Speaker 1: On June twenty first, nineteen ninety four, Evan King went
Speaker 1: to the East Cleveland apartment of a new friend, Crystal Hudson,
Speaker 1: her daughter, welcomed to men to await Crystal's return. Soon
Speaker 1: they were joined by Cristel's mother and a friend. Before leaving,
Speaker 1: the elder Hudson told them about a premonition that she
Speaker 1: had about Evan killing her daughter. Little did they all know,
Speaker 1: Cristel's body was already decomposing in the bedroom closet. While
Speaker 1: waiting for Crystal, Evan fell asleep, only to be awoken
Speaker 1: by her daughter's screams. Upon discovering the body, the autopsy
Speaker 1: showed signs of a struggle, rape and strangulation, and a
Speaker 1: rape kit collected a great deal of decomposing sperm. The
Speaker 1: police held Evan on a previous minor infraction while questioning
Speaker 1: him about Crystal's murder. His body and clothing were free
Speaker 1: from any of her blood and any sign that he
Speaker 1: may have been in a struggle. DNA testing also cleared
Speaker 1: him as the source of the sperm. However, in the
Speaker 1: summer heat, the decomposition gave the prosecution an opportunity to
Speaker 1: create uncertainty about whether the sperm had been deposited at
Speaker 1: the time of death. The prosecution presented false testimony to
Speaker 1: circumvent the DNA evidence, claiming that the sperm could have
Speaker 1: been deposited hours or even days before her death, paying
Speaker 1: no mind to the sheer number of sperm which indicated
Speaker 1: a more recent deposit. Nearly two decades later, DNA testing
Speaker 1: on Crystal's fingernail scrapings confirmed that her killer was also
Speaker 1: her rapist. But somehow even that wasn't enough for authorities
Speaker 1: to immediately release Evan King. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. Today we're going to be interviewing
Speaker 1: a man named Evan King who served almost a quarter
Speaker 1: century in prison for a crime that I don't want
Speaker 1: to say a third grader could have solved it, because
Speaker 1: that's not the case. But a third grader would have
Speaker 1: known that this was not the man that committed this crime.
Speaker 1: All the evidence was in plain sight, and his conviction
Speaker 1: was based on a freaking premonition at somebody. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I have to laugh to keep from crying. So with
Speaker 1: us today is the man himself. But before I introduce him,
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce someone who's voice you'll probably recognize
Speaker 1: Jennifer bergeron of the Ohio Innocence Project. Jennifer, welcome back
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2: Thank you Jason for having me back.
Speaker 1: I feel like we could do just multiple seasons and
Speaker 1: just interview you because there's so many terrible cases in Ohio,
Speaker 1: but this case is really something and the man himself
Speaker 1: a survivor not only of almost a quarter century and
Speaker 1: some of the worst prisons in the country, but also
Speaker 1: a cancer survivor. Just a guy that's tough to kill
Speaker 1: and easy to love, a guy named Evan King. Evan,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the insanity that Cuyahoga County dished out,
Speaker 1: and we hear that name again and again on this show.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Evan King as a young man before
Speaker 1: your life was before you were kidnapped by the state.
Speaker 1: Let's call it what it was, right, So what was
Speaker 1: your life like growing up? Where did you grow up?
Speaker 3: I grew up on the East side of Cleveland, starting
Speaker 3: and the projects on fifty fifth.
Speaker 1: Did you have a happy childhood? Your brothers and sisters?
Speaker 3: Yes, nine of us, five boys and four girls.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you had a big family had a whole
Speaker 1: baseball team. And by the time all this swept you
Speaker 1: off your feet, what was your life like?
Speaker 3: Well at the time, it is I had was a
Speaker 3: vallet at the Omni Hotel, and I had ventured into drugs.
