February 16, 2023 • 50 mins
The largest investigation in the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s history kicks off. Keith LaMar gives his first-person account of what he did and didn’t do. Also, a deep dive into what led to the Lucasville Uprising, leaves many asking if all the death and destruction during those 11 horrible days could have been avoided.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
A warning this episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. They're bottle all
up here. This is keep in mind. This is all
officer blows right here as a bucket of water and blood.
Next say, supposedly trying to fixed on the officers that
(00:27):
have watch them all. The April uprising at the Southern
Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio is over eleven excruciating days,
ten gruesome murders. It's still one of the longest and
deadliest prison riots in US history. Or blot wall over
(00:48):
here now there's all over this blood everywhere. The investigation
and the hunt for those responsible is about to begin.
Keith Lamar will soon find himself in the center of
it all. But first, a warning from prisoners left behind
(01:08):
for law enforcement is literally written on the wall. Don't
treat prisoners like stupid animals. It could happen again. Lucasville rioters.
(01:30):
I'm Leah Rothman. This is the real killer. Episode two
still human Beings. Not long after the Violet Riots began,
(01:51):
show did the brutal killings for at least six of
the murdered inmates. The end was painful and bloody. The
killings were barbed barrack. Here's Cincinnati news station w CPO
reporting These autopsies, released just hours ago and obtained by
Channel nine, reveal a chilling pattern of homicide. At least
(02:13):
five inmates were beaten to death, all of them suffering
massive head injuries along with deep cuts all over their bodies.
There were eight prisoners murdered in L Block Ground zero
during the uprising, Darryl de Pinative Earl Elder, Franklin Farrell,
(02:33):
Bruce Harris, David Summers, Albert Steano forty, William Savetti, and
Bruce Howard Vitali Jr. Also killed an L Block was
Officer Robert V. Landingham, forty. He died from ligature strangulation.
(02:57):
Every one of the murders was of a brutal nature.
That's Kenneth Marshall, thirty one year veteran of the Ohio
State Highway Patrol back. He was the executive officer in
the Office of Investigative Services. I speak with ken over zoom.
All those guys a terrible death, you can believe that,
(03:20):
But there's still one more victim, Dennis Weaver. Dennis Weaver
was killed two days after the Easter Sunday revolt. Dennis
Weaver was one of those three hundred men removed from
the wreck yard late that first night and put in
a K block cell with nine others. The next day,
(03:41):
he was murdered. The coroner's report on inmate Dennis Weaver
determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation by cervical
ligature and asphixiation by gagging. I want to make sure
the ten victims aren't forgotten in all this. Regardless of
who they were, an officer or an offender, their lives
(04:04):
had meaning and what happened to them was a tragedy.
I've reached out to the victims families the ones I
could find, but so far no one has returned my
messages back in finding out who murdered these men is
top priority. It was a massive leundertaking. Kenneth Marshall will
(04:25):
lead his team in the largest investigation in the State
Highway Patrols history. At sixteen investigators then nine solid months,
sixteen guys that didn't have any experience doing that before.
It's of a magnitude that's hard to judge. Maybe part
of what made it so daunting was the state and
(04:47):
size of the crime scene. L Block, where the uprising
took place, consisted of eight houses or blocks like L one,
L two, L three up to L eight, and each
one of those consisted of eighty eight by ten cells,
so six hundred and forty cells total. The entire L
Block was one hundred and fifteen thousand square feet and
(05:10):
the adjoining gymnasium was almost twenty square feet, so that
was more than two football fields worth of potential evidence
for investigators to go through. The whole L Block was
just totally annihilated. I mean, we had four hundred prisoners
that were loosing these cell blocks. They tore everything up,
they broke everything, and so yeah, that was the very
(05:33):
first step was to go through, sort out and find
what evidence we could find in all those cell blocks, collated,
secure it, try and keep track of it. It was.
It was just a tremendous job. What was some of
the evidence that your investigators found an L Block? What
they found mostly in L Block was the instruments that
(05:56):
cause of death. I mean, it's been thirty years, so
I just have to speak in generalities about that, but
that's that's what they were looking for. Anything, whether it
be a piece of paper, a note written to somebody,
a shank, or a piece of pipe with blood on it.
All of that was gathered up, analyzed, dusted for fingerprints.
(06:18):
They will also go through hours and hours of audio
recordings obtained during some of the eleven days, the investigators
inserted microphones underneath the cell blocks, monitoring the conversations of
the inmates. Those recordings will be referred to as the
tunnel tapes. But their most important investigative tool will be
(06:42):
the interviews they conduct with the prisoners. Here's w CPO
reporting These murder investigations pose a unique problem. Not only
are the inmates the prime suspects, they are also the
best witnesses. And it's these prisoner interviews that will soon
become the crux of Keith Lamar's case. Trying to think
(07:05):
of what it was they had interviews with different inmates
and some reinterviews. That's a lot of interviews. Well yeah,
I mean you've got to do the interview in order
to get the wheels in motion. And it's the interviews.
And of course, when you're interviewing these inmates, guess what
they don't want to tell you the truth. They want
(07:26):
to tell you You know how clean they are, but
they don't mind talking to you about Joe or Phil
doing this. A lot of prisoners were interviewed multiple times,
sometimes one, sometimes two, three or four or five. I
think up into like eleven and twelve interviews. Why, well,
you know, the most difficult thing to do when you're
(07:49):
being interviewed by someone is to tell a lie. Because
in the second interview you didn't remember what your lie was,
and on the third interview, you didn't remember what your
second line was. So it's just strictly detective work. It's
a good police work. You got a suspect, you're pretty
sure this is your guy. How many times is he
gonna lie to you? And then how are you going
(08:10):
to prove that he was lying in the first place?
So yeah, I don't know, you know, I don't know
specifically that that's true. You probably know a little bit
more about that with your research than I do, but
I would say that absolutely that's the case, and that's
the reason for it. So they're catching these people in
a lie and then eventually it all comes out. It's
a little bit like blue Blunts, you know, only in
(08:31):
real life. Is that the one with Tom Seller? Yeah? Well,
everybody knows Tom Seller. Um, you know, I've been telling
these kinds of stories for I've just never heard of
so many interviews. Yeah. Well, and I think that's what
makes this whole investigation so unique that we were actually
(08:54):
able to convict five known felons of murder. How do
we do that? But we did that by doing the
stuff that you're saying you've never heard it. Net's that
was all groundbreaking stuff done by these Ohio State troopers.
It's in some of these very interviews that Keith and
(09:16):
many others say manipulation and misconduct occurred. We are going
to talk a lot more about this in later episodes.
So at the end of the Ohio State Highway Patrols
lengthy investigation, and based mostly on the interviews they conducted
with prisoners, five men are singled out as leaders during
(09:38):
the uprising, Actually the same five men Kenneth Marshall just
referred to. Two are from the Muslim community, Sadiq Abdallah
Hassan formerly known as Carlos Sanders and Namir Abdul Matine
also known as James Ware, and two other inmates are
members of the Arian Brotherhood, George Skates and Jason rob
(10:01):
investigators believe those four took part in various crimes, including
the killing of Officer Robert H. Landingham, but the fifth
person is not someone affiliated with any gang or group
or even remotely connected to officer of the Landingham's death.
This is a prepaid debit call from Keith Lamar, an
(10:26):
animated at the Ohio State in a country, Keith Lamar
will be named the leader of the death Squad and
accused of calling for and taking part in the murders
of five prisoners during the first and third days of
the uprising. This call is from a correction facility and
is subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using GTL.
(10:49):
Fifty three year old Keith Lamar talks to me from
death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Ohio.
I'm okay, how are you okay? I'm I'm doing all right. Yeah.
Keith and I started talking back in May of In total,
we've spoken twenty seven times for almost thirty five hours.
(11:13):
Our conversations have run the gamut. We've discussed family, prison life,
books and music, racism, politics, and of course his case.
The first time we speak, he is open and friendly,
but he also lets me know what he expects from me.
(11:34):
I think one thing you should know, as long as
you are involved in giving at the truth, you and
I will be good. I am after the truth and
I am going to do my best to try and
uncover it. So let's start with investigators basic theory of
(11:55):
what they say Keith did on the first day, really
the first hours of the Upper Rising. They allege Keith,
then twenty three, is out on the recreation yard when
the riot kicks off. They say he and two other
prisoners come into l Block L six to be exact,
to check on their belongings in their cells. After they
(12:15):
do so, the Muslim prisoners, who are seemingly in charge,
won't allow them to go back outside. That's when investigators
say Keith comes up with a plan, a plan that
involves killing some prisoners who were alleged snitches. See. During
the early hours of the uprising, the Muslim prisoners supposedly
(12:35):
had those so called snitches locked up in cells for
their own protection because as snitches, they are some of
the most hated within the prison population and they'd be
quite vulnerable to retaliation. But investigators believe Keith sees the
snitches as a bargaining chip, they say, he offers to
kill them and in return asks that they be allowed
(12:57):
to leave and go back out onto the wreck yard.
