September 19, 2023 • 42 mins
Episode 1 of 8
Journalist Beth Shelburne meets with former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, who explains why he is deeply disturbed by the wrongful conviction of Toforest Johnson for the murder of Deputy Bill Hardy. Through her reporting on the case, Beth, like Baxley, is convinced that Toforest has no connection to the murder. She sets out to conduct an in-depth investigation into why detectives targeted him in the first place, how he was convicted, and why the State of Alabama is still seeking his execution today.
To learn more, including how you can help, visit:
http://www.ToforestJohnson.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is quite a wall here.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, these are some great photos.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
That's Jimmy Carter enough me, uh huh, yes, me and
Lorena Lynn.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
How did this come about?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
She was given a concert in Brini Allen.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Carry me backstage to leader.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Look at this suit that you have on.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Maybe you've never heard of Bill Baxley, but here in
Alabama he's a big deal.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
That Johnny Cash.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Baxley is eighty two, slightly balding, with silver hair and eyebrows.
In the pictures he's showing me on the wall of
his office, I see him looking younger. His hair is dark,
and he's standing with famous musicians and politicians.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
That's my daddy swearing me in for my first term.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Baxley was elected as Alabama's Attorney General when he was
just twenty eight years old. He later served as lieutenant governor,
and he's still practicing law today. During his career, Baxley
prosecuted hundreds of cases and sent three people to Alabama's
death row.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
There are some crimes that are so wrong and so
horrible that they only deserve one punishment.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
He's a lifelong defender of the death penalty, a true believer,
like when the US Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty
in the nineteen seventies, Baxley worked hard to bring executions
back to Alabama. He's that kind of true believer. So
it's not surprising that Baxley was skeptical when his son,
(01:45):
who's also an attorney, asked his dad to look over
a case because he believed an innocent man was on
death row.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Over the course of my long career, I've had dozens
and dozens answances were these I'll call them do gooders,
but they're good people. They take up there's causes of
people that have been sentenced to death, and they get
interested in trying to help them, and they all think
(02:14):
they're always innocent.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Baxley didn't even glance at the case file until weeks later.
On an icy winter morning, it was too slippery to
walk down the driveway and grab the newspaper, so he
picked up the file that his son sent him and
began reading about a black man named to Forrest Johnson,
who was sentenced to death for killing a shriff's deputy.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean, mid morning, I couldn't believe what I was reading.
I wouldn't have believed that something like this could have happened.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
What was so unbelievable about it?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Everything? Everything. I don't know how the guy got indicted,
how they got I didn't see how the jury convicted him.
I would have never believed that that could have happened
in Alabama, no question mine. This guy was not guilty
of this crime, and I couldn't comprehend how this could happen.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
There's only one other case where Basley thought the defendants
were innocent, and that case is almost one hundred years old.
So what is it about this case to Forrest's case
that convinced Backsley that Alabama is trying to execute an
innocent man's.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's a unique absurdity that I've never seen before. It's
too late to give him back all those years he's
been on death road, but it's not too late to
correct it today and get him out for the future.
It's wrong that it's gone this long. It's still not
(03:52):
too late to correct.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
My name is Beth Shelburne. Like Bill Baxley, I was
born and raised in all Obama. I grew up about
a mile away from where the crime at the center
of this story took place. I'm a journalist and writer,
and for the last three years I've been investigating the
case that rocked Bill Baxley's world. The story begins on
(04:16):
a hot July night in nineteen ninety five. It unfolds
in two places at once, the Crown Sterling Sweet's Hotel
and a nightclub that's almost four miles away called Tea's Place.
By the end of the night, one man will be
shot dead and two others will encounter someone who will
(04:37):
put them at the center of the murder investigation to
Forrest Johnson is still on death row and he's running
out of time. I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness,
Chapter one, Behind the Out.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
Yes, ma'am, this is very calling from Crowns Drilling Sweet's
Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm calling because I've had several
guests report what appears on the windows to have been
two gunshots and people running in the parking lot.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's twelve fifty five am on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 8 (05:52):
It's twenty three great fight.
Speaker 7 (05:54):
That is correct. I have security on the premises, which
is just to the county police, but I'm calling you
because i want to make sure that the Birmingham pleats arrived.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Please all right, we'll get the one out, thank you
very much. All right.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The Crown Sterling Suites Hotel was a nine story building
in Birmingham. Today the hotel is an embassy suites. Inside
the main entrance of the hotel, there's a pale tiled
walkway that leads through the lobby. The front desk is
to the left, but keep walking past it and you
enter a huge atrium, an open space surrounded by windows,
(06:36):
with an indoor garden of leafy green plants and trees.
The tiled walkway leads to a coy pond with a
fountain at the center. It's lush and humid inside, but
despite all the windows, the field is dim and moody.
Keep walking past the coy pond and there's a short
(06:59):
hall that leads to the hotel's back parking lot. It
was here outside the double doors of the Crown Sterling
Sweet's Hotel where a deputy sheriff was killed. No one
saw the murder, but a few people heard gunshots.
Speaker 10 (07:18):
I remember hearing popping noises from the distance.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Barry Rushikov was working at the front desk when he
made that nine to one one call.
Speaker 10 (07:28):
When I heard it, I believe that's when I tried
to call Officer Hardy on the radio with no response.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Officer William Hardy, who went by Bill, had been a
deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for twenty three years.
He was also a security guard at the hotel, where
he worked the night shift to make extra money. Hardy
was five foot ten, had a thin mustache, and wore
his hair in a Jerry curl. He was known to
(07:56):
be easy going and friendly. When Deputy Hardy wasn't making
hotel security rounds, Barry usually saw him wearing his brown
and tan deputy uniform, sitting at one of the tables
in the hotel's atrium, smoking more brand menthol cigarettes and
drinking coffee.
Speaker 10 (08:16):
You know, when I worked there, and when I was
working nights, it was me, you know, Officer Hardy or
whatever officer on duty, and or we would sometime have
a houseman who is cleaning floors or something, but very
minimal group and I never felt unsafe.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Barry wasn't the only person to hear the popping noises.
A few guests at the hotel also heard gunshots, including
Marshall Kelly Cummings a guest in a fourth floor room
directly above the hotel's back exit.
Speaker 11 (08:48):
I can remember like it was yesterday, ma as far
as the details.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
As I worked on this project, I started referring to
Cummings as the Keebler cookie guy, because in nineteen ninety
five he worked for Keebler as a truck driver Midfield.
Speaker 11 (09:02):
When I was with Keebler driving one of their step
vans delivering cookies and crackers and stuff, and we had.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
A Cummings was staying at the Crown Sterling for a
company training. After the workday was over, he drank a
few beers at the hotel bar with some coworkers, and
then he and the other Keepler employee he was rooming
with turned in between ten and eleven PM. But Cummings
was not asleep for long, but he.
Speaker 12 (09:29):
Just I woke up and it was I kept hearing
somebody talk kind of talk.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So you heard some voices and it sounded like they
were arguing or not.
Speaker 12 (09:39):
Really bad, but they were.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Having a conversation. Yeah it was male voices.
Speaker 12 (09:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (09:45):
Well they quit arguing and then I didn't hear anything.
So I laid back down and it probably wasn't twenty seconds,
thirty seconds, forty five.
Speaker 9 (09:55):
I'm gout.
Speaker 12 (09:55):
I didn't count boom, small caliber gun.
Speaker 11 (09:59):
They won a big caliber and I'll sudden the few
sects or the boom about the second time, I say,
up a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
That was a gun, he remembers, turning to the coworker
he was sharing a room with.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
I said, you hear that?
