Speaker 1: Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden as well
Speaker 1: as the number one true crime podcast, My Friend The
Speaker 1: Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
Speaker 1: I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
Speaker 1: a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
Speaker 1: the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
Speaker 1: which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
Speaker 1: half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
Speaker 1: abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
Speaker 1: to share this story of a man who fought the
Speaker 1: law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
Speaker 1: prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Louis Scarcela
Speaker 1: of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Previously on The Burden, Derek came to Auburn.
Speaker 3: How many of you guys know what a burden prove
Speaker 3: was a four forty motion? Nobody knows in the law library.
Speaker 3: Is when I learned that Scott Seller is his cop
Speaker 3: and I say, damn man, it's the same fucker that
Speaker 3: train me. You, Me and Derek all three of us
Speaker 3: in the law library. We'd be able to run.
Speaker 2: It like it's a real law firm.
Speaker 3: Scott's soler the kids to run around.
Speaker 2: Thank He's God.
Speaker 3: I got a problem with that. I would die before
Speaker 3: I met killing somebody didn't kill.
Speaker 4: That's Derek Hamilton, legal savant and convicted murderer. It's two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine and he has a parole hearing coming
Speaker 4: up at that exact moment. Derek is forty four years
Speaker 4: old and has been in prison most of his adult life.
Speaker 3: I was in some of the toughest prison in the
Speaker 3: state and about the water being black, like totally black,
Speaker 3: totally totally black. For days, I was swing Litigayden.
Speaker 4: Derek would file grievances, sue for better food, claimed to
Speaker 4: be Jewish at one point so he could get the
Speaker 4: kosher meals. He fought a disciplinary ticket issued because he
Speaker 4: had a picture of a topless woman. Derek claimed that
Speaker 4: that was not explicitly prohibited in the manual of conduct. Eventually,
Speaker 4: the prison threw him in involuntary protective custody. It's solitary,
Speaker 4: but without a release date. They said it was for
Speaker 4: his protection. They claimed members of the Blood's gang were
Speaker 4: after him. Derek protested that he didn't need protection. He
Speaker 4: claimed that it was retaliation by the prison for all
Speaker 4: of his grievances.
Speaker 1: In Derek's mind, there were only two ways out of prison.
Speaker 1: One was to admit to a er he claims he
Speaker 1: didn't do, show remorse in front of the parole board.
Speaker 3: You gotta say you killed this guy. If you don't,
Speaker 3: you're never getting out of prison.
Speaker 1: Or the other option.
Speaker 3: Was that I had to leave prison in a box.
Speaker 5: Storm cloud of comments common straight to you can't run
Speaker 5: for shelter. There's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 2: I'm Dax Devlin Ross.
Speaker 1: And I'm Steve Fishman. Welcome to the Burden. In this
Speaker 1: episode The Derek Dilemma.
Speaker 4: Derek Hamilton and Louis Scarcela names forever linked.
Speaker 2: Derek became Louis nemesis.
Speaker 4: Louis was the story detective and Derek the marginalized convict.
Speaker 2: But Derek, he also had a couple of.
Speaker 4: Things going for him, his relentlessness and his growing credibility.
Speaker 1: His credibility, yes, that was a key. What happens to
Speaker 1: that credibility when Derek admits he's a manipulator and a liar.
Speaker 6: Derek was a violent guy.
Speaker 2: God like God when it comes to criminal law, A
Speaker 2: man whose mind is like a human legal computer.
Speaker 6: He had a reputation on the street. People you know
Speaker 6: wouldn't fuck with Derek.
Speaker 3: I don't think it. I owe anybody the truth against
Speaker 3: my interest.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people he killed. You got
Speaker 1: a hold all time.
Speaker 4: Around the time Louis Scarcela was starting his rise as
Speaker 4: a cop in the late seventies, Derek was a kid
Speaker 4: in a working class part of Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: I should liked the West suits. As a kid, my
Speaker 3: favorite was a quarter Ways shoe. Wasn't my favorite light
Speaker 3: Quarterways shoe and a brown collar. Hey brother's laugh, you know,
Speaker 3: and Sudie you know. But that was my identity. It
Speaker 3: made me feel good, like I was empowered, like I
Speaker 3: can run the world.
Speaker 2: He got a reputation for being smart.
Speaker 3: I mean when he came to reading comprehension, it's weird
Speaker 3: icel So in those days, I got a suit on.
Speaker 3: I'm going to the spelling bee. I'm going to be
Speaker 3: the smartest guy in that spelling bee. I'm feeling, you know,
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna take the spelling me.
Speaker 4: He says he was so good at them that the
Speaker 4: school stopped letting him participate. After Derek's family fell on
Speaker 4: hard times, they moved to a project in Brooklyn called
Speaker 4: Lafayette Gardens. It was like a small town, seven high rises,
Speaker 4: almost a thousand departments.
Speaker 2: Many of the residents were poor. It was a big
Speaker 2: change for Derek.
