Speaker 1: On July fifteenth, nineteen forty nine, Norma and Willie Paget
Speaker 1: went out for a night on the town. According to
Speaker 1: the couple, during their ride home, car trouble forced them
Speaker 1: to stop on the side of the road. The following morning,
Speaker 1: Norma Paget turned up in a nearby town alone. Once
Speaker 1: Willie was located, the couple told the local sheriff that
Speaker 1: while they were stranded, four black men had overpowered Willy
Speaker 1: and raped Norma, although a physician's findings as well as
Speaker 1: a witness account did not support this narrative. Three local
Speaker 1: young men were apprehended, Walter Irvin, Sam Shepherd, and Charles Greenley.
Speaker 1: An associate of Greenley's named Ernest Thomas was killed while
Speaker 1: being pursued through a swamp by police and an angry mob.
Speaker 1: When Sam Shepherd and Charles Greenley both gave confessions, the
Speaker 1: growing mob called for the sheriff to produce the three
Speaker 1: young men to be lynched, but the sheriff quelled the
Speaker 1: crowd with a promise that a jury trial would send
Speaker 1: them to their death. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction, where we're covering the case of
Speaker 1: the Groveland four Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and
Speaker 1: Walter Irvin, a Politzer Prise winning book Devil in the
Speaker 1: Grove help secure their posthumous exaggeration. So we've asked, and
Speaker 1: we're really privileged to have the author of that book
Speaker 1: to join us in their stead. Our audience will recognize
Speaker 1: him as the host of Bone Valley, the podcast series
Speaker 1: about another wrongful conviction out of Lake County, Florida. So
Speaker 1: it's my honor to welcome my great friend and colleague,
Speaker 1: Gilbert King.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Jason, I'm really looking forward to this. Thanks for
Speaker 2: having me on.
Speaker 1: We're really happy to have you now, Gilbert. This case
Speaker 1: took place in Groveland, Florida, and it's an agricultural town
Speaker 1: relying mainly on Orange grove, and there was a pretty
Speaker 1: clear racial divide between the white orange grove owners and
Speaker 1: the mostly black farmhands. The local sheriff, Willis McCall was
Speaker 1: took it upon himself and was really tasked with keeping
Speaker 1: those black farmhands keeping their labor as cheap as possible.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways he was doing this was
Speaker 1: by running union organizers out of town. And don't forget
Speaker 1: this was clan country during the late stages of Jim
Speaker 1: Crow the years following World War Two.
Speaker 2: You know, something really interesting is happening in the country
Speaker 2: at this time. You have more than a million black
Speaker 2: servicemen who are coming back from overseas having fought in
Speaker 2: World War Two, and many of them have experienced greater
Speaker 2: freedoms and respect abroad in places like Germany, France, and England.
Speaker 2: And now they come back to the Jim Crow South
Speaker 2: and they're sort of expected to slip quietly back into that,
Speaker 2: you know, second class citizenship. And two of the men
Speaker 2: who had later become known as Groveland Four, served the military.
Speaker 2: Then they came back to Groveland, and they continued to
Speaker 2: wear their military uniforms, which was very common thing, a
Speaker 2: reminder to the people in the South that you know,
Speaker 2: I was willing to fight and die for this country,
Speaker 2: put my life on the line. I deserve a little
Speaker 2: more respect as an American citizen. But that was not
Speaker 2: what was waiting for them when they returned to the
Speaker 2: Jim Crow South.
Speaker 1: No, and these two young men you mentioned were twenty
Speaker 1: two year olds Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin who grew
Speaker 1: up in Groveland, and sam Shepherd's father, Henry Shepherd was
Speaker 1: a bit of a thorn in the side of your
Speaker 1: average white supremacist because he's really kind of stuck out
Speaker 1: as a very successful farmer in what was once the
Speaker 1: black part of the county.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely right, you know. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that you know, Henry Shepherd did when he first
Speaker 2: came to this land, it was swampland, so he drained
Speaker 2: it personally himself, and he took the best land. But
Speaker 2: by draining the land, it became a desirable part of
Speaker 2: land in South Lake County. So now you had sort
Speaker 2: of this forced desegregation where white people were starting to
Speaker 2: move into this land and they resented the fact that
Speaker 2: the black man had the best land in the area.
Speaker 2: And so you started to see like them letting their
Speaker 2: cows and their cattle go and Gray's on Henry Shepherd's land.
Speaker 2: Henry tried to complain, and Sheriff Willis McCall told him,
Speaker 2: no black man has a right to file a complaint
Speaker 2: against a white resident of Lake County.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't the only racist law that the sheriff
Speaker 1: made up. He specifically forbade black servicemen from doing what
Speaker 1: Sam and Walter had been doing. Donning their uniforms and
Speaker 1: demanding their well earned and well deserved respect. So Sam
Speaker 1: and Walt were really already in the crosshairs of the
Speaker 1: clan here. But what about these other two men of
Speaker 1: the Groveland four? And I said, men, but one of them,
Speaker 1: let's face, it was just a kid from Tennessee, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Charles Greenley and Ernest Thomas. Charles Greenley was a
Speaker 2: sixteen year old kid who met Ernest Thomas in Gainesville.
Speaker 2: They were working at a fast food place together, and
Speaker 2: Ernest said, come back to Lake County. You can work
Speaker 2: in the Orange Groves. You can make some money. They
Speaker 2: didn't even know Walter Irvin and Sam Shepard. It just
Speaker 2: all got caught up in the middle of July of
Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: Yes, July fifteenth, to be exact, when sixteen year old
Speaker 1: Rarles Greenley had been arrested for sleeping at a train station.
Speaker 1: Earlier on in the evening, twenty six year old Ernest
Speaker 1: Thomas was at home with his family in a black
Speaker 1: part of town Stucky Still, and then Sam and Walter
Speaker 1: had gone out drinking in nearby Orlando before returning to Groveland. Now,
Speaker 1: what's the real story with the alleged victims.
