September 1, 2025 • 45 mins
Struggling to adjust to life outside of prison, Kelly tries to start fresh.
And Anna discovers that while her story is nearly over, for Kelly… it’s only just the beginning.
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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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Sannah here to give your heads up on
what to expect in this final episode. There's going to
be mentions of murder, domestic abuse, and addiction phist. There'll
be some distressing scenes. Oh and you guessed it, some
bad language. But you'll also get to see what the
future might hold for Kelly and how she's rebuilding her
life beyond prison. If you're affected by any of the
(00:23):
themes around domestic and gendered violence in this show, reach
out to our charity partner No More.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
There are a domestic.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Violence charity with a lot of great resources to help
you or your loved ones. You can search No More
dot org and we've also put a link to their
website in the episode description. It's the twenty seventh of
April twenty twenty two. Kelly Harnett is in a familiar place,
(00:53):
a prison transfer van.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
She's on her way to court.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Over the past decade and some change as her case
slowly moved through the justice system, Kelly has made a
lot of similar journeys, but this time something is different.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I am not kidding. I thought I was getting kidnapped
on the way to court.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
She's been traveling for two hours She's alone in the van.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Say for the prison guards up front.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
It was the most surreal feeling.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
In the world.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I'm in the van with no windows. I'm screaming at them,
why is this taking someone to get there?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
And they're not answering me at all.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
In the silence, Kelly's mind kicks into overdrive, imagining a
hundred different, equally distressing scenarios. Kelly's particularly anxious right now
because today isn't just any other day in court. If
all goes well, it will be her last, because she's
finally getting resentenced. Kelly squints, blinking as the sunlight paws
(02:10):
into the prison van, her heart beating as she wonders
where the hell she is.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Oh, this is Queen's Court.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Safely unkidnapped and dropped off at her destination.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Kelly steadies herself.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Then she starts walking towards her freedom.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
This was so cinematic.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
It was like the most beautiful courtate you could ever imagine.
I had on a white collared shirt, the tan pants
that they make you wear.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I wore my hair down.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And made sure I did my makeup really nice, and
I was ready to go home.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Kelly strides into Queen's court flanks by two prison guys.
They get into the lift and make her face the wall.
Then she's called into the courtroom where she'll be standing
in front of Judge Brunner dBase.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
As soon as I walked out, she said, good morning,
Miss Harnett with this bright smile.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
No judge ever looked at her or smiled at her.
One smile made such an impression on her.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
You've probably already guessed, but this is Judge dBase.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
I do make a conscious effort to interact with the
individuals in my court. Many of the litigants. I often
think that when they come in and they see me
and probably think, what does she understand about my pain?
But I do.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Judge Dbs's son Eric died of a drug overdose about
thirteen years ago. Then in twenty nineteen, her daughter Lisa,
who also struggled with addiction, hit a cyclist named John
James Uzma Quintero with her car. She was drunk and
high at the time. John died and Lisa went to
(04:14):
prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges. By the time
Kelly walks into Judge Dbiassi's courtroom in twenty twenty two,
Lisa is behind bars.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
Having had an incrocerted daughter has informed my decisions now
about the length of a sentence individual should receive. I
was so not versed in all of that at the
time of my son's active addiction. That was me.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
But you know, there's only so much you.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Can dwell in the past, and so what I've decided
to do is to take the knowledge that I have
now and to move forward and to help other people
with it.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Kelly has stood in front of more than a few
judges in her time. It's normally been a fight well
that Kelly is prepared to have again if needed.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Luckily it isn't.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
What she said to me next was as close to
indication as I'll ever get. She said to me, Miss Harnett,
I just want to let you know that I have
read every single page of every motion that you have
ever written. She's talking about the things I was starting
to write from Rikers throughout all those years, and I
(05:37):
always thought they're throwing them in the garbage. But she
read them and that meant the world to me, and
she said, I know how much you went through. You
stand here before me today as a true survivor.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Finally, Judge debiasse Leans forward, smile still on her face,
and then she says the words Kelly's been waiting to
hear all this time, resentenced, time served.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I said, your honor is giving me my second chance
at life. I walked out the court room and when
I went back into the elevator, I faced the war.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
They said, you don't have to face the war.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
No longer able to contain herself, tears start rolling down
Kelly's face. Before long, her lawyer, Kate Morgalascu is by
her side.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I was like, it's over.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's really, it's over. It's over.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Is it over.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
She's like, yes, Kelly, it's over. It's over.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
But here's the thing. Kate is wrong.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Because Kelly might be getting out of prison, but this
story isn't for her, not by a long shot. I'm
Anison Field and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts,
this is the Girlfriends Gelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Episode eight, No Regrets.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
After Kelly's triumphant court date, she gets sent back to
prison while they sought out all the admin for her
release as a bit of a distraction, and Kelly throws
herself into finishing up all her legal work for her
jailhouse clients. It's the morning of the fifth of May
twenty twenty two. Kelly's busy putting the final touches together.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I was actually up all night working on someone's case,
because leaving also meant leaving people's cases behind. But I
mean sure, I kind of wrap everything up.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Kelly slides a folder full of paperwork under her last
client cell door.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
So so hard leaving everyone. I have so much survivor's skilled.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Just before she goes, Kelly divvys up all her precious
prison belongings amongst her closest friends. She gives the coat
to a girl called Lacey, a sweater to her friend Manny,
and a pair of shoes to her friend Trinity, and
then it's time to say goodbye.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
When it came out of the yeats, I remember screaming
and going who.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
And putting my arms in the air.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Kelly's being released alongside three other inmates. As she watches
each of them embrace their families, sees them hugging so
tight it's bound to leave bruises, she stands alone.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
I felt bad because the other people had their family
there and I didn't. I didn't have anybody, and everybody
whose family was hugging them.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
They just wanted to be with my mother.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Kelly's mother, Kathleen, has been taken to Mount Sinai Hospital,
about forty miles away. Kelly's brother, Ronnie is by her bedside.
As a condition of her parole, Kelly has to go
straight to her approved accommodation. She's saying, in a specialist
facility that helps women released from prison.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
But I told them, you know, I have to get
to the hospital immediately, and thank god, they said, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
As soon as she's able. Kelly's at the hospital.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
The lady asked, what's your name? Who are you here for?
