April 9, 2024 • 43 mins
Episode 5 of 10
Derrick Hamilton, champion of the wrongfully convicted, claimed innocence since the day he was arrested by Scarcella. He claimed innocence in a previous murder conviction as well. But we uncover documents that show he lied. He admits to being a liar. So… was he framed? Or is he the master manipulator the prosecution claimed?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden as well
as the number one true crime podcast, My Friend The
Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
(00:22):
which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
to share this story of a man who fought the
law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Louis Scarcela
(00:44):
of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh,
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Previously on The Burden, Derek came to Auburn.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
How many of you guys know what a burden prove
was a four forty motion? Nobody knows in the law library.
Is when I learned that Scott Seller is his cop
and I say, damn man, it's the same fucker that
train me. You, Me and Derek all three of us
in the law library. We'd be able to run.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It like it's a real law firm.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Scott's soler the kids to run around.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thank He's God.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I got a problem with that. I would die before
I met killing somebody didn't kill.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
That's Derek Hamilton, legal savant and convicted murderer. It's two
thousand and nine and he has a parole hearing coming
up at that exact moment. Derek is forty four years
old and has been in prison most of his adult life.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I was in some of the toughest prison in the
state and about the water being black, like totally black,
totally totally black. For days, I was swing Litigayden.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Derek would file grievances, sue for better food, claimed to
be Jewish at one point so he could get the
kosher meals. He fought a disciplinary ticket issued because he
had a picture of a topless woman. Derek claimed that
that was not explicitly prohibited in the manual of conduct. Eventually,
(02:31):
the prison threw him in involuntary protective custody. It's solitary,
but without a release date. They said it was for
his protection. They claimed members of the Blood's gang were
after him. Derek protested that he didn't need protection. He
claimed that it was retaliation by the prison for all
(02:52):
of his grievances.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
In Derek's mind, there were only two ways out of prison.
One was to admit to a er he claims he
didn't do, show remorse in front of the parole board.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
You gotta say you killed this guy. If you don't,
you're never getting out of prison.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Or the other option.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Was that I had to leave prison in a box.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Storm cloud of comments common straight to you can't run
for shelter. There's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm Dax Devlin Ross.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And I'm Steve Fishman. Welcome to the Burden. In this
episode The Derek Dilemma.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Derek Hamilton and Louis Scarcela names forever linked.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Derek became Louis nemesis.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Louis was the story detective and Derek the marginalized convict.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
But Derek, he also had a couple of.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Things going for him, his relentlessness and his growing credibility.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
His credibility, yes, that was a key. What happens to
that credibility when Derek admits he's a manipulator and a liar.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Derek was a violent guy.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
God like God when it comes to criminal law, A
man whose mind is like a human legal computer.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
He had a reputation on the street. People you know
wouldn't fuck with Derek.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I don't think it. I owe anybody the truth against
my interest.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I don't know how many people he killed. You got
a hold all time.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Around the time Louis Scarcela was starting his rise as
a cop in the late seventies, Derek was a kid
in a working class part of Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I should liked the West suits. As a kid, my
favorite was a quarter Ways shoe. Wasn't my favorite light
Quarterways shoe and a brown collar. Hey brother's laugh, you know,
and Sudie you know. But that was my identity. It
made me feel good, like I was empowered, like I
can run the world.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
He got a reputation for being smart.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I mean when he came to reading comprehension, it's weird
icel So in those days, I got a suit on.
I'm going to the spelling bee. I'm going to be
the smartest guy in that spelling bee. I'm feeling, you know,
like I'm gonna take the spelling me.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
He says he was so good at them that the
school stopped letting him participate. After Derek's family fell on
hard times, they moved to a project in Brooklyn called
Lafayette Gardens. It was like a small town, seven high rises,
almost a thousand departments.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Many of the residents were poor. It was a big
change for Derek.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You got a pay of sneakers or basketball. The housing
projects I came from. When you went downstairs with some
kid or whatever, try to take him from you. As
you get older, you realize that there's some older guys
that can fight. There's some older guys that's taking stuff.
These guys can fight the ass or It seemed like
these guys would just just live to fight, you know,
(06:49):
so you have to get it on a delly.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
One summer day, Derek was in a Brooklyn park around
nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
He's just entered his teens.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
The early days of hip hop DJ's were popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
They were Park James Sins, they were called. At the time.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
People were out all night long dancing and Derek was
among them.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I ran into our young brother.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Man God by the name of Baby Popper, who was
one of the flyers. Guys you would see riding minibody.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Had they can't go at man.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
This dude was just fly.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
He got a raggedy twenty two pistol to me, rubber bands.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
You gotta put rubber rams around.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
It, man, to shoot this thing.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So this guy, you gotta put rubber bands around it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
To shoot him.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Shooting up in the head.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And chasing everybody out of the park gym. But for
that moment, you see as a young kid, like damn,
people were really scared. So a whole level of power
comes to your mom because you said, all these mothers.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Tough, but all I'm tough, motherfucker. The fight was running.
I'm not gonna get beat up no more. At fifteen
years old, Derek robbed a man coming out of a
check cashing store. The spelling bee chap was going gangster.
Suddenly the toughest people in the neighborhood started looking up
to him.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I was a terrible kid at seventeen years old. If
you gave me your cost, Steve, you wouldn't get in it.
Back in his.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
View, it was all dumb adolescent shit. It was peer pressure, situational,
not a verdict on his character.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I make no excuse for it, but these are things
that was going on my community.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
One day at a park, Jim Derek was talking to
some girls.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Next thing I know, I see these guys with guns
out and they approaching.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I got a gun a shoe.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
He hit someone in the leg. On other days he
wondered if he was the next target.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I used to say this prayer when I was a kid,
and I used to get away with a lot of stuff.
I'll be honest with you times when I figured I
should have been dead, that I was alive. Damn. His
prayer must work, and the prayers for protection, Saint Michael
ar change you. The fame of my time of battle
against the wickedness stays of the devil.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Father Jesus, pray for me.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's the prayer.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
It's a simple prayer.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And when you think about it, the devil who's that.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
This is the people who attempt to lock you up.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
I dealt with notorious drug dealers from Brownsville, East, New York, Bedford, Styde.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
They all knew Derek.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Joe Ponzie was chief investigator for the Brooklyn DA's office.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Derek was a violent guy, and Derek had a real
tough reputation on the street. The Hamilton Brothers were known
as drug dealers in that area at that time.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Joe Ponzie worked closely with his friend, Detective Louis Scarcella. Well,
what else do you want me to tell you about
Derek Hamilton. Louis once joke Derek killed more people than
small box. He probably did. I mean, that's just an
expression that I use. But he wrote his book. The
book it was actually Derek's sisters book. She called it
(10:10):
Don't let your Elevator Get stuck on Stupid. It was
supposed to scare kids straight. There's one chapter about Derek's
life written under his name. He signed off on it
from Attica prison. Louis often talks about this book to him.
It reveals the true Derek Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Here's an excerpt for you. My name became a permanent
part of the ghetto gossip. All the guys challenged me,
and I always won the battles. He wrote, Committing crimes
became my favorite pastime.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I was crime and it was me.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wow, I was crime and it was me. His identity
in this book is completely wrapped up in being a gangster.
