Speaker 1: A warning this episode contains language and depictions of violence
Speaker 1: that may be disturbing to some listeners. They're bottle all
Speaker 1: up here. This is keep in mind. This is all
Speaker 1: officer blows right here as a bucket of water and blood.
Speaker 1: Next say, supposedly trying to fixed on the officers that
Speaker 1: have watch them all. The April uprising at the Southern
Speaker 1: Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio is over eleven excruciating days,
Speaker 1: ten gruesome murders. It's still one of the longest and
Speaker 1: deadliest prison riots in US history. Or blot wall over
Speaker 1: here now there's all over this blood everywhere. The investigation
Speaker 1: and the hunt for those responsible is about to begin.
Speaker 1: Keith Lamar will soon find himself in the center of
Speaker 1: it all. But first, a warning from prisoners left behind
Speaker 1: for law enforcement is literally written on the wall. Don't
Speaker 1: treat prisoners like stupid animals. It could happen again. Lucasville rioters.
Speaker 1: I'm Leah Rothman. This is the real killer. Episode two
Speaker 1: still human Beings. Not long after the Violet Riots began,
Speaker 1: show did the brutal killings for at least six of
Speaker 1: the murdered inmates. The end was painful and bloody. The
Speaker 1: killings were barbed barrack. Here's Cincinnati news station w CPO
Speaker 1: reporting These autopsies, released just hours ago and obtained by
Speaker 1: Channel nine, reveal a chilling pattern of homicide. At least
Speaker 1: five inmates were beaten to death, all of them suffering
Speaker 1: massive head injuries along with deep cuts all over their bodies.
Speaker 1: There were eight prisoners murdered in L Block Ground zero
Speaker 1: during the uprising, Darryl de Pinative Earl Elder, Franklin Farrell,
Speaker 1: Bruce Harris, David Summers, Albert Steano forty, William Savetti, and
Speaker 1: Bruce Howard Vitali Jr. Also killed an L Block was
Speaker 1: Officer Robert V. Landingham, forty. He died from ligature strangulation.
Speaker 1: Every one of the murders was of a brutal nature.
Speaker 1: That's Kenneth Marshall, thirty one year veteran of the Ohio
Speaker 1: State Highway Patrol back. He was the executive officer in
Speaker 1: the Office of Investigative Services. I speak with ken over zoom.
Speaker 1: All those guys a terrible death, you can believe that,
Speaker 1: But there's still one more victim, Dennis Weaver. Dennis Weaver
Speaker 1: was killed two days after the Easter Sunday revolt. Dennis
Speaker 1: Weaver was one of those three hundred men removed from
Speaker 1: the wreck yard late that first night and put in
Speaker 1: a K block cell with nine others. The next day,
Speaker 1: he was murdered. The coroner's report on inmate Dennis Weaver
Speaker 1: determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation by cervical
Speaker 1: ligature and asphixiation by gagging. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: the ten victims aren't forgotten in all this. Regardless of
Speaker 1: who they were, an officer or an offender, their lives
Speaker 1: had meaning and what happened to them was a tragedy.
Speaker 1: I've reached out to the victims families the ones I
Speaker 1: could find, but so far no one has returned my
Speaker 1: messages back in finding out who murdered these men is
Speaker 1: top priority. It was a massive leundertaking. Kenneth Marshall will
Speaker 1: lead his team in the largest investigation in the State
Speaker 1: Highway Patrols history. At sixteen investigators then nine solid months,
Speaker 1: sixteen guys that didn't have any experience doing that before.
Speaker 1: It's of a magnitude that's hard to judge. Maybe part
Speaker 1: of what made it so daunting was the state and
Speaker 1: size of the crime scene. L Block, where the uprising
Speaker 1: took place, consisted of eight houses or blocks like L one,
Speaker 1: L two, L three up to L eight, and each
Speaker 1: one of those consisted of eighty eight by ten cells,
Speaker 1: so six hundred and forty cells total. The entire L
Speaker 1: Block was one hundred and fifteen thousand square feet and
Speaker 1: the adjoining gymnasium was almost twenty square feet, so that
Speaker 1: was more than two football fields worth of potential evidence
Speaker 1: for investigators to go through. The whole L Block was
Speaker 1: just totally annihilated. I mean, we had four hundred prisoners
Speaker 1: that were loosing these cell blocks. They tore everything up,
Speaker 1: they broke everything, and so yeah, that was the very
Speaker 1: first step was to go through, sort out and find
Speaker 1: what evidence we could find in all those cell blocks, collated,
Speaker 1: secure it, try and keep track of it. It was.
Speaker 1: It was just a tremendous job. What was some of
Speaker 1: the evidence that your investigators found an L Block? What
Speaker 1: they found mostly in L Block was the instruments that
Speaker 1: cause of death. I mean, it's been thirty years, so
Speaker 1: I just have to speak in generalities about that, but
Speaker 1: that's that's what they were looking for. Anything, whether it
Speaker 1: be a piece of paper, a note written to somebody,
Speaker 1: a shank, or a piece of pipe with blood on it.
Speaker 1: All of that was gathered up, analyzed, dusted for fingerprints.
