Speaker 1: Charles Jackson and his nephew, Houston Foster, were born just
Speaker 1: two years apart, and they grew up together in the
Speaker 1: same house in Cleveland, as close as any two brothers
Speaker 1: could be. Even into their fifties, they still talked by
Speaker 1: phone several times a week, sometimes for hours, about everything
Speaker 1: under the sun. Houston had been diagnosed with stage four
Speaker 1: kidney failure, so he was undergoing dialysis three times a
Speaker 1: week and waiting hoping for a kidney transplant. He was
Speaker 1: on the list, but as he told his uncle Charles,
Speaker 1: the weight could be up to five years, who said,
Speaker 1: I had that loan to you know, live. So by
Speaker 1: the grace of God, Charles came out and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm all positive, nephew. I'm gonna give me
Speaker 1: one of my kids. But there was a problem. Charles
Speaker 1: was in prison for murder and had been for nearly
Speaker 1: thirty years. My name is Charles Jackson. I served twenty
Speaker 1: seven years, six months, twenty days for a crime I
Speaker 1: didn't commit from LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling today, Charles Jackson. Charles Jackson, Jr. Was
Speaker 1: born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January seven, nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: to Elizabeth Foster and Charles Jackson, Sr. And they had
Speaker 1: a big family as sister jack like five sisters and
Speaker 1: three more brothers, you know, but I'm the baby off
Speaker 1: the whole bunch. It was like teenagers, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So they were bigger, and a couple of
Speaker 1: them was grown. And it was because of this age
Speaker 1: difference with some of his siblings that Charles became closest
Speaker 1: with his nephew, Houston. Charles and Houston did everything together,
Speaker 1: and everyone in their family adored Charles. Houston remembers how
Speaker 1: his uncle even earned himself a nickname. I think my grandmother.
Speaker 1: I think of my grandmother, she was named from sweet Man,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where it actually came for. Just
Speaker 1: called him sweet That's how everybody know him by sweet Man.
Speaker 1: But Charles describes himself another way. What's your personality? My personality,
Speaker 1: I'm silly as hell, and all my friends and I
Speaker 1: just kept everybody laughing, everybody around. When he was about
Speaker 1: nine years old, Charles's parents divorced. Charles decided to live
Speaker 1: with his dad, and for a while it was just
Speaker 1: the two of them, but occasionally Charles's sister and her son, Houston,
Speaker 1: came to live with them. Charles and Houston had always
Speaker 1: been like brothers, but living together, they were inseparable. And
Speaker 1: we used to run home from after school because he
Speaker 1: was in a grade higher than me, and are going
Speaker 1: to get home from after school, you know, do our
Speaker 1: homework and then go watch Batman and rob So they
Speaker 1: started calling us Batman and Robin. Who was Batman? Who
Speaker 1: was Robbin? Well, you know, Charles had to be Batman.
Speaker 1: He would never let me be Batman. Charles was like
Speaker 1: a typical older brother, but by the time he got
Speaker 1: to junior high school, things began to change. I fought
Speaker 1: a lot, I was overweight, chubby, got bullied. On that
Speaker 1: next year I came to school, I asked them down.
Speaker 1: Nobody even knew me. That's when I started, I guess,
Speaker 1: maturing and growing up, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: that's when like my life turned like different. I guess.
Speaker 1: I started learning how to play cars, and then I
Speaker 1: had a lot of time on my hands because you know,
Speaker 1: just me and my father. He'd be at work. So
Speaker 1: I get out out of school, and you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, So I got to do pretty much what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. When he was around eighteen, Charles's son,
Speaker 1: Christopher was born. He was married by then, and he
Speaker 1: and his wife at the time went on to have
Speaker 1: two more kids, twins, Terry and Sherry. By cooking, took
Speaker 1: care of the kids, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: come from a big fan of you. You know, you
Speaker 1: always in the kitchen and somebody's always running through the house,
Speaker 1: and so I had all that too, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, How do you support your family at the time? Well,
Speaker 1: I was illegal sometimes, but I didn't kill anyone, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Whatever I did, you know, hustled
Speaker 1: or murder wasn't wasn't even in the picture. In the
Speaker 1: early morning hours of April seven, the body of twenty
Speaker 1: nine year old Joe Travis was found in the hallway
Speaker 1: of his apartment complex, dead from a single gunshot wound
Speaker 1: to the head. There had been an altercation earlier at
Speaker 1: the complex between rival drug dealers Charlie Dog Davis and
Speaker 1: Amelia Tucker. Tucker had allegedly shot at Davis, and as
Speaker 1: he left the complex, Davis yelled, quote, you shot me.