Investigators say, when one of the Muslim prisoners gives him
the go ahead, Keith assembles a group of men who
mask up and arm themselves with various weapons like bats, knives, shovels,
and white bars. According to investigators, Keith then orders the
prison cells where the alleged snitches are being held to
(13:20):
be opened one at a time. Then he and a
squad of men go sell to sell, killing four darryld Apina,
Albert Steano, William Savetti and Bruce Vitali. Afterwards, Keith and
the others are allowed to leave l block and return
to the yard. Keith, not surprisingly for a man who
(13:41):
has maintained his innocence for the last thirty years, tells
a very different story. It was Easter Sunday, the holiday,
and so there wasn't as much staff there as it
would have normally or otherwise would have been. Everybody have
to being cooked, the ball in her everybody was trying
(14:02):
to get outside, trying to get some fresh air. And
you know, I went outside and I ran a few
miles with a few of my friends. You know, recreation
had been called through a hand, but we were all
lined up to go back into the building and um,
all of a sudden a guard ran out with blood
streaming down his face. And shortly after that inmate came
(14:25):
out holding the PR twenty four, one of those one
of the night sticks, which I assumed he took from
the guard, And that was the first indication any of
us had that there was something going on, and we
all knew that then, you know, the spirit repercussions for
something like that suddenly down in Louisville. Luisville was a
maximum security prison, you know, so you know, everybody who
(14:46):
mainly who were by the door at that particular time
kind of backed up and went back into the middle
of the yard or sat down on the picnic tables,
you know, like that was the front row seat. And then,
um about I don't know, dirty and this or so
into the ride, a guy that I knew, uh came
out and was kind of giving us a blow by
blow after what was going on. And it seemed at
(15:08):
the time that it was just persons running around ransacking sales,
of searching guys sales. We found out and laying around
that David was going from sales and sales, robbing guys
for their property. And this would actually spurred me to
go back in. And I didn't have anything of of
immense value in there, just some boxing boosts, some pictures
(15:29):
and personal effects, nothing to risk my life about. But
again we didn't know at the outset the magnitude of
what was going on. So you go inside, you check
on your belongings. What were you thinking, I mean, the
chaos is happening all around you. It was it was darring,
you know, to see the level of destruction that was
(15:51):
going on. It was hundreds and hundreds of people in
the hallway, just people running all over everywhere, anarchy basically
people but the windows, people screaming, hollering. And I made
my way through this, you know, uh, massive people to
L six. That was the pot where I was how
(16:11):
um and I walked into the pod. And you know,
one of the first things now, now, when I walked
into the pod, contrast to the madness and everything that
was going on in the corporado, this was real quiet
inside of L six. It was orderly inside of L
six because unbeknownst me at the time, this was the
(16:31):
place where the hostages were being held. You know, I
walked in, I saw some guards to my right in
the lord shower stalls, and I walked down to my cell.
He says, when he gets to a cell, someone's there.
My start's individible with myself. There was nobody man in
the control panel at the time. I ran up to
(16:53):
the panel trying to open my door and inadvertently opened
some other doors wherever. They also makes in those sales
as well. Some of those prisoners came out, and the
guys who was presiding over the pod, who was in
control of the pods, saw that. So when I was
doing and I had a confrontation and had a conversation
i should say with uh several of these individuals, and
(17:14):
they explained to me what was going on, that this
was a riot, that we were taking over the ride.
We tired of being treated like second class citizens, so
on and so forth. And they kind of gave me
an ultimatum that you can need to stand here with
us to be a part of what we're doing, or
you could leave. And I, you know, I chose to
I chose to leave. I I knew enough to know that, Yeah,
(17:37):
I didn't want to be a part of that, and
I left, you know, I I came back onto the
yard and then you know, I've said on record that
you know it couldn't have been more than ten minutes.
But the truth is that I have no idea how
long I was inside. You know, ten minutes could seem
like ten hours when your life is on the line,
(18:00):
if you know how much time, you know, come on,
you know, you know I don't have a watch all
and and and you don't know that that never that
will be important. Laying wrong. So to reiterate, Keith says
he went inside L six to check on his property,
saw a man in a cell, opened some cell doors,
(18:24):
was asked if he wanted to stay and participate in
the riot, said no, then went back out to the
yard and he's not totally sure how long he was inside.
What comes next is not in dispute by Keith or investigators.
Around two am, Keith and the three prisoners who had
been out on the yard are rounded up and brought inside.
(18:46):
All are stripped, naked, zip tied, and put in a
by ten cells in K Block. Keith is put in
cell K twoty six with nine other men. The next day,
one of those men is murdered and in time Key
will be blamed for it. They said or claimed that
I want indivisibles for three individuals to kill. How is
(19:08):
that possible? How can one person with with no weapons
give these three individuals in order to kill somebody? It's
day three of the uprising. Keith Lamar is in a
(19:28):
K block prison cell with nine other men. Dennis Weaver,
one of those men, is then killed. Investigators basic theory
is this, they say. Keith accuses Dennis Weaver of being
a snitch. When Weaver denies it, Keith punches him in
the face. Investigators say Keith then accuses another man in
(19:51):
the cell, William Bowling, of being a snitch as well.
When he denies it, Keith tells Bowling he's got a choice.
Either Bowling has to kill Weaver or Keith will kill him.
According to investigators, William Bowling strangles Dennis Weaver, but when
Weaver fights back, Keith instructs two other men to jump
(20:12):
in and help. Investigators believe Keith then shoves papers or
plastic down Weaver's throat to finish him off. Then Keith
tells the other men in the cell they need to
make Weaver's death look like a suicide. But here's what
Keith says happened. We had all been forced into these
(20:33):
single man sales, thin people, so all of us would
tramatas and we would net it had eaten. We were tired,
we had been stretched to our limits. Eventually, corrections officers
come around to cut their zip ties, give them white
jumpsuits and sandwiches. Keith says that's when things take a turn.
(20:54):
At some point during UM the morning time, the guards
came around. They proved family just into the sale like
we were wild animals, and like wild animals, everybody ramps
in the front of the sale and was trying to
you know, you know, get a sandwich, and some people
got took more than their share and death. What happened?
What started the skirmish, The skirmish that leads to Dennis
(21:17):
Weaver being murdered. Dennis was like an older UM prisoner,
probably in the sixties at the time, you know, great
play hair, you know, and real clients of spoken guy,
although Keith says Dennis Weaver isn't so soft spoken. That day,
he starts arguing with William Bowling, get as we didn't
(21:40):
get a sandwich and has something to say about it
to one of his guy named William Bowling. This started
an argument. William Bowling he was a bully, had a
reputation of kind of being a strong armed kind of guy,
you know, walking around with a you know, smirk on
his face, real threat, the menacing capital individual. And he
(22:02):
got into it with Dinners and uh, Bowling he was
like in hysterics basically after Dinners had you know, the
nerves to say something to him, to stand up to him,
and um, he was just going from personal posting kind
of you know, doing a gut check basically. You know,
I wasn't you know, one of those guys who was
gonna stand back and allow somebody to bullying me. And
(22:24):
so when he turned his attention to me, you know,
with a white cross, uh and hit him dead in
the mouth as hard as I could, and you know,
he kind of snapped out of at least shifted his
focus away from me and kind of focus you know,
kind of z roed in on on Dennis he shouldn't
change some words a few blows worth exchange and William
(22:48):
put him in the for Nelson and was choking them
and you know gunners began to you know, flop around
trying to free himself from this choke hold. Keith says,
as William Bowling is choking Dennis Weaver, Bowling tells two
other guys to jump in and help. Not long after that, uh,
(23:08):
Dennis we were expired, he died. Did someone put papers
in Weaver's mouth? You know? One of the ways that
the state tried to uh make it seem as if
I had his own involvement in dinnis and death. They
relatedly claimed that our stuff paper um down Dennis's throat.
(23:31):
It never produced the paper introduced the paper in the
evidence with my DNA was or anything. I didn't have
anything to do with dennis Is death. Keith also denies
the state's claim that he told the others in the
cell to make Weaver's death look like a suicide. What
did it do to you to see Dennis Weaver killed?
(23:54):
If you're stand there watch another human beings being killed?
What does that say out too? By the time then
this that I wasn't able to respond because I wasn't
a human being at that At that point, I've been
been had already been stripped of of my humans, all
of us were this is why you can kill somebody
or what soundwas only a while animal would do that.
