Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, Barbara Bradley Haggerty was a veteran journalist
Speaker 1: looking for a story, so she called one of her
Speaker 1: favorite sources, a guy named Jim McCluskey.
Speaker 2: Jim McCluskey basically is a founder, the father of the
Speaker 2: modern innocence movement. Back in eighty three, he started the
Speaker 2: first organization that reinvestigated dubious convictions, way before the Innocence
Speaker 2: Project was even thought of. And so I called up
Speaker 2: Jim one day and looking for a story for The Atlantic,
Speaker 2: And I said, Jim, you've gotten like sixty five people
Speaker 2: out of prison. What's the story that haunts you? What
Speaker 2: keeps you up at night? And Jim said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that's easy. Ben Spencer's story. There's not a day that
Speaker 2: goes by that I don't think about Ben.
Speaker 1: Ben Spencer was a young man who decades before, was
Speaker 1: convicted of a homicide. He always maintained he did not commit.
Speaker 1: Jim McCluskey and his team investigated Ben's case in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands. They put in hundreds of hours of
Speaker 1: work to find out if Ben was telling the truth.
Speaker 1: So Barb decided she was going to do the same.
Speaker 2: I just kind of put one foot in front of
Speaker 2: the other, just like everyone else, and just followed the
Speaker 2: next lead and kind of put little sands of evidence
Speaker 2: in a little pile, and at some point it was
Speaker 2: a pretty big mound, you know, it was. It was
Speaker 2: pretty compelling.
Speaker 1: Do you find yourself more than just a journalist?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Do you think you're an activist?
Speaker 2: You know? I don't think, Okay, how do I put this?
Speaker 2: I'm an activist for Ben because I think he's innocent
Speaker 2: and I think the truth does need to come out.
Speaker 1: After years of research and door knocking, Barb feels like
Speaker 1: she got to the truth of the matter.
Speaker 2: This guy could not have killed someone in cold blood.
Speaker 1: And Barb thinks she knows who did, but it wasn't Ben.
Speaker 3: My name is Benjamin Spencer. I'm a native of Dallas,
Speaker 3: and I was wrongfully incarcerated for thirty four years.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Ben Spencer.
Speaker 1: Ben Spencer was born December twentieth, nineteen sixty four, to
Speaker 1: Benjamin and Lucille Spencer in Dallas, Texas. He's one of
Speaker 1: five kids, right in the middle, and he grew up
Speaker 1: in a religious and strict household.
Speaker 3: My mother She was the disciplinarian in the family, and
Speaker 3: so if we ever did something like didn't clean the
Speaker 3: house like we was posed to, my dad would always
Speaker 3: tell us he's going to tell our mom if we
Speaker 3: didn't do it and we didn't want to. Uh, I guess,
Speaker 3: be victims of her rat.
Speaker 1: What would that look like?
Speaker 3: Ooh terrible. We used to get whoopings. I mean, we
Speaker 3: wasn't a such thing as punishment or standing in the
Speaker 3: corner or you don't get to go outside stuff. You
Speaker 3: would probably get whooped and not get to go outside.
Speaker 1: So yeah, see, you guys were all pretty in line,
Speaker 1: good kids. Still, Ben was a playful kid.
Speaker 3: I was just a middle child, and I guess I
Speaker 3: was the one that always got into stuff.
Speaker 1: I guess, but like, what does that mean? What kind
Speaker 1: of stuff?
Speaker 3: I've never watched Mary Poppins, but I remember the scene
Speaker 3: where she would come down with the umbrella. So I
Speaker 3: would get to the highest point of our garage and
Speaker 3: jump off with the umbrella one time and bust my head,
Speaker 3: you know, stuff Like I was.
Speaker 1: Adventurous like that, and he was curious.
Speaker 3: I used to like to know how things operated, like
Speaker 3: if I got a toy or car or something. I
Speaker 3: was always interested and curious as to how it was
Speaker 3: put together, so I would take a loose and put
Speaker 3: it back together.
Speaker 1: He was handy, and into his teens, Ben put those
Speaker 1: skills to work at a cabinet factory, making five dollars
Speaker 1: an hour.
Speaker 3: I put in a lot of overtime, so Wednesday, around
Speaker 3: about eleven o'clock I would already have forty hours in.
Speaker 1: And Ben liked spending that overtime money on nice clothes, a.
Speaker 3: Ralph Lawn, Polo, Georgia Omiani, stuff like that. So I
Speaker 3: used to like to dress nice.
Speaker 1: He liked shopping at Neiman Marcus.
Speaker 3: And my moms used to get on me about the
Speaker 3: money I would spend on one shirt. She was like,
Speaker 3: you could buy several outfits for what you pay for
Speaker 3: that one shirt. I'm like, well, whose money is this
Speaker 3: miney yours?
Speaker 1: Ben says he'd bring a change of clothes to the
Speaker 1: club just in case anyone else had the same shirt on.
Speaker 1: Decades later, sitting in front of me, I can tell
Speaker 1: you this man is still a fashionista. He's soft spoken,
Speaker 1: but his looks do the talking. He's wearing a plaid
Speaker 1: suit in dark grays and.
Speaker 3: Purples, white heel figure shirt and.
Speaker 1: The tie a paisley tie with hints of bronze and
Speaker 1: a gold Michael Kore's watch on his left wrist. Did
Speaker 1: you pick this up?
Speaker 3: I did?
Speaker 1: And on top of style. Ben Spencer is tall six ' four,
Speaker 1: dark and handsome, and one day in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: while he was out for some pizza with friends, Ben's
Speaker 1: good looks caught the attention of a girl.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting and eating a piece of waiting on my friend,
Speaker 3: and this girl walks over to the table and she
Speaker 3: tells me that her friend likes me and she wants
Speaker 3: you to have a number.
