March 9, 2023 • 37 mins
Adjusting to life on Death Row is anything but easy for Keith. Then a new admission by the Special Prosecutor and a chance at a new trial may change everything. Will Keith get his day in court or will the pressure finally break him?
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
A warning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. One day, I
was standing at the bar, sketching the breeze, and all
of a sudden, I've seen something brown hit the wall
in front of myself, and I looked at it, and
it trickled down and with a wind carter and hitting
(00:23):
you run in their faces. It was fecies, and were
buying and selling fecies to throw on other individuals in
the Lucasville. And you know, if a guy had HIV,
he can get a premium price for his ship, you know,
because it was infected. How do you don't live with that?
How are you going to go home with your life
(00:44):
after having somebody's ship thrown into your mouth or having
three men hold you down? Why they't penetrate you? How
are you gonna look yourself in the mirror after that?
Serving time at Lucasville before the uprising was ugly and appalling.
But lay fun death row where Keith Lamar is sent
after being found guilty of killing five men, might just
(01:05):
finally break him. It puts you through artist boy or shit,
and you if you get angry, See that's proof that
he's an animal. No, that's proof, dumb human being, that
this shit hurt, that the ship you're doing to me
is painful. I'm Leah Rothman. This is the real Killer.
(01:34):
Episode five, Good Luck Keith. In nineteen ninety five, Keith
Lamar is sitting on death Row, facing the dreadful and
torturous road that lies ahead, as that was the bottom
embark on this journey. I was surrounded by some older gentlemen,
(01:58):
who one of whom had but he'd been on death row,
and he, along with a few other older guys, encouraged
me to adopt these attributes to stay focused and state
of course, because once you are put on death row,
it was a decades long process before or if you
were able to prove your ess. So as part of
(02:19):
this process, Keith takes a second name, Beaumani Hondu Shakur Bumni,
which means mighty soldier, Handu means prepared for war, and
Shakur means too thankful. Baumani or Keith, as he says
I can call him, talks to me from death row.
I would need to be a mighty soldier prepared for
(02:41):
the various wars and struggles inner and outer and you know,
somehow achieve a state of gratitude, you know, because without gratitude,
it's impossible to generate positive energy, and maybe some of
that positive energy is working. Shortly after arriving at Mansfield
Correctional Institution, Keith gets some news that could affect his case.
(03:05):
It all goes back to that list of forty three
names of prisoner witnesses and the eleven pages of potentially
exculpatory or favorable statements. When prosecutors handed them over to
Keith and his team, they refused to specify which prisoners
said what, claiming they had promised the inmates anonymity. Well,
(03:26):
in two other trials that followed, Keith's prosecutors went ahead
and matched some of those names and statements for their
defense teams. In some of those statements, prisoners point the
finger at perpetrators other than Keith. Herman Carson, one of
Keith's nineteen ninety five trial attorneys, immediately files a motion
(03:46):
for a new trial. Well, I mean, it was totally
unfair to begin with, not to give it to us
but Downlton a matter of weeks for two other people
to have access to it for their trials. Really was
you know, almost the ultimate of unfairness. Why did you
give it to them? Why couldn't we have it? And it,
(04:07):
you know, gave you a lingering feeling. It was because
they thought was that it would increase our chances of
not being convicted. The judge denied it. Judge Crowe, Yeah,
Judge Crowe denies Hermann's request for a new trial. You
denied the motion for a new trial. Tell me about that, well,
(04:29):
I don't remember much about it other than let me
think I must have not thought that that was something
that would have prejudiced to offense that much. And I'm
guessing that's why I ruled away, I wrote, But I
don't know. Wasn't that presidential to him? Even if he
(04:50):
had to match up names? What was he going to
do with him? I guess the way to say that
playing it, Judge Crowe ut tom ly out diverges to stand,
and I remember and walking past me on his way
out of the courtroom, he wrap pass the defense table
and he came right up to me and he said,
(05:10):
good luck Keith. And it was just one of those
be wordering moments where I sunk within myself. Yeah, you know,
good luck Keith. When he was actually doing things to
make sure that my luck was anything but good. So
(05:31):
no new trial for Keith, but it begs the question
if the jury in Keith's trial could have heard some
of the evidence allowed in the two trials that followed
his might the outcome been different. By the way. I've
tried reaching out to the jurors I could find, but
haven't heard back from any of them. Just days after
Judge Crowe denies Keith's motion for a new trial, another
(05:54):
devastating blow, he loses the most important person in his life,
his grandfather, shortly after I arrived there on death road
that my grand my grandfather ultimately died and my grandmother died,
I think while I was waiting to be sentenced. But
my granddad and I were very, very close. But he
(06:19):
was more than the granddad to me. He was my friend,
He was my father, He was my mentor, my teacher.
You know. He had dropped out of school early on
in his life, so he was functional or literally couldn't
really read or write. But he knew how to fix
every name, knew how to cook anything, and so he
was jack of all trades. Even though he didn't have
a formal education. He was really really brilliant, really really dignified,
(06:41):
and you know, one of the last conversations he had
not shared. He was just trying to use his last breath, basically,
to use his limited vocabulary to get me to see
my own worth. It just seemed like such a waste
to have this important person in my life and then
to lose him and have his last thought of me
leaving this world, me being on death row. It was
(07:03):
just really devastating. Yeah, as Keith mourns the loss of
now both of his grandparents and his shot at a
new trial, trying to adjust to his new reality is
incredibly difficult. Describe the conditions at Mansfield for me, Well,
(07:23):
you know, you know, those of us who were sentence
to death as a result of our last involvement in
the ride. Once we were sentenced to death, we wouldn't
be allowed to enter into the main death row population
and what was unpresidented move we were also be placed
inside the tair confinement and so we were put into
(07:44):
this little small area about five or six seals. The
phone was taken off the wall prevented us to make
calls to our family. We couldn't get food, parcels closed
parcels which other death row prisoners were able to do.
You know, our mail was routinely thrown into the garbage.
(08:04):
All of us were getting, you know, cigarette bus put
out in our food, and so it was. It was
a very difficult, difficult period. So in April of nineteen
ninety six, Keith and the four others from Lucasville sentenced
to death protest the oppressive conditions with a hunger strike.
About a week later, someone from the administration convinced us
(08:27):
that our claims will be in taken serious, believing their
voices had been heard. Keith and the others and their
hunger strike, but Keith says, months go by with no
real improvements to their conditions. So they try again, and
we went on another hunger strike that long after that,
and that also ended in defeat. And I just felt
(08:49):
morbidly dejected. I just felt dejected. My spirits were really
low because they kept turning the scrouves, and you know,
I started having nightmares waking up at the it was
a night in Post West. You know, several times I
was kicking and punching out, striking out at the wall.
