Speaker 1: Hi, Maggie.
Speaker 2: How you holding up in these crazy It seems like
Speaker 2: things getting crazier every day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm.
Speaker 4: Feeling really inspired today actually, despite all of the horrible
Speaker 4: things in the news, because of these people that go
Speaker 4: to prison and get activated and inspired to change for others.
Speaker 2: Yeah. These are people who've been through hell and come
Speaker 2: out carrying buckets of water for the people that they're
Speaker 2: left behind.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't blame people who get out and
Speaker 5: say I want to forget all of it and live
Speaker 5: a normal life, whatever that might be for them. But
Speaker 5: I really do think that change comes from those who
Speaker 5: have experienced what happened and know what goes on. And
Speaker 5: I think that's so incredible and beautiful and inspiring.
Speaker 3: If you're innocent.
Speaker 1: And you're fighting, we understand you, We hear you. We're
Speaker 1: going to wreck this system.
Speaker 6: From lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 6: Freeling today. Ken Nixon. On May nineteenth, two thousand and five,
Speaker 6: nineteen year old Ken Nixon was having a relaxing evening
Speaker 6: at home in Detroit with his girlfriend, LaToya and their
Speaker 6: baby son. The knight slipped away as normally as it
Speaker 6: could for the new parents until the early hours of
Speaker 6: the morning, when suddenly the police busted in. About three
Speaker 6: blocks away. That same night, someone had thrown a Molotov
Speaker 6: cocktail at a second floor window of a home, killing
Speaker 6: two children. The other people in the building were able
Speaker 6: to escape, and one of them said the person he
Speaker 6: saw through the homemade bomb was Ken, But Ken and
Speaker 6: LaToya both say they were home at her house. Both
Speaker 6: her aunt and her neighbor say Ken never left the
Speaker 6: house that night, but regardless, Ken wound up being tried
Speaker 6: for arson and for the murders of both children.
Speaker 1: I was thinking that they're going to figure this out.
Speaker 1: I was thinking logic was going to make its way
Speaker 1: to the surface. I was thinking that the system was
Speaker 1: going to work the way that it was supposed to.
Speaker 1: Never did I imagine that the end result would be
Speaker 1: a guilty verdict.
Speaker 3: My name is Kenneth Nixon.
Speaker 1: I spent sixteen years incarcerated for a crime that I
Speaker 1: did not commit.
Speaker 6: Ken Nixon was born in Lincoln Park, Michigan, to Tracy
Speaker 6: Nixon and Kenneth Palmer. Ken didn't know his biological dad
Speaker 6: growing up and was raised by his mom and stepdad.
Speaker 6: He's the oldest of four kids.
Speaker 1: Family was really close. I have cousins that were more
Speaker 1: like siblings than they were actual cousins.
Speaker 3: And I had a.
Speaker 1: Pretty fun childhood, middle class upbringing, magnet schools. I always
Speaker 1: enjoyed school.
Speaker 3: Sports.
Speaker 1: Playing up growing up was something that I enjoyed doing.
Speaker 1: Neighborhood wasn't bad, not much violence, not in a horrible area.
Speaker 1: We went to school as a group. We met on
Speaker 1: the corner. Everybody met at the same time. It was
Speaker 1: somebody's parents' responsibility to make sure that everybody made it
Speaker 1: to the corner. There were checkpoints that when we passed,
Speaker 1: somebody's parents reported to the other parents.
Speaker 6: It was a community where every one watched out for
Speaker 6: each other. And Ken appreciated that he had a fun childhood.
Speaker 6: But growing up, Ken was also academically driven and had
Speaker 6: higher ambitions.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be the first in my family
Speaker 1: to graduate college. I learned very early on that not
Speaker 1: many of my family members on either side had actually graduated,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be the first to do so.
Speaker 6: Ken wanted to be an entrepreneur, and his mom, Tracy
Speaker 6: says Ken absolutely could have achieved that dream.
Speaker 7: Ken was smarter than the average kid in the neighborhood.
Speaker 7: The older kids looked up to him. They respected him
Speaker 7: because his mental was beyond theirs. He flourished in everything.
Speaker 7: You know. I at two I started calling him the
Speaker 7: golden child.
Speaker 6: Ken was smart and also incredibly responsible.
