January 6, 2025 • 33 mins
The episode illuminates the complicated legacy of Charles Harrelson, a notorious hitman and father of actor Woody Harrelson. We explore family dynamics, the impact of criminality on relationships, and the assassination of Judge John H. Wood Jr., outlining how crime and familial loyalty intertwined in tragic ways.
• Examination of Charles Harrelson's life and crimes
• Exploration of Woody Harrelson's complicated relationship with his father
• Insights into the assassination of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr.
• Discussion of judicial risks faced by law enforcement
• Commentary on the criminal justice system and plea bargains
• Reflection on the nature of familial loyalty and betrayal
• Consideration of inherited moral choices and their impact on identity
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm Heather.
Behind the soundboardCriminology.
I'm Richard.
I'm Heather.
Behind the soundboard is Nancy,and this week's episode is kind
of one that I had never heardabout before.
So around Christmas, you know,you've got family talking and
people kind of bring up storiesabout different things, and my
father's really big on likethings that are on TV.
(01:03):
What's he seen on TV?
Who are on tv, what's he seenon tv, who are actors he's seen
and stuff and we were talkingabout somehow we got on and we
were talking about woodyharrelson and the matthew
mcconaughey relationship and mydad had said, well, yeah, his
father's in prison for, like, hemurdered a guy, and I was like
I don't, I had not heard that.
Had you heard about this before?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I had never heard heard of this.
No.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah.
So I was like, okay, google,and I Googled it and lo and
behold, woody Harrelson'sfather's name is Charles
Harrelson and he was tried formultiple murders and then
eventually was convicted ofhomicide.
So I thought this was kind ofan interesting story that a lot
of people may not know about andfigured, hey, let's do this.
(01:45):
So Woody Harrelson's father isCharles Boyd Harrelson, who was
born on July 23rd 1938 inLovelady, texas.
He grew up in a small Texastown during the post-Depression
era, so through details abouthis childhood they're pretty
scarce.
(02:06):
But at some point after leavingschool Harrelson decided to join
the Navy and became a sonaroperator, which is his rate,
which just defines kind of whathe worked on while he was in the
Navy, and it provided him witha brief stint of legitimate
employment.
But following his militaryservice, harrelson kind of takes
a turn in his life and somehowends up involved in crime.
(02:29):
He ends up moving to Californiaand he was working as an
encyclopedia salesman, butsomewhere in there he began
leading this double life and byday he would sell encyclopedias.
Kind of seemed like alegitimate guy.
But he started committingburglaries at night and this
criminal behavior eventuallylanded him in prison for the
(02:52):
first time in the 1960s.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So it was during this initial incarceration that
Harrelson's criminal careerescalated dramatically, and we
kind of talked about this beforehow people go to prison and
sometimes they learn how to bebetter criminals instead of
actually being reformed.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, it's not like we figured out that the original
concept of prison was to berehabilitative and we've just
continued to use it aspunishment and retribution
instead of like a way to maybeget people to stop committing
crimes.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, definitely.
We have not figured out thesolution on that.
So while he's in prison hereportedly admitted to dozens of
murders and established himselfas a feared hitman in the
organized crime circles, and hisadmission marked the beginning
of his deep involvement with thecriminal underworld.
So his first major brush withthe law for murder came in 1968
(03:45):
when he was tried for thekilling of Alan Harry Berg in
Texas, and he was defended byPercy Foreman.
He was acquitted of the chargesby the jury in Angleton, Texas,
on September 22nd 1970.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So shortly after his acquittal, harrelson faced
another murder charge.
So obviously this guy's notlearning from what he's doing.
He seems to almost enjoy it,which is kind of something you
hear from Hitman.
There's no emotional connectionto it, it's a payday.
So he was tried again for the1968 murder for hire of Sam
(04:23):
DeGaglia Jr, who was a graindealer and father of four in
Herne, texas, hernia, texas,in-in-the-ass, texas, I don't
know.
The prosecutors alleged thatHarrelson was paid $2,000 for
the hit.
The first trial for D'Elia'smurder ended in a hung jury,
which just means that based onthe charges, they couldn't
(04:47):
decide.
Some thought he was guilty,some thought he wasn't.
Is that kind of how that works?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yes, if they cannot reach a verdict, basically
meaning everybody agrees, thenit's a hung jury, which means
you get tried again.
So that whole no doublejeopardy, hung jury, you do get
tried again double jeopardy hungjury.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You do get tried again, and that led to him being
retried in 1973 and beingconvicted and sentenced to 15
years in prison.
He served only five years ofthe sentence before being
paroled in 1978 for goodbehavior.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Taking 10 years off for good behavior seems like a
lot well, and especially forthis, because because in most
places this would be considereda crime of violence and
different jurisdictions havedifferent rules as far as how
much time you get for credit fortime served and things like
that.
Typically for nonviolent crimesit's a day for day credit, so a
15 year sentence would be cutto seven and a half years, but
(05:43):
only serving five I mean a crimeof of violence usually it's
like 75 percent of the sentencethat you have to do, so it seems
very odd.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The only other thing I could think of was maybe he
got more credit for time heserved prior to his sentence,
but still five years doesn'tseem like much at all the two
times I've seen this myself andagain you have more experience
in the court system, but is onewhen you have jails or prisons
that are being comingoverpopulated which this is
(06:11):
about the time we are seeingthat like boom and people being
sentenced because there's war oncrime starting, and the other
is because somebody turnsevidence.
Now again, I couldn't findanything that said that, but it
does seem like 10 years for amurder for hire would be pretty.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
That's a substantial reduction.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, that's a what's up, my buddy.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, so the only other thing I could think of is,
since he was retried in 73 andhe was paroled in 78, that
part's five years Maybe he gotcredit for time served prior to
the conviction.
Since he did have to have twotrials there, I would assume
they would have had him incustody during that time and not
released on bond.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, I didn't see anything about that actually, if
he was held pretrial or if theylet him go, but that would,
that would actually make sense.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So at least give him some extra time.
So in the meantime, there'sthis judge, judge Wood, and he
is known as Maximum John becausehe basically throws the book at
people, especially drug dealers, and right around the time that
Harrelson's getting out, he isactually presiding over a
(07:22):
pretrial hearing for JamilChagra, and I'm not sure if I'm
saying that last name.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I go with the way it looks Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
And so, anyway, jamil Chagra was in a pretrial
hearing and there were 20defense motions and the judge
ended up denying all 20 of thedefense motions and he turned to
his brother, attorney Joseph,and says something along the
(07:51):
lines of I'm not going to get afair trial in front of this
judge, and asked if he shouldhave the judge killed, which you
know.
You're like, oh my gosh, that'skind of an extreme conclusion
to jump to, not you know, not achange of venue, not anything
like that.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I also think it's interesting that he's his
defense attorney is also hisbrother.
