February 29, 2024 • 33 mins
On Saturday, June 23, 1973, a man attacked Anne Kane outside of her apartment in Boston, MA. The man forced her inside, beat her, robbed her, raped her, and then kidnapped her dragging her all over the city for the next 6 and a half hours. She escaped into a local firehouse and ran away before the police arrived. A few days later, she identified Tyrone Clark as the assailant by picking his photo out of several photographs the police shared with her. Tyrone Clark was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On June twenty third, nineteen seventy three, a young woman
was returning to her apartment in Boston when an assailant
grabbed her from behind, forced his way into the building,
and dragged her upstairs. During a struggle that culminated in
a rape, the young woman managed to stab her attacker
on the shoulder with a kitchen knife. However, the encounter
was not over. The assailant paraded her, bruised and bloodied
(00:26):
through the streets of Boston for nearly six more hours
on a bus to a restaurant, and even spoke to
some of his friends. Eventually, she escaped to a Roxbury firehouse,
where one of the firefighters scared off the assailant. Seminal
fluid was collected at the hospital. When the survivor described
the assailant as black, five ten and one hundred and
(00:47):
sixty pounds. She also recalled that the assailant had mentioned
his recent release from Concord Correctional. When shown eleven photographs
of men who had recently been released, she chose Tyrone Clark,
even though Tyrone was only five seven and one hundred
and thirty five pounds. Five other witnesses chose Tyron as well.
(01:07):
But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
The man we're interviewing today, Tyrone Clark, served over forty
(01:30):
eight years in prison for a crime he had absolutely
nothing to do with. The story is unfathomed, but every
part of it is true. So before I introduce mister
Clark to you, now, I'm going to introduce his attorney,
Neil Rafael. Thanks for being here on the show. Thank
you for having me and Tyrone Clark man. I'm so
(01:53):
happy and honored that you're here, and I'm looking forward
to sharing your story with the world. Thank you so, Tyrone,
Before we talk about the crime itself, which is a
horrible crime that you had nothing to do with. Again,
I'm going to point that out. Your life wasn't easy
from the get go, right, Can you tell us about
growing up in the well but damn you were born
(02:13):
in the fifties, right, early mid fifties.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, I originally from Breesville, North Carolina. I came to
Boston with my mother when I was a baby. It
was like nine of us at the time. I came
up like a very poor background. We was on welfare.
We all basically like slept in the same bed. All
of us tried to struggle the best way we can
(02:36):
to get full clothes. My father tried to do what
he can by robbing banks and stuff like that, but
he went away for a long time. So I didn't
really get to know my father that well because he
was in prison. So my mother was just on her
own trying to raise us and stuff, and I got
taken away from her. They all raided the house and stuff,
(02:56):
and they separated all of us from my mother. So
you went at the foster care, not just one foster
home or bosted through a few foster homes. I went
through one that was abusive because I went to bed,
so I tried to skate when they found me. I
didn't know where all my other brothers and sisters went.
My mother she had a breakdown. She went to a
(03:18):
mental institution. So you know, I didn't spend a lot
of time with my family, get to know them the
way I was supposed to know them like a family,
had good times with them. Never really had Christmas all
the good holidays and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, you never really had any chance to be a kid,
to have a decent child at all, and you rarely
didn't have much of a shot at life from the beginning.
Too many kids go through similar experiences. We really should
be able to do better, and we're going to get
into the crime itself. You had some juvenile delinquencies, which
(03:53):
are understandable. You're trying to make ends meet, and anybody
who hasn't walked them mile in your shoes probably can't
judge you for those either. These were robberies and things
like that, but those probably had the effect of putting
you on the radar of the police. When this very
serious crime took place on Saturday, June twenty third of
(04:13):
nineteen seventy three, and I'm just going to describe the crime.
In the afternoon, around three o'clock, a young woman was
returning to her apartment on Park Drive in Boston from
a shopping trip. She approached the door to her building
and an attacker grabbed her from behind and went with
her into the vestibule of her building. He struck her
and forced her to give him the little money she had,
about thirty dollars, and then he forced her upstairs to
(04:36):
her apartment, raped her, beat her, and dragged her through
the city in a six and a half hour saga.
He took her on a bus, forced her to eat
a meal with him at a little Spanish restaurant. She
had her speak to some of his friends. She was
basically kidnapped right all the while. She tried to get
somebody to help with her face bruised and bloody, and
nobody helped her until she finally escaped into a Roxbury firehouse.
(05:00):
Sailin tried to follow her in, but then he ran
away when the fireman said that he was going to
call the cops.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
She initially looked through a photo lineup book of one
hundred to one hundred and fifty photos and wasn't able
to identify anybody during the assault. The individual had mentioned
that he or his brother had just been recently released
from Concord, and so this next subsequent day they showed
her ten or fifteen photos of individuals we'd been recently
released from Concord. Now, Tyrone had some juvenile fenches and
(05:27):
he had been in Conquered Reformatory school, and so he
was put into that photo lineup and as a result,
she identified Tyrone as being her assailant.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And of course he was black and she was white, right,
so it's a cross racial identification. This is a good
time to point out that in study after study that
has been proven that cross racial identification, even in a
case like this where the victim spent such a long
time with her attacker in daylight, cross racial identification has
(05:56):
been proven to be less accurate than guessing. Didn't match
the physical description either, right. She described the assailant though,
as five ten, about one hundred and sixty pounds, and
Tyrone was only one hundred and thirty five pounds, so
that's a pretty big discrepancy there.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Subsequently, the four firefighters who were at the firehouse that
evening identified Tyrone as being the assailant as well. And
then you mentioned that she had visited a restaurant and
the waiter identified Tyrone as being the assailant.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And we're not sure what happened during these other five
identification procedures, but it's possible the police may have been
suggestive toward the photo that the victim had chosen.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
There was no physical evidence indicating that Tyrone had been
the assailant. There was no fingerprints, there was nothing at
the scene reflecting that Tyrone had been there. She had
testified that she had stabbed the individual with a knife
in the back during the assault, and Tyrone didn't have
any sort of markings on his back.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
She couldn't be mistaken about the idea that she stabbed someone, right,
and to her credit, she fought back right. But if
she stabbed him, where did the stab wound go? Somebody
was walking around with a stab wound and some bloody
clothes and it wasn't him, So they should have said, hey,
we got to keep looking because this guy doesn't have
a stab wound. Am I missing something here? No? Did
(07:14):
they do a rape kit.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
They did take the semen sample at the hospital, but
they didn't preserve it, unfortunately. And when I first started
working on the case in two thousand and two, that
was the first thing we tried to locate was the
rape kit from the hospital or at the quote unquote
seemen sample, and they were not able to locate it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So they had the evidence. Had they really wanted to
do a proper investigation, they could have even with the
primitive technology they had fifty years ago in nineteen seventy three,
they may have been able to eliminate him.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
And then the other thing that stood out to me
is that this crime didn't happen in twenty minutes. This
took place over six hours, and you would think there
would be some sort of fingerprint evidence, either in the
apartment at the restaurant or somewhere along the scene of
the crime. They were on a bus, but there was
never any physical evidence that linked Tyrone at all to
this crime.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
They said I was the per portrator. They didn't do
no real search background, or real thorough investigation. They just
grabbed me off the street and Tyrone.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
You were arrested, I believe, two days after this crime happened,
so you wouldn't have had time for the stabling to heal.
