Manhunts & Prison Voices: A U.S. Marshal and Prison Storyteller Tell All

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,
and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,
it's affiliates, or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking true
crime all the time. It's Thursday, November twenty seventh, and
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We hope you're having an incredible day
with your family and eating everything in sight because we're
very excited. We have a very special show tonight. We're
joined by us Marshall William Cirucus, who's taking us through

(00:40):
and behind the scenes on some of America's biggest man hunts.
And later in the show, we're joined by the founder
of Prison Writers, in nonprofit she launched to give incarcerated
people a platform to tell their stories. I'm Stephanie Leidecker
here as always with the two girls that I'm most
thankful for, Courtney Armstrong and Body Movie. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
I hope we're all filling up with my favorite mashed
potatoes and.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Gravy and tons of it and lots of stuffing. Courtney
your favorite this I know and listen, the holidays are
the best because we get to be gathered around the
table with all of our loved ones and friends and family.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
And in large part.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
We get to do that because others are really busy
keeping us safe. So in an effort to really pay
tribute to the heroes in law enforcement that keep us
able to be able to travel and be around the
table with one another, we're doing a special, a little
special segment regarding the US Marshals.

Speaker 5 (01:40):
Yes, and we are so thrilled to be celebrating Stephanie,
as you said, everyone who serves, and also for ones
who bring justice home, for families and some of us
who may have empty seats at our own tables. So
our guests who were so thrilled and honored to have
Bill Cerucas.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
He's a former US Marshall.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
Bill has spent decades tracking some of America's most dangerous fugitives.
We're talking everything from the Beltway sniper to the serial
killer Andrew Quinanan, and tonight Bill is sharing what it
really means to chase evil and never stop.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Fighting for justice. Most importantly, Bill, how are you welcome.

Speaker 6 (02:18):
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me this evening.

Speaker 7 (02:20):
Thank you, Kyl.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
So let's jump in what inspired you to dedicate your
life to law enforcement? And also can you tell us
what service means to you on a day like Thanksgiving.

Speaker 6 (02:31):
The primary influence in getting into law enforcement was my father.
He was an Indiana State trooper, became a detective early
on in his career, but the site of the uniform
in a big blue car with a light on top
of it, he was the envy of the neighborhood with
all the kids, and several of our neighbors over the years,
I think three or four actually became Indiana State Troopers

(02:53):
because of what they observed with him. So I went
off to college after high school to Indiana State University
terror Hope. I started off as an accounting major, but
two years into my time there, I switched over to
criminology and I really latched onto it. I had a
little bit of an infatuation with the John F. Kennedy assassination,

(03:14):
accumulating as many articles and books that I could get
my hands on, including my own personal copy of the
Abraham Suppruiter film, the six second film Assassination that I
bought for I think seventy five dollars in maybe nineteen
seventy three. So when I graduated from Indiana State University
with a degree in criminology. My first stop was in

(03:35):
Indianapolis an hour later, where I took the Treasury exam
to be a secret Service agent. They would come calling
a number of months later, but I was in a
little bit different profile and character at the time, and
I don't think they were too thrilled with my personal appearance,
so I didn't get that job. But after I graduated.
My father came up to me a day or two

(03:56):
after I finished school, and he said, are you ready
to go to work. He took me to meet two
detectives that worked for an agency in Northwest Indiana, and
they offered me a position there to go back to
high school, so I took it. I became a student
at Laporte High School in Northwest Indiana. I assumed the
name of an actual person from southern Indiana that had

(04:16):
been expelled from his school and was relocating to the
Pacific Northwest, so I took his records. I became that person.
After the meeting with the detectives, I was in Indianapolis
obtaining fictitious identification, a driver's license and vehicle registration, and
with that I was able to get a lot more
different types of identification. So I went to Laport High

(04:38):
School for a number of months, bought narcotics, bought stolen property,
and kept the police department and the Sheriff's department informed
about where all this was happening and who was involved
in it. They had actually told me to sit back
for a month or two and not to purchase anything.
I think my second or third day, I was offered
an opportunity to buy something in a wood shop class,

(04:58):
and I did so. I did that. It was from One.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Jump Street, that TV show do you remember that back in.

Speaker 6 (05:04):
The day that came out after I did my time
as an undercover officer. But some friends and family, once
they knew what I had done, made that same comparison.
But it was during that time when the Secret Service
called asking for an interview, and when I went to
speak with them, I had long hair and I was
trying to maintain my appearance that the other students had

(05:24):
become custened to with the way the Secret Service was
at the time, the spit and polish of that agency,
I just didn't fit in, and I tried to explain,
but I tried not to also give away what I
was doing. They had tried to put an undercover in
the same school previous year, and they had tried to
work with the administration at the school, but word got out.
So in my circumstance, nobody knew anything about who I was.

(05:47):
My mother didn't even know what I was doing.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
So you couldn't even tell the Secret Service that you
were undercover. So when you went to this interview, you
kind of had like maybe this high school appearance, and
they didn't like that, so you couldn't even tell the
Secret Service.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
I told him that I was working undercover, but I
didn't want to go any further, not knowing all connections
they may have. I mean, it's a couple of hours
away from where the school was, but I still didn't
want to reveal that I was paranoid enough by myself
being in school every day without any cell phone or
any way to contact anybody, should I be in an
uncomfortable environment.

Speaker 7 (06:21):
And I was.

Speaker 6 (06:21):
There were some very weird occasions that took place. At
one point, we had a location outside of the city
and out in the rural part of Laport County where
the Sheriff's Department, the police department, prosecutors and two other
operatives in two other high schools where would meet and
do our reports. And on one occasion I was studying
for a history test and the detective came up to

(06:44):
me and said, what are you doing? And I said,
I have a test tomorrow that I'm trying to get
ready for. And he took the book that I had
and threw it in a barrel that was burning stuff,
and he said, you don't understand. He said that the
kid that you have the identity of was a d student.
You can't come in here. Started getting a's all of
a sudden, So that wrapped up at the end of
the school year. I wrote a letter to the school

(07:05):
telling them who I really was and what my purpose was.
I never testified in any one of the cases that
I did during that time. All of them were settled,
I believe pre trial or theives testified.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
So you were never exposed basically to this operation. That
your your identity had never been exposed. By the way,
it blows me away that you were like having to
do homework, that's a crazy story.

Speaker 8 (07:29):
I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
I would will this is not where I thought this
was going.

Speaker 8 (07:33):
For this interesting being.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Undercover in high school doing undercovered drug busts is wild.

Speaker 6 (07:41):
Yeah, and probably there were about two thousand kids in
this school. It was a pretty large high school. And
within a week or two of me being there's someone
etched the word narc on my lacker. So you can
imagine the panic and paranoia that they already know who
I am. And the detective said, hey, they probably do
that to ten of the kids. They have no idea,

(08:02):
just you know, lay low, keep throwing the hints out
there that you're interested in this stuff, but you know,
we don't want you to do anything right now. But
like I said, that turned about the second day when
a guy offered to sell me something in my wood
shop class, and so I did it. I paid him
And but.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
So scary I would be. Terri school was scary enough.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Imagine being an undercover agent, you know, trying to fetter
out some nonsense and having to deal with the thought
process nark being written on your locker.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Like how scary is that my career?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
And also how interesting for even students today to know
that that's even an option that you know, be careful
there could be something looking or someone looking at any bed.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
You know, that's pretty intense too. I didn't even think
that that happened.

Speaker 6 (08:47):
One thing that happened during the time. I wasn't into
the drug culture, so I didn't understand the terminology and
what these things look like. And I had an offer
to buy Blotterer acid, had no idea what it was.
I met a guy. He was also an exchange student
from Michigan. I met him at a McDonald's restaurant and
he gave me this envelope with five pieces of paper

(09:09):
in it had been stained with acid and then dried,
and you just eat the paper, apparently, and I licked
the envelope. I paid him for it, and I don't
really remember what happened after that some of that. The
next thing I knew, I was at my home in
forty minutes away, and it was a case that we
were not able to make. I had to go back

(09:29):
and purchase more from that individual. Because I didn't remember
anything happened after that.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
So you can't write a report about it. You don't
even remember what happened.

Speaker 6 (09:38):
Yeah, didn't I report up until the moment that I
purchased it and began to leave. I remembered most of that.
The next thing I knew, I was back at my
residence about forty minutes away.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
That is absolutely wild and to echo you guys, this
is not what I expected either when we sat down.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
This is a thrilling Thanksgiving.

Speaker 6 (09:57):
So the next part of my career is the State
of Indiana hires me and I get involved in a
lot of different types of cases because of my young appearance.
I'm working college campuses across the state for narcotics, gambling,
alcohol sales, anything that you can think of fake IDs.

(10:17):
And one of the cases that I started working on
the cover on was a gambling investigation in northwest Indiana
up in the Gary Hammond East Chicago area, right on
the border of Chicago at the south end of Lake Michigan.
And they used to have gambling houses there that would
open every other Friday and Saturday, consistent with when the

(10:38):
steel mill workers would get paid. The gambling places would
only open on those weekends where they were getting paid,
and they were underground places, backdoor, and I was able
to get into a few of them and get paid
off and do some search warrants, and several of those
had an impact on interstate commerce and federal law. And

(10:58):
during that time when we went to seize everything and
arrest everybody. The US Marshals were involved, and one of
the guys said, Hey, why don't you come over and
take the test, And we're always looking for people. And
so in February of eighty six I took the test
and in May I have been working for the state
again at the Indianapolis five hundred that year. When I
returned home from that weekend, I had a message or

(11:21):
a letter from the Department of Justice offering me a position.
I didn't know where I would go. I had to
accept a position very quickly, and on the day after
Memorial Day in nineteen eighty six, I was sworn in
in the local office and two days later I was
on my way to Glencoe, Georgia to the training academy.
And I found out at that time that I would

(11:41):
be going to San Diego, California.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Wow, So Bill, can you walk us through a little bit.
That's a huge change.

