Speaker 1: Last year, I spoke to Iron Shellman, who served almost
Speaker 1: thirty one years in prison for a crime he did
Speaker 1: not commit. When we spoke, prosecutors in Wayne County, Michigan
Speaker 1: were appealing the court's decision to grant him a new trial,
Speaker 1: and Eiron didn't know if he would have to go
Speaker 1: back to prison. Well, I have great news. Earlier this month,
Speaker 1: Ereon was officially exonerated.
Speaker 2: It's hard to put in the words how I felt.
Speaker 2: It actually took a few days to like, let's start sleeping.
Speaker 2: Then I began to come to the realization, Dad, it's
Speaker 2: really open. Thirty years later, free.
Speaker 1: And today we're going to re air my conversation with Eiron.
Speaker 1: May fourteenth, nineteen ninety two started as a normal Thursday
Speaker 1: for Iroon Shellman. He called up a few of his
Speaker 1: buddies to hang, Andre, Floyd and Antonio. Floyd came buying
Speaker 1: his car, and they all headed out to get haircuts,
Speaker 1: pick up some liquor, and bounce around Detroit.
Speaker 3: We had fun, we laughed, we joked. All of those
Speaker 3: things happened.
Speaker 1: Eron was driving Floyd's car, with Antonio beside him in
Speaker 1: the passenger seat and Floyd and Andre in the back.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he heard a loud.
Speaker 3: Bang and it startled me to a degree where I
Speaker 3: almost crashed the car. And as I was trying to
Speaker 3: stop the car and gain that back, Antonio leaned over
Speaker 3: and fell into my lap. I had my dearest friend
Speaker 3: laying in my lap bleeding out the back of his head.
Speaker 1: Antonio was dead. The man who shot him confessed to
Speaker 1: police and gave a full statement.
Speaker 4: And he said, you know, I just I just lost it.
Speaker 4: I didn't even think about it. I just took the
Speaker 4: gun and I just shot him.
Speaker 1: But Ieron was arrested, charged and tried for his murder,
Speaker 1: and in the end Iran was the one who was convicted.
Speaker 3: I'm Iron Shelman. I've served thirty years nine months in
Speaker 3: prison for a first degree murder that I didn't do.
Speaker 1: From LVA for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today, Iaron Shellman. Iaron Shellman was born in Detroit
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I grew up on the inner city Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 3: Mother was a Desiree Salman and my father was a
Speaker 3: Theodore Right. My mother did a bunch of stuff early on.
Speaker 3: She worked at at and T for a spell, and
Speaker 3: she worked at Blue Crossing Blue Shield for a spell.
Speaker 3: My father was in and out of correctional facilities.
Speaker 5: So your mom pretty much raised you by herself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, with a handful of cousins and family members
Speaker 3: and stuff that you know also participated in the rearing
Speaker 3: of me. I have one sibling, she's ten years younger
Speaker 3: than I am. I have a host of cousins. They
Speaker 3: all think that they're my brothers and sisters.
Speaker 5: How would you describe Aeron overall?
Speaker 6: I would say, if I had to give it words,
Speaker 6: gentle giant.
Speaker 1: Right, this is Eeron's cousin, Sonya Shulman. She's nine years
Speaker 1: younger than Aaron.
Speaker 6: Sometimes when you see people who are larger in stature,
Speaker 6: you have a sense of intimidation, and that has never
Speaker 6: been that with him because he's always had a very
Speaker 6: soft voice, and so his words always came out really
Speaker 6: soft and graceful and kind. But when it was time
Speaker 6: to be protective, you could hear change, Right, don't do that,
Speaker 6: put that down. You're gonna get in trouble, you know,
Speaker 6: those sorts of things. Growing up, it was just like that.
Speaker 6: So because we have a small yet close knit family,
Speaker 6: everyone operated in a way that felt in a protective.
Speaker 3: Measure sort of way.
Speaker 6: So the older cousins or you know, of that nature
Speaker 6: hovered over all of the younger ones such as myself,
Speaker 6: in a way that felt very brotherly and sisterly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. My grandfather, you know, he would give us a
Speaker 3: few dollars every weekend and we would all pile into
Speaker 3: city bus and catch the bus downtown and watch kom
Speaker 3: Fu movies when we were children.
Speaker 5: What movies do you remember, Oh.
Speaker 3: We watched all of all of the Komfu movies at
Speaker 3: the Fox. You know, we were kids, like late seventies,
Speaker 3: early eighties. It was fans of the guys with the
Speaker 3: rings firstly.
Speaker 5: That's who it was, right, Okay.
