December 11, 2017 • 50 mins
In 1998, Vanessa Gathers was wrongfully convicted of robbing and beating 71-year-old Michael Shaw to death. There was no physical evidence linking Vanessa to the crime, and her conviction was based on a false confession extracted from her by notorious New York police detective Louis Scarcella, whose tactics led to the wrongful convictions of more than a dozen people. In 2016, Vanessa Gathers became the first woman to have been exonerated by Ken Thompson's Conviction Review Unit and the tenth person convicted by Scarcella to be exonerated. She is joined by her attorney Lisa Cahill in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't anything wrong. In the back of your mind, you say, well,
when we go to a hearing or we go to court,
(00:23):
the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
knew I was innocent and let force testimony go uncorrected
from the lower courts all the way up to United
States Supreme Court. You have someone with a badge with
ultimate and really, in that moment, unchecked authority. Don't presume
(00:45):
that people are guilty when you see them on TV,
because it may just be a dirty d A that
is trying to rise upward. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:11):
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Today, I have
two very special guests, and you'll learn more about that shortly,
but first I'm going to introduce them. Vanessa Gathers is
our star today. Just months after the Crown Heights riots
back in, Gathers was called in for questioning for robbery
and the beating of an elderly man inside of his
(01:32):
Crown Heights apartment. The victim fell into a coma then died.
The case was classified a homicide. That's when controversial former
NYPD detective Louis Scarcella took over the case. Five years later,
Scarcella reinterviewed Gathers and said she made a full confession.
(01:53):
Gathers was convicted on that confession alone. The former detective
is in the middle of several cases where people went
to prison for crimes they did not commit. D A.
Thompson and his team have already exonerated seventeen men. Gathers
is the first woman. Right now, the d a's office
is looking into at least one hundred other cases. Fifty
(02:15):
eight year old Vanessa Gathers will no longer be labeled
a convicted felon. After ten years in prison for manslaughter,
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson is expected to vacate her conviction.
We're going to take a step to not only vacate
miss gathers conviction, but to give her her good name back. Vanessa,
welcome to the show, and her badass attorney is here
(02:38):
as well. Lisa Cahill, Welcome to rona conviction. Happy to
be here. So, Vanessa, let's go back to when life
was simpler, right, because before this crazy incident happened, you
were living basically a normal life like anyone else. Right, Yes,
were you in a lot of trouble with the law
(02:59):
as a reason that they would have ever suspected you
of being involved in a cold blooded murder, a terrible
beating death. Not at all? What were you doing? What
was your life like? Where'd you grow up? I grew
up in Jersey City and North Carolina, and then I
moved to New York in seventy nine and I started working.
(03:19):
I was working in my head doing what I worked
for gris DDS. I worked for a lawyer when I
first arrived to New York City. So just finding your way,
doing different jobs whatever. I stayed with RIDDS for quite
some time. The original job I had was working for
a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, and I was just doing
(03:41):
statements of fouling and typing up notes. Thanks got slow,
so later on I I found a job with with STDs.
He let me stay once I found something better. So
you came to New York like most people do, I
guess to pursue your dreams and find your way. And
you were finding your way and things were going okay.
Do you have a family when this came down. Yes,
(04:04):
my family was in Jersey. I had a daughter. This
case stems out of a murder that happened in There's
a lot of things that are unusual about your case,
But there are also a lot of things that we
see that are common in rawful convictions, including a false confession,
which I think everyone is fascinated by and terrified of.
I know, I am. But in your case, this was
(04:26):
a murder of a guy named Michael Shaw I think right, yes,
And he was a guy who was murdered. He was
beaten to death by three women. Again pretty unusual circumstance.
And the reason we know he was beaten to death
by three women is because he lived long enough to
tell the tale. He died in the hospital. So originally
(04:46):
you were living in the area. Did you know about
the crime? No, not at the time. No, I did not.
I found out all that information later on. And how
did you first become aware that this? Did you know
the victim? I didn't know him, per se. I just
knew that he was like a pictuquest man that stayed
in the window, was set by the window all the time.
(05:07):
Because I used to walk my dog around the block,
but I didn't know his name. I didn't know him.
From time to time he would ask me to come
over to the window and when I get him a
pack of cigarettes, which I did, because I walked around
the block and I walked my dog back and I'm
just passed the two m to the window. So he
lived on the first floor, and so when he was murdered,
(05:30):
the word must have gotten around the neighborhood and you
first heard about it from a detective, Is that right? Yes?
And how did that come about? Because it's weird because
you weren't arrested until many years later when the case
was cold, and then you actually drew a terrible straw
or bad break whenever you're gonna call it, because you
got in the crosshairs of a guy who we know
(05:50):
now is one of the worst detectives in the history
of this country in terms of the damage that he
did to an entire borrow. Really, and he wrecked havoc
on so many people in so many cases and the
whole system. So how how did it come about that
you first encountered Detective Scarcella. I believe I was walking
(06:11):
my dog at the time, and I mean Detective scars
Slate his partner Shamil approached me and asked me about
the incident, and I said, I did not Actually I
didn't even know the man's name. I didn't know who
he was. I just know him by sight, you know,
from sitting in the window. That's all I knew about
this individual. But then later on after that incident, I didn't.
(06:36):
I didn't see the man anymore. After a while, you know,
I would still walk my dog, but the man was
not there in the window anymore. So they approached you
on the street, yes, And were they friendly with the
hostile that they put you in cops for? How did
this home? They were friendly. They just asked me some questions.
They also asked me about the same thing that I
(06:57):
know the man, and I told him I didn't know
who they would talk think about at first, and then
when they was telling me that he lived there, and
I said, oh, yeah, I remember was seeing the man
in the window, but I didn't know him per se.
Did they tell you that he had been murdered? None?
They didn't state that. They just said something happened. It
was an incident with this guy. They was trying to
(07:18):
find out what happened, and let's turn to you. So
what was going on there? First of all, Vanessa was
sort of a person that you would not really think
would be involved in anything like this. I mean, and
meeting her now, she's such a gentle soul. The idea
that she would be involved in a beating death seems
so far fetched. I certainly agree with that. But one
(07:40):
of the big mysteries always in the case was this
business about Scarcella stopping Vanessa because she was a woman
walking a white dog. Let me back up, right after
Mr Shaw was assaulted, he didn't die till months later,
so it didn't become a homicide investigation for about four
(08:03):
months time. So immediately after the assault, it's basically a
robbery investigation. But detectives are working the robbery and the
beating they're investigating somewhat. And those detectives interviewed the super
in Mr Shaw's building twice and memorialized that interview, and
(08:27):
the super never said anything about Fanessa Gathers. He never
described Vanessa Gathers. He never said, oh, there's a woman
with a white dog in the neighborhood who you should
talk to. None of that is reflected in those interview notes,
but Scarcella consistently testified that the reason he stopped Vanessa
(08:51):
was because after Mr Shaw died it did become a
homicide investigation, obviously, and Scarcella was assigned the case. He
testified that one of the first things he did was
go interview the Super. He claimed that the Super said
one of the women who used to talk to Shaw
(09:13):
and was friendly with Shaw was a woman in the
neighborhood with a white dog. Now, suspiciously, Scarcella never memorialized
that interview with the super, as you're supposed to do,
and as two prior detectives had done when they interviewed
the Super. We always thought it was suspicious that there
(09:36):
was never any memorialization of that. Why he in fact
stopped Vanessa. I really don't know. I mean, I suppose
it's conceivable the super said that, But the Super was
dead by the time of trial, so no one really knows. Well,
we do know that the victim he said that it
(09:57):
was three women. So the one thing you had in
common with the perpetu it was that you were a woman, right,
But there's a lot of women, so she just and
we know now that Scarcella didn't really care whether you
were the perpetrator or not. He just cared about getting convictions.
And he was very good at it, actually, I mean
in a very nefarious and terrible way. He was famous
(10:22):
actually for solving cases, and that's probably what he was after.
So he saw you, figured he would stop and talk
to you, and maybe maybe he was bored but had
nothing else to do. But it came and went right,
and then you went back to your life and you know,
eventually you found out that Mr Shaw had died. I'm
I'm sure, and life went on. Well, that's basically what happened. Well,
(10:45):
it was ninety two actually when he came around, I
think April or maya something of when he came. Then
issue visit with him. And then the next time I
saw him was nine. He's knocking on my door. So
he came to your home. Yes, and what transpired next,
I mean, you had no reason to think that you
(11:05):
would ever be a suspect or anything like this, and
probably the memory of the whole thing had faded to
some extent, right because it was all it was. It
was one congress. I had already forgotten about him and
the questioning at that time. I mean, I'm stayed in
the same building. I didn't move. If I had anything
to hide, I think I would have left. I mean,
a lot of people in the neighborhood moved out, but
(11:27):
I was still there, So there was no reason for
me to try and run. Won't do anything negative regarding
this manner because I know I had no involvement in it.
One of our hypotheses was that Vanessa was literally the
only one who had any connection to Shaw who was
(11:47):
actually still available to Scarcella, still living in the same building.
So by now it had turned into a homicide investigation.
Scarcella had decided that he was going to solve a
cold case, or maybe I'll probably many of them. Right,
So when he did come see you six years after
the murder, what happened? What was his approach this time?
