March 10, 2021 • 32 mins
On September 9th, 1985, Paul Hildwin went hitchhiking, stole and cashed a personal check, but did not murdered anyone. However, both the state and cancer found him very hard to kill.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
On the morning of September, Paul Hildwin, low on money
and out of gas, was hitchhiking along US nineteen when
a squabbling couple ron ZEDI Cox and William Haverty picked
him up. As their argument reached a fever pitch, the
couple pulled over and got out of the car. Paul
used this opportunity to take a few things from the car,
(00:23):
including miss Cox's checkbook, before leaving the couple in their
roadside scuffle. Four days later, on September, miss Cox's nude
body was found stuffed in the trunk of her car,
tucked into some woods. Initially, Haverty became the obvious suspect,
until the investigation led to one of her checks having
been cashed by Paul Hildwind and a search of his
(00:44):
house turned up the stolen items from the car. Paul's
trial council was woefully inadequate, and was further handicapped by
a team of prosecutors who buried witness statements that claimed
miss Cox had been alive up to forty eight hours
after Paul had seen her, among many other pieces of
misleading testimony, junk science, and outright lies. An FBI sorology
(01:07):
expert falsely stated that Lewis bound at the scene matched Paul,
which led to a thirty four year fight to free
him from death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Blom.
(01:35):
Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam that's me,
of course, I'm your host, and today I'm really excited
because we have a woman who is in our wrongful
conviction community, considered a legal legend. Her name is Leanne Gaudy,
a renowned defense attorney who has done phenomenal work on
this case. So Lean and welcome to wrongful Conviction and
(02:00):
with her is her clients. Paul Hilduin Fall served thirty
five years on death row in Florida for a crime
everyone should have known from the outset he didn't commit.
They may have known he didn't commit it, but one
way or another, he survived thirty five years on death row.
He survived cancer, he survived, and he's here today to
share his story with us. So Paul, welcome to rawfle conviction.
(02:21):
Thank you, Jason. I'm I'm glad to be here. And
Paul just informed us that he's sitting on his porch,
breathing some fresh air and looking at it some green
grass and stuff. So com I'm glad to hear that
you're living your best life to whatever extent is possible.
So let's go back. Where did you grow up and
what was your upbringing like? And if you can bring
us right up to the time that this whole tragedy occurred. Now,
(02:43):
I was born in a small town called Pokeepsie, New York.
I never really got to know my mother. She passed
away when I was two years old. When I turned five,
my father just decided he didn't want me, so he
would put me wherever he could. And uh, there was
some good place is that I was at, and there
were some bad places into my teen years, you know,
(03:06):
like all teens, most teenagers, you know, you experiment with drinking,
and it was all it's all kind of a haze,
you know. I was drunk so much. But when uh
I turned uh eighteen, you know, I got in a
little trouble, ended up doing a little prison time in
New York. And when I got out, it was nineteen
(03:29):
eighty four and I was twenty four years old, and
I come down here to Florida to live with my father.
One of the families that I lived with always taught
me it doesn't matter what a parent does, you always
have that respect because they are your parents. And I
always respected my father. I didn't really love him, but
(03:49):
I respected him because he was my dad. So September
twenty one, when I was arrested for the crime that
put me on death throw for a crime that I
did not commit, and Leanne, can you walk us through
this awful crime and how they've managed to go off
of the who would have seemed to be the obvious
aspect and target. Paul. Sure. So, the victim allegedly went
(04:14):
missing on September nine, of which would have been a Monday.
And the reason why they zeroed in on that particular
day is because, well, her sister and her would speak
practically every day. Well, the sister had gone two or
three days without hearing from the victim. So the sister
went over to the trailer where her sister had lived
(04:35):
with this boyfriend, William Hardy. They live in boyfriend said, Hey,
she left on Monday. She was going to go do
laundry at the coin laundry. She was going to deposit
her s s I check that had come in over
the weekend at the bank. The victim had a little
bit of a reputation for being somebody that would frequent
bars and might randomly go home with a guy. So
(04:58):
at first the sister it to see if maybe something
like that had happened. When she still hadn't heard from
the victim the next day, she went back to the
trailer and insisted that the boyfriend go with her to
the police department to report her missing um And so
on Thursday September twelve, in the evening, they go to
the Hernando County Sheriff's office. They report the victim, whose
(05:22):
name was Roncetti Cox, missing, and then the very next day,
which was Friday, September, a group of boys find a
deserted car with a really bad smell. Police respond and
they find the victim new stuffed in the trunk of
the car with a ligature around her neck. The immediate
(05:44):
suspect is to live in boyfriend, William Hardy, who was
about twenty years younger than the victim, and he just
appeared kind of scurly to the police, and so they
focused in on him. What ended up happening was they
wanted to see when she had gone to the bank
to deposit the social Security check and so they discovered
(06:04):
that the last check that came in on the victim's
bank account was cashed by an individual named Paul Hilldwin,
and that he had come through the drive through of
the bank on September night that approximately twelve thirty in
the afternoon. At that point in time, now law enforcement
shifts their suspicion from the boyfriend, William Harty, over to
(06:28):
Paul and basically become extremely myopic and focused in with
the tunnel vision only on Paul, right, And there was
a lot of circumstantial evidence right, that was really just
the result of an unfortunate coincidence, which goes back to
the night of September eight, myself and three friends went
(06:48):
to a drive in movie and I think it was
a clean Eastwood movie, pale Writer. We left there and
I dropped the young man that was I dropped him
off at his house and then I started heading home.
