March 9, 2021 • 29 mins
Joe Arridy's IQ was 46, meaning he had the mental capacity of a 6-year-old. When he was arrested for the rape and murder of 15 year old Dorothy Drain in 1936, he didn't understand what was being asked in his interrogation. There were so many things indicating Joe's innocence, yet he was still convicted of murder and sentenced to death. This is Joe's story, and it begs the question, should those with diminished mental capacity be eligible for the death penalty?
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(00:29):
Welcome back to kut Zoe, Killer'sHomicide and Sweet Tea. We're happy to
be here with y'all for our seventythird episode. We've passed fifteen thousand downloads
and trucking on toward twenty thousand andMark, did you ever think we'd get
this far? Honestly, no,I'm amazed. But we are so grateful
(00:50):
to you guys that you've been supportingus, and we hope you continue to
support us, and we hope tocontinue to bring you awesome stories that we
helpe get better and better. SoHe's got something really good today for us.
Oh, I wasn't sure we weregoing to be here now either,
but we seem to have a fewfans out there, So, like Lark
(01:11):
said, we're happy to bring youthese stories each weekend we help you stick
around for another seventy three episodes ormore or more. Today, I'm going
to do something a little different thanusual. Normally we talk about true crimes
and the criminals who commit them.Today we're going to talk about a true
crime. But along with the initialcrime of the ripe and murder of fifteen
(01:33):
year old girl back in nineteen thirtysix, it's also the crime of wrongful
conviction of a mentally disabled man inhis subsequent execution for crimes he did not
commit. Joe Eridi was the sonof Syrian immigrants, Henry and Mary Eradi.
The Arides were first cousins, andthey had several children who weren't quite
(01:53):
right, most of whom died veryyoung. Joe had one surviving brother,
George, who was also mentally impaired, but not to the extent of Joe,
and one article I read said hehad a teenage sister, but I'm
not sure if she was disabled ornot. Poor Joe had an IQ of
forty six. Oh my god.Forty six is the equivalent of a six
(02:16):
year old. Oh my goodness.After one year of elementary school, the
principal told the family not to bothersending him back because he was not capable
of learning. Wow, that's sosad. Yeah. He didn't speak a
word until he was five years old, and even into adulthood he couldn't speak
(02:38):
or understand more than a couple orthree words strung together. Oh wow.
At the age of ten, hisfather had admitted him to the state home
and training school for mental defectives inGrand Junction, Colorado, which is now
called the Grand Junction Regional Center.This poor boy didn't know his colors.
(02:59):
He couldn't tell a rock from anegg, and he couldn't repeat a sequence
of four numbers. So you couldsay one, two, three, four,
and he couldn't do that back atyou. Oh wow. His father
appeared to be normal, but hismother was also mentally deficient. His father,
Henry, felt bad for sending himto that school, so after ten
(03:20):
months, he took him back home. But then Henry lost his job and
he was soon in trouble for bootleggingto make ends meet. I wonder how
he figured that out. How hefigured out bootlegging? Yeah, I don't
know. It wasn't that hard.I don't reckon to set up a still
and sell what you got from yourpotatoes out of it. I don't know
(03:43):
my grandpa did it. Yeah.Anyway, the boy at that point came
to the attention of a probation officer, and I don't know if it was
Henry's probation officer or what. Thatwasn't really clear. He'd found him basically
forced to do sexual things with otherboys and allowing himself to be sexually molested.
(04:08):
He was deemed a pervert, eventhough he didn't really understand what he
was doing and what was going on, and the probation officer just felt so
bad for him that he demanded thathe'd be readmitted to the home to the
school good for him. For him, the officer had no way of knowing,
but Joe was mistreated by the otherkids at that mental disabilities school.
(04:32):
He would agree to anything because hewanted to people to like him. I
guess he'd agree to anything. Sowhen they did something wrong, like steal
cigarettes or something like that, they'djust accused him of doing it, and
he'd say yes because he really hadno clue, like I said, what
he was confessing to, or eventhat he was confessing to anything. He
(04:53):
didn't know what they meant. Youthink even knew right from wrong. Oh,
I doubt that he knew right fromwrong. But I don't even think
he knew what they were asking.I don't think he had the mental capacity
to understand the questions right truly right. The parents tried to get him back
several times, but the superintendent ofthe school advised against it, saying his
(05:13):
perverse habits meant it would be betterfor him to stay there, and I'm
guessing basically Joe was gay. Probablyit didn't seem like he had any interest
in the girls at the home,but he did have relationships with other boys
there. At the age of twentyone, I guess he got tired of
being mistreated and he ran away fromthe home. He came back and ran
(05:39):
away a couple more times, butfinally he met up with three others who
had left. They called him walkaways, and they had left the home
and they hopped trains heading east toPueblo, Colorado. Then Joe hopped a
train and ended up in Cheyenne,Wyoming, where he was arrested for vagrancy
(06:00):
by Sheriff George Carroll. And thiswas August twenty sixth, nineteen thirty six.
Okay, I keep that in mind. Okay. On the night of
August fourteenth, about two weeks earlier, fifteen year old Dorothy and twelve year
old Barbara Draine were sleeping peacefully intheir beds while their parents were away for
(06:21):
the evening when someone broke into thehome attacked them both with a hatchet and
right and murdered Dorothy. Actually,he murdered then raped Dorothy. Oh Barbara
survived the attack. Oddly enough,just a couple of weeks before, two
(06:41):
other women were attacked in their sleepand one of them died. Then,
the night before the murders of thesegirls of Dorothy, another pair of women
reported they'd been grabbed from behind bya Mexican looking man. Of course,
police were under a lot of pressureto find out who this was before he
attacked somebody else else. Right,Joe had been arrested, like I said,
(07:02):
for vagrancy when he was found wanderingaround the train yards of Cheyenne.
