June 1, 2023 • 41 mins
On October 18, 1996, 15-year-old Brian Bowling and his friend, 17-year-old Cain Storey, were in Brian’s bedroom in Silver Creek, GA when a gun went off and shot Bowling in the head, ultimately killing him. Storey initially claimed that Bowling shot himself while playing a game, however, he later falsely confessed to shooting Bowling, and was subsequently convicted of his murder. During the investigation, 17-year-old Daryl “Lee” Clark also became a suspect as the state believed that he acted as an accomplice who helped kill Bowling to exact revenge for an unrelated event. Despite evidence supporting the fact that Bowling accidentally shot himself, and Storey’s assertion that Clark was not present on the night in question, false testimony led to Clark’s conviction and ultimate life sentence. Susan Simpson talks to Lee Clark.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On the evening of October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six, seventeen
year old Cain's story came over to see his friend
Brian Bowling, who lived with his family in a trailer
near Rome, Georgia. Cain had brought along his father's revolver,
and the two boys sat in Brian's bed and passed
it back and forth, pretending to play Russian Roulette while
Brian talked to his girlfriend Caprice on the phone. Suddenly,
(00:25):
Caprice heard screaming, and then a few moments later she
heard someone hang up the phone. Brian had been shot
in the head and was rushed to the hospital, where
he died the next day. Initially, Cain told police that
his friend had accidentally shot himself, but during a second
interrogation two days later, Cain made a statement that the
gun had been in his hand when it went off,
(00:46):
though he insisted it had been an accident. Then a
witness came forward, claiming that Brian, kan and their friendly
Clark had all been members of a vicious gang called
the Free Birds, and that Brian's death had been retaliation
for him snitching by the theft that they'd committed. So
police began investigating the incident as a homicide, ultimately charging
Cain and Lee with Brian's murder. At trial, a witness
(01:09):
testified that Cain and Lee had bragged to her about
exacting their revenge on Brian, and a handwritten note found
talking to Brian's coffin corroborated the gang killing narrative. It
was right there in black and white. But this is
wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Susan Simpson,
(01:39):
host of the podcast Proof and Undisclosed, filling in for
Jason Flohm. Today's case is one that Justinta Davis and
I covered in season one of Proof. In nineteen ninety six,
fifteen year old Brian Bowling died of a gunshot wound
to the head, and eventually his seventeen year old friends
Lee Clark and Kane's Story were wrongfully convicted of his death,
and a confluence of fabrications, coercion, and misconduct led to
(02:01):
their arrest and conviction. And we're about to get to
all of that. But first here today to share his
incredible story is Lee Clark. Lee. It's great to.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
See you again, and see you too, Susan.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Now, Lee, before we get into everything that happened. Can
you tell the audience a little bit about you?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I was born in Rowing, Georgia, Floyd County. Most of
my childhood, my early childhood. I grew up in our
Murchy but went to Glenwood Elementary School. I've only got
one blood brother, my brother Jamie, and I've got step
sister or stepbrother Candy and Mark.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And then the lead up to all of this, to
what happened in K and A six, you were seventeen
years old and living in a small community south of Rome,
Georgia called Silver Creek.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
At that point in my life, I was young.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It's all on ne you at all. I was really
dumber on a box of rocks, is what my daddy
used to tell me. He's probably right too. I mean,
I was getting into a lot of trouble back in
nineteen ninety six doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing,
and breaking into people's homes and stuff like that. I
wasn't old enough to do it. But we drank a
little bit if we'd get alcohol. If not that, we'd
be smoking marijuana or something. Just hanging out as kids doing.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Doing crazy stupid junk kids do. Teenagers do.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And one of your oldest friends was Kin. Tell me
about him.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I came we were coming up, coming through high school
and stuff. He would be involved in some of the
stuff I was doing. But Kane, he was more of
a kind of goodie two shoes. He hung out with
the preppy crowd a lot that they all time questioned
him a lot about why he was hanging out with me.
And that's just because of the way I was back then.
I was just a young, stupid teenage kid. I mean,
I wasn't bad as I made out to be.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I mean, I just wanted people to think that, so
a lot of people would stay away from me.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And one of the boys that you guys hung out
with with a guy named Brian Bowling. How did you
know Brian.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I originally met Brian through Kane. When Kane moved out
to Silver Creek, he introduced me to Brian, and me
and Brian we became friends. Me and Brian were' as
closest Kine and Brian were. I mean, I lot Brian,
I mean I love Brian. He was a good friend
of mine, and just as I got a little bit older,
me being down there at his house became less frequent.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So were of ninety six. There was an incident that
happened when you were over at Cane's house. Tell me
about that.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It was on October third, nineteen ninety six. Day haunts
me still to this day. Is something a regret of
mine that I lived with. It's today that I went
to Cayne's house and all of us teenage boys over me, Caine,
his buddy Joseph Wilkins, and a buddy of mine named
Pete Jordan. We all decided we was going to steal
Cayne's diaddy safe from him.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the four of you stole the safe from Cane's dad,
took down the woods, busted it up, got some cash
out of it. How long did y'all get away with
a crime?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I was arrested four days after we stole this safe.
Caine and his buddy Joseph Wilkins, they were arrested today
we stole it, and then my friend Pete Jordan was
arrested three days later on October tenth.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, so it was not the crime of the century.
Y'all did not get away with it first more than
a few.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Of course. No, it was straight stupid. It is what
it was.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, Now, So Brian lived just down the hill for
I'm Kane, but he had nothing to do with this
safe though.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Right, No, no, he didn't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
But as we'll see, that incident, along with Brian's close
friendship with Cain, became important the prosecution's case. But for now,
let's go back to just after the safeist. The night
this happened, both Kane and his friend Joseph Fulkins were
both arrested, and since shortly after you and your friend
Pete Jordan were also arrested, well, logically it made sense
that either Kin or Joseph Fulkins had been the ones
(05:28):
to give you up. Again, though this was not the
crime of the century, the stakes were pretty low, and
that brings us to what happened October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
On October eighteenth, so I went to make Caine that
day because I know I'd been arrested in yours. I
just wanted to find out for him if it had
been his buddy Joseph did it told on us? Or
if it was had been Kane did it did it?
I knew it had to be one of them. I
just was sure which one, and I made him he
sat there each tell him me. He swording up down
and may it wasn't him. He didn't do it. He
don't know who did it. And he played that on
and on. So it's made to believe his friend Joseph
(05:59):
was won told honest. What come to find out a trial?
It was both Kane and Joseph they had told on us.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, so but.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
That night you talked to Caine, He's like, no, man,
wasn't me. I didn't telling y'all. And your little brother
was there too.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Right, Yes, he was there. You have my little brother, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
The three of you ended up just kind of hanging out.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
For a while. Yeah. Yeah, we just rode around when
shoot some pool and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
What kindness off? That's all in the motion, though, was
that night before Cain went out to meet with you
and Jamie he decided to grab a revolver from his
dad's bedside table. He was gonna go target chooting. It
was not the smartest idea since he was already in
trouble with his dad. But well, while you're hanging out,
he pulls the gun out and he shows it to
you and even fires it out of a car window
while you're driving around, just playing around. Eventually you decided
(06:44):
to take him home.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I wasn't going back to his house, cousin.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I wasn't gonna take no chance of his parents being home,
his mom or anything, or his dad. I don't want
either one tore saving me back in his house. So
I dropped him all the same place. I picked him
up at Silver Creetman in the market. You know, I
think about something now that I told Kane back then
that uh me telling him this. I could still hear
it so clearly in my head that wakes me up
sometimes the middle of the night still to this day.
(07:07):
I told him when was pulling up I was getting out,
I told him, I said, look, we've done stole yourdaddy
safe and now here it is. You've got your daddy's
gun on you. I said, if your diddy comes in
says that gun gone, he's gonna swer up down that
we stole that too. So I don't need this hanging
over me, Like, just take that gun back home where
you got it from. Well, hey, sister and tells me, yeah, man,
I'm gonna do it. I said, Okay, I'm serious, man,
(07:29):
Just get out the car, go straight home.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Put that gun back.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
He swears up and down to me he's gonna do it,
And that's the complete opposite of what he just told
me he was feeling to do.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, after you dropped him off with the mini, mart
Kin did not go directly home. Instead, he stopped at
Brian's trailer on the way. They are now Brian's parents,
his sister, and her boyfriend. They were all in the
living room watching TV with some neighbors, Waining and Charlie Childers.
When King got there, came knocking the door, said hi
to everyone. They told him that Brian's back in the
bedroom talking to his girlfriend Caprice. So he goes back
(07:59):
there and finds Brian sos high and you know, they
they're two teenage boys on the phone with the girlfriends.
So they start passing the phone back and forth talking
to her. Then at some point Kane puts out his
gun and shows it to Brian and he's like, hey, man,
look what I got.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
So what happened then, Well, the way Kane explains it
to me, he's in there and him and Brian put
a bullet in the gun and he says they started
playing Russian rou lit and he said there was cheating.
They was putting it in there, and they was taking
the chamber of a revolver. Anybody who knows anything about
a revolver knows if you're looking down at it from
the back of it, you can see where the bullets
were at. And that's what they were doing. They were
(08:32):
taking the revolver and they were spinning it to the
bottom and making sure the bullets wouldn't know where around
down there. And then they were cocking it, sticking it
to her head and pulling the trigger. And Kane says
they had went back a couple of rounds like he
back and forth, and the whole time, Brian is the
phone with his girlfriend, Caprice Hoyt, and he tells Kane
to tell her what I'm doing. So Kane tells her
He's playing Russian rou lit. Now, first she didn't know
(08:53):
what it was. I mean, she was a little alarm by,
but she didn't know what rushing roulett was. I mean,
she was telling him, tell him to stop, but she
she didn't understand fully what he was in there doing,
sticking it to his head, pulling the trigger until her
mom came in later after the fact, and she asked
her mom what rushing roulette was and her mom told
her what it was. Well, Kane, he plays it and
then Brian just he says, let me see that gun.
What Kane says, he snatched it from him, opened it up,
(09:16):
spun the cylinder, slapped it back in, caught the hammer back.
