July 30, 2026 • 53 mins
In October 1997, Skip Clark was killed in York, PA. Police officers decided that the death was gang related, and that two gangs were out for each other after having a dispute. Tysheem Crocker was dragged into the conversation. The State argued that he and others plotted to retaliate against their rival gang, and that Skip was caught in the middle. Despite four witnesses testifying that they knew who the killer was and that it was not Tysheem, and despite the fact that his whereabouts were accounted for at the time of the crime, Tysheem was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, it's Connor Hall, senior producer for Wrongful Conviction, back
with another case update and more behind the scenes insights.
And this time we're talking about Taysheim Crocker and more
broadly about post conviction procedure in Pennsylvania. Now, Taysheim's story
reminds me a bit of the guy who brought us
(00:26):
his case, another previous guest, and somebody I'm lucky to
call a friend, Lorenzo Johnson. Both of these guys and
their friends were just kids who were fleeing the late
Crack epidemic era in the Bronx for what they were
hoping were safe for pastures in Pennsylvania, only to find
(00:46):
new threats to their lives and freedom. I'll link Lorenzo's
story in the episode description where in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Lorenzo
and the other new arrivals from the Bronx were well
aware of how the local law met felt about them.
And then there was certainly added racial motivation in his
story when Lorenzo's co defendant, Corey, happened to be dating
(01:08):
the daughter of the investigator in their case. Yeah, that's
exactly how it sounds. And then in Tyshiem's case, when
shots rang out at an October nineteen ninety seven dice
game in York, Pennsylvania. The murder of Raymond skip Clark
seems to have become an opportunity to again take down
as many kids from the Bronx as possible, when the
(01:30):
likely shooter, Danny Steele, became the state's star witness, saying
that he had planned the shooting at a motel with
four or five others, including Tyshiem, Crocker and Melvin Bethune,
who were alleged to have attended the motel meeting, pointed
guns at a guy named Ken du Smith at the
dice game, but their guns jammed, and then after everyone scattered,
(01:51):
a fictional character named Corleone and a few others chased
and shot Raymond skip Clark a few blocks away, and
that testimony got Danny Steele two to five years instead
of life like Melvin and Tyshem got for their role
in the alleged conspiracy and accomplished liability to that murder.
(02:12):
But in two thousand and three Tayshim discovered the deal
made with Danny Steele which would have impeached him, and
then Danny Steele recanted. In two thousand and five, but
that was deemed not credible, only to be corroborated ten
years later by Ken Duce Smith, who said that Taysheem
and Melvin never pointed guns at him or anyone at
(02:32):
the dice game, but there was still another witness who
had held that position. Another five years down the road,
Taysheem's team found the motel clerk who had checked them in, importantly,
about an hour after the shooting, so this conspiracy meeting
narrative fell apart. There was also a phone call from
(02:53):
their room to Melvin's girlfriend Tucker Redman, allegedly made before
the shooting. It was allegedly overheard by another girl named
Nicki Rhoades. The prosecution said in opening and closing statements
that Melvin had relayed the alleged plot over the phone
before the shooting. Neither of the girls wherever called to
the stand, but the existence of this phone call was
raised in court. It seems purposely without a time stamped
(03:17):
call log, which would have shown a time for after
the shooting when they were checked into this motel. Now,
since our coverage in twenty twenty three, the Pennsylvania Innocence
Project has taken over Taishiem's case, and both women have
sworn statements that the prosecution's assertions but the phone call
were lies, as corroborated by the motel clerk and the
(03:39):
time of the check in. Additionally, the remaining witness who
claimed to see Tayshim and Melvin with guns has also
now recanted, saying that he received a deal for himself
and a girlfriend in unrelated charges for that testimony. Then
another alleged witness, an ear witness, has also recanted, saying
that he had caved to pressure from police and his
(03:59):
family to say that he could identify Taysheim at the
scene from the sound of his voice. And you might
be thinking to yourself, well, who should have ever given
a shit about that last one? As well as why
the hell are Taishiem and Melvin still in prison? The
case for their innocence had already been laid out in
court over time, but in Pennsylvania post conviction timing is
(04:20):
everything when it comes to newly discovered evidence. For starters
in Pennsylvania to be considered newly discovered evidence and open
an avenue to a new trial, the evidence could not
have been discoverable with due diligence at the time of trial.
So if something was in the public record or even
in the universe at the time of trial, say a
(04:41):
witness like Kendu Smith or a motel clerk's timesheet, but
know that evidence was just simply not investigated, discovered, and
or raised, well, that can't be considered newly discovered evidence,
no matter how earth shattering it is. So okay, that's
the defense attorney's fault, right, And in most states one
could claim ineffective assistance of trial council and they open
(05:04):
up an avenue for a new trial. But in Pennsylvania,
if that isn't raised on direct appeal, well, then the
defendant's only option is to then claim ineffective assistance of
appellate council in their first post conviction motion. And if
they don't do that the ineffective assistance avenue, that's closed. Again.
No matter how earth shattering the evidence, the issue cannot
(05:26):
be raised on a successive post conviction motion, even if
said evidence was only discovered so many years after their
first post conviction motion. And then to diminish the avenues
further up until twenty eighteen, any evidence that passed the
other qualification for newly discovered evidence had to be filed
within sixty days of discovery. Now you have a whole year.
(05:51):
But even with the increased window of three hundred and
five whole days, often evidence of innocence is more impactful
in the context of other evidence that only comes to
light so many years later, like ken Do Smith's testimony
supporting Danny Steele's recantation. Without ken Do, it's pretty easy
to just call your own witness, Danny Steele, a liar,
(06:11):
especially after he changed his story from what he had
sworn in court. But what if can do Smith, the
motel clerk, and now two more witnesses from the scene,
as well as Tucker Redman, Nicky Rhodes and telephone call
logs that would show that the prosecution at the very
least didn't know what they were talking about when they
said that these phone calls happened before the shooting, All
(06:34):
of those things together supporting the recantation of their star witness.
What if that could finally be heard at one evidentiary hearing,
like in other states, where you can file a post
conviction motion based on actual innocence, and if granted, then
the procedural time bars are lifted and the court can
finally hear the preponderance of evidence of a defendant's innocence. Well,
(06:58):
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it doesn't have anything like that yet.
I think Virginia's pretty much in the same boat. So
guys like Taishim Melvin, in way too many others to name,
just out of options and their cases reach a point
of legal finality. Now, we've been talking about pardoning power
(07:21):
being the fail safe, but that can be quite a
long shot when you throw a career minded governor in
with a population plagued by misinformation or just low information.
So when you hear Taisheim and Melvin's story, I want
you to think about whether the concept of finality is
more important than bringing the right person to justice. I
(07:41):
guess that one's kind of obvious. And again, whether we
can trust career minded politicians to be the fail safe
when law enforcement and the courts reach finality without the
deserving party and custody. I'm not the praying type, so
it's strange for me that prayer feels like the only
option for Taisheim and Melvin for some kind of intervention.
And I'm just not sure what that even looks like,
(08:04):
but it feels like someone or something he's gonna have
to summon unusual courage.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
In October nineteen ninety seven, two overlapping groups of friends
from New York, one known as the Cream Team and
the other is the Gods, were living in York, Pennsylvania.
Three of these young men were Danny Steele, Melvin Bethune,
and Tysheen Crocker. On October fifth, nineteen ninety seven, at
a corner dice game, Melvin and Taysheem spoke to another
New York guy about a previous beef when gunshots rang
(08:38):
out and the crowd dispersed, but no one was hurt
until about five minutes later and two blocks away, when
a young man named Raymond Clark had been fatally shot.
When the investigation of the murder led to Danny Steele,
he told the police that Raymond's death was part of
a larger organized action involving a disagreement between rival New
York gangs. At the dice game, that Melbourne and Taishim
(09:01):
had rounded up some muscle from back in New York,
including Steel and three others, to confront the opposing gang,
the Gods. In the lead up to this confrontation, they
allegedly checked into a motel and hatched a plan that
allegedly resulted in the death of Raymond Clarke. Clearly, local
law enforcement had only one choice to believe Danny Steele
(09:21):
and do their part on the front lines of America's
war on drugs by taking as many of these New
York gangsters off their streets as they possibly could. But
this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to raeful conviction. Today,
(09:47):
we're going to cover a case in which the soul
assailant who is responsible for the murder got off with
less than three years for giving false testimony against two
innocent men. And I'm going to introduce one of those
men now. He's calling in from a maxim security. President
in Pennsylvania tayshim, Crocker, even though I hate the reason
why you're at where you're at, but I got to say,
(10:08):
I'm really happy and honor to have you.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I'm glad i'm here. Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You're most welcome, and with him is his post conviction
pro bono attorney Latsia Shaviz Free Latsia, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Jason, You're also very welcome, So tayshim, This crime happened
in Pennsylvania, but you're not from there, originally from the Bronx, right,
So tell me a little bit about your childhood.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I was born to a teenage mother. My mom was sixteen,
you know, she wasn't ready to be a mother year,
so she picked me in forced to kid and I
spent my first four years out in Queens. It was
like eighty one. She decided she wanted to be back.
I moved back to the Bronx. It was rough, we
were we were pull. I was pretty much terrified at
(10:53):
my mom. That was like the only person I was
scared around. The Asian twelve. I was back and forced
to kid out of a presidence. I just became a.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Sweet kid, so tayshim. He had a pretty hard life
and was living in the Bronx. You know, this is
at the height of the crack epidemic. Friends of his
are literally dying.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I went off the Yoka because my best friend had
just got cute. I was fourteen, he was fifteen when
he got cute. The next day, another one of my
closest friends got cute, and I was all for the
opportunity to go to York. So I jumped on the
bus and went out there.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
What did you do to support yourself to survive out there?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I started askling. I started taking pass from people older dues.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
So this is the sort of thing where you did
the dirty work for the older guys, because in theory,
at least a miner wouldn't get into that much trouble, right,
that's how it goes.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So it's my understanding that he's a pretty low level
drug dealer, him and a lot of the kids. He
also runs with a group of young people known as
like the Cream Team. And you know, there's several groups,
but two of them are called the Gods and the
other ones the Cream Team. The District Attorney's office tried
to paint this as some gang, but really Cream just
(12:09):
means cash rules everything around me.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So they were Wu Tang fans, yes, And I mean
anyone who's aware of Wu Tang Cash rules everything around
me is probably there could be their most iconic song
and terms like gods and earths. Some of the members
of Wu Tang are really into the theories of the
five percent nation where those terms come from, and we
could get into all of that on a totally different podcast.
But Wu Tang had just come out with their debut album,
(12:33):
Entered the thirty six Chambers in nineteen ninety three. So
guys like Tayshim and Melbourne that was the soundtrack of
their childhood.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
The Cream Team and the guys were once the kids
from the block. We was rolling up together, we know,
to the same school, eat party together, and we ended
up in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
The Hustler, So were you on the radar of the
York Police before all of this happened?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I talked about a week in prison for a couple
of bags in marijuana that was like eight up there.