Speaker 1: I'll be back about forty five minutes later, two men
Speaker 1: arrived and two shots were fired. The men then vanished,
Speaker 1: leaving Joe Travis dead. Just over two weeks later, twenty
Speaker 1: three year old Ronald Lacy was arrested on drug charges.
Speaker 1: Lacey lived at the apartment complex, and he told police
Speaker 1: he had witnessed the gunman shoot Travis in the head
Speaker 1: over a drug altercation. He said that the shooter was
Speaker 1: a regular in the neighborhood and that he drove a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight or nineteen seventy nine brown or maroon
Speaker 1: Monte Carlo with chrome wheels and low writer tires. As
Speaker 1: it happened, seven year old Charles Jackson also drove a
Speaker 1: Monte Carlo and had recently had to run in with
Speaker 1: the police, So I guess this is the same carded
Speaker 1: Ryan Lacey said that I was driving and the podies
Speaker 1: had pulled me over it maybe a month or two
Speaker 1: before the end, and I had a traffic ticket and
Speaker 1: I went to jail. So when I went to jail,
Speaker 1: they took much shots on me. Police had suspected Charles
Speaker 1: of carrying drugs that night, but finding nothing on him,
Speaker 1: they arrested him on a traffic violation instead. The cops
Speaker 1: showed Lacy the mug shot they took that night, and
Speaker 1: Lacy said, quote, that's definitely him. You don't forget someone
Speaker 1: that tries to kill you. A month after the shooting,
Speaker 1: on May eight, Charles was arrested while sitting in a
Speaker 1: neighborhood bar. They put their guns on me, They asked
Speaker 1: me for driver's license, They saw my name, an I guess,
Speaker 1: just him, and locked me up. So I didn't had
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about because I didn't do anything. And
Speaker 1: three four days later, you know, I was targed with murder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Charles when he got arrested, and what he went down for,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I missed my buddy because he
Speaker 1: was gone. You know, Charles's nephew, Houston was devastated when
Speaker 1: Charles was taken into custody. I mean it was at
Speaker 1: just bringback some memories there, buddy, just touching. But I
Speaker 1: missed him, so must and what he went down for.
Speaker 1: It really touched me because I knew my uncle had never,
Speaker 1: you know, commit no crime like that, because he would
Speaker 1: never do nothing like that. But that was my uncle,
Speaker 1: and yeah, wow. Charles meanwhile was racking his brain to
Speaker 1: remember what he was doing the night of that shooting, Wanning,
Speaker 1: like where was I you know what I'm saying, that alibi?
Speaker 1: What was I doing? And at the time, my girlfriend
Speaker 1: she had kept a little little diary, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, a little journal, and she used right in
Speaker 1: there and she had told me like that night, that
Speaker 1: was the night that we went to a party and
Speaker 1: then it started coming back and m I ran the
Speaker 1: streets that night and I was out late. I ran
Speaker 1: from the police the same night, So I guess if
Speaker 1: I want to run from the police. I had been
Speaker 1: in jail the night that Joe Travis was murdered, you
Speaker 1: know what, I decided to run from the police. In
Speaker 1: Charles's mind, if he hadn't run from the police that night,
Speaker 1: he would have never been a suspect in the shooting.
Speaker 1: Before trial, Charles was assigned public defenders Edward Wade and
Speaker 1: Howard Manager. Charles still remembers his lawyer's advice every way.
Speaker 1: He was just chilling me, like cop out, because you know,
Speaker 1: I've been a lawyer all these years and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: like they're saying this and that, and you know, I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything, so why should I cop out?
Speaker 1: To some my ain't do so instead of taking a
Speaker 1: plea bargain from the get go, Charles went to trial
Speaker 1: in December of This episode is underwritten by a i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
Speaker 1: to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
Speaker 1: in the lives of its employees and in the communities
Speaker 1: where we work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
Speaker 1: a I g's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the a i G pro Bono Program provides free legal
Speaker 1: services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. The
Speaker 1: case against Charles relied solely on the witness testimonies of
Speaker 1: Ronald Lacey and Amelia Tucker. The prosecutors were Winston Gray
Speaker 1: and Thomas Rain. They called Lacey to the stand first. Lacey,
Speaker 1: the man who identified Charles's mug shot, repeated what he
Speaker 1: had told the police that he saw Charles shoot Joe
Speaker 1: Travis in the head during an argument over drugs. The
Speaker 1: other witness was Amelia Tucker, who remember had had a
Speaker 1: separate altercation that night with Charlie dog Davis. On the stand,
Speaker 1: Tucker said she heard the shots and when she looked
Speaker 1: out the window, she saw the gunmen running away. And
Speaker 1: she also said it was Charles now seeing there's just
Speaker 1: and they time. We just don't show no emotion in it.