When Brian stuck it to his head, Kane says, he
looked at him and told him and said, don't do it,
bro He said it's to one. Now. Kane says that
Brian looked at him and said you think so and
pulled the trigger. Now, that's what Kine has told me
every time I've talked to him about this stuff, every
time I've confronted him body, He's always told me the
(09:38):
same thing and the.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Truth he told right now.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I mean, I can't tell you one hundred percent positive
what went done in there, but that's like I've told
you before, Susan. Look, I've struggled with that stuff for
many and many years. If he may have accidentally did
it and didn't want to tell me, but there's too
much stuff too support it, and that's why I choose
to believe it.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And a lot of what was observed immediately after the
shooting supports what can say. The folks in the living
room who had heard the gunshot rushed into Brian's room
and found him there on the floor with blood pulled
around his head and critically, the gun was underneath Brian
where he was lying on the floor, and Caprice was
still in the phone. She was yelling trying to figure
it what was happening she could kill the screaming, heard
(10:16):
someone say they got to call her back and the
line going dead as the family then calls nine one
one very quickly after that, the police and paramedics arrive
and Brian was transported to the hospital as he fought
for his life. Meanwhile, though, Lee, you had no idea
that any of this was happening. After you dropped Can off,
what did you do the rest.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Of the night, Me and my brother turned around with
my apartment in Lyndale where my girlfriend Shelley at a time,
and a bunch of my other buddies were showing up
over there. I was having a party at my apartment
that night and we got over went to party and dranking,
smoking with you, doing stupid teenager stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And at around eight thirty that night, two of your friends,
Doug and Dawn were dropped out by their mom, and
she testified later at trial that while she was there
to drop her sons off, you were standing out by
her car and you were talking, and she told you
that something was happening down at Brian Bowling's place.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I asked her what she meant, and she told me
that there's a bunch of cop cars down in their driveways.
We were making all kinds of sumptions to what we thought
it may have been, but we were fall off face.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The next morning, the doctors told Brian's family that there
was no hope of recovery, and his parents agreed to
donate his organs, and around noon the day after he
was shot, he was declared dead.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, the next morning I got up and I found
out that two different people that Brian had shot herself
the night before. My mom had called me and told me,
and also Doug and Don's grandmother had told us about
it when she come by to pick Doug.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And down up.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Now, during the initial investigation, the police took photos of
the scene and talked to some of the family and
other witnesses at the hospital, and of course they talked
to Kane, who was taken down to the police station
and had his hand swap for gunshot residue. When the
police spoke to Caprice, she corroborated Cane's story that Brian
and Kan told her on the phone that they had
a gun and they were playing Russian Roulette. The last
thing she heard was Brian saying I'm playing with the gun,
(12:02):
followed by screaming and someone hanging up. After talking to
Kane at Caprice, the police initially declared it next andal death.
An autopsy, if it was done, would have shown conclusively
that Brian had been holding the gun up to his
head when it was fired, except one was never done,
or at least there's no record of it. Unfortunately, without
an autopsy, and after talking to Brian's family as well,
(12:24):
investigators were free to get imaginative. So later that weekend,
Detective Dallas Battle and Sergeant Mike Wallace brought Cain in
for a second interview. This time they recorded it. At first,
Cain insist again and again that Brian shot himself and
they've been playing Russian Roulette and it was something more
than that. But detectives keep telling him, we know you
had the gun. Just tell us you had the gun.
If you tell us that you had the gun when
(12:45):
it went off, Nothing will happen to you. You won't
be in trouble to tell us that. And after this
goes on for half an hour or so, Kane eventually
gives in and says that, yeah, the gun was in
my hand when it went off. Lee, what has Kane
told you about this interview?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, he said they kept coming at him, but during
the interview they were making him saying like that it
was no big deal. That he just say what they
wanted him to say. They won't gonna be in any trouble.
Just go ahead and bit to you did this?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Would you say? What was then? Act?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
And that's gonna be it and we can now all
go home. And Kane, being young like he was, battles
tricked him. He just deceived him into it. I mean, Kane,
he's easily misled. I mean he's always been that way.
He's a full grown man now and I hate to
say it, but he's still easily misled today.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So when Cain admitted to this, to having the gun
in his hand when it accidentally goes off, he's arrested
charges manslaughter and re leased a bond. And then a
few months later that gunshot residue test comes back and
it's negative. There was no jess horn Kan's hands. Now,
these tests are often junk science because the false positives
and false negatives they can generate. You can hear all
(13:44):
about that on Wrong Fiction Junk Science. We'll have that
episode linked in this episode's bio. But Dallas Battle believed
in these tests, and since Kane tested negative for gunshot residue,
this gave Dallas Battle a problem because if this was
a murder, that meant Kin couldn't have done it, and
he now needed a second shooter, which is what made
leads wrongful conviction even possible. So Lee, how do you
(14:06):
think you got drawn to this whole investigation?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Well, shortly after Brian had shot herself and everything, I
was hearing all these rumors, these lies going around that
I was there, that I was hit outside, all this
and that, and I wasn't sure where all that was
coming from at the time, But later down the line,
after I was all said and done, I started pacing
together had been coming from a guy that I knew
when I was younger and had a little bad blove
(14:31):
with him, and his name was Tommy Hyde. Me and
Tommy were never on good terms and stuff, and no
doubt Dallas Battles was using him to spread stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Now, you and Battle had a bit of history.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Right, Yeah, we had pretty deep history, man, Dallas Battles.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Did do you think your previous run ends with the law,
including that recent safe theft, had anything to do with
Battles zeroing in on you.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, I'll tell you straight up. Dallas Battles was a
corrupt cop, crooked as they come. This man took an
oath when he with that badge owned uphold the law.
And even though I was a young, stupid teenage boy
and stuff, Dallas Battles knew what he was doing. He
was a full grown man. And what he did to
me he broke every law did he know all of them?
(15:14):
And wanted to make stuff seem like it was a
certain way, and that's what he did. He spun it
that way, made it look like it. That's no doubt
my mind. He knew the truth about it.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
He just didn't want to put it out there as
he was dead set on setting me up.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Now, around this time, another Flood County officer, David Stewart,
joined the investigation, and he and Battle developed this theory
that Brian had not been shot accidentally, there had been
no Russian roulette, but rather this was all a gang
related revenge hit killing. Now, remember this is late nineteen nineties,
and there's kind of the massesteria going on about quote
(15:45):
unquote gang buns in America, which, although was not prominent
in Rome, Georgia at the time, was nevertheless sort of
in the public ze guist and affecting how people interpreted
this evidence, which is why Bone Thugs in Harmony and
the fact that Brian and his friends listened to that
came an important part of the case. Anyway, there was
a woman named Debor Kelly, who Kan's mother once hired
to clean her house, and she told the police that
(16:07):
while she was cleaning the house, she'd found this what
she called a devilish notebook because it had skulls and
crossbones on it, and when she snooped through the notebook,
that's how she says she discovered that you Can and
Brian were all members of this gang called the Freebirds. Now,
Debora Kelly also said that this notebook had the gang's
rules written out inside of it. Now, Lee, what were
some of the alleged rules that this gang had.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
So I wanted to try to say he was in
there and never do drugs. Yeah right, Yeah, that really
went well with us. Back in every time you turn around,
we spoke in pot.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
The gang's other rules were always stand by your brother,
never talked to the police, and if a brother does
talk to police, you have to kill him. If you
don't kill them, you get killed yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
That's what they say it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So the police decided that Brian had narked quote unquote
on the other gang members by turning them in for
the safe theft, and therefore Lee and Kane had been
obligated to kill him because of their gang of rules.
Don't forget that. Another influence on this murder was Bone
Thugs and Harmony and they're nineteen ninety six hit single,
(17:12):
Yeah Lacrossroad cross Roads.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Now, Crossroads was a favorite song of Brian's. It was
playing at the time he was shot, and the investigators
tracked down the lyrics and decided that the song Crossroads
is about shooting narcs, and that that was why the
song was playing when Brian died.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And whoever listened to that song knows that's not what
that song is about. You know this whole gang stuff.
It's so comical to me, it's simply it's just a joke.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
And if I don't have a.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Sense of humor about it, I'm gonna cry about it,
because in fact this the blase or what destroyed my
life for many years.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Their theory was hair brained. It defies logic and reason,
but Atal and Stewart were committed to it and somehow
needed to drum up evidence to support it. That's why
they ended up exhooming Brian's body in a search for evidence,
and in the coffin when they opened it up, they
found two handwritten notes. One of them had the lyrics
to Crossroads written out on it, and the other was
(18:25):
a note from Joseph Wilkins, the fourth member of the
Safe Theft group. It had a drawing of a little
eagle carrying a bag of weed and a banner that
said freebirds, and the note to Brian below it was
something like, fly high, brother, see you at the crossroads.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Love you.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
But on the little flag though eagles carring the one
that says freebird's on it. Here's like a little addition
made in the corner of the flag. It has the
word narks on it. And it's crossed out like with
the no smoking sign and a trial. It's this note
that's uses evidence that Brian was killed as a gang
revenge murder, although it's worth noting that the handwriting of
the word arks is very different from the neat cursive
(19:03):
that the rest of the note is written in.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yes it is, and you know, Susan, I would not
put it past Dallas Bidles to have did that, because
you've done did some other shady stuff, so you ain't
gonna stop her, not I see it.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And then in May of nineteen eighty seven, the police
got two more key pieces to their theory. The first
was a woman named Angela Bruce, who was interviewed and
told Battle and Stuart that in about February of that year,
she'd had a party and that's when Cain and this
other boy he'd brought along with him had bragged her
about killing Brian. They told her the whole story about
(19:35):
how they had a gang and the rules. So they
had a killing member who narked on them, so they
put a pill over his head and shot him. Now,
the first time that Angela Bruce is interviewed, her story
has nothing about Caprice in it nothing about the girl
from the phone who says she heard Brian say he's
playing Russian Roulette and then screaming. So a couple days later,
the cops go back and talk to Angela again, and
(19:55):
this time she has more to that add the story.