And remember this is about his teenage.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Later, Derek tried to distance himself from the book told
us another inmate ghost wrote it and exaggerated for effect.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It was a scripted book designed to keep young kids
from going to prison. But it's not going to always
give you the true story because he's characterizing things with
the perception of scaring a kid.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
And yet in the chapter's final passage, Derek says, I
pray that God. God's any of you young ones reading
this to take my words for what they are truths.
There's another crime Derek mentions in this book. This one
stands out. He was seventeen at the time, and according
to the book, he robbed a bread truck at gunpoint.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Derek was fighting with the driver for the money.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
In the book, he says he ordered to accomplices to
shoot the man. But when we asked him about the
bread truck driver, Derek told us something very different.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I was not dead at all.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
That's in a minute.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Here's the story, and it comes from a March nineteen
eighty three edition of the New York Daily News. A
bread delivery man mortally wounded in an apparent robbery attempt
in Brooklyn yesterday managed to drive his truck two blocks
a gaspout and account of the attack to the police
before he died. The robbery took place near Lafayette Gardens
(12:42):
and Derek was seventeen at the time, so he pleads
not guilty, and at that point he's assigned an attorney.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Her name Candice Kurtz.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
Don't forget our system is you're innocent until proven guilty.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
At his murder trial, a key witness against Derek is
a childhood friend, Patricia. The trial is on a break
when Candice goes to the bathroom, someone comes in behind her.
It's Patricia talking about Bush, Derek Hamilton's nickname.
Speaker 8 (13:15):
I was in the lady bathroom.
Speaker 7 (13:17):
She was crying, she was upset, she was scared.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
I was telling the lady that the cops tried to
make me say that Bush did it.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
She told Candace the story.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
It was we in the morning. I don't know what time,
but it was trying to turn light on me. The
cops stopped me, a whole lot of cops three edom
was asking me different questions and I'm looking like like
I don't know which one to answer, telling me I
know that I seen him, and da da da da
da da. I'm like, I didn't see Bush. That was
the whole problem. That's what they wanted me to say,
(13:53):
that I seen busch. I didn't see bus.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The cops took her to the precinct.
Speaker 8 (13:59):
They just kept he yeah, just nine oh hours that
I will never, never forget. I wanted to go home,
so I told them what exactly they said. I wrote
down every word they say. I sing bus outside, it's
a boy the bread truck.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
I walked back in the courtroom and I asked a
judge if I could talk to him in the DA
in private. So he went to the judges chambers and
I told him that we had a problem, that it
looked like there was police intimidation and the witness didn't
want to testify. Judge Lombardo gets up from behind his
(14:45):
desk and comes around and he puts his arms around me,
I mean, and a tight hug, and he speaks into
my ear and he says, and he called me Candy.
So he said, Candy, just take it easy, just calm down.
We both know who this guy is, we both know
(15:07):
he's guilty, so can't you just calm down and let
us go? And I was like, you know, I was
so anxious, and so my heart was pounding, and finally
I just said no, I can't. I just can't. I
(15:30):
can't sell my client down the river.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Candice isn't going to back down, and so now the
judge has to go back to the courtroom and find
out if Derek forced Patricia to recan't. The prosecution cannot
provide any evidence of this, so the judge waivers.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He's thinking about throwing the case out. But then we
come back to court the very next and the judge
says that he thought about this all night, that it
troubled him, that it deeply bothered him, and that he
changing his.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
Ruling, and the judge basically just said, I don't care.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
The judge basically decides that the only possible explanation for
Patricia's recantation is that Derek threatened her. There's no evidence
of this, but the judge concludes the cops would never
do that, and so the jury never hears anything about
Patricia's recantation. Candice turns to Derek. He's sitting next to
(16:36):
her at the defense table. He's seventeen at the time.
She gives him a piece of advice.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Says to me, kid, get your head out your ass.
I want you to understand what's going on here. I
want you to know what they're doing in your life.
And I said, damn, they are railroad in me. And
at that moment I was awoken.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
The jury convicted Derek.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
At his sentencing, this judge likened Derek to quote a
piece of garbage and sent him away for twenty five
years to life.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Candice had some more advice for Derek. Take matters into
your own hands.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
She empowered me to be able to know that by
studying the law and understanding what's going on, it puts
you in a position to be able to fight back.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
A few years into his sentence, Derek wrote his own appeal.
He'd immersed himself in the law by this point, and
it worked. Four years after his conviction, an appeals court
ruled that the judge acted on speculation and conjecture and
violated Derek Hamilton and his constitutional rights.
Speaker 7 (18:02):
His conviction was overturned on appeal, and he came out
of prison.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Derek took a plea, got parole, and suddenly was out
in the world, but not for long. Louis Scarcella was
about to enter Derek Hamilton's life. I went up, I
got very close to him.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I said, you're going back.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
LG.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
That's in a moment.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I was in the process of opening a unisection on
New Haven and police officers stormed the interest of the door.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Derek is out of prison, but he hasn't quite left
behind his old ways. About a month into his parole,
he shot a drug dealer in Connecticut. But on the
day Scarcella burst through the door there about another shooting and.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I came in and threw me on a wall. And
while I was on the wall, Scarsella came up, just
me on a cheek and said, LG, motherfucker.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
I didn't kiss him.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I went up. I got very close to him.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I said, you're going back to LG.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Told me I was being arrested for the death of
the Danil Cash.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Not far from LG. That's the Lafiat Gardens housing project.
A man has been shot to death. Louis Scarcella had investigated,
and he was now armed with an arrest warrant.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
When we get to the precinct and he got five
winn and says, you know, he got a big story.
And I'm listening to this guy and I'm just saying
it's impossible. I was in the waving you couldn't have
one winness that.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Only five, Just as in the previous case, Derek maintains
he wasn't even there.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
For Detective Scarcella, this was an easy case, and Louis
was thankful for that. The year of the Nathaniel Cash murder,
the new You're post the parts of Brooklyn a killing ground.
A murder was reported every sixty three hours. Detective Scarseller
was thrilled that this investigation wrapped up so quickly. It
(20:15):
wasn't that who done it. There was a witness who
identified as the shooter.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Louis, he has someone who's willing to testify that Derek
did it. The witness's name is Jewel Smith.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
So this wasn't even a big case for you. No, well,
it was a murder, you know what I'm saying. But
it was done like that. Yeah, there was no wa
Jewel comes in. She's yes, her eyewitness testimony had done.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Louis arrived at the scene of the crime.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
There's a dead guy, Ned Cash in his pajamas, a
robe and slippers. He's face down in a pool of
his own blood on the sidewalk near the curb, which
is fifteen or so feet from the apartment building where
he's staying the location of the body will later prove
a crucial detail. Scarcela testified that he found a shellcasing
on the body.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Jules Smith, the eyewitness, had spent the night at Nate
Cash's apartment. She's his girlfriend of two weeks. Derek knew
Nate Cash two he was dating the mother of Nate
Cash's child. Small World. A few hours later, Jules in
front of an assistant district attorney giving her account of
(21:26):
the murder. We got hold of her recorded statement.
Speaker 7 (21:30):
My name's Thomas Musield, playing a newsild.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Speak to miss Jules Smith.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Today's date January fourth, nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
Miss Smith, you mentioned an detective.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Earlier that you were with net in the night before.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
Just pick up from there and telling what you remember
about last night and.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
Today when you were with my last light right.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, that's the original audio from nineteen ninety one, and
as you can tell, it's scratching hard to understand Jewel's testimony,
so we hired an actor to read Juwel Smith's words.