I said, Kelly Harnett. I'm here for Kathleen Harnett. I
didn't know her room number or anything. So she takes
visitors pass. She writes, Kathleen Harnett, Room three thirty three.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
She looks at a watch. It was three oh three.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
She goes, Oh my god, I said what She goes,
something amazing is about to happen.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
They look at the threes. She said, father's son in
the Holy Spirit. My mouth dropped. I said, how did
you know that something amazing is going to happen. I'm
going to see my mother for the first time in
thirteen years.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Kelly practically runs down the hospital corridor until she finds room.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Three three three.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Stepping in, she can see four women in beds. She
frantically scans the room, searching for her mother. She doesn't
recognize any of them.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I said, do I have the right room?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
And then I looked in front of me, and then
when I looked at her eyes, I said, that's my mother.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
That's my mother. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
It looked like you could break her. Like I was
afraid to touch her.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I wanted to run and go break down, but I said,
you can't cry.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
You have to be as strong as possible for mommy.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And then I walked in and I tried to act
like I had seen her yesterday.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I said, ma, hi, and she.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
Goes, Kelly, Oh my god, Kelly, is it really you?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
And she started to cry and smile at the same time.
She couldn't lift her arms to hold out, so I
leaned over and I hugged her, and she was like,
you look so beautiful. I can't believe that you're out.
When the time came that I had to leave and
(12:33):
go to this new house, she started crying, and honestly
I was cheering up too, because I didn't want to
leave her.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
I wish I could have just stayed there with her
all day because I was afraid.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I didn't know, like if she was going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
The next day, Kathleen is released from hospital and goes
back home to the family apartment.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
She's still not well.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
And the worst part of getting out of prison is.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
That the first two weeks are the busiest weeks.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Of your life.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
You're running all around, trying to get id, trying to
get your birth certificate, trying to get to go to
the DMV. But I did make sure that I went
to see her as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Kelly's not just busy running around searching for documents. Her
movements are also restricted by nightly curfew. On the night
of May thirty first, just a couple of weeks after
Kelly's release, her brother Ronnie, calls her up in a panic.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
He said, mommy's not doing so good. I said, what
do you mean, and he said, she's not breathing that well.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
He goes, you have to come home here, and I
was on pro so I had curfew.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
The month's breathing gets shallower. Kelly tells Ronnie to call
an ambulance and that she'll call him back right away.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
I called Ronnie and I said, what's happening. He's like, well,
the ambulance is here. They don't have a pulse.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I was steeling the outside. I fell to the ground
and I was like, oh my.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
God, please, please guy, please, I need my army.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I need my army, I need my mommy.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
And then he said, Kelly, I'm a bit of feeling.
I have a bit of feeling or more ems. Just
keep me, he said, disciplined nineteen twenty people up there.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
After an achingly long sixteen minutes, the crowd of EMTs
managed to find a pulse. Kathleen has taken back to
hospital and put on a ventilator. She dies the next day,
on June first, aged seventy two.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I have so much guilt for not just breaking curfew
that once I listened to the stupid freaking curfew and
went home. But he needed me.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
He needed me right, He needed me, and so did
my mother. And my mother kept asking for me, he said,
so she knew she was dying.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
Well, nowis asking for me on her deathbed?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
You know we could laugh about it now, but I
last last of words were.
Speaker 9 (15:44):
Give me a cigarette. My mother loved to smoke, so
I have two shrines up in the house of her,
so I.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Always put cigarettes there for her.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
Because she never got the one, so I always put
them there for her.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Kelly, maybe I want to laugh about it now, but
deep inside, she's still grieving and she's still really angry.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
I was thirteen years of my life with my mother
because I wasn't here, because I was in prison for
something I didn't even get him do. It altered the
whole family when they put me in prison, they put
everybody in prison.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
After Kathleen dies, Ronnie and Kelly have her cremated, just
like they did for their father, Danny, when he died
about twenty years before.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
My mom.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
When she used to get mad at him every once
in a while after he was deceased, she would be like,
you know what, throw those ashes out, and I was like, no, no,
we're not. When I was away, I told Ronnie, I said,
please put Daddy's ashes as high up as they could
possibly go so that Mommy can't find them, and he did.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
When Kelly gets back into their family apartment, she has
right for the closet. Straining on tiptoes, she pushes past
all the piles of old clothes and forgotten ornaments until
she sees them, her dad's ashes waiting in their container.
Kelly gently lifts them out, He sits out.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I don't know, you've finally happy that you're out of
the closet.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Oh God, he would live too, if he was alive
with herpe you say that he was thro this thing
from gate, But it was funny.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
They have to borrow money for their mom's cremation. None
of them had any savings. In fact, it was pretty
much the opposite. Kathleen had been in debt to the
hospital pharmacy, but thanks to a gofund me page set
up for Kelly and help from a prison support group,
Kelly and Ronnie are able to get some cash together.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
When her ashes were finally delivered, Ronnie and I had
already discussed going across the street, a live across street
from the East River and disposing of the ashes together,
Daddy's ashes and my mother's ashes.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
There's something about the girlfriends and the East River. No
matter which story we tell, we always seem to get
called back to these waters. You can find a hundred
metaphors for life and death amongst the rock waves. Maybe
we were meant to find ourselves here at the East River,
(19:07):
drawn in by kismet or fades or whatever you want
to call it. But then again, maybe there's nothing to it,
and it's just one of those weird coincidences. Maybe it's
just a nice place to say goodbye to someone.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
First, we started with my dad, because we figured he
was first.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
He's been very patient.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
We started throwing his ashes and throwing rose petals, and
throwing his ashes, throwing rose petals, rose petals. All of
a sudden, I cannot explain to you the way the
water had changed. We had been there for at least
a half an hour already, not one solitary boat had
(19:57):
passed by, and that's what creates wait.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
It almost looked like a pond.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
As soon as we started throwing my father's ashes in
the water, it started coming up these waves, waves, But
I didn't feel that they were violent. I felt that
it was his energy, and I felt that he was
(20:23):
happy to be free, and I felt that he knew
that his wife.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Was coming finally. And then when we finished with his ashes,
we went to my mom's.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
My mom's was very calm to the contrary, and I
just kept throwing out rose petals and rose petals and
rose petals. Ronnie and I held each other's hands set
of prayer, and we thanked them for everything, and thanked
them before making us.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Into the people who we are today, and.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Thank them just for being our appearents and that we
got it from here.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
We'll never know how Kathleen feels about her ashes being
scattered alongside her husband Danny's.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
She did love him once.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Kelly still vividly remembers the pair of them kissing in
that hotel pool in Disneyland. But he's also the same
man who went awol from his family time and again,
who attacked his wife, wrapping a phone card around her neck,
causing her to get a restraining order. Still, I can
understand why Kelly would want them back together. Ask any
(21:57):
kid from a broken home, usually, deep down, their most
heartfelt wish is for their parents to reunite. Maybe Kelly
thinks that if she can bring her parents back together
in the river, the effect will somehow ripple out and
help heal the rest of her life.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Or maybe all this water's just going to my head.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Once Kelly's release from prison, she doesn't get to sit
around pondering the symbolic connection between life and water like
some artsy British podcaster. She has to get back to
work fast so she can start rebuilding her life and
just as importantly, start earning. But that's easier said than done.