Speaker 3: Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1: Although his extended family was always there for him, Iron's
Speaker 1: home life was unstable.
Speaker 3: You know, again, I'm pretty young, but you know, all
Speaker 3: signs showed that, you know, it was drug abuse and
Speaker 3: those types of things that were happening in the home.
Speaker 1: Aron spent less and less time at home, more and
Speaker 1: more time out in the streets. Before long he was
Speaker 1: starting to get in trouble.
Speaker 3: You know, typical story as as a household deteriorates and
Speaker 3: you know, it's no real real person that's making you
Speaker 3: do this or making you do that. You know, so
Speaker 3: you tend to start running with people that you should.
Speaker 5: And so what was that in your neighborhood? What was
Speaker 5: going on? It was?
Speaker 3: It was a lot. It just was. It was, you know,
Speaker 3: guys that did this and guys that did that, drug dealing,
Speaker 3: you know, breaking in houses. I was away a lot,
Speaker 3: you know, juve our delinquency, youth homes, training schools and such.
Speaker 5: How much of your childhood do you think you spent
Speaker 5: in some sort of facility or incarceration.
Speaker 3: I'm fifty one years old, and last I tried to
Speaker 3: do the math. I think I may have spent maybe
Speaker 3: fourteen years free.
Speaker 1: Do you think growing up with your dad in prison
Speaker 1: had any effective on how you kind of chose to
Speaker 1: live your life?
Speaker 3: Must have, right, Like you know, like my grandfather, he
Speaker 3: chipped in, he did the best he could. He worked
Speaker 3: a lot and such, but he come by every day
Speaker 3: and check on me and spend a few minutes with
Speaker 3: me a day. But for a child like me, and
Speaker 3: you know that was going through all that type of
Speaker 3: family drama, you kind of want a strong individual. You
Speaker 3: long for a father figure right to teach you, you know,
Speaker 3: what not to do and what to do.
Speaker 5: So you have these friends, you're kind of living this
Speaker 5: little bit of street life getting into some trouble. Can
Speaker 5: you tell me about your relationship with Andre Rice and
Speaker 5: Antonio Knight?
Speaker 3: Both of them was real good friends of mine personally,
Speaker 3: Like we grew up as like really really good friends
Speaker 3: at those ages. At the thirteen and fourteen, I lived
Speaker 3: on a street with Antonio from the age of twelve thirteen.
Speaker 3: We caught the same bus to school for like many years,
Speaker 3: I spent I spent nights over their house. I ate
Speaker 3: at their house, you know, when my mother was kind
Speaker 3: of going through her things, you know, and we weren't
Speaker 3: guaranteed to have a home cooked meal there. I would
Speaker 3: go over Antonio's house and his mother Darlene, and his
Speaker 3: kind grandmother and them. They would feed me all the time.
Speaker 5: What was Antonio like?
Speaker 3: Early on? He was like us pretty much, you know,
Speaker 3: kid trying to find his way right, trying to figure
Speaker 3: out which side of the tracks he's going to fall on,
Speaker 3: you know. And as I would come back to the neighborhood,
Speaker 3: as I was released from this facility, or I would
Speaker 3: get a break from that Foster home. I seen the
Speaker 3: change in it that it shifts. It was never really wholesome,
Speaker 3: but it stopped being that and more street.
Speaker 5: And then tell me about Andre. You said you were
Speaker 5: really close with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was kind of like a kid brother. You know.
Speaker 3: We would go out and dance and like a little
Speaker 3: like partying and such. You know, nothing really crazy, but
Speaker 3: you know, he went to school every day and he
Speaker 3: had a strong mother influence wouldn't allow him. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she was really you know, big with church and you know,
Speaker 3: and that type of stuff, so she really wouldn't let
Speaker 3: him veer off too much.
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen ninety two, Ieron was nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: He was still hanging out with Andre and Antonio, who
Speaker 1: also went by the name Tone, as well as some
Speaker 1: of the other neighborhood guys. One Thursday morning, Aaron decided
Speaker 1: he needed a haircut and Tone wanted to come along.
Speaker 1: Eron called up his friend Ken, who ran a barber
Speaker 1: shop at his house, and Ken said, sure, come on by.
Speaker 3: So we called Floyd, which was my buddy you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, and he would drive us. So he
Speaker 3: pulled up and picked me up and we started to
Speaker 3: accumulate more and more people Ieron.
Speaker 1: Floyd, Pennington and Andre headed over to Antonio's to pick
Speaker 1: him up, and Eeron went inside to get him. While
Speaker 1: he waited, he chatted with Tone's grandmother and little sister.
