Speaker 1: Welcome to part two of the Nick Yarras story on
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. We've already heard about Nick's surviving sexual assault,
Speaker 1: his misspent young adulthood, the lie that turned the authorities
Speaker 1: hell bent on his conviction, Gladiator Sunday's suicide torture, and
Speaker 1: then with a court date that could have led to
Speaker 1: his freedom in sight, he unintentionally finds himself escaping from
Speaker 1: death row, only to turn himself in instead of committing
Speaker 1: suicide by shark, I mean, seriously, what the actual fuck?
Speaker 1: And we're still just halfway. We pick up with Nick
Speaker 1: again on death row in Florida, where he was awaiting
Speaker 1: transfer back to Pennsylvania and where he ran into Jesse
Speaker 1: to Farroh, who was the life partner and father of
Speaker 1: the children of Sunny Jacobs, who we may remember was
Speaker 1: one of the most extraordinary episodes of Wrongful Conviction. I
Speaker 1: think it was season one episode four. Jesse, who ends
Speaker 1: up crazy enough on death row in Florida with Nick,
Speaker 1: was later executed in a botched execution where the electric
Speaker 1: chair quote unquote malfunctioned and.
Speaker 2: His head caught fire.
Speaker 1: It's a gruesome, gruesome story, and even more so because
Speaker 1: he was an actually innocent.
Speaker 2: Man and get ready for this.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Nick, on death Row again in Florida,
Speaker 1: was sharing that pod with one of the most notorious
Speaker 1: inmates in the history of America, Ted Bundy. Fasten your
Speaker 1: seatbelts for part two of nick yaris onun Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 3: I knew the beaten that was waiting on me, I
Speaker 3: knew the torture that was waiting on me, and I
Speaker 3: turned myself in and I went back to Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 3: I faced the music because I told a lie of
Speaker 3: missus Craig Jason, It's never stopped bothering me. Man. I
Speaker 3: told a lie to get out of a copslot. But
Speaker 3: that's only half the story. I told a lie about
Speaker 3: a woman's murder man and shamed her family, disrespected mine.
Speaker 3: I got to live with that man, so I decided
Speaker 3: to go back, but first I had to sit in
Speaker 3: friggin Florida for eight months down there with Ted Bundy.
Speaker 3: When Florida's Death Row and I meet, of all people,
Speaker 3: Jesse Trefero, an innocent man. Jesse was married to a
Speaker 3: very good friend of mine now called Sonny Jacob's and
Speaker 3: she lives over in Ireland with Peter Pringle, her partner,
Speaker 3: who was also sentenced to death, and they got the
Speaker 3: Sunny Foundation where they helped people who got out of prison.
Speaker 3: And I didn't know any of this. All I knew
Speaker 3: was this very attractive, sweet hearted Buddhist man told me, hey, man,
Speaker 3: take me back to Pennsylvania with me. These crazy bessards
Speaker 3: are trying to kill me. Man, I said, Jesse, what happen?
Speaker 3: He said, Man, I pick up a hitchhiker, he kills
Speaker 3: the cop. They put me and my wife death row,
Speaker 3: but we didn't kill nobody. It's stuck with me, you know.
Speaker 3: So I go back to Pennsylvania after eight months of Florida,
Speaker 3: and they added thirty five years to my sentence in
Speaker 3: the state of Florida for the escape and related charges,
Speaker 3: and I knew I was done. I had one hundred
Speaker 3: and five years. There is no such thing as DNA testing.
Speaker 3: I ruined my appeals with absconding. You know the law, Jason,
Speaker 3: If you run, you forfeit your appeals, You're done. So
Speaker 3: I was sitting there in nineteen eighty eight and I
Speaker 3: had just met a woman who told me that I
Speaker 3: had a fascinating mind and she wanted to spend time
Speaker 3: talking to me, and I felt absolutely horrible about that.
Speaker 3: And then I get a hand in a newspaper. It's
Speaker 3: almost thrown away, and the next thing I know, I'm
Speaker 3: the very first man in history to seek DNA testing
Speaker 3: from death throw. In March of nineteen eighty eight, I
Speaker 3: filed my first petition, and that historic event led me
Speaker 3: to watch one hundred and ten men get set free
Speaker 3: before me. I watched the mall, Gary Dotson, I watched
Speaker 3: all these dudes. I watched Kurt Bludworth go out and
Speaker 3: be the first death row prisoner exonerated, but he filed
Speaker 3: years after I did. I had to watch him all
Speaker 3: go home and walk free, and none of them spoke beautifully.
Speaker 3: And I felt like, man, if I ever get my chance,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do justice to this man. And then
Speaker 3: meanwhile I meet a man who's innocent, named Walter Ogrod.
Speaker 3: You see, I've been through so much at this point,
Speaker 3: twenty years of prison, I'm sick with hepatitis. See all
Speaker 3: the DNA evidence has either been destroyed or missing or
Speaker 3: spilled in transit. I have no hope. And I get
Speaker 3: moved to a Green County supermax prison, and the staff
Speaker 3: there knew me from years ago from Huntington, and knew
Speaker 3: I was cool. So they cut me a break and
Speaker 3: they let me become a block worker for a month
Speaker 3: where I could come out of my cell and sweep up.