Speaker 1: They will also go through hours and hours of audio
Speaker 1: recordings obtained during some of the eleven days, the investigators
Speaker 1: inserted microphones underneath the cell blocks, monitoring the conversations of
Speaker 1: the inmates. Those recordings will be referred to as the
Speaker 1: tunnel tapes. But their most important investigative tool will be
Speaker 1: the interviews they conduct with the prisoners. Here's w CPO
Speaker 1: reporting These murder investigations pose a unique problem. Not only
Speaker 1: are the inmates the prime suspects, they are also the
Speaker 1: best witnesses. And it's these prisoner interviews that will soon
Speaker 1: become the crux of Keith Lamar's case. Trying to think
Speaker 1: of what it was they had interviews with different inmates
Speaker 1: and some reinterviews. That's a lot of interviews. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you've got to do the interview in order
Speaker 1: to get the wheels in motion. And it's the interviews.
Speaker 1: And of course, when you're interviewing these inmates, guess what
Speaker 1: they don't want to tell you the truth. They want
Speaker 1: to tell you You know how clean they are, but
Speaker 1: they don't mind talking to you about Joe or Phil
Speaker 1: doing this. A lot of prisoners were interviewed multiple times,
Speaker 1: sometimes one, sometimes two, three or four or five. I
Speaker 1: think up into like eleven and twelve interviews. Why, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the most difficult thing to do when you're
Speaker 1: being interviewed by someone is to tell a lie. Because
Speaker 1: in the second interview you didn't remember what your lie was,
Speaker 1: and on the third interview, you didn't remember what your
Speaker 1: second line was. So it's just strictly detective work. It's
Speaker 1: a good police work. You got a suspect, you're pretty
Speaker 1: sure this is your guy. How many times is he
Speaker 1: gonna lie to you? And then how are you going
Speaker 1: to prove that he was lying in the first place?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: specifically that that's true. You probably know a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that with your research than I do, but
Speaker 1: I would say that absolutely that's the case, and that's
Speaker 1: the reason for it. So they're catching these people in
Speaker 1: a lie and then eventually it all comes out. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit like blue Blunts, you know, only in
Speaker 1: real life. Is that the one with Tom Seller? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: everybody knows Tom Seller. Um, you know, I've been telling
Speaker 1: these kinds of stories for I've just never heard of
Speaker 1: so many interviews. Yeah. Well, and I think that's what
Speaker 1: makes this whole investigation so unique that we were actually
Speaker 1: able to convict five known felons of murder. How do
Speaker 1: we do that? But we did that by doing the
Speaker 1: stuff that you're saying you've never heard it. Net's that
Speaker 1: was all groundbreaking stuff done by these Ohio State troopers.
Speaker 1: It's in some of these very interviews that Keith and
Speaker 1: many others say manipulation and misconduct occurred. We are going
Speaker 1: to talk a lot more about this in later episodes.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the Ohio State Highway Patrols
Speaker 1: lengthy investigation, and based mostly on the interviews they conducted
Speaker 1: with prisoners, five men are singled out as leaders during
Speaker 1: the uprising, Actually the same five men Kenneth Marshall just
Speaker 1: referred to. Two are from the Muslim community, Sadiq Abdallah
Speaker 1: Hassan formerly known as Carlos Sanders and Namir Abdul Matine
Speaker 1: also known as James Ware, and two other inmates are
Speaker 1: members of the Arian Brotherhood, George Skates and Jason rob
Speaker 1: investigators believe those four took part in various crimes, including
Speaker 1: the killing of Officer Robert H. Landingham, but the fifth
Speaker 1: person is not someone affiliated with any gang or group
Speaker 1: or even remotely connected to officer of the Landingham's death.
Speaker 1: This is a prepaid debit call from Keith Lamar, an
Speaker 1: animated at the Ohio State in a country, Keith Lamar
Speaker 1: will be named the leader of the death Squad and
Speaker 1: accused of calling for and taking part in the murders
Speaker 1: of five prisoners during the first and third days of
Speaker 1: the uprising. This call is from a correction facility and
Speaker 1: is subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 1: Fifty three year old Keith Lamar talks to me from
Speaker 1: death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Ohio.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, how are you okay? I'm I'm doing all right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Keith and I started talking back in May of In total,
Speaker 1: we've spoken twenty seven times for almost thirty five hours.
Speaker 1: Our conversations have run the gamut. We've discussed family, prison life,
Speaker 1: books and music, racism, politics, and of course his case.
Speaker 1: The first time we speak, he is open and friendly,
Speaker 1: but he also lets me know what he expects from me.
Speaker 1: I think one thing you should know, as long as
Speaker 1: you are involved in giving at the truth, you and
Speaker 1: I will be good. I am after the truth and
Speaker 1: I am going to do my best to try and
Speaker 1: uncover it. So let's start with investigators basic theory of
Speaker 1: what they say Keith did on the first day, really
Speaker 1: the first hours of the Upper Rising. They allege Keith,
Speaker 1: then twenty three, is out on the recreation yard when
Speaker 1: the riot kicks off. They say he and two other
Speaker 1: prisoners come into l Block L six to be exact,
Speaker 1: to check on their belongings in their cells. After they
Speaker 1: do so, the Muslim prisoners, who are seemingly in charge,
Speaker 1: won't allow them to go back outside. That's when investigators
Speaker 1: say Keith comes up with a plan, a plan that
Speaker 1: involves killing some prisoners who were alleged snitches. See. During
Speaker 1: the early hours of the uprising, the Muslim prisoners supposedly
Speaker 1: had those so called snitches locked up in cells for
Speaker 1: their own protection because as snitches, they are some of
Speaker 1: the most hated within the prison population and they'd be
Speaker 1: quite vulnerable to retaliation. But investigators believe Keith sees the
Speaker 1: snitches as a bargaining chip, they say, he offers to
Speaker 1: kill them and in return asks that they be allowed
Speaker 1: to leave and go back out onto the wreck yard.