Speaker 5 (11:48):
So you moved to San Diego without giving away too
many state secrets literally, can you describe what the US
Marshall's training is light.

Speaker 6 (11:57):
Yes, at that time, it was a sixteen week training
period that we started that first week of June. It
includes about a ten week training period that is standard
for every federal law enforcement agency that goes through the
training center. It's just a criminal investigator course that deals
in all different types criminal investigation, to criminal law and

(12:19):
everything that is standard for every federal law enforcement officer
or agent that's out there. And then the final few
weeks were with the US Marshalls Training Academy, learning their policies,
their procedures, their investigative techniques, and how you would apply
them in day to day work. Once we got to
our district offices.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
I can't believe the story that I'm hearing right now,
just about how you're jumping from very big scary jobs
to yet another big scary job. And again, just for
our listeners who really rely on the work that you're
putting forward on a daily basis. First off, hats off.
I'm still stuck in high school. In my head, I'm like,
oh my goodness, did you make any friends? Did you
feel badly that you had to leave? So here you are,

(13:01):
You're in Marshall's office.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
What happens next?

Speaker 6 (13:04):
Yeah, I start doing the thing that a normal deputy
US Marshall does every day. All new deputies. The first
thing you get included in is doing protection for the courts,
for the judges, the federal judges in the federal court system,
moving prisoners in and out of the court system. In
San Diego, we had a high rise prison that was
connected through an underground puddel of their office, so we

(13:26):
didn't have to do traditional transports in and out they
Most of our prisoners were just walked underground from point
A to point B into the courthouse and we escorted
them every day. I got involved in some witness security
things or witness protection program things. I got involved in
fugitive stuff probably in my first few months, when my

(13:47):
chief deputy offered me a position on a task force
that they were forming that was going to be investigating
a guy by the name of Thomas Hercules Peppinos. He
was a member of the ax Men motorcycle club in
San Diego, the El Cahoone area of San Diego, and
they were kind of a minor league team for the
Hells Angels, and Tom and a number of other people

(14:09):
had helped to develop the process for manufacturing methamphetamine in
the early eighties and they blew up a place in Takati, California,
and because of that, he was now a wanted federal
fugitive and he had made an appearance, he had failed
to appear, and now it was a Marshall Service case.
So he was on our fifteen most wanted list nationally.

(14:31):
And when our chief put this task force together, he
came to me and he said, listen, I need some
new eyes on this thing. If these guys are going
in the wrong direction, you know, I need you to
be candid in what you think. And so I was
put on that and in November of eighty seven, we
arrested Tom and his girlfriend wife in a third individual
on the indictment in bull Hitz City, Arizona. And it

(14:54):
was largely due to the development of an alias that
we found that Tom had been using. It was actually
in the file. As I reviewed the massive file, the
name was in there. We didn't know where it came from.
We still don't today. The alas that he was using
was Thomas Peter Ducell and so I started investigating that
name and I came up with a California driver's license

(15:16):
and that led to more information about Thomas Peter Ducell
or Thomas Pipinos.

Speaker 5 (15:22):
Oh my gosh, Well listen, stick around, because when we
come back we have more.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
We have everything from gratitude to grit.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
We have Bill Cirucus, who's going to take us inside
one of the most literally intense man hunts in modern history.
It's the Beltway Sniper case. And we're going to talk
about the teamwork that helped bring that nightmare to an end.
And later, Lowen Kelly joins us to discuss how her organization,
Prison Writers, has given individuals an identity.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Beyond the crime they commit. Keep it here True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here with
Courtney Armstrong and Body Move in and Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Listen if you're just joining us, we are here with
a very special guest, William J. Cirucus, a former US
Marshall who was an agent for decades and did some

(16:23):
of the most important work on America's most dangerous cases.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
And he's caught a few fugitives as well.

Speaker 8 (16:29):
Body One.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
I set it up for us. Back in two thousand
and two, the country was on edge. Random shootings around Washington,
d C. Left people terrified to even pump gas. Imagine
pumping gas is a scary thing. But behind the headlines, investigators,
including Tonight's guest, former US Marshal William sorocus we're working

(16:50):
behind the clock to stop the killing and find out
who's doing this. On this Thanksgiving Day, we're remembering the teamwork, courage,
and persistence that helped bring that case to an end.
The DC sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings
committed by John Allan Mohammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. It
happened over a three week period in October of two

(17:11):
thousand and two around the Washington, DC area. The attacks
followed earlier murders and robberies in several states, resulting in
seventeen deaths ten injuries, and this happened over a period
of ten months. John Allan Mohammad was sentenced to death
and executed in two thousand and nine, while Malvo, he
was a juvenile at the time, he received multiple life sentences,

(17:35):
some of which were later vacated upon appeal. So take
us back to those moments. What was it like inside
law enforcement as the DC sniper case unfolded.

Speaker 6 (17:45):
Well, US marciall Service got involved in this when the
spate of shootings happened in Rockville, Maryland, where there were
four or five shootings. One of them took place just
across the Maryland line into Washington, d C. So the
next it was a Friday morning, we were contacted by
the commander with the Montgomery County Police and they asked

(18:07):
us to come up. They had been part of our
Fugitive task force in the Washington DC area, they knew
some of our capabilities. At this time. I was a
senior inspector within the Electronic Surveillance Unit. Cell Phones were
now a thing that everybody had. Computer technology was being
used by criminals, so our specialized unit was good at

(18:28):
tracking those communications for wanted people. So they brought us up.
They provided a briefing on the previous day shootings and
asked us what we could contribute to the case. Had
no idea who was doing these things, very little information
about suspects, about any commonality between the victims. So we

(18:49):
took our information back to our location in Springfield, Virginia
and had a little sit down. But as soon as
we got back, we were notified of another shooting that
had happened down in the Spots of area in Fredericksburg,
and that woman actually was shot from about two hundred
yards away as she was putting some things in her
car outside of a Michael's store, and she survived the shooting.

(19:12):
The bullet went through and through and ended up in
the front end of her car, and it was very,
very quickly connected to the other shootings. A forensic examiner
with the ATF by the name of Dandridge was quickly
beginning to connect the dots forensically with these shootings, with
the fragments and the projectiles that were being recovered from

(19:33):
the different scenes. Some of them were not able to
be recovered, and so we couldn't position the people as
to where they were exactly standing or how they were
standing at the time of a shooting. But the gas
stations were a focal point because several of these shootings
were taking place at gas stations. When people are standing
still outside their car pumping gas. You would see it

(19:55):
wasn't uncommon during the course of the investigation to see
a large tarp covering the customers at a gas station.
From the Interstate. They're called the Bailtroy Snipers because most
of the shootings were happening at or near major thoroughfares,
throughout the Capitolaria region.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah, I remember seeing the news and the tarps. The
tarps were there to basically tide the people that were,
you know, pumping gas because nobody knew where these where
these bullets were coming from. So this this ballistics person
was using the ammunition that was able to be recovered,
the casings, the bullet whatnot that were able to be

(20:35):
recovered and tied to the same gun.

Speaker 7 (20:37):
Is that correct, that's correct?

Speaker 6 (20:38):
Yes, Yeah, Okay, mister Dandridge did that over a period
of time. But once once we knew that several of
the projectiles were all connected, we we now knew that
we had a problem in the DC area.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
And Bill, I understand first of all, I also remembered
what was happening at this time, and it really evoked
a fear that I don't remember in recent history, just
the randomness of it all and the variance in the
victims within this huge multi agency investigation. How did the

(21:11):
US Marshalls specifically fit in.

Speaker 6 (21:14):
Yeah, and the feary you talk about was real because
exactly a year earlier, we went through the events of
nine to eleven in New York and at the Pentagon,
So you know, are we reliving a second wave of
something like that. I mean, the investigation went as far
as to interview prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to see if
they may have any information about what was happening. So

(21:36):
the Electronic Surveillance Unit at the US Marshall Service was
the primary focal unit at that time for the agency,
but we already had established task forces in the DC area,
so all of those assets were being redirected to the
system Montgomery County. We would also, as the case progress,
bring in task force officers from around the country, primarily

(22:00):
Los Angeles and New York, who had very large task
forces at that time, maybe forty or fifty people from
each one of those task forces, including state and local
people that were full time participants and sworn in as
special deputy US Marshals, much like you would do in
the Old West to form your posse. They were sworn

(22:20):
in and brought in to be part of that task forces,
and that allowed us as the shooting spread out geographically,
you had more agencies involved, and it can get very
complicated when you have seven or eight agencies that all
have in a homicide that they're working kind of independently
but hoping to share information. Our strategy was, we're going

(22:41):
to put someone at each one of those command posts
and bring the information back to us, rather than wait
for them to come to us. We put people at
each one of those We also had human scent or
explosive detection canines that we used for special events like
super bulls and high threat security trials, and one of

(23:04):
our dogs, his name was Beacon at the time he
was his handler was Mike Pyle, who invented the canine
detection program. Everything changed in this investigation, or it was
ramped up a little bit on October seventh, when Iran
Brown was shot as he was entering the Benjamin Tasker

(23:27):
Middle School in Bowie, Maryland. We had gone without any
shootings over the weekend since the Friday shooting, and the
chief of police from Montgomery County was Charles Moose. There
were games canceled, there were soccer matches canceled, any outdoor
activities were canceled over the weekend, and he wanted to
ensure everybody that children were safe, the community was safe.

