July 28, 2025 • 35 mins
In 2010, a traumatised Kelly sits in a police cell and reckons with the horrors of the previous night.
Years later, Anna tries to make sense of the night of the murder and discovers that some of the accounts aren’t adding up.
If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with.
The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.
You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, girlfriend, it's Anna here giving you a quick heads
up on what to expect in this episode. We're going
to talk about the night of the murder a lot
and in detail, and I want to warn you that
there's going to be some mentions of domestic abuse, sexual assault,
and suicide. But we'll also get the chance to dive
into the weeds of the police investigation to learn more
(00:20):
about the case against Kelly and the holes in it.
If you feel impacted by some of the themes in
this show, you can reach out to No More. There
are domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources
to help.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You or your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
You can search No More dot org and we've also
put a link to their website in the episode description. Plus,
as always, there'll be more than a few swear words
for Kelly Harnett's brother, Ronnie. July seventh, twenty ten, was
a totally normal day.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I was on my way back from work and I
had are you know how they in a union square
and things like that they have the village Voice or whatever,
so their newspaper.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
He picks it up and sits down, leaving through like
he would any other time, and there printed in black
and white is a headline that reads something like, please
arrest two individuals after a murder.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
In a story of Queens.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I was looking at people next to me. I said,
you believe this in our neighborhood? And I showed them
and they looked at it and they just shook their heads.
They were like, what's this world coming to?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Ronnie doesn't think any more of it other than what
a shame it is that the place he once knew
as a safe family neighborhood seems to be going to
the dogs.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So I go home.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
My mother's like, yeah, you might want to sit down.
I was like, am I just telling me what's going on?
And I never a billion years did crossed my mind
what I read? You know. So she's like, Kelly, she
got arrested, and I said, for what she said, for murder,
(02:19):
shocking is an understatement. I started getting dizzy. I started
seeing stars and I was like, WHOA. But I knew,
I said, I know my sister, she didn't do this.
I know she didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm Annisonfield and from the teams at novel and iHeart Podcasts,
this is the girlfriend's jailhouse lawyer. Yes, episode three, he
(03:11):
said she said. It's around four am on July seventh,
twenty ten, when Kelly Hannette first arrives at the one
hundred and fourteenth Precinct. She's immediately processed as a suspect
(03:35):
in the murder of Reuben Angel Vargas.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
They took all of my clothes from me, including my
bride under her. They put me in a white paper suit.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Kelly can't believe what's happening to her.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
She's just witnessed her boyfriend Tommy Donovan kill a man
right in front of her before threatening that she would
be next, but no one seems to be treating her
like the victim.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
She is.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Sitting in her cell.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Feeling like the world is against her. Kelly decides to
do something reckless, something that will warp and color every
memory she tells me from this time. Somehow she's managed
to smuggle in a huge amount of xanax, and she
knows she needs to get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Before they're discovered by the police.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But she also just wants to escape this situation somehow,
And right there in the palm of her hand, she
sees a solution.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Down the hair they go and there was a lot
and I didn't care if it was a suicide attempt.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Or what the hell it was.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Whatever happens happens, because it sounds like my life just
got ripped from under me because of something that I
didn't even do.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
I was like, look if I die, I die.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
From there, things just get worse for Kelly. Not only
is she now really high in police custody, but she's
also withdrawing. She tells the police she needs her methodone.
She's on that huge one hundred and seventy milligram daily dose,
but she's been without it for days because Tommy wouldn't
(05:24):
let her go to the clinic. Kelly's hoping now she's
in official police custody that they'll give her what she needs,
but they refuse. On top of this, Kelly suffers from
what's called grand mal seizures, she says. She asks repeatedly
for her seizure medication, which is in police possession, but
(05:45):
they say they'll only give it to her if she
writes a statement. She has multiple seizures while in custody.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
She also gets her period.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
She asks the cops for some sanitary but they refuse
those two They leave her bleeding into her white paper
suit it soaks right through and is visible to anyone
who sees her. And because she hasn't got anything on underneath,
every time she goes to the bathroom, she has to
strip down completely naked.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Kelly says.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Male staff gather around to watch, making comments about her body.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I'm bleeding everywhere, but you're talking about my breasts and
calling your friends in because it's a free show.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Discusting pigs.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I have absolutely no no respect for them. I'm sorry,
but they were disgusting to me. I didn't even fucking
commit this crime. How dare you? How fucking dare you?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
It should be clear to anyone that Kelly is in
no fit state to give a reliable account of what's happened,
and yet four hours after her arrest, cops take down
an oral statement. Here's a quick reminder of how Kelly
described the knight of the murder.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Back in episode one.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Kelly and Tommy met Angel and they decided to drink
together while Tommy went off to buy the three of
them beers. Kelly says Angels sexually assaulted her. When Tommy returned,
Kelly told him what happened. Tommy then attacked and choked Angel.
Kelly tried to get him to stop, but Tommy pushed
(07:35):
her away and threatened that she would be next. After that,
Tommy forced Kelly to hand over her shoelace. He then
attempted to use it to strangle Angel, but it snapped. Next,
Kelly witnessed Tommy put his belt around Angel's neck and
(07:55):
finally kill him. That's what Kelly said to me in
twenty twenty four, but it's not what she told the
police back in twenty ten.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I was woken up frantically by my boyfriend Tommy Danovan,
stating we got to get out of here now, and
then they put in.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Kelly is reading from her original oral statement, which was
taken at around eight am on July seventh. In it,
Kelly says that she didn't witness the crime at all. Instead,
she's woken up by Tommy, who tells her that he'd
seen a guy who'd stolen his shoes the previous day
and choked him unconscious.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
He then tells her start packing your crap up.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Kelly starts gathering her things, and while she's doing that,
Kelly says, Tommy takes her shoelace out of her sneaker
and takes it over to the guy who's on the ground.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
A male Hispanic wearing a dark collared shirt was lying
down moving in that Tommy grabbed him from behind around
the neck and choked him again for proximately ten seconds.