The two girls that were would mean they lived, you know,
just down the street from me, so I was taking
them home as well. And I ran out of gas
(07:10):
and I got like a dollar something worth of gas,
put it in the car. I put a little bit
in the carbet and try to get a start but
the way the car was setting it was on an angle,
like almost in a ditch, and the gas wasn't getting
pulled up into the engine. So I went to my house,
my father's house, and I had to get a battery
because I wore the battery down in the car trying
(07:32):
to start it. So I got the battery and I
got a ride back from a friend. Anyway, got back
to the car still wouldn't start, so I wasn't gonna
run that battery down, so we got in the car
and we ended up just falling asleep. So when he's
en route to take the girls home, the car runs
out of gas installs in front of a bar called
(07:52):
the Loan Star Bar that's right off at US nine.
Team Paul wakes up up somewhere between eight thirty and
nine am. Girls are still sleeping. He decides, I'm gonna
walk home and see if I can either borrow my
dad's truck or get some money to try to put
some more gas in this car. So he's walking north
on US nineteen and the victim and her boyfriend, William Hardy,
(08:17):
are driving north on US nineteen. They pull over. He
tells him, hey, I'm trying to get up to my
dad's house. He gets in the back seat. They're driving
to the dad's house. She and the boyfriend start arguing
about he's sick of her going out with other men.
She's basically telling him off. The fight is getting pretty
loud and hostile Paul sitting in the back seat. In
(08:40):
the back seat is the victims purse within her purses
like a separate checkbook holder, and the victim says, I've
had enough of you. She stops the car. She says,
get out. Boyfriend says I'm not getting out. Victim says
she's getting out. The two of them end up getting out.
They slap each other around the little bit. All of
(09:01):
this is going on at this Paul's not that far
from his house, so he grabs the checkbook thing and leaves,
and the last thing he sees is that the boyfriend
is on top of the victim and his hands around
her neck. He's like, I'm not getting in the middle
of this because the boyfriend has threatened him, and he
(09:23):
walks home. Once he gets home, his dad's not there,
gets some leftover money, hitches a ride back to where
the girls are. He buys another two dollars worth of gas,
they level out the car, he puts the gas in
the car, drops the girls off at home in his car.
He then forges one of the victims checks, goes to
(09:44):
the bank cash is the check giving his I D
the checks for seventy right. So, ultimately, because Paul, you know, foolishly,
let's call it what it is, took a few items
from the car, a radio, a ring, and of course
the act that we talked about. When the attention of
the authorities shifts to him, they probably had some sort
(10:07):
of eureka moment like, oh, look at this, we got
sort of, for lack of a better word, of smoking gun.
And at that point, like you said, the tunnel vision
sets in. He really needs a great lawyer. And that's
not at all how this played out, right, So on
November twenty one, they get a grand jury to indict
him with first agree murder and they announced that they're
seeking death. So this particular attorney, Dan Lewin, had just
(10:31):
graduated from Florida State Law School. He had never done
a murder case. He had never done even a serious
robbery case. So on April twenty six he gets appointed
to this death penalty case and they pick a jury
four months later on August. In between that time period,
(10:52):
he conducted absolutely no investigation. This defense lawyer took depositions,
and the significance of that is the lack of thoroughness.
In addition to that, it is also clear when you
review those depositions that the prosecution was not giving him
all the police reports. In addition to that, the Hillsborough
(11:12):
County Sheriff's office decide, you know what, We're not going
to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which was
the state agency that would do the lab work for
the police agencies in Florida. We're going to send this
stuff to the FBI. And it's at the FBI where
they're doing the so called sourology, hair examination, and school
mark examinations on some chrome strips that they believe came
(11:35):
off of the alleged victim's car. You've just identified several
of the key elements of junk science that we talked
about in our podcast row Eviction junk science, But there's
so much more to this. You have circumstantial evidence, you
have tunnel vision tons of junk science, and then you
have incumbent defense attorney and you also have experts that
are willing to lie on behalf of the prosecution, and
(11:58):
we know that. The prosecutor at the i'le presented the
horology report from an FBIS forensics expert who falsely claimed
that bodily fluids found on two pieces of crime scene evidence,
the underwear the woman's underwear and a washcloth both matched
Paul Heldwin. The expert also claimed that Paul was among
only eleven percent of the world's white male population who
(12:19):
could have deposited the fluids, and that the fluence could
not have come from the victim's estrange boyfriend. So this
is a mountain of ship. I mean paul is the
appropriate word. Thank you. I chose that carefully. In defensive
Mr Lewin on this part, they sprung on the sourology
(12:39):
evidence that did not come out until opening statements, and
he immediately objected, and when they approached the bench, he said,
this can't come in. I was told that the sourology
evidence was of no value. Everything was too degraded. They
couldn't get anything of it. And now they're telling the
jury that it links my client and they can't use that,
and the prosecution and goes, you want to bet that's
(13:02):
on the record, and the judge says, yeah, no, this
is opening. They can do it, and we'll address it
during the trial. And then when they come to the
point where he objects again during the trial, it's the
friday before Labor Day weekend, and the judge says, well,
you've got till Tuesday to be ready. Three days. And
remember what we had to work with in There wasn't
(13:26):
internet research when we researched case law. We went the
old fashioned way into the law library, which took a
lot of time. So he basically gives this inexperience, unqualified
lawyer three days to familiarize himself with sorology, evidence and
secretor and non secretor. You have got to be kidding me.
So September four you were found guilty. In September seventeenth,
(13:51):
the jury, by a unanimous vote of twelve to nothing,
sentence you to death, even though the defense was what
it was. I didn't expect that. When they sentenced me
to death, I just I don't know. I think my
mind just shut down. After that, what I called the
real living hell started. You're basically in that cell twenty
(14:13):
four hours a day. You get three showers a week,
you get to go to the yard twice a week,
and it's a little tiny yard. And if you don't
go to the yard, you're just in that cell twenty
four hours a day, and you become desensitized. Really. After
like the first four years, I just disconnected myself. I
(14:36):
didn't care about time. I didn't care about holidays. I
didn't you know, none of that stuff mattered. What was
important to me was just surviving. After my dad passed
the I didn't have a visit until two thousand and six.
