February 19, 2024 • 40 mins
In February of 1999, 86-year-old Rosemary “Mama Rose” Williams arrived at a hospital in Queens NY, claiming that she’d been raped at knifepoint. She named her 36-year-old grandson, Gary, as the assailant. Despite there being no physical evidence that Ms. Williams was assaulted, and the fact that Gary was in another state he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Years later, Mama Rose admitted to family members that she regretted making the accusation, saying, “It’s time to get Gary out.” Speaking with Maggie at Fishkill Correctional Facility, Gary says that he believes his grandmother was in the early stages of dementia when she made the claim that sent him to prison - and that he forgives her. “I have to,” he says, “because I believe that something was wrong with her.”
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
A warning for listeners. This episode contains graphic description of
alleged sexual assault. Please listen with caution and care. In
February of nineteen ninety nine, eighty six year old Rosemary
Williams arrived at Jamaica Hospital in Queen's She claimed that
(00:23):
she'd been raped at knife point. At the time, Rosemary's grandson,
Gary was on parole from a drug possession charge and
had been staying with her. Rosemary told police that she
and Gary had argued about a friend he'd had over.
Then later that night, she said he came into her bedroom,
threatened her, and then assaulted her.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Right from the beginning, there were conflicting versions of what occurred,
but the accusation that led to his arrest and indictment
was that he raped and sodomized his grandmother.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
My mom's told me over the phone, I said you.
She said yes, she said they look for you.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
But when you hear this, this is like crazy, this lie,
this is it's wild. What were you?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Embarrasshing day that I faced in my life. I have
to face it every day.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
In here with these guys.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Gary Williams. I've been concentrated for twenty four.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Years from lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today Gary Williams. Gary Williams has been incarcerated
(01:38):
in New York since two thousand and one. He's serving
twenty five to life for a crime that, as you'll hear,
never happened. Since I'm in New York, I took a
short two hour trip to visit Gary at Fishkill Correctional
Facility in Beacon. It's a medium security prison with razor
wire fences surrounding the daunting brick building. Inside was organized
(02:00):
and chaotic. Our interview was even cut short by a
lockdown for an unknown reason. When that happened, Gary was
taken back to his cell immediately. However, we were able
to speak for an hour.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I was born in Snowhill, Maryland, and I was raised
in stop of Jamaica, Queens. We moved to Far Rockaway,
so I I grew up in Jamaica and Far Rockaway.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
I got an older brother.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Named Aaron, another brother named Manu. Aaron, Diane, Manu Michelle inmate.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Gary's parents were Manuel Williams and Margaret Bratton. When Gary
was around two, the family moved in with Gary's paternal grandparents,
Franklin and Rosemary Williams on one hundred and forty second
Street in Jamaica, Queens. The kids knew them as Daddy
Frank and Mama Rose.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
He cooks breakfast every morning, so I used to get
up in the morning and go.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Sit down in the chair and watch him cook.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
As great sausage. And he used to give me a
half a cup of coffee.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I look forward to that when I go to sleep
at night, I'm like this, Daddy Frank gonna cook me
breakfast in the morning.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yup, I look forward to at He took us to Florida.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
We were the youngest grandkids, so she used to take
the two youngest boys everywhere. He went baseball games everywhere. Yeah,
I had some good times in that house.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
Oh he was to me, he was saught on earth.
He was a very nice person.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This is Gary's older brother, Aaron Williams.
Speaker 7 (03:49):
He gave all his grandchildren when he worked and everything.
He gave all of us allowance on Fridays, and he
took us to baseball games. He even came to our
games and everything a lot.
Speaker 8 (03:57):
And then what about Mama Rose, what was she like?
Speaker 7 (04:00):
She was a piece of work. She never went anywhere
with else she would drinking and that was boy, that
was a done deal. She would play the numbers. She
would drink, and she would have barbecues and she would
write from friends over and we had a nice time.
But like I said, when she started drinking everything with
a little head wire, she was very nasty when she drank.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
As Aaron remembers it, Mama Rose didn't seem to care
for Gary much.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
When we first moved up here.
Speaker 7 (04:26):
She was nice to all of us, but it seemed
like for some reason along the way, she just started
resenting Gary. Seem like whatever he did, she didn't like it.
She resented him a lot.
Speaker 6 (04:35):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Mama Rose's younger son, Richard, Gary's uncle Rick, was a
source of tension for Gary as well.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
He didn't like me. She sound was a little boy.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I used to hear him talk about my dad behind
his back, you know what I'm saying. So I never
mean told my dad because my uncle, like, he's the
type of person that liked to fight. So I didn't
want to see two brothers fight over something. I try
to avoid things like that. Wh She was a drug
user back in the sixties and seventies, every time my
dad lit him money. He don't never pay my dad back. Oh,
(05:09):
one time you try to get money from me, I
wouldn't give it to him. I says, how you will
expect me to lend you money. You can't pay my
dad money? And how many years you own my father?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Over five years? I mean you ain't paying them.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
When Gary was around twelve, the family left his grandparents'
house and moved to a place in Springfield Gardens. Soon
after that, Gary's parents separated and his mother moved out.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
She just packed the stuff and left. Nobody know where
she went. Is she what I'm saying? She left? The
kids met my father right, so nobody know where she
was at.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So I said, well, I know where she work at.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So Gary says one day he got on his bike
and rode to her workplace, the post office at Kennedy Airport,
about two miles away. When his mother got off work,
he says he saw her get into a car with
his older brother, Aaron.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
So they drove right So when they did, I followed
them all the way to far rockaway.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
When she was getting out of the car, I was like, mob,
I found you.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Gary's mom was living in a one bedroom apartment. At
the time, his father was moving down to Delaware with
his sisters, so Gary's mother got a bigger place and
he and his two brothers moved in with her in
far Rockaway, a.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Block and a half away from the ballwalk. I how
did you get used to that? Me and my brother
used to erase each other playing in the sand. They
had basketball court there, hand ballcourt in.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
A baseball court.
Speaker 9 (06:34):
Were you particularly good at any of them?
Speaker 4 (06:37):
I basically wanted to do it because my older brothers
did it. But I was like.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Gary's teens were spent living near the beach, playing sports
and hanging out with his brothers, But when he reached
his twenties, he started getting into trouble.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Thating's happened.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
No, I was, I was a thief. I ain't gonna
lie you know I did that. I have two robs
in the drug case.
Speaker 9 (07:03):
Were you working at all?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I used to drive trucks LBX trucking company. I should
drive for low I should work in TSS department store.
Speaker 9 (07:14):
So you were working.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So how come you felt like you needed to rob
or do things like that?
Speaker 10 (07:18):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (07:18):
No, I guess it wasn't pain enough.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Between nineteen eighty four and nineteen ninety two, Gary served
time on and off for three felony convictions, one for
selling drugs and one each for robbery and attempted robbery.
In February of nineteen ninety nine, when he was thirty
six years old, he was out on parole for a
drug charge. With no place else to go, he was
once again staying under Mama Rose's roof in Queen's. She
(07:47):
was now in her eighties and a widow. Daddy Frank
had died in nineteen eighty six. Gary's father, Manuel was
living in Maryland and coming around to help Mama Rose
fix up the house so she could sell it.
Speaker 9 (08:00):
So tell me a little bit about Mama Rose.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Morose was kind of difficult to get along with. She's
got she was like kind of difficult. But I did
my best. I do things around the house for she
asked me to.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
I do it.
Speaker 8 (08:15):
So why was she difficult to get along with?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Because the type of person she is, I mean, gotta
go whole way. It's it's it's it's whole way, it's
the highway. You know, She's always in people's business. You know,
I hear coming, I might go that way, you know,
what I'm saying, I try to void up sometimes.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I do that.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
Do that leave?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Gary began to notice that sometimes Mama Rose didn't seem
quite all there. She was starting to get forgetful.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
Well.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
When she asked me to go to the store three
times in the road two three times for the same thing.