Speaker 1: Investigators say, when one of the Muslim prisoners gives him
Speaker 1: the go ahead, Keith assembles a group of men who
Speaker 1: mask up and arm themselves with various weapons like bats, knives, shovels,
Speaker 1: and white bars. According to investigators, Keith then orders the
Speaker 1: prison cells where the alleged snitches are being held to
Speaker 1: be opened one at a time. Then he and a
Speaker 1: squad of men go sell to sell, killing four darryld Apina,
Speaker 1: Albert Steano, William Savetti and Bruce Vitali. Afterwards, Keith and
Speaker 1: the others are allowed to leave l block and return
Speaker 1: to the yard. Keith, not surprisingly for a man who
Speaker 1: has maintained his innocence for the last thirty years, tells
Speaker 1: a very different story. It was Easter Sunday, the holiday,
Speaker 1: and so there wasn't as much staff there as it
Speaker 1: would have normally or otherwise would have been. Everybody have
Speaker 1: to being cooked, the ball in her everybody was trying
Speaker 1: to get outside, trying to get some fresh air. And
Speaker 1: you know, I went outside and I ran a few
Speaker 1: miles with a few of my friends. You know, recreation
Speaker 1: had been called through a hand, but we were all
Speaker 1: lined up to go back into the building and um,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden a guard ran out with blood
Speaker 1: streaming down his face. And shortly after that inmate came
Speaker 1: out holding the PR twenty four, one of those one
Speaker 1: of the night sticks, which I assumed he took from
Speaker 1: the guard, And that was the first indication any of
Speaker 1: us had that there was something going on, and we
Speaker 1: all knew that then, you know, the spirit repercussions for
Speaker 1: something like that suddenly down in Louisville. Luisville was a
Speaker 1: maximum security prison, you know, so you know, everybody who
Speaker 1: mainly who were by the door at that particular time
Speaker 1: kind of backed up and went back into the middle
Speaker 1: of the yard or sat down on the picnic tables,
Speaker 1: you know, like that was the front row seat. And then,
Speaker 1: um about I don't know, dirty and this or so
Speaker 1: into the ride, a guy that I knew, uh came
Speaker 1: out and was kind of giving us a blow by
Speaker 1: blow after what was going on. And it seemed at
Speaker 1: the time that it was just persons running around ransacking sales,
Speaker 1: of searching guys sales. We found out and laying around
Speaker 1: that David was going from sales and sales, robbing guys
Speaker 1: for their property. And this would actually spurred me to
Speaker 1: go back in. And I didn't have anything of of
Speaker 1: immense value in there, just some boxing boosts, some pictures
Speaker 1: and personal effects, nothing to risk my life about. But
Speaker 1: again we didn't know at the outset the magnitude of
Speaker 1: what was going on. So you go inside, you check
Speaker 1: on your belongings. What were you thinking, I mean, the
Speaker 1: chaos is happening all around you. It was it was darring,
Speaker 1: you know, to see the level of destruction that was
Speaker 1: going on. It was hundreds and hundreds of people in
Speaker 1: the hallway, just people running all over everywhere, anarchy basically
Speaker 1: people but the windows, people screaming, hollering. And I made
Speaker 1: my way through this, you know, uh, massive people to
Speaker 1: L six. That was the pot where I was how
Speaker 1: um and I walked into the pod. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the first things now, now, when I walked
Speaker 1: into the pod, contrast to the madness and everything that
Speaker 1: was going on in the corporado, this was real quiet
Speaker 1: inside of L six. It was orderly inside of L
Speaker 1: six because unbeknownst me at the time, this was the
Speaker 1: place where the hostages were being held. You know, I
Speaker 1: walked in, I saw some guards to my right in
Speaker 1: the lord shower stalls, and I walked down to my cell.
Speaker 1: He says, when he gets to a cell, someone's there.
Speaker 1: My start's individible with myself. There was nobody man in
Speaker 1: the control panel at the time. I ran up to
Speaker 1: the panel trying to open my door and inadvertently opened
Speaker 1: some other doors wherever. They also makes in those sales
Speaker 1: as well. Some of those prisoners came out, and the
Speaker 1: guys who was presiding over the pod, who was in
Speaker 1: control of the pods, saw that. So when I was
Speaker 1: doing and I had a confrontation and had a conversation
Speaker 1: i should say with uh several of these individuals, and
Speaker 1: they explained to me what was going on, that this
Speaker 1: was a riot, that we were taking over the ride.
Speaker 1: We tired of being treated like second class citizens, so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. And they kind of gave me
Speaker 1: an ultimatum that you can need to stand here with
Speaker 1: us to be a part of what we're doing, or
Speaker 1: you could leave. And I, you know, I chose to
Speaker 1: I chose to leave. I I knew enough to know that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a part of that, and
Speaker 1: I left, you know, I I came back onto the
Speaker 1: yard and then you know, I've said on record that
Speaker 1: you know it couldn't have been more than ten minutes.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that I have no idea how
Speaker 1: long I was inside. You know, ten minutes could seem
Speaker 1: like ten hours when your life is on the line,
Speaker 1: if you know how much time, you know, come on,
Speaker 1: you know, you know I don't have a watch all
Speaker 1: and and and you don't know that that never that
Speaker 1: will be important. Laying wrong. So to reiterate, Keith says
Speaker 1: he went inside L six to check on his property,
Speaker 1: saw a man in a cell, opened some cell doors,
Speaker 1: was asked if he wanted to stay and participate in
Speaker 1: the riot, said no, then went back out to the
Speaker 1: yard and he's not totally sure how long he was inside.
