Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
Speaker 1: writer and I'm Steve Drisen. In today's episode, will take
Speaker 1: you to Dayton, Ohio to tell you about Tyra Patterson.
Speaker 1: Nineteen year old Tyra falsely confessed to stealing a necklace,
Speaker 1: but an obscure law turned her false confession to robbery
Speaker 1: into something far worse. I was sitting in my office
Speaker 1: one day in the phone rank and on the other
Speaker 1: end of the call was David Singleton, the director of
Speaker 1: a group called the Ohio Justice and Policy Center. David
Speaker 1: was looking for somebody who could assist him in a
Speaker 1: case that involved a false confession. It was Tyra Patterson's case.
Speaker 1: We've told a lot of stories about people who fall
Speaker 1: sleek confessed to murders last season, but the crazy thing
Speaker 1: is just as a case where a false confession to
Speaker 1: robbery is converted into a false conviction for murder. And
Speaker 1: it's all because of an obscure, archaic rule called the
Speaker 1: felony murder doctrine. The felony murder leads to people going
Speaker 1: down for murders who never killed anyone. When most people
Speaker 1: think about people in prison who they've been convicted of murder.
Speaker 1: They think of truly bad people, you know, scary folks.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of people in prison for
Speaker 1: murder who never touched a gun or a murder weapon
Speaker 1: at all. The prisons are filled with people convicted of
Speaker 1: felony murder, people like Tyra Patterson. Today's story starts in Dayton, Ohio.
Speaker 1: It was a manufacturing town back in the day, but
Speaker 1: those jobs left in the eighties and nineties and never
Speaker 1: came back. Now's claim to fame is that the guys
Speaker 1: who invented the airplane used to live there, Wilbur and
Speaker 1: Orville Wright. In fact, our story starts in a part
Speaker 1: of town named after the Wright brothers, a lower income,
Speaker 1: mixed race neighborhood called Right View. It was just after
Speaker 1: midnight on a Tuesday in right View September. Tyra Patterson
Speaker 1: was awake and board. Tyra was nineteen and smart as
Speaker 1: hell with a sunny personality. She was full of promise,
Speaker 1: but there weren't many open doors in front of her.
Speaker 1: Tyra's home life was really tough. Her dad was an
Speaker 1: alcoholic who hit her mom when he had been drinking.
Speaker 1: He left when Tyra was just a kid, and they
Speaker 1: got evicted when her mom couldn't pay the bills. Tira
Speaker 1: dropped out of school in sixth grade. She was tired
Speaker 1: of the other kids bullying her about being poor. She
Speaker 1: got a job at a fast food restaurant, and they
Speaker 1: put her at the register because she was so friendly.
Speaker 1: But Tira hadn't learned enough math to make change. She
Speaker 1: was humiliated every time someone handed her at twenty and
Speaker 1: quit the job. By the time Tira reached her late teens,
Speaker 1: the family had found an apartment to live in again,
Speaker 1: but Tyra had lost her way. She smoked a lot
Speaker 1: of weed and tried not to think about how her
Speaker 1: life could have been different. It was around two a m.
Speaker 1: On September twentieth when Tyra's boring nights started getting a
Speaker 1: little too interesting. Tyra and her friend Rebecca were hanging
Speaker 1: out at Tyra's place, and they decided to go for
Speaker 1: a walk outside. They ran into five other young people
Speaker 1: from right View. Tyra barely knew most of them, but
Speaker 1: she and Rebecca stuck around anyway. The group was mixed
Speaker 1: gender and mixed race. Five were black, including Tyra, and
Speaker 1: two were white, including Rebecca. To keep things clear in
Speaker 1: our story, we're going to call all of them the
Speaker 1: Right View Group. Sometime after two a m. A gray
Speaker 1: Chevrolet rolled into an alley near where the group was
Speaker 1: hanging out. The Chevy was filled with five teenagers, all
Speaker 1: white girls from another part of town. They'd driven to
Speaker 1: Right View to steal stuff from people's garages in the alley.
