August 19, 2020 • 51 mins
At the tail end of the 1980’s, Randal Padgett was living an idyllic rural life of farm and family, when admittedly he made his biggest mistake that began with a skinny dipping joke.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
In the late nineteen eighties. Randall Paget was a poultry
farmer and family man in a small town of Arab, Alabama, who,
by his own admission, made the biggest mistake of his
life when he stepped out on his wife, Cathy, with
a coworker named Judy Smith. The affair was on and
off again over the years, and during one of those
on again times, Judy and Randall took a road trip
(00:23):
to Florida, only to be awoken the first night they
were there with some harrowing news. On August seventeenth nine,
Cathy's body had been discovered in her bed. She had
endured a violent struggle and had sustained forty six stab wounds,
which ultimately killed her, and to make matters worse, seamen
was found inside of her. Even though there was no
(00:46):
indication that she had been raped. The night before this
Florida trip, that Paget children had stayed with Randall in
his tiny trailer, they knew, and he hadn't left in
the middle of the night to do anything, much less
kill their mother. But with no signs of a break
in at her home, Randall became the suspect, and he
was arrested when the seamen turned out to be his.
(01:08):
The state would commit misconduct during the trial, involving blood
founded the crime scene that didn't match Cathy or Randall.
This misconduct was one of the factors that led ultimately
to Randall being sentenced to death. The prosecutor misconduct would
result in a retrial and if the ben's investigation would
uncover some of the craziest perversities, proving that Paget had
(01:32):
been innocent all along, and rescuing Randall from death row.
This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
(01:53):
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host,
and today I'm actually have kind of or flies. I
gotta be honest because today you're going to hear a
story that I've been wanting to tell for as long
as I've known about it. And when you hear it,
you'll understand why. Because this is one of the craziest
(02:14):
stories I believe in the history of American jurisprudence. And
to help tell the story, we have an attorney was
a personally hero of mine. Richard S. Jaffie is with us.
So Richard, welcome to hangorful conviction. I'm so happy to
be here, Jason, and today we're going to be telling
the incredible saga of Randall. Paget Randall, as I always say,
(02:38):
I'm sorry you have to be here, but I'm happy
you're here. I'm real happy to be here. I've been
in a lot worse places. Well said, um, Randall, Let's
start with you, because you grew up in a small
town in Alabama, a town called Arab. I've never heard
of Arab, but can you just give us an idea
(02:58):
of what your life was like before everything went so crazy? Okay,
the town is pronounced right. Yeah. I grew up in
the fifties lit a matter of fact, I was born
in nineteen small town population probably about seven thousand now.
Grew up on the farm. This simple laugh. I had
(03:20):
good parents who worked hard. They carried me to the church,
and uh, well, I went to college. I got a
degree in business and started to work with this plant.
And I always loved outside, and so I ended up
buying a party farm, got married, had two children, and
had a pretty good life. Thirty two acres of land
(03:41):
and the house had the land paid for, the house
almost paid for, and uh I made probably the biggest
mistake in my life. I had extramarital affair. And you're
referring to Judy Smith. Now you used to work together
(04:03):
when all that started. Was it when you already had
the poultry farm? No, it was was eating corporation another
plant and uh we live close together. When one idea
and work. She had a swimming book. Something was said
about going skinny dipping. So I remember when Nott We've
(04:25):
been working late and almost at home, and I've seen
her car in front of mean, she pulled up in
your driveway, So I kept thinking about that any dipping jokes,
So I put my head lights in behind her, trying
to scare. I figured you knew it was me, and
then I went on home. Didn't think anything else about it. Well,
(04:46):
the next day it worked, did you said? Well, the
chicken out last night. So the next night, same thing.
I got almost to her place, which was just before
I got to my place. Our car is against pulled in.
I pulled in, Okay, let's go skinny. Didn't well, she
starts stripping off clothes. I thought it's all a big joke.
So we got totally naked, and I wanted to do
(05:08):
the deed, and I said, no, I'm going home. Well,
I did a long weekend and all weekend the devil
got my brain and saying, you should just do it once,
you should just do it once. And then did it once,
and then it just more and more and more, and
I was I was miserable. I guess it was mainly
(05:31):
six and uh my wife and I Kathy, her name
was Kathy. Uh. We had separated and she got murdered,
stay up numerous times and right doctor she was dead.
They said, my children, I learned later, who were six
(05:56):
and eleven at the time, But you were the one
that found the body of their mother. And I'm thinking
about all that stuff. And I got physically ill when
I first found out about it. But it was like
a nightmare, especially when the police were kind of pointing
(06:17):
their finger at me. I couldn't even mourn the death
of my wife with all that hanging over me. And
I felt a lot of guilt. If I would have
been home with my wife where I should have been,
she would probably be aligned and well, the the police
(06:41):
accused me of doing it, which I can understand why.
I've seen all the TV movies about the affairs and
all of that stuff. But d n A was Brandy
back then. It was nineteen ninety when she was killed,
and I was just learning about doing Most people didn't
know about that stuff then, so I we literally gave
(07:04):
my blood sample and uh, I thought, Man, I can't
wait till this the unitis gets back, so they will
start looking at the right place, because I wanted every
who killed my wife to be found. I read about
your case in Richard's amazing book. It's called Quest for
Justice Defending the Damned by Richard S. Jaffee and now
(07:27):
there's a second edition out and this case is extraordinary
in so many ways. But I I can understand why
the jury voted to convict you because even though there
was significant evidence that it couldn't have been you, but
this one thing was really almost impossible for your attorneys
(07:50):
to overcome. And Richard, you talk about this in your book.
So this murder happened on August seventeenth of Randall and
his paramore, Judy Smith, went to Florida on a scuba
diving trip. It's about six or seven hours from arab
(08:11):
While in Florida on the evening of August sixte early
mornings of August, Randall's asleep. They just got there and
a phone call comes from Randall's brother saying that his wife,
Cathy was murdered. Randall immediately went and threw up, and
(08:34):
then Judy and Randall immediately turned around and drove back,
and they drove right to the Sheriff's department. The interesting
thing is that you would think that Randall was so
shook up, so distraught, that Judy would have driven the
whole way back, But apparently Judy was up all night
(08:59):
and couldn't keep the car in the road on these
windy rural roads in Florida, and after about thirty or
forty minutes, they were about colliding with everything, and Randall
had to drive the entire way back and Judy went
to sleep in the passenger side. They go straight to
the station and both give interviews separately, and then the
(09:22):
next morning Randall invited them out to his home, the
home of the murder, and they He was video taped
for forty five minutes, going through the entire house and
basically excluding himself from not being a suspect because every
time he was offered an opportunity to I guess put
(09:45):
himself out of harm's way. He didn't, for example, or
the scuff marks in the door, are are they fresh?
Meaning maybe the house with barger eyes? Randall said no,
they were oh old. When was the last time you
had sex with your wife, Kathy? Randall said, oh, it's
(10:07):
been many months, three or four months, which if he
were guilty, he would have probably said within the last
few days, explaining what turned out to be a DNA match,
and on and on and on, and then Randall gave
a polygraph test, and he voluntarily gave his blood for
(10:30):
DNA testing, and then he thought, as soon as it
comes back, he'll be excluded as a suspect. But it
didn't happen that way, So the circumstantial evidence starts to mount. Right,
it looked a little strange that Randall and Duty had
left town the morning after the murders, and of course,
(10:53):
with the affair and at being a small town and
everything else, people are going to think whatever they think.
But at the same time they put out these crazy theories,
like the idea that Randal might have been after the
life insurance when we know that she only had ten
thousand dollars in life insurance anyway, which would barely cover
the cost of the funeral, and it never made any
(11:14):
sense on the face of it. Why would Randal want
to make his children, who nobody had anything to say
other than that he loved and they loved him, And
why would he want to make them effectively orphans or
in a minimum take even if you got away with it,
take their mother from them. Can you talk a little
bit about that, the circumstances, and then you know where
(11:34):
ultimately it when when the DNA test came back, Well,
you know, the first suspect, of course is the spouse.