She's talking about the victim, her boyfriend Nick Cash.
Speaker 9 (22:20):
So while he was calling me a cab, I was
putting on my sneakers and then you know the cab
came because they said five minutes, so then they came.
So by that time, he put on his road to
walk me downstairs to the cab like he always did.
And when we went downstairs, I was walking in front
(22:41):
and he was on the side of me. And that's
when I observed Bush also known as Derek Hamilton, stepped
around the banister and he comes step and asked me
where Nate at? And Nate was like right here, I mean,
(23:03):
he just start firing and shooting, shooting, shooting.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
From Derek's point of view, Jewel is another Patricia, another
witness who, after talking to the cops, somehow says he
committed a murder.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
He swears he didn't do.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Like why would this person come in today and lie.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Derek had known Jewel for years. They lived a few
floors apart in LG and they'd been in contact since
his arrest for the Nate Cash murder. From jail, Derek
even writes her love letters. She responds. She assures him
of her devotion, her loyalty. Once she wrote, I've never
(23:48):
had anyone make love to my mind. Sure reads like romance.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
This manipulation, this manipulation. I want to know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Then the day the trial in July nineteen ninety one,
Derek is seated at the defendant's table when Jewel walks
to the witness stand.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
So when I see her coming in looking dishevel, not
looking like herself, looking totally dishovel, I know something was wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I sain't right.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
And she repeats the statement that she made to the
DA the one where she saw Derek shoot and shoot
and shoot and kill Nate Cash. What's more, she testifies
that she was afraid of Derek Hamilton those love letters.
The only reason she reciprocated was to not anger him.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
What is going on here? I mean, could this really
be a case of the system finding two witnesses on
two different occasions who are willing to provide testimony against
an innocent Derek Hamilton, this time, of course involving Detective
Luis Carcela.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Amazingly over my case, he was the detective from the
Book of North Homicide. He makes her into a witness,
He makes Jules Smith into a witness.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Wow, I'd love to hear Jules point of view on
all this.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's for another episode for Right now, Derek's at the
defense table and he still thinks he has a chance.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I was still confident that I would walk out of
the court loowner.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He could be established that she's alive, as she made
separate in consistant statements.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Then Detective Louis Scarcella takes the stand.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
A first grade detective coming in, or a guy with charisma,
a guy looks like at that time, a you know,
he looked at like a real Italian stallion at that time,
you know, shot mustache, he looked a good and he
was appillable to jurors. And he took the and said
(26:00):
that Juice Smith called him one day and said she
was afraid to rid the grand jury, that her grandmother
know me, and that I was a killer that killed
people my entire life.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Moster jury heard that my fate was seeming.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
There was no way that I was walking out of
that courtroom.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Was he good?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Very good, very good, very very good, very good, compelling,
And you gotta look at what they didn't believe in
ju Smith. They believe un now because you have a
first grade detective corroborating.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
It, first grade Detective Louis Garcella. He is confident in
his version. I believe he's guilty of killing the Daniel Cash.
I believe the district attorney believes he's guilty. I believe
the city believes he's guilty.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
And on that point Louis there was also the judge
and the jury. They all agreed that Derek was guilty.
Derek Hamilton was sentenced to prison from murder again and again,
given twenty five years to life's right.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
And the prosecutor they're so flaring, they're they're so theatrical
that people get.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Lost in the hype.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
You ever hear the storm of public goaa.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
We don't believe the height, but the hepens.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
What gives us convicted.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's not the etherde it's the height that these people
are bad and he need to be removed from society.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
This is what sent us to jail, not the facts
of the case.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Which brings us back to two thousand and nine. Derek's
been in prison eighteen years for the murder of Nate
Cash and he's up for parole. To get parole, he's
being told he needs to admit to a murder. He
says he didn't commit and that he vows he will
not do. He's still in solitary until the warden says
(28:10):
he can leave, which won't be any time soon. In solitary,
it's beginning to wear him down.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
When you're stuck in a cell with all you hear
is noise, it makes banging and screaming and yelling and
throwing feces and urine and flooding the gallery. It's chaos
every single hour because you got a bunch of mentally
ill people locked themselves and just can't cope.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Every day, every day, every day, it takes its toll
on you.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So I'm starting to go to the parole board depressed
and being told that there is no hope for you ever,
and the only advice is to chet responsibility for your crime.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I was just tie it. You know, you fight so
hard and so you get to the points.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You know, I'm tired of shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I'm tired of it. You know I gave up for
a moment.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
After two decades behind bars, Derek hand writes a memo
to this prison superintendent two, Superintendent Smith from Derek Hamilton,
subject suicide. Note It reads, death will be a welcome
companion compared to the torture you have subjected me to.
(29:33):
I hope you are one day tortured like you have
tortured me. That same day, Derek is in his cell
when a corrections counselor passes by, He too, will write
a memo.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
At approximately eighth one a m. It begins inimate was
extremely emotional and upset, stating I went out of here.
He turned his lights off and went under his mattress
and pulled out a white plastic bag. I then observed
him placing his hand to his mouth, followed by bottled water.
(30:08):
Subjects sat down. He appeared disoriented. I observed his legs
shaking as I called his name, but got no response.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Derek is rushed to a local hospital. He wakes up
shackle to a gurney. Three guards are standing by him,
and I.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Was told him they got to kill me today, like
today is the day that I die because I refuse
to go back to that's uh and be treated like that.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
It's because of the suicide attempt that Derek is eventually
transferred to Auburn Correctional It's there he will connect with
Nelson and Shabaka to help found the actual innocence team,
and it's there that he'll finally go before the parole board.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I pour over the transcripts of parole hearings. Each time,
Derek consists he'd only proceed if the parole board hears
evidence of his actual innocence. Each time, the board refuses
and the hearing is adjourned, until finally Derek decides to
play ball. He submits letters of recommendation evidence that he
(31:20):
won't be a menace to society. He finally goes to
a full hearing. What happened there was so surprising that
I remember exactly where I was when I read about it.
I'm with my family in the living room. They're watching
Rick and Morty. I'm not paying attention. I'm reading the transcript.
(31:42):
The board goes through his crimes one by one. It
takes a while. The board gets to the bread truck murder,
the one he was found guilty of when he was eighteen.
Another murder Derek insists he did not commit, and reading
about that, I came across something I couldn't believe. I
thought it was a typo. Derek was talking about the
(32:05):
bread truck driver, the murder victim. Here's what I read.
He was a hard working man and it was a shame,
you know that he was robbed, And I took a life,
and I apologized for that. I can never take that back.
That was a stupid thing I did as a kid,
and I'm ashamed of it. DA's when I read this,
(32:31):
I figured I had to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Yeah, And I remember like not necessarily knowing what to
do with it right away. You know, I was invested
at that point in a completely different narrative the one
he had been telling us for so long, which was
that he wasn't even there. And so all I remember
being left with was the question of had he lied
to us?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, I mean he lied to somebody. I don't know.
I was confused. I found myself thinking about Candace Kurts,
you know, his lawyer in the first murder. She had
stood by his side, she had put her credibility on
the line. Frankly, I felt betrayed. I wondered if she would.