So it's not like this was months and months later.
So am I right? You were arrested two days after
the crime.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
When I was released from Conquer Correctional Center, I was
eighteen years old. I was in a halfway house. The
night watchman came upstairs and told me that the Boston
police want to talk to me. When I came downstairs,
he asked me questions about where I was at and
this certain time and told me take my shirt off.
Can we look at your body? And I said yeah,
(08:44):
I said, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Man?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I was shocked. I said, I ain't know what the
hell was going on? Man, It was reported that you
raped a woman. I said what I said, no, man,
I said, you got the wrong person. I said, I'm
not no rapist. Man like that, he told me. They
turned around and stuff, and they looked at me and stuff,
and the next thing they cuffed me up and took
me from the halfway house, brought me to headquarters and
(09:08):
booked me. They looked at me in the police station too.
Like I said, I didn't know what they were looking for.
To my public defender was telling me that the person
was stabbed and know concerned that this woman got raped,
and they was looking for knife woms. So when they
shirched me, it was nothing on my body. So I
was taken away and putting to a county jail, Child
(09:30):
Street jail, the worst jail in Massachusetts where a person
like at my age that went there, I could have
got killed, could have got raped. I was scared, you know.
So I stayed in that county jail for lease, about
like a year before I went to trial.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Tyrone presented evidence at trial of alibis the two alibis
for the time period. Because this was a lengthy crime
it took place during the day. So Tyrone was at
a party for part of the proceeding and was also
at a friend's apartment for part of the proceeding and
testified that he.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Was with them.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
My mother, my witnesses, everybody was in court testified and
stuff like this about my way abouts and stuff. I
had about like six witnesses. Nail testified against me.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You had six IDs against you, the victim, the four firefighters,
and the restaurant server.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah. I heard all this stuff, man, and I was like, Wow,
why somebody do this to me? I says, I'm not
none of this what they saying I am, And all
these people lying on me saying that they see me
with this lady. I ain't never ever seen any of
these people. Jason. Man, It's just like I seemed like
I woke up to some type of nightmare and then
(10:41):
I had all white jewelry.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean, even with the fact that you had this
eyewitness identification, there's such powerful exculpatory evidence that at least
any competent legal mind would be able to mount some
sort of defense. How did they end up getting away
with having an all white jury.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Tyrone's attorney, he was still alive when I started handling
the case, and I never really got into it with him.
Why the jury pool was constituted the way it was,
I do think because it was the nineteen seventies in Boston.
There was a lot of racism back then, obviously with
the busting crisis and other things that were happening in
the city. That because of that jury pool, and because
(11:22):
all of Tyrone's witnesses were minorities and all of the
state's witnesses were white, that Tyrone faced a serious uphill battle.
Tyrone's attorney, he said Neil after the opening statement, given
the horrific nature of the crime, and given the jury pool,
they looked at Tyrone like he was the devil.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So predictably, on January twenty fourth of nineteen seventy four,
a Suffolk County jury convicted you, Tyrone, of rape, robbery,
and kidnapping Ann. Youre sentenced to life in prison, as
well as other sentences that they threw on top of that.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
My mother, man, she was young at the time. She
was so hurt. They sentenced me to life in prison
twenty five to thirty five on and after in the
eighth and ten concurrent my mother was so hurt and
broke down. Next thing, you know, they just took me
away and took them and sent me up the Wallpost
State Prison at the age of eighteen. Man, I came
(12:31):
from a family. Everybody been to jail. My older brother
was in prison too. When I got the wall pole
in nineteen seventy three, it was a news article. Everybody
seen it. My older brother, you knew a lot of
guys up state. You sent a letter up the wall
Poles State Prison, told some of his friends. Yo, my
brother man sentenced. Man something he didn't do when they
(12:54):
asked him, would they look out for me? And stuff?
So when I got there, they snatched me as I
got at the door and stuff. So they took me
to their block and stuff. They looked out for me,
gave me canteens, stuff that I needed. I didn't take
no shit for nobody, You know what I'm saying. I
learned how to box in prison. I put in my
own work what they call put in your own work,
(13:15):
protect myself to survive the best way I can. I
don't even know how I made it, but I made it,
you know, the grace of God. And I went to
parole boards and handerings and stuff. I kept getting denied
because I maintained my innocence, had a lot of letdowns
and stuff over the years. And I found a lawyer,
man by the name of Barysheck with Innocent Project. I
(13:37):
wrote to him, I told him about my case, and
he says, oh, we really don't handle Massachusetts cases and stuff,
but I can refer you to the Innocent Project in Massachusetts.
So he did that and they gave me an attorney,
and you talking to him right now.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Neil began working on the case from two angles. At
the time it was two thousand and two DNA testing
was available. While pursuing biological evidence to support the claims
of actual innocence, Neil also fought for Tyrone's immediate release
due to the guidelines for parole in nineteen seventy four,
as well as his subsequent sentences after the rape. That
route was unusual.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So Tyrone was sentenced to life on the rape, and
he was sentenced to twenty five to thirty on the
robbery and concurrently eight on a kidnapping. So in nineteen
eighty eight on the rape, Tyrone was paroled. Then he
started serving his sentence from the robbery and the kidnapping
in two thousand and three, Tyrone called me and said,
(14:37):
I've got this letter from the Parole Board indicating that
his nineteen eighty eight parole had been reversed in two
thousand and two or two thousand and three. For cases
that were very old, they started aggregating sentences for the
purposes of parole. So they decided for Tyrone's case, because
he was sentenced to life on the rape and thirty
(14:58):
on the robbery, and concurrently eight on the kidnappings, they
were going to aggregate and have one parole hearing. But
the problem was Tyrone had already been parolled in nineteen
eighty eight and they didn't want to release him. So
what they ended up doing was quote unquote reversing his
parole without a hearing or a lawyer being present. So
in two thousand and three I sued the Parole Board
(15:19):
on Tyrone's behalf, basically arguing that that was a constitutional violation.
