February 12, 2024 • 44 mins
On a November Sunday in 2005, two 14-year-olds were shot outside of a street carnival in South Central Los Angeles, CA. One of the teenagers died, but the surviving victim and other individuals identified 21-year-old Jason Walton as the gunman. Despite having been seen on video surveillance footage miles from the scene at the time, and with no physical evidence linking him to the crime, Jason was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. Jason believes police never bothered investigating other leads.“I don't feel like they ultimately cared about the victim nor myself,” says Jason, speaking by phone from California State Prison. “It's like, “Well, one gang member's dead, one gang member's shot, one gang member's in jail. We got a three for one in a way.”
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://theinnocencecenter.org/jason-walton
https://linktr.ee/Justice4jasonwalton
Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It was early Sunday evening in November of two thousand
and five, and a pop up street fair was in
full swing in south central Los Angeles. The neighborhood had
turned out to enjoy the rides, carnival games, hot dogs,
and cotton candy. Crowds of people were milling around the
entrance at the corner of Rodeo Road and Second Avenue. Suddenly,
(00:28):
half a dozen shots rang out and two kids fell
to the ground. Fourteen year old William Cox was shot
twice in the torso and died at the scene. His friend,
Edward Williams, also fourteen, was shot in the heart, but
somehow he survived. At the hospital. Edward gave police the
names of several rival gang members who might have been
(00:51):
the shootor.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
They opened up the book of all the people that
they believed were members of the Mansfield This is Jason,
He's from Mansfield, whatnot. And that's where things just started
to snowball and I became target number one.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
That night, Jason Malton had been hanging out with a
group of friends miles from the crime scene. His alibi
was solid, but once the police had fixed their sights
on him, the truth was meaningless.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't feel like they altoly cared about the victim
nor myself. It's like, okay, well, one gang members dead,
one gang member shot, one gang members in jail. We
got a three for one.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
In a way, this is grooble telling you have a
prepaid call from Jason Vanners and one an inmate at
the California State Prison, Lancaster, California.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Freeling today.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Jason Walton, my name is Jason Robert Walton.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I'm from Los Angeles, California. I was arrested and ultimately
longfully convicted November seventeenth, two thousand and five.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
Jason was a real fun loving kid. He loved sports.
He collected basketball cards and things like that.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
This is Jason's mother, Francisle Johnson. Most people call her friend.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
She mostly raised me along that. I did sometimes go
and visit my father, but living with my mother was
where I was most comfortable, where I wanted to be.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
We always had a big dinner on at my parents' house,
and either my mom would cook or my dad would barbecue.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I thought I was rich. I thought the world was perfect,
and I loved to play video games, collect sports cards, POGs,
just anything that you collect. My hobbies consisted of building
things and fixing things.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
If he saw a radio or portable TV that was
sitting on the curb or near the alley, he would
want to take it home and try to fix it,
and quite often it would work.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
As I got older, I grew a fascination with cars,
and I started with building model cars. And I realized
at a young age that I was good at it
because I can take a box, take the kid out,
and I would never remove the instructions from the box,
and I can put the whole car together.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Jason was a pretty typical kid, into cars, bikes, video games,
and sports.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Swimming, fishing, or anything that that involved being outside. I
love to push the envelope. I was somewhat of a daredevil,
so whether that was trying to ride a bike on
one wheel for the whole the lamp of the block,
or holding onto the ice cream truck to gain speed
(04:31):
to try to jump over a makeshift lamp that we made.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Jason describes himself as a class clown, someone who loved
to make people laugh, but he also had more serious ambitions.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I wanted to be a lawyer when I was younger,
because I loved to debate. I loved just the art
of being able to verbally wrastle, I guess you could say.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
But for Jason, school it just wasn't a big priority.
As a teenager, Jason started cutting class, hanging out with
his friends and smoking weed. Jason's older brother, Antoine, belonged
to a local gang, the Mansfield Crips, and it wasn't
long before Jason followed in his footsteps that.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Side of town. Being in a gang or being from
a gang, it really wasn't like we were gang banging.
We just hung out together. We went to school together,
after school, we were just hanging out. We're just having
a good time. It wasn't consumed with oh, we're young
and we're selling drugs to support our family. That wasn't
(05:39):
our story.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
As Jason remembers it, being in the Mansfield Crips was
a way of learning the ropes and learning about life.
He says, the older members of the gang were actually
a good influence.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
They never told me anything wrong. They always encouraged me
to stay in school. So they're dropping me off at school,
they're picking me up from school, we're going on these trips.
We're going camping, we're going to the snow, and they're
encouraging me to do the right thing. When people are saying, oh,
gang banging is bad and gang members are bad, I'm
(06:12):
not saying that because these are the same people that
I know are gang members. But they're telling me good things.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Friend, you know, we were talking about how he wounds
up in a gang. Do you remember finding out about
that or what that was like.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
Well, when you live in certain neighborhoods, there are gangs.
It's not a protection thing, but they know who you
are because you live in the neighborhood and you know
who they are, but you're not always necessarily participating. I'm
not saying he didn't associate, but he didn't have He
(06:46):
never had any problems or with the police or criminal
activity that involved association with a gang.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
No, you know, we did have conflicts or verbal spats
or cups with other kids and whatnot. That it wasn't
so much of a violent thing. It was more of
a unit family, a togetherness as when we were younger.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
But there was a time when Jason found himself in
a confrontation with someone from another gang. It was the
fall of two thousand and five, when Jason was around
twenty one, Jason was driving around South Central with his girlfriend,
Amber Jones, and his two young nephews. They stopped by
(07:33):
Amber's house on Rodeo Road, which was on the turf
of the Roll In Thirties, a rival.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Gang, and being from the gang, I was hyper alerted.
I was always aware of my surroundings. I had my
two younger nephews with me, so that made me more
vigilant because I couldn't afford for something to happen to
these two kids. So when we pull up our and
(08:00):
I see the kid walking on the opposite side of
the street coming my direction.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
The kid was fourteen year old Edward Williams. Ember knew
him through a friend of her uncle's.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
She's like, yeah, he's a little kid. He's just big
for his age, so okay, no problem. When he realizes
that it Pembers in the car, that kind of made
him escalate with his antics as far as preaching like
he had a gun and posturing and throwing up gang
signs or whatnot.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Edward was a junior member of a gang called the
Rolling Forties, and they were in Rollin thirties territory. Jason
knew that all Edward's showing off could lead to.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Trouble their direct rivals. This is a serious rivalry. He
was asking me where was I from? At that time?
Even though I was young, I wasn't focused on the
day to day gang banking. I wanted something different in life,
so I wasn't worried about over from what color are
(09:05):
you wearing? That nonsense. I ultimately was trying to let
him know, Hey, you're on Rodeo Boulevard. This is a
main street that leads to the Jungles, which is a
predominantly blood neighborhood. And so while you're doing a gang signs,
that mean from across this busy street, you don't know
(09:27):
who's driving up and down this street that might see you.
That you're putting a target on yourself.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
But despite Jason's warning, Edward kept it up. Finally, Jason
did get out of his car.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
When I got out of the car and I approached him,
I let him know that I was from Mansfield. I
didn't want no problems with him. I got back in
the car. That was the end of the conversation. That
was the end of the I guess you can call
it an altercation, and that was the last time I
had ever seen it.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Two weeks later, Jason was driving down Pigo Boulevard. As
he passed Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, he spotted a fellow
crip who had recently gotten out of prison.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So I stopped. We're talking. More people that we know
are starting to pull up, and we're hanging out with smoking,
and we were waiting for his sister.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
His friend's sister was on her way with tickets to
a concert, but she kept calling to say she was delayed.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It will be one excuse after the other. Oh, we
stopped to get drinks and we'll be there in ten minutes.