She says that Bryan's girlfriend, Caprice, was also a member
of the Freeburg gang and that she had conspired with
Kin and Lee to kill him, which effectively discredited Caprice,
who had initially corroborated that Brian's death was accidental. Now, Lee,
did you even know Caprice?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
No?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
No, I'd never met Capri before. I never actually sent
her till we got to trial.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Kin hadn't actually met her either. I mean he talked
with her on the phone a few times when it's
over at Brian's, but he hadn't seen her in person.
But Angela's story making Caprice part of the gang and
part of the murder conspiracy was still not enough by
itself to hold this theory together. Lee, you had about
ten witnesses who could have placed you at your home
that night, and no one in the living room at
Brian's trailer mentioned you being there, said anything about you
(20:40):
at all. But then battle says, he gets a tip
it wasn't just Brian's family who'd been in the living
room that night. Two neighbors, Wayne and Charlie Childers were
also there and apparently were never interviewed. Seven months later,
he talks to them and Wayne says, my brother, Charlie, Yeah,
he saw something important that he needs to tell you.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Charlie Childers is stuff and didn't speak standard American sign language,
but he allegedly somehow told Dallas Battle that after everyone
had run to Brian's room that night after hearing a gunshot,
he'd stayed behind in the living room, and that's how
he'd looked out a window and seeing a boy running
across the Bowling's front yard. Battle would later testify a
(21:20):
trial that Charlie had add this boy in a lineup
as Lee Clark. So with Angela Bruce, and Charlie Childs,
Dallas Battle and David Stewart, now had they needed to
charge you in Kine with conspiracy and first degree murder?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, never forget that day as long as I live.
Made the twenty third of nineteen ninety seven Memorial Day weekend,
I was on my way to go to the lake.
My mom my stepdad, my brother, my girlfriend, Shelley, her
boy to code, going down there to teach the code
to hide the ski and everything.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Well, I got over.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
To my mom's house and stuff, and she come out,
she's crying and stuff. I didn't know what was going on.
She told me they'd been by there would have warrant
from my wrist. She said, what they've been by your
daddy's place too, all my dad. First thing you asked
when I got on there, He said, well, have you
done got yourself a baald? Then I said, I ain't
did nothing. I said, this has got to be a mistake.
We did going down here to the jail and find
out what's going on. And we rode down there to
(22:10):
county jail. I went inside the county jail thinking I
was going in there to get something straightened out. I
go in there to tell the lady behind the register
that my name and stuff and what was going on.
And they come out there snatch me ut, throw me
up on the wall, talking about we got you. Don't
try to run. And I was sitting there thanking to myself,
I'm really you think I come in here just to
walk in here in the middle of the police station and.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Say hey, here I am, and then turn around running.
That don't make no sense.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
But they drove me in the back and any hold
and selling there and here come walking in Dallas battles.
I looked at him, and they sit down from me.
He said, Well, he said, I got you. I said,
you played all these games. I don't even know what
you talk about. Well, he said, we know you and Kane,
we know y'all conspired to kill you, buddy, Brian, I said,
everybody in this county knows that Brian Boldi's shot itself.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Now, Lee, it was January of twenty eight when you
and Kane went on trial together, and you each had
your own attorney. Your father had hired Zabernathy, and Cain
had a court appointed attorney named Larry J. Barkley. And
the prosecutor and his opening statement started out by telling
the jury that they were going to hear all about
this vicious gang called the free Birds.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Oh yeah, he built it all up on all that stuff,
told about a vic gang called the Free Birds and
how they how many basically were just notorious gangster killers.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And it was a joke. It was a joke, and
it wasn't a funny joke either.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I mean, yeah, you could laugh at it because it's laughable,
but it wasn't nothing funny body.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
And then probably one of the more damaging things that
happened a trial is that they played the tape of
Ken's confession. They've pled the entire tape where he starts
off saying that he did not shoot Brian, and eventually,
after being told by the police that he wouldn't be
any trouble if he admitted to it, he admits to it.
So the jury hears Caine his own words, say that
gums in my hand when it went off. Now this
(23:52):
is all given to the jury. They listen to it,
they hear about it, and then a few days later
the judge says, you know what, I changed my That
confession probably not legal. It was improper. It shouldn't have
been admitted. So the judge then tells the jury, pretend
you never heard that, ignore that confession, let's proceed. Do
you think the jury was able to forget the fact
(24:13):
that it heard that confession.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
No, no, I don't believe that one minute.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I mean, look way, as human beings, just human nature,
when something just put it in your head, you got
it in there, And I don't for one minute believe
that you'll sit there and let the jury hear that
and you disrespect them to disregard that, throwed out their head.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You never should have did it to begin with, It
never should have been admitted to begin with.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So the jury has just heard Caine confess to at
least accidentally shooting Brian. But the theory a trial, the
one they're trying to convince you of, is that you
Lee are the shooter and this whole thing was a
gang related revenge killing. So to support that, they bring
in Dobor Kelly, the house cleaner, who testifies that she
found the skull and Crossband's notebook, which, by the way,
(24:56):
never located, never found, never seen again, just gone, no
physical evidence that ever existed beyond what Debora Kelly and
another woman a friend of her, say about them seeing it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, how do you come under use in that? How
does that work?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
They never found any sort of evidence to actually back
up the story that she gives. But the state's case
relies more heavily on Angela Bruce and this alleged confession
that you and Kane supposedly made to her at a
party according to Angela Bruce, you and Kin explained to
her in explicit detail how this killing happened, and according
to her, this is what you say. That night, You, Caine,
(25:32):
and Caprice all conspired to kill Brian, and you did
it by having Caprice call Brian on the phone to
distract him. Then Kane shows up. He goes into Brian's
bedroom and distracts Brian even further. Meanwhile, Lee is sneaking
up outside of Brian's bedroom window. And by the way,
at the time, this window was actually boarded up with
a piece of plywood that you could kind of move
back and forth to open. But according to Angela Bruce,
(25:56):
what your role was to do was to shoot Brian
through the window and then run away while Kin stayed
behind to tell everyone that live be playing Russian Roulette
and Brian had lost.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
I couldn't wrap my mind around while she was up
for saying what she was saying. I mean, I'm sitting
there thinking to myself, I mean, this woman has never
laid eyes on me, and they in her life doesn't
even know me.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
But it's up her telling these lies on me.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
And I wasn't really for sure what the deal was
there and my attorney at the time, Rex Sabergathi.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
He said, I'm to tell you what it is.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
He said, they got something on her kids, and they're
using that against her. Right here, that's where Rex's mind
was at. So I want to thinking that stuff too.
I mean, I understand, Okay, they're holding your kids over
your head, and I get that part right there. Apparently
do just about anything for their kids. But what would
have been the right thing to do on her part
would have been to go up to the police station
(26:47):
and let it be known that they're over her, rassing her,
trying to get her to tell lies and using her kids,
holding them over her is what she should have did.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
But the jury heard Angela's testimony, and they heard the
prosecutor tell them that there was no reason to find
her not credible. And this was all shored up by
Charlie Childers, the deaf witness who'd been at the bowlings
watching TV that night. Now, Charlie's story doesn't actually come
in through Charlie. The prosecution put Dallas Battle in the
stand and he testified what Charlie had told him in
his interview. Min Jew protective. Battle did not speak sign
(27:18):
language and Charlie did not speak American Sign language, so
how Charlie and Battle communicated is a mystery. Wayne Charlie's
brother didn't speak sim language either, so there's no one
there who actual communicate with Charlie. So it's never explained
how exactly Charlie was able to tell Dallas Battle any
of this. And all of this happens without a single
hearsaym chection from Canaan Lee's attorneys, which is insane all
(27:42):
by itself, but it gets worse. Dallas Battle testifies that
Charlie told him that he had seen someone run across
the front yard after the gunshot. And then, according to
Dallas Battle, in the stand, Charlie has given a line
up with like six photos and he circles Lee Clark.
So they then put Charlie on the stand with an
ASL interpreter.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
And I'm not trying to speak bad about anybody. He
was on the stand. He could not use regular sign language.
The interpreter could clearly not communicate with him. The interpreter
told the judge a couple different points that she was
having difficult to communicate with him.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
She tells the Court, your honor, he's not speaking American
sign language. He's using home signs.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
The judge should have shut that down right then, but
he unless it play on, to play on.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
I can say that Charlie's testimony at your trial is
hands down the most chaotic witness testimony I've ever encountered
in any criminal trial and any trial ever. The poor
interpreter came in and very quickly realizes that she cannot
effectively talk to Charlie. But it's also very clear that
this story that Dallas Battle testified to about Charlie seeing anyone,
the lonely clerk right across the front yard, that's not
(28:50):
something Charlie can say. In the stand, he talks about
all kinds of things, talks about dogs and puppies, and
about how the boy he saw was a black boy
who had a wife.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, black boy. I couldn't get I couldn't get over
that black boy, black hair.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, yeah, has a wife.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
You know this is not going great. You can see
frustration from everyone, Like the prosecutor is frustrated, the fence
is frustrated, like everyone in this courtroom is about to
lose it because they've been here for hours trying to
talk to Charlie and is not working. He does say
he only saw Caine's story at the house that night,
just story. It's only after all that that they have
the prosecutor stand behind Lee Clark put his hands on
(29:26):
his shoulders that Charlie Childers allegedly says, yep, that's the
boy I saw. So that was the prosecution's case, and
the defense, for its part, carls Caprice's point, and she
says exactly the same thing she said the knight that
Brian was shot, which should have been compelling testimony for
the defense. However, the prosecution made her an unindicted co conspirator.
(29:48):
They decided they did not have enough evidence to actually
put her on trial, but they say she was also
gang member, was part of the murder conspiracy, and therefore
that's why she's lying.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, so, Bason, we don't have enough, We don't have
enough ividgen as you as a co conspirator, but we'll
go ahead and mudy your name. What was some lies
just so nobody believed the truth to tell him. That's
basically what it boiled down to.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
And then for his defense, Kine testifies on his own behalf,
which unfortunately did nothing to help you. Actually it hurt
you quite a lot, because Cain got up there and
told the truth, and the truth was that the two
of you had hung out together that night and that
you'd parted ways at the mini mart. But it wasn't
until Kane testified that anyone can actually place the two
(30:27):
of you together that day. There was no other evidence
that shows that you and Kane had ever even talked
or met up or had anything to do with one
another on that day. But then Kane's on the stand
and explains what happened earlier. He was also extremely emotional
the whole time. Apparently he cried through his entire testimony.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, he was a disaster when he was on the stand.