We had a hearing and the judge told them they
were going to lose, and so we settled Tyrone's civil
action against the Parole Board, and so he was essentially
released because with good time, he had served his concurrent
sentences of the robbery and the kidnapping. But he's on
(15:40):
his eighty eight pro on his life sentence.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So now you're on the streets for the first time
in thirty years. Everything looks very different. I mean, imagine
from seventy three to two thousand and five, everything has changed.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Where did you go? What did you do?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
How did you survive?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Parole officer found me a sober house in Boston, so
I stayed there. Then I applied for Boston Housing Thority
and I lived in a room in the South thend
of Boston. They had me going to sex offend the program.
I went through hurdles. Man, after coming out of prison,
I ain't know nowhere to go to get closed. I
didn't know anything. I wasn't in a good space. Man,
(16:22):
my triggers kicked in. I know how to hustle. So
I ended up shoplifting and I stole some clothing items,
violating my parole. I still today regret what I did.
I got arrested, kept me for eighteen years back behind
the walls for a shoplift.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, and that's eighteen years of taxpayers paying probably at
least well over a million dollars to keep you behind
bars for stealing four hundred dollars worth of clothes.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
He had pled no contest, and they revoked his parole.
We would try to fight it at the pro board hearing,
but because we had sued them, they were not interested
in giving him any sort of parole.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
While this strained relationship with the Parole Board did not
bode well for any future appearances, there was still Tyrone's
actual innocence claim. Although there were six identifications, they were
cross racial and likely suggestive processes. Tyrone didn't match the description.
No physical evidence tied into the scene, no fingerprints matched him,
and if they had, they would have used it. He
(17:23):
had multiple alibi witnesses as well, and in the two thousands,
DNA testing was evolving rapidly.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
So Massachusetts had passed post conviction DNA testing statue. And
when I had worked on the case in early two
thousand and two two thousand and three, we had tried
to locate the semen sample that had been left at
the hospital. There were male socks that had been left
at the scene in a bloody towel. We hadn't been
able to locate anything any physical evidence, and the case
had hit a roadblock. But then in the appellate file
(17:51):
of the Suffolk County District Attorney. We were able to
locate the knife, and so Tyrone asked if I would
file a motion under that statute for testing, which was
eventually granted. The first round of testing was inconclusive, and
at that point, because this case was primarily an identification case,
we had started working with CPCs ID, an attorney named
(18:12):
Lisa Kavanaugh.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
CPCs or Committee for Public Council Services is long for
public defender in Massachusetts, and Lisa Kavanaugh spearheaded an initiative
within the office to look into innocent's cases.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
In around twenty fifteen sixteen, I started working with a lawyer,
Jeff Harris. My presumption was that the Commonwealth had been
in contact with the victim because that's their legal obligation,
and Jeff reached out to the victim and as a
result of those conversations, it came out that she had
real questions about whether her identification of Tyrone was accurate.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So when I heard all this good news and stuff, man,
I was like, wow, man, this is great. Man, there's
light at the tunnel. I think I'm going to go home.
I really felt as though that she searched so many years,
she was hitten for so many years. Her conscience made
her come forward. And what happened was she went to
(19:10):
Jennifer Thompson.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Jennifer Thompson survived the rape in which she studied her
attacker's face, yet was also led to identify the wrong man,
Ronald Cotton. I had the honor of interviewing both of
them together and we're going to have that incredible episode
linked in the episode description.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Jennifer Thompson told the lady in my case, she don't
be afraid to tell your story. No, go public with it.
She went on the radio, she went on TV.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Back in twenty nineteen, the victim wrote letters to the
Massachusetts pro Board and the court saying that she believed
that she could have identified the wrong man. She said
that she was worried that she, the four fireman, and
the servant at the restaurant picked the same person because
he looked like the assailant without actually being the assailant,
(19:59):
and that there were other issues that they have tainted
the identification process. In her letter to the parole Board,
she wrote, this is in twenty nineteen quote. If Tyrone
Clark were to be tried today, given the lack of
physical evidence linking him to the crime. I doubt that
he would be convicted. I fear that he may also
be a victim.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
When I heard that she was doing all this stuff,
and I was in prison, and guys was calling me, Tomrone,
You're on TV. Man, Oh victim is talking about you. Man, Oh, Tomron,
You're gonna get out of prison.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Man.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
You know, I was happy, you know what I mean,
And you know saying when she came forward the way
she did with the DA's office and all these people,
you know, wrote story reason. This lady is an inspiration.
It wasn't her fault. This could have happened to anybody
(21:07):
what happened to me. I appreciate this lady for which
she did. It wasn't for her still alive that came forward,
I would have died in prison.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
With the support of the victim. Tyrone's attorneys saw it.
Subsequent DNA testing with the latest methods revealing a male
profile and a knife that simply did not match Tyrone,
and they filed a motion for a new trial in twenty.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Twenty, even after the victim had come forward, even after
the DNA issue had been explored, even after Jeff primarily
had done a lot of work on witness identifications. The
motion for new trials filed in twenty twenty, it was denied,
it was up on appeal, and then subsequently they changed
their mind for some reason, and they agreed that they
(21:54):
would have sent to a motion to vacate the rape
conviction on the basis that they had failed to preserve
the seaman sample that the hospital had drawn on the
night of the crime.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Wait out of the kindness of their hearts.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Very good question.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I mean, this kind of thing just doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
No, it was very, very very strange because the Boston
police hadn't done their job and preserved it. They then
agreed to as a self imposed punishment for the Brady violation,
agreed to a cent of the motion to vacate his sins.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
That's incredible news.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So then subsequent to that, I was still working on
the case. Jeff Harris needed to back off the case,
so we secured another lawyer by the name of Ed
Gaffney because I was no longer practicing criminal lawe I mean,
Tyrone was my last criminal case. So Ed filed a
motion for new trial based on the robbery and the
kidnapping charges, and August of twenty twenty three, the judge
(22:49):
agreed to vacate those charges. The Commonwealth opposed that motion,
and the judge disregarded their arguments and said, well, if
you agreed to essentially vacate the rape charge, why are
you still have him responsible for the robbery and kidnapping.