It was like.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Fortyrand forty fucking grand for some weed. Jesus well, I mean,
this was the nineties when the War on drugs was
in full swing. It still is, unfortunately to a large extent.
And if you're listening to us right now, you might
want to check out our new series called The War
on Drugs. We're gonna have it linked in the bio.
Check it out the War on Drugs podcast. And back then,
(13:22):
as we've seen time and again on this program, even
involving a low level drug deal and could make that
person a target for a wrongful conviction. So let's get
to early October nineteen ninety seven and the lead up
to this dice game and the shooting. There was some
actual beef that had started a few days before between
your co defendant, Melvin Bethune and a friend of this guy,
can Do Smith, and this served as an allegend motive
(13:45):
for what happened later. But this was kind of like
a small time beef, right.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
There was no conflict that rules to the level of
one and take.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
A life, right, and Kendo Smith wasn't the victim anyway,
but rather a guy named Raymond skip Clark, who I'm
guessing was one of the gods as well.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
No, he wasn't a member of the Gods. He wasn't
even friends with Smith that I know of that night.
No guys were at this dice game, makes sense, can
Do Smith.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So the states theory about a beef between the Gods
and the Cream team is not holding up so far.
It's full of holes. But this beef, however, inconsequential, was
something you intended to bring up with ken Do Smith
when you saw him at the dice game. This was
October fifth, nineteen ninety seven, on the corner of Maple
and Duke in New York, Pennsylvania, where there was a
regular dice game. Ken do Smith was there as well
(14:33):
as Melvin Bethune Danny Steele. You had just got back
from the Bronx and a bit before eleven pm you
arrived at the game, and Raymond Clarke was there as well.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I never saw Raymond Clark that that, but according to
court documents, he was at the dice game. He was
playing games. I got to the dice game and I
told the work I needed to talk to him. Before
we could talk, a shot was fired. He ran and
I dug No one knows who fired that shot. It
came from behind me when I ducked in a land
(15:05):
you know. It was more shotsified. No one was injured.
Approximately five to seven minutes later than two blocks away.
According to the shots Rush Gript, more shots we fire.
That is who Raymond Clark was shot at, not as
the Dunce game.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So not only had you not even seen the victim
at the dice game, but at this point you had
no idea that anyone had even gotten hurt. So shots
were fired, everyone scattered, total chaos. Did you have a clue?
Did anyone have a clue why this was even happening.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
There was essentially no serious beef at the time where
they feel like they should be targeted for any reason.
But they're taking off because there's gunfire and they know
what gunfire.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Can do, so when they got a hotel.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
But according to the state's theory, you checked into the
hotel before going to the dice game before Raymond Clark's death,
sometime between like ten and eleven PM.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
That is what they wanted the jewry and the quote
they believe I kept him to the Super Eighth at
about twelve thirty one in the morning. I let Mel
know where I was going, I let Danny know where
I was going, and they spent the night with me.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And at that point, not only did you not know
that Skip Clark was dead, but you also didn't know
that your boy Danny Steele was about to use a
shared room at the Super eight as a premise for
a false statement, which really ends up being the basis
of the state's entire case. And we'll get to that
in a bit. But first, letitia, what did we know
about the initial investigation, Like how did they even end
(16:33):
up coming upon Danny?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
So we have no idea exactly what happened Tyshim's lawyer,
the person who would have gotten the box of evidence
or whatever he's passed when we go to Melvin's attorney.
This is over twenty plus years ago. He doesn't have that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Box, so the usual trough of information was not available.
But what we do know about this incident is that
there were a thought of witnesses, some of whom spoke
with you and your lead investigator, Kitty Haley Way later
in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Well, what we find out later is that Raymond Clark,
he's found with drugs on his person, and it is
noted that he apparently owed Danny Steele some money.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Turns out maybe, I think like a week after that,
Danny was interrogated in.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
The lasting and at least four people have testified both
the trial and in post conviction that Danny Steele was
the shooter. So that should have been it, but instead
a story and a strategy was being concocted with Danny
Steele in order to drag more people down the rabbit
hole with him turning this tragedy into an opportunity for
the authorities to sweep the streets from those they considered
(17:42):
undesirable namely Melvin and Taysheen, who for months went about
their lives, eventually hearing about Raymond Clark's death and having
no idea that one of their friends, Danny, was saving
himself from life in prison at their expense by creating
this phony narrative in which members of the Cream team
met at the Super eight Motel and conspired tired to
confront the gods at this dice game about the beef
with Melvin, and This group allegedly included Taishim, Melvin, Danny,
(18:07):
and three other men from New York, one of whom
was named Corleone.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Coleon was a made up figure. Danny still made up
Coolion so he could tend this homicide on somebody. He
made Coleon a shooter.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
It's like they sat around and watched The Godfather and
then went and tried a case. That's how it feels.
Some guy named Corleone who's never been identified, and some
other guys from New York, they all go to the
Super eight Motel and they want blood for what happened
to Melvin yesterday. Melvin was disrespected or something, and they
want blood. So they're all going to get guns from
(18:40):
a friend's house. And then they're going to go down
there and shoot up the gods at a dice game.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Now, the theory continued that in order to arrive at
the dice game before the shootings took place around eleven
thirty pm, this alleged crew of Muscle from the Bronx
had to have checked into the Super eight Motel by
ten thirty pm or earlier in order to have time
for thirty to sixty minute plotting session as well as
picking up the guns. But when they arrived at the
dice game, Taysheem allegedly pointed a gun at Ken Do
(19:06):
Smith had tried to shoot him, but the gun allegedly
malfunctioned and didn't fire, so the rest of this alleged
cream team hit squad open fire, and everyone at the
dice game ran for their lives. No one was hurt,
and Ken Du Smith has since gone on the record
saying that Taysheen never pulled a gun on him. Other
eyewitnesses also corroborated that the only evidence of this version
events is Danny Steele's statement, which continued saying that then
(19:30):
he another man and this fictitious guy named Corleone chased
Raymond Skip Clark, and this fictional Corleone guy, not Danny Steele,
allegedly shot and killed Clark. So that's how Steele shifted
total blame from himself and alleged that he was just
a co conspirator, not the loan shooter.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Now, Danny Steele, this is important. He is charged with
the exact same crimes as Melvin and Tysheen, so you
would think he'd get the exact same punishment were close.
For murder, for conspiracy to commit murder, he did two
years in the county jail, presumably because he couldn't go
(20:09):
to state prison because you know, he was a known snitch.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
From what I understand, he had also been convicted of
perjury twice before. So this is the guy on whom
the entirety of the state's case rests and what they
used to issue arrest warrants for both Melbourne and Taysheem.
And at the time, Melvin had just pled guilty to
some unrelated drug charges.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Right, he takes a plea and he's getting ready to
go to prison, and the police come to let him
know that he's been indicted on these charges, and he's
just shocked. There's no conversation they don't take him down
to the police station and interview him.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
They had all the information they wanted from Danny Steele. Now, tysheim,
you were back in New York at the time, and
during a routine traffic stop, NYPD discovered that you were
wanted in New York Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I did that. I was a fugitive. I got picked
up January nineteen ninety eight, pull door one, one hundred
and forty fifty with twenty seventh and eighth avenual. I
was arrested and I haven't been on the street since.
And while PD picks me up, I'm extradited down to
York where I was charged.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
When he gets to York and he's in the county jail,
there's no interview. The information and the story has already
been told by Danny Steele. But there's literally a fifteen
minute drive at one point from one drop up location
to the jail with the police officer.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Dennis Williams was the arresting detective. While he's driving me
to the York County prison, he said, I know you
didn't kill Rainey Club, but I don't know you're part
of the clean team. I can get you with deal
if you cooperate, and I told him I didn't know
nothing annosing For a few months after that, they offered
(22:01):
me another deal popped in and I turned that down.
Did they trout thought that they offered me another deal
They were going to dismiss all degrees of homicide about
played guilties and I completed his so I turned that down.
Dennis Williams offered me the the deal that DNA deal
ended up huting.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Danny Steele did less than three years in the county jail.
That's jail, right, not president, and that was part of
his deal to avoid running into other people who he
had flipped on previously. And so no one was ever
charged with being skipped Clark Shooter Corleone certainly wasn't. It's
hard to charge a ghost after all. And now all
three of you had been charged with murder, but only
(22:58):
by way of conspiracy and a compless liability. And this
is why your arrival time at the Super eight motel
is so important to the state's theory, as is the
part of Danny Steele's testilize where he alleged that you
drew a gun on Kendo Smith that never did fire.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
So conspiracy liability requires proof of an agreement or a
common design to commit the unlawful act for which the
person is convicted. So person cannot be convicted of conspiracy
from merely being present during the commission of a crime.
There has to be some step taken, some proof of
the agreement, you know, and then obviously the crime. For
(23:35):
accomplass liability, it requires more than mere presence during the
commission of a criminal act, even if the accused knew
that the crime was to be committed. So we see
like accomplass liability like after the fact, you know, someone
who's helping to conceal or clean something up. So these
are really what tayshim as well as Melvin were convicted under. Also,
(23:59):
you know, a lot of that prosecutorial caselied on something
called transferred intent, which basically means if I pull out
a gun and I'm trying to shoot you, but I
accidentally shoot your friend or someone standing next to you,
you know, it would have been attempted murder because I
purposefully knowingly was aiming at you. But it's still first
(24:21):
degree murderer even though I had no intention of killing
your friend, because the intention had already formed. And so
throughout the trial, we'll hear of transferred intent in those transcripts.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So because you were alleged to have met beforehand establishing
the intent, and then followed through with your part of
the supposed conspiracy by allegedly pulling a gun on Ken
du Smith, that then made you in turn responsible in
some degree for the murder of Skip Clark, the alleged
end result of this alleged organized confrontation.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I didn't realize what conspiracy laws accomplished liability was. I
didn't realize what you moved P on the chessboard to
Alanna the way you want it to be seen. You
can make something look like something that it wasn't. We
were kids, you know. In our adversary were chrome men, seasoned,
you know, politicians, prosecutors, and I did not realize what
(25:16):
was going on until it was.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Too late, that they had fabricated a narrative with Danny
Steele to convict you through these conspiracy and accomplished liability
laws that you were unaware of. So Melvin was already
in prison for the unrelated drug charges, so he didn't
bond out, but neither did you. You both were being
held separately from Danny Steele. But at this point you
didn't even know about what he had done, right, So
(25:38):
when did you first realize what he was doing to you?