Speaker 1: That friend was Deborah Child's also tall and pretty and good.
Speaker 3: I used to smoke weed, I used to drink And
Speaker 3: one of the things I liked about Deborah she wasn't
Speaker 3: doing any of the things I was doing. She came
Speaker 3: from a good And what's strange is we grew up
Speaker 3: around the corner from each other, I mean literally less
Speaker 3: maybe a block away from each other, and we had
Speaker 3: never met wow, up until we was eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: She was Ben's first real girlfriend, and she'd soon become
Speaker 1: the mother of his child. And what did your mom
Speaker 1: think about the pregnancy.
Speaker 3: Oh, she was excited. Yeah, my mother really liked Deborah
Speaker 3: a lot. My mother didn't allow you to have a
Speaker 3: girlfriend or boyfriend living in her house while you weren't married.
Speaker 3: And Deborah was the first. Actually, Deborah and I are
Speaker 3: the only two who got away with that. My oldest
Speaker 3: brother didn't get away with it. My oldest sister, younger sister,
Speaker 3: youngest brother, none of them got away with that, but
Speaker 3: we did.
Speaker 1: And soon after, at twenty two years old, he asked
Speaker 1: Deborah's dad for her hand in marriage.
Speaker 3: Her dad used to be at this garage all the
Speaker 3: time with this guy who fixed cars, and so I
Speaker 3: went up there and I was like, ms, child, I
Speaker 3: talk to you. He was like, yeah, what is it being.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I would like to marry
Speaker 3: your daughter, you know, if you would give me permission.
Speaker 3: And he was like, oh, of course, being sure, you
Speaker 3: can marry my daughter, no question. Yeah. He was like,
Speaker 3: you're gonna take care of him, right? I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 3: I'm going to take care of him. And so I
Speaker 3: promised him I will take care of him.
Speaker 1: But Ben wouldn't be able to keep his promise.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the most unfortunate things is, we
Speaker 3: got married, and of course I wasn't able to fulfill
Speaker 3: what I had told him I would do.
Speaker 1: Just two months after the wedding, their lives came crumbling down.
Speaker 1: March twenty second, nineteen eighty seven started normal for Ben Spencer.
Speaker 1: What do you remember that day?
Speaker 3: Pretty much the whole day, the entire day.
Speaker 1: Early in the day, he and Deborah visited family, like
Speaker 1: they did every weekend.
Speaker 3: That was our routine for Saturdays and Sundays. Her mother
Speaker 3: and I were playing Domino's and cards, I think it was.
Speaker 1: Cards, and like he often did, Ben teased Deborah's older sister, Sissy.
Speaker 3: Sis and I had this relationship where we would tease.
Speaker 1: Each other, but this time Ben may have taken it
Speaker 1: too far and Deborah wasn't having it.
Speaker 3: Deborah immediately just raised off the floor like she had
Speaker 3: springs on and she was like, I'm ready to go,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, you ready to go? She was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm ready to go. And I could tell she's upset
Speaker 3: about something. I don't know what she's upset about, but
Speaker 3: she's upset. And so she was like, you need to
Speaker 3: come home before you get left. And so we get
Speaker 3: halfway home and She was like, you didn't have to
Speaker 3: say that to her. I was like, that's what you're
Speaker 3: upset about. I said, you know, I'd be teasing playing
Speaker 3: with Sissy.
Speaker 1: But Deborah was mad, and after they got home, Ben
Speaker 1: decided to let her cool off, so we left the
Speaker 1: house in Deborah's red Thunderbird and went to see some friends.
Speaker 1: Ben says it was still early in the afternoon and
Speaker 1: he hung out all day playing chess and cards. Then
Speaker 1: in the evening, Ben attempted to make his way home that.
Speaker 3: I had stopped and got some chicken from both Deborah, but.
Speaker 1: His plans to go home got derailed when he ran
Speaker 1: into some friends, including a track star and high school
Speaker 1: senior named Christy. Christy had her eyes set on Ben,
Speaker 1: tall and handsome, and Ben welcomed the attention from Christy,
Speaker 1: so they hung out all evening and eventually got in
Speaker 1: the red Thunderbird and drove to a nearby park, where
Speaker 1: they stayed until after midnight, close to.
Speaker 3: One o'clock, and I noticed the time and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe I should take you home. I got to get
Speaker 3: up in the morning take my wife to work, and
Speaker 3: she said, well, yeah, I gotta go to school for
Speaker 3: practice in the morning because he ran track.
Speaker 1: So he went home and that was that. Ben says
Speaker 1: he'd been faithful to Deborah up until that point. He
Speaker 1: says it was a one night stand. In the heat
Speaker 1: of the argument, he'd have to work up the courage
Speaker 1: to tell Deborah, and Ben went to bed, not knowing
Speaker 1: that his problems would soon go far beyond cheating on
Speaker 1: his wife. The next day, Ben was on his way
Speaker 1: to work when a friend stopped him and.
Speaker 3: He was like, man, did you hear about what happened
Speaker 3: last night? I was like, no, what's that? He said, Man,
Speaker 3: it's police everywhere in the neighborhood last night. I said,
Speaker 3: what happened? He said, they found some white guy out
Speaker 3: there on Puget and they found two stolen cars in
Speaker 3: the alley, one in this alley, one another alley. I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, he said, oh, man, police was hot
Speaker 3: last night. I said, well, nah, I heard anything about it.
Speaker 3: I said, well, let me go on and go cause
Speaker 3: I got to get to work. So I left and
Speaker 3: that was I mean, that was pretty much all I
Speaker 3: had learned that they had found a white guy in
Speaker 3: the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And it was just a few days later that you
Speaker 1: were arrested, right. Did you have any inkling that was
Speaker 1: going to happen?