He was of Syrian descent, sohe was darker skin, dark hair,
dark eyes. He could be mistakenmaybe for Mexican. Maybe right, yep,
yep. So when Sheriff George Carrollof Cheyenne, Wyoming, who knew
(07:23):
there was a murder investigation going onin Pueblo, Colorado, decided Joe fit
the bill and could pass for Mexican, he decided to interrogate him about the
murders. Now, remember, Joewas what they turned back then, an
imbecile. He was special needs.He had an IQ of forty six,
like I said that of a sixyear old. He barely knew how to
(07:44):
string two words into a sentence.He did not function well on his own,
and he was very, very susceptibleto suggestion. Did you steal those
cigarettes? Joe? Yes, Idid. So you see where I'm going
with this, right totally, So, the sheriff got Joe into an interrogation
(08:05):
room alone, just the two ofthem. He didn't take any notes.
He was sure he had the guywho knows. Maybe the sheriff saw that
Joe was so impaired he could gethim to say anything with enough pressure,
just like a child. I canimagine that Joe wanted to please people and
would say whatever he thought would makethem like him, right exactly, so,
(08:26):
when the sheriff asked him if hehurt the girls, he most likely
said yes, not understanding what hewas agreeing to. When the sheriff asked
him how, he said with aclub. When the sheriff said, do
you mean an axe, he said, yes, an axe. I'm just
guessing that's how the interrogation went down. Since the sheriff took no note,
(08:46):
I had no witnesses parroting back whathe says, right like a kid does,
like a six year old does whenthey want to please the adult.
Right. So, as far asanyone. Really, he knows, he
never said a thing. I remember, Like I said, he couldn't even
make sentences right, so who knowsif he even said anything, or if
(09:09):
the sheriff, you know, justmade it all up, which is what
it sounds like. Well, itkind of sounds like that to me after
the research that I did. Sowe're going to be right back after a
quick break for our sponsors, andwe'll tell you exactly what happened and what
(09:31):
happened to poor Joe and what histrial looked like because he did get arrested
for these murders. Just in aminute. Thanks, you're right back,
(09:56):
Eda. Do you like movies,cartoons, video games, anime and everything
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(10:18):
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(10:54):
talking about the Roncal conviction of Joe. Era day now, the sheriff of
Shy And George Carroll, like Isaid, hauled his suspect, Joe back
to Pueblo. In the meantime,the police in Pueblo had already arrested a
man named Frank Aguilar for the crimes. Aguilar had confessed to the murders.
(11:15):
They found the axe head in hishome that had the markings which matched the
wounds on Dorothy's body. Wow.He had worked for the girl's father and
been fired, and he said thiswas his revenge. But the sheriff wouldn't
have any of that. He wasconvinced Joe took part in the rapes and
murders. He knew what the houselooked like on the inside. He said
(11:37):
he'd been with a friend named Frankwhen the murders happened. But the thing
is, when they took him tomeet Frank in the jail. While Joe
said, yeah, that's Frank,Frank said, I've never seen this guy
before in my life. He saidJoe wasn't with him when he committed the
murders. He was alone, Hedidn't even know him and had never seen
him before, so he's actually takenresponsibility and they're not even they don't want
(12:00):
to listen, right, well,they listened, but they still want,
especially the sheriff still wants to accuseJoe Ride of it. So that didn't
sway the sheriff or the police orthe prosecutors. They had his confession sort
of. It wasn't exactly written down, and there weren't any witnesses to it,
but yeah, he confessed, allright. He must have helped,
(12:22):
despite what Frank Agilar said. Sothere was a trial for Joe, and
of course he said all the thingshe thought they wanted him to say.
At one point, when the prosecutorswere questioning the sheriff, it was almost
like they wanted the jurors to seethis might be a coarse confession, right.
They asked the sheriff, you hadto what we commonly say, pry
(12:45):
everything out of him, And thesheriff said, yes, I mean the
questions Sheriff Carrol asked Joe were thingslike whether he liked girls. Well,
a six year old's gonna say yeahor no, right, yeah, and
he said yes. And then thesheriff replied to him and said something like,
if you like girls so well,then why do you hurt them?
(13:09):
And Joe has no clue what's goingon. He doesn't know what he's talking
about. You know, he's sittingthere nodding his head. I'm sure right.
So here are the facts about thecase. Frank Aguilar said he'd never
seen Joe before. Aguilar confessed tothe killings and said they were in retaliation
for being fired by the girl's father. Barbara, the twelve year old,
(13:31):
testified she was attacked by Aguilar,and she also testified Joe wasn't there.
So why in the world the sheriffwas bound and determined he was going to
get a conviction. I don't knowif he wanted to make himself look good
or what. But the axe headwas found in Aguilar's home. Joe had
(13:52):
a friend from the home he'd beenriding the trains with, who testified that
they were not even in Pueblo whenthe murders happened and didn't return there until
two days after the murders. Nothingconnected Joe to the murder other than his
so called confession, which wasn't writtendown by the sheriff and which was most
likely coerced if it happened at allfrom him with vague questions and insinuated answers.