Speaker 3: You got a pay of sneakers or basketball. The housing
Speaker 3: projects I came from. When you went downstairs with some
Speaker 3: kid or whatever, try to take him from you. As
Speaker 3: you get older, you realize that there's some older guys
Speaker 3: that can fight. There's some older guys that's taking stuff.
Speaker 3: These guys can fight the ass or It seemed like
Speaker 3: these guys would just just live to fight, you know,
Speaker 3: so you have to get it on a delly.
Speaker 4: One summer day, Derek was in a Brooklyn park around
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: He's just entered his teens.
Speaker 4: The early days of hip hop DJ's were popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2: They were Park James Sins, they were called. At the time.
Speaker 4: People were out all night long dancing and Derek was
Speaker 4: among them.
Speaker 2: I ran into our young brother.
Speaker 3: Man God by the name of Baby Popper, who was
Speaker 3: one of the flyers. Guys you would see riding minibody.
Speaker 2: Had they can't go at man.
Speaker 1: This dude was just fly.
Speaker 3: He got a raggedy twenty two pistol to me, rubber bands.
Speaker 1: You gotta put rubber rams around.
Speaker 2: It, man, to shoot this thing.
Speaker 3: So this guy, you gotta put rubber bands around it.
Speaker 2: To shoot him.
Speaker 1: Shooting up in the head.
Speaker 3: And chasing everybody out of the park gym. But for
Speaker 3: that moment, you see as a young kid, like damn,
Speaker 3: people were really scared. So a whole level of power
Speaker 3: comes to your mom because you said, all these mothers.
Speaker 1: Tough, but all I'm tough, motherfucker. The fight was running.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get beat up no more. At fifteen
Speaker 1: years old, Derek robbed a man coming out of a
Speaker 1: check cashing store. The spelling bee chap was going gangster.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the toughest people in the neighborhood started looking up
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 2: I was a terrible kid at seventeen years old. If
Speaker 2: you gave me your cost, Steve, you wouldn't get in it.
Speaker 2: Back in his.
Speaker 4: View, it was all dumb adolescent shit. It was peer pressure, situational,
Speaker 4: not a verdict on his character.
Speaker 3: I make no excuse for it, but these are things
Speaker 3: that was going on my community.
Speaker 2: One day at a park, Jim Derek was talking to
Speaker 2: some girls.
Speaker 3: Next thing I know, I see these guys with guns
Speaker 3: out and they approaching.
Speaker 2: I got a gun a shoe.
Speaker 1: He hit someone in the leg. On other days he
Speaker 1: wondered if he was the next target.
Speaker 3: I used to say this prayer when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: and I used to get away with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: I'll be honest with you times when I figured I
Speaker 3: should have been dead, that I was alive. Damn. His
Speaker 3: prayer must work, and the prayers for protection, Saint Michael
Speaker 3: ar change you. The fame of my time of battle
Speaker 3: against the wickedness stays of the devil.
Speaker 1: Father Jesus, pray for me.
Speaker 2: That's the prayer.
Speaker 3: It's a simple prayer.
Speaker 1: And when you think about it, the devil who's that.
Speaker 3: This is the people who attempt to lock you up.
Speaker 6: I dealt with notorious drug dealers from Brownsville, East, New York, Bedford, Styde.
Speaker 2: They all knew Derek.
Speaker 1: Joe Ponzie was chief investigator for the Brooklyn DA's office.
Speaker 6: Derek was a violent guy, and Derek had a real
Speaker 6: tough reputation on the street. The Hamilton Brothers were known
Speaker 6: as drug dealers in that area at that time.
Speaker 1: Joe Ponzie worked closely with his friend, Detective Louis Scarcella. Well,
Speaker 1: what else do you want me to tell you about
Speaker 1: Derek Hamilton. Louis once joke Derek killed more people than
Speaker 1: small box. He probably did. I mean, that's just an
Speaker 1: expression that I use. But he wrote his book. The
Speaker 1: book it was actually Derek's sisters book. She called it
Speaker 1: Don't let your Elevator Get stuck on Stupid. It was
Speaker 1: supposed to scare kids straight. There's one chapter about Derek's
Speaker 1: life written under his name. He signed off on it
Speaker 1: from Attica prison. Louis often talks about this book to him.
Speaker 1: It reveals the true Derek Hamilton.
Speaker 4: Here's an excerpt for you. My name became a permanent
Speaker 4: part of the ghetto gossip. All the guys challenged me,
Speaker 4: and I always won the battles. He wrote, Committing crimes
Speaker 4: became my favorite pastime.
Speaker 2: I was crime and it was me.
Speaker 1: Wow, I was crime and it was me. His identity
Speaker 1: in this book is completely wrapped up in being a gangster.
Speaker 1: And remember this is about his teenage.
Speaker 4: Later, Derek tried to distance himself from the book told
Speaker 4: us another inmate ghost wrote it and exaggerated for effect.