And the judge vacated those charges, and then the Commonwealth
decided to no pross meeting. They're not going forward with
(23:11):
the prosecution. And then so Tyrone was officially exonerated of
all of these charges.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
But Tyrone was awaiting those twenty twenty three proceedings from
the outside. After his release following the vacature of his
rape conviction back in November twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I felt great when I got the news I was
being released. The day that I got out, man, it
was I think it was around Thanksgiving them it was.
I get a phone call saying Tyrone, Man, you're being
re released from prison. I said, what he said, Yeah,
I'm coming to pick you up like that. That's my attorney,
Jeff Harris. Great guy. You know, he really fought Bill
(23:49):
Hayd and the crininal matter. I said, oh yeah, he said,
just yeah, you know, I'm just saying to just be ready.
So now when I go downstairs, the book and all
the officers were glad. They were telling me they read
about me in the paper. You know, they were happy
for me. Now, when I went downstairs, I went out
the door. So I got in the car. My lawyers,
(24:10):
Jeff Harrisy showed me on the phone. He said, look
look at all these people raising money for you.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Man.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I ain't know anything about no goal fund me or
any of that stuff. I never even know these people
to get the chance to thank them for generosity or
support that they're giving me money to try to help
me get on my feet. But with the money that
was raised, because I didn't have nowhere to go, I
slept in the hotels.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So one of the bigger issues obviously is because he
doesn't have a credit history or an employment history or
an ID, it's very difficult to find someone like that
housing and so for a significant period of time he
had to stay at hotels.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So that go fund me burnt out, and we're going
to link to that go fund me for Tyrone in
the episode description so you can help him get to
where he needs to be some comfort in his life.
Long overdue, and because these civil cases take forever. They shouldn't,
but they do. They take years and years. So I
(25:09):
hope that our audience will be generous and supporting.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I got this place through no credit. It took me
a long time to even find a place. They'll tell you,
you know, like I said, I lived in hotels. Someone
treated me okay, but then again some no, I went
through a little I'm not even gonna get into it,
and they don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Tyrone was letting homeless people shower in his hotel and
he got in trouble for doing that. And so when
that happened, I had to explain to Tyrone that the
hotels generally don't like that, but he didn't understand that
he was just doing that out of the kindness of
his soul.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, my foundation is based on homelessness.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
No.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I go to shelters, I eating shelters, I hang out
with homeless people. A lot of them. People loved me
out here, man. I'm saying, because of the things that
I do and how I treat them, I don't feel like, okay,
they better than me. I'm better than them. I wanted
to try to, like down the road to try to
(26:15):
get a halfway house man, you know, for homelessness, because
when I go out and I ride buses in our
trains and I see what I see, it hurts me.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Man.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
It's sad man. So hopefully someday, man, I can get
a halfway house and get the funds or something man
to try to help back me up and help people
like that, people that never committed a crime, that was
on death road. Bro. I have a friend named James Watson.
He was upstate with me. He fought many many years,
(26:47):
you know, and because of they changed the law back
then or the death penalty, that's what saves his life.
He would have went to the chair if it wasn't
for that, But now he's on the street.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well, it never ceases to amaze and inspire me to
see folks like you, Tyrone, who made it through hell
and emerge carrying buckets of water to help those still
stuck inside. And you want to do it on the
outside too, So please let us know when you want
to get that started, and maybe we can raise support
for it as well. And with that, we're going to
(27:21):
go to closing arguments first, of all, I thank you
both again, and then I'm going to switch my microphone off,
kick back in my chair with my headphones on, and
close my eyes and just listen to anything else you
want to share with me and our incredible audience. So Neil,
you go first, and then just hand the mic off
to Tyrone and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
So, I mean, I started working on Tyrone's case in
two thousand and two, and I've worked on it for
over twenty years. And you know, Tyrone's case really is sad,
but it's also very inspiring to me in a lot
of ways. You know, when I first met Tyrone, I
(28:02):
had sort of a jaded view of people in prison
and their stories, and I was very skeptical of individuals
when they were told me they were innocent or they
did not do something and the state had prosecuted them.
But when I started listening to Tyrone and talking to Tyrone,
I sort of realized what a genuine soul he was
(28:25):
and what a good person he was. And despite having
grown up in foster homes and despite not having a
strong support system, he was a very genuine person and
he had never been really given a chance to succeed, unfortunately,
and so when I started working on his case in
(28:45):
two thousand and two, I sort of committed to him
that I would work as hard as I could to
try to make his life better. And so for the
past twenty years, I've worked with him both in our
law suit against the parle board in the criminal case
with the DA now helping him in justice society after
(29:07):
having served nearly fifty years in prison. While he has
the right to be extremely angry, sad, and depressed about
what happened to him, what I find inspiring about him
is that he continues to have the same sort of affable,
lovable soul that he had when I met him in
two thousand and two, and that he continues to sort
of be a very nice human being. He really does
(29:30):
care about the homeless, He really does care about people
who have less than him. And Tyrone's case, while it
is an indictment of the criminal justice system, and it
is an indictment of how minority is retreated in Boston
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties and even today,
it's really more about the will to survive and the
(29:51):
will to be a nice person, and so That's why
I continue to work hard for him and care about
him genuinely.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I really appreciate being here doing this interview about my story,
what happened to me, happened to the victim. I really
appreciate what the victim did because I know that she
didn't reach out to miss Thompson and missus Thompson encouraging
(30:21):
her to do what she did to come forward. I
don't think that all this is what it came about.
So I just want to say to the victim, even
though I never met her, I just want her to
know I'm so appreciated. I'm so happy that she came
(30:41):
forward and helped me get out of prison. I probably
wouldn't be here today. I know people had made bad
comments after fifty years taken out of my life, but
they don't really know really the circumstances behind really what
happened in this case, and she was traumatized. So I
(31:05):
just want the victim to know that I'm a man
of God. I forgive her. I don't hate her. I
hope man that her life is much much better. No,
I want her to know that I'm okay, I'm strong,
I'm healthy. She did enough for me by helping me
get out of prison, which she did was right to
(31:28):
tell the truth. I just wanted to know that I'm okay.
I lost a lot, but I'm still here for a reason.