I mean, he could tell his emotions were getting the
better of him, and I don't know, looking back on
it now, I could see it for what it was
at the time. I mean, he's dealing with a lot
of stuff in his head. He's got a friend he
he watched kill hisself, and he's got all that bouncing
in his head, and he was trying to trying to
make things right by telling the truth. But just didn't
(31:07):
know that a lot of people, a lot of people
perceived all his crying and all that stuff they perceived
that is some kind of guilt. That's not what it was,
but that's why a lot of people perceived it at.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
That Pointly, how did you think the trial was going
for you?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I thought it was going great for me.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
I mean I thought Rex Shabern Atthew was doing a
really good job at the time. I mean I was
sitting there thinking, yeah, man, he's showing the people I
ain't had nothing to do with this junk here.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I'm finil to go home. That's what I'm thinking the
whole time, and.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
May not knowing that little stuff that Rex was missing,
that he wasn't hitting on, was going to wind up
hitting us really bad in the end.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So after closing arguments, the jury goes back to deliberate,
and in Georgia, the charges that you and canterfacing murder
and conspiracy to commit murder. Even in the case of
juveniles like you and Kane, they carry an automatic life sentence.
The jury went into deliberate on Saturday, and the judge
widn't have the next day off, but on Monday. When
they come back on January nineteenth, thineteen eighty eight, it
(31:59):
didn't not take them long before they returned with a verdict.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
When they read off that guilty verdict on them both
charges and found me guilty.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I mean I felt something, a feeling to come over me.
It's difficult to explain it, but my heart was sitting
in my chest.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I was about to choke to death sitting there watching
at eighteen years old and watching my life flashing before
my eyes. I'm seeing everything that I ain't never gonna have.
It's all just like it's passing in front of me
so much I've been to miss out on and wanting
to myself, im I even gonna make it through what they're.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Finishing me to After we're convicted. Were sent down to
(32:52):
the prison, Jackson State Prison. Me and came.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
We were on the same bus together. We pull up
in there looking at that prison engaged out there, and
just I looked at him. I said, well, ain't gonna
make at me. I said, I don't know what to
tell you, man, but in this aintle in well force.
And we get to going going through Jackson died Nasi
walking in there, and they take you around there and
put you in that sale. And we used to hear
them bars slamming a home lot they did, and I'm
(33:17):
just sitting there knowing that here I am, the whole
lies go went destroyed for some lives, and I sit
there for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
So your shared fight for freedom could not have been
more dire. And you appealed your case to the Supreme
Court of Georgia in nineteen ninety nine. And even though
the court agreed that the non existent gang ree book
shouldn't have been entered into evidence, they weighed against Angela
Bruce's testimony about the alleged confession and ultimately upheld the convictions.
Over the years, you and Kane spent a lot of
time in the same presence together, and eventually, when you
(33:47):
were up in Walker, you met another teenager who'd been
convicted of murder in Floyd County. That was Joey Watkins.
In fact, the two of you had had the same attorney,
Rex Abernathy.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yes, and if it were not for Joey, Hello, but
I met you, Susan, And what with Joey, I'd still
be in prison right now doing our life sentence.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
In twenty sixteen, I covered Joey's case for my podcast Undisclosed,
And while I was working on Joey's case, Joey told
me about someone else he knew in prison who had
also been falsely convicted of a murder in Floyd County
as a teenager. And then one day when he was
on the phone with me, he mentioned your case again,
and I was like, can I talk to him? And
(34:26):
He's like, yeah, hold on, I got him right here,
And that's how we talked for the very first time.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
When I got talking to you and you got telling
me what you were wanting to do and all that stuff,
I was thinking myself, well, he.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Be hot, you get this done.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
But I'll be honest, I fully expected when you went
out started talking to people, did you go and get
all the same lives that these people had been telling
years ago?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
When just Sinda and I started investigating your case in
twenty twenty one, we went down to Floyd County several
times looking for documents, talking witnesses, and unfortunately Dallas Battle
died about a week before our very first trip, but
we were able to talk to Angela Bruce, which was
really eye opening. She told us, just like you and
your attorney head guest, that Battle and Stewart had threatened
(35:09):
to charge her with a crime and have Family Services
take her children away if she didn't tell them what
they wanted to hear. Also, she said the Dallas battle
had frequently coerced her her sex, though she told us
she'd always turned him down despite that, And when Jasinda
and I went to her house, I mean, she was emotional,
but she told us, I feel terrible for what happened
to Lea and Kane, and I'm sorry, but I would
(35:30):
have lost my kids if I hadn't done it, And
what mother wouldn't do that if.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
They had to.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
We also tracked down Charlie Childers, and equally importantly, we
tracked down his high school teacher, who had known Charlie
for decades, like forty years, and he was familiar with
though Charlie and his unique style of sign language, and
could just talk to Charlie in a way that the
trial translator couldn't.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
If I'm not mistaking Susan, he's able to communicate with
him better than anybody one faced his planning.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
And we first began talking to Charlie with the translator,
which struck me was just how eager and relieved he
was to finally be able to tell his story because
he remembered this ordeal. He remember Brian dying and testifying
a trial, and clearly it had seriously affected him. But
what we found out through the translator is that a trial.
Charlie hadn't been testifying about Brian's death at all. He
(36:17):
thought he was there to talk about another shooting he'd
witnessed because years before Brian's death, back in the late seventies,
Charlie's brother Wayne had been in his bedroom with a
friend named Ronnie Quarrels, and the two boys had also
been playing with a gun when Ronnie ended up betting,
shot in the head and later died. It was this
event that Charlie thought the police were there to ask
(36:37):
him about, and it was Ronnie's death he was trying
to describe to them with his own limited home signing abilities.
And when we explained to Charlie that the trial he
had been at had been about Brian's death, not Ronnie's,
Charlie told us, but I didn't see anything for Brian's death.
I wasn't the house, but I didn't know anything about
how he died. And he definitely never saw a boy
(36:58):
run through the yard and he'd never seen Lee Clark before.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Ever. It was a trip made to find out all
these years later that that's what Charlie was testifying about.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
By then, the Georgia Edison's Project had also taken on
your case, and you ended up being the first non
DNA related case that they had an exoneration in based
in the evidence that we found in proof. They were
able to file an extraordinary motion for a new trial
in Floyd County as well as a habeas petition in
the county where you were in prison. But since the
Georgia Edison's Project couldn't also represent your co defendant, that
(37:28):
meant that Cain didn't have an attorney. After our show aired, though,
Luke Martin, an attorney from Floyd County, and Ross Hamrick,
who was in the PD's office there, contacted us. We
put them touch with Kine and they became his attorneys
as well. So all of the attorneys were preparing for
a hearing. But then, in a case that was already
beyond shocking, perhaps the most shocking thing yet occurred. The
(37:50):
Floyd County District Attorney ended up talking to your council
and agreeing that this case should be dismissed.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yes they did, I mean it was evident did much
conduct with the cops in there.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I mean there was no voiding it.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
I mean, Dallas battles and David Stewart broke so many
laws doing this. I mean, it was so obvious that
there was no sense of fighting.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Do you remember getting the news that you and came
to be released.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
I do remember getting the news.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I had called my dad and I was telling him
that I thought I was going to a hearing on
December to sixth. He said, well, you ain't gonna be
going no hearing on December to sixth. You got to
hear it coming up on December to eighth, and when
December to eighth gets here, you're gonna be coming home.
When he told me that, right there, Susan, I was
still riding at the cloud.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I never felt to feeling so great in my life.
I'll stay in that cloud now for the rest of
my life, because I know what it's like to sit
behind prison walls and not have a life, to sit
there and have it all snatched from you for something
you didn't even do. To finally have my life back,
to have my freedom back, and I'll tell you, I
plan on living all of it up to the fullest
every day, no matter what comes my way. Anything I'm
(38:55):
on face a life cannot be nowhere. It's difficult face
while I was in prison. What's hard for a lot
of people out here, it's a cakewalk to me because
I walk worse past, far worse.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
So we first of all, thank you so much for
being here today and sharing your story with us. I
know you've been trying to rebuild your life since you
were released, and if listeners want to help support you
on that, they can go to Mightycause dot com and
search for Lee Clark. Now, this is the part of
the show called Closing Arguments. It is your chance to
share any final thoughts that you might have with our
listeners about anything at all.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
The flora is yours, I would like.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, if there's any young young listeners out there,
are any god to be young listeners, there's anybody out
there just listening in general, if you're doing some wild
stuff out there that you shouldn't be doing anything like that.
I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that can happen
to your life. Just be smart about things, approach life
from a positive angle. I mean, look, I sit behind
(39:55):
prison walls for twenty five years for a crime I
didn't commit, but I didn't bring the negativity of it
with me. I didn't let the negativity of it destroyed me.
Stay in headstrong and believe it in yourself a lot
of times if you'll just stay that way. I mean, yeah,
it's not guaranteed to pay off every time, but it's
a better attitude to have than to sit there and
approach everything in life from a negative standpoint, because negativity
(40:18):
it's only going to weigh you down and destroy you
and n so anything in life, approach it from a
positive angle and take the good from it. Even when
there ain't much good to be found, Well, pick what
is good up and take it with you.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
It may not be much sturd to grab or grab
what you can.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
And I'm so thankful to everybody, from Joey Watkins to you,
to the Innocent Project to just send to Kevin everybody.