(24:19):
But this is what we have been reduced to, not
just me, all of us. I mean I didn't know
that then, you know. I mean I was its sense,
the experience, a lot of regret, a lot of remorse fulfilling,
but I didn't understand it at that time in that way.
At that time, I didn't look at it as a
moral failure. I was looking at it as me looking
(24:41):
out for myself, you know, in the sound self as
the sound callous. But it's difficult to find in any
way other than to your own self preservation. And that's
what I was doing. That's what I did when Keith
is eventually questioned when a highway state patrol came and
(25:05):
asked us about what happened in the sale, I along
with other prisoners, that that we were asleep, that we
didn't see what happened, because that's what you're do inside
of prison, you know, because obviously we're talking, we here
having this conversation and you and I about prisoners being killed,
well Leslie being snitches inside of maximum security prison. So
(25:25):
you know, that was the penalty that was imposed and
this is the thing that could happen to you in
the maximum security prison if you were known to be
a snitch, and so I told the authorities that I
was asleep. Keith wants nothing to do with the investigation,
and he says that firmly plans a target on his back.
(25:47):
But refusing to talk to investigators isn't Keith's only problem,
because William Bowling and the two others who allegedly took
part in the killing of Dennis Weaver do talk, and
they point the finger at Keith, saying he was the ringleader.
This kind of gave William Bowling the room to kind
(26:07):
of shift the blame and say that I and the
other several other individuals in the sale forced him to
kill Dennis Weaver, which was totally obviously that what happened.
And that's really what my problems began, um um Leah.
It was that that that kind of put me on
(26:27):
the radar. So the investigators accuse you of basically making
Bowling and others kill Weaver, then how does it go
from that to them calling you or labeling you the
leader of the death squad in L six. I think
it a matter of you know, picking out of this
(26:50):
group of people, who was more likely to have done
That's why I think they kind of narrowed it down
who out of the individual who led in L six
was in prison for Martin. I think maybe my name
was mixing because I didn't have the face covering all.
You know, I wasn't trying to hide my face or
had my uh who I was anything like that. I
(27:16):
asked Kenneth Marshall from the Ohio State Highway Patrol about this. So,
Keith Lamar, do you remember how his name first became known?
I would just have to speculate that Lamar was one
of those people whose name was known to the investigators
before they even started investigating deeply. But you know, you know,
(27:42):
I don't remember what I had for dinner that day,
so I don't know if Keith's name was known before
they even started investigating. The question is why and how
did that result in investigators accusing Keith of killing more
(28:04):
people than anyone else during the uprising. The Ohio State
Highway Patrol troopers aren't the only ones asking questions. There
are others at organizations like the Officers Union conducting investigations
of their own, putting Lucasville under the microscope to try
and understand why the riot happened at all. Was it
(28:26):
only in protest against Warden Arthur Tate's tuberculosis testing or
was there more to it? Well, Lucasville from its inception
was the disaster waiting to happen. That's Nikki Schwartz, the
prisoners rights lawyer who represented the inmates and helped negotiate
the end to the uprising. You met him in episode one.
(28:49):
It was the state's maximum security prison, replacing the old
Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus, where there had been a
riot by the way, and it was bill I think
essentially political reasons on rural land in southern Ohio, and
it was a recipe for disaster from the outset because
(29:11):
by reason of its location, it was going to be
staffed by white Southern guards and by reason of its
character it was going to be occupied by black Northern
prisoners from Cleveland, Youngstown, Columbus, etcetera. And so these two
groups weren't designed to work well together. In addition, although
(29:34):
it was designed for single selling, somewhere along the way
the state needed extra space, so they converted into double cells,
and I don't know how many prison cells you've seen,
but basically they are tiny bathrooms with a bunk bit.
It's no secret Lucasville was a prison riddled with problems.
(29:59):
In the late Ohio's Correctional Institution Inspection Committee or c
i i CE, spent two years taking a hard look
at Lucasville. Shirley Pope, a senior researcher at c i
i CE, sent her findings in a twenty two page
confidential memo to Terry Morris, Lucasville's warden at the time.
(30:20):
In it, Shirley Pope wrote that she learned some of
the biggest issues that Lucasville had to do with snitch games, violence, gangs,
racial tension, drugs, gambling, sex and extortion, rings, cell assignments,
lack of personal safety, and distrust of staff. Also, and
(30:42):
maybe the most prophetic in all of Pope's findings was
the fact that there were quote predictions of a major
disturbance unlike any ever seen in Ohio prison history, which
to me sure sounds like people were expecting there would
be a full scale riot at Ucasville at some point.
(31:04):
And that's really just the tip of the twenty two
page Iceberg what came of that memo? If anything is unclear,
what is clear is that what happens on June seven,
almost three years before the uprising, will cause a seismic
shift at Lucasville. The straw that broke the camel's back
(31:28):
was the murder of Beverly Taylor. Beverly Taylor was a
bubbly bright, very very good educator who worked in the
prison school system. That's Lucasville's former warden, Arthur Tate. He's
(31:53):
talking about thirty two year old Beverly Taylor, who was
murdered at Lucasville in June, a little less than three
years before the uprising. She was grabbed a drug into
the restroom and nearly decapitated by one of her students.
Beverly Taylor's death was horrific and tragic, and four months
(32:17):
later there's a changing of the guard Warden Terry Morris
is out Warden Arthur Tate is in. He is not
happy about it, and I my heart sank to my toes.
To be honest with you, I didn't want to go
to Lucasville. I mean, everybody knew it was just big trouble.
(32:38):
I think the prison frankly had been neglected to some
extent by the Department of Corrections. It was kind of
an out of sight, out of mind place. So I
come rolling in there on October one. When I first
went there, leah Um, I inherited everything there was to
(32:58):
be about Lucasville. I inherit all the staff, inherit all
the problems, and inhered everything. And uh, the biggest issue
for me when I first got there was violence. The
level of violence was off the charts in my opinion.
Besides Beverly Taylor's murder, four inmates had also been killed
(33:20):
that year. So after only one month on the job,
Warden Tate Institutes Operations Shakedown, a multi pronged program meant
to bring security and control to Lucasville Operations. Shakedown called
for more staff to be hired, more cameras and metal
detectors to be installed. It also restricted the way prisoners
(33:40):
were allowed to move about the prison. It reduced the
amount of recreation time for maximum security prisoners and ended
their access to certain programs like college classes. I think
there's a what's sounds what's the term I want to use?
There's a maybe a tag that's placed on folks who
(34:04):
are thrust into these wardens jobs that for some reason, um,
they don't have a heart that, Um, they don't really
care about the offenders. Blah blah blah blah blah. That
was never in my repertoire when I went into a
(34:24):
place that was literally derailed. I gotta get the train
back on the track. I'm not really concerned about whether
a guy is gonna be able to go to college tonight.
If I've got guys getting stabbed left and right around
the corner, you know what I mean. Talk to me
about the phone calls. I read somewhere it was like
one five minute call it Christmas, Yes, andmates got a
(34:46):
call at Christmas time. That rule was there when I
got there. I want to make that clear. I didn't
make that rule. One five minute call once a year
seems really, it seems a little harsh. No is harsh.
It is harsh. In George Phazon was serving time at Lucasville.
(35:09):
Today he's a married father and grandfather, living and working
in Cleveland. George remembers Warden Tate's operations shakedown and how
he suspended the programs. They so relied on anything that
was positive within the prison. It was taken away too
if it didn't do leting, but pret more angry because
(35:29):
people utilized a lot of the recreational programs as a
form of a release valve. And you know, the sports programs,
the were looking programs, the recreation prold web were derived
as an outlet to keep the tension down right, and
going to school throughout the day and evening. He gave
(35:50):
you it was something to do. So when all that
was taken away, he really really created more tension within
the prison. By the way, let me have skew. I
have heard so many people refer to those who are
incarcerated differently. Some say inmate, some say inmate is not
the proper word to use, Some say offender, some say prisoners,
(36:13):
some say resident. What is your preference in how to
describe somebody who is incarcerated? My purposes, we're all still
human beings, label a tit of society, beings, inmate, prison, offender.
I don't like any of those ways, because we're all
through human beings. Hands down. One of the biggest issues
(36:38):
at Lucasville was race, and it seems to go back
to the three factors. Prisoners rights lawyer Nikki Schwartz talked
about earlier location of the prison, who's working there and
who's living there. Here's Lucasville's former warden, Arthur Tate. I
had eight hundred employees when I first went there in
(37:00):
un less than five of those employees were a minority.
The inmate population, on the other hand, was over African
American and there's just no question that was an issue.
