September 4, 2024 • 38 mins
Gary Tanguay filled in on NightSide:
Jimmy Rodwell spent the last 43 years in prison for a crime he argues he did not commit. Rodwell was convicted for the 1978 Somerville murder of Louis Rose Jr. on the word of a career informant. Writer and author Casey Sherman has been covering the case and joined Gary to discuss the details on how Rodwell is still fighting to overturn what he says is a “wrongful conviction”!
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Jimmy Rodwell spent the last 43 years in prison for a crime he argues he did not commit. Rodwell was convicted for the 1978 Somerville murder of Louis Rose Jr. on the word of a career informant. Writer and author Casey Sherman has been covering the case and joined Gary to discuss the details on how Rodwell is still fighting to overturn what he says is a “wrongful conviction”!
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Z Boston's
news video. Okay, let's get the pain out of the way.
Just get it out of the way. Another damn school shooting.
We're not you know, what is it to talk about?
Welcome to the program, everybody. I just want to I
need to address it. It's in the news. It's bad.
There's no pro there's no con it's just terrible. It's
(00:24):
mental health, it's access to guns, it's all of it.
It just sucks. It just sucks, sucks, sucks, suck, sucks.
And I mean seeing ends on and they're talking about
it and I saw it today and we're all, you know,
for parents, it's just terrible. So I'm just gonna give
you some quick comments about this and then we're gonna
move on and we're gonna get into some other things.
But it is part of the news of today. Four
(00:44):
people killed. You heard about that, two teachers, two teachers,
and two students in Georgia, about an hour outside of Atlanta.
But this is something I saw in USA today that
the school get a phone call warning them of a shooting.
And this would be the first school. There were going
to be five schools targeted and this was going to
be the first school. So I just want to know
(01:05):
the timeline. Because the shooter, called Gray, according to reports,
began this tragedy at like ten twenty in the morning.
So when did the call come in? And if the
call came in sooner than that, how come the doors
were not locked immediately? How come it was just not
shut down? I don't know. This is the ultimate second guest.
Very easy for me to do. But we have seen
(01:27):
in the past, as we know, in past school shootings
where comic sense did not prevail, where they didn't act immediately,
and I hope that this is not the case here.
I have seen that report. A warning was given to
the school, Okay, shut it down immediately, but perhaps the
young man was already in school with the gun and
(01:48):
it was too late. But that part I did find disturbing.
But the police were, they got the listen, they were
there within minutes. Maybe they had already been warned, maybe
they were already on their way and it could have
been a lot worse. Of course, that doesn't make anybody
feel better right now, especially those related to the four
(02:09):
people killed and a fourteen year old student, coach Gray,
who surrounded immediately to police. It's all of it. It's
mental health, it's gun control, it's all of it. I
don't understand why there are sides with this, I really don't.
It pisses me off. There should be one side. Stop it.
That's it. Stop it. That's what I have to say
(02:34):
about that. All right, We're going to try to move
on from that. And then okay, so Vice President harrispoke today,
and it seems with her tax situation, or her tax breaks,
or her whole economic policy is to help the middle class,
help the little person, if you will, And that makes sense.
I understand that. You know, saying that corporations and billionaires
(02:57):
should pay taxes, that's never gone away. You and I
could talk about that all day long. The billionaires of
the world, they have the tax breaks, they have the
interest they have all the financial capabilities, and the people
working for them where they can pay seventeen percent tax
as opposed to forty percent tax because of the way
(03:18):
they can make the numbers work and they can put
losses against gains and so forth and so on. That's
never going to change. That's never going to change. That's
just gobbly good speak. Helping the middle class. I get that.
That's fine. Fifty thousand dollars tax break for startup companies, great,
four thousand dollars tax break per child for people that
have multiple children in their home or people that have
(03:40):
obviously families. You get a couple of kids, you get
an eight grand tax break. That can help. It's all
the good start. It's not earth shattering. I mean it's not.
I mean the whole thing is interest rates have to
come down. If interest rates come down, which I anticipate
they will, that's going to be good for her. If
it happens during the Biden administration. That's what it's gonna
(04:01):
be all about. But I don't think while we can
point to the economy, and I think people say the economy,
the economy, the economy, I don't think that's gonna be
what decides this election. I think morality is what's going
to decide the election. Is ken people vote for a
guy in Donald Trump who has a lot of moral questions.
We know, convicted felon sexual harassment charges, comments it about
(04:26):
fallen soldiers and what happened during COVID. He totally mismanaged
that total. I mean, I don't know who could have
done there were a lot of things he said during
COVID that were just stupid. You know what you're gonna
get with Trump. You don't know what you're gonna get
with Harris, and she's gonna get the young vote. People
will point to the economy. I don't think the economy
(04:47):
is going to decide the election this time around. I
think it's gonna be personality. I think it's gonna be
like I think Trump's a bad guy, or Trump's got
a record. I don't like Donald Trump because he's a bully.
I mean, Donald Trump's not stupid and well, could be
good for the economy. We know pro trumpers have pointed
to the fact that while he was in office, the
economy was great. Well, you know what, when Bill Clinton
(05:07):
was in office, he balanced the budget, So you can
you can point the Republicans and you can point to
Democrats where the economy worked for them. Both parties can
make arguments on that regard. I don't think it's the
economy stupid about this time. I think it's when you
go to the ballot box, which person, Which person can
I vote for? Can I let January sixth slide? Can
(05:32):
I let the sexual harassment accusations and charges in convictions slide?
Can I let those things slide? Can I let us slide?
The way he has spoken about following soldiers at Arlingcoln cemeteries?
Can I let that slide? Should I vote for Vice
President Harris? I don't know how she's gonna do. I
haven't been impressed so far she was vice president. What
(05:53):
they do? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. That's the thing. You don't know. That's
so that's where we're at. I mean, we've talked about
this before. So it's great that she's got the tax
breaks and all that. I don't think it's ever shattering.
And I don't think it's gonna be the economy that
decides the election. I don't. I think people are just
(06:14):
gonna vote. They're gonna vote with their heart, and they're
gonna have a moral compass in which way they can go.
That's it. Do they go with the unknown with a
person who, as far as we know, seems to have
a very good moral compass, or do we go with
what we do know, with Donald Trump, who may be
good for the economy, who may be good for big business,
(06:35):
whose moral compass is a little off. That's what it's
gonna come down to. All Right. Those are my opening
thoughts on the show coming up tonight right here on
night Side on WBZ dan rygus Off. As you know,
we will take calls coming up at the eleven o'clock
hour at six, one, seven, two, four, ten thirty. Got
a lot of work to do between now and then.
(06:56):
My good body, Casey Sherman. He's got a great article
Boston Magazine. You know, he's written some great books like
Murder in Hollywood, a hell Town, Cape cod serial Killer.
He's got another one coming out, Blood in the Water.
Also got a big play coming up, cases producing a
big play at the Wilburn next spring. Yes, yours truly
will be taking the stage, so we'll talk about that.
(07:16):
But he's going to be talking about a man. He's
going to be speaking about a man that he's written
about in Jimmy Rodwell, who has spent the last forty
three years in prison for a crime that he says
he did not commit. Nine o'clock John Powers, one of
the great sports journalists in the world, in the world
who's going to join us from the Boston Globe, and
(07:36):
we're going to look back at the Paris Olympic Games
and look ahey to twenty twenty eight, and I just
want to talk about the Olympics in general. Rhythm Masters
and Mickey Hart Experience The Grateful Dead Drummer, one of
the two. Mickey Hart has this idea the rhythm of sports.
The rhythm of the universe is in sync with the
(07:57):
rhythm of sports. My good friend Toys and Paying directed
this documentary in which Mickey Hart focuses on this. And
I have to admit when I first heard the idea,
I went, ah, do I have to have some shrooms?
Is it advised when you watch the Rhythm Rhythm Masters
and Mickey Hart Experience on ESPN that you pop a
couple of shrooms. You don't drive, do not drive, you know,
(08:22):
but you just pretend you're at a dead concert. Act
accordingly within your living room. I've seen the documentary. It's phenomenal,
it's great, it's great. It's Mickey's a little out there,
but you want to hear. You want to hear what
the journey that Tory had and putting this whole documentary together,
working with the Joe Montanas of the world, and when
he was alive, the great Bill Walton and Mickey Hart
(08:42):
and bringing athletes and musicians together for one common theme.