Yes, like it seems like I again, I don't know the ethics in the
court system as much as youwould think I do, but that kind
of sense of conflict of interest, I guess it's not because
you're defending that person,you're not prosecuting them.
So of course you'd probablygive your brother a better
(08:25):
defense, but at the same time,like I kind of feel like that
could cause some family problemsif you don't win.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Well, and speaking of conflict of interest, we'll see
that in a little bit becauseJoseph agrees, yes, let's kill
the judge.
So, now they're conspiring tocommit a crime, which that's a
problem.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The last thing you need is an attorney that's like
you know what.
You probably will not get offon this crime.
You should commit a much worseone.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So the most famous crime associated with Charles
Harrelson was the assassinationof US District Judge John H Wood
Jr.
And that was committed on May29th of 1979.
Yes, before I was born Outsidehis San Antonio townhome.
So this was a landmark case.
I mean, anytime you have afederal judge or any federal
(09:16):
agent really assassinated,that's going to kind of be
gripping for the media and thecountry as a whole.
So as Woods was the firstfederal judge to be assassinated
in the 20th century,investigation into Woods' murder
was massive, with the FBIlaunching what they called the
largest manhunt ever to focus onEl Paso, spending over $5
(09:39):
million over three years.
So prosecutors alleged thatdrug dealer Jamal Jimmyimmy
charga tagra still not sure howthat's said uh hired harrelson
to kill judge wood for 250 000.
So I do have to say that in 10years he has really upped his
(10:00):
cost like two thousand dollarsfor that first hit that he got
and now he's like you know what?
That's not worth it 250 000 fora federal judge.
You are seeing an increase inhis fees, but also the
association of like taking outsomebody that's a low-level
criminal in your town comparedto like the dangers and
potential prosecution andrepercussions of murdering a
(10:20):
federal judge.
So harrelson's arrest cameafter a dramatic six-hour
standoff with police inSeptember of 1980.
So during which he threatenedsuicide and bizarrely claimed
responsibility for both JudgeWood's murder and the
assassination of President JohnF Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Yeah.
So you can see he's eitherreally involved in things or
he's, you know, kind of reallycrazy, which I think is what he
was playing for when he said hewas part of the assassination of
JFK.
I think he was trying to getsome attention, and at one point
I read that he had claimed hesaid that because he wanted to
make sure they didn't kill him.
(10:59):
And they thought that in hismind he thought well, they'll
take me alive if I say thatbecause they'll want to know
more about what I know about.
And so you know either that orhe was just grandstanding,
because we did say earlier thatwhen he was in custody he was
telling all kinds of people allkinds of things he did that
didn't sound like he actuallyhad.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
But at the same time, from a clinical side, that's
ingenious to a point, because hecould simply be like I'm just
insane, right, look, I think Ikilled Kennedy, like, of course,
I killed this judge.
You know which one's real,which one's not?
Are they both right?
Are they both wrong?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Which is something it said, that he brought up, that
he, when they were trying tointroduce the statements that he
said he killed the judge.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
He tried to say, well , I also said I killed gfk like
yeah, how credible is that?
Well, and it's it's.
It's interesting this concept,because I've read the book the
psychopath test by john ronsongreat book if you haven't read
it.
It really kind of looks at theinsanity plea and the use of
like labeling people aspsychopaths and stuff.
But like the main character inthat story was told he was on
trial for grievous bodily harmin Britain and he was told by
other inmates like hey, if youact insane then you'll be put in
(12:11):
a Cush mental hospital at themost and then be there, you know
, a couple of years and thenyou'll get out, which is not
what turns out.
I'll let you read the book tofind out how it really works out
.
But it's kind of like I've seenthis before with other suspects
that try to play the.
I was crazy at the time or Iwas mentally deficient and and
(12:31):
from what I've seen, rarely doesthat like you have to have a
lot of psychosis and it takes alot of psychiatrists and
psychologists and social workersto evaluate you, convince the
judge.
Usually judges do not want tobuy this.
But then also the threateningsuicide.
That's actually really commonin negotiation hostage
negotiation and it stands off.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
So that one I was like, okay, I've seen that, but
the I killed JFK, that's out ofnowhere which, interestingly
enough, one of the articles Iwas reading said that a person,
um, who, like I don't know howmany people, actually took it
seriously, but this one persontook it seriously and started
going through photos trying toidentify if he was there, and
(13:11):
they were making arguments thatthere was this one person in
these photos that they thoughtmight maybe have been him, which
again I was like that's kind ofinteresting.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It'd be funny if, in the end, he actually had been
there in some capacity were theysaying he was the guy in like
the trench coat, that's likenear the grassy knoll that
there's pictures of no, it waslike three.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I can't remember what they put, how they label.
It was like three juveniles orthree young people, three like
minor players, and they thoughtthat he was the smallest one of
the three people that they had.
I can't remember now what, whatthe word was, but it was
basically, like you know, minorpeople that they didn't really
investigate, that were not ofconsequence at the time, but
(13:52):
it'd be interesting if heactually like, was there at all.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Side note to that.
I mean we know it was aliens.
So unless Charles Harold saidis it alien which as handsome as
his sons are, it's verypossible.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Right, exactly, so there was a whole lot of drama
around this trial.
So there was a whole lot ofdrama around this trial.
Joseph, who was the attorneybrother, had agreed that he
would plead guilty to conspiracyto commit murder and get a
tenure sentence and in exchangehe was going to testify against
(14:29):
everybody except for his ownbrother.
He would not testify againsthis own brother, so he testifies
against his sister-in-law,elizabeth.
He testifies againstHarrelson's wife, joanne, and he
testifies against Harrelsonhimself, but he refuses to
testify against Jimmy.
And because of all of theevidence they have with Joseph's
(14:50):
testimony and thousands ofrecorded telephone and
face-to-face conversations atthe jail between different
people, they use that evidenceagainst Harrelson.
And one of the questions thatcomes up is all of these people
are criminals or potentialcriminals in the jail?
(15:10):
So even though you havethousands of hours of recorded
conversations, how much weightdo you actually give those
conversations in a jail?
And how much weight do you giveJoseph's testimony, considering
he got a 10-year sentence?
Brother says we need to figureout a way to get rid of the
(15:35):
judge.
And instead of joseph sayingyeah, I'll file for a change of
venue, he says let's kill thejudge.
He potentially, you could arguewas the worst one of the bunch,
and he got off with 10 yearsokay, you throw some great
questions.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Let's turn that.
If you were a prosecutor wait,you were would you take this guy
as like?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
would you take this guy to trial and say this is my
star, that's really difficultbecause a lot of these you don't
have a good person to pick.
I mean, they're all bad, but ifyou don't make a deal with
somebody, then somebody is goingto get away.
So you have to decide who doyou really want to go after?
So in this instance you mightlook at it and say well, even
(16:11):
though Joseph was the one whogot the ball rolling and he's
the smart one, he did it becausehis brother was on the line.
If we put his brother away forlife, then that circumstance
will never repeat itself, sohe'll never do this again.