Was it an issue for the riot? I would say yes,
it was an underlying issue. Here's George. Basically most of
(37:23):
the guards down there at the time were affiliated with
the Indian brother and wouldn't take He basically didn't have
good control over the conditions down there. It's almost like
he encouraged the racial tension I was down at the
time because he didn't do anything basically to alleviate it.
Most of the white guards down there, they had the
(37:44):
light in boats tattooed on their neck, and you know,
they didn't have no problem making sure they supplied the
air and Brotherhood inmates down there with whatever weapons they
needed that as far as knife, whatever they need it
down and they made sure that they're supplied with that.
Tokyo Morgan was also serving time at Lucasville back then.
(38:08):
He lived in K Block at the time of the uprising.
You met him briefly in episode one. Today, Tokyo owns
a successful landscaping business he's had for the last seven years.
The parties are the pretty knives and there in give
to the white guys and they can stay up all
black guys. You knew that for sure, and therefore affect
(38:28):
of the boys of the Knife had a price tag on.
You will get that from the store. As we mentioned earlier,
another major problem at Lucasville was overcrowding. Lucasville was only
built to house just over fift hundred prisoners, all meant
to be single celled, meaning one person per eight by
(38:50):
ten cell. At the time of the uprising, there were
just over eighteen hundred prisoners, almost three hundred more prisoners
than it was designed to hold. Around eight hundred of
them were sharing cells. But it wasn't just the overcrowding
that was the issue. It was who prisoners were made
to live with. That's because Lucasville under the previous prison administration,
(39:13):
had been segregated based on race. In a prisoner files
a lawsuit challenging this very cell assignment policy. Then about
eight months after ward and Tate takes over, a federal
judge tells him he must integrate the prison. Arthur says
he was shocked when he learned that less than two
(39:35):
percent of the inmate population was integrated. He was ready
to right the wrong, but he knew it wasn't going
to be easy. Well, can you imagine how difficult it was,
because let's just say, to call a guy in it's
been in prison twenty years, he's an old arian, and
tell him that, you know, starting tomorrow morning or tonight,
(39:56):
I'm going to put an African American in with you,
going to have a new roommate tonight, one of them
will definitely kill the other one. In an environment like Lucasfield,
a potential powder keg for sure. Then there's the spark
that may have set it all off. The departmenty side.
We're going to test all of our prisoners for tuberculosis.
(40:20):
Now that's a mandatory test, that's not optional. According to
one of those post riot investigations, about a month before
the uprising, there is one reported case of TB at Lucasville.
And since prison is such a closed environment and TB
is so contagious prison officials in Columbus order the testing
(40:42):
to be done. I knew that this was a controversial topic.
It was controversial specifically with the Muslim prisoner population. One
hundred and fifty nine inmates were refusing the TB test,
it seems for reasons like basic distrust of the administration
and they didn't want to be guinea pigs. But for
(41:03):
the Sunni Muslim prisoners, they were objecting because, like we've
already mentioned, they believed the test contained alcohol and being
forced to consume alcohol in any form was a violation
of their religious freedoms. So I'm getting all this intel
saying that, you know, the Muslims are really having a
(41:24):
problem with this, and so I thought, well, I'll just
have a meeting with him. April five, six days before
the uprising, Warden Tate meets with two Sunni Muslim prisoners
and Sadiq Abdullah Hassan there in mom or prayer leader.
(41:44):
Meeting did not go well. I'm a very direct person.
I mean, I you probably figure that out already. I
don't mince my words. I told you guys, I said, look,
we're going to go forward with this test. You know,
I told them they are going to run the prison.
I run the prison. I told them that right to
their face. Two days later, Hassan writes Warden Tate a
(42:08):
letter or a kite as it's called in prison. It reads,
in part quote, the TV substance is unlawful for a
Muslim and an infringement on his right. A person can
be tested positive or negative by taking an X ray
test and or spitting into a cup. Hence, we have
no legal objections to this form of testing and pray
(42:29):
you and your staff will accommodate us in this form
of TV testing. Hassan goes on to say that he's
been told that these other forms of testing have been
done a at least one other Ohio prison. Then he
closes by thinking Warden Tate for his time and consideration.
So basically, Hassan is saying they're not objecting to being
(42:49):
tested for t B, they're just asking to be tested
in a way that doesn't contain alcohol. Hassan wrote you
a letter asking for alternate methods of testing. Not familiar
with that, Yeah, And I don't recall a letter from
him that week. Yeah, I don't recall. I mean, is
that part of the record. Yeah, I don't. I don't
(43:10):
recall the letter, and then you wrote back to him.
I have Arthur's letter back to Hassan. It reads, in
part quote, your options have been explained, and I expect
full compliance to my orders for all inmates to be tested.
You are in no position to dictate to me how
you perceive this should occur. I am certainly hoping that
(43:33):
there will be minimal difficulties associated with this process. Arthur's
position on the matter is clear. The testing is going forward.
So I drafted this plan, which I thought was a
really good plan. It entailed me locking the prison down
(43:55):
on the Monday after Easter. I would have the prison
lockdown for three days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I had
teams of staff that would be assigned to certain areas
to bring about this test effect. This test. Now, what
we were gonna do is go door to door. We
go door to door, break the door down, go in,
(44:18):
do the test. You know what the test is where
they just eject a little bit of serum under your
skin and three days later you go back and have
it checked. As long as it's not read and irritated,
you're good to go. So anyway, this plan was shared
with the State Highway Patrol, with Central Office, my superiors
(44:39):
and approved. So the plan to go in for those
three days. It means that potentially using force, the Muslims
were going to be given this test. Yes, well, someone
tips off Hassan and the Muslim community to Arthur's plan,
(45:02):
so that got out unbeknownst to me in prison, exploded
on Easter Sunday. And I'm gonna say this, the tuberculosis
situation didn't It didn't cause the riot. It was the
trigger for the riot. I mean, all the things that
we've talked about, I think feed into why the riot happened.
(45:25):
And uh, frankly not getting their way with regard to
the TV test. It's not a reason to have a
riot and kill ten people. It's unacceptable. I'll never accept that.
I don't lay awake at night worrying about that decision.
I know I didn't cause the riot. Here's George Faison
(45:46):
or Tate was so stubborn he wanted to do it
his way. The whole situation could have been avoided if
he would have tested. Were willing to administer the test
another way, There wasn't against their religion. In December of
eight months after the uprising, Arthur Tate is asked to
step down as warden at Lucasville. A few months later,
(46:08):
he is hired to help open and run a new
prison in St. Clairsville, Ohio. Is there anything that you
would have done differently leading up to or during Uh? Well,
I might have just made the decision to walk away
from my job in September of nine, knowing what I
was going to get myself into. In terms of actually
(46:31):
managing the riot, given the circumstances, I think we did
about as good as we could have done. I would
have loved have stayed there. I mean, you know, looking
back on that, I you know, I kind of get it.
I've heard that many of the prisoners at Lucasville back
then referred to Arthur as King Arthur, and that he
(46:52):
was a total tyrant. To be honest, I was fully
prepared not to like him. The opposite was true, although
serving time at Lucasville with him as warden versus interviewing
him at his dining room table are two very different things, right.
I do wonder as the mayor or dictator of Lucasville,
(47:15):
Arthur must have had his finger on the pulse of
the prison right, he must have known who the troublemakers
or model prisoners were, So I wanted to know what
does Arthur remember about Keith? Did you know Keith Lamar
prior to the uprising? Yes, I had not had any
problems with him. He says he is innocent. He did
(47:40):
not do anything that he's been accused of. I really
not familiar with all the specifics. The specifics of Keith's
case span three decades and are quite involved. I've actually
had multiple people tell me that this story is too
big and I've bitten off way more than I can
show I one or if they're right, for now, before
(48:03):
I get too far down the road, the destination is
on your right. Ohio State Penitentiary arrived. I need to
speak with Keith in person, face to face for the
first time. Okay, I'm here, I am about to go
(48:25):
into the prison, and I'm kind of freaking out. Next
time on the real killer, they had zero physical evidence,
five brutal killings, just nothing doesn't matter for investigators keeps
their man. I'm not an angel, but that's not who
(48:46):
You've been accused of doing something that you know he
hadn't done. But Lucasville isn't the only thing Keith's been
accused of? Can you tell me about what happened in
that shooting? To see photos and documents related to this
(49:07):
season's story, check out The Real Killer podcast Instagram page.
The Real Killer is a production of a y R
Media and I Heart Radio, hosted by me Leah Rothman.
Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza Rosen. For A y
(49:28):
R Media. Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams,
Senior Associate producer Jill pshas Nick, coordinator George Fom. Editing
and sound design by Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by
Cameron Taggi. Audio engineering by Matt Jacobson. Studio engineering by
(49:50):
Anna Moolshan Legal counsel for a y R Media, Gianni Douglas,
executive producer for I Heart Radio. Maya Howe Word
A warning this episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. They're bottle all
up here. This is keep in mind. This is all
officer blows right here as a bucket of water and blood.