Very interesting stuff. A lot of the greats Nicholas, Joe Montana,
Bill Walton all say rhythm is part of being successful
in sports. So that's all coming up at the ten
o'clock hour, and again you're coming up at eleven o'clock
right here on WBZ. Okay, coming up next here on Nightside,
(09:04):
Gary Tagway for Dan Ray, a man that has spent
forty three years in jail for a crime he says
he did not come in. Casey Sherman, our buddy, breaks
it down for us next on WBZ. Now back to
Dan Ray. Line from the Window World, night Side Studios
on WBZ News Radio the Eleventh Hour from Boston Magazine.
(09:25):
It's a great story, a great tale told by Casey Sherman.
We know that Casey is great at these things. Casey,
of course, who has written a number of best selling
books and now he's working on this story to you
free Jimmy Rodwell spending forty three years in prison for
a crime that he says he doesn't commit. And when
you take a look at the facts and you read
(09:45):
the article and you look at what Casey's working on.
Lotter eyebrows get raised. Casey, thanks for joining us here
on Nightside.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Buddy, Hey, thanks for having me. Gary really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, it's always great to talk to you here. Where
do you find First of all, where do you find
these stories? How do you dig this stuff up?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, you know, oftentimes these stories just kind of come
to me. I met Jimmy Rodwell over a year ago
inside the walls of Conquered State Prison with his attorney
of Veronica White, and he had a story to tell. Now,
oftentimes I hear, you know, from prisoners all over the country,
all over the world, you know, with their tales of
wall I'm innocent on this. I'm innocent on that. But
(10:25):
this one really got under my skin and I started
to dig into the case and found what an absolute
travesty of justice it really is.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
How long did it take you to discover that?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
We worked on this story for several months, myself and
my editor at Boston Magazine, Chris Mogel, pouring over you know, hundreds,
if not thousands of court documents, witness testimony, you name it,
we found it. And when you put it all together
from a thirty thousand foot view, and then you drill
down you realize that Jimmy Rodwell isn't lying. He's sixty
(11:04):
eight years old and he you know, he's desperate to
get out of prison for a gangland murder that he
did not commit.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Okay, So let's set the scene here and we have
a lot of moving parts, we have a lot of players,
so we're not going to rush this. So Rodwell was
convicted in nineteen seventy eight for the Summer the murder
of Lewis Rose Junior. And what I found, and I'll
just in reading the article and taking a look at
your material, there's no connection really like how Rodwell became
(11:35):
involved in this is perplexing. It was basically witnesses, okay,
who wanted to get out of jail in exchange for
testimony that fingered the guy. Other than that, I don't
see any other connection, which is just head scratching on this.
So sure, let's go through it, Okay. So Rose set
up the situation, tell us about the crime, and they
(11:57):
tell us about how Rodwell got in.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You bet so. December nineteen seventy eight. Louis Rose Junior.
He's a kind of a local drug dealer and the
son of a decorated police officer. He is tooling around
East Somerville in the industrial section of that city, and
he's shot to death. It's a brutal murder. Six bullets
in the head, two threw his hand, all from a
(12:24):
twenty two caliber pistol. Now the shooting goes unsolved. It's
a cold case for two years. And in nineteen eighty
May of nineteen eighty Jimmy Rodwell, who's in his twenties
at the time, is working as a bouncer at a
disco on the Lindwe called Deja Vu. Is actually working
with Franklin Zuli, who would later write for The Sopranos,
(12:47):
and Frank de Pasqually, who's obviously a pill very well
known restaurant tour and a state police detective comes to
the disco and puts the cuffs on and says that
you're arrested for murder. Arrested for the unsolved murder of
Louis Rose Junior. Now Jimmy thinks it's a mistaken identity,
(13:08):
and in fact, when he goes to the Somerville police
station that night, he sees some cops that he knows
and they're all, you know, kind of telling him, look
at Jimmy, this is this has to be mistaken identity
because you clearly aren't capable of doing this.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, one police officer, and specific I mean you're very
emphatic about that. One officer specifically came out and said,
wait a minute, no way, not this guy, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And that officer's name is Tom McCone. You know, Tom
has been champion championing Jimmy's innocence for forty three years.
And Tommy told me, he said, look, you know who
the trigger men are in the area, know who the
shooters are. Jimmy was none of those. Jimmy was not
a killer. Jimmy had had some rough patches in his
early life, but he had a legitimate business and he was,
(13:55):
you know, doing very well for himself. And out of
the blue, he gets, you know, picked off the job
and thrown into jail, and he thinks he is it's
I think it was a Memorial Day weekend in May
of nineteen eighty and he thinks he's going to get out,
you know that Mondeer that Tuesday. And he's never released
from prison. And it's all because, as you mentioned, Gary
(14:19):
you know, two serial snitches looking to shave time off
their sentences put him at the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Okay, so let's let's just stop here for a minute.
How in the world did Rodwell get fingered by Rose?
I mean, not fingered by Rose, but for the Rose killing,
Because there was a very limited connection from what I
believe you wrote, between he and the original witness. He
(14:45):
may have known him briefly, or may have worked with him,
but there wasn't a really strong connection between Jimmy and
these witnesses, right.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No, No, there was basically no connection at all. Frank Holmes,
who was one of the witnesses that you just described there, Gary,
he had worked briefly, uh, you know, for Rodwell and
rod Well's company, and he was a disgruntled worker. I
think Rodwell had to fire him at some point, and
I think he carried a grudge and when he was asked,
(15:15):
you know, to put somebody you know at that crime
scene because there was a very high profile crime, the
you know, murder of the son of a decorated, decorated
local police officer, you know, Jimmy Rodwell was was served up.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
So how does Frankie get this idea? Let's let's start
with the first witness. Okay, it's two years later, the
murder has not been solved. The first witness is Frankie Holmes. Okay,
he's been arrested for robbery. He's looking for a way out,
so he wants to exchange information. How does that whole
(15:51):
thing go down?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Well, I think he had a very you know, willing
and agreeable uh state police detective uh that worked with
him to you know, work on his testimony or at
least his story. Now, the one thing that you know,
with this story coming out in September of this year
in Boston magazine, you know, we've already been through a
summer of you know, the spotlight focused on state police
(16:17):
corruption with Karen read case. So you know, go back,
you know, forty three years and you're seeing you know,
a really egregious case here involving Jimmy Rodwell. And again,
you know, a guy like frank Holmes, the first initial witness,
he'll say whatever you know the state police you know,
ask him to say. And again he had a grudge.
(16:38):
You must have had a grudge against Jimmy Rodwell because
Jimmy fired him from the job, and that name popped
into his head and came out of his mouth.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
What I don't understand is why the police in this instance,
we're in such a hurry to solve this case, because
what happens if you put an innocent man in jail,
you're just kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're
just it doesn't make any sense to me. It's not
and we've seen it, we've heard of it. Justice is
(17:09):
not being served putting an innocent man in jail, manufacturing
evidence or taking the first story or the second story
from a couple of witnesses who are certainly not reputable,
who have everything to gain by telling a story so
they can get out of jail, and then putting another
man in jail. You're letting out two people who should
be in jail to put a man in jail who
(17:30):
shouldn't be there. I don't get it. What is the
motivation for the police to do that?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, the motivation I think for for certain police
officers to do this, it's all about you know, closing cases,
you know, regardless of the truth. And again, these people
should not be, you know, allowed to wear a police badge,
but they do. And I think, you know, there are
similar cases all over the United States, all over the
world where police investigators make the suspect fit the crime,
(18:00):
and they certainly did so here with Jimmy Rodwell.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
It's a great piece. Check it out a Boston magazine
written by Casey Sherman. Jimmy Rodwell forty three years. He
has been serving for a crime that, according to Casey,
and according to Rodwell, and Casey believes it for a
crime that he did not commit, a cold blood and murder.
And it's called the eleventh hour. Now there is another
shooter drop because you can't simply have one witness to
(18:24):
put a man behind bars, so the authorities needed a
second witness. Casey will tell us that part of the
story coming up next. I feel like I'm on twenty
twenty or Datelight. This on Dateline on WBZ. We'll be
back after this. It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Boston's News Radio. Cool. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
(18:46):
Back here on Nightside, Gary Tangway for day tonight, Casey
Sherman is joining us here. How Town. It's a terrific book.
