The Real Killer Season 2: Ep. 1, The Uprising

The 1993 Lucasville Uprising is still one of the longest and deadliest prison riots in U.S. History. When it’s all said and done, 10 men are dead and Keith LaMar is labeled the leader of the “Death Squad,” believed to be responsible for killing five. Question is, do they have the right guy?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
A warning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. I didn't kill
anybody doing the ride. Should they have convicted them based
upon what they had in the manner in which they
did it? No, that's old the judge right before I

(00:24):
was sensors dead, I said, this is not over, man,
this is not over. I've meant that. I have seen
with my own eyes. I've read the documents. It's just
reeks of wrongdoing. I had this recurrent dream. Then I'm
in this little complicated place as a crawl up to
least little real tight spaces. Sometimes I'm upside. I didn't

(00:48):
explain it to you, but I know my way out
of that. But did they help me. I'm gonna get
out of this. They never thought they thought I was
gonna kip what they thought was my back on myself.
Bro good back. Because we're all about me, every five
might be en. I believe that I get my life back.

(01:18):
When I set out to find a story for our
second season, I have to be honest. I struggled. Finding
a worthy follow up to Melissa and Rodney proved to
be really hard. Then I spoke with the senior producer
at Jason Flam's podcast Wrongful Conviction, and he told me
about Keith Lamar. Keith Lamar is currently sitting on death

(01:42):
row in Ohio for crimes that happened during the n
Lucasville Uprising, one of the longest and deadliest prison riots
in US history. Keith's execution date is set for November.
He says he's innocent. I was interested in Keith's case,

(02:05):
and maybe because, as it turns out, I have a
small personal connection to this story too. In April, when
the riot broke out, I was a senior at Ohio
State majoring in broadcast journalism and doing an internship at
w BNS, the CBS affiliate in Columbus. As a budding journalist,
I needed to somehow get to that prison in Lucasville,

(02:29):
just so that I could witness it, any of it firsthand.
So I begged those in charge to let me go,
to help, to do whatever anything they needed. Eventually they
gave in. I do remember it was late that night
we arrived. The air was cool, it was strangely silent.

(02:49):
I was a little scared. I remember wondering what in
the world was going on behind those prison walls. I
wanted to know more so now, almost thirty years late,
or that's what I'm setting out to do in an
effort to find out why Keith Lamar was convicted and
sent to death row. I need to know what happened

(03:10):
during those eleven days in which ten people were brutally murdered.
And while the Uprising is only going to be a
small part of the podcast, it's crucial. It's crucial in
order to understand why the State of Ohio is about
to execute him. But what I learned is it's not
that simple, because somewhere along the way, my reinvestigation of

(03:33):
Keith's case evolves into something far more personal. I have
never been more frightened, angered, inspired, challenged, conflicted and consumed
than I am by Keith and his story. Maybe because
of what I uncover, or maybe because the stakes couldn't

(03:56):
be higher. I'm Leah Rothman. This is the Real Killer,
Episode one, The Uprising fright top story of full scale

(04:24):
riot at Ohio's maximum security prison name Lucasville Alliance of
Eight Guard It's April eleventh, Easter Sunday. Inmates at the
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility celebrate the Holy Day with an
ambush at three fifteen. Convicts returning from an exercise yard
stage of fight then jump corrections officers and sees control

(04:47):
of Cell Block L. Cincinnati news station WCPO reports cell
Block L is under siege. It's one of two main
housing wings at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, most called
the Maximum Security Prison Lucasville after the small rural town
where it's located. Columbus news station w s y X

(05:10):
is covering the breaking news from the sky. Here are
two of their reporters. We are applying above it right
now and think having way down to the scene, there
was some kind of uprising portly every three o'clock there,
and we will be throughout the easing development. Just a
few hours before, twenty three year old corrections officer Darryl Clark,

(05:33):
a married father of two young girls, clocks in and
starts his shift. Today something is very different. It was quiet,
very eerie quiet, and it's never that quiet. Then in
a flash, that quiet turns to chaos when trun down,
always another ulster being beaten down. About four hundred and

(05:56):
fifty prisoners have taken over L Block and the adjoining
gymnasium um. Daryld and his partner, armed only with nightsticks,
are in serious retreat mode. We both rand to make
it to the back stair. I will from that stairwell.
Daryld and his partner radio for help, but no help
ever comes. Instead, inmates armed with weapons like white bars, dumbbells, bats,