My life was in that cell. I did everything I
ate in there. I washed all my clothes, and my
(14:59):
whole life was in that little box. Eight nine and
very good friend of mine, Kenny Hardwick, he gave up
and he was in the cell next to week and
I could see him. The windows were not in the cell,
they were like eight to ten ft away from the
front of the cell to cell. Fronts were all open.
(15:20):
No we could talk, we could pass things back and forth.
And I watched him hang himself. I couldn't stop him.
I couldn't help him, you know. I went to screaming
for the bullies. They coming tell me to shut my
f of mouth. This episode is underwritten by the a
(15:50):
i G pro Bono Program. A i G is a
leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the
a i G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of
hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit
organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program
added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar
(16:11):
of its mission. This episode is brought to you by
Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to
helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years,
Stand Together and its partners have been on the front
lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action,
supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses. Stand Together tackles the
(16:34):
root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those
closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing
unjust prison sentences through the First Step a Act, empowering
community based programs and help people re enter society, and
now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn
how you may get involved, visit stand Together dot org
(16:55):
slash conviction. I believe it was either nine or nine.
Governor Martinez signed Paul's death warrant and Paul has the
fortuitous opportunity to have a terrific lawyer named Marty McClain,
and so Marty begins to investigate. And at that point,
(17:19):
the state attorney is different. And so when Marty McClain
issues the requests for Paul's file and all the police
reports or whatever, they actually turn it over, and that's
when he discovers all these things that either were not
disclosed to Mr Lewin or that Mr Lewin just didn't
(17:39):
bother to use, like the victim's nephew that says that
he was having drinks with the victim on Monday night,
September nine until eleven fifteen pm. Meanwhile, according to the
state's theory of trial, Paul had allegedly killed her somewhere
between nine fifteen and ten in the morning. But yet
the nephew is having drinks with her as the boyfriend
(18:02):
was mad and sulking in a corner. Well that never
came out in trial. That nephew was never deposed by
Mr Lewin. The boyfriend was allowed to represent this really
fabulous relationship withdrawal. So Marty McClain discovered stat when law
enforcement searched the victim and her boyfriend's house. There was
a note in the garbage can that said, if you
(18:25):
don't like living here, you can sunk off and die.
That never came out during trial. I mean, it just
went on and on and on. So he discovered all
this stuff. He found what's called the thirty fifty motion,
which is a motion to find the defense lawyer ineffective
of counsel and that if Paul had had effective assistance
of counsel or had received this Brady information and it
(18:48):
had been used, it would have changed the outcome of
the trial. And the judge denies both and says that
Paul had effective assistance of counsel. It goes up on
appeal to the Florida Supreme Court or the Florida Supreme
Court hanser Hat on the sourology evidence to say, no,
it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the trial in
(19:09):
first phase. But we do find that the penalty phase
was ineffective, and they grant Paul the opportunity to have
a second penalty phase. And so that happens in seven
and the jury comes back eight to four for death. Remember,
at the time in Florida and only required a majority
(19:30):
of jurors to vote for death, so Paul gets death
again and so CCRC, the group that Marty McClain worked for,
contacts the Innocence Project they get involved in. During all
that investigation, they also discover another witness that said she
had had a conversation with the victim at three o'clock
(19:51):
in the afternoon on the Wednesday, after she supposedly died.
They also started attacking the horology and they see for
it to get into and that ly tested. When they do,
at this point, DNA is in existence. They discovered that
the DNA on the panties and on the wash rag,
which is what was sold to the jury in and
(20:14):
what the Supreme Court relied upon in sustaining his guilty
verdict both the first time and during the thirty fifty hearing,
do not match Paul. It was February of two thousand
and three we went to the Circuit Court with the
test results. So that ends up happening that they discover, Okay,
(20:36):
it's not Paul's biological material on this, we want you
to run it through the CODA system. And they start
getting pushed back from the State and the Attorney General's office,
and this continues and continues to get litigated until two
thousand eleven, where finally the Supreme Court says, put it
in the CODAS system. When they run the DNA into
(20:59):
the CODA system, it matches William Harty, the victims live
in boyfriend, and at the time he was incarcerated for
sixteen counts of sexual battery for sexually molesting his stepdaughter.
And here we go again. I'm so sick of these
stories where the wrong person gets locked up, the actual
(21:20):
perpetrator remains free and goes on to commit these unspeakable
acts against people who never should have been victimized in
the first place if the system had worked the way
it should so. Then at that point, Nina Morrison and
Morty McClain are pushing the Supreme Court to give Paul,
based on this newly discovered evidence, a new trial, with
(21:43):
the state giving pushback under the grounds, hey, this was
the sex crimes case. And finally, in June of two
thousand and fourteen, the Florida Supreme Court grants Paul a
new trial. Okay, but now, how did this case, of
all the cases end up on your desk? Nina Morrison
called me and asked, could I fly down to Tampa
and meet with you and talk to you about this case.
(22:04):
Anybody that knows Nina Morrison, she's like, Sam, I am,
don't let her in your house because she's going to
convince you to do whatever she wants you to do.
And so she came into the office and persuaded me
to agree to do this case pro bono beginning in
August of two thousand and fourteen until it concluded on
March nine of two thousand and twenty, two thousand three,
(22:28):
the DNA proves DNA we're talking about, right, was produced
that proved that Paul didn't do it, or at a minimum,
that the state's case was completely wrong, and that the
main piece of evidence that they based and I was
proven false. And yet it took seventeen more years to
bring Paul home. And then even that comes with an asterisk, right,
(22:49):
you know, I get appointed to the case in two
thousand fourteen, and so the state they still stood on
the position that they felt that Paul was guilty. And
so to them, the quote fair end quote option was
to let him plead to second degree murder, get credit
for time served, and put him on lifetime probation. So
(23:13):
Paul's big mandate to me from the beginning was I
would like to feel grass underneath my feet before I die.