Speaker 7: And how was that mother that would put a candle
Speaker 7: in every room of the house and time to go
Speaker 7: to bed, he would blow him out. So I would
Speaker 7: wake up, who blow out my candles? While my candle's
Speaker 7: not burning?
Speaker 6: And he would say, well, mine, that's hot.
Speaker 7: If it breaks and catch on fire, then what.
Speaker 6: By ninth grade, Ken was also doing typical teenage things
Speaker 6: like dating, and he fell in love with his friend
Speaker 6: from elementary school, LaToya Calford. LaToya and Ken were dating
Speaker 6: for a few years when she got pregnant, so after
Speaker 6: the eleventh grade, Ken dropped out of school to help LaToya.
Speaker 6: Just nine days after Ken turned eighteen, the high school
Speaker 6: sweethearts had their son. They named him Keion Ken. It
Speaker 6: was under pressure to take care of his family, so
Speaker 6: he helped start a business, a towing company. On May nineteenth,
Speaker 6: two thousand and five, just three months after his business
Speaker 6: was up and running, Ken was having a relaxing night
Speaker 6: home with LaToya and they're now one year old son.
Speaker 3: My son was on my chest.
Speaker 1: We were in the bedroom and you know, I hear
Speaker 1: the door smash in, and you know it's quick. Seconds
Speaker 1: before you can react. The bedroom door comes swinging open
Speaker 1: and the very first thing you see is a flashlight
Speaker 1: in a shotgun, and instinctively I reach to shield him.
Speaker 3: And as I reached.
Speaker 1: To shield him, the first officer yells, baby, baby, baby.
Speaker 6: Another officer grabs Keon off of Ken, and the next
Speaker 6: thing Ken knows, he's being thrown onto the ground, handcuffed,
Speaker 6: and Keon is screaming.
Speaker 1: The most memorable moment of that night is my son
Speaker 1: screaming like that.
Speaker 3: 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 moments where I
Speaker 1: still hear him screaming in my head. That's something you
Speaker 1: never forget, that powerless moment where your kid is screaming
Speaker 1: for your assistance and there's nothing you can do about it,
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing.
Speaker 6: So when you get picked up, they're saying what to you?
Speaker 3: They actually didn't say anything.
Speaker 6: Instead, they've raided the house and arrested both Ken and LaToya.
Speaker 6: The two of them were immediately separated.
Speaker 1: I get to the priestinct and these two detectives come
Speaker 1: in and they say you're being accused of a murder.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah right, you can't be serious. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thinking, you know, murder, somebody got shot,
Speaker 1: you know, drive by or something. In the moment the
Speaker 1: guy says fire, I'm like, yeah right, you can't be serious. Nuts,
Speaker 1: And I was arrested and booked into the county jail.
Speaker 6: What Ken didn't know was, at the same time he
Speaker 6: was home with LaToya and Keon, a crime took place
Speaker 6: about three blocks away. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail into
Speaker 6: the second floor window of a home. Two children were killed,
Speaker 6: ten year old Rayland Vaughan and his baby sister, Tamaya.
Speaker 6: The other people in the building were able to escape,
Speaker 6: and the police were accusing both Ken and LaToya of
Speaker 6: these murders. Did you even know how to make a
Speaker 6: Molotov cocktail?
Speaker 3: I did not even know what the Molotov cocktail.
Speaker 6: Was, Okay, so can't even say it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. My trial attorney literally.
Speaker 1: Spent forty five minutes trying to explain to me what
Speaker 1: a Molotov cocktail.
Speaker 6: Was turns out, the police had an alleged witness, thirteen
Speaker 6: year old Brandon Vaughan, the brother of the two children
Speaker 6: who were killed. Brandon told police he saw Ken throw
Speaker 6: the Molotov cocktail through the window and that he thought
Speaker 6: Ken might have done it out of anger at his
Speaker 6: mother's boyfriend, ron Rico Simmons. Brandon said that Ken had
Speaker 6: it out for ron Rico because of a fling he
Speaker 6: had with LaToya while she and Ken were dating. According
Speaker 6: to Brandon, he was on his porch that night and
Speaker 6: saw Ken get out of a green Plymouth neon, throw
Speaker 6: the bomb into the house, get back into the passenger seat,
Speaker 6: and speed off, and he said that the car belonged
Speaker 6: to LaToya. Ken and LaToya were both charged with two
Speaker 6: counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, and one
Speaker 6: count of arson. So I want to ask you, you know,
Speaker 6: when you find out that Ken is.
