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Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't

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Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I

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Speaker 2: do know that everything was stacked against me.

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Speaker 3: Everything like everything.

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Speaker 2: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I

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Speaker 2: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do

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Speaker 2: with this. How is this possible?

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Speaker 3: I grew up trusting the systems. I grew up believing

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Speaker 3: that every human being should do the right thing. And

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Speaker 3: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with

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Speaker 3: corp people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get

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Speaker 3: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the

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Speaker 3: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.

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Speaker 1: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I

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Speaker 1: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.

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Speaker 1: Our system.

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Speaker 4: Since I've been out ten years, it has come a

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Speaker 4: little ways, but it's still broken.

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Speaker 3: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.

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Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction.

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Speaker 5: Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm That's me,

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Speaker 5: And today we have an episode that I'm actually kind

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Speaker 5: of intimidated to even do because I'm interviewing a personal

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Speaker 5: hero of Damien Eccles.

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Speaker 4: Damien, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 5: And it's extra special because we're here recording in front

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Speaker 5: of an audience at the Church of Rock and Roll

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Speaker 5: in Las Vegas, of which you have been an incredible

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Speaker 5: part and I'm so grateful to you for your participation.

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Speaker 5: But I want to start this episode by apologizing to

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Speaker 5: you on behalf of.

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Speaker 4: The entire human race for.

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Speaker 5: What is just and unbelievable there's not a right word

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Speaker 5: for it, but nightmare, saga, ordeal that never should have

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Speaker 5: happened in the first place. And I just wanted to

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Speaker 5: tell you upfront that I'm I'm, I'm inspired and uh

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Speaker 5: just in incredibly moves by by your presence. And so

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Speaker 5: so with that being said, before I get all gushy here,

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Speaker 5: let's get right into it. So I'm gonna ask you questions,

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Speaker 5: some of them already know the answer to because I'm

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Speaker 5: familiar with your story, but not not all the details.

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Speaker 5: But let's go back to growing up your childhood. Okay,

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Speaker 5: did you have brothers and sisters?

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Speaker 1: I did. My family history is kind of odd and convoluted,

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Speaker 1: just because my mother and father were both married about

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Speaker 1: five times each.

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Speaker 4: Wow.

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Speaker 1: So I have a lot of you know, half siblings,

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Speaker 1: step siblings, full siblings. So my family did to vary

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Speaker 1: at any given time. It could be anything from just

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Speaker 1: me and my sister to I think like the most

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Speaker 1: was like seven of us at one time, seven children

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Speaker 1: at one time. So it was kind of all over

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Speaker 1: the map.

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Speaker 5: And I've heard you talk about the fact that you

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Speaker 5: grew up so poor that when you finally moved to

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Speaker 5: a trailer, it was like you felt like you were

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Speaker 5: like the Jeffersons moving on up right, absolutely, I mean,

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Speaker 5: can you describe how what did that look like? I mean,

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Speaker 5: you were Did you grow up in West Memphis?

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Speaker 1: Well, when I was really young. One of the things

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Speaker 1: whenever Laurie was working with the investigators looking back over

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Speaker 1: the case and they were getting like my school records

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Speaker 1: and things like that, one of the investigators was saying,

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Speaker 1: this can't be right. The school records show that sometimes

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Speaker 1: you moved as often as every two weeks, and I

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Speaker 1: did you know I lived in Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maryland, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: just everywhere. We were constantly moving, you know, my parents

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Speaker 1: or my dad at you sort of thought, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe if we go to this place, then you know,

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Speaker 1: somehow or another will escape poverty. You know, there'll be

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Speaker 1: a better job, a better place to live, a better

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Speaker 1: something down the road. So we were constantly moving from

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Speaker 1: place to place looking for something better than what we had,

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Speaker 1: trying to escape poverty basically. But we would always at

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Speaker 1: the same time, end up coming back to either Tennessee

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Speaker 1: or Arkansas, because that was where we had, you know,

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Speaker 1: the most family members at least some sense of support

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Speaker 1: or community. So we went all over the place, but

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Speaker 1: would always end up coming back there.

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Speaker 5: And for you growing up in this really, I mean

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Speaker 5: I didn't even know. I mean every two weeks you

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Speaker 5: were literally a nomad, right, an American nomad.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. And I've heard you talk about I watch your moth.

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Speaker 5: Presentation, which is wonderful if anyone wants to go online

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Speaker 5: and see it, just I mean, it comes right up

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Speaker 5: when you google Damien Echols. It's a ten minute video

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Speaker 5: that is very, very powerful. So you talked about how

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Speaker 5: for you, and this is why it's so exciting and

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Speaker 5: interesting to be here right now, the Church of Rock

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Speaker 5: and Roll. You talked about how music and books were

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Speaker 5: really your way of sort of taking yourself out of

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Speaker 5: this really miserable situation in many ways that you were.

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Speaker 1: In absolutely, you know, my family, I have a ninth

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Speaker 1: grade education. I dropped out of school when I was

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Speaker 1: in ninth grade, and that's more than anyone else in

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Speaker 1: my family has. You know, if you looked at my

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Speaker 1: whole family tree, you won't find anyone with so much

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Speaker 1: as a high school diploma. So we didn't have, you know,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of books or a library or anything

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Speaker 1: in our house. For me, I used to skip school

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Speaker 1: and go hang out at the library all day. As

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Speaker 1: odd as that sounds. I would hide in the library,

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Speaker 1: read books, bring them home because when you're reading, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're even if it's only in your head, you're going

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Speaker 1: different places, seeing different things, having different experiences, and you

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Speaker 1: don't have to focus on the fact that you're eating

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Speaker 1: rice again for the you know, seventh time this week.

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Speaker 4: And then you had a sort of an outsider.

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Speaker 5: You were an outcast right and as as partially as

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Speaker 5: a result of that, or maybe it was a cause

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Speaker 5: and effect whatever, you ended up being inadvertently putting yourself

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Speaker 5: in a situation where when one of the most terrible

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Speaker 5: crimes not only the history of Arkansas, but in the history.

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Speaker 4: Of America.

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Speaker 5: Or the world happened, there were these very small minded

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Speaker 5: people around who.

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Speaker 4: Sort of came to this.

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Speaker 5: Instinctual call it conclusion that it must be the weird kid, right,

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Speaker 5: it must be the kid that wears black and listens

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Speaker 5: to heavy metal. Because this was in the we're going

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Speaker 5: back to nineteen ninety three now, right day of nineteen

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Speaker 5: ninety three, and many people.

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Speaker 4: Will already know part of the story.

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Speaker 5: But on that tragic day, three little eight year old

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Speaker 5: boys went out for a bike ride and disappeared, and they.

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Speaker 4: Turned up sexually mutilated.

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Speaker 5: One boy was castrated, they were tortured, hogtied, it hurts

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Speaker 5: me just to say it.

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Speaker 4: And their bodies were dumped in a swampy river bed.

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Speaker 5: So we know, I know from decades of working on

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Speaker 5: wrongful convictions that when you get a crime like this,

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Speaker 5: especially at a small community but anywhere, there's a lot

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Speaker 5: of pressure. Nobody wants to have fat pressure. Everybody wants

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Speaker 5: to calm the community, and so the authorities are more

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Speaker 5: prone to developing theories that in a more calm environment

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Speaker 5: might not make sense and they might not pursue. But

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Speaker 5: in this case, somehow or other, they And this was

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Speaker 5: the in the Satanic Panic as well. Right, yes, back then,

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Speaker 5: for those of you who are old enough to remember,

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Speaker 5: in the early nineties, there was this very strange thing

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Speaker 5: that was going on in America where there was rumors

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Speaker 5: of Satanic cllts and stuff like that. None of them

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Speaker 5: turned out to be true, but that's besides the point.

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Speaker 5: So what happened, Well.

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Speaker 1: You know, for me my entire life, the thing that

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Speaker 1: has been most important to me, that that I love

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Speaker 1: the most, that my life always sort of revolved around,

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Speaker 1: was Western hermeticism, ceremonial magic all the way back from

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Speaker 1: when I was a child. But I lived in an

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Speaker 1: incredibly right wing fundamentalist town where I mean, there were

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Speaker 1: places in this town where you come to a four

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Speaker 1: corner stop and on all four corners of the street

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Speaker 1: will be churches. If you weren't like I was.

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Speaker 4: Like Starbucks, Now, yeah, that's exactly what it was like.

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Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, churches were like Starbucks is there,

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Speaker 1: And if you didn't belong to, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: these mainstream for that area, mainstream fundamentalist religions. You were

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Speaker 1: automatically viewed as suspicious. You know, you you were Satanic.

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Speaker 1: That's what they thought. And it didn't matter if you

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Speaker 1: were a Buddhist or a Hindu or something like that.

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Speaker 1: You're still satanic. You just don't know you're a Satanist.

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Speaker 1: You're just being you know, tricked by the devil into

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Speaker 1: thinking there's some other religion. But then whenever you start,

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Speaker 1: you know, bringing factors in, like the fact that I

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Speaker 1: actually did love ceremonial magic, and that's been one of

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Speaker 1: their things that you know, they harp on forever that

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Speaker 1: that is Satanism, that those two things there's no difference

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Speaker 1: in those. So that was a huge part of what

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Speaker 1: made them focus on me as well. You know, that

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Speaker 1: was what they thought made me a freak. They think, automatically,

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Speaker 1: you're a Satanist. It would take a Satanist to commit

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Speaker 1: a crime like this. Stick all those things together, and

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Speaker 1: they didn't even look for anybody or anything else.