You got to read this. Then Murder in Hollywood, which
is my favorite one of Casey's because I love the
whole murder stuff in the noir and but it's toss
up between hell Town and murder and Hollywood. He's got
another one coming out soon, Blood in the Water. We'll
ask him about that a little bit later on, and
then there's a big show coming up with the Wilberg
(19:07):
next Springs who he's a busy man. But right now
we're talking about the Eleventh Hour, which is an article
he wrote in Boston Magazine about Jimmy Rodwell, the man
who spent the last forty three years in jail, and
he's been continuing to prove his innocence. So, Casey, we
have witness number one that fingers Rodwell and says that
he did it. He was the trigger guy. But you
need too, so tell us about Nagel and how he
(19:30):
comes in the picture.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So two thirty two year old David Nagel, you know,
he's the real bad guy here. Frankie Holmes, the first witness,
he's a bad guy. But David Nagel is really bad.
David Nagel is you know, a serial bank robber, you
know a guy that's been in and out of jail.
You know, almost his entire life. He is incarcerated with
Jimmy Rodwell. Shortly after Jimmy Rodwell gets arrested in nineteen
(19:57):
eighty and you know, within days, according to Rodwell allegedly
confessed that he had killed Louis Rose Junior in nineteen
seventy eight. Quote, I put seven in his head and
I didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Okay, can you stop bringing there? Can you? I want
to stop. You just say that one more time.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I put seven in his head and didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Okay. Dick Wolf wrote that, you know what I mean,
Like I read that. Like when I read that, I went, oh,
come on, nobody told me what are you kidding me?
Was this on HBO? I mean nobody talks like that,
you know, right, No.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I mean this is dialogue from an HBO drama exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Come on, you know that's the part where I went,
I I don't know, That's where I was like, Okay, anyways,
I interrupted you please continue, No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
But you make a good point, because you know it's really,
you know, old kind of Noirrish pattern that you read
in some of these transcripts. You think, well, but is
this dialogue from an no Ola movie? Or is this
actually real you know, David Nagel basically was a serial snitch,
somebody that worked with local government and even the federal
(21:07):
government to shave years off of his sentences. And you know,
how does anyone believe that, within a couple of days
of Jimmy Rodwell even knowing David Nagel, that Jimmy Rodwell
is going to confess to a murder that may put
him away for life. Didn't make any sense then, doesn't
make any sense. Now, Jimmy barely knew David Nagel while
(21:28):
they were at the bel Rique House of Correction. But
those are the two witnesses that the prosecution put on
the stand during rod Well's trial in nineteen eighty one,
and the jury bought it, despite the fact that Jimmy
Rodwell's lawyer just ripped these two witnesses to shreds on
(21:49):
the witness stand. You know, in nineteen eighty jurors believed
the government. They believed the prosecutors. They didn't you know,
they really didn't know. You know, the depths of the
corruption within the FBI and wedding Bulger, or within the
state police in several other crimes and cases. You know,
(22:10):
these people were susceptible to what they believe the government
was telling them, which is what they thought was the truth.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Now let's get to the inconsistencies, because I'm glad you
brought that out, because the defense shredded this case to pieces,
i mean, just tore it apart. So you're talking about
we're talking about Rose. Okay, So Rose, who's the victim
who's murdered. So according to the testimony, and it changed
a lot, and I'll let you get into that. They
(22:38):
were very inconsistent. Rose had a rifle and he had pills,
and yet they went and they had to pull material
out of the trunk, but the car was still running.
As we know, back in nineteen seventy eight, you had
to take the keys out to open up the trunk.
It's not like today. You didn't have keyless entry. So
the pills in the rifle that Rose allegedly had, it's
(23:00):
all over the road. And the testimony changed, and how
it exchanged hands and how the whole thing went down.
When you take a look at Holmes's testimony, it changed
three times. I'm not sure about Nagel, but that witness's
testimony was not consistent, not once.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
No, not once and you know, and he continued to
get contradicted on the stand by Jimmy Rodwell's attorney, and
you mentioned, you know, Frankie Holmes allegation that Jimmy Rodwell
went up to the car, the death car, if you will,
to get the keys out of the car and then
go back to the trunk where they allegedly had these drugs.
(23:39):
And that was the whole you know, impetus allegedly for
Louis Rose's murder, that Jimmy Rodwell was going to rob
him of this massive jar of percocet pills. But the
inconsistency is very stark because the vehicle, to your point,
Gary was still running at the time in nineteen seventy eight.
(24:01):
You literally needed to take the keys out of the ignition,
go around to the back of the trunk of the car,
open the trunk with a key in order to extract
anything from the truck. That's exactly you know that didn't happen.
Holmes was was blasted by the defense attorney during trial
(24:22):
for this major discrepancy, this major inconsistency that should have
been enough for the jury to say, wait a minute,
something is fishy here. Jimmy Rodwell is not going to
get convicted because we need a threshold of beyond a
reasonable doubt, and that clearly wasn't the case here.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Okay, So what about Nagel as far as any holes
in his theory, because I was just focused on the other.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Guy, right, So Nagel and I want their you know,
readers certainly to pick up Boston Magazine and read this
for themselves. You know, Nagel, you know, his biggest inconsistencies
are where you know, Jimmy Rodwell claimed he had tossed
the murder weapons, and they had state police divers searching
two locations that ultimately came up, you know, with nothing,
(25:09):
no evidence at all that any you know, pistol or
any murder weapon had been absconded or dropped, you know,
either in Somerville or you know, by the Charles River
in the North End. So you've got two, you know,
very I would say, you know, criminal witnesses with zero
(25:30):
credibility on the stand trying to put this guy away
for life.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
So what was the result for the witnesses, or so
for Frankie and for Nagel, What did they get in
exchange for their testimony?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Frankie went into witness protection and was reunited with his girlfriend,
who was pregnant with their daughter at the time, and
Nagel got several years shaved off of the sentence. And
one of the things that Jimmy Rodwell's attorney, Veronica White,
has found out over the years, and she's she's been
a bulldog on this case, is that Nagel not only
(26:08):
was he a local you know, informant for the state police,
but he also head tied to the federal government and
it was the government's job to protect Nagel, especially in
the Rodwell case, because Nagel's fingers were also on several
other cases at the federal.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Level, and we don't have time to go into in case.
He's right, you do need to read this in detail
in Boston Magazine because the Nagel story, I was like,
this guy made a living being an informant and.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
He admitted to it. That's that's the thing, Gary, I mean,
he he said it was a game, and he said
that he had, you know, played investigators, that he had
played detectives because it was all a game to him.
It was a high stakes game.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
So now there is new evidence for Rodwell, how does
it look for him.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Well, you know, that's that's the thing. The article is
called the Eleventh Hour. This is really kind of Jimmy
Rodwell's Hail Mary Pass to get out of prison. He's
sixty eight years old. Veronica White is got some several
legal strategies that she's working on right now to win
his freedom. It's really all about putting eyes back on
(27:18):
this case. I think for forty three years, people in
the justice system in Massachusetts knew Jimmy Rodwell was innocent,
but they were willing to let an innocent guy go
down to protect not only the David Nagels of the world,
but their own reputations. Now, by putting a new lens
on this case and getting people involved much like they
(27:40):
were and have been involved with Karen Reid case, you know,
that will lead to changes being made at the state
level to get Jimmy Rodwell out of prison.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You know, I was just thinking about that case. See
how the Karen Reid is just so Karen reidcase is
so different from this case because of the media coverage.
Really yeah, I mean it's the media coverage, it's the
immediacy of it, it's all the different angles. It's social
media that if that existed when Rodwell was initially in prison,
(28:11):
it might have been a different story.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I think it would have been a totally different story,
you know. I think people, you know, everybody, you know,
kind of they bought the cheese, so to speak, in
nineteen eighty. They were willing to let an innocent man
go to prison for the rest of his life. Meanwhile,
Jimmy's family, you know, you know, is still waiting for
him to come home, hoping that he comes home, you know,
if not tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe next year. But
(28:36):
time is running out for Jimmy Rodwell. And I think
that you know, your audience here, Gary, I'd love them
to pick up the article. But for Boston Magazine, they
can also read it online. I think it posts next week.
Get involved, get outraged, use the hashtag free Jimmy, and
get this guy out of jail.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
What about a civil suit for the family, Does that exist?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Well, I don't know that that exists. I think Jimmy's
really focused on just getting out of prison right now.