Kelly states that Tommy told her to kick said mail
Hispanic and that she didn't. Kelly states that Tommy let
said male Hispanic go and he fell to the ground lifeless.
(09:20):
You're doing okay, Yeah, it was just the part that
started because you know, the beginning is what I told
the detectives, because I was just afraid, you know, there
was no truth to it. But the part that got
me was when it became truthful that he had the
mail and that he fell lifeless.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
That that gets me.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, of course, you know, because no matter what he tried,
meaning the sexual assault.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
That's still a life.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
At the end of the day, he's still someone's brother,
he's someone's son, possibly father.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
You know, so.
Speaker 6 (09:57):
Terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
In a written statement she gives about an hour or
so later, at about nine thirty am, Kelly sounds like
she's really grappling with the horrors of the previous night.
It honestly does read like she's high in a disjointed
stream of consciousness, where she veers from talking about her
mum's back injury, to her college scholarships to how religious
(10:22):
she is. Kelly writes about how putrid she feels about
all of this, and how going down for Tommy's stupidity
is such an awful feeling. I take all of that
into account, and I really do feel for the Kelly
of twenty ten. But I can't pretend that all the
inconsistencies between the story Kelly told me and the story
(10:43):
in these statements don't give me pause, especially this one
detail she's never told me before that Tommy ordered her
to kick Angel. In the statements from twenty ten, she
says she didn't do it, so I don't really understand
why she left it out when she told me her
version years later. For the first time, I'm grappling with
(11:06):
the possibility that Kelly isn't being fully open with me.
We both have stories to tell here, but I do
have this fear that they're not the same one.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Before I can go.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Any further, I need to understand more about what happened
that night, this time from Tommy's perspective. Can I just
(11:45):
read you this statement from Tommy?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
There's some stuff that's really horrible.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I'm sack with my producer Jake in our midtown airbnb.
Tommy Donovan's statement in front of us. It's one of
a few that he gave that day. One is an
oral statement taken according to the police documents, at around
four thirty pm on July seventh, the day of the murder.
It looks like it was typed up the next day
(12:10):
on the eighth. With all of this confusion swirling around
in my mind, I want to look at what Tommy
had to say about what happened in the part that night.
Believe me when I say that I am not predisposed
to trust this man, but I'm working with what I've got,
and what immediately stands out to me is the weird
(12:31):
and colorful context Tommy seems to add to that night
in the park. So this is obviously written from the
perspective of the cop noting it down. Mister Donovan informed
me that over the past few nights they had had
problems with perverse trying to watch them having sex, and
that they had even named them nightcrawlers. Yeah, mister Donovan.
(12:53):
It goes on to talk about how Tommy and Kelly
were attempting to fall around on a makeshift bed under
health skatebridge. When Kelly noticed one of these night crawlers,
she stormed up and slapped him around the face, which
then prompted Tommy to chase him seventy feet across the park.
On the way back, he spotted a Hispanic man sitting
(13:14):
on a park bench, who said, that's not right that
they try to watch you sit and have a beer.
So can we just stop there for a minute because
it feels very made up.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
Yeah, that's like somebody trying to write like a bad
script of what this kind of moment could be like.
And I'm like really trying to keep in mind that
this is what he's saying, hours after all this just happened.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, I think Kelly also told me about how she
had to translate between Tommy and Angel, who spoke Spanish,
but there's no language barrier problem in this retellinger. Mister
Donovan states that he accepted the man's offer and took
a Morello beer. Kelly then walked over and the man
offered her a beer as well, which he accepted. Mister
(13:56):
Donovan informed me that the three of them had a
beer or two each while discussing different types of beers
and agreeing on how Morello is much better than Corona.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I don't have a lot to say about that, but
it's weird.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
The only other thing I was thinking is like, it's
really hard for me to wrap my mind around whether
the fact that there is so much detail makes it
more or less plausible.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Mister Donovan further states that the man they had just
met introduced himself as Angel and was now asking him
to run to the bodega and buy some more beer,
and had stated, don't worry about it, I have money
and you can take my bike. Mister Donovan states that
he jumped on Angel's bike and quickly rode up to
the bodega, where he purchased six Loco beers.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So that's where the loko comes in.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
He then quickly rode by Tommy Stateman then says that
when he returned, Kelly and Angel were in the same
spot he had left the men.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
He says he asked Kelly if she was okay.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
She stated that she was fine, and they went on
to drink the beers they bought while chatting about various topics.
Mister Donovan states that after a while, according to Tommy's statement,
he and Kelly decided they wanted to get back to
falling around under the bridge, but Angel wouldn't leave them alone.
He's begging them not to go and offering to buy
more drinks and food, eventually following them to their makeshift bed.
(15:14):
So Tommy told Kelly to pretend she was sleeping while
he went to pee on the woodchip pile nearby. While
he was peeing, he heard Kelly's voice and she sounded upset.
He stopped peeing in midstream and walked back over to Kelly.
Once there, Kelly informed him that Angel had just offered
her money for sex, and he had stated to her,
I want to.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Lick your pussy. I'm good at it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Kelly further stated that Angel had said to her, I
have money and a job. I can take care of you.
Kelly informed him that Angel had just grabbed her crotch
and was visibly upset, just a warning that. The next
section talks about the murder itself. Mister Donovan states that
he became very angry, walked over to him, and pushed
him the two of them. The statement then goes on
(15:59):
to say that tom and Angel started wrestling on the
ground throwing and not landing punches. Eventually, Tommy gets Angel
into a chokehold with his right arm, but it wasn't working.
It doesn't specify where Kelly is, but it must be
right next to them, as it then says, Tommy tells
(16:20):
Kelly to kick Angel, then to kick him harder, which
it says she does numerous times in the groin.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
This is where it gets kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Mister Donovan further stated that he then told Kelly to
give him her shoe string. He stated that she removed
her shoe string from her shoe and wrapped it around
his neck, pulling it tight and handing it to him.