On the flip side, harrelsonseems to be killing like one
person after another, and thebrother, jimmy, was already
stuck in trial on, you know,drug charges.
(16:32):
So he's obviously not squeakyclean either.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So there's a lot of stuff like in this one little
section.
There's just so many thingsthat interest me Like.
One is if you're in any type ofinstitution that's owned by the
government, you're beingrecorded Like I don't know how.
People don't fucking understandthis.
I don't know how many peopleeither through like the mail
they get, which the guards andfaculty facilities people go
(16:59):
through the mail, I don't knowhow many jailhouse conversations
between people that arevisiting and family members are
recorded, or just in jail cellsthere is you have no freedom,
you're in prison.
Stop talking about your crimes,idiots, and stop talking about
your crimes, idiots.
And then the other thing that Ithink is really here is I really
like game theory and kind ofthe prisoner's dilemma of you
(17:22):
know, if everybody would havejust stayed quiet, they may have
gotten five years each at themost.
If you don't know theprisoner's dilemma, look it up.
There's YouTube videos.
It's kind of one of my favoritethings to look at in the whole
games theory.
But because this guy waswilling to flip, I get 10 years
and everybody else gets slammedwith life, where if everybody
would have stayed quiet thenmaybe they would have gotten
(17:44):
lesser sentences and it wouldn'thave been so bad which is
always the question, because youwant to be the first one to
flip and get the deal, but ifnobody's going flip, you want to
stick with that and nobody flip.
You were bad cop, weren't you I?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
don't know.
It's hard to say.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Did it depend on like ?
Which depends?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
on the day depends on the day and the case Cause
sometimes you know, you feelmore sympathetic towards the
people that you're dealing withthan others, and I think that
that also it adds that humanelement.
Um, we were talking about AIand eliminating human elements
before we started recording this.
I think that there's definitelyand human error too right,
(18:26):
because you look at somebody andyou think, oh, I think this
person is a good person who justmade a mistake.
I think that they can berehabilitated.
And then you put them onprobation and then they do
something else and you're like,oh shit, that was a, that was a
bad decision.
But you know it's, it's hard.
You just have to do the bestyou can with what you have.
And the same thing here, likewith Joseph he said he would not
(18:46):
testify against his brother, sohe had some loyalty there where
he said I absolutely won'ttestify against him, but
everybody else, he just the busis coming and he's driving and I
a the ai criminal justice thingis something that we will have
to like talk about at some point.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
That'll be quite a while.
We've got some other things wewant to talk about, but yeah,
that is an issue because whenyou do put human element into it
, there is always this dependingon the jurisdiction obviously,
texas it seems a little weirdthey're being pretty lenient
here, um, but there's alwayskind of that trying to balance
that you can be a criminal andcommit a bad crime and not be a
(19:23):
bad person.
You just put in a bad situation.
But I think assassinating afederal judge kind of takes that
like there's a good side andbad side of this person
especially for money yes andlike and like you said it was
$250,000.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So, um, obviously, like you were talking about
before, the $2,000 for the firstperson, whoever issued that
probably thought, oh, they'lllook the other way, Cause it's
just some, you know, low life,his, his life's only worth
$2,000.
Nobody's going to be interestedin getting justice for him.
But if it's a federal judge,then people will actually be
hitting the pavement trying tosolve this one.
So I'll I'll pay you 250 forthis one.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I mean, and this is 250 K almost 25 years ago, so
I've been more than 25 years ago.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It was 2000.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, so I'm like 40, I'm sorry, 40 years ago.
Yeah, so 45 years ago.
So yeah, I mean that was a lotof money.
Then I mean I didn't do thecalculations now, but that's
okay.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I still think 25 years ago was like 1980.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I know right and it's .
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Happens when you get old.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Okay, so the trial was a media sensation.
Despite Harrelson's defenseteam arguing that he merely took
credit for the murders to claimthe large payment payment from
Chagra, he was convicted andsentenced to two life terms plus
five years.
His wife, Joanne, was alsoimplicated and received 25 years
for obstruction of justice andperjury.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So there's a lot of other things that happen in this
that are interesting, like theattorney-client privilege, which
might have been part of whyJoseph stayed firm that he
wouldn't testify against hisbrother.
Because if, if he did and thensome attorney regulation said,
oh you broke yourattorney-client privilege, they
could have taken his license.
So it could have been aself-interested thing that he
refused to testify, but thefindings by the court was
(21:09):
because he was part of theconspiracy to commit the crime,
there was no attorney-clientprivilege between the two of
them.
So anything that they got, anyevidence they got or any way
they can compel them to testify,was on the table.
They couldn't claim thatprivilege to get out of giving
information.
And then, in addition to that,jimmy ended up getting acquitted
(21:34):
of the murder and theconspiracy.
So his brother didn't testifyagainst him and he got away with
that.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
His brother still got 10 years.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's got to sting.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, the attorney got 10 years.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's got to sting a little bit.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But of course, as they bring it around like
there's always some way for thekarma to come around on a lot of
these Elizabeth, who is thesister-in-law to the attorney,
she gets convicted of conspiracyto commit murder and conspiracy
to obstruct justice Because, ifyou remember, they were killing
him to stop this trial and toavoid having the trial in front
(22:07):
of him.
So she gets convicted on thosecharges.
We already said Joseph pledguilty and got his 10 years.
Jimmy is tried separately.
He ends up getting sentenced to15 years for conspiracy to
obstruct justice and hisconspiracy to possess marijuana.
So he didn't get charged withmurder, but because he was
(22:30):
obstructing justice, he got 15years on that.
So he did get more than his 10years.
He got 15.
He was obstructing justice.
He got 15 years on that.
So he did get more than his 10years he got 15.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So what I'm hearing is, his second lawyer was better
than his first.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, yeah, he didn't commit another crime, so that
was good.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
But if he would have hired a different defense
attorney would he have actuallygotten some of those 20 motions
passed in front of the judge?
But his brother was not a goodattorney, so that's why they
felt they had to murder a judgeor just filed for a change of
venue yeah, maybe don't like mycousin.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Vinnie your actual prosecution and hire a decent
attorney, not just your brother,because he's your brother right
, that's my takeaway well then,of course, part of what they
were saying was that he didn'tactually do the hit.
He just showed up to collectthe $250,000 and said, hey, I
did it so that he could get themoney and didn't actually have
anything to do with the crime.
(23:26):
And that was one of hisdefenses that he was, I remember
, where he said Dallas orsomeplace else.
He's like I wasn't even in townwhen it happened, but I showed
up and said I did it to get themoney.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
He was back in Texas, in Dallas, like celebrating his
triumph over President Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
That is one of the weirdest things ever.
I think that, like you're goingto show up to this guy and be
like, yeah, give me $250,000 fora hit that somehow I knew about
.
I know the details about, butit wasn't me.
Once you're caught, I don'tknow.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Well, and Elizabeth, which is the sister-in-law for
the attorney.
