WEBVTT - #267 Jason Flom with Evin King 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:05.160 On June twenty first, nineteen ninety four, Evan King went 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:08.200 to the East Cleveland apartment of a new friend, Crystal Hudson, 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.000 her daughter, welcomed to men to await Crystal's return. Soon 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.960 they were joined by Cristel's mother and a friend. Before leaving, 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.639 the elder Hudson told them about a premonition that she 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.479 had about Evan killing her daughter. Little did they all know, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.960 Cristel's body was already decomposing in the bedroom closet. While 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.680 waiting for Crystal, Evan fell asleep, only to be awoken 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.960 by her daughter's screams. Upon discovering the body, the autopsy 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.159 showed signs of a struggle, rape and strangulation, and a 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.879 rape kit collected a great deal of decomposing sperm. The 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.440 police held Evan on a previous minor infraction while questioning 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.560 him about Crystal's murder. His body and clothing were free 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:52.760 from any of her blood and any sign that he 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:56.560 may have been in a struggle. DNA testing also cleared 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.800 him as the source of the sperm. However, in the 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.880 summer heat, the decomposition gave the prosecution an opportunity to 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.320 create uncertainty about whether the sperm had been deposited at 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.760 the time of death. The prosecution presented false testimony to 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.240 circumvent the DNA evidence, claiming that the sperm could have 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.000 been deposited hours or even days before her death, paying 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.959 no mind to the sheer number of sperm which indicated 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:26.560 a more recent deposit. Nearly two decades later, DNA testing 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.880 on Crystal's fingernail scrapings confirmed that her killer was also 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.160 her rapist. But somehow even that wasn't enough for authorities 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:53.320 to immediately release Evan King. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.640 back to wrongful conviction. Today we're going to be interviewing 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.320 a man named Evan King who served almost a quarter 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.080 century in prison for a crime that I don't want 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:04.960 to say a third grader could have solved it, because 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.040 that's not the case. But a third grader would have 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.359 known that this was not the man that committed this crime. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.440 All the evidence was in plain sight, and his conviction 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.280 was based on a freaking premonition at somebody. I'm sorry, 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.480 I have to laugh to keep from crying. So with 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.600 us today is the man himself. But before I introduce him, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.080 I'm going to introduce someone who's voice you'll probably recognize 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.560 Jennifer bergeron of the Ohio Innocence Project. Jennifer, welcome back 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:33.480 to Wrongful Conviction. 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:35.480 Thank you Jason for having me back. 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.040 I feel like we could do just multiple seasons and 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.160 just interview you because there's so many terrible cases in Ohio, 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.639 but this case is really something and the man himself 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.680 a survivor not only of almost a quarter century and 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.040 some of the worst prisons in the country, but also 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.320 a cancer survivor. Just a guy that's tough to kill 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.200 and easy to love, a guy named Evan King. Evan, 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:58.160 welcome to the show. 0:02:58.440 --> 0:02:59.400 Thank you for having me. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:05.480 Before we get into the insanity that Cuyahoga County dished out, 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.720 and we hear that name again and again on this show. 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.639 Let's talk about Evan King as a young man before 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.679 your life was before you were kidnapped by the state. 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.120 Let's call it what it was, right, So what was 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.280 your life like growing up? Where did you grow up? 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.680 I grew up on the East side of Cleveland, starting 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.239 and the projects on fifty fifth. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.160 Did you have a happy childhood? Your brothers and sisters? 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.320 Yes, nine of us, five boys and four girls. 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.400 Wow, so you had a big family had a whole 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.280 baseball team. And by the time all this swept you 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.280 off your feet, what was your life like? 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.160 Well at the time, it is I had was a 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:49.800 vallet at the Omni Hotel, and I had ventured into drugs. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.520 You know, I was messing with drugs and selling a 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.840 little drugs, you know, just quick money, doing the wrong thing. 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.360 You know, Listen, I believe is that all drugs should 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.560 be legal, and no one should ever go to jail 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.080 for what they put in their own bodies, unless they're 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.840 putting somebody else in harms away. Were you ever involved 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.640 in any violent crime? Nope, I mean so there was 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.960 no reason to suspect that all of a sudden one day, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.240 you just snapped and committed this. What was really a 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.599 brutal murder which happened in June of nineteen ninety four, 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.400 involved a victim named Crystal Hudson, and Cristel was someone 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:26.960 who was known to you, right. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.760 Yes, she was known to me. I had been friends 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:31.000 with her for about two. 