Speaker 3: And I meet this prisoner named Walter Ogrod and he
Speaker 3: tries to speak to me. But Walter's been convicted of
Speaker 3: putt a little girl in a TV box and leaving
Speaker 3: her on the street corner in Philadelphia. And I don't
Speaker 3: want no shit like that bothering me. I just lost everything.
Speaker 3: The wife that I met just before the DNA testing
Speaker 3: began walked out on me. I lost all the DNA evidence.
Speaker 3: I don't want no trouble. And there's these two men
Speaker 3: in the prison tormenting them, Hackett and Spence. They broke
Speaker 3: into Walter's house and they tried to kill his brother,
Speaker 3: and they murdered his sister in law to be. But
Speaker 3: I didn't care. I had enough troubles on my own,
Speaker 3: you know. But when I went back at my cell
Speaker 3: and I thought about how I treated Walter, I thought,
Speaker 3: that's it, Nick, Why get out? You got no humanity.
Speaker 3: The very next day, I went over to Walter and
Speaker 3: I began at first, I began writing letters to his lawyer.
Speaker 3: I would decipher Walter's efforts to write a letter in minutia.
Speaker 3: An entire eight by eleven page would be filled with
Speaker 3: micro lines of writing, not just single line. I mean
Speaker 3: he would compress as many possible words into one page
Speaker 3: and desperation to get information out. I would take that
Speaker 3: apart and write to his lawyers as best that I
Speaker 3: could and help. I told Hackett and Spence that if
Speaker 3: they kept bothering water that I'd smashed their face and
Speaker 3: that they had time to just think about one thing.
Speaker 3: I wasn't no fucking joke, and if they bothered my
Speaker 3: friend again, I was gonna hurt him. I told the
Speaker 3: rest of the dudes on death Row, I didn't care
Speaker 3: what they thought. I was standing up for Walter. A
Speaker 3: man named Tom Lowenstein, whose father had been murdered. He
Speaker 3: was a journalist from Louisiana, contacted me and wanted to
Speaker 3: write a book about my story and said it was incredible.
Speaker 3: I said, Tom, tell Walter's story, leave me alone. This
Speaker 3: man needs to help more than me. No one on
Speaker 3: death Row does things like that. But I believe so
Speaker 3: much in this man that it started to make me
Speaker 3: feel good about it. In the past, I had already
Speaker 3: done legal work and helped get other prisoners off death row,
Speaker 3: I wrote to their mother's. In fact, the administration told
Speaker 3: me one of the things that made me the most
Speaker 3: dangerous prisoner had ever dealt with is so many men
Speaker 3: cared about me that whenever a guards or anything did
Speaker 3: stuff to me, they would all go on hunger protests
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. I said, well, I can't help,
Speaker 3: but that I'm a caring person. I told my mom
Speaker 3: I wouldn't lose that humanity. So while I'm trying to
Speaker 3: get water help, I keep feeling weaker and weaker. Jay,
Speaker 3: something's wrong inside man. And in two thousand and two,
Speaker 3: my brother died in August, and I knew over the
Speaker 3: past seven months after being diagnosed with hepatitis see that
Speaker 3: I was in bad condition, but I had to hold off.
Speaker 3: My parents were burying their youngest child, so I couldn't
Speaker 3: ask to be executed then when I was really suffering,
Speaker 3: so I waited, you know. And the whole precipice of
Speaker 3: it all was I lost my eyesight for three days
Speaker 3: one time because of the medical toxins that they were
Speaker 3: giving me to fight the infection. Pumping my body full
Speaker 3: of interferon and rivereverron Well. I had to go tell
Speaker 3: Walter that I couldn't help him no more, and it
Speaker 3: broke his heart. But I told him before I told
Speaker 3: anybody else, that I was going to be asking to
Speaker 3: be executed for a crime that I didn't commit, rather
Speaker 3: than just die like Dale Carter did. There was a
Speaker 3: dude convicted of rape and murder on my pod in
Speaker 3: Green County Prison in two thousand and one. He died
Speaker 3: of an impacted bowl from the onset of hepatitis C
Speaker 3: while nurses stood in front of his cell, knowing he
Speaker 3: was convicted of raping and murdering the woman, and they
Speaker 3: laughed at him suffering. And I knew that's what my
Speaker 3: fate was. They were going to taunt me, they were
Speaker 3: going to make me miserable, and they were going to
Speaker 3: laugh in my face at my death. And I said no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: In fact, I decided I he was going to fulfill
Speaker 3: my efforts. The only reason I ever learned how to
Speaker 3: speak with any modicum of decency was after the escape,
Speaker 3: when they beat my face and broke my teeth, and
Speaker 3: I couldn't look at myself without flinching. So I took
Speaker 3: all the photographs off my wall, and I put one
Speaker 3: of myself up as a seventeen year old boy, and
Speaker 3: I began to speak politely to this person. Every day,
Speaker 3: I quietly began to speak to this man, knowing he
Speaker 3: was the only one who going to get me out
Speaker 3: of here. And that transitioned into reading beautiful literature to
Speaker 3: this photograph. It was such an empowerment to read beautiful
Speaker 3: passages from Gabron as I stood before my own photograph.