(14:16):
But Aguilar is laying it all out, and yes, the people are
and Barbara what he's saying, right, Yes, and Barbara says he wasn't
even there. There was always aone guy. He's even you know,
he's saying, hey, I'm theone who did it. So why are
yes sushing this son? Joe?I don't understand other than you know,
(14:37):
the sheriff is just one. Idon't understand thing against his boy. That's
basically. Maybe he didn't like Syrians. Maybe he was a little racist.
I don't know. This was nineteenthirty six, so who knows now.
Frank Aguilar was convicted of the murderof Barbara I'm sorry Dorothy Rain and was
(15:01):
executed on August seventeenth, nineteen thirtyseven. Yet the jury still convicted Joe
Arrety of the murder, despite therebeing no written confession, despite the guilty
party confessing and saying he didn't evenknow Joe he wasn't there that night,
even though Joe had the mental capacityof a six year old and could barely
speak, let alone understand when itwas really going on. He was oblivious
(15:22):
completely. He was sentenced to death. Wow, that's horrible. So now
Joe was already sent to death row. They called him the happiest prisoner on
death row. Of course he washappy. He didn't know what was going
on, He had no idea whatwas saying. No, he didn't know,
(15:43):
No, he knew. All heknew was he had a place to
sleep, he had food, Hehad friends and the other inmates. He
was given a toy train by thewarden. His favorite thing in the world.
He played with that train all daylong, for hours. He would
wind it up. It was awind up train, and he'd send it
down the hallway on death Row,and the inmates would reach out and pretend
(16:04):
to crash it and they all wouldlaugh. And then whoever the inmate was
that god it would send it backdown to Joe so he could do it
all over again. And of coursehe was happy. He got to play
all day, he was taken careof, he had food, he had
a place to sleep. He'd beenriding the rails. He'd been at a
home where he was mistreated all thetime, so of course he was happy.
(16:26):
Oh my goodness. And of courseJoe's case was appealed. His wrongful
conviction was taken all the way tothe Colorado Supreme Court. Joe's lawyer,
Gail Ireland, who later became Colorado'sAttorney General, cited that an obviously coerced
confession with the eyewitness testimony stating hewasn't at the crime scene. And although
(16:48):
he was able to get nine staysof execution for Joe, nine stays of
execution, and all this he didpro bono on his own time and money.
He never he was known. Hewas well known for doing a lot
of pro bono cases like this,but he was never able to convince the
courts of Joe's innocence. So onJanuary ninth, nineteen thirty nine, Joe
(17:11):
was executed. He was only twentythree. He was only twenty three years
old. It's just ridiculous, itis. It's sad. I tell you,
I've started bawling when I was readingthis. I may start bawling now.
But his mother, aunt, andcousin and sister, the one that
I only found in the one reference, came to visit him the night before
(17:33):
the execution. It was obvious toeveryone there that Joe had no clue what
was going on why his mother wascrying. He just took a break from
playing with his trains, and thenwhen they left, he went back to
playing with his trains. Wow.When he was asked what he wanted for
his last meal, Joe didn't reallyunderstand what they meant last meal. He
(17:56):
wasn't going anywhere, so he didn'tanswer. So they asked him what his
favorite thing to eat was, andhe set ice cream, So that's what
he got. When a last minuteappeal to the Colorado Supreme Court was denied
in a four to three vote,the warden Roy Best and the prison chaplain,
Father Albert Schaller, went to seeJoe. The priest told him he'd
(18:18):
have to give up his train,but he'd be trading it for a golden
harp. Oh good god. NowJoe was okay with that. There was
a new toy. So when theyled him out of his cell, he
gave way all his prized possessions andwalked down the hallway with them. He
gave a train, his train toa fellow prisoner so they could play still
(18:41):
play. He had a tin platethat was all shiny and polished that he
gave to the warden because he hadbeen nice to him. He had a
toy car that he gave to thewarden to give to his nephew, and
together the three men walked up thehill to the gas chamber, where cyanide
pellets were dried into sulfuric acid,and Joe gasped until he finally died.
(19:03):
Oh that is just horrible. Nowyou're asking yourself, why do Kim tell
me this horrible story about a wrongfulexecution. Well, I'll tell you why.
We've talked about the death penalty alot, haven't we, Lark,
We have, but you know,there are a whole lot of flags with
this before they ever got to thatpoint where this is clearly an agenda.
(19:30):
In my opinion, And I'm notright exactly, and I'm not firmly against
the death penalty, but I don't, like I've said before, I can't.
I don't think I could actually sentencesomeone to do it unless I had
a video of them committing the crime, clearly right. But more and more
we're hearing about people who are mentallydisabled receiving death penalties. Now, while
(19:52):
I can't speak to their guilt orinnocence, in my heart, I believe
if they cannot understand what they're beingasked. If they have the mental capacity
of a child like Joe, theyshould not be given the death penalty any
more than a child should exactly achild. I completely agree with you on
that. And the thing is isthat while they can all use this insanity
(20:15):
plea, why can't they use thediminished capacity? You know, because really
when you have an IQ. Well, his confession was clearly looking back,
coerced by the sheriff, and it, like I said, I don't know
if it was a zealous move tohelp solve a crime or something to feather
his own nest that he thought,you know, or if it was for
(20:37):
nefarious reasons like he didn't like Syrianpeople. We don't know. Well,
the thing is is that, Okay, so they keep, yeah, keep
talking about you know, he hashis psych in the forties. When was
that discovered? And and why didn'tthe lawyer drag that up? And why
didn't he say, you know,this is basically a six year old had
(21:00):
no malice or intent really deep down, he just you know, was why
didn't he didn't do anything to havemalice? I mean, I think that's
why he didn't. He might nothave He may have brought it up.
