March 30, 2023 • 60 mins
The investigation into Keith LaMar’s case leads to two men who share similar accounts of how investigators tried to manipulate them, but they tell very different stories when it comes to Keith. Are they speaking the truth or do they have a motive to lie?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
A morning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. You know, something
I've been thinking about and something maybe I should have
brought up a long time ago. But how do you
feel about me being a white woman telling your story? Um,
(00:24):
it's something, you know, the race thing. I was on
the verge of becoming a racist when I was sent
to Lucasfield. The guards they called your nigger to your faith.
That's why I stopped using that word, in fact, because
when you ever hear racists call you that, you know exactly,
it moved, it vibrates to your whole body. And then
I was put on trial, and that was further that
you know, I need to hate white people. But you know,
(00:45):
all the guys are testified on me as who lied
on me, you know, to save themselves or for dominantly blind.
And you know, so that caused me some kind of
you know, cognative designance. I was confused about that whole thing.
And then you know, I started needing read and read
from somebody who has spent you know, decades actually educating
(01:05):
myself about race, educating myself about politics, and you know
those two things I'm married mostly to benefit those in power.
You know, that's how they divided us, keep us divided.
You know, Amy is the point person in my campaign
White lay. I'm always struck even now, even after all
the beautiful, loyal, dedicated white people who have come on
(01:28):
come into my life have helped me in ways that
without which I would would really be stuck. So experience
has really been the thing that has informed my attitude
in terms of people. I'm glad you came onto my place.
That's a long way to answer your question, but you
know this is a really loaded question though. Yeah, yeah,
it's yeah. So you know, I don't limit myself because
(01:52):
limit myself only plans in the hands of the people
who are trying to put the news around my neck.
I'm Leah Rothman. This is the Real Killer episode eight
Visions of Versions so long. Well it's kind of have
(02:29):
a ghost. It's finals, and it's the last day of finals,
and it's well make for seventh periods. That's Amy gordeyev
Keith just mentioned her. She's been the point person on
the Justice for Keith Lamar campaign and one of his
most fervent advocates for the last ten plus years. She
(02:52):
also runs a Facebook group called Justice for Keith Lamar.
I meet with Amy at Cheney High School in Youngstown, Ohio,
about nine miles from where Keith sits on death Row.
Oh yeah, this is a great room. Yeah, I love it.
Amy has always worked in education, teaching, then a quick
(03:15):
detour to higher education marketing, then back to teaching. So
now that I'm at Cheney, I'm a tsaul, a teacher
of English to speakers of other languages. We have the
highest rate of childhood poverty in the country and the
school system here in Ohio, and so that means our
kids have a lot of need, a lot of socioeconomic need.
(03:37):
Everybody gets free, free lunch, and we spend a lot
of time on just you know, trying to work on equity.
In twenty and eleven, Amy and her husband Paul, a
professor of cultural anthropology at Youngstown State University, end up
meeting Keith through civil and workers' rights advocates Stoughton and
Alice Lynde, who spent twenty years at Lucasville and the
(04:01):
cases of the five men who are currently on death row.
You heard from them briefly in episode seven. My husband
Paul was doing research at the time on race and
religion and different aspects that have created the segregated situation
that exists in Youngstown. And he came across the name
(04:22):
of Stotton Lynd, who's a historian, and he contacted him
to interview him. The Lens ended up inviting us to
drive them to go blueberry picking for Alice's eightieth birthday.
So we took our minivan with the kids and the
Lens and on that drive, they started talking about Lucasville,
(04:43):
about these five guys. And I didn't even know who
Stouton Lynd was. I didn't know his significant body of
work in the civil rights movement, you know, none of it.
I had no idea who they just were elderly folks
that I thought were sweet. You know. One thing led
to another, and then next thing you know, we were
visiting Keith. As Amy researches and learns more about Keith's case,
(05:06):
she realizes his version of events is far from public knowledge.
When we would look online for information about him. All
of it was the narrative that the state put forth,
and it was like the articles coming from southern Ohio,
from the Cincinnati area. Everything was really the worst things
(05:26):
that you could imagine about him. He was just a monster.
So Amy encourages Keith to write a book and tells
him she'll help. He would write at night, and then
in the morning he would call it and he would
dictate it. Eight months and two hundred and thirty seven
pages later, Condemned is published in twenty fourteen. It was
(05:47):
a long process, but in the end, Condemned allowed Keith
to tell his story from his point of view based
on how it happened. Did you ever ask him point blank,
are you innocent? I don't know if I ever asked
that in that way. He says it all the time.
I'm innocent, and I have seen with my own eyes,
(06:09):
like I've read the documents. It just reeks of wrongdoing.
You know, there's no evidence to me. If Keith were
guilty of killing five people and the state offered him
no additional charges, he would have been the dumbest person
ever to not accept that offer. Right, he wasn't going
(06:31):
to do it because he didn't do those crimes. Amy
believes investigators found an easy target in Keith because he
was already in prison for killing someone. He just happened
to be in the two places where people were murdered
at Lucasville L Block and K Block, and that his
attitude definitely didn't help matters. He didn't want to cooperate,
(06:54):
and he told other people like, don't help them. This
is you know, he basically said like fuck, you know,
look what they did to us. I mean, he was
young and it was I can't imagine the amount of trauma.
I mean I work with traumatized teenagers and they react
more harshly than that all the time. You don't trust anybody,
and I think he just didn't trust that any He
(07:15):
would be safer for saying anything that wasn't how you
do your time. You keep your head down and you
mind your own business. But many don't follow that same philosophy,
like the men who testified against Keith Amy says their
testimony doesn't hold any water. The prison informants were paid.
(07:36):
When I say paid prison informants, I'm talking about incentivized,
rewarded somehow drop charges or no added charges or earlier paroles,
or you get to be moved to a different prison
away from Yeah, what do you know about Oakwood? What
I know about Oakwood is that the men who agreed
(07:58):
to become informants in the various trials were taken to
Oakwood Correctional Facility. It was said afterwards that they were
given access to commissary food, cigarettes, kind of an open
door policy, lots more movement, and even at Thanksgiving were
given a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner that the state folks who
(08:21):
were present kind of referred to them as a family. Supposedly,
some prisoners nicknamed Oakwood Snitch Academy. It seems like at
Oakwood that's where that script was created. They worked out
how they would say it, and then they would go
around to trials after that and sing the song that
(08:41):
they were taught to sing. Or maybe the state's witnesses
were transferred to Oakwood for their own safety. I mean,
they couldn't really be expected to coexist with the people
they'd be testifying against. Right Regardless, Amy has other issues
with how the state handled the investigation Keith's case. You know,
(09:02):
I guess I also pushed back even on the name
death Squad, because that's a state word, that's a state
name that they gave to kind of like spookify what
they were, you know, I mean, the death squad. That's
a premeditated kind of group or something. You know, it's
just a no, we weren't there. Nobody really knows what happened.
(09:22):
But here's the other thing. Did they actually trample and
ruin all the evidence or did they request to not
have any of it be admissible, because then they would
It's hard to believe that twenty two thousand pieces of
evidence are actually inadmissible. People have asked over the years,
what if he isn't innocent, or what if he's guilty
and all of that, and so I know that question
(09:45):
is out there, but for men, I mean, even if
he were guilty, which I absolutely don't believe he is,
But even if he were, it still doesn't change the
fact that the system is lynching black and brown men,
that in the case of Lucasville, the way and the
(10:05):
methods that were used were unconstitutional and wrong, that they cheated.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the United States,
fifty five percent of the death row population is made
up of black and brown people and forty two percent
is white. Three percent are referred to as other. More specifically,
(10:31):
in Ohio, there are seventy seven black and brown people
on death row versus fifty six who are white. Amy
has spent the last ten years on Keith's case, I've
only been on it for ten months. I often think
back to when I first started. How more than a
(10:51):
few people told me that the story was too big
and I was getting in way over my head. At
the time, I think my pride at the better of me.
My attitude was, ah, I got this, I'll show them.
But they were right. There are just so many names,
so many people directly related to Keith's case, and even
(11:15):
more on the periphery, And still this many months in,
I don't have a real sense of what evidence actually exists,
when Keith received certain pieces of potentially favorable evidence, how
exactly he got them, or what exactly the courts have heard.
But all of that aside, Keith consistently goes back to
(11:38):
a few examples he says can clearly point to his
innocence and why he didn't get a fair trial. Like
Aaron Jefferson we talked about him in the last episode,
Keith says, Aaron Jefferson straight up confessed to murdering Darryldpina,
one of the so called snitches killed in Else six
(12:00):
and one of the murderers Keith was sent to death
Row four. Keith claims his nineteen ninety five trial, defense
attorneys were never given Aaron Jefferson's full confession. If they had,
it could have made a difference in the outcome of
the trial, but the state strongly disagrees and says it
wouldn't have changed a thing because Aaron Jefferson's confession is
(12:23):
not credible. I wonder why hello my name, I am
a good looking fifty one year old man. I'm completely
I'm going right to the source to find out. Hello, Hi,
(12:52):
how are you on? Sarable? Little late Aaron Jeffers Sin
calls me from Grafton Correctional Institution, about thirty miles southwest
of Cleveland. He says he first arrived at Lucasville a
couple of years before the uprising. Back then, were you
remember were you part of any group? Uh? Yeah, I was.
(13:16):
I was a member of the Gangs of Disciples. Was
both have been the three groups that's both of hair
Control ran and it was it was a relevant parent
when it all kicked off. Where were you I regard
at I was back back I'll row by way man,
because I had to come in and go to work
(13:39):
training and Bible was like man, He ain't going here
right now, and I'm like, okay, but I sad going
in trick on my property. Man. That was probably worth
the atonal me that day. According to that index of
interviews the Ohio State Highway Patrol conducted, Aaron is interviewed
once a month after the uprising. A year later, he
(14:02):
asks to speak with them and he has a lot
to say. So it seems like you requested to talk
with investigators, and in that interview you said that you
killed David Summers and you killed Darryl Dpina. I didn't
do nothing, Darrel. I don't even know. I couldn't even
(14:22):
play with darl Dpina looked like, so don't know it.
