September 7, 2023 • 54 mins
On June 28, 1997, 25-year-old member of the Lil Watts gang, Antonio Alarcon, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Hawthorne, California, by a rival gang, Lawndale 13. In exchange for release on unrelated charges, Santo “Payaso” Alvarez deflected attention for the Alarcon shooting toward fellow Lawndale 13 members Eduardo Dumbrique and John Klene, when he knew who the actual shooter was. Witness Daniel Curiel testified that after he was not able to make an identification in a photo lineup, Sergeant Doral Riggs pointed to the photos of Eduardo and John, convincing him to make the ID. However, Eduardo and John's alibis were corroborated by many friends and neighbors. Additionally, the actual shooter reached out to Eduardo’s family to confess to the murder. Regardless of the alibis, the confession, and the lack of physical or forensic evidence, Eduardo and John were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In this updated episode, Jason Flom checks in with Eduardo and John at the 2023 Innocence Network Conference to hear what they've been up to since their episode aired.
To learn more and get involved, please visit:
https://www.pjlawcenter.org/page/2364325-home
http://www.innocencematters.org/
https://www.instagram.com/johnklene_free/
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We first told you the story of ed Eduardo Dembrique
and John Clennie in July twenty twenty two, and I
was so excited to run into them both again at
the twenty twenty three Innocence Network Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
That's an annual opportunity to gather with others in the
innocence community axuneries, attorneys, advocate, social workers, and even a
few fellow podcasters like me running around sticking mics in
(00:23):
people's faces and jokes aside. I look forward to reuniting
with everybody every year. We're going to hear John and A.
Dwardo's story again in a minute, but first, here's a
bit of the conversation we had when we met up
at this year's conference. I started off by asking John
how life's been treating him in the free world.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Life's been great, been living life, working, traveling, you know,
eating good, spending time with my family, my friends, making
up for miss time.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
For sure, it's been amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Absolutely, And what about you at Duardo, What's what's life
been like for you on the outside? And I mean,
obviously you're doing good. You're here, you're representing people Gravitate
towards you.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah. No, I feel great, man, I feel so great.
I feel grateful to be here, to be amongst all
these brothers that have been through what we've been through,
and they understand they're all at different stages of you know,
their transition and reconnecting with their families, reconnecting with their lives.
I'm grateful and really appreciative of the Peace and Justice
(01:24):
Law Center, Fullerton, California, but taking me on as a
legal apprentice. It's a four year program administered by the
California Bar I'm on my way to become attorney. I'm
so strong and passionate for juvenile rights. I'm really really
excited and encouraged by the opportunities that I have in
front of me and to speak my experience, to speak
my truth, to speak my understanding of what I believe
(01:46):
justice is for juveniles and their parents.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Oh No, it's incredible though, because you went in at
fifteen years old. Right at fifteen, you're just fairly a teenager.
You're not a man, you're a child. And then to
be put into that environment at that age, and now
to come out on the other side and transform that
pain into healing for other people who are strangers to you. Right.
(02:10):
What an amazing full circle story that is.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
You know, it's the children and their families, and this
is happening all across America. You got fourteen, fifteen, sixty
to seventeen year old treated differently. Some are giving life
said and some are put with the adults, you know,
forced to fend for themselves. Their families are at home worried.
You know, that family unit is destroyed by that child
going into an adult prison. I mean, on all ends
(02:34):
of the spectrum, it's not going to end well. And
so I am passionate about fighting for these people. They
have a right to be treated equally and fairly and educated.
And now I'm in a position that I can do
something about it, and I feel deep responsibility. You know,
it's not the easiest thing, but I'm really excited about
(02:56):
this next chapter. I really am.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
In the eighties and nineties, Los Angeles gang culture was
much more nuanced than anyone outside of it bothered to know.
For some, gangs meant socializing, while the criminal activity of
others colored all affiliated with the same broad brush. Gangs
were viewed as a problem that needed a swift and
harsh solution, and it seems that simply connecting it defended
to a gang was enough to get a conviction. While
(03:28):
fifteen year old de Duardo Dombrica and eighteen year old
John Clennie were affiliated with LAWNDEL thirteen for the girls,
parties and camaraderie, three older LAWNDEL thirteen members, Santo Alvarez,
Lester Momlor, and Chad Landrum were in IT for the
drugs and violence. On June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
Antonio Alarcan, a rival gang member, was killed in a
(03:50):
drive by shooting. A few days later, to escape unrelated charges,
Santo Alvarez used his knowledge of that drive by to
blame Duardo and John. A few weeks later, Alvarez, Monmore,
and Landrum committed another murder, and the police were happy
to pin Alvarez's role on a woman who knew the
deceased rather than their star witness against Eduardo and John.
(04:13):
With Alvarez's statement and a corrupt identification process that was
immediately recanted and protested by the witness, the two boys
were taken to trial. Chad Landrum was willing to confess
to the drive bite, but his continued violence behind bars
kept him unavailable. Despite both Alvarez and the witness's less
than willing participation to trial, the prosecutor and the detectives
(04:35):
were able to harp on at Duardo and John's gang
affiliation in order to send them away for life without parole.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today.
(04:56):
We're covering a case. It gives us a peek into
the gang world of Los Angeles in the nineteen nineties
and the way in which the LAPD and the Prosecutor's
office dealt with that issue. We have two men that
were affected by those policies when they were just boys.
There's a third wrongfully convicted person, Susan Mellen, from a
related crime. She's not recording with us today, but their
(05:18):
amazing lawyer is one of the founders of Innocence Matters.
Deirdre O'Connor, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thank you for having
me and now our guests of honor, the two men themselves.
You know I always say this, but it's true. I'm
sorry that you guys are here because of why you're here,
but I'm really happy to have you on Wrongful Conviction today.
(05:40):
So I'm going to introduce John Clenny. First, John, thank
you for being here with us today on Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And of course Ed Dombrique, thank you for joining.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Us, Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So you two guys grew up together. Can you give
us a little background there.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I've known Ed since I was about maybe fifteen. We
both grew up in Londale, California. Londeal's kind of typical
middle class city in the South Bay. You know, it
has its little areas that aren't so great, and it's
some areas are decent.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So it's about ten minutes fifteen minutes from the beach.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
I think it's a nice city. It's got a good
high school.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So growing up in Lawndale, there was a gang in
your neighborhood called the Londale thirteen.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Well, we grew up there and we were part of that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So you too grew up in the gang culture of
Los Angeles in the eighties and nineties and really came
of age in the nineties. And I think it's news
to some people that the word gang and gang culture
in general is a bit more nuanced than most of
the country realized back then. You know, many of our
listeners are old enough to remember seeing news reports of
the violence associated with gangs, and that's pretty much all
anyone outside of that culture knew about it at the time.
(06:56):
Only negative connotations, of course, So society reacted to that
by electing quote unquote tough on crime politicians who implemented
these kinds of ham fisted policing tactics, which of course
had very real effects, as you can both attest to
locking people up for the sake of doing it, but
not the right people, and in too many cases it's
(07:17):
the wrong people, like in yours. But gang culture was
not just criminality and violence, right, It was much much
more nuanced than that. Would you say that's an accurate depiction.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, for sure. Even in a single gang, it may
be like, you know, some people are just families, some
people are just friends. Of course you have a criminal
element to it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone
is involved in crime. The term gang is not a
good one, but it's like when you're young and growing
up and you experienced the friendship and the camaraderie, and
(07:47):
I mean that's kind of where you end up at,
especially if you're growing up like in a neighborhood, you
know where gangs are there.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
You know, not everybody is on the same page. Not
everybody gets along. We were having fun, you know, whether
we're trying to get girls, trying to have a good time,
that's what it was. But you definitely had other guys
that their version of fun or you know, what they
would do is drugs and violence.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
What I think is true for all gangs, right is
that there are little subsets inside the gangs where people
gravitate towards certain activities, you know, chasing girls, maybe scoring
some weed, that kind of thing. And there was that
kind of group, and then there were the people like Payaso,
which is Santo Alvarez, or Ghost Chad Landrum or Wicked
(08:33):
Lester Monlore that were really wanting to make a name
for themselves. They were getting high all the time and
doing some real vicious stuff. And they were the ones
out there doing the drive bys and the kind of
gratuitous violence that everybody associates gangs with.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Did you get along with these guys?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
We know them. They're all significantly older than us. I
knew Lester when I was growing up a little bit,
like just as a as a younger kid, but he
kind of went the druggy kind of violent route, and
I just was there for kind of like the camaraderie
and the friendships and the fun I saw Santos on
(09:14):
my block a lot here and there, and my neighbor
that lived in the backhouse. I guess he got his
radio stolen, you know, out of his car in my driveway,
you know, And I always pretty much suspected Santos as
being the one that stole it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
You know. Okay, so so much for camaraderie. So this
kind of accurately paints a picture of the divide that's
at the crux of this story. And I mean by
that the larger perception of gangs in the nineties, and
then how the issue was dealt with, like I said,
in a ham fisted kind of way, by detectives like
the ones in this case. There was Sergeant Riggs, but
(09:52):
also Marcella Win in a related case Deirdre. Have either
of them had any other wrongful convictions that they've been tied.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
To win certainly does. She's a serial offender. There's at
least five known people ob Anthony and Reggie Cole case.