But at the same time, when authorities focus on one person,
they get myopic and the tunnel vision and they never
(11:55):
look at anything else. And the investigation then is all
about finding information to confirm their suspicion or their bias
or their focus. In this case, though nothing made sinse
as you point out initially, clearly, Kathy was in a
(12:17):
fight for her life. She was in the bed, she
was accosted by her killer, and there was a life
and death struggle. Kathy was stabbed forty six times. Almost
all of those were defensive wounds, and it took a
(12:39):
long time for finally a couple of stab wounds to
penetrate her organs and kill her. Randall this six ft
one pounds Kathy was very demure, very small. In addition
to that, the alleged rape was clearly staged. The body
(13:02):
was moved from a normal sleeping position to across the bed.
The left leg was propped down, the right leg was
propped up on a table where an alarm clock was
No one could be raped in that position. All the
blood was consistent to the body being moved. The underwear
(13:25):
was neatly cut off with scissors of Kathy. There was
zero trauma to her vaginal area, zero none, zero. And
what the pathologists testified to in both trials was that
Cathy was dead before the seman ever entered her vagina,
(13:49):
meaning that if someone had raped her, that person would
have raped a corpse. So you had an extraordinary amount
of information that clearly, oh that someone else committed this
crime other than Randall Paget, And there's a lot more
to that. You know, the idea that she was allegedly
(14:09):
raped in that position with one leg up on the nightstand,
but that the alarm clock was undisturbed didn't make any sense.
Very little of this made any sense. But the detectives
ignored the statements of Randall's children who had been in
the trailer with him all night, including one the little
one that slept in the bed with him, and they
had told the detective that he had never left the
(14:32):
trailer that night and that they would have heard it
if he had, that he hadn't showered. He had no
blood on him, of course, which we know it was
a bloody struggle. They didn't search his residence or his car,
nor did they search Judy's residence or car, and an
investigator clumsily, supposedly accidentally, let's let's call it, that destroyed
a bloody fingerprint on Cathy's body. So six weeks go
(14:56):
by October five, Randall, they come in and rescue it,
and then you were charged with capital murder. I was
at my in laws home, Ketty's parents, when over there me,
me and the kids. I guess the police were following
me or what. I don't know how they knew I
(15:17):
was there. It was in a town about thirty miles
away from where I live. Anyways, there was a knock
on the door, and uh mother and law said there
was someone to see me, and I went outside and
the protectives as you're under rest for the murder of Kenthy.
I said, uh, you rest in the Rome person. They
(15:38):
put the handcuffs on me and said, let me go
back in tell my children by no, you can't do that.
And man, my mind was spinning. I didn't know what
was happening. And I was gravely concerned about my kids.
They don't have a mother now there don't have a father,
(16:00):
and what's going to happen to them? But I was
in Uh. I was only in jail, I think about
three days. I didn't need a thing I could need
but any house. I got bonded out after about three days.
So that part of my incarceration was kind of quick.
(16:21):
But the other part when I got the prison was
it was kind of long. That's a whole different story
death row. We'll get to that. But Richard, in your
book you talk about the first trial, and unlike most
of the people that we've interviewed on the show, Randall
had not just competent but highly skilled attorneys on the
first trial. But they were up against it because the state, um,
(16:45):
well they broke the rules. To put it mildly, they
withheld evidence that I think would be deemed to be
exculpatory until the very last minute, and there was other
stuff going on. So can you walk us through the
first trial and explain to us how it ended up
the way it did. Randall did have good lawyers, and
(17:07):
they retained a expert in d NA, and when the
expert was cross examined, the expert had to concede that
the DNA testing of the salmon was consistent with the
DNA of Randall, meaning that the expert basically confirmed the
(17:29):
state's case. So once Randall testified, the jury was pretty
uninterested because they made up their mind. And there's more
to this than that as well, because what I was
making reference to before is the fact that there was
blood at the scene, which is typical in a case
where someone has stabbed numerous times because the stabber in
(17:51):
this case, the murderer would normally cut themselves because the
knife gets slippery and done the demonstration so many times,
we just take a pen and you stab a book
or a table or whatever, and by the third time
down your hands already down on what would be the blade.
So that's why we almost always find blood from the
person doing the stabbing at the crime scene, and in
(18:12):
this case that was also the case. Plus it was
a violent struggle, and we know that Kathy fought for
her life and she scratched the assailants numerous times. So
there was blood found at the crime scene that was
not Kathy's and it was not Randall's. You're in the
first trial. There was one point in time when the
(18:33):
zoologist was on the stand just find that my blood
pop had changed from one day to the next, and
he had never seen that happened. And here was twenty
five years of work. I thought, well, I'm not going
to get found you. I'm going to go home today.
So the prologist is up on the stand saying Randall's
blood type changed, which we know isn't a thing. It can't,
(18:56):
I mean. So, so the conclusion is that it was
blood from the scene that they were testing that did
not belong to Randall and was also not Kathy's, so
mixed in with Cathy's blood, someone else's blood was at
the crime scene. But the prosecution did not hand over
that evidence until after the DNA experts who had come
(19:18):
to town to test if I had already left. And
then Randall's lawyer appropriately asked for a mistrial, and the
judge seemingly inappropriately denied the motion. So this is where
things start to really stack up and where you know,
you can start to understand or I can how the
jury would have found Randall guilty because it was hard
(19:39):
for them to get past the idea of how could
his sperm have ended up inside of her when he
said he hadn't seen her in such a such amount
of time and that is a you know, that's a
pretty big albatross. But this other evidence was either ignored
with hell, there were searches that were not done. There
was all sorts of leads left unexplored. The huge pink
(20:02):
elephant in the room was Randall's ex paramour, Judy Smith.
Neither side was willing to call her to testify in
the first trial. The state would have given her immunity
if she would have implicated Randall, but she wouldn't do it.
So Judy never testified in the first trial, and the
(20:26):
video that we talked about earlier of Randall going through
the crime scene with the detectives was not played either.
The interesting twist in this case is that the jury
found them guilty and recommended a life without parole sentence.
In that time Alabama had an override statute and the
(20:49):
trial judge over wrote it and sentenced Randall to death.
So Randall, that's may can you tell it gets through
that awful, awful moment? Well, that would my twenty second
that was my birthday a matter of fact, the sentence
(21:10):
and that weathered me a lot. But I could anybody
I think that I would do such a thing, and
then they're gonna kill the wrong person. Somebody's out there
and have really done this and it's not me, And uh,
the whole world is going to believe what the court says.
(21:31):
The court says I'm guilty and and that I must
be put to death. As a father myself, the idea
of you being torn away from your kids, who you
now have even a more intense responsibility to care for
and protect after everything they've been through and now they're
(21:52):
effectively being orphaned, and you're thrust into the most horrible
situation imaginable and being torn away from the people you
love the most at the same time. You know, then
what's horrible and helpless slug Okay, help myself. Nothing that
I can do. It is going on help my children.
(22:21):
This episode is sponsored by A I. G. A leading
global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Morton and Garrison,
a leading international law firm. The A I G pro
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
they announced that working to reform the criminal justice system
(22:42):
will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
our society and in support of the public interest, including
extensive work in the criminal justice area. When I got
(23:11):
the prison, it was it was I don't know, about
ten o'clock at night and never been in a prison.
Go in and it's all loud. People locked up there.
They're screaming, and you hear the metal doors slamming shut
and open, and that drap how you close off and
(23:31):
they spread you down with some kind of chemical handcuffs
and shackles on your legs and a chain going from
your hands to your feet and then chain around your
waist and all that lot. Say, little middy, stay ups
back to where the death row was, and UH guard
(23:52):
would hollered somebody would slide a metal door open and
it slide behind me and the other inmates yelling at
you and all this stuff and screaming, and get back
to my little sail, which is uh I think was
five feet by eight or nine ft and there's no
(24:17):
lot in there are a lot more shot and it
was completely dark. And get in there. They take the
cuffs off, I mean slammed the door behind me, and
I'm and I'm all alone, like on a different planet.
And I can remember keept thinking I'm gonna get out
(24:41):
of here. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna
get out of here. But after that, years went by.