(23:50):
And it's obvious to us now that you know, whoever
was doing the shootings were monitoring those press statements, because
when he said your children are safe, and they immediately
decided that they were going to try and take out
a child.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
This is True Crime tonight on iHeartRadio, where we're talking
true crime all the time.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
I'm Boddy move And and I'm here with Courtney Armstrong and
Stephanie Leidecker and we've been talking to William Serucas. He
is a former US Marshall and we've been talking about
the d C sniper case. So for that case, what
was the turning point, the clue or lead that helped
narrow down the suspects.

Speaker 6 (24:24):
There were several different points that helped the investigation. That first,
that shooting of the child I Ran Brown on October seventh.
It ramped everything up. Now they were shooting at a
child and I Ran Brown survived his injuries. But a
US Marshall Caine I'm by the name of Beacon, was
able to find the area in a wooded area just

(24:46):
to the north of the school where the shooter had
laid down and shot the young boy. And we were
able to find the cartridge from the expended bullet in
the matted down area, along with a tarot card, the
death card that had a message to law enforcement that

(25:08):
do not release to the press call me God. So
now we had a communication from them, probably probably the
next thing that was extremely important to us. And we
still don't know at this time how many are involved,
who's involved. The psychological profile from the FBI is telling
us that it's a lone mail, probably about thirty who's

(25:29):
gone through a recent relationship issue or a loss of
a job, maybe military background. And everybody's still looking for
the elusive white van or white box truck that they
keep releasing to the press. And once once we knew
about the white box truck or the van, you saw
hundreds of them every day.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Sure.

Speaker 6 (25:51):
So the next thing that happens is there's a shooting
on October or October nineteenth down at the Ponderosa Restaurant
in Ashland, Virginia, on an hour and fifteen minutes south
of the DC area. Jeffrey Hopper is shot as he's
walking out of the Ponderosa Restaurant. The bullet goes through
and through. He survives his injuries, but they find the

(26:12):
snipers and s there as well in a small wooded area,
and they find a four page note packed to a
tree in Halloween kind of related package. It's a four
point note, handwritten, and it provides a lot of clues
to us. It gives us phone numbers of people that

(26:32):
they have tried to talk to from CNN, the police departments,
the FBI. It makes plural references we in there. They
put a credit card in there, an American American Express
credit card in there that they had stolen months earlier
in Arizona that they wanted ten million dollars put into

(26:55):
an account for. And they kept putting a message out
there that the police should put a message out that
they have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose,
and they wanted the police chief to keep mentioning that.
So there was all kinds of information going on. One
of the things in that letter was there was going

(27:15):
to be a phone call from them the next day
into the ponderosa at six am. The problem was they
didn't open the note until eleven am, and they missed
the call. Yeah, law enforcement was outside of the ponduosa
and heard the phone ring, but it had the note
had been flown up to Maryland on a state Police

(27:35):
helicopter trying to preserve it for DA and fingerprints and
everything else. Forensically, but they didn't read the contents, so
they put out another message for the guys to call
the next day, which they did. We were able to
trap the number. But at that point we had dissected

(27:56):
all of those ins and out calls that were listed
in that document, and we came up with even more
than they had mentioned in the letter. We now knew
where they were standing at certain times on certain days
over the past two weeks. We knew they were putting
coins in the payphones. They weren't using a calling card,
they weren't using a cell phone. They were standing there,
they were putting coins in, and we knew through a

(28:19):
pastor that had got one of the calls, that there
were two men on the phone, one younger, one older.
The younger one had an accent. We had two detectives
or a deputy US Marshall and a detective from the
New York State Parole who was connected to the task force.
His name was Vinnie Senzamichi. He had dealt with Jamaican
gangs before, and he noticed some Jamaican connectivity with some

(28:41):
of the wording in those documents. And then we had
the accent of the younger man and so things were
beginning to fall in place. Later on, in one of
the calls, they mentioned that they committed a robbery in Montgomery.
Everybody thought it was Montgomery, Maryland. It was actually Montgomery, Alabama,

(29:04):
where a woman had been killed at the outside of
the liquor store a few weeks earlier, and there were
police in the area when they heard the shot, they
went over. He had shot one person and killed her
and wounded another woman who's had twenty twenty five surgeries
over the years to repair the damage to her. But

(29:25):
the person dropped a catalog, a firearms catalog, probably that
they had obtained at a gun showing l Passo a
few weeks earlier, and there was a thumb print on
that catalog. That catalog was flown up to Washington, d C.
There was a print on it. And on the Tuesday

(29:46):
morning when everything was happening, Conrad Johnson, a bus driver
in the area, stepped off of his bus at a
bus stop and was shot and killed. And at the
same time, a person up at the task force in
Rockfield called me and gave me the name of Lee
Boyd Malvo as the name of the person that the

(30:06):
fingerprint came back to and they told me that they
didn't think people at the Task Force were taking the
name serious. But the guy called me because he knew
I would jump on it, and I did, and I
started to gather information from immigration and from every police
department that I could find up in Washington had in
contact with this young man Bellingham to Cooma Pedie, and

(30:29):
there was a common denominator in there of John Allen
Williams or John Allen Muhammad, and it took off from there.
There were a couple of other things that happened, but
we developed information about that, putting them in the area
they had been stopped in Baltimore, got the license plate number,
and a number of hours later they're arrested at a
rest area in northwest Maryland.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Wow, Bell, great job.

Speaker 7 (30:52):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
We have a very special guest with US former US
Marshall William J. Cirucas Junior, who has been decades of
his life working on some of the most dangerous cases
in America, including the case of Gianni Versaci, the fashion
icon whose life was taken by a serial killer. You'll remember,
Andrew Kunnanen william Where should we begin.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
Well, to put it in context at this time nineteen
ninety seven, I was a supervisor in the San Diego
Office of the US Marshals and I was the coordinator
of the San Diego Fugitive Group, and that included about
fifty five to sixty investigators from nine or ten agencies,
including the San Diego Sheriff, the San Diego Police Department,

(31:36):
the FBI, Immigration and Naturalization at that time, so we
had a good mix of investigators. And it was probably
late April early May when I got informed by one
of the San Diego Police detectives that they were doing
a surveillance of an apartment in the North Park area
of San Diego for a homicide that had been committed

(31:58):
in Minnesota. Isn't really that big of a deal at
that point, because we handled hundreds of those a year,
leads from other jurisdictions on homicide suspects, So with that
by itself, it wasn't that meaningful. But Andrew was from
San Diego. He became the suspect and a first homicide
there of a guy by the name of Jeffrey Trail
who he had had a relationship with in San Diego.

(32:21):
Jeffrey Trail had moved back to the Minneapolis area and
Andrew had traveled back there and killed him and bludgeoned
him with a hammer and rolled him up in a
piece of carpet in the apartment of another acquaintance by
the name of David Madson. Following that murder, David Madson
and Andrew Kunanan took off and went north of Minneapolis,

(32:42):
where Andrew had stolen a gun from Jeffrey Trail's apartment
and taken a number of bullets with him, as many
as he could put into the magazine and won in
the chamber. He left the remaining box of bullets at
Jeffrey Trail's apartment. They went up north near a lake
and he shot David Madson twice and killed him and
left him there and stole his vehicle. The next thing

(33:04):
we know about Coonana is we recover the David Masson
vehicle in Chicago near another homicide scene now of a
guy named Lee Miglin, whose wife was the QVC heiress
at the time, and she had been away, and Andrew
had gotten into the house somehow and tied him up

(33:25):
and slid his throat with a garden saw a bo saw.
So the case was escalating on our end. He was
from San Diego, so we're interviewing friends, relatives. His mom
lived there. His dad had fled to the Philippines to
avoid a fraud case in the United States. He had
brothers and sisters, but more than that, he had acquaintances

(33:47):
some male friends that took care of him in the area.
He went to school there. So we were gathering as
much background as we could at that point with now
knowing about three homicides that he was responsible for. When
we knew about the Migland case, he stole Lee Migland's
vehicle because it became necessity to get rid of David
Madson's car kill Lee Migland, Steel Migland's car, and Migland's

(34:12):
car at that time in nineteen ninety seven had a
one of the phones that was installed and hardwired into
the car so that into the console area so that
when you turned the car on, the phone came on. So,
as I mentioned, the Marshall Service electronic surveillance unit was
becoming very adept at how to trace and track electronic communications,

(34:32):
including cell phones. In that time, it was a little
bit different. We needed that phone to be in a
communication talking to someone, to be exchanging information with a
cell site, so there were calls made into the phone.
We could place him up in the Grand Rapids area.
We could place him along I ninety four, coming around
Chicago and into Michigan and then into Pennsylvania. We had

(34:54):
reports of him trying to tear the phone out of
the car in a mall in Pennsylvania. But at one
point the media gets a hold of it. And this
is in early May now, and the media gets a
hold of it and puts a message out that he's
being tracked by the phone.

Speaker 7 (35:11):
So out of.