You said, I have to get this off my chest
because other people are being charged with things and they
didn't do it. Did anyone ask you to admit to
killing Darryl Deepina? Now I don't even remember that part.
(14:44):
I mean to say that part what I said, I
don't know. You gave a pretty detailed description of what
happened to him, and then the investigator tells me would
that I was lying about that too. Well, two things
to unpack here. First, I have the transcript of Aaron's
full confession. In it, he describes in great detail how
(15:08):
he killed Darryl Depina, where Dapina worked in the prison,
and what he looked like, including his wild looking beard.
So that seems to contradict what he just said to me,
that he didn't know him or even know what he
looked like. The second thing is that Aaron also just
said the investigator told him he was lying when he
(15:28):
confessed to killing Darryl Dpina, But that's not what happened.
When Aaron confesses to killing Darryl Deepina, the investigator says
nothing to challenge it. When Aaron Jefferson confesses to killing
David's Summers, that's when the investigator tells him he's lying
because what he says he did to David Summers doesn't
(15:49):
match how David Summers was actually killed. So were Aaron's
confessions the truth or were they made up? They didn't
charge Aaron Darryl de Pino's murder. Remember, the state says
his confession wasn't credible. But Aaron was convicted of aggravated
murder and sentenced twenty to life for killing David Summers.
(16:14):
Did you see the death squad go through? No? Do
you know Keith Lamar, did you see him inside L six?
And I didn't know. I didn't say. I didn't say,
but you know, I was out there with a long
time before I went in, so I would square I
was a stack of Bible with that hee there. I
couldn't do that. I don't know. I didn't see it
(16:37):
while I was in there. So I'm you know, I mean,
I'm looking at his case and and and just trying
to get a sense of like the investigation and what
led to people being charged and then convicted of some
of these crimes where I think being would probably have
this bart with you know, trying to get this much
(16:59):
information as you and from the bottom up to see
really what it an investigation or what it just easier
for them to get guys to tuddle another god and
be God with? Did investigators ask you to slip on people?
Matter fact? At one point U d Cubicas who came
(17:20):
to see me and he wanted me to test about
against Hassan. So yeah, no, that's not going to happen.
Not what if you put somebody on death road? Remember Hassan,
also known as Carlos Sanders, was the Sunni Muslim prayer
leader at Lucasville whose objections to the forced TB testing
basically jump started the uprising. What did they want you
(17:43):
to say, Hassan did well? They did what it is.
They wanted to get a store and the stories now
believable again. They wanted you to complete that story because
I remember talking to the box to Okay, next question,
what if I couldn't tell you can come at me
and teschbucket somebody and I get on the court and
(18:03):
I don't understand. I say, I don't know. We talked
talking about I didn't see anything, doesn't and he bas
was telling me, no, you would tell them this, this
is what happened. This is what you will repeat. And
I said, what I would like be like perjury. That
would be lying, wouldn't it? He said, who knows you lying?
(18:24):
Or he basically told me like, hey, you don't want
to help yourself, then we don't want to help me.
This is a prepaid debit call from an innimate of
the Ohio State Innitentiary. I want to tell Keith about
(18:49):
my conversation with Aaron. I got in touch with Aaron Jefferson. Okay, okay,
say so he was interesting. We talked about his confession,
and I asked him, did you kill Darryl Dpina? And
he would, you know? I mean, I wasn't surprised, but
he said no, why would if they know? Though? Now
(19:09):
at this point he's probably getting ready to go home,
So he said he didn't kill Daryl Deepina. Now I
don't know what his status is right now. But why
do you think that they got him on David Summers
but not on Darryl Deepina? He confessed. But he confessed
Darryl Dpina, right, yeah, No, But I'm saying, you know,
you asked me to explain something that really can be explained. No,
(19:30):
I'm just using the twisted logic. You know, there was
no rhyme or reason. If you look into like, you know,
pursued this logically, then you you're going to be frustrated
more often than not, you know, because a lot of
it don't make sense. They didn't charge him with, you know,
the depainent thing because they already had me. In an
attempt to try and make sense of it all, I
(19:52):
tracked down Darryl Deepina's autopsy report to see if it
matches what Aaron Jefferson said he did to him. The
report says that Daryl Dipina died of quote, massive acute
trauma to the head leading to skull fractures, sub arachnoid hemorrhage,
and cerebral contusion. There were also some abrasions on his
(20:14):
body and lacerations to his right elbow and lower right leg.
This is not what Aaron Jefferson said in his confession.
He said he hit Topina on his left shoulder with
an aluminum bat then he stabbed him fifteen times in
the torso. So it seems like Aaron Jefferson's confession doesn't
(20:38):
match with the autopsy report. What do you say about
that actual autopsy? I guess I don't think I've ready. Yeah,
I saw the autopsy report. Now it's not for me
to read the autopsy and say Aaron Jefferson didn't do this.
Oh damn Jefferson did do this. That's the Space Space
job to do that. My job is to clear Minny,
(21:00):
you know. But the fact of the matter that Amaron
Jepson confessed to kill somebody from whom I sensor to death,
and not only that his confession was correaborated by another prisoner,
all of which was hailed from me from from from
my request for discovery. Somebody um not me, confessed to
a murder that I was on trial for. That's a
(21:21):
sculpatory everything. When I started this process, Amy Keith's advocate
sent me some affidavits she wanted me to have. I'm
going to share a few of them with you. Now.
Get ready, because you're about to hear some names you
haven't heard before. But what these guys said may be significant. First,
(21:47):
there's a two thousand and five affidavit from Sean Davis,
and it has to do with Dennis Weaver's murder in
that K Block cell. In it, Sean Davis said that
he encouraged his friend William Bowling, remember he's the hands
on killer of Dennis Weaver, to blame Keith for ordering
Weaver's death, since Keith was already being blamed for the
(22:10):
snitch killings in L six, Sean Davis said he was
wrong for doing that when it wasn't true. I reached
out to Sean Davis, but he never responded. Then there's
Eric Gurdy. He's currently at Mansfield Correctional Institution. In a
two thousand and one affidavit, Eric Gurdy wrote that he
(22:32):
was coerced by State Trooper Sergeant Howard Hudson and Special
Prosecutor Mark Petemeyer to make some statements about some people
like Hassan and Keith. Then in a two thousand and
three affidavit he said more, and I'm quoting. I was
in the Block L six when the murders took place
(22:54):
and Keith Lamar was not present. I not Keith Lamar
and responsible for the death of William Savetti. I was
approached by the Highway Patrol to say that Keith Lamar
was the leader of the so called death squad in
exchange for a reduced sentence and exemption for a capital offense.
Keith Lamar has not threatened me or promised me anything.
(23:18):
In fact, I have not spoken to Keith or discussed
this matter with him in any way. I am doing
this because a man's life is on the line for
something I did and for the lies I was persuaded
to tell for the state. By the way, from what
I understand, the courts have been made aware of Eric
Gurdiy's affidavits and have concluded they don't change the thing
(23:40):
I ask Keith about Eric Gurdy. The interesting thing about Yerigurty,
he came forward. He has some kind of classes of
disconscious you know, admitted to you know, participate in various days.
I mean, you said that in two thousand and three,
you've already been on death row almost a bit gay.
I'm thankful that this sit for my has come forward.
(24:01):
I wish you would have got the vi that those
wouldn't matter. I reached out to Eric and he responded.
We emailed for a few months about the possibility of
me interviewing him. Ultimately he decided against participating. But here
is some of what he shared with me in his emails. Quote,
(24:24):
I've been very salty about the way the state used
and abused me for years. The state got guys on
death row who had nothing at all in killing the officer.
They tricked a lot of guys into do or die situations.
They straight out wrongfully convicted a lot of dudes on
some bullshit for real. Hopefully word will spread across the
(24:47):
country to people in power who will see through all
the evil and vicious stuff the State of Ohio did
to hurry up and convict and close the door on
ninety three uprising. Look, Sean Davis and Eric Gurdy's affidavits
are quite compelling. It's hard to believe that a court
would read them and say it changes nothing, and it's
(25:11):
really too bad. Eric Gurdy said no to an interview,
but there's someone I never imagined who actually said yes.
This is a free call from Andrey, an inmate at
the Marian Correctional Institution. This call is from a correction
(25:43):
facility and his subject to monitoring and recording. Hi. Andre
Andre Stockton has an unfortunately unique perspective on the uprising.
He was actually one of the alleged snitches in l
six who was attacked by the so called death Squad.
I am in no way prepared for what he's about
(26:06):
to say. Thank you for calling back. It was so
loud outside, so I just wanted to make sure that
we could hear each other, okay. Andre Stockton, who is
now seventy, arrived at Lucasville in September of nineteen seventy nine.
Andrea says, like most people who were there back then,
it was a dangerous and explosive environment. The day of
(26:29):
the uprising, the air was extra thick with it. Andrea
describes how it all began. I was in the early afternoon,
the door was opened, were people were hollowing at you know,
a little louder than what it normally is. So you know,
(26:50):
I look out to that out of my door that
was opened, and I stepped out and stepped into it.
You know, it stepped into rebellion. And if you don't
mind sharing what what happened to you? Well, first of all,
I attempted to leave the block to to to leave
(27:10):
and go out to the yard, but they had inmates.
They have prevented that. So I, uh, I went to
find who the leader is, who's leading this, you know,
and uh I knew the guy and I would have
been Carlo's sadness, okay, And I am counting him and
(27:31):
told him now that I really was trying to leave,
and he asked me for a favor, and in return
for the favor, I was going to be able to
leave and go out. And I supposed to deliver a
message to someone, right and I'm heading back and the
group of inmates stopped me. As I recalled. They escorted
me to say six block SL sixty two and they're
(27:56):
lot put in their block. I had heard that Carlos
Sanders puss On wanted to put people that were considered
quote unquote snitches in cells for safe keeping. That's exact,
that's exactly the case. That's exactly, that's true. I believe
(28:18):
to this day that that was his attention. So he
didn't order right. Had you talked with administration, had you
helped them? Did they or did the other people there
that day believe you to be a quote unquote snitch?