Speaker 3: None?
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about the crime? What happened that night?
Speaker 1: Who was jeff Young? So?
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Young was thirty three years old, white, married to
Speaker 2: his high school sweetheart, the father of three children under
Speaker 2: ten years old.
Speaker 1: This is Barbara again, She goes by Barb.
Speaker 2: I worked for NPR for nineteen years and ended up
Speaker 2: doing a story about Ben Spencer for NPR but also
Speaker 2: for The Atlantic, where I'm a contributing writer.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Barb first heard of Ben in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: and she has spent hundreds of hours working on and
Speaker 1: interviewing key people in this case. Her journey is documented
Speaker 1: in her latest book, Bringing Ben Home. In it, she
Speaker 1: also tries to answer what happened to Jeffrey Young, the
Speaker 1: man who was killed that night? In nineteen eighty seven, He.
Speaker 2: Worked for a clothing import company. He was actually about
Speaker 2: to become president, and on Sunday nights he would go
Speaker 2: in to work because many of his clients see people
Speaker 2: imported from were in Asia. So it was there Monday morning, Barb.
Speaker 1: Says, Jeffrey was alone at the warehouse waiting to get
Speaker 1: on his computer.
Speaker 2: Back then, it was the ancient days of computers, and
Speaker 2: so he had to basically ask permission to get on
Speaker 2: his computer system. And he called up the guy who
Speaker 2: handled the computer systems, and the guy said, we're doing
Speaker 2: an update. You can't get on for another hour. I'll
Speaker 2: call you when you can get on. So a few
Speaker 2: minutes go by, an hour goes by, and the guy
Speaker 2: calls Jeffrey Young, and it rings and rings and rings,
Speaker 2: and he calls back several times. And what police now
Speaker 2: believe is that was the time when Jeffrey Young was
Speaker 2: being assaulted.
Speaker 1: The theory is that two people waited in the parking
Speaker 1: lot where Jeffrey's BMW was parked and attacked him sometime
Speaker 1: around ten pm.
Speaker 2: They hit him on the head with a blunt object,
Speaker 2: cracking his skull in five places. They picked him up,
Speaker 2: They walked to the BMW, they had the keys, They
Speaker 2: opened the trunk, they put him in the BMW, slammed
Speaker 2: the door, and then they drive. They drive across the
Speaker 2: Trinity River into West Ellis and at some point somehow
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Young there was a little latch in the trunk
Speaker 2: and Jeffrey Young managed to get out and fall on
Speaker 2: Puget Street, and the perpetrators looked back, saw he was
Speaker 2: on the street, panicked, drove the BMW into the alley nearby,
Speaker 2: and then ran away.
Speaker 1: They got away with his Sako watch, wedding ring, and
Speaker 1: portable TV radio, and they left Jeffrey Young dying on
Speaker 1: the street.
Speaker 2: And there he lay shaking, you know, bleeding, as a
Speaker 2: small crowd gathered around him.
Speaker 1: When the paramedics arrived, Jeffrey Young was still alive. They
Speaker 1: rushed him to the hospital and police questioned a few witnesses,
Speaker 1: thinking they were just investigating a robbery. Barb says they
Speaker 1: got a description of someone who looked like a guy
Speaker 1: named Van Mitchell Spencer.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, they didn't get any names or phone numbers, so
Speaker 2: they could never go back and find them as witnesses.
Speaker 1: Then the case took a turn. Jeffrey Young succumbed to
Speaker 1: his injuries and died in the hospital early the next morning,
Speaker 1: and shortly after a powerful man named Ross Perrot stepped
Speaker 1: in to help.
Speaker 2: Ross Preaux at that point was probably one of the
Speaker 2: most influential people in Texas. He was self made billionaire
Speaker 2: about to run for president.
Speaker 3: Good after Nan.
Speaker 4: The volunteers in all fifty states have asked made Iran
Speaker 4: as candidate for Priends of the United States.
Speaker 2: And one of his top executives was the father of
Speaker 2: the victim. And suddenly, you know, this robbery investigation became
Speaker 2: a murder investigation.
Speaker 1: Perrot offered a twenty five one thousand dollars reward for
Speaker 1: any information leading to the arrest and indictment of the
Speaker 1: killer or killers.
Speaker 2: And people started coming out.
Speaker 1: Of the woodwork, people like forty two year old Gladys Oliver.
Speaker 1: She'd originally told police she hadn't seen anything, but a
Speaker 1: few days later she called crime Stoppers, an organization that
Speaker 1: offers rewards for information that leads to an arrest. Oliver
Speaker 1: told them that from her bedroom window that night, she'd
Speaker 1: seen two black men she knew from the neighborhood. One
Speaker 1: was a shorter man by the name of Robert Mitchell,
Speaker 1: the other was an acquaintance of her son's, Benjamin Spencer.
Speaker 2: She suggested that they talked to a couple of other
Speaker 2: people and gave the name of Jimmy Cotton.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Cotton described the same sequence of events as Gladys
Speaker 1: Oliver did, but added that he'd seen Ben jump over
Speaker 1: a fence and get into a red thunderbird. Jesse Brisino
Speaker 1: was the lead detective, and just four days after Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Young's killing, based on eyewitness testimony alone, Brisino was convinced
Speaker 1: he had his purpse. On March twenty sixth, nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Ben Spencer was home with a headache while waiting for
Speaker 1: his friend Charles to swing by. He figured he'd take
Speaker 1: some tyle and all and nap off the migraine.
Speaker 3: I hear this beating on the door, and when I
Speaker 3: wake up, I noticed on the clock it's two thirty,
Speaker 3: so I figured, oh, this must be Charles. But on
Speaker 3: the way to the front door, I could see out
Speaker 3: the front window that there was police cars out front.
