July 8, 2024 • 61 mins
Greg Bright was wrongfully convicted in New Orleans, LA for the murder of Elliot Porter in 1975. He would spend more than 27 years in Angola, the notorious prison in Louisiana built on a former slave plantation, and in many ways still run like one today. While incarcerated, Greg not only taught himself to read and write, he also learned enough about the law to challenge his conviction.
After his release in 2003, he met Lara Naughton, a compassion trainer and creative writing teacher. Together they created a one man show about Greg’s experience titled Never Fight a Shark in Water. The creative process helped both of them process trauma and explore what it means to embrace forgiveness and compassion.
To learn more, visit:
Lara Naughton’s memoir The Jaguar Man: https://centralrecoverypress.com/product/the-jaguar-man
Never Fight a Shark in Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0W-L6Yvojc
The Historic New Orleans Collection: https://www.hnoc.org/exhibitions/captive-state-louisiana-and-making-mass-incarceration
Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have
been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes,
even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like
to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it
like to be their ally, the one outside committed to
fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Bride Pacheco, and this
(00:27):
is wrongful conviction. Early on in October morning in nineteen
seventy five, a fifteen year old named Elliott Porter was
shot and killed in a housing project in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Twenty year old Gregory Bright, along with a seventeen year
(00:49):
old co defendant, someone he'd never met before, by the way,
became suspects after a known drug addict turned state's witness
implicated them in a crime in exchange for reward money.
Arrested and charged with second degree murder, Gregory and his
co defendant's trial would last for just one day, and
the jury deliberated for all of thirteen minutes before convicting them.
(01:13):
They were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole
in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Though Gregory Bright was
illiterate when he entered prison. He taught himself to read,
then taught himself the law, getting his appeals all the
way to the State Supreme Court before the Innocence Project
of New Orleans stepped in. Ultimately, he would spend twenty
(01:35):
seven and a half years in prison for a crime
he did not commit. Today, Bright is an accomplished actor
who's appeared in Twelve Years a Slave, American horror story
and Tremay. He is also the focus of an incredible
one man documentary stage play based entirely on his words
and recollections, titled Never Fight a Shark in Water, The
(01:59):
Wrongful of Gregory Bright, which explores so many aspects of
this staggering injustice. It was written by New Orleans based
writer Lara Naughton, who was also a teacher, compassion trainer,
and survivor of a violent crime. Lara and greg have
forged a mutually supportive, healing friendship and bond, and they
(02:23):
are joining us today. I am so excited for this conversation.
Welcome both of you to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Greg. I wanted to start with you, can you just
take me back before all of this unfolded. What was
your childhood like?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I had come from a small family. It was me,
my mom, my two sisters, and my stepfather. We did
a lot of things as a family, went to move
a theater, sat at home and play called and stuff
like that, average stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
And you had a lot of responsibility placed on you
as well, because you dropped out of school in sixth
grade to care for your stepfather.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Absolutely, you know, and it was really a tough time
for me, you know, be a kid, you know, thirteen
years old, having a full responsibility to care for a
grown adult. It often had me wondering, you know, what
my life would turn into at that point.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You're obviously a very creative man. Did you have hopes
and aspirations when you were a child in terms of
what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, I was attracted to music and stuff, and I
had several instruments or guitar, bound of drums and kind
of drums. I set around when I get spare time
and tinkled around with this stuff. So I always imagine
myself as being some type of musician or something like that,
because I was always making the picking on the guitars.
(04:03):
But I had never actually settled into what I wanted
to become or what I wanted to do. I just
enjoyed the freedom that I suddenly had after my step
part had passed. Was just relieved of the burden of
caring for him.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
How old were you when he passed.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I was fifteen when he passed. You know, at that
point I had been out of school, well off and
on since I was thirteen, and being tall as statute,
I always felt out of place about the kids in
my classes and stuff. But the most important part I
think of experience of caring for my stepfather was the
fact that he would often called me to read the
(04:43):
Last Scripture because that was his way of trying to
make sure that I stayed on top of reading and
stuff or whatever. It helped me while I was in jail.
It disciplined me to want to get into the books
and study. It all came full circle.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
It's interesting that you experienced all this new freedom at
the age of fifteen, because that probably made what happened
when you were just twenty that much more painful. So
before we even get into that, you had a very
close relationship with your mom.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Absolutely. Yeah. My mom was someone that I could turn
to in any crisis, any bad experience. I could turn
to her and she would seem to have the words.
She would say just the right things that would put
me back and allow me to focus and concentrate. And
she was just a wonderful lady, someone that I had
(05:45):
missed tremendously after she had passed.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And I know that you and Laura definitely incorporated her
wisdom into the One Man Show as well, because I
feel like I got to know your mom a bit
through the advice that she offered you throughout the years,
which was always very powerful. Take me to that evening
(06:13):
that changed everything for you when you were just twenty.
How did that unfold?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Speaking about the arrest, this particular Saturday morning, I'm laying
on the south asleep and all of a sudden they
heard the banging on the door. Damn, And I gets up.
I look through the door. I see flashlights, see someone
shine the flashlight on the porch outside, And you know,
I was hesitant to open the door because really it
(06:41):
took me out of my sleep. I thought it was
knock at next door. They had apartment just less than
a foot away. The doors were parallel, and my mom
came downstairs after all the banking. She asked me, who
was that banging on the door, you know. I said,
I don't know. My I said it might be the police,
you know, because that's see flashlights. She said, look open
(07:02):
the door up, you know, see what they're talking about.
So I opened the door up, showed off. There was
two police officers, you know. They asked me that Gregory
Bright lived there. I said, yeah, that's me. So one
of the guys said they had a warrant for my arrest.
I said, warrant for my arrest? Yeah, I said, your
name had come up in our investigation involving this murderer
(07:25):
to fifteen year old Elio Porter. I said, murder. I
don't even know Elie your porter, you know. So the
guy says that, well, look, we're just gonna bring you
downtown and ask you some questions. So they brung me
downtown back at two Landing Broad. They interrogated me in
for maybe an hour and a half, asked me about
(07:46):
the people that I didn't know. But I was arrested.
They brung me over to all the East Parish prison
and that's why I learned I had a co defendant.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's just so staggering because you had now ever had
any issues with the law. No before no. And you
mention in the play that your mother's attitude was sure,
my son will go down with you.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
He didn't kill anybody, right, absolutely, you know, she just
knew in her heart and her soul immediately that didn't
fit the sun that she had raised.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And the only time you had ever been to the
New Orleans Parish prison was to visit a friend. You
describe it so eloquently in your show, which I would
love to play a little excerpt from, but if you
can just describe as well what that place was like
(08:45):
and how it overwhelmed your senses even before you were
taken there as a prisoner, just visiting there.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
The experience was something that I'd never forget because I
can remember there was a line of people way didn't
go in, and the closer I had gotten to the
door to the opening, it's like the sicklet I was becoming.
It's like something had just came over me, some outside
force had just taken over, and it had gotten to
(09:15):
the point where I was about to draw up. And
so the sergeant he noticed it and laughed and said,
you're sick, uh, And I looked at him. I said, yes, sir,
I don't know what to come over man, and he
laughed at it. It's the smell. And I remember going
inside the place and the visited with this guy, and
(09:39):
when I got in there, I didn't smell it anymore.
It's like it had totally and completely consumed me. And
I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And not only that, that visit becomes almost a foreshadowing
of what would eventually befall you, because you felt like
there was a part of it that got into you
right right. I wanted to draw you back into it right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
When I went to visit this guy. Thank some of
the evil inside the place got on me. I feel
like some.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Kind of evilness embedded itself in my body and decided.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I want him back in here, get him back in here.
I jumped up open the door. Police asked Gregory Bright
live here. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
They got a warn from my arrest for the murder
of Elliott Porter.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's so powerful. What was that like then? Getting brought
back there?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It was like Dasiel food. Everything that I had saw
from the outside, now I'm inside and I'm stuck among
what was in my mind at the time, my word
nightmare of being placed in there against my will.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And that's the first time you ever met your seventeen
year old code defendant.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, I met him while we were in prison. His
face looked at famili but come to find out, he
was the brother of the person that I was thinking about.
He was the younger brother of the person that seemed familiar.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Now, I just want to point out to listeners that
we're not going to fully name your code defendant or
use the last name of the woman, Sheila, who ended
up being the witness against you. And if you want
to just touch upon why that's important to you, why
you're so protective of both of them, but particularly her.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
After I spoke with her, she told me some things
about what she had experienced in her life, and I
knew that this wasn't just entirely her doing, you know,
I know it was a difficult thing for her, you know,
to send two innocent people to prison, But it was
(12:10):
the life that she lived. It was the choices that
she made, even though they there was choices that devastated
not only in my life but my co defender's life.
And family, and I knew it was difficult for her,
and I just didn't won't to add to whatever trouble
that she may have had on me be facing in
(12:31):
the future.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Greg. I'm so humbled by your grace, sincerely, because the
woman that we're referring to had mental illness and addiction illness,
and she exchanged her testimony for financial incentive, which is
what's wrong with the system more than anything else. But
(12:53):
I've always tried to live believing that we're all victims
of victims, and that hurt people end up hurting other people.
And the fact that you lost twenty seven and a
half years of your life because of that testimony and
you still afford her grace is so incredibly inspiring and evolved.
(13:19):
So you're held in parish prison for seven or so
months before the trial, you are appointed a public defender
who you met with I believe once before the trial.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Once. Yes, this guy spoke to me at a preliminary
here in nineteen seventy six, the early part jam maybe
January seventy six, and he asked that I have a
list of my witnesses to people that I intend to
call as witnesses, And I said yeah. I had given
(13:53):
it to a guy from the Indigit Defenders program and
he had taken an ixim. I asked him, did he
speaked any and he said, no, I'll get around to it,
and he never did. He never spoke to any of
my witnesses.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So his whole defense was he didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Leading up to that trial, did you, your co defendant
and your mom, your family believe that this mistake was
going to be corrected in the court of law?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, well absolutely, you know what I mean here, I'm
an innocent person. You know, I had absolutely zero to
do with this crime. The lady who testified against me,
I didn't know her. The guy who I'm on a
crime with, I didn't know him. I didn't know the
guy who was killed. You know, you're saying that you
and this guy committed this crime together, but you've never
(14:46):
once shown anything other than the testimony of this witness
that were associated with each other.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It must have been like an episode of the Twilight
Zone for you.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yes, but you know, now here's the thing about the trial.