And she kept on giving me the t a fresh
twenty now And the second Time'm like this, I just
went to the store for you. It got the same thing.
She was like, just go again, all right, So I
just took the money.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And went again.
Speaker 9 (09:00):
What was it that she wanted?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I think it was a tall candle bit.
Speaker 6 (09:06):
She was a excuse me, my sprience. She was a bitch.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
This is Gary's brother, Aaron Again.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Malrose was a big liar.
Speaker 9 (09:12):
Too, Like what kinds of things had she made up?
Speaker 7 (09:15):
She would like, my mother would cook dinner and everything.
She would tell her friends that she cooked the dinner,
took it, you know, took the credit for it.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
Like I said, she was a piece of work.
Speaker 7 (09:23):
I stayed with my father overnight when I was helping
her fix the house, and one of her girlfriends came
over and they got the drinking and playing cards and everything.
It was in the winter time with snow on the
steps out front. So they got in an argument. So
she told her to get the hell out of her house,
and she went to the front door, and the Morrow's
followed right behind.
Speaker 11 (09:40):
Her and kicked her dinner at the icy steps.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
She didn't go to church like she said she would.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Matter fact, I can't even remember the last time she
went to I think the last time she went to church.
When my granddad was living. She liked playing her numbers,
she liked going to Landing City. She's she's like any
other lady age.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You know what I'm saying, My grandma, I'm is not
gambling and drinking tall boys, So maybe not. One week
Gary had a girlfriend named Sharon visiting from Maryland. When
they sat down to dinner, Mama Rose noticed that Sharon
put hot sauce on her potato chips, and she did
(10:19):
not like that.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
So maybe I will.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Later my Roes called me and she says, when is
she leaving? I said, I think she's leaving Sunday or Monday.
She said when she do, she can't come back.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
So I says, why, what's wrong?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
She says, anybody put hot sauce on potato Chips is
on drugs.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I said, you don't even know her, you just met her.
How are you gonna say she on drugs?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
She gonna say, trust me, I've been living a longer
than you, she's on drugs.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The arguments continued, and within a week or so, Gary
had enough of Mama Rose being in his business.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And I got, I got, I got fed up with it.
I was like this, Okay, I'm out here, you know
I'm saying. So I put the keys on the table
and packed my little stuff ahead.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Gary took off and went down to Delaware, where some
of his family lived. He knew he was taking a
risk jumping parole by leaving the state, but he had
had it with Mama Rose.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Early Saturday morning, February sixth, nineteen ninety nine, Rosemary Williams
called her daughters in law and told them that she
had been raped by her grandson, Gary Williams.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
My name is.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Elizabeth Felber, and I had the Wrongful Conviction Unit at
the Legal Aid Society.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Elizabeth has been working on Gary's case since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Right from the beginning, they were conflicting versions of what occurred,
but the accusation that led to his arrest and indictment
was that he raped and sodomized his grandmother.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Here's what Mama Rose told the police had happened that
night and what she later testified to at trial. And
justa heads up, this next section is graphic.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Between Thursday and Friday, you know, like early Friday mornings,
say around four, Gary knocked on his grandmother's door, and
when he came in, he was naked, he was holding
a knife, he was smoking a cigarette, and he was
wearing a condom. And he told her that he wanted
to have sex, although he said it a little more
graphically according to Grandma Rose, and that he tried to
(12:35):
vaginally penetrate her, was unable to do so went and
got baby oil poured it all over her. Sorry, it's
just so awkward to have to tell this story. And
then he had oral sex, you know, you know, put
his mouth to her vagina, and then she claimed that
(12:56):
he tried to put his penis in her mouth and
she told him that if he did that, she was
going to bite his penis off. He said, I'm not
going to kill you, and she said at another point
he sat down and started to cry and said he
was sorry, and then he went into his bedroom because
he was living with her at the time, She told
(13:16):
him she would make breakfast for him, and then she
said when it looked like he was had fallen asleep,
she ran down the stairs and that he came after her,
calling Mama Rose come back. That she ran outside yelling fire.
She ran about a block away, I guess to a
school that was people were dropping their kids off at school.
(13:38):
Told some woman, help help, my grandson's going crazy, and
the woman offered to call the police. She didn't want
to go to the police. She said, drive me to
my friend's house, who was right down the street from
where she lived.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Mama Rose stayed overnight with her friend, Mary Cunningham. The
next day, she called Gary's mother, Margaret, and told her
that Gary had come into her bedroom and raped her
at knife point, and that there was blood everywhere. Margaret
immediately called Gary's father and told him what Mamma Rose
had said. Manuel and his brother Richard went to mam
(14:14):
Morose's house. Manual later reported seeing no blood on her
bed or in her bedroom. Nevertheless, the police were called.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I believe it was her younger son who called the police.
She didn't even want to call the police. She did
not want to go to the hospital. I suspect that
she whatever story she concocted, she realized it had gotten
out of control and she was trying to shut it down,
but it was like, you know, the train had already
left the station.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Police soon arrived at the scene to investigate, led by
Detective Linda Hardy. However, no official sex crimes unit was dispatched.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
No evidence was collected at or house. There should have
been baby oil left trace, you know, even if someone
had taken off the sheets. There should have been baby
oil on the mattress, a knife, a cigarette that was
put out in an ashtray, a condom. She claimed she
washed herself with a washcloth, So none of that was
collected there, and there's no indication that the crime scene
(15:17):
unit even showed up.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Richard took Mama Rose to Jamaica Hospital in Queen's where
she was examined by doctor David Ware. Doctor Ware was
a resident at the time. He did not conduct a
proper forensic exam, and he failed to collect any physical
evidence that would have supported Mama Rose's story.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
He should have swabbed her mouth and give it, you know,
those would have been samples that they could have checked
for any kind of you know, DNA of Gary Williams,
or even baby oil, honestly, anything that would have backed
up her story.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Most significantly, doctor Ware did not follow standard procedure by
administering a rape kit.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
They didn't. They didn't follow it, and they have one
hundred excuses for why they didn't follow it. The clothing
wasn't taken, a rape kit wasn't done, so there was
no physical evidence to support her story.
Speaker 9 (16:13):
Gary was unaware of all of this.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
After going to Delaware, he went to stay in Newport News, Virginia,
with Sharon. When he talked to his mother on the phone,
she did tell him police were looking for him, and
Gary assumed it was because he had jumped parole until
she told him what Mama Rose had accused him of.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
I said you, so, she said, yes, she said they're
looking for you. You know, I'm saying I'm expecting her to.
I'm only expecting one person looking for me, parole officer.
That's what I'm expecting to.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
When she said when she said happened, I wasn't there.
I wasn't living there. I was gone.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Gary decided the best thing to do would be to
turn himself into the authorities in Virginia.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
When you turned yourself in, what were you thinking?
Speaker 8 (16:58):
Were you like, this is all going to get cleared up,
Like what did you think?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, I want to get this behind me. I want
to get this overweight. You know I'm innocent, Yes, let's go.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah. But it didn't happen that way because I had
to do a parole violation first.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
But the parole violation was nothing compared to what was
coming next. Once Gary returned to New York, he was
arrested and charged with first degree rape, sawomy, possession of
a weapon, and second degree menacing an incest.
Speaker 9 (17:36):
So do you remember when this happened.
Speaker 7 (17:38):
I know, my mother called me and told me that
they arrested Gary, and she told me the reason why.
I just couldn't believe it. I say, it got to
be lies. Something they right here. I know Gary, Gary
would never do anything like that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
His trial was set for July of two thousand and
one in front of Judge Richard Buckter. The prosecutor was
Assistant District Attorney Eric Rosenbaum, and Gary's attorney was Lewis Meehan.
So the first trial, how were you feeling the first trial,
after hearing everything, and they're going to do the verdict,
(18:13):
how did you feel?