I didn't read any transcripts from theactual trial or anything like that. I
didn't look for them, actually,But well, he didn't do it,
(21:22):
and that that was his stand.Obviously he didn't do it. None of
the stuff fit he was you know, the girl that was there said he
didn't do it. And right,so that should have been enough, right
there, right, right, right. But but either way, it must
have been clear to him as ashe was having to drag the confession out
(21:42):
of Joe, that Joe didn't understandwhat he was talking about and didn't understand
the questions he was asking. Ithad to be obvious. Of course.
I don't want to vilify the guy. He's not around to defend himself now,
but he had to have had nothe had to have known Joe wasn't
right. Well, of course,I mean obvious, is it? Everybody
see that. I mean, youdon't have to have the doctors to prove
(22:04):
it, to see that this boyis just you know, he ain't right,
you know, right, and that'sno fair to pin all that on
him, right, And like akid, he told the adult what he
thought he wanted to hear. Happilybecause he wanted to please the adult in
the conversations, so basically all onthe sheriff's word and nothing else, and
(22:30):
Joe's answers to questions he most likelydidn't even understand, convicted him and executed
an innocent man. If the persondoesn't understand, if their IQ is that
of a child like Joe, thenmy feeling is they should not be given
the death penalty. Joe was finallygiven a full pardon by the Governor of
Colorado, Bill Ritter, in twentyeleven, more than seventy years after his
(22:52):
wrongful death. His murder, I'mgoing to term it a murder because that
really was what it was. Yeah, yeah, but it happened a lot
back then, and I'm sure itprobably still happens now. But currently,
nineteen states and the federal government donot allow the death penalty for mentally disabled
folks. Some have specific IQ levels, such as sixty five, which is
(23:14):
the equivalent of a third grader ora nine year old. Others are less
spelled out, but basically, ifpsychological exams show their mentally deficient, they
are exempt from the death penalty.Which is a good start, but we've
got what thirty two other states thatneed to jump on the ship, right.
I mean, it just seems likeit seems like common sense. Come
on, people, you know,I mean, I don't know, I'm
(23:40):
speechless, I really am. Yam. It's sad and it's it's wrong,
and it makes me very angry withthe sheriff and then even more so with
the jury that backed his decision up. I mean, those men are even
worse. They should have stood upand said, you know what, now,
come on. But it just soundsto me, exactly, there was
(24:00):
some sort of corruption going on.There was some sort of agenda there.
You know, it sounds I mean, there was boatloads of evidence showing that
he wasn't even there, eyewitnesses,his friend that was riding the train with
him at the time, the girlwho survived the attack, the guy who
(24:21):
was the real murderer who said hewas never there and he'd never seen him
before in his life, all ofthat and they still convicted this man.
Well exactly, it just sounds tome like they had an agenda, They
had a reason that they wanted toeither make a point or they were just
you know, as word, youknow, lynching for lynching sake. But
(24:42):
that it just sounds bad to meall around, and like, I say,
why in the world, why whydid the jury back him up?
You know, I tend to wonderif back in the day, even though
they knew they knew that people werementally slow or deficient, even back then,
(25:03):
whether you had some sort of adocumentation or doctor ticked off those boxes,
they still could pretty much look atyou and know you weren't right.
But a lot of them, Ithink, didn't can see that because you
know, once, once a boyis six feet something tall, you're thinking,
(25:23):
well, you should be grown.But they're not, you know,
no, they're not. All Icould keep thinking about was The Green Mile.
Did you see that movie right?Or read the Stephen King novella series
that it was based on. Exactly? All I could think about was John
Coffee and how he wasn't quite rightand he had a mental capacity of a
(25:47):
child exactly. And I mean thatwasn't the case. That there was another
case actually, and I don't rememberwhere it was. If it was Georgia
that that book series that the serieswas based on. Well, it just
it just makes me very angry withall the people that back this sheriff up,
(26:08):
every one of them, you know, how could they believe this?
That chery? Really? I hopethey didn't sleep very well, I really
do. So how do you allfeel about this? What's your stand?
You know? You can leave usa comment on our website at kut Zookillers
dot com or on our Facebook orTwitter pages. Sorry to be a downer
(26:33):
today, more so than usual tome, this was just a travesty.
It really poor man, so sad, so unnecessary, just so unfair.
Mhmm. Well, I I wasjust gonna say thank you for shining a
(26:55):
different light on things. Okay,Well, be sure listen to our Two
Chicks and a Crucifix new episode yesterday, and we'll have a Forensic Fridays that's
coming Friday for you. So y'allstick around with us and anything else lark
from you're in. Well, ifyou guys have any suggestions that you'd like
(27:18):
to hear, or we'd really likesome feedback on our Two Chicks in a
Crucifix Alien funky fun site. Youknow, if you're into that, it
just make you laugh a little bitmore. Yeah, yesterday's episode was Bigfoot
Sexy Bigfoot, so you know,well I want to go listen to that
(27:41):
one. Yesterday's episode was how bigfootbabies get here and they weren't found in
the cabbage patch, let's just saythat. But anyway, so thanks again
for sharing with us the last seventythree episodes. And we are considering taking
(28:03):
a little break here soon and amassinggreat quantities of new wonderful shows for y'all.