Speaker 6 (35:12):
Necessity, he needs to dump that car, and he goes
to a small cemetery in New Jersey and he kills
the one of the guys that takes care of the
property and steals his truck. He takes him into a
small basement area. His name was William Reese, takes him
into a small basement area and shoots him in the
back of the head. But he's got a two or

(35:34):
three hour start before we put everything together in San Diego,
we're just continuing to put everything that we can in
place in the event that he makes a phone call
he asks for money, anything that we can do to help.
The investigation is being headquartered mainly out of Minneapolis because
now he's getting ready to go on to the FBI
ten Most Wanted List, and the investigator was actually from

(35:57):
the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension CASSED to an FBI
task force. So the ten most Wanted case was going
to be headquartered out of Minneapolis, but in reality, in
my opinion, the Chicago office was running everything. So we
were a bit behind then, but still putting everything in
place that you do in a normal fugitive investigation to

(36:18):
just make sure that you've contacted everybody, make sure that
they're going to contact you. On one occasion, we had
a list that had been recovered from his apartment in
the North Park area, and we assumed that it may
be targets or future targets of his, and one of
the names on there was a former police officer, a
writer by the name of Joseph Wambaugh. He had written

(36:41):
like Oh Yes, the Onion Field and some other very
popular books over the years. So I actually spoke to
mister Wambaugh to let him know that his name was
on the list. He lived in the San Diego area,
in the downtown area north of downtown, and he said, Hey,
I just bought a new handgun. I'm ready to use
it if I have to, you know, So he claimed
he didn't know. There's some information that maybe Andrew did

(37:03):
some work at his house at one point, but we
just continued our investigation in San Diego of just identifying
everybody that we could, getting bank records. He had no
money left. Both of his credit cards were totally expired.
We were surveilling his mom twenty four hours a day,
and at one point we had to move her because
the media became so controlling and where she was living

(37:26):
in National City. So two FBI agents grabbed her one
day and drove her over toward the Naval Training Center
on the east end of the San Diego Airport. They
went in one entrance, drove around the Naval Training center,
went out on the other end because the press couldn't
come onto the base with him, and they took her
up to the Miramar Naval Air Station and she stayed

(37:48):
on that base until the end of the case.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Wow, So, Bill, I have a question.

Speaker 5 (37:54):
Are the US marshals would you say they're uniquely equipped
to deal with cases that span a whole bunch of
states and jurisdictions.

Speaker 6 (38:02):
And it's kind of a long and involved story there,
But when the agency was created in seventeen eighty nine,
two hundred and thirty six years ago, their primary function
was to support the courts and to provide for the
integrity of the new court system that President Washington had
put in place. Any function of the federal court, a
warrant that is issued for a fugitive, civil process, the

(38:24):
movement of a prisoner, all is related to court. So
the Martial Service has been that agency that they go to.
When the FBI became an agency in nineteen oh nine,
and going through the fifties and sixties, they began to
take on most of the fugitive stuff. But in nineteen
seventy nine, a new Attorney General came in and realigned

(38:44):
responsibility between the federal agencies, giving the Marshal Service a
much broader authority over certain types of fugitives. Probably the
most famous case that was turned over at that time
in October of seventy nine was the of the three
guys from Alcatraz in nineteen sixty two. It was still
an active case, it's still active today. When the England

(39:06):
brothers and Morris escaped from Alcatraz, So that case and
thousands of more were turned over to the agency, and
that was kind of a turning point in the agency.
They had to form an investigative element at headquarters and
it took off from there. In nineteen ninety seven, there
were probably only twenty or twenty five permanent task forces

(39:28):
of the Marshall Service nationwide. In two thousand and two,
every inch of the United States and all the territories
had a fugitive task Force. Just several years later and
funding and now we're working with thousands of state and
locals that are on these task forces. So any case, state, local,
or otherwise the Marshal Service could get their hands on.

(39:50):
The agency has the broadest jurisdiction of any law enforcement
agency in the United States because at the time there
was nothing else federally, so Congress gave the authority to
the Marshall Service to have this broad authority, including the
powers of a sheriff, so they can enforce anything locally
all the way to the highest federal law that there is.

(40:12):
Whereas the FBI deaatf they are limited in what types
of crimes they can investigate. The FBI can't really get
involved in a homicide case unless they get a request
from a prosecutor to do an unlawful flight investigation. So
that's typically a local case. The Marshal Service can get
involved in that immediately. Unlike the sniper case. In about

(40:33):
ninety eight percent of the cases that we work, we
know who the fugitive is. We can gather criminal histories,
we can gather police reports, probation reports, pre trial reports,
we can interview people about their conduct and their behavior.
In the sniper case, we didn't have any of that,
so we're working from nothing to try and identify those guys.
But with Andrew Kunanan, he had no criminal history, how

(40:55):
are we going to identify him? Well, again, like we
mentioned earlier, he had a California driver's and he had
a thumb print on file. From my understanding, it's the
only FBI top ten to one AT poster that's ever
been issued with a single fingerprint on it, and that
fingerprint would prove to be necessary when they compared it
to a print at a local pawn shop in Florida

(41:17):
where he had pawned a gold Krueger rand that he
had stolen from Lee Miglin in Chicago when he got
into his house and eventually killed him.

Speaker 7 (41:27):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Do you think there was ever any chance of catching
Andrew alive?

Speaker 6 (41:32):
I think there was, But I think Andrew made the
decision very early on how it was going to end.
It's usually up to the individual in these cases, even
though they're going to be providing an opportunity to walk
into a police station or walk out of a house,
it's up to that person. I think this was Andrew's
fate all along. I think from the day that he
murdered Jeffrey Trail, this is the way it was going

(41:52):
to end. And he saved a couple of bullets for
himself to be used. When he got trapped in the
house boat, one of the maintenance guys came over to
check it out, heard some rumbling there, saw things strewn
around in the houseboat. At that point, Andrew was on
the run. He had been run out of the Colony
Hotel for failing to pay. He had seen himself on

(42:14):
America's Most Wanted several times. At this point, he was
just trying to survive and there was such a dragnet
in that area. I mean, you're surrounded by water and
in two directions, so there's a dragnet out. He's not
getting out of that area, and he had to find shelter,
he had to find ways to eat, He had to

(42:34):
commit more crimes in order to sustain his flight. But
once he was cornered, I think this was the ultimate
way that this case was going to end. The shooting
of Gianni Versace. It was planned, in my opinion. This
was an individual that he knew or hoped that he
would attain infamy with with killing. He wanted credit for this.

(42:54):
He wanted people to see him that day. Otherwise he
could have gone into the residence he did betrayal and
with William Reese and with Lee Miglin. He could have
walked into Versace's place and done it in there. He
did it in public for a reason. He wanted credit
for it. He wanted to be the guy. So when
that shooting happens that morning, he flees and one of

(43:17):
Versace's assistants chased the guy a couple of blocks away
into a parking garage. When police respond, they find the
pickup truck that belonged to William Reese from the cemetery
about a month and a half earlier that where he
had changed the license plates. He had stopped in South
Carolina and put different plates on it and continued down

(43:39):
to Miami parked it in that garage. They found clothing,
they found a bunch of other information, and we knew
who it was. At that point. It just connected Tunanan
to the shooting of Versace, finalizing that he was the
only suspect. And then it was a matter of days
until he was cornered on that house boat and took
his own life when he thought probably law enforcement was
coming in. But it was just the care taker.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
And that was one of those cases that we all
followed so incredibly closely.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
I'm not even sure why.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
I guess because of course Gianni Versaci and just Miami
Beach being so iconic at that time. Especially Yeah, I
mean again, talk about a dangerous day at the office.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
It's pretty unparalleled.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Then. I know that sometimes public support can only be
complicated for an investigation too, but it sounds like the
America's Most Wanted piece of it was really quite helpful.
I know we're on borrowed times, though I won't. I
know it's a tight question in the end there.

Speaker 6 (44:32):
But yeah, I've worked with America's Most Wanted since the
early nineties. I'm good friends with John Walsh and worked
on the show recently during their last season as a
consulting producer. It can be helpful, it can be harmful.
My experience is, if you know your investigation inside and out,
you can push the tips away that are meaningless or
for another day, and concentrate on what you know about

(44:57):
the person where they might be. There's a whole lot
of success stories with that. But the information can be voluminous,
and it can be overwhelming, and it can lead you
down the wrong path. Sometimes with Kunana, we were getting
hundreds of tips every time he was on.

Speaker 5 (45:10):
Wow, unbelievable. Well, we just want to thank you so
much for being here. Bill Cirucus, Your book Chasing Evil
is available now.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Everybody.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
You can read it, you can listen to it. I'm
not even sure which I'm more excited to do, maybe both.
And this book offers an inside look at real life
fugitive hunting, the pursuit of justice. And we've gotten the
pleasure of hearing the amazing experiences that you have been
part of.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Well, thank you so much for joining us, and again
we wish you and your family an amazing Thanksgiving and
keep up all the greatness. And again to all the
US marshals and police officers and firefighters and FBI workers,
anybody who is kind of keeping us safe on a
daily basis, whether we know it or not, Please know

(46:00):
that we appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
And more on this to come. Happy Holiday everybody.

Speaker 6 (46:05):
Yeah, thank you, and happy holidays everyone as well.

Speaker 5 (46:07):
Coming up, we're joined by the incredible Lowen Kelly. She's
founder of Prison Writers, which is a nonprofit giving incarcerated
people a powerful platform to tell their stories. On Welcome

(46:30):
back to True Crime tonight on iHeartRadio. We are talking
true crime all the time. I'm Courtney Armstrong. Here is
always with Body Moven and Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Don't forget
if you did miss any part of the show, you
can always catch the podcast it airs the next day
and listen. Since it is Thanksgiving, it's a day for gratitude,

(46:52):
a day for reflection and second chances. We're going to
shift away from crime scenes and move into redemptions inside
America's prisons, where writing is helping people rebuild their lives.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Literally.