In hindsight, looking at all of the facts and the
circumstances of this case, you know I mean, orchestration is
just clear from start to finish.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And the fact that leading up to the trial you
were offered a plea deal of five years and you
didn't want to take it because you were innocent.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
In fact, five years you kidding me? It could have
said five days. It would have seemed like a life sentence,
five days in prison. Oh no, indeed, no, Uh, you're
gonna you'd have to do more than just throw that
out there and expect me to accept it. No.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
No, So that mockery of a trial asks for all
of the day and the jury deliberates for all of
(16:05):
thirteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I was like, look, they don't have anything to have
a gun, they don't have a nice witness, you know.
But when we got the trial and the state put
on his case. After the state rest, my lawyers came
and said, look, there's a recess. You know the purpose
of this. You know, we're going to switch over to
the defense and if we want to, we could call
(16:30):
witnesses and stuff like that. He said, I'm gonna come
forward with co counsel and we're going to decide whether
now we're going to proceed with the with the alibi defense.
And after recess was over, he came back in and
you know, this guy get them, saying you only at
this time the defense rest. And that was followed by
(16:51):
my co defendanse co counsel saying the same thing. And
when I questioned him about the defense rest, he said that, y'all,
we decided that we're not going to go forward with
the defense witness because state witness and got on the
stand and cried and put on a show. See, he
felt that would only aggravate the judge if we put
(17:12):
on alibi witnesses. And I said, aggravate the judge, I said,
the judge is not on trial here.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And then that's all they had his, you know, the
hysterical testimony of a woman who it turns out had
been in a mental institution absolutely leading up to her
time on that trial. There's no physical evidence against you
or your co defendant. There's no murder weapon that was
(17:39):
ever found and traced to either one of you. What
was going through your head before they announced the verdict?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, I mean I was just absolutely couldn't believe it.
You know. In fact, when he came back and started
reading off the charge and stuff like that, I didn't
want to show that I was just so devastated. I
just wanted to just really be strong, but I could
help it. I look back. You know, my mom was
in tears. You know, my girlfriend were in tears. My sisters,
(18:08):
they weren't tears. Something people saying, well we came to testify,
when we're going to testify, and he ushering them out
the courtroom, and it was just a lot of people
is just really caught by surprise, especially for the people
that really knew me. They know that he's not a murderer.
It was just it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And then you're sentenced to life without the possibility of
parole in a place that honestly sounds at that time
particularly like hell, we're going to play an excerpt from
your show about Angola, but can you just talk to
(18:50):
me about even what the journey from Parish prison to
Angola was like?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Huh. To say that it was horrible is an understatement.
It was my worst nightmare, magnified one hundred times, like
something that someone just put together and put all the
horrible things that they can imagine, just throwed it in there.
(19:23):
You know, it's like the trip gone there. I mean,
we're in the back of paddy wagon. It's seven of
us leg iron and seated in the back of this
little suv thing and this snake rolle that leads from
(19:44):
Highway sixty one to the prison. It was just frightening.
It's like you're about to fall off a clip in
a second even getting to this place. And once you
get there, you are among those worries people in the world,
(20:04):
people that has committed all sorts of crimes against children,
against the elderly, against family members. And I gotta make
sense of this stuff. I'm not in the same mind
frame with these guys. I don't go to bed at
(20:24):
night and have nightmare of the crime that outne committed.
I go to bed at night, I sleep peacefully. You
know I don't. I don't have these demons ride me
and stuff like that. But I'm among most of them
who who are going through this stuff, are experiencing or
(20:44):
revisiting these crimes. And Gold is the bottom of the ball.
You have to be drawn away to go there in Gold.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Life of fifty or one hundred and fifty fact maximum
I'm security prisons five thousand in means now it's six thousand.
The only people qualified for a bed in a Golda.
It's those guys who are sentenced to die in that bed.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's the last stop. Ain't Golda used to be a
slave plantation.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
The name a Golda originates from the Africans who worked
the plantation camp there used to be the old slave camp.
I mean, that's something else to be part of such
a long, long history. How do you claim a spot
that's littered with blood. I'm talking about hundreds of years
(21:47):
of brutality, the pain and suffering that land caused, the
violence that exist on them grounds.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
How did you have to change as a person to
survive it? How did you have to change from the
moment you got there? What did you have to learn
and teach yourself?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean, going in there, I had two fears. I
didn't want to die in prison, which I knew was
a great possibility, and I didn't want to be in
prison when my mom died. But going in there, I said,
I don't have no problem with none of the inmates,
no problem with the security. I know they're here to
(22:37):
do a job. I know guys here to do or since.
I don't have a problem with any of that. What
I have a problem with is the fact that I'm
in prison for a crime I didn't commit. I'm going
to do everything in my power try and get out,
and somehow, in some way showed that I didn't have
(22:57):
anything to do with it. Anyone that would listen, and
I would tell them, Look, you know, I'm here for
something I didn't do. You know, I'm not out here
ribbing people and raping people and doing all kinds of stuff.
It's just some kind of mix up that eventually it's
going to be revealed. That was the position I took,
and I stood on that.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
In addition to teaching yourself how to read to make
up for those years that you missed in school, you
end up mastering the law and defending yourself all the
way to the State Supreme Court. But they kept you
pretty busy in terms of the physical labor you were
expected to do while you were there, in terms of
(23:37):
digging ditches and backbreaking work.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, you've sentenced a hard labor, you know. So now
I have a life sentence and I'm required to work
hard for the rest of my life something I didn't do.
But the first thing, I'm just like, look all this
agriculture stuff, I'm a little too tall for that. All
this bending over and stuff like that. So I was
always going to the whole some guys who are like,
(24:02):
suck Sam man, you need to stop going the whole man.
But the physical label was just entirely too much for me.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So one way or the other, they're gonna break you.
They're gonna break your spirit, they're gonna break your back,
and they're gonna break your will.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
But then there's something that you two touch upon in
the show that continues to blow my mind today, and
that is the work that you ended up doing at
the then governor's mansion, which I don't think anybody can
wrap their head around. Will you please explain it to me?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Well, it came as quite a surprise to me too,
you know, because I'm setting in prison, you know, And
of course I didn't know anything about it, you know.
But each time the governor is about to leave office
and or come into office, he would usually commute the
sentence of the people that work for him. And that's
(25:00):
if you didn't have a real controversial case where people
were making a lot of noise and a lot of
protests and stuff like, if he could slide you drew
there without any opposition or a little opposition. Then that
was the way it was the second term. It's is
nineteen seventy nine. He can't run for governor any longer.
(25:22):
David Trean has won the governorship and he's about to
take office. So they come to prison. They said, look,
everyone that was gonna commute the sentence of all the
people that works for him, So we're gonna need seventeen
guys to go down to the governor's mansion. I couldn't
believe that I was chosen to be a part of that.
(25:42):
For all the people that was interviewed, and they winded
down to the seventeen and I was part of the seventeen.
I didn't really feel it was a blessing that people
were saying it was. To me, oh man, it's a blessing,
you know. I imagine it is a blessing for somebody that's
actually guilty.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
But in reality, you were then given a uniform and
you're basically domestic help at the governor's mansion.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Absolutely. I mean I went there, have the dishwasher. A
guy in the kitchen said, look, you need to start
bringing the governor's wife breakfast. Then that would help you
over the long haul, you know, I'm When the governor's
wife become friendly, she know your face and know your name.
She would encourage her husband to commutual sin. But I
wasn't interested in a commutation of my sins. I wanted
(26:31):
my freedom.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
You're a man who has been wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted,
but convicted of murder, and other people who have been
convicted of am I right that you had to just
be a pure murderer. They wouldn't take anybody who had
been convicted.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And that's the one thing I've found credit by these
people that committed some serious offense. But they're working on
the governor. Like I said, when I first went to
the governor's mentioned, I was on the dishwash. After speaking
with the governor's wife, they suddenly put me over the
main dining hall. I can't believe it. Of course they
(27:13):
didn't know me. I could have been the actual killer
or something. But I'm working serving the governor.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's so corrupt, it's just so crazy. It's so crazy.
Do you put it wonderfully in the show, which I
hope everybody reads and gets the chance to see absolutely eventually,
But where did you get the drive and the strength
to fight to get out. For twenty seven and a
(27:41):
half years, I went.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Through this period of just being angry, and I came
to the conclusion that just, you know, I'm just been
in a lot of energy just being angry and not
getting anything done. My angle still there, but it started
to subside enough to allow me the venture off in
the other areas, like my reading and comprehension. And once
I learned how to read, I mean, doors started opening
(28:06):
up that I didn't even know was there, and that
it kept me motivated, kept me interested, and I challenged
that energy into the legal aspect, that is, it just
took over me. And you know, I started reading cases,
cases of people that I knew, and the case the
(28:27):
actual trial proceedings the people that I was in the
dome with. So if I was curious about somebody in
the dome, all I do is get their name and
read their case. And so most of the guys in
the dome, I knew more about their case than they did.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And then if you understand how it happened to them,
and sometimes they were correctly convicted, you begin to understand
how the system was used against you.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Absolutely, and it was a lot own process. You know,
I wish that it could have been cut in half,
but it played out in its own time and stuff,
and I was just so thankful that along the way
I would be able to make the right transitions and
(29:18):
make the right decisions moving forward.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And Laura, you've been incredibly patient, and we're going to
get to you in just one second too. But you
mentioned Greg that you had two wishes and to desires
and hopes when all of this happened to you, and
one was that you didn't die in prison. But the
other one was that you wouldn't be in prison when
your mom passed, And that to me is one of
(29:45):
the most heartbreaking aspects of this. Yea, and the way
in which you were told, if you're comfortable talking to that.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Here's the thing about my mom fast and
it came as a total surprise to me. My family
they wouldn't tell me exactly what was going on with
my mom's help, calling to my sisters, reasoning it was that, well,
you you already under pressure in prison. But I was like, look,
(30:15):
you should have told me that way, I would have
been prepared when this guy it came into the dome.