Speaker 2: What had happened was a young couple by the name
Speaker 2: of Norma Paget and her husband, Willie, had only been
Speaker 2: married for about six months, and there was rumors going
Speaker 2: around town that Willy was an abusive husband to Norma,
Speaker 2: and the families kind of wanted them to separate, didn't
Speaker 2: think they were a mature, good couple to be together,
Speaker 2: and so they separated for a few months just into
Speaker 2: their marriage, and on July fifteenth, nineteen forty nine, they
Speaker 2: decided to sort of give it another chance and go
Speaker 2: out dancing, and so Willy picks up a bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 2: They go out to an American Legion hall in Lake County, Florida,
Speaker 2: start dancing, and shortly after midnight, Willy and Norma take
Speaker 2: off in Willy's car and they're going to go out
Speaker 2: for a snack.
Speaker 1: Now we're not exactly sure what happened next, but they
Speaker 1: allegedly had some car trouble pulled over, and what we
Speaker 1: do know for sure is that Norma was spotted the
Speaker 1: following morning alone in front of a cafe. Now, it's
Speaker 1: believed that Willie had gotten aggressive with Norma at some
Speaker 1: point and violent and that they needed to make up
Speaker 1: a story to cover for that fact. However, for now,
Speaker 1: let's stick with what is known. Starting with Norma.
Speaker 2: At about six in the morning, she's seen in a
Speaker 2: little town called Oka Humpka standing outside this cafe called
Speaker 2: Bertov's Cafe. And so Lawrence Bertoff is like, this eighteen
Speaker 2: year old kid works for his father's cafe. He looks
Speaker 2: out the window and he sees this woman on the
Speaker 2: side of the road, opens up the cafe, pours some coffee.
Speaker 2: They talked for like fifteen minutes. He says, you know,
Speaker 2: she doesn't seem very upset. She just says, I'm looking
Speaker 2: for my husband. We got separated the night before. She
Speaker 2: doesn't say anything about being sexually assaulted or anything like that.
Speaker 2: She basically just says, I need a ride to go
Speaker 2: back and look for my husband. Lawrence put Norma in
Speaker 2: the car and they start driving down the road where
Speaker 2: the car broke down, and that's where they see Willie
Speaker 2: Paget coming the other way in a car with a deputy.
Speaker 2: Lawrence Bertoff sees Norma get out. She goes over to
Speaker 2: her husband and that's it, and they drive off, and
Speaker 2: the next thing we know Norma Paget has made the
Speaker 2: accusations that four black men beat up her husband, took
Speaker 2: her off, raped her, and then dropped her off on
Speaker 2: the side of the road. So when she made those accusations,
Speaker 2: Sheriff Willis McCall basically claimed the story from Norma because
Speaker 2: she said, initially I couldn't identify them, it was too dark.
Speaker 2: Willis McCall said, well, I know exactly who they are,
Speaker 2: and he just rounded up people that he believed were
Speaker 2: troublemakers in town. The first two he picked up were
Speaker 2: Walter Irvin and Sam Shepard, are the ones that wore
Speaker 2: their military uniforms after their service. But you know, because
Speaker 2: Norma Paget said that it was four men, they had
Speaker 2: to find two others, so Sheriff Willis McCall was kind
Speaker 2: of scrambling. At that point. He finds Charles Greenley, who
Speaker 2: just got into town sleeping at a train station twenty
Speaker 2: something miles away. He got arrested for vagrancy, so they
Speaker 2: arrest him and say he was part of it. And
Speaker 2: then they find this other guy, Ernest Thomas, who was
Speaker 2: supposedly with Charles Greenley that night.
Speaker 1: And this is nineteen forty nine, five years before the
Speaker 1: lynching of m at Till when any kind of alleged
Speaker 1: impropriety for a black man or men toward a white
Speaker 1: woman was met with extreme violence. Enormous Father coy Tyson
Speaker 1: was a clan member. At this point, clan in the
Speaker 1: region began to mobilize and descend upon Grovelin. While the
Speaker 1: local clan had marched down to the Shepherd family's farm
Speaker 1: and burned it to the ground. Sam Shepherd was already
Speaker 1: in custody along with Walter Irvin and Charles Greenley, but
Speaker 1: Ernest Thomas had not been rounded up yet.
Speaker 2: Ernest Thomas he sees what's happening with all the clan
Speaker 2: coming into town, and he flees up north to a swamp.
Speaker 2: Sheriff Willis McCall puts together a posse of more than
Speaker 2: one thousand men, and they go up to North Florida
Speaker 2: and just hunt him down like a dog. Ernest Thomas
Speaker 2: was executed in the swamps up there. One of the
Speaker 2: corners reports said that his body was riddled with something
Speaker 2: like four hundred slugs, and so that's pretty much how
Speaker 2: the Groveland Four became the Groveland Three.
Speaker 1: Then McCall and his deputies went back to the courthouse
Speaker 1: where Sam, Walter and Charles were in custody. While a
Speaker 1: bloodthirsty mob slowly began to amass on the courthouse steps.
Speaker 2: The deputies take the three young men down to the
Speaker 2: basement of the Lake County Courthouse. It's a basement that
Speaker 2: has a dirt floor with pipes hanging above. And so
Speaker 2: what they do is they handcuff the defendants to the
Speaker 2: pipe so that their hands are over their heads, and
Speaker 2: they break these coke bottles on the ground and sprinkle
Speaker 2: it below their feet, and they pull down their pants
Speaker 2: and just start beating them with like rubber hoses and
Speaker 2: god knows what else, punching them. So as they're beating
Speaker 2: each man, they're having to move their feet around and
Speaker 2: they're stepping on this broken glass. They beat these guys
Speaker 2: so bad that Charles Greenley and Sam Shepard confess just
Speaker 2: to stop the beating. Walter Irvin just passes out on
Speaker 2: but he never confesses, he says. And then the sheriff
Speaker 2: goes out on the courthouse steps and basically holds up
Speaker 2: these white pieces of paper that are blank and says, yeah,
Speaker 2: all three of them confessed. We got the guys. We're
Speaker 2: going to be bringing them to trial. And you know,
Speaker 2: within days of this, the Orlando Sentinel is putting out
Speaker 2: these editorial cartoons with electric chairs calling for the death.