Speaker 1: And obviously they're just like he'splode on inside. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like she's lying. I I'm going crazy.
Speaker 1: Charles's defense did the best they could with these two
Speaker 1: eye witnesses, whose testimonies were the only evidence presented against Charles.
Speaker 1: They countered with Charles's alibi at the time of the
Speaker 1: shooting he was at a party with his girlfriend, but
Speaker 1: they could have done more. It turns out while Charles
Speaker 1: was in jail awaiting trial, he met a guy from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood named Vincent. Vincent told Charles he knew who
Speaker 1: shot Travis. He said it was a guy named Jimmy.
Speaker 1: This turned out to be James Morris, the nephew of
Speaker 1: Charlie Dog Davis, and this scenario would make sense. His
Speaker 1: nephew might have wanted to get back at Tucker for
Speaker 1: shooting at Charlie Dog and Joe Travis. He could have
Speaker 1: just been caught in the crossfire arms. With this new
Speaker 1: information and a plausible scenario. Charles immediately went to his lawyers.
Speaker 1: I told any Wade immediately that it's a guy in
Speaker 1: here that say he saw everything, and he said it's
Speaker 1: not me. They did it. But at trial, Charles's defense
Speaker 1: did not call Vincent to testify. Instead, they presented photos
Speaker 1: of James, and in the pictures, James looked nearly identical
Speaker 1: to Charles Jackson. So when Ronald Lacy was on a
Speaker 1: witness stand, so we cut time to cross examine every way.
Speaker 1: Here that one picture of James. And he showed his
Speaker 1: picture to Ronald Lacey and said who was this on
Speaker 1: his picture? And Ronald Lacy looked at the picture and
Speaker 1: he didn't hesitate. He said, this is a picture of
Speaker 1: sweet Man. Sweet Man the child took nickname Charles was
Speaker 1: still known by. But many of the people in the
Speaker 1: courtroom knew the picture was of James. And I'm thinking, like, oh,
Speaker 1: something to go home now, you know, if it's just
Speaker 1: be fireworks because of this picture. And it wasn't nothing
Speaker 1: like that. It's just it was quite quiet. The alibi
Speaker 1: and mistaken identity was not enough. After only a few
Speaker 1: days of trial and deliberation, Charles was convicted of murder
Speaker 1: and attempted murder with a firearm. He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: seven to years for attempted murder, three years for possession
Speaker 1: of a firearm, and twenty years to life for the
Speaker 1: murder of Joe Travis. As Charles settled into prison life,
Speaker 1: he started resigning himself to the reality of being locked
Speaker 1: away forever. He knew too many other people who had
Speaker 1: faced the same situation. The only thing about prisons, like
Speaker 1: it's just saying, like like a rice of passage, Like
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood growing up, like I saw so many
Speaker 1: guys that I haven't saw that I thought was dead
Speaker 1: or moved away, and they were in prison for years,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And it's just like I
Speaker 1: knew people there and they waiting on me. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It was gonna take care of me.
Speaker 1: I was gonna be all right. So I went in
Speaker 1: there with surviving on my mind. Charles knew though, that
Speaker 1: in order to survive inside he had to put up
Speaker 1: a pretty hard front. And what a surviving mean, Um,
Speaker 1: just I'm not gonna tell everybody I'm innocent because they
Speaker 1: don't want to hear that, because they're doing all this
Speaker 1: time and if I make them think that I'm not
Speaker 1: like them, then how can I survive? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So I shouldn't went in there trying to
Speaker 1: find my way out, you know. I shouldn't went in
Speaker 1: there going to the library. Like I said, I had
Speaker 1: a bad attitude. I was angry, you know, and I
Speaker 1: feel like they to my life, you know. So I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna be like no respect for no type of authority.
Speaker 1: And for like the first ten years, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't even recognize myself no more because I was turning
Speaker 1: to an animal. While Charles was in prison, his fourth child,
Speaker 1: a daughter, was born. Her name was Siara. Were you
Speaker 1: able to be a dad from person? It's crazy because
Speaker 1: like first, like she little and she don't know you.