I broke my foot at one point. My medita so,
(09:11):
and so I just felt like I was on a
verse of losing it, losing myself. At rock bottom, Keith
attempts the improbable on behalf of himself and the four
others from Lucasville. He petitions the warden to transfer them
to another prison out of state. So it was above
(09:33):
they take Wade, you know how they phrased it, And
so we were left basically just too kind of single
swim and I just felt like I was thinking, felt
like I was dying where I was located, this little,
small little space. It just felt like the whole the
walls were closing in on me, and I just felt
(09:53):
I had to get out of there. And I was
just desperate. After two unsuccessful hunger strikes at Mansfield Correctional Institution,
(10:13):
an unequivocal no to a prison transfer, and a serious
decline in his mental state, Keith takes a drastic approach. So,
tell me about the riot at Mansfield. Yeah, I'm one
that's started causing him a guant, Keith corrects me. He
(10:36):
calls it a disturbance. He says his plan was simple.
He just wanted to get everyone in the pod to
destroy it and make it unlivable. Hoping prison officials would
then transfer them all out of state. It was, you know,
foolish as I look back on it, but that was
the best I can do under the circumstances with what
I had at the time. Yeah. So on September fifth,
(10:58):
nineteen ninety seven, as Keith is leaving the wreck yard,
he asks a corrections officer coming to handcuff him to
first kick him the basketball nearby. Then and I bust
out of the cage, overpowers this one guard, and I
took his keys from him, and I ultimately ended up
opening order. Tim totally irrational, I understand, but I snapped.
(11:23):
You know, that's the only way I can really described it.
When you overpowered the guard. Did you have a weapon? Yeah,
I had to make ship knife. It was a piece
of metal out of a thirteen minutes color television. Wasn't
sharpened down, didn't have any sharp edges to it. But
it looked at grimy scene. It looked at throughsome and
(11:45):
if you you know, in a pressure a situation, you
wouldn't know that it wasn't really a weapon. But of
course the CEO they didn't know that. So I had
it in my waistbanding. So they can see it then,
you know. So I didn't really have to assault any
of the guards. I didn't have to use a weapon
because you know, it was because of the ideal that
I had a weapon that they were more compliant. But
(12:11):
some prisoners are assaulted. I'm surprised when I learned who
and why. Yeah, it was some guys who doing those
Honger strikes. One of the things that we had tried
during the second Homer stripe was to have food in reserves.
Part of the strategy of being an anger strike in
order to you know, last longer, is to have food
(12:34):
smuggled in through it. So we had bought food prior
to the Homer stripe as a strategy to extend the
Honger strike, and some of the prisoners who was on
the other side told them, told on them, alerted the
seals that we had foods and the garbage scan and
so those two guys we had kind of sought out
and we destroyed their property, their television, they radios, rusted
(12:57):
them up a little bit. But you know, we were
trying to you know, life kill these individuals or anything
like that, you know. But I did have an extra
client with several prisoners who had assisted the administration. Wait
what this is sounding eerily familiar? Remember Keith is on
(13:19):
death row, accused, charged, and convicted of killing alleged snitches
at Lucasville during a prison riot. Now he's telling me
he started a riot or disturbance where he roughed up
snitches who tried to sabotage his hunger strike. So you
were accused of killing snitches at Lucasville, but you said
(13:41):
that you attacked some of the snitches who had told
the administration at Mansfield about your food stash. Can you
just tell me why those two things are different. Well,
I don't know that they are different. I don't know
that they are different. I hadn't even made that correlation.
But I can see how somebody's now, But you know,
(14:01):
make that correlation. Now people can say or use this
institutions who can to say, well, aha, you've done the
same thing that he's being accused. Though. The difference is
that now I'm in a situation that if I killed somebody,
there's no prepercussions for it, because you can only put
me on death road one time. You're going to kill
me one time. And so now if i'm this person
(14:23):
now I can be this person, but no consequence. That
was the opportunity. I could have killed the guards, but
I didn't. Said I held the guards hostage, but I didn't.
And you know, I'm gradually asked that question because you know,
one of the things that people typically do they judge
who outside of the context. The judge you from the
standpoint of them sitting in their living room and based
(14:46):
on what was normal, based on the circumstances that they
are living in. Reportedly, the riot or disturbance at Mansfield
Correctional Institution is over in roughly five hours. Three corrections
officers suffer minor injuries and seven inmates were assaulted, including
Jason Robb, one of the so called Lucasville Five. Allegedly
(15:09):
he was severely beaten by responding officers. Months later, Keith
says officers come to punish him. But they came and
they beat me up. They dragged me to another sale
that probably had a concussion. My ribs were very sore,
probably broken up, hard to breathe. They put me in
(15:30):
a strip sale. They took all the bidding, took all
my clothing self for my boxers, and left me in
this freezing cold sale. And I was on the constant
watched they had a camera embedded in the wall above
the door, and so I was on the constants of valence.
And you remember being very very cold and having to
(15:53):
cut a hole in the mattress and Carlins out of
the mattress. And when they saw that, they came in
and confiscated the mattress. And so here I am now
stripped down to my underwear and freezing cold, and this
sale no mattress, no nothing soft to lie down on.
And I wasn't receiving any of my male so my
(16:13):
family didn't know where I was. Keith says his friends
and family can't get a hold of him. He seems
to have gone missing. About two months later, he's returned
to his cell. It was in this very like distressful situation.
Then one day out as a blue, after having not
heard from my family or any of my loved ones,
(16:34):
I received this letter from Rebecca Collins. For some reason,
they allowed her letters to come through. Rebecca Collins the
daughter of Herman Carson, Keith's nineteen ninety five trial attorney.
Back then, she's twelve, and her letter is decorated with hearts,
exclamation points, and smiley faces. The letter was like finding
(16:57):
a whale of water in the desert at the going
weeks without any water. It's just, you know, reawakened my
sperity in the way that that really kind of saves
me today. Rebecca is an advisor in the College of
Arts and Sciences at Ohio University. She also spent fourteen
(17:17):
years teaching sociology and criminology there. I speak with her
over zoom. So Keith has found guilty and goes off
to Mansfield. Yes, and is this when you start writing Keith? Yeah,
I want to say it was you. I mean right
around my twelfth birthday or shortly thereafter. I know that
(17:39):
my mom had sent him some letters. I know that
my older sister Katie was writing to Keith, and so
I asked my dad if I could write to Keith,
and he said yes, if I remember, critically, my mom
had some reservations about that. You know, had been a
twelve year old little girl writing somebody in a correctional facility.
But I was allowed to do it. What would you
(18:01):
write to Keith about? I talk about school. I talked
about riding horses. I talk about sports that I was playing.
Just you know all things that I think are typical
of you of being twelve. I don't know. I just
we formed a friendship and my letters to him kind
of like writing in a diary, but this way your
(18:22):
diary actually responds, you know what I mean, Like you
would ask me questions about my horse, and you know,
ask me questions about sports. And he was very considerate
of the fact that I was young and not telling
me things that he was experiencing. He's my big brother
and I'm his little sister, and that's just a connection
(18:43):
that we formed and that we continue to this day.
