Lori Rothschild | If We Rattle the Cages, We Can Make a Change - DIE-ALOGUE

Episode Transcript
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(00:33):
Welcome to Dialogue Podcast. I'm yourhost, Rebecca Sebastian, and this is
the show where every week I sitdown with the leading voices in crime,
culture and justice to talk about themost pressing issues in true crime today.
And today's series that we're kicking offis one of, certainly in my book,
and the most pressing issue one ofin true crime and criminal justice,

(00:54):
and that's wrongful convictions. The serieswe're going to do is going to be
over the next four maybe five weeks, and I'm calling it what do we
get wrong about wrongful convictions? BecauseI feel like I know a lot.
I think I know a little morethan the average person, But every time
I learn more, read more,talk to another expert, I realize there's

(01:14):
still a lot I don't know,and there's still a lot I'm actually getting
wrong, or at least, ifnot wrong, I'm not getting the full
picture and scope. And that's whyI'm so happy to revisit this topic.
And it was absolutely inspired by aNon say Ed's recent exoneration that was I
think, kind of the beacon ofhope we all needed to remember that this

(01:37):
is possible, but also the bittersweetreminder that justice is slow, and the
system is broken, or perhaps it'sdesigned to work exactly as it does.
And speaking of the system, that'swhere today's guest comes in. I am
so excited for today's guests. Who'sgoing to kick off this series about wrongful
convictions. Her name is Laurie Rothschild. Laurie is one of the leading developers

(01:59):
and active producers in the non fictionand reality TV space. Her passion for
storytelling has landed her shows on networkslike TLC, I, d own A
and E, History Channel, Discoveryand more. Laurie's also well known for
her side hustle as a criminal justicereform advocate. She works with several advocacy
groups, including Innocence Projects, GeorgetownUniversity's Making an Exonoree Project at Northwestern University's

(02:24):
Center for Wrongful Convictions. Lorie isthe executive producer and co host of the
new Spotify original podcast hosted also byKim Kardashian called The System and let Me
Just Tell You. When I foundout Kim Kardashian was hosting a true crime
podcast about wrongful convictions, you betyour bottom dollar I tried to get an

(02:45):
interview with her for a couple ofreasons, the obvious ones being what a
get right. I mean, ifyou can get Kim Kardashian on your show,
you'd be the little show that could. I mean, I knew there
was a slim den end chance,but I tried too. I've always felt
Kim comes by her passion for truecrime and wrongful convictions. Honestly, she
is the daughter of one of America'smost successful attorneys, Robert Kardashian. However

(03:08):
you think about his work in theO. J. Simpson Child, it
was undisputedly significant. And three,I don't see all true crime podcasters going
to law school and passing the babybars. So I felt like she had
more than enough qualifications to get infront of a mic and talk about these
issues, not to mention her incredible, massive platform and reach to shine a

(03:31):
light on this worthy topic. SoI'm no stand per se, but I
always supported and was curious about KimKardashian's role in true crime. So I
was thinking of the saying shoot forthe moon and you'll land among the stars.
Well, I shot for the moon. I tried to get Kim Kardashian
on and you know where I landed. I landed at the coexecutive producer and

(03:53):
co host Laurie Rothschild Today's guest andno regrets. In fact, I don't
want to compare the two, especiallybecau one didn't happen. But this was
a better interview. This was anamazing conversation. Laurie gave me a lot
of her time, a lot ofher expertise, and she was just such
a breath of fresh air and hasa really unique story that I didn't know

(04:14):
that fell outside of the research I'vedone about her exposure to criminal justice as
the daughter of an MYPD cop.So, without further ado, Lorie Rothschild,
thank you so much for killing thesmall talk. I can't wait to
continue the conversation with you. Thankyou for your work on the system and
shining a light on the case ofKevin Keith. You're about to hear a
trailer from the system and then we'llgo right into the conversation. Hi.

(04:46):
I'm Kim Kardashian. You might haveseen that recently I've gotten really involved in
wrongful conviction and rehabilitation work, andthere's one case in particular that I can't
stop thinking about. Thirty year oldwas arrested. It at his home in
Cress Life. He is charged withthree counts of murder for allegedly killing three
members of the Chatman family. OnFebruary thirteenth, nineteen ninety four, a

(05:09):
gunman entered Apartment seventeen twelve B ofthe Bucyrus Estates Complex. He killed three
people and severely wounded three others.Three of the victims were children. Suscribed
as one of the worst murder casesin Bucyrus history. Two days later,
Kevin Keith was arrested and charged withthe crime. Kevin Keith was never questioned

(05:29):
by law enforcement ever. Kind ofstrange. Please have a enough question me
at all about this? What doyou think about it? Did you do
this? I love kids, Iwould never do that to the what his
keys? There's so much to explorehere, and it's Michael to take you
with me on this path. Iwant you to make your own determination,

(05:53):
but I think you'll be surprised bywhat you hear. I know for a
fact that Kevin killed my people.Think cooking revenge job my victor. Yeah,
four alibi witnesses. They had nophysical evidence whatsoever, and he was
given the death penalty. That lineupis just not fair. This was a
biased test. Who in Ohio haszero four three license plate in this area?

(06:15):
And match is a cream colored vehiclethey have another suspect. Going through
those documents, it was like,Okay, we just found something huge and
I now know I'm going to winthis case. Kevin Keith's case should concern
anyone who was concerned about the integrityof the system. To show me where
he's guilty. All leave alone.I'm Kim Kardashian and this is the system.

