Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have
Speaker 1: been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes,
Speaker 1: even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like
Speaker 1: to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it
Speaker 1: like to be their ally, the one outside committed to
Speaker 1: fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Braye Pacheco, and this
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Previously on Wrongful Conviction, Alan Beeman's life
Speaker 1: forever changed his senior year in college.
Speaker 2: I met Jennifer. We dated for about a year, and
Speaker 2: we broke up about a month before she was murdered.
Speaker 1: When an overzealous investigation honed in.
Speaker 2: I just remember looking at her and seeing cops everywhere,
Speaker 2: and he said, I need you to come down to
Speaker 2: the station with me, and he handcuffed me right there
Speaker 2: in front of the student center, in front of all
Speaker 2: of my classmates, professors.
Speaker 3: And people coming and going around the campus.
Speaker 1: But even an alibi, private representation, and a supportive family
Speaker 1: were no match for tunnel vision.
Speaker 4: When the verdict was read, I mouthed to the state's attorney,
Speaker 4: how do you sleep at night?
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco and this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the second half of the unbelievably infuriating wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction of Alan Beeman, a case that is glaring in
Speaker 1: its extremes. Beeman came from a conservative educated family, his
Speaker 1: father was former military, His family secured the resources for
Speaker 1: not only legal representation, but to post a one million
Speaker 1: dollar bond. And yet, despite all of the assumed advantages
Speaker 1: he had in justice like water found its way when
Speaker 1: Beeman was convicted of murdering his former girlfriend and sentenced
Speaker 1: to fifty five years to life, even though he had
Speaker 1: an alibi and willingly submitted himself to questioning and DNA testing.
Speaker 1: We pick up now with Alan, his parents, Barry and Carol,
Speaker 1: and eventually his wife Gretchen. Going back to the sentencing,
Speaker 1: How does your life immediately change after your sentenced?
Speaker 2: So I was in the county jail for about a
Speaker 2: month after the conviction, dealing with the motions to reconsider
Speaker 2: the sentencing hearing and then being scheduled to be sent
Speaker 2: to Illinois Department of Corrections, and my second time through
Speaker 2: the county jail was a rude awakening. I still definitely
Speaker 2: had an adverse reaction to being incarcerated. But I still
Speaker 2: say that God sent people to me throughout this entire
Speaker 2: ordeal that were intended to encourage me and to help
Speaker 2: me get through it alive. And so while I was
Speaker 2: in the county jail, there were people that essentially said
Speaker 2: the same thing to me that we don't think there
Speaker 2: was evidence. We watched it on TV, and what was reported,
Speaker 2: we thought it was ridiculous. There were some guys in
Speaker 2: the county jail that had been to prison before. Obviously
Speaker 2: there's recidivism. People come back, and I was coached up
Speaker 2: on what to expect, so I had a little more
Speaker 2: opportunity to prepare myself for what was coming. So that
Speaker 2: was a period of time where I started seeking God
Speaker 2: a little more and wanting to understand what was happening
Speaker 2: to me. And certainly the last refuge of a scoundrel
Speaker 2: is his prayer right. No atheists in foxholes. So I
Speaker 2: was really challenged greatly to make sense of my circumstances.
Speaker 2: Our first reaction to these kinds of situation is to
Speaker 2: try to make sense of it, and it's harder for
Speaker 2: the innocent person to make sense of it, because it's
Speaker 2: not right when somebody is guilty they can just be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I deserve this, But when you're innocent, you can't do that,
Speaker 2: and so you almost have to seek in the supernatural
Speaker 2: to understand why this is happening to me.
Speaker 1: You must have been so afraid though, too.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Carol, I've read that you were a brunette
Speaker 1: when when your son was sentenced, but then it was
Speaker 1: over a month before you saw him, and that the
Speaker 1: stress of that month had turned you gray.
Speaker 4: It certainly did a good number on that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The last time I saw my mom in the county jail,
Speaker 2: her hair was most liber Yeah. The first time I
Speaker 2: saw her in Monard Correctional Center, her hair was white.
Speaker 1: What were your biggest fears, Carol?
Speaker 4: Just for his safety. Keep in mind, he doesn't look
Speaker 4: like it now, but at the time, I think if
Speaker 4: you soak down and down, he might have made one
Speaker 4: hundred and thirty pounds and so five eight hundred and
Speaker 4: thirty pounds. Yeah, And he wasn't a fighter, He wasn't
Speaker 4: someone who had done any of that sort of thing,
Speaker 4: and his sports had been running, swimming, and also there
Speaker 4: wasn't any bodybuilding kind of thing at that point. So
Speaker 4: fear for his safety and Manard was so far away
Speaker 4: from our home. It was actually a two day trip
Speaker 4: for us. We would go part way down and then
Speaker 4: after work on Friday and then finish it on Saturday.