Whether it's you know, commutation or whether it's a new trial.
I think those are the avenues that Jimmy's legal team,
which includes Marty Weinberg, a very famous Boston attorney who's
been outraged about this case as well. I think they're
(29:22):
working on that right now to go through the legal
channels to get Jimmy out. But we'll see what levers
need to be pulled in order to get this guy's freedom.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Casey's got a busy schedule coming up. We're going to
run it down next we hit the stage again at
the Schubert Theater coming up next year in the spring.
It's going to be a blast. He's got a brand
new book coming out and also a couple of books.
I want to say, if you haven't read them yet,
if you haven't read Hell Town, I mean you got
to go get it. You gotta go pick this up.
I'm running ound Hollywood. These are things you got to
take a look at. So we look ahead and see
(29:52):
what Casey's get cooking next here on wbz's Nightside. Now
back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside
Studio on WBZ News Radio. All right, back here, Gary
Tangling for Dan tonight. Coming up at nine o'clock. The
Great John Powers, who has been covering the Olympics for
the Boston Globe since nineteen seventy six. We are going
(30:12):
to talk to him. He was in Paris and he
is one of the great journalists in this city. And
we're not only going to talk about Paris, but just
to talk about the whole Olympic atmosphere. What's going on
with the Olympics now and looking ahead to Los Angeles
and what did it worked here in Boston? What did
it work here in Boston. That's all coming up now.
I'm right here on WBZ Casey Sherman with US Boston Magazine.
(30:34):
Check it out. The eleventh Hour, Jimmy Rodwell claiming his
innocence after spending forty three years behind bars. Check that out.
But Casey's also working on some other things. Casey, tell
me about Blood and Water. What's going on with that book?
When can we expect it? What is it about?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Sure? Blood in the Water is my eighteenth true crime book,
and it comes out in April of twenty twenty five,
and it's the story of Nathan Carman. Now, those of
you in the audience may remember Nathan. He was a
young man on the Spectrum who a few years ago
took his mother out on a deep sea fishing trip
off the coast of Rhode Island, the boat goes down,
(31:11):
she disappears. He's a castaway on a life raft for
up to seven days before he's rescued by a passing
Chinese cargo ship in the fishing lanes of the North Atlantic.
He's brought back to the US Coast Guard station, and
at first Gary everybody thinks it's a bittersweet story. He's
been rescued, but unfortunately his mother has disappeared and was
(31:33):
likely drowned. But when they get him back to the
Coastguard station, they begin to pick at his story. They
don't believe that his mother just went missing or got
knocked off the boat. They believe that he killed her.
And then they realize that he's also the prime suspect
in his grandfather's shotgun murder three years prior in Connecticut,
(31:54):
all allegedly to seize control of a fifty million dollar
family fortune. It makes the murder case in South Carolina
look like a bunch of amateurs. This is an explosive story,
and the way I'll tease it out is everything has
been written about Nathan Carman, about the guilt in both
these cases, but I interviewed thirty witnesses in this case,
(32:16):
and this guy may actually be innocent of the crimes
that he was accused of.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Interesting, So can you tell us anymore because I have
like a ton of questions, but I don't want to
give anything away because that is a great tease, that
is a phenomenal. But obviously you've done your research, so
you believe in that, you believe in the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, you know, I mean, I'm on the fence still.
Some days I wake up and think what a diabolical
killer Nathan Carmen was. Then the other day, you know,
another day, I'll wake up and think there's no possible
way he could have pulled off these two murders. And
I think that, you know, once the readers start to,
you know, peel the onion back, as I did. I
went in with an open mind on this case. I
(33:00):
never went in to you know, prove Nathan Carmen's guilt
or to prove his innocence. I really went in to
just tell the story. But as the story began to
unfold around me, and as you know, putting my journalist
hat on and interviewing as many people as I could
around this case, many other suspects emerge. In the shotgun
murder of his father and also in the you know,
(33:23):
disappearance of Nathan's mother, Linda Carmen.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Well, put me on the list and you could purchase it, right,
Can you buy it now?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You can buy it now. It is available for pre
sale on Amazon dot Com.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I've done that with your books before, and I forgot
and then I'll get it in the mail like six
months later and I go, what is this? Did I
buy this? Wait a minute, did I buy?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
You know?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
And now I get the ones with the big print,
which I love? Phenomenal, great idea for those of us,
you know, getting on in years. We need the ones
with the big print. Okay, we have a very exciting event.
It's coming up next fall, excuse me, next spring. And
I've been fortunate enough and privileged enough to work with
Casey in a couple of other shows. So tell us
(34:06):
what's going to be happening next spring.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Case sure, the show is called A Night Mayre with
Casey Sherman. Now, Gary, you know, we all love ghost stories,
and basically what I'll be doing, with the help of
you in a very talented cast of local actors, is
bringing some of my investigations to the stage at the
Wilber Theater on March twenty sixth, whether it's the Boston
(34:30):
Strangler case, you know, really peeling the layers back of
my reinvestigation of that case. My aunt Mary Sullivan, for
those that know, was the youngest and final victim in
the Boston Strangler case in nineteen sixty four, so we'd
take a deep dive into that. We also bring to
stage Lana Turner and really focus on a murder in
(34:51):
Hollywood and how the shooting of her gangster boyfriend all
went down on Good Friday nineteen fifty eight. And then
we end the show with a very graphic and profound
retelling of Healthtown, which is about a serial murder case
(35:11):
in nineteen sixty nine in Provincetown. And I've covered over
one hundred homicides in my career, Gary, this is the
most brutal that I've ever seen. This is like Jack
the Ripper had been resurrected to stock the women of
the Outer Cape, and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, it's a terrific book and people should pick it
up and read it. And the thing I want to
I get two questions about that the timing of those
crimes were covered up again, well, I shouldn't say covered up,
but did not get the attention because of what.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Because of Charles Manson. Charlie Manson began the you know,
Sharon Tate Labaca murder spree in the summer of nineteen
sixty nine. Tony Costa is killing women on the Outer
Cape early in nineteen sixty nine. And what you'll learn
the stage at the Wilber Theater on March twenty sixth,
twenty twenty five, is that Tony Costa, the Killer and
(36:06):
the Cape knew Charles Manson that they were both you know,
friendly together in San Francisco in the late nineteen sixties.
To the idea that these two maniacs, these two serial
killers were breathing the same air evolving at the same
time is really incredible to see. And you know, as
much of an amazing show that this is going to be,
(36:29):
it's also a charity show. So all proceeds from this
show are going to the Pete Frades Foundation that supports
als patients and their families across New England. And you know,
thank you Gary for donating your time. Thank you to
my incredible cast that is going to be joining me
on stage at the Wilbur because we're all doing something
(36:50):
very special that night.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, the reason I love to do this is number One,
I get to work with you. Number Two, I've met
some wonderful people and made some great friendships. And when
people go to a show like this, and I will
tell people this, the amount of talent that is in
Boston is conmpletely completely flying under the radar. It really
is like I've met some actors that I'm just like,
(37:14):
you know, Kevin Lassett. You know, it just comes to
the top of my mind. You know, who teaches theater
at high school and he comes out and does these performances.
I go, this guy should be in Hollywood. You know.
There's so many local actors that have just chose to
stay here and work and then you know, kind of
do it as a hobby. And that's what you will
get to see at the Wilburg. I mean, there's no
doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, No, you're right about that. Gary, I mean, you
know it's it's Kevin Lassett, it's Arthur Hugh, it is
Paul Candarian, Christine Mohan.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And then you've got you know, yes and all that.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, and Steve Sweeney, for example, you know the legendary
comedian he's going to be part of our show, John Fiori,
who had a significant role in The Sopranos. We're bringing
him into the show as well. So it's going to
be a great, you know night to get together as
kind of an acting troop and walk the audience. Three
of these incredibly rich dark ghost stories. Tickets are on
(38:06):
sale right now. Just go to wilbur dot com. A
Nightmare with Casey Sherman and again your ticket will benefit
the Pete Fradies Foundation for als patients.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Well done, Casey, great workers always. We'll be looking for
the book Blood in the Water coming out the Eleventh
Hour Boston Magazine online or pick it up at a
new stand or maybe you still subscribe. But it's a
well done story about a very tragic situation. It's about
Jimmy Rodwell. He was trying to get out of prison
(38:35):
up to forty three years Casey, thanks for joining us.