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.760 Weeks, which brings us to the evening, the faithful evening 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.680 of June twenty first, nineteen ninety four. She was already 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:39.920 gone at this point, but no one knew that yet, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.240 except for the actual rapist and murderer. But that very 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.599 night you went to visit Crystal at her high rise 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:47.960 apartment building, and her daughter met you at the apartment door. 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.359 She invited you in to wait for her mom, so, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.200 as far as you knew, she was expected home at 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.240 some point. Soon you were joined by Cristel's mother and 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.120 her best friend Jean, and none of you, none of you, 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.599 none of you had any idea that chris So's body 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:05.280 had already begun decomposing in the bedroom closet down the hall. 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.400 I mean, this is nuts. Can you walk us through 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:11.560 how this evening unfolded. 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.480 I got to the apartment and her youngest daughter was there, 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.960 and I asked her, was a mama here? She said no, 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.719 I said, well, I wait on her. You know, so 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.719 the youngest daughter when the backing played, I watched TV 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:27.480 on the couch. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.920 Okay, so the body is in the apartment. It must 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:33.240 have been an awful stench. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:35.120 I didn't notice on smell. 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.760 Okay, so you're in the apartment. And then what happens. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.120 Chrystal's mother lived a couple of floors up, and so 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.200 they were best friend. They came down later on that evening, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.400 best friend had a couple of forty ounces and we 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.599 sitting at the kitchen table. That's where the mother mentioned 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.200 she had a premonition that I killed her daughter. That's 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.359 exactly what she said. I had a primenive. I was 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:05.600 like what. And after a while, the mother decides to 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.760 go upstairs and she takes the youngest daughter and left 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.760 me and Jean in the apartment. Now, why would she 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.440 say she had a premonition yet, and still you would 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:20.680 leave me and Jean in the apartment, you know, I mean, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.080 if you think I killed your daughter, why wouldn't you 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.080 put us out when you left? And even when they 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.680 was there, you know, the mother says something about was 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.159 I cooking or something, because she was talking about she 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.880 smelled something and I say, well, I don't smell nothing, 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.800 and just left it at that, and the mother went 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.360 upstairs with the youngest daughter. Me and Jean sat there 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:48.240 drinking the forty ouncers. So when Jean left, I sat 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.920 on back on the couch and I nodded off on 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.680 the couch and next thing I know, it's the next morning. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.560 Both of the young daughters come in and that's when 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:01.880 I will up and they said they wanted to get 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.359 some closed school. They go to the closet and the 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.280 oldest daughter stars screaming, and I jumped off the couch 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.880 and run back down. Say what is She pointed to 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.480 the close and said, my mother's in the closet. I look, 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.520 I ain't even touched nothing. And I took both girls 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.320 out in the hallway, knocked on the neighbor's door. See it, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:24.239 called the police. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:26.680 And for our audience, this is a brutal crime. So 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:28.560 just be aware what you're going to hear is going 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.000 to be, you know, upsetting. And this is where I 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.360 want to bring Jennifer, and Jennifer, can you tell us 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:34.800 about the crime itself? 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:39.680 So the crime was quite brutal. Poor Crystal was found 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.640 strangled to death in her own closet, basically naked. And 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.800 this was Cleveland in June, and it was hot and 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.880 it wasn't air conditioned, and she'd been deceased for they 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.720 decided over twenty four hours before she was even discovered. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.000 And she had been in this high apartment in Cleveland 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.120 this whole time. You know, there's lots of degradation that happens. 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.720 There was evidence from the very beginning that she had 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.320 also been raped at the time of her death. Evan 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.080 happened to be in the apartment unfortunately when she was found, 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.320 and so I think that's why he sort of became 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.040 suspect number one, because he was. 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.160 There and I waited in the hallway with the two daughters. 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:19.280 Why the police came. 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.160 If you were the actual killer, would you stand there 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.040 and wait for the police to arrive. I mean, you're 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.680 neither dumb nor crazy, and you'd have to be both 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:29.440 to do that. 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.920 And not only that. When the detectives did come, they 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.000 brought me in, set me at the table and said, 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.840 would I mind asking some questions? I said, no, I 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:40.400 don't mind. 