Speaker 3: You know, I was messing with drugs and selling a
Speaker 3: little drugs, you know, just quick money, doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: You know, Listen, I believe is that all drugs should
Speaker 1: be legal, and no one should ever go to jail
Speaker 1: for what they put in their own bodies, unless they're
Speaker 1: putting somebody else in harms away. Were you ever involved
Speaker 1: in any violent crime? Nope, I mean so there was
Speaker 1: no reason to suspect that all of a sudden one day,
Speaker 1: you just snapped and committed this. What was really a
Speaker 1: brutal murder which happened in June of nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: involved a victim named Crystal Hudson, and Cristel was someone
Speaker 1: who was known to you, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, she was known to me. I had been friends
Speaker 3: with her for about two.
Speaker 1: Weeks, which brings us to the evening, the faithful evening
Speaker 1: of June twenty first, nineteen ninety four. She was already
Speaker 1: gone at this point, but no one knew that yet,
Speaker 1: except for the actual rapist and murderer. But that very
Speaker 1: night you went to visit Crystal at her high rise
Speaker 1: apartment building, and her daughter met you at the apartment door.
Speaker 1: She invited you in to wait for her mom, so,
Speaker 1: as far as you knew, she was expected home at
Speaker 1: some point. Soon you were joined by Cristel's mother and
Speaker 1: her best friend Jean, and none of you, none of you,
Speaker 1: none of you had any idea that chris So's body
Speaker 1: had already begun decomposing in the bedroom closet down the hall.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is nuts. Can you walk us through
Speaker 1: how this evening unfolded.
Speaker 3: I got to the apartment and her youngest daughter was there,
Speaker 3: and I asked her, was a mama here? She said no,
Speaker 3: I said, well, I wait on her. You know, so
Speaker 3: the youngest daughter when the backing played, I watched TV
Speaker 3: on the couch.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the body is in the apartment. It must
Speaker 1: have been an awful stench.
Speaker 3: I didn't notice on smell.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in the apartment. And then what happens.
Speaker 3: Chrystal's mother lived a couple of floors up, and so
Speaker 3: they were best friend. They came down later on that evening,
Speaker 3: best friend had a couple of forty ounces and we
Speaker 3: sitting at the kitchen table. That's where the mother mentioned
Speaker 3: she had a premonition that I killed her daughter. That's
Speaker 3: exactly what she said. I had a primenive. I was
Speaker 3: like what. And after a while, the mother decides to
Speaker 3: go upstairs and she takes the youngest daughter and left
Speaker 3: me and Jean in the apartment. Now, why would she
Speaker 3: say she had a premonition yet, and still you would
Speaker 3: leave me and Jean in the apartment, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: if you think I killed your daughter, why wouldn't you
Speaker 3: put us out when you left? And even when they
Speaker 3: was there, you know, the mother says something about was
Speaker 3: I cooking or something, because she was talking about she
Speaker 3: smelled something and I say, well, I don't smell nothing,
Speaker 3: and just left it at that, and the mother went
Speaker 3: upstairs with the youngest daughter. Me and Jean sat there
Speaker 3: drinking the forty ouncers. So when Jean left, I sat
Speaker 3: on back on the couch and I nodded off on
Speaker 3: the couch and next thing I know, it's the next morning.
Speaker 3: Both of the young daughters come in and that's when
Speaker 3: I will up and they said they wanted to get
Speaker 3: some closed school. They go to the closet and the
Speaker 3: oldest daughter stars screaming, and I jumped off the couch
Speaker 3: and run back down. Say what is She pointed to
Speaker 3: the close and said, my mother's in the closet. I look,
Speaker 3: I ain't even touched nothing. And I took both girls
Speaker 3: out in the hallway, knocked on the neighbor's door. See it,
Speaker 3: called the police.
Speaker 1: And for our audience, this is a brutal crime. So
Speaker 1: just be aware what you're going to hear is going
Speaker 1: to be, you know, upsetting. And this is where I
Speaker 1: want to bring Jennifer, and Jennifer, can you tell us
Speaker 1: about the crime itself?
Speaker 2: So the crime was quite brutal. Poor Crystal was found
Speaker 2: strangled to death in her own closet, basically naked. And
Speaker 2: this was Cleveland in June, and it was hot and
Speaker 2: it wasn't air conditioned, and she'd been deceased for they
Speaker 2: decided over twenty four hours before she was even discovered.