Speaker 3: Or even better, I practiced my death speech over and
Speaker 3: over beautifully. I had it down. You see. The only
Speaker 3: thing I really feared was that on the day that
Speaker 3: they executed me, I would mess it up, that I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have the acumen, the poise to say the lovely
Speaker 3: thing that I had to say. It was so important
Speaker 3: to me to talk and speak beautifully for myself that
Speaker 3: I rehearsed this beautiful death speech forgiving them for taking
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 2: You remember the speech always.
Speaker 3: It's a reference to the neutrino and how the neutrino
Speaker 3: passes through the earth unnoticed by us all. But this
Speaker 3: neutrino is unstoppable. It emanates from the earth and passes
Speaker 3: through whatever surface it meets, regardless of density, strength, power
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. And I was like a neutrino passing through
Speaker 3: their lives. And just like that new trainer that they
Speaker 3: allowed to pass through in ignorance, so too were they
Speaker 3: ignorant of the loving, caring person that I made myself
Speaker 3: into be and that I forgave them for killing me.
Speaker 3: I apologized for embarrassing my family, and I accepted my faith.
Speaker 1: I want to get into the exoneration because you know
Speaker 1: the miracle that awaited you that you had just almost
Speaker 1: given up hope of ever having, which there would be
Speaker 1: very good reason that somebody in your situation would give
Speaker 1: up hope and that you might have ended up either
Speaker 1: executed or having taken your own life like so many
Speaker 1: other people that you knew. Is that in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, fast forwarding God, this is twenty two years
Speaker 1: since the original date. Right in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: a doctor named Edward Blake tested the gloves, fingernail scrapings,
Speaker 1: and sperm that was found on inside of the victim,
Speaker 1: Missus Craig, and it was determined at that time all
Speaker 1: of the DNA that was found was from the same
Speaker 1: person and on July second of two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: you were excluded as the source of any of that
Speaker 1: biological material. And on September third, so this is now
Speaker 1: another two months and a day later, your conviction was
Speaker 1: vacated by the court. You became at that time at
Speaker 1: the one hundred and fortieth DNA exoneration in America and
Speaker 1: the thirteenth from death throat. I'm getting the chills when
Speaker 1: as I say that, So, I mean, we have to
Speaker 1: talk about that, right, What was that?
Speaker 2: Like? You know?
Speaker 3: I wish I could tell you it was something really big.
Speaker 3: But the truth is I was still in prison until
Speaker 3: January two thousand and four. The federal court gave Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: the right to retry me as they would, and they
Speaker 3: drug it out, and they drug it out, and it
Speaker 3: kept going on. So in the end they botched my release.
Speaker 3: After a week of telling me I was going home
Speaker 3: on Monday, they came and told me, January eleventh, you're
Speaker 3: going home, pack your stuff. We'll be back for you
Speaker 3: in an hour. They didn't come back on what day
Speaker 3: was that, January eleventh?
Speaker 1: January eleven, two thousand and four. You're going home, pack
Speaker 1: your stuff, getting out of here.
Speaker 3: The whole argument was do we send them back to Florida?
Speaker 3: Do we let them go? What do we do? What
Speaker 3: do we do? What do we do?
Speaker 1: So wait, you'd already been exonerated, so why in the
Speaker 1: world did you have to go back to Florida.
Speaker 3: It was a possibility that they would have to take
Speaker 3: me back to Florida and release me there because Florida
Speaker 3: still had that thirty five year sentence on me. So
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania had, of course dropped all the charges against me,
Speaker 3: but they were in the process of negotiating with Florida,
Speaker 3: at which time my lawyer filed an application to have
Speaker 3: my sentence reduced because I was sentenced in Florida only
Speaker 3: because I was an escapee and convicted of murder. Everybody
Speaker 3: vacated their sentences. Everything's ready, but I'm dragging on the
Speaker 3: whole time I'm sitting in a mental cell. They took
Speaker 3: me out of prison and put me into a restricted
Speaker 3: housing union meant for mentally impaired prisoners, because they rationalized
Speaker 3: that because of all the things that they'd done to me,
Speaker 3: I was going to kill one of them as soon
Speaker 3: as my door opened up, And I swear to God
Speaker 3: that's what they told me to my face. So meanwhile,
Speaker 3: I'm waiting. January eleventh, they tell me I'm going home.
Speaker 3: January twelfth, they told me the same thing. On January thirteenth,
Speaker 3: I was shown a photograph of my mother in the
Speaker 3: Delaware County newspaper holding up a photograph of me from
Speaker 3: the previous day, saying where's my son? He was supposed
Speaker 3: to be released on January fourteenth. That photograph was very
Speaker 3: widely used in the Philadelphia area because January fifteenth, I
Speaker 3: was told I was going home, but at five pm
Speaker 3: that night they said it was too late. On January sixteenth,
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, I packed up my belongings, said
Speaker 3: goodbye to everybody, and I got in a van and
Speaker 3: I drove out of the prison, only to be stopped
Speaker 3: at the second barrier and told we made a mistake.
