August 4, 2025 • 32 mins
Stuck in Rikers Island Jail, Kelly forms a family of women who’ve been through hell, just like her. But she’s got enemies too.
And as she studies for her case, she begins to discover that the law… just might be the greatest love of her life.
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, girlfriends, it's me Anna. I wanted to give your
heads up. This episode takes place within Reiker's Island Jail,
so we'll obviously be speaking a lot about.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The prison system.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Plusa's going to be talk about addiction, and there's lots
of references to violence, including domestic abuse.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
But I'll also get.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
To introduce you to some incredible women who formed a
sisterhood while locked up and who helped Kelly become the
woman she is today. If you're affected by any of
the themes around domestic and gendered violence in this show,
reach out to our charity partner No More. There are
domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources to
help you or your loved ones. You can search No
(00:42):
More dot org and we've put a link to their
website in the episode description. There's also going to be
some bad language, so let's go. It's a swelteringly hot
day in early July twenty ten. Kelly Hannatt has just
arrived at the infamous Riker's Island Jail. She's been taken
(01:06):
into a unit called pretty Uninspiringly New Admissions.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
This is where you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Wait around while you and a busload of other detainees
are processed. It's not a comfortable place to be even
at the best of times, and this month temperatures are
reaching as high as one hundred degrees fahrenheit For the
non Americans in the room, that's nearly forty degrees celsius
at the time. Rikers also doesn't have any air conditioning,
(01:34):
so you're just cattle in a hot tin can.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I couldn't take it. And this one piece paper suit
covered my footing and I had no shoes on.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Remember that bloodstained suit Kelly was wearing. She still got
that on.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It was so hot. I ripped the shoe part and
rolled it up now on barefoot. In II Grews Island
Inn Intake, which is the philbies place that I know
of in the world.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
From Intake, where all new arrivals go, Kelly is taken
through a series of invasive medical tests, blood tests, mental
health assessments, drug checks. Then she's issued with a kind
of jail starter pack, some clothes, two towels, two sheets, toothpaste,
and a toothbrush, a single green cup, plus something called
(02:27):
state soap, whatever the fuck that means. After getting her supplies,
Kelly spat out into the general population a sixty person unit.
As she walks through a communal area lined by cells,
she can tell that everyone's looking her up and down.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh, I stayed on me for two reasons. I was
white and the paper suit. Now I know that African
Americans are true. You did very unfairly in the justice system.
So it made sense when I went in there and
there are sixty cells, and fifty nine of them are
(03:10):
African American and then there is me. So people started
talking to me, you're blondie, your white girl, and I said, nah, no,
we're not doing that. I have a name, I'm not
a punk. You're not going to push me around in here.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Other than rejecting some new unwanted nicknames. Kelly keeps her
head down for the first couple of weeks. She's got
a plan.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Just watch and watch and watch, get a feel for
absolutely everybody. But while I was watching, I was definitely sick.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Kelly's been an opoid addict for a decade and it's
been on and off methadone for most of that time.
Right now, she's going through something called administrative detox. It's
the fastest detox that you can put a person through legally.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
When they're called methodon. A few times I had to
crawl on my hands and knees, and one captain when
he saw me, he said, you see, I hope you
remember this for the rest of your life. This is
what drugs do you.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
During this time, Kelly's barely able to speak, throwing up
and worse. Kelly's very religious, the Catholic girl through and through,
and a dedicated disciple of Saint Terrez, whose signature token
is a rose.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Kelly's been praying to her since she was four years old, and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I imagine she spent these early weeks of detox doing
the same. She's always relied on Saint Terrez to get
her through the worst. But right now there's someone else
by her side too. Kelly's being nursed by a woman,
a fellow inmate, someone she's never met before.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
This lady, she was maybe a couple of years older
than me. And when I was feeling a little bit
better and I could speak, I said, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She gives this woman a hug and I.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Said, why do you smell like roses? She said, ah,
these are my rosary beads. I got these from the Vatican.
They made of rosewood.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
The woman takes the beads off and places them around
Kelly's neck.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I said, what is your name? She says Teresa, and
I said, really, it's amazing. I feel that that was
my guardian angel I feel that God sent Saint Terre's
(05:52):
to tell me that everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's just as well, because Kelly's gonna need all the
help she can get, divine or otherwise if she's going
to survive here in Rikers, let's alone prove.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That she's not a murderer. I'm Annisonfield and from the
teams at.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Novel and iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend's Gaolhouse.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Lawyer, Episode four, The Shorties.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
At first, Kelly keeps her distance from the other inmates,
but pretty soon it becomes clear that to get by
and here, she's going to need some friends.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Enter Angelica.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Our sisterhood called ourselves the Sholdies.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Angelica isn't actually her real name, but it's what we're
going to call her.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Going to Core, it is the time where men and
women are brought back together, right because we're very very
separate quarters, and so we don't see each other until
it's time to go to court.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The way the guys speak to you. They go you
show it. You showed it with the blonde here, showed it,
showed it with a gray shirt, or showed it with
the black pants. You show, they give me your numbers.