Speaker 1: She whole visited day isten her try and like not
Speaker 1: be scared of me, just sit on my lap and
Speaker 1: play with me. Then by the end of the day
Speaker 1: she would be more to play. Nice time for her
Speaker 1: to go. Then I don't know whenning this time, I'm
Speaker 1: a Siri and I see her again, she a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger, got her personality, the change, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And I just watched her grow up like that,
Speaker 1: you know, and then it got you a part to
Speaker 1: where her mind like wasn't in my life, so she
Speaker 1: wasn't encouraging her. And Charles knew that without any encouragement,
Speaker 1: no twelve or thirteen year olds would want to spend
Speaker 1: their summers visiting someone in prison. So his visits with
Speaker 1: Sierra ended. As the years passed, things just kept getting worse.
Speaker 1: I started getting older, and like I said, I ain't
Speaker 1: I ain't recognize what I was. And and then my
Speaker 1: relatives started passing away, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 1: my mom died, and that was like like my life
Speaker 1: like turned around because I felt I couldn't it like
Speaker 1: I was living no more, you know. Charles realized he
Speaker 1: needed to change his mindset in order to change his life.
Speaker 1: You know, as I've been here so long, I wake
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night and come up
Speaker 1: with a way to get out. I need somebody to
Speaker 1: listen till you help me, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: One thing that continued to sustain Charles during those years
Speaker 1: was his connection to his nephew, Houston, the Robin to
Speaker 1: his batman. Houston was now a deacon living in Jacksonville, Florida,
Speaker 1: and they talked by phone several times a week, but
Speaker 1: Houston was going through challenges of his own. At the
Speaker 1: age of fifty three, he learned that he had staged
Speaker 1: for kidney failure, and I told him I was all
Speaker 1: positive and I needed a kitten and I was gonna
Speaker 1: get him the transplant with this. But it's Mike took
Speaker 1: two or three or five years to get a kid
Speaker 1: who said, I had that loan to you know, live.
Speaker 1: So he started off, Dad, this is like once a week,
Speaker 1: and then he got so bad to hes like three
Speaker 1: times a week. And I'll be talking to him while
Speaker 1: he beat here, and I said, man, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: up out of here. Man, I'm gonna give you a
Speaker 1: kidney man and is air ding will be good, you know.
Speaker 1: And not knowing what's gonna happen me, Charles knew he
Speaker 1: had to find a way to get out of prison.
Speaker 1: His nephew's life depended on it. Determined to fight for
Speaker 1: his exhoneration, Charles wrote to the Ohio Innocence Project to
Speaker 1: ask them to review his case, and when they did,
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, we knew at the very least that the
Speaker 1: government's case against Charles back at the time a trial
Speaker 1: was really really weak. UM, so we started to look
Speaker 1: at it more. This is Donald Castor. I'm a professor
Speaker 1: of clinical law with the Ohio Innocence Project to the
Speaker 1: University of Cincinnati. He's also Charles's attorney. The police seized
Speaker 1: on this theory that Charles might have been the guy
Speaker 1: because Charles car was somewhere near the area, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't actually Charles car Remember he drove a Monty Carlo
Speaker 1: similar to the one used by the shooter. The state
Speaker 1: also said that they had a credible witness, UM, and
Speaker 1: we'll put quotes around witness named Ron Lacey who was
Speaker 1: there at the time and who said that that he
Speaker 1: saw the fatal shot being fired, and you know, put
Speaker 1: a single picture in front of Mr Lacey, and Mr
Speaker 1: Lacy says, yeah, that's the guy, and that's that's how
Speaker 1: the police come to believe that it's Charles Jackson. Is
Speaker 1: that even legal to just do one photo and not
Speaker 1: a lineup? It's not now, it's not now. At the
Speaker 1: time that Charles was convicted, there were no standards at least,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of by statute for what kind of
Speaker 1: lineup you can do now. Ohio has a statute that says,
Speaker 1: if you're going to do a lineup, this is the
Speaker 1: way that you have to do it. Charles's team continued
Speaker 1: to dig into his case in they were finally able
Speaker 1: to get ahold of previously undisclosed police reports, and what
Speaker 1: they learned was huge. Um, so these are all things
Speaker 1: that should have been turned over to Charles's defense at
Speaker 1: the time of trial. That would have made a huge difference,
Speaker 1: that would have saved Charles all these years in prison.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Brady violation. We are talking about
Speaker 1: Brady violations. Brady violations are exactly that when the prosecution
Speaker 1: hides or fails to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant.