Speaker 5 (47:07):
We are so thrilled and honored to be joined now
by journalists and Prison Writers founder Lowen Kelly, and she's
giving it incarcerated men and women the power to tell
their own stories. Low and welcome, Thank you, thank you
for having me. Yes, we are so happy that you're here.

(47:27):
Can you start off and tell everybody how did Prison
Writers come about? What was that moment that you switched
from producing TV to publishing this?

Speaker 8 (47:41):
Sure? So one of the documentaries I did was about
a guy who I became friends or you know, I
got to know pretty well, and he went into prison
and one day he called me really shaken because he
witnessed a guard kill somebody. And I just thought, you know,
you are exaggerating or something. This doesn't happen in America.

(48:03):
I mean, this was back when what happened in prison
stayed in prison, and you know, I just thought, this
has to get out, and there has to be somewhere
to give you a voice. So I started this Prison
Writers by holding a national prison writing contest just to
get some interest. And I was surprised that, you know,

(48:23):
hundreds and hundreds, probably six to seven hundred people wrote
in and that's what started it off. And you know,
I got to know a lot of the original writers
that are still with me today.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
So tell us about that first writing contest. You expected
maybe a handful of entries, but you've got hundreds.

Speaker 8 (48:45):
Yeah, I mean, I you know, I am. I don't
exactly remember, but it was it was in between five
and a thousand, because it sort of staggered, it was
sort of But anyway, there were roughly you know, six
to seven hundred letters, and you know what I was
surprised about was that they were very good. Uh, there

(49:09):
was very quality writing. I really thought I'd get a
lot of like crazy stuff with you know, scribbling all
over and had no idea that the quality would be
so high. And uh, you know, there were some real
natural storytellers, people with some real talent, and and you know,

(49:30):
people who were smart, uh talking about taking a different
look at some of the issues that people didn't know about.
And and it wasn't you know, it wasn't like they
were if you felt you're making stuff up. I mean,
these were true stories and they were they were things

(49:52):
that had happened to them or that they'd witnessed.

Speaker 5 (49:56):
And why do you think that so many of your
ended up being people who admitted murder, either as teenagers
or young adults.

Speaker 8 (50:05):
It's really interesting, you know, I think it's because it's
something that you know, it struck me too. I mean
it lines up with what brain sciences saying, and that
is that, you know, the part of the brain that
controls impulses is not really fully developed until somebody is

(50:25):
about twenty five years old. So a lot of crime,
not not most crime, but a lot of crime is
committed by young people, and they, you know, are the
most likely to sort of have the capacity to change
because as their brain develops and they you know, get
more risk averse, they think things through, they're not as impulsive,

(50:51):
and they're not sort of as susceptible to fall into
the crowds group think. And so these people, you know,
I think are the most likely to change, whereas an
older prisoner going in, you know, is probably you know,

(51:12):
more likely sort of a bad.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
Guy in their ways too and stubborn, you know, like
I'm fifty and I'm probably not going to be changing
my ways anytime soon. But people who are younger, like
in their twenties or even thirties are more likely to change,
right like.

Speaker 8 (51:28):
And it's absolutely true. And it's not even necessarily that
prisons doing the work of that. It's really just the
you know, the neuroscience and you know, because anyone who
is sort of rehabilitated is primarily self rehabilitated. So you know,
these are and the other factors that it's sort of

(51:51):
the saying the same thing about brain sciences, but that
you just grow out of crime so as you you know,
work your way through your twenties, and you know, you've
been doing this in prison even uh, you know, hanging
out with the same gang on the streets. You're gambling,
getting in debt, getting beaten up because you're in debt,

(52:12):
you're trying and doing a lot of drugs and doing
worse drugs, and some of the drugs are incrredibly dangerous,
and you know, and then you sort of wake up,
uh at you know, thirty and realize, like this is exhausting.
Yeah right, and yeah, yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Are drugs a commodity?

Speaker 5 (52:34):
You seem like you were surprised to learn sort of
the depth and width of what it sounds like goes on.

Speaker 8 (52:41):
Yeah, the drugs are more prevalent than they are on
the street.

Speaker 7 (52:44):
For sure.

Speaker 8 (52:45):
They're all right there. You can get all of them anything.
And you know some of the some of the you know,
real scary drugs kind of start in prison. I mean
This has been around for a long time, but this
K two is really really big in prison everywhere, I
mean across the board all states, and people you know,

(53:09):
take it because it really sends them far. You know,
it's really puts you in a sort of a zombie state.
You can get like really loud and crazy and and
you know a lot of overdose doses, and you know,
and then then when somebody like comes close, close, close
to death and then they recover, people are like, what

(53:32):
he take? I want some of that, you know, you know,
it's just it's so dangerous. But yeah, and you know
what people also don't know is that it's the guards
who are smuggling them in. It's not like visitors in
the visiting room. And the reason is it's just a
financial reason. I mean, prison guards make nothing. They're living

(53:53):
in you know, the middle of nowhere, usually in rural areas,
and you know, they they've come from being a manager
at a shoe store, you know, no no college degree,
and so it's just a it's a terrible job actually,
and you know, in fairness to them, it really is.
And so you know, some guy makes some approaches them

(54:15):
a prisoner and says like you can make a thousand
dollars if you go pick this bag up and bring
it to me hidden under your spaghetti, uh, you know,
lunch that you're bringing in, and they make a fast
fifteen hundred dollars and they can buy their kids, you know, kids,
a Christmas present.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
So for those who don't know, K two is like
that spice, it's the synthetic.

Speaker 8 (54:39):
Cadis marijuana, which is really just separating nothing like marijuana,
nothing like it. Right, Yeah, I mean I'm no expert,
so I don't really want to adventure, but you know,
it's just that people get come really close to death,
you know, and some people do die, but there's a

(55:01):
lot of overdoses and then you know, semi recovery and
stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
So you talk about this ten year rule, what does
that mean and how have you seen it plan out?

Speaker 8 (55:13):
It's it's pretty much what I mentioned a little earlier
is that you know, many most of my writers and
I didn't really understand this in the beginning, but they were,
you know, coming in at thirty five years old, they'd
all been in prison for a couple of decades. They
were all in maximum security prisons, and they'd all committed

(55:35):
you know not I shouldn't say all, but many of
them had committed their crime young, and so they'd been
in for a while. And I really just noticed that
a lot of them around the ten year mark, you know,
give or take a few years, had this sort of
you know, epiphany where they were like, you know, I'm

(55:56):
this is the next whatever decade or two of my life,
and I might as well make something of it. And they're,
you know, they sort of maybe see a little bit
of the light at the end of the tunnel. But
you know, this is also true of lifers. They're like,
you know, I'm not I'm not getting out, so this
is it. This is my life, so I might as well,

(56:16):
you know, figure it out.

Speaker 5 (56:19):
Wow, Well this is true crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, I'm
Courtney here with Body Moving, Happy Thanksgiving everybody. We are
so thrilled to be talking with journalists and prison writers
Founder Lowe and Kelly. She is giving incocerated men and
women the power to tell their own stories. So you

(56:40):
mentioned that a lot of men tell you you've sort
of given them a new identity as writers and not
as killers. What does that kind of gratitude feel like
to you? Honestly, especially today on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 8 (56:57):
I mean, I guess besides, you know, it's getting a
window into the humanity of a lot of these men.
The biggest, bigger surprise was just their gratitude for uh
like literally writing one story and then getting it published.
I mean, they were sort of happy just to send

(57:17):
a letter to someone and then the fact they opened it,
read it, and you know, considered it was good enough.
But and this is back you know when really no
one was publishing, so it hadn't it was sort of
unheard of, and so they just you know, the gratitude

(57:38):
is because it's giving them you know, as little as
like when somebody googles them, because they certainly know all
about Google. Uh you know, there the stories and prison
writers come up and not the kate their case or
their you know, media stories of them back then, and
you know, so they feel like now they're a writer

(58:00):
and it gives their day's purpose. They have something you know,
meaning to they're getting this voice out. They're explaining what's
going on in prison or sharing a message, and you know,
they like having a deadline and you know, they like
having a boss. And I do pay them as well,
and really I'll do that. I mean, I'm very like realizing.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
It gives them a lot of purpose, right, Like, this is.

Speaker 8 (58:27):
Absolutely and they're so you know, they're so grateful for that.
And and so the ones that have been doing this
for a while, you know, it's really changed their lives.
They you know, they get letters from all around the world,
people you know, noticing them. I use them for uh,

(58:49):
you know, various interviews people want to do with them,
so they get sort of this outside contact, which is
really you know, one of the most valuable things you
could do for somebody inside.

Speaker 5 (59:02):
That's amazing, and you know what it actually, I feel
like there's a parallel when you said that. It feels
like it's a wonderful feeling when the first thing that's
googled about you is that you are a writer and
not necessarily what you did on the very worst day
of your life. And kind of similar in what we
do in true crimes when we interview and work with

(59:25):
victims families, it's because they don't want their loved one
to simply be what happened to them on their last
and you know, often last day of their life.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
Right, So that's true. I was wondering, are you are you?

Speaker 7 (59:42):
Are you?

Speaker 4 (59:43):
I realized this is probably a new program. Are you
at all keeping track of any recidivism rates or anything
like that?

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Is this helping?