(06:41):
The System is streaming now, followand listen for free only on Spotify.
Laurie, Welcome to Dialogue Podcast.I'm so excited to talk to you
today. You're kicking off our seriesun Wrongful Convictions. Welcome. Oh wow,
thank you, happiness Yes, ohmy gosh, we're grateful for your
time. Um, this is atopic that we've had on the show before.
We revisit periodically because it tugs atmy heart, it keeps me up

(07:05):
at night, and it's something thatI hope true crime consumers will, you
know, continue to care about moreand more. And so when I found
out about The System, the podcastthat you've created executive producing and co hosting,
I knew we had to talk aboutit. On the show. So
I'd love to hear about your workas a TV producer and when and how

(07:29):
you started caring about wrongful convictions.You know, it's it's kind of fuck.
I always say that this case choseme because I never I never worked
in wrongful conviction. In fact,my father was NYPD. I'm from a
family of law enforcement, so youknow, I always believed in law enforcement.
You know too, it's full It'snot that I don't believe in law

(07:51):
enforcement. Now. I'm I'm avery big fan and cheerleader of all law
enforcement. But when I first startedin wrongful conviction, I actually am a
reality television producer. And when Ifirst moved to Los Angeles, I was
working for a production company that's specializedin true crime, and I had never

(08:13):
done I came from the from thetravel channel world. That's where my previous
experience had been. So when Igot sort of two feet into true crime
because of this company that I wasworking for, I loved it. I
loved it because a the stories areso gripping and they're so amazing to tell.
I love a great mystery, right, But I also really love that

(08:33):
these cases that I were doing,and you know the shows probably from watching
you know, anything from Oxygen toID to any of those big networks that
cover true crime. They're really loveletters to the police. They really are
their love letters because these are adjudicatedcases. There are cases that you know,

(08:54):
a vicious crime happens and it's awho done it, and in the
end, our law enforcement has putthe right person in prison. And I
never like to say that a familygets closure, but at least you get
some feeling of justice at the endof it. But you're always a person's
dad. You can never really getclosure after something horrific happens in your family.

(09:16):
But that was my way of tellingthose stories and feeling good about those
stories is that I always felt likethose shows were not only a love letter
of law enforcement, but it's alsothe victim's last gasp to tell their story
what happened to me. So Icould go to sleep at night thinking I
don't like to use someone's darkest days, that their life is entertained. That

(09:37):
it's really hard as a true crimeproducer to know that that's what you're doing.
You're sort of exploiting this terrible thingthat's happened. But the way that
I've always thought about it from myown well being. Really is that the
victims never really had their chance tosay what happens to them in court,
or you know, say goodbye totheir families or feel like they've got their

(10:00):
justice. And I hope that thoseshows have have done that. So that's
how I got into the true crimeworld and really fell in love with it
from that perspective, and I wasable to I always say, have a
really strange Rolodex, because you know, and Rolodex is play aging me significantly,
but but it is. It's likeI have a strange Rolodex. Like
if you need a detective and youknow, or FBI agent or a corner

(10:22):
or you know, whatever you mightneed, it's like my dream. Yeah,
I talk to write me too,me too. These are the people
that I I just I love too. I always say I love to suck
on their brains because I just lovedhearing their stories and how they got into
it. But anyway, I wasworking on a show. It was called
Murder She Solved, and it wasjust amazing story about women who take justice

(10:46):
into their own hands, right,That's that's what the idea was. And
there was this woman that I wasworking with who it was a vicious,
vicious murder. Her mom was hermom was killed and and you know,
grewesome murder. And they had chargedand convicted her husband for the crime.
And she knew that her husband didn'tcommit the crime because her husband was with

(11:07):
her the entire night, so shecouldn't understand how they could find him guilty.
So she actually went out and didall of the investigative work herself and
ended up finding the killer, thereal killer, through a DNA. It's
an amazing story. And anyway,in talking to her, she said to
me, and she lived in Ohio, and she said to me, hey,
I know that you really love mystory, but have you ever heard

(11:28):
of the Cabin Keith story? Haveyou ever heard of Charles Keith? And
I said, no, what isthat? Oh? This is a wrongful
conviction. And so murder she sawwas really about focusing in on this heroic
tale of this woman who went,you know, at supped at nothing to
find her mother's killer, which happened, you know, to be the wrong
the wrongfully convicted in that case washer husband, right, But I never

(11:48):
thought about wrongful conviction until she saidCharles Keith and she says, Oh,
this is an amazing story about awrongful conviction. I believe her wrongful conviction
in Ohio. And I'm a lawenforcement daughter, and I said, everyone
says they're innocent. I you know, I don't have time to go down
every one of these pathways. Thatwas my you know, my twenty sixteen

(12:09):
or fifteen version of myself saying that. And she must have sent that link
to my email about Charles Keith andthe and the Eric Sandy interview, that
infamous Eric Sandy interview the child orthe article that he did for Cleveland Sea
Magazine. She must to send itto my email for or four times before
I actually clicked it. And itjust so happened that I was, you
know, at work one day,I had an open afternoon and I clicked

(12:33):
the email and I started, youknow, reading through some of what was
happening in Ohio to Kevin Keith.And you know, I am not Sherlock
Holmes. I promised you that I'mnot some great investigator. The reality is
is that I started to find thingsthat were obvious mistakes that were made by
the police, really obvious. Sofor me, it was like that's a

(12:54):
clear indication of a zero of zeroinvestigator investigation happening. I knew right then
and there that no one did aproper investigation. And now this guy,
at that point, Kevin was youknow, given clemency, so he was
life without parole, but he wason death row. And that's what I
couldn't wrap my head around. Sothat sort of started the flame. And

(13:16):
how I got from you know,television producer True crime all the way into
ronful conviction and Kevin Keith's case wasthe first case that I jumped into and
it started, it started the passionof knowing. At first, I thought
Kevin's case was a unicorn. Youknow, I thought it was. I
thought it could not be. Youknow, this is amazing, as so

