Speaker 1: Hi, Maggie. How you holding up in these crazy It
Speaker 1: seems like things getting crazier every day. Yes, So I'm
Speaker 1: feeling really inspired today, actually, despite all of the horrible
Speaker 1: things in the news, because of these people that go
Speaker 1: to prison and get activated and inspired to change for others.
Speaker 1: These are people who've been through how and come out
Speaker 1: carrying buckets of water for the people that left behind. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't blame people who get out and
Speaker 1: say I want to forget all of it and live
Speaker 1: a normal life, whatever that might be for them. But
Speaker 1: I really do think that change comes from those who
Speaker 1: have experienced what happened and know what goes on. And
Speaker 1: I think that's so incredible and beautiful and inspiring. If
Speaker 1: you're innocent and you're fighting, don't start five. We understand you,
Speaker 1: We hear you. We're going to wreck this system from
Speaker 1: LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today.
Speaker 1: Ken Nixon. On May nineteen, two, five, nineteen year old
Speaker 1: Ken Nixon was having a relaxing evening at home in
Speaker 1: Detroit with his girlfriend, LaToya and their baby son. The
Speaker 1: night slipped away as normally as it could for the
Speaker 1: new parents until the early hours of the morning, when
Speaker 1: suddenly the police busted in. About three blocks away. That
Speaker 1: same night, someone had thrown a molotov cocktail at a
Speaker 1: second floor window of a home, killing two children. The
Speaker 1: other people in the building were able to escape, and
Speaker 1: one of them said the person he saw through the
Speaker 1: homemade bomb was Ken. But Ken and LaToya both say
Speaker 1: they were home at her house. Both her aunt and
Speaker 1: her neighbor say Ken never left the house that night,
Speaker 1: but regardless, Ken wound up being tried for arson and
Speaker 1: for the murders of both children. I was thinking that
Speaker 1: they're going to figure this out. I was thinking logic
Speaker 1: was going to make its way to the surface. I
Speaker 1: was thinking that the system was going to work the
Speaker 1: way that it was supposed to. Never did I imagine
Speaker 1: that the end result would be a guilty verdict. My
Speaker 1: name is Kenneth Nixon. I spent sixteen years in cars
Speaker 1: rated for a crime that I did not commit. Ken
Speaker 1: Nixon was born in Lincoln Park, Michigan, into Tracy Nixon
Speaker 1: and Kenneth Palmer. Ken didn't know his biological dad growing
Speaker 1: up and was raised by his mom and stepdad. He's
Speaker 1: the oldest of four kids. Family was really close. I
Speaker 1: have cousins that were more like siblings than they were
Speaker 1: actual cousins. And I had a pretty fun childhood UM
Speaker 1: middle class upbringing, magnus schools. I always enjoyed school sports,
Speaker 1: playing up growing up was you know something that I enjoyed.
Speaker 1: The one neighborhood wasn't bad, not much violence, not in
Speaker 1: a horrible area. We went to school as a group.
Speaker 1: We met on the corner. Everybody met at the same time.
Speaker 1: It was somebody's parents responsibility to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: made it to the corner. There were checkpoints that when
Speaker 1: we passed, somebody's parents reported to the other parents. It
Speaker 1: was a community where every when watched out for each other.
Speaker 1: And Ken appreciated that he had a fun childhood. But
Speaker 1: growing up Ken was also academically driven and had higher ambitions.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be the first in my family
Speaker 1: to graduate college. UM. I learned very early on that
Speaker 1: not many of my family members on either side had
Speaker 1: actually graduated, and I wanted to be the first to
Speaker 1: do so. Ken wanted to be an entrepreneur, and his mom,
Speaker 1: Tracy says Ken absolutely could have achieved that dream. Kim
Speaker 1: was smarter than the average kid in the neighborhood. Um.
Speaker 1: The older kids looked up to him. They respected him
Speaker 1: because his mental was beyond there's um. He he flourished
Speaker 1: in everything. You know. I at two I started calling
Speaker 1: him the golden child. Ken was smart and also incredibly responsible.
Speaker 1: And I was that mother that will put a candle
Speaker 1: in every room of the house, and time to go
Speaker 1: to bed, he will blow him out. So I would
Speaker 1: wake up, blow out my candles? Why my candles not burning?