Speaker 3 (25:41):
The first time I see him is at my preliminary
here and he testifying against me. You know, he's saying,
I'm the leader of the Cream team that prior to
the Dice Game shooting that we met at a motel
and agreed to kill someone. Actually at the preliminary here
when he said we agreed to step to these guys
to try to squash this beef. With the proceedings, his testimony,
(26:02):
you know, would constantly change and get more dramatic and
more incriminated.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
There were a lot of inconsistencies in the telling of
these various stories by Danny Steele, But there wasn't necessarily
a rigorous, vigorous defense from Taishim's counsel. Melvin's council, when
looking at the transcript, tended to do a better job.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Right. Both families had hired counsel prior to the January
ninety nine trial, but only Melvin's family was able to
pay and maintain counsel.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So this attorney that was represented me at the time,
Alla Smith, you know, he was never paid him full
and he thought the motion to withdrawals counsel. I didn't
know that. I could have still been getting counsel by
the state, which probably would have been a bad attorney anyway,
as bad as he was. But he never did nothing
after that, after the judge told him the motion was denied,
(26:57):
we continue to proceed to trial without an investigation of
what going on.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So it sounds like you didn't even have an attorney.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Absolutely attorney. I didn't have a suit shoods, I didn't
have a family an attorney.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Tayshiem would come to the courthouse not in a suit,
but in an orange jumpsuit. So this was not, you know,
someone being able to put forth their best defense.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And in order to combat the state, especially with what
we now know that they were willing to hide, you
were going to need a vigorous investigation from zealous attorneys
and the whole team that would have done things like
caul Ken do Smith to the stand. He has since
gone on the record that you did not, in fact,
point to gun at him, which directly contradicts the state's narratives. Now,
how your counsel didn't at least contact can do is
(27:43):
just it's irresponsible in desire. It's it's disgusting actually. But
even more bizarre is how Danny Steele did something on
the stand that even I've never heard of before.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Throughout the trial, he kept mentioning that, you know, he
was incentivized, that he's hoping, he's hope that the prosecutors
do right by him and only give him two to
five years in the county. And that's exactly what they
give him.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
He literally told the judge and jury why his own
statement was unreliable. He's like, I'm receiving a benefit for
lying here. He's spelling it out.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
How are they supposed to trust anything he said? But
they did. I can't get over this, and we already
went over what Steele said before the shooting At the
dice game. He plays Taisheem Melvin, himself and three other guys,
including this Corleone character, at the Super eight motel between
ten and eleven PM for this conspiracy meeting, and the
manager of the Super eight, guy named Alfred Milburn, corroborated this.
(28:39):
Why we're not sure because the clerk who actually checked
Taysheim into the hotel, the person who actually knew this
information was a woman named Terry Flinch boss Siler, and
what she told police directly and totally contradicted Albert Milburn's
phony narrative.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
She's the one who checks Tayshi Minh. She knows this now.
Raymond Clark dies at eleven thirty pm that night. That's
when he shot.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We know this for a fact.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
She doesn't come on until eleven pm.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
The States spoke to her, but they didn't want to
hear about how Tayshiim checked in at twelve thirty one
o'clock in the morning, and that this conspiracy meeting in
fact never took place.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
She tried to offer help and they didn't want to
hear it. She had documents, you know, where he signed,
as well as any telephone calls he would have made
out of that room because it's the nineties, and they
could have turned that over to Tayshim's lawyers, and that
never happened.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And perhaps these documents the telephone records may have also
been timestamped.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Miss Flinch boss Siler says that the records she maintained
for the hotel have a bottom section which indicates the
exact times the calls made from each room, so it's
not known if the police are prosecutors were in possession
of that part of the document, but the documents used
at trial were the only ones that she was a
(30:00):
asked to review that she was asked to talk about.
And they don't have the exact times the calls made.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
And no one from the defense went looking for call logs.
It's totally irresponsible. I mean, it would have been helpful
to know what time the calls were made, but that
specifically wasn't in the documents used by the state of trial.
And from what I understand, they deliberately limited Terry Flinch
boss Siler's testimony.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
She was told by the prosecutors, you're not allowed to speak.
You're going to answer yes or no to my questions.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Right. They were merely trying to establish that a phone
call had taken place, but they specifically did not want
to know when, and they definitely didn't want to know
when her shift started or when Tayshiim Melvin and Danny
were checked in because that would have blown up their case.
They knew about Terry and these phone records, so it
looks like they knew that they were presenting false testimony. Now,
the phone call was important to them because it corroborated
Melvin's presence at the alleged conspiracy meeting. It was alleged
(30:55):
that he had called his girlfriend at the time, named
Tucker Redmond, and told her what his intention was, which
was to go down to the dice game and shoot
up the gods. It was also alleged that a fourteen
year old girl named Nicki Rhodes overheard this conversation. The
state made a number of false statements during opening and
closing that they never backed up by calling these alleged witnesses,
(31:15):
Ducker and Nicki.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Our investigator was able to speak with Tucker, so she
was dating Melvin. She did speak with him that night.
She never told the prosecutor or the police that Melvin
was interested in hurting or shooting up the young men
on the corner plane craps. When she discovered what the prosecutor,
specifically Prosecutor Kelly, had said in open court, she was
(31:39):
not present at the time, but she became incensed to
learn that he claimed she came to court willingly, she
was subpoenaed to come to court, and that he had
lied about what she had heard and said that evening.
When she discovered that the prosecutor during a sidebar, had
told the judge that her conversation she was overheard and
(32:02):
passed along by Nicki Rhodes. She proclaimed that also to
be alive. Nikki confirmed that she had no knowledge of
the interaction between Melvin Bethiune and Taker Redman on the
night of the shooting and of Skip Clark. She was
adamant that she was a younger at the time with
no knowledge of anything related to the crime. She did
not testify, and she was not asked to testify.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I guess the state strategy was, if you're gonna lie,
go big, and they were able to hide those lines
from these alleged witnesses because witnesses aren't typically allowed to
sit in court to watch the proceedings, But here it
seems this rule was a convenient way to hide them
from what was being said about them, Like Kalanda Chance,
who had told the police that she had been at
the scene earlier in the evening but left prior to
(32:45):
the shooting. I knew nothing about it. Now, what did
she tell your investigator? Kitty Hayley In twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
One, Holanda Chance, she was provided with a copy of
the trial transcript and was upset to read that the
prosecutor was attempting to her into a web of lies
about Melboyn wanting to shoot up men on the corner.
She never knew about the plan to use her as
a link between Taker Redman's conversation and the actual shooting.
(33:12):
She further claimed that the prosecutors were trying to make
two groups of friends, the Cream Team and the Guards,
look like a hardened criminal gang, even though.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That was not so. But even if you want to
believe that these two groups will hardened criminal organizations help
bent on destroying the otherwise decent, hardworking town of York, Pennsylvania,
the evidence simply doesn't support the state's theory. Terry flinch
Buss Siler was the clerk who checked Taishim into the
Super eight, and her shift started at eleven pm, So
even if he was waiting there for her shift to
start before he checked in, there's just not enough time
(33:43):
to check in. The Cream Team have a thirty minute
to an hour long meeting to conspire about confronting the Gods.
Go to another dress to pick up the guns, go
to the dice game, shoot up the place, and then
chase down and kill Raven Skip Clark by eleven thirty
do all that shit in thirty minutes.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
And they knew it was impossible, but they weren't with
the theory, and the judge told the jury that it
Ty wasn't at that motel prior to the shooting. TI
cannot be farn Gailty has an accomplished or a co
construmity in this case. But while I was on trial,
I didn't have the information I'm in possession from now right.
(34:21):
They did, though, and.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
The state used testimony that they knew was false in
order to trick the jury into believing that this alleged
conspiracy meeting was both plausible and real, and I'm sure
Danny's admission to his involvement acted as a stamp of legitimacy.
Then they alluded to this alleged phone confession for Melvin
that was never actually confirmed or corroborated, and the jury
bought at Lockstock and Barrel. They convicted you both and
(34:44):
sentenced you to life in prison.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I watched Melvine cry after we was devicted. Cried. I
couldn't believe it. I was in disbelief. I didn't even
know we could get life because we didn't kill anybody.
No I'm not telling this story yet. Living this story.
(35:20):
Prison there's something different than anybody. You know. It's like
a hospital, it's like a hotel. It's like a hideout.
It's like a hangout. It's like a hostage situation. To
the words so being awfully convicted, it's about it's fun.
It's falling off to the story building. It's send a
struggle when I go up in prison as a smarting
(35:43):
little kid. I hate it here today as much as
I did the first day. You never get used to it.
There's nothing more than in freedom. You know what I'm saying,
I'm gonna look at myself like a hostage. They give back.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Among my memory, Melvin's trying to make peace with the
fact that he has a son he'll never watch grow up,
that he's going to be spending the rest of his
life in a prison for a crime he didn't commit.
I don't believe Melvin has ever received legal help. Maybe
one time for a post conviction relief. I don't know
(36:21):
that he learned to use the law library and advocate
for himself like tayshim did.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Every Wigod moment on fire from my life, he was
giving me the worst attorneys you know, my first attorney
was sleeping in the same prison I was in for
the US when he dropped the ball. They gave me
another lawyer. She was helpful, but she was in over
her head because her expertise was social security claims. So
it was really me. I had to learn the law
(36:48):
of myself.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So you've taught yourself the law, as we often see
as absolutely necessary for our guests to do, and you
also saw it outside help like investigators and lawyers, and
you've been funding that by writing and self books. Who
are you, dude? That's amazing. I mean, I see you've
written eight books.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I've written fifteen books, eight published. They're all available for purchase.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I just received, by the way, your latest book. It's
called It Could Happen to any of us, and that's
like a mantra of mine. So I'm really looking forward
to reading it. And we're going to make sure to
link your books in the bio. This is how you've
been funding your fight for freedom, and I hope our
audience will show their support. So let's talk about that fight.
You mentioned that you had some Mappella attorneys that were
about as useless as your own as your original trialer
(37:32):
and in Pennsylvania post conviction, I'm not so sure it
matters if the lawyers are better or not, since the
post conviction statutes make the fight even more difficult than usual. Now,
if I understand this correctly, you can find new evidence,
even Brady material, But if that evidence could have possibly
been found, that means it was available to you, and
therefore it cannot be considered new evidence. For example, since
(37:53):
the Super eight clerk Terry Flinch Boss Siler was alive
and available to be questioned, what she has to say
is not considered new evidence. And the fact that the
state didn't share it doesn't make it a Brady violation
because you could have discovered it on your own or
your lawyer could have, which sounds fucking absurd. And then
in this case, since they were co defendants, if Melvin
(38:14):
had an attorney who litigated something already, the issue can't
be raised. So options run out very quickly, and doors
keep closing, and you've been met with denial after denial,
even though you've amassed a formidable case for actual incense.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And in two thousand and three I found out that
Danny still had a secret deal with the Commonwealth. The
two and a half to five. So I found my
first PCRA on my own in two thousand and three.