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I was nervous.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
No, I already know if they if they convict me,
they're gonna give me twenty five life because.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Of my past history. I already know that.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And and they offered me plea boggains that I ain't take.
Speaker 9 (18:29):
What did they offer you?
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
They offered me a flat fifteen. First of all, they
don't offer no body but my record a flat bay.
They offer you always put the l behind you, fifteen
a life with me? They offer me flat fifteen. I
told him I did not do it. I'm not taking it.
Then a month and a half later, he says, the
lawyer be like this. He says, okay, the flat fifteen
(18:51):
is off the table. They offered me a flat five
just for the day. You want it, I says, dope.
Then when they had to split verdict, they offered me
one of the three.
Speaker 9 (19:03):
And you didn't take that either.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
No, I didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
The jury believed that there just wasn't enough evidence to convict,
and the first trial ended in a hung jury.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So he actually had two trials, which I find is
not uncommon when we have wrongful Convictions, Like the juries
are pretty smart and they really wrestled with the lack
of evidence.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
At that point, Gary requested a change of attorney. Harold
Erin Trowe was appointed and reported ready for trial just
a few days later, and that is not nearly enough
time to prepare for a case based on such serious charges.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
He gives me a new lawyer, I think on a Wednesday,
on Thursday. Then we was picking a new jury Monday.
So there's no way this new attorney didn't no investigation.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
There's no way.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It wasn't no private investigating. He just took me to
trial investigating the case.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I said, you just got this case last week. He
said yeah, but I glanced through your paperwork. He says
he got nothing on you. I says, why I'm in hidding.
He says, trust me, you will be all right.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Forty four years later, here I go.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Freedom Agenda
is a proud sponsor of this episode of wrongful conviction.
(20:55):
Freedom Agenda is led by people directly impacted by incarceration
and their organizing to get Mayor Eric Adams to follow
the law and shut down Rikers Island. Right now, thousands
of people are awaiting trial there in life threatening conditions.
Freedom Agenda is committed to creating a safer and more
(21:15):
just city by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting
the rights of people involved in the criminal legal system,
and ending the cycle of violence that Rikers perpetuates. To
learn more about the Campaign to Close Rikers and to
sign up for Freedom Agenda's mailing list, go to Campaign
to Close Rikers dot org, slash, get involved, or follow
(21:37):
at Freedom Agenda n Y on social media. In September
of two thousand and one, Gary's second trial began.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
What was really striking about the trial was there was
absolutely no law enforcement evidence proffered. They had no police
officer testify at trial. I've never seen that at a trial,
even if it's an officer called to the witness stand
to say I arrested, you know, John Smith. Like nothing.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Instead, the prosecution focused on Mamma Rose as their primary witness.
In her testimony, she repeated the story she had told
Detective Hearty. She and Gary had argued he later came
to her bedroom, threatened her with a knife, and assaulted her.
Mary Cunningham took the stand to say that Mamma Rose
had banged on her door, told her that she'd been raped,
(22:36):
and then spent the night. Gary's uncle, Rick, testified to
driving his mother to the hospital and said that he'd
seen bruises around her mouth that day.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Mama Rose had testified that she was black and blue
all over from him hitting her mouth with his penis.
That was her testimony, and Richard at the first trial
said that she had lacerations all over her mouth, and
at the second trial he said she was very black
and blue, so he corrected himself.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
The most damning testimony the Jerry heard was from doctor ware,
the resident at Jamaica Hospital. He told the court that
when he examined Mama Rose, he believed her account of
the assault, even though he hadn't observed any injuries.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Again, not part of a typical forensic exam. It's not
their place to vouch for the credibility of a witness,
but he said she seemed very credible. He said because
there was no rape kit. He made a point of
being extra careful in his evaluation. He said he didn't
see any injuries. He didn't see any injuries on her
vagina or her mouth. He claimed that you couldn't see
(23:43):
bruising on her because she was African American, so it's
hard to see bruising on an African American person. And
I mean, I think the thing that jumped out at
me the most was he said he was really surprised
that because she had a this is a quote, a
very elastic vagina that for an eighty five year old
woman like it was more like someone in their sixties.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
When asked why he didn't follow hospital protocol and administer
a rape kit, doctor Ware gave a number of excuses.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
The stated reason on the record was that they ran
out of rape kits at Jamaica Hospital and he didn't
know where rape kits came from. He said, Oh, I
think they're like a law enforcement thing. There's a lot
of hospitals that are close by, and sometimes the SVU
detective has a rape kit, and ambulances have rape kits.
They're pretty easy to get. You would know where rape
(24:35):
kits come from, and you would know that you could
do a makeshift rape kit, if you improvise a rape kit,
if you had to.
Speaker 12 (24:44):
I mean, how does a case like this wind up
being tried if there's no evidence.
Speaker 9 (24:50):
It was really just Mama Rose and Richard.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yes, Mama Rose and Richard, and the DA in his
summation said he fled, so that's they use that against him.
Speaker 9 (24:59):
He fled.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
They looked for him for weeks and weeks and weeks,
the guilty flee. You know, poor Mama Rose, she was
so embarrassed that she had to go through this, the
indignity of it. You know, he really appealed to their sympathy,
so they really, I think it was a lot of bias,
and you know they went with you know mom like,
why would she come in? Was basically what they said.
Why would she come in? She's not senile, why would
(25:22):
she come in? I mean, it is a crazy story.
I know, throughout the paperwork you see all these people
acting like they have a crystal ball and they can
tell what the truth is. You know, I spoke to Grandma,
to Mama Rose, and I believe her. Something happened here,
Something happened. She's a great eighty five years old and
(25:43):
he has, you know, felony record. They just decided that
he's a terrible person. And poor Mama Rose, you know,
she's like baking brownies and going to church. You know,
they have this whole picture of her which you know,
leaves out the card parties and getting drunk and mean
and still up and out with a married man named Fred.
You know, it doesn't really matter, but they just they
(26:05):
came up with their own narrative.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
After three days of deliberation, the jury returned a split verdict.
They acquitted Gary of the rape and weapons charges, but
they convicted him of incest, second degree menacing, and first
degree saw tom me. Gary was sentenced to twenty five
to life in prison.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I'm not sure what convinced the jury. I think it
was probably a compromise. You know, I'm guessing that there
were still a lot of jurors that didn't believe it.
At the first trial, several of the notes were like, no,
can you explain, Like can you still convict if there's
no evidence? You know, to like they really honed in
on the fact that there was no evidence.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
You know, I believe that I'm here by the doctor Lyne. Understand.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
This is why I believe I was convicted by the
doctor Lion. He lied more than one time, and he
convinced the jewelry. This is why I meant.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
There were so many lies and so many things that
weren't presented in his case in his trial.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
And it's a bunch of bullshit to men.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
I mean, if you want to do this to a person,
take that life just because you want to win.
Speaker 11 (27:25):
And that's kind of crappy.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
It's hard to have friends in prison, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
It's a cold world in here. I ain't know how
to deal with it. I ain't never been in prison for.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Nothing like this.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Just right his it's different, it's a different hit, you
know what I'm saying. They had to split verdict. I
was found out guilty of rape, right, but but it's
it's like it's still the same though it's still the
same to these people's because.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
I gotta I gotta be on I gotta, I gotta be.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
On my p's and q's every step of the day,
every ray, everywhere I go. I gotta watch, you know
what I'm saying, Because I don't know. I don't know what's.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
Coming, what could what could happen?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
A lot of things can happen. I know this one
white guy or I saw two guys run up in
the cell and beat him up because he had a
case like this. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 9 (28:34):
Has things happened to you?
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yes? I got jumped twice by correction officers.
Speaker 9 (28:40):
Were you close with your parents?
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (28:44):
And did they always believe you believe in your innocence?
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (28:49):
M hmm.