Speaker 1: And the gathering racist mob definitely wanted death, I mean
Speaker 1: to be sure, but not by electric share. That didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be good enough for them.
Speaker 2: They wanted vengeance. This was going to be a lynching.
Speaker 2: And McCall recognized that he snuck the Groveland boys out
Speaker 2: of the jail because he knew there was going to
Speaker 2: be trouble, and he moved him up to Rayford State Prison.
Speaker 2: So when the klan shows up outside the courthouse, he
Speaker 2: eventually strikes a deal and he says, okay, normous, Father
Speaker 2: Coy and Willie Pageck can go up into the jail
Speaker 2: and look around and see if they see the defendants.
Speaker 2: And obviously these guys weren't there at this point, and
Speaker 2: so that's how he was able to sort of tamp
Speaker 2: down the mob. New York Times wrote a big story
Speaker 2: about him the next day. It said, you know, fast
Speaker 2: talking shriff prevents a lynching in Lake County.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he prevented a lynching, maybe, but the misdirected violence
Speaker 1: that followed is reminiscent of the Tulsa race massacre of
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one, and when an angry white mob, spurred
Speaker 1: on by a false allegation of sexual impropriety by a
Speaker 1: black man against a white woman, burned down a thriving Tulsa,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma community known as Black Wall Street and killed anyone
Speaker 1: in everyone they could find. And this Groveland mob was
Speaker 1: not all that different.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's just a very common thing in the
Speaker 2: Jim Crow South. It happened in Florida with Rosewood, It's
Speaker 2: happened in a Koe, where these accusations just spark this
Speaker 2: white violence, sometimes driving every black person out of these towns.
Speaker 2: In this particular case, the Ku Klux Klan started burning
Speaker 2: down the homes in the black part of town called Stucky. Still,
Speaker 2: what's really interesting is you have all these really wealthy
Speaker 2: white citrus barons basically, and they don't want to see
Speaker 2: a mass exodus of labor, so they're actually sending their
Speaker 2: trucks in there and trying to move blacks in Lake
Speaker 2: County to safety because they don't want what's happened in
Speaker 2: other places like the Koe and Rosewood, where all of
Speaker 2: a sudden you lose the black labor force that hits
Speaker 2: them economically, so they're actually protecting them. And National Guard
Speaker 2: had to come into Lake County to sort of stop
Speaker 2: the violence. Is to stop the destruction of the black community.
Speaker 2: You know. It's then the clan starts turning on the
Speaker 2: wealthy people, saying, if you talk to the FBI about this,
Speaker 2: we're gonna burn down every building your own. You're not
Speaker 2: safe either. And there's a very famous photograph of Sheriff
Speaker 2: Willis McCall where he's out surveying the ruins, the ashy
Speaker 2: ruins of these houses that were burned down the following night. On.
Speaker 2: What you later learned through FBI reports and informants was
Speaker 2: that the sheriff himself, Willis McCall, was the one supervising
Speaker 2: the clan about which houses to burn down. He was
Speaker 2: on the scene the night before.
Speaker 1: Was he a clan member.
Speaker 2: He wasn't just a clan member. I mean informants in
Speaker 2: the clan meetings would say Sheriff Willis McCall was the
Speaker 2: one giving or giving him legal advice, telling him not
Speaker 2: to talk to police. Sheriff Willis McCall was really trying
Speaker 2: to have it both ways.
Speaker 1: Right, So on a national stage, McCall appeared to be
Speaker 1: a champion of even keeled justice, but locally he had
Speaker 1: actually led the Klan in their bloodthirsty rampage through Stucky
Speaker 1: Still and remember, this case and others like it represented
Speaker 1: a slow shift away from lynching into a more sugar
Speaker 1: coated form of white supremacy and white terrorism.
Speaker 2: What's really remarkable about this case is the transition from
Speaker 2: lynchings to the death penalty, the way the death penalty
Speaker 2: was used, and back then there was a capital offense
Speaker 2: to be charged with the rape of a white woman.
Speaker 2: I think in the state of Virginia there were forty
Speaker 2: nine cases where a man was executed for rape. All
Speaker 2: forty nine of those men were black men accused of
Speaker 2: raping a white woman.
Speaker 1: And you can see throughout the history of the death
Speaker 1: penalty in this country how on evenly it has been applied. Now,
Speaker 1: if there's any silver lining to this story, it's that
Speaker 1: the overwhelming destruction in Mayhem garnered the attention of the NAACP,
Speaker 1: who sent none other than NAACP attorney Franklin Williams and
Speaker 1: future Supreme Court Justice Thurgod Marshall, and they were there
Speaker 1: to represent the Gwoveland III.
Speaker 2: Franklin Williams showed up at the jail to interview these
Speaker 2: men and got their statements, and he said he was
Speaker 2: absolutely disgusted by what he saw. Three weeks after these beatings,
Speaker 2: these men were still wearing the same clothes. There was
Speaker 2: blood all over the clothes, welts in their head, teeth
Speaker 2: were knocked out, they were viciously beaten, and now they're
Speaker 2: going on trial for their lives.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor, Jesse Hunter and Sheriff McCall already had the
Speaker 1: tortured confessions and norma paget ready to identify them in court.
Speaker 1: In addition, they had tried to shore up any other
Speaker 1: potential witnesses, starting with the kid from the cafe, Lawrence Bertov.
Speaker 2: You know, he told the story that they were threatening to,
Speaker 2: you know, destroy his father's cafe if he didn't go
Speaker 2: along with this. And his mother said, Lawrence, just tell
Speaker 2: the truth, don't lie, just tell the truth. We'll deal
Speaker 2: with all that. And he tries to tell the story
Speaker 2: of what he observed, but it doesn't fit the state's narrative.