But when the priest came into the dormitory, came in
and called my name. It just took everything out of me.
I mean, it's just my mind just everything was just
a blur. You know, if the people I had been
around at a great length of time just seemed like strangers,
(30:41):
Like I'm looking at him the first time.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I mean, we talked about how working to break your
back and the hole to break your spirit, but that
must have just broken your heart.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I was done, you know. I mean, I kept
telling myself that I'm on let ass through the night.
Just with that low I was just it's all I
had in the world's gone. Just like that, having someone
that you can call on in a situation, it's a
really good feeling to have that I can call on
(31:14):
this person and suddenly it's no longer there. It was
in a dog hole. I was in a dog place.
I just I couldn't find my way and all the
work I had done, my lock, oh was in the
middle of out And I tell myself, I'm getting up
in the morning, I'm I'm try to do a little
(31:36):
reading or whatever. But I look at that lock and
I just get so frustrated, slamming back down what I'm
doing it.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
For another aspect of Angola is it's so difficult to
get to for family. It's so inconvenient and hard to
make the trip, which makes the cruelty of it even
much more magnified. But thankfully you did open that locker again,
(32:06):
and you fought argued your appeals all the way up
to the State Supreme Court, and then the Innocence Project
of New Orleans got involved, and by the end of it,
the court overturned your convictions and that was upheld by
the Louisiana Supreme Court. And then on June twenty fourth,
(32:27):
two thousand and three, after twenty seven years, seven months,
and ten days in prison, you and your code of
defendant were both released after the Orleans Parish DA dismissed
all charges. This still just hits in such a painful way.
You and your code defendant left prison with nothing but
(32:52):
ten dollars check from the state and garbage bags full
of your legal paperwork that sugarcoating ith ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
I couldn't believe that. When we were leaving the prison
gave me the envelope with the check. He said, Man,
I would tear that check up. He said, that's a shame.
Someone to be in prison all these years for something
that he didn't do, and to be handed a check
for ten dollars that's not even bus fare to wherever
you is you going. I said, yeah, I'm just glad
(33:26):
to be out. I'm glad to be getting away from this.
They could have kept the check. But when you think
about it, for twenty seven something years in prison, worked
in the fields a little time, stayed a lot of
years in the kitchen. I stayed a lot of years
the horse lode, stayed a couple of years that the
governor's mentioned. And to be given a check for ten dollars.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
It's so disgusting. I can't even I have no words.
And then you're tasked with processing everything that happen up
into you and just building a new life.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That's still difficult because I'm at a great disadvantage when
I get out. I'm not twenty years old any longer.
I'm far to seven years old. I don't have any finances.
I have to start at the bottom. I was offered
a lot of jobs. I could have worked with a
couple of lawyers and stuff, but I didn't want to
(34:24):
be a part or at the prison. I wanted to
be away from that. I didn't want to profit off
of someone's grieve, someone's pain and suffering. I needed to
re energize myself, reinvent myself, and then see what was
out there. And it's been real, real difficult doing that.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Because it's not like you're suddenly given a blueprint, right,
And even though you did end up receiving some compensation,
it was nominal, right.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I don't even feel that it's just enough compensation to
get you in the world or death. And the thing
about it is, I don't feel like I've been compensated.
I don't care what the numbers could be. I can't
be compensated for what happened, the experience of being incarcerated
(35:24):
among the type of people that I was incarcerated with
for that length of time. I mean, it's just just
one day of that is enough that you would never
ever want to be involved in that kind of stuff again.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco. 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. I would love
(36:22):
to know now from you Laura, how you guys first
crossed paths.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
We met when Greg had been out of prison, I
guess about four years, and I was a volunteer working
with the Innocence Project as a narrative consultant because there
are probably more people exonerated out of Louisiana than any
other state, because there are more wrongful convictions in Louisiana,
(36:50):
and so many people had been coming out of Angola,
and like Greg, decades of experience. People were very interested
in hearing their stories. But you know, what do you
do with twenty seven and a half years of incarceration?
How do you even begin to put that into a
fifteen minute presentation for a church or community center. We
(37:13):
had a group of four people. Initially my role was
to help kind of start to shape some of this
life experience. So we worked together for a few months
and had a presentation with all four of the exoneries.
During that time, I was just continually drawn to Greg.
Greg as you can tell, as a great heart, he
(37:35):
has a lot of wisdom, He's a great storyteller. And
so after the initial project was complete, we continued to
work together for the next couple of years and we
would meet everywhere. We met at coffee shops, we met
in the park, we met at my office. We met
once once or twice a week for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
You know, he used to always say, wait a minute, great,
wait a minute, let me give our record. Let me
tell you that what did you talk about? I know,
I got to type.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
This out and I just asked him question after question
and recorded every conversation, transcribed it word for word. I
had hundreds and hundreds of pages of transcribed notes, and
slowly it took the shape of one man play.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I should imagine too that it's interesting as an EXONERI
because people will ask you questions, But how much do
they really want to know? Like how deep is their
commitment to your experience? And you met your mat Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Absolutely, but this has been the most rewarding experience that
I've ever had. It's painful in a lot of ways,
but it's painfully true.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Is it what led you on your path to become
an actor?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yes? And no. I mean first we had a professional
actor that was doing play. But God starts swaying from
the script, slowly out putting this personal stuff in there.
It was like, l I was like, you know what
maybe it be a good idea for you to do
to play. I had never thought about acting, but of
course it's not acting because this is something I've gone through,
(39:14):
this is my experience. So I really didn't look at
it like acting. But I was comfortable enough to pursue
other interest in acting. One of the interns that at
the time was working at the Hypno she decided to
switch career, becoming part of the second lind Studios here
(39:35):
in New Orleans, and so she became my agent, Megan Lewis.
She's a tremendous person with the good heart, good spirit
and stuff, and so she is responsible for me being
in these movies, The Twelve Years, the Slave, twelve Rounds Jones.
Seeing it's just a few of those movies, she was
(39:56):
instrumental in me being.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
A part of What about working on the entire process
of creating that show with Laura was therapeutic for you?
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Oh? Absolutely. I mean one point, I couldn't get through
the mother scene. I'd always break down and just get
these flashbacks and we'd have to stop and start back
and stuff like that. You know, you know, it took
me a long time to really put my mom's debt
in perspective, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And that is something that you got to purge in
this show, right, because it's your truth, right and Lara
to you, and it's very evident in what you guys
have created together, your empathy and your compassion and your understanding.
I know, in addition to being an incredibly gifted writer,
(40:53):
you're also a compassion trainer. But you are also the
survivor of a violent attack that happened years ago while
you were traveling. In what way did dealing with that
trauma lead you to what you do today and how
(41:14):
you crossed paths with Greg?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, very directly.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
So.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
As you mentioned, I was traveling in Belize and I
was picked up by a man pretending to be a
cab driver and I was kidnapped into the jungle where
I was robbed and raped, and the man intended to
kill me. And I couldn't run, I couldn't hide, I
couldn't overpower the man. But what I could do was
turn toward his pain. And you mentioned earlier that one
(41:42):
of your fundamental beliefs is that hurt people hurt people,
and that was so obvious in this experience. It was
to my benefit that he was a real talker, and
so he was telling me the problems of his life,
and so I turned my attention toward him, and caring
for him is what literally saved my life. And so
at the end of that experience, I was living in
(42:03):
Los Angeles at the time I flew home. I was
just trying to make sense of this, what just happened?
And what is this thing called compassion? I knew to
call it compassion, but I didn't know what compassion was.
Certainly wasn't a compassion trainer yet at that point. And
so thus began my journey. You know, I started down
that walk of first trying to learn about first, trying
(42:25):
to heal from that experience, from the fear of it,
but also the disappointment that I experienced when I wanted
to express care and concern not just for myself, but
also for him, for his wellbeing, for his healing, because
to me, the best consequence that could come from this
(42:47):
is that we would both heal so that he would
no longer have the kind of hurt and pain that
would hurt then someone else. But I was met with
a lot of resistance to that idea, and so I
kept looking for teachers and counselors who I could work with,
and I was having a really hard time finding people
who would match my exploration. And so I moved to
(43:12):
New Orleans right after Katrina, and that seemed to make
a lot of sense to me. The city was sort
of in upheaval. My life was recently in upheaval, and
everyone was just putting pieces back together again. I didn't
think about it consciously. I love New Orleans, but I
also felt really comfortable in that mess. And it was
(43:33):
only I was only in New Orleans for a couple
of years before I met Greg and the other exoneries,
And so Greg was somebody who could shed some light
on the experience of incarceration and the experience of people
who were responsible for harm, but he himself was not
responsible for that harm, and so he was a step
closer to my questions. My time with Greg was away
(43:57):
for me to really start to sort out both my
questions and some answers. So he really became a great
teacher for me.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
So you both brought about a great deal of healing
in one another's lives just through this creative process that
you shared.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Healing is, for sure process, and I think we intersected
in that process. Greg had already done healing work before
we met, so had I. We were able to support
one another while we were working on the play, and
of course both of us are still doing our work
beyond that, and yes, but there's something about working on
(44:37):
a creative project that places the experience outside of us
so that we can kind of look at it, shape it,
move it around. And I do want to talk a
little bit too about Greg talking about his mom's death.