Speaker 3: It was a scripted book designed to keep young kids
Speaker 3: from going to prison. But it's not going to always
Speaker 3: give you the true story because he's characterizing things with
Speaker 3: the perception of scaring a kid.
Speaker 4: And yet in the chapter's final passage, Derek says, I
Speaker 4: pray that God. God's any of you young ones reading
Speaker 4: this to take my words for what they are truths.
Speaker 4: There's another crime Derek mentions in this book. This one
Speaker 4: stands out. He was seventeen at the time, and according
Speaker 4: to the book, he robbed a bread truck at gunpoint.
Speaker 2: Derek was fighting with the driver for the money.
Speaker 4: In the book, he says he ordered to accomplices to
Speaker 4: shoot the man. But when we asked him about the
Speaker 4: bread truck driver, Derek told us something very different.
Speaker 3: I was not dead at all.
Speaker 2: That's in a minute.
Speaker 4: Here's the story, and it comes from a March nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty three edition of the New York Daily News. A
Speaker 4: bread delivery man mortally wounded in an apparent robbery attempt
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn yesterday managed to drive his truck two blocks
Speaker 4: a gaspout and account of the attack to the police
Speaker 4: before he died. The robbery took place near Lafayette Gardens
Speaker 4: and Derek was seventeen at the time, so he pleads
Speaker 4: not guilty, and at that point he's assigned an attorney.
Speaker 2: Her name Candice Kurtz.
Speaker 7: Don't forget our system is you're innocent until proven guilty.
Speaker 1: At his murder trial, a key witness against Derek is
Speaker 1: a childhood friend, Patricia. The trial is on a break
Speaker 1: when Candice goes to the bathroom, someone comes in behind her.
Speaker 1: It's Patricia talking about Bush, Derek Hamilton's nickname.
Speaker 8: I was in the lady bathroom.
Speaker 7: She was crying, she was upset, she was scared.
Speaker 8: I was telling the lady that the cops tried to
Speaker 8: make me say that Bush did it.
Speaker 2: She told Candace the story.
Speaker 8: It was we in the morning. I don't know what time,
Speaker 8: but it was trying to turn light on me. The
Speaker 8: cops stopped me, a whole lot of cops three edom
Speaker 8: was asking me different questions and I'm looking like like
Speaker 8: I don't know which one to answer, telling me I
Speaker 8: know that I seen him, and da da da da
Speaker 8: da da. I'm like, I didn't see Bush. That was
Speaker 8: the whole problem. That's what they wanted me to say,
Speaker 8: that I seen busch. I didn't see bus.
Speaker 1: The cops took her to the precinct.
Speaker 8: They just kept he yeah, just nine oh hours that
Speaker 8: I will never, never forget. I wanted to go home,
Speaker 8: so I told them what exactly they said. I wrote
Speaker 8: down every word they say. I sing bus outside, it's
Speaker 8: a boy the bread truck.
Speaker 7: I walked back in the courtroom and I asked a
Speaker 7: judge if I could talk to him in the DA
Speaker 7: in private. So he went to the judges chambers and
Speaker 7: I told him that we had a problem, that it
Speaker 7: looked like there was police intimidation and the witness didn't
Speaker 7: want to testify. Judge Lombardo gets up from behind his
Speaker 7: desk and comes around and he puts his arms around me,
Speaker 7: I mean, and a tight hug, and he speaks into
Speaker 7: my ear and he says, and he called me Candy.
Speaker 7: So he said, Candy, just take it easy, just calm down.
Speaker 7: We both know who this guy is, we both know
Speaker 7: he's guilty, so can't you just calm down and let
Speaker 7: us go? And I was like, you know, I was
Speaker 7: so anxious, and so my heart was pounding, and finally
Speaker 7: I just said no, I can't. I just can't. I
Speaker 7: can't sell my client down the river.
Speaker 1: Candice isn't going to back down, and so now the
Speaker 1: judge has to go back to the courtroom and find
Speaker 1: out if Derek forced Patricia to recan't. The prosecution cannot
Speaker 1: provide any evidence of this, so the judge waivers.
Speaker 3: He's thinking about throwing the case out. But then we
Speaker 3: come back to court the very next and the judge
Speaker 3: says that he thought about this all night, that it
Speaker 3: troubled him, that it deeply bothered him, and that he
Speaker 3: changing his.
Speaker 7: Ruling, and the judge basically just said, I don't care.
Speaker 4: The judge basically decides that the only possible explanation for
Speaker 4: Patricia's recantation is that Derek threatened her. There's no evidence
Speaker 4: of this, but the judge concludes the cops would never
Speaker 4: do that, and so the jury never hears anything about
Speaker 4: Patricia's recantation. Candice turns to Derek. He's sitting next to
Speaker 4: her at the defense table. He's seventeen at the time.
Speaker 4: She gives him a piece of advice.