(06:20):
and shovels closed in on them. It looked like a
hundred um all with their face masked up. They started
banging on door. The we're gonna show you what we did.
They went around with the white bars and they busted
all to the wall right where we sat, and they
hit four or five hits from the door. The dead
boat was folded that metal like a piece of bread.
And the door opened up and they all came in

(06:41):
and the certain and mate looked at us said, you're
our hostages. While all hell is breaking loose at the prison,
Lucasville's Warden, Arthur Tate, is about to sit down for
Easter dinner at a friend's home a couple of hours away.
I remember that the Master's golf tournament was on and

(07:05):
I was watching a little bit of that, and a
call came in from a former employee of mine at Chillicothe.
I got We didn't know cell phones back in those days.
This was in you know, before Lucasville. Arthur Tait was

(07:26):
first a social worker, than an FBI agent, and finally
the warden at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. And she said to me,
I don't know what's going on, but they have activated
the special response team at Chillicothe and sent them to Lucasville.

(07:46):
And I thought, what So I got on the phone
and called the facility. The line was busy, Line was busy,
line was busy, line was busy. So on the fifth
currents I got ahold of one of my deputies and
he was almost incoherent. I managed to get from him

(08:08):
that they were experiencing a major riot insurrection. He said
that the hostages had been taken, keys had been taken.
He told me that prisoners were on the roof, they
were attacking defense that I'm thinking, oh my god. So
he said, you need to get to the prison right away.
As Arthur races to Lucasville, Daryld Clark and his partner

(08:31):
are now under the complete control of their captors. They
tied us up and took my jacket off of me
and put it over my head and used telephone cord
and tied them off blindfold on. And some guy was
trying to take my wedding ring. He was wanting to
cut my finger off because he couldn't get off. I
convinced him gonna let me take it off. Blindfolded and terrified.

(08:53):
Daryld and his partner are led to the L Block
showers where the rest of the officers are being held.
Prisoners are now holding twelve hostages. When I arrived, it
was a serious situation. That's Colonel Tom Rice, the superintendent
and thirty three year veteran of the Ohio State Highway Patrol,

(09:15):
which has jurisdiction and authority over all the prisons in Ohio.
There were guards that had been taken hostage. We had
inmates on the inside of L Block and inmates out
in the yard. My major concern was to secure the
L Block area, unlocking all the other facility doors, and

(09:38):
then assigning people outside to the fence to make sure
there wasn't a mass escape. Everything in Lucasville was changing.
The number of officers would be changing almost by the
minute because they were coming in from the north, the east,
and the West. Eventually we had over three hundred officers
there and after a short time we got assistance from

(10:02):
the FBI. The FBI actually brought in they're negotiating teams.
What Tom and the FBI negotiators don't know is that
the prisoners broke into the offices and found the official
prison negotiating manual, the how to in dealing with these
exact kinds of situations. So actually we were negotiating against

(10:26):
our own manual. They knew what we were doing or
what we would be doing. Here's a reporter from w
c PO. It is unknown what triggered this riot, although
there have been unconfirmed reports that race may have been
a big issue in this. Although there are serious issues
of race at Lucasville, the uprising on Easter Sunday is

(10:50):
not about that. It's in protest, a protest started by
the Sunni Muslim population against what was secretly scheduled to
happen the next day, a forced tuberculosis testing Warden Arthur
Tate had planned a lockdown the prison on Monday for
three days to force test any prisoner who had previously
objected to it. The Sunni Muslim prisoners had refused the

(11:13):
test because the injection contains phenol, which they believe to
be a form of alcohol, and they say being made
to ingest alcohol is a violation of their religious freedoms.
Here's Arthur Tate, We're going to have a team of
people essentially put you on a gurney. If he gets
to that, and you'll you'll, we'll tell you, We'll get

(11:34):
this test. Will effect this test one way or another.
And although this uprising may have started with the Muslim
prisoners protesting the TB testing, surprisingly to other groups, the
Black Gangster Disciples and the Arian Brotherhood joined them. They
agree to put their issues with each other aside and
come together in solidarity against one common enemy, the prison