She's the one who really getshammered because she ends up
getting 30 years on theconspiracy charge and on a tax
evasion charge because she's theone who transported the money
to deliver it and she claims shethought it was for gambling
debts or placing a bet.
I'm not exactly sure how thatgambling thing worked, but she
(24:20):
thought it was gambling moneyand so she ended up getting 30
years for being the go-betweenand delivering the money and
sending messages and things likethat back and forth.
So I thought that wasinteresting, that she's the one
who gets the short end of thestick more than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And I didn't see and of course that's just me because
this is an older case and Ididn't see and of course that's
just me because this is an oldercase and I think sometimes,
especially now, with howinundated everything is books,
the internet, news sources it'skind of hard to see some of this
stuff.
But I don't know what he theoriginal charge like if he had
just gone to trial with thisjudge, what he would have faced,
right right.
(24:58):
But I think it's very.
This is a really good exampleof criminals thinking more crime
is the easy way out, whensometimes if you just do your
time, it's a just admit yourcrimes and do it.
I know that's hard to say likeI'm going to prison.
I mean, if it's drugtrafficking he may have been
looking at 15, 20 years, but now, with the domino effect, like
all the people, he's taken downthis and he's destroyed his
family and everything else andbrought them all in on it too.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Right.
So yeah, now the attorney'sgone to jail.
The original defendant is goingto jail for his original
charges anyway.
Even though he got away withthe murder, his wife ends up
going to jail for 30 years.
Harrelson gets two lifesentences, I think it was.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Plus five years.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Plus five years, and then Harrelson's wife got 25
years for her conspiracy andperjury charges.
So a lot of people ended upspending a lot of time
incarcerated because of thisactivity.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
And a man ended up dead.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Who was just trying to do his job.
Right and do it well, and youknow the best of his abilities
so, as we mentioned, likeCharles Harrelson, uh spent the
rest of his life behind bars.
He ended up passing away March15th of 2007, at the age of 69,
(26:11):
in the supermax ADX Lawrenceprison, which was in Colorado,
um, from complications of aheart attack.
Uh, and, as originally noted,charles Harrelson is the father
of Woody Harrelson and therumored father of Matthew
McConaughey.
If you want to know about that,read the gossip table.
So Charles's son, who was bornon his father's birthday, so
(26:36):
July 23rd, but 23 years apart.
Woody was only seven years oldwhen his father left the family
for good in 1968.
So his father was gone.
I mean, that's going to prisonright there.
For that second murder he wastried for and, despite his
father's absence and criminalactivity, woody attempted to
reconcile with him as an adult.
So Woody had visited Charles acouple of times in prison,
(26:59):
prison and he even put moneyinto a defense fund and hiring
lawyers and legal fees to tryand get his father a new trial,
believing his father had notreceived a fair hearing.
I don't know enough about that.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
It's questionable, right?
Because, like we were sayingearlier, how much credibility do
you give people who are makingtheir own deals to say are they
actually saying the truth?
Like when I say I'll give you10 years if you say the truth?
Are they actually saying thetruth?
Like when I say I'll give you10 years if you say the truth?
Are you really saying the truth?
Or is it I'll give you 10 yearsand now I'll tell you anything
you want to hear, so that I getmy 10 year sentence and I don't
(27:33):
get more time than that?
So that was part of I think whatWoody was saying is one who?
What was the evidence?
Who was it that was showing up?
It's a bunch of criminals.
They're all criminals at theend of the day.
And he also pointed out that hisfather only spent $7,000 on his
defense, compared to the fiveto 10 million spent by the
(27:54):
federal government.
Now, I don't know how they cameup with those figures.
As far as you know, if you havea federal agent, did they
include their entire yearlysalary in that, or did they
actually go through and try toapproximate how many hours
different people worked?
I'm up with that, because thatfive to ten million dollars
seems like a very large amountof money in my mind, but that's,
(28:17):
that's the figure that he hadcome up with in the case that he
was arguing that they had spentthe five to 10 million to get
all of the evidence and do thetrial and all of those things.
So you know again, you have toalways wonder how are we taking
these things through trial?
Obviously a jury thought beyonda reasonable doubt he was guilty
(28:39):
.
Obviously there was somebodywho died.
But how much faith and creditdo you give in the testimony and
the word of criminals and howmuch do you believe their
behind-the-closed-doorsstatements, even if you say,
well, they didn't know they weregetting a plea agreement
because they were talking aboutit in jail to other inmates?
How truthful are they whenthey're talking amongst
(29:00):
themselves?
Truthful?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
are they when they're talking amongst themselves?
I mean, in prison of coursethere's going to be a lot of
showboating, because the morecrimes of course in prison like,
the more crimes and the levelof crimes and sometimes even the
violence with your crimes, themore social capital you have
inside the jail and the moreyou're looked at as kind of like
this badass figure.
(29:22):
So, yeah, I think there's a lotof complications with this and
even like from the lawenforcement side, there's a lot
of that of like who are yougetting information from?
Who are your informants?
How reliable are they?
And they're always held to amuch different standard.
And here, like this guyobviously was involved in this
murder for hire, this uhattorney, but he only gets off
(29:43):
for 10 years because he'swilling to just rat on everybody
and he would know that withgood time he could probably be
out much sooner.
So this is a perfect deal.
So sometimes it does kind ofseem like if you're taking it
from just a novice outlook thatit does look like you're paying
for testimony.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
So finally, there's an article that we looked over
that said, um, once her, uh,woody harrelson said I don't
feel that he was much of afather, he took no valid part in
my upbringing, but yet would hestill try to develop a
relationship with his father andhis adulthood.
I think this kind ofpsychologically it shows kind of
(30:22):
that complex nature of fatherson relationships that you
always kind of want to hope thatthere's some good in somebody.
And we see this with a lot ofcrimes and criminals the family
still there's, there's still anattachment like yes, he
committed a murder, but youstill lost a family member in
this in a way, uh, even if itwas by their own choice.
So I thought this was a reallyinteresting case because Woody
(30:47):
Harrelson again, probably youknow he's one of my favorite
actors.
You know, if you go from Cheersto all the other things he's
done and I'm sure people will belike you're missing all the
films he did.
We're not a movie podcast, so gocheck it out, even though I did
love Zombieland.
But that I think it shows aswell that just because your
father or where you come fromit's a bad place Doesn't mean
(31:10):
you have to end up there as,from all accounts, everything
I've seen, charles Harrelson wasa murderer who and obviously
somebody who did murders forhire, where everything I've ever
seen about his son he's a verycaring, loving, fun, friendly
person.
So it's not always just becausesomebody comes from a crime
(31:32):
family or a bad background thatthat person's going to end up
that way.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I would agree with that.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Thanks for joining us .
Have a good weekend.
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(32:00):
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(32:22):
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Thank you.
I'm Heather.
Behind the soundboardCriminology.