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Speaker 5: No, and they ignored in this case what's really stomach churning.

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Speaker 5: Aside from so many other factors, but one of the

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Speaker 5: things that's really so upsetting is the idea that they

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Speaker 5: ignored obvious signs you have that pointed to at least one,

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Speaker 5: arguably up to three other individuals. Yes, including and this

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Speaker 5: is just it's too strange to even believe. But the

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Speaker 5: fact is that there was a local restaurant, was it

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Speaker 5: Bojangles or something. It was a Bojangles where the manager

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Speaker 5: called the cops that night and said there was a

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Speaker 5: guy covered in mud and blood that stumbled into the

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Speaker 5: fast food place and went into the bathroom. And to

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Speaker 5: their credit, the manager called up and a police officer

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Speaker 5: came but didn't investigate, and they ultimately collected evidence from

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Speaker 5: that bathroom that he went into, which there was blood

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Speaker 5: all over the place and mud, and they lost it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, right, they lost it. So I mean not only that,

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Speaker 1: but also even after they did DNA testing, you know,

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Speaker 1: years later, they do DNA testing, find out that the

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Speaker 1: DNA does not match me or the other two guys

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Speaker 1: they convicted. To this day, they still have not run

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Speaker 1: that DNA through codis to see who it matches. They

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Speaker 1: refuse to do that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, which is you know, which is so strange.

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Speaker 5: And I talk about on the show a lot because

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Speaker 5: in a case like this, especially in the small community,

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Speaker 5: the people who are doing investigating live in that community.

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Speaker 5: By definition, they may bring in outside experts, but a

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Speaker 5: lot of them live in the community. And you know,

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Speaker 5: as a dad, myself, or as as any as a citizen,

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Speaker 5: as anybody, everyone's got relatives, everyone should be concerned for

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Speaker 5: their own safety. When you have somebody out there who's

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Speaker 5: capable of this sort of pure evil, you would think

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Speaker 5: it for no other reason than purely selfish reasons. You

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Speaker 5: would want to get that person off the street, because

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Speaker 5: that's a you know, that's a really scary situation. So

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Speaker 5: but that that's not what happened, and it happens too

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Speaker 5: frequently that these various factors combine to result in a

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Speaker 5: tragic outcome. To tragic outcomes, well, in this case many

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Speaker 5: because there were three of you, all your family members

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Speaker 5: are affected. And then the fact that the actual perpetrators

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Speaker 5: were allowed to remain free and there and there again

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Speaker 5: were obvious signs, I mean the one I just talked about,

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Speaker 5: the various signs pointing to the stepfather of one of

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Speaker 5: the boys, including a bloody knife that had the kids

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Speaker 5: blood on them, that was found that belonged to him.

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Speaker 5: I mean, this one kind of came with instructions, and

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Speaker 5: I know that it's difficult, and I have known one

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Speaker 5: of these people that I'm not an anarchist. I believe

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Speaker 5: we do need a system of law and order, and

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Speaker 5: I think a lot of there are a lot of

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Speaker 5: very good police and judges and prosecutors out there.

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Speaker 4: But in this case, you ran into the perfect storm.

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Speaker 5: It's a small town, high profile crime, complicated crime because

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Speaker 5: the crime scene itself was a muddy riverbed, not the

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Speaker 5: easiest place to collect evidence.

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Speaker 4: It seemed to have been scrubbed to some degree. And

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Speaker 4: then all the pressure.

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Speaker 1: And what people don't realize also, you know, just most

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Speaker 1: people's knowledge of the legal system comes from watching TV,

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Speaker 1: which is complete and absolute fiction. They don't, you know

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Speaker 1: they And it fosters this idea that these people, these judges,

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Speaker 1: these prosecutors, these attorney generals, that they have these positions

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Speaker 1: because there're somehow moral people. They're good people who are

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Speaker 1: looking out for since that's excuse me, society. In actual fact,

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Speaker 1: these are politicians, just like senators, just like congressmen. Their

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Speaker 1: number one priority is winning that next election, So they're

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Speaker 1: going to do for that next case exactly, whatever the

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Speaker 1: community is pressuring them to do, that's the way they're

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Speaker 1: going to lean because they want to win the next election.

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Speaker 5: So in this case, they focused on you, and then

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Speaker 5: they had to find a way to get to you,

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Speaker 5: right because there was no evidence connecting you to it.

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Speaker 1: Did you know the boys, No, never even heard of them.

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Speaker 5: Even in a small I mean, it's got to be

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Speaker 5: a very small community. I think that everybody would almost

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Speaker 5: know everybody. Course, I'm from New York, so I sound ridiculous,

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Speaker 5: but you know what I mean, it sounds really small

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Speaker 5: to me.

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Speaker 4: West Memphis, Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: I mean, but keep in mind, these are eight year

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Speaker 1: old kids. You know, it's an entire day generation than

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Speaker 1: me or the other two guys even convicted. Were there

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Speaker 1: were you know, no reason that we would know him.

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Speaker 1: They were in elementary school. We were already you know,

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Speaker 1: in junior high getting ready to go into high school.

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Speaker 1: They also lived in you know, the suburbs and the

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Speaker 1: next town over. Technically we didn't even live in the

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Speaker 1: same town. They lived in West Memphis. Me and the

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Speaker 1: other two guys lived in the next town over, which

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Speaker 1: was called Marion. So you know, it wasn't like there

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Speaker 1: was any reason for us to ever even come in

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Speaker 1: contact with each other.

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Speaker 4: And Jason Baldwin.

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Speaker 5: Let's just talk about Jason for a second, because he's

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Speaker 5: one of my favorite people. I called him before, the

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Speaker 5: best Jason I know, and he's been on the show.

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Speaker 5: It was an awesome experience interviewing him and just an

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Speaker 5: amazing guy. He just recently got somebody off of death row.

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Speaker 5: I saw on Instagram today actually that he helped to

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Speaker 5: free a guy from death row, which is such an

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Speaker 5: incredible accomplishment with his organization. So Jason was your sort

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Speaker 5: of a one and best and a pretty much onlyfriend

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Speaker 5: at the time, right, And he was I mean from

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Speaker 5: just appearance, his physical appearances, he was sort of he

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Speaker 5: didn't have the same stigma that you did, right.

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Speaker 4: He was sort of just an average.

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Speaker 5: Looking kid, very very young looking, must have weighed a

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Speaker 5: hundred pounds or less, long blonde hair, didn't look like

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Speaker 5: a killer.

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Speaker 4: But to them, you did, exactly. And he got caught

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Speaker 4: up in all.

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Speaker 1: Of this too, yep, just because he knew me.

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Speaker 4: Right, unbelievable.

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Speaker 5: So they found a way and that way was Jesse

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Speaker 5: miscally exactly. So from your view, and I want to

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Speaker 5: know the moment, like I know, when the cops came

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Speaker 5: to your door and your life turned into the living

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Speaker 5: nightmare that I think is everyone's primal fear. So they

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Speaker 5: originally went after Jesse, and they sort of tricked him

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Speaker 5: into confessing, and he immediately recanted after he confessed.

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Speaker 4: But he was a I mean, he was slow, right.

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Speaker 4: He had an.

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Speaker 1: Arsue of somewhere between seventy and seventy two, and they

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Speaker 1: interrogated him. I think the I can't remember exactly how

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Speaker 1: many hours it was, it was something like between twelve

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Speaker 1: and fourteen hours. And they're telling this guy, who you know,

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Speaker 1: has an IQ that's way way below normal. They're telling

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Speaker 1: him things like, you know, just tell us what we

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Speaker 1: want to know and we'll let you go home. So

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Speaker 1: they finally get this guy to confess, and he can't

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Speaker 1: get anything about the crime scene, right because he wasn't

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Speaker 1: actually there, so he didn't know anything. They didn't care.

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Speaker 1: The only thing they cared about was the fact that

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Speaker 1: they got him to say yes. And most people, you know,

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Speaker 1: on a jury, even today, they'll say, well, nobody would

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Speaker 1: confess to something they haven't actually done. We know now

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Speaker 1: that that's not true. You know, all the studies show

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Speaker 1: that something like over half of the people who are

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Speaker 1: falsely convicted end up being forced into confessions in one

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Speaker 1: way or another. And this guy was just another person

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Speaker 1: that got forced into a confession.

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Speaker 5: And we also know, Damien, that the most people who

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Speaker 5: are most susceptible to this our adolescence. We now know

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Speaker 5: that the human brain isn't fully formed until you're twenty five,

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Speaker 5: but when you're he was sixteen, right, and he was

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Speaker 5: sixteen or seventeen, yes, seventeen seventeen, and with his low IQ,

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Speaker 5: he was totally outmatched, overwhelmed, and probably after twelve to

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Speaker 5: fourteen hours, he would have confessed to you know, anything,

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Speaker 5: killing Abraham Lincoln exactly, I mean, just to go home,

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Speaker 5: because that tiny room and the you know, and everybody

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Speaker 5: being on top of you. You know, it's not a

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Speaker 5: situation anyone ever wants to find themselves in it. And

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Speaker 5: we know now from study after study that people will

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Speaker 5: say and do almost anything to get themselves out of there.