They were code defendants. It was Wynn's first murder case
at South Bay Homicide.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, we covered that case here on Raefel Conviction and
we'll have it linked in the bio.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Then she had these two guys, Ed and John. Now
she had a tangential role in that, but had she
done the right thing, these guys would not have been
in custody. She also had the Susan Mellon case where
she relied on a non reliable person, but obviously unreliable,
there was no question about it. And then she had
(10:39):
another case, the Michelle Pulo's case, she relied on the
same unreliable witness that she used against Susan Mellon.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That is really disgusting tactic that we see over and
over again revisiting and reusing the same useful liars, like
Mark Tavins did in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. And
this kid Joey Morales who was a witness in six
different murders and each time he was out getting milk
for his mom, and Danny Rincon who we interviewed on
(11:08):
this podcast, which is still in prison three decades later
because of this fake witness, and of course Mark Tevans,
it looks like win was cut from the same cloth.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
She was a terrible detective and didn't follow the rules
at all.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Now, as far as Sergeant Riggs is concerned, you're going
to see what he does in this case in terms
of the identification process, and one can only surmise that
if he was so comfortable running rough shot over a
witness who was protesting at the identification in the courtroom
and in post conviction, yeah, while at the identification, he's
literally going, I can't see that, bar I can't do
(11:45):
this identification for you because I can't see. So this
guy tried to stand up and do the right thing
and was overruled and overridden and bullied.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
By these cops.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
So it's fair to say that this is something that
this particular officer had done before.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
The one thing I would say, Jason, in these gang cases,
you know, all bets are off with these detectives. They
can do whatever they want because they know that nobody
has any sympathy. All they have to do is say
the word gang member, and the prosecutors, the jurors, judges,
everybody rallies around a conviction. So the rules are completely
different in a gang case, and that's why you see
(12:23):
detectives violate the rules as much as they do because
they can.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Get away with it, right, They violate the rules while
lumping every gang member in under the umbrella of quote
violent gang member, regardless of what subset of the gang
that individual identified with. And what happened in this case,
as happens unfortunately all over the country tragically, is that
you have a violent character like Santo Alvarez who conveniently
(12:49):
trades false information for his own freedom, and then he
and they remain free, I mean, other people like him
to commit more acts of violence while getting innocent folks
wrongfully convicted, and according to the false information that Alvarez
eventually gave the police. This story began to unfold on
the day before the incident in question, June twenty seventh,
(13:10):
nineteen ninety seven, when a few kids from around the
Lowndeal thirteen neighborhood who were not in any way affiliated,
were the victims of a drive by. This was allegedly
perpetrated by members of the Lil Watts game. Now, none
of this was ever investigated or substantiated, but this story
from Santo Alvarez was used as the alleged motive for
a retaliatory drive by the following night. But did either
(13:32):
of you guys even know the kids who were shot
or shot at the night before, and particularly did you
know nineteen year old Luis Madrano.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I didn't know the guy. Those guys were not associates
of Londo. They were not friends of Londo that I
know of. But somehow I guess to maybe create a
motive for our case, they got brought into that as
being a good way to say, oh, yeah, these guys
are retaliating for this.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And what happened the following night, June twenty ninety ninety
seen was that a member of the Little Watts Gang,
twenty five year old Antonio Alercon, was at an autobody
shop and while outside using a payphone next door, out
of sight of those in the autobody shop, he was
killed by a drive by shooter. Dieu, what else can
you tell us?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Aller Khan had a truck that was being worked on
over a period of time at the shop, and the
shop owner, Daniel Curio, was at the shop that night
with a couple of other people in the shop and
Aller Khan happened to stop by and while he was there,
I think he got a page and he wanted to
use the phone to call this woman who turned out
(14:37):
to be his mistress. So he was offered to use
the inside phone, but he declined and decided to go
outside because he wanted privacy. So he went out of
the shop. There's an adjacent building and there's a payphone
outside of that, and he went to the payphone to
speak with his mistress, and then suddenly a car pulled up.
(14:58):
Somebody got out of the car and just unloaded multiple shots,
and he was killed, really, probably before he had any
chance to react in any way. And then the shooter
got back in the car and the car drove off,
and as it drove off, it passed the opening of
the body shop garage door. So basically there's the storefront
(15:21):
on the corner. Adjacent to it is the body shop,
but the body shop sits in from the sidewalk so
that there's parking in front of it. So when you're
inside the body shop with the door open and looking out,
you would not have a direct line to the phone
booth because the wall of the building would be blocking it.
But once the car moved forward, they would be able
(15:44):
to see the car.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Pass by right, so no one actually got a good
look at the shooter, including the shop owner who told
detectives that, but detectives cajoled him anyway into making an
id that he has never supported. Curiel even demonstrated later
at trial that he can't reliably see twenty feet in
front of him. Can you talk a bit about his
(16:06):
vantage point.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Curio's working on a car with his back to the street.
He hears the sound of the gunshots going off, but
he thought it was fireworks, and because of the echoing effect,
he thought it was coming from the back. So he
goes to the back and he looks out to see
what's going on back there, and that's when he realizes
it's coming from the front. And by then the car
(16:29):
is moving past the shop, so he would have been
I think more than twenty feet away from the car
at the time that he first observed it.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So what he and others did see was that this
was a black or dark green colored sedan and that
the front passenger had yelled some kind of gang epithet
at Alarkhan as they drove off. So this shooting happened
around eleven pm on June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
and from looking into this case, I realized that this
state has some other significance and the audience will remember
(17:01):
this like I do. Because earlier that same night, Mike
Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off during a heavyweight championship fight.
So people remember that night very, very clearly. In fact,
you guys were friends. Ed was fifteen, John was eighteen,
and you were hanging out to watch the fight together.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Is that right, Yes, sir. Yeah, on the day of
he had you know, barbecue, invited me.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It was actually a great night. You know, we'd never
seen something like that before, right, It was pretty memorable.
There was multiple people there, you know, cooking, eating, drinking it.
It was a good night.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, that was insane. I remember calling my friends and
family just to check if they had seen it.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
People called the house, a few people and they're like,
what the hell happened? Seeing it on the news, and
you know, if they didn't watch the fight, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Right, they knew you were watching and called to ask
about it. You were seen on the front lawn talking
on your cordless phone by a neighbor as well, who
got home around eleven. So not only do people at
the party, but also those that called you and your neighbor.
They all placed you at home at the time of
the shooting, which was about an eight to twelve minute
drive away from your home. And this shooting was alleged
(18:15):
to be in retaliation for the shooting of some kid
you didn't even know. Now, this case was being investigated
by Sergeant DORYL.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Riggs.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Several days go by, and on July first, Santo Alvarez
Akapayaso got picked up for possession of a weapon and
a hypodermic needle by Torrence PD. And this is when
the story start.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So basically, Santos Alvarez is in jail trying to find
his way out of jail, starts telling the I believe
it was a Torrance Police department where he was at.
You know, hey, I know something about a murder that happened,
and they called the Sheriff's Homicide.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Right, So Torrance PD called over to La County Sheriff's
Homicide Department and Sergeant Riggs came to interview Santo Alvarez
and they started asking about this dark colored car, maybe
perhaps green, and while distancing himself from Londeale gang activity,
he said that the only person he can think of
from Londale with a car like that was a guy
named Robert Caputo, and he said that he saw the
(19:11):
two of you in Kaputo's car on the day of
the murder, among other things.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
But also Santo Alvarez creates this story that he saw
me the day of the murder and I was upset
about that shooting from the prior day of Luis Madrano,
and that I wanted to retaliate. And then he said
that he saw me like you know, a few days
(19:37):
later or whatever, and says that he overhears me talking
to someone else saying that I shot someone or blasted
that for or something like along those lines is what
he used. So with that, from my understanding, they let
him out. Then they go back to the witnesses. I
feel they put pressure the most on probably Daniel Curriel
(19:57):
since he was a shop owner and showed him six
packs and coerced him into identifying us because of what
Santos said.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So you mentioned that Alva said that we were in
Carpule's car, right, but computer had turned that car in
or sold it. They could tell there that he was
lying about that, and that's a significant thing to lie
about it.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
You said, they were in a car that the guy
doesn't have exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Capudle had sold it in February nineteen ninety seven, about
five or six months before the shooting. Yet Riggs and
his partner Garcia brought a six pack photo array over
to Curiel with the purpose of getting him to id
YouTube as if they couldn't spot that lie about Capudo's
car right off the bat. This bogus photo lineup happened
(20:44):
on July tenth, I believe, before Ed's arrest, and Curiel
has always disputed this, but Riggs says that he identified
Ed as the shooter and John is the front passenger.
He held a gang epithet, So what really happened here?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Well, Riggs convinces him basically, look, you're never going to
have to go to court. We don't even need you.
This is just to help our case a little bit.
We already got these guys, but in reality he was
their entire case. So he convinces Curiel to say, all right,
I'll sign for you today.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
My arrest July tenth, nineteen ninety seven, on my way
to the gym with a friend, and he noticed that
there was cow cars behind us, and there was three
of them, and then there was three coming in front
of us. It had a bad feeling, like this is
not a traffic ticket. They pulled us over, pulled the
(21:39):
guns out, drive us off the car, and one of
my mom's friends happened to be driving by, and so
she was across.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
The street just observing.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
But I was trying to communicate with her to call
my mom. Dude, I didn't want my mom not to
know what happened to me either, you know. So I
was fifteen. They tried me as an adult and they
sent me to the county jail, and I found myself
in a very binding section of the Alkan and that
was my kind of introduction to the system.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Three weeks after the Alerkhan shooting, Santo Alvarez, Lester Moanler,
and Chad Landrum were hanging out in this house that
had been vacated that was referred to as the Melon
Patch because the family that owned it their last name
was Melon. So they break in the back. They're getting high.
(22:46):
A homeless guy, Richard Daly, who had prior connection with
the woman who used to live there, Susan Mellon, stops by.
They're originally partying with him, and then all of a sudden,
Chad Landrum viciously attacks daily Max his head multiple times
with a hammer and kills him. And then with the
(23:07):
help of Santo and Lester, they wrap up the body
and bring it to an alley in sam Pedro, where
they set it on fire in hopes of destroying any evidence. Said, well,
enable the police to connect them.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Right, And you all didn't find out about this until
post conviction, even though the person who prosecuted both Ed
and John prosecuted this case as well, and we talked
a bit about her before. But the Daily murder fell
on Marcella Win's desk, right, All of these informants came
to her saying it was Piasso ghost and wicked with
the hammer right in the melon patch, open and shut, right,
(23:45):
But that's not what happened. This person, Susan Mellon, ended
up getting dragged into it in Piaso's stead right instead
of him. How did that happen?
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Well, I think initially when you know, she takes the
path of least resistance in all of her investigations, so
when people were handing up the three gang members, she
was going to pursue that and go after them. She
even submitted an affi David for arrest warrants for all
three of them. However, she doesn't want to do any
heavy lifting, so there wasn't enough evidence for the DA
(24:15):
to pursue Piasso, and Wynn didn't do the investigations she
needed to build a case against them. So at the
same time that it was becoming clear that she'd have
to work to get Piasso further implicated in it, this
other tweaker, June Patty, came along and said, Hey, I
got some information on Melon. You can pursue her. And
(24:37):
so Wind shifted gears and went after Melon. And while
she was doing this, she was in communication with Riggs
about Piasso's role as a witness as their star witness
in that case. So in those conversations that were never documented,
the substance of that was never documented. Clearly, these detectives
made decisions that benefited both of them, So Riggs was
(25:00):
allowed to use Payasso in the Aller Khan shooting, and
Win was free to pursue Melon, another innocent person, for
the Daily murder.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So ultimately Chad Landrum and Lester Monlaur were rightfully pursued,
along with Susan Mellon who was wrongfully pursued. They were
all tried separately, and Landrum and Mellon were both convicted.
Monlare was acquitted, So both monlaur and Alvarez got off
scott free, ready willing and able to commit even more crimes.