(12:09):
Was he friendly? Was the hostile coughs? He was very friendly.
I actually was never in coughs at that time we spoke.
He asked me saying questions. He asked me, did I
come to the precinct? You know, I applied and I
went there. He showed me some monk shots since if
he asked me about some of the women in the neighborhood,
(12:32):
did I know in them as a couple that I
did see that had against criminal records? And that was
basically it. He never stated to me that I was
a suspect or anything. I had no knowledge of that
up until the time that we did. After the polygraph
and all of that other information that transpired. He had
(12:53):
my history. I told him where I was working. You know,
he knew where I lived. I didn't have anything to
hide from the school of our cooperated the best that
I could. I was working at the Brooklyn Family Court
and he picked me up that morning. He came to
my job and said he wanted me to come take
a polygraph chest. I went with him and everything I
(13:15):
had nothing to tie. So after that we stayed at
the Priests, and all of these other things transpired, and
he kept stating to me that he was gonna take
me home. It got late into the evening before I
left the Priests, and it was night. It was night
when I did leave there, and he kept saying that
my companion that he would contact him. He never did.
(13:39):
He just continue lie, Lie, Lie. He was frightening. He
took his jacket off, he had his gun exposed, and
he kept on threatening me, saying I was there, I
was there. I kept telling him no, I wasn't, and
and it just went back and forth like that for
quite some time. So he went progressively from friendly to
(14:00):
pick you up. And you probably were like most people.
I mean, you were a law abiding citizen. It wasn't
like you had a long rap sheet, right. I didn't
have no knowledge of the laws. So he and I
think he really knew that. So he know, because I
don't remember him a randomizing me or anything. I don't
remember all of that. As far as getting a lawyer,
I didn't know I needed one because I didn't know
I was just I was the person that was Jose
(14:25):
had committed this crime. At least. That's something that always
bothers me, is that people like Vanessa who are innocent
are very likely to wave their Miranda rights and speak
freely and not request the lawyer. And if you're listening
to the show now, I'm gonna encourage you. If you
(14:45):
do get picked up, don't assume anything right, just request
the lawyer. And other than that, don't say anything other
than your name, your address, and that's basically it, right,
And once you ask for lawer, they're not allowed to
ask you more question, right, that's right, that's right. I
mean they may do it anyway, but they'll be breaking
the law. Yeah, I mean, it is a tragic and
(15:06):
cruel irony that people like Vanessa who go in wanting
to help, right and wanting to be cooperative and good
citizens and help the police, end up often really on
the terribly wrong end of the stick because of the
fact that they just don't know and they get taken
advantage of, which is exactly what happened here. That's right.
And one of the issues that we identified with the polygraph,
(15:29):
which was basically how Scarcela kicked off that morning. With
the polygraph, a polygrapher is supposed to sit down alone
with this subject and basically explain to the subject why
they're there this morning, and for example, to say, do
you know why you're here? You're here because you're suspected
(15:53):
of involvement in this incident, and that's what I want
to talk to you about today. And in fact, this
particular polygraph never went through that exercise with Vanessa, and
she didn't know any better. Someone would say, well, what
do you think when someone's polygraphing you? But Vanessa had
had no prior experience with this. She was just trying
(16:15):
to do what they asked her to do. And again,
if you don't have anything to hide, and if you
are telling the truth, you think, well, why shouldn't I
take a polygraph? But not such a great idea. Well,
now we get to the part that gives me a
stomach ache. Is this whole process that takes place in
the interrogation room when someone in this case Garcella, but
(16:35):
it happens all over the country when a detective is
determined to get a confession, and they're not necessarily determined
to get the truth. In your case, they had no
reason to believe that you had any involvement, and yet
they approached you and interrogated you as if they basically
had everything in the world, every reason in the world
(16:57):
to suspect that you were the actual killer. Ultimately, you
confess to this crime you didn't commit. And that's the
number one thing, Vanessa. When I talked to people who
aren't familiar with these issues, everybody says, I would never confess.
They couldn't get me to do That's crazy. I would
I'm too strong, I'm tough. I would never that's you know.
And I'm like, wow, let me tell you something. So
(17:19):
how how did they get you? I mean, you're an
intelligent woman, you're a law abiding person. You would know
enough to know that that's a disaster, right, But you
did it? Yes, I did. You're in a tiny room
with these two police detectives and you don't even know
your rights. I didn't know. I was terrified. And then
the badgering started and the jacket came off, like I said,
(17:43):
exposed it, and he started threatening me and leaning over
and you know, making all of these accusations and stuff.
And I continually told him that I did not commit
this crime. I was not there. And when he wrote
the statement, I told him, we'll be going back and force.
He's trying to tell me to state this, to state
that this must have been confusing. It was because I'm like,
(18:06):
I'm not understanding what is going on as far as
what he's writing on paper. He tried to get me
to write that statement and I said, I'm not writing
anything because I don't know what happened. This is part
of the process right. And it's the crazy thing in
this country that police are allowed to lie. They can
say they have a satellite image of you committing the crime.
They can say that they found your fingerprints, they can
(18:27):
say that they have witnesses. They can say almost anything
they want. What they can't say is they can't threaten
you with say you're gonna get the death penalty if
you're not. There's certain things they can't do like that.
But as far as the facts surrounding the case, they
can lie all they want, which I think is crazy,
and it doesn't it's not that way in most other
Western European countries. And Jason, the reason they do that
is to put the subject in a helpless feeling situation
(18:52):
so then they can get them to turn and do
what they want to do. They make you feel helpless
and then they extend and an olive branch. Just sign
this and I'll take you home. Just help me out here,
I'll get you out of here. But the first thing
is making the subject feel helpless, and they do that
with these false seven employees. So which which lies did
(19:15):
they tell you? Well, he told me that he had fingerprints, Yeah,
I witnesses, he has proof that I was in the house,
and I kept telling him, no, that's not true. And
to me, it's like now getting confused because I'm saying,
there's no way possible that this could be. But you know,
he continued to tell me different stories and different things
(19:37):
that well, at that point, he said, you might be
going to jail. These are the things that would happen
to you when you get there. You need to sign
this paper that he wrote, and he said, I'll take
you home. So I'm constantly like, I don't know what
to do. Now I'm here by myself in his little
room and I'm crying, I'm upset, I'm ysterical, and he
(19:59):
kept stated to me, I'm gonna let you call home.
I said, I want to call home. I felt that
if I called my friend maybe he would give me
some information. What should I do? He denied my phone
calls because I constantly told him I would like to
call home. He said, well, when we finished, you could
call home. I'll call I have his partner call and
let him know where I'm at. I'm saying because at
(20:21):
this point of the day, I should be home, which
I wasn't. So now my companion had no idea where
I was or what happened to me at all. Yeah,
so all of this just adds to the stress and
confusion and terror. It's really terror, right that you're experiencing
at this point, because you don't know what these guys
(20:41):
are capable of, and you know there's nobody but you,
and you're overmatched. You are really helpless. I mean, they
won't let you in many cases, they won't give you
any food, any water. You're just gonna sit there and
they go in and they go out, and they have
this all. It's a whole protocol. It's designed to do
exactly what it did, which is to get you to
(21:02):
be willing to do basically anything and confess to anything. Right.
What's crazy on top of all the rest of this
is that they were not only committing an act of evil, right,
which is knowingly extracted a confession from a person that
they had every indication was innocent of the crime. But
(21:25):
also there were sloppy And why I say that is
because the confession that you signed didn't make any sense
because the facts that were on that piece of paper
didn't match the evidence from the case. Right. They got
you to say that he was in a wheelchair, which
he wasn't that it was a robbery of sixty dollars,
which would find out later that the guy probably didn't
(21:46):
have sixty dollars. There was a number of other facts
in there that were just wrong, and that's so weird
because I don't know. At least it seems to me
if you were doing this, you would at least try
to get someone to sign a confess and that's accurate
to the facts of the case. But they didn't even
bother to do that. That's right. And one of the
interesting things here was that there were really two confession statements.
(22:09):
One was the handwritten statement which Scarcella himself wrote out
and Vanessa merely signed, and this was consistent with protocol
at the time. There was a video restatement of the
confession and that has led by an assistant district attorney
with Scarcella in the room. Now, Scarcella could not control
(22:34):
the questioning by the assistant district attorney. Vanessa testified that
they basically rehearsed and Scarcella told her what to say
in the video, but he could not control some of
the questions and the a d A, for example, asked,
was the old man standing was he sitting? And Vanessa
(22:57):
said he was sitting and he said what was he
sitting in? And Scarcella had not researched was there ever
a wheelchair in the apartment, because Vanessa then guest she
said he was sitting in a wheelchair because he was old.
So that might have made sense, right, but it's not true,
(23:18):
and so there was a gotcha for us as the
defense team. That was a great mistake in the confession
which we could use to prove it was coursed. And
the cane. The A d A asked what kind of
cane was used to hit Mr Shaw and Vanessa again
guest because she she had no idea, she guessed that
(23:40):
it was a wooden cane. In fact, it was a
metal cane. So that's how some of these mistakes came in,
is that Scarcella could not control the A d A
and his questioning. Thank god, because otherwise we might not
have caught these mistakes. So ultimately you end up going
(24:13):
to trial. But before you get to trial, they held
you in Ranker's Island for thirteen months. Yes, how terrifying?