Speaker 1: What comes next is not in dispute by Keith or investigators.
Speaker 1: Around two am, Keith and the three prisoners who had
Speaker 1: been out on the yard are rounded up and brought inside.
Speaker 1: All are stripped, naked, zip tied, and put in a
Speaker 1: by ten cells in K Block. Keith is put in
Speaker 1: cell K twoty six with nine other men. The next day,
Speaker 1: one of those men is murdered and in time Key
Speaker 1: will be blamed for it. They said or claimed that
Speaker 1: I want indivisibles for three individuals to kill. How is
Speaker 1: that possible? How can one person with with no weapons
Speaker 1: give these three individuals in order to kill somebody? It's
Speaker 1: day three of the uprising. Keith Lamar is in a
Speaker 1: K block prison cell with nine other men. Dennis Weaver,
Speaker 1: one of those men, is then killed. Investigators basic theory
Speaker 1: is this, they say. Keith accuses Dennis Weaver of being
Speaker 1: a snitch. When Weaver denies it, Keith punches him in
Speaker 1: the face. Investigators say Keith then accuses another man in
Speaker 1: the cell, William Bowling, of being a snitch as well.
Speaker 1: When he denies it, Keith tells Bowling he's got a choice.
Speaker 1: Either Bowling has to kill Weaver or Keith will kill him.
Speaker 1: According to investigators, William Bowling strangles Dennis Weaver, but when
Speaker 1: Weaver fights back, Keith instructs two other men to jump
Speaker 1: in and help. Investigators believe Keith then shoves papers or
Speaker 1: plastic down Weaver's throat to finish him off. Then Keith
Speaker 1: tells the other men in the cell they need to
Speaker 1: make Weaver's death look like a suicide. But here's what
Speaker 1: Keith says happened. We had all been forced into these
Speaker 1: single man sales, thin people, so all of us would
Speaker 1: tramatas and we would net it had eaten. We were tired,
Speaker 1: we had been stretched to our limits. Eventually, corrections officers
Speaker 1: come around to cut their zip ties, give them white
Speaker 1: jumpsuits and sandwiches. Keith says that's when things take a turn.
Speaker 1: At some point during UM the morning time, the guards
Speaker 1: came around. They proved family just into the sale like
Speaker 1: we were wild animals, and like wild animals, everybody ramps
Speaker 1: in the front of the sale and was trying to
Speaker 1: you know, you know, get a sandwich, and some people
Speaker 1: got took more than their share and death. What happened?
Speaker 1: What started the skirmish, The skirmish that leads to Dennis
Speaker 1: Weaver being murdered. Dennis was like an older UM prisoner,
Speaker 1: probably in the sixties at the time, you know, great
Speaker 1: play hair, you know, and real clients of spoken guy,
Speaker 1: although Keith says Dennis Weaver isn't so soft spoken. That day,
Speaker 1: he starts arguing with William Bowling, get as we didn't
Speaker 1: get a sandwich and has something to say about it
Speaker 1: to one of his guy named William Bowling. This started
Speaker 1: an argument. William Bowling he was a bully, had a
Speaker 1: reputation of kind of being a strong armed kind of guy,
Speaker 1: you know, walking around with a you know, smirk on
Speaker 1: his face, real threat, the menacing capital individual. And he
Speaker 1: got into it with Dinners and uh, Bowling he was
Speaker 1: like in hysterics basically after Dinners had you know, the
Speaker 1: nerves to say something to him, to stand up to him,
Speaker 1: and um, he was just going from personal posting kind
Speaker 1: of you know, doing a gut check basically. You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't you know, one of those guys who was
Speaker 1: gonna stand back and allow somebody to bullying me. And
Speaker 1: so when he turned his attention to me, you know,
Speaker 1: with a white cross, uh and hit him dead in
Speaker 1: the mouth as hard as I could, and you know,
Speaker 1: he kind of snapped out of at least shifted his
Speaker 1: focus away from me and kind of focus you know,
Speaker 1: kind of z roed in on on Dennis he shouldn't
Speaker 1: change some words a few blows worth exchange and William
Speaker 1: put him in the for Nelson and was choking them
Speaker 1: and you know gunners began to you know, flop around
Speaker 1: trying to free himself from this choke hold. Keith says,
Speaker 1: as William Bowling is choking Dennis Weaver, Bowling tells two
Speaker 1: other guys to jump in and help. Not long after that, uh,
Speaker 1: Dennis we were expired, he died. Did someone put papers
Speaker 1: in Weaver's mouth? You know? One of the ways that
Speaker 1: the state tried to uh make it seem as if
Speaker 1: I had his own involvement in dinnis and death. They
Speaker 1: relatedly claimed that our stuff paper um down Dennis's throat.
Speaker 1: It never produced the paper introduced the paper in the
Speaker 1: evidence with my DNA was or anything. I didn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with dennis Is death. Keith also denies
Speaker 1: the state's claim that he told the others in the
Speaker 1: cell to make Weaver's death look like a suicide. What
Speaker 1: did it do to you to see Dennis Weaver killed?
Speaker 1: If you're stand there watch another human beings being killed?
Speaker 1: What does that say out too? By the time then
Speaker 1: this that I wasn't able to respond because I wasn't
Speaker 1: a human being at that At that point, I've been
Speaker 1: been had already been stripped of of my humans, all
Speaker 1: of us were this is why you can kill somebody
Speaker 1: or what soundwas only a while animal would do that.