Here here here, Harry calls right here, Okay, there was
(28:42):
one guy that there was a Muslim guy. Him and
I had had problems. All right, we've had to be okay,
and he threw an accusation out there. That was my
burden to prove. Yeah, I didn't. Next to your question, no,
(29:02):
but I wasn't as fished for the administration or anything
like that. What happens next being a group of guys
came by with disguise as own They answered my sale
And I don't remember one moment the one thing ever
(29:27):
since at nightmares about it, I've had dave visions about it.
But all of that, none of that is is reality.
You follow up saying the point that you should know
that maybe you don't know, is that I don't know.
(29:48):
M Do you remember at all being hit by more
than one person? Yes, I remember it was at least
six people every no basis, don't don't know wrong, listen
to these guys, but I could see through some of
the disguises, you know what I mean. I was I
(30:10):
would beat till they thought I was dead, and I
was taking outside in a cart and discarded as trash
as did. They recovered me probably best estimations, about three
o'clock that night, and discovered that I was alive. And
I don't know any of this stuff. All this is
(30:30):
just reports and what happened. I don't have no recollection
nu of this. And next thing I know is that
it was almost two weeks later that I awoke. I'm
so sorry. I'm so sorry. I mean, I'm just so
(30:52):
sorry that happened to you. Oh I appreciate that, but
you know, I mean, listen, Uh, God is good. I'm
alive today. I wanted to say something. Do you know
that after all of these years, that that that that
(31:13):
stigma still is attached to me as far as you know,
like being like an that foreman all stitch, that that
label has followed you. Yes, it's the truth, It really is,
because you know, you know, how can you be expand
the undefendable who was charged with the attack on you?
(31:37):
We all? I think that one person that I know
all was convicted. How about something I running? I don't
know that guy named or Faith, For the life of me,
right to this day, I think Keith might have been
He was definitely accused of associated with I think he
(32:00):
got out of it because the severity of the other
charges outweighed the the sespee of using minor charges. Ask
him about it. I know that. So did you ever
see Keith as part of that group who attacked you?
How do you mean, oh, yes, oh yeah, he was there? Yes,
(32:24):
because you said you didn't really know who was there,
but you know that you saw Keith. I recognize how
few of the guys that were there him the group?
He was quarnerable. He was labeled as the leader of
the death squad. Do you remember anything about him giving
(32:46):
orders or no? Do you remember him hitting you? So
had you known Keith before? Okay? And so far as
Keith I knew him when I see him, I did
not personally know him. I believe in my heart to
(33:10):
this day that he had purchased a pair of shoes
that were stolen from me A few weeks prior to
the Loutispiel riot. That's what I was going through prior
to the riot, Like I had my mind home some
other things, retrocucy and and prior to the riot. Right,
(33:36):
so you're focused on Lake who stole my shoes? Yo? Yes,
and a little more. You know, somebody had paid somebody
to jump me. I had my older world that I was,
you know, that I was involved in and you know
I was seriously ready to take somebody's life over over
(33:58):
the matter. That's that's where my mind was at the time.
And you're saying that Keith Keith was involved in the
shoes situation, and not only only to the extent that
he might have purchased shoes. I see, he didn't have
anything to do with the jumping. The pain someone to
(34:18):
jump you to take the shoes. No, No, what's that shoe?
Did you wear? Or do you wear? And I don't
know what size Keith wearas I only know what I've
been told that he wears a thirteen. And let me
say this, and let me say this. Okay, here there
is a situation that might that might well be true,
(34:40):
but he is the circle stance here. The shoe was
a particular shoe. It was a Rachi and Nike Harachi
blue and white high top shoe, very very very very
popular and distinctive in prison. And they would only pair
that I had seen call of me. So Andrea believes
(35:03):
Keith bought his stolen shoes. I wonder Andre says he
was ready to take somebody's life over these stolen shoes.
Might he be pointing the finger at Keith now as
retribution for allegedly purchasing these stolen shoes? Do you remember
talking to investigators? Do you? So? This would have been
(35:26):
some time later after I was brought back to Lucasville.
I guess just described for me a little bit of that,
Like did you have multiple meetings with them? Let me
say this in all fairness, those those those interviews were
very cloudy because, like I wasn't myself, and I'm sure
(35:47):
that you know, they took with the grain of salt
anything that I would have seen. I'll tell you what
they did to though that what they did to they
kind of took advantage to me. Okay. They tried to
tell me a story, and a part of it I
knew was true, and a part of it I knew
(36:08):
wasn't true. They tried to give me a story. Do
you remember what that was? You know, I haven't focused
on this in years, but I could think back at
the time. It was so urgently important for me to
know what had happened. I could not came out to
this day out of impossibles me that such an important
(36:32):
thing that happened to me, what happened, and not knowing
what actually happened in that sale. I do recall though,
when they told me back to Lucasfield and put me
upstairs in the infirmary, which is where they kept some
(36:54):
potential witnesses. And remember their interviews and the tapes. They
were in a view and they had different numbers, right, yes,
and there was an interview number that I had associated
with the Laddin told me that. I remember. I asked
(37:15):
to give me a copy of that interview. You know
that sure idea that we gave it to. If you
have the interviews, If you have the interviews, the information
is there. I don't have the interviews. I have a
list of the interviews, okay. I submitted a Foyer request
(37:35):
to the Ohio Attorney General's Office for Andrea's interviews as
well as the interviews of several others, but they never
sent them. So I pull out the index of interviews.
It seems like one, two, three, four or five six
of your interviews were not recorded. Only one of them
was recorded and it was Yeah, that kind of sneak it.
(38:03):
I have doubts about having all those interviews and most
of them were not recorded. If I don't think that
might be the case. So when you were interviewed after
I mean you had been in a coma for a
couple of weeks, like, yes, yes, So then when you
(38:24):
woke up, did you like, did you remember Keith right
out off the bat or did that come in time? When? When? When?
When I woke up, I had a group of doctors there,
but they told me that the most comparative thing that
I must do is to try not to remember about
(38:48):
the fens that it happened. Okay, and that was a
hard thing to do, but I would do exercise of
completely emptying my mind of thought. Unfortunately, visions of persons
(39:11):
would come to my mind, just like they were pistons.
But the more I tried not to think about it,
the more, you know, the versions of it would come
to our mind. Do you remember who first brought up chief.
Do you remember if the investigators asked you if he
was there or about Hold on a second, he just
(39:34):
I just how in a minute, wintment, you know what
you did. You just did something. You just you just
sparked the memory of how they lied. They tried to
tell me that it was black man. They did this
to me, and I knew they were lying. That's what
it was, dear me. Yeah, I do, and I'm that
(40:00):
it was alive. He wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't there.
They tried to give me a version where they put him.
Asked the guy, I said, do you remember who first
brought up kids name? No? No, I don't, but I
tell you this thought. Let me say this team So
when I remember him is because I named him alphabet.
(40:26):
I named him alphabet so that I wouldn't forget his name.
I had to put the name with the face I knew,
the face I had, I had. I had to find
out his name. And the reason why I caught him
alphabet is because of the letter another alphabet J K
L K l okay, okay, nice guy, But he was there,
(40:54):
he was he was at that door, because that's l
I never said that he did put his hands on there,
and I think so nels you don't know. No, I
don't want to see nobody, Oh no, defro dying. Since
(41:19):
my conversation with Andrea, I learned that in twenty nineteen,
an investigator for Keith's federal defenders met with him. At
that time, Andre allegedly told this investigator he didn't know
if Keith was the one who attacked him during the riot.
This investigator noted that Andrea had previously pointed the finger
at Keith based on the fact that he said he
(41:42):
saw Keith wearing his stolen shoes and the person wearing
the stolen shoes was the same person who attacked him
along with the death squad. But in twenty nineteen, when
the investigator told Andrea that Keith wears a size thirteen,
not his size a size ten and a half, Andre
changed his story. Fast forward to twenty twenty two, the
(42:04):
investigator met with Andrea again. This time Andre went back
to implicating Keith. So to recap, Andre said Keith was
one of his attackers. Then he said he didn't know
if he was, Then he said he wasn't, Then he
said he was. So what is the truth. Does Andre
(42:26):
remember Keith now as clearly as he says he does,
or are his memories based on what he's read in
the reports and or maybe possibly heard from investigators? Or again,
is this some kind of payback for Keith allegedly buying
his beloved stolen shoes? But if Andre is right that
(42:48):
he saw Keith there as part of that so called
death squad, why wasn't Keith charged with his attempted murder?
I mean, an attempted murder charge is not a minor charge,
So why would the authorities give Keith a pass on
a charge like that when they believe he took part
in multiple murders just moments later? Wouldn't adding Andrew's attack
(43:10):
for their bolster their case. I'm not sure what Keith
is going to say about any of this. So I
spoke with Andre Stockton. OK. Yeah, he says he doesn't
remember a lot and that a lot of what he
(43:31):
knows is from what he read in the reports. He
told me that he had these shoes, that they were
stolen from him, and he believed that you had bought
these stolen shoes. He said, I was ready to take
someone's life over it. He asked him what he remembers
(43:53):
from that day, and he remembers being locked up. He
remembers some guys to his cell, around six guys, And
I asked him if he saw you, and he said yes,
he said, he remembers you coming to the cell. So
what do you have to say about that? It doesn't
(44:14):
make sense based on what you just told me. It's
you know, he had memory loss. You know, that's what
I was told. He was in a comma. This whole
story about shoes is you know, really kind of you know,
left field fight thing. But it seems like what he
was saying that he thought I stole his shoes or
had something to do with his shoes coming up missing,
(44:34):
and he was outful retribution. That's what I heard you say.
That makes sense. You just came out of a comma
to have memory loss in all of this. The only way,
based on his explanation to you, the only way he
could be specific. He has to have been given some
information about the details of the situation. You know, the
state has probably since had a conversation with him, saying that.
(44:56):
You can't say Keith Lamar wasn't there. I said, did
he hurt you or hit you? And he said no.
And I said, did he direct anyone to do anything?
And he said no. And so you know, he said, Leo,
he saw me inside. Oh excuse me, Leo. If he
saying he sawed me inside at L six, I'm admitting
(45:17):
to being in L six. I was signed to L six.
I came to L six. I didn't have the mask on.
