December 22, 2022 • 56 mins
One month apart in 1996, two crimes occurred in Portsmouth, VA. Terrence Hobbs was arrested and convicted for both of them, but he committed neither. In the first, two individuals were shot and killed, and in the second, a bank robbery occurred that hurt no one. Terrence’s ex-girlfriend was a victim of the double murder, and prosecutors fell back on the convenient assumption that the ex-boyfriend was jealous and must have been responsible. Once a few convicted felons were offered and ultimately given mercy in the form of sentence reductions for their own crimes, prosecutors had what they needed to connect Terrence to and incriminate him for the crimes. Despite solid alibis and an entire lack of physical evidence tying Terrence to either crime, Terrence was convicted, and is currently serving multiple life sentences.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Portsmouth, Virginia,
and Terence Hobbs had just started dating Devona Buyers, a
young woman who shared a five year old daughter with
one of the biggest drug dealers in town. When the
FBI pressed Devana about aiding her ex with money laundering,
she agreed to testify against him in his federal drug charges,
planning to skip town afterward. Devanna and Terry's budding romance
(00:27):
fizzled as a result. On July six, shortly after her testimony,
the bodies of Devona Buyers and another lover, Leon Porter,
were discovered, having both been shot once in the head.
Investigators immediately honed it on Terry Hobbs, Devanna's most recent X,
but with no physical evidence to corroborate the theory, the
(00:47):
case went cold. As the summer wound down, a bank
robbery occurred in nearby Virginia Beach. While facing unrelated charges,
an old junior high acquaintance of Terry's, Eric Cook, alleged
that he had called Terry from jail and that Terry
had confessed to both the bank robbery and the July
double homicide. At the bank robbery trial, the bank teller
(01:09):
and another employee corroborated Eric Cook, which must have meant
that Terry's fingerprints had just been missed by the crime
scene technicians. At the double homicide trial, five witnesses facing
their own criminal charges painted Terry as a jealous ex boyfriend.
But they couldn't possibly all be lying, especially about a
(01:30):
convicted armed bank robber. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
back to wrongful conviction. Today we have a first on
(01:50):
this program, a double wrongful conviction. Now Terence Hobbs was
convicted of a bank robbery and then a completely separate
double homicide, both of which he had nothing to do with.
Terry joined us from not Away Correctional facility in Virginia. Terence,
Welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you for having me. Yeah,
you're very welcome and joining us as a man who
knew Terry on the inside. He himself was rightfully convicted
(02:13):
for a string of robberts in the nineties in which
no one got hurt and the proceeds amounted to around
five hundred eleven dollars. But I think it's fair to
say that you were over sentenced, having received a grand
total of get this one thousand, three hundred and ten years.
Governor mccauliffe granted him a conditional pardon back in two
thousand eighteen, and Lenny has been fighting to clear Terry
(02:37):
ever since. Lenny Singleton, welcome to the show. Thank you,
glad to be here, very glad to have you, and
also here with us as someone who's been fighting for
Terry the longest. His mother, Catherine Hobbs, thank you from
the bottom of my heart for joining us and very
courageously sharing today. You're welcome, happy to be here. Now,
(02:57):
these crimes took place in two cities that are close
to one another. There was a bank robbery in Virginia Beach,
and about a month before that, there was a double
homicide in which the departed were a woman named Devana Buyers,
who was the mother of a drug kingpin's daughter and
her new lover, Leon Porter, a man who was in
possession of a very large amount of cocaine. So you know,
(03:20):
maybe he was a competing dealer. We we don't know,
but it doesn't seem far fetched. So the homicide portion
of this is certainly touching that world in Portsmouth, Virginia. Now, Lenny,
when you were in the military before your conviction. You
were stationed in Virginia. Right. Remember, Portsmouth, Virginia was like
one of the heroin capitals of the world, this country anyway,
(03:43):
and they were known for corruption. Every time I opened
the paper back in the nineties, there was always some
issue about corruption in Portsmouth, right, and Terry, you grew
up there, so could you, or maybe miss Hobbs, if
you want to jump in here too, could you tell
us about your life growing up on August the third,
nineteen seventy in the city of Portsmouth, Virginia to up
(04:04):
a middle class black family, pretty much had a typical child,
and I guess you could say so. I was diagnosed
with dyslexia in very greed and he was very self
conscious about that. But they said he had above average intelligence,
but he had the reading problem. And at the time
they didn't know how to help students with that reading problem,
(04:27):
so they put in a special education in which you
get a certificate. You do not get a ptoma. We
come from a military family, and he wanted to go
so much with that certificate, he was not able to go.
And your military upbringing brought you in touch with guns,
and you owned several legal firearms, all of which were
being stored out of your possession at the time of
(04:49):
the crime. But even the fact that you own firearms
at all was eventually used against you, even though none
of your guns could be connected to the crimes were
about to discuss here, But let's get back to Terry's childhood.
I started working at an early age and got a
job at food line at age sixteen and worked all
through high school at food line. After the food line
(05:10):
and my cousin got me a job with him working
at the shipyard. Unfortunately, I got laid off and at
one point in time i'd be again involved in seven
robes on a very small level, but I never got
a risk in food and then after I was able to,
you know, get my career back on track, I walked
away from it. And you'll get no judgment from me
(05:31):
about being involved in drugs. But that, along with the
love of motorcycles, did bring you into contact with a
crowd of people who later went on to help frame
you in exchange for leniency in their own very serious cases.
But in the lead up to these two incidents, you
were gainfully employed at the coast Guard based shipyard. Now
(05:51):
I want to go back to your time at food
Line during high school. You worked there for a short
while with one of the victims in this case, right,
Devona Buyers. Is that where the two of you first met.
I met Devana Bays in junior high school and we
pretty much hung with different crowds. She was always extremely
beautiful and extremely popular, being laiter home. She worked at
(06:13):
Food Rhyme with me for maybe three months, and now
I probably didn't see her again until I was about
twenty five years old. And at that time you two
became romantically involved, but that unfortunately got cut short, most
likely by the circumstances in her life surrounding the father
of her five year old daughter, Kia, a man named
(06:33):
Dathaniel Skeet Richardson who was a major player in the
Portsmouth drug game and was under federal indictment at the time.
But before he got his federal drug indictument, he had
a long list of charges, a lot of them violent.
Even one of the charges was shooting gift of his
(06:54):
girlfriend and unborn child, and he wanted to getting out
on me in the Hall of Land. So this is
a young guy who's already a suspect, and the killing
of the mother of his unborn child, and he's got
a lot of money. He probably paid a hundred thousand
cash on that million dollars to get himself out. Maybe
(07:14):
he put up the whole million, I don't know, but
one way another he was loaded. He was making more
money in a month than most of the police officers
were making in a year at that time back in Portsmouth,
so clearly, had he chosen to he had more than
enough money to corrupt a local officer into giving him
(07:35):
a pass or even offering him protection from the law
possibly posible. I wouldn't be surprised. Back in those days,
not with Portsmouth. It wasn't uncommon for police to be
on pay rolls, especially he's drug kingpins. Back in those days.
From what I understand it, twenty two or twenty three
years olds, Keith Richardson had so much money that he
(07:56):
had developed a money laundering scheme involving the prayer just
a trade of expensive cars, and one of those trades
involved Devanna, and eventually the FEDS approached her, threatening her
with money laundering charges if she didn't cooperate in their
prosecution of Skeith Richardson, who was under federal indictment for
a laundry list of drug charges, conspiracy, etcetera. I told
(08:17):
her I felt like, considering the people today were asking
her to talk about and testify against, I didn't think
it was in her best interests. And I told her,
you know the money liner in charges an consider white
collar crimes. You may do two or three years and
you can start the lifeful. She wasn't interested in hearing it.
She wasn't trying to do a single day. It was
(08:38):
that decision to testify against him that was more than
likely what led to her death. So she was subpoena
tip here in court and she did. And then what
happened About a week or two before she was killed,
she went to even Mississippi or Alabama to spend some
time with family down there. And after she came back,
she asked me if I would be willing to move
(09:00):
with her to Mississippi or Alabama after she finished cooperating
with the FBI, and you know, I'll be honest, which
I considered it, but I didn't want to have to
leave my home on the old circumstances had nothing to
do with it. So at this point, even though you
two were still occasionally sleeping together. You had created some
distance between you and Devanna, hardly the actions of a
(09:23):
jealous boyfriend, as the state would later paint you when
you were prosecuted for what happened in the aftermath of
her testimony in this federal drug trial. So let's get
to that. This was the night of July into the
tent of n just two weeks after she had testified
against her baby's father, who was, of course the drug kingpin. Now,
apparently she had been with her parents earlier that evening,
(09:45):
went home with her five year old daughter, Kia, and
a man named Leon Face Porter was his nickname. Face.
Kia had gone to bed then around midnight and ear
witness her gunshots around four am. Kia called her grandfather
after discus bring her mother and Mr Porter were dead.
Police found that the outside door an apartment door, had
(10:05):
been busted open. Devana was found by the foot of
the bed, shot in the back of the head. Mr
Porter was found lying on the bed and he had
been shot in the face, as if he had been
sitting on the edge of the bed when he was shot.
But I woke up to my page of going off
back to back to back to back to back. The
roma was that Devanna and I had gotten murdered. Once
(10:25):
they found out that I hadn't gotten killed because the
nature of our relationship when we were still sleeping with
each other from time to time, I became a suspect.
They tried to say it was a crime of passion
a jealous boyfriend, but those two people were shot execution
style only once, and they know that she just testified
against the biggest drug dealer in Portsmouth, Virginia. Right even
(10:48):
though the Vanna's baby's father, Nathaniel Skeet Richardson, was the
logical suspect. They pursued Terry anyway. But you had seen
a movie with your sister the night before, then went
to your parents house to pick up some mail before
spending the night at your sister's And when you woke
up to your page or just blowing up, you called
some friends, found out what had happened, and you and
(11:08):
your sister went to Devon's parents house and I agree
to talk to the police, And at some point in time,
Detective Huntington and Detective beach a Lotok showed up at
Devna's house, so they asked you to accompany them to
the detectors euro and you were, I would say, as
cooperative as you possibly could be. At first, they asked
me a few questions, asked me about my whereabouts that day,
(11:32):
and then he got around to ask me if I
owned any firearms, which I told him I did and
gave him a list of the firearms. They asked me
if I had any problem with them running ballistics tests home.
I had the guns delivered to the police department I
can send into the gunshot residute tests. They tested his guns,
they tested his fingerprints. Nothing matched. They asked me if
(11:55):
I had any problems taking a lot of detective tests,
which I didn't at the time. Yeah, you're agreed to
the light detective test. And you also told him where
he could find your other firearm at the Portsmouth Big
Tackle and Pawn Shop detect the Huntington went there to
try to retrieve my blog from the shop, and I
think the lady's name was Kathleen half Cock, and he
(12:16):
told her personally that he was there to get my
gun because it was used in a murder. Luckily, she
had the presence of mind to ask when the murders
take place after he told her when the murders took place.
She told him that there was no way possible to
that weapon could have been used and that crime because
they had been Irish shop prior to the crime taken place.
(12:37):
So it seems that Detective Huntington's had already pretty much
decided that you were the focus of his investigation, despite
the fact that you had been cooperative. There was nothing
that was a match for you. There are alibis, and
there was nothing that pointed in your direction anyway. You
started getting wind of this right Detective Huntington's at one
point in time, he actually told my sister that he
had been informed by several individuals that I was running
(12:58):
around in the street ragging that I had committed the murders.
And I called Detective Huntington's back and asked him what
was he talking about, because I hadn't been talking to anybody.