Oh my friend left something at her house, will be
there in twenty minutes. Or we stopped here, we'll be
there in fifteen minutes. That stretched out for over an
(10:50):
hour or so, to the point where they never ended
up arriving. So ultimately we just hung out at Roscoe's
for a a couple hours, just doing what we did
on the regular, talking to people, talking to girls, smoking
and just hanging out.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And that was Jason's entire Sunday evening, just kicking it
with friends in the parking lot. At Roscoe's. Meanwhile, a
few miles away, a very different drama was unfolding.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
And so there's carnivals in town. It's a Friday night.
It's a pop up carnival in a parking lot. It's
on the corner of Rodeo Road and Second Avenue in
Los Angeles. And there's a lot of people there.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
This is Michael Simanchic, executive director of the Innocent Center.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
There's cars everywhere, and there's kids, and there's there's probably
I think I've heard reports there might have been thirty
or forty people just outside the carnival gate. So on
the evening of November thirteenth, two thousand and five, just
after seven pm, and Jewel opened fire and fired six
five to six rounds. A couple of rounds struck a
child named William Cox I believe was fourteen at the time,
(12:09):
and another couple of rounds struck and injured Edward Williams.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
The same kid from the Rolling Forties that Jason had
had to run in with a couple weeks before.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
Edward Williams was transported by ambulance to the hospital shortly
thereafter and was in critical condition until a few days later,
and william Cox died of the scene.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And to put this incident into context, we need a
little background on the gang situation in South Central at
the time.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
So there were two gangs that were at war at
the time of the crime. It's the Roland thirties and
the Rollin forties. The thirties and the forties were fighting
over the territory right where the carnival was taking place.
Edward Williams was part of the Baby Hustlers also known
as the Baby forties, and he had recently been jumped
(12:58):
into the forties. The thirties were comprised of this individual
named Jay Rock, who Edward Williams first mentioned at the hospital,
another individual named Terrell who was in a dispute with
Edward Williams at a Halloween party about two weeks before
this incident, and four or five other individuals that were
all spotted at the scene at the carnival that night.
(13:20):
So we had both a group of thirties and then
we had Edward Williams who was a forties self admitted member.
And William Cox was not claiming a gang and in
fact I believe he had actually told Edward Williams not
to be involved in the gangs because he thought it
was dangerous.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
After the shooting occurred, police and ambulances were soon on
the scene and Edward was taken to the hospital.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
I believe he was in critical condition when he arrives,
and he's on a bunch of medication, but he's jotting
down notes because he can't speak at this point, and
he writes down that it's Jay Jay Rock from Roll
in thirties.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
But somehow, over the next few days, someone else entered
into Edward's narrative, and.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
Two days later he then switches to saying it was
Amber's friend who did it. And I don't know it's
if it's entirely clear that we know how that shift happens,
where he goes from thinking it's somebody in the thirties
to thinking it's Jason.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Remember, Jason was in the Mansfield Crips, not the Roll
in thirties. But going back to the night of the shooting,
around ten or so, Jason left the gathering at Roscoe's
to go pick up Amber from work.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
We came back to my mother's house and that was
how we ended the night. The next morning, she woke
up and being that her family knew the family. Her
mother let her know that Hey Edwards was shot last night.
I didn't he didn't put one in one together that
(14:57):
the kid from weeks prior was Edward until later on
when she had said, you know that was the kid,
and it's like wow that he shot on the same
very street that we had having what they were calling
an altercation week's prior for what they said was doing
(15:19):
the same thing, being out gang banging, you know, bringing
that attention to herself.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
A few days later, Jason was out having lunch with
his two nephews.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I had just picked my nephews up from school. I
came to Poki Dogs. I ordered them something to eat.
I was standing at the table.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
A squad car cruise by outside, and Jason recognized one
of the cops, Officer Gutierrez.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So when he passed by, he threw up the peace
sign or waved at me and beans rebellious. I believe
I flipped him the bird, he smiled. That was the
relationship between the officers in the neighborhood and the youth
in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
But this friendly exchange soon turned into something else. Jason
had no idea that the police were out looking for him.
To charge him in the carnival shooting. The squad car
swung back around and pulled up at the restaurant. Jason
was arrested and taken to the Wilshare Division police station.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Once I was placed in the holding tank, and I
guess you can say, actually charged with the crime, my
mind raised as to where was I because just it
blew my mind that I was in jail for uh homicide.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
But so at the hospital, Edward had named several rival
gang members in the shooting. How did the police wind
up getting your name?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
So? I don't know, because he always would shift. If
you get let him talk, he will say it was
the guys from the Rowland thirties. He even named the
guy multiple times. He named people that lived on his
street by name and begged the police go talk to them.
(17:15):
They'll tell you who the guy was that shot me.
The police never did a proper investigation. They never went
to go talk to anyone that had information that made sense.
And I figured out later one day when he was
in the hospital, is one of his older brothers was
(17:37):
in the hospital room when he was talking to the officers,
and I guess he just heard him say, oh, Amber's boyfriend,
or he was talking about multiple incidents. He talked about
the day that we had seen each other in front
of Amber's house. He was talking about a fight that
took place at a Halloween party. I had never been
(17:57):
to this Halloween party. But the police were jump owing
everything together as if there was one situation, one day,
one event. So I guess when the brother heard Amber's boyfriend,
he asked Amber's uncle, who's Amber's boyfriend? He just knew
that my name was Jason and that I was from Mansfield.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
The detectives ran Jason's name by Officer Gutierrez and the
other officers at the Wilshire Division.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
They opened up the book of all the people that
they believed were members of the Mansfields. They identified into
the detectives, this is Jason, He's from Mansfield, whatnot. And
that's where things just started to snowball and I became
target number one.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
You can listen to this and all the LoVa for
Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I didn't know what wrawful condition was I never thought
that that would even happen. I knew I didn't do anything,
but I didn't at the time remember where where was?
I have nothing in my life. Told me that I
had to remember where I am and what I'm doing
every second of the day, every day, every night.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
After hours of questioning, Jason was transferred to Southwest Division
and placed in a holding cell. That night, he called
Amber to help him remember where he had been the
night of November thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
We're replaying events, saying, she let me know that was
the night that you were supposed to go to the concert. Okay, perfect.
That means I was at Rosco's.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Jason and Amber were able to call Roscoe's and speak
to the manager who had been on duty that night.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
So he said, I asked him, you know, do you
have the surveillance cameras. He said, yeah, we still have tapes.
So he asked, well, around what time was it? So
I said a little before seven. So he fast forwarded
and he's watching and I remember him saying I got you,
I got you. When he recognized my car pulling in,
(20:30):
he said, yeah, I got you. You're you're on camera
and you pulled in at this time so it started
with the surveillance camera as an alibi.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And there was something else that placed Jason at Roscoe's
that night.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
There was a celf On tower one block north of Roscoe's,
Chicken and Waffles on the Brea and San Vincentain. So
my calls are being picked up off of that celf
On towers. Okay, Well, now I feel good that I'm
going to end up getting out and everything's going to
be okay. I got proved.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
But nine months later, in August of two thousand and six,
Jason went to trial in front of Judge Larry Findler.
The prosecutor was Deputy District Attorney Paul Kim.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
The prosecution's theory at the time of trial was that
Jason had had this prior interaction about a month before
the crime, where he got in an argument with Edward Williams.