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Speaker 4: So and he kept changing his story.

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Speaker 5: It didn't make any sense, but it was good enough

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Speaker 5: for them, and then he got them to do exactly

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Speaker 5: what they brought.

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Speaker 4: Him in there for. And he was just collateral damage.

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Speaker 5: They didn't really care about convicting him, but they had

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Speaker 5: to because he had now confessed, and in order to

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Speaker 5: get you and to make his confession make even a

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Speaker 5: modicum of sense, they had to bring him along for

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Speaker 5: this terrible ride as well. And so he implicated you

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Speaker 5: and Jason, and then they said, okay, now now we

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Speaker 5: can we can proceed. And then one day, one night

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Speaker 5: it was I guess right, you were home with Jason, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: watching movies.

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Speaker 1: You had me, Jason, my younger sister, and my girlfriend

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Speaker 1: at the time were just at home watching TVs. You know,

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Speaker 1: by this time, we had been harassed by the cops

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Speaker 1: for probably a month straight. They were at our house,

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Speaker 1: either my house or Jason's house, or stopping us on

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Speaker 1: the street, you know, just messing with us non stop,

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Speaker 1: every single day. So when they showed up this night,

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Speaker 1: we figured it was just more of the same, you know,

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Speaker 1: we thought they're just here to harass us again. We

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Speaker 1: didn't realize they were coming to arrest us this time.

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Speaker 4: So take us through that, because it's it's so terrifying.

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Speaker 1: But you know, like I said, we were sitting there

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Speaker 1: watching TV and they start banging on the door. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're they're just beating the hell out of it, like

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Speaker 1: they're gonna knock it in. And at first, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'd said, don't even answer the door, so let them

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Speaker 1: stand out there and beat on it. But they wouldn't.

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Speaker 1: They didn't go away this time, so we go open

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Speaker 1: the door immediately. You know, whenever I open the door,

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Speaker 1: it looked like pretty much every cop in West Memphis

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Speaker 1: is standing there with their guns pointed at me. They

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Speaker 1: rush into the house, start destroying everything. They put me

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Speaker 1: in Jason, both in handcuffs, throw us in the backs

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Speaker 1: of cock cars, drive us to jail. They put me,

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Speaker 1: they immediately separated us. I wouldn't see Jason again for years. Well,

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Speaker 1: I saw him for a short period of time at

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Speaker 1: the trial, but we weren't allowed to communicate in any

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Speaker 1: way whatsoever. You know, even though we're sitting at the

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Speaker 1: same table, they've got me at one side and him

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Speaker 1: at the other, and they will not even let us

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Speaker 1: talk to each other. So we wouldn't, you know, talk

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Speaker 1: to each other again for almost twenty years, I think.

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Speaker 1: But okay, here's another thing. My brain goes dead a lot.

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Speaker 1: I will forget what I'm talking about, because, like you

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Speaker 1: were just saying, people's minds are still forming all the

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Speaker 1: way up until they're twenty five years old. I was

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Speaker 1: arrested when I was nineteen, and I I spent almost

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Speaker 1: a decade in solitary confinement, so I lost a lot

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Speaker 1: of things that people take for granted, like face recognition,

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Speaker 1: voice recognition. I have almost no short term memory whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: I will a lot of times forget what the hell

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Speaker 1: I'm saying right in the middle of a sentence. Whenever

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Speaker 1: I'm doing talks, I'll tell the audience that beforehand, I'll say,

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Speaker 1: if I forget what I'm saying, I'll have to ask

390
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Speaker 1: and you'll have to remind me what the hell I

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Speaker 1: was even just talking about. The reason I'm telling you

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Speaker 1: this now is because I just forgot what we're talking about.

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Speaker 5: No problem, I can bring you back. And I know

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Speaker 5: you mentioned to me weeks ago when we were talking

395
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Speaker 5: about doing this event, that that was the case, and

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Speaker 5: that actually there's a study being conducted at Columbia University

397
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Speaker 5: about the effects of solitary long term solitary confinement on

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Speaker 5: the brain.

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Speaker 4: Because for you, yeah, you didn't really need.

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Speaker 5: Those functions exactly when you were in solitary staring at

401
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Speaker 5: four walls all day long with no contact.

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Speaker 1: Well, it takes huge tolls on you in many ways.

403
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Speaker 1: You know, it almost cost me mind eyesight because you're

404
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Speaker 1: in this small space and now here. Your eyes are

405
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Speaker 1: constantly changing focus. You know, you're looking at stuff far away,

406
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Speaker 1: stuff close up, You're looking at all different colors. I

407
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Speaker 1: didn't do that for twenty years, so I started losing

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Speaker 1: my eyesight over time. I was in the hospital for

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Speaker 1: a day two weeks ago because my lungs are so

410
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Speaker 1: screwed up from breathing in years of tear gas that

411
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Speaker 1: I have lots of attacks of bronchitis. It has screwed

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Speaker 1: me up so bad that, like two weeks ago, I

413
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Speaker 1: walked into a diner, ordered some food, passed out on

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Speaker 1: the floor. I come to the waiters are around me.

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Speaker 1: They're saying, are you okay? Do we need to call

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Speaker 1: nine one wine. I'm like, no, just give me a minute,

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Speaker 1: let me sit here. Next thing, I know, you know,

418
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Speaker 1: they've called the ambulance because I passed out again. I

419
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Speaker 1: didn't even realize it. So it takes a toll on

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Speaker 1: you in huge ways that lasts for the rest of

421
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Speaker 1: your life. You know, there's no way for me to

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Speaker 1: physically rectify the things that they did to me.

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Speaker 5: No, and we want to get into that too, because

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Speaker 5: the you know, the way you were treated, even had

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Speaker 5: you been guilty of this horrendous crime that you were

426
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Speaker 5: in fact innocent of, there's no excuse or justification for

427
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Speaker 5: the torture that was inflicted upon you. It's you know,

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Speaker 5: it just shocks my conscience and I think it should

429
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Speaker 5: shock everyone's.

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Speaker 4: So you were thrown in the back of the cop car,

431
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Speaker 4: brought to the police station.

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Speaker 1: Okay, we're at the police station.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what they did with Jason. They carried

435
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Speaker 1: him off somewhere and like I said, I wouldn't see

436
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Speaker 1: him again for almost a year. They put me in

437
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 1: a cell that was about the size of a phone booth.

438
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:43,120
Speaker 1: It's not what you see on TV when you think

439
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:45,080
Speaker 1: of a prison cell. You know, there's no bed, there's

440
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 1: no toilet, there's no sink, there was no anything. It

441
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: was literally a cell that there had. There was just

442
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: enough room to stand in and.

443
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 4: They even could you even sit down.

444
00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: No, I mean maybe you could, you know, sit like

445
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 1: Indian style on the floor if you wanted to.

446
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:01,880
Speaker 4: But it was literally I've seen those.

447
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,440
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah. They left me standing there all night long.

448
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,440
Speaker 1: The only thing. Every so often one of the cops

449
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:08,960
Speaker 1: would come in and say, are you ready to make

450
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: your confession yet? I would just stand there and look

451
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 1: at him. They would leave. I stood there all night

452
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 1: long until the next day they got me and took

453
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,680
Speaker 1: me into a courtroom and told me I was being

454
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: charged with Well, first they whenever they take me into

455
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:27,479
Speaker 1: the courtroom, they tell me, you know, somebody's already confessed

456
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 1: to this crime. They've implicated you. They're saying you were

457
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,680
Speaker 1: the ring leader of this. So now what you need

458
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:36,199
Speaker 1: to do is confess to this and say no, you

459
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 1: weren't the ring leader they were. Try to put the

460
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: blame back on them, or you're going to die because

461
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: of this. I can't even figure out who the hell

462
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: they're talking about, because, like I said, I've only got

463
00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: one friend in the entire world, and that was Jason Baldwin.

464
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't him because he was with me,

465
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 1: and I knew he didn't do it. I knew he

466
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 1: wasn't going to confess to something he hadn't done. So

467
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: I didn't realize who it even was that had confessed

468
00:23:57,560 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: until the next day. Whenever they take me into the courtroom,

469
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,159
Speaker 1: they say who it is, and they ask, you know,

470
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 1: how do you plead all this sort of thing. They

471
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 1: refuse to even read the confession in the courtroom. They

472
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 1: asked me did I want it read? I said yes,

473
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't read it even after they asked me

474
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: and I said yes. Instead, they take me out of

475
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: the courtroom into a janitor's closet with mops and brooms.

476
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: They give me a transcript, a type transcript of this confession.

477
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 1: When I started reading it, it's immediately obvious why they

478
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: didn't want this thing read in court. It made no

479
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: sense whatsoever. You know, you're talking about this story that's

480
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: like a Frankenstein patchwork thing that they've sewed together out

481
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: of many statements made by somebody with an IQ of

482
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 1: between seventy and seventy two. And they would What they

483
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 1: would do is when he would confess to something and

484
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't get anything right, they would come back into the

485
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 1: room and say, well, do you think maybe this could

486
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: have happened? Or I mean, even more blatantly obvious. The

487
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: first time they asked him, when did the murders happen?