I told him straight up, I said, look, it seems
like you're more concerned was listening to rooms that you're
hearing in the street versus taking what you have at
the crime seemed the actual evidence and using that as
(13:20):
your starting point to start your investigation and do your job.
So then after we had that conversation, he asked me
what I still be willing to come in and and take
a lot to take the test The next day, I
told him I was not interested in taking a lot
of detect the tests. Instead of him doing his job,
it seemed like he was more interested in trying to
hang these crimes on me. So now things are heated
between you and this detective. But he's got nothing on you.
(13:41):
Nothing connects you to this murder besides your previous relationship
with the deceased. And there's definitely a much more motivated
and likely suspect in the mix. But for now the
case went cold. The summer was coming to a close,
and at this time, two guys that you knew in
Junior High, Darryl and Eric Cook, had gotten involved in
bankrupt race. They were awaiting charges on two separate incidents
(14:03):
at bank robbery and Chesapeake and then another one in Portsmouth,
and the second one involved to shoot out with the
police and Eric Cook. He was looking to trade information
for leniency. Seems to me that Mr. Eric Cook made
his living doing that. So while that part of the
story is simmering in the background, the entire Hobbs family
was headed to Franklin Virginia for a family reunion on Friday,
(14:24):
August thirty, when Terry received a traffic ticket on his
ride out there, and that ticket was issued around six
forty pm near Franklin, which is only about an hour's
drive outside of the Portsmouth, Virginia Beach area, where you
have to remember this was on a holiday weekend within
DEAs traffic and people coming in from out of state,
there would be about a two and a half to
three hours draft fighting at traffic. So this traffic ticket
(14:47):
out in Franklin at six pm makes it extremely unlikely
that you could even be physically available to commit a
bank robbery in Virginia Beach a little after four pm
that same afternoon. Now, this isn't the same bank robbery
that Eric and Darryl Cook were arrested for. This is
a totally separate incident. This was August after four pm
(15:08):
in Virginia Beach. A black man in his mid twenties
with a baseball hat, sunglasses, a thick coatee, and a
dark blue backpack entered the first Virginia Bank on the
corner of Virginia Beach Boulevard and King's Grant Round. He
revealed a gun in his waistband, but he never drew it.
The bank teller ms Berrard complied with his demands and
handed over about eight in small bills, and the robber
(15:29):
fled the scene. Now, this is a bank, so they've
got all kinds of surveillance footage, of course, and screenshots
of this robber. And I've seen the pictures. There's no
way you can look at those photos and say Terry
Hobbs did it. At that time, I couldn't even grow
a full beat. I had a peach full it's mustache,
and that was pretty much it. With a guy who
restually robbed the bank had a full mustache and gottee
(15:51):
that was so thick that you couldn't see that a
drop of skin through his mustache or goateee. On top
of that, the guy wasn't wearing any gloves. Into the transcripts,
his hands were over the glass the case. There in
the bank, they grand new fingerprints. Guess what, Terry's fingerprints
didn't match anything there. Very soon after the robbery, when
(16:11):
shown a photo array with Terence's picture, the bank teller
ms Berrard, end up bank employee named Jeanie Chaplin both
said that they couldn't make a positive idea due to
the assailant having worn a hat, sunglasses, and a thick coate,
but somehow that later changed, So no idea, no fingerprint
match where there definitely were fingerprints left to the scene.
(16:34):
But now here comes Eric Cook, a guy Terry hasn't
spoken to since junior high school who's facing his own
bank robbery charges as well as the attempted murder of
a police officer from Virginia Beach City Jail. And he
was clearly looking to trade information for the leniency. But
I thought that he had robbed a bank in Portsmouth.
He was on a courtesy hole and protective custody and
(16:55):
Reginia Beach because when he was an enforcement cd J
of the city which he attempted a committed bank robbery,
and when he was in the jail block, any person
that was in a sale with him or in the
pot with him, he would get on the phone and
call crime solvers and say that these people were confessing
the committing crimes. So it eventually got around and the
whole pot turned on him and beat him within an
(17:17):
inch of his life, and he had to be hospitalized.
And after he was released from medical treatment. He was
put in Virginia Beach City Jail in protective custody, and
that's what he called crimes halves once again from me,
even at the expense of almost losing his life for
bearing false witness against people, he still hadn't learned his lesson.
So he goes from Portsmouth Jail under Detective Huntington's jurisdiction
(17:41):
to Virginia Beach who are a friend of Huntington's. A
detective name Chris Mullen was working in the August thirtie
bank robbery and Eric Cook called crime solvers with information
that just so happened to benefit both detectives. He claims.
He called me. He said that I had told him
that I had robbed the bank Beach and I had
(18:03):
also murdered Devana by his in leon Porta. But this
alleged call between you and Eric Cook would have been
made from a jail phone. Not only would it have
been recorded and made for some really compelling evidence of trial,
but it also would have shown up on your phone records,
if in fact it ever took place. So I got
my phone record during that time and it showed no
(18:25):
calls from no institution on that man didn't even have
my phone number. I couldn't even tell you what my
phone number would So this phone call just simply never
took place. And you know, calls to crime stoppers are anonymous.
But yet instead of the authorities paying a visit to
Terry to see what he had to say about these allegations,
somehow detective hunting things buddy in Virginia Beach, Detective Chris
(18:49):
Maulen knew exactly who to go visit in the Virginia
Beach City jail. So one can only surmise that this
was a plan that was matched between Maullen Huntington's and
they're highly incentivized witness Eric Cook to make a quasi
anonymous call to crime solvers. But there's something else that's
(19:12):
interesting about the interviews with Eric Cook. Every single interview
that I have that will copies of statements made to
the police will detect the robber hunting General David Beachlaw
and which I think is extremely odd. Why are you
sitting an interviewing this man about a Virginia Beach bank robbery.
You have absolutely newer risk powers in the city of Virginia.
Leech all right, this ship stinks already. But but as
(19:35):
I mentioned, the bank teller Ms. Berrard and the bank
employee Jini Chaplin did not make an ID from the
photo lineup right bank teller herself. She says, this guy
right here kind of looks like the robber, but because
of the robber wanted disguise, which was the head and sunglasses,
I'm not one. It wasn't sure that this is the robber.
(19:55):
That is not a positive identification. But yet if you
look at my risk, want is say is the reason
I was being charged with that crime was due to
the sworn statements of Christopher C. Moleen, not the actual victims,
Tracy Barad or Jeanie Chaplin. So detect them. Moeen fabricated evidence,
and both he and Eric Cook perjured themselves in order
to obtain your arrestaurant. The morning of September twenty third,
(20:18):
ninety six, they took me over to the Detectives Bureau.
They kept me in that room I don't know how
many hours, and Detective Hunting and came in there and
tried to give me the impression that I was being
charged with the murders and he was gonna make sure
that I got the death penalty. I didn't take it
too kindly, and I told him if he got off
his ass and did his fucking job and went by
the evidence at the crime scene, he could find out
(20:39):
who committed the murders and stopped harassing me. So he
looks at me and walked out the rum and within
five minutes to take the Moleen came in and asked
me to set aside my conversation that I had just
had with Detective Huntington. So then he starts talking to
me about the bank robber in Marginia Beach and he
said I had already been identified as a suspect. I
volunteered my finger prince to run them if they had
(21:02):
finger prince will recover from the crime scene. Not only
had he collective finger prints from the bank robbery, they
had already run my finger prints against the finger prints
from the bank robbery before I was arrested, and they
came out negative. They always knew you hadn't committed this crime.
And sometimes we just see a nihilistic approach from a
detective where they just don't care at all who they
(21:23):
got as long as they closed the case. You know
what they say, A body for a body. But here
it seems as if all of this tension between you
and Huntington's was just adding fuel to his fire. So
were you able to bond out? And they took me
to the Virginia Beach City jail. I think I was
allowed probably close to ninety days before I was able
to get a bond right, And I had to get
an attorney to get his bond. Kin Meldon, he's a
(21:46):
judge now, but the alternety that got the bond for me,
and it was a fifty dollar bond, so he was
out on bond for a little while. But you couldn't
afford Ken Melvin for the full trial, and eventually you
had a quarter pointed a her knee. But even for
someone who was presumably overworked and underpaid, as almost all
of the public defendors in the country are, this still
(22:08):
should have been an easy win. You had this false
statement from Eric Cooke about an alleged phone call that
you could prove never took place, and then Ms Berard
and Miss Chaplin who never identified you. But as we
so often see, sometimes witness has become more confident in
their ideas as the trial approaches. Yes, that goes from
(22:31):
him not being showed on the person to Nambia Hunter
person showed on the person nine months later. How can
she positively say it was Terry and she couldn't do
it hours after the robbery. It just it just smells
bad to me that she was coached. But okay, your
attorney could have impeached these ideas as unreliable considering the
fact that the witnesses had not been able to make
(22:52):
an idea then the immediate aftermath of the robbery just
hours after it took place, as well as the fact
that the bank robber his face and had were covered
by a hat, sunglasses, and the thick goatee that Terry
couldn't possibly have grown. Plus, we know that you were
out of town and route to your family reunion in Franklin, Virginia.
(23:13):
You had, I mean, for christ Takes, You had a
traffic ticket to prove it, as well as the officer
who issued the ticket. Now I understand that he was
called as a witness to corroborate your whereabouts. Right when
I walked in the courtroom that day, blow on the
whole Detective Huntington's and Golan having a discussion with this
police officer that issued me the traffic ticket before he
ever takes the stand. He takes the stand and states
(23:36):
that he can't remember I'm the person that he actually
gives you the kicky too. So my next request was
is that he give us the original copy of the kicket. Well,
the original copy of the ticket supposingly was destroyed and
the key supposing they had a guy in the paint
and the trunk of his car and had an accident
and the paint stilled on his paperwork, and therefore the
ticket was no longer available. But I find that hard
(23:57):
to believe. Sounds totally made up to me. But still
there's more that could have been done to combat the state.
Besides what should have been an easy job impeaching the
credibility of the ideas. You had this patently bogus statement
from Eric Cooke about an alleged phone call confession that
you could conclusively prove never took place. So what happened
(24:22):
with that? Apparently after my AlterNet, they showed the Commo
fraternity the copy of my phone records. The phone records
reflected Erie never even called me. They allowed Eri to
change his testimony, and they also sealed his statement that
he made to the Reginia Beach police because in the discovery,
when my mom had full from the archives, they did
not allow us to see any statement he ever made
(24:45):
to the police. So all you knew was that he
alleged that you confessed on a phone call. This wasn't
some opportunity to cross examined and create doubt when you
submitted the phone records to evidence as proof of the lies.
That would it should have shut down their lying star
witness completely. So the state just sidestepped your defense with
(25:07):
more lies. But you had no idea that they were
going to do this. How could you have predicted that
your defense was prepared to disprove the lie about the
phone call, but was not prepared to combat this new lie.
The evidence was not shared with the defense. It's just
perfect example of a Brady violation right out in the
(25:27):
opening plain sight. So what did he change his story too?
He changed his story and see it that he walked
up on a conversation that me and his brother was
plotting robbed his bank in Virginia Beach, and we said
and planned it out in detailed myself and his brother
in the commonweal'st attorney basically vouched for his credibility and
how he was coming forward at great risk to hisself
(25:47):
because of me being an extremely danger individual, and that
he was putting itself at great risk to protect the
citizens of Virginia Beach from people like myself. So not
a bank Robert trating false testimony for len and See,
actually a concerned citizen with nothing to gain, Just a
concerned citizen. They were aught about a judge. Not to
bring up his criminal history, none of his prior crimes
(26:08):
because and Chesapeake, his citizen had been postponed and inform
of his citizen had been postponed, and under the guidelines
of the law until he's officially sentenced by a judge,
he is not a convicted felon. He was actually one
before he started his line of question, and not to
ask him any questions about where he's housed at or
anything that would lead him into the divulsion to the
jury that he was arrested and convicted of any type
(26:30):
of crime for his testimony. He was given three years
and thirty days for the attempted bank robbery, enforcements to
use the farms and the commission of a felony and
the attempt to capital the murder of a police officer. Jesus.
