Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble with my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket. I didn't you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I was brought up like cops are the
Speaker 1: good guys. I didn't know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: But I do know that everything was stacked against me.
Speaker 1: Everything like everything, this isn't supposed to happen this way.
Speaker 1: I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this. How is this possible? I
Speaker 1: grew up trusting the systems. I grew up believing that
Speaker 1: every human thing should do the right thing. And that's why,
Speaker 1: even though Neil was dealing with corrupt people, I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to brave anyone to get me out of prison
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't live with the fact that I braved
Speaker 1: my way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent
Speaker 1: to proven guilty. I'm guilty until I proved my innocence.
Speaker 1: And that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since
Speaker 1: I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways,
Speaker 1: but it's still broken. I totally a little trust in
Speaker 1: humanity after what happened to me. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. To wrongful conviction with Jason flam That's me
Speaker 1: and today we're going to do something we've never done
Speaker 1: before and I'm really excited about it. We have two
Speaker 1: guests today to Marco Carpenter and Malcolm Scott, who were
Speaker 1: co defendants and now our co exonorees, both both wrongfully
Speaker 1: convicted of a murder and both exonerated twenty two years later.
Speaker 1: They were ultimately exonerated in an incredible twist of fate
Speaker 1: when the actual killer, Michael Wilson, as he was about
Speaker 1: to be executed, came clean and admitted, which he had
Speaker 1: done previously, but he said it again that he was
Speaker 1: the killer and that these men were not involved. You
Speaker 1: have to hear this story to believe it. Guys. I
Speaker 1: always say this, I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy
Speaker 1: you're here. So DeMarco, Malcolm, welcome to the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you for inviting us to the show. Yes, yes, thank you. Jason.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate this opportunity to even be here in
Speaker 1: the big city of New York. It's a beautiful thing,
Speaker 1: and to be on your show talking about something that
Speaker 1: I think is very very important that the people need
Speaker 1: to hear and it's hot here in New York, just
Speaker 1: like Oklahoma, So you guys probably feeling that at home,
Speaker 1: even though it's got to be a little bit of
Speaker 1: culture shock too, but it really was. So this is
Speaker 1: a this is a Tulsa case. And it's interesting because, well, DeMarco,
Speaker 1: your case has been featured on The Buried, a live
Speaker 1: podcast which is based on writings that you did in prison.
Speaker 1: And I've been listening to that podcast, which I recommend everyone,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I got a history lesson, you know,
Speaker 1: along the way, which is really great. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a real significance to Oklahoma that I think it's
Speaker 1: important for people to know about. It is the incarceration
Speaker 1: capital of the United States. Now it's now past Louisiana
Speaker 1: as the place where there's more people locked up per
Speaker 1: capita than anywhere else in the United States. Of course,
Speaker 1: the United States is the is the incarceration nation, right,
Speaker 1: So you're dealing with the worst state in the worst
Speaker 1: country in the world in that sense, and you guys
Speaker 1: were caught up in that. Um So let's go back
Speaker 1: because this takes us back to the nineties, right actually
Speaker 1: early right now, you guys grew up, did you know
Speaker 1: each other growing up. Oh yeah, we actually did. We
Speaker 1: were friends before we even got incarcera. And that's Malcolm talking.
Speaker 1: You'll get used to the voices on the air. But
Speaker 1: so you were friends growing up, and you grew up
Speaker 1: in a rough neighborhood by anybody's definitely yeah, right, definitely,
Speaker 1: um And so and I know I heard you talking
Speaker 1: about it, um listening to to the other podcast, the
Speaker 1: Bird Live podcast, about how you were pretty much surrounded
Speaker 1: by people who were in gangs. And because as I know,
Speaker 1: when people read the description, they say these guys were
Speaker 1: suspected gang members and stuff like that. And I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of people they say, WHOA, well, this
Speaker 1: guy doesn't salarly such a good guy. But in fact,
Speaker 1: that's a very nuanced situation, right, because you really didn't
Speaker 1: have it. I thought you described as very eloquently. You
Speaker 1: really didn't have much of an option in that situation, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you were never formerly a gang member, but
Speaker 1: you were friends with somebody. Yes, all my friends. Everyone
Speaker 1: who I grew up with was my friends and someone
Speaker 1: was in gang. So right, So then the authorities trying
Speaker 1: to paint that picture and say this guy's gang affiliate
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, right, realizing that you have literally
Speaker 1: no options, like you can't be an island in your
Speaker 1: own neighborhood, right, and there's consequences that come with that
Speaker 1: as well. And wasn't that the same situation for you, Malcolm?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, basically, I mean I grew up around gangs.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of older you know, people in
Speaker 1: my family, friends that I had, who actually went to
Speaker 1: school with, so you know, you know, back then, it
Speaker 1: was much easier because you didn't look at these people
Speaker 1: as game members. You looked at them or these are
Speaker 1: just my friends. Before they even get involved in the
Speaker 1: gangs or anything. We were already friends and some of
Speaker 1: them were already in my family, so I didn't all
Speaker 1: of a sudden say, okay, we're you're a game member.
Speaker 1: Now you're no longer my family, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So when you hang out with these people, you're just
Speaker 1: looking at them as every day family and friends, so
Speaker 1: you don't see it as how the rest of the
Speaker 1: world may have seen them. So when a situation occurs
Speaker 1: where you get seen with them or something like that,
Speaker 1: they automatically think, oh, well, you must be a game
Speaker 1: member also because you're with these people but they don't realize, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is my family and that's where you live. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. This is where I live. This
Speaker 1: is the people I grow around. We hang out sometimes.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that I go do things that they
Speaker 1: may do, you know what I mean. And it's geography,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big part of it. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing I do want to talk about before we
Speaker 1: get into the crazy details of your case and the
Speaker 1: twenty two years that you guys spent in prison for
Speaker 1: something that should have been clear from the very beginning
Speaker 1: that you didn't do in the very dramatic way in
Speaker 1: which it came to light as a guy who was
Speaker 1: about to be executed reiterated what he had said all along,
Speaker 1: which was that you guys weren't the guys that he was.
Speaker 1: And he was executed, of course, for a separate crime
Speaker 1: that he committed, which he should have been in prison
Speaker 1: in the first place for this crime, and that person
Speaker 1: would have been killed, and that was a terrible, brutal,
Speaker 1: brutal beating crime, a beating murder of a clerk in
Speaker 1: a convenience store. But Tulsa has a particular significance because
Speaker 1: of the fact that going back well a hundred years now, right,
Speaker 1: Tulsa was the sort of the epicenter of black culture
Speaker 1: in the United States. It was it was called the
Speaker 1: Black Wall Street, right, yes, ninety one. And I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are really as familiar with
Speaker 1: that history as they should be. But it was the
Speaker 1: place where you had a higher percentage of African Americans
Speaker 1: who were doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, professional scholars. Um. It was
Speaker 1: the place um to be really um. And and then
Speaker 1: that terrible day happened. They call it the race riots,
Speaker 1: but in fact it wasn't a race. There was a
Speaker 1: massacre and a mass lynching. Yeah, um. And it's really
Speaker 1: one of the most shameful days in the history of
Speaker 1: America when you think about it, What can you explain
Speaker 1: what happened in that situation because you're you obviously know
Speaker 1: the histories very well. From what I understand, a white
Speaker 1: woman got an elevator along with a black man, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a black man named Dick Rowland. And that's
Speaker 1: partially why the whole incident of the nineteen twenty one
Speaker 1: race massacre happened. You know, after they get an elevator,
Speaker 1: no one really knows what happened because only those two
Speaker 1: were in there, and when the elevator came it opened,
Speaker 1: she came running out, crying and yelling and welling. And
Speaker 1: you know, no one really knows what happened while it
Speaker 1: was innovator in an elevator, but after that, you know,
Speaker 1: that's where it just it went crazy. Well what happened.