(13:39):
many twists and turns. I mean, I think, who knew this could
not happen? Again, this isgoing to be the case of my career.
And the reality is, unfortunately Kevinisn't a unicorn. There's there's thousands
of them out there. There's lotsof people were unfully convicted in this country.
So that's what started it all.That's incredible, and that's a recent

(14:00):
transformation. Fifteen sixteen is not thatlong ago. So that's actually quite on
par with I think the movement andconversation around wrongful convictions, which feels it's
becoming more consistent more recently. AndI think a lot of people can relate
to what you're saying. If someone'sin jail, they probably belong there and

(14:20):
out of sight, out of mind. It's just not most of our problem.
And especially being the daughter of lawenforcement, those are the good guys
and the bad guys are all behindbars. And what strikes me about that
story and her persistence and sharing withyou Kevin's story is most advocates for wrongful
convictions, including those who are eventuallyhopefully released, they end up doing this

(14:41):
for other people. Like so manypeople could just free themselves and move on
with their life and just try tosalvage some you know, goodness ahead of
them, and instead they're all fightingfor one another. And it just blows
my mind and like really warms myheart and energizes me to like become part
of that, because that relentlessness iswhat you need to move things, as

(15:03):
you know, it's been yours.Yeah, yeah, I mean it is
crazy. I mean it is kindof crazy and not so crazy because and
I always say it. This ismy I say this all the time.
But once you know, you can'tunknow right, it's so sobering. Yes,
yeah, yeah, you can't.And I heard it on another podcast
Bone Valley Gilbert, who's the authorand that story and the advocate in that

(15:26):
story, another incredible, incredible storyof wrongful conviction. He said the same
thing, his journey was so similarto mine, and that I never went
looking for a case like this.I never thought it was going to become
a wrongful conviction producer, let alonecriminal justice reform advocate. You know,
I just that was not It wasthe furthest thing from my mind. So

(15:48):
but once you know, you can'tknow, and then once you kind of
see what our system has I don'twant to say has become. I honestly
believe that the system was created thisway by by by definition. You know,
people say, oh, the systemis broken. I always say,
the system is rigged. It's workinghow it was designed to work. This

(16:10):
is how it Yeah, And ifyou're not touched by it by your own
family, if it hasn't happened toyou or someone that you've loved, why
would you get involved? Sure,well, you know, cops do their
job, and they do. Theykeep us safe. And we need to
perfect our police and we need toprotect our law enforcement. But they need
to do their jobs correctly. Yes, and we need to look at things
and from the perspective of twenty twentytwo, you know, not from you

(16:37):
know, eons ago when when racialdiscrimination was far. I mean, I
think they just they just created thissystem based on what they knew at the
time, and it's just become sucha whirling dervish. It's out of control.
Yeah, well that makes me wonder. You know, there's so many
strides being made. We've seen serialpodcast in that huge victory for a non,

(16:59):
sayd which is a victory, butit's very bittersweet, right, I
mean that took decades, and alot of the movement in that case happened
not through the system traditionally, right, serial podcast, then undisclosed podcast and
a non's family who never stopped championingand continued to find lawyers that would keep

(17:19):
digging. But a lot of thishappens outside of the system. Why do
you think that is? And Idon't want to say is do you think
that's a good or a bad thing? But I guess what do you think
about it, this alternative platform fornow helping these cases happening outside our criminal
justice system. What are your thoughtson it? I mean, as much

(17:40):
as we want to complain about whatsocial media has done to us, to
humanity in general, the good partsof social media is that it's created a
platform for voices that didn't that wardenable to be heard before we could.
You know, how do you getLike I always think about people breaking into
the news sick industry, right,It's like, now you put your uself

(18:02):
on YouTube. You don't need anagent or a manager to get into the
music industry. It's the same thing. It's like your voices can be projected
on such a loud level. Andso how incredibly amazing is it that we
all have the ability to have avoice now, Even if you don't think
that you do, you do.You have these connections that you never had

(18:22):
before all over the world. AndI think, you know, what Cereal
did is taped into a really importantmoment where I mean, I think Cereal
might have been the very first podcastI've ever listened to it with my tonic
Oh my gosh, I mean Icouldn't get out of my car. I
would go to meetings and sit inthe car listening to Sarah's voice and you
know, wondering about a non AndI remember not opening up going online and

(18:48):
looking at anything online because I didn'twant to spoil it. I just wanted
to understand, right, I justwanted to live in that in that audio
moment. It's so powerful. ButI think what has happened there is that
it felt so grassroots, and itfelt so against the norm of seeing it
on ABC News or twenty twenty oreven ID or whatever. You really felt
like you were getting into something onthe grass level, on the grassroot level,

(19:11):
and that if we made enough noise, if we could just rattle the
cages, we could make a change. Wow, Like we could actually make
a change. And so when peoplestarted to see that you could actually do
that, I think that medium becameso much more powerful to all of us
because we now know that, youknow, we can use this medium in

(19:33):
a way to help use platforms toactually change opinion. And we never you
know, I don't think any ofthe people who started in Instagram, whether
it be Kim or anybody else,ever thought that their platform would be there
to have some sort of a politicalreason. I thought, you know,
becoming famous or you know, sellinga brand or you know, whatever it

(19:56):
might be. That was, youknow, that's awesome, but I actually
know that you can do. Ithink it was Kim's head of something when
I think he worked on the pie. He was he was working with us
on the podcast. I'm not surewhat his role is specifically, but one
day he said to me, hesaid, yeah, I mean, when
we put out a tweet or ifwe put out an Instagram post, her