So we started this show. We started calling ourselves to
show this and this is when I formed a family
in Rikers.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
We're gonna find lightness and everything. I mean, I think
it's part of the human condition. As terrible as an
experience is, in order to survive it, you find some
beauty somewhere. You find something amusing somewhere.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Kelly finds her little pocket of joy at the same
place she found it before. Present on the dance floor,
drop the big kel.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Mice for my.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Walk and on and dance like in the open in
the huge recreational room. I wanted to feel happiness, and
that's what made me happy. So I danced and other
people started dancing again. We started what they call a battle.
One person will go and then the next person goes,
(08:23):
and then by whatever you hear of the crowd scream
like yo, she got sunned, that's who wins. Then the
officers were calling other officers to come watch this, and
they said, you gotta see the way this white girl
is sunning everybody. Yeah, I won the battle. They were
(08:47):
like yo, white girl could get down, and they took
me in as their own.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Which included sharing the most sacred secret recipe, DIY beauty tips.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
How do we straighten hair without a flat iron? Well,
we had a nice hot pot, which is kind of
like a long tea kettle if you want, and we
went unplug it and like wrap hair around it and
brush it. Or in Kelly's skide, she liked her hair curly,
so she would make rollers out of newspapers or tissue.
(09:28):
She's kind of like roll her hair tied a little
not go to sleep and there you go, curly soup.
And for lipstick, for example, we had these little packs
of almost like kool aid with the crystals, a little
bit to your lips. There you go, No smuch, lipstick.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
What about foundation or eyeshadow or a scar? My scar
must be hard.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
So mascara was made with toothpaste and the ink from
a pen. Now, thinking back at it, probably not the
best thing for your eyes, but don't get your eyes
wet and you're fine, right, And it worked just like mscara,
(10:14):
and it got to the point where officers were like,
you guys have makeup in yourselves. Were like no, They're like, oh,
here go these Building eight girls. You know, because we
were always tipped up as.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
The shortiest bond.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Over time, Kelly tells them about her case and everyone
kind of shrugs it off.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
All of us were like, why are you here. Kelly's innocent.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
They can all tell and it's just a matter of
time before a jury will see that too.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
We just knew, Oh, you're gonna go home, you know.
This is just it's unfortunately it is taking this long.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
At one point early in Kelly's detention, her brother Ronnie
comes to pay her a visit. The visitors area is
one depressing room split into two by a row of
booths that go down the middle. Glass separates the prisoners
and the visitors.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Over the two way telephones.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Kelly and Ronnie are having a heated exchange. Kelly's been
offered a plea deal ten years in prison. Her co defendant,
an ex boyfriend, Tommy Donovan, the man Kelly says is
solely responsible for Angel Vargas's murder, has already taken the
deal he was offered.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
He'll take a plea from manslaughter for fifteen years, and
the deal was as long as he states that I
helped him. Those were the conditions.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
But Kelly's not budgeting.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'm not guilty. I'm not taking a plea. I plan
on taking this to trial.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Don't go to trial. Please, don't go to trial.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Ronnie. I can't say the words that I did something
I didn't do.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I was getting so frustrated.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Ronnie was so scared to lose me that he was
telling me to take the plea. I screamed it out.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Do you think that everybody that's shit? Do you think
they all did it?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
And everybody that was there that was shaking their heads
like he's right.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Kelly's in a unit of sixty, but Ryker's Island houses
around six hundred women in total. Their charges range from
things like simple drug possession all the way up to murder.
They come from different places, but there's one thing so
many of them seem to have in common.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Very few people wake up one morning you say I'm
gonna hurt somebody today. Right, there's a whole story before
you get.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
To that moment.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
One after another, those stories eventually blend in together.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Is that a woman calls an ear for the messbality.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I have a domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Case, domestic violence survivor fighting off their attacker, and things
like that.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
He came up behind me and put me in an
awful chocoal in trying to kill me the first time
I fell.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Back where I ended up killing him.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
Next thing I know, I was being arrested for a
murder in a first degree.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
This isn't unique to Rikers.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Studies showed that more than seventy percent of incarcerated women
say there've been victims of domestic abuse, and obviously this
is in addition to the poverty and racial abuse many
have experienced. When Kelly looked around the visiting room that
day and looked around the jailhouse in the days after,
she wouldn't have just seen a room full of potential criminals,
(13:46):
but a room full of women like her. All Kelly
can hope is that the next chapter of her life
includes a not guilty verdict. But it's a not hill battle,
and the odds are seriously stacked against her. Because that
plea deal that her ex boyfriend Tommy took, the one
(14:08):
where he agreed to testify against her. It means that
now she's facing even greater charges than him, and if
Kelly can't convince a jury that she's a victim too,
she could spend the rest of her life in prison.
(14:41):
About three weeks after arriving at Riker's, Kelly is still
getting her daily dose of Methadone. One day she gets
talking to the woman in charge of the detox program,
Miss Cruise.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
She goes, Harnett, you need to start it with this
methodone shit. You need to get the hell off of it,
and you need to get your ast to that law library.