When Greg and I first started meeting, Greg talked about
(44:57):
his mom's death every single time, and it was by
far the most painful things still in his life. And
after a while, after months of this, I became very
concerned about what we were doing, because, yes, working on
(45:18):
a creative project and story sharing can be healing, but
it also can be re traumatizing, and if done without
that care and sensitivity, it can really it can be devastating.
It's like it's opening a wound. It's opening a wound.
I mean, it was so complex and so deep. So
I actually went off for a little while and I
(45:39):
got trained in some trauma narrative work so that I
could bring some new skills back to our conversation, and
we started employing some of those some of those techniques,
and that's when Greg started to remember his mom's words
of advice because they came to him at a time
when he really needed them an Angola. But then once
(46:02):
coming home, he was so, Greg, please let me know
if I'm not saying this correctly, but he seemed to
be so overwhelmed then by the grief that the wisdom
had been lost inside the grief. Absolutely, and so what
the retelling of the play did was it brought us
back to the wisdom. I think the trust in the
(46:22):
theater is what led us to being able to cry
through those scenes together over and over again, until finally
we could do it without that level of grief. Is
that fair to say, Greg.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, it's absolutely that's right home. And so I could
understand when people see that day it was affected by
it or moved by that particular part because it is
the heart of the play.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I've had the pleasure, honestly, the honor of reading the
play multiple times at this point, and I always cry
at that point because it is so elegant in its honesty.
Simplicity's not the right word, it's honesty, but just exquisite
in its heartbreak because it's real.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
And it was because of Greg that I went to
Angola for the first time, and since then I have
been very involved in prison work. After Greg and I
wrote the play, I actually I wrote a book and
published a book about my own experience and became a
compassion trainer and then ended up going to Angola once
(47:30):
a week for many years and working to create a
prison wide compassion program.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
I can't imagine for both of you how incredible that
trip together to Angola must have been, because Greg, at
that point, you have processed a lot of demons that
were inflicted upon you by the experience in terms of
working on the play, and Laura, you get to see
(47:57):
a place that you have already seen seeing through Greg's
eyes with your own. Was it a really emotional experience
for you to go there together.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I didn't have any personal interest going back to prison.
I wanted to go back for Laura's sake, because we
had talked so much about that gold or that I
know she visualized in her mind, but it's one thing
to see it in your mind and then to be
(48:30):
standing there. I wanted her to see what I saw
while I was there. And I must say that when
she got there, she saw it. She saw what I saw.
We go in the dormitory and the guy come out.
I look around, I don't see lardy. Guy come in
and say, man, you with the lady. I'm like, yeah,
(48:52):
she said, Man, she's outside crying, and I know what
it was. I know it was. What she saw was
just so overwelm. But I knew for me it would
draw a lot of memories back and feelings of helplessness
when I have to look at the guys that I
done slept next to it and work with, held long
(49:15):
conversations with, and now suddenly be on the outside and
looking at them and dealing with them from the inside.
It's just not a part of the story, but it's
part of the story that's hit home with me because
I can't help. I can't help the situation, you know.
(49:36):
I mean, I could just try to be strong, and
that's the only advice I could give someone in that situation.
It's just devastating for me.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
There were layers of complexity to it. It was a
really pivotal experience for me in terms of being able
to write the play, but also in my own personal life. First,
in terms of the play Craig had been saying for
months and months that the play wasn't just about him,
and I kept saying, yeah, but it's really about you.
(50:08):
It's not about me, It's not about me, It's about
everyone there. And I did not understand that until I
went to Angola, when I walked into the dorm and
I felt Greg talks about going to perish prison in
the smell. For me. When I walked into the dorm,
I just felt grief and there was nothing to do
(50:32):
but cry. It was so much, And in that moment
I realized, Oh, this play is not about Greg. Greg
is one person in this enormous system of both people
who are innocent who end up in prison and also
people who are responsible for harm who end up in prison.
(50:53):
And so for me personally, the person who harmed me,
had he been convicted, he in Louisiana would be spending
the rest of his life at Angola, at hard labor.
And I since working at Angola, I have actually met
people whose crimes look very similar to the one that
(51:13):
I experienced, who are spending the rest of their lives
at Angola. And what I know about every person there
is that they are absolutely more than that event, and
yet that is not how we talk about people. That
is not how we see people. We talk about quote murderers,
a person who has taken a life, committed a murder.
(51:35):
That does not make them a murderer. It's not ongoing.
I have the profound respect for so many of the
individuals who I've met over the years there who have
grappled with their crime, who are experiencing the grief, the suffering,
the shame, the regret, but also the strength and living
(51:58):
a life that also includes joy and love and compassion
and healing. And I think that if we don't tell
the whole complex story, then we're missing the humanness of it.
And so that's what I got to see for And also,
Angola is beautiful. We don't we forget to mention that
it's eighteen thousand acres of rolling farmland. It is gorgeous land.
(52:21):
It was a plantation, it's fertile soil. And the juxtaposition
of that beauty and the pain that's on that land
is really it's just profound. It's staggering.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
See that that is the emotional connection, that is the
complexity of the human experience, and very much you know
what I'm hoping to help do with this podcast is
to show that emotional tether that we all have that
erases the us and the them, because what you just
(52:58):
said goes right back to we're all victims of victims.
And if you understand that legacy of trauma and that
domino effect, that ripple effect it has, it just makes
it more possible for us to create a better world
with all of the people who were already in it,
(53:20):
as opposed to picking and choosing and viewing people as dispensable.
Going back to the show, Greg, if you can just
explain to me where the name for the play came
from and who wing Ding is.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, Wingding with the guy set up next to me,
you know, and he was someone that always had some
words of wisdom. He always quick to make people laugh,
you know. But he used to always get on me,
you know, because he figured out you smart, you smart,
you know, but you fighting and chalk in the water.
You know, I had no idea what he was talking about.
(53:57):
When he was talking about you grit your tea that night,
you sleep with your fistball up. You said it was
a signe that you fighting a shark and water, you know.
I mean he used to really get on my nerve
with that never fight a sharking water. You got to
get him on land. I'm like, man, what did you
talking about. I ain't fighting no shalks. He's like, yeah,
you fighting the shalksing no water. It just occurred to
(54:19):
me one day that I said, Yeah, it's just Likedwayne
Dan used to see you never fight a sharking water,
and only you could really get him is to get
him on land. And it just stayed with me, you know.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Even you explaining how because the play really shows the
triumph of the human spirit over adversity, over trauma. But
I viewed fighting a shark and water was basically giving
into anger. Yeah, that's you're setting yourself up for failure
(54:53):
if you give into anger, and that's what you were
able to overcome.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Lord.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Do you see parallels in terms of Greg's giving up
on his anger with you basically refusing to identify solely
as a victim.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Yeah, anger is a dead end. There's nowhere to go.
I use the word compassion a lot. Compassion is simply
recognizing suffering and being motivated to help. It's not condoning
bad behavior. It's not even the same as forgiveness. It's
just recognizing suffering and being motivated to help. And that's
(55:33):
a visionary stance because you have to see all the
way beyond the suffering anger. You can't, there's nowhere to
see beyond it. Greg and I both giving ourselves the
opportunity to have a little bit of emotional relief. I
think that's the essence of our lives, and then we
put that into the play. I think Greg and I,
(55:53):
you know, we were both kidnapped in different ways. Greg
was kidnapped for a really long time. We don't call
it that, but that's in fact what it was. He
was taken from his home and he was held for
twenty seven and a half years. And inside of that
twenty seven years, Greg lived a full life of all
the emotional highs and lows that come with life. And
(56:16):
I hope that that comes through in our conversations and
in the play, because we keep coming back to the
truth is in the complexity, and as soon as we
try to simplify any experience, even the experience of anger,
we're in territory that just maybe isn't as as rich
as we want it to be.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
As authentically, what does your friendship mean to both of
you and Greg, I'll let you go first.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
Oh yeah, it's been really life changing, you know. I mean,
Laura has told me a lot. I've had the opportunity
chance to release a lot of positive energy. The healing
has been something that was never offered in any way
(57:06):
from the people who was responsible for this. And the
play is something that I feel real strong about, and
I feel that it's a special thing being able to
share that experience with people and not bring these emotions.
(57:29):
Being free of these emotions, I can express it. I
don't get angry with the lady who testified against me
when when I do the play. I don't get angry
with the judge or the police officers. I don't get
angry with them, as far as I care. They can
be setting in the audience. My only purpose here is
(57:49):
to help. My purpose is not here to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
Yeah, Gosh, Like all great relationships, you know, Greg has
lots of roles in my life. He's a friend, he's
an amazing collaborator, he's a guide, a teacher, a wise one.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (58:06):
We worked really hard for a long time on this
and then we put it down. We also weren't in
each other's lives as much years have gone by when
we have just had a small touch in each other's lives,
and interestingly, being invited into this conversation and also being
invited to put the play back on in September has
(58:29):
brought Greg and I back not just to the conversation
about wrongful conviction, but back to each other. So it's
really special and wonderful, and yeah, it feels really super good.
It feels great.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
I can't tell you the joy that fills my soul with.
But also the fact that you are going to perform
the play again this fall. Can you give me details
so that we can link to it, and I hope
to be there in personal.
Speaker 3 (58:56):
That would be wonderful. We would love for you to
be there.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (58:58):
Yes, The New Orleans The Store Collection is mounting an
exhibition about the history of incarceration in Louisiana. It's going
to open in September, and Greg has been invited to
perform Never Fight a Shark as part of their programming.