Speaker 7 (33:13):
Too, Okay, mess game starting.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I found Candace Kurtz retired on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan. She'd been a legal aid attorney for three decades,
lived in the same rent stabilized apartment all that time.
She's considerate. She locks up her cat me owing is
not good for recording. I have the transcript of that
parole hearing. Wow, Yeah, he admits to the first murder,
(33:47):
to the bread truck murder.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
What do you think of that?
Speaker 7 (33:53):
It doesn't surprise me that he did it. I don't
know why he'd admit to it, but I guess he's
supposed to admit, to take responsibility for things so that
he can get out.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
So it doesn't surprise you he did it.
Speaker 7 (34:07):
No, and it wouldn't surprise me he didn't do it.
We know now that he was not guilty, but that's
not innocent, right. Not guilty means a lack of proof.
I can't prove to you that he's innocent, but I
can show you that he's not guilty. Well, so he
(34:34):
did it. How does that make you feel? It makes
me feel shitty.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I want to believe that he was franked.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
Why do you want to believe that? I mean, what
the police did in his case were atrocious and supposedly
we have a society that you can't do that and
you can't get away from that. And I think the
Defendants Guild is kind of irrelevant in the whole picture
of what our system is supposed to be. Like, you know,
(35:11):
some guilty people will go free if our system is
working properly.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
So who is Derek? Is he a murderer? Is he
a murderer? Even when he protests that he's not, he
told the parole board he was. He told us he wasn't.
We had to ask Derek about this, so we brought
him back to the studio.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
With switching gears. Switching gears, switching gears, switching gears.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
What you hold to be true, and what you claim
to this day as you sit here across from is
that you were not there, You were not involved. You know.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
What I claim to be true was that I had
nothing to do with James wolf death.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Okay, right, But as a condition for you getting out,
one of the conditions was that you had to admit
to not true. Not true? Okay, so talk to it.
So I guess we want to just we do a
little bit of the read, right, Is it okay?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
If I read?
Speaker 8 (36:15):
All?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
So I start reading the transcript from the parole Here,
I'm reading Derek his own words.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Back to him.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
You know, I was young, ignorant individual at that time.
I was living in an anti social community and I
just did a lot of wrong things. You know, question,
who was the victim in that case answer, mister James Wolf,
I'll never forget that name. He was a hard working
(36:46):
man and it was a shame. You know that he
was robbed and I took a life, and I apologize
for that. I can never take that back. That was
a stupid thing I did as a kid, and I'm
ashamed of it. So help us make sense of that.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
What is that you're reading from?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
First of all, this.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Is from the parole hearing from twenty eleven, So this
is the October eighteenth to twenty eleven parole here.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Okay, so let me tell you this. Right, One of
the things you got to remember that when you go
to parole, they want you to be remonseful. I was
told that that in order to get out, you gotta
go in and parole officill tall you this all the time.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
So I was remonseful. Right, I was remonsful.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
But I know I didn't commit that crime, and I
probably did say that to get out of prison.
Speaker 9 (37:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I don't recall saying it, but I'm willing to bet
that if the parole officer told me I had to
share remors to get out, I'm gonna say whatever. I
gotta get it out. Because I was a young kid, right,
I was a young kid.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Meaning you were not in twenty eleven. You weren't a
young kid in that.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I wasn't twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
This is twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
That's not two thousand eleven.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It's twenty eleven. Well, you know what, you may be
right thousand.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You may be right, and I may have said that
in twenty eleven to not fight them about something that
I already had.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Right, they're only asking for his name, James Wolf, and
you're going to say, I'll never forget the name. He
was a hard working man. Was a shame, you know
that he was robbed. And I cried, be clear about that.
And I cried.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
But I didn't just say that.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
I cried.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
I gave them tears with it. I'm being real with you.
It was theatrical, right. I wanted to get home if
I can't convince these RinkyDink parole.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
But people, let me go out.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Your stay in prison, right, Parole is a show to
get out. Understand what I'm telling you, right, it is
a show to get out.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
We're not trying to ambush you know, that's not what
we're doing here. I am going to register that I
am feeling a different energy that you have related to this, right,
I'm gaving them to some different energy.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
What's that about for you? Like, well, I just told you.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Whatever energy you gather, that's your perception.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Okay, But look, man, be in my.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Position, right, serve twenty one years in prison and trying
to get out, right, I would tell a parole board
anything to get out with a lot of them, Absolutely,
I would a lot of them in a heartbeat, us
a warmth proceeding. See, I can admit to doing some
things to make it look good, right, you gotta look,
I'm calculated when it comes to certain things.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Dave.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I get it. Listen, I get it. It's worth doing
just about anything to get out of prison. Of course
it is. And to be clear, Derek is admitting to
the bread truck murder. He does not admit to the
Pearl Board that he killed Nate Cash. But still we've
put a lot of stock in Derek's credibility, in his word,
(39:32):
in his statement that he is innocent of the Nate
Cash murder. And now he's saying lying is a tool,
a legit tool that he'll use whenever necessary, which is
pretty much Scarcella's view of him. Somebody's going to say, well,
Derek Hamilton will lie when it's in his interest.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Absolutely listen to me. I think a person that wouldn't
lie when the dangest is a fool. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
The lie worked if it was a lie. After twenty
one years in prison, the parole board voted to let
Derek Hamilton back into society.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
He called his wife and I said, Yo, I'm coming home.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
But DA's We still had some questions, like Derek had
made us wonder, at least me wonder if he lied
about one murder, could he lie about another?
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I mean so did he really do it kill Nate Cash?
Should he have been found guilty.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
We'll get to that. We're going to get to the
bottom of whether Derek is guilty of killing Nate Cash.
But first Derek has some unfinished business.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Next time on the Burden, Derek's leaving prison.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
He's also leaving behind Schabacco, his partner in the jailhouse
law firm.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
What then guys going home and they forget, you know,
they forget the guys they leave behind.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I said, do not forget me, and he was like, I.
Speaker 9 (41:19):
Got you.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Stone cloud of comment commonstrate too.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You can't run for shelter.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
There's nothing you can do. The Burden is created by
Steve Fishman.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and myself, Dax
Devlyn Ross. Our story editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our senior
producer is Simon Rittner. Our producer is Snam Skelly. Our
associate producer is Austin Smith. Our fact checker is Sona Avakian.
Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise. Mixing and sound design
is provided by Mumbo. Mediative produces are Fisher, Stevens, Steve
(42:02):
Fishman and Evan Williams. Additional production help has been provided
by Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Brauner, Lucy Souchek, Drew Nellis,
Micah Hazel, Priscilla A labby Saxon Baird, Katie Simon and
Katie Springer. We want to give us special thanks to
Ellen Horn, Zach Stewart, Pontier, Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe to
(42:25):
buy a Black, Rachel Morrissey, Mark Smirling and Lila Robinson.
Special thanks to Marcy Wiseman. We want to thank our
agents Ben Davis and Marissa Horowitz. Legal support has been
provided by Mona Hook at MKSR ll P, and a
very special thanks to Evan Williams, one of our executive
producers and the person who made this podcast possible. We
(42:48):
are honored to feature the song The Lacklightning from the
Bell Rays is our theme music. The Burden is a
production of Orbit Media and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Season two of The Burden Empire on Blood will be
available everywhere you get your podcasts on August seventh. All
episodes will be available early and ad free, along with
exclusive bonus content on Orbit's newly launched True Crime Clubhouse,
a subscription channel on Apple Podcasts. It's only two ninety
(43:36):
nine a month.
Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden as well
as the number one true crime podcast, My Friend The
Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
(00:22):
which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
to share this story of a man who fought the
law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Louis Scarcela
(00:44):
of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh,
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Previously on The Burden, Derek came to Auburn.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
How many of you guys know what a burden prove
was a four forty motion? Nobody knows in the law library.
Is when I learned that Scott Seller is his cop
and I say, damn man, it's the same fucker that
train me. You, Me and Derek all three of us
in the law library. We'd be able to run.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It like it's a real law firm.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Scott's soler the kids to run around.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thank He's God.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I got a problem with that. I would die before
I met killing somebody didn't kill.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
That's Derek Hamilton, legal savant and convicted murderer. It's two
thousand and nine and he has a parole hearing coming
up at that exact moment. Derek is forty four years
old and has been in prison most of his adult life.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I was in some of the toughest prison in the
state and about the water being black, like totally black,
totally totally black. For days, I was swing Litigayden.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Derek would file grievances, sue for better food, claimed to
be Jewish at one point so he could get the
kosher meals. He fought a disciplinary ticket issued because he
had a picture of a topless woman. Derek claimed that
that was not explicitly prohibited in the manual of conduct. Eventually,
(02:31):
the prison threw him in involuntary protective custody. It's solitary,
but without a release date. They said it was for
his protection. They claimed members of the Blood's gang were
after him. Derek protested that he didn't need protection. He
claimed that it was retaliation by the prison for all
(02:52):
of his grievances.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
In Derek's mind, there were only two ways out of prison.
One was to admit to a er he claims he
didn't do, show remorse in front of the parole board.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
You gotta say you killed this guy. If you don't,
you're never getting out of prison.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Or the other option.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Was that I had to leave prison in a box.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Storm cloud of comments common straight to you can't run
for shelter. There's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm Dax Devlin Ross.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And I'm Steve Fishman. Welcome to the Burden. In this
episode The Derek Dilemma.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Derek Hamilton and Louis Scarcela names forever linked.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Derek became Louis nemesis.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Louis was the story detective and Derek the marginalized convict.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
But Derek, he also had a couple of.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Things going for him, his relentlessness and his growing credibility.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
His credibility, yes, that was a key. What happens to
that credibility when Derek admits he's a manipulator and a liar.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Derek was a violent guy.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
God like God when it comes to criminal law, A
man whose mind is like a human legal computer.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
He had a reputation on the street. People you know
wouldn't fuck with Derek.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I don't think it. I owe anybody the truth against
my interest.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I don't know how many people he killed. You got
a hold all time.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Around the time Louis Scarcela was starting his rise as
a cop in the late seventies, Derek was a kid
in a working class part of Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I should liked the West suits. As a kid, my
favorite was a quarter Ways shoe. Wasn't my favorite light
Quarterways shoe and a brown collar. Hey brother's laugh, you know,
and Sudie you know. But that was my identity. It
made me feel good, like I was empowered, like I
can run the world.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
He got a reputation for being smart.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I mean when he came to reading comprehension, it's weird
icel So in those days, I got a suit on.
I'm going to the spelling bee. I'm going to be
the smartest guy in that spelling bee. I'm feeling, you know,
like I'm gonna take the spelling me.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
He says he was so good at them that the
school stopped letting him participate. After Derek's family fell on
hard times, they moved to a project in Brooklyn called
Lafayette Gardens. It was like a small town, seven high rises,
almost a thousand departments.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Many of the residents were poor. It was a big
change for Derek.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You got a pay of sneakers or basketball. The housing
projects I came from. When you went downstairs with some
kid or whatever, try to take him from you. As
you get older, you realize that there's some older guys
that can fight. There's some older guys that's taking stuff.
These guys can fight the ass or It seemed like
these guys would just just live to fight, you know,
(06:49):
so you have to get it on a delly.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
One summer day, Derek was in a Brooklyn park around
nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
He's just entered his teens.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
The early days of hip hop DJ's were popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
They were Park James Sins, they were called. At the time.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
People were out all night long dancing and Derek was
among them.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I ran into our young brother.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Man God by the name of Baby Popper, who was
one of the flyers. Guys you would see riding minibody.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Had they can't go at man.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
This dude was just fly.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
He got a raggedy twenty two pistol to me, rubber bands.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
You gotta put rubber rams around.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
It, man, to shoot this thing.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So this guy, you gotta put rubber bands around it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
To shoot him.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Shooting up in the head.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And chasing everybody out of the park gym. But for
that moment, you see as a young kid, like damn,
people were really scared. So a whole level of power
comes to your mom because you said, all these mothers.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Tough, but all I'm tough, motherfucker. The fight was running.
I'm not gonna get beat up no more. At fifteen
years old, Derek robbed a man coming out of a
check cashing store. The spelling bee chap was going gangster.
Suddenly the toughest people in the neighborhood started looking up
to him.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I was a terrible kid at seventeen years old. If
you gave me your cost, Steve, you wouldn't get in it.
Back in his.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
View, it was all dumb adolescent shit. It was peer pressure, situational,
not a verdict on his character.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I make no excuse for it, but these are things
that was going on my community.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
One day at a park, Jim Derek was talking to
some girls.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Next thing I know, I see these guys with guns
out and they approaching.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I got a gun a shoe.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
He hit someone in the leg. On other days he
wondered if he was the next target.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I used to say this prayer when I was a kid,
and I used to get away with a lot of stuff.
I'll be honest with you times when I figured I
should have been dead, that I was alive. Damn. His
prayer must work, and the prayers for protection, Saint Michael
ar change you. The fame of my time of battle
against the wickedness stays of the devil.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Father Jesus, pray for me.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's the prayer.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
It's a simple prayer.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And when you think about it, the devil who's that.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
This is the people who attempt to lock you up.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
I dealt with notorious drug dealers from Brownsville, East, New York, Bedford, Styde.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
They all knew Derek.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Joe Ponzie was chief investigator for the Brooklyn DA's office.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Derek was a violent guy, and Derek had a real
tough reputation on the street. The Hamilton Brothers were known
as drug dealers in that area at that time.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Joe Ponzie worked closely with his friend, Detective Louis Scarcella. Well,
what else do you want me to tell you about
Derek Hamilton. Louis once joke Derek killed more people than
small box. He probably did. I mean, that's just an
expression that I use. But he wrote his book. The
book it was actually Derek's sisters book. She called it
(10:10):
Don't let your Elevator Get stuck on Stupid. It was
supposed to scare kids straight. There's one chapter about Derek's
life written under his name. He signed off on it
from Attica prison. Louis often talks about this book to him.
It reveals the true Derek Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Here's an excerpt for you. My name became a permanent
part of the ghetto gossip. All the guys challenged me,
and I always won the battles. He wrote, Committing crimes
became my favorite pastime.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I was crime and it was me.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wow, I was crime and it was me. His identity
in this book is completely wrapped up in being a gangster.
And remember this is about his teenage.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Later, Derek tried to distance himself from the book told
us another inmate ghost wrote it and exaggerated for effect.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It was a scripted book designed to keep young kids
from going to prison. But it's not going to always
give you the true story because he's characterizing things with
the perception of scaring a kid.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
And yet in the chapter's final passage, Derek says, I
pray that God. God's any of you young ones reading
this to take my words for what they are truths.