Speaker 1: Ben opens the door and sees an officer who asks.
Speaker 3: Do you have any ID? I said sure, I'll put
Speaker 3: reach in my pocket, put out my hand in my ID.
Speaker 3: He said, turn turn on and put your hands on
Speaker 3: the will you under wrist? I say, under rest? For what?
Speaker 3: So he puts me in the car and turns over
Speaker 3: and looks over the back of the seat and he said,
Speaker 3: you know the white guy they found the street the
Speaker 3: other day? I said, I heard about it. He said,
Speaker 3: that's what you're under the rest for his murder. I said, man,
Speaker 3: you're making a mistake.
Speaker 1: Then was shocked, but he figured he'd cooperate and get
Speaker 1: this all sorted out.
Speaker 3: And so I'm thinking that the truth is going to prevail,
Speaker 3: and I'm telling him what I had did that day.
Speaker 3: I mean, from morning to night, I'm telling him what
Speaker 3: I did. Of course, I guess it fell on deaf
Speaker 3: ears because I was arrested and charged with this crime.
Speaker 1: So you never left jail that day. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time you spoke to Deborah after you were arresting.
Speaker 3: I called Deborah that evening to let her know I
Speaker 3: was in jail, And of course my main concern was
Speaker 3: telling her that I didn't commit this offense, and I
Speaker 3: need to tell you something because you're going to find out.
Speaker 3: And so I began to tell her about Christy. I said,
Speaker 3: you know, I want to be the one to tell
Speaker 3: you that because you're going to find out, because that's
Speaker 3: why I was with the night this offense happened.
Speaker 1: What are the chances that you get arrested for something
Speaker 1: you didn't do on a night that you have an alibi,
Speaker 1: but it's for something not great.
Speaker 3: Also, right at that time, my marriage was only two
Speaker 3: months oh, and I definitely wasn't something I wanted to
Speaker 3: have to share with her or.
Speaker 1: Tell her, But he had to if he was going
Speaker 1: to get out of this, he had to give an alibi,
Speaker 1: and his alibi was Christie. Then figured the police would
Speaker 1: do their job, talk to Christy, and everything would be
Speaker 1: squared away.
Speaker 3: For some reason, they just ignored the fact that Christy
Speaker 3: and I were together. It didn't fit into their scheme
Speaker 3: of what they believe happened. So of course she was
Speaker 3: ignored and no one wanted her.
Speaker 2: And by this investigation was a mess from start to finish.
Speaker 2: They didn't preserve the crimes too or take photos. They
Speaker 2: just drove the car off.
Speaker 1: Police took Jeffrey Young's BMW to the police lot, but
Speaker 1: that morning.
Speaker 2: They opened the police lot up to people who wanted
Speaker 2: to buy abandoned cars. Oh my gosh, and so anyone
Speaker 2: could have touched that.
Speaker 1: Car, plus it had rained. Before they can do any
Speaker 1: thorough fingerprinting. They were able to recover some finger and
Speaker 1: palm prints, but none matched Ben or Robert Mitchell.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they were thinking, honestly. And then
Speaker 2: the minute they got Gladys Oliver and a couple of
Speaker 2: people to say they saw Ben Spencer. Essentially the investigation stopped.
Speaker 1: That was it. Twenty two year old Ben Spencer, as
Speaker 1: soon to be father, with no history of violent crime,
Speaker 1: was charged with murder. He went to trial just months later,
Speaker 1: on October twenty sixth, nineteen eighty seven. Ben and Robert
Speaker 1: Mitchell were tried separately. The prosecutor in Ben's case was
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Hines. Since no evidence was found in the killing,
Speaker 1: he relied on the witness testimony alone. Gladys Oliver and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Cotton stuck to their stories, and the prosecution bolstered
Speaker 1: their case with another star witness, a jailhouse snitch named
Speaker 1: Danny Edwards, who swore that Ben told him he had
Speaker 1: killed Jeffrey. Ben's attorney, Frank Jackson, relied almost entirely on
Speaker 1: Ben's alibi on Christy, but the police tried to discredit her.
Speaker 1: They had previously shown her a picture which she did
Speaker 1: not identify as Ben.
Speaker 3: She says that the picture they showed her did not
Speaker 3: look like me. She said it was a picture that
Speaker 3: looked like it was taken real close where you couldn't
Speaker 3: really make out who the person was because it was
Speaker 3: so taken so close what the picture was, Yes, I
Speaker 3: don't and we have not been able to find the picture.
Speaker 2: I went and talked to Christie about it and she said,
Speaker 2: I know I was with Ben that night. I mean
Speaker 2: he couldn't. The math is such that he could not
Speaker 2: have gone and killed Jeffrey Young and come back and
Speaker 2: spend any time with me.
Speaker 1: But the jury didn't believe her. Ben was convicted and
Speaker 1: later sentenced to thirty five years for the murder of
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Young, but that conviction would be thrown out.
Speaker 3: We can thank Bruce Anton, who was the co chair
Speaker 3: with my attorney at the time, Frank Jackson, who discovered
Speaker 3: that within the States file that they had hidden the
Speaker 3: fact that gladys Oliver had called crime Stop and also
Speaker 3: had received five hundred and eighty dollars At the time.
Speaker 1: The judge granted Ben a new trial, believing the jury
Speaker 1: should have known that gladys Oliver had claimed for ward money.
Speaker 1: But before that trial took place, the prosecution offered a
Speaker 1: deal for twenty years on a lesser charge, with parole
Speaker 1: eligibility in less than five years. But Ben said no.
Speaker 3: I said well, whatever they're going to do, they're going
Speaker 3: to have to do it, because I'm not going to
Speaker 3: plead givety to something I didn't do.
Speaker 1: He was adamant that life on parole for a crime
Speaker 1: he hadn't done wouldn't be true freedom.