Speaker 1: And he would say, well, my that's hot. If it
Speaker 1: breaks and catch on fire, damn what. By ninth grade,
Speaker 1: Ken was also doing typical teenage things like dating, and
Speaker 1: he fell in love with his friend from elementary school,
Speaker 1: LaToya Colford. LaToya and Ken were dating for a few
Speaker 1: years when she got pregnant, so after the eleventh grade,
Speaker 1: Kennt dropped out of school to help LaToya. Just nine
Speaker 1: days after Ken turned eighteen, the high school sweethearts had
Speaker 1: their son. They named him Keion. Kennett was under pressure
Speaker 1: to take care of his family, so he helped start
Speaker 1: a business, a towing company. On May nineteenth, two thousand five,
Speaker 1: just three months after his business was up and running,
Speaker 1: Ken was having a relaxing night home with LaToya and
Speaker 1: they're now one year old. Son. My son was on
Speaker 1: my chest. We were in the bedroom and you know,
Speaker 1: I hear the door smash in, and you know it's quick.
Speaker 1: Seconds before you can react. The bedroom door comes swinging open,
Speaker 1: and the very first thing you see as a flashlight
Speaker 1: in the shotgun, and instinctively I reached to shield him.
Speaker 1: And as I reached to shield him, the first officer yells, baby, baby, baby.
Speaker 1: Another officer grabs Keion off of Ken, and the next
Speaker 1: thing Ken knows, he's being thrown onto the ground, handcuffed,
Speaker 1: and Kean is screaming. The most memorable moment of that
Speaker 1: night is my son screaming like that that will that
Speaker 1: come help me, scream that only a kid can give you.
Speaker 1: And to be powerless in that moment as all of
Speaker 1: these cops are here. I mean there's there's moments where
Speaker 1: I still hear him screaming in my head. That's something
Speaker 1: you never forget, that powerless moment where your kid is
Speaker 1: screaming for your assistance and there's nothing you can do
Speaker 1: about it. Absolutely not. So when you get picked up,
Speaker 1: they're saying what to you? They actually didn't say anything. Instead,
Speaker 1: they raided the house and arrested both Ken and LaToya.
Speaker 1: The two of them were immediately separated. I get to
Speaker 1: the precinct and these two detectives come in and they
Speaker 1: say you're being accused of a murder. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: yeah right, you can't be serious. And you know, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, murdering somebody got shot, you know, drive by
Speaker 1: or something. The moment the guy says fire like, yeah right,
Speaker 1: you can't be serious. Nuts, And I was arrested and
Speaker 1: worked into the county jail. What Ken didn't know was
Speaker 1: at the same time he was home with LaToya and Kean,
Speaker 1: a crime took place about three blocks away. Someone threw
Speaker 1: a molotov cocktail into the second floor window of a home.
Speaker 1: Two children were killed, ten year old Rayland Vaughan and
Speaker 1: his baby sister to Maya. The other people in the
Speaker 1: building were able to escape, and the police were accusing
Speaker 1: both Ken and LaToya of these murders. Did you even
Speaker 1: know how to make a Molotov cocktail? I did not
Speaker 1: even know what the mona molotov cocktail was. Still can't
Speaker 1: even say it. Yeah, My trial attorney literally spent forty
Speaker 1: five minutes trying to explain to me what a Molotov
Speaker 1: cocktail was. Turns out the police had an alleged witness,
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Brandon Vaughan, the brother of the two
Speaker 1: children who were old. Brandon told police he saw Ken
Speaker 1: throw the Molotov cocktail through the window and that he
Speaker 1: thought Ken might have done it out of anger at
Speaker 1: his mother's boyfriend, Enrico Simmons. Brandon said that Ken had
Speaker 1: it out for Ronrico because of a fling he had
Speaker 1: with LaToya while she and Ken were dating. According to Brandon,
Speaker 1: he was on his porch that night and saw Ken
Speaker 1: get out of a green Plymouth neon, throw the bomb
Speaker 1: into the house, get back into the passenger seat, and
Speaker 1: speed off, and he said that the car belonged to LaToya.
Speaker 1: Ken and LaToya were both charged with two counts of murder,
Speaker 1: four counts of attempted murder, and one count of arson.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, you know, when you
Speaker 1: find out that Ken is arrested for a horrible murder
Speaker 1: of two children, what was that like for you? The
Speaker 1: all saying your world turns black? I experience iss it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see, I couldn't boss, I couldn't talk, and
Speaker 1: then I started making phone calls asking questions, what's going on?