Speaker 1: Two of these would be thieves got out of the
Speaker 1: Chevy to steal a radio. They were gone about ten
Speaker 1: minutes before they returned to the car in a hurry.
Speaker 1: Following them on foot were three members of the Right
Speaker 1: View group, Lashawna, Angie, and Joe, and on a leash.
Speaker 1: Joe had a pit bull. Before the girls in the
Speaker 1: Chevy can drive away, another car pulls up in front
Speaker 1: of them, blocking the alley's exit. It's the other four
Speaker 1: members of the Right View Group and crammed into a
Speaker 1: corner of that car, wondering what she's gotten herself into
Speaker 1: is Tyra Patterson. Tyra's friend Rebecca gets out of the
Speaker 1: car and heads for the Chevy along with the other
Speaker 1: Right View people. Not knowing what else to do, Tyra
Speaker 1: gets out too, but she's not prepared for what happens next.
Speaker 1: There's a confrontation. Everyone starts yelling. One of the right
Speaker 1: view girls, not Tyra, called the girls in the chevy
Speaker 1: white bitches. Two other right view girls join in, still
Speaker 1: not Tyra, and start telling the girls in the Chevy
Speaker 1: to check it in. That means throw your money and
Speaker 1: jewelry on the ground. The girls on the Chevy don't
Speaker 1: immediately comply, and that's when things really escalate. Tyra hangs back,
Speaker 1: but three of the right View girls open the car
Speaker 1: doors and start landing punches. Joe lets his pit bull
Speaker 1: into the car and orders it to attack. Now it's
Speaker 1: a melee. Some of the girls in the Chevy do
Speaker 1: check it in, throwing their jewelry onto the ground. Tyra
Speaker 1: is not used to this kind of stuff. She doesn't
Speaker 1: have a record, and she has no interest in violence.
Speaker 1: She tries to calm the situation down, but no one listens.
Speaker 1: As the punch is intensified, Tyra and her friend Rebecca
Speaker 1: starts slipping away. They want no part of this, but
Speaker 1: as they leave, Tyra spots a necklace on the ground
Speaker 1: costume jewelry, a cheap gold cross. She's never owned that
Speaker 1: kind of jewelry and it seems valuable to her. Tyra
Speaker 1: picks up the necklace, puts it in her pocket and
Speaker 1: keeps walking away. When Tyra picked up that necklace, at
Speaker 1: worst it was a theft. It might not even have
Speaker 1: been a cry. Picking up an necklace off the ground
Speaker 1: is not something that prosecutors are interested in. It's not
Speaker 1: something that people go to prison four and it's certainly
Speaker 1: not murder. Right as Tyra is walking away, she hears
Speaker 1: words being yelled yelled Maybee to her by one of
Speaker 1: the girls in the chevy. Eighteen year old Holly Lay.
Speaker 1: Please make them stop. Holly calls, we don't have anything.
Speaker 1: Before Tyra can respond, a gun shot rings out. La
Speaker 1: Shawn a Kini, part of the Right View group, had
Speaker 1: pulled out a gun and fired into the car. The
Speaker 1: bullet went straight into the temple of Michelle Lay, Holly's
Speaker 1: fifteen year old sister. Michelle died instantly. Later on another
Speaker 1: one of the Right View girls, Angie, expressed bewilderment that
Speaker 1: had all happened so fast. We just meant to punk
Speaker 1: them out, she said. Within minutes, though, punking out turned
Speaker 1: into murder. The moment the shots rang out, everyone scattered.
Speaker 1: Most members of the Right View group fled to a
Speaker 1: nearby motel, but Tyra ran to her apartment only a
Speaker 1: few hundred feet away, where she panicked and flushed the
Speaker 1: necklace down the toilet. She was afraid it would connect
Speaker 1: her to a shooting she didn't commit. For her part,
Speaker 1: Holly Lay got out of the Chevy and started banging
Speaker 1: on doors, pleading desperately for someone, anyone to call an
Speaker 1: ambulance help her sister. Eventually, someone did call. It was Tyra.