Speaker 4: I see him and then come back. And we had
Speaker 4: been advised not to go too often because it would
Speaker 4: make the time longer for him if we went too often,
Speaker 4: so we tried to go about every six weeks to
Speaker 4: visit him, So a lot of time passed during that time.
Speaker 4: He was allowed to call us once in a while
Speaker 4: collect calls. I ran across the old telephone bills that
Speaker 4: showed all the collect calls that he had to make
Speaker 4: at that time.
Speaker 1: And in those days how expensive those collect calls would
Speaker 1: have been.
Speaker 4: It was running about sixty dollars a month in phone calls,
Speaker 4: and some families I know can't deal with that, And
Speaker 4: we just felt it was necessary to always be there
Speaker 4: if we could.
Speaker 1: And what was the biggest hardest transition for you, Alan,
Speaker 1: What was the most significant hurdle that you remember adjusting
Speaker 1: to life in prison?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, it's a can of worms, going from the shock
Speaker 2: of being convicted and then being in the county jail
Speaker 2: for a month. I very seldom, but occasionally felt like
Speaker 2: I was in danger in the county jail getting off
Speaker 2: the bus in the Department corrections down in Minard Correctional Center.
Speaker 2: They threw me to the wolves. It was a completely
Speaker 2: different kind of culture shock. It wasn't a nice, neat
Speaker 2: orderly jail where everything ran smoothly. It was a wilderness
Speaker 2: that I was dropped into and had to survive. After
Speaker 2: being in the receiving area for a period of time,
Speaker 2: I was moved into the general population and I moved
Speaker 2: into a cell that was empty. When I moved into it,
Speaker 2: it was empty and trashed, and so I moved in
Speaker 2: and I started cleaning up, and a counselor came by
Speaker 2: prison counselor and introduced himself and said what gang are
Speaker 2: you in? And I said, I'm not in a gang.
Speaker 2: I'm a neutron. And he said there's no neutrons in
Speaker 2: the West House and I said there's one now, and
Speaker 2: he said, well, you really should think about finding a
Speaker 2: group of friends that you can join up with. So
Speaker 2: I was encouraged by a government employee to join a
Speaker 2: gang in prison in order to survive. And I had
Speaker 2: been discouraged from that by other people who warned me
Speaker 2: that that would be tempting and said, if you do that,
Speaker 2: you're going to become that gang's send off dummy. If
Speaker 2: you're fighting this case, if you're saying you didn't do it,
Speaker 2: they're going to put a shank in your hand. They're
Speaker 2: going to send you after somebody. They're going to use you,
Speaker 2: even though you think that they're helping you survive, They're
Speaker 2: going to get you a life sentence for something else.
Speaker 2: And so I resisted any temptation to protect myself by
Speaker 2: surrounding myself with other people. And at that point I
Speaker 2: really began to genuinely and wholeheartedly pursue my relationship with God.
Speaker 2: I knew that I had nothing else. I was dead meat.
Speaker 2: They intended for my death from this. That's the only
Speaker 2: thing I can calculate from the environment that I was in.
Speaker 1: Wow, I want to talk to you about anger, because
Speaker 1: you all must have been so angry. How did you
Speaker 1: harness that anger? How did you keep it from consuming you?
Speaker 1: And I know, Alan, you and I had communicated a
Speaker 1: little bit that initially it almost derailed you. What did
Speaker 1: anger become for you?
Speaker 2: It was never a constructive thing for me throughout the
Speaker 2: whole experience. It was the only acceptable emotion that a
Speaker 2: man can express in prison. If you express any other
Speaker 2: emotion besides anger, you are a bitch. And that's just
Speaker 2: the way it is, and so you swallow everything else,
Speaker 2: and everything else has to morph into anger in order
Speaker 2: to be processed or expressed. And I learned very quickly
Speaker 2: to turn off all of those other feelings because they
Speaker 2: were going to get me killed. And I never turned
Speaker 2: them back on until I came home. And we'll probably
Speaker 2: talk about that's more linking. But for me, I succumbed
Speaker 2: to anger as a product of my environment, slowly, seductively,
Speaker 2: knowing that was the only emotion I could have, And
Speaker 2: I very much, for the first probably five years, was
Speaker 2: a product of my environment. I started working out, I
Speaker 2: got bigger, I got tougher, I got mouthier, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to take any crap from anybody, and I
Speaker 2: was in some dangerous situations. Fortunately by then I had
Speaker 2: adjusted well enough that I could keep a clear head
Speaker 2: and navigate those situations. And I truly believe God was
Speaker 2: with me throughout all of this, protecting me. Otherwise I
Speaker 2: would be dead.