Speaker 1: What happened was he was arrested based on her complaint
Speaker 1: to the authorities. Now, it is an elevator ride. There's
Speaker 1: a limit to how much can happen in an elevator ride.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even a skyscraper, right, we're talking about nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one. But then he was arrested and a lynch
Speaker 1: mob formed, and the sheriff wouldn't allow the mob to
Speaker 1: take this guy out of jail, this rolling guy, and
Speaker 1: and kill him. And because of that, the anger grew
Speaker 1: and welled over into this riot that involved burning down
Speaker 1: over a thousand homes, killing over three hundred African American people,
Speaker 1: destroying basically every black owned business in town, and turned
Speaker 1: what was this sort of oasis of culture and community
Speaker 1: into literally a wasteland. You had families that were missing
Speaker 1: fathers and mothers, You had you know, hundreds of dead
Speaker 1: bodies and basically all the businesses destroyed, and so it's
Speaker 1: it's important to reflect on that as we fast forward
Speaker 1: to the time that you guys grew up in in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, where Tulsa had become a very
Speaker 1: violent or that area of Tulsa that you lived and
Speaker 1: had become a violent ghetto, you know, And there's at
Speaker 1: least a case to be made at gangs may have
Speaker 1: originated as a means of community members trying to protect
Speaker 1: themselves from this sort of a massacre. Let's not forget
Speaker 1: there were machine guns involved right back then, there were
Speaker 1: people spraying like government people with the flag. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really impossible to overstate the horror of
Speaker 1: what happened. But you know, and no one's trying to
Speaker 1: justify gang behavior and what it's becoming the modern day.
Speaker 1: But when you look at the history, it's sort of
Speaker 1: it does put a certain you know, context in it
Speaker 1: that's important for everyone to be aware of. So, so
Speaker 1: let's fast forward to September tenth, nineteen ninety four, which
Speaker 1: is a day that nineteen year old woman named Karen
Speaker 1: Summers was fatally shot in the back and two young men,
Speaker 1: sixteen year old men boys were injured, both of them shot,
Speaker 1: Alonzo Johnson and Kenneth Price. And it seemed like originally
Speaker 1: they found the right guy, but they how did it
Speaker 1: get so screwed up where they had? And this always
Speaker 1: makes me crazy and I didn't even go through it.
Speaker 1: But they originally targeted Michael Wilson, who was the actual perpetrator,
Speaker 1: but somehow or other, its shifted to you guys. What
Speaker 1: happened and Marco Wilson he also got caught with the
Speaker 1: murder weapon and the car used in this drive by.
Speaker 1: And that's why it get crazy when it shift shifts
Speaker 1: to us, you know. So wait, so this crime, this
Speaker 1: really came with instructions, right, I mean, you're right out
Speaker 1: of the police academy. This one's like a gift here, right,
Speaker 1: I got the whole thing for you on a silver platter. Yes,
Speaker 1: So why would they go off that they got the guy?
Speaker 1: Why did they particularly want you guys? For some reason?
Speaker 1: I believe that Michael Wilson was an informant and once
Speaker 1: he got caught, you know, they didn't want to let
Speaker 1: him go away. They want to still use him. But
Speaker 1: once he caught that other case, too much later. That's
Speaker 1: when you know they couldn't deny, okay, we can't save
Speaker 1: him now. They were willing to turn a blind eye
Speaker 1: to the murder of Karen Summers as well as the
Speaker 1: shooting of these two other young men who hopefully recovered,
Speaker 1: and they were willing to allow this guy who they
Speaker 1: knew was a killer to stay on the streets just
Speaker 1: to protect their own well it's for their convenience, right
Speaker 1: that they wanted to continue to use him as an informant.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, those were black kids. They
Speaker 1: had incurred that, you know, the crime was committed against
Speaker 1: black so it was black on black black and he
Speaker 1: was black, that the kids were black, they were shot.
Speaker 1: You guys were black. So it was kind of like
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of disposable, including YouTube guys who are going
Speaker 1: to go to prison for the rest of your life. Yes,
Speaker 1: So was it Wilson that decided, Hey, I'm gonna save
Speaker 1: myself and just give up a couple of names of
Speaker 1: guys I know from the area, or how did that?
Speaker 1: Do you understand how that happened? I think, uh, me myself,
Speaker 1: I believe that they had made some mistakes with Wilson,
Speaker 1: like I think they had went into his house illegally
Speaker 1: got the gun. You know, they had made a lot
Speaker 1: of formal mistakes. I believe that hadn't they not allowed
Speaker 1: him to cooperate with them, and they would have basically
Speaker 1: destroyed the case because I think like if they had
Speaker 1: not been able to go in there, into his house
Speaker 1: and get that murder weapon, they wouldn't have been able
Speaker 1: to go into his car, they wouldn't have any of
Speaker 1: that evidence. I think that they've been able to use
Speaker 1: but once they did it without any type of searching seizure,
Speaker 1: because there was never any searching seizure or anything to
Speaker 1: go in his house and get that murder weapon, you see.
Speaker 1: So I truly believe like the police that made a
Speaker 1: lot of mistakes within the case that they wanted to
Speaker 1: cover up and they would have lost the case had
Speaker 1: they not allowed Michael Wilson to cooperate and help them
Speaker 1: bring someone else into the case, you know, because we've
Speaker 1: seen them that night. That was a perfect opportunity for
Speaker 1: them to use us. And the bullet recovered from the
Speaker 1: body of the victim, well, they're three victims, but the
Speaker 1: woman who was murdered, Karen Sommers that was traced or
Speaker 1: matched with the gun that was used and the shooting right,
Speaker 1: so again another bull's eye, so to speak, of evidence.
Speaker 1: And then they found around a way around that right
Speaker 1: by by saying that that he has lend you the bullets. Mean,
Speaker 1: lad me three bullets, And I don't understand, like three bullets.
Speaker 1: Three victims and three bullets, but he had gave me
Speaker 1: the bullets. And you know, it still doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Is that like a common thing for someone to just
Speaker 1: give somebody some bullets like here like under the Christmas
Speaker 1: tree or how does that even that? I don't even
Speaker 1: understand that, Like, here's three bullets, and that's what he said,
Speaker 1: three bullets. He gave me three bullets, and you just
Speaker 1: had three lucky shots. Three lucky shots. There's only three
Speaker 1: you needed. That's all I needed. Were you like an
Speaker 1: expert marksman at seventeen years old? Had you been in
Speaker 1: in the military? Never? Never? Right? I know, that's just ludicrous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is, I mean, it would be funny
Speaker 1: if not for the consequences not only to you, but
Speaker 1: to the other victim, which is again and I talk
Speaker 1: about this all the time on the show A rafal conviction,
Speaker 1: the idea that Wilson was free after period of time
Speaker 1: and went off and committed this, this gruesome murder where
Speaker 1: he beats literally beats somebody, literally beat somebody death with
Speaker 1: a bat ball bat and and it was just a
Speaker 1: clerk in a convenience store. This was, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: nobody deserves that favor. This is an innocent person who
Speaker 1: is he and his family and his friends, everybody are
Speaker 1: victims in this, in this in this sort of uh,
Speaker 1: this conspiracy to frame you guys. Yeah, I mean there's
Speaker 1: not It's not only you and your families that are
Speaker 1: victimized a society, right because that that guy working in
Speaker 1: the store, who knows what he was going to go
Speaker 1: do with his life, right to be left behind a
Speaker 1: wife and two children. Yeah, Okay, that's really to think about. Remember, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's it's sort of I don't doesn't listen.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things in the world I don't understand,
Speaker 1: especially these days, but that's one of them. I don't
Speaker 1: understand how people can sleep at night when they go
Speaker 1: around and I'm speaking specifically in this case about the
Speaker 1: the police and the prosecutors um and I always say
Speaker 1: on this show. There's a lot of good police and
Speaker 1: a lot of good prosecutors out there, but the bad
Speaker 1: ones do a tremendous amount of damage, and the ripple
Speaker 1: effect of that damage can be felt throughout the community,
Speaker 1: and it puts everybody at risk. When this, when this
Speaker 1: is allowed to this stuff, it's allowed to continue and
Speaker 1: it and it does and it's it's horrible. So you guys,
Speaker 1: now you find yourselves arrested in charge with this murder.
Speaker 1: Did you have alibis? Did you have I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you had public defenders in the case, right, Oh, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely public defenders and I did have alibi. We both
Speaker 1: had alibis. I'm actually pretty good alibis. I mean people
Speaker 1: who are citizens, never being convicted of any crimes or anything.
Speaker 1: And my attorney never even called them up there to
Speaker 1: testify for us. He told us, who, you probably won't
Speaker 1: even really need them, you know, they don't really have
Speaker 1: nothing known. You guys won't really need the witnesses who
Speaker 1: could make sure that you don't go to prison for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. Nah, that would be like white.