It'll be the middle of September and Greg will be
offering three performances.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yes, Oh, I'm going to figure out a way that
I can be sitting in that audience, fantastic. Thank you
guys so much for your time today. It is such
a pleasure to speak with both of you.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Thank you so well, Thank you so much, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
And in the show description we will include links to
both Greg's upcoming performances and a filmed excerpt of Never
Fight a Shark and Water, as well as one to
Lara Naton's compelling memoir The Jaguar Man. Thank you for
(59:55):
listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Please support
your look Lenoson's 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 Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wardis, as well as our producers Annie Chelsea,
Kathleen Fink, and Jackie Pauley. This series is produced, edited,
(01:00:17):
and hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco. Our senior producer
is Kara Kornhaber. Story editing by Hannah Bial, research by
Shelby Sorels, mixing and sound design by Nick Massetti, with
additional production by Jeff Clyborne. Our theme music is by
Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social
media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
(01:00:41):
You can also follow me on all platforms at Lauren
Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have
been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes,
even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like
to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it
like to be their ally, the one outside committed to
fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Bride Pacheco, and this
(00:27):
is wrongful conviction. Early on in October morning in nineteen
seventy five, a fifteen year old named Elliott Porter was
shot and killed in a housing project in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Twenty year old Gregory Bright, along with a seventeen year
(00:49):
old co defendant, someone he'd never met before, by the way,
became suspects after a known drug addict turned state's witness
implicated them in a crime in exchange for reward money.
Arrested and charged with second degree murder, Gregory and his
co defendant's trial would last for just one day, and
the jury deliberated for all of thirteen minutes before convicting them.
(01:13):
They were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole
in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Though Gregory Bright was
illiterate when he entered prison. He taught himself to read,
then taught himself the law, getting his appeals all the
way to the State Supreme Court before the Innocence Project
of New Orleans stepped in. Ultimately, he would spend twenty
(01:35):
seven and a half years in prison for a crime
he did not commit. Today, Bright is an accomplished actor
who's appeared in Twelve Years a Slave, American horror story
and Tremay. He is also the focus of an incredible
one man documentary stage play based entirely on his words
and recollections, titled Never Fight a Shark in Water, The
(01:59):
Wrongful of Gregory Bright, which explores so many aspects of
this staggering injustice. It was written by New Orleans based
writer Lara Naughton, who was also a teacher, compassion trainer,
and survivor of a violent crime. Lara and greg have
forged a mutually supportive, healing friendship and bond, and they
(02:23):
are joining us today. I am so excited for this conversation.
Welcome both of you to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Greg. I wanted to start with you, can you just
take me back before all of this unfolded. What was
your childhood like?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I had come from a small family. It was me,
my mom, my two sisters, and my stepfather. We did
a lot of things as a family, went to move
a theater, sat at home and play called and stuff
like that, average stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
And you had a lot of responsibility placed on you
as well, because you dropped out of school in sixth
grade to care for your stepfather.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Absolutely, you know, and it was really a tough time
for me, you know, be a kid, you know, thirteen
years old, having a full responsibility to care for a
grown adult. It often had me wondering, you know, what
my life would turn into at that point.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You're obviously a very creative man. Did you have hopes
and aspirations when you were a child in terms of
what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, I was attracted to music and stuff, and I
had several instruments or guitar, bound of drums and kind
of drums. I set around when I get spare time
and tinkled around with this stuff. So I always imagine
myself as being some type of musician or something like that,
because I was always making the picking on the guitars.
(04:03):
But I had never actually settled into what I wanted
to become or what I wanted to do. I just
enjoyed the freedom that I suddenly had after my step
part had passed. Was just relieved of the burden of
caring for him.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
How old were you when he passed.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I was fifteen when he passed. You know, at that
point I had been out of school, well off and
on since I was thirteen, and being tall as statute,
I always felt out of place about the kids in
my classes and stuff. But the most important part I
think of experience of caring for my stepfather was the
fact that he would often called me to read the
(04:43):
Last Scripture because that was his way of trying to
make sure that I stayed on top of reading and
stuff or whatever. It helped me while I was in jail.
It disciplined me to want to get into the books
and study. It all came full circle.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
It's interesting that you experienced all this new freedom at
the age of fifteen, because that probably made what happened
when you were just twenty that much more painful. So
before we even get into that, you had a very
close relationship with your mom.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Absolutely. Yeah. My mom was someone that I could turn
to in any crisis, any bad experience. I could turn
to her and she would seem to have the words.
She would say just the right things that would put
me back and allow me to focus and concentrate. And
she was just a wonderful lady, someone that I had
(05:45):
missed tremendously after she had passed.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And I know that you and Laura definitely incorporated her
wisdom into the One Man Show as well, because I
feel like I got to know your mom a bit
through the advice that she offered you throughout the years,
which was always very powerful. Take me to that evening
(06:13):
that changed everything for you when you were just twenty.
How did that unfold?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Speaking about the arrest, this particular Saturday morning, I'm laying
on the south asleep and all of a sudden they
heard the banging on the door. Damn, And I gets up.
I look through the door. I see flashlights, see someone
shine the flashlight on the porch outside, And you know,
I was hesitant to open the door because really it
(06:41):
took me out of my sleep. I thought it was
knock at next door. They had apartment just less than
a foot away. The doors were parallel, and my mom
came downstairs after all the banking. She asked me, who
was that banging on the door, you know. I said,
I don't know. My I said it might be the police,
you know, because that's see flashlights. She said, look open
(07:02):
the door up, you know, see what they're talking about.
So I opened the door up, showed off. There was
two police officers, you know. They asked me that Gregory
Bright lived there. I said, yeah, that's me. So one
of the guys said they had a warrant for my arrest.
I said, warrant for my arrest? Yeah, I said, your
name had come up in our investigation involving this murderer
(07:25):
to fifteen year old Elio Porter. I said, murder. I
don't even know Elie your porter, you know. So the
guy says that, well, look, we're just gonna bring you
downtown and ask you some questions. So they brung me
downtown back at two Landing Broad. They interrogated me in
for maybe an hour and a half, asked me about
(07:46):
the people that I didn't know. But I was arrested.
They brung me over to all the East Parish prison
and that's why I learned I had a co defendant.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's just so staggering because you had now ever had
any issues with the law. No before no. And you
mention in the play that your mother's attitude was sure,
my son will go down with you.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
He didn't kill anybody, right, absolutely, you know, she just
knew in her heart and her soul immediately that didn't
fit the sun that she had raised.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And the only time you had ever been to the
New Orleans Parish prison was to visit a friend. You
describe it so eloquently in your show, which I would
love to play a little excerpt from, but if you
can just describe as well what that place was like
(08:45):
and how it overwhelmed your senses even before you were
taken there as a prisoner, just visiting there.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
The experience was something that I'd never forget because I
can remember there was a line of people way didn't
go in, and the closer I had gotten to the
door to the opening, it's like the sicklet I was becoming.
It's like something had just came over me, some outside
force had just taken over, and it had gotten to
(09:15):
the point where I was about to draw up. And
so the sergeant he noticed it and laughed and said,
you're sick, uh, And I looked at him. I said, yes, sir,
I don't know what to come over man, and he
laughed at it. It's the smell. And I remember going
inside the place and the visited with this guy, and
(09:39):
when I got in there, I didn't smell it anymore.
It's like it had totally and completely consumed me. And
I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And not only that, that visit becomes almost a foreshadowing
of what would eventually befall you, because you felt like
there was a part of it that got into you
right right. I wanted to draw you back into it right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
When I went to visit this guy. Thank some of
the evil inside the place got on me. I feel
like some.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Kind of evilness embedded itself in my body and decided.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I want him back in here, get him back in here.
I jumped up open the door. Police asked Gregory Bright
live here. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
They got a warn from my arrest for the murder
of Elliott Porter.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's so powerful. What was that like then? Getting brought
back there?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It was like Dasiel food. Everything that I had saw
from the outside, now I'm inside and I'm stuck among
what was in my mind at the time, my word
nightmare of being placed in there against my will.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And that's the first time you ever met your seventeen
year old code defendant.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, I met him while we were in prison. His
face looked at famili but come to find out, he
was the brother of the person that I was thinking about.
He was the younger brother of the person that seemed familiar.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Now, I just want to point out to listeners that
we're not going to fully name your code defendant or
use the last name of the woman, Sheila, who ended
up being the witness against you. And if you want
to just touch upon why that's important to you, why
you're so protective of both of them, but particularly her.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
After I spoke with her, she told me some things
about what she had experienced in her life, and I
knew that this wasn't just entirely her doing, you know,
I know it was a difficult thing for her, you know,
to send two innocent people to prison, But it was
(12:10):
the life that she lived. It was the choices that
she made, even though they there was choices that devastated
not only in my life but my co defender's life.
And family, and I knew it was difficult for her,
and I just didn't won't to add to whatever trouble
that she may have had on me be facing in
(12:31):
the future.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Greg. I'm so humbled by your grace, sincerely, because the
woman that we're referring to had mental illness and addiction illness,
and she exchanged her testimony for financial incentive, which is
what's wrong with the system more than anything else. But
(12:53):
I've always tried to live believing that we're all victims
of victims, and that hurt people end up hurting other people.
And the fact that you lost twenty seven and a
half years of your life because of that testimony and
you still afford her grace is so incredibly inspiring and evolved.
(13:19):
So you're held in parish prison for seven or so
months before the trial, you are appointed a public defender
who you met with I believe once before the trial.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Once. Yes, this guy spoke to me at a preliminary
here in nineteen seventy six, the early part jam maybe
January seventy six, and he asked that I have a
list of my witnesses to people that I intend to
call as witnesses, And I said yeah. I had given
(13:53):
it to a guy from the Indigit Defenders program and
he had taken an ixim. I asked him, did he
speaked any and he said, no, I'll get around to it,
and he never did. He never spoke to any of
my witnesses.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So his whole defense was he didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Leading up to that trial, did you, your co defendant
and your mom, your family believe that this mistake was
going to be corrected in the court of law?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, well absolutely, you know what I mean here, I'm
an innocent person. You know, I had absolutely zero to
do with this crime. The lady who testified against me,
I didn't know her. The guy who I'm on a
crime with, I didn't know him. I didn't know the
guy who was killed. You know, you're saying that you
and this guy committed this crime together, but you've never
(14:46):
once shown anything other than the testimony of this witness
that were associated with each other.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It must have been like an episode of the Twilight
Zone for you.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yes, but you know, now here's the thing about the trial.