Speaker 12 (10:18):
He says, yeah. So I stood up and opened the
blind to get my eyes fixed because it was dark.
Then they had the lights in the last week.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Directly beneath his window, Cummings sees a four door car.
It's dark copper or light brown with a vinyl top,
parked facing the hotel's back double doors. He sees a
tall person get into the driver's side of the car,
close the door, and slowly pull away with the headlights off.
Speaker 12 (10:48):
And so I called down to the front desk. I said, hey,
there's been shots fired.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
I heard.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Did you hear that?
Speaker 10 (10:53):
I believe I got a phone call from someone in
the room saying they heard gunshots.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So Barry makes that initial nine one one call, hangs
up and decides to investigate it.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Jumped over the counter to walk back, and I was
walked back. I saw Offsta Hardy's radio.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Barry sees Deputy Hardy's radio on a table in the
hotel's atrium, and right next to it his cigarette still
burning in an ash tray. Meanwhile, back on the fourth floor,
Marshall Kelly Cummings hangs up the phone with Barry and
(11:31):
goes back to the window.
Speaker 12 (11:33):
And I kept looking, and I kept looking.
Speaker 11 (11:35):
Finally my eyes got to where I could see, and
I looked down and I could see him laying on
the ground.
Speaker 12 (11:40):
I went, oh, no, this ain't good.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Cummings spots a body on the ground and realizes someone
has been badly hurt. It's right around this time Barry
makes the same terrible discovery.
Speaker 10 (11:55):
Here's a hallway that went to the door that went
back out to the back parking lot. Turn in the
corner to go down that hallway, and I looked out
the door in the distance, I saw Offsta Hardy.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
On the ground.
Speaker 10 (12:07):
That's when I ran back to the front desk, made
an emergency phone call to the police.
Speaker 9 (12:19):
Ma'am, the spiritual cross to exist, and I have a
pit what appears to be a Juffanon County Police officer
shot in the back of our building. She ends up
moving people in a car drove away and you see
he's lying on the on the pavement. I'm a little
afraid to go up. Yes, he is a Birmingham Police Office,
(12:41):
Jefferson County. He is a hired nine time security for us.
Speaker 13 (12:46):
Right, do you know if you can.
Speaker 7 (12:47):
Sign out anything like if.
Speaker 14 (12:49):
You breathe.
Speaker 9 (12:51):
And how much blood? I'm trying, man, my, my, my promise.
I don't know if the people are still out there. Okay,
we we should be there showing that you find very much.
I'm gonna go and talk about okay, but you.
Speaker 10 (13:05):
Go.
Speaker 9 (13:05):
Jesson's Catty debut has been shot on the back.
Speaker 8 (13:08):
Entrance of the Hotel Crown show sweep.
Speaker 9 (13:12):
It is one of us, and we are they have
got one down who has been shot.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
And they said it looks great, it.
Speaker 9 (13:18):
Looks too bad. Three three two. Do we have any information?
Do we have anything on a suspect to go anywhere?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
After he makes the second nine to one one call,
Barry walks down the hallway to the back parking lot
and then I went.
Speaker 10 (13:51):
Back out the office. Already he was not a good condition.
He did have a wound to his face. He was
making a gurgling, gasping noise.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
You know, he was not conscious.
Speaker 10 (14:05):
I believe I took my jacket off, my uniform jacket off,
to try to cover him, or put under his head,
or try to comfort him. But fortunately officers arrived so
quickly and I was removed from that area immediately.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
More than a dozen officers from four different agencies arrive
at the hotel. One of them is Detective Tony Richardson,
who says he'd known Deputy Hardy since he first started
working for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 15 (14:39):
Being black and bo being black, naturally I noticed him.
I was told more than once to get a haircut.
That you know, to be a deputy Shaff, you got
to have your haircut. So the reason I mentioned that
is because from the first day that I ever.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Saw him, his hair was out to hear big afro.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
Big afro, and he would put on his hat. He
wore that hat religiously. Everybody else's the Shaff's office hated
those hats.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
They didn't want to wear him, you know, but he
always wore his hat.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Deputy Hardy often wore his traditional broad brimmed tan smoky
the bear style sheriff's hat. It was later entered as
evidence from the crime scene with a bullet hole through
the brim, and he would.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
Have it on his head and all that hair would
be on the side would be out here, And.
Speaker 15 (15:35):
I'm like, who is this guy? How can he get
away with that? And not only that, he is in
the Sheriff's office. How can he get away with that?
So I was in tree Bay him, fascinated by him,
but I was scared of him. I was scared to
meet him because I thought, of my mind, this guy's
(15:55):
got to be crazy, you know, to do that and
get away with it, He's got to be great.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I would scatter of him.
Speaker 12 (16:01):
But anyway, when I first met him, I met him
and talked to him.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
He started to feel better about well. I started to
feel better about him.
Speaker 15 (16:11):
We were never just busom buddies real close, but we
were close and we knew each other.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Tony Richardson and Bill Hardy had been colleagues at the
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for seventeen years. Richardson remembers the
last time he saw Hardy alive.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
The last day I.
Speaker 15 (16:31):
Saw Bill, my brother and I my brother would put
a sheriff's office offso and we were standing there smoking
and Bill drove out the alley and he was pulling
up twenty second and he stopped in the road and
he started to talk to us and he said, hey, guys,
hang out doing loan with some money. It's just you know,
(16:52):
stuff like that. And we laughed and talked for a minute.
And that was the last time I saw him. And
the next time I heard Bill's name was about two
o'clock in the morning when I got the call saying
and he had been shot. At that time, I was
what was considered a crimes against Persons detective, which meant
(17:13):
that I worked homicides. The lieutenant felt like because it
involved a deputy sheriff, and you know that we needed
all the help that we could get. So I got
called out.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Did you go to the actual scene?
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
What did you encounter when you got there?
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Well, by the time I got there, Bill's body was gone.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Paramedics had already lifted Bill Hardy into an ambulance and
rushed him to the emergency room of Birmingham's largest hospital.
He is gravely injured with two gunshot wounds to his head.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
And jaw.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
A medical examiner notes a bullet wound to Hardy's finger
likely means he raised his hand in a defensive posture
when he was shot. Police go to his house to
tell his wife, Patricia Diane Hardy, and bring her to
the hospital. Jim Woodward, the chief deputy in Jefferson County,
(18:15):
also rushes over when he hears that Hardy was shot.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
What do you remember about the incident?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
I got the call that Hardy had been shot, and
they told me said looked very serious. So I got
in my car and went down to the hospital. I
stood there while they were operating on me, and then
I just heard one say that's it.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
It's over.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
We can't do it anymore.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
It's over.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
We can't save him. He's gone.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
What does that feel like when you are a career
law enforcement officer?
Speaker 4 (18:49):
And well, it's kind of devastating to you. You know,
you get to know these guys, and I knew Hardy.
That's a very devastating thing that happened to you.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Deputy Bill Hardy is pronounced dead seven hours after he
was shot. The cause of death is two gunshot wounds
fired at close range. I wanted to know more about
Deputy Hardy. So I wrote to several family members inviting
them to talk. They never responded, and I can only
(19:26):
imagine his murder must be one of the hardest things
they've ever experienced. But I have learned a few things
about Deputy Hardy. He was married to Patricia Diane Hardy.
He had two children and four adult step children. Hardy
started working as a deputy in nineteen seventy two. His
(19:48):
duties included delivering subpoenas and directing traffic outside the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
You know.
Speaker 15 (20:02):
It was rough.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
It was rough.
Speaker 15 (20:04):
It's rough right now, it's a rough right This many
working homicide. I worked at bunch, but none of them
affected me like the killing of a deputy Share.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
You know, you have a bond.