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like a lot of extra time.
Speaker 1: Guy probably had places to be you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand it, but you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: and you're you're living through this as I mean, still
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're you're closer to uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're you're halfway between the child and the man at
Speaker 1: that point, right, because we know that that the brain,
Speaker 1: the adolescent brain, doesn't fully form until twenty five years old,
Speaker 1: so you're eight years away from that, and this whole
Speaker 1: thing is spinning around you. And you got this lawyer
Speaker 1: telling you, I mean, did you let me ask you
Speaker 1: this tobic defender? Yeah it was he represents. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had two different ones, but they was both trash and
Speaker 1: you were you were tried together. Yes, Um, so you
Speaker 1: had two public defenders who were useless. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: really understand how who in which my public defender, Stephen Sewell,
Speaker 1: after I got found guilty, he went over and worked
Speaker 1: for the district attorney. Well, there does raise a couple
Speaker 1: of interesting Oh yeah, yeah, those crushes. Right. I truly
Speaker 1: believe there was a lot of you know, little shady
Speaker 1: deals and things going on up under the table, behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. I mean, I mean, just as much as
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier about a lot of mistakes that
Speaker 1: the police had made and were covering up. I mean,
Speaker 1: once you've made a mistake like that and then this
Speaker 1: guy that you let out goes and you know, murders
Speaker 1: the guy in cold blood beats him to death, you
Speaker 1: have to continue to charade. You cannot admit, now, well
Speaker 1: we made a mistake on these other guys and let
Speaker 1: him out to do this, right, You can't. You can't
Speaker 1: admit that to the public. Was the guy who was killed?
Speaker 1: Was the guy's name was killed in the store? Richards
Speaker 1: Richard Jost? Was he white or block? He was white? Right?
Speaker 1: Even worse for them than right, because now they're responsible
Speaker 1: for the death of of of a white citizen. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's back to the Tulsa thing, which is such
Speaker 1: a strange place when you look at it at the history.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, So at that point you were really
Speaker 1: I mean, here, isn't that ironic too, because here you
Speaker 1: got this guy who two months and it sort of
Speaker 1: reminds me of the Central Part five case in a
Speaker 1: certain way. But two months after you guys are wrongly
Speaker 1: arrested and they ignore the fact that they knew because
Speaker 1: they knew, they knew Wilson was a guy O. They
Speaker 1: definitely know they definitely knew this. Like I said, this
Speaker 1: one was obvious as obvious as could be, and not
Speaker 1: just in hindsight, but right at the time. So you
Speaker 1: would think in an objective way that once this, once
Speaker 1: you guys found out that he had gone on and
Speaker 1: killed this guy Yost, you would go, well, okay, that
Speaker 1: proves that this guy was the guy and we should
Speaker 1: be going home now. But in fact it actually had
Speaker 1: the opposite effect because it caused them to dig in deep, predict,
Speaker 1: their heels in deeper into this false narrative that they
Speaker 1: were promoting, and so it actually was even worse than
Speaker 1: the fact that this guy had gone and committed this
Speaker 1: other horrible crime. And on top of that, ten months
Speaker 1: prior to that, this whole incidents with Karen simm and
Speaker 1: Michael Wilson, I was shot. I got shot ten months
Speaker 1: prior to that. How that happens. I was at an
Speaker 1: old It was a club called the Wagon Wheel, and
Speaker 1: it was a lot of older people and an old man.
Speaker 1: Some youngsters. Some young guys robbed this old man, and
Speaker 1: the old man came back and shot the club up.
Speaker 1: That's at least one of the stories I heard. I've
Speaker 1: heard many stories of who shot that club up that night.
Speaker 1: So I just came in guns blazing into a dark
Speaker 1: It was a drive by. And to this day, I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened or who who did it. But
Speaker 1: you know, I had a colost to me back, you know,
Speaker 1: I wore a colost to me back for three years.
Speaker 1: And you know I had a brace on this arm
Speaker 1: over here, and they took muscles out of my leg
Speaker 1: to put in my stomach, and a tracheost to me
Speaker 1: and all that. So fast forward to the time of
Speaker 1: the crime. When they arrest me, I'm in no physical
Speaker 1: condition to you know, du get around or do nothing barely,
Speaker 1: you know, I can. I have a brace on my arm.
Speaker 1: I'm sixty three, one hundred and sixty three pounds soaking wet,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not healthy. You know, I'm barely walking.
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to walk. I was in
Speaker 1: the hospital for three months, and you can tru check
Speaker 1: the records, but I was in the hospital three months,
Speaker 1: you know. And two months after being released from the hospital,
Speaker 1: they took the pins out my arm because I had
Speaker 1: pins on my arm and I had a brace when
Speaker 1: I was arrested. I had a brace on my arm
Speaker 1: and they told me I couldn't wear this brace in
Speaker 1: the county jail, so you know, my arm is you know,
Speaker 1: they actually wanted to cut my arm off. My mom
Speaker 1: and told him, no, don't cut my baby's arm off.
Speaker 1: So you know, and that's on top of everything else.
Speaker 1: Cut your arm off, cut my arm off, yes, because
Speaker 1: it's inconvenient to have you in there with the brace on. Yes.
Speaker 1: And it just so happened Malcolm this night that this
Speaker 1: when I was shot, Malcolm was there and his cousin,
Speaker 1: Big Marlon Williams, and they saved my life. You know.
Speaker 1: They picked me up with me in the back of
Speaker 1: Marlin's car, was headed to the hospital. Saw amby lamps
Speaker 1: flagged him down and you know, and that saved my life.
Speaker 1: So you were shotting the stomach in the arm, yes,
Speaker 1: and he's you guys. You can't see it on the
Speaker 1: on the radio obviously, but he just showed me the
Speaker 1: scars and there that's no joke. I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a grazing wound. It was like this is I mean,
Speaker 1: you were really shott. I'm not sure I've heard five,
Speaker 1: I heard seven, two different caliber gun. So I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you don't even don't have too many
Speaker 1: times shot shot twice. Yeah, so this guy came like
Speaker 1: spraying ball. Yes, it was definitely it was a real
Speaker 1: drive by. Whoever opened that door he was gonna shoot him.
Speaker 1: And because like when the door opened, because I think
Speaker 1: you were in front of me and I was behind him,
Speaker 1: and it was like it was an older, older guy
Speaker 1: coming out too, and as we're all going out, as
Speaker 1: soon as the door opened, we heard the shots. It
Speaker 1: was immediate thing, you know. So when he was shot
Speaker 1: right there in the door, because he was the first
Speaker 1: one out the door, and I remember standing behind him
Speaker 1: because I had got shot in the leg. You got
Speaker 1: your two. Yeah, I didn't get none of what he got.
Speaker 1: I just got basically it went in and out the leg.
Speaker 1: He got shot with basically most of everything. And then
Speaker 1: there was another older guy that was coming out with
Speaker 1: us he got shot also. It was like three people
Speaker 1: got shot. People got shot in because he didn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't so much as a drive by. He actually stopped
Speaker 1: the car like when that door came open. Because when
Speaker 1: the Marco got shot, he fell into the door. He
Speaker 1: didn't realize that he didn't know. I can probably tell
Speaker 1: your story better because he was unconscious, Like he fell
Speaker 1: right there in the door once he got hit, so
Speaker 1: the door, his body kept the door open. So once
Speaker 1: the dude continued to shoot whoever was out there, because
Speaker 1: it's a small little dance floor that's like right there
Speaker 1: in front of this little you know, a little juke joint,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And uh so everybody who
Speaker 1: was out there kind of basically on that dance was
Speaker 1: probably some of those eleven people that got shot because
Speaker 1: the dude was still shooting into the door. Once he
Speaker 1: fell into the door, fell with the door and held
Speaker 1: the door open with his body. The guy was still shooting,
Speaker 1: and you had some some couple of months there, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Most of you guys, you go to trial and your
Speaker 1: attorneys at dumb and dumber basically right basically, Well, and
Speaker 1: that's being kind because we don't know that one of
Speaker 1: them wasn't at least one of them wasn't on actually
Speaker 1: making a deal because he worked in a disattorney's office.
