October 7, 2024 • 36 mins
In the winter of 1995, Joyce Dennis was killed during her closing shift at a laundromat in North Philadelphia, PA. Police then rounded up a group of teenagers and, over the course of several months, got them to implicate two of their friends for the crime, including Eddie Ramirez. Despite the fact that no physical evidence tied him to the murder scene, Eddie would spend 27 years in prison for a crime he’s always maintained he did not commit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Back in the nineties, the crime and murder rate in
Philadelphia was at its peak.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
There were more than five hundred.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Murders in nineteen ninety and the rate remained above four
hundred through nineteen ninety seven. A lot of this crime
happened in North Philadelphia, in areas notorious for sex work
and were open air drug markets thrived. I've reported on
and spoken to people who lived and grew up in
the area for years, people who've been punished by a
(00:35):
system hell bent on jailing its way out of social
problems like poverty, addiction, and mental health. Most of these
people were young men and boys of color, considered quote
super predators by politicians of the time like Hillary Clinton
and Joe Biden.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
They are not just gangs of kids anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
They are often the kinds of kids that are called
super predators.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No conscience, no empathy.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
One of those boys was David Luis Suave Gonzalez. Suave
grew up in prison, but he was given a chance
to prove he was more than the mistake that landed
him behind bars. While doing time, Suave earned degrees and
created enrichment programs aimed at things like helping men behind
bars with kids become better fathers. Throughout his years of mentorship,
(01:31):
Save met a young man named Eddie Ramirez, also from
North Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
I remember when he came to the prison. He came
looking for me because he had heard of me in
another prison. I took him under the way, and you know,
I became his mentor and he became out of the brother.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Save told me that during the decades he'd spent in
prison meeting people from all walks of life, Eddie Ramirez
stuck out.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
He started talking to me about all I'm innocent, and
I was like, okay, everybody in prison is innocent, you know,
because that's something we don't discuss in the prison system.
But what I noticed was that Eddie really lived like
an innocent person in prison, and he had to. He
(02:18):
only told me one time. He never ran around saying
to me, convincing me or nothing. He'd just said, I'm innocent,
but I gotta do what I gotta do to somebody.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Here and to get out.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Before life in prison, Eddie was a hyper little kid,
doing the things kids in cities do.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
I just wanted to just be happy. I just want
to have a comfortable life, celebrating it with family and friends.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
What would that look like at the.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Time, It probably would have been like smoking weed, watching
rap videos, skateboarding. Yeah, like that. And I'm trying to
think how much of that has changed last thirty years.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Eddie was fortunate unlike Suave.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He grew up in a stable home with both parents, siblings,
and love. In fact, Eddie's father was a police officer
with the Philadelphia Police, and Eddie grew up respecting the law.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
I just never thought of the police as being corrupt.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Do you think they were corrupt in your case?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I mean I ended up in prison for something I
didn't do.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
My name is Eddie Ramirez, and I was in prison
for twenty seven and a half years for something I
didn't do.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Today Eddie Ramirez.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Eddie was born on November tenth, nineteen seventy six, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He's one of three kids.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I have two older sisters who were both my protectors
and my bullies, and I love them.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
What was it like being the little brother to two
older sisters?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Do you have Eddie younger siblings, you should ask them
see what they see about that.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So he said you guys were his protectors, but also
his bullies.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
What does he mean by that.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Well, he'll have to actually clear which one was the
actual bully.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
I'm not going to say anything.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Other than that.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
This is Emily, Eddie's sister.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
He's five years younger than me. So imagine I was
five years old when this little baby boy comes to
the world, and my sister's only like a year and
a half older than me. So he was just, you know,
the little boy of the house.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
I was the pesky little brother. But at the same
time they adored me.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Emily says she did and does adore Eddie and remembers
him as an active kid, always getting into everything.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Kid.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
Eddie was a lot of imagination. He was just always
active the way he is now, always active. He's trying
to do something at home. We had this just saying
only us. The Ramier says know that we say to
each other we fike it, because he used to say
every time he would go underneath the table and make
(05:12):
pretend he's fixing something, and then he'll tell Mom, I
fake it. I fike it. So all of us now,
whenever we fix something, we just say we fike it.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
We did have a driveway behind my house with the
kids from Ninth Street and the kids from Hunchinson Street
gathered to play sports, freeze.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
Tag, football, baseball, king, we did everything. So the majority
of the people were our age, my sister and I.
I think Eddie might have been the youngest of them all,
and there was a couple of older guys. So yeah,
Eddie was so hyper that, you know, people didn't want
(05:50):
to you know, and they didn't want him to be around,
so we would have to come to his defense. I
know one time I fought a little boy because this
something to Eddie, and Eddie was crying and I went
out and I fought him. I still get called the
mean girl because of that. I'm the mean sister because
of that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Although Eddie grew up with older sisters, he still found
boy time.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
My cousins were the closest thing I had to brothers,
and I did everything with them. We played Street Fighter,
we played Nintendo. We would go to Hunting Park play
football or basketball. We went shopping, We chased girls, everything
that you can think about. I did everything with my
(06:37):
family in fact I like to tell people I didn't
have friends. My friends were family members.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Tell me about growing up in Philly back then, you
said North Philly.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
It depends on what you define as North Philly. It
is technically North Philly, but people from North Philly might
not think of my neighborhood as being North Philly. I'm
logan north of the Boulevard. There were trees on my block. Like,
maybe our experience isn't typical of the North Philly experience.
But all of my cousins graduated from college or went
(07:10):
to the military, have stable lives. None of them ever
been arrested for anything while they were drugs in my neighborhood.
It probably wasn't as visible as some of the other
neighborhoods throughout North Philly. My upbringing was pretty modest, pretty
working class family. I never knew poverty. I never I
(07:32):
never wanted for anything.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
This sounds very different from a lot of stories I've
heard from North Philly at the time. So were you
ever involved in any kind of crime, drugs, anything like that.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
No, I mean I was a graffiti writer as a kid,
so you know that.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No robberies, no guns.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
No, no, No, I've in fact, being the son of
a police officer, I've never even seen a gun.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
As I mentioned, Eddie's father was a Philadelphia police officer.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
I sort of like idolized the police because I actually
saw them as heroes. Because not only was my father
a police officer, I have several uncles who were sheriffs
and prison guards. I grew up in a law enforcement family.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
Upbringing was nothing but police officers. I mean, we used
to go camping, and it used to be all my
father's buddies.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Oh my god. Like we used to go camping in
Coatsville in the summertime every weekend, And so I grew
up with all those freams and they were all like
cousins to me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
February nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, was like any day for
eighteen year old Eddie Ramirez.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
He was looking to have fun and hang out with friends.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Eddie's dad gave him permission to spend the night at
his friend Mary Emmanuel's house. His friend eighteen year olds
William Billy why he was there, and Pete Goesy.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Well Pete I didn't know that well at all. Pete
was Billy's friends. Billy was someone where I'd met in
years prior to that, not many years, I didn't where
I would have said I loved Billy like a brother.