Speaker 3: It was really just me being goofy with the kid's sister,
Speaker 3: and grandmother said something or another to me. You know,
Speaker 3: y'all be careful, y'all, you know, stay out of trouble.
Speaker 3: You know. She was big on that type.
Speaker 1: Of The four of them went over to Ken's and
Speaker 1: got haircuts, then drove around in Floyd's dodge for most
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 3: I don't recall who was sitting where first, but I
Speaker 3: drove because I didn't drink as much as them. Throughout
Speaker 3: the day, there was shifting in the seats. We made
Speaker 3: a couple of stops, including like liquor stores, the barbershop,
Speaker 3: something to.
Speaker 4: Eat, and they did at one point stop at Montese
Speaker 4: Bell's house, so that's Aaron's cousin. They stopped there and
Speaker 4: chatted for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: This is Rachel Wolf, Aaron's post conviction attorney.
Speaker 4: Montes said at this time, like hey, guys, like what
Speaker 4: are you doing? Like where are you going, And that's
Speaker 4: when Aaron apparently said, we're you take Tone out or
Speaker 4: we're going to take Tone out.
Speaker 1: At some point that day, Andre and Antonio they have
Speaker 1: gotten into some kind of disagreement. But if there was
Speaker 1: anything wrong between them, Eron was unaware of it.
Speaker 3: I was in and out of a car, going in
Speaker 3: and out of cousins house, talked to him back in,
Speaker 3: so I don't know the full between those two. When
Speaker 3: we traveled back up towards Antonio's house, it was kind
Speaker 3: of quiet from Andre, but everyone else was still in
Speaker 3: the mold that they were in. We laughed, we joked,
Speaker 3: you know, all of those things happened.
Speaker 1: Eron was driving with Antonio in the passenger seat beside him,
Speaker 1: Floyd was sitting in the back seat behind Tone, and
Speaker 1: Andre was sitting behind Iron. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ieron
Speaker 1: heard a loud bang.
Speaker 3: And it startled me to a degree where I almost
Speaker 3: crashed the car. And as I was trying to stop
Speaker 3: the car and gain that back, Antonio leaned over and
Speaker 3: fell into my lap. I looked back, I seen the
Speaker 3: faces of Floyd and Andre, and I had my my
Speaker 3: my dearest friend laying in my lap, bleeding out the
Speaker 3: back of his head.
Speaker 5: Do you remember if anyone was like, what the hell
Speaker 5: just happened? Like what did you do?
Speaker 3: I don't know if anyone really screamed out. I really don't.
Speaker 3: I think it was what now, right? I think I
Speaker 3: think that that's that's the emotion. What now? Like you
Speaker 3: know what to do? What what happens? Now? Right?
Speaker 5: So what did you do?
Speaker 3: I drove? I stopped here. I stopped there, and before
Speaker 3: long we were in an alley, uh like maybe two
Speaker 3: three blocks away. They told me to stop. The gun
Speaker 3: was still in his hand, you know, it was pull
Speaker 3: over here. Stopped the car.
Speaker 4: Andre and Floyd pulled Antonio's body out of the car
Speaker 4: and left it there in the alley, and then Eron drove.
Speaker 3: I was just so scared, you know. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to be the one that was labeled to snitch or
Speaker 3: any of that.
Speaker 4: So they found the body in the alleyway. I believe
Speaker 4: somebody who ran a shop nearby in the area found
Speaker 4: the body in the alley and called the police.
Speaker 1: An autopsy showed that Tone had died of a single
Speaker 1: gunshot wound to the back of his head. Almost immediately,
Speaker 1: the Detroit police were out looking for the killer, and
Speaker 1: a number of suspects were rounded up for questioning.
Speaker 4: I do know that they arrested at least three people
Speaker 4: who were, you know, maybe witnesses. They suspected that these
Speaker 4: three individuals, as Montes Bell and then this other woman,
Speaker 4: Barbara Meyer and her boyfriend William Logan were all arrested,
Speaker 4: charged with the homicide, and then held for many hours
Speaker 4: before they ultimately gave statements. I don't know exactly how
Speaker 4: Iron and Andre initially became suspects, but I can wager
Speaker 4: I guess that they spoke to Antonio Knight's grandmother, who
Speaker 4: ultimately did come in and testify at trial, because she
Speaker 4: had seen these four men in the car together hours
Speaker 4: before Tone died.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, Andre Rice was arrested as well.