Speaker 2: And she had been in this high apartment in Cleveland
Speaker 2: this whole time. You know, there's lots of degradation that happens.
Speaker 2: There was evidence from the very beginning that she had
Speaker 2: also been raped at the time of her death. Evan
Speaker 2: happened to be in the apartment unfortunately when she was found,
Speaker 2: and so I think that's why he sort of became
Speaker 2: suspect number one, because he was.
Speaker 3: There and I waited in the hallway with the two daughters.
Speaker 3: Why the police came.
Speaker 1: If you were the actual killer, would you stand there
Speaker 1: and wait for the police to arrive. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: neither dumb nor crazy, and you'd have to be both
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 3: And not only that. When the detectives did come, they
Speaker 3: brought me in, set me at the table and said,
Speaker 3: would I mind asking some questions? I said, no, I
Speaker 3: don't mind.
Speaker 2: The police, so far as I could tell, never did
Speaker 2: any actual investigation. They just decided it was him, in
Speaker 2: part because Crystal's mother told them she had a premonition
Speaker 2: that Evan was going to harm her daughter. Now, somehow
Speaker 2: that premonition even came into court, which still boggles my
Speaker 2: mind as to how that was introduced evidence, But it was.
Speaker 1: I wish this was the only time I had ever
Speaker 1: heard of something like a premonition being committed into court,
Speaker 1: but it's not. Maybe instead of courts, we should all
Speaker 1: just go to psychics, you know what I mean, see
Speaker 1: if they can figure these things out for us. I
Speaker 1: mean it was a combination of laziness. Right, here's a
Speaker 1: guy who was in the apartment, okay, must be him,
Speaker 1: and then oh there's a premonition bingo, right.
Speaker 3: And then they ran a check on me. I had
Speaker 3: a couple of tickets on me of Bench Warren. And
Speaker 3: after they did their little investigation up there, they took
Speaker 3: me home downtown.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you get arrested on these bench warrants
Speaker 1: and then did they hold you from that time right
Speaker 1: up until the trial? When did you find out you
Speaker 1: were being charged with the murder?
Speaker 3: I think it was seventy two hours later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly they did a lot of investigation if they
Speaker 2: arrested in for murder and that short amount of time.
Speaker 3: Once I went to jail, I never got out, and
Speaker 3: the detectives interviewed me a couple of times over them
Speaker 3: seventy two hours. And I'll never forget. The detective asked me,
Speaker 3: but I take a lot of tech tests. I said, sure,
Speaker 3: I take a lot of the text tests. He never
Speaker 3: brought it up again. One other thing that really tripped
Speaker 3: me out was when the guy came and took photographs
Speaker 3: up my body. I'm standing in that neked He had
Speaker 3: me get undressed, right, my man, Luke, he was like,
Speaker 3: turn around, he had his camera in his hand. He
Speaker 3: was put your hands up and you know, looking around.
Speaker 3: He said, you the first guy I never took a
Speaker 3: picture of. If he didn't take one picture, I didn't
Speaker 3: have a scratch on me, no bruises, not I'm a
Speaker 3: life scinned guy. Believe me, I bruised easy. He didn't
Speaker 3: take one picture.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you brought that up, because it's important
Speaker 1: to recognize that miss Hudson didn't leave this world willingly, right.
Speaker 1: She fought there was fingernel scrapings, right, we find out
Speaker 1: later if they knew that, and of course that you know.
Speaker 3: She had scratched her attacker.