Speaker 1: You know, what's the truth in this? And did two
Speaker 1: I think there was any possibility Ken could have done
Speaker 1: something like us, Absolutely not. He looks that kid that
Speaker 1: wouldn't let me burn a candle for twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: so I knew Molotov cocktail. No way. This episode is
Speaker 1: underwritten by a i G, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: A i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and
Speaker 1: to making a positive difference in the lives of its
Speaker 1: employees and in the communities where we work and live.
Speaker 1: In light of the compelling need for pro no legal assistance,
Speaker 1: and in recognition of a i g's commitment to criminal
Speaker 1: and social justice reform, the a i G Pro Bono
Speaker 1: Program provides free legal services and other support underrepresented communities
Speaker 1: and individuals. On September fifteen, two thousand five, Ken and
Speaker 1: LaToya went to trial. They were tried together, but they
Speaker 1: each had separate juries. The prosecutor was Assistant prosecuting Attorney
Speaker 1: Patrick Muscat. Mustcat called an expert from the state crime
Speaker 1: lab who had tested Ken's clothes the night he was
Speaker 1: arrested after the police had taken them as evidence. The
Speaker 1: expert testified that Ken's clothes had an accelerant on them.
Speaker 1: A man named Stanley January Jr. Testified that Ken confessed
Speaker 1: to him while they were in the Wayne County jail together,
Speaker 1: and that Ken told him he didn't think the children
Speaker 1: were home. Muscat also called the alleged witness to the crime,
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Brandon Vaughan. He was one of the
Speaker 1: survivors of the fire that night and the older brother
Speaker 1: of the victims. Brandon was also the one who pointed
Speaker 1: police to Ken and LaToya in the first place. At trial,
Speaker 1: Brandon said he saw Ken get into the passenger side
Speaker 1: of Latoya's car, but he altered his testimony a bit
Speaker 1: from what he originally told police. He said that he
Speaker 1: actually wasn't on the porch when he saw Ken get
Speaker 1: out of the car. He was in his bed. The
Speaker 1: only evidence of the state actually had against Ken was
Speaker 1: this altered witness testimony and the alleged accelerant covered clothes.
Speaker 1: Ken and Latoya's defense was weak, though their attorneys called
Speaker 1: just four witnesses to the stand, two of whom were
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses, and they did not present any evidence to
Speaker 1: refute the state crime lab They did not point out
Speaker 1: that Ken had worked at the towing company earlier that night,
Speaker 1: and that since trucks typically carry gasoline, it's likely that
Speaker 1: I could have had some sort of accelerant on him
Speaker 1: from that. LaToya ended up being acquitted of all charges,
Speaker 1: But as for Ken, his jury found him guilty and
Speaker 1: he was convicted of one count of arson, four counts
Speaker 1: of attempted murder, and two counts of murder. He was
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison without parole. When Ken got
Speaker 1: to prison, he got right to work. He's a natural achiever,
Speaker 1: and says he finished getting his g e d Within
Speaker 1: six weeks of his conviction, and he appealed his conviction
Speaker 1: right away. But in two thousand seven he was denied.
Speaker 1: He was denied again in two thousand and ten, and
Speaker 1: then again and again. Did you do any crying in prison?
Speaker 1: Almost certainly. Losses are heard, you know, the course systems heard.
Speaker 1: I absolutely cried a few times, all the while his
Speaker 1: tracy was paying for the attorneys and expenses for Kent's appeals.
Speaker 1: It's hard to continue to say, hey, I need grant, right,
Speaker 1: that's somebody's life savings. Where where are you getting this money?
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money. Granted, mostly I worked, I
Speaker 1: had parties. You know, we we did what we had
Speaker 1: to do it with so full we had t shirts made,
Speaker 1: we sold shirts, and on a monthly basis, the money
Speaker 1: was there, but they kept losing. Eventually Tracy had to wonder.
Speaker 1: It took me a long time to ask him, you know,
Speaker 1: because I did as a mother. I asked, come on, now, Jelly,
Speaker 1: something did you And he said absolutely not? And I
Speaker 1: knew in my heart didn't. And you know, she'd sacrifice
Speaker 1: so much to continue paying lawyers and private investigators, and
Speaker 1: result was repeatedly the same. No matter how much money
Speaker 1: we spent. I WoT how much time we spent, we
Speaker 1: were still losing. And when that question came, I felt
Speaker 1: like her faith was waivery, But it wasn't. Tracy pushed
Speaker 1: on with her son to fight for his freedom. I
Speaker 1: know my son was famous. I know my good my
Speaker 1: soul me knowing him right, it was innocent. So I
Speaker 1: guess listeners might be wondering, how do you have the
Speaker 1: same case and one person gets off and one person
Speaker 1: gets convicted. Well that's the ten million dollar question, isn't it.