And by break, I mean acouple of weeks, maybe the month
of April, We're not sure yet, but we will continue to keep in
touch with y'all. But while we'reamassing all those great shows, if y'all
(28:25):
let us know, we're happy todo what you what you're interested in,
So get with us on kad zookillersdot com. Thanks shall bye bye y'all. Bye,
Welcome back to kut Zoe, Killer'sHomicide and Sweet Tea. We're happy to
be here with y'all for our seventythird episode. We've passed fifteen thousand downloads
and trucking on toward twenty thousand andMark, did you ever think we'd get
this far? Honestly, no,I'm amazed. But we are so grateful
(00:50):
to you guys that you've been supportingus, and we hope you continue to
support us, and we hope tocontinue to bring you awesome stories that we
helpe get better and better. SoHe's got something really good today for us.
Oh, I wasn't sure we weregoing to be here now either,
but we seem to have a fewfans out there, So, like Lark
(01:11):
said, we're happy to bring youthese stories each weekend we help you stick
around for another seventy three episodes ormore or more. Today, I'm going
to do something a little different thanusual. Normally we talk about true crimes
and the criminals who commit them.Today we're going to talk about a true
crime. But along with the initialcrime of the ripe and murder of fifteen
(01:33):
year old girl back in nineteen thirtysix, it's also the crime of wrongful
conviction of a mentally disabled man inhis subsequent execution for crimes he did not
commit. Joe Eridi was the sonof Syrian immigrants, Henry and Mary Eradi.
The Arides were first cousins, andthey had several children who weren't quite
(01:53):
right, most of whom died veryyoung. Joe had one surviving brother,
George, who was also mentally impaired, but not to the extent of Joe,
and one article I read said hehad a teenage sister, but I'm
not sure if she was disabled ornot. Poor Joe had an IQ of
forty six. Oh my god.Forty six is the equivalent of a six
(02:16):
year old. Oh my goodness.After one year of elementary school, the
principal told the family not to bothersending him back because he was not capable
of learning. Wow, that's sosad. Yeah. He didn't speak a
word until he was five years old, and even into adulthood he couldn't speak
(02:38):
or understand more than a couple orthree words strung together. Oh wow.
At the age of ten, hisfather had admitted him to the state home
and training school for mental defectives inGrand Junction, Colorado, which is now
called the Grand Junction Regional Center.This poor boy didn't know his colors.
(02:59):
He couldn't tell a rock from anegg, and he couldn't repeat a sequence
of four numbers. So you couldsay one, two, three, four,
and he couldn't do that back atyou. Oh wow. His father
appeared to be normal, but hismother was also mentally deficient. His father,
Henry, felt bad for sending himto that school, so after ten
(03:20):
months, he took him back home. But then Henry lost his job and
he was soon in trouble for bootleggingto make ends meet. I wonder how
he figured that out. How hefigured out bootlegging? Yeah, I don't
know. It wasn't that hard.I don't reckon to set up a still
and sell what you got from yourpotatoes out of it. I don't know
(03:43):
my grandpa did it. Yeah.Anyway, the boy at that point came
to the attention of a probation officer, and I don't know if it was
Henry's probation officer or what. Thatwasn't really clear. He'd found him basically
forced to do sexual things with otherboys and allowing himself to be sexually molested.
(04:08):
He was deemed a pervert, eventhough he didn't really understand what he
was doing and what was going on, and the probation officer just felt so
bad for him that he demanded thathe'd be readmitted to the home to the
school good for him. For him, the officer had no way of knowing,
but Joe was mistreated by the otherkids at that mental disabilities school.
(04:32):
He would agree to anything because hewanted to people to like him. I
guess he'd agree to anything. Sowhen they did something wrong, like steal
cigarettes or something like that, they'djust accused him of doing it, and
he'd say yes because he really hadno clue, like I said, what
he was confessing to, or eventhat he was confessing to anything. He
(04:53):
didn't know what they meant. Youthink even knew right from wrong. Oh,
I doubt that he knew right fromwrong. But I don't even think
he knew what they were asking.I don't think he had the mental capacity
to understand the questions right truly right. The parents tried to get him back
several times, but the superintendent ofthe school advised against it, saying his
(05:13):
perverse habits meant it would be betterfor him to stay there, and I'm
guessing basically Joe was gay. Probablyit didn't seem like he had any interest
in the girls at the home,but he did have relationships with other boys
there. At the age of twentyone, I guess he got tired of
being mistreated and he ran away fromthe home. He came back and ran
(05:39):
away a couple more times, butfinally he met up with three others who
had left. They called him walkaways, and they had left the home
and they hopped trains heading east toPueblo, Colorado. Then Joe hopped a
train and ended up in Cheyenne,Wyoming, where he was arrested for vagrancy
(06:00):
by Sheriff George Carroll. And thiswas August twenty sixth, nineteen thirty six.
Okay, I keep that in mind. Okay. On the night of
August fourteenth, about two weeks earlier, fifteen year old Dorothy and twelve year
old Barbara Draine were sleeping peacefully intheir beds while their parents were away for
(06:21):
the evening when someone broke into thehome attacked them both with a hatchet and
right and murdered Dorothy. Actually,he murdered then raped Dorothy. Oh Barbara
survived the attack. Oddly enough,just a couple of weeks before, two
(06:41):
other women were attacked in their sleepand one of them died. Then,
the night before the murders of thesegirls of Dorothy, another pair of women
reported they'd been grabbed from behind bya Mexican looking man. Of course,
police were under a lot of pressureto find out who this was before he
attacked somebody else else. Right,Joe had been arrested, like I said,
(07:02):
for vagrancy when he was found wanderingaround the train yards of Cheyenne.
