,
Speaker 1: we have an audio tape of each and every correctional officer.
Speaker 1: This tape confirmed that all five are alive and well.
Speaker 1: It's day eight of the uprising, and inmates tell prison
Speaker 1: officials they want some outside legal help. My wife and
Speaker 1: I were sitting here talking about going to the Cleveland
Speaker 1: Indian game that afternoon when the phone rang and it
Speaker 1: was the Chief Council from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation
Speaker 1: and Corrections, and he greeted me by saying, Nikki, I
Speaker 1: never thought I'd be so glad to hear your voice.
Speaker 1: That's Nikki Schwartz, a Cleveland lawyer with a long history
Speaker 1: of advocating for prisoners rights and improvements in prison conditions.
Speaker 1: Side notes. You know the prison where the Shawshank Redemption
Speaker 1: was filmed, Well, Nikki on behalf of a human rights coalition,
Speaker 1: was able to get that prison. The Mansfield Reformatory shut
Speaker 1: down because it was unfit for human habitation. Okay, back
Speaker 1: to the car, and he told me the inmates demanded
Speaker 1: a lawyer. They decided they wanted to give him a
Speaker 1: lawyer and would like it to be me, and therefore
Speaker 1: what they needed in this situation where somebody both sides
Speaker 1: would trust, and they knew from dealing with me in
Speaker 1: prior cases, although I was a pain in the posterior,
Speaker 1: I was honorable and they would trust me. Nikki has
Speaker 1: flown down to Lucasville and immediately gets to work and
Speaker 1: get to the prison and I'm taken into the warden's
Speaker 1: office and the first thing they do they hand me
Speaker 1: this twenty one agreement. Over the course of the last
Speaker 1: several days, prisoners had made a list of demands which
Speaker 1: are negotiated down to and so I read it over
Speaker 1: and I asked them several more questions, and they then
Speaker 1: put me on the phone with the person who at
Speaker 1: the moment was the main prison negotiated who was Jason
Speaker 1: rob Right now, I'm talking you want to I want
Speaker 1: to talk to face prisoner Jason rob is asking for
Speaker 1: a face to face meeting with Nikki, but prison officials
Speaker 1: say before that can happen, the inmates need to release
Speaker 1: three of the five remaining hostages. It's made clear that
Speaker 1: isn't going to happen. However, there's something else going on
Speaker 1: that day that may affect law enforcements. Next move. ABC
Speaker 1: News as Nightline reports this ABC News Nightline, what began
Speaker 1: is a fiasco on the February ended as a total
Speaker 1: disaster today. Waco. The siege at the Branch Davidian compound
Speaker 1: in Waco, Texas that began six weeks before Lucasville just
Speaker 1: came to a violent and fiery end. More than seventy
Speaker 1: members of the religious sect were killed. Here's Nikki. Monday
Speaker 1: was the day of the Waco fire. Now, when I
Speaker 1: heard about the Waco fire, I feared that would increase
Speaker 1: the likelihood of a armed solution to the problem. I
Speaker 1: think it worked the opposite. I think it's scared them,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why they said, Okay, let's we'll
Speaker 1: let the negotiations go forward. Now Tuesday brings the best
Speaker 1: news yet. Word from the attorney assigned to the inmates
Speaker 1: that they want the siege to end now, but first
Speaker 1: Nikki's face to face meeting with the prisoners. Law enforcement
Speaker 1: is concerned for his safety, so instead of Nikki going
Speaker 1: inside to meet with the prisoners, two tables are set
Speaker 1: up outside on either side of the perimeter fence. So
Speaker 1: the three prison negotiators emerged and approached the table after
Speaker 1: introducing myself. For things I said to them was that, um,
Speaker 1: I may not be able to tell you what you
Speaker 1: want to hear, but I'm not going to give you
Speaker 1: any bullshit. They later told me that was a very
Speaker 1: significant statement on my part, that that that was meaningful
Speaker 1: to me. The first thing that the prisoners asked was
Speaker 1: they wanted amnesty, and I said that's not possible. A
Speaker 1: guard has been killed. They accepted that for the time being,
Speaker 1: so their primary concern was their safety following the surrender.