Speaker 1: Uron was still laying low.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm nineteen years old. I'm ducking in the
Speaker 3: dodge and I only really came out once I found
Speaker 3: out that they had arrested Andre, so I kind of
Speaker 3: let my guard down after that. I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: police arrested it, like you know, it's over with, right,
Speaker 3: But it wasn't.
Speaker 1: The statements from Montez, William and Barbara along with Tone's
Speaker 1: grandmother had placed Iran in the car when Tone was shot,
Speaker 1: and the investigation was now focused on him and Andre.
Speaker 1: Before long, the police found him at his cousin's house
Speaker 1: and took him down to the station.
Speaker 3: I didn't speak to him. They took me back to
Speaker 3: the sale for hours. When I come back down, they
Speaker 3: had a confession from Andre Sweat. He told me he
Speaker 3: showed me a paper with a signature on it, said
Speaker 3: he had everything he needed. And I said, well, if
Speaker 3: you got everything you needed, you got a confession, surely
Speaker 3: I can go, right. Was it the case? They said
Speaker 3: they needed me to put some nails in the coffin
Speaker 3: of him and to pull Floyd into it. I said,
Speaker 3: I don't know nothing.
Speaker 1: On June thirteenth, nineteen ninety two, Andre Rice confessed to
Speaker 1: shooting in to He told the police that Aeron and
Speaker 1: Floyd had no idea it was going to happen, and
Speaker 1: they had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 4: What Andrea says is that Tone had been threatening him
Speaker 4: and threatening his family, and so Andre says he had
Speaker 4: been drinking and he said he was sitting there and thinking,
Speaker 4: this guy's going to hurt my family. It's totally unprovoked.
Speaker 4: You know, I just lost it. I didn't even think
Speaker 4: about it. I just took the gun and I just
Speaker 4: shot him.
Speaker 5: So you stay quiet, he confesses, How do you think
Speaker 5: you got involved in this?
Speaker 3: I was tied to it either way, right, So I
Speaker 3: just assumed that since I didn't help anybody, and I
Speaker 3: didn't help the investigation, I would be thrown in somehow, right,
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: at the time, I didn't. I surely didn't think that
Speaker 3: it would garner me a first degree murder conviction and
Speaker 3: send me away for thirty plus years.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. On June seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, Ivon Shellman and Andre Rice were both charged
Speaker 1: with first degree premeditated murder. Their trial started six months later.
Speaker 4: The trial was actually pretty short. It ran over the
Speaker 4: course of five days December seventeenth through the twenty third
Speaker 4: of nineteen ninety two. They were tried together, Andre and Ieron,
Speaker 4: but they had separate juries.
Speaker 1: The judge was Vera Massey Jones and the prosecutor was
Speaker 1: Lisa Lindsay. Ireon's defense attorney was Paul Curtis and Andre's
Speaker 1: attorney was Jeffrey Edison.
Speaker 4: He was partners with Paul Curtis. They were law partners.
Speaker 4: They were operating out of the same office. There is
Speaker 4: a potential conflict of interest there.
Speaker 1: But the trial moved forward with very little to go on.
Speaker 1: There was no physical evidence for the state to present.
Speaker 4: They never found a murder weapon in the case. According
Speaker 4: to the police, they never found the car. Floyd went
Speaker 4: away with the car. The car was never seen again,
Speaker 4: so they couldn't fingerprint it or do anything like that.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 1: The prosecution's few witnesses included a medical examiner and one
Speaker 1: of the police officers.
Speaker 4: And then there was Antonio. Knight's grandmother came in and
Speaker 4: testified about what had happened when they came to pick Antonio.
Speaker 6: Up that day.
Speaker 4: In what she saw, there were three people in the vehicle,
Speaker 4: well for if you count Antonio himself. One of them
Speaker 4: was never charged, never arrested, never interviewed.
Speaker 1: That was Floyd Pennington, the owner of the car.
Speaker 4: He was the one white man in the car, which
Speaker 4: I also find interesting. You know, so their only evidence
Speaker 4: that Iran was guilty was this testimony of his cousin.
Speaker 1: Montes Bell was the state star witness. He was the
Speaker 1: one who said Iran had told him they were going
Speaker 1: to take tone out.
Speaker 4: He was the one that was going to make it difference,
Speaker 4: and his testimony was incredible. There were lots of ways
Speaker 4: to impeach him and discredit him, just using conflicts in
Speaker 4: his own testimony, conflicts between what he said at trial
Speaker 4: and at the exam, the fact that he had charges pending,
Speaker 4: the fact that he was facing the homicide charge initially,
Speaker 4: so he just the trial attorney really just focused on
Speaker 4: cross examination.