The truth of the matter is that I didn't know
Billy that well. Apparently I didn't know him that well,
(09:29):
and I think that it was it was obvious to
everybody that him and I did not compliment each other.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
What does that mean?
Speaker 5 (09:39):
We were into different things, Like I'm a big dreamer.
I don't know what he's into. But it wasn't that
I like to it's, you know, now thinking about it,
I'm like, man, I didn't know that guy at all.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
But Billy wanted to playing a key role in Eddie's case,
and you'll be hearing more about him later. Back to
that winter day in nineteen ninety five, So they're all
hanging out at Mary Emmanuel's house and at around eleven PM,
Eddie heads out to the laundromat across the street to
get a soda for Mary's dad, Jay Darnell Senior. He
(10:22):
asked for the soda earlier in the night, but the
kids forgot so Mary sent Eddie. According to Eddie and
his attorneys, he was at the laundromat for fifteen to
thirty minutes he says he met a girl there and
started flirting. She was one of the last customers of
the night. They exchanged numbers and Eddie headed back Around
one am, he actually called the girl and they spoke
(10:44):
for a few minutes, and shortly after Ja Darnell asked
everyone to leave. Peter Gozi gave Eddie and Billy why
He a ride back to Billy's house and that was
that the end of a mostly uneventful night. The next day,
on February twentieth, police found the body of a woman
(11:06):
bludgeoned to death in the laundromat. Forty year old Joyce
Dennis was an employee there. She was a mother in
a newlywed and it was her first shift back from
her honeymoon in Mexico. When Joyce didn't come home after
her shift at two am, her husband Jim went to
(11:28):
look for her.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
She would close up the laundromat late at night, and
she hadn't come home and hadn't called, so he went
to the laundromat and when he went inside, he saw
blood and he flagged out a cop who arrived at
the scene, and they investigated and discovered a victim's body
and she was beaten to death.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Basically, this is Michael Wiseman.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I'm a lawyer in Pennsylvania. I work in a small
firm called Wiseman and Schwartz.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Michael says Joyce had been hit in the head at
least no. Nine times with a metal bar. The police
had found at the scene when they arrived. There was
blood everywhere and the door handles inside, dead bolts all
on the floor. They found a fleece with blood on it,
and the place also appeared to have been robbed. While investigating,
(12:20):
the police talked to Jay Darnell a few days after
the killing.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
The dad of this girl who wanted the soda, reported
to the police that, oh, Eddie went to the launderrath
against soda and that's it. They were off to the races.
Eddie's the suspect.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Police start asking about Eddie.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
The cops got all these you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen
year olds you know in the station whereas they used
to call it the round house, and basically six or
so people who gave statements against Eddie.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
What follows is a month's long investigation in which a
story starts to develop about Eddie and a party and
a confession a story that unfolds like a game of telephone.
A key part of the story comes from a known
drug dealer named Corey Watkins. Police interview Watkins and he
(13:17):
tells them a seventeen year old kid named Joseph Mayo
told him that Billy Why he had killed a woman
at the laundromat. Remember, Billy was Eddie's friend, the one
he was with that night. Watkins does not mention anything
about Eddie. Police also bring in Billy why He for questioning,
and Billy ends up telling police that Eddie killed Joyce
(13:41):
Dennis during a robbery while he stood look out, and
after he and Eddie went to a friend's party to
buy drugs. Fifteen year old Luis Rivera says he was
at that party and he tells police that Billy told
him he and Eddie quote went to do a stick
up and Eddie hurt the lady and that the lady died.
(14:02):
Watkins's girlfriend, Melanie Foreman, also a local drug dealer, tells
police she saw Eddie a few days later and he
confessed to her. The police eventually reinterviewed Mayo, who remember
hadn't said anything about Eddie originally, but now He says
Billy and Eddie told him they were involved in the
(14:25):
death of Joyce Dennis at the laundromat, almost a year
and a half after Joyce Dennis was found bludgeoned to death.
Billy why he was arrested the following day, on the
fourth of July, Eddie was working the overnight attendant shift
at a gas station when police showed up and arrested him.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
And I thought, Okay, they clearly they've made a mistake
and cool a headge will prevail. Let me do what
I care so I can get back to work.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
But that's not what happened.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
I's been in jail for twenty months with waiting trial.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Both were charged with murder, robbery, and criminal conspiracy. Billy
took a deal, pleading to a lesser sentence in exchange
for testifying as the star witness against Eddie at trial.
What followed for Eddie's family was mostly confusion.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
We remember that day when we were told he was arrested.
I immediately went over to my sister's house and we
were just like in shock and what we were going
to do, and we didn't even know what to do.
We did not know what to do. It was embarrassing
(15:38):
in the beginning. Family didn't want to talk about it.
And you know, everybody thinks that you go to jail,
you have something to do with it. Nobody was going
to believe or the innocent. My brother's innocent. He had
nothing to do with it, like nothing. You know, nobody
believed that. Nobody believed it. There was always doubt in
(15:58):
people's minds.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Emily says her dad was desperate and being a former cop,
he started to look into the case too, to see
if anything implicated Eddie.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
My dad checked the house I think a thousand times.
He tried to investigate the case. He tried to be
detective and found nothing. And it was just mind boggling.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
What person says, Hey, let me prepare for a rainy
day in the case I get arrested for something I
didn't do. So you don't know, that's not something you
prepare for. It's just something you're in in the moment,
and when the moment comes for some people, it catches
you off guard.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And nothing could have prepared him for what came next.
Eddie's trial began in December nineteen ninety seven. Assistant District
Attorney Mark Gilson called Star witness Billy Wyhee to the
stand along with Joseph Mayo Melanie Foreman, who repeated what
(17:02):
they had told police.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah, he made admissions to me. I saw him with
blood on him. I saw him with a pocket full
of quarters quarters.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
It was all over the press when Eddie was first arrested.