In hindsight, looking at all of the facts and the
circumstances of this case, you know I mean, orchestration is
just clear from start to finish.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And the fact that leading up to the trial you
were offered a plea deal of five years and you
didn't want to take it because you were innocent.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
In fact, five years you kidding me? It could have
said five days. It would have seemed like a life sentence,
five days in prison. Oh no, indeed, no, Uh, you're
gonna you'd have to do more than just throw that
out there and expect me to accept it. No.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
No, So that mockery of a trial asks for all
of the day and the jury deliberates for all of
(16:05):
thirteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I was like, look, they don't have anything to have
a gun, they don't have a nice witness, you know.
But when we got the trial and the state put
on his case. After the state rest, my lawyers came
and said, look, there's a recess. You know the purpose
of this. You know, we're going to switch over to
the defense and if we want to, we could call
(16:30):
witnesses and stuff like that. He said, I'm gonna come
forward with co counsel and we're going to decide whether
now we're going to proceed with the with the alibi defense.
And after recess was over, he came back in and
you know, this guy get them, saying you only at
this time the defense rest. And that was followed by
(16:51):
my co defendanse co counsel saying the same thing. And
when I questioned him about the defense rest, he said that, y'all,
we decided that we're not going to go forward with
the defense witness because state witness and got on the
stand and cried and put on a show. See, he
felt that would only aggravate the judge if we put
(17:12):
on alibi witnesses. And I said, aggravate the judge, I said,
the judge is not on trial here.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And then that's all they had his, you know, the
hysterical testimony of a woman who it turns out had
been in a mental institution absolutely leading up to her
time on that trial. There's no physical evidence against you
or your co defendant. There's no murder weapon that was
(17:39):
ever found and traced to either one of you. What
was going through your head before they announced the verdict?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, I mean I was just absolutely couldn't believe it.
You know. In fact, when he came back and started
reading off the charge and stuff like that, I didn't
want to show that I was just so devastated. I
just wanted to just really be strong, but I could
help it. I look back. You know, my mom was
in tears. You know, my girlfriend were in tears. My sisters,
(18:08):
they weren't tears. Something people saying, well we came to testify,
when we're going to testify, and he ushering them out
the courtroom, and it was just a lot of people
is just really caught by surprise, especially for the people
that really knew me. They know that he's not a murderer.
It was just it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And then you're sentenced to life without the possibility of
parole in a place that honestly sounds at that time
particularly like hell, we're going to play an excerpt from
your show about Angola, but can you just talk to
(18:50):
me about even what the journey from Parish prison to
Angola was like?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Huh. To say that it was horrible is an understatement.
It was my worst nightmare, magnified one hundred times, like
something that someone just put together and put all the
horrible things that they can imagine, just throwed it in there.
(19:23):
You know, it's like the trip gone there. I mean,
we're in the back of paddy wagon. It's seven of
us leg iron and seated in the back of this
little suv thing and this snake rolle that leads from
(19:44):
Highway sixty one to the prison. It was just frightening.
It's like you're about to fall off a clip in
a second even getting to this place. And once you
get there, you are among those worries people in the world,
(20:04):
people that has committed all sorts of crimes against children,
against the elderly, against family members. And I gotta make
sense of this stuff. I'm not in the same mind
frame with these guys. I don't go to bed at
(20:24):
night and have nightmare of the crime that outne committed.
I go to bed at night, I sleep peacefully. You
know I don't. I don't have these demons ride me
and stuff like that. But I'm among most of them
who who are going through this stuff, are experiencing or
(20:44):
revisiting these crimes. And Gold is the bottom of the ball.
You have to be drawn away to go there in Gold.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Life of fifty or one hundred and fifty fact maximum
I'm security prisons five thousand in means now it's six thousand.
The only people qualified for a bed in a Golda.
It's those guys who are sentenced to die in that bed.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's the last stop. Ain't Golda used to be a
slave plantation.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
The name a Golda originates from the Africans who worked
the plantation camp there used to be the old slave camp.
I mean, that's something else to be part of such
a long, long history. How do you claim a spot
that's littered with blood. I'm talking about hundreds of years
(21:47):
of brutality, the pain and suffering that land caused, the
violence that exist on them grounds.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
How did you have to change as a person to
survive it? How did you have to change from the
moment you got there? What did you have to learn
and teach yourself?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean, going in there, I had two fears. I
didn't want to die in prison, which I knew was
a great possibility, and I didn't want to be in
prison when my mom died. But going in there, I said,
I don't have no problem with none of the inmates,
no problem with the security. I know they're here to
(22:37):
do a job. I know guys here to do or since.
I don't have a problem with any of that. What
I have a problem with is the fact that I'm
in prison for a crime I didn't commit. I'm going
to do everything in my power try and get out,
and somehow, in some way showed that I didn't have
(22:57):
anything to do with it. Anyone that would listen, and
I would tell them, Look, you know, I'm here for
something I didn't do. You know, I'm not out here
ribbing people and raping people and doing all kinds of stuff.
It's just some kind of mix up that eventually it's
going to be revealed. That was the position I took,
and I stood on that.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
In addition to teaching yourself how to read to make
up for those years that you missed in school, you
end up mastering the law and defending yourself all the
way to the State Supreme Court. But they kept you
pretty busy in terms of the physical labor you were
expected to do while you were there, in terms of
(23:37):
digging ditches and backbreaking work.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, you've sentenced a hard labor, you know. So now
I have a life sentence and I'm required to work
hard for the rest of my life something I didn't do.
But the first thing, I'm just like, look all this
agriculture stuff, I'm a little too tall for that. All
this bending over and stuff like that. So I was
always going to the whole some guys who are like,
(24:02):
suck Sam man, you need to stop going the whole man.
But the physical label was just entirely too much for me.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So one way or the other, they're gonna break you.
They're gonna break your spirit, they're gonna break your back,
and they're gonna break your will.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
But then there's something that you two touch upon in
the show that continues to blow my mind today, and
that is the work that you ended up doing at
the then governor's mansion, which I don't think anybody can
wrap their head around. Will you please explain it to me?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Well, it came as quite a surprise to me too,
you know, because I'm setting in prison, you know, And
of course I didn't know anything about it, you know.
But each time the governor is about to leave office
and or come into office, he would usually commute the
sentence of the people that work for him. And that's
(25:00):
if you didn't have a real controversial case where people
were making a lot of noise and a lot of
protests and stuff like, if he could slide you drew
there without any opposition or a little opposition. Then that
was the way it was the second term. It's is
nineteen seventy nine. He can't run for governor any longer.
(25:22):
David Trean has won the governorship and he's about to
take office. So they come to prison. They said, look,
everyone that was gonna commute the sentence of all the
people that works for him, So we're gonna need seventeen
guys to go down to the governor's mansion. I couldn't
believe that I was chosen to be a part of that.
(25:42):
For all the people that was interviewed, and they winded
down to the seventeen and I was part of the seventeen.
I didn't really feel it was a blessing that people
were saying it was. To me, oh man, it's a blessing,
you know. I imagine it is a blessing for somebody that's
actually guilty.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
But in reality, you were then given a uniform and
you're basically domestic help at the governor's mansion.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Absolutely. I mean I went there, have the dishwasher. A
guy in the kitchen said, look, you need to start
bringing the governor's wife breakfast. Then that would help you
over the long haul, you know, I'm When the governor's
wife become friendly, she know your face and know your name.
She would encourage her husband to commutual sin. But I
wasn't interested in a commutation of my sins. I wanted
(26:31):
my freedom.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
You're a man who has been wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted,
but convicted of murder, and other people who have been
convicted of am I right that you had to just
be a pure murderer. They wouldn't take anybody who had
been convicted.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And that's the one thing I've found credit by these
people that committed some serious offense. But they're working on
the governor. Like I said, when I first went to
the governor's mentioned, I was on the dishwash. After speaking
with the governor's wife, they suddenly put me over the
main dining hall. I can't believe it. Of course they
(27:13):
didn't know me. I could have been the actual killer
or something. But I'm working serving the governor.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's so corrupt, it's just so crazy. It's so crazy.
Do you put it wonderfully in the show, which I
hope everybody reads and gets the chance to see absolutely eventually,
But where did you get the drive and the strength
to fight to get out. For twenty seven and a
(27:41):
half years, I went.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Through this period of just being angry, and I came
to the conclusion that just, you know, I'm just been
in a lot of energy just being angry and not
getting anything done. My angle still there, but it started
to subside enough to allow me the venture off in
the other areas, like my reading and comprehension. And once
I learned how to read, I mean, doors started opening
(28:06):
up that I didn't even know was there, and that
it kept me motivated, kept me interested, and I challenged
that energy into the legal aspect, that is, it just
took over me. And you know, I started reading cases,
cases of people that I knew, and the case the
(28:27):
actual trial proceedings the people that I was in the
dome with. So if I was curious about somebody in
the dome, all I do is get their name and
read their case. And so most of the guys in
the dome, I knew more about their case than they did.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And then if you understand how it happened to them,
and sometimes they were correctly convicted, you begin to understand
how the system was used against you.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Absolutely, and it was a lot own process. You know,
I wish that it could have been cut in half,
but it played out in its own time and stuff,
and I was just so thankful that along the way
I would be able to make the right transitions and
(29:18):
make the right decisions moving forward.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And Laura, you've been incredibly patient, and we're going to
get to you in just one second too. But you
mentioned Greg that you had two wishes and to desires
and hopes when all of this happened to you, and
one was that you didn't die in prison. But the
other one was that you wouldn't be in prison when
your mom passed, And that to me is one of
(29:45):
the most heartbreaking aspects of this. Yea, and the way
in which you were told, if you're comfortable talking to that.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Here's the thing about my mom fast and
it came as a total surprise to me. My family
they wouldn't tell me exactly what was going on with
my mom's help, calling to my sisters, reasoning it was that, well,
you you already under pressure in prison. But I was like, look,
(30:15):
you should have told me that way, I would have
been prepared when this guy it came into the dome.