Here's Keith again. But I do consider a part of
my family. I'll call her affectually my little assistant. We've been,
you know, and remained very close over the years. Yeah,
one of my most important relationships. Yeah. When she went
to college, she did her master thesis on an over
(19:04):
representation of black mail in prison and being sign When
she became the professor, she invited me several times to
have conversations with them about the criminal justice system and
about my experience to the criminal justice system. So she
and I have a pain extremely closed over years. About
(19:24):
seven months after Rebecca and Keith start corresponding, Keith says
he and the other four from Lucasville are taken in
the middle of their night from their cells at Mansfield
and driven about two hours to their new home, the
newly constructed supermax prison in Youngstown, Ohio. Supermax prisons are
(19:45):
the highest level security prisons in the US. Typically, in
these places, inmates have little to no time outside of
their cells, very few activities, and very little contact with
other humans. What I got you, it was easy to
see that these CEOs had been told stories about us,
about me specifically, and so I was being cast as
(20:06):
one of the most dangerous prisoners in the state of Ohio.
And that's how they treated me when I first arrived here.
They needed us to say something disrespectful, to do something
disrespectful too. I beat us down, the sprayls with maize,
lock us down, strap us down, lock us up, and
all these other things. But it never happened. I've always
(20:29):
had control over myself. I'm still viewed as one of
the worst of the worst. You know. I've had my
two rush put in the tallet. I had guards coming
to myself when I was on the visit and spray
maze into my laundry bag, you know, and so when
I put on my underwear, I'm all of a sudden
I'm itching. But the things that I don't think CEOs,
(20:50):
at least initially, I don't think the thing they say
fully understand that that when you to humanize somebody, you
to humanize yourself in the process. In the you know,
they's been a lot of ceols who work here who
have committed suicide because there's just too much. They've been
asking too much, just poor people being asked to oppress
other poor people, and you know there's a price for that.
(21:25):
From nineteen ninety eight through two thousand and two, all
of Keith's appeals in state court all the way up
to the Ohio State Supreme Court are denied. Basically, they
reject Keith's many claims, asserting his trial in nineteen ninety
five was unjust and unfair. They say nothing done back
then or anything presented since, would have changed the outcome
(21:46):
of his trial. It's a series of defeats one after another.
But around this time there's some much needed levity brought
to Keith's otherwise very heavy situation. He reconnects with an
old friend from home. Ken write, Yeah, that's one of
my best friends. When I say best I don't mean
he's my favorite friend, so that that is the case.
(22:08):
But he's my best friend, you know what I mean,
the best dress, most intelligent I ever think, you know
what I mean. Keith was fifteen and Ken was fourteen
when they met in high school and played basketball together.
Kenn It invited me over to his lovely home about
thirty minutes south of Cleveland to talk about his longtime
friendship with Keith. I can just remember he's like a
(22:30):
celebrity in school almost, you know, because he would he
come walking down the halley, you know, if you can
almost imagine like red carpet Papa Rozz he'd walk down
the hall. He just he just whole court and you
just hear from different directions, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keithy. You
know he's waving, you know, yeah, Okay, I see he's pointing,
(22:50):
he's waving. You know. People just had a lot of
respect for him, and people you love being around him.
You know, he was just that that sort of guy. Today,
Ken works as an analyst for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He's also an Air Force vet who served in desert
storm and a proud father of two adult daughters, and
(23:12):
he spoke to me in depth about the reason why
he didn't take the deal. He felt as though he said,
it basically just would have crushed him. It would have
eaten him alive. He says, I just couldn't do it,
even though they promised me and told me that, you know,
I would receive no additional time. It would be a
concurrent sentence, he said, I just couldn't do it. I
(23:34):
didn't do this. None of it really made sense to me.
One just knowing how he was as a person too.
They come and since person in me never been a
prison but there are certain prison politics, and from my
point of view, typically there's no twenty one year old
who heads up, orchestrates and runs an entire death squad.
(23:57):
It just doesn't happen. You know, you have real grown
men in there. Could it happen? Yeah, maybe, but I
just don't. I don't see it. And I didn't see.
He randomly said something to me to basically kind of
cemented what I felt. He said, Trust me, I wasn't
running anything in that facility, he said, Man, I was
just trying to survive, you know, period. Yeah, so he
(24:20):
confirmed the basic notion that I had about him being
able to orchestrate and run a you know, as a
term into the death squad or something like that. Yeah,
if I was logic. Ken has been a great source
of support and has always kind of encouraged me to
(24:42):
pursue my potential, to pursue the best in myself. And yeah,
he's been doing that since we've been tenage teenagers, and
I finally listened to him, finally found something to myself
to kind of confirm what he's been saying or seen
all along. And so, yeah, he's been a great help
of my life. And because of what's coming, Keith will
(25:03):
need all the help in unconditional support he can get.
In two thousand and four, after roughly nine years on
death row, Keith's fight to prove his innocence officially moves
to the federal level. His new attorneys, David Doughton and
Kate McGarry, file a writ of habeas corpus, which means
produce the body. If granted, it will allow them to
(25:25):
bring Keith in front of a judge to determine if
he's being held lawfully or not. Amongst other things, Keith's
attorneys alleged that prosecutors suppressed evidence that could have been
used in Keith's defense, which violates due process and is
commonly known as a Brady violation. Brady refers to the
landmark nineteen sixty three United States Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland,
(25:50):
which established that prosecutors must turn over any evidence that
might exonerate a criminal defendant. We ask the course for
every hearing to kind of sets out what was the
protocol that prevented the space from turning over what was
what we consider was a sculpatory evidence, evidence that was
(26:11):
favorable to my defense. We want to know why they
made decisions that they made during trial to the problem
of this evidence, and the magistrate judge agreed that we
should kind of, you know, figure this out. So I
was the only one, I think then and now who
has received who has received the everductuary as it relates
(26:33):
to the Lucasville Prison up rising. Keith has granted an
evidentiary hearing, which is a pretty big deal. On July ninth,
two thousand and seven, scores of people descend on the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
at Dayton. The two day hearing will be presided over
by Chief Magistrate Judge Michael Mertz. His job will be
(26:56):
to listen to the evidence presented, then write a report
and recommendation for the assigned District Court judge to be clear.
All of this is to decide whether or not Keith
was denied due process and his constitutional rights were violated
in nineteen ninety five, and if he should now receive
a new trial. Back to Keith and Dayton, the courtroom
(27:19):
was back my mom, who's now deceased, my cousin Cavin,
who's now deceased, ab independence, my uncles and aunts and cousins,
and support us, my friends. Everyone was there and including
the attorneys of the other defendants who were also convicted.
As a resort to ride at the hearing. Keith and
his attorneys argue that in nineteen ninety five, prosecutors and
(27:41):
the trial court played a game of hide the ball
by not turning over evidence that could prove his innocence.