488
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: And he says something like eight o'clock in the morning. Well,

489
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: they knew that wasn't true because all three of the

490
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 1: kids were in school. So they come back later and

491
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 1: they're like, well, do you think it could have been

492
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: a little later in the day, like when was it?

493
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: Was it around like lunch or was it around dinner?

494
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: And he'll say, yeah, it was around dinner. Well, they

495
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: still knew that wasn't true because the kids hadn't even

496
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: disappeared yet. So then they would come back and say, well,

497
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,679
Speaker 1: you know when it happened when you did this, was

498
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: it getting dark outside? And he'll say, yeah, it was

499
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 1: getting dark outside. Well, at that time of year, you know,

500
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: it's not getting dark till like eight or nine o'clock

501
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: at night in that part of the country. So gradually,

502
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: what they did was shape this thing to make it

503
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: what they wanted it to be. That's why they didn't

504
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: want it read in court. I read this thing. They

505
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 1: put me in another sale where I would stay for

506
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: almost the next year while I waited to go to trial.

507
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: When we do go to trial, the evidence that they

508
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 1: present us against us is things like Stephen King books,

509
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: the fact that we owned Metallica T shirts, and albums,

510
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 1: posters that were hanging on our walls. You know, things

511
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: that were from like skateboarding magazines, ceremonial magic books. This

512
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 1: is the evidence they had that the prosecutors tell the

513
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: jury that these things are not only evidence that we're guilty,

514
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: but they're evidence that I don't even have a soul,

515
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: that this is how evil I am. They came back in.

516
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: I think our trial lasted slightly under a month something

517
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: like that. They came back in. They sentenced me to

518
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: death three times. They sentenced me to die by lethal

519
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 1: injection three times. They sentenced Jason to life in prison

520
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: without parole. The other guy they sentenced to life plus

521
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: forty years. They immediately take me to the court from

522
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: the courtroom to death row, where I would not see

523
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:51,479
Speaker 1: Jason again. I saw him maybe twelve fifteen years later,

524
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: for maybe twenty to thirty seconds. They used to bring

525
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: other prisoners in to clean the barracks, and he was

526
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: one of the prisoners they brought in day to clean

527
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: death row. So he comes by my cell mopping and sweeping.

528
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: That was the first contact I'd had with him in

529
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 1: like fifteen years by that point.

530
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 5: David Jason talked about when he was on the podcast

531
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 5: how the first day in prison he was released into

532
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 5: the general population, and basically the entire weekend, he said,

533
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 5: pretty much everybody in the prison took turns beating him up.

534
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 5: He was certainly in no position to defend himself, but

535
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 5: he did the best he could, but obviously he had

536
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 5: no chance. He's also just a very small, slight guy.

537
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 5: He's not playing linebacker anywhere, you know what I mean.

538
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 5: As I said, he was almost one hundred pounds when

539
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:42,719
Speaker 5: it started and probably barely over by the time we

540
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 5: were convicted a year later. But for you, you were

541
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:50,879
Speaker 5: taken to the worst, literally the worst part of one

542
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 5: of the worst prisons.

543
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 4: You were taken to the whole of holes.

544
00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 5: Really right, as I heard you describe it, it was the darkest, deepest,

545
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 5: as filthiest place in the prison.

546
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: My situation was different from Jason's, and that, like he

547
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: describes how they put him in general population, he spends

548
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: you know, I don't even know how long fighting, sustaining

549
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,880
Speaker 1: all sorts of physical damage, skull fractures, broken collar bones.

550
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: At one point he was hitting the face with a

551
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: padlock and it messed his nose up so bad that

552
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: it bled for like a year afterwards, on and off. Finally,

553
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:28,720
Speaker 1: when he did see a doctor, they realized what it

554
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: was is that his nose had been shattered and one

555
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: of the bone shards was sticking out, and they had

556
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: to go in and pull the bone shard out of

557
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: his nose and cauterize it shut. For me, it was

558
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: the guards. Death Row is different from the rest of

559
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: the prison just because everybody on death Row has a

560
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: common enemy. You know, everyone knows that these people are

561
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: trying to murder you on a daily basis. You don't

562
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: have time to squabble with each other because you're too

563
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: busy fighting to survive against the system. So for me,

564
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: the guards exactly every time my life was in danger,

565
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: it was all always prison guards. So whenever I first

566
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: get there, they decided they're just going to welcome me

567
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: to the neighborhood. You know, it's nothing personal. They take

568
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: me to the whole and spent the next eighteen days

569
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: beating the hell out of me, starving me, pretty much

570
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: doing everything they could possibly think of to torture a

571
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: human being. To me, the only reason they didn't kill me,

572
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: and I do believe they planned on murdering me back there.

573
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: The only reason they didn't kill me was because there

574
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: was a deacon from the Catholic church that used to

575
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: come into the prison and bring communion to inmates on

576
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: death row. So sometimes the sewage would overflow and you

577
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: would end up, you know, spending a couple of days

578
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: standing like ankle deep raw sewage. Well, the guards aren't

579
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: going to clean that up. When that happens, they bring

580
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: other prisoners in to clean it up. So they bring

581
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: these other guys in from population. They see what the

582
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: guards are doing to me and go to this deacon

583
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: from the Catholic church that's coming in, and they told

584
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: him they're killing this guy back there. They're beating him

585
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: to death every day. This guy goes to the war

586
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: and says, I know what you're doing, and if it

587
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: doesn't stop, I'm going to start telling people. I'm going

588
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: to go public with it. That's the only thing they

589
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: care about, you know. The only concern they have whatsoever,

590
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,719
Speaker 1: is that people in the outside world will find out

591
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: what they're doing inside those walls. So they took me

592
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: out of the hole after about eighteen days and put

593
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: me back in a regular cell on death row. If

594
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: not for that guy and those inmates coming in to

595
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: clean up the sewage. I probably would not have even

596
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: lived the first year that I was in prison.

597
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 4: It doesn't sound like you would have lived the first

598
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 4: month under those circumstances, but you did. There's so many

599
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 4: twists and turns, and it's really remarkable the fact that

600
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 4: you know, so many incredible people got involved, the filmmakers,

601
00:30:53,440 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 4: various celebrities including Eddie Vedder, Natalie Mays, Johnny Depp a

602
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 4: little like Johnny by the way.

603
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 6: Anyway, So so yeah, so many people got involved because

604
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 6: it was so obvious that this was such a.

605
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 5: Terrible miscarriage of justice, and because it was such a

606
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 5: such a a the crime itself was so unimaginable, right,

607
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 5: and I think that drew attention to it, and then

608
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 5: the result was so obviously wrong that it made for

609
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 5: let's face it, I mean, media is important in these things,

610
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 5: and in this case, the movies.

611
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 4: Was it the movies that started it? How did the

612
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 4: I mean?

613
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 5: And I want to talk about how you survived, And

614
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 5: I know you're going to lead us in a meditation afterwards,

615
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 5: which I'm really looking forward to because if I can

616
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 5: find one percent of what you've got through that meditation,

617
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 5: it'll make my life better.

618
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 4: So so.

619
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 5: What was the tipping point that started to get people interested?

620
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 5: Because here you are, like just a guy from the

621
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 5: middle of nowhere, convicted of the most notorious crime in

622
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 5: the history of Arkansas. The odds of you ever seeing

623
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 5: daylight again were extremely slim. The odds of you dying

624
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 5: in a prison cellary an electric chair were extremely high.

625
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 4: What happened.

626
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: The only thing that saved me was, you know, really,

627
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: quite frankly, the vanity of the politicians that were involved.

628
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: They allowed cameras in the courtroom. They thought, you know,

629
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: this was going to be a slam dunk thing. Nobody's

630
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: going to question this. They're going to send Jason off

631
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: to prison, murder me, sweep this under the rug. They're

632
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: all going to go out like heroes and everything's going

633
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: to be fine. So they let these cameras in the

634
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: courtroom HBO. Two guys named Joe Berlinger and Bruce Snovski,

635
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 1: they come in, set cameras up and film the entire

636
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: trial from beginning to end. Those that footage would eventually

637
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: become a documentary, a series of documentaries. But the first

638
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: one came out, and I think it was nineteen ninety six,

639
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: it was called Paradise Lost and it aired on HBO.

640
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: If not for that, we would still be in prison

641
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: right now, or I'd probably be dead right now. Yeah,

642
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: people started to see the documentaries, you know, all over

643
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: the country and then eventually all over the world. You know,

644
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: these things went all over the world. People would see them,

645
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: and people started getting involved in the case. You know,

646
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: everything from really people would do bake cakes and have

647
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: like cake sales to raise moneys, to raise money to

648
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: pay for like, you know, lawyers, private investigators, whatever it was.

649
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: Because most people also don't comprehend the amount of money

650
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: it takes to fight a legal case. Over the I

651
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: was in for eighteen years and seventy six days. Over

652
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: that time, it cost us about five million dollars to

653
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: fight this case. Because you know, even things like DNA testing,

654
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: when you think of DNA testing and you watch it

655
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: on TV, it's always the state doing it. You know,

656
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: they didn't do anything in our case. We had to

657
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: raise the money to pay for DNA testing ourselves, which

658
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: in and of itself ended up being close to half

659
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: a million dollars.