Speaker 1: After I I can convicted, right kind of like thanks,
Speaker 1: I think originally we had Steve sewell together, we had
Speaker 1: the same attorney together originally, I guess, and then un
Speaker 1: once he went on further, they separated it and they
Speaker 1: brought on Michael Harris, who was my attorney, and he
Speaker 1: took over my part of our case. I think Steve
Speaker 1: Sewell did his part. And they were supposed to work together.
Speaker 1: We still want to try together. You know, they were
Speaker 1: having issues where they weren't even really wanted to work together.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it was really you know, kind of
Speaker 1: let's push these guys under the rug. Let's get them
Speaker 1: out of the way. You know, we don't we don't
Speaker 1: need this type of you know, bad publicity upon this,
Speaker 1: especially this serious death penalty case, which was Michael Wilson.
Speaker 1: You know, that kind of took over as a more
Speaker 1: serious case because you know, of course it was a
Speaker 1: death penalty situation, and you know, it was here was
Speaker 1: this guy who was a clerk at a you know,
Speaker 1: convenience store to lose his life, a wife and children,
Speaker 1: small children left behind. So it was more of a
Speaker 1: storybook for people to want to look at and for
Speaker 1: them to admit, hey, we let this guy out to
Speaker 1: do this. You know. I think that that that in
Speaker 1: itself was very, very I think important and key in
Speaker 1: the in their pursuit to make sure that they convicted us.
Speaker 1: And you know, I can't let this go without talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that in America, the I don't have
Speaker 1: the exact statistics in front of me, but the odds
Speaker 1: of a of the death penalty being uh, of the
Speaker 1: sentence being given of death when it's a black perpetrator
Speaker 1: and a white victim are exponentially higher than if it's
Speaker 1: the other way around, or even if it's black on
Speaker 1: black or even white on white crime. Um. And that's
Speaker 1: something that persists from you know, uh, from from back
Speaker 1: in the day, and it's it's, uh, maybe, look, we
Speaker 1: should have a death penalty anyway in my opinion, but um,
Speaker 1: but certainly it's not. It's not uh, meeted out in
Speaker 1: a manner that is fair. Um, if there could even
Speaker 1: be such a thing, you know, it has a it
Speaker 1: has a clear racial bias, and um, it's not it's
Speaker 1: not something that anybody of good conscience should be okay with.
Speaker 1: And I always say to people, when I talk to
Speaker 1: somebody who's in favor of the death penalty, my thing is, well,
Speaker 1: what percentage of innocent people are you okay with executing? Oh?
Speaker 1: No, no no, No, I'm executing people I don't know. Well.
Speaker 1: But but you now, I'll say to somebody who had
Speaker 1: this conversation with somebody recently, but you know the system
Speaker 1: doesn't work. Oh yeah, yeah, but the system not doesn't
Speaker 1: work that good, or there's a lot of corruption. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then I'll go back to the same question. What
Speaker 1: percentage of innocent people are you okay with? Is it
Speaker 1: ten percent? Is it one percent? Which people? How do
Speaker 1: you like? Because you can't you can't look at it
Speaker 1: any other way. The system on. Somebody say, oh, we've
Speaker 1: got to fix the system, wouldn't Yeah, okay, it's what
Speaker 1: are you talking about. It's so broken and it never
Speaker 1: could be could be fixed, you know. It's it's impossible
Speaker 1: to have a perfect system, even if everybody is doing
Speaker 1: their job the way they're supposed to. Even if you
Speaker 1: had in your case, you hit the jackpot, right, the
Speaker 1: reverse jackpot, because you had you had cops and prosecuts
Speaker 1: who were willing to lie and cover up and and
Speaker 1: uh and do whatever they had to do. Um and
Speaker 1: you had incompetent defense attorneys. If all those things didn't
Speaker 1: line up, I can't believe that you guys would have
Speaker 1: been convicted. Oh no, no, because I mean even if
Speaker 1: you had, and what were these the witnesses who were
Speaker 1: prepared to testify as to your both of your alibis.
Speaker 1: Were they in the court in the courtroom, they were
Speaker 1: right there, right there. Yeah, so it would have been
Speaker 1: as as as difficult as uh, I would like to
Speaker 1: call the witness your honor. Okay, that would have been it.
Speaker 1: And the next thing you know, they would have been
Speaker 1: on the stand going on. I know Malcolm was over
Speaker 1: at my spot or whatever the hell it was, right,
Speaker 1: but it was too much trouble for the defense attorney.
Speaker 1: I mean, were you when when this was going on?
Speaker 1: Were you there like elbowing your guy going hey hey Carl?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I gave him, I gave
Speaker 1: him the fool names of everyone. No. But I mean
Speaker 1: when you're in the courtroom, right, you're you're you're experiencing this,
Speaker 1: this horror show unfolding in real time. You know the
Speaker 1: rest of your life is at state. You're seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: and and you know the witnesses are sitting right behind you.
Speaker 1: Are you able to actually tell your attorney, hey, I
Speaker 1: want you to call Yes, Yes, I told seuld, Hey, hey,
Speaker 1: call this person here, called Melissa Shields. She was there.
Speaker 1: She you know, he didn't call none of the people,
Speaker 1: my brothers, you know, all these people who was there
Speaker 1: at my house, you know, Laurie Omen, all these different
Speaker 1: witnesses who were there in the courtroom, at least five
Speaker 1: or six people that they could have called. He didn't
Speaker 1: call any of them, even though you were telling them, yeah,
Speaker 1: call him. And I'm telling hey, right there, you know,
Speaker 1: he said this here. That's not true because I'm writing
Speaker 1: stuff down at you know, or whispering and is there
Speaker 1: that's not true. He said this here. You know, call
Speaker 1: this person, this person right here. They can you know,
Speaker 1: they can tell you the truth. Basically, this is like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think everybody's had that dream in their
Speaker 1: life at least one of drowning. Right. This is literally
Speaker 1: like you're watching yourself drowning in real time. And so
Speaker 1: this whole procedure took. How long trial was bad today?
Speaker 1: I want to say three? Was it three? The last
Speaker 1: was they deliberate for nine hours? They deliberated nine hours
Speaker 1: nine hours? Was the jury? What was the makeup of
Speaker 1: the jury. It was all white, one black? Was it
Speaker 1: the old lady. Yeah, I remember. It was an old lady.
Speaker 1: I remember because they asked her some questions and they
Speaker 1: asked her and she said, yeah, I volunteered tear for
Speaker 1: the police department. I do some kind of volunteer work
Speaker 1: for the police depart And they still allowed her to
Speaker 1: be up there. So, like my lawyer was like, this
Speaker 1: is the best we can get. So the one black
Speaker 1: juror worked for the police department that she was a volunteer.
Speaker 1: She said, she did volunteer work for the police. This
Speaker 1: was our one black juror, you know what. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: aren't you going to be trying to get rid of her?
Speaker 1: She's saying, she's well, she's the only black up there.
Speaker 1: It's all we got. And I'm like, that's not helping us,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, that's gonna make it worse if anything.
Speaker 1: Like wow, that's just really And she did some more
Speaker 1: volunteer work for the police department. By convicting you guys, right,
Speaker 1: so then this trial, you know, it's it's amazing when
Speaker 1: you look at the elapsed time in the different areas, Right,
Speaker 1: So you're in jail for over a year waiting your trial,
Speaker 1: and then the trial takes two days, maybe three days. Nothing,
Speaker 1: It's gone in a blink of an eye. I mean
Speaker 1: civil trials take a lot longer than that. So two
Speaker 1: or three days you're in court. So the jury goes
Speaker 1: out and they're deliberating. Did you think you had a
Speaker 1: chance in hell of being exonerate or were you basically
Speaker 1: at this point, like I said, we're done me personally.
Speaker 1: You know, I believe that I was innocent. So I
Speaker 1: was like, ain't no way that they can convict us
Speaker 1: even though all this evidence is against us. We were innocent.
Speaker 1: We were innocent. What about you, Malcolm? Did you believe
Speaker 1: in the system even before this? And when they went out?
Speaker 1: I mean, were you guys able to talk to each other? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We were well, we were sitting waiting for the jury's deliberation.
Speaker 1: I think we rubbed there together. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: felt like, and why they not to cut you off?
Speaker 1: But why they We was waiting on them today to deliberating.
Speaker 1: They came back and told us that, you know, we
Speaker 1: can settle out for some time. They offered us a deal.