And that's the only interaction that Jason ever had with
Edward Williams. And so the prosecution alleged that this interaction
proceeded Jason seeing Edward Williams and William Cox at this
(21:41):
carnival in south central LA and when he sees these
two individuals, he has a gun in his hoodie pocket,
and he shoots through his hoodie and kills William Cox
and wounds Edward Williams and then flees the scene.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So one of the things that the prosecution said was
that you would have been able to go from Roscoe's
to this carnival.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Is that possible?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's not possible at all, by no such of the imagination.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Remember, Jason was seen on the surveillance video for nearly
the entire evening.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I was only off film at Roscoe's. I believe from
maybe twelve to eighteen minutes. That wouldn't have been enough
time to make it from Roscoe's to the carnival, change
my clothes, lying in wait, find Edward.
Speaker 6 (22:35):
Officers took the stand and claimed that it was possible
for him to make the drive, change his clothes, talk
to the girls, do the shooting, changes his run, change
his clothes, get back and get on camera. We've done
time trials ourselves. The quickest we've been able to do
it is seven minutes. The average was actually nine minutes driving.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
The prosecution also presented an alleged witness, a carnival worker
named Richard Gray. Gray had given police a statement soon
after the shooting, but by the time of trial, his
story had already changed several times.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
Richard Gray says he initially says I only saw the
shooter fleeing, and I only saw him from behind, didn't
get a chance to see his face, doesn't initially say
he's able to make an identification, and then a week
later he picked Walton out of a six pack photo lineup.
At trial, he has like a soft recant, I'll call it,
or says I wasn't really able to see. I'm not
entirely sure. But the thing about Richard Gray, and what's
(23:31):
so interesting is that Richard Gray, from the point where
he says he was standing, could not have seen the
shooting take place.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
The shooting happened on the corner of Rodeo Road and
Second Avenue, in the street just outside the entrance to
the carnival. Richard Gray was stationed at a ride inside
the carnival area, a short distance back from the entrance.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
There was a row of poor potties that were blocking
Richard Gray's view between him and where the shooting happened
on just off the corner where it occurred.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Edward Williams also took the stand and identified Jason, even
though he admitted he hadn't seen the shooter's face and
had not even seen a gun.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
And then they also had gang experts that identified Walton
as a member of the Mansfield Crips, which at the
time were allegedly allies with the Rolling Thirties gang, which
was at war with the Rolling Forties. And so that's
the essentially the crux of the prosecution's case.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Jason's defense attorneys were Jerry Kaplan and Helene Farber.
Speaker 6 (24:33):
The defensive trial was that Jason Walton was in fact
at the Roscoes, that there were these other individuals that
could have possibly been interested in doing harm to these
two individuals, and that it was an eyewitness misidentification. One
of the things that Edward Williams had said was that
the shooter was on the curb and Edward Williams was
(24:54):
on the street from the curb. The shooter was still
shorter than Edward Williams, so this suggested that the person
that was the shooter was probably five four to five six. Now,
Jason Walton at the time of the crime was six
foot one.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And then the witnesses who saw Jason at Roscoe's, did
they testify at trial?
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Yeah, I believe the two that testified at trial. There
was an individual named Nico who was a gang intervention
specialist who recognized Jason and saw him at the seat
at Roscoe's, and then I believe it was the manager
of Roscoe's testified to the security camera footage and then
confirmed that he saw Jason at Roscoe's from six '
(25:38):
six something until after eight o'clock that.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Night, but that wasn't enough to convince the jury. In
August fourteenth, two thousand and six, Jason was convicted of
the first degree murder of William Cox an attempted murder
of Edward Williams. He was sentenced to fifty years to life.
He was twenty one years old.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I was confused. I was heartbroken, I was lost, and
it just wasn't real to me that I was convicted.
I just knew in my mind that something is going
to happen. They're going to realize a mistake was made
and I'm going to get out. It took years of
(26:27):
even being in prison to realize that, hey, this is real,
Like my life doesn't mean anything. They don't care. I
(26:54):
was put in Salinas Valley Maximum Security Prison on the
one eighty yard been my first twenty four hours there.
I've seen an officer attacked and beaten. Within the first week,
I witnessed the first person of many people, unfortunately stabbed
(27:15):
and murdered in prison. The first time that I've ever
seen certain levels of violence, the first time I seen death,
the first time I've seen savage beatings and stabberings and
people just normalized it was in prison, and this is
where I was dropped off and I'm expected to walk
(27:36):
on eggshells.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
To be honest with you, I only went to trial
maybe once or twice. I just couldn't do it. It
was too devastating for me.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
When her son went to prison, Fran was grief stricken.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
I still have a lot of anxiety. I might wake
up at four o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep,
heart pounding, stressed. I'm his mom, his best friend, and
he knew how I felt because we we cried about it.
He said, Mom, I'm not gonna He said, I didn't
do this, and I'm not going to be able to
(28:13):
make it.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I ultimately felt that in order to get out, I
would have to advocate for myself. I would have to
have my family and friends advocate me for me to
getting the attention and awareness from people that are advocates
and that are fighting for justice, so people would understand,
how does a young man have a surveillance camera or
cell phone records, how does he have an alibi like
(28:42):
this and ultimately still be found guilty.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Jason appealed his conviction to the trial court numerous times,
but it seemed no one wanted to listen to the truth.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
They would deny me time after time with anything and
everything that was submitted in my favor. After maybe seven
to ten years, I felt like my life didn't matter.
I'm just another black kid from the streets and a
gang member. I don't feel like they ultimately cared about
the victim nor myself. It's like, okay, well, one gang
(29:18):
members dead, one gang member shot, one gang members in jail.
We got a three for one.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
In a way, it started during trial where all the
evidence it just seemed like everyone was against us. No
one was in Jason's favor. The original lawyer, he left
a little bit to be desired. We also had an
appeals attorney he didn't follow through. So yes, there were
(29:44):
so many things that did not appear to be in
our favor.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Just a few days after Jason was convicted, his son,
Tyler was born.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I was determined to be a good father. That meant
something to me, to make sure that I was a
part of my son's life. And the choices that I
had made that led me to prison, or the things
that I had been through that put me in prison,
didn't affect my son as far as oh, I don't
have a father, So his first steps, his first words,
(30:23):
were captured on a cell phone and sent to me.
He would call me when he wanted something, and if
I had to sacrifice getting the package or going the
commissary this month, so I can use that money to
buy him the things that he wanted or that he needed,
That's what I did.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
He's great, He's really great. He's on top of school
and activities, things that Tyler may have going on on
the weekends. He's a good dad.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
How did you describe things to Tyler when he wondered,
you know what happened with his dad when he was
a kid.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Explained exactly what happened, and his mom had newspaper clippings.
He knows what took place, he knows the accusations. He
knows that his dad went to court. He knows that
his dad was found guilty and there was no need
to sugarcoat it or lie or make stories or excuses.
(31:21):
He needed to know. He's a young man.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I'm very proud of my son. I tell him all
the time. He's an amazing kid. He's just turned seventeen
in August. His name is Tyler Walton. I'm nick name
some King Tyler.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
At first, I was as a kid that I wasn't nervous,
But when I finally you know, sat down and you know,
it was face to face, it was really more of
a kind of like a wow woman, like dang, you
know this is this is whom my dad is really
an amazing person.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, do you tell people your dad's in prison occasionally?