660
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 5: Right and now, the good news is it's become much

661
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 5: more affordable DNA test can now be done for thousands

662
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 5: of dollars, not one hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands,

663
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 5: just thousands of dollars. And I do want to I'm

664
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 5: glad you pointed that out because it's important to recognize

665
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 5: the role that the general public played in this.

666
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 4: Right, It wasn't just celebrities exactly, It wasn't just filmmakers.

667
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 5: There were people, I think it's fair to say, all

668
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 5: over the world who saw this movie and it's so

669
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 5: painful to watch. And now we have the modern day

670
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 5: equivalent with making a murder and Brendan Dassi, I guess

671
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 5: you could say, right, except he wasn't sentenced to death.

672
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 5: But when you watch Brendon Daci, you know his interrogation,

673
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 5: you can get a sense of what the Jessemskally interrogation

674
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 5: must have been like. And a couple of things that

675
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 5: I want to mention about his his false confession. One

676
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 5: is that he recanted it immediately after he gave it,

677
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 5: but nobody cared. The other the thing is that they

678
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 5: interrogated him for, as you said, twelve to fourteen hours,

679
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 5: but they only recorded a half an hour of exactly right,

680
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 5: So what does that tell you? I mean, it's really

681
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 5: they Apparently they didn't want a recording of them telling

682
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 5: him all the information that he didn't know since he

683
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 5: wasn't there. That would have been inconvenient, so to say

684
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 5: the least. So there you are, and I guess you're

685
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 5: kind of getting these little rays of hope while you're

686
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 5: in the most hopeless situation that anyone can be in. Right,

687
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 5: are you aware at this time of everything that's going

688
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 5: on this? And how important was it to you when

689
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 5: people would write letters, Because it's one of the things

690
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 5: I tell people when they asked me, what can I do.

691
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 5: I'm just a regular person. I don't have any access

692
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 5: on have any influence whatever. I'll tell people, go to

693
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 5: the website, go to Innocence project dot org, go to

694
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,240
Speaker 5: your local innocence project. There's innocence projects all over the country.

695
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 5: Write letters, talk to people, write letters to journalists. But also,

696
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 5: I mean, you must have been getting a lot of

697
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:56,879
Speaker 5: mail at this time, and how important was that Because

698
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 5: I talked about writing letters to people who are on

699
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 5: the inside as being you know, one thing that almost

700
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 5: anybody can.

701
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: Do exactly, you know, and it really does help because

702
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: it gives people inside something to focus on. Other than prison,

703
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: other than you know, the walls you're trapped in twenty

704
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,919
Speaker 1: four hours a day, other than the brutality, other than

705
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: the deprivation and degradation and everything else. It gives you

706
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,720
Speaker 1: something to think about other than all of that stuff

707
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 1: going on, which really does preserve your sanity. So even

708
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 1: just doing something as simple as writing a letter to

709
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: someone in prison really does change their life in a

710
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: very marked, profound way. For me, you know, this was

711
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: I still haven't seen the documentaries. I don't watch stuff

712
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: like that. So the only way that I would really

713
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: know that it was that things were changing, that things

714
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 1: were happening. One is the mail gradually started to change.

715
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: It went from in the very beginning getting you know,

716
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: there was a trickle of letters started right after the

717
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: documentaries come out, like you would get three five letters

718
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: a week. It built up to by the time I

719
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,280
Speaker 1: got out. The people in the mailroom at the prison

720
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: hated me because they would come to my cell with

721
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 1: like big plastic you know, mail crates full of mail

722
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:12,720
Speaker 1: and they would have to stand there and get people

723
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: to come help them open it all up and make

724
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: sure there's no contraband or anything in it. And they

725
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: hated me for that, so I knew about it from

726
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: that angle, just because the mail was increasing, and I

727
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,800
Speaker 1: would call Lauri every day and she would tell me,

728
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: you know, Eddie Vedder's doing this, or these people in

729
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: you know, Seattle are putting together this benefit concert, or

730
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it was. She would tell me about it,

731
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: and you know, in one way, yet kind of helps.

732
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: You're thinking about it when you're on the phone, But

733
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 1: in all honesty, the second you hang up that phone,

734
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: that stuff is happening in a different world. You know,

735
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: it's so far away that it has almost no impact

736
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: on the fact that you are fighting every fucking day

737
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 1: of your life just to survive. You know, the fact

738
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: that you know people are having like a bake sale

739
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: in Nebraska or something. Theoretically, you know, somewhere in the

740
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: back of your mind, somehow it gives you a little hope,

741
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: but you don't think about that in the course of

742
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: your daily life. And the course of your daily life,

743
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: all your doing is trying to survive another day in prison.

744
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 5: And you know, I want to talk about the death

745
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 5: penalty too, because everyone knows I'm a very vocal opponent

746
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 5: of the death penalty. I don't think it has any

747
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 5: place in a civilized society, and most of the world agrees, certainly,

748
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 5: almost all of the western world degrees. America is in

749
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 5: the very in the top five of all countries in

750
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 5: the world in terms of the number of people we execute,

751
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 5: and it's not a good list to be on. And

752
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 5: we know now that we execute a lot of innocent people.

753
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 5: We can't prove the exact numbers, but it's been proven

754
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 5: that something like five percent of people on death row

755
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 5: will have been exonerated, But that doesn't that doesn't tell

756
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 5: us how many are in there still that we haven't.

757
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 4: Been able to get to because, as you said, it's.

758
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 5: A time consuming, difficult, and expensive process.

759
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,319
Speaker 1: And there's also estimates now people who do work in

760
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: this field, like the Southern Poverty Law Center organizations like that,

761
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: they're now estimating that as many as one out of

762
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: every ten to twenty five people on death row are innocent.

763
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: So think about the fact, say, if it's one out

764
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: of every ten, if they told you that one out

765
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 1: of every ten planes were going to crash, you wouldn't

766
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:34,280
Speaker 1: fly anymore. Everybody would demand that the system be fixed.

767
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: But since it doesn't affect everybody, you know, it's executions.

768
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: Most people don't have a loved one, a family member,

769
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 1: anybody else they know on death row. It sort of

770
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:43,280
Speaker 1: slips under the radar.

771
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really scary number. And we know some

772
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 4: of the ones.

773
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:49,919
Speaker 5: I mean, Cameron Todd Willingham as a movie being made

774
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 5: by a professor of Columbia now about that case in

775
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 5: Texas and an instant guy who was executed for the

776
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 5: arson fire that wasn't arson.

777
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 4: It was an electrical fire that killed his kids, three

778
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 4: of his kids. What a fate that was.

779
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 5: And so we know that there are we have a

780
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 5: number of names of people who have been executed who

781
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 5: we know now were factually innocent, where people have confessed

782
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 5: to the crimes that they were convicted of. It. It's

783
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 5: all just very very troubling and disgusting and it needs

784
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 5: to be abolished. It doesn't accomplish anything, it doesn't help,

785
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 5: it doesn't reduce crime, it doesn't scare anybody off a murder.

786
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 5: No thinking that anyone who's crazy enough to go and

787
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 5: do something like that is not thinking, well, life in prison, okay,

788
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 5: but death penalty.

789
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm a whole off.

790
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: You know what I mean exactly.

791
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 4: I'll just go have a v eight you know what

792
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:33,760
Speaker 4: I mean, Like it's not happening.

793
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 5: So but for you, how I mean the execution date itself,

794
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 5: how did how did you? I mean, I want to

795
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 5: know how you dealt with any of this right and

796
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 5: then ultimately talk about your exoneration and what you're doing now.

797
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 5: So were you aware? When did you have a date set?

798
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 5: How many times was it moved? And how did you?

799
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 5: I mean, how are you even here and not just

800
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 5: bouncing off the wor not sitting in the corner of

801
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,399
Speaker 5: some bar down to you with a bottle of gosh.

802
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: I think my original execution date was May fifth of

803
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: either ninety four or ninety five. Well ninety five, I

804
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: think something like that.

805
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 4: But they weren't going to waste any time.

806
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: No, no, they weren't. And I got even closer to

807
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: it than I should have gotten because the attorneys that

808
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: I had were so incompetent that they thought I was

809
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: automatically going to be given a state. I got within

810
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: weeks of my execution date before they realized, oh, we

811
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: actually have to file a state to keep them from

812
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: killing this guy. So I could have been killed just

813
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: by accident, just sure incompetence yes. After that, Usually what

814
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 1: happens is you get an execution date. Whenever you go

815
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: from state court to federal court, like after your state

816
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: court your state supreme court denies your appeal, they set

817
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: you an execution date. The federal courts then decide whether

818
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: they're going to hear your case or not. If they

819
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 1: do decide, and they don't have to, if they do

820
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:04,839
Speaker 1: decide to hear your case, they'll give you a stay

821
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: of execution, and then they'll hear your case and it'll

822
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,399
Speaker 1: go on for a while longer. If they decide we're

823
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: not even going to hear it, then they're just going

824
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: to kill you. I bring with that again.

825
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 5: So if they if they decide not to hear your case,

826
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:19,399
Speaker 5: they're going to kill you, right And here you are,

827
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 5: back in ninety five, ready to be executed within weeks.

828
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 3: That was it.

829
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: So what happened is by this time, you know, the

830
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,439
Speaker 1: documentaries had started coming out. People all over the world

831
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: had started to hear about the case. You know, they

832
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:31,839
Speaker 1: were I don't even you know, can't even count how

833
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 1: many TV shows and magazine articles and newspaper articles, and

834
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: you know, people had started putting together websites. So I

835
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: mean what was happening to us was spreading like crazy.