I remember carried up one night in the feet of
position and just won't give up. And I'm gonna die
die in this place, and nobody don't the whole world
don't care about world will be glad when I do.
(25:03):
But finally I got closer to God than I've ever
been in my life. I was confident that God wouldn't
wanna let me die for something I didn't do. And uh,
you didn't. You get me out of there through Richard
jeffish Um. Wow, Richard, the tables turned when you got
(25:29):
involved but how did you come to be involved? And
I'm so fascinated by the process and the way you
describe it in the book, the decisions that you had
to make, which are actually literally life and death decisions
because you are the backstop right had you failed, Randall
would have been put to death. So can you pick
(25:50):
us through that whole process. The way that I met
Brenda mass and Gil who later and currently became Randall's wife,
they hardly knew each other, but I was speaking at
the sixteenth Street Baptist Church in That's where the four
young girls were murdered in the bombing of the church,
(26:14):
and we were speaking on the death penalty. It was
a kind of a small rally. Brenda approached me after
I spoke and asked me if I had heard of
Randall's case. I hadn't, and I refused to intervene at
that point because he was well represented and I didn't
expect ever to hear from anyone again about that. And
(26:36):
then a few years later in Randall's family called the
office through Brenda and wanted to meet with me. That
Randall's case had been reversed because the prosecution had failed
to disclose the blood typing evidence that was, as you say, exculpatory,
and because of that, Randall was given a new trial.
(27:00):
So when I got involved, I began to learn immediately
all kinds of things about Judy, about her history, about
how she was totally obsessed with Randall, to the point
where she actually constructed in her home a duplication of
(27:23):
Randall's children's bedroom. And Judy had actually confronted Kathy prior
to the murder in a church parking lot. Judy had
a raincoat on and sunglasses on a Wednesday night Kathy
with the church. Every Wednesday night, Judy was hiding in
(27:44):
Kathy's back seat. There was a confrontation. A church deacon
broke it up. When Kathy told me about that Judy
came up with you know, I just wanted to talk
to her, and and I wasn't dressed Jeffie thing more
than my normal dress. And so I don't know. I
guess I'll let the devil taught me in the kind
(28:07):
of believing that Judy wasn't uh anything that was no
good and instead of believing can't be like I should have.
And I can't explain. It was just a crazy time
in my life. The problem that Judy was having with
patience because Randall separated from Kathy several times, but each
(28:30):
time came back to her. On this occasion, when the
brutal murder happened, it became clear to me that Judy
wasn't going to take the chance of the divorce not
going through. So apparently she took matters in her own hands.
(28:52):
And then now we have a glory, horrific, unimaginable crime
scene that ultimately led to Randall's arrest, conviction, and death
symbols Randall, were there any other moments besides the church
parking lot incident that kind of made you think to yourself,
you know, Judy might just be a little bit off.
(29:17):
Thinking back through all this stuff, I remember one time
when this was before getting killed, when I was at
Judy's place and I was always him blocked bag that
had some I'm a smoker, had some cigarette butts in it,
and some fingernail clippings like what is this? And it's oh,
(29:40):
I love you so much. I only to say these,
you know, and I said, well, what a thing to say,
is what I'm thinking. But thinking back, you know, she
might have been up some mischief with that, so I
don't know, and then you know, then things get weirder. Right,
you're investigator forgetting his name. Now, who was the investigator
(30:02):
in this case. Our investigator was Rick Blake, and he
was our in house investigator, and he was amazing. What
was really fascinating is is that after the murder, Judy
took two weeks off from work, two weeks off, and
we developed evidence that Judy had scratch marks all up
(30:23):
and down her arms, meaning that she was apparently in
some type of vicious life for death struggle, and so
she stayed at home until those scratches healed. Another thing
is is that Judy's blood was never tested, her DNA
was never tested, her home was never searched, her car
(30:45):
was never searched. The police, for whatever reason, completely ignored
her as I suspect. Listen, if somebody had done this
work that you did all those years later, initially, it's
entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the trial, the first trial,
would have ended up in an acquittal. Because there's more. Right,
(31:05):
there's also a truck driver who came forward who said
that he had seen a car matching the description of
Judy's car, which was a very distinct car writing a
hubcap with a certain color leaving Cathy's home in the
middle of the night. That's pretty powerful. It's hard to
come up with a good excuse for that. But then
comes the craziest part of all of this, right, and again,
(31:30):
your investigator had you know, and I reread the chapter
in your book this morning talking about how he had
gone to beauty parlors trying to find people who knew Judy,
thinking that in the town, a small town with only
a few beauty parlors, she might have frequented one of them.
And sure enough he found people that knew her. And
(31:51):
what he discovered from that point turns out to be
really important evidence and really bizarre. He found three different
people that told him clearly that Judy had this fetish
with saving her then ex husband, Tommy Smith salmon and
putting it in milkshakes. I can remember before Kathy was killed,
(32:21):
usually after six we would both I'm talking about two
D would go up to sleep. I don't know weeks
before Kathy was killed, after six two D she would
immediately get up, go to bathroom. So then well, I'm
sitting then there in president I'm thinking what was she
doing in the bathroom. Was she saving some stuff? I
(32:44):
don't know, but I don't know. Rick Blake, our investigator,
he found three different people. We tried to get all
free to court, but we could only get one, the
milkshake lady. She was one of the three that Judy
had discuss this with on many occasions, and we hauled
her to testify and it was dynamic and powerful, and
(33:08):
the prosecution did everything they could to keep it out.
I mean, I've told this story to unfair number of
people and it doesn't get crazier than that. And that
wasn't all though, Richard the trial itself, the biggest decision
that I've ever had to make in any trial was
(33:32):
whether to call Judy to testify. That was crucial because
again the prosecution kept holding out immunity if she testified
against Randall. We were back in the judge's chamber as
time would run out. The judge looked up and said,
all right, call your next witness, and I said, we're
(33:54):
going to call Judy Smith. And at that point the
prosecutors jaws rock to the floor. It was stunned silence,
because no one believed we had the I guess they
guts to call her and we did. And her testimony
was the most both powerful and bizarre testimony anyone could envision.
(34:20):
On the one hand, she testified that she prayed every night.
She loved Randall so much that every night she prayed
that something would happen to Kathy and that she would
get killed in a car wreck so she could be
with Randall, and she still loved him. When I asked
her about her ability to enter the home, it slipped
(34:46):
from her mouth almost that there was a and I
knew she meant key that was hidden in a particular
place for Randall's children to get when they returned home
from school. Well, she knew about it where it was hidden,
and that slipped out of her mouth almost. She tried
to take it back, but she couldn't, And jurors remembered
(35:08):
that during deliberations. But the most powerful thing was and
again you point out something very very, so so crucial.
And as every question ask of a witness in a
death penalty case, especially a witness like her, judy could
be the bomb that destroy you. It could be the
(35:30):
landline that blows the case up. So every question had
to be so measured. But I asked her, if that
is Randall's d n A in Cathy's vaginal canal. How
do you think it got there? It's it's an objectionable question,
but the prosecution didn't object because clearly they thought that
(35:54):
she would either say I have no idea, but her
answer was if that was Randall's d n A, that
they had to have come from me, and that standing
room only courtroom and you could hear a pin drop.
(36:23):
So the jury now has heard her try to walk
back her explanation of how she could have gotten into
the house, because, of course, one of the things that
the prosecution theory hinged on it was the idea that
there was no break in. There was no signs of
breaking and entering, so it must have been somebody logically
who knew Kathy and was admitted into the house. But
(36:44):
now that the key in the location the key was
known to Judy and that was out in the open,
that was one thing. And now of course her making
this unbelievable admission in open court is a huge moment.
But even still, the jury uh goes to deliberate, Randall,
what did you think they were gone for close to
(37:05):
three full days? Did you allow yourself to hope that
they would come back with a not girlthy verdict? Or
were you what what? What were you thinking? Well, I
don't think as a clip any here in those three
days going back and forth to the jail which was
(37:26):
just across street in the courthouse, but you know, I
had a hope and Richard. So the jury is out
two and a half days and the judge is basically
at his wits end, I would say, and is on
the verge of declaring a mistrial, which would have been devastating.