That's what you need to do. You need to get
your head in those books, seriously, Kelly. And when she
got me, Kelly, it was like humanizing me. She said,
(15:13):
you gotta start finding your case. So I said to myself,
all right, she go to the law library. See what happens.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
The next day at twelve thirty pm sharp, Kelly's outside
the law library. She's waiting at the locked blue door,
peering in through the window, and.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
The officer opens the door, checks the list. They're very
used to nobody's showing up. They're still used to getting
those hours free and they could just go and hang
out with their friends. So I was cramping their style.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
The law library is divided into two main sections, separated
by a big divider with windows. As you walk through,
you'll see a load of computers and then row after
row of bookcases. But to get to that part, you
first have to pass the officer's desk, which sits directly
across from a bunch of old typewriters and some of
(16:12):
the dustiest, oldest law books in the library.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
He was really pissed off the guard that somebody was
coming in. He said to me, anytime you want to leave,
you leave early. And I was like, there's no way
I'm moving early. What am I going back to? Really?
What am I going back to?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
There is one person happy to see Kelly in the
law library.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
The paralegal that was there, an older man. His name
was Fernando Contreras. What an amazing man. I mean, he
was so great with me. He gave me so much hope.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Kelly picks up her first book.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
McKinney's Consolidated Law, that's the binding authority for New York State.
I started reading it and nothing made sense to me. Literally,
at first, they look like hieroglyphics. It was like a
complete foreign language, and I didn't understand how people could
(17:18):
possibly go in there and understand anything. And I said, Okay, Kelly,
the only way that you could learn to love this
is if you're good at it. Everyone loves something that
they're good at. So start reading things over and over
and over until you practically memorize them. When you practically
(17:40):
memorize them, you're going to become good at it. When
you're good at it and you master it, you're going
to love it. I was studying for sixteen hours a day.
I was reading CPL seven ten, twenty thirty seven, forty
(18:01):
and so forth, Brady violations, Rosario violations.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
One day, during one of Kelly's hieroglyphic translations, another inmate
comes to join her.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Her name is Peaches.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Peaches became a really good friend of mine. She had
such an amazing personality. She was such a good person.
She was just so genuine, and I would help her
a little bit with her reading. And then it became
like a potential assistance for legal work. Because I'm just
(18:38):
getting started, so I didn't know if I would ever
have the capability to help myself or anyone else.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But the more Kelly reads and then rereads, the more
things start to fall into place.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
By the third time I read it, I couldn't believe that.
I felt like they look like hieroglyphics because I'm totally
understanding this now, and I'm picking up the wording even
if a case is unfavorable. I'm learning how to write
the way that they write.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
She's not just regurgitating a bunch of jargon. Kelly starts
crafting legally sound arguments.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
They became the love of my life. I started filing
dismissals and a dateming for people at Rikers Island.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Kelly's not only helping individuals with their own cases, She's
fighting for all of her Rikers Island sisters.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
We took them to court for taking our flip flops away.
We took them to court for searches like they were
doing excessive searches on a specific unit because it was
so small, and we took them to court for that.
They stayed away for about eight months.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
After that, Kelly's reputation eventually starts spreading around the prison.
It even reaches a recently arrived inmate who will call Tash.
She's been jailed in Rikers following a lifetime of abuse
after witnessing her boyfriend murder someone everyone who makes Tasha
(20:11):
tells her the same thing.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
You need to go toward the Kelly. So I'm like, well,
who's Kelly? But she works in a lot of library.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
By this point, Kelly's in high demand. There's a long
line of women who want her services. Tasha comes back
again and again.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Eventually I asked her one day, I said, excuse me,
your name Kelly. She looked at me, she smiled with
the most beautiful and smiler ever gotten. Then she said yes.
I said, can you please help me? And I just
started crying. I sat down and she was like, well,
tell me what's going on. So I told her a
little bit about the case. And she went and she
found this paperworking that pertment. She put it out and
(20:52):
she gave it to me. She was like, I want
you to read this and write down whatever you feel
fits in your crown. Eventually, no, I will continue to
go back.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I was giving a lot of people hope, and they
were telling me that thank you so much for you
giving us so much shop. All of a sudden, the
little library started getting packed and like mister Brown wasn't
happy about that. Mister Brown was the officer. He goes,
oh god, her net Jahau lawyer.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Of course, life isn't all roses for Kelly inside, even
with Saint Z watching over her. Kelly spent the last
few months fighting for her fellow inmates, but her trial
is coming up she needs to go back to fighting
her own corner. Unfortunately for Kelly, though, that's not the
only fight she needs to be prepared for, because while
(21:43):
the Shortys have her back, Kelly's also.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Made some dangerous enemies.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
It's always an uncomfortable experience running into your ex's x.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Now imagine running into them in jail when.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Neither of you can get away, which is exactly what
happens to Kelly. She's trapped in Rikers with Tommy Donovan's
ex girlfriend, who Kelly says is inside for selling drugs.
And the worst part of all of this is that
Tommy's ex she has serious beef with Kelly.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I asked her why she's like you stole my men.
I had a fistfight with her literally every single solitary day,
every day, to the point where one day I said
I want to have a peaceful day today. So I
was five point thirty, it was breakfast time. I pounded
on her door and She's like what who's there? And
(22:57):
I was like, it's Kelly. Get up, let's go. So
we get it out of the way. So she comes
out like hair all crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I said, come on, She said, where are we going?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I said, to the staircase where there's no cameras and listen.