Next say, supposedly trying to fixed on the officers that
(00:27):
have watch them all. The April uprising at the Southern
Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio is over eleven excruciating days,
ten gruesome murders. It's still one of the longest and
deadliest prison riots in US history. Or blot wall over
(00:48):
here now there's all over this blood everywhere. The investigation
and the hunt for those responsible is about to begin.
Keith Lamar will soon find himself in the center of
it all. But first, a warning from prisoners left behind
(01:08):
for law enforcement is literally written on the wall. Don't
treat prisoners like stupid animals. It could happen again. Lucasville rioters.
(01:30):
I'm Leah Rothman. This is the real killer. Episode two
still human Beings. Not long after the Violet Riots began,
(01:51):
show did the brutal killings for at least six of
the murdered inmates. The end was painful and bloody. The
killings were barbed barrack. Here's Cincinnati news station w CPO
reporting These autopsies, released just hours ago and obtained by
Channel nine, reveal a chilling pattern of homicide. At least
(02:13):
five inmates were beaten to death, all of them suffering
massive head injuries along with deep cuts all over their bodies.
There were eight prisoners murdered in L Block Ground zero
during the uprising, Darryl de Pinative Earl Elder, Franklin Farrell,
(02:33):
Bruce Harris, David Summers, Albert Steano forty, William Savetti, and
Bruce Howard Vitali Jr. Also killed an L Block was
Officer Robert V. Landingham, forty. He died from ligature strangulation.
(02:57):
Every one of the murders was of a brutal nature.
That's Kenneth Marshall, thirty one year veteran of the Ohio
State Highway Patrol back. He was the executive officer in
the Office of Investigative Services. I speak with ken over zoom.
All those guys a terrible death, you can believe that,
(03:20):
But there's still one more victim, Dennis Weaver. Dennis Weaver
was killed two days after the Easter Sunday revolt. Dennis
Weaver was one of those three hundred men removed from
the wreck yard late that first night and put in
a K block cell with nine others. The next day,
(03:41):
he was murdered. The coroner's report on inmate Dennis Weaver
determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation by cervical
ligature and asphixiation by gagging. I want to make sure
the ten victims aren't forgotten in all this. Regardless of
who they were, an officer or an offender, their lives
(04:04):
had meaning and what happened to them was a tragedy.
I've reached out to the victims families the ones I
could find, but so far no one has returned my
messages back in finding out who murdered these men is
top priority. It was a massive leundertaking. Kenneth Marshall will
(04:25):
lead his team in the largest investigation in the State
Highway Patrols history. At sixteen investigators then nine solid months,
sixteen guys that didn't have any experience doing that before.
It's of a magnitude that's hard to judge. Maybe part
of what made it so daunting was the state and
(04:47):
size of the crime scene. L Block, where the uprising
took place, consisted of eight houses or blocks like L one,
L two, L three up to L eight, and each
one of those consisted of eighty eight by ten cells,
so six hundred and forty cells total. The entire L
Block was one hundred and fifteen thousand square feet and
(05:10):
the adjoining gymnasium was almost twenty square feet, so that
was more than two football fields worth of potential evidence
for investigators to go through. The whole L Block was
just totally annihilated. I mean, we had four hundred prisoners
that were loosing these cell blocks. They tore everything up,
they broke everything, and so yeah, that was the very
(05:33):
first step was to go through, sort out and find
what evidence we could find in all those cell blocks, collated,
secure it, try and keep track of it. It was.
It was just a tremendous job. What was some of
the evidence that your investigators found an L Block? What
they found mostly in L Block was the instruments that
(05:56):
cause of death. I mean, it's been thirty years, so
I just have to speak in generalities about that, but
that's that's what they were looking for. Anything, whether it
be a piece of paper, a note written to somebody,
a shank, or a piece of pipe with blood on it.
All of that was gathered up, analyzed, dusted for fingerprints.
(06:18):
They will also go through hours and hours of audio
recordings obtained during some of the eleven days, the investigators
inserted microphones underneath the cell blocks, monitoring the conversations of
the inmates. Those recordings will be referred to as the
tunnel tapes. But their most important investigative tool will be
(06:42):
the interviews they conduct with the prisoners. Here's w CPO
reporting These murder investigations pose a unique problem. Not only
are the inmates the prime suspects, they are also the
best witnesses. And it's these prisoner interviews that will soon
become the crux of Keith Lamar's case. Trying to think
(07:05):
of what it was they had interviews with different inmates
and some reinterviews. That's a lot of interviews. Well yeah,
I mean you've got to do the interview in order
to get the wheels in motion. And it's the interviews.
And of course, when you're interviewing these inmates, guess what
they don't want to tell you the truth. They want
(07:26):
to tell you You know how clean they are, but
they don't mind talking to you about Joe or Phil
doing this. A lot of prisoners were interviewed multiple times,
sometimes one, sometimes two, three or four or five. I
think up into like eleven and twelve interviews. Why, well,
you know, the most difficult thing to do when you're
(07:49):
being interviewed by someone is to tell a lie. Because
in the second interview you didn't remember what your lie was,
and on the third interview, you didn't remember what your
second line was. So it's just strictly detective work. It's
a good police work. You got a suspect, you're pretty
sure this is your guy. How many times is he
gonna lie to you? And then how are you going
(08:10):
to prove that he was lying in the first place?
So yeah, I don't know, you know, I don't know
specifically that that's true. You probably know a little bit
more about that with your research than I do, but
I would say that absolutely that's the case, and that's
the reason for it. So they're catching these people in
a lie and then eventually it all comes out. It's
a little bit like blue Blunts, you know, only in
(08:31):
real life. Is that the one with Tom Seller? Yeah? Well,
everybody knows Tom Seller. Um, you know, I've been telling
these kinds of stories for I've just never heard of
so many interviews. Yeah. Well, and I think that's what
makes this whole investigation so unique that we were actually
(08:54):
able to convict five known felons of murder. How do
we do that? But we did that by doing the
stuff that you're saying you've never heard it. Net's that
was all groundbreaking stuff done by these Ohio State troopers.
It's in some of these very interviews that Keith and
(09:16):
many others say manipulation and misconduct occurred. We are going
to talk a lot more about this in later episodes.
So at the end of the Ohio State Highway Patrols
lengthy investigation, and based mostly on the interviews they conducted
with prisoners, five men are singled out as leaders during
(09:38):
the uprising, Actually the same five men Kenneth Marshall just
referred to. Two are from the Muslim community, Sadiq Abdallah
Hassan formerly known as Carlos Sanders and Namir Abdul Matine
also known as James Ware, and two other inmates are
members of the Arian Brotherhood, George Skates and Jason rob
(10:01):
investigators believe those four took part in various crimes, including
the killing of Officer Robert H. Landingham, but the fifth
person is not someone affiliated with any gang or group
or even remotely connected to officer of the Landingham's death.
This is a prepaid debit call from Keith Lamar, an
(10:26):
animated at the Ohio State in a country, Keith Lamar
will be named the leader of the death Squad and
accused of calling for and taking part in the murders
of five prisoners during the first and third days of
the uprising. This call is from a correction facility and
is subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using GTL.
(10:49):
Fifty three year old Keith Lamar talks to me from
death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Ohio.
I'm okay, how are you okay? I'm I'm doing all right. Yeah.
Keith and I started talking back in May of In total,
we've spoken twenty seven times for almost thirty five hours.
(11:13):
Our conversations have run the gamut. We've discussed family, prison life,
books and music, racism, politics, and of course his case.
The first time we speak, he is open and friendly,
but he also lets me know what he expects from me.
(11:34):
I think one thing you should know, as long as
you are involved in giving at the truth, you and
I will be good. I am after the truth and
I am going to do my best to try and
uncover it. So let's start with investigators basic theory of
(11:55):
what they say Keith did on the first day, really
the first hours of the Upper Rising. They allege Keith,
then twenty three, is out on the recreation yard when
the riot kicks off. They say he and two other
prisoners come into l Block L six to be exact,
to check on their belongings in their cells. After they
(12:15):
do so, the Muslim prisoners, who are seemingly in charge,
won't allow them to go back outside. That's when investigators
say Keith comes up with a plan, a plan that
involves killing some prisoners who were alleged snitches. See. During
the early hours of the uprising, the Muslim prisoners supposedly
(12:35):
had those so called snitches locked up in cells for
their own protection because as snitches, they are some of
the most hated within the prison population and they'd be
quite vulnerable to retaliation. But investigators believe Keith sees the
snitches as a bargaining chip, they say, he offers to
kill them and in return asks that they be allowed
(12:57):
to leave and go back out onto the wreck yard.