I was unsuccessfully because they said that this information was
in the public domain, and then I could have voted
in the first pcl the council PCLA with the attorney
(38:52):
they gave me, who never read the record, never interviewed me,
never try to interview anybody.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
See, this is the kind of bulls I'm talking about.
Since the information was in the public domain, meaning that
it existed among all the information in the world and
wasn't being kept under lock and key, then it was
technically in the public domain during his first post conviction
motion and his council didn't find it and build a
motion around it. So then the issue cannot be raised again.
(39:19):
I don't even know what to say. And then there's
only a certain amount of time that it can be raised.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
The judge felt like this information was in the public
domain between the time of need film it and the
twindow closing on my first.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Pc ulredy, And in Pennsylvania back then you'd only get
sixty days since legislation.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
You know, it's three hundred and sixty five days now.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Oh yeah, that's really fucking generous. I mean, who does
legislation like that serve or punished? Think about it. It's
not like people who are dead to rights guilty are
making credible cases for actual innocence, or at least not likely.
So shutting the door on these post conviction motions pretty
much solely kept the innocent incarcerated. Since that time, though
that has changed.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
The presumption and knowledge is no longer a reason to
foreclose your post conviction motion twenty years ago it.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Was today it's not so much good it does for
you though.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah, you can't go back, there's no retroactivity. You
can't go back and seat, which already happened.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
So after appealing your denials in two thousand and three
in the state courts, you went federal go challenge my.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Conviction on the federal level because of our constitutional rights.
I mean, you know. The two major issues was that
the trial court gave the wrong jury instruction as it
applied to accomplished liability, and the second issue was an
effective assistic council for fail to investigate. Those were my
two strongest issues, and after two and a half years,
(40:43):
three years, I filed my own hate too. But it
was eventually denied.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
He then filed your fourth PCRA petition in twenty twelve
because Danny Steele recanted his trial testimony. Yeah, you heard
that right. Danny Steele was finally doing the right thing.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
He sent me after David and that he had been
prushing to give false testimony that he had witnessed be
for the gun to do Work's head and pull the trigger.
He also testified about the fake motel meeting, and he
was ultimately found to be incredible because he was no
longer in jeopardy from the Commonwealth, but he was still
(41:21):
allegedly in jeopardy.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
From his codefendants you and Melvin, who were both locked
up for life while he's out there doing whatever he's doing,
living the dream. You know what I find incredible, The
fucking balls on these judges. I mean, unfucking believable. The
only evidence in the case, besides the Super eight manager
who we know didn't know his ass from his elbow,
the only evidence is Danny Steele's word, which apparently no
(41:43):
longer matters. I guess if anyone could be a good
judge of Danny's credibility, though, it'd be the guys who
cooked up the lines with him to begin with.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Both of the prosecutors also testified that they didn't understand
that they had said if he testified falsely, it was
something he chose to do. They didn't encourage him to
do it. Oh, he found them to be more credible
than Danny Steele.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
So now you find a way to bolster the recantation.
You got in touch with Ken Do Smith, like your
trial attorney should have done in the first place, and
he was finally ready to corroborate Danny Steele's recantation. So
that was the focus of your last of your PCRRA
petitions filed in August twenty fifteen, and evidentiary hearing was
held in August twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
And at this evidence he here Jim Delle Smith shows
up and he testifies on the old debt, Chad never
put a machine gun in my head and pulled the trigger.
And I don't know why Danny Steel made that up.
Had it happened, I wouldn't be headed day saying it
didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Right, Why would he be standing up for his attempted
murderer in court. So this adds legitimacy to his testimony,
which transfers legitimacy to Danny Steele's recantation, and this would
qualify as new evidence in other states, but not in Pennsylvania.
This was denied as untimely because this witness was available
at the time of trial. It's like running into a
brick wall over and over again. Now, while at this
(43:00):
time a chain of events began involving Melvioyn's son. Now
this must have been right after this evidentiary hearing, maybe
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, something really bad happened, and then
that thing was almost made even worse the TCIA.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Can you explain guess who gets found shot multiple times
in his car? Danny Steele. I mean, he's just riddled
with bullets. York County decides that Melvin Bethune's own son,
who grew up without his father, was the person who
(43:34):
killed Danny Steele, that he was so angry about him
allegedly perjuring himself naming his father, that he decided to
lie in wait and kill Danny Steele. Well, Melvin Bethune's
son decided to take the single trial, and he prevailed.
(43:55):
He was found not guilty, and Danny Steele is dead,
which which is very sad, of course, but there are
many people who may have harbored very bad feelings towards
Danny Steele.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
I mean, I wouldn't blame Melvin's son if he was
angry with Danny Steele. How I'm angry with Danny Steele,
even posthumously, But that doesn't mean that Melvin's son murdered anybody.
I mean, I don't know all the details, so I
won't comment on the investigation of the prosecution. I do
hope that things have changed significantly in your county since
the time they wrongfully convicted Melbourne. But at the very least,
I'm glad one of the Bethunes appears to have had
(44:30):
a competent attorney, which was also on the horizon for
Melvin and Taishim. One of your advocates, Omar Jannette, was
instrumental in getting you the competent attorney who we have
with us today, Ptsia Chaviz Freed And apparently it started
off as a change dot org petition that put you
on the radar of the NIS's Project of Pennsylvania. When
Letsia just happened to be looking for some pro bono
(44:51):
work and reached out to them, and so.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
I contacted Innison's Project and they gave me this case.
I collected every record I possibly could, and of course
I realized that Melvin Bethune was also behind bars for
the same crime as tayshim. And that is about the
time where I hire Kitty Haley. She went back in time. Essentially,
(45:13):
she spent weeks and weeks in York and talked to
you know, people who knew all of the players involved Kendo,
you know, Bethune's girlfriend, the victim, Raymond Clark's mother. Kitty
Haley went to New York and went and sat with
this woman on more than one occasion and talked to
her about her son and what he meant to her.
And we have an alpha David. She literally said that
(45:37):
the prosecutors and she named them, told her that Danny
Steele was responsible for the murder of her son. But
they won as many gang members as possible off these streets,
and so they're going to get all three of them.
And they're not given Danny Steele a deal. They're not
doing that. He's going to get the same amount of
time as the others. Well, that's not what happened.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
You know, I didn't think there was room for these
prosecutors to get any less likable, but trust me, there
is even more room. And as we've already discussed, Kitty
Haley spoke to all the women who the prosecutors lied
about a trial, Tucker Redmond, Kalanda Chance, and of course
the fourteen year old girl Nikki Rhoades. Then she spoke
with Terry flinch bos Syler, and we know that she
discovered that Terry began her shift at eleven pm and
(46:23):
checked Taishim into the Super eight well after Skip Clark
had already died, which means this entire case just fell apart.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
So I'll meet Kitty Haley to beginning a twenty twenty
one and it was drilling for me when she said,
you know, he've been telling the same story for twenty years.
It felt good. But Kitty Haley gets out there in
the field. She speaks to Terry and the motel clerk
from the Superby hotel, and she adamantly says that she
(46:51):
told the prostitution that this theory was flawed, that I
could not have been there any time prior to eleven pm.
They said, up they at ten pm, but you know
where I was at at ten pm. All my way
back from New York. I was on the highway at
ten pm. And she also made one distinct statement in
the feature. She said that the evidence that they presented
(47:14):
at my trial, something was missing and it had the
d detached, that it was ripped off. The ripped DOLF
piece is called the bottom of a folio, a folio
that contains information they would have told whoever wanted to
see it, exactly what time the room was rent it,
if and when any calls were made, how long the
(47:36):
calls were, and where they went to. The jury never
got an opportunity to see this. The defense was never
in possession of this, and I didn't even know it
existed until Kitty Hally furnished the legal team with her
conclusions in these statements.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
And so presumably those documents are sitting in the District
Attorney's office today and that's what we're fighting for to get.
But also, this woman has sign an AUF of David.
She's willing to come in. And this woman doesn't know anybody,
she has no skin in the game.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Uninsarsted objective pauty witness is telling you that this serious flawed,
and you decide to perpetuate this throg and allow for
it to go uncorrected for twenty something years. Based on
my studies, this would be considered deliberate and willful deception.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
No words could do this injustice, any justice. So now
that we've heard everything that Kitty dug up, you all
were able to petition the courts based on this evidence,
and they said that this was litigated by Melvin back
in two thousand and seven and it was denied back
then as untimely because Terry Flinchboss Silo was available to
testify at trial, so this couldn't be considered new evidence
(48:49):
and most certainly was past the deadline. And I mean
what we're seeing in this case over and over again
is ineffective assistance at trial.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Absolutely, it all comes down to the beginning this stage's trial.
So at trial, I had a lawyer who had checked
out on me. But the beautiful thing is he did
file a Brady. He wrote some passion for everything that
was open, so we know today that they without some
information that was requested.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I mean, there's always been a solid case for Brady
violations and ineffective assistance here, But so far, I don't
think it's a stretch to say that you have been
failed not only by your attorneys along the way, but
by the entire judicial system. I understand you have plans
to file with the York County Fiction Integrity Units, so
we hope that they will be able to provide the
relief that you have so rightfully deserved. But if not,
(49:37):
I'm afraid your only option might be clemency. You know
you have my full support, in the support of our
whole team, and right now I'm going to ask for
our audience to lend their support as well. So we're
going to have a lot of things linked in to bio,
but the number one call to action is to sign
the petition to support your release. I'm literally begging our
audience please join us on this one. Just go there
right now and sign the petition. I'll take you a
(49:59):
minute and a half. And now we go to my
favorite part of the show, which is called closing arguments,
where first I thank both of you incredible people for
being here, and now I'm just going to kick back
in my chair, turn my microphone off, and just listen
to any final thoughts that you may have. So let's
start with Altisia and then Taishim. Please take us out
into the sunset for you and for Melbourn.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
America as a country, and our court system has largely
been steeped like a tea bag in racism, and some
people are considered worthy and some people are not considered worthy.
And I would offer that back in the nineties, two
young black men from New York are really considered outsiders
(50:45):
and their lives were not worth a lot. I will
never know what the prosecutor was thinking. I don't know
the prosecutor, but I know that the hat was hung
on somebody who had more multiple convictions for perjury, who
was highly incentivized, who pled guilty to the same crime,
(51:07):
and who served less than three years out of county jail.
You know that in and of itself is a crime.
We know that these two young men did not commit
this crime. And what I can say to Tayshim as
well as Melvin, is I'm not giving up until they
walk out.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Just support this is a great cause. I fought hard
for my freedom for twenty plus years. I've been accarcerated
almost a quarter century. I'm innocent. I was awfully convicted.
You can go to change that or assign this petition
that was initiated by DJ Coco Chanel. You can visit
my website. I want my life back, I want to
be free. I want to turn my books into movies.