Speaker 1: Did the police convince anyone to testify against him that
Speaker 1: maybe made something up?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I will say that one of the investigators on the case,
Speaker 4: her name was Barbara Simon, has been alleged in several
Speaker 4: other cases of pressuring witnesses eliciting fabricated testimony. So it's possible,
Speaker 4: and especially knowing what we do about the Detroit Police
Speaker 4: department at that time, it's possible. Barbara Meyer said straight
Speaker 4: up that she gave them seven different statements and they
Speaker 4: would not release her until she gave the one that
Speaker 4: they wanted her to and she said, at that point,
Speaker 4: I would have done anything to get out of there.
Speaker 4: It's one of the worst places I've ever been, and
Speaker 4: I hear that a lot.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: To understand what happened next, it's important to know how
Speaker 1: the trial was conducted. Ivon and Andre were co defendants
Speaker 1: and they were tried together before the same judge and prosecutor.
Speaker 1: But they had two separate defense attorneys and two separate juries.
Speaker 4: So the way they do that is, you know, they'll
Speaker 4: do partial testimony from one witness. They'll present the things
Speaker 4: in front of each jury while the other jury is
Speaker 4: out of the courtroom, and anything that pertains to both cases,
Speaker 4: they'll have both juries in the courtroom. It's something they
Speaker 4: do a lot to save time.
Speaker 1: This means that potentially each jury could get a very
Speaker 1: different picture of this same set of events.
Speaker 4: Andre didn't testify at the trial, but they had a
Speaker 4: police office or take the stand and read his initial
Speaker 4: statement into the record. This is the very first version
Speaker 4: of events he told police. You know, he went in there,
Speaker 4: they interviewed him. He said, we were all in the car.
Speaker 4: I shot him. The other two people in the car
Speaker 4: with me didn't know anything about it. I didn't even
Speaker 4: think about it. I just acted right. That same evidence
Speaker 4: was not presented to mister Shelman's jury, ever.
Speaker 3: He was convicted. First, he was charged with first degree
Speaker 3: murder and felony firearm. They reduced his to second degree
Speaker 3: murder with felony firearm, and they just left me at
Speaker 3: first degree murder.
Speaker 4: And in this case, Andre I believe got twenty five
Speaker 4: to sixty years was his sentence.
Speaker 1: I just I'm just still wondering how that happened, because
Speaker 1: it isn't it true that Andre also said like you
Speaker 1: were not involved, you didn't know anything.
Speaker 3: That information was never read in my trial. Jury never
Speaker 3: heard that. The jury only heard that I was a
Speaker 3: bad kid and I went picked my buddy up and
Speaker 3: something terrible happened to him. If you only hear a
Speaker 3: certain side, it's all you can make your opinion. And
Speaker 3: so I don't blame him at all.
Speaker 4: So, because the jury had not heard the evidence that
Speaker 4: allowed Andre Rice's jury to say, oh, there was no
Speaker 4: premeditation and deliberation, Ieron Shulman's jury did not have any idea.
Speaker 4: They didn't hear Andre's statement. So if they believed that
Speaker 4: he was involved, even in the slightest they believed they
Speaker 4: were looking at something that was the first degree homicide.
Speaker 4: That's the charge that was put to them, right, and
Speaker 4: they found him guilty of it. In Michigan, if you're
Speaker 4: convicted of homicide, either as the principle or as an
Speaker 4: aider and a better there is a mandatory life without
Speaker 4: parole sentence, and you're going to die. You're going to
Speaker 4: die in prison. It means life in Michigan.
Speaker 5: So Rice got a lesser sentence.
Speaker 1: I know that you explained a little bit of that
Speaker 1: because of the testimony that was not allowed into Eeron's trial.
Speaker 1: But that was not a Brady violation, correct, It was
Speaker 1: not hidden. The defense attorney just did not.
Speaker 4: The defense attorney knew about it, you know, and it's
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know. We interviewed Paul Curtis, We
Speaker 4: called him at the evidentiary hearing to explain his reasoning,
Speaker 4: and the only reason he gave was that he assumed
Speaker 4: Andre Rice would plead the fifth and just refuse to testify,
Speaker 4: and so what was the point of talking to him?
Speaker 4: And when I asked him, well, why wouldn't you use
Speaker 4: this statement. He didn't need Andre, he really didn't have
Speaker 4: an answer.
Speaker 5: When you're sitting at try.
Speaker 1: And they present this for Andre and then not for you,
Speaker 1: did you say to your defense attorney, like, what is
Speaker 1: going on?
Speaker 5: Why isn't this coming into my trial?