My brother told me to fight. And you know, for
a white blonde girl like people get shocked at my strength.
It's not something I'm proud of. I'm a lady. However,
if you're going to touch me, you are going to
get a receipt. So yeah, I kind of beat the
(23:30):
hell out of her on the staircase, but I didn't
start the fight. She kept hitting me first every day.
This went on for forty five to sixty days, so
I was like, okay, so it's a one to day thing,
so I'm just going to get her first. But I
would never be like a dirty person and like hit
her when she's not looking like she would to me.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
This isn't the only fight Kelly was getting in.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
They have these girls that we call bubble now. Bubble
leuts are the girls that hang around the officer's bubble
and flirt with them all day long, and you get
really pissed off because you're like, you can't get your
door open, you can't do this, you can't do that.
You need toilet paper, and they're just flirting and flirting,
(24:21):
and for I want to just say, listen, just put
the floating on hold. Can you just give me some
toilet paper? Please? I just use the bathroom and you
have to wait. Flirting, flirting, flirting.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Kelly asks if she can get past to use the
shower because one of the bubblets is standing in her way.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
She told me I couldn't use the shower, and I said,
ex use me. The last time I checked. You're an
inmate here, just like me. And she said you can't
use it, and I said, I'm using it.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Kelly breezes passed and steps into the shower.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Bad move. I feel someone rebb meat and yank, like
instant whiplish. Right now. I see people running in one
held one arm in back of me. When I went
to hit her, the girl cault my hand and hold
it back. They pull it like a crucifixion because it's
(25:15):
like one arm here, one arm here, you can't use it.
And then the girl who was flirting, she just starts
punching me in the face. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch.
Now I'm trying to kick her. Somebody else spares my leg.
Now each person has a limb. I'm up in the
air with the girl punching me over and over and
(25:37):
over repeatedly. Right the girl who was holding my right arm,
she said, stop, you're gonna cure. That's when I got scared.
If her co conspirator is telling her to stop, this
must look really bad. And then Peaches comes running in.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
In addition to being Kelly's on a official law library assistant,
Peaches is a big, friendly, giant type of woman.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
She's also not someone you fuck with.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
She said, you FM bitches, put her the f down
before I f and kill all of you. And she
put me down, all right. She actually threw me down
into another shower. Pes Kels, get up, now, get a
few shots in, and I did. I just started willing boom.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Boom boom, boom boom.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
This is not something I'm proud of. I just want
to put on the record. However, this was the survival
of the fittest, and like only the strong survive, so
if it got out there that I took this, it
would never stop so I knew I had to do
some type of damage to make it visible to other people.
I did a lot more than I intended I'm doing.
(27:04):
I put her on a wheelchair so permanently. No, no, no, no,
I think she was really trying to milk it. Honestly,
she told everyone, Yo, that white bitch is crazy. Say
the fuck away from her.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Like the other times Kelly's told me she's gotten into scraps,
Kelly was quick to add that she's not proud of
how this bust up went down, but she's also kind
of laughing it off. And while she might not have
started this fight, she sure finished it. I know my
discomfort has showed me up as a real soft handed
Lily Liver journalist, and believe me, I am trying my
(27:42):
best not to be. But here's the thing. Firstly, I'm
still shaking off my preconceived notions of how I would
expect a victim like Kelly to behave. And also because
I reckon if I was facing an accusation of murder,
I wouldn't be so open about sharing a story where
I kick the shit out of someone to the point
(28:05):
of them needing a wheelchair temporarily or not. I care
about Kelly, and I kind of want to tell her
to edit herself in these moments because it doesn't look good.
But I actually think, in a weird way, Kelly telling
me this shows that she's not holding back or shying
away from some of the less sympathetic parts of her story.
(28:28):
The bottom line is, jail is a rough place, and,
like Kelly says, only the strong survive. Whenever she's not
fighting her exes X in the stairwell or a few
pissed off bubblettes in the shower, Kelly's in the law library,
fighting her case, maybe a few dance battles in between.
(28:52):
Her life goes on like this for some time, which
won't be a surprise to anyone who has experience of
the justice system. It moves very slowly. It's May twenty thirteen.
Kelly's trial date, after years of delays, is set to
begin in the next few months.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Kelly's been poring over all the.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Documents from her case, arming herself as best she can
for the fight ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
When she gets some news.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Her lawyer has received a letter, a letter that could
change everything, A letter from her ex boyfriend Tommy Donovan.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Dear mister Ebstein, as you're already acquainted with me, I
will get to the point my memory is clear and
my intentions now true.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
On the next episode of The Girlfriend's Geilhouse Lawyer, Kelly's
case goes to trial.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
The trial was awful. They called Judge Lasak mister murder.