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Know if I, if I know them, I'll be like, yeah,
this is you know what I go through. This is
what I have to suffer with. But it's something that
I know I can I can handle because I know
it's you know, it's not forever obviously.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
What is that that you go through.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
A lot of stuff, well, a lot a lot of thoughts, memories,
emotions that I feel within myself. But I have learned
to kind of have an understanding of them and accept
them and use them as a way of motivation. And
(32:35):
I've taken more as a learning opportunity and if anything,
so it's like I really have to make something of it,
and I have to do something that would you know,
show some light more than light has already been drown
and really kind of prove to everyone that even with
these circumstances you can still do great. I plan on
(32:57):
having a very bright future.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
You know, when we spoke with Frann and Tyler over
a video chat, they were wearing identical T shirts. I
couldn't read them from the screen, so I asked them
what they said.
Speaker 7 (33:08):
Yeah, it says Jason Walton was wrongfully convicted from murder
evidence used to give some him proof that he was
innocent of.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
How did Jason's case come to you?
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Jason wrote to us in the late two thousands, claiming
innocence and saying that he was not involved in any
way in the case and that he was at Roscoe's
Chicken and Waffles when the shooting occurred.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So what made you really dive in and want to
look at this? What was it about his case?
Speaker 6 (33:42):
Jason was on security camera footage at the Roscoe's chicken
and waffles. And you know what's interesting about that is
that the security camera footage was available at the time
of trial. So from the start, it was like he
had this awesome alibi and for some reason it just
didn't play to the jury. So that's really what sold
(34:03):
me on this case. On top of that, as we
dug into the case, we found all of these inconsistencies
throughout the investigation, as well as uncovered some incredibly motivated
third party suspects that more likely committed this crime.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
One important key to unraveling the case was a man
named Christopher Green, one of the witnesses who spoke to
investigators after the shooting. Strangely, his statement was never brought
up at trial.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
Christopher Green was a carnival ride operator. Him and Richard
Gray were actually coworkers at this carnival and what Green
told investigators this he went and left to go to
a convenience store across the street.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
In twenty sixteen, Michael and the Innocent Center sent their
own investigator to interview Christopher. He told them everything he
had told the police, and as it turns out, Christopher
Green may have been the only witness who was close
enough to you see what actually happened.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
On his walk back as he's making his way around
the corner to go back into the carnival, essentially right
where the porta potties are that are blocking Richard Gray's view.
Green's coming around the corner and he sees an arm
extended essentially over his shoulder, and he sees a gun.
And it's this gun that ends up firing five to
(35:24):
six rounds and shooting and wounding Edward Williams and striking
and killing William Cox. And he gets a look at
the shooter, but says he doesn't think he'd be able
to identify the shooter because the shooter had a black
hoodie on and the hood was up. Christopher Green is
the only witness at the scene that's told police that
(35:45):
he saw a gun. Edward Williams said he didn't see
a gun. He thought the shooting happened from allegedly Jason
Walton firing through a hoodie.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
So if Christopher Green actually saw the shooting, how did
Richard Gray become the prosecution star witness?
Speaker 6 (36:01):
So in our subsequent post conviction investigation, what we learned
is that Green went and told Gray everything that he
saw and Gray then, either trying to be the savior
or being pressured by police because of his own criminal
liability that might have existed in other cases, agrees to
cooperate and takes parts of Christopher Green's story as his own,
(36:25):
tells police and makes this sort of soft identification. But
if you talk to Green, Green's unable to make the
identification because the hoodie is pulled up over this shooter's head,
and he also describes having seen the gun, totally inconsistent
with what Edward Williams says. Immediately after Edward Williams is shot,
(36:46):
Green runs up to Williams and he gets down and
he's like, hey, there's an ambulance coming. Someone's just called
nine to one one, And Edward Williams spontaneously says, I
don't know who did this. I don't know who would
want to do this. So that's a crucial piece of
information because if Edward Williams knew who it was, then
(37:07):
he would have said it in that moment, and he doesn't.
He says he didn't know who did it.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Well, if the police had all this information from Christopher Green,
why didn't they use it at trial?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (37:20):
I mean I think the most important things were that
Christopher Green probably had the best vantage point for seeing
the shooter and didn't play a part in the prosecution's
case because it didn't fit their theory. Richard Gray wasn't
able to see anything, and yet he played a major
part of the prosecution's case because he had made that
(37:40):
tentative identification prior to trial. And so it was kind
of a situation in which the prosecution was cherry picking
the information they were presenting in order to make it
fit their theory, and I think that resulted in Jason's
wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Michael believes the most likely scenario is that Edward Williams
was being targe by a rival gang.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
There was a witness named Drew Maxwell who told police
at the time that Edward Williams had actually been shot
at in the week's leading up to this, and Edward
Williams being this new jumped in member of the Baby
forties certainly made him a target. And the graffiti and
the fact that a number of people at the scene
(38:23):
said they saw Jay Rock and another individual from the
thirties named Terrell who had been at the Halloween party.
In gang cases like this, it's often difficult to get
people to talk and let us know who actually committed
the crime. I'm hopeful that we're able to develop at
least a little bit more evidence that suggest it wasn't
Jason and in fact it was another individual. It was
(38:44):
somebody that is you know, is still out there or
is in prison or whatever.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, so what kind of evidence are you looking for?
Speaker 6 (38:53):
So in Jason's case, we've attempted to get DNA testing
on the shell casings at the scene and failed. Rejected
that because Edward Williams knew Jason Walton and said that
Jason was the shooter, so it wasn't an eyewitness misidentification.
In the court's minds, there was no confusion. My position
(39:13):
is that Edward Williams was mistaken that it wasn't actually Jason,
and so DNA testing the shell casings would help us
to figure out who at least loaded the gun that night.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
When that happens, Michael believes it will be a turning
point in their efforts to prove Jason's innocence. Fran remains
hopeful to She says Jason's positive attitude has helped her
gain perspective on the situation.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
He had told me that I should not feel like
I'm the only mom that has a son who's been
incarcerated or is incarcerated or accused of committing a crime
that they did not commit, because I was so afraid
of what would be said or how people would feel
about me, how they would feel about the family, and
(40:02):
how they would feel about my son. And as we're
finding out, wrongful convictions is everywhere all over the world.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
My mother, my grandmother, who's ninety two years old, tells
me she misses me and Harry up they come home
and my son that those are my motivating factors and
ultimately to clear my name.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Friend Tyler and Jason's grandmother are all waiting to welcome
him home and to cook some of his favorite meals.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Bake salmon, bakchoi, saffron, rice, steam, vegetables, and fried chicken,
chicken and dumplings, all that good hearty stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
And there's someone else who will be there for Jason
when he's finally released.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
My wife's name is Diamond Walton. We were friends for
since maybe two thousand and twelve. Our relationship grew from
friendships and to a desire to be with each other,
a love for each other. It came from her always
(41:17):
motivating me, praying over me, praying with me, speaking life
into me at times when I was feeling defeated. And see,
she motivates me a lot to stay focused, to believe
in myself and know that I can achieve the things
that I want to achieve, and ultimately that is clearing
(41:40):
my name and being exonerated. I've never done anything like this,
and I hope that people relate to me and understand
that I'm more than a number. I'm more than a
gang banker. I'm more than a prisoner, an innate, and
(42:00):
ultimately I'm more than someone that was wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
And Jason has lots of plans to get started on
when that happens, including reviving one of his childhood dreams.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I would love to still be an attorney. I would
love to be a part of an organization that I
can give back. I can help bring hope to people
that are in this position, that don't have hope, that
don't believe that they're going to get out, that don't
trust the system. I don't want that just to be
(42:35):
the story of my life where all I can say is, Hey,
I'm someone that was wrongfully convicted. Hopefully I can turn
this negative into something positive, or I can take something
positive from it where people can learn. I want to
be a part of making sure that wrongful conviction ultimately
becomes something that doesn't exist. I'm sorry if I have
(42:57):
to put us all out of business. We have else
to interview with Adam. Be a good day.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
To learn more and see any updates about Jason's case,
Visit the Innocencenter dot org. We'll have that link in
the episode description, and please consider making a donation to
support the Innocent Center and the important work they're doing.