Speaker 1: Barry and Carol, you've spoken about how you harnessed your
Speaker 1: anger and utilized it for activism. But how did you
Speaker 1: guys get linked with Jeff Erdangen and ultimately the Northwestern
Speaker 1: University School of Law.
Speaker 4: We first went to Jeff in terms of looking for
Speaker 4: someone to take the case as far as trying to
Speaker 4: overturn it, and he was still in private practice at
Speaker 4: that time. So we talked Jeff and he said, I'm interested,
Speaker 4: but I have to talk to Alan before or I
Speaker 4: will commit to taking the case. Goes down and sees Alan,
Speaker 4: and when he called us later after seeing Alan, he said,
Speaker 4: I don't like him, but I believe him. Did you
Speaker 4: know that Alan?
Speaker 2: I Jeff came down to visit me with a private
Speaker 2: investigator who had been part of law enforcement in the past,
Speaker 2: and the two of them proceeded to interrogate me for
Speaker 2: the duration of the visit. Jeff would ask some sort
Speaker 2: of straightforward questions, and then the cop would provoke me
Speaker 2: with questions about that's not what a normal person would
Speaker 2: do if they were asked that question. How come you're
Speaker 2: so different? You seem suspicious to me. It just seemed
Speaker 2: like this was a test. But at a certain point
Speaker 2: I had enough and I said, look, if you guys
Speaker 2: don't believe me.
Speaker 3: I don't need you.
Speaker 2: And I ended the visit and I went back to
Speaker 2: my cell and I thought that was the end of it,
Speaker 2: that these were not going to be that Jeffer Dangen
Speaker 2: was not going to be the person that represented me.
Speaker 2: And then he went back to Chicago and called my
Speaker 2: mom and told her the infamous I don't like him,
Speaker 2: but I believe him statement.
Speaker 1: And if I'm not mistaken, he didn't just like you.
Speaker 1: He ended up taking your case pro bono.
Speaker 2: He did, and to this day he's a very good friend,
Speaker 2: a family friend, somebody I still value his advice and
Speaker 2: opinion and can't say enough nice about.
Speaker 1: And how did jeff tell you that he was taking
Speaker 1: your case pro bono?
Speaker 4: After we'd paid him for several things along the way,
Speaker 4: he finally said, you can't afford me, and so that's
Speaker 4: when he kept it pro bono. But the deal was
Speaker 4: we were supposed to pay for Julia and for his investigator.
Speaker 4: And then eventually he came to us and said, I've
Speaker 4: got a chance to go to Northwestern and they've told
Speaker 4: me I can take along a case or two, and
Speaker 4: I'd like for you to present the people at Northwestern
Speaker 4: so he arranged for us to meet with a panel
Speaker 4: of students and with Karen Daniel and Chris Jeff.
Speaker 1: Then the Center on Wrongful Convictions gets involved. And this
Speaker 1: is probably what I find most infuriating about this case,
Speaker 1: because you have Jeff or Dangen, you have the Northwestern
Speaker 1: University Center on Wrongful Convictions, you have at this point
Speaker 1: the dream team behind you, and it isn't exactly quickly
Speaker 1: unraveled and resolved at that point.
Speaker 2: I was in Minard when we filed the post conviction petition,
Speaker 2: and I did three and a half years in Stateville,
Speaker 2: two years in Mount Sterling, and another couple of years
Speaker 2: in Dixon before I had a hearing. So it was
Speaker 2: a good like six or seven years before we got
Speaker 2: to being able to have a hearing. What was happening
Speaker 2: was we would we would get a date set, and
Speaker 2: the judge would retire, and then we would get a
Speaker 2: date set and then the state's attorney that was handling
Speaker 2: the case would become a judge. So there were numerous
Speaker 2: changes of judges and numerous changes of states attorneys. And
Speaker 2: it seems like the way to become a judge in
Speaker 2: McLean County is to oppose a wrongful conviction case, whether
Speaker 2: it's mine or Jamie Snow or Bart McNeil, if you
Speaker 2: are a state's attorney that is fighting against someone appealing
Speaker 2: a wrongful conviction, you get to be a judge.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, your post conviction relief was denied yep
Speaker 1: by the McLean County Circuit Court, and your lawyer's appealed
Speaker 1: to that decision. Yes, what was the rock bottom moment
Speaker 1: for you guys? Each individually? You must have felt like sisyphus,
Speaker 1: all of you at that point.