Speaker 1: Why are we waiting on a jury to deliberate? What
Speaker 1: was the deal? I remember they came back with eight
Speaker 1: years for me. And you too. No, they never came
Speaker 1: to me with eight years. Why they deliberate? They came.
Speaker 1: They wanted me to test. They wanted me to say
Speaker 1: Malcolm did it. Oh yeah, why they deliberating. They kept
Speaker 1: trying to get him to to take me down. You know.
Speaker 1: I think it was because the evidence was looking funny,
Speaker 1: so they were really pushing for him to you know,
Speaker 1: kept giving him offers of smaller sentences, but he wouldn't
Speaker 1: take it right. And isn't that interesting too, because if
Speaker 1: they actually thought that you were a murderer, there isn't
Speaker 1: no way to go off for you eight years. So
Speaker 1: they arrested you for a crime and that they didn't
Speaker 1: come at then, didn't want to cut your arm off,
Speaker 1: And now they're trying to get you to cut your
Speaker 1: friend off in a symbolic way and still go to
Speaker 1: prison for you years. Yeah, it's like, oh, and by
Speaker 1: the way, we have something behind door number three. So
Speaker 1: so you didn't take the deal obviously, and the jury
Speaker 1: comes back in and what was that moment like if
Speaker 1: you can explain for each of you guys, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously the worst moment of your life. And they come
Speaker 1: back in I'm assuming they didn't look at you, and
Speaker 1: you probably had a sense when they came in, But
Speaker 1: can you paint a picture of the courtroom? Was it hot?
Speaker 1: Was the coal? Was it noisy? Was it people there?
Speaker 1: What was the whole scenario? Trying to put the audience
Speaker 1: into your shoes as best as you can. For me,
Speaker 1: that was the longest few minutes ever, you know, waiting
Speaker 1: for them to give the verdict, and when they came
Speaker 1: back with a guilty verdict, you know, it's like everything stopped.
Speaker 1: I'm moving in slow motion and it just I'm watching people.
Speaker 1: I'm looking around my family. They're crying, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's warm in there. It got warmer, and you know,
Speaker 1: something dropped. I don't know if it was, you know,
Speaker 1: my heart, but I it was. It was a terrible
Speaker 1: moment for me, but I didn't cry. You know, I
Speaker 1: felt like I had to stay strong for my family
Speaker 1: that was looking. But you know it was it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: I mean for me, Like I'm gonna be honest, like
Speaker 1: just talking about it right now, my heart is beating
Speaker 1: fast just bringing back that memory, you know, of a
Speaker 1: day in my life that I'll never ever forget. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know I felt like every like bow movements
Speaker 1: and everything were better to just give away. It was
Speaker 1: almost like when that last breath of life goes out
Speaker 1: of a person and they lose all, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: control of their bodies or something, and it's like I
Speaker 1: felt that way. It was like my life had just ended,
Speaker 1: and I was looking at me and seeing it, and
Speaker 1: I was saying, like, why is this happening? This isn't
Speaker 1: supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: I know I had nothing to do with this. How
Speaker 1: is this possible? How is this possible? Is what I
Speaker 1: kept saying to myself and thinking as my heart was
Speaker 1: beating so fast, and I'll never ever forget that moment.
Speaker 1: And then it gets it just wanted you think it
Speaker 1: can't get worse, it gets worse because you guys were
Speaker 1: sayingced to life in prison plus one hundred and seventy years,
Speaker 1: which is you know, I don't I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: understand our system. What do you need? Life plus? Does
Speaker 1: that mean in case you come back to life, you
Speaker 1: go back in another hundred and seventy years? That what
Speaker 1: is one hundred and seventy years? How long were you
Speaker 1: guys expected to live? I mean, and so so now
Speaker 1: off you go to prison um maximum security prison obviously
Speaker 1: right for this time in Oklahoma? Yes, And is that is? That?
Speaker 1: Was that As bad as it sounds, it was worse.
Speaker 1: It was worse. When I pulled up at the prison,
Speaker 1: someone was being executed. It was real quiet. And when
Speaker 1: I saw the prison, it looked like death. Looked like death.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm looking at this place, McAlister, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, whoa, you know, this is where I'm fed
Speaker 1: to have to be. You know. It was a terrible feeling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was because of the fact that we
Speaker 1: had to automatically go to a maximum security prison. So
Speaker 1: we had to go to basically the worst prison in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma at the time. You know, at eighteen years we
Speaker 1: had finally turned eighteen and so we were basically still
Speaker 1: kids and we were stepping into the worst prison system,
Speaker 1: you know, praised prison in that uh state. And so
Speaker 1: you know, of course, it was definitely fear and you know,
Speaker 1: confusion and concern and worry of you know, what may happen.
Speaker 1: But you know, and it's like now you're going to
Speaker 1: this this mind of Okay, I gotta. I gotta survive,
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta make it through this, you know.
Speaker 1: And and there's no one else that's gonna protect me.
Speaker 1: There's no mom, mother, there's no daddy, there's no no one,
Speaker 1: no this you. So now you have to at eighteen,
Speaker 1: be you know, the man you know of yourself, like
Speaker 1: you have to be the pure protector of you. There
Speaker 1: is no one else there for you with yourself, and
Speaker 1: you have to step into that and realize, I may
Speaker 1: have to face this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And and you know the painted picture, the Marco's a
Speaker 1: big man, sixty three. But you were in a week
Speaker 1: in state obviously because of your injuries. Haven't been shot
Speaker 1: however many times. And Malcolm, you're you're a guy who's
Speaker 1: in shape, but you're not a particularly physically imposing guy
Speaker 1: and not like a large, large guy. And even if
Speaker 1: you were, it doesn't even matter from what I understand, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna be You're gonna be faced with
Speaker 1: terrible situations and they're regardless. Yeah, the size isn't in
Speaker 1: so much work. I mean, keep in mind, though I
Speaker 1: was eighteen then, I'm forty one years old now I've
Speaker 1: grown and a lot of what I put on right now,
Speaker 1: the muscle I put on has come from years and
Speaker 1: years you know, exercising and and building. But at that
Speaker 1: time I was a kid coming straight from the streets,
Speaker 1: basically sitting in a county jail land on the bump,
Speaker 1: So there was no none of the physical physique or
Speaker 1: anything like that. So you have to basically go on,
Speaker 1: you know, just coming in with your heart and even
Speaker 1: in there like a guy with shards that don't even
Speaker 1: means they're going to bring three or four of them
Speaker 1: instead of just one when they come for you. And
Speaker 1: you know, size and things like that don't really come
Speaker 1: into play when you got these guys with shields and
Speaker 1: knives and stuff coming at you. So I mean, in
Speaker 1: the system, you know, size of your physique, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's more important than really your heart and using
Speaker 1: your mind and being able to overcome the fear of
Speaker 1: you know, anyone out there, and being ready to protect
Speaker 1: yourself in whatever situation may occur. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's incredible at you guys survived this ordeal um twenty
Speaker 1: two years in places like that, but it also is
Speaker 1: a very unusual and uh I think important story for
Speaker 1: people to hear of how the legal process unfolded that
Speaker 1: resulted in you being here right when when if it
Speaker 1: was up to the authorities, you would have died in
Speaker 1: prison sooner or later. And it involves a number of
Speaker 1: things that are remarkable, right, including the witnesses recanting right. Um,
Speaker 1: And you know, we know that that's not as uncommon
Speaker 1: as people think. But you know, and of course it's
Speaker 1: worth talking about the fact that in over half of
Speaker 1: all the wrongful, all the exonerations, the thousands of exonerations
Speaker 1: that have happened in this country now, over half of
Speaker 1: them involved police and prosecutori misconduct. So we probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: be shocked by that. We have scandals going on right
Speaker 1: in New York State right now. So because you had
Speaker 1: your you had your convictions upheld on appeal two years
Speaker 1: after you went to prison, and by now m Wilson
Speaker 1: had been sentenced for the other beating right here, the
Speaker 1: sentence to death. Was he in the same prison as
Speaker 1: you guys, Well he was, but you know it's underground mccallis.