(22:53):
Part of Kelly's release agreement when her charge was changed
to manslaughter and she was sentenced to time served, was
that she had to enter a new.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Plea of guilty.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
This wasn't what she wanted, especially after spending over a
decade pleading her innocence.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
If you're entering a plea of guilty, you're saying you did.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It, but needs must.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I had to get home to my mother.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You have to do what you had to do.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Sometimes, Kelly isn't exonerated in the eyes of the justice system.
She's legally admitted her part in the killing of a
man and that will stay on her record forever. So
while she's now free, she has to deal with the
price of that freedom for the rest of her life.
(23:41):
Trying to get a job, for example, you can guess
how many places want to hire someone with a record
like Kelly's.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
The only jobs that I've gotten thus far have been
jobs from people that actually know me personally and they
know what I am capable of, which is why I
was actually hired straight out of Bedford Hills. Like, while
I was still within the prison walls, I had a
job with NYU Law School.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
But Kelly finds out this new job is only temporary.
Within four months, she's back looking for work.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I was under the impression that, due to my vast
legal knowledge, this was going to be a lot easier
for myself than for the average person. I mean, I've
gotten many people out of jail. I've gotten so many
sentence reductions, and the fact that they were not even
hearing me out because of the fact that they see
(24:41):
conviction conviction.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's October first, twenty twenty four. I'm back with Kelly,
who's in her apartment that she shares with her brother
Ronnie and her twenty five stuffed animals. I know that
jobs have been a big issue over the last kind
of few months. I just wondered where you're at with
your trying to get work situation.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yes, I'm actually currently trying to get work, and I've
been trying so hard and there is not a day
that I don't apply to at least twenty jobs. And
when I open my emails every day, there are over
(25:28):
one hundred emails.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Sometimes there's three hundred without exaggeration. I go through everyone
would find youth Colm.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
So I have a full time job right now of
trying to get a full time job.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Despite helping to get several women out of prison, Kelly's
not a qualified lawyer in the eyes of the state.
After her release, she attended and graduated from a Columbia
Law School paralegal program, but her real dream is to
become an attorney lawyer, and for that she needs to
(26:02):
go back to law school, something that would take years
and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. In
the meantime, Kelly's applying for any work she can get.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Actually, speaking of which, I had gone on a job interview.
I don't want to say the company's name, but it's
a great, great company, and they were going to make
me a financial advisor, and everybody really liked me there.
I didn't see a reason why I wouldn't get it,
and I believe they did not either. They congratulated me
(26:35):
and shook my hand, and then as I was walking away,
stated we just have to do a quick background check.
That's when my heart hit my stomach.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I cried, and I cried, and I.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Cried for weeks. I still cry. There's never a week
where I don't cry. There's never a week.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
And I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
It is not even over the conviction at this point,
or at least I don't think it is. If I
could just get a chance to be the Kelly that
I was when I was in there, I think I'll
be fine.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
But that's what kept me going my work.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
When you take my work from me, now I don't
have anything.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
It's not just that Kelly's imprisonment and subsequent parole is
impacting her job. Hunt is that the new life she
sacrificed so much for seems to be built on sand.
And I'm about to find out that Kelly's freedom is
ready to slip away from her.
Speaker 11 (27:45):
At a moment's notice.
Speaker 12 (28:13):
Hime, now you can do good. Thanks to see you again.
It's such a crazy to say.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
After you guys left yesterday.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, out of nowhere first and foremost.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
When Kelly was released from prison in twenty twenty two,
she was originally sentenced to five years post release supervision
aka parole. But just like in prison, you're able to
get time off for good behavior.
Speaker 12 (28:40):
Every thirty days that you abide by all of their rules,
which is curfew, have a job, be in the programs
that they expect for you to be in, then they
give you thirty days back.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
So what it really boils down to is if you're perfect,
like I was, you want to hear fears that you do.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Kelly's worked hard to get her parole time down so
she can live her life on her own terms. Now
I have to check in with some state sanctioned babysitter
every couple of months. She's due to finish on November fifth,
twenty twenty four, about a month on from the date
of this recording, or at least she was. Last night,
(29:24):
Kelly's parole officers stopped by her Visit was unexpected.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I was like, is she trying to like catch me
like before I leave to see if maybe I'm not home.
Let me see if I can catch her like She
missed her her few so that was already weird. She
asked me if I ever took anger management Kelly has.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
It was one of the conditions of her parole.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Of course, I took anger management, and she's asked me
that every single time that I've gone to see her,
and I was in that program for nine months. So
she proceeds to ask me where my certificated. I was
never given a certificate. I was told that it was
to be given to my parole officer by the man
who was conducting the program. Then she asked me, well,
(30:12):
what else were you supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Tune a half years later, it feels weird that it's
her parole officer asking Kelly this, like, shouldn't she know.
Kelly was also originally supposed to enter a twelve month
substance abuse program, but given that by the time of
her release, she had been clean for over a decade,
it was decided that this program could actually do Kelly
(30:35):
more harm than good, so she was given an exemption.
She says that this was outlined in a letter, but
her parole officer is sounding unconvinced.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
So she said, well, we don't have that letter, so
I'm freaking out.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I said, well, where is it? She said, I don't know.
I don't know, but I need that.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know, if you can't get him WI, you're gonna
have to do the programs again.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And acted like it was nothing. Yeah, you're just gonna
have to do the programs again.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
That would mean that I would still be on parole
at least nine months past my date. I had the
biggest nervous breakdown that I've had since my mother passed away.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
I was screaming to the top of my lungs.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
I broke down because being on parole is not actually free.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Kelly's only hope is to track down her first parole
officer who can confirm that she's completed all the programs
she needs to.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Devastated, I don't know. I don't know where I stand
with anything.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
They got way too many years out of me already.
I'm sorry they just caught me on a day like this,
but that's unfortunately where I'm at today.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Sorry, but that's really hard. I hope this your first
officer would be able to help. I hope so too.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, she's my only hope.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, look, I think the best solution for today is
to not do.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
The rest of the And I was gonna ask you
about that.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Why don't we move it to another day and if
you're around on Saturday, we have a free day.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Then are you doing okay? Because I said, that's Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I said, I've been busy this whole time trying to
tell you a story, a nice, juicy narrative with a
satisfying ending. But this isn't just a story for Kelly.
This is her life and she's living it every single day.