(11:58):
administration and what they claim to be the poor treatment
of everyone at Lucasfilm. So the Sunni Muslims, the Arian Brotherhood,
and the Black Gangster Disciples call a truce with each other,
but for many others inside L Block, it's still a
war zone. Here's dear old blood of inmates, of the

(12:18):
ones that they was having beef with. They was used
hearing people screaming, yelling helped Holland for help, and that
was going through my mind thinking how how am I
gonna die, and we're gonna be beaten or cut stub
and I'm gonna be rape. What's gonna happen? Guards remain

(12:50):
hostage inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution at Lucasville after
a full scale riot broke out in one of the
inmate wings today, while Darrold Clark and eleven other officers
are fighting to stay alive inside L Block, Tokyo Morgan,
a prisoner housed in K Block, the other main housing
wing of the prison, is shocked to learn about all

(13:12):
the madness happening around him. We was all asleep and
when everything took his course and everybody was waking up,
like man, what's going on? Running over? There's something out.
We look up with a whole bunch of people in
the yard and that's all you've seen. Basically, it was
people running around on the yard. You know, I think
it's a few like smoke. You know, I got a
set of stuff on fire over the side. It's all

(13:35):
smoke coming out. Then as you know, people talk about
man as day and such as day they kill white
do I mean? People was just just dying right there,
you know, through the late afternoon and into the evening,
two corrections officers and one prisoner, all with severe injuries,
are released. Then later that night, law enforcement spots movement

(13:59):
out on the yard hard The audio is a bit
difficult to make out, but what you're about to hear
are officials in real time counting as prisoners bring several
bodies outside, counts another one they're dead. Right in front

(14:29):
of their eyes are the bodies of five dead inmates
and two critically injured ones. Around eleven PM, prisoners let
two more officers with severe injuries go free. Eight hostages
still remain inside. Law enforcement ways whether or not to
storm the prison, but ultimately decides against it. Here's Colonel

(14:52):
Tom Rice again. Start out with the fact that you
really don't know where your hostages are, so if you're
storming in the wrong in place, by the time you
get to the hostage, a hostages are already dead and
you have no idea who killed them. Around two in
the morning, eleven hours into the uprising, three hundred prisoners

(15:13):
who have been out on the yard away from the chaos,
are rounded up by officers and brought inside K Block.
They are stripped, naked, searched, handcuffed, and locked up again,
ten prisoners per cell, cells meant to hold just one.
About six hours later, prison officials make a strategic move.

(15:37):
They turn off the water and electricity inside l Block.
So prisoners then make a move of their own. It
seems that the inmates are trying to get in touch
with us, the media. They're hanging sheets outside the windows.
Some of them read the state is not negotiating and
this administration is blocking the press from speaking to us.

(15:59):
But the press is there and they're more than ready
to talk. My name is Michael san Jacomo. I was
a reporter at the Plain Dealer for about thirty years
up until my recent retirement. Michael's about to become the
luckiest reporter at Lucasville, or so he thinks. Prison administrators

(16:21):
decide to allow one member of the media to speak
with an inmate by phone. After Michael's business card is
pulled out of a hat, he gets to go inside.
So I was walked into the prison and I was
taken into this very stark room, and I'll never forget this.
There was a guy in there who looked exactly like
Spencer Tracy. I mean, he was very intense looking. I said,

(16:45):
who are you? Because this guy. He just had authority
coming out of every pore. I mean, this guy wasn't
charge And he said, you don't need to know that.
And I said, well, really, I do you know. I'm
a reporter. I really need to know who you are.
And he said, I'm not telling you who I am.
He said, but just trust me. I'm the guy you
need to listen to. He said, if you fuck this up,

(17:07):
you will be responsible for killing people. He said, I
want you to know that if you fuck this up,
people are gonna die. And I just sat there going,
oh good. He said, just so be very careful when
you answer the questions. And he said, and when I
hang up the phone, and that means you're done. So

(17:28):
I said, okay, So I sat down. I picked up
the phone and there was an inmate on the other
end and all he got to say was who is
this and identified myself and he started to talk and
they hung up the phone. They being Spencer Tracy, and
I said, whoa you know, I didn't even get to

(17:49):
ask him a question, and he said, okay, that's it
for now. That's it. Uh, Spencer Tracy explained, he said,
this is just a tactic. We want to keep them
like off guard. We want to get something act from
them now that we let let them know that you
were available. So that was their bargaining tactic. But the
prisoners find a way around that. George Skates, a member