(20:18):
following, she's got more people inher following than a small country. She's
the president of her own small country. Right. That's a great perspective and
it and it's just like, yeah, my god, you're right, My
god, these people and so andagain, like until you realize the power
of that. Yeah, yes,you know. And serials sort of I
think started it. But now youreally can use the media to really help

(20:45):
again, rattle the cages, getpeople inspired, have people talking, create
outrage where you think there's not justice, you can use your voice. I
mean that's the American way, butI think it's also I think now it's
just all around the world that wefeel that way. We can you know,
talk about things that we never reallythought we had a platform for and
I do think the platform of storytellingvia podcast has really sharpened the consumer and

(21:10):
the people hearing the stories are.We're savvier now. I mean, we
know how to investigate in questions,to ask, like I'm sure I know
legal terms that I have no businessknowing because of Cereal. I'm like,
oh, that's a Brady violation.Excuse me. So I mean it empowers
you in a way to ask harderquestions and to examine things more closely.
But you've brought up Kim, sowe do have to talk about the Kim
Kardashian of it all, because youknow, I have publicly stated multiple times

(21:37):
when she decided to go to lawschool, and everybody had an opinion about
that, I just thought, Ithink she comes by this so honestly.
First of all, her father wasone of the country's greatest attorneys. Whatever
you think of the O. J. Simpson trial, he was an amazing
lawyer. It's in her blood andshe wants to do this. And then
when this podcast was announced, andthere was a lot of pushback and a
lot of like fifty fifty on mypolls on social media about how they felt

(22:00):
about it, and I'm thinking,like you just said, she can.
She has accessed an influence over amassive amount of people who are maybe probably
not thinking about wrongful convictions today,but they might be. Now, how
is I see no negative to that? And then I listened to the System
and it's a great podcast. Sonow let's get into how long did you

(22:21):
kind of stay with Kevin's story andwhen did you hand it over to Kim
at what point in the process andwhy her I'd love to hear like your
meeting. I think you met maybebehind the scenes of a show that she
was on that you were producing.So talk us through that and how you
knew you wanted to work with heron it. I mean, it's surreal.
So so back in two thousand andseventeen, I believe seventeen or eighteen,

(22:42):
I was in the contract with ahuge production company here called Freemantle,
who does a lot of the there'sa lot of game shows that from good
people think of Freemantle, they thinkof a game show. Okay, But
we were there a little true crimearm. My company was a true crime
arm inside of there. Butay,I was really passionate obviously about Kevin's Kates
I was. I was deep inthe trenches of research and investigation probably for

(23:07):
about a year and a half atleast on the case. And then you
know, and a lot of peoplecame forward. This is obviously after at
Non sayed and Cereal and then makinga murderer was huge and all this sort
of stuff and Stephen Avery and Ithink I think people were talking at the
time about Meek Mill. So Igot a lot of people talking to me

(23:30):
about, Okay, you need acelebrity to come to the platform, you
need someone to talk about this case. If we could just again write all
the cages, how do we getit to the masses so that we can
show how injustice was or this is. And so I've met with everybody I
met. I mean I had peopleact famous actors coming wanting to play Charles
Keith in the movie, in themovie version of this. I mean,
I was like completely blown away andmet with a lot of different, very

(23:53):
famous people who all brought different ideasand thoughts to the table. And I
remember one of the guys who workedat Fremantle, who worked on celebrity family
Feud, came into my office andsaid, Lorie and he really knew he
was so inspired by my work onthe case, and he said, Lorian

(24:14):
know, the Kardashians are doing aKardashians Jenner's I believe version of celebrity family
feud. Would you want me totalk to him about this? And I'm
like, of course, I wantyou to talk to Kim Kardashian. At
this point, she'd already announced thatshe was she had helped Alice Johnson,
so she's already inside the criminal justicebefore a world. So it wasn't like
I was just attaching a name ora celebrity. She really did have an

(24:37):
eye opening experience with her work onAlice Johnson, and she wanted to do
more. I knew that, Soanyway, I never thought it was going
to end really amount to anything.She's on a game show, you know,
why would she you know what Imean? It would be like so
weird. So this guy, youknow, he actually approaches her and she's
like, I definitely want to hearthis case, right, So he says,

(24:59):
oh yeah, Kim really interested.And again we're in Hollywood. It's
like people say that kind of stuffall the time and you never hear anything.
So I wasn't really blown away bythat. But I will tell you,
and this is kind of a famousstory in my house because this is
exactly what happened on Friday night.In my house, we always, I
have two kids. We always dopizza in a movie always. And I

(25:19):
can promise you on a Friday night, I'm probably drinking red wine. On
this particular Friday night, I woulddefinitely had a bottle. I probably had
three or four class okay, AndI was like, it was the end
of the night. Yeah, okay, it was bedtime. Okay, kids
are already in dead and my phonerings and it's um this guy who says,
hey, I had the guy fromfreemantilho one friends with. He says,

(25:41):
I have Tracy Romulus on the phone. I said, okay, well
who's Tracy Romulus? And she's that'sthat's kids, you know, kind of
I think he called her chief ofstaff or head is. I don't know,
something like that. I'm like,oh my god. And I'm literally
like slapping myself in the space becauseI'm like, oh my god, I
get it together, right, Yeah. Yeah. They get on the phone

(26:03):
and Kim was on the phone,I believe with her. They were at
a wedding in Miami. And theysaid, we want to talk about this
case immediately. Can you come tomy house like next week? And I
should also frought preface and say thatKim and I both live in Calabasas,
so it's not like, oh,you should come to my house. It
was like literally, I know,I was like, I literally live around
the ploot, Like I literally livefive minutes from Kim. So it's like