I'm Richard.
I'm Heather.
Behind the soundboard is Nancy,and this week's episode is kind
of one that I had never heardabout before.
So around Christmas, you know,you've got family talking and
people kind of bring up storiesabout different things, and my
father's really big on likethings that are on TV.
(01:03):
What's he seen on TV?
Who are on tv, what's he seenon tv, who are actors he's seen
and stuff and we were talkingabout somehow we got on and we
were talking about woodyharrelson and the matthew
mcconaughey relationship and mydad had said, well, yeah, his
father's in prison for, like, hemurdered a guy, and I was like
I don't, I had not heard that.
Had you heard about this before?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I had never heard heard of this.
No.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah.
So I was like, okay, google,and I Googled it and lo and
behold, woody Harrelson'sfather's name is Charles
Harrelson and he was tried formultiple murders and then
eventually was convicted ofhomicide.
So I thought this was kind ofan interesting story that a lot
of people may not know about andfigured, hey, let's do this.
(01:45):
So Woody Harrelson's father isCharles Boyd Harrelson, who was
born on July 23rd 1938 inLovelady, texas.
He grew up in a small Texastown during the post-Depression
era, so through details abouthis childhood they're pretty
scarce.
(02:06):
But at some point after leavingschool Harrelson decided to join
the Navy and became a sonaroperator, which is his rate,
which just defines kind of whathe worked on while he was in the
Navy, and it provided him witha brief stint of legitimate
employment.
But following his militaryservice, harrelson kind of takes
a turn in his life and somehowends up involved in crime.
(02:29):
He ends up moving to Californiaand he was working as an
encyclopedia salesman, butsomewhere in there he began
leading this double life and byday he would sell encyclopedias.
Kind of seemed like alegitimate guy.
But he started committingburglaries at night and this
criminal behavior eventuallylanded him in prison for the
(02:52):
first time in the 1960s.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So it was during this initial incarceration that
Harrelson's criminal careerescalated dramatically, and we
kind of talked about this beforehow people go to prison and
sometimes they learn how to bebetter criminals instead of
actually being reformed.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, it's not like we figured out that the original
concept of prison was to berehabilitative and we've just
continued to use it aspunishment and retribution
instead of like a way to maybeget people to stop committing
crimes.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, definitely.
We have not figured out thesolution on that.
So while he's in prison hereportedly admitted to dozens of
murders and established himselfas a feared hitman in the
organized crime circles, and hisadmission marked the beginning
of his deep involvement with thecriminal underworld.
So his first major brush withthe law for murder came in 1968
(03:45):
when he was tried for thekilling of Alan Harry Berg in
Texas, and he was defended byPercy Foreman.
He was acquitted of the chargesby the jury in Angleton, Texas,
on September 22nd 1970.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So shortly after his acquittal, harrelson faced
another murder charge.
So obviously this guy's notlearning from what he's doing.
He seems to almost enjoy it,which is kind of something you
hear from Hitman.
There's no emotional connectionto it, it's a payday.
So he was tried again for the1968 murder for hire of Sam
(04:23):
DeGaglia Jr, who was a graindealer and father of four in
Herne, texas, hernia, texas,in-in-the-ass, texas, I don't
know.
The prosecutors alleged thatHarrelson was paid $2,000 for
the hit.
The first trial for D'Elia'smurder ended in a hung jury,
which just means that based onthe charges, they couldn't
(04:47):
decide.
Some thought he was guilty,some thought he wasn't.
Is that kind of how that works?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yes, if they cannot reach a verdict, basically
meaning everybody agrees, thenit's a hung jury, which means
you get tried again.
So that whole no doublejeopardy, hung jury, you do get
tried again double jeopardy hungjury.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You do get tried again, and that led to him being
retried in 1973 and beingconvicted and sentenced to 15
years in prison.
He served only five years ofthe sentence before being
paroled in 1978 for goodbehavior.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Taking 10 years off for good behavior seems like a
lot well, and especially forthis, because because in most
places this would be considereda crime of violence and
different jurisdictions havedifferent rules as far as how
much time you get for credit fortime served and things like
that.
Typically for nonviolent crimesit's a day for day credit, so a
15 year sentence would be cutto seven and a half years, but
(05:43):
only serving five I mean a crimeof of violence usually it's
like 75 percent of the sentencethat you have to do, so it seems
very odd.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The only other thing I could think of was maybe he
got more credit for time heserved prior to his sentence,
but still five years doesn'tseem like much at all the two
times I've seen this myself andagain you have more experience
in the court system, but is onewhen you have jails or prisons
that are being comingoverpopulated which this is
(06:11):
about the time we are seeingthat like boom and people being
sentenced because there's war oncrime starting, and the other
is because somebody turnsevidence.
Now again, I couldn't findanything that said that, but it
does seem like 10 years for amurder for hire would be pretty.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
That's a substantial reduction.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, that's a what's up, my buddy.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, so the only other thing I could think of is,
since he was retried in 73 andhe was paroled in 78, that
part's five years Maybe he gotcredit for time served prior to
the conviction.
Since he did have to have twotrials there, I would assume
they would have had him incustody during that time and not
released on bond.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, I didn't see anything about that actually, if
he was held pretrial or if theylet him go, but that would,
that would actually make sense.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So at least give him some extra time.
So in the meantime, there'sthis judge, judge Wood, and he
is known as Maximum John becausehe basically throws the book at
people, especially drug dealers, and right around the time that
Harrelson's getting out, he isactually presiding over a
(07:22):
pretrial hearing for JamilChagra, and I'm not sure if I'm
saying that last name.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I go with the way it looks Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
And so, anyway, jamil Chagra was in a pretrial
hearing and there were 20defense motions and the judge
ended up denying all 20 of thedefense motions and he turned to
his brother, attorney Joseph,and says something along the
(07:51):
lines of I'm not going to get afair trial in front of this
judge, and asked if he shouldhave the judge killed, which you
know.
You're like, oh my gosh, that'skind of an extreme conclusion
to jump to, not you know, not achange of venue, not anything
like that.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I also think it's interesting that he's his
defense attorney is also hisbrother.
Yes, like it seems like I again, I don't know the ethics in the
court system as much as youwould think I do, but that kind
of sense of conflict of interest, I guess it's not because
you're defending that person,you're not prosecuting them.
So of course you'd probablygive your brother a better
(08:25):
defense, but at the same time,like I kind of feel like that
could cause some family problemsif you don't win.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Well, and speaking of conflict of interest, we'll see
that in a little bit becauseJoseph agrees, yes, let's kill
the judge.
So, now they're conspiring tocommit a crime, which that's a
problem.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The last thing you need is an attorney that's like
you know what.
You probably will not get offon this crime.
You should commit a much worseone.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So the most famous crime associated with Charles
Harrelson was the assassinationof US District Judge John H Wood
Jr.
And that was committed on May29th of 1979.
Yes, before I was born Outsidehis San Antonio townhome.