If he said he saw me before he was beaten
or sorry, that's possible, but I don't see. I can't
even remember that you know this guy, you know with
this lost memory or whatever. But think you do remember
(45:38):
is the tennis shoes. Look, I wasn't there, so I
don't know what happened. But Andrea's story has seemed to
change over the years. What exactly motivated those changes, I
don't know. I'm at a bit of a loss. So
(45:59):
I just had to reach out to someone for some
much needed advice to hopefully help me make sense of
the conflicting information I've been gathering. I call Steve Weinberg,
who was a part of our last season. Remember Steve
and his University of Missouri journalism students spent a semester
investigating and writing about Rodney Lincoln's case. Steve warns me
(46:22):
about how much work is involved in winning trust and
getting candid answers from those who are incarcerated. It's not
that it's impossible, it's just incredibly challenging. I tell Steve
that I'm not feeling very much like a journalist these days.
I'm trying to stay objective, but to be painfully honest.
I really like Keith, and I care about what happens
(46:45):
to him. Steve understands my unenviable position, then reminds me
of someone I should call who will definitely be able
to help. O Holy, Yeah, how are you. I'm well, Sean,
how are you? I'm good? Thanks? How's your podcast? Covin?
That's Sean O'Brien. He was one of Rodney Lincoln's attorneys
(47:08):
who was also a part of our last season. You
know how I felt about Rodney and his case, and
it was a five plus year journey for me. This
case is Sean. I can't think of much else these days.
Sean is the perfect person to talk with. His remarkable
(47:29):
career says it all. He is currently a professor at
UMKC Law School, but really he is an innocence lawyer
specializing in representing people sentenced to death. Three of his
first four exonerations were prison homicides, and he is most
known for the landmark Supreme Court case on innocence Schloop
(47:51):
versus Dilo, which was also a prison homicide case. You know,
people used to think that being in prison and being
convicted of murder was best reason or argument that we
should have the death penalty. But in my experience, these
are the least reliable convictions just because of the environment
in which they happen. That's one of the reasons I
(48:12):
wanted to talk with you. You think things are supposed
to go a certain way, That's the way they go
on the quote unquote outside. What I'm learning is that
it's a very very different environment there, right. It is
such a different culture. I've had to consult experts in
prison culture and in prison security just so that I
can understand how things work in a prison. Relationships are different,
(48:37):
The degree of control that one person has over another
is completely different. Loyalties within the prison are different. Law enforcement,
you know, we think of guards as law enforcement, and
they're really not. I think it's historical accident. Who ends
up on which side of the bars inside of a prison.
There are good people on both sides of the bars.
(48:57):
Don't get me wrong, but it really takes a special
approach because I came to the point after investigating the
Sloop case, the Joan Ryan CASEI Eric Clemen's case, the
Reggie Griffin case. Those are all people exonerated from prison
murders because guards lied and inmates lied. Sean says, prison
(49:19):
culture at its core distorts the truth finding process because
prison is all about survival the way this fellow explained
it to him, and he says, you come into a
prison and you've got a choice. If you got twenty
years to do, you can do it on your feet
or you can do it on your stomach. The first
(49:39):
thing you have to learn there is no shame in
getting an ass weapon, but there is shame in backing down.
Before our call, I sent Seawan some court documents so
he could familiarize himself a little with Keith's case. I
jumped right in with questions about how it seems the
investigation was handled. In the trial transcripts, the defense read
(50:05):
from some of the interviews of you know with the
Ohio State Highway Patrol who ran the investigation, and these
investigators were like, help me, help you. I need your help.
Let's help each other, right, I mean, if you know
you have something valuable and doesn't have to be true,
it just has to be valuable, then that is a
(50:28):
significant coin in the prison economy. What you've described about
the investigators techniques, you know, help me, help you. I
need your help with this. It's a page out of
the read interrogation method, which is not a method conducive
(50:49):
to producing truthful statements. The read interrogation technique was developed
in the nineteen forties. Some say it can be useful
in getting information from uncooperative suspects. Others say it results
in a high rate of false confessions because of its
use of deceit. So the investigation, quite often in a
(51:14):
case like this, is confirming a pre existing theory about
what happened. They're not truly investigating. They're looking for custom
made puzzle pieces to fit their story. And that's commonly
what happens in a prison setting. And so I would
(51:34):
want to know who is present during these interviews. I
would want to know where were these inmates being housed
and with whom, what was the proximity to the people
we think might be the real killer. Even though everyone
who is testifying for the prosecution, there are inconsistencies in
(51:56):
their testimony. They tell some story, right, part of me
can understand why the jury, even though it was an
all way jury and that was absolutely unfair. I could
see why a jury just at face value, if you
hear so many people telling a similar story and all
pointing the finger at Keith, why they ended up with
(52:21):
the verdict that they did. You know, the consistency isn't
something that would bother me that much. Question is the
exact consistency and the closer it gets that actually adds
an element of suspiciousness. Fit just seems to fit together
a little too well. Then you've got problems. When you're
(52:44):
locked up in prison, you are extremely vulnerable to the
pressure to give the prosecution the story that it wants.
So I'm suspicious of inmate testimony for a lot of reasons.
I mean, prosecutors are also suspicious of inmate testimony, except
(53:05):
when inmates are testifying for them. I wanted to talk
to you so Special Prosecutor Mark Pismeyer, when asked about Brady,
how he applied Brady to the case, he said that
he applied a narrow Brady standard. And first of all,
have you ever heard that before? You know, a lot
(53:25):
of prosecutors don't understand what Brady versus Maryland means. It
means that the prosecutor has to turn over any evidence
favorable to the defendant, whether it be on the issue
of guilt or innocence or punishment. Where they play games
with typically is on whether or not it's material. And
(53:46):
the definition of material is if the jury hears it,
is there a reasonable likelihood of a different result. And
so I hear a lot of prosecutors say, well, it's
not Brady evidence because it's not exonerating. That's not the
Brady standard. Well, and it's interesting because in Keith's case,
Stacy Gordon, as part of his plea agreement, they interviewed
(54:07):
Stacy Gordon again and in it they asked do you
know Keith Lamar And he said no. And they said
did you see Keith Lamar and L six and he
said no. So that was never turned over, although on
the stand he was one of the star witnesses who
said that he watched Keith as a death squad leader
go sell to cell calling for the killings of these snitches.
(54:28):
When you have a witness who says I saw the
defendant you commit the crime, and then on another occasion
says I didn't see him at the scene of the
crime at all. That's Brady material, That's exactly it. That's
the kind of thing you'd want the jury to know
before deciding whether or not to believe that witness. By
(54:49):
the way of the fifty trials, and I think there
are forty seven convictions, five are on death row, there
was no physical evidence tying anyone to any of the crimes.
And that can't imagine there's not blood spatters or fingerprints
or some other physical evidence even and on certainly Lamar's clothing,
(55:12):
his clothing would be splattered with blood if he were
present in any of these Well, what allegedly happened was
three hundred men were out there, They're all brought into
the gymnasium and they're all stripped naked, all their clothes
are thrown into a big heap, and what I was
told was they were all eventually burned. So that seems
(55:36):
to me to be what I would call the foliation
of evidence. That means that you've destroyed evidence in the
case that's a crime, right, And so I would one
of the things I would do in my investigation and
the discovery is that I would focus like a laser
beam on who made that decision, what did they know
at the time they made it, and what was their
(55:58):
involvement in the subsequent prosecute. To me, is a really
important part of the story. I mean, how can you
say somebody's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt when you destroyed
the evidence that could have exonerated That's atrocious and you
know likely, I think there's an argument here that they
had a scenario that they wanted to prove and they
(56:20):
didn't want physical evidence to get in the way of
that story. I've reached out to prosecutors Mark Petemeyer, Seth Teeger,
and Bill Anderson with a list of questions, including this
one where keats and the other prisoner's clothes burned or destroyed.
I'm still waiting to hear back the prosecutor's theory of
(56:42):
the case that produces the original conviction and death sentence
is kind of the official story that the court signs
off on. And so one of the things I do
when I'm training post conviction lawyers is that you've got
to come up with a different, better, more truthful story.
(57:03):
And that's a big challenge. Is there any physical evidence
linking Lamar to the crime. In most exonerations, there is
no physical evidence linking the defendant of the crime. Were
there other ways in which the trial was unfair? Is
it tainted by race discrimination? If that's the case, that's
(57:24):
a red flag. It Did the prosecution depend heavily on
the use of inmate testimony? That's a huge red flag
in that red flag gets bigger if any of that
testimony was incentivized. And then I look at whether or
not there is evidence implicating another person that was omitted
from Keith's trial. That would be a huge red flag.
(57:47):
I can see from just the little you've shown me,
and putting that together with what I already know about
prison culture, prison investigation, I think that a narrative could
be assembled for Keith that would demonstrate the unreliability of
(58:07):
this conviction. The challenge is what is the new story?
You put these pieces together and you assemble that new story. Yeah,
oh my god, Sean, thank you so much, Absolutely glad.
I don't know what happened, you know, I don't know,
but knowing that he may be executed, it's just it's
(58:32):
just a very upsetting Yeah, you know a man is
about to die. Who my beings? Next time? I'm the
Real Killer. But what was intended to be a pieceful
protest end up turned into a full scale rebellion, A
(58:53):
revealing conversation with the man who many say started it all,
the former Immam at Louville. So when you got to
L six and you saw the people that you wanted
put away for safekeeping had been murdered, what did you think?
I want to know, how did they get in here?
(59:15):
Who let them in? A lot of people came out
and said Keith was the leader of the Dusk squad.
Did you see him inside L six or the L
Block in those early minutes and hours of the uprising?
(59:42):
The Real Killer is a production of AYR Media and iHeartRadio,
hosted by me Leah Rothman, Executive producers Leah Rothman and
Eliza Rosen for AYR Media. Written by Leah Rothman, Executive
producer Paulina Williams, See Your Associate producer Jill Pesheznik, Coordinator
(01:00:03):
George Fom. Editing and sound design by Cameron Taggy. Mixed
and mastered by Cameron Taggy Audio Engineering by Matt Jacobsen.