(51:47):
I want to help other people who awfully convicted. I
want to one day start my own innocence projects and
be able to help people regain their freedom in their
voices back and be returned to their family.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free 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 Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(52:28):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
the individuals featured in this show are their own and
do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
Hey, it's Connor Hall, senior producer for Wrongful Conviction, back
with another case update and more behind the scenes insights.
And this time we're talking about Taysheim Crocker and more
broadly about post conviction procedure in Pennsylvania. Now, Taysheim's story
reminds me a bit of the guy who brought us
(00:26):
his case, another previous guest, and somebody I'm lucky to
call a friend, Lorenzo Johnson. Both of these guys and
their friends were just kids who were fleeing the late
Crack epidemic era in the Bronx for what they were
hoping were safe for pastures in Pennsylvania, only to find
(00:46):
new threats to their lives and freedom. I'll link Lorenzo's
story in the episode description where in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Lorenzo
and the other new arrivals from the Bronx were well
aware of how the local law met felt about them.
And then there was certainly added racial motivation in his
story when Lorenzo's co defendant, Corey, happened to be dating
(01:08):
the daughter of the investigator in their case. Yeah, that's
exactly how it sounds. And then in Tyshiem's case, when
shots rang out at an October nineteen ninety seven dice
game in York, Pennsylvania. The murder of Raymond skip Clark
seems to have become an opportunity to again take down
as many kids from the Bronx as possible, when the
(01:30):
likely shooter, Danny Steele, became the state's star witness, saying
that he had planned the shooting at a motel with
four or five others, including Tyshiem, Crocker and Melvin Bethune,
who were alleged to have attended the motel meeting, pointed
guns at a guy named Ken du Smith at the
dice game, but their guns jammed, and then after everyone scattered,
(01:51):
a fictional character named Corleone and a few others chased
and shot Raymond skip Clark a few blocks away, and
that testimony got Danny Steele two to five years instead
of life like Melvin and Tyshem got for their role
in the alleged conspiracy and accomplished liability to that murder.
(02:12):
But in two thousand and three Tayshim discovered the deal
made with Danny Steele which would have impeached him, and
then Danny Steele recanted. In two thousand and five, but
that was deemed not credible, only to be corroborated ten
years later by Ken Duce Smith, who said that Taysheem
and Melvin never pointed guns at him or anyone at
(02:32):
the dice game, but there was still another witness who
had held that position. Another five years down the road,
Taysheem's team found the motel clerk who had checked them in, importantly,
about an hour after the shooting, so this conspiracy meeting
narrative fell apart. There was also a phone call from
(02:53):
their room to Melvin's girlfriend Tucker Redman, allegedly made before
the shooting. It was allegedly overheard by another girl named
Nicki Rhoades. The prosecution said in opening and closing statements
that Melvin had relayed the alleged plot over the phone
before the shooting. Neither of the girls wherever called to
the stand, but the existence of this phone call was
raised in court. It seems purposely without a time stamped
(03:17):
call log, which would have shown a time for after
the shooting when they were checked into this motel. Now,
since our coverage in twenty twenty three, the Pennsylvania Innocence
Project has taken over Taishiem's case, and both women have
sworn statements that the prosecution's assertions but the phone call
were lies, as corroborated by the motel clerk and the
(03:39):
time of the check in. Additionally, the remaining witness who
claimed to see Tayshim and Melvin with guns has also
now recanted, saying that he received a deal for himself
and a girlfriend in unrelated charges for that testimony. Then
another alleged witness, an ear witness, has also recanted, saying
that he had caved to pressure from police and his
(03:59):
family to say that he could identify Taysheim at the
scene from the sound of his voice. And you might
be thinking to yourself, well, who should have ever given
a shit about that last one? As well as why
the hell are Taishiem and Melvin still in prison? The
case for their innocence had already been laid out in
court over time, but in Pennsylvania post conviction timing is
(04:20):
everything when it comes to newly discovered evidence. For starters
in Pennsylvania to be considered newly discovered evidence and open
an avenue to a new trial, the evidence could not
have been discoverable with due diligence at the time of trial.
So if something was in the public record or even
in the universe at the time of trial, say a
(04:41):
witness like Kendu Smith or a motel clerk's timesheet, but
know that evidence was just simply not investigated, discovered, and
or raised, well, that can't be considered newly discovered evidence,
no matter how earth shattering it is. So okay, that's
the defense attorney's fault, right, And in most states one
could claim ineffective assistance of trial council and they open
(05:04):
up an avenue for a new trial. But in Pennsylvania,
if that isn't raised on direct appeal, well, then the
defendant's only option is to then claim ineffective assistance of
appellate council in their first post conviction motion. And if
they don't do that the ineffective assistance avenue, that's closed. Again.
No matter how earth shattering the evidence, the issue cannot
(05:26):
be raised on a successive post conviction motion, even if
said evidence was only discovered so many years after their
first post conviction motion. And then to diminish the avenues
further up until twenty eighteen, any evidence that passed the
other qualification for newly discovered evidence had to be filed
within sixty days of discovery. Now you have a whole year.
(05:51):
But even with the increased window of three hundred and
five whole days, often evidence of innocence is more impactful
in the context of other evidence that only comes to
light so many years later, like ken Do Smith's testimony
supporting Danny Steele's recantation. Without ken Do, it's pretty easy
to just call your own witness, Danny Steele, a liar,
(06:11):
especially after he changed his story from what he had
sworn in court. But what if can do Smith, the
motel clerk, and now two more witnesses from the scene,
as well as Tucker Redman, Nicky Rhodes and telephone call
logs that would show that the prosecution at the very
least didn't know what they were talking about when they
said that these phone calls happened before the shooting, All
(06:34):
of those things together supporting the recantation of their star witness.
What if that could finally be heard at one evidentiary hearing,
like in other states, where you can file a post
conviction motion based on actual innocence, and if granted, then
the procedural time bars are lifted and the court can
finally hear the preponderance of evidence of a defendant's innocence. Well,
(06:58):
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it doesn't have anything like that yet.
I think Virginia's pretty much in the same boat. So
guys like Taishim Melvin, in way too many others to name,
just out of options and their cases reach a point
of legal finality. Now, we've been talking about pardoning power
(07:21):
being the fail safe, but that can be quite a
long shot when you throw a career minded governor in
with a population plagued by misinformation or just low information.
So when you hear Taisheim and Melvin's story, I want
you to think about whether the concept of finality is
more important than bringing the right person to justice. I
(07:41):
guess that one's kind of obvious. And again, whether we
can trust career minded politicians to be the fail safe
when law enforcement and the courts reach finality without the
deserving party and custody. I'm not the praying type, so
it's strange for me that prayer feels like the only
option for Taisheim and Melvin for some kind of intervention.
And I'm just not sure what that even looks like,
(08:04):
but it feels like someone or something he's gonna have
to summon unusual courage.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
In October nineteen ninety seven, two overlapping groups of friends
from New York, one known as the Cream Team and
the other is the Gods, were living in York, Pennsylvania.
Three of these young men were Danny Steele, Melvin Bethune,
and Tysheen Crocker. On October fifth, nineteen ninety seven, at
a corner dice game, Melvin and Taysheem spoke to another
New York guy about a previous beef when gunshots rang
(08:38):
out and the crowd dispersed, but no one was hurt
until about five minutes later and two blocks away, when
a young man named Raymond Clark had been fatally shot.
When the investigation of the murder led to Danny Steele,
he told the police that Raymond's death was part of
a larger organized action involving a disagreement between rival New
York gangs. At the dice game, that Melbourne and Taishim
(09:01):
had rounded up some muscle from back in New York,
including Steel and three others, to confront the opposing gang,
the Gods. In the lead up to this confrontation, they
allegedly checked into a motel and hatched a plan that
allegedly resulted in the death of Raymond Clarke. Clearly, local
law enforcement had only one choice to believe Danny Steele
(09:21):
and do their part on the front lines of America's
war on drugs by taking as many of these New
York gangsters off their streets as they possibly could. But
this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to raeful conviction. Today,
(09:47):
we're going to cover a case in which the soul
assailant who is responsible for the murder got off with
less than three years for giving false testimony against two
innocent men. And I'm going to introduce one of those
men now. He's calling in from a maxim security. President
in Pennsylvania tayshim, Crocker, even though I hate the reason
why you're at where you're at, but I got to say,
(10:08):
I'm really happy and honor to have you.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I'm glad i'm here. Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You're most welcome, and with him is his post conviction
pro bono attorney Latsia Shaviz Free Latsia, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Jason, You're also very welcome, So tayshim, This crime happened
in Pennsylvania, but you're not from there, originally from the Bronx, right,
So tell me a little bit about your childhood.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I was born to a teenage mother. My mom was sixteen,
you know, she wasn't ready to be a mother year,
so she picked me in forced to kid and I
spent my first four years out in Queens. It was
like eighty one. She decided she wanted to be back.
I moved back to the Bronx. It was rough, we
were we were pull. I was pretty much terrified at
(10:53):
my mom. That was like the only person I was
scared around. The Asian twelve. I was back and forced
to kid out of a presidence. I just became a.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Sweet kid, so tayshim. He had a pretty hard life
and was living in the Bronx. You know, this is
at the height of the crack epidemic. Friends of his
are literally dying.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I went off the Yoka because my best friend had
just got cute. I was fourteen, he was fifteen when
he got cute. The next day, another one of my
closest friends got cute, and I was all for the
opportunity to go to York. So I jumped on the
bus and went out there.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
What did you do to support yourself to survive out there?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I started askling. I started taking pass from people older dues.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
So this is the sort of thing where you did
the dirty work for the older guys, because in theory,
at least a miner wouldn't get into that much trouble, right,
that's how it goes.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So it's my understanding that he's a pretty low level
drug dealer, him and a lot of the kids. He
also runs with a group of young people known as
like the Cream Team. And you know, there's several groups,
but two of them are called the Gods and the
other ones the Cream Team. The District Attorney's office tried
to paint this as some gang, but really Cream just
(12:09):
means cash rules everything around me.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So they were Wu Tang fans, yes, And I mean
anyone who's aware of Wu Tang Cash rules everything around
me is probably there could be their most iconic song
and terms like gods and earths. Some of the members
of Wu Tang are really into the theories of the
five percent nation where those terms come from, and we
could get into all of that on a totally different podcast.
But Wu Tang had just come out with their debut album,
(12:33):
Entered the thirty six Chambers in nineteen ninety three. So
guys like Tayshim and Melbourne that was the soundtrack of
their childhood.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
The Cream Team and the guys were once the kids
from the block. We was rolling up together, we know,
to the same school, eat party together, and we ended
up in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
The Hustler, So were you on the radar of the
York Police before all of this happened?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I talked about a week in prison for a couple
of bags in marijuana that was like eight up there.