Speaker 2: So what does the state do? They hide Lawrence Bertoft
Speaker 2: from the defense, basically get him to leave town. They
Speaker 2: take all of the defendant's families and lock them up
Speaker 2: in jail so that they can't share stories and talk
Speaker 2: about alibis. I mean, these are the kind of things
Speaker 2: that law enforcement could get away with in the South.
Speaker 2: We learned this because I filed a FOYA on this
Speaker 2: case to get all the FBI records. And if you
Speaker 2: look at the FBI interviews with Norma Paget, they do
Speaker 2: not match the story Norma Paget was telling at trial.
Speaker 2: But of course the defense didn't even have access to
Speaker 2: these FBI interviews either, so they never knew the whole story.
Speaker 1: And then there's the doctor, right, doctor Jeffrey Beinneveld's.
Speaker 2: Absolutely hours after this alleged attack, he does the medical
Speaker 2: exam of Norma Paget, and I got my hands on
Speaker 2: his report. He concluded that there was no evidence of
Speaker 2: any kind of sexual assault to the degree of which
Speaker 2: Norma Paget reported. What does the state do? Basically they
Speaker 2: hide doctor Benevelt from the defense. Those are the kind
Speaker 2: of things that Franklin Williams and Thurgood Marshall were contending with.
Speaker 1: And this went to trial only about two months after
Speaker 1: the alleged rape. In front of Judge Truman Fudge. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a wild guess and say that
Speaker 1: this was an.
Speaker 2: All white jury, all white men.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And get this the prosecutor, Jesse Hunter. He
Speaker 1: actually did not present Sam and Charles's tortured false confessions,
Speaker 1: which don't have to be Colombo to figure out that
Speaker 1: he knew they were false, and that he actually thought
Speaker 1: that the torture had been so extreme that the jury
Speaker 1: might see through them, even this all white, all male jury.
Speaker 1: But instead they produced some plaster casts of Walter Irvin
Speaker 1: shoeprints allegedly from the scene, which screams malfeasance and it
Speaker 1: reeks of junk science. They also presented a pair of
Speaker 1: Walter's genes, pointing to a stain and alleging that it
Speaker 1: was quote a human stain unquote who's human stain? Though
Speaker 1: what kind of fluid? They didn't even bother to say
Speaker 1: that they probably didn't know. I think about the time
Speaker 1: and place this was, but I understand that Groveland three
Speaker 1: took the stand in their own defense right, starting with
Speaker 1: Sam and Walter.
Speaker 2: Sam Shepard and Walter Irvin completely denied it. Charles Greenley said, look,
Speaker 2: I was on another side of town. I was locked
Speaker 2: up in a jail for loitering. I don't know who
Speaker 2: those Walter Irvin and Sam Shepard. I've never seen him
Speaker 2: before in my life.
Speaker 1: And with bertof hidden and any potential alibi witnesses locked
Speaker 1: up and with no access to the FBI's interviews of
Speaker 1: Norman Paget and barely two months to prepare in the
Speaker 1: lead up to the trial, had the defense been able
Speaker 1: to uncover anything meaningful or even helpful.
Speaker 2: By this point, the defense sty had heard rumors that
Speaker 2: this doctor had been out there and had done this exam,
Speaker 2: and they tried to get their hands on the doctor
Speaker 2: or FBI cooperation, but they were told that this was
Speaker 2: still an investigation in progress and that they didn't have
Speaker 2: rights to the doctor, his testimony, or even his reports.
Speaker 2: This is how it was stacked against the Groveland three.
Speaker 1: And really, what did any of this matter? Considering Norma
Speaker 1: Paget was going to take the stand.
Speaker 2: Thurgood Marshall was told like the quickest way to send
Speaker 2: your clients to the electric chair was if a black
Speaker 2: man stood up in court and questioned the word of
Speaker 2: a white woman. In fact, Thurgood Marshall had to hire
Speaker 2: a white lawyer by the name of Alex Akerman to
Speaker 2: come in. And so what they basically said is, we're
Speaker 2: not saying that this didn't happen to you, miss Paget.
Speaker 2: We're just saying that you've identified these suspects incorrectly. And
Speaker 2: that was as far as they were willing to go.
Speaker 2: And so when Norma Paget takes the stand, she points
Speaker 2: out to the three black men sitting at the defense
Speaker 2: table and refers to him as the n word for
Speaker 2: each of them and basically says, those are the men
Speaker 2: that rape me. By the time they came to the verdict,
Speaker 2: Walter Irvin and Sam Shephard are sentenced to death by
Speaker 2: electric chair. Charles Greenley, because of his age sixteen, was
Speaker 2: given life on a chain game. Thurgod Marshall later said,
Speaker 2: that's how you know the jury believed that your client
Speaker 2: was innocent. In the South, they only get life in prison.
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by marsh mc clennan, the world's
Speaker 1: leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy
Speaker 1: and people. Its legal and compliance department provides pro bono
Speaker 1: legal assistance and other support to underrepresentative communities and.
Speaker 2: Individuals Thurgod Marshall and his lawyers at the NAACP. They
Speaker 2: understood the appellate process. What they also know is that
Speaker 2: the State of Florida has committed some egregious violations of
Speaker 2: the Constitution. The way Florida selected a grand jury. They
Speaker 2: were pointing out black people in the community, inviting them in,
Speaker 2: and then using peremptory strikes to get them off the jury.
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court had already ruled that this was an
Speaker 2: illegitimate way to select a jury. Marshall he also knew
Speaker 2: that there was so much pre trial publicity assuming that
Speaker 2: they were guilty and calling for executions, that there should
Speaker 2: have been a change of venue. So that's what they
Speaker 2: argued before the Supreme Court in nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 1: This appeal was only for Sam and Walter, but not
Speaker 1: for sixteen year old Charles Greenley.
Speaker 2: And Marshall explained to Greenley, like, look, we could get
Speaker 2: you in this appeal, and you could get a retrial,
Speaker 2: and you might get convicted and sentenced to death next time,
Speaker 2: because you're no longer a sixteen year old kid now
Speaker 2: you're eighteen, and the jury might not have any sympathy
Speaker 2: for you. So he persuades Greenley to not join the appeal.