Police were saying the teenagers had killed Joyce Dennis over
a bucket of change from the machines. Then, according to
the prosecution, they went to a party, got high and
bragged about what they had done. Eddie's defense attorney was
(17:32):
a former DA named Jack McMahon. There was no evidence
linking Eddie to the crime for McMahon to refute with experts,
the case was all based on alleged witness testimony, so
he had to challenge the credibility of each witness. He
pointed out that except for why he, none of them
(17:52):
had implicated Eddie in their original statements with police.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
None.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
His strategy was to rely on his obeities to impeach
the witnesses based on their own inconsistent testimony.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
He was trying to point out that all these kids.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You know, were forced to implicate.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Eddie, and these were all teenagers.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, the teenagers without their families involved in the interrogation,
which is itself problematic, and you know, it's just threats
and threats and threats and the you know, if you
don't give up Eddie, then you must have done it.
You know something on that you're not telling us, And
it's just, you know, it takes an extraordinary person, especially
(18:34):
as a teenager, to resist that kind of pressure, or.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It would take someone who is not in a lot
of trouble. Witness Melanie Foreman, for example, was facing two
state drug charges and three federal drug charges at the time.
McMahon also called Sarah Hurd, the girl who allegedly threw
the party or Eddie had confessed, and she testified the
party had been the night before the murder and she
(19:00):
never heard Eddie say anything about Joyce.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Dennis.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Eddie's dad, also testified that Eddie came home the next
day wearing the same clothes he'd been in the day before.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The defense was trying to make a point that Eddie
was not seen with blood on him.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Remember, the laundromat was a bloody mess.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
It was really inconceivable that a person who had committed
this crime would have gotten away from there. With literally
no blood, but they hid the fact that the place
was a wash of blood.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
The prosecution was able to suppress evidence at trial, so
the defense could not bring up the blood. So the
whole case hinged on the word of these witnesses against Eddie,
and on January second, nineteen ninety eight, Eddie was convicted
of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
When I was convicted, I thought to myself, well, I'm
a arrest did I'm health for trial? And I think
to myself, Okay, cool. At some point, they're gonna realize
this is a mistake, and they're gonna drop the charges
and they're gonna release me.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Like I was in denial, what were the first years, Like.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I was still super young and had no real identity,
but he's.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Had a lot of time to think about what put
him in prison and who he could trust.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
I stayed to myself like now, I wasn't so much
isolated as I wanted to learn from my mistakes. And
my biggest mistake was associating with people who I had
who I didn't have much in common with right and
to this day I don't do it. And so for
(20:45):
those first few years, like I'd played cards with you,
but we weren't boys.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Years past and the reality of prison set in.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I remember the date, November tenth, two thousand and why
that date, That's my birthday. And the clock struck midnight
and I realized I had just turned thirty and I
had spent all of my twenties in prison. And I
was like, oh, this is real.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Time passed for Eddie's family as well.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
It was just mind boggling. All the years the hope
was being lost.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
But then Eddie was transferred.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
I ended up at Greaterford and that changed my life.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Greaterford was a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania's largest able
to house about thirty five hundred men, and Eddie says
it was really those men at Greiderford who changed him.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
Oh where my family taught me love and tolerance. My
brother's at Greaterford taught me how to be a man.
I met guys like Soabre Tyrone Works, Albert Bandy, Sam
Magic Brown. They taught me how to be an adult.
And when I say and I don't mean no, no
kind of toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Eddie says, these men taught him how to have integrity, honor,
and a sense of purpose. How does that.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Happen in a prison?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You know, how do these guys, some of them did
do crimes, how do they suddenly just become these like
Dali Lama guru guys.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Because most of the crimes that were committed were committed
when they were young men, and they you know, you
sit in you go to prison, and you start to
see the effect of the crimes you've committed, and then
they start to like, you're mature. And so for those guys,
I mean, it happens for everyone, but it happens differently, right,
(22:40):
And so those guys who are fall intensive purposes never
going to leave the prison. What do you have? You
have your legacy, you have the way that you affect
other people going out into the world, and they take
that piece of you with them.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And that's kind of what you were thinking, because you
were never going to go home.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Oh no, I knew I was going to go home,
did I mean? Listen, there were times where I questioned it,
but I would like snap myself back to reality, like yo, prepare.
And so from the minute like these guys, I met
them and they were like, are you going home? And
I'd be like, yeah, I'm going home. All right, well,
stop preparing right now.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
So Eddie got to work.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Not only did he complete a paralegal certificate course, but
he earned a bachelor's degree. He pushed so that incarcerated
students became eligible for the Dean's List, and he collaborated
as an artist with a mural arts program in Philadelphia.
And by his side the entire time was his family.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I can tell you that that Eddie's family was as
steadfast as any I've ever seen. I mean, just the
tenacity and the gumption of the family.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Was amazing, especially his sisters.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
I became his voice out here to let people know, Hey,
this happened, This is happening. This is happening. People are innocent,
and so by me doing it out here, it was
motivating him inside prison to do to better himself, to
prepare himself to come out here.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
But Eddie wasn't just preparing to get out. He was
fighting to get out. In the early two thousands, Eddie
filed a series of appeals, one of the main ones
being that the prosecution had found DNA under fingernail clippings
from Joyce Dennis and that was never disclosed to the defense.
In two thousand and three, testing was done on the
(24:37):
samples that excluded Eddie as a contributor, but his conviction
was upheld in twenty eleven. Then Michael comes in, Michael,
do you think that his trial was fair?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Well, it can't be a fair trial when evidence is suppressed.
That's fundamental to any system of justice. Answers and obvious
and resecting.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Now, in twenty fifteen, Eddie filed a petition for relief
with the help of Michael Weisman.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So that was when I first met Eddie. And over time,
you know, I've come to truly admire him as an individual,
as man, and as a resilient human being.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
So and he's learned to sort of bear with my
sort of like overbearing personality.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
If there's anything I've learned from you guys at Greaterford
and Philadelphia, you are all big personalities. Yes, there's anything
I've learned from meeting all you. Michael also had the
help of the Philadelphia Innocence Project.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
When the Innocence Project got involved, the case kind of exploded,
and you know, went in all kinds of different directions
that I don't know that any of us anticipated.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
At the time.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Not only did they follow up on the DNA motions
and suppressed blood evidence. But Eddie's claim for innocence was
now bolstered by recantation from key witnesses. Drug dealer Corey
Watkins and his girlfriend Melanie Foreman, said they'd been pressured
to falsely implicate Eddie. Watkins said the police held him
for hours until he signed a statement. Foreman said the
(26:14):
police threatened to charge her as an accomplice. She was
cooperating with the federal government on other cases when she
gave her initial statement against Eddie. Remember, she was facing
two state drug charges and three federal gun and drug
charges at the time. Joseph Mayo said the police had
threatened to charge him with an unrelated stabbing if he
(26:37):
didn't implicate Eddie, and Sarah Hurd would later say in
an Affidavid that the police screamed at her and threatened
to take away her baby and to charge her with
hiding evidence.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
The harassment and the threats against these teenagers to finger
any is something that now has the name. It's called
the homicide Hotel, So it's it's pretty much an established
practice back at that time that what the Philadelphia Hama
Side Unit would do is they would bring in witnesses
(27:10):
and they'd basically just hold them for days. So you know,
that combined with the DNA combined with what we learned
to be the suppressed blood evidence, was like, you know,
just the trifecta of strong extalpatory evidence.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
In twenty sixteen, additional DNA testing was done on items
at the scene, including a broom and the bloody fleece
I'd mentioned earlier. Testing found the same male DNA on
the fleece as on the presumed murder weapon, the pipe.