It was like.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Fortyrand forty fucking grand for some weed. Jesus well, I mean,
this was the nineties when the War on drugs was
in full swing. It still is, unfortunately to a large extent.
And if you're listening to us right now, you might
want to check out our new series called The War
on Drugs. We're gonna have it linked in the bio.
Check it out the War on Drugs podcast. And back then,
(13:22):
as we've seen time and again on this program, even
involving a low level drug deal and could make that
person a target for a wrongful conviction. So let's get
to early October nineteen ninety seven and the lead up
to this dice game and the shooting. There was some
actual beef that had started a few days before between
your co defendant, Melvin Bethune and a friend of this guy,
can Do Smith, and this served as an allegend motive
(13:45):
for what happened later. But this was kind of like
a small time beef, right.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
There was no conflict that rules to the level of
one and take.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
A life, right, and Kendo Smith wasn't the victim anyway,
but rather a guy named Raymond skip Clark, who I'm
guessing was one of the gods as well.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
No, he wasn't a member of the Gods. He wasn't
even friends with Smith that I know of that night.
No guys were at this dice game, makes sense, can
Do Smith.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So the states theory about a beef between the Gods
and the Cream team is not holding up so far.
It's full of holes. But this beef, however, inconsequential, was
something you intended to bring up with ken Do Smith
when you saw him at the dice game. This was
October fifth, nineteen ninety seven, on the corner of Maple
and Duke in New York, Pennsylvania, where there was a
regular dice game. Ken do Smith was there as well
(14:33):
as Melvin Bethune Danny Steele. You had just got back
from the Bronx and a bit before eleven pm you
arrived at the game, and Raymond Clarke was there as well.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I never saw Raymond Clark that that, but according to
court documents, he was at the dice game. He was
playing games. I got to the dice game and I
told the work I needed to talk to him. Before
we could talk, a shot was fired. He ran and
I dug No one knows who fired that shot. It
came from behind me when I ducked in a land
(15:05):
you know. It was more shotsified. No one was injured.
Approximately five to seven minutes later than two blocks away.
According to the shots Rush Gript, more shots we fire.
That is who Raymond Clark was shot at, not as
the Dunce game.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So not only had you not even seen the victim
at the dice game, but at this point you had
no idea that anyone had even gotten hurt. So shots
were fired, everyone scattered, total chaos. Did you have a clue?
Did anyone have a clue why this was even happening.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
There was essentially no serious beef at the time where
they feel like they should be targeted for any reason.
But they're taking off because there's gunfire and they know
what gunfire.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Can do, so when they got a hotel.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
But according to the state's theory, you checked into the
hotel before going to the dice game before Raymond Clark's death,
sometime between like ten and eleven PM.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
That is what they wanted the jewry and the quote
they believe I kept him to the Super Eighth at
about twelve thirty one in the morning. I let Mel
know where I was going, I let Danny know where
I was going, and they spent the night with me.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And at that point, not only did you not know
that Skip Clark was dead, but you also didn't know
that your boy Danny Steele was about to use a
shared room at the Super eight as a premise for
a false statement, which really ends up being the basis
of the state's entire case. And we'll get to that
in a bit. But first, letitia, what did we know
about the initial investigation, Like how did they even end
(16:33):
up coming upon Danny?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
So we have no idea exactly what happened Tyshim's lawyer,
the person who would have gotten the box of evidence
or whatever he's passed when we go to Melvin's attorney.
This is over twenty plus years ago. He doesn't have that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Box, so the usual trough of information was not available.
But what we do know about this incident is that
there were a thought of witnesses, some of whom spoke
with you and your lead investigator, Kitty Haley Way later
in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Well, what we find out later is that Raymond Clark,
he's found with drugs on his person, and it is
noted that he apparently owed Danny Steele some money.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Turns out maybe, I think like a week after that,
Danny was interrogated in.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
The lasting and at least four people have testified both
the trial and in post conviction that Danny Steele was
the shooter. So that should have been it, but instead
a story and a strategy was being concocted with Danny
Steele in order to drag more people down the rabbit
hole with him turning this tragedy into an opportunity for
the authorities to sweep the streets from those they considered
(17:42):
undesirable namely Melvin and Taysheen, who for months went about
their lives, eventually hearing about Raymond Clark's death and having
no idea that one of their friends, Danny, was saving
himself from life in prison at their expense by creating
this phony narrative in which members of the Cream team
met at the Super eight Motel and conspired tired to
confront the gods at this dice game about the beef
with Melvin, and This group allegedly included Taishim, Melvin, Danny,
(18:07):
and three other men from New York, one of whom
was named Corleone.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Coleon was a made up figure. Danny still made up
Coolion so he could tend this homicide on somebody. He
made Coleon a shooter.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
It's like they sat around and watched The Godfather and
then went and tried a case. That's how it feels.
Some guy named Corleone who's never been identified, and some
other guys from New York, they all go to the
Super eight Motel and they want blood for what happened
to Melvin yesterday. Melvin was disrespected or something, and they
want blood. So they're all going to get guns from
(18:40):
a friend's house. And then they're going to go down
there and shoot up the gods at a dice game.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Now, the theory continued that in order to arrive at
the dice game before the shootings took place around eleven
thirty pm, this alleged crew of Muscle from the Bronx
had to have checked into the Super eight Motel by
ten thirty pm or earlier in order to have time
for thirty to sixty minute plotting session as well as
picking up the guns. But when they arrived at the
dice game, Taysheem allegedly pointed a gun at Ken Do
(19:06):
Smith had tried to shoot him, but the gun allegedly
malfunctioned and didn't fire, so the rest of this alleged
cream team hit squad open fire, and everyone at the
dice game ran for their lives. No one was hurt,
and Ken Du Smith has since gone on the record
saying that Taysheen never pulled a gun on him. Other
eyewitnesses also corroborated that the only evidence of this version
events is Danny Steele's statement, which continued saying that then
(19:30):
he another man and this fictitious guy named Corleone chased
Raymond Skip Clark, and this fictional Corleone guy, not Danny Steele,
allegedly shot and killed Clark. So that's how Steele shifted
total blame from himself and alleged that he was just
a co conspirator, not the loan shooter.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Now, Danny Steele, this is important. He is charged with
the exact same crimes as Melvin and Tysheen, so you
would think he'd get the exact same punishment were close.
For murder, for conspiracy to commit murder, he did two
years in the county jail, presumably because he couldn't go
(20:09):
to state prison because you know, he was a known snitch.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
From what I understand, he had also been convicted of
perjury twice before. So this is the guy on whom
the entirety of the state's case rests and what they
used to issue arrest warrants for both Melbourne and Taysheem.
And at the time, Melvin had just pled guilty to
some unrelated drug charges.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Right, he takes a plea and he's getting ready to
go to prison, and the police come to let him
know that he's been indicted on these charges, and he's
just shocked. There's no conversation they don't take him down
to the police station and interview him.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
They had all the information they wanted from Danny Steele. Now, tysheim,
you were back in New York at the time, and
during a routine traffic stop, NYPD discovered that you were
wanted in New York Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I did that. I was a fugitive. I got picked
up January nineteen ninety eight, pull door one, one hundred
and forty fifty with twenty seventh and eighth avenual. I
was arrested and I haven't been on the street since.
And while PD picks me up, I'm extradited down to
York where I was charged.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
When he gets to York and he's in the county jail,
there's no interview. The information and the story has already
been told by Danny Steele. But there's literally a fifteen
minute drive at one point from one drop up location
to the jail with the police officer.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Dennis Williams was the arresting detective. While he's driving me
to the York County prison, he said, I know you
didn't kill Rainey Club, but I don't know you're part
of the clean team. I can get you with deal
if you cooperate, and I told him I didn't know
nothing annosing For a few months after that, they offered
(22:01):
me another deal popped in and I turned that down.
Did they trout thought that they offered me another deal
They were going to dismiss all degrees of homicide about
played guilties and I completed his so I turned that down.
Dennis Williams offered me the the deal that DNA deal
ended up huting.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Danny Steele did less than three years in the county jail.
That's jail, right, not president, and that was part of
his deal to avoid running into other people who he
had flipped on previously. And so no one was ever
charged with being skipped Clark Shooter Corleone certainly wasn't. It's
hard to charge a ghost after all. And now all
three of you had been charged with murder, but only
(22:58):
by way of conspiracy and a compless liability. And this
is why your arrival time at the Super eight motel
is so important to the state's theory, as is the
part of Danny Steele's testilize where he alleged that you
drew a gun on Kendo Smith that never did fire.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
So conspiracy liability requires proof of an agreement or a
common design to commit the unlawful act for which the
person is convicted. So person cannot be convicted of conspiracy
from merely being present during the commission of a crime.
There has to be some step taken, some proof of
the agreement, you know, and then obviously the crime. For
(23:35):
accomplass liability, it requires more than mere presence during the
commission of a criminal act, even if the accused knew
that the crime was to be committed. So we see
like accomplass liability like after the fact, you know, someone
who's helping to conceal or clean something up. So these
are really what tayshim as well as Melvin were convicted under. Also,
(23:59):
you know, a lot of that prosecutorial caselied on something
called transferred intent, which basically means if I pull out
a gun and I'm trying to shoot you, but I
accidentally shoot your friend or someone standing next to you,
you know, it would have been attempted murder because I
purposefully knowingly was aiming at you. But it's still first
(24:21):
degree murderer even though I had no intention of killing
your friend, because the intention had already formed. And so
throughout the trial, we'll hear of transferred intent in those transcripts.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So because you were alleged to have met beforehand establishing
the intent, and then followed through with your part of
the supposed conspiracy by allegedly pulling a gun on Ken
du Smith, that then made you in turn responsible in
some degree for the murder of Skip Clark, the alleged
end result of this alleged organized confrontation.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I didn't realize what conspiracy laws accomplished liability was. I
didn't realize what you moved P on the chessboard to
Alanna the way you want it to be seen. You
can make something look like something that it wasn't. We
were kids, you know. In our adversary were chrome men, seasoned,
you know, politicians, prosecutors, and I did not realize what
(25:16):
was going on until it was.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Too late, that they had fabricated a narrative with Danny
Steele to convict you through these conspiracy and accomplished liability
laws that you were unaware of. So Melvin was already
in prison for the unrelated drug charges, so he didn't
bond out, but neither did you. You both were being
held separately from Danny Steele. But at this point you
didn't even know about what he had done, right, So
(25:38):
when did you first realize what he was doing to you?