(18:12):
of the Arian Brotherhood, goes out on the yard with
a bullhorn. He'll become one of the prisoners spokespeople. I
want you people to understand that, say, don't got eight
lives the desert about let's get something here? What do
you want to be went at four o'clock for one
of our negotiators. How can we do for you, George? Well,

(18:42):
we can start out with the lights, we can start
out with MS, start out with news media and delivered.
I can't guarantee you that the new media will even
talk to you out say how you give me down?
Can Bob the latest? Jerry? I wish we had more

(19:06):
facts really to give you, but the facts basically they
are they have been through the day. That's Bob or
back in. He was the primary anchor at w b
n S Channel ten, that same station where I was
an intern. No electricity, no water, that cut off all utility.
They're not serving food. They're hoping and maybe that will
bring about some kind of peaceful length. A forty three

(19:29):
year veteran of radio and TV, Bob retired in the
last twenty three years of his career, he spent in Washington,
d C. As the lead Justice and National Security correspondent
for CBS News. So when I arrive on Monday, there
was a substantial media presence, but it was going to
get much larger. It would rival some of the largest

(19:52):
continues I ever saw later in my year's covering national
news in Washington. But the prison administration isn't making it
easy for the press, which is relegated to the other
side of the prison, to an area that will be
nicknamed media Hill. Nothing is more frustrating for a reporter

(20:12):
than to have no access to any kind of sources
that could give you any kind of objective read as
to what's going on. I felt like, this is a
huge story, it's right in front of us, and we
can't get to it. I don't see why you won't
let us meet with these from those people. You can't

(20:33):
trust the media, whine because they're going to broadcast this
exactly the way it is. But trusting the media does
become an issue now, very dangerous thing. Happened, and that
as rumors started to propagate. No listen. So I'm there
as a reporter, and I'm in a competitive environment where
I have my other stations in town are also there.

(20:55):
The national media is there. They think they have a
story that there might be fifty bodies stacked up in
the gymnasium. One report said maybe as many as a
hundred and fifty bodies. What do you do with that?
When your competitors are saying this over and over and over,
you run the risk of looking like you really are
way behind or don't know what's going on, and you

(21:16):
don't have a story. So the only thing I can
think to do that was responsible was to say, these
things are being widely reported, we cannot verify it, we
don't even have any real reason to believe it's true,
and we're only raising this because it's out there. Even
that's not perfect. I think a purist would say, uh,

(21:37):
if you really held to your guns, you wouldn't have
touched it. Either way, prisoners are frustrated. They want access
to the press because they want transparency. Here's officer and
hostage Daryld Clark. I don't know what you call it,
Stockholm and center or whatever. I could feel their frustration

(21:59):
because I was part of the negotiations. I was talked
to negotiators. These guys are doing. Listen to me. I'm
listening every word. I'm telling you, got to listen. I'm
listening to Okay, these guys has really sumized. Do you
understand you to being a food to be given a cloth?

(22:20):
They been making damp short, no one comes near. We
had not been touched in no way that you're thinking that.
That's good. We appreciate that. We wanted to say news
and at that broadcast and it told Okay, I said, Park,
we're going to try to get that if you care
for any of these times the name as created. That

(22:40):
is our main goal and objective to get every single personality.
Here's Colonel tom Rice. Our goal was to bide for time,
and that's what we were doing. We've got the time
and we're just gonna let this thing run. Here's dear

(23:01):
Old Clark. During that timeframe, it made me hate administration,
you know, but I was under a lot of trust
and pressure to I mean, I'm thinking, I know, I'm
want to die because even though Darrold is telling negotiators
his captors have been treating the hostages humanely at times.
It couldn't be further from the truth. There was one

(23:22):
time they was trying to write and I was being
penned another mt CAM and told him said, guys, if
you do that, they're gonna cut your head off. So
they got mac as they could write me. So they
started beating me, and uh, I had my jaw knocked
out several times. I kept popping at me and they
would pop it out. That was beating pretty good. Day

(23:46):
four is Wednesday, and it brings new threats. Around nine am,
prisoners drape another bedsheet outside the window. This time it
says that if their demands aren't met, like more educational
opportunities in three and a half hours, one hostage will
be killed. A prison spokesperson is asked about this. It's

