WEBVTT - Episode 1 | Behind the Crown 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:05.600 This is quite a wall here. 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.560 Oh, these are some great photos. 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:15.480 That's Jimmy Carter enough me. Uh huh, yes, me and 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:20.599 Lorena Lynn. How did this come about? She was given 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:21.919 a concert in Burman Allen. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:22.320 Uh huh. 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:24.120 Carry me backstage to leader. 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:25.040 Look at this. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:26.120 Suit that you have on. 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.880 Maybe you've never heard of Bill Baxley, but here in 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.680 Alabama he's a big deal. 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:32.960 That Johnny Cash. 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:34.239 Oh wow. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:39.360 Baxley is eighty two, slightly balding, with silver hair and eyebrows. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.440 In the pictures he's showing me on the wall of 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.720 his office, I see him looking younger. His hair is dark, 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.640 and he's standing with famous musicians and politicians. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.280 That's my daddy swearing me in for my first term. 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:55.080 Wow. 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.040 Baxley was elected as Alabama's Attorney General when he was 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.040 just twenty eight years old. He later served as lieutenant governor, 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:08.160 and he's still practicing law today. During his career, Baxley 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.880 prosecuted hundreds of cases and sent three people to Alabama's 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:13.400 death row. 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.679 There are some crimes that are so wrong and so 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.880 horrible that they only deserve one punishment. 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.240 He's a lifelong defender of the death penalty, a true believer, 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.280 like when the US Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.520 in the nineteen seventies, Baxley worked hard to bring executions 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:42.000 back to Alabama. He's that kind of true believer. So 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.520 it's not surprising that Baxley was skeptical when his son, 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.920 who's also an attorney, asked his dad to look over 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.560 a case because he believed an innocent man was on 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:53.240 death row. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.560 Over the course of my long career, I've had dozens 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:03.640 and dozens answances were these I'll call them do gooders, 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:08.280 but they're good people. They take up there's causes of 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.280 people that have been sentenced to death, and they get 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.560 interested in trying to help them, and they all think 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:15.720 they're always innocent. 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:20.200 Baxley didn't even glance at the case file until weeks later. 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.320 On an icy winter morning, it was too slippery to 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.440 walk down the driveway and grab the newspaper, so he 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.320 picked up the file that his son sent him and 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.679 began reading about a black man named to Forrest Johnson, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.880 who was sentenced to death for killing a shriff's deputy. 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.160 I mean, mid morning, I couldn't believe what I was reading. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.880 I wouldn't have believed that something like this could have happened. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:46.799 What was so unbelievable about it? 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.880 Everything? Everything. I don't know how the guy got indicted, 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.760 how they got I didn't see how the jury convicted him. 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.360 I would have never believed that that could have happened 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:03.480 in Alabama, no question mine. This guy was not guilty 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:09.040 of this crime, and I couldn't comprehend how this could happen. 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.960 There's only one other case where Basley thought the defendants 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:17.480 were innocent, and that case is almost one hundred years old. 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.040 So what is it about this case to Forrest's case 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.519 that convinced Backsley that Alabama is trying to execute an 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.400 innocent man's. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:36.720 It's a unique absurdity that I've never seen before. It's 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.120 too late to give him back all those years he's 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.440 been on death road, but it's not too late to 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.600 correct it today and get him out for the future. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.200 It's wrong that it's gone this long. It's still not 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:53.280 too late to correct. 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:59.000 My name is Beth Shelburne. Like Bill Baxley, I was 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.920 born and raised in all Obama. I grew up about 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.560 a mile away from where the crime at the center 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.200 of this story took place. I'm a journalist and writer, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.520 and for the last three years I've been investigating the 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:16.520 case that rocked Bill Baxley's world. The story begins on 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.720 a hot July night in nineteen ninety five. It unfolds 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.920 in two places at once, the Crown Sterling Sweet's Hotel 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.880 and a nightclub that's almost four miles away called Tea's Place. 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.640 By the end of the night, one man will be 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.960 shot dead and two others will encounter someone who will 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:43.000 put them at the center of the murder investigation to 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.280 Forrest Johnson is still on death row and he's running 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:56.720 out of time. I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness, 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.279 Chapter one, Behind the Out. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.440 Yes, ma'am, this is very calling from Crowns Drilling Sweet's 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.239 Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm calling because I've had several 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.800 guests report what appears on the windows to have been 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.360 two gunshots and people running in the parking lot. 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:51.039 It's twelve fifty five am on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety five. 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.599 It's twenty three great fight. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.160 That is correct. I have security on the premises, which 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.000 is just to the county police, but I'm calling you 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.560 because i want to make sure that the Birmingham pleats arrived. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.040 Please all right, we'll get the one out, thank you 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:05.520 very much. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:05.880 All right. 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.040 The Crown Sterling Suites Hotel was a nine story building 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:20.440 in Birmingham. Today the hotel is an embassy suites. Inside 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.080 the main entrance of the hotel, there's a pale tiled 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.240 walkway that leads through the lobby. The front desk is 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.320 to the left, but keep walking past it and you 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:36.440 enter a huge atrium, an open space surrounded by windows, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.520 with an indoor garden of leafy green plants and trees. 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.760 The tiled walkway leads to a coy pond with a 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:50.000 fountain at the center. It's lush and humid inside, but 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:55.640 despite all the windows, the field is dim and moody. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.560 Keep walking past the coy pond and there's a short 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:04.560 hall that leads to the hotel's back parking lot. It 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.080 was here outside the double doors of the Crown Sterling 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:13.760 Sweet's Hotel where a deputy sheriff was killed. No one 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.160 saw the murder, but a few people heard gunshots. 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.800 I remember hearing popping noises from the distance. 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.160 Barry Rushikov was working at the front desk when he 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:27.800 made that nine to one one call. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.800 When I heard it, I believe that's when I tried 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.800 to call Officer Hardy on the radio with no response. 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.360 Officer William Hardy, who went by Bill, had been a 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.080 deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for twenty three years. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.520 He was also a security guard at the hotel, where 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.640 he worked the night shift to make extra money. Hardy 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.960 was five foot ten, had a thin mustache, and wore 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.840 his hair in a Jerry curl. He was known to 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:01.720 be easy going and friendly. When Deputy Hardy wasn't making 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:06.480 hotel security rounds, Barry usually saw him wearing his brown 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.840 and tan deputy uniform, sitting at one of the tables 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:14.880 in the hotel's atrium, smoking more brand menthol cigarettes and 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:15.840 drinking coffee. 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:18.040 You know, when I worked there, and when I was 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:22.240 working nights, it was me, you know, Officer Hardy or 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.000 whatever officer on duty, and or we would sometime have 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.000 a houseman who is cleaning floors or something, but very 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.480 minimal group and I never felt unsafe. 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.360 Barry wasn't the only person to hear the popping noises. 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.160 A few guests at the hotel also heard gunshots, including 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.000 Marshall Kelly Cummings a guest in a fourth floor room 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.640 directly above the hotel's back exit. 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:50.640 I can remember like it was yesterday, ma as far 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:51.720 as the details. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.000 As I worked on this project, I started referring to 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.960 Cummings as the Keebler cookie guy, because in nineteen ninety 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.280 five he worked for Keebler as a truck driver Midfield. 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.679 When I was with Keebler driving one of their step 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.040 vans delivering cookies and crackers and stuff, and we had. 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.079 A Cummings was staying at the Crown Sterling for a 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.000 company training. After the workday was over, he drank a 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.520 few beers at the hotel bar with some coworkers, and 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.600 then he and the other Keepler employee he was rooming 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:27.440 with turned in between ten and eleven PM. But Cummings 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:29.560 was not asleep for long, but he. 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.080 Just I woke up and it was I kept hearing 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.200 somebody talk kind of talk. 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.559 So you heard some voices and it sounded like they 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.080 were arguing or not. 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.400 Really bad, but they were. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:41.880 Having a conversation. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.720 Yeah it was male voices. 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:45.000 Yeah. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.959 Well they quit arguing and then I didn't hear anything. 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:53.800 So I laid back down and it probably wasn't twenty seconds, 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.840 thirty seconds, forty five. I'm got I didn't count boom, 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.079 small caliber gun. They won a big caliber and I'll 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.480 sudden the few sects or a boom about the second time, 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.280 I say, up a minute, that was a gun. 