I'm just so thankful everybody to just put all the
horror work and time and different into all this stuff
to get this truth to.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Come out like it did. I tell you it's something
I'm not going to live down. I'll be living on
this cloud nine for a long time.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction I'm your guest
host Susan Simpson. Thanks to executive producers Jason Flahm and
Kevin Wardis for inviting me to be here, and thanks
also to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Llyla
Robinson and Jeff Kliberg. The music in this production comes
from three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook
(41:24):
at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
as well as Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can find me on Twitter at the View from
LL two and Instagram at soosimp and you can listen
to my podcast Proof and Undisclosed wherever you listen to
your podcasts. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
Good podcast, an association with Signal Company Number one
On the evening of October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six, seventeen
year old Cain's story came over to see his friend
Brian Bowling, who lived with his family in a trailer
near Rome, Georgia. Cain had brought along his father's revolver,
and the two boys sat in Brian's bed and passed
it back and forth, pretending to play Russian Roulette while
Brian talked to his girlfriend Caprice on the phone. Suddenly,
(00:25):
Caprice heard screaming, and then a few moments later she
heard someone hang up the phone. Brian had been shot
in the head and was rushed to the hospital, where
he died the next day. Initially, Cain told police that
his friend had accidentally shot himself, but during a second
interrogation two days later, Cain made a statement that the
gun had been in his hand when it went off,
(00:46):
though he insisted it had been an accident. Then a
witness came forward, claiming that Brian, kan and their friendly
Clark had all been members of a vicious gang called
the Free Birds, and that Brian's death had been retaliation
for him snitching by the theft that they'd committed. So
police began investigating the incident as a homicide, ultimately charging
Cain and Lee with Brian's murder. At trial, a witness
(01:09):
testified that Cain and Lee had bragged to her about
exacting their revenge on Brian, and a handwritten note found
talking to Brian's coffin corroborated the gang killing narrative. It
was right there in black and white. But this is
wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Susan Simpson,
(01:39):
host of the podcast Proof and Undisclosed, filling in for
Jason Flohm. Today's case is one that Justinta Davis and
I covered in season one of Proof. In nineteen ninety six,
fifteen year old Brian Bowling died of a gunshot wound
to the head, and eventually his seventeen year old friends
Lee Clark and Kane's Story were wrongfully convicted of his death,
and a confluence of fabrications, coercion, and misconduct led to
(02:01):
their arrest and conviction. And we're about to get to
all of that. But first here today to share his
incredible story is Lee Clark. Lee. It's great to.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
See you again, and see you too, Susan.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Now, Lee, before we get into everything that happened. Can
you tell the audience a little bit about you?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I was born in Rowing, Georgia, Floyd County. Most of
my childhood, my early childhood. I grew up in our
Murchy but went to Glenwood Elementary School. I've only got
one blood brother, my brother Jamie, and I've got step
sister or stepbrother Candy and Mark.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And then the lead up to all of this, to
what happened in K and A six, you were seventeen
years old and living in a small community south of Rome,
Georgia called Silver Creek.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
At that point in my life, I was young.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It's all on ne you at all. I was really
dumber on a box of rocks, is what my daddy
used to tell me. He's probably right too. I mean,
I was getting into a lot of trouble back in
nineteen ninety six doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing,
and breaking into people's homes and stuff like that. I
wasn't old enough to do it. But we drank a
little bit if we'd get alcohol. If not that, we'd
be smoking marijuana or something. Just hanging out as kids doing.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Doing crazy stupid junk kids do. Teenagers do.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And one of your oldest friends was Kin. Tell me
about him.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I came we were coming up, coming through high school
and stuff. He would be involved in some of the
stuff I was doing. But Kane, he was more of
a kind of goodie two shoes. He hung out with
the preppy crowd a lot that they all time questioned
him a lot about why he was hanging out with me.
And that's just because of the way I was back then.
I was just a young, stupid teenage kid. I mean,
I wasn't bad as I made out to be.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I mean, I just wanted people to think that, so
a lot of people would stay away from me.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And one of the boys that you guys hung out
with with a guy named Brian Bowling. How did you
know Brian.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I originally met Brian through Kane. When Kane moved out
to Silver Creek, he introduced me to Brian, and me
and Brian we became friends. Me and Brian were' as
closest Kine and Brian were. I mean, I lot Brian,
I mean I love Brian. He was a good friend
of mine, and just as I got a little bit older,
me being down there at his house became less frequent.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So were of ninety six. There was an incident that
happened when you were over at Cane's house. Tell me
about that.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It was on October third, nineteen ninety six. Day haunts
me still to this day. Is something a regret of
mine that I lived with. It's today that I went
to Cayne's house and all of us teenage boys over me, Caine,
his buddy Joseph Wilkins, and a buddy of mine named
Pete Jordan. We all decided we was going to steal
Cayne's diaddy safe from him.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the four of you stole the safe from Cane's dad,
took down the woods, busted it up, got some cash
out of it. How long did y'all get away with
a crime?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I was arrested four days after we stole this safe.
Caine and his buddy Joseph Wilkins, they were arrested today
we stole it, and then my friend Pete Jordan was
arrested three days later on October tenth.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, so it was not the crime of the century.
Y'all did not get away with it first more than
a few.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Of course. No, it was straight stupid. It is what
it was.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, Now, So Brian lived just down the hill for
I'm Kane, but he had nothing to do with this
safe though.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Right, No, no, he didn't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
But as we'll see, that incident, along with Brian's close
friendship with Cain, became important the prosecution's case. But for now,
let's go back to just after the safeist. The night
this happened, both Kane and his friend Joseph Fulkins were
both arrested, and since shortly after you and your friend
Pete Jordan were also arrested, well, logically it made sense
that either Kin or Joseph Fulkins had been the ones
(05:28):
to give you up. Again, though this was not the
crime of the century, the stakes were pretty low, and
that brings us to what happened October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
On October eighteenth, so I went to make Caine that
day because I know I'd been arrested in yours. I
just wanted to find out for him if it had
been his buddy Joseph did it told on us? Or
if it was had been Kane did it did it?
I knew it had to be one of them. I
just was sure which one, and I made him he
sat there each tell him me. He swording up down
and may it wasn't him. He didn't do it. He
don't know who did it. And he played that on
and on. So it's made to believe his friend Joseph
(05:59):
was won told honest. What come to find out a trial?
It was both Kane and Joseph they had told on us.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, so but.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
That night you talked to Caine, He's like, no, man,
wasn't me. I didn't telling y'all. And your little brother
was there too.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Right, Yes, he was there. You have my little brother, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
The three of you ended up just kind of hanging out.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
For a while. Yeah. Yeah, we just rode around when
shoot some pool and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
What kindness off? That's all in the motion, though, was
that night before Cain went out to meet with you
and Jamie he decided to grab a revolver from his
dad's bedside table. He was gonna go target chooting. It
was not the smartest idea since he was already in
trouble with his dad. But well, while you're hanging out,
he pulls the gun out and he shows it to
you and even fires it out of a car window
while you're driving around, just playing around. Eventually you decided
(06:44):
to take him home.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I wasn't going back to his house, cousin.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I wasn't gonna take no chance of his parents being home,
his mom or anything, or his dad. I don't want
either one tore saving me back in his house. So
I dropped him all the same place. I picked him
up at Silver Creetman in the market. You know, I
think about something now that I told Kane back then
that uh me telling him this. I could still hear
it so clearly in my head that wakes me up
sometimes the middle of the night still to this day.
(07:07):
I told him when was pulling up I was getting out,
I told him, I said, look, we've done stole yourdaddy
safe and now here it is. You've got your daddy's
gun on you. I said, if your diddy comes in
says that gun gone, he's gonna swer up down that
we stole that too. So I don't need this hanging
over me, Like, just take that gun back home where
you got it from. Well, hey, sister and tells me, yeah, man,
I'm gonna do it. I said, Okay, I'm serious, man,
(07:29):
Just get out the car, go straight home.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Put that gun back.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
He swears up and down to me he's gonna do it,
And that's the complete opposite of what he just told
me he was feeling to do.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, after you dropped him off with the mini, mart
Kin did not go directly home. Instead, he stopped at
Brian's trailer on the way. They are now Brian's parents,
his sister, and her boyfriend. They were all in the
living room watching TV with some neighbors, Waining and Charlie Childers.
When King got there, came knocking the door, said hi
to everyone. They told him that Brian's back in the
bedroom talking to his girlfriend Caprice. So he goes back
(07:59):
there and finds Brian sos high and you know, they
they're two teenage boys on the phone with the girlfriends.
So they start passing the phone back and forth talking
to her. Then at some point Kane puts out his
gun and shows it to Brian and he's like, hey, man,
look what I got.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
So what happened then, Well, the way Kane explains it
to me, he's in there and him and Brian put
a bullet in the gun and he says they started
playing Russian rou lit and he said there was cheating.
They was putting it in there, and they was taking
the chamber of a revolver. Anybody who knows anything about
a revolver knows if you're looking down at it from
the back of it, you can see where the bullets
were at. And that's what they were doing. They were
(08:32):
taking the revolver and they were spinning it to the
bottom and making sure the bullets wouldn't know where around
down there. And then they were cocking it, sticking it
to her head and pulling the trigger. And Kane says
they had went back a couple of rounds like he
back and forth, and the whole time, Brian is the
phone with his girlfriend, Caprice Hoyt, and he tells Kane
to tell her what I'm doing. So Kane tells her
He's playing Russian rou lit. Now, first she didn't know
(08:53):
what it was. I mean, she was a little alarm by,
but she didn't know what rushing roulett was. I mean,
she was telling him, tell him to stop, but she
she didn't understand fully what he was in there doing,
sticking it to his head, pulling the trigger until her
mom came in later after the fact, and she asked
her mom what rushing roulette was and her mom told
her what it was. Well, Kane, he plays it and
then Brian just he says, let me see that gun.
What Kane says, he snatched it from him, opened it up,
(09:16):
spun the cylinder, slapped it back in, caught the hammer back.