Speaker 3: If I accepted the plea offer, went to prison may parole,
Speaker 3: I would have X on my back. Now. I felt
Speaker 3: that every time that they couldn't solve a crime and
Speaker 3: they needed to suspect, I would become the escapegoat.
Speaker 1: Ben says he refused to become polices go to suspect
Speaker 1: every time they had an unsolved crime. So he went
Speaker 1: to his second trial, charged with a lesser offense, aggravated robbery.
Speaker 1: This time the prosecutor was Andy Beach.
Speaker 2: When I first met Andy Beach in twenty seventeen, he said,
Speaker 2: you know, Gladys Oliver was basically the best witness I've
Speaker 2: ever put on the stand.
Speaker 4: In the twenty five years I tried criminal cases. She
Speaker 4: was one of the top three or four eyewitnesses of
Speaker 4: all time. Just her physical presence and her ability to
Speaker 4: clearly answer questions and to stand up to cross examination
Speaker 4: get carried the day for us.
Speaker 3: There's no question.
Speaker 2: He described how she kind of rolled in in a wheelchair,
Speaker 2: was eye level with the jury, had a little blanket
Speaker 2: over her lap, that she was riveting.
Speaker 4: She was very confident in what she had seen and
Speaker 4: her ability to communicate that to a jury.
Speaker 2: And she just took no guph from Ben's lawyer.
Speaker 4: There's no question that Gladys Oliver's testimony convicted Ben Spencer.
Speaker 1: Danny Edwards, the snitch was also key. This time. He
Speaker 1: added that Ben had told him his only regret was
Speaker 1: that he hadn't finished the job at Young's office. He
Speaker 1: said Ben told him quote, I should have killed bitch
Speaker 1: right then and there. And then Ben took the stand.
Speaker 3: So I'm on the stand and the prosecutor he's doing
Speaker 3: his cross examination, and he was like, when you hold
Speaker 3: up your hands for me, and I hold up my
Speaker 3: hands and I've got them. My fingers played out.
Speaker 1: Beach asked Ben to hold his hands up. Remember Ben
Speaker 1: is six foot four with large hands to match.
Speaker 3: I can't remember exact words, but he went to describe
Speaker 3: how I could have used my hands to grab Jeffrey
Speaker 3: Young by his throat and choke him.
Speaker 2: You just had a feeling that he wanted to evoke
Speaker 2: in the midge of almost a really powerful I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be offensive here, but like an ape, right,
Speaker 2: like a really powerful, almost monster with these huge hands,
Speaker 2: and those hands could just snap a neck, right, that was.
Speaker 2: And the thing is that was seecial. That got across
Speaker 2: because I talked to the jury foreman and he remembers that,
Speaker 2: and he remembers thinking, wow, wow, no matter what, that
Speaker 2: guy could have killed Jeffrey Young, no matter how, look
Speaker 2: at those hands.
Speaker 1: So it worked again. Then was convicted, but this time
Speaker 1: of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison. He
Speaker 1: remembers the night of the conviction and sentencing, sitting in
Speaker 1: a cold cell.
Speaker 3: I've been convicted and sentenced to life, and I just
Speaker 3: couldn't see the end of that. I was like, man,
Speaker 3: the world will end before I have a sea freedom.
Speaker 3: And so I literally wanted to die. I literally wanted
Speaker 3: to take my own life that night, and I thought
Speaker 3: about taking my tie and hanging myself in that cell.
Speaker 3: But my faith, in my belief, was if I commit
Speaker 3: the ultimate sin of taking my life, I can't RepA
Speaker 3: I can't turn away from that. So I felt that
Speaker 3: if I was to commit suicide, I would have gone
Speaker 3: to hell. So that thought was the only thing kept
Speaker 3: me from hanging myself in that sale that night.
Speaker 1: And over the years, Ben kept his faith. How many
Speaker 1: times did you read the Bible in prison?
Speaker 3: I couldn't count. I would say at least probably twenty
Speaker 3: or thirty times from front to back. I mean, I
Speaker 3: didn't think anybody could really read the Bible, and much
Speaker 3: less I get an understanding of it. But the more
Speaker 3: I rated it, and I say read, but I should
Speaker 3: really say, the more I studied it, the more enlightenment
Speaker 3: I received.
Speaker 1: Part of that enlightenment was realizing that Deborah was on
Speaker 1: the outside suffering too.
Speaker 3: I just wanted her to go on with her life
Speaker 3: and hopefully find someone that would be as good to
Speaker 3: her as I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Around nineteen ninety four or five, Deborah and Ben got divorced,
Speaker 1: but Deborah never abandoned Ben, and.
Speaker 2: He continued just being in love with her, and she
Speaker 2: was his most faithful friend.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, Ben filed post conviction relief
Speaker 1: a Habeas Corpus. With the help of Jim McCluskey and
Speaker 1: Centurion Ministries, they reinvestigated Ben's case, which included trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the eyewitnesses could have actually seen in
Speaker 1: the dark that night in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: What Ben's legal team wanted to do was to show
Speaker 2: how hard it would be would have been to identify
Speaker 2: anyone on that night. It was ten o'clock at night,
Speaker 2: it was cloudy, very few lights, and the witnesses were
Speaker 2: all standing quite a distance away. So what they did
Speaker 2: is say, got a forensic optomologist and brought him to
Speaker 2: the crime scene on a similar night in March a
Speaker 2: few years obviously, a few years later, twenty years later,
Speaker 2: and he was able to measure the distances, and what
Speaker 2: he knew from science is that in those conditions of lighting,
Speaker 2: a person could not be further away than twenty five
Speaker 2: feet to be able to identify a person's face. And
Speaker 2: all of those people were alike, ninety three feet one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirteen feet two hundred and eighty feet away.