Speaker 1: But somehow or other, you didn't have any scratches enough
Speaker 1: to gut even take one freaking picture. So, okay, this
Speaker 1: is how ridiculous this really is. And it's made even
Speaker 1: more so by virtue of the fact that the biological evidence,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of it, right, and none
Speaker 1: of it matched Evan. So how did they square that circle?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not only was there no evidence that Evan actually
Speaker 2: committed the crime unless you count the fact that he
Speaker 2: was in the apartment and the premonition. But there was
Speaker 2: actually evidence at the time of trial that he didn't
Speaker 2: commit the crime. They had completed a rape kit on
Speaker 2: crystal and did some DNA testing on it even back then,
Speaker 2: and there was male DNA present, but it wasn't Ethan,
Speaker 2: So you know, they kind of had to come up
Speaker 2: with a way to explain that away because there was also,
Speaker 2: as I said before, there was physical evidence that she
Speaker 2: had been raped, meaning physical evidence of trauma to her,
Speaker 2: you know, intimate areas that suggested and confirmed that she
Speaker 2: was raped at the time, but they just kind of
Speaker 2: ignored the physical trauma areas. They basically got around this
Speaker 2: evidence by some testimony from some folks from the coroner's
Speaker 2: office from Cuyahoga County that we now know well they
Speaker 2: would have known it at the time, but no one
Speaker 2: paid that close of attention to it. But we know
Speaker 2: for sure now was just completely bogus. The big question
Speaker 2: was when this semen was deposited. Was it deposited at
Speaker 2: the time of death or was it deposited up to
Speaker 2: a week earlier, And of course the state came in
Speaker 2: and said, well, that could have been there for up
Speaker 2: to a week, and so she wasn't raped and murdered.
Speaker 2: The problem was that the folks from the Corner's office,
Speaker 2: especially one, you know, they were focusing on the wrong
Speaker 2: information that was scientifically invalid at the time to even
Speaker 2: look at. They were looking at different fluid levels, but
Speaker 2: they should have been looking at sort of the number
Speaker 2: of sperm and the amount of semen that there was,
Speaker 2: and that's not what they were doing. So they weren't
Speaker 2: even following the appropriate practices at that time, and so
Speaker 2: that allowed them to go forward with the theory that
Speaker 2: she wasn't actually raped and murdered, that she was just murdered,
Speaker 2: even though the evidence clearly showed that she was raped
Speaker 2: and murdered.
Speaker 1: So the notorious Cuyahoga County Carner's office was either unconsciously
Speaker 1: or consciously presenting false testimony, as they've done before, they
Speaker 1: created some wiggle room for the jury to still believe
Speaker 1: in you as the assailant. If that sperm had been
Speaker 1: deposited earlier than the time of death, perhaps she had
Speaker 1: had consensual sex or even been raped, you know, hours
Speaker 1: or even days before she was killed. Making it plausible
Speaker 1: for the jury to believe that the DNA evidence from
Speaker 1: the sperm didn't determine who actually killed her, which would
Speaker 1: have left you as still some sort of potential suspect.
Speaker 1: Then you can see how the jury got fooled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, Unfortunately for Evan, his defense
Speaker 2: counsel didn't effectively cross examine them on this and didn't
Speaker 2: bring in any expert to sort of debunk it. It
Speaker 2: wasn't that, you know, it should have been a battle
Speaker 2: of the experts where one was saying one thing and
Speaker 2: the other was saying the opposite. They were just flat
Speaker 2: out wrong, and nobody called them on it.
Speaker 1: Evan, who was your attorney? Well, were they court appointed?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll never forget that name, roc O Russo.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a name.
Speaker 3: He didn't present no defense from me, because even my
Speaker 3: family when they came to court, they was like, your
Speaker 3: lawyer ain't objecting to nothing. He wouldn't object and he
Speaker 3: was falling asleep cup time. You know, if you fear
Speaker 3: that lawyer is selling you out, you gotta let it
Speaker 3: be known instead of the lawyer telling you, Because uh,
Speaker 3: roc Russa just kept telling me I got it. Just
Speaker 3: sit there I got this and I believed him. I
Speaker 3: sat there and that was the mistake on my behalf.
Speaker 3: But you don't know at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if it seemed like you could see it,
Speaker 1: then you just didn't know it, unfortunately until it was
Speaker 1: too late. But back then, in that moment, did you
Speaker 1: still hold out any hope that the jury was going
Speaker 1: to see through this false testimony and believe their own
Speaker 1: eyes and ears when it came to the actual evidence in.