Speaker 3: Arrested for.
Speaker 6: A horrible murder of two children, what was that like
Speaker 6: for you?
Speaker 7: I'm the all the same your world times black.
Speaker 3: I experien.
Speaker 8: I couldn't see, I couldn't voss, I couldn't talk, and
Speaker 8: then I started making phone calls asking questions, what's going on,
Speaker 8: you know, what's the truth in this?
Speaker 6: And did you think there was any possibility Ken could
Speaker 6: have done something like this?
Speaker 8: Absolutely not.
Speaker 9: He was that kid that wouldn't let me burn a
Speaker 9: candle for twenty four hours, so I know, I'm all
Speaker 9: the top cantail, No way.
Speaker 6: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 6: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
Speaker 6: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 6: in the communities where we work and live. In light
Speaker 6: of the compelling need for pro legal assistance, and in
Speaker 6: recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 6: the AIG Pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 6: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On September fifteenth,
Speaker 6: two thousand and five, Ken and LaToya went to trial.
Speaker 6: They were tried together, but they each had separate juries.
Speaker 6: The prosecutor was Assistant prosecuting Attorney Patrick Muscat. Muskat called
Speaker 6: an expert from the state crime Lab who had tested
Speaker 6: Ken's close the night he was arrested after the police
Speaker 6: had taken them as evidence. The expert testified that Ken's
Speaker 6: clothes had an accelerant on them. A man named Stanley
Speaker 6: January Junior testified that Ken confessed to him while they
Speaker 6: were in the Wayne County jail together, and that Ken
Speaker 6: told him he didn't think the children were home. Muscat
Speaker 6: also called the alleged witness to the crime, thirteen year
Speaker 6: old Brandon Vaughan. He was one of the survivors of
Speaker 6: the fire that night and the older brother of the victims.
Speaker 6: Brandon was also the one who pointed police to Ken
Speaker 6: and LaToya in the first place. At trial, Brandon said
Speaker 6: he saw Ken get into the passenger side of Latoya's car,
Speaker 6: but he altered his testimony a bit from what he
Speaker 6: originally told police. He said that he actually wasn't on
Speaker 6: the porch when he saw Ken get out of the car.
Speaker 6: He was in his bed. The only evidence of the
Speaker 6: state actually had against Ken was this altered witness testimony
Speaker 6: and the alleged accelerant covered clothes. Ken and Latoya's defense
Speaker 6: was weak, though their attorneys called just four witnesses to
Speaker 6: the stand, two of whom were alibi witnesses, and they
Speaker 6: did not present any evidence to refute the state crime lab.
Speaker 6: They did not point out that Ken had worked at
Speaker 6: the towing company earlier that night, and that since truck's
Speaker 6: typically carry gasoline, it's likely that Can could have had
Speaker 6: some sort of accelerant on him from that. LaToya ended
Speaker 6: up being acquitted of all charges, but as for Ken,
Speaker 6: his jury found him guilty and he was convicted of
Speaker 6: one count of arson, four counts of attempted murder, and
Speaker 6: two counts of murder. He was sentenced to life in
Speaker 6: prison without parole. When Ken got to prison, he got
Speaker 6: right to work. He's a natural achiever, and says he
Speaker 6: finished getting his ged within six weeks of his conviction,
Speaker 6: and he appealed his conviction right away. But in two
Speaker 6: thousand and seven he was denied. He was denied again
Speaker 6: in twenty ten, and then again and again. Did you
Speaker 6: do any crying in prison?
Speaker 1: Almost certainly? Losses are her heart, you know, the core
Speaker 1: system was her heart. I absolutely cried a few times, all.
Speaker 6: The while his tracy was paying for the attorneys and
Speaker 6: expenses for kens appeals.
Speaker 1: It's hard to continue to say, hey, I need twenty
Speaker 1: grand right, that's somebody's life savings. Where where are.
Speaker 6: You getting this money? That's a lot of money, Granddad.
Speaker 9: Mostly I worked.
Speaker 8: I had parties, you know, we did what we had
Speaker 8: to do, what we saw food, we had t shirts made,
Speaker 8: we sold shirts, and.
Speaker 6: On a monthly basis, the money was there, but they
Speaker 6: kept losing. Eventually, Tracy had to wonder.