(43:29):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
(43:52):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in
this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
(44:14):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
It was early Sunday evening in November of two thousand
and five, and a pop up street fair was in
full swing in south central Los Angeles. The neighborhood had
turned out to enjoy the rides, carnival games, hot dogs,
and cotton candy. Crowds of people were milling around the
entrance at the corner of Rodeo Road and Second Avenue. Suddenly,
(00:28):
half a dozen shots rang out and two kids fell
to the ground. Fourteen year old William Cox was shot
twice in the torso and died at the scene. His friend,
Edward Williams, also fourteen, was shot in the heart, but
somehow he survived. At the hospital. Edward gave police the
names of several rival gang members who might have been
(00:51):
the shootor.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
They opened up the book of all the people that
they believed were members of the Mansfield This is Jason,
He's from Mansfield, whatnot. And that's where things just started
to snowball and I became target number one.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
That night, Jason Malton had been hanging out with a
group of friends miles from the crime scene. His alibi
was solid, but once the police had fixed their sights
on him, the truth was meaningless.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't feel like they altoly cared about the victim
nor myself. It's like, okay, well, one gang members dead,
one gang member shot, one gang members in jail. We
got a three for one.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
In a way, this is grooble telling you have a
prepaid call from Jason Vanners and one an inmate at
the California State Prison, Lancaster, California.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Freeling today.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Jason Walton, my name is Jason Robert Walton.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I'm from Los Angeles, California. I was arrested and ultimately
longfully convicted November seventeenth, two thousand and five.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
Jason was a real fun loving kid. He loved sports.
He collected basketball cards and things like that.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
This is Jason's mother, Francisle Johnson. Most people call her friend.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
She mostly raised me along that. I did sometimes go
and visit my father, but living with my mother was
where I was most comfortable, where I wanted to be.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
We always had a big dinner on at my parents' house,
and either my mom would cook or my dad would barbecue.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I thought I was rich. I thought the world was perfect,
and I loved to play video games, collect sports cards, POGs,
just anything that you collect. My hobbies consisted of building
things and fixing things.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
If he saw a radio or portable TV that was
sitting on the curb or near the alley, he would
want to take it home and try to fix it,
and quite often it would work.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
As I got older, I grew a fascination with cars,
and I started with building model cars. And I realized
at a young age that I was good at it
because I can take a box, take the kid out,
and I would never remove the instructions from the box,
and I can put the whole car together.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Jason was a pretty typical kid, into cars, bikes, video games,
and sports.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Swimming, fishing, or anything that that involved being outside. I
love to push the envelope. I was somewhat of a daredevil,
so whether that was trying to ride a bike on
one wheel for the whole the lamp of the block,
or holding onto the ice cream truck to gain speed
(04:31):
to try to jump over a makeshift lamp that we made.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Jason describes himself as a class clown, someone who loved
to make people laugh, but he also had more serious ambitions.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I wanted to be a lawyer when I was younger,
because I loved to debate. I loved just the art
of being able to verbally wrastle, I guess you could say.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
But for Jason, school it just wasn't a big priority.
As a teenager, Jason started cutting class, hanging out with
his friends and smoking weed. Jason's older brother, Antoine, belonged
to a local gang, the Mansfield Crips, and it wasn't
long before Jason followed in his footsteps that.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Side of town. Being in a gang or being from
a gang, it really wasn't like we were gang banging.
We just hung out together. We went to school together,
after school, we were just hanging out. We're just having
a good time. It wasn't consumed with oh, we're young
and we're selling drugs to support our family. That wasn't
(05:39):
our story.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
As Jason remembers it, being in the Mansfield Crips was
a way of learning the ropes and learning about life.
He says, the older members of the gang were actually
a good influence.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
They never told me anything wrong. They always encouraged me
to stay in school. So they're dropping me off at school,
they're picking me up from school, we're going on these trips.
We're going camping, we're going to the snow, and they're
encouraging me to do the right thing. When people are saying, oh,
gang banging is bad and gang members are bad, I'm
(06:12):
not saying that because these are the same people that
I know are gang members. But they're telling me good things.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Friend, you know, we were talking about how he wounds
up in a gang. Do you remember finding out about
that or what that was like.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
Well, when you live in certain neighborhoods, there are gangs.
It's not a protection thing, but they know who you
are because you live in the neighborhood and you know
who they are, but you're not always necessarily participating. I'm
not saying he didn't associate, but he didn't have He
(06:46):
never had any problems or with the police or criminal
activity that involved association with a gang.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
No, you know, we did have conflicts or verbal spats
or cups with other kids and whatnot. That it wasn't
so much of a violent thing. It was more of
a unit family, a togetherness as when we were younger.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
But there was a time when Jason found himself in
a confrontation with someone from another gang. It was the
fall of two thousand and five, when Jason was around
twenty one, Jason was driving around South Central with his girlfriend,
Amber Jones, and his two young nephews. They stopped by
(07:33):
Amber's house on Rodeo Road, which was on the turf
of the Roll In Thirties, a rival.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Gang, and being from the gang, I was hyper alerted.
I was always aware of my surroundings. I had my
two younger nephews with me, so that made me more
vigilant because I couldn't afford for something to happen to
these two kids. So when we pull up our and
(08:00):
I see the kid walking on the opposite side of
the street coming my direction.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
The kid was fourteen year old Edward Williams. Ember knew
him through a friend of her uncle's.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
She's like, yeah, he's a little kid. He's just big
for his age, so okay, no problem. When he realizes
that it Pembers in the car, that kind of made
him escalate with his antics as far as preaching like
he had a gun and posturing and throwing up gang
signs or whatnot.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Edward was a junior member of a gang called the
Rolling Forties, and they were in Rollin thirties territory. Jason
knew that all Edward's showing off could lead to.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Trouble their direct rivals. This is a serious rivalry. He
was asking me where was I from? At that time?
Even though I was young, I wasn't focused on the
day to day gang banking. I wanted something different in life,
so I wasn't worried about over from what color are
(09:05):
you wearing? That nonsense. I ultimately was trying to let
him know, Hey, you're on Rodeo Boulevard. This is a
main street that leads to the Jungles, which is a
predominantly blood neighborhood. And so while you're doing a gang signs,
that mean from across this busy street, you don't know
(09:27):
who's driving up and down this street that might see you.
That you're putting a target on yourself.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
But despite Jason's warning, Edward kept it up. Finally, Jason
did get out of his car.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
When I got out of the car and I approached him,
I let him know that I was from Mansfield. I
didn't want no problems with him. I got back in
the car. That was the end of the conversation. That
was the end of the I guess you can call
it an altercation, and that was the last time I
had ever seen it.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Two weeks later, Jason was driving down Pigo Boulevard. As
he passed Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, he spotted a fellow
crip who had recently gotten out of prison.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So I stopped. We're talking. More people that we know
are starting to pull up, and we're hanging out with smoking,
and we were waiting for his sister.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
His friend's sister was on her way with tickets to
a concert, but she kept calling to say she was delayed.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It will be one excuse after the other. Oh, we
stopped to get drinks and we'll be there in ten minutes.