Speaker 3: This case, Yeah, of course. You know. I was thinking, well,
Speaker 3: I didn't do it, so they ain't getting refine me guilty.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's where my mind was. But you know,
Speaker 3: when you stand up and they come back with a
Speaker 3: verdict of guilty, you know you gotta take it and
Speaker 3: keep your head held up and walk out. That guy
Speaker 3: said what I wanted to say to the judge. I
Speaker 3: definitely told him I'll be back in this courtroom. I'll
Speaker 3: never forget what I told. Judge Corgan.
Speaker 1: What'd you say after.
Speaker 3: He said, mister King, I'm sending you to fifteen years
Speaker 3: of life And he said, do you have anything to say?
Speaker 3: I say, you're sentence and an innocent man to prison.
Speaker 3: While the guilty man walked the streets of Cleveland. Free
Speaker 3: pointed to him and I said, one day I'll be
Speaker 3: back in this courtroom for you to set me free.
Speaker 3: I have to, I said that. I turned and I
Speaker 3: walked out. My head held him. Any prison is bad
Speaker 3: because basically you're on guard twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't know when somebody flip out, They
Speaker 3: flip off for the minus things. Somebody might not be
Speaker 3: able to get on the phone and bush in your
Speaker 3: head or cut your head. I mean, it's it's it's
Speaker 3: crazy on guard twenty four hours a day, basically, you know.
Speaker 3: But either you can stay in prison and keep back
Speaker 3: in a food in prison and be de the rest
Speaker 3: of your life, or you got to learn some things
Speaker 3: or get some help. I couldn't adapt good to the
Speaker 3: books as far as Gates lawing, so I had to
Speaker 3: start writing letters, seeing who can give me some help.
Speaker 3: I was lucky enough to get in touch with MS Burst,
Speaker 3: Run Out Ohio, Innocent Project, God Bliss.
Speaker 1: So you ended up finally in the hands of people
Speaker 1: who cared a lot and were talented lawyers, and they
Speaker 1: weren't going to let go. But one after another of
Speaker 1: these courts denied you and it was not that long
Speaker 1: ago that justice was finally delayed but not denied. So
Speaker 1: Jennifer take us through these denials.
Speaker 2: So Evan was represented by different attorneys for a while,
Speaker 2: and back in two thousand and four I think actually
Speaker 2: he filed a first motion for DNA testing and it
Speaker 2: took a long time, but in two eight he asked
Speaker 2: for DNA testing on the fingernail scrapings because, as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: we know that Crystal Hudson fought back at the time
Speaker 2: of her death, and so his theory was, well, if
Speaker 2: we test these fingernail scrapings and you find male DNA
Speaker 2: and it's the same as the DNA from the semen,
Speaker 2: then that's going to confirm what Evan's been saying since
Speaker 2: day one, which is that he was not the murderer,
Speaker 2: and that the person who loved the Semen was actually
Speaker 2: Racher and was the murderer. So Evan had filed for
Speaker 2: DNA testing and the trial judge had ordered it, saying,
Speaker 2: I think I can quote him here, DNA belonging to
Speaker 2: an unknown party found under the fingernails of the victim,
Speaker 2: and then went on to say would prove the identity
Speaker 2: of the real killer if it matches the DNA from
Speaker 2: the scene. Okay, So basically, the trial judge was agreed
Speaker 2: that if the fingernail scrapings came back and matched the
Speaker 2: rape kit, that that would prove Evans claim. Well, it
Speaker 2: did exactly that.
Speaker 3: When I first read what the judge said about if
Speaker 3: the fingernails scripting math, that's said, I'm out of here.
Speaker 3: And then when it come back for him to deny me,
Speaker 3: that just took me away. I'm like, isn't writing you
Speaker 3: say if this come domess that it eliminates me as
Speaker 3: the killer, and then it come back to do just that,
Speaker 3: then't you say, denied, even.