They got into an altercation with mister Vargas. Hi, I'm
the killer. That's the likely motive for what happened. Did
I pull that out of the air. No, I've pulled
that out of the evidence. They came back with the
unanimous verdict. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
The Girlfriend's Jailhouse 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 Jinno.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Our assistant producer is Madeline Park. The editors are Georgia
Moody and me Anason.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Production management from Serie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
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, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
(31:28):
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 Carrie Lieberman and the
whole team at WME
Hey, girlfriends, it's me Anna. I wanted to give your
heads up. This episode takes place within Reiker's Island Jail,
so we'll obviously be speaking a lot about.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The prison system.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Plusa's going to be talk about addiction, and there's lots
of references to violence, including domestic abuse.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
But I'll also get.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
To introduce you to some incredible women who formed a
sisterhood while locked up and who helped Kelly become the
woman she is today. If you're affected by any of
the themes around domestic and gendered violence in this show,
reach out to our charity partner No More. There are
domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources to
help you or your loved ones. You can search No
(00:42):
More dot org and we've put a link to their
website in the episode description. There's also going to be
some bad language, so let's go. It's a swelteringly hot
day in early July twenty ten. Kelly Hannatt has just
arrived at the infamous Riker's Island Jail. She's been taken
(01:06):
into a unit called pretty Uninspiringly New Admissions.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
This is where you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Wait around while you and a busload of other detainees
are processed. It's not a comfortable place to be even
at the best of times, and this month temperatures are
reaching as high as one hundred degrees fahrenheit For the
non Americans in the room, that's nearly forty degrees celsius
at the time. Rikers also doesn't have any air conditioning,
(01:34):
so you're just cattle in a hot tin can.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I couldn't take it. And this one piece paper suit
covered my footing and I had no shoes on.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Remember that bloodstained suit Kelly was wearing. She still got
that on.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It was so hot. I ripped the shoe part and
rolled it up now on barefoot. In II Grews Island
Inn Intake, which is the philbies place that I know
of in the world.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
From Intake, where all new arrivals go, Kelly is taken
through a series of invasive medical tests, blood tests, mental
health assessments, drug checks. Then she's issued with a kind
of jail starter pack, some clothes, two towels, two sheets, toothpaste,
and a toothbrush, a single green cup, plus something called
(02:27):
state soap, whatever the fuck that means. After getting her supplies,
Kelly spat out into the general population a sixty person unit.
As she walks through a communal area lined by cells,
she can tell that everyone's looking her up and down.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh, I stayed on me for two reasons. I was
white and the paper suit. Now I know that African
Americans are true. You did very unfairly in the justice system.
So it made sense when I went in there and
there are sixty cells, and fifty nine of them are
(03:10):
African American and then there is me. So people started
talking to me, you're blondie, your white girl, and I said, nah, no,
we're not doing that. I have a name, I'm not
a punk. You're not going to push me around in here.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Other than rejecting some new unwanted nicknames. Kelly keeps her
head down for the first couple of weeks. She's got
a plan.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Just watch and watch and watch, get a feel for
absolutely everybody. But while I was watching, I was definitely sick.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Kelly's been an opoid addict for a decade and it's
been on and off methadone for most of that time.
Right now, she's going through something called administrative detox. It's
the fastest detox that you can put a person through legally.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
When they're called methodon. A few times I had to
crawl on my hands and knees, and one captain when
he saw me, he said, you see, I hope you
remember this for the rest of your life. This is
what drugs do you.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
During this time, Kelly's barely able to speak, throwing up
and worse. Kelly's very religious, the Catholic girl through and through,
and a dedicated disciple of Saint Terrez, whose signature token
is a rose.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Kelly's been praying to her since she was four years old, and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I imagine she spent these early weeks of detox doing
the same. She's always relied on Saint Terrez to get
her through the worst. But right now there's someone else
by her side too. Kelly's being nursed by a woman,
a fellow inmate, someone she's never met before.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
This lady, she was maybe a couple of years older
than me. And when I was feeling a little bit
better and I could speak, I said, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She gives this woman a hug and I.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Said, why do you smell like roses? She said, ah,
these are my rosary beads. I got these from the Vatican.
They made of rosewood.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
The woman takes the beads off and places them around
Kelly's neck.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I said, what is your name? She says Teresa, and
I said, really, it's amazing. I feel that that was
my guardian angel I feel that God sent Saint Terre's
(05:52):
to tell me that everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's just as well, because Kelly's gonna need all the
help she can get, divine or otherwise if she's going
to survive here in Rikers, let's alone prove.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That she's not a murderer. I'm Annisonfield and from the
teams at.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Novel and iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend's Gaolhouse.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Lawyer, Episode four, The Shorties.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
At first, Kelly keeps her distance from the other inmates,
but pretty soon it becomes clear that to get by
and here, she's going to need some friends.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Enter Angelica.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Our sisterhood called ourselves the Sholdies.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Angelica isn't actually her real name, but it's what we're
going to call her.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Going to Core, it is the time where men and
women are brought back together, right because we're very very
separate quarters, and so we don't see each other until
it's time to go to court.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The way the guys speak to you. They go you
show it. You showed it with the blonde here, showed it,
showed it with a gray shirt, or showed it with
the black pants. You show, they give me your numbers.