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.880 He remembers, turning to the coworker he was sharing a 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:16.360 room with. 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.240 I said, you hear that? He says, yeah. 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.120 So I stood up and opened the blind to get 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.080 my eyes fixed because it was dark. 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:26.520 Then they had the lights in the last week. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.840 Directly beneath his window, Cummings sees a four door car. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.199 It's dark copper or light brown with a vinyl top, 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.679 parked facing the hotel's back double doors. He sees a 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.600 tall person get into the driver's side of the car, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.440 close the door, and slowly pull away with the headlights off. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.440 And so I called down to the front desk. I said, hey, 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.280 there's been shots fired. I heard. Did you hear that? 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.280 I believe I got a phone call from someone in 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.120 the room saying they heard gunshots. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.760 So Barry makes that initial nine one one call, hangs 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.599 up and decides to investigate it. 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.480 Jumped over the counter to walk back, and I was 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.880 walked back. I saw Offsta Hardy's radio. 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.440 Barry sees Deputy Hardy's radio on a table in the 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.800 hotel's atrium, and right next to it his cigarette still 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:28.320 burning in an ash tray. Meanwhile, back on the fourth floor, 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.640 Marshall Kelly Cummings hangs up the phone with Barry and 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:32.880 goes back to the window. 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:35.360 And I kept looking, and I kept looking. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.640 Finally my eyes got to where I could see, and 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.280 I looked down and I could see him laying on 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:40.720 the ground. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.480 I went, oh, no, this ain't good. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.079 Cummings spots a body on the ground and realizes someone 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.880 has been badly hurt. It's right around this time Barry 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.439 makes the same terrible discovery. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:57.280 Here's a hallway that went to the door that went 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.360 back out to the back parking lot. Turn in the 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.120 corner to go down that hallway, and I looked out 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.040 the door in the distance, I saw Offsta Hardy on 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.240 the ground. That's when I ran back to the front desk, 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:19.200 made an emergency phone call to the police. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.880 Just, ma'am, the spiritual cross to exist, and I have 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.319 a pit what appears to be a Jupanan County police 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.240 officer shot in the back of our building. She ends 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.000 up moving people. 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.640 In a car drove away and you see he's lying 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:36.880 on the on the pavement. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:38.480 I'm a little afraid to go up. 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:41.880 Yes, he is a Birmingham Police Office. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.880 Jefferson County. He is a hired nine time security for us. 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.520 Right, do you know if you can sign. 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.079 Out anything like if you breathe? 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.719 I and how much blood? I'm trying, man, my, my, 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:55.400 my promise. I don't know if the people are still 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:55.760 out there. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.360 Okay, we we should be there showing that you find 0:12:58.520 --> 0:12:58.880 very much. 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:00.920 I'm gonna go and talk about okay, but you. 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:05.120 Go. 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.120 Jesson's Catty debut has been shot on the back entrance 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:10.840 of the Hotel Crown show sweep. 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:13.920 It is one of us, and we are they have 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.120 got one down who has been shot. 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.080 And they said it looks great and it looks too bad. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:25.680 Three three two. Do we have any information? Do we 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:31.960 have anything on a suspect to go anywhere? 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.120 After he makes the second nine to one one call, 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.760 Barry walks down the hallway to the back parking lot 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:51.600 and then I went. 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.800 Back out the office. Already he was not a good condition. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.720 He did have a wound to his face. He was 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:05.040 making a gurgling, gasping noise. You know, he was not conscious. 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.640 I believe I took my jacket off, my uniform jacket off, 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.080 to try to cover him, or put under his head, 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:16.320 or try to comfort him. But fortunately officers arrived so 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.920 quickly and I was removed from that area immediately. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.200 More than a dozen officers from four different agencies arrive 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.480 at the hotel. One of them is Detective Tony Richardson, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:34.400 who says he'd known Deputy Hardy since he first started 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.120 working for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in nineteen seventy eight. 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:45.160 Being black and bo being black, naturally I noticed him. 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.400 I was told more than once to get a haircut. 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.280 That you know, to be a deputy Shaff, you got 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.760 to have your haircut. So the reason I mentioned that 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.880 is because from the first day that I ever saw him, 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:00.080 his hair was out. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.240 To hear big afro, big afro. 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.440 And he would put on his hat. He wore that 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:09.360 hat religiously. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.720 Everybody else's the Shaff's office hated those hats. They didn't 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:14.920 want to wear him, you know, but he always. 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:15.200 Wore his hat. 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:21.480 Deputy Hardy often wore his traditional broad brimmed tan smoky 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:25.480 the bear style sheriff's hat. It was later entered as 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.560 evidence from the crime scene with a bullet hole through 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.560 the brim. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.400 And he would have it on his head and all 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.720 that hair would be on the side would be out here, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.840 And I'm like, who is this guy? How can he. 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.920 Get away with that? And not only that, he is 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.600 in the sheriff's office. How can he get away with that? 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.560 So I was in tree by him, fascinated by him, 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.200 but I was scared of him. I was scared to 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.520 meet him because I thought, of my mind, this guy's 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.560 got to be crazy, you know, to do that and 0:15:58.600 --> 0:15:59.960 get away with it, He's got to be great. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:01.080 I would scatter of him. 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.760 But anyway, when I first met him, I met him 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.040 and talked to him. He started to feel better about well. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:10.720 I started to feel better about him. 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.600 We were never just busom buddies real close, but we 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.480 were close and we knew each other. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.160 Tony Richardson and Bill Hardy had been colleagues at the 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:27.160 Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for seventeen years. Richardson remembers the 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.600 last time he saw Hardy alive. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.120 The last day I saw Bill, my brother and I 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.400 my brother would put a sheriff's office offso and we 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.760 were standing there smoking and Bill drove out the alley 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.040 and he was pulling up twenty second and he stopped 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.120 in the road and he started to talk to us 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.240 and he said, hey, guys, hang out doing loan with 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.320 some money. It's just you know, stuff like that. And 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.080 we laughed and talked for a minute. And that was 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:57.760 the last time I saw him. And the next time 0:16:57.760 --> 0:16:59.800 I heard Bill's name was about two o'clock in the 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.960 morning when I got the call saying and he had 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:08.600 been shot. At that time, I was what was considered 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:15.360 a crimes against Persons detective, which meant that I worked homicides. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.960 The lieutenant felt like because it involved a deputy sheriff, 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.119 and you know that we needed all the help that 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:24.720 we could get. 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:25.800 So I got called out. 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.719 Did you go to the actual scene? 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:30.359 Yeah? 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.240 What did you encounter when you got there? 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:33.560 Well, by the. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:38.240 Time I got there, Bill's body was gone. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.359 Paramedics had already lifted Bill Hardy into an ambulance and 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.240 rushed him to the emergency room of Birmingham's largest hospital. 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.359 He is gravely injured with two gunshot wounds to his head. 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.800 And jaw. A medical examiner notes a bullet wound to 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.800 Hardy's finger likely means he raised his hand in a 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:06.679 defensive posture when he was shot. Police go to his 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.359 house to tell his wife, Patricia Diane Hardy, and bring 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.080 her to the hospital. Jim Woodward, the chief deputy in 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.960 Jefferson County, also rushes over when he hears that Hardy 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.560 was shot. What do you remember about the incident? 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.600 I got to call that Hardy had been shot, and 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.960 they told me said looked very serious. So I got 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.119 in my car and went down to the hospital. I 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.560 stood there while they were operating on me, and then 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.360 I just heard one say that's it. It's over. 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:41.560 We can't do it anymore. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:43.639 It's over. We can't save him. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:44.240 He's gone. 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.639 What does that feel like when you are a career 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:49.880 law enforcement officer? 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:54.000 And well, it's kind of devastating to you. You know, 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.280 you get to know these guys, and I knew Hardy. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.760 That's a very devastating thing that happened to you. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:07.119 Deputy Bill Hardy is pronounced dead seven hours after he 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.480 was shot. The cause of death is two gunshot wounds 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:18.120 fired at close range. I wanted to know more about 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.280 Deputy Hardy. So I wrote to several family members inviting 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.679 them to talk. They never responded, and I can only 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.200 imagine his murder must be one of the hardest things 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.359 they've ever experienced. But I have learned a few things 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.639 about Deputy Hardy. He was married to Patricia Diane Hardy. 