Is that very very terrifying. But prior to me getting there,
after all of the confession and everything. They still never
told me I was being arrested for the crime. They
bypassed my house. They still stated to me that they
(24:34):
were taking me home. And we got to the priestinct
and I said, why didn't you pass my house or
we have to make one more stop. This is still lies.
And we got to the precinct and at that point
then he said he had to handcuff me. I was
never coughed. I was never told I was arrested and
they had to cuffed me to take me into that building,
(24:56):
which was Central Booking. I didn't even know that. And
then I was put in the cage and I just
stayed there until they said I was supposed to see
a judge or whatever I had to. It was all
a blur because I don't recall all of them that
happened at that time. And the next day I guess
(25:17):
that I was on the bus going to Riker's Island
and upon my arrival, you know, they do the strip
third your neck at you. You're walking around in the
sheet in the cage with a whole bunch of people,
other women, and you know, and then you put into
a cell. And at that time, when when they put
(25:38):
me to a housing unit. I was able to call
home finally and tell him where I was at and
what was that phone called like it was. He was
very upset. I was upset. I was hysterical. I'm still
couldn't think of how I landed here, you know, in
Riker's Island. It was just it was Sarah, and you
(26:01):
have no clothes. You have to rent out what you have,
and you took a shower. You rent out what you
have on and hang it in your cell hopefully they'll
be dried by morning, because that's all you have. And
that was it until the next morning. Then you're taken
out and you go to the mess hoole as they
call it, and and you're just there in that space
(26:24):
until they put you for two weeks. I guess it's
two weeks before they put you in population and then
you they assign you another. Well, I was living in
the dormitory. In the dorm there's a whole bunch of
beds and women half toilets. There was no privacy at all.
You take showers where the whole bunch of other women
(26:44):
in one big circle thing, and you just got spickers
coming out the wall and there was a lot of
different things that happen. Is is terrible just being in
that place. Um, A lot of different things go on,
women and women. I started working a nice if I
did whatever I had to do so I wouldn't be
on on the dorm at night. I just didn't. It
(27:07):
was just disgusting for me. I couldn't deal with that
part a bit. So ultimately, thirteen months later, you end
up finally getting your day in court, and you had
a lawyer who didn't seem like he did the minimum
amount of work that he could do. Now you know,
I don't know. He may have been working on four
(27:27):
other cases. There are certainly lawyers of public defenders in
New York who are so overburdened. But that doesn't matter
when it's your life on the line, right And we
don't know the personal circumstances that this individual was in,
but one way or another, he was not prepared and
did not represent you adequately, and you really didn't have
a chance. That's true. Well, I like the attorney I made.
(27:52):
My companion kept asking him and court when we went
to court, could he speak with him? He always said yes,
But he has left the courtroom. He adjourned my case
on numerous occasions, so there was nothing that he did.
There was no investigation because as far as I'm concerned,
when this incident happened, I don't see where there's a
(28:15):
police investigation done to anything. By the time that they
decided the man had passed away, there was dust, that
family had came in and cleaned the house. There's a
lot of things so there before there was no fingerprints,
there was nothing. The house was cleaned because the family members.
This is all the information I found out later on
(28:35):
after I was in concerated. Another terrible aspect of free
trial detention is that I'm guessing your lawyer didn't visit you. No,
he did not, right, And there's a reason behind that too,
which is that for a lawyer to go to Riker's
Island and visit you, basically it's going to take their
whole day. They don't make it easy. It's a whole
process you have to go through. They have to travel
(28:56):
to the jail. So people who are not in the
system right, people who are out on bail or on
their own recognizance, have a much better chance because they
can meet more freely with their lawyers and get better
representation which is another thing that I think it's important
for people to understand. It's one of the reasons why
our bail system is so unfair and ill conceived. So
(29:18):
you were in that exact situation where you're facing a
murder rap, your lawyer is not visiting you, he's not
really doing any work every time he comes in, and
the journey the case you go right back to Rikers
Island and so there's just nothing that's fair or equitable
about that. And ultimately, though thirteen months later, you did
get your day in court. By this point, I mean,
(29:41):
you've been through so much and you've been lied to
by people are supposed to protect you, and you've been
let down by the other person W'm supposed to protect
you as your lawyer. The whole system is failing you.
But when you went to court, did you believe that
justice would finally be done and people would see you
that you are an innocent person? Yes? I did. That's
the reason why I test fight on my own behalf,
(30:01):
because I didn't have anyone to testify for me, and
I mean Scots Sally. He went out of his way
to make sure that family members were there and a
lot of them had moved away because at the time
lapse they were in another state, but he brought a
lot of them there so that the jury could see
(30:21):
that there was a large family, and it just made
things move a little smoother for him to get the conviction.
But I did speak to the family. I spoke to
the judge. I even wrote a letter to the judge
stating that I did not commit this crime. At least
what happened. Well, Vanessa testified that the confession was coerced
(30:44):
and that she was not there. Now, the jury deliberated
for I think over thirteen hours. It was a lengthy deliberation,
relatively speaking, and they acquitted her on the top count,
which was murder. But there must have been some kind
of compromise because they did convict her on the manslaughter
(31:07):
and the only evidence against her was the confession. But
you have to remember this was back in nineties seven
and juries were not sensitized to the issues we all
know today about how innocent people can confess. The science
was not there then, and it would take a lot
(31:28):
for a jury to reject a confession that someone seemed
to have voluntarily made. And there was no false confession
expert who testified on her behalf a trial just Finesse's
word against Scarcella's word, And obviously Scarcella at that time
(31:48):
was a senior detective who nobody had reason to question.
There had been no allegations yet that he had engaged
in any corrupt activity, so it was reasonable for a
jury to buy Scarcella's account instead of Vanessa's. And I
(32:09):
think that's what happened. If the same case we're tried today,
I think a jury would be much more attuned to
coercion issues and that false confessions can happen. I think
it would be a different outcome today. Frankly, yeah, And
I want to make sure that people who are listening
really take that in because now we know there's so
(32:31):
much research on false confessions. Is a wonderful show on
Netflix called The Confession Tapes. So many people have seen
the Confessions and other programs like Making a Murderer that
are so obviously false. We know that in DNA exonerations,
over of the cases involved false confessions. It's a scary phenomenon,
(32:53):
but it's very real. And so Vanessa at that moment
when you were convicted, because the jury did come back
in and declare you guilty of second degree manslaughter. What
was that like? I think I just went numb on
it and believe it. I didn't think I would get
that kind of time anyway for this here, even if
they didn't believe me. I really didn't even realize how
(33:16):
much time I had to do. I just didn't believe it,
so that nobody believed me, you know what I was
stating to them. I mean, I know he had some
issues in the past, and he just came back forward
trying to just get a conviction, because he did have
some problems in the department. But he just came down
to hold at me. And I'm not realizing that he
(33:39):
would set me up the whole time just to take
the four for this crime. But he did. And he
probably got some pats on the back and some you know,
sort of accolades for solving another cold case. And and
you were, you know, just a little detail to him.
That's all. He probably never probably went I'm guessing he
went home that night, had a nice dinner, you know,
watch the TV, and went to sleep. So you end
(33:59):
up serving ten years in prison where you had a
perfect disciplinary record, and the whole time you maintained your innocence,
even though there were times when you came before a
parole board and it would have been better for you
in some ways to say that you were guilty, because
they would have probably sent you home. Yes, that's true.
But the first couple of times I went, I did not.
(34:21):
I kept I stated that I did not do the point.
But they don't want to hear that. They want to
hear that you're remorseful, that you feel bad that the victor.
I can't feel remorse when I didn't do something, And
you understand, how how do you feel You don't know
the purposing, You didn't do the crime, so how can
you feel remorse? I mean, I feel remorse when someone
is getting beaten or something like that, actually seeing it happen.
(34:44):
But as far as me doing something like that, never, never.
Finesses right. In the first two parole hearings she said
I did not do what they said I did. But
eight years in with a perfect disciplinary record and seeing
how little asserting her evidence got her with the parole
board previously, in her third parole hearing, she appeared to
(35:10):
admit guilt, and we retained a fabulous expert who was
able to explain the conundrum that someone like Vanessa is facing.
And Vanessa testified in her deposition that everyone on the
inside was telling her you're an idiot. You've got to
tell them what they want to hear. Just tell them
(35:33):
you did it. And so Vanessa in the third parole
hearing appeared to admit guilt when in fact obviously she
was not guilty, but it was the only way she
could see to get out early. At that point, it
didn't matter. They it didn't matter. Even then the third
hearing date hit me again with another two years, which
(35:55):
has passed my cr date, my condition to release. If
it was up to them, I would have still been
in here into two eight. Now we're going to get
(36:17):
to the good part of this story, right, because there
is a happy ending, or you wouldn't be sitting here now,
and you wouldn't be enjoying the nice, big extended family
that you now have. And so the good guys come
to the rescue. Right. You have Lisa and her team
at Hughes Herbard and Read, and you have the Legal
Aid Society. And then at just about the right time
(36:38):
in Brooklyn, the Conviction Review Unit was established, and that
unit has done phenomenal work in reversing many wrongful convictions,
including Last Time I looked at was seven or eight.