Eddie was again excluded as a contributor. But the wheels
(27:47):
of justice move slow, and the years go by with
new motions and delays and setbacks, I.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Mean every court appearance. I mean I used to like
dread having to go to court because it'd be like,
I have nothing I can tell Eddie's mom, who just
sits there with tears in her eyes and you know,
waiting for good news.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Then finally, in August of twenty twenty three, the state
responded to Eddie's petition for relief, agreeing that they had
failed to disclose significant exculpatory evidence to Eddie's attorney that
would have helped his defense at his original trial. A
(28:33):
November two, Judge Scott de Claudio vacated Eddie's conviction and
ordered a new trial.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
At that point, I was kind of like, Okay, I
could breathe a little easier now. Yeah, I'm not out
the woods yet because I'm still in prison.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
But the prosecution had thirty days to decide if they
wanted to retry him, and they took their time deciding.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
I was just like, my brother is going out of
his mind in prison.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
They're going to get every minute out of me that
they can. I was pissed.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Finally, on November thirtieth, twenty days after his forty seventh birthday,
Eddie was on his way to court to find out
what the state had decided.
Speaker 6 (29:11):
It's very last minute, the very last minute. We were
just like holding our breath because we have been there,
done that so many times.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Eddie was on the prison transport van, filled with nerves
when there was an announcement.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
One of the chefs was watching on his phone and
so he yells to the back of the van, Hey, Ramirez,
they just announced it. Man, You're going home, right, And
so people in the van are like really happy, like,
oh man, congratulations, congratulations. There was this one kid. He
was like, Yo, how long you been down? I said, man,
I've probably been down your whole life. And he's twenty
four years old, so he was like, I'm twenty four.
I'm like, yeah, man, you weren't even born when I
(29:49):
went to prison.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
He tells Eddie about the street and gang violence that
surrounds him at home, and he says.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Yeah, I just want to be somewhere where I could
take my son out and not be afraid it was
going to hap happened. And so I said to him,
how important is that? He said, it's everything, And so
I said, well, then everything you do should be about that.
And then it dawned on me, Yo, God put me
(30:15):
on this van to give that one last lesson to
somebody on the inside. And so, however long the trip was,
I stopped thinking about the time because I was like, man,
I got an opportunity to do that in that location
one last time, because I'm going to for the rest
of my life. I'm going to do whatever I can
to be a brother to whoever needs it.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Eddie's entire family, including his parents, were there the day
he was released.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
And my father, who I had not seen run in
thirty years ran to me that was gonna be with
me for a while.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
What's your relationship with him?
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Like now, oh, man, that's my best friend. That's my
best friend. And I'm just so happy. Like I wonder
sometimes if he thought he was going to live to
see the day that I would come home. And I'm
so happy that he did.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Eddie wasted no time picking up where he left off
at nineteen years old.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
I still skateboard. Wow. Yeah, well, I mean not exaggerate
the greatness of my skateboard.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I was gonna say, did you skateboard in prison? Because
you've only been out a few months and.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I have skateboarding since I've been home. And I can
tell you that as a forty eight year old, it
affects the joints differently.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Scary.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
I am worried about falling. I'm going to break a hip.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Billy why he is the only witness against Eddie who
didn't change his story, and that was Eddie's friend though
when he thought he knew. He took a deal to
testify against Eddie and only served five years in prison,
while Eddie could have spent his life in there. At first,
Eddie couldn't help but be resentful towards Billy.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Why he but today he looks at things differently.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Wouldn't want his victim, yea. And I you know, like
I hate to put it like that because it's a
part of me that.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
That's the guy that put you in prison.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Yeah, and so there's a part of me that doesn't
want to defend him. But how could I not How
could I talk about integrity and character and just throw
that guy to the wolves, even though he did that
to me. And so I do got to stand up
for what's right and say that it took advantage of
a kid.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
These days, Eddie tries to share the wisdom and perspective
he gained from his friends in prison with the new
men in his life, his nephews.
Speaker 6 (32:58):
You know, he gives them the manly talk, get up
off your butt and do this, And he's always talking
criminal reform to them, which in my case, I have
a son who you know, has a little criminal history,
so you know, he tries to teach him what he
can do. And all of Eddie's friends are also in
(33:19):
that criminal reform stuff. So I feel like that's a
really good vole model for guys like my sons and
his nephews and his niece.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Look at good and he just lives life.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
Why don't you tell the world what you're about to.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Do, goes to the driving range with his dad and sisters.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Great job, you look good, Man, smile for me.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Man look at me a smile, and spends time with
his family as much as he can.
Speaker 6 (33:49):
You know, everybody's been trying to get a piece of him.
He is booked solid. We have to literally plan around
his schedule.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
But there was one day that Eddie couldn't miss.
Speaker 6 (34:04):
She got arrested in the middle of the night on
the fourth of July. So this Fourth of July was
the first time that we got to celebrate with him
in twenty seven years, and it was very special for
me and my sister that we did something.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Emily wasn't going to let Eddie miss another Fourth of
July with his family.
Speaker 6 (34:24):
I talk a lot about my dad, but my mom,
she's super, super faithful. She's a faithful woman, and she
had no doubt that he was going to come home
one day. And I can tell you that she has
bought him things all throughout his prison life. She had
racked up items for him for when he came out
household stuff, socks.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
All kinds of stuff.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Not when he came out. Of course, those are like
old stuff. He wants new things, so you know, we
have to try to do something with those things. But
she is like so happy that she got her son back,
and like that is the woman. That woman is so
the fourth of July, she got to see her three
(35:07):
children swimming and playing in the pool like we were
when we were kids, when we used to go camping.