He then choked him with it until he became limp
(16:52):
Once Angel was unconscious, and again this is coming from
Tommy's typed up oral statement, Tommy told Kelly that they
needed to get the hell out of there and started
gathering up his things. Then he walked away, and when
he looked back, he saw that Kelly was on top
of Angel, strangling him to death. He ran over and
(17:12):
yelled at her to go, and on their way out
of the park, Donovan.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Says he noticed Kelly took Angel's wallet and cash.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Mister Donovan stated that he did not want to get
arrested for robbery. Really small concern there, so he grabbed
the wallet from her, threw it on the rocks, and
put the money in his pocket. They both then crossed
the street towards the water, where they were immediately stopped
by the police, resulting in them getting arrested.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Okay, let's digest all of that properly, because it was
a lot. The inconsistencies between Kelly and Tommy's twenty ten
statements ranged from from minor to glaring. Both Tommy and
Kelly's statements mentioned the shoelace, although he says she handed
it over and she says he took it from her,
(18:11):
and both of them mentioned Tommy telling Kelly to kick Angel,
although they again differ on whether Kelly actually did or
didn't do it. Kelly says she was woken by Tommy
after he admitted choking out Angel, but Tommy says Kelly
was not only awake for the attack, but that she
physically put her own shoelace around Angel's neck, pulled it tight,
(18:32):
and handed it to Tommy. Tommy also says that while
he choked Angel, it was only to the point of unconsciousness.
Then he walked away, and when he looked back, he
saw that Kelly was on top of Angel, strangling him
to death. And then there's the differences in Kelly's accounts,
which I understand thinking about the mindset that twenty ten
(18:54):
Kelly was in, traumatized, scared, not to mention high, I
can tote get why she would lie to the police
to protect herself, why she'd want to distance herself from
terrible crime. But I'm also confused about what the truth is, sure,
but also why Kelly isn't opening up to me. Could
(19:16):
I ask you some questions about Donovan's statement.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Sure, I've been reading through it.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
There are a couple of.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Things that stood out to me that seemed to be
kind of parallels. Some stuff that came up in your
original statement that seemed to match and haven't come up
in our previous conversations, one of them being he asked
you to kick Ruben, Ruben being Reuben Angel Vargas the victim,
(19:47):
and then in his original statement you do that. In
your original statement, you also say that he asked you
to but you didn't do it. And then since we've
spoken and that hasn't been any mention of the kicking,
and so I just want to figure.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
Out, Oh, okay, clarification, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
So I remember the detective kept saying to me now
just right, that he told you to kick the victim,
and that you did.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Like nobody kicked him, not even my co defendant. What
really happened. When I was speaking to the Spanish man.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
The decendent, he told both of us that he got
thrown out of the house because he was drinking too
much and that his brother beat him up and threw
him out.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So when you beat.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Someone up, clearly there's going to be bruising.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
So they wanted to implicate me, just for me to
take the blame on doing something, and he yelled at
me to the point where I wrote the words just
for them to stop. I remember thinking, this is how
confessions come about.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I think Kelly means false confessions here.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
The fact that I'm writing he told me to kick him.
That was a lie. That was a complete lie.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
But I felt like since the word kick is in there,
they'll lay off a little bit, and they did.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
The reason I ask about the kicking is because to me,
if somebody did what is said in Tommy's statement, kicking
someone to get them away is not at all a
bad things. And so I'm just saying like, if that
had happened, No, no, I would be not share the
fuck enough, you.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
Know, No, No, I get it. This is what I'm
trying to say. If I kicked him one hundred percent,
I would tell you I kicked him. But if I
didn't kick him, I didn't kick him. I almost wish
I kicked him at this point.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
I didn't kick him. You know why, I was too
fucking scared to kick him. I was not going back there.
You have to think of the domestic violence aspect and
not the truth finding aspect. The domestic violence aspect of
the matter is that I was afraid of Tommy.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
You think I'm gonna.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Be busy trying to kick him in when I'm trying
to figure out how the hell am I going to
get out of this one?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, I live to see.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
The next minute, of course. No, I'm not gonna worry
about going to kick someone.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
I adopted what they stated just to write it, so
they leave me the fuck alone.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So I'm going to be really honest here about a
couple of things. Number one is that I'm not proud
of the take that you just heard, then I nearly
didn't include it. Number two is that I feel so
fucking out of my depth right now. In all the
years I've spent making this show, speaking to countless survivors
(22:46):
of domestic and gendered violence, I've never upset someone like that.
But then I've never dealt with someone as complicated as Kelly,
and I have absolutely no idea where to go from here.
(23:15):
I spend a lot of time running back that conversation
between me and Kelly in my head, when she spoke
about hoping that the police would leave her the fuck alone.
I can't help but feel like she was also talking
to me, which feels like shit. The last thing I
want Kelly to feel is attacked or judged, because for me,
(23:36):
so much of this job of interviewing people, of getting
them to share their experiences with me, it's a relationship
one based around mutual respects and trust, one that I
honestly tend to find pretty easy to build. I'm struggling
to build that mutual trust with Kelly. Sometimes I feel
(23:57):
like she's telling me exactly what I want to hear,
and in other times I can feel like she's keeping
me at arm's length. I'm going to go out on
a limb here and say that I do not in
any way believe the part of Tommy's statement where he
says Kelly physically strangled Angel. I think this was nothing
more than him trying to shift some of the blame
(24:17):
for his crime. But I can't ignore the fact that
it is possible that Kelly could have kicked Angel. It's
mentioned in both statements, so I feel like I have
to at least consider it. But even if she did
kick Angel, for me, it would just be another sign
of the terrible situation she was in and of the
(24:39):
power Tommy had over her, not proof that she killed anyone.