As far as reality checks go, this one's about as
(32:51):
subtle as a punch in the face. I actually don't
see Kelly in person again after this. Her and Ronnie
got COVID and I went back to London with no
ending to my story. As soon as I got home,
I tried and failed to set up a few more
interviews over zoom, but for some reason or another, Kelly
(33:15):
would often end up dropping out. I'll admit I laid
awake at night worried these back to back cancelations may
actually be because this was all too much for Kelly,
revisiting her traumatic past when her present is inches away
from falling apart. So I gave her some space. A
(33:42):
few weeks later, I give Kelly a call. The first
question I wanted to ask you about was if you'd
had any kind of update on the parole officer malarkey.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
So after I had that whole nervous breakdown when she
stated that basically she had nothing on me, which means
that every.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Solitary Kelly goes on in a way that I've become
used to, outlining all the issues with the parole board,
how she had to track down her former parole officers
and course leaders, all the pages of evidence she put together.
If left uninterrupted, I honestly think she could go on indefinitely.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Really call on to question the integrity of the parole officer.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
How could you not.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Have She's not just talking, It's like she's testifying, like
every day is her court day.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It makes me feel a little sad.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Honestly, they'll make her a fucking great lawyer one day.
Eventually I get the answer I'm hoping for.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Now I speak to you today as a free woman.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
That's amazing. Oh congratulations, Kelly, Thank you so much. You
must feel so relieved, so relieved.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Now that the shadow of her parole has finally passed,
Kelly can start to plan her life and hopefully build
a future for herself.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
What's like the what's the dream for the next five years?
Speaker 4 (35:16):
The next five years, I would say the dream is
for me to find a paralegal job, one that is permanent,
and to climb the ladder within that firm, and I
know that I would climb the ladder very quickly. I
(35:38):
also would love a chance to give back to people
in prison. Honestly, where I would start if it were
up to me is Rikers Island, because they don't realize
how important the law Library is, and it was always
(35:59):
empty when I was there. So I feel that if
given the chance, I would like to even possibly work
at Rikers Island at the law Library.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Really, yeah, wouldn't that be a bit much for you?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
No? No, because I want, especially the women to understand
their cases.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I think I have a mission from God.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I think I was put here to save souls by
getting people out of prison. That sounds like an insane statement,
but that is my belief at this point.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I came to the story thinking I knew what to expect,
but I couldn't have been more wrong.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I was searching for.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
A clean, easy truth, and I had all these preconceived
notions of what it means to be a victim. But
when Kelly didn't fit into the role I tried to
assign her, it made me question everything about her and
a lot about myself too. I've obviously interviewed a lot
of people in my life who have had amazing experiences
(37:13):
that are extraordinary, But I've never met anyone.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Like you who.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
All of your stories, they're often kind of shocking and
like they're almost sometimes.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Hard to believe.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
It's hard to believe that.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
Yes, I say that all the time. There's been a
lot of insane stories.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Yeah, you know, I'm not going to apologize for what
it perceives to be miraculous stories.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
What I will tell.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
You if you fail to understand them or even believe them,
then unfortunately you're the one missing out. And I think
that you need to pray more and have more faith.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I can safely say that I have never met anyone
like Kelly Harnett before. Kelly is loud and disruptive. She's
a former drug addict who's exercised violence on multiple occasions,
both in self defense against violent partners and in prison
as a way of letting other inmates know that she's
(38:27):
not to be fucked with. Her battle for survival has
been messy and at times ugly. She's told me so
many stories that made me want to grab her by
the shoulders and tell her to stop making herself look
so bad. So yeah, Kelly Hannett is no perfect victim,
(38:50):
but you can't call her a villain either.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
She's a loving sister, a loyal friend.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I can't deny she worked fucking hard, even if you
don't believe her account of the night Angel Vargas was murdered.
If you think she did kick him, or that she's
somehow more culpable than she says, does that discount everything
she went through at the hands of her brutal boyfriend,
or everything she's achieved in the years following.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
I don't think it does.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Kelly, a survivor of the most devastating trauma and abuse,
taught herself the law inside and out as a jailhouse lawyer,
first in Rikers and then in Bedford. She brought hope
to women who had been through helen back, women whose
entire lives had been an endless cycle of abuse and violence,
(39:47):
who often ended up trapped in terrible situations they were
too scared to leave, and who did whatever it took
to survive. She even helped some of them gain their freedom,
and ultimately she freed herself.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
But for Kelly.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
That freedom has come at a high price. And I'm
not just talking about the years she lost behind bars.
Her legal admission of guilt leaves a kind of scarlet
letter hanging permanently around her neck, branded for life as
a criminal.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I don't know if that feels like justice to me.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
I can't sum Kelly up in a sentence or even
in a whole frickin' podcast, But maybe that's the lesson
I need to take from this, that my job is
just to tell people stories, not to neatly package them
into categories, into victims or villains or anything else. So
(41:03):
who is Callie Hornette really, Well, that's between her and
the heavens.
Speaker 7 (41:17):
We are currently in immeagular Conception Church, and I've been
coming here since I was ten years old. We're currently
standing in front of the sole representation that americular Conception
has of Saint. There's my Saint that has gotten me
through literally life, and it's a stainless window of her.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
It's showing her.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
The window shows Saint Therez her hair covered with a
circular halo around her head. There are beams of heavenly
light all around her. Her face is pale, and she
has wide chestnut colored eyes.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Close to her heart.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
She's holding a crucifix and a bouquet of roses.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
As Kelly gazes up at her, she clasps her hands
in prayer.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
Sanctuaries.
Speaker 13 (42:19):
I do implore you to please send a shower of
roses from the heavenly gardens as a message of love
for the loss of Angel Ruben Bargas, and I'd like
to pray for not just him and his soul, I'd
like to pray for his entire family and their souls
(42:40):
as well. I think of him.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
All the time.
Speaker 13 (42:47):
If he's my angel, thank you for sending me my angel.
But at the same time, it's very it's very bittersweet
because I don't want any one's life to be taken
away because of me. So please also hold that with me,
(43:07):
for it is too hard and too heavy for me
to carry alone, and ask God to hold it for me.
I want to thank you for everything and for giving
me the strength to go through everything that I've gone
through and to be able to get those women out.
(43:33):
Thank you for allowing me to save a few souls
just like you saved so many.
