February 11, 2026 • 42 mins
Bobby Gumpright spent much of his childhood perfecting the art of evasion—lying, cheating, and outrunning accountability. Until, at eighteen, he made a lethal decision he could never undo. Hosted by Emmy-winning journalist Nancy Glass.
You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at Burdenofguiltpod@gmail.com. For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Nancy Glass. I've been a journalist for decades. I've
covered some of the biggest crime stories in modern times.
I was on the scene of the Oklahoma bombings, attended
the OJ Simpson trial, and I interviewed serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
You might recall that on the last season A Burden
(00:27):
of Guilt, we told the story of a remarkable woman,
Tracy Raquel Burns. She was framed for the murder of
her baby brother when she was just two years old.
She spent decades looking for answers and finally getting justice
for her baby brother and for herself. On this season
(00:48):
A Burden of Guilt, I want to tell you another
extraordinary story. When I began hearing about this story, I
thought I've heard that before, that somebody is convicted of
a crime they didn't commit. But I was wrong, because
that's not this story. This is something different, something I
(01:10):
hope I never hear again. This case has stolen lives,
destroyed families, challenged legal systems, and in the end, they
left everyone transformed, maybe even redeemed.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I stopped giving them praise now where.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
At True Life. Baptist Church in Unice is a small
town in the southern part of Louisiana known as the
Prairie Cajun Capital. Every Sunday for one hundred and twenty
five years, the congregation has met here in the same building.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Money, yes, sir, can buy your clock, Well you can't
by your time. A true pastor will care for his congregation.
The pastor responsibility is to shepherd the flock.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
That's Pastor Germaine Teszano. He's been leading the congregation at
True Lighte for thirty years. It's the kind of church
where everyone knows everyone amen, which is why Pastor Teszano
remembers this one Sunday so clearly. It was in March
of twenty twenty one when he looked up from the
(02:39):
pulpit he saw a stranger sitting alone in the back pew.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I notice somebody in the congregation sitting and in my mind,
I'm thinking, okay, who invited you? He didn't have the
best on You could tell he was on the street.
I would say he looked broken.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
He was broken, But it would be years before the
pastor understood why or what had compelled this man to
walk into his church.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
That day.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Pastor Testano eyed him closely.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You are Caucasian and you are in the majority African
American church, Like, what's your intentions?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Pastor Testano's thoughts jumped to the church shooting at Mother
Emmanuel AMA Church in Charleston. In that case, a twenty
one year old white man had been welcomed into Bible study,
only to later murder nine black parishioners, hoping to spark
a race war.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And my think was light, it's not going to be
dead here. I would die for my sheep.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Pastor Tesesano finished his sermon keeping an eye on this
man in the back row, and when the service was over,
he walked up to the stranger and extended a hand.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I just shook his hand. I said, can you meet
me in my office?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
The man agreed, and they went into the pastor's office.
Tesano asked one of his ministers, doctor Leon Gallo, to
join the conversation just to be.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Safe, rightfully so, because this was definitely someone no one
had ever seen.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Pastor Testano and doctor Leon learned that the man was
homeless and had spent the night before in an abandoned house.
They wanted to help him. Doctor Leon stepped out of
the room to start calling local shelters. The man was
having a hard time making eye contact Pastored Tesano, so
he asked the man for his name.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
He told me Bobby Gumwright.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Bobby Gumpright, that was his real name, but he didn't
say much else.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
We knew that he was an attic. We knew that
he was traveling from place to place, but didn't really
know a whole lot more.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Bobby Gumpright was actually there with a.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Purpose, so he asked me the question, do you do confessions?
I said, well, I'm not Catholic, but I'm like, what's
on your mind?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
He was carrying a secret, a secret so terrible it
felt like a thousand pound weight pressing down on his chest.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He needed to make that confession.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
After thirty years on the job, Pastor Testano had heard
a lot of stories, but what Bobby Gumpride told him
left him speechless.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I don't really didn't respond too much because I was
in shocked.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Pastor Testano didn't know what to do with information like this.
Bobby had just confessed to a terrible crime, a crime
that had destroyed lives, including his own. The pastor would
need time to make a plan, but in the meantime,
he could help Bobby with his immediate needs.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I said, no, what, Let's get you somewhere to stay overnight.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There wasn't room in a shelter for him that night,
so Pastor Testano and doctor Leon picked up some essentials
and paid for a hotel room at the Day's Inn.
He could take a shower and get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
After we got him the hotel, we got in a
circle and we prayed for him, and I told him
I'm going to check on you the next day, tomorrow.
And when I went back the next morning, the hotel
management said he left. I was like, what.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
When Bobby left, his secret left with him, and until
this story was exposed, another man's life would hang in
the balance. This is Season two A Burden of Guilt,
(07:45):
Episode one, the first confession. It's been over four years
since Bobby Gumpbright walked into that church. Back then, he
had long, greasy hair and a full beard. Today, Bobby
looks dramatically different. He looks clean cut and healthy, but
(08:06):
the choices he made as a young man are still there,
just under the surface. To understand what Bobby confessed to
inside that church, we have to go back to the
beginning of this story. Now, you might consider what you're
about to hear to be a villain origin story. It
might be a blueprint for the making of a monster.
(08:29):
You might hear this as the story of a little
boy who didn't get the love he needed. Or maybe
you'll consider it to be a story of strength and redemption.
Meet Bobby Gumpright.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
I grew up in a military family. My dad was
in a Navy. He was out to see quite a
bit when I was real young.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Robert Gumprite, Bobby's father, was a respected need captain.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
I was working on Hey for aircraft ship as an
electronics technician.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
That's Captain Gumpride, Bobby's dad. In nineteen seventy nine, he
married Debbie and Bobby was born a year later. His
voice is very weak due to an earlier cancer treatment,
and because of that strain, we asked a voice actor
to step in from here on out and read the
transcript of his interview.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
He's my only son, and I made a choice way
back when that I would never have any more children
other than him, so he's always had my love and
full support.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
But his parents didn't stay together. They got divorced when
Bobby was three. Captain Gumpride got full custody of his son, Bobby.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I never saw my mom again until I was in
my twentieth.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
As a kid, Bobby didn't understand where his mom had
gone and why she wasn't around anymore.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
My dad at that point had decided that it wasn't
in my best interest to see her, so I spent
a big chunk of my childhood in Virginia Beach, Virginia,
which is where he was stationed. Between the ages of
like three and eight.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Bobby was deeply wounded by his mother's absence. His father
tried to fill the gap the best he could.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
I remember when he was very young and I was
running him out to the childcare in the morning, and
I'd say who loves you? And he'd say you do,
and I'd say, yeah, I do. I love you, and
he would give me a big hug.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
When Bobby was six, his father remarried. His stepmother's name
was Sharon.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
She didn't have any other kids, so I was the
only thing that she had.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Sharon raised Bobby. She tried to fill in the role
of a mother and love him unconditionally. But when Bobby
was in elementary school, something tragic happened in their home,
a formative experience that would shape Bobby's worldview and influence
the person he became.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Around eight years old, I was at home with a
friend of mine.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
You know, it was the afternoon.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
My mom, I think, was at school and my dad
was at work, and this was a friend of mine, Joey.