Let Scarcella was directly responsible for, including yours. So let's
talk about that, because the happy ending part of this
(37:01):
story is really really important because it requires people like
Lisa and other dedicated professionals to go and reverse one
of these things. It's hard. I mean, they don't make
it easy at all. So how did it come about Lisa?
How did she end up getting justice? After all? Credit initially,
unquestionably goes to the legally a society. This is what happened.
(37:23):
Charles Hines was in the political fight of his career
and there had been an initial Scarcella related exoneration in
the David rant A case, and the New York Times
and Ken Thompson are breathing down. Charles Hines is back
and he says, it's okay, everybody, I'm telling you right now,
(37:45):
I am going to reinvestigate every trial conviction that detective
Scarcella touched. And Hines prepared a list which has never
been publicly available. I don't know anyone that's ever seen it,
but initially it had at least fifty names of defendants
(38:05):
on it. And what the d A's office did was
they contacted the last lawyer of record in each of
those fifty cases. Well, the Legal Aid Society was the
last lawyer of record in a good half of those
about and so Legal Aid went to firms around town
(38:26):
looking for partners, which is how Hughes Hubbard got involved
with the case, and we proceeded on a three year
partnership with Legal Aid. We reinvestigated the crime and marshaled
our arguments, retained experts and were able to make a
(38:46):
persuasive pitch to the then District Attorney, Ken Thompson, who
had beat in Charles Hines in that election. And that
is the short story of how we were able to
get to the exoneration day. And Ken Thompson sadly died
last year at the young age of fifty. He was
(39:08):
a good man and a decent man. He was a
friend of mine, but he was so proud. Um. You know,
he used to walk around with a picture of you.
I don't know I did you know that? No, I
know it's in his office, but I didn't know he
had to picture with it. He at his birthday party.
He has this cardboard thing and I'm holding my arms
out wide to show how big it was. And then
it was about a couple of feet three ft high,
(39:30):
and on it it had a picture of you and
the other exonorees that he his office had helped to exonerate.
And so he was very proud of you and of
the work that he and his team had done to
help in your case. I remember him mentioning you specifically,
So you should feel good about that. So when finally
the light shone on you and on your case and
(39:53):
justice was done and it was proven by all these
good people that this had happen, and and that you
were telling the truth all along, except when you were lying,
because it was them telling you what to say, right,
I mean that, But in fact, as you had been
saying you were innocent for so many years, what did
that feel like when finally you got your life back?
(40:16):
It felt great? And I was like, I'm saying, I'm
able to find you put this behind me. You don't
know what what you're feeling at that time, because it's
like it's clear now that I didn't dooy it. I mean,
you don't know what people think of you, whether you
did this claim or not, because it's on record, stating
that you did. But I felt great, I mean I
(40:38):
felt relieved. Now live my life would have happened that
on my record. It's very difficult to try and find
a job, to move on in life because you have
this hanging over your head. Now my record is clean,
I could state that I have no record, which makes
life a lot easier for me because people look to
(40:59):
a background check. It's nothing there, nothing there because you
never had anything there, because you were always there, always
were a law abiding citizen. Yes, but as far as
the law and criminal justice system said, yes you have
a record, it's on there, not anymore, not anymore, it's
been taken away. And now you know, there's another aspect
of this, which is something that's so troubling. You know,
(41:20):
when we live in a country where we have approximately
four point four percent of the world's population, but we
have thirty three percent of the world's female prison population,
which is just so outrageous. I mean, it's a national
disgrace the way we treat women in this country. And
when somebody like you is locked up, you're missing out
(41:41):
on your children's lives, right and your children grandchildren, and
that dynamic, I mean that must have been an extra punishment.
It was. My granddaughter was like only a year old
when I went in, and it caused a lot of
chaos treat me and my daughter because I wasn't there
for her. You understand, when she needed her mother to
(42:04):
help her and she had questions about raising her daughter.
I wasn't there. She couldn't even call you. Not only
weren't there, but you were far away, right that That's
another thing. I was in bedfoot for a while, and
then I finally moved to They moved me to Bayview,
which is in Manhattan, which was made closer because I
didn't get a lot of visits. I didn't get visits
(42:25):
because my family couldn't come to the facility because we
were poor. We didn't have money like that. I mean,
even like my father was living at the time. He
wanted to put up his farm. I wouldn't allow him
to do that because they gave me a quarter million
dollar bill. I'm saying, we don't think I'm gonna get
that kind of money from It was difficult for everyone.
(42:48):
I lost a lot of family members. I lost the brothers, sister,
my uncle's my aunt, I lost my mother, my father's brother.
It was it was a lot of family member was
that passed away during my first year inconcerating, I couldn't
attend anything because if you're in New York or you
if your family is out of state, you can't go
(43:10):
so the services. So that was hard for me to
deal with too. It was a lot of things that
did I missed out on because of my incarceration. So
you had to endure the death of numerous family members
while you were behind bars for something you didn't do,
and you weren't even allowed to go to the funeral, right. So,
I mean, it's so amazing to me that you're here
(43:32):
now standing up straight, proud, like, able to put a
sentence together, right, able to just have a life when
when you've been through such an incredibly terrible ordeal that
that you never deserved. I mean, it's just it's crazy.
So now the good news is you have gotten your
life back, right. I mean, this this thing actually happened
(43:52):
almost twenty years ago. Must be crazy to think about that.
And now you've been out for some time, and what's
the situation. Now? You settled your lawsuits, right, which is great. Yes,
and it's it's worth noting that Scarcela not only ruined
so many people's lives and left so many crimes unsolved,
leading to many more crimes happening because obviously, when he
(44:14):
arrested and was able to get convictions on the wrong people,
the right people were out there committing more crimes. Right,
So he's got that. And then also there's been tens
of millions of dollars paid out to so many victims
of his by the city, which is taxpayer money. So
there's nothing cute or funny about what this guy was doing.
When these guys behave in this way, who are supposed
(44:35):
to be protecting us and keeping us safe, it has
so many terrible consequences across the board. So now where
are you living, how's your life? What's your family situation?
I want to hear, well, I'm living in Joyous City now.
Although I was living in Manhattan and working. I was
(44:55):
working from the day that I got out of prison
because I met a couple day gave me a job
and I work with them for almost eight years until
they retired, and then living in Jersey City. My mother
has Alzheimer's as one of the reasons I moved back
to Jersey City where she is. I recently purchased a
home August eleven graduations. I have the first one, and
(45:19):
my daughter has a second. It's a two family house
and she's upstairs with a daughter and her granddaughter, my granddaughter,
my great granddaughter, and my daughter. So we all live
in together. Right, any boys in your family, We do
have boys. I have brothers, but as far as me,
it's four generations of females. Well five, you put my
(45:40):
mother in there, but it's just females. You got four
generations living under one roof in Jersey City. It sounds
incredible and isn't that nice though, that now you're able
to make up for the time that you lost with
your family. Now you have your whole like so many
of you all there together. I mean, it must be
just a joy for you. It is and is wonderful.
(46:01):
I can see my granddaughter, my great granddaughter at any
time if I need to go somewhere in My granddaughter
does have a car. She's working, so she could take
me and then I get the babysit my granddaughter. So
that's amazing. Well, listen, I'm happy that things finally worked out.
I want to apologize to you for what the city
(46:21):
and the state did to you. There's no excuse for it,
but I'm glad you're here now. One of my favorite
parts of the show often is to turn the microphone
over to our featured guest and see, is there anything
else you want to share with the audience. Well, no,
I'm just saying that. Well, during the time that I
(46:42):
was in there, I mean, I wasn't gonna let the
time to me. I was going to do the time.
So I got myself involved with a lot of different
activities throughout the prison. I worked hard to stay in
touch with my family. I would read my granddaughter book
Soon you know, on video and send the books. There's
a lot of programs in there. There's a lot of
(47:03):
things you could do even though you're fighting your case.
But do something positive, you know, don't let the negativity,
will you? And Lisa any final thoughts, I would just say,
having known Vanessa now for five or six years, she
is an exceptional person. And the only way I think
she was able to get through this ordeal was her
(47:27):
strength of character. She got into prison and I think
this woman just put her head down and said I'm
going to get through this, and she just was forward thinking.
She never obsessed about how did this happen? How did
I get here? It was just one day at a time.
I've got to get out of here. And she mentioned
(47:50):
the couple that hired her right after prison. I just
want to speak to that because I think it's so
telling about Vanessa. Literally, a wealthy couple was volunteering at
bay View, husband and wife. Vanessa was running the g
D program. She was running this thing, that thing, and
(48:11):
they elbowed each other and said, why is she here?
We don't get it. She's not like anyone else in here.
And they befriended Vanessa, and literally one week after she
was released, she was in a full time job working
for them, and she was the chief administrator of their
(48:33):
very successful company and worked for these people for seven years.
They trusted her, they loved her. They could see what
she was capable of. And you know, my client is
just an extraordinary woman, and it's a testament to her
character that she was able to get through this. Well,
both of you are extraordinary women. So, Vanessa, Lisa, thank
(48:56):
you so much for coming in and appearing on the show.