Speaker 14 (43:42):
Thank you for choosing me for that job. I have
no Regrets.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
The show is hosted.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
By me Annasinfield and is written and produced by me
and Lee Meyer, with additional production from Jako Taivich and
Michael Jinno.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Sarie Houston, Joe Savage, and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
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 alex Under, 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
(45:11):
executive producers for Novel, and Katrina Norvell and Nicki Etor
are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and the marketing
lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to Carry Lieberman and
the whole team at WME
Hey, it's Sannah here to give your heads up on
what to expect in this final episode. There's going to
be mentions of murder, domestic abuse, and addiction phist. There'll
be some distressing scenes. Oh and you guessed it, some
bad language. But you'll also get to see what the
future might hold for Kelly and how she's rebuilding her
life beyond prison. If you're affected by any of the
(00:23):
themes around domestic and gendered violence in this show, reach
out to our charity partner No More.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
There are a domestic.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Violence charity with a lot of great resources to help
you or your loved ones. You can search No More
dot org and we've also put a link to their
website in the episode description. It's the twenty seventh of
April twenty twenty two. Kelly Harnett is in a familiar place,
(00:53):
a prison transfer van.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
She's on her way to court.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Over the past decade and some change as her case
slowly moved through the justice system, Kelly has made a
lot of similar journeys, but this time something is different.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I am not kidding. I thought I was getting kidnapped
on the way to court.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
She's been traveling for two hours She's alone in the van.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Say for the prison guards up front.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
It was the most surreal feeling.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
In the world.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I'm in the van with no windows. I'm screaming at them,
why is this taking someone to get there?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
And they're not answering me at all.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
In the silence, Kelly's mind kicks into overdrive, imagining a
hundred different, equally distressing scenarios. Kelly's particularly anxious right now
because today isn't just any other day in court. If
all goes well, it will be her last, because she's
finally getting resentenced. Kelly squints, blinking as the sunlight paws
(02:10):
into the prison van, her heart beating as she wonders
where the hell she is.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Oh, this is Queen's Court.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Safely unkidnapped and dropped off at her destination.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Kelly steadies herself.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Then she starts walking towards her freedom.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
This was so cinematic.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
It was like the most beautiful courtate you could ever imagine.
I had on a white collared shirt, the tan pants
that they make you wear.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I wore my hair down.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And made sure I did my makeup really nice, and
I was ready to go home.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Kelly strides into Queen's court flanks by two prison guys.
They get into the lift and make her face the wall.
Then she's called into the courtroom where she'll be standing
in front of Judge Brunner dBase.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
As soon as I walked out, she said, good morning,
Miss Harnett with this bright smile.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
No judge ever looked at her or smiled at her.
One smile made such an impression on her.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
You've probably already guessed, but this is Judge dBase.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
I do make a conscious effort to interact with the
individuals in my court. Many of the litigants. I often
think that when they come in and they see me
and probably think, what does she understand about my pain?
But I do.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Judge Dbs's son Eric died of a drug overdose about
thirteen years ago. Then in twenty nineteen, her daughter Lisa,
who also struggled with addiction, hit a cyclist named John
James Uzma Quintero with her car. She was drunk and
high at the time. John died and Lisa went to
(04:14):
prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges. By the time
Kelly walks into Judge Dbiassi's courtroom in twenty twenty two,
Lisa is behind bars.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
Having had an incrocerted daughter has informed my decisions now
about the length of a sentence individual should receive. I
was so not versed in all of that at the
time of my son's active addiction. That was me.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
But you know, there's only so much you.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Can dwell in the past, and so what I've decided
to do is to take the knowledge that I have
now and to move forward and to help other people
with it.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Kelly has stood in front of more than a few
judges in her time. It's normally been a fight well
that Kelly is prepared to have again if needed.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Luckily it isn't.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
What she said to me next was as close to
indication as I'll ever get. She said to me, Miss Harnett,
I just want to let you know that I have
read every single page of every motion that you have
ever written. She's talking about the things I was starting
to write from Rikers throughout all those years, and I
(05:37):
always thought they're throwing them in the garbage. But she
read them and that meant the world to me, and
she said, I know how much you went through. You
stand here before me today as a true survivor.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Finally, Judge debiasse Leans forward, smile still on her face,
and then she says the words Kelly's been waiting to
hear all this time, resentenced, time served.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I said, your honor is giving me my second chance
at life. I walked out the court room and when
I went back into the elevator, I faced the war.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
They said, you don't have to face the war.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
No longer able to contain herself, tears start rolling down
Kelly's face. Before long, her lawyer, Kate Morgalascu is by
her side.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I was like, it's over.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's really, it's over. It's over.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Is it over.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
She's like, yes, Kelly, it's over. It's over.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
But here's the thing. Kate is wrong.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Because Kelly might be getting out of prison, but this
story isn't for her, not by a long shot. I'm
Anison Field and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts,
this is the Girlfriends Gelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Episode eight, No Regrets.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
After Kelly's triumphant court date, she gets sent back to
prison while they sought out all the admin for her
release as a bit of a distraction, and Kelly throws
herself into finishing up all her legal work for her
jailhouse clients. It's the morning of the fifth of May
twenty twenty two. Kelly's busy putting the final touches together.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I was actually up all night working on someone's case,
because leaving also meant leaving people's cases behind. But I
mean sure, I kind of wrap everything up.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Kelly slides a folder full of paperwork under her last
client cell door.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
So so hard leaving everyone. I have so much survivor's skilled.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Just before she goes, Kelly divvys up all her precious
prison belongings amongst her closest friends. She gives the coat
to a girl called Lacey, a sweater to her friend Manny,
and a pair of shoes to her friend Trinity, and
then it's time to say goodbye.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
When it came out of the yeats, I remember screaming
and going who.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
And putting my arms in the air.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Kelly's being released alongside three other inmates. As she watches
each of them embrace their families, sees them hugging so
tight it's bound to leave bruises, she stands alone.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
I felt bad because the other people had their family
there and I didn't. I didn't have anybody, and everybody
whose family was hugging them.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
They just wanted to be with my mother.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Kelly's mother, Kathleen, has been taken to Mount Sinai Hospital,
about forty miles away. Kelly's brother, Ronnie is by her bedside.
As a condition of her parole, Kelly has to go
straight to her approved accommodation. She's saying, in a specialist
facility that helps women released from prison.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
But I told them, you know, I have to get
to the hospital immediately, and thank god, they said, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
As soon as she's able. Kelly's at the hospital.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
The lady asked, what's your name? Who are you here for?