And so I would talk to him about these offers
the state was making and you know, explain to him
why it was basically a no brainer for us to
say no to that and continue forward. But we did
talk about would you take anything to guarantee that you
(23:36):
would get out? And we had kind of talked about
why I would plead reluctantly, but I would plead no
contest to a second degree murder and time served, and
I'll even take some probation afterwards because I know I'm
not going to commit any crimes and so I'll do that.
So fast forward to Friday morning before trial, March six,
(24:00):
and the prosecution says to me, would he still plead
to a second and time served, but we're gonna want probation.
And Paul was like yes, he goes, you know, I
want the bird in the hand. I want to know
I'm going to get out. I don't want to take
any risks. So he pled. You know, it was totally
Paul's decision. We were a percent ready to proceed forward
(24:23):
with the trial. Paul, March nine, I've watched the video
of you walking out more times than I want to
admit because it's so incredible. Um what was that like?
And when I walked out the door of the jail
and was met by Leanne Gouty and Kate O'shay, I
(24:45):
actually couldn't believe that it was really happening. And that
day when we left the jail and there was the
first thing I wanted to do was feel grass under
my feet, my bare feet, just to walk on grass.
He goes inside to jail, then the prisons. I mean,
it's all concrete and steel. That's it. You don't get
the walk on the grass. It's just the simplest thing.
(25:09):
That was a big thing for me. I wanted to
walk on the grass, and as the video shows, and
that's exactly what they did. They took me to a
nearby park and uh that was the most special part
about it, really walking on grass. People don't understand what
we take for granted every single day of our life.
Closing the door by yourself, stepping on grass, smelling fresh
(25:34):
cut grass. It made me realize just what myself included
everybody takes for granted. Then uh Ms Goudy and her
partner Kim Khan kat O'sha and Anthony Scott. They took
me to Cracker Barrel on the way down to Tampa,
and I had never been to Cracker Barrel and that
(25:55):
was my very first that was my very first freedom. You.
I just want to interrupt so nobody thinks I'm at
cheap skate. It was the best restaurant in Hernando County.
Thank you for clarifying that. Now, Paul, this was touched
(26:23):
on a bit, but I mean, it wasn't bad enough
that the state was trying to kill you. But cancer.
At first, it was just recognized that I had a
lump in front of my left ear and the gland
in my throat on the left side was swallowing up.
And I went and I saw an ear, nose and
throat doctor and so he did a biopsy on both
(26:46):
the lump in the swallen gland and it came back
to be uh non Hodgkins lymphoma. So I went through
surgery through radiation. Then I started chimo, you know, and
thankfully you made it, but cancer wasn't done. You still
had to go through it two more times in eleven
(27:08):
or twelve when it showed up again. The next time
I believe it was in by that time. Yeah, I
was used to the weight loss, the sickness, and no hair.
I lost every single piece of hair on my body.
I yeah, I looked like Uncle Fester on there. Jesus Paul,
(27:31):
You're just really fucking hard to kill. I don't know
how else I think. I mean, the state can't, cancer can't.
He survived cancer on death row, So clearly you know
God didn't want to kill him. If he was supposed
to be dead, he would be dead. Speaking of the
magic of the universe, I must take this opportunity to
(27:53):
congratulate lean on her election to the thirteen Circuit Court.
Judge Leanne Gaudi, thank you, Thank you. Typically when you're
a new judge, you do rotations through family law or
one of the other areas prior to going over to criminal.
(28:14):
But I'm being placed right in criminal, so i will
be taking over a circuit criminal division. So I'm very excited.
That's amazing and it makes me so happy, both for
you and also knowing that someone from the defense side
of the bar will be sitting on the bench. So
all the best. And on that note, we're now going
(28:34):
to go to the segment of our show called Closing Arguments.
It's the part where I first of all thank both
of you from the bottom of my heart for being
here and sharing your story and of course your spirit
with us. And then now I'm going to shut off
my microphone, kick back in my chair, close my eyes,
and just listen to whatever you want to say. Um,
(28:56):
We'll start with you, Leanne, and then finish with Paul.
You know, it was my privilege to represent Paul, and
I'm so grateful that Nina Morrison entrusted his case to me,
and I'm grateful that Paul trusted me to represent him.
I think that it's always an honor when somebody that's
(29:17):
accused of a crime puts their trust in you as
a lawyer to do the best you can for them.
And I'm just very, very grateful to God, frankly, that
I was able to deliver on Paul's request to be
able to let him feel grass underneath his feet before
(29:38):
he died. And hopefully he'll have many, many more years
to live and continue smelling grass and cut grass and
feeling it and living peacefully and happily out in society
like he should be. Paul, over to you, Leanne, and
I have talked several times, you know, about my belief
in God, and I believe that that's what got me
(30:02):
through thirty five years. I also believe it be the
reason why Nina Morrison was put on my case, why
Leanne Gaudy was put on my case. It was by
the grace of God. I've been blessed so much since
I've been out because of the Innocent Project in New
York and the Innocent Project in Florida. They are a
(30:24):
nonprofit organization and because of the donations is one reason,
a big reason why I'm sitting here where I live now.
There's an organization that helped me find this place, and
it's called the Sunny Center. They are a nonprofit organization
and they are the ones that have helped me since
(30:45):
I've been out. They have been there every day, every
step of the way. They also need donations in order
to help people in my position and ex honorees, and
you know, they've gotten me health insurance. You know, they've
helped me get my driver's license. They're there, I mean,
but they won't be there if people don't make donations.
(31:07):
And I believe they they were put there by God
as well. You know, in my life and I'm want
to say thank you, Lea. LeAnn. The freedom is so sweet.