When Brian stuck it to his head, Kane says, he
looked at him and told him and said, don't do it,
bro He said it's to one. Now. Kane says that
Brian looked at him and said you think so and
pulled the trigger. Now, that's what Kine has told me
every time I've talked to him about this stuff, every
time I've confronted him body, He's always told me the
(09:38):
same thing and the.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Truth he told right now.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I mean, I can't tell you one hundred percent positive
what went done in there, but that's like I've told
you before, Susan. Look, I've struggled with that stuff for
many and many years. If he may have accidentally did
it and didn't want to tell me, but there's too
much stuff too support it, and that's why I choose
to believe it.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And a lot of what was observed immediately after the
shooting supports what can say. The folks in the living
room who had heard the gunshot rushed into Brian's room
and found him there on the floor with blood pulled
around his head and critically, the gun was underneath Brian
where he was lying on the floor, and Caprice was
still in the phone. She was yelling trying to figure
it what was happening she could kill the screaming, heard
(10:16):
someone say they got to call her back and the
line going dead as the family then calls nine one
one very quickly after that, the police and paramedics arrive
and Brian was transported to the hospital as he fought
for his life. Meanwhile, though, Lee, you had no idea
that any of this was happening. After you dropped Can off,
what did you do the rest.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Of the night, Me and my brother turned around with
my apartment in Lyndale where my girlfriend Shelley at a time,
and a bunch of my other buddies were showing up
over there. I was having a party at my apartment
that night and we got over went to party and dranking,
smoking with you, doing stupid teenager stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And at around eight thirty that night, two of your friends,
Doug and Dawn were dropped out by their mom, and
she testified later at trial that while she was there
to drop her sons off, you were standing out by
her car and you were talking, and she told you
that something was happening down at Brian Bowling's place.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I asked her what she meant, and she told me
that there's a bunch of cop cars down in their driveways.
We were making all kinds of sumptions to what we thought
it may have been, but we were fall off face.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The next morning, the doctors told Brian's family that there
was no hope of recovery, and his parents agreed to
donate his organs, and around noon the day after he
was shot, he was declared dead.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, the next morning I got up and I found
out that two different people that Brian had shot herself
the night before. My mom had called me and told me,
and also Doug and Don's grandmother had told us about
it when she come by to pick Doug.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And down up.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Now, during the initial investigation, the police took photos of
the scene and talked to some of the family and
other witnesses at the hospital, and of course they talked
to Kane, who was taken down to the police station
and had his hand swap for gunshot residue. When the
police spoke to Caprice, she corroborated Cane's story that Brian
and Kan told her on the phone that they had
a gun and they were playing Russian Roulette. The last
thing she heard was Brian saying I'm playing with the gun,
(12:02):
followed by screaming and someone hanging up. After talking to
Kane at Caprice, the police initially declared it next andal death.
An autopsy, if it was done, would have shown conclusively
that Brian had been holding the gun up to his
head when it was fired, except one was never done,
or at least there's no record of it. Unfortunately, without
an autopsy, and after talking to Brian's family as well,
(12:24):
investigators were free to get imaginative. So later that weekend,
Detective Dallas Battle and Sergeant Mike Wallace brought Cain in
for a second interview. This time they recorded it. At first,
Cain insist again and again that Brian shot himself and
they've been playing Russian Roulette and it was something more
than that. But detectives keep telling him, we know you
had the gun. Just tell us you had the gun.
If you tell us that you had the gun when
(12:45):
it went off, Nothing will happen to you. You won't
be in trouble to tell us that. And after this
goes on for half an hour or so, Kane eventually
gives in and says that, yeah, the gun was in
my hand when it went off. Lee, what has Kane
told you about this interview?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, he said they kept coming at him, but during
the interview they were making him saying like that it
was no big deal. That he just say what they
wanted him to say. They won't gonna be in any trouble.
Just go ahead and bit to you did this?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Would you say? What was then? Act?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
And that's gonna be it and we can now all
go home. And Kane, being young like he was, battles
tricked him. He just deceived him into it. I mean, Kane,
he's easily misled. I mean he's always been that way.
He's a full grown man now and I hate to
say it, but he's still easily misled today.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So when Cain admitted to this, to having the gun
in his hand when it accidentally goes off, he's arrested
charges manslaughter and re leased a bond. And then a
few months later that gunshot residue test comes back and
it's negative. There was no jess horn Kan's hands. Now,
these tests are often junk science because the false positives
and false negatives they can generate. You can hear all
(13:44):
about that on Wrong Fiction Junk Science. We'll have that
episode linked in this episode's bio. But Dallas Battle believed
in these tests, and since Kane tested negative for gunshot residue,
this gave Dallas Battle a problem because if this was
a murder, that meant Kin couldn't have done it, and
he now needed a second shooter, which is what made
leads wrongful conviction even possible. So Lee, how do you
(14:06):
think you got drawn to this whole investigation?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Well, shortly after Brian had shot herself and everything, I
was hearing all these rumors, these lies going around that
I was there, that I was hit outside, all this
and that, and I wasn't sure where all that was
coming from at the time, But later down the line,
after I was all said and done, I started pacing
together had been coming from a guy that I knew
when I was younger and had a little bad blove
(14:31):
with him, and his name was Tommy Hyde. Me and
Tommy were never on good terms and stuff, and no
doubt Dallas Battles was using him to spread stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Now, you and Battle had a bit of history.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Right, Yeah, we had pretty deep history, man, Dallas Battles.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Did do you think your previous run ends with the law,
including that recent safe theft, had anything to do with
Battles zeroing in on you.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, I'll tell you straight up. Dallas Battles was a
corrupt cop, crooked as they come. This man took an
oath when he with that badge owned uphold the law.
And even though I was a young, stupid teenage boy
and stuff, Dallas Battles knew what he was doing. He
was a full grown man. And what he did to
me he broke every law did he know all of them?
(15:14):
And wanted to make stuff seem like it was a
certain way, and that's what he did. He spun it
that way, made it look like it. That's no doubt
my mind. He knew the truth about it.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
He just didn't want to put it out there as
he was dead set on setting me up.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Now, around this time, another Flood County officer, David Stewart,
joined the investigation, and he and Battle developed this theory
that Brian had not been shot accidentally, there had been
no Russian roulette, but rather this was all a gang
related revenge hit killing. Now, remember this is late nineteen nineties,
and there's kind of the massesteria going on about quote
(15:45):
unquote gang buns in America, which, although was not prominent
in Rome, Georgia at the time, was nevertheless sort of
in the public ze guist and affecting how people interpreted
this evidence, which is why Bone Thugs in Harmony and
the fact that Brian and his friends listened to that
came an important part of the case. Anyway, there was
a woman named Debor Kelly, who Kan's mother once hired
to clean her house, and she told the police that
(16:07):
while she was cleaning the house, she'd found this what
she called a devilish notebook because it had skulls and
crossbones on it, and when she snooped through the notebook,
that's how she says she discovered that you Can and
Brian were all members of this gang called the Freebirds. Now,
Debora Kelly also said that this notebook had the gang's
rules written out inside of it. Now, Lee, what were
some of the alleged rules that this gang had.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
So I wanted to try to say he was in
there and never do drugs. Yeah right, Yeah, that really
went well with us. Back in every time you turn around,
we spoke in pot.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
The gang's other rules were always stand by your brother,
never talked to the police, and if a brother does
talk to police, you have to kill him. If you
don't kill them, you get killed yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
That's what they say it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So the police decided that Brian had narked quote unquote
on the other gang members by turning them in for
the safe theft, and therefore Lee and Kane had been
obligated to kill him because of their gang of rules.
Don't forget that. Another influence on this murder was Bone
Thugs and Harmony and they're nineteen ninety six hit single,
(17:12):
Yeah Lacrossroad cross Roads.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Now, Crossroads was a favorite song of Brian's. It was
playing at the time he was shot, and the investigators
tracked down the lyrics and decided that the song Crossroads
is about shooting narcs, and that that was why the
song was playing when Brian died.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And whoever listened to that song knows that's not what
that song is about. You know this whole gang stuff.
It's so comical to me, it's simply it's just a joke.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
And if I don't have a.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Sense of humor about it, I'm gonna cry about it,
because in fact this the blase or what destroyed my
life for many years.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Their theory was hair brained. It defies logic and reason,
but Atal and Stewart were committed to it and somehow
needed to drum up evidence to support it. That's why
they ended up exhooming Brian's body in a search for evidence,
and in the coffin when they opened it up, they
found two handwritten notes. One of them had the lyrics
to Crossroads written out on it, and the other was
(18:25):
a note from Joseph Wilkins, the fourth member of the
Safe Theft group. It had a drawing of a little
eagle carrying a bag of weed and a banner that
said freebirds, and the note to Brian below it was
something like, fly high, brother, see you at the crossroads.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Love you.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
But on the little flag though eagles carring the one
that says freebird's on it. Here's like a little addition
made in the corner of the flag. It has the
word narks on it. And it's crossed out like with
the no smoking sign and a trial. It's this note
that's uses evidence that Brian was killed as a gang
revenge murder, although it's worth noting that the handwriting of
the word arks is very different from the neat cursive
(19:03):
that the rest of the note is written in.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yes it is, and you know, Susan, I would not
put it past Dallas Bidles to have did that, because
you've done did some other shady stuff, so you ain't
gonna stop her, not I see it.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And then in May of nineteen eighty seven, the police
got two more key pieces to their theory. The first
was a woman named Angela Bruce, who was interviewed and
told Battle and Stuart that in about February of that year,
she'd had a party and that's when Cain and this
other boy he'd brought along with him had bragged her
about killing Brian. They told her the whole story about
(19:35):
how they had a gang and the rules. So they
had a killing member who narked on them, so they
put a pill over his head and shot him. Now,
the first time that Angela Bruce is interviewed, her story
has nothing about Caprice in it nothing about the girl
from the phone who says she heard Brian say he's
playing Russian Roulette and then screaming. So a couple days later,
the cops go back and talk to Angela again, and
(19:55):
this time she has more to that add the story.
She says that Bryan's girlfriend, Caprice, was also a member
of the Freeburg gang and that she had conspired with
Kin and Lee to kill him, which effectively discredited Caprice,
who had initially corroborated that Brian's death was accidental. Now, Lee,
did you even know Caprice?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
No?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
No, I'd never met Capri before. I never actually sent
her till we got to trial.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Kin hadn't actually met her either. I mean he talked
with her on the phone a few times when it's
over at Brian's, but he hadn't seen her in person.