Speaker 2: There is absolutely no way that those people could have
Speaker 2: identified even their brother.
Speaker 1: Ben's defense team also interviewed dozens of witnesses poking holes
Speaker 1: in the police investigation, and they pointed to a more
Speaker 1: plausible suspect, though I'll tell you more about that later,
Speaker 1: Barb says century ministries even invited Alan Ledbetter to the hearing.
Speaker 1: He was the foreman of the jury that convicted Ben
Speaker 1: in his second trial. And Ledbetter went and.
Speaker 2: It was racially divided. One side of the room all white,
Speaker 2: all the friends of Jeffrey Young, the people who worked
Speaker 2: for Ross Brow, that kind of thing, and behind Ben
Speaker 2: all black, right, all of Ben's friends and family and
Speaker 2: all that. And Alan Ledbetter started in the white section.
Speaker 1: Is he a white guy?
Speaker 3: He's a white guy.
Speaker 2: He started in the white section, and after hearing evidence,
Speaker 2: he moved over to the black section, and it was
Speaker 2: the only white face in the black section. And he
Speaker 2: became really convinced that they had done a terrible injustice.
Speaker 2: In fact, when I interviewed him, he began to cry.
Speaker 2: He said, I just think I have such a role
Speaker 2: in this, and all I can think of is all
Speaker 2: those years I took away from Ben.
Speaker 1: Jim McCloskey presented all of this evidence in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven to Judge Rick Magnus.
Speaker 2: The judge ruled that he was actually innocent. Ben was
Speaker 2: actually innocent. He could not release Ben.
Speaker 1: Even though Judge Magnus ruled that Ben deserved a new trial,
Speaker 1: quote on the grounds of actual innocence. The Court of
Speaker 1: Criminal Appeals in Texas still had to approve, and the
Speaker 1: judges denied Ben.
Speaker 2: Here's a case where guy was declared innocent and he
Speaker 2: still couldn't get out, Like, what does it take to
Speaker 2: get out?
Speaker 1: Barb wanted to know, so she left DC and went
Speaker 1: to Dallas with her microphone.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3: Pretty good? Yeah? Good good.
Speaker 2: When I met Ben a little bit, what struck me
Speaker 2: was how gentle he was and how soft spoken.
Speaker 3: My name is Benjamin John Spencer. My number is forty
Speaker 3: thirty seven thirteen.
Speaker 2: There was no pushing me, like, you know, I'm innocent,
Speaker 2: You've got to get me out of here. There was
Speaker 2: none of that. It was just explaining where he was.
Speaker 3: I'm just at a point where I just I'm still hopeful,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, it's just like I'm stuck
Speaker 3: in the system.
Speaker 2: Prisonally for him was not It wasn't living, it was
Speaker 2: just existing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of things I could be doing.
Speaker 3: My parents are getting older and more fragile. I could
Speaker 3: be doing things for them. I could be doing a
Speaker 3: lot of positive things for a lot of people. I'm
Speaker 3: not the monster that they've tried to make me out
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Barb was determined to find out what happened that night
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven. Did this man sitting in front
Speaker 1: of her do it? Barb teamed up with private investigator
Speaker 1: Darryl Parker and set out to do some real shoe
Speaker 1: leather reporting.
Speaker 3: Her and Daryl Parker together. I mean, that was a
Speaker 3: duo that, you know, could only have been put together
Speaker 3: by God, and an odd duo.
Speaker 1: Barb is this tiny lady. Although she's a veteran, no
Speaker 1: nonsense reporter, she comes across as sweet and adorable. Her
Speaker 1: sidekick Darryl has the neck of a linebacker. He looks
Speaker 1: like a former cop and marine, which he is. And
Speaker 1: together they door knocked around Dallas.
Speaker 2: We went to every single house. I'll just tell you
Speaker 2: this one story. This is why I had so much fun.
Speaker 2: We're standing in front of this apartment. Darryl is about
Speaker 2: to knock, and he looks over and he sees that
Speaker 2: I'm standing directly in front of the door. And he
Speaker 2: reaches over and he gently takes me by the shoulders
Speaker 2: and moves me over like two feet and he goes.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they shoot through the door. Now I had been washing.
Speaker 2: I'd been a reporter for like thirty five years. I'd
Speaker 2: never considered that someone might shoot me. Huh through the door.
Speaker 1: No one got shot, and they were able to track
Speaker 1: down Jimmie Cotton, the witness, who added that he'd seen
Speaker 1: Ben running from Jeffrey Young's car that night from ninety
Speaker 1: three feet away.
Speaker 2: I had kind of plotted out this really careful interview
Speaker 2: journey right, not to spook him, right, just start gently
Speaker 2: and all of that. Like, yeah, I didn't have to
Speaker 2: do any of that. It's like it was a confessional.
Speaker 2: It was like he'd been waiting for thirty years to
Speaker 2: blurt out. I don't know if I saw him or not.
Speaker 2: I didn't see his face. I just saw someone running away.
Speaker 2: He was tall. I thought it might be like Ben,
Speaker 2: but you know, and the police told me that they
Speaker 2: were investigating Ben. So the police gave him that information.
Speaker 1: Remember, the cops had talked to Cotton at the suggestion
Speaker 1: of Gladys Oliver, the prosecution star witness.
Speaker 2: It all came out that gladys Oliver had told him,
Speaker 2: just follow my lead, just say what I say, Just
Speaker 2: say it was Ben, And that all came out.
Speaker 1: It was known from the first trial that Gladys was
Speaker 1: interested in the reward money. However, now it was clear
Speaker 1: that Jimmy Cotton also had motive to lie. It's unclear
Speaker 1: if Cotton ever received any money. Here he is on
Speaker 1: the podcast Radio Atlantic telling Barb how he feels about
Speaker 1: Ben's conviction decades later.