Studio engineering by Anna Moolshan legal counsel for A y
R Media, Gianni Douglas, executive producer for iHeartRadio, Maya Howard
A morning. This episode contains language and depictions of violence
that may be disturbing to some listeners. You know, something
I've been thinking about and something maybe I should have
brought up a long time ago. But how do you
feel about me being a white woman telling your story? Um,
(00:24):
it's something, you know, the race thing. I was on
the verge of becoming a racist when I was sent
to Lucasfield. The guards they called your nigger to your faith.
That's why I stopped using that word, in fact, because
when you ever hear racists call you that, you know exactly,
it moved, it vibrates to your whole body. And then
I was put on trial, and that was further that
you know, I need to hate white people. But you know,
(00:45):
all the guys are testified on me as who lied
on me, you know, to save themselves or for dominantly blind.
And you know, so that caused me some kind of
you know, cognative designance. I was confused about that whole thing.
And then you know, I started needing read and read
from somebody who has spent you know, decades actually educating
(01:05):
myself about race, educating myself about politics, and you know
those two things I'm married mostly to benefit those in power.
You know, that's how they divided us, keep us divided.
You know, Amy is the point person in my campaign
White lay. I'm always struck even now, even after all
the beautiful, loyal, dedicated white people who have come on
(01:28):
come into my life have helped me in ways that
without which I would would really be stuck. So experience
has really been the thing that has informed my attitude
in terms of people. I'm glad you came onto my place.
That's a long way to answer your question, but you
know this is a really loaded question though. Yeah, yeah,
it's yeah. So you know, I don't limit myself because
(01:52):
limit myself only plans in the hands of the people
who are trying to put the news around my neck.
I'm Leah Rothman. This is the Real Killer episode eight
Visions of Versions so long. Well it's kind of have
(02:29):
a ghost. It's finals, and it's the last day of finals,
and it's well make for seventh periods. That's Amy gordeyev
Keith just mentioned her. She's been the point person on
the Justice for Keith Lamar campaign and one of his
most fervent advocates for the last ten plus years. She
(02:52):
also runs a Facebook group called Justice for Keith Lamar.
I meet with Amy at Cheney High School in Youngstown, Ohio,
about nine miles from where Keith sits on death Row.
Oh yeah, this is a great room. Yeah, I love it.
Amy has always worked in education, teaching, then a quick
(03:15):
detour to higher education marketing, then back to teaching. So
now that I'm at Cheney, I'm a tsaul, a teacher
of English to speakers of other languages. We have the
highest rate of childhood poverty in the country and the
school system here in Ohio, and so that means our
kids have a lot of need, a lot of socioeconomic need.
(03:37):
Everybody gets free, free lunch, and we spend a lot
of time on just you know, trying to work on equity.
In twenty and eleven, Amy and her husband Paul, a
professor of cultural anthropology at Youngstown State University, end up
meeting Keith through civil and workers' rights advocates Stoughton and
Alice Lynde, who spent twenty years at Lucasville and the
(04:01):
cases of the five men who are currently on death row.
You heard from them briefly in episode seven. My husband
Paul was doing research at the time on race and
religion and different aspects that have created the segregated situation
that exists in Youngstown. And he came across the name
(04:22):
of Stotton Lynd, who's a historian, and he contacted him
to interview him. The Lens ended up inviting us to
drive them to go blueberry picking for Alice's eightieth birthday.
So we took our minivan with the kids and the
Lens and on that drive, they started talking about Lucasville,
(04:43):
about these five guys. And I didn't even know who
Stouton Lynd was. I didn't know his significant body of
work in the civil rights movement, you know, none of it.
I had no idea who they just were elderly folks
that I thought were sweet. You know. One thing led
to another, and then next thing you know, we were
visiting Keith. As Amy researches and learns more about Keith's case,
(05:06):
she realizes his version of events is far from public knowledge.
When we would look online for information about him. All
of it was the narrative that the state put forth,
and it was like the articles coming from southern Ohio,
from the Cincinnati area. Everything was really the worst things
(05:26):
that you could imagine about him. He was just a monster.
So Amy encourages Keith to write a book and tells
him she'll help. He would write at night, and then
in the morning he would call it and he would
dictate it. Eight months and two hundred and thirty seven
pages later, Condemned is published in twenty fourteen. It was
(05:47):
a long process, but in the end, Condemned allowed Keith
to tell his story from his point of view based
on how it happened. Did you ever ask him point blank,
are you innocent? I don't know if I ever asked
that in that way. He says it all the time.
I'm innocent, and I have seen with my own eyes,
(06:09):
like I've read the documents. It just reeks of wrongdoing.
You know, there's no evidence to me. If Keith were
guilty of killing five people and the state offered him
no additional charges, he would have been the dumbest person
ever to not accept that offer. Right, he wasn't going
(06:31):
to do it because he didn't do those crimes. Amy
believes investigators found an easy target in Keith because he
was already in prison for killing someone. He just happened
to be in the two places where people were murdered
at Lucasville L Block and K Block, and that his
attitude definitely didn't help matters. He didn't want to cooperate,
(06:54):
and he told other people like, don't help them. This
is you know, he basically said like fuck, you know,
look what they did to us. I mean, he was
young and it was I can't imagine the amount of trauma.
I mean I work with traumatized teenagers and they react
more harshly than that all the time. You don't trust anybody,
and I think he just didn't trust that any He
(07:15):
would be safer for saying anything that wasn't how you
do your time. You keep your head down and you
mind your own business. But many don't follow that same philosophy,
like the men who testified against Keith Amy says their
testimony doesn't hold any water. The prison informants were paid.
(07:36):
When I say paid prison informants, I'm talking about incentivized,
rewarded somehow drop charges or no added charges or earlier paroles,
or you get to be moved to a different prison
away from Yeah, what do you know about Oakwood? What
I know about Oakwood is that the men who agreed
(07:58):
to become informants in the various trials were taken to
Oakwood Correctional Facility. It was said afterwards that they were
given access to commissary food, cigarettes, kind of an open
door policy, lots more movement, and even at Thanksgiving were
given a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner that the state folks who
(08:21):
were present kind of referred to them as a family. Supposedly,
some prisoners nicknamed Oakwood Snitch Academy. It seems like at
Oakwood that's where that script was created. They worked out
how they would say it, and then they would go
around to trials after that and sing the song that
(08:41):
they were taught to sing. Or maybe the state's witnesses
were transferred to Oakwood for their own safety. I mean,
they couldn't really be expected to coexist with the people
they'd be testifying against. Right Regardless, Amy has other issues
with how the state handled the investigation Keith's case. You know,
(09:02):
I guess I also pushed back even on the name
death Squad, because that's a state word, that's a state
name that they gave to kind of like spookify what
they were, you know, I mean, the death squad. That's
a premeditated kind of group or something. You know, it's
just a no, we weren't there. Nobody really knows what happened.
(09:22):
But here's the other thing. Did they actually trample and
ruin all the evidence or did they request to not
have any of it be admissible, because then they would
It's hard to believe that twenty two thousand pieces of
evidence are actually inadmissible. People have asked over the years,
what if he isn't innocent, or what if he's guilty
and all of that, and so I know that question
(09:45):
is out there, but for men, I mean, even if
he were guilty, which I absolutely don't believe he is,
But even if he were, it still doesn't change the
fact that the system is lynching black and brown men,
that in the case of Lucasville, the way and the
(10:05):
methods that were used were unconstitutional and wrong, that they cheated.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the United States,
fifty five percent of the death row population is made
up of black and brown people and forty two percent
is white. Three percent are referred to as other. More specifically,
(10:31):
in Ohio, there are seventy seven black and brown people
on death row versus fifty six who are white. Amy
has spent the last ten years on Keith's case, I've
only been on it for ten months. I often think
back to when I first started. How more than a
(10:51):
few people told me that the story was too big
and I was getting in way over my head. At
the time, I think my pride at the better of me.
My attitude was, ah, I got this, I'll show them.
But they were right. There are just so many names,
so many people directly related to Keith's case, and even
(11:15):
more on the periphery, And still this many months in,
I don't have a real sense of what evidence actually exists,
when Keith received certain pieces of potentially favorable evidence, how
exactly he got them, or what exactly the courts have heard.
But all of that aside, Keith consistently goes back to
(11:38):
a few examples he says can clearly point to his
innocence and why he didn't get a fair trial. Like
Aaron Jefferson we talked about him in the last episode,
Keith says, Aaron Jefferson straight up confessed to murdering Darryldpina,
one of the so called snitches killed in Else six
(12:00):
and one of the murderers Keith was sent to death
Row four. Keith claims his nineteen ninety five trial, defense
attorneys were never given Aaron Jefferson's full confession. If they had,
it could have made a difference in the outcome of
the trial, but the state strongly disagrees and says it
wouldn't have changed a thing because Aaron Jefferson's confession is
(12:23):
not credible. I wonder why hello my name, I am
a good looking fifty one year old man. I'm completely
I'm going right to the source to find out. Hello, Hi,
(12:52):
how are you on? Sarable? Little late Aaron Jeffers Sin
calls me from Grafton Correctional Institution, about thirty miles southwest
of Cleveland. He says he first arrived at Lucasville a
couple of years before the uprising. Back then, were you
remember were you part of any group? Uh? Yeah, I was.
(13:16):
I was a member of the Gangs of Disciples. Was
both have been the three groups that's both of hair
Control ran and it was it was a relevant parent
when it all kicked off. Where were you I regard
at I was back back I'll row by way man,
because I had to come in and go to work
(13:39):
training and Bible was like man, He ain't going here
right now, and I'm like, okay, but I sad going
in trick on my property. Man. That was probably worth
the atonal me that day. According to that index of
interviews the Ohio State Highway Patrol conducted, Aaron is interviewed
once a month after the uprising. A year later, he
(14:02):
asks to speak with them and he has a lot
to say. So it seems like you requested to talk
with investigators, and in that interview you said that you
killed David Summers and you killed Darryl Dpina. I didn't
do nothing, Darrel. I don't even know. I couldn't even
(14:22):
play with darl Dpina looked like, so don't know it.
You said, I have to get this off my chest
because other people are being charged with things and they
didn't do it. Did anyone ask you to admit to
killing Darryl Deepina? Now I don't even remember that part.