836
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: They knew that if our case went from state court

837
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: to federal court, there was a good chance the federal

838
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 1: courts were going to hear it, that they were going

839
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: to realize what was screwed up, and they were going

840
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: to throw the whole case out. They didn't want that

841
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: to happen, so instead of setting me an execution and

842
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: allowing me to appeal it to federal court, they just

843
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: sat on it and held it. In the eighteen years

844
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: and seventy six days that I was on death row,

845
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: I never got to go to federal court. It was

846
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:15,959
Speaker 1: still I mean, the swelling of support grew so much

847
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: that finally the state court decided, we're going to have

848
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: to do something about this because it's making us look really,

849
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: really bad. It's bringing too much attention. And just like whenever,

850
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: you know, when I was in the hole and I

851
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: told you, the only thing they cared about in the

852
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 1: prison is that people on the outside world are going

853
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:33,399
Speaker 1: to realize what they're doing. Same way with judges, prosecutors,

854
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: all that the only thing they're concerned with is that

855
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:38,759
Speaker 1: people in the outside are going to realize that this

856
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:42,240
Speaker 1: case isn't what they're telling people it is. So after

857
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: that amount of time, they finally decided there's going They said,

858
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 1: we're going to have a new evidenciary hearing, and all

859
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: the evidence is finally going to be hurt, all the

860
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: new DNA evidence. By that point, not only did we

861
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: have the DNA evidence, but we had all sorts of

862
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: witnesses that had come forward and said, you know, one

863
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: woman admitted that the only reason that she tried to

864
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:04,240
Speaker 1: implicate us was because the police told her she had

865
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: she had committed credit card fraud and they were going

866
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: to charge her unless she helped them out with this case.

867
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: So she came forward and admitted to that. There were

868
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: eyewitnesses who said they saw one of the victim's family

869
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 1: members with all three victims within an hour of the

870
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: time they were murdered. And this was not known at

871
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: the time that we went to trial. So the prosecutors

872
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 1: know all this stuff is about to come out in court,

873
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:29,919
Speaker 1: so they start talking with our attorneys and they come

874
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 1: up with this deal called an Alfred plea. I'd never

875
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: even heard of. This thing made no sense whatsoever. What

876
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,759
Speaker 1: an Alfred plea means is that you are accepting a

877
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: guilty plea while being allowed to legally maintain your innocence.

878
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: The only reason this thing exists is so that the

879
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: state can't be held responsible for what they've done to you,

880
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: you know. And like I said, I was dying physically,

881
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: you know, health wise. I knew that if I didn't

882
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: take this deal one way or another to live to

883
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: see the outside of those walls. You know. The prosecutor

884
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: came to us and pretty much said, yeah, you'll win

885
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: this case if you go to federal court, but we

886
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: can draw this out for another five years, another ten years.

887
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: Every time the judge sets a date, we can ask

888
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: for an extension, we can appeal any decisions made, or

889
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:22,919
Speaker 1: you can accept this deal and go home tomorrow, literally tomorrow.

890
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: But you can sign these papers and walk out of

891
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: this prison.

892
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 5: But there was another catch, which is that they insisted.

893
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 4: That all three guys do it exactly.

894
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 5: And they had an amazing amount of leverage there too,

895
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 5: because now it goes back to your friend Jason Baldwin, right,

896
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 5: And Jason was ready to fight the case, but he

897
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 5: wanted to be declared Ennison after everything he had been through.

898
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 5: But they held a little bit of a I mean,

899
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 5: not a little bit.

900
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 4: They held a huge.

901
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:56,879
Speaker 5: A huge hammer, which was that they made it known

902
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,359
Speaker 5: to him that if he decided he wanted to fight

903
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 5: the case, they were going to execute you. And that

904
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 5: friendship that you guys had had from when you were

905
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 5: teenagers now here it is eighteen years later. And it's

906
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 5: really interesting, right that one woman that you spoke about,

907
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 5: who also changed her story over time, she got to

908
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 5: keep her credit cards while sentencing you to death. That's really,

909
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 5: let's face it, right, that was the deal she made.

910
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 5: She somewhere in her head she decided that was a

911
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 5: good deal. Now, maybe she thought you really were guilty,

912
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,080
Speaker 5: and they probably convinced her of that. Let's hope that

913
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 5: was really the case. But one or another, for the

914
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 5: sake of a couple of credit cards and the difficulties

915
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 5: it would have caused her if that you know, went

916
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 5: to court, whatever, she was more than willing to roll

917
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 5: over on you and have an innocent guy go to

918
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:46,280
Speaker 5: his death. But so Jason now had really a sophie's choice,

919
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 5: right he had to accept this Alfred plea allow the

920
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 5: state to force him to live his life as a

921
00:46:54,560 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 5: convicted felon and never be able to sue for compensation.

922
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 5: There's the added element of the fact that when Alfred

923
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 5: pleas are given and accepted, typically it means that they

924
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 5: won't go reopen the case because as.

925
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 4: Far as they're concerned, it's still closed.

926
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,439
Speaker 5: So there's no justice for the kids, there's no justice

927
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 5: for their families. But it was a convenient thing that

928
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 5: allowed a certain number of people to say face and

929
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 5: allowed you to go home. So you took the Alfred play,

930
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:32,280
Speaker 5: I think anybody in your situation would have. And when

931
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 5: the alternative was death, it's a pretty easy decision to make.

932
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 5: And how long after you took that did you get

933
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 5: to go home?

934
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: About a week later?

935
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 4: What the hell was that? Like?

936
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: I mean, it was honestly, it was kind of horrendous

937
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,919
Speaker 1: because I didn't know that I was going to get

938
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 1: out until the night before I got out. The night

939
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 1: before I got out, they came and got me and

940
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: took me to the county jail, and I knew then

941
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be I went through this amount of trouble

942
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: because the county jail was like several hours away from

943
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: the prison, So I knew they wouldn't be going through

944
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 1: this amount of trouble, you know, taking me several hours

945
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 1: away from the prison unless I am getting out. So

946
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: I knew there was a chance I might get out,

947
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: but I didn't know I was going to. So in

948
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: that week, I did not sleep, I did not eat.

949
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: I began, at that point edging towards a nervous breakdown.

950
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: The day we walked out of prison, I did not

951
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: have one single penny of money in my pocket. I

952
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: didn't have so much as a suit of clothes to

953
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 1: change in too. I had nowhere to go. I had nothing.

954
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: We didn't think of stuff like that whenever I was

955
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: in prison. We're just thinking, keep these people from killing me.

956
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:47,839
Speaker 1: Go home. That's the finish line, that's it. So that's

957
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 1: what we had always been working towards. We didn't realize

958
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 1: what was going to happen whenever I walked out of

959
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 1: those gates. Keep in mind that not only had I

960
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: been in prison for almost twenty years by that point,

961
00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: I had spent almost the last decade of that in

962
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: solitary confinement. So I went from a decade of solitary

963
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: confinement to being out on the streets of Manhattan literally overnight,

964
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: and it shattered me psychologically. I can't remember the first

965
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 1: two years that I was out of prison. If you

966
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 1: put together everything I can remember within the first two

967
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: years that I walked out, it may equal a couple hours.

968
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: It destroyed me in every way that it possibly could.

969
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: We weren't counting on any of that. I've I had

970
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: two nervous breakdowns due to not only that, but also

971
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 1: once we're out, you know, you're constantly You've got the

972
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: media coming at you, asking you every day, all these

973
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 1: questions about being in prison, about the case, all this,

974
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: so you get to the point where you're thinking, why

975
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: the fuck did I even get out. I'm not even

976
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:47,920
Speaker 1: out of prison, you know, I'm out here, but it's

977
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:50,319
Speaker 1: the only thing people are asking me about. It's the

978
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: only thing people are talking to me about. You know,

979
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:54,760
Speaker 1: random people walk up to you on the street and

980
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: start talking about the case. So it's not even like

981
00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: you're out of prison anymore. It's just like the prison

982
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 1: is in your hit all the time. You know, you

983
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: may be It was like when I was in prison,

984
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: at least I could have a mental and emotional life

985
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: separate from the prison. Entire days, weeks, months would go

986
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: by when I wouldn't even think about the fact that

987
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: I was in prison because I was so busy trying

988
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: to build a life for myself. When I got out,

989
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: it almost felt like I was having to think more

990
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 1: about prison than when I was in, and it destroyed

991
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 1: me in every way that it possibly could.

992
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 5: But there's a there's a real silver lining here right

993
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 5: and that silver lining I'm sitting only a few feet

994
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 5: away from us right now. And how did you meet Laurie?

995
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 5: And what's the I mean, I can see when you

996
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 5: tour together, it's like there's like an orb, like a

997
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 5: glowing orb.

998
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 4: I think you can probably see it from the space station.

999
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 4: So how did you meet her? And what's and what

1000
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:54,799
Speaker 4: does that meant to you?

1001
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: Laurie was one of the very first people who saw

1002
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 1: the first documentary back in nineteen ninety whenever it came out.