Speaker 1: So the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional violations and overturned
Speaker 1: Sam and Walter's convictions and ordered them a new trial,
Speaker 1: which broke Sheriff Willis Paccall's promise of a legal lynching
Speaker 1: in the electric chair.
Speaker 2: So Sheriff Willis Beccall says, on the night of the retrial,
Speaker 2: I'll drive up to Rayford State Prison myself, pick up
Speaker 2: Sam Shepard and Walter Irvin and bring them back to
Speaker 2: the courthouse him and his deputy. While they're driving back
Speaker 2: down McAll gets back into Lake County and then curiously
Speaker 2: he turns off onto a dirt road and he starts
Speaker 2: shaking the wheel of his car and says, boys, I
Speaker 2: think I got a flat. He pulls over, orders Shepherd
Speaker 2: and Irvin out of the car, opens the door and
Speaker 2: opens fire, shot Sam Shepherd three times, the third shot
Speaker 2: straight between the eyes, killing him instantly. Walter Irvin is
Speaker 2: handcuffed to Sam Shepherd. The Call drags them both out
Speaker 2: of the car and shoots Walter Irvin twice, once in
Speaker 2: the chest and once in the side. The next thing
Speaker 2: we know, there's Sam Shepherd lying dead in a ditch,
Speaker 2: handcuffed to his best friend, Walter Irvin.
Speaker 1: And the only reason we know any of this was
Speaker 1: that Walter Irvin was still alive.
Speaker 2: The only thing he could do because he was handcuffed
Speaker 2: was he pretended to be dead. And he said that.
Speaker 2: That's when he heard the sheriff get on his radio,
Speaker 2: call back to his deputy and say, Jimmy, Jimmy, I
Speaker 2: got him good, get back here. The deputy circles back
Speaker 2: in his car. Walter Irvin is still conscious and he
Speaker 2: hears the second police car coming and he hears these
Speaker 2: footsteps of James Yates and he's laying there trying not
Speaker 2: to breathe, and that's when he feels a flashlight shine
Speaker 2: over his face and he hears the deputy say this
Speaker 2: n ain't dead yet. And at that point, Irvin opens
Speaker 2: his eyes and he's staring down the barrel of a
Speaker 2: thirty eight caliber Smith and Wesson. The next thing he knows,
Speaker 2: another shot is fired. It goes clean through his neck.
Speaker 1: So now McCallin, Yates radioed it in and their team
Speaker 1: shows up, including the prosecutor, Jesse Hunter, and a photographer.
Speaker 2: The photographer shows up, he says willis McCall is just pacing,
Speaker 2: saying they tried to escape. I had no choice. They
Speaker 2: came after me. I had to shoot him. I hate
Speaker 2: that this has happened, but you know, and he's got
Speaker 2: a little blood trickling down his face, his clothes are disheveled.
Speaker 2: Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance shows up takes Sheriff McCall
Speaker 2: to the hospital. Interestingly enough, there's a very famous photograph
Speaker 2: that was taken of the body of Sam Shepherd and
Speaker 2: also Walter Irvin. When that flash fired and that picture
Speaker 2: was taken, Jesse Hunter said, one of those boys just moved,
Speaker 2: and sure enough Walter Irvin was still alive, still breathing,
Speaker 2: and so they bring Walter Irvin to the hospital as well.
Speaker 1: When Walter finally regained consciousness, Thirdgood Marshall, a team of
Speaker 1: FBI agents and a court stenographer were present to hear
Speaker 1: what had really happened. So pick back up with just
Speaker 1: after Walter was shot by Yates.
Speaker 2: That's when he hears the sheriff and the deputy say,
Speaker 2: we gotta make this look like an escape. Rip my
Speaker 2: clothes and they start fabricating evidence. They grab hair at
Speaker 2: of Sheriff McCall's head and place it in Sam Shepherd's hand,
Speaker 2: as if there was some kind of struggle. What's really
Speaker 2: interesting at this point is the FBI. They've already taken
Speaker 2: a statement from Sheriff Willis McCall, who says that he
Speaker 2: was being attacked and he emptied his revolver into them,
Speaker 2: shooting them six times. Well, the FBI is thinking to themselves, well,
Speaker 2: we've recovered five of those bullets. The six bullet that
Speaker 2: went clean through Walter Irvin's neck is never going to
Speaker 2: be recovered if the sheriff is telling the truth, because
Speaker 2: he says that they were standing and approaching when the
Speaker 2: last gunshot was fired. But if Walter Irvin is telling
Speaker 2: the truth, we have an idea where that final six
Speaker 2: bullet might be. And so they rush back to the
Speaker 2: crime scene from the night before, and they find it
Speaker 2: still cordoned off, and they find the blood stain where
Speaker 2: Walter Irvin was laying, and ten inches below the surface
Speaker 2: of that soil they find a thirty eight caliber slug.
Speaker 1: So the FBI had irrefutable forensic evidence that Walter was
Speaker 1: telling the truth and the sheriff was lying.
Speaker 2: At this point, you know, the FBI put together this
Speaker 2: damning report with forensic evidence, proof of perjury, urging the
Speaker 2: US attorney in Tampa to fully prosecute the sheriff and
Speaker 2: the deputy for murder and attempted murder. And this US attorney,
Speaker 2: who's a known segregationist appointed by Woodrow Wilson, quickly quashes
Speaker 2: the investigation and it goes back to a local level.
Speaker 1: Which meant going back in front of the trial judge
Speaker 1: Truman Futch, who had impaneled what's known as a coroner's jury,
Speaker 1: a body convened to assist a coroner in determining the
Speaker 1: cause of death. But with what we've seen so far,
Speaker 1: we could pretty much predict how this is going to go.