Speaker 3: Says to me, kid, get your head out your ass.
Speaker 3: I want you to understand what's going on here. I
Speaker 3: want you to know what they're doing in your life.
Speaker 3: And I said, damn, they are railroad in me. And
Speaker 3: at that moment I was awoken.
Speaker 2: The jury convicted Derek.
Speaker 4: At his sentencing, this judge likened Derek to quote a
Speaker 4: piece of garbage and sent him away for twenty five
Speaker 4: years to life.
Speaker 1: Candice had some more advice for Derek. Take matters into
Speaker 1: your own hands.
Speaker 3: She empowered me to be able to know that by
Speaker 3: studying the law and understanding what's going on, it puts
Speaker 3: you in a position to be able to fight back.
Speaker 4: A few years into his sentence, Derek wrote his own appeal.
Speaker 4: He'd immersed himself in the law by this point, and
Speaker 4: it worked. Four years after his conviction, an appeals court
Speaker 4: ruled that the judge acted on speculation and conjecture and
Speaker 4: violated Derek Hamilton and his constitutional rights.
Speaker 7: His conviction was overturned on appeal, and he came out
Speaker 7: of prison.
Speaker 1: Derek took a plea, got parole, and suddenly was out
Speaker 1: in the world, but not for long. Louis Scarcella was
Speaker 1: about to enter Derek Hamilton's life. I went up, I
Speaker 1: got very close to him.
Speaker 2: I said, you're going back.
Speaker 3: LG.
Speaker 2: That's in a moment.
Speaker 3: I was in the process of opening a unisection on
Speaker 3: New Haven and police officers stormed the interest of the door.
Speaker 1: Derek is out of prison, but he hasn't quite left
Speaker 1: behind his old ways. About a month into his parole,
Speaker 1: he shot a drug dealer in Connecticut. But on the
Speaker 1: day Scarcella burst through the door there about another shooting and.
Speaker 3: I came in and threw me on a wall. And
Speaker 3: while I was on the wall, Scarsella came up, just
Speaker 3: me on a cheek and said, LG, motherfucker.
Speaker 6: I didn't kiss him.
Speaker 1: I went up. I got very close to him.
Speaker 4: I said, you're going back to LG.
Speaker 3: Told me I was being arrested for the death of
Speaker 3: the Danil Cash.
Speaker 4: Not far from LG. That's the Lafiat Gardens housing project.
Speaker 4: A man has been shot to death. Louis Scarcella had investigated,
Speaker 4: and he was now armed with an arrest warrant.
Speaker 3: When we get to the precinct and he got five
Speaker 3: winn and says, you know, he got a big story.
Speaker 3: And I'm listening to this guy and I'm just saying
Speaker 3: it's impossible. I was in the waving you couldn't have
Speaker 3: one winness that.
Speaker 4: Only five, Just as in the previous case, Derek maintains
Speaker 4: he wasn't even there.
Speaker 1: For Detective Scarcella, this was an easy case, and Louis
Speaker 1: was thankful for that. The year of the Nathaniel Cash murder,
Speaker 1: the new You're post the parts of Brooklyn a killing ground.
Speaker 1: A murder was reported every sixty three hours. Detective Scarseller
Speaker 1: was thrilled that this investigation wrapped up so quickly. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that who done it. There was a witness who
Speaker 1: identified as the shooter.
Speaker 4: Louis, he has someone who's willing to testify that Derek
Speaker 4: did it. The witness's name is Jewel Smith.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't even a big case for you. No, well,
Speaker 1: it was a murder, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: it was done like that. Yeah, there was no wa
Speaker 1: Jewel comes in. She's yes, her eyewitness testimony had done.
Speaker 2: Louis arrived at the scene of the crime.
Speaker 4: There's a dead guy, Ned Cash in his pajamas, a
Speaker 4: robe and slippers. He's face down in a pool of
Speaker 4: his own blood on the sidewalk near the curb, which
Speaker 4: is fifteen or so feet from the apartment building where
Speaker 4: he's staying the location of the body will later prove
Speaker 4: a crucial detail. Scarcela testified that he found a shellcasing
Speaker 4: on the body.
Speaker 1: Jules Smith, the eyewitness, had spent the night at Nate
Speaker 1: Cash's apartment. She's his girlfriend of two weeks. Derek knew
Speaker 1: Nate Cash two he was dating the mother of Nate
Speaker 1: Cash's child. Small World. A few hours later, Jules in
Speaker 1: front of an assistant district attorney giving her account of
Speaker 1: the murder. We got hold of her recorded statement.
Speaker 7: My name's Thomas Musield, playing a newsild.
Speaker 2: Speak to miss Jules Smith.
Speaker 1: Today's date January fourth, nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 7: Miss Smith, you mentioned an detective.
Speaker 5: Earlier that you were with net in the night before.
Speaker 7: Just pick up from there and telling what you remember
Speaker 7: about last night and.