Speaker 15 (20:24):
With the guys you work with in that uniform. Whether
you know them or not, you have a bond. So
when I was a deputy Share working another deputy Shaff's murder,
do you think that was emotional? Yes, it was very
and had it been my decision the day we caught
(20:48):
the people that did it, let's put them on death throat.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Lead Detective Tony Richardson and his team of investigators have
no eyewitnesses to the shooting and there's no known motive.
A fellow officer has just been shot, and they have
almost no evidence to go on. At the exact time
(21:23):
that Deputy Bill Hardy was shot, to Forrest Johnson and
his friend Ardregis Ford were four miles away from the
crime scene at a downtown Birmingham nightclub called Tea's Place,
but they would soon become the focus of Tony Richardson's investigation.
(21:57):
Just a few hours before Deputy hart Is shot, ardregas
Ford gets into the passenger side of his nineteen seventy
one black Monte Carlo. It's an old car and the
driver's side door doesn't open, so he slides over into
the driver's seat, starts the ignition, and heads out to
pick up his friend to Forrest Johnson to go to
(22:20):
a club called Teas Place. I wasn't able to interview
to Forest or Ardregas for this podcast. The Alabama Department
of Corrections doesn't allow people on death road to do
interviews with reporters like me, so I was unable to
talk to Forest directly, and Ardregas died in twenty twenty one,
(22:42):
I didn't get a chance to interview him before then.
I was able to speak to Ardregas's mother, Joyce Ford.
Speaker 13 (22:52):
That particular night. They said they was going to tease
and see he will go to teas every Tuesday and
he have his particular same parking space and everything because
he would give them good tips.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Ardregas was willing to pay for a good parking space
because he was in a wheelchair. When Ardregas was a teenager,
a group of men began shooting outside an apartment building
he was visiting. He was shot trying to shield his
cousin and her baby from gunfire.
Speaker 13 (23:24):
My son when he got shot when he was fifteen,
I had just gotten off of work. I was tied
in the phone, rang, rang, rang, and I didn't answer
the phone, you know, And I finally answered it and
they stated that he had gotten shot.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
I need to rush to the murdency room.
Speaker 13 (23:45):
That was like a dream, you know. You hear about
things happening to other people, but when it hit home,
you know. And then he got spinal cord injury.
Speaker 16 (23:55):
He got shot in the bag.
Speaker 13 (23:58):
Yeah, and he was parallel size from chest down T
four they called it.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
So that was like a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
In his early twenties, ar Dragus outfitted his Monte Carlo
with the makeshift system so he could throw his wheelchair
in the back and drive the car using just his
upper body.
Speaker 13 (24:21):
He would cut a broom you know that broomsticks. He
would put one to the brakes, one to the salator,
and he would tape it to the car. He would
tape it to it.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
So he like retro fitted his Yeah, he did.
Speaker 9 (24:37):
Did.
Speaker 13 (24:39):
He didn't buy the regular equipment that he should have used.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Ar Dragas and to Forest actually came up with this
idea together. Here's to Forrest's cousin, Antonio.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Green Dracu's was. I guess that was a pride thing.
Speaker 14 (24:53):
He didn't want the handicap accessible pedals and stuff in
his car. But as far as come up with this great,
this genius idea where they're gonna well some metal rods
to the break and accelerator pedal so he could use
his hands and dry. Well, he get to thinking about
this thing and metal rods well did from the brake
(25:14):
pedal or the accelerator. That's not too good of an
idea in case you get in the accident. He hate
to see Draga's impaled through the seat right here. So
he goes and buys two brooms out of the little
dollar store wherever, and no measurements, no, just nothing precise
about it. He just gets the broom and breaks them
(25:36):
and duct tape the sticks, one to the accelerated pedal
and one to the brake pedal so Dragas could drive
his car.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Could he get around?
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Well? I mean did he drove?
Speaker 6 (25:48):
Real?
Speaker 14 (25:48):
Well?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
It's been a while since the Forest and Ardregas have
hung out because to Forest had recently gotten out of prison.
He was arrested for driving with a suspended license, and
as officers padded him down at the city jail, he
tossed something into a nearby trash can. Officers reached into
the can and found a plastic bag of cocaine. To
(26:19):
Forest ended up pleading guilty to drug possession. To Forest
served about a year in prison, and by the night
of Hardy's murder, he'd been out about three months. To
Forest puts on jean shorts and a Tommy Hill figure
blue and white shirt, then gets into the passenger side
of Ardregis's car and they head downtown. They pull up
(26:43):
and park outside Tea's place, but it's too early to
go inside, so they hang out in the parking lot,
flirting with some girls who work at the car dealership
across the street to Forest buys a hot dog from
a cart on the sidewalk. Regulars start trickling and the
club drinking, dancing and catching up inside. There's something music
(27:07):
low lighting. It's tasty Tuesday at Teas Place, which means
women get in free.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I used to go to Teas Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Barbetta Hunt was one of the regulars who was there
that night. What was your nickname back then, Mama Cat.
That's like in the world of nicknames, that's the best name.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
The word.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
My mother, it's the purpose and my father, Fred Perkins,
they gave me that night when I was born. But
that's my name. My name is Mama Cat.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
When she was in her early twenties, Mama Cat spent
a lot of nights hanging out at Tea's Place.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
When you walk into the door, that's my spot right there,
it's on the right hand side. Every time I got
that was my spot. I see, I don't move from
this spot. I don't walk to the bag. I don't
walk there. I say, were right there. Me and my
friend Velliniciaqui Sanders.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
We were together.
Speaker 17 (28:05):
We got there before eleven because the club was always
free on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday before eleven for women.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
This is Belanique Sanders nicknamed Quisi.
Speaker 17 (28:16):
Anything after eleven it was five dollars and me and
Barbetta was very cheap, so we tried to make sure
we got there in free because the little money we
had saved. We wanted to buy something to eat and
I love to get a chicken plate from there, a
chicken breast with some French fries.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh my god, did you know Trafforst Johnson?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (28:36):
I did.
Speaker 17 (28:37):
I knew him from hanging out in the neighborhood in
Ansley and I, oh my god, I had a crush
on him.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
He was the finest.
Speaker 15 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
What do you remember about what he looked like?
Speaker 17 (28:50):
He was short, a nice body, Oh my god. Anyway,
he was a ladies man. I will say that, sweet,
always kind. He was just a nice gentleman like his
mama had raised him.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Really well, did you guys ever go out or did
he know that you had a crush on him?
Speaker 17 (29:12):
He knew I had a crush on him, but we
never went out. No, we would just see each other.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I smiled, be like, Oh that he is, I'm gonna
get him.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
To Forest mostly grew up in Birmingham's Pratt City neighborhood,
or Pratt for short.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
We grew up together, I mean closer than just cousins.
Speaker 14 (29:35):
We were like brothers because we were all pretty much
raised right in the same little local community.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
While to Forest was growing up, most of his extended
family also lived in or near Pratt, including his cousin
Antonio Green.
Speaker 14 (29:51):
And since we were toddlers, i mean babies, we were
kind of together took out in this thing, and he
was a couple of years younger than I am, so
he always kind of held on to my shirttail.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
And you know, so I've been closely connected with him
for our entire life. Pretty much.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
To Forest's mom, Donna, was seventeen when she had him,
and when to Forest was young, she was more like
a sister to him than a mother. Donna leaned on
her parents and siblings to help take care of to Forest,
and as to Forrest got older, she leaned on him
to help take care of his little brother.
Speaker 14 (30:30):
He started at a very young age, much too young
to really be faced with the type of responsibility that
he took on.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
He was at an age where he was still a kid.