Speaker 4: I don't know that it was one time frequently it
Speaker 4: would happen. I can say for me personally, it was
Speaker 4: early on. Actually, I taught high school and I was
Speaker 4: staying late one day for parent conferences, and I walked
Speaker 4: back to my classroom where I was going to hold
Speaker 4: my conferences, and there was a big sign on my
Speaker 4: door that said murderer's mother for all my parents to see.
Speaker 4: That was the rock bottom personally, Carol, I can't even
Speaker 4: imagine how that when you just feel like you're being
Speaker 4: punched by the system. Yeah, it came to the point
Speaker 4: where I was never sure when Alan was going to
Speaker 4: show up in my classroom.
Speaker 1: Alan, what for you was the most difficult part. You
Speaker 1: serve time in four different prisons over the course of
Speaker 1: the years that you were five.
Speaker 2: Really really six, but two of them I was only
Speaker 2: in for short periods of time, okay, four that I
Speaker 2: was in for longer periods of time.
Speaker 1: What got you through? In other words, I know you
Speaker 1: said you had to harness anger as a shield, but
Speaker 1: how did you stay sane?
Speaker 5: Didn't?
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: That's the fact is that I didn't stay sane. I
Speaker 2: got worse for a while, and while I was in
Speaker 2: Stateville Correctional Center, I was almost to the point where
Speaker 2: I was so done with all of it that if
Speaker 2: me speaking my mind and getting in somebody's face caused
Speaker 2: me to get stabbed to death, so be it. I
Speaker 2: was done. I was quite irrationally, again a product of
Speaker 2: my environment, and very much in tune with my toxic
Speaker 2: masculinity at that time, so much to the point where
Speaker 2: I actually went to a gang chief and asked if
Speaker 2: I could have a one on one fight with one
Speaker 2: of his guys, because the guy had been talking crazy
Speaker 2: to me and they knew me, and they said, beaman,
Speaker 2: everybody gets along with you, and we're going to talk
Speaker 2: to this guy.
Speaker 3: And he's not going to mess with you anymore.
Speaker 2: And I said okay, and so they talked to him,
Speaker 2: and then he did it again a couple days later,
Speaker 2: and I went back to the guy again and I said, okay,
Speaker 2: when can I get that one on one fight? Because
Speaker 2: he did not stop. They said, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: to him and that'll be that. And they chewed this
Speaker 2: kid out right in front of everybody, in the middle
Speaker 2: of the chow hall. And he wasn't trying to hear it,
Speaker 2: because why are you sticking up for that neutron. You
Speaker 2: should be taking my side. And one of the guys
Speaker 2: stood up and said, fuck it, just let Beaman kick
Speaker 2: his ass and the guy I never said a word
Speaker 2: to me again.
Speaker 3: That was the end of it. Again.
Speaker 2: I should have been dead. God was protecting me and
Speaker 2: preparing me for something. It wasn't very long after that
Speaker 2: that I was sitting in a bullpen after a visit
Speaker 2: with my parents, waiting to go back to my cell
Speaker 2: and I really had to go to the bathroom, and
Speaker 2: the chapel line was leaving the building and that was
Speaker 2: the only way I was going to get to the
Speaker 2: bathroom for the next hour.
Speaker 3: So I went to church because I had to peep okay,
Speaker 3: such language.
Speaker 2: And I sat in the chapel and I listened to
Speaker 2: the chaplain and he was talking sense. So I kept
Speaker 2: going every week. As crazy as it is. However, God
Speaker 2: is going to get a hold of you. That's how
Speaker 2: he's going to do it. And grateful for the fact
Speaker 2: that God reached out to me that way, and that
Speaker 2: I had an opportunity to look at myself and say,
Speaker 2: this is not who I have to be. And at
Speaker 2: that point I was finally able to slowly and progressive lee,
Speaker 2: let down my guard and care about another person in
Speaker 2: my environment and say, there's more to life than surviving
Speaker 2: this hell hole. And I'm going to be a good
Speaker 2: person even if it kills me. And I think that's
Speaker 2: I don't get a little tear Europe.
Speaker 3: Sorry, but I.
Speaker 2: Don't know exactly where rock bottom was, but I know
Speaker 2: that's where I started to ascend out of it.
Speaker 1: Wow, Thank goodness for a full bladder.
Speaker 3: The problem I have a lot.
Speaker 1: It was finding that community, the spiritual community. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: set you free from the anger.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So on May twenty second, two thousand and eight, the
Speaker 1: Illinois Supreme Court overturned Alan's conviction because the prosecution had
Speaker 1: withheld exculpatory evidence that would have been likely to have
Speaker 1: changed the jury's verdict of guilty. And after thirteen years
Speaker 1: in prison for a murder that you did not commit,
Speaker 1: you walked out of jail on June twenty seventh, two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, wearing a Chicago Bears T shirt, jeans,
Speaker 1: and a baseball hat after posting ten percent of a
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond. What emotions did you,
Speaker 1: guys experience in that moment when your eyes first locked
Speaker 1: on the other side of those walls? What emotions?