Speaker 9: Today when you were with my last light right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the original audio from nineteen ninety one, and
Speaker 4: as you can tell, it's scratching hard to understand Jewel's testimony,
Speaker 4: so we hired an actor to read Juwel Smith's words.
Speaker 4: She's talking about the victim, her boyfriend Nick Cash.
Speaker 9: So while he was calling me a cab, I was
Speaker 9: putting on my sneakers and then you know the cab
Speaker 9: came because they said five minutes, so then they came.
Speaker 9: So by that time, he put on his road to
Speaker 9: walk me downstairs to the cab like he always did.
Speaker 9: And when we went downstairs, I was walking in front
Speaker 9: and he was on the side of me. And that's
Speaker 9: when I observed Bush also known as Derek Hamilton, stepped
Speaker 9: around the banister and he comes step and asked me
Speaker 9: where Nate at? And Nate was like right here, I mean,
Speaker 9: he just start firing and shooting, shooting, shooting.
Speaker 4: From Derek's point of view, Jewel is another Patricia, another
Speaker 4: witness who, after talking to the cops, somehow says he
Speaker 4: committed a murder.
Speaker 2: He swears he didn't do.
Speaker 3: Like why would this person come in today and lie.
Speaker 1: Derek had known Jewel for years. They lived a few
Speaker 1: floors apart in LG and they'd been in contact since
Speaker 1: his arrest for the Nate Cash murder. From jail, Derek
Speaker 1: even writes her love letters. She responds. She assures him
Speaker 1: of her devotion, her loyalty. Once she wrote, I've never
Speaker 1: had anyone make love to my mind. Sure reads like romance.
Speaker 2: This manipulation, this manipulation. I want to know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Then the day the trial in July nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Derek is seated at the defendant's table when Jewel walks
Speaker 1: to the witness stand.
Speaker 3: So when I see her coming in looking dishevel, not
Speaker 3: looking like herself, looking totally dishovel, I know something was wrong.
Speaker 2: I sain't right.
Speaker 1: And she repeats the statement that she made to the
Speaker 1: DA the one where she saw Derek shoot and shoot
Speaker 1: and shoot and kill Nate Cash. What's more, she testifies
Speaker 1: that she was afraid of Derek Hamilton those love letters.
Speaker 1: The only reason she reciprocated was to not anger him.
Speaker 2: What is going on here? I mean, could this really
Speaker 2: be a case of the system finding two witnesses on
Speaker 2: two different occasions who are willing to provide testimony against
Speaker 2: an innocent Derek Hamilton, this time, of course involving Detective
Speaker 2: Luis Carcela.
Speaker 3: Amazingly over my case, he was the detective from the
Speaker 3: Book of North Homicide. He makes her into a witness,
Speaker 3: He makes Jules Smith into a witness.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'd love to hear Jules point of view on
Speaker 1: all this.
Speaker 4: That's for another episode for Right now, Derek's at the
Speaker 4: defense table and he still thinks he has a chance.
Speaker 2: I was still confident that I would walk out of
Speaker 2: the court loowner.
Speaker 3: He could be established that she's alive, as she made
Speaker 3: separate in consistant statements.
Speaker 1: Then Detective Louis Scarcella takes the stand.
Speaker 3: A first grade detective coming in, or a guy with charisma,
Speaker 3: a guy looks like at that time, a you know,
Speaker 3: he looked at like a real Italian stallion at that time,
Speaker 3: you know, shot mustache, he looked a good and he
Speaker 3: was appillable to jurors. And he took the and said
Speaker 3: that Juice Smith called him one day and said she
Speaker 3: was afraid to rid the grand jury, that her grandmother
Speaker 3: know me, and that I was a killer that killed
Speaker 3: people my entire life.
Speaker 1: Moster jury heard that my fate was seeming.
Speaker 3: There was no way that I was walking out of
Speaker 3: that courtroom.
Speaker 1: Was he good?
Speaker 3: Very good, very good, very very good, very good, compelling,
Speaker 3: And you gotta look at what they didn't believe in
Speaker 3: ju Smith. They believe un now because you have a
Speaker 3: first grade detective corroborating.
Speaker 1: It, first grade Detective Louis Garcella. He is confident in
Speaker 1: his version. I believe he's guilty of killing the Daniel Cash.
Speaker 1: I believe the district attorney believes he's guilty. I believe
Speaker 1: the city believes he's guilty.
Speaker 4: And on that point Louis there was also the judge
Speaker 4: and the jury. They all agreed that Derek was guilty.
Speaker 4: Derek Hamilton was sentenced to prison from murder again and again,
Speaker 4: given twenty five years to life's right.
Speaker 3: And the prosecutor they're so flaring, they're they're so theatrical
Speaker 3: that people get.
Speaker 2: Lost in the hype.
Speaker 1: You ever hear the storm of public goaa.
Speaker 2: We don't believe the height, but the hepens.
Speaker 1: What gives us convicted.