Speaker 2: Though he'd explicitly said before that that's what he was
Speaker 2: looking for. But he denied it based on the expert
Speaker 2: testimony from the trial. That same expert testimony that we've
Speaker 2: been talking about that we know was just complete bogus nonsense.
Speaker 2: And so the trial judge said, well, the jury already
Speaker 2: knew that the DNA on the rape kit came from
Speaker 2: someone else, and you know, the expert said that could
Speaker 2: have come up to a week beforehand, so it really
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything. So then he appealed. This was in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve and the appeal was split three ways. One judge,
Speaker 2: who as now an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, said he'd
Speaker 2: already showed he was actually innocent and should be released,
Speaker 2: and then there was two other opinions basically saying, well,
Speaker 2: we see the DNA results, but there was no expert
Speaker 2: testimony contradicting the trial expert testimony. So at this point
Speaker 2: is when the Ohio Innocence Project got involved, and with
Speaker 2: the help of actually one of our former lawyers, Carrie Wood,
Speaker 2: who worked at the Public Defender's Office, she got an
Speaker 2: expert involved and then she got in touch with me.
Speaker 2: Long story short, we refiled several things in STA court
Speaker 2: and we also filed in federal court. The Coroner's office
Speaker 2: in the Prosecutor's office refused to give us all of
Speaker 2: the information we were asking for, like the additional data
Speaker 2: on the DNA testing, and they just flat out refused
Speaker 2: to give it to us. So our expert was working
Speaker 2: with what he had available, and he produced an appidavit
Speaker 2: that's said several things, one that the Corner's office experts
Speaker 2: who testified at the trial essentially presented false testimony, and
Speaker 2: also the additional information about the fact that they found
Speaker 2: male DNA under her fingernails indicated it had to have
Speaker 2: been a struggle because most people don't walk around with
Speaker 2: DNA under their fingernails belonging to someone else. And the
Speaker 2: fact that they were able to get a full profile
Speaker 2: off the rape kit all those years later also indicated
Speaker 2: that semen must have been put there at the time
Speaker 2: of death, because it wouldn't be that strong that much later.
Speaker 2: So we had three different motions pending in the trial
Speaker 2: court level, but eventually, like a year and a half later,
Speaker 2: the trial judge finally just denied all of those, so
Speaker 2: we had to peel it again.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just insane that you were denied by
Speaker 1: the trial court at this point, considering that you were
Speaker 1: remedying what they claimed was the reasoning behind the earlier denial,
Speaker 1: involving the DNA match from the scrapings and the rape kit.
Speaker 1: Now you had done it. You had refuted the trial experts,
Speaker 1: but the trial court went ahead and moved the gold
Speaker 1: hosts again, calling your refuting of the state's false expert
Speaker 1: testimony a quote battle of the experts. Of course, you
Speaker 1: appeal this denial, and in January of twenty seventeen, the
Speaker 1: appellate court agreed with you, reversing the trial court's denial,
Speaker 1: granting you access to the DNA test results, which they
Speaker 1: had previously been blocking. They granted an upload to codis
Speaker 1: to see if you could get a match to another
Speaker 1: known perp, and so far there's no dice with that.
Speaker 1: But significantly, you've got an evidentiary hearing out of this,
Speaker 1: so you all start prepping for what you thought was
Speaker 1: going to be.
Speaker 3: An epic battle.
Speaker 1: Your expert now had access to those DNA results, so
Speaker 1: he could go beyond what he'd already done in the
Speaker 1: APPI David, and in twenty seventeen, something truly unexpected happened.