(14:44):
I mean to say that part what I said, I
don't know. You gave a pretty detailed description of what
happened to him, and then the investigator tells me would
that I was lying about that too. Well, two things
to unpack here. First, I have the transcript of Aaron's
full confession. In it, he describes in great detail how
(15:08):
he killed Darryl Depina, where Dapina worked in the prison,
and what he looked like, including his wild looking beard.
So that seems to contradict what he just said to me,
that he didn't know him or even know what he
looked like. The second thing is that Aaron also just
said the investigator told him he was lying when he
(15:28):
confessed to killing Darryl Dpina, But that's not what happened.
When Aaron confesses to killing Darryl Deepina, the investigator says
nothing to challenge it. When Aaron Jefferson confesses to killing
David's Summers, that's when the investigator tells him he's lying
because what he says he did to David Summers doesn't
(15:49):
match how David Summers was actually killed. So were Aaron's
confessions the truth or were they made up? They didn't
charge Aaron Darryl de Pino's murder. Remember, the state says
his confession wasn't credible. But Aaron was convicted of aggravated
murder and sentenced twenty to life for killing David Summers.
(16:14):
Did you see the death squad go through? No? Do
you know Keith Lamar, did you see him inside L six?
And I didn't know. I didn't say. I didn't say,
but you know, I was out there with a long
time before I went in, so I would square I
was a stack of Bible with that hee there. I
couldn't do that. I don't know. I didn't see it
(16:37):
while I was in there. So I'm you know, I mean,
I'm looking at his case and and and just trying
to get a sense of like the investigation and what
led to people being charged and then convicted of some
of these crimes where I think being would probably have
this bart with you know, trying to get this much
(16:59):
information as you and from the bottom up to see
really what it an investigation or what it just easier
for them to get guys to tuddle another god and
be God with? Did investigators ask you to slip on people?
Matter fact? At one point U d Cubicas who came
(17:20):
to see me and he wanted me to test about
against Hassan. So yeah, no, that's not going to happen.
Not what if you put somebody on death road? Remember Hassan,
also known as Carlos Sanders, was the Sunni Muslim prayer
leader at Lucasville whose objections to the forced TB testing
basically jump started the uprising. What did they want you
(17:43):
to say, Hassan did well? They did what it is.
They wanted to get a store and the stories now
believable again. They wanted you to complete that story because
I remember talking to the box to Okay, next question,
what if I couldn't tell you can come at me
and teschbucket somebody and I get on the court and
(18:03):
I don't understand. I say, I don't know. We talked
talking about I didn't see anything, doesn't and he bas
was telling me, no, you would tell them this, this
is what happened. This is what you will repeat. And
I said, what I would like be like perjury. That
would be lying, wouldn't it? He said, who knows you lying?
(18:24):
Or he basically told me like, hey, you don't want
to help yourself, then we don't want to help me.
This is a prepaid debit call from an innimate of
the Ohio State Innitentiary. I want to tell Keith about
(18:49):
my conversation with Aaron. I got in touch with Aaron Jefferson. Okay, okay,
say so he was interesting. We talked about his confession,
and I asked him, did you kill Darryl Dpina? And
he would, you know? I mean, I wasn't surprised, but
he said no, why would if they know? Though? Now
(19:09):
at this point he's probably getting ready to go home,
So he said he didn't kill Daryl Deepina. Now I
don't know what his status is right now. But why
do you think that they got him on David Summers
but not on Darryl Deepina? He confessed. But he confessed
Darryl Dpina, right, yeah, No, But I'm saying, you know,
you asked me to explain something that really can be explained. No,
(19:30):
I'm just using the twisted logic. You know, there was
no rhyme or reason. If you look into like, you know,
pursued this logically, then you you're going to be frustrated
more often than not, you know, because a lot of
it don't make sense. They didn't charge him with, you know,
the depainent thing because they already had me. In an
attempt to try and make sense of it all, I
(19:52):
tracked down Darryl Deepina's autopsy report to see if it
matches what Aaron Jefferson said he did to him. The
report says that Daryl Dipina died of quote, massive acute
trauma to the head leading to skull fractures, sub arachnoid hemorrhage,
and cerebral contusion. There were also some abrasions on his
(20:14):
body and lacerations to his right elbow and lower right leg.
This is not what Aaron Jefferson said in his confession.
He said he hit Topina on his left shoulder with
an aluminum bat then he stabbed him fifteen times in
the torso. So it seems like Aaron Jefferson's confession doesn't
(20:38):
match with the autopsy report. What do you say about
that actual autopsy? I guess I don't think I've ready. Yeah,
I saw the autopsy report. Now it's not for me
to read the autopsy and say Aaron Jefferson didn't do this.
Oh damn Jefferson did do this. That's the Space Space
job to do that. My job is to clear Minny,
(21:00):
you know. But the fact of the matter that Amaron
Jepson confessed to kill somebody from whom I sensor to death,
and not only that his confession was correaborated by another prisoner,
all of which was hailed from me from from from
my request for discovery. Somebody um not me, confessed to
a murder that I was on trial for. That's a
(21:21):
sculpatory everything. When I started this process, Amy Keith's advocate
sent me some affidavits she wanted me to have. I'm
going to share a few of them with you. Now.
Get ready, because you're about to hear some names you
haven't heard before. But what these guys said may be significant. First,
(21:47):
there's a two thousand and five affidavit from Sean Davis,
and it has to do with Dennis Weaver's murder in
that K Block cell. In it, Sean Davis said that
he encouraged his friend William Bowling, remember he's the hands
on killer of Dennis Weaver, to blame Keith for ordering
Weaver's death, since Keith was already being blamed for the
(22:10):
snitch killings in L six, Sean Davis said he was
wrong for doing that when it wasn't true. I reached
out to Sean Davis, but he never responded. Then there's
Eric Gurdy. He's currently at Mansfield Correctional Institution. In a
two thousand and one affidavit, Eric Gurdy wrote that he
(22:32):
was coerced by State Trooper Sergeant Howard Hudson and Special
Prosecutor Mark Petemeyer to make some statements about some people
like Hassan and Keith. Then in a two thousand and
three affidavit he said more, and I'm quoting. I was
in the Block L six when the murders took place
(22:54):
and Keith Lamar was not present. I not Keith Lamar
and responsible for the death of William Savetti. I was
approached by the Highway Patrol to say that Keith Lamar
was the leader of the so called death squad in
exchange for a reduced sentence and exemption for a capital offense.
Keith Lamar has not threatened me or promised me anything.
(23:18):
In fact, I have not spoken to Keith or discussed
this matter with him in any way. I am doing
this because a man's life is on the line for
something I did and for the lies I was persuaded
to tell for the state. By the way, from what
I understand, the courts have been made aware of Eric
Gurdiy's affidavits and have concluded they don't change the thing
(23:40):
I ask Keith about Eric Gurdy. The interesting thing about Yerigurty,
he came forward. He has some kind of classes of
disconscious you know, admitted to you know, participate in various days.
I mean, you said that in two thousand and three,
you've already been on death row almost a bit gay.
I'm thankful that this sit for my has come forward.
(24:01):
I wish you would have got the vi that those
wouldn't matter. I reached out to Eric and he responded.
We emailed for a few months about the possibility of
me interviewing him. Ultimately he decided against participating. But here
is some of what he shared with me in his emails. Quote,
(24:24):
I've been very salty about the way the state used
and abused me for years. The state got guys on
death row who had nothing at all in killing the officer.
They tricked a lot of guys into do or die situations.
They straight out wrongfully convicted a lot of dudes on
some bullshit for real. Hopefully word will spread across the
(24:47):
country to people in power who will see through all
the evil and vicious stuff the State of Ohio did
to hurry up and convict and close the door on
ninety three uprising. Look, Sean Davis and Eric Gurdy's affidavits
are quite compelling. It's hard to believe that a court
would read them and say it changes nothing, and it's
(25:11):
really too bad. Eric Gurdy said no to an interview,
but there's someone I never imagined who actually said yes.
This is a free call from Andrey, an inmate at
the Marian Correctional Institution. This call is from a correction
(25:43):
facility and his subject to monitoring and recording. Hi. Andre
Andre Stockton has an unfortunately unique perspective on the uprising.
He was actually one of the alleged snitches in l
six who was attacked by the so called death Squad.
I am in no way prepared for what he's about
(26:06):
to say. Thank you for calling back. It was so
loud outside, so I just wanted to make sure that
we could hear each other, okay. Andre Stockton, who is
now seventy, arrived at Lucasville in September of nineteen seventy nine.
Andrea says, like most people who were there back then,
it was a dangerous and explosive environment. The day of
(26:29):
the uprising, the air was extra thick with it. Andrea
describes how it all began. I was in the early afternoon,
the door was opened, were people were hollowing at you know,
a little louder than what it normally is. So you know,
(26:50):
I look out to that out of my door that
was opened, and I stepped out and stepped into it.
You know, it stepped into rebellion. And if you don't
mind sharing what what happened to you? Well, first of all,
I attempted to leave the block to to to leave
(27:10):
and go out to the yard, but they had inmates.
They have prevented that. So I, uh, I went to
find who the leader is, who's leading this, you know,
and uh I knew the guy and I would have
been Carlo's sadness, okay, And I am counting him and
(27:31):
told him now that I really was trying to leave,
and he asked me for a favor, and in return
for the favor, I was going to be able to
leave and go out. And I supposed to deliver a
message to someone, right and I'm heading back and the
group of inmates stopped me. As I recalled. They escorted
me to say six block SL sixty two and they're
(27:56):
lot put in their block. I had heard that Carlos
Sanders puss On wanted to put people that were considered
quote unquote snitches in cells for safe keeping. That's exact,
that's exactly the case. That's exactly, that's true. I believe
(28:18):
to this day that that was his attention. So he
didn't order right. Had you talked with administration, had you
helped them? Did they or did the other people there
that day believe you to be a quote unquote snitch?