I mean even the attempted murder of a police officer
usually carries you know, a little bit more than that,
of course, but his statue on a murder is either
life or death. He did three years and thirty days
(26:52):
and then only was sentenced for the Chesapeake bank robbery
after he was released from prisoner. By time they suspended
all this time, he only he is six years than
eight months. So between the two robbery, the three years
of arms and commissional a felony, and the attempt capital
of murderful police officer, he got less than ten years.
So your lawyer wasn't even allowed to bring up the
(27:13):
back that this guy is receiving a huge break on
his own charges in exchange for testifying against you. This
is really dirty. So so Eric Cook's statement appeared to
be corroborated by the now all of a sudden sure witnesses,
and that was enough to overcome the fingerprint evidence of
the contrary, which by that I mean the fact that
(27:35):
you certainly were not there the finder prints that were recovered.
We couldn't even really go into that too much because
the Calm war frattorney she didn't want to find the
prince inted in the evidence. What about your attorney? He
didn't make the motion, So the jury came to a
sadly predictable conclusion. Nobody in the jury would look at me,
which I knew that was the bad. They came with
(27:57):
the guilty Verdy. I looked over to Moline and Huntingden
Hynden poinked in me, and you'd get you. We'll be
(28:17):
right back after this. This episode is underwritten by a
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positive difference in the lives of its employees and in
the communities where we work and live. In light of
the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and in
recognition of a i g s commitment to criminal and
(28:38):
social justice reform, the A i G pro Bono Program
provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities
and individuals. So now you're convicted, but you still had
to go to sentence. And when your lawyer still had
one move left, he located Eric Hook's brother Darryl, who
(29:01):
took the stand. Darrel Cook came forward and took the
stand and my a journey asked him some questions and
basically just did his brother was lying because he didn't
want to do time. And and then my lawyer made
a motion that the judge set aside the verdict and
all a new trial or overturned the conviction altogether. But
the judge wasn't happening. He upheld the conviction. The fact
(29:25):
that his brother got understand and then they found phone
records for bogus that there was never a call. I
don't know how that did not get overturned. He appealed
my centison, which my guylines for five years and one month.
In me arranged point was six years and two months.
Nine years was the max, and they gave me forty
eight years and a thirty thousand, all of five So,
(29:47):
in light of Eric Cook's own brother coming into testify
against him, the States star witness, which should have really
shaken their confidence in this conviction, instead of the max
of nine years, they doubled down on this tragedy by
over sentencing you. So your lawyer must have had an
appeal ready to go. I know in Virginia you've got
to get it filed within thirty days of the conviction,
(30:07):
though right he had to stay upponted attorney that really
did nothing for him. Even times I would go to
his office to try and meet with him, I think
I was avoided twice. The third time I laid in
wait in the parking lot, they said he wasn't there,
so I stayed in the parking lot until he got
(30:27):
there so I could have a talk with him. How
did that conversation go? I went up to his office
with him because I wanted to know what was going on.
Where are we now with the appeal? Well, and that's
when he let me know he didn't get it piled
in time. Author rich who has been disbarred more than
(30:47):
three times for one of the very things that he
did to me, You know how you have a constitutional
right to an appeal. I've never had an appeal for
my case in Virginia Beach because he made the motion
that he would be filing until and never filed it
and I was time, but so my constitutional right to
appeal was lost. It was revealed later that he had
(31:07):
a cocaine habit and he was dearely been his duties.
So I know when I when I claimed ineffective assistance
of council. That's exactly what I had, whether Calm was
attorney when he get defiled their briefs, they claim I
was only claiming ineffective assistance of council is because I
was unsatisfied with the outcome of my trial. So you
were time bart on the direct appeal and denied on
(31:29):
a clear case of ineffective assistance of council, and therefore
you were stuck to serve out a forty eight years sentinence,
effectively a life sentence. At this time, Virginia made another
horrendous move, which is that they did away with parole entirely.
But if your jury had not been advised that you
would never be eligible, as was in fact the case here,
you would have been what is known as a fishback candidate.
(31:53):
So that becomes an issue later on and will explain that.
So you've potentially got parole to look forward to. Meanwhile,
unbeknownst to you, Detective Huntington's was out there for several
years building up a case against you for the double homicide,
and he was talking to people you knew through your
hobby of riding motorcycles, as well as some guys that
you knew from your short time that you spent dealing drugs,
(32:16):
and Detective Huntington's was working on coercing and incentivizing them
to cooperate, and eventually he was successful at finding five
people who were willing to do it. Every single one
of them have cases against them and most of them
are big time drug dealers or in the drug trade
(32:37):
and they have something to gain by lying on Terence Hobbs.
Detective Huntington's yeah, he he was on a mission to
convict the wrong man of these double murders, Terry, since
the only thing you knew about Eric Cook's initial statement
at this point was that he had implicated you in
the robbery, and the rest of the details were sealed,
including the fact that he had implicated you in the
(32:59):
double murder as well. Were you even aware of Detective
Huntington's investigation. When did you find out? I was actually
sitting in prison at Southampton Commersional Facility. I'm sitting in
the sale looking at television and they had movies on
the weekend and he were forced to see and one
of my friends come past the sale and he said
t he said, man, he said, I just saw you
(33:20):
on the news. They just indicted you. For to Council
Capital murder. I said, my go here with that bullshit.
Stop playing, he said, I wouldn't play about nothing like did.
He said, turned from the movie channel. He said, if
he turned the NBC, cbsl A, ABC, every time they
show a commercial, they had showing you face on the
news and you being charged in a cold case. I
couldn't believe it. And then we thought that too. What
(33:44):
had happened at night? He and as going to the
movie right, He was with his sister at the movies
and came by your house for some mail, then went
back to his sisters. She accounted for his arrival around
midnight at the same time that your witness heard gunshots
from Ivanna Buyer's apartment. She and Leon Porter were each
shot once, execution style. She had already been threatened that
(34:08):
if she testified against the jug kingpin, which was her
daughter's father, then what would happen to her. He had
already shot and killed someone else that was Karen, his
baby before he was locked up. But rather than tracking
down those leaves, Detective Huntington's just went ahead and pursued Terry,
whose fingerprints again were not found. In a scene where
(34:30):
they almost certainly should have been considering his relationship with Tavanna,
and Terry was more than helpful. He came to Devana's
house with his sister who was ready to vouch for
his whereabouts, and all of his guns were tested for
holistics evidence. He willingly gave his fingerprints submitted to a
GSR testing. No matches were found, and at least initially
(34:51):
he was willing to take a lot of detective tests,
but none of that was good enough for this Detective
Huntington's It almost makes you think that he was doing
everything he could to avoid investigating the guy who he
should have been investigating, which was Keith Richardson. So, with
this lack of evidence and clear standout suspect, Detective hunting
And had to get creative and he conjured up five witnesses,
(35:12):
but the stories weren't quite adding up. But even with
this weak, ask bullshit case, publicly they were claiming that
they had five corroborating witnesses. If you look at the
newspaper article that was dated over the first nineteen and
the Virginian Pilot newspaper. They were requesting the def penalty
and they even came to me with a twenty year
(35:32):
plead to try to get me a plead guilty for
con council capital murder, and I refused to take a
guilty plead of twenty years for two murders that I
had not committed. They came back in a teen year
plead to me, and I refused to take that as well.
They had My attorney asked me, would be any amount
of time that I would be willing to accept so
(35:52):
that they wouldn't have to take me a trial, and
I would not take it. I actually still have a
copy of the twenty year plead they did penia plea
verbally twenty year plea for two council capital murder to
ranking current with the forty years in Virginia Beach. Now
the state of Virginia, there's only two penalties for capital
murder his life or death. So how do you offer
(36:15):
a man or twenty year pleading the in turnaround and
awful him a teen year plead for a capital murder
unless you know he didn't do it. Yes, they know
he's not the guy. No prosecutor would come with a
ten year plea deal on a double murder if they
knew he committed to crime. No way, No, hel that's
(36:36):
just bullshit. They want to close the case. Nevertheless, they
took him to trial knowing that the evidence was all
just incentivized testaalize that started with Eric Cooke. He was
so unreliable that they did not even include him in
this proceeding at all. Now, the five quote unquote new
witnesses here were Shawn Saunders, Curtis Freeman, William Godwin, Derek
(37:00):
Blackwall and Tyrone Wallace. And we're about to destroy all
of their credibility right now. Well. Shawn Saunders, who happens
to be a three time felon and who admitted to
Terry's mom after the trial that he had lied to
avoid going back to prison. He worked with Terry on
the construction job at the Coast Guard base. He testified
(37:20):
that he and Terry we're good friends through on high school.
But Saunders, that you know, actually dropped out of school
in eighth grade. According to Terry, didn't see him again
until he worked with him on the Coast Guard job,
and Saunders claimed that while they were working together that
Terry told him that he and Devana were breaking up
and that if he ever found Devana with another man,
(37:41):
he would kick in the door of her apartment if
he had to with killer Sean Saunders claimed that he
told my supervisor. My supervisor actually came to court and
testifill on my behalf. He said we were never alone together,
that he worked in one place and I worked in another.
A year before the trial, Interestingly, Saunders had been subpoena
but he didn't tell you authorities about Terry's alleged emissions.
(38:02):
Then you know, it was only the day before Terry's
trial after Saunders again was a rest of for selling drugs.
The Saunders come up with a story that Terry threatened
to kick in Devana's door and kill her if he
saw her with another man. Saunders testify that Terry had
said he would park his motorcycle around back and kick
in the back door and use a silencer on a gun.
(38:24):
But there's a problem with this that ear witness would
have definitely heard a motorcycle and importantly, there is no
back door, So he would have made that mistake to
say I'm going to kick in the back door knowing
there is no back door. Right, Terry knew that apartment
well and never would have mentioned a non existent backdoor. Now,
(38:44):
Curtis Freeman, he was facing home invasion and robbery charges.
What did he say to save his own skin? Freeman's
testifying that he was familiar with Terry's motorcycle, which he
described as being a neon greenish color in purple and
allegedly unique because of his bright colors, despite Terry riding
with many others who also had these colorful sport motorcycles.
(39:07):
He also testified that he noticed Terry's motorcycle parked around
the block from Devana's apartment on the night of the murders,
and that he said Terry had a notoriously loud motorcycle
because of the modifications. So now the bike is parked
around the block, and again, where was the ear witness
on this extremely loud motorcycle. They heard the gunshots, but
(39:30):
no notoriously loud motorcycle speeding away. They somehow missed that
one Freeman was given probation for a home invasion and
robbery because of his cooperation. And Lenny can back me
up here, but these are not the types of sentences
that Virginia is known for dolling out for home invasions
or anything for that matter. I mean, Lenny got over
(39:51):
a thousand years for stealing just a little bit over.
Oh my goodness. So now we're at William Godwin or
Bill Godwin. Right, he was in federal custody a drug
possession conspiracy charges with the seventeen and a half year sentence.
Initially he had said that he didn't know anything about
the murders, but knew that Terry was innocent. What did
he say to get released after just two and a
(40:11):
half years? Just like he claimed that he was with
me and he saw me threatened Greg Elliott with a
far because Gregg was at her house visiting her, and
Greg Elliott came the court subpoena ever calm most attorney witness,
and once he took the stand, basically said that everything
that deal testified too was a lie. So there goes
(40:31):
line number one. Then Godwin testified that he had been
told by a man named Darryl Evans about a conversation
that Evans had overheard which Terry had confessed to the murders.