Investigators say, when one of the Muslim prisoners gives him
the go ahead, Keith assembles a group of men who
mask up and arm themselves with various weapons like bats, knives, shovels,
and white bars. According to investigators, Keith then orders the
prison cells where the alleged snitches are being held to
(13:20):
be opened one at a time. Then he and a
squad of men go sell to sell, killing four darryld Apina,
Albert Steano, William Savetti and Bruce Vitali. Afterwards, Keith and
the others are allowed to leave l block and return
to the yard. Keith, not surprisingly for a man who
(13:41):
has maintained his innocence for the last thirty years, tells
a very different story. It was Easter Sunday, the holiday,
and so there wasn't as much staff there as it
would have normally or otherwise would have been. Everybody have
to being cooked, the ball in her everybody was trying
(14:02):
to get outside, trying to get some fresh air. And
you know, I went outside and I ran a few
miles with a few of my friends. You know, recreation
had been called through a hand, but we were all
lined up to go back into the building and um,
all of a sudden a guard ran out with blood
streaming down his face. And shortly after that inmate came
(14:25):
out holding the PR twenty four, one of those one
of the night sticks, which I assumed he took from
the guard, And that was the first indication any of
us had that there was something going on, and we
all knew that then, you know, the spirit repercussions for
something like that suddenly down in Louisville. Luisville was a
maximum security prison, you know, so you know, everybody who
(14:46):
mainly who were by the door at that particular time
kind of backed up and went back into the middle
of the yard or sat down on the picnic tables,
you know, like that was the front row seat. And then,
um about I don't know, dirty and this or so
into the ride, a guy that I knew, uh came
out and was kind of giving us a blow by
blow after what was going on. And it seemed at
(15:08):
the time that it was just persons running around ransacking sales,
of searching guys sales. We found out and laying around
that David was going from sales and sales, robbing guys
for their property. And this would actually spurred me to
go back in. And I didn't have anything of of
immense value in there, just some boxing boosts, some pictures
(15:29):
and personal effects, nothing to risk my life about. But
again we didn't know at the outset the magnitude of
what was going on. So you go inside, you check
on your belongings. What were you thinking, I mean, the
chaos is happening all around you. It was it was darring,
you know, to see the level of destruction that was
(15:51):
going on. It was hundreds and hundreds of people in
the hallway, just people running all over everywhere, anarchy basically
people but the windows, people screaming, hollering. And I made
my way through this, you know, uh, massive people to
L six. That was the pot where I was how
(16:11):
um and I walked into the pod. And you know,
one of the first things now, now, when I walked
into the pod, contrast to the madness and everything that
was going on in the corporado, this was real quiet
inside of L six. It was orderly inside of L
six because unbeknownst me at the time, this was the
(16:31):
place where the hostages were being held. You know, I
walked in, I saw some guards to my right in
the lord shower stalls, and I walked down to my cell.
He says, when he gets to a cell, someone's there.
My start's individible with myself. There was nobody man in
the control panel at the time. I ran up to
(16:53):
the panel trying to open my door and inadvertently opened
some other doors wherever. They also makes in those sales
as well. Some of those prisoners came out, and the
guys who was presiding over the pod, who was in
control of the pods, saw that. So when I was
doing and I had a confrontation and had a conversation
i should say with uh several of these individuals, and
(17:14):
they explained to me what was going on, that this
was a riot, that we were taking over the ride.
We tired of being treated like second class citizens, so
on and so forth. And they kind of gave me
an ultimatum that you can need to stand here with
us to be a part of what we're doing, or
you could leave. And I, you know, I chose to
I chose to leave. I I knew enough to know that, Yeah,
(17:37):
I didn't want to be a part of that, and
I left, you know, I I came back onto the
yard and then you know, I've said on record that
you know it couldn't have been more than ten minutes.
But the truth is that I have no idea how
long I was inside. You know, ten minutes could seem
like ten hours when your life is on the line,
(18:00):
if you know how much time, you know, come on,
you know, you know I don't have a watch all
and and and you don't know that that never that
will be important. Laying wrong. So to reiterate, Keith says
he went inside L six to check on his property,
saw a man in a cell, opened some cell doors,
(18:24):
was asked if he wanted to stay and participate in
the riot, said no, then went back out to the
yard and he's not totally sure how long he was inside.
What comes next is not in dispute by Keith or investigators.
Around two am, Keith and the three prisoners who had
been out on the yard are rounded up and brought inside.
(18:46):
All are stripped, naked, zip tied, and put in a
by ten cells in K Block. Keith is put in
cell K twoty six with nine other men. The next day,
one of those men is murdered and in time Key
will be blamed for it. They said or claimed that
I want indivisibles for three individuals to kill. How is
(19:08):
that possible? How can one person with with no weapons
give these three individuals in order to kill somebody? It's
day three of the uprising. Keith Lamar is in a
(19:28):
K block prison cell with nine other men. Dennis Weaver,
one of those men, is then killed. Investigators basic theory
is this, they say. Keith accuses Dennis Weaver of being
a snitch. When Weaver denies it, Keith punches him in
the face. Investigators say Keith then accuses another man in
(19:51):
the cell, William Bowling, of being a snitch as well.
When he denies it, Keith tells Bowling he's got a choice.
Either Bowling has to kill Weaver or Keith will kill him.
According to investigators, William Bowling strangles Dennis Weaver, but when
Weaver fights back, Keith instructs two other men to jump
(20:12):
in and help. Investigators believe Keith then shoves papers or
plastic down Weaver's throat to finish him off. Then Keith
tells the other men in the cell they need to
make Weaver's death look like a suicide. But here's what
Keith says happened. We had all been forced into these
(20:33):
single man sales, thin people, so all of us would
tramatas and we would net it had eaten. We were tired,
we had been stretched to our limits. Eventually, corrections officers
come around to cut their zip ties, give them white
jumpsuits and sandwiches. Keith says that's when things take a turn.
(20:54):
At some point during UM the morning time, the guards
came around. They proved family just into the sale like
we were wild animals, and like wild animals, everybody ramps
in the front of the sale and was trying to
you know, you know, get a sandwich, and some people
got took more than their share and death. What happened?
What started the skirmish, The skirmish that leads to Dennis
(21:17):
Weaver being murdered. Dennis was like an older UM prisoner,
probably in the sixties at the time, you know, great
play hair, you know, and real clients of spoken guy,
although Keith says Dennis Weaver isn't so soft spoken. That day,
he starts arguing with William Bowling, get as we didn't
(21:40):
get a sandwich and has something to say about it
to one of his guy named William Bowling. This started
an argument. William Bowling he was a bully, had a
reputation of kind of being a strong armed kind of guy,
you know, walking around with a you know, smirk on
his face, real threat, the menacing capital individual. And he
(22:02):
got into it with Dinners and uh, Bowling he was
like in hysterics basically after Dinners had you know, the
nerves to say something to him, to stand up to him,
and um, he was just going from personal posting kind
of you know, doing a gut check basically. You know,
I wasn't you know, one of those guys who was
gonna stand back and allow somebody to bullying me. And
(22:24):
so when he turned his attention to me, you know,
with a white cross, uh and hit him dead in
the mouth as hard as I could, and you know,
he kind of snapped out of at least shifted his
focus away from me and kind of focus you know,
kind of z roed in on on Dennis he shouldn't
change some words a few blows worth exchange and William
(22:48):
put him in the for Nelson and was choking them
and you know gunners began to you know, flop around
trying to free himself from this choke hold. Keith says,
as William Bowling is choking Dennis Weaver, Bowling tells two
other guys to jump in and help. Not long after that, uh,
(23:08):
Dennis we were expired, he died. Did someone put papers
in Weaver's mouth? You know? One of the ways that
the state tried to uh make it seem as if
I had his own involvement in dinnis and death. They
relatedly claimed that our stuff paper um down Dennis's throat.
(23:31):
It never produced the paper introduced the paper in the
evidence with my DNA was or anything. I didn't have
anything to do with dennis Is death. Keith also denies
the state's claim that he told the others in the
cell to make Weaver's death look like a suicide. What
did it do to you to see Dennis Weaver killed?
(23:54):
If you're stand there watch another human beings being killed?
What does that say out too? By the time then
this that I wasn't able to respond because I wasn't
a human being at that At that point, I've been
been had already been stripped of of my humans, all
of us were this is why you can kill somebody
or what soundwas only a while animal would do that.
(24:19):
But this is what we have been reduced to, not
just me, all of us. I mean I didn't know
that then, you know. I mean I was its sense,
the experience, a lot of regret, a lot of remorse fulfilling,
but I didn't understand it at that time in that way.