Speaker 1: And the reports revealed plenty of this. The first piece
Speaker 1: of evidence, well, Miss Tucker said one thing at trial.
Speaker 1: She had said a very different thing the night of
Speaker 1: the shooting and the day after the shooting to the police.
Speaker 1: And what she had told the police was that she
Speaker 1: couldn't see the face of the person who did the shooting,
Speaker 1: that she wasn't going to be able to identify the shooter. Remember,
Speaker 1: Amelia Tucker was the rival drug dealer who was in
Speaker 1: the initial altercation. Her first statement to police said that
Speaker 1: she looked out her window and saw a man wearing
Speaker 1: a bulky jacket get into the rear passenger seat of
Speaker 1: a gray car. His back was to her and she
Speaker 1: did not see his face. In a second interview, she
Speaker 1: repeated the same thing to police, that she did not
Speaker 1: see a face. Yet when she testified at trial, she
Speaker 1: said she saw the shooter's face and that it was Charles.
Speaker 1: And obviously you'd want to know that. Their key eye
Speaker 1: witness said twice within thirty six hours of the shooting,
Speaker 1: I didn't see the person's face. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: who did it. You want to be able to ask
Speaker 1: that person about those statements in front of a jury,
Speaker 1: and and Charles never got that chance. The second piece
Speaker 1: of evidence, Mr Lacy had made the statement that the
Speaker 1: shooter had shot the decedent on the wrong side of
Speaker 1: the head, that that he identified the shot is going
Speaker 1: one place, the corner identified the shot is going the other.
Speaker 1: The defense at the time of charles trial never knew
Speaker 1: these things. Not only that there were more eyewitnesses to
Speaker 1: the crime that were never called to test A five.
Speaker 1: One of them was a man named Thomas Silvano. Mr.
Speaker 1: Silvano saw it, He saw what happened, and there was
Speaker 1: a statement in the records by him. But he never
Speaker 1: never gets called. He never Nobody on Charles side knows
Speaker 1: what Silvano knows, which is that he saw it and
Speaker 1: it wasn't Charles Um. And then we had a private
Speaker 1: investigator go and talked to Silvano, who was amazingly eager
Speaker 1: to help out. You know, he didn't have any reason
Speaker 1: personally to want to help Charles, but he really was
Speaker 1: was stunned um that the wrong person had been in
Speaker 1: prison for that whole time, and he really felt like
Speaker 1: he had a duty to help out. When Charles's attorneys
Speaker 1: presented him with all this information, he finally felt vindicated. Man,
Speaker 1: was it was they bled me. You didn't do this,
Speaker 1: you know I'm saying, when somebody just believing you. You
Speaker 1: know what I said, we already thought you didn't do
Speaker 1: but now we know you didn't do it. As now,
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, cool, if I if I died
Speaker 1: that night, you know what I'm saying, I knew that
Speaker 1: someone knew that I wouldn't. You know, I wasn't. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't alone no more, you know, what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: had a voice again in Charles was granted a hearing
Speaker 1: to present all this newly discovered evidence to a judge.
Speaker 1: Judge Robert McClelland felt the evidence was compelling enough to
Speaker 1: sign an order vacating Charles's convictions. He ruled that Charles
Speaker 1: should get a new trial. Months later, Donald Caster was
Speaker 1: driving to Cleveland for a hearing in Charles's case when
Speaker 1: he got a call. The prosecutor called me on my
Speaker 1: cell phone. UM, so I had I had to pull
Speaker 1: over because I'm starting to cry. He immediately called the
Speaker 1: rest of the team, who were also on their way
Speaker 1: to the hearing. So, okay, you guys need to pull
Speaker 1: over before I tell you this, um And I said,
Speaker 1: you know they're they're going to concede. And it's because
Speaker 1: Lacey's backed away from his story. At the time of trial,
Speaker 1: Ronald Lacey, the star witness and first person to implicate Charles,
Speaker 1: was suddenly changing his story. Um And. He said that
Speaker 1: they had reinterviewed Mr Lacy and that Mr Lacey had
Speaker 1: backed away from saying that he saw the fatal shot
Speaker 1: being fired. Without Lacy, the state didn't have a case.
Speaker 1: Tucker had been discredited by this time, and there was
Speaker 1: never any physical evidence to begin with. On November to,
Speaker 1: fifty five year old Charles Jackson was released after almost
Speaker 1: twenty eight years in prison. Though at first officials got
Speaker 1: the right name, but the wrong person. They brought the
Speaker 1: wrong They brought the wrong Charles out at right, they
Speaker 1: brought the wrong Charles Jackson out. Not only was like
Speaker 1: you know somebody was this guy like, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: it's my time. And we had to. We had to.