We were just playing after school. We played baseball together,
and he was just in the same neighborhood. And one
day he was at my house and we got into
(11:57):
my dad's room and found a gun.
Speaker 6 (12:02):
And pulled the gun out and.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Started running around the house with it, got downstairs. We
had a living room downstairs and a sliding glass door
that went out to the back porch, and he went
outside and shut the door, and I was standing on
the inside of the door, the glass door, and I
was kind of holding the gun, like pretending he was
(12:26):
the robber and I was the cop.
Speaker 6 (12:28):
And I jumped out.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
And as soon as I jumped out, I don't know
if I pulled the trigger or my finger slipped. I
didn't know it was loaded, but either way, the gun
went off and shattered the door and he was on
the ground.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Eight years old. Bobby gumpright was home alone with his
friend Joey. When he found his dad's gun, Bobby decided
to pick it up so he and his friend could
play cops and robbers. Bobby lifted the pistol, pointing it
through a sliding glass door, and then the gun went off.
Bobby didn't know the gun was loaded.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
I was kind of in shock there for a second.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
So I run out and he's laying on the ground
and he's just bleeding and glass in his face and
just blood everywhere. And he gets up, but he's bleeding
everywhere and crying, and I'm crying, and we get him
into the bathroom and I'm just sitting there.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Bobby had shot his friend in the mouth. He was
gushing blood. The kids began to panic.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
I called the police at that point. I was young,
but I knew that he needed help that I wouldn't
be able to provide it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
The boys knew instinctively, instantly that telling the truth would
get them in a whole lot of trouble. During the
chaos that followed the gun shot, Bobby came up with
a plan. They couldn't tell the adults what had really happened,
not their parents, and definitely not the police. Joey sat
in the bathroom floor holding a blood soaked towel to
(14:24):
his face, but Bobby had the presence of mind to
put the gun back in his father's room and then
waited for help to arrive.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
They showed up, and we gave him a story that
I was in the house and he was on the
back porch, and that we heard a shot come from
the woods behind the house.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
We just we thought it would be a logical story.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
The police started walking through the house collecting evidence. Bobby's stepmother, Sharon,
arrived shortly after. All she knew was that the boys
had been playing when one of them was shot.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
When my stepmom got there, she run over and she
was hugging me, And that was a rare moment of
like motherly just embrace that I wasn't used to from her.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Although Sharon took care of Bobby and loved him, according
to him, she wasn't an outwardly affectionate person, so seeing
her relief, feeling her arms around him, it felt like
the kind of comfort only a mother could give. Sharon
believed the kid's account of the gunshot coming from the woods,
(15:41):
but the police, well, they weren't buying it.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
All.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
The glass was laying out on the patio, not inside
the house, and it was just things that an eight
year old wouldn't think of, but were very obvious to
the police. So I had a detective actually walked me
out to the woods and explain how he knew there's
no way the shot came from the woods. I just
remember thinking, is there any other way to explain this?
(16:08):
And there wasn't, and I just came clean.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
According to Bobby, when his stepmother learned what really happened,
the warmth and affection she had just given him went cold.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
I remember vividly that the detective said what had happened,
and she just let go. And I think it was
in shock of what she had heard. She just lets
go out of the embrace. And to me, at the moment,
it made me feel like love was being removed. At
that moment, it made me feel like love was conditional.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
On my actions.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
To eight year old Bobby, it felt like rejection. But
to a mother, even a stepmother, it might have been
shock learning your son had shot another child. Bobby's father,
Captain Gumpbright, rushed home and discovered the truth. It was
his gun that had been used in the accidental shooting.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
The officer asked me for my weapon, and when we
opened him up, they smelled of gunpowder. I was extremely
shaken and kicked myself for not locking everything up.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
More first responders arrived. The most immediate concern was, of course,
Joey's injuries.
Speaker 7 (17:31):
His friend had been shot and the roof of his
mouth right behind his front teeth, and the roof the
bullet had lodged, and he was okay, but he did
have to have surgery.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It could have been so much worse. Joey could have
been killed. That was the last time Bobby ever saw
his friend.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
His parents definitely weren't going to have him hanging around
me anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
The next day, when Captain Cumbride drove Bobby to school,
a news report about the accidental shooting was broadcast on
the radio. Though the kids weren't named, it was obviously him.
The story was out there. His mistake was now the news.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
And I just broke down into tears and just started bawling,
and he ended up taking me home and I didn't
go to school, and then I got sent to counseling,
and at that point, I'd already shut down. I wasn't
sharing anything with anybody about my feelings.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And as a military brat, Bobby moved every few years.
It made it hard for him to create long term friendships,
and he learned to dread school.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Being the new kid is not easy. I turned into
what I call a chameleon. I would just blend in.
I would try and act like you were acting if
I was hanging out with the goth kids. I was
acting like a goth that I was hanging out with
the jocks. I was acting like a job.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
By the time Bobby got to middle school, he had
discovered a way to ease his anxiety.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
I was skipping school that day and my parents had
a bar downstairs. I remember taking some peach knops and
some orange juice, and my dad came home early that
day and caught me.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Bobby's dad grounded him. Soon after that, the Gumpbright family
was on the move again. When Bobby was sixteen, his
dad got orders to move to New Orleans. Bobby had
enough credits to graduate high school early, so he enrolled
in college at the University of New Orleans.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Started school, joined the fraternity, and that's when my drinking
really took off right when I joined the fraternity.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
In his first semester, Bobby stopped going to class all together,
but his parents didn't have a clue.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I think I went to two classes my first semester,
got a zero point zero GPA. It was in the
middle of the semester and grades had come out, and
I was failing everything right, and so I had an
opportunity to either take that failing transcript home and show
my dad or not.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Bobby had an idea, something that would solve his problem,
at least in the short term.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
I chose to manufacture a fake one on my computer,
and so I just took a transcript that, you know,
I knew what it looked like, and I typed up
a new one and printed it out, and I gave
myself like b's and c's. I knew what what would
be red flags and what wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Bobby had developed the ability to lie seamlessly as a kid,
so he had no problem faking his college transcript.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
I took it home and I remember he was like, well,
that's good, You're doing good.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
The ruse didn't last long. Captain Gunprid eventually figured out
the transcript was a work of fiction, and he wasn't happy.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
And then my dad was like, I'm not going to
continue paying for this. So ended up getting an option
to either go into the military or get a job,
and so I went into the Coast Guard and got
sent to Michigan.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Bobby was assigned to work on a ship called the Eagle.
It was one of those ships used for training future officers,
but he was still immature and unfocused. He didn't take
his military career seriously. Mostly he chased girls and went
to parties. He was trying to recreate the fund he
had in college, but the Coastguard wasn't putting up with it,
(21:56):
so they invited Bobby to leave.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
My discharge status was unsuitability, was what they called it.