(24:07):
a standard thread. It's nothing new. We're going to kill
a hostage. Here's anchor Bob or I'll never forget this.
Spokesperson kind of downplayed the threat, kind of said, well,
the prisoners are threatened to kill one of the guards,
but they always do that kind of thing. This is
just a ploy. They're they're not going to really do that.
And I remember thinking at the time, Wow, she either

(24:31):
knows a lot more about the security inside that prison,
or she's taken a real chance here, because even though
power had been cut, the prisoners are monitoring broadcasts, they're
monitoring radio, so I'm pretty sure that they heard that
back inside the prison. The next morning, law enforcement radios

(24:54):
each other when they see prisoners back out on the yard.
Whatnot wrong my own? Please give us some respect to
coming in and getting our body. We need to come
in and get it and get it down there. Uh,
we need scaite passage. Do we have an agreement that
we can come in and get our body? Here's Warden

(25:17):
Arthur Tet. I was in the hostage negotiation room and
I got a call from my nurse. She said, Warden,
you'd better get down here. We think we have an
employee that's been murdered. The body of correctional Officer Robert

(25:51):
our Blandingham was recovered from the yard of the Southern
Ohio Correctional Facility at Wealth twenty this afternoon. His family
has been notified. The murder of four year old officer
Robert the Landingham sends ripples through law enforcement. It also

(26:12):
changes the entire course of the riot. Here's Colonel Tom
Rice from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The inmates decided
that they would take a life of a corrections officer,
Bobby the Landingham, one of the nicest, calmest, gentlest guys
you'd ever want to meet. And they did, and then
they threw his body out onto the yard. Unbelievable. Sorry,

(26:41):
it was just unbelievable. One of the saddest days and
my whole career, the saddest day in my career, I
was dealing with that death. It was oh necessary. Here's

(27:07):
Arthur Tate, Lucasville's warden at the time. So not too
many people know this, but just a couple of hours
after we found out he was killed, the afternoon shift
was coming on, and they obviously had heard over the
radio through the news that one of their own had

(27:31):
been murdered, and I mean they were mad as hell,
and uh, they surrounded me. There probably were forty employees
maybe or more, and screaming, yelling, you know, we want
to go, we want to go into a block and
take care of business. And I'm actually thinking that this

(27:52):
might get physical, this could really get physical. I don't
know how I did that I somehow got them to
agree to go back and take their posts. But right
after that I end up going into a men's room
and I just came apart. I just I did. I

(28:14):
lost it. I mean, I just lost it. Bob Blandingham
was a terrific correction loser. I mean that from the
bottom of my heart. And I knew him personally, played
golf with him. I don't know if it's right to
say this, but he would have been the last person
of the group that was taken hostage that I would

(28:35):
have thought they would have killed. Here's Officer Gerald Clark
at you, Bobby. All the inmates and all the hostages
all thought, well, they're gonna come in now. So I
was pretty much to the point where I'm hatting my mind.
We're dead. You know, since prisoners have now killed a hostage,

(28:56):
everyone inside expects law enforcement to storm the prison and
kill them all, but instead, something very different is about
to happen. In exchange for prisoner spokesperson George Skates being
allowed to give a live radio address, one hostage will
be released. Daryld learns it will be him, but he

(29:19):
thinks it's a setup. I said, they're wonna take me
out there and kill me. A front camera. George Skates
was escort me out and I was still blindfolded, and
that's when they couldn't find the keys to open the door.
So I'm thinking, oh my god, they're gonna change your mind.
They're gonna change your mind. They're gonna change your mind.
And then they opened the door. I walked out there

(29:40):
towards you where the track was. They stopped me. They
took my blindfold off, turn and look and damn, I
am being released. It was hard at that point. Yeah,
it was difficult to to leave my Oh it was

(30:02):
hard to leave my fellow shots like that. Talked can
I'll take a break for a second. Worse, of course,
I felt guilty. Brothers were still in there, you know.
So it was hard. We have there is no more

(30:26):
violence we are there are no more unnecessary murders. We
are not going to bow down. We are not going
to give up. We are going to remain no matter
what they put on. If we die, we died. When
George Skates concludes his live radio address on w p A,
y Darrold is finally turned over to prison officials. I

(30:50):
remember walking off that yard. They had a guarney laid
out and all our rumors walking up to this collapse
on it thanking finally you know, and around him escort
me down all the corridors. They had the cortors completely
lined up, with every single staff member in the world clapping.