Speaker 8 (59:52):
It's well, I think for sure. You know, it helps
with confidence. I mean, they have more skills a sort
of communicating they're not so I mean really truly, like
one of the best things that anyone in prison can

(01:00:12):
get is outside contact. It's almost a predictor of success
because it's not you know, just because they can pick
up the phone and talk to somebody, but it's just
it keeps them tied to sort of what's going on.
They don't get institutionalized. They're hearing about different voices, different lifestyles,

(01:00:35):
and they they have a sense that somebody cares about them. So,
you know, family and friends often disappear after a couple
of years, they really do. Even mothers, you know, they're
just like, I've had it. I've visited so many times
and it's such a bad experience.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
It's so hard to get there.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
It's like a six hour bus ride or you know,
because some of these guys and ladies are really far
away from their families too, right, they get shipp around.

Speaker 8 (01:01:05):
They are they're there. I mean they're in rural areas,
you know, whereas most people, especially people who get in
trouble are in urban you know, cities, right. So yeah,
it's uh.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
That's really good news because it's really giving them confidence
so when they do hopefully get out, they're ready to
start their life with this new founded confidence. I think
the work you're doing is incredibly important, and the men
and women who you're working with, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Sure are very grateful.

Speaker 8 (01:01:38):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
I'm grateful to you on this Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 (01:01:41):
Exactly what a great day to be talking about this. Well, listen,
stick with us because coming up after the break, we're
going from murder to manuscripts. Two men once written off
entirely by society are finding redemption through writing, and the
program helping them to do it just might change.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
How we see justice.

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
Keep it here True Crime Tonight, we are talking true
crime all the time. Welcome back to True Crime Tonight.
We're on iHeartRadio. We talk true crime all the time.
I'm Courtney Armstrong here tonight with my buddy buddy movin

(01:02:25):
And don't forget if you've missed any part of the show,
you can always catch the podcast or get us on
our socials. We are at True Crime Tonight show on
TikTok and Instagram and True Crime Tonight on Facebook. It
is Thanksgiving and happy Thanksgiving to everyone in earshot and
listen tonight we're giving thanks for second chances. So far

(01:02:46):
we've been speaking with journalists and prison Writers founder Low
and Kelly. She's giving incarcerated men and women the power
to tell their own stories. But now we're so happy
to be joined by Andrew.

Speaker 7 (01:02:58):
So.

Speaker 5 (01:02:59):
Andrew is a former Prison Writers contributor and his story
shows just how words can rebuild a life. So welcome Andrew.

Speaker 7 (01:03:09):
Hey, how ya doing?

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Hey Andrew, welcome the True Crime Tonight. Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 7 (01:03:13):
That's what I appreciate.

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
So, Andrew, tell us, how did you first find out
about prison writers?

Speaker 7 (01:03:21):
Okay, it was a flyer going around. It was like
a there's a prison writing contest, a writing contest, and
I was involved in this other program called Voices Inside,
and they passed it rounds. I was like, man writing contests,
I'm gonna go and shoot my shot, even though I
wasn't really keen on articles. And it was me, a
guy named Jeremy Faller, another guy named Derk Trumbo. We

(01:03:43):
all got you know, got into it like we're gonna
tell this first person ard, and they wanted She didn't
want like articles talking about statistics and all that. She
wanted the first person arded to like tell your life
story and your own personal experiences in prison. At that time,
I think I had been in like it was over
ten years, almost fifteen years, so I had a lot
of those stories, like I could just pull those out
of a zoo, you know what I mean. So I

(01:04:05):
was willing to share. And yeah, I was more interested
in just telling some actual facts because I knew that
I felt as though some people was going to write
some mumbo jumbo that wasn't true about prison. So I
want to come across me and my authentic experience and
what I felt. So I wrote it and then when
I got there, got top twenty. Okay, yeah, and I

(01:04:26):
was I was happy about that, you know, I mean
to be I have a published article because I was
mainly in playwriting. But I was like a good thing,
you know what I mean. And then I wrote a
couple more, you know, and it was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
That's really great.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
So obviously it's given you a lot of confidence, well
deserved by the way, but what role did it play
in helping you prepare for life after prison?

Speaker 7 (01:04:48):
Oh? Man, Oh well, I mean quite simply, that's where
I'm at right now. I'm at prime in a playoffs
and Louis of Kentucky. I'm doing this zoom from her.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
So stop it, you're doing it, You're actually doing Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:05:00):
Yeah, this is the longest running outdoor theater think in
the country, and uh, that's just what's what writing did
definitely freed me, Like it was the only really released
the chills, no joke.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
I got the chills.

Speaker 7 (01:05:16):
I mean prison writers was a big part of that,
because you know, you write plays, you need productions. Yeah,
you don't really get that that that validation to show
you that you that you that you're really good. I
mean that people hear your voice. And then when Law
and published me, I was like, you know, that was
that was a pit stop on a long journey that
I needed to be refreshed, and it gave me the

(01:05:38):
energy to pick my pin back up. And you know,
maybe I didn't do a lot of articles, but did
a lot of more playwriting, that's for sure, because I
felt like, hey, you know, people understand what I'm saying
and I'm coming across what I'm trying to convey.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Really it was relatable to somebody and it meant something, right,
and that gives you the spirit about you that knows
that you can be successful, which is so important when
you're getting out of being institutionalized.

Speaker 7 (01:06:02):
Right, It's I just wanted one person, like, yeah, just
one person there to like relate to it and understand
it and gain some empathy because like writing is a
little skill, but it also teaches you another skill, which
is empathy. You know, you put yourself in other people's
shoes and try to feel how characters feel and understanding

(01:06:23):
that's the skill that builds the most. So I'm just
grateful for what I learned in my journey and right,
and I'm dreamful of flowing because like she was like
you know, talking about with the talking about stuff she did,
but she's really being minus on what the program did.
Because the other two people that I named, they're not
back in prison either. And like U, it helped my dude, Jeremy,

(01:06:44):
Like he's really intelligent. He's not a writer, but when
he got published, he was really feeling himself, like he
was smelling himself, man, you know, I mean he still
still gives me, gives me stuff about that, like I wrote.

Speaker 9 (01:06:58):
Run an article and I got published time dragging rights, right, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:07:02):
And then Trumbo went on and that's what he does now.
He writes, He writes articles. He wrote a popular column
called Don't Eat the Candy off your pillow name Yeah, yeah,
which will be a dumb ass if you did that,
but neither he nor there. But yeah, he wrote he
wrote that article, and he's doing big things so uh

(01:07:22):
and that as well, because like at that time, we
were like all just like sending our stuff out to
different resources. Like you know, I remember for years he
tried to get published in this this article. I want
to say, it's called Suncoast or something something high faluting
literary literary journal, and he would always be like, yeah,
I sent them this sci fi short story and could

(01:07:44):
put They never published him, never even sent them a
response back, you know. I mean, you know they're probably
just looking at the envelop eyes got for prisons side
and it, you know, and understand its power. And then
him to get lonhed on other platforms speaks to you know,
the part you played it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
What's some of the work that you've had published name,
Let's get some bragging rights.

Speaker 7 (01:08:09):
Well, I had a short play called Promised Land louisva Sky.
A lot of short play productions are black Boy. I
just recently in a play in Lexington at Antagonist Productions
when I got out. When I got on the second
of September, so this was that weekend, the next last
weekend of the month twenty six, twenty seventh, and twenty eight.
So I got to act in my own play, which

(01:08:32):
was called The Hopeless and the Hopeful, and it was
a play about two young men in prison. I guess,
like understanding what love is behind bars with their significant
others on the outside come in to grasp with it,
like what it may mean. You know, one's hopeful that
kind of hopefully understand that it could go either way,
and one's just hopeless. He's just a hopeless romantic, like

(01:08:52):
you know, anybody shows me a time of day, let's
get married, you know what I mean? That type.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
Sideways. I'm like, oh, they're interested, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:09:04):
Right now? How dare you like my pitch and don't
like me? Right?

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
Was that your your first time acting or had you
done it before and rekindled it?

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
That's so cool that you got to act in your
own play.

Speaker 7 (01:09:19):
When you say acting, what do you mean?

Speaker 5 (01:09:20):
Like, I'm sorry, I might have misheard you. I thought
you said that you were in your.

Speaker 7 (01:09:25):
Yeah, I was in my play. But there's all different
type of acting, you know, acting in church that type
of thing, but like actually acting outside and outside production.
That was my first time. But I was not feeling
a sweat because, like I said, I was working with
the voices inside and like it's a writing program inside,
and like every July and August we put a play

(01:09:47):
on in the prison. We do short plays in the prison,
and you know, ain't nothing like performing in front of
your home crowd. So you know, it's like one hundred
and sixty inmates pout in the chapel and you're sitting
on a chapel stage where the sound goes to die.
So you got to really really project your voice and
really really shoot, you know, and then you know, and

(01:10:07):
you got people who who've never been to a plan
in life, and we get to be the first person
to perform for him. Yeah, it was a good times, man.

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
So excellent.

Speaker 5 (01:10:17):
Well, you are listening to True Crime tonight, and I
hope you are as delighted as I am on this
Thanksgiving I'm Courtney. I'm here with Body and we're talking
with journalists and prison writer founder Low and Kelly, and
we are also now lucky enough to be speaking with
Andrew Phillips, who is a published author from Prison Writers

(01:10:38):
as well as many other rights and playwrights. Let's give
it up for that. So that's what we're talking about,
and I'm to think about all of this.

Speaker 4 (01:10:47):
This is a great story. I mean, this is really
genuinely a great story. So what do you think is
broken in our rehabilitation system? And what can we learn
to do it better? What can we do better?