So this was a landmark case.
I mean, anytime you have afederal judge or any federal
(09:16):
agent really assassinated,that's going to kind of be
gripping for the media and thecountry as a whole.
So as Woods was the firstfederal judge to be assassinated
in the 20th century,investigation into Woods' murder
was massive, with the FBIlaunching what they called the
largest manhunt ever to focus onEl Paso, spending over $5
(09:39):
million over three years.
So prosecutors alleged thatdrug dealer Jamal Jimmyimmy
charga tagra still not sure howthat's said uh hired harrelson
to kill judge wood for 250 000.
So I do have to say that in 10years he has really upped his
(10:00):
cost like two thousand dollarsfor that first hit that he got
and now he's like you know what?
That's not worth it 250 000 fora federal judge.
You are seeing an increase inhis fees, but also the
association of like taking outsomebody that's a low-level
criminal in your town comparedto like the dangers and
potential prosecution andrepercussions of murdering a
(10:20):
federal judge.
So harrelson's arrest cameafter a dramatic six-hour
standoff with police inSeptember of 1980.
So during which he threatenedsuicide and bizarrely claimed
responsibility for both JudgeWood's murder and the
assassination of President JohnF Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Yeah.
So you can see he's eitherreally involved in things or
he's, you know, kind of reallycrazy, which I think is what he
was playing for when he said hewas part of the assassination of
JFK.
I think he was trying to getsome attention, and at one point
I read that he had claimed hesaid that because he wanted to
make sure they didn't kill him.
(10:59):
And they thought that in hismind he thought well, they'll
take me alive if I say thatbecause they'll want to know
more about what I know about.
And so you know either that orhe was just grandstanding,
because we did say earlier thatwhen he was in custody he was
telling all kinds of people allkinds of things he did that
didn't sound like he actuallyhad.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
But at the same time, from a clinical side, that's
ingenious to a point, because hecould simply be like I'm just
insane, right, look, I think Ikilled Kennedy, like, of course,
I killed this judge.
You know which one's real,which one's not?
Are they both right?
Are they both wrong?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Which is something it said, that he brought up, that
he, when they were trying tointroduce the statements that he
said he killed the judge.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
He tried to say, well , I also said I killed gfk like
yeah, how credible is that?
Well, and it's it's.
It's interesting this concept,because I've read the book the
psychopath test by john ronsongreat book if you haven't read
it.
It really kind of looks at theinsanity plea and the use of
like labeling people aspsychopaths and stuff.
But like the main character inthat story was told he was on
trial for grievous bodily harmin Britain and he was told by
other inmates like hey, if youact insane then you'll be put in
(12:11):
a Cush mental hospital at themost and then be there, you know
, a couple of years and thenyou'll get out, which is not
what turns out.
I'll let you read the book tofind out how it really works out
.
But it's kind of like I've seenthis before with other suspects
that try to play the.
I was crazy at the time or Iwas mentally deficient and and
(12:31):
from what I've seen, rarely doesthat like you have to have a
lot of psychosis and it takes alot of psychiatrists and
psychologists and social workersto evaluate you, convince the
judge.
Usually judges do not want tobuy this.
But then also the threateningsuicide.
That's actually really commonin negotiation hostage
negotiation and it stands off.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
So that one I was like, okay, I've seen that, but
the I killed JFK, that's out ofnowhere which, interestingly
enough, one of the articles Iwas reading said that a person,
um, who, like I don't know howmany people, actually took it
seriously, but this one persontook it seriously and started
going through photos trying toidentify if he was there, and
(13:11):
they were making arguments thatthere was this one person in
these photos that they thoughtmight maybe have been him, which
again I was like that's kind ofinteresting.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It'd be funny if, in the end, he actually had been
there in some capacity were theysaying he was the guy in like
the trench coat, that's likenear the grassy knoll that
there's pictures of no, it waslike three.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I can't remember what they put, how they label.
It was like three juveniles orthree young people, three like
minor players, and they thoughtthat he was the smallest one of
the three people that they had.
I can't remember now what, whatthe word was, but it was
basically, like you know, minorpeople that they didn't really
investigate, that were not ofconsequence at the time, but
(13:52):
it'd be interesting if heactually like, was there at all.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Side note to that.
I mean we know it was aliens.
So unless Charles Harold saidis it alien which as handsome as
his sons are, it's verypossible.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Right, exactly, so there was a whole lot of drama
around this trial.
So there was a whole lot ofdrama around this trial.
Joseph, who was the attorneybrother, had agreed that he
would plead guilty to conspiracyto commit murder and get a
tenure sentence and in exchangehe was going to testify against
(14:29):
everybody except for his ownbrother.
He would not testify againsthis own brother, so he testifies
against his sister-in-law,elizabeth.
He testifies againstHarrelson's wife, joanne, and he
testifies against Harrelsonhimself, but he refuses to
testify against Jimmy.
And because of all of theevidence they have with Joseph's
(14:50):
testimony and thousands ofrecorded telephone and
face-to-face conversations atthe jail between different
people, they use that evidenceagainst Harrelson.
And one of the questions thatcomes up is all of these people
are criminals or potentialcriminals in the jail?
(15:10):
So even though you havethousands of hours of recorded
conversations, how much weightdo you actually give those
conversations in a jail?
And how much weight do you giveJoseph's testimony, considering
he got a 10-year sentence?
Brother says we need to figureout a way to get rid of the
(15:35):
judge.
And instead of joseph sayingyeah, I'll file for a change of
venue, he says let's kill thejudge.
He potentially, you could arguewas the worst one of the bunch,
and he got off with 10 yearsokay, you throw some great
questions.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Let's turn that.
If you were a prosecutor wait,you were would you take this guy
as like?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
would you take this guy to trial and say this is my
star, that's really difficultbecause a lot of these you don't
have a good person to pick.
I mean, they're all bad, but ifyou don't make a deal with
somebody, then somebody is goingto get away.
So you have to decide who doyou really want to go after?
So in this instance you mightlook at it and say well, even
(16:11):
though Joseph was the one whogot the ball rolling and he's
the smart one, he did it becausehis brother was on the line.
If we put his brother away forlife, then that circumstance
will never repeat itself, sohe'll never do this again.
On the flip side, harrelsonseems to be killing like one
person after another, and thebrother, jimmy, was already
stuck in trial on, you know,drug charges.
(16:32):
So he's obviously not squeakyclean either.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So there's a lot of stuff like in this one little
section.
There's just so many thingsthat interest me Like.
One is if you're in any type ofinstitution that's owned by the
government, you're beingrecorded Like I don't know how.
People don't fucking understandthis.
I don't know how many peopleeither through like the mail
they get, which the guards andfaculty facilities people go
(16:59):
through the mail, I don't knowhow many jailhouse conversations
between people that arevisiting and family members are
recorded, or just in jail cellsthere is you have no freedom,
you're in prison.