(25:29):
That's right, yeah, Jesus gris. So now August fourteenth rolls
around and John, you were arrested for the alar Khan
drive by as the front seat passenger.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, that was the shocker, obviously, but for the first
you know, six months of going to jail. When I
got arrested, I thought the next court date they would realize, Hey,
this guy's not supposed to be here, We're going to
go ahead and release them. And you know, every court
date turned into a next court date till I finally realized, like,
(25:59):
these guys are so they really, you know, they're really
trying to charge me with this.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So now October thirtieth, nineteen ninety seven, curial was brought
into view a live lineup, and on the advice of
your lawyer, John, you tried to change your appearance. So
even though you were innocent of this crime, this move
made you look not so great.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
My lawyer, Frank ta Jacomo. He tells me, you know, hey,
this guy, he's already seen pictures of you. They've shown
him your six pack or whatever. Let's kind of make
it a little more difficult for him to pick you out. So,
you know, grow your hair out, shave your mustache. And
I'm listening to the advice of my attorney. So I say,
all right, you know, I grow my hair out, shave
(26:39):
my mustache. I go to my lineup and then I'm waiting.
They bring me off the stage from the lineup, and
the deputy is like, who are you? And I'm like,
what do you mean You're not John Plenty? Who are you?
And I'm like, yes, I am. And he's like, no
one recognizes you out there. Your lawyer doesn't recognize you.
The detective doesn't recognize you. You did you switch wristbands?
(27:00):
And I'm like, no, I didn't switch ristbands. Like it's me,
you know, And I said, how does my lawyer not
recognize me? He just saw me two weeks ago. He's
the one that told me to change my appearance. Little
did I know that was going to be used against me.
They used that as a sign of a consciousness of guilt.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
So later on Curio and identifying you in the live lineup.
He went on to testify that he had just recognized
John from the photo race and in referring to Riggs, quote,
I already knew who he was looking for. End quote.
Now you two are on your way to be tried together,
and Chad Landrum has already been convicted and sentenced to
life without the possibility of parole. Amazingly, Landrum reached out
(27:41):
to Ed's family because he wanted to come clean about
the alar Khan drive by.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
He wanted to testify in the case, and my Lord
did bring him down to our trial or it was
maybe a pre trial pulls or something, and they never
got his statement. It didn't give him much chance to
testify or confess.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
From what I've read, there's a reason why he didn't
get that chance. Right, he was actually brought down to
the courthouse.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
What happened, Yeah, I guess he got into it or
something with someone. I think it was on the bus
or not too sure, but he ended up stabbing him
in the courthouse tank and that was the end of that.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So you're one shot at getting around the false testimony
of Alvarez and this protested identification, just got dragged away
for acting out violently again stabbing another guy, And then
you go to trial in La County Superior Court and
no one brought up Landrum's involvement or went again an
affi davit nothing. So Ed was represented by Walter Urbin
(28:40):
and John by Frank Dajacomo. The prosecutor was Valerie Cole,
and so the prosecution's theory was that Ed, John, and
a third Londale thirteen gang member were in the dark
green car. John was in the front passenger seat, Ed
was in the back seat, and Ed was the shooter.
So they never caught up with this alleged driver, right,
John allegedly shouted an epithet about the Little Watch gang.
(29:02):
This was allegedly a retaliation for this other shooting. But
of course this entire theory came from Santo Alvarez, who
was deflecting the blame from his own crew. What was
presented by the prosecution to support this wacky ass theory.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
The prosecution was entirely dependent on pre trial statements of
Santo Alvarez and the pre trial identification of Curio. At
the actual trial, Curio did not identify either Ed or John.
He specifically testified that the only reason he made the
pre trial identification was because he was, you know, kind
(29:39):
of pressure to and he gave the whole story about
how the police pointed out the pictures and said, hey,
this guy's bragging about it, this guy was in the
front seat, this guy's a shooter, or all that. So
the jurors weren't basing their verdict on what the testimony
in front of them. They were basing their verdict on
the statements made outside of their presence. Same thing Paiaso
(30:00):
when he gets into trial, he's like, I don't know,
I don't know, I don't know what I said, might
have said whatever. So they use the tape recording of
the statement that Paiasso made to Rigs. And by the way,
they rehearsed it before they did the official tape, right,
they talked to him off record, and then they put
the tape on and they talked to them. And so
(30:22):
the jurors were told, hey, look it, this is a
gang case. Piasso doesn't want to come in here and
rat out his homies, so you can believe what he
said to Riggs when he's trying to get out of
custody and Curio, poor curial. He's being intimidated and threatened
by all these gang members. So that's why he's not
going to say it in front of you all. But
(30:42):
he looked what he said to the cops. You know,
he made this idea, and that was the entirety of
the prosecutor's case. And the other thing she did, without
any legitimate basis for doing so, is she made every
single one of the alibi witnesses look like liars and
made it sound like the alibi was this last minute
(31:03):
defense that defense lawyers put together at the very end,
when John's mother had presented the lawyers with line by line,
minute by minute timeline of where everybody was, who showed up, when,
who left when, the names, the phone numbers and all
of that the day she hired John's lawyer. So the
(31:24):
alibi was known right from the get go, but the
jurors were misled into believing it was all some fabrication
by the tricky defense lawyers.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I mean, I can see how you could impeach alibi
witnesses as friends and loved ones, or as they did
in this case, fellow gang members and friends of long
till thirteen. So the message is that everyone is gang
related and therefore lying. But your lawyer could have backed
up the alibi with phone records. It's not that complicated
it but even without that support though, from what I understand,
the one witness that was used in this corrupt identification process, Curiol,
(31:56):
was adamant that he did not stand by this identification.
Really take off his glasses to demonstrate how bad his
vision was, because that would have been pretty powerful. Does
anyone remember that?
Speaker 4 (32:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I remember that he took off his glasses in court
and couldn't see anything. I mean, you could tell he
couldn't see anything. You know when when someone I can
take off my glasses and you can tell I need
them just by looking at me. So, I mean, it
was amazing, man, it was.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
It was crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Another thing that I remember happening was the district attorney
she said that I gave him my thumbs up. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I read about that to Curio, like as if he
was helping you out.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And I'm curious, now she's ever used that tactic against
other defendants, because the whole courtroom focused on me, And
this is did you just give the guy a thumbs
up and.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Open courte room?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Now mine? He wasn't doing me any favors. There was
no reason, and I did not give him my thumbs up.
I'm looking at the jury like I did not. But
it was effective.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, those dirty It sounds like they were just running
the disgraceful playbook. I mean, part of Curro's testimony was
that the cops just convinced him that they had the
right guys, and at that time, everyone believed the police right.
And then all they had to do was say gang
and gang member enough times and it's almost like Pavlov's Dog.
It just almost a knee jerk reaction from the jury
to say, okay, great, when do I get to vote guilty.
(33:21):
The alibis and the witness protesting the identification just didn't
seem to matter at all.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
You got it one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
And then that combs up in there.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
If I could jump in on that point. And in
LA they created this hardcore gang unit in the late eighties,
I believe it was eighty eight or eighty nine, and
the whole purpose of that hardcore gang unit was like, damn,
it's hard to prove these cases because everybody's a liar
and everybody has baggage, and we don't have good witnesses.
(33:50):
We got to figure out a way. And basically what
they did was they created this unit where they recruited
all these overzealous prosecutors and say, hey, you get to
be the shine star here and you can make these
cases that nobody else can make. And then they gave
them strategies for how to do that. How do what's
the work around when you really can't prove your case
beyond a reasonable doubt, Just say gang gang, gang, gang, gang,
(34:12):
as many times as you can make everything be about
scaring the hell out of the jurors and making them
think that whoever sitting in the defendanc seat is the
worst person in the world, just because they happened to
have affiliated with a gang for whatever reason, and regardless
of their level of involvement, let's get them off the street.
Evidence be damned.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Even their use of the word homies, I mean, that's
a racist dog whistle.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
If I ever heard what I saw, the gang gang
gang push by the prosecutor, by the you know, by
the detectives. You know, I saw my lawyer not do
a good job at all. The combination of all those things,
I felt my life slipping away from me.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
When they read the verdict. I remember they hear you know,
my family, my mom or. I remember looking up at
the lights in the courtroom trying to not you know,
let no tears come out.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Man, I think I probably did shed a couple tears.
You know, people talk about the worst moment in their life.
That was for sure the worst moment right there.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know, I get to prison on brand new. I
don't know what to expect. I know that I'm surrounded
by a bunch of guys that are violent, angry, confrontational,
and so I'm navigating through that. You got to walk
on eggshells to be sure. And I used to work
(35:50):
out a lot because if I did end up having
to get into a confrontation, I wanted to be able
to defend myself, and so I used to work out
for three hours a day in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
I I tell people this story all the time, like
my kind of welcome to prison moment. I'm scared, but
I'm also trying not to show fear. You know, that's
not a good idea in prison. I'm walking on the yard,
some guys sitting down on a curb, and as I'm walking,
I'm you know, probably a foot or two away from him,
(36:22):
and a guy comes up behind him and just slices
his whole face open, from like his lip to his ear.
And just seeing that happen, like, you know, a foot
away from me, it was like, where the fuck am I? So,
like Ed said, it's just survival.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Mode, that's it.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
As soon as I could, I started to read books,
and then I learned that, you know, the way the
criminal appeal process works is your lawyer's gonna dump the
case on you, and then it's gonna be on you
to represent yourself. And that's when I started to go
into the library. I would go to the yard, I
would go to the library instead because you only choose
(37:03):
one or the other. And started to learn the law.
And then I found myself in solitary and I had
to try to figure out way how am I going
to get out of solitary was? I started to study
solitary confinement cases and I put together a memorandum of
law on why lawyers should come to California and challenge
(37:26):
long term solitary confinement. And in those efforts I managed
to meet Professor Jose Lobel from the University of Pittsburgh.
It was through his student Brett Grot, who's now the
director of the Abolitionist Law Center. They read my memorandum,
they researched it, and they decided to come to California
(37:46):
follow class action, and that case settled in twenty fifteen,
twenty fourteen. And you know, I was partly responsible for
getting guys that had been in there for thirty five years,
eight years, twenty seven years. Me myself, I was there
for thirteen years. It is one of the things that
(38:07):
I've done in my life that I still feel the
rewards of because today there's people that are outside and
seeing the sky, seeing their family, and that is due
to the work that I did. Obviously, I wasn't acted alone.
I had there was a team of lawyers. But I
put in the work and it paid off.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
You should be very proud of that. And as part
of that settlement, California can no longer put a prisoner
in solitary confinement for indeterminate periods. In Ed's case, it
was thirteen years with no end in sight, simply based
upon alleged gang membership. So now that you fought your
way out of the prison. Within the prison, let's get
to how you guys are here speaking with us today.
(38:50):
So your initial appeals were denied. As far as I
could see here, there's no real movement on this until
Landrum once again reached out to Ed's family saying that
he wanted to confess to murdering alercon Right. We knew
this already, but I guess he hadn't ever gone on
the record about it and wasn't exactly easily reachable. He
was also by this time in solitary doing life without parole.