Speaker 3: Just?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 3: Is this real? Pinch me?
Speaker 4: I can tell you what we did after my brother
Speaker 4: and sister in law had come down with us to
Speaker 4: pick him up, and we loaded him in the car
Speaker 4: and we stopped at Denny's. Denny's he ordered a steak
Speaker 4: and was shocked when they gave him a real knife.
Speaker 4: And cell phones had come into being at that.
Speaker 3: And our cell phones were ringing off the.
Speaker 4: Wall and they were flip phones, of course, just passing
Speaker 4: phones around the car for him to talk on to
Speaker 4: different people. And then we stopped at a wayside and
Speaker 4: there was a swing set at the wayside and he
Speaker 4: had to go swing on the swing set. So every
Speaker 4: time I see the picture of that, I tear up.
Speaker 1: Alan. You just take me to that moment, your feet
Speaker 1: hitting the ground outside.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think at that point there was no like Catharsis
Speaker 2: or it was just Wow, this is awesome, and I'm
Speaker 2: loving every minute of this. And I don't know what
Speaker 2: happened that day. I was on my phone the whole time.
Speaker 2: It was a phone call after a phone call after
Speaker 2: a phone call, of all the people that were calling,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I heard, and I didn't really process
Speaker 2: until we got home and they were pressed at my
Speaker 2: house and I did a brief interview there and then
Speaker 2: everybody went to bed and it was just me and
Speaker 2: I stayed up all night just experiencing the first time
Speaker 2: I could just Oh, I can go outside. Oh I
Speaker 2: can go over to the fridge and make a sandwich.
Speaker 2: I can play with the dog. Oh I can go
Speaker 2: back outside again.
Speaker 1: All the things that seemed so obvious and simple before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the little thing we take so much for
Speaker 2: granted from just ordinary life. And so I just experienced
Speaker 2: those all night, and I watched the sunrise and then
Speaker 2: promptly began complaining about the price of gas and the
Speaker 2: speed of my internet.
Speaker 1: But even on top of that, in many ways, you're out,
Speaker 1: But the nightmare is not over, not at all. Still, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you still remain charged with Jennifer's murder. Yes, and the
Speaker 1: office of McLean County State's Attorney announced that it intended
Speaker 1: to retry you. Yeah, that must have been such an
Speaker 1: emotional roller coaster for you all.
Speaker 2: I knew that was the deal from the moment I
Speaker 2: was heading back to the county jail. I knew that
Speaker 2: I was bonding out. I wasn't exonerated. I was bonding
Speaker 2: out to be retried. But there was a lot of
Speaker 2: hope in this because now we've got this momentum of
Speaker 2: investigative power. All the stuff I've been trying for the
Speaker 2: last thirteen years to get them to test the damn DNA,
Speaker 2: trying to get them to follow up on leads that
Speaker 2: never got followed. I've been trying to just get a
Speaker 2: real honest evidentiary review and some real honest detective work
Speaker 2: out of these people. And now I have investigative power
Speaker 2: and they have to let me do it. And to
Speaker 2: this day, I believe that's why they dropped the charges.
Speaker 2: They did it right after the judge that was handling
Speaker 2: the case appeared to agree that we were going to
Speaker 2: be allowed to test all that DNA BAM charges dropped Yep.
Speaker 1: On January twenty ninth, two thousand and nine, all charges
Speaker 1: against you were dropped. Yes, and then you filed for
Speaker 1: petition for a certificate of innocence Yes. What became your
Speaker 1: family's new driving motivation at that point?
Speaker 2: And why I've been out long enough that the immediate
Speaker 2: elation and feeling of being on cloud nine has begun
Speaker 2: to fade, and I'm dealing with post traumatic stress disorder.
Speaker 3: I'm dealing with the I've.
Speaker 2: Now turned the valve on, so all those emotions that
Speaker 2: I had turned off and I'm trying to process them.
Speaker 2: And what happens if I feel just one small grain
Speaker 2: of grief, All of the grief that I've been storing
Speaker 2: up for the last thirteen years comes out all at once,
Speaker 2: and I realized I need to get help, and so we're, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're pursuing these continuing legal remedies, but I'm also going
Speaker 2: to therapy. I'm seeing a psychiatrist, I'm on zoloft. I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to figure out who I am again, because
Speaker 2: I've stored up thirteen years of this cookie cutter imagination
Speaker 2: of what life is supposed to be like after I
Speaker 2: get out, and oh, my gosh, that's not what life
Speaker 2: is like after I get out.