(26:26):
it wasn't unheard of at the timeto just go over for a private meeting.
And that's basically what happened. Sowild. I'm still gonna say that's
wild wild. I mean, who, yes, I'm coming over to your
house next week, right, comeavailable? So um, totally I'll figure
that part out. Um. Butyeah, but I just remember hanging up

(26:48):
the phone and like going in andup. At the time, my now
sixteen year old was I think aroundtwelve or something, and I went into
his room and I said, evenwake up, you're not I was just
supposed to on the phone. Andit's like mom, like he was dead
asleep, right, Mom? Whatwas so crazy? But yeah, my
kids stuck about that night a lot. But yeah, I was invited over
to her house and a few dayslater and brought over my you know,

(27:11):
my big binder filled with investigation thatI've done on the Kevin Keith case for
at that point, I think Iwas in it for like three or four
years or you know maybe yeah,just kissing three years. And and I
left that house and feeling like Idid a really good job in telling the
story and you know, asking howyou know, giving her the opportunity to

(27:33):
come aboard. But I think itwas within two hours that her attorneys contacted
me and was already wanting to vetthe case and talk about the case and
how Kim could how can Kim couldit be involved in it? And then
she borrowed my She she texted meand said, can I can I have
your buyingder? Can I look throughyour buyinger for like a weekend? And

(27:55):
I'm like, of course, Sothat night I sort of could post it
notes where I needed and still therein my binder, um, you know,
post it notes like read this,Kim, this is how it sets
to here and because it's so big. But yeah, I mean, she
came aboard pretty quickly, and Inever handed but I never handed the case
off to Kim. Kim and Ihave been working in tandem on this case.

(28:17):
She came aboard with me as apartner and so we kind of tagged
team it in that way. Wedefinitely at the beginning, I thought this
was going to be like a featuredocumentary like Making a Murderer. Okay,
um, something like that. That'sthat was the original idea. But then
Spotify came to the table and said, no, what if we did this

(28:37):
as a podcast? And to behonest with you, and you know this
as being a podcast host in apodcast environment, you have the ability to
really dig deep into a subject.You have we have a real estate,
yes, where you can properly tella story. In television traditional storytelling in
television, you're really about a clock. You know, you're about you know

(28:59):
how you know, Netflix is alittle different. They'll give you a little
bit or you know, any ofthe streamers, I don't want to just
say Netflix, but any of thestreamers will give you a little bit more
leeway in terms of how long yourstorytelling can be. But essentially, you
know, your shows are our showsare essentially like forty five minutes, right,
you know, with with commercial breaksand stuff. So how do you
really tell this story? You know, over the course of one or two

(29:22):
episodes that they would give you oryou can't. So the fact that we
have eight episodes, you know,it really makes the difference. There's um
I think podcasting has like an agilityto it as well, like it's easier
to pick up and podcast and bea little more mobile and fluid. And

(29:45):
it's not as it's it's expensive aproduction, but not nearly as much as
filming something, you know, youjust the budgets are so different and and
like you said, you can captureso much more and then an edit and
post figure out what stays in andwhat goes. But um, I think
I think podcast is serving the storyreally well. And it seems like the
perfect time too for anyone who hasn'tlistened. And I know most everyone has

(30:06):
its hit like number one on alot of the charts, so congratulations,
thank you. But for anyone whodoesn't know yet Kevin Keith's story, can
you do the overview elevator style?Yeah? Of course. I don't ever
want to say like, oh thisKim and I are telling the story.
This story would not be we wouldn'tbe sitting I wouldn't be sitting here having
this conversation with you without Charles Keith. That's right, So Charles Keith is

(30:30):
Kevin's brother. The story goes backin nineteen ninety four that a vicious crime
happens. A gunman goes into asmall apartment do Cyrus, Ohio, and
walks into basically a boyfriend, agirlfriend, and three children and another woman
watching the NBA All Star Game innineteen ninety four. Is a snowy night

(30:52):
in Ohio. A guy comes inand he basically tells everyone to get down
on the floor and he opens fireclose range. If I tell you close
range, I I was in thatapartment. It's a tiny little apartment.
All of the people in that apartmentshould have died that night, that's how
close range it should have been.It's by the grace of God that there
were three survivors, Quentin and Quantitor, Reeves, two of the children,

(31:15):
and then one adult male who playeddead got up and made a run for
it, and I was able toget to a local restaurant and dial nine
one one. He was as hewas making that run to the hospital,
was shot several more times, buthe survived, incredibly, incredibly survived very
soon after, within forty eight hours, if not less, the name Kevin

(31:37):
Keith surfaced as the suspect in thecase. Kevin Keith was a small time
drug dealer. This area of Ohio, Central Ohio was plagued with drugs at
the time and there were a fewfamilies that were kind of again low you
know, small time drug dealers.Kevin was one of them. And they

(31:59):
said that motive for the crime wasthat a guy who lived in that apartment
or is known to frequent that apartment, was a confidential informant on a case
on cases for the police, andthat he was the target. He just
happened to not be home that night, so the gunman instead of going after

(32:20):
this confidential informant, he instead,this madman went in with a gun and
shot women and children. So twowomen died, a little girl, Marshay
Chapman died who's four, and thenthe other two children who survived in that
one surviving male. So Kevin Keith'sget immediately arrested for this case without any
physical evidence tying him to the sceneat all. His name is kind of

(32:45):
dropped in there as being a localdrug dealer who was snitched on by this
confidential informant. So they said,oh, perfect. You know, large
black man, kind of new tothe area, he had just gotten there
a few weeks before, and hefits the bill, and he has a
motive and boom good enough for them. That was the That's the sort of