Oh my friend left something at her house, will be
there in twenty minutes. Or we stopped here, we'll be
there in fifteen minutes. That stretched out for over an
(10:50):
hour or so, to the point where they never ended
up arriving. So ultimately we just hung out at Roscoe's
for a a couple hours, just doing what we did
on the regular, talking to people, talking to girls, smoking
and just hanging out.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And that was Jason's entire Sunday evening, just kicking it
with friends in the parking lot. At Roscoe's. Meanwhile, a
few miles away, a very different drama was unfolding.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
And so there's carnivals in town. It's a Friday night.
It's a pop up carnival in a parking lot. It's
on the corner of Rodeo Road and Second Avenue in
Los Angeles. And there's a lot of people there.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
This is Michael Simanchic, executive director of the Innocent Center.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
There's cars everywhere, and there's kids, and there's there's probably
I think I've heard reports there might have been thirty
or forty people just outside the carnival gate. So on
the evening of November thirteenth, two thousand and five, just
after seven pm, and Jewel opened fire and fired six
five to six rounds. A couple of rounds struck a
child named William Cox I believe was fourteen at the time,
(12:09):
and another couple of rounds struck and injured Edward Williams.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
The same kid from the Rolling Forties that Jason had
had to run in with a couple weeks before.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
Edward Williams was transported by ambulance to the hospital shortly
thereafter and was in critical condition until a few days later,
and william Cox died of the scene.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And to put this incident into context, we need a
little background on the gang situation in South Central at
the time.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
So there were two gangs that were at war at
the time of the crime. It's the Roland thirties and
the Rollin forties. The thirties and the forties were fighting
over the territory right where the carnival was taking place.
Edward Williams was part of the Baby Hustlers also known
as the Baby forties, and he had recently been jumped
(12:58):
into the forties. The thirties were comprised of this individual
named Jay Rock, who Edward Williams first mentioned at the hospital,
another individual named Terrell who was in a dispute with
Edward Williams at a Halloween party about two weeks before
this incident, and four or five other individuals that were
all spotted at the scene at the carnival that night.
(13:20):
So we had both a group of thirties and then
we had Edward Williams who was a forties self admitted member.
And William Cox was not claiming a gang and in
fact I believe he had actually told Edward Williams not
to be involved in the gangs because he thought it
was dangerous.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
After the shooting occurred, police and ambulances were soon on
the scene and Edward was taken to the hospital.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
I believe he was in critical condition when he arrives,
and he's on a bunch of medication, but he's jotting
down notes because he can't speak at this point, and
he writes down that it's Jay Jay Rock from Roll
in thirties.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
But somehow, over the next few days, someone else entered
into Edward's narrative, and.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
Two days later he then switches to saying it was
Amber's friend who did it. And I don't know it's
if it's entirely clear that we know how that shift happens,
where he goes from thinking it's somebody in the thirties
to thinking it's Jason.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Remember, Jason was in the Mansfield Crips, not the Roll
in thirties. But going back to the night of the shooting,
around ten or so, Jason left the gathering at Roscoe's
to go pick up Amber from work.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
We came back to my mother's house and that was
how we ended the night. The next morning, she woke
up and being that her family knew the family. Her
mother let her know that Hey Edwards was shot last night.
I didn't he didn't put one in one together that
(14:57):
the kid from weeks prior was Edward until later on
when she had said, you know that was the kid,
and it's like wow that he shot on the same
very street that we had having what they were calling
an altercation week's prior for what they said was doing
(15:19):
the same thing, being out gang banging, you know, bringing
that attention to herself.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
A few days later, Jason was out having lunch with
his two nephews.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I had just picked my nephews up from school. I
came to Poki Dogs. I ordered them something to eat.
I was standing at the table.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
A squad car cruise by outside, and Jason recognized one
of the cops, Officer Gutierrez.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So when he passed by, he threw up the peace
sign or waved at me and beans rebellious. I believe
I flipped him the bird, he smiled. That was the
relationship between the officers in the neighborhood and the youth
in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
But this friendly exchange soon turned into something else. Jason
had no idea that the police were out looking for him.
To charge him in the carnival shooting. The squad car
swung back around and pulled up at the restaurant. Jason
was arrested and taken to the Wilshare Division police station.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Once I was placed in the holding tank, and I
guess you can say, actually charged with the crime, my
mind raised as to where was I because just it
blew my mind that I was in jail for uh homicide.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
But so at the hospital, Edward had named several rival
gang members in the shooting. How did the police wind
up getting your name?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
So? I don't know, because he always would shift. If
you get let him talk, he will say it was
the guys from the Rowland thirties. He even named the
guy multiple times. He named people that lived on his
street by name and begged the police go talk to them.
(17:15):
They'll tell you who the guy was that shot me.
The police never did a proper investigation. They never went
to go talk to anyone that had information that made sense.
And I figured out later one day when he was
in the hospital, is one of his older brothers was
(17:37):
in the hospital room when he was talking to the officers,
and I guess he just heard him say, oh, Amber's boyfriend,
or he was talking about multiple incidents. He talked about
the day that we had seen each other in front
of Amber's house. He was talking about a fight that
took place at a Halloween party. I had never been
(17:57):
to this Halloween party. But the police were jump owing
everything together as if there was one situation, one day,
one event. So I guess when the brother heard Amber's boyfriend,
he asked Amber's uncle, who's Amber's boyfriend? He just knew
that my name was Jason and that I was from Mansfield.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
The detectives ran Jason's name by Officer Gutierrez and the
other officers at the Wilshire Division.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
They opened up the book of all the people that
they believed were members of the Mansfields. They identified into
the detectives, this is Jason, He's from Mansfield, whatnot. And
that's where things just started to snowball and I became
target number one.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
You can listen to this and all the LoVa for
Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I didn't know what wrawful condition was I never thought
that that would even happen. I knew I didn't do anything,
but I didn't at the time remember where where was?
I have nothing in my life. Told me that I
had to remember where I am and what I'm doing
every second of the day, every day, every night.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
After hours of questioning, Jason was transferred to Southwest Division
and placed in a holding cell. That night, he called
Amber to help him remember where he had been the
night of November thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
We're replaying events, saying, she let me know that was
the night that you were supposed to go to the concert. Okay, perfect.
That means I was at Rosco's.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Jason and Amber were able to call Roscoe's and speak
to the manager who had been on duty that night.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
So he said, I asked him, you know, do you
have the surveillance cameras. He said, yeah, we still have tapes.
So he asked, well, around what time was it? So
I said a little before seven. So he fast forwarded
and he's watching and I remember him saying I got you,
I got you. When he recognized my car pulling in,
(20:30):
he said, yeah, I got you. You're you're on camera
and you pulled in at this time so it started
with the surveillance camera as an alibi.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And there was something else that placed Jason at Roscoe's
that night.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
There was a celf On tower one block north of Roscoe's,
Chicken and Waffles on the Brea and San Vincentain. So
my calls are being picked up off of that celf
On towers. Okay, Well, now I feel good that I'm
going to end up getting out and everything's going to
be okay. I got proved.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
But nine months later, in August of two thousand and six,
Jason went to trial in front of Judge Larry Findler.
The prosecutor was Deputy District Attorney Paul Kim.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
The prosecution's theory at the time of trial was that
Jason had had this prior interaction about a month before
the crime, where he got in an argument with Edward Williams.
And that's the only interaction that Jason ever had with
Edward Williams. And so the prosecution alleged that this interaction
proceeded Jason seeing Edward Williams and William Cox at this
(21:41):
carnival in south central LA and when he sees these
two individuals, he has a gun in his hoodie pocket,
and he shoots through his hoodie and kills William Cox
and wounds Edward Williams and then flees the scene.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So one of the things that the prosecution said was
that you would have been able to go from Roscoe's
to this carnival.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Is that possible?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's not possible at all, by no such of the imagination.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Remember, Jason was seen on the surveillance video for nearly
the entire evening.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I was only off film at Roscoe's. I believe from
maybe twelve to eighteen minutes. That wouldn't have been enough
time to make it from Roscoe's to the carnival, change
my clothes, lying in wait, find Edward.