So we started this show. We started calling ourselves to
show this and this is when I formed a family
in Rikers.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
We're gonna find lightness and everything. I mean, I think
it's part of the human condition. As terrible as an
experience is, in order to survive it, you find some
beauty somewhere. You find something amusing somewhere.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Kelly finds her little pocket of joy at the same
place she found it before. Present on the dance floor,
drop the big kel.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Mice for my.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Walk and on and dance like in the open in
the huge recreational room. I wanted to feel happiness, and
that's what made me happy. So I danced and other
people started dancing again. We started what they call a battle.
One person will go and then the next person goes,
(08:23):
and then by whatever you hear of the crowd scream
like yo, she got sunned, that's who wins. Then the
officers were calling other officers to come watch this, and
they said, you gotta see the way this white girl
is sunning everybody. Yeah, I won the battle. They were
(08:47):
like yo, white girl could get down, and they took
me in as their own.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Which included sharing the most sacred secret recipe, DIY beauty tips.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
How do we straighten hair without a flat iron? Well,
we had a nice hot pot, which is kind of
like a long tea kettle if you want, and we
went unplug it and like wrap hair around it and
brush it. Or in Kelly's skide, she liked her hair curly,
so she would make rollers out of newspapers or tissue.
(09:28):
She's kind of like roll her hair tied a little
not go to sleep and there you go, curly soup.
And for lipstick, for example, we had these little packs
of almost like kool aid with the crystals, a little
bit to your lips. There you go, No smuch, lipstick.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
What about foundation or eyeshadow or a scar? My scar
must be hard.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
So mascara was made with toothpaste and the ink from
a pen. Now, thinking back at it, probably not the
best thing for your eyes, but don't get your eyes
wet and you're fine, right, And it worked just like mscara,
(10:14):
and it got to the point where officers were like,
you guys have makeup in yourselves. Were like no, They're like, oh,
here go these Building eight girls. You know, because we
were always tipped up as.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
The shortiest bond.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Over time, Kelly tells them about her case and everyone
kind of shrugs it off.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
All of us were like, why are you here. Kelly's innocent.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
They can all tell and it's just a matter of
time before a jury will see that too.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
We just knew, Oh, you're gonna go home, you know.
This is just it's unfortunately it is taking this long.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
At one point early in Kelly's detention, her brother Ronnie
comes to pay her a visit. The visitors area is
one depressing room split into two by a row of
booths that go down the middle. Glass separates the prisoners
and the visitors.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Over the two way telephones.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Kelly and Ronnie are having a heated exchange. Kelly's been
offered a plea deal ten years in prison. Her co defendant,
an ex boyfriend, Tommy Donovan, the man Kelly says is
solely responsible for Angel Vargas's murder, has already taken the
deal he was offered.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
He'll take a plea from manslaughter for fifteen years, and
the deal was as long as he states that I
helped him. Those were the conditions.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
But Kelly's not budgeting.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'm not guilty. I'm not taking a plea. I plan
on taking this to trial.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Don't go to trial. Please, don't go to trial.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Ronnie. I can't say the words that I did something
I didn't do.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I was getting so frustrated.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Ronnie was so scared to lose me that he was
telling me to take the plea. I screamed it out.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Do you think that everybody that's shit? Do you think
they all did it?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
And everybody that was there that was shaking their heads
like he's right.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Kelly's in a unit of sixty, but Ryker's Island houses
around six hundred women in total. Their charges range from
things like simple drug possession all the way up to murder.
They come from different places, but there's one thing so
many of them seem to have in common.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Very few people wake up one morning you say I'm
gonna hurt somebody today. Right, there's a whole story before
you get.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
To that moment.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
One after another, those stories eventually blend in together.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Is that a woman calls an ear for the messbality.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I have a domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Case, domestic violence survivor fighting off their attacker, and things
like that.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
He came up behind me and put me in an
awful chocoal in trying to kill me the first time
I fell.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Back where I ended up killing him.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
Next thing I know, I was being arrested for a
murder in a first degree.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
This isn't unique to Rikers.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Studies showed that more than seventy percent of incarcerated women
say there've been victims of domestic abuse, and obviously this
is in addition to the poverty and racial abuse many
have experienced. When Kelly looked around the visiting room that
day and looked around the jailhouse in the days after,
she wouldn't have just seen a room full of potential criminals,
(13:46):
but a room full of women like her. All Kelly
can hope is that the next chapter of her life
includes a not guilty verdict. But it's a not hill battle,
and the odds are seriously stacked against her. Because that
plea deal that her ex boyfriend Tommy took, the one
(14:08):
where he agreed to testify against her. It means that
now she's facing even greater charges than him, and if
Kelly can't convince a jury that she's a victim too,
she could spend the rest of her life in prison.
(14:41):
About three weeks after arriving at Riker's, Kelly is still
getting her daily dose of Methadone. One day she gets
talking to the woman in charge of the detox program,
Miss Cruise.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
She goes, Harnett, you need to start it with this
methodone shit. You need to get the hell off of it,
and you need to get your ast to that law library.