It means that I was unable to adapt to the
military way of living, is the exact definition. So now
I've dropped out of college and left the military, just
turned eighteen.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
With no other options left, Bobby moved back in with
his parents in New Orleans, and his dad told.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Him, first thing you're going to do is get a
go get a job.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
So I went and got a job at Applebee's waiting tables,
and I excelled.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's funny. He had tried college and the military, but
it took working in a chain restaurant for Bobby to
find his sweet spot. He had a gift for hospitality.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
I loved talking to people. I love being around people.
I loved like and I was a really good server.
I was just I was on top of my game
when it came to just waiting on people. That was
the first time I felt like I was good at something.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
He was quickly promoted to bartender, even though he was eighteen,
still too young to drink legally. Bobby had the gift
of gab and he had a sympathetic ear. It made
him a great bartender. It was New Orleans in the
late nineties. Every day was a party, especially for Bobby.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
We had karaoke on the weekends and it was like
working in a bar. That's where I felt like I
was accepted and life of the party, and it just
felt good.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Life was looking up for Bobby. But one night, around
eleven PM, after closing up and heading home, everything changed.
His trip home became the most terrifying moment of his life.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
We lived on the West Bank. The West Bank had
a reputation for not being in the safat. Sometimes I
left work riding my bicycle home and when I was
coming down MacArthur Boulevard, I saw a man who stopped
me and asks if I knew what time the bus
(24:16):
stopped running. So I stopped and looked at my watch,
and as I was looking at my watch, he pulled
out a gun and he put it to my face.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The man shouted orders at Bobby, and he followed them.
He was scared to death.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
He rips my chain off my neck and tells me
to lie down on the ground, and rifles through my
bag and takes my money and tells me not to
get up until he's gone. And as I heard him
running away, I looked up, and when I thought it
(24:57):
was a safe distance, I got back on my bike
and rode home.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Bobby was shaking with fear, but he was alive. He
was desperate to tell his parents what had just happened,
so he pedaled his bike home as quickly as he could,
and normally, when he got home, his parents would ask
about his night at work and how much money he made.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
But that night, I threw my bike on the front lawn,
went into the house. They were asleep, and I woke
him up and said I just got robbed.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
His father remembers Bobby being in a frenzy.
Speaker 7 (25:36):
He was in tears, he was frantic, he was very frightened,
and I mean totally lost it. We asked him what happened,
and he was shaken, and I mean we tried to
calm him down, and he said he'd been robbed. So
I immediately called the police.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
Police showed up.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
I gave him a description, you know, guy about my height, black.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
I gave him a clothing description.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
He remembered that the perpetrator was wearing a dark blue
or black T shirt and a baseball cap with a
white insignia on it.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
I think he asked me if I ever saw him again,
if I would know if it was him, and I
think I did say yes.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
The police took Bobby's statement and said they'd be in touch.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I continued working at Applebee's, continued just doing my thing.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Bobby's dad was really unnerved by the robbery. There were
nearly six thousand violent crimes in New Orleans in nineteen
ninety nine. His son had become a statistic captain. Gumpright
would not risk his only child again.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
My dad bought me a car because he was worried
about me riding my bike through that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Anymore, weeks passed and Bobby heard nothing from the New
Orleans Police Department. He figured they didn't have any leads, and.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
I was like, Okay, nothing's ever going to come of it.
And then a couple months later, I'm in the back
of the restaurant and somebody comes in and says, hey,
there's two New Orleans City detectives out there wanting to
talk to you. So I go to this table and
we sit down. They said, we're here about your report,
(27:23):
and we'd like to show you some pictures. And they
pull out a piece of paper that has six pictures
on it, and they said, do you recognize any of
these men as the one who robbed you. I pointed
at one and I said, that's him. That looks like him.
(27:45):
It was just something that kind of stood out to me.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
The man Bobby identified was Jermaine Hudson. Jermaine was twenty
years old in nineteen ninety nine, and he was already
known to police. He'd been arrested at fourteen riding in
a stolen vehicle and at sixteen for armed robbery. During
an attempt at carjacking. When Bobby pointed at the photo
(28:09):
of the man who robbed him.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
They said, that's who we thought it was.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
They told me that they had been trying to get
him and they weren't able to. They said, we haven't
had anybody that would testify. Would you be willing to testify?
I'm kind of excited. I was being asked to do something.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Important, something important, and doing something important made Bobby feel special.
At just eighteen, he already felt like a failure. He
had the feeling he disappointed people, and he hadn't accomplished much.
So helping the police offered him a chance to flip
(28:54):
the script and hold the man who robbed him. A
career criminal accountable.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
You know, college dropout, military dropout, living in my parents' house.
My life was not very good at that time, and
I just I saw maybe a glimpse of Hey, I
can be somebody.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Eighteen year old bartender Bobby Cumpright was the victim of
an armed robbery on the evening of March first, nineteen
ninety nine. Weeks later, the New Orleans Police Department assembled
six photographs of men with prior convictions that fit Bobby's
description of the perpetrator. Bobby studied the photos and recognized
(29:52):
one as the man who had held the gun to
his head demanding money. It was twenty year old Jermaine Hudson.
Jermaine was a knock around guy who grew up in
the Fisher Projects, a housing project on the Mississippi River.
Fisher Projects was notorious for violence, drug dealing, and police
(30:12):
brutality towards the residents. Jermaine had been in trouble before
as a teenager and served time in prison. The trial
was set for March twenty second, two thousand. Bobby would
be the star witness.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I remember going over the questions with the prosecutor, being
told when to give detail and when not to give detail.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Bobby, now nineteen, was really nervous. It was the first
time he would see the man who robbed him again.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
I was very, very emotional.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
I just wanted to do what they wanted me to
do there and just get out of there.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
So the trial took place over twenty five years ago
in the year two thousand. The trial wasn't recorded, but
my team got access to the transcripts from the proceedings,
so we hired voice actors to read excerpts of what
happened in the courtroom. I'm going to ask you to
listen carefully because what happens in this courtroom is going
(31:18):
to come back later. The state was represented by Assistant
District Attorney Aaron Greenstone. He calls Bobby by his legal name, Robert.
It was time for the star witness to take the stand, Robert.
Speaker 8 (31:41):
Are you nervous right now?
Speaker 9 (31:42):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 8 (31:44):
Why are you nervous?
Speaker 9 (31:45):
Why?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yes, because I'm in the same room with the person
that held a gun to me.
Speaker 8 (31:54):
Okay, now, thanks for bringing that up. I'm going to
take you back to March first of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 9 (32:02):
Where were you working Applebee's?
Speaker 8 (32:05):
How did you get to and from work on March first?
Speaker 9 (32:09):
I was riding a bike at the time.
Speaker 8 (32:11):
And did you have cash on you?
Speaker 9 (32:14):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 8 (32:15):
And was it normal for you to have cash being
a bartender every night?
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Greenstone asked Bobby about being stopped on the street by
the accused.
Speaker 9 (32:29):
He asked, what time? If I knew what time the
bus stop running?
Speaker 8 (32:33):
When you say he? Do you see the person who
asked you for the time right now?