I said, Kelly Harnett. I'm here for Kathleen Harnett. I
didn't know her room number or anything. So she takes
visitors pass. She writes, Kathleen Harnett, Room three thirty three.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
She looks at a watch. It was three oh three.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
She goes, Oh my god, I said what She goes,
something amazing is about to happen.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
They look at the threes. She said, father's son in
the Holy Spirit. My mouth dropped. I said, how did
you know that something amazing is going to happen. I'm
going to see my mother for the first time in
thirteen years.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Kelly practically runs down the hospital corridor until she finds room.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Three three three.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Stepping in, she can see four women in beds. She
frantically scans the room, searching for her mother. She doesn't
recognize any of them.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I said, do I have the right room?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
And then I looked in front of me, and then
when I looked at her eyes, I said, that's my mother.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
That's my mother. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
It looked like you could break her. Like I was
afraid to touch her.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I wanted to run and go break down, but I said,
you can't cry.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
You have to be as strong as possible for mommy.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And then I walked in and I tried to act
like I had seen her yesterday.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I said, ma, hi, and she.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
Goes, Kelly, Oh my god, Kelly, is it really you?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
And she started to cry and smile at the same time.
She couldn't lift her arms to hold out, so I
leaned over and I hugged her, and she was like,
you look so beautiful. I can't believe that you're out.
When the time came that I had to leave and
(12:33):
go to this new house, she started crying, and honestly
I was cheering up too, because I didn't want to
leave her.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
I wish I could have just stayed there with her
all day because I was afraid.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I didn't know, like if she was going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
The next day, Kathleen is released from hospital and goes
back home to the family apartment.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
She's still not well.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
And the worst part of getting out of prison is.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
That the first two weeks are the busiest weeks.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Of your life.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
You're running all around, trying to get id, trying to
get your birth certificate, trying to get to go to
the DMV. But I did make sure that I went
to see her as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Kelly's not just busy running around searching for documents. Her
movements are also restricted by nightly curfew. On the night
of May thirty first, just a couple of weeks after
Kelly's release, her brother Ronnie, calls her up in a panic.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
He said, mommy's not doing so good. I said, what
do you mean, and he said, she's not breathing that well.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
He goes, you have to come home here, and I
was on pro so I had curfew.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
The month's breathing gets shallower. Kelly tells Ronnie to call
an ambulance and that she'll call him back right away.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
I called Ronnie and I said, what's happening. He's like, well,
the ambulance is here. They don't have a pulse.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I was steeling the outside. I fell to the ground
and I was like, oh my.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
God, please, please guy, please, I need my army.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I need my army, I need my mommy.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
And then he said, Kelly, I'm a bit of feeling.
I have a bit of feeling or more ems. Just
keep me, he said, disciplined nineteen twenty people up there.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
After an achingly long sixteen minutes, the crowd of EMTs
managed to find a pulse. Kathleen has taken back to
hospital and put on a ventilator. She dies the next day,
on June first, aged seventy two.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I have so much guilt for not just breaking curfew
that once I listened to the stupid freaking curfew and
went home. But he needed me.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
He needed me right, He needed me, and so did
my mother. And my mother kept asking for me, he said,
so she knew she was dying.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
Well, nowis asking for me on her deathbed?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
You know we could laugh about it now, but I
last last of words were.
Speaker 9 (15:44):
Give me a cigarette. My mother loved to smoke, so
I have two shrines up in the house of her,
so I.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Always put cigarettes there for her.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
Because she never got the one, so I always put
them there for her.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Kelly, maybe I want to laugh about it now, but
deep inside, she's still grieving and she's still really angry.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
I was thirteen years of my life with my mother
because I wasn't here, because I was in prison for
something I didn't even get him do. It altered the
whole family when they put me in prison, they put
everybody in prison.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
After Kathleen dies, Ronnie and Kelly have her cremated, just
like they did for their father, Danny, when he died
about twenty years before.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
My mom.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
When she used to get mad at him every once
in a while after he was deceased, she would be like,
you know what, throw those ashes out, and I was like, no, no,
we're not. When I was away, I told Ronnie, I said,
please put Daddy's ashes as high up as they could
possibly go so that Mommy can't find them, and he did.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
When Kelly gets back into their family apartment, she has
right for the closet. Straining on tiptoes, she pushes past
all the piles of old clothes and forgotten ornaments until
she sees them, her dad's ashes waiting in their container.
Kelly gently lifts them out, He sits out.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I don't know, you've finally happy that you're out of
the closet.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Oh God, he would live too, if he was alive
with herpe you say that he was thro this thing
from gate, But it was funny.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
They have to borrow money for their mom's cremation. None
of them had any savings. In fact, it was pretty
much the opposite. Kathleen had been in debt to the
hospital pharmacy, but thanks to a gofund me page set
up for Kelly and help from a prison support group,
Kelly and Ronnie are able to get some cash together.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
When her ashes were finally delivered, Ronnie and I had
already discussed going across the street, a live across street
from the East River and disposing of the ashes together,
Daddy's ashes and my mother's ashes.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
There's something about the girlfriends and the East River. No
matter which story we tell, we always seem to get
called back to these waters. You can find a hundred
metaphors for life and death amongst the rock waves. Maybe
we were meant to find ourselves here at the East River,
(19:07):
drawn in by kismet or fades or whatever you want
to call it. But then again, maybe there's nothing to it,
and it's just one of those weird coincidences. Maybe it's
just a nice place to say goodbye to someone.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
First, we started with my dad, because we figured he
was first.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
He's been very patient.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
We started throwing his ashes and throwing rose petals, and
throwing his ashes, throwing rose petals, rose petals. All of
a sudden, I cannot explain to you the way the
water had changed. We had been there for at least
a half an hour already, not one solitary boat had
(19:57):
passed by, and that's what creates wait.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
It almost looked like a pond.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
As soon as we started throwing my father's ashes in
the water, it started coming up these waves, waves, But
I didn't feel that they were violent. I felt that
it was his energy, and I felt that he was
(20:23):
happy to be free, and I felt that he knew
that his wife.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Was coming finally. And then when we finished with his ashes,
we went to my mom's.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
My mom's was very calm to the contrary, and I
just kept throwing out rose petals and rose petals and
rose petals. Ronnie and I held each other's hands set
of prayer, and we thanked them for everything, and thanked
them before making us.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Into the people who we are today, and.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Thank them just for being our appearents and that we
got it from here.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
We'll never know how Kathleen feels about her ashes being
scattered alongside her husband Danny's.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
She did love him once.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Kelly still vividly remembers the pair of them kissing in
that hotel pool in Disneyland. But he's also the same
man who went awol from his family time and again,
who attacked his wife, wrapping a phone card around her neck,
causing her to get a restraining order. Still, I can
understand why Kelly would want them back together. Ask any
(21:57):
kid from a broken home, usually, deep down, their most
heartfelt wish is for their parents to reunite. Maybe Kelly
thinks that if she can bring her parents back together
in the river, the effect will somehow ripple out and
help heal the rest of her life.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Or maybe all this water's just going to my head.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Once Kelly's release from prison, she doesn't get to sit
around pondering the symbolic connection between life and water like
some artsy British podcaster. She has to get back to
work fast so she can start rebuilding her life and
just as importantly, start earning. But that's easier said than done.