She's still here for a reason. Everybody that lied back then,
that testified back then on the Commonwealth side in this
(31:48):
case is dead. So me and her is still here
for a reason. I believe God saved her and saved me,
and I believe that God touched her her hot man
to come forward man and know and kept pull alive
so I can be able man to walk out that prison.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So I just wanted to say to him, man, I
appreciate you. Miss. I hope you listening, and don't be
afraid to reach out to my attorney if you want
to ever want to get a chance to meet me
in pressing or speak to me.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(32:50):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrong
for Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
it's Jason Flat. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
On June twenty third, nineteen seventy three, a young woman
was returning to her apartment in Boston when an assailant
grabbed her from behind, forced his way into the building,
and dragged her upstairs. During a struggle that culminated in
a rape, the young woman managed to stab her attacker
on the shoulder with a kitchen knife. However, the encounter
was not over. The assailant paraded her, bruised and bloodied
(00:26):
through the streets of Boston for nearly six more hours
on a bus to a restaurant, and even spoke to
some of his friends. Eventually, she escaped to a Roxbury firehouse,
where one of the firefighters scared off the assailant. Seminal
fluid was collected at the hospital. When the survivor described
the assailant as black, five ten and one hundred and
(00:47):
sixty pounds. She also recalled that the assailant had mentioned
his recent release from Concord Correctional. When shown eleven photographs
of men who had recently been released, she chose Tyrone Clark,
even though Tyrone was only five seven and one hundred
and thirty five pounds. Five other witnesses chose Tyron as well.
(01:07):
But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
The man we're interviewing today, Tyrone Clark, served over forty
(01:30):
eight years in prison for a crime he had absolutely
nothing to do with. The story is unfathomed, but every
part of it is true. So before I introduce mister
Clark to you, now, I'm going to introduce his attorney,
Neil Rafael. Thanks for being here on the show. Thank
you for having me and Tyrone Clark man. I'm so
(01:53):
happy and honored that you're here, and I'm looking forward
to sharing your story with the world. Thank you so, Tyrone,
Before we talk about the crime itself, which is a
horrible crime that you had nothing to do with. Again,
I'm going to point that out. Your life wasn't easy
from the get go, right, Can you tell us about
growing up in the well but damn you were born
(02:13):
in the fifties, right, early mid fifties.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, I originally from Breesville, North Carolina. I came to
Boston with my mother when I was a baby. It
was like nine of us at the time. I came
up like a very poor background. We was on welfare.
We all basically like slept in the same bed. All
of us tried to struggle the best way we can
(02:36):
to get full clothes. My father tried to do what
he can by robbing banks and stuff like that, but
he went away for a long time. So I didn't
really get to know my father that well because he
was in prison. So my mother was just on her
own trying to raise us and stuff, and I got
taken away from her. They all raided the house and stuff,
(02:56):
and they separated all of us from my mother. So
you went at the foster care, not just one foster
home or bosted through a few foster homes. I went
through one that was abusive because I went to bed,
so I tried to skate when they found me. I
didn't know where all my other brothers and sisters went.
My mother she had a breakdown. She went to a
(03:18):
mental institution. So you know, I didn't spend a lot
of time with my family, get to know them the
way I was supposed to know them like a family,
had good times with them. Never really had Christmas all
the good holidays and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, you never really had any chance to be a kid,
to have a decent child at all, and you rarely
didn't have much of a shot at life from the beginning.
Too many kids go through similar experiences. We really should
be able to do better, and we're going to get
into the crime itself. You had some juvenile delinquencies, which
(03:53):
are understandable. You're trying to make ends meet, and anybody
who hasn't walked them mile in your shoes probably can't
judge you for those either. These were robberies and things
like that, but those probably had the effect of putting
you on the radar of the police. When this very
serious crime took place on Saturday, June twenty third of
(04:13):
nineteen seventy three, and I'm just going to describe the crime.
In the afternoon, around three o'clock, a young woman was
returning to her apartment on Park Drive in Boston from
a shopping trip. She approached the door to her building
and an attacker grabbed her from behind and went with
her into the vestibule of her building. He struck her
and forced her to give him the little money she had,
about thirty dollars, and then he forced her upstairs to
(04:36):
her apartment, raped her, beat her, and dragged her through
the city in a six and a half hour saga.
He took her on a bus, forced her to eat
a meal with him at a little Spanish restaurant. She
had her speak to some of his friends. She was
basically kidnapped right all the while. She tried to get
somebody to help with her face bruised and bloody, and
nobody helped her until she finally escaped into a Roxbury firehouse.
(05:00):
Sailin tried to follow her in, but then he ran
away when the fireman said that he was going to
call the cops.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
She initially looked through a photo lineup book of one
hundred to one hundred and fifty photos and wasn't able
to identify anybody during the assault. The individual had mentioned
that he or his brother had just been recently released
from Concord, and so this next subsequent day they showed
her ten or fifteen photos of individuals we'd been recently
released from Concord. Now, Tyrone had some juvenile fenches and
(05:27):
he had been in Conquered Reformatory school, and so he
was put into that photo lineup and as a result,
she identified Tyrone as being her assailant.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And of course he was black and she was white, right,
so it's a cross racial identification. This is a good
time to point out that in study after study that
has been proven that cross racial identification, even in a
case like this where the victim spent such a long
time with her attacker in daylight, cross racial identification has
(05:56):
been proven to be less accurate than guessing. Didn't match
the physical description either, right. She described the assailant though,
as five ten, about one hundred and sixty pounds, and
Tyrone was only one hundred and thirty five pounds, so
that's a pretty big discrepancy there.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Subsequently, the four firefighters who were at the firehouse that
evening identified Tyrone as being the assailant as well. And
then you mentioned that she had visited a restaurant and
the waiter identified Tyrone as being the assailant.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And we're not sure what happened during these other five
identification procedures, but it's possible the police may have been
suggestive toward the photo that the victim had chosen.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
There was no physical evidence indicating that Tyrone had been
the assailant. There was no fingerprints, there was nothing at
the scene reflecting that Tyrone had been there. She had
testified that she had stabbed the individual with a knife
in the back during the assault, and Tyrone didn't have
any sort of markings on his back.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
She couldn't be mistaken about the idea that she stabbed someone, right,
and to her credit, she fought back right. But if
she stabbed him, where did the stab wound go? Somebody
was walking around with a stab wound and some bloody
clothes and it wasn't him, So they should have said, hey,
we got to keep looking because this guy doesn't have
a stab wound. Am I missing something here? No? Did
(07:14):
they do a rape kit.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
They did take the semen sample at the hospital, but
they didn't preserve it, unfortunately. And when I first started
working on the case in two thousand and two, that
was the first thing we tried to locate was the
rape kit from the hospital or at the quote unquote
seemen sample, and they were not able to locate it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So they had the evidence. Had they really wanted to
do a proper investigation, they could have even with the
primitive technology they had fifty years ago in nineteen seventy three,
they may have been able to eliminate him.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
And then the other thing that stood out to me
is that this crime didn't happen in twenty minutes. This
took place over six hours, and you would think there
would be some sort of fingerprint evidence, either in the
apartment at the restaurant or somewhere along the scene of
the crime. They were on a bus, but there was
never any physical evidence that linked Tyrone at all to
this crime.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
They said I was the per portrator. They didn't do
no real search background, or real thorough investigation. They just
grabbed me off the street and Tyrone.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
You were arrested, I believe, two days after this crime happened,
so you wouldn't have had time for the stabling to heal.