1003
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 1: She was living in New York at the time. She

1004
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:06,320
Speaker 1: was a landscape architect, and she used to get before

1005
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 1: it came out on HBO, they had like several small

1006
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 1: screenings and like you know, art house type theaters, and

1007
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:14,439
Speaker 1: she got tickets to one of those, went and saw

1008
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: the movie and said she couldn't stop thinking about it.

1009
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 1: And you know, just like I was saying while ago

1010
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: about how much letters mean to people inside the prison.

1011
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 1: She sat down and wrote me a letter. And this

1012
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 1: was back, you know, before the Internet was everywhere and

1013
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: you could find anything in the world just by googling

1014
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: it in three seconds. You know, she had to go

1015
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: through a lot of effort in trouble just to get

1016
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: the address of the prison, just to find out where

1017
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: I even was. Whenever I got the very first letter

1018
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: from her, the minute I opened it, I knew that

1019
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: this was someone unlike anyone else that I'd ever known.

1020
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 1: And it kind of goes back to what you were

1021
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: just saying about the ORB. Honest to God, felt like

1022
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: as long as we were together, as long as she

1023
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 1: was looking after me, as long as she was in

1024
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 1: my life and working on this case. From that moment on,

1025
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 1: I honestly felt like these people cannot hurt me anymore.

1026
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:08,239
Speaker 1: I'm safe. And it was true as long as she

1027
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: was in my life. I mean, yeah, there was a

1028
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: lot of bad stuff in prison, but it was like

1029
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:17,280
Speaker 1: it never got to worst case scenario. Somehow or another.

1030
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,359
Speaker 1: Things would always turn around, Things would always work out.

1031
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 1: It was like we had divine intervention on our side.

1032
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, Laurie ended up doing more

1033
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 1: work on my case than the attorneys, private investigators and

1034
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 1: everybody else put together after they did the DNA testing.

1035
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 1: She's the one out there digging through people's garbage to

1036
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: find cigarette butts to try to match the DNA to

1037
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 1: She was the one out there, you know, doing the fundraising. Really,

1038
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: she was doing everything she could to keep people from

1039
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:47,440
Speaker 1: forgetting about this case.

1040
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 4: Wow.

1041
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 5: I mean, for a landscape arbit tap, for a landscape architect,

1042
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:57,360
Speaker 5: she's a damn good investigator. Just you know, publicists advocate

1043
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 5: and you know, it's just just a ton of respect

1044
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:05,880
Speaker 5: and admiration for you, Laurie, and I can say that

1045
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 5: because you're sitting here and everything that you've done and

1046
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 5: everything that you are so so you you're together now

1047
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:16,759
Speaker 5: you're here at the Church of Rock and Roll at

1048
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 5: opening weekend, which I'm so like, I said, so grateful

1049
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 5: to both of you for coming.

1050
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 4: And what's this experience been like for you?

1051
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,319
Speaker 1: It's been actually pretty amazing, you know. I think I've

1052
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: only started to come out of shock and trauma and

1053
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:34,440
Speaker 1: become happy and everything else, probably within the last two years.

1054
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: We've been out for about seven years now, so probably

1055
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: within the past two years is whenever the real actual

1056
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: healing started and I started being able to focus on

1057
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 1: things that I wanted to focus on building a life.

1058
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 1: And you know, one of those things was doing what

1059
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: we did here today or last night, like with the

1060
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 1: commitment ceremonies, and being able to talk to people about,

1061
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:59,080
Speaker 1: you know, things that mean something to me personally, and

1062
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 1: develop real relationships with people based on things other than

1063
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 1: just the case last night. I would have people like

1064
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 1: twenty one year old kids who have no idea who

1065
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,479
Speaker 1: the hell I even am, don't care. They were coming

1066
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: to the commitment ceremonies, wanted to do the commitments not

1067
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: because it was me, but because they love each other.

1068
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: They want to be part of it, whatever it is.

1069
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: Stuff like that, that is what's rewarding. That's what I

1070
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 1: love doing, you know, things that are real.

1071
00:54:28,440 --> 00:54:32,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I've I had the opportunity to see parts

1072
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:35,279
Speaker 5: of some of the ceremonies and also to talk to

1073
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 5: some of the people who participated in them, and the

1074
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 5: stories are beautiful. I mean, people who were on the

1075
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:46,439
Speaker 5: verge of breaking up after twelve years of marriage and came.

1076
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:48,319
Speaker 4: I think they came because you were you and they

1077
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 4: wanted to have that They wanted to get some of

1078
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 4: your special brand of magic.

1079
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:57,040
Speaker 5: And now they're you know, now they're recommitted to each

1080
00:54:57,040 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 5: other and other people who found some new level to

1081
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 5: go to in whatever relationship they're in, and you're giving

1082
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 5: them their certificates and the embossing on the Church of

1083
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 5: Rock and Roll logo, and I mean, for me, it's

1084
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 5: just an unbelievable feeling to know that we're having that

1085
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:18,720
Speaker 5: kind of a positive impact on them, on you because

1086
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:22,319
Speaker 5: of them, and then on everyone who's around sitting in

1087
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 5: the pews, because we have pews outside and we have

1088
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 5: the what do you call that when people do the

1089
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 5: fingers the two fingers up in the air the rock

1090
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 5: and roll sort of the horns. We have those a

1091
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 5: neon out by the So I'm trying to give people

1092
00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 5: a visual.

1093
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:38,279
Speaker 4: And we're going to be taking this on the road

1094
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 4: and hopefully bringing it to other cities near you, whoever

1095
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 4: you are, wherever you're listening. And I'm really excited about that,

1096
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:46,919
Speaker 4: and I think we're just going to do a lot

1097
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:50,839
Speaker 4: of really really great stuff together. And so.

1098
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:57,759
Speaker 5: My favorite part of the podcast everyone, and we're now

1099
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:03,800
Speaker 5: in our seventh season, is when I get to stop

1100
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 5: talking entirely and just turn the mic over to you

1101
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:15,920
Speaker 5: and get your final thoughts on anything you want to

1102
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 5: talk about, whether it's how people can get involved or

1103
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 5: what people anything at all. I mean, you can talk

1104
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:24,759
Speaker 5: about the weather if you want. So before I do that,

1105
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 5: I want to say again that I appreciate you being

1106
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 5: here and sharing your your thoughts and your wisdom and

1107
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 5: your your courage and your story, because I know it's

1108
00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:40,400
Speaker 5: not easy with our audience and with everyone in the

1109
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,319
Speaker 5: room here at the Church of Rock and Roll. So

1110
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 5: and then I'm going to turn it over you for

1111
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 5: final thoughts, and then we're all gonna we're all going

1112
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 5: to meditate under your guidance, which I'm super excited about.

1113
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 1: So actually, what I usually do instead of, you know,

1114
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:55,680
Speaker 1: always tell people the reason I do stuff like this

1115
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: is not to force everyone to hear me ramble on

1116
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: like a jackass. I'm here to talk about whatever people

1117
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: want to talk about, you know. That's That's the reason

1118
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:08,439
Speaker 1: I'm here is because and that's the reason everybody else

1119
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:10,560
Speaker 1: is here. I'm sure you know, when people hear these stories,

1120
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 1: they probably have things that come to mind that they

1121
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:15,760
Speaker 1: wonder about that maybe we didn't touch on or whatever

1122
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 1: it is. So I usually just like to give people

1123
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 1: the opportunity if there was anybody that had a question

1124
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: or anything out of everything we just talked about that

1125
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:24,920
Speaker 1: you'd like to know the answer to, or hear more about,

1126
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,240
Speaker 1: or anything else, I'm willing to you know, whether it's

1127
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 1: prison life, whether it's the case, whether it's life after,

1128
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: whatever the hell it is you want to know about.

1129
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 1: If there's any question you have, I'm open to it.

1130
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 5: Oh, well, this is a new thing. Since we usually

1131
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 5: record in the studio without an audience. Now we have

1132
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 5: that opportunity, so we will open it up for just

1133
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:43,040
Speaker 5: a few questions, because then we do want to get

1134
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 5: to the to the meditation. Does anybody have a question

1135
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 5: for Damien?

1136
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 7: Damien, thank you for sharing your story with us. It's

1137
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 7: fabergasting here that all that actually happened to you and

1138
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 7: you had to live through it, through all of your

1139
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:58,400
Speaker 7: darkest hours. How did you find the strength to fight

1140
00:57:58,480 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 7: through that?

1141
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: I think for those at home who might not be

1142
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:05,720
Speaker 1: able to hear the question he asked, even before Laurie

1143
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 1: found me, before she started taking on the case, Like

1144
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:11,240
Speaker 1: during my darkest hours, what it was that allowed me

1145
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: to keep surviving? On a daily basis in prison. And

1146
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: really what it comes down to, and this is incredibly important.

1147
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: You know, keep in mind they say that your average

1148
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,280
Speaker 1: person in prison, even when you take you know, we're

1149
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: talking about the guy in our case that gave the

1150
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,439
Speaker 1: confession that only had an IQ of seventy to seventy two.

1151
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: Even when you take that out of the equation, the

1152
00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 1: average IQ of the person in prison is only about

1153
00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 1: eighty five. So that's still well below you know, average

1154
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 1: IQ level. So a lot of people aren't capable of

1155
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,840
Speaker 1: even doing this, which is why it's so important that

1156
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 1: helped come from the outside world. But what it comes

1157
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: down to is finding something to focus on other than

1158
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 1: the prison. You know, I would see guys in there

1159
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 1: on a daily basis that didn't have people in the

1160
00:58:56,880 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 1: outside world, that weren't capable of constructing a routine or

1161
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: anything else to give them something to focus on. So

1162
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 1: their full attention was taken up by the fact that

1163
00:59:06,640 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: they were on death road. They're waiting to be executed,

1164
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: and you see him snap all the time.