Speaker 9 (28:50):
So what what was.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That like trying to maintain a relationship with your family
while in prison.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It was really hard because there was that They all
moved down south Frost they retired, they moved back down south, so.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
It was hard for me to get a visit because
nobody would bring my mom's up and my post was
sickly and she got sick. They both passed away, though
it was rough because I couldn't go to their funials.
I called my cousin when they was having my mother's services.
He accepted the call and I was listening to the preacher.
I was listening, you know what I'm saying, for half
(29:24):
an hour, So that was it.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Over the course of a decade, Gary filed many appeals,
all of which were denied. Finally, in twenty thirteen, Gary
reached out to Elizabeth Felber.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Gary first wrote to me. Before I was working in this,
you know, doing wrongful conviction work. I had had a
few cases that where people were exonerated, and I wish
I still had. That letter was ten years ago, but
just reading it, I was just blown away by what
a horrifying case it was. And I called his parents
and I remember they both sadly have passed away since then.
(30:01):
They were the nicest people, and they both were like, Oh,
thank god, somebody's finally trying to help Gary.
Speaker 12 (30:09):
What made you say I need to look deeper into
this because this does sound like Ahisha said.
Speaker 9 (30:14):
She said, it's a difficult one.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
He told me there was no rape kit, there was
no physical evidence. I think that there was nothing supporting
the allegations. There were no injuries. I mean, if he
had really raped an eighty five year old woman like
there would have been injuries.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
In twenty nineteen, Elizabeth became the head of a newly
formed wrongful conviction unit at the Legal Aid Society, and
she began working on Gary's case. Officially, she hired an expert,
Chad Vasquez, to delve into the police investigation.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
He was a sex crimes detective for twenty years, said,
I've never seen a case like this, and this investigation
and prosecution are fatally flawed, was his words. He said,
nobody wants to be the person that accuses the person
who's making these allegations of making it up, especially an
eighty five year old grandmother, you know, like nobody wants
(31:10):
to say, I don't believe you, Mama Rose, you know, Mike.
But they have an obligation to follow the protocols and
they didn't do that, either in the investigation or at
the hospital. He said, you have to call the crime
scene unit. They should have spoken to the outcry witness,
the woman next door. They should have tried to track
down this alleged woman in the car, you know. They
(31:32):
should have obtained the clothing. So he said, none of
that was done in this case.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Elizabeth also consulted a forensics expert Aline Pagliaro, a sexual
assault nurse examiner Melissa Stone, and a retired nurse who
had worked at Jamaica Hospital at the time of Mama
Rose's visit, want It a Vega. All three of them
agreed that doctor Ware had not followed standard protocol for
a rape examination.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
I don't believe that if a jury heard what we've
learned from these you know, this nurse and this forensic scientists,
that they would have convicted him, because both jury struggled.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And as it turns out, there appeared to have been
some family dynamics at play.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I personally think the first lawyer did a better job
than the second lawyer because he brought out some facts
that you know, gave the younger son a motive to lie.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
By the time of the first trial, Gary's uncle Rick
had sold Mama Rose's house in Queen's for around seventy
thousand dollars. Mama Rose was now living with him in
New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And she testified there was no money left over. So
someone made about seventy thousand dollars on the house, and
it sounds like it wasn't her.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
What happened was Rick took over everything.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Rick snashed the uh, took her to his house, he
got out the side of papers the power attorney.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Then he went and sold the house. After he got
the money, he put it in anotional. He got rid
of them.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
He also said there was no will, but we have
a copy of the will, and the will specifically said
that the proceeds of the house were to be shared
with the two other siblings, so we think, you know,
the uncle had a financial motive for backing her up.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
After interviewing a number of family members, Elizabeth learned something
else that really turned the case upside down. According to
Gary's brother Manuel, who also went by Skip, Mama Rose
had regrets in her later years and was dropping hints
(33:40):
that her accusation wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
And Skip said that he and Mama Rose were drinking
beer one day on the porch and she said, I'm
too old to go to prison, but it's time to
get Gary out, you know. And he took that as
an emission on her part.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
I think she told about flow there.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
He told me that man Rose and Rick had said,
I think Gary's been there long enough six time for
us to get him out. To me, that's a mission
of guilt, both of them, the one, the ones that lie,
both of them took her to their grave and or
Gary still in there. Half his life was spent in
jail because of this.
Speaker 9 (34:15):
And you and your uncle as in both of them.
Speaker 7 (34:18):
Yes, that was her child and they were two of
a kind. He was money hungry, I'm telling you right,
now he's money hungry, and so.
Speaker 8 (34:25):
Would what would getting rid of Gary have to do
with anything? Why would that help their situation?
Speaker 7 (34:32):
Well, for one thing, Gary was inquisitive, and they knew
that my father would do anything to help Gary out.
I had nothing to do with neither one of them.
After they did this shit expression, Yeah, it.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
Really fucked me up. I mean because I couldn't believe
this shit.
Speaker 7 (34:44):
And then to me, after all these years, you admit this,
you admit what you did, and then you took it
to your grave with you and still he's still locked
up behind what they did.
Speaker 13 (34:55):
Today is January ninth, twenty twenty. This is investigated Thomas
McCall from the Legal Late Society. I am at Israel
Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
So what's your name? Richard R. Wade.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Mama Rose passed away in twenty eleven and Uncle Rick
died in March of twenty twenty. But when he was
interviewed by a legal aid investigator for Elizabeth, Uncle Rick
turned out to have some surprising revelations about Mama Rose.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
He did not have sex with her, though I don't
believe how'd you find that out? Just talking with her
and listening to her and feeling her out. She just
felt bad. I don't think she really hardly understood the
depth of this thing, and she just felt bad. Shore
would played Shurewood did it. I think her mind wasn't right,
(35:50):
and I think she was very remorseful of the fact
that he should have testified against her, that he really
didn't do the things that they claimed.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
The skip said that she was mad at him and
she wanted to punish him by getting him locked up,
and she was pressured into testifying by the prosecution who
said he could sue you. But I don't think she
realized that accusing someone of rape, particularly if they have
(36:22):
a record, which he did, could result in a life
prison in prison sentence.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
And perhaps that's because what Gary had noticed was off
with Mama Rose was that she might have been suffering
from dementia.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Like the father said, he thought that his mother wasn't
right in the head, that she was a little senile.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Even I think my uncle said in one of his
statements that it was he he thinks that she was
seen out. Ain't nobody never tested though for dementia. Old
Thomas disease had two lawyers. Ain't nobody never tested up.
Speaker 9 (37:01):
Do you forgive your grandmother?
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Yes, I have to.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Because I believe that something was wrong with her and
she ad met to my uncle that didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
With all of this new evidence, the expert testimony, along
with the family statements, Elizabeth believes that they can show
that Gary's rights were violated and that he will be released.
Speaker 8 (37:26):
Where is Gary's case at now?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I literally just filed a motion to vacate the conviction
based on ineffective assistance of counsel, for not doing a
proper investigation, for not consulting with experts, for not familiarizing
himself with the trial of the first transcript, which is
a gold mine to have a transcript of what everyone's
going to say already. And I also moved to just,
(37:49):
you know, vacate the conviction because it was I can't
remember the exact lingle language, but based upon fraud and
misrepresentation because the DA relied heavily on doctor wears testimony,
which is a series of misrepresentations. He will be up
for parole next year. However, catch twenty two. When you've
(38:11):
been convicted of sex crime, you have to take a
sex offender treatment program and admit your guilt. So you
know that's problematic, and he will also be a registered
sex offender.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Who wants to be a sex offender or registered sex offender.
Everywhere I'll go, everybody knows my business. Why would I
want that?
Speaker 6 (38:33):
Now?
Speaker 4 (38:33):
If I really did it, I would have took them pleaboll. Yeah,
let me take it now.
Speaker 9 (38:53):
When you get out, What kinds of things do you
want to do?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Go visit my brother, spend time with these grandkids. Spend
time with my own great nieces and nephews I never
met before.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Spend time with my fiance. Uh, eat the food I
like to eat.