Talk to you soon, buddy, Thank you, Eric. All right,
have a good one. All right. Coming up next, I'll
look back at the Paris Olympic Games and the Olympics
in general with the Dean of Olympic Coverage, John Powers
of the Boston Globe. This is WBC's nightside
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Z Boston's
news video. Okay, let's get the pain out of the way.
Just get it out of the way. Another damn school shooting.
We're not you know, what is it to talk about?
Welcome to the program, everybody. I just want to I
need to address it. It's in the news. It's bad.
There's no pro there's no con it's just terrible. It's
(00:24):
mental health, it's access to guns, it's all of it.
It just sucks. It just sucks, sucks, sucks, suck, sucks.
And I mean seeing ends on and they're talking about
it and I saw it today and we're all, you know,
for parents, it's just terrible. So I'm just gonna give
you some quick comments about this and then we're gonna
move on and we're gonna get into some other things.
But it is part of the news of today. Four
(00:44):
people killed. You heard about that, two teachers, two teachers,
and two students in Georgia, about an hour outside of Atlanta.
But this is something I saw in USA today that
the school get a phone call warning them of a shooting.
And this would be the first school. There were going
to be five schools targeted and this was going to
be the first school. So I just want to know
(01:05):
the timeline. Because the shooter, called Gray, according to reports,
began this tragedy at like ten twenty in the morning.
So when did the call come in? And if the
call came in sooner than that, how come the doors
were not locked immediately? How come it was just not
shut down? I don't know. This is the ultimate second guest.
Very easy for me to do. But we have seen
(01:27):
in the past, as we know, in past school shootings
where comic sense did not prevail, where they didn't act immediately,
and I hope that this is not the case here.
I have seen that report. A warning was given to
the school, Okay, shut it down immediately, but perhaps the
young man was already in school with the gun and
(01:48):
it was too late. But that part I did find disturbing.
But the police were, they got the listen, they were
there within minutes. Maybe they had already been warned, maybe
they were already on their way and it could have
been a lot worse. Of course, that doesn't make anybody
feel better right now, especially those related to the four
(02:09):
people killed and a fourteen year old student, coach Gray,
who surrounded immediately to police. It's all of it. It's
mental health, it's gun control, it's all of it. I
don't understand why there are sides with this, I really don't.
It pisses me off. There should be one side. Stop it.
That's it. Stop it. That's what I have to say
(02:34):
about that. All right, We're going to try to move
on from that. And then okay, so Vice President harrispoke today,
and it seems with her tax situation, or her tax breaks,
or her whole economic policy is to help the middle class,
help the little person, if you will, And that makes sense.
I understand that. You know, saying that corporations and billionaires
(02:57):
should pay taxes, that's never gone away. You and I
could talk about that all day long. The billionaires of
the world, they have the tax breaks, they have the
interest they have all the financial capabilities, and the people
working for them where they can pay seventeen percent tax
as opposed to forty percent tax because of the way
(03:18):
they can make the numbers work and they can put
losses against gains and so forth and so on. That's
never going to change. That's never going to change. That's
just gobbly good speak. Helping the middle class. I get that.
That's fine. Fifty thousand dollars tax break for startup companies, great,
four thousand dollars tax break per child for people that
have multiple children in their home or people that have
(03:40):
obviously families. You get a couple of kids, you get
an eight grand tax break. That can help. It's all
the good start. It's not earth shattering. I mean it's not.
I mean the whole thing is interest rates have to
come down. If interest rates come down, which I anticipate
they will, that's going to be good for her. If
it happens during the Biden administration. That's what it's gonna
(04:01):
be all about. But I don't think while we can
point to the economy, and I think people say the economy,
the economy, the economy, I don't think that's gonna be
what decides this election. I think morality is what's going
to decide the election. Is ken people vote for a
guy in Donald Trump who has a lot of moral questions.
We know, convicted felon sexual harassment charges, comments it about
(04:26):
fallen soldiers and what happened during COVID. He totally mismanaged
that total. I mean, I don't know who could have
done there were a lot of things he said during
COVID that were just stupid. You know what you're gonna
get with Trump. You don't know what you're gonna get
with Harris, and she's gonna get the young vote. People
will point to the economy. I don't think the economy
(04:47):
is going to decide the election this time around. I
think it's gonna be personality. I think it's gonna be
like I think Trump's a bad guy, or Trump's got
a record. I don't like Donald Trump because he's a bully.
I mean, Donald Trump's not stupid and well, could be
good for the economy. We know pro trumpers have pointed
to the fact that while he was in office, the
economy was great. Well, you know what, when Bill Clinton
(05:07):
was in office, he balanced the budget, So you can
you can point the Republicans and you can point to
Democrats where the economy worked for them. Both parties can
make arguments on that regard. I don't think it's the
economy stupid about this time. I think it's when you
go to the ballot box, which person, Which person can
I vote for? Can I let January sixth slide? Can
(05:32):
I let the sexual harassment accusations and charges in convictions slide?
Can I let those things slide? Can I let us slide?
The way he has spoken about following soldiers at Arlingcoln cemeteries?
Can I let that slide? Should I vote for Vice
President Harris? I don't know how she's gonna do. I
haven't been impressed so far she was vice president. What
(05:53):
they do? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. That's the thing. You don't know. That's
so that's where we're at. I mean, we've talked about
this before. So it's great that she's got the tax
breaks and all that. I don't think it's ever shattering.
And I don't think it's gonna be the economy that
decides the election. I don't. I think people are just
(06:14):
gonna vote. They're gonna vote with their heart, and they're
gonna have a moral compass in which way they can go.
That's it. Do they go with the unknown with a
person who, as far as we know, seems to have
a very good moral compass, or do we go with
what we do know, with Donald Trump, who may be
good for the economy, who may be good for big business,
(06:35):
whose moral compass is a little off. That's what it's
gonna come down to. All Right. Those are my opening
thoughts on the show coming up tonight right here on
night Side on WBZ dan rygus Off. As you know,
we will take calls coming up at the eleven o'clock
hour at six, one, seven, two, four, ten thirty. Got
a lot of work to do between now and then.
(06:56):
My good body, Casey Sherman. He's got a great article
Boston Magazine. You know, he's written some great books like
Murder in Hollywood, a hell Town, Cape cod serial Killer.
He's got another one coming out, Blood in the Water.
Also got a big play coming up, cases producing a
big play at the Wilburn next spring. Yes, yours truly
will be taking the stage, so we'll talk about that.
(07:16):
But he's going to be talking about a man. He's
going to be speaking about a man that he's written
about in Jimmy Rodwell, who has spent the last forty
three years in prison for a crime that he says
he did not commit. Nine o'clock John Powers, one of
the great sports journalists in the world, in the world
who's going to join us from the Boston Globe, and
(07:36):
we're going to look back at the Paris Olympic Games
and look ahey to twenty twenty eight, and I just
want to talk about the Olympics in general. Rhythm Masters
and Mickey Hart Experience The Grateful Dead Drummer, one of
the two. Mickey Hart has this idea the rhythm of sports.
The rhythm of the universe is in sync with the
(07:57):
rhythm of sports. My good friend Toys and Paying directed
this documentary in which Mickey Hart focuses on this. And
I have to admit when I first heard the idea,
I went, ah, do I have to have some shrooms?
Is it advised when you watch the Rhythm Rhythm Masters
and Mickey Hart Experience on ESPN that you pop a
couple of shrooms. You don't drive, do not drive, you know,
(08:22):
but you just pretend you're at a dead concert. Act
accordingly within your living room. I've seen the documentary. It's phenomenal,
it's great, it's great. It's Mickey's a little out there,
but you want to hear. You want to hear what
the journey that Tory had and putting this whole documentary together,
working with the Joe Montanas of the world, and when
he was alive, the great Bill Walton and Mickey Hart
(08:42):
and bringing athletes and musicians together for one common theme.
Very interesting stuff. A lot of the greats Nicholas, Joe Montana,
Bill Walton all say rhythm is part of being successful
in sports. So that's all coming up at the ten
o'clock hour, and again you're coming up at eleven o'clock
right here on WBZ. Okay, coming up next here on Nightside,
(09:04):
Gary Tagway for Dan Ray, a man that has spent
forty three years in jail for a crime he says
he did not come in. Casey Sherman, our buddy, breaks
it down for us next on WBZ. Now back to
Dan Ray. Line from the Window World, night Side Studios
on WBZ News Radio the Eleventh Hour from Boston Magazine.