During the two days of testimony, several people take the stand,
but the star witness is Mark Petemeyer. He was and
is a prosecutor out of Hamilton County. After the uprising,
(28:01):
he was appointed as a special prosecutor in charge of
all the Lucasville cases. He was the special prosecutor, so
we didn't see him. He didn't try the cases. He
decided who would be indicted and also decided at the
average discrporatory evidence what would be turned over, and what
(28:22):
was that like to see him on the stand. He
was a mysterious figure up until that point. But we've
heard his name, but we hadn't saw his face. And
so when they called him and he walked into the courtroom,
I remember being struck by how normal he appeared, because
you know, I was looking for a devil, basically, somebody
(28:45):
who was out for evil, and he just looked like
a normal pencil pusher, you know, with glasses on, a
normal average attorney. And he took the stand and you know,
was very composed, and I took a lit and you know,
(29:07):
presented without any qualms, this real bizarre application of Brady.
No one even to this day, in terms of attorneys
that I've spoken to, have ever heard of any arrangement
of Brady as he had formulated. So how did Mark
Pete Meyer explain the state's application of Brady to Keith's case.
(29:29):
In his deposition testimony prior to the evidentiary hearing, he
said the state utilized quote a narrow Brady standard, and
he basically explains it this way. There were several people
involved in each of the murders, no one was killed
by just one person, and each of the killings happened
during a very chaotic scene. So if a witness named
(29:51):
a bunch of people as a perpetrators but didn't specifically
say Keith wasn't there or Keith didn't do it, Mark
pete Meyer didn't necessar fairly consider that exculpatory or favorable evidence,
and therefore it wasn't turned over to the defense because
even though the witness didn't exclude Keith, it doesn't mean
he wasn't there or a participant. So if I understand
(30:15):
this correctly, it's like this. Let's say I'm at a
big family reunion and a fight breaks out. When I'm
asked who threw punches during the brawl. Because it's a
crazy scene, I might naturally leave some names out, but
that doesn't mean that those people weren't there or didn't
take part. On the other hand, if I'm asked who
(30:36):
was involved in this family reunion fight, and I say,
I saw Tony, Monique Clarence, and Michelle throw punches. I
don't think I would ever voluntarily offer up Nicole wasn't there,
or Nicole didn't punch anyone, I mean without being explicitly
asked about Nicole's involvement. Also part of this narrow application
(30:57):
of Brady is if an inmates something that could have
helped Keith but was deemed not to be credible, that
also wasn't necessarily handed over to the defense. After Mark
pete Meyer testifies, the two prosecutors from Keith's nineteen ninety
five trial take the stand. What did that feel like
to have Seth Tiger and Bill Anderson questioned by your attorneys?
(31:23):
Seth Tiger in particular, you know, real snobbish person, real
very like smug throughout the whole product. That he was
the one that really struck me as deriving joy from
departing me of my constitutional rights. When the two day
(31:43):
hearing concludes, I left that whole proceeding thinking that finally
someone had heard my crying, that this thing would be
set right. Here's Keith's lawyer, Hermann Carson. I thought he
had a good chance, just from some of the questions
the judge asked during the testimony, and just the overall
(32:07):
tenor of the proceeding, I thought that it was a
good chance he's going to get relief. So they wait
and wait. Then, three full years after Keith's evidentiary hearing,
their weight is finally up. Chief Magistrate Mrtz issues his
(32:29):
one hundred and eighty three page report and recommendations. Murtz
says the evidence of Keith's guild produced at trial was
overwhelming and none of the statements presented at the hearing
would have changed the nineteen ninety five verdict. Mrtz recommends
Keith's conviction be upheld. Well, you know, I I was devastated, obviously,
(32:51):
the magistrate basically says, whatever was presented at this hearing,
whatever knew, it would not have changed the outcome of
your trial. How can that not make a difference if
the system is self is legit, So of course he's gonna,
you know, say, you know that this wouldn't have changed
the outcome because he talked about more than just to
(33:12):
outcome of my situation. It's not really about Keith Lamar.
We don't give a damn about Keith la mar about
us upholding the system, keeping disdain in no impact. Six
months later, a district judge agrees with the magistrate's report.
It was an absolutely horrible opinion. Thought that it was
(33:35):
a good chance he's going to get relief in federal court,
but he did not. Keith isn't granted relief. But after
what came out at the evidentiary hearing, lawyers for the
four other death row inmates are given new evidence. They
didn't have it their trials. That's something that Keith's attorneys
could have done as well, but according to Keith and
(33:55):
the US District Court docket, they did not. I'm the
only one who's an attorneys for whatever reason, didn't make
the necessary motions and so even though even missions made
by Mark Pete may were made at my everdential were hearing,
I was the only one not allowed to business it
from those a missionship. Despite their often rocky relationship, attorneys
(34:19):
Kate McGarry and David Dalton continue to represent Keith for
the next few years. I reached out to Kate McGarry,
who is now a district judge in New Mexico, to
see if she'd be willing to talk with me about
Keith's case. She wrote me back quote, I am not interested,
Please do not contact me again. I also reached out
to David Dalton. We exchanged a couple of emails. In
(34:42):
one of them, he wrote, in part quote, myself and
Kate McGarry Withdrew as he made up bald faced lies
about us. So we Withdrew. We had to ethically, so
I would not be a good person to talk to.
By the way. I've also reached out to Mark Pete Meyer,
but he has yet to respond. My you know problem
(35:03):
with kay Davis that they sabotaged my case. But I
wasn't playing on the state with panelms. So they did
what the staate wanted to do, not what I wanted
them to do. And that's a fact. They get to
talk about ethics, ethics and ship when they fucked me over,
Oh you got my blood pressure up. I'll tell you
what if I one day found myself strapped to a
journey that these people will not be able to call
(35:24):
it justice, will not be able to say that we
did right by this person. I had this recurrent dream
then I'm in this little complicated place, real complicated, you know,
way to get out of it. Get out of it
every time as to crawl through these little, real tight spaces.
Sometimes I'm upside down. I can't explain it to you,
(35:45):
but I know my way out of happen. But get
to help about me. I'm gonna get out of this.
They never thought. They thought I was gonna give up.
They thought I was turn my back on was wrong
about that, It was wrong about me. But with my
life back, I'm gonna expose these people in I said,
I believe in that with everything that I am. Really
I get upset because they did this to a twenty
(36:06):
three year old kid and from again or with no resources.
It's functional family, broken family or that they you know,
said it's the most But yeah, you know it's not
over yet. It's not over. Every five of my being,
I believe that. Get my life back next time. I'm
the real Killer. What you told police, which is different
(36:31):
than what you shared with me, My investigation takes a
turn which leads to new questions. I've admitted some details
because it involves other people. You want to have a conversation,
Let's have a conversation. The Real Killer is a production
(36:58):
of AYR Media and iHeartRadio. Hosted by me Leah Rothman.
Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza Rosen for AYR Media.
Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams, Senior associate
producer Jill Pesheznik, Coordinator George Faum. Editing and sound design
(37:21):
by Cameron Taggy. Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggy. Audio
engineering by Matt Jacobsen. Studio engineering by Anna mooleishan legal
counsel for AYR Media. Gianni Douglas, executive producer for iHeartRadio,
Maya Howard
A warning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. One day, I
was standing at the bar, sketching the breeze, and all
of a sudden, I've seen something brown hit the wall
in front of myself, and I looked at it, and
it trickled down and with a wind carter and hitting
(00:23):
you run in their faces. It was fecies, and were
buying and selling fecies to throw on other individuals in
the Lucasville. And you know, if a guy had HIV,
he can get a premium price for his ship, you know,
because it was infected. How do you don't live with that?
How are you going to go home with your life
(00:44):
after having somebody's ship thrown into your mouth or having
three men hold you down? Why they't penetrate you? How
are you gonna look yourself in the mirror after that?
Serving time at Lucasville before the uprising was ugly and appalling.
But lay fun death row where Keith Lamar is sent
after being found guilty of killing five men, might just
(01:05):
finally break him. It puts you through artist boy or shit,
and you if you get angry, See that's proof that
he's an animal. No, that's proof, dumb human being, that
this shit hurt, that the ship you're doing to me
is painful. I'm Leah Rothman. This is the real Killer.
(01:34):
Episode five, Good Luck Keith. In nineteen ninety five, Keith
Lamar is sitting on death Row, facing the dreadful and
torturous road that lies ahead, as that was the bottom
embark on this journey. I was surrounded by some older gentlemen,
(01:58):
who one of whom had but he'd been on death row,
and he, along with a few other older guys, encouraged
me to adopt these attributes to stay focused and state
of course, because once you are put on death row,
it was a decades long process before or if you
were able to prove your ess. So as part of
(02:19):
this process, Keith takes a second name, Beaumani Hondu Shakur Bumni,
which means mighty soldier, Handu means prepared for war, and
Shakur means too thankful. Baumani or Keith, as he says
I can call him, talks to me from death row.
I would need to be a mighty soldier prepared for
(02:41):
the various wars and struggles inner and outer and you know,
somehow achieve a state of gratitude, you know, because without gratitude,
it's impossible to generate positive energy, and maybe some of
that positive energy is working. Shortly after arriving at Mansfield
Correctional Institution, Keith gets some news that could affect his case.
(03:05):
It all goes back to that list of forty three
names of prisoner witnesses and the eleven pages of potentially
exculpatory or favorable statements. When prosecutors handed them over to
Keith and his team, they refused to specify which prisoners
said what, claiming they had promised the inmates anonymity. Well,
(03:26):
in two other trials that followed, Keith's prosecutors went ahead
and matched some of those names and statements for their
defense teams. In some of those statements, prisoners point the
finger at perpetrators other than Keith. Herman Carson, one of
Keith's nineteen ninety five trial attorneys, immediately files a motion
(03:46):
for a new trial. Well, I mean, it was totally
unfair to begin with, not to give it to us
but Downlton a matter of weeks for two other people
to have access to it for their trials. Really was
you know, almost the ultimate of unfairness. Why did you
give it to them? Why couldn't we have it? And it,
(04:07):
you know, gave you a lingering feeling. It was because
they thought was that it would increase our chances of
not being convicted. The judge denied it. Judge Crowe, Yeah,
Judge Crowe denies Hermann's request for a new trial. You
denied the motion for a new trial. Tell me about that, well,
(04:29):
I don't remember much about it other than let me
think I must have not thought that that was something
that would have prejudiced to offense that much. And I'm
guessing that's why I ruled away, I wrote, But I
don't know. Wasn't that presidential to him? Even if he
(04:50):
had to match up names? What was he going to
do with him? I guess the way to say that
playing it, Judge Crowe ut tom ly out diverges to stand,
and I remember and walking past me on his way
out of the courtroom, he wrap pass the defense table
and he came right up to me and he said,
(05:10):
good luck Keith. And it was just one of those
be wordering moments where I sunk within myself. Yeah, you know,
good luck Keith. When he was actually doing things to
make sure that my luck was anything but good. So
(05:31):
no new trial for Keith, but it begs the question
if the jury in Keith's trial could have heard some
of the evidence allowed in the two trials that followed
his might the outcome been different. By the way. I've
tried reaching out to the jurors I could find, but
haven't heard back from any of them. Just days after
Judge Crowe denies Keith's motion for a new trial, another
(05:54):
devastating blow, he loses the most important person in his life,
his grandfather, shortly after I arrived there on death road
that my grand my grandfather ultimately died and my grandmother died,
I think while I was waiting to be sentenced. But
my granddad and I were very, very close. But he
(06:19):
was more than the granddad to me. He was my friend,
He was my father, He was my mentor, my teacher.
You know. He had dropped out of school early on
in his life, so he was functional or literally couldn't
really read or write. But he knew how to fix
every name, knew how to cook anything, and so he
was jack of all trades. Even though he didn't have
a formal education. He was really really brilliant, really really dignified,
(06:41):
and you know, one of the last conversations he had
not shared. He was just trying to use his last breath, basically,
to use his limited vocabulary to get me to see
my own worth. It just seemed like such a waste
to have this important person in my life and then
to lose him and have his last thought of me
leaving this world, me being on death row. It was
(07:03):
just really devastating. Yeah, as Keith mourns the loss of
now both of his grandparents and his shot at a
new trial, trying to adjust to his new reality is
incredibly difficult. Describe the conditions at Mansfield for me, Well,
(07:23):
you know, you know, those of us who were sentence
to death as a result of our last involvement in
the ride. Once we were sentenced to death, we wouldn't
be allowed to enter into the main death row population
and what was unpresidented move we were also be placed
inside the tair confinement and so we were put into
(07:44):
this little small area about five or six seals. The
phone was taken off the wall prevented us to make
calls to our family. We couldn't get food, parcels closed
parcels which other death row prisoners were able to do.
You know, our mail was routinely thrown into the garbage.
(08:04):
All of us were getting, you know, cigarette bus put
out in our food, and so it was. It was
a very difficult, difficult period. So in April of nineteen
ninety six, Keith and the four others from Lucasville sentenced
to death protest the oppressive conditions with a hunger strike.
About a week later, someone from the administration convinced us
(08:27):
that our claims will be in taken serious, believing their
voices had been heard. Keith and the others and their
hunger strike, but Keith says, months go by with no
real improvements to their conditions. So they try again, and
we went on another hunger strike that long after that,
and that also ended in defeat. And I just felt
(08:49):
morbidly dejected. I just felt dejected. My spirits were really
low because they kept turning the scrouves, and you know,
I started having nightmares waking up at the it was
a night in Post West. You know, several times I
was kicking and punching out, striking out at the wall.