But Angela's story making Caprice part of the gang and
part of the murder conspiracy was still not enough by
itself to hold this theory together. Lee, you had about
ten witnesses who could have placed you at your home
that night, and no one in the living room at
Brian's trailer mentioned you being there, said anything about you
(20:40):
at all. But then battle says, he gets a tip
it wasn't just Brian's family who'd been in the living
room that night. Two neighbors, Wayne and Charlie Childers were
also there and apparently were never interviewed. Seven months later,
he talks to them and Wayne says, my brother, Charlie, Yeah,
he saw something important that he needs to tell you.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Charlie Childers is stuff and didn't speak standard American sign language,
but he allegedly somehow told Dallas Battle that after everyone
had run to Brian's room that night after hearing a gunshot,
he'd stayed behind in the living room, and that's how
he'd looked out a window and seeing a boy running
across the Bowling's front yard. Battle would later testify a
(21:20):
trial that Charlie had add this boy in a lineup
as Lee Clark. So with Angela Bruce, and Charlie Childs,
Dallas Battle and David Stewart, now had they needed to
charge you in Kine with conspiracy and first degree murder?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, never forget that day as long as I live.
Made the twenty third of nineteen ninety seven Memorial Day weekend,
I was on my way to go to the lake.
My mom my stepdad, my brother, my girlfriend, Shelley, her
boy to code, going down there to teach the code
to hide the ski and everything.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Well, I got over.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
To my mom's house and stuff, and she come out,
she's crying and stuff. I didn't know what was going on.
She told me they'd been by there would have warrant
from my wrist. She said, what they've been by your
daddy's place too, all my dad. First thing you asked
when I got on there, He said, well, have you
done got yourself a baald? Then I said, I ain't
did nothing. I said, this has got to be a mistake.
We did going down here to the jail and find
out what's going on. And we rode down there to
(22:10):
county jail. I went inside the county jail thinking I
was going in there to get something straightened out. I
go in there to tell the lady behind the register
that my name and stuff and what was going on.
And they come out there snatch me ut, throw me
up on the wall, talking about we got you. Don't
try to run. And I was sitting there thanking to myself,
I'm really you think I come in here just to
walk in here in the middle of the police station and.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Say hey, here I am, and then turn around running.
That don't make no sense.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
But they drove me in the back and any hold
and selling there and here come walking in Dallas battles.
I looked at him, and they sit down from me.
He said, Well, he said, I got you. I said,
you played all these games. I don't even know what
you talk about. Well, he said, we know you and Kane,
we know y'all conspired to kill you, buddy, Brian, I said,
everybody in this county knows that Brian Boldi's shot itself.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Now, Lee, it was January of twenty eight when you
and Kane went on trial together, and you each had
your own attorney. Your father had hired Zabernathy, and Cain
had a court appointed attorney named Larry J. Barkley. And
the prosecutor and his opening statement started out by telling
the jury that they were going to hear all about
this vicious gang called the free Birds.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Oh yeah, he built it all up on all that stuff,
told about a vic gang called the Free Birds and
how they how many basically were just notorious gangster killers.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And it was a joke. It was a joke, and
it wasn't a funny joke either.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I mean, yeah, you could laugh at it because it's laughable,
but it wasn't nothing funny body.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
And then probably one of the more damaging things that
happened a trial is that they played the tape of
Ken's confession. They've pled the entire tape where he starts
off saying that he did not shoot Brian, and eventually,
after being told by the police that he wouldn't be
any trouble if he admitted to it, he admits to it.
So the jury hears Caine his own words, say that
gums in my hand when it went off. Now this
(23:52):
is all given to the jury. They listen to it,
they hear about it, and then a few days later
the judge says, you know what, I changed my That
confession probably not legal. It was improper. It shouldn't have
been admitted. So the judge then tells the jury, pretend
you never heard that, ignore that confession, let's proceed. Do
you think the jury was able to forget the fact
(24:13):
that it heard that confession.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
No, no, I don't believe that one minute.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I mean, look way, as human beings, just human nature,
when something just put it in your head, you got
it in there, And I don't for one minute believe
that you'll sit there and let the jury hear that
and you disrespect them to disregard that, throwed out their head.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You never should have did it to begin with, It
never should have been admitted to begin with.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So the jury has just heard Caine confess to at
least accidentally shooting Brian. But the theory a trial, the
one they're trying to convince you of, is that you
Lee are the shooter and this whole thing was a
gang related revenge killing. So to support that, they bring
in Dobor Kelly, the house cleaner, who testifies that she
found the skull and Crossband's notebook, which, by the way,
(24:56):
never located, never found, never seen again, just gone, no
physical evidence that ever existed beyond what Debora Kelly and
another woman a friend of her, say about them seeing it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, how do you come under use in that? How
does that work?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
They never found any sort of evidence to actually back
up the story that she gives. But the state's case
relies more heavily on Angela Bruce and this alleged confession
that you and Kane supposedly made to her at a
party according to Angela Bruce, you and Kin explained to
her in explicit detail how this killing happened, and according
to her, this is what you say. That night, You, Caine,
(25:32):
and Caprice all conspired to kill Brian, and you did
it by having Caprice call Brian on the phone to
distract him. Then Kane shows up. He goes into Brian's
bedroom and distracts Brian even further. Meanwhile, Lee is sneaking
up outside of Brian's bedroom window. And by the way,
at the time, this window was actually boarded up with
a piece of plywood that you could kind of move
back and forth to open. But according to Angela Bruce,
(25:56):
what your role was to do was to shoot Brian
through the window and then run away while Kin stayed
behind to tell everyone that live be playing Russian Roulette
and Brian had lost.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
I couldn't wrap my mind around while she was up
for saying what she was saying. I mean, I'm sitting
there thinking to myself, I mean, this woman has never
laid eyes on me, and they in her life doesn't
even know me.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
But it's up her telling these lies on me.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
And I wasn't really for sure what the deal was
there and my attorney at the time, Rex Sabergathi.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
He said, I'm to tell you what it is.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
He said, they got something on her kids, and they're
using that against her. Right here, that's where Rex's mind
was at. So I want to thinking that stuff too.
I mean, I understand, Okay, they're holding your kids over
your head, and I get that part right there. Apparently
do just about anything for their kids. But what would
have been the right thing to do on her part
would have been to go up to the police station
(26:47):
and let it be known that they're over her, rassing her,
trying to get her to tell lies and using her kids,
holding them over her is what she should have did.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
But the jury heard Angela's testimony, and they heard the
prosecutor tell them that there was no reason to find
her not credible. And this was all shored up by
Charlie Childers, the deaf witness who'd been at the bowlings
watching TV that night. Now, Charlie's story doesn't actually come
in through Charlie. The prosecution put Dallas Battle in the
stand and he testified what Charlie had told him in
his interview. Min Jew protective. Battle did not speak sign
(27:18):
language and Charlie did not speak American Sign language, so
how Charlie and Battle communicated is a mystery. Wayne Charlie's
brother didn't speak sim language either, so there's no one
there who actual communicate with Charlie. So it's never explained
how exactly Charlie was able to tell Dallas Battle any
of this. And all of this happens without a single
hearsaym chection from Canaan Lee's attorneys, which is insane all
(27:42):
by itself, but it gets worse. Dallas Battle testifies that
Charlie told him that he had seen someone run across
the front yard after the gunshot. And then, according to
Dallas Battle, in the stand, Charlie has given a line
up with like six photos and he circles Lee Clark.
So they then put Charlie on the stand with an
ASL interpreter.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
And I'm not trying to speak bad about anybody. He
was on the stand. He could not use regular sign language.
The interpreter could clearly not communicate with him. The interpreter
told the judge a couple different points that she was
having difficult to communicate with him.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
She tells the Court, your honor, he's not speaking American
sign language. He's using home signs.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
The judge should have shut that down right then, but
he unless it play on, to play on.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
I can say that Charlie's testimony at your trial is
hands down the most chaotic witness testimony I've ever encountered
in any criminal trial and any trial ever. The poor
interpreter came in and very quickly realizes that she cannot
effectively talk to Charlie. But it's also very clear that
this story that Dallas Battle testified to about Charlie seeing anyone,
the lonely clerk right across the front yard, that's not
(28:50):
something Charlie can say. In the stand, he talks about
all kinds of things, talks about dogs and puppies, and
about how the boy he saw was a black boy
who had a wife.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, black boy. I couldn't get I couldn't get over
that black boy, black hair.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, yeah, has a wife.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
You know this is not going great. You can see
frustration from everyone, Like the prosecutor is frustrated, the fence
is frustrated, like everyone in this courtroom is about to
lose it because they've been here for hours trying to
talk to Charlie and is not working. He does say
he only saw Caine's story at the house that night,
just story. It's only after all that that they have
the prosecutor stand behind Lee Clark put his hands on
(29:26):
his shoulders that Charlie Childers allegedly says, yep, that's the
boy I saw. So that was the prosecution's case, and
the defense, for its part, carls Caprice's point, and she
says exactly the same thing she said the knight that
Brian was shot, which should have been compelling testimony for
the defense. However, the prosecution made her an unindicted co conspirator.
(29:48):
They decided they did not have enough evidence to actually
put her on trial, but they say she was also
gang member, was part of the murder conspiracy, and therefore
that's why she's lying.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, so, Bason, we don't have enough, We don't have
enough ividgen as you as a co conspirator, but we'll
go ahead and mudy your name. What was some lies
just so nobody believed the truth to tell him. That's
basically what it boiled down to.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
And then for his defense, Kine testifies on his own behalf,
which unfortunately did nothing to help you. Actually it hurt
you quite a lot, because Cain got up there and
told the truth, and the truth was that the two
of you had hung out together that night and that
you'd parted ways at the mini mart. But it wasn't
until Kane testified that anyone can actually place the two
(30:27):
of you together that day. There was no other evidence
that shows that you and Kane had ever even talked
or met up or had anything to do with one
another on that day. But then Kane's on the stand
and explains what happened earlier. He was also extremely emotional
the whole time. Apparently he cried through his entire testimony.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, he was a disaster when he was on the stand.