I do think Kelly has a point about the police
pushing her to write what they wanted, because when I
start looking into things a little deeper, it does feel
like there's something funny going on in these statements. This
next section gets into the weeds a little bit, but
(25:02):
stay with me. Remember how I said Tommy gave multiple
statements to the police. Well, one of them is a
handwritten statement, which was made at about six pm on
July seventh. In that statement, he isn't as certain about
the details. He says he couldn't remember if Kelly said
Angel tried to touch her or did touch her.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
But in the officer's typed up.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Version you've just heard me and producer Jake reading, that
uncertainty is nowhere to be found. Also in the typed version,
it says Kelly kicked Angel on Tommy's orders and then
robbed Angel's dead body for good measure, But in the
written version by Tommy himself, there's no mention of the
kicking or of the robbery, which seems like a pretty
(25:50):
big omission to me.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Two pretty big emissions.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I know these might seem like small detail, but I
do think it's worth examining how statements can become, let's
just say, refined by police who are trying to build
an air tight case. The more I look into it,
the more confused I become. The awkward truth is, you
either believe Kelly's story now or you don't. For me,
(26:21):
it comes down to that trust again. I can't ignore
the possibility, However uncomfortable it is to face that Kelly
could be hiding things, things she doesn't want to say
because she thinks it makes her look bad, less like
a victim, more like a villain. Maybe, because she doesn't
(26:41):
trust that I'm able to understand. Doesn't think I can
extend my compassion to someone who's done a bad thing
in the name of survival, even though that's at the
heart of what I'm trying to do with this series.
But I can't say I really blame her after the
way our last conversation went down, I feel like this
(27:05):
story is exposing all of my blind spots. I don't
know how to tell Kelly's story. I don't know who
she is in the story. Who's the victim?
Speaker 7 (27:17):
I think everybody's the victim, Like they're all the victim.
You could put everybody in a different role, you could
like make it whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
But yeah, everyone's a victim. Everyone's a villain. How do
you like that?
Speaker 7 (27:33):
iHeart end of series?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
End of series.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Wraps, and not just yet. I'm not going to throw
in the towel that easy. So let's go back to
July twenty ten. Kelly's not sure exactly how long she'd
been at the one hundred and fourteenth Precinct for things
(27:59):
must be hazy as she comes down from the fistful
of xanax she swallowed when she first arrived.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
But she has a rough idea.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
I figured out how long I was there by touching
my legs and judging by the length of the hair
on my legs, because I shave every single day, and
I could tell I was like, I've been here for
a little bit over two days now.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Using leg hair as plock hands is honestly ingenious, and
Kelly's probably about right because according to New York law, generally,
you're only allowed to hold someone for up to seventy
two hours before you either charge them or release them. Unfortunately,
for Kelly, it's the former. Kelly's taken to be formally
(28:47):
charged in Queen's cord. She's still in that bloodstained paper suit.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Paper.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Nothing more than paper, not even shoes, and my own
blood coming everywhere.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
She's being arraigned alongside Tommy.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
The first thing I noticed, which is unbelievable and the
one fourteenth persons should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, is
that he was wearing his own clothes.
Speaker 6 (29:16):
The admitted murderer.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Had his own clothes on while they took me the
female's clothes.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
How dare they?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Tommy is brought up to the stand next to Kelly.
They're out side by side. She takes a moment to
look him up and down, and that's when she realizes something.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
Not only did he get to keep his own clothes,
he had his belt on.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
The belt that, according to Kelly, Tommy used to strangle
Angel to death.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
They let him in with the weapon that killed someone,
that took someone's life.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Kelly's fuming, and I get it. The indignity she's suffered
for the past few days in the police precinct would
be hard for anyone to bear. And for the record,
I find it supremely fucked up how differently Kelly says
she and Tommy are being treated. It isn't right under
any circumstances. Whether or not you believe that Kelly kicked Angel.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
I swear on my mother's ashes, I really did not
kick that man. May I go to hell for all
of it tearing me.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I did not kick that man.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
But even if I did, he admittedly strangled him. Why
wouldn't you take his clothing? Even if I kicked him?
Speaker 6 (30:43):
What if that had to do with my bra and pennies?
Speaker 5 (30:46):
It's such a violation of every civil rate, like you
treating me less than a human being.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
That's what they put me through.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
This is the justice system.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
In God, we trust.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
No, you know you don't trust in God. If you
do that to people, there is no God there.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Once Kelly and Tommy are arraigned, they're taken out of
the courtroom and walk towards a jail transfer bus, one
that is hauntingly familiar to Kelly. When Kelly was a
little girl, she and her brother Ronnie used to play
(31:34):
around at their aunt's house.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
She lived the house right there where you turned and
went to the bridge to go to Rikers.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
As in Rikers Island jail.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
And I would be playing in the front.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
The Rikers Island buses used to pierced by all the
time and then curve right into where Rikers is.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
As the buses crept past the two children, the passenger's
eyes turned to them.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
They would be watching Ronnie and I and I would
see those buses pass all.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
The time, and I was like, what's those buses? Why
do they have cages?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Now decades on, Kelly's an adult stepping onto one of
those buses, it.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Was all men and just me.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
And tell me it was on the bus and all
the men were calling me a dirty bitch. Not that
I look dirty, because I take showers every day, but
because of my female.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Issue, the bloodstained paper suit.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
Dirty bitch, smelly bitch, you smell like fish, just and
that I'm just waiting for time me to say something
he never did.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
The bus winds through the city, passing the same garden
Kelly and her brother Ronnie played in as children, except
now it's Kelly who's looking out through a caged window
on her way to Rikers Island jail.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Rikers had seriously dangerous people and it scared the hell
out of me.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Next time, on The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer, Kelly fights to
prove her innocence and to survive life in Rikers.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Well, this was the survival of the fittest.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Only the strong survive. Our sisterhood called ourselves. The showdies.
I'm not guilty.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
I plan on taking this to trial.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Don't go to child, Please, don't go to child.
Speaker 6 (33:56):
She goes Harnett.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You guys, start finding your case.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
If you're king the love of my life? Oh God,
how are n it?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Jelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
The Girlfriend's Jelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from Novel, visit novel Dot Audio. The show
is hosted by me Anna Sinfield and is written and
produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from
Jako Taivich and Michael Jino. Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr.