Speaker 3: It's not the etherde it's the height that these people
Speaker 3: are bad and he need to be removed from society.
Speaker 1: This is what sent us to jail, not the facts
Speaker 1: of the case.
Speaker 4: Which brings us back to two thousand and nine. Derek's
Speaker 4: been in prison eighteen years for the murder of Nate
Speaker 4: Cash and he's up for parole. To get parole, he's
Speaker 4: being told he needs to admit to a murder. He
Speaker 4: says he didn't commit and that he vows he will
Speaker 4: not do. He's still in solitary until the warden says
Speaker 4: he can leave, which won't be any time soon. In solitary,
Speaker 4: it's beginning to wear him down.
Speaker 3: When you're stuck in a cell with all you hear
Speaker 3: is noise, it makes banging and screaming and yelling and
Speaker 3: throwing feces and urine and flooding the gallery. It's chaos
Speaker 3: every single hour because you got a bunch of mentally
Speaker 3: ill people locked themselves and just can't cope.
Speaker 1: Every day, every day, every day, it takes its toll
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 3: So I'm starting to go to the parole board depressed
Speaker 3: and being told that there is no hope for you ever,
Speaker 3: and the only advice is to chet responsibility for your crime.
Speaker 2: I was just tie it. You know, you fight so
Speaker 2: hard and so you get to the points.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm tired of shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm tired of it. You know I gave up for
Speaker 2: a moment.
Speaker 1: After two decades behind bars, Derek hand writes a memo
Speaker 1: to this prison superintendent two, Superintendent Smith from Derek Hamilton,
Speaker 1: subject suicide. Note It reads, death will be a welcome
Speaker 1: companion compared to the torture you have subjected me to.
Speaker 1: I hope you are one day tortured like you have
Speaker 1: tortured me. That same day, Derek is in his cell
Speaker 1: when a corrections counselor passes by, He too, will write
Speaker 1: a memo.
Speaker 4: At approximately eighth one a m. It begins inimate was
Speaker 4: extremely emotional and upset, stating I went out of here.
Speaker 4: He turned his lights off and went under his mattress
Speaker 4: and pulled out a white plastic bag. I then observed
Speaker 4: him placing his hand to his mouth, followed by bottled water.
Speaker 4: Subjects sat down. He appeared disoriented. I observed his legs
Speaker 4: shaking as I called his name, but got no response.
Speaker 1: Derek is rushed to a local hospital. He wakes up
Speaker 1: shackle to a gurney. Three guards are standing by him,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 3: Was told him they got to kill me today, like
Speaker 3: today is the day that I die because I refuse
Speaker 3: to go back to that's uh and be treated like that.
Speaker 4: It's because of the suicide attempt that Derek is eventually
Speaker 4: transferred to Auburn Correctional It's there he will connect with
Speaker 4: Nelson and Shabaka to help found the actual innocence team,
Speaker 4: and it's there that he'll finally go before the parole board.
Speaker 1: I pour over the transcripts of parole hearings. Each time,
Speaker 1: Derek consists he'd only proceed if the parole board hears
Speaker 1: evidence of his actual innocence. Each time, the board refuses
Speaker 1: and the hearing is adjourned, until finally Derek decides to
Speaker 1: play ball. He submits letters of recommendation evidence that he
Speaker 1: won't be a menace to society. He finally goes to
Speaker 1: a full hearing. What happened there was so surprising that
Speaker 1: I remember exactly where I was when I read about it.
Speaker 1: I'm with my family in the living room. They're watching
Speaker 1: Rick and Morty. I'm not paying attention. I'm reading the transcript.
Speaker 1: The board goes through his crimes one by one. It
Speaker 1: takes a while. The board gets to the bread truck murder,
Speaker 1: the one he was found guilty of when he was eighteen.
Speaker 1: Another murder Derek insists he did not commit, and reading
Speaker 1: about that, I came across something I couldn't believe. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a typo. Derek was talking about the
Speaker 1: bread truck driver, the murder victim. Here's what I read.
Speaker 1: He was a hard working man and it was a shame,
Speaker 1: you know that he was robbed, And I took a life,
Speaker 1: and I apologized for that. I can never take that back.
Speaker 1: That was a stupid thing I did as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I'm ashamed of it. DA's when I read this,
Speaker 1: I figured I had to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I remember like not necessarily knowing what to
Speaker 4: do with it right away. You know, I was invested
Speaker 4: at that point in a completely different narrative the one
Speaker 4: he had been telling us for so long, which was
Speaker 4: that he wasn't even there. And so all I remember
Speaker 4: being left with was the question of had he lied
Speaker 4: to us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he lied to somebody. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was confused. I found myself thinking about Candace Kurts,
Speaker 1: you know, his lawyer in the first murder. She had
Speaker 1: stood by his side, she had put her credibility on
Speaker 1: the line. Frankly, I felt betrayed. I wondered if she would.
Speaker 7: Too, Okay, mess game starting.