Speaker 6 (22:35):
Officers took the stand and claimed that it was possible
for him to make the drive, change his clothes, talk
to the girls, do the shooting, changes his run, change
his clothes, get back and get on camera. We've done
time trials ourselves. The quickest we've been able to do
it is seven minutes. The average was actually nine minutes driving.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
The prosecution also presented an alleged witness, a carnival worker
named Richard Gray. Gray had given police a statement soon
after the shooting, but by the time of trial, his
story had already changed several times.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
Richard Gray says he initially says I only saw the
shooter fleeing, and I only saw him from behind, didn't
get a chance to see his face, doesn't initially say
he's able to make an identification, and then a week
later he picked Walton out of a six pack photo lineup.
At trial, he has like a soft recant, I'll call it,
or says I wasn't really able to see. I'm not
entirely sure. But the thing about Richard Gray, and what's
(23:31):
so interesting is that Richard Gray, from the point where
he says he was standing, could not have seen the
shooting take place.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
The shooting happened on the corner of Rodeo Road and
Second Avenue, in the street just outside the entrance to
the carnival. Richard Gray was stationed at a ride inside
the carnival area, a short distance back from the entrance.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
There was a row of poor potties that were blocking
Richard Gray's view between him and where the shooting happened
on just off the corner where it occurred.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Edward Williams also took the stand and identified Jason, even
though he admitted he hadn't seen the shooter's face and
had not even seen a gun.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
And then they also had gang experts that identified Walton
as a member of the Mansfield Crips, which at the
time were allegedly allies with the Rolling Thirties gang, which
was at war with the Rolling Forties. And so that's
the essentially the crux of the prosecution's case.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Jason's defense attorneys were Jerry Kaplan and Helene Farber.
Speaker 6 (24:33):
The defensive trial was that Jason Walton was in fact
at the Roscoes, that there were these other individuals that
could have possibly been interested in doing harm to these
two individuals, and that it was an eyewitness misidentification. One
of the things that Edward Williams had said was that
the shooter was on the curb and Edward Williams was
(24:54):
on the street from the curb. The shooter was still
shorter than Edward Williams, so this suggested that the person
that was the shooter was probably five four to five six. Now,
Jason Walton at the time of the crime was six
foot one.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And then the witnesses who saw Jason at Roscoe's, did
they testify at trial?
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Yeah, I believe the two that testified at trial. There
was an individual named Nico who was a gang intervention
specialist who recognized Jason and saw him at the seat
at Roscoe's, and then I believe it was the manager
of Roscoe's testified to the security camera footage and then
confirmed that he saw Jason at Roscoe's from six '
(25:38):
six something until after eight o'clock that.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Night, but that wasn't enough to convince the jury. In
August fourteenth, two thousand and six, Jason was convicted of
the first degree murder of William Cox an attempted murder
of Edward Williams. He was sentenced to fifty years to life.
He was twenty one years old.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I was confused. I was heartbroken, I was lost, and
it just wasn't real to me that I was convicted.
I just knew in my mind that something is going
to happen. They're going to realize a mistake was made
and I'm going to get out. It took years of
(26:27):
even being in prison to realize that, hey, this is real,
Like my life doesn't mean anything. They don't care. I
(26:54):
was put in Salinas Valley Maximum Security Prison on the
one eighty yard been my first twenty four hours there.
I've seen an officer attacked and beaten. Within the first week,
I witnessed the first person of many people, unfortunately stabbed
(27:15):
and murdered in prison. The first time that I've ever
seen certain levels of violence, the first time I seen death,
the first time I've seen savage beatings and stabberings and
people just normalized it was in prison, and this is
where I was dropped off and I'm expected to walk
(27:36):
on eggshells.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
To be honest with you, I only went to trial
maybe once or twice. I just couldn't do it. It
was too devastating for me.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
When her son went to prison, Fran was grief stricken.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
I still have a lot of anxiety. I might wake
up at four o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep,
heart pounding, stressed. I'm his mom, his best friend, and
he knew how I felt because we we cried about it.
He said, Mom, I'm not gonna He said, I didn't
do this, and I'm not going to be able to
(28:13):
make it.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I ultimately felt that in order to get out, I
would have to advocate for myself. I would have to
have my family and friends advocate me for me to
getting the attention and awareness from people that are advocates
and that are fighting for justice, so people would understand,
how does a young man have a surveillance camera or
cell phone records, how does he have an alibi like
(28:42):
this and ultimately still be found guilty.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Jason appealed his conviction to the trial court numerous times,
but it seemed no one wanted to listen to the truth.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
They would deny me time after time with anything and
everything that was submitted in my favor. After maybe seven
to ten years, I felt like my life didn't matter.
I'm just another black kid from the streets and a
gang member. I don't feel like they ultimately cared about
the victim nor myself. It's like, okay, well, one gang
(29:18):
members dead, one gang member shot, one gang members in jail.
We got a three for one.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
In a way, it started during trial where all the
evidence it just seemed like everyone was against us. No
one was in Jason's favor. The original lawyer, he left
a little bit to be desired. We also had an
appeals attorney he didn't follow through. So yes, there were
(29:44):
so many things that did not appear to be in
our favor.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Just a few days after Jason was convicted, his son,
Tyler was born.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I was determined to be a good father. That meant
something to me, to make sure that I was a
part of my son's life. And the choices that I
had made that led me to prison, or the things
that I had been through that put me in prison,
didn't affect my son as far as oh, I don't
have a father, So his first steps, his first words,
(30:23):
were captured on a cell phone and sent to me.
He would call me when he wanted something, and if
I had to sacrifice getting the package or going the
commissary this month, so I can use that money to
buy him the things that he wanted or that he needed,
That's what I did.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
He's great, He's really great. He's on top of school
and activities, things that Tyler may have going on on
the weekends. He's a good dad.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
How did you describe things to Tyler when he wondered,
you know what happened with his dad when he was
a kid.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Explained exactly what happened, and his mom had newspaper clippings.
He knows what took place, he knows the accusations. He
knows that his dad went to court. He knows that
his dad was found guilty and there was no need
to sugarcoat it or lie or make stories or excuses.
(31:21):
He needed to know. He's a young man.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I'm very proud of my son. I tell him all
the time. He's an amazing kid. He's just turned seventeen
in August. His name is Tyler Walton. I'm nick name
some King Tyler.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
At first, I was as a kid that I wasn't nervous,
But when I finally you know, sat down and you know,
it was face to face, it was really more of
a kind of like a wow woman, like dang, you
know this is this is whom my dad is really
an amazing person.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, do you tell people your dad's in prison occasionally?
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Know if I, if I know them, I'll be like, yeah,
this is you know what I go through. This is
what I have to suffer with. But it's something that
I know I can I can handle because I know
it's you know, it's not forever obviously.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
What is that that you go through.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
A lot of stuff, well, a lot a lot of thoughts, memories,
emotions that I feel within myself. But I have learned
to kind of have an understanding of them and accept
them and use them as a way of motivation. And
(32:35):
I've taken more as a learning opportunity and if anything,
so it's like I really have to make something of it,
and I have to do something that would you know,
show some light more than light has already been drown
and really kind of prove to everyone that even with
these circumstances you can still do great. I plan on
(32:57):
having a very bright future.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
You know, when we spoke with Frann and Tyler over
a video chat, they were wearing identical T shirts. I
couldn't read them from the screen, so I asked them
what they said.