(34:44):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Shari Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact
checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by me Alis Infield,
Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander. Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander,
(35:08):
Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein. Story development by Nell Gray
Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative director of Novel, Max O'Brien
and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel, and Katrina
Norvell and Nicki Eator are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
(35:29):
Carry Lieberman and the whole team at WME
Hey, girlfriend, it's Anna here giving you a quick heads
up on what to expect in this episode. We're going
to talk about the night of the murder a lot
and in detail, and I want to warn you that
there's going to be some mentions of domestic abuse, sexual assault,
and suicide. But we'll also get the chance to dive
into the weeds of the police investigation to learn more
(00:20):
about the case against Kelly and the holes in it.
If you feel impacted by some of the themes in
this show, you can reach out to No More. There
are domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources
to help.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You or your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
You can search No More dot org and we've also
put a link to their website in the episode description. Plus,
as always, there'll be more than a few swear words
for Kelly Harnett's brother, Ronnie. July seventh, twenty ten, was
a totally normal day.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I was on my way back from work and I
had are you know how they in a union square
and things like that they have the village Voice or whatever,
so their newspaper.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
He picks it up and sits down, leaving through like
he would any other time, and there printed in black
and white is a headline that reads something like, please
arrest two individuals after a murder.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
In a story of Queens.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I was looking at people next to me. I said,
you believe this in our neighborhood? And I showed them
and they looked at it and they just shook their heads.
They were like, what's this world coming to?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Ronnie doesn't think any more of it other than what
a shame it is that the place he once knew
as a safe family neighborhood seems to be going to
the dogs.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So I go home.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
My mother's like, yeah, you might want to sit down.
I was like, am I just telling me what's going on?
And I never a billion years did crossed my mind
what I read? You know. So she's like, Kelly, she
got arrested, and I said, for what she said, for murder,
(02:19):
shocking is an understatement. I started getting dizzy. I started
seeing stars and I was like, WHOA. But I knew,
I said, I know my sister, she didn't do this.
I know she didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm Annisonfield and from the teams at novel and iHeart Podcasts,
this is the girlfriend's jailhouse lawyer. Yes, episode three, he
(03:11):
said she said. It's around four am on July seventh,
twenty ten, when Kelly Hannette first arrives at the one
hundred and fourteenth Precinct. She's immediately processed as a suspect
(03:35):
in the murder of Reuben Angel Vargas.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
They took all of my clothes from me, including my
bride under her. They put me in a white paper suit.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Kelly can't believe what's happening to her.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
She's just witnessed her boyfriend Tommy Donovan kill a man
right in front of her before threatening that she would
be next, but no one seems to be treating her
like the victim.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
She is.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Sitting in her cell.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Feeling like the world is against her. Kelly decides to
do something reckless, something that will warp and color every
memory she tells me from this time. Somehow she's managed
to smuggle in a huge amount of xanax, and she
knows she needs to get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Before they're discovered by the police.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But she also just wants to escape this situation somehow,
And right there in the palm of her hand, she
sees a solution.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Down the hair they go and there was a lot
and I didn't care if it was a suicide attempt.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Or what the hell it was.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Whatever happens happens, because it sounds like my life just
got ripped from under me because of something that I
didn't even do.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
I was like, look if I die, I die.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
From there, things just get worse for Kelly. Not only
is she now really high in police custody, but she's
also withdrawing. She tells the police she needs her methodone.
She's on that huge one hundred and seventy milligram daily dose,
but she's been without it for days because Tommy wouldn't
(05:24):
let her go to the clinic. Kelly's hoping now she's
in official police custody that they'll give her what she needs,
but they refuse. On top of this, Kelly suffers from
what's called grand mal seizures, she says. She asks repeatedly
for her seizure medication, which is in police possession, but
(05:45):
they say they'll only give it to her if she
writes a statement. She has multiple seizures while in custody.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
She also gets her period.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
She asks the cops for some sanitary but they refuse
those two They leave her bleeding into her white paper
suit it soaks right through and is visible to anyone
who sees her. And because she hasn't got anything on underneath,
every time she goes to the bathroom, she has to
strip down completely naked.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Kelly says.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Male staff gather around to watch, making comments about her body.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I'm bleeding everywhere, but you're talking about my breasts and
calling your friends in because it's a free show.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Discusting pigs.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I have absolutely no no respect for them. I'm sorry,
but they were disgusting to me. I didn't even fucking
commit this crime. How dare you? How fucking dare you?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
It should be clear to anyone that Kelly is in
no fit state to give a reliable account of what's happened,
and yet four hours after her arrest, cops take down
an oral statement. Here's a quick reminder of how Kelly
described the knight of the murder.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Back in episode one.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Kelly and Tommy met Angel and they decided to drink
together while Tommy went off to buy the three of
them beers. Kelly says Angels sexually assaulted her. When Tommy returned,
Kelly told him what happened. Tommy then attacked and choked Angel.
Kelly tried to get him to stop, but Tommy pushed
(07:35):
her away and threatened that she would be next. After that,
Tommy forced Kelly to hand over her shoelace. He then
attempted to use it to strangle Angel, but it snapped. Next,
Kelly witnessed Tommy put his belt around Angel's neck and
(07:55):
finally kill him. That's what Kelly said to me in
twenty twenty four, but it's not what she told the
police back in twenty ten.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I was woken up frantically by my boyfriend Tommy Danovan,
stating we got to get out of here now, and
then they put in.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Kelly is reading from her original oral statement, which was
taken at around eight am on July seventh. In it,
Kelly says that she didn't witness the crime at all. Instead,
she's woken up by Tommy, who tells her that he'd
seen a guy who'd stolen his shoes the previous day
and choked him unconscious.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
He then tells her start packing your crap up.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Kelly starts gathering her things, and while she's doing that,
Kelly says, Tommy takes her shoelace out of her sneaker
and takes it over to the guy who's on the ground.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
A male Hispanic wearing a dark collared shirt was lying
down moving in that Tommy grabbed him from behind around
the neck and choked him again for proximately ten seconds.
Kelly states that Tommy told her to kick said mail
Hispanic and that she didn't. Kelly states that Tommy let
said male Hispanic go and he fell to the ground lifeless.