Speaker 3: You have to go back. It was the testing moment
Speaker 3: of testing moments in my life, and I handled it
Speaker 3: with grace because I knew this was important. They put
Speaker 3: me back into prison and they said, what can we
Speaker 3: do for you? This has nothing to do with this.
Speaker 3: We just simply have to get some paperwork from Florida
Speaker 3: done and we will let you go. I said how long.
Speaker 3: They said, what do you mean? I said, well, my
Speaker 3: parents are across the street with all the assembled press.
Speaker 3: How long do you think they're going to stand out
Speaker 3: there in the snow. He said, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: We told your parents. They're well aware of the situation.
Speaker 3: They're not put off by this. They understand there's a lawyer.
Speaker 3: This is crazy. Elliott Shirker, attorney at law, put a
Speaker 3: lawyer on a plane in Fort Lauderdale and flew to Tallahassee,
Speaker 3: Florida to have my parole papers stamped so I could
Speaker 3: be released by one o'clock that day. That's the power
Speaker 3: of having my wonderful attorney, Peter Goldberger, have that kind
Speaker 3: of influence over friendships because he told people, look, my
Speaker 3: client's innocent, but I need some help. So Elliott Shirker,
Speaker 3: on his own dime, sends a lawyer by plane to
Speaker 3: the state capitol, faxes the paperwork over, and at one
Speaker 3: o'clock they let me out. The crazy thing is they
Speaker 3: dropped all the charges. I was allowed to have my
Speaker 3: conviction vacated, and then the state attorney appealed it and
Speaker 3: got it reinstated. While I was in France speaking before
Speaker 3: the League the Nationale and told that if I go
Speaker 3: back to Florida that I can voluntarily resume my thirty
Speaker 3: five your sentence there if I so choose.
Speaker 2: So I guess it's fair to say you won't be
Speaker 2: going to Florida anytime soon.
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm going to go to Florida and
Speaker 3: commit any crimes. But I have been there to thank
Speaker 3: Elliott Shirker. I went down there to thank that lawyer
Speaker 3: to help me get free. And by the way, Jeff,
Speaker 3: I think you're an amazing man. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you. But I had this amazing gift given to
Speaker 3: me by this Baptist preacher who was a sergeant in
Speaker 3: the prison, and he came in and he spent these
Speaker 3: two hours with me, and I'm telling you, man, he
Speaker 3: made every officer on shift come and shake my hand.
Speaker 3: Dudes were coming up to me and saying the same thing.
Speaker 3: It's a hard job. Sorry, sometimes we have to hurt men.
Speaker 3: But you're a good man, Nick. I respect you, thank
Speaker 3: you for help. And other prisoners when they were down,
Speaker 3: I'm like, fuck, I'm growing, Like this is building me
Speaker 3: up so much, Jason, that when I walked out of
Speaker 3: that prison and got into the arms of my father.
Speaker 3: I knew I didn't have a goddamn thing to say.
Speaker 3: I walked up to the assembled media. I said, Walter
Speaker 3: Ogrod and Ernie Simmons are two men in the prison
Speaker 3: behind me. Can someone send some help for them? Thank you,
Speaker 3: and goodbye. I knew everybody wouldn't listen to me. I
Speaker 3: knew that they would think I was crazy if I
Speaker 3: went on this big rant or anything. I did the
Speaker 3: honorable thing. I said, we need a moratorium on the
Speaker 3: death penalty, and I got some friends here, I'm going
Speaker 3: to help. They didn't think I was serious. Only ten
Speaker 3: months after my release, when I got set free, I
Speaker 3: had no medical help nothing. I had to heal myself
Speaker 3: with my parents' help. Ten months later, I'm in London
Speaker 3: speaking in Parliament and Kofi Annan listens to me speak,
Speaker 3: walks up to me and said, young men, you are
Speaker 3: one of the finest speakers I've ever heard in my life.
Speaker 3: Keep going. That was my empowerment when I realized that
Speaker 3: this education I gave myself because I went well past
Speaker 3: those five first books, I went crazy. I read all
Speaker 3: of the world's religions so that I could have respect
Speaker 3: for everyone's beliefs. I went out of my way to
Speaker 3: read and read and read every possible thing about history
Speaker 3: and our arts and sciences so I could be alive
Speaker 3: to the world. What was the point if I got out?
Speaker 3: So I even spent six years of my life studying
Speaker 3: psychology so I could understand the principles of what I
Speaker 3: would face. I am a human experiment of endurance, and
Speaker 3: for some magical reason, I'm built for it. I took
Speaker 3: this notion that I am everything I believed about myself
Speaker 3: while there, and I've expounded upon it now to teaching
Speaker 3: people about neuroplasticity, healing, the receptacle, and beautiful feeding frenzy.