Errol Evan has come to court and testify it and
refused Beal's testimony. So there goes Godwin making the Commonwealth
look stupid again. He also alleged that Terry had basically
confessed to him about the murders. But I think Godwin
(40:51):
had already told too many lies that have been refuted
in court for anyone to take him seriously about anything.
So on to Derek Blackwell. Now, he was in federal
custody on charges of being a drug kingpinner running a
criminal enterprise, facing thirty years to life. Initially he had
told police to hear nothing about the crimes, but then
he lies and says about two to three weeks after
(41:13):
the killings, he and Terry were at a gas station
in Portsmouth and Terry unsolicited now admits to shooting Divana
and Porter. He first offered his story about Terry's alleged
confession about two months after he had been arrested in
November of n for federal drug conspiracy charges. Black Will
(41:36):
only served three and a half years as a result
of his cooperation. Interesting with Blackwell's testimony, You know, he
said Terry was with him at his house all day
until seven pm on July. That's directly contradicted by Terry's
work time card at the Coast Guard base that day.
(41:57):
Just another fucking lion. Just add that to his description
of Terry's bike as primarily black. I thought it was Neon,
Green and purple. So enough of this guy. Last, but
not least, Tyrone Wallace, who was in federal custody facing
drug conspiracy charges, evidence is clear that the door was
kicked in. Wallace testified that Terry admitted he killed Divanna
(42:19):
and Porter after he had parked his bike. Now it's
a couple of blocks away, not behind, a couple of
blocks away on the night of the murders and entered
the apartment with a duplicate key. Yet we know the
door had been kicked in. He also said that Terry
had said that he shot Porter while he was lying
in bed, and that he shot Divanna from under the chin,
(42:39):
but the medical examiner established it Porter was shot in
the face while sitting at the end of the bed
and Divanna had been shot in the back of the head.
So contradiction after contradiction after contradiction. You know, he faced
twenty two years and served less than four. Come on, man,
it's just exponential injustice on top of an already insane
duple wrongful conviction. But I mean, couldn't the jury see
(43:03):
how these guys their stories just weren't matching up, that
their stories didn't match the back to the crime, and
in some cases their lives were called out by both
defense and prosecution witnesses that this was not some jealous
boyfriend case, but rather a homicide that was in retribution
for divnest testimony against her acts. Yeah, the comma the
turning kept down playing it is that would not be
(43:25):
enough motive compared to the evidence that they had. And
the only evidence that they had against me was the
false testimony of these witnesses. And I guess the only thing,
and I think could think that would have caused me
to get a guilty verdict is that the jury would
feel like, well, all of these guys can't be lying,
even though they were. They had tried to kill me
(44:00):
without killing my body. They killed me by killing my reputation,
which in turn caused me to be found guilty of
these crimes. And they thought that this is gonna be
the e for me, that they were gonna lock me
up for basically thirty and that was gonna be the
end of my story. And that's a number that Lenny
is all too familiar with. These insane numbers really started
after they abolished parole in Virginia, right when was that. Well,
(44:24):
guys had opportunities at parole well before ninety five January.
So even in a case like this, if you had
a life sentence you start going up for parole in
twelve years to life sentences, you still get an opportunity
to go up you just it would take around twenty years.
Guys still had a shot if you weren't given a
(44:44):
life without the possibility of the life sentences didn't nail
you until after they abolished parole. And so now if
you get life, it means exactly that life. Wow, and
you have how long to follow your appeal in Virginia?
You got thirty days to get that appeal in immediately.
So Terry, I'm going to imagine that you didn't just
want to take this insane sentence lying down. But with
(45:06):
two wrongful convictions and this seriously short amount of time
for a meaningful appeal to be filed, no potential DNA testing,
no possibility of parole, what happened? Did your lawyer screw
it up and get time barred again? We actually went
through the actual and tip fuel process and that one
single Julius would overturn the convictions, I mean post conviction
litigation is largely based on whether or not you received
(45:27):
due process and if any constitutional rights were violated. I'm
sure ineffective assistance could be argued here, but accompanying actual
innocence claims can be helpful with any other claims. And
the only evidence against you at the second trial were
these inconsistent and patently and obviously false statements from these
incentivized witnesses. It was all of that pointed out to them. Yes,
(45:50):
all of this stuff was pointed out, but to say
in fact that the matter is a lot of these
people don't want to point to saying that another prosecute
or police officer and say that they were on And
that's just a sad fact of the matter. Without the
support of my family, I believe I would have lost
myself in here because I'm gonna tell you something. I'm
surrounded in this small amount of acreage of this penitentiary.
(46:13):
I'm around from everything that you could possibly think of, murderers, rapist,
child molesters, necrophilia, best reality, I'm around the worst of
the worst. Had I not had the love and support
of my family sticking by me and it just received
that unconditional love, it kept me from losing myself in here.
(46:34):
To be completely honest with you, I don't know what
kind of person I would be now had I been
left to living in this environment of violence and blood
and sweat and tears people and seeing people commit suicide
hanging themselves because they could not do this time. I
do this time every single day, alcohol free, disease free,
(46:54):
drug free and heal things, so the things that most
people doing here to deal with this reality, I deal
with sober. That's the only way I can have a
clear head to do what I need to do, to
try to mount the best defense that I can for myself. Phone,
when people like yourself are interesting to hearing my story,
I can tell the key. And of course people like
Lenny who heard your story. If not for him, we
(47:16):
wouldn't be having this recording session right now. And if
I hadn't read about his story of course in the
New York Times, I'm not sure any of us would
be talking right now. Lenny. How did you and Terry
end up meeting? I was transferred to not Away Correctional
Center in and I think were. Yeah, we we met
around early two thousand's and Terry, because of what he's
(47:37):
been through, he is totally aloof walking around with his
grid on his face every day, and most people really
didn't like Terry inside because of that, and so he
just kind of gravitated towards me. I was a leader
in the church and doing a lot of teaching and mentoring,
and a little bit at a time, he started sharing
with me his story and I would tell him, I said, well, Terry,
(48:00):
what are you doing about this? Well, at that time
that's I was working on a conditional pardon. I said, man,
your case is so bad that I could not possibly
see anybody reading all of this and not doing something
about it. And so eventually I would be granted my pardon.
On January twelve, two thousand eighteen, my wife had already
(48:21):
gotten hired by Attorney John A. Cock Show. He added
me to the team the very next day after my release.
Once Attorney Cock sual created what he called the Pardon
Petition Team. Terry Hobbs was our first client, so we've
been working with him since the end of So what
(48:42):
happened with the conditional pardon petition. We filed his original
pardon petition in just based on the bogus bank robbery.
They turned it down because they believed that he was
a fishback candidate. Fishback is for guys who were sittance
(49:02):
between nine and two thousand, and the jury wasn't instructed
that parole had been abolished, So these guys are getting
these long sentences and the jurors don't know that there's
no parole in Virginia, so they were under the assumption
that Terry was a fishback candidate. In hindsight, now I
(49:23):
think we probably should have done the double murders first,
because it was it was those double murders that removed
Terry from being fish back eligible for parole. If we
could have gotten the double murders removed with the pardon,
that would have just left the bank robbery, which would
have allowed him to go up for parole, turned down
(49:46):
his original pardon petition, and we had to wind up
calling Ms. Trudy Harris, who's the chief investigator over the
Parole Board, in forming her about all of this, and
they would eventually reinstate his petition. I mean, honestly, because
he's an innocent man of both of those things. We
went ahead and added an addendum to that original part
(50:10):
and petition showing both the bank robbery and the double
murders as being bogus, and that was November. So in essence,
his petition, from what I understand, hasn't reached the stage
of a full investigation yet and we're waiting on that.
And Lenny, normally we speak with our guest attorney. I'm
(50:33):
very happy to speak with you. But there's another sad
note to this story about why we're not speaking with him.
And I'm talking, of course, about the late great John Cotteshaw. Well. Unfortunately,
attorney John Cocksual he passed away June nine. It was
totally unexpected. We were just visiting him in April of two.
(50:55):
We all went to an awards event where he was
awarded Attorney of the Year, or Vandy and I were
awarded Authors of the Year, and we just saw him.
His wife had just passed away, probably three to four
months before he did, and we could kind of tell that,
you know, he that took the wind out of his sales.
You know, I'm sure he would have loved to get
(51:16):
Terry over the line before he passed. But you and
your wife, Andy are going to get him there, as
you have done for so many others already. And I
understand John trusted you both implicitly actually making you too,
fearless warriors A branch of his firm. We were the
western branch of the John A Coctual law firm. Yes,
(51:37):
and so yeah, we obtained eleven pardons since, including my own.
You're an inspirational guy, and I know you can do it.
So I know it was Terry mccalloughf that pardoned you.
And Governor Northern was also very active in this arena.
Now we have Governor clean Yunken. The thing about the
pardon process. When you're running a state as big as Virginia,
(52:00):
i'men wealth as big as Virginia, they just don't have
time to investigate. So he appoints people to do that,
Trudy Harris being the chief investigator for the Parole Board
over pardons. And then you have five Parole board members,
so he delegates that task onto them, and they make
a recommendation to the governor nine out of ten times,
(52:24):
unless it's something high profile and the governor just doesn't
want it to taint his political career, he goes with
the recommendation of that parole board and those investigators. Well,
I hope miss Harris is listening. We implore her don't
listen to us, follow the evidence. Look at the flimsy
false testimony in this case that was refuted by other witnesses,
and the physical evidence plus the more likely suspects. I
(52:47):
think you'll find that this should be an easy decision.
Now we're gonna have action steps linked in the biout,
and I also asked that our audience scroll down and
get involved. I always say pressure breaks pipes, people, and
we need you now. And with that, we're gonna go
to my favorite part of the show. Of course, this
is the part we call closing arguments where I turned
my microphone off and let you guys have the final say. So,
(53:13):
I'm gonna kick back in my chair with my headphones on.
Lenny Singleton once you go first, then Miss Catherine Hobbs,
and of course Terry. I'm going to save you for last.
Thank you all for being here, and now I'm just
gonna sit back and listen. This could happen to anyone.
(53:33):
He wasn't a choir boy, but he wasn't a bank robber,
and he wasn't a killer. This just goes to show
that our criminal justice system still has a very long
ways to go, especially as it relates to African American men,
Sadly we make up about the prison system in Virginia
(53:56):
and something needs to change. We need to get involved.
We need to talk to our elected officials, get them
involved with fixing the things that we know are wrong.
Using convicted felons as your only evidence in any case,
just can't take someone's word for it, especially if they're
(54:18):
getting a deal. You gotta have more evidence than that.
He got involved with the wrong people and they just
used him to gain their own freedom. I think Terry
was not even a lot of things and they could
see that, so they just used him. He's a mom.
(54:41):
I never would have did anything like this too anybody,
So I didn't think nobody would do this to me,
and neither did I. He needs to come on, he's
grown up. He needs to spend time with his daughter,
he needs to spend time with his whole family. And
I I'm so grateful and appreciative for what you all
(55:05):
are doing. Thank you very much, Jason to take this
time out to interview me, to shine a light on
the injustice that was done to me. I wouldn't wish
this on any person. He detect the speech, but when
he came to see me to serve the indictments on
me itself happened. They even applied that I make it,
(55:25):
help him with other cases and make my charges less
or disappear altogether. I told him, after what I've gone
through and what my family has gone through, I would
never put anyone or their family through what my family
hasn't doing just to regain my freedom. I'm not that individual.