Speaker 1: Police only needed about twelve hours to figure out who
Speaker 1: had been there when Michelle Leigh was shot. The girls
Speaker 1: from the Chevy gave some pretty good descriptions of both
Speaker 1: their assailants and the pit bull. Police found the dog
Speaker 1: sitting outside its owner's house, and when the owner matched
Speaker 1: the girl's descriptions of Joe, police knew they'd found one
Speaker 1: of the Right View group. Pretty soon, several people had
Speaker 1: and rounded up, and the police were knocking at Tyrre
Speaker 1: store too. Before long, Tyra Patterson found herself in an
Speaker 1: interrogation room. This episode is sponsored by a i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
Speaker 1: and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The A i
Speaker 1: G Pro Bono program provides free legal services and other
Speaker 1: support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need,
Speaker 1: and recently they announced that working to reform the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system will become a key pillar of the program's mission.
Speaker 1: Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful,
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
Speaker 1: our society and in support of the public interest, including
Speaker 1: extensive work in the criminal justice area. The police were angry.
Speaker 1: The shooting was tragic, and they wanted to nail as
Speaker 1: many people as possible for murder, not just Lashawna who
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger, but the others too. But how do
Speaker 1: you get someone who didn't kill anyone to go down
Speaker 1: for murder. Well, one tool that police and prosecutors have
Speaker 1: is that felony murder rule. We mentioned earlier. This little
Speaker 1: known law can be the source of enormous injustice. In
Speaker 1: its purest form, the felony murder rule is felony plus
Speaker 1: death equals first degree murder. So if you commit a
Speaker 1: felony and during the course of that felony someone dies,
Speaker 1: you are convicted of first degree murder, even though you
Speaker 1: never intended to kill somebody, even though you couldn't have
Speaker 1: foreseen that somebody would have died. It is the intent
Speaker 1: to commit that felony that substitutes for the intent to kill.
Speaker 1: They didn't coerce Tyra into confessing to murder because they
Speaker 1: knew before the interrogation who the murderer was. It was
Speaker 1: Lashawn Achini. All they needed to do was get Tira
Speaker 1: to say that she grabbed a necklace by force from
Speaker 1: one of the girls in the car. That's a robbery.
Speaker 1: They could get her for the same murder that La
Speaker 1: Shawn Achini committed. So getting Tyra to say she snatched
Speaker 1: the necklace instead of picking it up is what this
Speaker 1: interrogation is all about. Now, like all interrogations that aren't
Speaker 1: fully recorded, there are two stories about what happened in
Speaker 1: the room. There is the official story told in police reports,
Speaker 1: and then there's the story told by the defendant. They
Speaker 1: almost always diverge. In Tyra's case, the police story goes
Speaker 1: like this. Tyra admitted to being there, but she denied
Speaker 1: being involved in the robbery, assault, or shooting. But as
Speaker 1: she was being booked, Tyra spontaneously announced that she wanted
Speaker 1: to tell the truth and admitted reaching into the car
Speaker 1: and grabbing the necklace off one of the girls that
Speaker 1: when police captured her confession on videotape, no coercion, no drama.
Speaker 1: But according to Tyra and her lawyer, she confessed after
Speaker 1: a very different sequence of events. Here's David Singleton, that
Speaker 1: lawyer who called Steve about this case. David has represented
Speaker 1: Tyra for the past eight years. Tyra recalls very clearly
Speaker 1: the detective screaming at her, saying she's a murderer, that
Speaker 1: she's going to be locked up for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life, cursing at her, telling her she's an effing liar,
Speaker 1: because Tyra was saying, I didn't rob anybody, I didn't
Speaker 1: shoot anybody. Eventually, the detective takes Tyra out of the
Speaker 1: interrogation room and walks her past where Tyra could see
Speaker 1: Rebecca sitting in a police car about to go home.