(39:13):
So John, take us through this.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
My friend told me when I got convicted, like, I'm
going to get you a lawyer. I don't care how
long it takes. You know, once I can afford one,
I'm going to get you one. So when this stuff
came up with Landrum, that's when I talked to my
best friend and I told him, you know, now's the time.
You know, this guy's coming forward and confessing, Like, we
need to get a lawyer, and thank god we got
(39:37):
Deir Dr.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
John's friend reached out to me in May of twenty twelve,
and what had happened prior to that was Chad Landrum
had written out a confession and provided it to Ed's
family and then Ed used it to file his own
habeas petition, but he didn't have any resources or a
(39:59):
lawyer to help him, so it was just the paper
that went in and the judge just dismissed it without
any thoughtful analysis at all. So when John's friend reached
out to me, the first thing we did is we
scheduled a trip to Pelican Bay to meet with Chad
Landrum and Ed Dunbriky. Both of them were in the
shoe unit and they had no ability to communicate with
(40:21):
one another. My sense of it was if there was
merit to Chad Landram's confession, we needed to do a
lot more work to build it up, and so we
asked all kinds of details, including who else would have
known back in the day about Chad's role in this
killing and the details. He had not a single note
(40:42):
in front of him reminding him about any of the
details of the case, and he could give me specific
information consistent with the police report, including the fact that
he got out of the car and shot alar Khan.
There were only two witnesses that saw that they were
women across the street, and they were never used in
(41:02):
the trial, so none of that was in the trial record,
all of the people from the auto body shop never
saw anybody out of the car because the car doesn't
come into their line of sight until after the shooting
is done. He also knew that Alercan was shot with
different types of bullets. That was a fact that, although
it was contained in the records, would not be something
that some random person would have known about. So there
(41:25):
was a lot of key points in Chad Landrum's statements
to me that made me think that he probably was
telling the truth. And so I asked him to tell
me confirmation as to who else knew back then, and
he told me his brother knew, and we followed up
and talked to the brother, and the brother gave us
all kinds of information. And I also asked Chad if
he would take a polygraph, and he immediately agreed to,
(41:47):
but the prison wouldn't allow us to go up there.
And so then you know all of the places you
would go logically in an investigation like this, including contacting
Curiel stop by his work out of the Blue. Reaes
to talk to us at an Eyehap as soon as
he gets off of work, and he lays it all out.
He tells us consistent with his recantation everything, and it's
(42:08):
all on tape, so nobody can say we put words
in his mouth or anything. And then we did the
same thing with all the alibi witnesses to find out,
you know, was there more that could have been done
to show that they were telling the truth, including the
logical things like phone records and other people who could
corroborate what they said. And it all fell into place,
(42:28):
and it was like I remember talking to John. You know,
we filed our brief in three months after investigation, and
we felt like, this is a no brainer. He should
be out that year.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I think that's how we all hope our system works,
but unfortunately that's not how it usually goes, and this
was no exception. So John Savias was filed in October
twenty twelve. He presented all this material, and like you said,
it was a no brainer. In twenty thirteen, Landram made
a formal confession on the record, then ed joined the
(43:00):
habeas as well. So it seems like there's a lot
of momentum. And in an effort to further support Landrum's confession,
you reached out to his co defendant on the Richard
Daily murder another wrongfully convicted person, Susan Mallon.
Speaker 5 (43:14):
Right, So we went and visited her. There were some
delays along the way because she was being represented by
someone else, but a year later I ended up representing her,
and in a lot of what I needed to prove
her innocence overlapped with what I needed to prove for
John and ultimately Ed, because there were so many witnesses
(43:34):
in common, and representing Susan gave me access to witnesses
that I didn't have before that.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
So this is twenty fourteen, Landram and even Alvarez one
on the record confessing to their roles in the daily
murder and clearing Susan of any responsibility. And after seventeen
years in prison, seventeen long years, Susan's conviction was vacated,
charges were dismissed and she went on to sue Marcello
win and won twelve million, and good for her. So
(44:01):
we're obviously very happy for Susan. That seemed to be
our system operating at the speed that it should, I mean,
notwithstanding the seventeen long years wrongfully incarcerated. But for John
and Ed. There was a court order in November of
twenty twelve for the DA to respond to this habeas petition.
What happened, Deirdre?
Speaker 5 (44:22):
There was one delay after another. There was transfers of
district attorneys and all kinds of stuff that just a
month turned into six month, turned into a year, turned
into five years. And it's hard. I can't even imagine,
excuse me, what it's like for these guys to have
(44:45):
to count on a lawyer on the outside saying, don't worry,
I got you back. I'm I'm going to do this.
You know, I'm going to get it taken care of,
when they have been disappointed every step of the way.
And I, you know, my experience of it is like,
you know, the frustration I feel on my end can't
even begin to compere to what these guys are going through.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Right. Imagine having the keys to the prison gate staring
you in the face for eight years before the district
attorney or the courts even pretend to not ignore them.
It wasn't until twenty twenty that a judge finally made
a ruling that amounts to basically a brain fart of
a man in cognitive decline. So tell us about this, judge,
Edmund Clark Junior and how this thing finally turned around.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
So it was clear we weren't going to be able
to force anybody's hand until we filed this supplemental brief.
And I mean, this is this brief because of all
of the evidence that was developed during Susan Mellon's case
was even stronger than what we had, and we had
a clear winner from the beginning. But it lands in
the hands of a judge who couldn't care less and
(45:49):
in a heartbeat, without any hearing or anything, he denies it.
He characterizes it as a pro say proper petition. When
I have my name all over it, I'm representing him,
and I had already been on the record, and he
completely distorted the history of it and made it sound
like it was a brand new petition that was relitigating
(46:11):
issues that had already been decided against John. So he
dismissed it, and then he retired soon after that. So
I file two motions, one for reconsideration and one for
a ruling on the original petition. And either way we
were prepared to go to the Court of Appeal, that's
where we thought we were going to end up. But
fortunately the judge who took the other judge's place really
(46:34):
was concerned that this might be a case involving innocent people,
and she told the DA you're going to need to
commit get yourself on paper, tell me what your position
is on this case, because if these are innocent people,
we have to deal with it. And once they were
forced to deal with it, then they submitted. Then they
just read the document and answered the document. Back in
(46:56):
twenty twelve, it would have been the same answer they submitted.
They said that based on the cumulative error in the case,
that the conviction should be vacated and they were not
going to pursue the charges. They were going to recommend
that it'd be dismissed. They could have done that back
in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
I'm rarely at a loss for words, but this just
really makes my stomach turn. I mean, it's just so
it makes me so angry, frustrated, and just I feel
a sense of deep sadness. And this didn't even happen
(47:34):
to me, but I just hate injustice and this is
such a grotesque example of the system at its worst.
We see it a lot on the show, but this one,
this one's really leaving a bitter taste. But the silver lining,
of course, is that you're out, even if it took
so much longer that it should have, and never mind
(47:56):
that it should have never even happened in the first place.
And John, I understand despite it all, you have somehow
managed to maintain a positive outlook.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Every day is a blessing for sure, you know. And
as each day goes by, it seems so much farther
away from everything that happened. But it just feels great
to be out and great to be free, and words
can't express it or describe it. Really.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Yeah, you know, I getting arrested at fifteen and sent
off to prison. There's a lot of things in normal
society that I've never experienced, you know. Just this last
year was the first time I took a plane ride,
first time I've been to a lake, to a river.
But also like the first time I had to pay bills,
(48:42):
the first time I had to keep up with appointments, responsibilities,
balancing school and work. What I'm finding is that it
doesn't just fall into place. It doesn't, and I'm working
through that. But there are times when I feel a
little bit lost out here. I really do, I really do.
But I'm confident and optimistic that it's going to come together.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
And Ed, I understand that you'd like to start a nonprofit.
Can you tell us a little bit about what you're
doing now.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
I applied for a job in Pittsburgh at a nonprofit,
the Abolitionist Law Center. I'm hopeful that I get the job.
If I do, I'm headed out that way in order
for me to work there, but also to learn about
nonprofits and how it runs, and with the goal of
creating my own. I want to call it Juvenile Justice
for All, and the goal would be to have children
(49:33):
treated equally and fairly, to have their parents rights respected.
A lot of times they just adopt adult laws. The
adult prison system doesn't help children at all. I look
to filing cases in court, but also working on policy changes,
speaking to other nonprofits and getting them to support some
(49:54):
of these ideas. My goal is to have a uniform
system in America treating children equally and fairly across the board.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Well, Ed, you've already been able to accomplish so much
from behind bars. So we're going to be on the
lookout for juvenile Justice for All. And we'll also link
to Innocence Matters, the organization that Deirdre co founded, so
please show them your support and John's Instagram as well,
where he'll keep you up to date on the continued
fight for justice. In this case. The courts are still
trying to deny the factual innocence claim here, but after
(50:23):
what we've heard here today, I can't see any reason
for it. And with that, we're going to go to
closing arguments, where first of all, I thank each of
you from the bottom of my heart for joining us here,
and then I'm gonna kick back in my chair, shut
my microphone off, and leave my headphones on and just
(50:44):
listen to anything else you feel is left to be said. Deirdre,
please start us off, and then we'll leave it to
the guys to take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 5 (50:54):
I think that it's essential for these stories to be told,
and I'm so grateful that you guys give people like
John and Ed the opportunity to tell the stories that
they live through. I think it's important for the public
to understand how fallible the system is, and I wish
it was limited to the nineties, but I represent people
who are charged today. It's the same fight, the same struggle,
(51:18):
and we've got to get it right. The first time.
We have to want to get it right the first time,
because it doesn't serve anybody, even if all we care
about collectively as a society is the money aspect of this.
We're throwing money away. We're paying for people to be
housed in prisons for crimes they didn't commit, and the
real criminals are out there committing other crimes. So we
(51:40):
need to get it right. We need to want to
get it right, and we need to applaud people like
John and Ed who have gone through hell and back
and we need to make their lives easier once they
get out. We need to help them in whatever way
we can.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Well, I do appreciate this opportunity to speak about our
case and what we went through. I know that there's
a lot of other people out there that are in
the same circumstances and they're in the same struggle. So
I do appreciate the work that you're doing, and I
just I'm happy to be free, you know. I'm happy
to be free. I'm looking forward to making a difference
(52:17):
out here. I think it kind of for me would
give my life meaning when I feel like I've lost
so much of it already. I'm hopeful that what's left
of it. I can actually make a difference, and my
experience will help other people.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
A couple of things. I'd just like to thank you
Jason for what you do and Wrongful Conviction Podcast Lava
for Good. I follow all that stuff very closely, keep
it up because it's needed. I think it helps a lot,
and even if it helps a little, a little is
more than nothing. So for me, the one thing I
would tell people is never to lose hope, never to
(52:57):
give up. That's the key to everything, because I know
in my case, I never gave up hope. I kept
the fight, never got away from that. If you're innocent,
you better fight until you can't fight anymore. Hope is
all you got, That's all that's going to keep you going.