(09:20):
You're doing okay, Yeah, it was just the part that
started because you know, the beginning is what I told
the detectives, because I was just afraid, you know, there
was no truth to it. But the part that got
me was when it became truthful that he had the
mail and that he fell lifeless.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
That that gets me.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, of course, you know, because no matter what he tried,
meaning the sexual assault.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
That's still a life.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
At the end of the day, he's still someone's brother,
he's someone's son, possibly father.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
You know, so.
Speaker 6 (09:57):
Terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
In a written statement she gives about an hour or
so later, at about nine thirty am, Kelly sounds like
she's really grappling with the horrors of the previous night.
It honestly does read like she's high in a disjointed
stream of consciousness, where she veers from talking about her
mum's back injury, to her college scholarships to how religious
(10:22):
she is. Kelly writes about how putrid she feels about
all of this, and how going down for Tommy's stupidity
is such an awful feeling. I take all of that
into account, and I really do feel for the Kelly
of twenty ten. But I can't pretend that all the
inconsistencies between the story Kelly told me and the story
(10:43):
in these statements don't give me pause, especially this one
detail she's never told me before that Tommy ordered her
to kick Angel. In the statements from twenty ten, she
says she didn't do it, so I don't really understand
why she left it out when she told me her
version years later. For the first time, I'm grappling with
(11:06):
the possibility that Kelly isn't being fully open with me.
We both have stories to tell here, but I do
have this fear that they're not the same one.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Before I can go.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Any further, I need to understand more about what happened
that night, this time from Tommy's perspective. Can I just
(11:45):
read you this statement from Tommy?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
There's some stuff that's really horrible.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I'm sack with my producer Jake in our midtown airbnb.
Tommy Donovan's statement in front of us. It's one of
a few that he gave that day. One is an
oral statement taken according to the police documents, at around
four thirty pm on July seventh, the day of the murder.
It looks like it was typed up the next day
(12:10):
on the eighth. With all of this confusion swirling around
in my mind, I want to look at what Tommy
had to say about what happened in the part that night.
Believe me when I say that I am not predisposed
to trust this man, but I'm working with what I've got,
and what immediately stands out to me is the weird
(12:31):
and colorful context Tommy seems to add to that night
in the park. So this is obviously written from the
perspective of the cop noting it down. Mister Donovan informed
me that over the past few nights they had had
problems with perverse trying to watch them having sex, and
that they had even named them nightcrawlers. Yeah, mister Donovan.
(12:53):
It goes on to talk about how Tommy and Kelly
were attempting to fall around on a makeshift bed under
health skatebridge. When Kelly noticed one of these night crawlers,
she stormed up and slapped him around the face, which
then prompted Tommy to chase him seventy feet across the park.
On the way back, he spotted a Hispanic man sitting
(13:14):
on a park bench, who said, that's not right that
they try to watch you sit and have a beer.
So can we just stop there for a minute because
it feels very made up.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
Yeah, that's like somebody trying to write like a bad
script of what this kind of moment could be like.
And I'm like really trying to keep in mind that
this is what he's saying, hours after all this just happened.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, I think Kelly also told me about how she
had to translate between Tommy and Angel, who spoke Spanish,
but there's no language barrier problem in this retellinger. Mister
Donovan states that he accepted the man's offer and took
a Morello beer. Kelly then walked over and the man
offered her a beer as well, which he accepted. Mister
(13:56):
Donovan informed me that the three of them had a
beer or two each while discussing different types of beers
and agreeing on how Morello is much better than Corona.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I don't have a lot to say about that, but
it's weird.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
The only other thing I was thinking is like, it's
really hard for me to wrap my mind around whether
the fact that there is so much detail makes it
more or less plausible.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Mister Donovan further states that the man they had just
met introduced himself as Angel and was now asking him
to run to the bodega and buy some more beer,
and had stated, don't worry about it, I have money
and you can take my bike. Mister Donovan states that
he jumped on Angel's bike and quickly rode up to
the bodega, where he purchased six Loco beers.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So that's where the loko comes in.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
He then quickly rode by Tommy Stateman then says that
when he returned, Kelly and Angel were in the same
spot he had left the men.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
He says he asked Kelly if she was okay.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
She stated that she was fine, and they went on
to drink the beers they bought while chatting about various topics.
Mister Donovan states that after a while, according to Tommy's statement,
he and Kelly decided they wanted to get back to
falling around under the bridge, but Angel wouldn't leave them alone.
He's begging them not to go and offering to buy
more drinks and food, eventually following them to their makeshift bed.
(15:14):
So Tommy told Kelly to pretend she was sleeping while
he went to pee on the woodchip pile nearby. While
he was peeing, he heard Kelly's voice and she sounded upset.
He stopped peeing in midstream and walked back over to Kelly.
Once there, Kelly informed him that Angel had just offered
her money for sex, and he had stated to her,
I want to.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Lick your pussy. I'm good at it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Kelly further stated that Angel had said to her, I
have money and a job. I can take care of you.
Kelly informed him that Angel had just grabbed her crotch
and was visibly upset, just a warning that. The next
section talks about the murder itself. Mister Donovan states that
he became very angry, walked over to him, and pushed
him the two of them. The statement then goes on
(15:59):
to say that tom and Angel started wrestling on the
ground throwing and not landing punches. Eventually, Tommy gets Angel
into a chokehold with his right arm, but it wasn't working.
It doesn't specify where Kelly is, but it must be
right next to them, as it then says, Tommy tells
(16:20):
Kelly to kick Angel, then to kick him harder, which
it says she does numerous times in the groin.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
This is where it gets kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Mister Donovan further stated that he then told Kelly to
give him her shoe string. He stated that she removed
her shoe string from her shoe and wrapped it around
his neck, pulling it tight and handing it to him.