I mean, he could tell his emotions were getting the
better of him, and I don't know, looking back on
it now, I could see it for what it was
at the time. I mean, he's dealing with a lot
of stuff in his head. He's got a friend he
he watched kill hisself, and he's got all that bouncing
in his head, and he was trying to trying to
make things right by telling the truth. But just didn't
(31:07):
know that a lot of people, a lot of people
perceived all his crying and all that stuff they perceived
that is some kind of guilt. That's not what it was,
but that's why a lot of people perceived it at.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
That Pointly, how did you think the trial was going
for you?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I thought it was going great for me.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
I mean I thought Rex Shabern Atthew was doing a
really good job at the time. I mean I was
sitting there thinking, yeah, man, he's showing the people I
ain't had nothing to do with this junk here.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I'm finil to go home. That's what I'm thinking the
whole time, and.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
May not knowing that little stuff that Rex was missing,
that he wasn't hitting on, was going to wind up
hitting us really bad in the end.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So after closing arguments, the jury goes back to deliberate,
and in Georgia, the charges that you and canterfacing murder
and conspiracy to commit murder. Even in the case of
juveniles like you and Kane, they carry an automatic life sentence.
The jury went into deliberate on Saturday, and the judge
widn't have the next day off, but on Monday. When
they come back on January nineteenth, thineteen eighty eight, it
(31:59):
didn't not take them long before they returned with a verdict.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
When they read off that guilty verdict on them both
charges and found me guilty.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I mean I felt something, a feeling to come over me.
It's difficult to explain it, but my heart was sitting
in my chest.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I was about to choke to death sitting there watching
at eighteen years old and watching my life flashing before
my eyes. I'm seeing everything that I ain't never gonna have.
It's all just like it's passing in front of me
so much I've been to miss out on and wanting
to myself, im I even gonna make it through what they're.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Finishing me to After we're convicted. Were sent down to
(32:52):
the prison, Jackson State Prison. Me and came.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
We were on the same bus together. We pull up
in there looking at that prison engaged out there, and
just I looked at him. I said, well, ain't gonna
make at me. I said, I don't know what to
tell you, man, but in this aintle in well force.
And we get to going going through Jackson died Nasi
walking in there, and they take you around there and
put you in that sale. And we used to hear
them bars slamming a home lot they did, and I'm
(33:17):
just sitting there knowing that here I am, the whole
lies go went destroyed for some lives, and I sit
there for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
So your shared fight for freedom could not have been
more dire. And you appealed your case to the Supreme
Court of Georgia in nineteen ninety nine. And even though
the court agreed that the non existent gang ree book
shouldn't have been entered into evidence, they weighed against Angela
Bruce's testimony about the alleged confession and ultimately upheld the convictions.
Over the years, you and Kane spent a lot of
time in the same presence together, and eventually, when you
(33:47):
were up in Walker, you met another teenager who'd been
convicted of murder in Floyd County. That was Joey Watkins.
In fact, the two of you had had the same attorney,
Rex Abernathy.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yes, and if it were not for Joey, Hello, but
I met you, Susan, And what with Joey, I'd still
be in prison right now doing our life sentence.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
In twenty sixteen, I covered Joey's case for my podcast Undisclosed,
And while I was working on Joey's case, Joey told
me about someone else he knew in prison who had
also been falsely convicted of a murder in Floyd County
as a teenager. And then one day when he was
on the phone with me, he mentioned your case again,
and I was like, can I talk to him? And
(34:26):
He's like, yeah, hold on, I got him right here,
And that's how we talked for the very first time.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
When I got talking to you and you got telling
me what you were wanting to do and all that stuff,
I was thinking myself, well, he.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Be hot, you get this done.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
But I'll be honest, I fully expected when you went
out started talking to people, did you go and get
all the same lives that these people had been telling
years ago?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
When just Sinda and I started investigating your case in
twenty twenty one, we went down to Floyd County several
times looking for documents, talking witnesses, and unfortunately Dallas Battle
died about a week before our very first trip, but
we were able to talk to Angela Bruce, which was
really eye opening. She told us, just like you and
your attorney head guest, that Battle and Stewart had threatened
(35:09):
to charge her with a crime and have Family Services
take her children away if she didn't tell them what
they wanted to hear. Also, she said the Dallas battle
had frequently coerced her her sex, though she told us
she'd always turned him down despite that, And when Jasinda
and I went to her house, I mean, she was emotional,
but she told us, I feel terrible for what happened
to Lea and Kane, and I'm sorry, but I would
(35:30):
have lost my kids if I hadn't done it, And
what mother wouldn't do that if.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
They had to.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
We also tracked down Charlie Childers, and equally importantly, we
tracked down his high school teacher, who had known Charlie
for decades, like forty years, and he was familiar with
though Charlie and his unique style of sign language, and
could just talk to Charlie in a way that the
trial translator couldn't.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
If I'm not mistaking Susan, he's able to communicate with
him better than anybody one faced his planning.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
And we first began talking to Charlie with the translator,
which struck me was just how eager and relieved he
was to finally be able to tell his story because
he remembered this ordeal. He remember Brian dying and testifying
a trial, and clearly it had seriously affected him. But
what we found out through the translator is that a trial.
Charlie hadn't been testifying about Brian's death at all. He
(36:17):
thought he was there to talk about another shooting he'd
witnessed because years before Brian's death, back in the late seventies,
Charlie's brother Wayne had been in his bedroom with a
friend named Ronnie Quarrels, and the two boys had also
been playing with a gun when Ronnie ended up betting,
shot in the head and later died. It was this
event that Charlie thought the police were there to ask
(36:37):
him about, and it was Ronnie's death he was trying
to describe to them with his own limited home signing abilities.
And when we explained to Charlie that the trial he
had been at had been about Brian's death, not Ronnie's,
Charlie told us, but I didn't see anything for Brian's death.
I wasn't the house, but I didn't know anything about
how he died. And he definitely never saw a boy
(36:58):
run through the yard and he'd never seen Lee Clark before.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Ever. It was a trip made to find out all
these years later that that's what Charlie was testifying about.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
By then, the Georgia Edison's Project had also taken on
your case, and you ended up being the first non
DNA related case that they had an exoneration in based
in the evidence that we found in proof. They were
able to file an extraordinary motion for a new trial
in Floyd County as well as a habeas petition in
the county where you were in prison. But since the
Georgia Edison's Project couldn't also represent your co defendant, that
(37:28):
meant that Cain didn't have an attorney. After our show aired, though,
Luke Martin, an attorney from Floyd County, and Ross Hamrick,
who was in the PD's office there, contacted us. We
put them touch with Kine and they became his attorneys
as well. So all of the attorneys were preparing for
a hearing. But then, in a case that was already
beyond shocking, perhaps the most shocking thing yet occurred. The
(37:50):
Floyd County District Attorney ended up talking to your council
and agreeing that this case should be dismissed.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yes they did, I mean it was evident did much
conduct with the cops in there.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I mean there was no voiding it.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
I mean, Dallas battles and David Stewart broke so many
laws doing this. I mean, it was so obvious that
there was no sense of fighting.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Do you remember getting the news that you and came
to be released.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
I do remember getting the news.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I had called my dad and I was telling him
that I thought I was going to a hearing on
December to sixth. He said, well, you ain't gonna be
going no hearing on December to sixth. You got to
hear it coming up on December to eighth, and when
December to eighth gets here, you're gonna be coming home.
When he told me that, right there, Susan, I was
still riding at the cloud.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I never felt to feeling so great in my life.
I'll stay in that cloud now for the rest of
my life, because I know what it's like to sit
behind prison walls and not have a life, to sit
there and have it all snatched from you for something
you didn't even do. To finally have my life back,
to have my freedom back, and I'll tell you, I
plan on living all of it up to the fullest
every day, no matter what comes my way. Anything I'm
(38:55):
on face a life cannot be nowhere. It's difficult face
while I was in prison. What's hard for a lot
of people out here, it's a cakewalk to me because
I walk worse past, far worse.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
So we first of all, thank you so much for
being here today and sharing your story with us. I
know you've been trying to rebuild your life since you
were released, and if listeners want to help support you
on that, they can go to Mightycause dot com and
search for Lee Clark. Now, this is the part of
the show called Closing Arguments. It is your chance to
share any final thoughts that you might have with our
listeners about anything at all.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
The flora is yours, I would like.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, if there's any young young listeners out there,
are any god to be young listeners, there's anybody out
there just listening in general, if you're doing some wild
stuff out there that you shouldn't be doing anything like that.
I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that can happen
to your life. Just be smart about things, approach life
from a positive angle. I mean, look, I sit behind
(39:55):
prison walls for twenty five years for a crime I
didn't commit, but I didn't bring the negativity of it
with me. I didn't let the negativity of it destroyed me.
Stay in headstrong and believe it in yourself a lot
of times if you'll just stay that way. I mean, yeah,
it's not guaranteed to pay off every time, but it's
a better attitude to have than to sit there and
approach everything in life from a negative standpoint, because negativity
(40:18):
it's only going to weigh you down and destroy you
and n so anything in life, approach it from a
positive angle and take the good from it. Even when
there ain't much good to be found, Well, pick what
is good up and take it with you.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
It may not be much sturd to grab or grab
what you can.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
And I'm so thankful to everybody, from Joey Watkins to you,
to the Innocent Project to just send to Kevin everybody.
I'm just so thankful everybody to just put all the
horror work and time and different into all this stuff
to get this truth to.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Come out like it did. I tell you it's something
I'm not going to live down. I'll be living on
this cloud nine for a long time.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction I'm your guest
host Susan Simpson. Thanks to executive producers Jason Flahm and
Kevin Wardis for inviting me to be here, and thanks
also to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Llyla
Robinson and Jeff Kliberg. The music in this production comes
from three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook
(41:24):
at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
as well as Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can find me on Twitter at the View from
LL two and Instagram at soosimp and you can listen
to my podcast Proof and Undisclosed wherever you listen to
your podcasts. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
Good podcast, an association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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