(09:25):
It's a great story, a great tale told by Casey Sherman.
We know that Casey is great at these things. Casey,
of course, who has written a number of best selling
books and now he's working on this story to you
free Jimmy Rodwell spending forty three years in prison for
a crime that he says he doesn't commit. And when
you take a look at the facts and you read
(09:45):
the article and you look at what Casey's working on.
Lotter eyebrows get raised. Casey, thanks for joining us here
on Nightside.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Buddy, Hey, thanks for having me. Gary really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, it's always great to talk to you here. Where
do you find First of all, where do you find
these stories? How do you dig this stuff up?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, you know, oftentimes these stories just kind of come
to me. I met Jimmy Rodwell over a year ago
inside the walls of Conquered State Prison with his attorney
of Veronica White, and he had a story to tell. Now,
oftentimes I hear, you know, from prisoners all over the country,
all over the world, you know, with their tales of
wall I'm innocent on this. I'm innocent on that. But
(10:25):
this one really got under my skin and I started
to dig into the case and found what an absolute
travesty of justice it really is.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
How long did it take you to discover that?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
We worked on this story for several months, myself and
my editor at Boston Magazine, Chris Mogel, pouring over you know, hundreds,
if not thousands of court documents, witness testimony, you name it,
we found it. And when you put it all together
from a thirty thousand foot view, and then you drill
down you realize that Jimmy Rodwell isn't lying. He's sixty
(11:04):
eight years old and he you know, he's desperate to
get out of prison for a gangland murder that he
did not commit.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Okay, So let's set the scene here and we have
a lot of moving parts, we have a lot of players,
so we're not going to rush this. So Rodwell was
convicted in nineteen seventy eight for the Summer the murder
of Lewis Rose Junior. And what I found, and I'll
just in reading the article and taking a look at
your material, there's no connection really like how Rodwell became
(11:35):
involved in this is perplexing. It was basically witnesses, okay,
who wanted to get out of jail in exchange for
testimony that fingered the guy. Other than that, I don't
see any other connection, which is just head scratching on this.
So sure, let's go through it, Okay. So Rose set
up the situation, tell us about the crime, and they
(11:57):
tell us about how Rodwell got in.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You bet so. December nineteen seventy eight. Louis Rose Junior.
He's a kind of a local drug dealer and the
son of a decorated police officer. He is tooling around
East Somerville in the industrial section of that city, and
he's shot to death. It's a brutal murder. Six bullets
in the head, two threw his hand, all from a
(12:24):
twenty two caliber pistol. Now the shooting goes unsolved. It's
a cold case for two years. And in nineteen eighty
May of nineteen eighty Jimmy Rodwell, who's in his twenties
at the time, is working as a bouncer at a
disco on the Lindwe called Deja Vu. Is actually working
with Franklin Zuli, who would later write for The Sopranos,
(12:47):
and Frank de Pasqually, who's obviously a pill very well
known restaurant tour and a state police detective comes to
the disco and puts the cuffs on and says that
you're arrested for murder. Arrested for the unsolved murder of
Louis Rose Junior. Now Jimmy thinks it's a mistaken identity,
(13:08):
and in fact, when he goes to the Somerville police
station that night, he sees some cops that he knows
and they're all, you know, kind of telling him, look
at Jimmy, this is this has to be mistaken identity
because you clearly aren't capable of doing this.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, one police officer, and specific I mean you're very
emphatic about that. One officer specifically came out and said,
wait a minute, no way, not this guy, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And that officer's name is Tom McCone. You know, Tom
has been champion championing Jimmy's innocence for forty three years.
And Tommy told me, he said, look, you know who
the trigger men are in the area, know who the
shooters are. Jimmy was none of those. Jimmy was not
a killer. Jimmy had had some rough patches in his
early life, but he had a legitimate business and he was,
(13:55):
you know, doing very well for himself. And out of
the blue, he gets, you know, picked off the job
and thrown into jail, and he thinks he is it's
I think it was a Memorial Day weekend in May
of nineteen eighty and he thinks he's going to get out,
you know that Mondeer that Tuesday. And he's never released
from prison. And it's all because, as you mentioned, Gary
(14:19):
you know, two serial snitches looking to shave time off
their sentences put him at the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Okay, so let's let's just stop here for a minute.
How in the world did Rodwell get fingered by Rose?
I mean, not fingered by Rose, but for the Rose killing,
Because there was a very limited connection from what I
believe you wrote, between he and the original witness. He
(14:45):
may have known him briefly, or may have worked with him,
but there wasn't a really strong connection between Jimmy and
these witnesses, right.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No, No, there was basically no connection at all. Frank Holmes,
who was one of the witnesses that you just described there, Gary,
he had worked briefly, uh, you know, for Rodwell and
rod Well's company, and he was a disgruntled worker. I
think Rodwell had to fire him at some point, and
I think he carried a grudge and when he was asked,
(15:15):
you know, to put somebody you know at that crime
scene because there was a very high profile crime, the
you know, murder of the son of a decorated, decorated
local police officer, you know, Jimmy Rodwell was was served up.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
So how does Frankie get this idea? Let's let's start
with the first witness. Okay, it's two years later, the
murder has not been solved. The first witness is Frankie Holmes. Okay,
he's been arrested for robbery. He's looking for a way out,
so he wants to exchange information. How does that whole
(15:51):
thing go down?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Well, I think he had a very you know, willing
and agreeable uh state police detective uh that worked with
him to you know, work on his testimony or at
least his story. Now, the one thing that you know,
with this story coming out in September of this year
in Boston magazine, you know, we've already been through a
summer of you know, the spotlight focused on state police
(16:17):
corruption with Karen read case. So you know, go back,
you know, forty three years and you're seeing you know,
a really egregious case here involving Jimmy Rodwell. And again,
you know, a guy like frank Holmes, the first initial witness,
he'll say whatever you know the state police you know,
ask him to say. And again he had a grudge.
(16:38):
You must have had a grudge against Jimmy Rodwell because
Jimmy fired him from the job, and that name popped
into his head and came out of his mouth.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
What I don't understand is why the police in this instance,
we're in such a hurry to solve this case, because
what happens if you put an innocent man in jail,
you're just kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're
just it doesn't make any sense to me. It's not
and we've seen it, we've heard of it. Justice is
(17:09):
not being served putting an innocent man in jail, manufacturing
evidence or taking the first story or the second story
from a couple of witnesses who are certainly not reputable,
who have everything to gain by telling a story so
they can get out of jail, and then putting another
man in jail. You're letting out two people who should
be in jail to put a man in jail who
(17:30):
shouldn't be there. I don't get it. What is the
motivation for the police to do that?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, the motivation I think for for certain police
officers to do this, it's all about you know, closing cases,
you know, regardless of the truth. And again, these people
should not be, you know, allowed to wear a police badge,
but they do. And I think, you know, there are
similar cases all over the United States, all over the
world where police investigators make the suspect fit the crime,
(18:00):
and they certainly did so here with Jimmy Rodwell.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
It's a great piece. Check it out a Boston magazine
written by Casey Sherman. Jimmy Rodwell forty three years. He
has been serving for a crime that, according to Casey,
and according to Rodwell, and Casey believes it for a
crime that he did not commit, a cold blood and murder.
And it's called the eleventh hour. Now there is another
shooter drop because you can't simply have one witness to
(18:24):
put a man behind bars, so the authorities needed a
second witness. Casey will tell us that part of the
story coming up next. I feel like I'm on twenty
twenty or Datelight. This on Dateline on WBZ. We'll be
back after this. It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Boston's News Radio. Cool. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
(18:46):
Back here on Nightside, Gary Tangway for day tonight, Casey
Sherman is joining us here. How Town. It's a terrific book.