He was of Syrian descent, sohe was darker skin, dark hair,
dark eyes. He could be mistakenmaybe for Mexican. Maybe right, yep,
yep. So when Sheriff George Carrollof Cheyenne, Wyoming, who knew
(07:23):
there was a murder investigation going onin Pueblo, Colorado, decided Joe fit
the bill and could pass for Mexican, he decided to interrogate him about the
murders. Now, remember, Joewas what they turned back then, an
imbecile. He was special needs.He had an IQ of forty six,
like I said that of a sixyear old. He barely knew how to
(07:44):
string two words into a sentence.He did not function well on his own,
and he was very, very susceptibleto suggestion. Did you steal those
cigarettes? Joe? Yes, Idid. So you see where I'm going
with this, right totally, So, the sheriff got Joe into an interrogation
(08:05):
room alone, just the two ofthem. He didn't take any notes.
He was sure he had the guywho knows. Maybe the sheriff saw that
Joe was so impaired he could gethim to say anything with enough pressure,
just like a child. I canimagine that Joe wanted to please people and
would say whatever he thought would makethem like him, right exactly, so,
(08:26):
when the sheriff asked him if hehurt the girls, he most likely
said yes, not understanding what hewas agreeing to. When the sheriff asked
him how, he said with aclub. When the sheriff said, do
you mean an axe, he said, yes, an axe. I'm just
guessing that's how the interrogation went down. Since the sheriff took no note,
(08:46):
I had no witnesses parroting back whathe says, right like a kid does,
like a six year old does whenthey want to please the adult.
Right. So, as far asanyone. Really, he knows, he
never said a thing. I remember, Like I said, he couldn't even
make sentences right, so who knowsif he even said anything, or if
(09:09):
the sheriff, you know, justmade it all up, which is what
it sounds like. Well, itkind of sounds like that to me after
the research that I did. Sowe're going to be right back after a
quick break for our sponsors, andwe'll tell you exactly what happened and what
(09:31):
happened to poor Joe and what histrial looked like because he did get arrested
for these murders. Just in aminute. Thanks, you're right back,
(09:56):
Eda. Do you like movies,cartoons, video games, anime and everything
in between, then we have ashow for you, the Four Nerds Buy
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(10:18):
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(10:54):
talking about the Roncal conviction of Joe. Era day now, the sheriff of
Shy And George Carroll, like Isaid, hauled his suspect, Joe back
to Pueblo. In the meantime,the police in Pueblo had already arrested a
man named Frank Aguilar for the crimes. Aguilar had confessed to the murders.
(11:15):
They found the axe head in hishome that had the markings which matched the
wounds on Dorothy's body. Wow.He had worked for the girl's father and
been fired, and he said thiswas his revenge. But the sheriff wouldn't
have any of that. He wasconvinced Joe took part in the rapes and
murders. He knew what the houselooked like on the inside. He said
(11:37):
he'd been with a friend named Frankwhen the murders happened. But the thing
is, when they took him tomeet Frank in the jail. While Joe
said, yeah, that's Frank,Frank said, I've never seen this guy
before in my life. He saidJoe wasn't with him when he committed the
murders. He was alone, Hedidn't even know him and had never seen
him before, so he's actually takenresponsibility and they're not even they don't want
(12:00):
to listen, right, well,they listened, but they still want,
especially the sheriff still wants to accuseJoe Ride of it. So that didn't
sway the sheriff or the police orthe prosecutors. They had his confession sort
of. It wasn't exactly written down, and there weren't any witnesses to it,
but yeah, he confessed, allright. He must have helped,
(12:22):
despite what Frank Agilar said. Sothere was a trial for Joe, and
of course he said all the thingshe thought they wanted him to say.
At one point, when the prosecutorswere questioning the sheriff, it was almost
like they wanted the jurors to seethis might be a coarse confession, right.
They asked the sheriff, you hadto what we commonly say, pry
(12:45):
everything out of him, And thesheriff said, yes, I mean the
questions Sheriff Carrol asked Joe were thingslike whether he liked girls. Well,
a six year old's gonna say yeahor no, right, yeah, and
he said yes. And then thesheriff replied to him and said something like,
if you like girls so well,then why do you hurt them?
(13:09):
And Joe has no clue what's goingon. He doesn't know what he's talking
about. You know, he's sittingthere nodding his head. I'm sure right.
So here are the facts about thecase. Frank Aguilar said he'd never
seen Joe before. Aguilar confessed tothe killings and said they were in retaliation
for being fired by the girl's father. Barbara, the twelve year old,
(13:31):
testified she was attacked by Aguilar,and she also testified Joe wasn't there.
So why in the world the sheriffwas bound and determined he was going to
get a conviction. I don't knowif he wanted to make himself look good
or what. But the axe headwas found in Aguilar's home. Joe had
(13:52):
a friend from the home he'd beenriding the trains with, who testified that
they were not even in Pueblo whenthe murders happened and didn't return there until
two days after the murders. Nothingconnected Joe to the murder other than his
so called confession, which wasn't writtendown by the sheriff and which was most
likely coerced if it happened at allfrom him with vague questions and insinuated answers.
(14:16):
But Aguilar is laying it all out, and yes, the people are
and Barbara what he's saying, right, Yes, and Barbara says he wasn't
even there. There was always aone guy. He's even you know,
he's saying, hey, I'm theone who did it. So why are
yes sushing this son? Joe?I don't understand other than you know,
(14:37):
the sheriff is just one. Idon't understand thing against his boy. That's
basically. Maybe he didn't like Syrians. Maybe he was a little racist.