Speaker 14 (30:41):
I'm talking about eleven twelve, you know, just in nirteen
years and had to take on the responsibility of taking
care of his little brother. You know, he had a
little brother that he got ready for school, he earned
his clothes, he did.
Speaker 10 (30:55):
You know.
Speaker 14 (30:56):
He's always been that caring little dude, you know, and
he he did that. So he had to take on
some things during that time.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
You know, his mom and dad was dead, but his
dad was a very very heavy drinker.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
To Forest's father, Ronald, was an alcoholic and would get
violent when he drank, which was every day. This made
home life extremely volatile for to Forrest, his younger brother,
little ron and especially his mother, Donna. She eventually left
Ronald when to Forest was a teenager and moved in
(31:30):
with another man who had an apartment in the Tuxedo
Projects in Birmingham's Insley community, also known as the Brickyard.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Oh it was called the Brickyard.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Velainique aka Queisi, the one who had a crush on
to Forest, also grew up there.
Speaker 11 (31:50):
It was rough.
Speaker 13 (31:50):
I dare you know.
Speaker 17 (31:52):
My mom had three girls, aunt had three and We
lived in a five bedroom project with our grandparents, so
it was it was just some bunch of girls in
the house. But I mean, you know, I had just
seen people get killed right in front of me. My
cousin got shot in the stummy.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You know, a lot of.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
It was rough.
Speaker 17 (32:13):
You had family's daddy couldn't afford to eat, you know,
kids come to school, you know, wearing the same clothes
over and over.
Speaker 14 (32:21):
It was rough.
Speaker 17 (32:22):
It was rough growing up in the projects.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
To Forest and his little brother moved there when to
Forest was sixteen. When he was seventeen, to Forrest was
shot and a drive by shooting and spent three months
in the hospital. To Forest's mom told me the bullet
is still lodged in his chest. During this period, seven
(32:46):
of to Forest's friends would be shot and killed. No
one was ever prosecuted for any of these crimes, and
it was around this time that to Forest dropped out
of school. Several family members tell me that at twenty two,
to Forrest was somewhat adrift. He spent his time working
(33:10):
on old cars and playing video games. He was having
a good time dating different women. He had five children
who he loved, but he was also unsettled. He hadn't
yet figured out his purpose, and he didn't know he
was running out of time. As to Forest and Ardregis
(33:59):
wait outside of Ardregas's beeper goes off a few times.
The beeps are from a girl he met a few
nights before, but he ignores her, hoping to meet someone
else inside, tees to Forrest walks toward the club's entrance
behind Ardregas and his wheelchair. They're focused on meeting girls
(34:19):
and having a good time. They don't know that this
night will change their lives, and the people they run
into don't know they're about to become alibi witnesses.
Speaker 16 (34:34):
There was a love before eleven, and we were standing
outside and they came up as far as it was
pushing to Draga's.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
One of the first people they run into is Kenyara Pickett,
who was standing near the entrance.
Speaker 16 (34:47):
I remember exactly where I was standing, right in front
of the club when he walked up, because I thought
I was shot that night out. You know, back in
the days, it was TFC wearing big clothes back then,
and I had all some black, some black big jeans
but shorts, and I had on some black and white
rebox and then I think I had on the button
down shut my sister. She had just got out of
(35:09):
the hospital. She had a blood clot and when she
got out of the hospital, we just went down there,
you know, to celebrate that.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
She came home.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
To Forrest and Ardregas make their way past Kenyara and
go into Tea's. Mama Cat and Velanik are already inside,
perched at their table right by the front door.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Tavarra Johnson, I remember he was pushing Adreka's four in
the wheelchair. They came together.
Speaker 17 (35:33):
I had saw too far, was pushing a Draca's in
the club. Because we always standing at the front by
the door so we can be nosy and see everything.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
You wanted to see who was coming in and who
was leaving with who?
Speaker 17 (35:47):
Yes, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 8 (35:50):
About eleven o'clock I saw Tafarest come in pushing Ondrega's
in and I was excited to seeing him because I
hadn't seen him in year because I had just got
out the military.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Stanley Chandler is also at Tease that night to catch
up with friends. He and to Forrest knew each other
as kids and Pratt, so we.
Speaker 8 (36:08):
Stood there and we start we talked, you know, about
old times, you know, and I mean we joked, laying
and laugh.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
To Forrest and Ardregus settle in at a table chatting
with people who stopped by watching the dance floor.
Speaker 18 (36:26):
I was sitting on the bathroom because when you go around,
it's like a little balcony part that you could sit at.
And so I seen Draca's and to Forest when they
came in the door, because he was pushing them in
a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
This is Dedra Carter, who was celebrating getting released from
the hospital with her sister Kenyara. Dedra was also at
teas that night.
Speaker 18 (36:48):
And him and my cousin Mona and my sister all
Us was just there talking and you know, I think
Tofarres liked it Mona, so you know, he was trying
to hook up with her, but she went no, she
wouldn't never hook up with him. We used to laugh, talk, joking,
like even we at the club music playing, we're still
cracking up, you know, you know, just talking and stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
To Forrest SIPs a long Island iced tea and orders
our dragas up brandy and coke. At one point, to
Forrest goes back to the bar because Dragas says his
drink is too weak and the bartender makes him a
new one. They linger at the club into the early
hours of Wednesday morning.
Speaker 18 (37:29):
When I said we would probably ship the club now
we was there. I know it's probably like they used
to close about maybe one two o'clock, so we would
leave right right before that.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So I know it was like maybe one.
Speaker 8 (37:44):
I ain't leaving the club roughly about I'm gonna say
around about right at one. And like I said, he
was standing across the club. You know, you could see
him because I mean, it wasn't a big, big club,
you know. And I just said to do signs up
and I left.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
And he was still there.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, I left.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
There are at least ten people who say they saw
to Forrest and Ardregas at Teas Place between eleven PM
and one thirty am. Deputy Bill Hardy was shot right
in the middle of that time frame, around twelve fifty am,
four miles away at the Crown Sterling Suites hotel. People
(38:29):
like Kenyara, Dedra, Stanley Quisi, Mama Cat all remember that night.
Their corroborated statements weave together a shield. That shield should
protect to Forest and Ardregas from the accusations about to
head their way, but it doesn't. The state would arrest
(38:52):
to Forest and Ardregas, try them and seek the death
penalty against both of them for Deputy Hardy's For the
last three years, I've been trying to figure out how
this happened. I've read through thousands of pages of court
(39:15):
transcripts and investigative documents. I've done a full audit of
all the media coverage and interviewed more than eighty people,
including several who were directly involved in this investigation and prosecution,
and many who have never spoken publicly about the case.
(39:35):
I'm not trying to find the real killer of Deputy Hardy.
I'm investigating why that person was never found. One of
the first things I tried to unwind, how did to
Forrest Johnson and ardregis Ford end up at the center
of the investigation when they were somewhere else at the
(39:56):
time Deputy Hardy was killed. Here's one thing everyone agrees on.
After they leave Tea's place to Forrest and Ardregas pick
up two girls in the Monte Carlo. One sits in
the back by Ardregas's wheelchair. The other one sits between
Ardregas and to Forest in the front and that girl,
(40:20):
the one in the front seat. What she tells police
will land to Forest and Ardregas right at the center
of the investigation.
Speaker 15 (40:34):
I'm about to share his office headquarters along with Yolanda
Michelle Chambers.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
Yolanda is a black female. She's fifteen years of age.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
That's next time. Ear Witness is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
on one. Executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis,
and me Beth Shelburne. The investigative reporting for this series
(41:10):
was done by Me and MARAA McNamara. Producers are MARAA McNamara,
Hannah bal and Jackie Pawley. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer.