Speaker 1: And Tyre is like, well, you know Rebecca is going home.
Speaker 1: Why am I not going home. The detective said, well,
Speaker 1: she gave us a videotape statement, and Tyre said, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a videotape statement. The detective said, well, you
Speaker 1: don't have anything to tell us, and Tyra said, well,
Speaker 1: I picked up a necklace from the ground, and the
Speaker 1: sective smiled and took her back in to try and
Speaker 1: charge her. The police tell Tyra she just needs to
Speaker 1: change one thing in her story about the necklace. She
Speaker 1: didn't pick it up off the ground. Instead, she robbed
Speaker 1: it from the girls. After all, they say, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be better to go down for a robbery than for murder?
Speaker 1: Getting caught up in a murder is what Tire has
Speaker 1: been terrified of all along, So this is what breaks her.
Speaker 1: She falsely admits to snatching the necklace off one of
Speaker 1: the girls in the chevy. Now she's confessed to robbery
Speaker 1: and the cops have their felony. It's only at this
Speaker 1: point that the video camera gets turned on. Described the
Speaker 1: necklace necklish, thank thank god, I wouldn't web. I don't
Speaker 1: know why graphic? And from which girl in the back
Speaker 1: seat did you take that? Next? The driver? The first
Speaker 1: behind the driver? Okay. What struck me about Tira's appearance
Speaker 1: in that video is she did look tired. She also
Speaker 1: looked scared. At one point you hear somebody screaming in
Speaker 1: another room and she's just terrified. And another point, I
Speaker 1: recall very vividly, she's looking to the detective for an answer.
Speaker 1: I mean she was trying to satisfy what he wanted
Speaker 1: because she thought that was her ticket to go back
Speaker 1: home and continue on with her life. And the minute
Speaker 1: that she finished the video and the camera was turned off,
Speaker 1: she said, do I get to go home now? And
Speaker 1: he said no, I'm booking you for murder. That's when
Speaker 1: the nightmare truly began. How is tyed to know that
Speaker 1: one little change in her story was enough to charge
Speaker 1: her not just with robbery, but with felony murder. That
Speaker 1: one little change made Tyra as liable for Michelle's death
Speaker 1: as the murderer herself. You know, there's a huge irony
Speaker 1: in this case. They needed Tyra to confess to a robbery,
Speaker 1: not a theft, and the way they did it was
Speaker 1: they told her it's better to go down for a
Speaker 1: robbery than it is for a murder, and she accepted
Speaker 1: that explanation. She believed that premise. Everybody believes that because
Speaker 1: they don't understand the felony murder rule. We've seen police
Speaker 1: officers lie before, but this is a particularly dangerous lie
Speaker 1: because it sets somebody up for murder charges. There's actually
Speaker 1: a second irony in this case too, because here you
Speaker 1: have the felony murder rule being applied to Tyra Patterson.
Speaker 1: She didn't have a weapon with her that night. She
Speaker 1: didn't know the people who did come to that scene
Speaker 1: with weapons. She tried to intervene and stop the fight.
Speaker 1: She tried to deescalate as things were getting more serious
Speaker 1: and more violent, and when she couldn't stop the fight,
Speaker 1: she walked away after the gunshot. She called Tyra is
Speaker 1: a hero here. She's not a murderer. She's the one, though,
Speaker 1: who ends up going down. Tyra Patterson's only crime, if
Speaker 1: it even was a crime, was picking up a necklace
Speaker 1: from the ground. But suddenly, somehow she was on trial
Speaker 1: for murder and facing life in prison. And like too
Speaker 1: many murder trials, Tyra's was a ship show. So Tyra
Speaker 1: was represented by attorneys in the local public defender office.