Speaker 9 (32:39):
Yes, sir? Where is he sitting at the table over there.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
The defendant, Bobby, testified that what began as a friendly
exchange took a sudden and very frightening turn. He said
that your main threatened his life.
Speaker 9 (32:56):
Then I proceeded to look up as he pulled a
gun from behind.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
What happened?
Speaker 9 (33:02):
Then he had the gun up to my face, I mean,
with some profanity.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
He basically just told me not to look at him.
And then and then he ripped my had a Saint
Christopher medallion that I had since I was born, and
he ripped it off my neck, just popped the chain
and told me to.
Speaker 9 (33:24):
Get off the bike.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Then he had me laying on the ground and took
my bag. And as I was laying on the ground,
I heard him ruffling through it and going through all
the stuff. And then as he proceeded to run down
the street, I looked for a split second to see
which way he was running. Once I thought he was
a safe distance where I couldn't see him anymore, then
I grabbed my stuff and got home as quick as
(33:48):
I could.
Speaker 8 (33:52):
Now, you said you had some money on you.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
How much money between seventy five two hundred.
Speaker 8 (33:58):
Dollars and Jermaine Hudson take the money.
Speaker 9 (34:02):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
He had me empty out all of my pockets onto
the ground before I laid down.
Speaker 8 (34:09):
And when he approached you the first time, you looked
right in his eyes, Yes, sir. Is it fair to
say that you got a real good look at him?
Speaker 9 (34:19):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 8 (34:20):
And would you characterize yourself as being good with faces?
Good with names?
Speaker 9 (34:25):
That's my business, that's how I make money.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I make money by remembering people's first names and their faces. Basically,
we want to give the impression you want to be
their friend. The better friend you are, the better tips
you get.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Will you ever forget Jermaine Hudson's face?
Speaker 9 (34:45):
No, sir, you don't forget something like that.
Speaker 8 (34:50):
And are you one hundred percent certain that this man
right here put a gun to your head and robbed you?
Speaker 9 (34:59):
One hundred and ten percent certain?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well as you can hear. Bobby was a compelling witness,
so compelling there seemed to be little doubt about his story.
Jermaine Hudson was represented by veteran public defender Don Donnelly.
When it was his turn to question Bobby, Donnelly asked
(35:27):
him to describe what the perpetrator was wearing. Bobby listed
the clothing and said the assailant had a baseball cap
pulled low over his face. Now, keep in mind what
you're about to hear is the cross examination read by
voice actors.
Speaker 10 (35:45):
At that point, when you see the gun, is your
attention focused on the gun or on the person's face?
Speaker 9 (35:55):
Well, obviously down the barrel?
Speaker 6 (35:57):
Yes?
Speaker 10 (35:59):
Can you just describe that gun for us?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
I'm not very I'm not a very big gun person,
but as close as I could say, it resembled a
nine millimeter. You see, I was in the Coastguard, and
I used a nine millimeter while I was in the
coast Guard, And that's the closest I would say it
would resemble.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Since the case was based on Bobby's identification of Germaine,
the defense attorney shifted.
Speaker 10 (36:27):
Now, let me ask you this, from the time you
pull up to this person who asked you, when the
bus passes, until you're no longer looking at his face.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
How long is this period?
Speaker 6 (36:38):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 9 (36:40):
A minute? Two minutes, A.
Speaker 10 (36:42):
Minute or two minutes you're focusing on his face, yes, sir,
a minute and a half. You were eyeball to eyeball.
Speaker 9 (36:51):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Donnelly pressed Bobby Harder, specifically, about the photo lineup shown
to him at Applebee's.
Speaker 10 (37:01):
What did they tell you?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
They asked me to take a good look and see
if I recognize any of the faces.
Speaker 10 (37:07):
And you recognize one, Yes, sir. How long did it
take you to recognize this face?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
It took about twenty good twenty seconds to make sure.
Speaker 10 (37:18):
Did anybody in that lineup have on a baseball cap?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
No, nobody did. Nobody did, so you had a.
Speaker 10 (37:25):
Little different view of the person that night and in
the photographic lineup, correct.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Defense attorney Donnelly attempted to plant doubt in the jury.
He suggested that someone who feared for his life would
struggle to be absolutely certain about an assailant's identity in
the dark.
Speaker 10 (37:46):
Were you afraid at the time, mister Gump.
Speaker 9 (37:48):
Bright, Yes, sir.
Speaker 10 (37:50):
And yet you say without a doubt that the person
sitting right here is the person who was pointing a
gun at you that night.
Speaker 9 (37:59):
Yeah, yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
There were no further questions. Photos of the crime scene
were submitted into evidence. The state also submitted a map
that showed Jermaine Hudson's home and its proximity to the
crime scene just a few blocks away. Finally, each side
gave their closing arguments.
Speaker 11 (38:23):
Ladies and gentlemen, please retire to the jury deliberation room
to commence your deliberations.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
The jury returned with its verdict. It took just thirty
seven minutes.
Speaker 11 (38:37):
The State of Louisiana versus Jermaine Hudson, Criminal District Court
for the Parish of Orleans, Case number four zero seven
Dash eight eight eight, Section G WE the jury find
the defendant guilty as charged.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
The guilty verdict Hitchermain's family like a ton of bricks.
They immediately started crying and on the prosecutor's side, well,
it was a win. What happened next took the entire
courtroom by surprise.
Speaker 11 (39:17):
Mister Hudson, You've been found guilty by a jury of
the offense of armed robbery. And considering mister Hudson's prior
criminal history, it is the sentence of this court that
you serve ninety nine years in the Department of Corrections
at hard labor, without the benefit of probation, parole or
(39:41):
suspension of sin.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, you heard that right. Jermaine Hudson would be spending
every day for the rest of his life in a
prison cell. He was in disbelief when I say you,
Maho dropped.
Speaker 6 (39:59):
I was like, no, this can't be real.
Speaker 9 (40:03):
I'm like, Lord, this can't be real.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
There were dozens of people in the courtroom that day,
but only two of them knew the truth, Jermaine Hudson
and Bobby Gumpright. And the truth was that almost everything
you heard from Bobby gumpright in that courtroom was a lie,
and not just in the way you think it was.
(40:35):
Coming up on Burden of Guilt.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
I was scared to death that somebody would find out
the truth.
Speaker 9 (40:41):
This can't be the end of my life.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
This can't be my final destination.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate,
and review the series with five stars yay. It helps
other people find our show. You can reach out to
the Burden of Guilt team at Burden of Guiltpod at
gmail dot com. That's Burden of Guiltpod at gmail dot com.
(41:12):
Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
division of Gless Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The series is executive produced and hosted by me Nancy Glass.
This episode was written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also
produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our story editor
(41:34):
is Monique Leboard. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik.
Our production manager is Kristin Mercurie. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Thank you to our voice
actors Brian Balthazar, Todd Gantz, Trey Morgan, Ben Reid and
(41:54):
Rob Stoler. Audio editing by Dean Welsh, mixed and mastered
by Anna McLean. The Burden of Guilt theme is composed
by Oliver Baines's music library provided by Mob Music, and
we want to give our special thanks to Jermaine Hudson
and Bobby Gumpwright. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the
(42:15):
iHeartRadio app or Apple Podcasts
I'm Nancy Glass. I've been a journalist for decades. I've
covered some of the biggest crime stories in modern times.