(31:17):
Here's TV anchor Bob or So. After inmate George had
air disagreemances on the radio, the inmates still wanted a
bigger presence. They wanted a live television broadcast. The state
asked me if my station w BNS could provide that.

(31:42):
W b n S agrees to share this live footage
with other stations and in exchange, one more hostage will
be released, Officer James Demons. To everyone's surprise, when Officer
Demons and the prisoner escorting him walk out onto the yard,
both are dressed in traditional Muslim clothing. After the Muslim

(32:04):
prisoner speaks, it's Officer James Steamons turn Now I knew Berlanniham.
He was a good friend of mine. The only reason
that man is dead because he's standing there so long
because they want to cut off water and turn off electricity,
which had me scared for my life in it. So
I adjusted to the nation of Islam. It's not exactly
clear why Officer Demons converted to Islam. Did he truly

(32:27):
end up sighting with the prisoners, or did he do
it so they let him go. Whatever the reason, he
is free. On Sunday, prison officials are ecstatic to announce
that they have new evidence the five hostage guards are
alive and well. I am pleased to announce that through negotiations,

(32:51):
we have an audio tape of each and every correctional officer.
This tape confirmed that all five are alive and well.
It's day eight of the uprising, and inmates tell prison

(33:11):
officials they want some outside legal help. My wife and
I were sitting here talking about going to the Cleveland
Indian game that afternoon when the phone rang and it
was the Chief Council from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation
and Corrections, and he greeted me by saying, Nikki, I

(33:36):
never thought I'd be so glad to hear your voice.
That's Nikki Schwartz, a Cleveland lawyer with a long history
of advocating for prisoners rights and improvements in prison conditions.
Side notes. You know the prison where the Shawshank Redemption
was filmed, Well, Nikki on behalf of a human rights coalition,

(33:56):
was able to get that prison. The Mansfield Reformatory shut
down because it was unfit for human habitation. Okay, back
to the car, and he told me the inmates demanded
a lawyer. They decided they wanted to give him a
lawyer and would like it to be me, and therefore
what they needed in this situation where somebody both sides

(34:17):
would trust, and they knew from dealing with me in
prior cases, although I was a pain in the posterior,
I was honorable and they would trust me. Nikki has
flown down to Lucasville and immediately gets to work and
get to the prison and I'm taken into the warden's
office and the first thing they do they hand me

(34:38):
this twenty one agreement. Over the course of the last
several days, prisoners had made a list of demands which
are negotiated down to and so I read it over
and I asked them several more questions, and they then
put me on the phone with the person who at
the moment was the main prison negotiated who was Jason

(35:00):
rob Right now, I'm talking you want to I want
to talk to face prisoner Jason rob is asking for
a face to face meeting with Nikki, but prison officials
say before that can happen, the inmates need to release
three of the five remaining hostages. It's made clear that

(35:24):
isn't going to happen. However, there's something else going on
that day that may affect law enforcements. Next move. ABC
News as Nightline reports this ABC News Nightline, what began
is a fiasco on the February ended as a total
disaster today. Waco. The siege at the Branch Davidian compound

(35:49):
in Waco, Texas that began six weeks before Lucasville just
came to a violent and fiery end. More than seventy
members of the religious sect were killed. Here's Nikki. Monday
was the day of the Waco fire. Now, when I
heard about the Waco fire, I feared that would increase

(36:11):
the likelihood of a armed solution to the problem. I
think it worked the opposite. I think it's scared them,
and I think that's why they said, Okay, let's we'll
let the negotiations go forward. Now Tuesday brings the best
news yet. Word from the attorney assigned to the inmates
that they want the siege to end now, but first

(36:33):
Nikki's face to face meeting with the prisoners. Law enforcement
is concerned for his safety, so instead of Nikki going
inside to meet with the prisoners, two tables are set
up outside on either side of the perimeter fence. So
the three prison negotiators emerged and approached the table after

(36:58):
introducing myself. For things I said to them was that, um,
I may not be able to tell you what you
want to hear, but I'm not going to give you
any bullshit. They later told me that was a very
significant statement on my part, that that that was meaningful
to me. The first thing that the prisoners asked was