Don't lose it.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Kleibern, and Kevin Wartis.
With research by Lyla 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
(53:44):
wrong Conviction as well as at Lava for Good on
all three platforms. You can also follow me on both
TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is
the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with
Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Then Bur the Wain in the dram
We first told you the story of ed Eduardo Dembrique
and John Clennie in July twenty twenty two, and I
was so excited to run into them both again at
the twenty twenty three Innocence Network Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
That's an annual opportunity to gather with others in the
innocence community axuneries, attorneys, advocate, social workers, and even a
few fellow podcasters like me running around sticking mics in
(00:23):
people's faces and jokes aside. I look forward to reuniting
with everybody every year. We're going to hear John and A.
Dwardo's story again in a minute, but first, here's a
bit of the conversation we had when we met up
at this year's conference. I started off by asking John
how life's been treating him in the free world.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Life's been great, been living life, working, traveling, you know,
eating good, spending time with my family, my friends, making
up for miss time.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
For sure, it's been amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Absolutely, And what about you at Duardo, What's what's life
been like for you on the outside? And I mean,
obviously you're doing good. You're here, you're representing people Gravitate
towards you.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah. No, I feel great, man, I feel so great.
I feel grateful to be here, to be amongst all
these brothers that have been through what we've been through,
and they understand they're all at different stages of you know,
their transition and reconnecting with their families, reconnecting with their lives.
I'm grateful and really appreciative of the Peace and Justice
(01:24):
Law Center, Fullerton, California, but taking me on as a
legal apprentice. It's a four year program administered by the
California Bar I'm on my way to become attorney. I'm
so strong and passionate for juvenile rights. I'm really really
excited and encouraged by the opportunities that I have in
front of me and to speak my experience, to speak
my truth, to speak my understanding of what I believe
(01:46):
justice is for juveniles and their parents.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Oh No, it's incredible though, because you went in at
fifteen years old. Right at fifteen, you're just fairly a teenager.
You're not a man, you're a child. And then to
be put into that environment at that age, and now
to come out on the other side and transform that
pain into healing for other people who are strangers to you. Right.
(02:10):
What an amazing full circle story that is.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
You know, it's the children and their families, and this
is happening all across America. You got fourteen, fifteen, sixty
to seventeen year old treated differently. Some are giving life
said and some are put with the adults, you know,
forced to fend for themselves. Their families are at home worried.
You know, that family unit is destroyed by that child
going into an adult prison. I mean, on all ends
(02:34):
of the spectrum, it's not going to end well. And
so I am passionate about fighting for these people. They
have a right to be treated equally and fairly and educated.
And now I'm in a position that I can do
something about it, and I feel deep responsibility. You know,
it's not the easiest thing, but I'm really excited about
(02:56):
this next chapter. I really am.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
In the eighties and nineties, Los Angeles gang culture was
much more nuanced than anyone outside of it bothered to know.
For some, gangs meant socializing, while the criminal activity of
others colored all affiliated with the same broad brush. Gangs
were viewed as a problem that needed a swift and
harsh solution, and it seems that simply connecting it defended
to a gang was enough to get a conviction. While
(03:28):
fifteen year old de Duardo Dombrica and eighteen year old
John Clennie were affiliated with LAWNDEL thirteen for the girls,
parties and camaraderie, three older LAWNDEL thirteen members, Santo Alvarez,
Lester Momlor, and Chad Landrum were in IT for the
drugs and violence. On June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
Antonio Alarcan, a rival gang member, was killed in a
(03:50):
drive by shooting. A few days later, to escape unrelated charges,
Santo Alvarez used his knowledge of that drive by to
blame Duardo and John. A few weeks later, Alvarez, Monmore,
and Landrum committed another murder, and the police were happy
to pin Alvarez's role on a woman who knew the
deceased rather than their star witness against Eduardo and John.
(04:13):
With Alvarez's statement and a corrupt identification process that was
immediately recanted and protested by the witness, the two boys
were taken to trial. Chad Landrum was willing to confess
to the drive bite, but his continued violence behind bars
kept him unavailable. Despite both Alvarez and the witness's less
than willing participation to trial, the prosecutor and the detectives
(04:35):
were able to harp on at Duardo and John's gang
affiliation in order to send them away for life without parole.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today.
(04:56):
We're covering a case. It gives us a peek into
the gang world of Los Angeles in the nineteen nineties
and the way in which the LAPD and the Prosecutor's
office dealt with that issue. We have two men that
were affected by those policies when they were just boys.
There's a third wrongfully convicted person, Susan Mellen, from a
related crime. She's not recording with us today, but their
(05:18):
amazing lawyer is one of the founders of Innocence Matters.
Deirdre O'Connor, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thank you for having
me and now our guests of honor, the two men themselves.
You know I always say this, but it's true. I'm
sorry that you guys are here because of why you're here,
but I'm really happy to have you on Wrongful Conviction today.
(05:40):
So I'm going to introduce John Clenny. First, John, thank
you for being here with us today on Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And of course Ed Dombrique, thank you for joining.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Us, Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So you two guys grew up together. Can you give
us a little background there.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I've known Ed since I was about maybe fifteen. We
both grew up in Londale, California. Londeal's kind of typical
middle class city in the South Bay. You know, it
has its little areas that aren't so great, and it's
some areas are decent.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So it's about ten minutes fifteen minutes from the beach.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
I think it's a nice city. It's got a good
high school.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So growing up in Lawndale, there was a gang in
your neighborhood called the Londale thirteen.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Well, we grew up there and we were part of that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So you too grew up in the gang culture of
Los Angeles in the eighties and nineties and really came
of age in the nineties. And I think it's news
to some people that the word gang and gang culture
in general is a bit more nuanced than most of
the country realized back then. You know, many of our
listeners are old enough to remember seeing news reports of
the violence associated with gangs, and that's pretty much all
anyone outside of that culture knew about it at the time.
(06:56):
Only negative connotations, of course, So society reacted to that
by electing quote unquote tough on crime politicians who implemented
these kinds of ham fisted policing tactics, which of course
had very real effects, as you can both attest to
locking people up for the sake of doing it, but
not the right people, and in too many cases it's
(07:17):
the wrong people, like in yours. But gang culture was
not just criminality and violence, right, It was much much
more nuanced than that. Would you say that's an accurate depiction.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, for sure. Even in a single gang, it may
be like, you know, some people are just families, some
people are just friends. Of course you have a criminal
element to it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone
is involved in crime. The term gang is not a
good one, but it's like when you're young and growing
up and you experienced the friendship and the camaraderie, and
(07:47):
I mean that's kind of where you end up at,
especially if you're growing up like in a neighborhood, you
know where gangs are there.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
You know, not everybody is on the same page. Not
everybody gets along. We were having fun, you know, whether
we're trying to get girls, trying to have a good time,
that's what it was. But you definitely had other guys
that their version of fun or you know, what they
would do is drugs and violence.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
What I think is true for all gangs, right is
that there are little subsets inside the gangs where people
gravitate towards certain activities, you know, chasing girls, maybe scoring
some weed, that kind of thing. And there was that
kind of group, and then there were the people like Payaso,
which is Santo Alvarez, or Ghost Chad Landrum or Wicked
(08:33):
Lester Monlore that were really wanting to make a name
for themselves. They were getting high all the time and
doing some real vicious stuff. And they were the ones
out there doing the drive bys and the kind of
gratuitous violence that everybody associates gangs with.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Did you get along with these guys?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
We know them. They're all significantly older than us. I
knew Lester when I was growing up a little bit,
like just as a as a younger kid, but he
kind of went the druggy kind of violent route, and
I just was there for kind of like the camaraderie
and the friendships and the fun I saw Santos on
(09:14):
my block a lot here and there, and my neighbor
that lived in the backhouse. I guess he got his
radio stolen, you know, out of his car in my driveway,
you know, And I always pretty much suspected Santos as
being the one that stole it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
You know. Okay, so so much for camaraderie. So this
kind of accurately paints a picture of the divide that's
at the crux of this story. And I mean by
that the larger perception of gangs in the nineties, and
then how the issue was dealt with, like I said,
in a ham fisted kind of way, by detectives like
the ones in this case. There was Sergeant Riggs, but
(09:52):
also Marcella Win in a related case Deirdre. Have either
of them had any other wrongful convictions that they've been tied.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
To win certainly does. She's a serial offender. There's at
least five known people ob Anthony and Reggie Cole case.
They were code defendants. It was Wynn's first murder case
at South Bay Homicide.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, we covered that case here on Raefel Conviction and
we'll have it linked in the bio.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Then she had these two guys, Ed and John. Now
she had a tangential role in that, but had she
done the right thing, these guys would not have been
in custody. She also had the Susan Mellon case where
she relied on a non reliable person, but obviously unreliable,
there was no question about it. And then she had
(10:39):
another case, the Michelle Pulo's case, she relied on the
same unreliable witness that she used against Susan Mellon.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That is really disgusting tactic that we see over and
over again revisiting and reusing the same useful liars, like
Mark Tavins did in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. And
this kid Joey Morales who was a witness in six
different murders and each time he was out getting milk
for his mom, and Danny Rincon who we interviewed on
(11:08):
this podcast, which is still in prison three decades later
because of this fake witness, and of course Mark Tevans,
it looks like win was cut from the same cloth.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
She was a terrible detective and didn't follow the rules
at all.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Now, as far as Sergeant Riggs is concerned, you're going
to see what he does in this case in terms
of the identification process, and one can only surmise that
if he was so comfortable running rough shot over a
witness who was protesting at the identification in the courtroom
and in post conviction, yeah, while at the identification, he's
literally going, I can't see that, bar I can't do
(11:45):
this identification for you because I can't see. So this
guy tried to stand up and do the right thing
and was overruled and overridden and bullied.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
By these cops.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
So it's fair to say that this is something that
this particular officer had done before.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
The one thing I would say, Jason, in these gang cases,
you know, all bets are off with these detectives. They
can do whatever they want because they know that nobody
has any sympathy. All they have to do is say
the word gang member, and the prosecutors, the jurors, judges,
everybody rallies around a conviction. So the rules are completely
different in a gang case, and that's why you see
(12:23):
detectives violate the rules as much as they do because
they can.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Get away with it, right, They violate the rules while
lumping every gang member in under the umbrella of quote
violent gang member, regardless of what subset of the gang
that individual identified with. And what happened in this case,
as happens unfortunately all over the country tragically, is that
you have a violent character like Santo Alvarez who conveniently
(12:49):
trades false information for his own freedom, and then he
and they remain free, I mean, other people like him
to commit more acts of violence while getting innocent folks
wrongfully convicted, and according to the false information that Alvarez
eventually gave the police. This story began to unfold on
the day before the incident in question, June twenty seventh,
(13:10):
nineteen ninety seven, when a few kids from around the
Lowndeal thirteen neighborhood who were not in any way affiliated,
were the victims of a drive by. This was allegedly
perpetrated by members of the Lil Watts game. Now, none
of this was ever investigated or substantiated, but this story
from Santo Alvarez was used as the alleged motive for
a retaliatory drive by the following night. But did either
(13:32):
of you guys even know the kids who were shot
or shot at the night before, and particularly did you
know nineteen year old Luis Madrano.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I didn't know the guy. Those guys were not associates
of Londo. They were not friends of Londo that I
know of. But somehow I guess to maybe create a
motive for our case, they got brought into that as
being a good way to say, oh, yeah, these guys
are retaliating for this.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And what happened the following night, June twenty ninety ninety
seen was that a member of the Little Watts Gang,
twenty five year old Antonio Alercon, was at an autobody
shop and while outside using a payphone next door, out
of sight of those in the autobody shop, he was
killed by a drive by shooter. Dieu, what else can
you tell us?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Aller Khan had a truck that was being worked on
over a period of time at the shop, and the
shop owner, Daniel Curio, was at the shop that night
with a couple of other people in the shop and
Aller Khan happened to stop by and while he was there,
I think he got a page and he wanted to
use the phone to call this woman who turned out
(14:37):
to be his mistress. So he was offered to use
the inside phone, but he declined and decided to go
outside because he wanted privacy. So he went out of
the shop. There's an adjacent building and there's a payphone
outside of that, and he went to the payphone to
speak with his mistress, and then suddenly a car pulled up.