Speaker 1: They have a death row. It's underground, underground, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was separate, you know, has their own unit. They
Speaker 1: keep up it's like literally a dungeon. Yes, literally, so
Speaker 1: you get your conviction upheld. Did you guys think you
Speaker 1: had a chance of beating the rapp the second time around? Well,
Speaker 1: for me, I know at the time, you know, when
Speaker 1: I went in there, I wasn't aware of the appeals
Speaker 1: process and it was to the next day, you know
Speaker 1: when some of the older guys in the county jail
Speaker 1: told me that. So while I'm in the county jail,
Speaker 1: I mean, while I'm in McAlister, you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to the law libraria. I'm writing lawyers and letters to
Speaker 1: whoever and whoever I could think of, whoever I think
Speaker 1: that could help me. I'm writing letters. So you know
Speaker 1: when they when they came back and they said that
Speaker 1: the sins was upheld, you know, it was discouraging. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: die in prison, so I had to continue with, you know,
Speaker 1: striving for freedom. So that's the writing letters, me going
Speaker 1: to the law library, you know, me working out. You know,
Speaker 1: you want to keep your your your body, you know,
Speaker 1: it's your temple, so you want to stay as healthy
Speaker 1: as possible. So you know, it was a lot of
Speaker 1: things that contributed faith. You know, it was my faith
Speaker 1: because I felt that, you know, the horror of being
Speaker 1: didn't allow me to live through getting shot all those
Speaker 1: times just to come to prison, you know, with a
Speaker 1: life in one hundred and seventy years to die there.
Speaker 1: So it was it was faith. And I want to
Speaker 1: get to Williams and Price, the two guys who falsely
Speaker 1: testified against you, and how they recanted another thirteen years
Speaker 1: later in twenty and ten. But before we do that, man,
Speaker 1: how did you I'm always in awe of the you know,
Speaker 1: the strength of the human spirit that's personified by every
Speaker 1: single person that sat in those shares that you guys
Speaker 1: are sitting in now. Um, but how did you manage
Speaker 1: to maintain hope and in a truly hopeless situation? I mean,
Speaker 1: there really was no a rational person. It seems like
Speaker 1: would just be like fuck it, I can't you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people do give up in there, right, yeah, they do.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think that was one of you know,
Speaker 1: it's good that you said that, because I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that you know, kind of gave me,
Speaker 1: you know, that that that willpower is well that was
Speaker 1: one of the things I think contributed seeing the results
Speaker 1: of the guys who gave up. You know, I've seen
Speaker 1: I've watched a man, old man after being in prison
Speaker 1: for you know, thirty forty years, who had given up
Speaker 1: and he finally died in there and just watching him,
Speaker 1: you know, will him out on a gurney. And I
Speaker 1: think just seeing a lot of things like that was like,
Speaker 1: I can't go out like that. I refuse to allow
Speaker 1: this to happen. And and another thing I think that
Speaker 1: was very important for me was my family. Like I
Speaker 1: have a I got twelve brothers and sisters, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up with my family, you know, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot, but we had each other. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what made us closer because we didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot, so we had to make our own
Speaker 1: fun and games, you know what I mean. So it
Speaker 1: made us closer. And I think even me going inside,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to look back out there at
Speaker 1: my family and the support that they had given to me.
Speaker 1: You know, they never you know, like my mother, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: like she was my biggest champion, Like she's my biggest fan,
Speaker 1: Like she never once waved the eye and said, I
Speaker 1: don't believe you, or you are you sure you didn't
Speaker 1: have something? You know? It was no question there. It
Speaker 1: was like when I told her, when I sit down
Speaker 1: and told her in the county jail, I said, Mama
Speaker 1: didn't do it, like I didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: it with it. And it's like she would always knew,
Speaker 1: like Mom, knew you're lying. I'm gonna get your butt,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell her the truth. But she never
Speaker 1: once said, you know, are you sure or I think
Speaker 1: you might? You know, it was okay, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be here for you. And it was never she never
Speaker 1: changed from that. You know, even times that I would
Speaker 1: be like, Mama, don't know if I can do this anymore, She's, well,
Speaker 1: you gotta keep fighting, you gotta keep fighting, you gotta
Speaker 1: keep believing, she said to me. She said, God helps
Speaker 1: those who help themselves. And if and if you want
Speaker 1: some change for yourself, you can have to start doing
Speaker 1: the things that you need to do to help yourself.
Speaker 1: Reach out to the right people, connect to the many
Speaker 1: people as you possibly can. Don't never be afraid to
Speaker 1: humble yourself and ask for help, you know, And she
Speaker 1: stood behind me that whole time, and and her encouragement
Speaker 1: helped me to write people like the Innocence Project and
Speaker 1: and all these different people. I got turned down a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, but we never we never gave up. We
Speaker 1: never gave up, you know. And I think my faith
Speaker 1: and my family are like two of the strongest pillars
Speaker 1: for me to help me get through that situation. So
Speaker 1: fast forwarding to two fourteen, you guys file the petition
Speaker 1: and seeking a new trial with the recantations of the
Speaker 1: state's key witnesses, whose names were Williamson Price. They had
Speaker 1: originally testified that they saw you guys in the car,
Speaker 1: which which the authorities knew wasn't your car, it belonged
Speaker 1: to the killer, Wilson. So they had recanted in two
Speaker 1: thousan ten and said that in this will surprise no
Speaker 1: one who's a listener of the show, that they had
Speaker 1: the police had threatened to convict them on other charges
Speaker 1: unless they falsely identified you guys in the first place,
Speaker 1: So they had finally recanted. So two fourteen is a
Speaker 1: crazy year, you know. You have Michael Wilson finally executed, right, um,
Speaker 1: And as much as I'm opposed to the death family
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like society's going to miss him very much.
Speaker 1: But I am opposed to the death penalty, and I
Speaker 1: make that very clear. I don't think that killing justifies killing,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the States should be in the
Speaker 1: business of killing. So um. But he's executed, and this
Speaker 1: is where it's almost like a Hollywood script, right, because
Speaker 1: he has now confessed to the crime in detail, has
Speaker 1: said over and over again that you guys didn't do
Speaker 1: it right, yes, and the other witnesses have recanted. He
Speaker 1: gets executed and goes to his death and his last
Speaker 1: words are you know, he's repeated what he's been saying
Speaker 1: all along, you guys didn't do it. Now he has
Speaker 1: very little motivation at this point, like what's the difference.
Speaker 1: He's going out, but you're still sitting in prison. Yes,
Speaker 1: must be confusing as hell when you're sitting there and
Speaker 1: the whole case against you has completely unraveled, and now
Speaker 1: you actually had proper representation on top of that. Right,
Speaker 1: So besides Eric Cullin, who was an investigator who was
Speaker 1: representing you guys now Oklahoma Innocence Project who got involved
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven when Oklahoma got an Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: Our case was the first case that they took. Wow amazing.
Speaker 1: At the time, I had a lawyer hired, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know how you know, a lot of legal things work.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's gonna be a conflict of
Speaker 1: interest or anything. So I contacted my attorney first and
Speaker 1: was telling him about the letter, and he was immediately
Speaker 1: on board, like, yes, you need to get with these people.