Brit Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from
Marie Sutton, fact check help from Katherine Newhan, and special
(41:32):
thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can
follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter at
Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from
our investigation, visit Lava for Good dot com slash Ear
witness
This is quite a wall here.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, these are some great photos.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
That's Jimmy Carter enough me, uh huh, yes, me and
Lorena Lynn.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
How did this come about?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
She was given a concert in Brini Allen.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Carry me backstage to leader.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Look at this suit that you have on.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Maybe you've never heard of Bill Baxley, but here in
Alabama he's a big deal.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
That Johnny Cash.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Baxley is eighty two, slightly balding, with silver hair and eyebrows.
In the pictures he's showing me on the wall of
his office, I see him looking younger. His hair is dark,
and he's standing with famous musicians and politicians.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
That's my daddy swearing me in for my first term.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Baxley was elected as Alabama's Attorney General when he was
just twenty eight years old. He later served as lieutenant governor,
and he's still practicing law today. During his career, Baxley
prosecuted hundreds of cases and sent three people to Alabama's
death row.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
There are some crimes that are so wrong and so
horrible that they only deserve one punishment.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
He's a lifelong defender of the death penalty, a true believer,
like when the US Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty
in the nineteen seventies, Baxley worked hard to bring executions
back to Alabama. He's that kind of true believer. So
it's not surprising that Baxley was skeptical when his son,
(01:45):
who's also an attorney, asked his dad to look over
a case because he believed an innocent man was on
death row.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Over the course of my long career, I've had dozens
and dozens answances were these I'll call them do gooders,
but they're good people. They take up there's causes of
people that have been sentenced to death, and they get
interested in trying to help them, and they all think
(02:14):
they're always innocent.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Baxley didn't even glance at the case file until weeks later.
On an icy winter morning, it was too slippery to
walk down the driveway and grab the newspaper, so he
picked up the file that his son sent him and
began reading about a black man named to Forrest Johnson,
who was sentenced to death for killing a shriff's deputy.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean, mid morning, I couldn't believe what I was reading.
I wouldn't have believed that something like this could have happened.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
What was so unbelievable about it?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Everything? Everything. I don't know how the guy got indicted,
how they got I didn't see how the jury convicted him.
I would have never believed that that could have happened
in Alabama, no question mine. This guy was not guilty
of this crime, and I couldn't comprehend how this could happen.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
There's only one other case where Basley thought the defendants
were innocent, and that case is almost one hundred years old.
So what is it about this case to Forrest's case
that convinced Backsley that Alabama is trying to execute an
innocent man's.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's a unique absurdity that I've never seen before. It's
too late to give him back all those years he's
been on death road, but it's not too late to
correct it today and get him out for the future.
It's wrong that it's gone this long. It's still not
(03:52):
too late to correct.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
My name is Beth Shelburne. Like Bill Baxley, I was
born and raised in all Obama. I grew up about
a mile away from where the crime at the center
of this story took place. I'm a journalist and writer,
and for the last three years I've been investigating the
case that rocked Bill Baxley's world. The story begins on
(04:16):
a hot July night in nineteen ninety five. It unfolds
in two places at once, the Crown Sterling Sweet's Hotel
and a nightclub that's almost four miles away called Tea's Place.
By the end of the night, one man will be
shot dead and two others will encounter someone who will
(04:37):
put them at the center of the murder investigation to
Forrest Johnson is still on death row and he's running
out of time. I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness,
Chapter one, Behind the Out.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
Yes, ma'am, this is very calling from Crowns Drilling Sweet's
Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm calling because I've had several
guests report what appears on the windows to have been
two gunshots and people running in the parking lot.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's twelve fifty five am on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 8 (05:52):
It's twenty three great fight.
Speaker 7 (05:54):
That is correct. I have security on the premises, which
is just to the county police, but I'm calling you
because i want to make sure that the Birmingham pleats arrived.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Please all right, we'll get the one out, thank you
very much. All right.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The Crown Sterling Suites Hotel was a nine story building
in Birmingham. Today the hotel is an embassy suites. Inside
the main entrance of the hotel, there's a pale tiled
walkway that leads through the lobby. The front desk is
to the left, but keep walking past it and you
enter a huge atrium, an open space surrounded by windows,
(06:36):
with an indoor garden of leafy green plants and trees.
The tiled walkway leads to a coy pond with a
fountain at the center. It's lush and humid inside, but
despite all the windows, the field is dim and moody.
Keep walking past the coy pond and there's a short
(06:59):
hall that leads to the hotel's back parking lot. It
was here outside the double doors of the Crown Sterling
Sweet's Hotel where a deputy sheriff was killed. No one
saw the murder, but a few people heard gunshots.
Speaker 10 (07:18):
I remember hearing popping noises from the distance.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Barry Rushikov was working at the front desk when he
made that nine to one one call.
Speaker 10 (07:28):
When I heard it, I believe that's when I tried
to call Officer Hardy on the radio with no response.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Officer William Hardy, who went by Bill, had been a
deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for twenty three years.
He was also a security guard at the hotel, where
he worked the night shift to make extra money. Hardy
was five foot ten, had a thin mustache, and wore
his hair in a Jerry curl. He was known to
(07:56):
be easy going and friendly. When Deputy Hardy wasn't making
hotel security rounds, Barry usually saw him wearing his brown
and tan deputy uniform, sitting at one of the tables
in the hotel's atrium, smoking more brand menthol cigarettes and
drinking coffee.
Speaker 10 (08:16):
You know, when I worked there, and when I was
working nights, it was me, you know, Officer Hardy or
whatever officer on duty, and or we would sometime have
a houseman who is cleaning floors or something, but very
minimal group and I never felt unsafe.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Barry wasn't the only person to hear the popping noises.
A few guests at the hotel also heard gunshots, including
Marshall Kelly Cummings a guest in a fourth floor room
directly above the hotel's back exit.
Speaker 11 (08:48):
I can remember like it was yesterday, ma as far
as the details.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
As I worked on this project, I started referring to
Cummings as the Keebler cookie guy, because in nineteen ninety
five he worked for Keebler as a truck driver Midfield.
Speaker 11 (09:02):
When I was with Keebler driving one of their step
vans delivering cookies and crackers and stuff, and we had.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
A Cummings was staying at the Crown Sterling for a
company training. After the workday was over, he drank a
few beers at the hotel bar with some coworkers, and
then he and the other Keepler employee he was rooming
with turned in between ten and eleven PM. But Cummings
was not asleep for long, but he.
Speaker 12 (09:29):
Just I woke up and it was I kept hearing
somebody talk kind of talk.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So you heard some voices and it sounded like they
were arguing or not.
Speaker 12 (09:39):
Really bad, but they were.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Having a conversation. Yeah it was male voices.
Speaker 12 (09:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (09:45):
Well they quit arguing and then I didn't hear anything.
So I laid back down and it probably wasn't twenty seconds,
thirty seconds, forty five.
Speaker 9 (09:55):
I'm gout.
Speaker 12 (09:55):
I didn't count boom, small caliber gun.
Speaker 11 (09:59):
They won a big caliber and I'll sudden the few
sects or the boom about the second time, I say,
up a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
That was a gun, he remembers, turning to the coworker
he was sharing a room with.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
I said, you hear that?
Speaker 12 (10:18):
He says, yeah. So I stood up and opened the
blind to get my eyes fixed because it was dark.
Then they had the lights in the last week.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Directly beneath his window, Cummings sees a four door car.
It's dark copper or light brown with a vinyl top,
parked facing the hotel's back double doors. He sees a
tall person get into the driver's side of the car,
close the door, and slowly pull away with the headlights off.