(33:06):
the thirty thousand foot view of theplace, if you would. And by
the way, Kevin has always maintainedhis innocence. They pinned him to a
car with again no physical evidence.You know, he has always had a
strong alibi that was said to bediscredited by police, but he had alibi
witnesses placing him thirty minutes away fromthe crime scene. And then the other

(33:27):
side you have again like, okay, well, who else could have had
the same motive? If this guywas snitching on Kevin is a small time
drug biller, who else was thisguy snitching on Rudel Chapman, who is
a known snitch in the area.And what unfolds is that he was snitching
on a lot of people and muchbigger than Kevin, people who had the

(33:49):
capability and bewarewithal to commit this sortof crime. You know, in this
sounds like I know what I'm talkingabout, Like I'm like, I like,
I'm a detective and I work withdrug dealers all the time, or
I know drug dealers, and reallyI've interviewed enough of them that I kind
of get the gist of what happenshere. It's like they really way out,

(34:10):
meaning meaning criminals in general, wayout the possibilities of getting caught.
Right. Some of them are reallyreally not as stupid as we think they
are, and a lot of themare really stupid. I've seen some really
dumb criminals, but in my career, but the majority, especially with if
you're selling drugs, it's part ofthe hustle to know what the ramifications are

(34:35):
if you were to get caught.Yeah, so you know, by selling
joints and crack cocaine or whatever.Okay, well, if I get caught,
it'll probably be, you know,depending on what happens, it'll probably
be like, you know, afelony or you know, a low count
felony or whatever. Part of thegame is going for the ninety days and
flipping out and coming back out andgetting back into sells. The it's unfortunately

(34:57):
part of the business. They're makingcalculated risks all the time. Yeah,
so so you have to think aboutlike what would drive someone to go in
and I mean, this is whenI say this is this is a small
apartment, this is a tiny littleroom of people, and this guy you
have to be an animal, oryou have to be completely high on drugs.

(35:17):
You have to be out of yourmind to commit this crime. That's
how gruesome it was. So again, like who would have had the capability
and the wherewithal and the and thetrue motive to commit that sort of crime.
And when you dig into it,there were a lot of people that
Rudella is swift senting on and onesthat had a far far better motive to

(35:40):
going after the family and that that'llbe revealed in the podcast as you listen,
okay, And will it connect tothe youngest or I don't. I
guess she isn't the youngest, butone of the surviving children, which is
just so such a I mean,there's tragedy on every side of this story,
including the wrong foot conviction, Likenobody wins in these stories when there's

(36:01):
a wrong person behind bars. ButQuanita has a non positive ID of Kevin.
But at that point when she's interviewedas one of the only witnesses,
they've already got him, right,did they interview him after he's already arrested.
They interviewed Kuanita I believe it wastwo days after who was arrested.

(36:23):
They interviewed Kuanita Reeves. She's sixyears old at the time. She's a
little brother who was also shot.They were airlifted to Columbus Hospital from De
Cyrus. Highly traumatic, terrible.I mean, even saying that sounds ridiculous.
Of course it's traumatic, right,But they interviewed Kuanita two days later

(36:46):
in her bedroom in her in herbed at the hospital and they said,
you know what happened, and youknow I got shot? Well who shot
you? And she said, mydaddy's friend Ruth right shot me. In
that moment, I really believe Ihave a little girl at home, like
at six years old, you know. And this is not cross racial issue

(37:09):
here. They're both black, soshe knows who came into that apartment.
And she said, my daddy's friendBruce shot me. Now it's really important
to note that she also really knewKevin. Her father is Demetrius Threeves,
and Demetrius is another known drug dealerin the in the area, but really

(37:30):
close friends to Kevin, really closefriends. He babysat those children So why
wouldn't she just turn around in thatmoment and say it was Kevin. This
is two days after he was arrested. His face is already plastered all over
the news. She would have alreadybeen peppered with information from other people because

(37:53):
it was already well known that Kevinwas arrested for the crime. So why
didn't she say she didn't? Andin a photo lineup, a very suggestive
photo lineup, she does point toKevin. Because if you look at the
photo lineup, and you can goin our show notes for our show or
even on our website, you cansee how suggestive these pictures are. I

(38:15):
mean, it literally looks like someoneput a filter, but it was nineteen
ninety four, so we know therewas no like, you know, great
filters out there. But Kevin's picturewas very prominent. He was literally the
only big black guy in the lineupnumber one, but you could you couldn't
even see his face, that's howdark the complexion was on it. So

(38:36):
it's really hard for anyone to makethat connection. That TWENTYA said it looks
like him, but it's not him, which between that and a non naming
someone else is huge. Yeah,it is I mean, and listen.
I again, I've been doing truecrime for the majority of my career.

(38:57):
Now, I know that we liketo talk about this stuff, and you
know, and it's entertaining to listento as a mystery. But Quanny,
there's a human being who has beenliving with being a victim of this case
for a very long time. Andso I don't badge your witnesses. I
don't badge your victims. And Ispoke to Quanita several times where we've really

(39:19):
had some really heated conversations about whathappened. But at the end of the
day, I will always believe sixyear old Quantita. I believe that little
girl, and she never said KevinKeith. Yeah, so this alternative suspect
of Bruce is named, and I'mjust wondering that's I guess where I left

(39:40):
off in the podcast. And thisis going to be out in a couple
of weeks. So without spoiling,are we going to learn more about Bruce?
Yeah, I mean, you're goingto learn a lot more about alternative
suspects that kind have committed this crime. And the bigger part of it,
though, and that everybody has toremember, is that it's not about,
you know, the alternative suspects thatwe know now in twenty twenty two.