(14:58):
Somebody got out of the car and just unloaded multiple shots,
and he was killed, really, probably before he had any
chance to react in any way. And then the shooter
got back in the car and the car drove off,
and as it drove off, it passed the opening of
the body shop garage door. So basically there's the storefront
(15:21):
on the corner. Adjacent to it is the body shop,
but the body shop sits in from the sidewalk so
that there's parking in front of it. So when you're
inside the body shop with the door open and looking out,
you would not have a direct line to the phone
booth because the wall of the building would be blocking it.
But once the car moved forward, they would be able
(15:44):
to see the car.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Pass by right, so no one actually got a good
look at the shooter, including the shop owner who told
detectives that, but detectives cajoled him anyway into making an
id that he has never supported. Curiel even demonstrated later
at trial that he can't reliably see twenty feet in
front of him. Can you talk a bit about his
(16:06):
vantage point.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Curio's working on a car with his back to the street.
He hears the sound of the gunshots going off, but
he thought it was fireworks, and because of the echoing effect,
he thought it was coming from the back. So he
goes to the back and he looks out to see
what's going on back there, and that's when he realizes
it's coming from the front. And by then the car
(16:29):
is moving past the shop, so he would have been
I think more than twenty feet away from the car
at the time that he first observed it.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So what he and others did see was that this
was a black or dark green colored sedan and that
the front passenger had yelled some kind of gang epithet
at Alarkhan as they drove off. So this shooting happened
around eleven pm on June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven,
and from looking into this case, I realized that this
state has some other significance and the audience will remember
(17:01):
this like I do. Because earlier that same night, Mike
Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off during a heavyweight championship fight.
So people remember that night very, very clearly. In fact,
you guys were friends. Ed was fifteen, John was eighteen,
and you were hanging out to watch the fight together.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Is that right, Yes, sir. Yeah, on the day of
he had you know, barbecue, invited me.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It was actually a great night. You know, we'd never
seen something like that before, right, It was pretty memorable.
There was multiple people there, you know, cooking, eating, drinking it.
It was a good night.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, that was insane. I remember calling my friends and
family just to check if they had seen it.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
People called the house, a few people and they're like,
what the hell happened? Seeing it on the news, and
you know, if they didn't watch the fight, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Right, they knew you were watching and called to ask
about it. You were seen on the front lawn talking
on your cordless phone by a neighbor as well, who
got home around eleven. So not only do people at
the party, but also those that called you and your neighbor.
They all placed you at home at the time of
the shooting, which was about an eight to twelve minute
drive away from your home. And this shooting was alleged
(18:15):
to be in retaliation for the shooting of some kid
you didn't even know. Now, this case was being investigated
by Sergeant DORYL.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Riggs.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Several days go by, and on July first, Santo Alvarez
Akapayaso got picked up for possession of a weapon and
a hypodermic needle by Torrence PD. And this is when
the story start.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So basically, Santos Alvarez is in jail trying to find
his way out of jail, starts telling the I believe
it was a Torrance Police department where he was at.
You know, hey, I know something about a murder that happened,
and they called the Sheriff's Homicide.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Right, So Torrance PD called over to La County Sheriff's
Homicide Department and Sergeant Riggs came to interview Santo Alvarez
and they started asking about this dark colored car, maybe
perhaps green, and while distancing himself from Londeale gang activity,
he said that the only person he can think of
from Londale with a car like that was a guy
named Robert Caputo, and he said that he saw the
(19:11):
two of you in Kaputo's car on the day of
the murder, among other things.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
But also Santo Alvarez creates this story that he saw
me the day of the murder and I was upset
about that shooting from the prior day of Luis Madrano,
and that I wanted to retaliate. And then he said
that he saw me like you know, a few days
(19:37):
later or whatever, and says that he overhears me talking
to someone else saying that I shot someone or blasted
that for or something like along those lines is what
he used. So with that, from my understanding, they let
him out. Then they go back to the witnesses. I
feel they put pressure the most on probably Daniel Curriel
(19:57):
since he was a shop owner and showed him six
packs and coerced him into identifying us because of what
Santos said.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So you mentioned that Alva said that we were in
Carpule's car, right, but computer had turned that car in
or sold it. They could tell there that he was
lying about that, and that's a significant thing to lie
about it.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
You said, they were in a car that the guy
doesn't have exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Capudle had sold it in February nineteen ninety seven, about
five or six months before the shooting. Yet Riggs and
his partner Garcia brought a six pack photo array over
to Curiel with the purpose of getting him to id
YouTube as if they couldn't spot that lie about Capudo's
car right off the bat. This bogus photo lineup happened
(20:44):
on July tenth, I believe, before Ed's arrest, and Curiel
has always disputed this, but Riggs says that he identified
Ed as the shooter and John is the front passenger.
He held a gang epithet, So what really happened here?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Well, Riggs convinces him basically, look, you're never going to
have to go to court. We don't even need you.
This is just to help our case a little bit.
We already got these guys, but in reality he was
their entire case. So he convinces Curiel to say, all right,
I'll sign for you today.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
My arrest July tenth, nineteen ninety seven, on my way
to the gym with a friend, and he noticed that
there was cow cars behind us, and there was three
of them, and then there was three coming in front
of us. It had a bad feeling, like this is
not a traffic ticket. They pulled us over, pulled the
(21:39):
guns out, drive us off the car, and one of
my mom's friends happened to be driving by, and so
she was across.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
The street just observing.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
But I was trying to communicate with her to call
my mom. Dude, I didn't want my mom not to
know what happened to me either, you know. So I
was fifteen. They tried me as an adult and they
sent me to the county jail, and I found myself
in a very binding section of the Alkan and that
was my kind of introduction to the system.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Three weeks after the Alerkhan shooting, Santo Alvarez, Lester Moanler,
and Chad Landrum were hanging out in this house that
had been vacated that was referred to as the Melon
Patch because the family that owned it their last name
was Melon. So they break in the back. They're getting high.
(22:46):
A homeless guy, Richard Daly, who had prior connection with
the woman who used to live there, Susan Mellon, stops by.
They're originally partying with him, and then all of a sudden,
Chad Landrum viciously attacks daily Max his head multiple times
with a hammer and kills him. And then with the
(23:07):
help of Santo and Lester, they wrap up the body
and bring it to an alley in sam Pedro, where
they set it on fire in hopes of destroying any evidence. Said, well,
enable the police to connect them.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Right, And you all didn't find out about this until
post conviction, even though the person who prosecuted both Ed
and John prosecuted this case as well, and we talked
a bit about her before. But the Daily murder fell
on Marcella Win's desk, right, All of these informants came
to her saying it was Piasso ghost and wicked with
the hammer right in the melon patch, open and shut, right,
(23:45):
But that's not what happened. This person, Susan Mellon, ended
up getting dragged into it in Piaso's stead right instead
of him. How did that happen?
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Well, I think initially when you know, she takes the
path of least resistance in all of her investigations, so
when people were handing up the three gang members, she
was going to pursue that and go after them. She
even submitted an affi David for arrest warrants for all
three of them. However, she doesn't want to do any
heavy lifting, so there wasn't enough evidence for the DA
(24:15):
to pursue Piasso, and Wynn didn't do the investigations she
needed to build a case against them. So at the
same time that it was becoming clear that she'd have
to work to get Piasso further implicated in it, this
other tweaker, June Patty, came along and said, Hey, I
got some information on Melon. You can pursue her. And
(24:37):
so Wind shifted gears and went after Melon. And while
she was doing this, she was in communication with Riggs
about Piasso's role as a witness as their star witness
in that case. So in those conversations that were never documented,
the substance of that was never documented. Clearly, these detectives
made decisions that benefited both of them, So Riggs was
(25:00):
allowed to use Payasso in the Aller Khan shooting, and
Win was free to pursue Melon, another innocent person, for
the Daily murder.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So ultimately Chad Landrum and Lester Monlaur were rightfully pursued,
along with Susan Mellon who was wrongfully pursued. They were
all tried separately, and Landrum and Mellon were both convicted.
Monlare was acquitted, So both monlaur and Alvarez got off
scott free, ready willing and able to commit even more crimes.
(25:29):
That's right, yeah, Jesus gris. So now August fourteenth rolls
around and John, you were arrested for the alar Khan
drive by as the front seat passenger.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, that was the shocker, obviously, but for the first
you know, six months of going to jail. When I
got arrested, I thought the next court date they would realize, Hey,
this guy's not supposed to be here, We're going to
go ahead and release them. And you know, every court
date turned into a next court date till I finally realized, like,
(25:59):
these guys are so they really, you know, they're really
trying to charge me with this.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So now October thirtieth, nineteen ninety seven, curial was brought
into view a live lineup, and on the advice of
your lawyer, John, you tried to change your appearance. So
even though you were innocent of this crime, this move
made you look not so great.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
My lawyer, Frank ta Jacomo. He tells me, you know, hey,
this guy, he's already seen pictures of you. They've shown
him your six pack or whatever. Let's kind of make
it a little more difficult for him to pick you out. So,
you know, grow your hair out, shave your mustache. And
I'm listening to the advice of my attorney. So I say,
all right, you know, I grow my hair out, shave
(26:39):
my mustache. I go to my lineup and then I'm waiting.