Speaker 9 (39:13):
What's what's up?
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Pizza?
Speaker 3 (39:16):
They got pizza here, but the ain't pizza that got there? Pizza, steak,
you know, good food. Let y'all eat every day whatever
y'all want to eat. That's what I want to eat.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and.
Speaker 8 (40:11):
Researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
(40:35):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
A warning for listeners. This episode contains graphic description of
alleged sexual assault. Please listen with caution and care. In
February of nineteen ninety nine, eighty six year old Rosemary
Williams arrived at Jamaica Hospital in Queen's She claimed that
(00:23):
she'd been raped at knife point. At the time, Rosemary's grandson,
Gary was on parole from a drug possession charge and
had been staying with her. Rosemary told police that she
and Gary had argued about a friend he'd had over.
Then later that night, she said he came into her bedroom,
threatened her, and then assaulted her.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Right from the beginning, there were conflicting versions of what occurred,
but the accusation that led to his arrest and indictment
was that he raped and sodomized his grandmother.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
My mom's told me over the phone, I said you.
She said yes, she said they look for you.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
But when you hear this, this is like crazy, this lie,
this is it's wild. What were you?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Embarrasshing day that I faced in my life. I have
to face it every day.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
In here with these guys.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Gary Williams. I've been concentrated for twenty four.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Years from lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today Gary Williams. Gary Williams has been incarcerated
(01:38):
in New York since two thousand and one. He's serving
twenty five to life for a crime that, as you'll hear,
never happened. Since I'm in New York, I took a
short two hour trip to visit Gary at Fishkill Correctional
Facility in Beacon. It's a medium security prison with razor
wire fences surrounding the daunting brick building. Inside was organized
(02:00):
and chaotic. Our interview was even cut short by a
lockdown for an unknown reason. When that happened, Gary was
taken back to his cell immediately. However, we were able
to speak for an hour.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I was born in Snowhill, Maryland, and I was raised
in stop of Jamaica, Queens. We moved to Far Rockaway,
so I I grew up in Jamaica and Far Rockaway.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
I got an older brother.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Named Aaron, another brother named Manu. Aaron, Diane, Manu Michelle inmate.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Gary's parents were Manuel Williams and Margaret Bratton. When Gary
was around two, the family moved in with Gary's paternal grandparents,
Franklin and Rosemary Williams on one hundred and forty second
Street in Jamaica, Queens. The kids knew them as Daddy
Frank and Mama Rose.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
He cooks breakfast every morning, so I used to get
up in the morning and go.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Sit down in the chair and watch him cook.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
As great sausage. And he used to give me a
half a cup of coffee.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I look forward to that when I go to sleep
at night, I'm like this, Daddy Frank gonna cook me
breakfast in the morning.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yup, I look forward to at He took us to Florida.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
We were the youngest grandkids, so she used to take
the two youngest boys everywhere. He went baseball games everywhere. Yeah,
I had some good times in that house.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
Oh he was to me, he was saught on earth.
He was a very nice person.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This is Gary's older brother, Aaron Williams.
Speaker 7 (03:49):
He gave all his grandchildren when he worked and everything.
He gave all of us allowance on Fridays, and he
took us to baseball games. He even came to our
games and everything a lot.
Speaker 8 (03:57):
And then what about Mama Rose, what was she like?
Speaker 7 (04:00):
She was a piece of work. She never went anywhere
with else she would drinking and that was boy, that
was a done deal. She would play the numbers. She
would drink, and she would have barbecues and she would
write from friends over and we had a nice time.
But like I said, when she started drinking everything with
a little head wire, she was very nasty when she drank.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
As Aaron remembers it, Mama Rose didn't seem to care
for Gary much.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
When we first moved up here.
Speaker 7 (04:26):
She was nice to all of us, but it seemed
like for some reason along the way, she just started
resenting Gary. Seem like whatever he did, she didn't like it.
She resented him a lot.
Speaker 6 (04:35):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Mama Rose's younger son, Richard, Gary's uncle Rick, was a
source of tension for Gary as well.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
He didn't like me. She sound was a little boy.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I used to hear him talk about my dad behind
his back, you know what I'm saying. So I never
mean told my dad because my uncle, like, he's the
type of person that liked to fight. So I didn't
want to see two brothers fight over something. I try
to avoid things like that. Wh She was a drug
user back in the sixties and seventies, every time my
dad lit him money. He don't never pay my dad back. Oh,
(05:09):
one time you try to get money from me, I
wouldn't give it to him. I says, how you will
expect me to lend you money. You can't pay my
dad money? And how many years you own my father?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Over five years? I mean you ain't paying them.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
When Gary was around twelve, the family left his grandparents'
house and moved to a place in Springfield Gardens. Soon
after that, Gary's parents separated and his mother moved out.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
She just packed the stuff and left. Nobody know where
she went. Is she what I'm saying? She left? The
kids met my father right, so nobody know where she
was at.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So I said, well, I know where she work at.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So Gary says one day he got on his bike
and rode to her workplace, the post office at Kennedy Airport,
about two miles away. When his mother got off work,
he says he saw her get into a car with
his older brother, Aaron.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
So they drove right So when they did, I followed
them all the way to far rockaway.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
When she was getting out of the car, I was like, mob,
I found you.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Gary's mom was living in a one bedroom apartment. At
the time, his father was moving down to Delaware with
his sisters, so Gary's mother got a bigger place and
he and his two brothers moved in with her in
far Rockaway, a.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Block and a half away from the ballwalk. I how
did you get used to that? Me and my brother
used to erase each other playing in the sand. They
had basketball court there, hand ballcourt in.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
A baseball court.
Speaker 9 (06:34):
Were you particularly good at any of them?
Speaker 4 (06:37):
I basically wanted to do it because my older brothers
did it. But I was like.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Gary's teens were spent living near the beach, playing sports
and hanging out with his brothers, But when he reached
his twenties, he started getting into trouble.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Thating's happened.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
No, I was, I was a thief. I ain't gonna
lie you know I did that. I have two robs
in the drug case.
Speaker 9 (07:03):
Were you working at all?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I used to drive trucks LBX trucking company. I should
drive for low I should work in TSS department store.
Speaker 9 (07:14):
So you were working.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So how come you felt like you needed to rob
or do things like that?
Speaker 10 (07:18):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (07:18):
No, I guess it wasn't pain enough.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Between nineteen eighty four and nineteen ninety two, Gary served
time on and off for three felony convictions, one for
selling drugs and one each for robbery and attempted robbery.
In February of nineteen ninety nine, when he was thirty
six years old, he was out on parole for a
drug charge. With no place else to go, he was
once again staying under Mama Rose's roof in Queen's. She
(07:47):
was now in her eighties and a widow. Daddy Frank
had died in nineteen eighty six. Gary's father, Manuel was
living in Maryland and coming around to help Mama Rose
fix up the house so she could sell it.
Speaker 9 (08:00):
So tell me a little bit about Mama Rose.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Morose was kind of difficult to get along with. She's
got she was like kind of difficult. But I did
my best. I do things around the house for she
asked me to.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
I do it.
Speaker 8 (08:15):
So why was she difficult to get along with?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Because the type of person she is, I mean, gotta
go whole way. It's it's it's it's whole way, it's
the highway. You know, She's always in people's business. You know,
I hear coming, I might go that way, you know,
what I'm saying, I try to void up sometimes.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I do that.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
Do that leave?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Gary began to notice that sometimes Mama Rose didn't seem
quite all there. She was starting to get forgetful.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
Well.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
When she asked me to go to the store three
times in the road two three times for the same thing.
And she kept on giving me the t a fresh
twenty now And the second Time'm like this, I just
went to the store for you. It got the same thing.
She was like, just go again, all right, So I
just took the money.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And went again.
Speaker 9 (09:00):
What was it that she wanted?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I think it was a tall candle bit.