Speaker 1: But this is what we have been reduced to, not
Speaker 1: just me, all of us. I mean I didn't know
Speaker 1: that then, you know. I mean I was its sense,
Speaker 1: the experience, a lot of regret, a lot of remorse fulfilling,
Speaker 1: but I didn't understand it at that time in that way.
Speaker 1: At that time, I didn't look at it as a
Speaker 1: moral failure. I was looking at it as me looking
Speaker 1: out for myself, you know, in the sound self as
Speaker 1: the sound callous. But it's difficult to find in any
Speaker 1: way other than to your own self preservation. And that's
Speaker 1: what I was doing. That's what I did when Keith
Speaker 1: is eventually questioned when a highway state patrol came and
Speaker 1: asked us about what happened in the sale, I along
Speaker 1: with other prisoners, that that we were asleep, that we
Speaker 1: didn't see what happened, because that's what you're do inside
Speaker 1: of prison, you know, because obviously we're talking, we here
Speaker 1: having this conversation and you and I about prisoners being killed,
Speaker 1: well Leslie being snitches inside of maximum security prison. So
Speaker 1: you know, that was the penalty that was imposed and
Speaker 1: this is the thing that could happen to you in
Speaker 1: the maximum security prison if you were known to be
Speaker 1: a snitch, and so I told the authorities that I
Speaker 1: was asleep. Keith wants nothing to do with the investigation,
Speaker 1: and he says that firmly plans a target on his back.
Speaker 1: But refusing to talk to investigators isn't Keith's only problem,
Speaker 1: because William Bowling and the two others who allegedly took
Speaker 1: part in the killing of Dennis Weaver do talk, and
Speaker 1: they point the finger at Keith, saying he was the ringleader.
Speaker 1: This kind of gave William Bowling the room to kind
Speaker 1: of shift the blame and say that I and the
Speaker 1: other several other individuals in the sale forced him to
Speaker 1: kill Dennis Weaver, which was totally obviously that what happened.
Speaker 1: And that's really what my problems began, um um Leah.
Speaker 1: It was that that that kind of put me on
Speaker 1: the radar. So the investigators accuse you of basically making
Speaker 1: Bowling and others kill Weaver, then how does it go
Speaker 1: from that to them calling you or labeling you the
Speaker 1: leader of the death squad in L six. I think
Speaker 1: it a matter of you know, picking out of this
Speaker 1: group of people, who was more likely to have done
Speaker 1: That's why I think they kind of narrowed it down
Speaker 1: who out of the individual who led in L six
Speaker 1: was in prison for Martin. I think maybe my name
Speaker 1: was mixing because I didn't have the face covering all.
Speaker 1: You know, I wasn't trying to hide my face or
Speaker 1: had my uh who I was anything like that. I
Speaker 1: asked Kenneth Marshall from the Ohio State Highway Patrol about this. So,
Speaker 1: Keith Lamar, do you remember how his name first became known?
Speaker 1: I would just have to speculate that Lamar was one
Speaker 1: of those people whose name was known to the investigators
Speaker 1: before they even started investigating deeply. But you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what I had for dinner that day,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if Keith's name was known before
Speaker 1: they even started investigating. The question is why and how
Speaker 1: did that result in investigators accusing Keith of killing more
Speaker 1: people than anyone else during the uprising. The Ohio State
Speaker 1: Highway Patrol troopers aren't the only ones asking questions. There
Speaker 1: are others at organizations like the Officers Union conducting investigations
Speaker 1: of their own, putting Lucasville under the microscope to try
Speaker 1: and understand why the riot happened at all. Was it
Speaker 1: only in protest against Warden Arthur Tate's tuberculosis testing or
Speaker 1: was there more to it? Well, Lucasville from its inception
Speaker 1: was the disaster waiting to happen. That's Nikki Schwartz, the
Speaker 1: prisoners rights lawyer who represented the inmates and helped negotiate
Speaker 1: the end to the uprising. You met him in episode one.
Speaker 1: It was the state's maximum security prison, replacing the old
Speaker 1: Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus, where there had been a
Speaker 1: riot by the way, and it was bill I think
Speaker 1: essentially political reasons on rural land in southern Ohio, and
Speaker 1: it was a recipe for disaster from the outset because
Speaker 1: by reason of its location, it was going to be
Speaker 1: staffed by white Southern guards and by reason of its
Speaker 1: character it was going to be occupied by black Northern
Speaker 1: prisoners from Cleveland, Youngstown, Columbus, etcetera. And so these two
Speaker 1: groups weren't designed to work well together. In addition, although
Speaker 1: it was designed for single selling, somewhere along the way
Speaker 1: the state needed extra space, so they converted into double cells,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how many prison cells you've seen,
Speaker 1: but basically they are tiny bathrooms with a bunk bit.
Speaker 1: It's no secret Lucasville was a prison riddled with problems.
Speaker 1: In the late Ohio's Correctional Institution Inspection Committee or c
Speaker 1: i i CE, spent two years taking a hard look
Speaker 1: at Lucasville. Shirley Pope, a senior researcher at c i
Speaker 1: i CE, sent her findings in a twenty two page
Speaker 1: confidential memo to Terry Morris, Lucasville's warden at the time.
Speaker 1: In it, Shirley Pope wrote that she learned some of
Speaker 1: the biggest issues that Lucasville had to do with snitch games, violence, gangs,
Speaker 1: racial tension, drugs, gambling, sex and extortion, rings, cell assignments,
Speaker 1: lack of personal safety, and distrust of staff. Also, and
Speaker 1: maybe the most prophetic in all of Pope's findings was
Speaker 1: the fact that there were quote predictions of a major
Speaker 1: disturbance unlike any ever seen in Ohio prison history, which
Speaker 1: to me sure sounds like people were expecting there would
Speaker 1: be a full scale riot at Ucasville at some point.