Speaker 1: These people have a lot of influence, they have a
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of connections. You should you know,
Speaker 1: you know, allow them to come on board as well,
Speaker 1: because they can reach places that I can't. He was
Speaker 1: a local attorney, you know, you know, I didn't pay
Speaker 1: a lot of money for him whatever, but he was
Speaker 1: trying to help me as much as he could. And
Speaker 1: he was like, I'll even go and you know, speak
Speaker 1: to him on your behalf, show him a lot of
Speaker 1: the evidence that I had. He had the you know,
Speaker 1: the witness, the testimonies from the recantations of Rashawn Williams
Speaker 1: and and Keen Price or whatever, and so he went
Speaker 1: and you know, talked to the Innocence Project on my
Speaker 1: behalf and presented a lot of the evidence that he
Speaker 1: you know, he had been gathering itself, and you know,
Speaker 1: they came back and was like, hey, we're gonna help
Speaker 1: you guys. We're gonna you know, jump on board and
Speaker 1: try to see what we can do to help you
Speaker 1: guys as well. And from that point there they kind
Speaker 1: of just you know, kind of took control. What an
Speaker 1: amazing turn of events that is. Yeah, and when Michael Wilson,
Speaker 1: he said, Malcolm Scott and DeMarco Carpenter innocent, and he
Speaker 1: said it on video on video. Then he said when
Speaker 1: he was executed, and then it took two years after that,
Speaker 1: which is really crazy. And he and he explained the
Speaker 1: whole thing. He said the shooting was in retaliation for
Speaker 1: an earlier incident when he had been shot. He explained
Speaker 1: who else was in the car with him. It was
Speaker 1: the guy's Albertson and Hard Joe. And finally we get
Speaker 1: to May two thousand and sixteen. So this has now
Speaker 1: been almost twenty two years. You guys have been in
Speaker 1: prison because nineteen ninety four, two sixteen, the matter is
Speaker 1: not tricky, and you end up back in court. This
Speaker 1: is the flip side, right, This is the I mean
Speaker 1: the proverbial. I call it a happy ending because we
Speaker 1: know how many challenges there still are in front of
Speaker 1: you guys. And what was that like? So you come
Speaker 1: back to court, it's it's May May of two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen, May ninth. I think it was whatever, um,
Speaker 1: And did you did you know you were going to
Speaker 1: be released or was there still an element of suspense
Speaker 1: in the situation? Now, well, we didn't know it. I
Speaker 1: believed it, but we didn't know it. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the suspense was definitely still there. I mean because I
Speaker 1: mean we were looking at you know, if they could
Speaker 1: do it this time, you know, we're always going to
Speaker 1: be until the judge I had already said, I mean,
Speaker 1: until the judge actually says, you know, you're innocent and
Speaker 1: free to go. I was gonna be like, please, please, please,
Speaker 1: please please let this go right this time. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the suspense was definitely still there for me. I was
Speaker 1: still having my concerns because you gotta remember, I mean,
Speaker 1: if it was so preposterous that this could even happen
Speaker 1: to us after them, after all this evidence and stuff
Speaker 1: that they had on this other person, and they still
Speaker 1: took us down. So in my mind, it's like it's
Speaker 1: nothing that I could put past these people, Like, I
Speaker 1: can't say for sure that this is going to happen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? So, so explain that moment now.
Speaker 1: Because we talked about the moment of absolute shock and
Speaker 1: horror and the worst moment of your life. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: this was the best moment of your life or both
Speaker 1: of your lives. Um, I see you both nodding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine anything could be better. So and you
Speaker 1: were there together in court, Yes, just like back twenty
Speaker 1: two years ago, except the opposite. So what was that moment?
Speaker 1: Like families back in the courtroom, it's almost like a
Speaker 1: mirror image of the other one different judge though this
Speaker 1: one here, I got to say, I think I was
Speaker 1: sharing this with somebody else. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys remember whether the show where the old cold case
Speaker 1: where they the old cases. I always come back and
Speaker 1: they'll kind of run through it where they'll show the
Speaker 1: guy when he was young and then show him when
Speaker 1: he's old. It kind of felt like that for me
Speaker 1: in that scene because you could see, like when my
Speaker 1: lawyer got up there, he had looked a lot older.
Speaker 1: When Ken Price got up there, he looks a lot older,
Speaker 1: Like everybody looks. You can tell these are the same people,
Speaker 1: but they're a lot older. I've aged and you've aged,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking around the scene, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And and so when it finally gets to that point
Speaker 1: where the judge, you know, because she read off a
Speaker 1: lot of different things where she was like, no, I
Speaker 1: ain't I'm not giving you this, I'm not giving you that.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, wait a minute, this isn't
Speaker 1: sounding good, sounding good at all. She's denying a lot
Speaker 1: of our stuff, like yes, okay, hold up, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But then when she finally got to
Speaker 1: the to the biggest one of the new evidence and
Speaker 1: things like that, and she kind of stopped there and
Speaker 1: went on a longer speech about that last one. And
Speaker 1: so as she started to speak about that one, I
Speaker 1: kind of felt like, okay, we might we still got
Speaker 1: this chance. And when so when she finally said, you know,
Speaker 1: at this moment, I want to find these these men.
Speaker 1: You know he's actually innocent, And like I just looked
Speaker 1: at my mom and it was just like man, and
Speaker 1: she looked at me and it was like we both
Speaker 1: it was like a tear dropped at the same time
Speaker 1: for us, but it was like finally and she was like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're coming home. And it was like she had never
Speaker 1: once said I don't think you're going to make it
Speaker 1: out of there. No matter how sad I would get,
Speaker 1: no matter how upset, she would be like, you're coming home.
Speaker 1: You're coming home. And at that moment when she said
Speaker 1: finally you're coming and I just like, it was like
Speaker 1: the biggest release I think for me, like it was
Speaker 1: a big release, like I could finally breathe again and
Speaker 1: say I have life again. I have life back in
Speaker 1: be It was an amazing moment, you know that I'll
Speaker 1: never ever forget in my life. And then I was
Speaker 1: glowing inside. I was glowing, you know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what nobody else seemed, but I felt it. Said wow.
Speaker 1: And then when I finally got outside and I was
Speaker 1: able to look up at the sun and just the sky,
Speaker 1: it was beautiful. Yeah, indeed, what do you do? What?
Speaker 1: What was the first thing and you got out? We
Speaker 1: get something to eat? Did you go a tree like
Speaker 1: the lawyers? We went with the lawyers and we went
Speaker 1: to some restaurant with all our family and I didn't
Speaker 1: even eat, you know, I was too exp I didn't
Speaker 1: even eat that. I think I took me a lap
Speaker 1: around the parking lot. I took a lap around the
Speaker 1: parking lot. I was just like, I can do this,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like I'm free, man, Like
Speaker 1: I can do this now, Like I can just lap
Speaker 1: around park I can do a limitations, no boundaries, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I want to you know, as we come towards
Speaker 1: the conclusion here. Um. You know, I've been in this
Speaker 1: doing this work for twenty five years now. One of
Speaker 1: the two questions that people ask me the most, there's
Speaker 1: two questions people always ask me. One is what happens
Speaker 1: to the prosecutors? And the answer is nothing, right, unfortunately, nothing.
Speaker 1: There's no prosecutorial accountability and whatsoever in this country. It's
Speaker 1: in saints one of the only professions where you basically
Speaker 1: have total immunity from no matter what you do. Um,
Speaker 1: and there's some some crazy cases going on right now
Speaker 1: where whatever so in Massachusetts and New York, not just
Speaker 1: in the South. But the other one that everybody always
Speaker 1: asked me, isn't about compensation. People want to know. They
Speaker 1: hear these stories and they freak out and they're like,
Speaker 1: tell me the guy got money or the woman got money.
Speaker 1: Tell me they got money. And we know a lot
Speaker 1: of cases people don't get anything. Is there's a really
Speaker 1: terrible number of cases. There's still eighteen states to have
Speaker 1: no compensation statutes whatsoever. That's terrible. But but in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: you guys didn't didn't exactly get rich off of this either.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I know you've talked about that before,
Speaker 1: but can you Oklahoma has a cap on it where
Speaker 1: they give Axonorees one hundred and seventy five K, which
Speaker 1: neither one of us received. That. We did receive something something,
Speaker 1: but due to you know, we get out, you know,
Speaker 1: loans and you know for cars, and so once we
Speaker 1: did get the money, you know, I got one hundred
Speaker 1: and seven thousand, and it should have been a one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five, but I had to pay the
Speaker 1: loans back, you know. But then I get one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy and I am with one hundred and seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. You know, I have no management skills, you
Speaker 1: know nothing. So you know, I paid off some cars,
Speaker 1: bought new furniture, and but basically, you know, it's eight
Speaker 1: months later, I don't have a dime, you know, because
Speaker 1: I pretty much you know, squandered it, you know, and
Speaker 1: it was a learning experience. I didn't let it get
Speaker 1: me down or nothing, you know. I just know I
Speaker 1: got to work harder and make better decisions in the future.
Speaker 1: So you can't be killed. And you also, there's nothing
Speaker 1: that can get you down. I mean, he's in character. No.
Speaker 1: Life is really beautiful out here, it really is. So
Speaker 1: you know, it was a learning experience for me. That's
Speaker 1: how I take it. What about you, I mean, I agree,
Speaker 1: it was definitely a learning experience for me. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I mean I learned from from that situation as well.
Speaker 1: I mean I still have, you know, a significant amount
Speaker 1: of money that I'm trying to invest and things like that.