Speaker 1: So they told me their conditions, which included that none
Speaker 1: of the members of their three groups in the Black
Speaker 1: Gangster Disciples or White Area and Brotherhood and the Sunaim
Speaker 1: Whistlers would spend ten minutes in Lucasville cell after the surrector,
Speaker 1: that they would all be bust out to another institution,
Speaker 1: that the surrender process would be televised live, that it
Speaker 1: would have um outside observers, including me, and that they
Speaker 1: be permitted to control the surrender process. The prisoners tell
Speaker 1: Nikki they will take the terms back to the rest
Speaker 1: of the men inside and will be in touch. The
Speaker 1: next afternoon. Anchor Bob or goes live on w B
Speaker 1: and S with some breaking news. If you just joined us,
Speaker 1: this is live coverage a special report from Lucasville with
Speaker 1: the good news that the eleven day siege now has ended.
Speaker 1: They have reeskent agreement. It sounds like Nikki Schwartz was pivotal.
Speaker 1: At mid afternoon, the community watched what appeared to be
Speaker 1: the beginning of a peaceful surrender. This came after inmates
Speaker 1: and prison authorities agreed to a twenty one agreement on
Speaker 1: the inmate demands they mostly had to do with prison
Speaker 1: policy and procedures, and an agreement that there will be
Speaker 1: no retaliation against the prisoners after their surrender. The surrender
Speaker 1: continues late into the evening. Some of the last to
Speaker 1: emerge are the five officer hostages. Here's Colonel Tom Rice.
Speaker 1: They were safe. It was fantastic. I've often said it
Speaker 1: was the saddest and the happiest day of my life.
Speaker 1: They were going to go back to their families. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we lost one. So it was an overwhelming feeling of
Speaker 1: joy and sadness all mixed into one. After eleven long days,
Speaker 1: it's finally over. Although when l block is cleared, the
Speaker 1: bodies of two more dead prisoners are discovered. Here's Bobb again.
Speaker 1: In the end, ten people died, nine inmates in one guard.
Speaker 1: A lot of pain happened there, A lot of families
Speaker 1: were touched, guards, inmates, staff, and it's sadly, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the darkest chapters in Ohio history. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the largest investigations in Ohio history is about to begin,
Speaker 1: and the search for those responsible for murdering nine prisoners
Speaker 1: and one officer will be unprecedented. So how does Keith Lamar,
Speaker 1: the man whose case we're covering, fit into all of this. Well,
Speaker 1: Keith will soon be named the leader of the death squad.
Speaker 1: He will be accused of orchestrating and taking part in
Speaker 1: the vicious murders of five men during the uprising. Question
Speaker 1: is do they have the right guy now? Not Gilly,
Speaker 1: I didn't kill anybody. Coming up this season on the
Speaker 1: Real Killer to come into a prison, and you've got
Speaker 1: a choice. You can do it on your feet or
Speaker 1: you could do it on your stomach. Lucasville from its
Speaker 1: inception was a disaster waiting to happen. It puts you
Speaker 1: through artist bullshit and you and if you get angry,
Speaker 1: see that's proof that he's an animal. No, that's proof
Speaker 1: that I'm human being, That this ship hurt, that the
Speaker 1: ship you're doing to me is painful. Do you know
Speaker 1: Keith Lamar? Did you see him inside L six? The
Speaker 1: investigator saying to me, if you're gonna stept this deal,
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you that we're gonna put your
Speaker 1: black ass on death. Bro. They had zero physical evidence,
Speaker 1: five brutal killings, just nothing. How did you feel about
Speaker 1: your case? Oh? I thought he's gonna get convicted. This
Speaker 1: man was probably the most significant prosecution witness. He lined
Speaker 1: through his teeth to eliminate the scumbugs. Testimony against all
Speaker 1: the scumbugs. You would have a hard time compliction many.
Speaker 1: But you're standing there watch another human being being killed.
Speaker 1: What does that say about you? What you told police
Speaker 1: which is different than what you shared with me. You
Speaker 1: want to have a conversation that's had a conversation people
Speaker 1: have asked over the years, you know what if he's guilty.
Speaker 1: Even if he were guilty, which absolutely don't believe he is,
Speaker 1: it still doesn't change the fact that the way and
Speaker 1: the methods that were used were unconstitutional and wrong. They cheated.
Speaker 1: If the State of Ohio executes Keith, they will absolutely
Speaker 1: be executing. We're not barbarians, or are we? The Real
Speaker 1: Killer is a production of A y R Media and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, hosted by me Leah Rothman. Executive producers
Speaker 1: Leah Rothman and Liza Rose for A y R Media.
Speaker 1: Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams, Senior Associate
Speaker 1: producer Jill Pashas Nick coordinator George Fom. Editing and sound
Speaker 1: design by Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi.
Speaker 1: Audio engineering by Matt Jacobsen. Studio engineering by Anna Moolshan
Speaker 1: legal counsel for A y R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive
Speaker 1: producer for iHeart Radio, Maya Howard