So it's not like this was months and months later.
So am I right? You were arrested two days after
the crime.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
When I was released from Conquer Correctional Center, I was
eighteen years old. I was in a halfway house. The
night watchman came upstairs and told me that the Boston
police want to talk to me. When I came downstairs,
he asked me questions about where I was at and
this certain time and told me take my shirt off.
Can we look at your body? And I said yeah,
(08:44):
I said, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Man?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I was shocked. I said, I ain't know what the
hell was going on? Man, It was reported that you
raped a woman. I said what I said, no, man,
I said, you got the wrong person. I said, I'm
not no rapist. Man like that, he told me. They
turned around and stuff, and they looked at me and stuff,
and the next thing they cuffed me up and took
me from the halfway house, brought me to headquarters and
(09:08):
booked me. They looked at me in the police station too.
Like I said, I didn't know what they were looking for.
To my public defender was telling me that the person
was stabbed and know concerned that this woman got raped,
and they was looking for knife woms. So when they
shirched me, it was nothing on my body. So I
was taken away and putting to a county jail, Child
(09:30):
Street jail, the worst jail in Massachusetts where a person
like at my age that went there, I could have
got killed, could have got raped. I was scared, you know.
So I stayed in that county jail for lease, about
like a year before I went to trial.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Tyrone presented evidence at trial of alibis the two alibis
for the time period. Because this was a lengthy crime
it took place during the day. So Tyrone was at
a party for part of the proceeding and was also
at a friend's apartment for part of the proceeding and
testified that he.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Was with them.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
My mother, my witnesses, everybody was in court testified and
stuff like this about my way abouts and stuff. I
had about like six witnesses. Nail testified against me.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You had six IDs against you, the victim, the four firefighters,
and the restaurant server.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah. I heard all this stuff, man, and I was like, Wow,
why somebody do this to me? I says, I'm not
none of this what they saying I am, And all
these people lying on me saying that they see me
with this lady. I ain't never ever seen any of
these people. Jason. Man, It's just like I seemed like
I woke up to some type of nightmare and then
(10:41):
I had all white jewelry.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean, even with the fact that you had this
eyewitness identification, there's such powerful exculpatory evidence that at least
any competent legal mind would be able to mount some
sort of defense. How did they end up getting away
with having an all white jury.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Tyrone's attorney, he was still alive when I started handling
the case, and I never really got into it with him.
Why the jury pool was constituted the way it was,
I do think because it was the nineteen seventies in Boston.
There was a lot of racism back then, obviously with
the busting crisis and other things that were happening in
the city. That because of that jury pool, and because
(11:22):
all of Tyrone's witnesses were minorities and all of the
state's witnesses were white, that Tyrone faced a serious uphill battle.
Tyrone's attorney, he said Neil after the opening statement, given
the horrific nature of the crime, and given the jury pool,
they looked at Tyrone like he was the devil.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So predictably, on January twenty fourth of nineteen seventy four,
a Suffolk County jury convicted you, Tyrone, of rape, robbery,
and kidnapping Ann. Youre sentenced to life in prison, as
well as other sentences that they threw on top of that.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
My mother, man, she was young at the time. She
was so hurt. They sentenced me to life in prison
twenty five to thirty five on and after in the
eighth and ten concurrent my mother was so hurt and
broke down. Next thing, you know, they just took me
away and took them and sent me up the Wallpost
State Prison at the age of eighteen. Man, I came
(12:31):
from a family. Everybody been to jail. My older brother
was in prison too. When I got the wall pole
in nineteen seventy three, it was a news article. Everybody
seen it. My older brother, you knew a lot of
guys up state. You sent a letter up the wall
Poles State Prison, told some of his friends. Yo, my
brother man sentenced. Man something he didn't do when they
(12:54):
asked him, would they look out for me? And stuff?
So when I got there, they snatched me as I
got at the door and stuff. So they took me
to their block and stuff. They looked out for me,
gave me canteens, stuff that I needed. I didn't take
no shit for nobody, You know what I'm saying. I
learned how to box in prison. I put in my
own work what they call put in your own work,
(13:15):
protect myself to survive the best way I can. I
don't even know how I made it, but I made it,
you know, the grace of God. And I went to
parole boards and handerings and stuff. I kept getting denied
because I maintained my innocence, had a lot of letdowns
and stuff over the years. And I found a lawyer,
man by the name of Barysheck with Innocent Project. I
(13:37):
wrote to him, I told him about my case, and
he says, oh, we really don't handle Massachusetts cases and stuff,
but I can refer you to the Innocent Project in Massachusetts.
So he did that and they gave me an attorney,
and you talking to him right now.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Neil began working on the case from two angles. At
the time it was two thousand and two DNA testing
was available. While pursuing biological evidence to support the claims
of actual innocence, Neil also fought for Tyrone's immediate release
due to the guidelines for parole in nineteen seventy four,
as well as his subsequent sentences after the rape. That
route was unusual.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So Tyrone was sentenced to life on the rape, and
he was sentenced to twenty five to thirty on the
robbery and concurrently eight on a kidnapping. So in nineteen
eighty eight on the rape, Tyrone was paroled. Then he
started serving his sentence from the robbery and the kidnapping
in two thousand and three, Tyrone called me and said,
(14:37):
I've got this letter from the Parole Board indicating that
his nineteen eighty eight parole had been reversed in two
thousand and two or two thousand and three. For cases
that were very old, they started aggregating sentences for the
purposes of parole. So they decided for Tyrone's case, because
he was sentenced to life on the rape and thirty
(14:58):
on the robbery, and concurrently eight on the kidnappings, they
were going to aggregate and have one parole hearing. But
the problem was Tyrone had already been parolled in nineteen
eighty eight and they didn't want to release him. So
what they ended up doing was quote unquote reversing his
parole without a hearing or a lawyer being present. So
in two thousand and three I sued the Parole Board
(15:19):
on Tyrone's behalf, basically arguing that that was a constitutional violation.