Speaker 1: And that's really just the tip of the twenty two
Speaker 1: page Iceberg what came of that memo? If anything is unclear,
Speaker 1: what is clear is that what happens on June seven,
Speaker 1: almost three years before the uprising, will cause a seismic
Speaker 1: shift at Lucasville. The straw that broke the camel's back
Speaker 1: was the murder of Beverly Taylor. Beverly Taylor was a
Speaker 1: bubbly bright, very very good educator who worked in the
Speaker 1: prison school system. That's Lucasville's former warden, Arthur Tate. He's
Speaker 1: talking about thirty two year old Beverly Taylor, who was
Speaker 1: murdered at Lucasville in June, a little less than three
Speaker 1: years before the uprising. She was grabbed a drug into
Speaker 1: the restroom and nearly decapitated by one of her students.
Speaker 1: Beverly Taylor's death was horrific and tragic, and four months
Speaker 1: later there's a changing of the guard Warden Terry Morris
Speaker 1: is out Warden Arthur Tate is in. He is not
Speaker 1: happy about it, and I my heart sank to my toes.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I didn't want to go
Speaker 1: to Lucasville. I mean, everybody knew it was just big trouble.
Speaker 1: I think the prison frankly had been neglected to some
Speaker 1: extent by the Department of Corrections. It was kind of
Speaker 1: an out of sight, out of mind place. So I
Speaker 1: come rolling in there on October one. When I first
Speaker 1: went there, leah Um, I inherited everything there was to
Speaker 1: be about Lucasville. I inherit all the staff, inherit all
Speaker 1: the problems, and inhered everything. And uh, the biggest issue
Speaker 1: for me when I first got there was violence. The
Speaker 1: level of violence was off the charts in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Besides Beverly Taylor's murder, four inmates had also been killed
Speaker 1: that year. So after only one month on the job,
Speaker 1: Warden Tate Institutes Operations Shakedown, a multi pronged program meant
Speaker 1: to bring security and control to Lucasville Operations. Shakedown called
Speaker 1: for more staff to be hired, more cameras and metal
Speaker 1: detectors to be installed. It also restricted the way prisoners
Speaker 1: were allowed to move about the prison. It reduced the
Speaker 1: amount of recreation time for maximum security prisoners and ended
Speaker 1: their access to certain programs like college classes. I think
Speaker 1: there's a what's sounds what's the term I want to use?
Speaker 1: There's a maybe a tag that's placed on folks who
Speaker 1: are thrust into these wardens jobs that for some reason, um,
Speaker 1: they don't have a heart that, Um, they don't really
Speaker 1: care about the offenders. Blah blah blah blah blah. That
Speaker 1: was never in my repertoire when I went into a
Speaker 1: place that was literally derailed. I gotta get the train
Speaker 1: back on the track. I'm not really concerned about whether
Speaker 1: a guy is gonna be able to go to college tonight.
Speaker 1: If I've got guys getting stabbed left and right around
Speaker 1: the corner, you know what I mean. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about the phone calls. I read somewhere it was like
Speaker 1: one five minute call it Christmas, Yes, andmates got a
Speaker 1: call at Christmas time. That rule was there when I
Speaker 1: got there. I want to make that clear. I didn't
Speaker 1: make that rule. One five minute call once a year
Speaker 1: seems really, it seems a little harsh. No is harsh.
Speaker 1: It is harsh. In George Phazon was serving time at Lucasville.
Speaker 1: Today he's a married father and grandfather, living and working
Speaker 1: in Cleveland. George remembers Warden Tate's operations shakedown and how
Speaker 1: he suspended the programs. They so relied on anything that
Speaker 1: was positive within the prison. It was taken away too
Speaker 1: if it didn't do leting, but pret more angry because
Speaker 1: people utilized a lot of the recreational programs as a
Speaker 1: form of a release valve. And you know, the sports programs,
Speaker 1: the were looking programs, the recreation prold web were derived
Speaker 1: as an outlet to keep the tension down right, and
Speaker 1: going to school throughout the day and evening. He gave
Speaker 1: you it was something to do. So when all that
Speaker 1: was taken away, he really really created more tension within
Speaker 1: the prison. By the way, let me have skew. I
Speaker 1: have heard so many people refer to those who are
Speaker 1: incarcerated differently. Some say inmate, some say inmate is not
Speaker 1: the proper word to use, Some say offender, some say prisoners,
Speaker 1: some say resident. What is your preference in how to
Speaker 1: describe somebody who is incarcerated? My purposes, we're all still
Speaker 1: human beings, label a tit of society, beings, inmate, prison, offender.
Speaker 1: I don't like any of those ways, because we're all
Speaker 1: through human beings. Hands down. One of the biggest issues
Speaker 1: at Lucasville was race, and it seems to go back
Speaker 1: to the three factors. Prisoners rights lawyer Nikki Schwartz talked
Speaker 1: about earlier location of the prison, who's working there and
Speaker 1: who's living there. Here's Lucasville's former warden, Arthur Tate. I
Speaker 1: had eight hundred employees when I first went there in
Speaker 1: un less than five of those employees were a minority.
Speaker 1: The inmate population, on the other hand, was over African
Speaker 1: American and there's just no question that was an issue.