Speaker 3: I didn't have a clue. I didn't have a clue. No, No,
Speaker 3: nineteen year old No. I really believed that like someone
Speaker 3: would see the truth. Right, that's what you hope, right,
Speaker 3: You hoped it like like you know, you got me
Speaker 3: down for a murder. I don't have a gun possession
Speaker 3: to nothing, it's just a murder, right, and you have
Speaker 3: the other guy down for the murder and the gun,
Speaker 3: and you're assuming that like someone will say, like, because
Speaker 3: what was his involvement then?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: You know, so it just didn't happen for me. Prison
Speaker 3: is like a microcosm of like the worst of the worst.
Speaker 3: That's what I think prison is. It's, you know, you
Speaker 3: got your elements that's really bad and terrible, and then
Speaker 3: you got maybe a little bit of a sentil of goodness, right,
Speaker 3: and it's up to you which side you want to
Speaker 3: you know, attach yourself to when you go to prison.
Speaker 3: The older guys that tell you it's sheeping, its wolves
Speaker 3: in here? Which one you want to be? Right? So,
Speaker 3: you know, nineteen twenty year olds, I was twenty after
Speaker 3: by the time I was sentenced, I was twenty years old.
Speaker 3: I'm in prison. I have a life sentence. So I
Speaker 3: didn't make the best decisions early on. Right, I fought
Speaker 3: a lot. I wanted to prove myself a lot. I
Speaker 3: found myself in those head spaces. Right.
Speaker 1: Sonya was just ten years old when her beloved cousin Aeron,
Speaker 1: the gentle giant who watched over her, went to prison.
Speaker 6: It was a milestone, and not in a good way
Speaker 6: for our family. The impact was felt through the entire
Speaker 6: family unit and it was visceral. You could see it.
Speaker 6: People changed, things changed. It was a loss. It was
Speaker 6: a grief and loss experience for the family.
Speaker 1: And you know, he mentioned we talked about how he
Speaker 1: was in and out of some foster homes, juvenile detention.
Speaker 5: He got in a lot of trouble. When he gets
Speaker 5: charged with murder. Was that surprising to everyone?
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 6: It was he was nineteen we went to prison, right,
Speaker 6: there were teenage things, you know, joy riding or you know,
Speaker 6: running away from home or we can't find you for
Speaker 6: a week because you're hiding with a lady or a
Speaker 6: girl or whatever. You know, you never heard of violence,
Speaker 6: not from the gentle giant, right, So that was that
Speaker 6: was a major shock to our family.
Speaker 5: Did everyone believe in his innocence at first? Or was
Speaker 5: there everyone did?
Speaker 6: Yes? That was it was clear because we know him,
Speaker 6: we know him. So part of that grief and loss
Speaker 6: also included that charge and persons were not able to
Speaker 6: articulate what that meant and how we disagreed or how
Speaker 6: we couldn't even imagine something like that could happen. We
Speaker 6: didn't have a skill set. The adults lost their ability
Speaker 6: to rationally behave emotionally. You saw lots of crying and
Speaker 6: anger and who missed court and who went to court?
Speaker 6: And who should be finding money? And what should we
Speaker 6: be doing? It became a different family dynamic altogether. How
Speaker 6: do you pay for this?
Speaker 3: What do you do? Where do we go?
Speaker 6: That shift was painful to watch.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: After the initial shock, the family rallied together to support Eron,
Speaker 1: and as Sonia grew older, she took on more of
Speaker 1: a role in his fight for innocence.
Speaker 6: Our relationship began to get very strong. In my teen years,
Speaker 6: and so I would ask him questions and he would
Speaker 6: say things like, you're smart enough to handle this. And
Speaker 6: so he would like tell me what he was doing
Speaker 6: in appeals and send me what he had and I
Speaker 6: would read and so I knew early on about the confession.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, at what point did things start to change
Speaker 7: for you in prison?
Speaker 5: Do you remember when that.
Speaker 3: Was my last like seventeen eighteen years were without incident?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: In fact, my last eleven years and three months. I
Speaker 3: was a member of the TGIA Dog program where I
Speaker 3: helped train rescue greyhounds.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: So I did that, but it allowed me time to
Speaker 3: really get back into my case and research some other
Speaker 3: avenues of my case. And that's what we did, me
Speaker 3: and a fellow inmate, you know, we started going back
Speaker 3: through it and kind of looking at it from a
Speaker 3: different vantage point, and we kind of stumble up on
Speaker 3: a couple of things.