You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful
Conviction with our guests. Vanessa Gathers and Lisa Kale. Thank
you don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever
(49:19):
you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a
proud donor to the Innisis Project and I really hope
you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and
helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to anisis project
dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three
(49:41):
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Company Number one one
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't anything wrong. In the back of your mind, you say, well,
when we go to a hearing or we go to court,
(00:23):
the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
knew I was innocent and let force testimony go uncorrected
from the lower courts all the way up to United
States Supreme Court. You have someone with a badge with
ultimate and really, in that moment, unchecked authority. Don't presume
(00:45):
that people are guilty when you see them on TV,
because it may just be a dirty d A that
is trying to rise upward. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:11):
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Today, I have
two very special guests, and you'll learn more about that shortly,
but first I'm going to introduce them. Vanessa Gathers is
our star today. Just months after the Crown Heights riots
back in, Gathers was called in for questioning for robbery
and the beating of an elderly man inside of his
(01:32):
Crown Heights apartment. The victim fell into a coma then died.
The case was classified a homicide. That's when controversial former
NYPD detective Louis Scarcella took over the case. Five years later,
Scarcella reinterviewed Gathers and said she made a full confession.
(01:53):
Gathers was convicted on that confession alone. The former detective
is in the middle of several cases where people went
to prison for crimes they did not commit. D A.
Thompson and his team have already exonerated seventeen men. Gathers
is the first woman. Right now, the d a's office
is looking into at least one hundred other cases. Fifty
(02:15):
eight year old Vanessa Gathers will no longer be labeled
a convicted felon. After ten years in prison for manslaughter,
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson is expected to vacate her conviction.
We're going to take a step to not only vacate
miss gathers conviction, but to give her her good name back. Vanessa,
welcome to the show, and her badass attorney is here
(02:38):
as well. Lisa Cahill, Welcome to rona conviction. Happy to
be here. So, Vanessa, let's go back to when life
was simpler, right, because before this crazy incident happened, you
were living basically a normal life like anyone else. Right, Yes,
were you in a lot of trouble with the law
(02:59):
as a reason that they would have ever suspected you
of being involved in a cold blooded murder, a terrible
beating death. Not at all? What were you doing? What
was your life like? Where'd you grow up? I grew
up in Jersey City and North Carolina, and then I
moved to New York in seventy nine and I started working.
(03:19):
I was working in my head doing what I worked
for gris DDS. I worked for a lawyer when I
first arrived to New York City. So just finding your way,
doing different jobs whatever. I stayed with RIDDS for quite
some time. The original job I had was working for
a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, and I was just doing
(03:41):
statements of fouling and typing up notes. Thanks got slow,
so later on I I found a job with with STDs.
He let me stay once I found something better. So
you came to New York like most people do, I
guess to pursue your dreams and find your way. And
you were finding your way and things were going okay.
Do you have a family when this came down. Yes,
(04:04):
my family was in Jersey. I had a daughter. This
case stems out of a murder that happened in There's
a lot of things that are unusual about your case,
But there are also a lot of things that we
see that are common in rawful convictions, including a false confession,
which I think everyone is fascinated by and terrified of.
I know, I am. But in your case, this was
(04:26):
a murder of a guy named Michael Shaw I think right, yes,
And he was a guy who was murdered. He was
beaten to death by three women. Again pretty unusual circumstance.
And the reason we know he was beaten to death
by three women is because he lived long enough to
tell the tale. He died in the hospital. So originally
(04:46):
you were living in the area. Did you know about
the crime? No, not at the time. No, I did not.
I found out all that information later on. And how
did you first become aware that this? Did you know
the victim? I didn't know him, per se. I just
knew that he was like a pictuquest man that stayed
in the window, was set by the window all the time.
(05:07):
Because I used to walk my dog around the block,
but I didn't know his name. I didn't know him.
From time to time he would ask me to come
over to the window and when I get him a
pack of cigarettes, which I did, because I walked around
the block and I walked my dog back and I'm
just passed the two m to the window. So he
lived on the first floor, and so when he was murdered,
(05:30):
the word must have gotten around the neighborhood and you
first heard about it from a detective, Is that right? Yes?
And how did that come about? Because it's weird because
you weren't arrested until many years later when the case
was cold, and then you actually drew a terrible straw
or bad break whenever you're gonna call it, because you
got in the crosshairs of a guy who we know
(05:50):
now is one of the worst detectives in the history
of this country in terms of the damage that he
did to an entire borrow. Really, and he wrecked havoc
on so many people in so many cases and the
whole system. So how how did it come about that
you first encountered Detective Scarcella. I believe I was walking
(06:11):
my dog at the time, and I mean Detective scars
Slate his partner Shamil approached me and asked me about
the incident, and I said, I did not Actually I
didn't even know the man's name. I didn't know who
he was. I just know him by sight, you know,
from sitting in the window. That's all I knew about
this individual. But then later on after that incident, I didn't.
(06:36):
I didn't see the man anymore. After a while, you know,
I would still walk my dog, but the man was
not there in the window anymore. So they approached you
on the street, yes, And were they friendly with the
hostile that they put you in cops for? How did
this home? They were friendly. They just asked me some questions.
They also asked me about the same thing that I
(06:57):
know the man, and I told him I didn't know
who they would talk think about at first, and then
when they was telling me that he lived there, and
I said, oh, yeah, I remember was seeing the man
in the window, but I didn't know him per se.
Did they tell you that he had been murdered? None?
They didn't state that. They just said something happened. It
was an incident with this guy. They was trying to
(07:18):
find out what happened, and let's turn to you. So
what was going on there? First of all, Vanessa was
sort of a person that you would not really think
would be involved in anything like this. I mean, and
meeting her now, she's such a gentle soul. The idea
that she would be involved in a beating death seems
so far fetched. I certainly agree with that. But one
(07:40):
of the big mysteries always in the case was this
business about Scarcella stopping Vanessa because she was a woman
walking a white dog. Let me back up, right after
Mr Shaw was assaulted, he didn't die till months later,
so it didn't become a homicide investigation for about four
(08:03):
months time. So immediately after the assault, it's basically a
robbery investigation. But detectives are working the robbery and the
beating they're investigating somewhat. And those detectives interviewed the super
in Mr Shaw's building twice and memorialized that interview, and
(08:27):
the super never said anything about Fanessa Gathers. He never
described Vanessa Gathers. He never said, oh, there's a woman
with a white dog in the neighborhood who you should
talk to. None of that is reflected in those interview notes,
but Scarcella consistently testified that the reason he stopped Vanessa
(08:51):
was because after Mr Shaw died it did become a
homicide investigation, obviously, and Scarcella was assigned the case. He
testified that one of the first things he did was
go interview the Super. He claimed that the Super said
one of the women who used to talk to Shaw
(09:13):
and was friendly with Shaw was a woman in the
neighborhood with a white dog. Now, suspiciously, Scarcella never memorialized
that interview with the super, as you're supposed to do,
and as two prior detectives had done when they interviewed
the Super. We always thought it was suspicious that there
(09:36):
was never any memorialization of that. Why he in fact
stopped Vanessa. I really don't know. I mean, I suppose
it's conceivable the super said that, But the Super was
dead by the time of trial, so no one really knows. Well,
we do know that the victim he said that it
(09:57):
was three women. So the one thing you had in
common with the perpetu it was that you were a woman, right,
But there's a lot of women, so she just and
we know now that Scarcella didn't really care whether you
were the perpetrator or not. He just cared about getting convictions.
And he was very good at it, actually, I mean
in a very nefarious and terrible way. He was famous
(10:22):
actually for solving cases, and that's probably what he was after.
So he saw you, figured he would stop and talk
to you, and maybe maybe he was bored but had
nothing else to do. But it came and went right,
and then you went back to your life and you know,
eventually you found out that Mr Shaw had died. I'm
I'm sure, and life went on. Well, that's basically what happened. Well,
(10:45):
it was ninety two actually when he came around, I
think April or maya something of when he came. Then
issue visit with him. And then the next time I
saw him was nine. He's knocking on my door. So
he came to your home. Yes, and what transpired next,
I mean, you had no reason to think that you
(11:05):
would ever be a suspect or anything like this, and
probably the memory of the whole thing had faded to
some extent, right because it was all it was. It
was one congress. I had already forgotten about him and
the questioning at that time. I mean, I'm stayed in
the same building. I didn't move. If I had anything
to hide, I think I would have left. I mean,
a lot of people in the neighborhood moved out, but
(11:27):
I was still there, So there was no reason for
me to try and run. Won't do anything negative regarding
this manner because I know I had no involvement in it.
One of our hypotheses was that Vanessa was literally the
only one who had any connection to Shaw who was
(11:47):
actually still available to Scarcella, still living in the same building.
So by now it had turned into a homicide investigation.
Scarcella had decided that he was going to solve a
cold case, or maybe I'll probably many of them. Right,
So when he did come see you six years after
the murder, what happened? What was his approach this time?
(12:09):
Was he friendly? Was the hostile coughs? He was very friendly.
I actually was never in coughs at that time we spoke.