Speaker 1: Was it an issue for the riot? I would say yes,
Speaker 1: it was an underlying issue. Here's George. Basically most of
Speaker 1: the guards down there at the time were affiliated with
Speaker 1: the Indian brother and wouldn't take He basically didn't have
Speaker 1: good control over the conditions down there. It's almost like
Speaker 1: he encouraged the racial tension I was down at the
Speaker 1: time because he didn't do anything basically to alleviate it.
Speaker 1: Most of the white guards down there, they had the
Speaker 1: light in boats tattooed on their neck, and you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have no problem making sure they supplied the
Speaker 1: air and Brotherhood inmates down there with whatever weapons they
Speaker 1: needed that as far as knife, whatever they need it
Speaker 1: down and they made sure that they're supplied with that.
Speaker 1: Tokyo Morgan was also serving time at Lucasville back then.
Speaker 1: He lived in K Block at the time of the uprising.
Speaker 1: You met him briefly in episode one. Today, Tokyo owns
Speaker 1: a successful landscaping business he's had for the last seven years.
Speaker 1: The parties are the pretty knives and there in give
Speaker 1: to the white guys and they can stay up all
Speaker 1: black guys. You knew that for sure, and therefore affect
Speaker 1: of the boys of the Knife had a price tag on.
Speaker 1: You will get that from the store. As we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: another major problem at Lucasville was overcrowding. Lucasville was only
Speaker 1: built to house just over fift hundred prisoners, all meant
Speaker 1: to be single celled, meaning one person per eight by
Speaker 1: ten cell. At the time of the uprising, there were
Speaker 1: just over eighteen hundred prisoners, almost three hundred more prisoners
Speaker 1: than it was designed to hold. Around eight hundred of
Speaker 1: them were sharing cells. But it wasn't just the overcrowding
Speaker 1: that was the issue. It was who prisoners were made
Speaker 1: to live with. That's because Lucasville under the previous prison administration,
Speaker 1: had been segregated based on race. In a prisoner files
Speaker 1: a lawsuit challenging this very cell assignment policy. Then about
Speaker 1: eight months after ward and Tate takes over, a federal
Speaker 1: judge tells him he must integrate the prison. Arthur says
Speaker 1: he was shocked when he learned that less than two
Speaker 1: percent of the inmate population was integrated. He was ready
Speaker 1: to right the wrong, but he knew it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be easy. Well, can you imagine how difficult it was,
Speaker 1: because let's just say, to call a guy in it's
Speaker 1: been in prison twenty years, he's an old arian, and
Speaker 1: tell him that, you know, starting tomorrow morning or tonight,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put an African American in with you,
Speaker 1: going to have a new roommate tonight, one of them
Speaker 1: will definitely kill the other one. In an environment like Lucasfield,
Speaker 1: a potential powder keg for sure. Then there's the spark
Speaker 1: that may have set it all off. The departmenty side.
Speaker 1: We're going to test all of our prisoners for tuberculosis.
Speaker 1: Now that's a mandatory test, that's not optional. According to
Speaker 1: one of those post riot investigations, about a month before
Speaker 1: the uprising, there is one reported case of TB at Lucasville.
Speaker 1: And since prison is such a closed environment and TB
Speaker 1: is so contagious prison officials in Columbus order the testing
Speaker 1: to be done. I knew that this was a controversial topic.
Speaker 1: It was controversial specifically with the Muslim prisoner population. One
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty nine inmates were refusing the TB test,
Speaker 1: it seems for reasons like basic distrust of the administration
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to be guinea pigs. But for
Speaker 1: the Sunni Muslim prisoners, they were objecting because, like we've
Speaker 1: already mentioned, they believed the test contained alcohol and being
Speaker 1: forced to consume alcohol in any form was a violation
Speaker 1: of their religious freedoms. So I'm getting all this intel
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, the Muslims are really having a
Speaker 1: problem with this, and so I thought, well, I'll just
Speaker 1: have a meeting with him. April five, six days before
Speaker 1: the uprising, Warden Tate meets with two Sunni Muslim prisoners
Speaker 1: and Sadiq Abdullah Hassan there in mom or prayer leader.
Speaker 1: Meeting did not go well. I'm a very direct person.
Speaker 1: I mean, I you probably figure that out already. I
Speaker 1: don't mince my words. I told you guys, I said, look,
Speaker 1: we're going to go forward with this test. You know,
Speaker 1: I told them they are going to run the prison.
Speaker 1: I run the prison. I told them that right to
Speaker 1: their face. Two days later, Hassan writes Warden Tate a
Speaker 1: letter or a kite as it's called in prison. It reads,
Speaker 1: in part quote, the TV substance is unlawful for a
Speaker 1: Muslim and an infringement on his right. A person can
Speaker 1: be tested positive or negative by taking an X ray
Speaker 1: test and or spitting into a cup. Hence, we have
Speaker 1: no legal objections to this form of testing and pray
Speaker 1: you and your staff will accommodate us in this form
Speaker 1: of TV testing. Hassan goes on to say that he's
Speaker 1: been told that these other forms of testing have been
Speaker 1: done a at least one other Ohio prison. Then he
Speaker 1: closes by thinking Warden Tate for his time and consideration.
Speaker 1: So basically, Hassan is saying they're not objecting to being
Speaker 1: tested for t B, they're just asking to be tested
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't contain alcohol. Hassan wrote you
Speaker 1: a letter asking for alternate methods of testing. Not familiar
Speaker 1: with that, Yeah, And I don't recall a letter from
Speaker 1: him that week. Yeah, I don't recall. I mean, is
Speaker 1: that part of the record. Yeah, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: recall the letter, and then you wrote back to him.