But when the priest came into the dormitory, came in
and called my name. It just took everything out of me.
I mean, it's just my mind just everything was just
a blur. You know, if the people I had been
around at a great length of time just seemed like strangers,
(30:41):
Like I'm looking at him the first time.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I mean, we talked about how working to break your
back and the hole to break your spirit, but that
must have just broken your heart.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I was done, you know. I mean, I kept
telling myself that I'm on let ass through the night.
Just with that low I was just it's all I
had in the world's gone. Just like that, having someone
that you can call on in a situation, it's a
really good feeling to have that I can call on
(31:14):
this person and suddenly it's no longer there. It was
in a dog hole. I was in a dog place.
I just I couldn't find my way and all the
work I had done, my lock, oh was in the
middle of out And I tell myself, I'm getting up
in the morning, I'm I'm try to do a little
(31:36):
reading or whatever. But I look at that lock and
I just get so frustrated, slamming back down what I'm
doing it.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
For another aspect of Angola is it's so difficult to
get to for family. It's so inconvenient and hard to
make the trip, which makes the cruelty of it even
much more magnified. But thankfully you did open that locker again,
(32:06):
and you fought argued your appeals all the way up
to the State Supreme Court, and then the Innocence Project
of New Orleans got involved, and by the end of it,
the court overturned your convictions and that was upheld by
the Louisiana Supreme Court. And then on June twenty fourth,
(32:27):
two thousand and three, after twenty seven years, seven months,
and ten days in prison, you and your code of
defendant were both released after the Orleans Parish DA dismissed
all charges. This still just hits in such a painful way.
You and your code defendant left prison with nothing but
(32:52):
ten dollars check from the state and garbage bags full
of your legal paperwork that sugarcoating ith ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
I couldn't believe that. When we were leaving the prison
gave me the envelope with the check. He said, Man,
I would tear that check up. He said, that's a shame.
Someone to be in prison all these years for something
that he didn't do, and to be handed a check
for ten dollars that's not even bus fare to wherever
you is you going. I said, yeah, I'm just glad
(33:26):
to be out. I'm glad to be getting away from this.
They could have kept the check. But when you think
about it, for twenty seven something years in prison, worked
in the fields a little time, stayed a lot of
years in the kitchen. I stayed a lot of years
the horse lode, stayed a couple of years that the
governor's mentioned. And to be given a check for ten dollars.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
It's so disgusting. I can't even I have no words.
And then you're tasked with processing everything that happen up
into you and just building a new life.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That's still difficult because I'm at a great disadvantage when
I get out. I'm not twenty years old any longer.
I'm far to seven years old. I don't have any finances.
I have to start at the bottom. I was offered
a lot of jobs. I could have worked with a
couple of lawyers and stuff, but I didn't want to
(34:24):
be a part or at the prison. I wanted to
be away from that. I didn't want to profit off
of someone's grieve, someone's pain and suffering. I needed to
re energize myself, reinvent myself, and then see what was
out there. And it's been real, real difficult doing that.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Because it's not like you're suddenly given a blueprint, right,
And even though you did end up receiving some compensation,
it was nominal, right.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I don't even feel that it's just enough compensation to
get you in the world or death. And the thing
about it is, I don't feel like I've been compensated.
I don't care what the numbers could be. I can't
be compensated for what happened, the experience of being incarcerated
(35:24):
among the type of people that I was incarcerated with
for that length of time. I mean, it's just just
one day of that is enough that you would never
ever want to be involved in that kind of stuff again.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco. 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. I would love
(36:22):
to know now from you Laura, how you guys first
crossed paths.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
We met when Greg had been out of prison, I
guess about four years, and I was a volunteer working
with the Innocence Project as a narrative consultant because there
are probably more people exonerated out of Louisiana than any
other state, because there are more wrongful convictions in Louisiana,
(36:50):
and so many people had been coming out of Angola,
and like Greg, decades of experience. People were very interested
in hearing their stories. But you know, what do you
do with twenty seven and a half years of incarceration?
How do you even begin to put that into a
fifteen minute presentation for a church or community center. We
(37:13):
had a group of four people. Initially my role was
to help kind of start to shape some of this
life experience. So we worked together for a few months
and had a presentation with all four of the exoneries.
During that time, I was just continually drawn to Greg.
Greg as you can tell, as a great heart, he
(37:35):
has a lot of wisdom, He's a great storyteller. And
so after the initial project was complete, we continued to
work together for the next couple of years and we
would meet everywhere. We met at coffee shops, we met
in the park, we met at my office. We met
once once or twice a week for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
You know, he used to always say, wait a minute, great,
wait a minute, let me give our record. Let me
tell you that what did you talk about? I know,
I got to type.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
This out and I just asked him question after question
and recorded every conversation, transcribed it word for word. I
had hundreds and hundreds of pages of transcribed notes, and
slowly it took the shape of one man play.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I should imagine too that it's interesting as an EXONERI
because people will ask you questions, But how much do
they really want to know? Like how deep is their
commitment to your experience? And you met your mat Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Absolutely, but this has been the most rewarding experience that
I've ever had. It's painful in a lot of ways,
but it's painfully true.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Is it what led you on your path to become
an actor?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yes? And no. I mean first we had a professional
actor that was doing play. But God starts swaying from
the script, slowly out putting this personal stuff in there.
It was like, l I was like, you know what
maybe it be a good idea for you to do
to play. I had never thought about acting, but of
course it's not acting because this is something I've gone through,
(39:14):
this is my experience. So I really didn't look at
it like acting. But I was comfortable enough to pursue
other interest in acting. One of the interns that at
the time was working at the Hypno she decided to
switch career, becoming part of the second lind Studios here
(39:35):
in New Orleans, and so she became my agent, Megan Lewis.
She's a tremendous person with the good heart, good spirit
and stuff, and so she is responsible for me being
in these movies, The Twelve Years, the Slave, twelve Rounds Jones.
Seeing it's just a few of those movies, she was
(39:56):
instrumental in me being.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
A part of What about working on the entire process
of creating that show with Laura was therapeutic for you?
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Oh? Absolutely. I mean one point, I couldn't get through
the mother scene. I'd always break down and just get
these flashbacks and we'd have to stop and start back
and stuff like that. You know, you know, it took
me a long time to really put my mom's debt
in perspective, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And that is something that you got to purge in
this show, right, because it's your truth, right and Lara
to you, and it's very evident in what you guys
have created together, your empathy and your compassion and your understanding.
I know, in addition to being an incredibly gifted writer,
(40:53):
you're also a compassion trainer. But you are also the
survivor of a violent attack that happened years ago while
you were traveling. In what way did dealing with that
trauma lead you to what you do today and how
(41:14):
you crossed paths with Greg?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, very directly.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
So.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
As you mentioned, I was traveling in Belize and I
was picked up by a man pretending to be a
cab driver and I was kidnapped into the jungle where
I was robbed and raped, and the man intended to
kill me. And I couldn't run, I couldn't hide, I
couldn't overpower the man. But what I could do was
turn toward his pain. And you mentioned earlier that one
(41:42):
of your fundamental beliefs is that hurt people hurt people,
and that was so obvious in this experience. It was
to my benefit that he was a real talker, and
so he was telling me the problems of his life,
and so I turned my attention toward him, and caring
for him is what literally saved my life. And so
at the end of that experience, I was living in
(42:03):
Los Angeles at the time I flew home. I was
just trying to make sense of this, what just happened?
And what is this thing called compassion? I knew to
call it compassion, but I didn't know what compassion was.
Certainly wasn't a compassion trainer yet at that point. And
so thus began my journey. You know, I started down
that walk of first trying to learn about first, trying
(42:25):
to heal from that experience, from the fear of it,
but also the disappointment that I experienced when I wanted
to express care and concern not just for myself, but
also for him, for his wellbeing, for his healing, because
to me, the best consequence that could come from this
(42:47):
is that we would both heal so that he would
no longer have the kind of hurt and pain that
would hurt then someone else. But I was met with
a lot of resistance to that idea, and so I
kept looking for teachers and counselors who I could work with,
and I was having a really hard time finding people
who would match my exploration. And so I moved to
(43:12):
New Orleans right after Katrina, and that seemed to make
a lot of sense to me. The city was sort
of in upheaval. My life was recently in upheaval, and
everyone was just putting pieces back together again. I didn't
think about it consciously. I love New Orleans, but I
also felt really comfortable in that mess. And it was
(43:33):
only I was only in New Orleans for a couple
of years before I met Greg and the other exoneries,
And so Greg was somebody who could shed some light
on the experience of incarceration and the experience of people
who were responsible for harm, but he himself was not
responsible for that harm, and so he was a step
closer to my questions. My time with Greg was away
(43:57):
for me to really start to sort out both my
questions and some answers. So he really became a great
teacher for me.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
So you both brought about a great deal of healing
in one another's lives just through this creative process that
you shared.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Healing is, for sure process, and I think we intersected
in that process. Greg had already done healing work before
we met, so had I. We were able to support
one another while we were working on the play, and
of course both of us are still doing our work
beyond that, and yes, but there's something about working on
(44:37):
a creative project that places the experience outside of us
so that we can kind of look at it, shape it,
move it around. And I do want to talk a
little bit too about Greg talking about his mom's death.
When Greg and I first started meeting, Greg talked about
(44:57):
his mom's death every single time, and it was by
far the most painful things still in his life. And
after a while, after months of this, I became very
concerned about what we were doing, because, yes, working on
(45:18):
a creative project and story sharing can be healing, but
it also can be re traumatizing, and if done without
that care and sensitivity, it can really it can be devastating.
It's like it's opening a wound. It's opening a wound.