You know you gave me back my life and I
thank you with all my heart. Always, Paul always, thank
(31:33):
you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please
support your local innocence projects and go to the link
in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne
and Kevin Warnas. The music on the show, as always,
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
(31:55):
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one h
On the morning of September, Paul Hildwin, low on money
and out of gas, was hitchhiking along US nineteen when
a squabbling couple ron ZEDI Cox and William Haverty picked
him up. As their argument reached a fever pitch, the
couple pulled over and got out of the car. Paul
used this opportunity to take a few things from the car,
(00:23):
including miss Cox's checkbook, before leaving the couple in their
roadside scuffle. Four days later, on September, miss Cox's nude
body was found stuffed in the trunk of her car,
tucked into some woods. Initially, Haverty became the obvious suspect,
until the investigation led to one of her checks having
been cashed by Paul Hildwind and a search of his
(00:44):
house turned up the stolen items from the car. Paul's
trial council was woefully inadequate, and was further handicapped by
a team of prosecutors who buried witness statements that claimed
miss Cox had been alive up to forty eight hours
after Paul had seen her, among many other pieces of
misleading testimony, junk science, and outright lies. An FBI sorology
(01:07):
expert falsely stated that Lewis bound at the scene matched Paul,
which led to a thirty four year fight to free
him from death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Blom.
(01:35):
Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam that's me,
of course, I'm your host, and today I'm really excited
because we have a woman who is in our wrongful
conviction community, considered a legal legend. Her name is Leanne Gaudy,
a renowned defense attorney who has done phenomenal work on
this case. So Lean and welcome to wrongful Conviction and
(02:00):
with her is her clients. Paul Hilduin Fall served thirty
five years on death row in Florida for a crime
everyone should have known from the outset he didn't commit.
They may have known he didn't commit it, but one
way or another, he survived thirty five years on death row.
He survived cancer, he survived, and he's here today to
share his story with us. So Paul, welcome to rawfle conviction.
(02:21):
Thank you, Jason. I'm I'm glad to be here. And
Paul just informed us that he's sitting on his porch,
breathing some fresh air and looking at it some green
grass and stuff. So com I'm glad to hear that
you're living your best life to whatever extent is possible.
So let's go back. Where did you grow up and
what was your upbringing like? And if you can bring
us right up to the time that this whole tragedy occurred. Now,
(02:43):
I was born in a small town called Pokeepsie, New York.
I never really got to know my mother. She passed
away when I was two years old. When I turned five,
my father just decided he didn't want me, so he
would put me wherever he could. And uh, there was
some good place is that I was at, and there
were some bad places into my teen years, you know,
(03:06):
like all teens, most teenagers, you know, you experiment with drinking,
and it was all it's all kind of a haze,
you know. I was drunk so much. But when uh
I turned uh eighteen, you know, I got in a
little trouble, ended up doing a little prison time in
New York. And when I got out, it was nineteen
(03:29):
eighty four and I was twenty four years old, and
I come down here to Florida to live with my father.
One of the families that I lived with always taught
me it doesn't matter what a parent does, you always
have that respect because they are your parents. And I
always respected my father. I didn't really love him, but
(03:49):
I respected him because he was my dad. So September
twenty one, when I was arrested for the crime that
put me on death throw for a crime that I
did not commit, and Leanne, can you walk us through
this awful crime and how they've managed to go off
of the who would have seemed to be the obvious
aspect and target. Paul. Sure. So, the victim allegedly went
(04:14):
missing on September nine, of which would have been a Monday.
And the reason why they zeroed in on that particular
day is because, well, her sister and her would speak
practically every day. Well, the sister had gone two or
three days without hearing from the victim. So the sister
went over to the trailer where her sister had lived
(04:35):
with this boyfriend, William Hardy. They live in boyfriend said, Hey,
she left on Monday. She was going to go do
laundry at the coin laundry. She was going to deposit
her s s I check that had come in over
the weekend at the bank. The victim had a little
bit of a reputation for being somebody that would frequent
bars and might randomly go home with a guy. So
(04:58):
at first the sister it to see if maybe something
like that had happened. When she still hadn't heard from
the victim the next day, she went back to the
trailer and insisted that the boyfriend go with her to
the police department to report her missing um And so
on Thursday September twelve, in the evening, they go to
the Hernando County Sheriff's office. They report the victim, whose
(05:22):
name was Roncetti Cox, missing, and then the very next day,
which was Friday, September, a group of boys find a
deserted car with a really bad smell. Police respond and
they find the victim new stuffed in the trunk of
the car with a ligature around her neck. The immediate
(05:44):
suspect is to live in boyfriend, William Hardy, who was
about twenty years younger than the victim, and he just
appeared kind of scurly to the police, and so they
focused in on him. What ended up happening was they
wanted to see when she had gone to the bank
to deposit the social Security check and so they discovered
(06:04):
that the last check that came in on the victim's
bank account was cashed by an individual named Paul Hilldwin,
and that he had come through the drive through of
the bank on September night that approximately twelve thirty in
the afternoon. At that point in time, now law enforcement
shifts their suspicion from the boyfriend, William Harty, over to
(06:28):
Paul and basically become extremely myopic and focused in with
the tunnel vision only on Paul, right, And there was
a lot of circumstantial evidence right, that was really just
the result of an unfortunate coincidence, which goes back to
the night of September eight, myself and three friends went
(06:48):
to a drive in movie and I think it was
a clean Eastwood movie, pale Writer. We left there and
I dropped the young man that was I dropped him
off at his house and then I started heading home.
The two girls that were would mean they lived, you know,
just down the street from me, so I was taking
them home as well. And I ran out of gas
(07:10):
and I got like a dollar something worth of gas,
put it in the car. I put a little bit
in the carbet and try to get a start but
the way the car was setting it was on an angle,
like almost in a ditch, and the gas wasn't getting
pulled up into the engine. So I went to my house,
my father's house, and I had to get a battery
because I wore the battery down in the car trying
(07:32):
to start it. So I got the battery and I
got a ride back from a friend. Anyway, got back
to the car still wouldn't start, so I wasn't gonna
run that battery down, so we got in the car
and we ended up just falling asleep. So when he's
en route to take the girls home, the car runs
out of gas installs in front of a bar called
(07:52):
the Loan Star Bar that's right off at US nine.