Speaker 3: Your brain gets from being polite. You having a meticulous
Speaker 3: polite behavior is your own healing. Your brain absorbs all
Speaker 3: of this neuron reciprocal healing from being nice. I didn't
Speaker 3: understand any of this. All I knew is that on
Speaker 3: the second day of my freedom, I had to go
Speaker 3: to the hospital to pick my brother up who got
Speaker 3: hit by a car. Because that's an alcoholic crossing the road.
Speaker 3: He tended to get hit by cars. But my mother
Speaker 3: sat me down and she said, NICKI do me a favor.
Speaker 3: Please listen to what I'm about to say to you.
Speaker 3: I need you to be a polite man so that
Speaker 3: when you meet people, you say yes sir and no sir,
Speaker 3: and yes ma'am and no ma'am. Because I want you
Speaker 3: to show respect for this family, for what we've gone through.
Speaker 3: Because I got something to tell you, Nick. For you
Speaker 3: to get out of prison and not be a nice
Speaker 3: man is a waste of every one of my prayers
Speaker 3: and tears. Don't you dare let me down? Well, I
Speaker 3: didn't know. This is the basis of neuroplasticity healing. If
Speaker 3: you can think about this, your brain when you go
Speaker 3: out and light up and smile has receptacles in it.
Speaker 3: For you to go out and be gregariously nice and polite,
Speaker 3: your brain is actually erasing the PTSD in your brain.
Speaker 3: How is it that for the last hour or so,
Speaker 3: I've been able to sit here and talk about things
Speaker 3: that most people will be crushed by, and yet Jason
Speaker 3: knows this. I'm probably the happiest I've been in my
Speaker 3: life in the fifteen years of my freedom, so exponentially,
Speaker 3: I've been able to take on this notion that I'm
Speaker 3: an athlete, and as an athlete in training in neuroplasticity healing.
Speaker 3: I am like an olympian. I have been doing this
Speaker 3: so well for so long, with such a polite manner.
Speaker 3: I am not affected by the stresses that deteriorate our brains,
Speaker 3: cause heart attacks, stress, divorce. I don't have a need
Speaker 3: for substance abuse because I don't have the fissure within
Speaker 3: me that needs to be masked. I actually go around
Speaker 3: and I teach people in the corporate world how to
Speaker 3: empower themselves with kindness for the workforce to be the
Speaker 3: utmost beautiful boss. I go around and teach students about
Speaker 3: how their politeness makes them a better student, able to
Speaker 3: absorb more from their own self respect. I go around
Speaker 3: and I teach people how to handle fucked up shit.
Speaker 3: Sorry for the language, but since I did Joe Rogan's podcast,
Speaker 3: over a thousand people came to me and promised me
Speaker 3: they would no longer be abusive and killing themselves. A
Speaker 3: thousand men like dudes with the most broken hearted, damaged lives.
Speaker 3: They come to me and they say, if you're doing
Speaker 3: what you're doing in your because of it, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do this. Just listening to you talk, I swear
Speaker 3: to God changed my whole perspective. That too, is why
Speaker 3: I'm doing this, Jason. I listened to your podcasts, and
Speaker 3: the one thing that I really wanted to tell you,
Speaker 3: I was so glad that you were alive to caring
Speaker 3: about other species, not just humans. We can all feel
Speaker 3: that empathy and we all try for that, but when
Speaker 3: I saw that, you really likened it to your own happiness.
Speaker 3: You're well on your way to having neuroplasticity healing in
Speaker 3: your life. Whatever scars you've carried, you've already mastered them.
Speaker 3: You're now this fountain of foundation and hope for other people.
Speaker 3: You are now able to have a perspective that allows
Speaker 3: you freedom, just like me. But Dude, the way you
Speaker 3: go about it has been so different. This is why
Speaker 3: I told you. You didn't have the earth dropped on
Speaker 3: your head a couple of times to make you do this,
Speaker 3: and for you to go out and make these efforts
Speaker 3: with Brandon Deasy or all these other people. Man, I'm like,
Speaker 3: why why is this?
Speaker 2: Then? I get it.
Speaker 3: You're already tuned into your own healing. You know what
Speaker 3: the reward system in you is and why it's genuine
Speaker 3: to you. You're not doing this to be famous. Jason.
Speaker 3: I see the effort you made this week alone and
Speaker 3: half the shit no one's even gonna know, are they?
Speaker 3: But inside your brain is feeding off this man just
Speaker 3: like me. It's profoundly making you a lovely person, someone
Speaker 3: I've learned to really respect. You got the same message
Speaker 3: as me, but we came about at different angles, brother,
Speaker 3: and I'm here to just tell you that's all I want.
Speaker 3: I want to go around and teach the kindness approach.
Speaker 3: I want to go to schools and get students to
Speaker 3: be amazing people. I want to have a purposeful life
Speaker 3: like you. I just want to do good. I don't
Speaker 3: care where it came from.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the kind words. It's really humbling to
Speaker 1: hear those coming from you. I recognize, you know in myself.