Stop talking about your crimes,idiots, and stop talking about
your crimes, idiots.
And then the other thing that Ithink is really here is I really
like game theory and kind ofthe prisoner's dilemma of you
(17:22):
know, if everybody would havejust stayed quiet, they may have
gotten five years each at themost.
If you don't know theprisoner's dilemma, look it up.
There's YouTube videos.
It's kind of one of my favoritethings to look at in the whole
games theory.
But because this guy waswilling to flip, I get 10 years
and everybody else gets slammedwith life, where if everybody
would have stayed quiet thenmaybe they would have gotten
(17:44):
lesser sentences and it wouldn'thave been so bad which is
always the question, because youwant to be the first one to
flip and get the deal, but ifnobody's going flip, you want to
stick with that and nobody flip.
You were bad cop, weren't you I?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
don't know.
It's hard to say.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Did it depend on like ?
Which depends?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
on the day depends on the day and the case Cause
sometimes you know, you feelmore sympathetic towards the
people that you're dealing withthan others, and I think that
that also it adds that humanelement.
Um, we were talking about AIand eliminating human elements
before we started recording this.
I think that there's definitelyand human error too right,
(18:26):
because you look at somebody andyou think, oh, I think this
person is a good person who justmade a mistake.
I think that they can berehabilitated.
And then you put them onprobation and then they do
something else and you're like,oh shit, that was a, that was a
bad decision.
But you know it's, it's hard.
You just have to do the bestyou can with what you have.
And the same thing here, likewith Joseph he said he would not
(18:46):
testify against his brother, sohe had some loyalty there where
he said I absolutely won'ttestify against him, but
everybody else, he just the busis coming and he's driving and I
a the ai criminal justice thingis something that we will have
to like talk about at some point.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
That'll be quite a while.
We've got some other things wewant to talk about, but yeah,
that is an issue because whenyou do put human element into it
, there is always this dependingon the jurisdiction obviously,
texas it seems a little weirdthey're being pretty lenient
here, um, but there's alwayskind of that trying to balance
that you can be a criminal andcommit a bad crime and not be a
(19:23):
bad person.
You just put in a bad situation.
But I think assassinating afederal judge kind of takes that
like there's a good side andbad side of this person
especially for money yes andlike and like you said it was
$250,000.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So, um, obviously, like you were talking about
before, the $2,000 for the firstperson, whoever issued that
probably thought, oh, they'lllook the other way, Cause it's
just some, you know, low life,his, his life's only worth
$2,000.
Nobody's going to be interestedin getting justice for him.
But if it's a federal judge,then people will actually be
hitting the pavement trying tosolve this one.
So I'll I'll pay you 250 forthis one.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I mean, and this is 250 K almost 25 years ago, so
I've been more than 25 years ago.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It was 2000.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, so I'm like 40, I'm sorry, 40 years ago.
Yeah, so 45 years ago.
So yeah, I mean that was a lotof money.
Then I mean I didn't do thecalculations now, but that's
okay.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I still think 25 years ago was like 1980.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I know right and it's .
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Happens when you get old.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Okay, so the trial was a media sensation.
Despite Harrelson's defenseteam arguing that he merely took
credit for the murders to claimthe large payment payment from
Chagra, he was convicted andsentenced to two life terms plus
five years.
His wife, Joanne, was alsoimplicated and received 25 years
for obstruction of justice andperjury.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So there's a lot of other things that happen in this
that are interesting, like theattorney-client privilege, which
might have been part of whyJoseph stayed firm that he
wouldn't testify against hisbrother.
Because if, if he did and thensome attorney regulation said,
oh you broke yourattorney-client privilege, they
could have taken his license.
So it could have been aself-interested thing that he
refused to testify, but thefindings by the court was
(21:09):
because he was part of theconspiracy to commit the crime,
there was no attorney-clientprivilege between the two of
them.
So anything that they got, anyevidence they got or any way
they can compel them to testify,was on the table.
They couldn't claim thatprivilege to get out of giving
information.
And then, in addition to that,jimmy ended up getting acquitted
(21:34):
of the murder and theconspiracy.
So his brother didn't testifyagainst him and he got away with
that.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
His brother still got 10 years.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's got to sting.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, the attorney got 10 years.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's got to sting a little bit.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But of course, as they bring it around like
there's always some way for thekarma to come around on a lot of
these Elizabeth, who is thesister-in-law to the attorney,
she gets convicted of conspiracyto commit murder and conspiracy
to obstruct justice Because, ifyou remember, they were killing
him to stop this trial and toavoid having the trial in front
(22:07):
of him.
So she gets convicted on thosecharges.
We already said Joseph pledguilty and got his 10 years.
Jimmy is tried separately.
He ends up getting sentenced to15 years for conspiracy to
obstruct justice and hisconspiracy to possess marijuana.
So he didn't get charged withmurder, but because he was
(22:30):
obstructing justice, he got 15years on that.
So he did get more than his 10years.
He got 15.
He was obstructing justice.
He got 15 years on that.
So he did get more than his 10years he got 15.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So what I'm hearing is, his second lawyer was better
than his first.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, yeah, he didn't commit another crime, so that
was good.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
But if he would have hired a different defense
attorney would he have actuallygotten some of those 20 motions
passed in front of the judge?
But his brother was not a goodattorney, so that's why they
felt they had to murder a judgeor just filed for a change of
venue yeah, maybe don't like mycousin.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Vinnie your actual prosecution and hire a decent
attorney, not just your brother,because he's your brother right
, that's my takeaway well then,of course, part of what they
were saying was that he didn'tactually do the hit.
He just showed up to collectthe $250,000 and said, hey, I
did it so that he could get themoney and didn't actually have
anything to do with the crime.
(23:26):
And that was one of hisdefenses that he was, I remember
, where he said Dallas orsomeplace else.
He's like I wasn't even in townwhen it happened, but I showed
up and said I did it to get themoney.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
He was back in Texas, in Dallas, like celebrating his
triumph over President Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
That is one of the weirdest things ever.
I think that, like you're goingto show up to this guy and be
like, yeah, give me $250,000 fora hit that somehow I knew about
.
I know the details about, butit wasn't me.
Once you're caught, I don'tknow.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Well, and Elizabeth, which is the sister-in-law for
the attorney.
She's the one who really getshammered because she ends up
getting 30 years on theconspiracy charge and on a tax
evasion charge because she's theone who transported the money
to deliver it and she claims shethought it was for gambling
debts or placing a bet.
I'm not exactly sure how thatgambling thing worked, but she
(24:20):
thought it was gambling moneyand so she ended up getting 30
years for being the go-betweenand delivering the money and
sending messages and things likethat back and forth.
So I thought that wasinteresting, that she's the one
who gets the short end of thestick more than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And I didn't see and of course that's just me because
this is an older case and Ididn't see and of course that's
just me because this is an oldercase and I think sometimes,
especially now, with howinundated everything is books,
the internet, news sources it'skind of hard to see some of this
stuff.