Speaker 4: So he filed his post conviction motion for a leaf
Speaker 4: from judgment in twenty seventeen. He had written it himself
Speaker 4: and maybe he had the help of a legal writer
Speaker 4: or something. He had written it. They held his cases
Speaker 4: called in abeyance. The judge didn't decide it. They referred
Speaker 4: it to the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit, that's the
Speaker 4: Prosecutor's office's own division to review these cases.
Speaker 1: Around that time, Aaron heard about Rachel from a fellow
Speaker 1: prisoner reached out to her. She had just started her
Speaker 1: own practice.
Speaker 4: So Ereon's case was one of my very first cases.
Speaker 4: It was the first case that I filed in the
Speaker 4: Wayne County Circuit Court under the name Wolf Law. So
Speaker 4: it's been a long road together for both of us.
Speaker 1: The first thing that Rachel did was to sit down
Speaker 1: and go through Eiron's trial transcripts to see if she
Speaker 1: could uncover a basis for a new trial.
Speaker 4: So when I read a trial transcript, I'm looking for
Speaker 4: all of the things the jury would have been looking at,
Speaker 4: all the things the prosecutor argued to prove guilt. And
Speaker 4: in some cases there is a ton of evidence. You know,
Speaker 4: there's video evidence, there's DNA evidence, there's multiple eyewitnesses. In
Speaker 4: this case, we have none of those. There's zero physical
Speaker 4: evidence in this case. So their only evidence that Iran
Speaker 4: was guilty was this testimony of his cousin, Montes Bell,
Speaker 4: and his testimony itself was about hearsay statements. He said, oh,
Speaker 4: Iran told me.
Speaker 6: That he was there.
Speaker 4: Earon said we're going to take Tone out. So yes,
Speaker 4: he testified on the stand. I took that to mean
Speaker 4: they were going to kill him. So the prosecutor's case
Speaker 4: was an aiding and a betting theory. So they argued
Speaker 4: throughout that Andre was the shooter. There was never really
Speaker 4: any question about that. Their argument was that Iran took
Speaker 4: part in the planning of the operation.
Speaker 1: Is that because he said we're going to take Tone out? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: oh my god.
Speaker 4: Okay, which Iran later explained at the He testified at
Speaker 4: the evidentiary hearing we had later and explained He's like, no,
Speaker 4: I you know, we're going to take Tone out, like
Speaker 4: we're going to go do something. We're going to go
Speaker 4: to the club, you know, something like that. So the
Speaker 4: two statements they had that Iran apparently made that montes
Speaker 4: Bell said he made were both also ambiguous.
Speaker 1: Rachel filed a motion for a new trial based on
Speaker 1: actual innocence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and newly discovered evidence.
Speaker 1: Their investigation had uncovered several new witnesses who testified on
Speaker 1: Eiron's behalf. One was a woman named Jennifer Palmer.
Speaker 4: She had had several conversations with Montesbell in which he
Speaker 4: admitted that he knew Iran had not been involved, and
Speaker 4: he knew that Iron wasn't going to be convicted because
Speaker 4: Eron never had anything to do with it. So direct
Speaker 4: impeachment evidence against Montesbell their main witness.
Speaker 1: And there's someone else who testified on Eiron's behalf, someone
Speaker 1: who knows the truth about what happened that day, Andre Rice. Andre,
Speaker 1: you remember, had gotten a lesser sentence twenty five to
Speaker 1: sixty years, and thanks to good behavior, he was relieved
Speaker 1: after serving less than twenty five years of that and
Speaker 1: he had already tried to help Eron.
Speaker 4: Andre Rice has been out for over a decade. After
Speaker 4: he was released, he wrote up an affidavit. So when
Speaker 4: Eiron filed his own motion and wrote it himself, it
Speaker 4: was based on Andrea's affidavit. And Andrea is also the
Speaker 4: one that went to the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit
Speaker 4: and said, hey, you know, I know this man is
Speaker 4: in prison. I'm the one that committed this crime. Please
Speaker 4: look into this case. The challenge for Andre is that
Speaker 4: in order to get a new trial, you have to
Speaker 4: have new evidence.
Speaker 1: Since Andre's confession had been presented at the time of trial.
Speaker 1: It was not considered new evidence when Eiron filed his appeal.