He then choked him with it until he became limp
(16:52):
Once Angel was unconscious, and again this is coming from
Tommy's typed up oral statement, Tommy told Kelly that they
needed to get the hell out of there and started
gathering up his things. Then he walked away, and when
he looked back, he saw that Kelly was on top
of Angel, strangling him to death. He ran over and
(17:12):
yelled at her to go, and on their way out
of the park, Donovan.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Says he noticed Kelly took Angel's wallet and cash.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Mister Donovan stated that he did not want to get
arrested for robbery. Really small concern there, so he grabbed
the wallet from her, threw it on the rocks, and
put the money in his pocket. They both then crossed
the street towards the water, where they were immediately stopped
by the police, resulting in them getting arrested.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Okay, let's digest all of that properly, because it was
a lot. The inconsistencies between Kelly and Tommy's twenty ten
statements ranged from from minor to glaring. Both Tommy and
Kelly's statements mentioned the shoelace, although he says she handed
it over and she says he took it from her,
(18:11):
and both of them mentioned Tommy telling Kelly to kick Angel,
although they again differ on whether Kelly actually did or
didn't do it. Kelly says she was woken by Tommy
after he admitted choking out Angel, but Tommy says Kelly
was not only awake for the attack, but that she
physically put her own shoelace around Angel's neck, pulled it tight,
(18:32):
and handed it to Tommy. Tommy also says that while
he choked Angel, it was only to the point of unconsciousness.
Then he walked away, and when he looked back, he
saw that Kelly was on top of Angel, strangling him
to death. And then there's the differences in Kelly's accounts,
which I understand thinking about the mindset that twenty ten
(18:54):
Kelly was in, traumatized, scared, not to mention high, I
can tote get why she would lie to the police
to protect herself, why she'd want to distance herself from
terrible crime. But I'm also confused about what the truth is, sure,
but also why Kelly isn't opening up to me. Could
(19:16):
I ask you some questions about Donovan's statement.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Sure, I've been reading through it.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
There are a couple of.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Things that stood out to me that seemed to be
kind of parallels. Some stuff that came up in your
original statement that seemed to match and haven't come up
in our previous conversations, one of them being he asked
you to kick Ruben, Ruben being Reuben Angel Vargas the victim,
(19:47):
and then in his original statement you do that. In
your original statement, you also say that he asked you
to but you didn't do it. And then since we've
spoken and that hasn't been any mention of the kicking,
and so I just want to figure.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
Out, Oh, okay, clarification, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
So I remember the detective kept saying to me now
just right, that he told you to kick the victim,
and that you did.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Like nobody kicked him, not even my co defendant. What
really happened. When I was speaking to the Spanish man.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
The decendent, he told both of us that he got
thrown out of the house because he was drinking too
much and that his brother beat him up and threw
him out.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So when you beat.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Someone up, clearly there's going to be bruising.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
So they wanted to implicate me, just for me to
take the blame on doing something, and he yelled at
me to the point where I wrote the words just
for them to stop. I remember thinking, this is how
confessions come about.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I think Kelly means false confessions here.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
The fact that I'm writing he told me to kick him.
That was a lie. That was a complete lie.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
But I felt like since the word kick is in there,
they'll lay off a little bit, and they did.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
The reason I ask about the kicking is because to me,
if somebody did what is said in Tommy's statement, kicking
someone to get them away is not at all a
bad things. And so I'm just saying like, if that
had happened, No, no, I would be not share the
fuck enough, you.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
Know, No, No, I get it. This is what I'm
trying to say. If I kicked him one hundred percent,
I would tell you I kicked him. But if I
didn't kick him, I didn't kick him. I almost wish
I kicked him at this point.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
I didn't kick him. You know why, I was too
fucking scared to kick him. I was not going back there.
You have to think of the domestic violence aspect and
not the truth finding aspect. The domestic violence aspect of
the matter is that I was afraid of Tommy.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
You think I'm gonna.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Be busy trying to kick him in when I'm trying
to figure out how the hell am I going to
get out of this one?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, I live to see.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
The next minute, of course. No, I'm not gonna worry
about going to kick someone.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
I adopted what they stated just to write it, so
they leave me the fuck alone.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So I'm going to be really honest here about a
couple of things. Number one is that I'm not proud
of the take that you just heard, then I nearly
didn't include it. Number two is that I feel so
fucking out of my depth right now. In all the
years I've spent making this show, speaking to countless survivors
(22:46):
of domestic and gendered violence, I've never upset someone like that.
But then I've never dealt with someone as complicated as Kelly,
and I have absolutely no idea where to go from here.
(23:15):
I spend a lot of time running back that conversation
between me and Kelly in my head, when she spoke
about hoping that the police would leave her the fuck alone.
I can't help but feel like she was also talking
to me, which feels like shit. The last thing I
want Kelly to feel is attacked or judged, because for me,
(23:36):
so much of this job of interviewing people, of getting
them to share their experiences with me, it's a relationship
one based around mutual respects and trust, one that I
honestly tend to find pretty easy to build. I'm struggling
to build that mutual trust with Kelly. Sometimes I feel
(23:57):
like she's telling me exactly what I want to hear,
and in other times I can feel like she's keeping
me at arm's length. I'm going to go out on
a limb here and say that I do not in
any way believe the part of Tommy's statement where he
says Kelly physically strangled Angel. I think this was nothing
more than him trying to shift some of the blame
(24:17):
for his crime. But I can't ignore the fact that
it is possible that Kelly could have kicked Angel. It's
mentioned in both statements, so I feel like I have
to at least consider it. But even if she did
kick Angel, for me, it would just be another sign
of the terrible situation she was in and of the
(24:39):
power Tommy had over her, not proof that she killed anyone.