I don't know. This was nineteenthirty six, so who knows now.
Frank Aguilar was convicted of the murderof Barbara I'm sorry Dorothy Rain and was
(15:01):
executed on August seventeenth, nineteen thirtyseven. Yet the jury still convicted Joe
Arrety of the murder, despite therebeing no written confession, despite the guilty
party confessing and saying he didn't evenknow Joe he wasn't there that night,
even though Joe had the mental capacityof a six year old and could barely
speak, let alone understand when itwas really going on. He was oblivious
(15:22):
completely. He was sentenced to death. Wow, that's horrible. So now
Joe was already sent to death row. They called him the happiest prisoner on
death row. Of course he washappy. He didn't know what was going
on, He had no idea whatwas saying. No, he didn't know,
(15:43):
No, he knew. All heknew was he had a place to
sleep, he had food, Hehad friends and the other inmates. He
was given a toy train by thewarden. His favorite thing in the world.
He played with that train all daylong, for hours. He would
wind it up. It was awind up train, and he'd send it
down the hallway on death Row,and the inmates would reach out and pretend
(16:04):
to crash it and they all wouldlaugh. And then whoever the inmate was
that god it would send it backdown to Joe so he could do it
all over again. And of coursehe was happy. He got to play
all day, he was taken careof, he had food, he had
a place to sleep. He'd beenriding the rails. He'd been at a
home where he was mistreated all thetime, so of course he was happy.
(16:26):
Oh my goodness. And of courseJoe's case was appealed. His wrongful
conviction was taken all the way tothe Colorado Supreme Court. Joe's lawyer,
Gail Ireland, who later became Colorado'sAttorney General, cited that an obviously coerced
confession with the eyewitness testimony stating hewasn't at the crime scene. And although
(16:48):
he was able to get nine staysof execution for Joe, nine stays of
execution, and all this he didpro bono on his own time and money.
He never he was known. Hewas well known for doing a lot
of pro bono cases like this,but he was never able to convince the
courts of Joe's innocence. So onJanuary ninth, nineteen thirty nine, Joe
(17:11):
was executed. He was only twentythree. He was only twenty three years
old. It's just ridiculous, itis. It's sad. I tell you,
I've started bawling when I was readingthis. I may start bawling now.
But his mother, aunt, andcousin and sister, the one that
I only found in the one reference, came to visit him the night before
(17:33):
the execution. It was obvious toeveryone there that Joe had no clue what
was going on why his mother wascrying. He just took a break from
playing with his trains, and thenwhen they left, he went back to
playing with his trains. Wow.When he was asked what he wanted for
his last meal, Joe didn't reallyunderstand what they meant last meal. He
(17:56):
wasn't going anywhere, so he didn'tanswer. So they asked him what his
favorite thing to eat was, andhe set ice cream, So that's what
he got. When a last minuteappeal to the Colorado Supreme Court was denied
in a four to three vote,the warden Roy Best and the prison chaplain,
Father Albert Schaller, went to seeJoe. The priest told him he'd
(18:18):
have to give up his train,but he'd be trading it for a golden
harp. Oh good god. NowJoe was okay with that. There was
a new toy. So when theyled him out of his cell, he
gave way all his prized possessions andwalked down the hallway with them. He
gave a train, his train toa fellow prisoner so they could play still
(18:41):
play. He had a tin platethat was all shiny and polished that he
gave to the warden because he hadbeen nice to him. He had a
toy car that he gave to thewarden to give to his nephew, and
together the three men walked up thehill to the gas chamber, where cyanide
pellets were dried into sulfuric acid,and Joe gasped until he finally died.
(19:03):
Oh that is just horrible. Nowyou're asking yourself, why do Kim tell
me this horrible story about a wrongfulexecution. Well, I'll tell you why.
We've talked about the death penalty alot, haven't we, Lark,
We have, but you know,there are a whole lot of flags with
this before they ever got to thatpoint where this is clearly an agenda.
(19:30):
In my opinion, And I'm notright exactly, and I'm not firmly against
the death penalty, but I don't, like I've said before, I can't.
I don't think I could actually sentencesomeone to do it unless I had
a video of them committing the crime, clearly right. But more and more
we're hearing about people who are mentallydisabled receiving death penalties. Now, while
(19:52):
I can't speak to their guilt orinnocence, in my heart, I believe
if they cannot understand what they're beingasked. If they have the mental capacity
of a child like Joe, theyshould not be given the death penalty any
more than a child should exactly achild. I completely agree with you on
that. And the thing is isthat while they can all use this insanity
(20:15):
plea, why can't they use thediminished capacity? You know, because really
when you have an IQ. Well, his confession was clearly looking back,
coerced by the sheriff, and it, like I said, I don't know
if it was a zealous move tohelp solve a crime or something to feather
his own nest that he thought,you know, or if it was for
(20:37):
nefarious reasons like he didn't like Syrianpeople. We don't know. Well,
the thing is is that, Okay, so they keep, yeah, keep
talking about you know, he hashis psych in the forties. When was
that discovered? And and why didn'tthe lawyer drag that up? And why
didn't he say, you know,this is basically a six year old had
(21:00):
no malice or intent really deep down, he just you know, was why
didn't he didn't do anything to havemalice? I mean, I think that's
why he didn't. He might nothave He may have brought it up.