Speaker 2: The coroner's jury was appointed by Sheriff Willis McCall. He
Speaker 2: picked his own friends and business associates to judge whether
Speaker 2: he used reasonable force on Walter Irvan Sam Shepherd. The
Speaker 2: judge Truman Futch says, well, you know, because the coroner's
Speaker 2: jury said that it was, you know, self defense, there's
Speaker 2: no need to impanel a grand jury. One of the
Speaker 2: FBI agents even wrote in a report, you know, he
Speaker 2: was wondering why this was going nowhere, and he was
Speaker 2: told that it was quashed for four words tranquility of
Speaker 2: the South. In other words, if people really knew what
Speaker 2: had happened in this incident, they might riot in the
Speaker 2: streets instead. Thurgod Marshall and his lawyers never knew about
Speaker 2: the reports, never knew what the FBI had really written
Speaker 2: in this case, and so that was hidden from them
Speaker 2: as well. And so sure enough they go right to
Speaker 2: a second trial.
Speaker 1: And even without the FBI's proof of Walter's version of events,
Speaker 1: his story of survival cast enough doubt on Willis McCall.
Speaker 2: This has become embarrassing for the state of Florida, with
Speaker 2: this out of control sheriff and the governor at this
Speaker 2: point sort of wants this to go away, and so
Speaker 2: they sent out an emissary to Thurgod Marshall and saying, look,
Speaker 2: get Walter Irvin to plead guilty. We'll take the death
Speaker 2: penalty off the table, and then we can come back
Speaker 2: to this once it quiets down and try and get
Speaker 2: wa to Irvin out of prison. Irvin says, yeah, I
Speaker 2: want to go to the electric chair. What do I
Speaker 2: gotta do? And Marshall says, you got to stand up
Speaker 2: in court and admit that you raped normal paget. He says,
Speaker 2: I'm not telling a lie. I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 2: I'm not admitting to something I didn't do. And Marshall's
Speaker 2: like imploring him, like the State of Flower is going
Speaker 2: to kill you. They are going to convict you again.
Speaker 2: Trust me on this, and Irvin's like, Nope, I'm not lying.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do it. And so he goes
Speaker 2: forward with a second trial as Marshall predicted, He's convicted
Speaker 2: and sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: Governor Leroy Collins knew that this was unjust and in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five commuted Walter sends to life with the
Speaker 1: possibility of parole.
Speaker 2: Walter Irvin ends up serving twenty years before he's finally
Speaker 2: paroled and released. Here's another part that's really disturbing Jason.
Speaker 2: He receives news after his release that his uncle has
Speaker 2: passed away in Lake County and he has to write
Speaker 2: to the county for permission to come back to Lake
Speaker 2: County because he's living down in Miami. He comes back
Speaker 2: to Lake County to attend his uncle's funeral. He's found
Speaker 2: dead in his car the same day he arrives back
Speaker 2: in Lake County.
Speaker 1: The official story was that he died of natural causes
Speaker 1: on February sixteenth, nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: People are absolutely convinced that Sheriff Willis McCall has finally
Speaker 2: gotten to him again. Charles Greenley, after ten years, he
Speaker 2: was basically released. And so he went on and had
Speaker 2: a very successful life, moved back to Tennessee, opened up
Speaker 2: his own business, raised a family, and you know, never
Speaker 2: talked about this with his cha. He was just found
Speaker 2: it so shameful. He didn't want to poison his own
Speaker 2: children with these kind of stories of racism, so he
Speaker 2: kept them all to himself. He was the last of
Speaker 2: the grove and four to die. He died in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Well that's really just a short time. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is not some ancient history, folks. And he died the
Speaker 1: same year The Devil in the Grove was published. And
Speaker 1: unfortunately Charles didn't live long enough to see that. Your
Speaker 1: investigation for the book helped lead to all of their exonerations.
Speaker 1: With the benefit of a barely more modern era, you
Speaker 1: were able to see way more than what we shared
Speaker 1: with the defense, which confirmed what Sam and Walt knew
Speaker 1: all along.
Speaker 2: At one point it was learned that Walter Irvin and
Speaker 2: Sam Shepherd were driving home from a club in Orlando
Speaker 2: and they came across Willy and Norma on the side
Speaker 2: of the road and because of the broken down car,
Speaker 2: Shepherd and Irvin stopped and they tried to help them
Speaker 2: by pushing the car out and Norma, because they couldn't
Speaker 2: get the car to work. Norma got out of the
Speaker 2: car and handed Sam Shepherd some whiskey for trying to
Speaker 2: help them get out, and Willy kind of flipped out
Speaker 2: at that and said something like, I don't drink behind
Speaker 2: no N word and got mad and they got into
Speaker 2: a fight Sam Shepherd and Sam Shepherd seems to have
Speaker 2: gotten the better of Willy Paget left him on the
Speaker 2: side of the road. They take off in their car,
Speaker 2: and that's when Willy said, oh, I got attacked by
Speaker 2: four black men, and he tried to invent this story,
Speaker 2: and they made it much worse by, you know, basically
Speaker 2: normal Paget claiming that she'd also been raped when they
Speaker 2: took away her from the scene. So these accusations are
Speaker 2: obviously explosive. Willie Paget didn't want his pride her, so
Speaker 2: he had to invent this story. We got to say
Speaker 2: I was beat up by four black men, and I
Speaker 2: think that's what the defense believed was the real story
Speaker 2: that started all this.
Speaker 1: And again, what a crazy, full circle thing. Here's these
Speaker 1: guys doing a good deed, which they had to know.
Speaker 1: There was some element of risk in that anyway, right,
Speaker 1: you know, to be two black men stopping on the
Speaker 1: side of the road with a white couple at nighttime
Speaker 1: in the Deep South. But they did it anyway, right,
Speaker 1: they did the right thing, and of course it backfires
Speaker 1: as badly as anything possibly could. So it's really extra
Speaker 1: sickening because of that element to me, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: to many people in our audience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, one of the things when I
Speaker 2: started really investigating this story that really jumped out at
Speaker 2: me was that, you know, I always just assumed that
Speaker 2: the clan had, you know, racial motives and everything, but
Speaker 2: they were also sort of this moral enforcer in these
Speaker 2: communities in the Deep South. Say you're a mother of
Speaker 2: a child and you're you have an alcohol problem, you're
Speaker 2: drinking a lot, and you're neglecting your child, you might
Speaker 2: get a visit from the clan and a beating. And
Speaker 2: that was the way they sort of enforced this moral code.