Speaker 1: I found Candace Kurtz retired on the Upper West Side
Speaker 1: of Manhattan. She'd been a legal aid attorney for three decades,
Speaker 1: lived in the same rent stabilized apartment all that time.
Speaker 1: She's considerate. She locks up her cat me owing is
Speaker 1: not good for recording. I have the transcript of that
Speaker 1: parole hearing. Wow, Yeah, he admits to the first murder,
Speaker 1: to the bread truck murder.
Speaker 2: What do you think of that?
Speaker 7: It doesn't surprise me that he did it. I don't
Speaker 7: know why he'd admit to it, but I guess he's
Speaker 7: supposed to admit, to take responsibility for things so that
Speaker 7: he can get out.
Speaker 4: So it doesn't surprise you he did it.
Speaker 7: No, and it wouldn't surprise me he didn't do it.
Speaker 7: We know now that he was not guilty, but that's
Speaker 7: not innocent, right. Not guilty means a lack of proof.
Speaker 7: I can't prove to you that he's innocent, but I
Speaker 7: can show you that he's not guilty. Well, so he
Speaker 7: did it. How does that make you feel? It makes
Speaker 7: me feel shitty.
Speaker 1: I want to believe that he was franked.
Speaker 7: Why do you want to believe that? I mean, what
Speaker 7: the police did in his case were atrocious and supposedly
Speaker 7: we have a society that you can't do that and
Speaker 7: you can't get away from that. And I think the
Speaker 7: Defendants Guild is kind of irrelevant in the whole picture
Speaker 7: of what our system is supposed to be. Like, you know,
Speaker 7: some guilty people will go free if our system is
Speaker 7: working properly.
Speaker 1: So who is Derek? Is he a murderer? Is he
Speaker 1: a murderer? Even when he protests that he's not, he
Speaker 1: told the parole board he was. He told us he wasn't.
Speaker 1: We had to ask Derek about this, so we brought
Speaker 1: him back to the studio.
Speaker 2: With switching gears. Switching gears, switching gears, switching gears.
Speaker 4: What you hold to be true, and what you claim
Speaker 4: to this day as you sit here across from is
Speaker 4: that you were not there, You were not involved. You know.
Speaker 3: What I claim to be true was that I had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with James wolf death.
Speaker 4: Okay, right, But as a condition for you getting out,
Speaker 4: one of the conditions was that you had to admit
Speaker 4: to not true. Not true? Okay, so talk to it.
Speaker 4: So I guess we want to just we do a
Speaker 4: little bit of the read, right, Is it okay?
Speaker 2: If I read?
Speaker 8: All?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: So I start reading the transcript from the parole Here,
Speaker 4: I'm reading Derek his own words.
Speaker 2: Back to him.
Speaker 4: You know, I was young, ignorant individual at that time.
Speaker 4: I was living in an anti social community and I
Speaker 4: just did a lot of wrong things. You know, question,
Speaker 4: who was the victim in that case answer, mister James Wolf,
Speaker 4: I'll never forget that name. He was a hard working
Speaker 4: man and it was a shame. You know that he
Speaker 4: was robbed and I took a life, and I apologize
Speaker 4: for that. I can never take that back. That was
Speaker 4: a stupid thing I did as a kid, and I'm
Speaker 4: ashamed of it. So help us make sense of that.
Speaker 3: What is that you're reading from?
Speaker 2: First of all, this.
Speaker 4: Is from the parole hearing from twenty eleven, So this
Speaker 4: is the October eighteenth to twenty eleven parole here.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me tell you this. Right, One of
Speaker 3: the things you got to remember that when you go
Speaker 3: to parole, they want you to be remonseful. I was
Speaker 3: told that that in order to get out, you gotta
Speaker 3: go in and parole officill tall you this all the time.
Speaker 2: So I was remonseful. Right, I was remonsful.
Speaker 3: But I know I didn't commit that crime, and I
Speaker 3: probably did say that to get out of prison.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 3: I don't recall saying it, but I'm willing to bet
Speaker 3: that if the parole officer told me I had to
Speaker 3: share remors to get out, I'm gonna say whatever. I
Speaker 3: gotta get it out. Because I was a young kid, right,
Speaker 3: I was a young kid.
Speaker 2: Meaning you were not in twenty eleven. You weren't a
Speaker 2: young kid in that.
Speaker 3: I wasn't twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: This is twenty eleven.
Speaker 3: That's not two thousand eleven.
Speaker 2: It's twenty eleven. Well, you know what, you may be
Speaker 2: right thousand.
Speaker 3: You may be right, and I may have said that
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven to not fight them about something that
Speaker 3: I already had.
Speaker 1: Right, they're only asking for his name, James Wolf, and
Speaker 1: you're going to say, I'll never forget the name. He
Speaker 1: was a hard working man. Was a shame, you know
Speaker 1: that he was robbed. And I cried, be clear about that.