There's another crime Derek mentions in this book. This one
stands out. He was seventeen at the time, and according
to the book, he robbed a bread truck at gunpoint.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Derek was fighting with the driver for the money.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
In the book, he says he ordered to accomplices to
shoot the man. But when we asked him about the
bread truck driver, Derek told us something very different.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I was not dead at all.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
That's in a minute.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Here's the story, and it comes from a March nineteen
eighty three edition of the New York Daily News. A
bread delivery man mortally wounded in an apparent robbery attempt
in Brooklyn yesterday managed to drive his truck two blocks
a gaspout and account of the attack to the police
before he died. The robbery took place near Lafayette Gardens
(12:42):
and Derek was seventeen at the time, so he pleads
not guilty, and at that point he's assigned an attorney.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Her name Candice Kurtz.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
Don't forget our system is you're innocent until proven guilty.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
At his murder trial, a key witness against Derek is
a childhood friend, Patricia. The trial is on a break
when Candice goes to the bathroom, someone comes in behind her.
It's Patricia talking about Bush, Derek Hamilton's nickname.
Speaker 8 (13:15):
I was in the lady bathroom.
Speaker 7 (13:17):
She was crying, she was upset, she was scared.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
I was telling the lady that the cops tried to
make me say that Bush did it.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
She told Candace the story.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
It was we in the morning. I don't know what time,
but it was trying to turn light on me. The
cops stopped me, a whole lot of cops three edom
was asking me different questions and I'm looking like like
I don't know which one to answer, telling me I
know that I seen him, and da da da da
da da. I'm like, I didn't see Bush. That was
the whole problem. That's what they wanted me to say,
(13:53):
that I seen busch. I didn't see bus.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The cops took her to the precinct.
Speaker 8 (13:59):
They just kept he yeah, just nine oh hours that
I will never, never forget. I wanted to go home,
so I told them what exactly they said. I wrote
down every word they say. I sing bus outside, it's
a boy the bread truck.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
I walked back in the courtroom and I asked a
judge if I could talk to him in the DA
in private. So he went to the judges chambers and
I told him that we had a problem, that it
looked like there was police intimidation and the witness didn't
want to testify. Judge Lombardo gets up from behind his
(14:45):
desk and comes around and he puts his arms around me,
I mean, and a tight hug, and he speaks into
my ear and he says, and he called me Candy.
So he said, Candy, just take it easy, just calm down.
We both know who this guy is, we both know
(15:07):
he's guilty, so can't you just calm down and let
us go? And I was like, you know, I was
so anxious, and so my heart was pounding, and finally
I just said no, I can't. I just can't. I
(15:30):
can't sell my client down the river.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Candice isn't going to back down, and so now the
judge has to go back to the courtroom and find
out if Derek forced Patricia to recan't. The prosecution cannot
provide any evidence of this, so the judge waivers.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He's thinking about throwing the case out. But then we
come back to court the very next and the judge
says that he thought about this all night, that it
troubled him, that it deeply bothered him, and that he
changing his.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
Ruling, and the judge basically just said, I don't care.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
The judge basically decides that the only possible explanation for
Patricia's recantation is that Derek threatened her. There's no evidence
of this, but the judge concludes the cops would never
do that, and so the jury never hears anything about
Patricia's recantation. Candice turns to Derek. He's sitting next to
(16:36):
her at the defense table. He's seventeen at the time.
She gives him a piece of advice.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Says to me, kid, get your head out your ass.
I want you to understand what's going on here. I
want you to know what they're doing in your life.
And I said, damn, they are railroad in me. And
at that moment I was awoken.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
The jury convicted Derek.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
At his sentencing, this judge likened Derek to quote a
piece of garbage and sent him away for twenty five
years to life.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Candice had some more advice for Derek. Take matters into
your own hands.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
She empowered me to be able to know that by
studying the law and understanding what's going on, it puts
you in a position to be able to fight back.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
A few years into his sentence, Derek wrote his own appeal.
He'd immersed himself in the law by this point, and
it worked. Four years after his conviction, an appeals court
ruled that the judge acted on speculation and conjecture and
violated Derek Hamilton and his constitutional rights.
Speaker 7 (18:02):
His conviction was overturned on appeal, and he came out
of prison.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Derek took a plea, got parole, and suddenly was out
in the world, but not for long. Louis Scarcella was
about to enter Derek Hamilton's life. I went up, I
got very close to him.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I said, you're going back.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
LG.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
That's in a moment.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I was in the process of opening a unisection on
New Haven and police officers stormed the interest of the door.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Derek is out of prison, but he hasn't quite left
behind his old ways. About a month into his parole,
he shot a drug dealer in Connecticut. But on the
day Scarcella burst through the door there about another shooting and.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I came in and threw me on a wall. And
while I was on the wall, Scarsella came up, just
me on a cheek and said, LG, motherfucker.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
I didn't kiss him.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I went up. I got very close to him.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I said, you're going back to LG.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Told me I was being arrested for the death of
the Danil Cash.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Not far from LG. That's the Lafiat Gardens housing project.
A man has been shot to death. Louis Scarcella had investigated,
and he was now armed with an arrest warrant.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
When we get to the precinct and he got five
winn and says, you know, he got a big story.
And I'm listening to this guy and I'm just saying
it's impossible. I was in the waving you couldn't have
one winness that.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Only five, Just as in the previous case, Derek maintains
he wasn't even there.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
For Detective Scarcella, this was an easy case, and Louis
was thankful for that. The year of the Nathaniel Cash murder,
the new You're post the parts of Brooklyn a killing ground.
A murder was reported every sixty three hours. Detective Scarseller
was thrilled that this investigation wrapped up so quickly. It
(20:15):
wasn't that who done it. There was a witness who
identified as the shooter.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Louis, he has someone who's willing to testify that Derek
did it. The witness's name is Jewel Smith.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
So this wasn't even a big case for you. No, well,
it was a murder, you know what I'm saying. But
it was done like that. Yeah, there was no wa
Jewel comes in. She's yes, her eyewitness testimony had done.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Louis arrived at the scene of the crime.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
There's a dead guy, Ned Cash in his pajamas, a
robe and slippers. He's face down in a pool of
his own blood on the sidewalk near the curb, which
is fifteen or so feet from the apartment building where
he's staying the location of the body will later prove
a crucial detail. Scarcela testified that he found a shellcasing
on the body.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Jules Smith, the eyewitness, had spent the night at Nate
Cash's apartment. She's his girlfriend of two weeks. Derek knew
Nate Cash two he was dating the mother of Nate
Cash's child. Small World. A few hours later, Jules in
front of an assistant district attorney giving her account of
(21:26):
the murder. We got hold of her recorded statement.
Speaker 7 (21:30):
My name's Thomas Musield, playing a newsild.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Speak to miss Jules Smith.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Today's date January fourth, nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
Miss Smith, you mentioned an detective.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Earlier that you were with net in the night before.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
Just pick up from there and telling what you remember
about last night and.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
Today when you were with my last light right.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, that's the original audio from nineteen ninety one, and
as you can tell, it's scratching hard to understand Jewel's testimony,
so we hired an actor to read Juwel Smith's words.
She's talking about the victim, her boyfriend Nick Cash.