Speaker 1: I have Arthur's letter back to Hassan. It reads, in
Speaker 1: part quote, your options have been explained, and I expect
Speaker 1: full compliance to my orders for all inmates to be tested.
Speaker 1: You are in no position to dictate to me how
Speaker 1: you perceive this should occur. I am certainly hoping that
Speaker 1: there will be minimal difficulties associated with this process. Arthur's
Speaker 1: position on the matter is clear. The testing is going forward.
Speaker 1: So I drafted this plan, which I thought was a
Speaker 1: really good plan. It entailed me locking the prison down
Speaker 1: on the Monday after Easter. I would have the prison
Speaker 1: lockdown for three days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I had
Speaker 1: teams of staff that would be assigned to certain areas
Speaker 1: to bring about this test effect. This test. Now, what
Speaker 1: we were gonna do is go door to door. We
Speaker 1: go door to door, break the door down, go in,
Speaker 1: do the test. You know what the test is where
Speaker 1: they just eject a little bit of serum under your
Speaker 1: skin and three days later you go back and have
Speaker 1: it checked. As long as it's not read and irritated,
Speaker 1: you're good to go. So anyway, this plan was shared
Speaker 1: with the State Highway Patrol, with Central Office, my superiors
Speaker 1: and approved. So the plan to go in for those
Speaker 1: three days. It means that potentially using force, the Muslims
Speaker 1: were going to be given this test. Yes, well, someone
Speaker 1: tips off Hassan and the Muslim community to Arthur's plan,
Speaker 1: so that got out unbeknownst to me in prison, exploded
Speaker 1: on Easter Sunday. And I'm gonna say this, the tuberculosis
Speaker 1: situation didn't It didn't cause the riot. It was the
Speaker 1: trigger for the riot. I mean, all the things that
Speaker 1: we've talked about, I think feed into why the riot happened.
Speaker 1: And uh, frankly not getting their way with regard to
Speaker 1: the TV test. It's not a reason to have a
Speaker 1: riot and kill ten people. It's unacceptable. I'll never accept that.
Speaker 1: I don't lay awake at night worrying about that decision.
Speaker 1: I know I didn't cause the riot. Here's George Faison
Speaker 1: or Tate was so stubborn he wanted to do it
Speaker 1: his way. The whole situation could have been avoided if
Speaker 1: he would have tested. Were willing to administer the test
Speaker 1: another way, There wasn't against their religion. In December of
Speaker 1: eight months after the uprising, Arthur Tate is asked to
Speaker 1: step down as warden at Lucasville. A few months later,
Speaker 1: he is hired to help open and run a new
Speaker 1: prison in St. Clairsville, Ohio. Is there anything that you
Speaker 1: would have done differently leading up to or during Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I might have just made the decision to walk away
Speaker 1: from my job in September of nine, knowing what I
Speaker 1: was going to get myself into. In terms of actually
Speaker 1: managing the riot, given the circumstances, I think we did
Speaker 1: about as good as we could have done. I would
Speaker 1: have loved have stayed there. I mean, you know, looking
Speaker 1: back on that, I you know, I kind of get it.
Speaker 1: I've heard that many of the prisoners at Lucasville back
Speaker 1: then referred to Arthur as King Arthur, and that he
Speaker 1: was a total tyrant. To be honest, I was fully
Speaker 1: prepared not to like him. The opposite was true, although
Speaker 1: serving time at Lucasville with him as warden versus interviewing
Speaker 1: him at his dining room table are two very different things, right.
Speaker 1: I do wonder as the mayor or dictator of Lucasville,
Speaker 1: Arthur must have had his finger on the pulse of
Speaker 1: the prison right, he must have known who the troublemakers
Speaker 1: or model prisoners were, So I wanted to know what
Speaker 1: does Arthur remember about Keith? Did you know Keith Lamar
Speaker 1: prior to the uprising? Yes, I had not had any
Speaker 1: problems with him. He says he is innocent. He did
Speaker 1: not do anything that he's been accused of. I really
Speaker 1: not familiar with all the specifics. The specifics of Keith's
Speaker 1: case span three decades and are quite involved. I've actually
Speaker 1: had multiple people tell me that this story is too
Speaker 1: big and I've bitten off way more than I can
Speaker 1: show I one or if they're right, for now, before
Speaker 1: I get too far down the road, the destination is
Speaker 1: on your right. Ohio State Penitentiary arrived. I need to
Speaker 1: speak with Keith in person, face to face for the
Speaker 1: first time. Okay, I'm here, I am about to go
Speaker 1: into the prison, and I'm kind of freaking out. Next
Speaker 1: time on the real killer, they had zero physical evidence,
Speaker 1: five brutal killings, just nothing doesn't matter for investigators keeps
Speaker 1: their man. I'm not an angel, but that's not who
Speaker 1: You've been accused of doing something that you know he
Speaker 1: hadn't done. But Lucasville isn't the only thing Keith's been
Speaker 1: accused of? Can you tell me about what happened in
Speaker 1: that shooting? To see photos and documents related to this
Speaker 1: season's story, check out The Real Killer podcast Instagram page.
Speaker 1: The Real Killer is a production of a y R
Speaker 1: Media and I Heart Radio, hosted by me Leah Rothman.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza Rosen. For A y
Speaker 1: R Media. Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams,
Speaker 1: Senior Associate producer Jill pshas Nick, coordinator George Fom. Editing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by
Speaker 1: Cameron Taggi. Audio engineering by Matt Jacobson. Studio engineering by
Speaker 1: Anna Moolshan Legal counsel for a y R Media, Gianni Douglas,
Speaker 1: executive producer for I Heart Radio. Maya Howe Word