You got to read this. Then Murder in Hollywood, which
is my favorite one of Casey's because I love the
whole murder stuff in the noir and but it's toss
up between hell Town and murder and Hollywood. He's got
another one coming out soon, Blood in the Water. We'll
ask him about that a little bit later on, and
then there's a big show coming up with the Wilberg
(19:07):
next Springs who he's a busy man. But right now
we're talking about the Eleventh Hour, which is an article
he wrote in Boston Magazine about Jimmy Rodwell, the man
who spent the last forty three years in jail, and
he's been continuing to prove his innocence. So, Casey, we
have witness number one that fingers Rodwell and says that
he did it. He was the trigger guy. But you
need too, so tell us about Nagel and how he
(19:30):
comes in the picture.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So two thirty two year old David Nagel, you know,
he's the real bad guy here. Frankie Holmes, the first witness,
he's a bad guy. But David Nagel is really bad.
David Nagel is you know, a serial bank robber, you
know a guy that's been in and out of jail.
You know, almost his entire life. He is incarcerated with
Jimmy Rodwell. Shortly after Jimmy Rodwell gets arrested in nineteen
(19:57):
eighty and you know, within days, according to Rodwell allegedly
confessed that he had killed Louis Rose Junior in nineteen
seventy eight. Quote, I put seven in his head and
I didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Okay, can you stop bringing there? Can you? I want
to stop. You just say that one more time.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I put seven in his head and didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Okay. Dick Wolf wrote that, you know what I mean,
Like I read that. Like when I read that, I went, oh,
come on, nobody told me what are you kidding me?
Was this on HBO? I mean nobody talks like that,
you know, right, No.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I mean this is dialogue from an HBO drama exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Come on, you know that's the part where I went,
I I don't know, That's where I was like, Okay, anyways,
I interrupted you please continue, No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
But you make a good point, because you know it's really,
you know, old kind of Noirrish pattern that you read
in some of these transcripts. You think, well, but is
this dialogue from an no Ola movie? Or is this
actually real you know, David Nagel basically was a serial snitch,
somebody that worked with local government and even the federal
(21:07):
government to shave years off of his sentences. And you know,
how does anyone believe that, within a couple of days
of Jimmy Rodwell even knowing David Nagel, that Jimmy Rodwell
is going to confess to a murder that may put
him away for life. Didn't make any sense then, doesn't
make any sense. Now, Jimmy barely knew David Nagel while
(21:28):
they were at the bel Rique House of Correction. But
those are the two witnesses that the prosecution put on
the stand during rod Well's trial in nineteen eighty one,
and the jury bought it, despite the fact that Jimmy
Rodwell's lawyer just ripped these two witnesses to shreds on
(21:49):
the witness stand. You know, in nineteen eighty jurors believed
the government. They believed the prosecutors. They didn't you know,
they really didn't know. You know, the depths of the
corruption within the FBI and wedding Bulger, or within the
state police in several other crimes and cases. You know,
(22:10):
these people were susceptible to what they believe the government
was telling them, which is what they thought was the truth.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Now let's get to the inconsistencies, because I'm glad you
brought that out, because the defense shredded this case to pieces,
i mean, just tore it apart. So you're talking about
we're talking about Rose. Okay, So Rose, who's the victim
who's murdered. So according to the testimony, and it changed
a lot, and I'll let you get into that. They
(22:38):
were very inconsistent. Rose had a rifle and he had pills,
and yet they went and they had to pull material
out of the trunk, but the car was still running.
As we know, back in nineteen seventy eight, you had
to take the keys out to open up the trunk.
It's not like today. You didn't have keyless entry. So
the pills in the rifle that Rose allegedly had, it's
(23:00):
all over the road. And the testimony changed, and how
it exchanged hands and how the whole thing went down.
When you take a look at Holmes's testimony, it changed
three times. I'm not sure about Nagel, but that witness's
testimony was not consistent, not once.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
No, not once and you know, and he continued to
get contradicted on the stand by Jimmy Rodwell's attorney, and
you mentioned, you know, Frankie Holmes allegation that Jimmy Rodwell
went up to the car, the death car, if you will,
to get the keys out of the car and then
go back to the trunk where they allegedly had these drugs.
(23:39):
And that was the whole you know, impetus allegedly for
Louis Rose's murder, that Jimmy Rodwell was going to rob
him of this massive jar of percocet pills. But the
inconsistency is very stark because the vehicle, to your point,
Gary was still running at the time in nineteen seventy eight.
(24:01):
You literally needed to take the keys out of the ignition,
go around to the back of the trunk of the car,
open the trunk with a key in order to extract
anything from the truck. That's exactly you know that didn't happen.
Holmes was was blasted by the defense attorney during trial
(24:22):
for this major discrepancy, this major inconsistency that should have
been enough for the jury to say, wait a minute,
something is fishy here. Jimmy Rodwell is not going to
get convicted because we need a threshold of beyond a
reasonable doubt, and that clearly wasn't the case here.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Okay, So what about Nagel as far as any holes
in his theory, because I was just focused on the other.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Guy, right, So Nagel and I want their you know,
readers certainly to pick up Boston Magazine and read this
for themselves. You know, Nagel, you know, his biggest inconsistencies
are where you know, Jimmy Rodwell claimed he had tossed
the murder weapons, and they had state police divers searching
two locations that ultimately came up, you know, with nothing,
(25:09):
no evidence at all that any you know, pistol or
any murder weapon had been absconded or dropped, you know,
either in Somerville or you know, by the Charles River
in the North End. So you've got two, you know,
very I would say, you know, criminal witnesses with zero
(25:30):
credibility on the stand trying to put this guy away
for life.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
So what was the result for the witnesses, or so
for Frankie and for Nagel, What did they get in
exchange for their testimony?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Frankie went into witness protection and was reunited with his girlfriend,
who was pregnant with their daughter at the time, and
Nagel got several years shaved off of the sentence. And
one of the things that Jimmy Rodwell's attorney, Veronica White,
has found out over the years, and she's she's been
a bulldog on this case, is that Nagel not only
(26:08):
was he a local you know, informant for the state police,
but he also head tied to the federal government and
it was the government's job to protect Nagel, especially in
the Rodwell case, because Nagel's fingers were also on several
other cases at the federal.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Level, and we don't have time to go into in case.
He's right, you do need to read this in detail
in Boston Magazine because the Nagel story, I was like,
this guy made a living being an informant and.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
He admitted to it. That's that's the thing, Gary, I mean,
he he said it was a game, and he said
that he had, you know, played investigators, that he had
played detectives because it was all a game to him.
It was a high stakes game.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
So now there is new evidence for Rodwell, how does
it look for him.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Well, you know, that's that's the thing. The article is
called the Eleventh Hour. This is really kind of Jimmy
Rodwell's Hail Mary Pass to get out of prison. He's
sixty eight years old. Veronica White is got some several
legal strategies that she's working on right now to win
his freedom. It's really all about putting eyes back on
(27:18):
this case. I think for forty three years, people in
the justice system in Massachusetts knew Jimmy Rodwell was innocent,
but they were willing to let an innocent guy go
down to protect not only the David Nagels of the world,
but their own reputations. Now, by putting a new lens
on this case and getting people involved much like they
(27:40):
were and have been involved with Karen Reid case, you know,
that will lead to changes being made at the state
level to get Jimmy Rodwell out of prison.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You know, I was just thinking about that case. See
how the Karen Reid is just so Karen reidcase is
so different from this case because of the media coverage.
Really yeah, I mean it's the media coverage, it's the
immediacy of it, it's all the different angles. It's social
media that if that existed when Rodwell was initially in prison,
(28:11):
it might have been a different story.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I think it would have been a totally different story,
you know. I think people, you know, everybody, you know,
kind of they bought the cheese, so to speak, in
nineteen eighty. They were willing to let an innocent man
go to prison for the rest of his life. Meanwhile,
Jimmy's family, you know, you know, is still waiting for
him to come home, hoping that he comes home, you know,
if not tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe next year. But
(28:36):
time is running out for Jimmy Rodwell. And I think
that you know, your audience here, Gary, I'd love them
to pick up the article. But for Boston Magazine, they
can also read it online. I think it posts next week.
Get involved, get outraged, use the hashtag free Jimmy, and
get this guy out of jail.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
What about a civil suit for the family, Does that exist?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Well, I don't know that that exists. I think Jimmy's
really focused on just getting out of prison right now.
Whether it's you know, commutation or whether it's a new trial.
I think those are the avenues that Jimmy's legal team,
which includes Marty Weinberg, a very famous Boston attorney who's
been outraged about this case as well. I think they're
(29:22):
working on that right now to go through the legal
channels to get Jimmy out. But we'll see what levers
need to be pulled in order to get this guy's freedom.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Casey's got a busy schedule coming up. We're going to
run it down next we hit the stage again at
the Schubert Theater coming up next year in the spring.