Speaker 6 (09:06):
She was a excuse me, my sprience. She was a bitch.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
This is Gary's brother, Aaron Again.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Malrose was a big liar.
Speaker 9 (09:12):
Too, Like what kinds of things had she made up?
Speaker 7 (09:15):
She would like, my mother would cook dinner and everything.
She would tell her friends that she cooked the dinner,
took it, you know, took the credit for it.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
Like I said, she was a piece of work.
Speaker 7 (09:23):
I stayed with my father overnight when I was helping
her fix the house, and one of her girlfriends came
over and they got the drinking and playing cards and everything.
It was in the winter time with snow on the
steps out front. So they got in an argument. So
she told her to get the hell out of her house,
and she went to the front door, and the Morrow's
followed right behind.
Speaker 11 (09:40):
Her and kicked her dinner at the icy steps.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
She didn't go to church like she said she would.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Matter fact, I can't even remember the last time she
went to I think the last time she went to church.
When my granddad was living. She liked playing her numbers,
she liked going to Landing City. She's she's like any
other lady age.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You know what I'm saying, My grandma, I'm is not
gambling and drinking tall boys, So maybe not. One week
Gary had a girlfriend named Sharon visiting from Maryland. When
they sat down to dinner, Mama Rose noticed that Sharon
put hot sauce on her potato chips, and she did
(10:19):
not like that.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
So maybe I will.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Later my Roes called me and she says, when is
she leaving? I said, I think she's leaving Sunday or Monday.
She said when she do, she can't come back.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
So I says, why, what's wrong?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
She says, anybody put hot sauce on potato Chips is
on drugs.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I said, you don't even know her, you just met her.
How are you gonna say she on drugs?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
She gonna say, trust me, I've been living a longer
than you, she's on drugs.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The arguments continued, and within a week or so, Gary
had enough of Mama Rose being in his business.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And I got, I got, I got fed up with it.
I was like this, Okay, I'm out here, you know
I'm saying. So I put the keys on the table
and packed my little stuff ahead.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Gary took off and went down to Delaware, where some
of his family lived. He knew he was taking a
risk jumping parole by leaving the state, but he had
had it with Mama Rose.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Early Saturday morning, February sixth, nineteen ninety nine, Rosemary Williams
called her daughters in law and told them that she
had been raped by her grandson, Gary Williams.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
My name is.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Elizabeth Felber, and I had the Wrongful Conviction Unit at
the Legal Aid Society.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Elizabeth has been working on Gary's case since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Right from the beginning, they were conflicting versions of what occurred,
but the accusation that led to his arrest and indictment
was that he raped and sodomized his grandmother.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Here's what Mama Rose told the police had happened that
night and what she later testified to at trial. And
justa heads up, this next section is graphic.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Between Thursday and Friday, you know, like early Friday mornings,
say around four, Gary knocked on his grandmother's door, and
when he came in, he was naked, he was holding
a knife, he was smoking a cigarette, and he was
wearing a condom. And he told her that he wanted
to have sex, although he said it a little more
graphically according to Grandma Rose, and that he tried to
(12:35):
vaginally penetrate her, was unable to do so went and
got baby oil poured it all over her. Sorry, it's
just so awkward to have to tell this story. And
then he had oral sex, you know, you know, put
his mouth to her vagina, and then she claimed that
(12:56):
he tried to put his penis in her mouth and
she told him that if he did that, she was
going to bite his penis off. He said, I'm not
going to kill you, and she said at another point
he sat down and started to cry and said he
was sorry, and then he went into his bedroom because
he was living with her at the time, She told
(13:16):
him she would make breakfast for him, and then she
said when it looked like he was had fallen asleep,
she ran down the stairs and that he came after her,
calling Mama Rose come back. That she ran outside yelling fire.
She ran about a block away, I guess to a
school that was people were dropping their kids off at school.
(13:38):
Told some woman, help help, my grandson's going crazy, and
the woman offered to call the police. She didn't want
to go to the police. She said, drive me to
my friend's house, who was right down the street from
where she lived.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Mama Rose stayed overnight with her friend, Mary Cunningham. The
next day, she called Gary's mother, Margaret, and told her
that Gary had come into her bedroom and raped her
at knife point, and that there was blood everywhere. Margaret
immediately called Gary's father and told him what Mamma Rose
had said. Manuel and his brother Richard went to mam
(14:14):
Morose's house. Manual later reported seeing no blood on her
bed or in her bedroom. Nevertheless, the police were called.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I believe it was her younger son who called the police.
She didn't even want to call the police. She did
not want to go to the hospital. I suspect that
she whatever story she concocted, she realized it had gotten
out of control and she was trying to shut it down,
but it was like, you know, the train had already
left the station.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Police soon arrived at the scene to investigate, led by
Detective Linda Hardy. However, no official sex crimes unit was dispatched.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
No evidence was collected at or house. There should have
been baby oil left trace, you know, even if someone
had taken off the sheets. There should have been baby
oil on the mattress, a knife, a cigarette that was
put out in an ashtray, a condom. She claimed she
washed herself with a washcloth, So none of that was
collected there, and there's no indication that the crime scene
(15:17):
unit even showed up.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Richard took Mama Rose to Jamaica Hospital in Queen's where
she was examined by doctor David Ware. Doctor Ware was
a resident at the time. He did not conduct a
proper forensic exam, and he failed to collect any physical
evidence that would have supported Mama Rose's story.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
He should have swabbed her mouth and give it, you know,
those would have been samples that they could have checked
for any kind of you know, DNA of Gary Williams,
or even baby oil, honestly, anything that would have backed
up her story.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Most significantly, doctor Ware did not follow standard procedure by
administering a rape kit.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
They didn't. They didn't follow it, and they have one
hundred excuses for why they didn't follow it. The clothing
wasn't taken, a rape kit wasn't done, so there was
no physical evidence to support her story.
Speaker 9 (16:13):
Gary was unaware of all of this.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
After going to Delaware, he went to stay in Newport News, Virginia,
with Sharon. When he talked to his mother on the phone,
she did tell him police were looking for him, and
Gary assumed it was because he had jumped parole until
she told him what Mama Rose had accused him of.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
I said you, so, she said, yes, she said they're
looking for you. You know, I'm saying I'm expecting her to.
I'm only expecting one person looking for me, parole officer.
That's what I'm expecting to.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
When she said when she said happened, I wasn't there.
I wasn't living there. I was gone.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Gary decided the best thing to do would be to
turn himself into the authorities in Virginia.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
When you turned yourself in, what were you thinking?
Speaker 8 (16:58):
Were you like, this is all going to get cleared up,
Like what did you think?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, I want to get this behind me. I want
to get this overweight. You know I'm innocent, Yes, let's go.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah. But it didn't happen that way because I had
to do a parole violation first.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
But the parole violation was nothing compared to what was
coming next. Once Gary returned to New York, he was
arrested and charged with first degree rape, sawomy, possession of
a weapon, and second degree menacing an incest.
Speaker 9 (17:36):
So do you remember when this happened.
Speaker 7 (17:38):
I know, my mother called me and told me that
they arrested Gary, and she told me the reason why.
I just couldn't believe it. I say, it got to
be lies. Something they right here. I know Gary, Gary
would never do anything like that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
His trial was set for July of two thousand and
one in front of Judge Richard Buckter. The prosecutor was
Assistant District Attorney Eric Rosenbaum, and Gary's attorney was Lewis Meehan.
So the first trial, how were you feeling the first trial,
after hearing everything, and they're going to do the verdict,
(18:13):
how did you feel?
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I was nervous.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
No, I already know if they if they convict me,
they're gonna give me twenty five life because.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Of my past history. I already know that.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And and they offered me plea boggains that I ain't take.
Speaker 9 (18:29):
What did they offer you?
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
They offered me a flat fifteen. First of all, they
don't offer no body but my record a flat bay.
They offer you always put the l behind you, fifteen
a life with me? They offer me flat fifteen. I
told him I did not do it. I'm not taking it.