Speaker 3 (25:41):
The first time I see him is at my preliminary
here and he testifying against me. You know, he's saying,
I'm the leader of the Cream team that prior to
the Dice Game shooting that we met at a motel
and agreed to kill someone. Actually at the preliminary here
when he said we agreed to step to these guys
to try to squash this beef. With the proceedings, his testimony,
(26:02):
you know, would constantly change and get more dramatic and
more incriminated.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
There were a lot of inconsistencies in the telling of
these various stories by Danny Steele, But there wasn't necessarily
a rigorous, vigorous defense from Taishim's counsel. Melvin's council, when
looking at the transcript, tended to do a better job.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Right. Both families had hired counsel prior to the January
ninety nine trial, but only Melvin's family was able to
pay and maintain counsel.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So this attorney that was represented me at the time,
Alla Smith, you know, he was never paid him full
and he thought the motion to withdrawals counsel. I didn't
know that. I could have still been getting counsel by
the state, which probably would have been a bad attorney anyway,
as bad as he was. But he never did nothing
after that, after the judge told him the motion was denied,
(26:57):
we continue to proceed to trial without an investigation of
what going on.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So it sounds like you didn't even have an attorney.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Absolutely attorney. I didn't have a suit shoods, I didn't
have a family an attorney.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Tayshiem would come to the courthouse not in a suit,
but in an orange jumpsuit. So this was not, you know,
someone being able to put forth their best defense.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And in order to combat the state, especially with what
we now know that they were willing to hide, you
were going to need a vigorous investigation from zealous attorneys
and the whole team that would have done things like
caul Ken do Smith to the stand. He has since
gone on the record that you did not, in fact,
point to gun at him, which directly contradicts the state's narratives. Now,
how your counsel didn't at least contact can do is
(27:43):
just it's irresponsible in desire. It's it's disgusting actually. But
even more bizarre is how Danny Steele did something on
the stand that even I've never heard of before.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Throughout the trial, he kept mentioning that, you know, he
was incentivized, that he's hoping, he's hope that the prosecutors
do right by him and only give him two to
five years in the county. And that's exactly what they
give him.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
He literally told the judge and jury why his own
statement was unreliable. He's like, I'm receiving a benefit for
lying here. He's spelling it out.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
How are they supposed to trust anything he said? But
they did. I can't get over this, and we already
went over what Steele said before the shooting At the
dice game. He plays Taisheem Melvin, himself and three other guys,
including this Corleone character, at the Super eight motel between
ten and eleven PM for this conspiracy meeting, and the
manager of the Super eight, guy named Alfred Milburn, corroborated this.
(28:39):
Why we're not sure because the clerk who actually checked
Taysheim into the hotel, the person who actually knew this
information was a woman named Terry Flinch boss Siler, and
what she told police directly and totally contradicted Albert Milburn's
phony narrative.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
She's the one who checks Tayshi Minh. She knows this now.
Raymond Clark dies at eleven thirty pm that night. That's
when he shot.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We know this for a fact.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
She doesn't come on until eleven pm.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
The States spoke to her, but they didn't want to
hear about how Tayshiim checked in at twelve thirty one
o'clock in the morning, and that this conspiracy meeting in
fact never took place.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
She tried to offer help and they didn't want to
hear it. She had documents, you know, where he signed,
as well as any telephone calls he would have made
out of that room because it's the nineties, and they
could have turned that over to Tayshim's lawyers, and that
never happened.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And perhaps these documents the telephone records may have also
been timestamped.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Miss Flinch boss Siler says that the records she maintained
for the hotel have a bottom section which indicates the
exact times the calls made from each room, so it's
not known if the police are prosecutors were in possession
of that part of the document, but the documents used
at trial were the only ones that she was a
(30:00):
asked to review that she was asked to talk about.
And they don't have the exact times the calls made.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
And no one from the defense went looking for call logs.
It's totally irresponsible. I mean, it would have been helpful
to know what time the calls were made, but that
specifically wasn't in the documents used by the state of trial.
And from what I understand, they deliberately limited Terry Flinch
boss Siler's testimony.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
She was told by the prosecutors, you're not allowed to speak.
You're going to answer yes or no to my questions.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Right. They were merely trying to establish that a phone
call had taken place, but they specifically did not want
to know when, and they definitely didn't want to know
when her shift started or when Tayshiim Melvin and Danny
were checked in because that would have blown up their case.
They knew about Terry and these phone records, so it
looks like they knew that they were presenting false testimony. Now,
the phone call was important to them because it corroborated
Melvin's presence at the alleged conspiracy meeting. It was alleged
(30:55):
that he had called his girlfriend at the time, named
Tucker Redmond, and told her what his intention was, which
was to go down to the dice game and shoot
up the gods. It was also alleged that a fourteen
year old girl named Nicki Rhodes overheard this conversation. The
state made a number of false statements during opening and
closing that they never backed up by calling these alleged witnesses,
(31:15):
Ducker and Nicki.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Our investigator was able to speak with Tucker, so she
was dating Melvin. She did speak with him that night.
She never told the prosecutor or the police that Melvin
was interested in hurting or shooting up the young men
on the corner plane craps. When she discovered what the prosecutor,
specifically Prosecutor Kelly, had said in open court, she was
(31:39):
not present at the time, but she became incensed to
learn that he claimed she came to court willingly, she
was subpoenaed to come to court, and that he had
lied about what she had heard and said that evening.
When she discovered that the prosecutor during a sidebar, had
told the judge that her conversation she was overheard and
(32:02):
passed along by Nicki Rhodes. She proclaimed that also to
be alive. Nikki confirmed that she had no knowledge of
the interaction between Melvin Bethiune and Taker Redman on the
night of the shooting and of Skip Clark. She was
adamant that she was a younger at the time with
no knowledge of anything related to the crime. She did
not testify, and she was not asked to testify.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I guess the state strategy was, if you're gonna lie,
go big, and they were able to hide those lines
from these alleged witnesses because witnesses aren't typically allowed to
sit in court to watch the proceedings, But here it
seems this rule was a convenient way to hide them
from what was being said about them, Like Kalanda Chance,
who had told the police that she had been at
the scene earlier in the evening but left prior to
(32:45):
the shooting. I knew nothing about it. Now, what did
she tell your investigator? Kitty Hayley In twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
One, Holanda Chance, she was provided with a copy of
the trial transcript and was upset to read that the
prosecutor was attempting to her into a web of lies
about Melboyn wanting to shoot up men on the corner.
She never knew about the plan to use her as
a link between Taker Redman's conversation and the actual shooting.
(33:12):
She further claimed that the prosecutors were trying to make
two groups of friends, the Cream Team and the Guards,
look like a hardened criminal gang, even though.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That was not so. But even if you want to
believe that these two groups will hardened criminal organizations help
bent on destroying the otherwise decent, hardworking town of York, Pennsylvania,
the evidence simply doesn't support the state's theory. Terry flinch
Buss Siler was the clerk who checked Taishim into the
Super eight, and her shift started at eleven pm, So
even if he was waiting there for her shift to
start before he checked in, there's just not enough time
(33:43):
to check in. The Cream Team have a thirty minute
to an hour long meeting to conspire about confronting the Gods.
Go to another dress to pick up the guns, go
to the dice game, shoot up the place, and then
chase down and kill Raven Skip Clark by eleven thirty
do all that shit in thirty minutes.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
And they knew it was impossible, but they weren't with
the theory, and the judge told the jury that it
Ty wasn't at that motel prior to the shooting. TI
cannot be farn Gailty has an accomplished or a co
construmity in this case. But while I was on trial,
I didn't have the information I'm in possession from now right.
(34:21):
They did, though, and.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
The state used testimony that they knew was false in
order to trick the jury into believing that this alleged
conspiracy meeting was both plausible and real, and I'm sure
Danny's admission to his involvement acted as a stamp of legitimacy.
Then they alluded to this alleged phone confession for Melvin
that was never actually confirmed or corroborated, and the jury
bought at Lockstock and Barrel. They convicted you both and
(34:44):
sentenced you to life in prison.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I watched Melvine cry after we was devicted. Cried. I
couldn't believe it. I was in disbelief. I didn't even
know we could get life because we didn't kill anybody.
No I'm not telling this story yet. Living this story.
(35:20):
Prison there's something different than anybody. You know. It's like
a hospital, it's like a hotel. It's like a hideout.
It's like a hangout. It's like a hostage situation. To
the words so being awfully convicted, it's about it's fun.
It's falling off to the story building. It's send a
struggle when I go up in prison as a smarting
(35:43):
little kid. I hate it here today as much as
I did the first day. You never get used to it.
There's nothing more than in freedom. You know what I'm saying,
I'm gonna look at myself like a hostage. They give back.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Among my memory, Melvin's trying to make peace with the
fact that he has a son he'll never watch grow up,
that he's going to be spending the rest of his
life in a prison for a crime he didn't commit.
I don't believe Melvin has ever received legal help. Maybe
one time for a post conviction relief. I don't know
(36:21):
that he learned to use the law library and advocate
for himself like tayshim did.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Every Wigod moment on fire from my life, he was
giving me the worst attorneys you know, my first attorney
was sleeping in the same prison I was in for
the US when he dropped the ball. They gave me
another lawyer. She was helpful, but she was in over
her head because her expertise was social security claims. So
it was really me. I had to learn the law
(36:48):
of myself.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So you've taught yourself the law, as we often see
as absolutely necessary for our guests to do, and you
also saw it outside help like investigators and lawyers, and
you've been funding that by writing and self books. Who
are you, dude? That's amazing. I mean, I see you've
written eight books.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I've written fifteen books, eight published. They're all available for purchase.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I just received, by the way, your latest book. It's
called It Could Happen to any of us, and that's
like a mantra of mine. So I'm really looking forward
to reading it. And we're going to make sure to
link your books in the bio. This is how you've
been funding your fight for freedom, and I hope our
audience will show their support. So let's talk about that fight.
You mentioned that you had some Mappella attorneys that were
about as useless as your own as your original trialer
(37:32):
and in Pennsylvania post conviction, I'm not so sure it
matters if the lawyers are better or not, since the
post conviction statutes make the fight even more difficult than usual. Now,
if I understand this correctly, you can find new evidence,
even Brady material, But if that evidence could have possibly
been found, that means it was available to you, and
therefore it cannot be considered new evidence. For example, since
(37:53):
the Super eight clerk Terry Flinch Boss Siler was alive
and available to be questioned, what she has to say
is not considered new evidence. And the fact that the
state didn't share it doesn't make it a Brady violation
because you could have discovered it on your own or
your lawyer could have, which sounds fucking absurd. And then
in this case, since they were co defendants, if Melvin
(38:14):
had an attorney who litigated something already, the issue can't
be raised. So options run out very quickly, and doors
keep closing, and you've been met with denial after denial,
even though you've amassed a formidable case for actual incense.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And in two thousand and three I found out that
Danny still had a secret deal with the Commonwealth. The
two and a half to five. So I found my
first PCRA on my own in two thousand and three.
I was unsuccessfully because they said that this information was
in the public domain, and then I could have voted
in the first pcl the council PCLA with the attorney
(38:52):
they gave me, who never read the record, never interviewed me,
never try to interview anybody.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
See, this is the kind of bulls I'm talking about.