Speaker 8: It took me a long time to ask him, you know,
Speaker 8: because I did as a mother. I asked, come on, now,
Speaker 8: jail me something, did you And he said absolutely not?
Speaker 9: And I knew in my heart he didn't.
Speaker 1: And you know, she'd sacrifice so much to continue paying
Speaker 1: lawyers and private investigators. The result was repeatedly the same.
Speaker 1: No matter how much money we spent, no matter how
Speaker 1: much time was spent, we were still losing. And when
Speaker 1: that question came, I felt like her faith was waivery.
Speaker 6: But it wasn't. Tracy pushed on with her son to
Speaker 6: fight for his freedom.
Speaker 8: I know my son with things, I know my good
Speaker 8: my soul mean knowing him, I think he was vincent.
Speaker 6: So I guess listeners might be wondering, how do you
Speaker 6: have the same case and one person gets off and
Speaker 6: one person gets convicted.
Speaker 2: Well that's the ten million dollar question, isn't it.
Speaker 6: This is David Williams. He's a staff attorney at the
Speaker 6: Western Michigan University Cooley Innocence Project. David and the WMU
Speaker 6: Cooley Innocence Project came across Ken's case back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 6: and they saw several factors that pointed towards his innocence.
Speaker 2: The two biggest factors was the use of a jail
Speaker 2: house spitch and also the testimony of the star witness,
Speaker 2: Brendan Bawn, who we knew to be unreliable because he
Speaker 2: told a different story about four different times.
Speaker 6: They started from the beginning, they gathered all the available evidence,
Speaker 6: and while reviewing it, they stumbled on something new. David says,
Speaker 6: the uncovered memos that had not previously been disclosed to
Speaker 6: Ken's defense.
Speaker 2: So we actually had memos that we found during the
Speaker 2: course of our investigation from the police and the prosecutors,
Speaker 2: and they're saying, you know, this witness, this kid, Brandon,
Speaker 2: he's very inconsistent. We got to get something, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the steelhouse snitch materializes just overnight.
Speaker 6: David believes that this suggests the prosecution was worried they
Speaker 6: wouldn't get a conviction on Brandan's test money alone, and
Speaker 6: so the prosecution called Stanley January junior to testify. A
Speaker 6: memo dated August third, two thousand and five, requested that
Speaker 6: the detectives speak with Ken's cellmates to see if Ken
Speaker 6: said anything to them. By the end of the month,
Speaker 6: Detective Moys's he Meenez said he spoke with January, who
Speaker 6: allegedly said Nixon confessed to him. Shortly after that, January
Speaker 6: signed his plea agreement. Eventually, Ken's team spoke with January,
Speaker 6: who admitted he had actually seen the case on TV
Speaker 6: before he spoke with Ken. Another prisoner had also previously
Speaker 6: reported that January admitted to him that he made up
Speaker 6: a lie hoping to make a deal with the prosecutor
Speaker 6: to get his own case dropped. David and the wm
Speaker 6: Cooley Innocent's Project worked on Ken's case for two years
Speaker 6: before they submitted it to the Conviction Integrity Unit or CiU.
Speaker 6: While pending, the CiU completed a review of another case
Speaker 6: which they deemed was indeed a wrongful conviction. Alexander Unsari,
Speaker 6: who had been in prison since twenty twelve, had his
Speaker 6: conviction vacated and guess what the common denominator with Ken.
Speaker 6: Detective Moys's he Meenez was also a detective in Unsorry's case.
Speaker 2: So Detective Jimenez is currently being accused of holding up
Speaker 2: a couple investigations and has something to deal with cartel.
Speaker 2: There has been prior misconduct from Jimenez before, and I
Speaker 2: think at this point it's pretty easy to say that
Speaker 2: Detroit doesn't consider him a reliable witness anymore.
Speaker 6: And it wasn't just Himenez. Many of the players involved
Speaker 6: in Ken's conviction have a history of misconduct. Prosecuting Attorney Muscat,
Speaker 6: for example, prosecuted Devonte Sandford, who was a child when
Speaker 6: he was convicted. Sanford has since been exonerated. Musqet also
Speaker 6: prosecuted Felonious Sierce for murder in two thousand and four,
Speaker 6: which resulted in a life without parole sentence. Searcy is
Speaker 6: currently awaiting a new trial due to Muscat's alleged role
Speaker 6: in hiding evidence from the jury. Lieutenant James Tolbert was
Speaker 6: also involved in the DeVante Sanford case and had been
Speaker 6: placed on the Wayne County Prosecutor's list of untrustworthy police officers.