Speaker 1: I think it's so incredible that you were able to
Speaker 1: do the work that you needed to do at that point,
Speaker 1: and that you had the wherewithal to understand that you
Speaker 1: needed to do it. Look, it had been what four thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred and thirty six days. You went in when
Speaker 1: you were twenty twenty two, you got out when you
Speaker 1: were thirty six. It's got to be beyond surreal.
Speaker 2: I think some of it was surreal and some of
Speaker 2: it was too real. It's like the reverse of prison.
Speaker 2: The first year is the hardest, right The first year
Speaker 2: in prison is it just completely tears you down and
Speaker 2: undoes your humanity. And then after that you're just numb
Speaker 2: and you're just doing time. And after release that first
Speaker 2: probably the four months was just absolutely wonderful and everybody's
Speaker 2: so happy to see me, and oh my gosh, isn't
Speaker 2: it great. I'm not in prison And every day that's
Speaker 2: what's at the forefront of my thoughts, I'm not in prison, right,
Speaker 2: And slowly you get into real life and you start
Speaker 2: to take some things for granted, and every now and
Speaker 2: then I just be driving and I'm in traffic, and
Speaker 2: I'm a little annoyed, and then I suddenly realize I'm
Speaker 2: not in prison, and I have a nice day. But
Speaker 2: as the hyper alertness started to develop for me, and
Speaker 2: I'm aware of every cop that's anywhere near me, and
Speaker 2: I'm aware of anybody that looked at me cross eyed,
Speaker 2: and people have criticized me openly in different forms of media,
Speaker 2: and I have lost a job because someone thinks I'm
Speaker 2: a murderer, and it starts to set in that I'm
Speaker 2: not free. I'm still being victimized by this same system,
Speaker 2: and I still have to continue to fight to clear
Speaker 2: my name.
Speaker 3: And that's the COI.
Speaker 1: A certificate of innocence, right.
Speaker 2: I think at a certain point, I my my trauma
Speaker 2: and my poor functioning because of it made it really
Speaker 2: difficult to xigneries. We're really it's really hard to love us,
Speaker 2: not because you don't see something awesome in us, but
Speaker 2: because we're sometimes stuck in this trauma and you take
Speaker 2: this long term suffering that is pushed way down deep
Speaker 2: inside of you, and it's and I'm not taking anything
Speaker 2: away from veterans or anything like that, they were in
Speaker 2: some place even more dangerous for less time, and I
Speaker 2: was in some place that was also dangerous for more time.
Speaker 2: And so I really equate it to being similar, but
Speaker 2: a completely different versi of that same PTSD, where I
Speaker 2: think it takes longer to unravel it, and it's not
Speaker 2: as easily noticed, and it's certainly not as publicly supported
Speaker 2: to have trauma from prison as it is to have
Speaker 2: fought for your country Again. I started getting help, and
Speaker 2: the charges got dropped and we began pursuing the certificate
Speaker 2: of innocence. And it was just a couple of months
Speaker 2: after the charges were dropped that I met Gretchen at church.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco. You
Speaker 1: can listen to this and all the Lava for Good
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Speaker 1: Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I love most about your story, Alan and
Speaker 1: your experiences that it has not a happy ending, but
Speaker 1: the best possible ending in many ways, and part of
Speaker 1: that is the fact that you have a beautiful family
Speaker 1: now of your own, that you had your family supporting
Speaker 1: you throughout your incarceration. But you met your lovely wife,
Speaker 1: Gretchen two years after you were out, or you met
Speaker 1: you married two years after. Okay, so you tell me
Speaker 1: how you two first crossed paths and.
Speaker 6: Where it was at church. It was a youth group
Speaker 6: fundraiser and I was there with my daughter was she's
Speaker 6: six five, and Alan walked in the door and he
Speaker 6: walked past, and he had just been repainting or something,
Speaker 6: and so he had on this red and black flannel
Speaker 6: jacket and he was covered in paint and he walked past,
Speaker 6: and I said, oh, he's cute, and didn't realize who
Speaker 6: he was. I had semi followed his story. Then he
Speaker 6: sat with his parents and they were facing me, and
Speaker 6: I was like, why did they look familiar to me?
Speaker 6: And then it clicked. I was like, oh, my god,
Speaker 6: that's Alan Beeman. And I had my daughter, I'm like
Speaker 6: scooch over and I took a picture of the back
Speaker 6: of his head and sent it to my friend.
Speaker 1: Not knowing you were photographing your future hust correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's not telling the whole story there.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, but I want to hear from your point
Speaker 1: of view.