(22:53):
Part of Kelly's release agreement when her charge was changed
to manslaughter and she was sentenced to time served, was
that she had to enter a new.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Plea of guilty.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
This wasn't what she wanted, especially after spending over a
decade pleading her innocence.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
If you're entering a plea of guilty, you're saying you did.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It, but needs must.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I had to get home to my mother.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You have to do what you had to do.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Sometimes, Kelly isn't exonerated in the eyes of the justice system.
She's legally admitted her part in the killing of a
man and that will stay on her record forever. So
while she's now free, she has to deal with the
price of that freedom for the rest of her life.
(23:41):
Trying to get a job, for example, you can guess
how many places want to hire someone with a record
like Kelly's.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
The only jobs that I've gotten thus far have been
jobs from people that actually know me personally and they
know what I am capable of, which is why I
was actually hired straight out of Bedford Hills. Like, while
I was still within the prison walls, I had a
job with NYU Law School.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
But Kelly finds out this new job is only temporary.
Within four months, she's back looking for work.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I was under the impression that, due to my vast
legal knowledge, this was going to be a lot easier
for myself than for the average person. I mean, I've
gotten many people out of jail. I've gotten so many
sentence reductions, and the fact that they were not even
hearing me out because of the fact that they see
(24:41):
conviction conviction.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's October first, twenty twenty four. I'm back with Kelly,
who's in her apartment that she shares with her brother
Ronnie and her twenty five stuffed animals. I know that
jobs have been a big issue over the last kind
of few months. I just wondered where you're at with
your trying to get work situation.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yes, I'm actually currently trying to get work, and I've
been trying so hard and there is not a day
that I don't apply to at least twenty jobs. And
when I open my emails every day, there are over
(25:28):
one hundred emails.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Sometimes there's three hundred without exaggeration. I go through everyone
would find youth Colm.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
So I have a full time job right now of
trying to get a full time job.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Despite helping to get several women out of prison, Kelly's
not a qualified lawyer in the eyes of the state.
After her release, she attended and graduated from a Columbia
Law School paralegal program, but her real dream is to
become an attorney lawyer, and for that she needs to
(26:02):
go back to law school, something that would take years
and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. In
the meantime, Kelly's applying for any work she can get.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Actually, speaking of which, I had gone on a job interview.
I don't want to say the company's name, but it's
a great, great company, and they were going to make
me a financial advisor, and everybody really liked me there.
I didn't see a reason why I wouldn't get it,
and I believe they did not either. They congratulated me
(26:35):
and shook my hand, and then as I was walking away,
stated we just have to do a quick background check.
That's when my heart hit my stomach.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I cried, and I cried, and I.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Cried for weeks. I still cry. There's never a week
where I don't cry. There's never a week.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
And I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
It is not even over the conviction at this point,
or at least I don't think it is. If I
could just get a chance to be the Kelly that
I was when I was in there, I think I'll
be fine.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
But that's what kept me going my work.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
When you take my work from me, now I don't
have anything.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
It's not just that Kelly's imprisonment and subsequent parole is
impacting her job. Hunt is that the new life she
sacrificed so much for seems to be built on sand.
And I'm about to find out that Kelly's freedom is
ready to slip away from her.
Speaker 11 (27:45):
At a moment's notice.
Speaker 12 (28:13):
Hime, now you can do good. Thanks to see you again.
It's such a crazy to say.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
After you guys left yesterday.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, out of nowhere first and foremost.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
When Kelly was released from prison in twenty twenty two,
she was originally sentenced to five years post release supervision
aka parole. But just like in prison, you're able to
get time off for good behavior.
Speaker 12 (28:40):
Every thirty days that you abide by all of their rules,
which is curfew, have a job, be in the programs
that they expect for you to be in, then they
give you thirty days back.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
So what it really boils down to is if you're perfect,
like I was, you want to hear fears that you do.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Kelly's worked hard to get her parole time down so
she can live her life on her own terms. Now
I have to check in with some state sanctioned babysitter
every couple of months. She's due to finish on November fifth,
twenty twenty four, about a month on from the date
of this recording, or at least she was. Last night,
(29:24):
Kelly's parole officers stopped by her Visit was unexpected.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I was like, is she trying to like catch me
like before I leave to see if maybe I'm not home.
Let me see if I can catch her like She
missed her her few so that was already weird. She
asked me if I ever took anger management Kelly has.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
It was one of the conditions of her parole.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Of course, I took anger management, and she's asked me
that every single time that I've gone to see her,
and I was in that program for nine months. So
she proceeds to ask me where my certificated. I was
never given a certificate. I was told that it was
to be given to my parole officer by the man
who was conducting the program. Then she asked me, well,
(30:12):
what else were you supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Tune a half years later, it feels weird that it's
her parole officer asking Kelly this, like, shouldn't she know.
Kelly was also originally supposed to enter a twelve month
substance abuse program, but given that by the time of
her release, she had been clean for over a decade,
it was decided that this program could actually do Kelly
(30:35):
more harm than good, so she was given an exemption.
She says that this was outlined in a letter, but
her parole officer is sounding unconvinced.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
So she said, well, we don't have that letter, so
I'm freaking out.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I said, well, where is it? She said, I don't know.
I don't know, but I need that.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know, if you can't get him WI, you're gonna
have to do the programs again.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And acted like it was nothing. Yeah, you're just gonna
have to do the programs again.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
That would mean that I would still be on parole
at least nine months past my date. I had the
biggest nervous breakdown that I've had since my mother passed away.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
I was screaming to the top of my lungs.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
I broke down because being on parole is not actually free.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Kelly's only hope is to track down her first parole
officer who can confirm that she's completed all the programs
she needs to.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Devastated, I don't know. I don't know where I stand
with anything.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
They got way too many years out of me already.
I'm sorry they just caught me on a day like this,
but that's unfortunately where I'm at today.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Sorry, but that's really hard. I hope this your first
officer would be able to help. I hope so too.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, she's my only hope.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, look, I think the best solution for today is
to not do.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
The rest of the And I was gonna ask you
about that.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Why don't we move it to another day and if
you're around on Saturday, we have a free day.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Then are you doing okay? Because I said, that's Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I said, I've been busy this whole time trying to
tell you a story, a nice, juicy narrative with a
satisfying ending. But this isn't just a story for Kelly.
This is her life and she's living it every single day.