I was on the scene of the Oklahoma bombings, attended
the OJ Simpson trial, and I interviewed serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
You might recall that on the last season A Burden
(00:27):
of Guilt, we told the story of a remarkable woman,
Tracy Raquel Burns. She was framed for the murder of
her baby brother when she was just two years old.
She spent decades looking for answers and finally getting justice
for her baby brother and for herself. On this season
(00:48):
A Burden of Guilt, I want to tell you another
extraordinary story. When I began hearing about this story, I
thought I've heard that before, that somebody is convicted of
a crime they didn't commit. But I was wrong, because
that's not this story. This is something different, something I
(01:10):
hope I never hear again. This case has stolen lives,
destroyed families, challenged legal systems, and in the end, they
left everyone transformed, maybe even redeemed.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I stopped giving them praise now where.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
At True Life. Baptist Church in Unice is a small
town in the southern part of Louisiana known as the
Prairie Cajun Capital. Every Sunday for one hundred and twenty
five years, the congregation has met here in the same building.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Money, yes, sir, can buy your clock, Well you can't
by your time. A true pastor will care for his congregation.
The pastor responsibility is to shepherd the flock.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
That's Pastor Germaine Teszano. He's been leading the congregation at
True Lighte for thirty years. It's the kind of church
where everyone knows everyone amen, which is why Pastor Teszano
remembers this one Sunday so clearly. It was in March
of twenty twenty one when he looked up from the
(02:39):
pulpit he saw a stranger sitting alone in the back pew.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I notice somebody in the congregation sitting and in my mind,
I'm thinking, okay, who invited you? He didn't have the
best on You could tell he was on the street.
I would say he looked broken.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
He was broken, But it would be years before the
pastor understood why or what had compelled this man to
walk into his church.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
That day.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Pastor Testano eyed him closely.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You are Caucasian and you are in the majority African
American church, Like, what's your intentions?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Pastor Testano's thoughts jumped to the church shooting at Mother
Emmanuel AMA Church in Charleston. In that case, a twenty
one year old white man had been welcomed into Bible study,
only to later murder nine black parishioners, hoping to spark
a race war.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And my think was light, it's not going to be
dead here. I would die for my sheep.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Pastor Tesesano finished his sermon keeping an eye on this
man in the back row, and when the service was over,
he walked up to the stranger and extended a hand.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I just shook his hand. I said, can you meet
me in my office?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
The man agreed, and they went into the pastor's office.
Tesano asked one of his ministers, doctor Leon Gallo, to
join the conversation just to be.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Safe, rightfully so, because this was definitely someone no one
had ever seen.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Pastor Testano and doctor Leon learned that the man was
homeless and had spent the night before in an abandoned house.
They wanted to help him. Doctor Leon stepped out of
the room to start calling local shelters. The man was
having a hard time making eye contact Pastored Tesano, so
he asked the man for his name.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
He told me Bobby Gumwright.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Bobby Gumpright, that was his real name, but he didn't
say much else.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
We knew that he was an attic. We knew that
he was traveling from place to place, but didn't really
know a whole lot more.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Bobby Gumpright was actually there with a.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Purpose, so he asked me the question, do you do confessions?
I said, well, I'm not Catholic, but I'm like, what's
on your mind?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
He was carrying a secret, a secret so terrible it
felt like a thousand pound weight pressing down on his chest.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He needed to make that confession.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
After thirty years on the job, Pastor Testano had heard
a lot of stories, but what Bobby Gumpride told him
left him speechless.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I don't really didn't respond too much because I was
in shocked.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Pastor Testano didn't know what to do with information like this.
Bobby had just confessed to a terrible crime, a crime
that had destroyed lives, including his own. The pastor would
need time to make a plan, but in the meantime,
he could help Bobby with his immediate needs.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I said, no, what, Let's get you somewhere to stay overnight.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There wasn't room in a shelter for him that night,
so Pastor Testano and doctor Leon picked up some essentials
and paid for a hotel room at the Day's Inn.
He could take a shower and get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
After we got him the hotel, we got in a
circle and we prayed for him, and I told him
I'm going to check on you the next day, tomorrow.
And when I went back the next morning, the hotel
management said he left. I was like, what.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
When Bobby left, his secret left with him, and until
this story was exposed, another man's life would hang in
the balance. This is Season two A Burden of Guilt,
(07:45):
Episode one, the first confession. It's been over four years
since Bobby Gumpbright walked into that church. Back then, he
had long, greasy hair and a full beard. Today, Bobby
looks dramatically different. He looks clean cut and healthy, but
(08:06):
the choices he made as a young man are still there,
just under the surface. To understand what Bobby confessed to
inside that church, we have to go back to the
beginning of this story. Now, you might consider what you're
about to hear to be a villain origin story. It
might be a blueprint for the making of a monster.
(08:29):
You might hear this as the story of a little
boy who didn't get the love he needed. Or maybe
you'll consider it to be a story of strength and redemption.
Meet Bobby Gumpright.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
I grew up in a military family. My dad was
in a Navy. He was out to see quite a
bit when I was real young.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Robert Gumprite, Bobby's father, was a respected need captain.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
I was working on Hey for aircraft ship as an
electronics technician.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
That's Captain Gumpride, Bobby's dad. In nineteen seventy nine, he
married Debbie and Bobby was born a year later. His
voice is very weak due to an earlier cancer treatment,
and because of that strain, we asked a voice actor
to step in from here on out and read the
transcript of his interview.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
He's my only son, and I made a choice way
back when that I would never have any more children
other than him, so he's always had my love and
full support.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
But his parents didn't stay together. They got divorced when
Bobby was three. Captain Gumpride got full custody of his son, Bobby.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I never saw my mom again until I was in
my twentieth.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
As a kid, Bobby didn't understand where his mom had
gone and why she wasn't around anymore.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
My dad at that point had decided that it wasn't
in my best interest to see her, so I spent
a big chunk of my childhood in Virginia Beach, Virginia,
which is where he was stationed. Between the ages of
like three and eight.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Bobby was deeply wounded by his mother's absence. His father
tried to fill the gap the best he could.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
I remember when he was very young and I was
running him out to the childcare in the morning, and
I'd say who loves you? And he'd say you do,
and I'd say, yeah, I do. I love you, and
he would give me a big hug.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
When Bobby was six, his father remarried. His stepmother's name
was Sharon.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
She didn't have any other kids, so I was the
only thing that she had.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Sharon raised Bobby. She tried to fill in the role
of a mother and love him unconditionally. But when Bobby
was in elementary school, something tragic happened in their home,
a formative experience that would shape Bobby's worldview and influence
the person he became.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Around eight years old, I was at home with a
friend of mine.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
You know, it was the afternoon.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
My mom, I think, was at school and my dad
was at work, and this was a friend of mine, Joey.