I mean, it was so complex and so deep. So
I actually went off for a little while and I
(45:39):
got trained in some trauma narrative work so that I
could bring some new skills back to our conversation, and
we started employing some of those some of those techniques,
and that's when Greg started to remember his mom's words
of advice because they came to him at a time
when he really needed them an Angola. But then once
(46:02):
coming home, he was so, Greg, please let me know
if I'm not saying this correctly, but he seemed to
be so overwhelmed then by the grief that the wisdom
had been lost inside the grief. Absolutely, and so what
the retelling of the play did was it brought us
back to the wisdom. I think the trust in the
(46:22):
theater is what led us to being able to cry
through those scenes together over and over again, until finally
we could do it without that level of grief. Is
that fair to say, Greg.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, it's absolutely that's right home. And so I could
understand when people see that day it was affected by
it or moved by that particular part because it is
the heart of the play.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I've had the pleasure, honestly, the honor of reading the
play multiple times at this point, and I always cry
at that point because it is so elegant in its honesty.
Simplicity's not the right word, it's honesty, but just exquisite
in its heartbreak because it's real.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
And it was because of Greg that I went to
Angola for the first time, and since then I have
been very involved in prison work. After Greg and I
wrote the play, I actually I wrote a book and
published a book about my own experience and became a
compassion trainer and then ended up going to Angola once
(47:30):
a week for many years and working to create a
prison wide compassion program.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
I can't imagine for both of you how incredible that
trip together to Angola must have been, because Greg, at
that point, you have processed a lot of demons that
were inflicted upon you by the experience in terms of
working on the play, and Laura, you get to see
(47:57):
a place that you have already seen seeing through Greg's
eyes with your own. Was it a really emotional experience
for you to go there together.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I didn't have any personal interest going back to prison.
I wanted to go back for Laura's sake, because we
had talked so much about that gold or that I
know she visualized in her mind, but it's one thing
to see it in your mind and then to be
(48:30):
standing there. I wanted her to see what I saw
while I was there. And I must say that when
she got there, she saw it. She saw what I saw.
We go in the dormitory and the guy come out.
I look around, I don't see lardy. Guy come in
and say, man, you with the lady. I'm like, yeah,
(48:52):
she said, Man, she's outside crying, and I know what
it was. I know it was. What she saw was
just so overwelm. But I knew for me it would
draw a lot of memories back and feelings of helplessness
when I have to look at the guys that I
done slept next to it and work with, held long
(49:15):
conversations with, and now suddenly be on the outside and
looking at them and dealing with them from the inside.
It's just not a part of the story, but it's
part of the story that's hit home with me because
I can't help. I can't help the situation, you know.
(49:36):
I mean, I could just try to be strong, and
that's the only advice I could give someone in that situation.
It's just devastating for me.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
There were layers of complexity to it. It was a
really pivotal experience for me in terms of being able
to write the play, but also in my own personal life. First,
in terms of the play Craig had been saying for
months and months that the play wasn't just about him,
and I kept saying, yeah, but it's really about you.
(50:08):
It's not about me, It's not about me, It's about
everyone there. And I did not understand that until I
went to Angola, when I walked into the dorm and
I felt Greg talks about going to perish prison in
the smell. For me. When I walked into the dorm,
I just felt grief and there was nothing to do
(50:32):
but cry. It was so much, And in that moment
I realized, Oh, this play is not about Greg. Greg
is one person in this enormous system of both people
who are innocent who end up in prison and also
people who are responsible for harm who end up in prison.
(50:53):
And so for me personally, the person who harmed me,
had he been convicted, he in Louisiana would be spending
the rest of his life at Angola, at hard labor.
And I since working at Angola, I have actually met
people whose crimes look very similar to the one that
(51:13):
I experienced, who are spending the rest of their lives
at Angola. And what I know about every person there
is that they are absolutely more than that event, and
yet that is not how we talk about people. That
is not how we see people. We talk about quote murderers,
a person who has taken a life, committed a murder.
(51:35):
That does not make them a murderer. It's not ongoing.
I have the profound respect for so many of the
individuals who I've met over the years there who have
grappled with their crime, who are experiencing the grief, the suffering,
the shame, the regret, but also the strength and living
(51:58):
a life that also includes joy and love and compassion
and healing. And I think that if we don't tell
the whole complex story, then we're missing the humanness of it.
And so that's what I got to see for And also,
Angola is beautiful. We don't we forget to mention that
it's eighteen thousand acres of rolling farmland. It is gorgeous land.
(52:21):
It was a plantation, it's fertile soil. And the juxtaposition
of that beauty and the pain that's on that land
is really it's just profound. It's staggering.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
See that that is the emotional connection, that is the
complexity of the human experience, and very much you know
what I'm hoping to help do with this podcast is
to show that emotional tether that we all have that
erases the us and the them, because what you just
(52:58):
said goes right back to we're all victims of victims.
And if you understand that legacy of trauma and that
domino effect, that ripple effect it has, it just makes
it more possible for us to create a better world
with all of the people who were already in it,
(53:20):
as opposed to picking and choosing and viewing people as dispensable.
Going back to the show, Greg, if you can just
explain to me where the name for the play came
from and who wing Ding is.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, Wingding with the guy set up next to me,
you know, and he was someone that always had some
words of wisdom. He always quick to make people laugh,
you know. But he used to always get on me,
you know, because he figured out you smart, you smart,
you know, but you fighting and chalk in the water.
You know, I had no idea what he was talking about.
(53:57):
When he was talking about you grit your tea that night,
you sleep with your fistball up. You said it was
a signe that you fighting a shark and water, you know.
I mean he used to really get on my nerve
with that never fight a sharking water. You got to
get him on land. I'm like, man, what did you
talking about. I ain't fighting no shalks. He's like, yeah,
you fighting the shalksing no water. It just occurred to
(54:19):
me one day that I said, Yeah, it's just Likedwayne
Dan used to see you never fight a sharking water,
and only you could really get him is to get
him on land. And it just stayed with me, you know.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Even you explaining how because the play really shows the
triumph of the human spirit over adversity, over trauma. But
I viewed fighting a shark and water was basically giving
into anger. Yeah, that's you're setting yourself up for failure
(54:53):
if you give into anger, and that's what you were
able to overcome.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Lord.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Do you see parallels in terms of Greg's giving up
on his anger with you basically refusing to identify solely
as a victim.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Yeah, anger is a dead end. There's nowhere to go.
I use the word compassion a lot. Compassion is simply
recognizing suffering and being motivated to help. It's not condoning
bad behavior. It's not even the same as forgiveness. It's
just recognizing suffering and being motivated to help. And that's
(55:33):
a visionary stance because you have to see all the
way beyond the suffering anger. You can't, there's nowhere to
see beyond it. Greg and I both giving ourselves the
opportunity to have a little bit of emotional relief. I
think that's the essence of our lives, and then we
put that into the play. I think Greg and I,
(55:53):
you know, we were both kidnapped in different ways. Greg
was kidnapped for a really long time. We don't call
it that, but that's in fact what it was. He
was taken from his home and he was held for
twenty seven and a half years. And inside of that
twenty seven years, Greg lived a full life of all
the emotional highs and lows that come with life. And
(56:16):
I hope that that comes through in our conversations and
in the play, because we keep coming back to the
truth is in the complexity, and as soon as we
try to simplify any experience, even the experience of anger,
we're in territory that just maybe isn't as as rich
as we want it to be.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
As authentically, what does your friendship mean to both of
you and Greg, I'll let you go first.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
Oh yeah, it's been really life changing, you know. I mean,
Laura has told me a lot. I've had the opportunity
chance to release a lot of positive energy. The healing
has been something that was never offered in any way
(57:06):
from the people who was responsible for this. And the
play is something that I feel real strong about, and
I feel that it's a special thing being able to
share that experience with people and not bring these emotions.
(57:29):
Being free of these emotions, I can express it. I
don't get angry with the lady who testified against me
when when I do the play. I don't get angry
with the judge or the police officers. I don't get
angry with them, as far as I care. They can
be setting in the audience. My only purpose here is
(57:49):
to help. My purpose is not here to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
Yeah, Gosh, Like all great relationships, you know, Greg has
lots of roles in my life. He's a friend, he's
an amazing collaborator, he's a guide, a teacher, a wise one.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (58:06):
We worked really hard for a long time on this
and then we put it down. We also weren't in
each other's lives as much years have gone by when
we have just had a small touch in each other's lives,
and interestingly, being invited into this conversation and also being
invited to put the play back on in September has
(58:29):
brought Greg and I back not just to the conversation
about wrongful conviction, but back to each other. So it's
really special and wonderful, and yeah, it feels really super good.
It feels great.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
I can't tell you the joy that fills my soul with.
But also the fact that you are going to perform
the play again this fall. Can you give me details
so that we can link to it, and I hope
to be there in personal.
Speaker 3 (58:56):
That would be wonderful. We would love for you to
be there.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (58:58):
Yes, The New Orleans The Store Collection is mounting an
exhibition about the history of incarceration in Louisiana. It's going
to open in September, and Greg has been invited to
perform Never Fight a Shark as part of their programming.
It'll be the middle of September and Greg will be
offering three performances.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yes, Oh, I'm going to figure out a way that
I can be sitting in that audience, fantastic. Thank you
guys so much for your time today. It is such
a pleasure to speak with both of you.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Thank you so well, Thank you so much, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
And in the show description we will include links to
both Greg's upcoming performances and a filmed excerpt of Never
Fight a Shark and Water, as well as one to
Lara Naton's compelling memoir The Jaguar Man. Thank you for
(59:55):
listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Please support
your look Lenoson's 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 Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wardis, as well as our producers Annie Chelsea,
Kathleen Fink, and Jackie Pauley. This series is produced, edited,
(01:00:17):
and hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco. Our senior producer
is Kara Kornhaber. Story editing by Hannah Bial, research by
Shelby Sorels, mixing and sound design by Nick Massetti, with
additional production by Jeff Clyborne. Our theme music is by
Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social
media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
(01:00:41):
You can also follow me on all platforms at Lauren
Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction 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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