He asked me saying questions. He asked me, did I
come to the precinct? You know, I applied and I
went there. He showed me some monk shots since if
he asked me about some of the women in the neighborhood,
(12:32):
did I know in them as a couple that I
did see that had against criminal records? And that was
basically it. He never stated to me that I was
a suspect or anything. I had no knowledge of that
up until the time that we did. After the polygraph
and all of that other information that transpired. He had
(12:53):
my history. I told him where I was working. You know,
he knew where I lived. I didn't have anything to
hide from the school of our cooperated the best that
I could. I was working at the Brooklyn Family Court
and he picked me up that morning. He came to
my job and said he wanted me to come take
a polygraph chest. I went with him and everything I
(13:15):
had nothing to tie. So after that we stayed at
the Priests, and all of these other things transpired, and
he kept stating to me that he was gonna take
me home. It got late into the evening before I
left the Priests, and it was night. It was night
when I did leave there, and he kept saying that
my companion that he would contact him. He never did.
(13:39):
He just continue lie, Lie, Lie. He was frightening. He
took his jacket off, he had his gun exposed, and
he kept on threatening me, saying I was there, I
was there. I kept telling him no, I wasn't, and
and it just went back and forth like that for
quite some time. So he went progressively from friendly to
(14:00):
pick you up. And you probably were like most people.
I mean, you were a law abiding citizen. It wasn't
like you had a long rap sheet, right. I didn't
have no knowledge of the laws. So he and I
think he really knew that. So he know, because I
don't remember him a randomizing me or anything. I don't
remember all of that. As far as getting a lawyer,
I didn't know I needed one because I didn't know
I was just I was the person that was Jose
(14:25):
had committed this crime. At least. That's something that always
bothers me, is that people like Vanessa who are innocent
are very likely to wave their Miranda rights and speak
freely and not request the lawyer. And if you're listening
to the show now, I'm gonna encourage you. If you
(14:45):
do get picked up, don't assume anything right, just request
the lawyer. And other than that, don't say anything other
than your name, your address, and that's basically it, right,
And once you ask for lawer, they're not allowed to
ask you more question, right, that's right, that's right. I
mean they may do it anyway, but they'll be breaking
the law. Yeah, I mean, it is a tragic and
(15:06):
cruel irony that people like Vanessa who go in wanting
to help, right and wanting to be cooperative and good
citizens and help the police, end up often really on
the terribly wrong end of the stick because of the
fact that they just don't know and they get taken
advantage of, which is exactly what happened here. That's right.
And one of the issues that we identified with the polygraph,
(15:29):
which was basically how Scarcela kicked off that morning. With
the polygraph, a polygrapher is supposed to sit down alone
with this subject and basically explain to the subject why
they're there this morning, and for example, to say, do
you know why you're here? You're here because you're suspected
(15:53):
of involvement in this incident, and that's what I want
to talk to you about today. And in fact, this
particular polygraph never went through that exercise with Vanessa, and
she didn't know any better. Someone would say, well, what
do you think when someone's polygraphing you? But Vanessa had
had no prior experience with this. She was just trying
(16:15):
to do what they asked her to do. And again,
if you don't have anything to hide, and if you
are telling the truth, you think, well, why shouldn't I
take a polygraph? But not such a great idea. Well,
now we get to the part that gives me a
stomach ache. Is this whole process that takes place in
the interrogation room when someone in this case Garcella, but
(16:35):
it happens all over the country when a detective is
determined to get a confession, and they're not necessarily determined
to get the truth. In your case, they had no
reason to believe that you had any involvement, and yet
they approached you and interrogated you as if they basically
had everything in the world, every reason in the world
(16:57):
to suspect that you were the actual killer. Ultimately, you
confess to this crime you didn't commit. And that's the
number one thing, Vanessa. When I talked to people who
aren't familiar with these issues, everybody says, I would never confess.
They couldn't get me to do That's crazy. I would
I'm too strong, I'm tough. I would never that's you know.
And I'm like, wow, let me tell you something. So
(17:19):
how how did they get you? I mean, you're an
intelligent woman, you're a law abiding person. You would know
enough to know that that's a disaster, right, But you
did it? Yes, I did. You're in a tiny room
with these two police detectives and you don't even know
your rights. I didn't know. I was terrified. And then
the badgering started and the jacket came off, like I said,
(17:43):
exposed it, and he started threatening me and leaning over
and you know, making all of these accusations and stuff.
And I continually told him that I did not commit
this crime. I was not there. And when he wrote
the statement, I told him, we'll be going back and force.
He's trying to tell me to state this, to state
that this must have been confusing. It was because I'm like,
(18:06):
I'm not understanding what is going on as far as
what he's writing on paper. He tried to get me
to write that statement and I said, I'm not writing
anything because I don't know what happened. This is part
of the process right. And it's the crazy thing in
this country that police are allowed to lie. They can
say they have a satellite image of you committing the crime.
They can say that they found your fingerprints, they can
(18:27):
say that they have witnesses. They can say almost anything
they want. What they can't say is they can't threaten
you with say you're gonna get the death penalty if
you're not. There's certain things they can't do like that.
But as far as the facts surrounding the case, they
can lie all they want, which I think is crazy,
and it doesn't it's not that way in most other
Western European countries. And Jason, the reason they do that
is to put the subject in a helpless feeling situation
(18:52):
so then they can get them to turn and do
what they want to do. They make you feel helpless
and then they extend and an olive branch. Just sign
this and I'll take you home. Just help me out here,
I'll get you out of here. But the first thing
is making the subject feel helpless, and they do that
with these false seven employees. So which which lies did
(19:15):
they tell you? Well, he told me that he had fingerprints, Yeah,
I witnesses, he has proof that I was in the house,
and I kept telling him, no, that's not true. And
to me, it's like now getting confused because I'm saying,
there's no way possible that this could be. But you know,
he continued to tell me different stories and different things
(19:37):
that well, at that point, he said, you might be
going to jail. These are the things that would happen
to you when you get there. You need to sign
this paper that he wrote, and he said, I'll take
you home. So I'm constantly like, I don't know what
to do. Now I'm here by myself in his little
room and I'm crying, I'm upset, I'm ysterical, and he
(19:59):
kept stated to me, I'm gonna let you call home.
I said, I want to call home. I felt that
if I called my friend maybe he would give me
some information. What should I do? He denied my phone
calls because I constantly told him I would like to
call home. He said, well, when we finished, you could
call home. I'll call I have his partner call and
let him know where I'm at. I'm saying because at
(20:21):
this point of the day, I should be home, which
I wasn't. So now my companion had no idea where
I was or what happened to me at all. Yeah,
so all of this just adds to the stress and
confusion and terror. It's really terror, right that you're experiencing
at this point, because you don't know what these guys
(20:41):
are capable of, and you know there's nobody but you,
and you're overmatched. You are really helpless. I mean, they
won't let you in many cases, they won't give you
any food, any water. You're just gonna sit there and
they go in and they go out, and they have
this all. It's a whole protocol. It's designed to do
exactly what it did, which is to get you to
(21:02):
be willing to do basically anything and confess to anything. Right.
What's crazy on top of all the rest of this
is that they were not only committing an act of evil, right,
which is knowingly extracted a confession from a person that
they had every indication was innocent of the crime. But
(21:25):
also there were sloppy And why I say that is
because the confession that you signed didn't make any sense
because the facts that were on that piece of paper
didn't match the evidence from the case. Right. They got
you to say that he was in a wheelchair, which
he wasn't that it was a robbery of sixty dollars,
which would find out later that the guy probably didn't
(21:46):
have sixty dollars. There was a number of other facts
in there that were just wrong, and that's so weird
because I don't know. At least it seems to me
if you were doing this, you would at least try
to get someone to sign a confess and that's accurate
to the facts of the case. But they didn't even
bother to do that. That's right. And one of the
interesting things here was that there were really two confession statements.
(22:09):
One was the handwritten statement which Scarcella himself wrote out
and Vanessa merely signed, and this was consistent with protocol
at the time. There was a video restatement of the
confession and that has led by an assistant district attorney
with Scarcella in the room. Now, Scarcella could not control
(22:34):
the questioning by the assistant district attorney. Vanessa testified that
they basically rehearsed and Scarcella told her what to say
in the video, but he could not control some of
the questions and the a d A, for example, asked,
was the old man standing was he sitting? And Vanessa
(22:57):
said he was sitting and he said what was he
sitting in? And Scarcella had not researched was there ever
a wheelchair in the apartment, because Vanessa then guest she
said he was sitting in a wheelchair because he was old.
So that might have made sense, right, but it's not true,
(23:18):
and so there was a gotcha for us as the
defense team. That was a great mistake in the confession
which we could use to prove it was coursed. And
the cane. The A d A asked what kind of
cane was used to hit Mr Shaw and Vanessa again
guest because she she had no idea, she guessed that
(23:40):
it was a wooden cane. In fact, it was a
metal cane. So that's how some of these mistakes came in,
is that Scarcella could not control the A d A
and his questioning. Thank god, because otherwise we might not
have caught these mistakes. So ultimately you end up going
(24:13):
to trial. But before you get to trial, they held
you in Ranker's Island for thirteen months. Yes, how terrifying?