They bring me off the stage from the lineup, and
the deputy is like, who are you? And I'm like,
what do you mean You're not John Plenty? Who are you?
And I'm like, yes, I am. And he's like, no
one recognizes you out there. Your lawyer doesn't recognize you.
The detective doesn't recognize you. You did you switch wristbands?
(27:00):
And I'm like, no, I didn't switch ristbands. Like it's me,
you know, And I said, how does my lawyer not
recognize me? He just saw me two weeks ago. He's
the one that told me to change my appearance. Little
did I know that was going to be used against me.
They used that as a sign of a consciousness of guilt.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
So later on Curio and identifying you in the live lineup.
He went on to testify that he had just recognized
John from the photo race and in referring to Riggs, quote,
I already knew who he was looking for. End quote.
Now you two are on your way to be tried together,
and Chad Landrum has already been convicted and sentenced to
life without the possibility of parole. Amazingly, Landrum reached out
(27:41):
to Ed's family because he wanted to come clean about
the alar Khan drive by.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
He wanted to testify in the case, and my Lord
did bring him down to our trial or it was
maybe a pre trial pulls or something, and they never
got his statement. It didn't give him much chance to
testify or confess.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
From what I've read, there's a reason why he didn't
get that chance. Right, he was actually brought down to
the courthouse.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
What happened, Yeah, I guess he got into it or
something with someone. I think it was on the bus
or not too sure, but he ended up stabbing him
in the courthouse tank and that was the end of that.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So you're one shot at getting around the false testimony
of Alvarez and this protested identification, just got dragged away
for acting out violently again stabbing another guy, And then
you go to trial in La County Superior Court and
no one brought up Landrum's involvement or went again an
affi davit nothing. So Ed was represented by Walter Urbin
(28:40):
and John by Frank Dajacomo. The prosecutor was Valerie Cole,
and so the prosecution's theory was that Ed, John, and
a third Londale thirteen gang member were in the dark
green car. John was in the front passenger seat, Ed
was in the back seat, and Ed was the shooter.
So they never caught up with this alleged driver, right,
John allegedly shouted an epithet about the Little Watch gang.
(29:02):
This was allegedly a retaliation for this other shooting. But
of course this entire theory came from Santo Alvarez, who
was deflecting the blame from his own crew. What was
presented by the prosecution to support this wacky ass theory.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
The prosecution was entirely dependent on pre trial statements of
Santo Alvarez and the pre trial identification of Curio. At
the actual trial, Curio did not identify either Ed or John.
He specifically testified that the only reason he made the
pre trial identification was because he was, you know, kind
(29:39):
of pressure to and he gave the whole story about
how the police pointed out the pictures and said, hey,
this guy's bragging about it, this guy was in the
front seat, this guy's a shooter, or all that. So
the jurors weren't basing their verdict on what the testimony
in front of them. They were basing their verdict on
the statements made outside of their presence. Same thing Paiaso
(30:00):
when he gets into trial, he's like, I don't know,
I don't know, I don't know what I said, might
have said whatever. So they use the tape recording of
the statement that Paiasso made to Rigs. And by the way,
they rehearsed it before they did the official tape, right,
they talked to him off record, and then they put
the tape on and they talked to them. And so
(30:22):
the jurors were told, hey, look it, this is a
gang case. Piasso doesn't want to come in here and
rat out his homies, so you can believe what he
said to Riggs when he's trying to get out of
custody and Curio, poor curial. He's being intimidated and threatened
by all these gang members. So that's why he's not
going to say it in front of you all. But
(30:42):
he looked what he said to the cops. You know,
he made this idea, and that was the entirety of
the prosecutor's case. And the other thing she did, without
any legitimate basis for doing so, is she made every
single one of the alibi witnesses look like liars and
made it sound like the alibi was this last minute
(31:03):
defense that defense lawyers put together at the very end,
when John's mother had presented the lawyers with line by line,
minute by minute timeline of where everybody was, who showed up, when,
who left when, the names, the phone numbers and all
of that the day she hired John's lawyer. So the
(31:24):
alibi was known right from the get go, but the
jurors were misled into believing it was all some fabrication
by the tricky defense lawyers.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I mean, I can see how you could impeach alibi
witnesses as friends and loved ones, or as they did
in this case, fellow gang members and friends of long
till thirteen. So the message is that everyone is gang
related and therefore lying. But your lawyer could have backed
up the alibi with phone records. It's not that complicated
it but even without that support though, from what I understand,
the one witness that was used in this corrupt identification process, Curiol,
(31:56):
was adamant that he did not stand by this identification.
Really take off his glasses to demonstrate how bad his
vision was, because that would have been pretty powerful. Does
anyone remember that?
Speaker 4 (32:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I remember that he took off his glasses in court
and couldn't see anything. I mean, you could tell he
couldn't see anything. You know when when someone I can
take off my glasses and you can tell I need
them just by looking at me. So, I mean, it
was amazing, man, it was.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
It was crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Another thing that I remember happening was the district attorney
she said that I gave him my thumbs up. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I read about that to Curio, like as if he
was helping you out.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And I'm curious, now she's ever used that tactic against
other defendants, because the whole courtroom focused on me, And
this is did you just give the guy a thumbs
up and.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Open courte room?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Now mine? He wasn't doing me any favors. There was
no reason, and I did not give him my thumbs up.
I'm looking at the jury like I did not. But
it was effective.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, those dirty It sounds like they were just running
the disgraceful playbook. I mean, part of Curro's testimony was
that the cops just convinced him that they had the
right guys, and at that time, everyone believed the police right.
And then all they had to do was say gang
and gang member enough times and it's almost like Pavlov's Dog.
It just almost a knee jerk reaction from the jury
to say, okay, great, when do I get to vote guilty.
(33:21):
The alibis and the witness protesting the identification just didn't
seem to matter at all.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
You got it one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
And then that combs up in there.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
If I could jump in on that point. And in
LA they created this hardcore gang unit in the late eighties,
I believe it was eighty eight or eighty nine, and
the whole purpose of that hardcore gang unit was like, damn,
it's hard to prove these cases because everybody's a liar
and everybody has baggage, and we don't have good witnesses.
(33:50):
We got to figure out a way. And basically what
they did was they created this unit where they recruited
all these overzealous prosecutors and say, hey, you get to
be the shine star here and you can make these
cases that nobody else can make. And then they gave
them strategies for how to do that. How do what's
the work around when you really can't prove your case
beyond a reasonable doubt, Just say gang gang, gang, gang, gang,
(34:12):
as many times as you can make everything be about
scaring the hell out of the jurors and making them
think that whoever sitting in the defendanc seat is the
worst person in the world, just because they happened to
have affiliated with a gang for whatever reason, and regardless
of their level of involvement, let's get them off the street.
Evidence be damned.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Even their use of the word homies, I mean, that's
a racist dog whistle.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
If I ever heard what I saw, the gang gang
gang push by the prosecutor, by the you know, by
the detectives. You know, I saw my lawyer not do
a good job at all. The combination of all those things,
I felt my life slipping away from me.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
When they read the verdict. I remember they hear you know,
my family, my mom or. I remember looking up at
the lights in the courtroom trying to not you know,
let no tears come out.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Man, I think I probably did shed a couple tears.
You know, people talk about the worst moment in their life.
That was for sure the worst moment right there.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know, I get to prison on brand new. I
don't know what to expect. I know that I'm surrounded
by a bunch of guys that are violent, angry, confrontational,
and so I'm navigating through that. You got to walk
on eggshells to be sure. And I used to work
(35:50):
out a lot because if I did end up having
to get into a confrontation, I wanted to be able
to defend myself, and so I used to work out
for three hours a day in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
I I tell people this story all the time, like
my kind of welcome to prison moment. I'm scared, but
I'm also trying not to show fear. You know, that's
not a good idea in prison. I'm walking on the yard,
some guys sitting down on a curb, and as I'm walking,
I'm you know, probably a foot or two away from him,
(36:22):
and a guy comes up behind him and just slices
his whole face open, from like his lip to his ear.
And just seeing that happen, like, you know, a foot
away from me, it was like, where the fuck am I? So,
like Ed said, it's just survival.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Mode, that's it.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
As soon as I could, I started to read books,
and then I learned that, you know, the way the
criminal appeal process works is your lawyer's gonna dump the
case on you, and then it's gonna be on you
to represent yourself. And that's when I started to go
into the library. I would go to the yard, I
would go to the library instead because you only choose
(37:03):
one or the other. And started to learn the law.
And then I found myself in solitary and I had
to try to figure out way how am I going
to get out of solitary was? I started to study
solitary confinement cases and I put together a memorandum of
law on why lawyers should come to California and challenge
(37:26):
long term solitary confinement. And in those efforts I managed
to meet Professor Jose Lobel from the University of Pittsburgh.
It was through his student Brett Grot, who's now the
director of the Abolitionist Law Center. They read my memorandum,
they researched it, and they decided to come to California
(37:46):
follow class action, and that case settled in twenty fifteen,
twenty fourteen. And you know, I was partly responsible for
getting guys that had been in there for thirty five years,
eight years, twenty seven years. Me myself, I was there
for thirteen years. It is one of the things that
(38:07):
I've done in my life that I still feel the
rewards of because today there's people that are outside and
seeing the sky, seeing their family, and that is due
to the work that I did. Obviously, I wasn't acted alone.
I had there was a team of lawyers. But I
put in the work and it paid off.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
You should be very proud of that. And as part
of that settlement, California can no longer put a prisoner
in solitary confinement for indeterminate periods. In Ed's case, it
was thirteen years with no end in sight, simply based
upon alleged gang membership. So now that you fought your
way out of the prison. Within the prison, let's get
to how you guys are here speaking with us today.
(38:50):
So your initial appeals were denied. As far as I
could see here, there's no real movement on this until
Landrum once again reached out to Ed's family saying that
he wanted to confess to murdering alercon Right. We knew
this already, but I guess he hadn't ever gone on
the record about it and wasn't exactly easily reachable. He
was also by this time in solitary doing life without parole.
(39:13):
So John, take us through this.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
My friend told me when I got convicted, like, I'm
going to get you a lawyer. I don't care how
long it takes. You know, once I can afford one,
I'm going to get you one. So when this stuff
came up with Landrum, that's when I talked to my
best friend and I told him, you know, now's the time.