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.720 The police, so far as I could tell, never did 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.960 any actual investigation. They just decided it was him, in 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.360 part because Crystal's mother told them she had a premonition 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.920 that Evan was going to harm her daughter. Now, somehow 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.400 that premonition even came into court, which still boggles my 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.280 mind as to how that was introduced evidence, But it was. 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.560 I wish this was the only time I had ever 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.720 heard of something like a premonition being committed into court, 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.480 but it's not. Maybe instead of courts, we should all 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:11.520 just go to psychics, you know what I mean, see 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:13.280 if they can figure these things out for us. I 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.719 mean it was a combination of laziness. Right, here's a 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:17.800 guy who was in the apartment, okay, must be him, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.680 and then oh there's a premonition bingo, right. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.200 And then they ran a check on me. I had 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.280 a couple of tickets on me of Bench Warren. And 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.080 after they did their little investigation up there, they took 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:31.200 me home downtown. 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.200 So okay, so you get arrested on these bench warrants 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.280 and then did they hold you from that time right 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:38.880 up until the trial? When did you find out you 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:40.000 were being charged with the murder? 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.079 I think it was seventy two hours later. 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:45.480 Yeah, clearly they did a lot of investigation if they 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.080 arrested in for murder and that short amount of time. 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.840 Once I went to jail, I never got out, and 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.360 the detectives interviewed me a couple of times over them 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.920 seventy two hours. And I'll never forget. The detective asked me, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.559 but I take a lot of tech tests. I said, sure, 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.560 I take a lot of the text tests. He never 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.480 brought it up again. One other thing that really tripped 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.599 me out was when the guy came and took photographs 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.520 up my body. I'm standing in that neked He had 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:20.200 me get undressed, right, my man, Luke, he was like, 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.560 turn around, he had his camera in his hand. He 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.920 was put your hands up and you know, looking around. 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.480 He said, you the first guy I never took a 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.520 picture of. If he didn't take one picture, I didn't 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.960 have a scratch on me, no bruises, not I'm a 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.839 life scinned guy. Believe me, I bruised easy. He didn't 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:41.720 take one picture. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:44.440 And I'm glad you brought that up, because it's important 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:49.080 to recognize that miss Hudson didn't leave this world willingly, right. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.000 She fought there was fingernel scrapings, right, we find out 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.400 later if they knew that, and of course that you know. 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:55.880 She had scratched her attacker. 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.640 But somehow or other, you didn't have any scratches enough 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.880 to gut even take one freaking picture. So, okay, this 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.840 is how ridiculous this really is. And it's made even 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:11.320 more so by virtue of the fact that the biological evidence, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.240 and there was a lot of it, right, and none 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.360 of it matched Evan. So how did they square that circle? 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.840 Yeah, not only was there no evidence that Evan actually 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.320 committed the crime unless you count the fact that he 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.520 was in the apartment and the premonition. But there was 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.520 actually evidence at the time of trial that he didn't 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.839 commit the crime. They had completed a rape kit on 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.560 crystal and did some DNA testing on it even back then, 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.840 and there was male DNA present, but it wasn't Ethan, 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.600 So you know, they kind of had to come up 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.199 with a way to explain that away because there was also, 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.880 as I said before, there was physical evidence that she 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.199 had been raped, meaning physical evidence of trauma to her, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.200 you know, intimate areas that suggested and confirmed that she 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.000 was raped at the time, but they just kind of 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:03.000 ignored the physical trauma areas. They basically got around this 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:08.000 evidence by some testimony from some folks from the coroner's 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:12.320 office from Cuyahoga County that we now know well they 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:14.400 would have known it at the time, but no one 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.560 paid that close of attention to it. But we know 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:21.360 for sure now was just completely bogus. The big question 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.560 was when this semen was deposited. Was it deposited at 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.480 the time of death or was it deposited up to 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.160 a week earlier, And of course the state came in 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:30.920 and said, well, that could have been there for up 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.240 to a week, and so she wasn't raped and murdered. 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.959 The problem was that the folks from the Corner's office, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.400 especially one, you know, they were focusing on the wrong 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.400 information that was scientifically invalid at the time to even 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.040 look at. They were looking at different fluid levels, but 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.320 they should have been looking at sort of the number 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.480 of sperm and the amount of semen that there was, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:54.280 and that's not what they were doing. So they weren't 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:58.600 even following the appropriate practices at that time, and so 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.760 that allowed them to go forward with the theory that 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.840 she wasn't actually raped and murdered, that she was just murdered, 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.480 even though the evidence clearly showed that she was raped 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:07.960 and murdered. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.880 So the notorious Cuyahoga County Carner's office was either unconsciously 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.720 or consciously presenting false testimony, as they've done before, they 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.400 created some wiggle room for the jury to still believe 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.040 in you as the assailant. If that sperm had been 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.959 deposited earlier than the time of death, perhaps she had 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.680 had consensual sex or even been raped, you know, hours 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.920 or even days before she was killed. Making it plausible 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.559 for the jury to believe that the DNA evidence from 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.160 the sperm didn't determine who actually killed her, which would 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.319 have left you as still some sort of potential suspect. 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.200 Then you can see how the jury got fooled. 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.920 Yeah, I mean, you know, Unfortunately for Evan, his defense 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.959 counsel didn't effectively cross examine them on this and didn't 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.280 bring in any expert to sort of debunk it. It 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.280 wasn't that, you know, it should have been a battle 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.560 of the experts where one was saying one thing and 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.120 the other was saying the opposite. They were just flat 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.160 out wrong, and nobody called them on it. 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.280 Evan, who was your attorney? Well, were they court appointed? 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.880 Yeah, I'll never forget that name, roc O Russo. 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:16.199 Wow, what a name. 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:21.160 He didn't present no defense from me, because even my 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.240 family when they came to court, they was like, your 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:29.440 lawyer ain't objecting to nothing. He wouldn't object and he 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.240 was falling asleep cup time. You know, if you fear 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.960 that lawyer is selling you out, you gotta let it 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.800 be known instead of the lawyer telling you, Because uh, 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.760 roc Russa just kept telling me I got it. Just 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.760 sit there I got this and I believed him. I 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.440 sat there and that was the mistake on my behalf. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:54.400 But you don't know at the time. 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:56.880 Yeah, even if it seemed like you could see it, 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:01.040 then you just didn't know it, unfortunately until it was 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.480 too late. But back then, in that moment, did you 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.440 still hold out any hope that the jury was going 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.280 to see through this false testimony and believe their own 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.080 eyes and ears when it came to the actual evidence in. 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:16.440 This case, Yeah, of course. You know. I was thinking, well, 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.560 I didn't do it, so they ain't getting refine me guilty. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:26.000 I mean, that's where my mind was. But you know, 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.400 when you stand up and they come back with a 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:34.400 verdict of guilty, you know you gotta take it and 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.440 keep your head held up and walk out. That guy 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.600 said what I wanted to say to the judge. I 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.960 definitely told him I'll be back in this courtroom. I'll 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.000 never forget what I told. Judge Corgan. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:48.440 What'd you say after. 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.280 He said, mister King, I'm sending you to fifteen years 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.240 of life And he said, do you have anything to say? 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.880 I say, you're sentence and an innocent man to prison. 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.960 While the guilty man walked the streets of Cleveland. Free 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:06.680 pointed to him and I said, one day I'll be 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.040 back in this courtroom for you to set me free. 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.080 I have to, I said that. I turned and I 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:28.880 walked out. My head held him. Any prison is bad 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:33.800 because basically you're on guard twenty four hours a day. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.240 I mean, you don't know when somebody flip out, They 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.040 flip off for the minus things. Somebody might not be 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.680 able to get on the phone and bush in your 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:48.080 head or cut your head. I mean, it's it's it's 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:53.120 crazy on guard twenty four hours a day, basically, you know. 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:59.720 But either you can stay in prison and keep back 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.120 in a food in prison and be de the rest 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.240 of your life, or you got to learn some things 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.720 or get some help. I couldn't adapt good to the 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.880 books as far as Gates lawing, so I had to 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.440 start writing letters, seeing who can give me some help. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.439 I was lucky enough to get in touch with MS Burst, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.920 Run Out Ohio, Innocent Project, God Bliss. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.160 So you ended up finally in the hands of people 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.159 who cared a lot and were talented lawyers, and they 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.399 weren't going to let go. But one after another of 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.160 these courts denied you and it was not that long 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.320 ago that justice was finally delayed but not denied. So 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.280 Jennifer take us through these denials. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.600 So Evan was represented by different attorneys for a while, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.240 and back in two thousand and four I think actually 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.560 he filed a first motion for DNA testing and it 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:01.160 took a long time, but in two eight he asked 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.760 for DNA testing on the fingernail scrapings because, as you mentioned, 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.840 we know that Crystal Hudson fought back at the time 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.600 of her death, and so his theory was, well, if 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.639 we test these fingernail scrapings and you find male DNA 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.320 and it's the same as the DNA from the semen, 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.920 then that's going to confirm what Evan's been saying since 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.280 day one, which is that he was not the murderer, 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.880 and that the person who loved the Semen was actually 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.159 Racher and was the murderer. So Evan had filed for 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.240 DNA testing and the trial judge had ordered it, saying, 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:39.840 I think I can quote him here, DNA belonging to 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.080 an unknown party found under the fingernails of the victim, 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.240 and then went on to say would prove the identity 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.000 of the real killer if it matches the DNA from 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.840 the scene. Okay, So basically, the trial judge was agreed 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.320 that if the fingernail scrapings came back and matched the 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.480 rape kit, that that would prove Evans claim. Well, it 0:18:58.520 --> 0:18:59.280 did exactly that. 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.480 When I first read what the judge said about if 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.119 the fingernails scripting math, that's said, I'm out of here. 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:09.960 And then when it come back for him to deny me, 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:15.840 that just took me away. I'm like, isn't writing you 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:21.120 say if this come domess that it eliminates me as 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.800 the killer, and then it come back to do just that, 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.840 then't you say, denied, even. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.359 Though he'd explicitly said before that that's what he was 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.800 looking for. But he denied it based on the expert 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.720 testimony from the trial. That same expert testimony that we've 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.320 been talking about that we know was just complete bogus nonsense. 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.600 And so the trial judge said, well, the jury already 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:46.800 knew that the DNA on the rape kit came from 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.600 someone else, and you know, the expert said that could 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.120 have come up to a week beforehand, so it really 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:58.439 doesn't mean anything. So then he appealed. This was in 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:04.800 twenty twelve and the appeal was split three ways. One judge, 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.960 who as now an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, said he'd 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.720 already showed he was actually innocent and should be released, 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.520 and then there was two other opinions basically saying, well, 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.800 we see the DNA results, but there was no expert 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:24.920 testimony contradicting the trial expert testimony. So at this point 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.239 is when the Ohio Innocence Project got involved, and with 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.640 the help of actually one of our former lawyers, Carrie Wood, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.640 who worked at the Public Defender's Office, she got an 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.040 expert involved and then she got in touch with me. 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:42.040 Long story short, we refiled several things in STA court 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.639 and we also filed in federal court. The Coroner's office 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:46.879 in the Prosecutor's office refused to give us all of 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.639 the information we were asking for, like the additional data 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:52.919 on the DNA testing, and they just flat out refused 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.760 to give it to us. So our expert was working 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.520 with what he had available, and he produced an appidavit 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:03.080 that's said several things, one that the Corner's office experts 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.320 who testified at the trial essentially presented false testimony, and 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:11.320 also the additional information about the fact that they found 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.359 male DNA under her fingernails indicated it had to have 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.800 been a struggle because most people don't walk around with 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.199 DNA under their fingernails belonging to someone else. And the 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:21.920 fact that they were able to get a full profile 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.240 off the rape kit all those years later also indicated 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.680 that semen must have been put there at the time 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:31.200 of death, because it wouldn't be that strong that much later. 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.919 So we had three different motions pending in the trial 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.480 court level, but eventually, like a year and a half later, 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.639 the trial judge finally just denied all of those, so 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:42.680 we had to peel it again. 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.040 I mean, it's just insane that you were denied by 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.080 the trial court at this point, considering that you were 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.200 remedying what they claimed was the reasoning behind the earlier denial, 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:53.920 involving the DNA match from the scrapings and the rape kit. 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.639 Now you had done it. You had refuted the trial experts, 0:21:57.640 --> 0:21:59.920 but the trial court went ahead and moved the gold 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.720 hosts again, calling your refuting of the state's false expert 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:09.479 testimony a quote battle of the experts. Of course, you 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.520 appeal this denial, and in January of twenty seventeen, the 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:15.720 appellate court agreed with you, reversing the trial court's denial, 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.840