That my dad didn't experience because he came and left,
but my mom actually stood around and she saw us
playing in the pool. I said, Mom, does this remind
you of camping? And she she just said yeah. She
had this big smile on the face. She was just
(35:28):
so happy that she got to see all her kids,
especially her son, playing in the pool like little kids,
splashing each other.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our producer
is Kathleen fink. Our researcher is Shelby Sorels, additional mixing.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
By Josh Allen. Our executive producers are Jason Flam.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis, with additional production help by
Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make 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 Conviction with Maggie Freeling
(36:37):
is a production of Lava for Good podcast in association
with Signal Company Number one
Back in the nineties, the crime and murder rate in
Philadelphia was at its peak.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
There were more than five hundred.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Murders in nineteen ninety and the rate remained above four
hundred through nineteen ninety seven. A lot of this crime
happened in North Philadelphia, in areas notorious for sex work
and were open air drug markets thrived. I've reported on
and spoken to people who lived and grew up in
the area for years, people who've been punished by a
(00:35):
system hell bent on jailing its way out of social
problems like poverty, addiction, and mental health. Most of these
people were young men and boys of color, considered quote
super predators by politicians of the time like Hillary Clinton
and Joe Biden.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
They are not just gangs of kids anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
They are often the kinds of kids that are called
super predators.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No conscience, no empathy.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
One of those boys was David Luis Suave Gonzalez. Suave
grew up in prison, but he was given a chance
to prove he was more than the mistake that landed
him behind bars. While doing time, Suave earned degrees and
created enrichment programs aimed at things like helping men behind
bars with kids become better fathers. Throughout his years of mentorship,
(01:31):
Save met a young man named Eddie Ramirez, also from
North Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
I remember when he came to the prison. He came
looking for me because he had heard of me in
another prison. I took him under the way, and you know,
I became his mentor and he became out of the brother.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Save told me that during the decades he'd spent in
prison meeting people from all walks of life, Eddie Ramirez
stuck out.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
He started talking to me about all I'm innocent, and
I was like, okay, everybody in prison is innocent, you know,
because that's something we don't discuss in the prison system.
But what I noticed was that Eddie really lived like
an innocent person in prison, and he had to. He
(02:18):
only told me one time. He never ran around saying
to me, convincing me or nothing. He'd just said, I'm innocent,
but I gotta do what I gotta do to somebody.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Here and to get out.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Before life in prison, Eddie was a hyper little kid,
doing the things kids in cities do.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
I just wanted to just be happy. I just want
to have a comfortable life, celebrating it with family and friends.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
What would that look like at the.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Time, It probably would have been like smoking weed, watching
rap videos, skateboarding. Yeah, like that. And I'm trying to
think how much of that has changed last thirty years.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Eddie was fortunate unlike Suave.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He grew up in a stable home with both parents, siblings,
and love. In fact, Eddie's father was a police officer
with the Philadelphia Police, and Eddie grew up respecting the law.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
I just never thought of the police as being corrupt.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Do you think they were corrupt in your case?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I mean I ended up in prison for something I
didn't do.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
My name is Eddie Ramirez, and I was in prison
for twenty seven and a half years for something I
didn't do.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Today Eddie Ramirez.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Eddie was born on November tenth, nineteen seventy six, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He's one of three kids.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I have two older sisters who were both my protectors
and my bullies, and I love them.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
What was it like being the little brother to two
older sisters?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Do you have Eddie younger siblings, you should ask them
see what they see about that.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So he said you guys were his protectors, but also
his bullies.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
What does he mean by that.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Well, he'll have to actually clear which one was the
actual bully.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
I'm not going to say anything.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Other than that.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
This is Emily, Eddie's sister.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
He's five years younger than me. So imagine I was
five years old when this little baby boy comes to
the world, and my sister's only like a year and
a half older than me. So he was just, you know,
the little boy of the house.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
I was the pesky little brother. But at the same
time they adored me.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Emily says she did and does adore Eddie and remembers
him as an active kid, always getting into everything.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Kid.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
Eddie was a lot of imagination. He was just always
active the way he is now, always active. He's trying
to do something at home. We had this just saying
only us. The Ramier says know that we say to
each other we fike it, because he used to say
every time he would go underneath the table and make
(05:12):
pretend he's fixing something, and then he'll tell Mom, I
fake it. I fike it. So all of us now,
whenever we fix something, we just say we fike it.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
We did have a driveway behind my house with the
kids from Ninth Street and the kids from Hunchinson Street
gathered to play sports, freeze.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
Tag, football, baseball, king, we did everything. So the majority
of the people were our age, my sister and I.
I think Eddie might have been the youngest of them all,
and there was a couple of older guys. So yeah,
Eddie was so hyper that, you know, people didn't want
(05:50):
to you know, and they didn't want him to be around,
so we would have to come to his defense. I
know one time I fought a little boy because this
something to Eddie, and Eddie was crying and I went
out and I fought him. I still get called the
mean girl because of that. I'm the mean sister because
of that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Although Eddie grew up with older sisters, he still found
boy time.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
My cousins were the closest thing I had to brothers,
and I did everything with them. We played Street Fighter,
we played Nintendo. We would go to Hunting Park play
football or basketball. We went shopping, We chased girls, everything
that you can think about. I did everything with my
(06:37):
family in fact I like to tell people I didn't
have friends. My friends were family members.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Tell me about growing up in Philly back then, you
said North Philly.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
It depends on what you define as North Philly. It
is technically North Philly, but people from North Philly might
not think of my neighborhood as being North Philly. I'm
logan north of the Boulevard. There were trees on my block. Like,
maybe our experience isn't typical of the North Philly experience.
But all of my cousins graduated from college or went
(07:10):
to the military, have stable lives. None of them ever
been arrested for anything while they were drugs in my neighborhood.
It probably wasn't as visible as some of the other
neighborhoods throughout North Philly. My upbringing was pretty modest, pretty
working class family. I never knew poverty. I never I
(07:32):
never wanted for anything.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
This sounds very different from a lot of stories I've
heard from North Philly at the time. So were you
ever involved in any kind of crime, drugs, anything like that.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
No, I mean I was a graffiti writer as a kid,
so you know that.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No robberies, no guns.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
No, no, No, I've in fact, being the son of
a police officer, I've never even seen a gun.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
As I mentioned, Eddie's father was a Philadelphia police officer.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
I sort of like idolized the police because I actually
saw them as heroes. Because not only was my father
a police officer, I have several uncles who were sheriffs
and prison guards. I grew up in a law enforcement family.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
Upbringing was nothing but police officers. I mean, we used
to go camping, and it used to be all my
father's buddies.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Oh my god. Like we used to go camping in
Coatsville in the summertime every weekend, And so I grew
up with all those freams and they were all like
cousins to me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
February nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, was like any day for
eighteen year old Eddie Ramirez.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
He was looking to have fun and hang out with friends.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Eddie's dad gave him permission to spend the night at
his friend Mary Emmanuel's house. His friend eighteen year olds
William Billy why he was there, and Pete Goesy.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Well Pete I didn't know that well at all. Pete
was Billy's friends. Billy was someone where I'd met in
years prior to that, not many years, I didn't where
I would have said I loved Billy like a brother.