Speaker 2: Then, So I noticed her that night as a cute
Speaker 2: chick I hadn't seen before at church, and she was
Speaker 2: wearing a Bear's hoodie, and we've already established that's important
Speaker 2: to me. And our daughter, Alana was five at the
Speaker 2: time and we hadn't met yet. Gretchen looked very young.
Speaker 2: People will still always say that. When she tells people
Speaker 2: her age, they're like, oh, you didn't. You don't look
Speaker 2: that old. And so I wasn't sure if she was
Speaker 2: a single mom or a sister. So I just noticed
Speaker 2: her and that was about it. And then Alana said
Speaker 2: mom and about something, and then I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's a mom. And a week or so later, the
Speaker 2: church newsletter released new member pictures and I see a
Speaker 2: picture of her in that, and she's wearing a different
Speaker 2: Bears hoodie. So I'm like, Okay, she's the real deal.
Speaker 2: She's got two of them, and I could tell from
Speaker 2: reading the bio that she might be available. And I
Speaker 2: was just bold and audacious enough and curious enough that
Speaker 2: I decided to send her a Facebook friend request. I
Speaker 2: had just started on Facebook because the charges had been dropped,
Speaker 2: and I decided it's time to put myself out there
Speaker 2: and experience the world and dove headfirst into social media,
Speaker 2: which I'm glad I did because I'm my wife.
Speaker 1: Did you have any concerns or reservations, Gretchen, I know
Speaker 1: that you did a little bit of your own inquiring
Speaker 1: about Alan.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So I live in Rockford, so where I grew
Speaker 6: up most of my life. So I saw the articles
Speaker 6: in the paper, and I saw the news segments on
Speaker 6: TV and everything. I wasn't like, oh my god, let
Speaker 6: me research this guy. I just knew of him. And
Speaker 6: then after he got released in June, I was working
Speaker 6: at a local credit union and we had an older
Speaker 6: lady who came in and I was reading the newspaper
Speaker 6: and it said Alan Beeman was released, and I made
Speaker 6: a comment and Maggie was like, Ah, I know Alan,
Speaker 6: I've known him since he was this big and oh
Speaker 6: he never did it.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 6: I've believed in his innocence from the beginning. And so
Speaker 6: that was really the first person that I had met
Speaker 6: that knew him and said good things about him, and
Speaker 6: I believed in his innocence from reading everything I had read.
Speaker 6: I didn't grow up the same way Alan did. I
Speaker 6: grew up in a housing project, and I saw injustice
Speaker 6: happen all of the time, and I saw police come
Speaker 6: in and arrest a black person just because they were
Speaker 6: by the crime that happened. And so I grew up
Speaker 6: not believing that the police always were right and did
Speaker 6: the correct thing. So after I met Alan and knew
Speaker 6: of his case, it was, of course this could happen.
Speaker 3: Of course it could.
Speaker 6: I've seen it happen.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. So it was for you confirmation in
Speaker 1: many ways of what you knew, unfortunately to be true.
Speaker 1: And for Alan's family it was a very rude awakening
Speaker 1: into the injustices that many other sections of our society
Speaker 1: face on a daily basis. I love that in your union,
Speaker 1: in your marriage, you in a way got some of
Speaker 1: that lost time back, Alan, because you had your beautiful daughter,
Speaker 1: Alana already, and then you too, welcomed Adelaide shortly after
Speaker 1: you guys married two years, I guess.
Speaker 6: Yeah, two years and will you just a year and
Speaker 6: a half.
Speaker 1: Year and a half, will you tell me her full name?
Speaker 1: And the importance of one of those.
Speaker 2: Names, so I wanted to name her Liberty and Gretchen
Speaker 2: wasn't having it, and her name needed to start with
Speaker 2: an A, because that's just she wanted to keep the
Speaker 2: pattern for some reason. And we settled on Adelaide, but
Speaker 2: I really still wanted to name her Liberty, and I
Speaker 2: got her to concede that if she was born on
Speaker 2: the fourth of July, because she was due on like
Speaker 2: the tenth or the twelfth, then we would do that,
Speaker 2: but otherwise not, And so she was born on the twelfth,
Speaker 2: and she was born on the twelfth, and they handed
Speaker 2: me the paperwork for the birth certificate and I wrote
Speaker 2: Adelaide Jeane Liberty Beamon on the birth certificate, and I
Speaker 2: handed it to Gretchen and I said, you can cross
Speaker 2: off anything you want to, and she glared at me
Speaker 2: over her eyes. I rolled her eyes yes, and handed
Speaker 2: the clipboard back to me and said, fine.
Speaker 1: Your husband said that exoneries are very difficult to love.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say that. He might say that, but I
Speaker 6: wouldn't say those words.