(37:20):
they wanted amnesty, and I said that's not possible. A
guard has been killed. They accepted that for the time being,
so their primary concern was their safety following the surrender.
So they told me their conditions, which included that none
of the members of their three groups in the Black

(37:41):
Gangster Disciples or White Area and Brotherhood and the Sunaim
Whistlers would spend ten minutes in Lucasville cell after the surrector,
that they would all be bust out to another institution,
that the surrender process would be televised live, that it
would have um outside observers, including me, and that they

(38:05):
be permitted to control the surrender process. The prisoners tell
Nikki they will take the terms back to the rest
of the men inside and will be in touch. The
next afternoon. Anchor Bob or goes live on w B
and S with some breaking news. If you just joined us,

(38:27):
this is live coverage a special report from Lucasville with
the good news that the eleven day siege now has ended.
They have reeskent agreement. It sounds like Nikki Schwartz was pivotal.
At mid afternoon, the community watched what appeared to be
the beginning of a peaceful surrender. This came after inmates

(38:47):
and prison authorities agreed to a twenty one agreement on
the inmate demands they mostly had to do with prison
policy and procedures, and an agreement that there will be
no retaliation against the prisoners after their surrender. The surrender
continues late into the evening. Some of the last to
emerge are the five officer hostages. Here's Colonel Tom Rice.

(39:10):
They were safe. It was fantastic. I've often said it
was the saddest and the happiest day of my life.
They were going to go back to their families. Yeah,
we lost one. So it was an overwhelming feeling of
joy and sadness all mixed into one. After eleven long days,

(39:38):
it's finally over. Although when l block is cleared, the
bodies of two more dead prisoners are discovered. Here's Bobb again.
In the end, ten people died, nine inmates in one guard.
A lot of pain happened there, A lot of families
were touched, guards, inmates, staff, and it's sadly, you know,

(40:02):
one of the darkest chapters in Ohio history. Now, one
of the largest investigations in Ohio history is about to begin,
and the search for those responsible for murdering nine prisoners
and one officer will be unprecedented. So how does Keith Lamar,

(40:26):
the man whose case we're covering, fit into all of this. Well,
Keith will soon be named the leader of the death squad.
He will be accused of orchestrating and taking part in
the vicious murders of five men during the uprising. Question
is do they have the right guy now? Not Gilly,

(40:48):
I didn't kill anybody. Coming up this season on the
Real Killer to come into a prison, and you've got
a choice. You can do it on your feet or
you could do it on your stomach. Lucasville from its
inception was a disaster waiting to happen. It puts you

(41:11):
through artist bullshit and you and if you get angry,
see that's proof that he's an animal. No, that's proof
that I'm human being, That this ship hurt, that the
ship you're doing to me is painful. Do you know
Keith Lamar? Did you see him inside L six? The
investigator saying to me, if you're gonna stept this deal,
I'm here to tell you that we're gonna put your

(41:32):
black ass on death. Bro. They had zero physical evidence,
five brutal killings, just nothing. How did you feel about
your case? Oh? I thought he's gonna get convicted. This
man was probably the most significant prosecution witness. He lined

(41:52):
through his teeth to eliminate the scumbugs. Testimony against all
the scumbugs. You would have a hard time compliction many.
But you're standing there watch another human being being killed.
What does that say about you? What you told police
which is different than what you shared with me. You

(42:13):
want to have a conversation that's had a conversation people
have asked over the years, you know what if he's guilty.
Even if he were guilty, which absolutely don't believe he is,
it still doesn't change the fact that the way and
the methods that were used were unconstitutional and wrong. They cheated.
If the State of Ohio executes Keith, they will absolutely

(42:35):
be executing. We're not barbarians, or are we? The Real
Killer is a production of A y R Media and
I Heart Radio, hosted by me Leah Rothman. Executive producers

(42:58):
Leah Rothman and Liza Rose for A y R Media.
Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams, Senior Associate
producer Jill Pashas Nick coordinator George Fom. Editing and sound
design by Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi.

(43:19):
Audio engineering by Matt Jacobsen. Studio engineering by Anna Moolshan
legal counsel for A y R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive
producer for iHeart Radio, Maya Howard