We had a hearing and the judge told them they
were going to lose, and so we settled Tyrone's civil
action against the Parole Board, and so he was essentially
released because with good time, he had served his concurrent
sentences of the robbery and the kidnapping. But he's on
(15:40):
his eighty eight pro on his life sentence.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So now you're on the streets for the first time
in thirty years. Everything looks very different. I mean, imagine
from seventy three to two thousand and five, everything has changed.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Where did you go? What did you do?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
How did you survive?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Parole officer found me a sober house in Boston, so
I stayed there. Then I applied for Boston Housing Thority
and I lived in a room in the South thend
of Boston. They had me going to sex offend the program.
I went through hurdles. Man, after coming out of prison,
I ain't know nowhere to go to get closed. I
didn't know anything. I wasn't in a good space. Man,
(16:22):
my triggers kicked in. I know how to hustle. So
I ended up shoplifting and I stole some clothing items,
violating my parole. I still today regret what I did.
I got arrested, kept me for eighteen years back behind
the walls for a shoplift.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, and that's eighteen years of taxpayers paying probably at
least well over a million dollars to keep you behind
bars for stealing four hundred dollars worth of clothes.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
He had pled no contest, and they revoked his parole.
We would try to fight it at the pro board hearing,
but because we had sued them, they were not interested
in giving him any sort of parole.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
While this strained relationship with the Parole Board did not
bode well for any future appearances, there was still Tyrone's
actual innocence claim. Although there were six identifications, they were
cross racial and likely suggestive processes. Tyrone didn't match the description.
No physical evidence tied into the scene, no fingerprints matched him,
and if they had, they would have used it. He
(17:23):
had multiple alibi witnesses as well, and in the two thousands,
DNA testing was evolving rapidly.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
So Massachusetts had passed post conviction DNA testing statue. And
when I had worked on the case in early two
thousand and two two thousand and three, we had tried
to locate the semen sample that had been left at
the hospital. There were male socks that had been left
at the scene in a bloody towel. We hadn't been
able to locate anything any physical evidence, and the case
had hit a roadblock. But then in the appellate file
(17:51):
of the Suffolk County District Attorney. We were able to
locate the knife, and so Tyrone asked if I would
file a motion under that statute for testing, which was
eventually granted. The first round of testing was inconclusive, and
at that point, because this case was primarily an identification case,
we had started working with CPCs ID, an attorney named
(18:12):
Lisa Kavanaugh.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
CPCs or Committee for Public Council Services is long for
public defender in Massachusetts, and Lisa Kavanaugh spearheaded an initiative
within the office to look into innocent's cases.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
In around twenty fifteen sixteen, I started working with a lawyer,
Jeff Harris. My presumption was that the Commonwealth had been
in contact with the victim because that's their legal obligation,
and Jeff reached out to the victim and as a
result of those conversations, it came out that she had
real questions about whether her identification of Tyrone was accurate.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So when I heard all this good news and stuff, man,
I was like, wow, man, this is great. Man, there's
light at the tunnel. I think I'm going to go home.
I really felt as though that she searched so many years,
she was hitten for so many years. Her conscience made
her come forward. And what happened was she went to
(19:10):
Jennifer Thompson.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Jennifer Thompson survived the rape in which she studied her
attacker's face, yet was also led to identify the wrong man,
Ronald Cotton. I had the honor of interviewing both of
them together and we're going to have that incredible episode
linked in the episode description.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Jennifer Thompson told the lady in my case, she don't
be afraid to tell your story. No, go public with it.
She went on the radio, she went on TV.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Back in twenty nineteen, the victim wrote letters to the
Massachusetts pro Board and the court saying that she believed
that she could have identified the wrong man. She said
that she was worried that she, the four fireman, and
the servant at the restaurant picked the same person because
he looked like the assailant without actually being the assailant,
(19:59):
and that there were other issues that they have tainted
the identification process. In her letter to the parole Board,
she wrote, this is in twenty nineteen quote. If Tyrone
Clark were to be tried today, given the lack of
physical evidence linking him to the crime. I doubt that
he would be convicted. I fear that he may also
be a victim.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
When I heard that she was doing all this stuff,
and I was in prison, and guys was calling me, Tomrone,
You're on TV. Man, Oh victim is talking about you. Man, Oh, Tomron,
You're gonna get out of prison.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Man.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
You know, I was happy, you know what I mean,
And you know saying when she came forward the way
she did with the DA's office and all these people,
you know, wrote story reason. This lady is an inspiration.
It wasn't her fault. This could have happened to anybody
(21:07):
what happened to me. I appreciate this lady for which
she did. It wasn't for her still alive that came forward,
I would have died in prison.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
With the support of the victim. Tyrone's attorneys saw it.
Subsequent DNA testing with the latest methods revealing a male
profile and a knife that simply did not match Tyrone,
and they filed a motion for a new trial in twenty.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Twenty, even after the victim had come forward, even after
the DNA issue had been explored, even after Jeff primarily
had done a lot of work on witness identifications. The
motion for new trials filed in twenty twenty, it was denied,
it was up on appeal, and then subsequently they changed
their mind for some reason, and they agreed that they
(21:54):
would have sent to a motion to vacate the rape
conviction on the basis that they had failed to preserve
the seaman sample that the hospital had drawn on the
night of the crime.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Wait out of the kindness of their hearts.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Very good question.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I mean, this kind of thing just doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
No, it was very, very very strange because the Boston
police hadn't done their job and preserved it. They then
agreed to as a self imposed punishment for the Brady violation,
agreed to a cent of the motion to vacate his sins.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
That's incredible news.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So then subsequent to that, I was still working on
the case. Jeff Harris needed to back off the case,
so we secured another lawyer by the name of Ed
Gaffney because I was no longer practicing criminal lawe I mean,
Tyrone was my last criminal case. So Ed filed a
motion for new trial based on the robbery and the
kidnapping charges, and August of twenty twenty three, the judge
(22:49):
agreed to vacate those charges. The Commonwealth opposed that motion,
and the judge disregarded their arguments and said, well, if
you agreed to essentially vacate the rape charge, why are
you still have him responsible for the robbery and kidnapping.
And the judge vacated those charges, and then the Commonwealth
decided to no pross meeting. They're not going forward with
(23:11):
the prosecution. And then so Tyrone was officially exonerated of
all of these charges.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
But Tyrone was awaiting those twenty twenty three proceedings from
the outside. After his release following the vacature of his
rape conviction back in November twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I felt great when I got the news I was
being released. The day that I got out, man, it
was I think it was around Thanksgiving them it was.