Speaker 12 (10:48):
And so I called down to the front desk. I said, hey,
there's been shots fired.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
I heard.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Did you hear that?
Speaker 10 (10:53):
I believe I got a phone call from someone in
the room saying they heard gunshots.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So Barry makes that initial nine one one call, hangs
up and decides to investigate it.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Jumped over the counter to walk back, and I was
walked back. I saw Offsta Hardy's radio.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Barry sees Deputy Hardy's radio on a table in the
hotel's atrium, and right next to it his cigarette still
burning in an ash tray. Meanwhile, back on the fourth floor,
Marshall Kelly Cummings hangs up the phone with Barry and
(11:31):
goes back to the window.
Speaker 12 (11:33):
And I kept looking, and I kept looking.
Speaker 11 (11:35):
Finally my eyes got to where I could see, and
I looked down and I could see him laying on
the ground.
Speaker 12 (11:40):
I went, oh, no, this ain't good.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Cummings spots a body on the ground and realizes someone
has been badly hurt. It's right around this time Barry
makes the same terrible discovery.
Speaker 10 (11:55):
Here's a hallway that went to the door that went
back out to the back parking lot. Turn in the
corner to go down that hallway, and I looked out
the door in the distance, I saw Offsta Hardy.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
On the ground.
Speaker 10 (12:07):
That's when I ran back to the front desk, made
an emergency phone call to the police.
Speaker 9 (12:19):
Ma'am, the spiritual cross to exist, and I have a
pit what appears to be a Juffanon County Police officer
shot in the back of our building. She ends up
moving people in a car drove away and you see
he's lying on the on the pavement. I'm a little
afraid to go up. Yes, he is a Birmingham Police Office,
(12:41):
Jefferson County. He is a hired nine time security for us.
Speaker 13 (12:46):
Right, do you know if you can.
Speaker 7 (12:47):
Sign out anything like if.
Speaker 14 (12:49):
You breathe.
Speaker 9 (12:51):
And how much blood? I'm trying, man, my, my, my promise.
I don't know if the people are still out there. Okay,
we we should be there showing that you find very much.
I'm gonna go and talk about okay, but you.
Speaker 10 (13:05):
Go.
Speaker 9 (13:05):
Jesson's Catty debut has been shot on the back.
Speaker 8 (13:08):
Entrance of the Hotel Crown show sweep.
Speaker 9 (13:12):
It is one of us, and we are they have
got one down who has been shot.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
And they said it looks great, it.
Speaker 9 (13:18):
Looks too bad. Three three two. Do we have any information?
Do we have anything on a suspect to go anywhere?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
After he makes the second nine to one one call,
Barry walks down the hallway to the back parking lot
and then I went.
Speaker 10 (13:51):
Back out the office. Already he was not a good condition.
He did have a wound to his face. He was
making a gurgling, gasping noise.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
You know, he was not conscious.
Speaker 10 (14:05):
I believe I took my jacket off, my uniform jacket off,
to try to cover him, or put under his head,
or try to comfort him. But fortunately officers arrived so
quickly and I was removed from that area immediately.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
More than a dozen officers from four different agencies arrive
at the hotel. One of them is Detective Tony Richardson,
who says he'd known Deputy Hardy since he first started
working for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 15 (14:39):
Being black and bo being black, naturally I noticed him.
I was told more than once to get a haircut.
That you know, to be a deputy Shaff, you got
to have your haircut. So the reason I mentioned that
is because from the first day that I ever.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Saw him, his hair was out to hear big afro.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
Big afro, and he would put on his hat. He
wore that hat religiously. Everybody else's the Shaff's office hated
those hats.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
They didn't want to wear him, you know, but he
always wore his hat.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Deputy Hardy often wore his traditional broad brimmed tan smoky
the bear style sheriff's hat. It was later entered as
evidence from the crime scene with a bullet hole through
the brim, and he would.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
Have it on his head and all that hair would
be on the side would be out here, And.
Speaker 15 (15:35):
I'm like, who is this guy? How can he get
away with that? And not only that, he is in
the Sheriff's office. How can he get away with that?
So I was in tree Bay him, fascinated by him,
but I was scared of him. I was scared to
meet him because I thought, of my mind, this guy's
(15:55):
got to be crazy, you know, to do that and
get away with it, He's got to be great.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I would scatter of him.
Speaker 12 (16:01):
But anyway, when I first met him, I met him
and talked to him.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
He started to feel better about well. I started to
feel better about him.
Speaker 15 (16:11):
We were never just busom buddies real close, but we
were close and we knew each other.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Tony Richardson and Bill Hardy had been colleagues at the
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for seventeen years. Richardson remembers the
last time he saw Hardy alive.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
The last day I.
Speaker 15 (16:31):
Saw Bill, my brother and I my brother would put
a sheriff's office offso and we were standing there smoking
and Bill drove out the alley and he was pulling
up twenty second and he stopped in the road and
he started to talk to us and he said, hey, guys,
hang out doing loan with some money. It's just you know,
(16:52):
stuff like that. And we laughed and talked for a minute.
And that was the last time I saw him. And
the next time I heard Bill's name was about two
o'clock in the morning when I got the call saying
and he had been shot. At that time, I was
what was considered a crimes against Persons detective, which meant
(17:13):
that I worked homicides. The lieutenant felt like because it
involved a deputy sheriff, and you know that we needed
all the help that we could get. So I got
called out.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Did you go to the actual scene?
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
What did you encounter when you got there?
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Well, by the time I got there, Bill's body was gone.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Paramedics had already lifted Bill Hardy into an ambulance and
rushed him to the emergency room of Birmingham's largest hospital.
He is gravely injured with two gunshot wounds to his head.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
And jaw.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
A medical examiner notes a bullet wound to Hardy's finger
likely means he raised his hand in a defensive posture
when he was shot. Police go to his house to
tell his wife, Patricia Diane Hardy, and bring her to
the hospital. Jim Woodward, the chief deputy in Jefferson County,
(18:15):
also rushes over when he hears that Hardy was shot.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
What do you remember about the incident?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
I got the call that Hardy had been shot, and
they told me said looked very serious. So I got
in my car and went down to the hospital. I
stood there while they were operating on me, and then
I just heard one say that's it.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
It's over.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
We can't do it anymore.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
It's over.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
We can't save him. He's gone.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
What does that feel like when you are a career
law enforcement officer?
Speaker 4 (18:49):
And well, it's kind of devastating to you. You know,
you get to know these guys, and I knew Hardy.
That's a very devastating thing that happened to you.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Deputy Bill Hardy is pronounced dead seven hours after he
was shot. The cause of death is two gunshot wounds
fired at close range. I wanted to know more about
Deputy Hardy. So I wrote to several family members inviting
them to talk. They never responded, and I can only
(19:26):
imagine his murder must be one of the hardest things
they've ever experienced. But I have learned a few things
about Deputy Hardy. He was married to Patricia Diane Hardy.
He had two children and four adult step children. Hardy
started working as a deputy in nineteen seventy two. His
(19:48):
duties included delivering subpoenas and directing traffic outside the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
You know.
Speaker 15 (20:02):
It was rough.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
It was rough.
Speaker 15 (20:04):
It's rough right now, it's a rough right This many
working homicide. I worked at bunch, but none of them
affected me like the killing of a deputy Share.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
You know, you have a bond.
Speaker 15 (20:24):
With the guys you work with in that uniform. Whether
you know them or not, you have a bond. So
when I was a deputy Share working another deputy Shaff's murder,
do you think that was emotional? Yes, it was very
and had it been my decision the day we caught
(20:48):
the people that did it, let's put them on death throat.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Lead Detective Tony Richardson and his team of investigators have
no eyewitnesses to the shooting and there's no known motive.