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
What's broken?

Speaker 8 (01:11:00):
Where do you start?

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Probably like a three seven year answer.

Speaker 7 (01:11:05):
When you say, I would definitely say it's three forms
of it. When when you say rehabilitations you mean like
when a person's actually incarcerated or.

Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
Re entry both actually, because re entry is probably one
of the most difficult things, right, I would say probably.

Speaker 7 (01:11:22):
So you want to start a re entry or incarceration.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
Let's start with re entry.

Speaker 7 (01:11:26):
Okay, well re entry I just got out a month
then I'm still mad at different type of sources. So basically,
when you get out, they give you a lot of
numbers to call, you know, this person does this, this
person does that. But when you call the numbers, those
people are just facilitator to give you another number to

(01:11:47):
call to get in contact with the person who has
the resource. And then the person who has the resource
is like, Okay, we got your information. We'll get back
to you in a week. Here's a problem with that.
Most people reaffend within the first seventy two hours.

Speaker 10 (01:12:00):
The statistic, right, what the statistics say when I'm inclined
to believe that, because it's like I know people and
they're already back, you know, I guess like hustling and flowing,
and that being said is because like you know, you're
jumping through red tape.

Speaker 7 (01:12:15):
You know, you gotta get your food stampads, you gotta
get this, services, you gotta get that. And to be
honest with you, I may parole in July. I know
I was going home sixty days in advance. So for
sixty days I sit back, you know, beating my head
against the wall, trying to get resources and miss loan
over her being super modest, she was a viable resource
to me getting re entries. She helped me set up

(01:12:36):
my email, get a phone number so I can start
filling out applications, help me get a phone when I
came home. She was my re entry source, you know,
not the re entry aids who just had more numbers
for me to call. That's what I relied on, you know,
the people in my corner. So them and then I
was lucky to this thing they had just started. I

(01:12:56):
would give props to this In KNENTUCKUTYDD started to staying
with the iron Workers Local seventy union. Big props to them.
They came in and they taught us the skill of
hard workers and they was real. I got on a Tuesday.
On a Wednesday, I went for interview, and on Thursday
I was at work.

Speaker 8 (01:13:13):
Wow, Andrews had an amazing opportunity with learning a trade
that's just not a big deal, very common, and a
specialized trade at that.

Speaker 7 (01:13:24):
Yeah, yeah, this is the thing that started with any
but sure endorsed it. It was a thing they came
in and thought that we was in the first class.
And yeah, man, those dudes are real dudes. Yeah, everybody
else talking about these jobs is cap And I'm be
the first as to tell you that what I hate
the most is indeed and all these other online people

(01:13:44):
that you try to get job all send you us
one hundred emails a day. So, hey, we had another
job for you. We found another job for You've never
a done job for you, like, get out of my email.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
Yes, I think your experiences everyone's ex.

Speaker 7 (01:13:59):
Just so yeah, that's that's yes. I think that's the
thing that I was talking to a guy in Little
About He asked me the same question, what do we
need with re entry? And I was like, we need
a scout basically, like and I'm scouting, Like, look, bro,
this number her is phony number. Yeah, this person is phony.
You beat a month out because I mean, there's people

(01:14:20):
are getting government funding. It's supposed to be for media assistance.
And I don't know what their definition of immediate is,
but mine is right now, you know what I mean,
that day or we can for you out. Amazon can
deliver over line overnight. Damn it, you can't do what
are we doing? So you know that's how I feel
strongly about it. And uh, you know I can't wait
to write about it and tell them I'm going to

(01:14:41):
put their names in it because I feel like if
you got that money, then there's a responsibility that you carry,
you know what I mean? And here Loan is doing
that to kind of so hard, and you know, her
belief stepping up for me and what are y'all doing?

Speaker 6 (01:14:54):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
That's a pretty big deal on this Thanksgiving When you
think about where you are now, what do you you
both most thankful for?

Speaker 8 (01:15:03):
Well, I mean in my you know, big picture, I mean, certainly,
like I think family is important, but I'm very very
grateful that I can give a sense of belonging, you know,
to people inside. I'm also grateful that I've had a
chance to meet these people. I mean, I've learned a lot,

(01:15:23):
you know, including from Andrew. And I talk on the
phone with a good handful of people on a pretty
regular basis, and you know they're friends really, And I
mean I've learned a lot about patience and resilience and
resourcefulness and you know, human nature and how things can
go wrong and how things can go right. And so yeah,

(01:15:46):
I've learned a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
I'm pretty and Andrew, how about you, I.

Speaker 7 (01:15:52):
Don't know, I'm still right Thanksgiving, but however thankful. Yeah,
I'm thankful every day. I'm thankful for first and foremost
relationship with God. A big believer, and I tell alone
all the time that you know, it's how I believe
God works. You know, he works through people. You know.
My Bigges scripture that I leaned on the most when

(01:16:13):
I was in our was first John four eight was
basically say that God is love, and anyone who loves
us from God. So thank him for all the people
that He's brought in my life, because you know, whether
they are willing participants or not, but He works through them,
you know what I mean. So I just appreciate my
relationship with God and the great people he's put in
my life. That young lady right there, especially Lawing, She's

(01:16:37):
been a great friend. Yeah, like today we had a
we had a crisis today, didn't we.

Speaker 9 (01:16:43):
Yeah, yeah, there's new text here you go.

Speaker 7 (01:16:53):
Broke my first phone today, you know, and uh yesterday
and I was like, I realized that it's a actually
your email. You can go back in from that phone.
You should have seen me run around trying to figure
out how to want Finally I told you to again.
The team Obi people are fake. Anyway, I went into

(01:17:15):
and always we can't sell you a phone less we
say you a plan. It's like, what are we doing
with her? So? Uh, finally this tech guy just got
on my phone and fixed it for me, like so
it was amazing. But yeah, so.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
Well, one more thing that we can be thankful for
is tech people who can fix things, because I am
not one of them. So listen, stick with us, because
after the commercial, we are going to be back with
Loewen and Andrew and we're going to be talking about
how two men have turned their past into purpose and
the program that's changing what justic means, what justice means.

(01:17:51):
Stick around to crime, same, Welcome back to True Crime tonight.
We're on iHeartRadio. We are talking true crime all the time.
I'm Courtney here with Body Movin. And don't forget if

(01:18:12):
you have missed any part of the show whatsoever, you
can always catch the podcast. And this Thanksgiving, we are
thankful for stories of change and for people who have
transformed their lives through the written word. So we are
joined by Lo and Kelly, who has helped hundreds of
incarcerated writers find purpose and hope, and we're going to

(01:18:34):
be hearing a couple of them. And then we are
also joined by Andrew Phillips, writer, playwriter and thespian all
in one.

Speaker 3 (01:18:45):
So welcome, welcome guys, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 5 (01:18:51):
So tell us there was a man named Chris, and
I'm going to let you pronounce his last name, so
I don't do it to miss justice.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Would you tell us Chris's story?

Speaker 8 (01:19:00):
Sure? So the two people I was going to talk
about sort of have not dissimilar stories from Andrews too,
in the sense that Sean and Kristankovitch is here talking
about Kristyankovich, who's now thirty seven. He's been in prison
for twenty one years, but he committed his crime at
age fifteen, and he is now getting a little close.

(01:19:21):
His sentence was twenty five to thirty seven years. He
actually killed his mother, and he came from you know,
he didn't have the story of sort of a troubled
childhood or a bad childhood. He you know, he has
a very stable family, you know, seemingly obviously, and he
has just spent the last twenty years, well, first of all,

(01:19:43):
growing up in prison. I mean he had to become
a man in prison and that and he was, you know,
I think through help of outside contacts and people, he
you know, sort of knew what life he wanted it
to have and didn't really get into too much trouble
in prison, but he is now benefiting from some of
the changes in laws in various states where they're giving

(01:20:07):
second chances and second looks at people. And you know,
he is an example, you know of somebody who you know,
you'd think as a monster, and he did, you know,
have like a psychotic sort of problem, you know, at fifteen.
But he has gone on to you he's become a
serious chef, a very very talented writer. He actually I

(01:20:28):
think won the contest, and so I've done him a
long time. You know, he started a lot of programs
to help other people. He's remorseful, you know, and it's
just it's so hard for me to believe that he
is somebody who did what he did. And the only
explanation is, you know, he's he's just grown so much

(01:20:49):
grown up. And this other guy I was talking about
is Sean Johnson. He's Chris is from Michigan. Shawn's from
New Jersey and he's about to get out too. He's
made such strides. I mean, he was in, he was
with the Bloods. When he was out. He committed his
crime at I think nineteen, and now New Jersey's making

(01:21:13):
a point of looking at anyone who has committed their
crime under twenty six years old. He was nineteen and
who had experienced extreme trial tactics, which mean they are
given more than twice the sentence of the plea they
were offered, so they're now taking another look at it.
He was given sixty years and his case is I mean,

(01:21:38):
you know, it's going to sound like, oh, everybody says
they're innocent, which is not true. But he it was
partly self defense, so it should have been the manslaughter charge.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
So he was very overcharged, very overcharged, which.

Speaker 8 (01:21:49):
Is so co.

Speaker 7 (01:21:52):
They offered him a thirty year sentence, but he didn't
take it, so he took the trout and he got
sixty hand for him eighteen years.