Speaker 2: Just completely out of the blue. One day in April,
Speaker 2: I was in a meeting and that got done, and
Speaker 2: I had like multiple voicemails and emails and things from
Speaker 2: one of the people from the prosecutor's office. I called
Speaker 2: her back and she told me that they had reviewed
Speaker 2: the case and talked to the corner's office again and
Speaker 2: had concluded essentially that we were right and that our
Speaker 2: expert was right, and that they were agreeing that they
Speaker 2: would release Evan. And I think I fell out of
Speaker 2: my chair about when that phone, when I had that
Speaker 2: conversation because it was so unexpected given how they had
Speaker 2: been fighting everything up until that point. But of course
Speaker 2: the first thing I needed to do was to get
Speaker 2: a hold of Evan to tell him the news.
Speaker 3: Right so that.
Speaker 2: Means that means I think it's not going to get
Speaker 2: filed till Monday. But I think that means you should
Speaker 2: hopefully be able to be going home soon.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: Hit me.
Speaker 2: The moment to process this, I wanted. I wanted you
Speaker 2: to know it right away.
Speaker 3: I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew that the day have come one day because.
Speaker 2: I knew.
Speaker 3: I cried too, because the child.
Speaker 1: My mother told me to no one.
Speaker 5: But you know, you.
Speaker 3: Know my thankful show. I know she's looking down at me.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure she is.
Speaker 3: And like all we told you, I.
Speaker 5: Had complete faith in you.
Speaker 2: You know, thank you.
Speaker 3: M After she he told me I had, I just
Speaker 3: laid the phone down and my mind just tears came out.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm turning up now, tears just.
Speaker 4: Because that the only thing that I really think about
Speaker 4: it is mom.
Speaker 3: My Mama and my aunt. Because my Mama always told
Speaker 3: me the Lord gonna let you out one day. He
Speaker 3: just wants you to get your life together. And I
Speaker 3: held on to that.
Speaker 5: H yeah, when she told me that, there was a
Speaker 5: lot of tears that day, but uh, it's the day
Speaker 5: age that I'll never forget.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had the call on Friday, and then it
Speaker 2: was getting ready to be Easter weekend. So yeah, as
Speaker 2: your listeners probably know by now, when someone is released
Speaker 2: from prison after they've been wrongfully convicted, it's obviously amazing,
Speaker 2: but it's not like they're sin home with anything to
Speaker 2: help them readjust to life. So you know, we had
Speaker 2: to go into sort of high gear in our office
Speaker 2: trying to make sure Evan had somewhere to go, and
Speaker 2: he did with his cousin, who was fantastic. But I
Speaker 2: was on the phone most of the weekend trying to
Speaker 2: make sure all of that was said, and then wait
Speaker 2: for them to transfer back to the county jail, and
Speaker 2: then I was able to visit him there the night
Speaker 2: before we went back to court, which was amazing. And
Speaker 2: then finally we went back to court, but then it
Speaker 2: took hours and hours for them to process him back out,
Speaker 2: and then in the meantime, even after we knew he
Speaker 2: was coming home, it still wasn't a relaxing experience, because
Speaker 2: even just simple things like he needed access to medication
Speaker 2: that he took daily, and they weren't letting him come
Speaker 2: home with any And I spent the day trying to
Speaker 2: track down the doctor who ran the jail to make
Speaker 2: sure they would at least release him with a prescription
Speaker 2: so that we could make sure he didn't miss any
Speaker 2: of the doses of the medication that he needed.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't even give me the medication I had.
Speaker 2: That they gave you and let you take it out.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, which makes absolutely zero sense on any level. Right,
Speaker 1: It's just some bureaucratic insanity on top of all the
Speaker 1: other insanity. But luckily you had this great team behind
Speaker 1: you and good family, and so you walk out into
Speaker 1: the fresh air. What was that moment like? And where
Speaker 1: did you go? Did you did you go straight to
Speaker 1: a restaurant or a bar, or did you hug a tree?
Speaker 3: Or what did you do when once we got outside?
Speaker 3: You know, just the air is different on this side
Speaker 3: of the fence. It's like you can breathe again, you know.
Speaker 3: To Media's God's gift.