1165
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 4: You know.

1166
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 1: I would see things like one day, this guy he

1167
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:16,480
Speaker 1: just starts screaming and beating on the walls of his

1168
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: cell with both fists until both of his fists are

1169
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 1: just busted and bloody. They take him. He's screaming that

1170
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 1: the devil is in his cell. All they do they

1171
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: take him out, wrap his hands up, and throw him

1172
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,240
Speaker 1: back in his cell. People go insane because they are

1173
00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: focused on the prison all the time. So really, what

1174
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 1: I did was I had to find ways to give

1175
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 1: myself a life outside of that environment. And for me,

1176
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 1: a lot of it was, you know, like we were

1177
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:44,880
Speaker 1: talking about earlier reading at one point, you know, like

1178
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:46,880
Speaker 1: I said, also, I only had a ninth grade education.

1179
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 1: So after Lori especially came into my life, I started

1180
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: hearing about all these things that I didn't have within

1181
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:55,960
Speaker 1: my frame of reference, you know, like Camu and Dickens

1182
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:58,760
Speaker 1: and Tolstoy and Dousteroyevsky and all these sorts of things.

1183
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: So I decided, I want to know what the hell

1184
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 1: people are even talking about whenever they're talking about these things.

1185
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 1: So I started devouring books that I honestly didn't even

1186
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:12,000
Speaker 1: really have a great deal of interest in, you know,

1187
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: even things like the works of Freud and Young and

1188
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,320
Speaker 1: things like that, just because I wanted to know what

1189
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 1: it was about. And it I did eventually reach a

1190
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:26,600
Speaker 1: point where I thought, none of this stuff is really

1191
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 1: feeding me in any substantial way. You know, I'm taking

1192
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:34,480
Speaker 1: in a lot of abstract knowledge and concepts and stories

1193
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 1: and writing styles and things like this, but it doesn't

1194
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 1: make me happy in any way. So one day, after

1195
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: we had filled up an entire storage facility with books,

1196
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 1: I stopped and went back to the things that meant

1197
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: something to me. So a lot of it for me

1198
01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:59,800
Speaker 1: was reading a lot, working out a lot, meditation a lot.

1199
01:01:00,160 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: You know, the heart and soul of my life when

1200
01:01:03,680 --> 01:01:05,720
Speaker 1: I was in prison, and even now that I'm out

1201
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 1: of prison, was ceremonial magic. By the time I got

1202
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: out of prison, I was doing meditation and energy work

1203
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: for up to eight hours a day. And part of

1204
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 1: what destroyed me whenever I got out, you know, the

1205
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: psychological devastation. For some reason, when I walked out of prison,

1206
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 1: I could not read anymore. Like I would try to

1207
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:25,120
Speaker 1: read a page, and I would read the same page

1208
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: over and over and over, and I couldn't retain what

1209
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:29,440
Speaker 1: I had just read when I got to the bottom

1210
01:01:29,440 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: of the page. I couldn't watch TV shows like I said.

1211
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 1: I didn't even have facial recognition so I would go

1212
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 1: to dinner with people, meet them two days later and

1213
01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:44,920
Speaker 1: not be able to even remember who they were. So

1214
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:48,080
Speaker 1: that screwed me up a lot. But really what it

1215
01:01:48,120 --> 01:01:50,600
Speaker 1: came down to in prison, what allowed me to survive

1216
01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:55,439
Speaker 1: was not thinking about prison, coming up with something else

1217
01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:58,439
Speaker 1: to focus on other than the horror that was going

1218
01:01:58,440 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 1: on around me.

1219
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:02,680
Speaker 4: Damian, I love your optimism and your lust for life.

1220
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:05,040
Speaker 4: I would love to know what your idea of a

1221
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:07,480
Speaker 4: perfect day is, now, what does that look like?

1222
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:11,840
Speaker 1: A perfect day is one when I live in New

1223
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:14,560
Speaker 1: York up in Harlem. A perfect day to me is

1224
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 1: a day when I don't have to get on the subway,

1225
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 1: when I don't have to walk out my front door

1226
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:24,440
Speaker 1: at all. I get up in the morning, I start

1227
01:02:24,480 --> 01:02:28,520
Speaker 1: going through my daily meditations, daily energy work, take a break,

1228
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 1: and this may sound crazy, but I actually take pleasure

1229
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: and clean in the house. That's really one of the

1230
01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 1: things that also helped me whenever I first got out

1231
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:39,200
Speaker 1: was doing laundry. I had never done laundry in my life,

1232
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:42,080
Speaker 1: but I would go into the laundry room where the

1233
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: washer and dryer was, and something about that was like

1234
01:02:45,080 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: being in a rocking chair to me. It calmed and

1235
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: soothed my nerves. So really a perfect day to me.

1236
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 1: I don't leave my apartment, I don't get on the subway.

1237
01:02:55,560 --> 01:02:57,960
Speaker 1: I'm back up now. Like I said, you know, it

1238
01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:00,960
Speaker 1: shattered me, like I couldn't even read, so couldn't do magic,

1239
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 1: I couldn't meditate, I couldn't do anything. I went from

1240
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:05,520
Speaker 1: eight hours a day to not even being able to

1241
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 1: do eight minutes a day. So I've gradually built up

1242
01:03:08,520 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 1: over time until now I'm back up. Some days I

1243
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: can do on a really good day between five and

1244
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 1: seven hours, So that's a perfect day to me doing that,

1245
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 1: ordering pizza and playing with my cats.

1246
01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:26,640
Speaker 4: I think we got to tell you for one more question.

1247
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:29,320
Speaker 7: I was just wondering if you were aware of any

1248
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:32,320
Speaker 7: groups that are fighting for justice for the three boys.

1249
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:34,960
Speaker 7: Do you think the real killer will ever come to light?

1250
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:41,040
Speaker 1: I think, honestly, I do. I think that it will

1251
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:43,479
Speaker 1: come to light. But you know, like I was saying

1252
01:03:43,520 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 1: earlier about the politics of everything involved, I honestly think

1253
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:50,160
Speaker 1: before that happens, a lot of the people who have

1254
01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 1: a vested interest in keeping this covered up, who you know,

1255
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:56,160
Speaker 1: to preserve their jobs, can't let the truth come out.

1256
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 1: I think a lot of those people will either have

1257
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 1: to retire or move on or whatever it is, and

1258
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: new people who don't have a vested interest in this

1259
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:05,640
Speaker 1: will have to come on board. Who will actually look

1260
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: at the evidence, who will actually hear the case. So yeah,

1261
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:12,400
Speaker 1: I do think one day, eventually something will happen. I honestly,

1262
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:14,880
Speaker 1: I don't keep up with the case, so I don't

1263
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 1: know of any organization. The only organization I know of

1264
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:22,000
Speaker 1: two legal organizations. One is the Innocence Project, which Jason

1265
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:25,080
Speaker 1: is on, and the other one is Proclaimed Justice, which

1266
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: Jason Baldwin is on. And the only reason I know

1267
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: about those two is because of, you know, personal relationships

1268
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:38,720
Speaker 1: I don't keep up with. To me, you know, like

1269
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:40,800
Speaker 1: I was just describing a perfect day, to me, a

1270
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 1: hellish day would be a day when I had to

1271
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:45,720
Speaker 1: read like a court brief or a legal brief, or

1272
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,760
Speaker 1: you know, watch a true crime show or any of

1273
01:04:48,760 --> 01:04:51,560
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So those are honestly the only

1274
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 1: two organizations that I know anything about at all.

1275
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:56,400
Speaker 4: I'm really glad you asked that question. That was a

1276
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:56,960
Speaker 4: great question.

1277
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 5: So anyway, now I just want to say again, this

1278
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:03,360
Speaker 5: has been an awesome experience for me. Thank you everyone

1279
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 5: for being here at the Church of Rock and Roll,

1280
01:05:05,640 --> 01:05:09,440
Speaker 5: and thank you Damian for everything you're doing and for

1281
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:11,600
Speaker 5: being a guest on Wrongful Conviction.

1282
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.

1283
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 5: Well, let's fucking meditate. Don't forget to give us a

1284
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:33,560
Speaker 5: fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts.

1285
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:33,920
Speaker 4: It really helps.

1286
01:05:34,360 --> 01:05:37,200
Speaker 5: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and

1287
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:39,960
Speaker 5: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very

1288
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 5: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go

1289
01:05:44,040 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 5: to Innocence Project dot orgorg to learn how to donate

1290
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:49,840
Speaker 5: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,

1291
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:52,880
Speaker 5: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show

1292
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:54,919
Speaker 5: is by three time OSCAR nominated.

1293
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:56,040
Speaker 4: Composer Jay Ralph.

1294
01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:58,960
Speaker 5: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction

1295
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:00,360
Speaker 5: and on faceboo.

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Speaker 4: Book at Wrongful Conviction podcast.

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Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flaum is a production of Lava

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Speaker 5: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one