Speaker 3: I feel bad. I'll hope. I want them to get out,
Speaker 3: I really do. That's a long time to be in
Speaker 3: prison for something you didn't do.
Speaker 2: And the other person we tracked down was the jailhouse snitch,
Speaker 2: Danny Edwards, and we're like, so, Danny, did Ben Spencer
Speaker 2: ever confess to you. No, he didn't confess to me.
Speaker 2: He said they said he did it. He didn't even
Speaker 2: know the guy. He didn't even go over there. No,
Speaker 2: I didn't confess to me.
Speaker 1: Danny told Barb that the police told him that Ben
Speaker 1: said Danny did it. So Dan and he said Ben
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 2: And then he says to me, you know, that's the
Speaker 2: way the game is played in prison.
Speaker 5: That's in jail. In prison, the better liar, better fighter wing.
Speaker 1: Here's Edwards talking to Barb for the podcast Radio Atlantic, and.
Speaker 5: They were forcing us saying you kidded him. He's saying
Speaker 5: you kid him. You know that's different. But that shit
Speaker 5: goo with Can I ask.
Speaker 2: You, do you think Ben Spencer's innocent?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't do it.
Speaker 5: In my heart, he didn't do it, you know, just
Speaker 5: he lied on me and I lied on him.
Speaker 3: That's what it is, what it is, you know.
Speaker 2: Danny Edwards was facing a twenty five year prison sentence
Speaker 2: for arson aggravated robbery and he walked out two months
Speaker 2: after he testified against Ben. So he was in prison
Speaker 2: for better or he was in jail for about a year.
Speaker 1: Do you think he felt guilty about it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. So we're sitting they were kind of wrapping
Speaker 2: up the interview and we're sitting outside and he goes, so,
Speaker 2: how is Ben anyway? And I said, Danny, Ben's in prison.
Speaker 2: He goes, oh, I thought he was out. I said no,
Speaker 2: he's been imprisoned for thirty years. And Daryl says, so,
Speaker 2: how does that make you feel? And Danny says, like shit.
Speaker 1: Barb even built a rapport with Andy Beach, the prosecutor
Speaker 1: who got a conviction at Ben's second trial.
Speaker 2: So the last time I talked to him for sitting
Speaker 2: in the jury room and I'm not even seated yet,
Speaker 2: and I've turned out the tape recorder, not even seated yet.
Speaker 2: And he goes, you know, I have serious doubts about
Speaker 2: Ben Spencer's guilt.
Speaker 1: But even with Beach's doubts and Barb's reporting, Ben Spencer
Speaker 1: remained in prison. Getting him out, Barb says, would take
Speaker 1: some luck and new district attorney. In November twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: John Cruseau, a progressive Black Democrat, was now elected as
Speaker 1: the District Attorney of Dallas County. Barb says, now there
Speaker 1: was hope.
Speaker 2: The four previous das had refused to look at his case.
Speaker 2: They said, no, it's open and shut. And so a
Speaker 2: new DA comes along, and because we had gotten new
Speaker 2: evidence that he could consider since a trial, he was
Speaker 2: open minded and he put his really good prosecutor on
Speaker 2: it to investigate it.
Speaker 1: His conviction review unit, headed by Cynthia Garza, started reviewing
Speaker 1: the case. They had Barb's reporting and all the evidence
Speaker 1: previously compiled by Centurion Ministries, and they also uncovered more
Speaker 1: evidence that the prosecution's key witness, Gladys Oliver lied. He
Speaker 1: received five thousand to ten thousand dollars in reward money
Speaker 1: on top of the money she got from crime stoppers,
Speaker 1: and she had lied about that in the second trial
Speaker 1: to investigator Cynthia Garza believed the prosecution knew about the
Speaker 1: incentive to lie, which qualifies as a Brady violation. So
Speaker 1: with all this evidence pointing towards Ben's innocence, Barb started thinking,
Speaker 1: if Ben Spencer didn't do this, who did.
Speaker 2: In eighty seven, right around the time of the Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Young killing, there was a man named Michael Hubbard who
Speaker 2: was about the same age as as Ben, lived in
Speaker 2: West Dallas.
Speaker 1: Hubbard was a known criminal who worked with two friends
Speaker 1: to stick up and rob restaurants. The night of jeff
Speaker 1: Young's assault, Michael Hubbard spoke to some friends at a park.
Speaker 2: He had a really terrible coke habit. He really needed
Speaker 2: money and his friends if they would come help them
Speaker 2: to rob a restaurant, and they're like, no, man, there
Speaker 2: are too many police around and we're not doing that.
Speaker 2: So he was desperate, so he goes off and he
Speaker 2: comes back a few hours later and he has a
Speaker 2: Sakah watch in a wedding ring and a jam box.
Speaker 1: Hubbard asks his friend to help him sell it, so
Speaker 1: they do. Then they score drugs and get high with
Speaker 1: some other friends. While they're getting high, Michael tells them
Speaker 1: where the items came from.
Speaker 2: And after he said this, all four of them were silent,
Speaker 2: and they're like, Michael, you really can't You can't tell
Speaker 2: anyone that you shouldn't have told this to us. So
Speaker 2: what happened is a few months later, the two friends
Speaker 2: got kind of a conscience when they realized that Ben
Speaker 2: and Robert were going we're going to be tried for this,
Speaker 2: and they went to the police, and the police ignored it.
Speaker 2: They didn't even interview Michael Hubbard because they already had
Speaker 2: Ben Spencer.
Speaker 1: Hubbard wound up going to prison for a robbery.