I broke my foot at one point. My medita so,
(09:11):
and so I just felt like I was on a
verse of losing it, losing myself. At rock bottom, Keith
attempts the improbable on behalf of himself and the four
others from Lucasville. He petitions the warden to transfer them
to another prison out of state. So it was above
(09:33):
they take Wade, you know how they phrased it, And
so we were left basically just too kind of single
swim and I just felt like I was thinking, felt
like I was dying where I was located, this little,
small little space. It just felt like the whole the
walls were closing in on me, and I just felt
(09:53):
I had to get out of there. And I was
just desperate. After two unsuccessful hunger strikes at Mansfield Correctional Institution,
(10:13):
an unequivocal no to a prison transfer, and a serious
decline in his mental state, Keith takes a drastic approach. So,
tell me about the riot at Mansfield. Yeah, I'm one
that's started causing him a guant, Keith corrects me. He
(10:36):
calls it a disturbance. He says his plan was simple.
He just wanted to get everyone in the pod to
destroy it and make it unlivable. Hoping prison officials would
then transfer them all out of state. It was, you know,
foolish as I look back on it, but that was
the best I can do under the circumstances with what
I had at the time. Yeah. So on September fifth,
(10:58):
nineteen ninety seven, as Keith is leaving the wreck yard,
he asks a corrections officer coming to handcuff him to
first kick him the basketball nearby. Then and I bust
out of the cage, overpowers this one guard, and I
took his keys from him, and I ultimately ended up
opening order. Tim totally irrational, I understand, but I snapped.
(11:23):
You know, that's the only way I can really described it.
When you overpowered the guard. Did you have a weapon? Yeah,
I had to make ship knife. It was a piece
of metal out of a thirteen minutes color television. Wasn't
sharpened down, didn't have any sharp edges to it. But
it looked at grimy scene. It looked at throughsome and
(11:45):
if you you know, in a pressure a situation, you
wouldn't know that it wasn't really a weapon. But of
course the CEO they didn't know that. So I had
it in my waistbanding. So they can see it then,
you know. So I didn't really have to assault any
of the guards. I didn't have to use a weapon
because you know, it was because of the ideal that
I had a weapon that they were more compliant. But
(12:11):
some prisoners are assaulted. I'm surprised when I learned who
and why. Yeah, it was some guys who doing those
Honger strikes. One of the things that we had tried
during the second Homer stripe was to have food in reserves.
Part of the strategy of being an anger strike in
order to you know, last longer, is to have food
(12:34):
smuggled in through it. So we had bought food prior
to the Homer stripe as a strategy to extend the
Honger strike, and some of the prisoners who was on
the other side told them, told on them, alerted the
seals that we had foods and the garbage scan and
so those two guys we had kind of sought out
and we destroyed their property, their television, they radios, rusted
(12:57):
them up a little bit. But you know, we were
trying to you know, life kill these individuals or anything
like that, you know. But I did have an extra
client with several prisoners who had assisted the administration. Wait
what this is sounding eerily familiar? Remember Keith is on
(13:19):
death row, accused, charged, and convicted of killing alleged snitches
at Lucasville during a prison riot. Now he's telling me
he started a riot or disturbance where he roughed up
snitches who tried to sabotage his hunger strike. So you
were accused of killing snitches at Lucasville, but you said
(13:41):
that you attacked some of the snitches who had told
the administration at Mansfield about your food stash. Can you
just tell me why those two things are different. Well,
I don't know that they are different. I don't know
that they are different. I hadn't even made that correlation.
But I can see how somebody's now, But you know,
(14:01):
make that correlation. Now people can say or use this
institutions who can to say, well, aha, you've done the
same thing that he's being accused. Though. The difference is
that now I'm in a situation that if I killed somebody,
there's no prepercussions for it, because you can only put
me on death road one time. You're going to kill
me one time. And so now if i'm this person
(14:23):
now I can be this person, but no consequence. That
was the opportunity. I could have killed the guards, but
I didn't. Said I held the guards hostage, but I didn't.
And you know, I'm gradually asked that question because you know,
one of the things that people typically do they judge
who outside of the context. The judge you from the
standpoint of them sitting in their living room and based
(14:46):
on what was normal, based on the circumstances that they
are living in. Reportedly, the riot or disturbance at Mansfield
Correctional Institution is over in roughly five hours. Three corrections
officers suffer minor injuries and seven inmates were assaulted, including
Jason Robb, one of the so called Lucasville Five. Allegedly
(15:09):
he was severely beaten by responding officers. Months later, Keith
says officers come to punish him. But they came and
they beat me up. They dragged me to another sale
that probably had a concussion. My ribs were very sore,
probably broken up, hard to breathe. They put me in
(15:30):
a strip sale. They took all the bidding, took all
my clothing self for my boxers, and left me in
this freezing cold sale. And I was on the constant
watched they had a camera embedded in the wall above
the door, and so I was on the constants of valence.
And you remember being very very cold and having to
(15:53):
cut a hole in the mattress and Carlins out of
the mattress. And when they saw that, they came in
and confiscated the mattress. And so here I am now
stripped down to my underwear and freezing cold, and this
sale no mattress, no nothing soft to lie down on.
And I wasn't receiving any of my male so my
(16:13):
family didn't know where I was. Keith says his friends
and family can't get a hold of him. He seems
to have gone missing. About two months later, he's returned
to his cell. It was in this very like distressful situation.
Then one day out as a blue, after having not
heard from my family or any of my loved ones,
(16:34):
I received this letter from Rebecca Collins. For some reason,
they allowed her letters to come through. Rebecca Collins the
daughter of Herman Carson, Keith's nineteen ninety five trial attorney.
Back then, she's twelve, and her letter is decorated with hearts,
exclamation points, and smiley faces. The letter was like finding
(16:57):
a whale of water in the desert at the going
weeks without any water. It's just, you know, reawakened my
sperity in the way that that really kind of saves
me today. Rebecca is an advisor in the College of
Arts and Sciences at Ohio University. She also spent fourteen
(17:17):
years teaching sociology and criminology there. I speak with her
over zoom. So Keith has found guilty and goes off
to Mansfield. Yes, and is this when you start writing Keith? Yeah,
I want to say it was you. I mean right
around my twelfth birthday or shortly thereafter. I know that
(17:39):
my mom had sent him some letters. I know that
my older sister Katie was writing to Keith, and so
I asked my dad if I could write to Keith,
and he said yes, if I remember, critically, my mom
had some reservations about that. You know, had been a
twelve year old little girl writing somebody in a correctional facility.
But I was allowed to do it. What would you
(18:01):
write to Keith about? I talk about school. I talked
about riding horses. I talk about sports that I was playing.
Just you know all things that I think are typical
of you of being twelve. I don't know. I just
we formed a friendship and my letters to him kind
of like writing in a diary, but this way your
(18:22):
diary actually responds, you know what I mean, Like you
would ask me questions about my horse, and you know,
ask me questions about sports. And he was very considerate
of the fact that I was young and not telling
me things that he was experiencing. He's my big brother
and I'm his little sister, and that's just a connection
(18:43):
that we formed and that we continue to this day.