Is that very very terrifying. But prior to me getting there,
after all of the confession and everything. They still never
told me I was being arrested for the crime. They
bypassed my house. They still stated to me that they
(24:34):
were taking me home. And we got to the priestinct
and I said, why didn't you pass my house or
we have to make one more stop. This is still lies.
And we got to the precinct and at that point
then he said he had to handcuff me. I was
never coughed. I was never told I was arrested and
they had to cuffed me to take me into that building,
(24:56):
which was Central Booking. I didn't even know that. And
then I was put in the cage and I just
stayed there until they said I was supposed to see
a judge or whatever I had to. It was all
a blur because I don't recall all of them that
happened at that time. And the next day I guess
(25:17):
that I was on the bus going to Riker's Island
and upon my arrival, you know, they do the strip
third your neck at you. You're walking around in the
sheet in the cage with a whole bunch of people,
other women, and you know, and then you put into
a cell. And at that time, when when they put
(25:38):
me to a housing unit. I was able to call
home finally and tell him where I was at and
what was that phone called like it was. He was
very upset. I was upset. I was hysterical. I'm still
couldn't think of how I landed here, you know, in
Riker's Island. It was just it was Sarah, and you
(26:01):
have no clothes. You have to rent out what you have,
and you took a shower. You rent out what you
have on and hang it in your cell hopefully they'll
be dried by morning, because that's all you have. And
that was it until the next morning. Then you're taken
out and you go to the mess hoole as they
call it, and and you're just there in that space
(26:24):
until they put you for two weeks. I guess it's
two weeks before they put you in population and then
you they assign you another. Well, I was living in
the dormitory. In the dorm there's a whole bunch of
beds and women half toilets. There was no privacy at all.
You take showers where the whole bunch of other women
(26:44):
in one big circle thing, and you just got spickers
coming out the wall and there was a lot of
different things that happen. Is is terrible just being in
that place. Um, A lot of different things go on,
women and women. I started working a nice if I
did whatever I had to do so I wouldn't be
on on the dorm at night. I just didn't. It
(27:07):
was just disgusting for me. I couldn't deal with that
part a bit. So ultimately, thirteen months later, you end
up finally getting your day in court, and you had
a lawyer who didn't seem like he did the minimum
amount of work that he could do. Now you know,
I don't know. He may have been working on four
(27:27):
other cases. There are certainly lawyers of public defenders in
New York who are so overburdened. But that doesn't matter
when it's your life on the line, right And we
don't know the personal circumstances that this individual was in,
but one way or another, he was not prepared and
did not represent you adequately, and you really didn't have
a chance. That's true. Well, I like the attorney I made.
(27:52):
My companion kept asking him and court when we went
to court, could he speak with him? He always said yes,
But he has left the courtroom. He adjourned my case
on numerous occasions, so there was nothing that he did.
There was no investigation because as far as I'm concerned,
when this incident happened, I don't see where there's a
(28:15):
police investigation done to anything. By the time that they
decided the man had passed away, there was dust, that
family had came in and cleaned the house. There's a
lot of things so there before there was no fingerprints,
there was nothing. The house was cleaned because the family members.
This is all the information I found out later on
(28:35):
after I was in concerated. Another terrible aspect of free
trial detention is that I'm guessing your lawyer didn't visit you. No,
he did not, right, And there's a reason behind that too,
which is that for a lawyer to go to Riker's
Island and visit you, basically it's going to take their
whole day. They don't make it easy. It's a whole
process you have to go through. They have to travel
(28:56):
to the jail. So people who are not in the
system right, people who are out on bail or on
their own recognizance, have a much better chance because they
can meet more freely with their lawyers and get better
representation which is another thing that I think it's important
for people to understand. It's one of the reasons why
our bail system is so unfair and ill conceived. So
(29:18):
you were in that exact situation where you're facing a
murder rap, your lawyer is not visiting you, he's not
really doing any work every time he comes in, and
the journey the case you go right back to Rikers
Island and so there's just nothing that's fair or equitable
about that. And ultimately, though thirteen months later, you did
get your day in court. By this point, I mean,
(29:41):
you've been through so much and you've been lied to
by people are supposed to protect you, and you've been
let down by the other person W'm supposed to protect
you as your lawyer. The whole system is failing you.
But when you went to court, did you believe that
justice would finally be done and people would see you
that you are an innocent person? Yes? I did. That's
the reason why I test fight on my own behalf,
(30:01):
because I didn't have anyone to testify for me, and
I mean Scots Sally. He went out of his way
to make sure that family members were there and a
lot of them had moved away because at the time
lapse they were in another state, but he brought a
lot of them there so that the jury could see
(30:21):
that there was a large family, and it just made
things move a little smoother for him to get the conviction.
But I did speak to the family. I spoke to
the judge. I even wrote a letter to the judge
stating that I did not commit this crime. At least
what happened. Well, Vanessa testified that the confession was coerced
(30:44):
and that she was not there. Now, the jury deliberated
for I think over thirteen hours. It was a lengthy deliberation,
relatively speaking, and they acquitted her on the top count,
which was murder. But there must have been some kind
of compromise because they did convict her on the manslaughter
(31:07):
and the only evidence against her was the confession. But
you have to remember this was back in nineties seven
and juries were not sensitized to the issues we all
know today about how innocent people can confess. The science
was not there then, and it would take a lot
(31:28):
for a jury to reject a confession that someone seemed
to have voluntarily made. And there was no false confession
expert who testified on her behalf a trial just Finesse's
word against Scarcella's word, And obviously Scarcella at that time
(31:48):
was a senior detective who nobody had reason to question.
There had been no allegations yet that he had engaged
in any corrupt activity, so it was reasonable for a
jury to buy Scarcella's account instead of Vanessa's. And I
(32:09):
think that's what happened. If the same case we're tried today,
I think a jury would be much more attuned to
coercion issues and that false confessions can happen. I think
it would be a different outcome today. Frankly, yeah, And
I want to make sure that people who are listening
really take that in because now we know there's so
(32:31):
much research on false confessions. Is a wonderful show on
Netflix called The Confession Tapes. So many people have seen
the Confessions and other programs like Making a Murderer that
are so obviously false. We know that in DNA exonerations,
over of the cases involved false confessions. It's a scary phenomenon,
(32:53):
but it's very real. And so Vanessa at that moment
when you were convicted, because the jury did come back
in and declare you guilty of second degree manslaughter. What
was that like? I think I just went numb on
it and believe it. I didn't think I would get
that kind of time anyway for this here, even if
they didn't believe me. I really didn't even realize how
(33:16):
much time I had to do. I just didn't believe it,
so that nobody believed me, you know what I was
stating to them. I mean, I know he had some
issues in the past, and he just came back forward
trying to just get a conviction, because he did have
some problems in the department. But he just came down
to hold at me. And I'm not realizing that he
(33:39):
would set me up the whole time just to take
the four for this crime. But he did. And he
probably got some pats on the back and some you know,
sort of accolades for solving another cold case. And and
you were, you know, just a little detail to him.
That's all. He probably never probably went I'm guessing he
went home that night, had a nice dinner, you know,
watch the TV, and went to sleep. So you end
(33:59):
up serving ten years in prison where you had a
perfect disciplinary record, and the whole time you maintained your innocence,
even though there were times when you came before a
parole board and it would have been better for you
in some ways to say that you were guilty, because
they would have probably sent you home. Yes, that's true.
But the first couple of times I went, I did not.
(34:21):
I kept I stated that I did not do the point.
But they don't want to hear that. They want to
hear that you're remorseful, that you feel bad that the victor.
I can't feel remorse when I didn't do something, And
you understand, how how do you feel You don't know
the purposing, You didn't do the crime, so how can
you feel remorse? I mean, I feel remorse when someone
is getting beaten or something like that, actually seeing it happen.
(34:44):
But as far as me doing something like that, never, never.
Finesses right. In the first two parole hearings she said
I did not do what they said I did. But
eight years in with a perfect disciplinary record and seeing
how little asserting her evidence got her with the parole
board previously, in her third parole hearing, she appeared to
(35:10):
admit guilt, and we retained a fabulous expert who was
able to explain the conundrum that someone like Vanessa is facing.
And Vanessa testified in her deposition that everyone on the
inside was telling her you're an idiot. You've got to
tell them what they want to hear. Just tell them
(35:33):
you did it. And so Vanessa in the third parole
hearing appeared to admit guilt when in fact obviously she
was not guilty, but it was the only way she
could see to get out early. At that point, it
didn't matter. They it didn't matter. Even then the third
hearing date hit me again with another two years, which
(35:55):
has passed my cr date, my condition to release. If
it was up to them, I would have still been
in here into two eight. Now we're going to get
(36:17):
to the good part of this story, right, because there
is a happy ending, or you wouldn't be sitting here now,
and you wouldn't be enjoying the nice, big extended family
that you now have. And so the good guys come
to the rescue. Right. You have Lisa and her team
at Hughes Herbard and Read, and you have the Legal
Aid Society. And then at just about the right time
(36:38):
in Brooklyn, the Conviction Review Unit was established, and that
unit has done phenomenal work in reversing many wrongful convictions,
including Last Time I looked at was seven or eight.
Let Scarcella was directly responsible for, including yours. So let's
talk about that, because the happy ending part of this
(37:01):
story is really really important because it requires people like
Lisa and other dedicated professionals to go and reverse one
of these things. It's hard. I mean, they don't make
it easy at all. So how did it come about Lisa?