I didn't read any transcripts from theactual trial or anything like that. I
didn't look for them, actually,But well, he didn't do it,
(21:22):
and that that was his stand.Obviously he didn't do it. None of
the stuff fit he was you know, the girl that was there said he
didn't do it. And right,so that should have been enough, right
there, right, right, right. But but either way, it must
have been clear to him as ashe was having to drag the confession out
(21:42):
of Joe, that Joe didn't understandwhat he was talking about and didn't understand
the questions he was asking. Ithad to be obvious. Of course.
I don't want to vilify the guy. He's not around to defend himself now,
but he had to have had nothe had to have known Joe wasn't
right. Well, of course,I mean obvious, is it? Everybody
see that. I mean, youdon't have to have the doctors to prove
(22:04):
it, to see that this boyis just you know, he ain't right,
you know, right, and that'sno fair to pin all that on
him, right, And like akid, he told the adult what he
thought he wanted to hear. Happilybecause he wanted to please the adult in
the conversations, so basically all onthe sheriff's word and nothing else, and
(22:30):
Joe's answers to questions he most likelydidn't even understand, convicted him and executed
an innocent man. If the persondoesn't understand, if their IQ is that
of a child like Joe, thenmy feeling is they should not be given
the death penalty. Joe was finallygiven a full pardon by the Governor of
Colorado, Bill Ritter, in twentyeleven, more than seventy years after his
(22:52):
wrongful death. His murder, I'mgoing to term it a murder because that
really was what it was. Yeah, yeah, but it happened a lot
back then, and I'm sure itprobably still happens now. But currently,
nineteen states and the federal government donot allow the death penalty for mentally disabled
folks. Some have specific IQ levels, such as sixty five, which is
(23:14):
the equivalent of a third grader ora nine year old. Others are less
spelled out, but basically, ifpsychological exams show their mentally deficient, they
are exempt from the death penalty.Which is a good start, but we've
got what thirty two other states thatneed to jump on the ship, right.
I mean, it just seems likeit seems like common sense. Come
on, people, you know,I mean, I don't know, I'm
(23:40):
speechless, I really am. Yam. It's sad and it's it's wrong,
and it makes me very angry withthe sheriff and then even more so with
the jury that backed his decision up. I mean, those men are even
worse. They should have stood upand said, you know what, now,
come on. But it just soundsto me, exactly, there was
(24:00):
some sort of corruption going on.There was some sort of agenda there.
You know, it sounds I mean, there was boatloads of evidence showing that
he wasn't even there, eyewitnesses,his friend that was riding the train with
him at the time, the girlwho survived the attack, the guy who
(24:21):
was the real murderer who said hewas never there and he'd never seen him
before in his life, all ofthat and they still convicted this man.
Well exactly, it just sounds tome like they had an agenda, They
had a reason that they wanted toeither make a point or they were just
you know, as word, youknow, lynching for lynching sake. But
(24:42):
that it just sounds bad to meall around, and like, I say,
why in the world, why whydid the jury back him up?
You know, I tend to wonderif back in the day, even though
they knew they knew that people werementally slow or deficient, even back then,
(25:03):
whether you had some sort of adocumentation or doctor ticked off those boxes,
they still could pretty much look atyou and know you weren't right.
But a lot of them, Ithink, didn't can see that because you
know, once, once a boyis six feet something tall, you're thinking,
(25:23):
well, you should be grown.But they're not, you know,
no, they're not. All Icould keep thinking about was The Green Mile.
Did you see that movie right?Or read the Stephen King novella series
that it was based on. Exactly? All I could think about was John
Coffee and how he wasn't quite rightand he had a mental capacity of a
(25:47):
child exactly. And I mean thatwasn't the case. That there was another
case actually, and I don't rememberwhere it was. If it was Georgia
that that book series that the serieswas based on. Well, it just
it just makes me very angry withall the people that back this sheriff up,
(26:08):
every one of them, you know, how could they believe this?
That chery? Really? I hopethey didn't sleep very well, I really
do. So how do you allfeel about this? What's your stand?
You know? You can leave usa comment on our website at kut Zookillers
dot com or on our Facebook orTwitter pages. Sorry to be a downer
(26:33):
today, more so than usual tome, this was just a travesty.
It really poor man, so sad, so unnecessary, just so unfair.
Mhmm. Well, I I wasjust gonna say thank you for shining a
(26:55):
different light on things. Okay,Well, be sure listen to our Two
Chicks and a Crucifix new episode yesterday, and we'll have a Forensic Fridays that's
coming Friday for you. So y'allstick around with us and anything else lark
from you're in. Well, ifyou guys have any suggestions that you'd like
(27:18):
to hear, or we'd really likesome feedback on our Two Chicks in a
Crucifix Alien funky fun site. Youknow, if you're into that, it
just make you laugh a little bitmore. Yeah, yesterday's episode was Bigfoot
Sexy Bigfoot, so you know,well I want to go listen to that
(27:41):
one. Yesterday's episode was how bigfootbabies get here and they weren't found in
the cabbage patch, let's just saythat. But anyway, so thanks again
for sharing with us the last seventythree episodes. And we are considering taking
(28:03):
a little break here soon and amassinggreat quantities of new wonderful shows for y'all.
And by break, I mean acouple of weeks, maybe the month
of April, We're not sure yet, but we will continue to keep in
touch with y'all. But while we'reamassing all those great shows, if y'all
(28:25):
let us know, we're happy todo what you what you're interested in,
So get with us on kad zookillersdot com. Thanks shall bye bye y'all. Bye,
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