We were just playing after school. We played baseball together,
and he was just in the same neighborhood. And one
day he was at my house and we got into
(11:57):
my dad's room and found a gun.
Speaker 6 (12:02):
And pulled the gun out and.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Started running around the house with it, got downstairs. We
had a living room downstairs and a sliding glass door
that went out to the back porch, and he went
outside and shut the door, and I was standing on
the inside of the door, the glass door, and I
was kind of holding the gun, like pretending he was
(12:26):
the robber and I was the cop.
Speaker 6 (12:28):
And I jumped out.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
And as soon as I jumped out, I don't know
if I pulled the trigger or my finger slipped. I
didn't know it was loaded, but either way, the gun
went off and shattered the door and he was on
the ground.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Eight years old. Bobby gumpright was home alone with his
friend Joey. When he found his dad's gun, Bobby decided
to pick it up so he and his friend could
play cops and robbers. Bobby lifted the pistol, pointing it
through a sliding glass door, and then the gun went off.
Bobby didn't know the gun was loaded.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
I was kind of in shock there for a second.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
So I run out and he's laying on the ground
and he's just bleeding and glass in his face and
just blood everywhere. And he gets up, but he's bleeding
everywhere and crying, and I'm crying, and we get him
into the bathroom and I'm just sitting there.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Bobby had shot his friend in the mouth. He was
gushing blood. The kids began to panic.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
I called the police at that point. I was young,
but I knew that he needed help that I wouldn't
be able to provide it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
The boys knew instinctively, instantly that telling the truth would
get them in a whole lot of trouble. During the
chaos that followed the gun shot, Bobby came up with
a plan. They couldn't tell the adults what had really happened,
not their parents, and definitely not the police. Joey sat
in the bathroom floor holding a blood soaked towel to
(14:24):
his face, but Bobby had the presence of mind to
put the gun back in his father's room and then
waited for help to arrive.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
They showed up, and we gave him a story that
I was in the house and he was on the
back porch, and that we heard a shot come from
the woods behind the house.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
We just we thought it would be a logical story.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
The police started walking through the house collecting evidence. Bobby's stepmother, Sharon,
arrived shortly after. All she knew was that the boys
had been playing when one of them was shot.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
When my stepmom got there, she run over and she
was hugging me, And that was a rare moment of
like motherly just embrace that I wasn't used to from her.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Although Sharon took care of Bobby and loved him, according
to him, she wasn't an outwardly affectionate person, so seeing
her relief, feeling her arms around him, it felt like
the kind of comfort only a mother could give. Sharon
believed the kid's account of the gunshot coming from the woods,
(15:41):
but the police, well, they weren't buying it.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
All.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
The glass was laying out on the patio, not inside
the house, and it was just things that an eight
year old wouldn't think of, but were very obvious to
the police. So I had a detective actually walked me
out to the woods and explain how he knew there's
no way the shot came from the woods. I just
remember thinking, is there any other way to explain this?
(16:08):
And there wasn't, and I just came clean.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
According to Bobby, when his stepmother learned what really happened,
the warmth and affection she had just given him went cold.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
I remember vividly that the detective said what had happened,
and she just let go. And I think it was
in shock of what she had heard. She just lets
go out of the embrace. And to me, at the moment,
it made me feel like love was being removed. At
that moment, it made me feel like love was conditional.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
On my actions.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
To eight year old Bobby, it felt like rejection. But
to a mother, even a stepmother, it might have been
shock learning your son had shot another child. Bobby's father,
Captain Gumpbright, rushed home and discovered the truth. It was
his gun that had been used in the accidental shooting.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
The officer asked me for my weapon, and when we
opened him up, they smelled of gunpowder. I was extremely
shaken and kicked myself for not locking everything up.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
More first responders arrived. The most immediate concern was, of course,
Joey's injuries.
Speaker 7 (17:31):
His friend had been shot and the roof of his
mouth right behind his front teeth, and the roof the
bullet had lodged, and he was okay, but he did
have to have surgery.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It could have been so much worse. Joey could have
been killed. That was the last time Bobby ever saw
his friend.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
His parents definitely weren't going to have him hanging around
me anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
The next day, when Captain Cumbride drove Bobby to school,
a news report about the accidental shooting was broadcast on
the radio. Though the kids weren't named, it was obviously him.
The story was out there. His mistake was now the news.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
And I just broke down into tears and just started bawling,
and he ended up taking me home and I didn't
go to school, and then I got sent to counseling,
and at that point, I'd already shut down. I wasn't
sharing anything with anybody about my feelings.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And as a military brat, Bobby moved every few years.
It made it hard for him to create long term friendships,
and he learned to dread school.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Being the new kid is not easy. I turned into
what I call a chameleon. I would just blend in.
I would try and act like you were acting if
I was hanging out with the goth kids. I was
acting like a goth that I was hanging out with
the jocks. I was acting like a job.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
By the time Bobby got to middle school, he had
discovered a way to ease his anxiety.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
I was skipping school that day and my parents had
a bar downstairs. I remember taking some peach knops and
some orange juice, and my dad came home early that
day and caught me.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Bobby's dad grounded him. Soon after that, the Gumpbright family
was on the move again. When Bobby was sixteen, his
dad got orders to move to New Orleans. Bobby had
enough credits to graduate high school early, so he enrolled
in college at the University of New Orleans.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Started school, joined the fraternity, and that's when my drinking
really took off right when I joined the fraternity.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
In his first semester, Bobby stopped going to class all together,
but his parents didn't have a clue.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I think I went to two classes my first semester,
got a zero point zero GPA. It was in the
middle of the semester and grades had come out, and
I was failing everything right, and so I had an
opportunity to either take that failing transcript home and show
my dad or not.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Bobby had an idea, something that would solve his problem,
at least in the short term.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
I chose to manufacture a fake one on my computer,
and so I just took a transcript that, you know,
I knew what it looked like, and I typed up
a new one and printed it out, and I gave
myself like b's and c's. I knew what what would
be red flags and what wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Bobby had developed the ability to lie seamlessly as a kid,
so he had no problem faking his college transcript.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
I took it home and I remember he was like, well,
that's good, You're doing good.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
The ruse didn't last long. Captain Gunprid eventually figured out
the transcript was a work of fiction, and he wasn't happy.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
And then my dad was like, I'm not going to
continue paying for this. So ended up getting an option
to either go into the military or get a job,
and so I went into the Coast Guard and got
sent to Michigan.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Bobby was assigned to work on a ship called the Eagle.
It was one of those ships used for training future officers,
but he was still immature and unfocused. He didn't take
his military career seriously. Mostly he chased girls and went
to parties. He was trying to recreate the fund he
had in college, but the Coastguard wasn't putting up with it,
(21:56):
so they invited Bobby to leave.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
My discharge status was unsuitability, was what they called it.
It means that I was unable to adapt to the
military way of living, is the exact definition. So now
I've dropped out of college and left the military, just
turned eighteen.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
With no other options left, Bobby moved back in with
his parents in New Orleans, and his dad told.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Him, first thing you're going to do is get a
go get a job.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
So I went and got a job at Applebee's waiting tables,
and I excelled.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's funny. He had tried college and the military, but
it took working in a chain restaurant for Bobby to
find his sweet spot. He had a gift for hospitality.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
I loved talking to people. I love being around people.