A fellow officer has just been shot, and they have
almost no evidence to go on. At the exact time
(21:23):
that Deputy Bill Hardy was shot, to Forrest Johnson and
his friend Ardregis Ford were four miles away from the
crime scene at a downtown Birmingham nightclub called Tea's Place,
but they would soon become the focus of Tony Richardson's investigation.
(21:57):
Just a few hours before Deputy hart Is shot, ardregas
Ford gets into the passenger side of his nineteen seventy
one black Monte Carlo. It's an old car and the
driver's side door doesn't open, so he slides over into
the driver's seat, starts the ignition, and heads out to
pick up his friend to Forrest Johnson to go to
(22:20):
a club called Teas Place. I wasn't able to interview
to Forest or Ardregas for this podcast. The Alabama Department
of Corrections doesn't allow people on death road to do
interviews with reporters like me, so I was unable to
talk to Forest directly, and Ardregas died in twenty twenty one,
(22:42):
I didn't get a chance to interview him before then.
I was able to speak to Ardregas's mother, Joyce Ford.
Speaker 13 (22:52):
That particular night. They said they was going to tease
and see he will go to teas every Tuesday and
he have his particular same parking space and everything because
he would give them good tips.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Ardregas was willing to pay for a good parking space
because he was in a wheelchair. When Ardregas was a teenager,
a group of men began shooting outside an apartment building
he was visiting. He was shot trying to shield his
cousin and her baby from gunfire.
Speaker 13 (23:24):
My son when he got shot when he was fifteen,
I had just gotten off of work. I was tied
in the phone, rang, rang, rang, and I didn't answer
the phone, you know, And I finally answered it and
they stated that he had gotten shot.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
I need to rush to the murdency room.
Speaker 13 (23:45):
That was like a dream, you know. You hear about
things happening to other people, but when it hit home,
you know. And then he got spinal cord injury.
Speaker 16 (23:55):
He got shot in the bag.
Speaker 13 (23:58):
Yeah, and he was parallel size from chest down T
four they called it.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
So that was like a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
In his early twenties, ar Dragus outfitted his Monte Carlo
with the makeshift system so he could throw his wheelchair
in the back and drive the car using just his
upper body.
Speaker 13 (24:21):
He would cut a broom you know that broomsticks. He
would put one to the brakes, one to the salator,
and he would tape it to the car. He would
tape it to it.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
So he like retro fitted his Yeah, he did.
Speaker 9 (24:37):
Did.
Speaker 13 (24:39):
He didn't buy the regular equipment that he should have used.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Ar Dragas and to Forest actually came up with this
idea together. Here's to Forrest's cousin, Antonio.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Green Dracu's was. I guess that was a pride thing.
Speaker 14 (24:53):
He didn't want the handicap accessible pedals and stuff in
his car. But as far as come up with this great,
this genius idea where they're gonna well some metal rods
to the break and accelerator pedal so he could use
his hands and dry. Well, he get to thinking about
this thing and metal rods well did from the brake
(25:14):
pedal or the accelerator. That's not too good of an
idea in case you get in the accident. He hate
to see Draga's impaled through the seat right here. So
he goes and buys two brooms out of the little
dollar store wherever, and no measurements, no, just nothing precise
about it. He just gets the broom and breaks them
(25:36):
and duct tape the sticks, one to the accelerated pedal
and one to the brake pedal so Dragas could drive
his car.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Could he get around?
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Well? I mean did he drove?
Speaker 6 (25:48):
Real?
Speaker 14 (25:48):
Well?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
It's been a while since the Forest and Ardregas have
hung out because to Forest had recently gotten out of prison.
He was arrested for driving with a suspended license, and
as officers padded him down at the city jail, he
tossed something into a nearby trash can. Officers reached into
the can and found a plastic bag of cocaine. To
(26:19):
Forest ended up pleading guilty to drug possession. To Forest
served about a year in prison, and by the night
of Hardy's murder, he'd been out about three months. To
Forest puts on jean shorts and a Tommy Hill figure
blue and white shirt, then gets into the passenger side
of Ardregis's car and they head downtown. They pull up
(26:43):
and park outside Tea's place, but it's too early to
go inside, so they hang out in the parking lot,
flirting with some girls who work at the car dealership
across the street to Forest buys a hot dog from
a cart on the sidewalk. Regulars start trickling and the
club drinking, dancing and catching up inside. There's something music
(27:07):
low lighting. It's tasty Tuesday at Teas Place, which means
women get in free.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I used to go to Teas Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Barbetta Hunt was one of the regulars who was there
that night. What was your nickname back then, Mama Cat.
That's like in the world of nicknames, that's the best name.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
The word.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
My mother, it's the purpose and my father, Fred Perkins,
they gave me that night when I was born. But
that's my name. My name is Mama Cat.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
When she was in her early twenties, Mama Cat spent
a lot of nights hanging out at Tea's Place.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
When you walk into the door, that's my spot right there,
it's on the right hand side. Every time I got
that was my spot. I see, I don't move from
this spot. I don't walk to the bag. I don't
walk there. I say, were right there. Me and my
friend Velliniciaqui Sanders.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
We were together.
Speaker 17 (28:05):
We got there before eleven because the club was always
free on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday before eleven for women.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
This is Belanique Sanders nicknamed Quisi.
Speaker 17 (28:16):
Anything after eleven it was five dollars and me and
Barbetta was very cheap, so we tried to make sure
we got there in free because the little money we
had saved. We wanted to buy something to eat and
I love to get a chicken plate from there, a
chicken breast with some French fries.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh my god, did you know Trafforst Johnson?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (28:36):
I did.
Speaker 17 (28:37):
I knew him from hanging out in the neighborhood in
Ansley and I, oh my god, I had a crush
on him.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
He was the finest.
Speaker 15 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
What do you remember about what he looked like?
Speaker 17 (28:50):
He was short, a nice body, Oh my god. Anyway,
he was a ladies man. I will say that, sweet,
always kind. He was just a nice gentleman like his
mama had raised him.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Really well, did you guys ever go out or did
he know that you had a crush on him?
Speaker 17 (29:12):
He knew I had a crush on him, but we
never went out. No, we would just see each other.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I smiled, be like, Oh that he is, I'm gonna
get him.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
To Forest mostly grew up in Birmingham's Pratt City neighborhood,
or Pratt for short.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
We grew up together, I mean closer than just cousins.
Speaker 14 (29:35):
We were like brothers because we were all pretty much
raised right in the same little local community.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
While to Forest was growing up, most of his extended
family also lived in or near Pratt, including his cousin
Antonio Green.
Speaker 14 (29:51):
And since we were toddlers, i mean babies, we were
kind of together took out in this thing, and he
was a couple of years younger than I am, so
he always kind of held on to my shirttail.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
And you know, so I've been closely connected with him
for our entire life. Pretty much.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
To Forest's mom, Donna, was seventeen when she had him,
and when to Forest was young, she was more like
a sister to him than a mother. Donna leaned on
her parents and siblings to help take care of to Forest,
and as to Forrest got older, she leaned on him
to help take care of his little brother.
Speaker 14 (30:30):
He started at a very young age, much too young
to really be faced with the type of responsibility that
he took on.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
He was at an age where he was still a kid.
Speaker 14 (30:41):
I'm talking about eleven twelve, you know, just in nirteen
years and had to take on the responsibility of taking
care of his little brother. You know, he had a
little brother that he got ready for school, he earned
his clothes, he did.
Speaker 10 (30:55):
You know.