I have to be able to look myself in the
rear and like what I see on the daily basis,
(55:47):
even if it was to spend the rest of my
life in prison, I had to live my life and
be able to hold my head up with pride and
not that I did not allowing somebody else or ruin
somebody else's life just to ease my suffering, because that's
what they wanted me to do. Thank you for listening
(56:10):
to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Wardis. With research by
Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast. And on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
(56:31):
well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
at it's Jason flop Rnful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good podcasts and association with signal Company Number
one
It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Portsmouth, Virginia,
and Terence Hobbs had just started dating Devona Buyers, a
young woman who shared a five year old daughter with
one of the biggest drug dealers in town. When the
FBI pressed Devana about aiding her ex with money laundering,
she agreed to testify against him in his federal drug charges,
planning to skip town afterward. Devanna and Terry's budding romance
(00:27):
fizzled as a result. On July six, shortly after her testimony,
the bodies of Devona Buyers and another lover, Leon Porter,
were discovered, having both been shot once in the head.
Investigators immediately honed it on Terry Hobbs, Devanna's most recent X,
but with no physical evidence to corroborate the theory, the
(00:47):
case went cold. As the summer wound down, a bank
robbery occurred in nearby Virginia Beach. While facing unrelated charges,
an old junior high acquaintance of Terry's, Eric Cook, alleged
that he had called Terry from jail and that Terry
had confessed to both the bank robbery and the July
double homicide. At the bank robbery trial, the bank teller
(01:09):
and another employee corroborated Eric Cook, which must have meant
that Terry's fingerprints had just been missed by the crime
scene technicians. At the double homicide trial, five witnesses facing
their own criminal charges painted Terry as a jealous ex boyfriend.
But they couldn't possibly all be lying, especially about a
(01:30):
convicted armed bank robber. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
back to wrongful conviction. Today we have a first on
(01:50):
this program, a double wrongful conviction. Now Terence Hobbs was
convicted of a bank robbery and then a completely separate
double homicide, both of which he had nothing to do with.
Terry joined us from not Away Correctional facility in Virginia. Terence,
Welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you for having me. Yeah,
you're very welcome and joining us as a man who
knew Terry on the inside. He himself was rightfully convicted
(02:13):
for a string of robberts in the nineties in which
no one got hurt and the proceeds amounted to around
five hundred eleven dollars. But I think it's fair to
say that you were over sentenced, having received a grand
total of get this one thousand, three hundred and ten years.
Governor mccauliffe granted him a conditional pardon back in two
thousand eighteen, and Lenny has been fighting to clear Terry
(02:37):
ever since. Lenny Singleton, welcome to the show. Thank you,
glad to be here, very glad to have you, and
also here with us as someone who's been fighting for
Terry the longest. His mother, Catherine Hobbs, thank you from
the bottom of my heart for joining us and very
courageously sharing today. You're welcome, happy to be here. Now,
(02:57):
these crimes took place in two cities that are close
to one another. There was a bank robbery in Virginia Beach,
and about a month before that, there was a double
homicide in which the departed were a woman named Devana Buyers,
who was the mother of a drug kingpin's daughter and
her new lover, Leon Porter, a man who was in
possession of a very large amount of cocaine. So you know,
(03:20):
maybe he was a competing dealer. We we don't know,
but it doesn't seem far fetched. So the homicide portion
of this is certainly touching that world in Portsmouth, Virginia. Now, Lenny,
when you were in the military before your conviction. You
were stationed in Virginia. Right. Remember, Portsmouth, Virginia was like
one of the heroin capitals of the world, this country anyway,
(03:43):
and they were known for corruption. Every time I opened
the paper back in the nineties, there was always some
issue about corruption in Portsmouth, right, and Terry, you grew
up there, so could you, or maybe miss Hobbs, if
you want to jump in here too, could you tell
us about your life growing up on August the third,
nineteen seventy in the city of Portsmouth, Virginia to up
(04:04):
a middle class black family, pretty much had a typical child,
and I guess you could say so. I was diagnosed
with dyslexia in very greed and he was very self
conscious about that. But they said he had above average intelligence,
but he had the reading problem. And at the time
they didn't know how to help students with that reading problem,
(04:27):
so they put in a special education in which you
get a certificate. You do not get a ptoma. We
come from a military family, and he wanted to go
so much with that certificate, he was not able to go.
And your military upbringing brought you in touch with guns,
and you owned several legal firearms, all of which were
being stored out of your possession at the time of
(04:49):
the crime. But even the fact that you own firearms
at all was eventually used against you, even though none
of your guns could be connected to the crimes were
about to discuss here, But let's get back to Terry's childhood.
I started working at an early age and got a
job at food line at age sixteen and worked all
through high school at food line. After the food line
(05:10):
and my cousin got me a job with him working
at the shipyard. Unfortunately, I got laid off and at
one point in time i'd be again involved in seven
robes on a very small level, but I never got
a risk in food and then after I was able to,
you know, get my career back on track, I walked
away from it. And you'll get no judgment from me
(05:31):
about being involved in drugs. But that, along with the
love of motorcycles, did bring you into contact with a
crowd of people who later went on to help frame
you in exchange for leniency in their own very serious cases.
But in the lead up to these two incidents, you
were gainfully employed at the coast Guard based shipyard. Now
(05:51):
I want to go back to your time at food
Line during high school. You worked there for a short
while with one of the victims in this case, right,
Devona Buyers. Is that where the two of you first met.
I met Devana Bays in junior high school and we
pretty much hung with different crowds. She was always extremely
beautiful and extremely popular, being laiter home. She worked at
(06:13):
Food Rhyme with me for maybe three months, and now
I probably didn't see her again until I was about
twenty five years old. And at that time you two
became romantically involved, but that unfortunately got cut short, most
likely by the circumstances in her life surrounding the father
of her five year old daughter, Kia, a man named
(06:33):
Dathaniel Skeet Richardson who was a major player in the
Portsmouth drug game and was under federal indictment at the time.
But before he got his federal drug indictument, he had
a long list of charges, a lot of them violent.
Even one of the charges was shooting gift of his
(06:54):
girlfriend and unborn child, and he wanted to getting out
on me in the Hall of Land. So this is
a young guy who's already a suspect, and the killing
of the mother of his unborn child, and he's got
a lot of money. He probably paid a hundred thousand
cash on that million dollars to get himself out. Maybe
(07:14):
he put up the whole million, I don't know, but
one way another he was loaded. He was making more
money in a month than most of the police officers
were making in a year at that time back in Portsmouth,
so clearly, had he chosen to he had more than
enough money to corrupt a local officer into giving him
(07:35):
a pass or even offering him protection from the law
possibly posible. I wouldn't be surprised. Back in those days,
not with Portsmouth. It wasn't uncommon for police to be
on pay rolls, especially he's drug kingpins. Back in those days.
From what I understand it, twenty two or twenty three
years olds, Keith Richardson had so much money that he
(07:56):
had developed a money laundering scheme involving the prayer just
a trade of expensive cars, and one of those trades
involved Devanna, and eventually the FEDS approached her, threatening her
with money laundering charges if she didn't cooperate in their
prosecution of Skeith Richardson, who was under federal indictment for
a laundry list of drug charges, conspiracy, etcetera. I told
(08:17):
her I felt like, considering the people today were asking
her to talk about and testify against, I didn't think
it was in her best interests. And I told her,
you know the money liner in charges an consider white
collar crimes. You may do two or three years and
you can start the lifeful. She wasn't interested in hearing it.
She wasn't trying to do a single day. It was
(08:38):
that decision to testify against him that was more than
likely what led to her death. So she was subpoena
tip here in court and she did. And then what
happened About a week or two before she was killed,
she went to even Mississippi or Alabama to spend some
time with family down there. And after she came back,
she asked me if I would be willing to move
(09:00):
with her to Mississippi or Alabama after she finished cooperating
with the FBI, and you know, I'll be honest, which
I considered it, but I didn't want to have to
leave my home on the old circumstances had nothing to
do with it. So at this point, even though you
two were still occasionally sleeping together. You had created some
distance between you and Devanna, hardly the actions of a
(09:23):
jealous boyfriend, as the state would later paint you when
you were prosecuted for what happened in the aftermath of
her testimony in this federal drug trial. So let's get
to that. This was the night of July into the
tent of n just two weeks after she had testified
against her baby's father, who was, of course the drug kingpin. Now,
apparently she had been with her parents earlier that evening,
(09:45):
went home with her five year old daughter, Kia, and
a man named Leon Face Porter was his nickname. Face.
Kia had gone to bed then around midnight and ear
witness her gunshots around four am. Kia called her grandfather
after discus bring her mother and Mr Porter were dead.
Police found that the outside door an apartment door, had
(10:05):
been busted open. Devana was found by the foot of
the bed, shot in the back of the head. Mr
Porter was found lying on the bed and he had
been shot in the face, as if he had been
sitting on the edge of the bed when he was shot.
But I woke up to my page of going off
back to back to back to back to back. The
roma was that Devanna and I had gotten murdered. Once
(10:25):
they found out that I hadn't gotten killed because the
nature of our relationship when we were still sleeping with
each other from time to time, I became a suspect.
They tried to say it was a crime of passion
a jealous boyfriend, but those two people were shot execution
style only once, and they know that she just testified
against the biggest drug dealer in Portsmouth, Virginia. Right even
(10:48):
though the Vanna's baby's father, Nathaniel Skeet Richardson, was the
logical suspect. They pursued Terry anyway. But you had seen
a movie with your sister the night before, then went
to your parents house to pick up some mail before
spending the night at your sister's And when you woke
up to your page or just blowing up, you called
some friends, found out what had happened, and you and
(11:08):
your sister went to Devon's parents house and I agree
to talk to the police, And at some point in time,
Detective Huntington and Detective beach a Lotok showed up at
Devna's house, so they asked you to accompany them to
the detectors euro and you were, I would say, as
cooperative as you possibly could be. At first, they asked
me a few questions, asked me about my whereabouts that day,
(11:32):
and then he got around to ask me if I
owned any firearms, which I told him I did and
gave him a list of the firearms. They asked me
if I had any problem with them running ballistics tests home.
I had the guns delivered to the police department I
can send into the gunshot residute tests. They tested his guns,
they tested his fingerprints. Nothing matched. They asked me if
(11:55):
I had any problems taking a lot of detective tests,
which I didn't at the time. Yeah, you're agreed to
the light detective test. And you also told him where
he could find your other firearm at the Portsmouth Big
Tackle and Pawn Shop detect the Huntington went there to
try to retrieve my blog from the shop, and I
think the lady's name was Kathleen half Cock, and he
(12:16):
told her personally that he was there to get my
gun because it was used in a murder. Luckily, she
had the presence of mind to ask when the murders
take place after he told her when the murders took place.
She told him that there was no way possible to
that weapon could have been used and that crime because
they had been Irish shop prior to the crime taken place.
(12:37):
So it seems that Detective Huntington's had already pretty much
decided that you were the focus of his investigation, despite
the fact that you had been cooperative. There was nothing
that was a match for you. There are alibis, and
there was nothing that pointed in your direction anyway. You
started getting wind of this right Detective Huntington's at one
point in time, he actually told my sister that he
had been informed by several individuals that I was running
(12:58):
around in the street ragging that I had committed the murders.
And I called Detective Huntington's back and asked him what
was he talking about, because I hadn't been talking to anybody.
I told him straight up, I said, look, it seems
like you're more concerned was listening to rooms that you're
hearing in the street versus taking what you have at
the crime seemed the actual evidence and using that as
(13:20):
your starting point to start your investigation and do your job.
So then after we had that conversation, he asked me
what I still be willing to come in and and take
a lot to take the test The next day, I
told him I was not interested in taking a lot
of detect the tests. Instead of him doing his job,
it seemed like he was more interested in trying to
hang these crimes on me. So now things are heated
between you and this detective. But he's got nothing on you.