Speaker 4: If there is a new trial, Andre's testimony can and
Speaker 4: will be presented at that new trial. And so when
Speaker 4: the judge is looking at, Okay, what's the evidence we're
Speaker 4: going to have on retrial? Is there a chance that
Speaker 4: the outcome will be different? She does get to consider
Speaker 4: what Andre has to say, but his testimony alone was
Speaker 4: not going to be enough legally for us to argue
Speaker 4: that Aaron was innocent deserved a new trial. He'd been
Speaker 4: wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, when she reviewed the new evidence, Judge Shannon Walker
Speaker 1: found it credible, and in January of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: she vacated Eiron's conviction and ordered a new trial. Two
Speaker 1: months later, Aaron was officially released from prison after nearly
Speaker 1: three decades. Eiron soon found work at a chemical plant
Speaker 1: and got his own apartment. He still has to wear
Speaker 1: a GPS monitor and stick to a curfew, but he's
Speaker 1: been enjoying getting to know his three adult children and
Speaker 1: their families.
Speaker 3: They're all Gobris Dan. When I went to prison, one
Speaker 3: was barely what six months, and that was my youngest
Speaker 3: son Aaron, and his sister Alex and my oldest son Xavier.
Speaker 3: They were like almost three four when I went to president.
Speaker 3: I went in when I was nineteen years old. I
Speaker 3: was a kid, like I'm fifty one years old now, right.
Speaker 3: It's crazy sometimes when I look at myself in the
Speaker 3: mirror and I see my grandfather right, Like, I'm gray
Speaker 3: now and I'm more laid back. It's just a different experience,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm looking at life through different lenses.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Eeron's journey isn't over yet. In August of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, Wayne County prosecutors appealed to the court's decision
Speaker 1: to grant him a new trial.
Speaker 4: What happens in these cases that are thirty years old
Speaker 4: is that when a new trial is granted, you know,
Speaker 4: they lose witnesses. Monteese Bell is deceased, Antonio Knight's grandmother
Speaker 4: is no longer available, And what happens is the prosecutor's
Speaker 4: office is facing the possibility that they won't be able
Speaker 4: to retry him at all.
Speaker 1: But if the court order is reversed and the conviction
Speaker 1: is reinstated, there's still the possibility that Ireon could be
Speaker 1: sent back.
Speaker 4: And it's terrifying. We're terrified. It is extremely likely that
Speaker 4: they will order mister Shellman to report to the Michigan
Speaker 4: Department of Corrections and go back to incarceration, while we
Speaker 4: then would need to file another motion for a leaf
Speaker 4: from judgment or ask the court to reconsider the issues
Speaker 4: that she didn't address in her first ruling.
Speaker 5: Are you worried about potentially going back.
Speaker 3: I'm of the mindset now that if this all turns
Speaker 3: out to be like a great vacation from what I
Speaker 3: had been living for almost thirty one years, I'm okay
Speaker 3: with that too. It sent God's chans to me, so
Speaker 3: I don't stress anymore about it as much as I
Speaker 3: did early on. And again, I'm thankful for the opportunity
Speaker 3: to come out and rejoin society at this later stage
Speaker 3: and get to know my kids and my grandkids in
Speaker 3: a way that I couldn't from behind those bars. Right.
Speaker 6: The blessing of having him out alone is just his
Speaker 6: presence is absolutely breathtaking. It's almost like a butterfly, you know,
Speaker 6: coming from a caterpillar. Yeah. I enjoy watching him pay bills.
Speaker 6: I enjoy watching him ask about budgets. He enjoys it.
Speaker 6: He was like, this is a grown up bill. Look
Speaker 6: how I got my budget. I just want him to
Speaker 6: enjoy these things. I don't know anybody. I don't know
Speaker 6: any other humans who enjoy paying paying bills.
Speaker 3: I'm a big proponent of you know, I look for
Speaker 3: the little blessings as much as I look for the
Speaker 3: big ones. Right, You're more likely to stumble across the
Speaker 3: little ones than the big ones. You sit around and
Speaker 3: wait for that big one you know may not never come.
Speaker 5: But I'm okay, you are very graceful. I'm always so
Speaker 5: shocked that, after spending thirty years in a horrible place,
Speaker 5: that you guys are all just so so graceful and
Speaker 5: have such humility. And you're kind of breaking my heart
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 3: No, listen, once you meet me, you kind of can
Speaker 3: see that. You know, I'm much more than just my case, right,
Speaker 3: It's just the truth of the matter. My case happened
Speaker 3: a very long time ago. I'm sure for that family
Speaker 3: that you know, every year is a reminder of that, right,
Speaker 3: you know, it was traumatic. I'm a victim of something, right,
Speaker 3: But I'm not the victim. I'm just not the victim.
Speaker 3: Isn't here anymore, Maggie and so I tell people all
Speaker 3: the time, like pray for them, pray for that family.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
Speaker 1: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one