(40:04):
It's about the alternative suspects that thepolice knew yes weeks before the crime even
happened. That's that's the kicker.And I love that you said a Brady
violation, but that's the biggest Bradyviolation and the history of Brady violations,
because they knew that someone else waspaid to commit this crime two weeks before.
You'll learn about that in the upcomingepipetes. Oh man, that's so

(40:31):
so much. So I want tojust talk a little bit about You mentioned
Kin's lawyers vetted his case, andI'm sure you do too. What are
what are the like winnability factors you'relooking at when you look at cases in
general that have potential wrongful convictions,but also in Kevin's story, like what
is it going to take to overturna conviction for a full exoneration? Are
you looking for a second a retriallike there are grounds for another trial,

(40:55):
or are you looking for a completeoverturning an exhoneration. I will say that
it depends on the case what youlook for. You know, there's a
lot of different factors. Actually,you know, the first thing that you
look for are the merits of thecase. What are the facts of the
case and what has already been presentedin court? And what you know,
what avenues do we have in acourt setting to get relief? Are there

(41:22):
any appeals left? Do we haveto go for true innocence on these cases?
Which is very hard habeas corpus isvery difficult to go down that path?
And what stay do you in youknow, we live in a in
a in a society now that youknow in the United States that it really
depends on where you live as towho's going to hear those cases again?

(41:45):
And can you get an attorney toeven take it? And I will say
those I love that I have ateam of attorneys um that will vet cases
from their experience. I am notan attorney, so I really rely on
them to tell me whether they thinkthat there are avenues for relief or not.
So there are two ways of lookingat it, you know, from

(42:07):
a winnability I'm using air quotes andthat factor number one is where are we
in court and what are what dowe have in terms of what are our
rights? What are our rights tobe able to bring this case forward again,
do we need Usually it has tobe something brand new. You have
to bring something that is has neverbeen you know, a piece of information

(42:30):
or evidence or a witness or whateverit might be that has never yet been
considered in the case by the courts. That's something that could reopen a case
and maybe possibly grant a new trial. Right, that's the that's the hope,
that's the white flag. If youwould to get someone to listen,
it's super hard to do that,you know, it's it's close to impossible.

(42:52):
The second route is clemency. Right, So, how do we take
this story and say, okay,we know that several courts have already heard
it, we get it. Thiswe need a new eye on this.
This is you know where these integrityunits can come in and kind of help
and say, okay, for example, a judge coming in on an appeal

(43:14):
can only look at what was givento him on the appeal because that's the
new information of the appeal. Hecan't use that in tandem with other judgments
that have been made in the case. Does that make sense? So if
you have already been convicted of acrime, right, and let's say you
bring something new forward and you know, you show that you have the appealability

(43:35):
to appeal your case. The judgelooking at that appeal can only look at
the judgment but cannot retry or rethinkabout how this new information then overlays on
the old information. That's what happenedwith Kevin's case, you know recently,
is that Yeah, if you lookat this case in whole, I can
see what you're saying, but Ican only consider what is brand new in

(43:59):
the case because the other judgments havealready been made. It's kind of a
weird in habeas It's it's weird andneck and I would suggest that you talk
to a post conviction lawyer to helpkind of give you more of the insight
and the legal part of it foryour podcast, because I'm I'm talking in
Layman's m's how it was explained tome. Very difficult. But then you

(44:22):
know, you think about clemency.It's all politics, right, It's like,
how do you what do you putin front of a parole board that's
going to convince them to, youknow, do the right thing if you
would in this case, Like,what is it that you can get to
inspire them? And obviously friends inhigh places go really well, and when

(44:42):
you are, you know, kindof pulling on the heartstring of a governor
who has the ability to offer clemency. But the reality is your case needs
to have some really viable merits.So that's where these lawyers come in and
they they guide people like me,for I'm an advocate, so I don't
know the law and you really do. Not only have to know the law
in general from a federal level,but usually these are state cases and which

(45:07):
state is it? And each stateis different, so you need a state
a lawyer practicing post conviction in thatstate to help you. So it it's
really it's really confusing, but itcan be done. It can be done.
It's just that's what you have torely on. And that's what Kim
has to rely on as well.It's really not about you know, I
don't think we ever come into thisand say it's about winning, winning,

(45:28):
winning, It's really about what's fair. Was it fair to begin with?
Did they get a fair trial?Did they get a fair shot? And
is there really anything that we cando? Is there recourse? Yeah?
Is there anything that we can sorr? I thought this was a very poignant
moment. In the podcast when Kimasks Charles very directly but kindly, if

(45:52):
there's ever any creeping doubts. Youknow, he's championed his brother all these
years. Did you ever have,like inside, d deep deep inside,
any secret doubts of like, well, we're here, he did get the
death penalties. Secret doubt was didyou guys have something? I mean,
there's got to be something that drewthem toward Kevin, And that's what I
thought. I'm lying, So whatis it? And that's what started me

(46:15):
to investigate. Had I believe hewas guilty, I would have never done
anything. But I was like,well, what do they have? Ony?
So when I got these documents infront of me and I was able
to read him, I was like, wait a minute, these documents never
made it to court. Everything thatI compiled, everything that I gathered over
the years, none of that stuffmade it to court. That's why he

(46:36):
was found guilty. It's not whatthe jury knew is what they didn't know
you and I kind of wanted topose that to you. Does that ever
creep up for you? And whatdo you do with it if it does.
I've never had any creeping dout withKevin ever, I've always believed in
his innocence. I've always seen thecracks in the case. I've always even

(46:58):
talking to him know and it couldbe maybe it's my gut. I hate
to say that it's your gut thatspeaks to you. But you know,
when someone really professes their innocence toyou and does it in a way that
you really believe what they're saying tobe true, you really don't. All
of that other stuff sort of goesaway. And I think the best one,