(13:41):
Nothing connects you to this murder besides your previous relationship
with the deceased. And there's definitely a much more motivated
and likely suspect in the mix. But for now the
case went cold. The summer was coming to a close,
and at this time, two guys that you knew in
Junior High, Darryl and Eric Cook, had gotten involved in
bankrupt race. They were awaiting charges on two separate incidents
(14:03):
at bank robbery and Chesapeake and then another one in Portsmouth,
and the second one involved to shoot out with the
police and Eric Cook. He was looking to trade information
for leniency. Seems to me that Mr. Eric Cook made
his living doing that. So while that part of the
story is simmering in the background, the entire Hobbs family
was headed to Franklin Virginia for a family reunion on Friday,
(14:24):
August thirty, when Terry received a traffic ticket on his
ride out there, and that ticket was issued around six
forty pm near Franklin, which is only about an hour's
drive outside of the Portsmouth, Virginia Beach area, where you
have to remember this was on a holiday weekend within
DEAs traffic and people coming in from out of state,
there would be about a two and a half to
three hours draft fighting at traffic. So this traffic ticket
(14:47):
out in Franklin at six pm makes it extremely unlikely
that you could even be physically available to commit a
bank robbery in Virginia Beach a little after four pm
that same afternoon. Now, this isn't the same bank robbery
that Eric and Darryl Cook were arrested for. This is
a totally separate incident. This was August after four pm
(15:08):
in Virginia Beach. A black man in his mid twenties
with a baseball hat, sunglasses, a thick coatee, and a
dark blue backpack entered the first Virginia Bank on the
corner of Virginia Beach Boulevard and King's Grant Round. He
revealed a gun in his waistband, but he never drew it.
The bank teller ms Berrard complied with his demands and
handed over about eight in small bills, and the robber
(15:29):
fled the scene. Now, this is a bank, so they've
got all kinds of surveillance footage, of course, and screenshots
of this robber. And I've seen the pictures. There's no
way you can look at those photos and say Terry
Hobbs did it. At that time, I couldn't even grow
a full beat. I had a peach full it's mustache,
and that was pretty much it. With a guy who
restually robbed the bank had a full mustache and gottee
(15:51):
that was so thick that you couldn't see that a
drop of skin through his mustache or goateee. On top
of that, the guy wasn't wearing any gloves. Into the transcripts,
his hands were over the glass the case. There in
the bank, they grand new fingerprints. Guess what, Terry's fingerprints
didn't match anything there. Very soon after the robbery, when
(16:11):
shown a photo array with Terence's picture, the bank teller
ms Berrard, end up bank employee named Jeanie Chaplin both
said that they couldn't make a positive idea due to
the assailant having worn a hat, sunglasses, and a thick coate,
but somehow that later changed, So no idea, no fingerprint
match where there definitely were fingerprints left to the scene.
(16:34):
But now here comes Eric Cook, a guy Terry hasn't
spoken to since junior high school who's facing his own
bank robbery charges as well as the attempted murder of
a police officer from Virginia Beach City Jail. And he
was clearly looking to trade information for the leniency. But
I thought that he had robbed a bank in Portsmouth.
He was on a courtesy hole and protective custody and
(16:55):
Reginia Beach because when he was an enforcement cd J
of the city which he attempted a committed bank robbery,
and when he was in the jail block, any person
that was in a sale with him or in the
pot with him, he would get on the phone and
call crime solvers and say that these people were confessing
the committing crimes. So it eventually got around and the
whole pot turned on him and beat him within an
(17:17):
inch of his life, and he had to be hospitalized.
And after he was released from medical treatment. He was
put in Virginia Beach City Jail in protective custody, and
that's what he called crimes halves once again from me,
even at the expense of almost losing his life for
bearing false witness against people, he still hadn't learned his lesson.
So he goes from Portsmouth Jail under Detective Huntington's jurisdiction
(17:41):
to Virginia Beach who are a friend of Huntington's. A
detective name Chris Mullen was working in the August thirtie
bank robbery and Eric Cook called crime solvers with information
that just so happened to benefit both detectives. He claims.
He called me. He said that I had told him
that I had robbed the bank Beach and I had
(18:03):
also murdered Devana by his in leon Porta. But this
alleged call between you and Eric Cook would have been
made from a jail phone. Not only would it have
been recorded and made for some really compelling evidence of trial,
but it also would have shown up on your phone records,
if in fact it ever took place. So I got
my phone record during that time and it showed no
(18:25):
calls from no institution on that man didn't even have
my phone number. I couldn't even tell you what my
phone number would So this phone call just simply never
took place. And you know, calls to crime stoppers are anonymous.
But yet instead of the authorities paying a visit to
Terry to see what he had to say about these allegations,
somehow detective hunting things buddy in Virginia Beach, Detective Chris
(18:49):
Maulen knew exactly who to go visit in the Virginia
Beach City jail. So one can only surmise that this
was a plan that was matched between Maullen Huntington's and
they're highly incentivized witness Eric Cook to make a quasi
anonymous call to crime solvers. But there's something else that's
(19:12):
interesting about the interviews with Eric Cook. Every single interview
that I have that will copies of statements made to
the police will detect the robber hunting General David Beachlaw
and which I think is extremely odd. Why are you
sitting an interviewing this man about a Virginia Beach bank robbery.
You have absolutely newer risk powers in the city of Virginia.
Leech all right, this ship stinks already. But but as
(19:35):
I mentioned, the bank teller Ms. Berrard and the bank
employee Jini Chaplin did not make an ID from the
photo lineup right bank teller herself. She says, this guy
right here kind of looks like the robber, but because
of the robber wanted disguise, which was the head and sunglasses,
I'm not one. It wasn't sure that this is the robber.
(19:55):
That is not a positive identification. But yet if you
look at my risk, want is say is the reason
I was being charged with that crime was due to
the sworn statements of Christopher C. Moleen, not the actual victims,
Tracy Barad or Jeanie Chaplin. So detect them. Moeen fabricated evidence,
and both he and Eric Cook perjured themselves in order
to obtain your arrestaurant. The morning of September twenty third,
(20:18):
ninety six, they took me over to the Detectives Bureau.
They kept me in that room I don't know how
many hours, and Detective Hunting and came in there and
tried to give me the impression that I was being
charged with the murders and he was gonna make sure
that I got the death penalty. I didn't take it
too kindly, and I told him if he got off
his ass and did his fucking job and went by
the evidence at the crime scene, he could find out
(20:39):
who committed the murders and stopped harassing me. So he
looks at me and walked out the rum and within
five minutes to take the Moleen came in and asked
me to set aside my conversation that I had just
had with Detective Huntington. So then he starts talking to
me about the bank robber in Marginia Beach and he
said I had already been identified as a suspect. I
volunteered my finger prince to run them if they had
(21:02):
finger prince will recover from the crime scene. Not only
had he collective finger prints from the bank robbery, they
had already run my finger prints against the finger prints
from the bank robbery before I was arrested, and they
came out negative. They always knew you hadn't committed this crime.
And sometimes we just see a nihilistic approach from a
detective where they just don't care at all who they
(21:23):
got as long as they closed the case. You know
what they say, A body for a body. But here
it seems as if all of this tension between you
and Huntington's was just adding fuel to his fire. So
were you able to bond out? And they took me
to the Virginia Beach City jail. I think I was
allowed probably close to ninety days before I was able
to get a bond right, And I had to get
an attorney to get his bond. Kin Meldon, he's a
(21:46):
judge now, but the alternety that got the bond for me,
and it was a fifty dollar bond, so he was
out on bond for a little while. But you couldn't
afford Ken Melvin for the full trial, and eventually you
had a quarter pointed a her knee. But even for
someone who was presumably overworked and underpaid, as almost all
of the public defendors in the country are, this still
(22:08):
should have been an easy win. You had this false
statement from Eric Cooke about an alleged phone call that
you could prove never took place, and then Ms Berard
and Miss Chaplin who never identified you. But as we
so often see, sometimes witness has become more confident in
their ideas as the trial approaches. Yes, that goes from
(22:31):
him not being showed on the person to Nambia Hunter
person showed on the person nine months later. How can
she positively say it was Terry and she couldn't do
it hours after the robbery. It just it just smells
bad to me that she was coached. But okay, your
attorney could have impeached these ideas as unreliable considering the
fact that the witnesses had not been able to make
(22:52):
an idea then the immediate aftermath of the robbery just
hours after it took place, as well as the fact
that the bank robber his face and had were covered
by a hat, sunglasses, and the thick goatee that Terry
couldn't possibly have grown. Plus, we know that you were
out of town and route to your family reunion in Franklin, Virginia.
(23:13):
You had, I mean, for christ Takes, You had a
traffic ticket to prove it, as well as the officer
who issued the ticket. Now I understand that he was
called as a witness to corroborate your whereabouts. Right when
I walked in the courtroom that day, blow on the
whole Detective Huntington's and Golan having a discussion with this
police officer that issued me the traffic ticket before he
ever takes the stand. He takes the stand and states
(23:36):
that he can't remember I'm the person that he actually
gives you the kicky too. So my next request was
is that he give us the original copy of the kicket. Well,
the original copy of the ticket supposingly was destroyed and
the key supposing they had a guy in the paint
and the trunk of his car and had an accident
and the paint stilled on his paperwork, and therefore the
ticket was no longer available. But I find that hard
(23:57):
to believe. Sounds totally made up to me. But still
there's more that could have been done to combat the state.
Besides what should have been an easy job impeaching the
credibility of the ideas. You had this patently bogus statement
from Eric Cooke about an alleged phone call confession that
you could conclusively prove never took place. So what happened
(24:22):
with that? Apparently after my AlterNet, they showed the Commo
fraternity the copy of my phone records. The phone records
reflected Erie never even called me. They allowed Eri to
change his testimony, and they also sealed his statement that
he made to the Reginia Beach police because in the discovery,
when my mom had full from the archives, they did
not allow us to see any statement he ever made
(24:45):
to the police. So all you knew was that he
alleged that you confessed on a phone call. This wasn't
some opportunity to cross examined and create doubt when you
submitted the phone records to evidence as proof of the lies.
That would it should have shut down their lying star
witness completely. So the state just sidestepped your defense with
(25:07):
more lies. But you had no idea that they were
going to do this. How could you have predicted that
your defense was prepared to disprove the lie about the
phone call, but was not prepared to combat this new lie.
The evidence was not shared with the defense. It's just
perfect example of a Brady violation right out in the
(25:27):
opening plain sight. So what did he change his story too?
He changed his story and see it that he walked
up on a conversation that me and his brother was
plotting robbed his bank in Virginia Beach, and we said
and planned it out in detailed myself and his brother
in the commonweal'st attorney basically vouched for his credibility and
how he was coming forward at great risk to hisself
(25:47):
because of me being an extremely danger individual, and that
he was putting itself at great risk to protect the
citizens of Virginia Beach from people like myself. So not
a bank Robert trating false testimony for len and See,
actually a concerned citizen with nothing to gain, Just a
concerned citizen. They were aught about a judge. Not to
bring up his criminal history, none of his prior crimes
(26:08):
because and Chesapeake, his citizen had been postponed and inform
of his citizen had been postponed, and under the guidelines
of the law until he's officially sentenced by a judge,
he is not a convicted felon. He was actually one
before he started his line of question, and not to
ask him any questions about where he's housed at or
anything that would lead him into the divulsion to the
jury that he was arrested and convicted of any type
(26:30):
of crime for his testimony. He was given three years
and thirty days for the attempted bank robbery, enforcements to
use the farms and the commission of a felony and
the attempt to capital the murder of a police officer. Jesus.