How did she end up getting justice? After all? Credit initially,
unquestionably goes to the legally a society. This is what happened.
(37:23):
Charles Hines was in the political fight of his career
and there had been an initial Scarcella related exoneration in
the David rant A case, and the New York Times
and Ken Thompson are breathing down. Charles Hines is back
and he says, it's okay, everybody, I'm telling you right now,
(37:45):
I am going to reinvestigate every trial conviction that detective
Scarcella touched. And Hines prepared a list which has never
been publicly available. I don't know anyone that's ever seen it,
but initially it had at least fifty names of defendants
(38:05):
on it. And what the d A's office did was
they contacted the last lawyer of record in each of
those fifty cases. Well, the Legal Aid Society was the
last lawyer of record in a good half of those
about and so Legal Aid went to firms around town
(38:26):
looking for partners, which is how Hughes Hubbard got involved
with the case, and we proceeded on a three year
partnership with Legal Aid. We reinvestigated the crime and marshaled
our arguments, retained experts and were able to make a
(38:46):
persuasive pitch to the then District Attorney, Ken Thompson, who
had beat in Charles Hines in that election. And that
is the short story of how we were able to
get to the exoneration day. And Ken Thompson sadly died
last year at the young age of fifty. He was
(39:08):
a good man and a decent man. He was a
friend of mine, but he was so proud. Um. You know,
he used to walk around with a picture of you.
I don't know I did you know that? No, I
know it's in his office, but I didn't know he
had to picture with it. He at his birthday party.
He has this cardboard thing and I'm holding my arms
out wide to show how big it was. And then
it was about a couple of feet three ft high,
(39:30):
and on it it had a picture of you and
the other exonorees that he his office had helped to exonerate.
And so he was very proud of you and of
the work that he and his team had done to
help in your case. I remember him mentioning you specifically,
So you should feel good about that. So when finally
the light shone on you and on your case and
(39:53):
justice was done and it was proven by all these
good people that this had happen, and and that you
were telling the truth all along, except when you were lying,
because it was them telling you what to say, right,
I mean that, But in fact, as you had been
saying you were innocent for so many years, what did
that feel like when finally you got your life back?
(40:16):
It felt great? And I was like, I'm saying, I'm
able to find you put this behind me. You don't
know what what you're feeling at that time, because it's
like it's clear now that I didn't dooy it. I mean,
you don't know what people think of you, whether you
did this claim or not, because it's on record, stating
that you did. But I felt great, I mean I
(40:38):
felt relieved. Now live my life would have happened that
on my record. It's very difficult to try and find
a job, to move on in life because you have
this hanging over your head. Now my record is clean,
I could state that I have no record, which makes
life a lot easier for me because people look to
(40:59):
a background check. It's nothing there, nothing there because you
never had anything there, because you were always there, always
were a law abiding citizen. Yes, but as far as
the law and criminal justice system said, yes you have
a record, it's on there, not anymore, not anymore, it's
been taken away. And now you know, there's another aspect
of this, which is something that's so troubling. You know,
(41:20):
when we live in a country where we have approximately
four point four percent of the world's population, but we
have thirty three percent of the world's female prison population,
which is just so outrageous. I mean, it's a national
disgrace the way we treat women in this country. And
when somebody like you is locked up, you're missing out
(41:41):
on your children's lives, right and your children grandchildren, and
that dynamic, I mean that must have been an extra punishment.
It was. My granddaughter was like only a year old
when I went in, and it caused a lot of
chaos treat me and my daughter because I wasn't there
for her. You understand, when she needed her mother to
(42:04):
help her and she had questions about raising her daughter.
I wasn't there. She couldn't even call you. Not only
weren't there, but you were far away, right that That's
another thing. I was in bedfoot for a while, and
then I finally moved to They moved me to Bayview,
which is in Manhattan, which was made closer because I
didn't get a lot of visits. I didn't get visits
(42:25):
because my family couldn't come to the facility because we
were poor. We didn't have money like that. I mean,
even like my father was living at the time. He
wanted to put up his farm. I wouldn't allow him
to do that because they gave me a quarter million
dollar bill. I'm saying, we don't think I'm gonna get
that kind of money from It was difficult for everyone.
(42:48):
I lost a lot of family members. I lost the brothers, sister,
my uncle's my aunt, I lost my mother, my father's brother.
It was it was a lot of family member was
that passed away during my first year inconcerating, I couldn't
attend anything because if you're in New York or you
if your family is out of state, you can't go
(43:10):
so the services. So that was hard for me to
deal with too. It was a lot of things that
did I missed out on because of my incarceration. So
you had to endure the death of numerous family members
while you were behind bars for something you didn't do,
and you weren't even allowed to go to the funeral, right. So,
I mean, it's so amazing to me that you're here
(43:32):
now standing up straight, proud, like, able to put a
sentence together, right, able to just have a life when
when you've been through such an incredibly terrible ordeal that
that you never deserved. I mean, it's just it's crazy.
So now the good news is you have gotten your
life back, right. I mean, this this thing actually happened
(43:52):
almost twenty years ago. Must be crazy to think about that.
And now you've been out for some time, and what's
the situation. Now? You settled your lawsuits, right, which is great. Yes,
and it's it's worth noting that Scarcela not only ruined
so many people's lives and left so many crimes unsolved,
leading to many more crimes happening because obviously, when he
(44:14):
arrested and was able to get convictions on the wrong people,
the right people were out there committing more crimes. Right,
So he's got that. And then also there's been tens
of millions of dollars paid out to so many victims
of his by the city, which is taxpayer money. So
there's nothing cute or funny about what this guy was doing.
When these guys behave in this way, who are supposed
(44:35):
to be protecting us and keeping us safe, it has
so many terrible consequences across the board. So now where
are you living, how's your life? What's your family situation?
I want to hear, well, I'm living in Joyous City now.
Although I was living in Manhattan and working. I was
(44:55):
working from the day that I got out of prison
because I met a couple day gave me a job
and I work with them for almost eight years until
they retired, and then living in Jersey City. My mother
has Alzheimer's as one of the reasons I moved back
to Jersey City where she is. I recently purchased a
home August eleven graduations. I have the first one, and
(45:19):
my daughter has a second. It's a two family house
and she's upstairs with a daughter and her granddaughter, my granddaughter,
my great granddaughter, and my daughter. So we all live
in together. Right, any boys in your family, We do
have boys. I have brothers, but as far as me,
it's four generations of females. Well five, you put my
(45:40):
mother in there, but it's just females. You got four
generations living under one roof in Jersey City. It sounds
incredible and isn't that nice though, that now you're able
to make up for the time that you lost with
your family. Now you have your whole like so many
of you all there together. I mean, it must be
just a joy for you. It is and is wonderful.
(46:01):
I can see my granddaughter, my great granddaughter at any
time if I need to go somewhere in My granddaughter
does have a car. She's working, so she could take
me and then I get the babysit my granddaughter. So
that's amazing. Well, listen, I'm happy that things finally worked out.
I want to apologize to you for what the city
(46:21):
and the state did to you. There's no excuse for it,
but I'm glad you're here now. One of my favorite
parts of the show often is to turn the microphone
over to our featured guest and see, is there anything
else you want to share with the audience. Well, no,
I'm just saying that. Well, during the time that I
(46:42):
was in there, I mean, I wasn't gonna let the
time to me. I was going to do the time.
So I got myself involved with a lot of different
activities throughout the prison. I worked hard to stay in
touch with my family. I would read my granddaughter book
Soon you know, on video and send the books. There's
a lot of programs in there. There's a lot of
(47:03):
things you could do even though you're fighting your case.
But do something positive, you know, don't let the negativity,
will you? And Lisa any final thoughts, I would just say,
having known Vanessa now for five or six years, she
is an exceptional person. And the only way I think
she was able to get through this ordeal was her
(47:27):
strength of character. She got into prison and I think
this woman just put her head down and said I'm
going to get through this, and she just was forward thinking.
She never obsessed about how did this happen? How did
I get here? It was just one day at a time.
I've got to get out of here. And she mentioned
(47:50):
the couple that hired her right after prison. I just
want to speak to that because I think it's so
telling about Vanessa. Literally, a wealthy couple was volunteering at
bay View, husband and wife. Vanessa was running the g
D program. She was running this thing, that thing, and
(48:11):
they elbowed each other and said, why is she here?
We don't get it. She's not like anyone else in here.
And they befriended Vanessa, and literally one week after she
was released, she was in a full time job working
for them, and she was the chief administrator of their
(48:33):
very successful company and worked for these people for seven years.
They trusted her, they loved her. They could see what
she was capable of. And you know, my client is
just an extraordinary woman, and it's a testament to her
character that she was able to get through this. Well,
both of you are extraordinary women. So, Vanessa, Lisa, thank
(48:56):
you so much for coming in and appearing on the show.
You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful
Conviction with our guests. Vanessa Gathers and Lisa Kale. Thank
you don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever
(49:19):
you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a
proud donor to the Innisis Project and I really hope
you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and
helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to anisis project
dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three
(49:41):
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Company Number one one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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