(37:46):
Did you talk about this in the book as well?
How the judge called you and the prosecution team into
his chambers I guess right for a conference. He did,
and he was very clear. He said, gentlemen, I'm going
to declare a mis trial. I don't believe in forcing
drawars to give up their their feelings and beliefs. And
(38:10):
I tried to talk him out of it, and he went, no,
I've made up my mind. And this is a judge
that when he makes up his mind, he does. As
we filed out into the courtroom, I was the last
one other than he was behind me. As we began
to enter the courtroom, I turned around. I looked at
him right in the eyes, and I went judge just
(38:30):
asked the jurors if they think they can come to
a verdict. He didn't say anything. We sat down, he
faced the jury. He said, ladies and gentlemen, I have
no choice but two. And then he paused just for
a second, and he turned to his left and looked
(38:51):
me right in the eye, and we locked. And then
he turned back around to the jury and he did
a one eight. He said, is there anyone on the
jury that leaves that you could come to a unanimous verdict?
And two or three people nodded their heads and said yes.
(39:15):
I was stunned or a reversal. The jury went back
to deliberate. Their courthouse continued to be totally packed, standing romotely,
and people were basically in prayer. And for five minutes
later they came out and it was not guilty. Now
(39:38):
I'm not gonna lie. I cried this morning when I
read the book and I knew the story, I'd read
it before. Um, Randy, what was that moment like when
you were vindicated and you were on the verge of
being returned to your family, to your community, your good
name was given back to you. I can't imagine. Can
(39:58):
please explain. Well, I don't know if I can, but
like I had been held under water to the point
of grounding, I had to come up brier and I'm
at the point where I'm either going to drowned or not.
And then the not guilty burd that just pulls me
(40:21):
up into air. I can breathe again, and I'm going
to live. It was just total jubilation. And you hadn't
really slept her eating in a few days, as you said,
so it must have the judge, remember judge saying, and
you're free to go. Mr Pagett and jailor came over
(40:42):
to take me back to the jail with cuts only
get my stuff and I going back to the jail.
You could keep my stuff, you know. And then my son,
who had grown and got his driver's license, got to
drive his daddy home. It was just wonderful, wonderful, Richard,
(41:03):
What about you? It was? It was a feeling of
elation that it's really hard to imagine unless you have
heard not guilty. He's on death penalty cases before. This
being a retrial made it all that much more unimaginable.
You have the best job in the world, at least
(41:25):
on days like that you do. Now before we go
to the closing of the show, talk about the juror
who approached you on your way out of the courtroom, Richard.
Probably the credit for the jury's correct not guilty verdict,
a lot of it goes to her at the end
of the day. That's exactly right what happens in these trials.
(41:50):
Having tried hundreds myself, you often misread drawers. We thought
that the older lady and a younger lady the one
you're talking of, probably in her forties, we thought that
they hated us, But it was the opposite. The initial
vote was eight to four for guilty, we later learned.
(42:13):
And when we walked out of the courtroom towards our car,
the one you allude to, the female, the forty year
old forty something ere locked up to me and said, Mr. Jaffee,
can have a word with you? And I said, sure,
she said, and she just looked at me right in me.
I was like a foot from her, and she said,
(42:33):
you know, only a woman would know you can't have
sex in that position. So I climbed on the table
and put my right leg up and my left leg down,
and I made it clear to the mostly male jury
(42:54):
that Randall Paget could not have had sex with cat
thing in that position, and that flipped other girawars and
ultimately all twelve found Randall not guilty. The last thing
she said to me was you tell Randall Pageant to
stay away from Judy Smith and go spend time with
(43:16):
his kids. And then we walked away. And the truth
is that Randall hadn't seen Judy since the night at
the police station when they arrived back from Florida, and he,
of course has it since. Do you know what became
of Judy Smith after all these years? Uh? I don't, Richard.
(43:40):
Is it strange to you that they never prosecuted her.
It's not strange because the prosecution had already publicly made
it clear that they didn't think she was involved at
all and knew nothing. So the chances of them getting
a conviction while it existed weren't really high. And I
(44:01):
think the prosecution was just done with that case. They
had pretty much been embarrassed enough, I guess. And Randall
before I keep saying this, but one last question before
we get to the wrap up, how are your kids doing?
These poor children had to live through a nightmare that
(44:22):
is unimaginable, you know, losing their mom and then almost
losing their dad or losing their dad for six years.
How are they doing now, Well, they're they're doing good.
And uh I've got three oh granddaughters now from them.
My son has two red headed girls. He lives in
(44:43):
Nashville and he's an architect. My daughter lives in Alabama
and one time was president of the company she worked for.
She since moved to a different place of than woman,
but and she has one little girl. I'm so proud
of them and I love them. The thesis, well, that's great,
(45:07):
and I wish them all the blessings in the world
because they deserve. As to you, everything good. Um So,
now we come to the wrap up of our show,
which is a segment that is my favorite part called
Closing Arguments, where I first of all, thank both of
you Richard Jeffie, criminal defense lawyer, author and amazing advocate,
(45:30):
Thank you for being here. And of course Randall, thank
you Randall Paget for sharing your story so eloquently and beautifully.
And this part of the show is where I get
to kick back in my chair, switch off my microphone
and let you just share any other thoughts that you
may want to share with our audience. Randall, We're gonna
(45:51):
save you for last, if that's okay, Richard, your first
has been a true privilege, honor, and joy to get
to know and represent Randall Paget and become close with
he and his now wife, Brenda Massengale of fifteen years.
(46:15):
This is a kind of case where reality really trump's
fiction because had it not been for the failure to
disclose the exculpatory conflicting information of blood typing, Randall would
never have got a chance for a new trial. And
(46:37):
it amazes me that the prosecution hid that until it
was too late. The only other thing I would say
would be that law enforcement often excludes a wider investigation
once they focus on one suspect, and when that happens,
(46:59):
the wrong person can easily been convicted. And a really
thorough investigation would have revealed the truth that Randall was innocent.
And I thank God that Randall is here with us
(47:19):
to share his story. He is a true thought of
the earth human being Randall. I would just like to say,
I think Mr Richard jeff is the greatest attorney in
the world. He believed in me, He believed the truth.
I want to thank Richard. I will love you Richard
(47:41):
very much. One thing about me, I guess I was
naive about the justice system in America. I had heard
of people getting wrongfully convicted, and I didn't pay much
attention to it. But but I thought, you know, when
(48:02):
if you go to trial in the United States, the
foremost thing in the court's mind is supposed to be
the truth. But I don't think it works that way.
I think if the piece of truth comes up, that's
bad part which ever side, I think it gets twisted
around or tried to cover it or something. And I
(48:25):
guess for people listening to this, if you're ever sitting
on a jury, I would ask that you don't just
believe because a defendant has been accused of something, that
that he probably did something or he wouldn't be there.
And I would ask that you would make the prosecution
(48:46):
show you some concrete proof to back up what they're saying.
And if I got just one other minute, I'd like
to talk about my friend and now life Brenda. When
I was in Brison, she was so nice to me.
She was trying to raise money for me and written
(49:08):
legal eight places. I think she wrote the governor, and
I don't know who I would. I thought, why is
this woman being so nice to me? And I thought
she's a spy for the prosecution, because I was pretty
sure I was going to get a retrial because prosecution
had with failed that exculpatory evidence. And I thought, yeah,
(49:29):
they know it's going to be a retrial. And she's
a spy. And she kept wanting to come and visit me,
and I wouldn't let her. I thought, if I don't
let her come down here, she can't say said something.
But if I do let her come, she can go
back and say Randall said this. Randall said that I
wouldn't let her come. And a couple of years all
(49:51):
my letters dwindled away except hers, and so finally, through
her letters, got to trust and she did not be
a spot but a great hey. And after I got out,
we've married about a bad years later. But he's the
(50:12):
most wonderful person. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and I really
hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause.
And helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
(50:35):
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
time OSCAR nomine composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
us on Instagram at rang Full Conviction and on Facebook
at rang Full Conviction podcast. Rang Full Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
(50:57):
association with Signal Company Number one
In the late nineteen eighties. Randall Paget was a poultry
farmer and family man in a small town of Arab, Alabama, who,
by his own admission, made the biggest mistake of his
life when he stepped out on his wife, Cathy, with
a coworker named Judy Smith. The affair was on and
off again over the years, and during one of those
on again times, Judy and Randall took a road trip
(00:23):
to Florida, only to be awoken the first night they
were there with some harrowing news. On August seventeenth nine,
Cathy's body had been discovered in her bed. She had
endured a violent struggle and had sustained forty six stab wounds,
which ultimately killed her, and to make matters worse, seamen
was found inside of her. Even though there was no
(00:46):
indication that she had been raped. The night before this
Florida trip, that Paget children had stayed with Randall in
his tiny trailer, they knew, and he hadn't left in
the middle of the night to do anything, much less
kill their mother. But with no signs of a break
in at her home, Randall became the suspect, and he
was arrested when the seamen turned out to be his.
(01:08):
The state would commit misconduct during the trial, involving blood
founded the crime scene that didn't match Cathy or Randall.
This misconduct was one of the factors that led ultimately
to Randall being sentenced to death. The prosecutor misconduct would
result in a retrial and if the ben's investigation would
uncover some of the craziest perversities, proving that Paget had
(01:32):
been innocent all along, and rescuing Randall from death row.
This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
(01:53):
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host,
and today I'm actually have kind of or flies. I
gotta be honest because today you're going to hear a
story that I've been wanting to tell for as long
as I've known about it. And when you hear it,
you'll understand why. Because this is one of the craziest
(02:14):
stories I believe in the history of American jurisprudence. And
to help tell the story, we have an attorney was
a personally hero of mine. Richard S. Jaffie is with us.
So Richard, welcome to hangorful conviction. I'm so happy to
be here, Jason, and today we're going to be telling
the incredible saga of Randall. Paget Randall, as I always say,
(02:38):
I'm sorry you have to be here, but I'm happy
you're here. I'm real happy to be here. I've been
in a lot worse places. Well said, um, Randall, Let's
start with you, because you grew up in a small
town in Alabama, a town called Arab. I've never heard
of Arab, but can you just give us an idea
(02:58):
of what your life was like before everything went so crazy? Okay,
the town is pronounced right. Yeah. I grew up in
the fifties lit a matter of fact, I was born
in nineteen small town population probably about seven thousand now.
Grew up on the farm. This simple laugh. I had
(03:20):
good parents who worked hard. They carried me to the church,
and uh, well, I went to college. I got a
degree in business and started to work with this plant.
And I always loved outside, and so I ended up
buying a party farm, got married, had two children, and
had a pretty good life. Thirty two acres of land
(03:41):
and the house had the land paid for, the house
almost paid for, and uh I made probably the biggest
mistake in my life. I had extramarital affair. And you're
referring to Judy Smith. Now you used to work together
(04:03):
when all that started. Was it when you already had
the poultry farm? No, it was was eating corporation another
plant and uh we live close together. When one idea
and work. She had a swimming book. Something was said
about going skinny dipping. So I remember when Nott We've
(04:25):
been working late and almost at home, and I've seen
her car in front of mean, she pulled up in
your driveway, So I kept thinking about that any dipping jokes,
So I put my head lights in behind her, trying
to scare. I figured you knew it was me, and
then I went on home. Didn't think anything else about it. Well,
(04:46):
the next day it worked, did you said? Well, the
chicken out last night. So the next night, same thing.
I got almost to her place, which was just before
I got to my place. Our car is against pulled in.
I pulled in, Okay, let's go skinny. Didn't well, she
starts stripping off clothes. I thought it's all a big joke.
So we got totally naked, and I wanted to do
(05:08):
the deed, and I said, no, I'm going home. Well,
I did a long weekend and all weekend the devil
got my brain and saying, you should just do it once,
you should just do it once. And then did it once,
and then it just more and more and more, and
I was I was miserable. I guess it was mainly
(05:31):
six and uh my wife and I Kathy, her name
was Kathy. Uh. We had separated and she got murdered,
stay up numerous times and right doctor she was dead.
They said, my children, I learned later, who were six
(05:56):
and eleven at the time, But you were the one
that found the body of their mother. And I'm thinking
about all that stuff. And I got physically ill when
I first found out about it. But it was like
a nightmare, especially when the police were kind of pointing
(06:17):
their finger at me. I couldn't even mourn the death
of my wife with all that hanging over me. And
I felt a lot of guilt. If I would have
been home with my wife where I should have been,
she would probably be aligned and well, the the police
(06:41):
accused me of doing it, which I can understand why.
I've seen all the TV movies about the affairs and
all of that stuff. But d n A was Brandy
back then. It was nineteen ninety when she was killed,
and I was just learning about doing Most people didn't
know about that stuff then, so I we literally gave
(07:04):
my blood sample and uh, I thought, Man, I can't
wait till this the unitis gets back, so they will
start looking at the right place, because I wanted every
who killed my wife to be found. I read about
your case in Richard's amazing book. It's called Quest for
Justice Defending the Damned by Richard S. Jaffee and now
(07:27):
there's a second edition out and this case is extraordinary
in so many ways. But I I can understand why
the jury voted to convict you because even though there
was significant evidence that it couldn't have been you, but
this one thing was really almost impossible for your attorneys
(07:50):
to overcome. And Richard, you talk about this in your book.
So this murder happened on August seventeenth of Randall and
his paramore, Judy Smith, went to Florida on a scuba
diving trip. It's about six or seven hours from arab
(08:11):
While in Florida on the evening of August sixte early
mornings of August, Randall's asleep. They just got there and
a phone call comes from Randall's brother saying that his wife,
Cathy was murdered. Randall immediately went and threw up, and
(08:34):
then Judy and Randall immediately turned around and drove back,
and they drove right to the Sheriff's department. The interesting
thing is that you would think that Randall was so
shook up, so distraught, that Judy would have driven the
whole way back, But apparently Judy was up all night
(08:59):
and couldn't keep the car in the road on these
windy rural roads in Florida, and after about thirty or
forty minutes, they were about colliding with everything, and Randall
had to drive the entire way back and Judy went
to sleep in the passenger side. They go straight to
the station and both give interviews separately, and then the
(09:22):
next morning Randall invited them out to his home, the
home of the murder, and they He was video taped
for forty five minutes, going through the entire house and
basically excluding himself from not being a suspect because every
time he was offered an opportunity to I guess put
(09:45):
himself out of harm's way. He didn't, for example, or
the scuff marks in the door, are are they fresh?
Meaning maybe the house with barger eyes? Randall said no,
they were oh old. When was the last time you
had sex with your wife, Kathy? Randall said, oh, it's
(10:07):
been many months, three or four months, which if he
were guilty, he would have probably said within the last
few days, explaining what turned out to be a DNA match,
and on and on and on, and then Randall gave
a polygraph test, and he voluntarily gave his blood for
(10:30):
DNA testing, and then he thought, as soon as it
comes back, he'll be excluded as a suspect. But it
didn't happen that way, So the circumstantial evidence starts to mount. Right,
it looked a little strange that Randall and Duty had
left town the morning after the murders, and of course,
(10:53):
with the affair and at being a small town and
everything else, people are going to think whatever they think.
But at the same time they put out these crazy theories,
like the idea that Randal might have been after the
life insurance when we know that she only had ten
thousand dollars in life insurance anyway, which would barely cover
the cost of the funeral, and it never made any
(11:14):
sense on the face of it. Why would Randal want
to make his children, who nobody had anything to say
other than that he loved and they loved him, And
why would he want to make them effectively orphans or
in a minimum take even if you got away with it,
take their mother from them. Can you talk a little
bit about that, the circumstances, and then you know where
(11:34):
ultimately it when when the DNA test came back, Well,
you know, the first suspect, of course is the spouse.