I loved like and I was a really good server.
I was just I was on top of my game
when it came to just waiting on people. That was
the first time I felt like I was good at something.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
He was quickly promoted to bartender, even though he was eighteen,
still too young to drink legally. Bobby had the gift
of gab and he had a sympathetic ear. It made
him a great bartender. It was New Orleans in the
late nineties. Every day was a party, especially for Bobby.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
We had karaoke on the weekends and it was like
working in a bar. That's where I felt like I
was accepted and life of the party, and it just
felt good.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Life was looking up for Bobby. But one night, around
eleven PM, after closing up and heading home, everything changed.
His trip home became the most terrifying moment of his life.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
We lived on the West Bank. The West Bank had
a reputation for not being in the safat. Sometimes I
left work riding my bicycle home and when I was
coming down MacArthur Boulevard, I saw a man who stopped
me and asks if I knew what time the bus
(24:16):
stopped running. So I stopped and looked at my watch,
and as I was looking at my watch, he pulled
out a gun and he put it to my face.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The man shouted orders at Bobby, and he followed them.
He was scared to death.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
He rips my chain off my neck and tells me
to lie down on the ground, and rifles through my
bag and takes my money and tells me not to
get up until he's gone. And as I heard him
running away, I looked up, and when I thought it
(24:57):
was a safe distance, I got back on my bike
and rode home.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Bobby was shaking with fear, but he was alive. He
was desperate to tell his parents what had just happened,
so he pedaled his bike home as quickly as he could,
and normally, when he got home, his parents would ask
about his night at work and how much money he made.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
But that night, I threw my bike on the front lawn,
went into the house. They were asleep, and I woke
him up and said I just got robbed.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
His father remembers Bobby being in a frenzy.
Speaker 7 (25:36):
He was in tears, he was frantic, he was very frightened,
and I mean totally lost it. We asked him what happened,
and he was shaken, and I mean we tried to
calm him down, and he said he'd been robbed. So
I immediately called the police.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
Police showed up.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
I gave him a description, you know, guy about my height, black.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
I gave him a clothing description.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
He remembered that the perpetrator was wearing a dark blue
or black T shirt and a baseball cap with a
white insignia on it.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
I think he asked me if I ever saw him again,
if I would know if it was him, and I
think I did say yes.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
The police took Bobby's statement and said they'd be in touch.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I continued working at Applebee's, continued just doing my thing.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Bobby's dad was really unnerved by the robbery. There were
nearly six thousand violent crimes in New Orleans in nineteen
ninety nine. His son had become a statistic captain. Gumpright
would not risk his only child again.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
My dad bought me a car because he was worried
about me riding my bike through that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Anymore, weeks passed and Bobby heard nothing from the New
Orleans Police Department. He figured they didn't have any leads, and.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
I was like, Okay, nothing's ever going to come of it.
And then a couple months later, I'm in the back
of the restaurant and somebody comes in and says, hey,
there's two New Orleans City detectives out there wanting to
talk to you. So I go to this table and
we sit down. They said, we're here about your report,
(27:23):
and we'd like to show you some pictures. And they
pull out a piece of paper that has six pictures
on it, and they said, do you recognize any of
these men as the one who robbed you. I pointed
at one and I said, that's him. That looks like him.
(27:45):
It was just something that kind of stood out to me.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
The man Bobby identified was Jermaine Hudson. Jermaine was twenty
years old in nineteen ninety nine, and he was already
known to police. He'd been arrested at fourteen riding in
a stolen vehicle and at sixteen for armed robbery. During
an attempt at carjacking. When Bobby pointed at the photo
(28:09):
of the man who robbed him.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
They said, that's who we thought it was.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
They told me that they had been trying to get
him and they weren't able to. They said, we haven't
had anybody that would testify. Would you be willing to testify?
I'm kind of excited. I was being asked to do something.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Important, something important, and doing something important made Bobby feel special.
At just eighteen, he already felt like a failure. He
had the feeling he disappointed people, and he hadn't accomplished much.
So helping the police offered him a chance to flip
(28:54):
the script and hold the man who robbed him. A
career criminal accountable.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
You know, college dropout, military dropout, living in my parents' house.
My life was not very good at that time, and
I just I saw maybe a glimpse of Hey, I
can be somebody.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Eighteen year old bartender Bobby Cumpright was the victim of
an armed robbery on the evening of March first, nineteen
ninety nine. Weeks later, the New Orleans Police Department assembled
six photographs of men with prior convictions that fit Bobby's
description of the perpetrator. Bobby studied the photos and recognized
(29:52):
one as the man who had held the gun to
his head demanding money. It was twenty year old Jermaine Hudson.
Jermaine was a knock around guy who grew up in
the Fisher Projects, a housing project on the Mississippi River.
Fisher Projects was notorious for violence, drug dealing, and police
(30:12):
brutality towards the residents. Jermaine had been in trouble before
as a teenager and served time in prison. The trial
was set for March twenty second, two thousand. Bobby would
be the star witness.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I remember going over the questions with the prosecutor, being
told when to give detail and when not to give detail.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Bobby, now nineteen, was really nervous. It was the first
time he would see the man who robbed him again.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
I was very, very emotional.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
I just wanted to do what they wanted me to
do there and just get out of there.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
So the trial took place over twenty five years ago
in the year two thousand. The trial wasn't recorded, but
my team got access to the transcripts from the proceedings,
so we hired voice actors to read excerpts of what
happened in the courtroom. I'm going to ask you to
listen carefully because what happens in this courtroom is going
(31:18):
to come back later. The state was represented by Assistant
District Attorney Aaron Greenstone. He calls Bobby by his legal name, Robert.
It was time for the star witness to take the stand, Robert.
Speaker 8 (31:41):
Are you nervous right now?
Speaker 9 (31:42):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 8 (31:44):
Why are you nervous?
Speaker 9 (31:45):
Why?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yes, because I'm in the same room with the person
that held a gun to me.
Speaker 8 (31:54):
Okay, now, thanks for bringing that up. I'm going to
take you back to March first of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 9 (32:02):
Where were you working Applebee's?
Speaker 8 (32:05):
How did you get to and from work on March first?
Speaker 9 (32:09):
I was riding a bike at the time.
Speaker 8 (32:11):
And did you have cash on you?
Speaker 9 (32:14):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 8 (32:15):
And was it normal for you to have cash being
a bartender every night?
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Greenstone asked Bobby about being stopped on the street by
the accused.
Speaker 9 (32:29):
He asked, what time? If I knew what time the
bus stop running?
Speaker 8 (32:33):
When you say he? Do you see the person who
asked you for the time right now?
Speaker 9 (32:39):
Yes, sir? Where is he sitting at the table over there.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
The defendant, Bobby, testified that what began as a friendly
exchange took a sudden and very frightening turn. He said
that your main threatened his life.