The truth of the matter is that I didn't know
Billy that well. Apparently I didn't know him that well,
(09:29):
and I think that it was it was obvious to
everybody that him and I did not compliment each other.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
What does that mean?
Speaker 5 (09:39):
We were into different things, Like I'm a big dreamer.
I don't know what he's into. But it wasn't that
I like to it's, you know, now thinking about it,
I'm like, man, I didn't know that guy at all.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
But Billy wanted to playing a key role in Eddie's case,
and you'll be hearing more about him later. Back to
that winter day in nineteen ninety five, So they're all
hanging out at Mary Emmanuel's house and at around eleven PM,
Eddie heads out to the laundromat across the street to
get a soda for Mary's dad, Jay Darnell Senior. He
(10:22):
asked for the soda earlier in the night, but the
kids forgot so Mary sent Eddie. According to Eddie and
his attorneys, he was at the laundromat for fifteen to
thirty minutes he says he met a girl there and
started flirting. She was one of the last customers of
the night. They exchanged numbers and Eddie headed back Around
one am, he actually called the girl and they spoke
(10:44):
for a few minutes, and shortly after Ja Darnell asked
everyone to leave. Peter Gozi gave Eddie and Billy why
He a ride back to Billy's house and that was
that the end of a mostly uneventful night. The next day,
on February twentieth, police found the body of a woman
(11:06):
bludgeoned to death in the laundromat. Forty year old Joyce
Dennis was an employee there. She was a mother in
a newlywed and it was her first shift back from
her honeymoon in Mexico. When Joyce didn't come home after
her shift at two am, her husband Jim went to
(11:28):
look for her.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
She would close up the laundromat late at night, and
she hadn't come home and hadn't called, so he went
to the laundromat and when he went inside, he saw
blood and he flagged out a cop who arrived at
the scene, and they investigated and discovered a victim's body
and she was beaten to death.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Basically, this is Michael Wiseman.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I'm a lawyer in Pennsylvania. I work in a small
firm called Wiseman and Schwartz.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Michael says Joyce had been hit in the head at
least no. Nine times with a metal bar. The police
had found at the scene when they arrived. There was
blood everywhere and the door handles inside, dead bolts all
on the floor. They found a fleece with blood on it,
and the place also appeared to have been robbed. While investigating,
(12:20):
the police talked to Jay Darnell a few days after
the killing.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
The dad of this girl who wanted the soda, reported
to the police that, oh, Eddie went to the launderrath
against soda and that's it. They were off to the races.
Eddie's the suspect.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Police start asking about Eddie.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
The cops got all these you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen
year olds you know in the station whereas they used
to call it the round house, and basically six or
so people who gave statements against Eddie.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
What follows is a month's long investigation in which a
story starts to develop about Eddie and a party and
a confession a story that unfolds like a game of telephone.
A key part of the story comes from a known
drug dealer named Corey Watkins. Police interview Watkins and he
(13:17):
tells them a seventeen year old kid named Joseph Mayo
told him that Billy Why he had killed a woman
at the laundromat. Remember, Billy was Eddie's friend, the one
he was with that night. Watkins does not mention anything
about Eddie. Police also bring in Billy why He for questioning,
and Billy ends up telling police that Eddie killed Joyce
(13:41):
Dennis during a robbery while he stood look out, and
after he and Eddie went to a friend's party to
buy drugs. Fifteen year old Luis Rivera says he was
at that party and he tells police that Billy told
him he and Eddie quote went to do a stick
up and Eddie hurt the lady and that the lady died.
(14:02):
Watkins's girlfriend, Melanie Foreman, also a local drug dealer, tells
police she saw Eddie a few days later and he
confessed to her. The police eventually reinterviewed Mayo, who remember
hadn't said anything about Eddie originally, but now He says
Billy and Eddie told him they were involved in the
(14:25):
death of Joyce Dennis at the laundromat, almost a year
and a half after Joyce Dennis was found bludgeoned to death.
Billy why he was arrested the following day, on the
fourth of July, Eddie was working the overnight attendant shift
at a gas station when police showed up and arrested him.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
And I thought, Okay, they clearly they've made a mistake
and cool a headge will prevail. Let me do what
I care so I can get back to work.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
But that's not what happened.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
I's been in jail for twenty months with waiting trial.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Both were charged with murder, robbery, and criminal conspiracy. Billy
took a deal, pleading to a lesser sentence in exchange
for testifying as the star witness against Eddie at trial.
What followed for Eddie's family was mostly confusion.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
We remember that day when we were told he was arrested.
I immediately went over to my sister's house and we
were just like in shock and what we were going
to do, and we didn't even know what to do.
We did not know what to do. It was embarrassing
(15:38):
in the beginning. Family didn't want to talk about it.
And you know, everybody thinks that you go to jail,
you have something to do with it. Nobody was going
to believe or the innocent. My brother's innocent. He had
nothing to do with it, like nothing. You know, nobody
believed that. Nobody believed it. There was always doubt in
(15:58):
people's minds.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Emily says her dad was desperate and being a former cop,
he started to look into the case too, to see
if anything implicated Eddie.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
My dad checked the house I think a thousand times.
He tried to investigate the case. He tried to be
detective and found nothing. And it was just mind boggling.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
What person says, Hey, let me prepare for a rainy
day in the case I get arrested for something I
didn't do. So you don't know, that's not something you
prepare for. It's just something you're in in the moment,
and when the moment comes for some people, it catches
you off guard.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And nothing could have prepared him for what came next.
Eddie's trial began in December nineteen ninety seven. Assistant District
Attorney Mark Gilson called Star witness Billy Wyhee to the
stand along with Joseph Mayo Melanie Foreman, who repeated what
(17:02):
they had told police.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah, he made admissions to me. I saw him with
blood on him. I saw him with a pocket full
of quarters quarters.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
It was all over the press when Eddie was first arrested.
Police were saying the teenagers had killed Joyce Dennis over
a bucket of change from the machines. Then, according to
the prosecution, they went to a party, got high and
bragged about what they had done. Eddie's defense attorney was
(17:32):
a former DA named Jack McMahon. There was no evidence
linking Eddie to the crime for McMahon to refute with experts,
the case was all based on alleged witness testimony, so
he had to challenge the credibility of each witness. He
pointed out that except for why he, none of them
(17:52):
had implicated Eddie in their original statements with police.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
None.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
His strategy was to rely on his obeities to impeach
the witnesses based on their own inconsistent testimony.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
He was trying to point out that all these kids.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You know, were forced to implicate.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Eddie, and these were all teenagers.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, the teenagers without their families involved in the interrogation,
which is itself problematic, and you know, it's just threats
and threats and threats and the you know, if you
don't give up Eddie, then you must have done it.