Speaker 9 (22:20):
So while he was calling me a cab, I was
putting on my sneakers and then you know the cab
came because they said five minutes, so then they came.
So by that time, he put on his road to
walk me downstairs to the cab like he always did.
And when we went downstairs, I was walking in front
(22:41):
and he was on the side of me. And that's
when I observed Bush also known as Derek Hamilton, stepped
around the banister and he comes step and asked me
where Nate at? And Nate was like right here, I mean,
(23:03):
he just start firing and shooting, shooting, shooting.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
From Derek's point of view, Jewel is another Patricia, another
witness who, after talking to the cops, somehow says he
committed a murder.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
He swears he didn't do.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Like why would this person come in today and lie.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Derek had known Jewel for years. They lived a few
floors apart in LG and they'd been in contact since
his arrest for the Nate Cash murder. From jail, Derek
even writes her love letters. She responds. She assures him
of her devotion, her loyalty. Once she wrote, I've never
(23:48):
had anyone make love to my mind. Sure reads like romance.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
This manipulation, this manipulation. I want to know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Then the day the trial in July nineteen ninety one,
Derek is seated at the defendant's table when Jewel walks
to the witness stand.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
So when I see her coming in looking dishevel, not
looking like herself, looking totally dishovel, I know something was wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I sain't right.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
And she repeats the statement that she made to the
DA the one where she saw Derek shoot and shoot
and shoot and kill Nate Cash. What's more, she testifies
that she was afraid of Derek Hamilton those love letters.
The only reason she reciprocated was to not anger him.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
What is going on here? I mean, could this really
be a case of the system finding two witnesses on
two different occasions who are willing to provide testimony against
an innocent Derek Hamilton, this time, of course involving Detective
Luis Carcela.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Amazingly over my case, he was the detective from the
Book of North Homicide. He makes her into a witness,
He makes Jules Smith into a witness.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Wow, I'd love to hear Jules point of view on
all this.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's for another episode for Right now, Derek's at the
defense table and he still thinks he has a chance.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I was still confident that I would walk out of
the court loowner.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He could be established that she's alive, as she made
separate in consistant statements.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Then Detective Louis Scarcella takes the stand.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
A first grade detective coming in, or a guy with charisma,
a guy looks like at that time, a you know,
he looked at like a real Italian stallion at that time,
you know, shot mustache, he looked a good and he
was appillable to jurors. And he took the and said
(26:00):
that Juice Smith called him one day and said she
was afraid to rid the grand jury, that her grandmother
know me, and that I was a killer that killed
people my entire life.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Moster jury heard that my fate was seeming.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
There was no way that I was walking out of
that courtroom.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Was he good?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Very good, very good, very very good, very good, compelling,
And you gotta look at what they didn't believe in
ju Smith. They believe un now because you have a
first grade detective corroborating.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
It, first grade Detective Louis Garcella. He is confident in
his version. I believe he's guilty of killing the Daniel Cash.
I believe the district attorney believes he's guilty. I believe
the city believes he's guilty.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
And on that point Louis there was also the judge
and the jury. They all agreed that Derek was guilty.
Derek Hamilton was sentenced to prison from murder again and again,
given twenty five years to life's right.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
And the prosecutor they're so flaring, they're they're so theatrical
that people get.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Lost in the hype.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
You ever hear the storm of public goaa.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
We don't believe the height, but the hepens.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
What gives us convicted.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's not the etherde it's the height that these people
are bad and he need to be removed from society.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
This is what sent us to jail, not the facts
of the case.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Which brings us back to two thousand and nine. Derek's
been in prison eighteen years for the murder of Nate
Cash and he's up for parole. To get parole, he's
being told he needs to admit to a murder. He
says he didn't commit and that he vows he will
not do. He's still in solitary until the warden says
(28:10):
he can leave, which won't be any time soon. In solitary,
it's beginning to wear him down.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
When you're stuck in a cell with all you hear
is noise, it makes banging and screaming and yelling and
throwing feces and urine and flooding the gallery. It's chaos
every single hour because you got a bunch of mentally
ill people locked themselves and just can't cope.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Every day, every day, every day, it takes its toll
on you.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So I'm starting to go to the parole board depressed
and being told that there is no hope for you ever,
and the only advice is to chet responsibility for your crime.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I was just tie it. You know, you fight so
hard and so you get to the points.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You know, I'm tired of shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I'm tired of it. You know I gave up for
a moment.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
After two decades behind bars, Derek hand writes a memo
to this prison superintendent two, Superintendent Smith from Derek Hamilton,
subject suicide. Note It reads, death will be a welcome
companion compared to the torture you have subjected me to.
(29:33):
I hope you are one day tortured like you have
tortured me. That same day, Derek is in his cell
when a corrections counselor passes by, He too, will write
a memo.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
At approximately eighth one a m. It begins inimate was
extremely emotional and upset, stating I went out of here.
He turned his lights off and went under his mattress
and pulled out a white plastic bag. I then observed
him placing his hand to his mouth, followed by bottled water.
(30:08):
Subjects sat down. He appeared disoriented. I observed his legs
shaking as I called his name, but got no response.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Derek is rushed to a local hospital. He wakes up
shackle to a gurney. Three guards are standing by him,
and I.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Was told him they got to kill me today, like
today is the day that I die because I refuse
to go back to that's uh and be treated like that.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
It's because of the suicide attempt that Derek is eventually
transferred to Auburn Correctional It's there he will connect with
Nelson and Shabaka to help found the actual innocence team,
and it's there that he'll finally go before the parole board.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I pour over the transcripts of parole hearings. Each time,
Derek consists he'd only proceed if the parole board hears
evidence of his actual innocence. Each time, the board refuses
and the hearing is adjourned, until finally Derek decides to
play ball. He submits letters of recommendation evidence that he
(31:20):
won't be a menace to society. He finally goes to
a full hearing. What happened there was so surprising that
I remember exactly where I was when I read about it.
I'm with my family in the living room. They're watching
Rick and Morty. I'm not paying attention. I'm reading the transcript.
(31:42):
The board goes through his crimes one by one. It
takes a while. The board gets to the bread truck murder,
the one he was found guilty of when he was eighteen.
Another murder Derek insists he did not commit, and reading
about that, I came across something I couldn't believe. I
thought it was a typo. Derek was talking about the
(32:05):
bread truck driver, the murder victim. Here's what I read.
He was a hard working man and it was a shame,
you know that he was robbed, And I took a life,
and I apologized for that. I can never take that back.
That was a stupid thing I did as a kid,
and I'm ashamed of it. DA's when I read this,
(32:31):
I figured I had to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Yeah, And I remember like not necessarily knowing what to
do with it right away. You know, I was invested
at that point in a completely different narrative the one
he had been telling us for so long, which was
that he wasn't even there. And so all I remember
being left with was the question of had he lied
to us?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, I mean he lied to somebody. I don't know.
I was confused. I found myself thinking about Candace Kurts,
you know, his lawyer in the first murder. She had
stood by his side, she had put her credibility on
the line. Frankly, I felt betrayed. I wondered if she would.
Speaker 7 (33:13):
Too, Okay, mess game starting.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I found Candace Kurtz retired on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan. She'd been a legal aid attorney for three decades,
lived in the same rent stabilized apartment all that time.