Speaker 1: But you've seen what he's had to go through to
Speaker 1: be the husband and the father that he wants to be.
Speaker 1: How would you explain to people the residual impact that
Speaker 1: the wrongful conviction has had on your husband emotionally. What
Speaker 1: are the challenges that people couldn't even possible comprehend or see.
Speaker 6: It's really simple things that a normal person that hasn't
Speaker 6: been through this experience, they just would never do something
Speaker 6: like that. We went out to have some drinks with
Speaker 6: friends and the beer bottle was left on the table,
Speaker 6: and he's, like, my DNA's on that. If somebody comes
Speaker 6: after me to the bar and gets in a fight
Speaker 6: and picks up that beer bottle and hits somebody over
Speaker 6: the head with them and kills them, my fingerprint is
Speaker 6: on that. So it's things like that you just don't
Speaker 6: that you don't think of. And like his gum, he
Speaker 6: would even throw a gum away in a garbage can
Speaker 6: just because his DNA's on it.
Speaker 1: And suddenly, if you've been in a situation where you
Speaker 1: were convicted of something you didn't do, you're going to
Speaker 1: go out of your way to make were that can't
Speaker 1: happen again, even though you can't control everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I went to my therapist's office and I was in
Speaker 2: the waiting room and she had magazines sitting in the office,
Speaker 2: and it was obvious the address labels showed that she
Speaker 2: brought them from home, and I told my therapist, if
Speaker 2: something ever happened to you, they could argue that I
Speaker 2: had access to your address through the address labels on
Speaker 2: the magazines you have in your office. The next week,
Speaker 2: I came in and all the address labels were torn
Speaker 2: off of the magazines. And that's what we used to
Speaker 2: have to use to do in prison. When you got
Speaker 2: mail from your loved ones, you tore the reach for
Speaker 2: an addresses off them and flushed them down the toilet
Speaker 2: because you didn't want your fellow inmates to get a
Speaker 2: hold of your family's address. It's just you're constantly aware
Speaker 2: of all of these potential dangers you shouldn't have to
Speaker 2: worry about. And I'll tell you, I make myself throw
Speaker 2: things in a public garbage can because I just I
Speaker 2: can't do it anymore. I have to be free, and I.
Speaker 1: Have to that's your immersion therapy, and.
Speaker 2: It's terrifying, and it's yeah, wow.
Speaker 6: On another day to day basis, all of our kids' friends,
Speaker 6: we've had to let them know because we don't feel
Speaker 6: comfortable with them being in our house unless they know
Speaker 6: his story, and we just don't want it to be
Speaker 6: a surprise to them, because some people believe that he
Speaker 6: has a certificate of innocence and he's innocent. Other people
Speaker 6: believe the cops arrested him, so he must be guilty.
Speaker 2: Both of my daughters have had friends whose parents took
Speaker 2: one look at me and said, wait a minutes, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if I want my kid around your kid.
Speaker 1: I would sincerely hope, in light of most recent news,
Speaker 1: that is completely gone at this point, because in January, I.
Speaker 3: Know it's not, but you would think it would be. So.
Speaker 1: In January of twenty fifteen, the then Governor Pat Quinn
Speaker 1: pardoned Alan based on actual innocence, which cleared the path
Speaker 1: for long overdue accountability in the form of compensation, which
Speaker 1: in March of twenty twenty four finally happened the town
Speaker 1: of Normal. The Normal Town Council settled the lawsuit in
Speaker 1: your favor to the tune of five point four million.
Speaker 1: What more could anybody ask for in terms of knowing
Speaker 1: beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Speaker 2: This latest development, with the civil suit and the settlement
Speaker 2: for that, you would think that's enough. But this is
Speaker 2: how powerful the word of just one police officer is.
Speaker 2: In the United States, of America. This is how powerful
Speaker 2: the word of one state's attorney, you know, when this
Speaker 2: person who has public recognition for being an officer of
Speaker 2: the law says I think it was him that did it.
Speaker 2: There are still people, in spite of all of that evidence,
Speaker 2: that can't get behind the reasonable conclusion that I was
Speaker 2: framed and that I was railroaded, and that I was
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted, and that I am absolutely entitled to my
Speaker 2: liberty and my family is absolutely entitled to their dignity.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco.
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 Wardis, as well as our producers Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, and Jackie Pauley. This series is produced, edited,
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco. Our senior producer
Speaker 1: is Kara Kornhaber. Story editing by Hannah Biel, research by
Speaker 1: Shelby Sorels, mixing and sound design by Nick Massetti, with
Speaker 1: additional production by Jeff Clyborne. Our theme music is by
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social
Speaker 1: media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on all platforms at Lauren
Speaker 1: Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal come Pany Number one