Speaker 1: We were like, wait, we don't this is not our Charles.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It ain't funny, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They got the wrong money and not even try to
Speaker 1: meet the wrong one out, I mean, come out after
Speaker 1: the snaffoo and after the right Charles Jackson was released.
Speaker 1: The day it was joyous for everyone, but Houston was
Speaker 1: still in need of a kidney, and Charles, now a freeman,
Speaker 1: was on a mission. Once it was confirmed that he
Speaker 1: was a match, he headed down to Florida where his
Speaker 1: nephew was waiting, and he came. You couldn't hear everything. Uh,
Speaker 1: I thank god for him, because I don't know, you
Speaker 1: know where I beat. I might have been to be
Speaker 1: hearing today, but one for the blessing that he gave
Speaker 1: me with it. You know, he was more than like
Speaker 1: my brother. He was like he was like a hero
Speaker 1: because even though instead he took a life, but he
Speaker 1: didn't take no life. He helped save a life. So
Speaker 1: to me, that's a hero. To me, he was just
Speaker 1: a blessing to excuse m today. Charles lives in a
Speaker 1: quiet suburb of Cleveland in a communal house known as
Speaker 1: the Axonoree Home. So we started off like it was
Speaker 1: just a house, you know what I'm saying. Now you
Speaker 1: know it's more of a home now. So what does
Speaker 1: that like to live with other axonore Ees. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like they understand you better than other people? Might?
Speaker 1: They definitely do because everybody else, like you know, being
Speaker 1: a jail for so long, didn't come out here. He's like,
Speaker 1: you dropped me from I can't could have been from
Speaker 1: another planet or something. So nobody understand what you're doing
Speaker 1: through except for another person who've been through exact same thing.
Speaker 1: So that's what for that. That brotherhood. You know, Axonorees
Speaker 1: like be a different kind. We take care of each other.
Speaker 1: You know. When Charles first got to the Axonorey Home,
Speaker 1: he took special care of one of his older housemates,
Speaker 1: Isaiah Andrews, was wrongfully convicted of murder in teen seventy four.
Speaker 1: He was exonerated in one at the age of eighty four,
Speaker 1: and he died less than a year later, right after
Speaker 1: he was awarded compensation by the City of Cleveland for
Speaker 1: his wrongful imprisonment. These days, Charles spends a lot of
Speaker 1: his time advocating for the wrongfully incarcerated and cooking for
Speaker 1: his friends and housemates at the Axonary Home. He's just
Speaker 1: completed a culinary training course and has ambitions to open
Speaker 1: his own food truck, although, as his nephew Houston tells it,
Speaker 1: Charles wasn't always a foodie. When me and Charles was
Speaker 1: coming up, Charles wouldn't eat anything. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He had that my grandmother cooks a home cooked meal.
Speaker 1: Charles had to go to McDonald's burger king because he
Speaker 1: wouldn't eat. This is how Charles was. But me, I
Speaker 1: should watch my mother and my grandmother and nam cook
Speaker 1: all the time. Houston even comes and helps out in
Speaker 1: the kitchen at the Axonary Home. I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: I can cook better than Charles, but I get Charles
Speaker 1: and run for with money. I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1: They ain't all about who can cook better? Who you right?
Speaker 1: But I got tell him. I said, Robin can cook
Speaker 1: better than beat Man. You might can do something better
Speaker 1: to be, but I can cook better, yes, ma'am, Oh
Speaker 1: yeah we cook, We definitely could. You can definitely get
Speaker 1: something to eat at Design of your House. If you
Speaker 1: want to donate to the Exonorey Home, go to x
Speaker 1: Dash Freedom Studio dot org. You'll find that link in
Speaker 1: our bio, along with other ways to help support Charles.
Speaker 1: Next time Unwrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, Amelia Bird, did
Speaker 1: you ever ask Chad to kill your parents? So? I
Speaker 1: wanted my gradually by mam alone and me alone? But
Speaker 1: I am dad. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
Speaker 1: to the links in our bio to see how you
Speaker 1: can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
Speaker 1: Flom and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul.
Speaker 1: The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with
Speaker 1: additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music
Speaker 1: in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: On all three platforms, you can also follow me on
Speaker 1: both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Come Penny Number one