Speaker 1: This is David Williams. He's a staff attorney at the
Speaker 1: Western Michigan University Coolly Innocence Project. David and the w
Speaker 1: MU Cooley Innocence Project came across Ken's case back in
Speaker 1: and they saw several factors that pointed to it's his innocence.
Speaker 1: The two biggest factors was the use of jail house
Speaker 1: snitch and also the testimony of the star witness, Brendan Vaughan,
Speaker 1: who we knew to be unreliable because he told a
Speaker 1: different story about four different times. They started from the beginning,
Speaker 1: they gathered all the available evidence, and while reviewing it,
Speaker 1: they stumbled on something new. David says, the uncovered memos
Speaker 1: that had not previously been disclosed to Ken's defense. So, um,
Speaker 1: we actually had memos that we found during the course
Speaker 1: of our investigation from the police and the prosecutors, and
Speaker 1: they're saying, you know, this witness, this kid, Brandon, he's
Speaker 1: very inconsistent. We've got to get something, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this jail house nitche materializes just overnight. David
Speaker 1: believes that this suggests the prosecution was worried they wouldn't
Speaker 1: get a conviction on Brandon's test money alone, and so
Speaker 1: the prosecution called Stanley January Junior to testify. A memo
Speaker 1: dated August third, two thousand five, requested that the detectives
Speaker 1: speak with Ken's cellmates to see if Ken said anything
Speaker 1: to them. By the end of the month, Detective Moyse's
Speaker 1: Jimenez said he spoke with January, who allegedly said Nixon
Speaker 1: confessed to him. Shortly after that, January signed his plea agreement. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Ken's team spoke with January, who admitted he had actually
Speaker 1: seen the case on TV before he spoke with Ken.
Speaker 1: Another prisoner had also previously reported that January admitted to
Speaker 1: him that he made up a lie hoping to make
Speaker 1: a deal with the prosecutor to get his own case dropped.
Speaker 1: David and the w MU Cooley Innocence Project worked on
Speaker 1: Ken's case for two years before they submitted it to
Speaker 1: the Conviction Integrity Unit or CiU. While pending, the CiU
Speaker 1: completed a review of another case which they deemed was
Speaker 1: indeed a wrongful conviction. Alexander Unsari, who had been in
Speaker 1: prison since twelve had his conviction vacated and guess what
Speaker 1: the common denominator with Ken. Detective Moise's Jimenez was also
Speaker 1: a detective in unsorious case. So Detective Himenez is currently
Speaker 1: being accused of holding up a couple of investigations and
Speaker 1: has something to deal with cartel Um. There has been
Speaker 1: prior misconduct from Jimenez before Um, and I think at
Speaker 1: this point it's pretty easy to say that Detroit doesn't
Speaker 1: consider him a reliable witness anymore. And it wasn't just Jimenez.
Speaker 1: Many of the players involved in Ken's conviction have a
Speaker 1: history of misconduct. Prosecuting Attorney Muscat, for example, prosecuted Davante Sandford,
Speaker 1: who was a child when he was convicted. Sandford has
Speaker 1: since been exonerated. Must Get also prosecuted Felonious Searcy for
Speaker 1: murder in two thousand four, which resulted in a life
Speaker 1: without parole sentence. Seriously is currently awaiting a new trial
Speaker 1: due to Muscat's alleged role in hiding evidence from the jury.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant James Tolbert was also involved in the Davante Sanford
Speaker 1: case and had been placed on the Wayne County Prosecutor's
Speaker 1: list of untrustworthy police officers. A specialist to try and
Speaker 1: curb wrongful convictions in Detroit and surrounding cities in Wayne County. Finally,
Speaker 1: after months of review, the CiU ruled in Ken's case,
Speaker 1: and of February, his conviction was vacated. After sixteen years,
Speaker 1: Ken Nixon walked out of prison and was reunited with
Speaker 1: his family, friends and supporters. It's like people just rushing
Speaker 1: to the car and you know, familiar faces, some unfamiliar faces.
Speaker 1: But my son was, you know, he's a little ways back.
Speaker 1: So he caught the glimpse of me comming and he
Speaker 1: just like football, hold on, and he just hailed all
Speaker 1: and we just rocked back and forth for a minute.