Speaker 9 (32:56):
Then I proceeded to look up as he pulled a
gun from behind.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
What happened?
Speaker 9 (33:02):
Then he had the gun up to my face, I mean,
with some profanity.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
He basically just told me not to look at him.
And then and then he ripped my had a Saint
Christopher medallion that I had since I was born, and
he ripped it off my neck, just popped the chain
and told me to.
Speaker 9 (33:24):
Get off the bike.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Then he had me laying on the ground and took
my bag. And as I was laying on the ground,
I heard him ruffling through it and going through all
the stuff. And then as he proceeded to run down
the street, I looked for a split second to see
which way he was running. Once I thought he was
a safe distance where I couldn't see him anymore, then
I grabbed my stuff and got home as quick as
(33:48):
I could.
Speaker 8 (33:52):
Now, you said you had some money on you.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
How much money between seventy five two hundred.
Speaker 8 (33:58):
Dollars and Jermaine Hudson take the money.
Speaker 9 (34:02):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
He had me empty out all of my pockets onto
the ground before I laid down.
Speaker 8 (34:09):
And when he approached you the first time, you looked
right in his eyes, Yes, sir. Is it fair to
say that you got a real good look at him?
Speaker 9 (34:19):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 8 (34:20):
And would you characterize yourself as being good with faces?
Good with names?
Speaker 9 (34:25):
That's my business, that's how I make money.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I make money by remembering people's first names and their faces. Basically,
we want to give the impression you want to be
their friend. The better friend you are, the better tips
you get.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Will you ever forget Jermaine Hudson's face?
Speaker 9 (34:45):
No, sir, you don't forget something like that.
Speaker 8 (34:50):
And are you one hundred percent certain that this man
right here put a gun to your head and robbed you?
Speaker 9 (34:59):
One hundred and ten percent certain?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well as you can hear. Bobby was a compelling witness,
so compelling there seemed to be little doubt about his story.
Jermaine Hudson was represented by veteran public defender Don Donnelly.
When it was his turn to question Bobby, Donnelly asked
(35:27):
him to describe what the perpetrator was wearing. Bobby listed
the clothing and said the assailant had a baseball cap
pulled low over his face. Now, keep in mind what
you're about to hear is the cross examination read by
voice actors.
Speaker 10 (35:45):
At that point, when you see the gun, is your
attention focused on the gun or on the person's face?
Speaker 9 (35:55):
Well, obviously down the barrel?
Speaker 6 (35:57):
Yes?
Speaker 10 (35:59):
Can you just describe that gun for us?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
I'm not very I'm not a very big gun person,
but as close as I could say, it resembled a
nine millimeter. You see, I was in the Coastguard, and
I used a nine millimeter while I was in the
coast Guard, And that's the closest I would say it
would resemble.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Since the case was based on Bobby's identification of Germaine,
the defense attorney shifted.
Speaker 10 (36:27):
Now, let me ask you this, from the time you
pull up to this person who asked you, when the
bus passes, until you're no longer looking at his face.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
How long is this period?
Speaker 6 (36:38):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 9 (36:40):
A minute? Two minutes, A.
Speaker 10 (36:42):
Minute or two minutes you're focusing on his face, yes, sir,
a minute and a half. You were eyeball to eyeball.
Speaker 9 (36:51):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Donnelly pressed Bobby Harder, specifically, about the photo lineup shown
to him at Applebee's.
Speaker 10 (37:01):
What did they tell you?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
They asked me to take a good look and see
if I recognize any of the faces.
Speaker 10 (37:07):
And you recognize one, Yes, sir. How long did it
take you to recognize this face?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
It took about twenty good twenty seconds to make sure.
Speaker 10 (37:18):
Did anybody in that lineup have on a baseball cap?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
No, nobody did. Nobody did, so you had a.
Speaker 10 (37:25):
Little different view of the person that night and in
the photographic lineup, correct.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Defense attorney Donnelly attempted to plant doubt in the jury.
He suggested that someone who feared for his life would
struggle to be absolutely certain about an assailant's identity in
the dark.
Speaker 10 (37:46):
Were you afraid at the time, mister Gump.
Speaker 9 (37:48):
Bright, Yes, sir.
Speaker 10 (37:50):
And yet you say without a doubt that the person
sitting right here is the person who was pointing a
gun at you that night.
Speaker 9 (37:59):
Yeah, yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
There were no further questions. Photos of the crime scene
were submitted into evidence. The state also submitted a map
that showed Jermaine Hudson's home and its proximity to the
crime scene just a few blocks away. Finally, each side
gave their closing arguments.
Speaker 11 (38:23):
Ladies and gentlemen, please retire to the jury deliberation room
to commence your deliberations.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
The jury returned with its verdict. It took just thirty
seven minutes.
Speaker 11 (38:37):
The State of Louisiana versus Jermaine Hudson, Criminal District Court
for the Parish of Orleans, Case number four zero seven
Dash eight eight eight, Section G WE the jury find
the defendant guilty as charged.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
The guilty verdict Hitchermain's family like a ton of bricks.
They immediately started crying and on the prosecutor's side, well,
it was a win. What happened next took the entire
courtroom by surprise.
Speaker 11 (39:17):
Mister Hudson, You've been found guilty by a jury of
the offense of armed robbery. And considering mister Hudson's prior
criminal history, it is the sentence of this court that
you serve ninety nine years in the Department of Corrections
at hard labor, without the benefit of probation, parole or
(39:41):
suspension of sin.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, you heard that right. Jermaine Hudson would be spending
every day for the rest of his life in a
prison cell. He was in disbelief when I say you,
Maho dropped.
Speaker 6 (39:59):
I was like, no, this can't be real.
Speaker 9 (40:03):
I'm like, Lord, this can't be real.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
There were dozens of people in the courtroom that day,
but only two of them knew the truth, Jermaine Hudson
and Bobby Gumpright. And the truth was that almost everything
you heard from Bobby gumpright in that courtroom was a lie,
and not just in the way you think it was.
(40:35):
Coming up on Burden of Guilt.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
I was scared to death that somebody would find out
the truth.
Speaker 9 (40:41):
This can't be the end of my life.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
This can't be my final destination.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate,
and review the series with five stars yay. It helps
other people find our show. You can reach out to
the Burden of Guilt team at Burden of Guiltpod at
gmail dot com. That's Burden of Guiltpod at gmail dot com.
(41:12):
Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
division of Gless Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The series is executive produced and hosted by me Nancy Glass.
This episode was written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also
produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our story editor
(41:34):
is Monique Leboard. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik.
Our production manager is Kristin Mercurie. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Thank you to our voice
actors Brian Balthazar, Todd Gantz, Trey Morgan, Ben Reid and
(41:54):
Rob Stoler. Audio editing by Dean Welsh, mixed and mastered
by Anna McLean. The Burden of Guilt theme is composed
by Oliver Baines's music library provided by Mob Music, and
we want to give our special thanks to Jermaine Hudson
and Bobby Gumpwright. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the
(42:15):
iHeartRadio app or Apple Podcasts
Host
Nancy Glass
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