At that time, I didn't look at it as a
moral failure. I was looking at it as me looking
(24:41):
out for myself, you know, in the sound self as
the sound callous. But it's difficult to find in any
way other than to your own self preservation. And that's
what I was doing. That's what I did when Keith
is eventually questioned when a highway state patrol came and
(25:05):
asked us about what happened in the sale, I along
with other prisoners, that that we were asleep, that we
didn't see what happened, because that's what you're do inside
of prison, you know, because obviously we're talking, we here
having this conversation and you and I about prisoners being killed,
well Leslie being snitches inside of maximum security prison. So
(25:25):
you know, that was the penalty that was imposed and
this is the thing that could happen to you in
the maximum security prison if you were known to be
a snitch, and so I told the authorities that I
was asleep. Keith wants nothing to do with the investigation,
and he says that firmly plans a target on his back.
(25:47):
But refusing to talk to investigators isn't Keith's only problem,
because William Bowling and the two others who allegedly took
part in the killing of Dennis Weaver do talk, and
they point the finger at Keith, saying he was the ringleader.
This kind of gave William Bowling the room to kind
(26:07):
of shift the blame and say that I and the
other several other individuals in the sale forced him to
kill Dennis Weaver, which was totally obviously that what happened.
And that's really what my problems began, um um Leah.
It was that that that kind of put me on
(26:27):
the radar. So the investigators accuse you of basically making
Bowling and others kill Weaver, then how does it go
from that to them calling you or labeling you the
leader of the death squad in L six. I think
it a matter of you know, picking out of this
(26:50):
group of people, who was more likely to have done
That's why I think they kind of narrowed it down
who out of the individual who led in L six
was in prison for Martin. I think maybe my name
was mixing because I didn't have the face covering all.
You know, I wasn't trying to hide my face or
had my uh who I was anything like that. I
(27:16):
asked Kenneth Marshall from the Ohio State Highway Patrol about this. So,
Keith Lamar, do you remember how his name first became known?
I would just have to speculate that Lamar was one
of those people whose name was known to the investigators
before they even started investigating deeply. But you know, you know,
(27:42):
I don't remember what I had for dinner that day,
so I don't know if Keith's name was known before
they even started investigating. The question is why and how
did that result in investigators accusing Keith of killing more
(28:04):
people than anyone else during the uprising. The Ohio State
Highway Patrol troopers aren't the only ones asking questions. There
are others at organizations like the Officers Union conducting investigations
of their own, putting Lucasville under the microscope to try
and understand why the riot happened at all. Was it
(28:26):
only in protest against Warden Arthur Tate's tuberculosis testing or
was there more to it? Well, Lucasville from its inception
was the disaster waiting to happen. That's Nikki Schwartz, the
prisoners rights lawyer who represented the inmates and helped negotiate
the end to the uprising. You met him in episode one.
(28:49):
It was the state's maximum security prison, replacing the old
Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus, where there had been a
riot by the way, and it was bill I think
essentially political reasons on rural land in southern Ohio, and
it was a recipe for disaster from the outset because
(29:11):
by reason of its location, it was going to be
staffed by white Southern guards and by reason of its
character it was going to be occupied by black Northern
prisoners from Cleveland, Youngstown, Columbus, etcetera. And so these two
groups weren't designed to work well together. In addition, although
(29:34):
it was designed for single selling, somewhere along the way
the state needed extra space, so they converted into double cells,
and I don't know how many prison cells you've seen,
but basically they are tiny bathrooms with a bunk bit.
It's no secret Lucasville was a prison riddled with problems.
(29:59):
In the late Ohio's Correctional Institution Inspection Committee or c
i i CE, spent two years taking a hard look
at Lucasville. Shirley Pope, a senior researcher at c i
i CE, sent her findings in a twenty two page
confidential memo to Terry Morris, Lucasville's warden at the time.
(30:20):
In it, Shirley Pope wrote that she learned some of
the biggest issues that Lucasville had to do with snitch games, violence, gangs,
racial tension, drugs, gambling, sex and extortion, rings, cell assignments,
lack of personal safety, and distrust of staff. Also, and
(30:42):
maybe the most prophetic in all of Pope's findings was
the fact that there were quote predictions of a major
disturbance unlike any ever seen in Ohio prison history, which
to me sure sounds like people were expecting there would
be a full scale riot at Ucasville at some point.
(31:04):
And that's really just the tip of the twenty two
page Iceberg what came of that memo? If anything is unclear,
what is clear is that what happens on June seven,
almost three years before the uprising, will cause a seismic
shift at Lucasville. The straw that broke the camel's back
(31:28):
was the murder of Beverly Taylor. Beverly Taylor was a
bubbly bright, very very good educator who worked in the
prison school system. That's Lucasville's former warden, Arthur Tate. He's
(31:53):
talking about thirty two year old Beverly Taylor, who was
murdered at Lucasville in June, a little less than three
years before the uprising. She was grabbed a drug into
the restroom and nearly decapitated by one of her students.
Beverly Taylor's death was horrific and tragic, and four months
(32:17):
later there's a changing of the guard Warden Terry Morris
is out Warden Arthur Tate is in. He is not
happy about it, and I my heart sank to my toes.
To be honest with you, I didn't want to go
to Lucasville. I mean, everybody knew it was just big trouble.
(32:38):
I think the prison frankly had been neglected to some
extent by the Department of Corrections. It was kind of
an out of sight, out of mind place. So I
come rolling in there on October one. When I first
went there, leah Um, I inherited everything there was to
(32:58):
be about Lucasville. I inherit all the staff, inherit all
the problems, and inhered everything. And uh, the biggest issue
for me when I first got there was violence. The
level of violence was off the charts in my opinion.
Besides Beverly Taylor's murder, four inmates had also been killed
(33:20):
that year. So after only one month on the job,
Warden Tate Institutes Operations Shakedown, a multi pronged program meant
to bring security and control to Lucasville Operations. Shakedown called
for more staff to be hired, more cameras and metal
detectors to be installed. It also restricted the way prisoners
(33:40):
were allowed to move about the prison. It reduced the
amount of recreation time for maximum security prisoners and ended
their access to certain programs like college classes. I think
there's a what's sounds what's the term I want to use?
There's a maybe a tag that's placed on folks who
(34:04):
are thrust into these wardens jobs that for some reason, um,
they don't have a heart that, Um, they don't really
care about the offenders. Blah blah blah blah blah. That
was never in my repertoire when I went into a
(34:24):
place that was literally derailed. I gotta get the train
back on the track. I'm not really concerned about whether
a guy is gonna be able to go to college tonight.
If I've got guys getting stabbed left and right around
the corner, you know what I mean. Talk to me
about the phone calls. I read somewhere it was like
one five minute call it Christmas, Yes, andmates got a
(34:46):
call at Christmas time. That rule was there when I
got there. I want to make that clear. I didn't
make that rule. One five minute call once a year
seems really, it seems a little harsh. No is harsh.
It is harsh. In George Phazon was serving time at Lucasville.
(35:09):
Today he's a married father and grandfather, living and working
in Cleveland. George remembers Warden Tate's operations shakedown and how
he suspended the programs. They so relied on anything that
was positive within the prison. It was taken away too
if it didn't do leting, but pret more angry because
(35:29):
people utilized a lot of the recreational programs as a
form of a release valve. And you know, the sports programs,
the were looking programs, the recreation prold web were derived
as an outlet to keep the tension down right, and
going to school throughout the day and evening. He gave
(35:50):
you it was something to do. So when all that
was taken away, he really really created more tension within
the prison. By the way, let me have skew. I
have heard so many people refer to those who are
incarcerated differently. Some say inmate, some say inmate is not
the proper word to use, Some say offender, some say prisoners,
(36:13):
some say resident. What is your preference in how to
describe somebody who is incarcerated? My purposes, we're all still
human beings, label a tit of society, beings, inmate, prison, offender.
I don't like any of those ways, because we're all
through human beings. Hands down. One of the biggest issues
(36:38):
at Lucasville was race, and it seems to go back
to the three factors. Prisoners rights lawyer Nikki Schwartz talked
about earlier location of the prison, who's working there and
who's living there. Here's Lucasville's former warden, Arthur Tate. I
had eight hundred employees when I first went there in
(37:00):
un less than five of those employees were a minority.
The inmate population, on the other hand, was over African
American and there's just no question that was an issue.
Was it an issue for the riot? I would say yes,
it was an underlying issue. Here's George. Basically most of
(37:23):
the guards down there at the time were affiliated with
the Indian brother and wouldn't take He basically didn't have
good control over the conditions down there. It's almost like
he encouraged the racial tension I was down at the
time because he didn't do anything basically to alleviate it.