Speaker 6: A specialist to try and curb wrongful convictions in Detroit
Speaker 6: and surrounding cities in Wayne County. Finally, after months of review.
Speaker 6: The CiU ruled in Ken's case, and on February eighteenth,
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one, his conviction was vacated. After sixteen years,
Speaker 6: Ken Nixon walked out of prison and was reunited with
Speaker 6: his family, friends and supporters.
Speaker 1: It's like people just rushing to the car and you know,
Speaker 1: familiar faces, some unfamiliar faces. But my son was, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a little wais back. So he caught the glimpse
Speaker 1: of me comment and he just like football, and he
Speaker 1: just hailed all and we just rocked back and forth
Speaker 1: for a minute, and that's when the reality said.
Speaker 6: Soon after Ken got out, I caught up with him
Speaker 6: in his home. He was with his then girlfriend Wendy,
Speaker 6: and he was having a little trouble getting the hang
Speaker 6: of his cell phone. Welcome to the world of technology issues.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: So how's it going?
Speaker 8: So okay?
Speaker 6: What have you eaten so far?
Speaker 7: Everything?
Speaker 1: Everything?
Speaker 6: He said, he wanted a real burger.
Speaker 7: Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 6: When Ken got out, the first thing he did was
Speaker 6: ketch up on his eighteen year old son, Kean's life.
Speaker 6: They had maintained a relationship throughout his time in prison,
Speaker 6: but now he could be a hands on dad.
Speaker 1: I was home in time to see his senior year
Speaker 1: of ball. He is a standout football star. He just
Speaker 1: accepted a full ride scholarship to Morgan State University to
Speaker 1: play football. He is a straight amb 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. Amazing, amazing timing when my exoneration came.
Speaker 6: Now that he's out, Ken is actually a full time
Speaker 6: dad to two boys, because while in prison, Ken found
Speaker 6: out he has another son, Omar, who was born a
Speaker 6: couple of years before Keon. They also built a relationship
Speaker 6: while Ken was in prison and I stayed in touch.
Speaker 6: Omar is now nineteen years old. In addition to fortifying
Speaker 6: his relationships, Ken is now also focused on advocacy work.
Speaker 1: When I came home, I didn't like the fact that
Speaker 1: the people around us that have never been through what
Speaker 1: we've been through were dictating how we moved in what way.
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: therapist you talk 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 a foundation, I
Speaker 1: poured some concrete, and now we stand there.
Speaker 6: Ken is a founding member of the Organization of its Ownarees,
Speaker 6: a nonprofit whose membership, including its board, consists entirely of xounaries.
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 xigneries 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.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We fly in, we go to court hearings, we go
Speaker 1: to parole hearings, we go to meetings with prosecutors, We
Speaker 1: go to meetings with people that don't technically understand what
Speaker 1: a wrongful conviction is. We deal with bank accounts, we
Speaker 1: deal with driver's license IDs, housing, healthcare, financial advisors.
Speaker 3: We deal with us.
Speaker 1: Our decisions are our own and the goal, the purpose
Speaker 1: our existence is based around us taking care of us.
Speaker 6: I asked Ken what he would tell other innocent people
Speaker 6: going through the same thing that he did.
Speaker 1: If you're innocent and you're fighting, don't stop fighting. No, no,
Speaker 1: that we're doing everything. We can change the system. We
Speaker 1: understand you, We hear you. We're going to wreck this system.
Speaker 6: In January of this year, can A filed a claim
Speaker 6: against the state of Michigan for compensation for his wrongful conviction.
Speaker 6: If you'd like to help support the work of the
Speaker 6: Organization of Xana Rees, go to fundly dot com organization
Speaker 6: Dash of dash exoneries. Next time on Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 6: Maggie Freeling, Karen bows I saw fallen rang and it
Speaker 6: was my son and he said the House of fun.
Speaker 7: Fire my suppol.
Speaker 3: Where is rob And that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, no, but it could locate. Thank you for
Speaker 6: listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your
Speaker 6: local innocence organizations and go to the links in our
Speaker 6: bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
Speaker 6: thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wurtis, as
Speaker 6: well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson,
Speaker 6: story editor Sonya Paul, with additional production by Jeff Clyburn
Speaker 6: and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by
Speaker 6: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
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