It's going to be a blast. He's got a brand
new book coming out and also a couple of books.
I want to say, if you haven't read them yet,
if you haven't read Hell Town, I mean you got
to go get it. You gotta go pick this up.
I'm running ound Hollywood. These are things you got to
take a look at. So we look ahead and see
(29:52):
what Casey's get cooking next here on wbz's Nightside. Now
back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside
Studio on WBZ News Radio. All right, back here, Gary
Tangling for Dan tonight. Coming up at nine o'clock. The
Great John Powers, who has been covering the Olympics for
the Boston Globe since nineteen seventy six. We are going
(30:12):
to talk to him. He was in Paris and he
is one of the great journalists in this city. And
we're not only going to talk about Paris, but just
to talk about the whole Olympic atmosphere. What's going on
with the Olympics now and looking ahead to Los Angeles
and what did it worked here in Boston? What did
it work here in Boston. That's all coming up now.
I'm right here on WBZ Casey Sherman with US Boston Magazine.
(30:34):
Check it out. The eleventh Hour, Jimmy Rodwell claiming his
innocence after spending forty three years behind bars. Check that out.
But Casey's also working on some other things. Casey, tell
me about Blood and Water. What's going on with that book?
When can we expect it? What is it about?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Sure? Blood in the Water is my eighteenth true crime book,
and it comes out in April of twenty twenty five,
and it's the story of Nathan Carman. Now, those of
you in the audience may remember Nathan. He was a
young man on the Spectrum who a few years ago
took his mother out on a deep sea fishing trip
off the coast of Rhode Island, the boat goes down,
(31:11):
she disappears. He's a castaway on a life raft for
up to seven days before he's rescued by a passing
Chinese cargo ship in the fishing lanes of the North Atlantic.
He's brought back to the US Coast Guard station, and
at first Gary everybody thinks it's a bittersweet story. He's
been rescued, but unfortunately his mother has disappeared and was
(31:33):
likely drowned. But when they get him back to the
Coastguard station, they begin to pick at his story. They
don't believe that his mother just went missing or got
knocked off the boat. They believe that he killed her.
And then they realize that he's also the prime suspect
in his grandfather's shotgun murder three years prior in Connecticut,
(31:54):
all allegedly to seize control of a fifty million dollar
family fortune. It makes the murder case in South Carolina
look like a bunch of amateurs. This is an explosive story,
and the way I'll tease it out is everything has
been written about Nathan Carman, about the guilt in both
these cases, but I interviewed thirty witnesses in this case,
(32:16):
and this guy may actually be innocent of the crimes
that he was accused of.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Interesting, So can you tell us anymore because I have
like a ton of questions, but I don't want to
give anything away because that is a great tease, that
is a phenomenal. But obviously you've done your research, so
you believe in that, you believe in the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, you know, I mean, I'm on the fence still.
Some days I wake up and think what a diabolical
killer Nathan Carmen was. Then the other day, you know,
another day, I'll wake up and think there's no possible
way he could have pulled off these two murders. And
I think that, you know, once the readers start to,
you know, peel the onion back, as I did. I
went in with an open mind on this case. I
(33:00):
never went in to you know, prove Nathan Carmen's guilt
or to prove his innocence. I really went in to
just tell the story. But as the story began to
unfold around me, and as you know, putting my journalist
hat on and interviewing as many people as I could
around this case, many other suspects emerge. In the shotgun
murder of his father and also in the you know,
(33:23):
disappearance of Nathan's mother, Linda Carmen.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Well, put me on the list and you could purchase it, right,
Can you buy it now?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You can buy it now. It is available for pre
sale on Amazon dot Com.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I've done that with your books before, and I forgot
and then I'll get it in the mail like six
months later and I go, what is this? Did I
buy this? Wait a minute, did I buy?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
You know?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
And now I get the ones with the big print,
which I love? Phenomenal, great idea for those of us,
you know, getting on in years. We need the ones
with the big print. Okay, we have a very exciting event.
It's coming up next fall, excuse me, next spring. And
I've been fortunate enough and privileged enough to work with
Casey in a couple of other shows. So tell us
(34:06):
what's going to be happening next spring.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Case sure, the show is called A Night Mayre with
Casey Sherman. Now, Gary, you know, we all love ghost stories,
and basically what I'll be doing, with the help of
you in a very talented cast of local actors, is
bringing some of my investigations to the stage at the
Wilber Theater on March twenty sixth, whether it's the Boston
(34:30):
Strangler case, you know, really peeling the layers back of
my reinvestigation of that case. My aunt Mary Sullivan, for
those that know, was the youngest and final victim in
the Boston Strangler case in nineteen sixty four, so we'd
take a deep dive into that. We also bring to
stage Lana Turner and really focus on a murder in
(34:51):
Hollywood and how the shooting of her gangster boyfriend all
went down on Good Friday nineteen fifty eight. And then
we end the show with a very graphic and profound
retelling of Healthtown, which is about a serial murder case
(35:11):
in nineteen sixty nine in Provincetown. And I've covered over
one hundred homicides in my career, Gary, this is the
most brutal that I've ever seen. This is like Jack
the Ripper had been resurrected to stock the women of
the Outer Cape, and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, it's a terrific book and people should pick it
up and read it. And the thing I want to
I get two questions about that the timing of those
crimes were covered up again, well, I shouldn't say covered up,
but did not get the attention because of what.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Because of Charles Manson. Charlie Manson began the you know,
Sharon Tate Labaca murder spree in the summer of nineteen
sixty nine. Tony Costa is killing women on the Outer
Cape early in nineteen sixty nine. And what you'll learn
the stage at the Wilber Theater on March twenty sixth,
twenty twenty five, is that Tony Costa, the Killer and
(36:06):
the Cape knew Charles Manson that they were both you know,
friendly together in San Francisco in the late nineteen sixties.
To the idea that these two maniacs, these two serial
killers were breathing the same air evolving at the same
time is really incredible to see. And you know, as
much of an amazing show that this is going to be,
(36:29):
it's also a charity show. So all proceeds from this
show are going to the Pete Frades Foundation that supports
als patients and their families across New England. And you know,
thank you Gary for donating your time. Thank you to
my incredible cast that is going to be joining me
on stage at the Wilbur because we're all doing something
(36:50):
very special that night.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, the reason I love to do this is number One,
I get to work with you. Number Two, I've met
some wonderful people and made some great friendships. And when
people go to a show like this, and I will
tell people this, the amount of talent that is in
Boston is conmpletely completely flying under the radar. It really
is like I've met some actors that I'm just like,
(37:14):
you know, Kevin Lassett. You know, it just comes to
the top of my mind. You know, who teaches theater
at high school and he comes out and does these performances.
I go, this guy should be in Hollywood. You know.
There's so many local actors that have just chose to
stay here and work and then you know, kind of
do it as a hobby. And that's what you will
get to see at the Wilburg. I mean, there's no
doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, No, you're right about that. Gary, I mean, you
know it's it's Kevin Lassett, it's Arthur Hugh, it is
Paul Candarian, Christine Mohan.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And then you've got you know, yes and all that.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, and Steve Sweeney, for example, you know the legendary
comedian he's going to be part of our show, John Fiori,
who had a significant role in The Sopranos. We're bringing
him into the show as well. So it's going to
be a great, you know night to get together as
kind of an acting troop and walk the audience. Three
of these incredibly rich dark ghost stories. Tickets are on
(38:06):
sale right now. Just go to wilbur dot com. A
Nightmare with Casey Sherman and again your ticket will benefit
the Pete Fradies Foundation for als patients.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Well done, Casey, great workers always. We'll be looking for
the book Blood in the Water coming out the Eleventh
Hour Boston Magazine online or pick it up at a
new stand or maybe you still subscribe. But it's a
well done story about a very tragic situation. It's about
Jimmy Rodwell. He was trying to get out of prison
(38:35):
up to forty three years Casey, thanks for joining us.
Talk to you soon, buddy, Thank you, Eric. All right,
have a good one. All right. Coming up next, I'll
look back at the Paris Olympic Games and the Olympics
in general with the Dean of Olympic Coverage, John Powers
of the Boston Globe. This is WBC's nightside
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