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.720 He had two children and four adult step children. Hardy 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.879 started working as a deputy in nineteen seventy two. His 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:53.280 duties included delivering subpoenas and directing traffic outside the courthouse. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:56.600 You know. 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.639 It was rough. It was rough. It's rough right now, 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:12.560 it's a rough right This many working homicide. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.320 I worked at bunch, but none of them affected me 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.000 like the killing of a deputy Share. You know, you 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:26.439 have a bond with the guys you work with in 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.560 that uniform. Whether you know them or not, you have 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:36.560 a bond. So when I was a deputy Share working 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.080 another deputy Shaff's murder, do you think that was emotional? Yes, 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:47.080 it was very and had it been my decision the 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.760 day we caught the people that did it, let's put 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:51.560 them on death throat. 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.719 Lead Detective Tony Richardson and his team of investigators have 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.600 no eyewitnesses to the shooting and there's no known motive. 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.760 A fellow officer has just been shot, and they have 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:23.879 almost no evidence to go on. At the exact time 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.639 that Deputy Bill Hardy was shot, to Forrest Johnson and 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.080 his friend Ardregis Ford were four miles away from the 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.119 crime scene at a downtown Birmingham nightclub called Tea's Place, 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.960 but they would soon become the focus of Tony Richardson's investigation. 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.920 Just a few hours before Deputy hart Is shot, ardregas 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.680 Ford gets into the passenger side of his nineteen seventy 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.840 one black Monte Carlo. It's an old car and the 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:13.760 driver's side door doesn't open, so he slides over into 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.159 the driver's seat, starts the ignition, and heads out to 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.119 pick up his friend to Forrest Johnson to go to 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:25.480 a club called Teas Place. I wasn't able to interview 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:30.120 to Forest or Ardregas for this podcast. The Alabama Department 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.119 of Corrections doesn't allow people on death road to do 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:36.879 interviews with reporters like me, so I was unable to 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:42.280 talk to Forest directly, and Ardregas died in twenty twenty one, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.360 I didn't get a chance to interview him before then. 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:50.480 I was able to speak to Ardregas's mother, Joyce Ford. 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:54.760 That particular night. They said they was going to tease 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.720 and see he will go to teas every Tuesday and 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:02.840 he have his particular same parking space and everything because 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:04.760 he would give them good tips. 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.359 Ardregas was willing to pay for a good parking space 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:13.119 because he was in a wheelchair. When Ardregas was a teenager, 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.959 a group of men began shooting outside an apartment building 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:20.879 he was visiting. He was shot trying to shield his 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:23.240 cousin and her baby from gunfire. 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.320 My son when he got shot when he was fifteen, 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.280 I had just gotten off of work. I was tied 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:32.520 in the phone, rang, rang, rang, and I didn't answer 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:36.479 the phone, you know, And I finally answered it and 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:41.679 they stated that he had gotten shot. I need to 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:46.440 rush to the murdency room. Who that was like a dream, 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:50.000 you know. You hear about things happening to other people, 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:53.560 but when it hit home, you know. And then he 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.480 got spinal cord injury. He got shot in the bag. 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:00.440 Yeah, and he was parallel. 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:04.840 Te lie from chest down T four they called it. 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:07.840 So that was like a nightmare. 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:13.880 In his early twenties, ar Dragus outfitted his Monte Carlo 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:17.240 with the makeshift system so he could throw his wheelchair 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:20.080 in the back and drive the car using just his 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:21.840 upper body. 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:27.439 He would cut a broom you know that broomsticks. He 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:30.399 would put one to the brakes, one to the salator, 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:33.720 and he would tape it to the car. He would 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:34.359 tape it to it. 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:37.280 So he like retro fitted his Yeah, he did. 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:42.359 Did. He didn't buy the regular equipment that he should 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:42.920 have used. 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:46.879 Ar Dragas and to Forest actually came up with this 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:51.000 idea together. Here's to Forrest's cousin, Antonio. 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:53.800 Green Dracu's was. I guess that was a pride thing. 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:57.600 He didn't want the handicap accessible pedals and stuff in 0:24:57.640 --> 0:24:59.920 his car. But as far as come up with this great, 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:04.440 this genius idea where they're gonna well some metal rods 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:07.400 to the break and accelerator pedal so he could use 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:11.440 his hands and dry. Well, he get to thinking about 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:14.359