Here here here, Harry calls right here, Okay, there was
(28:42):
one guy that there was a Muslim guy. Him and
I had had problems. All right, we've had to be okay,
and he threw an accusation out there. That was my
burden to prove. Yeah, I didn't. Next to your question, no,
(29:02):
but I wasn't as fished for the administration or anything
like that. What happens next being a group of guys
came by with disguise as own They answered my sale
And I don't remember one moment the one thing ever
(29:27):
since at nightmares about it, I've had dave visions about it.
But all of that, none of that is is reality.
You follow up saying the point that you should know
that maybe you don't know, is that I don't know.
(29:48):
M Do you remember at all being hit by more
than one person? Yes, I remember it was at least
six people every no basis, don't don't know wrong, listen
to these guys, but I could see through some of
the disguises, you know what I mean. I was I
(30:10):
would beat till they thought I was dead, and I
was taking outside in a cart and discarded as trash
as did. They recovered me probably best estimations, about three
o'clock that night, and discovered that I was alive. And
I don't know any of this stuff. All this is
(30:30):
just reports and what happened. I don't have no recollection
nu of this. And next thing I know is that
it was almost two weeks later that I awoke. I'm
so sorry. I'm so sorry. I mean, I'm just so
(30:52):
sorry that happened to you. Oh I appreciate that, but
you know, I mean, listen, Uh, God is good. I'm
alive today. I wanted to say something. Do you know
that after all of these years, that that that that
(31:13):
stigma still is attached to me as far as you know,
like being like an that foreman all stitch, that that
label has followed you. Yes, it's the truth, It really is,
because you know, you know, how can you be expand
the undefendable who was charged with the attack on you?
(31:37):
We all? I think that one person that I know
all was convicted. How about something I running? I don't
know that guy named or Faith, For the life of me,
right to this day, I think Keith might have been
He was definitely accused of associated with I think he
(32:00):
got out of it because the severity of the other
charges outweighed the the sespee of using minor charges. Ask
him about it. I know that. So did you ever
see Keith as part of that group who attacked you?
How do you mean, oh, yes, oh yeah, he was there? Yes,
(32:24):
because you said you didn't really know who was there,
but you know that you saw Keith. I recognize how
few of the guys that were there him the group?
He was quarnerable. He was labeled as the leader of
the death squad. Do you remember anything about him giving
(32:46):
orders or no? Do you remember him hitting you? So
had you known Keith before? Okay? And so far as
Keith I knew him when I see him, I did
not personally know him. I believe in my heart to
(33:10):
this day that he had purchased a pair of shoes
that were stolen from me A few weeks prior to
the Loutispiel riot. That's what I was going through prior
to the riot, Like I had my mind home some
other things, retrocucy and and prior to the riot. Right,
(33:36):
so you're focused on Lake who stole my shoes? Yo? Yes,
and a little more. You know, somebody had paid somebody
to jump me. I had my older world that I was,
you know, that I was involved in and you know
I was seriously ready to take somebody's life over over
(33:58):
the matter. That's that's where my mind was at the time.
And you're saying that Keith Keith was involved in the
shoes situation, and not only only to the extent that
he might have purchased shoes. I see, he didn't have
anything to do with the jumping. The pain someone to
(34:18):
jump you to take the shoes. No, No, what's that shoe?
Did you wear? Or do you wear? And I don't
know what size Keith wearas I only know what I've
been told that he wears a thirteen. And let me
say this, and let me say this. Okay, here there
is a situation that might that might well be true,
(34:40):
but he is the circle stance here. The shoe was
a particular shoe. It was a Rachi and Nike Harachi
blue and white high top shoe, very very very very
popular and distinctive in prison. And they would only pair
that I had seen call of me. So Andrea believes
(35:03):
Keith bought his stolen shoes. I wonder Andre says he
was ready to take somebody's life over these stolen shoes.
Might he be pointing the finger at Keith now as
retribution for allegedly purchasing these stolen shoes? Do you remember
talking to investigators? Do you? So? This would have been
(35:26):
some time later after I was brought back to Lucasville.
I guess just described for me a little bit of that,
Like did you have multiple meetings with them? Let me
say this in all fairness, those those those interviews were
very cloudy because, like I wasn't myself, and I'm sure
(35:47):
that you know, they took with the grain of salt
anything that I would have seen. I'll tell you what
they did to though that what they did to they
kind of took advantage to me. Okay. They tried to
tell me a story, and a part of it I
knew was true, and a part of it I knew
(36:08):
wasn't true. They tried to give me a story. Do
you remember what that was? You know, I haven't focused
on this in years, but I could think back at
the time. It was so urgently important for me to
know what had happened. I could not came out to
this day out of impossibles me that such an important
(36:32):
thing that happened to me, what happened, and not knowing
what actually happened in that sale. I do recall though,
when they told me back to Lucasfield and put me
upstairs in the infirmary, which is where they kept some
(36:54):
potential witnesses. And remember their interviews and the tapes. They
were in a view and they had different numbers, right, yes,
and there was an interview number that I had associated
with the Laddin told me that. I remember. I asked
(37:15):
to give me a copy of that interview. You know
that sure idea that we gave it to. If you
have the interviews, If you have the interviews, the information
is there. I don't have the interviews. I have a
list of the interviews, okay. I submitted a Foyer request
(37:35):
to the Ohio Attorney General's Office for Andrea's interviews as
well as the interviews of several others, but they never
sent them. So I pull out the index of interviews.
It seems like one, two, three, four or five six
of your interviews were not recorded. Only one of them
was recorded and it was Yeah, that kind of sneak it.
(38:03):
I have doubts about having all those interviews and most
of them were not recorded. If I don't think that
might be the case. So when you were interviewed after
I mean you had been in a coma for a
couple of weeks, like, yes, yes, So then when you
(38:24):
woke up, did you like, did you remember Keith right
out off the bat or did that come in time? When? When? When?
When I woke up, I had a group of doctors there,
but they told me that the most comparative thing that
I must do is to try not to remember about
(38:48):
the fens that it happened. Okay, and that was a
hard thing to do, but I would do exercise of
completely emptying my mind of thought. Unfortunately, visions of persons
(39:11):
would come to my mind, just like they were pistons.
But the more I tried not to think about it,
the more, you know, the versions of it would come
to our mind. Do you remember who first brought up chief.
Do you remember if the investigators asked you if he
was there or about Hold on a second, he just
(39:34):
I just how in a minute, wintment, you know what
you did. You just did something. You just you just
sparked the memory of how they lied. They tried to
tell me that it was black man. They did this
to me, and I knew they were lying. That's what
it was, dear me. Yeah, I do, and I'm that
(40:00):
it was alive. He wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't there.
They tried to give me a version where they put him.
Asked the guy, I said, do you remember who first
brought up kids name? No? No, I don't, but I
tell you this thought. Let me say this team So
when I remember him is because I named him alphabet.
(40:26):
I named him alphabet so that I wouldn't forget his name.
I had to put the name with the face I knew,
the face I had, I had. I had to find
out his name. And the reason why I caught him
alphabet is because of the letter another alphabet J K
L K l okay, okay, nice guy, But he was there,
(40:54):
he was he was at that door, because that's l
I never said that he did put his hands on there,
and I think so nels you don't know. No, I
don't want to see nobody, Oh no, defro dying. Since
(41:19):
my conversation with Andrea, I learned that in twenty nineteen,
an investigator for Keith's federal defenders met with him. At
that time, Andre allegedly told this investigator he didn't know
if Keith was the one who attacked him during the riot.
This investigator noted that Andrea had previously pointed the finger
at Keith based on the fact that he said he
(41:42):
saw Keith wearing his stolen shoes and the person wearing
the stolen shoes was the same person who attacked him
along with the death squad. But in twenty nineteen, when
the investigator told Andrea that Keith wears a size thirteen,
not his size a size ten and a half, Andre
changed his story. Fast forward to twenty twenty two, the
(42:04):
investigator met with Andrea again. This time Andre went back
to implicating Keith. So to recap, Andre said Keith was
one of his attackers. Then he said he didn't know
if he was, Then he said he wasn't, Then he
said he was. So what is the truth. Does Andre
(42:26):
remember Keith now as clearly as he says he does,
or are his memories based on what he's read in
the reports and or maybe possibly heard from investigators? Or again,
is this some kind of payback for Keith allegedly buying
his beloved stolen shoes? But if Andre is right that
(42:48):
he saw Keith there as part of that so called
death squad, why wasn't Keith charged with his attempted murder?
I mean, an attempted murder charge is not a minor charge,
So why would the authorities give Keith a pass on
a charge like that when they believe he took part
in multiple murders just moments later? Wouldn't adding Andrew's attack
(43:10):
for their bolster their case. I'm not sure what Keith
is going to say about any of this. So I
spoke with Andre Stockton. OK. Yeah, he says he doesn't
remember a lot and that a lot of what he
(43:31):
knows is from what he read in the reports. He
told me that he had these shoes, that they were
stolen from him, and he believed that you had bought
these stolen shoes. He said, I was ready to take
someone's life over it. He asked him what he remembers
(43:53):
from that day, and he remembers being locked up. He
remembers some guys to his cell, around six guys, And
I asked him if he saw you, and he said yes,
he said, he remembers you coming to the cell. So
what do you have to say about that? It doesn't
(44:14):
make sense based on what you just told me. It's
you know, he had memory loss. You know, that's what
I was told. He was in a comma. This whole
story about shoes is you know, really kind of you know,
left field fight thing. But it seems like what he
was saying that he thought I stole his shoes or
had something to do with his shoes coming up missing,
(44:34):
and he was outful retribution. That's what I heard you say.
That makes sense. You just came out of a comma
to have memory loss in all of this. The only way,
based on his explanation to you, the only way he
could be specific. He has to have been given some
information about the details of the situation. You know, the
state has probably since had a conversation with him, saying that.
(44:56):
You can't say Keith Lamar wasn't there. I said, did
he hurt you or hit you? And he said no.
And I said, did he direct anyone to do anything?
And he said no. And so you know, he said, Leo,
he saw me inside. Oh excuse me, Leo. If he
saying he sawed me inside at L six, I'm admitting
(45:17):
to being in L six. I was signed to L six.
I came to L six. I didn't have the mask on.