Speaker 1: The problem was that they were overwhelmed and didn't have
Speaker 1: the resources to defend Tyra appropriately. The primary evidence against
Speaker 1: Tyra was her confession, but her attorneys never argued that
Speaker 1: it was falls or coerced. In fact, no one, not
Speaker 1: the judge or the jury, ever heard Tyra's account of
Speaker 1: her interrogation her attorneys actually advised her not to testify
Speaker 1: in her own defense, not to tell her side of
Speaker 1: the story, and why not. They said that she was
Speaker 1: too unsophisticated and talked too much like she was from
Speaker 1: the ghetto, that she'd be eaten alive by the prosecutors.
Speaker 1: And I think that Tyra got written off in that way.
Speaker 1: The jury did hear, though, from Holly Lay, who testified
Speaker 1: that she'd seen Tyra reaching into the car. A few
Speaker 1: other girls from the Chevy testified the same way. Their
Speaker 1: stories went unchallenged by Tyra's lawyers, even though they could
Speaker 1: have called Rebecca to testify that Tyra never snatched the
Speaker 1: necklace off anyone. The lawyers didn't even play Tyra's nine
Speaker 1: one one call, which would have showed that she was
Speaker 1: trying to help. We were able to find out by
Speaker 1: talking to the jurors years later that that nine one
Speaker 1: one call would have made a difference had they heard it.
Speaker 1: When I played it for them, they were like, we
Speaker 1: never would have convicted her had we known that she
Speaker 1: had called on one. But the defense gave the jurors
Speaker 1: nothing to work with. Nothing, And that's how Tyra Patterson,
Speaker 1: the woman who never touched a gun or robbed anyone.
Speaker 1: Was convicted of one count of aggravated murder and four
Speaker 1: counts of aggravated robbery. When the jury announced its verdict,
Speaker 1: she stood up and shouted in disbelief. But I didn't
Speaker 1: do it. It didn't matter. She was sentenced to forty
Speaker 1: three years to life. That's thirteen more years than Lashawna
Speaker 1: who actually pulled the trigger. And in December, Tyra Patterson
Speaker 1: became Ohio Department of Corrections inmate number three seven seven
Speaker 1: three seven. Fast forward to two thousand eleven, Tyra Patterson
Speaker 1: had been in prison for just over sixteen years, not
Speaker 1: even halfway through her sentence. When she got her first break.
Speaker 1: Ohio Governor Ted Strickland learned about her case. He thought
Speaker 1: it was unfair that her sentence was more severe than
Speaker 1: the shooters, so he issued what's called a commutation. Tyra
Speaker 1: tried to stop this from happening. She walked away before
Speaker 1: the shots were fired. All she did was pick up
Speaker 1: a necklace off of the ground. Lashawna Keeney brought the
Speaker 1: gun to this event, and she pulled the trigger that
Speaker 1: led to Michelle Leigh's death. It is grossly unfair for
Speaker 1: Lashawna to be sentenced to thirty years and for Tyra
Speaker 1: to be sentenced to forty three years. And that's why
Speaker 1: the governor commuted tyra sentence to sixteen years to life,
Speaker 1: which made her immediately eligible for parole. But Tyra's hopes
Speaker 1: of freedom were dashed a few months later. The Ohio
Speaker 1: Parole Board denied her request for parole, and they said
Speaker 1: she had to wait up to seven years before asking again.