Then a month and a half later, he says, the
lawyer be like this. He says, okay, the flat fifteen
(18:51):
is off the table. They offered me a flat five
just for the day. You want it, I says, dope.
Then when they had to split verdict, they offered me
one of the three.
Speaker 9 (19:03):
And you didn't take that either.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
No, I didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
The jury believed that there just wasn't enough evidence to convict,
and the first trial ended in a hung jury.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So he actually had two trials, which I find is
not uncommon when we have wrongful Convictions, Like the juries
are pretty smart and they really wrestled with the lack
of evidence.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
At that point, Gary requested a change of attorney. Harold
Erin Trowe was appointed and reported ready for trial just
a few days later, and that is not nearly enough
time to prepare for a case based on such serious charges.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
He gives me a new lawyer, I think on a Wednesday,
on Thursday. Then we was picking a new jury Monday.
So there's no way this new attorney didn't no investigation.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
There's no way.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It wasn't no private investigating. He just took me to
trial investigating the case.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I said, you just got this case last week. He
said yeah, but I glanced through your paperwork. He says
he got nothing on you. I says, why I'm in hidding.
He says, trust me, you will be all right.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Forty four years later, here I go.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Freedom Agenda
is a proud sponsor of this episode of wrongful conviction.
(20:55):
Freedom Agenda is led by people directly impacted by incarceration
and their organizing to get Mayor Eric Adams to follow
the law and shut down Rikers Island. Right now, thousands
of people are awaiting trial there in life threatening conditions.
Freedom Agenda is committed to creating a safer and more
(21:15):
just city by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting
the rights of people involved in the criminal legal system,
and ending the cycle of violence that Rikers perpetuates. To
learn more about the Campaign to Close Rikers and to
sign up for Freedom Agenda's mailing list, go to Campaign
to Close Rikers dot org, slash, get involved, or follow
(21:37):
at Freedom Agenda n Y on social media. In September
of two thousand and one, Gary's second trial began.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
What was really striking about the trial was there was
absolutely no law enforcement evidence proffered. They had no police
officer testify at trial. I've never seen that at a trial,
even if it's an officer called to the witness stand
to say I arrested, you know, John Smith. Like nothing.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Instead, the prosecution focused on Mamma Rose as their primary witness.
In her testimony, she repeated the story she had told
Detective Hearty. She and Gary had argued he later came
to her bedroom, threatened her with a knife, and assaulted her.
Mary Cunningham took the stand to say that Mamma Rose
had banged on her door, told her that she'd been raped,
(22:36):
and then spent the night. Gary's uncle, Rick, testified to
driving his mother to the hospital and said that he'd
seen bruises around her mouth that day.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Mama Rose had testified that she was black and blue
all over from him hitting her mouth with his penis.
That was her testimony, and Richard at the first trial
said that she had lacerations all over her mouth, and
at the second trial he said she was very black
and blue, so he corrected himself.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
The most damning testimony the Jerry heard was from doctor ware,
the resident at Jamaica Hospital. He told the court that
when he examined Mama Rose, he believed her account of
the assault, even though he hadn't observed any injuries.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Again, not part of a typical forensic exam. It's not
their place to vouch for the credibility of a witness,
but he said she seemed very credible. He said because
there was no rape kit. He made a point of
being extra careful in his evaluation. He said he didn't
see any injuries. He didn't see any injuries on her
vagina or her mouth. He claimed that you couldn't see
(23:43):
bruising on her because she was African American, so it's
hard to see bruising on an African American person. And
I mean, I think the thing that jumped out at
me the most was he said he was really surprised
that because she had a this is a quote, a
very elastic vagina that for an eighty five year old
woman like it was more like someone in their sixties.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
When asked why he didn't follow hospital protocol and administer
a rape kit, doctor Ware gave a number of excuses.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
The stated reason on the record was that they ran
out of rape kits at Jamaica Hospital and he didn't
know where rape kits came from. He said, Oh, I
think they're like a law enforcement thing. There's a lot
of hospitals that are close by, and sometimes the SVU
detective has a rape kit, and ambulances have rape kits.
They're pretty easy to get. You would know where rape
(24:35):
kits come from, and you would know that you could
do a makeshift rape kit, if you improvise a rape kit,
if you had to.
Speaker 12 (24:44):
I mean, how does a case like this wind up
being tried if there's no evidence.
Speaker 9 (24:50):
It was really just Mama Rose and Richard.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yes, Mama Rose and Richard, and the DA in his
summation said he fled, so that's they use that against him.
Speaker 9 (24:59):
He fled.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
They looked for him for weeks and weeks and weeks,
the guilty flee. You know, poor Mama Rose, she was
so embarrassed that she had to go through this, the
indignity of it. You know, he really appealed to their sympathy,
so they really, I think it was a lot of bias,
and you know they went with you know mom like,
why would she come in? Was basically what they said.
Why would she come in? She's not senile, why would
(25:22):
she come in? I mean, it is a crazy story.
I know, throughout the paperwork you see all these people
acting like they have a crystal ball and they can
tell what the truth is. You know, I spoke to Grandma,
to Mama Rose, and I believe her. Something happened here,
Something happened. She's a great eighty five years old and
(25:43):
he has, you know, felony record. They just decided that
he's a terrible person. And poor Mama Rose, you know,
she's like baking brownies and going to church. You know,
they have this whole picture of her which you know,
leaves out the card parties and getting drunk and mean
and still up and out with a married man named Fred.
You know, it doesn't really matter, but they just they
(26:05):
came up with their own narrative.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
After three days of deliberation, the jury returned a split verdict.
They acquitted Gary of the rape and weapons charges, but
they convicted him of incest, second degree menacing, and first
degree saw tom me. Gary was sentenced to twenty five
to life in prison.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I'm not sure what convinced the jury. I think it
was probably a compromise. You know, I'm guessing that there
were still a lot of jurors that didn't believe it.
At the first trial, several of the notes were like, no,
can you explain, Like can you still convict if there's
no evidence? You know, to like they really honed in
on the fact that there was no evidence.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
You know, I believe that I'm here by the doctor Lyne. Understand.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
This is why I believe I was convicted by the
doctor Lion. He lied more than one time, and he
convinced the jewelry. This is why I meant.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
There were so many lies and so many things that
weren't presented in his case in his trial.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
And it's a bunch of bullshit to men.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
I mean, if you want to do this to a person,
take that life just because you want to win.
Speaker 11 (27:25):
And that's kind of crappy.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
It's hard to have friends in prison, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
It's a cold world in here. I ain't know how
to deal with it. I ain't never been in prison for.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Nothing like this.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Just right his it's different, it's a different hit, you
know what I'm saying. They had to split verdict. I
was found out guilty of rape, right, but but it's
it's like it's still the same though it's still the
same to these people's because.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
I gotta I gotta be on I gotta, I gotta be.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
On my p's and q's every step of the day,
every ray, everywhere I go. I gotta watch, you know
what I'm saying, Because I don't know. I don't know what's.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
Coming, what could what could happen?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
A lot of things can happen. I know this one
white guy or I saw two guys run up in
the cell and beat him up because he had a
case like this. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 9 (28:34):
Has things happened to you?
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yes? I got jumped twice by correction officers.
Speaker 9 (28:40):
Were you close with your parents?
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (28:44):
And did they always believe you believe in your innocence?
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (28:49):
M hmm.
Speaker 9 (28:50):
So what what was.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That like trying to maintain a relationship with your family
while in prison.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It was really hard because there was that They all
moved down south Frost they retired, they moved back down south, so.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
It was hard for me to get a visit because
nobody would bring my mom's up and my post was
sickly and she got sick. They both passed away, though
it was rough because I couldn't go to their funials.
I called my cousin when they was having my mother's services.
He accepted the call and I was listening to the preacher.