That's what you need to do. You need to get
your head in those books, seriously, Kelly. And when she
got me, Kelly, it was like humanizing me. She said,
(15:13):
you gotta start finding your case. So I said to myself,
all right, she go to the law library. See what happens.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
The next day at twelve thirty pm sharp, Kelly's outside
the law library. She's waiting at the locked blue door,
peering in through the window, and.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
The officer opens the door, checks the list. They're very
used to nobody's showing up. They're still used to getting
those hours free and they could just go and hang
out with their friends. So I was cramping their style.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
The law library is divided into two main sections, separated
by a big divider with windows. As you walk through,
you'll see a load of computers and then row after
row of bookcases. But to get to that part, you
first have to pass the officer's desk, which sits directly
across from a bunch of old typewriters and some of
(16:12):
the dustiest, oldest law books in the library.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
He was really pissed off the guard that somebody was
coming in. He said to me, anytime you want to leave,
you leave early. And I was like, there's no way
I'm moving early. What am I going back to? Really?
What am I going back to?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
There is one person happy to see Kelly in the
law library.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
The paralegal that was there, an older man. His name
was Fernando Contreras. What an amazing man. I mean, he
was so great with me. He gave me so much hope.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Kelly picks up her first book.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
McKinney's Consolidated Law, that's the binding authority for New York State.
I started reading it and nothing made sense to me. Literally,
at first, they look like hieroglyphics. It was like a
complete foreign language, and I didn't understand how people could
(17:18):
possibly go in there and understand anything. And I said, Okay, Kelly,
the only way that you could learn to love this
is if you're good at it. Everyone loves something that
they're good at. So start reading things over and over
and over until you practically memorize them. When you practically
(17:40):
memorize them, you're going to become good at it. When
you're good at it and you master it, you're going
to love it. I was studying for sixteen hours a day.
I was reading CPL seven ten, twenty thirty seven, forty
(18:01):
and so forth, Brady violations, Rosario violations.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
One day, during one of Kelly's hieroglyphic translations, another inmate
comes to join her.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Her name is Peaches.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Peaches became a really good friend of mine. She had
such an amazing personality. She was such a good person.
She was just so genuine, and I would help her
a little bit with her reading. And then it became
like a potential assistance for legal work. Because I'm just
(18:38):
getting started, so I didn't know if I would ever
have the capability to help myself or anyone else.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But the more Kelly reads and then rereads, the more
things start to fall into place.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
By the third time I read it, I couldn't believe that.
I felt like they look like hieroglyphics because I'm totally
understanding this now, and I'm picking up the wording even
if a case is unfavorable. I'm learning how to write
the way that they write.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
She's not just regurgitating a bunch of jargon. Kelly starts
crafting legally sound arguments.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
They became the love of my life. I started filing
dismissals and a dateming for people at Rikers Island.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Kelly's not only helping individuals with their own cases, She's
fighting for all of her Rikers Island sisters.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
We took them to court for taking our flip flops away.
We took them to court for searches like they were
doing excessive searches on a specific unit because it was
so small, and we took them to court for that.
They stayed away for about eight months.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
After that, Kelly's reputation eventually starts spreading around the prison.
It even reaches a recently arrived inmate who will call Tash.
She's been jailed in Rikers following a lifetime of abuse
after witnessing her boyfriend murder someone everyone who makes Tasha
(20:11):
tells her the same thing.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
You need to go toward the Kelly. So I'm like, well,
who's Kelly? But she works in a lot of library.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
By this point, Kelly's in high demand. There's a long
line of women who want her services. Tasha comes back
again and again.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Eventually I asked her one day, I said, excuse me,
your name Kelly. She looked at me, she smiled with
the most beautiful and smiler ever gotten. Then she said yes.
I said, can you please help me? And I just
started crying. I sat down and she was like, well,
tell me what's going on. So I told her a
little bit about the case. And she went and she
found this paperworking that pertment. She put it out and
(20:52):
she gave it to me. She was like, I want
you to read this and write down whatever you feel
fits in your crown. Eventually, no, I will continue to
go back.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I was giving a lot of people hope, and they
were telling me that thank you so much for you
giving us so much shop. All of a sudden, the
little library started getting packed and like mister Brown wasn't
happy about that. Mister Brown was the officer. He goes,
oh god, her net Jahau lawyer.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Of course, life isn't all roses for Kelly inside, even
with Saint Z watching over her. Kelly spent the last
few months fighting for her fellow inmates, but her trial
is coming up she needs to go back to fighting
her own corner. Unfortunately for Kelly, though, that's not the
only fight she needs to be prepared for, because while
(21:43):
the Shortys have her back, Kelly's also.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Made some dangerous enemies.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
It's always an uncomfortable experience running into your ex's x.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Now imagine running into them in jail when.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Neither of you can get away, which is exactly what
happens to Kelly. She's trapped in Rikers with Tommy Donovan's
ex girlfriend, who Kelly says is inside for selling drugs.
And the worst part of all of this is that
Tommy's ex she has serious beef with Kelly.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I asked her why she's like you stole my men.
I had a fistfight with her literally every single solitary day,
every day, to the point where one day I said
I want to have a peaceful day today. So I
was five point thirty, it was breakfast time. I pounded
on her door and She's like what who's there? And
(22:57):
I was like, it's Kelly. Get up, let's go. So
we get it out of the way. So she comes
out like hair all crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I said, come on, She said, where are we going?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I said, to the staircase where there's no cameras and listen.