Speaker 1: They said her crime was too severe. That's when David
Speaker 1: Singleton got involved. He'd heard about her case from a
Speaker 1: friend and he decided to go meet Tyra Patterson. When
Speaker 1: David met Tira in prison, she was different from that
Speaker 1: nineteen year old girl whose future looked like a broken
Speaker 1: promise behind bars. Tira had redeemed her own promise. She
Speaker 1: had gained skills in prison, working as a porter, of
Speaker 1: food service worker, a maintenance person. She had gone from
Speaker 1: an illiterate sixth grade dropout to someone who earned her
Speaker 1: g e D. She'd participated in more than two hundred
Speaker 1: self improvement programs, and most importantly, she was becoming an
Speaker 1: incredible advocate for herself and for justice. When she told
Speaker 1: David she was innocent, he believed her and he set
Speaker 1: out to prove it, and listing Steve Drizzen's help in
Speaker 1: the process. There's no d NA miracle for people like
Speaker 1: Tyra and for most of the people who are locked
Speaker 1: up in prison. I mean, DNA is only present in
Speaker 1: in maybe ten of all cases. Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Even if the shooter had left DNA on the gun,
Speaker 1: everybody already knew that Lashawakini was the one who pulled
Speaker 1: the trigger. This is not a case where DNA testing
Speaker 1: is going to exonerate Tyra Patterson. What she needed here
Speaker 1: was a reinvestigation and advocacy. As David and Steve dove
Speaker 1: into the case against Tyra, they found some major cracks. First,
Speaker 1: David discovered that the victim's sister, Holly Ley, had testified
Speaker 1: at the trial of another one of the right few
Speaker 1: girls a year before Tyra's trial. Back then, Holly had
Speaker 1: testified the Tyra wasn't the one who reached into the
Speaker 1: car and snatched the necklace. It had actually been someone else. Second,
Speaker 1: David uncovered the very first statements the girls in the
Speaker 1: Chevy gave to police right after Michelle Leigh was shot,
Speaker 1: and when he and Steve reviewed those early statements, well,
Speaker 1: it was revealing. Remember, some of these were given within
Speaker 1: an hour or two of the crime, so the memories
Speaker 1: were fresh for their witnesses, and Tyra was like a ghost.
Speaker 1: The two people who were mentioned far less than everybody
Speaker 1: else in all of these accounts were Tyra and Becca,
Speaker 1: and so that's squared with Tyra's story. Third, David talked
Speaker 1: to some of the other Right View girls, the ones
Speaker 1: who were born involved in what went down that night.
Speaker 1: Three of them signed affid David's supporting Tyra's innocence, including
Speaker 1: Lashawna Kini. Lashawna confirmed that far from participating, Tyra had
Speaker 1: actually tried to stop the confrontation from escalating. Before long,
Speaker 1: Tyra's case was attracting attention among some pretty influential people.
Speaker 1: Ohio State Senator Peggy Laner visited Tyra in prison, and
Speaker 1: she was so compelled by Tyra's story that she got
Speaker 1: four other states senators to back Tyra's efforts for release.
Speaker 1: Celebrities and advocates also began getting involved, everyone from actor
Speaker 1: Elfrey Woodard to mad Men creator Matthew Weener. They began
Speaker 1: tweeting and posting in support of Tyra, using the hashtag
Speaker 1: I Am Tyra Patterson. This I Am Tyra Patterson campaign
Speaker 1: the hashtag. What it meant was they were in solidarity
Speaker 1: with her. People were saying We're there for you, we
Speaker 1: see you, we hear you, and that was a powerful message.
Speaker 1: You know. I think the first time I heard the
Speaker 1: name Tyra Patterson was when I opened up my Twitter
Speaker 1: feed one day and there I see a video of
Speaker 1: Steve giving a speech and holding a poster that says,
Speaker 1: in big black letters, I am Tyra Patterson. That was
Speaker 1: take five of that video, because the first take went
Speaker 1: along what I thought was really well and then I
Speaker 1: picked up the sigh, I am holding it upside down.