Speaker 1: I hear you, I mean we hear it in different
Speaker 1: ways from every different person who's been through what you've
Speaker 1: been through, different variations of it. It's it's beautiful. I
Speaker 1: even sad, but it's beautiful. So we're just happy you're
Speaker 1: home and you're free, and we wish you, you know,
Speaker 1: every blessing that life has to offer going forward. You
Speaker 1: certainly deserve it, and I want to before we go
Speaker 1: to the closing of the show. First of all, I
Speaker 1: want to encourage people to support the Ohio Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: and we will put a link in the bio for
Speaker 1: people who want to donate or get involved in any
Speaker 1: way they can. You were the twenty fifth person exonerated
Speaker 1: by the Ohio Innocence Project. It's a remarkable number, but
Speaker 1: still it's a tiny number in terms of the overall
Speaker 1: innocent people that remain behind bars. But we're happy you're here.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to turn to the closing of
Speaker 1: our show, which we call Closing Arguments.
Speaker 3: It works like this.
Speaker 1: I thank you both again, Jennifer. You know you inspire
Speaker 1: me and so many other people by your remarkable advocacy,
Speaker 1: and it's always great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: And obviously I'm working closely with the Highly Innisance Project
Speaker 1: on other cases John Jones and others, and I know
Speaker 1: we're going to win those two. It just takes longer
Speaker 1: than we want it to, like it always does, but
Speaker 1: closing arguments works like this. I'm going to finally stop talking.
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn my microphone off. Thank you again,
Speaker 1: Evan King, Jennifer Bergron for being here with us closing arguments.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just turn my microphone off and let
Speaker 1: you say anything else that's left unsaid that you want
Speaker 1: to share with our audience. Evan, we're going to save you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the man of the hour, so you're
Speaker 1: going to be the last one to speak, if that's okay,
Speaker 1: and we'll let Jennifer share her thoughts and then hand
Speaker 1: the mic off to you and then take us out
Speaker 1: into the sunset.
Speaker 2: Albright, Well, first of all, I wanted to say thank
Speaker 2: you for having me back on. I'm kind of sad
Speaker 2: that I'm here because it means that there's more clients
Speaker 2: whose cases we can discuss. But I'm so grateful for
Speaker 2: the light that you're bringing to cases all over the country.
Speaker 2: There are stories that deserve to be told. Also, if
Speaker 2: I may, would like to put in a plug for
Speaker 2: two of my current clients, Carl Willis and Wayne Brady,
Speaker 2: are their's website setup freewayneancarl dot com or that you
Speaker 2: can go read more information and find all kinds of information.
Speaker 2: And then of course I wanted to say thank you
Speaker 2: to Evin for being here with me and you've always
Speaker 2: inspired me to keep going. And anytime I'm down and
Speaker 2: need a pick me up, I like to watch the
Speaker 2: video of you woo who who ing after you're coming
Speaker 2: out of the court when you were released, because it's
Speaker 2: just a feeling of pure joy that gives me a
Speaker 2: smile every time.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. Uh. First of all, the Ohio
Speaker 3: Innocent Project was the Gods and to me, they're family
Speaker 3: to me. For those of you out there listening, look
Speaker 3: up to Ohio Innocent Project. Some of you have people
Speaker 3: in love, ones that you know are innocent, need to
Speaker 3: be free. You don't know where to start, Just give
Speaker 3: them a call and as always, stay in your try
Speaker 3: to stay trouble free. But the Lord has your back.
Speaker 3: Just keep your faith and continue to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: But one thing I would like to say came out
Speaker 3: good out of this. I haven't messed with the drug
Speaker 3: cocaine in almost thirty years now. I've been clean for
Speaker 3: almost thirty years now. People who always talk about you
Speaker 3: can't stop drugs overnight, Oh yes you can when the
Speaker 3: right thing happened to you. You can stop anything, but
Speaker 3: that all happens in God's blessings. So with that, thank
Speaker 3: you for having me here on your podcast, as I
Speaker 3: bid you farewell, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, Thank you for listening to Rafel Conviction. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and
Speaker 1: Kevin War with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in
Speaker 1: this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: On all three platforms. You can also follow me on
Speaker 1: both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one