(47:22):
and I think it's in episode fourthat just dropped because this was when
I first came into it. Thecar really tripped me up. I think
it was about the tires being changedor something which really bothered me. It
really bothered me, like what's theluck that your girlfriend has a zero four
three in a license plate? Listenagain, Like I'm the daughter of law
enforcement. Like if you smell shit, you probably stepped in it somewhere like

(47:43):
and so it really bothered me,this whole car, the changing of the
tires, And I remember having aconversation with Kevin about that and he just
said stop. It's and I guessyou have to know Kevin because he's such
a teddy there. He's this reallybig that he's super He's very soft spoken
and at such a teddy. Hesaid, Lorie, I never drove that

(48:07):
car. Stopped thinking about those tiretracks and that and that license plate and
whether or not she changed the tires, because I have I promised you I
never had access to that car.That was Melanie's grandfather's car, and he
didn't even let her have it.She was only using it because she was
in nursing school at the time.She was not allowed to take his car,

(48:29):
and she only used it because hercar was broken down and she had
to go to school. There wasno there was no other time that Melanie
had her own car was just inthe shop. It's just the timing of
it was so unfortunate for me.But when you have when you talk to
a resident who you believe is anAscent, it's hard for me to really

(48:51):
acknowledge or really give you a reasonwhy I absolutely believe him, other than
the fact that I know from myown research that someone else could have committed
this crime. Because again, thoseI don't I don't want to say,
oh, these other people obviously didit, because then I'm just as bad
as the prosecutors, right, theydeserve their own time in court. They

(49:13):
deserve to prove their own innocence.Let them fight for that. What I
can tell you is that the jurythat sentence that eventually sentenced Kevin to death
didn't have the opportunity to think aboutreasonable doubt. And there's enough reasonable doubt
in this case to show that Kevinshould never have been convicted of this crime.
Incredible. Well, I want torespect your time, and we've gone

(49:36):
a little bit over, but isit okay to ask one more question?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, ofcourse you could tell I could talk about
this case. I could too.I could too, and I mean and
I can't wait for the next episodes. So that's where I'll leave it,
is that the great news is there'sepisodes to listen to. Everybody can hear
the full story. But something Ialways ask my guests at the close of
an interview, I love to hearwhat justice means to them in their own

(49:59):
words, how do you define andespecially given the work you're doing and the
things you've seen and what's driving yourwork, how do you define justice?
It's a really good question. There'sso many things that fall under that word,
right, It's like you think aboutall the different things even as a
kid that you think about is justiceor is justice served? And doing the

(50:19):
work that I do and that youthat you do by exposing stories like this
and having conversations about this, It'slike, well, what does it truly
mean? Like what falls under theword justice? And for me, I
guess there's a few things that fallunder the word justice. Right. It's
like fairness. You know, whatis fair? What is you know in

(50:39):
our human context of what fairness mightbe? You know? And then what
is a fair outcome when something happens? What is a fair outcome that you
really want to have happen? Youknow? And it could be from anything
from a fight on the schoolyard toa murder, you know what is fair?
Right? The other thing is likeand I always think about this too,

(51:01):
what is a fair outcome? Whatis the punishment that is given?
And is that justice? Right?Do you feel that justice is served by
the punishment that was given? Thatfalls into justice? For me? So
sentence saying is a big thing forme. The other thing, and I

(51:22):
think some people confuse the word closurewith justice, right, Like how do
you move on with your life aftersomething tragic has happened, whether again,
whether it be a fight on theschoolyard, all because that's impressionable, all
the way through a very heinous crime. How do we as humans move forward
and feel like justice has been servedenough so that you can move on in

(51:45):
a healthy mental capacity. Right,So, all these things sort of for
me fall under the word justice.And that's what I think about when I
think of justice. They think ofthose three, there's probably more things I
think about it. Usually it's fairness, you know, what's fair? What's
the punishment? And does the punishmentequal the crime? And then the other

(52:08):
thing is how do we move onfrom it as human beings? Well,
Laurie, I can't thank you enoughfor being on Dialogue today and killing the
small talk. Everybody listen to theSystem if you haven't already, will have
links to the podcast in the shownotes, and thank you again, pleasure,
thanks for having me, And Ihope that everyone who listens to the
podcast to the System, you know, really take stock in the story and

(52:31):
sees it for what it is.And if anybody wants to join us or
grout more information or anything about thecase, and or who has information about
the case, you know, justcome forward and you know, tell us
about your experience because it will help. It will not only help Kevin,
but it will help lots of otherpeople who have been wrong or wrongfully convicted.
And that's the biggest thing too,is that when you tell stories like

(52:53):
this and what you're doing too,you realize that Kevin's not a uniform.
There are so many others out therethat's we are. We love a call
to action here, so we'll makesure everybody has all the access points.
And thanks for your work. Thankyou, of course, no thanks for
having me. Nice to meet you. YouTube Dialogue is a yellowtape media production

(53:14):
audio engineered by Jason Ussrie and produced, posted, and edited by me,
Rebecca Sebastian. If you love thepodcast, please consider becoming a diehard by
signing up at Patreon dot com slashdialogue. Other ways to support the show
follow along on social media. Weare at Dialogue pod across platforms, and
you can now watch most episodes onYouTube by subscribing to my channel Rebecca Sebastian.

(53:37):
For more information or to drop mea note, visit Rebecca Sebastian dot
com. Until next time, thankyou for listening and killing the small talk,

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Lori Rothschild | If We Rattle the Cages, We Can Make a Change

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Lori Rothschild | If We Rattle the Cages, We Can Make a Change