Speaker 1: The point of the campaign was to demonstrate that anybody
Speaker 1: could falsely confess if pressured by the police, and I
Speaker 1: am Tyra Patterson to me, was making that message loud
Speaker 1: and clear. I could have been Tyra Patterson, nor my
Speaker 1: child could have been Tyra Patterson. That's how Tyra became,
Speaker 1: in my view, her best advocate. It was exposing people
Speaker 1: to her so that they could see her as a living,
Speaker 1: breathing daughter, sister, and person who was going to shine
Speaker 1: in the community if we could get her free. One
Speaker 1: person this message reached was the victim's sister. Two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen is when Holly Leigh got in touch with me
Speaker 1: and her husband said, Holly wants to meet you at
Speaker 1: Michelle's grave on Michelle's birthday. So I showed up. I
Speaker 1: didn't think they were going to calm. I was like,
Speaker 1: just to not be happening. Holly said, you know, Tyra
Speaker 1: didn't do this, And in fact, that night, Tyra walked
Speaker 1: by as we were talking to the police, and the
Speaker 1: police officer looked and said, is that one of the
Speaker 1: ones who was involved? And we all said no. On
Speaker 1: the night of the crime, Holly had seen one of
Speaker 1: the other girls snatched the necklace, not Tyra. But when
Speaker 1: she heard about Tyra's confession, Holly figured she must have
Speaker 1: been mistaken. After all, who would confess to a crime
Speaker 1: they didn't commit. Years later, Holly learned about false confessions
Speaker 1: and she realized Tyra must have given one. Holly's memory
Speaker 1: had been right all along. Tyra was innocent, and Holly
Speaker 1: agreed to support Tyra's release. In Tyra Patterson was granted
Speaker 1: parole after twenty one years behind bars. On Christmas morning,
Speaker 1: she walked out of prison, bent down and kissed the
Speaker 1: winter snow it wasn't exoneration, but at last she was free.
Speaker 1: To quote Shashank redemption, Tyra Patterson got busy living. She's
Speaker 1: my colleague now at the Ohio Justice and Policy Center.
Speaker 1: She's soaring in her job as our community relations expert.
Speaker 1: She speaks multiple times a week two different community groups,
Speaker 1: mentoring young people, not just in our community, but in
Speaker 1: places across the country. Tyra basically run Cincinnati. Everybody knows her.
Speaker 1: She is the brains behind this social justice mural that
Speaker 1: is going up in downtown Cincinnati featuring women who have
Speaker 1: spent a long time in prison and have come home
Speaker 1: and are doing well. And her face is one of
Speaker 1: the ones up there. It's just sad that her life
Speaker 1: was interrupted for twenty three years, but now she's living
Speaker 1: and it's a beautiful thing to see. Hell Tyra, Hey, Steve,
Speaker 1: how are you, Hey, Tyra? It's Laura. Hey, Laura, I'm great.
Speaker 1: Are you at home? I am so. Tyra was living
Speaker 1: in an apartment for a while and now she's a homeowner. Yes.
Speaker 1: What was it like to have you in place after
Speaker 1: being in prison so long? Oh my god? The privacy,
Speaker 1: no yelling, no scrum, and no arguing. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: I slept like a baby. I'm so alive. Man. If
Speaker 1: I were you, first thing I would have done is
Speaker 1: like stood in the shower for three hours. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like a long shower. No, Laura, I didn't even do that.
Speaker 1: I stayed in a bathtub for three hours. You know,
Speaker 1: in prison, we didn't get to take a bath. So
Speaker 1: all I ever wanted to do was just come home
Speaker 1: and take a bubble bath. I'm gonna go take a
Speaker 1: bubble bath in your honor, actually, to see if I
Speaker 1: love you. Tyra hasn't given up on exoneration. She and
Speaker 1: her legal team are still fighting to clear her name.
Speaker 1: If you want to follow Tyra's case and send her
Speaker 1: a message of support, look her up on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Tyra dot immani dot seven seven seven. She inspires Steve
Speaker 1: and me every day. That's the story of Tyra Patterson.
Speaker 1: Join us next week when we'll tell you about Ronald Kitchen,
Speaker 1: who was tortured by Chicago police into falsely confessing to murder,
Speaker 1: and it turns out he was far from the only one.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about how Ronald got his freedom and how
Speaker 1: the city's police torture scandal got exposed. Wrongful Conviction False
Speaker 1: Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to our
Speaker 1: executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wardis. Our production team
Speaker 1: is headed by Senior producer and Pope, along with producers
Speaker 1: Josh Hammer and Jess Shane. Our show is mixed by
Speaker 1: Jeannie Montalvo. John Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our music
Speaker 1: was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter at Laura ni Writer and you can
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at s driven. For more information
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