My brother told me to fight. And you know, for
a white blonde girl like people get shocked at my strength.
It's not something I'm proud of. I'm a lady. However,
if you're going to touch me, you are going to
get a receipt. So yeah, I kind of beat the
(23:30):
hell out of her on the staircase, but I didn't
start the fight. She kept hitting me first every day.
This went on for forty five to sixty days, so
I was like, okay, so it's a one to day thing,
so I'm just going to get her first. But I
would never be like a dirty person and like hit
her when she's not looking like she would to me.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
This isn't the only fight Kelly was getting in.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
They have these girls that we call bubble now. Bubble
leuts are the girls that hang around the officer's bubble
and flirt with them all day long, and you get
really pissed off because you're like, you can't get your
door open, you can't do this, you can't do that.
You need toilet paper, and they're just flirting and flirting,
(24:21):
and for I want to just say, listen, just put
the floating on hold. Can you just give me some
toilet paper? Please? I just use the bathroom and you
have to wait. Flirting, flirting, flirting.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Kelly asks if she can get past to use the
shower because one of the bubblets is standing in her way.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
She told me I couldn't use the shower, and I said,
ex use me. The last time I checked. You're an
inmate here, just like me. And she said you can't
use it, and I said, I'm using it.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Kelly breezes passed and steps into the shower.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Bad move. I feel someone rebb meat and yank, like
instant whiplish. Right now. I see people running in one
held one arm in back of me. When I went
to hit her, the girl cault my hand and hold
it back. They pull it like a crucifixion because it's
(25:15):
like one arm here, one arm here, you can't use it.
And then the girl who was flirting, she just starts
punching me in the face. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch.
Now I'm trying to kick her. Somebody else spares my leg.
Now each person has a limb. I'm up in the
air with the girl punching me over and over and
(25:37):
over repeatedly. Right the girl who was holding my right arm,
she said, stop, you're gonna cure. That's when I got scared.
If her co conspirator is telling her to stop, this
must look really bad. And then Peaches comes running in.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
In addition to being Kelly's on a official law library assistant,
Peaches is a big, friendly, giant type of woman.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
She's also not someone you fuck with.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
She said, you FM bitches, put her the f down
before I f and kill all of you. And she
put me down, all right. She actually threw me down
into another shower. Pes Kels, get up, now, get a
few shots in, and I did. I just started willing boom.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Boom boom, boom boom.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
This is not something I'm proud of. I just want
to put on the record. However, this was the survival
of the fittest, and like only the strong survive, so
if it got out there that I took this, it
would never stop so I knew I had to do
some type of damage to make it visible to other people.
I did a lot more than I intended I'm doing.
(27:04):
I put her on a wheelchair so permanently. No, no, no, no,
I think she was really trying to milk it. Honestly,
she told everyone, Yo, that white bitch is crazy. Say
the fuck away from her.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Like the other times Kelly's told me she's gotten into scraps,
Kelly was quick to add that she's not proud of
how this bust up went down, but she's also kind
of laughing it off. And while she might not have
started this fight, she sure finished it. I know my
discomfort has showed me up as a real soft handed
Lily Liver journalist, and believe me, I am trying my
(27:42):
best not to be. But here's the thing. Firstly, I'm
still shaking off my preconceived notions of how I would
expect a victim like Kelly to behave. And also because
I reckon if I was facing an accusation of murder,
I wouldn't be so open about sharing a story where
I kick the shit out of someone to the point
(28:05):
of them needing a wheelchair temporarily or not. I care
about Kelly, and I kind of want to tell her
to edit herself in these moments because it doesn't look good.
But I actually think, in a weird way, Kelly telling
me this shows that she's not holding back or shying
away from some of the less sympathetic parts of her story.
(28:28):
The bottom line is, jail is a rough place, and,
like Kelly says, only the strong survive. Whenever she's not
fighting her exes X in the stairwell or a few
pissed off bubblettes in the shower, Kelly's in the law library,
fighting her case, maybe a few dance battles in between.
(28:52):
Her life goes on like this for some time, which
won't be a surprise to anyone who has experience of
the justice system. It moves very slowly. It's May twenty thirteen.
Kelly's trial date, after years of delays, is set to
begin in the next few months.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Kelly's been poring over all the.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Documents from her case, arming herself as best she can
for the fight ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
When she gets some news.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Her lawyer has received a letter, a letter that could
change everything, A letter from her ex boyfriend Tommy Donovan.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Dear mister Ebstein, as you're already acquainted with me, I
will get to the point my memory is clear and
my intentions now true.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
On the next episode of The Girlfriend's Geilhouse Lawyer, Kelly's
case goes to trial.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
The trial was awful. They called Judge Lasak mister murder.
They got into an altercation with mister Vargas. Hi, I'm
the killer. That's the likely motive for what happened. Did
I pull that out of the air. No, I've pulled
that out of the evidence. They came back with the
unanimous verdict. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
The Girlfriend's Jailhouse 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 Jinno.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Our assistant producer is Madeline Park. The editors are Georgia
Moody and me Anason.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Production management from Serie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
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, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
(31:28):
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 Carrie Lieberman and the
whole team at WME
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