Speaker 8 (01:22:01):
It was self defense. He took the guy grabbed the gun. Anyway,
it doesn't really matter at the case, but he said, no,
I want to go to trial. I don't think I everybody, yeah, yeah,
I don't deserve that. And I'm sixty. It did two
an attempted murder and a murder charged consecutive. And you know, anyway,
this guy has written five books. He's learned everything about

(01:22:23):
finance to teach other inmates how to finances together. He's
written books he has one hundred thousand followers on Instagram
that he's just from prison and he just has like
a podcast on YouTube where it is all very inspirational,
and yeah, he's just he's so hungry, you know. I

(01:22:45):
had to tell him, like, you've got to slow down
and just like give yourself a break when you get out.
He's like, his plans are insane. It's like, slow down,
you're making it exhausted. But anyway, guys are perfect examples
of just you know, and so as Andrew, you were
what sixteen, Andrew when you fifteen? Yeah, I always think, yeah,

(01:23:10):
and so, you know, these three are just perfect examples
of just what growing up does, you know, And obviously
they're you know, they've had you know, they I think
a lot of it's just growing up in prison, I
mean growing up in general in general. I'm sure you
would agree with me, Andrew that anyone who's sort of

(01:23:33):
rehabilitated or he's doing well, it's not because they were
in prison. It's because they self rehabilitated. But anyway, you know,
these guys they're great. They're going to do really really
well when they get out, and they you know, are
determined to help others. And I think that's a pretty
common feeling for people when they get out, is they

(01:23:54):
want to you know, especially a lot of gang members
who get out of gangs, they want to help. Yeah,
they want to just prevent other kids from joining.

Speaker 4 (01:24:04):
This is Your Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we talk
true crime all the time. I'm body move in and
I'm here with Courtney and miss Loewen. Now she has
created this writer's Guild for partner and we're also joined
by Andrew Phillips. He's a playwright. He's a former prisoner,
he just got out and he's working for a production
house and he's writing plays. And we're just being you know,

(01:24:27):
we're having this Thanksgiving show and we're just showing thanks
and whatnot for the future and second chances if you
want to come up. You're back Andrew for a brief moment.
He's got some tech issues. Okay, let's go, let's cut
on some flack a little bit. But he's back and
figure it out and he's back.

Speaker 9 (01:24:48):
See, you're good, You're here, You're you are here exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:24:59):
So I have a question for the both of you.

Speaker 5 (01:25:03):
Is there a thing that you wish the public understood
about what it really is like in prison and you
know from there what redemption can look like. That's a
big heavy question, but I'd love any thoughts.

Speaker 8 (01:25:18):
Uh, Andrew, do you want to go ahead? There's so
much to say about that one.

Speaker 7 (01:25:23):
Yeah, yeah, I would say is that if you got
a loved one in prison, you don't understand that you
need to reach out to him. Yeah outside, Yeah, you
need to reach out to him, you know them if
they're still loved And because that's a big part of it.
When I say I was seeing people lose themself from prison,

(01:25:45):
it's probably mainly because of that. They didn't have anybody
on the outside at least write them a letter or
you know, you know everybody kee talking about, oh I'm
sending money, get three hots in the cut. It's not
the money helps like because they don't give you deodor
in free in prison, you know what I mean, They
give you two pays and soap. You don't get the
older you know what I mean? That matters m That

(01:26:07):
helps them, That helps him. You know, I'm not saying
carry nobody, send him your whole check, but I'm just saying,
you know what I mean that you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:14):
Can feel human, you need those things.

Speaker 7 (01:26:16):
You need, those things that matters. That's the biggest thing
I want to have people understand is that, like if
people just did time, you know, everybody makes mistakes, you know,
still love them, you know, Forgiveness is key and the
biggest And I guess like the other thing that I
want to say, the other shoe on the foot, is
that as much as I say, you know, I tell

(01:26:40):
the truth. When I was fifteen years old and I
committed my crime, there is a victim's family that feel like,
you know, I should have never been lawed out of
prison or they feel this type of way, And all
I can do is just offer my heartfeld sister apologies.
But I also say that I live in a way
that shows honor to myself and the persons of life

(01:27:03):
I took.

Speaker 4 (01:27:04):
I have a friend who was in prison and he
he committed fellow any murder and he's probably one of
the most amazing people I know. And he always tells
me that he has to live two lives. He has
to live a life for himself and the guy he killed. Right,
That's how and that's what he always says. And it's
just it always hits me to my core because he
literally is the most coolest person I know. And he's

(01:27:27):
just like, yeah, I got to live two lives, you know,
I gotta for my victim and me.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
I got to be the best man I can be.

Speaker 4 (01:27:34):
And it's just just brings kind of tears to my
eyes a little bit.

Speaker 8 (01:27:38):
I mean, I think one besides just realizing that there's
so much humanity and you know, and intelligence in prison
with these people, it's it's also just what I've heard
because I really am very interested in people's childhood and
you know what led them to it, and just you know,
some have pretty damn good childhood. Is it's it's sort

(01:27:59):
of inexposable that most of them, you know, they have
these childhoods where they're some sort of abuse which leads
to some sort of substance abuse, which leads to some
sort of needing money. Yeah, and it's just like and
I look at that, and you know, I think of
the things I've done and I'm not, you know, a saint, don't.
I've been telling you the whole time, I'm a saint.

(01:28:23):
And I look at you know, I've done some things
and I think what, especially when I was young, and
I think, like if childhood because I had the perfect child.
I had a child, I would so be in prison.
And I think that really helps, you know me, help
me in the beginning, I just like it was like
sell drugs, of course, I would, you know. I mean,

(01:28:46):
I'd be like, I'd want money for my you know,
sick sister, you know, medicine or whatever, right, whatever you mean?

Speaker 4 (01:28:54):
Right, I mean there's people that are hungry that are
stealing baby formulaw because their babies are sick and hungry,
you know. I mean it's there are things that you
have to do in order to survive in this world.
And I would probably do it too.

Speaker 8 (01:29:06):
And the other thing is, like, and Andrew, you tell me,
I ask all of these guys what percentage of people
in prison could get right out, get to get out
right now and do okay? And you know, I get
sort of come up with like fifteen to twenty percent.
And these are people who not necessarily are getting out,
but they could because they've they're set up there. They're

(01:29:28):
good people. They're not going to go out and they're
going to try hard, try hard to get a job
and live a straight life. You know. The granted, there's
a huge amount of people who should never get out absolutely,
But there are you know, there's just fifteen to twenty
percent of most prisons there are you know, people who
could get out, and they might not. They probably aren't

(01:29:50):
going to get out. But and you know who knows that.
It's the prisoners. You know that they will be on
the phone and be like, this guy is get out
of prison. He's gonna come back in two days. He's
the biggest hassle, he's horrible. He shouldn't get out. Let
the show over here is like a you know, he's

(01:30:11):
not getting out ever. You know, he has two consecutive
life sentences and he's the greatest guy in the world,
and he would, you know, help people make it a
better world. So it's I.

Speaker 7 (01:30:22):
Don't know how most places are, but I don't know
what the hell the Kentucky pro boys doing. Like like
it's so sporadic about who they let out and who
they don't let out. Like you'll see one guy go
for pro This minute had to write up in fifteen years,

(01:30:43):
and a write up is like a disprom re action
in prison, which is hard to do because like that
means you're dug in a lot of fights. You're you know,
you're talking your tail a lot not to get a
note right out in fifteen years. So you'll see that
guy go off of pro and they'd be like, you
know what, come back and seeing some five more years.
And then you'll see another dude who like just got
out of hole and they're like, oh, go back to society,

(01:31:05):
and I'd be like, what are we doing? What's happening?
Like what are we doing? People like we walk around
baffle trying to figure this out. And I guess you
asked me early about recidivism. The partner's broken. Here's the
biggest part that's broken in Kentucky. I can only spick
it back Kentucky. That was my experience so real quickly
they manage you with prison. You go on based on

(01:31:26):
your crime. You get a custody score level. Right, because
I was murdered robbery, I had a high custody score level. First.
As I did more time in a clear conduct, my
custody score level went from like a forty something to
a six right, So being in my custoing level was
a sixth. That means I was left for community custody.
Don't you know, for the last four years I wasn't

(01:31:46):
able to go to a camp, our community, cussy, less
restrictive environment, more work experience and out out at that.
But they gave me parole and sent me straight to society.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
Huh Yeah, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, right,
You think they would ease you in, right, like let
you go?

Speaker 7 (01:32:05):
Like so only drug offenders and stuff can go to
halfway houses, but we're all going back to society. I understand,
why not use that transition, that power, to transitional learning
experience to get people are reacquainted to what it is.
I did a little research on it, Like it's hard
to do the research on the recidivism because anybody who

(01:32:27):
goes back into prison, they just throw them into the
recidivism paler they can. They don't defentiate who had who
had transitional housing and who didn't have transitionalsing. But if
I was to put my hat on it, you know,
I'm ball headed, so I need a good hat. Has
it been my hat on it? I would say transitional

(01:32:49):
housing is extremely lower than those who got out without it,
going to camp or nothing.

Speaker 5 (01:32:55):
But yeah, well, on behalf of on, behalf of myself.
We are so grateful that you guys were able to
be here. Owen Kelly, thank you for the work that
you do. Andrew people writing I know, yeah, thank you

(01:33:15):
so much for sharing your story or experience and for
being here. And you can read more stories and support
the program. I think that's a great thing to do
at prisonwriters dot Com. And as we wrap up this
Thanksgiving special day, we are reminded gratitude isn't just about
what we have. It is about what we can give,

(01:33:36):
and from all of us at your Creds Night, we
wish you warm, safe, meaningful Thanksgiving Next

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