You know something on that you're not telling us, And
it's just, you know, it takes an extraordinary person, especially
(18:34):
as a teenager, to resist that kind of pressure, or.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It would take someone who is not in a lot
of trouble. Witness Melanie Foreman, for example, was facing two
state drug charges and three federal drug charges at the time.
McMahon also called Sarah Hurd, the girl who allegedly threw
the party or Eddie had confessed, and she testified the
party had been the night before the murder and she
(19:00):
never heard Eddie say anything about Joyce.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Dennis.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Eddie's dad, also testified that Eddie came home the next
day wearing the same clothes he'd been in the day before.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The defense was trying to make a point that Eddie
was not seen with blood on him.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Remember, the laundromat was a bloody mess.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
It was really inconceivable that a person who had committed
this crime would have gotten away from there. With literally
no blood, but they hid the fact that the place
was a wash of blood.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
The prosecution was able to suppress evidence at trial, so
the defense could not bring up the blood. So the
whole case hinged on the word of these witnesses against Eddie,
and on January second, nineteen ninety eight, Eddie was convicted
of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
When I was convicted, I thought to myself, well, I'm
a arrest did I'm health for trial? And I think
to myself, Okay, cool. At some point, they're gonna realize
this is a mistake, and they're gonna drop the charges
and they're gonna release me.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Like I was in denial, what were the first years, Like.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I was still super young and had no real identity,
but he's.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Had a lot of time to think about what put
him in prison and who he could trust.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
I stayed to myself like now, I wasn't so much
isolated as I wanted to learn from my mistakes. And
my biggest mistake was associating with people who I had
who I didn't have much in common with right and
to this day I don't do it. And so for
(20:45):
those first few years, like I'd played cards with you,
but we weren't boys.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Years past and the reality of prison set in.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I remember the date, November tenth, two thousand and why
that date, That's my birthday. And the clock struck midnight
and I realized I had just turned thirty and I
had spent all of my twenties in prison. And I
was like, oh, this is real.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Time passed for Eddie's family as well.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
It was just mind boggling. All the years the hope
was being lost.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
But then Eddie was transferred.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
I ended up at Greaterford and that changed my life.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Greaterford was a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania's largest able
to house about thirty five hundred men, and Eddie says
it was really those men at Greiderford who changed him.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
Oh where my family taught me love and tolerance. My
brother's at Greaterford taught me how to be a man.
I met guys like Soabre Tyrone Works, Albert Bandy, Sam
Magic Brown. They taught me how to be an adult.
And when I say and I don't mean no, no
kind of toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Eddie says, these men taught him how to have integrity, honor,
and a sense of purpose. How does that.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Happen in a prison?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You know, how do these guys, some of them did
do crimes, how do they suddenly just become these like
Dali Lama guru guys.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Because most of the crimes that were committed were committed
when they were young men, and they you know, you
sit in you go to prison, and you start to
see the effect of the crimes you've committed, and then
they start to like, you're mature. And so for those guys,
I mean, it happens for everyone, but it happens differently, right,
(22:40):
And so those guys who are fall intensive purposes never
going to leave the prison. What do you have? You
have your legacy, you have the way that you affect
other people going out into the world, and they take
that piece of you with them.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And that's kind of what you were thinking, because you
were never going to go home.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Oh no, I knew I was going to go home,
did I mean? Listen, there were times where I questioned it,
but I would like snap myself back to reality, like yo, prepare.
And so from the minute like these guys, I met
them and they were like, are you going home? And
I'd be like, yeah, I'm going home. All right, well,
stop preparing right now.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
So Eddie got to work.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Not only did he complete a paralegal certificate course, but
he earned a bachelor's degree. He pushed so that incarcerated
students became eligible for the Dean's List, and he collaborated
as an artist with a mural arts program in Philadelphia.
And by his side the entire time was his family.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I can tell you that that Eddie's family was as
steadfast as any I've ever seen. I mean, just the
tenacity and the gumption of the family.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Was amazing, especially his sisters.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
I became his voice out here to let people know, Hey,
this happened, This is happening. This is happening. People are innocent,
and so by me doing it out here, it was
motivating him inside prison to do to better himself, to
prepare himself to come out here.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
But Eddie wasn't just preparing to get out. He was
fighting to get out. In the early two thousands, Eddie
filed a series of appeals, one of the main ones
being that the prosecution had found DNA under fingernail clippings
from Joyce Dennis and that was never disclosed to the defense.
In two thousand and three, testing was done on the
(24:37):
samples that excluded Eddie as a contributor, but his conviction
was upheld in twenty eleven. Then Michael comes in, Michael,
do you think that his trial was fair?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Well, it can't be a fair trial when evidence is suppressed.
That's fundamental to any system of justice. Answers and obvious
and resecting.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Now, in twenty fifteen, Eddie filed a petition for relief
with the help of Michael Weisman.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So that was when I first met Eddie. And over time,
you know, I've come to truly admire him as an individual,
as man, and as a resilient human being.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
So and he's learned to sort of bear with my
sort of like overbearing personality.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
If there's anything I've learned from you guys at Greaterford
and Philadelphia, you are all big personalities. Yes, there's anything
I've learned from meeting all you. Michael also had the
help of the Philadelphia Innocence Project.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
When the Innocence Project got involved, the case kind of exploded,
and you know, went in all kinds of different directions
that I don't know that any of us anticipated.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
At the time.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Not only did they follow up on the DNA motions
and suppressed blood evidence. But Eddie's claim for innocence was
now bolstered by recantation from key witnesses. Drug dealer Corey
Watkins and his girlfriend Melanie Foreman, said they'd been pressured
to falsely implicate Eddie. Watkins said the police held him
for hours until he signed a statement. Foreman said the
(26:14):
police threatened to charge her as an accomplice. She was
cooperating with the federal government on other cases when she
gave her initial statement against Eddie. Remember, she was facing
two state drug charges and three federal gun and drug
charges at the time. Joseph Mayo said the police had
threatened to charge him with an unrelated stabbing if he
(26:37):
didn't implicate Eddie, and Sarah Hurd would later say in
an Affidavid that the police screamed at her and threatened
to take away her baby and to charge her with
hiding evidence.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
The harassment and the threats against these teenagers to finger
any is something that now has the name. It's called
the homicide Hotel, So it's it's pretty much an established
practice back at that time that what the Philadelphia Hama
Side Unit would do is they would bring in witnesses
(27:10):
and they'd basically just hold them for days. So you know,
that combined with the DNA combined with what we learned
to be the suppressed blood evidence, was like, you know,
just the trifecta of strong extalpatory evidence.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
In twenty sixteen, additional DNA testing was done on items
at the scene, including a broom and the bloody fleece
I'd mentioned earlier. Testing found the same male DNA on
the fleece as on the presumed murder weapon, the pipe.