Speaker 1: You know, I call it selfish altruism because I know
Speaker 1: that I feel really sort of tuned in, or however
Speaker 1: you would say it. You know, when I'm able to
Speaker 1: bring some hope to a hopeless place to a person
Speaker 1: who needs it, sometimes even able to effectuate real change,
Speaker 1: bring somebody home, maybe help them after they get out,
Speaker 1: it's an unbelievably rewarding thing. You know, It's funny when
Speaker 1: I meet somebody, a stranger, and we're talking wherever it
Speaker 1: might be, and they hear me talk what do you do?
Speaker 1: I talk about my living, how I make a living,
Speaker 1: this and that, and then I say, well, but I
Speaker 1: also work on this other and you know, after a
Speaker 1: few minutes to say, you know, your voice changed, like
Speaker 1: you become so much more animated when you talk about
Speaker 1: this other work. Yeah, yeah, so I think I've Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. We came and you know, I had
Speaker 1: this revelation Nick. It was about a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I was leaving Buckingham Correctional in Virginia somewhere, and it
Speaker 1: was about an hour and forty minutes from Richmond, you know,
Speaker 1: some maximum security prison, and I was visiting a couple
Speaker 1: of innocent guys there, Yen Zurring and Tim Wright with
Speaker 1: the legal team, and trying to you know, help them
Speaker 1: in any way that I could. I spent three very
Speaker 1: focused hours, really you know, dialed in of course there's
Speaker 1: no phones in, there's no distractions. And also it's when
Speaker 1: I feel most useful. So I walked out. It was
Speaker 1: maybe late winter, early spring, and I walked out of
Speaker 1: this prison through the yard and then out the doors
Speaker 1: and it was about forty degrees and so sleep a
Speaker 1: little bit outside whether it wasn't very nice at all,
Speaker 1: And I had this momentary revelation and I said, Wow,
Speaker 1: there's no place I'd rather be in, nothing i'd rather
Speaker 1: be doing. You know, I'm no saint, you know, so
Speaker 1: I don't want to make it sound like that. And
Speaker 1: I wish for everyone that you find something that gets
Speaker 1: you to that place. It's so many people doing such
Speaker 1: amazing things in the world, in so many different areas.
Speaker 1: You know, there's people that make my efforts look like
Speaker 1: a drop in the ocean. But I'm grateful to be
Speaker 1: a part of the movement and to be able to
Speaker 1: make a difference whenever I can, and to be able
Speaker 1: to spend time with people like you, honestly is the
Speaker 1: great reward.
Speaker 3: This is what I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 3: really get. You throw out so much love and effort
Speaker 3: for everyone else. Give it to you, give it to
Speaker 3: you as well, and when you do it shines. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's you.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 3: I'll always carry my scars as a noble approach to
Speaker 3: my toll in life that I have to pay. And
Speaker 3: one of the tolls I'll never stop paying for is
Speaker 3: to fight for missus Craig. When I got out, I
Speaker 3: was in a documentary called After Innocence with Phil Donahue
Speaker 3: and Barry Shack and all them, and they filmed me
Speaker 3: going to the courthouse fighting to get the DNA to
Speaker 3: catch a killer. I recognize my wrong. So if I'm
Speaker 3: willing to do that effort like that for my wrongs,
Speaker 3: I should have some of that effort for my right.
Speaker 3: We're not willing to do that without that ego blast
Speaker 3: bothering us about it, and that's wrong. My mother told me,
Speaker 3: when you go somewhere and you want to show people
Speaker 3: that you show respect for yourself, dress up nicely, make
Speaker 3: yourself feel good, show that you care about yourself, because
Speaker 3: that is a good example for when you go before
Speaker 3: someone to show them respect, you shown yourself enough care,
Speaker 3: enough wisdom to know that you care about yourself. And
Speaker 3: the reason that we should care about ourselves in this
Speaker 3: way is people who trust us and rely on us
Speaker 3: need us to know we're not just loving and strong
Speaker 3: for them, but for ourselves. It's that weakness about us
Speaker 3: that makes people apprehensive that will he capitulate? Will you
Speaker 3: give up? And we can't allow that. So I work
Speaker 3: very hard to find that perspective that if I can
Speaker 3: love myself to craft a deaf speech when I yet
Speaker 3: know justs like today, I'm living under a death sentence
Speaker 3: every day anyway, I don't know when it's gonna be Jason.
Speaker 3: The city's so chaotic. Me and you could get taken
Speaker 3: up by a taxi, caab, a bicyclist. We could die
Speaker 3: of choking on a pretzel. These are all realities today, right.
Speaker 2: After all you've been through. Are you scared of a pretzel?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Man, Hey, you joke. But I used to have
Speaker 3: a phobia because I watch the man choked to death
Speaker 3: in a prison cell because the guards thought he was
Speaker 3: tricking them and let him die. So there you go.
Speaker 3: So but the truth is that I realize that if
Speaker 3: every day I'm living with a death sentence, that I
Speaker 3: should not waste this last day with anger and stupid resentment.
Speaker 3: I have a really unique situation in which I have
Speaker 3: now a major motion picture being made about my life.