Speaker 2: He gets out around ninety two and he starts the
Speaker 2: spree of what are called the Batman assaults, where he
Speaker 2: would wait outside of an office building with a high
Speaker 2: end car in it, right in the parking lot, and
Speaker 2: wait for the executive to come out, and then he
Speaker 2: would hit him over the head and take his jewelry
Speaker 2: and his cash, but not the credit cards, just the
Speaker 2: way it happened with Jeffrey Young. And he was finally
Speaker 2: convicted of these Batman robberies. Ten people seriously hurt with
Speaker 2: the same very same mL. So it's quite plausible that
Speaker 2: Michael Hubbard the Batman, actually killed Jeffrey Young.
Speaker 1: In early twenty twenty one, the Dallas County District Attorney
Speaker 1: decided Ben's conviction should be vacated.
Speaker 6: Okay, good afternoon, everyone, that's good.
Speaker 1: On March twelfth, twenty twenty one, Ben stood in front
Speaker 1: of Judge Layla Lawrence Mays remotely because of COVID, all right, I.
Speaker 6: Want everybody to know that we are live streaming on
Speaker 6: YouTube through the two eighty third District Courts.
Speaker 1: YouTube, and Judge Mays agreed to release Ben on his
Speaker 1: personal recognissance.
Speaker 6: So, because of everything that I have read, because of
Speaker 6: what I think is fair to mister Spencer, I have
Speaker 6: decided to go ahead and grant a PR bond.
Speaker 3: I would say, within forty five minutes of this judge
Speaker 3: telling me she's going to release me on a PR bond,
Speaker 3: I was walking out the front door, and I mean
Speaker 3: I didn't expect it to happen that fast. I happened
Speaker 3: so quickly. A lot of the jailers were even saying, man,
Speaker 3: that's the quickest release I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Barb was outside of the courthouse that day, live streaming
Speaker 1: the hearing with a crowd of people, including strangers, supporting Ben.
Speaker 1: There was this cheer.
Speaker 2: People didn't even know Ben, but like because Ben had
Speaker 2: become this symbol of both the kind of calcification of
Speaker 2: the system, but also one of those rare instances when
Speaker 2: can we broke through?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And so people were cheering and we all everyone went
Speaker 2: rushing down to the outside of the jail to wait
Speaker 2: for Ben to come out. There were probably two hundred
Speaker 2: people in there, kind of talking excitedly and all of that.
Speaker 2: And from the end of the room it comes from
Speaker 2: around the corner. Ben and Deborah appear and stop and
Speaker 2: they just look at this crowd of people, and Deborah
Speaker 2: looks slightly freaked out, and Ben looked really happy, and
Speaker 2: they walked like this royal couple through, you know, through
Speaker 2: the crowds, and everyone's like high fiving Ben and everyone's
Speaker 2: just thrilled.
Speaker 1: Deborah was right there next to him. After all of
Speaker 1: these years, I.
Speaker 2: Read through twenty five hundred pages of his letters to her.
Speaker 1: Letters he wrote to Deborah from prison.
Speaker 2: He's a really kind of very smart, clinical, like dispassionate person.
Speaker 2: But when you read those letters, what you see is
Speaker 2: he was wildly in love with her.
Speaker 1: Ben and Deborah got married again in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: It would have been our thirty fifth wind anniversary. The
Speaker 3: remarried on her Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ben looks back and reflects on everything that went down.
Speaker 3: I've never harbored any ill will for anyone, not then,
Speaker 3: not now. And I'm just a kind, loving person who
Speaker 3: believes who believed in the system at that time. Still
Speaker 3: believe the system has the potential to work. But it
Speaker 3: requires us to keep an open mind, and we have
Speaker 3: to realize that just because a person is behind the
Speaker 3: table on the defense end, that that person is not
Speaker 3: guilty just because he's there.
Speaker 1: Ben says he wants to help others like him, but
Speaker 1: mostly he's just happy to be a dad to Benjamin Jr.
Speaker 1: And husband to deb like he wanted all those years ago.
Speaker 3: I thank Deborah and him for having my back fall
Speaker 3: those years, for loving me for those years. It just
Speaker 3: means a lot to me. Need to have them in
Speaker 3: my life now and hopefully to this life ends.
Speaker 1: The day after Ben got out, Barb went to see
Speaker 1: him at home.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful spring day, March thirteenth, and you hear lawnmowers,
Speaker 2: you hear kind of all the normal sounds of spring, right.
Speaker 2: You hear birds, you hear and this is stuff he
Speaker 2: hasn't heard for thirty four years. And I said, Ben,
Speaker 2: how does that feel? And he says, it just feels normal.
Speaker 2: Feels like this is a life I was supposed to
Speaker 2: be living and now I'm living it.
Speaker 3: That's how I feel normal. Still feels normal. I have
Speaker 3: to recall the fact that I was incarcerated. Wow, it's
Speaker 3: like the thirty four years that I did in prison
Speaker 3: just kind of vanished, and it's like I woke up
Speaker 3: out of a coma and resume my life on that side.
Speaker 1: After our interview, Ben Spencer was officially exonerated on August
Speaker 1: twenty ninth of this year. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence
Speaker 1: organizations and go to the links in the episode description
Speaker 1: and see how you can help. You'll also see a
Speaker 1: link to Barb's book and her three part story for
Speaker 1: The Atlantic. Thank you to Barb for letting us use
Speaker 1: her recordings, and to Ethan Goldman and Sam Devaney at
Speaker 1: Anchor Entertainment for the extra tape. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer is Kathleen Fink.
Speaker 1: Our researcher is Hallie Dolce, with mixing by Josh Allen.
Speaker 1: An additional production help by Jeff Clyburn. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis. The music is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow
Speaker 1: me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one. A note to listeners,
Speaker 1: a previous version of this episode named Faith Johnson as
Speaker 1: the prosecutor in Ben's first trial. It was actually Jeffrey Hines.