Speaker 7 (33:08):
Yeah, it says Jason Walton was wrongfully convicted from murder
evidence used to give some him proof that he was
innocent of.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
How did Jason's case come to you?
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Jason wrote to us in the late two thousands, claiming
innocence and saying that he was not involved in any
way in the case and that he was at Roscoe's
Chicken and Waffles when the shooting occurred.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So what made you really dive in and want to
look at this? What was it about his case?
Speaker 6 (33:42):
Jason was on security camera footage at the Roscoe's chicken
and waffles. And you know what's interesting about that is
that the security camera footage was available at the time
of trial. So from the start, it was like he
had this awesome alibi and for some reason it just
didn't play to the jury. So that's really what sold
(34:03):
me on this case. On top of that, as we
dug into the case, we found all of these inconsistencies
throughout the investigation, as well as uncovered some incredibly motivated
third party suspects that more likely committed this crime.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
One important key to unraveling the case was a man
named Christopher Green, one of the witnesses who spoke to
investigators after the shooting. Strangely, his statement was never brought
up at trial.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
Christopher Green was a carnival ride operator. Him and Richard
Gray were actually coworkers at this carnival and what Green
told investigators this he went and left to go to
a convenience store across the street.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
In twenty sixteen, Michael and the Innocent Center sent their
own investigator to interview Christopher. He told them everything he
had told the police, and as it turns out, Christopher
Green may have been the only witness who was close
enough to you see what actually happened.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
On his walk back as he's making his way around
the corner to go back into the carnival, essentially right
where the porta potties are that are blocking Richard Gray's view.
Green's coming around the corner and he sees an arm
extended essentially over his shoulder, and he sees a gun.
And it's this gun that ends up firing five to
(35:24):
six rounds and shooting and wounding Edward Williams and striking
and killing William Cox. And he gets a look at
the shooter, but says he doesn't think he'd be able
to identify the shooter because the shooter had a black
hoodie on and the hood was up. Christopher Green is
the only witness at the scene that's told police that
(35:45):
he saw a gun. Edward Williams said he didn't see
a gun. He thought the shooting happened from allegedly Jason
Walton firing through a hoodie.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
So if Christopher Green actually saw the shooting, how did
Richard Gray become the prosecution star witness?
Speaker 6 (36:01):
So in our subsequent post conviction investigation, what we learned
is that Green went and told Gray everything that he
saw and Gray then, either trying to be the savior
or being pressured by police because of his own criminal
liability that might have existed in other cases, agrees to
cooperate and takes parts of Christopher Green's story as his own,
(36:25):
tells police and makes this sort of soft identification. But
if you talk to Green, Green's unable to make the
identification because the hoodie is pulled up over this shooter's head,
and he also describes having seen the gun, totally inconsistent
with what Edward Williams says. Immediately after Edward Williams is shot,
(36:46):
Green runs up to Williams and he gets down and
he's like, hey, there's an ambulance coming. Someone's just called
nine to one one, And Edward Williams spontaneously says, I
don't know who did this. I don't know who would
want to do this. So that's a crucial piece of
information because if Edward Williams knew who it was, then
(37:07):
he would have said it in that moment, and he doesn't.
He says he didn't know who did it.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Well, if the police had all this information from Christopher Green,
why didn't they use it at trial?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (37:20):
I mean I think the most important things were that
Christopher Green probably had the best vantage point for seeing
the shooter and didn't play a part in the prosecution's
case because it didn't fit their theory. Richard Gray wasn't
able to see anything, and yet he played a major
part of the prosecution's case because he had made that
(37:40):
tentative identification prior to trial. And so it was kind
of a situation in which the prosecution was cherry picking
the information they were presenting in order to make it
fit their theory, and I think that resulted in Jason's
wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Michael believes the most likely scenario is that Edward Williams
was being targe by a rival gang.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
There was a witness named Drew Maxwell who told police
at the time that Edward Williams had actually been shot
at in the week's leading up to this, and Edward
Williams being this new jumped in member of the Baby
forties certainly made him a target. And the graffiti and
the fact that a number of people at the scene
(38:23):
said they saw Jay Rock and another individual from the
thirties named Terrell who had been at the Halloween party.
In gang cases like this, it's often difficult to get
people to talk and let us know who actually committed
the crime. I'm hopeful that we're able to develop at
least a little bit more evidence that suggest it wasn't
Jason and in fact it was another individual. It was
(38:44):
somebody that is you know, is still out there or
is in prison or whatever.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, so what kind of evidence are you looking for?
Speaker 6 (38:53):
So in Jason's case, we've attempted to get DNA testing
on the shell casings at the scene and failed. Rejected
that because Edward Williams knew Jason Walton and said that
Jason was the shooter, so it wasn't an eyewitness misidentification.
In the court's minds, there was no confusion. My position
(39:13):
is that Edward Williams was mistaken that it wasn't actually Jason,
and so DNA testing the shell casings would help us
to figure out who at least loaded the gun that night.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
When that happens, Michael believes it will be a turning
point in their efforts to prove Jason's innocence. Fran remains
hopeful to She says Jason's positive attitude has helped her
gain perspective on the situation.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
He had told me that I should not feel like
I'm the only mom that has a son who's been
incarcerated or is incarcerated or accused of committing a crime
that they did not commit, because I was so afraid
of what would be said or how people would feel
about me, how they would feel about the family, and
(40:02):
how they would feel about my son. And as we're
finding out, wrongful convictions is everywhere all over the world.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
My mother, my grandmother, who's ninety two years old, tells
me she misses me and Harry up they come home
and my son that those are my motivating factors and
ultimately to clear my name.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Friend Tyler and Jason's grandmother are all waiting to welcome
him home and to cook some of his favorite meals.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Bake salmon, bakchoi, saffron, rice, steam, vegetables, and fried chicken,
chicken and dumplings, all that good hearty stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
And there's someone else who will be there for Jason
when he's finally released.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
My wife's name is Diamond Walton. We were friends for
since maybe two thousand and twelve. Our relationship grew from
friendships and to a desire to be with each other,
a love for each other. It came from her always
(41:17):
motivating me, praying over me, praying with me, speaking life
into me at times when I was feeling defeated. And see,
she motivates me a lot to stay focused, to believe
in myself and know that I can achieve the things
that I want to achieve, and ultimately that is clearing
(41:40):
my name and being exonerated. I've never done anything like this,
and I hope that people relate to me and understand
that I'm more than a number. I'm more than a
gang banker. I'm more than a prisoner, an innate, and
(42:00):
ultimately I'm more than someone that was wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
And Jason has lots of plans to get started on
when that happens, including reviving one of his childhood dreams.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I would love to still be an attorney. I would
love to be a part of an organization that I
can give back. I can help bring hope to people
that are in this position, that don't have hope, that
don't believe that they're going to get out, that don't
trust the system. I don't want that just to be
(42:35):
the story of my life where all I can say is, Hey,
I'm someone that was wrongfully convicted. Hopefully I can turn
this negative into something positive, or I can take something
positive from it where people can learn. I want to
be a part of making sure that wrongful conviction ultimately
becomes something that doesn't exist. I'm sorry if I have
(42:57):
to put us all out of business. We have else
to interview with Adam. Be a good day.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
To learn more and see any updates about Jason's case,
Visit the Innocencenter dot org. We'll have that link in
the episode description, and please consider making a donation to
support the Innocent Center and the important work they're doing.
(43:29):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
(43:52):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in
this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
(44:14):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.