I mean even the attempted murder of a police officer
usually carries you know, a little bit more than that,
of course, but his statue on a murder is either
life or death. He did three years and thirty days
(26:52):
and then only was sentenced for the Chesapeake bank robbery
after he was released from prisoner. By time they suspended
all this time, he only he is six years than
eight months. So between the two robbery, the three years
of arms and commissional a felony, and the attempt capital
of murderful police officer, he got less than ten years.
So your lawyer wasn't even allowed to bring up the
(27:13):
back that this guy is receiving a huge break on
his own charges in exchange for testifying against you. This
is really dirty. So so Eric Cook's statement appeared to
be corroborated by the now all of a sudden sure witnesses,
and that was enough to overcome the fingerprint evidence of
the contrary, which by that I mean the fact that
(27:35):
you certainly were not there the finder prints that were recovered.
We couldn't even really go into that too much because
the Calm war frattorney she didn't want to find the
prince inted in the evidence. What about your attorney? He
didn't make the motion, So the jury came to a
sadly predictable conclusion. Nobody in the jury would look at me,
which I knew that was the bad. They came with
(27:57):
the guilty Verdy. I looked over to Moline and Huntingden
Hynden poinked in me, and you'd get you. We'll be
(28:17):
right back after this. This episode is underwritten by a
i G, a leading global insurance company. A i G
is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making a
positive difference in the lives of its employees and in
the communities where we work and live. In light of
the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and in
recognition of a i g s commitment to criminal and
(28:38):
social justice reform, the A i G pro Bono Program
provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities
and individuals. So now you're convicted, but you still had
to go to sentence. And when your lawyer still had
one move left, he located Eric Hook's brother Darryl, who
(29:01):
took the stand. Darrel Cook came forward and took the
stand and my a journey asked him some questions and
basically just did his brother was lying because he didn't
want to do time. And and then my lawyer made
a motion that the judge set aside the verdict and
all a new trial or overturned the conviction altogether. But
the judge wasn't happening. He upheld the conviction. The fact
(29:25):
that his brother got understand and then they found phone
records for bogus that there was never a call. I
don't know how that did not get overturned. He appealed
my centison, which my guylines for five years and one month.
In me arranged point was six years and two months.
Nine years was the max, and they gave me forty
eight years and a thirty thousand, all of five So,
(29:47):
in light of Eric Cook's own brother coming into testify
against him, the States star witness, which should have really
shaken their confidence in this conviction, instead of the max
of nine years, they doubled down on this tragedy by
over sentencing you. So your lawyer must have had an
appeal ready to go. I know in Virginia you've got
to get it filed within thirty days of the conviction,
(30:07):
though right he had to stay upponted attorney that really
did nothing for him. Even times I would go to
his office to try and meet with him, I think
I was avoided twice. The third time I laid in
wait in the parking lot, they said he wasn't there,
so I stayed in the parking lot until he got
(30:27):
there so I could have a talk with him. How
did that conversation go? I went up to his office
with him because I wanted to know what was going on.
Where are we now with the appeal? Well, and that's
when he let me know he didn't get it piled
in time. Author rich who has been disbarred more than
(30:47):
three times for one of the very things that he
did to me, You know how you have a constitutional
right to an appeal. I've never had an appeal for
my case in Virginia Beach because he made the motion
that he would be filing until and never filed it
and I was time, but so my constitutional right to
appeal was lost. It was revealed later that he had
(31:07):
a cocaine habit and he was dearely been his duties.
So I know when I when I claimed ineffective assistance
of council. That's exactly what I had, whether Calm was
attorney when he get defiled their briefs, they claim I
was only claiming ineffective assistance of council is because I
was unsatisfied with the outcome of my trial. So you
were time bart on the direct appeal and denied on
(31:29):
a clear case of ineffective assistance of council, and therefore
you were stuck to serve out a forty eight years sentinence,
effectively a life sentence. At this time, Virginia made another
horrendous move, which is that they did away with parole entirely.
But if your jury had not been advised that you
would never be eligible, as was in fact the case here,
you would have been what is known as a fishback candidate.
(31:53):
So that becomes an issue later on and will explain that.
So you've potentially got parole to look forward to. Meanwhile,
unbeknownst to you, Detective Huntington's was out there for several
years building up a case against you for the double homicide,
and he was talking to people you knew through your
hobby of riding motorcycles, as well as some guys that
you knew from your short time that you spent dealing drugs,
(32:16):
and Detective Huntington's was working on coercing and incentivizing them
to cooperate, and eventually he was successful at finding five
people who were willing to do it. Every single one
of them have cases against them and most of them
are big time drug dealers or in the drug trade
(32:37):
and they have something to gain by lying on Terence Hobbs.
Detective Huntington's yeah, he he was on a mission to
convict the wrong man of these double murders, Terry, since
the only thing you knew about Eric Cook's initial statement
at this point was that he had implicated you in
the robbery, and the rest of the details were sealed,
including the fact that he had implicated you in the
(32:59):
double murder as well. Were you even aware of Detective
Huntington's investigation. When did you find out? I was actually
sitting in prison at Southampton Commersional Facility. I'm sitting in
the sale looking at television and they had movies on
the weekend and he were forced to see and one
of my friends come past the sale and he said
t he said, man, he said, I just saw you
(33:20):
on the news. They just indicted you. For to Council
Capital murder. I said, my go here with that bullshit.
Stop playing, he said, I wouldn't play about nothing like did.
He said, turned from the movie channel. He said, if
he turned the NBC, cbsl A, ABC, every time they
show a commercial, they had showing you face on the
news and you being charged in a cold case. I
couldn't believe it. And then we thought that too. What
(33:44):
had happened at night? He and as going to the
movie right, He was with his sister at the movies
and came by your house for some mail, then went
back to his sisters. She accounted for his arrival around
midnight at the same time that your witness heard gunshots
from Ivanna Buyer's apartment. She and Leon Porter were each
shot once, execution style. She had already been threatened that
(34:08):
if she testified against the jug kingpin, which was her
daughter's father, then what would happen to her. He had
already shot and killed someone else that was Karen, his
baby before he was locked up. But rather than tracking
down those leaves, Detective Huntington's just went ahead and pursued Terry,
whose fingerprints again were not found. In a scene where
(34:30):
they almost certainly should have been considering his relationship with Tavanna,
and Terry was more than helpful. He came to Devana's
house with his sister who was ready to vouch for
his whereabouts, and all of his guns were tested for
holistics evidence. He willingly gave his fingerprints submitted to a
GSR testing. No matches were found, and at least initially
(34:51):
he was willing to take a lot of detective tests,
but none of that was good enough for this Detective
Huntington's It almost makes you think that he was doing
everything he could to avoid investigating the guy who he
should have been investigating, which was Keith Richardson. So, with
this lack of evidence and clear standout suspect, Detective hunting
And had to get creative and he conjured up five witnesses,
(35:12):
but the stories weren't quite adding up. But even with
this weak, ask bullshit case, publicly they were claiming that
they had five corroborating witnesses. If you look at the
newspaper article that was dated over the first nineteen and
the Virginian Pilot newspaper. They were requesting the def penalty
and they even came to me with a twenty year
(35:32):
plead to try to get me a plead guilty for
con council capital murder, and I refused to take a
guilty plead of twenty years for two murders that I
had not committed. They came back in a teen year
plead to me, and I refused to take that as well.
They had My attorney asked me, would be any amount
of time that I would be willing to accept so
(35:52):
that they wouldn't have to take me a trial, and
I would not take it. I actually still have a
copy of the twenty year plead they did penia plea
verbally twenty year plea for two council capital murder to
ranking current with the forty years in Virginia Beach. Now
the state of Virginia, there's only two penalties for capital
murder his life or death. So how do you offer
(36:15):
a man or twenty year pleading the in turnaround and
awful him a teen year plead for a capital murder
unless you know he didn't do it. Yes, they know
he's not the guy. No prosecutor would come with a
ten year plea deal on a double murder if they
knew he committed to crime. No way, No, hel that's
(36:36):
just bullshit. They want to close the case. Nevertheless, they
took him to trial knowing that the evidence was all
just incentivized testaalize that started with Eric Cooke. He was
so unreliable that they did not even include him in
this proceeding at all. Now, the five quote unquote new
witnesses here were Shawn Saunders, Curtis Freeman, William Godwin, Derek
(37:00):
Blackwall and Tyrone Wallace. And we're about to destroy all
of their credibility right now. Well. Shawn Saunders, who happens
to be a three time felon and who admitted to
Terry's mom after the trial that he had lied to
avoid going back to prison. He worked with Terry on
the construction job at the Coast Guard base. He testified
(37:20):
that he and Terry we're good friends through on high school.
But Saunders, that you know, actually dropped out of school
in eighth grade. According to Terry, didn't see him again
until he worked with him on the Coast Guard job,
and Saunders claimed that while they were working together that
Terry told him that he and Devana were breaking up
and that if he ever found Devana with another man,
(37:41):
he would kick in the door of her apartment if
he had to with killer Sean Saunders claimed that he
told my supervisor. My supervisor actually came to court and
testifill on my behalf. He said we were never alone together,
that he worked in one place and I worked in another.
A year before the trial, Interestingly, Saunders had been subpoena
but he didn't tell you authorities about Terry's alleged emissions.
(38:02):
Then you know, it was only the day before Terry's
trial after Saunders again was a rest of for selling drugs.
The Saunders come up with a story that Terry threatened
to kick in Devana's door and kill her if he
saw her with another man. Saunders testify that Terry had
said he would park his motorcycle around back and kick
in the back door and use a silencer on a gun.
(38:24):
But there's a problem with this that ear witness would
have definitely heard a motorcycle and importantly, there is no
back door, So he would have made that mistake to
say I'm going to kick in the back door knowing
there is no back door. Right, Terry knew that apartment
well and never would have mentioned a non existent backdoor. Now,
(38:44):
Curtis Freeman, he was facing home invasion and robbery charges.
What did he say to save his own skin? Freeman's
testifying that he was familiar with Terry's motorcycle, which he
described as being a neon greenish color in purple and
allegedly unique because of his bright colors, despite Terry riding
with many others who also had these colorful sport motorcycles.
(39:07):
He also testified that he noticed Terry's motorcycle parked around
the block from Devana's apartment on the night of the murders,
and that he said Terry had a notoriously loud motorcycle
because of the modifications. So now the bike is parked
around the block, and again, where was the ear witness
on this extremely loud motorcycle. They heard the gunshots, but
(39:30):
no notoriously loud motorcycle speeding away. They somehow missed that
one Freeman was given probation for a home invasion and
robbery because of his cooperation. And Lenny can back me
up here, but these are not the types of sentences
that Virginia is known for dolling out for home invasions
or anything for that matter. I mean, Lenny got over
(39:51):
a thousand years for stealing just a little bit over.
Oh my goodness. So now we're at William Godwin or
Bill Godwin. Right, he was in federal custody a drug
possession conspiracy charges with the seventeen and a half year sentence.
Initially he had said that he didn't know anything about
the murders, but knew that Terry was innocent. What did
he say to get released after just two and a
(40:11):
half years? Just like he claimed that he was with
me and he saw me threatened Greg Elliott with a
far because Gregg was at her house visiting her, and
Greg Elliott came the court subpoena ever calm most attorney witness,
and once he took the stand, basically said that everything
that deal testified too was a lie. So there goes
(40:31):
line number one. Then Godwin testified that he had been
told by a man named Darryl Evans about a conversation
that Evans had overheard which Terry had confessed to the murders.
Errol Evan has come to court and testify it and
refused Beal's testimony. So there goes Godwin making the Commonwealth
look stupid again. He also alleged that Terry had basically
confessed to him about the murders. But I think Godwin
(40:51):
had already told too many lies that have been refuted
in court for anyone to take him seriously about anything.