Eddie was again excluded as a contributor. But the wheels
(27:47):
of justice move slow, and the years go by with
new motions and delays and setbacks, I.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Mean every court appearance. I mean I used to like
dread having to go to court because it'd be like,
I have nothing I can tell Eddie's mom, who just
sits there with tears in her eyes and you know,
waiting for good news.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Then finally, in August of twenty twenty three, the state
responded to Eddie's petition for relief, agreeing that they had
failed to disclose significant exculpatory evidence to Eddie's attorney that
would have helped his defense at his original trial. A
(28:33):
November two, Judge Scott de Claudio vacated Eddie's conviction and
ordered a new trial.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
At that point, I was kind of like, Okay, I
could breathe a little easier now. Yeah, I'm not out
the woods yet because I'm still in prison.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
But the prosecution had thirty days to decide if they
wanted to retry him, and they took their time deciding.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
I was just like, my brother is going out of
his mind in prison.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
They're going to get every minute out of me that
they can. I was pissed.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Finally, on November thirtieth, twenty days after his forty seventh birthday,
Eddie was on his way to court to find out
what the state had decided.
Speaker 6 (29:11):
It's very last minute, the very last minute. We were
just like holding our breath because we have been there,
done that so many times.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Eddie was on the prison transport van, filled with nerves
when there was an announcement.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
One of the chefs was watching on his phone and
so he yells to the back of the van, Hey, Ramirez,
they just announced it. Man, You're going home, right, And
so people in the van are like really happy, like,
oh man, congratulations, congratulations. There was this one kid. He
was like, Yo, how long you been down? I said, man,
I've probably been down your whole life. And he's twenty
four years old, so he was like, I'm twenty four.
I'm like, yeah, man, you weren't even born when I
(29:49):
went to prison.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
He tells Eddie about the street and gang violence that
surrounds him at home, and he says.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Yeah, I just want to be somewhere where I could
take my son out and not be afraid it was
going to hap happened. And so I said to him,
how important is that? He said, it's everything, And so
I said, well, then everything you do should be about that.
And then it dawned on me, Yo, God put me
(30:15):
on this van to give that one last lesson to
somebody on the inside. And so, however long the trip was,
I stopped thinking about the time because I was like, man,
I got an opportunity to do that in that location
one last time, because I'm going to for the rest
of my life. I'm going to do whatever I can
to be a brother to whoever needs it.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Eddie's entire family, including his parents, were there the day
he was released.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
And my father, who I had not seen run in
thirty years ran to me that was gonna be with
me for a while.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
What's your relationship with him?
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Like now, oh, man, that's my best friend. That's my
best friend. And I'm just so happy. Like I wonder
sometimes if he thought he was going to live to
see the day that I would come home. And I'm
so happy that he did.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Eddie wasted no time picking up where he left off
at nineteen years old.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
I still skateboard. Wow. Yeah, well, I mean not exaggerate
the greatness of my skateboard.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I was gonna say, did you skateboard in prison? Because
you've only been out a few months and.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I have skateboarding since I've been home. And I can
tell you that as a forty eight year old, it
affects the joints differently.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Scary.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
I am worried about falling. I'm going to break a hip.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Billy why he is the only witness against Eddie who
didn't change his story, and that was Eddie's friend though
when he thought he knew. He took a deal to
testify against Eddie and only served five years in prison,
while Eddie could have spent his life in there. At first,
Eddie couldn't help but be resentful towards Billy.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Why he but today he looks at things differently.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Wouldn't want his victim, yea. And I you know, like
I hate to put it like that because it's a
part of me that.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
That's the guy that put you in prison.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Yeah, and so there's a part of me that doesn't
want to defend him. But how could I not How
could I talk about integrity and character and just throw
that guy to the wolves, even though he did that
to me. And so I do got to stand up
for what's right and say that it took advantage of
a kid.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
These days, Eddie tries to share the wisdom and perspective
he gained from his friends in prison with the new
men in his life, his nephews.
Speaker 6 (32:58):
You know, he gives them the manly talk, get up
off your butt and do this, And he's always talking
criminal reform to them, which in my case, I have
a son who you know, has a little criminal history,
so you know, he tries to teach him what he
can do. And all of Eddie's friends are also in
(33:19):
that criminal reform stuff. So I feel like that's a
really good vole model for guys like my sons and
his nephews and his niece.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Look at good and he just lives life.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
Why don't you tell the world what you're about to.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Do, goes to the driving range with his dad and sisters.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Great job, you look good, Man, smile for me.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Man look at me a smile, and spends time with
his family as much as he can.
Speaker 6 (33:49):
You know, everybody's been trying to get a piece of him.
He is booked solid. We have to literally plan around
his schedule.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
But there was one day that Eddie couldn't miss.
Speaker 6 (34:04):
She got arrested in the middle of the night on
the fourth of July. So this Fourth of July was
the first time that we got to celebrate with him
in twenty seven years, and it was very special for
me and my sister that we did something.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Emily wasn't going to let Eddie miss another Fourth of
July with his family.
Speaker 6 (34:24):
I talk a lot about my dad, but my mom,
she's super, super faithful. She's a faithful woman, and she
had no doubt that he was going to come home
one day. And I can tell you that she has
bought him things all throughout his prison life. She had
racked up items for him for when he came out
household stuff, socks.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
All kinds of stuff.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Not when he came out. Of course, those are like
old stuff. He wants new things, so you know, we
have to try to do something with those things. But
she is like so happy that she got her son back,
and like that is the woman. That woman is so
the fourth of July, she got to see her three
(35:07):
children swimming and playing in the pool like we were
when we were kids, when we used to go camping.
That my dad didn't experience because he came and left,
but my mom actually stood around and she saw us
playing in the pool. I said, Mom, does this remind
you of camping? And she she just said yeah. She
had this big smile on the face. She was just
(35:28):
so happy that she got to see all her kids,
especially her son, playing in the pool like little kids,
splashing each other.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our producer
is Kathleen fink. Our researcher is Shelby Sorels, additional mixing.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
By Josh Allen. Our executive producers are Jason Flam.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis, with additional production help by
Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make 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 Conviction with Maggie Freeling
(36:37):
is a production of Lava for Good podcast in association
with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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