Here's Keith again. But I do consider a part of
my family. I'll call her affectually my little assistant. We've been,
you know, and remained very close over the years. Yeah,
one of my most important relationships. Yeah. When she went
to college, she did her master thesis on an over
(19:04):
representation of black mail in prison and being sign When
she became the professor, she invited me several times to
have conversations with them about the criminal justice system and
about my experience to the criminal justice system. So she
and I have a pain extremely closed over years. About
(19:24):
seven months after Rebecca and Keith start corresponding, Keith says
he and the other four from Lucasville are taken in
the middle of their night from their cells at Mansfield
and driven about two hours to their new home, the
newly constructed supermax prison in Youngstown, Ohio. Supermax prisons are
(19:45):
the highest level security prisons in the US. Typically, in
these places, inmates have little to no time outside of
their cells, very few activities, and very little contact with
other humans. What I got you, it was easy to
see that these CEOs had been told stories about us,
about me specifically, and so I was being cast as
(20:06):
one of the most dangerous prisoners in the state of Ohio.
And that's how they treated me when I first arrived here.
They needed us to say something disrespectful, to do something
disrespectful too. I beat us down, the sprayls with maize,
lock us down, strap us down, lock us up, and
all these other things. But it never happened. I've always
(20:29):
had control over myself. I'm still viewed as one of
the worst of the worst. You know. I've had my
two rush put in the tallet. I had guards coming
to myself when I was on the visit and spray
maze into my laundry bag, you know, and so when
I put on my underwear, I'm all of a sudden
I'm itching. But the things that I don't think CEOs,
(20:50):
at least initially, I don't think the thing they say
fully understand that that when you to humanize somebody, you
to humanize yourself in the process. In the you know,
they's been a lot of ceols who work here who
have committed suicide because there's just too much. They've been
asking too much, just poor people being asked to oppress
other poor people, and you know there's a price for that.
(21:25):
From nineteen ninety eight through two thousand and two, all
of Keith's appeals in state court all the way up
to the Ohio State Supreme Court are denied. Basically, they
reject Keith's many claims, asserting his trial in nineteen ninety
five was unjust and unfair. They say nothing done back
then or anything presented since, would have changed the outcome
(21:46):
of his trial. It's a series of defeats one after another.
But around this time there's some much needed levity brought
to Keith's otherwise very heavy situation. He reconnects with an
old friend from home. Ken write, Yeah, that's one of
my best friends. When I say best I don't mean
he's my favorite friend, so that that is the case.
(22:08):
But he's my best friend, you know what I mean,
the best dress, most intelligent I ever think, you know
what I mean. Keith was fifteen and Ken was fourteen
when they met in high school and played basketball together.
Kenn It invited me over to his lovely home about
thirty minutes south of Cleveland to talk about his longtime
friendship with Keith. I can just remember he's like a
(22:30):
celebrity in school almost, you know, because he would he
come walking down the halley, you know, if you can
almost imagine like red carpet Papa Rozz he'd walk down
the hall. He just he just whole court and you
just hear from different directions, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keithy. You
know he's waving, you know, yeah, Okay, I see he's pointing,
(22:50):
he's waving. You know. People just had a lot of
respect for him, and people you love being around him.
You know, he was just that that sort of guy. Today,
Ken works as an analyst for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He's also an Air Force vet who served in desert
storm and a proud father of two adult daughters, and
(23:12):
he spoke to me in depth about the reason why
he didn't take the deal. He felt as though he said,
it basically just would have crushed him. It would have
eaten him alive. He says, I just couldn't do it,
even though they promised me and told me that, you know,
I would receive no additional time. It would be a
concurrent sentence, he said, I just couldn't do it. I
(23:34):
didn't do this. None of it really made sense to me.
One just knowing how he was as a person too.
They come and since person in me never been a
prison but there are certain prison politics, and from my
point of view, typically there's no twenty one year old
who heads up, orchestrates and runs an entire death squad.
(23:57):
It just doesn't happen. You know, you have real grown
men in there. Could it happen? Yeah, maybe, but I
just don't. I don't see it. And I didn't see.
He randomly said something to me to basically kind of
cemented what I felt. He said, Trust me, I wasn't
running anything in that facility, he said, Man, I was
just trying to survive, you know, period. Yeah, so he
(24:20):
confirmed the basic notion that I had about him being
able to orchestrate and run a you know, as a
term into the death squad or something like that. Yeah,
if I was logic. Ken has been a great source
of support and has always kind of encouraged me to
(24:42):
pursue my potential, to pursue the best in myself. And yeah,
he's been doing that since we've been tenage teenagers, and
I finally listened to him, finally found something to myself
to kind of confirm what he's been saying or seen
all along. And so, yeah, he's been a great help
of my life. And because of what's coming, Keith will
(25:03):
need all the help in unconditional support he can get.
In two thousand and four, after roughly nine years on
death row, Keith's fight to prove his innocence officially moves
to the federal level. His new attorneys, David Doughton and
Kate McGarry, file a writ of habeas corpus, which means
produce the body. If granted, it will allow them to
(25:25):
bring Keith in front of a judge to determine if
he's being held lawfully or not. Amongst other things, Keith's
attorneys alleged that prosecutors suppressed evidence that could have been
used in Keith's defense, which violates due process and is
commonly known as a Brady violation. Brady refers to the
landmark nineteen sixty three United States Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland,
(25:50):
which established that prosecutors must turn over any evidence that
might exonerate a criminal defendant. We ask the course for
every hearing to kind of sets out what was the
protocol that prevented the space from turning over what was
what we consider was a sculpatory evidence, evidence that was
(26:11):
favorable to my defense. We want to know why they
made decisions that they made during trial to the problem
of this evidence, and the magistrate judge agreed that we
should kind of, you know, figure this out. So I
was the only one, I think then and now who
has received who has received the everductuary as it relates
(26:33):
to the Lucasville Prison up rising. Keith has granted an
evidentiary hearing, which is a pretty big deal. On July ninth,
two thousand and seven, scores of people descend on the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
at Dayton. The two day hearing will be presided over
by Chief Magistrate Judge Michael Mertz. His job will be
(26:56):
to listen to the evidence presented, then write a report
and recommendation for the assigned District Court judge to be clear.
All of this is to decide whether or not Keith
was denied due process and his constitutional rights were violated
in nineteen ninety five, and if he should now receive
a new trial. Back to Keith and Dayton, the courtroom
(27:19):
was back my mom, who's now deceased, my cousin Cavin,
who's now deceased, ab independence, my uncles and aunts and cousins,
and support us, my friends. Everyone was there and including
the attorneys of the other defendants who were also convicted.
As a resort to ride at the hearing. Keith and
his attorneys argue that in nineteen ninety five, prosecutors and
(27:41):
the trial court played a game of hide the ball
by not turning over evidence that could prove his innocence.