But I don't know what he theoriginal charge like if he had
just gone to trial with thisjudge, what he would have faced,
right right.
(24:58):
But I think it's very.
This is a really good exampleof criminals thinking more crime
is the easy way out, whensometimes if you just do your
time, it's a just admit yourcrimes and do it.
I know that's hard to say likeI'm going to prison.
I mean, if it's drugtrafficking he may have been
looking at 15, 20 years, but now, with the domino effect, like
all the people, he's taken downthis and he's destroyed his
family and everything else andbrought them all in on it too.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Right.
So yeah, now the attorney'sgone to jail.
The original defendant is goingto jail for his original
charges anyway.
Even though he got away withthe murder, his wife ends up
going to jail for 30 years.
Harrelson gets two lifesentences, I think it was.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Plus five years.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Plus five years, and then Harrelson's wife got 25
years for her conspiracy andperjury charges.
So a lot of people ended upspending a lot of time
incarcerated because of thisactivity.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
And a man ended up dead.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Who was just trying to do his job.
Right and do it well, and youknow the best of his abilities
so, as we mentioned, likeCharles Harrelson, uh spent the
rest of his life behind bars.
He ended up passing away March15th of 2007, at the age of 69,
(26:11):
in the supermax ADX Lawrenceprison, which was in Colorado,
um, from complications of aheart attack.
Uh, and, as originally noted,charles Harrelson is the father
of Woody Harrelson and therumored father of Matthew
McConaughey.
If you want to know about that,read the gossip table.
So Charles's son, who was bornon his father's birthday, so
(26:36):
July 23rd, but 23 years apart.
Woody was only seven years oldwhen his father left the family
for good in 1968.
So his father was gone.
I mean, that's going to prisonright there.
For that second murder he wastried for and, despite his
father's absence and criminalactivity, woody attempted to
reconcile with him as an adult.
So Woody had visited Charles acouple of times in prison,
(26:59):
prison and he even put moneyinto a defense fund and hiring
lawyers and legal fees to tryand get his father a new trial,
believing his father had notreceived a fair hearing.
I don't know enough about that.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
It's questionable, right?
Because, like we were sayingearlier, how much credibility do
you give people who are makingtheir own deals to say are they
actually saying the truth?
Like when I say I'll give you10 years if you say the truth?
Are they actually saying thetruth?
Like when I say I'll give you10 years if you say the truth?
Are you really saying the truth?
Or is it I'll give you 10 yearsand now I'll tell you anything
you want to hear, so that I getmy 10 year sentence and I don't
(27:33):
get more time than that?
So that was part of I think whatWoody was saying is one who?
What was the evidence?
Who was it that was showing up?
It's a bunch of criminals.
They're all criminals at theend of the day.
And he also pointed out that hisfather only spent $7,000 on his
defense, compared to the fiveto 10 million spent by the
(27:54):
federal government.
Now, I don't know how they cameup with those figures.
As far as you know, if you havea federal agent, did they
include their entire yearlysalary in that, or did they
actually go through and try toapproximate how many hours
different people worked?
I'm up with that, because thatfive to ten million dollars
seems like a very large amountof money in my mind, but that's,
(28:17):
that's the figure that he hadcome up with in the case that he
was arguing that they had spentthe five to 10 million to get
all of the evidence and do thetrial and all of those things.
So you know again, you have toalways wonder how are we taking
these things through trial?
Obviously a jury thought beyonda reasonable doubt he was guilty
(28:39):
.
Obviously there was somebodywho died.
But how much faith and creditdo you give in the testimony and
the word of criminals and howmuch do you believe their
behind-the-closed-doorsstatements, even if you say,
well, they didn't know they weregetting a plea agreement
because they were talking aboutit in jail to other inmates?
How truthful are they whenthey're talking amongst
(29:00):
themselves?
Truthful?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
are they when they're talking amongst themselves?
I mean, in prison of coursethere's going to be a lot of
showboating, because the morecrimes of course in prison like,
the more crimes and the levelof crimes and sometimes even the
violence with your crimes, themore social capital you have
inside the jail and the moreyou're looked at as kind of like
this badass figure.
(29:22):
So, yeah, I think there's a lotof complications with this and
even like from the lawenforcement side, there's a lot
of that of like who are yougetting information from?
Who are your informants?
How reliable are they?
And they're always held to amuch different standard.
And here, like this guyobviously was involved in this
murder for hire, this uhattorney, but he only gets off
(29:43):
for 10 years because he'swilling to just rat on everybody
and he would know that withgood time he could probably be
out much sooner.
So this is a perfect deal.
So sometimes it does kind ofseem like if you're taking it
from just a novice outlook thatit does look like you're paying
for testimony.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
So finally, there's an article that we looked over
that said, um, once her, uh,woody harrelson said I don't
feel that he was much of afather, he took no valid part in
my upbringing, but yet would hestill try to develop a
relationship with his father andhis adulthood.
I think this kind ofpsychologically it shows kind of
(30:22):
that complex nature of fatherson relationships that you
always kind of want to hope thatthere's some good in somebody.
And we see this with a lot ofcrimes and criminals the family
still there's, there's still anattachment like yes, he
committed a murder, but youstill lost a family member in
this in a way, uh, even if itwas by their own choice.
So I thought this was a reallyinteresting case because Woody
(30:47):
Harrelson again, probably youknow he's one of my favorite
actors.
You know, if you go from Cheersto all the other things he's
done and I'm sure people will belike you're missing all the
films he did.
We're not a movie podcast, so gocheck it out, even though I did
love Zombieland.
But that I think it shows aswell that just because your
father or where you come fromit's a bad place Doesn't mean
(31:10):
you have to end up there as,from all accounts, everything
I've seen, charles Harrelson wasa murderer who and obviously
somebody who did murders forhire, where everything I've ever
seen about his son he's a verycaring, loving, fun, friendly
person.
So it's not always just becausesomebody comes from a crime
(31:32):
family or a bad background thatthat person's going to end up
that way.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I would agree with that.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Thanks for joining us .
Have a good weekend.
I want to thank you all so muchfor listening to our little
podcast.
This is created with love andpassion for criminal justice and
true crime.
So if you're enjoying thepodcast, please follow us, like
or rate us on whatever systemyou're listening to us on,
subscribe to our podcast anddownload episodes.
(32:00):
Downloads are important for ourgrowth, as is growing our
listeners.
So if you wouldn't mind, takethe time to ask your friends,
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social media.
I don't care if you even screamat strangers on the streets, to
help us kind of get out therewho we are.
If you're interested inlearning more, you could visit
(32:22):
our website atwwwdeviantcriminologycom.
There you'll find some stuffabout our backgrounds,
references, show notes for eachepisode.
You can also follow us on ourFacebook page at Deviant
Criminology.
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(32:42):
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So again, thank you for takingthe time to listen and have a
good week.
Thank you.
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