Speaker 3: I'm on pins and needles this week because a very
Speaker 3: famous actor and his agent have been watching the latest
Speaker 3: work of my director, and it's a possibility this lovely
Speaker 3: man would say yes to playing me as the lead role,
Speaker 3: and I know that would change things. I've recently gone
Speaker 3: through a spate of jobs trying to find any kind
Speaker 3: of employment in the area I am. I'm actually currently unemployed,
Speaker 3: and I recognize that it doesn't matter. I know myself
Speaker 3: to know I have talent and a bit and I'll
Speaker 3: bounce back. I've been trying to develop a television show
Speaker 3: based on what's happening now with my friend Walter, who
Speaker 3: I mentioned you see. One of the great pleasures of
Speaker 3: having come here to meet you is yesterday at the
Speaker 3: San Francisco Airport, the Philadelphia District Attorney's office called me personally,
Speaker 3: and the man that I spoke to told me he
Speaker 3: was very proud of me for the efforts I made,
Speaker 3: and it was one of the reasons he joined a
Speaker 3: district attorney's integrity unit. It touched me that he couldn't
Speaker 3: break protocol and tell me information about my friend Walter's
Speaker 3: case and the hearing that's coming up next month, but
Speaker 3: he wanted me to know that there's good people in
Speaker 3: that office willing to do the right thing, and that
Speaker 3: I shouldn't be worried. And I told him the only
Speaker 3: reason I rang was because I didn't want to embarrass
Speaker 3: his office by going on this podcast and giving me
Speaker 3: out wrong information and lamenting their efforts when I don't know.
Speaker 3: So I do know my friend has the DNA evidence back.
Speaker 3: It does not match him. I can't say more than that.
Speaker 3: I'm precluded from saying anything. But they did do DNA
Speaker 3: evidence in Walter Ogrod's case and they're now waiting for
Speaker 3: his hearing next month and he should be.
Speaker 1: Released, amen man, and we'll be there for him with
Speaker 1: the support that he needs when he gets out.
Speaker 3: Anybody wishing to know about Walter Ogrod, you can look
Speaker 3: up Death Row Stories, season three, episode four. I gave
Speaker 3: up my opportunity to be on this show so that
Speaker 3: they could tell his story. Jigsaw Productions did a great
Speaker 3: work and that was what led to the Philadelphia District
Speaker 3: Attorney's Office investigating's Walter's case.
Speaker 1: That's Death Row Story season three, episode four. It's Walter
Speaker 1: Ogrid Ogrod. Please do check it out, and he's going
Speaker 1: to need a lot of support when he gets out.
Speaker 1: And we'll be publishing that information on the Rofel Conviction
Speaker 1: website and I'll be putting it on my social media
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 2: It's Jason flum Nick.
Speaker 1: For people who are listening now, and you've had a
Speaker 1: remarkable journey since you've been out. You had the one
Speaker 1: of them most listened to episodes ever of the Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan podcast. I think your episode will be one of
Speaker 1: the most listened to of this podcast. For people who
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with you, to book you
Speaker 1: for doing speaking gigs or come and give a teaching
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Usually social media works best Facebook page. I'm on Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 3: nick Yarris.
Speaker 1: That's nick Y a r rs, that's nick Yarris ya
Speaker 1: r r s.
Speaker 2: And of course it's nic k right.
Speaker 3: I also have nick Yarris dot Org my website, and
Speaker 3: I have a really sincere platform. I try and go
Speaker 3: around and talk to either university students, school students, or
Speaker 3: I do a corporate and I try and focus on
Speaker 3: two things, either the neuroplasticity, but I also cover media,
Speaker 3: and I also cover one of the best fields of all,
Speaker 3: which is our penology and how we need the work
Speaker 3: to change our penology. And one of the great passions
Speaker 3: that I have personally is I want to see a
Speaker 3: change for prison officers. They have the highest mortality rates,
Speaker 3: the highest divorce rates the highest rates of alcohol abuse
Speaker 3: in our services. Imagine Jason, all the hards these men
Speaker 3: have to live with, and then they see me go free.
Speaker 3: One of the heartbreaking things is a man who stomped me,
Speaker 3: and I mean stomp the shit out of me for escaping,
Speaker 3: wrote me an email, said, dear miss Yerris, I got
Speaker 3: your email from one of your lawyers in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3: I beat the shit out of you for escaping for
Speaker 3: death row, and I thought you were a scumbag piece
Speaker 3: of shit, and I have to live with that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: So I want to see that prison officers are giving
Speaker 3: at least a two year course in psychology so they
Speaker 3: don't become abusive, and that they don't kill themselves. Because
Speaker 3: everything that I got good came from that officer, he said, Boy,
Speaker 3: go in a cell. I promise you, if you read
Speaker 3: these books, you won't be angry. I can't stop thinking
Speaker 3: about that gift. I watched eleven men kill themselves. I
Speaker 3: watched as they burned the buildings around me during the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine riot. I had a prison officers try
Speaker 3: to use different serial killers to kill me. Over a
Speaker 3: three year period. I've endured so many horrors. I think
Speaker 3: I'm going to lead them in prison and take the
Speaker 3: good home with me.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's it in a nutshell, isn't it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm with you. I think that we need to
Speaker 1: do a much better job training the people who are
Speaker 1: there to protect the rehabilitate, and of course monitor the
Speaker 1: people who are in our prison system. Of course, we
Speaker 1: need to decarcerate this nation a two point three million.