Speaker 14 (30:56):
He's always been that caring little dude, you know, and
he he did that. So he had to take on
some things during that time.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
You know, his mom and dad was dead, but his
dad was a very very heavy drinker.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
To Forest's father, Ronald, was an alcoholic and would get
violent when he drank, which was every day. This made
home life extremely volatile for to Forrest, his younger brother,
little ron and especially his mother, Donna. She eventually left
Ronald when to Forest was a teenager and moved in
(31:30):
with another man who had an apartment in the Tuxedo
Projects in Birmingham's Insley community, also known as the Brickyard.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Oh it was called the Brickyard.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Velainique aka Queisi, the one who had a crush on
to Forest, also grew up there.
Speaker 11 (31:50):
It was rough.
Speaker 13 (31:50):
I dare you know.
Speaker 17 (31:52):
My mom had three girls, aunt had three and We
lived in a five bedroom project with our grandparents, so
it was it was just some bunch of girls in
the house. But I mean, you know, I had just
seen people get killed right in front of me. My
cousin got shot in the stummy.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You know, a lot of.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
It was rough.
Speaker 17 (32:13):
You had family's daddy couldn't afford to eat, you know,
kids come to school, you know, wearing the same clothes
over and over.
Speaker 14 (32:21):
It was rough.
Speaker 17 (32:22):
It was rough growing up in the projects.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
To Forest and his little brother moved there when to
Forest was sixteen. When he was seventeen, to Forrest was
shot and a drive by shooting and spent three months
in the hospital. To Forest's mom told me the bullet
is still lodged in his chest. During this period, seven
(32:46):
of to Forest's friends would be shot and killed. No
one was ever prosecuted for any of these crimes, and
it was around this time that to Forest dropped out
of school. Several family members tell me that at twenty two,
to Forrest was somewhat adrift. He spent his time working
(33:10):
on old cars and playing video games. He was having
a good time dating different women. He had five children
who he loved, but he was also unsettled. He hadn't
yet figured out his purpose, and he didn't know he
was running out of time. As to Forest and Ardregis
(33:59):
wait outside of Ardregas's beeper goes off a few times.
The beeps are from a girl he met a few
nights before, but he ignores her, hoping to meet someone
else inside, tees to Forrest walks toward the club's entrance
behind Ardregas and his wheelchair. They're focused on meeting girls
(34:19):
and having a good time. They don't know that this
night will change their lives, and the people they run
into don't know they're about to become alibi witnesses.
Speaker 16 (34:34):
There was a love before eleven, and we were standing
outside and they came up as far as it was
pushing to Draga's.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
One of the first people they run into is Kenyara Pickett,
who was standing near the entrance.
Speaker 16 (34:47):
I remember exactly where I was standing, right in front
of the club when he walked up, because I thought
I was shot that night out. You know, back in
the days, it was TFC wearing big clothes back then,
and I had all some black, some black big jeans
but shorts, and I had on some black and white
rebox and then I think I had on the button
down shut my sister. She had just got out of
(35:09):
the hospital. She had a blood clot and when she
got out of the hospital, we just went down there,
you know, to celebrate that.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
She came home.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
To Forrest and Ardregas make their way past Kenyara and
go into Tea's. Mama Cat and Velanik are already inside,
perched at their table right by the front door.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Tavarra Johnson, I remember he was pushing Adreka's four in
the wheelchair. They came together.
Speaker 17 (35:33):
I had saw too far, was pushing a Draca's in
the club. Because we always standing at the front by
the door so we can be nosy and see everything.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
You wanted to see who was coming in and who
was leaving with who?
Speaker 17 (35:47):
Yes, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 8 (35:50):
About eleven o'clock I saw Tafarest come in pushing Ondrega's
in and I was excited to seeing him because I
hadn't seen him in year because I had just got
out the military.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Stanley Chandler is also at Tease that night to catch
up with friends. He and to Forrest knew each other
as kids and Pratt, so we.
Speaker 8 (36:08):
Stood there and we start we talked, you know, about
old times, you know, and I mean we joked, laying
and laugh.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
To Forrest and Ardregus settle in at a table chatting
with people who stopped by watching the dance floor.
Speaker 18 (36:26):
I was sitting on the bathroom because when you go around,
it's like a little balcony part that you could sit at.
And so I seen Draca's and to Forest when they
came in the door, because he was pushing them in
a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
This is Dedra Carter, who was celebrating getting released from
the hospital with her sister Kenyara. Dedra was also at
teas that night.
Speaker 18 (36:48):
And him and my cousin Mona and my sister all
Us was just there talking and you know, I think
Tofarres liked it Mona, so you know, he was trying
to hook up with her, but she went no, she
wouldn't never hook up with him. We used to laugh, talk, joking,
like even we at the club music playing, we're still
cracking up, you know, you know, just talking and stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
To Forrest SIPs a long Island iced tea and orders
our dragas up brandy and coke. At one point, to
Forrest goes back to the bar because Dragas says his
drink is too weak and the bartender makes him a
new one. They linger at the club into the early
hours of Wednesday morning.
Speaker 18 (37:29):
When I said we would probably ship the club now
we was there. I know it's probably like they used
to close about maybe one two o'clock, so we would
leave right right before that.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So I know it was like maybe one.
Speaker 8 (37:44):
I ain't leaving the club roughly about I'm gonna say
around about right at one. And like I said, he
was standing across the club. You know, you could see
him because I mean, it wasn't a big, big club,
you know. And I just said to do signs up
and I left.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
And he was still there.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, I left.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
There are at least ten people who say they saw
to Forrest and Ardregas at Teas Place between eleven PM
and one thirty am. Deputy Bill Hardy was shot right
in the middle of that time frame, around twelve fifty am,
four miles away at the Crown Sterling Suites hotel. People
(38:29):
like Kenyara, Dedra, Stanley Quisi, Mama Cat all remember that night.
Their corroborated statements weave together a shield. That shield should
protect to Forest and Ardregas from the accusations about to
head their way, but it doesn't. The state would arrest
(38:52):
to Forest and Ardregas, try them and seek the death
penalty against both of them for Deputy Hardy's For the
last three years, I've been trying to figure out how
this happened. I've read through thousands of pages of court
(39:15):
transcripts and investigative documents. I've done a full audit of
all the media coverage and interviewed more than eighty people,
including several who were directly involved in this investigation and prosecution,
and many who have never spoken publicly about the case.
(39:35):
I'm not trying to find the real killer of Deputy Hardy.
I'm investigating why that person was never found. One of
the first things I tried to unwind, how did to
Forrest Johnson and ardregis Ford end up at the center
of the investigation when they were somewhere else at the
(39:56):
time Deputy Hardy was killed. Here's one thing everyone agrees on.
After they leave Tea's place to Forrest and Ardregas pick
up two girls in the Monte Carlo. One sits in
the back by Ardregas's wheelchair. The other one sits between
Ardregas and to Forest in the front and that girl,
(40:20):
the one in the front seat. What she tells police
will land to Forest and Ardregas right at the center
of the investigation.
Speaker 15 (40:34):
I'm about to share his office headquarters along with Yolanda
Michelle Chambers.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
Yolanda is a black female. She's fifteen years of age.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
That's next time. Ear Witness is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
on one. Executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis,
and me Beth Shelburne. The investigative reporting for this series
(41:10):
was done by Me and MARAA McNamara. Producers are MARAA McNamara,
Hannah bal and Jackie Pawley. Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer.
Brit Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from
Marie Sutton, fact check help from Katherine Newhan, and special
(41:32):
thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can
follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter at
Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from
our investigation, visit Lava for Good dot com slash Ear
witness
Host
Beth Shelburne
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