You know, this guy's coming forward and confessing, Like, we
need to get a lawyer, and thank god we got
(39:37):
Deir Dr.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
John's friend reached out to me in May of twenty twelve,
and what had happened prior to that was Chad Landrum
had written out a confession and provided it to Ed's
family and then Ed used it to file his own
habeas petition, but he didn't have any resources or a
(39:59):
lawyer to help him, so it was just the paper
that went in and the judge just dismissed it without
any thoughtful analysis at all. So when John's friend reached
out to me, the first thing we did is we
scheduled a trip to Pelican Bay to meet with Chad
Landrum and Ed Dunbriky. Both of them were in the
shoe unit and they had no ability to communicate with
(40:21):
one another. My sense of it was if there was
merit to Chad Landram's confession, we needed to do a
lot more work to build it up, and so we
asked all kinds of details, including who else would have
known back in the day about Chad's role in this
killing and the details. He had not a single note
(40:42):
in front of him reminding him about any of the
details of the case, and he could give me specific
information consistent with the police report, including the fact that
he got out of the car and shot alar Khan.
There were only two witnesses that saw that they were
women across the street, and they were never used in
(41:02):
the trial, so none of that was in the trial record,
all of the people from the auto body shop never
saw anybody out of the car because the car doesn't
come into their line of sight until after the shooting
is done. He also knew that Alercan was shot with
different types of bullets. That was a fact that, although
it was contained in the records, would not be something
that some random person would have known about. So there
(41:25):
was a lot of key points in Chad Landrum's statements
to me that made me think that he probably was
telling the truth. And so I asked him to tell
me confirmation as to who else knew back then, and
he told me his brother knew, and we followed up
and talked to the brother, and the brother gave us
all kinds of information. And I also asked Chad if
he would take a polygraph, and he immediately agreed to,
(41:47):
but the prison wouldn't allow us to go up there.
And so then you know all of the places you
would go logically in an investigation like this, including contacting
Curiel stop by his work out of the Blue. Reaes
to talk to us at an Eyehap as soon as
he gets off of work, and he lays it all out.
He tells us consistent with his recantation everything, and it's
(42:08):
all on tape, so nobody can say we put words
in his mouth or anything. And then we did the
same thing with all the alibi witnesses to find out,
you know, was there more that could have been done
to show that they were telling the truth, including the
logical things like phone records and other people who could
corroborate what they said. And it all fell into place,
(42:28):
and it was like I remember talking to John. You know,
we filed our brief in three months after investigation, and
we felt like, this is a no brainer. He should
be out that year.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I think that's how we all hope our system works,
but unfortunately that's not how it usually goes, and this
was no exception. So John Savias was filed in October
twenty twelve. He presented all this material, and like you said,
it was a no brainer. In twenty thirteen, Landram made
a formal confession on the record, then ed joined the
(43:00):
habeas as well. So it seems like there's a lot
of momentum. And in an effort to further support Landrum's confession,
you reached out to his co defendant on the Richard
Daily murder another wrongfully convicted person, Susan Mallon.
Speaker 5 (43:14):
Right, So we went and visited her. There were some
delays along the way because she was being represented by
someone else, but a year later I ended up representing her,
and in a lot of what I needed to prove
her innocence overlapped with what I needed to prove for
John and ultimately Ed, because there were so many witnesses
(43:34):
in common, and representing Susan gave me access to witnesses
that I didn't have before that.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
So this is twenty fourteen, Landram and even Alvarez one
on the record confessing to their roles in the daily
murder and clearing Susan of any responsibility. And after seventeen
years in prison, seventeen long years, Susan's conviction was vacated,
charges were dismissed and she went on to sue Marcello
win and won twelve million, and good for her. So
(44:01):
we're obviously very happy for Susan. That seemed to be
our system operating at the speed that it should, I mean,
notwithstanding the seventeen long years wrongfully incarcerated. But for John
and Ed. There was a court order in November of
twenty twelve for the DA to respond to this habeas petition.
What happened, Deirdre?
Speaker 5 (44:22):
There was one delay after another. There was transfers of
district attorneys and all kinds of stuff that just a
month turned into six month, turned into a year, turned
into five years. And it's hard. I can't even imagine,
excuse me, what it's like for these guys to have
(44:45):
to count on a lawyer on the outside saying, don't worry,
I got you back. I'm I'm going to do this.
You know, I'm going to get it taken care of,
when they have been disappointed every step of the way.
And I, you know, my experience of it is like,
you know, the frustration I feel on my end can't
even begin to compere to what these guys are going through.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Right. Imagine having the keys to the prison gate staring
you in the face for eight years before the district
attorney or the courts even pretend to not ignore them.
It wasn't until twenty twenty that a judge finally made
a ruling that amounts to basically a brain fart of
a man in cognitive decline. So tell us about this, judge,
Edmund Clark Junior and how this thing finally turned around.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
So it was clear we weren't going to be able
to force anybody's hand until we filed this supplemental brief.
And I mean, this is this brief because of all
of the evidence that was developed during Susan Mellon's case
was even stronger than what we had, and we had
a clear winner from the beginning. But it lands in
the hands of a judge who couldn't care less and
(45:49):
in a heartbeat, without any hearing or anything, he denies it.
He characterizes it as a pro say proper petition. When
I have my name all over it, I'm representing him,
and I had already been on the record, and he
completely distorted the history of it and made it sound
like it was a brand new petition that was relitigating
(46:11):
issues that had already been decided against John. So he
dismissed it, and then he retired soon after that. So
I file two motions, one for reconsideration and one for
a ruling on the original petition. And either way we
were prepared to go to the Court of Appeal, that's
where we thought we were going to end up. But
fortunately the judge who took the other judge's place really
(46:34):
was concerned that this might be a case involving innocent people,
and she told the DA you're going to need to
commit get yourself on paper, tell me what your position
is on this case, because if these are innocent people,
we have to deal with it. And once they were
forced to deal with it, then they submitted. Then they
just read the document and answered the document. Back in
(46:56):
twenty twelve, it would have been the same answer they submitted.
They said that based on the cumulative error in the case,
that the conviction should be vacated and they were not
going to pursue the charges. They were going to recommend
that it'd be dismissed. They could have done that back
in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
I'm rarely at a loss for words, but this just
really makes my stomach turn. I mean, it's just so
it makes me so angry, frustrated, and just I feel
a sense of deep sadness. And this didn't even happen
(47:34):
to me, but I just hate injustice and this is
such a grotesque example of the system at its worst.
We see it a lot on the show, but this one,
this one's really leaving a bitter taste. But the silver lining,
of course, is that you're out, even if it took
so much longer that it should have, and never mind
(47:56):
that it should have never even happened in the first place.
And John, I understand despite it all, you have somehow
managed to maintain a positive outlook.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Every day is a blessing for sure, you know. And
as each day goes by, it seems so much farther
away from everything that happened. But it just feels great
to be out and great to be free, and words
can't express it or describe it. Really.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Yeah, you know, I getting arrested at fifteen and sent
off to prison. There's a lot of things in normal
society that I've never experienced, you know. Just this last
year was the first time I took a plane ride,
first time I've been to a lake, to a river.
But also like the first time I had to pay bills,
(48:42):
the first time I had to keep up with appointments, responsibilities,
balancing school and work. What I'm finding is that it
doesn't just fall into place. It doesn't, and I'm working
through that. But there are times when I feel a
little bit lost out here. I really do, I really do.
But I'm confident and optimistic that it's going to come together.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
And Ed, I understand that you'd like to start a nonprofit.
Can you tell us a little bit about what you're
doing now.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
I applied for a job in Pittsburgh at a nonprofit,
the Abolitionist Law Center. I'm hopeful that I get the job.
If I do, I'm headed out that way in order
for me to work there, but also to learn about
nonprofits and how it runs, and with the goal of
creating my own. I want to call it Juvenile Justice
for All, and the goal would be to have children
(49:33):
treated equally and fairly, to have their parents rights respected.
A lot of times they just adopt adult laws. The
adult prison system doesn't help children at all. I look
to filing cases in court, but also working on policy changes,
speaking to other nonprofits and getting them to support some
(49:54):
of these ideas. My goal is to have a uniform
system in America treating children equally and fairly across the board.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Well, Ed, you've already been able to accomplish so much
from behind bars. So we're going to be on the
lookout for juvenile Justice for All. And we'll also link
to Innocence Matters, the organization that Deirdre co founded, so
please show them your support and John's Instagram as well,
where he'll keep you up to date on the continued
fight for justice. In this case. The courts are still
trying to deny the factual innocence claim here, but after
(50:23):
what we've heard here today, I can't see any reason
for it. And with that, we're going to go to
closing arguments, where first of all, I thank each of
you from the bottom of my heart for joining us here,
and then I'm gonna kick back in my chair, shut
my microphone off, and leave my headphones on and just
(50:44):
listen to anything else you feel is left to be said. Deirdre,
please start us off, and then we'll leave it to
the guys to take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 5 (50:54):
I think that it's essential for these stories to be told,
and I'm so grateful that you guys give people like
John and Ed the opportunity to tell the stories that
they live through. I think it's important for the public
to understand how fallible the system is, and I wish
it was limited to the nineties, but I represent people
who are charged today. It's the same fight, the same struggle,
(51:18):
and we've got to get it right. The first time.
We have to want to get it right the first time,
because it doesn't serve anybody, even if all we care
about collectively as a society is the money aspect of this.
We're throwing money away. We're paying for people to be
housed in prisons for crimes they didn't commit, and the
real criminals are out there committing other crimes. So we
(51:40):
need to get it right. We need to want to
get it right, and we need to applaud people like
John and Ed who have gone through hell and back
and we need to make their lives easier once they
get out. We need to help them in whatever way
we can.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Well, I do appreciate this opportunity to speak about our
case and what we went through. I know that there's
a lot of other people out there that are in
the same circumstances and they're in the same struggle. So
I do appreciate the work that you're doing, and I
just I'm happy to be free, you know. I'm happy
to be free. I'm looking forward to making a difference
(52:17):
out here. I think it kind of for me would
give my life meaning when I feel like I've lost
so much of it already. I'm hopeful that what's left
of it. I can actually make a difference, and my
experience will help other people.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
A couple of things. I'd just like to thank you
Jason for what you do and Wrongful Conviction Podcast Lava
for Good. I follow all that stuff very closely, keep
it up because it's needed. I think it helps a lot,
and even if it helps a little, a little is
more than nothing. So for me, the one thing I
would tell people is never to lose hope, never to
(52:57):
give up. That's the key to everything, because I know
in my case, I never gave up hope. I kept
the fight, never got away from that. If you're innocent,
you better fight until you can't fight anymore. Hope is
all you got, That's all that's going to keep you going.
Don't lose it.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Kleibern, and Kevin Wartis.
With research by Lyla 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
(53:44):
wrong Conviction as well as at Lava for Good on
all three platforms. You can also follow me on both
TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is
the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with
Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Then Bur the Wain in the dram
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.