I do think Kelly has a point about the police
pushing her to write what they wanted, because when I
start looking into things a little deeper, it does feel
like there's something funny going on in these statements. This
next section gets into the weeds a little bit, but
(25:02):
stay with me. Remember how I said Tommy gave multiple
statements to the police. Well, one of them is a
handwritten statement, which was made at about six pm on
July seventh. In that statement, he isn't as certain about
the details. He says he couldn't remember if Kelly said
Angel tried to touch her or did touch her.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
But in the officer's typed up.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Version you've just heard me and producer Jake reading, that
uncertainty is nowhere to be found. Also in the typed version,
it says Kelly kicked Angel on Tommy's orders and then
robbed Angel's dead body for good measure, But in the
written version by Tommy himself, there's no mention of the
kicking or of the robbery, which seems like a pretty
(25:50):
big omission to me.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Two pretty big emissions.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I know these might seem like small detail, but I
do think it's worth examining how statements can become, let's
just say, refined by police who are trying to build
an air tight case. The more I look into it,
the more confused I become. The awkward truth is, you
either believe Kelly's story now or you don't. For me,
(26:21):
it comes down to that trust again. I can't ignore
the possibility, However uncomfortable it is to face that Kelly
could be hiding things, things she doesn't want to say
because she thinks it makes her look bad, less like
a victim, more like a villain. Maybe, because she doesn't
(26:41):
trust that I'm able to understand. Doesn't think I can
extend my compassion to someone who's done a bad thing
in the name of survival, even though that's at the
heart of what I'm trying to do with this series.
But I can't say I really blame her after the
way our last conversation went down, I feel like this
(27:05):
story is exposing all of my blind spots. I don't
know how to tell Kelly's story. I don't know who
she is in the story. Who's the victim?
Speaker 7 (27:17):
I think everybody's the victim, Like they're all the victim.
You could put everybody in a different role, you could
like make it whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
But yeah, everyone's a victim. Everyone's a villain. How do
you like that?
Speaker 7 (27:33):
iHeart end of series?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
End of series.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Wraps, and not just yet. I'm not going to throw
in the towel that easy. So let's go back to
July twenty ten. Kelly's not sure exactly how long she'd
been at the one hundred and fourteenth Precinct for things
(27:59):
must be hazy as she comes down from the fistful
of xanax she swallowed when she first arrived.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
But she has a rough idea.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
I figured out how long I was there by touching
my legs and judging by the length of the hair
on my legs, because I shave every single day, and
I could tell I was like, I've been here for
a little bit over two days now.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Using leg hair as plock hands is honestly ingenious, and
Kelly's probably about right because according to New York law, generally,
you're only allowed to hold someone for up to seventy
two hours before you either charge them or release them. Unfortunately,
for Kelly, it's the former. Kelly's taken to be formally
(28:47):
charged in Queen's cord. She's still in that bloodstained paper suit.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Paper.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Nothing more than paper, not even shoes, and my own
blood coming everywhere.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
She's being arraigned alongside Tommy.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
The first thing I noticed, which is unbelievable and the
one fourteenth persons should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, is
that he was wearing his own clothes.
Speaker 6 (29:16):
The admitted murderer.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Had his own clothes on while they took me the
female's clothes.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
How dare they?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Tommy is brought up to the stand next to Kelly.
They're out side by side. She takes a moment to
look him up and down, and that's when she realizes something.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
Not only did he get to keep his own clothes,
he had his belt on.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
The belt that, according to Kelly, Tommy used to strangle
Angel to death.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
They let him in with the weapon that killed someone,
that took someone's life.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Kelly's fuming, and I get it. The indignity she's suffered
for the past few days in the police precinct would
be hard for anyone to bear. And for the record,
I find it supremely fucked up how differently Kelly says
she and Tommy are being treated. It isn't right under
any circumstances. Whether or not you believe that Kelly kicked Angel.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
I swear on my mother's ashes, I really did not
kick that man. May I go to hell for all
of it tearing me.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I did not kick that man.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
But even if I did, he admittedly strangled him. Why
wouldn't you take his clothing? Even if I kicked him?
Speaker 6 (30:43):
What if that had to do with my bra and pennies?
Speaker 5 (30:46):
It's such a violation of every civil rate, like you
treating me less than a human being.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
That's what they put me through.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
This is the justice system.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
In God, we trust.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
No, you know you don't trust in God. If you
do that to people, there is no God there.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Once Kelly and Tommy are arraigned, they're taken out of
the courtroom and walk towards a jail transfer bus, one
that is hauntingly familiar to Kelly. When Kelly was a
little girl, she and her brother Ronnie used to play
(31:34):
around at their aunt's house.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
She lived the house right there where you turned and
went to the bridge to go to Rikers.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
As in Rikers Island jail.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
And I would be playing in the front.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
The Rikers Island buses used to pierced by all the
time and then curve right into where Rikers is.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
As the buses crept past the two children, the passenger's
eyes turned to them.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
They would be watching Ronnie and I and I would
see those buses pass all.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
The time, and I was like, what's those buses? Why
do they have cages?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Now decades on, Kelly's an adult stepping onto one of
those buses, it.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Was all men and just me.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
And tell me it was on the bus and all
the men were calling me a dirty bitch. Not that
I look dirty, because I take showers every day, but
because of my female.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Issue, the bloodstained paper suit.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
Dirty bitch, smelly bitch, you smell like fish, just and
that I'm just waiting for time me to say something
he never did.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
The bus winds through the city, passing the same garden
Kelly and her brother Ronnie played in as children, except
now it's Kelly who's looking out through a caged window
on her way to Rikers Island jail.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Rikers had seriously dangerous people and it scared the hell
out of me.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Next time, on The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer, Kelly fights to
prove her innocence and to survive life in Rikers.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Well, this was the survival of the fittest.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Only the strong survive. Our sisterhood called ourselves. The showdies.
I'm not guilty.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
I plan on taking this to trial.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Don't go to child, Please, don't go to child.
Speaker 6 (33:56):
She goes Harnett.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You guys, start finding your case.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
If you're king the love of my life? Oh God,
how are n it?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Jelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
The Girlfriend's Jelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from Novel, visit novel Dot Audio. The show
is hosted by me Anna Sinfield and is written and
produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from
Jako Taivich and Michael Jino. Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr.
(34:44):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Shari Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact
checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by me Alis Infield,
Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander. Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander,
(35:08):
Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein. Story development by Nell Gray
Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative director of Novel, Max O'Brien
and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel, and Katrina
Norvell and Nicki Eator are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
(35:29):
Carry Lieberman and the whole team at WME
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