If he said he saw me before he was beaten
or sorry, that's possible, but I don't see. I can't
even remember that you know this guy, you know with
this lost memory or whatever. But think you do remember
(45:38):
is the tennis shoes. Look, I wasn't there, so I
don't know what happened. But Andrea's story has seemed to
change over the years. What exactly motivated those changes, I
don't know. I'm at a bit of a loss. So
(45:59):
I just had to reach out to someone for some
much needed advice to hopefully help me make sense of
the conflicting information I've been gathering. I call Steve Weinberg,
who was a part of our last season. Remember Steve
and his University of Missouri journalism students spent a semester
investigating and writing about Rodney Lincoln's case. Steve warns me
(46:22):
about how much work is involved in winning trust and
getting candid answers from those who are incarcerated. It's not
that it's impossible, it's just incredibly challenging. I tell Steve
that I'm not feeling very much like a journalist these days.
I'm trying to stay objective, but to be painfully honest.
I really like Keith, and I care about what happens
(46:45):
to him. Steve understands my unenviable position, then reminds me
of someone I should call who will definitely be able
to help. O Holy, Yeah, how are you. I'm well, Sean,
how are you? I'm good? Thanks? How's your podcast? Covin?
That's Sean O'Brien. He was one of Rodney Lincoln's attorneys
(47:08):
who was also a part of our last season. You
know how I felt about Rodney and his case, and
it was a five plus year journey for me. This
case is Sean. I can't think of much else these days.
Sean is the perfect person to talk with. His remarkable
(47:29):
career says it all. He is currently a professor at
UMKC Law School, but really he is an innocence lawyer
specializing in representing people sentenced to death. Three of his
first four exonerations were prison homicides, and he is most
known for the landmark Supreme Court case on innocence Schloop
(47:51):
versus Dilo, which was also a prison homicide case. You know,
people used to think that being in prison and being
convicted of murder was best reason or argument that we
should have the death penalty. But in my experience, these
are the least reliable convictions just because of the environment
in which they happen. That's one of the reasons I
(48:12):
wanted to talk with you. You think things are supposed
to go a certain way, That's the way they go
on the quote unquote outside. What I'm learning is that
it's a very very different environment there, right. It is
such a different culture. I've had to consult experts in
prison culture and in prison security just so that I
can understand how things work in a prison. Relationships are different,
(48:37):
The degree of control that one person has over another
is completely different. Loyalties within the prison are different. Law enforcement,
you know, we think of guards as law enforcement, and
they're really not. I think it's historical accident. Who ends
up on which side of the bars inside of a prison.
There are good people on both sides of the bars.
(48:57):
Don't get me wrong, but it really takes a special
approach because I came to the point after investigating the
Sloop case, the Joan Ryan CASEI Eric Clemen's case, the
Reggie Griffin case. Those are all people exonerated from prison
murders because guards lied and inmates lied. Sean says, prison
(49:19):
culture at its core distorts the truth finding process because
prison is all about survival the way this fellow explained
it to him, and he says, you come into a
prison and you've got a choice. If you got twenty
years to do, you can do it on your feet
or you can do it on your stomach. The first
(49:39):
thing you have to learn there is no shame in
getting an ass weapon, but there is shame in backing down.
Before our call, I sent Seawan some court documents so
he could familiarize himself a little with Keith's case. I
jumped right in with questions about how it seems the
investigation was handled. In the trial transcripts, the defense read
(50:05):
from some of the interviews of you know with the
Ohio State Highway Patrol who ran the investigation, and these
investigators were like, help me, help you. I need your help.
Let's help each other, right, I mean, if you know
you have something valuable and doesn't have to be true,
it just has to be valuable, then that is a
(50:28):
significant coin in the prison economy. What you've described about
the investigators techniques, you know, help me, help you. I
need your help with this. It's a page out of
the read interrogation method, which is not a method conducive
(50:49):
to producing truthful statements. The read interrogation technique was developed
in the nineteen forties. Some say it can be useful
in getting information from uncooperative suspects. Others say it results
in a high rate of false confessions because of its
use of deceit. So the investigation, quite often in a
(51:14):
case like this, is confirming a pre existing theory about
what happened. They're not truly investigating. They're looking for custom
made puzzle pieces to fit their story. And that's commonly
what happens in a prison setting. And so I would
(51:34):
want to know who is present during these interviews. I
would want to know where were these inmates being housed
and with whom, what was the proximity to the people
we think might be the real killer. Even though everyone
who is testifying for the prosecution, there are inconsistencies in
(51:56):
their testimony. They tell some story, right, part of me
can understand why the jury, even though it was an
all way jury and that was absolutely unfair. I could
see why a jury just at face value, if you
hear so many people telling a similar story and all
pointing the finger at Keith, why they ended up with
(52:21):
the verdict that they did. You know, the consistency isn't
something that would bother me that much. Question is the
exact consistency and the closer it gets that actually adds
an element of suspiciousness. Fit just seems to fit together
a little too well. Then you've got problems. When you're
(52:44):
locked up in prison, you are extremely vulnerable to the
pressure to give the prosecution the story that it wants.
So I'm suspicious of inmate testimony for a lot of reasons.
I mean, prosecutors are also suspicious of inmate testimony, except
(53:05):
when inmates are testifying for them. I wanted to talk
to you so Special Prosecutor Mark Pismeyer, when asked about Brady,
how he applied Brady to the case, he said that
he applied a narrow Brady standard. And first of all,
have you ever heard that before? You know, a lot
(53:25):
of prosecutors don't understand what Brady versus Maryland means. It
means that the prosecutor has to turn over any evidence
favorable to the defendant, whether it be on the issue
of guilt or innocence or punishment. Where they play games
with typically is on whether or not it's material. And
(53:46):
the definition of material is if the jury hears it,
is there a reasonable likelihood of a different result. And
so I hear a lot of prosecutors say, well, it's
not Brady evidence because it's not exonerating. That's not the
Brady standard. Well, and it's interesting because in Keith's case,
Stacy Gordon, as part of his plea agreement, they interviewed
(54:07):
Stacy Gordon again and in it they asked do you
know Keith Lamar And he said no. And they said
did you see Keith Lamar and L six and he
said no. So that was never turned over, although on
the stand he was one of the star witnesses who
said that he watched Keith as a death squad leader
go sell to cell calling for the killings of these snitches.
(54:28):
When you have a witness who says I saw the
defendant you commit the crime, and then on another occasion
says I didn't see him at the scene of the
crime at all. That's Brady material, That's exactly it. That's
the kind of thing you'd want the jury to know
before deciding whether or not to believe that witness. By
(54:49):
the way of the fifty trials, and I think there
are forty seven convictions, five are on death row, there
was no physical evidence tying anyone to any of the crimes.
And that can't imagine there's not blood spatters or fingerprints
or some other physical evidence even and on certainly Lamar's clothing,
(55:12):
his clothing would be splattered with blood if he were
present in any of these Well, what allegedly happened was
three hundred men were out there, They're all brought into
the gymnasium and they're all stripped naked, all their clothes
are thrown into a big heap, and what I was
told was they were all eventually burned. So that seems
(55:36):
to me to be what I would call the foliation
of evidence. That means that you've destroyed evidence in the
case that's a crime, right, And so I would one
of the things I would do in my investigation and
the discovery is that I would focus like a laser
beam on who made that decision, what did they know
at the time they made it, and what was their
(55:58):
involvement in the subsequent prosecute. To me, is a really
important part of the story. I mean, how can you
say somebody's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt when you destroyed
the evidence that could have exonerated That's atrocious and you
know likely, I think there's an argument here that they
had a scenario that they wanted to prove and they
(56:20):
didn't want physical evidence to get in the way of
that story. I've reached out to prosecutors Mark Petemeyer, Seth Teeger,
and Bill Anderson with a list of questions, including this
one where keats and the other prisoner's clothes burned or destroyed.
I'm still waiting to hear back the prosecutor's theory of
(56:42):
the case that produces the original conviction and death sentence
is kind of the official story that the court signs
off on. And so one of the things I do
when I'm training post conviction lawyers is that you've got
to come up with a different, better, more truthful story.
(57:03):
And that's a big challenge. Is there any physical evidence
linking Lamar to the crime. In most exonerations, there is
no physical evidence linking the defendant of the crime. Were
there other ways in which the trial was unfair? Is
it tainted by race discrimination? If that's the case, that's
(57:24):
a red flag. It Did the prosecution depend heavily on
the use of inmate testimony? That's a huge red flag
in that red flag gets bigger if any of that
testimony was incentivized. And then I look at whether or
not there is evidence implicating another person that was omitted
from Keith's trial. That would be a huge red flag.
(57:47):
I can see from just the little you've shown me,
and putting that together with what I already know about
prison culture, prison investigation, I think that a narrative could
be assembled for Keith that would demonstrate the unreliability of
(58:07):
this conviction. The challenge is what is the new story?
You put these pieces together and you assemble that new story. Yeah,
oh my god, Sean, thank you so much, Absolutely glad.
I don't know what happened, you know, I don't know,
but knowing that he may be executed, it's just it's
(58:32):
just a very upsetting Yeah, you know a man is
about to die. Who my beings? Next time? I'm the
Real Killer. But what was intended to be a pieceful
protest end up turned into a full scale rebellion, A
(58:53):
revealing conversation with the man who many say started it all,
the former Immam at Louville. So when you got to
L six and you saw the people that you wanted
put away for safekeeping had been murdered, what did you think?
I want to know, how did they get in here?
(59:15):
Who let them in? A lot of people came out
and said Keith was the leader of the Dusk squad.
Did you see him inside L six or the L
Block in those early minutes and hours of the uprising?
(59:42):
The Real Killer is a production of AYR Media and iHeartRadio,
hosted by me Leah Rothman, Executive producers Leah Rothman and
Eliza Rosen for AYR Media. Written by Leah Rothman, Executive
producer Paulina Williams, See Your Associate producer Jill Pesheznik, Coordinator
(01:00:03):
George Fom. Editing and sound design by Cameron Taggy. Mixed
and mastered by Cameron Taggy Audio Engineering by Matt Jacobsen.
Studio engineering by Anna Moolshan legal counsel for A y
R Media, Gianni Douglas, executive producer for iHeartRadio, Maya Howard
Host
Leah Rothman
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