During the two days of testimony, several people take the stand,
but the star witness is Mark Petemeyer. He was and
is a prosecutor out of Hamilton County. After the uprising,
(28:01):
he was appointed as a special prosecutor in charge of
all the Lucasville cases. He was the special prosecutor, so
we didn't see him. He didn't try the cases. He
decided who would be indicted and also decided at the
average discrporatory evidence what would be turned over, and what
(28:22):
was that like to see him on the stand. He
was a mysterious figure up until that point. But we've
heard his name, but we hadn't saw his face. And
so when they called him and he walked into the courtroom,
I remember being struck by how normal he appeared, because
you know, I was looking for a devil, basically, somebody
(28:45):
who was out for evil, and he just looked like
a normal pencil pusher, you know, with glasses on, a
normal average attorney. And he took the stand and you know,
was very composed, and I took a lit and you know,
(29:07):
presented without any qualms, this real bizarre application of Brady.
No one even to this day, in terms of attorneys
that I've spoken to, have ever heard of any arrangement
of Brady as he had formulated. So how did Mark
Pete Meyer explain the state's application of Brady to Keith's case.
(29:29):
In his deposition testimony prior to the evidentiary hearing, he
said the state utilized quote a narrow Brady standard, and
he basically explains it this way. There were several people
involved in each of the murders, no one was killed
by just one person, and each of the killings happened
during a very chaotic scene. So if a witness named
(29:51):
a bunch of people as a perpetrators but didn't specifically
say Keith wasn't there or Keith didn't do it, Mark
pete Meyer didn't necessar fairly consider that exculpatory or favorable evidence,
and therefore it wasn't turned over to the defense because
even though the witness didn't exclude Keith, it doesn't mean
he wasn't there or a participant. So if I understand
(30:15):
this correctly, it's like this. Let's say I'm at a
big family reunion and a fight breaks out. When I'm
asked who threw punches during the brawl. Because it's a
crazy scene, I might naturally leave some names out, but
that doesn't mean that those people weren't there or didn't
take part. On the other hand, if I'm asked who
(30:36):
was involved in this family reunion fight, and I say,
I saw Tony, Monique Clarence, and Michelle throw punches. I
don't think I would ever voluntarily offer up Nicole wasn't there,
or Nicole didn't punch anyone, I mean without being explicitly
asked about Nicole's involvement. Also part of this narrow application
(30:57):
of Brady is if an inmates something that could have
helped Keith but was deemed not to be credible, that
also wasn't necessarily handed over to the defense. After Mark
pete Meyer testifies, the two prosecutors from Keith's nineteen ninety
five trial take the stand. What did that feel like
to have Seth Tiger and Bill Anderson questioned by your attorneys?
(31:23):
Seth Tiger in particular, you know, real snobbish person, real
very like smug throughout the whole product. That he was
the one that really struck me as deriving joy from
departing me of my constitutional rights. When the two day
(31:43):
hearing concludes, I left that whole proceeding thinking that finally
someone had heard my crying, that this thing would be
set right. Here's Keith's lawyer, Hermann Carson. I thought he
had a good chance, just from some of the questions
the judge asked during the testimony, and just the overall
(32:07):
tenor of the proceeding, I thought that it was a
good chance he's going to get relief. So they wait
and wait. Then, three full years after Keith's evidentiary hearing,
their weight is finally up. Chief Magistrate Mrtz issues his
(32:29):
one hundred and eighty three page report and recommendations. Murtz
says the evidence of Keith's guild produced at trial was
overwhelming and none of the statements presented at the hearing
would have changed the nineteen ninety five verdict. Mrtz recommends
Keith's conviction be upheld. Well, you know, I I was devastated, obviously,
(32:51):
the magistrate basically says, whatever was presented at this hearing,
whatever knew, it would not have changed the outcome of
your trial. How can that not make a difference if
the system is self is legit, So of course he's gonna,
you know, say, you know that this wouldn't have changed
the outcome because he talked about more than just to
(33:12):
outcome of my situation. It's not really about Keith Lamar.
We don't give a damn about Keith la mar about
us upholding the system, keeping disdain in no impact. Six
months later, a district judge agrees with the magistrate's report.
It was an absolutely horrible opinion. Thought that it was
(33:35):
a good chance he's going to get relief in federal court,
but he did not. Keith isn't granted relief. But after
what came out at the evidentiary hearing, lawyers for the
four other death row inmates are given new evidence. They
didn't have it their trials. That's something that Keith's attorneys
could have done as well, but according to Keith and
(33:55):
the US District Court docket, they did not. I'm the
only one who's an attorneys for whatever reason, didn't make
the necessary motions and so even though even missions made
by Mark Pete may were made at my everdential were hearing,
I was the only one not allowed to business it
from those a missionship. Despite their often rocky relationship, attorneys
(34:19):
Kate McGarry and David Dalton continue to represent Keith for
the next few years. I reached out to Kate McGarry,
who is now a district judge in New Mexico, to
see if she'd be willing to talk with me about
Keith's case. She wrote me back quote, I am not interested,
Please do not contact me again. I also reached out
to David Dalton. We exchanged a couple of emails. In
(34:42):
one of them, he wrote, in part quote, myself and
Kate McGarry Withdrew as he made up bald faced lies
about us. So we Withdrew. We had to ethically, so
I would not be a good person to talk to.
By the way. I've also reached out to Mark Pete Meyer,
but he has yet to respond. My you know problem
(35:03):
with kay Davis that they sabotaged my case. But I
wasn't playing on the state with panelms. So they did
what the staate wanted to do, not what I wanted
them to do. And that's a fact. They get to
talk about ethics, ethics and ship when they fucked me over,
Oh you got my blood pressure up. I'll tell you
what if I one day found myself strapped to a
journey that these people will not be able to call
(35:24):
it justice, will not be able to say that we
did right by this person. I had this recurrent dream
then I'm in this little complicated place, real complicated, you know,
way to get out of it. Get out of it
every time as to crawl through these little, real tight spaces.
Sometimes I'm upside down. I can't explain it to you,
(35:45):
but I know my way out of happen. But get
to help about me. I'm gonna get out of this.
They never thought. They thought I was gonna give up.
They thought I was turn my back on was wrong
about that, It was wrong about me. But with my
life back, I'm gonna expose these people in I said,
I believe in that with everything that I am. Really
I get upset because they did this to a twenty
(36:06):
three year old kid and from again or with no resources.
It's functional family, broken family or that they you know,
said it's the most But yeah, you know it's not
over yet. It's not over. Every five of my being,
I believe that. Get my life back next time. I'm
the real Killer. What you told police, which is different
(36:31):
than what you shared with me, My investigation takes a
turn which leads to new questions. I've admitted some details
because it involves other people. You want to have a conversation,
Let's have a conversation. The Real Killer is a production
(36:58):
of AYR Media and iHeartRadio. Hosted by me Leah Rothman.
Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza Rosen for AYR Media.
Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams, Senior associate
producer Jill Pesheznik, Coordinator George Faum. Editing and sound design
(37:21):
by Cameron Taggy. Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggy. Audio
engineering by Matt Jacobsen. Studio engineering by Anna mooleishan legal
counsel for AYR Media. Gianni Douglas, executive producer for iHeartRadio,
Maya Howard
Host
Leah Rothman
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