Speaker 1: And that's when reality said. Yeah. Soon after Ken got out,
Speaker 1: I caught up with him in his home. He was
Speaker 1: with his then girlfriend Wendy, and he was having a
Speaker 1: little trouble getting the hang of his cell phone. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the world of technology issues. Yeah, I know. So
Speaker 1: how's it going so okay? What have you eaten so far? Everything? Everything?
Speaker 1: He said, he wanted a real burger, okay, that's fair.
Speaker 1: When Ken got out, the first thing he did was
Speaker 1: catch up on his eighteen year old son, Kian's life.
Speaker 1: They had maintained a relationship throughout his time in prison,
Speaker 1: but now he could be a hands on dad. I
Speaker 1: was home in time to see his senior year of ball. UM.
Speaker 1: He is a standout football star. He just accepted a
Speaker 1: full right scholarship to Morgan State University to play football.
Speaker 1: He is a straight a m B kid and nothing.
Speaker 1: I've never seen nothing less than a three point eight
Speaker 1: with him. I'll get to see him off for college.
Speaker 1: I'll get to annoy the hell out of him while
Speaker 1: he's at college. UM. I amazing, amazing time when my
Speaker 1: generation game. Now that he's out, Ken is actually a
Speaker 1: full time dad to two boys because while in prison,
Speaker 1: Ken found out he has another son, Omar, who was
Speaker 1: born a couple of years before Keion. They also built
Speaker 1: a relationship while Ken was in prison and I stayed
Speaker 1: in touch. Omar is now nineteen years old. In addition
Speaker 1: to fortifying his relationships, Ken is now also focused on
Speaker 1: advocacy work. When I came home, I didn't like the
Speaker 1: fact that the people around us that have never been
Speaker 1: through what we've been through, we're dictating how we moved.
Speaker 1: It's the lawyers that are telling you which financial advisors
Speaker 1: to go to. It's the lawyers that are helping you
Speaker 1: get health care. It's the lawyers that are suggesting which
Speaker 1: therapists you talked to that are telling you what's okay
Speaker 1: and what's not okay. That bothers me because you've never
Speaker 1: been where I've been. You've never seen what I've seen,
Speaker 1: so it makes you feel like you're qualified to tell
Speaker 1: me what's acceptable and what's not. That was a struggle
Speaker 1: for me to accept. So I laid the foundation, I
Speaker 1: poured some concrete, and now we stand. Ken is a
Speaker 1: founding member of the Organization of AX Honorees, a nonprofit
Speaker 1: whose membership, including its board, consists entire really of as
Speaker 1: we work to bring awareness to wrongful convictions. There are
Speaker 1: I think the latest number that I've seen is three
Speaker 1: thousand axonaries in this country, and those are just the
Speaker 1: ones we know about. We work to do the best
Speaker 1: we can with re entry and making sure that people
Speaker 1: have what they need. We work to be each other
Speaker 1: peer counselors. We work to make sure that if there's
Speaker 1: an innocent person in prison, if they don't have any supporters,
Speaker 1: we are their supporters. You know. We fly in, we
Speaker 1: go to court hearings, we go to parole hearings, we
Speaker 1: go to meetings with prosecutors, We go to meetings with
Speaker 1: people that don't technically understand what the wrongful conviction is.
Speaker 1: We deal with bank accounts, we deal with driver's license
Speaker 1: I das, housing, healthcare, financial advisors. We deal with us.
Speaker 1: Our decisions are our own, and the goal of the
Speaker 1: purpose our existence is based around us taking care of us.
Speaker 1: I asked Ken what he would tell other innocent people
Speaker 1: going through the same thing that he did. If you're
Speaker 1: innocent and you're fighting, don't stop fighting. No, m no,
Speaker 1: that we're doing everything. We can't change the system. We
Speaker 1: understand you, We hear you. We're gonna rack this system.
Speaker 1: In January of this year, Kenna filed a claim against
Speaker 1: the state of Michigan for compensation for his wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to help support the work of the
Speaker 1: Organization of Asnorees, go to fundly dot com slash ororganization
Speaker 1: dash of dash exonorees next time on Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling, Karen bows I fell form Ryan and my
Speaker 1: song and he said the house was on fire. Nicolas
Speaker 1: rob and that's the biggest thing. No, but it could
Speaker 1: locate YEA thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling Please support your local innocence organizations and go
Speaker 1: to the links in our bio to see how you
Speaker 1: can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
Speaker 1: Flam and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul, with
Speaker 1: additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music
Speaker 1: in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composed
Speaker 1: user Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one