Speaker 1: We are not the most evil people in the world.
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 3: Our fourth largest industry is penology, right, that's.
Speaker 1: Crazy, eighty something billion dollarstry. And the fact is that
Speaker 1: obviously there's some correction officers who will do very, very
Speaker 1: bad things. There's also a lot of them to do
Speaker 1: good and women.
Speaker 3: Let's give it up. There's so many good men and women.
Speaker 3: And I love you for Look if you left prison
Speaker 3: today as a prison officer, and you dealt with the
Speaker 3: insanity of a man who mentally ill or somebody did
Speaker 3: something to you, please don't bring it home. I left
Speaker 3: everything in prison. Please do the same thing.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say too, that you know the
Speaker 1: fact that our prison conditions are so terrible affects the
Speaker 1: men and women who are there very nobly serving in
Speaker 1: a very difficult environment. That doesn't mean that they should
Speaker 1: be subjected to prisons that don't have air conditioning alongside
Speaker 1: the prisoners, that they should be subjected to mold that
Speaker 1: we have in so many prisons now as the major
Speaker 1: scandals in Florida and other places, the mold affects everybody
Speaker 1: that works.
Speaker 3: Remember the TV. I remember at one point tuberculosis was
Speaker 3: in seventy percent of prisons. That's not made up like
Speaker 3: they had seventy percent infection rates in life out of
Speaker 3: these county jails because they're overcrowding.
Speaker 1: So as a country, we need to do a much
Speaker 1: better job. This is America, it's twenty nineteen. Come on, everybody. Well, Nick,
Speaker 1: all I can say is it's been an extraordinary experience
Speaker 1: for me getting to spend this time with you. We're
Speaker 1: going to go to dinner later. I hope you'll come
Speaker 1: to dinner with absolutely.
Speaker 3: I want chicken parmers on it.
Speaker 2: You want chicken farm, that's what you'll get.
Speaker 1: I'm a vegan. I'll get you whatever you want. But
Speaker 1: that's again, You're an amazing man. You're you're a hero
Speaker 1: to me and so many other people. I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1: We need more like you, and we need more of you.
Speaker 3: I'll bring over with me, and I promise you this, Jason,
Speaker 3: for your efforts, I won't let you down now that
Speaker 3: we've made a bond. I promise you a I won't capitulate,
Speaker 3: I won't kill myself, I won't quit, and I'll always
Speaker 3: be a respectful, kind and dignified person as best that
Speaker 3: I'm able to, so that you're never embarrassed by me.
Speaker 3: I mean, because I think a lot of us forget
Speaker 3: you and I come together on this principled effort. But
Speaker 3: for me to then forget that it would be a
Speaker 3: terrible loss. So I tell everyone, if you believe in
Speaker 3: me and you've given me your time, I promise you
Speaker 3: no one will ever work harder to show gratitude. And dude,
Speaker 3: I ain't gonna let you down. I ain't gonna quit.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be there like you and just ride this out. Man.
Speaker 3: I had this fascinating thing happened to me when I
Speaker 3: first got out. I came here to New York City
Speaker 3: and I was interviewed by Jennifer Garnerman of the Village Voice.
Speaker 3: At the conclusion of our interview, like we're doing now.
Speaker 3: She put down her pen and she said, Nick, you
Speaker 3: do know you're living one of the greatest stories ever.
Speaker 3: I leaned over to the table to her. I said,
Speaker 3: it's just begun. And it's true. In the fifteen years
Speaker 3: of my freedom, things have been a rocket ride. Jay.
Speaker 3: But I've held on to the principles that A I
Speaker 3: had no business getting out if I wasn't looking for good,
Speaker 3: and B as long as I'm willing to believe in
Speaker 3: the good of others, I think I'm going to find
Speaker 3: people like you waiting. And thank you for letting me
Speaker 3: earn your respect. That matters to me.
Speaker 1: Man, Amen, brother, Thank you again, Nick Yaris. You can
Speaker 1: find him at what's Theosocial mediak.
Speaker 3: Garis dot org or Nick Yaris on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 1: Reach out to Nick follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: bring him in for a speech. You've heard the man's
Speaker 1: voice now, it's always different, it's always amazing. So listeners
Speaker 1: to the show know that this is the time when
Speaker 1: I usually go to closing arguments and just leave my
Speaker 1: mic off and leave yours on. But you have already
Speaker 1: dropped so many incredible pearls of wisdom, and so many
Speaker 1: beautiful sayings. I'm just going to go home and have
Speaker 1: a good cry and then get energized and go out
Speaker 1: and make as much of a change as I possibly can.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to do it in your name.
Speaker 3: So thank you, fucking badass boy, badass, thank.
Speaker 1: You, Thank you for listening. This has been a wild
Speaker 1: ride for me and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Ennisnce Project and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to innisonsproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated.
Speaker 2: Composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and Association with signal company number one