So on to Derek Blackwell. Now, he was in federal
custody on charges of being a drug kingpinner running a
criminal enterprise, facing thirty years to life. Initially he had
told police to hear nothing about the crimes, but then
he lies and says about two to three weeks after
(41:13):
the killings, he and Terry were at a gas station
in Portsmouth and Terry unsolicited now admits to shooting Divana
and Porter. He first offered his story about Terry's alleged
confession about two months after he had been arrested in
November of n for federal drug conspiracy charges. Black Will
(41:36):
only served three and a half years as a result
of his cooperation. Interesting with Blackwell's testimony, You know, he
said Terry was with him at his house all day
until seven pm on July. That's directly contradicted by Terry's
work time card at the Coast Guard base that day.
(41:57):
Just another fucking lion. Just add that to his description
of Terry's bike as primarily black. I thought it was Neon,
Green and purple. So enough of this guy. Last, but
not least, Tyrone Wallace, who was in federal custody facing
drug conspiracy charges, evidence is clear that the door was
kicked in. Wallace testified that Terry admitted he killed Divanna
(42:19):
and Porter after he had parked his bike. Now it's
a couple of blocks away, not behind, a couple of
blocks away on the night of the murders and entered
the apartment with a duplicate key. Yet we know the
door had been kicked in. He also said that Terry
had said that he shot Porter while he was lying
in bed, and that he shot Divanna from under the chin,
(42:39):
but the medical examiner established it Porter was shot in
the face while sitting at the end of the bed
and Divanna had been shot in the back of the head.
So contradiction after contradiction after contradiction. You know, he faced
twenty two years and served less than four. Come on, man,
it's just exponential injustice on top of an already insane
duple wrongful conviction. But I mean, couldn't the jury see
(43:03):
how these guys their stories just weren't matching up, that
their stories didn't match the back to the crime, and
in some cases their lives were called out by both
defense and prosecution witnesses that this was not some jealous
boyfriend case, but rather a homicide that was in retribution
for divnest testimony against her acts. Yeah, the comma the
turning kept down playing it is that would not be
(43:25):
enough motive compared to the evidence that they had. And
the only evidence that they had against me was the
false testimony of these witnesses. And I guess the only thing,
and I think could think that would have caused me
to get a guilty verdict is that the jury would
feel like, well, all of these guys can't be lying,
even though they were. They had tried to kill me
(44:00):
without killing my body. They killed me by killing my reputation,
which in turn caused me to be found guilty of
these crimes. And they thought that this is gonna be
the e for me, that they were gonna lock me
up for basically thirty and that was gonna be the
end of my story. And that's a number that Lenny
is all too familiar with. These insane numbers really started
after they abolished parole in Virginia, right when was that. Well,
(44:24):
guys had opportunities at parole well before ninety five January.
So even in a case like this, if you had
a life sentence you start going up for parole in
twelve years to life sentences, you still get an opportunity
to go up you just it would take around twenty years.
Guys still had a shot if you weren't given a
(44:44):
life without the possibility of the life sentences didn't nail
you until after they abolished parole. And so now if
you get life, it means exactly that life. Wow, and
you have how long to follow your appeal in Virginia?
You got thirty days to get that appeal in immediately.
So Terry, I'm going to imagine that you didn't just
want to take this insane sentence lying down. But with
(45:06):
two wrongful convictions and this seriously short amount of time
for a meaningful appeal to be filed, no potential DNA testing,
no possibility of parole, what happened? Did your lawyer screw
it up and get time barred again? We actually went
through the actual and tip fuel process and that one
single Julius would overturn the convictions, I mean post conviction
litigation is largely based on whether or not you received
(45:27):
due process and if any constitutional rights were violated. I'm
sure ineffective assistance could be argued here, but accompanying actual
innocence claims can be helpful with any other claims. And
the only evidence against you at the second trial were
these inconsistent and patently and obviously false statements from these
incentivized witnesses. It was all of that pointed out to them. Yes,
(45:50):
all of this stuff was pointed out, but to say
in fact that the matter is a lot of these
people don't want to point to saying that another prosecute
or police officer and say that they were on And
that's just a sad fact of the matter. Without the
support of my family, I believe I would have lost
myself in here because I'm gonna tell you something. I'm
surrounded in this small amount of acreage of this penitentiary.
(46:13):
I'm around from everything that you could possibly think of, murderers, rapist,
child molesters, necrophilia, best reality, I'm around the worst of
the worst. Had I not had the love and support
of my family sticking by me and it just received
that unconditional love, it kept me from losing myself in here.
(46:34):
To be completely honest with you, I don't know what
kind of person I would be now had I been
left to living in this environment of violence and blood
and sweat and tears people and seeing people commit suicide
hanging themselves because they could not do this time. I
do this time every single day, alcohol free, disease free,
(46:54):
drug free and heal things, so the things that most
people doing here to deal with this reality, I deal
with sober. That's the only way I can have a
clear head to do what I need to do, to
try to mount the best defense that I can for myself. Phone,
when people like yourself are interesting to hearing my story,
I can tell the key. And of course people like
Lenny who heard your story. If not for him, we
(47:16):
wouldn't be having this recording session right now. And if
I hadn't read about his story of course in the
New York Times, I'm not sure any of us would
be talking right now. Lenny. How did you and Terry
end up meeting? I was transferred to not Away Correctional
Center in and I think were. Yeah, we we met
around early two thousand's and Terry, because of what he's
(47:37):
been through, he is totally aloof walking around with his
grid on his face every day, and most people really
didn't like Terry inside because of that, and so he
just kind of gravitated towards me. I was a leader
in the church and doing a lot of teaching and mentoring,
and a little bit at a time, he started sharing
with me his story and I would tell him, I said, well, Terry,
(48:00):
what are you doing about this? Well, at that time
that's I was working on a conditional pardon. I said, man,
your case is so bad that I could not possibly
see anybody reading all of this and not doing something
about it. And so eventually I would be granted my pardon.
On January twelve, two thousand eighteen, my wife had already
(48:21):
gotten hired by Attorney John A. Cock Show. He added
me to the team the very next day after my release.
Once Attorney Cock sual created what he called the Pardon
Petition Team. Terry Hobbs was our first client, so we've
been working with him since the end of So what
(48:42):
happened with the conditional pardon petition. We filed his original
pardon petition in just based on the bogus bank robbery.
They turned it down because they believed that he was
a fishback candidate. Fishback is for guys who were sittance
(49:02):
between nine and two thousand, and the jury wasn't instructed
that parole had been abolished, So these guys are getting
these long sentences and the jurors don't know that there's
no parole in Virginia, so they were under the assumption
that Terry was a fishback candidate. In hindsight, now I
(49:23):
think we probably should have done the double murders first,
because it was it was those double murders that removed
Terry from being fish back eligible for parole. If we
could have gotten the double murders removed with the pardon,
that would have just left the bank robbery, which would
have allowed him to go up for parole, turned down
(49:46):
his original pardon petition, and we had to wind up
calling Ms. Trudy Harris, who's the chief investigator over the
Parole Board, in forming her about all of this, and
they would eventually reinstate his petition. I mean, honestly, because
he's an innocent man of both of those things. We
went ahead and added an addendum to that original part
(50:10):
and petition showing both the bank robbery and the double
murders as being bogus, and that was November. So in essence,
his petition, from what I understand, hasn't reached the stage
of a full investigation yet and we're waiting on that.
And Lenny, normally we speak with our guest attorney. I'm
(50:33):
very happy to speak with you. But there's another sad
note to this story about why we're not speaking with him.
And I'm talking, of course, about the late great John Cotteshaw. Well. Unfortunately,
attorney John Cocksual he passed away June nine. It was
totally unexpected. We were just visiting him in April of two.
(50:55):
We all went to an awards event where he was
awarded Attorney of the Year, or Vandy and I were
awarded Authors of the Year, and we just saw him.
His wife had just passed away, probably three to four
months before he did, and we could kind of tell that,
you know, he that took the wind out of his sales.
You know, I'm sure he would have loved to get
(51:16):
Terry over the line before he passed. But you and
your wife, Andy are going to get him there, as
you have done for so many others already. And I
understand John trusted you both implicitly actually making you too,
fearless warriors A branch of his firm. We were the
western branch of the John A Coctual law firm. Yes,
(51:37):
and so yeah, we obtained eleven pardons since, including my own.
You're an inspirational guy, and I know you can do it.
So I know it was Terry mccalloughf that pardoned you.
And Governor Northern was also very active in this arena.
Now we have Governor clean Yunken. The thing about the
pardon process. When you're running a state as big as Virginia,
(52:00):
i'men wealth as big as Virginia, they just don't have
time to investigate. So he appoints people to do that,
Trudy Harris being the chief investigator for the Parole Board
over pardons. And then you have five Parole board members,
so he delegates that task onto them, and they make
a recommendation to the governor nine out of ten times,
(52:24):
unless it's something high profile and the governor just doesn't
want it to taint his political career, he goes with
the recommendation of that parole board and those investigators. Well,
I hope miss Harris is listening. We implore her don't
listen to us, follow the evidence. Look at the flimsy
false testimony in this case that was refuted by other witnesses,
and the physical evidence plus the more likely suspects. I
(52:47):
think you'll find that this should be an easy decision.
Now we're gonna have action steps linked in the biout,
and I also asked that our audience scroll down and
get involved. I always say pressure breaks pipes, people, and
we need you now. And with that, we're gonna go
to my favorite part of the show. Of course, this
is the part we call closing arguments where I turned
my microphone off and let you guys have the final say. So,
(53:13):
I'm gonna kick back in my chair with my headphones on.
Lenny Singleton once you go first, then Miss Catherine Hobbs,
and of course Terry. I'm going to save you for last.
Thank you all for being here, and now I'm just
gonna sit back and listen. This could happen to anyone.
(53:33):
He wasn't a choir boy, but he wasn't a bank robber,
and he wasn't a killer. This just goes to show
that our criminal justice system still has a very long
ways to go, especially as it relates to African American men,
Sadly we make up about the prison system in Virginia
(53:56):
and something needs to change. We need to get involved.
We need to talk to our elected officials, get them
involved with fixing the things that we know are wrong.
Using convicted felons as your only evidence in any case,
just can't take someone's word for it, especially if they're
(54:18):
getting a deal. You gotta have more evidence than that.
He got involved with the wrong people and they just
used him to gain their own freedom. I think Terry
was not even a lot of things and they could
see that, so they just used him. He's a mom.
(54:41):
I never would have did anything like this too anybody,
So I didn't think nobody would do this to me,
and neither did I. He needs to come on, he's
grown up. He needs to spend time with his daughter,
he needs to spend time with his whole family. And
I I'm so grateful and appreciative for what you all
(55:05):
are doing. Thank you very much, Jason to take this
time out to interview me, to shine a light on
the injustice that was done to me. I wouldn't wish
this on any person. He detect the speech, but when
he came to see me to serve the indictments on
me itself happened. They even applied that I make it,
(55:25):
help him with other cases and make my charges less
or disappear altogether. I told him, after what I've gone
through and what my family has gone through, I would
never put anyone or their family through what my family
hasn't doing just to regain my freedom. I'm not that individual.
I have to be able to look myself in the
rear and like what I see on the daily basis,
(55:47):
even if it was to spend the rest of my
life in prison, I had to live my life and
be able to hold my head up with pride and
not that I did not allowing somebody else or ruin
somebody else's life just to ease my suffering, because that's
what they wanted me to do. Thank you for listening
(56:10):
to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Wardis. With research by
Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast. And on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
(56:31):
well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
at it's Jason flop Rnful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good podcasts and association with signal Company Number
one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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