Speaker 1: And I cried.
Speaker 3: But I didn't just say that.
Speaker 1: I cried.
Speaker 3: I gave them tears with it. I'm being real with you.
Speaker 3: It was theatrical, right. I wanted to get home if
Speaker 3: I can't convince these RinkyDink parole.
Speaker 2: But people, let me go out.
Speaker 3: Your stay in prison, right, Parole is a show to
Speaker 3: get out. Understand what I'm telling you, right, it is
Speaker 3: a show to get out.
Speaker 4: We're not trying to ambush you know, that's not what
Speaker 4: we're doing here. I am going to register that I
Speaker 4: am feeling a different energy that you have related to this, right,
Speaker 4: I'm gaving them to some different energy.
Speaker 2: What's that about for you? Like, well, I just told you.
Speaker 3: Whatever energy you gather, that's your perception.
Speaker 2: Okay, But look, man, be in my.
Speaker 3: Position, right, serve twenty one years in prison and trying
Speaker 3: to get out, right, I would tell a parole board
Speaker 3: anything to get out with a lot of them, Absolutely,
Speaker 3: I would a lot of them in a heartbeat, us
Speaker 3: a warmth proceeding. See, I can admit to doing some
Speaker 3: things to make it look good, right, you gotta look,
Speaker 3: I'm calculated when it comes to certain things.
Speaker 2: Dave.
Speaker 1: I get it. Listen, I get it. It's worth doing
Speaker 1: just about anything to get out of prison. Of course
Speaker 1: it is. And to be clear, Derek is admitting to
Speaker 1: the bread truck murder. He does not admit to the
Speaker 1: Pearl Board that he killed Nate Cash. But still we've
Speaker 1: put a lot of stock in Derek's credibility, in his word,
Speaker 1: in his statement that he is innocent of the Nate
Speaker 1: Cash murder. And now he's saying lying is a tool,
Speaker 1: a legit tool that he'll use whenever necessary, which is
Speaker 1: pretty much Scarcella's view of him. Somebody's going to say, well,
Speaker 1: Derek Hamilton will lie when it's in his interest.
Speaker 3: Absolutely listen to me. I think a person that wouldn't
Speaker 3: lie when the dangest is a fool. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 1: The lie worked if it was a lie. After twenty
Speaker 1: one years in prison, the parole board voted to let
Speaker 1: Derek Hamilton back into society.
Speaker 2: He called his wife and I said, Yo, I'm coming home.
Speaker 1: But DA's We still had some questions, like Derek had
Speaker 1: made us wonder, at least me wonder if he lied
Speaker 1: about one murder, could he lie about another?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean so did he really do it kill Nate Cash?
Speaker 2: Should he have been found guilty.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that. We're going to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of whether Derek is guilty of killing Nate Cash.
Speaker 1: But first Derek has some unfinished business.
Speaker 2: Next time on the Burden, Derek's leaving prison.
Speaker 4: He's also leaving behind Schabacco, his partner in the jailhouse
Speaker 4: law firm.
Speaker 3: What then guys going home and they forget, you know,
Speaker 3: they forget the guys they leave behind.
Speaker 2: And I said, do not forget me, and he was like, I.
Speaker 9: Got you.
Speaker 5: Stone cloud of comment commonstrate too.
Speaker 1: You can't run for shelter.
Speaker 2: There's nothing you can do. The Burden is created by
Speaker 2: Steve Fishman.
Speaker 4: It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and myself, Dax
Speaker 4: Devlyn Ross. Our story editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our senior
Speaker 4: producer is Simon Rittner. Our producer is Snam Skelly. Our
Speaker 4: associate producer is Austin Smith. Our fact checker is Sona Avakian.
Speaker 4: Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise. Mixing and sound design
Speaker 4: is provided by Mumbo. Mediative produces are Fisher, Stevens, Steve
Speaker 4: Fishman and Evan Williams. Additional production help has been provided
Speaker 4: by Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Brauner, Lucy Souchek, Drew Nellis,
Speaker 4: Micah Hazel, Priscilla A labby Saxon Baird, Katie Simon and
Speaker 4: Katie Springer. We want to give us special thanks to
Speaker 4: Ellen Horn, Zach Stewart, Pontier, Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe to
Speaker 4: buy a Black, Rachel Morrissey, Mark Smirling and Lila Robinson.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to Marcy Wiseman. We want to thank our
Speaker 4: agents Ben Davis and Marissa Horowitz. Legal support has been
Speaker 4: provided by Mona Hook at MKSR ll P, and a
Speaker 4: very special thanks to Evan Williams, one of our executive
Speaker 4: producers and the person who made this podcast possible. We
Speaker 4: are honored to feature the song The Lacklightning from the
Speaker 4: Bell Rays is our theme music. The Burden is a
Speaker 4: production of Orbit Media and association with Signal Company Number one.
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Speaker 1: available everywhere you get your podcasts on August seventh. All
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