But at the same time, when authorities focus on one person,
they get myopic and the tunnel vision and they never
(11:55):
look at anything else. And the investigation then is all
about finding information to confirm their suspicion or their bias
or their focus. In this case, though nothing made sinse
as you point out initially, clearly, Kathy was in a
(12:17):
fight for her life. She was in the bed, she
was accosted by her killer, and there was a life
and death struggle. Kathy was stabbed forty six times. Almost
all of those were defensive wounds, and it took a
(12:39):
long time for finally a couple of stab wounds to
penetrate her organs and kill her. Randall this six ft
one pounds Kathy was very demure, very small. In addition
to that, the alleged rape was clearly staged. The body
(13:02):
was moved from a normal sleeping position to across the bed.
The left leg was propped down, the right leg was
propped up on a table where an alarm clock was
No one could be raped in that position. All the
blood was consistent to the body being moved. The underwear
(13:25):
was neatly cut off with scissors of Kathy. There was
zero trauma to her vaginal area, zero none, zero. And
what the pathologists testified to in both trials was that
Cathy was dead before the seman ever entered her vagina,
(13:49):
meaning that if someone had raped her, that person would
have raped a corpse. So you had an extraordinary amount
of information that clearly, oh that someone else committed this
crime other than Randall Paget, And there's a lot more
to that. You know, the idea that she was allegedly
(14:09):
raped in that position with one leg up on the nightstand,
but that the alarm clock was undisturbed didn't make any sense.
Very little of this made any sense. But the detectives
ignored the statements of Randall's children who had been in
the trailer with him all night, including one the little
one that slept in the bed with him, and they
had told the detective that he had never left the
(14:32):
trailer that night and that they would have heard it
if he had, that he hadn't showered. He had no
blood on him, of course, which we know it was
a bloody struggle. They didn't search his residence or his car,
nor did they search Judy's residence or car, and an
investigator clumsily, supposedly accidentally, let's let's call it, that destroyed
a bloody fingerprint on Cathy's body. So six weeks go
(14:56):
by October five, Randall, they come in and rescue it,
and then you were charged with capital murder. I was
at my in laws home, Ketty's parents, when over there me,
me and the kids. I guess the police were following
me or what. I don't know how they knew I
(15:17):
was there. It was in a town about thirty miles
away from where I live. Anyways, there was a knock
on the door, and uh mother and law said there
was someone to see me, and I went outside and
the protectives as you're under rest for the murder of Kenthy.
I said, uh, you rest in the Rome person. They
(15:38):
put the handcuffs on me and said, let me go
back in tell my children by no, you can't do that.
And man, my mind was spinning. I didn't know what
was happening. And I was gravely concerned about my kids.
They don't have a mother now there don't have a father,
(16:00):
and what's going to happen to them? But I was
in Uh. I was only in jail, I think about
three days. I didn't need a thing I could need
but any house. I got bonded out after about three days.
So that part of my incarceration was kind of quick.
(16:21):
But the other part when I got the prison was
it was kind of long. That's a whole different story
death row. We'll get to that. But Richard, in your
book you talk about the first trial, and unlike most
of the people that we've interviewed on the show, Randall
had not just competent but highly skilled attorneys on the
first trial. But they were up against it because the state, um,
(16:45):
well they broke the rules. To put it mildly, they
withheld evidence that I think would be deemed to be
exculpatory until the very last minute, and there was other
stuff going on. So can you walk us through the
first trial and explain to us how it ended up
the way it did. Randall did have good lawyers, and
(17:07):
they retained a expert in d NA, and when the
expert was cross examined, the expert had to concede that
the DNA testing of the salmon was consistent with the
DNA of Randall, meaning that the expert basically confirmed the
(17:29):
state's case. So once Randall testified, the jury was pretty
uninterested because they made up their mind. And there's more
to this than that as well, because what I was
making reference to before is the fact that there was
blood at the scene, which is typical in a case
where someone has stabbed numerous times because the stabber in
(17:51):
this case, the murderer would normally cut themselves because the
knife gets slippery and done the demonstration so many times,
we just take a pen and you stab a book
or a table or whatever, and by the third time
down your hands already down on what would be the blade.
So that's why we almost always find blood from the
person doing the stabbing at the crime scene, and in
(18:12):
this case that was also the case. Plus it was
a violent struggle, and we know that Kathy fought for
her life and she scratched the assailants numerous times. So
there was blood found at the crime scene that was
not Kathy's and it was not Randall's. You're in the
first trial. There was one point in time when the
(18:33):
zoologist was on the stand just find that my blood
pop had changed from one day to the next, and
he had never seen that happened. And here was twenty
five years of work. I thought, well, I'm not going
to get found you. I'm going to go home today.
So the prologist is up on the stand saying Randall's
blood type changed, which we know isn't a thing. It can't,
(18:56):
I mean. So, so the conclusion is that it was
blood from the scene that they were testing that did
not belong to Randall and was also not Kathy's, so
mixed in with Cathy's blood, someone else's blood was at
the crime scene. But the prosecution did not hand over
that evidence until after the DNA experts who had come
(19:18):
to town to test if I had already left. And
then Randall's lawyer appropriately asked for a mistrial, and the
judge seemingly inappropriately denied the motion. So this is where
things start to really stack up and where you know,
you can start to understand or I can how the
jury would have found Randall guilty because it was hard
(19:39):
for them to get past the idea of how could
his sperm have ended up inside of her when he
said he hadn't seen her in such a such amount
of time and that is a you know, that's a
pretty big albatross. But this other evidence was either ignored
with hell, there were searches that were not done. There
was all sorts of leads left unexplored. The huge pink
(20:02):
elephant in the room was Randall's ex paramour, Judy Smith.
Neither side was willing to call her to testify in
the first trial. The state would have given her immunity
if she would have implicated Randall, but she wouldn't do it.
So Judy never testified in the first trial, and the
(20:26):
video that we talked about earlier of Randall going through
the crime scene with the detectives was not played either.
The interesting twist in this case is that the jury
found them guilty and recommended a life without parole sentence.
In that time Alabama had an override statute and the
(20:49):
trial judge over wrote it and sentenced Randall to death.
So Randall, that's may can you tell it gets through
that awful, awful moment? Well, that would my twenty second
that was my birthday a matter of fact, the sentence
(21:10):
and that weathered me a lot. But I could anybody
I think that I would do such a thing, and
then they're gonna kill the wrong person. Somebody's out there
and have really done this and it's not me, And uh,
the whole world is going to believe what the court says.
(21:31):
The court says I'm guilty and and that I must
be put to death. As a father myself, the idea
of you being torn away from your kids, who you
now have even a more intense responsibility to care for
and protect after everything they've been through and now they're
(21:52):
effectively being orphaned, and you're thrust into the most horrible
situation imaginable and being torn away from the people you
love the most at the same time. You know, then
what's horrible and helpless slug Okay, help myself. Nothing that
I can do. It is going on help my children.
(22:21):
This episode is sponsored by A I. G. A leading
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a leading international law firm. The A I G pro
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(22:42):
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our society and in support of the public interest, including
extensive work in the criminal justice area. When I got
(23:11):
the prison, it was it was I don't know, about
ten o'clock at night and never been in a prison.
Go in and it's all loud. People locked up there.
They're screaming, and you hear the metal doors slamming shut
and open, and that drap how you close off and
(23:31):
they spread you down with some kind of chemical handcuffs
and shackles on your legs and a chain going from
your hands to your feet and then chain around your
waist and all that lot. Say, little middy, stay ups
back to where the death row was, and UH guard
(23:52):
would hollered somebody would slide a metal door open and
it slide behind me and the other inmates yelling at
you and all this stuff and screaming, and get back
to my little sail, which is uh I think was
five feet by eight or nine ft and there's no
(24:17):
lot in there are a lot more shot and it
was completely dark. And get in there. They take the
cuffs off, I mean slammed the door behind me, and
I'm and I'm all alone, like on a different planet.
And I can remember keept thinking I'm gonna get out
(24:41):
of here. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna
get out of here. But after that, years went by.
I remember carried up one night in the feet of
position and just won't give up. And I'm gonna die
die in this place, and nobody don't the whole world
don't care about world will be glad when I do.