I was listening, you know what I'm saying, for half
(29:24):
an hour, So that was it.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Over the course of a decade, Gary filed many appeals,
all of which were denied. Finally, in twenty thirteen, Gary
reached out to Elizabeth Felber.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Gary first wrote to me. Before I was working in this,
you know, doing wrongful conviction work. I had had a
few cases that where people were exonerated, and I wish
I still had. That letter was ten years ago, but
just reading it, I was just blown away by what
a horrifying case it was. And I called his parents
and I remember they both sadly have passed away since then.
(30:01):
They were the nicest people, and they both were like, Oh,
thank god, somebody's finally trying to help Gary.
Speaker 12 (30:09):
What made you say I need to look deeper into
this because this does sound like Ahisha said.
Speaker 9 (30:14):
She said, it's a difficult one.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
He told me there was no rape kit, there was
no physical evidence. I think that there was nothing supporting
the allegations. There were no injuries. I mean, if he
had really raped an eighty five year old woman like
there would have been injuries.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
In twenty nineteen, Elizabeth became the head of a newly
formed wrongful conviction unit at the Legal Aid Society, and
she began working on Gary's case. Officially, she hired an expert,
Chad Vasquez, to delve into the police investigation.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
He was a sex crimes detective for twenty years, said,
I've never seen a case like this, and this investigation
and prosecution are fatally flawed, was his words. He said,
nobody wants to be the person that accuses the person
who's making these allegations of making it up, especially an
eighty five year old grandmother, you know, like nobody wants
(31:10):
to say, I don't believe you, Mama Rose, you know, Mike.
But they have an obligation to follow the protocols and
they didn't do that, either in the investigation or at
the hospital. He said, you have to call the crime
scene unit. They should have spoken to the outcry witness,
the woman next door. They should have tried to track
down this alleged woman in the car, you know. They
(31:32):
should have obtained the clothing. So he said, none of
that was done in this case.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Elizabeth also consulted a forensics expert Aline Pagliaro, a sexual
assault nurse examiner Melissa Stone, and a retired nurse who
had worked at Jamaica Hospital at the time of Mama
Rose's visit, want It a Vega. All three of them
agreed that doctor Ware had not followed standard protocol for
a rape examination.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
I don't believe that if a jury heard what we've
learned from these you know, this nurse and this forensic scientists,
that they would have convicted him, because both jury struggled.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And as it turns out, there appeared to have been
some family dynamics at play.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I personally think the first lawyer did a better job
than the second lawyer because he brought out some facts
that you know, gave the younger son a motive to lie.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
By the time of the first trial, Gary's uncle Rick
had sold Mama Rose's house in Queen's for around seventy
thousand dollars. Mama Rose was now living with him in
New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And she testified there was no money left over. So
someone made about seventy thousand dollars on the house, and
it sounds like it wasn't her.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
What happened was Rick took over everything.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Rick snashed the uh, took her to his house, he
got out the side of papers the power attorney.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Then he went and sold the house. After he got
the money, he put it in anotional. He got rid
of them.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
He also said there was no will, but we have
a copy of the will, and the will specifically said
that the proceeds of the house were to be shared
with the two other siblings, so we think, you know,
the uncle had a financial motive for backing her up.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
After interviewing a number of family members, Elizabeth learned something
else that really turned the case upside down. According to
Gary's brother Manuel, who also went by Skip, Mama Rose
had regrets in her later years and was dropping hints
(33:40):
that her accusation wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
And Skip said that he and Mama Rose were drinking
beer one day on the porch and she said, I'm
too old to go to prison, but it's time to
get Gary out, you know. And he took that as
an emission on her part.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
I think she told about flow there.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
He told me that man Rose and Rick had said,
I think Gary's been there long enough six time for
us to get him out. To me, that's a mission
of guilt, both of them, the one, the ones that lie,
both of them took her to their grave and or
Gary still in there. Half his life was spent in
jail because of this.
Speaker 9 (34:15):
And you and your uncle as in both of them.
Speaker 7 (34:18):
Yes, that was her child and they were two of
a kind. He was money hungry, I'm telling you right,
now he's money hungry, and so.
Speaker 8 (34:25):
Would what would getting rid of Gary have to do
with anything? Why would that help their situation?
Speaker 7 (34:32):
Well, for one thing, Gary was inquisitive, and they knew
that my father would do anything to help Gary out.
I had nothing to do with neither one of them.
After they did this shit expression, Yeah, it.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
Really fucked me up. I mean because I couldn't believe
this shit.
Speaker 7 (34:44):
And then to me, after all these years, you admit this,
you admit what you did, and then you took it
to your grave with you and still he's still locked
up behind what they did.
Speaker 13 (34:55):
Today is January ninth, twenty twenty. This is investigated Thomas
McCall from the Legal Late Society. I am at Israel
Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
So what's your name? Richard R. Wade.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Mama Rose passed away in twenty eleven and Uncle Rick
died in March of twenty twenty. But when he was
interviewed by a legal aid investigator for Elizabeth, Uncle Rick
turned out to have some surprising revelations about Mama Rose.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
He did not have sex with her, though I don't
believe how'd you find that out? Just talking with her
and listening to her and feeling her out. She just
felt bad. I don't think she really hardly understood the
depth of this thing, and she just felt bad. Shore
would played Shurewood did it. I think her mind wasn't right,
(35:50):
and I think she was very remorseful of the fact
that he should have testified against her, that he really
didn't do the things that they claimed.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
The skip said that she was mad at him and
she wanted to punish him by getting him locked up,
and she was pressured into testifying by the prosecution who
said he could sue you. But I don't think she
realized that accusing someone of rape, particularly if they have
(36:22):
a record, which he did, could result in a life
prison in prison sentence.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
And perhaps that's because what Gary had noticed was off
with Mama Rose was that she might have been suffering
from dementia.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Like the father said, he thought that his mother wasn't
right in the head, that she was a little senile.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Even I think my uncle said in one of his
statements that it was he he thinks that she was
seen out. Ain't nobody never tested though for dementia. Old
Thomas disease had two lawyers. Ain't nobody never tested up.
Speaker 9 (37:01):
Do you forgive your grandmother?
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Yes, I have to.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Because I believe that something was wrong with her and
she ad met to my uncle that didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
With all of this new evidence, the expert testimony, along
with the family statements, Elizabeth believes that they can show
that Gary's rights were violated and that he will be released.
Speaker 8 (37:26):
Where is Gary's case at now?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I literally just filed a motion to vacate the conviction
based on ineffective assistance of counsel, for not doing a
proper investigation, for not consulting with experts, for not familiarizing
himself with the trial of the first transcript, which is
a gold mine to have a transcript of what everyone's
going to say already. And I also moved to just,
(37:49):
you know, vacate the conviction because it was I can't
remember the exact lingle language, but based upon fraud and
misrepresentation because the DA relied heavily on doctor wears testimony,
which is a series of misrepresentations. He will be up
for parole next year. However, catch twenty two. When you've
(38:11):
been convicted of sex crime, you have to take a
sex offender treatment program and admit your guilt. So you
know that's problematic, and he will also be a registered
sex offender.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Who wants to be a sex offender or registered sex offender.
Everywhere I'll go, everybody knows my business. Why would I
want that?
Speaker 6 (38:33):
Now?
Speaker 4 (38:33):
If I really did it, I would have took them pleaboll. Yeah,
let me take it now.
Speaker 9 (38:53):
When you get out, What kinds of things do you
want to do?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Go visit my brother, spend time with these grandkids. Spend
time with my own great nieces and nephews I never
met before.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Spend time with my fiance. Uh, eat the food I
like to eat.
Speaker 9 (39:13):
What's what's up?
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Pizza?
Speaker 3 (39:16):
They got pizza here, but the ain't pizza that got there? Pizza, steak,
you know, good food. Let y'all eat every day whatever
y'all want to eat. That's what I want to eat.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and.
Speaker 8 (40:11):
Researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
(40:35):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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