I get a phone call saying Tyrone, Man, you're being
re released from prison. I said, what he said, Yeah,
I'm coming to pick you up like that. That's my attorney,
Jeff Harris. Great guy. You know, he really fought Bill
(23:49):
Hayd and the crininal matter. I said, oh yeah, he said,
just yeah, you know, I'm just saying to just be ready.
So now when I go downstairs, the book and all
the officers were glad. They were telling me they read
about me in the paper. You know, they were happy
for me. Now, when I went downstairs, I went out
the door. So I got in the car. My lawyers,
(24:10):
Jeff Harrisy showed me on the phone. He said, look
look at all these people raising money for you.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Man.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I ain't know anything about no goal fund me or
any of that stuff. I never even know these people
to get the chance to thank them for generosity or
support that they're giving me money to try to help
me get on my feet. But with the money that
was raised, because I didn't have nowhere to go, I
slept in the hotels.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So one of the bigger issues obviously is because he
doesn't have a credit history or an employment history or
an ID, it's very difficult to find someone like that
housing and so for a significant period of time he
had to stay at hotels.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So that go fund me burnt out, and we're going
to link to that go fund me for Tyrone in
the episode description so you can help him get to
where he needs to be some comfort in his life.
Long overdue, and because these civil cases take forever. They shouldn't,
but they do. They take years and years. So I
(25:09):
hope that our audience will be generous and supporting.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I got this place through no credit. It took me
a long time to even find a place. They'll tell you,
you know, like I said, I lived in hotels. Someone
treated me okay, but then again some no, I went
through a little I'm not even gonna get into it,
and they don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Tyrone was letting homeless people shower in his hotel and
he got in trouble for doing that. And so when
that happened, I had to explain to Tyrone that the
hotels generally don't like that, but he didn't understand that
he was just doing that out of the kindness of
his soul.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, my foundation is based on homelessness.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
No.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I go to shelters, I eating shelters, I hang out
with homeless people. A lot of them. People loved me
out here, man. I'm saying, because of the things that
I do and how I treat them, I don't feel like, okay,
they better than me. I'm better than them. I wanted
to try to, like down the road to try to
(26:15):
get a halfway house man, you know, for homelessness, because
when I go out and I ride buses in our
trains and I see what I see, it hurts me.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Man.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
It's sad man. So hopefully someday, man, I can get
a halfway house and get the funds or something man
to try to help back me up and help people
like that, people that never committed a crime, that was
on death road. Bro. I have a friend named James Watson.
He was upstate with me. He fought many many years,
(26:47):
you know, and because of they changed the law back
then or the death penalty, that's what saves his life.
He would have went to the chair if it wasn't
for that, But now he's on the street.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well, it never ceases to amaze and inspire me to
see folks like you, Tyrone, who made it through hell
and emerge carrying buckets of water to help those still
stuck inside. And you want to do it on the
outside too, So please let us know when you want
to get that started, and maybe we can raise support
for it as well. And with that, we're going to
(27:21):
go to closing arguments first, of all, I thank you
both again, and then I'm going to switch my microphone off,
kick back in my chair with my headphones on, and
close my eyes and just listen to anything else you
want to share with me and our incredible audience. So Neil,
you go first, and then just hand the mic off
to Tyrone and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
So, I mean, I started working on Tyrone's case in
two thousand and two, and I've worked on it for
over twenty years. And you know, Tyrone's case really is sad,
but it's also very inspiring to me in a lot
of ways. You know, when I first met Tyrone, I
(28:02):
had sort of a jaded view of people in prison
and their stories, and I was very skeptical of individuals
when they were told me they were innocent or they
did not do something and the state had prosecuted them.
But when I started listening to Tyrone and talking to Tyrone,
I sort of realized what a genuine soul he was
(28:25):
and what a good person he was. And despite having
grown up in foster homes and despite not having a
strong support system, he was a very genuine person and
he had never been really given a chance to succeed, unfortunately,
and so when I started working on his case in
(28:45):
two thousand and two, I sort of committed to him
that I would work as hard as I could to
try to make his life better. And so for the
past twenty years, I've worked with him both in our
law suit against the parle board in the criminal case
with the DA now helping him in justice society after
(29:07):
having served nearly fifty years in prison. While he has
the right to be extremely angry, sad, and depressed about
what happened to him, what I find inspiring about him
is that he continues to have the same sort of affable,
lovable soul that he had when I met him in
two thousand and two, and that he continues to sort
of be a very nice human being. He really does
(29:30):
care about the homeless, He really does care about people
who have less than him. And Tyrone's case, while it
is an indictment of the criminal justice system, and it
is an indictment of how minority is retreated in Boston
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties and even today,
it's really more about the will to survive and the
(29:51):
will to be a nice person, and so That's why
I continue to work hard for him and care about
him genuinely.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I really appreciate being here doing this interview about my story,
what happened to me, happened to the victim. I really
appreciate what the victim did because I know that she
didn't reach out to miss Thompson and missus Thompson encouraging
(30:21):
her to do what she did to come forward. I
don't think that all this is what it came about.
So I just want to say to the victim, even
though I never met her, I just want her to
know I'm so appreciated. I'm so happy that she came
(30:41):
forward and helped me get out of prison. I probably
wouldn't be here today. I know people had made bad
comments after fifty years taken out of my life, but
they don't really know really the circumstances behind really what
happened in this case, and she was traumatized. So I
(31:05):
just want the victim to know that I'm a man
of God. I forgive her. I don't hate her. I
hope man that her life is much much better. No,
I want her to know that I'm okay, I'm strong,
I'm healthy. She did enough for me by helping me
get out of prison, which she did was right to
(31:28):
tell the truth. I just wanted to know that I'm okay.
I lost a lot, but I'm still here for a reason.
She's still here for a reason. Everybody that lied back then,
that testified back then on the Commonwealth side in this
(31:48):
case is dead. So me and her is still here
for a reason. I believe God saved her and saved me,
and I believe that God touched her her hot man
to come forward man and know and kept pull alive
so I can be able man to walk out that prison.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So I just wanted to say to him, man, I
appreciate you. Miss. I hope you listening, and don't be
afraid to reach out to my attorney if you want
to ever want to get a chance to meet me
in pressing or speak to me.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(32:50):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrong
for Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
it's Jason Flat. Wrongful Conviction 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
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