(25:03):
But finally I got closer to God than I've ever
been in my life. I was confident that God wouldn't
wanna let me die for something I didn't do. And uh,
you didn't. You get me out of there through Richard
jeffish Um. Wow, Richard, the tables turned when you got
(25:29):
involved but how did you come to be involved? And
I'm so fascinated by the process and the way you
describe it in the book, the decisions that you had
to make, which are actually literally life and death decisions
because you are the backstop right had you failed, Randall
would have been put to death. So can you pick
(25:50):
us through that whole process. The way that I met
Brenda mass and Gil who later and currently became Randall's wife,
they hardly knew each other, but I was speaking at
the sixteenth Street Baptist Church in That's where the four
young girls were murdered in the bombing of the church,
(26:14):
and we were speaking on the death penalty. It was
a kind of a small rally. Brenda approached me after
I spoke and asked me if I had heard of
Randall's case. I hadn't, and I refused to intervene at
that point because he was well represented and I didn't
expect ever to hear from anyone again about that. And
(26:36):
then a few years later in Randall's family called the
office through Brenda and wanted to meet with me. That
Randall's case had been reversed because the prosecution had failed
to disclose the blood typing evidence that was, as you say, exculpatory,
and because of that, Randall was given a new trial.
(27:00):
So when I got involved, I began to learn immediately
all kinds of things about Judy, about her history, about
how she was totally obsessed with Randall, to the point
where she actually constructed in her home a duplication of
(27:23):
Randall's children's bedroom. And Judy had actually confronted Kathy prior
to the murder in a church parking lot. Judy had
a raincoat on and sunglasses on a Wednesday night Kathy
with the church. Every Wednesday night, Judy was hiding in
(27:44):
Kathy's back seat. There was a confrontation. A church deacon
broke it up. When Kathy told me about that Judy
came up with you know, I just wanted to talk
to her, and and I wasn't dressed Jeffie thing more
than my normal dress. And so I don't know. I
guess I'll let the devil taught me in the kind
(28:07):
of believing that Judy wasn't uh anything that was no
good and instead of believing can't be like I should have.
And I can't explain. It was just a crazy time
in my life. The problem that Judy was having with
patience because Randall separated from Kathy several times, but each
(28:30):
time came back to her. On this occasion, when the
brutal murder happened, it became clear to me that Judy
wasn't going to take the chance of the divorce not
going through. So apparently she took matters in her own hands.
(28:52):
And then now we have a glory, horrific, unimaginable crime
scene that ultimately led to Randall's arrest, conviction, and death
symbols Randall, were there any other moments besides the church
parking lot incident that kind of made you think to yourself,
you know, Judy might just be a little bit off.
(29:17):
Thinking back through all this stuff, I remember one time
when this was before getting killed, when I was at
Judy's place and I was always him blocked bag that
had some I'm a smoker, had some cigarette butts in it,
and some fingernail clippings like what is this? And it's oh,
(29:40):
I love you so much. I only to say these,
you know, and I said, well, what a thing to say,
is what I'm thinking. But thinking back, you know, she
might have been up some mischief with that, so I
don't know, and then you know, then things get weirder. Right,
you're investigator forgetting his name. Now, who was the investigator
(30:02):
in this case. Our investigator was Rick Blake, and he
was our in house investigator, and he was amazing. What
was really fascinating is is that after the murder, Judy
took two weeks off from work, two weeks off, and
we developed evidence that Judy had scratch marks all up
(30:23):
and down her arms, meaning that she was apparently in
some type of vicious life for death struggle, and so
she stayed at home until those scratches healed. Another thing
is is that Judy's blood was never tested, her DNA
was never tested, her home was never searched, her car
(30:45):
was never searched. The police, for whatever reason, completely ignored
her as I suspect. Listen, if somebody had done this
work that you did all those years later, initially, it's
entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the trial, the first trial,
would have ended up in an acquittal. Because there's more. Right,
(31:05):
there's also a truck driver who came forward who said
that he had seen a car matching the description of
Judy's car, which was a very distinct car writing a
hubcap with a certain color leaving Cathy's home in the
middle of the night. That's pretty powerful. It's hard to
come up with a good excuse for that. But then
comes the craziest part of all of this, right, and again,
(31:30):
your investigator had you know, and I reread the chapter
in your book this morning talking about how he had
gone to beauty parlors trying to find people who knew Judy,
thinking that in the town, a small town with only
a few beauty parlors, she might have frequented one of them.
And sure enough he found people that knew her. And
(31:51):
what he discovered from that point turns out to be
really important evidence and really bizarre. He found three different
people that told him clearly that Judy had this fetish
with saving her then ex husband, Tommy Smith salmon and
putting it in milkshakes. I can remember before Kathy was killed,
(32:21):
usually after six we would both I'm talking about two
D would go up to sleep. I don't know weeks
before Kathy was killed, after six two D she would
immediately get up, go to bathroom. So then well, I'm
sitting then there in president I'm thinking what was she
doing in the bathroom. Was she saving some stuff? I
(32:44):
don't know, but I don't know. Rick Blake, our investigator,
he found three different people. We tried to get all
free to court, but we could only get one, the
milkshake lady. She was one of the three that Judy
had discuss this with on many occasions, and we hauled
her to testify and it was dynamic and powerful, and
(33:08):
the prosecution did everything they could to keep it out.
I mean, I've told this story to unfair number of
people and it doesn't get crazier than that. And that
wasn't all though, Richard the trial itself, the biggest decision
that I've ever had to make in any trial was
(33:32):
whether to call Judy to testify. That was crucial because
again the prosecution kept holding out immunity if she testified
against Randall. We were back in the judge's chamber as
time would run out. The judge looked up and said,
all right, call your next witness, and I said, we're
(33:54):
going to call Judy Smith. And at that point the
prosecutors jaws rock to the floor. It was stunned silence,
because no one believed we had the I guess they
guts to call her and we did. And her testimony
was the most both powerful and bizarre testimony anyone could envision.
(34:20):
On the one hand, she testified that she prayed every night.
She loved Randall so much that every night she prayed
that something would happen to Kathy and that she would
get killed in a car wreck so she could be
with Randall, and she still loved him. When I asked
her about her ability to enter the home, it slipped
(34:46):
from her mouth almost that there was a and I
knew she meant key that was hidden in a particular
place for Randall's children to get when they returned home
from school. Well, she knew about it where it was hidden,
and that slipped out of her mouth almost. She tried
to take it back, but she couldn't, And jurors remembered
(35:08):
that during deliberations. But the most powerful thing was and
again you point out something very very, so so crucial.
And as every question ask of a witness in a
death penalty case, especially a witness like her, judy could
be the bomb that destroy you. It could be the
(35:30):
landline that blows the case up. So every question had
to be so measured. But I asked her, if that
is Randall's d n A in Cathy's vaginal canal. How
do you think it got there? It's it's an objectionable question,
but the prosecution didn't object because clearly they thought that
(35:54):
she would either say I have no idea, but her
answer was if that was Randall's d n A, that
they had to have come from me, and that standing
room only courtroom and you could hear a pin drop.
(36:23):
So the jury now has heard her try to walk
back her explanation of how she could have gotten into
the house, because, of course, one of the things that
the prosecution theory hinged on it was the idea that
there was no break in. There was no signs of
breaking and entering, so it must have been somebody logically
who knew Kathy and was admitted into the house. But
(36:44):
now that the key in the location the key was
known to Judy and that was out in the open,
that was one thing. And now of course her making
this unbelievable admission in open court is a huge moment.
But even still, the jury uh goes to deliberate, Randall,
what did you think they were gone for close to
(37:05):
three full days? Did you allow yourself to hope that
they would come back with a not girlthy verdict? Or
were you what what? What were you thinking? Well, I
don't think as a clip any here in those three
days going back and forth to the jail which was
(37:26):
just across street in the courthouse, but you know, I
had a hope and Richard. So the jury is out
two and a half days and the judge is basically
at his wits end, I would say, and is on
the verge of declaring a mistrial, which would have been devastating.