Speaker 2: If you were beating your wife, that might earn you
Speaker 2: a visit from the Klan. And the clan was very
Speaker 2: much involved in this part of Florida. And Willie Paget
Speaker 2: had a reputation and I've seen his rap sheet for
Speaker 2: being rough with women, and so it seems very likely
Speaker 2: those were the rumors in town that he was hurting Norma,
Speaker 2: and that's why they separated. So, you know, we don't
Speaker 2: know what happened that night where he pulls the car
Speaker 2: over on the side of the road, But the next
Speaker 2: thing we know that, you know, Norma's making these accusations
Speaker 2: that she was abducted and sexually assaulted by these four
Speaker 2: black men, and Sheriff Willis McCall had to put this
Speaker 2: story together, and that's why he's out there searching for
Speaker 2: people that he thinks are good suspects for this.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really crazy, Gilbert, and it's giving me
Speaker 1: the chills to think about. But knowing what we know
Speaker 1: about Paget's, you know, proclivity for violence against women, it's
Speaker 1: within the realm of possibility that by stopping their car
Speaker 1: they may have actually saved Norma's life and then it
Speaker 1: turns around full circle and she ends up creating this
Speaker 1: false narrative and false accusations that ended theirs effectively right.
Speaker 1: And of course your book does such an incredible job
Speaker 1: of exposing this, and that book, that work of yours,
Speaker 1: it led to the absolute pardons for these four men
Speaker 1: in January twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that was really remarkable because I'd go
Speaker 2: around and do these lectures down in Florida's talking about
Speaker 2: the story, and more and more people were reading about it.
Speaker 2: And I remember like being at certain book signings where
Speaker 2: people would come up to me and sort of whisper
Speaker 2: in my ear like, don't worry, we're looking into this.
Speaker 2: We're going to we're going to help you. And I'm like, always, well,
Speaker 2: who are these people? And one time a guy said,
Speaker 2: you know, watch the news tonight, and a Senator Marco
Speaker 2: Rubio stood on the floors of Senate and basically said,
Speaker 2: you know, now is the time to acknowledge the wrongdoing
Speaker 2: with the Groveland Four. These men need to be pardoned.
Speaker 2: And there became this movement and I was kind of
Speaker 2: watching this very curiously, and you know, sure enough, you
Speaker 2: had Ron DeSantis who was running for governor at this time.
Speaker 2: He actually said publicly that when I take office, if
Speaker 2: I win, this is going to be one of the
Speaker 2: first things that I address. And you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of people were very surprised by this, that it was
Speaker 2: taken on this sort of bipartisan level of support. And
Speaker 2: sure enough, I think just like two days into Governor
Speaker 2: DeSantis's first term, he called up a meeting with his
Speaker 2: cabinet and it was you know, I went there. It
Speaker 2: was up in Tallahassee. It was extraordinary. Family members of
Speaker 2: the Groveland four testified. You know, I also testified, and
Speaker 2: you know, basically my point was, this isn't a he said.
Speaker 2: She said, We're going on documentation. There's proof of perjury,
Speaker 2: prosecutorial misconduct. That's the reason we're here today to address
Speaker 2: what happened in that courtroom to these men who were
Speaker 2: wrongly accused of this. They voted right there, unanimously on
Speaker 2: the floor to pardon the Groveland flour and to have
Speaker 2: the investigation reopened.
Speaker 1: So, despite Ron DeSantis's record otherwise, there's no doubt that
Speaker 1: this was the right thing to do, Even in the
Speaker 1: face of Norma Paget, who was still alive and voiced
Speaker 1: her opposition. So what happened with the case after it
Speaker 1: was reopened?
Speaker 2: The Attorney General of Florida put the Florida Department of
Speaker 2: Law Enforcement in charge of the investigation, and two agents
Speaker 2: came up to me in New York. I gave them
Speaker 2: all my files, and so the FDL did like a
Speaker 2: two year investigation and the bar is there needs to
Speaker 2: be new evidence in order to get to a posthumous exoneration.
Speaker 2: And that report concluded that there's no new evidence. And
Speaker 2: I remember his State Attorney, Bill Gladson called me up
Speaker 2: and he said, you know there any new evidence out there?
Speaker 2: Have you found out anything? Because I just cannot go
Speaker 2: back to these families and tell them that there's nothing
Speaker 2: that can be done. And so one of the things
Speaker 2: that had always haunted me about this case was that
Speaker 2: the physical evidence from both trials for seventy years, it
Speaker 2: was missing. About two weeks later, I got a text
Speaker 2: with a photograph from State Attorney Bill Gladson, and it
Speaker 2: was a box that he had found in a different courthouse,
Speaker 2: and he said it was the Groveland evidence and inside
Speaker 2: that box where the jeans the dungarees that Walter Irvin
Speaker 2: was wearing on the night of this alleged attack, and
Speaker 2: the prosecutor, Jesse Hunter, had held up these pants in
Speaker 2: both trials and pointed to a stain and said to
Speaker 2: the jury, this stain was evaluated. It's a human stain
Speaker 2: and it belongs to Walter Irvin. He's guilty. Well, Gladson
Speaker 2: took those pants and you could still see the stain
Speaker 2: on it, and he had them DNA tested and the
Speaker 2: results came back that that was not a human See.
Speaker 2: So Jesse Hunter, the prosecutor, had lied about the evidence
Speaker 2: against Walter Irvin, and state Attorney Gladson said that rises
Speaker 2: to new evidence I can use that.