Most of the white guards down there, they had the
(37:44):
light in boats tattooed on their neck, and you know,
they didn't have no problem making sure they supplied the
air and Brotherhood inmates down there with whatever weapons they
needed that as far as knife, whatever they need it
down and they made sure that they're supplied with that.
Tokyo Morgan was also serving time at Lucasville back then.
(38:08):
He lived in K Block at the time of the uprising.
You met him briefly in episode one. Today, Tokyo owns
a successful landscaping business he's had for the last seven years.
The parties are the pretty knives and there in give
to the white guys and they can stay up all
black guys. You knew that for sure, and therefore affect
(38:28):
of the boys of the Knife had a price tag on.
You will get that from the store. As we mentioned earlier,
another major problem at Lucasville was overcrowding. Lucasville was only
built to house just over fift hundred prisoners, all meant
to be single celled, meaning one person per eight by
(38:50):
ten cell. At the time of the uprising, there were
just over eighteen hundred prisoners, almost three hundred more prisoners
than it was designed to hold. Around eight hundred of
them were sharing cells. But it wasn't just the overcrowding
that was the issue. It was who prisoners were made
to live with. That's because Lucasville under the previous prison administration,
(39:13):
had been segregated based on race. In a prisoner files
a lawsuit challenging this very cell assignment policy. Then about
eight months after ward and Tate takes over, a federal
judge tells him he must integrate the prison. Arthur says
he was shocked when he learned that less than two
(39:35):
percent of the inmate population was integrated. He was ready
to right the wrong, but he knew it wasn't going
to be easy. Well, can you imagine how difficult it was,
because let's just say, to call a guy in it's
been in prison twenty years, he's an old arian, and
tell him that, you know, starting tomorrow morning or tonight,
(39:56):
I'm going to put an African American in with you,
going to have a new roommate tonight, one of them
will definitely kill the other one. In an environment like Lucasfield,
a potential powder keg for sure. Then there's the spark
that may have set it all off. The departmenty side.
We're going to test all of our prisoners for tuberculosis.
(40:20):
Now that's a mandatory test, that's not optional. According to
one of those post riot investigations, about a month before
the uprising, there is one reported case of TB at Lucasville.
And since prison is such a closed environment and TB
is so contagious prison officials in Columbus order the testing
(40:42):
to be done. I knew that this was a controversial topic.
It was controversial specifically with the Muslim prisoner population. One
hundred and fifty nine inmates were refusing the TB test,
it seems for reasons like basic distrust of the administration
and they didn't want to be guinea pigs. But for
(41:03):
the Sunni Muslim prisoners, they were objecting because, like we've
already mentioned, they believed the test contained alcohol and being
forced to consume alcohol in any form was a violation
of their religious freedoms. So I'm getting all this intel
saying that, you know, the Muslims are really having a
(41:24):
problem with this, and so I thought, well, I'll just
have a meeting with him. April five, six days before
the uprising, Warden Tate meets with two Sunni Muslim prisoners
and Sadiq Abdullah Hassan there in mom or prayer leader.
(41:44):
Meeting did not go well. I'm a very direct person.
I mean, I you probably figure that out already. I
don't mince my words. I told you guys, I said, look,
we're going to go forward with this test. You know,
I told them they are going to run the prison.
I run the prison. I told them that right to
their face. Two days later, Hassan writes Warden Tate a
(42:08):
letter or a kite as it's called in prison. It reads,
in part quote, the TV substance is unlawful for a
Muslim and an infringement on his right. A person can
be tested positive or negative by taking an X ray
test and or spitting into a cup. Hence, we have
no legal objections to this form of testing and pray
(42:29):
you and your staff will accommodate us in this form
of TV testing. Hassan goes on to say that he's
been told that these other forms of testing have been
done a at least one other Ohio prison. Then he
closes by thinking Warden Tate for his time and consideration.
So basically, Hassan is saying they're not objecting to being
(42:49):
tested for t B, they're just asking to be tested
in a way that doesn't contain alcohol. Hassan wrote you
a letter asking for alternate methods of testing. Not familiar
with that, Yeah, And I don't recall a letter from
him that week. Yeah, I don't recall. I mean, is
that part of the record. Yeah, I don't. I don't
(43:10):
recall the letter, and then you wrote back to him.
I have Arthur's letter back to Hassan. It reads, in
part quote, your options have been explained, and I expect
full compliance to my orders for all inmates to be tested.
You are in no position to dictate to me how
you perceive this should occur. I am certainly hoping that
(43:33):
there will be minimal difficulties associated with this process. Arthur's
position on the matter is clear. The testing is going forward.
So I drafted this plan, which I thought was a
really good plan. It entailed me locking the prison down
(43:55):
on the Monday after Easter. I would have the prison
lockdown for three days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I had
teams of staff that would be assigned to certain areas
to bring about this test effect. This test. Now, what
we were gonna do is go door to door. We
go door to door, break the door down, go in,
(44:18):
do the test. You know what the test is where
they just eject a little bit of serum under your
skin and three days later you go back and have
it checked. As long as it's not read and irritated,
you're good to go. So anyway, this plan was shared
with the State Highway Patrol, with Central Office, my superiors
(44:39):
and approved. So the plan to go in for those
three days. It means that potentially using force, the Muslims
were going to be given this test. Yes, well, someone
tips off Hassan and the Muslim community to Arthur's plan,
(45:02):
so that got out unbeknownst to me in prison, exploded
on Easter Sunday. And I'm gonna say this, the tuberculosis
situation didn't It didn't cause the riot. It was the
trigger for the riot. I mean, all the things that
we've talked about, I think feed into why the riot happened.
(45:25):
And uh, frankly not getting their way with regard to
the TV test. It's not a reason to have a
riot and kill ten people. It's unacceptable. I'll never accept that.
I don't lay awake at night worrying about that decision.
I know I didn't cause the riot. Here's George Faison
(45:46):
or Tate was so stubborn he wanted to do it
his way. The whole situation could have been avoided if
he would have tested. Were willing to administer the test
another way, There wasn't against their religion. In December of
eight months after the uprising, Arthur Tate is asked to
step down as warden at Lucasville. A few months later,
(46:08):
he is hired to help open and run a new
prison in St. Clairsville, Ohio. Is there anything that you
would have done differently leading up to or during Uh? Well,
I might have just made the decision to walk away
from my job in September of nine, knowing what I
was going to get myself into. In terms of actually
(46:31):
managing the riot, given the circumstances, I think we did
about as good as we could have done. I would
have loved have stayed there. I mean, you know, looking
back on that, I you know, I kind of get it.
I've heard that many of the prisoners at Lucasville back
then referred to Arthur as King Arthur, and that he
(46:52):
was a total tyrant. To be honest, I was fully
prepared not to like him. The opposite was true, although
serving time at Lucasville with him as warden versus interviewing
him at his dining room table are two very different things, right.
I do wonder as the mayor or dictator of Lucasville,
(47:15):
Arthur must have had his finger on the pulse of
the prison right, he must have known who the troublemakers
or model prisoners were, So I wanted to know what
does Arthur remember about Keith? Did you know Keith Lamar
prior to the uprising? Yes, I had not had any
problems with him. He says he is innocent. He did
(47:40):
not do anything that he's been accused of. I really
not familiar with all the specifics. The specifics of Keith's
case span three decades and are quite involved. I've actually
had multiple people tell me that this story is too
big and I've bitten off way more than I can
show I one or if they're right, for now, before
(48:03):
I get too far down the road, the destination is
on your right. Ohio State Penitentiary arrived. I need to
speak with Keith in person, face to face for the
first time. Okay, I'm here, I am about to go
(48:25):
into the prison, and I'm kind of freaking out. Next
time on the real killer, they had zero physical evidence,
five brutal killings, just nothing doesn't matter for investigators keeps
their man. I'm not an angel, but that's not who
(48:46):
You've been accused of doing something that you know he
hadn't done. But Lucasville isn't the only thing Keith's been
accused of? Can you tell me about what happened in
that shooting? To see photos and documents related to this
(49:07):
season's story, check out The Real Killer podcast Instagram page.
The Real Killer is a production of a y R
Media and I Heart Radio, hosted by me Leah Rothman.
Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza Rosen. For A y
(49:28):
R Media. Written by Leah Rothman, Executive producer Paulina Williams,
Senior Associate producer Jill pshas Nick, coordinator George Fom. Editing
and sound design by Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by
Cameron Taggi. Audio engineering by Matt Jacobson. Studio engineering by
(49:50):
Anna Moolshan Legal counsel for a y R Media, Gianni Douglas,
executive producer for I Heart Radio. Maya Howe Word
Host
Leah Rothman
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