(37:46):
Did you talk about this in the book as well?
How the judge called you and the prosecution team into
his chambers I guess right for a conference. He did,
and he was very clear. He said, gentlemen, I'm going
to declare a mis trial. I don't believe in forcing
drawars to give up their their feelings and beliefs. And
(38:10):
I tried to talk him out of it, and he went, no,
I've made up my mind. And this is a judge
that when he makes up his mind, he does. As
we filed out into the courtroom, I was the last
one other than he was behind me. As we began
to enter the courtroom, I turned around. I looked at
him right in the eyes, and I went judge just
(38:30):
asked the jurors if they think they can come to
a verdict. He didn't say anything. We sat down, he
faced the jury. He said, ladies and gentlemen, I have
no choice but two. And then he paused just for
a second, and he turned to his left and looked
(38:51):
me right in the eye, and we locked. And then
he turned back around to the jury and he did
a one eight. He said, is there anyone on the
jury that leaves that you could come to a unanimous verdict?
And two or three people nodded their heads and said yes.
(39:15):
I was stunned or a reversal. The jury went back
to deliberate. Their courthouse continued to be totally packed, standing romotely,
and people were basically in prayer. And for five minutes
later they came out and it was not guilty. Now
(39:38):
I'm not gonna lie. I cried this morning when I
read the book and I knew the story, I'd read
it before. Um, Randy, what was that moment like when
you were vindicated and you were on the verge of
being returned to your family, to your community, your good
name was given back to you. I can't imagine. Can
(39:58):
please explain. Well, I don't know if I can, but
like I had been held under water to the point
of grounding, I had to come up brier and I'm
at the point where I'm either going to drowned or not.
And then the not guilty burd that just pulls me
(40:21):
up into air. I can breathe again, and I'm going
to live. It was just total jubilation. And you hadn't
really slept her eating in a few days, as you said,
so it must have the judge, remember judge saying, and
you're free to go. Mr Pagett and jailor came over
(40:42):
to take me back to the jail with cuts only
get my stuff and I going back to the jail.
You could keep my stuff, you know. And then my son,
who had grown and got his driver's license, got to
drive his daddy home. It was just wonderful, wonderful, Richard,
(41:03):
What about you? It was? It was a feeling of
elation that it's really hard to imagine unless you have
heard not guilty. He's on death penalty cases before. This
being a retrial made it all that much more unimaginable.
You have the best job in the world, at least
(41:25):
on days like that you do. Now before we go
to the closing of the show, talk about the juror
who approached you on your way out of the courtroom, Richard.
Probably the credit for the jury's correct not guilty verdict,
a lot of it goes to her at the end
of the day. That's exactly right what happens in these trials.
(41:50):
Having tried hundreds myself, you often misread drawers. We thought
that the older lady and a younger lady the one
you're talking of, probably in her forties, we thought that
they hated us, But it was the opposite. The initial
vote was eight to four for guilty, we later learned.
(42:13):
And when we walked out of the courtroom towards our car,
the one you allude to, the female, the forty year
old forty something ere locked up to me and said, Mr. Jaffee,
can have a word with you? And I said, sure,
she said, and she just looked at me right in me.
I was like a foot from her, and she said,
(42:33):
you know, only a woman would know you can't have
sex in that position. So I climbed on the table
and put my right leg up and my left leg down,
and I made it clear to the mostly male jury
(42:54):
that Randall Paget could not have had sex with cat
thing in that position, and that flipped other girawars and
ultimately all twelve found Randall not guilty. The last thing
she said to me was you tell Randall Pageant to
stay away from Judy Smith and go spend time with
(43:16):
his kids. And then we walked away. And the truth
is that Randall hadn't seen Judy since the night at
the police station when they arrived back from Florida, and he,
of course has it since. Do you know what became
of Judy Smith after all these years? Uh? I don't, Richard.
(43:40):
Is it strange to you that they never prosecuted her.
It's not strange because the prosecution had already publicly made
it clear that they didn't think she was involved at
all and knew nothing. So the chances of them getting
a conviction while it existed weren't really high. And I
(44:01):
think the prosecution was just done with that case. They
had pretty much been embarrassed enough, I guess. And Randall
before I keep saying this, but one last question before
we get to the wrap up, how are your kids doing?
These poor children had to live through a nightmare that
(44:22):
is unimaginable, you know, losing their mom and then almost
losing their dad or losing their dad for six years.
How are they doing now, Well, they're they're doing good.
And uh I've got three oh granddaughters now from them.
My son has two red headed girls. He lives in
(44:43):
Nashville and he's an architect. My daughter lives in Alabama
and one time was president of the company she worked for.
She since moved to a different place of than woman,
but and she has one little girl. I'm so proud
of them and I love them. The thesis, well, that's great,
(45:07):
and I wish them all the blessings in the world
because they deserve. As to you, everything good. Um So,
now we come to the wrap up of our show,
which is a segment that is my favorite part called
Closing Arguments, where I first of all, thank both of
you Richard Jeffie, criminal defense lawyer, author and amazing advocate,
(45:30):
Thank you for being here. And of course Randall, thank
you Randall Paget for sharing your story so eloquently and beautifully.
And this part of the show is where I get
to kick back in my chair, switch off my microphone
and let you just share any other thoughts that you
may want to share with our audience. Randall, We're gonna
(45:51):
save you for last, if that's okay, Richard, your first
has been a true privilege, honor, and joy to get
to know and represent Randall Paget and become close with
he and his now wife, Brenda Massengale of fifteen years.
(46:15):
This is a kind of case where reality really trump's
fiction because had it not been for the failure to
disclose the exculpatory conflicting information of blood typing, Randall would
never have got a chance for a new trial. And
(46:37):
it amazes me that the prosecution hid that until it
was too late. The only other thing I would say
would be that law enforcement often excludes a wider investigation
once they focus on one suspect, and when that happens,
(46:59):
the wrong person can easily been convicted. And a really
thorough investigation would have revealed the truth that Randall was innocent.
And I thank God that Randall is here with us
(47:19):
to share his story. He is a true thought of
the earth human being Randall. I would just like to say,
I think Mr Richard jeff is the greatest attorney in
the world. He believed in me, He believed the truth.
I want to thank Richard. I will love you Richard
(47:41):
very much. One thing about me, I guess I was
naive about the justice system in America. I had heard
of people getting wrongfully convicted, and I didn't pay much
attention to it. But but I thought, you know, when
(48:02):
if you go to trial in the United States, the
foremost thing in the court's mind is supposed to be
the truth. But I don't think it works that way.
I think if the piece of truth comes up, that's
bad part which ever side, I think it gets twisted
around or tried to cover it or something. And I
(48:25):
guess for people listening to this, if you're ever sitting
on a jury, I would ask that you don't just
believe because a defendant has been accused of something, that
that he probably did something or he wouldn't be there.
And I would ask that you would make the prosecution
(48:46):
show you some concrete proof to back up what they're saying.
And if I got just one other minute, I'd like
to talk about my friend and now life Brenda. When
I was in Brison, she was so nice to me.
She was trying to raise money for me and written
(49:08):
legal eight places. I think she wrote the governor, and
I don't know who I would. I thought, why is
this woman being so nice to me? And I thought
she's a spy for the prosecution, because I was pretty
sure I was going to get a retrial because prosecution
had with failed that exculpatory evidence. And I thought, yeah,
(49:29):
they know it's going to be a retrial. And she's
a spy. And she kept wanting to come and visit me,
and I wouldn't let her. I thought, if I don't
let her come down here, she can't say said something.
But if I do let her come, she can go
back and say Randall said this. Randall said that I
wouldn't let her come. And a couple of years all
(49:51):
my letters dwindled away except hers, and so finally, through
her letters, got to trust and she did not be
a spot but a great hey. And after I got out,
we've married about a bad years later. But he's the
(50:12):
most wonderful person. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and I really
hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause.
And helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
(50:35):
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
time OSCAR nomine composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
us on Instagram at rang Full Conviction and on Facebook
at rang Full Conviction podcast. Rang Full Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
(50:57):
association with Signal Company Number one
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