As far as reality checks go, this one's about as
(32:51):
subtle as a punch in the face. I actually don't
see Kelly in person again after this. Her and Ronnie
got COVID and I went back to London with no
ending to my story. As soon as I got home,
I tried and failed to set up a few more
interviews over zoom, but for some reason or another, Kelly
(33:15):
would often end up dropping out. I'll admit I laid
awake at night worried these back to back cancelations may
actually be because this was all too much for Kelly,
revisiting her traumatic past when her present is inches away
from falling apart. So I gave her some space. A
(33:42):
few weeks later, I give Kelly a call. The first
question I wanted to ask you about was if you'd
had any kind of update on the parole officer malarkey.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
So after I had that whole nervous breakdown when she
stated that basically she had nothing on me, which means
that every.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Solitary Kelly goes on in a way that I've become
used to, outlining all the issues with the parole board,
how she had to track down her former parole officers
and course leaders, all the pages of evidence she put together.
If left uninterrupted, I honestly think she could go on indefinitely.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Really call on to question the integrity of the parole officer.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
How could you not.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Have She's not just talking, It's like she's testifying, like
every day is her court day.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It makes me feel a little sad.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Honestly, they'll make her a fucking great lawyer one day.
Eventually I get the answer I'm hoping for.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Now I speak to you today as a free woman.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
That's amazing. Oh congratulations, Kelly, Thank you so much. You
must feel so relieved, so relieved.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Now that the shadow of her parole has finally passed,
Kelly can start to plan her life and hopefully build
a future for herself.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
What's like the what's the dream for the next five years?
Speaker 4 (35:16):
The next five years, I would say the dream is
for me to find a paralegal job, one that is permanent,
and to climb the ladder within that firm, and I
know that I would climb the ladder very quickly. I
(35:38):
also would love a chance to give back to people
in prison. Honestly, where I would start if it were
up to me is Rikers Island, because they don't realize
how important the law Library is, and it was always
(35:59):
empty when I was there. So I feel that if
given the chance, I would like to even possibly work
at Rikers Island at the law Library.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Really, yeah, wouldn't that be a bit much for you?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
No? No, because I want, especially the women to understand
their cases.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I think I have a mission from God.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I think I was put here to save souls by
getting people out of prison. That sounds like an insane statement,
but that is my belief at this point.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I came to the story thinking I knew what to expect,
but I couldn't have been more wrong.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I was searching for.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
A clean, easy truth, and I had all these preconceived
notions of what it means to be a victim. But
when Kelly didn't fit into the role I tried to
assign her, it made me question everything about her and
a lot about myself too. I've obviously interviewed a lot
of people in my life who have had amazing experiences
(37:13):
that are extraordinary, But I've never met anyone.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Like you who.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
All of your stories, they're often kind of shocking and
like they're almost sometimes.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Hard to believe.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
It's hard to believe that.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
Yes, I say that all the time. There's been a
lot of insane stories.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Yeah, you know, I'm not going to apologize for what
it perceives to be miraculous stories.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
What I will tell.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
You if you fail to understand them or even believe them,
then unfortunately you're the one missing out. And I think
that you need to pray more and have more faith.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I can safely say that I have never met anyone
like Kelly Harnett before. Kelly is loud and disruptive. She's
a former drug addict who's exercised violence on multiple occasions,
both in self defense against violent partners and in prison
as a way of letting other inmates know that she's
(38:27):
not to be fucked with. Her battle for survival has
been messy and at times ugly. She's told me so
many stories that made me want to grab her by
the shoulders and tell her to stop making herself look
so bad. So yeah, Kelly Hannett is no perfect victim,
(38:50):
but you can't call her a villain either.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
She's a loving sister, a loyal friend.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I can't deny she worked fucking hard, even if you
don't believe her account of the night Angel Vargas was murdered.
If you think she did kick him, or that she's
somehow more culpable than she says, does that discount everything
she went through at the hands of her brutal boyfriend,
or everything she's achieved in the years following.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
I don't think it does.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Kelly, a survivor of the most devastating trauma and abuse,
taught herself the law inside and out as a jailhouse lawyer,
first in Rikers and then in Bedford. She brought hope
to women who had been through helen back, women whose
entire lives had been an endless cycle of abuse and violence,
(39:47):
who often ended up trapped in terrible situations they were
too scared to leave, and who did whatever it took
to survive. She even helped some of them gain their freedom,
and ultimately she freed herself.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
But for Kelly.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
That freedom has come at a high price. And I'm
not just talking about the years she lost behind bars.
Her legal admission of guilt leaves a kind of scarlet
letter hanging permanently around her neck, branded for life as
a criminal.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I don't know if that feels like justice to me.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
I can't sum Kelly up in a sentence or even
in a whole frickin' podcast, But maybe that's the lesson
I need to take from this, that my job is
just to tell people stories, not to neatly package them
into categories, into victims or villains or anything else. So
(41:03):
who is Callie Hornette really, Well, that's between her and
the heavens.
Speaker 7 (41:17):
We are currently in immeagular Conception Church, and I've been
coming here since I was ten years old. We're currently
standing in front of the sole representation that americular Conception
has of Saint. There's my Saint that has gotten me
through literally life, and it's a stainless window of her.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
It's showing her.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
The window shows Saint Therez her hair covered with a
circular halo around her head. There are beams of heavenly
light all around her. Her face is pale, and she
has wide chestnut colored eyes.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Close to her heart.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
She's holding a crucifix and a bouquet of roses.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
As Kelly gazes up at her, she clasps her hands
in prayer.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
Sanctuaries.
Speaker 13 (42:19):
I do implore you to please send a shower of
roses from the heavenly gardens as a message of love
for the loss of Angel Ruben Bargas, and I'd like
to pray for not just him and his soul, I'd
like to pray for his entire family and their souls
(42:40):
as well. I think of him.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
All the time.
Speaker 13 (42:47):
If he's my angel, thank you for sending me my angel.
But at the same time, it's very it's very bittersweet
because I don't want any one's life to be taken
away because of me. So please also hold that with me,
(43:07):
for it is too hard and too heavy for me
to carry alone, and ask God to hold it for me.
I want to thank you for everything and for giving
me the strength to go through everything that I've gone
through and to be able to get those women out.
(43:33):
Thank you for allowing me to save a few souls
just like you saved so many.
Speaker 14 (43:42):
Thank you for choosing me for that job. I have
no Regrets.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
The show is hosted.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
By me Annasinfield and is written and produced by me
and Lee Meyer, with additional production from Jako Taivich and
Michael Jinno.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Sarie Houston, Joe Savage, and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
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 alex Under, 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
(45:11):
executive producers for Novel, and Katrina Norvell and Nicki Etor
are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and the marketing
lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to Carry Lieberman and
the whole team at WME
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