Speaker 1: I've stayed with employment. I've been working consistently, you know,
Speaker 1: since I've been free, and trying to maintain that while
Speaker 1: I go through my process of earning my certification for
Speaker 1: personal training, like that's my true goal, you know, in
Speaker 1: my career. And if people if people are listening, some
Speaker 1: people that are listening or in the Tulsa area. You're
Speaker 1: still in Tulsa, right, I'm in Houston, Texas. Now, Oh
Speaker 1: you're Houston Okay. So if people are in Houston, they're going, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a trainer. How do they contact you?
Speaker 1: They can contact me on Facebook, Instagram, I'm on Snapchat.
Speaker 1: I'm on what's what's your hand on? Oh it's a
Speaker 1: mister swagger seven six four, mister m I S t
Speaker 1: R MR s W A g g A H seven
Speaker 1: sixty four. Okay, that's m R s W A G
Speaker 1: G A H seven six four. Contact Malcolm and get
Speaker 1: in shape, yause he's in shape. Let's trust me or
Speaker 1: he can get me on Facebook. It's just my regular name,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Scott. Okay, so you know they don't have to
Speaker 1: go through all the numbers and things if they don't
Speaker 1: want to. And and the Marco. You're up to some
Speaker 1: really interesting stuff. Now. So you got a book. I
Speaker 1: have a book which I brought you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: you to see it, you know, in person, the manuscript
Speaker 1: that's typed up. And you know I have I'm a
Speaker 1: call host of Actual Innocence, a podcast with Brooke Gettings,
Speaker 1: and I have a podcast documentary called bard Alive. And
Speaker 1: I've been listening to Bird Alive and Actual Innocence and
Speaker 1: I recommend both of them highly to anyone who's a
Speaker 1: fan of this of this genre, anyone who's interested in
Speaker 1: learning about these situations in these cases, those are two
Speaker 1: of the best podcasts that are out there. So Buried
Speaker 1: Alive is one of them, and Actual Innocences the other,
Speaker 1: both with Brook Gettings, who does an incredible job considering
Speaker 1: she's all on her own. Um. And so the book
Speaker 1: is you have a name for the book, Buried Alive?
Speaker 1: Buried Alive? Is there a way do you want people
Speaker 1: to contact you? Do you do public speaking and you
Speaker 1: have a interest from maybe is there somebody's out there,
Speaker 1: might a book agent, or might be somebody that could
Speaker 1: help you with that pursuit. So how do people reach
Speaker 1: out to you? And a goal of mine is I
Speaker 1: really want to team up with Malcolm and travel around
Speaker 1: because I'm a I am a motivation to speak. I
Speaker 1: go to schools and I'm on Instagram Buried Alive twenty two,
Speaker 1: I'm on Facebook to Marco Carpenter and I'm also I
Speaker 1: have a goal. I've always had this goal. You know,
Speaker 1: I was always a hoop star going back to high school,
Speaker 1: middle school, but I always wanted to play in a
Speaker 1: celebrity the NBA All Star Game, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: obvious that I can't go to the NBA now, but
Speaker 1: the Celebrity Off Star Game, I plan on playing it.
Speaker 1: I actually got a video on YouTube. It's called twenty
Speaker 1: two de Marco and my name is spelled d E
Speaker 1: m A r c h E twenty two to Marco
Speaker 1: and you can go watch this video. And I also
Speaker 1: want to do some acting, so if anybody can help
Speaker 1: me get into the acting business, you know, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: up for some acting. Okay, so we got Buried Alive
Speaker 1: twenty two is the Instagram. I know that because I
Speaker 1: follow you and I'm a you have to today too.
Speaker 1: Let's Buried Alive twenty two, number twenty two, and then
Speaker 1: DeMarco Carpenter on Facebook, which is d E m A
Speaker 1: r c Hoe and then Carpenter. We all know how
Speaker 1: to spell Carpenter, so everybody listens to show notes how
Speaker 1: spell Carpenter. So um, So as we wrap up, we
Speaker 1: have a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is that, first
Speaker 1: of all, I want to remind everybody someday you may
Speaker 1: find yourself on a jury. Remember what you're hearing today.
Speaker 1: Remember that what you're being told may not be the truth,
Speaker 1: and that the people who are who you trust to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth may not be acting in your
Speaker 1: best interests or society's best interests. And you have to
Speaker 1: be woke. So stay woke and pay attention. I have
Speaker 1: another question or are just really a statement? And this
Speaker 1: is this is real bizarre. Malcolm has a brother that's
Speaker 1: in prison that's been there twenty seven years for murder
Speaker 1: he didn't commit. He's in the county right now fighting
Speaker 1: for you know, hopefully he'll be released in September. But
Speaker 1: you know, what is the odds of having two brothers
Speaker 1: in prison for something they didn't do? Corey Achs and
Speaker 1: all evidence is pointed at other people. But you know,
Speaker 1: Coloring is also Eric Colin is also working on that
Speaker 1: case as well. I'll talk to Eric about it and
Speaker 1: we'll see what we could do. So now it comes
Speaker 1: to time, which is I think probably everybody's favorite part
Speaker 1: of the show. When I stopped talking and I just
Speaker 1: turned the microphone over to each of you guys, just
Speaker 1: for any final thoughts that you want to share, anything
Speaker 1: at all that's on your mind that you want to
Speaker 1: share with the audience, because we have a big audience
Speaker 1: out there, and I know they're gonna want to hear
Speaker 1: what you have to say. Who wants to go first? Yeah, sure, sure,
Speaker 1: I like to go first. I just want to like
Speaker 1: my messages to the youth, you know, I would like
Speaker 1: to you know, I like to see that. I want
Speaker 1: the kids to see that I come from this here
Speaker 1: and I stay strong. You know, I kept the faith,
Speaker 1: and I just want y'all to know if I can
Speaker 1: do it, then y'all don't have to go through everything
Speaker 1: that I went through, the accomplished goals. You know, y'all
Speaker 1: can do it. You know, just stay stay strong and believe,
Speaker 1: I said Malcolm. First of all, I just want to
Speaker 1: say thank you Jason for allowing thank you to come
Speaker 1: in and talk and tell our story. And I really
Speaker 1: appreciate what you do. And I also want to say
Speaker 1: just that I hope that us sharing what we're sharing
Speaker 1: with you today inspires gives encouragement and inspiration to many
Speaker 1: people out there, not simply those who are incarcerated for
Speaker 1: crimes they didn't commit it, but those who may be
Speaker 1: going through anything, any hardships in life that they feel
Speaker 1: like there's no way I can get through this because
Speaker 1: you can. The human spirit is very resilient. It's very
Speaker 1: very strong, a lot stronger than we realize. I never
Speaker 1: thought that I was my way back through a life
Speaker 1: plus one hundred and seventy years. But with the help
Speaker 1: of really good people like the Innocence Project, Eric Cullen,
Speaker 1: you know, and guys like that. A lot of these
Speaker 1: were students who gave of themselves without payment. I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: and I won't you all out there to know, you know,
Speaker 1: anytime you may get on a jury or anything like that,
Speaker 1: know that pay close attention to what's going on. Don't
Speaker 1: just be so quick to be ready to convict someone
Speaker 1: or whatever. And that goes for everyday people in society.
Speaker 1: Pay attention, be awoke, as he said, be aware of
Speaker 1: what's going on, and know that a lot of these
Speaker 1: things can happen to people. Innocent people do sometimes get
Speaker 1: the bad end of the stick, and I need society
Speaker 1: to really see that and know that, and maybe if
Speaker 1: more of us are aware of it, will start to
Speaker 1: do more about it. And that is my mission. It's
Speaker 1: that we start to do things about it to make
Speaker 1: a change for the better and give a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys that come out help give them a better
Speaker 1: chance for reintegration back into society. Help them, because if
Speaker 1: you want them to change, if you want them to
Speaker 1: do better, you have to give them an opportunity to
Speaker 1: see better things, in a better way of life. And
Speaker 1: it's me well said Malcolm, and thanks, thanks Jason Adams. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say that this has been an extraordinary
Speaker 1: experience for me listen to you guys and learning, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate you being here. I appreciate everybody listening, and
Speaker 1: this has been a sort of a historic episode of
Speaker 1: wrong for conviction. So thanks for coming in Malcolm and
Speaker 1: de Marco and sharing your story. All right, don't forget
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Words. The music
Speaker 1: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominee composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph be Sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one