Team Paul wakes up up somewhere between eight thirty and
nine am. Girls are still sleeping. He decides, I'm gonna
walk home and see if I can either borrow my
dad's truck or get some money to try to put
some more gas in this car. So he's walking north
on US nineteen and the victim and her boyfriend, William Hardy,
(08:17):
are driving north on US nineteen. They pull over. He
tells him, hey, I'm trying to get up to my
dad's house. He gets in the back seat. They're driving
to the dad's house. She and the boyfriend start arguing
about he's sick of her going out with other men.
She's basically telling him off. The fight is getting pretty
loud and hostile Paul sitting in the back seat. In
(08:40):
the back seat is the victims purse within her purses
like a separate checkbook holder, and the victim says, I've
had enough of you. She stops the car. She says,
get out. Boyfriend says I'm not getting out. Victim says
she's getting out. The two of them end up getting out.
They slap each other around the little bit. All of
(09:01):
this is going on at this Paul's not that far
from his house, so he grabs the checkbook thing and leaves,
and the last thing he sees is that the boyfriend
is on top of the victim and his hands around
her neck. He's like, I'm not getting in the middle
of this because the boyfriend has threatened him, and he
(09:23):
walks home. Once he gets home, his dad's not there,
gets some leftover money, hitches a ride back to where
the girls are. He buys another two dollars worth of gas,
they level out the car, he puts the gas in
the car, drops the girls off at home in his car.
He then forges one of the victims checks, goes to
(09:44):
the bank cash is the check giving his I D
the checks for seventy right. So, ultimately, because Paul, you know, foolishly,
let's call it what it is, took a few items
from the car, a radio, a ring, and of course
the act that we talked about. When the attention of
the authorities shifts to him, they probably had some sort
(10:07):
of eureka moment like, oh, look at this, we got
sort of, for lack of a better word, of smoking gun.
And at that point, like you said, the tunnel vision
sets in. He really needs a great lawyer. And that's
not at all how this played out, right, So on
November twenty one, they get a grand jury to indict
him with first agree murder and they announced that they're
seeking death. So this particular attorney, Dan Lewin, had just
(10:31):
graduated from Florida State Law School. He had never done
a murder case. He had never done even a serious
robbery case. So on April twenty six he gets appointed
to this death penalty case and they pick a jury
four months later on August. In between that time period,
(10:52):
he conducted absolutely no investigation. This defense lawyer took depositions,
and the significance of that is the lack of thoroughness.
In addition to that, it is also clear when you
review those depositions that the prosecution was not giving him
all the police reports. In addition to that, the Hillsborough
(11:12):
County Sheriff's office decide, you know what, We're not going
to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which was
the state agency that would do the lab work for
the police agencies in Florida. We're going to send this
stuff to the FBI. And it's at the FBI where
they're doing the so called sourology, hair examination, and school
mark examinations on some chrome strips that they believe came
(11:35):
off of the alleged victim's car. You've just identified several
of the key elements of junk science that we talked
about in our podcast row Eviction junk science, But there's
so much more to this. You have circumstantial evidence, you
have tunnel vision tons of junk science, and then you
have incumbent defense attorney and you also have experts that
are willing to lie on behalf of the prosecution, and
(11:58):
we know that. The prosecutor at the i'le presented the
horology report from an FBIS forensics expert who falsely claimed
that bodily fluids found on two pieces of crime scene evidence,
the underwear the woman's underwear and a washcloth both matched
Paul Heldwin. The expert also claimed that Paul was among
only eleven percent of the world's white male population who
(12:19):
could have deposited the fluids, and that the fluence could
not have come from the victim's estrange boyfriend. So this
is a mountain of ship. I mean paul is the
appropriate word. Thank you. I chose that carefully. In defensive
Mr Lewin on this part, they sprung on the sourology
(12:39):
evidence that did not come out until opening statements, and
he immediately objected, and when they approached the bench, he said,
this can't come in. I was told that the sourology
evidence was of no value. Everything was too degraded. They
couldn't get anything of it. And now they're telling the
jury that it links my client and they can't use that,
and the prosecution and goes, you want to bet that's
(13:02):
on the record, and the judge says, yeah, no, this
is opening. They can do it, and we'll address it
during the trial. And then when they come to the
point where he objects again during the trial, it's the
friday before Labor Day weekend, and the judge says, well,
you've got till Tuesday to be ready. Three days. And
remember what we had to work with in There wasn't
(13:26):
internet research when we researched case law. We went the
old fashioned way into the law library, which took a
lot of time. So he basically gives this inexperience, unqualified
lawyer three days to familiarize himself with sorology, evidence and
secretor and non secretor. You have got to be kidding me.
So September four you were found guilty. In September seventeenth,
(13:51):
the jury, by a unanimous vote of twelve to nothing,
sentence you to death, even though the defense was what
it was. I didn't expect that. When they sentenced me
to death, I just I don't know. I think my
mind just shut down. After that, what I called the
real living hell started. You're basically in that cell twenty
(14:13):
four hours a day. You get three showers a week,
you get to go to the yard twice a week,
and it's a little tiny yard. And if you don't
go to the yard, you're just in that cell twenty
four hours a day, and you become desensitized. Really. After
like the first four years, I just disconnected myself. I
(14:36):
didn't care about time. I didn't care about holidays. I
didn't you know, none of that stuff mattered. What was
important to me was just surviving. After my dad passed
the I didn't have a visit until two thousand and six.