She's considerate. She locks up her cat me owing is
not good for recording. I have the transcript of that
parole hearing. Wow, Yeah, he admits to the first murder,
(33:47):
to the bread truck murder.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
What do you think of that?
Speaker 7 (33:53):
It doesn't surprise me that he did it. I don't
know why he'd admit to it, but I guess he's
supposed to admit, to take responsibility for things so that
he can get out.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
So it doesn't surprise you he did it.
Speaker 7 (34:07):
No, and it wouldn't surprise me he didn't do it.
We know now that he was not guilty, but that's
not innocent, right. Not guilty means a lack of proof.
I can't prove to you that he's innocent, but I
can show you that he's not guilty. Well, so he
(34:34):
did it. How does that make you feel? It makes
me feel shitty.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I want to believe that he was franked.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
Why do you want to believe that? I mean, what
the police did in his case were atrocious and supposedly
we have a society that you can't do that and
you can't get away from that. And I think the
Defendants Guild is kind of irrelevant in the whole picture
of what our system is supposed to be. Like, you know,
(35:11):
some guilty people will go free if our system is
working properly.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
So who is Derek? Is he a murderer? Is he
a murderer? Even when he protests that he's not, he
told the parole board he was. He told us he wasn't.
We had to ask Derek about this, so we brought
him back to the studio.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
With switching gears. Switching gears, switching gears, switching gears.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
What you hold to be true, and what you claim
to this day as you sit here across from is
that you were not there, You were not involved. You know.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
What I claim to be true was that I had
nothing to do with James wolf death.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Okay, right, But as a condition for you getting out,
one of the conditions was that you had to admit
to not true. Not true? Okay, so talk to it.
So I guess we want to just we do a
little bit of the read, right, Is it okay?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
If I read?
Speaker 8 (36:15):
All?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
So I start reading the transcript from the parole Here,
I'm reading Derek his own words.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Back to him.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
You know, I was young, ignorant individual at that time.
I was living in an anti social community and I
just did a lot of wrong things. You know, question,
who was the victim in that case answer, mister James Wolf,
I'll never forget that name. He was a hard working
(36:46):
man and it was a shame. You know that he
was robbed and I took a life, and I apologize
for that. I can never take that back. That was
a stupid thing I did as a kid, and I'm
ashamed of it. So help us make sense of that.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
What is that you're reading from?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
First of all, this.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Is from the parole hearing from twenty eleven, So this
is the October eighteenth to twenty eleven parole here.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Okay, so let me tell you this. Right, One of
the things you got to remember that when you go
to parole, they want you to be remonseful. I was
told that that in order to get out, you gotta
go in and parole officill tall you this all the time.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
So I was remonseful. Right, I was remonsful.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
But I know I didn't commit that crime, and I
probably did say that to get out of prison.
Speaker 9 (37:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I don't recall saying it, but I'm willing to bet
that if the parole officer told me I had to
share remors to get out, I'm gonna say whatever. I
gotta get it out. Because I was a young kid, right,
I was a young kid.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Meaning you were not in twenty eleven. You weren't a
young kid in that.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I wasn't twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
This is twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
That's not two thousand eleven.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It's twenty eleven. Well, you know what, you may be
right thousand.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You may be right, and I may have said that
in twenty eleven to not fight them about something that
I already had.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Right, they're only asking for his name, James Wolf, and
you're going to say, I'll never forget the name. He
was a hard working man. Was a shame, you know
that he was robbed. And I cried, be clear about that.
And I cried.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
But I didn't just say that.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
I cried.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
I gave them tears with it. I'm being real with you.
It was theatrical, right. I wanted to get home if
I can't convince these RinkyDink parole.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
But people, let me go out.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Your stay in prison, right, Parole is a show to
get out. Understand what I'm telling you, right, it is
a show to get out.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
We're not trying to ambush you know, that's not what
we're doing here. I am going to register that I
am feeling a different energy that you have related to this, right,
I'm gaving them to some different energy.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
What's that about for you? Like, well, I just told you.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Whatever energy you gather, that's your perception.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Okay, But look, man, be in my.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Position, right, serve twenty one years in prison and trying
to get out, right, I would tell a parole board
anything to get out with a lot of them, Absolutely,
I would a lot of them in a heartbeat, us
a warmth proceeding. See, I can admit to doing some
things to make it look good, right, you gotta look,
I'm calculated when it comes to certain things.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Dave.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I get it. Listen, I get it. It's worth doing
just about anything to get out of prison. Of course
it is. And to be clear, Derek is admitting to
the bread truck murder. He does not admit to the
Pearl Board that he killed Nate Cash. But still we've
put a lot of stock in Derek's credibility, in his word,
(39:32):
in his statement that he is innocent of the Nate
Cash murder. And now he's saying lying is a tool,
a legit tool that he'll use whenever necessary, which is
pretty much Scarcella's view of him. Somebody's going to say, well,
Derek Hamilton will lie when it's in his interest.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Absolutely listen to me. I think a person that wouldn't
lie when the dangest is a fool. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
The lie worked if it was a lie. After twenty
one years in prison, the parole board voted to let
Derek Hamilton back into society.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
He called his wife and I said, Yo, I'm coming home.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
But DA's We still had some questions, like Derek had
made us wonder, at least me wonder if he lied
about one murder, could he lie about another?
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I mean so did he really do it kill Nate Cash?
Should he have been found guilty.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
We'll get to that. We're going to get to the
bottom of whether Derek is guilty of killing Nate Cash.
But first Derek has some unfinished business.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Next time on the Burden, Derek's leaving prison.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
He's also leaving behind Schabacco, his partner in the jailhouse
law firm.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
What then guys going home and they forget, you know,
they forget the guys they leave behind.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I said, do not forget me, and he was like, I.
Speaker 9 (41:19):
Got you.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Stone cloud of comment commonstrate too.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You can't run for shelter.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
There's nothing you can do. The Burden is created by
Steve Fishman.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and myself, Dax
Devlyn Ross. Our story editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our senior
producer is Simon Rittner. Our producer is Snam Skelly. Our
associate producer is Austin Smith. Our fact checker is Sona Avakian.
Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise. Mixing and sound design
is provided by Mumbo. Mediative produces are Fisher, Stevens, Steve
(42:02):
Fishman and Evan Williams. Additional production help has been provided
by Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Brauner, Lucy Souchek, Drew Nellis,
Micah Hazel, Priscilla A labby Saxon Baird, Katie Simon and
Katie Springer. We want to give us special thanks to
Ellen Horn, Zach Stewart, Pontier, Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe to
(42:25):
buy a Black, Rachel Morrissey, Mark Smirling and Lila Robinson.
Special thanks to Marcy Wiseman. We want to thank our
agents Ben Davis and Marissa Horowitz. Legal support has been
provided by Mona Hook at MKSR ll P, and a
very special thanks to Evan Williams, one of our executive
producers and the person who made this podcast possible. We
(42:48):
are honored to feature the song The Lacklightning from the
Bell Rays is our theme music. The Burden is a
production of Orbit Media and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Season two of The Burden Empire on Blood will be
available everywhere you get your podcasts on August seventh. All
episodes will be available early and ad free, along with
exclusive bonus content on Orbit's newly launched True Crime Clubhouse,
a subscription channel on Apple Podcasts. It's only two ninety
(43:36):
nine a month.
Hosts And Creators
Dax-Devlon Ross
Steve Fishman
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