Since the information was in the public domain, meaning that
it existed among all the information in the world and
wasn't being kept under lock and key, then it was
technically in the public domain during his first post conviction
motion and his council didn't find it and build a
motion around it. So then the issue cannot be raised again.
(39:19):
I don't even know what to say. And then there's
only a certain amount of time that it can be raised.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
The judge felt like this information was in the public
domain between the time of need film it and the
twindow closing on my first.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Pc ulredy, And in Pennsylvania back then you'd only get
sixty days since legislation.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
You know, it's three hundred and sixty five days now.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Oh yeah, that's really fucking generous. I mean, who does
legislation like that serve or punished? Think about it. It's
not like people who are dead to rights guilty are
making credible cases for actual innocence, or at least not likely.
So shutting the door on these post conviction motions pretty
much solely kept the innocent incarcerated. Since that time, though
that has changed.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
The presumption and knowledge is no longer a reason to
foreclose your post conviction motion twenty years ago it.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Was today it's not so much good it does for
you though.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah, you can't go back, there's no retroactivity. You
can't go back and seat, which already happened.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
So after appealing your denials in two thousand and three
in the state courts, you went federal go challenge my.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Conviction on the federal level because of our constitutional rights.
I mean, you know. The two major issues was that
the trial court gave the wrong jury instruction as it
applied to accomplished liability, and the second issue was an
effective assistic council for fail to investigate. Those were my
two strongest issues, and after two and a half years,
(40:43):
three years, I filed my own hate too. But it
was eventually denied.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
He then filed your fourth PCRA petition in twenty twelve
because Danny Steele recanted his trial testimony. Yeah, you heard
that right. Danny Steele was finally doing the right thing.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
He sent me after David and that he had been
prushing to give false testimony that he had witnessed be
for the gun to do Work's head and pull the trigger.
He also testified about the fake motel meeting, and he
was ultimately found to be incredible because he was no
longer in jeopardy from the Commonwealth, but he was still
(41:21):
allegedly in jeopardy.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
From his codefendants you and Melvin, who were both locked
up for life while he's out there doing whatever he's doing,
living the dream. You know what I find incredible, The
fucking balls on these judges. I mean, unfucking believable. The
only evidence in the case, besides the Super eight manager
who we know didn't know his ass from his elbow,
the only evidence is Danny Steele's word, which apparently no
(41:43):
longer matters. I guess if anyone could be a good
judge of Danny's credibility, though, it'd be the guys who
cooked up the lines with him to begin with.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Both of the prosecutors also testified that they didn't understand
that they had said if he testified falsely, it was
something he chose to do. They didn't encourage him to
do it. Oh, he found them to be more credible
than Danny Steele.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
So now you find a way to bolster the recantation.
You got in touch with Ken Do Smith, like your
trial attorney should have done in the first place, and
he was finally ready to corroborate Danny Steele's recantation. So
that was the focus of your last of your PCRRA
petitions filed in August twenty fifteen, and evidentiary hearing was
held in August twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
And at this evidence he here Jim Delle Smith shows
up and he testifies on the old debt, Chad never
put a machine gun in my head and pulled the trigger.
And I don't know why Danny Steel made that up.
Had it happened, I wouldn't be headed day saying it
didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Right, Why would he be standing up for his attempted
murderer in court. So this adds legitimacy to his testimony,
which transfers legitimacy to Danny Steele's recantation, and this would
qualify as new evidence in other states, but not in Pennsylvania.
This was denied as untimely because this witness was available
at the time of trial. It's like running into a
brick wall over and over again. Now, while at this
(43:00):
time a chain of events began involving Melvioyn's son. Now
this must have been right after this evidentiary hearing, maybe
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, something really bad happened, and then
that thing was almost made even worse the TCIA.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Can you explain guess who gets found shot multiple times
in his car? Danny Steele. I mean, he's just riddled
with bullets. York County decides that Melvin Bethune's own son,
who grew up without his father, was the person who
(43:34):
killed Danny Steele, that he was so angry about him
allegedly perjuring himself naming his father, that he decided to
lie in wait and kill Danny Steele. Well, Melvin Bethune's
son decided to take the single trial, and he prevailed.
(43:55):
He was found not guilty, and Danny Steele is dead,
which which is very sad, of course, but there are
many people who may have harbored very bad feelings towards
Danny Steele.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
I mean, I wouldn't blame Melvin's son if he was
angry with Danny Steele. How I'm angry with Danny Steele,
even posthumously, But that doesn't mean that Melvin's son murdered anybody.
I mean, I don't know all the details, so I
won't comment on the investigation of the prosecution. I do
hope that things have changed significantly in your county since
the time they wrongfully convicted Melbourne. But at the very least,
I'm glad one of the Bethunes appears to have had
(44:30):
a competent attorney, which was also on the horizon for
Melvin and Taishim. One of your advocates, Omar Jannette, was
instrumental in getting you the competent attorney who we have
with us today, Ptsia Chaviz Freed And apparently it started
off as a change dot org petition that put you
on the radar of the NIS's Project of Pennsylvania. When
Letsia just happened to be looking for some pro bono
(44:51):
work and reached out to them, and so.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
I contacted Innison's Project and they gave me this case.
I collected every record I possibly could, and of course
I realized that Melvin Bethune was also behind bars for
the same crime as tayshim. And that is about the
time where I hire Kitty Haley. She went back in time. Essentially,
(45:13):
she spent weeks and weeks in York and talked to
you know, people who knew all of the players involved Kendo,
you know, Bethune's girlfriend, the victim, Raymond Clark's mother. Kitty
Haley went to New York and went and sat with
this woman on more than one occasion and talked to
her about her son and what he meant to her.
And we have an alpha David. She literally said that
(45:37):
the prosecutors and she named them, told her that Danny
Steele was responsible for the murder of her son. But
they won as many gang members as possible off these streets,
and so they're going to get all three of them.
And they're not given Danny Steele a deal. They're not
doing that. He's going to get the same amount of
time as the others. Well, that's not what happened.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
You know, I didn't think there was room for these
prosecutors to get any less likable, but trust me, there
is even more room. And as we've already discussed, Kitty
Haley spoke to all the women who the prosecutors lied
about a trial, Tucker Redmond, Kalanda Chance, and of course
the fourteen year old girl Nikki Rhoades. Then she spoke
with Terry flinch bos Syler, and we know that she
discovered that Terry began her shift at eleven pm and
(46:23):
checked Taishim into the Super eight well after Skip Clark
had already died, which means this entire case just fell apart.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
So I'll meet Kitty Haley to beginning a twenty twenty
one and it was drilling for me when she said,
you know, he've been telling the same story for twenty years.
It felt good. But Kitty Haley gets out there in
the field. She speaks to Terry and the motel clerk
from the Superby hotel, and she adamantly says that she
(46:51):
told the prostitution that this theory was flawed, that I
could not have been there any time prior to eleven pm.
They said, up they at ten pm, but you know
where I was at at ten pm. All my way
back from New York. I was on the highway at
ten pm. And she also made one distinct statement in
the feature. She said that the evidence that they presented
(47:14):
at my trial, something was missing and it had the
d detached, that it was ripped off. The ripped DOLF
piece is called the bottom of a folio, a folio
that contains information they would have told whoever wanted to
see it, exactly what time the room was rent it,
if and when any calls were made, how long the
(47:36):
calls were, and where they went to. The jury never
got an opportunity to see this. The defense was never
in possession of this, and I didn't even know it
existed until Kitty Hally furnished the legal team with her
conclusions in these statements.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
And so presumably those documents are sitting in the District
Attorney's office today and that's what we're fighting for to get.
But also, this woman has sign an AUF of David.
She's willing to come in. And this woman doesn't know anybody,
she has no skin in the game.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Uninsarsted objective pauty witness is telling you that this serious flawed,
and you decide to perpetuate this throg and allow for
it to go uncorrected for twenty something years. Based on
my studies, this would be considered deliberate and willful deception.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
No words could do this injustice, any justice. So now
that we've heard everything that Kitty dug up, you all
were able to petition the courts based on this evidence,
and they said that this was litigated by Melvin back
in two thousand and seven and it was denied back
then as untimely because Terry Flinchboss Silo was available to
testify at trial, so this couldn't be considered new evidence
(48:49):
and most certainly was past the deadline. And I mean
what we're seeing in this case over and over again
is ineffective assistance at trial.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Absolutely, it all comes down to the beginning this stage's trial.
So at trial, I had a lawyer who had checked
out on me. But the beautiful thing is he did
file a Brady. He wrote some passion for everything that
was open, so we know today that they without some
information that was requested.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I mean, there's always been a solid case for Brady
violations and ineffective assistance here, But so far, I don't
think it's a stretch to say that you have been
failed not only by your attorneys along the way, but
by the entire judicial system. I understand you have plans
to file with the York County Fiction Integrity Units, so
we hope that they will be able to provide the
relief that you have so rightfully deserved. But if not,
(49:37):
I'm afraid your only option might be clemency. You know
you have my full support, in the support of our
whole team, and right now I'm going to ask for
our audience to lend their support as well. So we're
going to have a lot of things linked in to bio,
but the number one call to action is to sign
the petition to support your release. I'm literally begging our
audience please join us on this one. Just go there
right now and sign the petition. I'll take you a
(49:59):
minute and a half. And now we go to my
favorite part of the show, which is called closing arguments,
where first I thank both of you incredible people for
being here, and now I'm just going to kick back
in my chair, turn my microphone off, and just listen
to any final thoughts that you may have. So let's
start with Altisia and then Taishim. Please take us out
into the sunset for you and for Melbourn.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
America as a country, and our court system has largely
been steeped like a tea bag in racism, and some
people are considered worthy and some people are not considered worthy.
And I would offer that back in the nineties, two
young black men from New York are really considered outsiders
(50:45):
and their lives were not worth a lot. I will
never know what the prosecutor was thinking. I don't know
the prosecutor, but I know that the hat was hung
on somebody who had more multiple convictions for perjury, who
was highly incentivized, who pled guilty to the same crime,
(51:07):
and who served less than three years out of county jail.
You know that in and of itself is a crime.
We know that these two young men did not commit
this crime. And what I can say to Tayshim as
well as Melvin, is I'm not giving up until they
walk out.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Just support this is a great cause. I fought hard
for my freedom for twenty plus years. I've been accarcerated
almost a quarter century. I'm innocent. I was awfully convicted.
You can go to change that or assign this petition
that was initiated by DJ Coco Chanel. You can visit
my website. I want my life back, I want to
be free. I want to turn my books into movies.
(51:47):
I want to help other people who awfully convicted. I
want to one day start my own innocence projects and
be able to help people regain their freedom in their
voices back and be returned to their family.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free 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 Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(52:28):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
the individuals featured in this show are their own and
do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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