My life was in that cell. I did everything I
ate in there. I washed all my clothes, and my
(14:59):
whole life was in that little box. Eight nine and
very good friend of mine, Kenny Hardwick, he gave up
and he was in the cell next to week and
I could see him. The windows were not in the cell,
they were like eight to ten ft away from the
front of the cell to cell. Fronts were all open.
(15:20):
No we could talk, we could pass things back and forth.
And I watched him hang himself. I couldn't stop him.
I couldn't help him, you know. I went to screaming
for the bullies. They coming tell me to shut my
f of mouth. This episode is underwritten by the a
(15:50):
i G pro Bono Program. A i G is a
leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the
a i G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of
hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit
organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program
added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar
(16:11):
of its mission. This episode is brought to you by
Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to
helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years,
Stand Together and its partners have been on the front
lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action,
supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses. Stand Together tackles the
(16:34):
root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those
closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing
unjust prison sentences through the First Step a Act, empowering
community based programs and help people re enter society, and
now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn
how you may get involved, visit stand Together dot org
(16:55):
slash conviction. I believe it was either nine or nine.
Governor Martinez signed Paul's death warrant and Paul has the
fortuitous opportunity to have a terrific lawyer named Marty McClain,
and so Marty begins to investigate. And at that point,
(17:19):
the state attorney is different. And so when Marty McClain
issues the requests for Paul's file and all the police
reports or whatever, they actually turn it over, and that's
when he discovers all these things that either were not
disclosed to Mr Lewin or that Mr Lewin just didn't
(17:39):
bother to use, like the victim's nephew that says that
he was having drinks with the victim on Monday night,
September nine until eleven fifteen pm. Meanwhile, according to the
state's theory of trial, Paul had allegedly killed her somewhere
between nine fifteen and ten in the morning. But yet
the nephew is having drinks with her as the boyfriend
(18:02):
was mad and sulking in a corner. Well that never
came out in trial. That nephew was never deposed by
Mr Lewin. The boyfriend was allowed to represent this really
fabulous relationship withdrawal. So Marty McClain discovered stat when law
enforcement searched the victim and her boyfriend's house. There was
a note in the garbage can that said, if you
(18:25):
don't like living here, you can sunk off and die.
That never came out during trial. I mean, it just
went on and on and on. So he discovered all
this stuff. He found what's called the thirty fifty motion,
which is a motion to find the defense lawyer ineffective
of counsel and that if Paul had had effective assistance
of counsel or had received this Brady information and it
(18:48):
had been used, it would have changed the outcome of
the trial. And the judge denies both and says that
Paul had effective assistance of counsel. It goes up on
appeal to the Florida Supreme Court or the Florida Supreme
Court hanser Hat on the sourology evidence to say, no,
it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the trial in
(19:09):
first phase. But we do find that the penalty phase
was ineffective, and they grant Paul the opportunity to have
a second penalty phase. And so that happens in seven
and the jury comes back eight to four for death. Remember,
at the time in Florida and only required a majority
(19:30):
of jurors to vote for death, so Paul gets death
again and so CCRC, the group that Marty McClain worked for,
contacts the Innocence Project they get involved in. During all
that investigation, they also discover another witness that said she
had had a conversation with the victim at three o'clock
(19:51):
in the afternoon on the Wednesday, after she supposedly died.
They also started attacking the horology and they see for
it to get into and that ly tested. When they do,
at this point, DNA is in existence. They discovered that
the DNA on the panties and on the wash rag,
which is what was sold to the jury in and
(20:14):
what the Supreme Court relied upon in sustaining his guilty
verdict both the first time and during the thirty fifty hearing,
do not match Paul. It was February of two thousand
and three we went to the Circuit Court with the
test results. So that ends up happening that they discover, Okay,
(20:36):
it's not Paul's biological material on this, we want you
to run it through the CODA system. And they start
getting pushed back from the State and the Attorney General's office,
and this continues and continues to get litigated until two
thousand eleven, where finally the Supreme Court says, put it
in the CODAS system. When they run the DNA into
(20:59):
the CODA system, it matches William Harty, the victims live
in boyfriend, and at the time he was incarcerated for
sixteen counts of sexual battery for sexually molesting his stepdaughter.
And here we go again. I'm so sick of these
stories where the wrong person gets locked up, the actual
(21:20):
perpetrator remains free and goes on to commit these unspeakable
acts against people who never should have been victimized in
the first place if the system had worked the way
it should so. Then at that point, Nina Morrison and
Morty McClain are pushing the Supreme Court to give Paul,
based on this newly discovered evidence, a new trial, with
(21:43):
the state giving pushback under the grounds, hey, this was
the sex crimes case. And finally, in June of two
thousand and fourteen, the Florida Supreme Court grants Paul a
new trial. Okay, but now, how did this case, of
all the cases end up on your desk? Nina Morrison
called me and asked, could I fly down to Tampa
and meet with you and talk to you about this case.
(22:04):
Anybody that knows Nina Morrison, she's like, Sam, I am,
don't let her in your house because she's going to
convince you to do whatever she wants you to do.
And so she came into the office and persuaded me
to agree to do this case pro bono beginning in
August of two thousand and fourteen until it concluded on
March nine of two thousand and twenty, two thousand three,
(22:28):
the DNA proves DNA we're talking about, right, was produced
that proved that Paul didn't do it, or at a minimum,
that the state's case was completely wrong, and that the
main piece of evidence that they based and I was
proven false. And yet it took seventeen more years to
bring Paul home. And then even that comes with an asterisk, right,
(22:49):
you know, I get appointed to the case in two
thousand fourteen, and so the state they still stood on
the position that they felt that Paul was guilty. And
so to them, the quote fair end quote option was
to let him plead to second degree murder, get credit
for time served, and put him on lifetime probation. So
(23:13):
Paul's big mandate to me from the beginning was I
would like to feel grass underneath my feet before I die.