Speaker 1: You know, to bring it full circle. In August twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, investigators spoke with a grandson of Jesse Hunter,
Speaker 1: Roward Hunter. The grandson said that he had found correspondence
Speaker 1: in his grandfather's law office that convinced him that Jesse Hunter,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor at the time, and the judge presiding over
Speaker 1: the retrial, both knew that no rape had occurred. Investigators
Speaker 1: were also skeptical about evidence when provided by James Yates,
Speaker 1: a sheriff's deputy who was the state's primary witness of
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty nine trial and the nineteen fifty one retrial.
Speaker 2: Basically what they did was they confiscated Walter Irvin shoes
Speaker 2: the night he was arrested, and they basically took the
Speaker 2: shoes and made these fake plaster of impressions. It was
Speaker 2: completely manufactured. I'd later found out that this same deputy,
Speaker 2: James Yates, actually got caught a couple of years later
Speaker 2: doing this when one of the deputies turned him in
Speaker 2: and said he's not taking these footprints from the crime scene,
Speaker 2: He's going in the backyard and doing it on the
Speaker 2: soil there. And the FBI did an investigation and found
Speaker 2: out that that's exactly what happened. And so Yeates later
Speaker 2: got indicted himself for manufacturing evidence, which he was doing
Speaker 2: throughout his career.
Speaker 1: So what did Gladson finally do with all of this evidence?
Speaker 2: Gladson wrote this incredible motion calling for the immediate dismissal
Speaker 2: of charges against all four of the Groveland Four, saying
Speaker 2: that the prosecution embarrassed themselves, perjured themselves, and committed a
Speaker 2: grave injustice against these four wrongfully accused men.
Speaker 1: So, in November twenty twenty one, Circuit Court Judge Heidi
Speaker 1: Davis in Lake County, Florida, granted the state's motion to
Speaker 1: posthumously dismiss the indictments of Ernest Thomas and Samuel Sheppard
Speaker 1: and vacated the convictions of Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin.
Speaker 2: And so Florida, you know, however you want to look
Speaker 2: at it, they actually did follow up with this and
Speaker 2: did correct this gross justice, so that the names of
Speaker 2: the grove and four are now officially cleared.
Speaker 1: Amen to that it's too late, but it's not too late.
Speaker 1: So I don't even know if that makes sense, but
Speaker 1: it's just how I feel and can't help thinking about
Speaker 1: all the other cases we'll never know about, as we
Speaker 1: might never have known about this one if not for
Speaker 1: that incredible twist of fate that that young man survived
Speaker 1: being shot three times on the side of a dirt road,
Speaker 1: handcuffed to his best friend. So, Gilbert, look this story.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we did this. I'm so again just
Speaker 1: honored to work with you and to know you and
Speaker 1: call you my friend. And you know, every episode we
Speaker 1: end the same way, which is what the segment called
Speaker 1: closing arguments. It's where I get to turn my microphone off,
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair with my headphones on and
Speaker 1: just listen for you to share any final thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks, Jason, I really appreciate and you know,
Speaker 2: I sit here, you know, I listen to your show
Speaker 2: all the time. And one of the things that's sort
Speaker 2: of depressing about this story is that, you know, there
Speaker 2: is no person who survived all this who is able
Speaker 2: to come back on and say, at least justice was
Speaker 2: done all for the Groven for or you know, deceased.
Speaker 2: Now there's family members who basically do say that, you know,
Speaker 2: this obviously is not going to bring back their family members.
Speaker 2: But these were people who continued to live in Lake
Speaker 2: County for decades under the false narrative that their relatives
Speaker 2: were convicted rapists and that the sheriff was defending himself
Speaker 2: because these bad people tried to kill the fine sheriff
Speaker 2: of Lake County. And that's why narratives are so important.
Speaker 2: If Walter Irvin had died on the side of that road,
Speaker 2: like he said, nobody ever hears of this story, the
Speaker 2: official narrative of Sheriff Willis McCall would have carried the day.
Speaker 2: And I think that there are so many cases like
Speaker 2: this especially in the Deep South where you have these
Speaker 2: young men who are just absolutely railroaded by the system.
Speaker 2: They don't have lawyers who put up much of a fight.
Speaker 2: They actually serve as like lampposts on the side and
Speaker 2: sort of our tools in leading towards the convictions. And
Speaker 2: this is what the system looked like back then. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, the system really isn't that much different today.
Speaker 2: Things have gotten better in the courts, and certainly technology
Speaker 2: has helped us. Like I said, you know, Walter Irvin's
Speaker 2: story dispels the official narrative because you can see it
Speaker 2: with your own eyes. There's a bullet that ended up
Speaker 2: exactly where Walter Irvin said it was that proved that
Speaker 2: this was murder and attempted murder. And these stories are
Speaker 2: just common back in the day. And you know, you
Speaker 2: can look to cases like Trayvon Martin, which happened in
Speaker 2: the same part of Central Florida twenty twelve. Right when
Speaker 2: this book came out, and I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: many people came up to me and said, you know,
Speaker 2: nothing's changed. The official narrative is not the correct narrative,
Speaker 2: you know. And the only thing I really add in
Speaker 2: closing is that thanks to people like Thurgood Marshall and
Speaker 2: Franklin Williams and NAACP lawyers, the justice system is different.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to imagine a time back in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty where you could actually coerce and beat a
Speaker 2: defendant and if he confessed, it was a legitimate confession
Speaker 2: in court. These are the things that these lawyers were
Speaker 2: fighting against. So the system is better, but it's still
Speaker 2: obviously these kinds of wrongful convictions are happening all the time,
Speaker 2: and that's why it's so important for a show like
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction. These stories are going a long way towards
Speaker 2: not just educating jurors future jurors, but also improving the
Speaker 2: integrity of the courts that we do get them wrong
Speaker 2: sometimes and that we need to listen to these stories
Speaker 2: when there's compelling evidence of innocence.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to La for Good Plus on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor hall, Any,
Speaker 1: Chelsea Lyla Robinson, and Kathleen Fink, as well as my
Speaker 1: fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Awardis, and Jeff Cliburn.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one