And so I would talk to him about these offers
the state was making and you know, explain to him
why it was basically a no brainer for us to
say no to that and continue forward. But we did
talk about would you take anything to guarantee that you
(23:36):
would get out? And we had kind of talked about
why I would plead reluctantly, but I would plead no
contest to a second degree murder and time served, and
I'll even take some probation afterwards because I know I'm
not going to commit any crimes and so I'll do that.
So fast forward to Friday morning before trial, March six,
(24:00):
and the prosecution says to me, would he still plead
to a second and time served, but we're gonna want probation.
And Paul was like yes, he goes, you know, I
want the bird in the hand. I want to know
I'm going to get out. I don't want to take
any risks. So he pled. You know, it was totally
Paul's decision. We were a percent ready to proceed forward
(24:23):
with the trial. Paul, March nine, I've watched the video
of you walking out more times than I want to
admit because it's so incredible. Um what was that like?
And when I walked out the door of the jail
and was met by Leanne Gouty and Kate O'shay, I
(24:45):
actually couldn't believe that it was really happening. And that
day when we left the jail and there was the
first thing I wanted to do was feel grass under
my feet, my bare feet, just to walk on grass.
He goes inside to jail, then the prisons. I mean,
it's all concrete and steel. That's it. You don't get
the walk on the grass. It's just the simplest thing.
(25:09):
That was a big thing for me. I wanted to
walk on the grass, and as the video shows, and
that's exactly what they did. They took me to a
nearby park and uh that was the most special part
about it, really walking on grass. People don't understand what
we take for granted every single day of our life.
Closing the door by yourself, stepping on grass, smelling fresh
(25:34):
cut grass. It made me realize just what myself included
everybody takes for granted. Then uh Ms Goudy and her
partner Kim Khan kat O'sha and Anthony Scott. They took
me to Cracker Barrel on the way down to Tampa,
and I had never been to Cracker Barrel and that
(25:55):
was my very first that was my very first freedom. You.
I just want to interrupt so nobody thinks I'm at
cheap skate. It was the best restaurant in Hernando County.
Thank you for clarifying that. Now, Paul, this was touched
(26:23):
on a bit, but I mean, it wasn't bad enough
that the state was trying to kill you. But cancer.
At first, it was just recognized that I had a
lump in front of my left ear and the gland
in my throat on the left side was swallowing up.
And I went and I saw an ear, nose and
throat doctor and so he did a biopsy on both
(26:46):
the lump in the swallen gland and it came back
to be uh non Hodgkins lymphoma. So I went through
surgery through radiation. Then I started chimo, you know, and
thankfully you made it, but cancer wasn't done. You still
had to go through it two more times in eleven
(27:08):
or twelve when it showed up again. The next time
I believe it was in by that time. Yeah, I
was used to the weight loss, the sickness, and no hair.
I lost every single piece of hair on my body.
I yeah, I looked like Uncle Fester on there. Jesus Paul,
(27:31):
You're just really fucking hard to kill. I don't know
how else I think. I mean, the state can't, cancer can't.
He survived cancer on death row, So clearly you know
God didn't want to kill him. If he was supposed
to be dead, he would be dead. Speaking of the
magic of the universe, I must take this opportunity to
(27:53):
congratulate lean on her election to the thirteen Circuit Court.
Judge Leanne Gaudi, thank you, Thank you. Typically when you're
a new judge, you do rotations through family law or
one of the other areas prior to going over to criminal.
(28:14):
But I'm being placed right in criminal, so i will
be taking over a circuit criminal division. So I'm very excited.
That's amazing and it makes me so happy, both for
you and also knowing that someone from the defense side
of the bar will be sitting on the bench. So
all the best. And on that note, we're now going
(28:34):
to go to the segment of our show called Closing Arguments.
It's the part where I first of all thank both
of you from the bottom of my heart for being
here and sharing your story and of course your spirit
with us. And then now I'm going to shut off
my microphone, kick back in my chair, close my eyes,
and just listen to whatever you want to say. Um,
(28:56):
We'll start with you, Leanne, and then finish with Paul.
You know, it was my privilege to represent Paul, and
I'm so grateful that Nina Morrison entrusted his case to me,
and I'm grateful that Paul trusted me to represent him.
I think that it's always an honor when somebody that's
(29:17):
accused of a crime puts their trust in you as
a lawyer to do the best you can for them.
And I'm just very, very grateful to God, frankly, that
I was able to deliver on Paul's request to be
able to let him feel grass underneath his feet before
(29:38):
he died. And hopefully he'll have many, many more years
to live and continue smelling grass and cut grass and
feeling it and living peacefully and happily out in society
like he should be. Paul, over to you, Leanne, and
I have talked several times, you know, about my belief
in God, and I believe that that's what got me
(30:02):
through thirty five years. I also believe it be the
reason why Nina Morrison was put on my case, why
Leanne Gaudy was put on my case. It was by
the grace of God. I've been blessed so much since
I've been out because of the Innocent Project in New
York and the Innocent Project in Florida. They are a
(30:24):
nonprofit organization and because of the donations is one reason,
a big reason why I'm sitting here where I live now.
There's an organization that helped me find this place, and
it's called the Sunny Center. They are a nonprofit organization
and they are the ones that have helped me since
(30:45):
I've been out. They have been there every day, every
step of the way. They also need donations in order
to help people in my position and ex honorees, and
you know, they've gotten me health insurance. You know, they've
helped me get my driver's license. They're there, I mean,
but they won't be there if people don't make donations.
(31:07):
And I believe they they were put there by God
as well. You know, in my life and I'm want
to say thank you, Lea. LeAnn. The freedom is so sweet.
You know you gave me back my life and I
thank you with all my heart. Always, Paul always, thank
(31:33):
you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please
support your local innocence projects and go to the link
in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne
and Kevin Warnas. The music on the show, as always,
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
(31:55):
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one h
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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